大象传媒

My father, Herbert Geoffrey Hall - Geoff Hall 鈥� was born in Macclesfield, Cheshire, in 1911, and died in retirement in North Wales in 2002, aged 90. During the Second World War he served in the Merchant Navy. He kept a diary of his experiences from which he later prepared accounts of some of the more memorable and important of these. This is Part One of his account of his time with the Russian Convoy PQ16.

Val Myers (nee Hall)

RUSSIAN CONVOY PQ 16 (PART ONE)

After a brief stay in dry dock we started to load cargo onto the American-built Ocean Voice, when all was stopped, and we learned we had been taken over as a 'Royal Naval Transport' and that, in view of our next trip, certain modifications were necessary. Towards the end of March about 200 men arrived to carry out the alterations, stiffening the bows against ice, lagging all steam pipes on deck and insulating our rooms, so it became evident we were destined for the far North. In addition, passenger accommodation was to be constructed in No. 5 'tween decks for 20 first class passengers. All this took time and meanwhile we loaded our cargo.
Work completed, we moved down river to Gourock and waited, until on 2nd May the articles ran out and therefore the crew had to be paid off. Most of the greasers, firemen and third and fourth engineers decided to leave. I think no one was enamoured of the idea of the Russian run, even in summer.
From the Clyde we went up the coast to Loch Ewe whence I was able to get fresh views of many of my old friends, the hills of Scotland, and especially the Cuillin of Skye.
The convoy was made up in Loch Ewe and we were made Commodore Ship, i.e. we carried the Commodore and his staff of Naval ratings, and we led the convoy. So to Iceland where again I enjoyed the rugged mountainous scenery and we stayed for about a week, all the time on 4 hours notice, which meant staying on watches. As we could not get ashore we were glad to set off again on the 20th May. Now we had a convoy of 36 Merchant ships, accompanied by many warships from cruisers to trawlers including a CAM ship, one where a merchant ship had a long ramp fitted on the foredeck from which a Hurricane fighter could be launched to do battle with enemy bombers. The main snag was that the plane could not get back, had to be ditched and hopefully the pilot be picked up. They were brave men who flew those missions.
Whilst in the harbour at Reykjavik we had seen many warships, both British and American, and we learned that some of the biggest battleships were to be our escort. After about 3 days at sea the heavy vessels disappeared and we felt they had left us just when we might need them. Only later did we learn that the Tirpitz had left its anchorage in the Norwegian fjord and our escort had moved over to intercept her. We now continued our leisurely journey at the speed of the slowest vessel which has to be the way that convoys are conducted.
A couple of days out from Iceland and we were spotted by a German long-range plane and from then on we were accompanied by one of these big aircraft which kept just out of range of the anti-aircraft guns on the navel ships. Trouble seemed imminent, but on Monday 28th May, when I was on the 4.00 pm -8.00 pm watch, I decided to paint the names of the contents on the three engine room lubricating oil tanks. The first air attack developed, the noise of all the gunfire and the detonations of the bombs was disturbing to say the least. Being below, one could not tell whether a particular attack was meant for us or next door, but as sound travels well in water there was no doubt that Jerry meant business. I continued with my sign-writing but, somehow, my hand wasn't quite as steady as before.
Coming off watch at 8.00 pm I was in time to see the next raid develop and a ship in the next column was disabled and had to be towed back to Iceland. At the same time one of the bombers was seen to crash into the sea. How anybody could fly through the tremendous barrage remained a mystery but still they came and came again. Alternating with the bombs were waves of aerial torpedoes and all this went on every two or three hours for the next five days. Being well within the Arctic circle we had 24 hours daylight and good weather at that time of year.
My diary records, This is Wednesday morning and as I write this the air raid warning had gone and the bombers are on their way.' 'Friday - Wednesday is a day that will long remain in my memory, and here I am 54 years later writing about it! The bombers came - wave after wave all day. In the afternoon I tried to sleep but was aroused by the Chief telling me that an adjacent ship had been hit and before the boats could get away she was hit again and the whole ship disintegrated. No doubt she was carrying ammunition like the rest of us. I thought I'd better get up and then WE got it. Fortunately I was leaning on my wash basin which steadied me and it. I later discovered that my wash basin was the only one still intact.
As I said 'we got it' but it was to be sometime before I discovered where and how. As I looked down the engine room the third came running up. I asked had he shut her down but he said "No" and continued on his journey. Below I could see nothing but steam, it looked like a Chinese laundry, but I could hear most things working so down I went. It wasn't very hot steam and I passed through most of it on the way down. The lights had faltered but were still burning. Looking at the dynamo I realised that the exhaust pipe had carried away and this was the source of most of the steam. We had two dynamos, one of which was lighting the ship whilst the second was fully employed supplying current to the degaussing cables - a system which ran right round the ship and neutralized its magnetism as a protection against magnetic mines.
A glance at the switchboard showed that no current was passing to that circuit (the bomb having cut the cables) so I changed the machines over and was able to shut down the damaged one and so reduce most of the steam escaping.
The main engines seemed OK but a lot of water was jetting in through the ship side where there were cracks in the plating and some rivets had torn out. Watch-keeping on convoys was a most boring job and to overcome this I had spent some time making a variety of wooden wedges and plugs, all sorts of shapes and sizes. So, grabbing my bag of about 100, I set to filling all the holes I could see, and this reduced the intake of water. During all this I got a demand for water on deck as we were on fire in No. 1 but as soon as I supplied it the order was STOP it!
The bomb (500 lb) had struck us in No 1 hold which was loaded with seven Hurricanes in boxes and a lot of general stores. This was on fire. No. 2 was full of 1000 tons of petrol in cans. No. 3 contained 1000 tons of ammunition. As soon as I supplied the water it was discovered that the pipeline on deck was fractured, so I stopped the supply whilst the Chief repaired the pipe with canvas and string. Then we put the water on again. I knew nothing of this until much later as I had more than enough troubles down below. There were two or three other steam leaks which were not so important, but my main worry was that water was still rising, albeit more slowly. At some stage the Mate rang me up and said, "Can you keep her going?" My reply was, "I don't know but I'll try". One of the snags was that the shocks had loosened a lot of dirt in the bilges and I had to clean the various filter boxes (known as strums) about every 10 minutes. Still the water was beating me until I discovered that a lot of it was coming in from the stokehold. There I had to get a floor plate up, only a matter of removing a few brass screws in the ordinary way but to my horror I found that the particular plate had been mistakenly welded all along one side. This had to be cut out and one of the firemen - a wild Irishman called McLoughlin - volunteered to help me. He had been well tutored in the Catholic faith and to a never-ending stream of "Oh, Mother of God, have mercy upon us" etc. we cut about 4 ft of welding with a hammer and sett. Once the plate was up the inrushing water could be seen but the hole was about 2 ft below the surface and the sea temperature was just about 30 degrees F. I went in and was only there long enough to get a couple of wedges in the split and immediately the pumps began to gain ground. Had we not succeeded I think we should have lost her.
I can only tell the story as I saw it in the engine room. The Chief, Mr Elwell,
the 4th, John Main, and the deck crew fought the fire in No 1 hold. Knowing that No 2 contained the petrol and No 3 the ammunition no doubt spurred them on, but their feelings have to be imagined. On our foremast we had a heavy (50 ton) derrick or arm. The force of the explosion had thrown this over the mast to crash down on the centre of the bridge, breaking many windows. The Mate, Peter Clarke, told me afterwards that the Master, H J Kay and Commodore Gale left the bridge and returned shortly, dressed in their No 1s, carrying the code books and expecting to abandon ship. They seemed slightly surprised to find we were still keeping station, though no longer leading the convoy.
I had no idea of the passage of time and was surprised to see that it was about 2.00 am, and no sight of the 3rd since it all happened. There was still a lot to do so it was breakfast time on Thursday before I came up. After breakfast I set off to look for the 3rd who wasn't in his room, and eventually found him in the tween decks of No. 4 hold, lying beneath one of the fresh water tanks with two empty gin bottles by his side. He slowly sobered up and resumed his duties but was not much help thereafter.
I had one more major worry. On a merchant ship, with engines amidships, the shaft driving the propeller passes from the engine room in a narrow tunnel about 200 ft long to the exit known as the stern tube which is closed by a gland. There is usually some leakage and below this gland is a well into which all bilge water is directed. This is then removed by a bilge suction pipe connected to a strum box about 2 ft above the walkway from which a pipe of some 7 ft in length descends into the well.
In normal times there is a doorway connecting engine room to tunnel, so that access is easy and a check can be kept on the state of the shaft bearings and the height of water in the well. At the far end of the tunnel a second access, in the form of a vertical ladder in a narrow tube, is provided, this usually terminates in the space which houses the steering gear.
In war time, however, the door from the engine room was sealed up and a vertical tube and ladder is provided at that end as well. Access then is difficult.
It was some time before I was able to get into the shaft tunnel when I discovered that the shock from the bomb had caused the shaft to whip, breaking the tops off all the ten or so bearings. This didn't seem to matter a lot as the main purpose of these tops was to carry a box to hold a block of heavy grease, and none of the bearings was running very hot at the slow speed we were going. The snag was that the bilge water was too high and I found that the vertical suction pipe down from the strum, being cast iron, had snapped off. I was able to devise a means of repairing this during my watches on Thursday, but the job had to be done before the water rose too high and, by now, we were paddling on the normal walkway. What would be the effect of sea water on the shaft bearings I didn't know but I felt it should be avoided.
I planned to effect the repair after breakfast on Friday morning and I asked the Donkeyman, a splendid big Spaniard, to come with me - he agreed. Just as we were preparing to descend the narrow vertical ladder with our tools an air raid warning sounded. Should we go into this narrow space with no chance of escape, or wait? But I knew that if we waited much longer the job would be much more difficult, if not impossible. So we went down, and in about half an hour the job was done, the raid passed, and I could pump out the water which caused so much worry.
The seven Hurricane aircraft wrecked by the bomb in No. 1 hold had been in large wooden cases secured by straps made of 2" x 录鈥� steel strip. Whilst hanging about in Murmansk, out of these strips I made brackets to secure the fractured top halves of the bearings in their former position and thus ensure the shaft lubrication for the return run. They worked well for the run across to Archangel.
The raids continued 24 hours a day and on the last day (Saturday) we got some protection from the shore based aircraft. Throughout the war the Navy were always very good at handing out congratulations for a job well done and after our arrival in Murmansk we were in receipt of several messages such as:-

To:- Masters and Ships' Company in Convoy PQ16
From:- Commodore N. H. Gale, R.D., R.N.R.
Congratulations on a good job well done.

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