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On Friday 10th October 1941, my Mother and I were watching a film in the local cinema, the Tivoli, when I became conscious that a man had come to sit next to me. I looked and to my amazement saw that it was my Father, ‘Cleve’ Maslen, who had come home on a surprise leave for the weekend, although he would not be able to stay until my birthday on the following Monday.
We all had a good ‘leave’ together at home at Arcadian House, West Cross. Then on the Saturday, we went to the ‘Mackworth’ in High Street, Swansea for lunch and my parents bought me a watch. But unbeknown to me then, the last sight I was ever to have of my father was when he waved his hat out of the train window as he left High Street Station to go back to his ship at Milford Haven on the Sunday evening, for he was killed the next day on my seventeenth birthday, 13th October.
Alfred Cleveland MASLEN on left
WW1 pic
He had been on a mine-sweeper, the H.M. Trawler Andre Monique, which had been attacked by a German plane. We knew he had been serving in the Royal Navy in Pembrokeshire and had recently been promoted to Chief Petty Officer, but because he was in Wales, we had not thought he was in any particular danger. He had volunteered in January but had not told us he was on a Minesweeper. He was the only one on his ship killed in that action.
He had served out the Great War in the Royal Naval Division, spending Christmas 1916 on the coast of France in a village called Le Crotoy near the Somme Estuary, a little way from Abbeville. He was wounded for the second time in August 1918, but was rescued from ‘no mans’ land’ by a young German Soldier, who then gave himself up and was taken to the British trenches. Without that help, I would not be here to tell this tale.
My Father had a wonderful nature and a terrific sense of humour and was my best friend as well as my father.
On the register kept by the Commonwealth War Graves Commission,
his entry reads
Alfred Cleveland MASLEN
Alfred Cleveland MASLEN
Engineman LT/KX125092,
H.M. Trawler Andre Monique.,
Royal Naval Patrol Service
who died age 43 on Friday 10 October 1941 [sic].
Engineman MASLEN, Son of Frederick Joseph and Lizzie Maslen;
husband of Dinah Grace Maslen, of West Cross, Swansea.
Remembered with honour
SWANSEA (OYSTERMOUTH) CEMETERY
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