Warspite

by Iain Ballantyne

  At that moment there was a lull in the shelling and we came out the turret to see what was happening. Around us other ships were still firing – the Ramillies firing her own 15-inch guns, the rocket ships letting rip. Then we saw the gliders coming over in a V for Victory formation. It was awesome. Sadly we saw some of them shot down and fall into the sea. A little while later the bodies of the dead paratroopers and wreckage of the planes floated by. It was a bit upsetting.

  German counter-fire from shore batteries sometimes came close enough to scythe her upper works with shrapnel, but no real damage was caused to Warspite.

  Albert Cock who had been a telegraphist on the Warspite in the Mediterranean was now a Chief Petty Officer serving in one of the minesweepers nearby. He said:

  We were fired upon by shore batteries and also bombed by German and American aircraft. We were cutting the mines free and destroying them by gunfire. We hit one mine which caused us serious damage but didn’t sink us. I knew the Warspite was there but we never made visual contact with her although we could hear the big guns banging away all day.

  Other ex-members of Warspite’s crew were heavily embroiled in the fighting ashore. They were Royal Marines who had served on her in the Far East before gaining entry to the commando forces and taking part in the D-Day assault. At least three of them died either during the landings or the subsequent fighting on the Normandy beachhead.

  Late on the evening of D-Day Warspite pulled back from SWORD sector and dropped anchor a few miles off shore. The following day she fired for effect at grid references where it was thought likely enemy troops, vehicles and guns might be. Enemy strongpoints ashore also received attention.

  The Daily Mail’s Naval Correspondent, W.F. Hatin, filed a very excited report on her invasion bombardments. He told how the pilot of a Spitfire spotting the fall of Warspite’s shot looked on in amazement as German troops and vehicles were blasted to bits. The Spitfire had spotted an enemy convoy moving along a road through woods some twelve miles inland. Using the pilot’s report, the battleship’s Gunnery Officer rapidly plotted a fire solution. ‘I gave Jerry a speed of fifteen knots,’ the Gunnery Officer told the Daily Mail man, ‘...and let him have it.’

  Having fired more than 300 shells in just two days, Warspite’s magazines were low so she retired across the Channel to Portsmouth to load up with more ammo. When she returned on 9 June, she was ordered to support the American beaches where the troops were hard pressed and the US Navy’s bombardment vessels, including the battleship USS Arkansas, were running short of shells.

  Between 4.12p.m. and 6.15p.m, ninety-six rounds of 15-inch were fired, again without the aid of aircraft spotters or forward observers. Warspite devastated a crucial enemy artillery position and was highly praised in a signal from American commanders.

  With tug in attendance, Warspite’s 15-inch guns pound German positions in Normandy, June 1944. Specially commisioned painting by Dennis C. Andrews.

  Two days later she was off GOLD beach and helped save the 50th Division from a formidable counterattack by destroying German troops and tanks assembling in a wood. The order given by Captain Kelsey for this impressive firepower display was: ‘Fifty rounds 15-inch rapid fire.’

  Midshipman Andy Hamnett’s baptism of fire had been the incredible blast of the Warspite’s own guns on D-Day and since then he had learned to ignore danger.

  Once we reached Normandy, I can remember sleeping on the deck and eating enormous quantities of pasties, or oggies as they were called. As my action station was near a 15-inch gun turret the noise was enormous.

  My principal task was running messages for the Commander, whose name I forget. Another task was to drive one of the ship’s motor boats around the fleet, taking bread from our bakery to the smaller vessels and also landing war correspondents from our ship to Port-en-Bessin. I cannot remember being particularly frightened, but no doubt I took my example from the older men around me.

  As Warspite lay off Port-en-Bessin she was visited by Canadian radio correspondent Andrew Cowan who may well have been brought out to her by Midshipman Hamnett’s boat.

  Like many others who came to see the legendary vessel in action off Normandy, Cowan placed her awesome display of firepower in a lyrical frame.

  This afternoon HMS Warspite stretched the long arm of her 15-inch guns fifteen miles to help the Army by bombarding enemy positions south of the little town of Tilly. She lay about a mile-and-a-half off the beach at the little fishing village of Port-en-Bessin. Through binoculars I could see the miles of yellow sands at the foot of the high cliffs, sands just made for lazy summer holidays. They were deserted except for a few landing craft stranded above the high water mark. The little town of Port-en-Bessin crowded into a notch in the cliffs was deserted too, so was its tiny harbour surrounded by a granite sea wall where the fishermen used to bring their boats at high tide. A French flag flew proudly over the little village. On the rim of the cliffs, looking down into the sea were the battered remains of German coastal batteries. The sea was calm and the weather typical of the Channel – cloudy and bright by turns with an occasional rain shower.

  Through the ship’s loud hailer the word was given that the 15 -inch guns were about to open fire. Captain Pugh, the ship’s bombardment liaison officer, a Royal Artillery officer, got the targets’ bearings at his action station on the bridge of the Warspite. They came from the headquarters ship which had got them from the FOB, or Forward Observer of Bombardment, on shore.

  The ship’s bombardment liaison officer telephoned the bearings and the range to the transmitting station on the ship where they were converted into terms of elevation of the ship’s guns and, at a signal from the Gunnery Officer, HMS Warspite opened fire.

  The target is on the right flank of the Canadians who are fighting around Caen. In this wood, just ahead of the British position which on the map looked to be about half-a-mile square in area was a concentration of enemy forces and into this wood the Warspite poured fifteen three gun salvos of unobserved fire. That means the wood was saturated with a continuous bombardment without waiting for observers to check the fall of shot. When the guns fired at once the great 35,000 ton battleship gave a tremendous shudder. Everything onboard that can fall or break loose has to be fastened or battened down when the ship goes into action. Cabin doors in the bridge have to be removed or the blast that rushes from end to end of the ship when she fires would splinter the panelling.

  Looking down from the bridge at a certain angle it was just possible to see for a split second the shell as it hurtled skyward through the great puff of brown smoke. The Warspite’s second target for the afternoon was in the same neighbourhood as the first. The Warspite’s fire was directed onto the target by an observer in a Tailor craft – one of those small planes that have a speed of about seventy-five miles an hour and can take off from a tennis court. Onto the target went nine salvos – and after each salvo the observer reported back by radio to the bombardment liaison officer onboard the ship. Six of the salvos – twelve tons of high explosives – hit the target.3

  The Warspite’s main weapons were getting worn out so she was ordered to Rosyth to get replacements on 12 June. She became the first British battleship since the beginning of the war to pass through the Straits of Dover and, despite the Allies exerting almost complete control of sea and air she would still have been wiser going the long way around. Not only did a series of German coastal batteries fire at her but she set off a magnetic mine thirty miles east of Harwich early on 13 June. It caused no casualties but inflicted considerable damage. The explosion damaged her steering so that her helm jammed hard over and she made a wild turn to starboard. Warspite stopped dead in the water. Several hundred tons of water had poured into her and she had a list of more than four degrees to port.

  HMS Warspite unleashes another bombardment of German forces in support of the D-Day landings. C. Pearson Collection

  Midshipman Hamnett was down below in the gunnery directing rooms when the mine went
off.

  The hatch jammed on us. We knew Warspite had a large concrete slab in her side, as a result of the flying bomb hit at Salerno, so everyone was a little concerned in case it might fall out.

  Petty Officer Pearson was inside one of the turrets:

  We were just about to close down and come out of action stations when there was a hell of a thud. We said: ‘Don’t move, we might be needed.’ We thought it might be a German surface raider having a go at us.

  Able Seaman Pattenden was off watch:

  I was down the messdeck at the time and there was a boom and a bang, just a thump really. I was by my locker and the ship just gave a kind of shudder. We went on the upper deck and it was a bit frightening because the valves on the funnel had gone and she was making this blood curdling racket, screaming blue murder as if she was outraged at what had happened.

  The Warspite’s list was soon corrected by counter flooding and sixty minutes later her engines were restarted. With only her starboard propellers working, she limped northwards at seven knots. She arrived at Rosyth on 14 June and, as she crawled up the Forth, the crews of the battleships Howe and Anson cheered her in. Some of the Warspite’s crew got leave, including a boy sailor from the East End of London who revealed a new trick he had learned since going to sea:

  There were a lot of things I learned aboard ship which obviously you cannot get from basic training ashore, such as making a ‘Monkey’s Fist’. My Sea Daddy aboard Warspite – the older sailor tasked with showing me the tricks of the trade – gave me a tip on how to prevent my £1 notes from disintegrating should I find myself in the drink at anytime. He said I should put my money in a Durex, making a ‘Monkey’s Fist’, and put it into my money belt. This I did and thought no more of it until I went on leave. Following the custom of the East End, my family went to the local pub to welcome their sailor son home. When it was my turn to buy a round I unwittingly took the Durex out of my belt to get my money. Mother looked mortified, Dad chortled into his beer and the barmaid, who thought I was making her an offer, blushed.4

  While some of the younger members of her crew were shocking their mothers, Rosyth Dockyard worked around the clock on the old battleship. The main problem was the Warspite’s badly twisted shafts which, because of lack of time, couldn’t be removed for straightening and so had to be worked on still mounted in the ship. To the Admiralty her main purpose now was to be a floating artillery battery – as long as she could still move at a reasonable speed and her main guns functioned, it didn’t matter if the repairs were not complete. The dockyard workers persevered, got three of her shafts working again and her 15-inch guns were replaced. After some bombardment practice and a short stop at Plymouth, Warspite was ready by late August to take up station off the French coast again.

  Petty Officer Pearson recalled that she was called to save a situation her crew had been following avidly:

  We read in the newspapers while we were lying at Spithead about this German general at Brest who said his boys would fight to the last man. The Americans were worried about the casualty rate so they had a word with the Admiralty. We were ordered to go down there and do a job of work.

  American troops were trying to take the port so it could be opened up to allow in supplies to feed the big breakout from the Normandy beachhead. Forty thousand German troops were cut off, but in a perfect defensive position, entrenched in eighteenth century fortifications bolstered by new defences. The Americans needed some heavy-duty firepower to crack the enemy but, even though she fired 213 shells, Warspite did only limited damage before the big American attack went in and finally ousted the Germans.

  One individual who found his nerves completely shot away by Warspite’s intensive programme of gunnery was the ship’s cat who had to be retired. A humorous notice was posted in the Warspite to mark the event:

  An Official Service Certificate, including an Honourable Discharge, has been issued on behalf of the Ship’s Cat which has left HMS Warspite owing to shell-shock and has taken up residence with the wife of a crew member A/B George Allen of Barking, Essex. According to the true copy of the Certificate, signed by Captain Kelsey DSO, the cat is described as ‘Ginger Brest’ the surname having reference to service with the ship at Brest. Port Division is given as Chatham and Official number as LX.1944. Born in the ship, its denomination is described as ‘Free Thinker’ and has previously received special mention at D-Day: ‘By his actions, proved himself an example to others’. On August 25, during the bombardment of the forts at Brest, he also acquitted himself in a very seamanlike manner.

  HMS Warspite’s Y turret gets its new guns at Rosyth Dockyard, summer 1944. Sutherland Collection.

  Last Curtain Call for a Fighting Life

  A week before the first anniversary of her glider bomb hit off Salerno, Warspite was once again bombarding German troop positions, but the possibility of a similar devastating air strike was very remote.

  The Luftwaffe had been wiped from the skies and the enemy’s army had been pushed back almost to the German frontier.

  However, the problem of Hitler’s troops hanging on stubbornly to strategically important Channel ports persisted and it was threatening to bring the Allied advance to a halt. Those ports the Allies had captured were not capable of taking vast amounts of supplies needed to keep the momentum going. In fact the majority of the Allied supplies were still coming over the invasion beaches. Warspite did her bit to break the German grip on Le Havre on 10 September as preparation for a British attack which finally took the port.

  A week later an ill-conceived Anglo-American airborne operation to cross the Rhine took place, and faltered, at Arnhem in Holland. Many thought the effort would have been better expended in driving German forces out of the island of Walcheren which dominated approaches to the major port of Antwerp. It had the potential to feed the Allied advance the huge quantities needed to storm into Germany on a broad front. Although it had been captured on 3 September it was impossible to bring supply ships up the River Schelde to it because of powerful German gun emplacements on Walcheren. Finally, in October 1944, the order was given for an all-out attack on the island. It would be spear-headed by a British commando brigade and gunfire support provided by HMS Warspite and the 15-inch gun monitors Erebus and Roberts. The final major amphibious assault of the Allied campaign to liberate north-west Europe, it would be the last time Warspite’s guns fired.

  On 30 October 1944, Warspite dropped anchor at Deal on the Kent coast to wait with the other Walcheren invasion ships for final confirmation Operation Infatuate was to go ahead. By the next morning the old battleship was ten miles off West Kapelle Lighthouse and, despite filthy weather which precluded the use of spotter aircraft, she hit her targets and on time. Warspite fired 353 shells in twenty-one salvos of 15-inch, concluding her mission, her part in the Second World War and her fighting life shortly before 5.25p.m.

  It may have been the Warspite’s last starring role but, for her crew, it featured nothing worth remembering. To Petty Officer Pearson it was merely ‘foggy, dull and we didn’t see much... . We did our job and left.’

  After a call to Rosyth the Warspite headed back to boring inactivity at Spithead.

  The 15-inch gun monitor HMS Roberts which took part in the bombardment of Walcheren alongside Warspite in November 1944. Goodman Collection.

  Warspite fires her guns for the last time during the bombardment of Walcheren. Specially commissioned painting by Dennis C. Andrews.

  Notes

  1 David Howarth, Dawn of D-Day.

  2 Ibid.

  3 Sound Archive, Imperial War Museum.

  4 A Warspite veteran writing in Anchors Aweigh, the journal of the Warspite Association.

  Chapter Eleven

  STUBBORN TO THE END

  Left Behind, Sent to the Breakers

  At the beginning of February 1945 the Admiralty confirmed the Warspite would pay off into reserve. There was no point in considering her for further service - the war had literally moved beyond
her horizons.

  The Allied troops in Europe were about to push deep into Germany and, while battleships were still needed in the Far East for the final assault on the Japanese home islands, there were younger vessels which could now be released from home waters. Warspite was too old and worn out and it was not worth giving her the major rebuild she needed to be brought back to full fighting efficiency.

  By the end of February 1945 she was still moored at Spithead, with the occasional trip into Portsmouth which is where Petty Officer Pearson made his exit.

  I left in April 1945 lugging my kitbag, my toolbox and my hammock. Despite all that stuff, I somehow managed a turn at the bottom of the brow to give her a last look. I was a bit choked but glad to leave as well - if they no longer needed the Warspite then the war must be coming to an end. I was demobbed the following year.

  Fifteen months later, after more time at Spithead, she was brought back into Portsmouth Harbour to be stripped of her guns and anything else worth saving for use elsewhere. Despite calls to have her preserved as a museum ship the Royal Navy showed its usual lack of sentimentality and confirmed she would be sold for scrap. Her battle ensign had been presented to St Giles Cathedral in Edinburgh by Admiral Cunningham during his investiture as a Knight of the Thistle by King George VI in September 1945.