大象传媒

ACTION STATIONS

Alarm bells are ringing in the forward mess decks. I awake!!! STARTLED. My mind trying to clear, at the same time as my immediate reaction of jumping out of my hammock, where just before I was dead asleep, having much sleep to catch up on. My feet were running before they touched the mess deck floor.

Thumping my fellow shipmate Eric Gates鈥� hammock. (Some can sleep through anything). I鈥檓 already dressed, I had been sleeping fully clothed with my boots on (no laces through, need to kick them off if the abandon ship order is given), as well as my life belt, I put on my Duffle coat, it seemed cold anytime of the year off of Norway. With thirty other shipmates we stream through x y doors (the last one putting on two clips safety measures). Out of the door leading to the upper deck, climbing up a gang way ladder, rushing along the port side of the forward superstructure to man a gun of 4.7 inch calibre. Gun crews were manned, as with all four 4.7 inch guns, close range guns, Orlickons, Pom Poms, torpedo tubes and range finder, gunnery director, transmission station etc., all closed up.

HMS Volage, with the Home Fleet at Scapa Flow was at action stations. All guns ordered to train to port, a stab of light pierced the dark night from our searchlight. Focusing on a small fishing drifter a hundred yards away deserted of human life on its upper deck. Expecting the unexpected and maybe a decoy, we, on A gun were awaiting the order to load, load, load, as with all the gun crews. Had it been an enemy ship we should have blown it sky high in minutes. The sea was choppy this dark nigh, our ship with orders from Captain Durlacker, closed to the starboard side of the drifter. On orders from Jimmy (First Lieutenant) to the Chief Bosun鈥檚 mate, of long naval service, to select a leading seaman (Killick) when close to the drifter to jump aboard and secure the small boat to our ship with rope hawsers.

With searchlights still playing on the 30ft drifter, gun crews now on relaxed action stations. We were now able to witness the evolving scene, though Asdic鈥檚 (antisubmarine) radar and visual lookouts were still maintaining a vigilant watch. We could now see dark figures coming out of a hatch from down below on the drifter. One, two, we counted three, four men, still more, five, six, seven, being passed along by the Chief Bosun鈥檚 mate to the Killick on to our ship, where eager hands caught them as both the ship and the drifter bobbed up and down not in unison, making rescue difficult to achieve. Rescue complete, securing lines to the drifter severed after our crew members had returned to the ship and survivors taken down to sick bay for the Quack (doctor) to give them a medical check. Ourselves, Volage鈥檚 ships company, stood down from action stations which meant I, along with other crew members of our gun crews went back down below to our mess deck to have a cup of tea. There was still two hours to go before going on morning watch, time for a bit longer in our hammocks.

It was another four days before our survivors of the drifter could put ashore at Scapa Flow (Orkneys). We understood our doctor had to be careful of the food and liquid given each day to them and they went into hospital after leaving the ship at Stromness Naval Base. Some weeks after the incident a letter arrived from the drifter survivors thanking us for rescuing them and that they would pledge their lives to the common cause against the common enemy.

THOUGHTS

Have wondered ever since whether those survivors we saved were returning from a special mission in Norway?

Emergency Turn

Required, as was getting close to another ship in the fleet that we were escorting in Arctic waters.

Lofty John Mills
Ex. A.B. Seaman
HMS Volage

Cutting from the News Chronicle
1944
Stroke of Luck Saved Them

Exhausted, starving and thirsty, two Norwegians, four Frenchmen and a Belgian drifted helplessly in a small boat towards the Nazi-occupied Norwegian port from which they had escaped 20 days before, were picked up recently by the destroyer HMS Volage.

Their rescue was one of those rare chances of good fortune which do not happen often at sea.

鈥淚t was one of those once-in-a-lifetime strokes of luck" said Commander L.G. Durlacher O.B.E., R.N., the destroyer鈥檚 commanding officer.

鈥淚f we hadn鈥檛 made an emergency turn which took us within 100 yards of their boat we should never have seen them. It was a pitch-black night鈥�

A German aircraft had machine-gunned them killing a Norwegian. For 12 days they had been without food and for two without water.

HMS Volage is a new destroyer, commissioned in the spring of this year. Since then she has steamed 34,000 miles, escorting Fleet Air Arm sweeps off Norway, including attacks on the Tirpitz. She was built by J. S. White鈥檚 of the Isle of Wight.
For the next chapter in John's story go to: A8890121

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