VE DAY veteran George Spencer talks about celebrating the end of the war in Europe with a beer on a tropical island in the South Pacific

Eighty years on, sitting in his Co Antrim home, the Royal Navy veteran is only too happy to pass on the baton of his memories.

George, who lives in Gracehill, Ballymena, and will celebrate his 99th birthday on May 25, was on the Admiralty Islands, an archipelago group of 40 islands, some 200 miles to the north of New Guinea, after the unconditional surrender of Nazi Germany was declared on May 8, 1945.

"There was a huge anchorage there, with lots of little islands with no people, and we made full use of it.

"There were still one or two Japs knocking about on some of the big islands, so we couldn't go to the shore on the mainland. So, they gave me a can of beer and a cheerio and said ‘you can go and colonise this island’ – I think it was called Pityilu Island. There were no people there, it was just a beach, which you’d pay a fortune to go and visit these days. This was courtesy of His Majesty. Bless him. So, that's where I spent VE Day.”

George, who has two daughters, Sally Ann and Sue, and three grandchildren, can’t recall much of what happened on the day, but jokes – “I was just looking for another can of beer”.

He eventually travelled to Australia, where there were parades marking VE Day.

“I was flown down to Sydney, above the coral reefs, on a Dakota (an RAF transport vehicle) – they are very uncomfortable. I was allowed to shore there and there was a parade going on. I found this restaurant where they used to have all fresh fruit and a milk bar. I'd never seen anything like that. Ugli fruit, I seem to remember. Disgusting looking things. I was more interested in milkshakes than I was in the parade."

He also recalls the “lovely, hot, sunshine” in Sydney, where, later in 1956, he was appointed to HMAS Warramunga, with visits to Brisbane, Melbourne, New Zealand and Tasmania.

George, whose parents Doris and Alma, were “very musical” and played in brass bands, recalls playing the bugle in Sydney, in the area where the Opera House now stands.

"I always remember it because it echoed beautifully all around.”

With the war over in Europe, George was transferred to HMS Montclare, a British ocean liner that was commissioned into the Royal Navy as an armed merchant cruiser in 1939, converted into a destroyer depot ship in 1944 and a submarine depot ship in 1946.

“There were still Japanese submarines about, so I was put in charge of lookouts. We toddled across the Pacific through the Panama Canal, which is a fabulous place. We came through the Suez and ended up in Sri Lanka. There were some Americans aboard, who were musicians and used to have jam sessions. I had a ball.

"We went all the way back home to the UK and I was given some leave, of course, because I'd been building it up. My mother and father were delighted.”

George, who enjoys reading science fiction and Patrick O’Connor books on his Kindle, was born in Sutton-in-Ashfield, Nottinghamshire.

An only child, he began his military career in 1938 when he was aged just 12 (see George as a Navy trainee on the cover photo of Weekend, page 23), following in the footsteps of his grandfather, George Henry Payne, who had served in World War I (see George’s painting of him, top right).

"I saw this notice about joining the Navy, and I didn't fancy going down the mines or into hosiery factories, so I asked to apply for this scholarship to the trainee ship Mercury, which was run by CB Fry (best remembered for his career as a cricketer). His wife was Beatrice –she ran the place.”

His decision to leave home and join the Navy at such a tender age, was, he admits, a wrench for his parents.

“It must have been a bit desperate for my mother. I used to travel home alone from the training ship through London during the Blitz. It didn't fuss me at all.”

He eventually joined the “Navy proper” as a Seaman on the Isle of Man.

“It was Butlin’s of all places. And since I had all done the basic stuff at my training ship they gave me an instructor's job straight away, " recalls George, who moved to NI in the 1970s, first Larne and then Ballymena, after meeting his late wife Jane Harris while stationed in Londonderry.

He joined HMS Nelson, a battleship built for the Royal Navy in the 1920s – and thus began an illustrious military career for the young man, who would eventually rise up the ranks to become a Royal Navy Lt Commander.

“If there was anything that everybody does on the Nelson it is to wash the ship side. I was a conscientious fellow, so I was down the side scrubbing away and somebody piped a call out. Anyway, I carried on, but they just let the end of the rope go and I dropped down in the oggin (the sea).

Thankfully, he was a good swimmer, but “had a few choice words” for the people that let him go!

George was an aircraft spotter on board HMS Nelson on June 6, 1944 when over 150,000 Allied troops invaded France to liberate western Europe from Nazi occupation. Anchored at Sword beach just off the French coast, he was tasked with scanning the skies for imminent attacks by enemy aircraft.

"They were a bit worried about the poor old Nelson. I had this huge pair of binoculars which were Japanese. I found it very difficult not to keep looking to see what was going on instead of covering my position of checking aircraft."

His ship was held back in reserve on D-Day itself but soon after engaged heavily with German positions along the coast - so much so that it exhausted all its shells.

"They were very large guns, with 16 inch shells. They made a terrible noise, like several high-speed trains going through a tunnel.

"But the thing that sticks out in my memory was that it was Derby Day. They were still piling men ashore and they were more interested in knowing who'd won the Derby!”

George also served on HMS Nelson in the Mediterranean. The battleship was one of the fleet supporting the landings in North Africa in November 1942 and at the invasion of Sicily in Italy in July 1943.

Despite many close calls, the cheery nonagenarian said he never felt scared or homesick during his time overseas in the Navy.

"No, I was enjoying myself too much, actually. There used to be a place where they gave afternoon tea dances. I must have been able to afford it because I got two shillings one week and two and six the next week. I enjoyed dancing.”

However, because personnel were “shifted around a lot”, it meant he didn’t make any firm friendships.

"That's probably one of the difficult bits about military life. It's not being with a group of people for that long. You're always moving on, so you couldn't form lasting friendships.

Having travelled all over the world, did he pick up any foreign words?

“Only rude ones,” he laughs.

George, who retired from the Royal Navy a Lt Commander, aged 45, went on to work as a senior administrator in the Royal Victoria Hospital in Belfast, believes the war didn’t change him.

“Not really. It made it (life) more interesting. There was always something going on.”

However, he does, of course, feel for those who were on the ground.

“Later in life, when I was running an outfit with the Merchant Navy in Glasgow, my clerical fellow had been a prisoner of the Japs. And he was bitter. I was stuck in a big, old, great ship and I didn't have the problem of relieving the Nazi camps and things like that. I did feel for people. That must have been a shocking affair.”