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Chapter 1
Training Ship HMS Conway (36 - 39); the London Blitz (40); Local Defence Volunteer
(40); the Royal Naval College Dartmouth and the battleship HMS Queen Elizabeth (40 - 41).
Conway was built as HMS Nile in Plymouth and commissioned on 28 June 1839. She was
converted to a screw ship with engines and a propeller in 1854, recommissioning on 30
January. Her tonnage was 2,598, with a screw and engines 2,622. Her length was 205 feet
and her depth 54 feet. She had an orlop deck, two gun decks and an upper deck with 10 X 8
inch guns and 82 X 30 pounders. On 24 July 1876, she was turned into a cadet schoolship
for the merchant navy and a navy entry class and anchored in the river Mersey near
Liverpool. During the war she was removed to the nearby Menai strait for safety. On 31
October 1953, when being towed by two small tugs to Liverpool for repairs, she ran aground
in the Menai Strait, broke her back and was left to rot. The last floating ship of the
Nelson era was gone and forgotten by a unappreciative nation. Due to the reduction in the
size of the British merchant fleet with resulting lack of supporting funds, the Conway
cadet training establishment was closed in 1974. "Old ship who cradled us and gave us
friends and sealed us to the service of the Sea." by John Masefield, an Old-Conway.
Chapter 2
Operations in the North and South Atlantic (February - April 41); chasing the German
battle-cruisers Gneisenau and Scharnhorst (March 41).
The two German battle-cruisers driven into Brest in France, were bombed by the RAF over
a period of time, but finally made a successful escape through the English Channel in
broad daylight back to Germany to Bremerhaven in 1942, catching England by surprise.
Lieutenant-Commander Esmonde who lead the old biplane Swordfish torpedo bomber flight
which attacked them --all shot down--was awarded the Victoria Cross. Britain was unlucky
because it had no submarine patrol off Brest as the relief submarine had not arrived in
time.
Chapter 3
The last convoy through the Mediterranean to transport an Armoured Division to the
British 8th Army in Egypt (May 41).
German troops were sent to Libya to reinforce the Italian Army which had been driven
back from the Egyptian border to Benghazi in Libya, so Churchill arranged for an Armoured
Divison and fighter aircraft to be quickly passed through the Mediterranean to Egypt to
reinforce the 8th Army. Fortunately the air attacks on the convoy were not severe enough
to stop it. German air elements were occupied in North Africa.
Chapter 4
Operations during the Battle of Crete, attacked by German Airborne troops.
But for a few bad decisions by the British commander, the Allies could have won this
battle, it was that close. A weak British army with no air support just about won the day
against a powerful force of German aircraft. The German Army Airborne Division was
decimated and the Germans never mounted such an large airborne attack such as this again.
The losses taken by the Mediterranean fleet were extremely serious-three cruisers and six
destroyers sunk; two battleships, one aircraft carrier, two cruisers and two destroyers
seriously damaged .
Chapter 5
Wartime Alexandria; the surrender of the French fleet (Summer 40); naval operations
during the invasion of Vichy Syria (June 41); the supply of Tobruk and the Western Desert
army during 1941.
The loss of Greece and Crete and the advent of the German army in North Africa with
General Rommel driving the Allied army back in the desert lead to a critical situation for
the Allies with accompanying serious problems for our naval forces. The supply of the
besieged Tobruk is one of the unsung extraordinary stories of the Mediterranean war. The
raggle-taggle squadron of little ships fought their way into the port night after night
keeping it well supplied, and creating a festering sore for the German land forces.
The story of the French Vichy fleet is an interesting one. It was attached to the
British fleet until the fall of France in 1940. It tried to leave but was restrained by
the British after difficult negotiations when it was agreed that it be de-ammunitioned and
left to remain in harbour for the rest of the war. At one point both fleets were pointing
their guns at each other in harbour as was done by Caesar and Mark Antony and Cleopatra
nearly a thousand years before. The Syrian campaign is another one of those stupid minor
side wars that occurred from time to time in World War II.
Chapter 7
Operations to stop an Italian convoy and the sinking of the battleship Barham (25
November 1941).
Excerpt 1: "Nothing
happened until around half past four in the afternoon. At this
time I was working in the forward cypher office situated on
the flag deck, high up in the forward superstructure under the
admiral’s bridge. If anything urgent cropped up, there
would no delay in passing messages to him. I was just in the
middle of a short message from the NOIC Tobruk, when shouting
erupted and there seemed to be some kind of commotion going
on among the signalmen on the flagdeck outside.
Now we were under severe helm and the great ship began to list. I glanced across to my
watch partner, a dour scot, who was looking out of the port to see what was going on.
Suddenly he dropped his pencil, losed his books and exclaimed in a controlled but earnest
voice, "Barham"’s been hit." With thumping hearts we both moved to the
flagdeck to get a better view. There was no doubt about it, she had been hit. We both
could clearly see her pulling out of line and rapidly taking on a list.
"Valiant" pounding up behind her at full port helm, her siren wailing
plaintively, was desparately trying to avoid a collision. Several destroyers had turned
out of the screen and were running at full speed towards the stricken ship.
The whole fleet, the battleships and the screening destroyers, was in complete chaos.
"Barham" soon stopped dead in the water was lying almost at right angles to her
original course. All the time she was listed ever more alarmingly and with each second
assumed an increasing dramatic position. It was all happening so fast;she was tipping over
just like a canoe. Soon the port side of her upper deck was awash and the gaping
barnacle-covered starboard side was slowly and wierdly rising out of the water. We knew
then, each one of us, that she was going to go, and very quickly. It seemed incredible.
Only five minutes before she had looked so damned powerful, completely secure as only a
capital ship can look.
Now she was utterly helpless. What had done this to her? Soon she was even further over
and hundreds of white-clad figures could be seen trying to scramble down her huge
barnacle-crusted starboard bottom. As I watched, I saw a figure running determinedly up
the forecastle to the bow and diving resolutely over the port side. That was coolness in
extreme stress. Other figures seemed undecided, riveted to the spot, waiting to see what
others would do. I felt for them them and could well understand their fateful indecision.
Mesmerized, not one of us said a word.
But why was she going so quickly? She had hundreds of watertight compartments, and even
though she was old, a veteran of the Battle of Jutland, she shouldn’t be sinking as
fast as this. Half her ship’s company would probably lose their lives, a harrowing
thought. Oddly enough, what shocked us sailors most was the sight of this great ship
itself so suddenly rendered helpless. A sight like this lingers in your mind forever.
By now she was lying right over on her side. The smoke had stopped and her funnel, her
aftermast dangled absurdly just above the water, and her submerged starboard rubbing
strake was beginning to appear from the sea. A pool of dark, heavy oil was forming in her
wake as she lay almost stopped and stationary. It was all a frightful nightmare. We were
steaming away fast. The figures could still be seen clustered along the starboard side
which was now lying parallel to the water, making it more difficult for the survivors to
jump off. We could hardly make them out, but each one of them represented a human being
struggling for life itself. Every head was glued to the horrible scene. Then she blew up
with a resounding roar. Where the ship had been, all I saw was smoke, acres of it,
billowing out and spreading upwards in huge spirals and puffs."
862 lives were lost and there were 495 survivors, including 16-year old boy seamen and
18-year old officer midshipmen. An interesting story is that of Mrs Cooke, the wife of the
dead captain of the ill-fated ship, who spent her life looking after the wives of the dead
crew. One wife of an able seaman received two pounds and ten shillings, the last of her
dead husband’s pay and a low widows pension to bring up three young children.
Chapter 8
The attack by Italian under-water craft on the battleships HMS Queen Elizabeth and HMS
Valiant in Alexandria Harbour (19 December 41); operations of Force K from Malta (November
and December 41).
Excerpt 2: "On the evening
of 18 December 1941, the Commander of "QE" cleared
lower decks and had everyone onboard muster on the quarterdeck.
He then told us that Intelligence believed that the Italian
navy was planning an attack on Alex harbour. Exactly what sort
of attack, and how it would be conducted, was unclear. He informed
us thay they had already carried out several earlier attacks
using one-man surface mini-torpedo boats. Their latest venture
had been at Gib where they had used some kind of small submarine
to blow up one of the harbour protective nets. He pointed out
that we were still not quite sure how these small craft operated
and that we would all have to be on our toes during the night.
The ship’s company would not be closed up at actions stations,
but extra guards would be set and all ship’s boats would
patrol around the ship dropping small charges if necessary.
Anyone who saw anything suspicious was to report it immediately.
The reaction in the mess was one of unconcern. How the devil did they think that they
could penetrate a harbour as well protected and defended as this one was, with its very
substantial entrance boom? We consoled ourselves with thoughts of the proverbial Italian
inefficiency, and by ten o’clock had forgotten all about the matter.
The next thing was that we were all rudely awakened at 0400 by the alarm rattlers
buzzing us to action stations and a bugler blowing the alarm over the SRE. Clearly
something urgent was afoot. I hurriedly dressed and went up to the quarterdeck. The
harbour was in complete darkness except for a large arc light over a dock about a quarter
of a mile to the east. Cunningham had hastened up from his cabin, a raincoat over his
pyjamas. I heard him give a brisk order to have the arc light extinquished after which he
ordered the 14th Destroyer Flotilla to sea.
I enquired of the officer of the watch what was going on. His reply was that
"Valiant" , lying ahead of us, had just signalled C--in-C that she had
discovered two Italians swimming around the anti-torpedo nets of the ship. One was a
Lieutenant-Commander and the other a Petty Officer.It seemed incredible that the Italians
had actually penetrated the boom, despite all our precautions. Things died down and we
went back to bed. At about quarter to six I woke up and decided to go on deck. As I was
talking my friend, the officer of the watch, the early morning glow highlighted the the
buildings at Ras el Tin and the French cruisers. Then there was a low, rumbling sound like
a tympani drum roll which climaxed in an explosive roar. My friend pointed to
"Valiant" which was already beginning to take on a slight list. All the while
C-in-C stood silently watching.
Then we blew up. Again there was the low, rumbling underwater explosion and the
quarterdeck was thrown upwards about six inches, maybe more. I bent my legs and threw out
my arms to keep my balance as the huge ship lurched beneath me. A blast of thick smoke and
flame shot out of the funnel.The adniral remained there, as silent and imperturbable as
always, steadying himself against the starboard guardrail for balance.
One of the Italian underwater "chariot" submersibles that carried out the
attack on Alexandria harbour is in the Imperial War Museum in London, England, as are two
51-inch guns of the type used in "Queen Elizabeth."
Chapter 9
Naval operations in support of Malta (January, to May 42); "Operation
Vigorous", a convoy to Malta (14 to 16 June 42); the destroyer "Jervis".
Chapter 10
Operations after the Afrika Korps was held at El Alamein, the unsuccessful Tobruk raid
(September 42) and the evacuation of Alexandria.
The Tobruk raid was somewhat like the Dieppe raid. A total disaster. It is little
known.
Chapter 11
Malta finally relieved by a convoy from Alexandria after the Battle of El Alamein
(November 42); Force K operating from Malta and the sinking of the Italian destroyer
"Lupo"; the cruiser "Orion."
Excerpt 3: "The
night attack by our aircraft had obviously been successful,
because we could make out a ship on fire in the distance. As
we closed very rapidly, the stricken ship loomed larger and
larger and we could soon make out its funnels, superstructure
and masts partially covered by smoke and flames. It seemed quite
unaware of our approach.
Within minutes we were within gun range of the convoy, about five miles away. Suddenly,
the silhouette of a destroyer became clearly visible to us as it passed between us and the
burning ship. Very quickly it passed out of view, but not before we had got an accurate
true bearing on her. All our gun turrets were rapidly directed in her direction. Then
something extraordinary occurred. As Guns was orally preparing the turrets to open fire,
we found ourselves steaming through hundreds of men in the water around us. They were so
close that some of them could actually be identified as shadowy heads in the water.
Farther away were boats full of more survivors. They called out for help in Italian and
German, their voices echoing pitifully over the sea.
Our first shot was a star shell which illuminated the whole scene. All our ships
directed their fire at the destroyer. We turned our searchlight on her and all the details
of a small destroyer became starkly evident. Within three minutes, hot glowing circles
appeared on her superstructure and hull from the hits that she was sustaining. Things were
happening very fast. The luckless destroyer, without radar, apparently was quite unaware
of our presence before the attack. Within five minutres it was all over. Her mast soon
collapsed and her superstructure all but disappeared from internal explosions. What a
terrible sight to see a ship being so brutally destroyed with such heavy loss of life. We
were soon past her and we put the grisly memory out of our minds as best we could."
Chapter 12
The landing of British, American and Canadian troops on Sicily (10 July 43); the Landing
HQ ship HMS Bulolo.
The invasion of Sicily was the largest amphibious operation in the history of war, with
about 2,600 seagoing vessels being involved--500 warships, 1,700 landing craft and 400
merchant ships landing around 180,000 troops plus tanks and equipment. It was an immense
venture with worldwide international and interservice implications, and was an extremely
well planned and successful operation.
Chapter 13
Epilogue. Operations in the Dodecanese Islands and the surrender of the Italian Fleet
(August to October 43) and return to Canada .
The Dodecanese war in 43 is little known. After the success in Sicily, Churchill wanted
to mount a diversionary attack into these islands and then possibly into Greece. The
Americans would not go along with this, as they felt that all the Allied forces should be
conserved for the planned invasion across the English Channel into Europe. Thus the
British were forced to carry it out with the limited forces left in the Eastern
Mediterranean. Samos, Leros and Cos were invaded and successfully taken. The Italian
commander in Rhodes was unable to subdue the German army there so the main base from which
to operate our airforces was not taken. The German army in Greece reacted with despatch
and retook these islands with the help of the German airforce from Rhodes and Greece. The
British fleet from Alexandria, operating without air cover in a similar type of operation
to the battle of Crete suffered serious losses with four destroyers sunk, and five
cruisers and two destroyers damaged.
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