CONVOY BATTLE

Manawatu Standard, Volume LX, Issue 244, 12 September 1940, Page 9

CONVOY BATTLE

NAZIS CRY “HALT!”

SHIPS SAILED RIGHT ON,

LONDON, Aug. 12. Men who took part in the great Battle of the Convoy iu the English Channel told me to-day their stories of tho fight which began in darkness and continued throughout the day until the Germans—with sixty of their 'planes shot down—cried halt, says a London Daily Express reporter. The attack began in the early morning dark. The sky was black. There was no moon, and tho men in a 490-ton “dirty little coaster” could scarcely see the other cargo ships ahead of her and behind her iu tho convoy. Suddenly there was a crash further up the line. Captain Guy. of tho coaster, said, “What was that? A depth pharos * ° ‘ STABS OF FLAME.

In fact, it was a German torpedo finding its mark. A moment later a star shell fired from a German “E” boat fell in an arc over the convoy, and guns opened fire. From out of the blackness shells spat out. They struck the decks and pinged against steelwork.

Aboard the British ships gunners ran to their posts and stood peering, tlying to get their eyes accustomed to the blackness. First from one side, t-hcii from another—then from ahead and then from behind the convoyed ships—came spluttering stabs of flame. Our gunnel's fired back at the splashes of light in the darkness. They bad no other guide to their target. The low-cut German torpedo boats showed no silhouette against the sky. Tho men in the coaster heard another explosion ahead of them. In all they heard three. It meant that three British ships .were torpedoed.

After the first few minutes the star shells went out. Another shot up illuminating the sea and the convoy—but not the lurking torpedo boats—as it floated down. British escort ships shepherded tho convoy and fought tho attackers at the same time.

Captain Guy directed his men “Hard to port, hard to starboard, hard to port. . . .” —as every other captain in the convoy was doing. The men at the heavy hand-steering gear sweated as they spun the wheel over. Everyone took his turn at the wheel. Shells spattered on the woodwork and metal around them.

Harry Treadwell, mate of the coaster, namo to the wlieelhouse. Splinters hissed around the helmsman, 20-year-old John Ward, a gunner boy. The whoelhouse was lit with the glare of another star shell.

Harry Treadwell flung himself on tho hoy, shielding him from the splinters. Two sharp goans revealed that Treadwell had been hit. The gunner boy was unhurt. Men in other ships in the convoy were being wounded while the battle was at its height. Harry Treadwell had three wounds in his leg, and a third man had a seared furrow across the knuckles of his hand.

“ONLY THE GRACE OF GOD SAVED -US.”

Henry Nuhrenberg, the cook, started to bathe the wounds of. Treadwell. Treadwell said: “I can’t bother now —there’s work to do.” With a handkerchief knotted round his hand he crawled from the galley to tho deck, and was hauled up to the bridge. Standing on one leg, ho took his turn at the wheel. The firing was getting hotter. The gunners on the coaster and the ship they could see near them were firing back desperately against the Germans. The coaster was now being attacked by a number of E-boats—all firing at tlie same time. Suddenly a torpedo sped towards tlic ship—and missed by two yards. The cook had come up on deck. He saw the white wake of a second torpedo coming towards the ship. The torpedo was fifty yards away. The cook was twelve yards from the wheelhouse. His voice could not he heard above the firing. He raced to the wlieelhouse. r “I lost the race,” he said. “Only the grace of God saved us. Before I could warn the captain the torpedo was on us—and missed the stern by not a fraction more than twelve inches.

WAITING WITH ENGINES SILENT

“George Smith, n deckhand, saved the ship from the third torpedo. He was the only one to see the white streak of its propeller wake and to hear the ‘whoosh-whoosh’ sound as it sped towards the ship. “Ho hurst on to the bridge, flung himself on the wheel, and spun it over hard. The ship swerved on her course, and the torpedo shot harmlessly by.” “We had run into a carefully prepared ambush,” said another of the men. “It seemed as if they knew where we should bo,- and at what time, and they were waiting for us with their engines silent. There was no way we could fight hack. Wo couldn’t see what wo were fighting. “A ship in front of us had been torpedoed. We heard shouts for help, and flung lifebelts into the water, although we could see no one to pick them up.”

The rest of the convoy steamed on. It steamed on undeflected —into moic trouble. What they had been through was only the beginning of the battle. ' The Nazi bombers swept down out of The sky as morning came—and on their tails came the fighter ’planes of the It.A.F. STILL PLOUGHING FORWARD. The start of the battle could be seen from tlic shore. A man who watched it through glasses told me, “I shall never see again such amazing flying as chose lt.AvF. boys put in. It was a lesson to me, a revelation. “I saw one fighter make rings around a German ho was chasing. First he was oil its tail pumping bullets into it. Then, with a. real circus stunt manoeuvre, he dived under it, came up in front of it and over it, firing all the time. The two of them disappeared into the cloud, with the German heading downwards.” Beneath the ’planes which twisted and turned— there were over eighty Germans attacking at that time—the convoy was still ploughing its way forward—still on its course.