Memories of an Italian Naval Signalman Part Two - The North Cape of Crete and the sinking of the Colleoni

Memories of an Italian Naval Signalman Part Two — The North Cape of Crete and the sinking of the Colleoni

Part two of an oral history interview with Mr. Artemio Ettore Torselli conducted by Jenny Ford on behalf of Bedford Museum.

“I went on duty on the Command Bridge at midnight, my watch was at midnight and when I took over I said, ‘Anything new?’ and the other chap said, ‘Yes!’ You see the destroyers, they were sailing each side of us, ‘The leader is taking the roughest part of the sea.’ I said, ‘Alright, I’ll keep a watch.’ When it got about half past two I see the leader calling the Admiral, the flagship and ask permission to ‘free manoeuvre’ because they were getting damage, very bad damage to the ship. Some waves, we got the sailing light on the mast, some waves used to go over the sailing light. I thought, ‘It is very bad.’ So the leader of the destroyers asked permission to ‘free manoeuvre’ and the Admiral came back, ‘free manoeuvre’ and sheltered in Sicily, in some harbour. So they went. We carried on. We were going to Palermo in the northern part of Sicily. And when we got there we had to sort of go south and then at a certain point at the entrance to the harbour we had to make a sharp right hand turn to get into the harbour. Well, what happened when the flagship turned to enter the harbour the wind started pushing … well the Commander gave a quick order, ‘invert the course’ and go out to sea, open sea, like that. That’s what they did. The next night we went and sheltered in a small Gulf on the northern part of Sicily. We were there a whole day or so and then we went off and a destroyer joined us, we went to a base in southern Sicily, Augusta, that was called. We were there, oh, a few days something like that, I can’t remember exactly.

We got order sailing eight o’clock in the morning and you see the procedure was in wartime the Captain of the ship would get two envelopes from Navy Department by messenger and the Captain opened the first envelope and it said, sailing at such a time, nautical message. As soon as we got out to sea it was strict order not to use the radio any longer you see, radio silence and then the Captain opened the second envelope where it said that you are going so and so. But you didn’t know anything until you were at sea and then you couldn’t use the radio so you were just like that! We went out of the harbour and lo and behold the sea was smothered with shipping to the horizon there was no end of shipping, we counted them. There were six cargo ships and a liner and there was six smaller ships called Corvettes, we joined them so we were twenty or more ships and we made quite a crowd on the horizon like that! As we were taking position because the Admiral was on the other ship to ours you see, he ordered the position ‘escort convoy’. We thought well, we don’t like that because we knew what it was you see, as escort you have to defend the convoy whatever happens you see. So that was the last thing we wished for. But you know, that was our …

As we were taking position the flagship, the signals by flags because there was no use of radio, ‘Alarm - Submarines’. Oh, I thought, now what else are we going to get? We’ve just sailed out of the harbour! ‘A flotilla of submarines they are going to have a really good time.’ So I asked the signalman on the other ship, ‘What position is causing the Alarm?’ because the only thing that would be seen was a periscope of a submarine he gave me the position. And with long distance binocular I watched it pretty well and I realised that it was an empty tin that some ship had chucked overboard like that and the sunshine - what happened the signalman on the flagship, thinking that it was the sunshine reflecting on a periscope of a submarine. We knew we had never been informed that there were submarines so the Admiral had given the alarm, ‘submarine’. When I noticed it was an empty can I signalled him ‘it is an empty can at position so and so call off the alarm’, so he did. It was a nice gesture. We escorted the convoy to Bengasi in North Africa. Although the shipping entered the harbour but they gave the word for our Division of two cruisers and four destroyers, we were ordered to Tripoli, capital of Libya. We were there for four or five days, something like that. We had a sandstorm blowing from the Sahara Desert, oh that gives you a nightmare! You keep on chewing sand!

We were ordered to have a jacket on all the time but it was you know, 50º, something like that so we used to take it off if possible. I did as well when I was on the Command Bridge and then all of a sudden I heard a whoosh and I said, ‘oh, he’s got me!’ What happened the Second in Command gave strict order that we had to wear jacket and I knew his whistle because he had a very personal whistle and I heard his whistle and I thought, ‘aye, aye I’m for it!’ So I looked, ‘Drop your singlet’ ‘alright, sir!’ I took my singlet off, I lost my singlet. Laughter! He was quite a character this First Officer.

Three or four days later we got orders, sailing at six o’clock in the evening and the destroyer would tie up at another pier across the harbour. And I could see that they hadn’t got the engines going, so I signalled between our signalman you know, we used to be free more or less and I asked this signalman on board, ‘How come you haven’t got the engines ready?’ ‘Oh,’ he said ‘we’ve got no sailing order.’ I thought ‘oooh, that’s a very poor item’ you know but anyway we sailed and we went out. As I said before radio silence! We sailed the next day and we were due to turn around the North Cape of Crete, I can’t remember the time now, anyway a certain time and during the night our steering system broke down and we were going round in circles, like that. All the other ships were … you know had no lights on and that … now the Officer of the Watch said, ‘Now what are we ….?’ he ordered the engine room personnel to see to their steering system and it took an hour and a half, we kept going around in circles. And then I heard talking to the Officer he said, ‘What are we going to do now?’ because the other ship was now ‘no lights’ at all but as we were supposed to follow her. She had a very little light, a blue light on the stern. So the only thing, because we couldn’t use the radio, at night we daren’t use the signal light because when we use the morse system on the signal light it was dim you see. And so the Officer of the Watch said, ‘I don’t know, we’ll just have to take our chance.’

So, we got to a certain position and he said, ‘Can you see any of the other ships?’ ‘No,’ I said, ‘sorry I can’t see any of the other ships’ so he said, ‘we’ll take our chance. We’ll put the course like this.’ A bit of luck, no doubt and seamanship! We spotted the blue the light on the stern that was a relief. At the time from Rome was the signal ‘Be ready a boarding party in the morning. There is a convoy of four troopships escorted by two Corvettes sailing so and so position in the Aegean Sea’ and then the Captain said, ‘Right, ready boarding party for morning.’ I checked with the office, it wasn’t my shift on the boarding party and I thought ‘oh, thank God’ so naturally sort of with the Officers made the plans, ‘How soon?’ Because it was all secret, secret wavelength and all everything like that, secret signal like that. The Captain tried to plan - well we keep on sailing.

Soon after dawn in the morning the flagship in front of us started firing but we couldn’t see anything at all and we kept on sailing east. We were going to a Naval base in Rhodes Island. The procedure was when we were at sea, we had got an aircraft on board but at this time from Rhodes Island they had assured us that there recognition was the area like that and eventually the Captain gave orders to climb in the sea, like that. So we kept on sailing for quite a while and then the flagship stopped firing but we didn’t know what was happening, we weren’t in a position. We heard banging of guns coming from the north, like that and I remember we couldn’t see anything because there was a light fog, early morning at dawn and we couldn’t see anything. But I watched in that direction where the noise was coming and I could see two ships firing with all their armament, four turrets each ship like that, but we couldn’t see them, no. They had got their radar on board we hadn’t. You see with radar you can see, they could see even through light fog like that.

So I told the other chap, the other Able Seaman, I said, ‘Here, look in that direction!’ Of course at a slightly different time when the ships fired you could see the four turrets on each ship, he said, ‘What the hell is that?’ I said, ‘they could be Battleships with 6” guns.’ The signal we got was that there was four troopships escorted by two Corvettes, so we had got major armament, we had got the 6” gun, we thought, well you know. But when we see firing with a flash, I said, ‘It looks as though we are in for some nasty time here.’ We kept on sailing going east like that and eventually we manoeuvred in different direction like that and so that the British ship came out of the fog and we could see them. Of course our Gunnery Officer reckoned that the four salvos fired with our turret we hit one of them, we hit the Sydney, the flagship of the Australian Navy. She tried, seeing that we had got a line like that, tried to get out of our range like that. But our (flag)ship got hit by a shell and she ordered us to come over with smoke screen. We were just about going to cover and what happened? From the Command Bridge they said … a few minutes went by before the engine room started making smoke screen.

So from the Command Bridge, my battle station was at the stern signal station they said, ‘One of you go down to the engine room office and ask them why they haven’t started? So I said to the other Able Seaman, I said, ‘Do you want to go down?’ ‘No’ he said, ‘you go down if you like.’ I went down a stairway I ran into the empty shells of the turrets, they were all over the show, I had a job to get by, to go further along. I got by, I got the engine room office, there was the Chief Officer and they looked up, I said, ‘Command Bridge asked me to come and see why you haven't started a smoke screen?’ and the Chief Officer said, ‘They are just going in action now’ ‘alight, alright!’ I walked off, I wasn’t going back to the stern going up that stairway where there were all the empty shells so I thought I’ll go forward and come up on another stairway. So I went to the first bulkhead because between the front part of the ship there were some bulkheads you see and there was a man on duty there to see that they were kept closed all the time in case of damage. So I got by the first one and the ship was slowing down and stopped. As I was going down these bulkheads there was some chaps coming out from the engine room all scalded with the steam, they were in a horrible way. I said, ‘What’s the matter, what’s happened?’ Well somehow some shells blew up the steam pipes from the boiler to the engine and ship stand still and it couldn’t go anymore. So I went back. I thought I’ll go to the next bulkhead and I’ll go up on the stairway there but the next bulkhead there was nobody there on duty so I opened it, look out and there is NO SHIP! there is the sea. I thought, ‘Good Lord, we’ve had it now!’ What happened a torpedo must have blown the whole foreward part of the ship and there was only the two chains of the anchor. The furthest part of the ship was still standing but about, oh what, about 30 or more feet, the torpedo had sent sky high. The two chains of the anchor, the anchor was still in position, the two chains were still attached and that’s how it was. I thought, ‘it’s no good going there, there is no ship foreward!’

I went up on a stairway and I got on the top deck and there was, oh I don’t know four, five or six other sailors there. And we were sheltering by what we used to call the Castle where there were all different Offices and there was the First Officer, Gunnery Officer stuck like that and we were sheltering because towards the foreward part, there was another higher deck, so we were sheltering there. There was three of four missing gun positions and twenty millimeters and forty nine millimeter guns missing. They had got some boxes of ammunition on the side there - the bullets were going like mad. Some of these chaps, now there were three dual naval guns but they were also for anti aircraft guns in the centre of the ship they were used because when the ship stopped all the men in the electric plant wasn’t working so the turrets couldn’t work. And these six four inches guns, they had got some shells handy, they used them, they fired them but they couldn’t get the shells from the ammunition deck there to come up so they stopped. Some of them I guess got killed really and some of them were sheltering there. We were there quite a while and then actually the shells in the machine gun boxes after the men had finished with it they weren’t firing anymore so I thought, now I’ll just walk towards the centre of the ship and see what is going on. I walked oh, only a few yards and I met a chap that was coming towards me and I said, ‘What is the position?’ ‘Oh,’ he said ‘the crew is at sea because the order to abandon ship has been given half an hour ago’ he said ‘so the majority of the crew are at sea in the water.’ ‘Oh,’ I said. Well, there was another Able Seaman there with me, I said ‘It looks like there is no way, no hope at all.’ Very strange because of us on the top deck at ‘Battle Stations’ we had to wear life belts - there were life belts for everybody. But those in the engine room had a good way, but they’d knew where it was but us on the top deck we had to wear it all the time so I said, ‘Well, I think we haven’t got much else we can do but go overboard.’ Very strange, we took the life belt off, took the uniform off and hanged it somewhere, I get my trunks on like that, put the life belt on again and went overboard, oh, just jumped overboard like that. I told the other chap I said, ‘Let’s keep near the ship because they are firing from the other side. If the shell, if they hit the ship we are safe but if they don’t they go at least another 100 yards away so if we keep near the ship we shouldn’t get damaged.’ That is what we did. We swam towards the stern of the ship because the foreward part as I said, a torpedo had blown it up.”

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