Alarm Starboard!: A Remarkable True Story of the War at Sea

by Geoffrey Brooke

Subs’ courses—compressed from the normal nine into three months-were hard work but of course we made the most of weekends to catch up with contemporaries, male as well as female. Three in particular as far as I was concerned. John Persse* was my first cousin; his father was the well known trainer and character ‘Atty’ Persse, his mother—my father’s eldest sister—had had a short but brilliant career on the stage and John, their only son, had received all their talents plus some more. Popular and gregarious, he was a natural comic who could take off anyone after the briefest observation. I was also an only son and we were very close, closer than brothers I sometimes think; though I stayed at Chattis Hill, on the Stockbridge downs, every leave we never saw enough of each other to take things too much for granted. A sojourn there had all the ingredients of a wonderful time—horses galore, considerable opulence (my uncle was usually near the top of the trainers’ list), glamorous personalities from the racing scene, and above all, the happiest of family atmospheres. Now in his last term at Winchester, John was clearly destined for a career on the Turf.

  Another great friend from earliest days whom I was more than glad to see was Sandy Buller†. His family—he was the eldest of three brothers and a sister—lived near us in Sussex. Being the same age exactly he and I had always paired off and a wonderful mixture of thoughtfulness, sensitivity and physical toughness he was. Neither being very boisterous unless roused, we hit it off well and any time we met there were notes to be compared. I had learnt to shoot at Netherwood, their place, more than anywhere else and when there I do not have to close my eyes to see the 12-year-old Sandy and myself setting out with the cocker Rufus. (A ruling that only one .410 was to be loaded at a time was somewhat loosely observed and once, when his Admiral father heard four shots in quick succession, there was a mini court-martial.) Sandy had just become a Pilot Officer in the RAF.

  Edward Egerton, also doing courses, completed the trio of contacts pregnant with thoughts of happier days.

  With the end of this brief interlude came my appointment to the destroyer Douglas at Portsmouth. I had never heard of her and was agreeably surprised to find her large, if old. She was to be based at Gibraltar. The officers were a cheery welcoming bunch, especially the thickset Captain, Commander J.G. Crossley, and a saturnine young Gunner (T) with whom I was soon to become fast friends, called W.B. Harvey. I found myself navigator, Asdic Control Officer and responsible for the CO’s paperwork.

  In general layout—she had four 4.7-inch guns and two triple torpedo tubes—the Douglas was not dissimilar to the Esk, but it was soon discovered that, launched in 1918, she rolled like the proverbial barrel in spite of the removal of a fifth 4.7-inch gun. However, the balmy wiles of the Western Mediterranean beckoned and her worst antics were not unloosed for some months. After a few days we sailed for Gibraltar, suffered the expected upheaval in ‘The Bay’ and duly arrived under the pleasant shadow of the Rock, only to be sent out again as soon as refuelled. Anti-submarine patrol was the order of the day and seemingly every day—meaning that one followed a set of predetermined red ink diagrams on the chart with boring regularity.

  The races were still in operation and I took the Captain along on the first opportunity, winning him £15 and myself considerable kudos. The next meeting was the last as the racecourse was to become an airport. It was a sad day for many naval horsemen, spread now over every sea in the world, when the cheers came for the last winner on that sunlit Saturday evening and the Gibraltar Jockey Club closed down.

  The ‘phoney war’ had come to an end with the German attack through the Low Countries, the Allied advance to meet them, and the French collapse, which had meant retirement all along the line. A big Times map of the fighting was pinned up in the Wardroom with a ribbon—joining coloured flags—to mark the front line. This needed depressing adjustment westward every day, culminating in the German break through at Sedan, where a bulge in the ribbon dashed one’s most optimistic hopes. The news of Dunkirk came through, first to appal and then to uplift as one realised how successful the evacuation was.

  HMS Douglas

  2/6/40

  Those something Belgians fairly landed us. I hear there were 28 destroyers in and out of Dunkirk taking the soldiers off. It must have been a show and a half. (Still is I suppose.) I wish I was in an HF destroyer instead of piddling along with nothing but a German submarine on the news. I think the Italians are coming in all right though, and we expect to give them a good finishing.

  Was sick again at the beginning of this trip when there was a heavy swell, but we are running with it now. The number of miles we have done this month is equal to father’s age x mine x the number of brothers and sisters he has, so at a slow average speed you can see how much we have been in harbour.

  (This works out at 8,430 miles. At 14 knots, a likely average, 25 days at sea per month are indicated; about right!)

  In the evening of June 23 we were to-ing and fro-ing in the Straits as usual, with Apes Hill behind Tangier alternating with the Rock’s mottled crags, when the ship was suddenly recalled. There was no indication why but as soon as we had refuelled Admiral Sir Dudley North (Flag Officer Gibraltar) and a small staff embarked. France had just collapsed and the future of the French Navy—most important for the balance of Naval power—had become a vital issue. Most of it was at Oran in Algeria, some 250 miles east across the Mediterranean. Admiral North had decided that a man-to-man talk with his French opposite number might tip the scales and so course was set for Oran at 20 knots.

  Currents round Alboran, an island in our path, dictated a 50° alteration of course, the gyro compass chose this of all moments to break down and the prospect of running a full Admiral on the rocks was one that did not exactly sooth my 19-year-old nerves; but the expected land loomed through intermittent rain at 06:00 and when the western point of Oran Bay was identified the situation became interesting. The terms of France’s capitulation were unknown and it was with some concern that we searched with our binoculars to see whether we should be met by French patrol or Italian torpedo. The former it was, a destroyer leading us to the harbour mouth. On arrival off the berth indicated, a gap between a submarine and the destroyer Tornade, we turned 180°, let go an anchor and ‘made a sternboard’ on it a hundred yards to the jetty, watched in curious silence by dejected sailors on all sides. There was always the possibility of being caught by an enemy force coming to take over, but at least we would be ready for a smart getaway.

  Admiral North was soon being piped over the side on his way to Admiral Gensoul in the battlecruiser Dunkerque. With her sister Strasbourg and two cruisers she was visible in the adjoining anchorage of Mers-el-Kebir and I was thinking of the junketings on board her the previous summer when, as Officer of the Day, I was confronted by the British vice-consul. He had with him a Belgian flying officer, very spruce in RAF-like uniform but with a silver tassle dangling from his forage cap. He said there were 400 Belgian airmen ashore willing to ship with us and fight for England. This offer was eventually refused, though I do not know why; 400 trained airmen would have been invaluable in the coming months.

  The Admiral was back in an hour, his mission sadly unsuccessful, followed a few minutes later by Admiral Ferry (Admiral Superintendant of Oran) who ran down the ladder to North with tears streaming down his face. Apparently he impressed on the latter that had he been free to do so he would gladly have come away, but he had to obey orders. On departure the poor man was still in tears. Just before sailing we received a signal from Dunkerque that there was an Italian U-boat outside, but the passage back was uneventful.

  Some days later the Douglas was out in the Atlantic with a convoy. There was a concentration of heavy ships in the Gibraltar area and increased W/T activity indicated that something big was afoot. Then the following startling signal (of which I still have the original) was intercepted:

  ‘Oran Base from British Warship.

  ‘Je ouvre le feu encore sauf que je voi que vos batiment coule.’ (I will open fire again unless I see t
hat your ships are sinking.)

  The originator’s French had rusted since his Dartmouth days but obviously the French were being attacked at Oran or just outside, and very soon one knew that HMSs Hood, Valiant, Resolution and Ark Royal had opened fire on the French ships at Mers-el-Kebir, only the Strasbourg and five destroyers escaping. This was, of course, an awful thing to do to an erstwhile ally, and embittered relations with the French Navy for a long time. But the French had failed to respond, first to Admiral North and then to Vice Admiral Somerville (of Force H, the ships concerned) and Churchill had decided there was no alternative. North (among others) disagreed and it is understood that this was at the heart of his subsequent removal, a cause célèbre which rocked the Navy and is still debated.

  Gibraltar has nothing but pleasant associations for me, except one. This now came about. The mail arrived one evening, the sailor postman placing a bunch of letters on the red baize Wardroom table. We jostled round good humouredly and there was one from my mother. But when I began to read I could not get past the first few lines. I went up on to the darkened quarterdeck where a cool breeze blew. All round was blackness except where two dim lights by the coal shed had escaped attention. The calm water lapped gently against the ship’s side and someone coughed in the shadows.

  So Sandy was dead. I repeated the fact to myself but at first seemed incapable of taking it in. A number of my friends had already been killed but no one so close. Suddenly memories crowded in haphazard, and with them a gradual awakening: the incident of the loaded gun; mixed hockey on the lawn with always Sandy the star; long discussions into the night when adolescent dreams were all, and in the background a favourite record, ‘Oh you! You’re driving me crazy!’ Then a sudden, clear picture of a tall Sandy in knickerbockers, weight on the forward foot, peering into the Netherwood undergrowth to see whether a rabbit had got away, blue gun smoke drifting across the autumn air. I wondered what he had looked like in RAF uniform; it must have suited the fair hair and almost girlish complexion that were the basis of his astonishing good looks. The two lights swam and I cried unashamedly in the darkness.

  In a dozen words the war was suddenly stripped for me of its cloak of glory and adventure, to emerge for what it was—the purveyor of tragedies one would never forget. I thought of Sandy’s younger brother Robin, about to go straight to sea from Dartmouth, and of the rest of the family with whom I had spent so many happy days and who must now be numb with shock. I did not write to any of them simply because I felt no words could be adequate or indeed of any help—but later much regretted this.

  In the meantime here was I in the sunny Mediterranean, where we had not even had occasion to load our guns. Until at last a signal told Douglas to form part of the destroyer screen for Force H and we found ourselves bowling along on the port bow of Renown, Malaya and Ark Royal. Italy’s entry into the war on June 10 had produced little beyond the odd reconnaissance aircraft, though strategically their considerable Navy spelt the end of the Mediterranean as a British preserve and I think the operation was a coat-trailing sweep to attract attention away from Malta and the eastern end.

  Suddenly it was flag A (Aircraft in sight) from Renown and ‘Alarm starboard!’ from the Captain as a large formation of Italian bombers was sighted high on the starboard beam. The unfamiliar red and green markings on the three-engined aircraft seemed strangely hypnotic as, coming on relentlessly, they seemed contemptuous of the black puffs that signified fairly accurate shooting by the big ships. All were banging away at full rate, the destroyers remaining impotently silent. Gun muzzles were vertical when the air was suddenly rent by a ripple of detonations and the sea rose up in a series of gigantic brown pillars; soon forming one solid mass of smoke and water, it covered completely the three capital ships. For a second or two nothing happened. We watched, horrified, across half a mile of water. Then came a brave sight. The dense, ugly mass, for all the world like a wood of dark trees, was still suspended, hardly diminishing, when a sharp grey bow parted the left hand edge like a knife coming through brown wool. Bit by bit the Renown appeared, the sun glinting on her pale grey paint. She was untouched. A small cheer went up. Then followed the battleship and then the carrier, all without damage. By now the forest of bomb splashes had subsided into huge round pools that studded each side of the squadron’s twisting wake, witness to some very near misses.

  The enemy were, in fact, plain unlucky not to have hit at least one ship and all present revised their previous low opinions of Italian airmen. From our point of view the only nasty moment was provided by ‘friendly’ spent pom-pom shells that, dispatched originally by some super-optimist, boiled the sea all round into a stew of ugly little bangs and splashes.

  This was a rare interlude and the ship was soon back on A/S patrol.

  HMS Douglas

  15/7/40

  We had a vague air raid yesterday and one was shot down. At least it went down behind the Rock in spirals and looked like it. Davies, in my term, is out here now as second sub of a Gunroom, poor devil. Jolly good show Bill Tennant getting the CB, wasn’t it? Your airmail letter took 23 days to get here so I presume it did not go by air!

  Bill Tennant was Captain W.G. Tennant, a very old friend of my father’s, whom I had known as Uncle Bill for years. He lived near and they had been sharing a small rough shoot at the outbreak of war. One evening recently my father had left the Admiralty and was sitting in a carriage at Victoria station when the door opened and a dishevelled Bill Tennant stumbled in, to immediately fall asleep. He had come straight from Dunkirk. Sent over by Admiral Ramsay (at Dover), he had been Beachmaster. His opposite number was General (Field Marshal to be) Alexander, and B.T. later told us that when they were walking up and down the beach together before the embarkation he was much amused by Alexander saying in typical guardee lackadaisical tone ‘I’m told we may have to capitulate. I wonder how one capitulates. Never done it before myself!’

  Very soon after this we sailed for home. I think the excessive sea-time had dictated a major overhaul of the old Douglas’ engines. The Battle of Britain began in earnest just after we arrived at Portsmouth in mid-August and, on leave for two weeks in September, I have several clear memories. Linking them all is a permanent blue sky, criss-crossed with white vapour trails like a modernistic cobweb.

  One morning, from the back of a friend’s horse on the downs above Firle, I heard the sound of an aircraft and picked out the small dot of a fighter. It came straight for me, losing height, the engine firing irregularly and just before the black swastika became discernible I recognised the square wing-tips of a Messerschmitt 109. Imagination insisted that it was determined to pick off the lone horseman, but the plane passed just overhead in a crescendo of sound. It reappeared to the right, flying away, and with a coughing fit that ended in silence, glided into the valley like a stricken pheasant. I marked it down behind a wood and set off at speed in search.

  A small crowd stood round the fearsome little plane that had churned its way, wheels up, through a maze of corn stooks, propeller tips bent back like the petals of a black flower. The wounded pilot—there was a lot of blood in the cockpit—had already been removed. Someone took a very good photograph of this particular Me 109 that subsequently appeared in many accounts of the Battle of Britain.

  During a visit to the Brighton Hippodrome (it was ‘Lambeth Walk’ time and the star picked out my red-haired consort to dance in the aisle with him) the show was suddenly stopped by the manager coming on with a blackboard and writing ‘R.A.F. Score: 156. A record!’ Everyone cheered.

  I was lucky to be asked out partridge shooting at Glyndebourne, General Beale-Browne (a very special friend though he was 40 years my senior) having taken on the shoot in order to show sport to young officers on leave. One day there was a very low sea-mist. Two fighters, presumably a Messerschmitt chased by a Spitfire or Hurricane, came over our heads unseen though at ‘0’ feet, the sound being quite indescribable and the second plane firing continuously in long bursts. Later that
day we were walking through kale at a point where the road does a right-angle bend between Glyndebourne and Glynde. A black car drew up and out got a police inspector. He began to walk through the kale towards us and we stopped to see what he wanted. He asked for Major Harry Sturgis and then went over to say that his younger son had been killed in action. Of course we went straight home. Toby, another boyhood crony whom I had known since we were seven, was in the RAF. He had his beautiful mother’s charm and there were many who missed him sadly. Even now I never pass that field without recalling the melancholy message.

  But it was back at Portsmouth that the Battle of Britain put on, for me, its most impressive display. My Aunt Emily Persse and her younger sister drove over to see me and we went up to picnic on the Portsdown hills that rise steeply behind the town. It is always a fine view to seaward on a clear day: Cosham and Porchester’s Norman castle in the foreground with Portsmouth, Southsea and Gosport all stretching away in a mauve smear of roofs to the sea beyond. The dockyard was clear before us, wisps of smoke rose from lean grey ships in the harbour and only the barrage balloons lent a bellicose air. Suddenly all was changed by the wailing of sirens, that banshee sound that chilled one’s heart in the safest surroundings. We decided we were not in much danger, got into the car and waited.

  In seconds the air over the town was filled with twisting, diving planes as a score of fighters, appearing as from nowhere, set to. I had not seen a real dogfight before and it was certainly gripping; the roar of engines coming and going, the rattatat of the guns, the sun glinting on turning wings, some ‘ours’, some ‘theirs’, and above all the realisation that before our eyes men were fighting for their lives. Either a new wave of enemy aircraft came in or they had managed to shake off the defending Spitfires, for the fighting tailed off and then, one after another, the German 109s dived on to the barrage balloons. It was shooting ‘sitters’; rattatat—whoosh! A ball of flame and the crumpled silver bag floated earthwards trailing dense black smoke. At one moment three or four were ablaze together. Immediately this was over, larger, twin-engined aircraft which looked to be Junkers 88s dived down, released their bombs and climbed away over rising mushrooms of debris. They seemed to have the arena to themselves and it was a grim business watching them, about two dozen criss-crossing from different sides in almost leisurely fashion. The last one let go, set course for home, and all was over. The timing of the whole operation had been entirely admirable.