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Published: 25 June 2010
by PETER GRUNER

FORMER Royal Navy man Bill Millett, 92, was given pride of place at the Armed Forces Day parade on Monday.

Many stopped work to remember the war-time sacrifice and stood in silence outside Islington Town Hall. 

Bill served aboard a warship that helped rescue stranded British soldiers from the beaches of Dunkirk. A retired Thames Water worker, Bill saw action protecting merchant convoys during the war. He was awarded the MBE in 2003 for his charity work.

The son of an engineer, he was born in Eccles­bourne Road in Canon­bury in 1918 and left school at 14 to work in Chapel Market. He got the call-up and decided to join the navy to see the world. A member of the Islington Veterans Association, Bill said:  “It was always a risky business.  My boat The Arethusa got hit once by a torpedo. I was in the engine room at the time. I came up and the ship was covered in smoke and flames. There was pan­dem­onium and we lost about a third of our crew.”

Even on leave in Islington, Bill couldn’t escape the war. “I came back in the middle of the Blitz. There were bombs going off in City Road and New North Road. One day I was walking over to see a mate when I discovered a bomb had blown up his house. He wasn’t at home but it killed his mother.”