大象传媒

The so-called ambush occurred whilst I was a crew member of Her Majesty's Gun Boat 657 in May 1943. She was one of the new "Dog" boats (Fairmile "D" class) of the Coastal Forces, and these were more or less built of "plywood" throughout ! From commissioning in the Isle of Wight we had made our way to Milford Haven from where we departed for the Mediterranean, first port of call, of course, was to be Gibralter. Coastal Forces boats were not intended for long journeys so we had extra fuel tanks fixed to the upper deck. These contained 100 octane aviation fuel as we were powered by four aeroplane engines!!
For most of us 18 year olds it was our first taste of real sea-going! Needless to say we were in a small convoy of other "D" boats and all went well until
we were well into the Bay of Biscay, except that it was a "fiflthy" one. Huge seas were running, and it was pitch dark. For those who don't know; the bridge of these gun boats was open topped, which meant it was open to all weathers, including heavy spray from high waves, neither did it have any armoured protection. Not a pleasant place on that night. It so happened that I had just been relieved on the wheel by Tommy Munns, our second coxswain, which was a welcome relief as the heavy seas made it difficult to stay on course. I then took up a position as starboard look-out and also to man a twin Lewis machine gun!!on the bridge ( a small area). Tired, cold, and very wet I stared out into the murky blackness when out of the darkness pretty red and green "lights" floated towards us!!! Not only that, they passed straight through the wooden sides of the bridge, missing myself, the skipper and Tommy.
They were, I quickly realised, tracer bullets. The all hell brike out. The tracers had missed us, but they had set the upper deck fuel tanks alight!! We we blazing like a 5th. November bonfire, our guns firing back at a low, dark, sinister shape, not too far away--- a U-boat!!
We had "steamed" into a U-boat pack, which had been lying in wait! This we learned much later. Tommy yelled to me to get off the bridge, and the only way was over the top. Unfortunately, just as I was climbing over, something struck me a terrific blow in the back and I was knocked down to the deck. I was so "winded" that I couldn't move--- indeed I thought that I had been wounded, and amidst all the pandamonium,-- not panic-- the chief ran to me and told me to lie still-- I couldn't move abyway!! By this time the boat had pulled out of line and the crew, miraculously, had managed to douse the flames. It turned out that only the "jerry-cans" full of fuel, which were an addition to the fixed tanks, had been set alight. The crew had managed to throw these over the side. I was taken below and the chief attempted to "examine" me!! Luckily, due to the cold, I had layers of woolen jumpers on, plus the thick kapok suit we all had.
I began to feel much better and then the chief showed me a piece of shrapnel which he had fished out of my clothing! The thick layers of clothing had saved me from serious injury. What was strange was, apart from the initial firing, and our replies, everything was quiet.
Later on, as we rejoined the convoy, we smelled smoke and deisel oil ahead. Remember we could only do about ten knots as we ran on one engine to conserve fuel and aheavy sea was running..Reaching the area of smoke and smell we heard voices shouting; "Don't shoot"! and saw bodies in the water. The flotilla picked up twelve German sailors and they turned out to be from the very U_boat which had set us alight! To cut a long story short-- evidently the skipper of the U-boat who had attacked us, [U 439]was inexperienced so that when our guns had opened up, he had dived and reversed at speed. In doing so he rammed another U-boat. [U 659] and they had both sunk. Sadly, there were only twelve survivors from both U-boats.
Why should I say, sadly.? I don't know
but even after sixty years I can still remember how very frightened those young(like us) German sailors were. The date? May, 3rd. 1943 at 1 a.m.!! No doubt if they had sunk our boat they would have disappeared and left us to our fate. Maybe we would have been picked up by our boats, but I doubt it in such conditions. With U-boats lurking they would not have dared to have stopped! War is not "glorious". Later on I was to experiece more of the same. I was one of the lucky ones!

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