大象传媒

My father died 2 years ago, a fragile shadow of the feisty young man who had volunteered for the Royal Navy on the outset of WW11.
I was his only child and a daughter, so sharing his wartime experiences with me usually involved more light hearted stories such as a time when a mine blew up close to the ship he was serving on and he was thrown out across the deck with his trousers around his ankles. He'd been using the toilet at the time. The entire back wall had been ripped apart and the door hung wide on it's hinges, just!
He survived the force of the explosion having just skinned his knees, living with the embarrassment among his pals was a little harder to deal with.
Another time he recalled with a smile was when the Captain allowed the crew afternoon swimming in the Mediteranian to cool off, but the bathing party decided to take it a stage further and swum for the shore. They were happily sunbathing their wet bodies dry when the Captain's voice through the loud hailer boomed for them "to get the bl--dy hell off the beach as it was mined!" My father laughed that you never saw a dozen or so men move so fast as them, trying to tread water when it was barely ankle deep. Perhaps a slight exaggeration on the depth of water, but none the less for that another close shave.
Not all his stories were like those of course and as a volunteer for combined operations he saw many horrors and lost many friends. After his death I came across the copy of a letter that he'd written some years before to the American Ambassador in response to an article that he'd read about the forthcoming 50th celebrations and the award of commemorative medals to Ex. Royal Naval Seamen who served as convoys taking arms and supplies to Russia during 1939-1945.
Other war stories had been asked for to show what our servicemen had endured and the following words were my father's:
My own story of 49 years ago was when during the invasion of Sicily I was a Coxswain of the Royal Navy Landing Craft L.C.T.321 in Augusta, Sicily. After landing our tanks and troops, we had the task of removing trucks, ammunition and supplies from the American Liberty Ships anchored in deep water harbour. During the operation we were being constantly bombarded by German Stuka Dive Bombers.
The allied air defences were nil at that stage of the invasion, which left us practically defenceless apart from our two Oerlikon guns.
We were tied up alongside the American Liberty Ship 'S.S.Spirit of Free Enterprise' offloading equipment onto our landing craft, when the 'Enterprise' took a direct hit in the hold. The ship was on fire with loss of life in her crew, the remainder we took ashore leaving the ship at the mouth of the harbour. After a period of time the ship began to list badly to it's starboard side and there was a danger that it might sink in the harbour entrance, which would render it useless.
Our N.O.I.C. ashore instructed us to go back to the burning ship and tie up one landing craft on either side of the 'Enterprise'. L.C.T.321 and Landing Craft Tank 347 were made secure. Cutting through the invalid ship's anchor chain we used our L.C.T.'s as tugs to escort her further in and beach her to the west of the harbour, near the Italian sea plane base. The manoeuvre itself took place under constant German bombardment as they did their best to sink the 'Enterprise' where it would so obviously create the biggest nuisance as a blockade to all other ships. Never-the-less we achieved our goal and eventually the fires on board were extinguished so that the remainder of the equipment could be taken ashore for our much needed armed forces heading towards Messina.
My final act in rememberance of the crew who died, was to sew up two crew members into naval flags. These men were unable to be identified because of their horrendous injuries. Headless with torn and broken limbs, no clothing, they obviously had taken the full blast of the bombing and were need I say, not a pretty sight. Once I had completed the task of sewing them in to the flags I went ashore with them in a small personel boat, collected the Naval Padre and gave them a proper 'Seaman's Burial', at sea.
This episode in my life as a young 19 year old Coxswain at the time, has never left my thoughts. I have often wondered who they were and about their families who may never have known what had become of them. This memory is something that I will always live with quite apart from my many other wartime experiences.
Here the letter ends.

Having read this after my father's death and knowing that this was only one of the horrors that he kept to himself still brings a tear to my eye and a lump to my throat. I know he knew, but I just wish I could tell him every day just how proud I am of him.

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