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Gran’s brother, Charles Mansell served with the Merchant Navy and his last ship was the ‘San Demetrio’. It was a tanker and they made regular Atlantic crossings without major incident until November 1940 when it all went pear shaped.

Part of a large convoy of 37 Merchant Vessels they were sailing from Nova Scotia with a cargo of Kerosene. They had one escort ship, the HMS Jervis Bay and they made slow progress as few of the ships were built for speed. The San Demetrio began to suffer from engine problems and they were eventually left behind whilst they fixed the problem. As soon as they could they caught the convoy up, but rather wished they hadn’t as the following morning they were attacked by the German ‘Pocket Battleship’ - Admiral Scheer.

The Jervis Bay did what it could to protect the convoy and although it was completely destroyed along with most of the crew, it managed to give the rest of the convoy precious time to flee. The slower vessels however were an easy target and the Scheer attacked. The San Demetrio was hit and numerous fires were burning, given the nature of the cargo, the order was given for them to abandon ship.

The crew were in several lifeboats and the one Uncle Charlie was in got separated from the others. They floated around for many hours in heavy seas and eventually saw a ship but it didn’t see them. On the afternoon of the following day they were beginning to suffer from hunger and exposure when they came across the San Demetrio, still afloat and still on fire. They discussed their options and decided they’d rather be blown up when the ship exploded than slowly die in the lifeboat but the weather was so bad they couldn’t risk trying to get aboard. They waited until the following morning then caught the ship up.

When they got back on board they all set to trying to put out the fires and a couple of them started working on the engines. They hadn’t managed to secure their lifeboat properly and it had been lost, so the ship was now their only hope. Eventually they got the engines going and although they had no navigation as the bridge had gone, they pointed the ship in what they hoped was the right direction and set off.

After several days in bad weather, praying the ship wouldn’t sink and praying they wouldn’t be found by U-Boats, they sighted land. They didn’t have a clue where they were but eventually a British tug boat appeared closely followed by a destroyer.

They were escorted back to the Clyde and arrived to hear all the docked vessels saluting them with horns and sirens. They made it back with almost all of their cargo in tact and were paid salvage fees of £1000 each which was a heck of a lot of money in those days.

Uncle Charlie took this opportunity to retire from the sea which was probably just as well. The San Demetrio was refurbished and went back into service. She was hit by a Torpedo in 1942 and sank with the loss of 19 crew.

Go to Hazel's War - Part 1 Evacuation.

Go to Hazel's War - Part 2 Under Attack in London.

Go to Hazel's War - Part 3 The War Effort.

Go to Hazel's War - Part 4 Dances, Spivs and one legged tights.

Go to Hazel's War - Part 6 The Human Cost.

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