These are stories from the crew & families of crew of Resolution that I have had the privilege of talking to.
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DUTIES / NORWAY / DAKAR 1 / DAKAR 2 / HMS LULWORTH / LIFE ON RESO / MOMBASA / COMING HOME / THE WALRUS/ SHIP DETAILS / INDIAN OCEAN
LAWRENCE CURTIS Petty officer
My Action station was P2 port 6" gun crew, as I was quite robust I was selected as a loading number to loft and load a 100lb shell, all 6" gun crew had a secondary duty as armed landing parties and prize crew when boarding merchant ships.
my day to day duties varied and was liable to change six monthly , these included working on the bosuns party as repair and maintaince of the rigging and ropes, I was also a lamp trimmer. During war time the ships secondary lighting were oil lamps, usually two to each compartment, these lamps had to be filled, trimmed and lit at all times.
HARRY DOUGLAS DARBY
My first action station on the RESO was down in a turret shell room (the lowest deck on the ship) below the magazine. Both of these were bolted down shut and could not be opened from the inside, not a very pleasant thought when you were down there.'
LAWRENCE CURTIS
Norway was invaded in 1940 and Resolution found herself there in April of that year, We disembarked French foreign legion troops and five of their tanks (stowed on the boat deck), at either Narvik of tromsoe, this began a period of intense activity.
Bombardments with both 15" and 6" guns, one particular target was a railway gun which fired a few rounds then disappeared into the mountainside. Enemy air activity increased and it became necessary to weigh anchor and shift position to prevent stukas lining up Reso with the surrounding mountain peaks. Eventually she was hit by a 250lb bomb on the starboard quarter deck, penetrating the ship and exploding in the Royal Marine bands mess deck, thankfully the band were elsewhere but two people were killed and many were burnt by the blast. As the bomb struck I was going through a screen door on the starboard side of the Fo'sc'le , Fast !, I felt the fore part of the ship lift considerably and at the time thought it to be a much bigger bomb.
The polish destroyer 'GROM' was hit and sunk 1/4 mile astern of us .A German troop transport was shot down and we received the prisoners, mainly Austrians. One memory of Norway was two young men & a girl along side in a rowing boat they where singing withe the hills in the background, it made a pretty sight. We threw them down some tins of herring in tomato, which was one of the least popular items on the menu.
LAWRENCE CURTIS
Resolution left Gibraltar to intercept six french warships which we thought were going to be under control of the Germans, we missed then and found ourselves Dakar, taking part in operation "menace" landing free French troops in the west African port.
I can clearly remember the French submarine Beveziers torpedoing us, it struck almost immediately under my own gun 'P2', the ship took a list to post water gushed in through the gun sighting ports and the gun shield, all the lights went out. the sudden violent blast caused all the 6" shells to jump out of their ready use racks around the casemate, our reaction to all this was to run for the ladder and the upper deck, as we got to the ladder the ship righted herself and the lights came back on so we returned to the gun.
I saw the most quiet and unassuming member of the crew replacing the shells in the rack, his name was Masrden and he was about the same age as me 19. all the guns crew returned to station, except on who for some reason went sick. One person died as a result of the incident in the switch room deep in the bowels of the ship, from heat exhaustion. These old ships never had air conditioning only ventilation which in tropical climates only served to recirculate hot air.
VAGN NISSEN Son of one of the sailors on a convoy ship.
my father was in the port of Dakar during the attack upon the
french battleship Richelieu.
He was sailing for british during second world war, and this incident was his
first "sinking". My father was an ordinary seaman on board the danish
vessel "Tacoma".
The ship was hit several times by the heavy granates. And also the ship caught
fire.
Nine crewmembers lost their lives, and to day you can se their names on a memorial
in the city of Dakar.
The Tacoma was in a british convoy, however the vessel did not
have fuel enough, and therefore they were waiting for fuel supply. The rest
of the convoy has left the anchorplace, and did not wait for the Tacoma.
My father always told mee, that sinking by granates was his
worst experience. He managed to come back to Denmark and again also back to
England. He sailed on the northatlantic convoys for the rest of the war and
was torpedoed two times.
He survived both times and came back to Denmark in 1945.
FREDRICK WALLACE, Chief yeoman of signals.
HMS Resolution sailed from Portsmouth in march 1941 to Philadelphia naval yard for the vital repairs sustained from the french torpedo at Oran. on arrival 200 of her crew including Walsh were sent by train to Brooklyn naval yard to be transfered to the US Coast guard cutter 'Chelan'. She decommissioned into the British Navy and renamed HMS Lulworth.
In all 10 Coastguard cutters were commissioned and all named after various coast guard stations around the British coast, of these Culver was Sunk by a submarine while on convoy duty, Languard blew up in Colombo, Walney & Sennen were lost operation "torch" the north African landings being used as boom cutters.
HMS LULWORTH was based in Londonderry for the Home escort force with was active in both the north & south Atlantic. It was at this time she rammed and sank the Italian submarine PIETRO CALVI.
LULWORTH sailed for the middle east in September 1943 and operated in the bay of Bengal & Burma, her final voyage was back to the US in January 1946 along with the remaining cutters and handed back.
LAWRENCE CURTIS
On arrival in the river Delaware, long lines of cars watched the progress of the Resolution as she was the first British warship to be repaired at Philadelphia, and naturally caused a lot of interest.
I was there almost a week , just as American invitations came thick & fast I left the ship bound for New York to commission the 'Chelen'. The vessel was very shallow in draught drawing about 5ft and about 2,000 tonnes & very flimsy. She had two 5" guns & two 3" plus some small caliber guns.
We 'worked the ship up' with American assistance until the ship was commissioned, working on American messing - we even had cornflakes for breakfast and used the laundry and soda bar. Directly the ship became LULWORTH this ended, we left America with a convoy and headed for England.
During the course of the journey home we had news of the sinking of HMS Hood by the Bismarck, the Captain, lieutenant Price cleared lower deck and announced that should we sight Bismarck we would immediately engage him ( Bismarck was always referred to as a Him), this cheered us up a lot.
There was always a shortage of fresh was, especially at sea, the ships condensers ( converted salt water to fresh) could never keep up with demand. all fresh water tanks were spaced out along mess decks were padlocked and water could only obtained at specified hours. it was differ difficult to wash clothes and bathe - to own a bucket was essential, you had a good wash with one bowl of water to soap down, the remainder of the bucket to rinse.
In hot climates it was impossible to sleep below decks, and certainly not in a hammock. we all had our 'corkers' which was a strip of canvas with two blankets rolled into it and if you were sophisticated a pillow. the canvas kept the blankets clean since we slept on the wooden deck, we had to ensure that out caulker's was placed in a 'favorable' position on deck very early in the evening.
Most of us suffered from prickly heat (a rash caused by perspiration) Foot rot was also common, this was an extreme from of athletes foot but could affect the whole foot becoming a mass of sores, eventually leather sandals were issued to ventilate the feet.
JOHN DALE
The refit in Philly and Plymouth (late 41) had certain lower deck 5'' plating installed over vital areas . This made the ship over 30,000 tons and of course it helped to roll more. Consequently we were constantly busy chipping off paint in the upper works. Paint accounts for quite a few tons. I remember counting more than 15 layers. Some of the old sailors reckoned they could name a lot of the peacetime commissions by the colour of the layers of the paint we chipped off.
We were always short of fresh water, and those messdeck tanks did not need to be locked. The water in them was always warm and discoloured so we regarded it as undrinkable. Our life depended on numerous cups of tea ( hot---and sweated out almost immediately) plus ''Goffers'' (American term) from the NAAFI bar. Everybody owned (or shared) a bucket, and in the evening we were issued with a gallon a day for washing body and clothes. This had to done on the messdeck as the bathrooms (for want of a better name) were below, kept closed at sea. Then came the mopping up.
HARRY DOUGLAS DARBY
'During a slow convoy in the Indian ocean, we came across a tropical storm some distance from away. It was fairly quiet, so the captain ordered the ship away and made for this storm. Everybody including the ratings on watch was ordered to strip naked as we passed through this downpour (can you imagine it). The funniest part was, as we came out of it, some of the men had only just got themselves "soaped up" and the soap dried on them. They were hosed down with salt water.
About 300 of the men got off at Java, I think it was to go game hunting. they all went off in overalls and boots and came back later with bruises and blisters having seen nothing, while he'd been sitting on the shore in the boats, laughing about how the 300 of them would make so much noise, even the elephants would have run off!
JOHN DALE
I remember arriving at Mombasa on Resolution, and seeing the PT instructor running off the boat towards the towns football ground, he was very proud of RESO's team which was one of the best in the Royal navy, comprising of a few first division players including the Liverpool goalkeeper. so the match was arranged, the day came the crowds gathered the teams came out, the Mombasa team ran out without a pair of boots between them, the Resolution team may blame lack of match practice for the 10 -0 defeat they received that day, we may never know!
LAWRENCE CURTIS
There was always one time that nobody wanted aggravation, that was on your way home. I have always thought it strange that, since I really have nothing to come home to , you don't make friends or keep them at home, if you have been away from home from an early age. In fact I did not know anybody outside of my immediate family , with which I had not much in common, still the thought of going home was always upper most in your mind.
JOHN DALE
Ship and plane steered near enough into the wind. Then the ship (at max speed possible, without something leaking ???) executed a hard turn to Port or Starboard. The result was a large patch of smooth water on the lea side. If the pilot was clever he would alight on that and if timed right, he would be ready to charge into the middle of the ship as it came round the turn. By this time a hook on a crane was swung out, and the observer should reach up, hook on, and then be whisked out of the water before an unfriendly wave tipped them over Also, If my memory is still OK, the Walrus had a ''pusher'' propeller We were often glad we had its eyes.
HARRY DOUGLAS DARBY
"The main and quarter decks were made of steel covered with teak planks. These were scrubbed daily with saltwater and sand and so appeared almost white in colour. The gaps between the planking were filled with OAKUM. This was stands of rope pulled apart by seamen under punishment, and rolled in tar. The stokers or supply staff or seamans decks etc were covered in CORTESINE, which was a very thick kind of linoleum, yellowish brown, sort of a deep ochre in colour. This was very hard wearing."
HARRY DOUGLAS DARBY
'I joined the Reso as a replacement for someone who had jumped ship before she left Devonport. In late 1941, after she had returned from Philadelphia where she had been repaired the damage caused by being torpedoed. 'We left Daevonport the next day or so, the joined up with a large convoy of ships carrying troops for the North Africa do, having to go round the Cape, because the Med was 'out'. Also escorting the convoy was HMS RAMILLES (sister ship). Several cruisers and destroyers. '2 days from Cape Town, news came that the GNEISENAU & SCHARNHORST had left Brest (after supposingly being bombed relentlessly by our air-force) and it was feared they were coming out into the Atlantic to do what damage they could. We, RESOLUTION and REVENGE (along with other battleships from other stations) were ordered to leave the convoy to turn back to deal with this threat.
However, it turned out that they had in fact gone via the English Channel and North Sea to Norway. 'During this time "STRING BAGS"- Swordfish Bi-planes with 18" torpedoes, made several attacks on them. Naturally most of these were blown out of the sky. 'After a few days we were reordered back to our original job. This made us about 14 days behind schedule. 'While in Durban we had news that the PRINCE OF WALES and REPULSE (battle cruiser) had been sunk by the Japanese and Singapore had fallen. We were to have relieved them (RESO and RAMILLIES), and if had not been for the SCHARNHORST & GNEISENAU it would have been us.
'While still sailing across the Indian Ocean towards Singapore, we joined forces with REVENGE, ROYAL SOVEREIGN, RAMILLIES (sister ship of RESO) and WARSPITE, together with aircraft carriers ILLUSTRIOUS, INDOMITABLE, and INDEFATIGABLE, several cruisers of CITY class, COLONY class, and other including an old D class (DRAGON, I think). I can't remember all the names. Then we split up into 2 divisions, one with WARSPITE (with Admiral Sir James Somerville in overall charge) with the aircraft carriers and the modern cruisers, and the other division with Vice Admiral Willis (aboard RESO) as second in command, accompanied by the older ships. 'This division deviated into ADO ATOLL in the southern Maldive Islands (of which there are over 200 in all. This island like most of the Maldives at that time was virtually uninhabited, just a coral reef with palm trees. Very pretty, but nothing to do) to take on water from a water tanker and oil from an oil tanker.
After 2 or 3 days, when all the battleships were completed, we put out to sea again, heading towards Singapore, to meet the Japs we thought. The fleet contacted the Jap fleet and left the cruisers DORSETSHIRE and CORNWALL (county class) to shadow them, and we all turned back to ADU ATOLL ostensibly to water and oil again. In the meantime, news came through that DORSETSHIRE and CORNWALL had been sunk by dive bombers, one in 9 minutes and the other in 11 minutes. 'We left ADU ATOLL again, but we suddenly (that is the ordinary sailors) realised we were sailing in the opposite direction, in divided company again. A day or two later we heard that the old HERMES (carrier) coming out of COLOMBO was sunk together with 2 destroyers.
We carried on to Mombassa, to spend a very dreary 18 months with just the occasional slow convoy or so to look after (one in particular I remember was to Bombay at a speed of 3 knots!). 'Water was scarce, as soon as we left harbour, we were allotted 1 gallon a day per man. This was to provide drinking, washing, washing clothes, and our own mess decks. 'We used to put out from Mombassa to do practice firing at sea, and also, in combination with the carriers, practise doing dive-bombing. These planes of course were not designed for this, and 2 or 3 dived straight into the ocean. 'The "buzz" on the lower deck was that we had flown most of our aircraft on the land in Java, and that was the reason we "ran away" from the Japs. Where really the order came from, nobody knows, or if they do they will not say.