My Part in the Downfall of a Dictator - Part 1

This story was submitted to the People’s War site by Roger Marsh of the ‘Action Desk — Sheffield’ Team on behalf of Marjorie Robinson, and has been added to the site with the author’s permission. The author fully understands the site's terms and conditions.

MY PART IN THE DOWNFALL OF A DICTATOR - Part 1
by
Ex Leading Seaman C Robinson

In January 1939, 3 friends, all working in the steelworks at Scunthorpe, decided that wages of 4d (approx 1½ p) per hour was not good enough and decided that we would better ourselves by joining the Royal Navy. In early February, after passing 3 tests, intelligence and physical, I found myself on the way to Chatham Barracks. Sadly the other 2 failed the tests and I was on my own.

On February 15th 1939 I walked through the Barrack gates and became a new entrant in Duncan block. For 3 days we were treated like Royalty and had a rest room with settees and easy chairs. On the 4th day we signed on. Our life of ease was over, our training really began. About 30 of us became known as Class 30 in the care of Petty Officer Amos. We did the lot, seamanship, marching, gunnery, torpedoes, cooking, laundering, swimming, gym, rifle drill and last but not least, how to blanco belts and gaiters.

In mid August, we were marched to the dockyard where we had to ammunition H.M.S. Kelly. We knew then that it was for real and on September 3rd, war broke out. Shortly after, I was on my way to Thurso (North Scotland) in a train packed with new sailors. From Thurso to Scapa Flow on a ferry, my first time out of sight of land. We were deposited on the battleship H.M.S. Iron Duke to await our fate. The following day we drafted to the Tribal Class Destroyer H.M.S. Ashanti, which was to be my home till 1941. On that night we put to sea with the Home Fleet, searching for German surface raiders with no luck. The weather was atrocious and I was as sick as a dog for 7 days, but thankfully never again. We did many Atlantic convoys; dropped lots of depth charges but never saw a submarine although many merchant ships were sunk. One convoy I will always remember consisted of large passenger liners from the USA. There must have been thousands of servicemen on board. Thankfully they all arrived safely in the UK. We rescued a boatload of men in the Atlantic who had been adrift for a fortnight. They were starving, wet and cold, and no doubt pleased to see us.

We were in Scapa when a German submarine, which had penetrated the defences, sank H.M.S. Royal Oak and for 24 hours it was like hell let loose but the sub got away.

During my time on Ashanti, Germany invaded Norway. We did a few convoys to Norway, taking troops over and on one occasion at Aandelsness, our captain decided to put men ashore to boost the Norwegians and I found myself at the top of a mountain with a twin Lewis gun, guarding a railway line below; this was in about 6ins of snow. We were told that if we heard a train on the line, it would be German because they had taken the town further south. We did hear a train while on our way down the mountain; the Marines had taken over. I gather they were given a rough time too. Another time we and 3 other Tribals had to contain 5 German destroyers in Trondheim Fjord. We patrolled up and down for a week and every morning without fail, the Luftwaffe would come over and bomb us, always high altitude and we couldn't reach them with our 4.7's or Pom Poms, but we got quite good at taking evasive action. Eventually we left with the Germans still there.

Early one morning we left Rosyth to intercept a German convoy, steaming north along the Norwegian coast. Again 4 destroyers were led by H.M.S. Cossack; the convoy consisted of 4 merchant ships and 7 escorts. We approached them in the dark, circled them once and sank them all, then arrived back at Rosyth with no casualties.

My final voyage on Ashanti was from somewhere on the south coast to Newcastle, to screen the new battleship King George V down to Portsmouth. We never made it. Our leader H.M.S. Fame mistook a buoy and the two of us finished up on the beach at Whitburn near Sunderland. The local Home Guard thought the invasion had started and turned out in force, but a few choice words redirected their rifles. Eventually we were all taken ashore by Breeches Buoy and billeted in an old army camp, two fields up from the beach. We stayed there for 3 weeks, then took the long trail back to H.M.S. Pembroke Chatham by train.

During my time on Ashanti, I progressed from Ord Sea to Able Seaman. I had various jobs, the first being Quarter Deck Messenger from where I had my first brush with the captain for saying, "Yes Sir" instead of "Aye Aye Sir". He was a dead ringer for Charles Laughton, Captain Bligh in Mutiny on the Bounty. A complete snob (in my opinion) but a good seaman. The 1st Lieutenant was a Viscount, Lieutenant Commander Viscount Jocelyn, later to become an Admiral. My action stations were Lookout and "B" Guns crew, both cold and wet more often than not. My first and only Jankers was on board her, 7 days for being late off leave. My train was diverted because of bombing to Falmouth via Bristol instead of direct. My punishment, while at sea, was to run backwards and forwards on the iron prom deck, rucksack on my back with a cannon ball in it. With the ship rolling, it was quite interesting and tiring.

The only other foreign country visited was Iceland and they didn't like us at all, if caught talking to us the girls had all their hair cut off.

In Pembroke it was back to Duncan block but in the Barrack Guard, which meant no sleeping down the Tunnel, which was a bonus. I became a sentry at the mouth of the Admiral’s tunnel, it was an all weather job doing the normal watches; very boring but with a bonus of occasional weekend leave.

Finally I got a draft to H.M.S. Sikh and re-commissioned her in South Shields on April 2nd 1941. She had been in dock for repairs after a collision with H.M.S. Mashona. After lots of activity, like storing and ammunitioning the ship, eventually, we went to sea, to that beautiful resort of Scapa Flow. We did many Atlantic convoys and Asdic sweeps. One of the convoys involved 35,000 troops on the way to Gibraltar. During this we heard that the Bismarck was out in the Denmark Strait, then that Hood had been sunk, the Prince of Wales was damaged and she was coming our way. The following day we sighted her on the horizon. Our gun layer reported that she was being bombed because he could see flashes; a minute later we knew he was wrong because her first salvo landed in our wake. Wonderful gunnery. For some reason, she did not continue the attack, but kept in close contact. There were 4 destroyers in the escort, Cossack, Sikh, Maori and Piorun (Polish). We were ordered to do a torpedo attack, which we did with anti personnel shells exploding above us all the time we were going in, fortunately we came out unscathed. The Piorun went in close enough to open up with machine guns, came out without damage and then had to return to the UK, she was short on fuel. That night, the BBC reported the attack but failed to mention Sikh, later it was found that they thought she had been sunk. Everyone knows the story of the final sinking and how the aircraft from the Ark Royal had damaged her steering gear, but we like to think it was us. We had a grandstand seat at the sinking; we saw many of her crew in the water but daren't stop to pick them up because of the presence of U Boats. This was true but it transpired they were returning to Brest and had no torpedoes left. After all that, we carried on to Gibraltar and became part of Admiral Sommervilles Force H. That is when my war really began.

From Gibraltar, we did convoys into the Atlantic and the Med. We also escorted the carriers Ark Royal, Eagle and Argus into the Med to fly off aircraft to Malta. On one of these operations, the Ark Royal was torpedoed 25 miles from Gibraltar. While sinking, aircraft were still landing on her, with difficulty of course. We went alongside and took off the Admiral, then full speed ahead to Gibraltar, put the Admiral ashore then back to the scene. At first we thought she would get back under her own steam, but for some reason, she increased speed and her bulkheads collapsed, resulting in her sinking. Later we had to take her survivors home to the UK, along with 3 other destroyers and the battleship H.M.S. Rodney. When we left Gibraltar, the sea was flat calm and slate grey and we knew it was going to be a difficult journey. The weather got worse and worse and by the time we got well into the Bay of Biscay, we couldn’t make headway with waves 40-50 ft high. Rodney being much bigger and more powerful, signalled "Up Yours," then he left, and arrived home safely. Meanwhile we wallowed in the storm and lost everything on the upper deck, including boats, guard rails etc. How the chefs managed I don' t know, but we did get hot food. This lasted for 3 days. Eventually we got under way again arriving in Falmouth 3 days later. We were flying our pennants, which were a bit tattered, and shore base enquired about the signal we were flying and the reply was that it was seaweed, not a signal.

After repairs and replacement of lost equipment, we proceeded to Londonderry where all the ammunition except that on the upper deck, was taken off and the magazines were then topped up with potatoes. From thereon the future was viewed with some trepidation and we had an idea that Malta might be our destination. Fortunately we were not attacked on the way to Gibraltar, we couldn't have spared the ammunition. At Gibraltar we re-fuelled and as previously thought, set off for Malta, along with 4 destroyers: Sikh, Maori, Legion and Isaac Sweers (Dutch). On our way we were informed that two 8ins Italian cruisers were in our way in the Pantellaria area. It was assumed that the two cruisers Alberico da Barbiano and Alberto da Guissano would reach Tripoli long before we arrived in the area. We were the lead ship with Commander Stokes in command, a brilliant tactician, but unfortunately, not in the best of health.

On arrival at Pantellaria we found that the cruisers had not gone on to Tripoli, but for some reason were now in our path. When we finally met up, it was dark but they were openly using their signal lamps. Commander Stokes took us into the lea of the land, albeit into a minefield, but although we could see them, they couldn't see us. We got to within 1 mile of them. We torpedoed the first one, the Maori and Legion the second, sinking them both. We later found they were carrying troops and aviation fuel on the upper deck. In total 14 torpedoes were fired and they lost 920 men. Then it was full speed to Malta where all the ships and St Angelo had cleared lower decks to cheer us in and for 2 days, we could do no wrong. Sikh’s name was to be seen on all the walls of Sliema and Valetta. All 4 destroyers were allowed to Splice the Mainbrace and for once we were recognised by the bigger ships and were invited to a film show on one of them. Big Deal. After this we were based at Malta for some time, doing escort duties, Asdic sweeps and bombardments.

Every day we, along with the Maltese, were bombed, every day and all day. On one of these attacks, we lost H.M.S. Maori, a bomb landed on her quarterdeck while she was secured to a buoy. About this time, Cdr Stokes had to leave us because of his continuing ill health. He did recover later on and was promoted deservedly to Admiral. Captain St John Micklethwaite, ex captain of Eskimo arrived on board with his staff and became Captain "D", which meant more red tape for us. On Sikh, my home was S Mess with Leading Sea RC Foster, known as Arsy, in charge. There was always mess savings at the end of the month, there had to be because such things as fish and chips was herring in tomato sauce to him. He later passed for P.O. and had to leave the ship. Many of my future friends were from S Mess, but sadly, now they have all crossed the Bar. I was later detailed to become a Quartermaster, there were two 1 Badgers and two 3 Badgers, lots of battles but a reasonably comfortable life, no getting soaked at sea, no scrubbing decks, chipping paint or painting etc. My action station was tray operator on Y gun, hydraulic but hard work. While in Malta the shortage of food affected us too and the staple diet was Corned Beef and Rice, with a small prize for the best concoction, but a good meal was always available down the Gut and we always said that what they served up was what they rescued from under our gash chutes.

Came the day we were transferred to Alexandria. On our arrival, Italian 2 man torpedoes crept in under us when the boom was opened, they put the battleships Valient and Queen Elizabeth on the bottom and did untold damage to tankers and other ships. They didn't bother with the French ships because they never went to sea. This action transferred sea dominance to the Italians; we were left with 2 or 3 cruisers and a few destroyers, on paper, no match for the powerful Italian Fleet. While based at Alex, we carried out bombardments of Libyan parts and Rhodes and 6 or 7 Malta convoys always with fast merchant ships carrying fuel and supplies. Always the bombing started as soon as we left harbour, we never had air protection.

Invariably we lost most of the merchant ships on the way but if one got through it was a bonus. Then, after 2 or 3 days in Malta, and the continual bombing, it was back to Alex also with continual bombing, always high level never Stukas. On one of these convoys the old battleship Centurion (now a target ship) sailed with us to attract the bombers; funnily they never went near her, I think their intelligence was better than ours. On another convoy, there were 2 cruisers (Arethusa was one of them) and 4 merchant ships in the centre, and 8 destroyers surrounding them as escorts. Near Malta we were attacked by torpedo bombers. One came in from astern and was repeatedly hit by shells and bullets, it eventually caught fire and tried to land on Arethusa’s fo’c’sle, but just failed. During this action I was hit in the small of the back with a primer from one of our own shells. The overlap on my rubber lifebelt saved me from any fractures etc., but it certainly took my breath away and I was excused all duties for 48 hours. Unbounded generosity!! I was inside the gun shield at the time and saw the primer coming, but it was faster than I was. After all this forced excitement we were occasionally sent to Cyprus for a 3-day rest. When there, we hadn't time to rest with such things as Brandy at 1 shilling (5p) a bottle and stacks of very salty peanuts to go with it. Also free transport in a pickup back to the ship when we hit the fresh air and fell over in a drunken stupor. It was a change from the bombs anyway, internal instead of external. Sometimes, during the day we drank neat orange juice. After the liquid fire it was beautiful. We could also buy a kit bag full of oranges for 5p; sadly they started to go rotten before I got to the bottom.

Pr-BR

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