“We went out and picked up convoys from the middle of the Atlantic, collecting up a large fleet. We then turned eastward and went through the straights of Gibraltar at night, with what was then, a tremendously large convoy...They called it the Santa Maria Convoy, to Malta and that was 1942.
“I had to send a message to an aircraft carrier to drop astern and fly off aircraft. I sent the message...and then went off watch. I looked back at the aircraft carrier and it was keeled right over, I dashed back into the office and said ‘there’s something wrong’ we had to send another message to dispatch a destroyer to stand by her. By that stage there were people climbing up the funnel to get away from the water, there were people climbing up the sloping flight deck to get away and they lost a lot of people...The U-boat that sunk her was sitting underneath us...nobody knew it was there. As soon as we told the carrier to drop astern, the U-boat dropped astern and torpedoed her. “It was in that Malta convoy that I saw most action. At times there were enemy aircraft everywhere in the sky. Our anti aircraft guns were firing and they (the planes) were sort of jigging their way through...One of them we shot down when it was fifty yards short of our ship, just about to drop its payload. Although it was on the port side as it came in, it went over the ship and fell into the water on the starboard side. I have to say what a brave pilot that chap was...(but) you had to kill them or they’d kill you...” |