CONVOY WORK IN ATLANTIC

Press, Volume LXXVII, Issue 23315, 29 April 1941, Page 7

CONVOY WORK IN ATLANTIC

♦ LIFE ABOARD A DESTROYER TWO U-BOATS SUNK LONDON. March 20. Two convoys of British and Allied ships safely escorted through the danger zone, and two U-boats sunk by sister destroyers. This is the encouraging record of a 2000-mile voyage I •have made in a destroyer which in several days 1 has ranged far out into the wilderness of the vast Atlantic battlefield, says L. Marsland Gardet, in the “Daily Telegraph.” As escort vessel and submarine chaser, this ship is helping to fight a way through the German counterblockade of our north-western approaches, now being ruthlessly prosecuted by U-boats and surface raiders. In a few days I have seen more than 200 ships sailing safely in convoy, an antidote to the figure of shipping losses.

Alarms and scares were plentiful, but our two convoys were not attacked once. Condign punishment of U-boats which imprudently made an attempt on a convoy ahead probably explains our immunity.

After some minor adventures the testing moment of our voyage came on the sixth day. Late the previous night the officer of the watch observed a great flash many miles away, illuminating the sky under the giant cartwheel of the Northern Lights. Enemy Aeroplane About

Wireless reports established that a merchant ship had been torpedoed more than 50 miles away. The following morning we passed a patch of oil, possibly a relic of the torpedoed ship. Shortly afterwards came news of the approach of the Nazi aeroplane, followed by an SOS from a ship torpedoed off the west coast of Ireland. The air raid did not materialise, but the weather began to worsen, causing the ship to pitch violently. Next came a big thrill. A sister destroyer escorting the convoy ahead wirelessed that she had sighted an enemy submarine on the surface. How we envied her and speculated. Adding to our preoccupations were messages telling us that German warships were out in the Atlantic. , Look-outs scoured the gloomy seas with their long glasses; the Asdic detector explored! the depths. The strain sustained for hour after hour was intense, until finally the sunless day was replaced by impenetrable night, and still we drove on through the tumbling billows.

U-boats; like the assassin, wait for darkness, and the task of finding them is desperately difficult. Eventually our eyes, straining through the night, detected the dim shapes of the convoy ahead. I made a perilous way down the slippery steel ladders to my cabin to wait for morning, fully clothed, as always, and with a lifebelt on. Next morning, at action stations, the weather was still depressing, and I made a suitable comment to out 28-year-old captain. “A jolly good day, you mean.” he retorted.

"Two submarines sunk.” We had just picked up the wireless message. The news spread' like wildfire. There was great jubilation in the ward-room, and also disappointment that we. had not been the lucky ones. The spirits of the ratings rose. U-boats have been attacking protected convoys with determination lately. Now they have had a sharp lesson. As the convoy weaved its slow zigzag we saw some of the flotsam of this terrible battlefield—empty rafts, baulks of timber, and once a body lashed to a spar. On the third day out a corvette accompanying the convoy signalled that she had picked up three survivors from a raft and a boat, a Norwegian and two Icelanders. The Norwegian had been adrift for 12 days and medical help was urgently needed. The captain agreed to send our sur-geon-lieutenant, who in peace time is assistant to a country practice in Lincolnshire. We hove to in a surging sea, which caused the ship to heel to an acute angle. The corvette approached as close as she dare and lay bobbing and rolling in the roughest sea I have seen. Then came the ticklish operation of lowering a boat with a crew of five. The doctor alone among those in the boat wore no oilskin. Huge waves threatened to engulf them. We last saw him facetiously waving his cap and making a paddling motion with his hands. Afterwards we heard that this perilous mid-ocean trip had been highly successful, and that the patient recovered, but the doctor did not rejoin us for the rest of our voyage.