Premonition of an Attack
Heroes Remember
Premonition of an Attack
The second mate came into me, I was on watch and I should
explain that the radio officer at sea always had the position
of the ship within a half-hour of the ship's position. I'm
speaking a half-hour within that. And the navy, more or less,
had a pact with you if you were on your own, that as long as you
were within a hundred miles, plus or minus a hundred miles,
of your position, they'd more or less come and have a look for
you. In other words, that was a good reason to follow the course
that they'd set to wherever you were going. Well, this night
the second mate came in, and I've never seen anyone with a look
on his face like that before or since. And he said, "Sparks,
between you and I, I'm gonna change our course." He said,
"I have a feeling that if I was a Japanese submarine, this is
where I would sit looking for ships." And we did change.
Of course, we couldn't tell the master that. It was between the
second mate and myself. He said it would only be for a period.
Anyway, he gave me the new positions. That night, within a few,
I would say, half an hour at that time, three ships got torpedoed
that were all on our course. And they, like, obviously, you don't
know whether they were sunk or not ‘cause you're not there,
but they were just very, very close to us. We couldn't see them,
of course, but they were obviously on the same course and three
ships got torpedoed, and there was talk in the chartroom then,
of course. The master was up as soon as there was a ship,
you know, hit. They had to know about it, and I'd taken the
messages. And some of the mates wanted to go and, you know,
see if we could rescue some of them, but the captain then
explained with our cargo, and we had a lot of about 500 pound
bombs aboard, that if we went there and the subs were still
around, or sub, whichever it happened to be, we could kill more
people in the water than, than the sub did. So, we had to keep
going, and that's one thing that bothered us in convoys,
too, you had to keep going. That was the rule, that was the law,
and it was a correct one, but it was one that hurt a lot because
there'd be men in the water and you had to go by.
You tried to get them out, you know you'd throw anything you
could over to help them but, but that was it. But that was just
a couple examples, like, that happened.
Interviewer: Was it hard to know or to see another ship go down?
It, it's an awful thing to say, but I, I think it would apply to
any serviceman. You're always glad it isn't you, but you do feel
sorry, yeah. But I think the worst part is when you know they're
in the water and, and you have to keep going. But, obviously,
to stop would just be no good at all, like, you know.
You just become a sitting target, then.
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