by Mike Carlton
If the ship’s company hated the sleaze of Alexandria – and many of them did – they enjoyed the still exotic but more comfortably European aura of Athens. The weather was warm and sunny. They were there for three days, for what seemed to be a visit to bolster Greek confidence by the presence of the White Ensign in the port. Bowyer-Smyth and Commander Adams saw that all the crew got a spell of shore leave.
Far to the north, the Greeks and the Italians were locked in combat. Germany, for the moment, was leaving them to it, although Hitler was preparing, with some irritation, to come to Mussolini’s assistance. Athens was still at peace, and Brian Sheedy was startled to find himself walking past the German Embassy, the swastika flag flying above the entrance.
Australians being Australians, and sailors being sailors, the liberty men were quickly on the lookout for a cold beer, which they had no trouble finding. The Greeks were welcoming, happy to point the visitors in the right direction. Both sides found that a smile and some sign language went a long way. There was a blackout at night as a precaution against air raids, but the restaurants and tavernas were doing a booming trade. Many of the men climbed the Acropolis. Ray Parkin took his paints and brushes there, and, settling himself into a quiet corner, he dabbed at more of his elegant watercolours. These were men, far from home and family, seeking what peace they could find in the tumult of the world around them. Norris wrote about it with an eloquence that put paid to the notion of the matelot ashore as a creature driven by his balls, not his brain:
Looking down from the Acropolis the houses with their multi coloured tiled roofs made a mosaic of beauty as they jostled and encroached upon the Temple of the Winds, the Stadium, Jupiter’s Temple, Hadrian’s Arch. These little houses were not overawed by the ponderous majesty or historical associations of their classical neighbours. They sprang up like cheeky wildflowers against ancient trees, challenging their greatness. They seemed to be of the soil itself, deriving life from it. They seemed to live as the people who dwelt therein lived. Streets straggled in all directions through them as if they were arteries carrying lifeblood. The road of the Marathon stretched out afar and finally vanished over the mountains. I lagged behind, much to the annoyance of the guide. I wondered at all the history of this place and the achievements of this humble creature, man. How has it happened that his solitude has been destroyed, his godliness destroyed and herded into a hideous riot of murder and destruction?9
Returning to Suda, Perth and Ajax met up with the other two ships of the 7th Cruiser Squadron, HMS York and an old acquaintance from the Caribbean days, HMS Orion. Big things were about to happen. In London, the Admiralty had despatched a convoy of ships to carry troops and vital military supplies to Greece and Malta. Most of the convoy would take the long passage into the Mediterranean south around the Cape of Good Hope and then up through the canal, but five vessels whose cargoes were more urgently needed would be passed directly eastwards through the Straits of Gibraltar. These five, including a food and ammunition ship, the Essex, were given the code name EXCESS. The Commander-in-Chief of the Mediterranean Fleet, Admiral Sir Andrew Cunningham, would deploy every warship he had to get the convoys through.
And the Germans would hurl themselves into the fight to stop them. For the first time in the Med, Fliegerkorps X was about to draw blood. It happened in The Narrows, that slender stretch of water, barely 150 kilometres wide, between Sicily and Cape Bon on what is now the coast of modern Tunisia. This was a choke point in the Med, the ideal place for an ambush by sea or air. Early on the afternoon of 10 January, the battleships Warspite and Valiant and the carrier Illustrious, together with their screening destroyers, were attacked by a swarm of Stuka dive-bombers – the aircraft that had wrought such destruction in the blitzkrieg through Europe.
The Stuka – or the JU87 dive-bomber – was one of the most effective aircraft of the war. Some 6000 of them were built. The name is an abbreviation of the German Sturzkampfflugzeug, meaning, literally, a falling aircraft. This is exactly what the Stuka did. It fell from above with devastating effect. Stubby and ugly, with upswept wings and a fixed but streamlined undercarriage, it was powered by an 11-cylinder engine that sent it chugging along in level flight at a normal cruising speed of just 190 km/h. But an attacking Stuka would plummet almost vertically from some 4500 feet, reaching speeds of up to 600 km/h before delivering its typical payload of a 500 kg high-explosive bomb. Some bombs were as much as 1000 kg. The Stuka could also strafe with cannon or machine guns. Releasing the bomb automatically activated an advanced system of air brakes, or flaps on the wings, which pulled the aircraft out of the dive and back into a climb even if the pilot momentarily blacked out at an acceleration six times the force of gravity. What set the aircraft uniquely apart, though, was a siren known as the Jericho Trumpet, bolted beneath its wings, which emitted a banshee wail that rose in a hideous crescendo as it gathered speed and fell on its prey. The Jericho Trumpet was a deliberate technique of Nazi psychological warfare. Those who heard it never forgot it.
On the bridge of his flagship, Warspite, Cunningham knew an attack was coming. Valiant had radar and had detected three squadrons of aircraft when they were still some 70 kilometres to the north on their way from Sicily. The British assumed they were Italian. They knew that the Luftwaffe had arrived in this theatre of war but had no warning that it was now ready for battle. The Admiral ordered Illustrious to turn into the wind to fly off some Fulmar fighters, but before they could gain height Fliegerkorps X was upon them.
The attack took exactly six and a half minutes. Illustrious was struck by six bombs, killing 13 officers and 113 men. One bomb, an extraordinarily lucky hit, went straight down her aircraft lift, creating carnage on the hangar deck as stores of aviation fuel caught fire. With tongues of flame and clouds of oily black smoke billowing from her innards, and her steering gear partly crippled, Illustrious staggered out of the line. One of the Royal Navy’s most modern and heavily armoured capital ships, she had been in commission for less than a year. Cunningham, heavy hearted, ordered her back to Malta. The loss of life had distressed him. So, too, had the fact that one of his most valuable assets had been knocked off the chessboard so swiftly.
Fliegerkorps X had landed a knockout punch – the first of many to come – for the cost of five Stukas shot down. But the truly appalling thing was that the entire balance of power at sea in the Mediterranean theatre had been upset, as Cunningham wrote later in his memoirs:
We had plenty to think about. In a few minutes the whole situation had changed. At one blow the fleet had been deprived of its fighter aircraft, and its command of the Mediterranean was threatened by a weapon far more efficient and dangerous than any against which we had fought before. The efforts of the Regia Aeronautica were almost as nothing compared to those of the deadly Stukas of the Luftwaffe.10
Perth and the 7th Cruiser Squadron were not present at that first Stuka attack. They were nearer to Malta, escorting another convoy. They rejoined the battle fleet the next morning. But then came more bleak news. The Stukas had struck again, a dozen of them bombing two other cruisers, Southampton and Gloucester, some 200 kilometres to the south-east. Perth and the squadron flagship, Orion, were detached to help. Increasing speed to 30 knots, they came upon the two stricken ships not long after dark.
Neither ship had radar. They had been taken by surprise. Gloucester had been hit by one bomb that did not explode. But Southampton was ablaze from stem to stern, the flames towering above her bridge and foremast and casting an eerie play of light and shadow on the sea. Bowyer-Smyth ordered Perth’s recreation room and canteen to be rigged as an emergency Sick Bay for the wounded, and he had towing gear ready and waiting aft, but there was nothing to be done. The men on Perth’s bridge and upper decks watched helplessly as the fires across the water took hold.
A few survivors tumbled overboard from the burning ship, matchstick figures silhouetted against the flames. Gloucester and a destroyer picked them up, but 81 men had been killed. Eventually, Ori
on put Southampton out of her torment with a torpedo that blew up her magazines and sent the cruiser to the bottom in a ghastly fireworks display that lit the scene like daylight. For Jim Nelson, it was his first sight of death near at hand:
As I watched in horror, I then realised that my ‘Romantic Mediterranean Cruise’ was over. The dawning of the carnage was in front of me. To witness the bombing of a majestic 10,000 ton cruiser and then see it reduced to rubble, to see the survivors abandoning ship, then the tremendous explosion when the magazine blew sending a huge mushroom of orange flame and a pall of black smoke hundreds of metres into the air, was horrific.
When the survivors who had escaped the holocaust were picked out of the ocean the final indignity was to see their ship sunk by torpedoes from Orion.
It was a horrible and terrifying sight and our crew were very sombre and more resolute after witnessing it first hand.11
For the next few days, Perth shuttled men and supplies from Suda to Piraeus, and from Piraeus to Malta. They arrived at the boom gate at Grand Harbour, Valletta, just after dawn on 14 January, weary from the strain of being constantly at action stations, eager for a run ashore that might bring a little respite from the tension and fear.
The Phoenicians and then the Romans had once ruled Malta, and the apostle Paul was wrecked on its rocky shores. Grand Harbour is one of the glories of the Mediterranean. In the sixteenth century, Valletta became the home of the Knights Hospitaller of the Order of St John of Jerusalem, descendants of the Crusaders, and for 300 years they held sway over Valletta’s three cities of Cospicua, Vittoriosa and Senglea, fortifying the harbour with massive bastions of stone. Napoleon briefly but thoroughly looted Valletta at the end of the eighteenth century. The British ousted the French and took Malta for themselves a few years later, turning Grand Harbour into the Royal Navy’s principal base in the Mediterranean.
Perth passed the battlements of Fort Ricasoli and Fort St Angelo on the south-eastern shore. They were a majestic sight, ancient ochre ramparts glowing crimson in the morning sun. The men on deck were astonished to see people applauding them from the walls and waving from windows. Turning to starboard and then with her engines slow astern, the cruiser backed alongside the gun wharf in French Creek, berthing just ahead of a submarine in dry dock, HMS Triumph, and the ammunition ship Essex, which had come in with the EXCESS convoy. About 75 metres away, across the creek at the Parlatorio Wharf, lay the blackened, tortured bulk of Illustrious. She was covered in scaffolding. Maltese dockyard workers were labouring to clear away the wreckage and to make her fit to put to sea again. Acetylene sparks showered from gaping holes in her hull.
Perth, too, had work to do. The engine room staff went through the dirty and unpleasant routine of cleaning a boiler. The anti-aircraft guns were manned watch on watch, around the clock; there was always the awareness that even in harbour they were not out of danger. But the men also got the run ashore they had been hoping for. Brian Sheedy visited the cave where St Paul took refuge from his shipwreck. Jim Nelson found a dockyard cafe, the Black Cat, where he managed a few wets with three shipmates. George Hatfield strolled through The Gut, a narrow street where there were little bars selling English beer, with Maltese girls to dance with. Ray Parkin worked on a small wooden model he was making of Perth. The Gunnery Officer, Warwick Bracegirdle, took a stroll through Valletta’s narrow, cobbled streets one evening to find a new pipe.
The bombers stayed away for two days and nights. But on 16 January, a cloudy day that looked as if it might well rain, the sirens wailed just after lunch, at about half past one. Bracegirdle was on Perth’s bridge:
I pressed the action alarm signal and we went to full Action Stations. So did the carrier and the little submarine. I was smoking my new pipe. Breaking it in. The army and Maltese defences opened fire. The bursts were out to sea but just visible above the rooftops of the houses, behind the dockyard crane and chimney stacks. The barrage increased in ferocity. Hundreds of shell bursts were dotting the sky – tracer from the 40 mm Bofors now criss-crossed the sky, the shells later exploding above 4000 ft. That meant the enemy were coming in low. The Illustrious opposite suddenly opened fire with every gun she had – 4.5 inches and 40 mm. Right through our wireless aerials. She, with four higher decks, had seen them. Our wireless aerials came down, shot away by the carrier.
Then we saw them. I counted four groups of five aircraft. Twenty Stukas with a high fighter cover of M. E. 109s.12 They came weaving in over the rooftops kicking rudder bars right and left to put off our aim. Then we opened fire. The din was terrific. Illustrious’ red tracer just clear of our masts.
I turned to see the little submarine in dock. Sluice gates open – water flooding around her for some protection. Submarine Captain and gun’s crew all exposed waiting for the ship to be floating so they too could fire their one 4-inch gun. Their twin Lewis guns in action. The mad barrage increased, Illustrious fighting desperately to ward off these vicious dives. All ships were sitting duck targets.
Then the bombs rained down. The shorts in the dockyard. Overs in the water. Enormous crumps, crashes and vibrations. Water spouts in Dockyard Creek. Blast waves. Debris. More targets coming in. All the enemy painted with yellow noses – the ‘first eleven’ Goering Squadron colours. God how they could fly. I saw one come down in flames and blow up on hitting the ground but they came on and on.13
An air raid is not merely deafening; it is a hellish assault on the senses. The air itself seems to split apart. Concussive waves of sound and air buffet the brain and body. Eardrums can rupture, noses bleed. And a bomb exploding or a big naval gun firing sucks the oxygen from its close surroundings. If you are near the blast, it is like being pummelled by a giant fist.
The bombers came on in the face of the barrage. Perth was fighting with one hand tied behind her back. At sea, she could have twisted and turned like a kangaroo on the run to avoid the onslaught. In harbour, she was a sitting duck. Worse, the guns on her starboard side against the wharf had their arcs of fire blocked by dockyard buildings. But the port-side gun crews, the high-angle 4-inch and the smaller machine guns, continued to pump shells into the air as the Stukas roared down and over.
On the ship’s bridge, Captain Bowyer-Smith and the bridge personnel could only watch helplessly as the raid went on, although the Chief Yeoman of Signals, Percy Stokan, busied himself by keeping a note of the bombs that landed around them.
Across the creek, Illustrious was putting up as much of a barrage as she could muster from the guns she had left. She was the main target, the object of the Luftwaffe’s fury. At times, she was completely hidden by the giant splashes of filthy yellow water thrown up by the bombs. Dust and smoke hung in the air like some ghastly fog.
Then a new disaster struck. In the dock just behind them, the Essex was hit. Ray Parkin saw the bomb that got her. It was a big, blue 500-pounder, which struck at the base of the Essex’s funnel and penetrated below decks, exploding in the ship’s engine room. Twenty-four men died there and then, and a fire quickly took hold.
The Perth men looked at each other in horror. The Essex was carrying 4000 tons of ammunition. If that were to go up, it would take out half of Valletta, including Perth herself and Illustrious as well. But there came, at this horrifying moment, a stroke of quite extraordinary luck. One of Perth’s officers, Lieutenant Claude Guille, had been a merchant seaman before the war. He had worked for the British company that owned the Essex and had been to sea in a sister ship, which meant he was familiar with the interior of the burning vessel that was threatening to blow them all to kingdom come. With the air raid appearing to be ending, Guille volunteered to do what he could. Bowyer-Smyth told him to take Perth’s firefighters with him. Norm King was one of them:
No. 1 fire and repair party were detailed to board the Essex and put out the fire. It was the first time for me to see what blast does to the human body. There were thirty or forty bodies lying around but our first task was to put out the fire that was burning in the engine room
below, and what was left of the bridge.
We were able to use fire hoses from the water mains on the wharf and soon had it under control. Then came the nasty task of cleaning up the mess. The corpses were so mutilated that it was hard to believe that such a short time ago they had been people like us.
Bluey Larmer14 and myself were carrying the bodies to a location near the gangway to be picked up later on, when the planes returned. The Essex made a good target as it was still smoking. Suddenly it was not a game for heroes but a struggle for survival.
Enemy planes were attacking from all sides, bombs were exploding much too close for comfort and fighter planes were strafing anything that moved with machine guns and cannon. We were very exposed. Jack and I sheltered behind the corpses for protection.15
With remarkable courage, Guille and his men battled their way through the dark and burning ship, pumping water at the seat of the fire. They saved the Essex. And Valletta. And literally thousands of lives.16 But the next wave of the raid was, if anything, more fierce than the first, as Roy Norris recorded:
We could not distinguish the fall of bombs from the devil’s racket of our own guns. All hands not at the guns were under cover below decks, just lying flat on our bellies waiting like sheep to be slaughtered. The decks above may have been cardboard for all the good they would have done if a bomb had landed.
It was a thrilling and romantic sensation to be fighting for one’s country like this. We were cornered like a lot of rats – practically helpless in this corner of the dockyard – a high rampart of solid stone on our starboard side which prevented us from using our four-inch on that side, and alongside the after end an ammunition ship full of high explosive burning … all that stood between us and total extinction was the resolute guns’ crews who continued to pour an unending stream of steel into the air.17