大象传媒

I was born in November 1925 at Austerfield near Bawtry, so I can claim to be a Yorkshireman by a few hundred yards. 鈥淣obbut just鈥� as they say in Yorkshire. I spent my schooldays in Lincoln and then Scarborough when my parents moved there in 1938. I left school in the Christmas term of 1939 aged 14 years.
I started work in advertising with the Imperial Tobacco Co. group in January 1940, and stayed there until 1941 when the advertising department closed down due to the wartime restrictions of materials. I then took a position as a civilian storeman at the Clifton Hotel in Scarborough. The Royal Marine bandsmen had been moved out of Deal in Kent to Scarborough and were housed in the Clifton and Norbeck Hotels on the North side of the bay. From here I was drafted into the Royal Navy in August of 1941, aged 16 years, and then in 1942 was sent to join the crew of HMS Matchless which was undergoing a refit at Hull docks. After a few weeks in Hull we were on our way to Scapa Flow.
In retrospect the voyage to Scapa Flow was fairly uneventful but as a first voyage it was hair raising at the time. Enemy aircraft were sighted on two occasions and action stations were closed up. My action station was X shell room in the lowest part of the stern of the ship. A petty officer stoker on the flat above came and screwed down the hatch after us. I found this very nerve racking to start with but soon got used to it. It鈥檚 surprising how quickly you can used to things as a 16 year old.
HMS Matchless was a fleet destroyer, about two years old when I joined the wartime crew of two hundred and fifty. The main armaments were three turrets with two 4鈥�7鈥� guns each, torpedo tubes, a 4鈥� gun, rapid fire pom poms, Orlican machine guns and depth charges. The displacement was 2000 tons and she had a speed of 39 knots. We were based in Scapa Flow harbour for the next two years and with our main armaments in turrets it was inevitable we would be used mainly in northern waters and on Russian convoys.
The first few weeks at Scapa Flow were spent working up to a high degree of efficiency and on sea trials. On one occasion we were escorting the HMS Duke of York, one of our largest warships, on sea trials. Asdic and depth charge crew only were required for these trials so a friend and I were standing on the upper deck when the destroyers started dropping depth charges and the Duke of York opened fire with her 14 inch guns over us. It was as if all hell had broken loose and although it only lasted a short time the noise was incredibly loud and unexpected. Immediately afterwards our first thoughts were to have a smoke but my friend couldn鈥檛 hold the cigarette to his mouth or strike a light as his hands were shaking so much. I was the complete opposite, hands not a quiver but my legs were shaking so much that I had to loop my arm round a stanchion to stop myself falling flat on the deck.
No particular convoy stands out, but my memory of that time is of the monotony of it all. Once the cargo ships had picked up speed the convoy travels at the speed of the slowest ship which could be 6 to 8 knots. We could be called to action stations at any time, day or night, and depth charges dropped by our ship and other escorts could go on for hours. Air attacks were short and intense. Survivors were picked up when your ship was almost stationary, and as a sitting duck you couldn鈥檛 help wondering if a U boat had its sights on you. Merchant ships needed to be chivvied along to stop them making smoke which would have given away our position, and I recall the explosions of ships that had stopped a torpedo. The convoys were a blur of rough seas, cold and ice, rationed water, cockroaches swarming around the electric fires on the ship, rats using the air vents in the mess as runs, and the continuous ping of the Asdic searching for U boats. However we soon learned to accept these conditions as petty inconveniences and barely noticed them at the time.
I did get a thrill from visiting foreign ports and the anticipation of going ashore was a welcome break from the convoys. My first foreign port was the Faroe Islands. Three of us were put ashore from the liberty boat onto a very small jetty. We set off and walked for hours but could only see distant houses on a remote hillside. We eventually concluded we must have walked in the wrong direction and we never did get to see the port. We did however manage to find a shop which luckily accepted our currency and we bought ice cream and chocolate as a consolation.
Visits to Iceland and Russia followed. We travelled regularly to the Polyarnyy inlet north of Murmansk within the Arctic circle, escorting merchant ships which then went on to Murmansk itself. On the first three or four visits to Polyarnyy we were not allowed ashore but then on our next visit we were allowed to tie up alongside a jetty. Unfortunately we then encountered the local armed guard who refused to let us ashore. The guards were formidable ladies, as far round as tall and with rifles and bayonets higher than themselves. Eventually chocolate and cigarettes smoothed our passage ashore and we were able to explore the small town. Most of the buildings were wooden or wood and brick and all very shabby, although we did manage to go the theatre on one occasion. I recall that it was very crowded and very warm even though we were in the depths of an Arctic winter, and though it was completely unintelligible the singing was much appreciated. I also recall having boat and swimming races with the crews of other warships which must have been during one summer visit. Cigarettes and chocolate could be exchanged locally for home made knives, leather belts, lighters and cigarette cases. Cash was also offered but was utterly worthless, some of the notes were for hundreds of thousands of roubles and children carried rolls of banknotes they could hardly get their hands around.
Travelling up into Arctic waters could be magical at times with calm seas and brilliant clear blue skies. In summer there was warm sunshine 24 hours a day with the sun seeming to sink down almost to the horizon before rising back up through the skies . The flip side were the winter voyages when there were twenty four hours of darkness and biting cold winds, mountainous seas and fog and ice. During our first convoys we wished for the cover of darkness and fog so the German ships could not find us, or their dive bombers home in on us, but we learned to appreciate the long daylight hours when we could see the enemy and our more advanced technology gave us an advantage and helped us to out manoeuvre them.
Boxing Day, 1943 was a momentous day for the crew of HMS Matchless. At 0605 hours we closed up for action stations and were in action all that day until about 1800 hours. The noise and activity were intense and ceaseless, without really having time to rest or think. When the action died down we went in to pick up survivors. There seemed to be hundreds of German sailors in the water on rafts, or in small boats or clinging to wreckage, with most of them having red lamps and whistles attached to their lifejackets. However we had to keep moving through this flotilla of survivors as a number of enemy submarines had been located close by and had we stopped we would have been an easy target. We later learned that we had taken part in the Battle of the North Cape which had resulted in the sinking of the Scharnhorst. Out of a crew of about sixteen hundred men on the Scharnhorst there were thirty six survivors recorded. I still have a list of their names and signatures. One of the traditions of the Royal Navy after a successful action is to pipe up spirits and that is how that day ended, but at just eighteen years old I had to make do with lime juice instead of a tot of rum.
As I write this the VE celebrations are being televised and hearing Vera Lynn, Anne Shelton and Gracie Fields reminds me of listening to them on board the Matchless. The further north we travelled the more the radio would fade away until it was silent for days on end. Eventually we turned south. Possibly approaching Iceland we would start to hear them again on the radio and in minutes the news would circulate round the crew, as this was a sure sign that we were nearing Scapa Flow again. Then we would see the occasional flying boat circle the convoy checking for submarines for a while until shortage of fuel forced them to return. Welcome signs we were nearly out of danger once more.
By 1944 the Arctic convoys were becoming less frantic and more routine although the winter convoys were always challenging. We still lost merchant ships through enemy action by Stuka dive bombers and submarines. We also noticed a gradual change in the Russians on the occasions we were allowed shore leave in Polyarnyy. Their attitude towards us was softening and they were becoming friendlier. They still offered cash for chocolate and cigarettes but few of us, if any, took it. I remember getting a couple of sheath knives and hand made jewellery which had been made from damaged German aircraft. Our trips ashore revealed the depth of poverty of the Russian people. Boys and girls aged from about eight years upwards were living in large wooden Nissen type huts with forty to fifty children to each hut. The only toilet would be a 50 gallon oil drum with the top cut off. We assumed the children were orphans and were working in the munitions factories. It was a grim and forbidding place.
On HMS Matchless we spent a lot of time covering north and south bound convoys. We joined in sweeps of thirty to forty warships off the coasts of Norway, Sweden and Finland. These areas were being used by U boats to get into the Atlantic as the channel was barred to them. We also hoped to catch the Tirpitz, the last of the heavy German battleships if she made a run for it.
Sometime in 1944, possibly in August, we were detailed to escort the Queen Mary across the Atlantic. Churchill was on board the Queen Mary and on his way for talks with the US president. The escort was organised like a relay race with six destroyers positioned in pairs across the Atlantic. The Queen Mary was a very fast ship and could also carry enough fuel to see her all the way to New York. Although we were faster ships we couldn鈥檛 carry enough fuel for the distance involved so each pair of destroyers escorted the Queen Mary several hundred miles to the next pair of waiting ships. On Matchless we were the last in the chain . As we started the last leg of the journey we ran into hurricane weather and the Queen Mary was forced to reduce her speed to avoid structural damage. We circled her at one point towing a drogue so that Winnie could shoot at it with an anti-aircraft gun. As we were registering forty foot waves at the time I don鈥檛 think he had many hits. Engine room staff were on duty to shut down the ships engines as the screws came up out of the waves, as to let them run free could have caused major damage through vibration. The Queen Mary completed her passage to New York and we continued to St Johns, Newfoundland.
We spent two to three weeks in St Johns and a very pleasant time it was. There was none of the rationing or shortages we were accustomed to, and no wartime blackout in the town. Most of the crew stocked up on items which at that time were unobtainable at home. Silk stockings were popular mainly because most of the other things available there were beyond our pay. The local inhabitants were all very friendly and curious about conditions back in the UK. We heard that Italy had capitulated and that was a huge relief. When it was time to leave Newfoundland the homeward bound journey involved escorting another convoy back across the Atlantic, but on this occasion a large one. We didn鈥檛 know at the time but this convoy was carrying US troops to the UK in preparation for D Day.
A major change then followed as our next detail involved being sent on escort duty into the Mediterranean. Usually a couple of days in Gibraltar, then travelling as far as the Suez Canal and spending a day or two in Port Said before returning to the UK via Malta and Gibraltar. These journeys could be quite hair raising but the convoys were made up of converted liners and modern merchantmen capable of maintaining a speed in excess of 15 knots. This meant we could outrun U boats and were less vulnerable to aircraft attack, though we did still sustain damage to the convoys. The Germans occupied the North African coast at this time and a little light relief was provided by our ships鈥� ability to shell the German positions whilst remaining safely out of range of their fire power.
During one convoy we were escorting ships from Gibraltar to the UK and had reached the Bay of Biscay. This area was notorious for U boats and bombers and our ship developed condenseritis, a term used to describe a fault whereby a ship is unable to convert sea water to fresh water. Because of this fault the convoy left our ship in the Bay of Biscay to effect repairs and continued its journey without us. We all felt extremely vulnerable as a stationary ship without power and consequently very little in the way of defence. This situation lasted a nerve racking 18 hours until we were repaired and on our way again. Enemy aircraft and U boats were reported in the area at this time but luckily we escaped unscathed.
We finally put into Plymouth for repairs and were given three days shore leave. I travelled home to Scarborough by train and arrived at 5.30am on the second day of my leave. This turned out to be a whirlwind visit as I had to leave by early afternoon of the same day to catch a train that would ensure I arrived back in Plymouth before midnight on the third day. Rail travel wasn鈥檛 very fast in wartime !
After our repairs it was back to Scapa Flow and the Arctic convoy duties. These were now generally much faster convoys than our earlier ones and enemy action was significantly reduced. The US was turning out merchant ships, liberty boats, of a concrete construction and powered by modern diesel engines, but even so the enemy managed to get the odd ship or two. At this time the Tirpitz was in Altenfjord and although damaged was still considered a threat. We carried out numerous sweeps of the Scandinavian coast hoping the Tirpitz would show herself but never encountered her.
After spending almost two years at sea our ship, the Matchless, was due for a refit and the crew was paid off. I was drafted to Grimsby and billeted in civilian accommodation and spent about eight weeks working on supply ships which serviced the minesweepers. Towards the end of the year I was drafted to Greenock and then embarked on HMS Tyne, a destroyer depot ship I knew well from Scapa Flow.
Then we were on our way to the Far East.

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