大象传媒

PART TWO鈥�

TWO FILMS THAT BROUGHT BACK FEARFUL MEMORIES.
鈥楾ITANIC鈥� AND 鈥楾HE POSEIDON ADVENTURE鈥�

June STONEMAN is now Mrs. June RADMORE, a working wife who lives in a quiet semi in Plympton, Plymouth.

She is thirty-seven and quite honestly she doesn鈥檛 know how much of her great wartime adventure she remembers 鈥� and how much she has picked up from the stories her mum and dad have told.

鈥淭here are some things I remember vividly,鈥� she said, 鈥渂ut it is patchy, like clips from a film.鈥�

TERRIBLE
鈥淚鈥檝e still got an ancient blanket from the 鈥楲aconia鈥� with a hole in the middle. My neck went through the hole while we were in the lifeboat and I wore it as a sort of coverall.鈥�

鈥淚鈥檝e got a little bible given to me by a missionary girl when we finally came ashore.鈥�

鈥淢y mum and dad have told the story so often to relatives and friends over the years that a great deal of what I think I remember must have come from what they said.鈥�

鈥淚 remember the actual sinking best and my father grabbing me from my bunk and carrying me from our cabin to the lifeboat.鈥�

鈥淭hat was pretty terrible, with people screaming and the water pouring down the ladders against us.鈥�

鈥淚f that torpedo had struck five minutes after it did I wouldn鈥檛 be here today. Mum and dad would have been at a big dance in the ship鈥檚 dining room, far away from where I was and they would never have got back to me.鈥�

鈥淚 don鈥檛 remember much about the time in the lifeboat. Perhaps that鈥檚 just as well. Mum says I slept most of the time.鈥�

鈥淎nd actually aboard the German submarine all I can remember was the bar of chocolate given to me by the sailor.鈥�

鈥淔unnily enough, I remember feeling thirsty in the middle of the night and the sailor went and got me a glass of water.鈥�

But some things do bring back memories for June.

鈥淚 went to see the film of the 鈥楾itanic鈥� and the scenes when the liner went down really frightened me because it all came flooding back.鈥�

ENGULFED
鈥淢y husband asked me if I wanted to leave, but I thought it was so stupid and I watched it. But the scenes of the water rushing into the ship and people being engulfed were so bad that I had to look away.鈥�

鈥淢ore recently, we went to watch the film 鈥楾he Poseidon Adventure鈥�, although my husband wasn鈥檛 too keen.鈥�

鈥淚t was the same thing all over again. When the ship turned turtle I remembered things all over again.鈥�

鈥淚t was really scary.鈥�

鈥淚 THINK THE GERMANS MISSED THEIR
OWN KIDS AND WERE SPOILING OURS鈥�

The young German submariners, dressed like latter-day pirates, were not gentle in their handling of the survivors.

Their commander鈥檚 orders were brusque: 鈥淕et the women and children on board. All of them. Don鈥檛 listen to refusals and do it quickly.鈥�

Mrs. STONEMAN was still dressed in the black cocktail dress she had been wearing in preparation for a ball aboard the liner.

By now it was caked with salt and her stockings were 鈥渕ore holes than stockings鈥�.

LISTLESS
Little June was wearing the flower-patterned pyjamas that she had on, tucked up in her bunk and drifting off to sleep, when the torpedo struck.

Like all the children, she was listless and uninterested in what had been happening for several days.

Even the emergencies of the submarine didn鈥檛 arouse her from her torpor.

鈥淲hen the submarine appeared I was terrified,鈥� said Mrs. STONEMAN. 鈥淚 had heard all about Germans and about U-boats. I honestly thought that they were savage and cruel and that we were all going to be gunned down.鈥�

鈥淚 saw the submarine鈥檚 officers looking down at us and talking to some of the men further up the lifeboat.鈥�

鈥淭hen they started to lift out the women and children. They just hoisted them up from man to man and one by one they disappeared down into the submarine.鈥�

鈥淚 think I was screaming that I didn鈥檛 want to go 鈥� but they took me and June anyway.鈥�

鈥淥ne minute we were all sitting there. The next we were being hoisted up. Then we were going down ladders.鈥�

鈥淚 was gripping June tightly all the time and I didn鈥檛 really notice the captain standing up in the conning tower.鈥�

鈥淲e were passed through a hole in the outside below the tower and we just kept going down.鈥�

鈥淭he first thing I noticed was the smell and the noise. It was the smell of oil and machinery and the noise of the generators.鈥�

鈥淲e were passed from one party of sailors to another and I was convinced that something awful was going to happen to us.鈥�

鈥淲e ended up in the torpedo room, surrounded by Germans and those long, thin torpedoes. I couldn鈥檛 help thinking that it was one of them that had landed us all in this trouble.鈥�

鈥淭he captain was a young blonde man with a little beard and he seemed to be worried most of the time.鈥�

鈥淎nd I noticed one man, in civilian clothes, who, we were told later, was a Nazi Party official.鈥�

鈥淗e didn鈥檛 like what the captain was doing at all. I think he would have liked to see us all thrown over the side.鈥�

As U-507 lay motionless about 350 miles north of the Ascension Islands, her gun draped with the Red Cross flag, high-level political manoeuvring was going on between the German naval authorities and the Vichy French government in Casablanca.

HORRIFIED
The Germans had been horrified to find that 1,800 P.O.W.鈥檚 had been aboard the 鈥楲aconia鈥�.
Now, under pressure from their Italian allies, they were making desperate efforts to save as many of them as possible.
All submarines in the pack were ordered to locate and round up the scattered lifeboats and take aboard any Italians.
They were also told to 鈥渄o what you can鈥� for the Allied survivors.
Over a wide area of ocean the U-boats were doing just that. Between four submarines a total of about twenty lifeboats had been rounded up, including the STONEMANS鈥�.
Each submarine attached lines to the boats and began to tow them to the predestined central point. There they were to be picked up by the 鈥楪loire鈥� of the Vichy French Navy, which was steaming from Casablanca to meet them.

As he watched his wife and daughter being taken aboard U-507, George STONEMAN was having mixed feelings.

He remembers 鈥淲e had no choice in the matter and we had already been given food and water by the Germans so I was sure that they meant us no further harm.鈥�

鈥淏ut I admit I felt terrible when I saw the German sailors lowering my wife and daughter inside the hull.鈥�

鈥淎fter they had gone, the submarine took us in tow and we began to move off. We all just waited to see what would happen. Certainly the situation could not get any worse.鈥�

Inside U-507 Mrs. STONEMAN wasn鈥檛 feeling any happier about her rescuers. She said: 鈥淓ach group was put in the charge of one sailor and he tried to speak to us and show us where to go,鈥� she said. 鈥淚t was terrible cramped and we had to walk about with a permanent stoop. One of the sailors gave June a bar of chocolate and she looked at it, and then looked at me, wondering what to do. She hadn鈥檛 seen such a thing for years. The sailor was smiling and nodding and saying something in German, but we couldn鈥檛 understand a word.鈥�

SMILED
鈥淛une finally ate the chocolate and I don鈥檛 think I鈥檝e seen a happier look on the face of a child.鈥�

鈥淭he sailor took her on his knee while she ate the chocolate and drank a glass of milk.鈥�

鈥淭his wasn鈥檛 anything like the stories I had been told about Germans.鈥�

鈥淲e finally went with one sailor to his quarters and there was a cubby hole with a bunk and a bit of floor.鈥�

鈥淗e pointed to the bunk and waved that we should sleep there. He indicated that he would lay down on the floor.鈥�

鈥淚 still didn鈥檛 trust them, but the bunk looked so comfortable after five days trying to sleep in the bottom of a packed lifeboat, that I decided we must sleep on it.鈥�

鈥淛une and I cuddled up on the bunk and listened to the noise of the engines as the U-boat started to move.鈥�

鈥淚n the middle of the night I woke up and saw that June was talking to the German. He was trying to understand what she was saying.鈥�

鈥淎nd would you believe, she was trying to tell him she was thirsty and wanted a glass of water.鈥�

鈥淚 made him understand. He smiled, went off and came back with the water. Just like any Dad getting up in the middle of the night.鈥�

鈥淲hen we awoke in the morning we got a big breakfast of semolina and some of the sailors took off their heavy socks and gave them to the children. There was quite a festive atmosphere aboard the boat.鈥�

鈥淚 think it was because most of the Germans had been away from home for so long and many of them were ordinary family men. They missed their own kids and they were spoiling ours.鈥�

鈥淥ne sailor - the one whose bunk we used 鈥� showed us a picture of his wife and children and looked at it quite longingly.鈥�

鈥淚 think it was probably at that point that I lost my fear of Germans. All the bad things I had been told about them went right out of the window.鈥�

鈥淲e were looking at somebody just like us, a man who gave up his bed and his precious chocolate for a strange child and her mother. It was really amazing.鈥�

鈥淚t is something I have never forgotten. And no matter what happened afterwards during the war, I will never forget the crew of that submarine and how kind they were.鈥�

While U-507 was towing their lifeboat to the central point with the women and children aboard, her sister ship, U-156 鈥� the one which had fired the fatal torpedo 鈥� was thirty miles north with four lifeboats in tow.
She also had a Red Cross draped across her gun.

BOMBER
Just after dawn, an American bomber attacked her, scoring no direct hits, but sinking two of the lifeboats and killing about twenty survivors.

Immediately, the captain radioed the other U-boats, telling them of the attack. He also informed his headquarters, and within minutes a huge international row was brewing.
But for the survivors, their few hours of safety and comfort were over. The U-boats had no choice but to dive for safety and leave their charges to fend for themselves.

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