Apart from the deterioration of the weather,
and the difficulties of station keeping, which I mentioned earlier, the
Northern Gem with the rest of the convoy had no other visible worries at
all. Our Christmas Day had come and gone, with dinner consisting of corned
beef sandwiches for those who felt like eating. Strong and sweet tea washed
the meal down the throats of those who had, and it was the same ones who
were downing their tots, and any others which they could get hold of, not
only on Christmas Day, but on any other day that the weather was bad, and
those days were prolific.
Inevitably, due to the full gale that was
churning the sea into mountains and valleys of tormented water, some of the
larger and heavily laden merchant ships were having to steer a course which
would save them from taking too much punishment, and some became separated
from the convoy. Our accompanying trawler, the Vizelma, keeping station on
one or two of these ships, found herself to have been led away with them,
and not until we arrived at Vaenga on the Murmansk coast, did we learn that
the Bramble, a fleet sweeper, had been sent off to try and contact these
vessels to shepherd them back to the fold. She was never seen again.
On the morning of the last day of December
1942, New Year's Eve, I had my breakfast as usual at 7.30 am, put on some
warm clothing, and then made my way up to the point five gun platform to
have a talk with the look-outs who were keeping their cold vigil up there.
It was a miserable morning, bitterly cold, with thick black clouds sweeping
across the dark early morning sky whichever direction I looked into. Snow
squalls were sweeping over the ship, driven by the north-easterly gale, and
visibility was very limited even between the squalls. The day before the
lads had taken part in their first ice-cracking and shifting job. Wherever
there was an accumulation of ice that they could reach with safety, I'd had
them knocking it off with axes, hammers and even hatch battens. It was
essential but backbreaking work, and despite the cold everyone got quite a
sweat on. The thickest and worst of the ice was broken up and shovelled over
the side, or into the scuppers so that the sea swilling over the deck would
wash it away and into the sea. The starboard boat deck was covered with a
thick layer of ice, almost like a skating rink, and after spending some time
having to go at trying to clear it on my own, I considered that it was much
too dangerous for anyone to tackle it. After having a look for himself, the
first lieutenant agreed with me as he did not want any of the lads to slide
over the side as it would be almost impossible to find them in that sea.
Standing on the gun platform that New Year's
Eve morning, before I went the rounds of the ship to see if the ice had
built up on the deck again during the night, I sat on one of the ammunition
boxes taking stock of what I could see of the nearest vessels. I followed
the bottom of the low scudding black clouds where they touched the sea, at a
distance of what I judged to be some five to seven miles away on the
starboard beam, around to the stern, then up across the port quarter, I saw
suddenly some dark orange flashes. In that second or so my mind registered
that it was lightning of some sort, but then, almost immediately, the alarm
bells sounded, and I saw nothing else as I made my quick dash to the bridge
to take over the wheel. On my way I felt that I had seen, rather than
knowing that I had seen, reflected by those flashes, some kind of ship,
which was just a black shape. Nothing had been mentioned of an attack of any
sort, no warning of an enemy presence from our officers or any of the W/T
ratings, so it came as a shock that the convoy was now under attack from
enemy surface vessels (Battle of Barents Sea - below).
Taking over the wheel, my view was now
limited to the port, starboard and front bridge windows. I reported to the
top bridge that I had taken over, and I could feel the vibration as the Gem
picked up her speed from the order to ring the engine room for full ahead
before I got up there. The CO shouted down for me to keep as close to the
merchant ships ahead of us as I could. From this point on, although I knew
that there was a battle raging around the convoy, I saw very little; I
remember at one point seeing what I took to be a destroyer over on our port
beam, dashing about with smoke pouring out of her funnel laying a smoke
screen across the stern of the convoy. During the next hour or so I was
given the order to alter course several times; the engine room had been
ordered to make as much smoke as possible, which was an innovation for us
for normally we made too much being a coal burner. I was told that the
Onslow, the escort leader, had been hit and put out of action, and also the
destroyer Achates which was the vessel I had seen laying smoke; I wondered
now how long it would be before we ourselves copped a few heavy bricks. We
must have made a grand sight belching out thick black smoke. It was usually
the other way on convoys, trawlers as well as some of the merchant ships
were the bad boys, and were often told to cut down on the fog, especially on
fine days, when the smoke could be seen for many miles, and was easy to spot
by any patrolling U-boat. This was a different kettle of fish; the smoke was
needed to hide the merchant ships at any cost to ourselves.
For some time we helped to cover the convoy
of ships with our smoke, and then I was told that Tim Coleman was coming up
to the bridge to take the wheel, and that I had to go on to the deck to get
the heavy towing cable out of the forehold, and prepare it in readiness to
take the destroyer Achates in tow; she had been badly damaged and had
requested our help. I went down on being relieved by Tim, and found Mr
Pooley the first lieutenant, already at the fore hatch with a gang of the
lads, and working as quickly as possible we had everything we required up on
deck in readiness, laying out the cable or towing wire, flaking it up and
down the whole length of the port side. No sooner had we completed this job,
than we were told that the Achates was in a bad way, and was in no condition
to be towed, and that we were going to stand by her. Rescue nets were put
over the port side, and heaving lines were got ready; those of our crew who
were not doing essential work were positioning themselves along the full
length of the port side, as we came up on the starboard side of the stricken
Achates.
She certainly seemed in a bad way, from what
I could see of her as both ships were being lifted on the top of the heavy
broken swell. She looked well down by the stern, and had a great list over
to port. Within minutes of our arrival, I saw her going further and further
over, until she lay completely on her port side. I could see the figures of
men, some with red lights on their life jackets and some even smoking,
clambering through the rails and on to her starboard side which had now
become her deck. As she went further over until she was floating completely
bottom up, the men slid down her side and into the water, her keel now
pointing to the heavens. Then as the men in the water started swimming
towards the Gem, we stood on our deck and listened in amazement as we heard
their voices giving out with a rendering of 'Roll out the barrel'. Here they
were in dire peril, not only from drowning, but freezing to death if we
could not get them out of the water within a few minutes, singing at the
tops of their voices. Those who had survived the action and the struggle to
keep their ship the Achates afloat, were now fighting for their own lives,
to save themselves in those cold and freezing waters of the stormy Arctic
Ocean. Their agony was our agony, and the few minutes, until the gallant
Achates slid beneath the surface of the disturbed seas, taking with her the
dead and the badly wounded who could not be moved for ever, seemed more like
hours, until we had got safely onboard all that was possible of those who
were still alive.
Along with several others of our crew I took
a spell for a few minutes over the side on the rescue nets. We entwined our
legs in the nets to leave our arms and hands free, making sure that we
should not be pulled away by the suction of the seas rolling under the
ship's hull, or by the weight of the men in the water, as we grabbed them
and hauled them up high enough for others of our crew to pull them over the
ship's rail and onto the deck, from where they were taken below as quickly
as possible into the warmth of the seamen's messdeck. It was freezing as we
were rolled incessantly and completely under the water, and we could only
stand it for three or four minutes at a time; we were relieved by others of
the crew who took our places on the nets, while we stamped up and down the
deck to bring some life back into our limbs. Then we picked up a heaving
line or anything like that to throw to those in the water. I myself at this
time took a line to the port quarter of the Gem, and managed to catch one
man and drag him back to the nets and safety. Running back to the same
place, I saw a young lad drifting passed the stern with his arm outstretched
to catch a line; as I threw it to him it dropped over his shoulders, but he
seemed to have lost all the feeling in his body due to the cold. I screamed
at him to hold on, but he could do nothing to help save himself, so I tried
to throw several loops of the line around his arm, but in those last few
seconds, I distinctly heard him crying out for his mother. 'Mother' was the
last word I heard as he disappeared below the surface. I know that I was
crying myself with helplessness and frustration as I saw him go.
Just at that precise moment, there was a
terrific underwater explosion, and the Northern Gem was lifted bodily out of
the water. The surface of the sea shivered for a few moments then burst into
a boiling cauldron of confused froth. When it returned to its former state,
there was no one left alive in the water, there were probably six or eight
bodies floating past, still with their life-jackets, on which glowed the red
lights, but there was no sign of any life; they had either been killed by
the explosion, or had succumbed to the frightful cold of the water. Our CO
then thought it wise to go onto full speed to catch up with the convoy as
the German surface vessels as far as he knew were still lurking in the area,
and the Gem wasn't built to fight a ship to ship battle of that sort.
Everyone was now clear of the deck for with
going full ahead the ship was being swept with heavy seas, and it was not
safe to linger about. I had run down to my cabin and changed quickly into
some dry clothes, my others being frozen. When I had done so, I went down to
the forward mess deck, dodging the seas on deck as I went. I had to take
stock of how many survivors we had managed to pull aboard. The total was
eighty-one officers and ratings; some had been wounded in the action, twelve
seriously enough to warrant the attention of a doctor, but unfortunately we
did not carry one. One of the wounded was a young sub-lieutenant named
Barrett; this young man never uttered a word all the time he was being
stripped and made comfortable in a bunk. There were no obvious or outward
signs of wounds or injuries on his body, but he was in a very serious
condition. I went round the mess with the old rumjar and gave every one a
liberal 'dose' of the stuff to help get the blood moving again.
Those survivors who were able helped
themselves to towels, dried their bodies and rubbed their limbs briskly to
bring back some life to them, then climbed into bunks, and were wrapped in
warm blankets; I made certain that I missed no one with the rum jar. As the
circulation gradually came back to the limbs of many of these men, some were
screaming with pain, a pain which must have been excruciating. Our lads were
doing their best to alleviate this by massage, followed by covering them
with warm blankets or clothing brought up from the store of survivors'
clothes, after some time the sounds of the men in pain gradually died away
as they lapsed into various depths of sleep.
The wounded were a problem, for as I
mentioned we had no doctor onboard, but we had amongst our crew an ordinary
seaman named Eric Mayer. He was forty years old, and had been a bank clerk
before joining the service. His wife was a State Registered nurse. He also
had a friend who was a doctor, and of course Eric Mayer had picked up a bit
of medical knowledge from these connections, so he was put in charge of the
wounded. He soon realised that many of them required more skilled attention
than he could give them, and with the few medical stores that we had onboard
at the time, he could do no more than clean and disinfect their wounds and
bandage them up to the best of his ability.
As I was going the rounds taking names, I
came across Lieutenant Peyton Jones, the first lieutenant of the Achates; it
was he who had taken command of her when the captain was killed on the
bridge during the action. He was sat in the forward mess-deck, very
concerned about his crew, though he realised that we were doing our best. I
apologised for the fact that he had been taken to the seamen's mess, and
conducted him to the wardroom to join the other three surviving officers
where he was greeted warmly by them and our own officers who were present.
They had all thought him to be lost with the ship, and the surprise and
pleasure on their faces when I took him in was good to see after the
happenings of the last few hours. Later, he and our skipper made plans to go
alongside a destroyer at the first opportunity to get a doctor onboard to
attend to the wounded. With the sub-lieutenant, in the forward mess-deck who
was to die later, this made five officers and seventy-six CPOs, POs, and
other naval ratings taken aboard out of the sea.
Some forty or so others, including the
captain, had been killed in the action by the shelling, and apparently
another thirty very badly wounded men who could not be moved, had been taken
to the skipper's day room on the Achates. These unfortunate men had, with
two brave men who had volunteered to stay with them to the end, gone down
with the ship, together with those who succumbed to the freezing waters of
the Arctic Ocean, and those last few who had been killed by the explosion
which had occurred. I think about one hundred men had been lost, but I don't
think that we could have done any more than we had done at the time. We had
worked as quickly as was humanly possible under the circumstances, and as
far as we knew the enemy vessels were still in the vicinity, and could have
found us at any time.
When the explosion blasted the surface of the
sea into, first of all, a flat shivering expanse of water, then into a
boiling white foam, we all apparently had thought the same thing as the
Northern Gem was lifted bodily out of the water - that we had been hit by
either shells or a torpedo on the opposite side to where we were pulling the
men onto the deck, our starboard side, yet no one panicked. It must have
been either the boilers of the Achates blowing up, or her depth charges, but
whatever it was, the explosion had given us all a fright. Much of our
crockery had been broken, and some of the cabin clocks had been blown off
the bulkheads, but more than that it had killed off all the men who may
still have been alive in the water, and had robbed us of the chance of
saving them.
While taking the names of the survivors, one
of them told me that the sub-lieutenant had been on the bridge when the
salvo of shells hit the Achates, one of which had exploded on the bridge,
killing most of the men up there and in the wheel-house. What a shambles it
had been. The cries of the survivors were dying down now, and although they
were still in a state of shock, they were beginning to find that the Gem's
mess deck was a warm, dry, and friendly spot to be in, even though it was
heaving up and down like a tormented and demented thing.
Going up on to the deck was like going into
another world, a world of total darkness, a shrieking and howling wind going
through the rigging like a tortured and mad being, snow blizzards helped to
make it look like another planet, and feel like Hell. During all this there
was a scare on the Gem's bridge, when in darkness another destroyer was seen
going across our stern. At first it was thought to be an enemy vessel, but
fortunately for us it turned out to be the Obedient, another of that gallant
band of destroyers that had fought off the attack made by the German surface
forces. We were still steaming at full speed, making every effort to catch
up with the convoy, the Skipper only guessing at the course to steer to pick
it up once again, for it could have altered direction to any point of the
compass to keep away from the enemy.
Seeing the Obedient going across our stern,
signals were passed with a shaded Aldis, and the Skipper learnt that he was
on the right track; a short time later we caught up with the convoy. At one
point we passed the Onslow fairly close and in the dim light of the Arctic
day, saw what a fight she must have had; men were on the foc'sle head
apparently trying to get a collision mat over the bows, all around the
bridge and funnel we could see signs of damage, and we wished her a silent
good luck. Now amongst friends again we got ourselves tucked in astern of
the ships of the convoy, to stay there for the rest of the night, greeting
the New Year of 1943 as we did so.
When the northern skies had turned a shade
lighter, getting on for mid-day on 1st January 1943, orders were given for
the Gem to approach and close the destroyer Obdurate to take on her surgeon.
A boat could not be launched, the weather being still very bad and sea
conditions still atrocious. Even though we were fortunate in that the wind
had dropped away a little, the fierceness of it had gone at this time. In
any case our port boat had been swept away during the gales earlier on, I
went up to the wheel-house to take over the wheel on the run up to the
Obdurate, getting the feel of it in those heavy swells and choppy seas,
ready for when we finally went alongside the destroyer, but at the last
moment Skipper Aisthorpe entered the wheel-house and said, 'Right Cox, I'll
take her. See if you can get the starboard boat inboard, if possible, but
don't take any chances. We don't want to lose anybody'. I got some of the
hands who were standing watching, but try as we might with axes, hammers and
shovels, we could not even clear a part of the small boat deck without using
both hands to hold on with. So I reluctantly told the men to stand down from
that dangerous job, and to get some fenders ready for going alongside the
Obdurate.
This also was a hazardous thing to ask them
to do, for as a ship the size of a trawler rolls with the swell, the rail
tends to dip under the water and the midships deck becomes flooded. One has
to keep a weather eye open for the heavy ones and be prepared to jump for
the engine room casing and safety. But they stood by their task very
willingly, knowing that the presence of the surgeon was sorely needed
onboard for the treatment of the badly wounded men. With the Obdurate going
slowly ahead into the wind, with just enough way on her to keep her as
steady as possible in the turbulent seas, the Northern Gem, with Skipper
Aisthorpe at the wheel, crept up to the port quarter of the destroyer, Gem's
starboard bow coming within heaving line distance of her and creeping closer
every second. We could pick out in the grey watery daylight on her deck a
small group of men standing on the quarterdeck. Amongst these was the
surgeon, Maurice Hood, who had a line around his waist, waiting to risk his
life. A reception committee of two of our officers and several men waited to
catch him as he jumped, and to release the line quickly so that the two
ships did not stay too close for too long.
As our starboard fore-deck came abreast of
the Obdurate's quarterdeck Skipper Aisthorpe slowly edged the Gem in towards
her, waiting for the correct moment to bring her alongside as close as
possible, without too much risk of a hard collision which might damage both
vessels, and of course to give Surgeon Hood a closer and steadier platform
form to leap on to. Suddenly, as he thought the moment had arrived, a quiet
moment between the heavy squalls, we watched with apprehension as our bow
swung in towards the destroyer. Then with only a few feet separating the two
vessels, Skipper Aisthorpe put the wheel over to port to straighten her up;
her previous course and momentum, added to the helm being put hard aport,
with the engines full ahead, caused her to keep sliding steadily to
starboard, just enough to close the last few feet of the gap. The two ships
touched momentarily. As they did so, Surgeon Hood bravely jumped some seven
or eight feet on to the deck of the Northern Gem, and into the arms of the
reception committee.
The hearts of everyone watching were in their
mouths for the few seconds that he was airborne, in case the Gem swung away
from under him. This was the most dangerous part of the operation as far as
he was concerned, and we were happy to see him land safely. The damage
caused by the touching of the two ships was only very slight. It was a
satisfactory operation, successfully completed by all concerned, and we now
had a surgeon aboard.
Surgeon Hood was taken below with his bag of
instruments, to prepare himself for the job of work he had come to do. And
this was to prove no mean feat on his part due to the conditions in which he
was to work in. The forward mess-deck became the operating theatre, and the
mess-deck table the operating table; this had to be held firmly in place by
several other members of their crew, so that it would not be thrown on to
the deck by the crazy gyrating movements of the ship. How the doctor managed
to carry out these operations and to keep his hand steady to cut away the
damaged flesh, I shall never know, but he did. Lieutenant Peyton Jones of
the old Achates administered the anaesthetic. Both he and the surgeon had to
be held in their positions at the table, and many of the Achates survivors
volunteered for this.
After our last search around the area in
which the Achates sank, while I was going round with the rum jar and the
stripping of the survivors was going on, I came to one man who was standing
up against the mess-deck table, in a state of shock and kept looking down at
his right shoulder. Two of our crew were about to take off his jersey, and
as they eased it over his head, the whole fleshy part of his shoulder came
away with his clothing. I shouted to Eric Mayer to come over and have a look
at it. He separated the piece of flesh from the clothing, did something to
it and the wound that it had come from, then bandaged them both together
again. He was doing a responsible job and making good work of it considering
that he had no qualifications, and when the surgeon did start to do his
operations with Eric as assistant, he complimented Eric for what he had
done.
There was also a young seaman that I found
sitting in the galley, he was keeping himself warm by the galley fire. When
I gave him his tot of rum, during our conversation, he said the back of his
head was hurting him, and asked me if I would have a look at it for him. I
did so and could see a piece of metal at the back of his left ear, it was
sticking up out of the bone, with no sign of blood; the metal was a good
quarter of an inch thick, and was protruding about half an inch from the
skin. When Surgeon Hood saw it eventually, he said that he would not attempt
to take it out as he had no way of knowing the length or the shape of the
metal, which was a piece of shrapnel. When it was taken out at Murmansk, it
was a jagged piece almost as long as a cigarette packet; this young man had
been very lucky indeed to survive this.
The young Sub-Lieutenant Barrett was examined
in his bunk by the doctor, who said that although there was no visible signs
of injuries or wounds, he had apparently taken the full blast of an
explosion in his stomach, possibly from the shell that had hit the bridge.
There was nothing that could be done for him, and we were told to give him
anything that he asked for, as he was dying. All he did ask for was a drink
of water; he never complained and passed away sometime during the night. He
was buried the next morning, the service being read by Lieutenant Peyton
Jones, while the Gem lay hove to in the now worsening weather. He included
in his service those of their crew who had gone down with the Achates, and
now lay many miles astern of us, somewhere in the vast spaces of the Barents
Sea, amongst the many who had gone before them on other convoys taking aid
to our Russian allies.
Taking stock of the convoy now that we were
back with it, we knew that the trawler Vizelma and two merchant ships along
with the fleet sweeper Bramble were adrift since losing the convoy the night
before the attack by the German force. The Onslow which we had seen as we
closed the convoy had by this time left the convoy, and was trying to make
Murmansk on her own but a lot of her crew had been killed and wounded. We
were to lay close to her later when we arrived at Vaenga, and we saw more
plainly how much she had suffered. Her CO, Captain Sherbrooke, who was
severely wounded and had lost an eye in the battle, was later to be awarded
the Victoria Cross, for the successful defence of the convoy, whose
attackers had been the Admiral Hipper, the Lutzow, and several large
destroyers, one of which was sunk by our covering cruiser force
Jamaica (above - courtesy NavyPhotos) and
Sheffield. Onslow looked a shambles when we saw her at Vaenga; there was a
great gaping hole in her starboard bow, and the crew had put the collision
mat over it, to stop the flow of water that was threatening to sink her; the
mat had frozen to her hull on her trip back to port. Her bridge was a
tangled mess of ruptured steel, and the funnel like a colander with holes
that had been made by the jagged pieces of shrapnel.
The wireless room had been ravaged by
splinters, and those on watch there at the time had been killed at their
posts. Once again the Northern Gem had been most fortunate; this time in the
midst of an attack by enemy ships, the heavy cruiser Admiral Hipper, and the
pocket battleship Lutzow along with six large destroyers, one of which, the
Friedrich Eckholdt, was lost. They were all out of our league and we
shuddered to think what our fate would have been if we had come face to face
with any one of the enemy.
The weather on the way in to Vaenga continued
to be at its vilest, with storm force winds which caused havoc with the
heavily laden merchant ships, but all of them survived. Blizzards which
swept continuously over the convoy and the escorts, made station keeping a
hazardous job due to almost nil visibility, but we all arrived at the Kola
Inlet safely with no more incidents. All the survivors of Achates were put
ashore here from the Gem. From what we saw of the port from the ship during
the short period of daylight, it seemed to be a place that none of us would
relish staying in for any length of time - not that I went ashore very
often, once to see the young lad out of the galley, and to see how the other
wounded were getting on. I had a walk around the area out of curiosity more
than anything else but I would not like to compare it with Maimska or
Archangel from our previous run to North Russia. I know that once again,
when we arrived at Vaenga and made fast to a merchant ship alongside of the
jetty, I was almost out on my feet, having been at the wheel for a
considerable period. And I remember quite well, as though it were only
yesterday, that I rolled into my bunk just as I was, sea boots, duffle coat
and life jacket still on. I can remember Tim Coleman shaking me and calling
me, telling me that he had been down several times before and could not wake
me up. On the last occasion I had apparently swung my legs over the side of
my bunk, without waking up.
When he did finally get through to me, he
told me that the Northern Gem was on fire and that I had to get on deck as
quickly as possible. Still with my eyes full of sleep and hardly open, and
to be honest, with hardly a bit of interest, I pulled on my gloves and put
on my helmet, asking him what the 'whooshing' sound was that I could hear;
he replied that the noise was incendiary bombs, dropping in the water
alongside, and also into the almost empty merchant ship which we were tied
up to. Then I became wide awake and ran onto the deck with him. Great fiery
chandeliers were falling and coming to rest in many places around about.
Apparently several had fallen on the Gem but had been shovelled over the
side; only one had been difficult to get rid of and it had almost burnt
through the engine room casing before it had been dealt with.
Just after this we moved alongside of the
Onslow. I must have been completely exhausted at the time I turned in, as
never before nor after was I like that. Normally I was a very light sleeper
and woke up before I was called, sensing that something was going on or that
I was about to be called. This was a condition that I had got used to in
pre-war fishing days. Previously when we had picked up men from ships which
had been sunk, one or two had mentioned that they had called one of their
mates who had been asleep in his bunk after the 'Abandon Ship' had been
given, and that person had not awakened; it was something that I could not
readily believe, but I now found this to be only too true. The Gem had been
on fire and I had slept through it.
What if she had gone down? The date would
have been the 3rd January 1943, the day we arrived at the Kola Inlet, and
were secured to Vaenga Pier.
The following day, the Onslow moved away from
her berth inside the Northern Gem, at Vaenga Pier. She was proceeding to a
place called Rosta, for a quick repair job before going home with the next
available convoy. As to the weather at the time, the thermometers were
showing minus zero degrees, everything was frozen up, and snow was in
abundance. The Russians were not a very friendly people on the whole,
considering what all the men in the numerous convoys had been through to
bring them their much needed supplies, and as far as we were concerned, we
could not get on our way home quickly enough. The Germans had one or two
airfields, not so very far from the Kola Inlet in flying time, and we did
not want to stay too long within reach of them.
The Northern Gem pulled away from Onslow's
side, to allow her to slip out to make her way to Rosta. Most of our crew
were on deck and I was at the wheel with most of the bridge windows down.
There was no daylight yet and to keep most of the windows up and closed
meant that they would be soon steamed up from the heaters and would make it
difficult to see where we were going. As Onslow began to move out slowly,
the sound of a trumpet was heard, and soon all other sounds from the
dockside cranes, and the winches on any merchant ships which were being
unloaded were silent, and everyone within the sound of the lone trumpet,
stood still. It was being played on our forecastle, by one of our officers,
Skipper Tommy Buchan, and I'll bet that he never played to a more receptive
and appreciative audience than he did on that morning.
At first everyone stood in complete silence,
looking around in the faint light, to see where the sound was coming from as
it was so unexpected, then, first one group, then another, joined in
singing, until all round men were giving out at the tops of their voices, a
rendering of that lovely old song 'Auld Lang Syne'. There must have been
many salty old sailors, both Royal Navy and Merchant Navy, who were close to
tears as the Onslow and her gallant crew moved away, and past the Gem. It
was a very moving and never to be forgotten scene, believe me, and one which
all who were present at the time will remember for ever.
We stayed at Vaenga for just over three
weeks. There were many air raids by the Germans, and Murmansk was a ghost
town of shattered buildings, with burnt timbers sticking up in the air, the
smell of burning mingling with the smell of death, a sweet sickening smell
which clung to your clothing. Yet it was here in Murmansk that I tried out
skiing. I was looking at some skis outside a hut and an elderly Russian came
out and motioned me to put them on. There was a gentle slope, running away
from the hut, so I thought, Why not? After two attempts during which I was
on the floor in the snow more often than I was on my feet, I passed the skis
back to him, thanked him, and gave him a new packet of twenty Senior Service
cigarettes.
The Vizelma, our 'chummy' trawler, had got in
with her two merchant vessels, so although the convoy had lost none of the
stragglers, or any of the merchant ships come to that, we had lost two of
the escorts the Achates, and the Bramble, which we learned had been sunk
somewhere in the Barents Sea. There were no survivors. Theirs had been a
lonely struggle against both the elements and the attacking force.
So with the two trawlers from the previous
convoy JW51A, which had left Loch Ewe on 15th December 1942, and had arrived
in the Kola Inlet on Xmas Day, there were now four trawlers to coal and take
on provisions. These were the Lady Madeleine and the Northern Wave, (the
latter being a sister ship to our own which had been on the Norwegian
Campaign with us), the Vizelma and the Northern Gem. On 29th January 1943, a
convoy of eleven merchant ships left Murmansk, escorted by a larger force
consisting of seven destroyers, including the Onslow, two fleet sweepers,
three corvettes and the four trawlers. With the Kola Inlet astern of us and
fading away in the right direction, and the weather not too bad, we had a
fairly quiet trip back. Only one merchant ship was sunk by a U-boat. This
time we were not in the position to be of help; this job went to the Lady
Madeleine and the Northern Wave, and not one man was lost.
We arrived at Loch Ewe on 8th February 1943,
ten days out from Murmansk, a pretty quick trip by the shortest route
possible. The four trawlers diverted to Belfast, from where some of us got
leave. When I got my turn, and arrived in my home town of Hull, I saw the
Onslow again, this time in the hands of the ship repairers. As I stood on
the Monument Bridge, where once the statue of William Wilberforce looked out
over the docks, my mind went back to the Barents Sea, on that cold, dark and
wild New Year's Eve day, with its snow squalls being driven by storm force
winds, and to the events of that day, When Captain Sherbrooke of the Onslow
won the Victoria Cross. Now here that same ship lay, in my home town, having
her wounds attended to. I watched with pride and I wondered if the men
working on her decks at that moment, knew what she had been through, and did
they feel as I did about her? What a difference to that other convoy, PQ17,
when so many men lost their lives for nothing more than pitting their
courage and their determination against such great odds. JW51B had been a
great victory, and had helped to boost the morale of those of us who had
been on both convoys. On PQ 17 we had finished up as a disorganised
shambles, feeling disgusted, dismayed, discouraged, and utterly shocked at
the way things had gone. But after JW51B we thought, 'That's a smack in the
eye for you, Jerry', and 'Who's doing the shouting now?' If the backing and
trust of those in command at the Admiralty had been given to those in
command of the escorts on convoy PQ 17, in July 1942, there would have been
another successful convoy of ships for Russia. There would have been losses
of course, but not on the same scale as those that did happen, though I
realize that in saying those words, that I am being wise after the event. I
only hope that the men of the merchant navies who were left to their fates,
have seen fit to forgive us after all these years. It was not the fault of
the ordinary sailors that they were abandoned, nor those of the officers in
command of the escort ships. All of us would have seen it through, come hell
or high water, make no mistake about that.
