´óÏó´«Ã½

My father, Herbert Geoffrey Hall - Geoff Hall — was born in Macclesfield, Cheshire, in 1911, and died in retirement in North Wales in 2002, aged 90. During the Second World War he served in the Merchant Navy. He kept a diary of his experiences from which he later prepared accounts of some of the more memorable and important of these. This is Part Two of his account of some of his time on salvage work in the Mediterranean.

Val Myers (nee Hall)

MEDITERRANEAN SALVAGE (PART TWO)

Back to Oran then on the 1st April. Deciding to go ashore on the Saturday, I found the shops shut as it was early closing day, so I went to the pictures and was pleased to find an English film 'Mrs Miniver' showing, after which, on my way back to the ship, I fell in with an American Lieutenant who insisted I go with him to the American Red Cross, which showed me some of the way in which the Yanks catered for their troops, this being infinitely better than anything we did. Of course, we were there to fight a war whereas, at times, the Yanks appeared to be on a vacation in N. Africa.
Monday morning and on the trot again, first to the S.S. Seminole, a large tanker with 2 torpedoes in her engine room, where we did a bit of cutting off of plates to make her more towable. Later we moved a bit further to the S.S. Haddleigh which was clearly beyond hope and then on to the S.S. Merchant Prince where things looked better. We were able to complete work started by French divers and tug boat men and by supplying steam, we were able to keep her pumps going and tow her round to Oran. Back now to the S.S. Haddleigh to remove anything of value which, in this case, was to recover as many of her winches as possible. This was back-breaking work under a blazing sun, and just before completion we were ordered urgently to Algiers. Who said this job wasn't interesting even if, sometimes, exhausting? No escort, full speed, and wondering what they wanted us for. Apparently they didn't know either, as their greeting was that we should be in Oran. As I wanted to do some repairs to engines and boilers we got permission to stay and made our way to the hot spot by the dry dock once more.
Here we were subject to nightly air raids but the barrage from shore was such that there was almost no damage and I had time to get my work completed. To our surprise and more so to that of Captain Glasgow, a relief Skipper arrived on the 15th April. It would appear that in view of the poor handling of the vessel, particularly on the HMS Ajax job, that the Salvage Officer had decided he wanted a new master. Not a very nice way of doing it, but perhaps there was no other. The new man, John Rocky Adams, was another where this was his first command, and whilst he wasn't a lot better than Glasgow at handling the ship, he proved to be a much better man at handling the crew and in fact, a much pleasanter individual. We became good friends, a state of affairs which endured until his death more than 30 years later.
On the 9th May we started off on our travels once more. First to a very posh Yankee salvage ship to collect some pumps and other gear required for our work. This American Naval Vessel aroused our envy as, capable of 21 knts. and armed with several anti-aircraft guns, we felt it was much more suitable for ploughing up and down the coast, unescorted, as we had to do. The fact that it never moved out of the harbour for some months, whilst we hardly stopped, left us wondering who was fighting this war.
Our next job was to the S.S. Daniel Carrol to leave a big pump and a couple of men to keep her afloat as she made her way back to Gibralter. Then on to the S.S. Thomas Stone. A couple of days here pumping and making watertight and we were ordered out, in a hurry, to a French submarine The Marignan, which had managed to get stranded on some rocks. A day's work, and we pulled her off, so we returned to the Stone just outside the breakwater at Algiers. Here we had a severe air raid with many bombs all around. Once over, we decided to try to get some sleep, but no, we were then told to move just inside the boom. We did this and turned in again, only to be roused in an hour to go to the S.S. Dorset Coast, one of our small coasters which had suffered a near miss and was sinking in the harbour. Her stern was under water when we got there, but we put pumps and men aboard. After a little while it became obvious that she was turning over so we slipped our moorings and left her to it. And so to bed at 4.00 am. By morning she had settled comfortably on her side but as she was something of an obstruction she was clearly a job for someone.
One of the jobs here was to cut off the masts which were sticking out across the harbour, so we were there some days. I had asked our divers if they would let me go down to see what it was like and as this wreck was suitable I was given the chance. Of course, in those days this meant the heavy suit, hard helmet, 14 lbs lead boots and about 20 lbs weights on chest and back. I soon realised that there was a lot to learn about this business, still I enjoyed it very much.
That job finished and we moved back to the Dorset Coast and continued our preparations to float her. After a fortnight's work we were nearly successful in righting this ship but at the critical moment one of the wire ropes slipped out of position and the whole thing fell back onto the sea bed. It would take another week to rig the gear for a fresh lift.
To our surprise we were now told to abandon that job as there were other more important matters afoot, although, as usual the Chief never lifted a finger, he just shuffled about on deck in his carpet slippers and never even discussed anything technical.
I did the work to the best of my ability but was thoroughly fed up and lodged a protest with the Skipper. The result surprised me. Apparently the people who ran us had been wanting to get rid of the Chief for sometime, and my protest was the last straw. Jimmy Bald was laid off the next day and I took over as Chief. The only snag, from my point of view, was that I didn't have a competent senior 2nd Engineer, so I continued to have to do most of both jobs, but at least I was now getting paid for it.
On 2nd July, then, we set off loaded with extra stores and other gear for Malta. As Chief I now had better accommodation and was free from the chore of watchkeeping which was not particularly pleasant in our cluttered engine room in the heat of a Mediterranean summer.
On Saturday 10th July 1943 the invasion of Sicily commenced. We were on short notice to go until the 13th, when we set off late at night with a convoy bound for Syracuse. A few miles out of the Grand Harbour and our boiler feed pumps, of which we had two, broke down.
The standard and almost universal boiler feed pump in marine use was the Weir pump made by the well-known Scottish firm of that name. These were simple, robust, capable of adjustment and, whilst not particularly economical, could be persuaded to work under almost any conditions. At some stage earlier a couple of Weirs employees, Messrs Dawson & Downie, had decided they could improve on the standard pump by comprehensive redesign of the valve gear. This was so complicated as to defy the ministrations of the average marine engineer with the limited equipment at his disposal.
Our feed pumps were Dawson & Downie and they had been playing up for some time but I had managed to keep them going. Now, on this vital journey, they both failed. No boiler feed meant shutting off the fires and when, after struggling for 1½ hours, I got one going, we had only half our steam pressure. The convoy had long disappeared and if we did our best to catch up we should be approaching Sicily in daylight, alone, unprotected and without any chance of the repairs which were needed. So I advised the Skipper to return to Valetta and this we did. We immediately received a Naval message instructing the Master and Chief Engineer to report to the C. in C. and about 9.30 am a very smart launch arrived to take us to the 'presence'.
John Adams and I found ourselves ushered into a sort of council chamber with us in the dock and about five very high ranking Naval officers confronting us. On being asked why we had turned back Adams said that it was an engineering problem. At which another officer with the stripes of, I think, Rear Admiral Engineer, turned to me. I said, "The reason we could not steam was that both our Dawson & Downie feed pumps broke down." "Oh," said he, "your pumps are D & D. I understand. You may now return to your ship." By the time we had got back we were surprised to see a dockyard launch alongside and a gang of men were down the engine room stripping out the complete pumps. These were taken away to the Naval repair base, leaving us to manage on our small harbour pump. Three days later, the main pumps were returned, beautifully overhauled, and now working as they should once more.
As another salvage vessel, the HMSV Salvedor had taken our place in Syracuse we went to work on an American liberty ship the S.S. Joseph B Cannon, which had got a bomb in No. 5 hold. After 10 days here and a few air-raids we set off for Sicily once again. We had left Algiers one man short and then had to send our 2nd Engineer into hospital with sand fly fever, so I found myself back in the engine room as usual, but this was not important as our sea passages were of very short duration.
Our first night in Syracuse was enlivened with about 4 air raids but nothing was actually hit in the harbour. In the morning we went to try to pick up a tug, sunk alongside the quay, but before starting work we were chased out to the S.S. Empire Moon, a ship full of a cargo of coal which was semi-sunk in the harbour. The coal was on fire, so we flooded the holds and then set to, to pump them out again, so that the coal was accessible. Next we rigged steam connections to her steam lines so that we could work her winches and engine room pumps. Whilst still doing this we were ordered to go about 10 miles down the coast to refloat some landing craft which had beached themselves too firmly. This took 3 days, after which we returned to Syracuse taking the largest craft with us.
I had been having trouble with my teeth which were pretty rotten and, finding a young naval dentist in the town, I made a number of visits to get things fixed. He was very short of equipment but did his best with a treadle drilling machine, the like of which I hadn't see since I was a kid.
The population of Syracuse seemed to have evacuated themselves during our invasion and they were now returning in dribs and drabs. Some shops were opening but appeared to have nothing to sell. The one thing which was plentiful was fruit, and many evenings we went ashore, wandering round the fields near the town filling our baskets with grapes, figs, lemons, tomatoes, melons and pumpkins. These were going rotten in the fields as there was no labour to deal with them, but they made a very welcome addition to our diet whilst there.
Whilst working here we received some mail, the first for about 3 months, and as it was quite recent I was sad to learn of the death of my Father-in-law at my home in Burnley, where he and his wife had been living for some time.
In the salvage business, in peacetime, the salvors often get big rewards for successful jobs carried out. Clearly in war time this would not make sense but we were paid about 25% above the standard rates for ordinary ships, as compensation for the long, uncertain hours we put in, and difficult conditions in which we sometimes lived and worked. For some unknown reason the 'Powers that be' decided we were overpaid and they would cut our wages down somewhat. To this end they would have to terminate our Articles and this gave us an opportunity to opt out and go home for some leave. Although my promotion was so recent I decided to do this, as did practically all the crew.
By now the war had moved on up the mainland of Italy and as Syracuse harbour had been made usable we prepared to return to Malta and hopefully nearer home as well.
We left on the 26th August and arrived in Malta next morning. A couple of days here and we joined a west-bound convoy to Algiers. Bad weather, very bad weather, made me feel I would prefer something a bit bigger. I wasn't sick but just very uncomfortable. All things come to an end, however, and on the 2nd September we were back in Algiers preparing for another boiler clean.
Once our repairs were completed we moved back to our old friend the S.S. Dorset Coast still lying on her side on the sea bed. To try to refloat her we had cut off her masts and welded about 20ft of these vertically onto the uppermost side. Burrowing through the mud beneath her we had passed heavy wire ropes through and made these fast at the top of the masts. All this work had to be redone as the tunnels had silted up whilst we were away. From time to time as opportunity offered I continued making the odd dive and sometimes my engineering knowledge complemented the divers' experience to find solutions. Our professional divers were both carpenters by trade.
The Naval Lt. Commander in charge of the dockyard, one Cowie, was, in civilian life, a boiler inspector like me, and as he came from near Wigan we had much in common. From time to time he invited me up to his flat for dinner and a social evening. On the 24th September he took Skipper Adams and me for a 100 mile drive into the hinterland. Behind the coastal hills there was a plain and, once across that, the road ascended the Gorge of Schifsa, no mean feat of engineering. There was also a single line railway which seemed to be largely bridge and tunnel and a river bed which would no doubt be flooded in winter. Beyond the Gorge we climbed to about 2000 ft where we had views into the true desert. Altogether a most interesting change from our normal life.

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