The Tattie Lads

by Ian Dear

  In the case of the Lavington Court, it was also a waste of effort as on 1 August ‘the vessel broke in two with the after end sinking immediately to be shortly followed by the remainder of the ship as the aftermost bulkhead went. The strain on the 18-inch tow rope was immense as the tow sank and it took only two chops of an axe to cut through the rope at the after tow rail.’24 But thanks to Stanley Butler’s caution the motor launch, HMML 1151, floated clear, and was taken in tow and delivered to Milford Haven, so at least something was salvaged.

  Butler witnessed the Lavington Court sink:

  The whole ship slid down under the waves, surrounded by foaming water. Then all was quiet – very deadly quiet. It was a sad sight, and I found during discussions with other crew members from the CO downwards, that pretty well everyone was affected emotionally. I have seen a few ships large and small go to their watery graves, and always felt it was like attending the funeral of a relative or friend. As this one was slipping away in the moonlight, I thought of all the skill of design and building that had gone into it. A nearly new ship with lovely accommodation, that in peacetime would have been a great pleasure to work and sail in. What a terrible waste.25

  Tough maiden voyage

  Prosperous was one of the later Assurance class tugs to be launched and her crew had a particularly tough introduction to the business of rescuing damaged vessels. She left Cochrane’s shipyard for Methil (Firth of Forth) on 27 November 1942, under the command of Lt JEL Brice RNR, after commissioning and some preliminary trials. She was then delayed at Leith by engine room defects, brought about by the carelessness of her chief engineer, who was promptly relieved of his duties. It was not an auspicious start, but one the crew soon put behind them. She joined a convoy at Methil and left it at Loch Ewe for Campbeltown, arriving there on 18 December for her final trials and crew training. But on 22 December, before these could take place, she was sent to assist the 5704-ton Dutch freighter Jan van Goyen, which had dropped out of the westbound convoy ON-153 (Liverpool–New York) in mid-Atlantic with damaged steering gear.

  Prosperous, accompanied by a corvette, which was also on her maiden voyage, found the drifting ship on 26 December. The weather was exceptionally bad, with a full gale blowing, but the tow rope was eventually connected. For the next four days the engine room staff had to work in almost impossible conditions when the storm stove in the engine room skylights, allowing water to pour down into it. The chief engineer, Sub-Lt (E) CH Hall RNVR, was a naval pensioner and had been appointed only ten days previously, making his ability to manage both staff and engine room all the more remarkable. But manage them he did, and Prosperous delivered the freighter back to the Clyde on 2 January 1943.

  In a memorandum headed ‘Meritorious Towing Operation’, the CCRT wrote about the commanding officer:

  Notwithstanding the appalling weather conditions the operation was completely successful; the absence of accident or breakage of towing equipment reflecting exceptional ability, care and anticipation. This officer has commanded HM rescue tugs for twenty months and been very well reported on, and this is the first time he has been given an opportunity of demonstrating his ability.26

  Hall also deserved recognition for the handling of a difficult situation. After serving in the Royal Navy as an engine room artificer from 1924 to 1929, he was promoted chief ERA before becoming a pensioner. He then worked in dockyards before signing a T.124T Agreement in January 1940 and being promoted to chief engineer in August 1940. But as he had not obtained a Board of Trade Certificate, he was not eligible for the rank of Lt (E) RNR T.124T. This did not deter the CCRT from recommending him for promotion to that rank. He had always resisted increasing the numbers of temporary lieutenant-commanders, but he recommended that Brice be promoted with immediate effect.

  On 9 May 1943, the crew of Prosperous again distinguished themselves by rescuing the crew of a Dutch coaster, SS Jutland, which was on the point of foundering near St Ann’s Head at the entrance to Milford Haven. When first sighted, she had a 50-degree list to port and was being driven towards the rocks by a gale force wind from the north-west. A rough, confused sea was breaking over her, and her crew could be seen aft clinging to her upper works.

  In rescuing the crew, Brice’s report describes an outstanding example of ship-handling in exceptionally difficult circumstances:

  Proceeded to pump oil over side and at full speed made a complete circle of oil around the wreck to stop seas breaking, then approached from the South West at half speed under her stern with the wind on my port bow. When closing the wreck I went full speed astern causing my bow to sheer to starboard and the wind to blow Prosperous alongside the stern of the wreck somewhere about amidships of Prosperous but with my ship still making headway. I stopped the engines as I had reckoned on keeping sufficient headway on to carry Prosperous clear of the wreck before using engines again.

  Some of the crew were apparently numbed with cold and exposure and could not move quickly enough to jump the first time of my approach. I had to alter my plans quickly and came astern again as the coaster was even then commencing to turn turtle, so that had I gone out and taken another run in it would have been too late to save their lives. I rang the telegraph for all stern power the engines were capable of giving. This had the effect of bringing the bow to starboard on the low side of the wreck, the wind blowing her down to its stern. The remaining crew then jumped on to the after deck of Prosperous.26

  At that moment, the coaster started to roll over on to the rescue tug and Brice had to react instantly to save his ship:

  I rang the telegraph for all possible power ahead and with wheel to port to clear the overhanging mast of the wreck. Prosperous came clear. But not before the coaster had practically capsized, and some part of her stern had fouled the stern of Prosperous. There was a terrific jar. Prosperous heeled heavily and then dragged herself clear.

  The entire operation had lasted only fifteen minutes, and moments later the coaster turned turtle. Brice concluded his report:

  The behaviour of the ship’s company of Prosperous was in keeping with the traditions of the Service. I respectfully call attention to the Engine Room staff who remained calmly at their posts giving every possible assistance. The engine’s movements were all made very smartly and thus helped greatly towards the successful conclusion of the operation.26

  All the survivors were landed safely, and by early evening Prosperous was anchored in Milford Haven. The speed of the operation, and the skill with which it was handled, was witnessed by a Trinity House Pilot, who immediately wrote to the FOIC Milford Haven:

  I respectfully beg, as an eye witness and purely unconcerned party, to write you on an incident which took place outside Milford Haven yesterday the 9th instant. At this time I was one of a watch of pilots on duty in the Examination steamer HMS Merkop when we were ordered out to assist the Dutch Coaster Jutland, which was in serious trouble. The weather at the time was extremely bad, a very heavy sea running, and the Jutland was lying on her side liable to capsize completely at any moment; yet, in spite of this, HMRT Prosperous was, solely due to the magnificent handling of her Commanding Officer, able to go alongside and rescue the entire crew. As a pilot for this port and the Channel Islands, and a seaman of twenty years’ experience, I wish to pay tribute to an outstanding act of seamanship.26

  Two other expert witnesses also attested to Brice’s skill, and the FOIC Milford Haven was equally impressed. He suggested to the Admiralty that it would make a good propaganda story, and in due course both incidents were released to the newspapers. What they printed was, of course, for propaganda purposes, but it still rings true:

  Not one man aboard the Prosperous took off his clothing for 10 days. Cooking was impossible. The staple diet was corned beef from tins and hard biscuits. ‘That was the menu for our Christmas and New Year dinners,’ said the first lieutenant, Sub-Lt Alan McLean RNR, of Langside, Glasgow, ‘instead of our beautiful turkeys which were left behind at the base.’

  Cabin
s, alleyways and mess-decks were feet deep in water. Huge seas smashed the engine room skylights, and the water, pouring in, fused all the lights, tore away deck fittings and broke all the crockery aboard. Men took turn about at sleeping on the floor of the radio cabin, the only dry spot in the ship.27

  On returning to base, the crew of the Prosperous found a message of congratulations awaiting them from the C-in-C Western Approaches. The London Gazette cited Hall, who was mentioned in despatches, for his ‘courage and skill’28 and Brice, cited for ‘coolness and courage’, was awarded the MBE for saving the lives of the crew of one ship, and towing safely to port a second that had been damaged. Another newspaper29 reported the reaction of the workers at Cochrane’s shipyard at Selby who had built Prosperous: they passed the hat round and raised £50 for the crew as a tribute to their seamanship.30

  Unnecessary abandonment

  The gravity and dangers of unnecessary abandonment was highlighted in 1943 when the British 3670-ton freighter SS Coulmore, carrying general cargo, was torpedoed in mid-Atlantic. At the time she was part of convoy SC-121 bound for Liverpool, which had departed New York on 23 February 1943. By 6 March, when the convoy ran into two U-boat wolf-packs, a north-west gale had dispersed many of the ships and there was a heavy swell.

  During the next three days twelve ships were sunk, and on the evening of 9 March Coulmore was torpedoed in the forepeak. The concussion was slight, but there had been foreboding among the crew that they were going to be sunk, and they immediately made for the boats. The master raised the alarm with six short blasts on the ship’s whistle, and chaos ensued when the lifeboats and rafts were launched. One of the lifeboats overturned and another drifted away empty. Of the crew of forty-seven, only seven survived the night to be picked up by escort ships.

  The next afternoon, 10 March 1943, the Bustler class Samsonia and a Lend-Lease rescue tug, the Eminent, were ordered from Campbeltown to assist the destroyer HMS Harvester, damaged after ramming a U-boat. They picked up their corvette escort, HMS Aubretia, at Lough Foyle, but Harvester was then sunk by another U-boat and they were diverted to search for Coulmore, and found her on the evening of 13 March. Eminent’s commanding officer, Lt Louis Colmans, wrote in his report:

  Closed vessel. She was abandoned and wallowing in the trough of a rough sea and westerly swell. By first inspection it was noticed she was badly holed forward of her collision bulkhead, No. 1, hatches were nearly all off and water was spouting from her hold at times. State of the weather and the approaching darkness did not permit any connecting operations.31

  By first light the weather had moderated and a party from the Aubretia, under the command of Sub-Lt PC Coyne RNVR, managed to board the abandoned steamer. The reports from the two rescue tugs kept to the bare facts of the operation, but Coyne’s report eloquently describes the extreme difficulties of connecting up and towing an abandoned ship in rough Atlantic weather some thirteen hundred miles from land:

  On boarding I immediately went forward to ascertain damage caused by the explosion, and found that forepeak collision bulkhead and forward bulkhead of number one hold had been blown away, the weight of water thus being taken on the after bulkhead of number one hold. The starboard cable and locker had fallen through the bottom of the ship, the cable parting on the windlass. The port cable had also parted on the windlass but was still held by the whelps. The hatch covers of number one hold had been blown off and hold apparently empty of cargo.31

  As it was impossible to tow the ship from her bows, the towing wires were made fast to her stern. This was not so easily done, as the Eminent’s four-and-a-half-inch wire hawser had to be manhandled on to the towing bollards on the port side of the Coulmore’s poop. It needed the whole party of fourteen men aboard the Coulmore, using two luff tackles, to succeed, but eventually the Eminent was connected. Samsonia attempted to connect up by passing a four-inch messenger rope through Coulmore’s starboard after fairlead, but it promptly broke as it could not bear the weight of the sixty fathoms of wire in the water.

  The operation was not going well and the weather was deteriorating, so while Samsonia was recovering, her wire Coulmore’s boarding party took the precaution of making an emergency raft from the hatch covers of No. 1 hold. After Samsonia had again failed to connect, her commanding officer, Lt-Cdr Owen Jones RNR, took her alongside the Coulmore. The wire’s messenger rope was led back to the rescue tug’s after capstan, and this hauled the wire aboard the freighter. The boarding party led it through the after fairlead and secured it to the towing bollards on the starboard side of the Coulmore’s poop so that at 14.45 on 14 March, both rescue tugs were ready to commence towing together.

  During the afternoon, the wind continued to increase again from the south-west, kicking up a rough sea with a short but heavy swell. The tow rope on both rescue tugs was inspected regularly, but in the early hours of the following morning, 15 March, the Coulmore began to sheer violently, and at 07.30 the Eminent’s wire parted. ‘Commenced to heave wire aboard,’ Colmans wrote laconically. Coyne’s description was more graphic: ‘The port wire jumped the fairlead and parted, carrying away the guardrails and one support to the gun platform. The wind was blowing about force 6 and the ship was rolling heavily.’

  Samsonia was also in trouble, as at about the same time as the Eminent’s tow rope parted, Samsonia’s wire suddenly wrenched its fairlead out of the Coulmore’s deck, and carried away the freighter’s starboard guardrails. The wire was now across the beading on the starboard quarter and chafing badly, but before this could be prevented with packing, the starboard bollard, to which the wire was attached, cracked across the middle. The inboard half began to lift out of the deck, but Coyne considered it too dangerous for the boarding party to do anything in case the bollard gave way altogether.

  Samsonia continued to tow until around midday on 16 March, when the wire suddenly broke. By now it was far too rough for her to try to reconnect; and that evening the Eminent’s towing wire ‘snapped’, as Coyne described it, ‘throwing the broken bollard twelve yards away’.

  The Coulmore was now adrift again. The weather made reconnecting impossible, so Coyne decided to use the ship’s main engines, which were still in working order. The ship was steered stern first, taking a course that protected her damaged bows from the worst of the weather. But she had barely any way on and steering her, as may be imagined, was very difficult, and, anyway, in the early hours of 17 March both engines seized up. But the rescue tugs had been standing by and reconnected when the weather moderated, although it took the Eminent more than three hours to do so.

  The weather continued to improve and early in the afternoon of 19 March Aubretia departed for Londonderry, and the two rescue tugs headed for Rothesay, leaving the Coulmore at Kames Bay the following evening.

  In due course the abandonment of the Coulmore was referred to the Leggett Committee, which investigated such cases. The committee’s findings were unequivocal and severe, but as ‘unhappily none of the principals concerned survived’, the Board refrained from censoring any individual.

  Another report called it ‘a very sad story of panic and premature abandonment, which resulted in unnecessary loss of life’,31 and added that if the damage had been examined it would have shown ‘that the only safe and sane course was to remain on board’. The only good note this report struck was that it concluded by saying that the ultimate salvaging of the ship by the two rescue tugs and their corvette escort ‘was a very fine piece of work’.

  The sole dissident voice among this barrage of recrimination was that of the second radio officer, the only officer to have survived. After describing the bravery of a sixteen-year-old deck boy who could not swim, but who had let go the seaman who was supporting him when he found he was dragging the man under, he ended his report with the following words:

  Captain Ashford was an extremely fine type of ship’s master, and I am deeply sorry he was not amongst the survivors. I feel sure that he placed the safety of his crew before any othe
r consideration, including his own life.

  Danger of collision

  If premature abandonment was one of the many dangers for those manning the Atlantic convoys, collision was another that often had fatal consequences. One particularly horrendous incident occurred when the eastbound convoy HX-252 of fifty-two ships was off Newfoundland on the night of 18 August 1943. In the thick fog that blanketed the convoy, the Liberty ship J Pinckney Henderson and the tanker JH Senior collided. The former was carrying a particularly combustible cargo, which included magnesium, glycerine, resin and wax; the tanker was loaded with aviation fuel. The force of the collision was such that the aviation fuel was sprayed over both ships, and within seconds both were ablaze. Three of the Liberty ship’s crew of seventy-two survived the inferno by jumping into the sea, as did six of the tanker’s crew before she sank. The Liberty ship stayed afloat and in the thick fog drifted off into the Atlantic where she was found nearly two weeks later, still ablaze, by the Assurance class Griper, which had arrived with a westbound convoy at St John’s the previous week.

  ‘In a brilliant display of seamanship,’ wrote the historian of the Liberty ships,32 ‘Charles Stanford [Griper’s commanding officer] managed to place six of his men on board the Liberty ship to secure the towing wire. The deck plating on the ship was so hot that men of the boarding party had to wrap sacking around their boots. It had been planned to use the ship’s anchor chain as one end of the towing line but the chain was too hot to handle. In consequence the end of the tug’s 120-fathom long wire was manhandled aboard and secured’, and the funeral pyre was brought back to Sydney, Nova Scotia, where hundreds of onlookers gathered to watch.

  The horrific scene that met those who went aboard the smouldering wreck was described by one of the rescue tug’s crew, seventeen-year-old Tom Gay: