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This Story Has Been Inputted By A 大象传媒 Radio Bristol Peoples War Volunteer.

A Lad Called Bris (One Sailors War) 鈥� Part 3 of 6

The NAAFI canteen, when in Iceland, would stock up with fresh fruit, apples, oranges etc. When going on watch with Tubby he gave Bris 2/6p (half a crown) to buy a load of fruit, about a dozen each of oranges and apples which Bris would stuff down his shirt. By the time Bris got down into the boiler room Tubby had organized a stool on the plates, 鈥淩ight Bris put all the fruit on the stool, take three paces back the same as me and when I say go see who can eat the most fruit鈥�. Tubby beaming all over his face started stuffing down the fruit eating the peel, pips everything. Bris never stood a chance because besides laughing at Tubby, talk about being obese, he was a pig.

Bris recalls the time when Tubby had a touch of flu he went to the sickbay and acquired a bottle of linctus and he bought a strip of Aspros. He ate a pound of cheese, over half a loaf, drank all the linctus in one go and took all the Aspros before he went on the middle watch. The result was he collapsed on the plates. Bris was glad he wasn鈥檛 on watch with him that time. Tubby鈥檚 favourite game with a new stoker was to say to him 鈥淵ou reckon you鈥檙e fit don鈥檛 you, lets see if you can put your head through the fourth rung of the ladder and touch the plates with your hands.鈥� He tried this on with Bris who nearly fell for it but he saw what was on Tubby鈥檚 mind and he was having nothing to do with it.

So it was that the escorts left Sadies Fiord, the Echo leading, Eclipse and the other destroyers in line ahead, to meet the first convoy of merchant ships from Loch Ewe Bris was to experience. It was a magnificent sight to behold, the change over of the escort vessels as the convoy proceeded to the Kola Inlet in Murmansk, Russia.

They were met with atrocious weather even seasoned sailors were off colour with seasickness, in waves reaching sixty foot plus high. One good thing about this was that it prevented enemy action and the trip was uneventful. The trip took about thirteen days and as it was a small ship, after three days out, bread was rationed for a couple of days, after that it became mouldy so there was none at all until we happened to go along side one of the big battleships in Murmansk. Potatoes and other vegetables were difficult to cook in the galley. The chef had a nightmare trying to keep the pots on the range. Everything was lashed down when the ship rolled and pitched and the pots would empty. All the chef could do was to hot up tinned peas on the steam drain and cook rice in the balanced coppers, which were pivoted and would stay in an upright position and meat pies were hotted up. This menu topped up with hard biscuits was the same for most of trip.
The convoy sailed into the Kola Inlet in the evening, the next morning the alarm bells rang as four aircraft approached. It was thought that there were four German planes but after they were shot down it was discovered that it was two German planes being chased by two Russian planes. With over ninety ships firing at them they didn鈥檛 stand much chance. No sort of identification was apparent and Joe Stalin was reported to be furious over this action.

Sometime later we moored alongside the wharf at Palyano and some Russian fishermen came aboard from a trawler. Bris was surprised to find that there were some women amongst them, they looked a hard lot. They were employed as stokers in the boiler rooms; they were so dirty it was hard to tell the women from the men. Bris gave one woman a bar of Pusser鈥檚 soap which was of course a name for Navy soap, with no stamp or markings the woman thought it was a lump of cheese-she soon found out it wasn鈥檛 when she took a bite at it, much to her dismay, coughing and spluttering she let out a stream of abuse and what Bris took as bad language. Bris did his best to demonstrate it was a bar of soap amid roars of laughter from her male companions. That was the first occasion that Bris had met the Russians.

About two days after, Bris and the crew were invited ashore to a cinema show. They were marched in an armed party for about a mile and a half across wide open spaces to a three storey building. If you can imagine a large bonded warehouse that would describe it. It was very cold and hard going as they proceeded through snow a foot deep. Bris had on two pairs of socks, two thick jerseys, a scarf and a thick duffel coat. Suddenly a loud cry was heard and on looking they saw fifty or sixty Russian soldiers skiing down a large slope towards them, echoing a chilling war cry. It was frightening and Bris鈥檚 party was in disarray as the soldiers passed them and the guide explained that they were only training.

On entering the red brick building Bris saw a large hall with a dado of all the atrocities committed during the Russian Revolution. Above the screen was a large photo of Lenin and hammer and sickles everywhere they looked. Russian soldiers were there to watch the show, which was conducted with military precision. Bris was glad to get back to the ship; it was so cold in that forsaken land. Everyone was on the alert bearing in mind the Germans were only about forty miles from Moscow at the time. On the way back to the ship they saw a dog trying to serve a bitch which sent up a loud cheer. Some said he ought to have a medal as big as a frying pan, which caused roars of laughter.

On the way to Russia a chap was lost overboard during the extremely bad weather. He was a steward in the officers mess. Bris remembers he was a fellow Bristolian who lived in the Southville area of Ashton Gate by the name of Good. A nice quiet sort of chap he was billeted back aft near the officers mess. The galley being forward near the forecastle meant he was required to fetch the food from the galley no matter what the weather, with the ship rolling it was very difficult to run aft with nothing in ones hands except the knotted safety rope, which was attached to a wire running fore and aft, let alone carrying food, it was a feat in itself.

When at sea it was common place to wear a boiler suit and loose boots enabling them to be easily discarded. One had to wait until the ship rolled, water swilling the deck and beginning to roll the other way, then start to run like hell to whatever destination, boiler rooms, engine rooms or back aft. In some of these mountainous seas it was very scary.

On one occasion Bris left it a bit late to start running to the engine room and before he could reach the hatch the ship rolled back and that side of the ship was awash. Bris clung on to the rope with both hands horizontal to the deck, he lost both boots, the ship rolled back and Bris managed to scramble down the engine room hatch ladder just in time to get another soaking as they took in a massive wave. He had to do his watch on the evaporating plant, soaking wet he tried to dry his clothes the best way he could. He thought himself lucky that he had survived; no one could survive in that water for more than a few minutes as the temperature was so low. Ice flows were common place and ships superstructures were considerably iced and had to be cleared. After he had done his watch he was required to go chipping off the ice and shovel it overboard just to stop the ship becoming top heavy and capsizing.

Such was the hard life of Russian convoys which Bris had taken part in, eleven in all. There were many bad incidents; one of the worse was code PQ18. The Germans had over two hundred aircraft at their disposal of which forty bombers attacked the convoy from northern Norway. The correct number was 91 torpedo bombers and 133 high-level dive-bombers at the Norwegian air base. These bombers attacked on Sept 8th. Twelve U Boats were sent to intercept on September 14th. Forty four torpedo bombers attacked from the south, six ships were lost on September 15th. The attacks continued with no loss of ships but there were continued attacks by U boats, twelve aircraft were brought down. Bris was glad to reach their destination.

Christmas 1943 saw Bris in Polyamoe again with another fleet destroyer H.M.S. Icarus on which Bris鈥檚 uncle was serving, it was actually his mother鈥檚 youngest brother who was only six months older than Bris. They were like brothers as his uncle Charlie had lived with Bris and his family for some years. As soon as Bris saw the Icarus he put in his request to the Engineer Officer to organize a visiting trip to the Icarus. He actually told the Engineer a white lie saying Charlie was his half brother because he thought he stood a better chance of a visit than if he said it was his uncle he wanted to see. Anyway his request was granted and a motorboat was lowered and off went Bris to the Icarus, which was anchored down river from the Kola inlet.

Charlie was the P.O.鈥檚 and C.P.O.鈥檚 Mess Deck Dodger (cleaner and waiter). It was also his job to fetch the rum ration and to prepare and serve the food from the galley. It was always served neat and some lower deck ratings used to occasionally flaunt regulations by saving the rum in bottles for special occasions such as birthdays etc. This was a punishable offence but as I mentioned before rules on a destroyer were more relaxed compared to those on a battleship where a bottle of Rum Neaters was regarded as lethal as a bomb. So it was that Bris shared Charlie鈥檚 bottle and was well oiled when the motorboat came to take him back to the Echo. The next day the Engineer Officer sent for Bris and asked him if he enjoyed himself, he knew that Bris had been drunk but did nothing about it. Bris thanked him very much for organizing the visit.

The convoy鈥檚 return was uneventful but the seas were tremendous, 70 to 80-foot waves. This had to be experienced to appreciate the severity of the storms, plates, crockery came flying out of their racks, water was swilling from one side of the mess deck to the other. Outside it was neither light nor dark but a depressing half-light. One night Bris鈥檚 mate, a scouser, was hanging on to the deck head bars as the hammocks crashed into each other when the ship tossed and rolled violently, scouse started shouting 鈥淪he鈥檚 turning over Bris鈥�. Everyone was scared and very little sleep was had.

Above every hammock was a hatbox rack and quite close to Bris a chap nicknamed Aussy did sling his hammock, this chap used to get quite seasick and had a filthy habit of spewing in his hatbox. This used to upset Scouse who got very annoyed; he used to play hell with Aussy about it.

One evening when the weather was a bit quieter, the lads who were off watch decided to have a bit of fun, (and this may sound a bit far fetched to the reader but you must realize that these lads had been at sea with no shore leave for nearly a month, and life at sea in these conditions was very hard) seven or eight lads sat around the mess deck, pretending to be on a run ashore, with their mugs already filled with water. They pretended to take it in turns to pay for a round of drinks, sounds silly doesn鈥檛 it? But that is exactly what happened. By the time they were finished they were actually drunk, singing their heads off. It鈥檚 a well-known fact that water contains a lot of oxygen and if you drink too much of it, it can go to your head. Possibly being drunk with oxygen, the same way natives in the jungle got by breathing in and out in quick succession; they were sent into a trance. Anyway they were carrying on, seven pints of water takes some drinking, what things grown men get up to when confined in a small space for weeks on end is no odds to anyone.

Among the crew on the Echo were good comedians, whilst at anchor in the fiords of Iceland shows were put on to entertain the crew. One particular rating Scouse Willis, an old three badge stripey, was both a very good comedian and musician, especially with a tin whistle. He was a time serving man who was not interested in promotion and after more than fifteen years was still an A.B., (Able Seaman). Another rating Yorky Kenyon, a professional tenor singer, whose singing was an inspiration, had a bit of a band with an accordion player and Stripy Willis who played the concertina. They put on a fairly good show. Another amusing fellow was PO Cock Court who was a cockney, he didn鈥檛 have to try to be funny he was quite naturally funny. On one occasion he made a big toolbox in the boiler-room while he was on watch, when finished he found he couldn鈥檛 get it out of the boiler-room hatch. He was in a real state.

Bris was a first-class stoker by then and it was his job to shake the next watch, half an hour before they were due to takeover during a night watches, 8 鈥� 12pm, 12 鈥� 4am, and 4 鈥� 8am, this gave a varying rotation of watch time. One morning watch Bris went down to shake Tubby who was in the P.O.鈥檚 mess and who incidentally had spread his hammock on the lockers as previously, because of his 33 stone weight, had split his hammock down the middle and fell through to the deck. He must have been dreaming when Bris gave him a shake because he flung up his fist, the size of which you can imagine and gave Bris an enormous black eye and knocked him silly. Sometimes Tubby would dream he was playing cards and would sit up in his sleep and deal out cards, he was a real character.

On another occasion Bris had a dog watch with Tubby who came down the airlock of No. 1 boiler room with great difficulty. It was action stations when everyone had to double up stations; he had with him a large tin of corned beef and other items of food strapped around his waist, of course this made Bris laugh. 鈥淲hat鈥檚 all this for Tubby?鈥� Bris said
鈥淲ell just in case we get sunk鈥� said Tubby 鈥淗ow the hell are you going to open the tin without a tin opener?鈥� Bris retorted laughingly. 鈥淚 forgot that, go up and get the opener off the P.O.鈥檚 mess deck鈥� said Tubby. Bris had to leave his post, while his opposite number took over, to fulfil Tubby鈥檚 request. It was all a great laugh as Tubby imagined he was going to get marooned on an island of some sort. Another character was a fellow called Fred Coombes. While sleeping he used to sit up in his hammock and sing Sand In My Shoes all the way through. He had a good voice too! Bris also realized that there were some strange characters aboard the Echo at that time. (Continued in Part 4)

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