How an Atlantic ambush led to a bayonet battle in Norway
IT was still that early period in the war at sea when the sinking of as much British shipping tonnage as possible was all that mattered.
Where crews survived, they were made prisoner by their German hunters.
But what their captors didn't bargain for in one instance was a daring rescue attempt by a Royal Navy destroyer.
It succeeded too, and what became known as the Altmark Incident, when HMS Cossack rescued more than 300 British seamen from the supply ship Altmark, went down in history as one of the most audacious episodes of the Second World War.
It is reckoned to be the last incident in which cutlasses were used in anger by a boarding party, and it ultimately led to scenes of jubilation on the streets of what is now South Tyneside.
It's recalled to us by an inquiry from a reader, Kathy, whose father, Joseph Lovely, was among those rescued.
Joseph, born in 1907, was bosun in Blue Star Line's Doric Star which fell victim to the German pocket battleship Graf Spee.
Kathy would like to know more about what happened to the ship and her dad: "I have tried, but with no luck, to get any information to help me for my family tree."
The date was December 1939, and the 10,000-ton steamer Doric Star was on her way home from New Zealand and Australia with a cargo of butter, cheese, lamb, mutton and baled wool.
South of Saint Helena, in the South Atlantic, she was bracketed by shells from the Graf Spee which ordered her to stop.
She was boarded and searched, after which her crew were transferred to the battleship and the Doric Star herself sent beneath by a torpedo.
The following day, the Graf Spee sank the Shaw, Saville steamer Tairoa.
With nearly 200 prisoners now on board, she rendezvoused with the Altmark, to which she transferred most of the captives.
By mid-February, the Altmark, still with the prisoners on board, was passing through Norwegian waters, en route to Germany.
It was then that she was spotted by a British aircraft, which raised the alarm.
After being intercepted by the destroyer HMS Cossack, the Altmark sought refuge in Jssingfjord. Pursued by the Cossack, she was forced to ground and was boarded.
After hand-to-hand fighting with bayonets, the ship's crew were overwhelmed and the prisoners released.
Barely a week later, families in South Shields, Jarrow and the surrounding area were welcoming home menfolk – bearded, stained, dirty – who they might have expected never to see again.
Among them was Joseph Lovely, whose home was in Bath Street in Shields, and was in the Doric Star with his brother, James, a fireman, of Reay Street.
The Gazette reported his wife being dismayed that all his curly hair had been cropped off!
The Doric Star returnees from the Altmark, as reported by the Gazette, included John Turnbull, Sidney Ferguson, Cornelius McGinley, Alexander Clark and James Wilkinson, all from Jarrow.
From Hebburn there were Frank Bones, carpenter, and two able seamen, Douglas Miller and James Wright.
From South Shields, the released prisoners included Jock Hood, of Readhead Street, donkeyman greaser; William McManus, AB; James Allen, donkeyman; Alexander McKay, butcher; William Curtis, Green Lane, and T K Hyde, refrigerator greaser, of Dene Row.
All had stories to tell of the cramped conditions they'd endured, of smoking cigarettes made from tea leaves, of meals of little more than soup or black bread and margarine.
Donkeyman James Allen told a Gazette reporter of heating water for shaving with an electric light bulb.
About being back, he said: "A real bed is great. I never knew it could be so comfortable after weeks of sleeping on carpet. And bacon and egg for breakfast this morning – it's grand to be home."
It was not a happy homecoming for all, however.
Peter Grimes, one of the Doric Star's stewards, returned expecting to be met by his mother.
Instead, the chaplain of the Missions to Seamen was at the railway station to tell him that she had died from injuries received in a black-out accident six weeks before.
And not all the returnees from the Altmark were from the Doric Star.
There was also a rapturous welcome for men from the John Morrison's steamer Ashlea, sunk by the Graf Spee in the South Atlantic in October 1939, and another victim of the pocket battleship, the Ridley Son and Tully's cargo ship Newton Beech.
A month later, the Graf Spee was scuttled off Montevideo after being severely damaged in action by the British cruisers Exeter, Ajax and Achilles.
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Thursday 24 May 2012
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