大象传媒

This article is a transcription of a book written by Jack Taylor who served in the Royal Navy throughout World War 2. Jack saw service in a wide range of ships and in many theatres of the war. Another article, written by Jack, about the loss of H.M.S. Hood can be found on the H.M.S. Hood web site www.hmshood.com

A Destroyer and Aircraft Carrier at War
Chapter 3, Collision!

From Immingham we made our way to Rosyth to join up with other destroyers and head out to sea again nursing the 鈥淲arspite鈥� and 鈥淰aliant鈥� over to Norway and around the Skaggarak hoping the Germans would come out to play but to no avail. We were attacked several times from the air but no hits and no runs. I heard that we purposely tempted them to come out as we had a large convoy passing through the Denmark Straits, to the north west of Iceland and our job was to keep the German Navy away and this we did very successfully.

The weather started to get up and we pitched and rolled a bit as night fell, rain and sleet all night making our watch keeping miserable 鈥� oilskins and SouWesters, visibility very limited and everybody fed up with the monotony of it all.

Morning came and the weather had not let up. Everybody was very uncomfortable and cursed the 鈥淏loody Germans.鈥�

All day was the same: 鈥淲atch on.鈥� 鈥淲atch off,鈥� 鈥淪tand to,鈥� 鈥淪tand down.鈥� Towards evening the weather eased off and the rain stopped but another hazard arose as we ran into fog. As it was getting dark it made things worse. By now we could not see the other ships on station. I came on for the First Watch 鈥� 8pm to midnight. After about an hour Leading Seaman Brayley said, 鈥淥K Buck, your Trick.鈥� A Trick being a spell of lookout duty at the masthead. Up I went and sat on the yardarm, while the man I was taking over from climbed out of the position known as the nest. Having gained my position, I lifted the phone and called the bridge and reported, 鈥淢asthead look relieved Sir.鈥� 鈥淰ery good,鈥� came the reply. What I was doing up there I will never know because I could not bee the bridge below me or the foc鈥檚鈥檒e of the ship. It was just blackness and thick fog.

I had been up on masthead duty about half an hour when there was a God Almighty crash. The whole ship shuddered to a halt. The first thing to cross my mind was we had hit a mine for鈥檃rd. Then I heard a siren 鈥淲heep, Wheep, Wheep!鈥� Having gained control of myself I phoned the bridge and said, 鈥淢asthead lookout, unable to see anything Sir. Permission to descend to the deck鈥� Permission granted, a searchlight came on and then I could see we had been in collision with the destroyer 鈥淎ntelope.鈥� Owing to the fog the ship had been zig zagging, altering course by radio. The 鈥淎ntelope鈥� had not altered course and had crossed our bows. We had hit her in the officers鈥� panty aft of 鈥淵鈥� gun. Fortunately, there were no casualties among either crew.

Somewhere on our starboard quarter where the searchlight came on we heard a loud hailer, 鈥淓lectra! Electra! This is the 鈥榋ulu鈥�, am standing by!鈥� Just then the two big ships glided past in the fog. We could hear the throb of their engines and they could only have been yards away from us. Nothing could be done until the Chief Engineer, Lieutenant McLean and his damage control parties had assessed what was to be done.

There was no sleep that night. The ship was stable and in no immediate danger of sinking. Come morning the fog was clearing and we saw a gaping hole where our bow had been. The foc鈥檚鈥檒e, with the anchor cable on it, sloped down at an angle of about 30掳 as there was nothing underneath to support it.

Lieutenant McLean and damage control parties were busy shoring up the bulkheads forward so as to keep her afloat. This having been done successfully, we were then able to see that the lower messdeck had completely gone. So had the cable locker. This meant that the cable was hanging below the ship like a big letter 鈥淯鈥�. There was no way we could use the capstan to haul it in so it had to be done by hand.

A cable party went up on the foc鈥檚鈥檒e which was hanging down and footholds were precarious. A strong line with a hook attached was made ready and Able Seaman Shearsmith was lowered over the side in a Bosun鈥檚 Chair, placing the hook in a link near the waterline. We then hauled part of the cable up on deck lowering the hook again to pull up more. We were bringing up about 10 feet every haul. This went on for several hours until we had all the cable inboard. Having done this, we manhandled the cable aft to the Quarterdeck where the extra weight would help to lift the bow higher out of the water. We could only travel at about 3 to 5 knots. We tried going astern but heavy rollers made it almost impossible so the Captain went ahead and hoped the shored up bulkhead would hold.

It was some 8 or 9 days making very slow progress and, thanks God, no U-Boats and no aircraft because if there had been we were a sitting target and would never have been able to defend ourselves.

At last, we were approaching Scapa Flow in the Orkney Islands which was the Home Fleet base. On entering harbour we were lined up on deck in No. 3 uniforms and as we entered ships piped the attention and saluted. Many vessels cheered us as we slowly made our way to the depot ship 鈥淒unluce Castle鈥� and tied up alongside. I don鈥檛 know if people thought we had rammed a U-Boat or they cheered us just for getting the ship home but we thanked God that we had arrived safely.

Jacks' story continues in Chapter 4: Northern Patrol, Troon and Scapa

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