Regulating Petty Officer Robert McFarlane
D/M. 40176 B.E.M. Veteran of WW2 Russian Convoys
Part of my research involves walking around the graveyards, especially when I am trying to remember where particular graves are sited. Occasionally I get chatting to others, who tell me interesting stories that I would otherwise have missed.
This is one such example, where I was invited into a nearby house and given information about a member of a group of people who are often forgotten: those who survived the war – often did not talk about it, and did not get the CWGC headstone that attracts interest elsewhere.
My informants, Robert McFarlane’s daughter and son-in-law, held numerous bits of family memorabilia, including news cuttings from the previous 65 years. This is based on some of that information:
Barrow News 27 November 1943
The picture on the left ('Barrovian Decorated at Palace') is from the Barrow News 27 November 1943. Admiralty Fleet Orders of 10 June 1943 read “The King has been graciously pleased, on the occasion of the Celebration of His Majesty’s Birthday, to approve the Award of the British Empire Medal (Military Division) to the undermentioned: there follows a long list of names, including Robert McFarlane’s.
Mr. McFarlane spent a good deal of his life living in various houses in King Alfred Street: born in no. 67, starting married life at no. 19, and in retirement living at no. 82.
A full page article, part of a series entitled “What happened to the Lads of 1939-45?” appeared in the Barrow News 4 June 1977, from which the following is taken:
Barrow News 4 June 1977
Barrow News, 4 June 1977When he left Ocean Rd School, Mr. McFarlane first became a window cleaner, but with little work in Barrow during the Depression, he joined the Royal Navy as a boy seaman on seven shillings a week. He trained at HMS Ganges, Harwich, then served successively on HMS Benbow (coal- burning battleship) in the Mediterranean; HMS Durban (a light cruiser later scuttled to protect a Mulberry harbour on D-Day) in the China Station then the West Indies Station. While there, the ship sailed to New York to let Prince George board a liner to bring him back to the UK, where his father, George V, was seriously ill. Coincidentally, as King George VI, the Prince awarded Mr McFarlane the B.E.M.
He later served on HMS Delhi, HMS Queen Elizabeth and the shore establishment HMS Caledonia at Rosyth.
His first ship during the war was a mine layer, HMS Port Napier, operating from North-West Scotland. In November 1940 after an engine-room fire, she blew up, but remarkably no-one was killed. He was then sent to HMS Edinburgh Castle, a former ocean liner being used as accommodation in Freetown, Sierra Leone. In 1943 he went to HMS Osprey in Dunoon, and then to the aircraft carrier HMS Campania, protecting the Russian convoys. After a period in Canada, at the end of the war he went to HMS Ceres at Wetherby, nr. Leeds, in charge of discipline and organisation at the RN Secretarial training establishment.
After retirement in 1948, Mr McFarlane worked variously as a postman, with Vickers Fire Brigade, as a steel erector at Windscale, scaffolding, as a fitter’s mate and as a security guard.
