"It's Really Quite Safe!"

Ross Willmot is Executive Director of the Ontario Association for
Continuing Education.

This autobiography covers an officer’s adventurous and varied life in the Royal Navy from 1920 to retirement in the late 1940s after service in Canada as Director of Naval Aviation. This much-decorated officer qualified as an observer in the Fleet Air Arm and narrowly escaped with his life when his ship, HMS Courageous, was sunk early in World War I. His expertise was put to use by the RAF in a risky raid on the Wilhelmshaven dockyard, and his report to authorities on this daylight operation when half the bombers were shot down is typical of the frank criticism he gives of service bungling. It was Rotherham’s expert and dangerous search of the fjords near Bergen in 1941 which confirmed the report that the Bismarck was loose on the North Sea. As a result, the cruiser was chased and sunk, and the exploit brought Rotherham a well-deserved D.S.O.

As well as serving in the Admiralty in 1940, Rotherham took part in the abortive expedition to Dakar, the more successful capture of Douala and Libreville, and the invasion of Madagascar. He was also commanding officer of RNAS/Katukurunda in Ceylon, the RN’s biggest air station, and Captain of the escort carrier Trouncer. When he was passed over for promotion in Ottawa to substantive rank, he opted to retire to a successful business career in Quebec. His is a story, as his Canadian wife writes, “from the period of change in the post-WWI years to post-WWII years when perhaps things did not change as steadily or as much for the better as they should have.”