Approach of the storm Chapter 34

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Approach of the storm Chapter 34
By
Thomas Arthur Russell

Suddenly a terrific shattering crash, the whole ship seemed to lift; a sudden silence and then shouts, voices and somewhere the noise of spurting water. The lights had faltered and dimmed but were okay again now, a quick check of the F.L. pumps, which had tripped out. The ship had stopped, the shafts were not turning, so I dashed up to the upper deck and back aft. The shambles I saw was my first experience of being on the receiving end. It wasn’t a pretty sight. The stern gun had gone, ripped out of its moorings and blasted over the side, and a 4.7 is a gun of several tons weight, very heavy to have been thrown into the sea. The quarterdeck men, who had been fallen in, in two rows and were smartly turned out in full uniform, lay now as if on some steel shod hillside, such had been the force of the explosion. The stern had lifted and buckled.

There lay my friends, heaped untidily, as if asleep, the bluish tinge on waxen faces, the thin trickle of blood from ears, nose and mouth and that new odour so strong to me, a sickly sweet smell, the smell of violent death, overhung it all. War at such close quarters is a foul business. This was different from doling out punishment at long range from a barrel of a gun when you passed a joke at the expense of the enemy, and never cared who would suffer at the explosion of the projectile that you had passed to the gun crew. I could see the lads lying there were beyond help, so I made my way to the waist of the ship and came across a body lying there. The red hair and the figure came as a shock. It was the Scottish lad I used to pass a minute with, from the stern depth charge crew. He must have been blown over the after superstructure and had come to rest here, quite a distance down the ship’s waist. I knelt by him, his face like the others with its bluish tinge. I heard one word as I tried to lift him, it was, “Mother,” and then he must have died. One of the lads helped me as I carried him forward into the forward mess deck that had now been turned into a temporary mortuary.
There were not many wounded. The dead lay on the tables. There, between decks, was a sickly sweet smell of blood again. Nothing here for me now, I was glad to get into the fresh air again and was recruited into a party, manhandling a salvage pump along the deck. It was hard going but the sledge that it was on was a big help. I noticed then that over the engine room, the ½” armoured deck had crumpled up right across the beam of the ship, further proof of the force of the explosion. The mine must have been a big one to have done this.

Now the realisation that just previous to the explosion, I had been over to the tiller flat for the last steering engine readings to phone over for the engine room log. It meant that I had missed being killed by minutes and just missed the fate of the men killed down in the spirit room, who had been drawing the midday grog issue, which would have been about 11.30am. Not much remained of them, for they were near the source of the impact.
I remember a cardboard box with what looked like entrails in it. Someone said it was all that was left of Jock; how they knew I wouldn’t know. A tug had come out and was slowly shepherding the Quail into the harbour. The ship, once so full of life, now battered and heavily damaged in her stern. Not much chance of her ever recovering without some very major dockyard repairs.

A full role call by the yeoman of the signals, revealed 32 deaths. We, who had survived, were informed that our next of kin would be informed that we were o.k. My wife, still has that telegram. All hands were now turned to cleaning the ship. The bodies were taken off, the silent salute of ensigns dipped to half-mast as we said goodbye to our mates. Sadness fell over the ship. The work was being done efficiently but quietly, not as many laughs, not as many jokes; the family of the Quail had lost many of its members. We knew that we would be split up to go to other ships of other establishments; our eleven months together would soon be over. Soon, I’d leave Geordie Pringle, Jack McCormick, Wilf Harrison and Cedric Simpson (two younger Barnsleyites), and go with Bill Rice to a shore base. Before this, the Quail would suffer a further trial, even while moored alongside the mole in the harbour of Bari, an episode even with the side effects today in 1986.

About a week after the mining of HMS Quail, another dull boom from seaward, HMS Hebe had struck a mine, rolled over and sank. Bari was really getting dangerous for shipping. Up until now, our patrols and shoot-ups of enemy targets had been pretty tame. Now the war had taken a more serious turn. We were on the receiving end. The incident, at this time, stuck in my mind. We were not sure whether we would all be together for Christmas, so the skipper decided we would have some sort of Christmas party before we broke up. From somewhere and by devious means, a pig turned up. The only drawback was who would slaughter it. I remember a Scotsman, Robert Parks, who must have had some knowledge of butchery, volunteered to do this job. The pig was reluctant to join in the fun and was finally held in position for the task. The method was simple; Rob applied a seven-pound hammer with considerate force and there was a dull thud on the pig’s head. It, immediately, subsided into a quivering quietness and was then dispatched by having it’s throat cut.

The shipmates, whom we had lost, were remembered in a short service. Many eyes showed the grief of losing messmates. The few trips ashore, now, were not quite the laughing, joking affairs that they had been. The wine that we drank in large quantities didn’t do the trick of making us forget; instead, I’m sure, some of it did just the opposite, for I saw men cry for their lost mates. Slowly the realisation came that things must go on.
I received the news of the birth of our daughter and was looking forward to more mail and a photograph that my wife had promised to send to me. Of course, I was very happy. It offset some of the events of recent days and Cedric’s invitation to celebrate in ‘B’ gun barbette was accepted eagerly. He, quickly, produced a flagon of wine, just like a magician, for no one knew he had it and regulations frowned on anything other than the daily grog issue. We toasted the baby’s health and everyone else’s we could think of until we had seen off the lot. When a tipsy seaman and a tipsy stoker staggered on to our respective mess decks to the amazement of the men who couldn’t understand where and how we had got drunk. Cedric was a wizard at procuring a drink no matter where we were.

Now December came and with it a new ordeal, although the true story will never be told for years. We were tied up alongside one of the jetties and I remember it was on the 2nd of December, in the afternoon, a plane flying so high that he only left a vapour trail. No sirens went, so we assumed it to be friendly. Not a gun fired or any other plane appeared. The lone plane had flown over in a semicircle from seaward, then after passing over the harbour, flew away to the northwest.

A convoy of 17 ships had arrived and the harbour was becoming crowded. Work was in progress, unloading supplies for the allied armies who were advancing up the Italian mainland. These supplies included a large number of 500lb bombs that where laid out like a carpet round the area of the harbour. Foggia airfield had fallen to the Allies and everyone felt secure, so much so that the ships had been unloading at night with lights all over the place; it looked like Blackpool on a late summer’s evening. Now the price was to be paid for this lax security, although I didn’t know it, as I watched the plane disappear. The evening meal had been served, cleared away and the welcome mail call had followed. It must have been carried in on one of the convoys.

The eagerly awaited letters and photograph had arrived and I had held it up and passed it around to my mates; there were calls of, “Jammy bastard Yorky,” and pats on the back. This is the usual Navy banter with a few good-natured references to the opposite sex thrown in. I had just settled down to read my letter at about 1900 hours, when there was a dull thud and then a flicker of the lights; then, a shrill whistle and more thuds. No mistaking it, by now we knew it was an air raid. The mess deck was a mad scramble of men grabbing anti-flash gear and tin hats. Some were ashore and we were nowhere near a full crew aboard. In any case, after the great damage to the ship we were practically disarmed, stripped of most of our defence, we were virtually a sitting duck.

I buttoned the photograph and letter into my boiler suit and dashed up to the upper deck, to the scene I never dreamed of. Ships were burning all over the place. Great clouds of smoke were pouring skywards. Everything was tinged a lurid red by the glow of the flames and seemed to be on fire. Over it all hung the heavy smell of fuel oil as it spread and burned.

Shouts and screams pierced the inferno as faint shadows of figures dashed around the decks; I dashed to the companionway leading to the bridge. I got halfway up to the bridge when a sudden pink glow and then I was lying face down at the bottom, my steel hat still on my head. I remember looking round in a daze and I wasn’t alone. The torpedo gunner’s mate lay there too. There was a roar of diving planes, more whistling of falling bombs as we tried our best to cram all of our body under our steel hats; no way, but at a time like this you wish that you could take the form of a mouse; every nerve stands on end.
I wasn’t noted for being particularly religious, but I prayed unashamedly, “Please God, make the bastards go away,” as I tried to draw my feet in under that small protective circle of steel which I wore on my head.

Loud thunderous crashes and the sound of falling water. The Quail heaved and rocked about as if we were caught in a violent storm. The PO by my side took a packet of cigarettes from his pocket. “Want a smoke, Stokes?” I have never been a heavy smoker but I gratefully accepted the cigarette and a light from his trembling hand. That cigarette was a gift from heaven.

The planes seemed to have gone now, so I went onto the upper deck and gazed at the holocaust. Oil was spreading on the surface of the harbour from the ships to the north west of our position and flames were spreading along it. Men were swimming in the sea and the flames were catching up to them. The men screamed as they burned and the worst thing was not being able to help. I experienced a mixture of emotion, pity, horror, anger and also relief that I was still alive. I remember going to the Italian tug alongside and as I made my way to her, being amazed at the filth and sludge that was littering the deck. It had been thrown up by the bombs, which must have exploded on the harbour bed and must have been very close to us. No wonder the ship had bounced so much.
I must see if they had any wine aboard, a drink to two might help to drown the sounds from out there in the burning oil. I had just got aboard when a ship, across the other side of the harbour, exploded. The whole world seemed to stand still and a hush seemed to fall for a split second. A pink glow hovered over everything, then a terrific roar; what had been a ship and home to many poor seamen, were now fragmented white steel plates flying high up in the sky. The poor b****** aboard her must have felt nothing.

Some ships had managed to move outside the harbour to try to escape the fires and some of them had fires on board. Ammunition was exploding on them even as they anchored outside and would do so for a couple of days yet. All that could be done now was being done. Damage was being addressed and tackled. I was feeling exhausted for it was now early morning and some of us were split up in watches, and I was able to snatch some sleep. Daylight revealed a scene that fully reflected the horror and carnage of the attack. Ships were still burning and billowing smoke drifted in dark clouds across the harbour; every now and then everything was lit up by tongues of flames bursting through the smoke. Corpses drifted everywhere, many already bloated to twice their size. Some were just torsos minus one or more limbs and all coated in a black slimy fuel oil, some half naked, some fully naked, some in uniform and outside the harbour every now and again, a ship would send a burst of crackling incendiary rounds into the sky as it burned.
The Quail was coated in dirty dark mud from the harbour bed, the bombs had burst so close. I remember that some soldiers I’d seen dashing to ignite the smoke pots around the harbour to screen the ships, and particularly one team I’d seen, vanish after one explosion. There’d been a flash and they were no longer there. Bombs had fallen among the 1500lb bombs, which had been laid in a carpet around much of the harbour and destined for the new American bomber force, which had been brought into being.
Amazingly these bombs hadn’t exploded, they were laid half buried in craters and men were digging them out

The smell of death, the smell of oil that was floating in a sickly mess on the surface of the water etched on my mind even to this day, as it lay before my eyes and I felt the full impact of the obscenity of war. The human mind has a capacity to absorb so much and then it becomes numb. Recently I was searching on a second-hand bookstall in the market, trying to find a book called the “Corfu Incident”, regarding another disaster that I was involved in, when instead, a book caught my eye. It’s title was, “Disaster at Bari”, written by an ex- major in the United States air force. He apparently went back to Bari, I, instantly, purchased the book and I only found out after forty years that the ship I’d seen blow up with that terrific explosion, was the USS John Harvey which had been carrying two hundred tons of mustard gas bombs, ready for use if the German forces, who were now falling back, used chemical weapons as rumour had mentioned. The strong smell of garlic that I’d put down to some kind of heavy fuel oil, now seems to have been the mustard mixing with smoke and oil floating on the surface of the harbour. Apparently, many civilians died along with forces personnel from the effects of the mustard gas inhaled from the smoke or splashed with it in the water.

The day finally came for some of us to depart. We travelled overland by train and I saw the Italian countryside very much the same as Sicily and we marvelled at the way the population crowded on the running boards of the train, some with bags tied over their shoulders; my first actual glimpse of refugees. We grew used to the constant cry of, “Cigarereti engleesi.” Some of the lads gave the odd cigarette away but they didn’t give so many away, for they didn’t know when they would get another issue.

Pr-BR

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