Chapter Fourteen

Final Winter October 1942 – March 19432

From mid-October onwards the chances of good operational weather steadily reduced and the Eighth Flotilla, although putting to sea for the grind of regular patrols, were not again in action until the end of February 1943. That makes it a good moment to pause and consider what life at Beehive was like in that fourth winter of the war and the third winter for Hitch in Coastal Forces.

By all accounts Beehive was a happy place in spite of the shadow that must have been cast across the Eighth Flotilla by its two losses. Peter Dickens had arrived in September to replace Harpy Lloyd as Senior Officer of the Twenty-First MTB Flotilla. Hitch and Peter Dickens were the two dominant Senior Officers in the base, setting the tone for the officers and crews of the Coastal Forces boats based there, though it would be quite wrong to exclude Tubby Cambridge from a leading role. With his great girth and remarkably small cap, he was both a genial and a commanding figure and he led the MLs with skill. No one who understands what Coastal Forces achieved during the war would denigrate the role of MLs, principally dedicated to mine laying, but they were not the sharp end of Coastal Forces and, rightly or wrongly, it was the MGBs and MTBs whose exploits Beehive personnel were particularly proud of. Thus it was to Hitch and Peter that they looked as role models.

Of course the man who ultimately had responsibility for the proper working of Beehive as a Coastal Forces base was Tommy Kerr, the retired commander called back for the war. Everyone liked Tommy Kerr and it was clear that he had exactly the right touch for dealing with the disparate components of his command. To the very young men who went out night after night to patrol and fight he was an avuncular figure who looked after their best interests, fought their battles for them with authority and who was there to take the salute for each and every boat as it exited the dock. They knew he would also be there at whatever hour of the night or morning they returned.

Beehive had a range of specialist staff officers reporting to Kerr, including the Staff Officer Operations (SOO) responsible for transmitting C-and-C Nore’s orders, briefing captains, and ensuring that they had all the available intelligence about what they faced each night. Most of the rest of the staff officers were involved in the maintenance of the boats. In Hitch’s view the most important of these was ‘Pop’ Perry, his old friend from St Christopher. Perry was a co-conspirator with Hitch in the modification of MGBs in the teeth of Admiralty indifference, backed to the hilt by Tommy Kerr. Another conspirator was Lieutenant John Woods, the base Gunnery Officer, who modified the single Oerlikon mounting to carry two guns. A key player in the base staff was Lieutenant Commander H.R. Lillicrap. The delightfully named Lillicrap, inventor of the Lillicrap Patent Razor, as one brother officer discovered to his great delight, was in charge of the shipwrights. Since HMS Warrior was commissioned in 1860, the Royal Navy had steadily lost its wooden warships, so that by the time of the Second World War shipwrights accustomed to working in wood must have been rather rare. Lillicrap was clearly an exception. Peter Dickens in Night Action remembers him well.

Old Lillicrap reigned over the Shipwrights in the great hanger along the hard and in him past and present met. Our boats could hardly be more uptodate, yet they were built of wood as Nelson’s had been and strangely satisfying were the sounds of plane, saw and mallet on chisel, the feel of ankle deep shavings and sawdust, and the sweet smell of newly worked ‘onduras me’ogany’. Lillicrap’s standards were so high that it was hard to prise a job away from him until it had reached perfection, whatever the urgency, and his decision on what should or should not be done was adamantine.

His weakness was the Battle of Jutland as Henry Franklin, having frequent occasion to be in his office, discovered. ‘What’s that you were telling us about the Queen Mary blowing up, Mr Lillicrap?’ Ten minutes later the master carpenter would shake himself back into the present and ask’ Was there something you wanted?’ ‘Well, I just thought it might improve our fighting efficiency if we had a shelf in the ward room with holes shaped for Gordon’s gin bottles.’

Tommy Kerr had another very large group of base personnel whose memories did not go back to Jutland. These were the Wrens. By this stage of the war almost every job in the Navy onshore that could be done by a woman was so done. They didn’t just serve in wardroom and galley and type reports. All vehicles were driven by Wrens and boats’ crews for shore bases were also Wren manned. Tractor drivers who hauled MGBs and MTBs up the slips for maintenance work had Wren drivers, and plotting rooms working on German wireless intercepts and radar monitoring were dominantly Wren manned.

Cameron Gough, another young sub-lieutenant joining the Eighth Flotilla at Beehive in the autumn of 1942, commented:

There were a great many Wrens round about the place and very many attractive ones. There was some kind of semi-secret establishment where the Wrens had been chosen for their brains. Most of them had university degrees and, strangely, most, if not all, were very attractive. Perhaps I have got this wrong and they were chosen for their looks and happened to have brains and university degrees.

Wrens, of course, threw up disciplinary issues of which most naval officers, particularly those as old as Tommy Kerr, had little previous experience. The extra-marital relationships which inevitably arose in those wartime conditions were dealt with by Wren officers. However, there were many other rules to break and Tommy Kerr had to enforce base discipline. Another young officer remembers him at Captain’s Table, the routine where by minor disciplinary offences are dealt with by the Captain without much more formality than that induced by the presence of a very senior rating, normally the Master at Arms, responsible for the ship’s discipline, bringing each offender forward to stand rigidly to attention in front of the Captain seated at his table. On this occasion the delinquent Wren resorted to the oldest defence known to woman and dissolved in tears. ‘Don’t you cry at me, young woman’ said Commander Kerr and gave her ten days stoppage of leave.

The first lieutenants and spare officers of the boats, living at the Cliff Hotel well outside the confines of the base, had a good social life at Beehive when they weren’t preparing their boats for sea or out on patrol. There were games of rugby and hockey; the hockey sometimes mixed. Scottish dancing also exercised the young men and women. David James remembers duck shooting in the salt marshes of Suffolk, and I can remember going with my father to shoot pheasant on somebody’s broad acres, travelling there in that wonderful Aston Martin with its rich oily odours. Few birds were shot that day, no doubt because birds were not ‘put down’ during the war so that only the occasional wild bird would have been flushed over the guns. I have a clear recollection of Hitch only shooting one bird and that it fell inconveniently into an enormous patch of brambles from which even the most intrepid spaniels were unable to retrieve it.

Hitch’s own life must have been divided between his duties as Flotilla Senior Officer who, after going to sea, had reports to write, operations to prepare for and the development of MGBs, the subject of an extended paper engagement with the Admiralty. Somehow he also found time to write We Fought Them in Gunboats which he started in October 1942, and to then go home to his wife and children in the little villa we rented overlooking the sea. I don’t know how often he got home. Bad weather would have meant the cancellation of operations and an evening with his family. My mother and I were always there, for I was a attending a local school a short walk from our little house. My brother was at his preparatory school and home only for the holidays.

We did occasionally go to London but I think it was always because there was something that my father had to do there, a visit to the Admiralty, or of course those awe inspiring moments when we went to Buckingham Palace for an investiture. I remember sitting with my mother in the Investiture Room while, somewhat above us, the King stood on a dais pinning medals on officers queuing up to reach him, taking the decorations from a cushion held by a deferential equerry. We caught sight of my father taking his turn up the sloping ramp and were then reunited with him in a great crowd of Army, Navy and Air Force officers, all standing around looking cheerful with their new awards pinned on their chests. Family legend recalls King George as saying to Hitch on one of these occasions: ‘What! You again!’

I was always aware of the arrival of another decoration for my father, even at the tender age of five or six. This was because my teddy bear, a favourite toy and close companion, put up ribbons and rosettes whenever my father did. Teddy remained a much decorated bear in my toy box for many years and still has a place of repose in my daughter’s room in my Dorset home.

It must have been a strange life for men like Hitch, out at sea night after night, all too frequently in action, returning to their families and the normal humdrum life of wartime England, with its shortages and inconveniences.

In his book The Little Ships, Gordon Holman, a fellow Cornishman, gave an interesting contemporaneous account of life in Coastal Forces, and it is worth quoting his description of how he met Hitch in October 1942.

My first meeting with Hitch was at a Coastal Forces base on the East Coast. I had heard much of him, not only in official communiqués but from senior RN officers closely associated with Coastal Forces. I had been impressed by the way they acknowledge his pre-eminence in all directions where small fighting craft were concerned. Many times I had heard them say, ‘Well, Hitch says …’ and they obviously regarded that as the last word on the subject.

I was directed to a large, old fashioned building where I was told I should find the Senior Officer. It was a typical naval establishment, with well polished floors and a generally shiny and bare appearance.

When I entered I found, standing in the middle of a large room, one naval officer – an RNVR Lieutenant Commander. He received me very civilly but with no warmth. The Commanding Officer was away and he was acting for him in his absence. Unfortunately he knew nothing about my visit but if there was anything he could do for me he would be happy to do it.

From a smaller room, the door of which was partly open, I could hear other voices, obviously in earnest discussion. I suspected that I had interrupted a conference and began to feel that I was in for an altogether unfortunate day. Then, as the Lieutenant Commander half turned, I caught sight of his medal ribbons and had an even bigger shock. There could be no mistaking the DSO and bar and the DSC, also with something added. Some extremely rapid thinking convinced me that I had met Hitch.

I said that I hoped I would not prove a nuisance and, if it was convenient, I would like to meet some of the officers and ratings.

‘Certainly,’ said the Lieutenant Commander, without enthusiasm.

Then a curious thing happened. Hitch said, ‘I suppose you would like to see some of the boats?’ adding, ‘Have you ever been in any of them?’ I said I had and he, as a matter of polite conversation, asked, ‘Who did you go with?’

‘Dunstan Curtis,’ I said.

It was an answer that had a remarkable effect on the Lieutenant Commander. For the first time he looked very keenly at me and said, ‘When did you go with Dunstan Curtis?’

‘When we went to St. Nazaire,’ I told him.

Hitch looked at me silently for a moment – almost as if he did not believe me – then he turned on his heel and crossing to the half open door said, in a way that embarrassed me yet made me feel very proud, ‘Here, you fellows, come and meet a bloody fool who went to St Nazaire in Dunstan Curtis’s boat!’

It was not the introduction that I had planned or intended but Hitch’s words admitted me to the brotherhood of that eager, cheerful company of young officers and began a day that I shall remember as long as I live.

Holman’s presence at one of Coastal Forces’ most gallant and bloody operations, clearly opened a door at Beehive.

Several of his contemporaries remember one aspect of Hitch’s frame of mind at that time. Perhaps it is best summarized by Peter Dickens in Night Action where he recalls a conversation about what they would do after the war.

I took the ‘flu and Robert Hichens came to cheer me up. I asked him what were his plans for after the war and he replied, so casually that I could not at first put a meaning to his words, ‘I shan’t survive the war’.

I said something banal like ‘Oh, go on’ but he was not fooling and slightly amplified his point though without particular emphasis or philosophical analysis. ‘I’m quite certain of it; but not to worry’, and he smiled.

stared rudely, trying to understand but failing. If I knew anything in that line it was that I should survive, not through logic but merely that I could not comprehend not doing so; and as I stared a convic-tion that had been growing on me during our months together in Beehive, that Robert not only stood head and shoulders above the crowd but possessed the elements of greatness, became fixed in my mind permanently. Despite our being nominally equal as Senior Officers of MGBs and MTBs respectively, I acknowledged his supe-riority with uncharacteristic disinterest, and still hated to be thought that he and I were in any way comparable.

Over this period, there were, of course, a number of changes in the senior personnel of the Eighth Flotilla and, indeed, changes in boats. Tommy Ladner had gone on long leave to Canada after 75 was so badly beaten up on the night of the 5/6 October 1942. Some months later he was to return and take command of one of the new Dog Boats, heading for the Mediterranean and very considerable personal success as a commanding officer. Boffin Campbell took over 75 when she returned from her substantial refit, his own boat 76 having been sunk on the morning of the 6 October. Cameron Gough joined him as first lieutenant. He was later to command 81, by then renumbered as MTB 416.

In November 1942, MGB 111, under the command of John Mathias, came to replace George Duncan’s 78 lost in October, and a few months later he was to have as his very young first lieutenant, Midshipman James Shadbolt, of whom more later. MGB 112 joined at the end of November, replacing 76, under the command of Derek Sidebottom, always know as ‘Flatters’ possibly because he often spoke of going ‘flat out’, but more plausibly a shortening of Flatarse, a play on his surname. Finally, in January 1943, Bussy Carr rejoined Hitch in command of MGB 115, with Eric Archer as his first lieutenant.

There was one other significant change in personnel. George Curtis, who had been Hitch’s coxswain since they commissioned MGB 64 in February 1941, finally succumbed to the appalling stress of life at the sharp end of MGB warfare. With considerable moral bravery he told Hitch one evening in January 1943 that he didn’t think he could face further duty in MGB 77 and asked to be given a change of posting. Hitch, who may well have seen some signs of impending trouble, immediately agreed and George went ashore, followed by a brief period of nervous breakdown, from which he recovered to join destroyers later in the war and to continue his long service, ending as a chief petty officer. He had been with Hitch in every action in which 64 and 77 fought and it had been his skill and judgement that pulled off the depth charge attack on a tanker off Alderney in the summer of 1942, and indeed his sharp ears that had picked up the sound of E-boat engines in November 1941, resulting in the capture of S.41. Hitch must have been very sad to see him go. His replacement as senior coxswain was Tom ‘Dollar’ Hartland. Another coxswain remembered him:

Smashing man but his crew wasn’t smart like ours. They were always in action and getting hit and, funny thing, wherever they were hit there was the rum bottle and it had to be written off ‘lost by enemy action’. I said ‘What a pity the rum bottle got broken Tom’, and he said ‘Yes, but I just managed to save that little bit out of the bottom’.

Hartland sounds like a man after my father’s own heart. No doubt he was hand picked.

What was life at sea like during that winter of 1942/43 for the men in the MTBs and MGBs based at Felixstowe? Nasty, brutish and short? Perhaps a closer description would have been boring, freezing and wet. E-boats were less frequently operating on the British coastal convoy routes and convoys had much strengthened escorts by that winter. The coming of improved radar to the destroyers made it impossible for the E-boats to lay ambush as they had before by lying silent, waiting for the convoy to pass before they pounced.

There were broadly speaking three types of patrol that engaged most of the MGBs time. One was to accompany minelaying MLs and stand guard over them while they laid their dangerous cargoes along the Dutch, Belgian and French coasts, before being released to go looking for trouble, while the MLs headed for home. Then there were the Z patrols, the Z line being seven or eight miles further offshore than the coastal convoy routes on the British side. Along this line, given improved intelligence gathered about E-boat movements, MGBs would either lie in wait or move slowly on their silenced engines to position themselves for the interception of any E-boats picked up either by shore radar, destroyer borne radar on the convoy routes, or through wireless interceptions. The latter grew steadily more sophisticated through the growth of Y stations manned by Wren personnel, intercepting German R/T from E-boats on very high frequencies. The E-boats from the beginning talked freely amongst themselves about their courses, speeds, intentions, and sometimes even their damage. Until January 1942 the system suffered from the disadvantage that the only clues Y stations had to the actual whereabouts of E-boats was the VHF range of the station or the hearing of the E-boat talk. After that date, VHF/D/F towers were set up at the Y stations and it became possible to obtain not only bearings but also fixes on individual E-boats. All of this would be fed through to the waiting MGBs, giving them chances of interception undreamt of in the early years. Aerial reconnaissance also played a major role in tracking E-boats attempting to penetrate the Z line through to the convoy routes. If an E-boat patrol left before dusk there was a fair chance that it would be picked up by air reconnaissance and liaison with the RAF steadily improved.

It was the joint patrols with MTBs that perhaps gave MGBs their greatest chance of seeing action. By 1942/43 the Germans were moving little freight by sea, but what they did move they moved at night and under heavy escort. A typical night convoy would consist of only one or two merchant ships, mainly iron ore carriers from Sweden, or return cargoes of coal, escorted by as many as six to eight warships. Thus attacks on such convoys were bloody affairs, unless they could be stalked by the torpedo carrying MTBs and sunk at a distance which permitted the MTBs to retire safely at speed.

When MGBs and MTBs worked together the standard tactics were for the MGBs to carry out a diversionary attack, circling the convoy and its escorts at high speed, firing into them, not with the hope of doing much serious damage but with every chance of distracting enemy eyes while the MTBs came close enough to launch their torpedoes. Such diversionary tactics, though seldom degenerating into the close actions at which MGBs could hope to destroy the enemy, where nevertheless likely to produce their crop of casualties, and occasionally the vulnerable little wooden boats received damage from which they were either slowed or caught fire.

Such an action was fought by Hitch on the 27/28 February 1943. Hitch, as Senior Officer, took a large mixed unit over to the Dutch coast, consisting of MGBs accompanied by MTBs and escorting MLs. He was in his own boat, 77, with by David James in 79, Kelly Cowley in 81 and John Mathias in 111. There were four boats of the Fourth MTB Flotilla, 70, 32, 69 and 72 under their own Senior Officer, John Weedon, and three minelaying MLs of the Fifty-First Flotilla. The MGBs were to escort the minelaying MLs until they had finished their lay and were then free to look for trouble. The MTBs were to look for an enemy convoy of which Nore evidently had intelligence. Hitch was not in overall command but there is little doubt that it was understood that the Senior Officers of the MTBs and MLs would fall in with any request for cooperation that Hitch made.

In the story of this complex operation it is best to start with what happened first to the MTBs. Having left Felixstowe at 1615, approximately dusk, the MTBs, on reaching their assigned position off the Dutch coast at 2315, had switched to auxiliary engines to achieve silence, stopping from time to time to listen on hydrophones. Twenty minutes later, MTB 70 noticed a large mine bumping down the side of the boat. It was floating very low in the water with four of its horns visible. It was of an old Dutch seven-horn type. It must have been an extraordinarily frightening moment to watch this black, sinister cylinder tapping its way down the side of the hull before disappearing into the darkness astern. The MTBs crept away at four knots, sighting no less than fourteen other mines in the process. They had by chance rendezvoused in a mine field and it must have shaken them.

Meanwhile the MLs proceeded to lay their own mine field, completing the operation at 0100 on the 28 February and then set course for home. The escorting MGBs parted company to join the search for the convoy and set hydrophone watch. Sydney Dobson, the Oerlikon loader in 111, remembers sitting on the foredeck with his hydrophone over the side, listening for the convoy. Only seven minutes later Sydney heard noises on the hydrophone which he thought sounded like a large group of vessels. Hitch waited until direction and speed were clear and at 0136 proceeded south-east at twelve knots on silenced engines on an intercepting course. MGBs were well ahead of MTBs in the speed they could make on silenced engines in the winter of 1943. At 0145 they saw lights ahead, strung out from north to south, including what looked like some green navigation lights indicating that the enemy vessels were proceeding from north to south approaching the Dutch coast, because the MGBs could see their starboard navigation lights. Why an enemy convoy in the middle of the war should have had its navigation lights on remains a mystery. Presumably they were so close to their base that they thought it safe. They appeared to be moving at about six knots. Even more oddly, the escorting warships were all on the shoreward side of the convoy, rather than with some to seaward as one would have expected.

Hitch sent a W/T signal to the MTBs giving the enemy’s position, course and speed, in the expectation that the MTBs would close and make a torpedo attack on this substantial target. Unfortunately the W/T was defective and the signal did not get through at once. It was not passed on by other boats until 0230. Hitch, unaware of this, believed that the job of the MGBs was to shadow the convoy rather than to attack it and to await the coming of the MTBs, which he believed to be close by. He was, of course, unaware that they had found themselves in the middle of a minefield and had moved well to the north to get clear of it. When the MGBs found themselves within three cables, 600 yards, of the oncoming merchantmen that the convoy was formed around, he decided to stop the MGB unit because it would have been difficult to move at so slow a speed shadowing from seaward. The alternative of turning away from the merchant ships would have meant presenting the boats’ exhausts to the enemy and probably being heard. By that time, MGBs had a ship-to-ship radio system called a Hallicrafter, but one boat’s Hallicrafter was defective that night so that 77 had to make a shaded lamp signal to her to warn her of the impending stop. Unfortunately the light must have reflected off some part of 77 because very shortly afterwards the escort to the eastward of the convoy challenged and then began to fire star shell and open up with heavier guns. The attempt to shadow unobserved had failed. There seemed little point in remaining under fire illuminated by star shell so the MGBs withdrew to the edge of the star shell area and then again proceeded south on a course parallel to the convoy.

Meanwhile the MTBs, having finally received the delayed enemy report from the MGBs, divided into two groups. MTBs 32 and 72 proceeded across the line of the enemy convoy on its southward advance in order to wait in a suitable position and then attack from the shoreward side. 70 and 69 remained to seaward. The Senior Officer of the MTBs was still of the opinion that there was plenty of time to close the enemy and carry out a silent attack.

The MGB unit had by then lost sight of the convoy in poor visibility. MGB 77’s RDF set was defective. The convoy had switched off its lights. The hydrophone produced no contact. So at 0240 the unit proceeded further south at twelve knots to the entrance of the Hook of Holland. Here they lay in wait. At 0311 a red light was seen on the starboard bow which Hitch assumed to be one of the convoy switching on its navigation lights momentarily. This told him that the MGBs had got to the shoreward side of the convoy as he was now seeing a port navigation light and this was confirmed two minutes later when a star shell was fired from the westward. Hitch signalled the enemy position to the MTBs and suggested that he make a diversion, since it seemed likely that the convoy would shortly turn into the entrance to the Hook of Holland now less than a mile away. The MGBs cut their engines and lay in the path of the oncoming convoy, between it and the harbour. However, almost at once an escort vessel was sighted approaching from the northward which turned towards the unit, followed by two other escorts. These were apparently three trawlers or two trawlers and a minesweeper; substantial vessels. As it was apparent that the MGBs were in the line of advance, although as yet unsighted, Hitch got under way to engage. There was a sharp exchange of fire at the close range of a cable or less, with the enemy apparently hard hit as after some minutes his fire slackened considerably.

As the four boats roared into the attack, MGB 79, although not the junior boat, was TAC (Tail Arse Charlie) as the boat in the rear of any formation was known. Hitch had placed her there because she had on her stern the first experimental shoulder trained twin Oerlikon. The base staff at Beehive had developed this version of the gun in the teeth of Admiralty indifference or downright opposition to the suggestion that you could have a twin Oerlikon without the whole weight of a powered mounting. 79 apparently saw another target as the MGBs engaged. It was standard fighting instructions that, although the normal assumption was that when going into action you stayed in line ahead behind your Senior Officer and conformed to his movements, it was always open to an individual commanding officer who saw an opportunity he thought he ought to take to act upon it, regardless of the fact that his Senior Officer was unaware of this. The last boat in line was normally regarded as the most appropriate boat to detach itself in these circumstances. Whatever David James had seen which justified detaching himself from the unit, he ended up in desperate trouble. MGB 79 was hit severely by gunfire from one of the escorts and her petrol tanks exploded. With her engines out of action and all power gone from the gun mountings, fire blazing from the wheelhouse, MGB 79 was helpless, except for the experimental hand worked twin Oerlikon and her two Lewis guns. The Oerlikon gunner was wounded and David, having little else to do with the boat dead in the water, ran aft and himself fought the twin Oerlikon until the flames from the engine room made the Oerlikon position on the stern untenable. He then ordered his Lewis gunners to fire tracer into the air – the Eighth Flotilla’s distress signal – went round the depth-charges removing their primers, jettisoned the confidential books and ordered his crew, who had mustered on the bows, the only part of the boat not yet in flames, to jump. The W/T office was on fire and no signal could be sent. David had little expectation that his tracer fire would be observed in the heat of the battle that was going on visibly to the west. He ordered his crew to swim some forty yards away from the blazing boat and stay together, with the one life raft that had survived.

Meanwhile the other three MGBs had completed their turn round the stern of the enemy escorts and then, as star shell was being put up from all directions, including from the shore, with enemy fire increasing heavily, disengaged to the north-west. It shortly became apparent that MGB 79 was not in company and Hitch was about to signal her on the W/T when tracer was seen being fired vertically from the south-east, that is towards the enemy. He turned the unit round and almost at once saw a fierce blaze from the same position which he closed at high speed. Let me now quote his own words from his Report of Proceedings:

MGB 77 stopped thirty yards from the vessel and began to try to take the crew aboard, ordering MGB 81 to make smoke. The position was extremely unenviable since the MGBs were clearly illuminated by the ring of light caused by the fire and it was obvious that numerous enemy vessels were close by but could not be seen outside the ring of light, except that two of them, approximately a cable away, were showing single white lights which made their position clear. MGB 81 made smoke and circled again to make another burst of smoke but this was not of much avail as there was a moderate breeze from the side on which the enemy were clustered and the smoke immediately cleared.

The difficult task of getting the men on board in their heavy clothes was proceeded with. Fortunately MGB 77 was able to get six and MGB 111 one before the enemy’s fire became so severe as to make it essential to move. It was impossible for the MGBs to retaliate as their propellers were stopped and therefore there was no power on their turrets, and also the enemy could not be seen except by their gun flashes, whereas the gunboats were clearly illuminated. The MGBs were able to remain close to the burning wreck for a matter of ten to fifteen minutes only because the enemy did not fire appreciably for the first nine or ten minutes. The only reason for this would appear to be that they thought it was E-boats performing the rescue work and not British boats. Later, however, more enemy vessels came in from the south-west and saw the gunboats clearly silhouetted and opened intensive fire.

The gunboats were hit at once and MGB 77 set on fire and it was essential therefore to move off. Three or four men had to be left, including the two officers, but they were observed by the last boat in the line clambering on to a Carley float and in the bright light thrown from the fire there is little doubt they would have been picked up subsequently by the enemy vessels.

The MGBs proceeded at 0354 to the north-west, engaging enemy vessels on either side until out of range, illuminated by star shell throughout, and when they got beyond the limit of the star shell stopped with a view to extinguishing the fire in MGB 77. This was located in the W/T office which had been hit. It produced volumes of smoke but very little flame. It was finally extinguished, after using up all the fire extinguishers, by hacking a hole in the canopy top and continually pouring buckets of water down.

At 0415 the unit proceeded to return to harbour and at 0430 sighted two vessels moving slowly or stopped, which on investigation proved to be two MTBs, 70 and 69. These joined up and the entire unit returned to harbour, arriving at 0630.

MGBs 77, 81 and 111 had eight wounded and had picked up seven of the personnel of MGB 79, two of whom were wounded, and another, the motor mechanic, was immediately killed by an Oerlikon shell on board 77. All three boats were damaged in the hull and superficially on deck, MGB 111 having her RDF aerial shot away. MGB 111 also lost the use of both her turrets due to a hit in the engine room which bled the power pipes and received ten or twelve hits elsewhere, one of which damaged the pom-pom. MGB 81 was hit in the engine room which put the Oerlikon turret out of action and received three other hits. MGB 77 was hit in the engine room putting her telegraph out of action and in the tank space and several places on deck, including the W/T cabin which caught fire. The Oerlikon shell in the tank space made a very small hole and burst inside, which is somewhat unusual with German Oerlikon shells, making numerous holes in the port tank. Fortunately the tanks did not explode.

Thus the bare story of the rescue of most of the crew of 79 in the face of overwhelming enemy force. Fortunately Hitch’s report of proceedings is not the only record we have of what happened that night. David James, in the delightful book he wrote after the war about his time in German prisoner-of-war camps and his two escapes, A Prisoner’s Progress, in its first chapter describes how he came to be captured.

At 3am, having already seen the MLs off home, we ran into a small German convoy just off the Hook of Holland. In the course of the ensuing battle my boat was badly crippled and ultimately set on fire. Soon she was blazing from stem to stern, so we abandoned ship and swam about forty yards away, so that we and our rescuers, if any, should not be implicated if the tanks or depth-charges were to explode.

Almost at once, having seen our distress signals, Hitch and two other boats returned. It was an extraordinary scene. The burning boat shed a vivid light over the whole area, while shadowy flak trawlers circled around in the wings. On this brilliantly illuminated stage, sur-rounded by the enemy, Hitch calmly stopped engines and started to pick up survivors. By the grace of God the enemy must have taken our rescuers for E-boats, for it was some minutes before they opened fire.

Treading water in the background awaiting my turn, I began to have high hopes of being saved, but it seemed to be a maddeningly slow business hauling chaps aboard in their thick, water-logged clothes. Suddenly realising who we were, the trawlers opened up again and Hitch had to move off. He had picked up six men in circumstances of some peril; it had been a wondrous effort. I can see him still, calmly standing on the canopy directing operations. Six weeks later, at the height of his powers and fame, he was killed.

The moment our boats left was one I had long been anticipating, but it was nevertheless heart-rending. Then, seeing a Carley float with three men on it, I swam over and clung on. Almost at once, the boat commanded by Lieutenant John Matthias, RNVR, gallantly returned for another attempt. He stopped rather far off, then swung on main engines to come alongside. When he was pointing in our direction the trawlers opened up again – he had to forge ahead in a hurry – the Carley float was swept aside. His bow hit my shoulder … bump, bump, bump, down the bottom … this was clearly IT, the three screws couldn’t possibly miss me … still, better to be killed outright than to drown slowly … hope I don’t break his props or he’ll have a job getting clear … a roar overhead … a double somersault like some bit of driftwood tossed by a mountain torrent, and the boat had passed me unscathed. I couldn’t break surface in the confused water … took deep breaths to hurry things up. Shouldn’t all the past incidents of life flash past a drowning man? I began to summon them up – home, family, windjammer, ballet, Hitch, my boat … odd the way even in death one has the urge to play the right part … growing dimmer now, how easy it is to go … a pale watery moon appeared and I found myself on the surface. Thirty yards away a familiar voice was saying, ‘Look, Jack, there’s the f*****g skipper.’ I turned, saw the Carley float, and with a final effort reached it.

There are two men still alive today who served in MGB 111 that night and have told me their story. James Shadbolt, as the very young first lieutenant of MGB 111, still a midshipman, was in his first action:

Although brightly lit by the blaze, there was a lot of smoke about to obscure what was going on. Both 111 and 77 stood by the burning MGB, pulling the crew out of the water, until the enemy came to life and started firing, at which point both Hitch and Mathias thought they had to pull out. I had run aft when I saw two men in the water on the side away from the fire who turned out to be David James and his coxswain. I threw them a heaving line and started to pull them in when Mathias ordered the boat to turn away. I hitched the line around a depth-charge, ran up to the bridge and tried to persuade Mathias to stop for a moment while we got the two men in, but Mathias felt that his duty lay in withdrawing due to the heavy fire and the extreme like lihood of taking casualties. At some point James and the coxswain must have let go.

Sydney Dobson also pulled a man out of the water with the huge difficulty involved of getting men in sodden clothes up the side of a motor gunboat in the absence of any scrambling nets or ladder. The man made some comment such as ‘Thank you, mate’ and went below to get out of his wet clothes. When they returned to harbour Sydney found that the man he had rescued was dead, killed by enemy fire which had passed through the hull of 111.

While all this was happening the MTBs were at last attempting to attack the convoy. At 0330 they saw the star shell which triggered the MGBs attack, somewhere to the south. They realized they had lost the necessary bearing for their attack and tried to work into another position but were handicapped by the confusion of guns and star shell which were being fired from the shore. The unit had no RDF. Similarly 32 and 72, inshore of the convoy, were blinded by the star shell, but after spells of high speed on main engines and intervals lying still using hydrophones, a ship was sighted ahead of them at 0425, the range being about 600 yards. She was then seen to be a trawler, which was not a torpedo target for 32’s Mark VIII torpedoes, a new and expensive variety, so that MTB 72 was about to be ordered to attack when a star shell was put up and heavy fire opened from the target. Both MTBs at that moment were lying with their engines cut. 32 crash started and disengaged to starboard but the commanding officer of 72 was killed and the coxswain wounded. 32 came round in a full circle to assist. However 72 got underway as 32 came abeam and both boats disengaged, losing touch as they did so. MTB 32 subsequently sought to regain contact with the enemy but, not having done so by 0455, abandoned the attack and set course for the waiting position.

Hitch was not slow to draw to the attention of the authorities yet another example of the shortcomings that even the second generation of MGBs still suffered in their armament. His report of operations continues.

It is considered that this action bears out very forcibly the requirements put forward recently by the small MGBs, namely the fitting of one, or if possible two, eighteen inch torpedoes, and the fitting of light Oerlikon mountings. As it was, three turrets were rendered useless through damage to the power system and on all occasions when the boats were stopped, as was necessarily the case with one damaged severely, no main armament could be fired. The light mounting, which was being tried out experimentally on MGB 79, proved most effective and, since it weighs only seven hundred and thirty pounds with the two guns on it, it is hoped that the rest of the Flotilla can be fitted as soon as possible.

It is considered that the personnel of the MGBs behaved admirably under the extremely trying conditions necessitated by the attempt to save the crew of the burning boat. Although subjected to severe fire without being able to retaliate, they worked unceasingly and with complete disregard to their personal safety in an endeavour to save their comrades.

Hitch’s report of proceedings, written on the 2 March, went in under cover of a note from Tommy Kerr. This is turn was forwarded to Commander-in-Chief Nore under cover of a summary by the Flag Officer in Charge, Harwich dated 8 March.

1. I consider Lieutenant Commander Hichens was right not to attack the large merchant ship with guns, which would probably only damage her, when there seemed (and in fact, there was) a good chance of the MTBs being able to sink the ship. The MTBs were unlucky not to sight her. In spite of having once been seen, the shadowing by the MGBs almost to the mouth of the Hook was a very fine bit of work.

2. Great gallantry, to the verge of rashness, was shown by Lieutenant Commander Hichens and his band of brothers in trying so hard to rescue the crew of MGB 79. Had the crew remained on board, the rescue would have been easy.

3. A perfect torpedo target was again presented to the MGBs. The demand for torpedo tubes in the seventy-one-foot-six inch MGBs on this coast was first forwarded on the 8th October and appears still to be under discussion.

Ever since the conference called in March 1942 at which Hitch had made the case for continuing in service short, fast MGBs, Piers Kekewich, as Rear Admiral Coastal Forces, had been a supporter. On his staff he now had Captain H.T. Armstrong, DSO, DSC and bar, RN, a First World War CMB veteran and now Captain Coastal Forces, Nore. ‘Beaky’ Armstrong, a fighting officer, had no time for the Admiralty’s bureaucracy. He entirely agreed with Hitch that, if changes were to be made on the timescale that made a difference in war, then it might well be necessary simply to make the changes and present a fait accompli to the Admiralty. Armstrong was aware of what Beehive was doing to develop a shoulder trained twin Oerlikon in place of the heavy powered mounting that had been imposed upon the new seventy-one-foot-six boats. Just looking at a model or photograph of those boats with their intricate mounting for these quite small weapons poses a question mark in the mind. The solution that Beehive came up with, essentially the old Oerlikon shoulder trained mounting modified to carry two barrels, was a simple, practical solution.

On 25 February 1943 Admiralty officials had joined Selman and Hitch at Hythe to inspect MGB 123 which had been set aside and mocked up with twin Oerlikon mountings, both as designed by Beehive and by the Admiralty, and then proceeded to reject the Beehive lightweight model in spite of the views of Hitch and Selman as to its superiority. At that point Selman, in exasperation, handed Hitch the wooden mock-up of the Beehive gun saying ‘Here, take this and give it to your young boys.’ Hitch did, and I can remember the black wooden guns being presented to us to our enormous joy. But MGBs did get lightweight twin Oerlikons shortly afterwards.

The issue of torpedoes was harder fought and more intractable. The Admiralty’s view was quite simply that MGBs were there to fight E-boats and should get on with it. You didn’t fight an E-boat with a torpedo. Additionally, if you shipped a torpedo, it would slow you down so that you would never catch your E-boat. When Hitch repeatedly pointed out that, in looking for E-boats, they often found bigger targets, and that he knew perfectly well how to take enough weight out of his boats to compensate for the additional weight of the torpedoes without loss of speed, he was simply told that this was contrary to Admiralty policy. When a bureaucrat says that what you want to do is contrary to policy it means that he can’t think of any other better reason and doesn’t want to discuss the matter further.

Again, with the support of both Rear Admiral Coastal Forces and Commander-in-Chief Nore, Hitch and Armstrong simply got on with experimenting with shipping torpedoes, making room for them in weight terms by reducing the fuel load, stripping out some of the accommodation non-essentials, reducing the amount of ammunition carried and, of course, reducing the weight of the twin Oerlikons. A Coastal Forces Periodical Review article in the edition for January to February 1943, issued in March 1943, contains an article on MGB 77 being experimentally fitted with two eighteen inch torpedoes. The Operations Division (Coastal) of the Naval Staff of the Admiralty in April 1943 wrote a short editorial referring to the most important steps currently being taken to concentrate on a combined MTB/MGB in both large and small boats. The Admiralty had never had a problem with the larger Fairmile D boats being hybrid but, in spite of earlier optimism, these boats could barely do thirty knots and thus were not suitable for hunting E-boats, by then doing between thirty-eight and forty knots, even though they gave a good account of themselves when they happened to clash with E-boats.

The fight over the shipping of torpedoes came to a head about the time of Hitch’s death. Perhaps it was one more example of MGBs suffering loss when attempting to sink larger vessels using that bizarre weapon, the depth charge dropped under the oncoming bows, that finally produced a Damascene conversion amongst the Admiralty officials responsible for MGB armament. Or was it that Lyon and Kekewich simply ignored the Admiralty and continued trials by fitting torpedoes they had to hand, the lightweight eighteen inch type, which had been taken out of the old First MTB Flotilla when it was disbanded and stored at Felixstowe? However it was, by the summer of 1943 the battle was over and it was recognized that the seventy-one-foot-six MGBs were to carry eighteen inch torpedoes. MGB 77 was sent to Weymouth in May 1943 for torpedo trials, subsequently continued at Hornet. By September MGB 75 had undergone satisfactory torpedo equipment trials, the old Eighth Flotilla was renamed the First MTB Flotilla and MGB 77 changed its number to MTB 414. In spite of the change of name there appear to have been lengthy delays in fitting the flotilla with tubes and some boats never got them.

Looking back at this distance in time it seems extraordinary that so much heat was generated over an issue where the outcome must have seemed stunningly obvious to those at the sharp end. One of the small sadnesses of the timing of Hitch’s death is that he may never have heard that his call for torpedoes in short MGBs had been accepted.