Episodes & Studies Volume 1
On Board the Achilles
On Board the Achilles
THE ACTION had lasted exactly eighty-two minutes. In that brief period, the Achilles had fired sixty tons of 112-pound shells in more than 200 broadsides. Every one of the 1200-odd shells and cordite charges fired had been manhandled from the magazines to the hoists, from the hoists to the loading trays, and then rammed home. All four turrets reported that after firing from sixty to eighty rounds, the guns began to fail to run out immediately after their recoil, due to heating up, and had to be pushed out by the rammers. The guns remained very hot for some hours after the action. ‘The guns’ crews,’ said one turret officer, ‘worked like galley slaves, loving it all, with no time to think of anything but the job. The whole of the turret from top to bottom thought the action lasted about twenty minutes. The rammer numbers were very tired towards the end, but did not appear to notice that till it was all over…. Men lost all count of time. They spoke later of “about ten minutes after opening fire” when actually more than forty minutes had elapsed….’
* Killed in action off Guadalcanal, Solomon Islands, 5 Jan 1943.
Not more than one man in ten in the ship’s company saw anything of the action. The majority were segregated in groups, and in some cases singly, in gun turrets, in engine- and boiler-rooms, and many other steel compartments below decks where no daylight entered. From the director control tower above the bridge were passed the ranges and much other data from which the robot brains of the calculating machines in the transmitting station, situated in the bowels of the ship and operated by a highly skilled staff, solved the problem of how a ship steaming at up to 31 knots was able to fire accurately, several times a minute, 8 cwt. of shells at another ship moving at 24 knots up to nine miles away. The officer in charge of the transmitting station reported that the spirit of his crew was excellent and all were as bright and cheerful as in a practice run. The detonations of the enemy’s 11-inch shells were heard distinctly, sounding like the explosions of depth-charges. ‘“Nutty” (chocolate) was a great help,’ he said. ‘We missed the free cigarettes, but we did hear that the canteen door had been blown off.’ Another officer remarked that ‘why the entire T.S.’s crew are not ill with bilious attacks, I cannot imagine, as everything edible was grist to the mill regardless of sequence’. The officer of the after control position reported regarding his crew, Marine Cave and Boy Beauchamp, that ‘they were perfect, the boy going out at one time into the blast of “X” turret to remove some canvas that was fouling vision’.
During the whole of the action the crews of the torpedo-tubes on the upper deck remained at their stations. No man took shelter. The trainers of the tubes were lucky not to have been hit by splinters. One able seaman fell and slipped along the deck under the starboard tubes. As he clambered out he was asked what he was doing there and replied that he thought he saw a three-penny bit. The officer in charge of torpedo-tubes, Gunner G. K. Davis-Goff,* reported that the foremost battle ensign was shot away and fell across the port tubes. ‘We rescued it and hung it up under the starboard whaler. It was later stolen by the signalmen…. During the lull in action, the tubes’ crews played crib and “uckers”** and had cocoa and sandwiches ….’
* Now Commander, Royal New Zealand Navy.
** The Navy version of the game ‘Ludo’.