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

by Geoffrey Brooke

  Someone on the other side shouted ‘Stand by!’ It was the destroyer Captain, a sandy-bearded Lieutenant Commander (F.J. Cartwright), a picture of coolness as he lent on his forearms at the corner of the bridge, watching the side of the Prince of Wales. On the deck beneath, a seaman stood at each line, knife poised over the taut rope, eyes on his Captain. At last there was no one in front of me. I gave my precursor a few feet and went too, the half-inch diameter rope biting into my hands with considerable intensity. It was surprisingly tiring work, now with the nightmare element that, as the battleship heeled increasingly away, the men at the other end of the rope had to pay it out, nullifying most of one’s efforts. When the last few yards became a steep uphill haul—the weight of bodies kept the rope well down—I felt for a moment too exhausted to go on but a glance at the oily water in which men were already struggling provided the spur of desperation. A last effort put my wrists within the grasp of eager hands and in one exhilarating heave I was over the destroyer’s rail. Crawling out of the way to regain my breath, I saw the man after me come safely over and then ‘Slip!’ roared the destroyer Captain.

  The row of knives flashed and, as I struggled to my feet, all the ropes swung down, heavy with men, to crash sickeningly against the battleship’s side. ‘Starboard ten, full astern together’, came from the bridge above and, as the engine room telegraph clanged, the grey wall opposite began to roll inexorably away. There was a heavy bump and we began to heel violently outwards. Grabbing at something I realised that the Prince of Wales’ bilge keel had caught under the destroyer. Her skipper had left it too late! But the next instant she swung back, the powerful propellers began to bite, and gathering sternway we surged clear. The destroyer stood off a cable or so and in silence except for the hum of her engine room fans, we watched aghast.

  The great battleship continued to roll slowly away; as her upperworks dwindled and then vanished, the grey paint on her hull changed to brown as the dividing black line of her boot-topping rose out of the water, and the men at the guardrails began to climb over and slide down this treacherous slope. Those still hanging on to the severed ropes found themselves lying on a near-horizontal surface. Some scrambled to their feet and joined the long lines of men moving at ever increasing speed, as if running on a giant treadmill.

  The bilge keel that had hit the destroyer in its upward climb from the depths, reared out of the water, a massive six-foot steel wall that now bore down threateningly on the advancing throng. They climbed desperately over it and continued on. The ship was now nearly bottom up with the main keel rolling, if more gently, towards them. She then slowed to a standstill, a 700-foot waterlogged cylinder of brown, the forefoot higher than the stern.

  How long she stayed like that I do not know, a minute or two I think, as if doing her best to give the last of her men some sort of chance. They were slipping and sliding into the water, now uniformly black with oil fuel and littered with débris. Two or three of the ship’s boats were floating away on the other side.

  Then we saw that the huge hull was disappearing. The bows rose higher and higher. A perimeter of broken water marked, as if with throttling fingers, the exact extent of the ship that remained. This closed in steadily towards the bow as the main body of the hull settled deeper. Again there was a pause when the sharp bow alone was visible-poised like a stark memorial to the brave men she was taking down with her—and then in a last turmoil of foam it slid from view.

  The surrounding water, for some time a great confusion of eddies and swirls, was a mass of black specks as the heads of swimming men showed in exact and dreadful emulation of Repulse’s end. Some made for the boats which soon became little islands of packed humanity. Others struck out for us and another destroyer that had closed in. By now our side was almost covered with scrambling nets and ropes of all sizes. Tired men were soon clinging to them and being hauled up. Some were wounded or too exhausted to do anything but just catch a hold, and fell back when their full weight was lifted clear. Sailors from the destroyer went down to the bottom of the nets to help the swimmers and several jumped into the sea to bring in the worst cases. Nearly all were covered in oil fuel, very painful to the eyes, and those who had swallowed any were coughing and retching.

  We worked like beavers hauling on the ropes. If the sea had been at all rough the numbers saved would have been very much smaller. Soon there were more men on deck than appeared to be left in the water and we took turns at the hauling. Some of Prince of Wales’ Engine Room staff were dreadfully scalded, presumably from escaping steam; in particular I remember the little Senior Engineer (Lieutenant Commander (E) R.O. Lockley), on whom the brunt of the responsibility for his department had evolved, with the flesh hanging from his chest in dreadful white bights.

  There were soon several hundred survivors on board, crowded all over the ship and, where I was on the fo’c’s’le, shoulder to shoulder. For the first time it dawned on me that the Japanese were missing a big chance. Stopped, the rescuing destroyers presented easy targets but so far nothing had happened. Relief at being safe was immediately replaced by what seemed certain knowledge that the worst was still to come. Suddenly the communication number of ‘A’ gun shouted ‘Alarm port! Follow director!’, the interceptor switch on the gun was slammed shut with the familiar double click and I said to myself ‘Here we go’. At the same instant I ducked to avoid the barrel of the gun as it passed slowly and purposefully over my head. Someone said there were two or three of those cursed ‘Navy 96s’ quite close. I put my fingers in my ears, shut my eyes and remained bent double, as did everyone else. The discharge of a 4.7 was the most unpleasant of any gun in the Navy, those of us just in front of its shield were packed too tight to move away and as I waited it struck me that this was a damn silly way to pass out. But nothing happened.

  Unplugging my ears I heard the drone of aircraft and following the direction of the muzzle saw a fat Jap bomber about a mile away. I quickly resumed the previous attitude. Though frightened of the effect I thought ‘why the devil don’t we open fire; they’ll get us next’. But still nothing happened, and there ensued a curious pantomime that has never been properly explained. Several Japanese aircraft flew round and round, eventually coming very close and inspecting the effects of their handiwork (or more likely those of their colleagues) while the guns of the destroyers kept ‘on’ and the fingers of the director layers remained poised. Fortunately, and it says a lot for steady nerves and good drill, no one opened fire. If they had there is no doubt of the eventual outcome.* Eventually they all flew away—chased by fighters that had suddenly arrived from Malaya—and we breathed again. Tubby, radial-engined ex-American Brewster Buffaloes, the new arrivals criss-crossed over our heads and it was just as well they could not hear what we were saying about them.

  HMS Prince of Wales had sunk at 13:20. At the end of an hour our destroyer was absolutely jam-packed and an air attack still on the cards. The other two were not so crowded and accordingly the Captain was told to set course for Singapore. The sombre scene faded gradually astern; the black sea, the occasional island of humanity where a carley float or oil-grimed boat waited patiently for succour, and the two small ships.

  Room was found below for anyone in a bad way and this eased the congestion a little. Feeling suddenly very tired I picked my way to the quarterdeck and lay down. I found myself beside the body of an officer who had a handkerchief over the face. He seemed familiar and I raised the handkerchief to see who it was. The calm features of the Flag Lieutenant who I had been speaking to such a short time before were revealed. He appeared to have been drowned. Though I had witnessed many unnerving sights that day without effect this somewhat overcame me. For the first time I felt unworthily lucky. No doubt he had waited on the Admiral till the last and had had little chance; I had not even got my feet wet.*

  So far there was no news of our senior officers. The wounded were everywhere below and as the sun went down one of the ship’s officers lent me an overcoat to keep out the cold. Some
time on this melancholy trip back it struck me that I did not know to which of the ‘E’s we were so deeply indebted. It was the Express. Good old Express. Looking around her pulsating deck, heaped with dozing forms, among which the lifebuoy sentry and ‘Y’ gun’s crew, hunched against the breeze, were the only signs of life, I saw her again—was it only three years ago?— when Bowles and I from the Esk had so often been on board. Instinctively my eye strayed to the handrails, chromium-plated by her First Lieutenant with the treble barrelled name. Of course they were painted over, as all brightwork had been at the outbreak of war. She had certainly got away with murder today; it looked as if we were not going to be molested now.

  It was after midnight when she nosed alongside at the Naval Base. What a contrast to our bold exit two days before! Electra and Vampire disembarked their bedraggled passengers some time later and it was not long before the survivors of the Prince of Wales were shocked to a man to discover that neither the Captain nor the Commander were of their number.

  Captain Leach had remained on the bridge and his body had been found floating by Lieutenant W.M. Graham, who supported it until forced by his own exhaustion to let go. The Commander had stayed in the tiller flat, after dismissing those working with him, wrestling until the end with the jammed rudder.

  Both were of the finest stamp of Naval officer, efficient disciplinarians who knew how to unbend, not to say the most likeable that one could serve under. One felt a very personal loss, especially regarding Captain Leach. His son was a Midshipman in the cruiser Mauritius refitting at Singapore and our hearts went out to him.† Tom Phillips was not a survivor either, which was a major tragedy, though it can be appreciated that this unfortunate Admiral, whose star was virtually in the descendant as soon as he left England, had not had time to impress his personality on us in the same way.

  I went straight over to the cruiser Exeter, which had arrived since our departure and was now the spearhead of the Royal Navy in the Far East! Pat Brougham of my term—we had had adjacent chests at Dartmouth for nearly four years—was on board and lent me a pair of grey flannel trousers and a shirt, plus somewhere to doss down.

  Next morning our sagging spirits received a terrific boost from the sight of our Royal Marines parading; they were fully armed and in brand new uniforms, drawn overnight. The two ships’ companies were mustered for a roll call so that accurate lists could be constructed of the missing. It took time and we sat around in groups swapping experiences. Two such stick in my mind. The Warrant Telegraphist in charge of the Prince of Wales’ main wireless office told me that as soon as the action started he naturally expected to be ordered to send a signal for air cover. As hit after hit shook the ship and she began to list, the absence of such instruction became too much for him and he went up to the Admiral’s bridge. Enquiring diffidently of one of his seniors, he was told that efforts to persuade the Admiral to ask for air cover had failed. He accordingly ‘took his life in his hands’ as he put it—advice to Admirals not being one of a Warrant Telegraphist’s responsibilities— and, approaching Admiral Phillips, asked if he should not make the signal. The Admiral just shook his head. From this incident it might appear (but this is entirely personal conjecture) that the Admiral was mentally dazed by the disaster that was unfolding about him.

  In fact, at a fairly late stage. Captain Tennant, finding that the flagship had made no signal of any sort, himself reported the bombing and his position. The Buffalo fighters were airborne within minutes. On arrival an hour later, their senior pilot was so impressed with what he saw that in his report to Admiral Layton he said ‘During that hour I had seen many men in dire danger waving, cheering and joking as if they were holiday-makers at Brighton … It shook me, for here was something above human nature. I take off my hat to them, for in them I saw the spirit which wins wars’. I am afraid that there were also men who shook their fists at the fighters, in the belief that they had let us down. As far as I know this unfortunate impression was never put right; certainly not for those survivors—about three quarters of the total—who were shortly dispersed to Indian or home-based ships.

  The other recollection concerned the Captain’s Secretary, Paymaster Lieutenant W.T. Blunt, whose face was such a mass of bruises that he was almost unrecognisable. His action station was beside the Captain and his duty to keep a record of occurrences (which he saved) and any other details that the latter might require. He said that at the end the following were on the compass platform (bridge): the Admiral, the Captain, the Officer of the Watch (Lieutenant Commander Lawson), Chief Yeoman Howell and Blunt himself, destined to be the only survivor of the five. When the list finally began to accelerate they all left; the Admiral and Lawson paused at the Admiral’s bridge—one deck down—and climbed out on the superstructure to sit on the rim of an Oerlikon sponson; Blunt, wishing to retain freedom of movement, stood (on the side of the Admiral’s bridge) by the sponson; the Captain and Howell elected to descend the next ladder and this was the last Blunt saw of them. There is no doubt that the Captain jeopardised his chances of survival through remaining with the Admiral.

  When the superstructure was nearly horizontal Blunt jumped, hoping to reach clear water, but was immediately overwhelmed and swept back by a rush of water, either into the compass platform or Admiral’s bridge. With the whole plunging deeper and deeper he was knocked about like a ball in a can. When near the end of his tether he sighted a gleam of light and, swimming towards it, managed to last out until the surface was reached. The Side Party’s copper punt was not far off and when he reached it and looked back the ship was gone. (It had been Blum’s habit to practise holding his breath under water in his bath and, despite the jeers of his messmates, had worked up to more than two minutes. He probably owed his life to this eccentricity.)

  We were still congregated for the roll call when I saw Bill Tennant and an officer threading their way among the groups, looking for someone. When he came to me he said ‘Thank God’ and walked out. In the midst of all the other responsibilities of the moment he sent a cable to my parents to say that I was safe.

  We heard of the last attack on the Repulse from someone who I think must have been his navigating officer. Lieutenant Commander Gill. Mutual understanding between them—Tennant had himself been a navigation specialist—had clearly reached the highest peak. He, Gill, stood by the voice pipe (to the chief quartermaster 60 feet below) while the Captain strolled from side to side of the bridge saying nothing but indicating with circular movements of his hand the direction in which the wheel was to be put. In this way the great battlecruiser was flung about the ocean with a dexterity that avoided, as reported, 19 torpedoes.* Eventually Repulse was hit by five in all (and one bomb).

  When it was clear she was going the Captain ordered ‘Abandon Ship’—doing so in good time saved many—and himself went down to ‘B’ gun deck. From there he told the assembled men that they had fought the ship well and wished them luck. He later told my father that the ship rolled over on top of him and he found himself—just like Blunt—being sucked deeper and deeper, the water changing from green to dark green to black. He was making ready to end it all with a long gulp when he suddenly realised that his surroundings were getting lighter again. Just managing to hold his breath until reaching the surface, he was hauled onto a carley float, considerably dazed as his head had hit something on the way up.

  Wandering about during the roll call was a grim experience as one discovered who was missing. Time and again some slight chance had saved one and done for another. The failure of the broadcast system must have taken a very heavy toll. The padre (the Rev W.G. Parker, a New Zealander) was tending wounded men and refused to leave them when the hatch above him had to be closed. Of the Gunroom, Sub-Lieutenant J.B. Womersley, RNVR, Midshipmen D.R.W. Tribe, RN and P.A.B. Hunt, RNVR, were lost, which was tragic, and everyone was saddened to find that Lieutenant Commander Ferguson (probably handicapped by only having one lung) had not survived. I found myself hit almost as much as anything by the ne
ws that my servant, bandsman Brooks, was dead. To this day ‘J’attendrai’ and ‘Begin the Beguine’—records with which he would wake me—recall his shy smile.

  It was discovered that the Prince of Wales had lost 20 officers and 307 men, the Repulse 27 officers and 486 men. The fact that the latter had gone quickly was not surprising in view of her older ’tween decks design; but the vulnerability of her modern consort was a shock to us all and in time to the whole Navy. The original damage and flooding on the port side were greatly in excess of that to be expected from one normal torpedo hit and detailed study shortly concluded that the explosion—though a good way forward of the propellers—had inexplicably forced one of the fast turning shafts out of true. Rotating concentrically, it had torn breaches in bulkheads which in turn had caused flooding of electrical generator rooms and rupturing of fire mains, oil pipes and so on, leading to failure of half the ship’s electrics. Of course, the lack of communications aft had made the damage control parties’ tasks immeasurably more difficult. All in all it seemed the enemy had been supremely lucky in that particular hit, even as one of our own shells had been in the case of the Bismarck. (The mystery of one hit doing so much damage was not resolved until divers inspected the hull in 1966. They found that there had in fact been two torpedo hits on the port side; the second, right aft and curiously unnoticed—it was probably simultaneous—had torn off the ‘A’ bracket that supported the port outer shaft, as well as blowing a hole in the stern, with the results described.)