WITH THE M.T.Bs
Excerpts from a letter of a Sub-Lieutenant of the HKRNVR (Cuthbert J. Collingwood, MTB 11) to his brother.
The Wavy Navy was not so bad and not so hot. I had a three months’ course in navigation, signaling, seamanship, minelaying and gunnery.
We had converted tugs as minesweepers with three or four officers on each. Most of the time was spent on minefield patrol, a most boring business, about four days on and three days off in the usual week.
The job was dangerous and exciting at times, though rendering mines safe which had broken adrift was not always a cinch. Usually they were covered with about six inches of barnacles and seaweed. This had to be chipped off to get through to one of the small rings on the side to which one could attach a rope to anchor the darned thing until it could be picked up and towed away to the depot. All this while perched in a tiny dinghy with a heavy swell on or while swimming around if the weather was too rough for a dinghy. Of course the idea was not to knock off any of the horns in the process. We were told that all British mines automatically rendered themselves safe upon coming adrift but we had seen too many blow up on hitting the rocks to trust to that.
Then after six months I had the stroke of luck to which I owe my freedom at the present moment. I and two others were transferred to the MTB Flotilla for six months’ training. Boy, after the Wavy Navy the MTBs were heaven.
I soon got to know the Hong Kong area pretty well and could have gone round anywhere with my eyes shut. In wet weather or bad weather you might as well have your eyes shut in an MTB anyhow for all you can see. But the thrill of the speed and efficiency was a never ceasing miracle.
And then came the war. We were due to return from two days’ patrol when we first heard the news at about six o’clock in the morning. I wasn’t in the least shocked.
It seemed so unreal. It was a beautiful day with the sky half covered with big woolly clouds. The harbour looked so peaceful with all the shipping lying about and sampans crossing to and fro as if there was nothing up. The Japs started diving out of the clouds, bombing the dockyards on the Kowloon side and then zooming back out of sight. There was a little tracer going up but they were only in sight for a few seconds at a time and the AA was ineffective. The yellow clouds of smoke puffing up from hits round the docks really looked not unnatural. A big fire was burning over the hill, but I couldn’t see what it was.
We evacuated the Kowloon dockyards, according to pre-arranged plan and went over to the south side of the harbour to the Aberdeen dockyard. Kowloon fell not many days later and I never set foot on that side again.
Then the bombing started. The first three days the sirens went but were useless, as no sooner had the ‘all clear’ gone than more would come over. In fact, we soon took no notice of them whatsoever, and they soon packed up – may have been hit for all I know.
They left the dockyard alone for the first few days or failed to hit it. We had the use of a drydock which had the gates removed, in which to berth our boats, but didn’t like using it much as one good hit in the centre would have destroyed the whole lot of them. I had just managed to obtain a cup of tea and was sitting on the side of the dock beside one of the boats when – you know the sound – a stick right across the dockyard. We never even heard or saw them.
We had a lovely time putting out the first fire in the paint shed using trailer pumps. We had about ten hoses going and I don’t know if you’ve ever tried holding a fire hose under pressure but I tell you it’s one of the most tiring things I know.
They had a much worse blitz days later when 27 heavy bombers dropped their loads together on the dockyard from 23,000 feet, not bad shooting for anyone. They really had rotten luck again and again as their bombing was rather too accurate to be at all comfortable and missed things by mere fractions. There was a straight line of small shipping down the centre of the fairway – there wasn’t room to stagger them – and they dropped them in between every time.
Our job was night patrolling outside on the lookout for a nice juicy battleship to make an attack on. It was pretty hard work though not very active. Of course, we had to keep watches three on and three off and I don’t think I got more than an average of three or four hours sleep in the twenty-four during the whole siege.
We went out one evening on what you would call a sweep. Two sub-divisions of two boats each. Off Macao in the West River, we saw the light of Macao go on and then off and then on and then off (sorry I mean off and then on) (Macao was then as now a neutral port and had no blackout) and knew that something was there which should not be.
We turned round and started to creep up on them as quietly as possible as we couldn’t tell whether they were battle ships or junks. Suddenly without warning, on went two searchlights bang on us. You probably know what it feels like. Now I know what those bugs must have felt that we used to catch in our younger days. Our other boat fired one fish, why we didn’t I don’t know and we both shot off, roaring, zigzagging away at full speed and they let us have everything they had. It wasn’t very much, 4.7 inch, pompoms, and m/c gun I think, and although they were taken by surprise they came uncomfortably close to us. I have never felt so terrified in my life before. The trouble was that I had nothing to do but watch, as my captain was conning the boat. We got out of range of their searchlights in about five minutes.
About ten minutes later we heard firing again in the distance and on going up to inspect saw our other two boats having a shot at them. So while the fun was going on we slipped up unnoticed and gave them another fish. The other two boats fired two fish and we hoped that at least one of the four hit its mark. A few days later a Tokyo broadcast was picked up announcing slight damage to two light Naval units near Hong Kong. They were destroyers or large modern minelayers we reckon, and the damage was probably more than slight. So ended my first engagement. We never had another serious one like it against ships.
The morning after the Japs landed on the Island, though we didn’t know that they had at the time owing to breakdown in communications or mistake on someone’s part which nearly cost us our lives, we were ordered to go round the island and down the harbour and break up a landing-craft. Two boats went in, overturned the landing-craft with their washes and machine gunned them as they passed. Coming back they had one man, no two, killed in the engineroom by plane cannon bullets, we found later.
Then my boat and another went in. We didn’t know what was in store for us as we passed the other two boats on our way out and didn’t have time to pass any messages. The harbour is about a mile to half a mile wide. The Japs, we knew, had the whole of the Kowloon side but what we didn’t know and ought to have been told was that they had half the island side as well.
No sooner had we passed the Kowloon point than they let us have it, from both sides. Field guns at point blank range, machine guns, rifles and planes dive-bombing and machine gun and cannoning us. Merry hell was let loose and only our speed and the fact that we were zigzagging wildly all the time saved us. We shot right down the harbour, could see nothing to attack and had to come back the same way.
I was squatting outside the conning tower, behind one of the depth charges with a stripped-Lewis gun in my hands and a rating handing me fresh pans. There was nothing concrete to fire at but the flashes of their guns and the direction in which the splashes of the machine gun fire came from, but I fired off fourteen pans of ammunition before my gun finally got red-hot and jammed. It was jammed all the time and I don’t think I have done a quarter of an hour’s such good solid swearing in my life before. I remember thinking if we were hit, we were hit and that would be the end of us so I might as well not worry about it but just attend to the gun. Our two twin Lewis guns for’ard and aft were going for all they were worth and it was a hectic time.
The other boat with us never came back. We heard later that she had been hit and caught fire. One man later managed to swim ashore, I believe, but the rest were lost. We had quite a few bullet holes through the hull and our coxswain got one through the throat, not enough to stop him bringing the boat back though. I don’t know to this day how the rest of us came out alive.
On the way back we stopped round the corner to signal to shore not to send any more boats out as there was nothing to attack and met the next two boats coming out. We were cruising along at about eight knots when the other two started to fire at something. I looked up and the first thing that caught my eye was a bomb not more than fifty yards away coming straight at the boat. The plane, at which they were firing, had just pulled out of its dive above us but we hadn’t heard it because of the sound of our motors and were pretty well shaken up from what we had been through. I think I shall see that bomb till my dying day. It missed us as we were under weigh and dropped a few yards astern without doing any damage but lifting us out of the water a foot.
One of the other boats, in spite of our signals, went on in. They never came back. I heard the other day that the captain and one of the ratings had been saved, though badly wounded, when it drifted ashore on the Kowloon side after being riddled by m/c gun fire.
We got back to our base and were, metaphorically speaking, licking our wounds when we got another shock. The order came through for all ships in harbour to be scuttled. We emphatically refused to scuttle, because among other reasons we were determined never to give up our boats to the Japs but to make a break for it at the last moment.
Around us was about the most miserable sight that could greet any seaman’s eyes; ships in all stages of being sunk, not by enemy action but by our own hands. It was certainly a black morning.
It was certainly lucky for the defenders that we hadn’t scuttled. We were used for every type of work possible, certainly not the type of work for which the boats were designed: ferrying troops, stores and ammunition, patrol work, messenger work, evacuating troops off rocky shores at night and anything else that happened to be needed to be done at the time. We were the only boats left afloat except two gunboats and were literally invaluable.
Then the high authorities got wind of our intentions to beat it after there was nothing left to fight for. They were interested in getting away from the Island Admiral Chan Chak, China’s No.2 Admiral, some of his staff and some higher British Officers and decided to combine the two parties. Three or four days before the end we were under official orders to get away at the last moment at all costs after picking up the official party. Were we selfishly pleased? It was a chance. It was obvious that the Island could not hold out very much longer. That meant that we had to keep a constant lookout and the guns manned nearly all the time. We had many near misses both from trench mortars and from aerial bombs, but it wouldn’t have been so bad if we had not been in the very close proximity of 10,000 gallons of aviation spirit.
At last Christmas Day dawned. A beautiful day, warm and sunny. We were round the back of one of the small islands and except for a distant explosion every now and again you would never have thought that there was a war on. I thought of the Christmas Day a year ago with M. and Jens and Kamma in Shanghai. It seemed ten years ago. Someone managed to get hold of a bottle of champagne somewhere and we had a drink with our not very special Christmas dinner. A few planes were around but didn’t seem to notice us or at any rate didn’t bother us. Little did we realize the hell that the wretched chaps on the other side of the Island were going through.
At three o’clock in the afternoon we received a signal that the white flag had been put up and that the Island was surrendering. It was a rotten shame. Our losses on land had been tremendous; later when I think of what happened in Malaya and at Singapore I am filled with pride at the thought of the really marvellous show which had been put up by the Island’s defenders. At the end, after about ten days of non-stop fighting against heavy odds, with hardly any sleep, food or rest and with no reserves at all, they were out-numbered about five to one, but they didn’t give in until the Japs had taken about three quarters of the Island and that what was left was mostly residential sections with nearly a million civilian population.
Suddenly, over the top of the island behind which we were sheltering, appeared a figure. He scrambled down to the water’s edge and tried to shout to us but as he was about two hundred yards away all we could hear was, ‘There’s lots more Japs behind me coming in a minute’.
Of course he meant ‘chaps’ or rather we interpreted it as ‘Japs’, and we got in quite a flap as we were at anchor and an easy target for any machine guns from the top of the hill. We weighed anchor as fast as we could and one boat edged in to try to pick up the chap who had shouted to us.
Suddenly over the top of the hill appeared five heads. The Japs we all thought. I happened to be on aircraft watch at the time with a loaded stripped-Lewis gun in my hands and without any more ado I let them have the whole pan of tracer. They bobbed down pretty quickly and I fairly sprayed the rocks behind which they were hiding. Then we saw the chap on shore waving wildly and found out that it was the party for which we had been waiting for so long that I was merrily trying to exterminate.
They had had quite an adventure. They managed to get hold of a small motor launch and had set off in search of us as neither they nor HQ knew exactly where we were hiding, although we were in w/t touch with them all the time. Unfortunately they took the wrong channel, and had to pass by one bank which the Japs held. They took a hell of a beating from machine gun fire until the motor stopped and three men were killed or wounded. Then they decided to swim for it. The Admiral, who had only one leg, was wounded in the wrist also but somehow he made it and climbed over the top of the island without his wooden leg.
Except for three who didn’t reach shore they all got on board safely. In the meantime mine and another boat were ordered to go round to another bay and pick up two other boats who had been sheltering there all the day. The starters on two of our three motors wouldn’t start so we had to trail in the two dead motors. We were just crossing the entrance to the harbour when a Jap mountain battery saw us and opened fire. It was a tense minute until the motors started up and we could cut adrift from the other boats as we couldn’t manoeuvre tied together.
All went well, however, and the three of us joined the other boats at about half-past eight that night. About half past nine we started off, five MTBs, in line ahead, headed for the open sea and heaven knows what. The moon was not yet up luckily and we got about ten miles out before it showed up. Then it was one of the loveliest nights I had ever been out in. The sea was as calm as a mill pond and the wind warm.
After about two hours we saw the searchlights of a Jap warship some miles off who had obviously heard our motors but she never spotted us and we passed out of sight. It took about two hours more to get to our final destination, connect up with the guerillas through Chan Chak and start unloading our stores and guns etc. on the beach. We worked all night and just before dawn had stripped the boats of everything of use or value.
Then came the rottenest part; having to sink our boats, the boats we had lived in for the last seven or eight months, in my case, in others the last two years or so. Thank heaven I was not present to see them go down or take any part in their destruction. I was on shore superintending the disposal of the stores.
In the meantime another diesel launch had managed to get out of Hong Kong and made her way to the pre-arranged rendezvous, with about eight volunteers and a high Naval Officer on board. By dawn we were marching inland, leaving behind the heavy part of our stores, which incidentally we never saw again.
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