大象传媒

"This story was submitted to the People's War site by Lois Cooper and has been added to the website on behalf of Mr. Bundy with his permission and he fully understands the site's terms and conditions"

On the 25th November 1941 I was serving on H.M.S. Queen Elizabeth, which was at that time the flagship of Admiral A. B. Cunningham. We were in the Eastern Mediterranean, midway between Crete and the Bay of Sollum. It was a most beautiful day - warm sunshine, blue cloudless sky and the sea was flat calm.

It was just after 4 o'clock in the afternoon, and I had just come off watch. Like most of the watch I had taken a mug of tea on to the upper deck to enjoy the sun and admire the view. It was a beautiful sight - 3 large battleships steaming in a line ahead and with a screen of twelve destroyers in a 鈥淰 shape鈥� ahead and around us. H.M.S. Queen Elizabeth was leading, followed by H.M.S. Barham which was about 300 yards astern of us, and H.M.S. Valiant another 300 yards astern of her.

Suddenly at 4.23 we saw two or three large columns of water rear over the decks of H.M.S. Barham, followed by an enormous explosion and two further explosions seconds later. She had been struck by four torpedoes.

Almost immediately after a German submarine broke surface before crash diving only about 40 yards off the starboard rail of the Valiant. She was unable to manoeuvre to ram the submarine for fear of colliding with the Barham which was still continuing to steam on her course, rolling over on a perfectly even keel with neither bow nor stern in the air, but listing very quickly indeed. The Valiant did open fire on the submarine but it was so close to her that she couldn鈥檛 depress her guns sufficiently and the rounds passed over the submarine.

In the meantime the Barham was listing over so far that dozens of men were sliding down her side and standing on the anti-submarine bulge halfway down. It was obvious to us on the Queen Elizabeth that the Barham was sinking fast, and I can remember that we were shouting to the men to jump. This was how close we were to her.

The Captain's motorboat and the ship's whalers all broke away from their lashings and rolled down the deck and side of the Barham knocking men over like ninepins. The list became so pronounced that after only about 3 minutes from the time of the torpedoing the Barham's mainmast struck the surface of the sea, and seconds later we saw water pouring into her funnel.

Suddenly there was a blinding flash, an enormous explosion and a mushroom of black smoke rose thousands of feet into the air. Debris was hurled into the air, and I saw one of the 15 inch gun turrets lifted up hundreds of feet. We were ordered to take cover because of the falling debris. Apparently a fire aboard the Barham caused a small magazine to explode and this in turn blew into the main magazine of the battleship.

In 4 minutes and 45 seconds a 35,000 ton battleship was lost and with her 868 officers and men. A friend who was serving on her dived overboard as soon as she was struck and was picked up a mile astern. The gives some indication of the speed of the fleet and of the stricken ship which had kept up even while she was sinking. Two destroyers picked up 474 survivors. The submarine couldn鈥檛 be attacked by depth charges because the survivors were spread over a large surface of the sea. Unfortunately many sailors couldn't swim and on a large ship not everyone wore a life jacket. It was difficult to imagine such a large ship sinking so quickly.

There is no doubt that it was a very brave effort on the part of the German submarine. It was presumed that she must have been only just below the surface when she crept through the screen of the12 destroyers so the ASDICs failed to detect her and the surface ships were also closely packed. Probably the reason she was visible when she crash dived was also because she was so close to the surface. The German crew were apparently given a tremendous reception when the submarine returned to her base.

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