1. ALL THE VALOUR OF A BATTLE-CRUISER

Skipper Spall stood on his upper bridge one blustery morning in February, 1941, conning His Majesty’s Trawler Stella Rigel into the War Channel, that buoyed and narrow seaway which encircles the British coast. The hood of his sand-coloured duffle-coat was pulled over his naval cap, for he had no protection from the sting of the wind or the lash of the spray which was driving over the trawler’s bows. He was a Grimsby man, not more than twenty-eight, but in peace-time he had commanded his own ship in the fishing grounds of the North Sea. The experience he had gained was serving him well in his daily search for German mines, and he was proud to wear the King’s uniform.

The Stella Rigel was a fishing trawler which, like her captain, had entered the Royal Naval Patrol Service in the early days of the war. Officially she was classed as a “minor war-vessel,” but she put to sea with all the valour of a battle-cruiser. For many months she had been sweeping her allotted area, a single unit in that great, tireless fleet of minesweepers which clears the sea-lanes for the convoys to pass in safety, that Britain may have food for her people, and fuel and munitions of war for her fighting forces. Systematically she had plodded to and fro a few miles off the Essex coast, her small company alert for a lurking mine and prepared for attack by aircraft, submarine or E-boat.

A few of the ratings, like their skipper, were fishermen by trade, but most of them had been landsmen until the outbreak of war. They had learnt to defend themselves as part of the day’s work and the night’s danger, and they worked as a team, happy in the friendliness of a little ship. Skipper Spall had confidence in them; they in turn looked to the bridge with equal confidence as they waited for his order that February morning. Once the trawler had reached her position in the War Channel it was not long in coming.

“Hands to sweeping stations!”

There was a scurry on deck as the hands turned to, each man in his place. Everyone in the ship, except the stokers on watch below, prepared to lend a hand. All had their lifebelts on, blown up and ready: in a minesweeper things happen too quickly to take precautions afterwards. They wore blue jerseys, overalls, oilskins, and thick white stockings which covered the tops of their long seaboots. The Second Hand took charge of the operations on deck. The Engineman was at the winch on which the sweep-wire was wound. The ratings stood ready to stream the grey torpedo-shaped float which would support the sweep and mark its position in the water. Even the cook left his galley as he heard the Skipper’s next order:

“Out sweep!”

The float was lifted from its chocks by the davit and lowered over the side. There was little room for the men on deck to move, and the rolling of the ship might have sent the heavy float swinging against the bulkhead to crush the fingers of an incautious hand. But the men knew their work, and at an order from the Second Hand, the Engineman un-clutched the winch to allow the sweep-wire to veer astern.

As the trawler gathered headway the sweep was taken out 250 yards on to the port quarter by the otter-board suspended from the float, and the iron kite was lowered to keep the inboard end of the sweep at the required depth. The float was now bounding along 500 yards astern, its red flag visible above a plume of spray. Once again the Stella Rigel had got “all her knitting out.” A black ball was hoisted at the masthead and another at the port end of the yardarm to warn other ships of the side on which she was sweeping.

Now the hands could relax, but one was posted aft to watch the float, while the winch-man kept his eyes on the taut sweep-wire, ready to go into reverse should he hear it “sing” or see the sudden pull which would reveal that it had caught a mine. From time to time he slacked off a few feet to change the nip and prevent chafing.

All day long the Stella Rigel steamed up and down the War Channel, covering lap after lap, as a man might mow a tennis lawn. Skipper Spall remained on the bridge, navigating the ship with unceasing attention, so that there should be no “holidays” in the swept water where a mine might remain uncut, in wait for an unsuspecting steamer.

The day passed quietly, without a single mine detonating in the sweep or the welcome diversion of one cut from its moorings to be exploded by rifle-fire. From time to time a convoy steamed along the swept channel, a double column of grey merchant ships with their escort of destroyers and corvettes.

Dusk came; then darkness fell over the sea. The Stella Rigel did not put back to harbour, but worked on through the night. The ratings were apt to grumble at the monotony of their task, as seamen will, but they did not underestimate the enemy with whom they had to deal, for they had watched the suffering of their sister ships. They had seen more than one strike a mine and blow up, leaving behind scarcely enough timber to make a packing-case. They had seen a mound of water rising like a mushroom from the surface of the sea, and heard the thud of the explosion as a mine, caught in a sweep, detonated under a trawler’s counter. They had seen others of their kind bombed from the air and sunk, and knew the risk from even a near miss as the ship lifted with the uprush of water, her bows stove in below the water-line.

Skipper Spall kept a wary look-out as he passed each buoy, well knowing that an E-boat might be hiding in its shadow. He continued sweeping throughout the night, until the end of the Middle Watch—“that weary watch from twelve to four.” Then he gave the order “In sweep.” Speed was reduced to allow the kite to be hove up and the sweep-wire unsnatched. When the winchman had wound in the sweep, and the float and otter had been stowed, the anchor was dropped clear of the channel, and Skipper Spall told the tired hands to pipe down for a few hours’ rest. Then he left the bridge for the first time since the Stella Rigel had put to sea. He did not go down below to his cabin, however, but remained on deck, near the Oerlikon gun which was mounted aft and ready loaded.

There was no moon, and the night was dark. Suddenly he heard the drone of aircraft engines. He ran to the gun. Dark though it was, one of the aircraft seemed to have observed the deeper blackness of the trawler’s form as she rode at anchor. It circled her three times, as though investigating, then approached from astern, about 500 feet above the deck.

Skipper Spall did not order “Actions stations,” which would have brought his men from their bunks in the fo’csle below. To do this, as he explained afterwards, he would have had to run to the bridge to sound the bell, and by the time the hands had closed up the Heinkel “might have been back in Germany.” Instead, he tipped the gun and fired half a magazine at the approaching enemy. He felt that he had sent some shells thudding into the Heinkel’s fuselage, and exultantly he let go the rest of the pan in rapid fire. The Heinkel zoomed low over the ship, losing height, and a few moments later blew up in the sea half a mile ahead. The action had been a matter of seconds, but the hands were astir. The Skipper went for’ard and shouted down the companion-way leading to the fo’csle.

“Just come up and have a look at this, lads!”

They tumbled up on deck to watch the Heinkel blazing in the sea.

That is how Skipper T.H. Spall, R.N.R., won the Distinguished Service Cross. The story is told here not so much because his action was an outstanding episode of the war, but because it was characteristic of the indomitable spirit of the trawler skippers: tough, brave, enterprising, accustomed to make fair weather of a foul wind, and modest above all.

When Skipper Spall made his report at the Base later in the day he told the Port Minesweeping Officer that there was “nothing to make a fuss about.” It had been, he explained, “just a damned lucky do.”

[Figure 1 caption] FIGHTING SHIP. Trawlers do more than sweep. They fight. With this Oerlikon gun, the Stella Rigel struck down a Heinkel in a night attack in the War Channel. Back in her home port she proudly puts out her coloured badge and painted name. At sea, like other trawlers, she becomes a grey ship with a number.