- Contributed by听
- WMCSVActionDesk
- People in story:听
- N.E. Wheway
- Location of story:听
- North Atlantic
- Background to story:听
- Royal Navy
- Article ID:听
- A4444805
- Contributed on:听
- 13 July 2005
This story was submitted to the People鈥檚 War site by Martin Hough a volunteer with WM CSV Actiondesk on behalf of N.E.Wheway and has been added to the site with her permission. N.E.Wheway fully understands the sites terms and conditions.
From 1938 until I joined the Royal Navy, I served as an ARP warden distributing gas masks. Following my training as a signalman in the Royal Navy in July 1942, I was sent to Bermuda, after a period spent there, in the West Indies and the USA, in 1943 I joined the US built Lease Lend destroyer escort HMS Dacres. After a stormy crossing on the Atlantic with a convoy from Newfoundland to the UK we eventually reached Belfast. The whole crew were the transferred to HMS Bayntun the first escort built under the lease lend agreement, these were called Captain Class Frigates and named after 18th Century Captains of the Royal Navy.
We then joined B4 escort group and were involved in escorting convoys to Gibraltar, a voyage of some 15 days sailing far to the West to attempt to avoid the German Condor Bombers operating from Western France.
Our first success in the battle of the Atlantic was the sinking of U757 on the 8th January 1944 from which there were no survivors. There was a sad event in March 1944, when one of our escorts HMS Asphodel was torpedoed in the Bay of Biscay with the loss of 89 lives, there being only 3 survivors, although we attacked and damaged the U Boat we had to rejoin the convoy, the sub was eventually sunk by an aircraft of Coastal Command.
The weather at the start of 1945 was extremely bad but on the 3rd of February we sank U1279 Northwest of Bergan and on the 14th of February near the Faroe Islands we sank U989, this was followed by the sinking on the 17th February of U1278 again in the area Northwest of Bergan. We returned to our home base of Londonderry and after VE day in May we were sent to Bergan and Oslo to escort U Boats and their crews to Scapa Flow.
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