James Holland
speaker
22,555 appearances
49 recordings
7 series
first heard May 2025
last heard yesterday
James Holland’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.
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recordings per month · last 12 monthsRecordings per month over the last 12 months — 46 in all, peaking in Jul 2026 with 10.
Appearances
When the log books came down from the loft, I went looking for what he meant, and found it, a log entry from the twenty seventh of March 1943, after a torpedo bomber intercept off the Algerian coast.
I saw two aircraft floating and in flames, men in water waving.
Convoy fired on us.
Italian aircrew in the water.
and then the Royal Navy opening fire on their own air cover.
That was what he'd carried for sixty years.
My grandfather was William Cummins, a merchant navy officer from Middlesbrough.
He left the tape recorded memoir submitted to the BBC People's War Archive, completely verbatim, dead pan Northeast, and extraordinary.
He survived the torpedoing of SS Thurso in june nineteen forty two by U five two.
In the chaos below decks, William grabbed an axe to free the lifeboat, but his hand landed right on top of his wallet, his watch, and his Rolls Razor.
He took the axe.
The watch sank off Lisbon and he was still bitter about it decades later.
He used to say You know where there is a good watch?
Off bloody Lisbon.
The chief steward and chief engineer had broken into the bonded stores when the torpedo hit and drank as much whiskey as they could.
By the time they looked up, the lifeboats had gone.
William's response when they started screaming from the deck was to hell with them if they were so keen on spirit they could stop there.
They launched the jolly boat.
Clearly under the influence they forgot the plug.
It sank.
Showing 761–780 of 22,555 · page 39 of 1128
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