Voyage Eight
Charles H. Lanham - Page 4 - Recollections
There was only one time at sea that I was really scared. We hit an iceberg. It frustrates me because I can't remember which ship or voyage that it was on. I never kept a diary and its been so many years ago. Now I wish that I had written things down when they were happening. It was during one of the trips that went to England - on the way back I think. My son has the armed guard reports for the voyages and this incident isn't mentioned, but it sure as hell happened. Not to long ago I dreamt about it and it was so real like I was there.
I was talking to someone, maybe the cook, near a stairway when we were jolted. It almost threw me over. One of the officers came down the stairs and liked to knock us down. He was hollering, "We've been hit, we've been hit. " He had been torpedoed before. Crew were running around saying we were torpedoed and we should abandon ship, but it turned out that it was an iceberg. I never saw the thing we hit, though I have seen plenty of ice in the North Atlantic.
We slowed and dropped back in the convoy. I suppose they were checking the damage below and we were taking on water. A corvette heaved to and asked what was the matter and waited while the Captain and Chief were inventorying the damage. The corvette wanted to know if we wanted them to take us off. Some of the mates and some of the crew did want to abandon the ship, but the captain said that he would take the ship into port. The corvette signaled that we were on our own if we couldn't make enough speed to keep up with the convoy, because she would have to leave us to continue escorting the other ships.
We had a bad list after
the collision and it got worse over the next couple of days because the weather
turned bad and the sea got rough. We began to really list badly. I had to hold
on to something when I walked around. That is how bad it got and the crew started
to panic. They wanted off and so did some of the officers. But the captain told
them to look at the sea. He told them that it was too cold and rough for anyone
to survive out there in life boats. We had no choice but to try to ride her
in and hope that she didn't capsize.
We had some luck and the weather cleared and the sea calmed a bit, especially when we got into the Irish Sea. That old man took us in to England just like he said he would. When we got there we had a dangerous list. The ship put in to one of those floating dry docks. There was a gash in the hull where the plates had buckled. Navy Sea Bees took plates off the side and replaced them. They welded everything back to together at a speed that amazed me. After that corvette left us and the weather turned bad, we were all pretty worried. I was frightened that time because I did believe that we might sink. I think that was the only time that I would say that I was really afraid.
Several times on different voyages we lost or were left by the convoys. We got lost in fog or had some mechanical problem and then we were on our own for a while. That always made the crew anxious. A merchant ship was more vulnerable alone. Subs, especially later in the war when convoys were too well defended to be attacked, concentrated on picking off stragglers. But it's a big ocean and we always had good luck.