SUBMARINE DUTY

Timaru Herald, Volume CLVI, Issue 23030, 23 October 1944, Page 6

SUBMARINE DUTY

Two New Zealanders LONDON, October 18. Two New Zealanders who joined the submarine service three years ago, and who have served together since then, have certainly seen the world and felt the extremes of Its temperature. They are Leading Stokers P. E. Legros (Wairoa) and B. F. Bennett, D.S.M. (Palmerston North). After serving in a submarine comcanded by Commander A. C. C. Miers, V.C., D.S.O. and Bar, in the Mediterranean, they did patrol work in H.M.S. Torbay during the winter of 1942-43 off Norway. It was dark all the time, and whenever the submarine surfaced to recharge its batteries it was immediately encrusted with great blocks of ice. The temperature of the sea was 34 degrees, and inside the submarine it was scarcely more than 40 degrees. It w T as a cold, rough, uncomfortable trip, and although there were heaters inside the ship, they merely caused ; clammy cold atmosphere, the submarine “sweating” and water dripping everywhere. The patrol lasted three weeks, and Legros was seasick most of the time. Nine months later the New Zealanders were in anotner submarine on their way to Colombo and in the Red Sea. With a temperature of about 112 degrees, they worked naked, streaming perspiration. Electric fans did little more than re-disperse the hot air. The Only Casualty Before going to Colombo they served in a submarine commanded by an Englishman, Lieutenant R. J. Clutterbuck. On one patrol it surfaced off Imperia, on the Liguarian coast, near Nice, and scored hits with its gun on oil tanks. The shore batteries replied, and as the submarine was diving after the end of the attack, a near miss caused ammunition—four-inch shells —to cascade over Bennett, < who had been “feeding” them to the gun tower. He had the distinction of being the only “casualty,” with a cut on the head. During this 'atrol the submarine sank about 350,000 tons of shipping. One ship was a 6000 tonner. It was surrounded bv 17 escort ships, and was leaving Bastia harbour when a torpedo r-uck. Lieutenant Clutterbuck, with cool contempt for attacks with depth charges, remained looking through the periscope, giving a running commentary, and although the crew could hear the propellers churning overhead and depth charges exploding, he observed: “They have not got. the first idea." Stokers Legros and Bennett left the submarine at Colombo and travelled five days bv train to Bombay. They are now in London awaiting posting to another su’-imrlne.