大象传媒

H.M.S. BRILLIANT 1942 鈥� 1943
BY DENNIS H. PRATT

I was very interested in Mr. J.K. Dixon鈥檚 story about the sinking of the Leopoldville at the end of 1944.

My experience of H.M.S. Brilliant was from 1st June 1942 until middle of February 1943, during which time we also rescued hundreds of people from sinking or sunk ships. If nothing else the Brilliant earned its keep from these rescues. Earlier it was at Dunkirk and although I have no record of its performance I am sure there were many of our troops who owe their lives to H.M.S. Brilliant.

We sailed from the Irish coast and escorted a very large convey of troops destined for the Middle-East. On 1st July we arrived at Freetown and then continued on our journey until we left the convoy at Durban. On 1st September we left Freetown heading south with three ships. We were the only escort and the inevitable happened. On the night of 5th September the Myrmidon, a blue funnel line ship of approximately 15,000 tons was torpedoed. Some 250 crew and passengers took to the lifeboats whilst we hunted for the submarine, dropping several depth charges. Among the passengers were many women and children, wives and family of London firemen who were going to India ready for a blitz that never came. Not one passenger or crew was lost and we continued with our escorting with food rapidly running out. On 8th September we arrived at Point Noir (formally French Equatorial Africa) putting the passengers ashore to continue their journey overland to Cape Town. We took the crew onto Banana (Belgian Congo) and transferred them to the liners 鈥楽taffordshire鈥� and 鈥楶resident Dumas鈥� and escorted them to Lagos arriving on 13th September.

On the 9th October we left Freetown with a six knot convey but soon left this in answer to an SOS but could not find who was responsible for this and returned to Freetown escorting 鈥楴ea Hellas鈥�. This was on 11th October and we were told that we had been looking for the survivors of the Orient Liner 鈥極ronsay鈥�. We searched for four days but came to the conclusion that they were unaware of their exact position. On the 15th October a Sunderland flying boat gave us their exact position. On the 16th we came across eight boat loads (275) in the middle of the night which was a repeat of the 鈥楳ymidon鈥� rescue. One of the favourite tricks of U Boats is to follow boats to await the rescuing ships and to attack whilst the rescuer is stationary. Luck was in and although it took an age to get the survivors on board, due to being in life boats for several days. At last everybody was on board approximately 275 men, women and children. On the 17th we offloaded them at Freetown. On the 18th we left with armed merchant cruisers and the 鈥楴ea Hellas鈥�. On the 20th we were called away to more survivors of the 鈥極ronsay鈥�. This time we arrived in daylight and found two boats of about 60 survivors. After taking them aboard we sunk their life boats to prevent them being used as decoys. We again arrived in Freetown on the 20th October. We left on the 25th and arrived on the 31st October at Gibraltar to join 鈥淗鈥� Force which was being assembled for the invasion of North Africa.

Our invasion section was 鈥淵鈥� beach to the left of Oran. Zero hour was 0100 on the 8th November and we arrived with five transports and trawlers. Nothing much happened throughout the night but at approximately 6.30am a Vichy French destroyer A74 鈥楲a Surprise鈥� opened fire on us and fortunately we were not hit and soon returned fired. Our third salvo had the desired effect and we were soon bringing all guns to bear, firing mainly armour piercing shells. After about 40 minutes 鈥楲a Surprise鈥� was not returning our fire and we allowed the crew to abandon ship before opening fire again. After two our three salvos she turned over and sank. Boats were lowered to pick up survivors although many swam towards us preferring to scramble up the scrambling nets to be assisted on board. We picked up about 107 of her crew and the wardroom was cleared and used as an operating theatre. The wounds were terrible and as soon as possible we moved closer to land to offload survivors. At this point land batteries opened fire on us and we moved away just in time, before the 鈥楻odney鈥� opened fire. We then proceeded to deeper water to bury the dead in naval fashion. We were very sad to treat our former allies in this fashion but since I have learnt that the 鈥榃alney and Hartland鈥� had been sunk by 鈥楲a Surprise鈥� and the Vichy French destroyer was out to add to its victims. We estimated that we rescued 107 of her crew.

Much more was to happen before we arrived at Plymouth and paid off, but evidently H.M.S. Brilliant went on saving lives.

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