Lieutenant A B Palmer RNR known as Pedlar,
Alfie and the Pirate had an amazing life at sea fighting
in both the 1st and 2nd world wars. He was a tall burly man
who had a strong personality, a loud voice, always very jocular
and a great leader who insisted that his men work hard when
required, shoot straight and fight until they lost consciousness.
He was made the commanding officer of the ex- Italian Navy
schooner named Maria Giovanni. She was a 340 ton two-masted
motor schooner with a speed of 7 knots and a crew of two
officers and 9 ratings. She had been captured off Tobruk
in January 1941. As she was an Italian navy ship, she was
commissioned as a RN ship. She was known as the Maria G and
became famous because of her captain’s exploits and
as she was one of the smallest ships in Mediterranean fleet,
bristling with eleven captured enemy machine guns. She ran
out of Alexandria sailing on the dangerous trip to Tobruk
via Mersa Matruh. Goods and troops would be moved to Matruh
by rail and picked up there. She made quite a sight flying
the white ensign when entering or leaving harbour with her
crew manning and piping the side. And all ships from battleships
downwards had to reply and this caught the attention of the
officers and sailors.
Palmer was born in Sydney, Australia in 1898. He went to
sea as a cadet on a four-masted sailing ship, sailing to
England via Cape Horn in 1916. This ship was sunk by a U-boat
but Palmer survived. Later he served as a gunner in a merchant
ship which was also sunk by a U-boat. Rescued by a trawler
which in turn was mined and he was the only survivor. Returning
to Australia, he was shipwrecked enroute and stranded in
the Galapagus Islands. He served as an officer in the Australian
Commonwealth Line. Joining the RNR, he was appointed to a
survey ship. He was awarded the Royal Humane Lifesaving Medal
for saving lives on the Irrawady River, Burma.
Before the Second World War, he worked for a ships broker
in Shanghai and commanded the Chinese Lancers of the Shanghai
Volunteers. With his experience in the merchant navy he ended
up as the navigator in the submarine depot ship HMS Medway
in Alexandria as a lieutenant RNR. He then was made the commanding
officer of three Xboats - powered front-loading lighters
(the precursors of the WW2 landing craft) in Crete and Tobruk.
He was awarded the MBE for his outstanding work in these
little ships. This was when he became the CO of the Maria
G.
His work in Tobruk was amazing. How his ship
was not hit by air attacks was a miracle. He was appreciated
by the Australians soldiers that were defending the fortress.
Maria G’ s most precious cargo were 64 Australian army
nurses who were being rotated out of the fortress and this
posed problems for the little ship. An excerpt from the ship’s
log by Palmer was “No complaints, No defaulters, No
request men,” Palmer took bearings of enemy trucks
moving on the coastal desert roads to get a more precise
position. He would transport provisions, ammunition, prisoners,
the wounded and whisky and this was done sometimes during
daylight. The bulk of the stores were delivered to Tobruk
by destroyers from Alexandria, who would leave early in the
day arriving at midnight and getting well clear by dawn within
our own fighter coverage.
The ship was mentioned by Lord Haw Haw, the Irishman who
broadcasted out of Berlin. The enemy were determined to sink
the little ship by bombing but it was hard to do this because
she was so small to hit and it was dangerous to attack her
at close quarters because of all the light machine guns it
carried. It had shot down a number of aircraft. One time
when it was loading in Tobruk in broad daylight - a very
dangerous thing to do - the German Stuka aircraft concentrated
on her, dropping bombs all around her. But she somehow weathered
the storm. Tobruk’s secret weapon was used along with
all the other anti-aircraft guns that surrounded the harbour.
This was sent out from England with instructions that it
could be used in Tobruk. It used a UP shell (unrotating projectile)
. It was a Heath Robinson weapon, as bad and as dangerous
the men shooting it as the gun that lobbed hand grenades
at aircraft. The Ups were shot into the air and set to burst
at a set altitude throwing out grenades that hung under little
parachutes that were supposed to drift onto the enemy planes.
They had damaged the admiral’s HQ in England.
In November 1941, in rough weather, Maria G took a course
away from Tobruk to avoid a U-boat which was thought to be
waiting outside the port; misread a green light on its approach
and ran hard aground on a reef off enemy territory. She was
soon captured by the Italians and the crew were taken prisoner.
Palmer even made a name for himself in prison camps. Apparently
he was taken to be shot because of a trumped up charge that
he had been cruel to Italian prisoners taking them back to
Alex in Egypt but at the last minute an officer took him
aside and he was told that they had decided to cancel it.
He thought it was because he knew Mussolini’s son-in-law,
Count Ciano, the Foreign Minister, who was later shot by
his own people. He had ridden with him at the Shanghai Club
years before . He had later given Palmer books and magazines
to read in prison.. Palmer attempted 14 escapes and was shot
trying to escape from a train in a tunnel and had to have
his arm amputated. He was repatriated in 1944 as a disabled
prisoner. On arrival in London he called Admiral Cunningham
who was then First Sea Lord and had visited the Maria G in
Alex two times, was welcomed and told he was to receive the
DSC from King George VI at Buckingham Palace. When the king
was pinning the medal on him, the king said “his life
read like novel.”
He was returned to Australia and apparently was soon back
in action in the Far East. He served in Borneo and his name
was mentioned as being present at the surrender of Japanese
forces. He married Caroline Goley, a reporter for Time magazine
and moved to Florida. Later he married Jane Bellow and lived
in Clearwater, Florida. He died there on 4 July 1993, aged
94, survived by his second wife and grandchildren. He wrote
his excellent biography called “The Pirate of Tobruk” which
was published by the prestigious US Naval Institute. The
book was published just after he died.
He was so interesting that I had tried to contact him but
was unsuccessful. I started my book in 1992, and through
a friend in Australia Commander Jim Hume RANVR, we finally
found out about him. He was an extraordinary naval hero but
not that well known in his own country.
