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The following is an interview with Ronald H Spearpoint conducted at his home by Rob Illingworth and transcribed by Fiona McNeill of the Folkestone Heritage Team. It is added to the site with Mr Spearpoint's permission. The interviewee fully understands the site's terms and conditions.

R: Can we start with the story of when you were bombed [by a German aircraft while sailing on a Coastal Forces Motor Launch.]

Mr. S: Oh, yes, yes the particular day we were bombed we were escorting an oil tanker off the Bay, off Torquay, in Torbay….

R: you should have been out of range really shouldn’t you where you were sailing?

Mr. S: Yes, we didn’t expect them. That's why I thought it was a spitfire. They reckon we were the first boat to be attacked by fighter bombers flying from the Channel Islands. They were the 1st ones [with].. extra fuel tanks, which they jettisoned...they used to carry a 1000 pound bomb and this is why we had quite a lot of "high ups" come to check what it was all about, where they had come from. They knew that they [must] have these extra fuel tanks. It was a long way from the Channel Islands... for a fighter, to get there and back...

R: And in fact they did not stop there they went on to bombed Brixham.

Mr. S: The same week, they bombed Brixham…

I was lying on the upper deck just gazing at the sky and suddenly I saw a plane with a cross on it. Next thing, it circled round and there were three others. I ran down the engine room and heard a lot of banging and crashing and firing and the next thing the ship went up in the air...Obviously we were hit by a bomb which went through the wheel...The top of the wheel house took away all of the armour plating, went through the ship's side and blew up underneath us really. The concussion was so bad that it blew all the exhausts, stopped the engines, split the petrol tanks which we used to carry 2500 gallons, ripped all the depth charges from the deck, racks an all. The skipper was badly injured so we hastily got back to port which the nearest was Brixham. While this was all going on we shot one of the planes down and I remember us trying to retrieve the pilot who was already dead in the water but we couldn't pick him up. So, as [our] skipper was so badly injured we went into Brixham harbour and skipper was taken off.... We remained there until we were repaired enough to go back to our base which was Dartmouth and we went on the slips there and we had quite a bit of leave... Instead of going back to barracks we went back to the boat again which was unusual and we from then on we carried on with our various other duties which included mine laying and general patrol work in the Channel

R: You also told me some wonderful stories about your "rogue skipper":

Mr. S: Did you want me to tell you about that?

R: If you wouldn't mind.

Mr. S: Unfortunately we lost a good skipper, he did survive, I went to see him in hospital we then had a new skipper and his name was Mr Carr and ex racing driver, who was a different man altogether, and appeared to me like Charles Lawton.

R: Like on the Mutiny on the Bounty?

Mr. S: And he behaved as though he was on the Bounty! He used to stop our leave at the least excuse. He used to do rounds at sea when no other boat of this type would ever think of it, ...Mess Deck rounds which is checking that the Mess Decks are clean. He would describe a crumb on the floor as a loaf of bread. He gave me stoppage of leave once because I failed to pick up Anne Dvorak

R: Anne Dvorak was a film actress.

Mr. S: Anne Dvorak was a film actress who was coming aboard 'partying'.

R: She appeared in Scar Face [1932], that was her most famous role.

Mr. S: Unfortunately, why I was late picking this lady up, the seas in Dartmouth was a bit choppy this day and the outboard motor got flooded and I had to dry the outboard motor off and the plugs etc. Which was the reason I was late, a reasonable excuse.

R: But not to him!

Mr. S: But not to him, and he stood on the jetty, with this young lady and said you're five minutes late Spearpoint, that means five days stoppage of leave. That's how he went on. It was bad. I don't care if he heard [this tape], it would be the truth…

R: Anne Dvorak wasn't the only artiste who appeared on board.

Mr. S: Oh no, we had many. Leslie Fenton he was a film director, he directed Dr Fu Man Chu and various others used to come aboard and our skipper was what I call 'Mein Host' he was a showman really, a show off. We finally got rid of him when he accidentally shot himself through the leg with a German Mauser pistol.

R: How do you do that by accident?

Mr. S: Oh well, there you are, so luck was on our side wasn't it. Did you want to know about the waffles?

R: Yes please, that was fascinating.

Mr. S: Well one day I used to cook the meals when I would do duty watch, that was two watches one watch would have shore leave and the other one would have to keep the duties. As I didn't have to keep watch duties I used to do the cooking, and one day I decided to make some pancakes, [it] being Shrove Tuesday. As my father always said if you mix the flour and the egg well you get proper pancakes. Well we used to have dried egg and I took my fathers advice and stirred and stirred and added salt and pepper, and these pancakes were served to the skipper Mr Carr and he went a bundle on them and he called them waffles.

R: Good grief you had done something right for Mr Carr!

Mr. S: From then after when he had his parties I was always detailed to stay on board and make waffles and many celebrities have had my waffles.

R: Including David Niven?

Mr. S: Including David Niven and several other officers who came on board our ship at a particular exercise. Did you want me to say any more?

R: Yes please, this was an exercise that unknown to you succeeded a very unfortunate incident at Slapton Sands where German E boats had targeted ....

Mr. S: .....had got in between the American landing craft who were doing manoeuvres practising the future landings, and they sank five of these landing craft with many many casualties. Unbeknown to us at that time the following day, David Niven and two ... lorry loads of troops arrived and took up position on our boats ....and we had to entertain them before putting to sea on a manoeuvre to try to catch E boats that had supposedly sunk five "merchant ships " the night before.

R: They told you [that they were] merchant ships, they didn't even tell you about the actual incident?

Mr. S: And although at the time we didn't know, and in fact I didn't know till recently was, well I'd put two and two together that the Army had come along as extra armament to take revenge. Well, we fed and wined these soldiers, including my waffles for the Officers, and they quite enjoyed themselves and said 'what a life', until we put to sea and got outside of the bay, Torbay, the seas got rather rough. Prior to that they were firing at waves and it was quite exciting firing at 'wild horses'. Once we got out into the Channel things were very much different, in fact all the soldiers on our particular boat were so sea sick, in fact quite ill, we had to put up with them lying in the engine room for safety and probably the most calm part of the boat and with guns and sick all over the decks, fortunately we never met any enemy.

R: They were certainly in no position to exact revenge.

Mr. S: No, and this occasion happened two nights, and after that I think the Army must have got fed up and never came again. They did entertain us in a hotel down towards Slapton Sands which was obviously the Army's headquarters. We were entertained to a dance and we had quite a nice evening, but until just a few years back I had never realised what it was all about....,

R: No, that's extraordinary isn't it?

Mr. S: .... it was so hushed up, and I just put two and two together and it was obvious, its not a thing that’s ever done Army coming out on a boat like that you see. And each, we had about six soldiers on each boat and with anti-tank guns which were on a tripod it all looked very good with this extra armament but I don't think it would have been any help. I don't think lying down you can shoot properly when your like this, [being seasick] anyway I suppose the spirit was there, I suppose they were... David Niven was the leader of the expedition, I suppose he was a bit 'gung-ho!' 'I'll go and we'll sort them out', and we must go with the Navy, and you will find its in [his] book.

R: The Moon's A Balloon.

Mr. S: The Moon's a Balloon

R: I'll look it up.

Mr. S: So that’s that.

R: You told me about lucky 157.

Mr. S: Oh yes, the boat actually I'm talking about was a motor launch which initially had torpedoes, was then converted to a mine layer in fact the whole flotilla was...Till I went "foreign" that was the only boat I was on... I found it very lucky in many ways because although ..., after the bombing incident, we did many hazardous jobs .., I came [through] unscathed., ...Also, in the St Nazaire, we would possibly have gone on this raid as we were all prepared for it, but we had a rope round our propellers when one day we went to get some water, or refuel and therefore we had to go on the ‘slips’... The next day the rest of the flotilla sailed round to Plymouth and several days after we heard about the St Nazaire raid and ... it was such a surprise to us..., we all thought we were going to go to Norway, as we were told... We lost three out of four of our boats that went on this [raid].

R: And it was a bit of a trap wasn't it?

Mr. S: Yeah, ...[I think that] in fact the boat from our flotilla, ... the 249, which was our flotilla leader was the only [1] that returned. I think, in all, sixteen boats were sunk.

R: That's terrible.

Mr. S: So I consider we were quite lucky.

R: And the boat also seemed to have an instinct when to break down, didn't it?

Mr. S: Exactly, the day before the invasion [D Day] we went into Poole Harbour possibly as an escort vessel, not knowing the invasion was imminent, and as we pulled along side the jetty to moor, one of our main engines failed, this meant a new engine and we were ten days out of action and in the meantime the following day the invasion had taken place and we were safely in Poole Harbour.

R: You did eventually get to France.

Mr. S: Oh yes, we did eventually got to France but things were rather quiet. I could say about the catering.

R: Oh yes, you were often detailed to go ashore.

Mr. S: Yes, well on the small boats we had what we called 'Mess' catering and we used to have to buy our own food although we had allowances for this and I happened to be the caterer.

R: This was something peculiar to the small ships.

Mr. S: Yes, at the end of the quarter we either had Mess savings or Mess fill[?] But we were subsidized with our food by what we called, they used to call MTB comforts which was special foods given free to us when we went for so many hours at sea covering meal times. This helped us with our savings, we mostly had Mess savings. One time I remember when we were in Cherbourg being sent ashore to get supplies and had to go before a high ranking American officer who nearly threw me out the door when I suggested some meat and potatoes.

R: This was an unheard of luxury!

Mr. S: An unheard of luxury. It ended up I visited a few bars with my assistant and we had quite a good, 'nice' time. [I] managed to buy some Camembert cheese which I was hoping to take home to my Father who loved it. I put it in my locker but unfortunately not getting any leave for several weeks, one day there was a 'hum' in the Mess Deck and my cheese was discovered [as] the culprit.

R: And you never heard the last of it?!

Mr. S: It was immediately thrown through the port-hole. When I told my Dad that it was all runny, .. he said "that's how it should be. How I liked it!" So I felt very sorry for my Dad.

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