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My ship, the “Birgitte” was sailing up North on the East Coast up to Methil to join a convoy bound for Canada. It was 7.30 a.m. and I was starving, I had been on watch since 4 a.m, the ship was alone, as we had only left the Tyne and Methil was not far. It had only broke daylight just about 40 minutes before when I heard this queer noise. The last time I had heard it, was in my local cinema when I had seen a film about the Bengal-Lancers. They were firing their guns at the Arabs and the bullets were ricocheting off the rocky hills.

This time, the bullets were doing the same off the sea and I was the Arab. A Nazi Plane was firing at me, but it seemed a long way off. I quickly shoved a shell in the six-pounder gun and trained onto the plane, I could see the pilot and because later on I studied Germany and Italian planes, I discovered it was a Junker 88.

The six-pounder had the firing mechanism on a plate; you had to slap to fire it just at the rear of the breech. My problem was to train the gun into the Gerry’s path and run back to slap the plate, but luckily I heard someone shouting and turned my head. It was one of the sailors who had done a gunnery course at the Royal Naval school. I yelled at him, “fire, fire”. I had that plane’s nose bang on the centre of my gun sight and I listened for the bang.
All I heard was “Hotfra-Lira, hotfra-lira”, which later I was told was swearing in Danish which means “God give me cholera”. The sailor did not know I had a shell up the spout and I was yelling “fire, fire”, and he was trying to load a shell and as he opened the breach, it automatically ejected the shell, and it fell on his foot. He was dancing round the gun platform in agony, while the Junkers 88 was dropping two bombs, which fell a yard or so short. The explosion sent water over the aft end of the ship. I put another shell in and looked for the Gerry to come back to have another go, but I could not see him. Why?

Because the skipper had turned the ship round!

We carried two maritime gunners in the early days of the war when we went deep-sea (left the coast to go to other countries) so we had two soldiers aboard with a Lewis machine gun. I asked one of them how he had managed amidships with the plane. He said that he fired at it, but as was the case with all of the Lewis guns I have seen, it fired two bullets and jammed. We saw the plane attacking another ship sailing to Methil; the plane dropped two bombs but missed again. I think the pilot was a learner. This was early 1941, not long after that all ships had to have all gunners in DEMS man the guns at dawn and dusk. Maritime ack-ack manned the marvellous Bofors and carried five maritime gunners.
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Added by: Alan Brigham - www.hullwebs.co.uk

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