British merchant ship
"DELIUS"
(Lamport
and Holt Line)
The M.V. Delius was
christened in 1937;
saw service in World War II and was severely damaged in action on Nov.
21, 1943;
in 1954 transferred to
Blue Star Line and renamed Portland Star;
in 1958 reverted to Delius;
in 1961
sold to Morocco and renamed Kettara VII;
in 1962 sold to Sangyo Shinko K.K., Japan for demolition;
and arrived at Tokyo Feb. 2, 1962 for discharge.
Demolition commenced: April 30, 1962 at
Izumi-Ohtsu
Judging from the date of its christening (3 years after Delius'
death)
and from the other composer names in the list of ships, I believe that
it was indeed named in honor of composer Frederick
Delius.
Information
on the WWII service of The Delius (from the
MerchantNavyOfficers.com website)
The Delius, homeward bound from
India, was attacked by a glider bomb on November 21, 1943, and was
badly damaged. As a result she dropped astern of the convoy, and after
great efforts by the crew to control the fire aboard, she managed to
rejoin the convoy, and subsequently made port. The attack occurred in
position 46.46 N. 18.30 W. The following is an account compiled by the
carpenter, which was kindly sent me by Mr F. J. Page, who was serving
aboard as an A. B. at the time.
Delius
©National Maritime Museum
"Just before dawn on a Friday morning, we left a West of England port,
bound for India, in convoy, and on our first Sunday at sea a man was
lost overboard. Nobody saw him fall, and it was not until the ship
astern put up the signal "man overboard" that it was noticed that he
was missing. Each ship in line threw life-belts to him as they passed,
but by the time the escort reached the spot, he had disappeared.”
"From that time onwards it seemed as though we had a hoodoo on board;
nothing seemed to go right, even the food went bad as the refrigeration
went wrong; however nothing else happened until we got into the Indian
Ocean. It was at the end of the monsoon season and the weather was very
hot when the chief steward was taken ill; after three days of lingering
with this illness, which we took to be simply the effects of the heat,
he appeared on deck at about 5 o'clock in the morning, lay down in a
hammock that was stretched on the boat deck, and died. We were all
shocked at this, and began to think that it really was an unlucky trip.
We buried him at sea, and those readers who have seen a burial at sea,
will agree with me when I say, that it was a very solemn occasion. We
carried on from there to our port of discharge in India, and there our
bad luck showed itself again.
“All hands on board, with very few exceptions, fell ill with malaria or
dysentery, or both. We managed to get over it however, and started for
home again, wondering what else was in store for us. We were not left
waiting long, because we had hardly arrived at the Suez Canal when the
chief officer fell ill, and took to his bunk. On arrival at Port Said
he was so bad it was decided to put him ashore to hospital. Little did
we know that we would not see him again, , for four hours after being
admitted to hospital he died.”
"So we left Egypt minus three of our original crew, and fully convinced
that fate was not on our side. We safely passed through the
Mediterranean and out into the Atlantic Ocean. We had barely got clear
of Gibraltar however, when a single enemy plane came out, and commenced
to circle the convoy, keeping well out of range of our guns. Each night
he would go away; but the following morning he was back. The fact that
he did not attack us convinced us that he was only acting as a spotter
for other planes or submarines. After some days like this, it was noted
on one day that the plane was not to be seen, so we decided that this
was the day for our final piece of bad luck.
"Sure enough at about 3.15 p.m. the aircraft warnings sounded and we
all, took up our action stations. Being the ship's carpenter, I was in
the repair party, and so I took up my station with the bosun on the
boat deck. About nine planes came out and most of these got through to
the convoy. They first attacked a ship that had dropped astern of the
convoy a snort distance, owing to some engine trouble; they dropped
about ten bombs, of which only one scored a hit, but unfortunately that
one was enough to sink her.”
"After this, the Delius, became the target, and as a bomber came
towards us from the direction of the stern quarter, a strange thing
happened. A small plane appeared to drop from the rear of the bomber,
and gathering speed all the time, flew over the top of the bombers,
circled and came at us. We were taken completely by surprise, and
thought it was an R.A.F. fighter that had come to protect us. However,
as it appeared to be making straight for us, we decided to take no
chances, and our gunners fired at it, and scoring a direct hit, it
exploded near the ship.”
"Then it dawned on us that this was Jerry's secret weapon, that we had
heard rumours about, and was called a "shelic bomb". The advantage of
this new bomb for the enemy, is that the parent plane can keep out of
range of our guns, and direct his shelic bomb by radio control to
whichever target he wishes. This he did to us, after we exploded the
first bomb. He flew past and went towards another ship, launched his
bomb, which turned around and came back at us.
"As I said earlier, I was on the boat deck with the bosun, and with us
was an ordinary seaman, and behind us was a gunner. As I saw the bomb
coming I shouted to the others to take cover, and dived for a door
leading into the funnel, which was the nearest cover available. I had
hardly got there with these two seamen when the bomb landed on the
foredeck.”
"I could not move forward or back, but just stood swaying from side to
side; the blast hit us from one side then the other, and we saw all
kinds of sparks, lumps of wood, metal, and a thick cloud of smoke go
past us on the deck. I could not quite realise that we had been hit
until I saw that the bosun was badly wounded, and the gunner was
staggering around holding his stomach.
"The bosun died while I was with him, and after seeing the gunner was
being cared for by the first aid party, I went to the fore deck where
the lamp trimmer was trying to put out the fire caused by the bomb when
it struck No.3 hold. He was throwing burning bags and pieces of
tarpaulin over the side, and after a few minutes we thought that
everything was out. Then we saw smoke coming from another hole and we
went to investigate, having been joined by other men by this time.
"We discovered that it was just smoke coming along the top of the cargo
in the shelter deck, so we commenced to cover up again. As we were
doing so Jerry came back again and we all tried to find some hole to
crawl into for protection, but he was only taking photographs of his
handiwork, so we were all right.”
"We got back amidships to find that besides the bosun, our captain, a
steward and an A. B. had been killed while quite a number of others
were injured.”
"We sent out a call for a doctor, and shortly afterwards one was
transferred aboard. I would like to say here how very good and
sympathetic the naval escorts were to us. Every so often a corvette
would come as close as possible and ask us if there was anything we
needed, and they supplied us with hoses, medical stores, and even
cigarettes.”
"That night we discovered that a piece of hot shrapnel had gone down a
ventilator to the lower hold and the cotton which was stowed there was
on fire. So a few of us stood by all night, pumping water down the
ventilator in a vain effort to extinguish the fire. Next morning came
the job of burying our dead. I mentioned before how solemn it is to
witness a burial at sea. Imagine it as we watched four of our
shipmates, one after the other, go into the sea; men who just a few
hours earlier had been very much alive." "Later we took on board three
officers from the ship that had been sunk previously; they had
volunteered to come on board to help us when they heard that we had
only one officer left. And were they a help to us? Right here, I thank
God for men like them, who although, they themselves had lost
everything when their own ship was sunk, volunteered to go to the help
of other comrades who needed help. They cheered us up with their wise-
cracks and jokes, and at that time we needed their support, because
besides the fire we discovered that the water we were pumping into the
hold was lodging on the starboard side of the ship and was giving the
ship a very bad list.”
"To make matters worse, a heavy sea came up which held the ship further
over. It was so bad that none of us on board thought that she would
right herself each time she rolled over. We were expecting her to turn
right over, and had that happened not one of us would have been saved.
The water in the hold had now penetrated into the steward's stores,
entry into which was possible from the main deck.”
"So we started the portable pumps going to try and pump the water away
and to right the ship. The trouble was, that the cargo of peanuts in
the hold were floating round in the stores kept getting into the sucker
of the pump, stopping the water from going out. As a result, at least
one of us had to stay down there all the time to keep the suction
clear. Some of us were down there at least eight hours at a time. So we
carried on for the rest of the voyage, 1,000 miles to go, and the ship
on fire with a very serious list to starboard, and with injured men on
board.
"At times the ship fell back from the convoy, but eventually managed to
catch up and keep her station. The engineers in an effort to save her,
drilled holes in the bulkhead between the engine room and No.3 hold,
through which they pumped steam to help control the fire.
"In spite of all this we managed to get the ship into a British port.
We had no compasses, no degaussing gear, the steering gear was faulty,
and two of the six cylinders of the engine were out of action. The ship
was steered by the stars at night while making port."
"I would like to point out that the bringing home of this ship from the
point where we were bombed was entirely due to the 28-year-old second
mate, who was the only officer we had left. On the death of the chief
petty officer, he took over the job; and when the captain died, he took
over the captain's position in command. It was owing to his endurance
and good spirits that we were able to carry on. “
"To give an example, owing to the fact that the dining saloon was
wrecked the officers and engineers had to take their meals in the
P.O.'s mess, and the table was only meant for six men. Imagine the
sight of 18 men eating in there. It was a common sight to see the
officer in command of the ship, sitting on the deck with his plate on
his knees, while apprentices and junior engineers were sitting at the
table.”
"We moored at the salvage berth and the salvage and National Fire
Service personnel came on board to take over the job from us. It was a
relief to us, because for the whole five-and-a-half days we were trying
to control the fire, some of us had had no more than five hours sleep
per day. We were much amused when the N.F.S. sealed up the stores where
we had spent so many hours, because, they said there was a danger of
fumes from the peanuts going bad.
"Our injured went to hospital, together with men suffering from shock.
Two men died in hospital from their injuries, making a total loss of
personnel of nine men including the three prior to the bombing attack.”
“Our three friends, the officers from the ship that had sunk, left for
their homes, and sent us a telegram with best wishes, adding, 'never
were so many peanuts eaten by so few'. It took over a week to get the
fire aboard the ship under control, and it was 10 days before we
finally docked at Glasgow."
As a result of this ordeal, and for their actions in bringing the
Delius home, a number of the crew were decorated and commended.
-------------------------------------
blog
comments
regarding the DELIUS:
DELIUS was the first ship my dad sailed on 23-05-1941 after
volunteering for service in the Merchant Navy during the war. He was
7th engineer on this trip, but became 6th engineer on his following
trip, which began in Glasgow and finished in Liverpool 11-10-1943.
I notice from records of the DELIUS that on its next trip, just after
my dad had left the ship, it was bombed and strafed by German aircraft
21-11-1943. Apparently, their convoy of 20 ships was attacked by 60
aircraft, but DELIUS was the only ship to receive damage bad enough to
cause it to drop out of the convoy.
DELIUS was one of the “D” boats built for Lamport & Holt, and had
an innovative design in which the funnel was incorporated into the
superstructure. When I was quite young my dad showed me a photo of
DELIUS in a book, and this feature struck me as curious.
Back to the Delius Picture Page