大象传媒

From 1939 to 30th January my father served on the submarine HMS Snapper which was one time bombed by a friendly plane which mistook it for a German U-boat. The Snapper sank 5 enemy ships, and was depth charged 300 times, in 4 days. One of the ships, the German tanker Moonsund, was carryig Benzine and the crew mistook the Snapper for a German U-boat. The crew onthe tanker all started to cheer but the Snapper's skipper, Lt. Commander King, told them to jump for their lives and opened up on her with the deck gun. It blew the enemy ship up with a massive explosion making the SNapper rock from side to side with the force from the balst. The Snapper picked up the survivors, including the enemy skipper, who later died of his injuries. The crew had to put him behid the toilet bay because they had no room, until they could safely surface and bury him at sea.

He left HMS Snapper on 30th January, 1941 to go on a well earned shore leave (see story ref A4840634)and whilst he was on leave and collecting a wireless set to take back to the Snapper from the people of Sheffield, the sub went out on patrol and never came back. He then served on HMS Clyde. He was involved with escorting the Russian convoysand he latear earned a Russian Convoy Medal from the Russian Government for this. HMS Clyde sank in May 1943, losing all on board but dad left the submarine in March 1942 to join HMS Unison and teh Fighting Tenth Flotilla in Malta. Of the 22 British - Clas submarines that went to war, only 5 came home.

HMS Unison was on Operation Torch (the invasion of N Africa) on 8th November 1942. Day and night the British submarines were bombed in Malta by air attack. When they returned from patrol they had to dive during daylight hours over a period of 6 months to avoid the German fighter planes and bombers, the threat was so great.

On 4th October, 1942 HMS Unison commanded by Lt Com Halldiay sank the SS Enrchetta. The skipper asked dad if he would like to look through the periscope as the ship sank. Dad said he could see the survivors in the water shaking their fists towards the sub as she dived. Lt. Comm. Halliday recorded this event in his log. The unison made its escape and their own following convoys picked up the survivors.

On the 13th April 1943 the Unison sank a brand new Italian ship, the Marco Foscarini (6,406 tons) with a torpede boat escort. She was hit with two torpedoes and sank like a stone.

The new commander of HMS Unison, Lt Comm. Daniels liked to involve his men in the action as much as possible. Dad said he would surface the sub and open fire with the ship's gun at every possible target e.g. trains near the shoreline, bridges, enemy barges etc and let the crew take it in turns to all be part of the action. Dad said this stopped the boredom of being cooped up for long periods.

Dad took part in the invasion of Sicily (Operation Husky). One night a crew member fell asleep on the submarine top deck casing, whilst the sub was surfaced charging its batteries. In the morning, nobody could find him. Dad said they all believed he'd been taken by sharks whilst he was sleeping.
On 2nd August, 1942 the Unison escorted a convoy from Bizarta to Malta but was mistaken for a German U-boat by one of the American tankers and this caused damage to the Unison and severely injured several of the crew, one of them fatally. It was during this event that my father earned his DSM. (See story ref A4839807)

The Unison returned home in september 1943 after sinking of 18,000 tons of enemy shipping. She was only one of 5 u-class submarines to come home. 17 U-class submarines were sunk with all lhands.

Dad also served on HMS submarine Statesma. This submarine fired the last torpedo of the war.

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