John Auld
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These are some of my wartime experiences from 15 years of age until wars end 1945, 22 years old. The North Atlantic or Western Ocean in maritime terms which I crossed back and forth thirty times in 6 ½ years can at times be like a duck pond and at other times very rough with huge mountainous waves. Hence the survival rate among merchant seamen was nil, if you were shipwrecked by the enemy. Although I travelled to many parts of the world delivering troops and cargo, India, South Africa, Australia, New Zealand, South America, Canada nine times out of ten we would leave Britain via the Western Ocean and come back via the Panama Canal. Then it was time to don the life jackets for the next 3,500 miles back to Britain. I joined the Merchant Navy in 1938 about one year before the war started. I did many trips to the West Indies, South America, Brazil, Argentina, carrying black oil and aviation spirit. They were small tankers 12 to 15,000 tons. The war began in September 1939. We were in the South Atlantic off Venezuela with a full cargo of aviation spirit. It was all hands-on deck painting all the brass port holes and white upper structures dark grey at reduced speed (in the tropics) when war was declared. We got back to Shell Haven, London, and discharged our cargo, aviation spirit, safely. Five days in port and then off again to Curacao, West Indies, for another load, this time black oil luckily. (December 1939) It was the return trip to London (Shell Haven) when things went wrong. We couldn’t get a berth in London but got orders to proceed to the port of Hull, 150 miles up the coast. As we were going through the wide entrance of the River Humber the ship suffered an almighty explosion. One I will never forget. It blew a huge hole in the stern which slowly started to sink but the cargo was still intact and this buoyancy kept the rest of the ship from disappearing under the waves. Of the thirty-six crew a few injured but all survived to be taken off by a patrol boat. I believe they salvaged the cargo and towed the vessel up to Hull and built a new stern on her.
(At 16.00 hour on 10 December 1939 the Willowpool dispersed from convoy HG-9,
struck a mine, laid on 21 November by U-20 3 miles east from Newarp Lightship and sank.
The master and 35 crew members were picked up by the Gorleston lifeboat.)
Had we been on board the same aviation fuel as two months before there would have been a huge fireball. Luck was on my side. After the tankers I decided to go for a change and in 1940 joined the Chilean Reefer, a small Danish motor ship. She was faster than others. So once into the Atlantic travelled alone to dodge the subs. She tossed around like a cork in bad weather.
We made several trips to Canada (Montreal). It took two months the round trip, hugging the icebergs, Greenland and Newfoundland, in an effort to dodge the submarines. It was one of these trips to London that we struck the bombing which went on for about two years I believe, thousands killed. We were there for two weeks and I thought I would rather be at sea any day. The noise of the explosions on the ground, enemy bombers roaring above, ack-ack guns shooting back, search lights zooming up, fire engines screaming around, it continued day and night. We survived but it was nerve wracking. Until the time we left to sail up the coast, which is only twenty minutes’ fly time from Germany, about midnight off the Norfolk coast we struck it again. We were attacked by German dive bombers. They dropped flares to light up the ships. The same story a few hours before, Ack-ack guns from the ships; only difference the bombs were hitting water not concrete. There was an almighty explosion to the left of us which nearly roller us over. An aerial torpedo had gone over the top of us and slammed into a Dutch ship about a cable away. The whole attack lasted about an hour with two further bangs down the convoy so two more must have gone down. So we carried on to the top of Scotland ever watchful and proceeded to head out for Canada. With submarine warfare it is all stealth on a ship. You don’t know when it is coming until you are hit. Lucky again. About two years ago I was reading the current RSA review and was astounded to read that the Chilean Reefer was sunk by the German pocket battleship Scharnhorst. So much for travelling alone without convoy. It appeared that it happened the trip after I left her. Lucky again. Then I went to Liverpool and joined the big ships (troop carriers). That was when I sailed to different parts of the world.
1942 saw me on the Dominion Monarch (a 30,000-ton troop carrier). We were 400 miles off the Australian coast heading for Sydney to pick up troops when we received an urgent signal to turn around and get lost until further orders. A Japanese submarine had invaded Sydney harbour. It had shelled Bondi and put four suicide small subs into the harbour. They sank a small naval ship. But that was all the damage they did and in the process the four Japanese were drowned. For a long time the wrecks of the one man subs were on Garden Island. The rest of my time was uneventful with bigger convoys and more naval escorts, plus the Germans were getting a hiding on all fronts and long-range planes were knocking the submarines.
However, in January 1945 we left the UK and headed for (New York) America. We loaded up with supplies and ammunition with orders to proceed to Leyte in the Philippines. Right into the war zone. As we arrived after an uneventful trip across the Pacific, going up the coast near Leyte, there were scores of wrecked planes in the scorched jungle. Japanese and American. Leyte was a shambles. We discharged into barges in the stream. I forgot to mention that I was in a cargo boat by this time. We called at a couple of islands dropping stores for the Americans then sailed south to Brisbane. However, I read a paperback a couple of years ago, written by an ex Kamikaze one-man submarine pilot who said that the mother sub with two small subs attached was on patrol near Philippines when the captain sited a ship through his periscope. This young kamikaze said launch me Captain, I will sink it. But the wise old captain said no, it is only a cargo boat, we will save you for a better target, a naval ship. The young kamikaze must have survived because he wrote the book. And the war with Japan ended seven months later.
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