大象传媒

Lady Luck Part four After the Azores run, it was back to Russian convoys, we were heading towards Archangel when three Junkers 88s, torpedo-carrying planes, attached us.
One of the easiest planes to hit was one flying straight towards you; all you had to allow for was a bit of wind and ships speed and just point the gun at the plane. The first one came in, I opened fire at about one thousand yards, and so did another seven machine guns down the port side.
The Pom-Poms were already firing, the plane had dropped its torpedo, suddenly there was smoke coming from the cockpit, the plane banked sharply and crashed right into the icy cold sea, a few hundred yards from the ship.
The second came in, dropped his torpedo and sheered off, but there was smoke and flames coming from his tail, whether he made it home or not I do not know.
I was banging away at the third one that went right over the top of my head. There was an almighty bang, and I thought the plane had crashed into the ship. I felt what I thought were pieces of a plane clanging on top of my steel helmet, and then I found I could not move.
I felt something warm at the back of my neck and I thought I was paralysised. Fearing the worst I put my hand up to my neck expecting to find blood, instead I found an empty Oerlikon shell case that was still warm lodged in the collar of my sheepskin coat. I still could not move, I managed to wriggle my legs, but my shoulders were heavy, I looked around, there were hundreds of empty shell cases everywhere,
I had only fired about a hundred, I couldn鈥檛 make out where all the others came from, with a struggle I managed to get out of the cockpit and check myself over, I鈥檓 glad to say I didn鈥檛 have any injuries.
Lady Luck was looking after me.
What happened?, well, my gun was on the main deck, above me about twenty feet up in the superstructure there was a single barreled Oerlikon.
Above him was the wireless aerial, consisting of five heavy duty copper wires connected each end of the mast by a single wire.
When the plane went overhead, the gunner should have stopped firing. Instead, he continued to fire even though the plane was going away from the ship, hence all his empty shell cases falling on my head.
One of his shells cut through the wireless aerial bringing the whole lot down on my shoulders pinning me in the gun cockpit, I am glad to say all the torpedoes missed.
The next day, I was called to the Gunnery Office to give my version of what happened, I claimed to have shot down the first plane and hit the second, so did seven other machine gunners and the Pom-Poms crew, but at least we definitely had one destroyed and one possible. The third Junkers 88 flew over the top of the ship and disappeared over the horizon...
May 1944, I was twenty years old and I was now entitled to a daily Pussers rum ration, you had two choices, one was to have the rum the other was to take three pence a day in lieu; I chose to have the rum.
At midday the bugle sounded rum call, this had to be collected by the leading hand, he also had to measure it out in cups, and the rum was watered down 3to1 to stop people from bottling it. When it was your birthday you had sippers from everybody's cup, and you finished paralytic drunk.
If we were in harbour and you had to go ashore you could cancel the midday issue and collect it at 6 o'clock at night, and then you got neat rum. You were supposed to drink it in front of the duty Officer, but most of them did not bother, so you could bottle it and smuggle it out when you went on leave.
I took my dad a bottle home once, but he said it was to strong for him, so I stopped doing it; well that is my story anyway.
Every gun on board has a number, mine was number 11, one day coming back from Russia I was walking up and down trying to keep warm when I saw three torpedo tracks heading towards the ship.
I got on the radio and called the A.D.P (Air Defence Position) on the bridge, 鈥� number eleven Oerlikon to A.D.P,鈥� a Officer answered 鈥渨hat do you want number 11,鈥� 鈥渢hree torpedo tracks on the port quarter sir, 鈥� Officer, 鈥渄on鈥檛 worry number eleven we can see them.鈥� Even as he was speaking, I could feel the ship heel over and start shuddering as she went hard to port steering towards the torpedoes.
The first missed by about two hundred yards, the second by 100 yards, the third by 25 yards; to this day, I swear I could hear the electric motor as the last one went by.
We dropped several depth charges, with no results, but at least it kept the U- boat submerged.
Hitler always thought the invasion would take place in Norway. Three days before D- Day, we went out with several other ships as a decoy, to patrol up and down the Norwegian coast making ourself's a nuisance, shooting off a few guns and generally causing havoc.
Whether it made any difference or not, I do not know, but I suppose it tied up a few troops, we never saw one German U-boat or plane; in fact, it was a quiet voyage.
Every night at nine o鈥檆lock, you have Officers rounds. The duty officer walks around all the messes to see if everything is clean and tidy. Half an hour before, this the bugle sounds for the duty watch to fall in to tidy up.
This night I was on duty, normally more duty crew turn up than is necessary, and half are dismissed. This time I thought I would give it a miss, so did nearly everyone else. Instead of thirty people turning up only six did.
The next thing I heard was my name called over the tannoy, to fall in on the quarterdeck, I was told to appear at Captains Defaulters in the morning.
The Captain gave me 14 days jankers (Punishment), it consisted of peeling spuds at the galley for two hours every night. Getting up half an hour before everybody

else and stowing the hammocks. And worst of all, running around the ship with a rifle above your head for an hour, first with the right arm, then the left arm, then with both arms, it was absolute purgatory.

After Norway, we went back on Russian convoys. This time we had a Aircraft Carrier with us, they were called banana boats by the crews because they were formerly merchant ships with the top cut off and a deck fitted for the aircraft to take off and land. We were two days sailing time away from Scotland coming back from Murmansk.
I was sitting on one of my magazine containers looking aft at the Aircraft Carrier, when all of a sudden there was a large explosion. A column of fire and water shot up in the air amidships of the carrier, she started listing to port. I thought she was going to sink, but she heeled over about 20 decrees and came to a halt.
The destroyer鈥檚 went full speed after the U-boat, dropping depth charges where the Asdic (Radar) had picked up a ping, the carrier managed to re-start her engines and limp home to Scotland. We were about a mile in front of the carrier, so the U-boat must have let us go by for a more prized target, the carrier.
The ship sailed to Rosyth in Scotland, and I went on fourteen days leave. I thought I would have a nice relaxing time; I went down to Leicester Square to see a film, and have a meal at one of the servicemen's clubs. Coming home, I went down the tube to the Piccadilly line and caught a train to Cockfosters, then jumped on a number 29 bus to Potters-bar.
It only went to the high street so I had to wait for a connection to South Mimms. First, I heard this strange engine noise; it was pop pop popping along. Next, I noticed everybody was looking up, some were pointing at this small looking plane, it passed overhead and then the engine cut out. It started diving and coming back on itself.
As I looked around, I noticed everybody was lying down, so I threw myself behind the wall of "The Lion" a public house.
There was a big explosion followed by the blast of hot air, I was covered in brick dust, and splinters of wood.
The Flying bomb had landed about 200 yards up the Southgate road, the very road I was standing in. I ran up to offer my help, but theA.R.P (Air Raid Precautions) warden said they had enough helpers; the A.F.S (Auxiliary Fire Service) were already there. The bomb demolished some six houses and a Catholic church and damaged dozens of others; it killed several people, and injured many others.

When my leave was over, I went back on board H.M.S. Devonshire in Rosyth, and once more, we sailed to Russia. It was winter, and when we got near Archangel, we were stuck in the middle of an ice flow and had to stop our engines in case the ice damaged our propellers.
We were stuck for about 18 hours, until the ice started breaking up and we were able to get out. As Archangel was iced up, we went to Murmansk.
At the end of 1944, things were getting a trifle quite and some of the crew were getting bored. A few fights were also breaking out on board, so one day the captain anchored the ship just off an uninhabited Island, I think it was near Spitzbergen.
We lowered the whalers and rowed ashore; we stormed up the beach and started to scale the cliffs. They were only about thirty foot high, all of a sudden, dozens of flour bags came hurdling down and we were covered in blobs of dough where the flour had mixed with the sweat and snow.
A few more fights broke out at the top of the cliffs, but it did let off a bit of steam. After things had quietened down, the cooks who were already on the Island made some sausage sandwiches and hot cups of tea. Everybody had a good laugh.
The people who were first on the Island, had left the ship on the motor launch very early in the morning before anybody was up, and had set up on the cliff top, know body suspected a thing.
Rowing back to the ship, we stopped half way and the Officer in charge produced some hand grenades, and tossed a dozen over the side. Up came hundreds of all types of fish which we spent the next half an hour or so collecting. The lower deck had fresh fish and chips for supper that night, I can recommend that type of fishing, beats the old rod and line any day.
Just before Christmas the Russians sent a concert party on board, they were very good, danced all their traditional dances. Several played the balalaika, and they finished singing in English, It鈥檚 a long way to Tipperary, and, pack up your troubles in your old kit bag, GREAT STUFF!
1945 We were patrolling up the Norwegian coast acting as an escort for some minesweepers, laying mines at the entrance to a fiord. Suddenly, up popped what we thought was a German U- boat.
I opened fire and could see my tracers ricocheting off the conning tower, every other machine gun also opened up at the same time. Smoke started coming from the top of the conning tower, a white flag appeared and started waving like mad, and everyone stopped firing.
Good, I thought; we have captured a U -boat; I wondered how much a U- boat was worth in prize money. However, it was not to be, it turned out to be a submarine manned by a Free Polish crew, volunteers in the Royal Navy.
They had been on patrol, and had been depth charged so badly, that all the compasses were damaged and useless; they did not know where they were. They were following the Norwegian coast, when they saw us and popped up to ask the way, and to borrow a compass, I'm glad to say nobody was injured, alls well that ends well.
When the war started and the Germans invaded Norway, the government felt it was best for King Haakon and his family to evacuate to England, so they sent the cruiser H.M.S. Devonshire to do the job.
When the European war ended, they sent the same cruiser to take him back. It was about this time that I was detailed off to become bowmen on the Captains barque, which meant I was now on the captain鈥檚 staff. Only three people on the ship could give me orders, the Captain, the coxswain of the barque, and the Captain鈥檚 valet. The barque was a thirty-foot motorboat with a Perkins diesel engine, with a crew of four, coxswain, engineer, stern sheets man, and bowman.
When I first got this job I wasn't to keen, because it meant wearing my number three suit (second best suit) all day, everybody else had overalls on. In addition, I would be on call 24 hours a day, but it turned out to be one of the best duty鈥檚 I had ever had.
I got on well with the Captains valet and every now and then he would slip me a couple of the Captains specially brewed beers, the only bottled beer I had ever seen with hops inside the bottle. Being on the captain鈥檚 staff we were excused all duties, no church parades, no work duties, no scrubbing the decks at seven o, clock in the morning.
We could also lie in for an extra half an hour every morning, I just tied a sheet of paper on my hammock saying Captains staff and nobody could do anything about it. Mind you, it also had its drawbacks.
One night, we took the Captain to Scapa bay. He was going to a party at Kirkwall given by some wren Officers, he told us to come back at midnight. We started back to the ship that was about five miles away when a storm blew up, and it started pouring of rain and you could only see 10 yards in front of you.
When we left the ship the coxswain should have taken a compass bearing, being the bowman I sat with the Petty Officer Coxswain up front, and should have taken a bearing, we both forgot. The waves were breaking over the bows and hitting me in the face, I had trouble trying to keep a lookout, and we were soaking wet.
The further we went the bigger the waves got, suddenly there was a crash, I heard the crack of wood. We had run into a boom defence buoy a sure sign we were heading out to sea. I grabbed a boat hook and secured it to the buoy; if the boat went down, we would have to jump onto the buoy.
We lifted up the floorboards in the bottom of the boat, our luck was in, there was no water coming in. We took a bearing on the buoy and went in the opposite direction, the rain started to ease off a fraction.
After a while, a grey shape appeared out of the mist, a battleship, we pulled along side the ladder and called the Officer of the watch. He gave us a bearing of the Devonshire and we arrived back safely, later when we went to pick up the Captain we made sure we took a bearing.
The European war had been over less than twenty-four hours. We were sailing down the Skagerrak towards Oslo, on board was King Haakon of Norway and his entourage.
We anchored in the fiord; the duty Officer piped away the Captains barque. We were going to take the King, his people, and the Captain ashore; we left the ship and headed towards the jetty.
As we got near we could see crowds of people all cheering and waving flags, we tied up at the jetty, the King and our skipper disembarked. Before he went he said, 鈥測ou can stay here or come back in four hours, please yourselves鈥�, we decided to go ashore and have a look around. We tied the boat up to the jetty and went ashore; I believe we were the first British crew to step on Norwegian soil since the German occupation.
People kept coming up to shake our hand, a couple of people told us to be careful as there were still armed Germans walking about. We did not have any arms, only knives, which most sailors carried when on board ship, to cut away lashing on carley floats (life rafts) and lifeboats in case the ship went down.
As we were walking through the town people were waving and stopping us to talk, English was their second language so we had no trouble communicating. Walking up the road we came across a large mob of people hollering and shouting, as we approached they made way for us.

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