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From Brindisi we sailed escorting troop ships to Ancone in northern Italy, then patrolled that area before heading to Split, Yugoslavia, where we picked up 3 of Marshal Tito’s Partisans, all radio operators plus their equipment. Two of them were women, tough looking ladies. We slipped our moorings and proceeded north to bombard 2 islands and coastal roads on the mainland, assisting Yugoslav forces advancing on the Croatian port of Pula.

After three days of this our ammunition was running low. We had fired more than 800 rounds comprising main shells, cannon and Bofors rounds. We were relieved by two other destroyers and left the area, returning to Split to drop off the wireless operators, then we set out at once again to Brindisi to refuel and restock the ammunition. Out in the Adriatic at 0030, middle watch, the alarms rang. Back to action stations again. The radar had picked up a large echo dead ahead. We steamed to within 1, 000 yards when the sky suddenly lit up with 3 distress flares and the skipper took us to within hailing distance where we found ourselves confronted with the SS Berlin, a German hospital ship which had lost power and was drifting into a German minefield (that last piece of information we only found out later, of course). We piped out the Special Sea Duty men, closed up to the Berlin and stood by to take her in tow. Lines were fired between the ships and tow lines secured. At 9 knots we towed the Berlin to a safe anchorage of the Yugoslav island of Lussini, then stayed on patrol as a guard ship until we received a signal at 1400 hours from the Berlin that they had repaired the fault and had a full head of steam. As they got under way and steam passed us her skipper signaled ‘Goodbye and thank you’. Some of the crew and nurses stood on the deck waving as she headed towards the Mediterranean and we sailed on to Brindisi feeling that the incident was a job well done.

After the war, the Russians took over the Berlin and used her as a ferry in the Black Sea. She sank in 1986 after a collision with a tanker in thick fog. Sadly 200 Russians lost their lives, and at the time of her passing the former SS Berlin was the oldest passenger steamship afloat.

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