大象传媒

On May 8, 1945, the British cruiser HMS Dido was en route to Copenhagen Denmark.
At one point during the journey, a lone German aircraft approached the ship.
The Dido's guns fired one shot and the plane flew away - it was VE day and that was the last shot fired in the Second World War in Europe.

The Dido was the ship adopted by the people of Bolton during the war.
During one amazing week in October 1941, the town raised 拢1 million to have the ship built.
On board the Dido, from her launch to the day she accepted the surrender of the German Fleet in Copenhagen, was Eric Jeffs, a "Tiffy", officially an "Engine Room Artificer" or ERA.

"Apart from a few old newspaper cuttings, some faint and well-worn internal notices and some photographs, I have no diaries or literature to which I can refer, I have to rely on my memories, some happy, some not."

There can be few ships that saw as much action as the Dido.

After convoy duties in the Atlantic, she took part in the evacuation of Crete, the Malta convoys, the North African landings, the invasion of Sicily and Italy, Russian convoys and operations off Norway.
As if that was not enough, the Dido accepted the surrender of the German Fleet and, just a few months after the end of the war, took King George VI and Queen Elizabeth to the Isle of Man.

I was an ordinary sailor, one who was not privy to the greater picture.
In fact, hidden away in the engine room, sometimes all I knew of a battle was the sound of guns firing and bombs exploding.

The unconscious humour of the British fighting man is always close to the surface, of course.
After the Atlantic convoys, new orders: "Our destination was a strictly guarded secret, except that lashed on deck were crates marked 'RN Dockyard, Gibraltar' and 'RN Stores, Malta'."
As part of the Mediterranean Fleet, Dido found herself in the thick of the action.
On May 21 and 22, 1941, the Dido and two other ships, the Ajax and the Orion, stopped an attempted sea-borne invasion of Crete, although the Germans later succeeded by using parachutists.
We met and destroyed a number of small ships, a destroyer and 2,500 men.
Our gun barrels were glowing red hot from continuous firing at German and Italian planes.
"The next day an unusual bow wave was spotted on the Orion.
Dido asked if she had damage but was told that it was just caused by a couple of dead bodies caught in our chains. They cleared away eventually.
It is not something that I can easily forget.
A lot of people died, and not pleasantly either, but we were trained to do a job, we did it and, as a result, the ship was able to steam on and, probably, less people died.
Had I been standing a yard away from where I was when the bomb hit, I wouldn't be around today."

In the way that wars go, within a week the Dido was berthed in the Brooklyn naval yard in New York where she was repaired and some items, such as radar, were updated.
A week's training in Bermuda followed before, and after this welcome respite, she was sent back to the Mediterranean.
After various duties, the Dido began to escort convoys to Malta.
"March 20, 1942, was a bit different as the Italian navy decided to join us in what became known as the Second Battle of Sirte.
After several of their ships were damaged or sunk, the Italian fleet withdrew and never put to sea again.
The Dido received a citation.

"There is an interesting postscript to this.
Some time later a new shipmate who had been captured and escaped told us that the Italians who were questioning him told him that they would have beaten us but the sea was so rough that many of their sailors were seasick!"

It was in April 1943, during yet another refit at Liverpool, that I and many of my shipmates were finally able to visit Bolton, the town that had adopted the Dido.
We were accorded the freedom of the town and I met many very nice people.
Then it was back to the Mediterranean, more bombarding of the North African coast, then Sicily and the Italian mainland in support of the invasion, before leaving the sunshine for a period supporting convoys to Russia and attacks on Norway.

The Dido continued to have a busy war right up to and just after VE Day.
I left the Dido and the Navy in 1946:
The Dido was known as a lucky ship.
Given the number of near misses from bombs, shells and mines, the weather conditions that undoubtedly saved us many times, I can't disagree.

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