Memoirs re Combined Operations

"DAD, WELL DONE" Navy Memoirs (6)

by L/S Coxswain Doug Harrison

[Part of memorial to men of Combined Operations, at the former

site of H.M.S. Quebec, Inveraray, Scotland. Oct.ober 2014] 

Chapter FIVE. SCOTLAND AGAIN, THEN NORTH AFRICA 

After Dieppe we regrouped and went back to H.M.S. Quebec for further training, this time on LCMs or Landing Craft Mobile or Mechanized. H.M.S. Quebec was in Scotland on Loch Long*.

During the odd times we had leave I visited London and saw my mother’s sister and brother and nephews and had many gay times with them. One Christmas time I took a whole kit bag full of food and clothes to London, and what a time we had because they were on short rations. Our mail caught up with us from time to time and when it did it was tremendous both in amount and content.

One memory sticks in my mind and it was a happy time. They call raisins Sultanas in England and Mum’s sister, Aunt Nellie, had written Mum about some. Mum sent some over and also sent a Christmas pudding. It arrived on Saturday and Christmas was on the following Monday, so Aunt Nellie cried. One tradition was to pour rum on the pudding, close the blinds, and then light it afire. I had never seen it before and it was a sight to behold and remember.

“Aunt Ivy... Aunt Nellie had written mum about some...” 

My group went through much more training at H.M.S. Quebec and then we entrained for Liverpool. Prominent pub was the Crown in Wallasey. We left Greenock in October, 1942 with our LCMs aboard a ship called Derwentdale, sister ship to Ennerdale. She was an oil tanker and the food was short and the mess decks where we ate were full of eighteen inch oil pipes. The 80th and 81st flotillas, as we are now called, were split between the Derwentdale and Ennerdale in convoy, and little did we know we were bound for North Africa.

I became an A/B Seaman (Able-bodied) on this trip and passed my exams classed very good. The food aboard was porridge and kippers for breakfast, portioned out with a scale. We would plead for just one more kipper from the English Chief Petty Officer, and when he gave it to us we chucked it all over the side because the kippers were unfit to eat.

We had American soldiers aboard and an Italian in our mess who had been a cook before the war. He drew our rations and prepared the meal (dinner) and had it cooked in the ship’s galley. He had the ability to make a little food go a long way and saved us from starvation.Supper I can’t remember, but I know the bread was moldy and if the ship’s crew hadn’t handed us out bread we would have been worse off. We used to semaphore with flags to the Ennerdale to see how they were eating; they were eating steak. One of the crew cheered us up and said, “Never mind, boys. There will be more food going back. There won’t be as many of us left after the invasion.” Cheerful fellow. However, we returned aboard another ship to England, the Reina Del Pacifico, a passenger liner, and we nicknamed the Derwentdale the H.M.S. Starvation.

[American troops climb into assault landing craft from liner REINA DEL PACIFICO

during Operation 'Torch', Allied landings in North Africa, November 1942. IWM**]

In the convoy close to us was a converted merchant ship which was now an air craft carrier. They had a relatively short deck for taking off, and one day when they were practicing taking off and landing a Swordfish aircraft failed to get up enough speed and rolled off the stern and, along with the pilot, disappeared immediately. No effort was made to search, we just kept on.

One November morning the huge convoy, perhaps 500 ships, entered the Mediterranean Sea through the Strait of Gibraltar. It was a nice sun-shiny day... what a sight to behold.

On November 11, 1942 the Derwentdale dropped anchor off Arzew in North Africa and different ships were distributed at different intervals along the vast coast. My LCM had the leading officer aboard, another seaman besides me, along with a stoker and Coxswain. At around midnight over the sides went the LCMs, ours with a bulldozer and heavy mesh wire, and about 500 feet from shore we ran aground. When morning came we were still there, as big as life and all alone, while everyone else was working like bees.

[American troops landing on the beach at Arzeu, near Oran, from a landing

craft assault (LCA 26), some of them are carrying boxes of supplies. IWM**]

There was little or no resistance, only snipers, and I kept behind the bulldozer blade when they opened up at us. We were towed off eventually and landed in another spot, and once the bulldozer was unloaded the shuttle service began. For ‘ship to shore’ service we were loaded with five gallon jerry cans of gasoline. I worked 92 hours straight and I ate nothing except for some grapefruit juice I stole.

Our Coxswain was L/S Jack Dean of Toronto and our officer was Lt. McDonald RNR. After the 92 hours my officer said, “Well done. An excellent job, Harrison. Go to Reina Del Pacifico and rest.” But first the Americans brought in a half track (they found out snipers were in a train station) and shelled the building to the ground level. No more snipers. I then had to climb hand over hand up a large hawser (braided rope) to reach the hand rail of Reina Del Pacifico and here my weakness showed itself. I got to the hand rail completely exhausted and couldn’t let one hand go to grab the rail or I would have fallen forty feet into an LCM bobbing below. I managed to nod my head at a cook in a Petty Officer’s uniform and he hauled me in. My throat was so dry I only managed to say, “Thanks, you saved my life.”

The Reina was a ship purposely for fellows like me who were tired out, and I was fed everything good, given a big tot of rum and placed in a hammock. I slept the clock around twice - 24 hours - then went back to work. In seven days I went back aboard the Reina Del and headed for Gibraltar to regroup for the trip back to England. During the trip I noticed the ship carried an unexploded three inch shell in her side all the way back to England.

Just outside Gibraltar, Ettrick was torpedoed in her side and sank, and one rating from Ingersoll, Ontario was among those killed. She took four hours to sink and many were saved. We arrived in England without trouble. Our ship was fast, could do about 22 knots per hour, a knot being one mile and a fifth per hour. (I am going to leave my memories about hilarious occasions during leaves I enjoyed until last.)

The job of the seaman on an ALC or LCM is to let the bow door down and wind it up by means of a winch situated in the stern of the barge. This winch is divided so you can drop a kedge (anchor) possibly about 100 or so feet from shore depending on the tide. If it is going out you can unload and then put motors full astern, wind in the kedge and pull yourself off of breach. The tide is very important and constantly watched.

[H.M.S. Quebec, the site of much training with landing crafts. October 2014]

If it is going out (on the ebb) and you are slow, you can be left high and dry, and if so, you stay with the barge. If the tide is on the make (flowing in) you use the kedge to keep you from swinging sideways on breach. In this case your kedge would be out only a short ways. After much practice, however, the kedge can be forgotten and everything done by engines and helm. Each barge has two engines.

A convoy is only as fast as the slowest ship and fast ships that make over 20 knots usually travel alone on a zig zag course so a sub cannot get lined up on them. That wouldn’t work today as subs are much faster. 

More to follow.

Please link to Memoirs re Combined Operations "DAD, WELL DONE" Navy Memoirs (5)  

*Loch Long is some distance from H.M.S. Quebec and the town of Inveraray. H.M.S. Quebec was situated on Loch Fyne. However, some Combined Ops training occurred on Loch Long with RN Commandos.

** IWM - Photo credits to Imperial War Museum, UK

Unattributed photos by GH