Cruiser (22 page)

Ajax
and
Perth
put to sea again. There was no point sitting in Suda Bay as stationary targets for another air attack – and,
anyway, there was work to be done. On 3 January, they arrived in Piraeus.

If the ship's company hated the sleaze of Alexandria – and many of them did – they enjoyed the still exotic but more comfortably European aura of Athens. The weather was warm and sunny. They were there for three days, for what seemed to be a visit to bolster Greek confidence by the presence of the White Ensign in the port. Bowyer-Smyth and Commander Adams saw that all the crew got a spell of shore leave.

Far to the north, the Greeks and the Italians were locked in combat. Germany, for the moment, was leaving them to it, although Hitler was preparing, with some irritation, to come to Mussolini's assistance. Athens was still at peace, and Brian Sheedy was startled to find himself walking past the German Embassy, the swastika flag flying above the entrance.

Australians being Australians, and sailors being sailors, the liberty men were quickly on the lookout for a cold beer, which they had no trouble finding. The Greeks were welcoming, happy to point the visitors in the right direction. Both sides found that a smile and some sign language went a long way. There was a blackout at night as a precaution against air raids, but the restaurants and tavernas were doing a booming trade. Many of the men climbed the Acropolis. Ray Parkin took his paints and brushes there, and, settling himself into a quiet corner, he dabbed at more of his elegant watercolours. These were men, far from home and family, seeking what peace they could find in the tumult of the world around them. Norris wrote about it with an eloquence that put paid to the notion of the matelot ashore as a creature driven by his balls, not his brain:

Returning to Suda,
Perth
and
Ajax
met up with the other two ships of the 7th Cruiser Squadron, HMS
York
and an old acquaintance from the Caribbean days, HMS
Orion
. Big things were about to happen. In London, the Admiralty had despatched a convoy of ships to carry troops and vital military supplies to Greece and Malta. Most of the convoy would take the long passage into the Mediterranean south around the Cape of Good Hope and then up through the canal, but five vessels whose cargoes were more urgently needed would be passed directly eastwards through the Straits of Gibraltar. These five, including a food and ammunition ship, the
Essex
, were given the code name EXCESS. The Commander-in-Chief of the Mediterranean Fleet, Admiral Sir Andrew Cunningham, would deploy every warship he had to get the convoys through.

And the Germans would hurl themselves into the fight to stop them. For the first time in the Med, Fliegerkorps X was about to draw blood. It happened in The Narrows, that slender stretch of water, barely 150 kilometres wide, between Sicily and Cape Bon on what is now the coast of modern Tunisia. This was a choke point in the Med, the ideal place for an ambush by sea or air. Early on the afternoon of 10 January, the battleships
Warspite
and
Valiant
and the carrier
Illustrious
, together with their screening destroyers, were attacked by a swarm of Stuka
dive-bombers – the aircraft that had wrought such destruction in the blitzkrieg through Europe.

The Stuka – or the JU87 dive-bomber – was one of the most effective aircraft of the war. Some 6000 of them were built. The name is an abbreviation of the German
Sturzkampfflugzeug
, meaning, literally, a falling aircraft. This is exactly what the Stuka did. It fell from above with devastating effect. Stubby and ugly, with upswept wings and a fixed but streamlined undercarriage, it was powered by an 11-cylinder engine that sent it chugging along in level flight at a normal cruising speed of just 190 km/h. But an attacking Stuka would plummet almost vertically from some 4500 feet, reaching speeds of up to 600 km/h before delivering its typical payload of a 500 kg high-explosive bomb. Some bombs were as much as 1000 kg. The Stuka could also strafe with cannon or machine guns. Releasing the bomb automatically activated an advanced system of air brakes, or flaps on the wings, which pulled the aircraft out of the dive and back into a climb even if the pilot momentarily blacked out at an acceleration six times the force of gravity. What set the aircraft uniquely apart, though, was a siren known as the Jericho Trumpet, bolted beneath its wings, which emitted a banshee wail that rose in a hideous crescendo as it gathered speed and fell on its prey. The Jericho Trumpet was a deliberate technique of Nazi psychological warfare. Those who heard it never forgot it.

On the bridge of his flagship,
Warspite
, Cunningham knew an attack was coming.
Valiant
had radar and had detected three squadrons of aircraft when they were still some 70 kilometres to the north on their way from Sicily. The British assumed they were Italian. They knew that the Luftwaffe had arrived in this theatre of war but had no warning that it was now ready for battle. The Admiral ordered
Illustrious
to turn into the wind to fly off some Fulmar fighters, but before they could gain height Fliegerkorps X was upon them.

The attack took exactly six and a half minutes.
Illustrious
was struck by six bombs, killing 13 officers and 113 men. One
bomb, an extraordinarily lucky hit, went straight down her aircraft lift, creating carnage on the hangar deck as stores of aviation fuel caught fire. With tongues of flame and clouds of oily black smoke billowing from her innards, and her steering gear partly crippled,
Illustrious
staggered out of the line. One of the Royal Navy's most modern and heavily armoured capital ships, she had been in commission for less than a year. Cunningham, heavy hearted, ordered her back to Malta. The loss of life had distressed him. So, too, had the fact that one of his most valuable assets had been knocked off the chessboard so swiftly.

Fliegerkorps X had landed a knockout punch – the first of many to come – for the cost of five Stukas shot down. But the truly appalling thing was that the entire balance of power at sea in the Mediterranean theatre had been upset, as Cunningham wrote later in his memoirs:

Perth
and the 7th Cruiser Squadron were not present at that first Stuka attack. They were nearer to Malta, escorting another convoy. They rejoined the battle fleet the next morning. But then came more bleak news. The Stukas had struck again, a dozen of them bombing two other cruisers,
Southampton
and
Gloucester
, some 200 kilometres to the south-east.
Perth
and the squadron flagship,
Orion
, were detached to help. Increasing speed to 30 knots, they came upon the two stricken ships not long after dark.

Neither ship had radar. They had been taken by surprise.
Gloucester
had been hit by one bomb that did not explode. But
Southampton
was ablaze from stem to stern, the flames towering above her bridge and foremast and casting an eerie play of light and shadow on the sea. Bowyer-Smyth ordered
Perth
's recreation room and canteen to be rigged as an emergency Sick Bay for the wounded, and he had towing gear ready and waiting aft, but there was nothing to be done. The men on
Perth
's bridge and upper decks watched helplessly as the fires across the water took hold.

A few survivors tumbled overboard from the burning ship, matchstick figures silhouetted against the flames.
Gloucester
and a destroyer picked them up, but 81 men had been killed. Eventually,
Orion
put
Southampton
out of her torment with a torpedo that blew up her magazines and sent the cruiser to the bottom in a ghastly fireworks display that lit the scene like daylight. For Jim Nelson, it was his first sight of death near at hand:

For the next few days,
Perth
shuttled men and supplies from Suda to Piraeus, and from Piraeus to Malta. They arrived at the boom gate at Grand Harbour, Valletta, just after dawn on 14 January, weary from the strain of being constantly at action stations, eager for a run ashore that might bring a little respite from the tension and fear.

The Phoenicians and then the Romans had once ruled Malta, and the apostle Paul was wrecked on its rocky shores. Grand Harbour is one of the glories of the Mediterranean. In the sixteenth century, Valletta became the home of the Knights Hospitaller of the Order of St John of Jerusalem, descendants of the Crusaders, and for 300 years they held sway over Valletta's three cities of Cospicua, Vittoriosa and Senglea, fortifying the harbour with massive bastions of stone. Napoleon briefly but thoroughly looted Valletta at the end of the eighteenth century. The British ousted the French and took Malta for themselves a few years later, turning Grand Harbour into the Royal Navy's principal base in the Mediterranean.

Perth
passed the battlements of Fort Ricasoli and Fort St Angelo on the south-eastern shore. They were a majestic sight, ancient ochre ramparts glowing crimson in the morning sun. The men on deck were astonished to see people applauding them from the walls and waving from windows. Turning to starboard and then with her engines slow astern, the cruiser backed alongside the gun wharf in French Creek, berthing just ahead of a submarine in dry dock, HMS
Triumph
, and the ammunition ship
Essex
, which had come in with the EXCESS convoy. About 75 metres away, across the creek at the Parlatorio Wharf, lay the blackened, tortured bulk of
Illustrious
. She was covered in scaffolding. Maltese dockyard workers were labouring to clear away the wreckage and to make her fit to put to sea again. Acetylene sparks showered from gaping holes in her hull.

Perth
, too, had work to do. The engine room staff went through the dirty and unpleasant routine of cleaning a boiler. The anti-aircraft guns were manned watch on watch, around the clock; there was always the awareness that even in harbour they were not out of danger. But the men also got the run ashore they had been hoping for. Brian Sheedy visited the cave where St Paul took refuge from his shipwreck. Jim Nelson found a dockyard cafe, the Black Cat, where he managed a few wets with three shipmates. George Hatfield strolled through The
Gut, a narrow street where there were little bars selling English beer, with Maltese girls to dance with. Ray Parkin worked on a small wooden model he was making of
Perth
. The Gunnery Officer, Warwick Bracegirdle, took a stroll through Valletta's narrow, cobbled streets one evening to find a new pipe.

The bombers stayed away for two days and nights. But on 16 January, a cloudy day that looked as if it might well rain, the sirens wailed just after lunch, at about half past one. Bracegirdle was on
Perth
's bridge: