by David B Hill
They sought a place to rest, sometimes simply collapsing on the deck, heads on rolled-up greatcoats, to sleep and wait for the next call to action. Len wrote to his family that, for all the heat and sweat and the noise, he didn’t believe they ever shot down a single enemy aircraft. The fact that he worked in the magazine was something Len did not want to share in a letter.
★ ★ ★
Lofty was at his station on the bridge during one raid, when Stukas began diving on the convoy like feeding gannets. There was something surreal about the wailing, and the sight of bombs creating enormous plumes of water that soared upwards and outwards until they began to fall back down again, all in slow motion. He watched one enemy aircraft swoop low to the water then level out and begin a strafing run directly at them. For a moment, he failed to realise what was happening, until he saw the little flashes on the plane’s wings, followed almost instantly by the thud of bullets hitting Alynbank’s superstructure. Only then did he throw himself to the deck, late but safe, and right on top of the Captain. He pretended he’d done it on purpose, and complained later and only half in jest that his devotion to duty had gone unrewarded.
Another plane had dropped a stick of five bombs that straddled the Alynbank, dangerously close to the ship. The pressure of the explosion caused the ship to lurch unnaturally, and in the magazine the boys were forced to crouch to avoid being thrown off their feet. Both understood implicitly what had caused it.
‘Jesus Christ,’ hissed Tim through clenched teeth, as he clambered to his feet, still clutching a four-inch shell to his chest.
Damage control reported a large hole on the vessel’s side. On inspection it was obvious that considerable damage had occurred to the hull, and that substantial repairs would be necessary. The ship was forced to detach from the convoy and make for Rosyth, where a further inspection revealed the presence of an unexploded bomb deep inside the hold, wedged against buoyancy barrels. Specialist bomb disposal experts were called.
Len, Tim and Lofty were watching on with interest when Lofty was called out by the officer of the watch.
‘You,’ the man said. ‘Assist these two officers to get rid of that thing.’
Lofty went with the two disposal experts to scope the challenge, which he described on his return as ‘a bloody great bomb’. Then the experts disappeared, leaving the manhandling to Lofty. He was briefly perplexed, but since Len and Tim were ordinary seamen and of lesser rank to himself, an able seaman, he called out, ‘Oi, you two,’ pointing his finger directly at them. ‘You’ll do. You short-arses will be able to get right into the tight spots. Come with me.’
As he turned to make his way below, he collared a couple of others.
‘Come on,’ he said. ‘If we can get rid of the bugger fast enough, we could make the pub before closing.’
Together the men squeezed into the shattered space and by using lengths of timber began to manoeuvre the bomb out of the impact zone, through torn steel plating and between jagged metal beams. Len pointed to several knobs, visible on the nose of the bomb.
‘I don’t like the look of those,’ he said several times, until Lofty began to worry and wrote a note to the Disposal Officer.
‘What are the things on the nose of this device?’
The RN Lieutenant in Disposal sent a reply, which Lofty read out: ‘Detonators. Don’t touch!’
Len felt his stomach twist again, but his sense of wehi was becoming familiar now. They carried on, gingerly manhandling the bomb up ladders, over the deck and down the gangway. Ashore at last, the bomb was transferred to a small lighter and taken out to sea and dumped.
It was an exhausted Lofty who slumped down onto the bench in the mess afterwards.
‘Jesus,’ was the only word he could summon.
‘You called, my son?’ said Tim, still sharp.
‘I could kill for a beer.’
‘I could kill you for two,’ said Tim.
Len sat and listened while Lofty speculated about a decoration for his efforts, but in the end, all he did get was a tot of rum and a word of congratulations from the Captain.
And that wasn’t their only near miss. They were sailing very close to the wind.
One night, calm and clear this time with something of a moon visible, they had been sailing under radio silence when the Alynbank made to depart the convoy. She had been instructed to return north to pick up and escort another convoy in a routine rotation. The manoeuvre was timed for the hour, but as the clock ticked towards the appointed moment, the order was given to change course. The ship turned and sailed straight across the bow of a Dutch freighter, which could not avoid collision. The Alynbank was rammed, sustaining considerable damage.
Given the hour, most of the crew had been asleep. Some had no idea that a collision had occurred, but the sound of klaxons and broadcast instructions to close watertight doors brought them instantly to heart-pounding consciousness. Everybody raced to their stations.
‘What the hell happened?’ asked one of the Macs when the situation stabilised.
‘You might well ask,’ growled Lofty, again present on the bridge at the time. ‘We turned too early. There’s a hole in the side big enough to drive a bus through.’
When the sun rose, Len took a look. It was a big hole between two bulkheads, so the ship remained sound – but it was forced to make for Rosyth again. Eventually repairs were made across the Firth, in Leith, effectively a maritime suburb of Edinburgh. The circumstances allowed the boys to apply for promised leave, and this time they were successful.
The leave passed quickly enough, but the boys made the most of every opportunity, travelling widely through Scotland on rail passes. They stayed in local billets, drank in local pubs and chatted up local girls. They found a photographer who took their photographs, Len happily posing in full Highland uniform, complete with kilt, sporran and bearskin busby.
★ ★ ★
In winter, the North Sea can be a brutal place, as if all the violence and energy of the Atlantic are concentrated on one small area.
Siberian temperatures were compounded by wind chill, and the windborne seawater that drenched the ship froze to ropes and wires, interfering with operating systems. The decks were treacherous. To be lost overboard guaranteed a quick death. This was where Alynbank’s eleven Kiwis – Len, Tim, Lofty, Jackie Hayward and Jack Kindred among them – spent the winter of 1940/1941, shepherding the survivors of trans-Atlantic convoys through the North Sea. The cold weather gear that the crew were issued was dreadfully inadequate, and they either suffocated in the rancid heat below decks or were chilled to the bone above. If there was anything good about the conditions, it was that visibility was often minimal, so that aircraft couldn’t fly. On the other hand, the danger from submarines, always present, had grown considerably by early 1941.
In spite of all, they endured the rigours relatively unscathed. They earned twelve days’ leave beginning on New Year’s Day and another fortnight in February. In April, Len was promoted to able seaman. He was still only twenty years old, and he and the other youthful Kiwi Reservists continued to be passed over for officer training.
In July, the eleven Kiwis were paid off from Alynbank and drafted to join the crew of the light cruiser HMS Neptune. There were rumours that Neptune was being prepared for transfer to New Zealand command, and the kernel of a Kiwi crew was being assembled. The New Zealanders were buoyed enormously by the thought that, at last, they were going to join a real fighting ship.
★ ★ ★
After ten more days’ leave, the New Zealanders reassembled in London for another train ride, this time to Southampton. There they were to embark for Alexandria to join Neptune, which had already sailed to join the Mediterranean Fleet. The prospect caused some excitement, but the mood was tempered, as most things now were, with a healthy degree of caution. The Mediterranean was a fierce theatre of war, and this time they would be seeking out the enemy for combat, not attempting to evade him. They had witnessed the cost of battle,
for while Alynbank had suffered no casualties, they had seen the trains full of wounded soldiers, planes falling out of the sky, and dead and damaged seamen being evacuated from damaged vessels.
Travel was no longer novel or exciting either, but often risky. Even the short journey to Southampton dragged on, with numerous unscheduled stops when Len and the others sat in quiet contemplation, writing letters or reading. Conversation was muted. The truth was the boys had matured. All their romantic notions about a great adventure had been swept away by months of active service, and their youthful enthusiasm had been replaced by a quiet, mature confidence. In the Great War, the New Zealand Division on the Western Front had come to be known as ‘the Silent Division’ because of the way the men conducted themselves, tolerating the circumstances without complaint, fighting an enemy that might have been superior in numbers but never in determination. Unconsciously, the boys had arrived at a similar space. The competence they had forged in training was now honed by experience, and their camaraderie was implicit, deep and personal. The Old Man would have been proud.
Nearing Southampton, the train slowed yet again, and it quickly became apparent that the port was under attack. The train ground to a halt and sat motionless, shielded on either side by steep embankments of a railway cutting. Several dozen enemy aircraft were bombing the port and facilities in a rare daylight raid. The men got down out of their carriages and smoked by the tracks. Some stretched out on the grass on the banks with their eyes closed, smelling the grasses, but most stood talking, scanning the still, clear skies for a sight of the action. The city and port were out of view in the middle distance, while, above, the German bomber formations moved steadily across the sky at altitude.
The planes released their bombs in sticks, while all around them fighter aircraft could be seen weaving in and out in a manic game of life and death. The raid was fierce, involving perhaps fifty bombers that the sailors could identify as Junkers 88s. There were nearly as many escorts – stubby Focke-Wulfs and sleek Messerschmitts – fighting off the attacking Spitfires of Southern Command.
As a port, Southampton was a prime target. Its defences were considerable, and the explosive bursts of anti-aircraft fire added to the spectacle, the noise melding into a constant if distant crackle, underpinned by the deeper thudding of bombs striking the port.
Men gasped as two planes collided in mid-air. It was impossible to tell friend from foe at that distance. The smoke, too, began to coalesce at altitude. A cheer erupted from the men crouched on top of the embankment as a bomber exploded in a ball of fire from which a cluster of burning parts radiated gracefully out and began to fall slowly to earth. The anti-aircraft fire was beginning to find its range.
A second bomber in the same flight lost a wing. The cheers were not so loud this time, as the plane began its fall, tumbling unpredictably. Len watched as first one, then two, then three little dots parted from it, and from one, he saw a parachute open. The rest were not so lucky. It occurred to him that falling out of the sky wasn’t so different from a slow death in a sinking ship.
It was over in twenty minutes. The sailors saw the bombers, having delivered their load, turn south-east and head back across the channel to occupied France. They were hounded by Spitfires, until these too were forced to turn for home.
In answer to the whistles blown by their officers, Len and the men reboarded the train, which clanked into motion and made its way slowly into the city. The railway station had been targeted too, but in spite of a direct hit on the marshalling yard, their train was eventually able to pull into a platform and allow the men to disembark. The New Zealanders were met by a Naval liaison officer, who delivered shocking news. Their transport had been forced to sail. The train’s many unpredictable stops had consumed valuable time, and, wary of being caught in the raid, the ship had not delayed but had weighed anchor and sailed for the Mediterranean without the eleven Kiwis. The men were given temporary billets while the issue of their deployment was resolved, and for the next couple of days there was a fair amount of grumbling about the loss of opportunity and wasted time.
On 01 October 1941, a joint agreement established the Royal New Zealand Navy. It was an event that prompted several pub visits and some speculation. The men debated what sort of warships might be involved, and where.
‘I imagine they’ll send us on to the Med,’ Len said in a wistful moment.
‘It’ll be the Med. That’s where the fighting is,’ asserted Lofty.
It made sense. The New Zealand Division was in North Africa, and so was Neptune.
‘Where else would they send us?’ asked Tim.
‘I don’t know, mate. What about the Japs?’ Jackie asked.
The news had been full of the Japanese threat to British interests in the Far East.
‘Back towards home? You wish, mate!’ Tim said.
In the end, their brief respite from duty ended with a terse instruction. They were to separate. Half of them were to report to HMS St Christopher, the Navy’s largest small-boat training establishment, in Fort William, Scotland, to train on motor torpedo boats. The other half were drafted to HMS Attack at Portland, to join minesweepers. It took a while for the men to absorb the news, which in many ways was positive. They were training for small boats. But the group that had left Auckland a year and a half ago was now greatly depleted, and it was about to divide once more. Lofty was among those departing to Portland; Jackie Hayward, Jack Kindred, Len and Tim were off to St Christopher. And there was mention of their being sent to Singapore.
Tim could barely contain his frustration.
‘They must be frigging joking. We’ve spent half our time pissing about,’ he ranted through clenched teeth. ‘Halfway round the frigging world, a rail tour of Great Britain, twelve months on a leaky merchantman, and now they want to send us back? To Singa-bloody-pore? Jesus.’
Ever the rationalist, Len kept his silence. Lofty, on the other hand, got straight to the point. ‘Well, I’m buggered, mates. We’re being sent to Lowestoft to join a minesweeper.’ Then added, ‘Kiwi crew, though.’
‘Jeez, Lofty, you can’t leave us now, mate,’ said Jackie. ‘The party’s not over.’
‘Yeah, well it’s time you bastards learnt how to look after yourselves. I can’t wet-nurse you all your lives. Come on, we might as well go and get pissed. It could be a long time between drinks.’
‘I’ll second that,’ said Jack Kindred, and they all raced each other down the street to the Jack Tar. The Kiwis had never found the limpid ales of Britain much to their liking, but they did have the desired effect. In their inebriation, the Singapore draft became the butt of the men’s pointed humour.
‘Bloody rest cure; that’s what you bastards can look forward to,’ claimed Lofty. ‘While we’re dredging mines out of the North Sea,’ he added ‘you’ll be messing about with Oriental women.’
‘I don’t think so,’ replied Len. ‘If the Japs decide to have a go at Malaya, there’ll be a fight all right.’
‘Two fronts,’ muttered Jack Kindred.
‘What’s he on about now?’ asked Lofty.
Jack didn’t say much.
Len spoke for him. ‘If we get involved in the Far East, we’ll be fighting on two fronts.’
The Germans had invaded Russia in June, and everybody understood the enormous risk it had taken of fighting on two fronts. Britain was the last bastion for the defence of Europe. For her to defend the Far East would seem to be impossible.
The humour all but disappeared from the conversation.
‘Barman!’ yelled Lofty. ‘Another round.’
★ ★ ★
Lofty was gone the next day. There wasn’t much time for sentiment, and most of them had enormous hangovers; especially Lofty. While the others may not have noticed, he was the one who took the news the hardest. When he emerged from his billet the next morning, with his kitbag over his shoulder, Len and Tim were waiting for him. Together they escorted him to the railway station.
A train l
ay hissing at the platform and the banging of carriage doors lent a percussive element to the scene, as uniformed men from every imaginable service scurried to and fro in search of a something or a someone.
‘Don’t hang about, mates, or you’ll finish up in bloody Lowestoft too.’
But they did hang about – for a moment anyway. Then the train’s whistle blew.
‘OK, Lofty, see you, mate,’ said Tim. ‘Take it easy.’
‘See you, Lofty. Take it easy.’
‘That’s exactly what I’m going to do.’
‘Good on you, mate.’
Len looked up at his friend.
‘Thanks for everything, Lofty. See you.’ They shook hands.
Lofty winked.
‘Not if I see you first,’ he replied. Then he turned and walked away.
His mates watched as the tall figure, ears glowing like navigation lights, disappeared into the crowd.
4
Blows against Empire
The frustration and irritation that visited the men who had missed the draft to Neptune quickly evaporated at the prospect of being retrained for service in fast patrol boats. At last it seemed they were to be allowed to play to their strengths. They spent six weeks at HMS St Christopher, under the command of A.E. Welman, a much-decorated Royal Naval stalwart with a reputation for extreme rigour, and a lofty disdain for colonials. In their element, the men met his challenge with enthusiasm, working up their navigation skills in the Scottish isles and practising manoeuvre, attack and defence tactics to the highest standard. At the end of the six weeks, when asked to volunteer for service in the Far East, they did so without hesitation. Len looked forward to serving on a fast patrol boat, and even Tim found merit in being posted to ‘Singa-bloody-pore’.
‘Not only are we closer to home, but we leave the war behind!’ he postulated.
‘I hope you’re right about that,’ retorted Len under his breath.