by Tom Keene
From Vulcan’s engine-room, Leslie Prout reported:
the Chief and Second Engineers were waiting for the clang of the telegraph and every ounce of steam and every evolution they could coax out of the 2,000 h.p. engines. In the stokehold I was telling the sweating stokers the tale as I had never told it before, and promised them a big ‘dash’ if they worked well. My powers of persuasion were considerably assisted by a tommy-gun and a Colt .45.22
His presence there – and his powers of persuasion – were vital: the Vulcan was planning to pull out an 8,500-tonne inert merchant vessel with no power from a cold, standing start. She would need every ounce of strength she could gather. As Nuneaton slid past Vulcan with her two tows astern on the way to their rendezvous 200 miles away in the safety of international waters, March-Phillipps, waiting impatiently on Duchessa’s bridge, received the news he had been waiting for: the ship was his. He gave the signal: a long blast on his whistle and ‘with a titanic roar and a flash that lit up the whole island the Duchess lost the principal lace to her stays’.23 But she was not yet free.
Below decks on Vulcan:
The telegraph clanged in the engine room of the tug and the Chief opened the throttle wide. The powerful engines shook the tug as she strained and pulled at her huge burden and the water was churned up into a phosphorescent race by the thrash of her propellers. The liner did not move. In the silence that followed the explosions Apple’s clear voice was heard ‘I am laying another charge.’ One of the forward charges had failed to ignite and Apple, realising that the whole success of the operation depended upon him, rushed forward and laid another charge with a short fuse on the huge anchor chain. After what seemed like an eternity Apple’s voice rang out again: ‘I am going to blow!’ Unable to get back to proper shelter he crouched behind a nearby winch. A blinding flash and a huge explosion followed immediately, the tug’s propellers thrashed again, and the huge liner lurched and began to slide forward. A mighty shout rang from the bridge: ‘My God, she’s free!’24
March-Phillipps reported afterwards:
Vulcan’s performance was almost miraculous. She gave the Duchessa two slews, one to starboard, one to port, like drawing a cork out of a bottle, and then without the slightest hesitation, and at a speed of at least three knots, went straight between the flashing buoys to the open sea, passing Nuneaton and Likomba a few cable lengths from the entrance. This operation, the most difficult in my view, was performed with amazing power and precision … The estimated time taken from entering the harbour to leaving with both tows was thirty-five minutes …25
The severing of the anchor chain after the explosives’ misfire had been the critical movement in the cutting-out of the Duchessa. Appleyard, once again, had proved his mettle. After successfully attempting that 8-foot leap across the widening gulf between Vulcan and Duchessa – a feat attempted by no one else that night – he had, by his quick thinking, risen to match his moment. His actions that night – and, indeed, throughout the entire Postmaster operation – would win him his second Military Cross, the citation of which concluded: ‘These operations were performed with complete disregard of his own personal safety, and the cutting out of the liner was ensured [sic]’
And, meanwhile:
Pandemonium reigned ashore. Immediately after the detonations were heard the anti-aircraft guns went into action and blazed into the sky, the explosions having been mistaken for bombs from raiding aircraft. It was not until daylight that it was realised on the shore that the steamers had gone in the night … It was as well that the 6 in. guns covering the harbour had not opened fire because the most powerful gun aboard the tug was a Bren.26
March-Phillipps remembered later:
Bugles were sounding on the shore and there was much activity near the pier head, which ceased very suddenly at the sound of the explosions. Shouts of ‘Alerta!’ could be heard and it is presumed that those on shore believed an air raid to be in progress. No attempt was made to board either of the two ships.27
The town lights had come on after the explosives on Likomba’s anchor chains had detonated and several cars had rushed down to the quay: ‘One makes no aspiration on Spanish gallantry’ recorded Leonard Guise, warming to the telling of a successful tale he must have been aware could not fail to delight and amuse his superiors:
but the fact remains that after the first of the Duchessa’s rather louder performances a number of cars were seen to be rushing rather faster in the opposite direction. Bugles were blown, but bugles blow all day in Fernando Po and never have very much effect. The Italian captain was seen on the quay waving his arms and appealing for light, for an explanation, for his ship. Nobody replied.28
His ship was long gone.29
Notes
1. Geoffrey, 72.
2. Guise report in HS 3/91.
3. Geoffrey, 73.
4. Anders Lassen, 84.
5. March-Phillipps report in HS 3/91.
6. Guise in HS 3/91.
7. HS 3/91.
8. The Commandos 1940–1946, 54.
9. Guise HS 3/91.
10. Ibid.
11. Anders Lassen, 85.
12. Hayes Report in HS 3/91.
13. Ibid.
14. Guise Report in HS 3/91.
15. Ibid.
16. The Commandos 1940–1946, 54.
17. March-Phillipps HS 3/91.
18. Geoffrey, 74.
19. Guise HS 3/91.
20. Hayes HS 3/91.
21. Anders Lassen, 86.
22. Leslie Prout in Geoffrey, 75.
23. Guise HS 3/91.
24. Geoffrey, 75.
25. March-Phillipps in his report in HS 3/91.
26. The Commandos 1940–1946, 55.
27. March-Phillipps in his report in HS 3/91.
28. Guise report HS 3/91.
29. According to Spanish sources, the Italian Governor of Fernando Po, Capt. Victor Sanchez-Diez, allegedly regarded the raid as an act of war by the British and, the next day, ordered a twin-engine De Havilland Rapide biplane belonging to Air Iberia to search for the missing ships. The aircraft – armed with a single machine-gun and small bombs that would have been dropped by hand – returned without success. Source: Malcolm Hayes.
9
A Very Proper Lie
By 0100 on 15 July the Duchessa d’Aosta was a mile or two out of the bay and the Bren guns, sited by March-Phillipps on the boat deck to deter small-boat pursuit, could be stood down. March-Phillipps kept the prisoners under guard and told them to behave. It was hardly necessary: ‘it was apparent that they wanted nothing better than to leave Fernando Po … The elderly stewardess driven nearly dotty by the explosions was sent to bed after treatment from the doctor and, with guards posted, some of Vulcan’s crew got a little sleep.’1
No one was getting much sleep aboard Nuneaton. She was towing both Likomba and the seized private yacht Bibundi, both of which were connected, one to another, by a 50-yard hemp hawser. Now, as the vessels plunged and strained through the swell in the darkness, the tow rope began to fray. Once, long ago in Scotland during SOE survival training, Lassen – ‘lithe as a cat’ in his mother’s phrase2 – had astonished his fellow SOE course members when, on foot, he had stalked and killed a fine, big stag armed only with a knife. Now he was about to astound them again. Without, again, waiting for orders, he tied a line around his waist and, in the darkness and heaving seas, swarmed across the fraying rope to Bibundi, the strain of the tow tossing him alternately high into the sky or down into the sea. Somehow, he hung on. Swinging onto the vessel, he then, on his own, hauled in the replacement heavy hemp tow-line, made it fast to the bitts in the light of torches shone from Likomba and, after five minutes’ rest, came back hand over hand down the tow-line back to Nuneaton. It was, remarked Leonard Guise ‘what seemed to the onlookers one of the bravest things they had seen’.3 Like Appleyard, Lassen too had risen magnificently to the challenge of live operations. Appleyard’s reward would be a Bar to his Military Cross. Lassen�
�s would be different: ‘I should like to recommend Lassen for a commission’ stated March-Phillipps simply in his post-action report, ‘for I consider that his work on the ship has been [of] exceptional quality, and he has shown great ability in handling men.’4
With Bibundi now safely under tow, the little convoy of vessels – Vulcan towing Duchessa d’Aosta and Nuneaton towing Likomba and Bibundi – made its way across the heaving darkness on a westerly course leaving Fernando Po in its wake. As the Duchessa wallowed along behind Vulcan making best speed towards that rendezvous with HMS Violet, March-Phillipps wrote in the Maid Honor log taken aboard his prize vessel: ‘Boarded, captured and towed out D’Aosta, cutting out went according to plan.’5 Behind the sparse words, March-Phillipps, the Elizabethan buccaneer born into the wrong age, was on fire with patriotic fervour: ‘Tremendous patriot, tremendous patriot. Almost to … to the point that one sort of looked at him and wondered whether he was really true’ remembered Desmond Longe. ‘I remember Gus saying to me on board the ship: “This is a wonderful thing for the old c-c-c-country, you know.” As far as I was concerned it was a wonderful thing to be alive.’6 The rendezvous with HMS Violet was scheduled for 1400 hours on 15 January, the day after Operation Postmaster. It was to take place at 4 degrees 10 minutes north, 8 degrees, 20 minutes east. HMS Violet would approach on a course of 298 degrees.
Early on the morning of 15 January the unreliable Nuneaton developed further engine trouble and dropped astern. With the time for the rendezvous with the corvette fast approaching, March-Phillipps, aboard Vulcan, decided to press on ahead. In the event, he need not have hurried. Once on station, the time of the RV came and went. HMS Violet was nowhere to be seen. March-Phillipps decided he needed to retrace steps, and find out what had happened to Nuneaton and her prizes. To do that he had to transfer from the bridge of the Duchessa to the smaller Vulcan now alongside. According to one account, March-Phillipps then took a rash and impatient decision that almost cost him his life. Without waiting to rig a bosun’s chair or bothering to tie a line around his waist, he simply leapt across the gap between the Duchessa and the smaller tug but, instead of landing on the plank, he mistimed the roll of the tug. There was:
a gasp of horror from all spectators as he landed on the forward end of the plank which acted like a spring-board, flicked Gus up into the air above the spectators then, spinning like a top with arms and legs out-stretched, he fell between the two vessels. Down he went into the ocean and the two craft bumped together and, as the tug bounced off the Duchess, Gus bobbed up like a cork and in a flash Prout and the African crew, with the aid of a boat-hook, had him out of the sea and on board the tug, shaken and bruised, but protesting that he was not hurt.7
March-Phillipps now left Appleyard in charge aboard Duchessa d’Aosta and, under overcast skies, Vulcan slipped her tow and reversed course 15 miles to chase up Nuneaton and her two wallowing charges. They found Nuneaton dead in the water, her engine stopped. Graham Hayes felt she was in danger of drifting back towards Fernando Po, still visible on the eastern horizon. He asked for a tow up to the rendezvous with HMS Violet. As Leonard Guise remembered, his request fell on deaf ears: ‘At 3pm Vulcan came over the skyline and, after what seemed like a somewhat meaningless exchange of courtesies, pushed off again.’ Afraid of missing the drifting, powerless Duchessa in the soon-to-be gathering darkness, after what experience had shown would be a slow and lengthy operation, March-Phillipps handed over food and water, told Hayes he would send HMS Violet back to support Nuneaton as soon as she arrived and then headed back once more towards Duchessa. Whereupon: ‘a slightly sour Nuneaton sadly saw Vulcan disappear into the sunset.’8
Approaching the Duchessa once more, March-Phillipps flew into one of his characteristic rages. In his absence the high-spirited cutting-out crew had nailed a Jolly Roger to the masthead: ‘When the skipper came back we all got a rocket and we were told we weren’t to fly the Jolly Roger with a red duster and so we hauled it down immediately. He was a great stickler for etiquette, old Gus,’ remembered Leonard Guise.9
Vulcan would not make contact with HMS Violet until Sunday, 18 January. The 11-month-old corvette would be three days late for her important rendezvous and her excuse for such tardiness would be as embarrassing as her timekeeping: HMS Violet,10 Pennant K35, (Temporary) Lt Frank Reynolds RCVR Commanding, had run aground in the mouth of the Niger. In the event, she would not be refloated until the morning of 19 January.11
Embarrassment aboard HMS Violet, certainly. A range of different emotions, however, on the island of Fernando Po as dawn the morning after Postmaster revealed a harbour curiously empty of shipping. For 18 months the dark hull and white superstructure of Italy’s Duchessa d’Aosta had dominated the small, horseshoe-shaped volcanic bay. According to Vice Consul Michie, the morning after the raid many Spaniards showed open amusement and admiration for the manner in which both ships had been whisked away from under the noses of their party-going officers. German shipping agent Heinrich Luhr was reported to have said that, if Germans had been responsible for the taking of Duchessa d’Aosta, each man would receive the Iron Cross.12 There was suspicion of British involvement certainly – but, critically, no evidence. That first morning rumour was king around Santa Isabel harbour with the Free French, Vichy France, America and Britain ‘all equally possible culprits’, especially after the convenient discovery of Free French caps floating in the harbour.13
The night before, Michie had made sure he had a grandstand view of the unfolding excitement as Operation Postmaster swung into play. He and another Briton, SOE agent B. Godden (W51), the Deputy Consul on the mainland, were in the Consulate looking down onto the harbour from the centre of the horseshoe:
At 11.33 we could discern the noise of the tug’s engines: then silence. Soon we saw torches being flashed on the deck of the DA. We heard what sounded like a challenge in Italian, followed by a gruff ‘Keep ’em up.’ At about 11.30 two lovely bangs which woke Sta [sic] Isabel up and incidentally brought the Collinson’s dining room glass candelabra down … Two more bangs and then a few cars appeared … Then we heard very plainly from the DA ‘we are laying another charge’ in an ultra Mayfair or West-End accent. Nobody appears to have heard this as far as we know yet. The other charge went off with a terrific detonation. Just before midnight we saw DA glide out of the harbour. Down in the square, trying to look dazed, we asked passers-by what was happening. Nobody had the remotest idea … Spaniards and Africans alike were highly amused by the incident to judge by the laughter and excited chattering that came from the Plaza below.14
Anticipating a vigorous German anti-British reaction to the cutting-out operation, Michie and his colleagues had wisely destroyed every scrap of incriminating paperwork long before Vulcan slid alongside Duchessa d’Aosta. It was just as well. The German shipping agent Heinrich Luhr may have felt that those responsible for the raid deserved Iron Crosses, but then it had not been his command that had been stolen, his pride that had been dented. The Captain of the Likomba, Herr Specht, took a different view. He had been one of the guests being lavishly distracted in the Casino restaurant while his boat was being seized. Now, although clearly very drunk, he had no doubts at all who was responsible, or that he had been duped. Rushing round to the British Consulate, he broke down the door:15
Specht was very drunk and very quarrelsome. He was told to get out. In reply he struck me in the face which gave W51 (Godden) and myself the excuse we wanted. Between us we knocked the stuffing out of him. My steward boy then handed the dilapidated Specht over to the Police.16
On 16 January Godden cabled London:
(1) No official reaction yet … As far as we can ascertain nothing tangible revealed.
(2) General impression seems satisfaction departure these vessels and recognition of efficient operation which was complete surprise.