Blitz Kids (36 page)

They were lucky: their combined fire had driven off the enemy bomber.

Ex-
Vindicatrix
boy Bill Ellis found himself manning a 12-pound gun in the middle of the Atlantic: ‘Suddenly the ship in front stopped and there was an explosion – hit by torpedoes. You couldn’t stop to help, you had to keep on going. I looked to see if the other ships were there – when a submarine suddenly came up out of the water.’ It was time to put his limited gunnery training into practice:

That night another ship was lost: the next day another. Then one of the escort ships was sunk as it picked up survivors. Bill’s ship made its way safely home. Reaching port they saw large numbers of Royal Navy destroyers and corvettes. As they entered port, Bill shouted at the ship’s crews: ‘What are you doing here? You ought to be out there!’

Of the 6,500 awards for gallantry awarded to the Merchant Navy, many were given to boys who had demonstrated a heroism that belied their years. In November 1940, the SS
Windsor Castle
was attacked by a German bomber, four 100 lb bombs hit the ship, smashing the propeller shaft and rendering the ship helpless. However, one of the bombs did not explode. With the unexploded bomb threatening the ship, two of the crew rushed forward to help: the laundry-boys John Wiggins and Andrew McLellan. The two boys helped pack the bomb with sandbags to minimize any blast. They then showed great courage in rushing to fight fires. Both boys received commendations for their bravery.

October 1941 saw the torpedoing of a Dutch ship, MV
Tuva
, one of the many merchantmen from occupied Europe that operated from British ports. Ronald Cyril Green – a mess room boy from Dagenham in Essex – was commended for his bravery after a torpedo struck. The explosion trapped three men and Ronald risked his life to rescue two of them. He was attempting to free the third when he was forced to abandon ship, only just escaping before the ship went under. Though the third man was lost, Ronald’s courage had saved two lives.

‘Galley boy’ was certainly not the most glamorous title to hold on active service. However, such a title did not minimize the heroism of the boys who carried it. One who received a commendation for his bravery was Galley Boy Leonard James Dumbridge of the SS
Yewcrest
. In August 1940 the ship’s steering mechanism broke forcing the captain to drop out of convoy. Alone on the seas, the
Yewcrest
was confronted by a submarine which proceeded to shell it. Whilst under
fire, Leonard showed great courage in fetching ammunition for the ship’s guns to return fire. Eventually they were forced to abandon ship and the crew escaped in lifeboats. Following a convoy to Russia in mid-1942, Galley Boy John Conroy from Edinburgh, serving on the SS
Zaafaren
, received the British Empire Medal. The ship was sunk during an enemy attack, yet John remained cool and courageous throughout the incident.

In July 1941, sixteen-year-old Harry Cromack of Hull was serving as a deck boy on SS
Dallington Court
. He received a commendation for bravery following an aerial attack on the convoy. Harry manned the Lewis gun, a weapon he had never been trained on, and managed to hit the attacking aircraft. The plane crashed into the sea as a result of the combined fire from a number of ships. Another brave deck boy was Gordon Hissey, serving aboard the SS
Elisabeth Massey
. He was commended for brave conduct in February 1942 after helping to rescue the crew of an American ship, the
Pan Massachusetts
, which had been spotted in flames in US waters. Gordon was part of the crew of the
Massey
’s rescue boat that searched the increasingly rough seas for the American crew. He was responsible for saving the life of one exhausted American who was unable to reach the ship’s ladder.

Whilst some of the boys were recognized for their courage, the heroism of many others went unrewarded. In October 1941 the
San Florentino
was attacked by a German U-boat,
U-94
. Hit by four torpedoes, the ship remained afloat and fought a five-hour duel against the submarine in heavy seas. Eventually a second U-boat joined in and the
San Florentino
was abandoned. An official report on the incident noted: ‘After merciless assault, the tanker sank. But she had left her mark on the foe, and the spirit of her people never wavered.’
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Among her crew was seventeen-year-old Tommy Burt of Glasgow. Whilst a number of the crew received awards for their actions, Tommy’s contribution was not recognized. A crewmate complained that this was unfair, writing to the Admiralty to press for recognition of the boy. He pointed out that the rest of the crew had called Tommy ‘a Nelson’ for his defiance. When the tanker went down, the seventeen year old escaped in a half-submerged lifeboat and was ‘the hero of the swamped lifeboat’. He remained standing all night, calling instructions to his crewmates, ‘Steady to starboard, steady to port’, as necessary. At
the end of the long night he said, ‘I done my best for you, boys. Oh, boys, I done my best to cheer you.’ Then he smiled and fell down dead, one of twenty-two fatalities. His fellow seamen felt he had saved them.
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This was the violent reality of the war at sea. With most merchant ships carrying at least one boy, more than 500 under-sixteens became casualties of war. They were too young to vote, too young to volunteer for the Army, too young to marry or buy a beer: but they were old enough to die. Of the ex-boys of the Prince of Wales Sea Training Hostel who served during the Second World War, eighty-five died. Among these were fourteen boys still under the age of eighteen. There was one very sad side to the enthusiasm shown by some of the youngsters who went to sea. Some underage boys gave false names when they signed on, having run away to sea without the knowledge of their parents. When the SS
Coracero
was lost in 1943 eighteen-year-old ‘J. J. Elder’ was lost with her. Back in England no trace could be found of his next of kin. When his parents were finally traced it was discovered he was actually a fourteen-year-old boy named Robert Yates whose parents had no idea he had gone to sea.

Having a ship sunk from under them became a routine part of life for most of the boys who served in wartime. Just nine months into his career as a seaman, and on his first voyage as an ordinary seaman, sixteen-year old Bernard Ashton was sunk for the first time. His first ship had been newly built, with clean cabins for the crew. His next ship was less comfortable: ‘To reach my sleeping quarters I went through the fo’c’sle head, to the chain locker. And my bunk was next to the hawsepipe, where the anchor went out.’

As he soon realized: ‘I had been spoiled on the
Rochester Castle
. I didn’t know what was going to come later.’

Within days of leaving Hull, Bernard found himself on lookout, standing forward of the winch:

Most of the crew got away on a lifeboat that had been quickly lowered. However, the blaze meant Bernard could not reach it.

He found himself alongside two able seamen and the bosun:

Rather than jumping, his companion suggested running along the deck, climbing down the ladder and waiting for the lifeboat to come alongside. He was right, it was much safer – and warmer – than jumping into the Atlantic.

Within half an hour the crew were picked up by a rescue boat and sent below decks to rest after their traumatic experience. Bernard happily climbed into the top bunk and went to sleep. The next morning he realized the rest of the crew were less able to forget their experience. He had enjoyed six hours sleep, the rest of the crew had sat up all night drinking and smoking, trying to relax. He soon realized it was his youth that allowed him to treat the incident so lightly. For him, it was just another step on the way to becoming a professional seaman: ‘I’d been shipwrecked, I was now like one of the old hands.’ Others were not so happy about his adventures. He arrived back at his parents’ home wearing a new suit, hat, shoes and a white raincoat, courtesy of a charity for distressed seamen. He looked far different from the boy that had gone off to sea. When he told them of his experiences, they were incredulous and could not imagine their little boy acting as lookout in mid-Atlantic.

Even before reaching his fourteenth birthday, John Chinnery was torpedoed. Though the crew had been warned that, in the event of hearing the order to abandon ship, it was ‘every man for himself’, John’s crewmates ignored the orders. Instead, they rushed to find the
boy, throwing him over into the lifeboat where he found himself in nothing but the pair of underpants, wrapped in a blanket and clutching a packet of Woodbines. After being rescued, John was returned to Glasgow. He arrived in the port dressed in just a mackintosh and the pair of underpants. He had no documents or proof of identity. He was quizzed by Military Police who couldn’t understand why a virtually naked thirteen year old was in the port asking for a travel warrant to return home to Edinburgh.

It was not John Chinnery’s last experience of scurrying for a lifeboat. In a later sinking, he was again helped by older men who made sure he was safe before they themselves jumped to safety. In one case, the youngster was onboard a fuel tanker that was hit and soon engulfed in flames. He later admitted it was an experience that had always stayed with him, giving him a fear of fire that lasted all his life.

There were other boys of John’s age who suffered at sea.
Fourteen-year-old
James Campbell was serving on an Arctic convoy when his ship, the SS
Induna
, was sunk. He and another boy spent five days in an open lifeboat before being rescued by the Russians and taken to hospital in Murmansk. There, his right leg, left foot and left fingers were amputated as a result of frostbite.
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Another boy from the ship, sixteen-year-old James Anderson, is buried in the military cemetery in Murmansk.

Though all the deaths were tragic, none were more dreadful than those of the fourteen year olds who died whilst serving at sea.
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Whilst thousands of their age group had been evacuated to safety, these boys paid the ultimate prize for the sense of adventure that had taken them into the front line. For many years, it was believed that the youngest of all casualties was fourteen-year-old Raymond Steed. Born in Newport, south Wales, in October 1929, he joined the Merchant Navy in December 1942. In April 1943 his ship, the
Empire Morn
, struck a mine off the coast of Morocco. Raymond and twenty other crew members died, their bodies taken ashore and buried at Ben M’Sik military cemetery outside Casablanca. He was just 14 years and 207 days old when he died.

It was later discovered that another boy had the dubious honour of being the youngest casualty. He was Dewsbury-born Reginald Earnshaw, just 14 years and 152 days old when he died. He was below decks in his cabin on the SS
North Devon
when she came under attack by
German aircraft in coastal waters between Edinburgh and the River Tyne. As the engine room burned, the flames reached Reginald’s cabin, trapping him despite rescue efforts. His body, along with the other six seamen who died that night, was taken to Edinburgh and buried in an unmarked grave. It was not until 2009 that he finally received a headstone and recognition of his status as the youngest casualty of the war at sea.

There were tragedies that had an impact on close communities. In December 1941 four former classmates from Walton, Merseyside – John Barret, sixteen; Freddy Hall, seventeen; Patrick Gallagher, sixteen; and Tommy Kavanagh, fifteen – died when their ship, Blue Star Line’s
Almeda Star
, was lost en route to Argentina. Even greater tragedy had only been avoided when Tommy Kavanagh’s thirteen-year-old brother Jimmy had been prevented from going by their father who decided he was too young.
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Another terrible tragedy was the sinking of SS
Fiscus
in October 1940. Onboard were two brothers, Raymond Lewis, aged fifteen, and his fourteen-year-old brother, Kenneth. They were thought to have forged a letter stating that their father had given them permission to go to sea.

Whilst enemy aircraft and submarines were a constant threat to all wartime seamen, they also faced another enemy: the weather. The great irony was that heavy seas deterred enemy submarines, but they put all shipping at risk. Whilst those on modern, well-maintained ships were relatively safe, those manning old ‘rust buckets’ were in constant danger. Having been spoiled on his first ship, and bombed off his second, Bernard Ashton joined the
City of Oxford
. She was an old tramp steamer, hardly fit for the sea. In November 1940, the
City of Oxford
sailed from Liverpool. Within twenty-four hours of leaving port, they hit a gale. At four in the morning, he came off watch. There was no hot food or drinks available since the galley had closed due to the rolling of the ship. He made his way to his bunk only to find the whole ship shaking. Trying to sleep, he heard the steering chains above him rattling and he braced himself so that he wasn’t thrown out. He soon realized there was little chance of sleep: