大象传媒

A Torch in the Fog

My first experience of being under fire involved a bombing attack on my ship by two German fighters off the coast of Sicily. Until the very last moment when a friend dragged me down on to the deck I thought they were Spitfires. This more or less sums up what the war was like for me and the rest of my shipmates - at least up to the start of 1943. Most of the time we didn't have the faintest idea what was happening until it did. Now, of course, I know most of the details, what ships and troops were involved and why it was necessary and what it achieved but then... Someone, somewhere must have known what was going on - I hope - but it wasn't us.
My first engagement with the enemy, if you could call it that was Operation Torch, the great Anglo-American invasion of North Africa.
It was planned months in advance and involved the movement of hundreds of ships and thousands of men across oceans and continents but if you were one of those men, on one of those ships, it was like being on a convoy shepherded by unseen escorts in a dense fog.
It began for me with a train journey to Glasgow and an Atlantic crossing in the liner Queen Elizabeth to New York, roughly 5,000 miles from the scene of the action and in the opposite direction.
When people think of the Queen Elizabeth now they think of a magnificent cruise liner but there was nothing luxurious about her then; she鈥檇 only just been built when war broke out and she was immediately painted grey and converted into a troop ship. There were thousands of us, soldiers, sailors and airmen, all bound for America and not having much idea of what we were going to do once we got there. We slept on wooden bunks in a vast cabin, probably meant to be a dining room.
The QE was so fast she didn鈥檛 sail in convoy because it was reckoned she was too fast for the U-boats to catch her. So she sailed a zigzag course across the Atlantic at a speed of around 34 knots. Except that on this voyage we went a good deal slower than that because we hit a big storm in mid-Atlantic. The waves were breaking right over the bridge, which was about 80 feet above the decks.
The ship had a mixed crew: the sailors were British but the guns were manned by American soldiers. But all the seamen aboard 鈥� even the passengers - were required for watch duty 鈥� four hours on and eight hours off. When I wasn鈥檛 watching the sea or the sky through a pair of binoculars I was sheltering in one of the funnels 鈥� which were just for decoration but kept you out of the wind. A day out of New York we met up with an American destroyer sent to escort us into harbour 鈥� she鈥檇 been looking for us for two days in the storm. The final approach into New York was the most dangerous because the U-boats would sit off the American coast picking off the ships as they came in and out of harbour. The cities weren鈥檛 blacked out as in England and at night the ships were silhouetted against the lights like sitting ducks.
From New York we went by train to Baltimore and had our first sight of the ship that was to be my home for the next three years. LST140. She was brand new and not yet painted. Around 3,000 tons, bigger than a destroyer, not so big as a cruiser. A long deck with the bridge and superstructure aft 鈥� and a bow door for the tanks and lorries. Armed with a 4 inch gun aft and various Oerlikons and machine guns.
We took her out for sea trials in Chesapeake Bay in Virginia and practised landings. The trick was to drop a kedge anchor as you run up on the beach so you could haul yourself off again when the tanks were ashore. It didn鈥檛 always work. Later, I remember, when we were under fire it got a bit frantic. Then it was just a nuisance.
We attracted a lot of attention from the locals. Apparently there hadn鈥檛 been a British sailor in the Chesapeake since the war of 1812 when we were the enemy. A British force had landed in Virginia and burned Washington, including the White House. And there鈥檇 been a famous battle at the mouth of the Chesapeake between the frigates HMS Shannon and the USS Leopard, which the Shannon won. However, the atmosphere was friendly at first. Whole families turned up in big cars and took us back to their homes for R and R. But then we went to the big naval port at Norfolk, Virginia, and it was a different matter.
A British aircraft carrier, HMS Illustrious, had just been in port and there鈥檇 been serious clashes between the American and British sailors. We were told that the American sailors 鈥� known as Gobs 鈥� had been setting on groups of Brits whenever they went ashore. The British were under strict orders not to retaliate and morale was pretty low but on the last day before they left port the skipper called up the lower deck and told them they could go ashore and do what they liked. His name was Mountbatten and he was a royal. So they did and the Gobs took a beating.
Unfortunately we were the next ship in port. All shore leave was cancelled and we spent the next few days in a state of siege. But from there we sailed up to New York. We were moored off Coney Island and I was made ship鈥檚 postman. Every day I went into New York on the subway to pick up the mail from the Fleet Mail Office on Times Square. The rest of the crew gave me their shopping lists which consisted almost entirely of silk stockings and slips for their wives and girlfriends back home. It got to be quite a chore. Well, how big is she, I鈥檇 say? About as big as you, they鈥檇 say. So I鈥檇 go into the shop and say I want a silk slip and a pair of nylon stockings please for someone about my size.
After about a month of this we finally headed back across the Atlantic to what was then known as The European Theatre. Exactly where, of course, we had no idea. All we knew was that although we were a Tank Landing Ship we had these two American tugboats on deck. If anyone knew what they were for 鈥� and presumably the captain and crew did 鈥� they weren鈥檛 telling the rest of us. Not that we cared particularly. Perhaps they gave us a false sense of security. You didn鈥檛 think you were going to war with two tugboats. But we were.
The first thing we knew about it was when we saw Gibraltar 鈥� and a vast fleet of warships and landing craft. Until then I suppose most of us thought we were heading back to the UK. But we were part of the first allied offensive against Nazi-occupied Europe. Except that we were landing in North Africa 鈥� and the enemy was French.
North Africa was then pretty much of a battleground. The French had about 60,000 troops in Morocco and Algeria under the control of the Vichy government, who were allies of the Germans. To the East, in Tunisia, was Rommel鈥檚 Afrika Corps which was then being pushed back by Montgomery and the 8th Army from Egypt. The plan was to land in Oran, force the French to surrender, and attack Rommel in the rear. Then we would use North Africa as a base to land in southern Europe. Of course no-one discussed this plan with us. We just sailed from Gibraltar in this vast fleet with our two tugboats on deck, still wondering what we were going to do with them.
I heard later that the French navy broke out of Oran and attacked the invasion fleet but was beaten off with heavy losses. I saw no sign of this. For me the operation passed off without a hitch. We landed our tugboats in Oran harbour where they presumably helped in the defeat of Rommel and we spent the next few months landing troops at little ports all over North Africa. I鈥檓 always amazed when I look at the names on the holiday brochures now and think what they were like then鈥� fly-blown little Arab harbours full of bored troops and burned out trucks and tanks.
Finally we picked up a contingent of 8th army troops and tanks and headed across the Mediterranean in a vast fleet that stretched as far as the eye could see. Our destination was Sicily. Which we found out when we got there. And it was there, just off Syracuse, that I saw my first action.
I was up on the bridge, as usual, chatting to a young lad from Blackpool. I looked over his shoulder and I saw these two fighters flying very low and fast, wave-hopping, straight towards us. I thought they were Spitfires. You have to remember that this was my second invasion and so far I hadn鈥檛 had sight or sound of the enemy. 鈥淟ook at those daft buggers,鈥� I said. He turned around and gave out a great yell of 鈥淢esserchmitts鈥� and pulled me down on deck. The bombs exploded about twenty yards away. I found out later that before he joined the Navy he鈥檇 been in the Royal Observer Corps.
He was the only person I had met so far who seemed to have a clear idea of what we were up against. But it was a steep learning curve. I didn鈥檛 know it then but the next place we were heading for was Anzio.

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