I am grateful to Michael McMullan, son of Lieutenant Robert McC McMullan RNVR, for sending me the poem below by George Osborough. In so doing I wonder if he has identified the author of the "Odd Odes" which have been included in the chapter on HMS Rushen Castle in the recently published book "Castle Class Corvettes" by Norman Goodwin & Steve Bush. Norman Goodwin writes that these had been supplied by Colin Warwick who had told him, "The poet would have been in signals or navigation."
The note in brackets which follows the poem appears to have been written by Mr Osborough.
SHIPS THAT PASS
There are ships that pass in the night,
There are ships that pass in the day;
But the ships of which I write
Are the ships of sombre grey.
For the sullen fight must go on -
And men must go down to the sea
Where fighting, they wait the dawn
Of the glad new world to be.
They care not for dangers o'er head,
Nor dangers that lurk in the deep;
Perhaps 'ere night they'll be dead,
Yet they smile while others weep.
And whether on battleship grey,
Or trawler fighting along,
Submarine finding its way,
They fight with a smile and song.
There are ships that pass in the night,
There are ships that pass in the day;
"O Lord, through this cruel fight
Watch o'er our Navy", we pray.
George A. Osborough, Writer, R.N.
Devonport, February, 1944.
(In November, 1944, when passing through the Bay of Biscay en route for Gibraltar, this poem as an epilogue, was read over the ship's loud-speaker system, by the navigating officer of the corvette "Rushen Castle", on which the author was serving as Ship's Writer)
Michael McMullan tells me that he has an extract of an announcement from a newspaper published some time after World War II in which George Osborough asks for photographs of HMS Rushen Castle to accompany a future publication of poems. This caused me to check the British Library Integrated Catalogue where I found that "Musings of an Irishman. A collection of 25 poems." by a George A Osborough (presumably one and the same) had been published in 1943 - sadly I cannot find he had any other books published.
