TNA MT 40 66

Raw OCR

Unformatted machine-generated OCR for document page 161.

Date
use
PUBLIC
alde
SECURITY SEAL 8
- 6 -
40
was told the Bren gunner was hoping to get a shot at him when we closed
OF
up, but unless he had done this on his own bat I am sure that his superiors
would not have told him to do so, as an enemy airman was much more useful
STA
to the authorities alive than dead. What would really have happened when
nei
we closed up to him is a matter of conjecture! The patrol boat signalled
"Alone in the plane" as we passed on.
I had an idea that the soldiers, when lying on their backs on deck,
you
would all fire a volley at an approaching bomber and get about a thousand
now
bullets into him at once - as there was heaps of ammunition on board but
and
the Commanding Officer objected to this, as their rifles were full of sand
and rust, and would explode on board, which was very feasible. The Spitfire
had just caught the bomber in the nick of time and saved us any further
trouble!
Before dusk we sighted the North Goodwin Light Vessel and felt at home,
although navigation through the Downs channel with so many sunken wrecks and
other dangers was by no means a matter to be treated with a lesser degree of
caution now in the darkness and haze, and with a compass that was at least a
point and a half of westerly variation, unreliable and continually swinging
on account of the degaussing wires having been cut. It was nothing better
than a rough guide, and not to be trusted. And so we passed on through
the Downs and passed the dangerous Goodwin Sands where, if a vessel once
touches and ebbs for a tide, she is doomed to stick for ever on account of the
shifting sands. From pillar to post we were getting the buoys in their order,
until finally to the last, and then Dover Harbour.
On leaving the last buoy there was not a single object to give us any
indication of Dover Harbour, or the entrances. Now, here was a problem!
I wished to goodness there was an air raid on and a flare of searchlights.
I would only have dropped the anchor outside the Harbour as a last resource,
with so many aboard and eager to get ashore. Outside the Breakwater at
Dover was the danger spot of the channel magnetic mines and bombers
occasionally. I did not have long to wait for my wish to be fulfilled. A
trail of tracer bullets, like rockets, and a hundred searchlights in the skye
in the penumbra of which I could easily distinguish the entrances to the
Harbour, and by good fortune we were just on the dot, and a turn of the ship's
head put her at a proper angle for the tide, and in we went, moving slowly
towards the Admiralty Pier, where we berthed at 1.10 a.m. on the 30th May, 1940.,
and commenced disembarking the troops.
Finishing disembarkation about 5.30 a.m. we then shifted to the Outer
Harbour at 10.32 a.m. and were brought in to Ferry Jetty at 5 p.m., 31st May
1940, where the degaussing wire and other repairs were carried out before the
vessel again sailed for the Clyde.
I herewith enclose a photo not of the "EOCHGARRY", but of a ship going
through a similar ordeal of baptism. The arrows show, with respect to position,
the points at which the "LOCHGARRY" got the two closest hits one over the
fo'csle head, and the other by inches clear of the teak wood rail on the
starboard quarter. The others were as wide off as those shown in the
photograph. The value of zig-zagging a vessel under such circumstances cannot
be too strongly stressed. I believe it saved us on all occasions when we
were attacked. The Lewis guns are certainly a help, but a ship would require
to have them in sufficient numbers. A vessel of the size of the "LOCHGARRY"
would bomber at least require as many more on her to have any chance with a dive-
to ward them off before actually coming down to the mast heads.
During the time in Dover at the Ferry Jetty where the repairing was
carried out, the usual routine work of the vessel was being carried on without
any special occurrences, and when finished and we finally took our departure
for the Clyde I was sent for to see the Principal Sea Transport Officer, who
complimented me on the piece of work we had carried through, and said, "It was
grand". I felt that we had at least done something for our country, and if we
were only once across the channel we had a real good load and got along with it
without a hitch.
In/