大象传媒

In the summer of 1942 I was the officer in charge of HSL 2546 stationed at Fleetwood. The RAF hept high speed launches all round the British Isles manned by RAF personnel and in direct contact with operation rooms, and the aircraft too, in order to save ditched aircrew. These boats were 63 feet in length, 18 foot beam, carrying seven tons of petrol to feed three 12 cylinder engines of 500 h.p. each, giving a speed of 28 knots. Crew consisted of one officer, a Flt/Sgt coxswain, two sergeants and seven airmen. We lived and ate on board. After embarkation leave we sailed away in a convoy of troop carriers (the launches were carried on deck) and after being torpedoed in Algiers harbour found ourselves in North Africa. When the campaign got under way we went too, using the available ports and fishing villages along the coast. On a sortie from Bone we came across an enormous baulk of timber from a sunken American ship, some 12" x 4" and 14 foot long; we towed it back to base, as it was a very real hazard to a wooden boat. When we finally got it on to the quay I saw that it was a superb piece of oak, and said that we ought to find a use for it. One of my crew said that a dinghy would be useful. This caused roars of laughter but after giving the matter some thought, Flt Sgt Holden and I decided to have a go. We found a local man with a circular saw who was delighted to cut it for us in return for a few tins of corned beef. It was so heavy that we had to cross cut if first, but eventually we had a pile of planks 4" wide by about 1/4" thick. I chalked and scratched the lines for a dingly 10 ft long full size on the quay; we made the frames over the 'drawings' with wood from a packing case, and building the boat upside down started planking the bottom, we laid them diagonally which simplified fitting each plank to the next as the longest plank was under 20". Our tools consisted of a hammer, hacksaw and small wheelbrace on temporary loan from the engine room, some nails which we begged from the bosun of a freighter and the violin maker's plane (with a 3" carborundum stone) which I had taken along as it was bound to be useful. Even the transom was planked - we could not find a single piece of wood large enough. We had plenty of paint and varnish in our stores on 2546 and the finished dinghy looked quite smart. We used the dinghy a great deal for fishing in the little bays were we used to anchor waiting for a crash call. We moved along the coast as the German army retreated into Tunisia and took the dinghy with us. By this time we had the added refinement of proper rowlocks; it was impossible to buy these buy we borrowed one to use as a pattern. A local "foundry" with a workforce of one man made some for us by converting a bucketful of used cartridge cases that we saved from going over the side, again in exchange for a couple of tins. At Bizerta some sailors borrowed our dinghy late one night, and when we found it, the bottom had been stoved in by running on to a rock. It was not worth all the effort involved in repairing it so we left it where it was.
I have often wondered if some Arab fisherman ever made use of it.

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