My mate walks into a pub.....

[flag4]

My mate met this Bloke in a pub, he was 84 years old....

it happened this afternoon. he had finished work and gone for a drink. standing at the bar was a well dressed elderly gentlemen who had just ordered his 3rd drink which comprised a glass of red wine with a tea maria, some kind of brandy and a shot of vodka !!!! the drink itself cost about £10 a go. the landlord is a friend of ours.

they got talking, my friend and this old chap - who told him he didnt smoke anymore and had finished with sex "..its a bit like playing snooker with a rope.."

then he went on to tell him he had been working on a passenger liner around the outbreak of war in 39, travelling between New York and the Bahamas. at some point in the coming years the liner was commisioned by the US Military for a troop ship carrier. On its way to 'somewhere' it was torpedoed and went down with all hands. (..maybe the history buffs at subsim could 'clarify' this ?..)

the old boy joined the merchant navy, at some point, and on his way over to Liverpool he was torpedoed too - and all hands took to lifeboats. apparently....and i say this with caution because it is a contentious point, they all witnessed the sub rising to surface and the crew began to machine gun the survivers. alot of them were shot dead but the old boy and his lifeboat got away with a few others....(..possible late part of war - but Donitz did not issue this order from Hitler, said it would be bad for morale and the image of the Navy etc - i beleive...)

i was not there, in the pub, whish i had been though. even with my meagre knowledge i could have at least flushed him out with a few dates and names of boats - joined a few dots and weighed it all up.

my friend knows about my love all things U Boat - i drive him nuts with all the history and SH3, when we work together. he said he was cursing because i was not there to try and substantiate it all in some way.

any thoughts on these stories from this afternoon would be greatly appreciated.

now i'm off for a pint down The Albion...

[sharkbit]

Sorry, but I'm a Yank and this makes no sense:

"..its a bit like playing snooker with a rope.."

Sounds amusing though.

Interesting story though. Too bad there is no better dates, or the like.

Found this though-take with grain of salt-probably a lot is unsubstantiated:
http://www.geocities.com/Pentagon/Camp/3166/

There is only one war crimes trial though that resulted in a conviction:
http://www.uboataces.com/articles-war-criminal.shtml

[flag4]

Sorry, but I'm a Yank and this makes no sense:

Quote:
"..its a bit like playing snooker with a rope.."
Sounds amusing though.


sharkbit, i think the quickest translation for snooker is pool.........can u see how it plays out now...... :-)

as to the story, my friend can not remember the name of the merchant that sank or the commandiered passenger liner for the troops. as the old boy was drinking his volcanic mix my friend was drinking strong cider.......short term memory - gone - he's 45.

i hope i meet him next time so i can dig a little deeper...

thanks for the links, the cruelty was unbeleievable. and Erich Topp, one of my favorites too.....:-(

[Ford Prefect]

Machine gunning survivors of sunken military vessels was hardly uncommon. There's reports of british and norwegian forces machine gunning crews of sunken german destroyers in Narvik. But then they strafed the beaches an dunkirk, it's swings and roundabouts, part and parcel of the horrors of war. Interestingly enough one of those destroyers in Narvik can still be seen, the captain knew she was sinking so rammed her into the side of the fjord, unlike other destroyers that did the same this one caught on a ledge with the bow protruding from the water and is still there to this day. I saw it some years ago when I was visiting my father who lives up in Harstad these days.

[flag4]

"...Interestingly enough one of those destroyers in Narvik can still be seen, the captain knew she was sinking so rammed her into the side of the fjord, unlike other destroyers that did the same this one caught on a ledge with the bow protruding from the water and is still there to this day..."

Ford Prefect, do you have a photo - not of your Dad!, but the sunken boat...interesting stuff.

[JU_88]

From what Ive heard, it was somewhat down to indervidual U-boat captains,
Some were decent and tried to help surviors,
Most just ignored them,
but some were monsters and ordered them to be executed.

The same story in every war unfortunately

[Hitman]

he was 84 years old

So he was 14 in 1939?

And therefore, 20 in 1945

OK, he could have sailed late in the war, but I doubt much it was in 1939

[Hitman]

BTW now I remember something I wanted to narrate already for some time

I have an uncle who is now 88, and in 1943 he was lieutenant in the spanish army, serving in La Linea (That's the town in Spain near Gibraltar). By pure luck he got to see the huge armada sent by the allies to disembark in Sicilia cross the Gibraltar strait in front of his eyes , and the funny part is that in a given moment they suddeny turned towards him (probably a simple zig-zag, typichal in any naval formation) and he got so scared as he thought they were coming for Spain -Our country's government was back then close to nazi germany- he went down on his stomach!

[Ford Prefect]

Originally Posted by flag4

"...Interestingly enough one of those destroyers in Narvik can still be seen, the captain knew she was sinking so rammed her into the side of the fjord, unlike other destroyers that did the same this one caught on a ledge with the bow protruding from the water and is still there to this day..."

Ford Prefect, do you have a photo - not of your Dad!, but the sunken boat...interesting stuff.

Unfortunately my hobby with photography didn't catch on until a few years later and I never managed to get back to see the wreck again dispite passing through narvik several more times on my trips through norway. I'm sure there are pictures about though, if you can find info about the battle for narvik during the norwegian campaign of 1940 you'll likely find the sunken destroyers names and be able to trace from there. I'm kinda busy at the moment, putting warmed olive oil in my left ear to try and shift the wax that's sent me deaf in said ear, else I'd search myself.

Originally Posted by Hitman

So he was 14 in 1939?

And therefore, 20 in 1945

OK, he could have sailed late in the war, but I doubt much it was in 1939

There were boys aged 14 in the trenches in the first war, most lads would have been starting work at that age at that time, it's perfectly plausible to think he could have been on a ship, probably no more than a tea boy but he could have been there certainly.

[Brag]

There is only one documented incident in which a U boat machined gunned survivors. The commander of the U boat was convicted of a war crime.

The incident happened in the South Atlantic.

The gentleman in the pub seems like an old bee esser

[Ford Prefect]

Originally Posted by Brag

There is only one documented incident in which a U boat machined gunned survivors. The commander of the U boat was convicted of a war crime.

The incident happened in the South Atlantic.

The gentleman in the pub seems like an old bee esser

I saw Jack Dee on youtube the other day talking about the SAS, he did a gig in a town near their main training barracks, the whole town is therefore full of ****ehawks who go around telling folks they are in or were in the SAS, it's a little hard to swallow when they're 23 stone and stupider than a brick.... Jack of course just proceeded to rip the p**s out of them liberally.

If this guy is a "bee esser" he's a fairly low key one at least, not quite in the realms of Andy McNab or possibly Guy Sajer.

[Jimbuna]

Originally Posted by Hitman

So he was 14 in 1939?

And therefore, 20 in 1945

OK, he could have sailed late in the war, but I doubt much it was in 1939

Not totally impossible.....my father is 86 (still with us) and lied about his age. He was aboard a British merchantmen (Euphorbia) that was bombed in Barcelona harbour on May 14th 39.

I'd be more than happy to post images of his wartime papers if anyone is interested (Sailor Steve has long possessed copies).

If the aforementioned gent is a bit of a tom pepper I really don't see any potential for causing serious harm with his yarns.....we all know what effects alcohol can have on people.

[flag4]

.....we all know what effects alcohol can have on people.


I'll drink to that.


maybe someone knows of this troop ship cum passenger liner that went down with 7000 (seven thousand) american troops. if we can trace that we can trace a little more of the authenticity of this gentlemans story....

[Ford Prefect]

Originally Posted by flag4

.....we all know what effects alcohol can have on people.


I'll drink to that.


maybe someone knows of this troop ship cum passenger liner that went down with 7000 (seven thousand) american troops. if we can trace that we can trace a little more of the authenticity of this gentlemans story....

as I recall there was a big US troop ship sunk somewhere off scotland in '42, I only recall this because it was alleged that one of the bodies was used in Operation Mincemeat (you'd know it better as "The Man Who Never Was") as the corpse they'd originally intended to use was rapidly decaying. As for the details of the loss of that ship, I've no idea.

[Captain Nemo]

Originally Posted by flag4

.....we all know what effects alcohol can have on people.


I'll drink to that.


maybe someone knows of this troop ship cum passenger liner that went down with 7000 (seven thousand) american troops. if we can trace that we can trace a little more of the authenticity of this gentlemans story....

A quick bit of research has thrown up a couple of possibilities. The first is the USAT Dorchester sunk by U-223 on 3 February 1943. Out of the 904 on board 674 perished more info here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USAT_Dorchester .

The second and more likely the one referred to by the old geezer is the SS Leopoldville sunk on 24 December 1944 in the English Channel. A quote from Wikipedia states "Of the 2,235 American servicemen on board, approximately 515 are presumed to have gone down with the ship. Another 248 died from injuries, drowning, or hypothermia."

In neither case was all hands lost.

As has been mentioned before, Heinz-Wilhelm Eck of U-852 was the only u-boat commander convicted and executed for war crimes for machine gunning survivors of the SS Peleus.

Nemo