# WW1 wireless operator



## gginny

I am trying to trace the service history of my father Percival John Guy born 1901. He was a wireless operator on the Huntscape (formerly the Pindos, a German ship captured at Alexandria). The ship was managed from 1916 by Bank Line and then Elder Dempster.

He was only a teenager during the war and so how did he get to join the ship or be trained up as a radio operator?
I understand that the RN trained its own boy telegraphers, but in an auxilliary ship were all radio operators civilians trained by the commercial companies such as Marconi, or would he have been part of the Merchant Marine? 

He is not recorded as having had a WW1 service medal on the National Archives Medal Roll pages.


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## ray1buck1

Hello Gginny
is this your Father 
http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/...asp?Edoc_Id=7982332&queryType=1&resultcount=1
Ray


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## gginny

Thanks Ray, but I had already checked that record and it is not him.


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## ray1buck1

I would suggest that you obtain the official crew agreement 
The official Log and crew agreement if survived should be in the MUN Canada for the years 1916/ 7 /8 /9 and 1924, 1927

the “Pindos” Built 1911 renamed “Huntscape” renamed “Wilfred” 1934 renamed “Daisy Moller” sunk in Bay of Bengal, 14 December 1943, the 
Official No appears to be 136795 

http://www.mun.ca/mha/holdings/viewcombinedcrews.php?Official_No=136795

Ray

.The only “Guy” is a John Percival Guy birth registered in Wimborne in first quarter of 1901 in volume 5a page 225


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## gginny

Thanks again. I am already awaiting an estimate from Canada for that data. I don't really understand as yet which type of ships or which branch of marine service the crew agreement records relate to. Do you know?

What I want to ascertain is whether he was serving as a civilian or as a member of a branch of the Royal Navy or Merchant Navy, and where he got his training as a young lad.


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## ray1buck1

You seem to have all the information available, Perhaps it would have been helpful if you had advised what information you had already collected, 
The ships logs and crew agreements that are held in the MUN Canada are all related to Merchant Ships there are no RN ships held in the MUN 

if as you say he signed on to the “Huntscape” which appears to be a Merchant vessel, then he was not RN it is more than likely that he trained with Marconi, an was employed as a Merchant seaman Radio Officer on that vessel and come under the command of the Master of that vessel he would have had to have a seaman’s Dis A book which would record the engagements and discharge each time he signed on to a ship 

Ray


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## freddythefrog

Hello GGINNY
Have you tried the BODLEIAN library in OXFORD---its seems to have all the old Marconi Archives in there. cheers freddythefrog


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