The Sea is my Grave

 

  “Of all the branches of men in the forces there is none which shows more devotion and faces grimmer perils than the sub Mariner.”          

  Sir Winston Churchill.

 

HMS Unison was back out on patrol again on 27 February 1943 sailing just off the coast of Hammarnet, but was forced to return to her Malta base due to mechanical problems in the engine room. On 18 March 1943 after having replacement engine room parts she sailed once again for patrol off Sousse. On the 23 March 1943, Unison was patrolling the east Calabrian coast and hoping for a little excitement. Bill said, “We seemed to be patrolling the area for hours before the skipper sighted any decent target, but we carried on regardless and eventually about 1300 hours, Commander Daniels sighted one tanker, three destroyers, and one A/S vessel. At 1408 hours , he fired four torpedoes, one minute ten seconds later one of the torpedoes was heard to hit the target”.

Bill remembered vividly the tension among the crew inside the submarine, and his skipper Lt Commander Daniels  looking through the periscope, whilst giving the order  “Standby to Fire!”, and then “Down Scope!”,- “Fire!”. The  swoosh of the torpedoes leaving the tubes and the rush of water as the empty void was filled up when the torpedoes left the tubes. Every member of the crew was motionless whilst they waited for the torpedoes to hit the target. Then without warning a tremendous loud “BOOM” was heard which shook the boat, and a loud cheer rang out from the crew, before the skipper made good their escape into deeper waters.

Unable to see the results of the attack, Daniels ordered the Unison to dive deeper to avoid the destroyers attack. At 14:17 hours, the enemy counter-attack and started spreading a pattern of five depth charges across Unison’s bows which were too close for comfort, and Daniels commented that the impact shook them like a dog shaking a rat.

The submarine was now submerged at 90 feet, and when the charges exploded we found that we had bounced off the bottom at 380 feet. We were extremely lucky, as these boats were only supposed to be guaranteed to 300 feet, thank God Unison was a good boat! The enemy 1835 ton tanker Zeilia had been close inshore and Daniels had fired at a range of 500 yards, she was mortally wounded catching fire immediately and blowing up during the evening, with a tremendous explosion, the Unison was considerably shaken and rocked violently from side to side by the impact knocking the crew off their feet, but fortunately no one was badly injured

Immediately after the attack Commander Daniels decided to take the submarine even closer in shore, because of the very rocky coast there. This would make the enemy very confused, trying to differentiate the hydrophone or asdic echoes on the submarine from the echoes coming from the rocks and cliffs. As it turned out, his decision saved the submarine; if it had turned out to the sea the Unison would have been lost in about 2000 fathoms of water, because the coast was very steep at this point on the compass.

By 17:00 hours there had been a total of 133 depth charges fired at Unison.

 

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                        This book contains  over 100 wonderful war photographs, a brilliant read.