At All Costs (33 page)

CHAPTER 49 •••

THE CABLEGRAM

T
he minute the
Ohio
berthed, crews from Malta raced to unload her cargo of oil before the Axis bombers struck. Larsen gave them a hand. He was a tanker man. He knew about pumping oil.

“They hooked up the hoses and I went down to the main deck, and I was more or less helping them a little bit, you know. I was not very tired. I’d been sleepin’ for a couple of hours, so I was down there helpin’ them with that. The rest of the crowd of my volunteers got off, while I was down on deck there, foolin’ around with those guys hookin’ up the hoses. I saw some first-aid men treating a man and putting him on a stretcher. It looked like he was dead.

“Then all of a sudden the siren went off in town, the attack alarm for an air attack, which meant get back to the caves, the whole island of Malta is honeycombed with caves; some of them are quite large. They spewed out this heavy smoke screen all over the town, a camouflage fog, it was spread over the harbor blotting out all visibility.

“The guys pumpin’ out the oil finally said, ‘We can’t do anything more,’ so I said, ‘Well, how do I get to my gang?’ They says there’s a boat now going, to take you over to the caves. A little harbor ferry boat came alongside and I went on there, and they took me over to town and they put me in a truck and they took me to one of the big military caves, where we could take showers and we got the first meal that I’d had for about four or five days, that was fried eggs and bacon and bread and coffee, or maybe it was tea.

“They also gave us…ah, their underwear, new underwear that was British, and I don’t know if you’ve ever seen that British underwear but it’s horrible stuff, it’s more like three-quarter-length tights. And also I had this Norwegian sweater I had got for Christmas, I was wearing it when the
Santa Elisa
was hit, and still had that with me.”

“We were led through a series of underground chambers to a very large room filled with hundreds of cots, and were told to make ourselves comfortable,” said Follansbee. “We hadn’t been stretched out on the cots for more than 15 minutes when the loudspeaker system announced, ‘All survivors can line up for grog.’

“A shout went up from the men, as more than 300 of us lined up for a stiff shot of rum from a single cup passed from one to another and dipped into a washtub filled with rum.”

“After a rest, I probably slept some, we were loaded on a British lorry,” continued Larsen. “The Maltese on the streets screamed at us and threw rocks at us. We thought, ‘What’s going on?!’ They thought we were German prisoners, because of our American helmets. The British had to stop them.”

“As the lorries wound their way through the streets of Valletta,” said Follansbee, “we could see what 3000 bombing attacks had done to Malta. The harbor below us was dotted with funnels and masts of sunken ships. High and dry on the far shore was a beached freighter. The docks were honeycombed with bomb craters, and the buildings surrounding them were broken skeletons staring at the sky. Roofless churches with their stained-glass windows gaping vacantly, and statues of saints were sprawled across the rubble on the floor. Houses without windows. Houses without roofs. Foundations without houses. The devastation was complete.

“We reached our hotel, and the truck came to a stop with a jolt. It was set high on a hill overlooking the yellow stucco houses below, and the blue Mediterranean beyond.”

“We were boarded in a missionary hotel,” said Larsen. “The manager was an Australian missionary and he was very sick. The hotel was in bad shape, it had been hit by bombing. There was only one flush toilet that worked. This was very busy as many of us had upset stomachs.

“I got very sick shortly after I got ashore with some kind of a Maltese fever. I don’t know, it was from some kind of a rotten food I got, or something, or maybe it was sand fly fever, which was really bad in the caves. I also had a badly damaged back from those fellows falling on me in the lifeboat.”

“During the night a severe air raid took place, and the building next door to the hotel was totally demolished,” said Lonnie Dales. “And I didn’t wake up. I was very amazed to find out the next morning that I was the only one left in the room. Everyone else had evacuated.”

Ensign Suppiger spent the night in a cave, safe from bombs although unhappy that he wasn’t in a hotel. At least he got some relief from the stress of his expectations of others.

“The deck cadet, Dales, as usual has been sticking his nose into other people’s business and spreading malicious gossip,” he said. “This outfit is a lousy bunch, drunk, greedy, jealous, hypocritical, and untrustworthy—I sure will be glad to get away from them!”

It was a beautiful Sunday morning in Malta. Church bells called the faithful to joyous masses. God and the Virgin Mary were tearfully thanked for answering their prayers. A man came to the door of the hotel and asked for Fred Larsen. There was a cablegram for him at the office a few blocks away.

By now the islanders knew the strangers were heroes, not Germans. As Larsen walked down the street, he was surrounded and followed by people who wanted to shake his hand and say, “God bless you.” Others from across the street pointed and shouted, “Thanks, Yank!”

“So I went over to the cable office and I saw this message, a radio message had come from Grace Line. It said, ‘Please release money for wife and child now here.’

“And I said, ‘Well, it has nothing to do with my wife, she couldn’t be in the States, that cannot be, that I can’t believe, it must be something about the money that I sent to her before I left for Malta from Glasgow, and it has nothing to do with my wife and child. But we can send a message.’”

Larsen cabled to Grace Line, in New York:

Position unclear am I to understand wife and son actually in Newyork?

His sister, Christina, replied:

Minda and son Jan are in Brooklyn with us they are well.

CHAPTER 50 •••

MALTA RISES

T
he fact that the Battle of Mid-August constituted a splendid victory won by the Italian underwater and small surface units, emerges clearly from the account,” according to
The Italian Navy in World War II.

“Italian submarines and large and small torpedo boats—not even a score in all—sank two British cruisers and seven supply ships, torpedoed two more cruisers and two other supply ships, and literally put the British formation to rout, all in the course of nine hours of fighting. These exceptional results demonstrate the valor and ability of the Italian crews. A just share of the credit must also be given to the very effective attack plan conceived by Supermarina.”

“To the continental observer, the British losses seemed to represent a big victory for the Axis,” wrote Admiral Weichold, “and they were accordingly exploited for propaganda purposes. But in reality the facts were quite different, since, in spite of all these successes, the Air Force had not been able to prevent a British force, among which were probably five merchant vessels, reaching Valletta. Thereby the enemy had gained the strategic end of his operation, in spite of what it may have cost him. Thanks to these new supplies, Malta was rendered capable of fighting for several weeks, or, at a pinch, for several months.

“The main issue, the danger of air attack on the supply route to North Africa which was later to be smashed from Malta, remained. To achieve this objective no price was too high. The British operation, in spite of all the losses, was not the defeat it was made out to be by German public opinion, but a strategic failure of the first order on the part of the Axis, the repercussions of which would one day be felt.”

Churchill called it like Weichold, again. “Thus in the end five gallant merchant ships out of fourteen got through with their precious cargoes,” he said. “The loss of three hundred and fifty officers and men and of so many of the finest ships in the Merchant Navy and in the escorting fleet of the Royal Navy was grievous. The reward justified the price exacted. Revictualled and replenished with ammunition and vital stores, the strength of Malta revived. British submarines returned to the island, and, with the striking forces of the Royal Air Force, regained their dominating position in the Central Mediterranean.

“It should have been within the enemy’s power, as it was clearly his interest, to destroy this convoy utterly.”

Wrote Churchill’s secretary, Elizabeth Layton Nel, “To me this episode, which was code-named PEDESTAL, always seemed the turning point of the war, the time when the news, after being bad, always bad for so long, despite adverse circumstances turned to encouraging.”

It’s true that after the
Ohio
came in, all went downhill for the Axis. The tanker carried enough fuel oil to bring the 10th Submarine Flotilla back to Malta, and the subs resumed sinking more thousands of tons of Rommel’s supplies. Operation Pedestal’s four freighters delivered the high-octane gas and aircraft parts that the RAF fighters and bombers needed for renewed attacks on Axis convoys from Italy to North Africa; by the end of September there were a hundred more serviceable fighters on Malta, repaired from the parts and powered by the fuel delivered by Pedestal.

The Maltese were able to put some meat back on their bones. That fall, two more convoys met little resistance, delivering nine of nine ships, carrying mostly foodstuffs.

“Malta is the war’s key fortress,” said
The New York Times.
“In convoying supplies to Malta, the risk was deliberately taken—a proof not only of audacity, but of the desperate importance of holding this speck of an island. That Malta still stands, isolated and interminably bombarded as it is, is one of the miracles of the war.”

Operation Pedestal had lifted the siege on Malta. In July there had been 180 air raids on the island, and in September there were just 60. In July 10,000 tons of Axis shipping had been sunk, and in September that amount was tripled. The Allies zeroed in on tankers.

“Rommel is halted in Egypt on account of lack of fuel,” Ciano said on September 2. “Three of our oil tankers have been sunk in two days.”

“These circumstances force the panzer army to suspend the offensive,” Rommel wrote in his diary. “The Army will therefore fall back slowly under enemy pressure to the starting line, unless the supply and air situations are fundamentally changed.”

There was nothing to change them, in the face of Malta’s renewed strength.

“This convoy sealed the fate of the Axis armies in Africa,” said Admiral G.W.G. “Shrimp” Simpson, commander of the 10th Submarine Flotilla. “It was confidently felt in the 10th Submarine Flotilla that after the limited, but substantial, success of Pedestal, we had reached the top of the hill, were on level terms, and had an exhilarating downhill run before us.”

The stage was set for General Eisenhower, Churchill’s “prairie prince,” to join with Admiral Cunningham and lead Operation Torch, the invasion of North Africa, which brought in the American forces three months later.

“While we were in Moscow, the siege of Malta was raised,” said Sir Charles Wilson. “This made it possible for the Governor, Lord Gort, to fly to Cairo to report to the Prime Minister. The P.M.’s relief is a joyful sight. The plight of the island has been distracting him. We found Gort at the Embassy on our return from the desert. He is hardly recognizable—stones lighter. The fat boy, as he was called, has disappeared, and in his place is a man years older, with sunken cheeks and tired eyes. The island has been on short commons, and the Governor has been setting an example in rationing. He has character enough for anything.”

“We had long talks,” said Churchill, “and when we parted I had the Malta picture clearly in my mind.”

“The P.M. dabbed his eyes with a handkerchief as he listened to Malta’s story,” said Sir Charles.

Gort returned to Malta for the presentation of the George Cross to its people. “How you have withstood for many months the most concentrated bombing attacks in the history of the world has the admiration of all civilized peoples,” he told them. He unrolled the scroll written in the king’s hand:

To honour her brave people I award the George Cross to the Island Fortress of Malta to bear witness to a heroism and devotion that will long be famous in history.

From the time of the Phoenicians, Malta’s destiny had been survival. The arrival of the
Ohio,
with Larsen and Dales at the Bofors, was just one of the miracles of the war.

AFTERWORD •••

O
n May 22, 1943, at the direction of President Roosevelt, Frederick August Larsen, Jr., and Francis Alonzo Dales were awarded the Merchant Marine Distinguished Service Medal, the highest honor that branch can bestow, “for heroism above and beyond the call of duty.”

In the dedication at the Merchant Marine Academy at Kings Point, Long Island, attended by more than 2,300 cadets, the citation was read aloud. It ended, “The magnificent courage of this young third officer and cadet-midshipman constitutes a degree of heroism which will be an enduring inspiration to seamen of the United States Merchant Marine everywhere,” and the cheers and applause from the men burst into the sky.

After the ceremony Larsen was interviewed by a Norwegian radio reporter, and he was asked to say something directly to the Norwegian people. “There is no reason for me to tell about my experience at sea,” he replied. “Thousands of Norwegian seamen have gone through the same thing, and maybe worse. What is interesting for you to hear is about all the provisions they got to Malta. I will also mention the happiness of the Maltese people when we got the tanker to port. It is going to be the same when the Allies land on your land.”

He was promoted to master in 1944 and participated in sixty-five convoys by the end of the war in the North Atlantic, Mediterranean, and Pacific. He was the commodore of the first convoy to arrive in Amsterdam after V-E day in May 1945. The city was starving, so he encouraged the sailors in his fleet to give up their meals to the dockworkers.

He was a sea captain for nearly forty years. He died of natural causes on May 23, 1995, one day after the fifty-second anniversary of the receipt of his Distinguished Service Medal, the greatest among many he earned. He was inducted into the National Maritime Hall of Fame in 2000.

In the final year of his life, he was asked to address his local chapter of merchant marine veterans. It was the only time he ever spoke publicly about Operation Pedestal. He chose courage as the subject of his comments. “When I think of courageous people, foremost in my mind is my bride of more than fifty-five years,” he said. “Her name is Minda, and I admire her for many reasons.”

Along with Larsen, Lonnie Dales also received the Grace Lines Gold Medal for bravery. After Operation Pedestal, he went right back to the Mediterranean on the
Santa Maria,
a
Santa Elisa
sister. He took part in Operation Torch with the invasion of Casablanca, his fleet under the command of Admiral Syfret. He did his Christmas shopping in Casablanca with his brother Bert, who was by now an army captain on General Patton’s staff.

In 1943 he finished his studies at the Merchant Marine Academy and graduated with a 95.4 percent average in the twenty-four final exams. He moved quickly up the mariner’s ladder, becoming a third officer that year, second officer in 1944, and chief mate on a Victory ship by 1945—the ship was in Saipan, loaded with ammunition for the invasion of Japan, when the war ended. He earned his master’s license in 1946 and by 1948 was the captain of an oil tanker steaming from New York to Texas—one of the youngest masters on the sea.

In 1949 he married Marjorie Odom and later began a career in construction. He and his wife had three children: Donna, Dottie, and Cliff. He died in 2003, taking himself off dialysis after a long illness. “He was the bravest person I have ever known,” says Marjorie, who still lives in Waynesboro. “He was brave his entire life, to his final days. And until those final days, he longed to return to the sea.”

In October 1942 Admiral Cunningham, Britain’s greatest admiral since Nelson, returned to London as naval commander in chief of Operation Torch, the successful invasion of North Africa by the Allies, which he planned and led with General Eisenhower. One year later Cunningham was named first sea lord, replacing the dying Dudley Pound.

Three weeks after Operation Pedestal, Admiral Syfret was knighted for “bravery and dauntless resolution.” He commanded the primary Royal Navy invasion force during Operation Torch. Admiral Burrough commanded a separate large fleet.

Lieutenant Commander Roger Hill was awarded the Distinguished Service Order Medal for his actions at the helm of the destroyer
Ledbury
during Operation Pedestal. He pressed the British government for salvage money for himself and his crew for their part in towing the
Ohio
, which was a thorny issue because a ship can’t be salvaged unless it’s recognized as abandoned. But the salvage was finally acknowledged, with Admiral Leatham’s approval on the request. Hill’s emotional stability soon began to waver and he removed himself from the
Ledbury
. He recovered to command another destroyer during the Normandy invasion but continued to struggle with his mental health and left the Royal Navy after the war. In 1965 he moved his family to New Zealand, where he worked as a laborer on the docks and wrote his memoir,
Destroyer Captain.
He died in 2001 at ninety years of age.

Field Marshal Erwin Rommel returned to Germany in late September 1942, exhausted and sick; his Afrika Korps was soon crushed by General Montgomery at the Second Battle of El Alamein. Hitler’s insane orders at Normandy in 1944 caused Rommel’s defeat there. After he was accused without evidence of supporting a failed assassination attempt of Hitler, the Gestapo gave him the option of a trial and almost certain execution or suicide by ingesting cyanide. His death was called a brain seizure resulting from war wounds, and he received military honors at his funeral. “The name of Field Marshal Rommel will be forever linked with the heroic battles in North Africa,” Hitler wrote to Rommel’s widow, a truth decried for its “despicable hypocrisy” by Rommel’s son.

President Roosevelt visited Malta on December 7, 1943, the second anniversary of Pearl Harbor. He presented a scroll that included these words: “Under repeated fire from the skies, Malta stood, alone but unafraid in the center of the sea, one tiny bright flame in the darkness—a beacon for the clearer days which have come. Malta’s story of human fortitude and courage will be read by posterity with wonder and gratitude through all the ages.”

On August 23, 1942, eight days after the
Ohio
reached Grand Harbour, Captain Dudley Mason was lionized by the London Sunday papers.
GREATEST DRAMA OF THE YEAR
! screamed one headline.
THEY SAILED INTO HELL; HE DEFIED THE NAZIS’ BOMBS AND WON THROUGH.
The next day Mason pardoned the seaman who had thrown his dinner dishes over the side: “Owing to the subsequent good behavior of A. Byrne Messman the entry’s [
sic
] made on page 30 & 31 are hereby cancelled.” It was Captain Mason’s final entry into the
Ohio
’s log.

He was awarded the George Cross Medal, along with Charles Henry Walker, who swam the backstroke into the flames around
Waimarama
to rescue survivors. They were the only men from Operation Pedestal to receive Britain’s highest civilian honor. Mason resumed his career as a master for Eagle Oil and Shipping a few months later.

After the oil in the
Ohio
was off-loaded in Malta, she sank to the bottom of the shallow harbor; it was the oil that had kept her afloat. She was dragged to a dock in a far corner, where she was used for storage and barracks by the Yugoslavian Navy for the rest of the war. In 1946 the rusty hulk was towed ten miles out to sea, her back finally broken. She was scuttled by charges placed in her holds and sank in two pieces on an undersea shelf. She cries out to be raised and restored.

Fred Larsen nearly died the week after he rode the Bofors into Malta. He was hospitalized in Gibraltar for six days, suffering from severe stomach ills as well as his fractured spine. He steamed back to New York on the
Queen Mary
and took a taxi to his sister, Christina’s, house, where he saw his son, Jan, for the first time. Minda was at the movies, so he went to the theater and found her. He sat in the seat behind her in the dark, put his hands over her eyes, and whispered the lyrics to “You Are My Sunshine,” as if they had never been apart.