I think the Lord Hailsham did visit Portland, perhaps late 1941, just before I joined her. But this was a one-off trip, as our usual run was escorting Channel convoys between the Isle of Wight, through Lyme Bay and down to Land's End, then up the north Cornish Coast to the Bristol Channel. The Hailsham was one of twenty to thirty armed trawlers of Plymouth command, based on Devonport. We operated in escort groups of three to four ships, although one of the four would be boiler-cleaning at any one time. Usually for the passage between Falmouth and Portland we would be joined by a Hunt class destroyer as additional defence against aircraft and E-boats; the usual addition to our group was the Polish Krakowiak.

Our escort "cycle" was to leave Plymouth and rendezvous with the westbound convoy at Eddystone, where the relieved escort group would detach and return to Plymouth. We would then sail the convoy into Falmouth Harbour, leaving the next morning with the new Commodore and proceed round the Lizard and Land's End and up the north Cornish coast. North-east of Lundy the convoy would trifurcate, one part going to Milford Haven, the second to Swansea and the third to Barry and Cardiff, with one trawler escorting each section (we took it in turns to sample the fleshpots of Swansea as opposed to, say, Milford). We would overnight in port and leave the next morning with our section of the east-bound convoy joining together off Lundy, then south to Land's End and east to the Lizard, Eddystone, Start Point, Lyme Bay, the Bill [Portland Bill], Durlston Head and on to the Needles where the merchant ships proceed to Southampton and the escorts to anchor off Cowes. The following morning we left the Solent with a west-bound convoy through Lyme Bay, round Start to Eddystone, where in turn we were relieved by a new escort group and then returned to Plymouth. Three days in Plymouth and we were once again sailing to Eddystone to take over a west-bound convoy. A cycle of ten days: seven on escort duty and three in harbour, with a boiler-clean (we were coal burners) every six to seven weeks.

Unvarying then, yes, but rarely if ever dull. We were operating in coastal waters, in swept channels only two cables wide. (There was no radar in 1942.) There was a total black-out in effect ashore with selected lighthouses only flashing for ten minutes on the hour when a convoy was in the vicinity. With a crew of 40, the escorts worked watch on, watch off with the merchant ships - coasters, colliers, Dutch schuyts and the like - stretched in two long columns, one escort ahead, one astern and one abeam, with ships joining and leaving constantly at the change of ports and harbours. There was always the possibility of air attack by day and, with the aircraft using flares, by night. Calm nights brought the risk of E-boat attack, and the move of the E-boat Base from Dieppe in 1942 to the Channel Islands extended the E-boat operating area as far west as Land's End. But, as I have said, there was usually Hunt class destroyer reinforcement on this southern stretch, whilst in obvious E-boat (i.e. calm) weather we had MTBs or SGBs patrolling in mid-channel.

Coming to the Lord Hailsham's last convoy, (1) we must have left Swansea in the morning of February 25 th 1943. We shared the Modavia's misgivings, as any large merchant ship was bound to attract the attention of German aircraft and/or E-boats. On 26 th , having passed Land's End and the Lizard, we were joined, not by Krakowiak but by a Royal Norwegian ship, the Harstad.

As usual in calm weather in the Eddystone - Start - Portland stretch, we went to action stations for the night, and had stationed ourselves on the Modavia 's starboard (i.e. seaward) beam to give her some extra protection. We rounded Start Point about midnight, and it was about half an hour later, in that ENE leg into Lyme Bay, that we received a radio report of E-boats in the vicinity. The captain went to the chart table to plot their position and I had the con, and it was that moment that the Modavia was torpedoed and at the same instance the Asdic operator reported a torpedo approaching on our starboard bow. I immediately ordered hard a-starboard in an effort to stem the torpedo's track. But the Hailsham was hit right forward on the fore-peak and it is my belief that there were two torpedoes, and as one passed down the port side the Hailsham swung into the second. The Hailsham began to settle immediately and sank in two to three minutes, but the Cox'n, Dick Allison, and I were able to release the port Carley float before slipping over the side and swimming to join some seven or eight men already clinging to the Carley float. As I recall, it was about this time that the third ship, the Harstad , was hit; she was an oil-burner and simply exploded like a rocket.

We paddled the float around, picking up more Hailsham survivors, until we had some fifteen or sixteen in the float, which had positive buoyancy, but with its grating deck under water we were sitting or squatting in two feet of water. It was a still night and most of us were wearing duffels and other warm clothing, but unhappily one survivor, Bill Bower, died in the night in my arms from exposure. Later in the night we were able to transfer three or four men to a part of a damaged Carley float that we found and hitched on to ours.

One amusing incident. Sometime in the middle of that long night - the moon was just rising - we saw the silhouettes of two warships. From our literally sea-level viewpoint they looked huge - obviously two rescue destroyers, looking for us. So, in the best "In Which We Serve" tradition, we began to paddle towards them, as I led the chaps in a spirited rendering of "Roll Out the Barrel", when the awful truth - whether the smell of their diesel, or the cut of their jibs I don't know, but we realised they were not "ours" at all, but two E-boats snooping around to see what they could find. Now it was commonly held at that time that the Germans would take the officers as POWs for questioning, so I hastily whipped off my cap and urged the chaps to say nothing about having an officer in the float. We kept quiet and still, and either they did not see us or did not want to know us, for they passed us by and chugged off into the night. At one time we saw the Hailsham 's sea-boat, but of the LCT I know nothing, except for what I read in the short account in Lund and Ludlam's "Trawlers go to War". (2)

And that really was that. We spent the rest of the night trying to keep warm and cheer each other up, and were picked up soon after first light by Dartmouth MLs [motor launches], as were the Captain and First Lieutenant and the three or four men in the sea boat, I suppose a total of 21 or 22 survivors and 18 killed. We were put in Britannia 's sick-bay for observation, but later in the afternoon I was sent back to Plymouth where I stayed in the base-ship until after the Court of Inquiry. A fortnight's survivor's leave, and then I went back to sea in HMT Sapper and later HMT Guardsman , serving on escort/rescue ship duties in the North Atlantic until the end of the war.

(1) Convoy WP300 was John's eastbound convoy; the simultaneous westbound convoy was PW300.

(2) The vessel John refers to was a Mark 3 type Landing Craft Tank, LCT 381, also sunk during the attack. She was torpedoed with the loss of one life (Ordinary Seaman John Green); the 11 remaining crew were taken prisoner.