I Joined The Army to See The Sea

10/06/2005

I was in the Maritime Royal Artillery — we manned the guns on the merchant ships, the DEMS (Defensively Armed Merchant Ships), people don’t connect us with the sea. We went into Russia and landed the American troops on the beaches.

All the convoys used to start from Loch Ewe for Russia and I did three trips up to there. In the picture I’m with the Russian Ambassador — that’s our memorial and its made of limestone. It was paid for by the locals you see. The Ambassador is the one with the hat with the badge on it and the chap on the left is Captain Bob Hallan; the founder of the Russian Convoy Club. There’s not many of us left non. In July, I couldn’t go for my eyesight, some of us went to a memorial service in Murmansk. Someone brought me the service book back and there was this nice poem in it;

Even in peace, scant quiet is the sea,
In war each revolution of the screw,
Each breath of air that blows the colours free,
May be the last life moment known to you,
Death thrusting down may disunite,
Spirit from body, purpose from the hull,
With thunder bringing leaving of the light,
With lightening letting nothingness annul.

No rock, no danger, bears a warning sign,
No lighthouse scatters welcome through the dark,
Above the sea, the bomb; afloat, the mine; beneath the gangs of the torpedo shark..
Year after year, with insufficient guard,
Often with none, have you adventured thus,
Some reaching harbour, maimed and battle scarred,
Some never more returning,
Lost to us.

But if you ‘scape, tomorrow you will steer to peril once again, to bring us bread,
To dare again, beneath the sky of fear, the moon-moved graveyard of your brothers dead.

You were salvation to the army lost,
Trapped, but for you, upon the Dunkirk beach,
Death barred the way to Russia, but you crossed; to Crete and Malta,
But you succoured each.
Unrecognised you put us in your debt,
Unthanked you enter or escape the grave;
Whether your land remember or forget, you saved the land,
Or died to try to save.

I was taken off the convey to take the American Rangers to train up and down the channels and we landed them on Omar Beach were they were nearly all wiped out. We lost three landing craft before they got anywhere near the beach — they took out lifeboats off and put landing six craft in their place. The Rangers had to scramble down nets over the side of the boat to get into them when they’d been launched. There was a squadron of five of us; I was on the Amsterdam. If only we’d landed them the night before, the beaches were deserted but the brass just wouldn’t let them go. “It’s not safe to try a landing at night,” they said, “there’s spikes in the water that’ll pierce their boats. They won’t be able to see them.” Not safe; the landing craft had flat bottoms with a 6” draft and it was a rising, almost full, tide. But you just can’t teach a General about the sea. We all felt the same; the Yanks would’ve had the beach without a shot being fired and here we were, surrounded by bodies floating out to sea.

Waste.
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Added by: Alan Brigham - www.hullwebs.co.uk

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