大象传媒

I emigrated to Australia from England in early 1939 when I was 17. After war broke out, I felt I was not making my contribution, so I left Australia to try to get back to the UK in 1940, and finally arrived back in January 1944.

By April 1942 I was on board the Elsa, a tanker operated by a Norwegian shipping line, in the Bay of Bengal. It was dawn. I woke up to the noises of shellfire. I looked out towards the horizon and saw guns flashing on a Japanese cruiser. I actually saw holes appearing in the decks, as the shells were arriving quite accurately. I was on the starboard side at the after end of the ship, with the accommodation block ahead of me. I walked that way to see what was going on, and saw the holes appearing, from the shells landing at a flat angle and going through the deck and out the far side.

Meanwhile the Second Mate was organising the lowering of the lifeboat. It all happened so quickly. The main concern was to get off this explosive vessel. Fortunately we were not carrying aviation spirit on that occasion - the ship had been condemned in Abadan for carrying aviation fuel, and they loaded power kerosene, six thousand tons, and we had discharged some at Colombo, and some at Madras. The rest was for Calcutta, but we never got there.

In the final count of heads on the two boats, there was just one man missing, the brother of one of the Norwegian sailors. We can only assume that he went back to his quarters - he had been the lookout - and he was past saving. We were told not to go back to the quarters, so I was in the boat in my pyjamas. I had nothing with me at all. But it didn't matter. Nobody salvaged anything.

The captain and the mate and the Third Officer got away from the bridge in the captain's gig, a small boat, along with the chief steward. The port boat got away with some men in it, and the starboard boat had most in it; there was enough room in any boat for the whole of the crew, either port or starboard.

We got clear of the burning vessel, and in the head count the Chief Engineer was missing. They decided to set the captain's gig adrift and use the port lifeboat as a sturdier option, and had moved off about a mile when they saw something moving in the gig. The Chief Engineer had apparently dived overboard at the last minute and managed to reach the gig. He was an old chap, about 60. The explanation for him being there so late was he was looking for his dog. The dog, of course, was terrified and had gone and hidden somewhere and he couldn't find it. Eventually he realised he had to leave it or die with it. So he lost his dog, and he was very upset about that, but he was in one piece.

What I did like was that when the attack was over the Japanese ships steamed past us with all the ratings lined up on the deck as if they were on review. Fantastic. We all thought they would machine-gun us for sure, the Norwegians thought that, and everybody started holding the gunwale of the boat, watching for the machine-gun fire, because you can see the shots landing before the bullets get to you, all ready to dive into the water. But nothing happened, which I thought was very good. They seemed to show a mark of respect instead of attempting butchery.

There were 60 ships sunk that day in the Bay of Bengal.

We sailed overnight. Just before dark we sighted land. Of course, we couldn't risk going in during the night, so we put the sea anchor out and rode the night out offshore. With daybreak we could see what we were doing, so we rowed the boat in like a surf boat and everybody hopped out onto the beach. We had landed in the state of Orissa, in North-East India. The only serious injury among us was the mate, with a big lump of his face blown off by shrapnel. We improvised a stretcher and carried him in turns, and the natives, the Indians, directed us walking inland through what was pretty much jungle - I saw a cobra hanging in a tree - until we were eventually picked up by transport, lorries, and taken to Cuttack, the capital of Orissa, and put up in the university and given food and clothing. They seemed to be well organised, the Indians, and I was given khaki shorts and a shirt and underwear.

The next day we were sent by rail to Calcutta, where we were put up in the Grand Hotel on Chowringhee. We were there for about three weeks while the port was closed due to enemy action. Then we were sent over to Bombay, a two-day journey. In Bombay we were put up at the Norwegian Seaman's Rest Home, a delightful place north of the racecourse.

I was given the option of returning to the UK or to the place of embarkation, which was Australia. So I opted to return to Australia to see my girlfriend!

We got paid, by the way, during all this hassle. We got paid. The Chief Steward did the wages, the accounts, for everybody. He had to estimate what you were owed, and on his say-so they paid out that amount. There were no delays, you had money in your pocket. That was where I got my Indian passport, given to me in Bombay to replace the one lost by enemy action.

I managed to get a wardrobe of clothing in Bombay - trousers tailor-made, flannels, shoes and whatever. I had enough money to purchase whatever I needed in the way of clothing as India was not very expensive in those days. Whiteway Laidlaw, a Scottish firm, had stores all over the Far East, and they employed English tailors, English cutters, in India.

I got on the Dominion Monarch in Bombay as a DBS, a distressed British seaman, and was returned to the place of embarkation. We arrived off Sydney Head - while it was under attack by Japanese submarines!

漏 Copyright of content contributed to this Archive rests with the author. Find out how you can use this.