No Banners, No Bugles

by Edward Ellsberg

  But shot-down bombers or not, the raid left me and my few men with plenty more to do. Wearily I went about it. In the midst of all that, I had word the Admiral of the Fleet wanted to see me. I left the harbor, went back to the St. George. What now?

  It was enough in my then state of mind. Very glumly, Cunningham told me he had bad news for me. The day after my dinner at General Eisenhower’s, Cunningham, thinking to seize a golden opportunity while he had our Chief of Naval Operations still in Algiers, had told Admiral King he and Eisenhower were going to recommend me for promotion to rear admiral; would King please see that the recommendation got a fair wind and speedy action when it got to Washington?

  The result had been wholly unexpected. King had told him that so far as he was concerned, nothing would give him greater pleasure. But it just couldn’t be done. No longer in the regular Navy, I was now a naval reserve officer. Congress, by law, had restricted the Naval Reserve to exactly one officer in the rank of rear admiral; there already was one, a much older officer than I, holding down a desk job in Washington. No more could legally be made.

  Greatly distressed at such an unfair situation, Cunningham told me he, of course, had to agree with King that it was useless to make the recommendation. Our Congress was as much beyond King’s control as Parliament was beyond his own. Much as he, as well as Admiral King regretted it, I must remain a captain. As for himself, aside from all other aspects of this fiasco due to our strange laws, it was unfortunate to leave the command situation on future wrecks in quite undesirable shape. But there was nothing he could do about it.

  I thanked the Admiral of the Fleet both for his goodwill and for his intentions; it certainly wasn’t his fault nor General Eisenhower’s. I would continue to do the best I could.

  I said goodby and went back to my newly bombed wrecks in the harbor, very low in spirits. My own country had done next to nothing in helping out with materials or anything else the few men it had sent to fight its war on the sea in the Mediterranean. Why did Congress have to make a bad situation worse by discriminating against some officers because they were reserves, and forbid them rank enough to cope properly with the situations the war tossed them into? It wasn’t so in the Army; it wasn’t so in the Air Corps. Both had non-regulars by the dozens wearing the silver stars of brigadiers and major generals, and even of lieutenant generals; all needed them for the jobs they had. But apparently naval reserve officers were a completely different and inferior breed of cats; Congress didn’t think enough of us to let us have rank equal to our war zone jobs. Under such conditions, no wonder anybody with a little more rank in any other service, kicked us around. I was still wincing under the latest set of black and blue marks I’d got myself. However, as well as I could I shrugged my shoulders, told myself “C’est la guerre!” and went back to Algiers harbor to board my wrecks, feeling somewhat as if a bomb had just exploded right under my stern also.

  I was still busily engaged next day on those wrecks when in the afternoon, I got word from the Admiral of the Fleet’s office there was trouble to the eastward. A very sketchy radio dispatch had come in indicating there had been a battle at sea off Bougie between a convoy bound east and Nazi torpedo planes. While they had succeeded in saving their accompanying merchant ships from any harm, both of the warships protecting the convoy—the Javelin class destroyer H.M.S. L 06, and the anti-aircraft cruiser H.M.S. Pozarica— had been torpedoed and badly damaged. Both were trying to make Bougie; their safe arrival was uncertain; too little was known of their condition. What could be done to help?

  I had no salvage forces at all in Bougie; no ship, no men. All I could do was to order the Salvestor to stand by to cast loose from the Strasbourg and steam for Bougie if she got further word. There was no use ordering her to start immediately; she couldn’t possibly get clear and arrive for more than twenty-four hours yet; she would be much too late. There was only one other thing possible; to start overland for Bougie myself. It was about 110 miles away; in three hours I could get there.

  So taking only Lieutenant Ankers with me (both of us hastily grabbing guns and very little else), I headed eastwards out of Algiers in my jeep. Meanwhile, Captain King, R.N., of Cunningham’s staff, the Fleet Naval Constructor, started soon after us in another car.

  Ankers drove all the way, nearly hiding the steering wheel with his huge paws. It was very cold in that open jeep with the wintry wind getting a free sweep at us. Long before we got to Bougie, Ankers’ hands on the wheel, in spite of his gloves, were so frozen they were numb lumps of flesh. Jammed into what little space his massive frame left me of the front seat, I myself was frozen so stiff I could hardly move.

  Even with the many truck convoys we had to pass, Ankers made Bougie in not much over two hours. We roared through the town to the waterfront just as dusk was falling, to haul up finally on the outer quay overlooking the Mediterranean.

  Our reception in Bougie was disheartening. As we drew up in the semi-darkness on the stone quay, hoping to find some fast boat awaiting us on which we might get out to sea, a whole flotilla of miscellaneous small boats swung in alongside the quay and began to disgorge shipwrecked British seamen. There was the whole crew of H.M.S. Pozarica from captain on down, over four hundred men, scrambling up on the quay around us. Evidently the major ship we had come to save had sunk; engulfing our jeep was her whole ship’s company bearing on their backs what little of their belongings, mainly clothes, they had managed to escape with.

  I spotted her captain; from his gold lace, a regular Royal Navy four-striper, as suited a cruiser command. With difficulty, I slid my numbed legs out of the jeep, went up to him, introduced myself. Obviously, his ship had foundered; but how about the L 06, that destroyer with him? Was she, at least, still afloat, so we could do anything for her?

  I learned I had jumped to a wrong conclusion. Yes, the L 06 was still afloat. But so also was his ship, the Pozarica, though she wouldn’t be much longer. If it weren’t so dark, I might perhaps still be able to see part of her forecastle some miles out in the bay where they’d finally abandoned her. With her stern wide open to the sea, she was on the point of capsizing or foundering or both; you couldn’t tell which first. Her propeller shaft was bent and useless, her rudder and part of her fantail had been blown off by the torpedo which had hit her squarely astern; what was left of her aft was already fourteen feet under water; she had a terrific list to port, an ungodly trim by the stern, and was about to go down. He had finally ordered her abandoned; there he was with his whole crew except the casualties from the exploding torpedo. I needn’t bother about his ship; she was beyond hope. And I needn’t bother about the destroyer either; she didn’t need any help. She’d been hit forward, leaving her machinery all intact; while badly damaged, she was still safely afloat and would remain so.

  That sounded better. One sinking ship at a time was enough to keep Ankers and me busy. We could concentrate on the Pozarica. I peered out across the wide Bay of Bougie for a glimpse of her. But it was already too dark; I could make out nothing. I turned again to her commanding officer.

  “Well, Captain,” I said, “you pick out about thirty or forty of your ratings here that’ll do the most good in saving her, and we’ll start right back. We’ll bring her in yet!”

  On that quay in Bougie, my education was finally completed. Her captain wasn’t going back to try to save his ship; neither was he ordering any of his crew back aboard. She was already a total loss; why bother with her further?

  I had spotted hovering about on the fringe of the mob of shipless sailors, that Scotch lieutenant of Royal Engineers (together with a few of his khaki-clad enlisted men) who had taken such an interest in salvaging the half-sunken Glenfinlas when I had been in Bougie only the week before. I was sure I could rely on that British army lieutenant for the men I needed. His soldiers were at least all mechanics; he himself was a good engineer.

  So I didn’t argue with the Pozarica’s skipper; it was no use. He had four stripes; as many as I. I couldn’t cla
im to be Senior Officer Present and order him to do anything; I didn’t have rank enough to try it; I never should have. And there didn’t seem to be any value in wasting what slight energy I had left in pleading with him; he had clearly enough stated his ideas.

  I beckoned to the Royal Engineer lieutenant; he pushed his way through to me. Would he and his soldiers, two or three squads of them, go out to sea with me to try to save the abandoned cruiser Pozarica for the Royal Navy?

  To my joy (I knew he’d do it), he said he would. He went even further, to tell me that in anticipation of help coming, he’d already started out a small flat barge with a sergeant and some of his soldiers on it and one of the only type of pump he had—a high pressure gasoline-driven fire pump. He had another such pump coming down to the quay very shortly; those pumps were intended only for fighting air raid fires in Bougie; they weren’t high capacity low pressure salvage pumps, but they might be of some help on a ship. Anyway, those two were all the portable pumps of any kind in Bougie; would I look at the one soon to arrive and tell him whether it was worth sending out? The other one was just like it.

  Here was a man! I forgot all about the Pozarica’s captain; I didn’t need him any more. I turned to on that engineer lieutenant, instructing him to get as much suction hose for his two fire pumps as he could; we’d need it all, as well as his pumps, which while not suited to the job, were at least something.

  But if I’d forgotten the skipper of the Pozarica, he hadn’t forgotten me. Now that he saw I had some men to help, even though they were only unseagoing British soldiers, and that we were going out, he thrust his way through his own milling seamen to my side, to give me the most severe shock of my entire salvage career. He tried to persuade me not to go out to try to save his sinking ship!

  Now I had seen everything in salvage. Never again could I have a new experience, unless it should be my ill-luck to go down trapped inside a foundering ship myself—as soon seemed likely from the arguments of the Pozarica’s captain.

  But if I couldn’t order that captain to do anything, no more was he in any position to give me any orders. He couldn’t keep me off the Pozarica; she wasn’t his any more; he’d abandoned her. I turned away to continue my instructions to the army lieutenant and some of his sergeants. We had to wait a bit for the second fire pump and the additional suction hose to arrive. We got a bite to eat while we waited, and a drink to thaw Ankers and me out.

  While we waited, we acquired some new recruits. A Royal Navy lieutenant (interestingly enough, a reserve lieutenant), pushed up to tell me he was one of the junior engineers on the Pozarica; he and some half dozen of his enlisted engineering ratings wanted to go back with me to help save their ship; they knew her and could be useful; would I take them with me?

  I would; neither I nor they put whatever nautical nuances might be involved in that proceeding, up to their skipper. If they or I ever got court-martialed for it, the court would have to decide on the ethics of our action. I wasn’t bothering; neither were they.

  Shortly, jammed in amongst her deck torpedo tubes, we shoved off in the darkness on a British MTB carrying the second fire pump on its rubber-tired carriage, about a dozen soldiers, the few men belonging to the Pozarica and their lieutenant, Ankers, the Scotch lieutenant, and myself. Our pockets were bulging with all the flashlights we could scavenge around Bougie—we’d need them inside the pitch-black hull of the dying Pozarica, a strange ship to most of us.

  The sub-lieutenant commanding the MTB gave her the gun once he was clear of the quay. We roared out through the harbor defense nets into the wide Bay of Bougie, practically the open sea. Even in the darkness, the speedy MTB made short work of the few miles to sea where the abandoned cruiser lay. On our way, we passed the destroyer L 06 not far off, anchored by her stern now somewhat closer to shore but well outside the harbor. She was, of course, wholly blacked out.

  I could vaguely make out her profile as we shot by her in the night—there was only half a destroyer there; the stern half. From her bridge forward, she just didn’t exist any more. No torpedo alone could have done that; her forward magazine must have exploded also and blown her bow half to bits. But so far as I could judge, the rest of her was on an even keel at about normal draft. Her watertight bulkheads beneath her bridge must still be intact; there was no indication that she was making any water aft. It was remarkable, but what I’d been told seemed true. I didn’t need to bother about her; she was evidently safely afloat and would stay so. The Pozarica would be our only problem; she would be enough.

  The MTB raced on by the amputated L 06, then began to swerve sharply in the darkness, first to starboard, then to port, heeling crazily each time as she swung. Her skipper was evidently dodging the protruding masts of the numerous troopships bombed and sunk earlier off Bougie; I couldn’t see them till each in succession flitted by us in the night but he knew where they were. The Bay of Bougie was already a considerable graveyard for British ships. I reflected grimly that the Pozarica’s skipper had brought her to an appropriate enough spot in which to bury her; she would, so far as he was concerned, have much company there on the ocean floor.

  Very soon we made out the shadow which was the waterlogged hulk of the anti-aircraft light cruiser H.M.S. Pozarica, with the deserted guns of her two forward turrets still pointing futilely skyward. The MTB slowly circled her so that I might look her over. In the darkness, I could see but little, but that little was enough. We should have the tiger by the tail if we boarded the Pozarica now. If we did, and ever saw Bougie again, with or without that cruiser, it would be more luck than we had any right to expect.

  She was lying with even the heavy gun atop her after deckhouse completely submerged and the sea already lapping up against her midships superstructure. Her quarterdeck had wholly vanished beneath the waves; her after end must be entirely flooded. She had an ominous trim by the stern; so much so, it seemed any minute she was about to slide stern first into the sea and disappear altogether. So heavily was she trimmed down aft, her stem had been lifted wholly out of water, exposing her forefoot and a good part of her keel forward.

  To top off all, she had a hellish list to port; her tripod masts and her stack were leaning far over. It was evident that between that list and her trim, keeping any footing at all on her tilted decks would be a problem even for a monkey. Why in that condition she still remained afloat was a puzzle. I judged her after engine room bulkhead must still be holding against the sea, giving her buoyancy enough amidships and forward to keep her afloat and relatively still right side up. How long that bulkhead might continue to do so was anybody’s guess; if it let go, she’d go down like a rock.

  All in all, the abandoned Pozarica, inert, dark as a tomb, awash, fearfully heeled over, with an alarming trim aft, was an awesome sight to look upon, a frightening object to dream of boarding. As I first saw her, shrouded in darkness, engulfed in the blackness of the night, seemingly about to be swallowed up by the inky sea already washing over her aft, she was an even more terrifying ship to board than the blazing Strathallan. There at least the roaring flames gave an illusion of life and more light than we ever had any need for; here on the careened Pozarica all seemed only cold death and ghastly darkness waiting us.

  We boarded the Pozarica, climbing up one of the scramble nets draped down her starboard side. I told the MTB skipper to hang on there for further orders. A little aft of where we came alongside was the float sent out before, practically fair with the ship’s gunwale at the awash deck. I asked the Scotch lieutenant to start heaving his two fire pumps up on deck and as far aft as he still had any deck left to stand them on; he wouldn’t have much of a lift in doing it nor far to go. While he was busy on that, Ankers, the Pozarica’s engineer lieutenant, and I, would survey her inside and below and see what she needed.

  With our flashlights boring holes in the ebony blackness, the three of us, led by the Royal Navy man who knew the ship, threaded our way over the cockbilled decks inside the midships superstructure, then down
a deck, then inboard to the bulkhead door leading below to her engine room. I shined my light inside there, peered down on a mass of tilted gratings, drunkenly inclined ladders, and grotesquely heeled over machinery.

  Followed by Ankers and the other lieutenant, I started down the narrow steel ladder into the black cavern below, clinging with one hand to a precarious hold on the oily ladder, with the other swinging my torch all about. The after bulkhead was squirting stinging jets of water at us; the ship must be completely flooded on the other side of that bulkhead. Down three flights of steel ladders I went; a fearful climbing job. Those steep and slippery engine room ladders with all their winding turns would have been bad enough with the ship in normal trim and fully illuminated; as she was, it was a feat for an acrobat to get down them with an unbroken neck.

  By the time I got near the floor plate gratings, I knew where I was at with the Pozarica. That after engine room bulkhead was all that was keeping her afloat; she was solidly flooded aft of it all the way to its top; those high pressure leaks all over it proved that. So long as that bulkhead held, she wouldn’t sink, except gradually.

  But she was surely going to capsize long before she was ready to sink bodily unless something was done swiftly. For aside from all the fine leaks, there was a continuous flow of water entering the lower engine room around the propeller shaft where it passed through the after bulkhead, and even more water was streaming steadily in around the bulging watertight door to the flooded shaft alley. That low down near her keel, the weight of the sea pressing from way above the submerged quarterdeck, was too much for both watertight door and shaft stuffing box—they’d never been built to hold any pressure like that, and they weren’t holding against it. I took a second look at that bulging shaft alley door; it was the weakest spot on the bulkhead. If it let go, God help us! But nothing could be done about it just then, except to ignore it and hope it might hold till we could get around to shoring it.