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Memories of a C.W. Candidate Part Three — P.Q.18/Q.P.18 and the loss of H.M.S. Somali

Part three of an oral history interview with Mr. Stanley Shield conducted by Jenny Ford on behalf of Bedford Museum.

“P.Q.18. Well went there, the usual, we were attacked all the way there into Murmansk and lay at anchor there for some days actually in the harbour. We were defended by Hurricane aircraft that we’d taken over there you see. Then after a few days at harbour, when they’d mustered another Convoy. Having stayed in Murmansk for a few days until they’d got the return Convoy because it took them a while to off load the ships because the facilities were not very great. We had to take Lift ships out there to do it, ships with great big hoists on. Then we set sail for home and it was on the way home that we bought it.

Yes, the Convoy (Q.P.18) was all assembled, we were supposed to have Russian escort Destroyers to take us through the dodgy bit but they never came. Laughter! I told you the Russians were most uncooperative in those days, you’d never think of what we were doing, they never thought we were taking enough you see. I mean we could ill afford what we did take with all our other Fronts but Churchill was determined that they must be kept going. If they had had to surrender then we would have been on our own again and we would have never have lasted out. So they had to be supplied, they were even calling for us to open a Second Front, you know to invade when we couldn’t possibly invade. But they were asking us to do that, they were very demanding. It was understandable because they were in a pretty pickle, they really had lost so much stuff in the initial attack by the Germans, it was unbelievable. That’s what we took, all the Convoys took along the Arctic Route: 5218 tanks, 7411 aircraft and every other small thing you can think of. They couldn’t have managed without the aircraft for sure. They did make the production of tanks their priority and they did do very well with them. We took medical stores but I don’t think we took food. We took petrol, 7000 tonnes of petrol and petrol tankers were not nice things to be on going on that trip.

So we assembled and set off for home. Now we had a small aircraft carrier, what they called a ‘pocket aircraft carrier’ with us on this trip and as part of the Convoy and as part of the close Convoy escort. She was turning slowly to land aircraft which had been out on reconnaissance. And we turned unfortunately very slowly with her and it was at that point that we were struck mid ships, right in the engine room, by a torpedo which lifted our own torpedo tubes right out and up in the air. I was below decks, I was due to go on Watch, my life was saved by half an hour because if I’d been on Watch I would probably have been lost. I was having a final cup of tea I remember. I can remember this when there was a crash, and this terrific lurch, the ship lurched. We knew we had bought it straight away and headed for the main deck and saw this great big gaping hole right amid ships, wounded men wandering around a bit dazed and really shaken. Everybody, well I think in the engine room and the boiler room was killed, they must have been by the explosion. Anyway we awaited for instruction and our Watch which I think was the Port Watch, we could go, we could be rescued. A ship came alongside, a similar ship to one that I later Commanded, a much smaller ship, a rescue trawler actually it was. I jumped! It came right alongside. The masts of some of those old trawlers were of the old type with rattlings, rigging down the side from the mast to the side of the ship, so we jumped onto those you see. We jumped onto the shrouds of the trawler and were taken away and shared out amongst other Destroyers.

We boarded the Destroyers in a similar way, oh yes, it was all, you couldn’t tie up or anything. I wasn’t as big as this then laughter I was slim and hungry! And then we went back to Scapa Flow.

We’d seen so many ships explode and go down, you just, it was part of, not exactly life, but part of life and death and you just expected and if you survived you thought you were jolly lucky. It’s extraordinary. This as I say a long time ago but I didn’t have any great reaction at all. Mind you, after that whenever I was at sea I wore a life belt. When I went back to sea I wore a life belt. You see, you never believed it was going to happen to you and then you knew it could. It was a very different feeling, you lost your confidence really. So, it’s just as well I didn’t get in such untimely disasters than I’d already been in.

My mother was a widow and naturally concerned at me being at sea and all the rest of it. And she was listening to the radio one night and she heard the announcement the ‘Admiralty regrets to announce the loss of H.M.S. Somali’ and that next of kin of the survivors would be informed. We were on another ship in Scapa Flow by this time but nobody told her. She hadn’t heard from me so I wasn’t a survivor was the inference. Anyway a telegram came the next day of course, we all sent off telegrams to say we were safe and well and coming home on leave which I did. I quite enjoyed that leave I can tell you. Laughter!

There were all sorts of other incidents that I can recount to you which happened on various ones. For instance coming back on an earlier Convoy, the Cruiser ‘Trinidad’ was hit and set on fire and couldn’t be saved and we went along side her and took off what were left of the crew. And then finished her off with torpedoes to make sure that she sank because we couldn’t leave her afloat. There were things like this all the time every Convoy was full of incident.

The crew was made up of all sorts in war time, people like myself, peace time who had been in all their lives, people who’d been in it as boys. You know the Navy took boys in those days. They mixed quite well. I was a C.W. candidate while all this was going on which meant it was a good cause of unpopularity actually or could have been. Fortunately for me they found I could play football a bit, so I played for the ship and it smoothed the way for me. But some candidates, some C.W. candidates serving their Seaman’s time had quite a rough time of it I must say, I don’t know why?

Then I went back to Portsmouth Barracks where I did my final Board for the Commission."

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