The Sinking of HMS Courageous
By George Grandage, R.N.

The following account of the sinking of the carrier Courageous was written soon after the occasion by my father George Grandage, who was officer on watch at the time of the sinking.

Jerry Grandage
1 September 2010


I had been on watch on the bridge for nearly two hours when at 7.55 pm we were struck by two torpedoes on the port side amidships, almost simultaneously, and in very nearly the same place, or so it seemed to me on the bridge. The ship heeled over at once and in a very short time it looked fairly obvious that there was little hope of saving her, no matter what steps were taken.

Those of us on the bridge remained there for nearly ten minutes with the Captain, who quietly said 'Anyone who wants to, can go'. Eventually we started scrambling down the ship's side, which was rapidly becoming horizontal. Most of us had already taken some of our clothes off and a large number of men were in the water swimming away from the ship, while others on board were throwing overboard every bit of wood they could find.

At one time the ship appeared to steady a bit, as though there was still a faint hope, but then I saw she was going down by the head. This, I felt, was the start of her final plunge, so I quickly got further down the side and eventually reached the blister, where I paused to take off my trousers. I hardly had time to slip them off when I felt myself swept off the ship by a large wave, which surged the ship's side as she took her final plunge. A thought had occurred to me as I saw men jumping overboard, that after all it meant little more than what we all do, jumping or diving into a swimming pool.

Our escorting destroyers were close by and a merchant ship, about two miles away, was steaming to our rescue, which I thought was rather noble, as it meant placing the ship in extreme danger of attack from the submarine, which was about. I then found myself being sucked down by the ship. No matter how hard I struggled, as I was bumped against parts of the ship and against other people who were caught in the awful suction, I realized at once that my efforts would be useless. I managed to keep my reason and settled down to wait calmly for the end, wondering when I would see those visions of my past life - such as you hear of with drowning persons.

There is no telling how far I went down or how long it took, but some idea may be drawn from the fact that it was almost dark when I suddenly found myself being shot up without any effort on my part. I only had a few seconds on the surface before I was driven under again in the whirlpool of waves set up by the sinking ship. In those few seconds I caught a glimpse of our Captain being tossed about among the floating wreckage. Also I just caught sight of the ends of the ship's wireless masts as they went under. Three times I went under, though it seemed like many more and I wondered how much longer this would last and how much more of it I could stand. The third time I came up I was immediately struck by the fact of how calm and still everything seemed. Luckily for us all the weather was fine and the sea only slight.

The sea was strewn with wreckage of all descriptions. A few carley floats were about too, with men sitting on them while others clung to the side. Oil fuel lay thickly all over the water, giving off a smell that was almost choking. I decided to take things easy and merely keep myself afloat until I had fully regained my breath and belched up anything bad out of my stomach. I must have swallowed a fair amount of water mixed with oil fuel. Having fully recovered, I swam to one of the collapsible air dinghies which some thoughtful person had fetched from the aircraft in the hangar and thrown over the side. Here I found three men hanging on, one in a pretty bad state of exhaustion and only just able to hang on. It was hardly more than ten minutes before a boat from the merchant ship picked us up. The boat was full of silent men, some of whom appeared to be completely exhausted. Personally I felt fairly fresh myself and took one oar as we pulled off to the ship. This warmed me up as well.

Arriving on board as darkness came on, the ship appeared to be deserted. Most of the crew were away in the boats making numerous trips filling up with survivors, bringing them to the ship and then going away for more. Others of the crew were attending to personal wants in the way of providing clothes and blankets. There were about fifteen men clinging to ropes over the side of the ship, too exhausted to pull themselves up. I got a few of the men and one of our officers, then tied a bowline in the end of a line and lowered it over the side for each man to get into, and so we hauled each man up. Most of them flopped onto the deck and were violently sick. I then made my way to the bridge, where I found about twenty other officers in the Captain's cabin. Someone thrust a brandy into my hand but one mouthful nearly made me sick. I was given an old shirt and a pair of white trousers by the Chief Officer, who had already given up most of his clothes.

The next job was a medical operation. One of our men had been badly injured, his foot being nearly severed just below the ankle - he has since had it amputated. Luckily we had one of our surgeons with us, so with the material in the ship's medicine chest he was able to clean and sew up the wound while three of us held the man down. He behaved wonderfully well - though in terrible pain he hardly murmured.

Rejoining my shipmates, we compared notes of our different experiences, while occasionally came a rather wonderful, but somewhat strangely pathetic, sound of men singing in the darkness as they sat on a raft waiting to be picked up. At about midnight a cruiser was to come alongside and take us on board, but when she arrived we had word that a submarine was reported in the vicinity, so the cruiser had to dash off.

Thus we were left once again for another hour until a destroyer eventually took us off. Then I was able to have a bath, and what a relief that was. I saw myself in a mirror. I was absolutely filthy and my fair hair was completely black from the fuel oil. We stayed that night in the vicinity, in the hope of finding more survivors, and at daylight we found a pitiful sight as the sea was covered with pieces of wreckage while a layer of oil covered a wide area, but there were no more survivors. Altogether we had on board about 220, while the remainder were brought home in other destroyers.
-George Grandage
(Courtesy of Jerry Grandage)





Page published Sept. 2, 2010