We Won the War but Lost the Empire

True Short Stories From The Second World War As Told by the People Who were There

Roger Payne OAM

• Editorial: VIJ Books (India) Pty Ltd
• Año: 2020
• ISBN:
  9789389620436
• Edición: 1
• Categoría: History
• Categoría: World War II

This is the 3rd in a series of 4 books full of short stories about Britain's involvement in the 2nd World War. Many of the stories uncover what war was really like and not what is often portrayed in modern day chronicles. There was nothing wonderful and magnificent about war, it was, and still is, violent, brutal and inhuman, and those that took part in the fighting sometimes took on animal characteristics to survive. Death stalked the battlefield in many forms and survival was mostly pure luck rather than natural skill. Those that survived nearly 6 years of fighting were never the same again as they had hardened by all the killing. I have selected stories that begin just before war was declared, and initially cover the disgrace that ended in Dunkirk, the Battle of Britain, and the Blitz. There after they delve into the sea war on the Atlantic and Russian convoys, then the Desert campaign, Greece, Crete, Morocco, Tunisia, and Italy. There are also tales about the terrible war against Japan, a country that was so cruel and inhuman towards innocent civilians as well as POW's that it is difficult to come to terms with the reasons behind what they arbitrarily did. Finally, we have the Allied landings at Normandie and the titanic fight through Europe and into Germany. Something the Allies didn't expect.

WAR AT SEA

(58) George Knott - The Battleship Sunk By A German Submarine

Following training at HMS ‘Ganges’, and ‘St Georg’, (stone frigates), in August 1941 I joined my first ship, The Battleship HMS ‘Barham’ as a Boy Seaman Class II (the lowest form of animal life in the Royal Navy). The ship’s company comprised of approximately 1275 Officers and Ratings. During the first three months aboard this vessel, I gleaned the whereabouts of my mess (where we dined and slung our hammocks), where I worked daily from 06.30 hours, the locations of my action and defence stations, the canteen and the ‘heads’ (ship’s lavatories).

In late November 1941, the Eastern Mediterranean Fleet, comprising the Battleships HMS ‘Queen Elizabeth’, HMS ‘Barham’ and HMS ‘Valiant’, accompanied by cruisers and destroyers (two of the latter being ‘Hotspur’ and ‘Niza’) set sail from the Egyptian port of Alexandria to support the army in its North African desert push westwards. During the afternoon of Tuesday 25th November, an enemy aircraft began to shadow the Fleet, obviously to keep the enemy submarines, and aircraft informed of the Fleet’s position. The enemy aircraft remained out of range of the Fleet’s anti-aircraft guns. Unfortunately, the RAF was not in the position to provide adequate cover. The only ‘air’ support being our inflated life belts.

The three battleships proceeded in line astern, the flagship ‘Queen Elizabeth’ with the C in C Eastern Mediterranean command, Admiral Cunningham aboard, followed by the ‘Braham’ and as the rearguard the ‘Valiant’. At approximately 16.25 hours, a German submarine managed to penetrate the destroyer screen surrounding the three capital ships without detection, and fired a spray of torpedoes. It must be explained that when a submarine attacks three vessels in line ahead, the middle ship is made the target, so that should any of the torpedoes be off target, the ship ahead, or the rearguard vessel could receive a lucky strike.

Unfortunately for the ship’s company of the ‘Barham’ 3 torpedoes found their mark! Within seconds the vessel listed to port, and within one and a half, to two minutes, the ‘Barham’ was blown to smithereens, killing nearly 900 Officers and men. At the end of 3 minutes (at about 16.28 hours) all that was left of the vessel was a huge cloud of black smoke, and a large patch of oily seawater. The enemy submarine had been very close, and the underwater explosions forced it to the surface, close to the ‘Valiant’. The latter was unable to depress it’s guns low enough to obtain hits. The submarine dived and escaped.

At 16.10 hours, I was at my defence stations, which was the ‘TS’ ‘Transmitting Station’ (a forerunner of today’s computer) which, when given necessary details, could provide information to the gun-layers to enable the guns to be elevated and traversed before firing. The TS was located several decks below the waterline. To obtain entry one had to open and close several watertight doors below decks, with the last access through a porthole built into the last door, which had to be kept closed at all times with watertight clips after the last occupant of the TS had passed through. The number of personnel manning the TS was 6 to 8.

At 16.15 hours the crew of the TS was relieved for tea, (a cup of tea and a sticky bun partaken on the mess deck). At 16.30 hours the relieved crew was due to return to the TS again for ‘dusk action stations’; the period of gradual darkness. i.e. twilight, and final pitch black night; when defence stations would be resumed. At 16.25 hours when the torpedoes struck, I was just finishing my tea. The ship immediately began to list to port. No one seemed to know what had happened! Was it bombs or torpedoes? All of us on the mess deck immediately made for the gangway leading to the upper deck. I was clad in overalls, underpants, socks and boots, with a lifebelt already inflated, stowed on the mess stool beside me. Making my way up the gangway, I arrived on the upper deck and found it difficult to negotiate the sloping deck. taking off my boots and putting on my lifebelt, I and many others looked towards the bridge, now in chaos, listening for the order to ‘abandon ship.’ It was obvious that order would be forthcoming.

I decided to start sliding down the side of the ship, and as I neared the bilges there was a gigantic explosion which blew me off the ship’s side and into the sea. My next recollection was of being dragged under, and wondering when I was going to stop going down! Eventually I surfaced, but only to take a deep breath before being sucked down again. It was disconcerting, and I started to swallow seawater and oil. Surfacing for the second time I took another deep breath, and again was pulled under (obviously the undertow caused by the sinking ship).

As I was sucked under for the third time, I recalled the saying that three times was the end! However, I proved this saying wrong, and bobbing up like a cork (cheers for the lifebelt) was unable to see anything because of the oil on the surface. There were no signs of the rest of the Fleet, presumably proceeding out of the area in case of further submarine, and possibly air attacks. A considerable amount of debris was floating on the surface, and heads could be seen bobbing about. There were awful cries of the wounded. There is always comfort in numbers and gradually small groups of men clustered together, using the debris for support. Someone, somewhere, struck up the hymn “Nearer my God to thee” which gave great support.

Eventually two destroyers returned ‘Hotspur’ and ‘Nizam’ (the latter a New Zealand vessel), both began the task of picking up survivors. Because the ‘Hotspur’ was quite close, I made for it and scrambled aboard using the lowered scrambling nets. I estimated I had been in the water for about two hours, but did not feel cold. Subsequently, I learned that the Mediterranean has its quota of man-eating sharks. Perhaps the hymns, the explosions and the oil had kept them away?

I was able to watch other survivors being picked up fromthe ‘Hotspurs’ guardrail. There were many of the ‘Hotspur’s’ ship’s company who earned medals that day, although their efforts were not recognized! Some members of their crew dived over the side with lines attached, and brought in the struggling survivors who were either wounded or exhausted. One particular person I saw being helped aboard, I recognized because he was, in my eyes, very old, at least 50 or early 60’s. At that time I was 17. He had been pointed out to me one early morning in his dressing gown, taking what appeared to be a stroll along the deck.

In my ignorance I asked who he was and was told, in no uncertain terms, that it was the Admiral Priddam-Whipple. He had survived the sinking, and I recognized him even without his insignia. A 3-badge able seaman (a time serving matelot with little ambition apart from wine, women and song) leaned over the scrambling net and said, ‘Come on you doddering old bastard, come aboard’ The Admiral never uttered a word apart from ‘Thanks’.

A destroyer has room for the ship’s company only. Hence, some survivors had to remain on the upper deck. A few did not survive their wounds. Jugs of rum were passed round which had a similar effect to morphine. At that time I had not begun to imbibe. Although I have made up for it since! Now that the adrenaline had ceased to flow, I took stock of my position. Someone on the ‘Hotspur’ had given me an old naval reefer (a long overcoat) to don, though it was without buttons. I noticed that my underpants were no longer with me; the back end of my overalls was non-existent at the rear and I had lost my socks. Reaction set in, and I began to feel pain. I had scraped my hands, feet, bottom and part of my back on the barnacles as I slid down the side of the ship, but I counted myself lucky to be alive. Later we were provided with hot soup and tea, and there were periods of slipping in and out of sleep.

One or two days later, the Admiral addressed those of us who were not disabled, to the effect that on arrival at our destination of Alexandria, and in our letters home, we were neither to discuss nor to relate our experiences, essentially for security and morale reasons. Our parents and next of kin were informed of our survival of the sinking in ‘February 1942’. However, on arrival at Alexandria, it was clear that the local population, particularly the dockworkers, were well aware that some major catastrophe had befallen the Fleet, because the tops of buildings and sheds were thick with spectators. They had spotted the survivors on the upper deck, and merely two battleships had returned. Soon the news would be all over Alexandria and the Middle East.

On disembarking, we mounted the gangway of the ‘Resource’, a submarine depot ship. As we passed along the gangway, we were given a packet of Woodbines, a large bar of ‘Pusser’s Hard’(an eight-inch-long bar of yellow soap about two inches square) and were invited to go below for a shower, to get rid of the oil on our bodies. Some time elapsed before all traces of oil disappeared from all orifices!

Each survivor was issued with a skeleton kit, and we were sent to the outskirts of Alexandria, into the desert, where we were housed in tents. We lazed around for a couple of days, and then following a muster, were informed that survivors would be going home via the Cape of Good Hope (and didn’t they have a rave up there!) but not the boys or the ordinary seamen! It was considered they would lose valuable training time, (it took 6 to 8 weeks in slow convoy to get back to the UK via the Cape).

Meanwhile, in Alexandria, Italian miniature submarines had penetrated the submarine screen by following surface shipping underwater, into the harbour. Undetected, the crews of the mini-subs had attached limpet mines to the hulls of the battleships ‘Queen Elizabet’ and ‘Valiant’. When these exploded the vessels did not sink completely, but because the harbour was so shallow, were left sitting on the harbour bottom.

The Italian submariners who had been unable to escape, were located clinging to buoys in the harbour and taken prisoner. In less than two months the enemy had written off 3 battleships, and left the Eastern Mediterranean Fleet much depleted. The ‘Queen Elizabeth’ and ‘Valiant’ were given temporary repairs in dry dock, and were eventually dispatched to the U.S.A. for complete repairs. The Fleet was left with just a handful of cruisers, destroyers, mine layers, frigates and submarines.

On New Year’s Eve 1941 I was drafted to the cruiser ‘Euryalus’, which had just arrived from Chatham. My first duty was ‘Seaboats Crew’, the members of which were required to sleep together in hammocks, one deck below upper deck, to be ‘on call’ in case of emergencies. At frequent intervals, the bottom of all shipping in the harbour were scraped by passing a wire from starboard to port, beneath the ship and dragging it along the bottom of the vessel from bows to stern. This was to prevent further attacks by limpet mines. All watertight doors were kept closed and clipped.

At about 23.00 hours I lay in my hammock dozing, with my inflated lifebelt lodged on an overhead fan shaft just above my head, when someone came through the compartment on his way to get a shower. Passing through the watertight door opening, he slammed the door shut behind him. Before one could say ‘Jack Robinson’ I was out of my hammock, lifebelt on, up to the upper deck, thinking we had been ‘tin fished!!’ The ‘Chief GI’ (Chief Gunnery Instructor) determined defence and action stations aboard ‘Euryalus’. Unfortunately, when questioned I told him that on ‘Braham’ defence and action stations were the TS.

Where did they place me on the ‘Euryalus’. You’ve guessed it! The TS! That was the last place I wanted to be. I well remember that there was a request for someone to go up topside to fetch a jug of ice-cold water, there was always one quick volunteer, I used to ensure that there was a queue (at least according to me). I took a long time; I always felt safer on the upper deck.

On another occasion, when manning the TS at action stations, we were bombed and sustained a near miss. The lights went out leaving us in total darkness. After what seemed like a lifetime, the emergency lighting came on and who was to be found at the watertight door opening the clips? The officer in charge and me. He asked, “What are you doing here?” MY instant reply, “The same as you! trying to get out!”

Eventually, I cajoled the ‘Chief GI’ into giving me a change of defence station i.e. on the bridge as lookout. I felt much safer now that I could see what was going on. I always felt that medals should be awarded to those employed below decks i.e. stokers etc. At action stations, Cooks and Stewards manned the magazine (way down in the depths of the ship). In event of either bomb or torpedo attack these members of the Ship’s Company stood little chance of survival.

Our ‘training’ comprised ‘Malta Convoys’ i.e. escorting ‘Merchant Shipping’ to Malta loaded with petrol, foodstuffs and so on. Again there was no air support against sustained attacks by the Italian and German Air Forces (the latter were more superior in their attacks), which included Stuka, torpedo and high-level bomber attacks. There were attacks by ‘E’ boats, and the Italian Battle Fleet. We sustained a 15” shell through our after upper deck superstructure. We were lucky! Many HM cruisers and destroyers were sunk, but all admiration should be heaped on the Merchant Navy who were, after all, the real target.

It was a question of setting sail from Alexandria, with up to 8 merchant vessels escorted by cruisers and destroyers arriving off Malta with perhaps 2 or 3 merchant ships, 5 to 6 having been sunk together with HM ships. Back to Alexandria again: re-ammunition, oil and store ships and out again to Malta with more merchant shipping arriving via the Suez Canal. At one stage 4 destroyers were sent to sea, to carry out a sweep for enemy shipping (both naval and merchant shipping). En route a squadron of Stukas set upon them. They sunk 3 out of 4.

There were survivors who survived all 3 sinkings, finally being saved by the 4th, HMS ‘Jervis’, which returned to harbour with the survivors who were literally ‘round the bend’. They did not have counselling in those days! The Army had just begun sending doctors on a 6 week psychiatry course which was the beginning of psychiatrists in the forces. The course eventually increased to 6 months and they had several psychiatric hospitals all over Britain. We took the war to the enemy by bombarding the island of Rhodes, held by the Germans, just off the Greek mainland with our ten 5.25 inch (ca. 13 cm) guns.

Slowly the tide of war was changing, following the invasion of Russia by the Germans. Malta was relieved, Valletta was full of partially sunken HM and Merchant shipping. We found on arrival at Valletta that the Maltese population were starving: they scrambled for tins of herring that we threw them. During our stay in Malta we were rationed to one slice of bread per man per meal. Our ship’s baker was overworked turning out bread. There were always queues at the galley for any spares that might be going. On one side was the ship’s company forming a queue, and on the other side were the Maltese who were working on the ship while we were in harbour.

The break out began with El Alamein and the invasion of West North Africa. The USA supplied air support, but unfortunately, at sea their pilots decided that everything that floated had to be bombed! In order to avoid being sunk by our own forces, all allied shipping painted their bridge superstructure with red lead. The next operation involved the allied forces invading Sicily. Support of the landings came from seaward by bombardment ship to shore. One action I well remember took place one sunny Sunday about noon, off the island of Pantelleria. At 11.45 hours we had a short church service on the quarterdeck, when the chaplain gave us ‘Save us from the violent enemy’ etc (I have never figured out why God was always on our side!!)

At noon we bombarded the island with our 5.25 guns. There was no reply apart from a white flag!

The next action was the invasion of Italy, with support from the troops across the Messina Straits with bombardment etc. There followed a landing by Allied Forces at Salerno. We escorted, together with our sister ships and destroyers, what we call ‘Woolworth’ aircraft carriers (converted merchant vessels) to supply air support for the invading forces. There was a constant air raid warning red over the invasion area. The sea chose at that period to cut up rough. I think we had more damage to A/C landing (crashing into barrier) than in enemy action.

Further out to sea, a further naval force supplied air cover for us. By the time the Germans had developed a radio-controlled bomb, which posed problems for us. That was one thing we could always say about the Germans, they were an innovative bunch.

(59) Philip E. Marshall - H.M.S. Londonderry -The Atlantic Convoys

The Second Great World War of 1939 to 1946 had little impact, at first, on the suburb of Harthill, near Stoke-on-Trent, where I and my family lived. In mid-1940 I was sixteen years old, and every working day saw me cycling away from Stoke-on-Trent towards Newcastle-under-Lyme, where I was the most junior clerk in Lloyd’s Bank. By day it was a routine existence, undisturbed by the battles across the Channel, but enlivened by week-end pleasures of visits to the cinema and the local tennis club. Fourteen year old Tibby Norris and I won the Junior Doubles, beating the favourites, Joseph Dunning and his glamorous partner. None of us could foresee, and I learnt only after the war, that four years later Joseph would be flying from an aircraft carrier off the coast of Norway to attack the Tirpitz, while I tossed on the waves below, in a small escort ship, out of sight of the carriers. It was Joseph’s brother, Norman, who compared dates with me, several years later; Joseph himself was in one of the five planes which failed to return from the raid. The planes they flew were affectionally called ‘Stringbags’ because they were a bi-plane in an era of fast monoplanes.

The Fairy Swordfish was slow (It had a top speed of 139 mph) and it carried a torpedo and was an easy target when flying against any ship with anti-aircraft guns, yet there was never a shortage of men who wanted to fly them. Theirs was a special kid of bravery for they knew that every time they went up some of them weren’t coming back.

Stoke-on-Trent at night in 1940 -1941, although never a major target for German planes, had many alarms as attackers headed towards Manchester or Liverpool. Occasionally on their way to their targets they would simply dump their bombs on top of us, they didn’t care one way or another. They were killing Englishmen anyway. Occasionally on their way home they would dump any excess bombs they had left over. One way or another we got our fair share of bombs.

Our house was near a hospital which may have looked like a factory on moonlit nights, and on one occasion, a stick of incendiary bombs fell right across the area, the last of the stick penetrating the roof of our next-door neighbour. Father, I and others, carrying the stirrup pump and a bucket of water shot off up the stairs, only to be met by a flood of water coming down. The bomb had extinguished itself in the cold water tank in the loft, which was now the source of the waterfall. We didn’t know whether to laugh or cry.

Less amusing was the day when the pretty junior clerk of another local Bank failed to turn up for our routine meeting to exchange local cheques. She had been one of the few casualties, caused by a stray bomb that landed on her street. Whether such incidents turned my thoughts to fighting back, or whether teenage restlessness would have driven me away from home, war or no war, I eventually volunteered for the ‘Y’ scheme. This offered accelerated entrance into the Royal Navy, with the chance of qualifying for a Commission in due course. The decision puzzled some people and pleased nobody in my family.

“Why the Navy?” they asked. Perhaps two school years in Southampton had sowed the seed, though there was little sign of the Royal Navy in Southampton Docks; besides we had been privileged to watch the test flights of the prototype Spitfire over our playing fields, an experience...