大象传媒

THIS IS PART OF A STORY WRITTEN BY MY FATHER

During my naval service in the engineering branch, between 1937 and 1958, i was serving on ships at sea for 18yrs, and was fortunate, which made life more interesting, to serve on a number of different ships.To be exact 1 battleship, 5 cruisers, 5 minesweepers,1 destroyer, 1 depot ship,and landing crafts. I was involved in most of WW2 events and visited over 50 countries.
Some of my most interesting and eventful times were on the minesweepers, 4 of these were fleet sweepers, 2 of which were HMS ESPIEGLE and HMS ALBACORE. Both were in the 12th flotilla, at the invasions of north africa, sicily, salerno, and anzio.I served on these between 1942 to 1944.

However, this story is about my first sweeper Hopper 44, during my early days in the navy.

On the 4th november 1940, i was drafted with 20 other ratings from the many ships around the fleet to commission Hopper 44.We arrived by rail
at Port Fuad in the small dockyard opposite Port Said, Suez Canal.We took our first look at this strange craft, and we were all unaware of the type.'George' the comic amoungst us said " Blimey , we must be off to the Mississippi ". Although there was no paddles, there were two high funnels, belching out thick black smoke.

Quite a number of arab workmen were completing a conversion of Hopper to Sweeper, and the black smoke was an arab stoker testing the coal fires ready for us to take over.

To explain what a hopper is, it is a craft that works in connection with a dredger. The hoppers had two coal-fired boilers, and four furnaces to supply a single reciprocating engine. There were 4 converted , 44, 42, 33, and 39, but one was blown up in 1941 and sank.

Quite a number of different craft were being used to combat the mine menace before we were ready to play our part,and it was obvious the free flow of ships passing through the canal was vital to the war effort.
I remember only 3 weeks during the years of 1940-41, whaen the convoys did not get through. Quite a number of ships were sunk by mines, and quite a number between the lakes.Captians of ships must have been instructed, that if thier ship was hit and sinking to go over to the side, to allow free passage to others.By the middle of 1941 at least 6 ships had sunk, and most had cleared the centre channel.

The RAF were also involved. Halifax bombers with a specially constructed ring around the aircraft, were flown very low along the canal.They always gave us a friendly wave, and had to raise a little to avoid our funnels.
Of course there were the mine disposal groups stationed ashore, we owe a lot of thanks to them.They were engaged in dragging some of the mines ashore, and the Naval experts making them safe and examining them for new types. No doubt the germans were experts too, not only for thier mines, but for thier accruracy in dropping them by parachute in the canal.

At Faud we had to wait a couple of weeks before we could live aboard, so we were victualled aboard a boom ship called 'Cario City' Port Said.Besides ourselves there were a number of polish sailers from the destroyer 'Grom'. This ship was sunk in the baltic in 1939, and they had managed to get right across Europe to join our forces in the middle east.We all got on extremely well together, and although they could not speak english, thier consumtion of stella beer at port said was more than equal to ours.

The hopper was now ready, but had to steam to Alexandria to finnish the conversion.Batteries and ford engines adapted to generate, and the cables for sweeping.
The Hoppers were cetainly not ment for any waters except the suez. On both voyages, although it was not considered rough, we rolled terribly, uderstandably as our bottom was dead flat.Try and imagine holding a shovel full of coal, impossible to stand vertical, and feeding four furnaces to keep the steam up.We got there and back, but we were all inexperienced coal stokers, and it was really hard work.

Whilst at Alex we berthed at the coal jetty, three of our seamen had been sent off to Torbruck, to bring an italian schooner back to Alex. I was on the jetty when they came in, it was an incredible sight. The vessel was absolutly full of Italian POWs and in between them, was our three lads, armed with revolvers and an army officer.It was obvious the italians were not interested in the war. The captian and crew requested to stay aboard, and were terribly upset when the army officer refused.

We did what the navy calls 'working up' outside Alex harbour.During the days we did this our captain and electrician rowed over to the small lighthouse just outside the harbour, and blew it up.This order was understandable because the enemy could get a bearing on the entrance of the harbour.

On returning to Port Said we started sweeping right away.All along the canal the egyptian army were stationed. How far apart i do not know, but definitely within hearing distance. It was quite erie at night when all was silent and they used to shout a message along the canal.We got to know quite a few of the egyptian army chaps.Our captian could speak arabic, and from them we knew where the mines were dropped during the night. This was not always accurate im afraid, we suspected that when they saw those big objects falling from the sky, they ran across the desert.Who could blame them, they were not at war anyway. One advantage for thier presence, was that we knew when we were about to pass over one. We never forgot to give the stoker on watch a shout, and tell him to come up to the upper deck.It was considered of course that we had more chance to survive on top.
To be absolutely honest we considered ourselves lucky to be on the Hopper, and to be close to shore.So many survivors were comming in at Port Said from crete, and greece.

Whilst in Alex we decided, knowing we were likely to be on the canal and away from base for long periods, to improve our food supply.Im glad we did because it did happen that way a number of times.We all became expert robbers, and dont think too badly of us,it happened this way.During the day some of us went on reconnaisance, looking for unloaded food dumps.Taking note of how many sentries, and what nationality they were. We never attempted it if they were polish sentries, as they were too 'Trigger Happy'. They were good soldiers however, and we admired them for it.About four of us would go on raids after dark, two would keep the sentries talking, while the other two would slip around the back of the dump, and sneak back to the ship.

One day two of our seamen were snooping around the dockyard in daylight, and spotted RAF lorries loading up from a dump.Somehow they managed to 'borrow' a lorry, drive up to the dump, load a few sacks on, then drive back to the ship, unload, then drive back. How they were not caught i'll never know.

Some of these stolen goods were returned to the Army boys. We often invited about five aboard for a meal and Jock used to put up a really good spread, and some of the New Zealand boys we invited on said it was the best meal they had since leaving home.We never felt guilty after that.

When we arrived back in Port Said, we were immediately sent up the canal to start sweeping again. A mine had been dropped during the night close to Lake Timson, Ismalia.

Now we found a few snags, there were alot of other craft using the canal.Feluccas and Dhows and they had a nasty habbit of fouling our cable astern.They were obviously tacking across the canal, to catch the wind. Our skipper shouted in arabic, for them to keep clear, but they did not hear, or did not want to.This mad him mad, so he used to shoot holes in thier sails with his revolver. Eventually the word must have been passed amoungst them, and it improved considerably.

Our biggest snag was we could not turn around with the sweep out. No modern reels for us, as it was on the fleet sweepers.It took at least 10 men to pull it in and put it out again.It was first laid one one side of the ship,and then the other side.Down the forward end we had a specially made rack to keep the cable tidy. Now you could say this was the stokers lament.As i said there was only one stoker below, and many of the mines we had to pass over a number of times before they exploded. Imagine how we felt coming off watch, after a hard four hours down the 'poke hole' midday, then to spend all afternoon humping the cable in and out.

I stated before most of us were inexperienced stokers.One seaman we had called Buck Taylor, did have some experience, and surprised us quite a few times. For instance when we did not have any wood to start our furnaces, and on the rare occasions we let him out.He would build a semi- circular wall of coal, and place some large lumps over the top. Then he soaked some balls of cotton waste in heavy mineral oil (equal to 120 oil used in gear boxes) Then he lit it up,and in a very short time we could start feeding the furnace with more coal.

During the sand storms that blew over the canal, we were covered entirely with fine sand. Always seemed to blow during a very hot day, and who ever was on watch, was helped by one of the other stokers.Buck was on watch one day, during one of those sand storms and we decided to find out how good he was. He stuck out the four hours, did not ask for help, and did not complain.
He certainly proved his worth. Although Buck had been in the navy since 1922, he did not know how to open and shut a valve.
Our water to the boilers was pumped over from the engine room,and operated form an arm off the main engines.The temperature was near boiling point, coming from a hot well, heated by exaust from the engine. 'Maxie' our senior stoker PO, very often when on watch, if the hot well was full up, would shout
" Hows your water?". He did not always get a nice answer. Anyway, if we wanted more water he would open the feed checks and top up.Now buck was used to this procedure, and often the checks were left open a few turns.Instead of opening them, he would shut them off.The relief valve in the engine room used to lift and 'Maxie' our senior, was showered in near boiling water.You could hear him shout all over the ship, he had a really good voice our Maxie.
Well after Maxie had been scolded a few times by Buck, he came to us and said " i cannot put up with this much longer, my back is coveed in bisters.What are we going to do with him?"
We suggested we promote him to stoker, and seamans messman, and bunker trimmer.Obviously there was no such rate, but he agreed, and Buck became the only stoker in the navy doing such a job, but he was really happy doing it.

Before we blow up the next mine, i would like to tell you us young stokers used to play our senior PO terrible.Maxie was a good conscientious chap, and never threatened us with disaplinary action if we did anything wrong.We all liked him.He said to us when we had been away from our base for some time
" Lads i want you to do a quickboiler clean, when we get back. It must be full of soot." Now boiler cleaning was far from our minds.We were all looking forward to a good run ashore. The saying during the war was 'Drink up Jack, it might be your last!' and we were no exception.Our silent answer to Maxie was this:at a convenient place, and the wind direction right, two of us went below and stoked our furnaces up sufficient enough to catch our funnels alight, burning all the soot.Funny sight, two tall funnels glowing red and a tubby PO going beserk, shouting down to us " Put the bloody dead plates on!"
Dead plates are plates that covered the ash pit below the furnace to stop the draught. If you have ever known a chimney fire,with flames comming out the top of the stack, one does not need a sweep afterwards. Well that was out theory.

Having mentioned we were about to blow a mine near Ismalia.We steamed from Port Said at about seven knots. This was about our normal speed, due to our flat bottom, which obviously had a big water drag, and retricted our speed quite considerably.The Hopper was very sturdily built, but not for speed.
With a coal fired ship one could say, the speed was governed by the horse power of the stoker.Many factors improved or restricted our speed, the type of coal for one.If Maxie wanted more steam to open his trottle he would shout " How about more steam!" and we would do our best to give him some.
We tried to do our best for Maxie, although we gave him a few excuses at times, mainly in fun.When we recieved his request, we would shout back "No nobs" and he would reply "What do you mean no bloody nobs!" We would then sing him a verse of an old coal stokers song " No nobs in the bunker, chief stoker I cried" and he would sing back " You'll bloody soon find some if i come inside".

Then we passed over the mine, and went through the procdure of in sweep, out sweep. We were all extremely chuffed to see it explode on our way back. Most exploding mines finnished with a huge spout of water, this one came up as a huge bubble in the centre of the canal.A Dhow happened to be passing very close, and an arab boy, on top of the mast, clung on for dear life. We felt very sorry for him, and glad he didnt fall in.

We did not return to Port Said for a few weeks. Our routine was, start seeping at first light, and anchor centre of the canal in the evening.Our captian was on the bridge all day, so we were not the only ones who need a rest.At night it was not necessary to darken the ship, we had no dynamo for lights anyway.Our furnaces were banked up, when we stopped and when darkness fell we were only too glad to get some sleep.

Air raids on Port Said were becomming more frequent at this time, so we were quite glad to be away from it.However we could still see the search lights and hear the gun fire.

We had been given an automatic gun captured from the italians, a 'Fiat', but i do not know if any of our seamen had gunnery ratings.The only chap who knew anything about guns, having been in the territorial army, was stoker Teddy Driver.It felt strange, but no one minded being shown how to use and maintain it.Normally guns were a seamens job, but we were no ordainary ship.The fiat was on a tripod, and placed on the bridge, and when there was to be an air raid, first person on the bridge fired it.
Our opportunity came first time, back in Port Said. It was dark when we came along-side our navy house, too late for the beer canteen, much to our dissapointment.An air raid was in progress, and one of our seamen was ready with our gun.As there was no real safe place aboard, we were all on deck watching, no such thing as action stations, it was more like curiosity stations.This was all fairly new to us, at this time.
A searchlight had picked out a big german bomber, it was flying low, and the pilot banked over at an angle to get clear of the searchlight beam.We saw those ugly black german crosses, and we realised that this horrible sinister looking thing was out to get us.Our chap on the fiat opened fire, and no doubt with a target such as this, he could not miss.We had tracer bullets and they were passing right through the plane.Well to our disapointment, it roared away and we never knew if it got back to base.We do know it had a few holes in it.

We stayed at port Said end for about two months. Maxie managed to get us in the dockyard at Fuad, keen as ever for a boiler clean.The captian gave us 24hrs leaveto visit Cairo.About seven of us set off to catch a train at Port Said, but on the way someone got thirsty, so we called in to a bar. That was fatal, we never did get to Cario.

After this break which was appreiated, off we steamed to 'Mine Alley'.
This was the bit of the canal between the lakes, as i said before there were alot of mines dropped there.On the way up we passed Hopper 42, our twin with the two funnels.The other two which was 33, and 39, only had one funnel.There obviously was competition between us, any mine blown up was indicated by a stripe on our funnels.They had more stripes than us at the time, so we had to put up with a ribbing.We got our own back later at Tewfic, when we had more stripes than them.

Passing through lake Timson at Ismallia, towards 'Mine Alley' there were two ships badly damaged, one was compleatly in half.
At the channel between the lakes we were kept quite busy.One advantage in this aera and further up towards Tewfic, is that there were a number of Army and RAF camps.Our captian who was a considerate man,allowed us to visit these camps in the evenings, and join them in thier beer tents. I must tell you what we thought of the 8th army, no army could have beaten them.They were not only british lads, but New Zealanders, South Africans, Polish, French, and a few other nationalities.

By the end of may 1941, we had moved down to the Tewfic end of the canal.At this time we were not exactly the happy go lucky crew you may imagine.We certainly were not a miserable lot, but a few things were giving us concern.
We had all evacuated the mess deck at night times and slept on the upper deck.
The weather was so hot during the day, and besides exausting work down in the poke hole, our sweep was getting waterlogged. It was sort of flattened out with the explosions, and a lot heavier.Some days we were lucky to have the help from the mine disposal lads, but when we were on our own it was not so good.It wasnt the heat that chased us out the mess deck to the upper, it was the bugs and rats.Taffy who used to sleep on the lockers, had a rat hole just above him, we often heard him shouting swear words, as a rat jumped on him during the night.We managed to obtain the old fashioned cage rat traps, and we trapped the rats alive, then drowned them over the side.

By this time i had seen six ships sunk, i do not know how many more had been sunk, but i saw six and that was enough.

The bugs aboard ship, were getting out of hand, although we kept a clean ship, well, as clean as you could on a Sweeper, full of coal, soot, and sand.
We requested many times to our captian to get fumigated, but the canal was
definately more important to get cleared of mines, than us cleared of bugs.
All the Hoppers had the same problem.Worse still a tug had pulled in, all the way from base with some coal.Instead of welsh coal, it was the dreaded indian coal, which was hard to work with.We had no choice but to take it in.

Another thing at Tewfic we were getting air raids every night.
We were down to bare rations now, and had to cease inviting the army lads over.Our flour was full of weevils and maggots, and meat if we were not around to eat it quick enough, went green.With a fine sieve we sifted the flour, and even though sometimes it put you off, we had to eat.We relied on this flour for 'Jocks' roly polys.

Down at Tewfic the situation was letting up a bit.It must have been one of the busiest ports in the world in 1942. If we were not sweeping in the canal, we were weaving in and out of the shipping moorings.Our sparky was kept really busy, his head was just above the hatch which held the degassing gear. Looking up at our skipper on the bridge waiting for a change in compass direction, he was continuosly up and down for our safetys sake.

Some mornings we had to steam out about a mile, and sweep in the troop ships.
Most of the worlds biggest liners were bringing in troops by then.Nieuw Amsterdam, Ille de France, later called Normandy and Georgic.I cannot remember them all, but i do remember being down the poke and hearing a mine explode.Then a big cheer as our Queen Mary came steaming in, that certainly made our day, as the troups were cheering us.We also got one right off the bow of a big american cargo boat, and got a cheer for that one too.We also had the room, to turn with the sweep out.

We had an SOS one morning. Two small troup ships in the Great Bitter Lake, were hemmed in by mines.The germans spotted them during the night and they obviously could not move.We steamed up as fast as possible, with one of the smaller acoustic sweepers.They had a temporary breakdown on the way, and our captian got impatient and started sweeping for magnectics.About ten minutes later, afterwe had circled the troopers, up comes the acoustic.Well they lower thier kango hammer and up goes a mine!. We stopped immediately as we had no protection, only for magnectics.The mines were all acoustics.
Five mines went off all around the troopers, and how we missed getting blown up, was an act of god.

Another incident down at Tewfic, a mine had cme down close to the entrance of the canal.Germans, and this was the first time we had seen this, had missed the canal and come down on the east side in shallow water.The sea was all sand on the east side and it was obviously embedded in the sand.We saw it sticking up vertically about two feet above the water.The current flowed Port Said to Tewfic, so we tried anchoring so that the sweep floated close to the mine.Unfortunatly the cable kept floating away from it, so our skipper asked for two volenteers to tie the mine to the sweep.Bill Cody and another seaman volenteered straight away.Bill said " its no good get our ham fisted stokers rowing boat away from the mine, they are bound to bump into it, and we would loose our boat.They might be okay with a shovel, but bloody useless doing a seamens job!" He was right too, we pulsed for quite some time, but never did blow it up. I believe the mine disposal lads pulled it ashore and blew it up.

During this time the germans were dropping delayed action mines.Now i do not know much about these, so i cannot give any technical details. All i know we were busy for days on end, going back and forth over them.We seemed to be trying forever going over one in particular.

Our captain, whom we had named 'the road sweeper' was still busy giving us orders.One period we were down the canal for about three weeks, and arrived back in Tewfic in a grim state, about 11 oclock at night.We had run out of everything, soap, toothpaste, bread, etc, and our meat was still turning green in our box.The captian allowed us to go ashore and try to find a bakery open, or any other store we could replenish out stocks.Along the canal was the officers club, and it seemed the only place open.We thought if we explained our situation, at the least we could get was some cigarettes.
Well we got chucked out straight way. Now i admit we did look a sorry state, we had not shaved for days, and as i said had ran out of soap. We were not a very happy bunch, and with no cigarettes we were not in the best of moods.
Why we crossed over to the tow path along the canal i do not remember, but we came across some sacks of onions, and someone suggested pelting the club.So after thowing about ten a piece we made a run for it.If any ex-officers are reading this, i will now apologise, for this was the reason it rained onions that night.

To get back on board we had to shout for the duty seamen to come and fetch us with our boat.Normally if we were along the canal we would wade in and swim the rest.However, this time, we were anchored close to the signal station, just around the corner of the main port.There were too many sharks in Port Suez bay to take a chance.So we had to stand and shout for navy patrol to come along.

The night the 'Georgic' liner or troopship as she had become, was bombed, we were ashore.It was about 10pm, and she was apparently taking in mail, and had a light on, when the germans came over.She caught on fire, and tipped over, untill she was lying on the sandy bottom.All kinds of tales were told about how she sank, but i have never known the truth.We left the canteen, went down to the canal, and tried to get one of the white pilot boats along side, to help rescue the survivors.However we were unsucessful.
The germans did not know of the position, because they kept dropping mines around the 'Georgic',which was a waste of effort.We had blew them up during our weave around the shipping.

You obviously can realise by now there was a very good relationship between our captian and crew. I sometimes wonder if were going a bit crazy during those busy hot months of August 1941.We really did work hard, but still kept reasonably cheerfull.Of couse we were still a bit bloody minded about our green meat, but i was that or nothing.

When air raids first started at Tewfic we would go below because of the shrapnel.We had a canvas awning for shade during the summer months, and some never bothered to go down, but relied on the awning for cover.I remember one morning looking at a large piece of jagged metal sticking halfway through the canvas right above me, and i thought it was certainly not my time to go yet.

I would like to mention some of the crew i havent yet previously mentioned, even though i cant remember all the names.There was a sub-lieutennant, quiet chap, Maxies opposite number, Petty officer, a real gentleman. One ERA, an engine room artificer, normally the hardest working chap on the ship His job was, after warming through the engine, was to go up top, salute the skipper, and report the ship ready for sea.Then Buster Brown, the only shipmate i was in touch with after the war.

Well towards september, when a young chap came aboard, and said he was my relief, nothing much had changed.We did recieve a new sweep cable, and managed to get some fresh flour.We finnally got the ship de-bugged.I remember one day about midnight, the news about pearl harbour came over.Although the news was awfull, for those who lost thier lives, i was glad the Yanks were going to join us.

Before i pack my kit bag, hammock, and ditty box,and catch the train to Alexandria.I will give you my last thoughts, on this story during the early days of the war. We were never 8th army, but we did play a small part in helping them, it was not play of course it was hard work, and im proud of that.
A stokers battledress was, thick fearnought trousers, clogs and a sweat rag round his neck, and of course, his shovel in his hand.

Ron Harman

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