大象传媒

We got mined on the 15th December 1943, going into Barie harbour, after coming off patrol in Yugoslavia and Albania. We were following our sister ship; HMS Quilliam into the harbour, on our ship HMS Quail. The sister ship went over the mine and it blew the stern off the destroyer, it blew the guns over the side and killed the twenty-nine men manning it. I was getting ready for afternoon watch when the mine hit. The RAF Rescue Launchers came out to take the wounded into harbour and an Italian tug towed us into break water.
Just before that on 2nd December, seventeen American Liberty ships came into harbour carrying mustard gas and high octane bombs. The army, the RAF and the US Army attended the aid the unloading; we didn鈥檛 know what was on the ships at the time. A reconnaissance ship flew over at 3pm, then at 6pm just as we were sitting down to our meal; forty bombers blew up the fleet. Parts of the ships were found two miles away, we suffered mustard gas burns and both the British and Americans tried to keep the whole thing quiet. There was hundreds of bodies floating in the water, military MPs came to drag torsos out, tying them together, putting them on wagons in the harbour to be taken away to the mortuary, then to be buried. At the time the Americans wouldn鈥檛 admit mustard gas was involved. It was just as bad as Pearl Harbour; people were burnt to death in the water by the oil fuel. How we got out was a miracle, only five of us survived. I was twenty at the time.
I鈥檝e just come back from Hero鈥檚 Return in Italy, with my son and brothers; I visited the cemetery where the boys were buried.

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