Close as the convoy was to its destination, a drama or two remained to be played out. Twice during the afternoon air-raid warnings were given, although mercifully no enemy planes appeared. At 17.40 Kildin Island on the approach to Kola was sighted, and Obedient, assisted by Rhododendron, led round to starboard to join up with the pilot vessel. Almost immediately Ballot went aground, and after the rest of the convoy had been shepherded into position, Orwell was detached to try and tow her free. Despite the best efforts of the destroyer, assisted by two Russian tugs through the night, as the morning of 3 January dawned Ballot remained firmly aground. Having almost completed the hazardous journey, the twenty-year-old veteran finally had to be abandoned within sight of port; nevertheless lighters subsequently removed her invaluable cargo.
From the early hours of the morning of the 3rd Obedient, Rhododendron and Hyderabad carried out anti-submarine patrols until finally, between 05.00 and 09.00, all merchant ships except Calobre, Vermont and Pontfield entered harbour. Obedient located Vermont anchored in the Kildin Straits, and in leading her to harbour was joined by Vizalma, which had been sent to find Calobre and was escorting her in. During a morning of heightened tension caused by more air-raid warnings, Orwell finally tracked down Pontfield which had also gone aground but was refloated by a Russian tug and towed safely down the inlet.
With the ships berthed, the men who had fought them through at last had a little time to themselves. Walter Watkin visited Onslow’s injured chief stoker, whom he had stopped from sliding into the sea, and Lieutenant Peyton-Jones called in on Achates’ wounded, who had been transferred ashore. Sadly he found conditions in the hospital to be ‘primitive’; nevertheless the two Royal Navy doctors on hand, joined by Obdurate’s Lieutenant Hood, struggled to cope under difficult circumstances.
During a previous visit to Murmansk, Peyton-Jones had attempted to requisition a particularly fine pair of Arctic gloves, but his request was firmly refused by the Base Supply Officer who ruled that they were for survivors only. Now that he qualified in all respects, he was glad to be able to obtain a pair of the gloves, with temperatures capable of plunging to – 50°C.[129]
It was decided that most of Achates’ survivors, including Lieutenant Peyton-Jones, and the more seriously wounded, including Captain Sherbrooke, should be taken home as soon as possible in Obedient. The destroyer sailed from Murmansk on 11 January and arrived at Scapa Flow five days later to refuel and transfer the wounded to a hospital ship. Peyton-Jones, and those survivors from Achates who were not wounded, carried on to Leith in Obedient, where buses were waiting on the jetty to take them on the next stage of their journeys home. With his shipmates mustered on the quayside, Lieutenant Peyton-Jones said a last few words, then shook each by the hand as they filed away. Achates had been a happy ship, and it was a moving moment, the end of a commission which all the survivors would have good reason to remember.
For Midshipman Albert Twiddy in Sheffield, not yet eighteen years old, the abiding memory of this, his first action, was the burning wreck of Friedrich Eckholdt – a brief moment which brought home the stark reality of war and the death of a ship and her crew, and which has remained a vivid image in his mind ever since. No doubt echoing the thoughts of many of those on both sides who survived, he recalls the last few hours of 1942 disappearing with only the feeling that God had spared his ship, his shipmates and himself on this occasion.
CHAPTER 8
SEEING RED
At 11.45, as Sheffield switched from her attack on Hipper to engage Friedrich Eckholdt, Admiral Kluber in Narvik despatched another message to Vice-Admiral Kummetz: ‘Most immediate. Return passage at increased speed. Presence of 2 enemy cruisers in the Murmansk area confirmed. These include Jamaica’.[130]
So the German high command maintained its apparently relentless pressure to ensure that the commander at sea jumped at the sight of his own shadow. Vice-Admiral Kummetz received this message at 12.55, by which time he had already disengaged and was returning to Altenfjord, but the state of mind of the naval high command is clear, the message having been despatched while the engagement was still in progress. The Kriegsmarine had in action a battle group which, even separated into two squadrons, had the firepower to expect to be able to take on two light cruisers and five destroyers (which would also be separated, at least at the commencement of any action), and emerge victorious. Had the German high command been a little more aggressive they would surely have realised that they had been presented with a golden opportunity to inflict a significant defeat on their enemy’s naval forces, plus the destruction of a convoy. They could not, however, achieve these great things without expecting damage of one sort or another to their heavy ships – but this desire to avoid damage to the big ships had become an obsession with Hitler. This obsession made itself felt down through the chain of command to the extent that the message quoted above, while rightly informing the commander at sea of the presence of two enemy cruisers in his area of operations, falls just short of ordering him to abandon his assault, regardless of the situation at sea, and betrays a tone approaching panic which is entirely inappropriate to the situation.
Withdrawing westward and believing Sheffield and Jamaica still to be in hot pursuit, Kummetz opted to cancel Aurora, Lützow’s solo operation, and at 12.33 sent a message to Narvik on the submarine frequency: ‘No communication with Eckholdt. Enemy shadowers with formation. Not possible to detach Lützow.’[131]
Having despatched this message Kummetz took the understandable, but as later events were to show critical, decision to maintain complete radio silence during the return to Altenfjord due to continuing uncertainty as to the extent of Hipper’s damage and a desire not to give away the battle group’s position.[132]
As mentioned, when Sheffield’s 6 in (152 mm) shell detonated in the German flagship’s No. 3 boiler room a serious fire broke out, and tons of seawater plus fuel oil from a ruptured tank rapidly entered. As a result of the flooding, Hipper was down by the bows, and to restore her trim Second Boiler Engineer Dr (Eng.) von Pawel and Engineer Officer Fregattenkapitän (Eng.) Schafer arranged to pump fuel aft from the forepeak through oil transfer pipes which had to be laid through the steering compartment.[133]
130
1 PRO. DEFE 3/215, and Kummetz, Vice-Admiral Oskar