Life As A Paymaster and Supply Officer
One Paymaster Cadet's account of life on board HMS Hood in 1938-1939, and some of his subsequent career, can be found at . The career of Captain (S) Hugh Rump (1901–1992) gives an idea of a pusser's career in the Royal Navy from 1919–1955 and can be found at .
During the First Battle of Narvik, in the Norway campaign, the destroyer leader HMS Hardy (Captain Bernard Warburton-Lee RN) was attacked by German destroyers in Ofotfjord on 10 April 1940, and Captain (D) was seriously wounded and most other officers were killed. Captain (D)'s Secretary, Paymaster Lieutenant Geoffrey H. Stanning survived and he awoke from the fearful blast to find his spine and legs badly injured by shrapnel, the ship out of control and heading for the shore at thirty knots. Since the wheel house was below him and nobody was answering his increasingly desperate orders to put the wheel over, he managed to drag himself down a ladder to the wheel house and alter course, enough to stop hitting the shore. When he regained the bridge helped by some seamen, he saw that they were now heading for two German destroyers. Since he could not slow down he decided to ram one of them. Luckily for all those left alive on board, whilst he was deciding which one to have a go at, one of the boilers was hit and the engines ground to a halt. All the forward guns on the Hardy were by now inoperable, but one of the stern guns was still banging away at the Germans who naturally returned fire into the burning wreck. Luckily the Hardy still had some 'way' on her which allowed Stanning to manoeuvre her into Vidrek where she ran aground. As she glided ashore still blazing furiously Stanning gave the order to abandon ship. One hundred and forty men plunged into the icy water, and in between the shell bursts from the German destroyers, managed to clamber to safety on the shore. Captain Warburton-Lee was awarded a posthumous Victoria Cross and Paymaster Lieutenant Stanning the DSO. (Source: and the Supplement to the London Gazette of 1 July 1947 - see ).
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