大象传媒

OPENING FIRE ON THE CHARNOS

Gordon Ravenscroft

I joined the Duke of York around the middle of November 1943. We were the first battleship to sail right through to Russia, because Admiral Fraser wanted to discuss tactics with the Russian Admiral based in Murmansk.

The weather was atrocious because we were well above the Artic Circle, and it was winter with not a lot of light and heavy snow showers; very rough weather. Anyone prone to sea sickness would be tested. I was O.K, not too bad at all.

We completed our journey to Murmansk and we were distant cover for the convoy that was homeward bound, but on Boxing Day, the Charnos with six Destroyers, decided to attack the convoy.

In the meantime the convoy escort of the 10th Cruiser Squadron which was, the Norfolk, the Belfast and the Sheffield had already contacted the Charnos by radar and they decided to attack it, particularly the Norfolk, which opened fire with the main armourment and did some damage to the Charnos.

The Charnos in reply fired back and severely damaged the Norfolk, who had twenty five men killed. Then the Charnos realised that it wasn鈥檛 going to be an easy run. Somehow they lost contact with their escort, The German Destroyers seemed to have disappeared off the map altogether, in fact they had gone back to Alton Ffiord The Charnos was completely on its own, not knowing that the Duke of York with the Jamaica and four Destroyers was between it, and its home base.

We were aware at 8 a.m. on Boxing Day morning that there was some activity regarding the Charnos, and we were called to action stations, which meant that we had to go to our relative positions. In my case I was positioned in the, starboard three, secondary armoured turret, twin 5.25 guns.

Once we were in that position we could not move. Anyone that was in the magazines or operating the hoist, or in the engine room, in effect were fastened down below decks, literally, because they closed all the hatches for security purposes and damage. We couldn鈥檛 open them from down below. The only people that were moving around were the damage control parties whose job was to access possible damage. If they got killed, we would have had it to, so there we were in our turret, with nothing to eat for 3-4hrs and eventually someone decided to come along with some corned beef sandwiches, bear in mind this was Boxing Day.

We were at action stations from 8 a.m. until 4 p.m., when the Captain made a broadcast to say that our radar had picked up the Charnos at approximately 9 miles away, within firing distance. Our main armourment, 14鈥� could fire 21 miles, the secondary armourment which I was in, had a range of 11 miles. Round about
4.15 p.m. we were ordered to fire star shell, so we fired star shell over the target 9-10 miles away to illuminate it, bearing in mind it was pitch black and it was snowing. They were completely unaware of our proximity, in fact the guns of the Charnos were trained fore and aft, about to return to harbour, so we opened fire with our main armour. That was ten 14鈥� guns and I think out of the ten shells, two hit the forward turret and immediately put one turret out of action. They didn鈥檛 all hit the target, but quite a number of them did, which slowed it down considerably, and this went on maybe from around 4 p.m. to 6 p.m. it was under continuous fire. In the event the secondary armourment fired seven hundred and fifty shells, the main armourment fired four hundred and fifty, 14鈥� projectiles weighing 戮 of a ton, but it still wouldn鈥檛 sink.

Immediately, the Charnos increased its speed and endeavoured to escape. In between our continuous firing the Cruisers also fired and after a short spell, Admiral Fraser ceased fire.

This story was submitted to the People鈥檚 War site by June Woodhouse (volunteer) of the CSV Action Desk at 大象传媒 Hereford and Worcester on behalf of an Gordon Ravenscroft (author) and has been added to the site with his permission. The author fully understands the site鈥檚 terms and conditions.

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