大象传媒

This story has been written onto the 大象传媒 People鈥檚 War site by Storygatherer Lucy Thomas of Callington U3A on behalf of Douglas Mahoney. They fully understand the terms and conditions of the site.

Extracts from DOUGLAS MANHONEY鈥橲 W.W.2 MEMORIES

Under attack

Monday, day three, dawned. During the night we had turned and steamed back towards the Canal for five hours, presumably to make us more tempting bait for the Italian fleet. We did the same for a short spell, midway through the morning. A few high level attacks took place, but none of them were pushed hard, and no-one was hit.

In the middle of the afternoon came our first serious attack. I counted a definite 18 planes, Stukas. Our dummy battleship, the Centurian, was hit, but carried on. A cruiser wasn鈥檛 so lucky and had to drop out.

A loss indeed, but we had accomplished part of our mission and drawn out the Italian fleet. We had turned once again heading east and the Italians were only 20 miles away. During lulls in our barrage we could hear distant bangs from over the horizon and learned that this was our bombers attacking. If this attack wasn鈥檛 successful, and the fleet continued to advance, our Admiral announced that he planned to attack, and that we cargo carriers were still to try for Malta, presumably with q small escort, diverting first in the direction of Tobruk, until the battle was decided.

Attacks carried on until dark, but they were very half-hearted. We even had one attempt at a torpedo attack, but it wasn鈥檛 pushed hard enough. The barrage put up by 50 ships must have looked horrifying to the pilots.

By now we were all absolutely filthy, but more than that the strain was beginning to show on faces. One of my lads was an odd white-green colour, as indeed were some of the other officers. Even an old salt like the bosun confessed he was feeling it; we were chatting while filling Lewis gun pans. I was weary, there not being much sleeping, but emotionally was fatalistic and not unduly concerned. Anyway, by 2200 it was completely dark. I risked it and had a shower and change of clothes and felt a new man.

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