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From there we used to do conveys up the coast, as this was before the American and British had joined up and we had a few air raids, torpedo bombers mostly but our ship wasn’t really in danger. We didn’t lose any ships then. A new bloke joined us and during one of the raids he’d stood behind the gun, as you did in training to catch the empty shell case. The case came back — it was red hot — and hit him on the shoulder leaving a big burn. It was a wonder it didn’t break his shoulder. He’d never fired a shot before.

At sea I was always tired. Working four on, four off you never got enough sleep so if you got a chance to get your head down, you did. The nights could be cold, even in the Med, but could also be quite balmy. One night I remember, in the middle watch, laid on the steel deck and looking up seeing reddish bluish flames on the masts and the radar equipment. We reported it and were told it was St Elmo’s fire. At night the gun crews on duty would compete to see who could sing the loudest, or the most sentimental song, or, usually, the filthiest. One song, anyone who had been in the Navy would remember, goes like this:

Its sides, sides Carlisle, Carlisle ship’s sides,
Jimmy looks on with pride
He’d have a blue fit, if he saw the s**t
On the side of the Carlisle ship’s side.

This is my story, this is my song,
We’ve been in commission too bleedin’ long
Roll on the Nelson, the Rodney, Renown.
This two funnel bastard is getting me down.

We played a lot of games of Uckers (Ludo). It was serious stuff, with competitions between messes.

One day, Sergeant Mann decided we were gong to practise firing at mines. So we threw a few boxes over the side for targets. About eight of us set up with the Bren gun on the quarterdeck, stood in a half circle, taking turns at firing. We fired a few magazines off. On the quarterdeck there were mushroom headed ventilators. This chap rested the Bren on the top of one of them. The vibration of the firing unbalanced it and he shot up all the guard rail and the stanchions. We were only in shorts and everyone held their hands over their middle protecting their ‘asset’s from all these bits flying back. So that ended that session. We all had to report to the sick bay to have these metal and wire splinters removed. Nothing really serious, we got a lot of ribald comments from the matelots though.

We were doing convoys for a couple of months up Bône (now Annaba) and Philippeville (now Skikda) way. We took a convoy right through the Med to Alexandria and from their through the canal to Port Tewfik. There were lots of troopships there building up for the invasion of Sicily. By it was hot. You’d sit on the mess deck having cup of tea with your elbow on the table and by the time you’d drunk the tea there’d be a big stain on the table from your sweat. Fresh water was in short supply and only on for a couple of hours a day. The rest of the time there was salt water for washing. So we had a small ration of fresh water for everything, drinking — it tasted horrible- and ‘dhobying’ (clothes washing). I managed to get my own dhoby bucket, which was great, not having to borrow anyone else’s. It had my name on it. I used to put my washing in it, shave some ‘Pusser’s’ soap in and leave it outside my locker. It would simmer with the heat. Then I’d take it down to the bathroom for a final rub before rinsing it out.

Nelson’s blood, bubbly, spirits — in other words rum, one of the most sacred traditions in the Navy. All men over twenty one were entitled to a tot — a daily ration of rum. Chiefs and Petty Officers had neat rum. All other ranks had two and one — two parts water, one part rum. If you were over twenty one and didn’t want it, you were classed as ‘temperance’ and had a ‘T’ against your name on the watch bill as opposed to ‘G’ for grog or ‘UA’ if, like me, you were under age. Each mess elected a ‘bubbly bosun’ to collect the bubbly and bring it back. You’d see all men with their cups ready carefully watching him measure it out, woe betide him if he was a drop out. The bubbly bosun had ‘sippers’ — the privilege of a sip from each man’s cup as his perk for collecting the ration. If anyone owed him a favour, he could have ‘gulpers’ or half or a full tot. It was like currency.

The butcher was a marine. He went sick and, as I had been a butcher’s boy, they got me to stand in for him. He had a caboose on the upper deck in which vegetables were stored and a freezer for meat. One his jobs was to go down, just before eleven o’ clock, into the spirit room to collect the day’s ration, with the Officer of the day, the Petty Officer of the day and a Leading Killick from the supply from the ‘Pusser’s department. So this time, I had to go too. As soon as the door opened the smell of the rum hit me. We went in to fill a breaker with rum. The raw spirit was pumped up into the breaker. I was drunk on the fumes, I was well away.

In Port Tewfik I would often go ashore with signals on the DSB (Duty Signal Boat). I went with the corporal postman. He would collect the mail and I would do the official stuff — signals. We would have this coffee in a little cup and with it — and this was the luxury — you’d get a cup of ice cold water. When you drank the coffee there was an inch of dregs in the bottom but the water was lovely and cool.

From there we went up the Gulf of Aqabar and the detachment did a practice landing in whalers. I had the two-inch mortar and I thought I’m going to do this properly. I stood in the prow of the whaler as we approached this lovely sandy beach. As I jumped out I somehow got turned round and landed facing out to sea with this mortar, stumbling backwards as the other men came past me. I just managed to avoid a wet landing. We had a good day after that. I fired off a couple of mortar rounds. The mortar was very simple to operate. It was an L shape with a barrel in front with a sight on it and a trigger that you twisted to fire it. You dropped the round in and laid on it to stop it moving. Later they brought out another version with a smaller base plate where you stamped it into the ground and knelt with it to fire.

We set sail for Sicily with a convoy, although, at the time, we didn’t know where we were heading. We ended up off Syracuse and the landing went ahead, lots of shelling and aircraft. Planes flew over with paratroops, some towing gliders. Lots of them were released too soon and ended up in the sea. We could see the soldiers wet through on the wings, bedraggled, like drowned rats. We took some of them off. We fired a lot of ammunition off and our supplies of shells were replenished by Italians, either prisoners or volunteers. The next night there was a hospital ship sunk. We picked up survivors, including some nurses. The ‘Doc’ went over the side to help some of the nurses up the scrambling nets. The following day we picked up a German pilot.

I had to go on shore with signals, to Syracuse. I was walking along the beach and saw these two blokes coming towards me, scruffy looking blokes they were. One of them stopped me and asked whether I knew where the marine commandos were. I didn’t so I just pointed vaguely in the direction of Syracuse. As I did I took a closer look at one of them and said: “Don’t I know you? Do you come from Scarborough?”
He said “Yeah.”
“You’re ‘Rocky’ Rowe aren’t you?” I’d been to school with him. He was called ‘Rocky’ because his family made rock on the sea front at Scarborough. He’d been in my class in junior school (Gladstone Road) but went on to the grammar school. You never know who you’re going to meet on a morning in Syracuse. Later when I joined the commando I met him again.

Then we came back to Malta. I had my nineteenth birthday there.

Once we were at sea and we passed the Italian fleet that had surrendered. We were told we could take a look but not to train our guns on them or do anything that might alarm them. Some quite big ships amongst them: cruisers. I don’t know where they went.

Then we went back to ‘Alex’ and we did a couple of conveys. In the October we went back to sea with two destroyers: HMS Panther and a Polish ship. At sea, we were told we were going up to the Dodecanese Islands. The Germans were invading one of the islands that hadn’t been occupied before then. We were to intercept this convoy. We were two or three days out from ‘Alex’ in amongst the islands.

For the first two days we’d been at action stations most of the time and we’d had a couple of false alarms.

On the ninth of October, the day I shall never forget. It was very hot. They’d just piped up ‘hands at messes for rum’ - which was twelve o’clock. Out of the blue we heard these planes, then the scream of the dive-bomber. It’s incredibly frightening. I looked up and saw this plane that was heading right for me. I dived down onto the gun deck and there was this tremendous explosion and we were banged about. There are only certain things I can remember about it. I remember getting up - it must have been a couple of minutes later — and I could see one of the feet of a body under a greatcoat. It was twitching. I thought I recognised the plimsoll. I thought it was my mate Don Sly but I found later out it was a chap called May. There was confusion all round. This scouser: McCurdy was putting a shell on the runner. He was really mad: “Come on, let get at ‘em”. But it was too late, the planes had gone and we were having a problem with getting the gun to train round as well. Then I realised that my head was bleeding. It wasn’t much but the sergeant told me to go down below to the first aid station and get seen to. I looked towards the stern and all I could see was smoke, black and grey smoke. I wanted to go on and see the (gun) crew but I couldn’t. I was scared at what I might see. I’m sure I couldn’t have done anything anyway. But I always feel that I should have.

I went back up on to our gun deck where there was about half of us left. We were told to lighten ship so we started throwing ammunition over the side. One bloke threw our Uckers board over. I don’t know how much good he thought that was going to do. As I say there are only certain things I remember. It’s not in sequence and some things I must have blacked out. I don’t remember the burial at sea.
We lost fifty percent either killed or injured, out of thirty odd men. HMS Panther was sunk. There’s a man in Scarborough, who I still see, who was on it.

The ship was low down in the water on the quarterdeck. We stayed by our abandon ship stations during the night because they weren’t sure whether the ship was going to stay afloat. The next day we got under tow and were towed back to Alexandria. As we entered the harbour, we ‘fell in’ on the quarterdeck. There were five of us. All the ships hooters and sirens blew as we went alongside. Then we took the casualties on shore. We were only aboard for about another week; then we got drafted off. HMS Carlisle went into dry dock for repairs but it never went to sea again.

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