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

by Geoffrey Brooke

  During this very critical stage he was quite magnificent and kept the Platoon together. They got the house, and were pushing on past it, when a bomb wounded one of his men close to him; he immediately went to help him, and render first aid, and whilst doing this, a bomb landed right on top of him; he was killed outright. After his death, the Platoon went completely to pieces, so much so that they had to be disbanded and split up amongst the rest of the company, which shows what a tremendous influence he had on them.

  I managed to get his body in, two days later; it was not, unfortunately, possible before owing to accursed snipers from neighbouring hills, and he is now buried in Perugia …

  His parents received over 600 letters of sympathy from Generals to Privates and the equivalent in civilian life. There is, I think, a tendency to eulogise about someone who has died; at least to give the benefit of the doubt. This did not apply to letters about John. All were straight from the heart and anyway there was not a doubt to be considered. His Commanding Officer, Lieutenant Colonel D.L. Darling wrote:

  ‘He was loved by all of us and his Platoon absolutely worshipped him. He was as brave as a lion in action and had all those qualities of initiative, daring, resource and the knack of getting people to do what he wanted, which are the hallmark of good leadership …

  From his Company Commander, Major Charles Mott-Radclyffe:

  ‘I am writing to you with a very heavy heart… His death has cast a gloom amongst us, and nowhere greater than with me … I always used to go over to his tent or truck and gossip about home and racing and other unwarlike things with him. He was always cheerful and never failed to see the funny side.’

  From Colonel Charles McGregor, from whom he received his commission:

  ‘… I had about a thousand young officers through my hands during the time I commanded, out of which about ten or a dozen were outstanding, and he was one of them. He had an amazing control of men for a boy of his age.’

  There was a long one from Surgeon Lieutenant Commander Maurice Partridge, RNVR, with whom he had struck up on the way out:

  ‘… I was particularly glad when Johnnie would come into Alexandria and see me. Sometimes he would ring me up and (quite imperiously) bid me out to dine, it was a long way and nearly always inconvenient but I always went…

  ‘All those talents, I noticed made him an obvious favourite even in his outstanding Regiment, and it was striking how batmen, drivers, orderlies and so on would do things for him, for which others sighed in vain …’

  There is a wealth of meaning in ‘it was a long way and nearly always inconvenient but I always went’. It takes me back to a hundred boyhood incidents. Where John was concerned there was never any question of not having a go; he was not unreasonably forceful but afterwards you realised it had never entered your head to refuse. But the words John himself would have liked best were from his Platoon Sergeant, P.G. Wright, ‘A’ Coy, 7th RB:

  ‘He was a great leader and an example to us all in his courage, endurance and cheerfulness. I cannot express what I feel at your and our irreplaceable loss, sufficient to say, the whole platoon knows we can never have another officer quite like J.H.P.’

  John would now be grey, I suppose, lined and probably putting on weight; but all I see is a slim, freckled, sunburnt young man, with thick hair and laughing eyes that in some magnetic way put all around at rights with the world.

  His death, and a letter from a cousin of Colonel Warren’s (enclosing one from a Japanese prison camp, which said simply ‘Well’), reminded me I had been ashore too long and that—remembering Warren’s parting words ‘to be useful to the war effort in other theatres’—I had an eastern debt to pay. With the Tirpitz and the Scharnhorst sunk and the Italian fleet surrendered, they were refitting ships for the Pacific and there might not be much more time. So I had myself passed fit and volunteered for a ship in the Far East.

  An appointment came almost by return and was something of a shock. It was to HMS Formidable, the large fleet carrier last seen during the ‘Torch’ landings in North Africa. A shock because carriers were not usually popular ships with their seaman complement, being physically awkward to operate and suffering from a split personality. The Air Arm were inclined to look on a ship as a floating runway and its seamen as chauffeurs; the latter resented both this and the aviators’ nautical ignorance. So this appointment was not altogether good news, even if a carrier was sure to see a lot of action. There was certainly nothing to indicate that Formidable was going to provide about the most satisfying commission of my career.

  While en route for India in a troopship towards the end of 1944, my destination was changed to another carrier, HMS Indomitable, no reason being given. Deposited on a hot concrete waterfront at Trincomalee with nothing on hand except a very large lizard that was losing a battle with a sort of crow, I experienced considerable deflation; the carrier element of the British Pacific Fleet (BPF) had just left on a sortie eastwards. Venturing, on their return, among my new messmates in the Indomitable’s Wardroom was to register further if highly personal disappointment. Flying the flag of Vice-Admiral Aircraft Carriers, Vice Admiral Sir Phillip Vian of Narvik, Bismarck and much Mediterranean fame, they had been to Sumatra and actually cruised up and down just north of Padang, trailing their coats and despatching aircraft to bomb oilfields inland. (Departure had been between the islands of Simalur and Nias, the latter well remembered for alternate Sumatras and calms.) There had been little Japanese reaction. What a change from April 1942! It would have been quite something to have returned to the very spot I had set out from and in such a way.

  The other carriers were Indefatigable (fairly new), Victorious (personally remembered for her Bismarck and Torch’ participations) and Illustrious, of Malta and many other battles. Of course, Indomitable was the one which could have made so much difference to Prince of Wales and Repulse.

  Apart from the near-miss described, the timing of my arrival was not too bad. The BPF had only been formed—under its C-in-C, Admiral Sir Bruce Fraser—in the last few weeks from the more powerful elements of Admiral Somerville’s Eastern Fleet (he had been at its head ever since Djohanis’ naval members had drunk his gin in the Warspite) plus some additions from home. These included the battleships KG V and Howe, the former becoming the flagship of Admiral Fraser’s Second in Command, Vice Admiral Sir Bernard Rawlings.

  The BPF would be using Sydney as a rear base, looking in there before being placed at the disposal of the US Navy’s C-in-C Pacific Ocean Area, Admiral Nimitz. It would rank as but one of his task forces, whose Admirals were junior to Fraser; partly to avoid this but mainly because of the vast amount of organisation on his plate, the latter had decided to remain ashore at Sydney, leaving Vice-Admiral Rawlings in charge at sea. This command structure seemed at first rather complicated, but one soon found—as a carrier officer—that one looked to Vian, and frankly only thought of his seniors at rare moments. I had never seen Admiral Vian before. With a tremendous reputation as a fighter, he was said to be a bit of a tiger all round, and as quarterdeck officer I was glad to have had considerable experience of the foibles of Admirals. Living, of course, immediately under my domain in harbour, he was of medium height, spare with ginger hair, craggy features ending in a firm jaw, and a direct look from under bushy eyebrows that was rather disconcerting.

  The fleet put to sea on January 13 for the four carriers to exercise a full scale air attack on Colombo in the morning with fighter sweeps on Trincomalee and another place in the afternoon. I joined the ‘goofers’ in a special walkway alongside the flight deck right aft and was thrilled as the heavy Avengers and tubby Hellcat fighters roared down the deck, to return later with a thump and squeal of tyres only feet away. It was surprising to find that most of the fleet’s aircraft were American. Each carrier had around 20 Grumman Avengers, deep-bellied torpedo-spotter-reconnaissance-bombers topped with distinctive ‘glasshouses’ through which the heads and shoulders of the three-man crew could be clearly seen, and some 36 fig
hters of various types.

  These numbers were about half what equivalent American carriers had. The reason related to a basic design decision. Our ships had heavily armoured flight-decks and theirs did not, the weight saved going into the additional aircraft. At this time, the US Pacific Fleet, quadrupled since Pearl Harbor by prodigious building efforts, had reaped and was continuing to enjoy ferocious revenge, particularly in the Marianas. The Japanese Navy had lost hundreds of aircraft with, more importantly, their trained crews, and was turning to the desperate solution of the Special Attack Corps of suicide planes. Though the additional aircraft of a US carrier were most valuable, the ships themselves were proving highly vulnerable to the diving kamikazes (meaning ‘divine wind’) which went straight through to create havoc below. We did not know about the American decks at this time and as word of the new menace came through we could only wonder what it was like to be on the receiving end.

  The activity over Ceylon turned out to be a dummy run for a big attack (it proved to be the biggest Fleet Air Arm operation of the war so far, with nearly 150 aircraft engaged) on the important Japanese oil refineries at Palembang, specially requested by Admiral Nimitz. (Palembang, near the east coast of Southern Sumatra, was the place taken by parachutists when I was at Iyer Molek.) A force of oilers had been sent on ahead and on January 16 we sailed to rendezvous with them and replenish. The equator was soon crossed and of course the heat was terrific. I soon found that a carrier—its thick steel flight deck acting as a sort of cauldron—was undoubtedly the hottest type of ship afloat. Tropical uniform made the most of any breeze, forced draft and fans large and small did their best, but one went about below in a perpetual sweat that soaked three shirts a day. An allied and unpleasant development for me was that for the second half of a four-hour watch on the bridge I found my legs becoming very painful from varicose veins, not an entirely new experience but never serious before.

  The ship’s main gun armament consisted of a battery of two twin 4.5-inch turrets at each corner of the flight deck. I found I was in charge of the two forward batteries and so for the first time ever was below decks. In the early hours of January 24 1945, the fleet was in the flying off position and at 06:15 Admiral Vian gave the go-ahead. It was a flight of 220 miles to the target, of which 150 were over land.

  The aircraft thundered down the deck overhead at regular intervals but, at action stations, I saw nothing and spent the time strolling between the two batteries looking as competent as possible. After some hours the aircraft began to land on again. It all seemed rather impersonal until, after the fleet had withdrawn and relaxation in the Wardroom was the order of the day, I listened and watched for the first time while pilots and observers relived their doings with pithy and sometimes hilarious descriptions, plus much graphic gesticulation with both hands. Every now and again there was a pause as a name was mentioned and I knew that behind the scenes there was melancholy activity in the cabins of those who had not come back.

  Four days later there was a repeat performance against Palembang. Again the tantalising roars overhead. Silence descended on the last one away, but there was no long wait this time. The CAP (Combat Air Patrol) of Seafires was prowling round overhead when suddenly a ‘tally ho’ report from one of them indicated that he had a ‘Tojo’ fighter in sight*. It duly escaped into cloud but we had been spotted and could expect attention soon. In fact for some time there were intermittent sightings and brief encounters in the lowering, watery sky that occasionally emptied into dense rainstorms. A Japanese fighter was shot down, but so was a Seafire, a Corsair patrol returned one short from a brush with an enemy group and yet another was detected probing from the southward.

  The air strike then began to land on. Six badly damaged Avengers ditched near various ships, but only one aircrew was not picked up. All who were going to do so had returned by about 11:30. Not long after, seven ‘bogies’ were detected 25 miles to the south-east; soon they were in sight from Illustrious, the nearest carrier, and proved to be ‘Sally’ twin-engined bombers. Two Corsairs were put on to them and one shot down a Sally eight miles from the fleet. The various alarms had kept us on our toes, but the effect was beginning to wear off when suddenly the ‘Alarm port! Follow director!’ that I had not heard for too long sent the guns of the port battery slewing round, motors humming and hydraulics squelching as the layers and trainers picked up their pointers.

  The barrels were at a lowish elevation and only traversing slowly when the guns went off, the smoking, empty cases bouncing on to the deck behind. Firing every few seconds, this continued until the barrels dropped ominously. ‘Barrage Red!’ yelled the communication number and up went shells from the rack. Presumably we were firing at torpedo bombers which had dived to sea level and were coming in on their final run. Crash! ‘Barrage White.’ Crash! A slight vibration, allied to a familiar, rhythmic thudding indicated that the pom-poms had taken up the running; then silence. ‘Return to lookout bearing’ and the loading numbers climbed down to manhandle the brass empties into a corner of the gun-bay.

  Apparently there had been a pretty sharp action, all over in less than five minutes. The fleet had turned away to starboard, after which four of the remaining six aircraft went for Illustrious and Indefatigable on the port side of the circular formation, the other two working round the rear towards KG V, Victorious and ourselves, to come under general fire as they approached. By this time Indom had ‘scrambled’ three Hellcats; one shot down a Sally immediately and went on to share another with KG V, Indefat’s Seafires, in their element, chased one Sally through the fleet’s barrage until it crashed into the sea only 300 yards off their parent ship. Also chased by Seafires, another had come at Illustrious very low and was shot down just off her bow. Yet another was shot down by gunfire astern of her and the last of the seven succumbed, off KG V’s starboard beam, to one of her pom-poms. There had been no damage at the hands of the enemy, but on the debit side some of them had been allowed to get too close for comfort, one of our Hellcats returned badly peppered, and worse, two shells from a cruiser had hit Illustrious, causing a number of casualties.

  The strike—on a different refinery at Palembang—had gone well, but the enemy were expecting us (they may have got information out of captives) and the cost had been greater. Losses from all causes for the two attacks were 41 out of 378 sorties, bad enough at nearly one in ten, with 30 aircrew missing. It was not known of course at the time, but of these, nine poor devils were taken alive, one being a Sub-Lieutenant from Indomitable. They were brought to Singapore and eventually beheaded by the chivalrous knights of ‘bushido’, the Japanese code of honour. (Some time later an American magazine most irresponsibly came out with a large picture of a bearded British Sub-Lieutenant, kneeling, with a Japanese soldier alongside, sword high in the air. It may have been carefully planted as propaganda, but I fear was authentic enough.)

  The enemy lost 68 aircraft, 38 on the ground and 30 in the air, with another seven probables. Production at the last refinery attacked proved to be nil until the end of March, when both were producing at one third capacity; this was increased only to half by the end of May and full production was never regained during the war. Our Captain, J.A.S. Eccles, was a Japanese interpreter and put out to the fleet translations of statements he heard on the enemy radio. These spoke of enormous British losses and of the fact that our attackers had been suicide planes, all of which had crashed on their targets!

  Three weeks later the fleet entered Sydney’s beautiful harbour, the Indomitable turning short of the famous bridge to come alongside in a naval dock area with the extraordinary name of Woolloomooloo (‘Wuller’m’loo’).

  Robin Buller, Sandy’s younger brother, was now a two-striper in the destroyer Ursa and we had several pleasant runs ashore together, particularly to Sydney races.

  HMS Indomitable

  22/2/45

  … On Sunday we went bathing at a well-known surf beach called Bondi with a girl I had met at a dance. We ended up showing them (t
here was a girl friend of hers too) round Indom …

  Whether I realised it or not, the ‘Battle of Sydney’ had in fact begun. The hospitality was so overwhelming that after a spell one was to be almost (but not quite!) glad to go to sea for the sterner but hardly less exhausting struggle. My father had been in Australian waters as a young Lieutenant in 1912 and I was particularly lucky with an introduction to a charming, middle-aged lady called Nell Knox. We clicked and she gave me a room for myself in her large house overlooking Elizabeth Bay.

  I had come to think I knew most of my way round the Indomitable when a signal arrived reappointing me to HMS Formidable. She was held up somewhere and not expected for two or three weeks. The PMO had said I needed an operation on my legs and this seemed an excellent chance. The fleet had sailed for the forward area when I came out of hospital but there was not long to wait for my new ship.

  *Quite how narrowly we escaped was not discovered until after the war. Another prauw which must have left the Padang area soon after us and had Colonel Dillon of Iyer Molek on board, was stopped off Ceylon by one of these tankers (or her escort) and all on board taken prisoner. The bad luck of this hardly bears thinking about.

  *His KGB on top of a KBE was to be saluted by a brother Admiral with the famous signal ‘Faney! Twice a knight and at your age …’

  †Wife of Captain Tennant of the Repulse.

  *This referred to John Persse and another cousin who I did not even know was at Singapore. Unfortunately he was taken prisoner.

  *J.C.Y. Roxburgh, a future Flag Officer Submarines.

  *The American Admiral (Rear-Admiral M.K. Hewitt, USN) was flying his flag in the cruiser Augusta of Placentia memories.

  *Bismarck fired her 15-inch at the Victorious’ torpedo bombers so that the splashes rose up in front of them. One of the Swordfish (Lieutenant P.D. Gick) was lifted 30 feet, the water bursting through the bottom of the aircraft (Naval Review, January 1979).