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This story is submitted to the People’s War site by a member of Market Harborough Branch, Royal British Legion on behalf of Dugg Wakefield and has been added to the site with his permission. Mr Wakefield fully understands the site’s terms and conditions.

In the Main, Here and There

I served in the Royal Navy for six years, 1940 - 1946. Two of my more vivid memories involve incidents here with the people of the U.K. before I went to sea. I was in uniform at the time but that is an irrelevance. In September 1940 I was in Hackney when the London docks were ablaze. I had a short leave and was with family but had to return to Portsmouth by first train next morning which entailed getting to Waterloo that night. I was in awe of the wrathful Petty Officer should I return late, so borrowed my brother’s cycle and set off for Waterloo. It should have been pitch black but the fire from the docks set all the barrage balloons glowing and twinkling red like Chinese lanterns and the clink, clank, clunk of shrapnel falling was far less terrifying than the probable anger of the P.O. It was a very exciting ride! The second incident occurred when I was in Cosham, not far from Portsmouth. I was with a girl friend and we went to the cinema (The Cottage?) and a German bomb exploded in the roof. It was our good fortune that this bomb had not penetrated and exploded in the pit; as it happened, to the best of my knowledge, there were no deaths and only minor injuries.

In June 1942 I joined H.M.S. Phoebe as, although at sea for part of the time until then, I was still inhome waters and saw no action while convoying in a V. and W. destroyer between Rosyth and the Thames Estuary. ‘Phoebe’, a light cruiser had just returned from Brooklyn Navy Yard, New York following a six months refit. Bear with me and you will find that history does repeat itself. After working out at Scapa Flow, we took King George VI and Queen Elizabeth from Stranraer to Belfast on their Royal Tour.

We soon left Plymouth (here)_and were on our way to Gibraltar. There we joined a large fleet of battleships, carriers, cruisers, destroyers and merchantmen including a huge tanker - the famous ‘Ohio’. My ‘action station’ was in the forward High Angle Control Tower from where we had to send information to the guns via the Transmission Station. Our objective was the relief of Malta, necessary for our maintenance of North Africa. The operation became famous as ‘Operation Pedestal’ and much has been written about it. Phoebe’s job was to provide extra High Angle Fire protecting ‘Indomitable’. I cannot go into all the details but we saw many sad sights; our worst personal experience was seeing Stukas and 88’s diving straight through the barrage we lay over Indomitable and hitting her with at least two bombs. We shortly left the convoy to escort the stricken carrier back to Gibraltar. Malta was relieved when Ohio just made it.

We then proceeded to South Africa where we spent some time patrolling in the ‘Roaring Forties’ before being ordered to return to the Mediterranean. We approached Pointe Noire, a small port in The Congo, just as I came off the morning watch. I was aft and suddenly became conscious of a sickening jar and crunch. My first thought was that we had hit a rock or submerged wreck as it would seem impossible for a U-boat to find us in such a remote spot - but we had, indeed been tin-fished! We were summoned to Damage Control Stations; within a minute the Royal Marine band was dashing out ‘jolly’ music (forgive the pun). One of my shipmates told me we had been hit port side of the forecastle. We went forward to see if we could be of use but by that time the whole of the fore part of the ship was an impenetrable fog of thick brown choking smoke caused by burning cordite as we had been hit in a magazine which, by good fortune, had not exploded blowing up the ship! We limped into harbour having lost many shipmates, some of whom were buried at sea and many of whom lie in the war-graves cemetery at Pointe Noire. Our ‘patching’ up was a wonderful effort from our divers and engineers allowing us to cross the Atlantic and limp up the coast of America - all this at less than 12 knots and with no major armament forward. Now history does repeat itself; torpedoed again as outlined above, arriving in Brooklyn Navy Yard once more after only being away for some 7 months and undergoing a further six month refit! I cannot speak highly enough of the kindliness and generosity of the New Yorkers.

Phoebe was soon directed back to the Mediterranean where we were based in Alexandria, taking part in the Dodecanese campaign. This was a very active period for us between September and early December 1943. We were attacked many times by aircraft, mostly at night when we were unable to return fire as this would have given our position away. We had several near misses but our Captain (Captain Frend) seemed to sense the precise moment to alter course. On one day time occasion we picked up a flight of enemy aircraft by radar. The flight was pursuing a constant speed and height and had clearly not spotted us; we were able to send very accurate information to our transmission station - very different from barrage fire and we fired a salvo that my shipmates and I in the director tower saw was right on target. Puffs of smoke appeared among the aircraft which dispersed as though by magic; the captain ordered ‘Good shooting’ to be reported to all gun turrets. I remember during this period the landing and evacuating of troops at dead of night on various islands. At times our decks were crowded with blackened faced soldiers. We also bombarded German held positions and worked with many cruisers and destroyers; these included our sister ship Sirius and the destroyer Laforey. A short anecdote. On several occasions during the day we lay up in Turkish territorial waters. An old Turkish farmer used to greet us regularly, standing on a bluff of land as we came into the bay. He would dance with rage at our encroachment and fire an ancient blunderbuss at us - a pleasant comic relief from the night’s work. We were in Alex when His Hellenic Majesty’s Ship ‘Adrias’ entered harbour stern first having had her bows blown off. All the ships around cheered her repeatedly as she limped to her berth.

On leaving Alex in December we went on to Malta and Naples where we were based, carrying the flag of the 5th Cruiser Squadron. Our job was to lay down fire in support of the army which we first did on 29 January; here we met up again with Laforey and other destroyers. Their function included laying down smoke screens for us behind which we could maintain accurate fire. We had to change this position from time to time as shore batteries picked us up and we were subjected to several near misses. Each night we returned to Naples, this I believe was because there were U-boats in the area. We weighed anchor about 4,30 a.m. each day arriving at Anzio with the light. On 17 February our forward capstan broke down and we had to weigh anchor by hand. Our ‘Flag’ ordered ‘Penelope’ (the famous ‘pepper pot’) to precede us out of harbour. It took us a long time to weigh as this is a very complicated procedure involving masses of hands and huge numbers of tackles. We left Naples as it was growing light but after some 50 - 60 miles turned half circle and returned to Naples. Penelope had been torpedoed and it was decided it would be too dangerous to risk losing Phoebe. Penelope went down with the loss of a large number of her crew. She had performed brilliantly for years in the Med. Chance plays an enormous roll in one’s life. We did not return to the Anzio beach-head and after this sad episode we left for Alexandria - and the Far East.

On our way to join the Far Eastern Fleet at Trincomalee (in Sri Lanka) we sailed through the Suez Canal into the Red Sea where we fished with a depth charge and dined on delicious fried fish and chips for the next couple of days. Our only ventures from here were with a fleet of several battleships, aircraft carriers and the usual allotment of cruisers and destroyers. Our job was, as in the Med., to help protect a carrier, on this occasion the Illustrious but we had with us an old friend - the Indomitable, We carried out raids on the coast of Sumatra, still in Japanese hands, using aircraft to bomb and ships’ bombardment from off shore. There is one anecdote worth telling. One of our fighter aircraft (I believe a Spitfire) was unable to lower the undercarriage and was ordered to ditch way ahead of the fleet. When we arrived at his ditching point we all sailed majestically past his inflated life raft - and he signalled that he was hitching a list in the time honoured way. We had him on board later for (many) drinks.

Soon after this I left Phoebe hopefully to return to U.K. for a Gunnery Course at H.M.S. Excellent but was not allowed to leave the East as I had not finished sufficient time away from U.K. and the war was by now focused East. I had two different appointments before my return just after V.J. Day.

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