大象传媒

V.E. Day found us in Ostend and the celebrations continued back in Dover, where an army staff car was commandeered to get us back to base after a party. We were in Ostend when a number of Royal Navy MTBs were destroyed in a large explosion and fire.

After the surrender, we moved up to Cuxhaven, near Hamburg. Our job was to escort barges carrying SS troops who were being taken out to Heligoland and forced to do reconstruction work there. We had a nice old German pilot on board, who made a point of always addressing me respectfully as 鈥淜apitan鈥�. He was immensely grateful for small gifts of coffee and cigarettes 鈥� I remember his pleasure at savouring our good Virginia tobacco, muttering 鈥淲underbar!鈥�. I also had dealings there with a German naval commander (not a Nazi, I felt sure) who, when we left , gave me his dress ceremonial dagger in exchange for some cigarettes. I still have it.

We were somewhat reliant on the German navy to keeps things running smoothly at the port. However it was a rule that the German officers (however senior) had to salute the British officers (however junior). I was horrified one day to see our American Fleet Air Arm observer Charlie marching a senior German officer along the quay at gunpoint . Apparently the German had assumed that it was not necessary for him to salute a Sub-lieutenant. Charlie had however taken a different view 鈥� had arrested him 鈥� and was turning him over to the army 鈥淭own Major鈥�. I suspect however that the offence was quickly glossed over.

Cuxhaven was occupied by the 51st Highland Division, but their reconnaissance group had formerly been a very pukkah cavalry outfit 鈥� all regular army officers . We invited them out on a trip round Heligoland, during which they unfortunately got extremely seasick. In revenge, they invited us for a horse-riding outing. I am sure the horses had been specially selected or 鈥済ot at鈥�. Mine had an extremely tender mouth and could not be stopped once it started to gallop. Having survived the war in Europe unscathed, I had no wish to be maimed as a result of a prank by the British Army. I decided to put safety before dignity and jumped off into a hedge!

While at Cuxhaven I met a Dutch interpreter, allocated the rank of Captain, attached to the 51st Highland Division. We were initially shocked to hear him talk about the jewellery and valuables he had forced German civilians to hand over - but he justified this by pointing to the outrages which he said the Germans had committed in his own country.

It was the practice of the occupying forces to appoint an officer (not necessarily a Major in rank) as 鈥淭own Major鈥� in charge of the civilian population . In Cuxhaven the town major required the civilian population to turn over all their cars for the use of officers. I was actually allocated quite a stylish open-top car which we used sometimes to motor up to the Atlantic Hotel in Hamburg. This was the main officers鈥� mess, frequented by some very senior army officers, who, with their old Humbers, looked askance at us young naval reserve officers in our impressive limos!

After Cuxhaven we were allowed to visit Oslo on a courtesy visit and then it was back to Portsmouth around Easter 1945 for the very sad task of 鈥減aying off鈥� ML197, which had been our home for so many months. Part of the formalities involved accounting for the full inventory of items on board. I remembered the doubtless expensive radio set which our army captain had left on board in his eagerness to get ashore at Sword Beach . When I enquired about this, all we could find was the bare chassis of the set, with all the sophisticated innards stripped out. My CPO assumed the expression of surprised and outraged innocence which I suspect is characteristic, in these situations, of senior NCOs throughout the services.

The Far East

We then learned of our next assignment, which was to be part of something called the Deceptive Warfare Unit in the expected landings on the Japanese mainland. Our job would be to go into bays away from the actual landing and play through special loudspeakers the sounds of activity ( anchors being dropped etc) and deploy searchlights to confuse the enemy into thinking that this is where the landings were occurring - all this under the cover of smokescreens, 鈥淔ortunately鈥�, while on the way out to the Far East , the Bomb was dropped and so we did not need to put this into practice.

I had travelled out to Ceylon on the cruiser HMS Suffolk. On one occasion I got into trouble because the Captain, from his day cabin near the bridge, heard me order the signalman to give a facetious reply to a merchantman who did not realise we were a naval vessel and had signalled at night to ask 鈥渨hich line鈥� we were from (鈥淕rey Funnel Line鈥�, I had joked). I had to report to him the next day. However he let me off with a warning and a comment about us young reserve officers not understanding how things were done in the proper Navy!

In Ceylon I was transferred to HMS Wu Chang at Trincomalee as First Lieutenant. She was a coal-fired former Yangtze river passenger ship being used as a submarine depot ship. We sailed her round to Colombo to hand her over to the merchant service. Inside Colombo harbour, all sorts of naval vessels were moored by the bows to the breakwater and aft to mooring buoys. As we entered harbour, my position was at the foc鈥檚le. As we swung to port where everyone was moored, the CO rang down the order to 鈥淪low Ahead鈥�. However, nothing happened 鈥� we just kept on going, parting a number of the mooring wires to the buoys, resulting in the ships all slewing to one side. All hell was let loose 鈥攁nd in my prominent position on the foc鈥檚le I had to take all the flak from the men on the other ships. What had happened was that, when the CO rang down the order to slow, the ancient telegraph cable had snapped and the order never got through to the engine room. The commanding officer, a RN commander, was cleared of all blame at the subsequent Board of Enquiry. The Wu Chang was a very old ship and had not been under way for years.

Later I travelled on to Singapore and then Java , where, while ashore, we became targets for the anti-Dutch terrorists agitating for the independence of Indonesia.
I returned from the Far East on an LST (Landing Ship, Tank). We were ferrying combined service personnel back to Port Said to be repatriated via the complicated 鈥淢EDLOC鈥� transport system across Europe.

Although I had developed a great love of the sea, I could not imagine that life would be much fun in the peacetime navy. There was some idle talk that a career of cigarette smuggling might provide more excitement, but I was not tempted (nor, I believe, were any of my colleagues). Therefore, unlike my brother, who made his career as a purser with Cunard, and my father, who returned to the Merchant Navy, I took a job ashore.

I did however become a keen yachtsman. Thus, over forty years later, on a sailing holiday in Cornwall, I encountered a former ML being used as a ferry from Brixham to Torquay and was offered the opportunity to go on board to look round. The wardroom had hardly changed since 1945 鈥� an eerie feeling.

Together with two ex-RAF guys, I sailed my own boat back to Normandy for the 50th anniversary of D-Day . While over there, we were invited on an impromptu basis to a big celebration dinner at the local yacht club, with a speech by the glamorous local lady Deputy. I could not understand much of what was being said, but they seemed very appreciative of what we had done. Some years later, my son applied on my behalf for the official French Government 鈥淒iplome鈥�, issued to express gratitude to all who had taken part in the Liberation.

I am now retired and live in Poole 鈥� coincidentally very close to the boatyard to which I brought ML197. The sea is truly in my veins - I carried on sailing into my eightieth year, often accompanied by an old Coastal Forces colleague (Dorrian Hill) whom I re-discovered living quite close to me. I have retired to Poole, and now live only a mile or so from the yard where we returned for emergency repairs during the Normandy campaign some sixty years ago.

[ This is the last part of Graham Rouse鈥檚 three-part story on this website; the second part, entitled 鈥淚 was Navigational Leader in D Day鈥�, has the reference A3504953 and the first part 鈥淭he Sea in My Veins鈥� has the reference 3536462]

G D Rouse
January 2005

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