At All Costs (24 page)

CHAPTER 34 •••

NIGHT OF THE E-BOATS

F
red Larsen was at the helm of the
Santa Elisa
during the moonless midwatch, as Lonnie Dales remained at his battle station manning his Oerlikon.

“Night had finally fallen, but darkness did not accompany the night,” said Jack Follansbee. “As far as the eye could see, the Mediterranean was filled with fire. Fire shooting from the torches of doomed ships, fire from burning heaps of wreckage, fire from burning oil on the surface of the sea.”

In order to avoid the mines—“They were popping up all over the place,” said Larsen—and the fire around the
Clan Ferguson—
“a square mile of flaming sea,” said the engineer Ed Randall—Captain Thomson turned the
Santa Elisa
northward, but not for long.

“A destroyer then hailed us and ordered us to steer 120 degrees to rejoin the convoy,” reported Lieutenant Commander Barnes, the liaison officer. “We joined up with three other stragglers, and followed the route of the convoy round to the south of Zembra and Zembretta Islands, towards Cape Bon, 200 miles from Malta. During this time, we lost contact with the other ships, station-keeping in the
Santa Elisa
being particularly difficult owing to the very heavy derrick gear forward of the bridge.”

Minefields squeezed the path of the convoy to within four miles of the Tunisian coast. The
Santa Elisa
was running with no lights at 16 knots, racing toward the white-hot horizon that was lit by attacks on the ships ahead. Larsen watched the other ships’ tracer fire, desperate shots in the dark at every E-boat shadow, streams of gold and green flying into the night at a half mile per second. The ships were shooting off star shells, great bursts of white light like the Milky Way come to Earth, bringing shine to the sea and hope to a gunner trying to see the enemy. It was hide-and-seek out of the pages of the Catch-22 rulebook: light up the enemy without lighting up yourself.

The neutral lighthouse at the tip of Cape Bon was working to the advantage of the Axis. Operation Pedestal was exposed by three white flashes every twelve seconds, as gunners pleaded with their captains for permission to shoot out the light. And 20 miles farther south there was another, Kelibia Light, whose beam could be seen for 23 nautical miles and was bright enough to spot the ships for Vichy guns on shore.

If that weren’t enough, creepy searchlights from unknown sources scanned the black water. “Long beams of light were streaking out over the sea,” said Follansbee. “The searchlights slowly swept from left to right across the water. One of the beams shone full against our stack, hovered an instant, and moved on.

“Then, from the distance, came a series of flashes, followed by the sound of distant gunfire. They were opening up with their shore batteries!”

“Resume zigzagging!” the captain shouted to Larsen.

“You could see the big bullets come at us and pass us, these big shells they were firing,” said Larsen, awed by the black projectiles silhouetted against the star-shell white sky. “You could see them coming, they were so big.”

The
Santa Elisa
raced northward again, out of the range of shore batteries and into the relative security of the black night. The first mate took over the helm, as Captain Thomson huddled in the chart room with Larsen, the liaison officer Barnes, and the navy armed guard Suppiger.

“The captain asked me to find our exact position off Cape Bon and lay out the course for Valletta,” said Larsen. “I could still clearly see the flashes from Cape Bon lighthouse. I took the bearings from my gun position on the flying bridge and went back into the chart room and plotted them to determine our course to steer.”

“They decided to head west out into the open sea toward Pantelleria, instead of south as was our designated course,” said Suppiger. “This would take us out of range of coastal batteries, but would take us into what we knew to be a minefield near Pantelleria. We decided to risk the minefield.”

The island of Pantelleria, code-named “Hobgoblin,” was a mountainous forty-two-square-mile chunk of volcanic rock. There were sixteen batteries with eighty guns squeezed into its irregular shore, an inland airfield with a strip for Stukas, and a small hidden harbor with docks for E-boats. Its reputation was so spooky that sailors believed the E-boats lived in caves like vampire bats, flying against their prey at night to strike blood.

Ensign Suppiger mustered his navy crew on the stern. Guns needed cleaning and repairing, ammo needed to be carried up from holds, and Oerlikon magazines needed to be loaded, endlessly; 60 rounds per magazine at 450 rounds per minute didn’t go far. Suppiger moved on to the forward gun position, with the Bofors and two Oerlikons; there were 400 rounds of Bofors shells left, and the springs in the barrels of all the Oerlikons had softened from the heat of repeated firing. Suppy told the crew to find or make new ones.

“After leaving there, I went to the top bridge and supervised preparations, including loading ammunition for engagement we knew we would receive by daybreak. I instructed my gunners to carefully inspect all the machine guns and make sure they were in operating condition.

“I inspected all the guns and gun positions again and saw that everything was in as good operating condition as was possible. I warned everyone stationed at guns to be on the lookout for E-boats.”

On the moonless night of August 12, sixteen bloodthirsty E-boats raced south from Sicily, with at least one of them carrying a film crew to shoot footage of the anticipated slaughter for newsreels; Il Duce was looking forward to using the film for propaganda. Two more boats came north from the tiny island of Lampedusa, joining four from Pantelleria. Even more German E-boats prowled the waters around the Hobgoblin, although the Italians would dominate the action on this night.

Italy had led the development of these boats in World War I, when they were all called motor torpedo boats, or MTBs. E-boats came in different sizes, but large or small, they were about stealth and speed, on the way to a big explosion. The Italian boats were usually painted black for the night, which they owned, and their captains were the Stuka pilots of the sea.

Because they ran flat-out so much, E-boats needed huge fuel tanks, sometimes holding more than 4,000 gallons. But weight mattered, so armor was spared. The hulls were made from aluminum or wood, easily penetrated by shrapnel or machine-gun bullets. But, the E-boat could run from enemy fire, using its two or three engines making more than a thousand horsepower each, and could maneuver like a Jet Ski. E-boats were armed with their own machine guns, usually 20 mm, but their real firepower was in the 600-pound torpedoes, launched at 50 miles per hour from two tubes in the bows.

Under the command of Captain Harold Drew, the HMS
Manchester
was the only cruiser as yet untouched by enemy bombs, mines, or torpedoes. But deep in the Sicilian Narrows, the big E-boats MS16 and MS22 were waiting to ambush the first cruiser that came through. They floated in flat water with dead engines, hiding behind the hulk of the
Havock,
a British destroyer that had run aground on a sandbar in April, and whose crew was still interred in Tunisia. The two E-boats waited until the convoy was nearly on top of them, then fired up their engines and sprinted out to attack.

MS16 fired a torpedo at
Manchester
from 800 yards and MS22 fired one from 600 yards, but the torpedoes missed, skimming past the bow of the
Kenya.
Each captain kept coming, holding the hammer down on nearly 4,000 horsepower and roaring out of the night at 40 knots.
Manchester
’s lookouts couldn’t see them until they were 100 yards from the cruiser’s 600-foot-long broadside. They fired their second torpedoes at point-blank range and retreated into darkness at full speed.

The two more torpedoes zoomed underwater for a mere six seconds before hitting home, as the E-boats cut away and threw up a curtain of spray. A starboard lookout saw them coming just before the brilliant flash and ear-splitting bang that blew a hole and started a fire in the after engine room. The second torpedo hit farther astern and knocked out the propellers. The ladder leading to the hatch at the top of the boiler room snapped, and thirteen men were trapped and steamed alive, with two more dying later.

“The screaming went on and on,” said Rob Cunningham, a petty officer who had been standing near the steaming hatch. His eyes show shock that six decades haven’t been able to erase.

“It was something terrible.

“Screaming.

“Only screaming.

“Terrible screaming.”

“At 0112½ the E-boat was located and engaged,” reported Captain Russell from the
Kenya.
He didn’t know that the
Kenya
and/or
Manchester
had hit both E-boats with their 4.7-inch guns, which could be aimed low and fired rapidly. The E-boats were riddled with holes as they raced toward shore. The massive fuel cells of one or both caught fire, and thirty Italian sailors were injured and burned before their pilots were able to run the boats aground, as more men dived screaming into the water.

On the
Manchester,
two propeller shafts were snapped and the third was twisted, driving the listing cruiser around in a wide arc to starboard. The freighters
Almeria Lykes
and
Glenorchy
followed her, thinking she was taking avoiding action, until she signaled, “Steer clear of us, we are out of control.”

Captain Henderson of
Almeria Lykes
shouted, “Let’s get the hell out of this!” and they steered hard to port and out to sea, cutting off and nearly colliding with
Glenorchy.

Captain Drew shut down the
Manchester
’s engines. The destroyer
Pathfinder—
always in the right place at the right time, as Admiral Burrough said—came along at 0154 and embarked 172 of the
Manchester
’s crew, then raced off to try to catch and protect the merchant ships.

“About 45 minutes after Pathfinder left, the captain said that it might be possible to get the ship underway by the morning at about 12 knots,” reported Lieutenant F. H. Munro, “but that should we then be engaged, 75 percent of the ship’s company would be casualties. He therefore intended to scuttle the ship. Demolition charges were placed and the ship was abandoned. The motor boats had to be rowed as there was no petrol in the ship. All hands had been told to make for Cape Bon where they would be interred.”

After the explosion of three charges, the
Manchester
sank in 240 feet of water. Her stern hit bottom as her bow reached starward, a noble cruiser holding her head high before easing beneath the black sea. Captain Drew and about five hundred men rowed to Tunisia
,
where they were interred until freed by the Allies during Operation Torch.

A Royal Navy inquiry found Captain Drew guilty of negligence, although it hadn’t charged him with it. He had abandoned and scuttled a potentially navigable warship in the face of the enemy. Later the Board of Enquiry informed Drew that the inquiry had been a court-martial. Many among his admiring crew believed the action against him had been a gross miscarriage of justice. To the end of his career and his life, Captain Drew, DSC, maintained dignified silence. Sixty years later the
Manchester
was located three miles offshore in 260 feet of water, showing damage that the Board of Enquiry had dismissed, and that same year the transcripts of the inquiry were declassified and found to be one-sided.

At the head of the convoy, Admiral Burrough’s flagship, the destroyer
Ashanti,
engaged in a running battle with two E-boats on the port side and two starboard, which were tracked by
Ashanti
’s radar. “The E-Boats used smoke to avoid punishment,” said Captain Onslow. “But one was seen to blow up, and it is probable that at least one more was seriously damaged.”

On the
Dorset,
Captain Jack Tuckett tried to ram an E-boat but missed. “The boat just slid past, then accelerated away,” he said. It lay in wait ahead, before it attacked a second time. “Black shape on the port bow, sir!” Dag Dickens shouted when he saw it speeding back at them, firing a torpedo that missed by just six feet.

“Helm was put hard aport, and the E-boat passed very close to our bow and starboard side,” said Captain Tuckett. “The starboard bridge Oerlikon jammed, and the Gunner on watch was unable to get a shot at the E-boat, which was an easy target as it passed under the bridge.”

“You could hear the voices of the swine on board,” spat Dickens.

Commander Gibbs also tried to ram an E-boat with the new destroyer
Pathfinder,
but he couldn’t get close enough. The
Pathfinder
’s 44-inch searchlight played on the E-boat and her guns opened up, but the boat threw up a smokescreen like ink from an octopus and outsped the
Pathfinder
’s 30 knots.

The
Rochester Castle
was zigzagging at 14½ knots when Captain Wren saw an E-boat at 150 yards. “It suddenly loomed up out of the darkness, and I noticed that its engines were stopped,” he reported. “Gunner Turney immediately opened fire with the bridge Oerlikon, and I observed approximately 50 tracers hit the E-boat. Some five to ten seconds later, we were struck by one torpedo from this E-boat. The ship shuddered, and heeled to port. The explosion was much duller than I would have expected, and I think the flour stowed in number three hold acted as a shock absorber. The hold was flooded to water level, but there was only a very small trickle into the engine room. The engines were undamaged, so I continued at full speed.”

At 0200 a searchlight played on the side of the
Glenorchy.
It seemed too high to be from an E-boat, and a Royal Navy commander on board told the helmsman to turn toward it, because it was the
Kenya.
The light snapped dark, and MS31 fired two torpedoes from 700 yards.

“It was a very loud explosion,” said the second mate, Mr. Skilling. “The engine room flooded immediately, and the galley collapsed on top of the emergency dynamo, putting the emergency lighting system out of action. When the Captain gave the order to abandon ship, there was a certain amount of panic. The men had seen the burning ships during earlier attacks, and knowing the nature of our cargo were frightened lest another torpedo should hit the ship.”