Chapter Nine

First Blood November 1941

In We Fought Them in Gunboats Hitch starts the book with the description of his first unambiguously successful action against Eboats. I have included almost everything he wrote, in spite of the fact that he starts by introducing both his boats and their crews to the reader who, if he has read this far in this book, knows something of them already. Nevertheless I felt it right that his own description should dominate this chapter and have added only some notes of explanation and a postscript.

It was the night of the 19th-20th November 1941, at HMS Beehive, a Coastal Force base. There was an early moon with a flat, calm, glassy winter’s night. An ideal night for E-boats. Rain or sun, cold or heat meant little to us, the weather was divided into operational or unoperational conditions. These were perfect.

The Sixth Motor Gunboat Flotilla had been working hard. Still recovering from a holocaust of boats due to a recent air-sea rescue trip in a hard wind, there were only four boats out of the eight operating at the time. These boats were seventy foot long, carrying a single 20-millimetre gun, an Oerlikon and two 0.5s in twin poweroperated turrets on either side of the bridge, the ‘dustbin’ as we called it. They had a speed of from forty to forty-five knots and made a hell of a noise. The Sixth Flotilla was one of two flotillas of fast MGBs covering, or trying to cover, the East Coast convoy route.

On this particular night the boats were standing by at short notice, ready to move at once if E-boats came over. Moreover, we were being held for a special job scheduled for the following night, to escort MTBs to look for a convoy off Terschelling, one hundred and fifty miles away.

It was a little after eleven o’clock when the telephone went in SOO’s office. ‘E-boats operating on the convoy route. A unit of the Sixth Flotilla to proceed forthwith to a position ten miles off the Hook of Holland.’

I shall explain something of our tactics and difficulties later on. Suffice it to say here that making contact with small fast craft in the comparative vastness of the North Sea at night, when as a rule they would not be visible farther than five hundred yards, is a difficult task. Such was our job as E-boat hunters.

In search of some method other than the one-in-a-thousand chance of making contact, we had put up the idea of placing gunboat units close off the enemy’s ports from which it was known that they might be operating. The gunboats would wait there till first light, then proceed slowly away, fanning out as visibility increased with the growing light. Into this diverging fan it was hoped that the enemy would converge. Hence we called the operation ‘Fanny’. The name pleased us a lot.

The Sixth Flotilla was to proceed forthwith to the Hook of Holland and there endeavour to engage the returning E-boats at daylight. Three boats made up the unit, 64, 67 and 63; 64 was my boat, the flotilla leader; 67 was under the command of Lieutenant L.G.R. Campbell, RNVR, otherwise known as ‘Boffin’ and 63 was commanded by Lieutenant G.E. Bailey, RNVR, or ‘George’.

Boffin, though thirty-three at the time, a year older than me, had been my first lieutenant in 64 for the past nine months, because we had been through our preliminary courses together and he, having no previous sea experience, had to be a Number One to begin with. He had just taken over his new boat, 67; this was his first operation as a C.O. As things turned out, it was lucky that he had been with me so long and knew all our little ways. Boffin is a fire-eater. Rather slow to learn, but extremely sure; he became the best station-keeper in the flotilla and one could be certain that Boffin was on one’s tail, if no one else. Very comforting it was at times, too. Red faced and rather bluff in speech and appearance, he always gave the impression of just having had a most satisfying meal; he generally had.

George Bailey (or Beeley of Beehive as he was called, having been overheard answering the phone in his slightly Scottish accent by this rather high-sounding title) is dark, with an India-rubber countenance and a great flair for making everyone laugh. He also at the time had not long been in command of his boat and had had uncommon bad luck with engine failures at unfortunate moments.

To complete the introduction of officers going to sea in these boats, Bailey’s first lieutenant was a young Etonian called David James, also Scottish, from the Isle of Mull. A seaman by nature, who had sailed before the mast in square rig before going to Oxford, he found it impossible to feel the slightest qualm however disturbing the motion. A devotee of the ballet, with a surprisingly active mind, he was quite incapable of noticing if he had a large smudge of ink on his face or had rent the seat of his trousers.

Francis Head was my new Number One. Tall and dark, if not exactly handsome very nearly so, he turned out to be God’s gift to the elderly C.O. such as myself in that he was a highly trained signalman, having been ‘bunts’¹ in a cruiser before he got his commission. He could read flashing if it was humanly possible. Finally we had two Dutch midshipmen, who were training with us, Pontier and De Wey, and myself, a somewhat bald-headed solicitor of thirty-two. A solicitor, a tea-planter, and an insurance agent, rather like ‘the butcher, the baker, the candlestick maker,’ but instead of putting to sea in a tub, we were setting sail for the Hook of Holland, or so we thought.

The water of the dock, still as ice, looked black and sinister. Everything was quiet, the boats like somnolent Leviathans in the half moonlight, half opaque shadows thrown by the sheds and cranes along the dockside. No sound except the smothered tinkle of a radio from one of the hulls.

With the alarm given, noise rises in a crescendo. At first only the clatter of the few duty hands roused aboard, the slamming of hatches, the muttering of sleepy curses. Then the sound of running feet as the crews arrive. The first lieutenants can be heard giving orders. ‘Clear away those springs – jump to it.’ ‘Uncover guns.’ Then a tremendous roar, followed by another and another, shatters all hope of speech as one after another the 1,100 hp engines bang into life and cough their poisonous gases into the confined quarters of the dock, until the whole air is a throb and it is impossible to hear a man speak unless he yells in your ear. Then the hurly-burly of departure begins. The COs get their orders and any parting instructions and admonitions. They come aboard and on go the navigation lights. The S.O.hopes that everyone is ready, because in the prevailing din it is very difficult to make sure, and the first hull slips out to seaward.

‘Let go.’ ‘Ahead port.’ ‘Port wheel.’ ‘Ahead starboard.’ ‘Midships.’ ‘Steady.’ ‘Ahead centre.’

In an unhurried, even sequence the orders are given for getting away, almost invariably the same. Slowly at first, the unit forms into line ahead, making for the boom gate, their dim navigation lights like creeping glow-worms. The boom is reached. ‘We’re at the boom, Number One. What’s the first course?’ Two sparks of light come from the leader, the throttles are lifted. The spray flies away broad from the bow as the fore foot lifts and the boat begins to plane; the noise from the engines settles to a steady roar. The unit is at sea.

On this particular night we were lucky in our weather but not in our reliability. When we had barely left the Cork Light Vessel, four miles from the boom, 63 flashed ‘Harry’, the signal for a breakdown in main engines. It proved to be an excessive quantity of water in the carburettor and filters of the starboard engine. Several attempts were made to clear it, but we could not afford much time, so regretfully Bailey had to be left to spend the night alongside the Cork Light Ship. Boats 64 and 67 went on at the usual cruising speed of thirty knots, crossed the convoy route, and set a course direct for the Hook.

The time was now about midnight, the moon still up, the sea flat calm. In such conditions motor gunboating can be sheer joy. Stationkeeping is easy; the boats seem to fly along with a tremendous sense of speed; they are very beautiful. I think one of the most lovely sights I have ever seen is a gunboat unit at speed in moonlight, with the white pluming wakes, the cascading bow waves, the thin black outlines of the guns starkly silhouetted, the figures of the gunners motionless at their positions as though carved out of black rock; all against the beautiful setting of the moon-path on the water.

Upon this occasion, the satisfactory sense of wellbeing induced by these ideal conditions was rudely disturbed by the smell of burning, always alarming at sea, pressing now, the pungent smell of hot rubber. This was immediately followed by the apparition of my motor mechanic, like a cheerful genie. He was the most admirable person, named Stay, Vic to his friends, whose appearance was almost invariably the prelude to a beaming smile and the remark ‘Everything on top line, sir.’ You only need to be a gunboat officer for a week to know that this is the most desirable quality a motor mechanic can have. So many report with an overcast countenance and the statement that the vibration is awful. Now Vic was forced to admit that all was not well, that the horrid smell was due to a ‘pendulastic going’. This rather fantastic word represents another source of tribulation to a gunboat officer; it is the coupling between the engine and the gearbox, which has an awkward habit of packing up on inconvenient occasions. The pendulastic on my centre engine was now running true to form at this critical moment in the history of motor gunboating. We were forced to stop. Meanwhile, the telegraphist had been receiving and passing up a stream of E-boat reports. ‘E-boats bearing 080 degrees from Gorleston.’ ‘E-boats bearing 050 degrees from Southwold.’ ‘Am engaging E-boats in position …’ etc., from a destroyer. It was obvious that E-boats were on the convoy route in large numbers, and the night was perfect. Should I go on? It was very tempting, but there were grave objections. We could only do eighteen knots on two engines; we were a long way from the scene of action and certainly could not now carry out our instructions to proceed to the Hook of Holland. We were required to be in readiness for an important job far afield off the Texel the next night, and if I carried on for hours on two engines there was a considerable possibility of damaging them. On the other hand there were the enemy in large numbers. It was a difficult decision, the sort that is often presenting itself to naval officers in some guise or another.

I knew what I wanted to do; it’s not every officer who is lucky enough to have a Stay at hand ready to salve his conscience. I consulted him, ‘We’ve a long way to go, but it looks as though it would be well worth trying. How do you think she’ll do on two engines for six or eight hours?’

‘She’ll be all right, sir. I’ll keep a good eye on them; let you know at once if any sign of trouble develops.’

It was settled. We went on. The little hand lamp flashed white, two longs and a short. The peace of the night at sea was rent by the throaty roar of five engines. The lamp sparked again twice, the boats slid away. We were roughly over the Outer Gabbard Bank. I decided to move to a position approximately twenty miles to seaward of the area in which the E-boats were operating on the convoy route in a direct line to the Hook.

‘Steer North 48 degrees East.’

‘North 48 degrees East, sir.’

My coxswain, Curtis, had been with me for nearly a year and he was an expert at steadying a gunboat on her course, even in bumpy weather; a difficult art. When the boat bangs the compass flies around. If you follow it the boat begins to swing violently and your wake looks like a tremendous series of S’s. It requires great skill and restraint to leave the compass to swing and yet keep your average course correct. Tonight Curtis had no difficulty.

‘Steady on North 48 degrees East, sir.’

We were doing eighteen knots now. I calculated anxiously how many hours it would take to reach the chosen position.

‘How far is it, Head?’

There was a muffled sound from the wheelhouse, a pause while he consulted the chart, then a face appeared in the little doorway leading from the wheelhouse to the ‘dustbin’ and a voice shouted: ‘Fortythree miles, sir.’

Just over two hours. Well, we should see how she settled down to her two engines. I checked the compass course and the boost pressures, looked round to see that the faithful 67 was close on the starboard quarter, noted that the moon was beginning to get low, that the visibility was decreasing. A slight mist was beginning to form low over the water, often the case in very quiet weather. We got more reports of E-boats. Evidently they were moving a bit farther north. Was my position going to be the best guess? ‘E-boats bearing one hundred and three degrees from Gorleston.’ That was more like it.

There were probably two groups out working. I wondered in what strength they were as I helped myself to a bull’s-eye and handed one to Head. ‘Antsie’s comfits,’ I called them. Antony was my younger son, at that time aged five. He used to prepare a little bag of his sweets for me every time I was going to sea – and very comforting they were.

Probably six in each group, I thought; they usually worked in sixes.

‘I wish to God we could catch those bastards tonight’, I said to Head.

‘Just the night for a battle, except for our eighteen knots, and we’ve got the place to ourselves,’ he replied. We were the only patrol well off the convoy route.

‘It’s nice to know you can hit anyone at sight,’ I said. The moon was going rapidly and with its departure the mist was thickening.

‘Shan’t see much soon. It’ll be damned difficult to spot them,’ observed Head.

‘We shouldn’t see them much more than half a cable, or a cable at the most, but it’s a lovely night for hearing them.’ I replied. ‘The only thing to do is to cut and hope to hear them returning.’

‘There seem to be plenty out tonight,’ said Head presently, when further signals had been passed up giving more positions of E-boats. ‘They seem to be all on the convoy route in the area roughly off Lowestoft; at least one destroyer has flushed some of them already and had a crack at them.’

‘Yes, I think the position we’ve chosen is the best; nip down to the engine room and see if they’re all happy.’

There was a short pause, followed by the appearance of Stay, looking somewhat dishevelled, but cheerful.

‘Everything on top line, sir! They’re taking it perfectly.’

‘No sign of trouble?’ ‘No, sir.’

‘They sound all right. They’ll have about six more hours to do at any rate, even if we make no contact.’

‘They’ll be OK, sir.’

Thus encouraged I settled back into the normal state of watchfulness accompanied by a rather blank mind that seems the least tiring method of passing the long hours under way – often as many as ten or fifteen on end. The continuous peering into an unending depth of darkness seems to shroud the mind and keep it in a state of suspended animation, which may go on for hours, until brought back to sudden and intense activity by some alteration in the apparently interminable sameness of the conditions. A real or imagined shape looms into view, a light blinks in the distance or from your companions, a signal is shouted into your ear, that continuous deafening roar of the engines changes its note infinitesimally. The suspended animation is gone. You are thinking fast.

If nothing occurs to distract attention, the one thought that keeps recurring is: ‘How much longer?’

‘How much longer, Head?’

A short pause, then:

‘Fifteen and a half minutes, sir.’

Half minutes matter at thirty knots. Though we were doing only eighteen, the habit of accuracy was there. Watchfulness and suspended animation again.

‘Two minutes to go, sir.’

‘Right, let me know when there’s thirty seconds.’

‘Aye, aye, sir.’

‘Thirty seconds to go, sir.’

I signalled to the other boat. We slowed down. There was the flip of the revs. as the engines came out of gear, then silence as the order to cut engines was obeyed.

What a relief that silence is after the hours of noise. Together with the silence comes relaxation from the tension imposed by the swift rush through the darkness. You feel that you must have ample warning of the enemy’s approach in such an exquisite absence of noise, though this may well not be the case. On such a quiet night as this, every sound comes clearly; the dull thud of a hatch banging closed in a nearby ship, a deep laugh from the after magazine, a muffled shout from the engine room. On this occasion, a call from Boffin:

‘How is she going?’

‘Seems all right. What revs. were you doing on three?’ I shouted back.

His answer confirmed our estimated speed.

‘I think this is the best place to hope for an interception’, I said.

‘I should think so. There seem to be a hell of a lot out tonight,’ said Boffin.

‘I wish the visibility wasn’t quite so low.’

It was now after two o’clock in the morning; reports of E-boat activity were still coming in from the convoy route. That meant that we were not likely to have our chance of catching the enemy on their way home for at least another hour or two. We settled down to our usual listening vigil.

Here I must explain briefly two developments that had fundamentally altered our E-boat hunting tactics. One was that we could lie cut, that is with our engines stopped, for hours, even in fresh winds, and still remain within a few hundred yards of each other. This has been an everlasting source of amazement to me. Having followed the sea since I was a child, I thought I knew something of the ways of small ships in the water. Accordingly, on the first occasion that I operated in a gunboat, when we cut about sixty miles south of the Start in a force three wind, rain and low visibility, I thought: ‘How on earth are we going to keep in contact with each other?’ To my astonishment the boats, though making at least a knot of leeway in that wind, stayed almost completely still in relation to one another. I was never more surprised and relieved.

The other important discovery we made, though it seems a trifle obvious looking back, was that it is useless to patrol to catch E-boats. The only chance is to cut and listen. You could rarely see an E-boat at more than three or four hundred yards, but in quiet conditions – that is normal operating conditions – you could possibly hear them up to ten or twelve miles. On this occasion, according to the lessons we had learnt, we cut and kept a listening watch in a position about forty miles from Lowestoft, at 0214 on the morning of the 20th November 1941.

All was quiet; at 0330 I went below for a doze and left Head on watch. The reports had died down, which meant that the E-boats had left the convoy route. If we were to have any luck, we should hear something before long. Head was to rouse me at the first sound. I reckoned our zero hour was between 0430 and 0500.

At a quarter to five Head shook me.

‘Distant sound of engines, sir, bearing about west.’

A tremendous moment! Were we at last to have our chance? I was on deck in a few seconds; sure enough there was just the faintest murmur away to the westward. The night was absolutely still. Not the gentlest catspaw to stir the water, not the faintest sound to break the absolute silence, except that distant murmur. At long last, music to our ears! Had we not flogged the ocean for nearly a year and never succeeded in engaging them fairly and squarely? The faint rumble was increasing – yes, music to our ears. But eighteen knots, and in that visibility. How could we hope to do it? Was the exhilaration to turn to bitter disappointment again because it was misty and we had only eighteen knots? Probably so.

Head was watching the compass.

‘Bearing’s about west south west now, sir, getting louder.’

‘E-boats all right; they’re moving east. We’ll have to wait a bit to get some accurate idea of course and speed from the change of bearing. I’ll plot it.’

‘The bearing was due west as near as no matter when you first heard it, wasn’t it?’

‘Yes, west, sir.’

A pause:

‘Lucky we picked them up well to the westward, it has given us a chance to head them off. Damn the eighteen knots, we want our full speed.’

‘Perhaps we shall have some luck,’ I said. ‘It’s time we did.’

We did.

The murmur had grown to a rumble, then to a deep growl. It was eerie, very thrilling to peer into that impenetrable dark to hear the deep thudding mutter grow stronger, more vibrant, knowing that it was our mortal foes approaching, all unconscious of us lurking in their path. In their path? Well, in a manner of speaking! But the North Sea is wide, the night very dark and misty. There is many a slip ‘twixt the sound and the ship. ‘In their path’ would have to mean that they would pass us within one hundred yards, and they were well to the south. How far away were those exhausts, drumming insistently and tantalisingly in our ears, and how many of them? How many didn’t matter, how far did. Was it two miles or three? It was hard to tell in the absolute stillness.

‘They’re bearing about South 50 degrees West now, sir.’

Head was again at the compass.

‘Yes, what’s the time?’

‘0453.’

‘That means we’ve heard them for eight minutes. I’ll plot them allowing twenty-seven knots; that’ll be nearly four miles.’

By this time all hands, though not yet called upon, were at action stations, listening silently, intently, peering into the darkness. So near and yet so far. It was a great moment for me, my first chance of contact with the enemy as Senior Officer of the flotilla. Could we do it with eighteen knots? That was the question that pounded in my head as the precious minutes slid by and I pored over the chart. Well, I couldn’t risk waiting long to check their course, or I wouldn’t have a hope; another six minutes and we should be on the beam of their line of advance.

One last look at the rough plot, so much a matter of guesswork, and I had made up my mind.

‘Start up. South 25 degrees East, Coxswain.’

The engines roared. The little dimmed blue light flicked – we didn’t want any chance of them seeing a flash. We were off, 67 creaming along close on the starboard quarter.

‘Steady on South 25 degrees East, sir.’

The minutes went on. Our eighteen knots seemed a paltry crawl. How were they bearing? No good asking in that crashing roar. You couldn’t see them until you nearly rammed them; you could hear nothing except your own infernal uproar. But how were they bearing? I must know. It would be one chance in a thousand to have hit off an interception to one hundred yards on the rough estimate of course, speed and distance judged while listening to their approach. How to get another bearing to check our intercepting course?

We stopped again to listen. The blue lamp flashed, the throttles were slammed down; Boffin, taken aback by the unusual violence of our deceleration, surged up level and stopped too. Time was vital. Stopping to listen was the only solution. It had the disadvantage of still further jeopardising our chances of cutting them off with our slow speed. The immediate insistent roar of our own engines subsided quickly; there to the southward was the distant deeper throb like a malignant echo. It was much louder now.

I looked anxiously at the compass. Was the bearing the same as when we had started up? If so, our course was accurate. It had altered a little to the eastward. That meant we were losing bearing on them, only slightly though. If we altered to the east a bit, it might be all right; they were clearly very much closer.

‘Start up. South 50 degrees East, Coxswain.’

‘South 50 degrees East sir.’

The crash of the starting engines, so loud it seemed they must hear us, and we were off again.

‘Steady on South 50 degrees East, sir.’

‘How long was that, Head?’

‘Two and a half minutes between courses, sir.’

‘Not bad at all; we shall have to get it quicker. We must be getting close to them now.’

Seconds went by. Should I stop again? It would mean that we had missed them unless we made contact in the next two or three minutes. To stop meant the loss of precious time. If they once got ahead, with our eighteen knots we would never catch them. Should I stop

‘Flashing light on the port bow, sir.’

Yes, there it was, a little blue light winking quite close to port, then the faint outline of a hull in the mist. Though I knew E-boats were very close, I must identify before attacking. I flashed the challenge. The reply, faintly made, was indecisive. I fired a two-star cartridge, a pyrotechnic we and aircraft had as a quick method of recognition. It happened to be two red lights for that time. In the lurid red glow given out we could see five E-boats, long, low, white-painted hulls clustered together, almost stopped, or moving very slowly, obviously rendezvousing.

Four were disposed in a close group to port, the fifth being a little further off, and almost in our course. It had been but ten seconds from their first flash. We had got them; our first big chance.

‘Hard aport, Coxswain,’ I yelled, as the guns crashed out to port and starboard, engaging the boat ahead, now to starboard, and the boat that had challenged us. Boffin kept magnificently on our quarter, pumping shells into the starboard E-boat – now only fifty or sixty yards away – with all she had got.

The E-boat to port was only the same distance off and receiving severe punishment from our 20-millimetre, our big guns. You could see the shells exploding on her side and upper works. As yet the Germans had hardly realised what had happened. I could imagine the confusion on board as guns were hastily manned, with men falling wounded and officers shouting orders. A third E-boat loomed up right ahead, moving slowly to port across our bow.

‘Port Wheel.’

‘Port wheel, sir.’

The coxswain was wonderfully calm. We drew out parallel to this boat and 67, slightly to starboard, couldn’t have been more than twenty yards from her. We gave her the most tremendous broadside as we went past and turned to starboard across her bow. She did not reply. It is doubtful if any of her deck personnel survived that blast at short range.

By this time the enemy had recovered themselves somewhat. The E-boats farther away were firing fiercely, some of it hitting us, most passing whining just overheard. As they began to gather way their fire increased, became more confused: brilliant bouts of tracer splitting the darkness in every direction.

Coming round to starboard, we could see a fourth boat about one hundred yards away gathering speed, heading the way we were going. This boat had probably been unhit as yet and the exchange of fire at that range was brisk. Part of the stand was blown from beneath our Oerlikon gunner’s feet, the starboard 0.5 turret was smashed and put completely out of action. Still nearly all of it was passing overhead and, best of all, no one was badly hit, an incredible bit of luck.

It is hard to describe the confusion of such an engagement. The pitch darkness, the swift moving hulls, lost to sight almost as soon as seen, the brilliant streams of light from the tracer criss-crossing like comets in every direction; above all, the incessant noise. The nearby ear-splitting crack of our own guns, blending into the more distant gunfire and roar of the engines.

The E-boat turned hard away to the starboard with a fire starting aft, giving great promise, but seeming to blot out suddenly.

‘Hard a starboard.’

‘Hard a starboard, sir’ from the imperturbable Curtis.

‘Midships.’ I had forgotten the faithful Boffin, who still close on the starboard quarter had found this sudden turn too much for him and was riding up into us. We made the turn more gently, sweeping in a wide circle back to the position in which we had found the E-boats originally.

They had all scattered. Which way to try?

I suppose the general disengaging direction would be the southeastwards, towards the Hook of Holland. We steadied in this direction, peering intently into the misty darkness for the first sign of a hull.

Although we had suffered no severe casualties, by this time we were in poor shape as a fighting gunboat. Our starboard turret had been completely knocked out, the 20 millimetre gun, the main armament, was badly jammed, and Edwards, the gunner, was desperately working to clear it. Thus we had nothing with which to engage on the starboard side except a stripped Lewis, a hand-controlled 0.303 weapon. As leading boat, we had attracted almost all the effective fire; 67 was unscathed, with three 0.5s and her Oerlikon still working.

Suddenly we saw a misty shape to starboard. It was an E-boat on approximately the same course as ourselves. I roared aft in the hope that Edwards was ready again with his Oerlikon; nothing happened. The 0.5 turret was hopeless. The sense of frustration that I experienced at that moment is one of the liveliest and most vivid memories of my life. After a year’s search for the elusive E-boat, to have one ranging nearer and nearer alongside at point-blank range, and be unable to fire anything at her except a rifle bullet was utterly exasperating. Besides, one had the uncomfortable feeling that at any moment there would be a hail of 20 millimetre shells from her, which could hardly fail to hit, with no return fire to keep her gunners jumping. The E-boat was strangely silent, perhaps she had not seen us yet, or hoped that she had not been seen. I yelled at the gunner with the stripped Lewis to fire. There was a sharp crackle and a stream of bright white tracer went tearing straight into the E-boat, by this time no more than one hundred yards on our starboard beam.

Things happened quickly. Boffin evidently had not seen the enemy until the Lewis gun opened up. He let fly with 0.5 and Oerlikon; the E-boat, stung into violent activity, fired back wildly, turned hard to starboard and opened up to full speed. In a minute she was out of sight. With eighteen knots we could do nothing.

We went on south-east. What to do next? How to find them again? We had given them a good deal to go on with; 64’s Oerlikon, before it had jammed, had got off four pans, two hundred and forty rounds at close range, a great proportion of them hits, while the enemy were still hardly firing, and both twin 0.5 turrets had fired one thousand rounds in similar conditions before having to reload; 67 had done likewise. Those E-boats would not forget us in a hurry; we were shortly to have proof of this.

After proceeding for a few minutes, I decided that the only thing to do was to stop and listen again to see if we could get a bearing by ear of the enemy’s movements. We stopped. Again the sense of relief from tension, from the ear-splitting racket to which we had just been subjected. At last there was a moment to think without distraction. We listened intently. The silence seemed complete. A further relaxation from tension; there was no enemy near at hand. I jumped up on to the canopy.

‘Any casualties, Head?’

‘Nothing serious, sir. Edwards has a splinter in his leg. It’s only a scratch and Taylor has been scratched too; it’s nothing.’

Taylor was the starboard turret-gunner.

‘We’re lucky,’ I said. ‘Check up for any damage below decks.’

‘Aye, aye, sir.’

‘Are you all right, Boffin? I yelled.

‘Yes, quite,’ came the reply. ‘No casualties, no serious damage. I bet the E-boats aren’t. We must have given them a bad time in that first five minutes. Expect they thought we were another E-boat and were all sucking a cup of tea. Probably thought it most unfriendly. Wonder where they’ve got to? One or two of them might find it hard to get home,’ added Boffin.

‘I’ll send an amplifying signal and suggest fighters go and deal with the stragglers, when it gets light.’

It was about 0545 by this time; still pitch dark.

We had sent an immediate enemy report on turning in to engage, simply:

‘Am engaging E-boats in position ____.’

I now sent a further signal.

Have engaged five E-boats in position ____. Lost contact. Suggest fighters search at first light. Two E-boats severely damaged.

Telegraphists in these boats lead a hard existence; very lengthy periods of watch in a tiny W/T cabin. I had an exceptionally able Scottish leading telegraphist named Roberts. Besides being a good tel. he was a good fighter; he was always to be found trying out the guns. His greatest pleasure was to send off such a signal as this.

As he put it:

‘For once we’re somebody and they’re listening. They’re stopping the other traffic to get us.’

Most gratifying to a telegraphist’s self-esteem.

Head had reported several shell holes in the hull; nothing serious. I was beginning to wonder what the next move was to be, when the coxswain said:

‘Do you think you hear something, sir, over there’ – pointing to the south-west.

I told everyone to be quiet and listened. Very, very faintly one seemed to hear a low muttering, or was it imagination? Vividly there came to my mind the scene more than two years before in the surgery at ‘King Alfred’, when the doctor had suddenly ceased to listen to my heart and had put his mouth to my ear and made the most inaudible of sounds. For a moment I had not been able to think what he was at; the reason was clear now.

‘Do you hear anything, Boffin?’ I shouted.

‘Yes, think so, to the south-west. Not very certain though.’

‘I think so, too. Let’s go and see.’

The engines roared into life. We swung round to south-west and steadied. Feelings of intense exhilaration were shot through with pangs of apprehension, hard to keep completely subdued. Edwards had not yet been able to clear the Oerlikon. A round had got hopelessly jammed up the barrel; he had the gun in pieces at the moment. That left us with the 0.5s to fire to port and nothing but a 0.303 to starboard. Were we to light upon a re-formed and thoroughly aroused pack of E-boats? If so, we weren’t going to be so lucky. However, we might find a disabled one; the gunboat officer’s dream!

The first preliminaries of dawn were beginning to have a faint effect upon the hitherto intense darkness. For no apparent reason there seemed to be a little more light; the mist was thinning. We had been going for about fifteen minutes when suddenly, very dramatically, we saw a low hull lying black and lifeless in the water, a cable on the starboard bow.

‘Vessel bearing green forty-five, sir,’ came in a shout from the shattered starboard turret position, and in less correct phraseology from aft:

‘There’s one of the f*****g bastards!’

I shouted to the telegraphist down the voice pipe, ‘Make flag three to Boffin.’

Boffin was Campbell’s R/T call sign, flag three means ‘Attack with depth charges.’

We carried two depth charges each, the minimum setting being fifty feet. At this depth, but no deeper, they could have a profound effect on even a shallow surface vessel, such as an E-boat. The charge goes off five seconds after dropping, therefore full speed must be used, otherwise you would blow off your own propellers. With 64 having only eighteen knots available, I had to order 67 to do the attack; she proceeded to do so most efficiently.

While we slowly circled the strangely silent E-boat, 67 turned away, gathering speed. She was lost to sight momentarily, then reappeared with a creaming bow wave, thundered by us at forty knots and seemed almost to run up alongside the stricken E-boat. There was a five-second pause as 67 disappeared into the darkness, turning hard to starboard, followed by the distinctive shaking bump of the depthcharge explosion against the hull of the boat. The E-boat was lost to sight in a high column of water, reappearing apparently unscathed, still utterly silent. I wondered what this could mean. Were they completely cowed, or had they no guns left firing? They couldn’t be all killed. Anyway we must board, but we must be careful as they might be laying a trap for us.

Meanwhile from the direction in which 67 had disappeared there came the flash of tracer and the crackle of gunfire, shortly sustained, but distinct. That puzzled me again, but I was more concerned with the prize within our grasp and intended to make sure of it. The Eboat must certainly have been stopped for good. She was low in the water.

I sent a signal:

‘Have E-boat stopped in position 090 degrees Lowestoft thirtyeight miles. Intend to board. Send assistance.’

Suddenly 67 roared out of the gloom. I flashed her to slow and stop and was greeted with a burst of Lewis-gun fire. Evidently some gunner, excited by the night’s events and too easy on the trigger. Slowing quickly, she stopped. The roar of engines ceased; I could hear the unfortunate gunner still receiving the full benefit of Boffin’s tongue.

The E-boat was lying two hundred yards to the eastward, black and silent. The first of the dawn was by this time taking effect. She was clearly silhouetted against the growing light in the eastern sky. The moment was exhilarating in the extreme.

‘We must board,’ I shouted.

‘Yes,’ said Boffin. ‘She doesn’t seem to have much life left in her. We didn’t get fired at as we went by; I came on three others making off fast to the east, when I was turning after the depth-charge attack.’

‘I wondered what the firing was,’ I said. ‘We can’t catch them now with my centre engine gone. I’ve suggested aircraft; very likely they’ll catch them. We’d better concentrate on this chap.’

So in the early glimmering light on that calm and peaceful sea we made our preparations. She was obviously hopelessly crippled; there was no fear of her suddenly departing. It was therefore worth taking what precautions we could. We got out all our tommy-guns and revolvers, we arranged to approach one on either side, with 64 to starboard, so that her only 0.5 could be brought to bear, yet so that we should not fire straight across the E-boat at each other. All guns were to be trained on and used to the full if she showed the slightest signs of fight. Boffin was to use his searchlight; one of the Dutch midshipmen, Pontier, was to hail the enemy, calling upon them to surrender.

Everything was understood.

‘Start up.’

The order was given, the silence shattered. Slowly the gunboats closed on their prey, the engines throbbing, the guns trained, every man strung up with excitement. No sign from the E-boat. The light was making steadily but it wasn’t enough yet to see any details on the enemy decks. Were we going to get a withering blast at the last minute, or what were the Germans up to?

Fifty yards, twenty-five yards. Still no sign.

‘Do you surrender.’ Pontier’s voice carried ringingly over the quiet sea. No answer.

This was passing strange. A brilliant finger of light shot out from 67; played on the decks of the E-boat. A deserted shambles. Bullet holes everywhere, gear lying about, no signs of life; at the yard arm of her diminutive mast, the ugly German naval flag with the Swastika and the Iron Cross hung lifeless in the air. Was it an ambush? Were there men hidden, guns trained waiting until they could not miss, for one last desperate stand? It was impossible to tell in the grey dawn. The hard light and dark shadows thrown by the searchlight was no better.

‘Ahead port.’

‘Starboard wheel.’

‘Steady.’

‘We’ll come alongside port side,’ to Head.

‘Aye, aye, sir.’

‘You will lead the boarding party. Shoot at sight if there is any opposition.’

The last orders were given, the last dispositions made.

‘Stop port.’

Head jumped for it while still a foot or two off. There was a crash of gunfire.

‘Christ, they were there after all.’

Then I realised it was our own Oerlikon, put together again now, ripping across the decks of the E-boat. Edwards had tripped over the firing stand where it had been shattered; in so doing he had pulled the trigger. The shells had gone perilously close in front of Head. He jumped aboard, made straight for the Nazi ensign and lowered it forthwith. My boat was made fast alongside; 67 quickly joined her. At once we realised what had happened. It seemed incredible we had not guessed it before. The German crew had been taken off, obviously by the three boats Boffin had encountered after his depth-charge attack. They had heard us coming while they were in the process of scuttling the boat and had beaten a very hasty retreat.

Leaving a few hands on the gunboats, much to their chagrin and loudly sucking their teeth, the rest swarmed aboard the E-boat. A motor mechanic was detailed to report on the engine room and see if there was any chance of closing the sea cocks.

Head, who had gone on to enter the wheelhouse, reported a destruction charge laid down the companion way from the wheelhouse, the charge at the foot of the ladder. Everyone was kept back. De Wey, the Dutchman, and I approached the charge. There was the fuse line leading down the ladder, with a peculiar wooden handle at the firing end. Had it been lit? Well it must be a long fuse if it was. The Germans had left some fifteen minutes ago at least. Then De Wey saw on the handle the words in German: ‘Remove handle to fire.’ Without more ado he picked up the charge and threw it overboard. There are advantages in knowing the enemy tongue!

We discovered a mysterious wire leading up to the war head of one of the spare torpedoes, which had been opened up, the explosive exposed, into which the wire had been inserted. No ticking or other alarming symptoms could be detected; we decided to leave it alone.

Meanwhile it was obvious we could not save the boat without help. The engine room was full of water and diesel and the water levels were rising fast in other compartments as it was impossible to get at the sea cocks to close them. I sent a signal asking for towing assistance and a pump, inwardly doubting whether anything could arrive in time; it was exasperating.

‘Bring them back alive,’ had been the orders, reiterated again and again. The authorities wanted an E-boat, none had yet been captured; here we had one, yet it seemed it was going to be beyond our power to bring her in. Heavy as she was with water, it was impossible to tow, we should merely have ruined our engines. Lacking a power pump there was no hope of keeping her afloat unless assistance arrived within the hour. I doubted if she would last longer.

The order was given to gut the boat. Sailors swarmed all over her, appearing from all the hatches with arms full of equipment. Roberts removed all the W/T equipment, gunners took what guns they could detach and pans of ammunition, charts, books, logs, compasses, searchlights, revolvers, even pictures of Hitler were bundled into the gunboats. Someone came up waving a long German sausage. They had found it all spread out, half-eaten, on the mess-deck table forward, sausage, black bread, sauerkraut. A confirmation of our earlier prediction that they had been ‘sucking a cup of tea’.

She began to settle by the stern. She was wallowing, very heavy now. With men everywhere below, I had to consider very carefully how long I could hold on, at the same time trying to make a mental note of all the important features of the boat. A particularly unpleasant wallow accompanied by a downward lurch aft decided me. Smoke was coming from the smoke apparatus where the decks were awash, water was swishing through the large crack in the deck caused by the depth-charge explosion. Only forward was it possible to go below.

‘Abandon the E-boat. Get back to your boats.’

The order was quickly though reluctantly obeyed. We let go and stood off fifty yards to watch her end.

Roberts came up to me with a request to take the dinghy and have a last attempt to get some more W/T gear that had so far resisted his endeavours. Barnes, the port 0.5 gunner, volunteered to go with him. I agreed provided one stayed near the hatch to listen for a warning shout. The dinghy was lowered, they rowed off to the E-boat and disappeared below, presently to reappear with further pieces of equipment which they put in the dinghy. Still they worked on. Suddenly she gave a sickening lurch, downward by the stern. A cry of warning went up. Quickly Roberts and Barnes reappeared and jumped into the boat.

Only just in time! She was going rapidly by the stern. Her bows were lifting, lifting, until for a few seconds she hung vertical, her stern under water, her bows pointing upwards, as if in supplication to the sky. Then quickly she sank and disappeared from view. A cheer went up, but it was a feeble one. There is something awe-inspiring and a little saddening about the sight of any ship, however small, however much hated, going down. It is so very irrevocable; in its setting of apparently limitless water, impressive.

Somehow, with the passing of the boat, there was a relaxation of tension. We had been through an exciting three hours since we first heard the enemy. The ludicrous sight of one of the crew falling in while getting the dinghy aboard was hailed with shouts of delight. We got under way and headed for home. We reported the sinking of the E-boat. Two MLs sent to our assistance with special pumps turned back. We ploughed on in a state of blissful reaction.

There is no feeling so good as that experienced after a successful engagement, if you have been lucky enough to escape casualties; the only comparable experience that I have had is paddling back after a win in a racing eight, or cruising round to your pit after getting the chequered flag in a motor race; even these glorious moments do not come up to it. Unfortunately these feelings are generally marred by concern and sorrow over casualties. In this case there was nothing to spoil our pleasure. It was our first real fight. It was perhaps excusable.

As we reached the convoy route we met the destroyers returning to harbour. They had had engagements with E-boats, too, had received our signals, were interested to hear what had happened. We hoisted the Nazi flag under the White Ensign and sailed rather proudly down the swept channel. One destroyer signalled us to close; we stopped close by as her captain wished to question us. When he had finished I noticed that Edwards, always a humorist, had collected a crowd of sailors at the side of the destroyer much interested in him. He was demonstrating a large picture of Hitler with appropriate gestures to the great joy of his audience.

We proceeded into harbour with something of a triumphant entry, the crews of the destroyers and trawlers as we passed waving their caps and cheering, a never-to-be-forgotten tribute from men such as they, culminating in the entrance to Felixstowe Dock. The news of the capture of the E-boat had got round, the whole dockside was lined and most enthusiastic. The gunboats had worked hard, wearily, and a long time for this; the feeling that one had done something of value at last was all the more welcome for that. The Captain, who had so often wished us luck and seen us off, was there, seemingly as happy as we were; I believe he was.

I went ashore to make a preliminary report, leaving the booty to be sorted out in the presence of an Intelligence expert, lately arrived from town. We were told that fighters had found three E-boats limping home and had engaged them most effectively; it was possible that we had got two out of the five.² At least we knew that two had been beaten up pretty badly at point-blank range, two others roughly handled.

I had to settle down to the more humdrum business of getting out a report and preparing for the big job of that night, the long-awaited trip to the Texel. 64 was out of action, 67 could go and we could raise one other to make a unit; all the time at the back of my head there was the cheering thought, ‘Motor gunboats have begun to justify their existence. We have made a start. Can we keep it up?’

That afternoon we were off to the Texel, but we could not expect another favour from fortune so soon; the weather broke and we had ten hours’ bitter drenching plug back into the teeth of a southwesterly gale; ‘A f*****g sight worse than fighting E-boats,’ as a member of 67’s crew so rightly observed.

Hitch’s action on the night of the 19th/20th November was the first success that MGBs had had in their struggle to drive E-boats off the coastal convoy routes. Thus it marked the moment when the argument over the type of gunboat to send after E-boats and their armament started to swing back in favour of fast ‘short’ boats but armed with heavier guns. Note that 67 was ordered to destroy the stationary E-boat with a depth charge before it was realized that she had been abandoned. 20 millimetre Oerlikon shells on this occasion may well have holed the engine room that resulted in her abandonment, as Hitch’s subsequent Report of Proceedings opined, but the MGBs carried no gun heavy enough to ensure an E-boat’s destruction. A post war intelligence report suggests that the abandoned E-boat had also been in collision, presumably in the confusion created by the ambush from the far weaker unit of only two MGBs, one limited to eighteen knots.

Note also how close range the action was. Visibility was no more than one cable so all gun fire was at this range or less and much of the fighting was within half a cable. Perhaps not yard arm to yard arm, but closer than any other naval action of a period when distances for effective fire were steadily lengthening. This was not the clinical destruction of the enemy at long range. Fighting at night with quick firing light weapons was closer to Nelson’s dictum ‘No officer can do far wrong if he lays himself alongside an enemy’, than anything the Navy had seen for a century. It was a miracle that the two MGBs suffered no casualties. Next time they would not be so lucky.

Hitch was awarded a bar to his DSC, Midshipman De Wey was Mentioned in Dispatches. Leading Seaman George Curtis, Hitch’s coxswain, received the DSM, the Distinguished Service Medal. Able Seaman George Edwards, 64’s Oerlikon gunner, was Mentioned in Dispatches, as were Barnes, Roberts and Vic Stay, entitling them to wear a bronze oak leaf on the relevant campaign ribbon.