 and his fellow shipwrights were busy shoring up the
distorted bulkheads and George Male was assisting in the operating
theatre trying to save the wounded:
operated on into the night with bodies on the floor around us. One
sailor had part of his brain protruding and was laid on the floor as it
appeared our efforts would be better on those with more chance to
survive. After a while he raised himself with one arm and asked for a
drink. We got him on the table, did what we could for him. He was still
alive next day, transferred to RNH Simonstown and survived."
Despite a 125 ft tear in its starboard side Hecla made
its way under its own power to the South African naval base of
Simonstown. Les Proctor described how:
following morning, Cyril Hardware and I were sent down to the torpedo
flat to find the bodies of two people we knew to be down there, "Tubby"
Hoare was one and the other was Griffiths. Both had received news at
Freetown that they had become fathers. As the hull plates had been
folded back and were covered with several inches of fuel oil and water,
we were unable to locate the bodies at that time. Our selection for the
job was that we each had sea boots! They They were all
recovered in dry dock, stitched into their hammocks and piled on the
superstructure to await burial. A rather gruesome happening was that I
rushed up a ladder, threw back the curtain that screened the bodies to
find I was looking at the open end of the shrouds (the head end was
left open for identification at burial and to place in a four-inch
The dead were buried at sea by HMS Gambia. Captain E.F.B. Law's Report of Damage to HMS Hecla by underwater explosion and casualties to personnel can be seen in the National Archives, Kew, Ref ADM 199/802
Burial at sea from HMS Gambia
Courtesy of Simon Skelhorne, grandson of Jabez Skelhorne who was killed when HM Hecla sank on 12 November 1942
The mine was laid by the German minelayer, Doggerbank, which was converted from a captured British tramp steamer, the Speybank. On the 3 March 1943 the Doggerbank was mistaken for a British ship by U-43 and torpedoed and sunk west of the Canaries (with 394 killed and only one survivor).
The crew spent
a pleasant five months in South Africa while their ship was under
repair. They "enjoyed all the advantages of a peace time visit to a
truly beautiful country plus the special welcome reserved for service
men by those South African whites who were on the whole still
sentimental about Britain and Royalty and keen to demonstrate that
loyalty" (Ted Coleman). Don Preece and Jabe Skelhorne were two of those whose final months were made the happier by the generous hospitality they received in South Africa.
described Simonstown as "quite a pleasing rural community, a few little
shops, a small cinema and a pub or two. The main street included a row
of attractive colonial style buildings more or less opposite the
Dockyard. Admiralty House stood fair and square at the end of the
dockyard complex furthest west from the main gate." He gave an amusing
description of Just Nuisance, a great Dane officially adopted by the Navy and owner of a regular bed in the Fleet Club in Cape Town.
Charles Eastop and fifty of his colleagues on HMS Hecla left their ship at Simonstown:-
“While she was
being repaired fifty or so of her communications staff, wireless and
signals, were sent to Mombasa to form a temporary staff for C in C
Eastern Fleet who was about to pull out of Ceylon and establish a new
base at Mombasa. The intention was for us to return to Hecla
on completion of repairs but we were never recalled and consequently
Admiralty not knowing the circumstances reported us all missing. Of
course we knew nothing of this until some weeks later when somehow the
news got thro’ to us and arrangements were made for each of us to send
news urgently to our families to say ‘we are safe and well’. It was a
great shock to us all to hear such sad news and know that we had lost
so many old shipmates – in fact I have never seen a complete list of
those who were lost.”
now with Capt George Vivian Barnett Faul