From the Rolls-Royce experimental archive: a quarter of a million communications from Rolls-Royce, 1906 to 1960's. Documents from the Sir Henry Royce Memorial Foundation (SHRMF).
Narrative account of naval engagements between M.G.B.s and E-boats, detailing tactical evolution and personnel experiences.
| Identifier | ExFiles\Box 175\1\ img024 | |
| Date | 12th April 1943 | |
| 34 THE BATTLE OF THE NARROW SEAS a quarter of an hour a second E boat came up astern. We turned to port to depth charge her, but got caught with cross fire instead, and the first E boat escaped. As we were only about 20 miles from Holland and on fire in the after compartment, we broke off and made back home—none the more victorious. However, we did engage them for twenty-five minutes, and that was worth waiting for since last August when I first joined an M.G.B. We ought to have done so many things which we did not, but we are a lesson to the good and there's still plenty of time for more.” How well Derek Leaf used that lesson, and the time, until he was killed in action off the Dutch coast, as Senior Officer of a flotilla, on 15th February, 1944, may be read later in this book. This inconclusive battle gave food for furious thought. Heretofore gunboat tactics had been developed on purely theoretical lines. Here at last was some practical experience to bite on. The next encounter came on 25th May. This time it was a long-range brush, and again the result was inconclusive, but there was more new material with which to develop the tactical theory of fighting E boats with M.G.B.s. “On midsummer night 1941,” writes Lt. Gotelee, “we fought an action with five E boats again in the neighbourhood of Brown Ridge, which lasted fifty-five minutes and ended in us pursuing the E boats practically to within sight of Ijmuiden. To the lasting credit of Rolls-Royce engines, the action was fought at full throttle for the whole time, and in the middle of it my motor mechanic crawled up to me in the dustbin and said, ‘For God’s sake stop, sir.’ I asked why, being extremely incensed at the time, and he said, ‘You have been running your engines on full throttle for so long that all the dynamos are on fire. Give me two minutes and I will pull the leads out.’ This he did without turning a hair and the party continued. By the time we had finished, one of my Browning guns was white hot.” But still the M.G.B.s. could not obtain a decision. They could not destroy an E boat, although the enemy realised that a new and potentially dangerous weapon was being forged against him. The flotilla suffered a setback during this early period, when their Oerlikon guns were taken away for the Mediterranean campaign. Some of the officers “got into a car, went to an Air Force Station near Felixstowe and managed to beg, borrow or steal one last-war Cow Gun, one experimental Hispano and a very old ‘J’. We made our own mountings and carried on with these weapons for over a month before we were again properly armed.” In August Lt. Howes was appointed to a Signals Course and Lt. Hichens was promoted Acting Lt. Cdr.{W. J. Chandler - Chief Clerk} and took over as Senior Officer of the flotilla, the first R.N.V.R. officer to serve in such a capacity. During the next year and a half the name of Robert Peverell Hichens became a legend in Coastal Forces. He was killed in action in the early hours of 13th April, 1943. On the following night I myself was leading a force of gunboats down into the Baie de la{L. A. Archer} Seine. Soon after nine o’clock one of the boats broke down and we all stopped while the repair was effected. In the silence as we lay there, someone shouted across, “Did you hear the nine o’clock news. Hitch has been killed.” Our patrol that night was uneventful, and I had long hours standing on the bridge peering into the darkness, long hours in which to think of the man I had known in peace-time and whom I had last seen only a few days before, when he had dined and stayed the night at my house in London. A fortnight later I had occasion to broadcast a B.B.C. Postscript for St.{Capt. P. R. Strong} George’s Day. After mention of the Coastal Force battles came the following passage about Hitch: “In this sort of fighting, as I suppose in any kind of specialised fighting, there are men who combine those particular qualities of cool leadership and complete knowledge of the technical side of their job so perfectly that their battles are successful where others fail. Such | ||