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This story was submitted to the People’s War website by a volunteer from Lincolnshire CSV Action Desk on behalf of Hugh Hendry and has been added to the site with his permission. Mr Hendry fully understands the site’s terms and conditions.

At 7 a.m. on the morning of D Day, 6th June, 1944, three trawlers sailed out of Freetown Harbour, West Africa. It was a beautiful day and I couldn’t help but think how fortunate I was in not being involved in the D Day beach landings. The names of the trawlers were HMS Inkpen, Birdlip and Turcoman. I served aboard the Inkpen as an Anti-Submarine Detector rating. We set out in a south westerly direction down the coast of West Africa towards a port called Grand Bassam on the Ivory Coast. A distance of about 600 miles.

Once there, we met up wit a French merchant vessel, the “Saint Basile,2 carrying a cargo of timber. It then became our job to escort this ship to Freetown. This was done by ‘screening’ which meant the merchant ship hugged the coast, and the escort ships provided submarine screening protection on the seaward side.

I was on ASDIC (anti-screening) Watch about midnight on 13th June 1944 when there was a loud explosion which, it emerged later, as being the result of a torpedo sinking the Birdlip, which then exposed the whole side of the merchant ship. The U-boat (U547) wasted no time and sank it by torpedoes.

The Inkpen and Turcoman immediately began carrying out submarine search procedure which lasted all night and during which, the Inkpen picked up about one dozen survivors from the French ship. During the night, the Turcoman suffered a complete communications systems failure and contact was lost between us. As a result, the Turcoman was ordered to return to Freetown. The submarine was never detected and the survivors from HMS Birdlip (approx. 16) made it to the shore on two Carley Floats (rafts), and finally on to hospitalisation in Freetown.

One very sad aspect here. Because of last minute sickness, one of the Leading Seamen aboard the Birdlip was replaced by one of ours. We were never to see him again as he went down with the HMS Birdlip.

Another incident took place on our way back to Freetown. We picked up an echo one evening at about 10 p.m. which was thought to be a U-boat. Action Stations was sounded and search procedure was initiated which kept the crew at action stations all night.

All our trawlers were coal burners and during action stations, a full head of steam had to be maintained. This meant that the stokers had to work non-stop to keep the fires well stoked. After several hours in the heat of the engine room the stokers were becoming exhausted and in need of a break.

As a result, one of our officers came to the main deck where several of the unhurt survivors were standing. He asked a French officer if there were any stokers in the group to which the answer was “Yes, there are two. He was then asked to order them down below. This he did but the stokers flatly refused to do so. At action stations our officers all had to wear hand guns, so he took his gun and put it to the head of one of the stokers. He asked the French officer to tell them once more — it had the desired effect. An all-night vigil resulted in a fruitless search.

Finally, two days out from Freetown, we received orders to rendezvous in darkness with a convoy of ships, take out a merchant ship and escort it to Freetown. This was done, bringing an eventful but tragic trip to a conclusion.

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