Ian Moore – Being handed letters for crew’s family members

 In the Gulf War, first time round, I was out in Diego Garcia and I had 2 submarines there that we were supporting to go into the Gulf and on separate occasions I have had senior guys coming to me, giving me a letter for their family and another letter with their Last Will and Testament inside it, and they would see me privately.

They’d catch up with me in a corner somewhere, in a Bar. “Pony, can I have a quick word with you?” “Yeah sure, no problem at all.” “Can we step outside a bit?” “Yeah, fine.”

I knew what it was about, and they would say, “Look, this next Patrol I’m going on, if something happens can you make just make sure that this gets to the right people and deliver it by hand.” Yeah, and I made that undertaking.

I said, “Yeah, fine, no problem at all,” and I had a few people do that. None of them knew that either of them had actually approached me in any way shape or form and when they came back, I would approach them individually, privately and I would hand it back over to them again and give it them back until the next Patrol, until they went out again.

And then they may or may not come and see me again and hand over some sheets of paper and things. So yeah, you do get people who are worried about the situation, but it’s not something that you would talk about in open company at all. You don’t talk about your fears at all because you don’t want it rubbing off on anybody else.

Even to this day, Sailors are superstitious buggers and it’s always the same. Any amount of superstition, black cats and ladders against things and walking under them and this sort of stuff, don’t do that sort of thing.