Survivor of daring rescue mission in Arctic waters

Kyt · Oct 23, 2007

A collection of memories of the Second World War has been put together by a Tyneside writing group. In the second part of a two-part series LIZ LAMB talks to two war veterans about their experiences. (For Part One - Spitfire Pilot)

http://www.chroniclelive.co.uk/nort...scue-mission-in-arctic-waters-72703-19964801/

IN 1945 former teacher Roy Elwood was part of a rescue mission that saved the lives of 525 Norwegians from the Nazis.

The radar operator was aboard the British vessel HMS Zambesi, which was one of four destroyers which made a rescue dash up the Galen Fjord, 60 miles behind enemy lines.

They were part of a daring mission to rescue Norweigian families who had been hiding from German patrols in caves on the snow-covered mountains of Soroy Island for three months.

Roy, 82, of Whickham, recalls: “These people were starving. We learnt that the Nazis had destroyed the homes the Norwegians had been living in and killed their livestock.

“They rounded up people to send to concentration camps.

“The Norwegians didn’t want to leave so some of them were living in these caves.

“They’d got word to the Norweigian authorities in Britain, where the King of Norway was in exile.

“They persuaded the British Government to divert us from the convoy and we led four destroyers from the Royal Navy and Royal Canadian Navy down to the island of Soroy.

“We brought a Norweigian colonel to the island so that when the signal was given they could come down the snow slopes.

“They were mostly women and children and elderly men.

“Between the four of us we took 500 of them.”

After sailing out of the area, Roy and his shipmates learned that two Merchant Navy ships had got into trouble.

A British corvette, HMS Bluebell, close to where they were, had been blown to pieces by a torpedo, and HMS Zambesi was sent to look for survivors.

“There was only one man who survived. We didn’t find anyone on board,” recalls Roy, who used to teach at Northumbria University.

“We couldn’t stay there, otherwise we would go down as well.

“The other ship that was sunk was an American ship called the Henry Bacon.

“We met the worst storm of any convoy. It really was rough.

“The convoy got broken up and we had to round them up again.

“We had two lifeboats hanging up and they were smashed to pieces, just by water coming over the side.

“The Bacon got detached from the convoy and it was 60 miles away when it was attacked.

“There were 23 aircraft torpedo bombers who’d come over to look for the convoy. There were submarines swarming all over the area.

“The Henry Bacon sent out a distress signal but she was sunk.

“It was very cold water. They only had two lifeboats and of four large rafts they let three of them go. People were making makeshift rafts.

“It took three hours to get there. Our job was to pick up people on boats clinging on to timber in the water.

“The men were absolutely frozen. We couldn’t tell if the men in the water were alive or dead.

“We knew that there were not many of them who would be alive in the water.

“There were a lot of the Bacon crew who did not make it.”

Roy had started his Navy training in September 1943 and in April 1947 he came home.

“You were obviously frightened at times in the service,” he says.

“It was a traumatic experience. It does change you in a number of ways.”

MARGARET Rayner was 14 years’ old when the Second World War broke out.

At the age of 18 she joined the Women’s Land Army and was assigned to the Timber Corps, which meant her leaving her home in Blaydon to go to a large sawmill in Worcester.

Her job in the timber factory was hard work and she had to brave the elements while feeding endless piles of wood into a timber-cutting machine, which was outside.

Some of the pieces of wood she worked on would later be used to mark the graves of soldiers cut down in the line of duty on the bloody battlefields of France.

Margaret, 82, of Whickham, says: “It was a bit of a shock to begin with.

“It could be dangerous work. One girl lost three of her fingers.

“There were quite a few people with fingers missing.

“It was hard graft but it was satisfying.

“One of our jobs was fire-watching as there was a petroleum storage depot right next door.

“My brothers were off fighting in the war and my sister Doris, who was 10 years older than me, was a volunteer for the St John Ambulance. I worried about them during the war.

“My brother Colin was a Petty Officer Writer in the Royal Navy and he was on a convoy that went from the Mediterranean to the Arctic – and the conditions were very severe.

“My brother Bill served with Monty from the time of the D-Day landings.

“He could tell some interesting stories.

“One day he was helping to map out the forward area and he swore he felt someone’s eyes on his back.

“He turned around and he was looking into the face of a German soldier with a machine gun.

“It was a few seconds before he realised the man was dead.

“He was in shock.”

Margaret learned long after the war ended that her cousin, Joy, had served at Bletchley Park in Buckinghamshire working on German nightfighters’ signals.

“She found it hard to talk about it,” says Margaret, whose late husband Albert also served in the war.

Margaret spent her last few months of service in ministry headquarters in Shrewsbury.

She has since attended a number of important events because of her war service.

“We went for tea with Prince Charles and were invited to the Queen Mother’s 100th birthday celebrations,” she says.

“I met the Queen at the unveiling of the memorial for the Women’s Second World War memorial.

“She was a lovely and very calm, despite it being just after the bombs went off in London.

“Joining the Women’s Timber Corps was one of the best things I ever did.

“ I found it quite emotional writing about my memories of the war.”

To hear Roy and Margaret talking about their experiences of the war go to www.chroniclelive.co.uk
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spidge · Oct 23, 2007

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Survivor of daring rescue mission in Arctic waters

Kyt Άρης

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