Several fires were sending columns of smoke skywards and one imagined the dockyard to be badly damaged. After a few moments the steady drone of the ‘All clear’ sounded and we reckoned that my aunt from neutral Ireland had had her money’s worth! Curiously enough it was found on return that the dockyard had suffered little; most of the bombs had landed among the small workers’ houses around, which presumably had been the intention.
The Chief Engineer’s son was a fighter pilot at a nearby air station and often came on board during his time off. We listened breathlessly to his accounts, graphically illustrated with both hands, of the day’s fighting. Though the German effort was clearly very formidable and the probable prelude to invasion, I do not think we realised that these would turn out to be the most crucial months of the whole war. The enemy’s huge daily losses (in fact somewhat exaggerated, as one knows with hindsight) were a great fillip and one felt they just could not keep it up.
A letter from Johnny Bowles, who had gone to the destroyer Wolsey, described the unpleasantness of inshore convoy escort duties on what I knew was the East Coast, and made me feel uncomfortably out of things. It also gave depressing news of several Subs of our vintage.
HMS Wolsey
1/8/40
I’m so glad your ship is at least reasonable, but presumably life is not now all free and easy, and you are getting your fair share of this most unpleasant bombing business.
We are, as you know, convoying, which is very dull as you just go up and down splitting the day into Heinkel time, Junkers time and Messerschmitt time. We do get one day in per week, two other bits of day per week and a boiler clean of four days (no leave though) every three or so weeks. We were detached to Dover to take part in all the operations from the Hague (skipper got DSC) to Le Havre inclusive, eventually ending up with a big hole in our bows, guns worn out, no Asdics, no Degausser, and holes in deck from bullets at the end of Dunkirk. So were retired gracefully to Pompey for three weeks.
Just before I end I suppose you know Wood, Read, Davies, Robertson, have been killed.
Although such experiences did not come the way of Douglas, the rhythm of our peaceful existence soon deteriorated with a change of scenery to the low braes of Scapa Flow and the non-stop duties of a fleet destroyer. Presumably the losses in Norway and Dunkirk had not yet been made good because the usual shortage of destroyers was particularly acute. Echoing Johnny’s, the routine was three or four days out (screening the big ships) half a day in to oil and provision, followed by another three or four days out and so on. ‘Fuel remaining’, signalled to the senior officer daily, was about the only regulator of sea-time and the occasional longer period in for boiler cleaning, when officers could get ashore for walks and the men their football, was a treat indeed.
As the winter came on the weather became permanently bad. One’s memory is of ceaseless gales. The old Douglas was certainly a terrible sea boat; worst of all I seldom kept anything down at sea, brandy and soda and ship’s biscuits becoming standard diet from the first day out. A child’s bucket was kept at the back of the heaving bridge for my sole use and some wag painted it dark blue with a single gold stripe! I never let seasickness interfere with duty and in a way did get used to the actual sensation, but after, say, three days with nothing kept down one’s whole being starts to sag. Several trips later there was no change and the question naturally arose as to whether I could go on like this, the dreadful spectre of having to apply for a big ship looming and receding in direct relation to the proximity of land.
HMS Douglas
1/11
At the moment it is literally icy cold. Everything is caked with a thin layer of frozen snow, and it is snowing hard. I have my fur-lined boots on with Mother’s excellent sea boot stockings, sweater, waistcoat, fawn tweed coat and new sort of lammy coat they’ve issued. Have been pretty frightfully sick and am wondering whether to put in for a big ship or not. I want to try and hang on. We had a ghastly trip the other day when it was really rough. We picked up the survivors of a torpedoed merchant ship; I don’t think that can be censorable. They had three biscuits each for three days (eleven of them) and when picked up had nothing. However, that’s not terrific as I frequently keep nothing down for three days, which makes one pretty queer at the end. I haven’t seen Robin yet though dare say I will. In harbour eating and sleeping are the pleasures that count. When we go to the cinema (which there sometimes is in a big ship) it’s like a school outing. Our food is quite good; Harvey took over catering from the Maltese messman but the messing has gone up to £4*. One hasn’t got any other expenses, however, except laundry, so it doesn’t make much difference.
Robin Buller, Sandy’s younger brother, was now a snottie in the brand new battleship King George V.
HMS Douglas
9/11
We are in for a bit at last… I haven’t put in for a big ship and will tryand hold on … Bertie Harvey and I keep watch together (we sometimes work in pairs). He is the most incredible person for an ex-AB being able to recite anything from Shakespeare to Rupert Brooke (he calls me Rupert!). It was pretty good getting the three Italian battleships, wasn’t it? With a foothold for us in Greece I think the Italians may not have it all their own way. We have seen no excitement though expect it. I must stop now and eat something. I hear there’s fresh milk which I haven’t had since last at home.
PS. I don’t suffer too badly from lack of sleep thanks as we are one in three. We have had more b .… y awful weather. We rolled over to about 70° at one moment and all thought we were going right over. The doctor had his arm broken, the messman his behind cracked and another officer nearly dislocated his shoulder. A man got washed over the side and back again! I was standing with my feet braced against a vertical surface and found myself standing on it! Lots of things are bust.
Some of my letters were spread over a considerable period, and posted when the chance arose. Also events were not always related in the right sequence. Taking what some will consider an exaggeration of rolling 70°: one day I was on watch in a full gale with really frightening seas. We were on the starboard side of the screen escorting the Nelson and other ships and occasionally, wedged into a corner of the bridge for support, I imagined the comfortable scene in the Gunroom I knew so well, as the battleship rolled predictably from side to side. The Captain and I were soaked to the skin in spite of towels round our necks and in my case, waders over fur-lined boots. Every so often the sea came solidly over us so that we had to duck to avoid receiving it full in the face. Of course I was being as sick as a cat, though the task of keeping our station on the screen—that is, the right compass bearing and distance from the lead ship—took all one’s attention. The necessarily slow speed of the fleet and the difficult task for the hard-working helmsman just beneath us in keeping a reasonably straight course, with the bow being thrown bodily sideways one moment and the ship corkscrewing back in retaliation the next, made station keeping an approximate matter at best. I suspect the Captain had come on to the bridge—he would normally spend most of the time in his sea cabin just aft of the wheelhouse—because he smelt danger with the sixth sense that destroyer skippers acquire.
We had taken on a particularly vicious roll, thanks to several seas coming at rhythmic intervals when a freak sequence occurred. A particularly heavy wave pushed us right over to port and then—before we had begun to come back—a second, following immediately, broke over the ship again. She heeled right over so that the end of the yard, two thirds of the way up the foremast, was only just out of the water. She stayed there, trembling, for what must have been about ten seconds. The Captain, the signalman and I were peeling off our oilskins the better to swim and I found myself standing on the side, normally vertical, of the Asdic cabinet. From below came a constant clamour of breaking crockery and the dislodging of every minor movable item that had not been secured against a near 90° list. It seemed like minutes that the old Douglas leaned over, shaking like an animal in its death throes. Then the sea appeared to
relent and she slowly but surely came upright.
The Nelson’s ten-inch light began to wink. ‘Nelson to Douglas’ shouted the signalman above the howling wind; ‘I thought you were gone that time!’ ‘Make “so did I”’ yelled the Captain, buttoning up his oilskin.
It is probable that we would have rolled over with total loss—no ship could have lowered a boat in that sea—if the fifth gun, originally high up amidships, had not been removed. Minor damage below was complete and my cabin was no exception when I got aft via well-judged rushes from refuge to refuge down the iron deck. There was a minor and untraced leak in the vicinity and in bad weather it took in something like an inch a day. This necessitated wooden duckboards to keep my feet dry and these were jumbled up one end while everything else that had broken loose swilled from side to side in several inches of filthy water. It transpired that there was also a large number of minor human fractures in addition to those related. The apparent phenomenon of a man being washed overboard and back again was not really unusual; it was to be met again.
For some weeks I kept up the struggle against seasickness, retaining nothing and making up for it in harbour. Each time the question of giving in seemed to resolve itself in the affirmative, but on return the life was so much more worthwhile that I could not bring myself to throw it over. But I surrendered in the end. One day, in the usual rough weather when I was bracing myself against the continuous motion with a hand on each of the metal balls of the binnacle, I felt for the first time so weak—having kept nothing down for days—that if an emergency arose I knew I would not be equal to it. So I wrote an official letter requesting to be transferred to a big ship. It was a sad moment as most naval officers and men will appreciate.
* * *
HMS Douglas
18/12
… to make life more gloomy I’m rather a cripple at the moment having had a narrow escape from worse injury yesterday. I was sitting in the Wardroom on a settee along the side of the ship when she suddenly lurched over to about 40°. I got hold of an armchair and its inmate on the way, but its lashing broke and we both went for 6. The next thing I knew was a terrible blow on the head and then the doctor bending over me on the same settee, looking under my eyelids and feeling my bones! They say I described one cartwheel across the room and hit the bulkhead with my head, being knocked well and truly out. Luckily I’ve now got nothing worse than a badly bruised thigh that got me off two night watches as I can only just walk, and a headache and stiff neck! Also a cut hand which makes writing difficult and a black eye. However, I’m lucky not to be worse.
They said my antics were something marvellous to behold. The chap in the armchair was the doctor who finished up on top of me. I only hope I don’t arrive in harbour to find my appointment to another ship and have to go like this. Will you send me a tin or two of Oxo or Bovril cubes that can be dropped into boiling water. I’ve just got your cake and mince pies thanks, grand. Just off again.
There is still a scar on my thigh, where it caught the corner of a bookcase, to remind of the incident and particularly of our Irish doctor trying to stem the blood from a gash in my head. He was fairly efficient at this, short-term, slapping pieces of sticking plaster on to my matted hair, intoning the while ‘Elasthoplasst, Elasthoplasst; God’s greatest gift to the medicil profess’n!’ Long-term this was a failure; the difficulty of removing a tangled mixture of hair, plaster and dried blood can be imagined.
It was certainly a reprieve to leave Scapa—if not my friends in the Douglas—when eventually relieved and sent home to await appointment. Crossing London I struck up a close acquaintanceship—not the misnomer it sounds—with one of the lions in Trafalgar Square (which has been seldom passed since without a nod). A heavy air raid was in progress when the train arrived at Kings Cross with not a soul to be seen, no porters, no ticket collectors and no taxis or other transport. Rather foolhardily—I had not been in a major raid before—and much against the wishes of an ARP warden in his white helmet, I set out on foot for Victoria.
There were, of course, no lights, but searchlights weaved continually, groping for their droning quarry. Bombs, though plentiful, did not seem to be close and good progress was made in the eerily deserted metropolis. I had just entered Trafalgar Square when a shrill whistling, followed by flashes and bangs, erupted all round. Not very confident now, I kept on and was right in the open when there was a series of screeches and explosions that lit up all the surrounding buildings. Running for the nearest of Nelson’s lions I lay down alongside it, heartily thankful for the reassuring bulk, even if it trembled repeatedly.
Setting off again in a lull I met a policeman who said there would be no trains until this was over and recommended the Strand Palace Hotel. Wolfing a late supper there I was astonished to see the large doors at the far end of the dining room burst open to disgorge an avalanche of variegated humanity—everyone carrying pillows or rugs—which immediately bedded itself down between the tables. The waiter, when he had succeedced in getting back, explained that they were from a Polish ship anchored in the Thames, and allowed to do this at 22:00. As it happened, a vision of blonde pulchritude, not wearing much, stretched out alongside my chair and concentration on dead meat was difficult to come by thereafter.
The rumblings and shakings were still going on, when entering the lift I said I hoped the hotel was solid. ‘Oh yes’, said the attendant ‘It’s safe enough, below the top few floors that is. Which one for you Sir?’ ‘The top floor.’ For some reason I thought I would shave, probably for a quick getaway next morning, and had the razor poised when the screech of a really near one stayed my hand. It rose to a crescendo while I remained motionless and then exploded with a crash that shook everything. My hand jumped and drew a long red line across my cheek. The bombardment went on most of the night and I was thankful to catch an early train to Lewes; it was all much more peaceful at sea!
As the Downs appeared and my home approached, I could not help thinking of the Snaffles picture there, of a First War destroyer officer on the bridge in filthy weather, called ‘T.B.D.s—the beef convoy’. I knew that on the back was: ‘To Lieutenant John Brooke R.N., H.M.S. Ettrick, from Commdr. Quentin Crauford R.N.—a souvenir of the winter of 1914/15 from his Divisional Leader’, and that the Ettrick was but the first of several of my father’s wartime commands in the Dover Patrol. Once carried off the bridge frozen stiff, he was awarded the DSC and French Legion of Honour and later, as the crack CO of the flotilla, was usually chosen to take Lloyd George, the Prime Minister, Field Marshal Kitchener* and other VIPs to and from France.
I felt a considerable failure, even if I had done my best. It was therefore a fillip to receive an appointment to HMS Prince of Wales. Though I had hoped for a cruiser, this was the Navy’s latest battleship, not even in commission as far as I knew, and I felt my stocks could not be as low as feared. The job would be Sub of the Gunroom and I felt I knew, for what it was worth, a bit about that.
*J.H.P. of my dedication.
†A.J.S.B. of my dedication.
*A month!
*On one occasion Kitchener was standing beside him when he was bringing the ship alongside at Dover in a full gale. A single bright light on the jetty was blazing down on the ship, which did not help. A voice behind it began to give instructions and my father shouted up to mind his own bloody business, he was not in command of the ship. The voice stopped and a little later Kitchener said ‘Do you usually speak to your Admiral like that?’. It was Admiral Sir Reginald Bacon—in command at Dover—who, when my father shortly apologised, was very good about it (as he should have been!).
3
Bismarck and Churchill
A shipyard is a cheerless place at the best of times; Messrs Cammell Laird under four inches of snow in the half-light of 06:30 was no exception, but it could not suppress my thrill at first sight of HMS Prince of Wales, dark grey and menacing against the surrounding white. The tall superstructure that loomed to my left seemed to merge with the sky as, still stiff a
nd cold from the night train to Birkenhead, I climbed the brow to her vast quarterdeck. The Nelson’s had been small, recently I was used to a few square yards, but the expanse now before me took in an immense four-gun turret with no trouble at all.
From a heavily muffled Bo’s’n’s Mate who was stamping about in the slush, I learnt that the ship would not commission for some weeks and that I should take my taxi on to the digs where the dozen unmarried officers ‘standing by’ her were accommodated.
Back on board later, I did a quick tour of the upper deck while awaiting a summons to the Captain. Prince of Wales, of 36,000 tons displacement, was a somewhat masculine sister to King George V, with three more of the class still to come. Having been on board the latter briefly at Scapa, the general arrangement was familiar: two 14-inch turrets forward (the lower of four and the upper of two guns), one turret aft, a massive box-like bridge superstructure that included aircraft hangars each side of the foremost funnel and then a clear-cut gap (out of which the aircraft would be catapulted) and the after superstructure. This contained the boat deck and second funnel. The masses on each side of the gap included secondary armament batteries at deck level (eight 5.25-inch turrets in all) and the usual director control towers on top. Distinctly unusual was the intriguing array of radar aerials that crowned these in turn. The curved prow, cowled single funnel and pyramid upperworks of our German adversaries certainly looked better, but the solid bridge, tall funnels and general uprightness of the Prince of Wales did have a foursquare effect of dignity and power.
Alarm Starboard!: A Remarkable True Story of the War at Sea Page 6
