Under the Red Sea Sun

by Edward Ellsberg

  From Cairo, I was hurried next morning to Alex by car, to find that my conference was, oddly enough, wholly with a Major Quilln of the Royal Marines, an officer attached to Admiral Harwood’s staff for special missions.

  It appeared that the Royal Navy was deeply interested in blocking the entrance to a certain enemy port supplying somebody (Major Quilln never mentioned either name, but I thought I could guess). The idea was to run in and sink a blockship under fire, something attempted many times before in many wars, and usually with as little success as attended the late Lieutenant Richmond Pearson Hobson’s effort to block Cervera’s fleet in Santiago Harbor back in our own Spanish War, in 1898.

  What concerned Major Quilln was how to sink a blockship so she would stay sunk. The British were undesirous, after a number of Royal Navy men had sacrificed their lives in sinking the ship, of having some Nazi salvage officer swiftly remove the blockship and open the harbor entrance to traffic again. Since I had done a fair job in quickly lifting an important wreck that the Axis had sunk so she was thought impossible to raise, it had occurred to the British command to have me sent for to tell them how to sink a ship so she’d stay sunk, thus paying me the compliment of implying that the Nazis had no one who could outguess me in salvage.

  I went over the problem with Major Quilln and pointed out to him how best it could be done; since the subject is still a top secret one and I have no wish that the information ever be used against us, I won’t go into it here.

  That was the reason for dragging me out of Massawa at an unpropitious moment. An important reason, no doubt, but one giving me little peace of mind when I knew I hadn’t a single trained naval assistant in Massawa to take over in my absence, least of all when we were in the midst of a tricky docking operation.

  When finally I had finished with Major Quilln, I breathed a sigh of relief, and in the late afternoon rushed back to Cairo. A seat had already been reserved for me in the Asmara plane via Port Sudan next morning. I should get back to Massawa the day before it was necessary, to shift the Cleopatra myself, which no doubt the C.-in-C.’s headquarters had also figured on.

  Early on the morning of September 22, I was on hand at Heliopolis airport to catch the plane for Asmara, but there was no plane there. Then for the first time, I learned the BOAC plane flights for Asmara didn’t originate in Cairo, the route started in Syria somewhere and the plane was late arriving at Cairo. It would take off for Asmara as soon as it got in and could be refueled.

  The hours dragged on, the morning wasted away, my margin of safety in getting to Massawa shrank constantly and I sat there in Heliopolis, capable of chewing nails had there been any about available for the purpose. Finally the plane arrived in the early afternoon. It had had engine trouble somewhere to delay it.

  Then the final blow was administered. The plane would not take off for Asmara that day—it was too late to start the flight, besides the engines needed attention. They would be tuned up during the rest of the afternoon; next morning we should take off.

  There wasn’t anything I could do except go back to my billet alongside the airfield and await the next day. So I did. The situation now would be that I might with luck arrive a few hours only before the Cleopatra had to be shifted. It was going to be nip and tuck.

  On the morning of September 23, again I was early on hand at the airfield. The plane was wheeled out, our baggage was put aboard, we embarked. The pilot revved up his engines preparatory to the take-off. Apparently they didn’t suit him. All passengers were disembarked while the mechanics were called back to work again on the tuning up supposedly taken care of the day before.

  Whatever was the matter with the ignition system on that plane, I don’t know. The morning drifted away, the sound of the engines never suited the pilot. Finally about noon, we were informed the flight was off for that day also. The mechanics would have to change completely something on the engines; tomorrow morning we should surely fly. For the first time I realized acutely the meaning of what previously I had considered only a flip epigram:

  “If you’ve got lots of time, fly; otherwise go some other way if you want to arrive on schedule.”

  Once again I returned to my billet to impose myself unexpectedly on an overcrowded Army menage. Now I was in real agony—the tricky handling of the Cleopatra on the dry dock, something which on the Dido Admiral Harwood had begged of me for God’s sake to be careful of, was going to be in the hands of a dockmaster in whose competence I had no faith. The Lord alone knew what now was going to happen, with me a thousand miles away, helpless to do anything.

  Next morning, September 24, the third day since it was supposed to start, the BOAC plane took off at last. I arrived in Asmara in the very early afternoon, grabbed an Army car there, and raced for Massawa. This time so far as I was” concerned, the driver could go as fast as he pleased; there was never a word from me to slow down. By 3:00 P.M., I was in the Naval Base, looking out over the water as I roared down the road. Something was wrong, I could see the moment I got a glimpse. The Cleopatra was off the dock, as she should have been, anchored now outside the wrecks. But the dock itself was empty—there was no supply ship lifted out of water on it as should have been there.

  As I dashed through my office to the water front to get my boat and get out on the water to find out what the trouble was, I picked up Captain Morrill who told me, though he knew none of the details. There had been an accident, all right.

  The Cleopatra had dropped off the keel blocks late the night before in connection with the shift; the dry dock was out of commission with all its keel blocks reduced to pulp; and what the damage to the Cleopatra was, no one knew yet. When she fell off the blocks, the dock had been hurriedly flooded down by Spanner to get her out of the dry dock. At that moment in the afternoon, the bottom of the Cleopatra was being inspected by one of my divers, Al Watson, to determine the damage to her.

  So with Glen Galvin opening his throttle wide, with an anguished heart over this catastrophe I raced to the outer roadstead to board the Cleopatra. What had we done to the Cleopatra, a quarter of Admiral Harwood’s priceless fleet?

  Captain G. Grantham, R.N., commanding officer of H.M.S. Cleopatra, met me at the gangway and escorted me to his cabin, where very generously he offered his condolences. He knew apparently how I must feel over what had occurred at my Base during my unexpectedly prolonged absence.

  He had other news for me. His ship, in spite of about a four-foot drop in the dock, had apparently suffered slight damage—his Engineer Officer and his First Lieutenant had reported that at most there was only one minor leak in her bottom that would cause no trouble. Re-docking, which was impossible anyway with my dock out of commission, would not be necessary.

  As for the appearance of his bottom, that he couldn’t tell me, since the diver hadn’t reported yet. Regarding other matters, fortunately no one had been injured; when she went down, no one, native or otherwise, happened to be under her or he would have been crushed to death.

  Very shortly, Al Watson, who had been examining the Cleopatra for some hours, came up to report. There were only four minor dents in the bottom plating; nothing was ruptured anywhere; the leak reported was through a sprung rivet in one of the dents—it was of no great consequence.

  I breathed a sigh of relief. The Cleopatra, at least, had suffered insignificant harm. Her stern repairs had been completed, most of the painting finished, she could sail back for the Mediterranean in good fighting trim. To Captain Grantham and to me, that, of course, was the major matter. We shook hands and he prepared to sail. He would be all right.

  I re-embarked in my boat for the long run back into the naval harbor. The Cleopatra was all right, but how about my dry dock, the only one I yet had working in Massawa? Already two ships were waiting for the dock; at least three more were on the way.

  On the trip, carrying Commander Davy and Lloyd Williams, both of whom I had picked up on the Cleopatra, I learned a little more of what had happened and why.

  W
illiams told me he had finished the repair job early the evening before, according to schedule. It was time to flood down, shift the cruiser aft, and lift her bow out of water as we had done on her two sisters, so her bow might be cleaned and painted. In my absence, Spanner had undertaken to do that and apparently had succeeded. He had lowered away the stern, floated the cruiser, shifted her well aft till her stern overhung the dock, then lifted the bow out of water while the stern floated, so the Eritreans could scrape and paint her bow, which they had started to do. They had finished beneath her and were working on her sides. She had been that way an hour, perhaps longer, when calamity struck.

  The steel hawsers had not been secured taut to the dry dock to hold the Cleopatra tightly in position against sliding aft as she lay sloping aft on the dock. At about 11:00 P.M., she suddenly went aft down the slope, capsizing all the keel blocks and crushing them into matchsticks as her heavy hull came down on top of the mass of toppled blocks. Fortunately, in crushing the blocks as she seesawed aft, she had made a soft cushion for herself on the dry dock floor which had taken the shock and saved her. But what she had done to the dry dock was terrific—there wasn’t a wooden keel block in the dock left to support anything; they were all just rubbish now. The dock was out of commission; that, of course, was why the next supply ship waiting to go on when the Cleopatra undocked, had not been lifted.

  Grateful that the Cleopatra had only been dented slightly and that no one had been hurt, I began to feel somewhat better, even towards Spanner who had been in charge of the shifting. After all, the keel blocks in that Persian dock had had a tough life since May 8, when we had docked our first ship, the Koritza, on them. Some sixty-five or more ships had passed over those blocks in that short time. Perhaps from constant heavy loading, the blocks had finally come to the point where they might have collapsed under the Cleopatra even though Spanner had hauled taut those hawsers. However, I was skeptical of that; the keel blocks had looked in fair shape to me when we were preparing the dock for the Cleopatra. Still I was willing to give Spanner the benefit of the doubt.

  Then Commander Davy’s next remark sent all my altruistic feelings towards Spanner whistling down the wind.

  “When we get ashore, Captain,” he said, “I’ll take up with Alex the return there without docking of the supply ships already here, and the cancellation of all future sailings for docking here for the next six weeks.”

  “Six weeks?” I asked, puzzled. “Why six weeks? That dock’ll never be out of commission that long. Where’d you get that?”

  “Why, from Mr. Spanner, Captain. He went to Captain Lucas at the Royal Naval Base this morning and asked him to send a signal to Alex reporting that the Massawa dry dock would be out of commission for from four to six weeks and to cancel all dockings. Captain Lucas took his word for it as dockmaster, since you weren’t here, and sent the signal. It’s gone already. And Spanner says it’ll take longer than that unless Alexandria sends us immediately the new heavy timbers to saw up into keel blocks. There’s no timber here.”

  Six weeks to replace a set of crushed keel blocks, while that invaluable Massawa dry dock lay idle all that time! Was Spanner crazy? And to think that he should have dared to send such a calamitous signal in my absence! Had he been present in my boat at that moment, I could have wrung his birdlike neck for that! I had suffered enough already from Spanner and his timid flutterings. Now this! What would they think of me in Alexandria!

  Savagely I faced Commander Davy in the cockpit of the boat, though he was in no way to blame.

  “Commander, I’m getting off on the Persian dock, but you take the boat ashore. Send out instantly a signal to Alex, canceling that signal from Spanner. Then send another to the C.-in-C. signed by me as Commanding Officer of this Base. Tell him that on the fourth day from now, that’s the morning of September 28, the Massawa dry dock will dock its next ship. We’ll be out of commission four days only, including today. We’re returning no ships undocked. He’s only to delay those that haven’t started yet, by four days. Do you get that, Davy? And find out if the C.-in-C. can send me another dockmaster instead of Spanner! It makes me ill to think of having to keep him any longer!”

  “Aye, aye, sir,” acknowledged Davy. “I’ll start on it immediately I’m ashore. But, Captain,” he asked, frankly puzzled, “where are you going to get all the new keel blocks? There isn’t a stick of heavy timber in Massawa to cut them from. Spanner’s right about that.”

  “Spanner’s a plain damned fool!” I exploded. “He’s supposed to be a shipwright as well, as a dockmaster, so if he weren’t blind, he’d see. They’re right under his nose. Look!”

  We were passing the salvaged Italian dry dock, floating only a couple of hundred yards from the Persian dock which was disabled for want of keel blocks. Stacked in neat layers out of the way on the floor of that Italian dry dock were hundreds of already cut keel blocks which the bomb explosions had tossed all over its floor. I knew those keel blocks well; I had stumbled over them as they lay scattered on the floor of that dock on the bottom of the sea when I had made my very first dive in Massawa to start off the salvage work. We couldn’t use those keel blocks again on the Italian dry dock till all the holes in her were repaired, which meant till I got steel I didn’t have. Long before I got that steel, I was sure I could get timber for new keel blocks for that dock.

  “All we have to do is to clean up the wreckage of the smashed blocks on the Persian dock, transfer those Italian dock keel blocks a few hundred yards over the water, and set them up in place of the crushed blocks. There’re twice as many blocks available as we need; that Italian dock’s much longer than the Persian one. Davy, if Spanner had only been what he’s supposed to be in his trade, a shipwright, instead of being an empty-headed fool, he’d never have sent that signal this morning! He’s been passing right by those huge stacks of idle keel blocks twice a day in a boat now for weeks, and he’s got the nerve to tell the C.-in-C. there’re no keel blocks in Massawa! And that for want of them, the only working dock within thousands and thousands of miles of Alex is out of commission for six weeks, maybe more unless they give us keel blocks. With technical assistants like that, no wonder commanding officers break down in- the tropics! I could shed tears myself!”

  Glen Galvin was maneuvering the boat in against the stern of the Persian dry dock for our landing. The naked Eritrean on the bow reached out with his boathook and hooked the dock. A brief glance down what had once been the four-foot-high row of keel blocks showed me all I wanted to know. Those blocks were lying now, a pathetic mass of crushed pulp perhaps a foot high, all along the length of the dock floor.

  As soon as we were close in, I leaped onto the dock floor, motioning Lloyd Williams to follow me. Commander Davy stayed in the boat, which immediately shoved clear to go ashore.

  Mr. Spanner was on the stern of the dry dock floor to meet me. At once, in his chirpy manner, he began to explain what had happened, why it had happened.

  “Get the hell out of my sight, Spanner, and keep out of it for the next four days! I’m not blaming you for anything except that idiotic signal you sent the C.-in-C. this morning. There’s no excuse for that, and it cooks your goose with me. This dock’s going to dock its next ship four mornings from now, and I don’t want you balling things up by getting in the road. Lloyd Williams is taking charge of this dock for the next four days, and if you get in his way, it’ll be just too bad for you. Lloyd hasn’t got the patience that I’ve got. Now get out of here!” Spanner looked at me, then like a startled sparrow, he fluttered away.

  “Now, Lloyd,” I said to Williams as soon as Spanner had departed, “I mean just what I said. You’re in charge of this dock for the next four days. Hudson, the engineer, will help you with that overhead crane in laying the new keel blocks, and Hudson’s a man—he’ll help you. If anybody else on this dock attempts to interfere with what you want, don’t argue, smack him one. Now this is what I want. Start all the Eritreans on this dock and every man you’ve got on the It
alian dock cleaning up here and moving blocks over from the salvaged dry dock. I’ll get you all the carpenters I can steal from the contractor ashore out here to help. Take everybody you can lay your hands on—it’s a hell of a big job. This is Thursday afternoon. On Monday morning we flood down to dock the next ship. Now don’t stop for anything; your gang will have to work night and day. Do it your own way, Lloyd; I won’t try to tell you how, only do it. If you want any help from me, sing out; otherwise it’s all up to you.”

  “Aye, aye, Captain; just leave it to me,” Williams assured me in his usual solemn tone. “If you say it’s got to be done in four days, it’ll be done.”

  The next few days and nights were a veritable tornado of activity between the salvaged Eytie dry dock and the Persian dry dock, with Lloyd Williams the center of a frenzied conglomeration of Eritreans, Hindoos, Maltese, Americans, Eyties, South Africans, Englishmen, Sudanese, and Persians.

  It was done. On Monday morning, September 28, with Lloyd Williams wan and haggard but triumphant, the dry dock was flooded down and the next ship landed on a completely new set of keel blocks.

  The Massawa dry dock was going again.

  That same day, with H.M.S. Cleopatra, the third and last of his three damaged cruisers back on her Mediterranean war station and his whole fleet of four light cruisers now for the first time in several months again all fit for action against the enemy, Admiral Harwood sent the following message to General Maxwell:

  Office of the Commander-in-Chief

  Mediterranean Station

  28 September, 1942

  For GENERAL MAXWELL from C.-in-C. Med.

  Very many thanks for splendid work done recently at Massawa. Quick dockings of over 50 merchant ships, raising of Italian docks, and emergency dockings of three cruisers are great achievements, and I know largely due to ELLSBERG’S own great energy. Damage caused in last docking was a risk we accepted and I am glad it was not more serious. Please congratulate ELLSBERG and all his staff.