The Their Past Your Future programme (TPYF) at the Imperial War Museum
(2004-2010) has now closed. This website is an archive of the project’s
website serving as a record of activities throughout its lifetime, and
will not be updated beyond January 2010. If you have any questions
regarding the TPYF programme please contact the Imperial War Museum
through info@iwm.org.uk quoting
"Their Past You Future" in the subject heading.
To access the new TPYF/IWM website for teachers, featuring a range of
exciting teaching ideas, resources and source material to explore the
impact of conflict from the First World War to today, please go to
www.theirpast-yourfuture.org.uk.
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Click on the images to enlarge.
At the end of the Second World War, HMS Belfast was home to over 950 men. They lived, ate and worked together. They faced enemy fire in northern seas and dangerous arctic storms with waves as high as 50 feet. The men who lived on HMS Belfast depended on each other for everything. As one sailor put it, “You gradually came together as a family and that’s what makes a happy ship.” Friendships created on this ‘happy ship’ have lasted for lifetimes. The ship’s crew formed the HMS Belfast Association so that men who served together can keep in touch. Its members work with groups of school children and youth that visit the ship today. |
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HMS Belfast helped protect ships taking supplies to the Soviet Union. Conditions onboard in the Arctic Sea were so cold, one sailor remembers getting his hands frozen to a gun turret.
Between August 1941 and the end of the war, a total of 75 convoys made the perilous journey to and from north Russia, carrying four million tons of supplies, including 5,000 tanks and 7,000 aircraft for use by Soviet forces fighting against the German Army on the Eastern Front.
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‘There was no standoffishness. You mixed. You were Belfast and there was great pride in just that. ‘What ship you on? Belfast! Oh so am I.’ And you gradually came together as a family and that is what makes a happy ship. There was no person that was trying to put a spanner in the works. And of course it was all down to the captain and the commander and his senior officers. If you’ve got a good unit there, you’ve got a damn happy ship.’ |
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‘I think it was a wonderful privilege - a wonderful experience. Having met so many friends and still meeting them with the Belfast Association and with a great amount of pride. And when you lay back and think about it or talk about it, visions of people and their actions are still in your mind. It was a wonderful, wonderful time for me and feeling that I got a lot out of life with that- a lot of experience that’s seen me through life afterwards.’
Bob Shrimpton, ASDIC (Submarine detector) Operator on HMS Belfast 1942-1945
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‘I’ve been onboard when they’ve got hoards of children going on board. And Some of them see me with my blazer badge up and they’ll come and ask me a question. And it’s wonderful to be able to explain something to them. I think it is a marvellous thing that the ship has been preserved. Most satisfying. Even my grandchildren, they love to think they can go up and see Grandpa’s ship. I think this is where it all fits into a pattern of life.’ |
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These children had been in internment camps in China. The Belfast crew had a party onboard for the children before taking them home to the UK in 1945. |
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Download the Personal Story in full as a PDF document
