Henry Wheeler (signalman)

Henry Charles Edward Wheeler (29 July 1925 – 22 November 2004) was an English naval signalman during World War II.

The episode's entry in the Radio Times, issue 1155, page 23[1]

Wheeler was born on 29 July 1925 in Bath, England, to Rose (née Snook) and Henry Arthur Wheeler, and was the eldest in a family of six. He was from Vernhan Grove in Bath, where his civilian role was as a tailor's assistant.[2][3]

He joined the Royal Navy in 1943, and undertook his naval training at HMS Impregnable, a shore establishment at Plymouth.[2] He went to France on 7 June 1944, the day after D-Day, and was later stationed in Rotterdam.[2][3] While there, he began a romantic relationship with a Dutch woman, named Dine.[2][3]

Shortly after the war's end, he appeared as a "castaway" on the BBC Radio programme Desert Island Discs, on 24 November 1945,[4][5] at the age of 20.[2][3] He was chosen to appear as he was serving, as part of Naval Party 1745, on an unspecified "small island off the European coast" – the nearest thing available to a real castaway.[2][3][6] His appearance came one week after that of film star Deborah Kerr.[3] One of the recordings he selected was "If You Were the Only Girl (In the World)" sung by Anne Ziegler and Webster Booth,[7] calling it "a song I find myself singing when I think about my girl [Dine]".[3]

He married a Miss Denboer before 1947, outside the UK. They had two sons.[8]

It was later revealed that the island on which Wheeler was serving was Norderney — one of the East Frisian Islands off the north coast of Germany, where the British Forces Network provided the live outside broadcast,[9] via Hamburg.[2][3]

He died on 22 November 2004 in Sodbury, South Gloucestershire.[8] He was cremated at Westerleigh Crematorium.[8]