Journal kept by Alfred Frederick Birch, a wireless operator in the Merchant Navy, between 5 November 1916 and 29 September 1921.

Birch was employed by the Marconi Company as a junior wireless operator on passenger liners in the Atlantic trade, beginning with the GRAMPIAN (1907), Allan Line, on a voyage to Quebec, then the NORTHLAND ex ZEELAND (1901), Red Star Line, taking wounded soldiers and Canadian Red Cross nurses from Liverpool to Halifax and Portland.

Included is an account of his training as a cadet in the Royal Air Force between September 1918 and January 1919. Birch was transferred to the RAF Reserve as part of demobilisation at the end of the First World War. He then went back to sea, employed on the TRENTINO (1919), ATHOLL (1900), BRITISH STAR (1918) and then the Peninsular & Oriental Steam Navigation Co. passenger liner KHIVA (1913). The volume ends with the KHIVA at Yokohama, with Birch seeing the ship’s doctor, suffering from mumps.