G A (Mick) Stoke MBE DSC RN entered Dartmouth Royal Naval College in January 1940, completing his training on the cruiser HMS Glasgow. His son describes his war service in this fascinating book which draws on his letters to his parents and Doreen Le Poidevin, whom he later married. They had three sons.
After being invalided out of the Navy in 1947, he pursued wide-ranging commercial interests, winning the Queen’s Award for Exports.
In addition to his MBE and DSC, he was awarded the Atlantic Star, Africa Star, Italy Star, Arctic Star, Arctic Emblem, the Soviet Russian Convoy Medal and the Pacific Star. Mick died aged 70 in 1991.
Jeremy Stoke, the youngest of Mick’s sons, retired after a successful business career and became the Family archivist and researcher. In 2020, reading his Father’s carefully preserved letters and documents he decided that Mick’s remarkable wartime exploits deserved to be published.