Personal information

Joseph Reynolds had just returned from an aircraft carrier after winning a middleweight boxing tournament and was showing his trophy to his mate down in the boiler room, when the torpedo struck HMS Andania. Then he served in the bomb disposal squad at Vickers shipyard, Barrow, until joining the crew of HMS Derwent that was being built there. The escort destroyer was wrecked in March 1943 by German aircraft in the Mediterranean. Joseph never served on another ship during the rest of the war, staying attached to land forces all the way through North Africa, Italy and subsequently Germany, until cessation of hostilities.