Away Seaboat by Capt. C W Malins RN

Author:Capt. C W Malins RN
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Lewin of Greenwich Organisation
Published: 2015-03-06T16:00:00+00:00

Easton in Dock after ramming U.458

4 March 1944 – My Luckiest Day

In the end Leros was to fall on 16 November after a furious five day battle against German air and seaborne assault forces who suffered very severe losses. Sadly the navy was generally speaking powerless to give effective supporting gunfire in the face of enemy air attack. It was during the final days of that campaign I first met my friend Basher Watkin then commanding the Hunt Class destroyer Haydon.

With this sorry and sordid little side show over, which did little or nothing to advance the Allied cause, Pathfinder and the four other surviving P class destroyers were ordered through the Suez Canal to reinforce the Eastern Fleet. Both Dick Mercer, the Engineer Officer and I were relieved in Alexandria, and left the ship together, sadly leaving behind many friends and a fine ship’s company who lined the ship’s side to cheer us on our way. Dick was awarded the D.S.C. for his contribution to Pathfinder’s many successes and, much to his disgust, given a shore appointment in Alexandria. I was mentioned in Despatches and much to my delight was ordered home taking passage from Alexandria in Penelope, one of the cruisers damaged in the Aegean. We were delayed at Tunis acting as communication ship with Whitehall while the Prime Minister was there in hospital suffering with pneumonia. Not long after she was sunk by submarine or air attack during the landings at Anzio. I finally embarked in a troop ship at Algiers to arrive home on 6 January 1944. Strangely my brother-in-law-to-be also came home from the 8th Army in the same convoy. Two days later Gill and I were engaged to be married. Throughout the year I was away, we exchanged an extensive, and on my part a self-censored correspondence, which I believe still exists, and was to give us both hope and me in particular much encouragement in difficult times. Thereafter for the following fifteen years a great part of our separated lives had to be lived on paper. Looked back on now, 1943 was perhaps the most eventful year of my life. I saw a good deal of the war in a comparatively agreeable climate where the prospect of having to take an involuntary swim did not seem too daunting as compared with the Arctic, but that was yet to come.

After a short spell of leave I was sent to attend a variety of courses, the first I had attended since a Sub-Lieutenant, which brought me up to date with war experience generally and as preparations were pressed ahead for the invasion of N.W. Europe, particularly with combined operations. A friend of mine was then in charge of the appointments of officers like me and very kindly contrived a week’s leave for me from the 4 March, when Gill and I were married. This was followed by yet another spell standing by the building of a new destroyer at Vickers Shipyard on the Tyne. Our

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