Basil Woolf was born in Hackney in London, England in 1923. It was a nice place with large homes. The area is not so nice today. His house is gone and has been replaced by a series of flats [Annotator's Note: apartments]. As a youth, Woolf would play tricks on his grandparents. He was brought up by them because his parents were in business. Across the street was a stable run by a man named Porgey [Annotator's Note: unsure of spelling]. He would collect iron and other pieces and come back with them. A friend and Woolf helped with that stable by washing the horses. They would return home smelling like horses. Woolf had a sister, but she did not live with him and his grandparents. She lived by the seashore with an aunt about 40 miles away. When Woolf got older, he would cycle round trip to see her. His aunt got Woolf a job with a sports paper called the London Sporting Independent. He was instructed that his job was to go to Reuters and get the racing results and return to the Independent before any of the other boys for competing sporting papers. He successfully completed the assignment, but, in order to do so, he utilized a taxi and gave his boss the bill. That was the last day on the job for him. He was too good. [Annotator's Note: Woolf chuckles about the mishap.] He next got a job for the engravers who processed ads for the papers. It was a good job for a company called Sedgwick's. Part of his job involved cleaning the plates in nitric acid. While he did so, he got acid on himself. After being washed down at work, he returned home and told his grandmother of the incident. She washed his clothes and hung them out to dry. The next morning only a bit of sleeve material was left because of the nitric acid. Woolf had lacerations all over himself. This was in 1937. Woolf had a varied life. He left school at 14 years of age after he graduated. In England, that enabled him to enter junior college but finances did not allow him to do so. He went to work instead. At his engraving company, it was difficult to advance without being a member of the family that owned and ran the business. War broke out in 1939. His mother was in Birmingham in the midlands of England. That was where Woolf went to live. His father was a traveling supervisor for a large chain of stores. After war broke out, but before he moved to his mother's location, Woolf and his sister were evacuated away from the London area. They moved to Kidderminster to be away from the bombing. [Annotator's Note: With the threat of German air raids and gas attacks, many British families chose to relocate their children to remote areas.] When Woolf left Kidderminster and moved to Birmingham, he got a job with the Austin Motor Works Company. That company was about 15 miles outside Birmingham. Because of air raids, the factory had a series of lights which had various meanings. A white light meant that everything was clear. A yellow light indicated the approach of enemy aircraft within 12 miles. A red light meant evacuate to the air raid shelter, enemy aircraft were overhead. The shelter went into the side of a mountain and included sleeping areas, as well as, a restaurant and bathing and shower facilities. Part of the work at the factory included working on the safety of the workplace twice a week. For Woolf, that meant he manned a Bren machine gun emplacement. One day at work, Woolf was told to change a water pump on a truck that was on the company airstrip managed by Austin. As Woolf was working on the truck, he observed the lights changing to yellow. He heard bombing in the distance so he thought everything was alright but he saw people going to the shelter. He looked up when he heard a whistling sound. He could see a huge bomber emerging from the clouds. It had cut its engines so as not to be heard from a distance. He saw the bomber shooting toward him and the people fleeing to the shelters. Fourteen people were killed by the strafing before the bomber turned his engines back on and flew away. He worked a few months at Austin's and then decided to enlist in the Air Force. He had seen the British Spitfire [Annotator's Note: Supermarine Spitfire fighter aircraft] fighters and thought assignment to them would be glamorous. Little did he know that the life expectancy of a pilot in the air was only 15 minutes before they were shot. At 17 years old, he was too young to be a pilot. He was told to give the Army a try. Woolf tried the Army, but because of his youth, he could only serve in the Territorial Army where there was no combat. He did not like the idea that he had to wait to get engaged in the war. He next tried the Marines. They refused him due to his lack of height. The Navy saw that he worked on boats so they took him. They told him that he would work on motor launches that serviced the battleships in harbors to transport officers to the docks. Woolf thought that would be a suitable job for him.

Basil Woolf joined the British Navy in May 1941. He was called up in October 1941 and his parents had a fit. His father was a World War 1 veteran. With that experience, Woolf's father knew his son would be required to serve in the armed forces. Woolf was sent to the HMS Royal Arthur which was a training base near Skegness. It was formerly a holiday camp for working class people during peace time. A petty officer met the men who were all in their civilian clothes. The petty officer informed the new recruits that they would get six meals a day. The men were excited with that news until they were informed that being in the Navy they would get three meals down and three meals up. [Annotator's Note: A reference to sea sickness, Woolf chuckles at the memory of this first experience with the Navy.] He received his uniform in its various pieces and then spent the next month at HMS Royal Arthur. During that time, he experienced German air attacks. Woolf shared a chalet with another trainee named Jeff. Although a bed was shared, there was a partition between them. They still pulled the covers that they shared back and forth between the partition. The bunk mate was about 40 years old. He told Woolf that they should go to a pub. Woolf had no money but his chalet mate said not to worry. At the pub, Woolf's friend challenged the house to a dart game. That challenge meant if he beat all takers, he would receive free drinks. If Jeff lost, he had to supply drinks for all. Woolf's colleague won handily in darts. He obviously was a very skilled dart player. The following night, they would have to go to a different pub because the dart player did not want anyone to find out who he was. In fact, he had won several championships. His name was in the News of the World as the dart champion of Ireland, Scotland and England. The champion said for Woolf to keep that fact a secret or he would have more to worry about than just Hitler [Annotator's Note: German dictator Adolf Hitler]. If word got out about Jeff's skill, they would likely be killed by someone else other than the Germans. They went from pub to pub in those four weeks getting free drinks. In one instance, Jeff was challenged by another player to see who could get closest to the bull's eye. The challenger won the toss and threw first and hit exactly in the center of the target. Jeff came back and threw precisely on top of the challenger's dart. Jeff won as a result of cancelling out the earlier toss. Woolf had never seen anything like that in his life. Jeff then involved Woolf in another trick. He took a six pence coin, which is the size of a dime, and put it on Woolf's nose. He threw two six inch nail darts that whizzed by Woolf's nose before the third dart knocked off the coin. They performed this trick in some pubs to get free beer. [Annotator's Note: A six inch nail dart is a nail that is about six inches long without the tail used to spin a traditional dart. The dart does not spin in flight. Instead, the dart thrower flips the nail toward the target.] Jeff was a good guy and a great dart player. He could have potentially earned a living using his dart skills after the war. After the four weeks at HMS Royal Arthur, Woolf was transferred to HMS Drake [Annotator's Note: HMS Drake naval base is also known as HMNB Devonport] in Plymouth. There, he was given a job in the kitchen peeling potatoes for 2,000 men. When air raid alerts were heard, they would hurry to cover. After the all clear, Woolf and others would return to the potato peeling. During this time, 12 men were selected to go to London for a course in BMW [Annotator's Note: BMW is the German company Bayerische Motoren Werke] engine repairs. Woolf finished the course and was called into the officer's quarters and told that he was suspected of cheating. Woolf had answered the test questions exactly as they were written in the book. When he was questioned on the spot, he answered those questions in parrot fashion exactly as the book stated. The examining officer could not believe it. Woolf went on to a BMW installation in Isleworth in London. He studied BMW electronics and motor engines and worked on them. He also learned to work on captured Axis engines like Fiat radials, Messerschmitt, and the Italian Savoia-Marchetti engine. After the course, he was transferred to what he thought would be work on motor launches but instead finished up on the Queen Elizabeth [Annotator's Note: the Queen Elizabeth was a large luxury liner which was converted into a fast troopship during World War 2].

Basil Woolf was ordered to wear tropical gear for deployment. He boarded the Queen Elizabeth in Scotland and five days later he was in Nova Scotia in Canada. There he was in January 1942 in Nova Scotia, Canada wearing tropical clothes. The men huddled together on the platforms to try to keep warm. No spy would picture where they were going. He next went by train to Asbury Park, New Jersey where they were billeted at the Monterey and the Berkeley Carteret hotels. There were fences around the hotels. Woolf was next transferred to Norfolk, Virginia where he was to man a 90 foot, flat bottom landing barge to cross the Atlantic. When they were south of the Azores, one of the engines froze and no longer worked. It had to be completely rebuilt. The 200 pound cylinder head had to be pulled with the ship swaying. In order to prevent damage to it or the surrounding area, the head had to be secured with lashing in the engine room. It took 48 hours to replace the head and associated bearings. He had assistance from people onboard who could display any knowledge of engines. The engine did start up and performed well. There were four main engines with two port [Annotators' Note: left of centerline when facing forward] and two starboard [Annotators' Note: right of centerline when facing forward]. With one engine out, the other three could be run, but General Motors did not recommend it because of lack of lubrication. With the engine repaired, the ship proceeded on its journey. It hit heavy weather and was taking water through a tow plate area. The other 11 landing craft continued on so as not to be u-boat [Annotator's Note: German submarine] targets. The plate was repaired but the area below it was the Bosun's storage and it had taken on water. The space had to be pumped out. The man who was operating the pump in the area did not speak to his fellow crewmen. His shipmates realized that he was taking in too much carbon monoxide from the pump actuation from the engine room. The remedy was that sweet tea should be given to the man. That was no problem because an English ship had no shortage of tea. The man was saved just in time. He knew he was being gassed but could not move his arms or legs. Woolf's ship moved forward and caught up with the rest of the convoy. To avoid the bad weather, the ships had to go south. They entered the Sargasso Sea where weeds in the water were very thick. It looked like they passed through a field for a whole day. Coming off the Canary Islands, they thought they were headed back to England. Instead, they saw Gibraltar and docked at a place called Mers-el-Kébir. After coming off the ship, Woolf was asked if he wanted to see a movie with ladies and men together. He replied that he would. He was taken to an X rated movie. When the lights went up after the movie, Woolf saw the whole ship's company was there with him. [Annotator's Note: Woolf chuckles.]

Basil Woolf left Mers-el-Kébir and went to a place called Digelli. He left the landing craft [Annotator's Note: LCH-269] and took over a base recently evacuated by the Germans. The men were ordered to fix up the base to repair boats. Sicily and Italy were directly north of the facility. It was an old rail repair installation. The Germans had sabotaged an old railroad engine and broken the axle for the wheels. The men jacked up the engine and welded the axle together. After it was welded, the Skipper asked if anyone knew anything about running a steam engine. Someone was found who did have the qualifications. The engine was started, got up steam and went about 100 yards to near the galley before the axle broke again. There it stayed. Racks were made inside the steam engine boiler and puddings were made for the whole company in there. A tall man from Tunisia worked at cleaning parts for Woolf. Woolf would provide lunch for him. The Tunisian would follow Woolf everywhere like he was a bodyguard. One day in town, they heard a noise. Woolf was pushed to the ground as he heard a tremendous crash. Near him was a Messerschmitt which had crashed about 20 yards away. The Tunisian had rushed up and pushed him down and lay beside Woolf. The man wanted to return to England with Woolf to clean and cook. Rules prevented that from happening. Next, a group of women came on board the landing craft. They were heavily armed. The skipper [Annotator's Note: captain] said to leave them alone because they would be transported to Crete where they would kill Nazis. When they were about a mile offshore, the rubber dingys were cut loose and the women headed to shore in them. The skipper urged the men to rapidly leave the area before German boats came after them. The women were all Greek. They had been trained by the British to kill Germans. He thought they had a lot of nerve. Women did not usually have combat roles. The men on the ship were astonished at the sight of these trained women.

Basil Woolf returned to Digelli after dropping off women at Crete. [Annotator's Note: Woolf had taken part in a mission to bring female Greek guerrillas to Crete to fight the Germans.] The Italian Navy surrendered at this time and sailed its fleet to Malta. Food had to be brought to Malta to feed the Italians. Woolf's landing craft [Annotator's Note: LCH-269] was filled with Carnation Milk, Argentine corned beef, and Campbell's soups. The landing craft was heavy with its load and was deep in the water. A bad Force 8 gale was in their route. When the landing craft reached Malta, the skipper [Annotator's Note: captain] was told he could not dock because of the weather. The Canadian skipper had a bottle of Scotch on the bridge and was using it. The skipper got frustrated with the wait and took the ship into the harbor, but he had not been given a berth. He secured the bow to the dock. Using a winch, he pulled the stern into the pier. The problem was that there was not enough depth for the heavily loaded landing craft and the vessel started hitting the sandy bottom. The engines and generators had to be shut down so as to not take sand into the cooling water system. [Annotator's Note: Seagoing vessels usually have a sea chest for the intake of salt water directly from the sea into piping systems used to cool engines or generators while they are operating.] The craft was finally pulled alongside the pier. It was nearly high and dry. The skipper was called into a harbor office. The next day, the skipper left the ship and saluted the men. He was never seen again. The landing craft got a new skipper. The vessel had to be pulled out of its dockside location with two tugs. It then returned to Digelli.

Basil Woolf and his landing craft [Annotator's Note: LCH-269] helped support troop landings in Sicily and Italy. Afterward, the landing craft was ordered back to England. Returning through the Mediterranean Sea, they passed the Straits of Gibraltar. A u-boat [Annotator's Note: German submarine] spotted them and fired a torpedo at them. The torpedo ran too deep and missed the craft. Soon a Focke-Wulf Condor bomber dropped bombs on them but missed. The ship fired on the enemy aircraft with its 20mm cannon but the plane was out of range. The landing craft docked at Milford Haven in Wales. As they were pulling into the harbor, the ship's company was called to action stations. There were mines in the mouth of the harbor. Woolf was called to get his rifle to shoot at the mines. Woolf had displayed his shooting skills at HMS Drake [Annotator's Note: HMS Drake was a British training facility for the Royal Navy]. Woolf had to hit the spikes on the mines and avoid hitting the body of the object. If the exterior shell of the mine was penetrated, it might sink and become invisible. It would be submerged underwater and possibly detonate under a ship. Woolf hit the target and the landing craft entered the harbor. Woolf wanted to depart the ship and get some fish and chips. The problem was that he had no English money. He telephoned his mother and requested money. She said that she would wire ten dollars which was a lot of money back then. Woolf was told by the post office attendant to return to the collect the money. When Woolf returned, the post office was closed. The post master had gone to the ship to bring the money. They had crossed paths in the interim. It was almost like a crazy English movie. By the time Woolf got the money, it was too late to get the fish and chips anyway.

Basil Woolf was in England moving around different coasts before they came into some work. They were preparing for Normandy [Annotator's Note: the Allied invasion of Normandy, or D-Day, was on 6 June 1944]. The skipper [Annotator's Note: captain] took the ship [Annotator's Note: LCH-269] on a test run, but one of the engines seized up. Their landing craft limped back into port. Woolf got an order to go to the admiral's office. He was surprised to hear that he was being charged with espionage. The engines had just been worked on, and it was too soon for them to break down. The admiral indicated that Woolf was suspected of doing something to the engine to prevent the landing craft from doing its duty. When the engine was opened up, it was found that someone had left a wrench in there from the last job they did. It was a lucky situation, but a scare for Woolf. The landing craft next went to a port called Poole in Dorset. The whole support squadron for the eastern flank lined up on a parade ground. The next move was to Southampton where a letter from General Eisenhower [Annotator’s Note: US Army General, later President of the United States, Dwight D. Eisenhower] was read to them. It indicated to the men that they were about to embark on a terrific thing. The sailors were allowed to write one letter, but it would be censored. Woolf wrote a letter to Ann [Annotator's Note: his wife] and told her to get in touch with his parents. When his ship set out for France, Woolf looked about and all he could see were ships everywhere. They were all sailing to France. There were fighting and support ships everywhere. About three miles offshore, he saw the gliders going toward France. He could see the Germans shooting up toward the gliders. He could not see how any of the troops could survive. He saw paratroopers coming down. There were just so many things going on with all the ships and troops in action.

Basil Woolf and his landing craft [Annotator's Note: LCH-269] beached on D-Day at Ouistrehan [Annotator's Note: Sword Beach] in Normandy. He dropped off the Marines onto the beach. The Germans left the area in such a hurry that warm food and coffee was found in their coastal cafeteria by the British troops. The landing location was just south of Le Havre on the French coast. With the Americans and Canadians assaulting nearby landing areas, Sword was on the extreme end. The assault ships were constantly being bombarded from Le Havre. Le Harve was not taken because it was not part of the Normandy landing sites. Large guns fired on the ships from hidden coastal emplacements. The skipper [Annotator's Note: captain] announced that any man who spotted where the enemy fire emanated would be given an extra ration of grog or rum. A ration of rum was about a 16th of a pint per day at that time. That practice is no longer accepted in today's English Navy. During the war, if the ship went into an action and was successful, the skipper could "splash the main brace" in which case an extra ration would be issued to ship's company. That extra shot of rum was quite a bit. At times, the British sailors would save the rum and sell it to the Yanks [Annotator's Note: the term Yanks was a friendly reference to United States servicemen]. The enemy firing position at Le Havre was eventually spotted by a slow flying Westland Lysander [Annotator's Note: Westland Lysander light observation aircraft]. The Germans at Le Havre had mounted a large gun on a railcar which was pulled back into a tunnel after it fired on the Allied ships. When the offending enemy weapon was located, offshore firing commenced on it. A British cruiser with its 16 inch guns fired on the position. The tunnel collapsed and the enemy gun fire ceased. Woolf managed to see some of this type of action when he was given a break from his engine room responsibilities. Otherwise, while he was in the engine room, he was like a troglodyte who lived in an underground cavern. He was offshore of Normandy for about three months. They were under constant shelling from Le Havre as well as bombardment from overhead German aircraft. Woolf witnessed a German dive bomber destroy an Allied ammunition dump on the coast. Woolf was on a headquarters ship. The skipper would instruct others where they needed to go. Communications on the ship was wireless and had to be powered by a generator that required manual fueling. The generator was up forward on the ship and had been installed hastily. As a result, it had never been connected to the ship's fuel piping system. While Woolf was manually refueling the generator, he was targeted by the enemy. The skipper told Woolf to get down. Six Marines were sent to the beach to see who was shooting at them. The British Army had by this time progressed further inland. It was unusual to witness firing on the ships from that area of beach. The Marines went ashore and found a boarding house where a French woman was shackled to a 20mm gun. That gun had been shooting at the ships. The Marines bayoneted the woman. In the same room, the Marines noticed a picture of a Gestapo [Annotator's Note: German secret police] man in uniform. He must have been her husband or boyfriend. A harbor was built in parts in England and floated over to the Norman coast and assembled there. It was used to unload supplies for the Army onshore. [Annotator's Note: These temporary harbors were code named Mulberries. They helped in the massive resupply effort required by the troops moving inland in Normandy.] While at the end of the harbor, Woolf saw a number of enemy prisoners, including an officer. They were being guarded by British troops. The German officer spoke to Woolf in good English and asked where he had gotten the ships. The German said that Hitler [Annotator's Note: German dictator Adolf Hitler] had told his troops that he had destroyed the British Navy. [Annotator's Note: Woolf chuckles.] Woolf's landing craft stayed offshore of Normandy for three months dodging shells and aircraft. He witnessed nighttime aerial bombings by Stukas [Annotator's Note: Junkers Ju-87 Stuka dive bomber] and shelling from the coast. After three months, the landing craft got the call to return to England. It went back to Poole where it had started and stayed there for a day or two.

Basil Woolf and his landing craft [Annotator's Note: LCH-269] left Poole and headed east. The men felt they were headed back to France, but the course was changed more northerly. The shallow draft landing craft snuck into a place in Belgium called Ostend. It had ships scuttled in the harbor. Because the landing craft was small, it could maneuver around the sunken ships. The men did not know what their mission was to be in Ostend. The landing craft was there for only one night and the skipper [Annotator's Note: captain] ordered "main engines ready" at three in the morning. Woolf gave the engines a warm up and the craft proceeded out to sea. It headed to the North Sea. The rest of the support squadron was picked up there. The squadron included flak ships, rocket ships, gunboats, landing craft infantry, landing craft personnel, all sorts of landing craft. The squadron headed north. No one amongst ship's company was aware of the mission intention. Monkey Sellar [Annotator's Note: British Royal Navy Commander Kenneth "Monkey" Sellar] was put aboard Woolf's vessel for the operation. A general meeting was called for all chief petty officers, petty officers, and non-commissioned officers. A map was spread on the wall and it indicated Walcheren Island. The island was a bastion for the Germans. The island was heavily defended, but the Royal Air Force had broken the local dikes. With the heavy bombing, the bastion was felt less able to withstand assault. The island was selected for assault because of the need to open supply lines to General Patton [Annotator's Note: US Army Lieutenant General George S. Patton] and his armor in Antwerp. Without supplies to Patton, the Germans would counterattack. No ships could get up the Scheldt River because the Germans had it heavily defended. Also, the German V-2 rockets were firing on London from nearby. The operation to take Walcheren was not going to be a piece of cake. Early in the morning, Woolf and his landing craft went by the lighthouse without being seen. Within a few minutes, German guns opened up. The ships started laying smoke to hide themselves. There were two LSTs [Annotator's Note: Landing Ship, Tank] which had been converted to rocket ships. They had 1,200 rockets on deck which fired off a 12 volt battery. They operated like mortars and could clear a quarter of a mile of beach with one volley. One of the two rocket ships was hit by German fire. It lurched over and fired its rockets amongst the Allied ships. It seemed to go on for hours, but it was only about 30 seconds. The noise was intense. It may have resulted in Woolf having some hearing loss. The 1,200 mortar bombs onboard the rocket ship went off resulting in the loss of ships in the squadron. Men were in the water and the sea was aflame. Men had to be rescued. Only one rocket ship remained as the first one was sinking. Mines were cleared and a small beachhead was opened on the island. Ships started landing men while the German guns opened up on them. The landing crafts went up and down the beach firing their 20mm guns into the slots of the bunkers where the defending guns were located. The aerial bombing was supposed to have eliminated the enemy gun positions, but some of the bunker walls were 20 feet thick. The Allied bombs just bounced off of them. The British Marines and the Canadian infantry took on the gun positions one at a time. Troops would toss antipersonnel bombs into the bunker slots. Although the guns would not be damaged, troops inside the bunker were killed or wounded. Reports came in when each of the enemy positions were destroyed. The Germans made a mistake in their defense of the island. Monkey Sellar pushed his boats into the mouths of the enemy. The defending larger guns could not lower their aim because they were positioned for firing offshore. They could not fire on the troops on the beach. Only smaller weapons could fire on the oncoming troops. The larger guns could only fire on the ships offshore. That was where they made their mistake. Sellar took care of them that way. The fighting lasted about four hours. One enemy shell hit Woolf's craft up forward and left a large jagged hole. Damage Control people made a quick repair of the damage using hammocks to plug the hole. Luckily, the damage was above the waterline. That night, the German position was secured. There were six enemy torpedo boats coming at Walcheren Island from Holland. An English destroyer came in from the North Sea and attacked the six enemy boats and drove them off. German underwater divers and two man submarines attempted to damage or destroy the Allied ships that night. Explosive charges had to be dropped overboard of the ships every 30 seconds to prevent enemy attack from underwater. That was done all night.

Basil Woolf looked about after the action at Walcheren Island and, to his dismay, only his ship [Annotator's Note: LCH-269] and a hospital ship were in sight. Many ships were lost but six had gone back to Ostend for repair. While Woolf's vessel and the hospital ship were steaming back to England, they were caught in a terrific storm. The ships were pushed off course into secret minefields off the coast of England. The ships knew where the Germans had dropped mines, but they were unaware of the locations of English mines. Woolf was on the starboard side of his ship [Annotators' Note: right of centerline when facing forward] having a smoke when he observed the hospital ship lift completely out of the water and break in half. It immediately went straight down. No one was saved out of the 400 people onboard the hospital ship. Woolf's landing craft proceeded slowly through the mine field so as not to set off acoustic mines. Woolf was ordered to bring his record player to the bridge with the Tiny Tim recording of Tip Toe through the Tulips. The skipper [Annotator's Note: captain] played the record over and over with a seaman continually winding up the player. When they entered the harbor at Poole, nothing was moving. It was completely still. He could not believe his eyes nor could he believe that he was alive. What he experienced was so bad. He received his pay and returned to base. At that point, he heard the war in Europe was over. The ship was repaired but the war was not over for Woolf. His landing craft was headed to the Pacific. En route, the news came that the atomic bombs had been dropped, and the war with Japan was over. The landing craft headed back to base. The men were all very happy. One man even did a complete strip tease for all to see. With the conflicts over, Woolf did not know what he would do. He only knew how to run a ship's engines. He remembered waiting on the quay for his name to be called. It took a long time since his name started with a W. He was given some meager supplies and sent home with the Navy's gratitude. He wondered what he would do next. A short time later, he was contacted by a group who had a refrigerator ship that would run milk, butter and eggs to the South African ports. Woolf asked about the vessel's communication system. It had none. Then he asked about the type of life insurance policy the group had. They had none. That concerned Woolf. The opportunity did not seem to be worthwhile to Woolf.

Basil Woolf was sitting in his living room when the telephone rang. It was a cryptic call from the Tvy Leumi. [Annotator's Note: The Irgun was a Zionist paramilitary organization that included a movement named Tsvai Leumi. The tactics used by the Irgun became highly controversial even among Jewish leaders in later years.] That was a group of Jews trying to set up territory after the war. They had gotten possession of the Navy records for Woolf and wanted him to work for them. Woolf wanted them to pay his wife while he was away at sea. They refused to offer any pay for Woolf's wife and hung up on him. The group was similar to the Stern Gang. [Annotator's Note: The Lehi or Stern Gang was an organization of Jewish freedom fighters who between 1940 and 1948 sought to expel the British from Palestine.] Later in St. Petersburg, Florida, there was a gathering of servicemen. Woolf attended and his name was taken. Later, he received mail that told him that if he had proof of his service at D-Day, he would be given an award by the French. He had something from the King of England indicating his D-Day participation. As a result, Woolf received the Knight of the Legion of Honor from the French at a ceremony at Boyington Beach. His family attended the event. Woolf felt it was ironic that with all the losses resulting from the conflict he experienced in Holland, there were no decorations given for that. There were 7,000 Canadians who died in the hellish fighting.

The refrigerator did not work on the landing craft that carried Basil Woolf across the Atlantic. It was repaired, but there was no gas to fill it. [Annotator's Note: Gas likely refers to refrigerant gas.] The perishable food had to be dumped overboard. The ship's cargo included Carnation milk, Argentine corned beef, salmon, and hard tack biscuits. The crew lived on that for about two weeks. Bathing was done with salt water because of the limited fresh water on the ship. Fresh water was used only for drinking water. The soap used for bathing would lather up in salt water. Nevertheless, after the shower, an individual would feel sticky from the salt water. The sailors did have soup that was heatable in the can. The bottom of the can had a tab that covered a tube that ran through the soup. When the tab was pulled, smoke would appear as heat warmed the soup. After the smoke cleared, the soup could be opened, and it was hot. It was tried out on Woolf's ship, but he never saw it afterward. There were also waterproof cigarettes that tasted bad. The sailors tried to sell those cigarettes to the natives, but even they refused them. No matter how the sailors tried to disguise the waterproof cigarettes, they were hard to sell. The men aboard Woolf's landing craft were too busy with the war in Europe to keep up with what was going on in the Pacific war.

Since the war, Basil Woolf never met a German who would admit to him that they were a Nazi. He hated Germans because despite their refusal to admit so, there were plenty of Nazis in Germany. Ann's [Annotator's Note: Woolf's wife] brother was in the Royal Air Force. He was shot down over Leipzig and taken prisoner. He was prisoner for over three years. He hated the Germans. What the Germans did to the six million Jews was terrible. They put them in gas chambers after stripping them. Although he cannot remember the details, Woolf thought that he found out about the bad treatment of the Jews early in the war. He read about the mistreatment of the Jews in the papers. Woolf has cousins named Margo and Benny. Their mother was the sister of Woolf's grandmother. Margo's mother had gone to Belgium before the war and married a man there. They had a bakery in Ostend. When the Germans entered the country, Margo's mother pinned a piece of paper to her daughter and told her that if anything happened to her and Margo's father that they should go to the address on the paper. When Margo found out that her parents had disappeared and likely been taken by the Germans, she went to the address with Benny. The man at that address was a Catholic. He was a friend of Margo and Benny's parents. The children were sheltered in a Catholic facility until the end of the war. The children became more Catholic than Jewish. They survived the war and both of them prospered. Those successes came after overcoming mental and physical hardships.

Basil Woolf was in London for some of the German bombing. He was home on leave and found his fiancé in an air raid shelter in the backyard. The shelter was a large hole with metal framework inside and was covered. The earth from the excavation covered it all. There were four bunks inside. One night when Woolf was in the shelter, he was on the bottom bunk and his fiancé was on the top. They were holding hands. [Annotator's Note: Woolf chuckles at the memory.] He had to return to his ship [Annotator's Note: LCH-269] because they were only given night leave. They were excused from five o'clock to eight or nine o'clock the next day. At ten at night he left the shelter with bombing going on all around. The shrapnel from antiaircraft guns was falling all over. He got to the road where the bus passed but shrapnel was falling all around him. He took shelter at the entrance to an air raid shelter but soon fell asleep while waiting for the bus. He did not awaken until the next morning. He arrived on the ship three hours late. The skipper [Annotator's Note: captain] took him to task, and Woolf fabricated an excuse. The skipper told Woolf that he needed to be a better example for the men under him. Woolf agreed and said it would not happen again. Another bombing incident happened while Woolf was at Austin Motor Works. [Annotator's Note: This period was before Woolf's entry into the Royal Navy in May 1941.] He finished work in the afternoon when there was a typical English fog. Bombs started dropping close by. The bus driver said he was going no further. With the thick fog, it was hard to see the bombers overhead. Woolf was disoriented, not knowing where he was. He spotted some houses and ran to them and took cover under the overhang of the door. He could see fire bombs approaching him. He stayed there from nine in the morning until he could catch a bus coming toward him. The bus drove around the bomb holes as it neared Woolf. Another incident happened when Woolf was returning to his ship in Southern England after leave. An overhead plane machine gunned the train on which he was a passenger. All the passengers were trying to take cover as best they could. There was also a case where Woolf was visiting his mother. At that time, he owned a 1927 Baby Austin car that had a seven horsepower engine. That car was his pride and joy since it was his first automobile. The homes were built close together. The roof of two homes joined together. Woolf would park his vehicle under the joined roofs to protect it. A bomber had dropped a fire bomb into an upper floor of one home. The bomb had landed in a wardrobe and ignited. The men did not know if the burning bomb would explode if they attempted to remove it from the wardrobe. They took desperate action and threw the wardrobe containing the bomb out of the upper floor window. It fell into the backyard where it burned out. The fire bomb could only be extinguished with a stirrup pump which sprayed a fine mist to remove the oxygen. The Germans started putting charges in the bombs to make them explode if they were moved. The enemy had rigged the bombs to go off while they were attempting to extinguish it. The Germans also began dropping fountain pens and childrens' toys containing explosives from their planes. Children were killed by them.

Basil Woolf remembers the action in Walcheren as his most memorable experience of World War 2. Woolf fought in the war mainly because of the mistreatment of the Jews by Hitler [Annotator's Note: German dictator Adolf Hitler]. He could not stand by and see that happen. It is similar to what ISIS [Annotator's Note: ISIS or ISIL is the Islamic State that has declared war against all Christian nations but particularly those in the Western world] is doing to the Christians. The only difference is that ISIS does not use gas chambers. There are similar situations with people using different names and due to religion. Every single war has been caused by religion. Few people today know about World War 2 or D-Day. College students are not aware of what D-Day was. It must not be taught in school. The National WWII Museum must continue the story of what war is. American people have never experienced war as the English did. If they had experienced the same types of conditions, they would know what war is and be more protective of the country. They would not treat the country like what happened in Baltimore on the night of 27 April 2015. [Annotator's Note: Protests and rioting in the streets of Baltimore occurred on the night before the interview of Woolf.] Certain things about World War 2 need to be taught. Not all of it can be taught. There were just too many things that went on. Malta and other conflicts may have to be overlooked because they were just not as important as D-Day. Those who gave up their lives on those beaches were patriotic people. Unfortunately, Woolf feels that the majority of people are not patriotic today.

Basil Woolf returned from North Africa on his landing craft [Annotator's Note: LCH-269] and voyaged to England. En route, the craft made a stop in Gibraltar. While he was in a bazaar in Gibraltar, he spotted bananas. It was 1943. Woolf knew that England had not seen many bananas since 1939 because of other items of more significance for import. [Annotator's Note: The start of the war in Europe was 1 September 1939 when Germany invaded Poland. England subsequently declared war on Germany. Submarine warfare ensued and imports into England were severely restricted at that point. Bananas were a luxury and became scarce.] Woolf decided that he would bring a bunch of bananas back with him to England. He purchased a bunch of green bananas that would ripen on the return voyage. He found a huge bunch that he stored in the steering gear room in the back of the ship. Few sailors went into that space. Woolf secured the bananas in the overhead of that compartment so they would not bang about to make noise or become damaged. When the craft docked in England, the bananas were just turning yellow. Woolf went through customs and took a train to his hometown. When he got off the train, he went to the bus station for the ride home to see his wife. He had the bananas over a shoulder and his case in the opposite hand. While waiting for the bus, a woman shouted that she noticed the bananas. Soon the civilians were stripping bananas off his bunch and handing them out to young children. Some of the youngsters had never seen a banana. As a result, some of them were trying to eat the banana without removing the pealing. Before all the activity ended, Woolf had only six bananas out of that huge bunch to take home.

Basil Woolf experienced the buzz bomb [Annotator's Note: German V-1 rocket bomb] attacks perpetrated by Germany on England while he was on leave. The buzz bomb was a bomb with a wing and a jet engine in the back. When they flew over England, they would run out of gas and fall to ground level. They could take out a whole block. Woolf was on a London bus when he heard a sound that reminded him of a sports car. [Annotator's Note: Woolf makes the sound of a sports car revving up its engine.] The conductor pressed the bell four times. The bus driver stopped the bus and everyone exited except Woolf. The passengers were shouting about the buzz bomb. Woolf had a seat at the back of the bus. Everyone began to scream and run to evade the bomb. Woolf would come to learn from this experience that as long as one heard the engine while the bomb was in flight, everything would be alright. It was only when the engine stopped that an individual had to worry. They had to head for cover immediately after that engine cut out. On a different bus trip, the conductor rang the bell four times. Woolf turned around and saw a buzz bomb flying about 20 feet off the ground and headed toward the bus. He quickly sought cover. The bomb flew over the vehicle before the motor cut out. There was a huge explosion within a short time. The bomb had flown over the bus and just lifted up and missed the vehicle. Those were V-1 buzz bombs. The Germans also had the V-2 which was a regular rocket that shot up in the air and fell vertically back to earth. Woolf witnessed a V-2 dropping on a market while he was getting married in 1945. Nearby windows were shattered.

Basil Woolf recollects that the Jewish organization that recruited him as a landing craft engine room operator after World War 2 was the Tvy Leumi. [Annotator's Note: The Irgun was a Zionist paramilitary organization that included a movement named Tsvai Leumi. The tactics used by the Irgun became highly controversial even among Jewish leaders in later years.] The Stern Gang and the Lehi may have been part of that Jewish organization. The recruiters knew all about Woolf. It was hard to determine how they received his records. Before going to Digelli, Woolf and his landing craft stopped in Algiers. Woolf met a Jewish family there. They lived near the Kasbah. The father was in sheik's clothing. His daughter was named Celeste and the son was Simone. The father went to the cupboards and removed a Jewish prayer book. He asked Woolf to read from the book. Woolf did so. The Jewish man began kissing Woolf. The Jew was overcome with joy because he did not know that there were any Jewish men in that part of the world or even in the British Navy. Another incident happened when Woolf requested more work because he was not doing anything. The officer granted Woolf his wish. Woolf donned his work overalls and went down a series of stairs. En route to his worksite, an Arab asked Woolf in French how much he wanted for his clothes. They bartered a bit and then Woolf sold his overalls to the Arab. Woolf went back and got another pair of overalls and once again the Arab bought them from him. It was not long before Woolf was filling his pockets with the profits from the sale of the new overalls. He thought it was great. Finally, the manager of the store where Woolf received the overalls asked what was going on. Woolf offered to buy the stock of overalls for half of what he was getting from their sale to the Arab. The manager agreed and Woolf continued to sell overalls all day to the Arab. Woolf never made it to the ship that he was assigned to help repair. He made quite a bit of money. [Annotator's Note: Woolf chuckles at the memory.] Another time, Woolf sold his dress uniform to an Arab since it was too small for him. The next day, all hands were called to the parade ground. An officer announced that he had seen an Arab in a fez with the uniform of a Royal Navy Motor Mechanic. The officer wanted to know whose uniform it was. Everyone sold things so it could have been anyone. [Annotator's Note: Woolf chuckles.] When Woolf met the Jewish family in Algiers, the daughter Celeste told him that he had to meet her uncle. Woolf had told Celeste that he was in the fur business. He was only a worker in the business, but Celeste insisted because her uncle was in the business. The two men met and traveled the streets of Algiers until they reached Le Chat Noir, The Black Cat. In the man's case, there were silver fox capes. Those capes were very popular with women at the time. The two men were surrounded by nude women. They bought all the capes. It turned out that Le Chat Noir was a brothel. A drunken American came into the brothel and shouted to one of the women that he wanted her. She denied his advances.

Basil Woolf used local labor to help clean parts of the landing craft engines. The local help was assigned to him. After his discharge from the Royal Navy, Woolf was contacted by the Tvy Leumi. [Annotator's Note: The Irgun was a Zionist paramilitary organization that included a movement named Tsvai Leumi. The tactics used by the Irgun became highly controversial even among Jewish leaders in later years.] Woolf had learned of the Jewish group through newspaper articles. He could never understand how they knew so much about him. They knew everything about him. The first word in the name of the Jewish organization is Irgun. It would make the name Irgun Tvy Leumi. Woolf's family had heard and read about the Irgun. He was ready to join them but the Irgun refused to send money to his wife while he was at sea. The British Navy had done so but the Jewish organization would not. Nevertheless, Woolf agreed with their tactics. He also knew of the Stern Gang and agreed with their methods. The land they were fighting for was originally Jewish. It had been taken from them. Woolf was concerned that Iran would drop an atomic bomb on Israel as soon as they develop one. Woolf was not aware of all Jewish incidents because of his lack of concern with politics at the time.