This is a personal account of the author's twenty years in the Royal Navy from 1942 to 1962. Cree provides a first hand account of the Royal Navy during the second world war, showing what life was like for those who manned the British fleet. His war service was on the HMS Duke of York and in destroyers and frigates, first in the Arctic and Atlantic and then in the Mediterranean for the North African landings and later in the Far East. Cree specialized in navigation and he tells of several incidents from his second time in the Far East. There are black and white photographs of some of the ships in which he served: Duke of York; Amethyst; Carron; Loch Scavaig; Birmingham; and the Apollo.