Devon Family Saved by a U-Boat (Part 1)

The following is a copy of a series of three articles that appeared in the WESTERN SUNDAY INDEPENDENT in March and April 1974.

This is George STONEMAN and his wife, Ena, of Plymouth. They are looking back thirty-one years to the day when a German U-boat saved their lives … after sinking the liner they were aboard.

The STONEMANS and their little daughter, June, spent five days drifting helplessly in a lifeboat in the tropical Atlantic and they were close to death. Suddenly, the U-507 rose to the surface. The crew fed them, gave them water and took Mrs. STONEMAN and June aboard.

It was one of the most amazing – and human – incidents of the last war and today the STONEMAN family tells their story for the first time in the first of a three-part series

PART ONE

SAVED BY A U-BOAT!

Devon-bound. Then suddenly, the STONEMANS were adrift in a lifeboat in mid-Atlantic.

On a still, hot tropical night in September, 1942, the Pacific and Orient liner ‘Laconia’ was steaming at speed 260 miles north of Ascension Island in the Atlantic.

Behind her, Japanese armies looted and burned their way across the Pacific.

PACKED
Her 20,000 tons dead weight was packed, as it had never been before. The ship’s company was estimated at between 4,000 and 5,000 people, mostly the wives and families of British servicemen and a motley crew of soldiers, seamen and airmen.

There were also some 1,800 Italian prisoners of war – a fact that had a great deal to do with the incredible events that followed.

Among the people cramming themselves into every available nook and cranny of the ship was a Plymouth family, R.A.F. Sergeant STONEMAN and his wife, Ena and their five-year-old daughter, June.

TORPEDO
The family had been reunited at Durban in South Africa, after nightmare months of separation during which Mrs. STONEMAN and June had been hustled from the dying port of Singapore and George had been helping the R.A.F. to destroy vital installations in the South Pacific.

At 8.10pm on September 12th, in deep tropical darkness all of that was changed.

A torpedo from a German U-boat – one of a major pack – struck the ship below the waterline as she moved along at her maximum speed of twenty knots.

The big liner shuddered mightily and was immediately plunged into darkness. In less than fifteen minutes she had developed a sixty-degree list to port and within thirty minutes she had sunk.

It was never properly established how many people died. The figure was put at between two and three thousand. It was one of the major sea disasters of the war.

The STONEMAN family survived the explosion and rapid destruction of the liner and ended up in a lifeboat with forty-seven other men, women and children.

TOWED
They were more than 1,000 miles from the nearest land, some of them were injured, the lifeboat’s supplies had been contaminated – and they had no idea of their exact position.

During the six days that followed the sinking of the ‘Laconia’ came one of the most famous incidents of the war as:
· The survivors were picked up by the U-boat pack itself.
· Little June STONEMAN and her mum spent a strange – and hilarious – night aboard an enemy submarine along with over one hundred other people.
· One of the U-boats towed the drifting lifeboats for hundreds of miles to safety.
· The Allies decided to bomb the submarines which had surfaced to save the shipwreck victims.

A three-part series on the stoneman FAMILY starts today.

SAVED – BY A U-BOAT!

Ena STONEMAN, still a young-looking 66, remembers the night of the wrecking of ‘Laconia’ as clearly as yesterday.

“There I was,” she said, “ironing away and feeling fine. George was standing in his vest and pants waiting for his trousers and June was lying in her bunk looking at a book and just ready to go to sleep”.

“We were both looking forward to the dance, which was to be held in the main dining hall. It was for sergeants and their ladies”.

SHUDDERED
“I can still remember the hum of the ship and the iron in my hand. Then everything went black. The ship shuddered.”

“I was sure that I had pulled the plug out of the iron, or that I had fused the lights, until I heard the rush of water”.

“I think I said something like ‘Oh, George, I’ve fused the lights’.

“I heard him replying: ‘Lights be b………..! the ship’s sinking!’ And it was. It started to lean over to the side”.

“George grabbed June out of the bunk with one hand and he grabbed me with the other and out we went through the cabin door”.

“Outside there was chaos; water was streaming down the passageway and there were people screaming and shouting”.

“I was still being half-lifted and half-dragged by George; and he was carrying June with the other arm. It was a nightmare”.

“All I knew was that we were going up all the time, through the water. People were screaming. It was pitch dark.

The ‘Laconia was torpedoed at exactly nine minutes past eight by U-boat 156, commanded by Lieutenant Werner HARTENSTEIN.
He thought he had attacked a cruiser. The attack was made while his submarine was surfaced. He submerged immediately afterwards.

When no counter-attack came he resurfaced and discovered that he had sunk a troop liner and within the hour he was informed from his headquarters in Morocco that the liner had contained a large number of Italian prisoners of war.

This news was radioed to the German Naval Command in Berlin and was brought to the personal attention of Admiral DOENITZ. He ordered all German submarines in the area to pick up as many Italian survivors as possible.

HARTENSTEIN immediately contacted all the other U-boats in the area and they moved in to pick up their allies.

Mrs. STONEMAN said: “When we reached the boat deck we could see that people were falling into the sea and some of the boats were almost in the water. By this time the ship was almost lying flat”.

TRAPPED
“George immediately went to one of the boats and threw both me and June into it. Then he said he was going back to help the others who were trapped”.

“Our boat was cut loose and started to drift away. I was sure I would never see him again.”

But she did see him. Quite by accident, after helping to push people into the remaining undamaged lifeboats George jumped into the sea and scrambled aboard the nearest boat. It was the one containing his wife and daughter.

He said: “By this time I really thought we were meant to stick together”.

“It was nothing short of a miracle that I happened to be picked up by that boat. But, anyway, we were together again – and that was all that mattered.”

That night the forty-nine people aboard Lifeboat 14 lay in pitch darkness, numbed with shock and without a leader.

It was hot and overcrowded, but the STONEMAN family managed to sleep huddled close to each other.

At dawn the tropical sun woke them and Mrs. STONEMAN remembers: “I was still in my party frock and George was wearing only a heavy coat, underpants and singlet.”

“June, in her pyjamas, was quite happy with the way things were going. It was all a big adventure to her I think.”

“Some of the men aboard the lifeboat had begun to row, but we had no idea where we were heading. The boat’s emergency food and water had been damaged and contaminated and we were allowed only a cupful of water each.”

”Both of us gave ours to June who gulped it down quite happily.”
“We were quite alone on the ocean. There were no other lifeboats at all.”

NIGHTMARE
“It was then that the first submarine appeared. There was a great gush of water and this black object suddenly appeared on the surface.”

“It was Italian. They had a look at us and then disappeared.”

“The next five days were a nightmare of heat during the day and cold at night, with very little to eat and drink.”

“June was rapidly sinking into a kind of lethargy and we weren’t much better. The men kept on rowing, but we had no compass and we had no idea of the nearest land.”

“They just kept on rowing – and we found later that we were going in circles.”

“I was sure we were going to die. I think we all were.”

“Then on the fifth day the miracle happened.”

“About mid-morning our submarine – the one we later came to think of as ‘ours’ – suddenly surfaced, again with a great gushing of water and a roaring noise.”

“It was huge and painted on the bows were two pigs – one with a head like Winston CHURCHILL and the other like ROOSEVELT.”

“There were men clambering down from the conning tower as she slid towards us. They were shouting things in German.”

“There was some talk between a young blond officer, who we took to be the captain and some of the ship’s officers in the lifeboat: then they started to pass down bowls of soup and coffee.”

“It was thick vegetable soup and it tasted marvellous. They passed down simple medical supplies, like bandages and aspirin and, of course, water. They filled up our tanks.

The U-boat that came to the rescue of the STONEMAN’s lifeboat was U-507, under the command of Lieut. Com. Harro SCHACHT. She was one of the U-boat pack that had stalked ‘Laconia’.

Her orders, from Berlin, were to pick up as many Italian P.O.W.’s as possible, give comfort and supplies to the other survivors and to ‘shepherd’ all remaining lifeboats to a fixed control point 400 miles from the North African coast.

SHOCKED
There, the boats were to be set loose and picked up by a warship of the Vichy French navy that was already steaming to pick them up.

That was the basis of SCHACHT’s orders. But he went above and beyond them when he saw the condition of some of the British survivors, including many small children; an eight-month pregnant woman and many injured and shocked people.

He decided to break every known rule of naval warfare and take survivors aboard his already cramped vessel. Once his mind was made up he gave the order: “Bring the women and children aboard. Drape the gun with a Red Cross.”

U-507 had ceased to be a deadly ship of war. She was now a cross between a hospital ship and a kindergarten.

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