Bill Yoxall's War - Part 1

Bill Yoxall’s War

My name is Bill Yoxall. (Service number PJX 393093) I was in a reserved occupation with the LMS as an Engineer Cadet at the locomotive workshops at Crewe but I volunteered for the Royal Navy before my 18th. birthday. Not because I was keen to give my all for King and Country but because I thought I may be called up and be required to spend a part of my life in a pair of hob-nailed Army boots tramping around the deserts and jungles of this planet.

I journeyed to a place named Hanley near Stoke-on-Trent for my medical and as I was still breathing the Doc passed me fit and ready for action. After a few days I was ordered to Portsmouth (Pompey) where I was fitted out with the usual Naval rig including boots.

Next it was off to “HMS Glendower”, a DEMS (Defensively Equipped Merchant Ships) Gunnery School in North Wales. There we practiced loading and aiming an old six “incher” but never actually fired it. Somehow or other we managed to pass and receive a gunnery rating of QR3 if I remember rightly. We also practiced launching the “ship’s” boat from davits over the swimming pool. In real life the boat is supposed to be slipped when the waves rise to meet the keel, but we managed to slip one end and tip most of the crew into the drink.

After passing out I was sent home to wait for a ship, Merchant Navy that is, but after a couple of weeks I was returned to General Service and ordered to Pompey again. From there another long trip by train and then by boat (“St. Ninian”) from Thurso to Scapa Flow in the Orkney Islands. The masts of “HMS Royal Oak” could still be seen. She was sitting on the bottom where she was sunk at her moorings by a Jerry U-Boat early in World War II. A British Dreadnought “HMS Iron Duke” was concreted to the bottom and served as a prison ship at that time. At the end of WWI most of the German Fleet which had surrendered was brought to Scapa Flow under guard and a few months later was scuttled by the German crews. Most had been salvaged but the Dreadnought “Blucher” was still floating upside down with large air locks sticking out of her hull.

I was drafted to “HMS Cumberland,” an eight inch cruiser which helped to protect a Murmansk convoy there and back — we had real brass monkey weather with big seas. We did another part trip handing over to a few destroyers and corvettes. A few ships were lost but it was better than expected.

Back to Pompey again by train where we were told to obey all orders made to ‘Party Jam’ (PJ). It wasn’t long before PJ party was ordered to get our gear together and move by lorry to the Southern Railway Station where we entrained for Euston, where another train was waiting for us, this time LMS. After another long journey we arrived at Liverpool in the early morning and were marched with a band down to the Docks which must have pleased the Liverpudlians. In the dry dock was the ship that was to be our home for a year or two — “HMS King George V”. Her upper deck was about level with the roadway with dozens of dockyard mateys milling around doing Lord knows what amongst miles of cables and pipes. She looked in need of a good clean up, which she wasn’t long in getting. I was made part of a 5.25 inch gun crew in P2 turret. There were eight turrets.

We left Liverpool in the midst of a tug crew’s strike, pulling away from the wharf
without any help. We had a great Captain (Bill Halsey) and Vice Admiral (Sir Bernard [Bernie] Rawlings), a former Naval attaché in Japan, with a good crew. As we were leaving port we received a big cheer and a couple of toots from the liner “Mauritania” which was returning with wounded servicemen. (Later, in the Pacific, the Admiral, who had a wound in his leg from a previous encounter with a hostile aircraft, told us not to waste time with a plane if we managed to hit it but to watch out for his mate.)

We then sailed to Scapa and did some target practice, gunnery drill and general working up in the North Sea and it was always rough! We were allowed ashore on the island of Flotta, a wind-swept, tree-less wilderness with a Fleet canteen and a freezing cold cinema.

Next we sailed to Plymouth where we had a sub-calibre shoot, firing at a large target to calibrate the main armament. As this happened on an otherwise quiet Sunday morning the local populace must have thought that the Jerries had already landed!

Whilst in Plymouth, just by chance, I met my Uncle Harry walking along the promenade. It was the first time that I had seen him in Army uniform - and the last time I ever saw him as I did not return to England for very many years, by which time he had died. He was surprised to see me and wondered what I was doing there.

We had a warning that the “Tirpitz” was breaking out into the Atlantic so we were ordered to proceed back to Scapa at full speed. When we reached there we discovered that it was a false alarm. While at Scapa some of us spent a few days on one of the US Navy battlewagons which had just joined the Home Fleet. The American ships which joined us were two battleships, the “USS Alabama” and the “USS South Dakota”, two cruisers, the “USS Augusta” and the “USS Tuscaloosa” and the aircraft carrier “USS Ranger”. I was on board the “USS Alabama” when I met a really nice bloke, a marine named John Breen from Oil City, Pennsylvania. I always remember the tooled leather knee-high cowboy boots he wore. After this short acquaintance the Yanks thought our food was something special — as they could really get their teeth into it, also they thought the hammocks were great. On the other hand we liked their cafeteria for a change though the food was a bit rich for us and we did not like their three-decker bunks.

At Scapa we also handed an old Royal Navy battleship from WWI, “HMS Royal Sovereign”, over to the Russians. What a party we had with the crew who came over to take her back to Russia! Our singing of “The Red Flag” in the drifter on the way back to our ship did not impress the Officer of the Watch, who would not let us on board until we had quietened down, which we did after circling the ship for a few times.

After more exercises and ‘working up’ we went to Greenock to ammunition and victual the ship. One large jar of rum in a wicker case went “awol”. The search for it went on for days but it was never found. Another day we had to change out of working rig into ‘Number Ones’ to welcome King George VI, the Queen and the two Princesses on board. After they left we spliced the main brace and then back into working rig. We were issued with winter gear ready for our trip to the Red Sea, which was supposed to have fooled any spies but I don’t know whether it did!

En route we stopped at Gibraltar to refuel. We teamed up with some merchant ships on their way out and sailed to Malta. We remained in Grand Harbour for a few days and whilst there we saw “HMS Queen Elizabeth” sitting on the bottom of the harbour put there by Italian limpet mines, although she looked to be still afloat,.

We then sailed to Alexandria and from there we attacked a German gun battery on the island of Milos which was shelling passing ships. We thought we could stay well out of their range and knock them off at our leisure with our 14 inch guns. Surprise, surprise their first salvo straddled us, so the KGV put on an amazing burst of speed and moved further out and whacked them from there. We found out later that they surrendered. We returned from Milos to Alexandria.

We stayed there for a few days whilst the canal was dredged to make sure it was deep enough for us to get through as we had a 39 feet draught. Whilst in Alexandria we discovered 17 Sister Street where, amongst other things, you could get a good haircut. Before entering, and whilst a Shore Patrol looked on, one had to be checked by “Old Mother Judge-o-Dicks”. (I think the man in question was a Naval sick berth tiffy.) We also did a trip to Cairo by Army bus, saw the Pyramids and had a great time whilst being paid for it!

Playtime over, off we sailed to the Suez Canal. On the way through the canal we passed Ismailia with many people giving us a wave and throwing lots of oranges on board. On the other side were Arabs on camels keeping pace with us only a few feet away. Then through into the Bitter Lakes where we dropped the hook while traffic going in the opposite direction sailed by — one of them was the battleship “HMS Valiant” whose crew was lining the sides shouting “You’re going the wrong way!” Then we sailed past Port Suez out into the Red Sea and on to Colombo.

I should mention here that we were all getting pock-marked due to all the inoculations and vaccinations we were given, sometimes two at one time. Arms were swollen and very painful and it was very difficult to dress. The Navy cure was, where possible, to take a boat and go for a bit of a row — supposed to loosen the arm up quite a bit!

We were given shore leave in Colombo. Many of the children were handicapped and we were told that some parents did this to them deliberately in order to be able to beg for more money. Three of us hired rickshaws to take us to Slave Island, (the native quarter and out of bounds to all troops). After a lot of talk we managed to persuade the drivers to change places with us and we did the pulling! We had a bit of a race but there was no winner as the Shore Patrol put a stop to it! They escorted us back to the ship. The next day we reported to “Commander’s Defaulters” and then “jankers” for two weeks with a lot of extra work with no pay! We were “a disgrace to His Majesty’s uniform”.

Next we went to Trincomalee, a beautiful place, where we spent Christmas 1944. It was the first time that I had ever seen bare-breasted women walking in the streets. It took me a while to get used to it. I met a local man called Jimmy Adams who lived at 11 Court Road, Trincomalee. He invited myself and two “oppoes” to his home for a drink. His home was made out of timber and coconut matting with, of all things, a piano which one of his daughters played for us. He gave us drinks in very clean glasses which looked like Peck’s fish paste jars. The drink itself could have been watered down with Naval rum. It was pure fire water. We were allowed to swim in the sea at Trincomalee but there was always a picket boat around with a sub-machine gun looking out for any alligators! Thankfully I never saw one though.

After Trincomalee accompanied by aircraft carriers we shelled oil tanks and fought off an attack by torpedo bombers at Palembang in Sumatra — the first we had encountered. We just about destroyed the oil installation which I believe was the last one the Japs had. We lost many aircraft there, some pilots were saved and we shot down quite a few enemy.

Then it was non-stop to Fremantle where every man was given a parcel of goodies from the Australian Red Cross. I still have the container that held “nutty” i.e. boiled sweets.
Exactly one week later we were in Sydney, on a Sunday — not the best of days to make landfall. Sydney was about as lively as a cemetery but things improved later.

The ship went into dry dock for some servicing and then we sailed for the Pacific. On our return to Sydney the Ship’s Company were invited to various homes and two mates went with me by steam train to Bourke, NSW. It was a twenty-seven hour journey. When the train arrived the whole town turned out to meet it! On arrival we were presented with a telegram ordering us to return to the ship immediately. On advice from the locals we were told that there were only two trains a week, so we decided to miss the train we came in on and have a couple of days extra — more “jankers” on return, another two weeks!

We stayed with the Ryan family, they were race horse trainers. Les Ryan the father (wife Ann) was the trainer and Martin Ryan was a jockey and Martin’s brother was in Sydney. I met a girl in Bourke called Dot Carmichael. We were married soon after the War ended (I didn’t want to rush her!) at St. Mary’s Church of England in Burwood, Sydney. About twenty shipmates and myself, all in full uniform, went to the wedding on the tram which caused quite a stir with the locals.

Then we were off to the Pacific again where we gave Ulithi some passing shots before sailing to Guam as part of the British Pacific Fleet, the largest British Fleet ever in the Pacific Ocean. We were under Admiral “Bull” Halsey of the American Fleet. (What a coincidence of skipper’s surnames). Sir Bernard Rawlings was given the choice of three options by the US Admiral :-

1. to work entirely as part of the US Fleet, taking Orders from them
2. to work as a separate task force, with suggestions made by the US or
3. to work alone on separate targets.

He chose the first option which put him in a good light with the US Chiefs.

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