Resplendent in full Royal Marines Association uniform, Tod Raven-Hill, MBE, secretary of Richmond Probus Club talked to members about his war time experiences.

Tod joined the Sea Scouts at the age of 11, and in 1937 joined the 144 Squadron Air Training Corps. He became a messenger, aged 17, in the ARP at Richmond County School in Kew Road and later signed up as "a soldier and a sailor too" in the Royal Marines.

After three weeks filling sandbags, Tod volunteered as a despatch rider, at the RM MNBDO (Royal Marines Mobile Navy Base Defence Organisation) at Portsmouth. After three days' training he drove a lorry with a 12-pounder gun and paid Portsmouth Council five shillings for his licence!

The evacuation of Dunkirk was preventing convoys from landing in France, thus Tod drove the ammunition lorry and the staff car, in defence of the RAF Fighter Squadron at Hawkinge, and the towns of Folkestone and Dover during the Battle of Britain.

He passed out as No 1 in his squad after training at Chatham. He joined the 8 inch battle cruiser HMS Kent and sailed to Scapa Flow to join the Arctic convoys. The young marine first served in the shell bins at the bottom of the ship, then the cordite deck, ending up in the gun turret aft of the ship. If the ship was hit, anyone in the sea would survive only three minutes. The navy's role was to defend Russian convoys from air attack, German battleships and submarines. He witnessed the sinking of many merchant ships. In 1941 HMS Kent took Anthony Eden and the Russian ambassador to Murmansk unescorted, the fast cruiser zigzagging to evade the enemy.

After a year at sea, Tod was promoted to Sergeant, training new recruits to form a detachment in order to join an LCG gun boat. These former tank landing craft with two 4.7 guns were to protect troops landing on the beach, and provide protection for up to eight miles beyond. The boats were flat bottomed, slow, and unsuitable for heavy seas, but had to be used. After transporting ammunition to Falmouth, he joined a flotilla to North Africa. From there Tod joined the landings on Sicily, Salerno and Anzio. Approaching the Sicily beach, the bodies of paratroopers and parachutes were floating on the water. He later discovered that when anti-aircraft guns opened fire, the American troop-carrying aircraft had dropped the soldiers in the sea!

Tod returned for the Normandy landings. The Solent was heaving with craft and it seemed to Tod that one could get across by jumping from one ship to another. Joining Sword Beach Force mid-sea, he proceeded to the landing all guns firing, and at night all craft lined up toe to tail, providing protection to the surrounding beaches from attack by German subs, E boats and aircraft (the Trout Line).

Returning to England Tod and crew were ordered to sleep before returning to battle. At dawn he took the ship's dinghy into the Bueleigh River and listened to birdsong and the gentle ripple of the water. He ordered his crew to do the same. Years later his doctor confirmed that his action was the best thing he could have done!

Tod was sent to India by troop ship, where he joined the LCG gun boat at Cochen. It was to be the Burmese landing against the Japanese.

The dropping of the atom bomb in Japan ended the war, and Tod patrolled many waddies (rivers) in Burma, capturing Japanese unaware of the situation.

After discharge, Tod trained as a lawyer, but joined the Territorial Army in 1950. He served 25 years as a cadet training officer and commanding officer.

Tod - mantra, “Once a Marine, always a Marine” - has 25 medals and commendations including the MBE, Atlantic Medal with Russian Arctic Star and D-Day Clasp, Italy & Burma Star medals, 39/45 Star Medal (Battle of Britain), Normandy Medal and Cadet Force Medal with Clasp.