Batstiger
17-09-2008, 11:59
I have just completed this book by Roderick Macdonald and published by "The Pentland Press Ltd" and can recommend it to everybody.
The profits from the book go to the King George's fund for sailors.
The forward to the book is by Tim Lewin's father, Admiral of the Fleet, Lord Lewin of Greenwich, K.G., G.C.B., M.V.O., D.S.C.
The book is full of hand drawn illustrations by the author and he relates the story with that sense of humour that you can only find in the Royal Navy.
Towards the end of the book is a written speech by Vice Admiral Sir Roderick Macdonald, K.B.E., given at the Royal Naval Club, Hill Street, London. 17 May 1991.
I would like to quote an excerpt from this speech because the event took place twenty five years ago this Saturday 20 Sep 1943.
"When after the war was over I visited the German port of Emden in my first command, a Castle class corvette, we invited the naval club on board, mainly weathered ex U-boat officers. The group gathered round the ahead throwing mortar and took off their hats. "This", they said is the thing that beat us."
Kenneth Macleod was engineer officer of the destroyer Escapade. In September 1943 she was escorting a Canada bound convoy under attack by a pack of U-boats using acoustic torpedoes. At round midnight in mid-Atlantic she attacked a firm contact with the newly installed Hedgehog mortar, which promptly exploded on its mounting, destroying the bridge and breaking the ship's back. Of the officers, only a newly promoted Lieutenant R.N.V.R., the doctor and Kenneth were not dead or seriously wounded.
After the fires had been extinguished and much shoring up, Kenneth describes how his colleague, Wilf Homer, pinned the one remaining chart to a board on top of the wardroom bath. The only land featured was Iceland. The magnetic compass on the searchlight platform had not been swung in living memory and the bows tended to roll to port when the rest of the hull rolled to starboard. Nevertheless they steamed the badly damaged ship back to fight another day. Worth remembering that the average age of all these heroes was about twenty and much less if you add in the ships' companies."
I have attached a picture of HMS Escapade after the event obviously. You will note that where the Hedgehog mounting used to be there is now a triple barrelled Squid mounting.
As I say a very good read and well worth purchasing.
Bob.
The profits from the book go to the King George's fund for sailors.
The forward to the book is by Tim Lewin's father, Admiral of the Fleet, Lord Lewin of Greenwich, K.G., G.C.B., M.V.O., D.S.C.
The book is full of hand drawn illustrations by the author and he relates the story with that sense of humour that you can only find in the Royal Navy.
Towards the end of the book is a written speech by Vice Admiral Sir Roderick Macdonald, K.B.E., given at the Royal Naval Club, Hill Street, London. 17 May 1991.
I would like to quote an excerpt from this speech because the event took place twenty five years ago this Saturday 20 Sep 1943.
"When after the war was over I visited the German port of Emden in my first command, a Castle class corvette, we invited the naval club on board, mainly weathered ex U-boat officers. The group gathered round the ahead throwing mortar and took off their hats. "This", they said is the thing that beat us."
Kenneth Macleod was engineer officer of the destroyer Escapade. In September 1943 she was escorting a Canada bound convoy under attack by a pack of U-boats using acoustic torpedoes. At round midnight in mid-Atlantic she attacked a firm contact with the newly installed Hedgehog mortar, which promptly exploded on its mounting, destroying the bridge and breaking the ship's back. Of the officers, only a newly promoted Lieutenant R.N.V.R., the doctor and Kenneth were not dead or seriously wounded.
After the fires had been extinguished and much shoring up, Kenneth describes how his colleague, Wilf Homer, pinned the one remaining chart to a board on top of the wardroom bath. The only land featured was Iceland. The magnetic compass on the searchlight platform had not been swung in living memory and the bows tended to roll to port when the rest of the hull rolled to starboard. Nevertheless they steamed the badly damaged ship back to fight another day. Worth remembering that the average age of all these heroes was about twenty and much less if you add in the ships' companies."
I have attached a picture of HMS Escapade after the event obviously. You will note that where the Hedgehog mounting used to be there is now a triple barrelled Squid mounting.
As I say a very good read and well worth purchasing.
Bob.