The Second World War

I was listening to Jeremy Vine on the Radio the other day and he was talking to Antony Beevor about his new book called “The Second World War”. Jeremy was saying that it is strange that The Second World War fascinates everybody. This struck a chord with me as I am spell bound by the War and love nothing better than watching old war films. For although there was tragedy and hardship it was a glamorous and romantic time, stream trains gushing steam, whistles blowing, passionate goodbye embraces. There was a spirit of recklessness, servicemen knew they could meet a violent death; civilians knew they could be killed in a bombing raid. People wanted to gamble, drink, dance and make love because they knew they may never have another chance

I have two links to the Second World War. The first is that in my book “The Skimming Stone” the two children are sent back in time to the Second World War by the benign Wizard Signet to put a great wrong right and tidy up some loose ends. They experience the hardship of life in those war years, meet some interesting characters such as Jazz, a. Spitfire Pilot and watch a dog fight in the air.

The second connection is that my father was a Chief Petty Officer in the Royal Navy and he had a very interesting war. He was a submariner, a commando creeping through jungles to destroy Japanese air fields in the Far East, the ill-fated attack at Narvik in Norway. where they could not tell the difference between Norwegians and Germans. He was on HMS Nelson as part of the convoy that got the Oil tanker Ohio through to Malta preventing the fall of Malta. All through this time he played football for the Navy, and after the war played against the national teams of Brazil and Portugal.

I started to write his story called Alex’s war, but when I told him he did not want me to carry on and publish his story as he felt it was immodest and people would think he was bragging. Anyway as I have written various chapters that I think people will find interesting I thought I would put them on a blog! So here is his story about the Tally-Ho submarine. Let me know if you would like to hear more and I’ll publish other chapters as blogs.

Alex’s War Chapter 9

The Tally-Ho

If only he cold tell, of the sights that he had seen,

Of seas that he had sailed, on that fine old submarine.

But his tales will go untold, because of history past.

Of lessons paid in blood, the “Silent Service” it was cast.

Soul of a Submariner. John Chaffey

During World War II, the “Silent Service” paid dear cost.

And the saddest words heard, were “overdue and presumed lost.”

Submarine Lore. John Chaffey.

You won’t find Alex’s name on any of the crew member’s lists of the submarine Tally-Ho, but he was. There, oh yes he was there. Alex was serving as the Chief Engineer of the Tally-Ho on that fateful day on 24 February 1944 when she had a narrow escape. The Tally-Ho was reported missing, believed sunk and it was thought that all her crew had perished at sea.

It happened like this. Alex was the Chief Petty officer on board the HMS Canton, which was operating in the Indian Ocean and had docked in Colombo, Ceylon, to refuel. Alex was enjoying a brief respite of shore leave in Colombo. Ceylon, now known as Sri Lanka then is an island paradise, warm and tropical with lush green vegetation and beaches of golden sands. Alex was relaxing waiting for the HMS Canton to be ready to escort another merchant ship when HMS Tally-Ho came into port. Their chief engineer had appendicitis and was rushed to the local Military hospital. The Tally-Ho needed a Chief engineer and as Alex was available he was drafted to take up this post. He had never been on a submarine before and it was with some trepidation that Alex joined the crew in his first and only post as a submariner. A sailor always stays listed as a crewmember on his mother ship while in a temporary post on another ship.

HMS Tally-Ho was a British T class submarine and was 276 feet 6 inches long and 25 feet 6 inches wide and had a height of 12 feet 9 inches high forward and 14 feet 7 inches aft. It was a large submarine but with a complement of 61 men aboard it sometimes felt quite crowded. It had twin diesel engines and twin electric motors and could go at a speed of 9 knots submerged and 15.5 knots on the surface. It had 11 torpedo tubes, 6 reload torpedoes, a 4-inch deck gun and 3 anti aircraft machine guns.

The operating areas the submarine covered were mainly in the Malacca Straits, off Java, Sumatra and the South China Sea. There were not many big targets to be found in the area and so the crew were not stretched. This meant that the other side of the coin and a big bonus for them was that Japans anti-submarine activity was sporadic and not very efficient. Although as they were to discover, to their peril, not without some little success.

As an engineer Alex spent much of his time below decks on other ships and so being submerged was not so very different. He got over his initial fear and he was soon enjoying life on the HMS Tally-Ho. There was a great feeling of camaraderie on the ship probably as everyone was living together in close proximity. They all ate together, and even the Captain Lt. Commander Bennington joined his crew for meals. He was a popular Captain and cared about all his crew. He would never leave port without all his men aboard. The submarine operated out of Trincomalee and Alex remembers many occasions when Captain Bennington sent out search parties round the bars to find a missing seaman or two, so that the Tally-Ho could set sail. This was unusual as ships set sail at the appointed time and if any crewmember missed the boat they were in deep trouble.

The Tally-Ho had been enjoying much success in January 1944, and on the 11 January had sunk the Japanese light cruiser the Kuma. Their periscope had spotted her masts coming out of Penang harbour, putting to sea for a second day of anti-submarine exercises. A F1M2 Pete and the destroyer Uranami accompanied her. Little did she realise that the exercise was about to become the real thing.

There was a feeling of excitement and expectation when Lt. Commander Bennington gave the command to down periscopes and Action Stations. Crewmembers moved quickly to their posts and by 09.13 everyone were in attack position. The Captain ordered a spread of seven torpedoes and gave the order to fire. Alex knew that the torpedoes were in working order as he checked them every day but he still held his breath with the rest of the crew. There was an eerie silence as everyone waited for what seemed to be an eternity and then two enormous explosions were heard in rapid succession like violent reverberating metallic hammer blows. The crew could not help themselves and all let out a tremendous cheer. There was much backslapping as they rose to the surface and looked through the periscope at the stricken Kuma. The crew watched in awe as she sank by the stern and one of the crew, who was quite religious, and had been nicknamed “Holy Joe”, said prayers for the unfortunate sailors on board the Kuma. They later learned that 138 lives had been lost. Most of the sailors were just glad that it wasn’t them and were relieved when the Captain gave the orders to make good their escape.

After this the submarine successfully torpedoed and sank the Japanese army cargo ship Ryuko Maru on 15 January 1944, south of Port Blair in the Andaman Islands. They did not see much action after these successes until Valentines Day 14 February 1944, when they torpedoed and sunk a German submarine UIT-23 in the Straits of Malacca south of Penang. A week later on the 21 February 1944 they torpedoed and sank the Japanese army cargo ship Daigen Maru No 6 in the Straits of Malacca very close to their previous hit.

On the fateful day of 24 February 1944, HMS Tally-Ho was 1000 miles away from their homeport of Trincomalee, when they encountered an enemy torpedo boat. The captain gave the command and they fired a spread of torpedoes. None of these torpedoes found their target and they dived to take refuge. They sat stationary while the enemy sent depth charges. They felt extremely vulnerable, as they stayed absolutely still and quiet with the engines cut off. Alex felt terrified as everyone could hear these depth charges getting nearer and nearer. They all knew that at any moment their submarine could be blasted apart and they would stand no chance of survival. The water would rush into the submarine and they would plummet to the bottom of the ocean. There would be no escape and everyone would drown. “Holy Joe” started to sing “Abide with me” and the Captain’s voice boomed out from the bridge over the tannoy. “Shut that man up”. Someone put a bucket over his head.

The captain gave the order to surface “We’ll take our chances up above; we’re not going to be a sitting duck any longer”. When they surfaced it felt as if the whole Japanese navy was after them. The captain gave the order and they moved in close to the destroyer and mirrored its moves so that it could not use its guns on them. The Captain knew that if they kept close to the destroyer its guns did not have the purchase to shoot at them. The submarine played cat and mouse with the Japanese Destroyer for about 2 hours. Unfortunately the Tally-Ho did not move quickly enough one time and the Japanese destroyer ripped open the port ballast tanks. This was disastrous as it meant that they could not dive to shake off their pursuer. To everyone’s amazement, a miracle happened and the Japanese destroyer disappeared. It is not known whether the destroyer was damaged or if their Captain thought that they were finished and they could not survive. The answer to that question was never known. What they did know was that they were alone, 1000 miles from our homeport and could not dive. Even though the odds were against them, the survival instinct is strong and they were determined to try to get to safety.

The problem was that the ship was listing to port and the engines were in danger of slipping off their mountings. If this happened they would probably pack up altogether and then they would be marooned in the Malachi Straits. Alex went up to the bridge to report on the damage to the Captain. He told him about the problem, and while he digested this information Alex suddenly had a bright idea

“Captain, have you got a wooden bunk?”

“Yes, my bunk has a wooden structure.”

“Well, if I can take it apart and use the wood I can prop the engines up so that we can travel at a reasonable speed.”

“O.K that will be fine, send a couple of men to dismantle my bunk and use the wood.”

There was no shortage of volunteers and Alex chose Joe who had been a carpenter before he joined the Navy and Alan, one of his engineers. They set to work and within a couple of hours they had constructed a wooden frame around the engine to hold it in place.

Alex tannoyed up to the bridge that they were ready to try the engines and the captain gave the order to go. They found that the engines could not go faster than 4 knots an hour; by trial and error. If they tried to increase this speed the vibrations from the engine were in danger of breaking the temporary frame they had constructed. Alex reported this back to the Captain and he gave orders to start their long journey. And long journey it was, as 4 knots is about 4 miles per hour, which meant that in one day and night they would travel only 96 miles. At this speed we would take 10 days to reach Trincomalee

They must have had a guardian angel looking after them, as they met no other ships on their voyage. When they reached Formosa they waited till nightfall to travel past the island as it was a Japanese stronghold, and they would have been spotted in daylight. They crept past the island in the dark and they were on the home run to port and safety.

As The Tally-Ho approached Ceylon, they saw two reconnaissance planes in the sky above them, who dived down to get a closer look. The Tally-Ho signalled and identified themselves. The planes climbed and disappeared from sight and then they saw the coastline of Ceylon and the port of Trincomalee shimmering in the distance. They found out later that Tokyo Rose had been reporting over the radio that the Tally-Ho was sunk and all men aboard were lost. She even had some of our crew’s names and had been busy enlightening their families over the radio waves that they would never see their beloved sons or husbands again. It is not known where the Japanese got their information from but the names they had were correct. Everyone in the port had thought that the Tally-Ho had indeed been destroyed, especially as the days went on and there was no sign of her.

When they reached the harbour every single boat and ship came out to greet them, sounding their horns and whistles. What a welcome they got. There were people lining the quays all waving flags and cheering. The crew were overjoyed as they had not expected such a welcome and smiled and waved back. There was a line of ambulances waiting to take all the crew to the medical centre, although luckily there were no serious injuries and no-one was the worse for wear. It had taken them 10 days over treacherous enemy filled waters, unable to dive and listing badly but they had made it. They were home and safe.