Rushing back to Gibraltar
We stayed at Mombasa until the 9th July, when we put to sea with Laforey,
Lookout and Indomitable. At 1230 the Captain broadcast that we would be
having a fast run to Freetown, calling at Durban and Capetown to oil. This
was the news that we had been waiting for so long - was this our ticket
home to Blighty?
On the 11th we picked up a very lucky man floating in the middle of nowhere.
He was a Norwegian and was the only survivor from a merchant ship that had
been torpedoed two days previously. We oiled at Durban at 1500 on the 13th
and left the next day arriving in Capetown at 0900 on 17th July. The following
day we continued our journey with Indomitable and Lookout.
By the 23rd we were low on fuel again and so at 0530 Lightning, Lookout
and Laforey left Indomitable to put into Pointe Noire (then in French Equatorial
Africa) to oil. 'Spegal' Spicer piped Rig of the Day three times before
we entered harbour -
"Someone up top couldn't make his mind up, but I received all the lower
deck ribald remarks for the inconvenience caused".
Lightning departed at 1300 on the same day and was really hurrying for something-
surely not a trip home - the buzz started going round the ship again. We
were told that many U-boats were operating in our area.
On the 27th Phoebe joined the happy band and we all arrived in Freetown
at 0900 the next day, the 28th, to oil.
At 1125 the crews from the three Ls gathered on the quarter deck of Laforey
and captain Hutton (Captain D19) gave a speech. He said that our chances
of returning to the UK were "very sporting, but not yet definite".
He also praised our efficiency, having served on eight seas and with all
of the aircraft carriers then in the Navy. Again we were all heartened to
hear this, but we wondered why we were cracking on at such a pace, just
to return to the UK.
We stayed at Freetown until August 1st, when we left in company with Laforey
and Phoebe; Lookout and Indomitable joined us that evening.
That same evening, at 2100, we sighted three small boats and, after investigating,
picked up all the crew of 35 plus 4 gunners and a dog from the 10,095 ton
Norwegian merchant vessel Tankexpress. She had been sunk by a U-boat at
1330 on Saturday 25th July 1942, just after leaving Freetown for Trinidad
and 600 miles W of Sierra Leone.
We considered it very fair of the Germans in allowing all of the crew off
before sinking the ship. Two Norwegians and an African were billeted in
our mess and one grateful seaman gave me a good duffel coat. However, as
usual, things were not that simple. The Norwegians wanted to be put ashore
in Africa where they would be safely out of the war. For security reasons
we did not want them to tell the world that a large fleet of warships was
on its way to the Mediterranean, so we held on to them until we could put
them ashore in Gibraltar.
They were not the happiest of men! After we dropped them off they left us
several letters and their names and addresses. Tom Taylor still has some
of these letters. This is an extract from one:
" I am very thankful to the crew of HMS Lightning for the hospitality
we were met with and the way they treated us when we were picked up after
being adrift for seven days in the lifeboats. Although it was night time
when they picked us up, they gave us food and hot drinks as much as we could
swallow and tried in every way to make us feel comfortable, which they did
with great success.
They shall never be forgotten by us Norwegians.
Yours Sincerely Hans J. Hansen
c/o A. Armstrong, 3 Rice Lane, Walton, Liverpool".
The next day whilst at sea, at 1800, three of the Norwegian Officers and
16 of the men were transferred to Phoebe.
On the 4th we went alongside Indomitable and took on 100 tons of oil as
we were running low again. We were really cracking on and burning the fuel.
Having safely completed Operation Ironclad and eluded a very nasty posting
to the Eastern Fleet we now found ourselves steaming at full speed to what
was to become perhaps the most important and costly convoy battles of the
war. But we still thought that we were going home!
Next
Home