Transcript
See, the three of them they were coming out, the three to support each other. It wasn't us that sighted them first, but the signal came through. They signalled back to base and base signalled us to go to that position to help with the U-Boats.
Anyway, we went to the position they told us and there was nothing there, so we signalled back 'There's nothing here.'
They said 'Sorry, we gave you the wrong position, go to such and such a position.'
That's why we got short of fuel. Anyway, we got there and found them just in time to see an aircraft, it was a liberator, a RAF liberator, and it was attacking. I was on the wireless at the time.
I only had a little port hole, but I looked out of the port hole and I could see it and you could see the shells coming up and all around this aircraft and I thought 'Oh my God.'
They had, each U-Boat, had five cannon, 20 millimetres, and they put up a mighty big barrage. The shells were self-exploding shells. If they didn't hit a target at five hundred or six hundred yards or something, they would explode anyway.
The sky was full of these puff balls, you know, where the shells were exploding, and I thought 'Oh my God.'
And we knew that Captain Walker's ships were close, so I thought 'It'll be right'. The skipper will get in position for the ships and home them on to here, but he didn't. The next thing he went in. He pressed the klaxon to say that we were attacking.
And I thought 'Are you mad, we couldn't get through a barrage like that.'
And then the second pilot came on and said 'Hey skip. Why don't we go diagonally across and get the three in one go?' They're both mad!
