Lifeboat No. 7 – 23 days at sea

Author

McIntosh, Ian, Sub-Lieutenant, RN

Subjects

Biographies and personal histories, WWII operations, History - WW2

Tags

SS Britannia, Survivor, Brazil, Thor

RAN Ships

None noted.

Publication

September 2008 edition of the Naval Historical Review (all rights reserved)

Note: Sub Lieutenant McIntosh RN was later to become Vice Admiral Sir Ian McIntosh, RN, KBE CB DSO DSC

I was brought up on the family property Camperdown in Victoria’s Western Districts. From as early as I can remember I had wanted to join the Navy and had spent many holidays, home from Geelong Grammar School, building rafts (and later a canoe), to sail on the dams of the property. I read any books I could about the sea (little knowing how useful some of my reading was to prove), including Bligh’s account of his lifeboat voyage after the mutiny. I had, and still have, a great admiration for a much, and wrongly, maligned man. I even built a model of HMS Bounty. As my schooling continued, I did not realise that I had passed the entry age for the Royal Australian Navy, then 13. So, by the time I left Geelong Grammar School at 18, my only option was to join the Royal Navy on the Commonwealth Scholarship Scheme. Having taken and passed the necessary examination I arrived in England (paid my own passage!), at the end of 1938.

By the end of 1940, my training as Cadet, Midshipman and Acting Sub Lieutenant was completed and I was promoted Sub Lieutenant and eligible to volunteer for Submarines. On completion of the submarine training course I was appointed to the First Submarine Flotilla based in Alexandria, Egypt. At this time essential supplies to Malta had to be fought through against formidable opposition. Less urgent stores, equipment and personnel for the Eastern Mediterranean were therefore sent via the Cape and India.

So it was that, early in 1941, I joined the Anchor Line passenger ship Britannia, 8,700 tons, as one of 327 passengers, mostly servicemen and almost all male. We sailed from Liverpool on 11 March as part of a 5‑ship convoy of similar ships, all relatively fast. Escorted well south to somewhere off the coast of West Africa, on about 21 March the convoy was dispersed and the ships proceeded independently.

On the morning of 25 March, on being awoken to take over the morning watch of naval lookouts on the deck above the bridge, I noticed through the scuttle that we had altered course and were running into the wind and sea in an easterly direction. Arriving at my post I could make out a ship, some 8 miles to port, on a roughly parallel course. Viewing her manoeuvres with some suspicion the Britannia altered course to starboard to open the range. That suspicion was fully justified when at this stage the ship opened fire with what appeared to be two twin mountings, one forward and one aft, firing 6 inch shells. She found the range quickly and straddled us almost at once. Smoke floats were dropped and Britannia retired behind them, which caused a break in the firing but not before our 4-inch gun on the poop, hopelessly outranged, had been smashed by one of the first eleven salvoes that the raider fired. One had also carried away a wireless aerial and this interval gave us, the lookouts, and a wireless operator, the chance to rig a jury aerial. This allowed Britannia to transmit a ‘Raider’ signal and give the position of the attack.

Clear of the smoke, the raider, who we learned some years later was the Thor, had closed the range and soon scored several direct hits, causing a large number of casualties and starting a major fire in the ship. There being no possibility of escape, the Captain struck his colours, took the way off the ship, blew the steam off the boilers and ordered ‘Abandon Ship’. In my view the raider behaved quite correctly, ceasing fire as soon as possible after Britannia had struck her colours and allowing us some 20 minutes to get the undamaged boats away and life-rafts launched and manned before dropping smoke floats and disappearing behind them. She had heard our distress call and quite reasonably assumed that there were British forces nearby. Finally she closed in and put a few more rounds into the forward hold between wind and water before steaming away under cover of her smoke. No attempt was made to interfere with the boats, nor were any prisoners taken. Such a course was wholly in accordance with the rules of war and the customs of the sea.