Wheels, Waves, Wings and Drums

We had aircraft coverage with Lockheed Hudsons for about a day and a half, and at three days out, the destroyer had to turn back due to fuel limitations. So we plodded on out into the Atlantic, accompanied only by the corvette and the survey ship. Our ship bobbed up and down a lot, but I managed to avoid being sick. I ate dry bread and apples and stayed midships most of the time, although at intervals, we were required to go to lifeboat stations and other drills. This routine continued a few more days more before we experienced a bit of a scare. First we saw smoke on the horizon, and then a ship came dashing up. We were relieved to discover that it was one of our own! We were not allowed to break radio silence during the War because that would have told the Germans where we were. The next day somebody saw—or thought they saw—a periscope. Word went around, “Don’t panic.” Some of the crew were below, asleep in bunks and hammocks, but Bud and I were more fortunate. Our bunks were in the stern. About 5:30 a.m., we experienced a tremendous wallop, followed by an explosion. It was July 4, 1941. Before the lights dimmed (when the engine stops, the lights go out), I managed to grab my life jacket and race up onto the deck. Sure enough, we had been hit by two torpedoes, and we had 1400 troops on board. As our ship began to list, the Challenger came alongside, but backed off because they knew it would be too dangerous for us to jump from ship to ship. Funny little incidents come to mind. There was one guy who must have been able to swim out of the hole the torpedo had made in the side of our vessel. I recall him swimming away from us, and the corvette sending a boat after him. As our ship listed more and more, we went to lifeboat stations. However, when they tried to lower the life boats on the high side of the ship, they came crashing down on the men assembled below. There simply were not enough experienced crew to lower the boats properly. Luckily I got into one of the boats being lowered. Once afloat, we drifted towards the Challenger, which had positioned itself downwind so that survivors would be carried towards it. The Challenger crew hung cat ladders down the sides of their ship—square rope ladders that we could grab and climb up. There were many guys in the water, but a lot more failed to get out of the ship’s hold, because the wooden staircases that led to their quarters had been blown away by the explosion, and they had no way out. We tried to lower ropes to haul them out, but there were just too many of them. There was a minister with us—Presbyterian I think—who asked to be lowered into the hold to pray with the men. At first we refused, but he insisted, and so we did as he requested. There is a short write-up about him in the Archives somewhere, but it never made the newspapers because of it being wartime. As we drifted away from the Anselm, we dared not stay too near lest our lifeboat be dragged down with the sinking ship. The sound of singing drifted across the water. There were more than 200 men singing “Abide with Me,” which was very tragic. A little while later, as the ship nosed down and the stern rose high out of the water, there was a tremendous noise. I wondered what the heck it was. Somebody had brought a piano on board for a sing-along before we left. The ship was now at 45 degrees. The piano toppled and crashed down along the length of the deck. You can imagine the noise from the strings. As I reached the deck of the Challenger, more and more guys followed until there were 900 of us, some of whom were injured. I remember us all yelling at one soldier who was still in the water, “Come on! Come on! Get up! Get the ladder! Grab the ladder!” When we finally hauled him onto the deck we saw that he was unconscious. Someone said, “Don‘t bother him. He’s had it.” I thought, “No way!” So I rolled him onto his stomach, pumped him and gave him Artificial Respiration using the Schafer method, which is to roll him over and press on the back. Suddenly he vomited, got up, and walked away as if nothing had happened. He never looked back. So there we were in the middle of the Atlantic—off the Azores somewhere—with 1140 men on two small ships. We had lost 278, but we were fortunate not to have lost more. Now we were forced to break radio silence. We called up and they detached a ship called the Cathay from another convoy. The Cathay was currently employed as a merchant cruiser, but it was really a P&O liner with two guns attached, one fore and one aft. She reached us on July 5, about 24 hours from the time that the torpedo had hit