After a month my appointment to HMS Bermuda arrived. She was a brand new, 9,000-ton cruiser of the Colony Class (twelve 6-inch, eight twin 4-inch pom-poms, torpedo tubes, one Walrus Seaplane) and, remembering my stupid stomach, she seemed a satisfactory halfway house between a stable platform and the better life of a destroyer. (Actually she proved a pig in heavy seas and extracted the inevitable toll.) Except that the weather was pleasanter, arrival at John Brown’s yard was a repeat performance of Birkenhead 17 months before.
HMS Bermuda
9/7/42
I had a good journey up with two other NOs, one of whom was a submarine Captain of 23*. The ship is first class. I am Mate of the Upper Deck, Quarterdeck Officer, after Control Officer (‘X’ turret) and 2nd Catapult Officer. We commission in a couple of weeks and you can imagine there is ahell of a lot to do. Our messman was Captain Leach’s valet, a useful thing. There are survivors here among the officers (and probably lots more among the men) from Prince of Wales, Royal Oak, Fiji, Trinidad, Edinburgh, and Ark Royal In fact non-survivors are rather mere!
Have had a letter from John who is “under canvas and water” near Sheriff Hutton.
The officers were a particularly decent bunch. Our Captain was Terence Back, a tall and very cultivated man, being interesting on almost any subject; the Commander (R.W. Griffith) was small and, I was glad to find, easy to get on with—I was his right-hand man regarding what went on in the open air—and together they epitomised the long and the short of it! Both were concerned of course to start the Bermuda off on the right foot and at first my return to this sort of life after months a fairly free agent took a little getting used to.
The Gunnery Officer (Lieutenant Commander Hugh Cartwright), the Torpedo Officer (Lieutenant Sam Hesselgrave) and I lived in a cluster of cabins just forward of my turret, into which I could project myself in ten seconds if need be. Both were recently and rapturously married so I was odd man out. Guns’ photograph showed a pretty blonde sitting on a gate and Torps’ a smouldering brunette; but there had just been a tempestuous encounter with a beautiful girl to whom I lost my heart but not quite my head (there were those who thought I should have done that too) and I was able to keep my end up with a large Lenare portrait, the subject of much appreciative comment.
Guns himself was tall, dark and smooth, with, fortunately as it was to turn out, the chest of a guardsman. Torps was also dark but in a hairily saturnine sort of way. I still have a cartoon I did of him wearing a shako, called ‘Count von Hesselerughe of the Chausseurs Torpilles’ which made him look like a Latin desperado, but in fact he, like Guns, was a very friendly fellow. Both were most efficient and I learnt a lot from them. Our cabin flat became a happy club, though possibly not on the day when Hugh Cartwright, suggesting we take the whaler away, enquired if I had ever done any sailing before!
Though cruiser casualties had been heavy enough, the demand for new ones was not quite what it had been for battleships pre-Bismarck and our gunnery work-up was a shade more deliberate. It was still hard going—‘X’ turret occupied most of my waking thoughts—but it was rewarding; progress could more or less be measured by the stopwatch. There were perhaps eight of us regulars among the entire turret’s crew of 30, and this included myself, a Petty Officer and the Ordnance Artificer who lurked in the depths ready to make running repairs. Most of the rest were straight off the beach; about my age, they came from every walk of life, their only uniformity a blank and sometimes apprehensive expression as this strange new world unfolded about them. Faced with the three gleaming guns, all their pristine machinery which went down three decks and a no less alarming drill-book for the ‘6 in.Mark XXIII’, I must have had a pretty blank look myself.
Gun drill was a tough business with a steady levy of minor injuries, but generally popular. (The Marines had a dummy 4-inch gun for practice and, passing it one day, I saw what I thought was a white sausage on the deck. They were standing about, seemingly at rest and I asked jokingly whose finger it was. ‘Marine Robertson’s, Sir’, said one casually. ‘Just lost it.’) Once confidence had been gained the stopwatch was produced to promote competition among the three crews. Eventually a loading cycle of four and a half to five seconds was attained at low elevation, another two to three seconds being required with the guns elevated for long range. The time would lengthen as fatigue set in but was creditable.
Ever since my first day as a Midshipman in the Nelson I had been concerned with fire control as opposed to gun drill and now began to feel a certain lack of involvement. Partly to overcome this and partly as a piece of fairly intelligent anticipation, I contrived a method of local control against torpedo bombers, which were committed to a period of low, level flight as I very well knew. The 6-inch guns did not normally take any part in AA fire, being too cumbersome, but I reckoned that using the high gear designed for slewing the turret on to a target and pre-set fuzes for barrage fire, there were possibilities. The result of a huddle with the Ordnance Artificer was a special voicepipe from the turret trainer to the small hatch in the roof of the turret just above my position; it ended in flexible piping so that on opening the hatch I could climb out and sit on its rim with the voicepipe in one hand. The other held a bell-push to a small bell in front of each gun layer (one ring for 10°, two for 20°, three for 30°). Ready-use shells in racks on the turret walls had fuzes set (and painted) to burst at 4,000 yards (red) 2,000 yards (white) and 1,000 yards (blue). The trainer was conned down the voicepipe and repeated the fuze colour to the loading numbers, the guns being elevated according to the bells. The idea was to pick a spot in the sky well ahead of the aircraft and, if all went well, loose off three broadsides at decreasing ranges. It seemed to work surprisingly well and we usually ended up a regulation practice with a ‘repel torpedo bombers’. Guns viewed the departure from the drill book with tolerance though little enthusiasm. (‘I suppose if it amuses the lads it’s OK.’)
It was a relief to find that Sam, the other Catapult Officer, knew all about launching and recovering the Walrus flying boat. Recovery could be quite a ‘white-knuckle’ operation if the ship was rolling, a matter of teamwork between me, the aircrew, the party tending lines to the latter and the crane driver; but eventually we got to using hand signals only. Launching, merely a matter of timing so that the Walrus left on an upward roll, was normally straightforward but I made one frightening miscalculation. At the fall of my flag the catapult trigger was pressed and the Walrus roared off, but instead of climbing steadily it headed straight for the sea. In a split second of mental agony I thought I’d killed the two occupants. The pilot either kept his head very well or was still in a state of temporary blackout because he waited until the hull hit the water (with a smack that could be heard above the engine) and then, catching her half volley with a jerk on the stick, bounced the sturdy machine into the air. Now only a knot or two above stalling speed, she came down again in a long swoop only inches above the sea, to gather way and extract full recompense from the horrified perpetrator of her antics.
When the pilot returned I expected some well deserved verbal bloodletting and hurried him to the Wardroom bar, but he laughed it off and pretended that it was all in the day’s work. It was not to be the last time that this fish head (Fleet Air Arm slang for a seaman officer) was grateful for the forbearance of a naval aviator.
At the end of August the radio, followed by the Press, was full of a major raid on Dieppe. Most of the soldiers concerned had been Canadian, landed for some hours of heavy fighting and then withdrawn. Reading between the lines the operation had not been a success; there was little about achievements, the accent being all on experience gained for combined operations of the future. We realised that there must have been a strong naval escort and that it would have seen a lot of action.
On August 30 the Bermuda returned to the Flow after a practice firing and for the second time since the war began an innocent-looking letter in my pigeon hole outside the Wardroom knocked a major hole in my world. Edward Egerton had b
een killed. There had been a direct hit on the bridge of his chasseur at Dieppe. He had died almost at once. I took the letter down to my cabin and sat there for a long time. The awfulness of it assailed me in waves. His poor mother, probably alone, with Uncle Jack in Freetown and Kit, Ed’s younger brother, sure to be in training somewhere. I could only imagine what they would all be going through. Poor Uncle Jack, always rather hearty and down to earth but a great family man beneath it all.
Until the war the lives of Ed and I, from sharing a pre-school governess at seven to Sub’s courses in 1940, had hardly diverged. I had had a letter from him a fortnight before. I got it out and read it again. It said he was bored, nothing much seemed to be going on. I felt grossly unworthy; the luck of the devil seemed to attend me and here was Ed with none at all when it really mattered. He had two other close friends and a girl. They must all be feeling the same as me, that their lives would never be quite the same again, but none more so than his poor mother. I felt sure she was taking it well, because she was that sort of woman, but inside she would be partly destroyed, because she was that sort of woman too. A letter to her brought the following reply:
Sheriff Hutton
11/9
Having landed their share of the troops earlier in the morning at about 11 am the Chasseurs were ordered in as near as they could get to take the troops off once more. (I do not know what happened during the interval.) The senior one of the three was put out of action quite early on, and that left Edward in command of the other two, altogether they went in five times to pick up people, the first three times they were helped by the smoke screen, their own and the destroyers’, but they ran out of their own smoke by the fourth time, and went in uncovered, and each time the fire from the shore was getting hotter and hotter, with a mass of machine-guns in the houses and gun batteries in the cliffs; on the fourth run they picked up everyone they could see, went back out with them and transferred them, but then Edward said, so as to be absolutely certain that they HAD left no one swimming about, they would go in just once more. This they did, found no one, and had just turned to go out for the last time, when a shell came and struck the bridge behind Edward, pierced the deck and exploded below. The First Lieutenant was, mercifully, not on the bridge at the time, but on the deck below it, he was knocked out by the concussion for a few minutes, but then rushed up on the bridge to see what had happened, and found the signalman and a seaman very badly wounded (one has since had his leg off, and the other has a piece of shrapnel in his lung) and Edward also laid out, but he was completely conscious and his mind working clearly and he handed the ship over to the 1st Lieut, telling him exactly what do do next, for about five minutes and then he quite suddenly and peacefully faded out, and they thought at first he had fainted.
After about ¾ of an hour when they had managed to get well out of the firing Edward, and all the wounded, were transferred to a bigger ship that had medical services on board, and Edward was buried at sea on the way home.
It would be just like him to go back once more, just to make sure; always fearless on the rugger field, fearless in the hunting field, and now fearless under fire.
Shortly afterwards his mother sent me Ed’s uniform and the news that he had left me his horse and point-to-point racing kit. The thought was typical of him and I was very touched—in happier circumstances it would have been a big thrill. But it was 20 months before I put a leg across ’Fore Royal.
On September 13 Bermuda received a signal from the Fleet Gunnery Officer congratulating us on the high standard of our passing out firings and shortly afterwards she became a fully worked-up member of the 3rd Cruiser Squadron. Though not thrown into action at once like the Prince of Wales, we did not have long to wait for interesting occupation. On October 25 the ship found herself, a hotbed of inaccurate surmise, bound south for Plymouth, whence she sailed southward immediately after embarking a full Admiral’s staff, and some strange black boxes which were stowed in the torpedo flat. Our destination proved to be Gibraltar, where the passengers disembarked in an atmosphere of great secrecy.
A good deal was revealed to us on November 5, a date very suited to the name of the operation—Torch—because we rendezvoused in the Atlantic with the spearhead of the great mass of invasion convoys which had been coming steadily and secretively out from England. Their task was the landing in North Africa of General Anderson’s 1st Army, destined in time to link up with Montgomery’s 8th Army which had begun the battle of Alamein a fortnight earlier. The basic plan was for three initial landings to take place simultaneously at Algiers, Oran and Casablanca, the first two a British responsibility covered by the Royal Navy and the third—in Morocco outside the Mediterannean—being entirely by American forces* (their European baptism of fire). The naval forces of both countries were under Admiral Sir Andrew Cunningham (the famous ‘ABC’) who had just hoisted his flag (not too literally as he was to be found in a tunnel in the Rock with General Eisenhower) as Naval Commander Allied Expeditionary Force. It turned out to be his staff that we had brought out. The secret of the black boxes was also revealed; they were stuffed with Algerian currency, presumably for the payment of friends and bribery of others.
Retracing our steps in company with the two advance Med-bound convoys—about 50 ships—and their cruisers, destroyers and escort carriers, we all passed through the Straits of Gibraltar on the night of November 6. Bermuda then became part of the well-remembered Force H.
The coast of Algeria was closed next day, the first wave taking to their landing craft before dawn on the 8th to be led in by a carefully planned organisation of submarines and collapsible boats. The duty of Force H was to stand off and bar the way to French or Italian intervention from seaward and so we saw nothing. It was soon learnt, however, that there was not much resistance at Algiers but considerable trouble at Oran.
The destroyer Zetland bombarded Fort d’Estrées on Cape Matifou, just to the east of Algiers. Only temporarily silenced, its battery began to drop shells uncomfortably close to a waiting carrier and at 14:00 next day Bermuda was detached from Force H to bombard. She went in to about 8,000 yards. There was no opposition and our shooting seemed to be good, the 6-inch salvoes sending up heavy mushroom-like fountains of brown earth and debris where gun emplacements showed up against the rocky hillside. Aircraft from one of the carriers also bombed this fort, which surrendered to American troops some time later.
When enemy reconnaissance had reported the convoys it was thought they were going for Malta, as so often before, and preparations made to attack later. Thus excellent opportunities were lost and the first German air attack did not come until dusk. Even so several ships were damaged and Bermuda and Sheffield were very lucky to come off scot-free, particularly the former. The two of us were in company that evening, somewhere off Algiers. The sun had just gone down when our radar picked up a considerable body of aircraft—there proved to be 23— flying low and closing rapidly. The two ships separated and were increasing to full speed when twin-engined torpedo bombers were sighted coming in over the water. They were met by a barrage as we turned hard towards and thereafter it was every man for himself on both sides. The enemy—familiar cigar-shaped Heinkel 111s—split up to operate independently and we lost visual contact with Sheffield, as both ships twisted and turned in the gathering gloom. For Bermuda’s part a thrilling duel ensued, the Captain hurling the ship about at 33 knots in a seemingly permanent convulsion. The 4-inch banged and the pompoms thumped as the fleeting shapes were sighted first on one side and then on the other. The speed of things and the low visibility precluded director control of the 6-inch, but I requested and received, with infinite satisfaction, permission to implement ‘repel torpedo bombers’ and my maligned but much-practised local system came into its own in a way I had never dreamed of.
For half an hour I sat on top of ‘X’ turret, wearing concussion ear-pads, holding the flexible voice-pipe and bell-push, and loosing a broadside whenever opportunity arose. As described earlier, the relativ
e slowness in training meant that I had to select a spot in the air several seconds ahead of the aircraft; if it changed course radically in the meantime it was just too bad. Thus I would pick a target, wait until its approach course was evident and say something like ‘Train right, train right. Blue (for the fuze setting). Train left. (Two toots on the bells for 20°.) Train left. Well. FIRE!’ This necessitated doubling up and shutting my eyes before being engulfed in a scorching blast but I would be up again to see the result; if this was anywhere in front of the aircraft he was usually put off’, as the end product exploded in an impressive triple eruption. There was no time to look for torpedo tracks, but apparently they were all about, one missing the stern by yards.
Once the ship rolled very heavily towards the enemy just as I said fire and the shells went into the water about a cricket pitch away! On another occasion three aircraft were coming in more or less together. I had ordered 10° and the roll of the ship sent the broadside into the sea just in front of the foremost aircraft and correct for line. The ensuing splash went up about 150 feet, blocking out the planes. Two reappeared round the side but to my delight there was no sign of the other. I did not claim anything as the light was so bad, but wondered …*
Such a ‘Harry Tate’ system required perfect response from the trainer and layers but this I got and it was the greatest fun despatching three 112-lb projectiles at will using the gun barrels as sights†. Sheffield was not so hard pressed and on completion of action—with no damage to either of us—she closed and signalled that we were showing a light. The Bo’s’n’s face was very red when the door of his upper deck store was found to be open with the light on inside. No wonder our friends had been so tenacious. Assuming that they carried the normal two torpedoes each they probably aimed 20 torpedoes at each ship and were plain unlucky. I am deaf enough for a small disability pension as a result of gunfire and reckon it can be put down to the Bo’s’n’s door as much as anything else. At the time a buzzer sounded in my ears, to the exclusion of all else, for days. Sheffield also said that some shell splinters had landed aboard; I was secretly grateful that no mention was made of calibre!‡
Alarm Starboard!: A Remarkable True Story of the War at Sea Page 27
