Both Wildcats got away safely and within five seconds of clearing the flight-deck, they had disappeared into the murk. Al Burgham knew what to expect. As sun, sky, clouds and horizon merged into a kaleidoscope of grey, he concentrated on his instruments. Over his R/T came instructions to climb to 3,000 feet and head west, and almost at once, through a gap in the clouds, he spotted high above him a solitary JU88. He climbed to 9,000 feet, trying to keep in visual contact, but, with eight-tenths cloud and ten-tenths murk, it was impossible. After three or four minutes flying blind in cloud, he decided to drop down to sea level near the fringe of the convoy in the hope of intercepting the Junkers as they came in to launch their torpedoes. Several times he called up Dusty Miller, but there was no reply.
When the Junkers did come in, visibility was so bad that Al could hardly see them, let alone intercept them, before the attack was over. Though he flew this way and that in the gap between cloud-base and sea, he never managed to get a plane in his sights.
However, the convoy’s ack-ack turned out to be an effective deterrent. As the first wave of about a dozen planes came skimming in at sea level the merchantmen and their escorts threw up a curtain of enthusiastic if not very accurate fire. Not very accurate because by now it was so dark that it was difficult to spot the attacking aircraft until they were almost overhead. The attack was pressed home with considerable skill and determination, most of the planes managing to launch their torpedoes effectively. Four were aimed at Nairana. It was lucky for us they weren’t acoustic, and by zigzagging frantically we managed to avoid them; we also avoided a radio-controlled glider-bomb which exploded harmlessly in our wake. One moment the sky was filled with the roar of planes and the stench of cordite, next moment it was empty. We expected a second attack from the other group of Junkers but in the bad light they failed to find us. Although there had been several near-misses, no ships had been hit, and at least three enemy aircraft had been shot down.
As soon as it seemed certain the air attack had ended, Al Burgham was given permission to land. He managed to get down safely, but as he climbed out of his cockpit he was met by Sam Mearns and a group of squadron pilots and observers almost beside themselves with grief and fury. It seems that only a few minutes earlier, as the last of the Junkers disappeared, they had seen a Wildcat, its navigation lights glowing brightly, waggling its wings and approaching the convoy in a three-point attitude – presumably trying to ditch among the warships and merchantmen. As the plane came level with HMS Bellona the cruiser opened up with every gun it could bring to bear and shot the plane into the sea. All those who saw the incident were unequivocal about what happened. And the Wildcat could only have been Dusty Miller’s.
In his official report Surtees wrote that “Miller died gallantly attacking enemy aircraft”. Rear Admiral McGrigor, however, wrote in his report “next time single-engined aircraft must not, repeat not, be fired on” – an indication that some people at least knew what had happened.
This tragic story has a rather inconclusive postscript. Checking Luftwaffe records after the war, it seems that one of their three missing aircraft may have been shot down by a Wildcat. Since Al Burgham says that he never got near one, it could be that Dusty Miller did indeed destroy a Junkers before he himself was shot down by the very people he was trying to protect. More evidence, if more was needed, that war is seldom fair and “never chooses an evil man, but the good”.
For several hours Surtees kept a searchlight beamed vertically on to the cloud base in the hope that the missing Wildcat might still be looking for us, but it was a forlorn hope. When the searchlight was switched off, we knew that Dusty Miller was dead.
Almost as soon as the Junkers vanished, the U-boats returned. And that evening, while Campania was duty carrier, her Swordfish reported as many as four contacts. However, in the difficult flying conditions no U-boats were sighted and no attacks made. Next morning, soon after Nairana had taken over flying, we picked up high-frequency, direction-finding bearings on a surfaced U-boat which was transmitting to its base. Doc Wilson and George Strong were scrambled, with orders to fly down the reported bearing.
They picked up a radar contact at a range of seven miles. Doc Wilson pushed his throttle-lever through the gate, and with maximum over-ride closed in at his top speed – all of ninety-five knots! It was midday. Visibility was good and they sighted the wake of their target at a range of three miles. To their surprise, the U-boat made no attempt to submerge. She stayed on the surface, evidently determined to fight it out. As the Swordfish started its attack, tracer and ack-ack, uncomfortably accurate, came streaming up at them. Doc had to take violent evasive action, weaving this way and that as the multicoloured ribbons of light flashed past his wingtips. He fired his first four rocket-projectiles from 400 feet at a range of 800 yards. One hit the U-boat squarely aft of the conning tower. There was a bright white flash. The ack-ack stopped. Then the U-boat, obviously reckoning it wasn’t getting the better of things, crash-dived. It crash-dived so fast that it disappeared beneath the waves before Doc had time to launch his second lot of rockets. Nevertheless he fired them and saw them enter the water at the spot where, only a few seconds earlier, there had been a conning tower. The Swordfish circled hopefully, pilot and observer scanning the sea for signs of oil or debris, but the sea remained empty. After about ten minutes their engine started vibrating and running roughly, almost certainly as a result of being flown at maximum revs; so they marked the position of their attack and headed for Nairana. They had, of course, been keeping in touch with the carrier by radio and on their way back they passed a strike force of two Swordfish and two Wildcats which had been scrambled in the hope of finishing the U-boat off. The strike force searched for more than an hour but found nothing and eventually all five planes had to admit defeat. The submarine was classified as “damaged”. It has since come to light that in fact it was damaged quite badly and had to return to base without taking further part in attacks on the convoy.
In the small hours of the morning, as the weather again worsened, the usual shadower appeared on our radar screen. It closed to within a couple of miles of us. At first light a pair of Wildcats was brought up and ranged on the flight-deck. It seemed that Surtees had hopes of making an interception. Conditions by now were if anything worse than when Dusty Miller had been killed. And after consulting with the senior fighter pilot, Val Jones went to the bridge and told Surtees that he was against flying off the Wildcats. Surtees waved him away. Val, however, stuck to his guns. He insisted that if the Wildcats were flown-off, it should be officially recorded in the ship’s log that the flight was being made contrary to his advice and wishes. Surtees could have overruled him, but he reluctantly gave way. (This, it seems, may have been one of the reasons why the Captain subsequently wrote a scathing official report on Val’s capabilities as a Squadron CO.) Anyhow, and much to our fighter pilots’ relief, the Wildcats were struck down.
The Swordfish, however, continued flying, and that afternoon Campania’s 813 Squadron achieved the success which had so far eluded us. One of her Swordfish sighted a U-boat and attacked it with depth-charges. This attack was inconclusive, but almost at once, as the Swordfish resumed its patrol, it sighted another U-boat, fully surfaced and closing in on the convoy. Having dropped its depth-charges, the Swordfish could only shadow its quarry and call for reinforcements. By now it was too dark for Wildcats to be airborne, but a strike force of two Swordfish was flown-off from the Campania. They homed in on the U-boat and in a skilful and co-ordinated attack – with one aircraft illuminating the submarine with flares and the other straddling it with depth-charges – U365 (Kapitän Todenhagen’s U-boat which had so nearly sunk the Cassandra) was sent to the bottom. There was a great deal of oil and debris, but no survivors.
Of the ten Swordfish from Nairana which took off in the next twenty-four hours two returned with radio or ASV failure and three returned with engine trouble. It was little short of a miracle that neither aircraft nor aircrew were lost.
Wilson and Strong took-off at 0100, less than twenty-four hours after their attack on the U-boat. Almost at once their engine started coughing and misfiring. They returned and made a successful emergency landing.
A couple of hours later John Defrates and David Beal were returning from patrol when they picked up a radar contact 20 miles astern of the convoy. They went down to sea level and homed on it. It was pitch dark, there was no moon, and they were almost on top of the U-boat before they spotted it, fully surfaced and on much the same course as they were. John dived on it from dead astern and released his depth-charges and marker flares. It should have been the perfect attack, but, as ill luck would have it, his bomb distributor malfunctioned, with the result that the bombs and flares were dropped simultaneously. There was a huge explosion, a blinding coruscation of light and the U-boat vanished. John and David circled the area in the hope of sighting oil or wreckage, but the sea remained empty. After a while the Swordfish engine began to vibrate and lose power, and, to add to John’s problems, his bomb distributor detached itself from the instrument-panel and started bouncing about in his lap. He had just enough power to get back to the carrier and make another emergency landing. (After the war it was confirmed that this U-boat – attacked in 69°22’N, 5°35’E – suffered “some damage”, with the result that it took no further part in operations against the convoy.)
The next crew to take-off were Eric McEwan and the CO. They had just begun to circle the convoy when Eric noticed that two of the upper cylinders of his Pegasus XXX were glowing a dull red. With the possibility of their engine bursting into flames, Eric and Val returned post haste to the carrier and made the third emergency landing in as many hours.
Their replacements, Cowsill and Holley, took-off at 0430, and had to return an hour later with their ASV inoperative.
Their replacements, Cridland and Hall, stayed airborne even more briefly; at the end of half an hour they landed back with their ASV and their radio both out of action.
However, the shortest and most eventful patrol of all was by John Defrates and David Beal, who took-off at dawn in their Swordfish NR 897. This was the plane in which, only twelve hours earlier, they had attacked the U-boat. Its engine was supposed to have been repaired, but the moment they lifted clear of the flight-deck, it began to vibrate and tremble. They lost power and height, and John had to use his override boost to stay airborne. He was cleared for yet another emergency landing, quickly jettisoned the flares and depth-charges in the middle of the convoy, and was back on the flight deck within five minutes of leaving it.
Any one of these patrols could have resulted in the loss of a Swordfish and its crew, and such losses were averted only by a combination of good fortune and skilful flying.
By our seventh day out from Kola Inlet both aircraft and aircrew were at the end of their tether and it was just as well that conditions now became so bad that even Surtees could no longer contemplate flying.
That evening the wind increased to a full gale; the sea became higher, and by midnight Nairana was pitching into a succession of huge thirty-foot rollers and shipping it green over her flight-deck. In the small hours two enormous waves broke flush on our port wingbridge. Water, cascading below-decks, caused serious flooding and a short-circuit and fire in the generator room. The ship was plunged into darkness and wreathed in smoke. We had reason now to be thankful for Surtees’ emergency fire drills, and the flames were quickly brought under control.
Soon the convoy was forced to reduce speed to no more than three knots – just enough to keep the ships head-on to the swell. And now it was the turn of Nairana’s watchkeeping officers to have a hard time. Carriers in heavy seas and strong winds are difficult to control. Being top-heavy, they roll far more than other warships, while their tall slab-sides make them reel under gusts of wind that more streamlined vessels hardly notice. Maximum rudder and huge fluctuations in speed were often needed to keep Nairana in station, and altering course and position within the convoy to fly aircraft on and off became a hazardous operation. A four-hour watch, lashed by sheets of spray, in gale force winds and sub-zero temperatures was not much fun, but at last the storm blew itself out.
By this time we were south of the 65th parallel and beyond easy reach of the Junkers, while the U-boats had evidently decided we were too tough a nut for them to crack. The last forty-eight hours of our passage home were uneventful. On 17 December aircraft from Coastal Command took over convoy-protection duties, and next morning in calm clear weather – the first time we had seen the sun in three weeks – we dropped anchor in Scapa Flow.
That evening we had a glimpse of the more human side of Surtees. He cleared the lower deck and spoke to the ship’s company, congratulating us on our “splendid achievement”; he then joined a party in the wardroom, taking off his jacket to indicate that rank had been abandoned, and singing with enthusiasm the bawdiest of our songs. It was some time before we had the nerve to strike up our favourite, sung to the tune of “Stand up, stand up for Jesus”.
“Fly off, fly off for Christ’s sake;
The Captain wants a gong.
Fly off, fly off for Christ’s sake;
The Captain can’t be wrong.”
The irony can hardly have escaped him, yet he sang with gusto, and later chatted amicably with several of our pilots and observers. There was one revealing moment when he was talking to Eric McEwan. They were discussing “after the war” – a favourite topic in the winter of ’44/’45 – and Surtees told Eric he was lucky because the whole world was open to him, whereas he himself knew no other life than the Navy and would have to stay on in the Service. The remark, it seems to me, of a lonely man. Looking back, I don’t think it occurred to many of us in those days that the loneliest place in a warship can be the captain’s cabin.
Another to congratulate us was Rear Admiral McGrigor, who wrote in his report:
“This convoy was run at the darkest period of the year. Aircraft patrols and attacks on U-boats were almost all made in total darkness, and I wish to record my admiration for the efficient and enthusiastic manner in which they were carried out by Nairana and Campania, often in conditions when flying was barely practicable owing to the state of wind and sea. … There had been some doubt before this convoy as to whether the inclusion of escort-carriers was worthwhile in midwinter; but without question they were of the greatest value, both for safeguarding the convoy and for killing and damaging U-boats. However, it should be borne in mind that only squadrons as expert and experienced in night flying as those in Campania and Nairana could have coped with the exacting conditions which prevailed.”
Soon after our arrival in Scapa the squadron was given seven days’ leave and this triggered off another row between Val Jones and Surtees. Val argued that the aircrew deserved, and indeed needed, as much leave as they could get, and he pointed out that Campania’s 813 Squadron, who had done less flying than we had, had just been given twenty-one days. Surtees, however, insisted that each watch aboard the Nairana was getting only seven days and that Squadron officers should be treated the same as the rest of the ship’s company.
Returning from leave we found several new faces among the aircrew: Sub-Lts(A) Charles Gough, Donald Payne and Norman Wylie had come to us from Vindex’s 811 Squadron, which had just been disbanded, while early in the New Year we were joined by Leslie Paine, John Roberts and John Rogers. We also found that, whereas our aircraft had been left at Ayr on the Firth of Clyde, our carrier was en route for Scapa Flow in the Orkneys, in preparation (rumour had it) for another venture into the Arctic. We flew north to join her.
Our route, via Fearn (just south of the Moray Firth) and Hatston (just north of the Pentland Firth) lay over the Highlands. It was midwinter, the sun was shining and Scotland lay deep in snow. It was one of those days when if you were flying low in an open-cockpit plane, vista after magnificent vista opened up in front of you, a cornucopia of peaks like pyramids of diamonds, rivers blue with ice and cliff-faces dark as seams
of coal. After our recent experiences in the Arctic, it made us doubly glad to be alive. Arriving at Fearn, our Wildcats “beat up” the airfield with a spectacular display of low flying and aerobatics, while the arrival of our Swordfish was equally impressive: ten planes peeling off from tight formation and stream-landing so close together that the last plane had touched down before the first had reached the end of the runway.
“In all my years with the Air Arm,” Fearn’s Commander Flying told Val Jones, “I’ve never seen such a well-drilled squadron!”
We were given VIP treatment, transport to the wardroom and a first class lunch, so good a lunch in fact that it was late by the time we took off and dark by the time we landed at Hatston.
During the next few days we flew sometimes from the airfield and sometimes from the Nairana, which by now had reached the nearby anchorage of Scapa Flow. We practised, among other things, formation flying. And in their spare time both our fighter pilots and our Captain tried their hand at small boat sailing.
When it came to sailing a dinghy, our Wildcat pilots displayed more exuberance than expertise. Downwind they made rapid progress, but when it was time to go about and tack in and out between the warships at anchor in the Flow, they soon found themselves in difficulty. First they almost capsized, then they rammed the pukkah HMS Diadem amidships. In some disarray they grabbed hold of the cruiser’s quarterdeck gangway, but were at once dislodged from this safe haven by a scandalized Officer of the Watch, who ordered them to “cast off”, because the Admiral’s barge was expected alongside. It was lucky that Nairana’s Officer of the Watch spotted their predicament and sent a motorboat to the rescue.
Alone on a Wide, Wide Sea Page 21