‘HMS Marlborough Will Enter Harbour’ by Nicholas Monsarrat is a lovely book which is illustrated by James Holland and was published in 1952. Actually it’s quite hard to believe that my copy is 70 years old, but it is. It’s a quick read with just 92 pages and a lot of illustrations. I didn’t know what it was about when I bought it in Edinburgh, so it was only when I started to read it that I realised that it was about a ship which gets torpedoed by a German U-Boat, so I did an inadvertent book link as I read it straight after reading about the sinking of The Lusitania – Dead Wake.
The book begins: The sloop Marlborough, 1,200 tons, complement 8 officers and 130 men, was torpedoed at dusk on the last day of 1942 while on independent passage from Iceland to the Clyde. She was on her way home for a refit, and for the leave that went with it, after a fourteen-month stretch of North Atlantic convoy escort with no break, except for routine boiler-cleaning.
But 500 miles from home she was hit by a torpedo killing 60 of the men immediately, the nearest land is 250 miles away, things look very black indeed, there’s a huge hole in her hull, is beginning to sink, it’s bitterly cold and their radio is broken and unfixable.
This was a great read, a real tale of adventure and it felt quite personal to me as my father was in the Merchant Navy on the Atlantic convoys AND had been torpedoed several times – but he never spoke about it other than to say that as soon as your ship was lost your pay stopped! As some of the pay was being sent home to a wife or mother that must have been alarming as they wouldn’t have known if they had survived. I would have loved to speak to him about this book but I think maybe he wouldn’t have wanted to go back to that time – even in fiction.
You can see some of the book’s illustrations here.
This sounds very interesting and especially after just reading Dead Wake. And such a lovely edition.
tracybham,
I’m so glad I spotted the slim volume in a charity bookshop!
Way back in 1970 I was a conscript radar operator on SAS Simon von der Stel in the South African Navy. (I suffered from asthma from the fumes and my spell on her was brief). This W-class destroyer had been launched in 1943 as HMS Whelp and handed over to SA after the war. She was one of many such ships built in a hurry. Small and flimsy. Permanent list to port. Went through swells, not over them and we saw green water past the port holes. Had been used to escort convoys, but mainly assigned to the Eastern and Pacific Fleets. Present at the Japanese surrender in Tokyo Bay in 1945 and later in Hong Kong. I slept in a hammock slung from the piping, Prince Phillip had a stint on her in 1945. I think he had better quarters. Gave me great respect for those doing escort duty during wartime. Shortly after my spell in the navy she was sunk in False Bay, obsolete as a ship; new home for fish.
Jeremy,
I bet he had better quarters! It must have been quite an experience for you, mind you seeing the seawater past the portholes would have unnerved me. I really should try to do some research to find out exactly where my dad was and when, I just know that he was often on Norwegian ships, presumably the ones that were at sea when Norway was overrun by the Nazis.