No Banners, No Bugles

by Edward Ellsberg

  Your Excellency:

  Will you permit me to express to you, and through the kind medium of Your Excellency, to the friends and relatives of your coreligionists so brutally murdered in the Nouvelle Medina, my profound sorrow and my solicitude.

  This assault, as unwarranted as it was barbarous, upon an inoffensive quarter, devoid of all military objectives, is but a fresh manifestation of the brutal and cruel character of our common enemy. May God destroy him!

  In writing this letter, I express not only my own sentiments but those also of my immediate chief, General Eisenhower.

  I have the honor of remaining very sincerely,

  GEORGE S. PATTON, JR.,

  Major General, U. S. Army.

  There wasn’t an Arab in North Africa, after hearing in his bazaars what Patton had done and reading in strange Arabic characters that letter, who had the slightest doubts any longer as to who were his friends and who were his enemies. From then on, all over North Africa, the Arabs were solidly on our side.

  CHAPTER

  32

  EARLY ON NEW YEAR’S MORNING I took off from Casablanca for Oran.

  Something struck me; again it was a holiday. The next holiday would be February 12, Lincoln’s Birthday. Where, I wondered, if I were still all in one piece, would I be bound in a plane on that holiday? For each of the last three holidays had found me in the air, flying around Africa. Thanksgiving Day, I had been jumping across the Sahara from Khartoum to Accra; Christmas Day, I had hopped from Algiers to Oran; New Year’s Day found me flying from Casablanca to Oran. What would the next holiday bring?

  On this flight, we flew fairly high, at around 9000 feet, and above a very heavy cloud bank a good part of the journey over Morocco. We crossed the rugged Atlas Mountains, all snow-covered, with one peak, somewhat resembling the Matterhorn, sticking through our cloud bank like an island floating on a fleecy blanket. It was very cold in the plane.

  It was a relief therefore, a little after noon, to come down on Tafaraoui Airfield, where it was merely normally cold, and, of course, muddy as usual. I plodded through the mud to my jeep and ordered my colored sergeant to drive me directly to the King Salvor. I was anxious to catch up with what had been done during my absence and besides I could get a bite to eat more easily at that hour on the ship than at the Grand Hotel.

  We started on our fifteen mile trek to Oran. I looked around. In the vicinity of Oran, at least, the New Year had begun auspiciously—overhead it was cloudless, there was no wind, a bright sun lent a cheerful aspect to everything.

  In half an hour we were rolling through the depressing streets of Oran towards the harbor. We came to the northerly precipice below which lay the harbor, and swung left to descend the steep incline. But hardly had we made the turn and dropped a yard or two than I told the driver to haul to the right side of the road and stop a few minutes. Before me, looking out to sea from that high elevation was such a heavenly scene, hardly to be glimpsed once in a lifetime, that I wanted to absorb it more at leisure.

  Stretching away on the right to the northward was the Mediterranean, clearly visible out to the sharp horizon at least ten miles off, sparkling under a clear and cloudless sky, an azure blue sea which warmed the heart. And to complete the picture, there some three miles out, steaming slowly eastward parallel to the coast line, was a long line of freighters, evenly spaced, twelve of them, with the sun glistening against their starboard sides, the sides toward me. The leading ship was just turning hard right to head for the outer harbor of Oran; none of the others in that long line yet had started to swing in her gleaming wake. A little beyond them zigzagged a few destroyers, overhead lazily circled some guarding planes, shepherding into port at last that heavily laden convoy which they had brought to haven safely after a 4000 mile journey across the dangerous Atlantic and through the Straits.

  I scanned those ships and the calm blue seas about them appreciatively, enchanted by the quiet beauty of the gray ships, the splendor of the ocean, the radiance of the sky. It was a scene to quicken the pulse of any man who loved the sea and the ships which float upon it. I leaned back to drink it in.

  But as I gazed, the middle ship in that long line suddenly erupted from end to end in a volcanic burst of belching flame billowing luridly upward perhaps a quarter of a mile with incandescent streaks of fire rising even above that like a thousand rockets streaming skyward! And then the rolling flames which for a few seconds had curtained the whole horizon with the crimson fires of hell itself, vanished, to be succeeded instantly by a rapidly rising pillar of smoke boiling upward into the skies like a titanic geyser, shooting to a height of well over a mile in no time at all, there to mushroom widely out in all directions over the heavens.

  As that pillar of smoke lifted lazily clear of the surface of the sea, there was the clear horizon again and no sign whatever of that ship, only the others steaming calmly on toward port with a wide gap in the line now where seconds before had been a ship like all the rest—a ship with all her crew rubbed out in a twinkling within easy sight of the harbor entrance after its battle of weeks across the Atlantic to get safely inside that final haven.

  “Give her the gun, sergeant!” I gasped. “The King Salvor, four bells now!”

  We shot down the precipitous incline, took the curves at the bottom on two wheels, covered the mile and a half down the pot-holed harbor road to the salvage quay as we had never before raced over it. Already, on the King Salvor mooring hawsers were flying off the bitts and going overboard, clouds of black smoke were beginning to pour from her stack, she was steaming up furiously. Harding and his whole crew had happened to be watching those inbound ships as well as I; they had seen it all.

  I shouted to Harding on her bridge as the jeep jolted to a sudden stop alongside; he looked down, surprised to see me there.

  “Hold her a minute, skipper!” I ordered. “I want to call the Port Captain first!”

  Harding, about to cast loose, belayed the heaving overboard of the last lines. I dashed for the telephone in the salvage shack, called the Captain of the Port, reported the King Salvor ready to shove off immediately, asked for information.

  I got it. The leading destroyer was just radioing in; in a minute they’d have the whole message; wait. The wait wasn’t long; soon I had the word right from where that ship had been.

  There was no use our going out; there wasn’t a floating scrap visible anywhere of that vessel, the American Liberty ship Arthur Middleton, which had been laden with 5000 tons of ammunition. They were searching the waters surrounding the scene of the explosion for possible survivors; so far they had seen none. There was nothing to salvage; no assistance was needed nor could any be rendered; the Arthur Middleton and all her crew had just completely vanished.

  With a heavy heart, I hung up the receiver. A large ship and all her seamen, probably comprising a hundred men all told including the navy Armed Guard contingent on her, had disappeared before my eyes and nothing could be done about it. Half stunned, I went back to the quay, with that gap in the line of ships, more eloquent of what had happened than a thousand radio messages with details, indelibly burned into my memory.

  “Belay everything, Harding!” I called out in a choking voice. “We’re not going out. There’s nothing left!”

  But I found it wasn’t as simple as all that. The King Salvor’s deck force crowded about me, pleading for me to cast off. Surely, there was something they could do; they just couldn’t let other seamen drown practically right under their noses without at least a try to help them. Sid Everett, Third Mate (soon to die himself in a flaming explosion inside another wreck), was nearly hysterical over not being permitted to go out. Harding personally had to drag him below to prevent him from casting off our last hawsers.

  Surrounded by the tear-stained faces of those Englishmen I now knew so well from fighting by their sides on the Strathallan, I explained, argued, sympathized. What aid, if any, might be given to anybody found floating in the sea, would certainly be rendered by th
e destroyers we could see out there searching now. Another vessel tossed in among the searchers would only complicate matters, not help anybody. We weren’t going out.

  Sadly the little group of seamen dispersed, as stricken, each one of them, as if it had been his own brother he had just seen enveloped in that blazing inferno while he must stand idly by, impotent to help.

  So started off a twenty-four-hour period which was wholly unbelievable. Immediately after the destruction of the Arthur Middleton, the British vice admiral in Mers-el-Kebir sent out a flotilla of six destroyers, all he had including those which had been guarding the convoy, to scour the seas off Oran. If a U-boat torpedo (though no one had seen a torpedo wake) had been responsible for setting off the cargo of ammunition in the Arthur Middleton and disintegrating her in a fraction of a second, then they were to find that U-boat no matter how long it took.

  It didn’t take long. I got another telephone call a few hours later about the King Salvor, but only again to tell me not to bother about casting off with her. The U-boat had found the flotilla. A torpedo had exploded amidships against one of the destroyers. She had not the luck of the Porcupine. The explosion had broken her completely in two. Both halves had sunk in not much over a minute. One of the other destroyers had picked up what survivors there were and was on her way into Mers-el-Kebir with them. Meanwhile the remaining four destroyers were continuing the search.

  I rubbed my aching head. What in God’s name was the matter with the Asdic, that for a month now off Oran we had been subjected to a reign of terror, most likely all at the hands of the same U-boat? And not once (including this latest episode) had any Asdic ever made contact with that U-boat either before or after any torpedoing. There were the Manxman, the Porcupine, the Strathallan, the Arthur Middleton, now this last destroyer, and not a single contact! What was wrong?

  One of my British shipmates at Mers-el-Kebir whom I went to see, immediately explained it to me; the explanation made me feel sicker than had my previous ignorance. We were all totally helpless to defend ourselves; the Asdic, any submarine detective device, was worthless in those waters; the British had known it for some time now and had hoped to keep the knowledge to themselves. But unfortunately this U-boat captain also had discovered it and had skill and courage enough to exploit his knowledge to the full. If only they could catch him on the surface, they’d polish him off in a hurry, but evidently he was too shrewd ever to give anybody an opportunity.

  The difficulty was that we were having a most unusual winter that year in and off Oran. That I already knew; never had there been such cold rains and such mud. The weather had immobilized the army and the air force, but it had affected the undersea defense equipment even more. For the unprecedented winter had stratified the water in the Mediterranean thereabouts like a layer cake; there was a layer of water about a hundred feet thick on the surface with a layer below sharply differing from the top layer in temperature and as sharply separated from it as if they had been two entirely different liquids, oil and water, for instance.

  The interface between the two layers was acting exactly like a mirror—the “ping” from the Asdic hitting it, bounced back towards the surface just as light waves are reflected back from a mirror, and the “ping” never penetrated to seek out the hull of a submarine swimming below the interface.

  That U-boat captain operating off Oran had discovered this extraordinary situation and fashioned his tactics to suit. He stayed below the interface, safe from the Asdic, listening only for propeller noises from above. Whenever he heard what suited him, he maneuvered roughly for position well submerged below the interface, then rose swiftly to periscope depth, rectified his position for a shot, fired one torpedo only, and then, hit or miss (hit, usually) he plunged hurriedly down below the interface again, safe from detection even though a hundred destroyers with Asdics were searching for him.

  He could keep it up till his torpedoes gave out; he must by now be reaching the end of the dozen or fourteen he carried. Then he would go home for more; if only some destroyer could knock him off before he started back to base with that deadly secret of his, the destroyer captain that did it would probably be made a Duke at least as a reward, so my informant told me. But it was highly unlikely he’d be caught off Oran. However, on his way home, after he left the peculiar waters of the Oran area, somebody might nail him. All hands in Mers-el-Kebir were praying for that; it was our only hope.

  That was that; nothing could be done about it. Sunk in gloom, I drove back to Oran. By now it was night. Shortly I was in bed, trying to recuperate from what New Year’s Day (and I hadn’t had a single drink, either) had done to give me a splitting headache. But New Year’s Day wasn’t over yet.

  Around 10 P.M., the telephone alongside my bed at the Grand Hotel woke me up. It was ringing violently. I grabbed off the receiver. What now?

  It was the Captain of the Port’s office. A big British transport, the Empress of Australia, loaded with troops for Oran, had tried to peel off in the night from an Algiers bound convoy. In the darkness with every ship blacked out another transport keeping on full speed for Algiers had rammed her squarely as she made her turn and torn a big hole in her side. The Empress of Australia was flooding, in danger of capsizing, and with her engine power fast going and nearly all gone. For God’s sake, get out there right away with the King Salvor and save her if possible. She was only a few miles out. There were no destroyers near by to take off troops; they were all far out at sea scouring it for that U-boat, hoping to catch her on the surface, charging batteries.

  My jeep was always parked at night across from the hotel. I had a spare set of keys. I started hurriedly for the lower harbor.

  The King Salvor, also alerted by the Port Captain’s office, was for the second time that day steaming up furiously when I got alongside. Already all her lines were singled; no sooner had I hurdled the gunwale than the last lines went overboard and we were underway through the darkness, cautiously fingering out with our searchlight the marker buoys over the Pigeon and the Spahi.

  Once clear of those, off went the searchlight and our little ship blacked out completely as we cleared the torpedo defense booms and nets and stood out in the night into the open sea. The waters outside Oran harbor were no place in which to make yourself any more conspicuous than need be; not with that fiendish U-boat somewhere about.

  And then commenced another nightmare at sea in the darkness with a sinking ship. It was rough outside; wind and waves had kicked up; gone now was all the loveliness of sea and sky of the earlier New Year’s Day.

  About three miles due north, a vast shadow loomed up ahead of us in the night. That, no doubt, would be the Empress of Australia. She was, of course, totally blacked out also. We first ran down her port side, fairly close aboard, while Harding and I scanned that side through night glasses. What struck us instantly was that she had a startling list to starboard.

  She was a big one, 22,000 tons. As we passed down her port side toward her stern, we got a good view of her profile against the night sky with her three enormous stacks standing boldly out. She was German-built, I knew; some years after World War I she had been constructed as part of the reparations due Britain. And that was going to be bad. German designers had peculiar ideas. With them comfort for landlubberly passengers came before the utmost in safety. All German-built ships, like all French vessels, to make them slow rollers in a seaway, were highly unstable. When anything went wrong, they were likely to capsize on you at the slightest excuse, as had the Normandie. And this one had a dizzying list to starboard already; it looked bad.

  To make matters worse, she had some four or five thousand soldiers aboard. We could see them even in the darkness jamming her topsides, all in lifebelts, and all probably wondering how soon they might be swimming. But up on the topsides, instead of down in the holds where they should have been, unfortunately they were all helping to make her topheavy and even more likely to capsize.

  Frankly, however, no one could blame them for wa
nting to stay up on the open decks on that heavily listed ship. It would take far more discipline and better officers than raw troops ever possessed to drive them all down below into the holds, even though that added to their real safety. You could never make them see it. The topsides represented at least a chance to swim; the holds looked like nothing but rat traps with no escape if the ship capsized. So there they all were—between 400 and 500 tons of human ballast high up where it would do the most harm to the vanishing stability of the Empress of Australia.

  The port side of her showed no damage. Satisfied of that, we swung the King Salvor under her high stern and headed up parallel to her on the other side to inspect for damage there before boarding. Hardly had we straightened away again, this time on the weather side, when the damage came into view—on her starboard quarter, a little aft her third stack, was a huge V-shaped gash in her steel side extending from her upper deck to well below her water-line. And that terrifying list to starboard was deeply submerging that wide open hole.

  Very obviously she was steadily flooding aft, with the ocean pouring into her through that ugly gash. She was heeling constantly to starboard, with capsizing becoming ever more imminent. Her engine room, I knew, was filling; her boiler power was dying; with the last few pounds of steam left her she was slowly floundering shoreward through the night with her cargo of troops.

  Before we could even get alongside in the rough seas which made maneuvering difficult, her feeble wake vanished altogether, her main engines gave out completely. She started to drift briskly down to leeward, broadside before a stiff northwest wind, her high sides acting as a beautiful set of sails.

  Harding sheered off and circled to come up alongside her amidships to starboard, a little forward of the hole. She drifted sidewise away from him. He sheered off for another circle off her beam. Hardly had he started his turn away, when that vast bulk towering over our heads and leaning toward us, for no apparent reason at all suddenly rolled heavily to port, changing her list from her stricken side to her undamaged one. That promptly brought a great part of the open V, visible as an even blacker shadow against her black side, partly out of water.