Battle station or prison?

When you are on, say an escort, it was a very touchy job because, particularly at night, if there were U-boats around, you were after them. If the U-boats came up in the middle of a convoy, you’d sail right up through those convoy lines to try and get at them. Then, of course, no lights and it was a trying experience. My first action station, I remember, was in the emergency wireless room which is in the tiller flats of the ship. Now the tiller flats are right over the screw, or the screws in our case, and I had to probably go through about six sea doors to get down there, and every one of those doors had to be dogged behind me. Closed tight, water tight. This room wasn’t terribly large but the only thing in it apart from water rushing across the floor, you know, from condensation, was a steel table bolted to the wall and on it was a wireless set. Underneath me, were the screws of the ship and when you went into action and you went down into this little room, the ship would be going full speed somewhere and tremendous roar of these screws. Now my job there was to, I had a pair of earphones, and the idea was that if the main wireless cabin was knocked out then one of the officers on the bridge was tell me to send a message to the Admiralty saying we’d been hit or whatever. So there I would stand, they’d start dropping depth charges and everything would be shaking and shuddering and all alone in my tomb sort of idea. The only consolation really and it sounds strange now was that if the Germans launched an acoustic torpedo, which honed in on the ships screws, I wouldn’t know anything about it.