May 5, 2013

Finest Hour 151, Summer 2011

Page 18

Cover Story – “Good Voyage—Churchill”

Handpicked to represent the press on Churchill’s Atlantic Charter summit with Roosevelt in Newfoundland in August 1941, a famous British travel writer produced a renowned wartime book: Atlantic Meeting. This is an excerpt from his account of the voyage home.

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By H.V. Morton

Mr. Churchill was longing to see a convoy. He used to go down to the Map Room time after time and measure the distance of the nearest, and so keen was his desire to see the life blood of Britain in circulation that the Captain and First Sea Lord knew that sooner or later his wish would have to be gratified. It happened on August 15th.

There was a magnificent convoy of seventy-two ships ahead of us and, as we rapidly overhauled them, Mr. Churchill pointed out that a slight deflection from our course would take us into them. A wireless warning to the corvettes was accordingly sent out.

The first I knew of it was when I met the signal officer poring over a code book and he seemed rather worried. He explained his problem.

“The signal I’m to make to the convoy is ‘The Prime Minister wishes you the best of luck.’ But there’s no signal for Prime Minister in the International Code. The nearest is “Chief Minister of State,” which doesn’t sound a bit right.”

“Is there a flag for church?” I asked.

“Yes.”

“And hill?”

“I see the idea—Churchill.” He came back later with the message changed to “Good Voyage, Churchill.”

“I shall spell out Churchill,” he said. “There can’t be any mistake then.”

It was not until 8:30 that evening that we ran into the convoy. I was in the wardroom studying American magazine advertisements at the time. The telephone rang and George Ferguson spoke from the bridge, telling me to go out on the quarterdeck at once.

I ran out and saw an amazing sight. We were racing through the middle of the convoy. There were tramps, tankers, liners and whalers, salty old tubs and cargo boats of every type, age and size on each side of us, the nearest only 200 yards away, the crews clustered on decks and fo’c’sles, waving their caps in the air and cheering like mad.

Never had I seen anything like it in my life. After days on a lonely ocean, to come into this fleet of seventy-two ships travelling in long lines and covering many square miles of the Atlantic would have been exciting even in peacetime. It was like meeting a town at sea, Blackburn or Oldham, with all the chimneys smoking.

Now and again a siren tried to give us the V-sign in Morse, but came to grief on the dots. Men in shirt sleeves, sailors, a few passengers, stood clustered wherever they could see us best, waving away, laughing and shouting at the top of their voices.

Guarding this mighty fleet were eight little grey corvettes lifting on the swell, snapping round the flanks of the convoy like sheep dogs, scurrying up in rear to hurry on a laggard, and dashing off into the open as if they had smelt the big bad wolf.

We went through with our destroyer screen at twenty-two knots. The convoy was doing eight. If they were thrilling to us, we must have been equally thrilling to them as we shot ahead with our painted guns levelled and twelve coloured flags and a pennant flying from our main fore-mast. The pennant at the lower yard showed that the signal was made in the International Code. A three-flag hoist above it read, PYU—GOOD VOYAGE, and a nine-flag hoist on the port side spelt CHURCHILL.

As each ship read the message we could hear the sound of cheering as we came level with them, we could see skippers laughing inside wheelhouses, trying to wave with one hand and touch off the siren with the other; and upon our bridge Churchill waving his hand in the air, making a “V” with the forefingers of his right hand, was cheering as madly as any of the men who were cheering him.

As he looked over the sea from the altitude of the bridge, the Prime Mnister could see the whole convoy moving towards England. He saw it spread out for miles over the Atlantic, moving in columns. He saw ships with aeroplanes tied to their decks, he saw cargo-boats wallowing to the Plimsoll line with food and munitions, liners deep in the water with every kind of war material and tankers heavy with petrol—a stupendous and heartening sight for the leader of an island at war.

Having passed through them, we turned and saw our white wake streaking backward, and we saw the ships tossing in the tidal wave of our wash. Then, to our surprise, the Prince of Wales with her destroyers began to describe a circle, and we raced back behind the convoy. Why? What had happened? This had happened. The Prime Minister insisted on seeing it all over again!

So on we came a second time, the bright message still at our masthead, our grey guns levelled; the sea curving in two white lines from our bows; and they saw in us the majesty of British sea power as we saw in them the gallantry of the Merchant Navy. It was a grand meeting on the high seas in wartime. I doubt if there has ever been a finer. It symbolised the two great forces which have made Britain and her Empire great and powerful in the world; the two forces we must thank when we eat our bread in freedom at this hour. As I watched those merchant ships so heavily loaded pass by, I wished that everyone at home in England could have seen them too. No one, seeing those brave ships loaded with help for us passing through the battlefield of the North Atlantic, could ever again waste a crust of bread or think it smart to scrounge a pint of petrol.

Again the cheers sounded as the Prince of Wales went past. “V” flags were hoisted by tramps and tankers, the deep sirens of liners and the shrill yelps of tramps sent out one dash and three misguided dots into the air of evening; and, once again, we saw the tiny cheering figures on decks and fo’c’sles as we raced across the grey sea on our way. And, looking back at them with pride and gladness in our hearts, we saw the convoy fade in the growing dusk to black dots on the skyline; then they disappeared and there remained only a smudge of smoke to tell that seventy-two ships were going home to England.

Mr. Churchill watched them until the dusk hid them from view. “A delectable sight,” he said.