Coastal Convoys 1939-1945: The Indestructible Highway by Nick Hewitt

Author:Nick Hewitt [Hewitt, Nick]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781844685967
Publisher: Pen & Sword Maritime
Published: 2012-06-14T16:00:00+00:00

Tragically, the reason why the ‘E-boat’ was vulnerable to the feeble Lewis guns and resembled a launch was because it seems to have been one, despatched by one of the escorting destroyers to look for survivors. Certainly this was the opinion of at least one other witness, Captain F.H. Cook of the torpedoed Hauxley. 27

On 20 October, Woolston was attacked from the air, and on 27 October Phipps phlegmatically described the end of the Everards coaster Suavity, which had ‘blown up an acoustic mine with her pop-pop engines’.28 Suavity was part of FS321. Her Captain remembered little except ‘a loud but sharp explosion’ with ‘no column of water, flame or smoke’. His ship sank rapidly without loss of life.29

Mines sank the V&W destroyer Venetia and damaged the new Hunt Hambledon during October, as well as sinking several minesweeping trawlers. As the mining offensive gathered pace again, life for the hard-pressed men on the sweepers grew correspondingly more dangerous. Their precarious existences were made yet harder with the introduction by the Germans of anti-minesweeping floats fitted with explosive charges designed to cut the wires used by oropesa sweepers when sweeping tethered mines. These floats were lethal even when washed ashore – one killed four soldiers on the beach at Yarmouth on 17 October.30

John Neale, Navigating Officer of the fleet minesweeper Speedwell, spent two years sweeping the east coast as part of the 4th Minesweeping Flotilla at Harwich. On 17 October he witnessed the dreadful end of the 1914–1918 vintage coal-burning minesweeper Dundalk, which triggered an acoustic mine near Bawdsey:

Speedwell stopped immediately and lowered both whalers and the motorboat to start the rescue. We pulled over to Dundalk to pick up any we could and all the time there was a terrible roar as her high pressure steam escaped from her fractured steam pipe … some watch keepers had just come off watch and were washing half naked when the mine exploded and they were drenched with steam from a fractured pipe. I forget how many times we rowed across for survivors but all who were not killed were rescued including some terribly scalded men.31

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.