大象传媒

These stories were submitted by Nina Goergen, a volunteer on behalf of Elisabeth Percy and has been added to this site with her permission. Mrs Percy fully understands the site鈥檚 terms and conditions.

Her grand-son Julian Walker has been so kind to give me a written account of the events and the following narrative is based upon an interview which he conducted with his late grandfather, James Douglas Percy.

My Grandfather鈥檚 War Experiences

James Douglas Percy joined the Royal Navy immediately after the War had broken out. He was 25 years old. He joined as an R.N.V.R. which stands for Royal Naval Voluntary Reserve. They were called the Wavy Navy because the gold braid on the uniform was wavy, not straight as it is on the Royal Navy uniform. They are nicknamed the Straight Stripers.

Douglas was trained at Chatham and then went to Portsmouth where he was based. He soon became 2nd Lieutenant on H.M.S Resolution and was involved in the Second Battle of Narvik in April 1940. His ship was bombed and many of his friends were killed. The survivors returned to Scapa Flow.

H.M.S Resolution next joined Force 鈥淗鈥� under Admiral Somerville, based on Gibraltar. Their job was to escort ships that were taking supplies including Hurricane fighters to Malta.

H.M.S Resolution was used in the attack on the French ships in Oran and Mers-el-Kabir on July 3rd 1940. Later they were torpedoed by General De Gaulle and the Free French Army. The ship was badly damaged and had to be towed by H.M.S. Queen Elisabeth to Freetown in Sierra Leone for repairs.

Douglas was then posted to H.M.S Queen Elisabeth and after they had returned to Gibraltar they headed for Alexandria in Egypt on the last convoy as the Italians and Germans bombed and torpedoed a lot of ships.

From Alexandria they went to help with the evacuation of Greece and Crete which the Germans were invading. Douglas family is still in possession of the escape map of the Greek Islands. This was not printed on paper but on a silk scarf so that it would not deteriorate if it got wet.

At about this time Douglas became an R.N. Only ten people from the R.N.V.R. were taken into the R.N. during the whole War. He next went to Tobruk in Libya as Base Engineer and he was there during the siege, relief and fall of the garrison which lasted from April 1941 for eight months.

The Germans were shelling the harbour continually and accurately from a ten mile range with a gun known as 鈥淏ardia Bill鈥�. They also sent 40 Stuka dive bombers (Junkers Ju87) twice a day to bomb the area. The shelling prevented the Allies from landing or evacuating the troops in the harbour; until Douglas had a great idea. He cut large holes in the side of the Liguria, one of the inshore wrecks. The holes were cut on the side furthest from the enemy so they couldn鈥檛 be seen. The wreck was then used as a camouflage. Under the cover of darkness the troops could move freely to and from their boats through the wreck and then ashore without being seen. This is how the whole Australian contingent was evacuated without the Germans knowing.

While Douglas was in Tobruk he also helped the army. He got a message from his commanding officer, Admiral Poland, to say that the army could not find anywhere to score petrol and was sure he could help. Douglas found five underground tanks. Three of these had been destroyed; one had diesel oil in it, and he thought he could repair the last one so that petrol could be stored. He also built a pipe line from the tank to the sea so that petrol could be pumped from the ships to the tank. It held 1,000,000 gallons of petrol. Unfortunately, when Tobruk fell the army did not destroy the tank of petrol and Rommel used it for his next attack which was the battle of El Alamein.

When Tobruk fell Douglas escaped in a minesweeper with minor shrapnel wounds in his head. His commanding officer was killed. Douglas got the Distinguished Service Cross for his work in Tobruk. His motto was 鈥淓verything is possible, the impossible just takes a little longer鈥�.

After leaving Tobruk he continued working in the Middle East and was appointed Base Engineer Officer at Leros in the Agaen in September 1943. Lord Jellicoe was captured and sent by his captors to tell his men to surrender. Douglas refused and persuaded Lord Jellicoe not to go back but to try to escape with him and Lord Jellicoe鈥檚 commandoes. They found a caique, which was a small fishing boat flying the Turkish flag, and they escaped in that.

Douglas returned to England at the end of 1944 and got married in January to Elisabeth whom he was engaged to when the War broke out. Douglas became the youngest Commander E in the Royal Navy. One month after he got married he went to Vancouver where he took command of the repair ship the Mull of Galloway and went to Pearl Harbour, Guadacanal and Singapore where he was on V.J. day. He eventually returned to England in 1946.

My Grandmother鈥檚 Resistance Work

Elisabeth Knipschildt worked for the Danish newspaper 鈥淧oletiken鈥� as a photographer before the War broke out. She became right away involved in the Danish resistance movement. She was 20 years old.

Shortly after the Germans had invaded, Elisabeth and her mother moved to Stockholm in Sweden. Her sister, married to a Swedish major serving in the army, lived there.

Elisabeth started her own photography studio in Stockholm but also continued to work for the Danish resistance who were also in contact with the British Intelligence in Sweden. As she was engaged to Douglas, a British officer, they felt that she was the right person.

She worked in her portrait studio during the day which acted as a cover up for the resistance work she did at night. Although Sweden was meant to be neutral they let the Germans in and Elisabeth was constantly watched and at times on the Nazis hit list.

Her work was to develop and print films; she also had to deal with micro films which were about the size of a full stop. One thing she printed was the first photo of the V2. She also taught young resistance workers to photograph documents and other things, to process the film and return it to her. This training had to be done in 48 hours.

One important rule for these people was never to drink while they were on a mission. One young man Elisabeth taught went to Denmark with an important coded letter. He got drunk and started talking. He mentioned Elisabeth鈥檚 name which some German officers heard. Fortunately he got back to Sweden and told her about it so her commanding officer told her to destroy everything and stop working for sometime.

The Swedes did not allow this work to be done so if she had been caught she would have been put into jail. If the Germans had caught her she would have been killed.

She always had to be careful going in and out of her flat because she was often watched. There were seven different ways of getting out of the building so she used a different one each time.

Elisabeth鈥檚 last important job was the bombing of the Shell House which was the Gestapo headquarters in Copenhagen. She was sent to take films of the whole area around the headquarters. She had to develop and print the films and then take them to a young British architect working in the British Consulate in Stockholm. He made a small scale model of the whole area which was sent to England. There a large scale model was made which the R.A.F pilots had to study and to be able to recognize the area which was to be bombed. Unfortunately the fourth plane hit a very tall light in a shunting yard and had to jettison his bombs which killed eight Danes before crashing on a garage causing a big fire. Some of the following planes saw the fire and bombed that instead of the target and hit the Jeanne d鈥橝rc school next door killing 86 children and 17 adults. The others realised the mistake and the rest dropped on the Gestapo headquarters which was destroyed.

Elisabeth heard that Douglas was back in England for a short time and wanted to get married. With the help of the British Legation in Sweden she got to England. She arrived on 14 January 1945 and got married 4 days later.

Elisabeth鈥檚 account of her husband鈥檚 and her own work

Narvik 1940
First taste of War. HMS Resolution was bombed by the Germans. Douglas had just left the mess and shut both safety doors when it was hit. He rushed back and found everyone in the mess either dead or severely injured which was a great shock. As a consequence of the bomb a lot of fish were killed or stunned so they had plenty to eat. The rest of the ship was undamaged.

Before Tobruk Douglas was stationed in the Med on HMS Queen Elizabeth. When they were sailing into Dakar they were torpedoed by a Free French sub under De Gaulle鈥檚 order. His ship nearly sank and was towed at 4 knots to Freetown listing badly. There it was repaired.

Douglas flew to Crete a few days before German paratroopers landed and captured the Southern part of the island. They also captured some British officers including Lord Jellico. The officers were told to order the troops in the north to surrender and Lord Jellico was sent north by the Germans to convey the message. He met Douglas who refused to surrender and convinced Jellico and some others to escape with him. They hid in a ditch for 4 days and then managed to commandeer a Caique (a fishing boat). They flew the Turkish flag and only travelled at night and eventually reached Tunisia. From there he got to Alexandria. When Crete fell Douglas was listed as missing in action until he managed to send a telegram to Alexandria.

Admiral Cunningham sent a signal to Vice Admiral Poland saying that 鈥淎rmy can鈥檛 find a fuel dump in Tobruk. Can any of you men help?鈥� He replied 鈥淵es I am sure Percy can help.鈥� When he got there Douglas found that there were 5 underground tanks. 2 were wrecked, 2 were contaminated and 1 was repairable. He took some army personal with him to open the tank and thought it would hold 800,000 gallons. In the end it held 1 Million. They laid all the available pipes from the tank to the sea so that the ships could pump directly to the tank. Before Tobruk fell to the Germans the army the army was supposed to destroy the tank, but they didn鈥檛 and so Rommel was able to use the fuel to help him to get to El Alamein.

The navy were unable to get troops in or out of Tobruk because the Germans had guns pointing towards the harbour and could fire on any ships unloading. Percy realised he could use a burned out beached tanker to shield ships from the German view and create a new landing point. Holes were cut in each side of the tanker and planks were placed directly through it. A white line was painted on the seaward side of the tanker, from sea level to the bottom of the hole. When a ship was due, Douglas shone a torch onto the white line, which the Germans couldn鈥檛 see, to guide the ships into the correct position. This saved many lives. The entire Australian contingent was evacuated this way. He was awarded the DOC for this work.

Douglas always volunteered for everything. He once volunteered to go behind enemy lines to retrieve important documents which had been left behind. He picked up the bag with the documents and slung it over his shoulder. Walking across the desert back to base the Germans opened fire on him with rifles. It was an eerie feeling to hear and see the bullets striking the sand but all he would do was to keep going.

Jan 13th 1945
Saw fianc茅e for first time since 2nd August 1939. Got married four days later and had 18 days honeymoon. Went to London during that time. I met his commanding officers. They said 鈥淲asn鈥檛 I proud that my husband had a brass hat鈥�, and said that he was the youngest commander E in the Royal navy. My reply was to suggest he should be given a bowler hat and allowed to stay at home. He then had to go to Vancouver to pick up 鈥淢ull of Galloway鈥�, a repair ship. He was away for 14 months until he was demobbed on 25th march 1946. He started the war as a sub-lieutenant and ended as Commander E. His motto was: Everything is possible, but the impossible just takes a little longer.

Portrait Studio in Stockholm
Through contacts the Danish resistance found out that I was engaged to a British naval officer. They made a slow approach trying to find out whether I would be trustworthy. My cover was my portrait studio. Taking portraits was my day job and at night, when the main front door was locked, I started the Danish and British work. I developed and enlarged from miniature negatives and micro dots. I often worked all night and often only got 2 hours sleep before the day job started. I was lucky to live in an apartment block with 7 different entrances. I never used the same entrance consecutively as the Germans were always watching me. I had to get the photos etc to the British contacts. My mother, who lived with me, knew about my work and helped by taking her grandchild in his pram and hiding the photos under the mattress. I was approached by the British who asked if I would teach young men (SOE, who had to go behind enemy lines). I had to give them a crash course in photography of documents etc and process them ready to be smuggled out. Sometimes I only had 48 hours to teach them. Sometime during 1942 or 1943 an old school friend of my sister came to Sweden from Denmark trying to find out where the Danish Atom scientist Niels Bohr was. The British had already managed to smuggle him into England. During this my superior contacted me and told me that my sister鈥檚 friend was working for the Nazis. I was told to destroy every bit of evidence of my work.

My final and possible most important assignment was connected to the bombing of Shell House, the Gestapo Headquarters in Copenhagen. Photos of the area, both aerial and ground level, were sent from Copenhagen. I had to enlarge them enough so that a young British architect in Stockholm could make a small scale model of the whole area around the Headquarters. Everything was sent back to England by Mosquito. From this a large detailed model and photos were produced so that the RAF pilots could learn to recognize the area and know where to drop their bombs. I did this work for 4 years.

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