This was a very hard fought convoy - and to my memory our hardest. As
soon as we passed through the Straits of Gibraltar and met up with the Force
H ships based at Gibraltar: Nelson, Ark Royal, Hermione, Zulu, Foresight,
Forester all hell broke lose.
Like many other convoys to come this was a blur of action - eat when you
can, sleep when you can, fight and die with as little fuss as possible.
I remember the almost continuous, intense, very accurate air attacks on
the ships from dawn to dusk. We spent most of our time at action stations
and got little rest or sleep - there was no time to wash and barely enough
time to eat. This was the first real and continous action that I had experienced
- it was numbing.
The air attacks were a combination of high altitude bombing, dive bombing
and low level torpedo bombing. There was also the threat of attack from
German submarines, E boats and the Italian Navy. The sky was often black
with our anti aircraft fire and the enemy gave us little rest between attacks.
They were obviously well coordinated and prepared for us.
On 27 September at 1340 we were very nearly hit - a torpedo from an aircraft
missed us by only 20 yards. Attack by torpedo bombers was frightening. They
would single you out and fly straight for you at masthead height before
dropping their torpedo at very close range. They presented an impossibly
small target and were below the depression of most of our guns. My four
inch gun was not controlled by the director, and hence I had to aim by sight.
The way in which the ship dealt with torpedo attacks was to steer straight
for the aircraft at full speed, this would present as small a target as
possible and comb the track of the incoming torpedo. Although the safest
thing to do, this resulted in only the for'ard 4.7 inch guns being able
to bare on the attacker leaving the anti aircraft pom pom, my four inch
and the various machine guns helpless.
Unfortunately, the aircraft were wise to this tactic and they often came
in simultaneously at different angles - life then became interesting. I
can clearly remember seeing the white wakes that the torpedoes trailed behind
them. We all knew that a single hit from a torpedo could kill a destroyer
- the ship's steel skin was only a few millimetres thick and had no armour
plating like the larger ships. I felt very sorry for the poor merchantmen,
all they could do was to chug along at seven knots - many would be full
of aviation spirit for the aircraft that were based on Malta and must have
been like floating bombs.
During the air raids Lightning would be rushing at full speed between the
beleaguered merchantmen trying to draw the fire from the aircraft. My four
inch gun was captained by PO 'Slinger' Woods. We had no protection whatsoever
from the weather or shrapnel - not even a gun shield. Live, ready to use,
ammunition would be stacked all around us - we would not have stood a chance
if this had been hit. To this day, I shall never know how we never got hit
by shrapnel from all of the bombs that near missed us. I remember at one
stage during an attack a Fiat fighter performing stunts over the convoy,
some said that it was trying to divert attention from the incoming torpedo
bombers. However, we shot him down.
Now my war had really begun. During this convoy many ships were hit and
many good men died - this was to become the pattern of action in the Mediterranean
for several years to come.
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