ĂŰŃż´ŤĂ˝

THE ADMIRALTY REGRET

A true eyewitness account by Philip Munro of the loss of the cruisers “Dorsetshire” and “Cornwall” in the Indian Ocean, April 1942.

“The Admiralty regret to announce the loss of the cruisers “Dorsetshire” and “Cornwall”……

As we sat in the Petty Officer’s mess onboard another cruiser, the realisation came that only four days had elapsed since those two big cruisers had made their final rendezvous. Without emotion, the radio announcer’s voice droned on… and five thousand miles away, eight hundred families wondered and worried — were their husbands, sons or sweethearts safe? What had happened?

We had been steering south all day to rejoin the battle fleet, miles out in the Indian Ocean when suddenly, out of the sun, like hungry lustful hawks screaming murder and death, came dive bombers. The sky seemed full of them, peeling off from their formations; black specks, each spewing a bomb from its belly as they screeched down on us.

The vicious cracks of our four-point-seven guns were drowned by the crash of heavy bombs. The Dorsetshire shuddered and shook as her decks and sides were blasted and torn. Chattering cannon and machine gun bullets punctured her superstructure. Bomb after bomb crashed down, and they never seemed to miss! A dozen in as many seconds, thousand- pounders, tearing the ‘Old Girl’s’ heart out. Both starboard H.A. mountings were hit, the twin guns sticking out crazily at odd angles from twisted and blackened shields; a funnel gone, the mainmast hanging like a drunken blackened ghost; smoke and hissing steam everywhere.

“Keep the guns firing”, shouted the Captain. The order was repeated down to the guns, but more than half of them were completely out of action, the remainder with sorely depleted crews. Seconds went by — they seemed like years — then more bombs came screaming down. The port after H.A. gun was hit, the foremost gun blasted. A member of the gun’s crew, headless, with a shell in his arms, staggered a pace to the breech. The shell went in, the breech closed; the gun recoiled, knocking the headless body across empty shell cases.

The telephone operator rang up to the Bridge ‘phone from his exchange in the bowels of the ship. The Yeoman of Signals answered it, and on saying who was speaking heard, “Sorry, Bunts, but I can’t get out… my legs are gone.” The ship gave a lurch and the ‘phone went dead.

The Captain gave the order to abandon ship, the order being passed with difficulty over the noise of battle, the hiss of escaping steam, and the moans of the wounded and dying. One man shouted out, “Women and children first…” and even the badly wounded managed a smile; it somehow broke the awful tension. A man with one arm gone and the other skinned by scalding steam, fought his way along the guard-rails, his one poor maimed hand holding a knife, cutting away life-rafts.

She was going down fast now, seemingly on her beam-ends. The water was covered with men who, regardless of splashing bullets, so deceivingly harmless, shook their fists and hurled curses, as only a sailor can, at the murderous machine gunners. Then came the worst and most terrifying noise of all. The ship righted herself then eerily lurched up to stand on her stern. In the space of about thirty seconds everything in the ship moved. Her engines and boilers tore off their mountings; her turrets slid screaming from their barbettes. Then, the ship that sank the “Bismarck” shuddered, and slowly slid under the waves to the accompaniment of an orchestra of tortured metal and wailing wrecked bodies. Above the sound of all the hissing steam and rending of steel came a cry, “Help me… I can’t get away…”

Such a feeling of loneliness and utter helplessness then came over those of us in the water, for we could only see one small boat and a couple of very small rafts, each already swarming with bodies. None the less, there didn’t seem to be many of us — surely more than a handful had got away…

The afternoon wore on, and slowly, over our low horizon, other clusters of men appeared. We managed to get together by nightfall, but could still see no survivor’s from “Cornwall”. They must have been only about five miles away, but with our eyes at sea level we had a horizon of only a few hundred yards.

Oil fuel from the sunken ship coated everything and everybody. Small pieces of cork and rubber, soaked in oil, stuck like horse collars around our necks. With the darkness came intense cold. Some were singing, others moaning; one or two went mad.

Every few minutes somebody could see a light. All were wishful thinking! Once we saw a very red light, possibly from the “Cornwall” survivors, but probably just another hallucination. Some men suffered from cramp. They would sink away and perhaps surface again after half an hour or so, floating beside us, eyes staring. It seemed that daylight would never come, but at long last the first streaks of dawn appeared over the horizon.

About an hour after dawn a small piece of ship’s biscuit and a sip of water were served out to each man from the solitary boat. There appeared to be several hundred of us by then, but many of those who floated had no life, their lifebelts keeping them on the surface.

Hours passed like years until, at about noon, the first of a number of sharks, until then frightened by the heavy explosions of the previous day, came up to feed on the floating dead. Several who still had life also disappeared. The sea was so clear we could see them, seemingly just beneath our feet. But they must have been three or four fathoms under, for they just looked like harmless, big-headed sardines. Others made a fairy ring around us with their dorsal fins. They looked neither harmless nor small! Feebly we splashed and made noises to ward off the evil monsters, batting them on their noses with bits of flotsam when they got too close.

Slowly the day passed, each hour bringing its false alarms: masts sighted, ships coming, aircraft engines throbbing… and tortured bodies giving up their one remaining shred of life. We had already anticipated another night swimming around, waiting to die, when we got our final, “Look boys…there’s a mast…no, two of the buggers!” Some did not even bother to turn in the direction of the report. One man, however, climbed onto a small raft, others holding him in a standing position as he excitedly shouted, “Nah, there ain’t…” We held our breath. He then gave us an oily grin and yelled, “There’s three of ‘em!” A few more minutes passed while our informant struggled to keep his balance. He then grinned again and shouted, “A cruiser and a couple of destroyers, or summat. Hope to Christ they ain’t Japs!” No, we all agreed it would be better to stay where we were than to be taken prisoner by the Japanese. But then our oily grinning commentator, more excited than ever, sang out to me, “Bunts, the cruiser… she’s bobbing!”

All necks were craned as this signalman levered himself out of the water, on the shoulders of three or four others, and read slowly, “Duff pendants forty-five — the bloody old Altmark.” And everyone knew which ship bore the nickname “Altmark” in our fleet.

They picked us up, and then went on a few miles to collect the survivors of the “Cornwall”. It didn’t take them long. With calm and cool efficiency they tended the wounded, found warm clothes, hot water, hot drinks, food, rum… in fact they looked after us as only shipmates can. There were several hundred of us on board one of the two destroyers; actually, she had many more on board than the cruiser, but we were all tended as well as if we’d been guests at the Ritz. They then transferred us at a secret base to other ships. Some of us, myself included, went aboard a cruiser bound for Mombassa.

Two days later, whilst still aboard the cruiser, we heard a ĂŰŃż´ŤĂ˝ announcer informing the world, “The Admiralty regret to announce the loss of His Majesty’s cruisers “Dorsetshire” and “Cornwall”. No details are available yet. The next of kin will be informed as soon as possible.”

The above short story was written about two months after the incident and was intended for publication, but suppressed at the time for security reasons. The secret base referred to was Mali in the Maldives. The cruiser that took us to Mombassa was the “Dauntless”.

*

Upon our arrival at Mombassa, we made our way to the Navy Office in order to send loved ones news of our safety. We could only use the Ships Letter Service, which consisted of a number of set phrases, represented by numbers, which could then be transmitted by radio to England. The message always consisted of the address, the number of the phrase, and a one-word signature. This was all that was permitted. I sent one to my future wife, Nora, in Liverpool, as follows: “Nora Jones. 85, Goodison Road, Liverpool 4. Many happy returns, Philip.” As her birthday was on December 4th, I figured she would work it out, as this was only April. She did!

Then it was back to our accommodation, which turned out to be a captured Vichy-French cattle boat, which stank to high heaven, and which, it was decided by the powers that be, us survivors would utilise to steam down the east coast of Africa to Durban. After a very slow, smelly but uneventful trip, we duly arrived at Durban, South Africa. There, we were accommodated in tents sited on a sports field and, after a few days, were fitted out with some Kit… suits and bedding, etc. The old battleship “Valiant” came into Durban, having been badly damaged in Haifa in the Mediterranean. She was on her way to the United States for repairs, and a lot of our crowd were sent onboard “Valiant” to replace crew members killed or wounded. I managed to escape, saying that I wanted to get back to England and the Signal School for a Signal Boatswain’s Course. I was eventually given a passage on the SS “Oronsay” to Liverpool.

Š Copyright of content contributed to this Archive rests with the author. Find out how you can use this.