91Čȱ¬

Memories of a C.W. Candidate Part Two ā€” North Atlantic Convoy P.Q.17 and Convoy Operation Pedestal 10-13h August 1942 to supply Malta

Part two of an oral history interview with Mr. Stanley Shield conducted by Jenny Ford on behalf of Bedford Museum.

ā€œIceland, thatā€™s where the Convoys mustered. Merchant ships came over from America and Canada as well as UK and they all mustered there and then we came round here into the Arctic Circle and into Kola Inlet (The Kola Peninsula and Murmansk.) It was about 3000 miles. Scapa Flow as the base of the 91Čȱ¬ Fleet and we were technically 91Čȱ¬ Fleet and they used most of the 91Čȱ¬ Fleet on escorting Convoys to Russia. They mustered here with ships, merchant ships from other sources, from the UK, Canada and from America .

The German Battleships were always a peril, always a nuisance and thatā€™s really what caused the calamity to the P.Q.17 because we were told ā€˜Tirpitzā€™ had left her anchorage so it was right panic stations you know. And the boss, the Admiral gave the order to withdraw from the Convoy, to leave it to its devices. I mean Iā€™ve been ashamed of this ever since. All itā€™s escorts, lined up - I think there were about a dozen Destroyers, all lined up, no bigger ships were along with us, they were always too far away and thatā€™s what happened, he ordered us to ā€˜Withdrawā€™. We had orders from the very top, a succession of them. I think there were three signals sent out, but it was funny because nobody on the ship thought we were retreating everybody thought we were just getting ready to go into action against the ā€˜Tirpitzā€™. You know we didnā€™t have things like public address systems in those days. That was another job of the Boā€™sunā€™s Mate, he had a ā€˜Callā€™, do you know what a ā€˜Callā€™ is? A Boā€™sunā€™s whistle. You walked through the ship piping the message, preceded by a Call on this, which I canā€™t do very well. They were all signals. Like music, you played it like music really. We didnā€™t have public address, one of the many things we didnā€™t have. It was a long time before we were told that the ā€˜Tirpitzā€™ was at sea and we were leaving and the Captain didnā€™t tell us, thatā€™s right, he didnā€™t tell us and there wasnā€™t a pipe, now I remember. All he did was stick a notice on the notice board, they just copied the signals received from Admiralty and they just put them up there. He couldnā€™t believe it and he didnā€™t like to say it. So what happened to the Nelson touch I donā€™t know but it certainly disappeared then. But none of the Commanding Officers dare go against orders from the top in the Admiralty you see but Nelson would have! I mean they even opened the Canteen which was only very limited opening hours and you could buy as much chocolate and cigarettes as you wanted, because obviously we thought we were going to be sunk. We didnā€™t know and then we suddenly realised. We never lived it down. We just came back to Iceland and eventually back to Scapa. Morale was terrible. The Merchant Navy hated us. Well the Merchant Navy tried to work their way right up through the North to get somewhere into Russia. But most of them got picked off. I think some of them got through but theyā€™d got no defence you see so the aircraft and submarines just went and helped themselves. It was terrible, terrible. On the P.Q.17 Convoy there were 34 Merchant ships in the Convoy, 24 of them were lost. I donā€™t think the Yanks in the Convoy thought much of us either.

P.Q.17 was the fourth Convoy I was on, my previous ones had got through, I mean they got bashed, we lost a lot of ships. Oh, yes every Convoy was attacked all the way by submarines and aircraft because we were only 300 miles away from the Luftwaffe Bases, you see they were in North Norway and we were 3000 miles from home and 300 miles from them! You see the speed of the Convoy was only 5 knots. We could do 40 knots, it would have been great, nobody would have hit us if we had been doing 40. But they didnā€™t put the best Merchant ships into these Convoys I have to say, some of them were real old tramps because they lost so many you see. The speed of the slowest ship was the speed of the Convoy, because they had to be kept together.

We communicated with lamps, with Aldis lamps and a big lamp. Thatā€™s a signal lamp, there was a big one and you had a small hand held one called an Aldis lamp. Didnā€™t use radio unless it was urgent because they could pick it up. Not that they needed it, they knew exactly where we were. As soon as we left Iceland we would be picked up by German Reconnaissance aircraft which just sailed round and round the Convoy and we couldnā€™t hit it! They were there every mile of the way!

We went to Arkangel once but Murmansk was our normal, it was something to do with ice, it used to get iced up. I mean we never actually got into Murmansk it was Kola inlet which was the inlet in there. Murmansk was at the end of it but as I say we were never allowed ashore because I donā€™t think there was anything to go ashore for anyway. It looked - well what we could see of them, desolate black buildings. Murmansk didnā€™t seem to get ice bound, I donā€™t know why. It would in the winter probably but we were there from March to September you see, 24 hour daylight most of that time. Thatā€™s why the aircraft were such a damned nuisance because they came around the clock.

When we got back from P.Q. 17, the disaster of that, we were all sent out to the Mediterranean to do the big Malta Convoy of 10th ā€” 13th August 1942 ā€” Operation Pedestal - a bit of change from the North Atlantic, the Arctic. That was the biggest Convoy Iā€™ve ever seen in my life and thereā€™ll never be another like it. We were told after weā€™d left Gibraltar that the Convoy had to get through to Malta otherwise they were going to surrender. Malta was going to surrender. Anyway we got some of them through, not many but enough to keep them going. On the Malta Convoy escorting the 13 fast Merchant ships there were five large aircraft carriers, two Battleships, the Rodney and the Nelson with 16 inch guns, 12 Cruisers and 28 Destroyers including Somali. If you can think of that many ships at once with these few Merchant ships in the middle and realise we got five there out of 13 you realise what it was like. It was rather hectic.

Right down to Gibraltar. Down to Gibraltar and the Convoy during the night, in darkness the Convoy came through the Straights of Gibraltar to try not to be detected. But of course they were because the Straights of Gibraltar were full of Spanish fishing boats who where there for one purpose only, that was to report all British movements to the Naziā€™s. Anyway we had a hectic time, as I say. Lost most of the Convoy, several Naval ships as well. Got back to Gibraltar, we all got drunk. We went ashore. We had to go ashore but we were 72 hours without sleep. And then we came back to the UK and believe it or not it was a heartwarming experience, it was very good for us after P.Q.17. Remember this was our next Operation and as we sailed up the Clyde we were cheered by all the ships. They knew where weā€™d been of course. It was in all the newsreels by the time we got home. This was all on Somali, all on Somali. And then back up to Scapa Flow and another Russian Convoy and coming back from which we got torpedoed and sunk. And that was my six and a half months sea going experience to start with then I went and got a Commission after that which was a lot easier!

Watch keeping all the way down from the Straights of Gibraltar, yes. Got the whole Convoy through there in darkness. We had to get past the Germans and that was the tricky bit you see because the Germans were there - the North African coast, Sicily and we had to get through to Malta. They had U boats, E boats, aircraft anything you could think of. The only thing they didnā€™t do, because they didnā€™t dare was to send out their surface ships because the Italians didnā€™t like contact with our surface ships, they got beaten usually.

Well, 72 hours I think of as being awake all the time so it must have been slightly over that. That was both ways you see, we got there we never actually went into Malta. Yhe Convoy got in there, what was left of it including the famous ā€˜Ohioā€™ which was a tanker which was hit about three times but still managed to get in there and coming back we all thought, ā€˜thatā€™s it, steaming back to safety.ā€™ Not on your nelly! We turned around with an aircraft carrier to fly off planes to support Malta, we thought, ā€˜Oh, no weā€™re not going back again!ā€™ Well, we didnā€™t. We just flew off the planes and came back. We werenā€™t heroes any of us, absolute cowards! Laughter!

I was on a four barrelled ā€˜Pom Pomā€™, Iā€™d graduated from the big guns to the ā€˜Pom Pomā€™ which was very morale boosting. I donā€™t know whether youā€™ve seen them in films or anything, going boom, boom, boom, like this. On return to the UK we sailed into Greenock for a boiler clean. A boiler clean, everything that uses steam has to do a boiler clean periodically.

Half of the shipā€™s company at a time got three days leave ashore and I managed to get to my Uncleā€™s in County Durham and my Mother came up and I slept for three days! Laughter. We were whacked really. That was the first home leave, anything more than a few hours on shore in all that time. It was fabulous as far as I recall. Sleeping in an armchair because Iā€™d only to sit down and I was away. Three days leave and back to the ship and then the other Watch went away and then off we went back to Scapa and my final voyage on Somali. This was September 1942. I saw more action in my six and a half months than most people saw in the entire war, but none of it was my doing. I just went where I was sent. I don't regret a day of it really - well I do regret the P.Q.17ā€.

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