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Captain FRANK H. SHAW THE CONVOY GOES THROUGH V BY Captain FRANK H. SHAW This ebook was produced by and Author of was freely downloaded from "EPIC DEEDS OF NAVAL MIGHT" (Harrap, 1940) www.convoyweb.org.uk " FAMOUS SHIPWRECKS " (Elkin Matthews) "WITH JELLICO IN THE NORTH SEA" (Cassell) " WHEN BEATTY KEPT THE SEAS " (Cassell) and may not be resold. " FULL FATHOM FIVE " (Macmillan, U.S.A.) Etc., Etc., Etc. If you enjoyed it then please consider giving a donation to a charity of your choice that caters for the welfare of seafarers. [Copyright] First published October, 1942. Reprinted November, 1942. FOREWORD brought to our starved knees by the colossal losses of FOREWORD merchant tonnage, vindicated the convoy-idea, and taught valuable lessons which were immediately adopted and ORE and more, as the war drags out its tedious length, improved upon in September 1939. Mis the utility of the convoy system proving itself. Whether The writer has helped to escort a convoy of well over one it be munitions for threatened India, or reinforcements for hundred valuable freighters across the Atlantic, without one the Eighth Army in Egypt, or added supplies for the gallant, single ship being lost or even suffering from scratched paint! indomitable garrison of Malta, the. G. C. Island, or tanks, And this through the most formidable waters in the whole aircraft and guns for that Russia, which, once derided as a world. True, U-boats were encountered in considerable stronghold of potential world-destruction, has already proved packs; and air attack became almost a commonplace. Yet itself a fortress of light and hope; or whether it be a loaf of the lively escorts of corvettes and' destroyers and armed bread for some hungry London stomach, or a cup of refresh- trawlers proved so aggressive and efficient that no real attack ing tea for a tired munition worker in South Shields, the developed—that is, the convoy was not once thrown into substance taken to its assigned destination has reached there confusion; for the escorting ships sought out the submarines in the shelter of a convoy of Merchant Navy ships, which before they were in a position to attack and by dint of zealous disdaining all the wartime sea's manifold perils, have trudged depth-charging, kept them humbled below periscope-depth, on the allotted courses to prove to Hitler and the world that, so that they could not see to aim their missiles. when faced by crisis and terror, the British seamen gives to his country a faithful, self-sacrificing service second to none. Yet, in 1918, the writer, escorting a convoy of 24 ships through the Malta Channel of the Mediterranean, saw seven There was a time when the Red Ensign men scoffed at the great ships sunk in the course of one blazing afternoon, and idea of convoys: they averred that to mass ships together though the attacking U-boat was despatched, it was not before made them a big target for enemy attack, that the persisting almost irreparable damage had been done. canopy of smoke over the armadas attracted unwelcome The old practice of enemy submarines was to stalk a attentions from submarines scouting on the distant horizons; convoy from behind the skyline, tracking it by the great that the zig-zagging demanded by their naval escorts doubled smoke-canopy that accompanied it;' to hurry well ahead the length of each voyage, and doubled its working costs. during hours of darkness, to lie in wait in its track at dawn, U-boats ignored the escorting warships and saved their submerged to periscope-depth; and then to let fly as many death-dealing torpedoes for the more valuable freighters they torpedoes as could be fired from this position, afterwards shepherded; and the escorts had enough to do in fending diving under the convoy, where the attacking craft were for themselves to have time to spare for real worthwhile moderately safe from escort depth-charges, as an indis- defence against submerged attack. criminate use of these destructive engines was apt to blow Times without number in the last war the writer has been in the sides of the convoy freighters as the enemy under­ told by self-respecting merchant seamen: "Convoys! water craft. Convoys be damned! Let us sail in pairs, and give us depth- But to-day escort vessels are equipped with ingenious charges, and we'll convoy ourselves till the cows come, devices, such as Asdics and radio-location instruments, which home." Their idea was that in pairs they could run at normal indicate to them the approximate position of enemy craft, or even excess speed, and that if one ship were torpedoed, the even if submerged and motionless. The hydrophones of the other could save life; that two ships would afford a less vulnerable and visible target than twenty, thirty or forty; and past required a noise from the submarine to bring results: that, with U-boats attacking whilst submerged, deck-guns - the thresh of the propellers or the dulled whirr of engines; "defensive armament" - were of no more use than so many consequently any U-boat that, submerged to its maximum peashooters, whereas depth-charges, thrown from a Y-gun, depth, stopped its engines and dynamos, was pretty sure to. were the best defence any ship could require. escape detection. Now, thanks to well-controlled electrical impulses, echoes are created from solid bodies - the electric But the closing year of the last war, when we were almost wave sent out by the instruments impinges on whatever : '-^'^wy?" FOREWORD FOREWORD hundreds, in thousands; yet, such as survived barely waited foreign object the sea may hide, and not only is the for recovery before thronging the shipping offices anew for approximate bearing discovered by this means, but also the further service. Of this tough breed were the men of the San apparent distance. Not all the caution and precaution in the Dimitrio, who, without thought of reward, went back aboard world can cut this detective ray; although any solid body their blazing, crippled tanker in mid-Atlantic, and, determined will produce an echo—or "ping" as it is nautically termed. to save their ship, did save her by superhuman gallantry and With Asdics and radio-location sets working twenty-four ski".. hours a day, and watched by experts all the time, it is not When the full story of the glorious Red Ensign comes to easy for any submerged object to remain undetected. be told it will fill as golden a page as any in our Imperial Air-assault was, however—and still is—the most imminent history; for had that story never been enacted,' the Empire menace. The lot of our Red Ensign ships is definitely would have ceased to exist within six months of, the unenviable under present circumstances. Targets for tor­ declaration of hostilities. Without the desperate and devoted pedoes, 11in. shells and heavy bombs; under threat of attack toil of these fearless mariners of England Russia could never from the moment they leave port to the time of return; the have withstood the bestial assaults of the German forces, for marvel is that they continue so undaunted. As will be shown on U.S. and British fighting tools has Russia relied for in ensuing chapters,' aerial attack can be infinitely horrifying. salvation. Few slices of bread are put into hungry English It is not enjoy our daily coastwise convoys that are subjected mouths without Red Ensign aid. The need to safeguard the Jo this form of barbarism; Germany has concentrated on the Merchant Navy in its tireless tasks, gives excuse for the construction of long-range aircraft, that can sweep half-way Royal Navy's existence: the work of mat fine service is to out into the Atlantic, that can fine-comb the Mediterranean; keep the sea-lanes open to our ships and closed to the that can go almost anywhere. Each such aircraft can carry enemy's. enough high explosives to destroy probably four big These are general statements. The ensuing chapters are freighters. Their speed enables them to deliver ah attack, an effort—inadequate, alas, since words are such feeble return, reload with H.E. and carry out another attack before. things—to particularise the work that is involved in making the threatened convoy has proceeded ten miles on its course. good the proud British boast: Come hell or high water, the To the writer the abiding miracle is not that so many convoy goes through! freighters escape but that any reach their destinations at all. When the shipping slump overtook the dingy Red Ensign, its servants were jettisoned like so much useless dunnage; 60,000 and more of them being put on the beachr to live or die as Fate decreed. The owners, who had profited by their labours in boom years, ignored the debt they owed them. Ships were allowed to rot or were sold foreign—as often as • not to our bitter enemy Japan, Shipowners railed at our lost sea-trade, whilst failing to recognise their own responsibility for such loss: their own lack of imagination and the nerve to take risks in securing new markets. Yet, when emergency came, the Merchant Navy men took up their tools without protest, and returned to that sea which had granted them few ameliorations in the past and now promised them little beyond the blood, tears and sweat of in­ human warfare. They were sunk, they were burnt, they were required to die of hunger and thirst and frostbite and ex- posure in ill-provided open boats. They were required to run the gauntlet of savage attack, to be murdered in scores, in THROUGH THE FROZEN HELL 9 berg; there was bad weather, in which a damaged ship might easily perish finally.
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