Ken 'Nobby' Clark - Part 2: Back to Dunkirk

This article is taken from a transcription of an interview with Ken ‘Nobby’ Clark which took place on 11 November 2004. The article records Nobby’s memories of the Dunkirk evacuation. A longer article which relates Nobby’s service in H.M.S. Hood before the war and his wartime service after Dunkirk is being prepared. When finished this will be posted in the H.M.S. Hood Association web site www.hmshood.com

Part 2: Back to Dunkirk

When we went back we went to Dunkirk itself. It was getting a bit bad over there. You could see the planes flying over in formation and dropping a mass of bombs on the place. Then they would hit a ship and you would see it blow up. It was really deadly it was. And yet all the time we were over there — 3 days in all — we never got touched.

You could see the blokes swimming around. There was one matelot who came back with us on the last trip who had a twin screwed launch that would carry 50 people. But he got into difficulties in the cross current and ended up going aground and couldn’t get one of the screws out of the sand. He told us that there was an officer there with a line of soldiers and asked us if we could give him a hand to get the launch into the water again. But the skipper could only reply that he had his own job to do and regretfully couldn’t help out. It was all confusion by that time and we had to leave that boat there and it could have carried 50 people. We brought the matelot back though. That’s what killed a lot of people that cross current and the swell.

The second or third time we went across I remember being on deck and hearing someone shouting “Help! Help!” I looked around and there were no boats nearby. Then I saw a soldier hanging on to the bottom of a ladder on the side of the ship. He had two fingers holding on to this ladder but was slipping under the ship. I shouted to some others “Here! Give me a hand, there’s a bloke in the water here.” We got him in and the first thing he said was “You got a diver on board?” “A diver? What for?” I replied. He said “There’s a fortune down there.” “What are you on about?” I asked. He explained, “As I was coming through the town there was a jewellers shop and all the windows had gone so I saw a couple of bags and picked up as much as I could — necklaces, bracelets, all sorts of things. I had two bags of this stuff round my neck but when I got to the ship I couldn’t carry them any more or I’d have gone under.” I suppose the weight of them was taking him down as he was hanging on to the ladder. We didn’t have a diver so I often wonder what happened to that lot. How he got to the ship I don’t know because he would have had to get through the cross current and we were about 400 yards off shore. That’s a long way to swim — a quarter of a mile.

At one stage on that trip I went down to the Engine Room and thought “What the heck’s this? We’re sinking!” There was a column of water going up to the deckhead. I went up to see the skipper and said “We’ve sprung a leak! There’s a column of water shooting up from the bottom.” The engine was still going. What it was in the end, they coun’t get the bilge p[ump going and the Engine Room was getting flooded. We were leaking somewhere but the bilge pump had packed in. I stopped the engine, found out what it was. Then we had to get the water out. So all the soldiers that we had on board got baling out with their hats. Eventually, we got the bilge pump going again. The three badge bloke wasn’t there again. But eventually we got enough water out to start the pump again. Then I thought “I’ve got to start this engine now.” I thought back to what I had been shown — push this up, that down… but it didn’t start. I remembered that he had said “If you do it a second time, you’ll blow the top off the engine.” At that point the skipper came down to see how I was getting on. “I’ve tried,” I said “but it didn’t go. We’ll have another go.” I did the starting cycle again and Bang! A hell of a bang. I thought “It’s blow up” but the engine started. The skipper appeared again, “What are you doing? What’s happened Nobby?” “I started the engine” I replied. He said “There’s flames and smoke coming out of the funnel. I thought the ship had blown up!” That was on the second trip across.

We weren’t getting much sleep as we had 12 hours there, 12 hours back each time. And it wasn’t just a case of crossing from Dunkirk to Ramsgate. You had to go up the channel because of the minefield. It was a long way round.

The, the third time across, that was really bad. There was everything let loose then. You never knew when you might get hit. But we never were. We never got a scratch anytime. There were ships just a few yards away that went up but we never got hit.

On that trip we had to leave at midnight. It was just coming up to half past 11 when the skipper said, “Will somebody have another go?” It took about half an hour to go there, get them and row back again. “We’ve got time to get some more if you can find them.” The skipper said. By then it was getting really bad with shells and everything going up on the beach. I saw one building the whole of which seemed to lift and collapse. That’s one thing that stands out in my mind. Then a young seaman said, “I’ll go.” I said to him “I don’t think you ought to go on your own, I’ll come with you.” All I had on was a boiler suit and a pair of socks. Just after we set off a plane came over machine gunning. You could see all the yellowy green phosphorous down in the water by that time. The seaman said “Stop rowing or they’ll see us!” But the never hit us or the ship. We started rowing again then we seemed to get aground. “That’s funny,” I thought. So we put the oars in and found that there was plenty of water there. Eventually we got ashore but found that we had lost the red light on the ship that we needed to guide us back. There was nobody about on the beach. The seaman said he would go along the beach and see if he could see the ship’s red light again. In a while he came back “What’s the matter?” I said. “Nothing,” he said, “but there’s nobody there.” “I’ll have a go. I’ll walk up then,” I said. Then I heard somebody talking and thought “Oh, dear! Who is it? What language is he talking?” “Anybody there?” I called out. “Hey!” Came the reply. “Over here!” It was a Corporal and 4 soldiers. He said “What are you dong here?” I said “We’ve got a ship out there to take you back — if we can find it!” “Oh, that’s good.” He said. “We’ve got to get the boat under way though,” I said. At this point all the soldiers jumped in “No!” I said, “Don’t jump in.” Then the Corporal got out a gun and said, “Got out of that boat and obey this sailor or I’ll shoot you!” “I don’t want you to shoot anybody,” I said. I explained to the Corporal that there were too many of us and that we could only take 3 or 4. “That doesn’t matter he said. As long as we get back to Blighty!” “Anyway, we’ve lost the position of our ship. We had a light to follow back but we can’t see it any more.” I told him. “That doesn’t matter, “ he said. “We can row back to Blighty!” Row back to Blighty in this? I thought — You’ll be lucky. When we got the boat back afloat and everyone got in the water was about 3 inches from the gunwhales. I said “the first thing is that we’ve lost the ship. When we were coming in we ran aground but there seemed plenty of water under us.” “I know what that was,” said the Corporal. “It was trucks.” He explained that during the evacuation all the Army trucks had been run into the sea. Then the tide had come in. They had taken all the canvass off the tops of the trucks and just left the metal hoops at the top.. That’s what we had got caught on and why it felt like we had run aground yet there was water under us. What with that and the plane coming over machine gunning and the cross current we had lost our position and could no longer see the red light on our ship to guide us back. “That’s easy!” said the Corporal. He got the other soldiers rowing — he wouldn’t let us row. He again said “We’ll row back to Blighty if we can’t find the ship!” “That’ll be heavy going,” I thought. But he went on “We’ll row out to the cross current, then we’ll row against it.” That sounded a better idea and was what we did. After a while rowing against the cross current I spotted the red light on the ship.

When we eventually got back to the ship the skipper met us and said, “Where the hell have you been Nobby?” I told him all about everything that had happened. “It’s half past 12 now!” he replied. “We should have left at midnight.” “Why didn’t you then? I asked. “We can’t get the Lister started to get the hook up,” he explained. “What all these blokes here and they can’t start it? All these Army blokes and they couldn’t start the Lister?” I said. Mind you, it was awkward to start because it was in a sort of case. You had a handle to wind outside and the compression cock was inside. You had to lift the compression cock up, get out and turn the wheel, get it at the right speed and then it started. That Lister saved us! It started straight away for me but I always wondered. 250 Army blokes on there and they get it going to get them home.

On the way out we had to have a bloke on the bows guiding us through the wrecks. We couldn’t shut our eyes despite the fact that we’d had hardly any sleep for 9 days. Once we were out of the area with the wrecks the bloke came off the bows and the skipper thanked him.

When we got back to Ramsgate they had set up a big centre for all the Army blokes where they could get something to eat and have a wash. I went there myself to have a wash and found that I hadn’t got a towel.

After that we went to Poole. Magnetic mines had been laid in the entrance to the harbour. The next morning they cleared it and we went in. We got in OK but one of the other boats coming in hit a mine. Again I was lucky.

A longer article covering Nobby’s entire service career will be posted on the H.M.S. Hood web site www.hmshood.com

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