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My father, Herbert Geoffrey Hall - Geoff Hall — was born in Macclesfield, Cheshire, in 1911, and died in retirement in North Wales in 2002, aged 90. During the Second World War he served in the Merchant Navy. He kept a diary of his experiences from which he later prepared accounts of some of the more memorable and important of these. This is his account of his time on coastal towing duties for salvage work.

Val Myers (nee Hall)

COASTAL TOWING SALVAGE

I decided that salvage work was so much more interesting than normal seagoing that I would stay in that business if possible. I received an offer from a firm called Overseas Towage and Salvage Co. who asked me to take a job as Chief on a big Tug based in the Clyde, and this I accepted.
Arrived in Gourock I was surprised to find that the Cherbourgeois 3 was a large French tug, normally employed in Cherbourg harbour to handle the arrival and departure of the large Atlantic liners which prevailed in the days before air travel took over. She was about 40 years old and had escaped across here when the Germans swept across France in 1939. The accommodation was poor, but the pay was good, the food was good, and we had one of the best cooks I'd come across. Working in and out of the Clyde was very pleasant so I decided to stay.
The Clyde was always a very important river for shipping and never more so than in wartime. Opening off the river on the north side are several lochs of varying size; the first of these, some 20 miles downstream from Glasgow, is the Gareloch. Here at Faslane had been constructed a very long quay to serve as a substitute, should the main docks of Glasgow be put out of use. This quay was in regular use by now by quite big ships and, as the entrance to the Gareloch is fairly narrow, all big ships were taken in tow by a tug, not to pull them through the narrows so much as to keep them on course clear of the rocks nearby.
The main part of our work appeared to be ushering ships in and out and helping them turn at the top of the loch. Every third night we stayed up there on Fire Protection duties. Meanwhile all sorts of other jobs cropped up and we were kept on our toes most of the time.
The tug itself was really worn out. She was a twin screw with two 600 hp engines and one huge coal fired boiler about 20 ft. in diameter with 4 big furnaces which consumed coal at a great rate. Fortunately most of our jobs were of short duration so it was possible to get a head of steam and keep it for an hour or so, but if we had to clean fires whilst working life became very hard.
The Overseas Towage and Salvage Co. appeared to be a fairly new set-up, running all sorts of vessels, many like the Cher 3 being continental escapees as Germany took over the European countries. I never made contact with the top brass but on Cher 3, which appeared to be their flag ship, we had two skippers, half brothers of Jersey origin. John Martell was in charge and I discovered he had a deep-sea ticket. A slim, dapper, smart, intelligent man of about 40, like many other deep sea men he wasn't particularly good at handling the vessel in congested conditions, but as his experience was mostly in and out of the harbours of the south of England he was better than many others.
His half-brother, Horace, was a very different proposition. Large, burly, taciturn, about 50, he could barely read or write, held only a Home Trade ticket (which limited him to working English ports or between the Elbe and Brest) but was, without exception, the best Skipper I ever met at handling a vessel under all conditions of weather, congestion, darkness and anything else. His knowledge of every port on the south coast area was phenomenal and I felt I could trust him completely.
When he was there John acted as Skipper, and 'Orry (as he was known) as Mate, but John also acted as Superintendent for the Co. and was often away on other duties, in which case 'Orry took over, which occurred more and more frequently until we only saw John when he called with special instructions, or to see how we were.
Just above Gourock is a larger area of the Clyde known as the 'Tail of the Bank'. Here there is plenty of room to anchor ships well clear of the passage way further up river to Glasgow Docks, etc. When I joined the Cher 3 one of the first notable sights at the Tail of the Bank was the Queen Mary, not only at anchor but also badly damaged forward. Later it became known that she had been rushing across the Atlantic, accompanied by only one navel cruiser, the Curacao, zig-zagging as they went. On the 2nd October 1942 there was a miscalculation and the Queen Mary overran the cruiser, hitting her amidships at about 30 knts.
The cruiser sank with the loss of about 740 men. The bow of the Q.M. was cut back about 60 ft below the foredeck in the shape of what she hit. As there was no dry dock available to carry out repairs, she was left in the Clyde until it was deemed safe to send her to Southampton. When she was due to move it was found that her anchors could not be lifted as she had been swinging with the tides for six months or so and the cables were twisted like a rope. We, and about 6 other vessels, were sent to turn her round and unravel the mess. We did, but it took us 26 hours to do, during which we turned her through 17 revolutions.
Helping ships manoeuvre at this anchorage, leading ships in and out of the Gareloch, duties at Faslane, and many other odd jobs kept us on the go all day and sometimes at night as well, but we got one night in 3 when we were off duty, could go ashore and were certain of a decent night's sleep.
One of our first jobs was when our towing wire got caught up in our starboard propeller and wound so tightly round the shaft that we could not move the engine to unwind it. We returned on one engine, and sent for a diver, who reported that nothing could be done out of dry dock and this was not possible at short notice. The alternative might have been to moor on a quay which dried out at low tide so that we could get access to the propeller; as, however, it was neap tides there was not sufficient rise and fall for this to be feasible for some days.
Below our accommodation right at the bottom of the tug was a trap door giving access to a space about 2'6" high, through which ran the two propeller shafts. I knew there would be a coupling on each shaft but whether I could get at the nuts without being able to turn the shaft remained unlikely. However, luck was with me for once. Because there was so little room, split muff couplings had been used in place of the usual flange type, and further, the muff on the starboard shaft was right way up, so that I could get at the nuts. Removing the nuts was only a matter of hard work in very cramped conditions. but once I had undone the eight bolts I was able to remove half the muff, but I was now afraid that when I knocked the lower half off, the shaft might jump out far enough to cause heavy leakage into my confined space. Securing the shaft as best I could, I knocked off the lower half of the coupling, whereupon the shaft sprang outwards some 8 inches but not enough to cause serious leakage. Once relieved of the jamming effect we were able to haul in the rope and rotate the propeller until all was free. With some difficulty we were able to haul in the shaft, and I could replace the coupling as before. This took all day, but we were ready for duty next morning and later I received a complimentary message from the Admiralty Berthing Officer (ABO). My conclusion was that, as ropes are always being handled all round a tug, twin screws wasn't a good idea.
The next item of note was when we went to pass a tow-rope to an American Tanker. Somehow one of their crew got foul of our rope hauling in their wire, and he was snatched over the side, and promptly sank with the weight of the wire. We hauled him in as quickly as we could, but nonetheless he seemed to be under water for several minutes. Getting him aboard, he hung upside down for a minute or so and we could see the water running out of him. As soon as we got him on deck I applied artificial respiration, and was surprised when he started breathing again. There was a Yankee battleship nearby, and they sent a launch to get him to their hospital where, we learned later, he made a full recovery apart from the fact that both his eardrums were punctured.
One of the several advantages of this job was that I could get a weekend at home about every six weeks and as our rations on board were very generous I could usually take some sugar, butter, tea, etc. which was greatly appreciated by those struggling on the very limited supplies allowed at home. The trains were nearly always late, and taxis almost impossible, so I would ring Norah, (Geoff’s wife) before leaving Glasgow. She would bring the child's pushchair down to the station in Burnley and we would have a pleasant walk a mile and a half home, assuming it wasn't raining.
About this time the new taxation system known as 'Pay As You Earn' was brought into use, attended by all its teething troubles, which all seemed to end in favour of the authorities. To start with, we were all taxed as single men with large deficits for previous underpayments, or so they said. As can be imagined this caused much dissatisfaction amongst the crew as some of us got almost no wages at all. It provided the sole topic of conversation for a week or so, until reason prevailed and our circumstances were properly examined and more realistic deductions made.
Our next trip of note was a splendid run to Oban, to bring back the Empire Cupid, another tug of this Company, which had somehow broken its propeller and steering engine. I think sailing amongst the islands of the inner Hebrides is the only kind of seagoing I really like.
One day in May we got a frantic call to go to the aid of the huge American Warship the Missouri, which had managed to get itself stuck on a bank of the river. We and several other tugs put ropes on, but there was little we could do until the tide gave the lift needed, some 5 hours later. Just another job we thought, but a couple of days later we received a nice letter of thanks from the C.O. of the Missouri, and each of our crew got a parcel containing 200 cigarettes and 3 lb of candy. Very acceptable. Two days later our Customs Officers took it into their heads to pay us a visit and, of course, they found everybody with 200 cigarettes on which duty had not been paid. They proposed to confiscate the fags and fine us all for their possession. Only after the ABO made representations to the Senior Customs people was the matter allowed to blow over, and we to keep our cigarettes.
Being due, once more, for a boiler clean, half the crew were allowed home on leave. Albert (2nd Engineer) went off for a couple of days and I was about to start blowing down. That evening I went ashore to the pictures in Greenock. Towards the end of the picture, "San Demetrio- London" there appeared on the screen a hand-written message: Urgently required the crew of the French Ship Cherbertous 3 must return immediately on board.
Accordingly I left the cinema and caught the first bus back to Gourock where I found a state of chaos. Only about one-third of our crew were aboard, and they wanted us to leave immediately to go to the rescue of a ship in trouble near Londonderry, about 250 miles away. Fortunately we hadn't started blowing down the boiler, but we were very short of coal so had to arrange to pick some up. As we had only one of our regular firemen on board, the Pool arranged to send two others. We picked up an old sea-dog from another tug, a man who held a deep sea ticket, as Mate, and I managed to phone Albert and arrange to pick him up on our way down the Clyde as he lived at Dunoon. He and I would have to split the engine room duties. Off we set.
Albert took her to Campbelltown, where we loaded 63 tons of coal. Then we set off and our troubles really began.
The two Pool firemen were rotten with booze, were lazy specimens and quite unused to the very hard work required to keep steam on our huge boiler, which needed cleaning anyway. Our one regular fireman was a diminutive Spaniard, called Joachim Segura Hernandez, a man who had fought on the wrong side in the Spanish Civil War and dare not go home. He was about 5' 4" tall and must have weighed all of 8 stone, but he was a superb fireman. We were burning over a ton of coal an hour and to shovel this and clean out one fire every two hours required a lot of effort. Joe, as he was called, was the only one who could keep a reasonable head of steam at all.
The result of this was that Albert and I spent more time in the stokehold than the engine room, and I certainly learned a lot about burning coal, and was more than ever convinced of the superiority of oil as a fuel. The weather was quite good, but the temporary crew members soon showed that they were not used to small craft by being repeatedly sick, which didn't help.
Fortunately we were able to pick up wireless bearings, and on Sunday morning we sighted a fine big merchant ship the S.S. Scorton which had lost her rudder. We took her in tow, but our lack of steam meant that we could barely keep her straight, never mind tow her as well. Whenever we got in a complete jam in the stokehold there was nothing else but to send for Joe. He growled at being overworked but within a few minutes of his starting work things would improve, and we would start to make progress, slow though it was. Once the coal stopped running from the bunkers and had to be barrowed into the stokehold it became even harder, but I put the useless firemen on this job, and Joe, Albert and I fired the boiler.
. Tuesday morning saw us pass through the boom and although the big ship came sideways she was in the centre of the gate. Having moored her to a buoy, we were able to go to our usual berth and knock off. Weren't we glad! Next day we received the usual message of congratulations from the Admiralty but, to our surprise we also received a visit from a Naval reporter and a photographer. Much was made of our story and this, complete with photographs, was emblazoned even in the National Press. What we didn't know was that this week was the build up to the invasion of Europe and an embargo had been placed on what the Press could report, so they were scratching for any bits of news to fill their pages. What we had done could have been of little interest to the Enemy.
Being due some leave I went home and was able to get my car on the road with a limited amount of petrol. We had a week staying in Dane Cottage where Norah and I had spent our very brief honeymoon.
Before my leave was up I got a wire to return as we were off South. We had to sign fresh articles and this time, when in the Shipping Office they collected all our Identity cards. These were returned, shortly, prominently stamped with a big 'V'. The shipping Master then explained that he was pleased we had all volunteered to take part in the invasion of Europe and that we had now agreed to do any job anywhere as required. I suppose it was necessary but it would have been nice to be asked.

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