大象传媒

This story was added to the People's War Site by a volunteer from 大象传媒 Radio Newcastle on behalf of F Howson. F Howson fully understands the site's terms and conditions and the story has been added to the site with his/her permission.

I was in the RNPS (Royal Navy Patrol Service), whose HQ was the Sparrow's Nest, Lowestoft, and its fleet was made up of over 1,000 fishing boats commondeered at the beginning of the war and used exclusively for minesweeping and escorting convoys. For a time they suffered the highest casualty rate of any armed forces losing over 300 in the first three years. There were usually about half a dozen on every Russian convoy. Their ability to get seamen out of the freezing sea could not be bettered.

I was a telegraphist (wireless operator) on a minesweeper first and then on an ASDIC trawler, convoy work.

The convoys in the med were having a pretty rough time, and in April 1943 five of us were sent down to reinforce the escorts. On the way down we had to do a U-Boat sweep all the way down , it took us just over a week. In those days the admiralty sent out (by morse code) what they called a "situation report" at eight o'clock every night, and was looked on with the same enthusiasm as the 大象传媒 Nine o'clock news! I had just sat on my chair (very comfortable it was too) when that evening's situation report started. When it was finished I passed it into the coding office to be decoded. About twenty minutes later, Bob, the decoder half shouted "Fred! Fred! You must read this before I take it to the officer of the watch!" It told the position of all the convoys crossing the atlantic, and the position of the U Boats. I counted up the number of U-Boats. It really was frightening. The number listed was 125.

This period was perhaps the worst in the whole of the battle of the Atlantic, April and May 1943.

Admiralty figures admitted that in April and May over 100 ships were sunk and the shipping experts warned the government that if those losses continued the UK would have to sue for peace by November 1943. But a miracle did happen in June 1943. More planes were given to the fleet air arm, which meant that every inch of the atlantic could be patrolled from east to west by aircraft. I think it was called 10cms, which meant the aircraft could pick up the U-Boat snorkel and last but not least the number of escorts were increased

What happened in June 1943 was nothing short of a miracle. The British admiralty claimed the sinking of no fewer than 40 U-Boats. But - wait for it - the German admiralty admitted the loss of 43 - yes 43! - U-Boats.

In July 1943 Admiral Raeder, C-in-C of all U Boats admiteed that Germany had lost the battle of the Atlantic and ordered all U-Boats to regroup at the Azores. At the end of the war the German admiralty admitted that only 20 out of every 100 U-Boat crewmen came back home.

Quite rightly we have a Battle of Britain day, an El Alemein Day, but never a Battle of the Atlantic day, without which we would not be celebrating the first two. Is that why it's called the silent service?

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