One Common Enemy

by Jim McLoughlin

  This is crazy. Just plain crazy.

  We had destroyers with us, which was reassuring, and also the aircraft carrier Ark Royal with its squadron of Skua dive-bombers. But the Germans had established air bases in Norway and if the Luftwaffe got to us we’d be hopelessly trapped. Like sitting ducks, we were, and I didn’t much fancy being sunk. We’d been told if we ever ended up in the drink in the Arctic we’d be dead within three minutes.

  Nothing came of it in the end. With the ship on high-alert, we went into the harbour at Harstad, the troops disembarked safely from the liners, and we came straight out again. But the possibility of air raids put us on edge, and gave us a taste of the tension we could expect as the war pushed on. After another stint at Scapa Flow, where it was still cold and boring, it was a great relief when we were ordered to join H Force at Gibraltar.

  ‘There are monkeys in Gibraltar,’ Charlie announced.

  ‘Bollocks. You only get monkeys in Africa,’ scoffed Freddie.

  ‘You’ll see I’m right soon enough,’ Charlie countered. He was a cocky lad.

  ‘One thing’s for certain, there’ll be a bunch of bloody ugly monkeys in Gibraltar when we get there,’ Johnny decided.

  ‘It’ll be nice and warm, that’s all I know,’ I said.

  ‘Yeah, a Mediterranean holiday, that’s what we’ll be having.’

  We steamed south toward warmer waters and once the bitter cold of Scotland was well behind us we were issued with white uniforms and pith helmets. Mad dogs and Englishmen, out in the midday sun! Each day it got warmer and soon they put us on shorter watches, so we had more spare time than usual. We’d lie about on the deck near the big guns, stripped to the waist, soaking up the unfamiliar warmth of the sun. This is okay, Gibraltar will be like Bermuda.

  Having time to lie about in the sun had its disadvantages, and they weren’t confined to sunburn. There was too much time to think. The action in Norway showed me that war was a dangerous business and that I was well and truly in it, like it or not. I began to worry about my future as I realised that being in the Royal Navy meant more than adventure. This could easily get me killed. The anxiety was building and I’m sure my shipmates were having the same thoughts. But it wasn’t the sort of thing we talked about as we steamed down the coast of Portugal and through the Straits of Gibraltar to the legendary British stronghold at the bottom of Spain.

  Being in Gibraltar’s harbour, in the shadow of that awesome rock, made us feel strangely secure. Soon after we arrived, the buzz around the mess deck was all about the Italian aircraft that were often seen flying high overhead.

  ‘Those Italians, they can’t bomb us while we’re here, you know,’ someone said. It was such an outlandish claim that it got everyone talking at once.

  ‘How’s that, then?’

  ‘It’s because of the updrafts.’

  ‘What the hell are you on about? Bloody updrafts!’

  ‘The rock causes these massive updrafts, what with the wind and everything. And it throws the bombs off course. It’s a well-known fact, I’m telling you.’

  ‘It’s a well-known fact that you talk a load of bollocks.’

  There was always nonsense talk like that in the ship’s mess decks. Someone would air an opinion on something they knew nothing about and suddenly it’d be around the ship as if it had come from the captain himself.

  I liked Gibraltar. We went ashore and, of course, Charlie was proved right, just like he said he would be. There were indeed monkeys living on the Rock of Gibraltar. Someone told us the old myth that says if the monkeys ever leave, British reign over Gibraltar will end. We took folk­lore like that seriously back then. It was reassuring I suppose.

  Our first big job in the Mediterranean came early in July, just a few days after the fall of France. We were ordered to attack the French battle fleet tied up in the harbour at Oran, in Algeria. Britain couldn’t afford to have those ships escape because it was a certainty that the newly installed pro-German Vichy French government would hand them over to the German Navy for use against us. Oran was only about 250 miles away on the North African coast, so we steamed urgently eastwards.

  Oran had a harbour with a massive protective sea wall and the French ships were tucked away behind it. I was on the bridge watching through binoculars when they started getting up steam, ready to make a break. I could see the upper structures of the French ships quite clearly. Valiant’s 15-inch gun crews were called to action stations and they began to lob shells over the sea wall onto the trapped ships. The noise was stunning: violent booms followed by breathtaking screeches. Then smoke billowed from behind the sea wall.

  I was amazed at what we were doing. One day the French were our allies, the next we were pumping 15-inch shells at their ships. We hit them terribly hard and I knew a lot of French sailors were dying, but all I felt was relief that there was no danger to Valiant in any of this.

  This relief was swept aside almost immediately on our next job escorting a convoy carrying Hurricane fighters from Gibraltar to Malta. As we passed through the Straits of Pantelleria at night, our radar picked up ships approaching Valiant. Travelling at the speed they were, they had to be Italian motor torpedo boats. The Italians had a fine navy and those torpedo boats, their smallest, fastest craft, were potentially deadly. The call to action stations sounded through the ship and I rushed to my station inside the cramped compartment below the third 4.5 gun turret. As the Italian boats approached unseen in the darkness, the order was given.

  ‘Fire!’

  Inside the turret the warning bell sounded and a split second later our gun fired. Then I heard a massive explosion directly above me. As the gun next to us had turned onto its target, its inbuilt stopping mechanism had failed, causing it to swing right around and fire an armour piercing shell directly into our turret. There was utter chaos. Our turret filled with dense, choking smoke, and one chap tumbled off the pedestal above me. Another sailor was blasted backwards into our space below the gun, right at my feet. One of his arms was half blown away. Blood spurted from a gruesome, gaping hole in his side. Strangely, he didn’t make a sound, but the rest of us were screaming. The urge to get out through the hatch behind us and abandon our post was overpowering, but just as pandemonium threatened, our petty officer ‘Bugs’ Roman saved the day. Bugs was a man whose many years in the navy had taught him the value of discipline when hell starts breaking loose.

  ‘Misfire, misfire!’ he yelled. ‘Stand! Nobody move!’

  At that, our training took over. We stayed, but my goodness, we needed the steadying influence of our petty officer. If it hadn’t been for his presence of mind our action stations would have become panic stations.

  The wounded sailor died right before our eyes. It was ghastly. And then it dawned on me that this was poor Hicks of the ridiculous marmalade jam argument. He lay dead at my feet and I was sick with regret.

  I was never the same again.

  4 – Convoys, chaos and carnage

  Despite the dreadful accident, Valiant never slowed. She just kept steaming through the Straights of Pantelleria, heading for Malta. The apparent threat from the Italian torpedo boats didn’t materialise. It seemed to me that Hicks had died for no reason at all.

  Two slow, war-weary biplanes flew out to meet the convoy as we approached Malta. They were hopelessly outdated and outclassed Gloster Gladiators of the Royal Air Force, known to the people of Malta as Faith and Hope. Along with another Gladiator called Charity, which had been destroyed the previous year, they had become the last heroic lynchpin in the defence of Malta. Their pilots must have been cheered by the sight of our convoy, because they knew it was bringing new Hurricanes for them.

  But Valiant didn’t stop at Malta, sailing on to Alexandria instead. There, in January 1941, we joined Admiral Cunningham’s C Force. We moored in Alexandria Harbour, right next to a warship of the French fleet that was being guarded by the British. The French sailors were still on board under a form of house arrest. Like our earlier attack o
n the French battle fleet at Oran, this was to prevent the ship from being handed over to the Germans by the Vichy French government. We’d sit out on Valiant’s deck and watch them, and they’d sit on their deck and watch us back. That was pretty strange. But it was good to be in Alexandria because it gave us a chance to rest up. An ordnance crew came aboard and got to work repairing the damage to our turret. Fear had begun to invade me in an insidious way, but I kept a lid on it as best I could.

  Bloody hell, what’s going to happen next?

  Whenever we went ashore in Alexandria we headed straight to the Fleet Club, a Royal Navy establishment where the British crews anchored in Alexandria Harbour gathered to eat, drink, swap yarns and get into fights over trivial matters, like whose ship was bigger and better. It was terrific, the Fleet Club, noisy and boisterous with its big bar, billiard tables, and frantic Egyptian waiters serving cheap meals. My shipmates and I always ordered the same: steak, eggs and chips with well-done fried onions and a pint of beer, followed by quite a few more pints. I used to love that. It got me in the frame of mind for having fun.

  Some of the Alexandria locals travelled about in horse-drawn carts called gharries. One day a group of us at the Fleet Club got talking about those gharries in an idle, beer-fuelled kind of way.

  ‘We need our own personal transport, that’s what we need,’ said ‘Scouse’ Parker, another sailor from Valiant who’d joined our regular drinking group.

  ‘Yeah, our own personal transport.’

  ‘A gharry would be perfect,’ Parker said.

  ‘How could we get one, do you think?’ Freddie asked.

  ‘We could steal one,’ Johnny suggested.

  ‘No, we’ll commandeer one.’

  ‘Even better.’

  So we agreed to commandeer a gharry. Only a combi­nation of beer and youth can make that seem like a good idea. Out we went into the crowded streets of Alexandria and pretty soon we saw a gharry that took our fancy.

  ‘Does anyone know how to drive a gharry?’ I asked. I had driven a horse-drawn laundry van, but didn’t think that counted for much.

  ‘I do,’ said Parker.

  ‘Then we appoint you our official gharry driver,’ I said.

  ‘I accept.’

  It was easier than I thought. We simply approached the gharry, hoisted out the driver and poured ourselves in. The poor driver protested loudly but the beer made us indifferent. Besides, none of us understood Arabic.

  ‘What’s he saying?’

  ‘Haven’t got a clue.’

  Parker grabbed hold of the reins with great flair and off we galloped. It was an interesting drive, but only for about five seconds. After that it seemed more dangerous than being on a battleship. Parker didn’t have the faintest idea what he was doing.

  ‘I thought you said you could drive a gharry!’ I yelled from the back.

  ‘I didn’t say I could drive this one.’

  ‘Oh.’

  ‘Tell the bloody horse to stop!’

  ‘What good’s that going to do?’ Parker said, heaving back on the reins. ‘He doesn’t understand English.’

  ‘Silly me.’

  With the horse out of control, the gharry swerved all over the narrow street, people yelling at us and leaping out of the way. Pretty soon Parker realised he was a hopeless gharry driver and abandoned any further attempts at controlling the horse. He let go of the reins and thankfully the animal stopped. A little shaken, but laughing uncontrollably, we abandoned the gharry and slipped unsteadily into the crowd.

  At other times I would set off around Alexandria by myself. I really enjoyed that colourful place, with its chaotic back alleys and bazaars, all crammed with pokey shops and open-air stalls. It was dirty, noisy and packed with jostling, yelling people. The air was sharp with spices and the pungent smells of strange food cooking. I thought it was wonderful in an exotic, slightly mysterious way.

  The traders got excited whenever they saw British sailors approaching. They pushed and poked us, holding their wares up in front of our faces, demanding we spend our money. It was possible to buy just about anything in the back alleys and bazaars of Alexandria. It was even possible to buy a woman. One of my mates, Peter Rimmer, was always on the lookout for ‘blue’ photographs. By today’s standards I suppose they were tame, but back then they were definitely considered illicit. Peter had quite a collection, which he guarded jealously.

  After our runs ashore we’d go back to the ship and confront reality again. I began to dread the telltale signs that our force was getting ready for sea again. We’d see ‘flashing up’: smoke belching from the funnels of ships in the harbour and pennants going up all over the place.

  Oh, oh. Here we go again. Where is it this time?

  We’d steam out of Alexandria Harbour and maybe a couple of hours later they’d tell us where we were going. It was usually to Malta, escorting yet another convoy. We were invariably shadowed by the Luftwaffe’s long-range Condor reconnaissance aircraft, so were always on high-alert. We accompanied the aircraft carrier HMS Illustrious on a number of those Malta convoys. She had Fairey Fulmar and Swordfish aircraft of the Fleet Air Arm aboard, which at least gave us some air cover. They were courageous blokes who flew in those Swordfish. They had open cockpits and were made of wood, fabric and bracing wire, so the crews were often exposed to the fury of bad weather. ‘String bags’, we used to call them. They flew very slowly and were sitting ducks.

  As these convoys continued through February and March, I stood my watch as usual on Valiant’s bridge. Often a young blond midshipman would be up there with us. He had joined the ship in Alexandria in January. He was an ADO, an Air Defence Officer, and his job was to coordinate the searchlights and lookouts scanning the skies for aircraft. He was a little older than me and his name was Prince Philip of Greece. Sometimes he would chat to us, but otherwise kept to himself. He was just another crewman as far as we were concerned, no one special at all.

  We often stopped in Malta, and I hated that. The Italians regularly bombed Valetta Harbour, although it was a little safer because of the protection offered by the RAF Hurricanes we had escorted across from Gibraltar. The Italians bombed us from high altitude, and not all that accurately, but when the Germans came into the Mediterranean they brought their dreaded Stuka dive-bombers with them. They’d use them on us whether we were at sea or holed up in the harbour at Malta. We’d see them high up, then they’d roll over into a near-vertical dive with their characteristic high-pitched scream. It was terrifying, that sound. Some­times the RAF Hurricanes would streak over to take on the Stukas in snarling dogfights. I was frightened most of the time on those convoys, and judging by the frantic rush to the heads after the Stukas departed, I wasn’t the only one. Stukas must be the best laxative ever developed. It was like that all the way to Malta, and all the way back again. I didn’t think there could be anything more terrifying than a Stuka attack.

  Our work in the Mediterranean often involved support for the British Army along the North Africa coast, bombarding enemy positions with our 15-inch guns. Once we attacked a position near Bardiyah, just east of Tobruk, firing into the big sandy cliffs at the water’s edge. Then, out of nowhere the cliffs started firing back. The culprit was a white fort on top of the escarpment.

  ‘The bloody cheek,’ fumed our gunnery officer. ‘We can’t have that. Demolish that thing immediately!’

  On his command, our gunners swung all eight of Valiant’s 15-inch guns to the same side of the ship and fired them simultaneously in a vicious broadside. There was a tremendous blast as the shells shrieked off toward the coast, leaving a great cloud of brown cordite smoke to drift down the length of the ship. The gunners’ range-finding was immaculate: the shells all hit the cliff in a neat line directly beneath the fort, which, after a pause, slid to the beach below and disintegrated. I tried not to think of the people in that fort, but it wasn’t possible.

  They’ve got mothers and fathers, sisters and brothers, just like me. They’re ordina
ry people, and we’ve just killed the whole bloody lot of them. But it was war and we couldn’t change what was going on, so I did my best to switch off. But burying those sorts of feelings takes its toll.

  In between jobs like the fort at Bardiyah, we’d steam back to Alexandria and lie up in the harbour to resume our pastime of eyeballing the French sailors. Being back in harbour was a mixed blessing for me. It was much less dangerous, but there was a lot more time to think. And as 1941 wore on it became difficult not to dwell on the bad news coming from the home front. Britain was still under siege. London, Coventry, Manchester and my home city of Liverpool were all being bombed by the Luftwaffe.

  Will I still have a home to go to when all this is over?

  And there was a buzz around the mess decks that disturbed me greatly.

  ‘Canada, that’s where we’ll be off to if things don’t start looking up,’ I heard a sailor say.

  ‘Canada? Why Canada?’

  ‘In case we lose the war.’

  ‘Who says we’re going to lose the war?’ another bloke protested. ‘Like hell we’ll lose the bloody war!’

  ‘If it looks like we’re going to lose, they’ll withdraw Valiant and all the other big ships to Canada. We’ll be the Free English, in exile over in Canada. You know, just like the Free French in exile now in Britain.’

  That got the usual mess deck response.

  ‘Bullshit!’

  ‘You’ll see. We’ll all end up being Canadians.’

  It was dreadfully depressing to hear talk like that. Defeat was in the air. I became morose and fearful, besieged by lonely, chilling thoughts about the very real possibility of dying, piled on top of the usual nightmares about Stukas screaming overhead.