FROM BELLOCHANTUY TO BERLIN

THE STORY OF A FISHERMAN'S WAR

and
THE SINKING OF HDML 1227

1
Peter Blackstock was busy at his usual task of 'baiting and potting creels' on his small lobster
boat, the "Rescue (CN 78)", just off the Bellochantuy shore, on the west side of Kintyre,
nothing unusual in that one might think except for the fact that Peter had just come back from
war, a war that had taken him away from his native Kintyre for half a decade and a war that
had taken him across the breadths of England and The Mediterranean and, in its last days had
seen him captured and imprisoned in Germany's notorious Stalag IIIA, at Luckenwalde, before
his return home.

Brought up on the western shores of Kintyre, that great natural breakwater which protects the
coast of Ayrshire from the ravages of The Atlantic Ocean's weather systems, Peter Blackstock,
like many other fishermen, had volunteered to join the navy, rather than be conscripted into
the army, as tension mounted between Britain and Germany in the final years of the 1930's,
the Blackstocks of Bellochantuy 'small boatmen' long familiar with ways of the sea and the
sometimes horrendous conditions thrown up by The Atlantic's weather systems.

Like the great majority of those who fought in the conflict, Peter had told nothing of his story
to his family, nor indeed to anyone else, until he finally fell victim to Alzheimer's Disease and
his daughter, Janette, only then able to glean some parts of the story of his war through his,
by then, occasional and involuntary flashbacks to events in earlier years and the key to the
latter years of Peter's war lying in a Royal Naval Patrol Service plaque, bearing the name of at
least one his ships, 'ML 1227', which had been sent to him after an RNPS crew's reunion in
Lowestoft.

After her father's passing, intrigued by the little she had learned of his war story, Janette
managed to track down two of his shipmates and, thanks to their accounts of events and of
course 'The Internet', it has been possible to reconstruct some of the story in detail.

The advantages of using small ships for minesweeping and other duties had first been
recognised during WWI and many of the crews of the peacetime fishing fleets had been
encouraged to join The Royal Naval Reserve in the run up to WWII, the reservists themselves,
as somebody acutely observed, essentially 'a navy within a navy' and so, Peter, a reservist,
called up in May 1940, was ordered to Lowestoft to join The Royal Naval Patrol Service.

Lowestoft, the most easterly point of Britain and then the closest geographical point to the
enemy, was chosen to become the main base of The Royal Naval Patrol Service, when The
Royal Naval Reserves were mobilised in August 1939, the base then named HMS "Europa",
'The Sparrow's Nest', the name originating from one of its former owners and, before being a
pleasure park, it had been a country estate and one time home of The Marchioness of
Salisbury.

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Once, when asked about the war, Peter said that the most scary part of it was the train
journey to Lowestoft !

Sadly today, The Royal Navy's Pensions and Records Department, because of missing and
lost files, can only confirm Peter's pay records for his training periods at HMS "Europa", at
Lowestoft and later at HMS "Beaver" in Hull.

The only information that can perhaps be usefully added here about Peter's initial years with
the RNPS is that Lowestoft's HMS "Europa", it decommissioned in 1946, became the
administrative headquarters for the service's more than 70,000 men and 6,000 boats, these
including trawlers, whalers, drifters, MFV's (Motor Fishing Vessels), ML's (Motor Launches),
MMS (Motor Minesweepers) and numerous other miscellaneous requisitioned vessels of all
descriptions, many of the early fleet, such as the requisitioned trawlers crewed by ex-
fishermen, out-dated and poorly armed and, poking fun at the motley fleet, it became known
as 'Harry Tate's Navy, after the WWI music hall entertainer and comedian Harry Tate, who
would play the clumsy comic who couldn't get to grips with various contraptions, one of his
act's including a car that gradually fell apart around him.

While the RNPS crews took it on the chin and proudly adopted the title, 'Harry Tate's Navy',
as the war went on, it was to become a worthy password for courage, the crews often
referred to as "Churchill's Pirates" or "The Sparrows".

The RNPS crews and ships were to fight in all theatres of the war, from The Arctic to The
Mediterranean and from The Atlantic to The Far East and, whilst at first being largely involved
in convoy duty, minesweeping and anti-submarine work, most particularly keeping the British
Coast clear of the German U-Boat laid mines that were to wreak havoc with inward and
outward-bound merchant ships, the RNPS crews and ships were also to play their part in the
D-Day landings and in 'covert operations' elsewhere, they landing agents and commando
groups in enemy occupied territories denied to bigger ships.

It was dangerous work from the start and, between September 1939 and May 1945, 260
trawlers were lost in action and, of the 15,000 or so RNPS personnel who were killed during
WWII, 2,385 RNPS seamen "have no known grave but the sea".

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Seemingly, after training, Peter went to the minesweepers, the converted trawlers and, he
already long about the sea and
small boats, Peter became one of the lookouts, well able to spot any loose mines floating on
the surface and these then rather crudely detonated with shots from some of the ship's old
and trusty .303 Lee Enfield rifles but, as in the case of the photograph here, showing Peter
standing behind the ship's gun, neither the name of this ship, or for that matter any of the
other ships that he might have served on, except one, are known and we can but speculate
on Peter's service in the early years of the war, his daughter Janette having her father Peter's
silver Royal Naval Patrol Service badge and his campaign medals - an Atlantic Star, an Africa
Star, with a clasp for North Africa; an Italy Star and of course a 1939 - 1945 war medal.

Prior to the beginning of hostilities, The Royal Naval Patrol Service served without any
distinguishing badges and, in a memo dated October 12, 1939, Winston Churchill, as First
Sea Lord, wrote to the Fourth Sea Lord, "I am told that the mine-sweepers' men have no
badge. If this is so, it must be remedied at once. I am asking Mr Bracken to call for designs
from Sir Kenneth Clark within one week, after which production must begin with the greatest
speed and distribution as the deliveries come to hand", never before had one section of The
Royal Navy been so honoured.

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Measuring roughly the size of an old shilling, the new RNPS badge was designed by Kruger
Gray, a well known artist and medal designer and the design symbolising the work of both the
minesweeping and the anti-submarine personnel.

The finished design takes the form of a shield upon which a sinking shark, speared by a
marline spike, is set against a background made up of a fishing net with two trapped enemy
mines. This is flanked by two examples of the nautical knot and at the top the naval crown,
beneath the badge was a scroll bearing the letters 'M/S - A/S', standing for 'Minesweeping
Anti-Submarine'.

The shark symbolises a U-boat and the marline spike the tool of The Merchant Navy, the net
and the mines both symbols of the fishermen at war seeking a new deadly catch.

Whilst the badge was awarded to RNPS officers and crews after a total of six months service at
sea, it could also be awarded to anyone showing worthy conduct while engaged in action
even before they had completed their sea time.

And so we come to Peter's last and only specifically known 'boat', a Harbour Defence Motor
Launch, 'HDML 1227' - the difference between a ship and a boat being that a ship can carry
a boat BUT, rather obviously, a boat cannot carry a ship !

HDML 1227 was built in Kent by The Sittingbourne Shipbuilding Company and, according to
records, was, at least, launched, if not actually completed, on November 24, 1942.

She could have taken part in the D-day landings in June 1944 BUT AGAIN, there are neither
surviving records of the early part of her life, nor indeed are we to know when and where
Peter Blackstock may have joined her, as a 2nd gunner and, in the absence of such
information, we shall turn our attention immediately to a full description of 'the boat' itself,
the details taken from the ever-useful online 'Wikipedia'.

HDML's were originally intended for the defence of estuarial and local waters, they proved
such a sea-kindly and versatile design that they were used in every theatre of operation as the
war progressed. They were to be found escorting convoys off The West Coast of Africa,
carrying out covert activities in The Mediterranean and undertaking anti-submarine patrols off
Iceland.

To begin with, HDML's for foreign service were transported as deck cargo on larger ships,
which is why the length was restricted to 72 feet. However, later in the war, with many
merchant ships being sunk, it was found to be much safer to steam them abroad under their
own power and some HDML's, including HDML 1301, undertook fairly substantial ocean
voyages.

Many belonging to The Mediterranean Fleet sailed from the UK to Malta via Gibraltar in
convoys, voyages which necessitated going well out into The Atlantic in order to keep clear of
the enemy occupied coast. Three HDML's were fitted with a second mast and sails with the
intention of sailing to The Caribbean but, in the event, they did not make this voyage and too
joined The Mediterranean Fleet.

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The HDML's were designed by W. J. Holt, later known best for his post-war yacht designs,
whilst at The Admiralty in early 1939.

During World War II 486 HDML's were built, mainly by yacht builders in the United Kingdom
and some too a number of other Allied countries where, because of their later expanded
combat roles in some Commonwealth navies, some HDMLs were re-designated as Seaward
Defence Motor Launches (SDML) or Seaward Defence Boats (SDB).

The HDML's had a displacement hull of 72 feet (22 m) long with a beam of 16 feet (4.9 m), a
loaded draught of 5 feet (1.5 m) and a loaded displacement of 54 tons.

Their hulls had pronounced flares forward, to throw their bow waves clear and to provide a
considerable lift that prevented all but the heaviest seas from coming aboard and, although
'sea-kindly', they had a considerable tendency to roll, especially when taking seas at
anything other than right angles.

The cause, surprisingly, was their considerable reserve of stability, the effect of which was to
impart a powerful righting moment if the ship was pushed over in a seaway, this, coupled
with their round bilged hulls and lack of bilge keels, would set up a rapid and violent rolling
motion.

Despite all, the HDML crews would soon gain an enviable reputation for their skill and
expertise in the handling and
fighting of their vessels.

One of The Admiralty's design criteria was that the HDML's had to be capable of turning within
the turning circle of a submerged submarine and, to achieve this, the HDML's were fitted with
two very large rudders and, to reduce the resistance to turning, their keels ended 13 feet
6
from their sterns, a side effect of this being that their hulls lacked directional stability and
were extremely difficult to hold on a straight course.

Their hulls were of round bilge wooden construction, planked with two diagonally opposed
skins with a layer of oiled calico between them, what is called "double-diagonal" construction,
the hulls completed with frames or "timbers" riveted
perpendicularly from the keel to the gunwale on the inside of the planking and forming very
strong constructions.

The hulls were further strengthened by the addition of longitudinal stringers riveted inside the
timbers together with further timbers, known as "web frames" fastened inside the stringers
opposite every third main timber and all the HDML's were fitted with a deeper section rubbing
strake aft, its purpose being to roll the depth charges, kept and delivered from racks on the
side decks, clear of the hull and propellers.

Most HDML hulls were planked in mahogany, but later in the war when this became scarce,
larch was used although this tended to lead to leaky hulls.

The decks were also of 'double-diagonal' construction and generally made of softwood. Ships
operating in tropical waters, including The Mediterranean, were sheathed in copper below the
waterline to prevent attack by marine borer worms etc..

In order to lessen the chances of ships sinking in the event of damage to the hull, they were
divided into six watertight compartments and, provided that the bulkheads were not
damaged, the ship could remain afloat with any one compartment flooded.

HDML's, normally manned by Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve (RNVR) officers with temporary
commissions and "hostilities only" ratings, were designed to accommodate a crew of 10.
There were berths for 6 ratings in the fore cabin, which also contained a galley coal fired
stove, 'Admiralty Pattern 3160', in the forepeak, was a 'Baby Blake' sea toilet and hand wash
basin.

The officers were berthed in the after end of the ship; the petty officers being in a cabin on
the port side just aft of the engine room, they having their own separate toilet and hand wash
basin and a small "Courtier" coal fired stove was provided for heating their accommodation.

The commissioned officers had comparatively roomy accommodation in the wardroom aft,
although it suffered from being situated above the propeller shafts and was subject to a
certain amount of noise and vibration. The wardroom also contained the ship’s safe, a dining
table and seating, a wine and spirit locker, a small coal stove and a tiny foot-bath.

The ship’s radio room was a small compartment situated aft on the starboard side, adjacent
to the petty officers' toilet.

The main steering position was on the open bridge where the two engine room telegraphs
were fitted. There were also voice pipes connected to the inside steering position, the engine
room, the radio room and the wardroom.

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On the main deck, the chartroom, which contained the chart table, a casual berth and a
second steering position. On the forward bulkhead was fitted the navigational switchboard,
which included a duplicate set of engine revolution indicators, switches for the navigation
lights, "Kent" clear-view screens and the "action-stations" alarm.
To begin with, the HDML's were commonly fitted with a QF, "quick firing", 2-pounder gun on
the foredeck, universally known as the 'pom-pom', from the sound that the original models
were reported to make when firing, the 2-pounder guns, known as such in that they fired a
projectile with a weight of 2 pounds, used famously as an anti-aircraft guns by The Royal
Navy, were, properly, 1.575 inch (40 mm) auto-cannons, the 2-pounder guns were not
particularly accurate, even less so in view of the HDML's tendency to roll and many were
replaced by another Oerlikon High Angle/Low Angle gun to supplement the Oerlikon 20 mm
High Angle/Low Angle cannon on the HDML's stern cabin, these also used for anti-aircraft
defence.

In addition to these 'main armaments', the HDML's were also fitted with 0.303 Vickers
machine guns on each side of the bridge, the Vickers, a modified version of the Maxim
Machine-Gun, using a 250 round fabric-belt magazine, had been adopted as The British
Army's standard machine gun in 1912, it proving a highly reliable weapon.

That Peter Blackstock himself sailed as 2nd gunner on 'HDML 1227' and that the story focuses
particularly on a gun action with the enemy, an appendix describing these various weapons in
detail will be found at the end of this document.

And so we can perhaps begin to tell what is known of Peter Blackstock's story, that story
largely given us through the eyes of one of HDML 1227's stokers, James Arthur Joy, who had
been in North Africa and then sent on to Malta where, in July 1944, he was drafted to join the
HDML and meet up with Peter Blackstock.

As noted earlier, HDML 1227 was built in Kent by The Sittingbourne Shipbuilding Company
and, according to records, was, at least, launched, if not actually completed, on November
24, 1942, a photograph of her crew, which includes Peter Blackstock himself, taken against
a rather 'English' background and suggesting perhaps that Peter, after service in The Atlantic,
8
had joined the boat when she was first commissioned and then would have met our 'insider',
stoker Joy, when he joined the boat in Malta.

Joy had been told simply that the boat was going on special service duties and, all being well,
he would be back in England for Christmas, the boat then sailing from Malta to Italy and to
Brindisi, where he spent a week in hospital with sand fly fever before rejoining '1227'. Going
ashore the night before sailing again, he remembers having 'quite a lot to drink' and then
going into a church where, as everyone was praying, he said his prayers as well, before
making his way back to the boat.

Next morning, the chief engineer apparently somewhat 'under the weather', the captain
asked Joy if he could 'manage to see to the engines' and thus '1227' sailed for enemy occupied
Yugoslavia and on round the coast to Greece and an unoccupied island which, with a supply
ship to hand, would be their base for the next six weeks or so, the boat(s) covered over with
camouflage nets in daytime, so they could not be seen by the German's reconnaissance
planes.

The photograph here would appear to have been taken following the boat's re-fuelling, half a
dozen heavy duty hoses in the forefront of the picture and many more men present than
would have actually formed the boat's crew.

Now the boat's job was to take the Special Boat Service and the long range Desert Troop
officers and men to different islands and the mainland so that they could link up with the
partisans, this reconnaissance work done at night and the boat carrying two canoes to ferry
everyone to and from the shore, the usual procedure being land the shore parties and then
return for them two or three nights later.

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Though the Germans were pulling out as quick as they could to get back to Germany, the
shore parties took quite a few German prisoners and, on one of the boat's trips to mainland
Kithera, where the Germans had just pulled out, the boat's crew had gone ashore themselves
and been made most welcome by the locals.

The Germans however were then still holding Athens and quite a few of the other islands,
their retreat severely hampered by their lack of transport generally, not least the lack of ships
and boats to evacuate their troops from the islands.

On the night of October 5, 1944, 'HDML 1227' was on special service duty in The
Mediterranean, just off the Greek island of Kythira and, having earlier put Special Boat
Service and Desert Troops ashore and into the German-occupied areas for reconnaissance
work.

After waiting offshore, out of sight of land and, in the light of a full moon, 'HDML 1227' began
making her way back inshore to collect them and then, near midnight, the lookouts sighted
what seemed to be another British ship signalling on the horizon but, within minutes, it
caught sight of the silhouette of the HDML and opened up its guns.

Joy, who was down below in the engine room as the enemy ship's red tracers began coursing
their way through the boat, pushed himself and the chief engineer down between the boat's
engines to save them from getting hit and shouted,

"Chief, if you haven't said your prayers, you'd better say them now".

They had in fact run straight into an enemy defensive minelaying operation being conducted
by not one, but indeed two, German torpedo boat destroyers belonging to the Torpedoboot
Ausland, the "foreign torpedo boat" class of the German Kriegsmarine.

The former Italian-built Ariete class "Spada" and the "Daga", now renumbered respectively TA
38 and TA 39, had been transferred from The Adriatic to the Kriegsmarine's 9th Torpedo Boat
Flotilla in The Aegean and well out-classed and out-gunned the HDML.

The 15 torpedo boats of the Ariete class, designed on the eve of WWII, were the largest class
of ships captured by the German Kriegsmarine after the Italian surrender in September 1943,
albeit that none of the ships were actually completed at this time, 11 of the ships on the
builders' stocks at Trieste and Rijeka, the remaining four not even having had their keels laid.

Designed to engage light enemy naval forces, submarines and torpedo boats, to escort the
convoys and to serve as minelayers, the 696 displacement ton Ariete class ships were 83.5 m
(273 ft 11 in) long, had a beam of 8.62 m (28 ft 3 in), a draft of 3.15 m (10 ft 4 in) and,
driven by twin "Tosi" steam turbines producing 22,000 hp and twin boilers, had a design
speed of 31.5 knots, the ships being crewed by 6 officers and 152 ratings.

10
Armed with 2 100 mm (3.9 in) guns in towers, 10 20 mm (0.79 in) anti-aircraft guns, the
Ariete class were also given 6 450 mm (18 in) torpedo tubes and could carry up to 28 mines.

Completed and fitted out by the Germans, the ships, being allowed to keep their original
names, the TA, Torpedoboot, Ausland – torpedo boat, foreign, designation and numbers
then added, were then assigned to the the 10th Tflottila in The Adriatic for mine laying,
escort and coastal defence duties.

The Germans commissioned TA 38, the "Spada", on February 12, 1944 and then, during
operation "Odysseus", ordered her from Trieste to Pireo, in Greece, where, along with other
captured units, she formed the 9.Torpedobootsflottille, TA 39, the "Daga", being
commissioned just over a month later, on March 27, 1944 and joining the 9th Flotilla in
September 1944.

Out-ranged and out-gunned, 'HDML 1227' on fire and sinking, the orders were given to cease
firing and stop engines, Joy and the boat's chief engineer coming on deck as a German
destroyer came alongside and, pulling everyone safely aboard, the Germans put the HDML's
crew for'd and hospitably supplied them with food, drink and cigarettes, not one of the
HDML's crew killed in the action.

Within a fortnight of the boat's sinking Peter Blackstock's mother received a letter, written on
October 18, 1944, from the commander of the R.N.P.S. Barracks at Lowestoft :

Dear Madam,

In confirmation of the telegram already sent to you, I deeply regret to have to inform you, that
your son Peter Blackstock, Seaman, R.N. Patrol Service, No LT/JX 195899, has been reported
missing having failed to return from a daring operation against the enemy in hostile waters in
the Mediterranean Theatre of War.

There is insufficient evidence at present to show whether your son may be alive or not, but I
will write to you again as soon as possible.

In the meantime please accept my deep sympathy in your time of anxiety,

Yours sincerely

G. Douke, Commodore,
Patrol Service Central Depot,
Lowestoft, Suffolk.
Arriving in Athens, the HDML's crew were taken to the German naval headquarters in pairs
and then, next day, taken to Athens railway station to be interviewed by a high-ranking
German officer.

In Joy's case, the German officer began by offering him some Player's cigarettes and some
Scotch whisky before asking him what the HDML had been doing, Joy simply responding with
his 'name, rank and number'.

"Who do you think is going to win the war ?" "Us of course," responded Joy. "I don't think so,"
responded the German, "We've still got a secret weapon to use".

The questioning over, the HDML's crew were put aboard a long armoured train, the wagons
full of German soldiers on their way home to Germany and the train bristling with anti-aircraft
guns, the HDML crew's German naval guards telling them that they were on their way to

11
Berlin, the wagons, nominally accommodating up to 10 horses, each to be home to some 40
POW's for some weeks, overcrowding and lack of sanitation constantly a problem.

The guards gave us food, as much as they could get hold of but, sometimes we would get
very little, just a piece of black bread and some watery soup.

Fearing ambushes, the partisans busy blowing up the rail tracks, the train travelled little at
night and the train thus continuously vulnerable to air attacks as it made its way across
Greece and Macedonia, to Skopje and, eventually, to
Yugoslavia in daylight.

Attacked by American fighter planes, the guards let the POW's leave the train and run into
fields as fast as they could, everyone reboarding the train when the planes had gone.

It was November and starting to get colder when the train pulled into the town of Mitrovica
and, a German Air Force base near at hand, the German Naval Officer in charge of us said
that he would go and see if he could get us warm clothing and blankets as we had very little to
wear - He did quite well, clean underwear, a vest with the German Eagle on the trousers,
short bed socks, a Bulgarian, army type, overcoat each and some blankets and, he took us
to a cafe for a meal and a drink, paying for everything with some surplus blankets and then
took all the HDML's crew for a walk, Joy thinking of making a run for it, but making no
attempt to escape as the locals did not like to risk keeping POW's on the run.

In any case, there were SS troops on the train and when the trigger happy gunners on the
train shot down two of their own planes, coming into land at the local aerodrome, the SS
troops did not hesitate, they immediately coming along and taking the gunners away, never
to be seen again, our journey continuing next day, but soon coming to another stop.

Things were not getting any better, food was getting scarce and the partisans were continuing
to blow up the railway lines.

This time, they took us off the train, the naval officer in charge of us telling us that it was
getting very dangerous and he was going to hand us over to the army as he did not like to be
responsible for us. He shook hands with us and said goodbye and wished us the best of luck.
The army took over and, stopping at different villages on the way to the next town, marched
us over the mountains.

We slept at night where ever we could, one night at Samvo, in a barn, we slept close
together to keep warm and one of our shipmates felt something go over his head, it was a rat.

The snow falling, we moved on the next day, Christmas Eve, loaded aboard an army lorry
laden with shells, us sitting on top of the cold hard shells and pleased when we arrived at our
destination, a small village with a mosque where there were already partisan prisoners.

The Germans put us up in the mosque's balcony. The partisans had a big fire in the middle of
the floor, so we were getting the heat - and the smoke. The Germans gave us food and a
drink of coffee and a few cigarettes, we sang Christmas carols and we prayed for a safe
journey and the end of the war soon.

We came down the mountain to the next town, the German garrison town of Slaanske Brod,
where was a lot of German troops who put us in a compound with other POW's.

The same day, about 12 o'clock, a wave of American bombers came over and, when they
released their bombs, we just stood for a while with shock as we watched the bombs leave

12
the planes. 'Lady Luck' was with us, none of us got hurt, but it was not over and when more
planes came over and dropped their bombs, Joy ran and jumped into a trench with two foot of
water in it where we had previously seen a bomb drop. Guards and prisoners alike panicked
and, though quite a few prisoners had tried to escape, the guards soon had all the prisoners
rounded up and marched out to join a train for Zagreth in Yugoslavia, there was dead
Germans everywhere and we thanked God that we were still alive.

Luckily, reaching Zagreth, we were put into a wine cellar and when the American planes
came over again and bombed the town, Lady Luck too was with us again, a bomb dropping
near the cellar but leaving us all unscathed.

The bombs killed a guard and must have killed a few horses too, we all being given horse
steak for our meal, which we enjoyed. Leaving Zagreth on our troop train, we made our way
to Austria and the town of Vienna, it was now February and our journey had taken us some
four months to get there, American and RAF planes doing their best to stop the Germans
reaching Germany and, in the week before we arrived, making numerous raids on Vienna
itself.

13
The HDML's crew were now on the last leg of their journey, put on a train for Berlin and,
eventually arriving there, were transported to a POW camp, Stalag III A, at Luckenwalde,
some 40 miles south-west of Berlin.

During WWII, some 200,000 POW's passed through the gates of Luckenwalde's notorious
Stalag IIIA camp, which had opened in September 1939, an estimated 5,000 POW's, said to
be mainly Soviet POW's, died from disease, starvation, cold, brutality and neglect before the
camp was liberated by the Russian Army in April 1945.

The POW's were held in separate compounds, for the Soviets, British, French, Italian,
Belgians and Americans, the Soviets subjected to especially harsh and brutal treatment, The
Soviets own brutal treatment of the Germans contributing hugely to the mistreatment of their
own people in the POW camps and The Soviet Union not a signatory to The Geneva
Convention.

In the case, for example, of the near 4,000 American POW's, crowded four hundred men to a
tent, the day to day routine was an exercise in misery, hunger, cold and lice, a chief and
daily preoccupation being the tedious removal of individual lice from each other's clothes.

14
Showers were a rarity and only two outdoor faucets provided fresh water for the 4,000
American POW's, the American's survival largely contingent on the erratic receipt of Red
Cross parcels and indeed, if the war had continued for another season, many of the American
and other prisoners would have succumbed from malnutrition and associated diseases.

There are also accounts that the Germans were low on food themselves, which seems to give
some explanation for the fact that, particularly latterly, the POW's were treated so
horrendously and there were stories of German soldiers who would themselves simply change
posts in order to be able to receive food to eat and survive, some of them even going as far
as blaming Hitler and his administration for failing to provide the Stalag POW camps with
enough supplies to survive, seeing the front as the more important staging centre for the war,
regardless, Stalag IIIA remains the epitome of poor conduct on the part of the Germans
towards POW's of all nationalities, not least in regard to their treatment of the Soviet POW's.

Luckenwalde, a picturesque town some 40 miles south-west of Berlin, which, even in 1945,
had largely been untouched by the ravages of war.

15
When HDML 1227's crew arrived at Luckenwalde's Stalag IIIA, in February 1945, there were
around 16,000 POW's in the camp and Captain Walter Wynne Mason's 1954-published
"Prisoners of War" http://www.nzetc.org/tm/scholarly/tei-WH2Pris.html/ tells us that all the
camps compounds were so badly overcrowded that, even after all the old disused and
dilapidated barracks had been brought back into use and their three tiers of beds filled, there
were still hundreds of men sleeping on the floor. Washing and latrine facilities were totally
inadequate, rations were very short and, whilst there were nothing like enough medicines
and drugs to make possible proper treatment of the sick, there had been no Red Cross food
parcels for some nine weeks.

HDML 1227's stoker, James Arthur Joy, tells us that it was a long camp with different
nationalities, quite a lot of French and Russians and that their own compound had a mixture
of British and Commonwealth troops from The Army, RAF and The Navy, the officers were in a
different compound.

"The food we got was very poor, watery soup and piece of black bread, which was weighed so
that everyone received an equal amount, the Red Cross boxes that were given to us now and
again a godsend".

Joy agrees that the conditions in the camp were not that good, no hot water and not much
heating, bunk beds with straw mattresses and a pillow, cold water showers, a lime pit for a
latrine and lice everywhere.

Thankfully, Joy recalled that, as it was getting towards spring and getting warmer, the POW's
could sit out in the sun, pick the lice out of their clothes and watch the American Air Force
bombers flying very high over the camp during the day and dropping tons of tinsel down, to
put the German radar off, as they went on their way to bomb Berlin, the R.A.F. bombing
Berlin at night, the news too was good, but the Germans were putting up quite a fight.

The POW's used to pass the rest of the days the best way that they could, keeping fit walking
round the compound or playing games, but things got worse as regards food and everyone
was thankful whenever there was the occasional arrival of Red Cross boxes.

16
Whilst the days and weeks went by and the news got better, the French and Russians
continued to be allowed outside the camp to work, along with a few British soldiers, Joy
determined to join them and, by changing places and identities with another soldier, was able
to get into one of the outside work parties, a dozen POW's, guarded by two German guards,
sent out to work as labourers, helping to build air raid shelters.

One of the German guards, old enough to be Joy's father, regularly used to fall asleep and Joy
or one of the other POW's would seize the opportunity to put sand down the barrel of his rifle,
or some times let down one of the tyres on his bicycle, the old guard calling 'England Swine
Rinor' now and again.

Though the Russian POW's were treated very badly by the Germans, Joy seemed to get on
well enough with them, the Russians occasionally giving him some potatoes and 'sugar
sweepings'.

With the sounds of gun fire now audible from the camp as the Russians advanced towards
Berlin, the German camp guards melted away in the night, the Russian army officers
appearing early next morning and telling the POW's to stay in the camp until they had finished
rounding up all the German troops in the area.

One of the British soldiers that Joy had become friendly with on the outside work parties had
other ideas and, inviting Joy to go with him, set off for to visit one of the German families in
the village that he'd become friendly with.

They were indeed made most welcome by the German, his wife and his two daughters and it
by then growing late, after a meal of egg and chips and some glasses of schnapps, Joy's pal
told him that they were going to sleep there too that night.

Somewhat flippantly, Joy asked his pal who was sleeping with which daughter, his pal
adamant that they would however be sleeping with the father, whom he did not trust despite
their seeming friendship and that night's hospitality and so it was they slept in the same bed
as the father, one on one side and one on the other, the German into the bed first, in the
middle, with his night cap on and it was a very deep mattress which, after all the time they'd
been sleeping rough, was good and they all were soon asleep after all the schnapps and food
that they'd enjoyed.

Returning to camp next day, they were told that they might have to get back home via
Russia, even though, 90 miles
away, the Americans had reached Maldonbirg's bridge, the Russians were at the other side.

Not fancying the Russian route home, Joy's army pal told him to collect what he could and,
together with another un-named POW, the trio set off through the woods outside the camp for
the American lines, Joy, a navy man, uncertain that he'd manage a 90-mile trek.

Almost immediately after they'd entered the woods, they were surrounded by a small
attachment of Russian soldiers still rounding up the German troops, their Russian officer
ordering the trio to go back to the POW camp. Joy's pal was undaunted, 'Come on, we're not
going back there and with God's help they'll not try to stop us again', he said, producing a
revolver which he'd come by when they'd stayed at the German's house the previous night
and so on their way went the trio amid lots of refugees on the roads also now making the way
towards the American lines and, when night time came, the trio slept in a hay loft after
eating some baked potatoes.

17
Unused to the walking, Joy awoke with stiff legs next morning, his pal telling him that the
pain would ease, which it duly did, with yet more walking that second day and the next,
which brought them to the Maldonbirg bridge, the Russian soldiers there stopping them and
questioning them until an American soldier, realising that the trio were British POW's, came
over and intervened.

After a hot fumigating shower, their old clothes thrown away and burned, they were dressed
in clean, American issue, clothes, drill socks and shoes and, though there was plenty of food
and drink and cigarettes and chocolate, the trio found that, now at last free and full of
emotion, they could eat little and, with clean pillows to sleep on, were soon asleep.

Next day, the trio were on their way by truck to France, to an American air base, where they
boarded an American Air Force Dakota for England, everybody fussing over them and, as Joy
says, 'They just couldn't do enough for us'.

Re-kitted out again in naval uniform etc., Joy received an advance on his pay and was sent
home on nine weeks leave.

"It was good to get home", Joy remembers, "My mother was waiting for me, as I'd sent a
telegram that I was alive and well.

"I walked in the house, saw my mother was sat in her chair near the fire and then everything
seemed to hit me and I realised I was home".

Stalag IIIA at Luckenwalde was liberated by Russian forces and an attempt made on April 14,
1945, to move the RAF officers held there to Moosburg by train but, the train was unable to
go as nobody could find an engine and those who had been moved to the railway station had
to return to camp.

In the ensuing days the few remaining German camp guards became more and more friendly
and several of them actually asked the POW officers for 'certificates of good conduct' to show
to liberating Allied forces.

On April 21 the camp commandant formally handed over the camp to the senior Allied officer
and the German guard marched off, a Russian armoured car entering the camp next day and
a few days later fighting in the neighbourhood ceased.

On May 6 a United States lorry convoy arrived to take away the British, American and other
Allied prisoners, but the Russian commander refused to allow them to go and some lorries
taking out prisoners had shots fired over them by Russian troops.

Conferences with the Russians and further attempts to evacuate the camp proved fruitless
until the arrival of the senior Russian officer in charge of repatriation and only then, nearly a
month after their 'liberation', were the rest of the prisoners evacuated by Russian transport
and handed over to the United States forces, near Wittenberg.

Although a few of the POW's managed to commandeer transport or, like stoker Joy and his
pals, may their own escapes to the Allied lines, most POW's were willing to wait for
instructions from those officers of the Allied occupation forces whose task it was to cater for
released prisoners.

In the autumn of 1944, anticipating the liberation of the POW camps, a plan had been made
for their evacuation and a central organisation, known as PWX, was set up at Supreme Allied
Headquarters with liaison groups at major

18
headquarters which worked through contact officers.

These 'contact officers', including representatives from The Dominions and from all arms of
the service, were sent forward by every possible means to areas where prisoners were
assembled.

They carried instructions to the prisoners in camps to remain there and for those outside the
camps to report to their nearest transit centre in order to simplify maintenance and
documentation and to avoid any uncontrolled movements of prisoners which might hamper
operations.

A chain of transit centres was set up on the lines of communication and ad hoc units were
formed to organise and maintain them, the latter equipped with special disinfestation,
bathing, clothing and medical facilities, Red Cross services, YMCA teams to organise
amenities and Army Education teams to give up-to-date information, the plan then being to
evacuate all the POW's home by air to Britain.

In view of the bad physical condition of many prisoners resulting from the forced marches they
had undergone, the air evacuation was pushed forward with all possible speed and some of
the services provided at transit centres on The Continent never had a chance to function fully.

Ex-prisoners either remained in their camps, or were taken to a transit centre, or were found
billets until they could be evacuated from the nearest important airfield. Sometimes ‘K’
rations and other army rations were supplied to prisoners in billets and, as soon as possible
thereafter, they were taken to the airfields by army lorries and organised into groups of 30-
odd ready for 'em-planing'.

Almost as soon as the flights of Dakota transport aircraft arrived they loaded, took off and
headed back towards the west.

Only the prisoners from a few camps in north-west Germany were evacuated direct to the
United Kingdom in British
aircraft; most were taken to France or Belgium, where they broke their journey and spent a
night, or a few hours only, at a specially prepared transit centre before going on.

The transit centre at Brussels, which was the one to which it had been intended that the
majority of British ex-prisoners should go, received and sent on some 40,000 of them in three
weeks at the end of April and in early May.

As the streams of Dakotas arrived from Germany and unloaded, lorries took the ex-prisoners
to the transit centre and at the same time streams of British four-engined bombers were
taking on to England those who had already passed through.

At the centre they were given showers, new uniforms and an advance on pay. They could
stay a night in an hotel run by The Belgian Red Cross Society; they had full use of recreation
rooms run by the YMCA and they could go on leave to take advantage of private hospitality,
or to buy presents in the city, or just to look around.

Though one liaison officer spoke of the prisoners being 'all in rocketing spirits', most of our
POW's spirits did not reach their climax until they arrived in England, for not until then were
they back among people and in their own environment.

At this point, rather sadly, most of the POW's otherwise 'consistently kept' diaries finish very
abruptly, as in the case of one Scottish Luchenwalde POW diarist whose final pages read

19
simply, "Sunday May 20, 1945 - Russian trucks arrived at 0500 this morning and took us to
the river Elbe at Wittenberg where we were handed over to the Americans. We were taken to
Halle by truck and then to Brussels by Dakota and finally arrived by plane in the South of
England on Saturday May 26 and were taken to Cosford, near Wolverhampton, for medicals,
kitting out and so on. We arrived there at one o'clock on Sunday morning but the staff did a
fantastic job and I was on the train for Scotland at ten o'clock that same night and arrived
home finally shortly after 9 am on Monday, May 28, 1945".

Perhaps Peter Blackstock's journey home went as smoothly, perhaps not, for Peter and one of
his pals had, it seems, decided that they'd be better off in the American compound after the
German camp guards had largely abandoned the POW's to their own devices, Peter and his
pal managing to get hold of a couple of American-issue jackets, Peter's with a blood stain still
on its sleeve and both of them, nearly a month after the camp's 'liberation' by the Russians,
evacuated along with the American POW's on Russian army lorries and handed over to the
United States forces, near Wittenberg, in early June 1945.
Though we don't know Peter and his pal's route from there back to England and don't know
where they arrived in England, it is almost certain that Peter would have been given his travel
warrants and come north, by rail, into Glasgow's Central Station and then caught the only
Kintyre-bound bus of the day, MacBrayne's 3.15 pm bus, the single fare in these days being
thirteen shillings, from Glasgow's Robertson Street, the bus based in Campbeltown and any
other Kintyre-bound passengers expected to take MacBrayne's morning mail 'steamer' service,
then on the "Lochfyne", from Gourock, via Rothesay and The Kyles of Bute, to Tarbert, on
Loch Fyne and then by bus into Kintyre.

Though Peter had been in a hurry to get home and was even, rather than waiting for his new
kit to be issued, still wearing his American-issue jacket with its blood-stained sleeve that he'd
acquired in Luckenwalde's Stalag IIIA, the bus was slow and it was nearly six long hours later,
near 9 o'clock that evening, when at last Peter, one of the lucky ones, returned to the
tranquility of his home in Bellochantuy.

"You're back, better put on the kettle and get a cup of tea" !

20
It was summer, there were lobsters and crabs to be caught and, recovering from his ordeals,
Peter went back to the "Rescue (CN 78)", the family boat, he and his brother Sammy (seen
here in the bow, the original photograph so badly cracked and worn that it was impossible to
properly reconstruct Peter's features) fishing out of the little 'port' beside his home and
Bellochantuy's old church.

Sailing as 2nd gunner on HDML '1227', it is fit and proper to end with a look at 'Peter's guns'
in some detail for their
pedigrees are of some historical note, the 2-pounder 'pom-poms', the 'Oerlikons' and the
Vickers .303 machine guns all essentially products of The First World War and its aftermath
and, despite the passing now of nearly a century since their first design, many seeing service
in far flung parts of The World right through the twentieth century.

To begin with, the HDML's were commonly fitted with a QF, "quick firing", 2-pounder gun on
the foredeck, universally known as the 'pom-pom', from the sound that the original models
were reported to make when firing, the 2-pounder guns, known as such in that they fired a
projectile with a weight of 2 pounds, used famously as an anti-aircraft guns by The Royal
Navy, were, properly, 1.575 inch (40 mm) auto-cannons.

The Mark II QF 2-pounders were essentially scaled-up versions of the QF 1-pounder Maxim gun
produced by Vickers, 40 mm calibre guns with a water-cooled barrel and Vickers-Maxim
mechanism, these ordered in 1915 by The Royal Navy as an anti-aircraft weapon for ships of
cruiser size and below, the original models fired from hand-loaded fabric belts, these were
later replaced by steel-link belts but, the 'scaling-up' process was not entirely successful as it
left the mechanism rather light and prone to faults such as rounds falling out of the belts.

With World War II, the surviving weapons, almost exclusively single barrel guns on un-
powered pedestal mountings, a few twin-barreled guns on powered mounts, were brought
out of storage to see service again, mainly on board second-rate ships such as the RNPS naval
trawlers, motor boats and "armed yachts" but, too heavy to be of any real use at sea on such
small ships, they were nearly all withdrawn from use in 1944 and mounted ashore.

For the curious, the QF 2-pounders were 96-inches long; had a bore of 62 inches; their rifling
- Polygroove, plain section, 54.84 inches, uniform twist 1 in 30 inch, 12 grooves - The
weight of their gun and breech assembly being 527 lb.; their shell weight: 2 lb (980 g). HE;

21
rate of fire 200 rpm; effective range 1,200 yd (1,000 m) and their muzzle velocity 1920 ft/s
(585 m/s)

The 2-pounder guns were not particularly accurate, even less so in view of the HDML's
tendency to roll and many were replaced by another Oerlikon High Angle/Low Angle gun to
supplement the Oerlikon 20 mm High Angle/Low Angle cannon on the HDML's stern cabin,
these also used for anti-aircraft defence.

The term "Oerlikon" refers to a series of 'auto-cannons', based on a design by Reinhold Becker
of Germany, from very early in World War I.

Because The Treaty of Versailles banned further production of such weapons in Germany, the
patents and design works were transferred in 1919 to a Swiss firm, SEMAG (Seebach
Maschinenbau Aktien Gesellschaft), based near Zürich. SEMAG contained development of the
weapon and in 1924 had produced the SEMAG L, a heavier weapon (43 kg) that fired more
powerful 20 x 100 RB ammunition at a slightly higher rate of fire, 350 rpm.

In 1924 SEMAG failed and the 'Oerlikon' firm, named after the Zürich suburb where it was
based, then acquired all rights to the weapon plus the manufacturing equipment and the
employees of SEMAG.

Though the Oerlikon became best known in its naval applications, it was not, at least initially,
looked upon favorably by The Royal Navy as a short-range anti-aircraft gun.

All through 1937 and 1938, Lord Louis Mountbatten waged a lone campaign within The Royal
Navy to set up an unprejudiced trial for the Oerlikon 20 mm gun, but it was all in vain and tt
was not until the Commander-in-Chief of The Home Fleet, Admiral Sir Roger Backhouse, was
appointed First Sea Lord that Mountbatten's efforts bore fruit.

Then, during the first half of 1939, a contract for 1,500 guns was placed in Switzerland but,
due to delays and then later The Fall of France in June 1940, only 109 guns reached Britain
and, in any case, all the Oerlikon guns imported from Switzerland in 1940 were mounted on
various gun carriages to serve as light AA-guns on land.

Fortunately however, just a few weeks before The Fall of France, the Oerlikon factory
approved manufacture of their gun under licence in Britain and The Royal Navy had too
managed to smuggle out the necessary drawings and documents from Zürich, the production
of the first British-made Oerlikon guns starting in Ruislip, on the outskirts of London, at the
end of 1940 and the first Oerlikon guns delivered to The Royal Navy in March or April, 1941.

The Oerlikon cannon and its derivatives feature 'blowback' operation : The bolt is not locked to
the breech of the gun on the moment of fire, but moves freely to the rear while the propellant
gases propel the projectile forward.

To make sure that the projectile has left the muzzle and the gas pressure in the barrel is down
to a safe level before the breech opens, the firing pin strikes the primer while the bolt is still
travelling forward, so that the gas pressure first has to overcome the forward momentum of
the bolt before it can push it to the rear.

To give the heavy bolt sufficient forward speed, a large spring is required, which is wrapped
around the barrel of the gun.

22
Also, the chamber is longer than needed to contain the case, so that the bolt and case must
travel a small distance to the rear before the case extends beyond the face of the chamber.
Nevertheless a fairly heavy bolt must be used, which limits the rate of fire.

This design results in the use of a characteristically shaped cartridge : The case has straight
sides, very little neck and a rebated rim.

The straight sides allows the case to slide back and forward in the cylindrical chamber. The
neck is not supported while this happens and therefore expands when the case is fired and the
'rebated rim' allows the face of the bolt, with its extractor claw hooked over the rim, to fit
within the chamber.

To ease the motion of the case, the ammunition needed to be greased, which was a
drawback of the Oerlikon cannon. An alternative developed during WWII was the so-called
fluted chamber, which had grooves that allowed gun gas to seep between the chamber wall
and the case, taking over the role of the grease.

Ammunition feed is typically by a 60-round drum magazine on the top of the gun. During
sustained firing, the magazine must be frequently changed, reducing the effective rate of
fire.

Belt-fed versions of the gun were developed to overcome this limitation. A trigger in the right-
hand grip controls fire. Used cartridges are ejected from below the breech.

Different nations and services operated a number of mounting types for the same basic gun.
In a typical single-barrel naval version, it is free-swinging on a fixed pedestal mounting with a
flat armored shield affording some protection for the crew.
The cannon is aimed and fired by a gunner using, in its simplest form, a ring-and-bead sight.
The gunner is attached to the weapon by a waist-belt and shoulder supports.

For this reason, some mountings existed with a height-adjustment feature to compensate for
different sized gunners. A "piece chief" designates targets and the feeder changes exhausted
magazines.

During WWII, twin and quadruple Oerlikon mounts were developed, both for army and for
navy use. The Royal Navy operated a hydraulically operated twin-gun mount and the USN
adopted a four-gun mount.

The HDML's also had a 0.303 Vickers machine gun on each side of the bridge, the Vickers, a
modified version of the Maxim Machine-Gun, using a 250 round fabric-belt magazine, had
been adopted as The British Army's standard machine gun in 1912, it proving a highly reliable
weapon.

When war was declared in August 1914, Vickers were manufacturing 12 machine guns a week
but, with high demand from The British Army, Vickers had to find new ways of increasing
production, they managing to turn out 2,405 guns in 1915 and, in the last year of the war,
1918, manufacturing 39,473 guns, the company, accused of profiteering from the conflict in
the early stages of the war, forced to drop their price from £175 to £80 per gun.

Though the weight of the guns themselves varied, based on the gear attached, it was
generally between 25 and 30 lb (11-13 kg), the ammunition boxes for the 250-round
ammunition belts weighing 22 lb (10 kg) each, the Vickers gun firing the standard 0.303 inch
(7.7 mm) cartridges identical to those used in the Lee Enfield army rifles, the cartridges
generally hand-loaded into the guns' cloth ammunition belts.

23
The loader sat to the gunner's right and fed in belts of cloth, into which had been placed the
rounds. The weapon would
draw in the belt, push each round out of the belt and into the breech, fire it and then drop the
brass cartridge out of the bottom, to gather in a pile of spent brass underneath the weapon,
while the cloth belt would continue through to the left side and wind up on the ground.

In addition, these guns required about 7.5 imperial pints (4.3 litres) of water for their water-
cooled evaporative cooling systems, to prevent overheating, the heat of the barrel boiling the
water in the jacket surrounding it and the resulting steam taken off by flexible tube to a
condenser container, this system having the dual benefits of avoiding giving away the gun's
location and also enabling the re-use of the water, very important in arid desert environments
etc.. The gun was 3 ft 8 in (1.1 m) long and its cyclic rate of fire was between 450 and 600
rounds per minute.

In theory, it was expected that 10,000 rounds would be fired per hour and that the barrel
would be changed every hour, a two-minute job for a trained team.

Firing the Mark 8 cartridge, which had a streamlined bullet, the gun could be used against
targets at a range of approximately 4,500 yards (4.1 km).

One very unusual feature of the Vickers .303 MMG (medium machine gun), of particular
purpose for troops, was that it was often used to fire indirectly at targets, whereas most
other weapons of similar type would only be used for direct fire. This plunging fire was used to
great effect against road junctions, trench systems, forming up points and other locations
that might be observed by a forward observer, or zeroed in at one time for future attacks, or
guessed at by men using maps and experience

Anyone curious to to know more about Vickers guns should look at

http://www.vickersmachinegun.org.uk/ where they can even download a vast range of training
manuals and amourers' parts lists etc..

Finally, the HDML's carried 10 depth charges on the aft decks - The Royal Navy Type D depth
charge was designated the Mark VII by 1939, its initial sinking speed was 7 feet per second
(2.1 m/s) with a terminal velocity of 9.9 feet per second (3 m/s) reached at a depth of 250 feet
(76 m) if rolled off the stern, or upon water contact from a depth charge thrower.

Cast iron weights of 150 pounds (68 kg) were attached to the Mark VII at the end of 1940 to
increase sinking velocity to 16.8 feet per second (5.1 m/s) and new hydrostatic fuses increased
the maximum detonation depth to 900 feet.

The Mark VII's 290 pound (132 kg) Amatol charge was estimated capable of splitting a 7/8-inch
(22 mm) submarine pressure hull at a distance of 20 feet (6.1 m) and forcing the submarine to
surface at twice that distance.

A change of explosive to Torpex, or Minol, at the end of 1942, was estimated to increase
those distances to 26 feet (7.9 m) and 52 feet (15.8 m) and the crews of launching ships were
advised to clear the area at 11 knots to avoid damage.

To be effective depth charges had to be set to the correct depth. To ensure this, a pattern of
charges set to different depths would be laid atop the submarine's suspected position. A sign
of an effective detonation depth is that the surface just slightly rises and only after a while
vents into a water burst.

24
The ever-informative online Wikipedia tells us that the damage that an underwater explosion
inflicts on a submarine comes from a primary and a secondary shockwave. The primary
shockwave is the initial shockwave from the depth charge, and will cause damage to
personnel and equipment inside the submarine if detonated close enough. The secondary
shockwave is a result from the cyclical expansion and contraction of the gas bubble and will
bend the submarine back and forth and cause catastrophic hull breach, in a way that can be
best described as bending a plastic ruler back and forth until it snaps. Up to sixteen cycles of
the secondary shockwave has been recorded in tests.

The effect of the secondary shockwave can be reinforced if another depth charge detonates on
the other side of the hull in a close proximity in time of the first detonation, which is why depth
charges normally are launched in pairs with different pre-set detonation depths.

The killing radius of a depth charge depends on the payload of the depth charge and the size
and strength of the submarine hull. A depth charge of approximately 100 kg of TNT would
normally have a killing radius (hull breach) of only 3 to 4 meters against a conventional 1,000
ton submarine, while the disablement radius (where the submarine is not sunk but put out of
commission) would be approximately 8 to 10 meters. A higher payload only increases the
radius by a few meters due to the fact that the effect of an underwater explosion decreases
with the distance cubed.

The killing range would be greater against a larger submarine and shorter against a smaller
submarine. It is doubtful if the hull of a midget submarine with a titanium hull could be sunk by
a depth charge by anything less than a direct hit, even though it could be decommissioned
with less.

Only one of HDML 1227's contemporaries is known to survive in Scotland, though there may
still be other HDML hulls in use as houseboats.

HDML 1085, was one of three HDML's built by The Sussex Shipbuilding Company at
Shoreham, she launched on September 16, 1941 and, calling in at North Shields, joined the
10th Motor Launch Flotilla at Granton on New Year's Day 1942, she serving with them in The
Firth of Forth and at Scapa Flow until June 1944, when was transferred to join the 150th Motor
Launch Flotilla at Newhaven, not far from her builder's yard and then took part in Operation
Neptune and The Invasion of Normandy and was based first at Poole and then at Portsmouth.

The war ended and re-numbered SML 4, she took up service as a survey motor launch,
working in The Thames and, in August 1945, along with HMS "Franklin", carried out a survey
of The Weser Estuary and the approaches to Bremen and Bremerhaven, she then deployed at
Ostend and re-numbered SML 324 in 1946.

In 1954 she acted as a tender for survey ships at Chatham before moving to Harwich where,
for two years, she took part in surveying the east coast before being placed on reserve in
1958 and handed over to W. C. Allan & Son at Gillingham in Kent on a care and maintenance
basis.

25
Sold out of service on June 9, 1959 and converted for use as a day-tripping passenger launch,
she was re-named "Pembroke Shearwater" and then, bought by an Oban-based partnership,
registered as "Etive Shearwater" in July 1964 and, in succession to the 1939 Dickie's of
Tarbert-built "Darthula II", which had been sold for further service on The Thames, began
operating on Loch Etive.

Bought by Arisaig Marine's Murdo Grant in 1973, to operate to The Small Isles and undertake
a monthly mail service to Soay, her calls also served to supply the islanders' "spiritual needs"
as none of the islands had a pub.

Replaced in the spring of 2002, the "Etive Shearwater" was sold off for use as a houseboat at
Inverness.

26