Henry Wheeler (signalman)

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

[2][3] He joined the Royal Navy in 1943, and undertook his naval training at HMS Impregnable, a shore establishment at Plymouth.

[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.

[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.