HMS Ruler

Bill joined Ruler at Newport on 7 September 1944 as Commander Flying, responsible for the whole Air Department. She was built on a merchant ship hull, commissioned on 22 December 1943, with a wooden-finished deck, and could carry 24 fighters.

Her passages took her across the Atlantic, to Australia and then to the British Pacific Fleet at Leyte. In his ten months aboard Bill flew only three short flights, all from shore bases, and never once from her deck.

“It has been so long since the Fall of 1939, I can not remember when we were not fighting!”

In a letter home, March 1945