IT'S a bad time of year for Tom Pim. Almost 62 years ago to the day the veteran from Badsey was a boy rating on a medical ship in a convoy taking supplies to Russia when his life changed forever.

The sun has risen and set more than 22,000 times since that freezing morning of November 7, 1942 but for Tom who still gets nightmares the memory is so vivid that it could have been yesterday.

His convoy of 37 ships was sailing for Murmansk and Archangel and skirting the Northern Coast of Norway when a U boat pack struck.

Tom's ship, the Stockport, was a welfare and medical ship at the back of the convoy picking up survivors but was still considered fair game by the deadly German submarine packs.

"We would normally have sailed to Russia through Arctic waters north of Bear Island but it was the coldest winter for 168 years so we had to take a more southerly route along the coast of Norway." remembers Tom who was just aged 16 at the time.

Just after eight o'clock in the morning when it was still dark the first torpedo struck as Tom was climbing to the bridge. "We had been having a bad time but had not been expecting this attack and all hell was let loose. There was a second hit and my clothes caught fire. Another sailor helped to put out the flames."

"It is very vivid after all this time and I know that I was very frightened. The decision had been made to abandon ship and all boy ratings were ordered to the starboard side. I remember going down to try and rescue a mate from the hospital. It was freezing cold but the railings on the ship were burning hot."

Then a third torpedo within the space of the hour hit the ship and the next thing Tom remembers was waking up in a Russian hospital several days later."

"There was a flash and flames flashed past my face and that is all I remember. I have no idea what happened next or how I was rescued although I have been told that I was picked up by a Russian destroyer."

Tom believes that the freezing temperatures, it was minus 30F, saved his and other lives. "Because it was so cold blood congealed very quickly and people who would otherwise have bled to death lived. The cold also helped prevent the spread of infection. In the hospital they told me the cold had saved my life."

Tom spent five months in hospital in Russia before being returned to spend more time in a military hospital in South Shields. He later met the captain of the ship that returned him to England and served in the Merchant Navy throughout the war and continued a life at sea until 1989.

"In 1961 I got caught up in a hurricane and thought I was going to die. That was more frightening than being sunk on the convoy not because it was more dangerous but because I was older and more aware of losing my life.

"As a boy on the Russian convoy I did not appreciate the full horror of the situation."

Tom suffered burns and shrapnel injuries on that never to be forgotten day in 1942 but in time the body recovered but the scars on his mind have never gone and never will.

"I used to suffer from the most terrible nightmares when I would wake up screaming and crying.

"They are not as bad now but I still get nightmares especially during Remembrance Week.

"War is terrible; I was frightened to death for five years. There is nothing to glorify. It is horrible."

Just nine ships from that originally convoy got through to deliver supplies to Russia and of the 290 people on Tom's ship just 29 survived.

Tom kept in touch with one shipmate until he died two years ago. Now he is almost certainly the only one left.

This week, Tom will join thousands of people all ages from the Vale of Evesham paying their respects to those servicemen down the years who have not been so lucky.