INTERVIEW WITH GEOFF TAYLOR,
Chairman
Arctic Convoy Veterans Association,
Please tell a bit about
yourself, how and why did you become a naval seaman?
I was born in
I was then transferred to
Kyle of Loch Alsh in
This was my first trip
into the
As the ship was due for a
boiler-clean I was transferred to a V & W destroyer H.M.S. Wrestler. This was an old ship built
about 1918. We saw service in the
We came eventually to
D-day. Most of the destroyers including the "Wrestler" which
had taken part in the Russian convoys took part in that
invasion on
What was your feeling about
We were very young
men back then, only 18. We knew that Hitler and
What did we think
about
We did not have much information about
What kind of relationships
did you have with the Russians?
We were on small ships. We never went past Polyarnoe and there was not much to see. We only had a few
hours ashore just to have a look around the place. We were not welcomed all
that well by the local people. They were seemingly mistrustful of us. We never
talked to each other – there was no provision made. We were not invited to
their homes, we were not allowed to go out of the area – there could be a
trouble with the army, with the guards… I can remember a later visit when
things had changed since the earlier days. The decided to get on a little bit
better with us… There was a concert party. We did have an aircraft carrier with
us, on of the ones converted from merchant ships. The concert was held in a
hangar of the carrier and we were allowed to send two people from each mess. We
had about 10 messes onboard, so about 20 blokes went on that ship. I never got there so I have no idea what
happened. I know that when the concert was over the blokes began to clap their
hands and whistle they did not know it was a sign of misappreciation
in
How did we get along with the Russians? We did to a degree, but
it was very difficult because of the language. When you meet somebody in the
street what do you say? But once we did bring some Russian seamen with us, and
that was very interesting. Two of them were placed into each mess of the
destroyer. By the end of the trip we were able to speak quite a bit of Russian,
and he – of English and we found it very entertaining. I gave one of them my
hammock billet. We found them very amusing blokes. We got along very well
together.
What was the aim of
their trip to
They were going to
Which day of the war
you remember the most?
There were, probably, several of them. I will always
remember the first day of the war when Chamberlain said, “This country is at
war”. We were only young then and no one knew what was to come and how long it
was going to last. ..
The other one was, probably, the first Russian convoy… The next one – D-Day. Then we hit a mine and that was the
end of it and I didn’t see anymore of the invasion.
Did you like the books
“The
I quite liked them. There is a little bit of exaggeration,
but unless you’ve experienced these hardships yourself… I remember seas 80 foot
high and our ship coming up and literally falling down like this (Geoff showed it falling forward nearly
vertically – VK)… Three of us had to wash the mess – one held the bucket,
another – the mop, and another one was washing the floor… There was exhaustion,
very little sleep. A little bit is overdone, but not really, it’s true. I don’t
say that relationships between the captain and the crew was that terribly
close, we knew each other, but you don’t see much of the captain, you’ve got
your own job, you’ve got your own officers, not
that much of supervision – you do what you’ve got to do.
“The Cruel Sea”.
I think sometimes it would have happened, I think, you mean those
survivors in the water… The submarine was more important. It was only at that
war. It may have happened…
But those seamen were
foreigners, and, if you remember, it was emphasized in the movie… Do you
remember foreigners in the convoys? Were there any foreigners in your crew?
What was their nationality?
There were a few of them. I remember Norwegians.
French? Polish?
We had French and Polish ships working with us. We had crews
to help the language problems.
In “The
Yes, two or three on our destroyer. It was quite common.
Did you have a chance
any of your former enemies or allies after the war?
No, I did not.
I went back to
I worked in the East End of London which was a rough place
at that time. I was not lucky enough to get a job in A, B or C division which
worked in all those glamour parts of
Dulstone was a place a couple of miles away, and
there used to be political meetings there. It was held there since it was a
Jewish section. A lot of Jews lived there. It was a rough place to start with.
This bloke, Oswald Mosely’s right hand man and his
name was Geoffrey Ham. I will never forget this bloke. I remember him saying in
one of his speeches: There isn’t such a thing as a British Jew, an Eskimo Jew
or a German Jew. There is one Jew who is a Jewish Jew and we don’t like him!”
And then the crowd erupted, fighting was going on… I said to a bloke who was
standing next to me, a little Jewish bloke, “Get out of here. Look, there’s going
to be a big upheaval here. Get out before I’ve chucked you out!” I told him two
or three times, then I grabbed that silly idiot but he hit kicked me on the
shins. Eventually he got 4 months of jail for that, for the assault on police…
Please tell whatever
you want about your experience?
One thing that really came back to mind was one in the
Atlantic convoy. I never got as far as
The conditions onboard were absolutely dreadful.
Overcrowding was one of the biggest problems we had on destroyers. They had double the crew they had at the
normal peace time. We were on 4 hours on, 4 hours off roster, and 4 hours was
the maximum amount of sleep you would possibly get. The first ship I joined was
the American destroyer HMS Wells, a
very good destroyer. Depending how long you’ve been on board of the ship you’d progress
to a position for sleep. If you were only new you’d sleep in a hammock. The
next bone slept on the lockers. The next one slept on the table. The next one
slept on the deck. When the first rain came in and I was wet through. It all
came through the hatch… I spent nearly a year on that ship and graduated to the
lockers…
The other problem we had on American destroyers was amount
of sulfur sucked down the air vents (there was no air-conditioning). We woke up
ill because of the bad design of those ships. The design was bad and the
conditions were dreadful.
On destroyers there was only one cook for 180 men. We received
certain foods from the stores like flour, sultana, tea, coffee, sugar. You
would prepare it and bring it to the galley and it would be cooked for you. By
the end of each month we received a mass bill – the amount of money you had
spent on food. If you had spent less there would be mess savings. Believe you
or not at the end of the month we would get mess savings. But the food was
actually dreadful onboard of those ships.
How did you eat
compared to the British civil population – better or worse?
A lot worse.
We used to take bread at ports – Scottish ports like
Some ships, particularly cruisers would bake bread and some
was given to the destroyers. But we were in about seven miles from the cruisers
and we never got any bread from them.
The food was dreadful, and if you wanted to eat extra
variety you would buy it in N.A.F.F.I. It was particularly dreadful in the
early days, towards the end it improved. Our daily allowance for meals was 1.11
½ per day.
What about alcohol?
We had a rum tot at
The most sleep you could get was only three hours. We had
problems in getting water. I remember – this was actually in the
Was it justified, what
do you think?
I’ll tell you what – it was a nightmare. I should not have
done it. I knew it was a wrong thing to do. That’s how severe the conditions
were! No way on earth there would be any ships today with shortage of drinking
water. There were too many people on board – much more than it was built for to
start with. We were on two watches – 4 hours on, for hours off and 3 hours was
that amount you could sleep.
Can you tell me about
any action against, say, enemy airplanes or U-boats?
The first what comes to mind is the invasion of
Another funny one I remember was during the first Russian
convoy. We all brought onboard our long underwear. One of the stokers used to
be a jockey - a very small guy. When he got issued with his long johns he
standing on the mess table managed to button the waist above his head. And
there were howls of laughter from the rest of the crew!
The moral was very high but some officers who had come from
RNVR (particularly the first lieutenant) were very inflexible, they would get
upset about minor things that were irrelevant like chips of paint missing, etc.
We used to have problems with German long range aircrafts
which were circling the convoys out of the range of our AA guns. They were
reporting our position to the U-boats. And once a senior officer said to me: ‘Signal
the bastard to circle it in the other direction – it makes me dizzy’. And the
German did it! It was quite amusing.
On one occasion we came back to
You would here about other destroyers in other convoys being
sunk and you look at the hull of the ship next to you and you would think that
there is only one quarter of an inch of plate between you and a next torpedo.
The only thing stopping you dwelling on being killed was the activities of the
mess deck.
We were issued with chocolate which had lumps of white fat
in it. Each sailor had a knife he had to carry and we would shave the chocolate
with the knives to make a hot drink. It was my turn to go down to the galley to
get boiling water and as I got to the bottom to the stairs to the galley the
ship rolled badly. I grabbed the stanchion at the base of the stairs to brace
myself. When I got back with the boiling water one of my shipmates asked where
from all the blood came from. It happened because the palm of my hand had got
frozen to the stanchion and because I was not wearing gloves. And I could not
go and get treatment as I should have carried gloves…
Icing was a big problem. We would have to chip it off every
4 hours and traverse the guns to stop the mechanism freezing. There were
records of smaller ships capsizing and once a Russian destroyer with too much
ice on her superstructure went down as well. On one trip we had a scientist
onboard who was experimenting with anti-freeze grease. By the time he recovered
from sea sickness all the grease he had smeared over the guns had been washed
away and so he was unable to observe the effects of his experiment. Ice did not
effect bigger vessels – cruisers and larger were not
effected so badly…
In Polarnoye when we on watch at night we had to patrol the
wharf around the ship. And one night I noticed a bloody great bear amongst the
crates. I went to get some friends to deal with it but when we returned we saw
the Russians leading the bear away on board of a Russian destroyer because it
was their mascot!