At All Costs (31 page)

CHAPTER 44 •••

NERVES OF STEEL

F
red Larsen wasn’t the type of man to say much about his own heroics. He never mentioned the first Stuka he had shot down, and he didn’t claim a second one, either. Likewise, Lonnie Dales didn’t initially report the E-boat he had blown up. But he had to, after he received a letter from the commander of the merchant marine:

Your valorous actions as well as those of Mr. Larsen’s have come to the attention of the [Merchant Marine] Committee, and they are desirous of securing further information. It is noted in your report of the sinking of the Santa Elisa that you have refrained from mentioning any personal achievement. Your modesty is commendable, but in order that your deeds may be recognized and rewarded, it is desired that a complete factual account of all your actions and those of Mr. Larsen be submitted promptly.

Larsen and Dales were still on the
Ohio
when the
Rye
broke the tow yet again. The
Bramham
came along the port side of the
Ohio,
with the
Penn
to starboard, and the pontoonlike destroyers dragged the unwieldy tanker along at 2 knots. When she swung off course, the
Ledbury
put her bows against her and pushed her back in line.

“A great deal of time we were under attack,” said Larsen. “We were being attacked a lot. And every time we were attacked, the captain of the
Penn,
he’d come on the loudspeaker and say, ‘Volunteers on the
Ohio,
stand by! We’ll come back after the attack!’ They’d back off a little bit, slacken the line, then take off, and bust all the lines. They’d circle us and gave us protection, and we fired the best we could to try to keep the Germans and Italian bombers away from us.”

When the bombers came in and the
Penn
raced away, she played “Chattanooga Choo-Choo” over her loudspeakers. It was the only American recording on the ship, a current hit, and they played it again and again during the dive-bomb attacks, so loudly you couldn’t hear the whistle of the bombs, said Follansbee.

Another crash from above. Then the sound of music. Music? I must be going crazy. Crazy as a bed bug. I listened. It was music, all right.

“The only other people on board
Ohio
were the crew members of the
Ledbury
or the
Penn,
who were constantly trying to adjust the cables holding the ships together, and help fight fires when they broke out,” said Dales. “But they immediately returned to their ships under an attack, and we were cut loose, so it left just the five of us at the Bofors on board.”

“By now there was mostly dive-bombers comin’ in,” said Larsen, “and they were comin’ in very fast, especially in the morning and late in afternoon. As the sun was setting or rising you could almost count on them comin’ in. You could hear them quite a distance away, so we knew they were comin’.”

The Axis was throwing everything it had at the tanker. The near misses from oil bombs showered her decks with splashes like fat flaming raindrops, and now the Stukas carried blockbusters. There were only five Stukas this time, but Regia Aeronautica was determined to get through the screen of Spitfires, so twenty-three of the fastest fighters, Macchi 202s with the hot Daimler-Benz engines, escorted the bombers.

Each Stuka carried one 500-kilogram bomb under its belly, like the bomb that had devastated
Illustrious,
even with its armored deck. Below the
Ohio
’s thin decks there were thirty-three honeycombed tanks containing 12,900 tons of fuel oil, kerosene, and diesel, minus the kerosene that had already burned or been lost.

Spitfires shot down a Macchi fighter, as well as one of the Stukas.

“As we arrived I saw one Ju 87 diving and went for it, overtook it rapidly, opened fire at 300 yards and broke away at 30 yards,” said Squadron Leader Tony Lovell. “I saw strikes all over the engine and fuselage. White smoke poured from both sides. He lost height, smoke stopped, and he did a steep turn to port and flew west losing height. I turned back towards the convoy and saw the Ju 87 crash into the sea.”

The destroyers saw the dive-bombers approaching and cut the tanker loose. Two Stukas broke through the Spitfires, and one of them dived at the
Ohio.
From his seat at the Bofors, Dales cranked like crazy, oblivious to the pain in his forearm from the cracked bone, and the big barrel moved sideways. Larsen cranked from the pointer’s seat, blind to the pain in his fractured back. The gun climbed toward the Stuka in a diagonal sweep as the two men meshed the gears of their souls for the shot that could win or lose it all. Larsen was trying to save his family; Dales was just doing what he’d been raised to do. The Stuka screamed down at the Bofors as the loader pumped in 20-pound clips and Larsen fired bursts from the cannon at two rounds per second.

Some people seemed to have nerves of steel,
Follansbee had said.
While the rest of us were petrified with fear, Larsen was blazing away at the bombers with a
40
mm Bofors. He had a personal grudge against the Germans.

Larsen missed.

The 500-kilogram bomb landed hard in the flat wake of the
Ohio,
dead astern, tossing her forward on the wave of the huge concussion. Her twenty-foot bronze screw was twisted by the underwater blast, and her jammed rudder was blown all the way off. The sea rushed in through a new gaping hole in her stern.

But Larsen’s barrage from the Bofors had caused the pilot to release the bomb just early enough to prevent what otherwise would have been a direct hit on the poop deck, or on the main deck over the pump room, where her back was ready to snap. Had the big bomb landed on the
Ohio,
she would have sunk on the spot.

As the 500-kilo bomb landed in the wake of the
Ohio,
Captain Mason watched from the motor launch, about 600 yards astern.

“The
Ohio
began to settle by the stern, as the engine-room flooded,” he said. “I watched the ship settling aft, and sent a message to the
Penn
for the chief engineer and chief officer to assist as much as possible with the air compressor gear, assuming these officers, and most of the crew of the
Ohio,
were now on board. The reply from the
Penn
was ‘Come aboard.’”

Aboard the
Penn,
Mason discovered that all his officers and engineers were in Malta: more than thirty men, including seven navy and twelve army gunners. When the
Ohio
had first been abandoned, they had all boarded the second motor launch, ML 168. Its engines had been damaged by a near miss during the dusk attacks, so in the middle of the night Captain Swain had sent ML 168 sputtering into Malta—“much to the surprise and regret of these men,” said Mason, “leaving only two firemen, two greasers and two other seamen belonging to the
Ohio.

“I therefore boarded the
Ohio
and made a complete examination of the vessel with the assistance of these men.”

By now anyone could climb over the railings from the
Penn
or
Bramham;
their decks were nearly even, with the
Ohio
having less than three feet of freeboard. As Captain Mason was belowdecks, inspecting his ship with the chief engineer of the
Penn
and trying to figure out how to keep her afloat, the unofficial acting master of the
Ohio,
gunner Musham, appeared on the bridge wearing Mason’s cap and uniform jacket.

“In these desperate circumstances this was an amazing touch of humor to which all responded with a great cheer,” said Robin Owen, a midshipman on the
Ledbury.
“Later he continued his temporary authority by opening the
Ohio
’s duty free locker and sending around refreshments.”

Some sailors found paper party hats waiting for an occasion, and this seemed like it: Friday Happy Hour, after a long, hard week. Captain Swain cranked up “Chattanooga Choo-Choo” again and flipped the 45 over to the other side, “Elmer’s Tune.”

“My mate Paddy, an Irish AB [able-bodied seaman], a real character, enjoyed a tipple from a rum bottle, sitting on the boat deck,” said Allan Shaw. “He said, ‘Allan, I’m too drunk to stand. Do me a favor. Throw me over the side.’ I told him I was too tired. He offered me a tot, to carry me over. But the bottle had only a thimbleful left.”

Larsen and Dales stayed at the Bofors at the stern of the long ship, as far from the party as they could be, watching and waiting for enemy aircraft.

Over on the
Bramham,
more volunteers for the
Ohio
’s guns were being recruited. “The coxswain lined us up,” said Ron Linton. “He asked, ‘Any of you guys MSGs [merchant seaman gunners]?’ Some hands went up. He said, ‘Right. Over there on that tanker, you’ve just volunteered to go.’

“First they gave us a feed, and half of the ‘volunteers’ disappeared by the time he came back. I would have too, but I said, ‘What the hell, I’ve got nothing to lose.’ With the
Ohio,
at least we knew we were going to Malta. Stay on the destroyer, and we could end up in Greece or somewhere. You never know with a destroyer.”

Linton manned the Oerlikon on the port bridge. “But we were up there only if needed,” he said. “Captain Mason came along and said, ‘Come, I’ll show you where to get something to eat,’ and took us to his private pantry. Captain Mason seemed to be the only one there. He came down to us, to show us the way back up. He said, ‘You better stick close by, with me.’

“We stayed on the bridge for the clean air. Another thing was, she smelled. Boy, she stunk when we first got on, but the further we went, it lessened. Because she really stunk. The smell of that stuff. There’s nothing worse than the smell of burned oil.

“The one thing I can remember is I had a bloody good sleep. We found some very comfortable bunks. I think we slept solid for about six hours. We weren’t just sleeping, we were dead.”

Mason continued his inspection with the half-dozen greasers, firemen, and seamen, and with the
Penn
’s engineering officer, Lieutenant Commander John Sweall, who had begun reducing the flooding with pumps from the
Penn
before Mason got there.

“We sounded all the empty spaces and tested the air compressor gear,” said Mason. “The empty tanks, numbers ten and eleven, were still intact and dry, but the kerosene was overflowing from the port tanks and the water was flowing in through the hole in the ship’s side, forcing the kerosene up with it, as all the lids were buckled. And nothing could be done with the compressed air, because all the lines were broken. HMS
Penn
was endeavoring to keep the engine room pumped dry, but the water was gaining six inches per hour.

“From this examination I came to the conclusion that the ship could still be saved, and would last at least another twelve hours, providing she did not break in half at the main deck where she was buckling, in which case the stern half would probably have fallen off, leaving the forward section still afloat and salvable. I passed this advice to the senior naval officer and also told him that if the after end did part, towing operations would be easier and we should still get 75 percent of the cargo to its destination. This conclusion I continued to impress on all those interested, insisting that it could and must be done.”

“The afternoon dragged slowly on, matched only by the progress of the tanker, as
Penn
and
Bramham,
constantly changing their engine revolutions, carried her along,” said Roger Hill. “We longed and longed for darkness when the enemy air attacks must cease.

“By evening we were tense and ready for the expected synchronized attack, and I felt if we had any more bombs around, I would lie down on the deck and burst into tears.”

CHAPTER 45 •••

THE TEETERING TIRADE

A
s sailors wearing party hats were having rum and biscuits on the shattered and scorched decks of the
Ohio,
the Maltese were dancing on the edge of the cliffs over Grand Harbour. The
Brisbane Star
brought another 10,000 tons of supplies into Valletta under a halo of six Beaufighters and four Spitfires, with a jagged expanse of sunlight flashing through the huge holes in her bows.

After hugging the coast of Tunisia, Captain Riley had brought her in on his wits. An exchange of signals with the Vichy station at Hammamet had gone like this:

H
AMMAMET:
You should hoist your signal letters.

B
RISBANE
S
TAR:
Please excuse me.

H
AMMAMET:
You should anchor.

B
RISBANE
S
TAR:
My anchors are fouled, I cannot anchor.

H
AMMAMET:
You appear to be dragging your bow and stern anchors!

B
RISBANE
S
TAR:
I have no stern anchor.

H
AMMAMET:
You should anchor IMMEDIATELY.

B
RISBANE
S
TAR:
I cannot anchor, my anchors are fouled.

H
AMMAMET:
Do you require salvage or rescue?

B
RISBANE
S
TAR:
No.

H
AMMAMET:
It is not safe to go too fast.

He had turned his wounded ship east at dusk, to “strike across to Malta during the night, and hope that the enemy would be too busy with the convoy to take much notice of us,” said the liaison officer.

A French patrol boat sped after the
Brisbane Star
and fired a warning shot that landed thirty feet from the broken and flooded bow. Two French officers came aboard, and Captain Riley invited them below to his cabin, where he stashed his Irish whiskey. Well into the balmy black night, the Frenchmen emerged smiling and wobbling. They shook the captain’s hand, wished him “Bon voyage,” boarded their boat, and steamed off.

There were no more dive-bombers that day, after Larsen and Dales fought off the final Stuka. Patrols of sixteen Spitfires were maintained continuously over the
Ohio
until dusk, and that pretty much ended it. That, and the Axis’ belief that victory was theirs.

“The fact that an extraordinary success has been achieved is beyond doubt,” said Radio Berlin.

“Britain has been forced to recognize our magnificent victory,” said Mussolini. “Their ships now lie at the bottom of the sea.”

“Mussolini is moderately satisfied with the results, because the guns of the Navy were not engaged in the battle,” said Ciano.

But the
Ohio
was still floating. Her honeycombed holds limited the flooding from the 500-kilo bomb that had hammered a hole in her stern, and the loss of her jammed rudder actually improved her handling. The southeastern cliffs of Malta came into hazy view, their bleached limestone burned gold by the setting sun, and a cheer went up from the crowded decks of the
Penn.

“Later in the night,” said Roger Hill, “we were entertained by a circus act.”

The ancient paddle-tugboat
Robust
arrived from Malta and began towing the
Ohio
by herself; her skipper, J. P. Pilditch, was the acting king’s harbormaster, a position that put him in command. When he tried to increase the speed of the tow, the
Ohio
sheered to port and her nose turned starboard, whipping the tugboat into the blackness and smashing her into the
Penn,
which was standing by.

At that moment there was a dinner party in the wardroom of the
Penn
for some of the surviving officers. Captain Thomson and Captain Mason were there, along with Jack Follansbee and Ensign Suppiger. They were eating well.

Supper consisted of vegetable soup and roast beef and baked potatoes and canned peas. I asked Logan to pass the bread to me. Taking a piece, I broke it in two and began to spread it with plum jam.

My knife froze. A loud crash came from the starboard side of the lounge. The steel plates buckled inward. The couch toppled over, spilling the lifejackets out on the deck. Two armchairs fell over on their sides. The sound of running feet and shouts came from above.

At the supper table, the men stared dazedly across the table at each other, their forks poised in mid-air. Then with calm deliberation we placed our utensils on the table and laid our napkins beside our plates. One by one we rose, as if in a dreamworld, and filed out the door leading up to the main deck.

The stern quadrant of the
Robust
had burst into the wardroom, punching a huge gash in the
Penn
’s hull above the waterline. Suppiger said it was twenty-five feet long. Captain Swain had been sitting at the head of the table and the full ferocity of his Irish temper flared into the black hole in the bulkhead, over to the churning paddle of the
Robust.
The sorry tugboat ran back to Malta with its jammed rudder like a tail between its legs. Her master, Pilditch, had previously been commodore of Operation Harpoon, a larger disaster.

Mr. Musham and most of the other volunteers had returned to the destroyers to sleep. There were only a few men left on the
Ohio
as it was dragged toward Malta in the moonless night.

Soft singing from the Bofors platform drifted over the ship’s quiet wake. Larsen was trying to keep himself from falling asleep. First he sang, then he hummed, then he whistled a song popular in Europe: “Can You Whistle, Johanna?”

“Of course, we were very tired,” said Larsen. “To cheer them up and to cheer myself up, I hummed a tune, I sang this little song that I knew, and they didn’t know what I was singing. They laughed at me. I’d fall asleep singing, and I’d wake up and suddenly I’d say, ‘Are they coming?’ and they’d say, ‘No, there’s no bombers here,’ and I’d doze off again. I was sitting in this gun seat on the Bofors, and they had a big kick out of me, the way I was falling asleep and waking up and talking and singing. That’s the way it went on for the night.”

“He was probably singing it in Norwegian,” said Minda.

Fred liked to sing to Minda, who rode on the crossbar of his bicycle, before she could afford her own. They used to ride together into the country around Farsund for picnics.

“I remember when we were dating, he was singing to me, ‘You Are My Sunshine.’ That’s the first song I learned in English. He had another one he would sing to me, ‘I will work and slave all day through, so I can come back to you,’ or something like that.”

As Larsen was singing to stay awake, Captain Mason was roaming around his former ship in the dark. He ran into Ramsay Brown, master of the sunken
Deucalion.

“I was having a look round the
Ohio
during the night when I met a man on the after deck who asked me who I was,” reported Brown. “I told him, and then asked who he was. He replied, ‘I am the Captain of the ship,’ so I returned to the
Bramham,
leaving the
Ohio
in the hands of her own captain.”

Reg Coaker was standing midwatch on the bridge of the
Bramham.
“I can only tell you what I saw,” he said. “In the early hours, could be about three in the morning, of the Saturday morning, in the dark, I was on our Oerlikons deck, which was a little bit below the bridge of the
Ohio,
because we were on the port side of the
Ohio,
covering the hole in her side. I’m on the starboard side of the Oerlikons deck, and this figure appeared at the end of the bridge.

“‘Hey: over there: you!’

“It was Mason. He was shouting to our Captain Baines, who was wrapped around a binnacle and just about flaked out. Mason shouted, ‘You’ve taken my ship from me! I want my command, and I want my ship back!’ This sort of thing. And to me, he appeared as if he’d hit the bottle, and quite frankly you can’t blame him, can you? I mean, what would you have done? Because here’s his ship dead in the water, he can’t do anything else whatever. His command is gone. Absolute dead in the water.

“His behavior led me to believe he was absolutely fed up. Mason’s function was done. He’d done a good job getting the tanker to where it was—it’s a credit to the way that ship was built, it took an awful lot of punishment. He got his ship that far. But there it was, it was taken from him. There was just his shouting in the night.

“Captain Baines could not suffer fools at all; four-letter words streaming down from our bridge were quite common from him. But there was no answer from our bridge. Absolute silence. Nobody answered Captain Mason.

“Having carried out his little tirade against our bridge, he just teetered away into the darkness and was gone.”