大象传媒

This story was submitted to the People's War site by Jane Cave for Three Counties Action on behalf of John Ross-Barnard and has been added to the site with his permission. The author fully understnads the site's terms and conditions.

I was lying on the settee nursing scarlet fever. It was the middle years of the war and the Germans had successfuly invaded the Channel Islands and the fears of the National Government of the day were that the Germans would successfully land on the Isle of Wight and use it as a landfall attack on the south coast of England. In anticipation of the need to defend this important and vulnerable area large numbers of armaments and service re-enforcements were imported to the Island. One of the means was to use the Isle of Wight paddle steamers that regularly ferried from Portsmouth to Ryde. Some distance off Ryde a coal driven paddle steamer, loaded to the gunwhales with ammunition and considerably above the plimsoll line as it lay in the water, blew up. Reasons given were little more than allegations because all aboard were killed. It could have been a mine - the Solent was riddled with British protection (was it an own goal?). Conspiracy theories had a field day. It was a German submarine, it was a failure of the ship and its coal driven steam system. It was a German version of the Cockleshell heroes. Nothing was ever proved.

As the explosion occurred my caring guardian cum mother was attempting to relieve me of the symptoms of scarlet fever. As she went into the hall the blast from this explosion blew her physically straight up 13 stairs to the landing and the afterblast blew her straight down again. She rose unbelievably without so much as a bruise on her person. The following day all she had to do was arrange for repairs to be done to all the windows which had been blown out. I remember those were the only marks on my personality 64 years later.

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