Roy V. Martin

Roy Martin joined the Merchant Navy in 1953, serving his four year apprenticeship on tramp ships, or worldwide traders as the owners preferred to call them. He then spent five years on the Baltic trade, gaining his Masters Certificate in 1962. From 1964 he was Chief Officer/Navigator of Risdon Beazley's recovery vessel Droxford, while there he developed his interest in research.

After gaining further experience he joined the Risdon Beazley management team, where his first job was to get salvage equipment to Brunel's Great Britain in the Falklands. By 1975 he was General Manager of the company, now a subsidiary of the Smit group; who transferred him to manage their Asian company in 1979.

Having built that company into a World class salvor, he left Singapore in 1986 to resume recovery work, with Lyle Craigie-Halkett. They found a Southern Sung wreck (Nan Hai No1) off the Chinese coast and undertook and environmental clean-up of the whaling stations in South Georgia. Roy Martin's papers on this second operation will be in Southampton City Archives.

Again with Lyle Craigie-Halkett he wrote and self-published Risdon Beazley, Marine Salvor. He then wrote Ebb and Flow,Evacuations and Landings by Merchant Ships in World War Two. This was modified and republished as Merchantmen in Action, Evacuations and Landings by Merchant Ships in the Second World War. After finishing The Suffolk Golding Mission, A Considerable Service; he intends to resume work on a book about Merchant Ships at D-Day.

He lives near Southampton with his wife, June; they have two children and five grand-children.