"I escaped the jaws of hell"  
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Nov 19 2003 

EMMA GUNBY meets a World War II veteran Roy Hughes from Rock Ferry whose heroism has been honoured by Norway. The glimpse of a blacked-out tattoo on Roy Hughes' arm as he rolls up his sleeves is the only clue to his heroic past. Underneath the neat square of ink lies the number 13122, etched on his arm when he was a prisoner of war in one of Poland's notorious labour camps.

Today the 86-year-old from Rock Ferry has been awarded the Norwegian Army's highest honour - the Cross of Freedom and Independence with Swords - for his bravery in the war.

The pensioner had the tattoo blacked out after he made a dramatic escape from the clutches of Nazi SS guards. But the memories of his war are not so easily erased.

Roy, who was an infantryman with the Irish Guards, spent five years in German prison camps, including Stalag 344 in Lamsdorf, after he was captured while fighting against the Nazis in Torthas, in Norway.  Before his capture he had survived ten hours in the sub-zero temperature waters after his ship the Chrobry was sunk off the coast of Narvik in Norway by a cluster of bombs at midnight on May 15, 1940.

Roy's neighbour Kathy Shaw said: "Roy's story is incredible, he's like a cat with nine lives, I think he was certainly meant to survive, he had so many near misses."

Roy's war story began on October 17, 1939, when he signed up to the Irish Guards aged only 17 years of age. He was one of 800 guardsmen being transported to Norway onboard the Chrobry when it was attacked by the Luftwaffe.

Roy said: "I'd just come off watch and was going down below deck. It was about midnight and I heard the bombs and knew I had to get up on deck, "All the lifeboats had gone and men were jumping in the water in their full kit complete with rifles. "The guns were so heavy they were just sinking and not coming up again. "I threw off my gun and jumped in, I can't remember much else."

Twelve hours later Roy was picked up by HMS Stork