THE NAVY CONVOYS. KEN SIMPSON Born: 1919 Royal Navy Gunner RECRUITMENT AND TRAINING

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1 THE NAVY CONVOYS KEN SIMPSON Born: 1919 Royal Navy Gunner RECRUITMENT AND TRAINING I was in the Territorial Army at 17 in the tank corps in Hull, and I broke my apprenticeship when I was nearly 19, and joined the Royal Navy. I was being taught to be an electrician, at Ideal Boilers, (known as National Radiator Company in the thirties) so, you see, I had a slight engineering background. On the outbreak of war I was an ordinary seaman. I joined in June I did about 6 months basic training, doing a period of about three weeks in gunnery, about the same in the torpedo school, and the same in the signals. When the New Year came, we were just finishing our training. We were in Devenport Barracks, and transferred to a ship to get the feel of it. From there I went onto the Cornwall, a cruiser, and in February 1939 we had a 'flu epidemic in Plymouth. I ended up in hospital for a week and during that time the Cornwall sailed, so I never went back to that ship.. Then I went back to the depot, did the entry routine, and a few weeks later went on the HMS Royal Oak. I went to Brest in Brittany, and was with the French Navy for a week. About the end of June 1939 I came home on a week s leave. I desperately needed get a ship when I returned to the depot in Devenport. A small boarding party and I took a destroyer named Wolverine up to Rosyth, and came back by train, overnight. War was imminent, we knew of course, so we started putting sandbags in the barracks. We knew what was coming off, and, I joined another ship, which was the battle cruiser Renown. Well, I must say, I was lucky having the bad dose of flu because I might have been on the Cornwall, because, as you know, the Cornwall, Royal Oak, and Wolverine were lost at sea, and I m here, so I survived it, luckily. EXPERIENCES BEFORE AND AFTER D-DAY. About two days before the war started, 3rd September, I joined the Renown at Portsmouth - we were packed like sardines. My action station was the 'A' magazine on the Renown, but my cruising stations watch was a submarine lookout. There were three of us in a pocket on the portside - the best lookout for periscopes of enemy submarines (U-Boats). I went on watch at midnight, (this was the day war broke out), and the Chief Petty Officer said You young Ginger, (I had ginger hair), "You had better keep a good

2 look out because we have had a signal from one of the escorting destroyers they got a ping on their ASDIC set. So please be careful About 1.45 or thereabouts, near the west of Ireland the liner Athenia was torpedoed with the loss of some civilian lives. Our destroyer escort had to leave us to go to pick up survivors so we steamed at a hell of a speed up north in the direction of Scapa Flow. We got to Scapa Flow the next day and the other fleet were there and then a reconnaissance plane came over. We opened fire but never hit it but found out there were no bombs dropped. Within a few days, we were on a patrol with the Hood, they called the Mighty Hood and whilst we were there the Royal Oak was there at its moorings. You know in Scapa Flow you know the story of how the Oak was sunk by a U-Boat? We went on patrol with the Hood and the Ark Royal, aircraft carrier and we did a patrol somewhere in the Iceland area - we thought the Germans were at sea but nothing happened there. Then we set sail again and finished up in Sierra Leone - we were after the Graf Spee, a German pocket battleship. She was down in the South Atlantic.. We did a few patrols. We went round to the Falklands that s where I started my torpedo course - it entailed a lot of electrical work so I was interested, I was still in the guns, you see. We went round the Cape into the Indian Ocean; the Doric Star was sunk by the Graf Spee. They were experts at scuttling ships you know; the Germans could get a ship down quicker than we could and we had to sink one or two. Anyhow we finished up in Cape Town and just missed them - then a signal reported later that the Graf Spee had passed us going the other way - 29 nautical miles away, it s not much you know, in the large expanse of the South Atlantic. We ploughed on and a few days later we finished up in Rio which was neutral country at that time. Anyhow the signal came through that the Ajax, Achilles and Exeter had been in an incident with Graf Spee, so we came back all those miles to Freetown. Then we were ordered to take the Exeter back to Plymouth and whilst we were approaching the English Channel we passed a British liner named the Sultan Star. We sent the usual signal wishing them a safe journey etc. A few hours later she was sunk by a U-Boat. We often thought, after, whether the sub was after the Exeter, however we were all relieved when we passed through the Plymouth Sound. The Captain spoke over the tannoy saying, "You have done well, lads. As a point of interest we have, in five months, travelled 33,535 nautical miles." At what a cost though! We knew the Germans were going to invade Norway in the end so we went there to try to stop shipping. Anyhow, we opened fire - we didn t know what we were firing

3 at but it was the Scharnhorst and Gneisenau and the Gneisenau hit us twice. Fortunately, it went through the mast. The other went through the gun room, midshipman s quarters and we only had one casualty, and the person lost his big toe. One or two of the pom pom crews on the upper deck got a bit of shrapnel, up on the deck. So we came out of it really well. My birthday was on 3rd August and I was going to have a 21st birthday do when Renown reached Gibraltar. Half the fleet were in the Mediterranean. Of course, we were afraid that the Germans would want to grab these. When we got there the first night I thought we ll get a drink ashore in some of the bars with the lads, but the Italians had different ideas. They d come into the war and a couple of their aircraft had decided to bomb Gibraltar, hoping to hit some of our ships. I went up straightaway and climbed on to search light control: the guns were firing. We used the search light and fired at the tail of one of the aircraft. The Italian pilot was trying to get over the rock. He nearly got over but our 4.5 HA guns were on target. I saw it blown out of the sky. A few weeks later the French came. We were told we had to keep on our toes because Admiral Somerville was expecting reprisals. Well, the next night I thought I would go out - no chance. A little trawler came alongside of us, a minesweeper. The first thing we knew, Freddie, my mate, shouted out "Hey! Come down for a drink." We only had our rum ration so we went down there, had a rum or two. It was very nice. I said, "We ll see you ashore tomorrow." The Admiral had kept the 4.5 guns closed up, at action stations. He was crafty; he knew what he was doing. The Vichy French came over to bomb us. I was busy going round the upper structure making sure the light fittings were OK. The steward and the captain always have a sea cabin - someone said that the old man s light was giving him trouble, so I said I d have a look at it. I had my toolbag strapped round me. All of a sudden there were bombs dropping alongside of us. There was such a shattering. Then there was a lull in the firing. Well in that two hours he decided that we would get the hell out of it. The Ark Royal probably followed us, and we went out to sea. We were still firing guns. We were out at sea for about two days, before we went back, and this is the heartbreaking part, Stella had come alongside the mole when we had left she was a trawler converted to a minesweeper - and she went up and had gone. Hull lads, one or two from Grimsby. We were covering the Malta convoys and the Merchant Navy ones. We were very busy. In November we were in the Mediterranean, just past the Balearics and a signal came through that someone had just spotted the Italian fleet. It was reported that they out-numbered us two to one. The climate was warmer and down in the turret it was murder. The cordite gets loose and it is hard to breathe.

4 In February, 1941 we opened fire again. I had been transferred to torpedoes. I was still doing searchlights at night time. In the daytime I was on damage control. We bombarded Genoa. There was a lot of transport ships there and there were Italian merchant ships feeding Rommel, across the desert. The poor fishermen, the natives, were there. They had these little fishing smacks, imagine how they felt when we were firing over them. The Germans used to attack the convoys, but the Merchant lads were very good, they were brave lads. The Italians were bombing at high level they were very good at high level. but they had changed from bombs to aerial torpedoes. I think the Germans were using the bombs at low level. I was on the bridge when all of a sudden a flying torpedo went over and sunk. Funnily enough, I went bald and someone said to me, is that right, you were attacked by a flying tin fish! Always a joker among Renown s ship s company! Before we came home we were in the pursuit of the Bismarck. The Bismarck had sunk the Hood. It was very fortunate how that shell went in the Hood. I think what happened, a shell came down and hit the Hood like a bomb. It penetrated an auxiliary (magazine) and that in turn caused a chain reaction and up it went. The cruiser Sheffield had to shadow her, she had to get in range, but just out sight of the Bismarck. We were getting very near. I saw the Swordfish pilots go and come back. Three more went up in the air and the old story was, what brave pilots they were. They torpedoed the Bismarck and hit the propeller and that reduced the speed and they lost all manoeuvrability. She was a sitting duck. The Bismarck was the best ship. She was formidable. They said it was unsinkable, and it almost was. The loss of Ark Royal was a big blow to the Royal Navy. We didn t get the praise we might have had, but nevertheless experience - the Bismarck, in my opinion was perhaps the greatest of all the leviathans. Meeting up with Winston Churchill, December One night we sailed from Scapa Flow to Halifax, Nova Scotia where after the Quebec Conference we were going to bring him home. Once night, something was wrong. I saw this chap leaning on some trunking. We were told not to disturb the Old Man. We always referred to him as the PM. He was stood up asleep. He was a workaholic. We d done away with some of the aircraft. One of the aircraft hangars was done up into a concert room - we used to have church services there, and we called it The Plaza. We put a film show on for him. He sat down and put a cigar in his mouth. and he was only there ten minutes before he got up and went to the map room. He was always working. He was always with it. I got on with him very well. I never spoke to him. He always spoke first. You never talk to them unless they talk to you - that s protocol.

5 ATTITUDES TO THE ENEMY We captured some Prisoners of War and they were from the Scharnhorst. They were good humoured fellows. We put them down below in our prison, but they weren t like Nazis, they were just kids and during interrogation, we found out that we had killed 236 Germans, and I often think about that. War is murder.