大象传媒

On 12 November I received a message from the Marconi Company to report to the Hull depot, which I duly did, repeating the journey via New Holland ferry that I had made so many times before when attending the Technical College. I was to join the Ocean Freedom as chief radio officer and to expect my 2nd and 3rd men sometime during the following day.

After spending the night in Hull without any disturbing sirens I presented myself at the shipping office the following morning to sign on the ship's articles, and then went in search of the Ocean Freedom. I eventually found her in the dock undergoing repairs after a safe return from Archangel, which is more than can be said of other ships in that ill-fated Russian convoy, PQI7 (convoy PQ17 is described in David Irving's book Destruction of convoy PQ17). She was also taking on cargo which would be completed in Hull and Dundee later.

The ship was a nearly new American-built Liberty-type affording very spacious and well furnished accommodation and a well equipped radio room. It obviously had lots of other qualities which did not interest me at the time. Upon boarding, my natural first question was, 'Where are we going?' Nobody knew, but wherever our cargo was bound it certainly was not Russia again because all the extra fittings required for an Arctic voyage were being removed.

A few days later after the ship had moved to a berth in Hull, I and my 2nd and 3rd ROs and also a couple of the deck officers, attended a three-day gunnery course. Judging from the array of defensive weapons visible on the Freedom, this attendance was very necessary, since for my part I had never handled a gun in my life, well excluding Charlie Greens, let alone fired one in anger. Not that any of us would be expected to do so later, but all the ship's officers were expected to have a working knowledge of the armament on board, and to be able to use them should the occasion arise. When the ship sailed, there would be experienced DEMS army personnel to man and maintain the weapons.

There were four twin-barrelled Oerlikons that fired one-inch shells, and these were located around the bridge structure with an extra two mounted fore and aft. Scattered about were a number of small machine guns. On the poop was a defensive 'stern chaser', a 15-pounder. A very satisfying collection when compared with the ship operating in those Far Eastern waters did not have up to the fall of Singapore.

We were not to know of our destination until after we had joined up with the convoy. Later. However by the time we left Dundee (where we called to complete loading after leaving Hull) there was no mistaking the nature of our voyage; for now, our cargo holds below decks were packed with tins of petrol and explosives of all kinds and every inch of the decks above were jam-packed with a variety of tanks and guns and support vehicles.

During our course around the north of Scotland, there was according to my diary... enthusiasm on board as we listened to the 大象传媒. Success after success in North Africa and Montgomery's magnificent drive west (following his successful El-Alamein campaign) chasing Rommel's army and the Italians. Tobruk and Benghazi had been re-taken and much further west, a Vichy French surrender and Dakar occupied by Allies. Over Germany, the RAF was hammering industrial targets. To top all that, the Russians were driving the Germans back out of Leningrad, taking 50,000 prisoners. In the Pacific, the Americans had dealt heavy blows on the Japanese and the Australians had advanced in New Guinea...

With such good news, I wondered if perhaps the war could be over before we got to wherever we were going, but I was so wrong. In fact three years wrong.

After one week of uncomfortable rolling round the north of Scotland due mainly to our very top heavy deck cargo and not the easterly gale that was delaying us we duly anchored between the sombre looking hills surrounding Loch Long, joining other late arrivals. Later there was the convoy conference attended by captains and chief radio officers concerning convoy discipline, tactics and communications should the convoy be attacked - but no word as to our destinations. This was still to be a secret until a certain projected date. Later that day we left the Loch after meeting up with other ships that had arrived from different anchorages about the Clyde. By the next day, all ships had assembled in lines abreast and astern from the Commodore ship (appointed at the conference). Like marching bands men all ships dressing from the one for'ard and abeam.

The speed of our convoy was to be 7.5 knots, the normal speed of the slowest vessels hence the Commodore ship maintained that speed, and all others kept station by increasing or decreasing their engine revolutions, up or down as the occasion demanded. Accurate station keeping was not only important in the event of poor visibility, it also enabled the Naval escorts to locate a particular ship speedily, and ships to recognise one another from the convoy plan on board. Complete radio silence was maintained and all inter-ship communications were made by the use of the Aldis signalling lamp which was as efficient by day as it was at night with its blue lens. During the daytime, a lot of use was made of the conventional flag hoists. In this convoy, ROs, in addition to their routine radio room watches, they also shared watches on the bridge for signalling and look-out duties. After my varied experiences to date, I found this new organised convoy existence, which I was to experience many times before the war ended, quite exhilarating, and the view from the bridge of our fighting back ability with gun crews standing around, very satisfying.

After an uncomfortable voyage round the north of Scotland, which I didn't enjoy one little bit, the weather later as we sailed southward, changed to flat calm seas and blue-sky conditions, and so warm too. The sight of 60-odd ships all gliding along in perfect visibility during the day, and equally so in the bright moonlit nights was certainly very inspiring. I suppose it would have been also for any enemy submarines that might have been around. However, a week passed and our tranquillity lasted with only minor aircraft and submarine activity. Even later when the whole convoy waited outside the Mediterranean, twisting and turning for a whole day before orders were received as to where parts of the convoy were to proceed we experienced no problems. Then, late in the evening, we re-assembled and headed towards the Strait of Gibraltar and the Mediterranean with the friendly looking lights of neutral Spain and Tangiers twinkling in the distance.

At last we were given our sailing instructions and our destination. Except for eight ships, of which the Ocean Freedom was one, all other ships of the convoy which consisted mainly of Americans, were destined for Casablanca, Oran and Algiers.

We eight remaining British ships were to push on further east to Bone on the Algerian coast - the nearest enemy unoccupied port for the transportation of our cargoes that would be off-loaded and conveyed to the Allied armies that were thrusting their way across Tunisia. Well, at least we were not going to Malta. I wasn't anxious for our gunners to be so fully employed, although as it turned out, by the time that we left Bone, they had been kept quite busy indeed.

A note in my diary reads... 'Just a year ago the Pinna was on the way to evacuate Balikpapan in Borneo after the start of Japanese hostilities. Remembering my mixed feelings at that time as to what the future held, it seems that history is having another try. We have just learned that Bone is 30 minutes flying time from the Axis base at Cagliary on the tip of Sardinia and less from the Axis held ports of Bizerta and Tunis. Tonight the German radio broadcast news claiming that the Stuka aircraft had attacked and successfully closed the port of Bone and attacked and sunk shipping in the area....'

The Stukas did attack ships in our convoy, but none was sunk, although two ships ahead of the Ocean Freedom and one on our port side had been unlucky. As we eight ships steamed into Bone, it certainly was not closed to us. Somewhat battered, yes, but as a port certainly very operative. Considering that probably 80,000 tons of war material was about to arrive in Bone for the immediate transport by road out to their destination, it is not surprising that Axis tried to do something about it. Considering the nearness of the enemy bases and the capability of those Stuka dive bombers, our small convoy was very fortunate.

Our nights, tied up to the wharf that was littered with every type of explosive device and the many implements of war that had been discharged from the ships, were to say the least, very noisy and very worrying. Stuka after Stuka zoomed down for five or six hours every night with various intervals between 10pm and 4am, and they plastered what they planned would be the wharf, ship, and then the town, but certainly not the water which was where most of the bombs landed. While our DEMS gunners retaliated, I took refuge, along with others, whoever they were, in the lower space beneath the bridge structure, wondering if the bombs would penetrate three decks before exploding. I comforted myself with the knowledge that the petrol was all stowed in the fo'rad part of the ship, and that only the explosives were beneath!

Those dive-bombing attacks continued each night right up to us leaving the port, with the exception of the Christmas 48 hours. Many times throughout the day, delayed action devices that had been dropped in the night raids would explode unexpectedly and huge water spouts would leap out of the water. The incredible thing was, that all the time that we were alongside the wharf at Bone, not one piece of war material of any consequence was lost. There was only the odd daytime raid and unloading continued uninterrupted.

It was fortunate that the low flying aircraft attacks came in from over the high ground that rose up immediately from the wharfs. It was safe for the diving aircraft because they could not be seen to be shot at by our gunners until they actually arrived, and of course, swiftly gone before the gunners got aligned on them. But at the same time, the pilots were hampered by the high ground. Consequently, when bombs were released, they overshot the wharf and the ships, and fell in the sea beyond the ships. Had the attacks been made from the seawards side it would have been different, but very dangerous for the Axis powers to risk their aircraft and pilots, which by that time they could ill-afford to lose.

Those Stuka dive bombers were equipped with banshee wailing-type sirens which became operative as the aircraft dived down. They were supposed to create a demoralising effect on strafed troops - I don't think that ships' crews liked them either. Why high level bombing on the ships and wharfs was never employed is a puzzle, well, to me.

Bone had been once a peaceful pretty little town and a curious mixture of old and new. Nice tree-lined boulevards, wine shops and pavement cafes, open spaces and a bandstand. While I was there it was just a badly damaged front line town under martial law. The Vichy French it seemed still operated the civil laws and were not exactly friendly... non-co-operation abounded. They didn't want the Allies there with their troops, and the attitude was that if we had not brought the war to Bone, they wouldn't have been in such a mess. Well I suppose they were a bit right in that respect.

Chatting with the military personnel on duty, I gleaned that a lot of very disrupting things went on seriously affecting the rapid transportation of supplies out from the docks such as catching men and locking them up on silly civil pretexts and losing keys to essential equipment. Late arrivals from other Vichy held ports like Algiers and Oran spoke of similar problems, including armed resistance against the Allied occupying troops.

On Christmas day being British we had the time-honoured British midday dinner with the compulsory line up of turkey, trimmings and Christmas pud and the 'cup-that cheers' that came mysteriously from somewhere.

Then later the Chief engineer and I went to the church on the hill where we sang 'Silent night' and two or three familiar carols. Afterwards we walked around the outside of the town. En-route, we picked pockets full of Satsuma type oranges and quite forgot that there was a war on. It seemed that the enemy did too. He left us alone for the 24 hours of the Christmas period but made up for the lapse with a really worrying daylight raid on Boxing Day afternoon.

Well, all the raids may have seemed like raspers to us on board, but in truth, those attacks on Bone were a mere fleabite considering the effort that was really necessary to prevent those supplies getting through to the Allied armies. At that time they were driving east to connect with General Montgomery's Eighth Army that was driving west (this was after their success at El Alamein). The Axis powers should have been strong enough to prevent a single supply ship getting anywhere near that North African coast, but they were not. By May 13th 1943, they had lost the battle.

Earlier orders that we were to load up with phosphates were cancelled, and as result, except for some ballast, we sailed empty out of Bone on the morning of December 27th just as the red sun was lighting up the red roofs and white-washed walls of the town houses. There was never a truer observation - 'distance lends enchantment'. Contrary to expectations and with all guns manned until night-fall that day, we sailed the length of the Mediterranean without a single incident and duly dropped anchor in Gibraltar harbour where it was less peaceful than being at sea. For each night the harbour resounded with exploding depth charges that were the measures taken to combat small sub-marines and skin-divers who sneaked out from the Spanish coast to stick mines on ships in the harbour.

My recollections of the town of Gibraltar are just a hazy recall of steep narrow streets, shops overflowing with goods and the ridiculous price of spirits - something like 4d a tot, and a good one at that. I would not have bothered to go ashore at all for, I was more concerned with catching up on lost sleep, but it fell on me to go ashore to take, and collect, the ship's mail, the morning after our arrival. As it turned out, that trip ashore was fortunate because I became familiar with the layout between the dock where I landed off the tender, the area, and the route into the town, which was quite a long hike along the dock road.

Later, in the evening, the captain received instruction to be ready for sea at first light the next morning. This was quite a surprise because it had been thought that we would be staying for several days, consequently most of the crew were having a well-earned whoop ashore. Because the 1st and 2nd officers had turned in and the 3rd was on anchor watch, the captain asked me to go ashore to try to round them up. This is where I was glad that I had made that trip, for the visiting tender dropped me on the dock road, but this time it was completely blacked out. Remembering that long stretch of dock road bordered by posts and droopy chains, I more or less kept one hand on them all the way to the town.

It wasn't difficult finding the venues accommodating the different crew members. The first difficulty upon making contact however, was convincing them that they had to return to the ship, the second was convincing them why they had to return and third, getting away from them, for they were in such high spirits, or rather more to the point, high with spirits. At such encounters it was repetitions along the lines of 'good old Sparks' and, or, 'Hey we've never had a drink with Sparks'!, or' Mr. Sparks doesn't mind drinking with the fo'castle and ...'hey, Fred, he wants another drink - which I didn't, but did so as a 'one for the road' then we must go. I don't think that I had ever bothered about rum before, perhaps because I didn't like it - I still don't but after the first two, or perhaps three, it became quite pleasant.

Returning to the ship I was very grateful to find those posts and chains along the pitch black dock road, and navigated on them. At some stage along the journey, I was very poorly indeed and thankful that there was a post to lean on. After I had parted with everything possible from inside me, I felt a little better and very thankful for the lines of posts stretching to where the tender would be waiting.

Upon arriving at the jetty, wharf, landing stage or whatever it was called, the tender's black shape had not arrived, which was fortunate for it gave me time to drift back to normality. It was while I was doing this drifting back that I began to wonder what was different. My first thought was that I had come to the wrong place, then I decided it wasn't the place that was different, it was me, I felt funny and certainly not 'funny ha-ha'.... Then suddenly I knew! Teeth.

It was as though I had suddenly been given an anti-alcoholic jab. I was instantly alert and put my hand up to where my four front false teeth should be for confirmation - they were not there! Just my gums that were slowly coming back to life and beginning to belong to me.

I don't know how many posts there were there must have been dozens of them along that road where I may have stopped. I searched the base of each post in turn, wishing that I had thought to bring a torch with me, instead of having to rely on my sense of touch to establish the difference between all sorts of things and my teeth. By the time I had found them, I was stone cold sober and my alcoholic remorse hurt much more than my pumping head.

Upon returning this time the tender was already waiting, and only then did it suddenly occur to me that I was back, yes, but what had I done with the shore-leave crew that I had set off to capture. The thought of going back to town and starting all over again was just as miserable a one as the thought of returning to the ship empty handed, for at that moment, I hadn't a clue as to what had transpired earlier. Then, that anonymous eye that had watched over me from the 'Pinna' to Colombo, and for all I know, in Bone too, came to my rescue. Out of the night, in the distance down the dock road, came the sounds that just had to be from boisterous tanked-up sailors whose constitutions were more tolerant to alcohol than mine.

When my thoughts drift back to 'Operation Torch' which was the code name given to those North African landings they don't latch on to that anxious and noisy experience of the Stuka dive bombers, which, in our case, made more noise than damage. Those memories have dimmed beyond recognition among my three or more years at sea. Instead, I can recall and relive instantly, those feelings of shame and misery when I allowed myself to get into such a ludicrous situation. Then the stabbing anxiety experienced, as I searched for my teeth and afterwards, water to wash them coupled with the awful thought that I might have to return to the ship, and then home, looking all gummy. Had it been a week or so earlier I could have appropriately voiced the song 'All I want for Christmas are my four front teeth'...

Operation Torch
This was the code name given to the landings of an Allied army and its equipment along the westerly North African coast. This enabled an advance to be made easterly from Algeria and Tunisia, thereby attacking the Axis forces from the west while General Alexander's army was attacking from east to west. At the onset of the landings, delays and problems ensued because of resistance at the Vichy French held ports, and hence the problems experienced at Bone too. Bone was the nearest and most forward port available to the Allies. The next ports east were Bizerta and Tunis which were in enemy hands at that time.

After the fourth day of reasonable weather off the Portuguese and Spanish coast lines, our welcome into the Bay of Biscay was intermittent sleet and snow, high winds and accompanying rough seas. Being an empty ship, well except for ballast, like the others in the convoy who were returning home empty, the Ocean Freedom rolled to such angles, port and starboard, that there was the continuous thought that 'this time she really is going over'. However, each time it seemed that she considered it shuddered and then rolled back again. Everything that was not fastened down, moved. Trying to stay in my bunk between watch periods was trying, but contemplating food, or keeping it down after bravely partaking, more so. Keeping things on the table during meals did provide a diversion requiring an extra pair of hands. So it was with a sigh of relief after clearing the north coast of Ireland, that the convoy broke up, and we headed for the Clyde, and I to my bunk, and hopefully, to be able to stay in it.

Ten days later we were safely tucked up in Sunderland docks, notwithstanding that we had sailed on the 13th and were number 13 in the coastal convoy around the north of Scotland. Here, we all wondered where our next voyage would take us and whether or not we would be able to snatch a few days shore leave. The answer came the following day. Yes, a whole ten days in which to go home and return.

Those ten days went by all too quickly, most of which was wasted in overcoming the heavy cold I had picked up just before docking - the depleting result of two weeks of sea sickness and the time travelling between the ship and home. The return journey was a particularly bad one. Bad because none of the train connections connected, consequently hours of waiting... and the weather, although improved somewhat as we docked in Sunderland, by the time I left Grimsby, it had turned deathly cold and wasn't at all conducive to waiting around on draughty platforms and travelling in cold trains. Well, perhaps they were not all so cold, it was just that I was not in the best of health as it shortly transpired. The last straw was hiking around Sunderland docks in a near blizzard, trying to find the 'Ocean Freedom' that had been moved to a different quay for loading. The next day I felt distinctly under the weather and by the next morning, more so, and as the day progressed, so did my temperature, so by the time the doctor was eventually called in, my rising temperature was nicely coming up to boiling point. I can remember the captain coming down to see me (the mountain coming down to Mohammed for the second time) and getting me to sign myself off the ship's articles in the late afternoon, and saying 'You are lucky, we are going to Murmansk and Archangel'.

I can remember refusing to go to hospital and having morbid thoughts of dying in Sunderland. I can just remember a taxi taking me to the station, but of the long journey home to Grimsby and the taxi dropping me at the door around 2pm the next day, I do not have the slightest recollection It was six weeks before I recovered from what proved to be pneumonia - no antibiotics at that time - and my system returned to normal. By that time, the 'Ocean Freedom' would have been fitted out with the modifications to withstand and cope with the Arctic conditions, and joined that convoy bound for Russian ports. A voyage that nobody ever wanted, winter or summer. For me, Another Door, but thankfully this time, a closed one, for the 'Ocean Freedom ' did not return from the Arctic - she was bombed and lost off Murmansk.

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