A NAVAL OFFICER'S WAR

We were not back in St. John's for long before receiving sailing orders for an eastbound convoy. It was October 1941. This voyage turned out to be full of action. We sailed from St. John's under the command of the senior escort Commander Douglas Prentice in Chambly who assigned our positions in the convoy. Little did we in Pictou realize that our time with this convoy would be short and that we should have some exciting adventures with another.

It may be wondered what my thoughts and emotions were as the time arrived for departure on my first convoy voyage in command; the actual reflection upon all that might be demanded of me in this challenge, for which I was ready in spirit but untrained in execution. Well, being young and not much given to self-questioning, I gave it little consideration; the pressure of events tended to drive out any preoccupation with possible future alarms.

But I have a memory of one short moment when the fullness of the challenge surged in upon me. I was waiting in my cabin for the first lieutenant to report readiness to leave. I heard the pipe "Hands to station for leaving harbour," and the scurrying of feet on the upper deck, then the knock at the door and the ritual announcement: "Lines singled up, sir, coxswain at the wheel, all hands on board, ready to proceed." And I remember the thought that for a moment possessed me as I took my position on the bridge, conscious that all eyes were upon me: "This is the blind leading the blind." It was a fugitive thought that never recurred. But it was a salutary reminder of human limitation.

For three days, all went quietly. Our position was on the port side of the convoy, stationed abeam of a very old Greek tramp steamer from which we zig-zagged outwards and back. It took us a day or two to figure out why, every now and then, she emitted a low moaning sound. Finally it became clear. Her bridge was situated well forward and her funnel was aft of amidships. The moan was caused by the whistle cord (from the bridge to the funnel) which was tightening as the ship bent in the middle. We wondered how she'd ever survive a gale.

On the third day we decoded a signal addressed to our senior escort from the Commander-in-Chief Western Approaches (C-in-C WA), Liverpool. This command, the most important one in the Atlantic Battle, had operational jurisdiction over the entire eastern section of the ocean; and we were now in his area. The signal read, "Detach one escort to stand by SS Vancouver Island torpedoed and drifting 57° 37' north, 25° 37' west." We were by a long shot the junior ship and knew we would be given the job. We didn't have to wait long before Chambly's light began blinking: "Proceed at 2000 in execution of C-in-C Western Approaches' order."

I couldn't wait until dark. One thing to have one's own ship, even though being under the orders of an especially nice senior officer. But to have a "private ship" alone and fully responsible for oneself, making signals direct to the C-in-C, exercising one's own judgement-that was different.

We had good weather, took star and sun sights and arrived at the position in a day and a half. We searched for half a day and all through the night putting up flares, hoping, praying. Finally we reported to the C-in-C who ordered us to join a westbound convoy "at best prudent speed." So, at 1516 on October 16, we left the position after finding no trace of the survivors of Vancouver Island.¹

At 0145 on the 17th, the officer of the watch, a new Sub-Lieutenant of eighteen from Moose Jaw, called down the voice pipe to say that there was unusual shooting star or comet activity in the sky and would I come up? It was immediately apparent that this was starshell, about twenty miles distant. The convoy situation report, a nightly broadcast sent out over the naval transmitting stations at both Rugby (England) and Nova Scotia, had put an eastbound convoy, SC.48, not far from our track. There had been signals from the Admiralty to this convoy reporting that a number of U-boats were in contact with it. I decided at once to investigate.

It was not long before a tanker blew up, illuminating the sky so that one could have read a newspaper on the bridge. This was it. The alarm bells rang and out tumbled the hands to action stations. We identified ourselves to the senior escort, an RN destroyer, and shortly after, received a signal from K175, "Pick up survivors." This was HMCS Wetaskiwin, "Wet Ass Queen" (Cdr. Guy Windeyer). Of course we had no idea where the survivors were or which torpedoed ship he was referring to, since there had obviously been many casualties, and we knew there could be none from the stricken tanker.

We moved in on the convoy. I should say at this point that the carnage in ships was unbelievable. I can't remember how many ships were sunk that night but it couldn't have been less than six. The sky was ablaze with starshell, rockets and burning ships. Not a bad introduction to war, I thought in the middle of it, for lads who, except for a handful of Maritimers, had never glimpsed the sea.

Amongst all the R/T traffic, there came a distinctly American voice, and I wondered how come. It proved to be USS Kearney, a US destroyer which had got mixed up in the party. The United States was not yet at war, through Roosevelt had directed naval units to "shadow" convoys. My fascination turned to shock when I heard: "Torpedoed, require immediate assistance." This incident was a factor in bringing the US into the war.

At 0330, the navigating officer clutched my arm and said, "Do you see what I see?" It was broken water about twenty degrees off the port bow and, almost immediately, the ASDIC operator reported "Strong hydrophone effect"-meaning the underwater sound of engines. And then we saw him. A U-boat, sitting on the surface, waiting for the convoy to approach. For one brief moment I caught sight of them in the conning tower, their glasses trained ahead, quite unaware of the danger coming from astern.

The moment we saw them, they saw us. "Full ahead," and our four-inch gun, sadly not equipped for night sighting, started blasting. "Am chasing U-boat on the surface," by R/T, and we settled into the chase. At first the U-boat rapidly drew away from us. Diesels accelerated much more quickly than reciprocating steam engines. In fact we lost sight of him and could only follow his wake. But slowly, to our surprise, because U-boats on the surface were known to be faster than corvettes, we overtook and re-sighted him.

It was clear now that either he must dive or torpedo us, and I remember warning those on the bridge that a torpedo attack was likely. Scarcely were the words out when we saw it coming-the long bubbly wake. No way to alter course without exposing the stern, but equally a very narrow target. It passed fifteen feet down our port side and we watched it go all the way along from bow to stern, our heads turning together. The tension and silence were broken by the yeoman of signals from Chicoutimi: "Son of my bitch!"

Another torpedo wide of the mark, and the range getting closer. "Stand by to ram." The U-boat made a sharp turn to starboard and crash-dove about two hundred yards away. We drove over him and dropped a full pattern of depth charges. After this, we came back and dropped all that were left off the rails at the stern. We thought it must have finished him. But, lacking evidence (after hours of search), the Admiralty couldn't classify it as a "kill" and rated it "probably severely damaged."

There was a sequel. With all the gunnery and depth-charging, the ship's wireless transmitter and receiver went out of action and could not be repaired on board. Having been dismissed by the senior escort of SC.48 and told to "Proceed in execution of previous orders," we were out of touch for many days and C-in-C Western Approaches tried in vain to give us new orders. On arrival in port, I was handed the signals which included one addressed to every ship and group in the North Atlantic theatre enquiring about our disappearance. The rumour had in fact started that we had been sunk, but fortunately never spread far before we turned up.

This was considered to have been a successful operation, and on return to St. John's, I was confirmed in command and received a Mentioned in Dispatches. Without the U-boat being sunk, there were no awards possible to my crew; I felt badly about this. My failure actually to sink this U-boat was a great disappointment to me. I often, later in the war, reconstructed the circumstances in the context of greater experience, equipment and training. That U-boat has been finished off many times in my reveries!

Alongside at St. John's, a distressing event occurred. My first lieutenant, mentioned earlier, committed an inexcusable act, leaving me with no alternative to applying full discipline. One afternoon when I was not on board, he had been drinking and became involved in an altercation with an officers' steward, whom he struck. It was a grossly serious offence, resulting in a court martial, or in this case its counterpart, a disciplinary court. According to naval practice, I was obliged to act as prosecutor. This resulted in his being dismissed from the ship with, I believe, loss of seniority. His replacement was John Ruse, very young, inexperienced and rather easy-going, but keen and full of personality. I also received a new navigating officer.

Thus began an active two years in Pictou. Instead of continuing chronologically, I shall now record some random events, all in the life of a naval officer at sea in wartime.

Convoy escort duty was, for the most part, an extreme exercise in tedium and discomfort. It required not so much the quality of courage as skill, persistence, doggedness and self-discipline. For example, the eternal motion, aggravated in midwinter in the northern latitudes by heavy and continuous gales, was very tiring and often led to an impulse to commit the cardinal sin in the navy: falling asleep on watch. This was especially a problem for seaman ratings keeping lookout in secluded posts in the ship with little or no communication with others for hours on end. The penalty on discovery had to be drastic, because the safety of the ship and whole ship's company was endangered by it.

It would be impossible to do justice to the violence of the winter gales. They came in endlessly, one after another, with no respite and with mountainous seas. Moreover, northerly convoy routeings in winter meant greatly increased hours of darkness: daylight 10:00 am, darkness 3:00 pm. I remember a morning signal from one corvette to another: "Have just seen down your funnel; fire is burning brightly!" On moonless nights the darkness was so thick one could almost feel it. Lights in the ASDIC and navigating stations off the bridge were a deep, subdued red; to go out into the pitch darkness from an ordinary white light meant total blindness for minutes. We preferred this darkness, however, to the moonlit nights which offered the U-boats vivid silhouettes of the convoy.

Unless one took particular care to dress for the weather, it was misery. We were all issued with duffel coats (mine is still in use, fifty years later!). I myself wore a blue battle-dress; the same as the army uniform except for the colour. It was loosely-fitting, providing room for winter underwear. I never took it off in all the ten to fourteen days of an ocean passage. In the mess deck it was the same. The men in their hammocks took off only their seaboots, ready at all times for the action stations bell. In bad weather the atmosphere reeked of sweat, vomit and the heads. We were not particularly lovable characters before the heavenly bath or shower on arrival!

Four hours on watch is a long time in the sort of bad weather which prevailed on the northerly routes. It was essential to keep warm and dry. The bosun on watch brought a hot drink, known as kye, once or twice in each watch. It was a sticky mess, only faintly resembling cocoa, but warming and welcome. When the ship entered an area of greater danger, the watches became "watch-and-watch," four hours on, four hours off, rather than four on, eight off. This was much more demanding on personnel. And being closed up at action stations for an extended period was toughest of all.

What made the discomfort only slightly easier to bear was the realization that it was much more difficult in bad weather for the enemy to sight the convoy and to draw ahead and shadow it. He could only do this on the surface with speed under indescribable conditions, much worse even than ours, denying himself the privilege of submerging to 150 feet for peace, quiet and a good dinner!

Navigation was never an easy matter during wartime. Absolutely no lights ashore or afloat or any other aids to navigation existed; all was dead reckoning (DR). Moreover, especially in the winter months with continuous cloud, it was not unusual to make an entire ocean passage without a single opportunity to take a sight of stars or sun-DR all the way.

This became quite unnerving on coastwise passage at night time with everything blacked out. On one occasion a corvette was sailing in company with an RN destroyer on a filthy night up the west coast of Scotland. Being senior, the destroyer naturally put the corvette in the inside position between him and the shore! After a few hours, with lookouts beginning to report that they thought they heard breakers, the corvette made a signal by the usual dim blue light: "What do you reckon is our position?" To which he received the helpful reply: "According to my calculation, third fairway, Troon golf course!"

The violence of the enemy was relentless. Not every convoy was attacked of course, but when one was, there was plenty of drama. For some reason attacks seemed most often to come just as the off-watches were sitting down to supper. One felt a distant thump, then the chilling summons of the action stations bell, the clanging of watertight doors closing, and the clatter of feet as the entire ship's company snatched their life jackets and streaked to their posts. I went to the bridge and relieved the officer of the watch who identified the ship which had been hit; the coxswain took the helm, and the stations on board reported ready.

Then the air became bright with starshell and rockets, the search instructions came from the senior escort and continued far into the night. Often survivors had to be picked up, usually in poor shape from exposure and, in the case of tanker crews, coughing up heavy oil. Sometimes, when an escort was engaged in this work of mercy, it was necessary to break it off to attend to a greater priority-investigating a submarine contact. This involved an excruciating decision; to abandon helpless men, struggling for their lives in the water in the pitch-black night, with no certainty that help would return. It was the practice usually to drop a "carley float" raft and come back when possible.

It was sometimes alleged that U-boats opened fire on survivors in the water. I never came across any such incident during the whole of my naval career, although there were known to be some notorious exceptions-on both sides, by the way. But U-boats, after attacking unescorted single ships, often behaved with great humanity, even signalling the position of survivors in plain language.

It was the practice always to pick up survivors of U-boats which had been sunk by our forces. When it became clear to the captain that his boat was certain to be sunk, he would "blow the tanks," that is, force compressed air into the flotation compartments, bringing the boat to the surface. Then, usually under a white flag, the crew would dive into the sea awaiting rescue. This was accomplished by the rescuing ship, destroyer or corvette, lowering "scramble nets" over the side and helping the survivors, often exhausted, on board.

Many of these prisoners were sent to camps in Canada. I remember being told by an army friend who was responsible for supervising the movement of these prisoners from the East Coast to their destinations, about an amusing incident. One such draft was headed for a POW camp at Espanola, Ontario (near Sudbury, Ed.). As the train approached the destination, all the blinds were drawn; in the town all place and street names were removed. Everything was done to ensure that the prisoners would have no idea where they were.

As the prisoners were deployed on the platform, a burly Bavarian said in a loud voice, in perfect English: "Well, if I'm not back in my old home town of Espanola." He had worked there before the war for Abitibi Power and Paper Co.

There is something in the great bond of the sea which encourages chivalry. Even the Japanese who did not subscribe to the conventions of war in their treatment of prisoners (they had a contempt for prisoners and treated them abominably) behaved entirely differently when it came to chivalry. After Japanese aircraft sank the Prince of Wales and Repulse off the Malayan coast, they dropped wreaths over the position. After the sinking of the Bismarck, Admiral Sir Jack Tovey signalled the Admiralty, "I should like to pay the highest tribute for the most gallant fight put up against impossible odds." To which the Admiralty, in deference to those who knew nothing of chivalry, was constrained to reply: "For political reasons it is essential that nothing of the nature of the sentiments expressed in your (signal) should be given publicity, however much we admire a gallant fight."

All the shared discomfort, accompanied by the eternal threat from the unseen enemy, led to a strong feeling of companionship, even brotherhood, in ships' companies. And the same feeling existed between ships of an escort group.

One is today often asked about fear in the wartime navy, "Were you frightened when things got hot?" There is nothing heroic in my answer: no. None of us ever stopped to think about it. I never saw the slightest sign of fear in anyone's appearance even when facing what might have been almost certain disaster. There seems to be a mysterious immunity to fear which descends on a mutually dependent group of men living together in any dangerous enterprise.

No description of life at sea in wartime could omit mention of the men who served in the merchant ships. There was only one word for them: they were the real heroes. For us in the navy, there was an elaborate process of care for those who "were sunk" and became survivors. We were taken back to port in another naval ship, fitted out with new clothing, treated if necessary by naval medical staff, given leave and reappointed, sometimes to a shore job.

Quite different in the merchant service. First, it was these ships that were the main targets of the U-boats, not the naval ships. Second, the sinking of a merchant ship almost always involved, especially in the case of tankers carrying a more dangerous cargo, considerably greater personal hazard. Third, although the steamship lines did what they could for their men, there were no facilities in existence for that purpose; men were on their own and many of them had only signed on for individual voyages.

During the war, a total of 3,452 allied merchant ships (12.8 million tons) were sunk. Over 30,000 of these brave men lost their lives.

¹ SS VANCOUVER ISLAND was actually the former 9,472 ton German merchantman WESER, intended as a supply ship for the surface raider ORION. The WESER had been captured September 25, 1940, off the coast of Mexico by the AMC, HMCS PRINCE ROBERT. In a strange twist of fate and while sailing as the Canadian registered VANCOUVER ISLAND, she was torpedoed October 15, 1940, in the mid-North Atlantic by U558. There were no survivors among her 65 crew members, 32 passengers and 8 DEMS gunners. Ed.

One of MHCS ictou's depth charge throwers in action during 1941.

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episode 2

(Originally Published in Vol. VII, No. 8, Autumn 1999 issue of Starshell)