As a child you don’t really understand
much about ‘grown up’ stuff and in our little village the
kids certainly didn’t have any concept of the war that had
just ended. Looking back I think that all the older generation
tried to keep it away from us and in that they did a good
job. Naturally there was a lot of evidence about in smashed
buildings and strange signs that said things like ‘Danger
Keep Out Un-cleared ammunition area’, but to us they were
‘normal’. Then there were the damaged people, some in body,
some in mind and some in both - Captain (D) was one of the
latter.
I must confess to being rather ashamed
to have forgotten all about The Captain, he was rather a
unique character. What jogged the memory was that my son
got a DVD for me called ‘Sink The Bismarck’ it’s an old
film (about 1979) but I had, for one reason or another,
never seen it. I watched it last night and one 5 second
scene brought Captain (D) back to mind.
At the start of the war he was a full Commander and not
long after the onset of hostilities he was promoted to Captain
and put in charge of a flotilla of Destroyers, hence the
title ‘Captain (D)’. The first three years were tough going;
they staggered from one battle to another, never finding
any rest. In 1940 his fiancé was killed in an air-raid
on London and I guess this would have knocked the guy around
pretty bad, but it was in 1943 that something, to ultimately
ruin his life, struck.
There were four Brit destroys and they
were about to attack two German heavy cruisers. Now you
might think four against two was rather unsporting, well,
let me tell you, the might was certainly still on the German
side; they had the capacity to sink all four destroyers
(probably Tribals, I never knew) before the latter even
got into range. However, destroyers do have one sting in
their tail and that’s torpedoes each ship had six to a side
meaning that, in all, they could fire 48 of the things at
whoever annoyed them - BUT, you had to get rather close.
In my minds eye I can see the four ships,
in-line-abreast, coming out of the night with it’s weak
moon, engines at ‘full ahead’ (or ‘flank’ if you are American),
hurtling towards the two giant enemy vessels. Captain (D)
on the open bridge of his ship ordering the signalman to
sent to the other ships, ‘Close the range with dispatch’
then ... It wasn’t that his ship was hit and then sank, no,
it wasn’t like that at all.
His ship was hit and then just wasn’t there
anymore. Men closed up at guns and torpedoe stations, engineers
anxiously watching pressure gauges, damage control parties
closed up at stations ready to start repairs, all living
breathing creatures then, nothing, I doubt that they even
heard the shells coming. By what I was told the old girl
must have taken around four or five, 6 inch shells from
a single broadside and she wasn’t designed for that. Combined
with her own ammunition the explosion instantly vaporized
the ship and all but three who sailed in her. Captain (D)
and two boy bridge messengers survived by being flung high,
then into the sea. Naturally they all had shattered foot
and leg bones from the percussion through the deck. How
they survived to be picked up is another story and one sufficient
to have its own book - but picked up they were. One German
heavy cruiser sunk, one limped away badly damaged. From
the other side; one fleet destroyer sunk, two badly damaged
and on fire, but still with engines operational, one hardly
touched except that most of the bridge officers were killed
by shrapnel. So, three of the little family came home again.
Captain (D) spent the rest of the war in
hospital and then manning a desk at the Admiralty. He had
no family so, when peace came, he moved down to our village.
I think he didn’t want to be with people who knew him as
he had been - now he walked heavily dependent on a cane
and with his right foot turned out, at that time the damage
had just been too bad to fully repair. In the village he
always had the leg and foot problem, nobody knew him any
other way. He bought rather a nice house about a mile out
of the village and was looked after by a local couple who
‘lived in’ as cook/housekeeper and gardener/chauffeur, between
them they got on ‘right fine’.
So, the walking problem was brought into
the realm of being ‘handled’ but there was another problem.
At times Captain (D) would be found just sitting and weeping,
he used to whisper "Oh Missy, Oh Missy" you have to remember
his fiancé had been killed early on in the war. Whoever
was around would quietly sit beside him, and when the episode
was over would help get him back to his house. Nobody thought
much about it, it was the way of post war England, and I’m
sure many other countries.
Now this doesn’t mean that he had gone
soft, he certainly wasn’t that. Plain talking, absolutely
no political correctness (he would have loved that term)
appearing quite stern but in reality a very ‘nice’ man,
and a true gentleman. Even with his leg problems the single
ladies of the village were always twittering around, he
would have made a super catch for one of them. Alas they
were to be disappointed; however he did form a liaison with
Mrs. Pruce (widow) who ran the sweet shop come tobacconist
and she often got a bit red in the face when sprung leaving
his house.
I remember one very funny incident, but
you probably had to be there to appreciate it - however
I will try and explain.
The Captain and Mrs Pruce had come over for a summer afternoon
tea and dad and he had then sat back to enjoy a gin and
tonic or two, bit early in the day but all rules are meant
to be broken. Also turning up following the tea (no tea
was drunk) was the fete committee from the village, mostly
women but there was, if I remember correctly, one man. The
fete was held once a year and it was held in the grounds
of our house, we had a huge spot to the west of the main
building and it had great access to the road via double
gates.
Now I should explain that dad and The Captain could sit
and sip drinks for an hour without a word being spoken,
it was the sort of company where you didn’t feel obliged
to talk.
Anyway, the committee was there to decide which stall would
go where and they were making a real fist of it. This person
didn’t want to be near this person - this person couldn’t
man that stall because ... etc, etc, etc.
Suddenly there was a booming "Enough" and The Captain struggled
out of his chair and over to the long table where the committee
was sitting. "Stop this prattle at once" he loomed over
them and there was silence. "Now" he continued "You" pointing
at some little lady with his walking stick "Find a tin".
"What for"? she stammered.
"Just do it you blasted female, ask the lady of the house
USE YOUR BRAIN FOR ONCE" .
"Now look here" Mrs Elliot (a leader in the community) started
to get to her feet. "You mustn’t talk to the committee like
that". The Captain swung around to face this new threat
his stick about an inch from her very ample chest. "Sit
down" he yelled "Or by god and bad favour I will chuck the
lot of you into the street" - she sat down.
A tin was produced and on the captain's instructions the
names of all the stalls were placed on slips of paper and
put in the tin. Then my mother (who was desperately trying
not to laugh) pulled out the stall names and placed then
on the map in the spots designated for a stall.
"Now’ said The Captain "that is where each stall will be
- does anybody have any objections"? there were no objections
- the meeting was over - all was decided. Dad and The Captain
got back to their gin and tonics.
Even at a young age I think it was assumed
that one day (as I did) I would enter the Royal Navy. I
remember that The Captain once gave me a valuable bit of
advice, he said: -
"Any good captain knows that there are two sets of rules
that apply. In peacetime a captain’s first duty is to his
crew and second duty to his ship. In wartime his first duty
is to his ship and second to the crew - live by that rule
and you won’t go far wrong".
I was actually serving when he died, it
was a great loss to the village. I think that he also built
walls to keep past horrors away, but with age these walls
get weak and stuff comes back to haunt you. The women of
the village all said that he died of a broken heart - and
who are we to disagree? One interesting fact that did come
to light was about ‘Missy’. We had all assumed that this
was his fiancé but we were wrong. Captain (D) actually
had two loves in his life, one his finance and the other
was ‘Missy’ the ship’s cat.
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