The sinking of HMS Lightning


During late February and March 1943 our daily routine had become established - escorting troop and supply ships between Algiers and Bone in the day and attacking enemy convoys at night. When we were in harbour we were attacked every day by enemy aircraft and acted as Ac Ac ship.

We were now so tired that we were becoming zombies. I can remember that I very occasionally saw my mess - I was in my gun (A turret) most of the time. To add to our troubles, the food was getting progressively worse. This was not the 'Tanky's' fault, we could only get meagre supplies from Algiers. What food we had was of poor quality and probably of low nutritional value. I began to suffer from a painful gum infection and lost several teeth.

We did not realise it at the time but we were gradually getting physically and mentally worn out - looking back on it I now believe that our operational effectiveness was becoming dangerously low. I often wonder now what state the skipper was in - he had no respite from it at all. He was a very good man and, when in harbour, would allow those off watch to go ashore for a couple of hours to get a break.

On the thirteenth day of continuous action, as we entered harbour in the late afternoon after returning from Algiers, we went straight to the oiler, our hearts missed yet another beat - we knew that we would shortly be out again that evening - we were 'all in'.

'Knocker' White described this period graphically

"...this went on until March (1943) - Bone - Algiers - Bone very little sleep, everyone knackered. When we went after a convoy on 12th March from Bone I would say we were about 25% efficient".
On her last voyage, Lightning left Bone alone at 1745 on the evening of Friday 12th March 1943 with nearly 230 weary young men aboard.

Jack Hall recalls of that last evening

"As usual we were at action stations on leaving Bone and damage control continued to plug the shrapnel holes. We had set off on our own after a signal from Flag on the Aurora".

After joining Loyal , we provided flanking screening cover to the cruisers Aurora and Sirius. The plan was to attack a German convoy out of Sicily bound for Tunisia. We heard later that the convoy returned to harbour when they realised that we had left port. German intelligence must have been good as we were attacked by twelve torpedo bombers at 1851. To this day I wonder whether the convoy was a deliberate trap to send us into a nest of waiting E Boats, they certainly wanted to get rid of our presence so near their army supply lines.

In the last time that she was to open fire she downed one of their planes - with no damage to herself. After the air attack ceased at 1936 we pressed on in formation. At about 2200 our interpreters on board intercepted a radio message, in German (from the E boat S55), saying that they were about to attack the Lightning.

We had been at action stations all evening and I was closed up in A turret. I was tired, hungry and frightened as we were so close to the enemy. At about 2215, through my sights, I clearly saw the pale grey E-boat on the port beam when it fired the first torpedo. We were not operating RDF, ASDIC or HF DF and had no time to return fire - perhaps if we had all been fighting fit we may have opened fire in time - who knows? The skipper turned the ship hard to port to comb the track of the torpedo as he had done on so many previous occasions, but she was just too slow this time and we were hit fine on the port bow, blowing it clean off "as if cut by a knife".

Even though I was very near the point of impact I heard no loud explosion, just a sickening heavy thud that jarred my bones. The ship shuddered from the blow and everything went dead. Realising what had happened and with no electrical power to operate the gun we had no choice but to abandon the turret. We could not escape from the door as it was jammed. Instead, we had to escape onto the deck by sliding down the chute for ejected shell cases. We did not panic as we could feel that the ship was not settling or healing over, although we guessed that she must be in a serious state.

It is interesting that in a letter to me fifty years after the sinking, Tom King mentions the turret door

"..before I left the ship, when I was Captain of A turret .... being tall I could stand with my legs spread and put one foot on each of the ready use shells so I never needed to use the stand (which obstructed the door). The lads used to say 'don't put the stand down Tosh so if we have to get out sharp there's only the clips'..".

This is possibly what prevented us escaping. I wonder how many men lost their lives in other similar turrets due to this poor design.

Upon emerging from the gun turret I was amazed at the enormity of the damage and how near we had been to being killed outright. About fifty feet of the ship had been blown clean away and our turret was leaning over onto the deck.

To a man we were stunned. We could only look at one another in amazement. Everything was still and quiet - there was no return of fire and no rushing about. The only other ship visible was the E boat. We just waited for the inevitable, like a rabbit hypnotised in a car's headlights.

The stricken ship quickly lost way and became a sitting target. In a desperate attempt to save her, the skipper gave orders to go astern to relieve pressure on the forward bulkheads that were still holding. But I could only watch as our attacker slowly circled the dead ship and come round to the starboard side. I heard his engines speed up as he turned to run in towards us. He came straight for us and fired a second, fatal, tin fish. It was carefully aimed and hit us square amidships beneath the funnel. This caused terrible damage, destroying both boiler rooms, pom pom and for'ard torpedo tubes on the upper deck, and breaking the poor ship's back. I watched in disbelief and horror as a huge plume of water and steam rose high above us as the torpedo plunged into our lovely ship.

Men and machinery were blown to oblivion. I felt very sorry for my good mates on the pom pom, they never stood a chance and must have watched helplessly as the fateful torpedo sped straight for them. With her back broken she immediately began to founder.

We quickly released the rafts and abandoned ship - I personally heard no order. The boats couldn't be used as they were blown to bits by the boiler room blast beneath them.

Magnus Shearer's recalled the events in a letter to me

"I was in B shell room when the torpedo struck, made my way to the upper deck and went over the side by diving into the sea. I swam to a raft and was later picked up by Loyal".

Magnus also recalled a man being sentenced to 7 days bread and water punishment being confined in the paint locker during this period. Apparently he had hinted at the ship's position in a letter home (presumably it didn't get past the censor). On his way up to the deck after the first torpedo hit Magnus distinctly recalls checking that the paint locker hatch was open, so the man must have got out.

These were brave men - there was obviously no panic even though they were below sea level and the ship was open to the sea only a few feet for'ard of them.

Brian Lowe only joined the ship in November the previous year and e-mailed me with his personal experiences of the time:

"I was only in Lightning for about three months and we were kept very busy the whole time so I did not have much time to socialize and get to know the other members of the ward room very well. The Captain , Lt. Cdr. Walters, was an excellent skipper and a very nice man. Lt. Duncan Carson was also good and ran the ship well. Lt. Peter Cundall, who was the second lieutenant if there is such a title, was the hell of a nice man and good at this job.A great loss for the navy. Of the others Surg. Lt Roberts was an excellent doctor and the hell of a good guy. We were kept so busy that we had little time to have a good wardroom party. When in Algiers some of us used to go into the town but there was little to do beyond having a drink or three in the Aletti Hotel. In bone where we spent a good deal of time there was nowhere to go ashore.

I think that Lightning was a happy ship. The previous destroyer I was in was not a happy ship and warrants for sending some poor defaulter to detention were often read out to the ship's company. In Lightning I remember very few warrants being read. However one I do remember related to Cyril Fulcher who unfortunately came back to the ship from detention a few days before we were sunk. He was in the forward magazine, which supplied A turret, and that was just where the first torpedo hit.

When the ship was torpedoed I was on the bridge and I heard the "headache" operator inform us that he had intercepted R/T conversations between e-boats in the vicinity and then that they had said "feuer" and had obviously fired a torpedo. At about the same time the gun control had spotted the e-boat, had warned the bridge and was about to open fire when the torpedo hit. On getting that warning the captain ordered hard a-port and the ship was turning towards the e-boat. I caught sight of the e-boat or one of them and immediately after I saw the track of the torpedo coming towards the ship on the port bow. I thought that it would miss as the line of its bubbly track was just ahead of the bow of the turning ship. However I had overlooked that the torpedo was ahead of its track and it hit us right on the stem. The next thing I knew was being almost drowned by the amount of water that was thrown up over the bridge by the bow being blown off at 28 knots. I had a large piece of jagged steel lodged in the glass screen about an inch from my face which was cut by the glass splinters. If we had started the turn to port a second or two earlier the torpedo would have missed us and we might have destroyed our attacker. As your father recounts the ship had been extremely busy for some weeks and we were all very tired. I wonder whether, if we had not all been so tired, we might have spotted the e-boat a little earlier and have avoided the sinking.

The second torpedo hit on the starboard side just below the funnel. I was on the bridge at the time and we were just about to try to go astern when it hit. It did not make much of a shock but it created a great cloud of steam and threw a lot of debris into the air. However its effect was very quick as the ship immediately listed to starboard and began to sink. The order to abandon ship was given and by the time I got off the bridge down to the main deck I just stepped into the water. I was lucky as there was an almost empty carley float nearby to which I swam and climbed aboard. With another small float we collected and took on board the floats everyone who was in the sea in our vicinity. We watched the Lightning sink after breaking in half and folding up with the bow and stern being the last of her to go below the water".

AB Eric Stone, in the after (X) gun turret recalls

"..she heeled over and I just walked into the water with my greatcoat and boots on. I swam away as fast as I could, but there was no suction and no oil. She just slid out of sight. Something hit me alongside the ear and I found it was a rolled up cork raft. I cut it open, got on and found that I had company. People kept getting on until it was full, and then they started falling off. There we were singing 'Roll out the Barrel' ".

From a distance of no more than twenty yards I watched our beautiful ship fold into a 'Victory V' and silently slide under the water, just 40 miles due north of Bizerta. All this happened in less than ten minutes. By virtue of good seamanship, on the part of the crew and in particular Leading Seaman Bob North, the depth charges and torpedoes had been set to safe and therefore did not go off as she went down.

Here is John Fenby's description of Bob North's actions at the time of the sinking.

"..Bob North was in charge of the depth charges at Action Stations, and at the time of the sinking was on the bridge doing his trick on the depth charge releases. After the (first) torpedo struck he left the bridge, walked the length of the ship to the quarterdeck, removed all of the primers from the charges and chucked them over the side. Then he dived off the stern when it was sticking up in the air! We thought that he should have had a medal, but nothing became of it".

If the ship had heeled over before sinking, many of us in the water would have been dragged under by the suction or caught in the rigging. The ship that we had travelled so far in, and had come to love, looked after us to her end.

Here are AB Tom Taylor's own recollections of the last few moments of our ship:

"Remaining at my station in X magazine until the order was given to 'Stand By the Boats and Floats' I came up on deck to see us being given close attention by the enemy and holding my ditty box in my hands. As I was heading past X gun deck, at 2227, another torpedo hit us with a mighty roar. A heavy cloud of steam and water covered midships which at the time really gave me an eerie impression of travelling up through the clouds (to I wander where?) I ran for cover behind the after screen. The ship was ready for sinking when the order was given to Abandon Ship. Taking my wife's framed photo and wallet out of the ditty box and placing them inside my overalls I jumped over the stern. On impact with the sea, the box was lost. I searched for it for some time, but with the other lads jumping into the water nearby it was useless, so I swam to a raft. Noticing another raft further ahead I swam to it, to leave the first one to the chaps who were poor swimmers. Getting aboard the raft with others we looked to see some of the lads still aboard the burning ship. We yelled to them to jump, but they must have been too shocked or injured. In such a very short time at 2235 we watched the ship break in two, with about 50 of our mates aboard, and sink so swiftly below the waves to leave us so shocked and weary. It was a sight I will never forget as long as I live ".

When I looked around in the water I could see about six Carley rafts and many red lights, from the men's life jackets, bobbing about. Some men were shouting, others would never shout again. I could hear my best friend Harry Johnson calling for me to help him. Swimming frantically round the area I could not find him in the confusion and darkness - I would never see him again.

It took some time before I realised what had really happened, and that the Lightning was no more. I had just lost many good shipmates.

Instinctively, I swam to a raft and joined some others holding onto the rattling lines along its side. It was dark and I didn't recognise who they were. There were not enough places in the raft for all of us, so we took it in turns to spend a little while in the raft - the rest of the time in the water. Quite a heavy swell was running and we kept being washed off the raft into the cold water.

One of the younger lads continually cried for his mother even though we tried our best to confort him. None of us had any idea if we would be rescued. I held onto an injured shipmate for several hours, he was Leading Seaman George Burgess. He was in his mid forties and had been in the Navy for twenty eight years - a pensioner. I helped him in and out of the raft when his turn was due and gave him my turn whenever I could stand the cold a bit longer. To keep his mind off the cold I talked to him about anything that came to mind, we even sang songs to try to keep our spirits up. As time went by his voice grew weaker and more distant and he began drifting in and out of consciousness. He died in my arms shortly before we were rescued, but I held onto him so that, when we were picked up, he could be taken aboard and given a decent sailor's burial - at sea. (I cannot explain why he was posted as 'Missing Presumed Killed'.)

The ship's dog 'Flash Lightning' was also seen in the water looking for his master, CPO Jago, but I believe that the poor little thing went to 'fiddler's green' along with many of the men who had made such a fuss of him in the past. Here he is atop one of the boats earlier in the commission.

The ghostly looking E-boat stayed amongst us for quite a while calling (in perfect English) for the Captain and asking if anyone wanted to be rescued. We were thankful that it did not machine gun us all. I later found out that it picked up one injured man possibly Nobby Clarke the Yeoman of Signals or William Knight. Jack Hall believes that the Germans took him to a hospital in Sicily but he was later repatriated when our troops overran the island.

We had been in the water for what seemed a long time before the cruisers hove into sight going flat out towards us. We began to cheer and waive to them. But lo and behold they ran straight past us at less than a hundred yards and one shouted something through her loud hailer to the effect that we would soon be picked up. I can assure you we shouted something back also! She must have radioed our position back to Loyal as she soon arrived and began to pick us up, just after midnight. I was hauled aboard after making sure that my dead shipmate was properly looked after. By now the two cruisers were safely back in Bone.

Of the 227 men aboard, 2 officers and 43 ratings were lost and 8 ratings were wounded.
Sadly, seven of the lads died or were recovered dead aboard Loyal - PO Cook John Stones, Acting Stoker PO Edward Oliver, AB Wilfred Harrison, AB John Bird, AB John Begg, AB Walter Hall and Stoker Arthur Pearce.

Four of my mess mates were missing presumed dead - AB Harry Johnson, Leading Seaman Vic Love, AB George Robinson and OD Gerard Harvey.

Aboard the Loyal our wet clothes had to be cut off us as we were so stiff from the cold. We were given a dry blanket, a warm drink and a good tot of rum. The wardroom had been turned into a huge sick bay and LSBA Harvey Bennette and AB Charles Maton from Loyal did their best to help us. The more seriously wounded were treated by the surgeons from Loyal and Lightning in the sick bay and torpedoman's mess. Harvey Bennette recalls that Surgeon Lt Roberts from Lightning tried his best to help the wounded even though he was suffering badly from shock and the effect of the cold water.

Loyal continued to search in the dark for nearly two hours, at great risk to herself as she was alone. At 0150 she set course for Bone. It was rumoured that her skipper received a severe reprimand for endangering his ship in searching for so long. We are eternally thankful that he did come back for us. At about five in the morning of 14 March Loyal arrived back in Bone harbour and two hours later, clad only in blankets, most of us were transferred to Sirius and issued with army battle dress and a pair of boots. We were heartened to see our skipper and Number One when they came amongst us to see how we were bearing up.

The First Lieutenant then took our details. Commander Walters appeared to be very shocked and gave a simple speech on the loss of our ship, praising the good work and bravery of the crew and we all offered a prayer to our shipmates who had given their lives for God, King and Country. That was the last time that I saw the skipper - I shall never forget how sorry I was for him and how alone he must have felt with the heavy responsibility of his ship and her crew.



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