Tony Ditcham DSC who was nominated for the Mountbatten Maritime Award 2013 for his book “A Home on the Rolling Main” (@penswordbooks) was one of the invited authors at this year’s Hay Festival.
The event which sold out took place on Sunday, 1st June 2014 on the Good Energy Stage was hosted by Chairman of the Festival, Revel Guest. A private reception was held later hosted by Mr and Mrs Patrick Guest.
From first joining the Royal Navy in 1940 until the end of the campaign against Japan, Tony Ditcham was in the front line of the naval war. After brief service in the battle-cruiser Renown, he went into destroyers and saw action in most European theatres, against S-boats and aircraft in Bomb Alley off Britain’s East Coast, and on Arctic convoys to Russia. During the dramatic Battle of the North Cape in December 1943 he was probably the first man to actually see the Scharnhorst from his position in the gun director of HMS Scorpion.
This short video film gives a flavour of life as a gunnery officer of a warship at sea sometimes in terrifying conditions, a fitting reminder for the 70th Anniversary of D-Day.