大象传媒

If this happening differs from any official records, then blame it on the memory of an old man and I give my apologies henceforth.

In late May/early June 1942, four boats from a flotilla of C class Motor Gun Boats (MGBs) stationed at Great Yarmouth, Norfolk, were sent on patrol to the Dutch coast, where they would harass enemy E boats (fast German torpedo boats) returning from attacking our East Coast convoys, or engaging any other enemy after it had become dark. We would reach enemy waters after it had become dark and already have "closed up" to our respective Action Stations, where we remained whilst in enemy waters, keeping a vigilant watch, using our eyes and ears, as at this particular time, we didn't have the advantage of radar. On this particular night, engines were stopped, but instead of quiteness descending upon the boat, there was a great deal of activity going on, somebody was being heaved out of the sea. An airman was being brought on board, he was an American who had joined the Royal Canadian Air Force, he and his two air crew, fellow members of the Royal Canadian Air Force, had come down somewhere off the English coast and now this airman alone in the dingy was floating somewhere off the Dutch coast, he had heard our engines, and shouted loud enough for someone on board to have heard him.

The airman was the pilot, who with his two crew, possibly flying a Torpedo bomber, had been forced to ditch and managed to scramble out of the sinking plane and into their dingy. His name was Hoke Mahon. Whether Hoke was an abbreviation of an American christian name, or a nickname, I do not know. When he and his dingy were brought on board, he was taken below to our small mess deck, where sips of water were given to him, then later spoonfuls of fruit juice. His feet, due to exposure, were likened to blacken rotten potatoes, but surprisingly he was quite lucid.

We now started back to our home base, our commanding officer, realising how weak he was, decided to abort the operation, a very unusual thing to do.

This is Hoke's story.
After a few days in their dingy, one of the crew died and had to be put over the side to float away. On the eleventh day of the remaining two's ordeal, the other crew member died. Hoke managed to put his comrade over the side of the dingy, to float away, but said he was so lonely. He tried to paddle to him to bring him back on board, but was too weak to do so. Soon after that, as Hoke lay motionless in the dingy, a seagull alighted on his head, he managed to grab it, kill it and drank its blood, it was on that nightfall that he was rescued.

About two o'clock or thereabouts, we arrived back at our base at Great Yarmouth, where a Royal Air Force ambulance was waiting to take him to hospital. Next morning, a Royal Air Force Warrant Officer and airmen arrived in a lorry to collect the dingy. As we helped to load it on the lorry, I noticed it had some uniforms of the crew, and many seagull feathers.

A year later, my mother sent me a cutting from a national newspaper which showed a photograph of Hoke, who had just married his nurse. He was still using two walking sticks, so he had a long time recovering.

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