Merchant Navy 鈥 A tribute.
The true story of the four Rees brothers and narrated by Einon.
We were four brothers from Lampeter in Wales. Lewi, Tommy, Evan (Alcwyn) and myself Einon.
This story is mainly about myself. I joined the Merchant Service at the age of 16 years and six months. After training school I joined the Roxburgh Castle, an 8,000 ton freighter sailing alone to South America. For the first three days I was seasick and survived by eating just dry bread. The crew as may be expected were very helpful offering nice fat pork chops and other equal unsuitable edibles.
On the morning of the fourth day at about 05:00 a torpedo struck the ship just forward of the bridge. I remember it well as it was a beautiful sunny morning with a calm sea which proved to be very fortunate. Some of the officers received minor cuts from flying glass. Four lifeboats were quickly but orderly launched. The ship began to take in water quite quickly and after about 30 minutes she started to sink as water entered the forward hatches, when quite suddenly she started to sink by the bows. She went down almost vertically. As the boats got together the U-Boat surfaced and came amongst us. She had four Aces on her conning tower, the captain inquired of us as to whether anyone was injured and did we need water or food. Apologies were made for sinking us 鈥 It's war you know but in two or three days you should make land鈥 after the brief encounter he sailed off.
We did make it to Porta Delgardo in the Azores. I was never sea sick again, shock of the past few days perhaps ? The Portuguese treated us well for the short time we were there. I did not stay as a British destroyer HMS Berwell , one the old four funnelled Lease/Lend vessels, came in for refuelling. I met some of her crew ashore and learnt they were sailing in the morning. I mentioned my ship had been sunk by a German submarine , 鈥渨ant to get home they said ?鈥 We, I and a cabin boy said 鈥測es鈥, we were taken aboard and hidden until the ship sailed. We were found later and taken before the captain who obviously wanted to know how we got on board and who helped us. We just said we walked on board. On arrival at Londonderry we went through immigration and then home.
My next ship was the Dunnoter Castle but much later I joined the Llangibby Castle which to Scotland where we stayed for a couple of months training in the use of the 20 mm Orlikon gun. The was to be used for training soldiers for the invasion, later learned it was to be Sicily where we spent two days and almost sleepless nights manning the guns we were trained to use.
I stayed with the Union Castle Line from 1942 until 1952 serving on the Winchester Castle and later the Stirling Castle alongside my brother Evan (known to the family as Alcwyn) who joined the Company before me. His first ship was the Gloucester Castle, an old and slow cargo 鈥 passenger ship. She was in and out of the Far East until she was sunk by a German 鈥淨鈥 ship, the Michel. Of the 154 souls aboard, 94 perished. The remainder were transferred to the supply ship, the Charlotte Schlieman and taken to Singapore which at that time was held by the Japanese, 40 were landed including Evan and the rest were taken to Japan.
Lewi and Tommy served in the RAF pre-war. Lewi was captured by the Italians in Abyssinia. Tommy was captured by the Japanese in Singapore. Both brothers were 鈥渕issing鈥 for three years. The old dreaded telegrams were received at home, 鈥渕issing believed killed in action鈥 or 鈥渓ost at sea鈥. What these two lads went through is quite unbelievable but at the end of the war with Japan were together again. You might say we were very lucky to survive such an ordeal.
Post script.
On holiday in Scotland in the 1970's I met a historian who specialised in U-Boat warfare, I happened to mention I was on a ship sunk by a U-Boat with four Aces on its conning tower. The Captain of the craft survived the war and the historian had met him personally only a month previously.
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