At All Costs

by Sam Moses

  Mason and Swain agreed that struggling along at 3 knots while being dive-bombed and stalked by submarines, with the destroyer lashed to the target by the towline, wasn’t a great call.

  Swain told Mason that the towline hadn’t exactly parted; at the arrival of a dive-bomber, the Penn had parted it. There was no sense in having his destroyer blown up too. If the tanker were hit in the wrong place, she would go up big. Her oil and kerosene were less explosive than aviation fuel, but there was six times as much of it.

  And destroyers were meant to attack and shoot. The Penn couldn’t do much shooting without movement. She could hardly protect the Ohio from ahead.

  The ocean minesweeper Rye and two motor launches were on their way from Malta, and they could help tow. The Penn could screen the Ohio until those three ships got there. Mason hoped his men could get some rest on the Penn and reboard after dark, when the bombers would be done for the day.

  The steel decks of the Penn were scorching under the afternoon sun, and nearly two hundred survivors from the Santa Elisa and Empire Hope were already sprawled or curled up in every corner and cranny, desperately seeking shade. There wasn’t much water or space to sit down. Many of the men were barefoot, in ragged, oil-soaked clothes. Some were in pain. The air attacks continued. Each buzz from the sky stirred terror.

  “The after gun’s crew of HMS Penn behaved wonderfully,” said Captain Williams of the Empire Hope, who would earn the DSC for his actions. “They were stripped to the waist and were fighting at their guns throughout the attacks. In between the attacks they had a quick cigarette and were laughing and joking among themselves, but immediately the alert was sounded, they were back at their gun, firing with grim determination.”

  There were three merchant masters on the Penn: Captain Williams, Captain Thomson, and Captain Mason. Allan Shaw was standing next to one of them—he won’t say which one—and heard him say, “Why doesn’t the old scow sink, so we can all get ashore.” A crewman from the Ohio had to be restrained to keep from throwing this captain over the side.

  Ensign Suppiger had a similar story. “One of the captains of one of the ships tried to go to the bridge of the Penn and tried to get Captain Swain to take them ashore,” he said. “They all wanted to get off the ship. And Swain said, ‘Get the hell off this bridge! My mission is to bring this tanker in, and that’s what I’m going to do!’”

  “The commanding officer of the destroyer had been ordered to bring the Ohio in at all costs, and he therefore intended to tow her in,” explained Lonnie Dales.

  “Captain Swain was a much respected man,” said Able Seaman Andrew Forrest, the Leading Torpedo Operator on the Penn. “Hard but fair, with a good sense of humor.”

  It was a short sleep for the Ohio’s men. The minesweeper Rye and two motor launches arrived early, at 1740, and Captain Swain sent the Ohio crew back to their ship to be towed.

  Mason:

  6 P.M. APPROXIMATELY:

  I called for a small number of volunteers to return to the Ohio to make the tow ropes fast, but the whole crew voluntarily returned. The towropes were made fast to HMS Penn and Rye, both towing ahead. Steering arms were disconnected and chain blocks connected to port and starboard sides of quadrant to assist steering.

  Between 4 and 7 P.M., twenty-six Ju 88s and seven He 111 torpedo bombers had been sent out after the Ohio, as well as five Italian Stukas escorted by twenty-four MC.202 fighters. At least six of the lot were shot down, but some of them got through the fighters. Eight Junkers came at the Ohio from astern. A near miss caused more damage to the rudder, and a 500-pound bomb landed near the funnel.

  6.30 P.M. APPROXIMATELY:

  Enemy plane dropped bomb at the fore end of the boat deck, probably delayed action, which exploded on the boiler tops, blowing all the crew out on deck blinded and choked with asbestos lagging and powder. The engineroom boilers and after accommodation were wrecked. The engineroom ventilator and fallen debris fell on Bofors gunner P. Brown, causing numerous internal and external injuries.

  Fearing such an event, Mason had ordered Wyld and the other engineers abovedecks. If they had been below, they would have been killed.

  “I did not see any use in remaining on board the Ohio with the consequent risk to life when stopped, from continuous air attack,” said Mason. “As the attempt at towing was proving hopeless with the assistance available, I ordered the crew to the boats, from which they were divided between the motor launches and destroyers, and I lost touch with them.”

  When he lost touch with his crew, he lost command of his ship.

  Captain Mason is careful not to use the word “abandon” in any of his reports. He only “ordered the crew to the boats.” And in the ship’s log, written after the fact, he distances himself more, saying only, “All crew took to the boats.” If there was a distinction between taking to the boats and abandoning ship, the crew missed it.

  “The Chief Engineer and Master both considered that the ship was now sinking and she was therefore abandoned, the crew getting away in the lifeboats,” reported the liaison officer, Lieutenant Barton.

  “About 6.45 the Captain gave orders to abandon ship,” reported Chief Officer Gray to Eagle Oil and Shipping.

  “Approx. 8.00 p.m. Order given to abandon ship,” reported Chief Engineer Wyld. The clocks in the engine room were all smashed.

  Reported Captain Swain, “There was an attack by about 8 Ju 88 at 1915, and the tanker was hit; her crew abandoned her.”

  “We slid down the lifelines into the lifeboats,” said Allan Shaw. “I think there were only two of them. Under normal circumstances of abandoning ship, people would go to their assigned lifeboat stations, but in this case it wasn’t as if the ship was sinking or on fire or anything, so we just assembled at the nearest boat. We were all sixes and sevens—all mixed up, haphazard. But there was no panic, just a leisurely walk to the lifeboats. The first boat went over to one of the motor launches, but the other motor launch came alongside the lifeboat I was in, so we really only used the lifeboat like a step between the two ships, and climbed up the ladder to the motor launch.

  “Captain Mason was in my lifeboat. He was the last to leave. He did think about staying aboard, I think, but the skipper of the Penn shouted, ‘You might as well come aboard, we’ve got hot cups of tea!’ and things like that.”

  The motor launch ML 121 took the men over to the Penn. It’s unlikely that Swain made Mason cocaptain in the towing operation. There was nothing more Mason could do. He was spent. He crashed in the wardroom, while the determined attempt to save the Ohio continued without him.

  Larsen helped some men from the Ohio carry aboard the tanker’s Bofors captain, British Army bombardier Peter Brown, who had been crushed by the blown-off engine room ventilator, which was about six feet square and located in the tight space between the funnel and the Bofors.

  The Bofors was out of commission, but Larsen knew he could fix it. He could fix anything. And he could shoot it; he and his cadet Dales had been to the school. And now the Bofors needed a gun crew.

  “On the destroyer they told me they got orders to bring the Ohio in at all costs,” said Larsen. “Never mind what it costs, never mind anything, bring the Ohio in.”

  He figured he was the man to do it.

  As the bomb was landing near the Bofors on the Ohio, blinding and choking a dozen or more men with asbestos, thousands of Maltese cheered from the battlements around Grand Harbour. The Rochester Castle, Melbourne Star, and Port Chalmers steamed into Valletta, escorted by minesweepers under a rainbow of Spitfires flying figure eights. They carried more than 30,000 tons of food, ammunition, and aviation fuel.

  The Rochester Castle had been hit again, with three near misses sending hot bomb splinters through the hull and starting two fires in the fo’c’sle; men climbed into burning ammunition magazines and extinguished the fires while the master sped on. “The whole of my crew behaved magnificently throughout the many sustained and violent attacks,” reported Captain Richard Wr
en, who was awarded the DSO.

  The Melbourne Star was missing thirty-three men who had leaped overboard into the Waimarama fire, ten of them run down and killed by the flames they thought they were avoiding. “The fighting spirit of the ship was magnificent,” reported the liaison officer. “Every single man on board made all effort throughout to fight off the enemy; the hotter the battle became, the stouter, if possible, were their efforts. I cannot say too much for the officers and crew.”

  The Port Chalmers, carrying Commodore Venables, had had a number of close calls, including a torpedo that passed under her hull and a parachute mine that tangled in her paravanes—“What shall we do with this?” Venables had signaled Admiral Burrough, who told him and guided Port Chalmers through the extraction. She was the only ship to arrive unscathed.

  As the trio of merchantmen arrived in Grand Harbour, most of the warships of Force X steamed at full speed back to Gibraltar, led by the Ashanti with Burrough aboard. They steered clear of Ohio.

  “Course was shaped to pass 12 miles South of Linosa Island in order that enemy aircraft shadowing Ohio might be avoided,” reported Captain Onslow of Ashanti, as the 500-pound bomb was landing on top of the tanker’s boilers.

  “The lame duck off Linosa” is what Admiral Leatham called the Ohio in his report.

  “Proud to have met you,” Admiral Burrough signaled to the Ohio as he steamed off into the sunset.

  CHAPTER 41 •••

  NOWHERE TO HIDE

  As Captain Mason slept, his sinking ship inched toward Malta without him, dragged by the Penn. The minesweeper Rye was trying to steady Penn’s bows, connected by two minesweeping wires. The destroyer Bramham had returned from the coast, weaving back at 23 knots through splashing bombs, and now steamed in slow circles around the Ohio, screening against submarines and bombers.

  “At 2024, twelve bombs fell within 20 yards of Rye, covering her with spray and splinters, but doing no effective damage,” reported her Captain Pearson. “At 2042 H.M.S. Penn cast off Rye’s and her own tow, due to heavy bombing.”

  The survivors on the decks of the Penn had nowhere to hide from the dive-bombers. “There was no shelter,” said Allan Shaw. “There was nowhere to sit down. All you could do was stand there.”

  When the dive-bombers came from the port side, the survivors ran around to the starboard side of the superstructure; and when the dive-bombers came from starboard, the survivors ran to port. The wardroom had been turned into a sick bay, but there wasn’t enough room for the injured. Men with bandaged eyes were led by others, and men who couldn’t walk were dragged. Larsen and Dales carried a survivor from the Empire Hope whose legs had been broken by shrapnel.

  Between the attacks, Dales sat with the engineering officer of the Penn, on top of the engine room hatch. Born leader or not, Dales was eighteen and scared.

  “The chief engineer smoked his pipe and talked to me,” said Dales. “I think he sensed that I was uneasy, and he tried to make me feel better by telling me that the plating was so thin on the decks of a destroyer that a bomb would probably pass right through. He told me if you could hear the bombs, don’t worry about them, because they’re going to miss you. This is a matter of physics, sound going out in concentric circles. He said you’ll never hear the bomb that kills you.”

  They were all scared. Men cowered in bunches and curled up in the fetal position in dark corners, covering their ears, closing their eyes, and waiting to die. Guns crashed over their heads, and near misses pounded the hull—they could feel the steel concussion in their bones. After a near miss comes a direct hit. Everyone knew that.

  “During these attacks, the second mate Logan and I found a hiding place in the torpedo repair room just forward of the Penn’s torpedo tubes,” said Follansbee. “The thin shell of the overhead gave us a feeling of security, even though we both knew that a bomb could crash through it like paper. Our nerves were almost completely shot now. Nothing to do but lie in the corner of a torpedo room and hold your ears to try to eliminate the whistle of the bombs and the deafening detonations of the guns.”

  I looked at Logan. The blood had run out of his face and his hands shook as if he had the palsy. I buried my face in my hands and started to pray, repeating a prayer I had learned in my youth at Sunday School.

  I looked at my watch. Fourteen past eight. The general alarm bell rang.

  I shivered and broke out in a cold sweat.

  A gunner at a 20 millimeter Oerlikon pointed astern. “’Ere comes

  Jerry now! Two points on the starboard quarter!”

  The towline was cut.

  With all of her guns blazing, the Penn leapt forward again.

  An inferno of flame and shattering noise. The whistle of bombs and the thud of near misses.

  The Penn circled the tanker and threw everything she could throw up at the planes. Then at last the enemy had exhausted its ammunition and its supply of bombs and disappeared over the horizon in the direction of Sicily.

  The towline was made fast again and we continued towards Malta at four knots.

  Malta suddenly seemed very far away.

  By 2052, the last bombing attack of the evening was beaten off. Rye took over the tow, with Penn serving as stern tug. By 2330 the ships were making about 4 knots, but at 0107 the Ohio suddenly sheered, and the hawsers to the Rye and the Penn were parted.

  “Bramham then suggested that the destroyers should secure either side of the tanker,” reported the Penn’s Captain Swain. “We did so.”

  Captain Eddie Baines of the Bramham was a young lieutenant who played by the book—he called Roger Hill a “ragamuffin,” for the way he dressed at sea. But Baines wasn’t afraid to step outside the box, and he was willing to do whatever needed to be done. “He was a very good seaman, mind you,” said Reg Coaker, who worked alongside Baines on the bridge. “A bit of a ruffer, quite outspoken to those above him, but he knew what he was doing.”

  Captain Swain of the Penn saw the brilliance of Baines’s plan, to lash the two destroyers to the sides of the tanker; that would not only keep her under control but help keep her afloat, because the three ships would be like a trimaran. “Towing the Ohio like that was our Captain Baines’ idea, but Swain was senior to him, and he took over the idea,” said Coaker.

  “We went alongside of the tanker’s starboard side with the Penn,” said Fred Larsen, “while another destroyer [Bramham] managed to come alongside on the port side.”

  This was Larsen’s chance to get back into action. He’d been in a passive position on the Penn—useless—and it didn’t much suit him.

  “After we tied up, some men from the Penn went aboard the Ohio,” he said. “As soon as they went aboard, I went aboard, to see where the guns were. Because I figured if I can get some of these guns working, I can protect the Ohio.”

  He never said anything to anyone. He just climbed aboard. As if he owned the ship.

  “I went aboard the Ohio because I was basically a tanker man. I had been bosun on the sister ship, the Louisiana. It was very familiar to me.”

  While men from the Penn were aboard the Ohio inspecting her damage and Larsen was seeing if he could fix her guns, Captain Swain grew uncomfortable with the fit of the tanker sandwich.

  “In the darkness it was not possible to secure and fender the ship properly, and we could not see what under-water and above-water projections there might be,” he said. “I was afraid of doing serious damage to the destroyers’ hulls, so we cast off.”

  It was about 3 A.M. Larsen remained on the Ohio, watching the Penn steam off. The tanker was adrift and dead in the water, but it was where he wanted to be. There were maybe twenty men on the Ohio, including Allan Shaw. Lonnie Dales remained on the Penn—for now.

  “Some of the crew of the Ohio was there,” said Larsen, “and they were securing an air compressor. All the lifeboats were gone, all the floats, the flotation equipment was all gone out of the racks. Most of the guns were inoperative, the engine was disabled, the steering g
ear had been torpedoed, and the rudder couldn’t operate any more. We tried to get it to work by hooking up emergency steering gear. I was down there in the steering gear room with flashlights, and we tried to hook up the emergency steering gear. I think it was already rigged. But it was not enough to be able to steer her without the propulsion of the ship’s propeller.

  “I examined the armament and found some of the Oerlikons in operating order. The five-inch gun on the stern was not repairable, as a Stuka had crashed on it and totally destroyed it. There was debris from the bomb that landed near the funnel all over the place, asbestos powder and junk. But the only thing wrong with the Bofors cannon was a shell jammed in the breech.”

  “The merchant navy’s not like the Royal Navy, where you have to be told what to do,” said Allan Shaw. “Everybody just knew what they had to do on the Ohio. It’s a case of just getting on with the job. There wasn’t anybody really in charge, it was just a crowd of men doing the job.

  “I volunteered because it was my ship, and it was something to do. You couldn’t sleep on the Penn anyhow, because there wasn’t any room. You could doze off, but whenever someone walked past, they kicked your feet.”

  It’s true there was no one in charge, but some men carry themselves with more authority than others. Larsen didn’t need any props, but the .45-caliber pistol stuffed in his belt didn’t hurt. This was the gun that had gotten away from Ensign Suppiger when he had dived out of his lifeboat in an attempt to get into another; the gun that Larsen had already used to restore order in the boat. The ensign had demanded its return when they were on the Penn, because it belonged to the U.S. Navy. But Suppy had lost it while abandoning ship in a hurry, if not a panic. Larsen told him he could have the gun back when he learned how to use it.