- Author
- Letter Writer
- Subjects
- WWII operations, History - WW2, Letter to the Editor
- Tags
-
- RAN Ships
- None noted.
- Publication
- September 1991 edition of the Naval Historical Review (all rights reserved)
After 3 weeks aboard this ship we were transhipped to the prison ship well south of New Zealand and it was sitting in the ocean with the poached egg (Japanese Ensign) painted on her sides and Japanese name on her boughs and stern.
When we were on board we were taken in the ‘tween decks of No. 4 and 5 hatches and learned of her name to be German merchant ship “Spreewald” (5083 tons gross) twin screw motor ship and she had been fitted out in Japan with a full cargo of foodstuff for Germany.
Well after being aboard for 3 months we were fed reasonably well and were allowed on deck twice each day (2 hours) and were given canvas hammocks to sleep in and two blankets each to help keep warm, and at Xmas time were given pork for dinner but nothing extra, only coffee to drink.
It was on this ship that our second unfortunate happening took place as a fireman of the Mareeba was buried at sea. He died on 24/1/42. He was Alex Mathieson, aged about 56 years, who lived in Sydney and had died of a growth (cancer) in the throat. It was just a moderate ceremony as they only sewed him up in canvas and draped the union jack around him then cast him to the deep.
The Germans didn’t like this and became very superstitious and said that this would bring them bad luck and exactly a week later (31.1.42) at 10 mins past 1 pm we were torpedoed by a submarine which we did not know and I was blown overboard by the blast which had blown all the portside lifeboats to pieces and had ripped a great hole in the side by No. 3 hold and the engine room and had killed everybody in engine room and keeled the ship at about 40 degrees, but the starboard engine was still running and this made things very bad and the only boats left were starboard and three got away.
The first lifeboat to be lowered was the steelboat which was well fitted out and was lined throughout with buoyant air-tight tanks but a very bad incident took place for as it was being lowered by the German carpenter and another person (whom I cannot remember just now) when it was halfway down the German carpenter let go of the falls and this tipped about 30 people into the sea and also sunk the lifeboat which overturned and could not be righted. This was terrible to watch as panic broke out and most of them were drowned because the ship kept going as the starboard motor was still running.
Your brother Geoffrey went over the portside by No. 5 hatch on a raft which was made fast to the rigging and he was with Lenard McLelland, a fireman of the Mareeba and a native of New Zealand and David McNiel, AB of Mareeba and an Australian who lives in Sydney and also with them was a Norwegian sailor off the Stamatios Embiricos named Axle Strom. These were the only ones who got away on that life raft and with it being middle of winter and in the wide open sea and in the Bay of Biscay and 360 miles north of the Azores Island, this being the position of the ship when we were torpedoed. I can assure you that it was a terrible plight to be in.
I was picked up out of the water by the second lifeboat to get away and I only had a singlet on as I had torn my trousers off and pulled my shoes off to help me to keep afloat. The lifeboat was overcrowded but this was better to me than trying to float.
The third lifeboat got away and had the German captain of the prison ship in it and also Captain Skinner of the Mareeba, George Humphries, AB of the Mareeba, David Evans, AB of the Mareeba, Greek captain and Greek carpenter of Stamatios Embiricos, also Tommy Riley, 4th Engineer of Mareeba, also George McAdam, AB and David Kitchen, Deck Boy of West Australia and crew members of S/S Mareeba and a couple of other Germans were in No. 3 lifeboat which was making for the Azores was Captain Skinner’s last words to us all as they set off for them, but am sorry to say they never were seen again.