In November 1941 Rommel was at the gates of Cairo and Tobruk is besieged., The Royal Navy is charged with disrupting the Axis supply lines and supplying Tobruk by sea, Only fast ships can attempt this ,as to be caught near Tobruk in daylight meant constant air attacks. Tobruk is being supplied by destroyers and the famous fast minelayer" Abdiel". However the jetty has now been badly damaged and it was decided to despatch HMS Glenroy with an army working party and a cargo of 'Caiques; or Jaffa boats. The idea being to unload from the jetty on one side and the caiques on the other thus speeding overnight unloading.
So they stripped off the landing craft and loaded 8 ciaques and put a working party of troops aboard . Accordingly Glenroy was despatched with the A.A Class cruiser Carlyle as escort. At approximately 1600 hrs just as we where about to have Sunday tea in the mess Our Pom pom poms opened up, Then there was an almighty explosion , A torpedo bomber had shot over the hills . Our fighter escort was away being refuelled We were caught off guard . The ship which is really a living thing with the movement and the noise of fans etc, was dark silent and still.The Tannoy announces "abandon ship “there was no "Action stations";it all happened so fast, the ship was like a log in the water. the torpedo had ripped into no 5 hold and flooded everything. I think we were caught on the hop because for the first time in the war,we had a fighter airplane flying over us. Fighter escort.Ubelievable! the Grumman Martlet had gone by the time I got on deck. There seems confusion as to whether the torpedo was from a uboat or from an Italian torpedo bomber which had suddenly popped up over the coastline. The U boats had recently appeared and claimed to Battleship HMS Barham the day before,22/11/41 The different temperatures of the sea due to the waters of the Nile with fresh and salt water layers made ASDIC detection difficult. but IT WAS A TORPEDO BOMBER.We had hugged the coast where it was shallow to avoid the u boats but this also gave the torpedo bombers an element of surprise just sweeping in over the coastal hills before they were detected .
I just could not believe she was sinking and stayed aboard watching most go over the side.
We mustered at our boat stations, mine was a carley float which was dropped into the water, Just a few feet ,as the ship was only six inches from sinking, The majority of the crew and army personnel went aft to be taken off by destroyer. I clambered down the nets into the float tied near the stern, but then the boatswain said. " Chippy back aboard "by then the Captain must have thought the ship might be saved. 22 of us scrambled back aboard as a skeleton crew. A line was passed to a destroyer and we were towed to a sandbar where the ship settled.We had no power no lights, no cooking facilities and no water. Our freeboard aft was under a foot,originally it was fifteen. No 6 hold and the tiller flat was keeping us afloat. We beached off Mersa Matrus and waited for the salvage pumps to come up by road from Alexandria,..
Abandoning the ship . Troops being taken off by the destroyer HMS FARNDALE which took the troops on to TOBRUK.
Destroyers NAPIER NIZAN KIPLING JACKAL and HASTY ordered to assist..
sloop FLAMINGO and TUG ST Issey departed Alexandra to assist.
