Crab said:Pardon my ignorance, but could anybody tell me when the Navy stopped recruiting 'boy sailors?' Also, when did they stop using the term?
Bergen said:When I was a boy my grandad took me to visit the grave of Jack Cornwell VC - A boy sailor. His headstone reads:
[align=center]"It is not wealth or ancestry
but honourable conduct and a noble disposition
that maketh men great"[/align]
The citation for his VC is worth reading even now almost 91 years later:-
"The instance of devotion to duty by Boy(1st Class) John Travers Cornwell who was mortally wounded early in the action, but nevertheless remained standing alone at a most exposed post, quietly awaiting orders till the end of the action, with his gun's crew dead and wounded around him. He was under 16 1/2 years old. I regret that he has since died, but I recommend his case for special recognition by justice to his memory and as an acknowledgement of the high example set by him."
RM
onions said:My S459, Certificate of Service, states I joined as a Junior Seaman 2 in June 1956.
Keep Striving.
dunkers said:In something like 1957 they changed the term "boy seaman" to "junior seaman". I believe they stopped recruiting them in 1976 when the school leaving age was risen to 16...?
Greenie said:Pay as a junior------ between £1.11s.6d and £3.3s. 0d
That they kept back till we were 17and a half cos the hair cuts and slops for new items .
:nemo: :nemo:
dunkers said:In something like 1957 they changed the term "boy seaman" to "junior seaman". I believe they stopped recruiting them in 1976 when the school leaving age was risen to 16...?
alanbach said:Just looked at my comic cuts I had a VG Supr as an R.O.1 in Dec 1958 Rates changed from Tel/Sig to RO/TO in 1958...I imagine the same applied to Boy Tels/Sigs/Seamen making them JRO/JTO/JSEA.