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Extracts from
GOODNIGHT, SORRY FOR SINKING YOU
The Story of the S.S. City of Cairo
by
Ralph Barker
Pls. use ctrl. + f to search this page
GOODNIGHT, SORRY FOR SINKING YOU
The Story of the S.S. City of Cairo
by
Ralph Barker
Pls. use ctrl. + f to search this page
Burma Folk Mentioned:-
Dulcie Kendall and her son Colin.
W. Ferdinand Dieckhaus, his wife Avis and son Ferdinand (Ferdy)
Freda Bullen and twin boys Michael and Peter
Francis & Peggy Marr
Dr. Ronald Tasker
Daniel McNeill
George Blagrave-Dean
W. Ferdinand Dieckhaus, his wife Avis and son Ferdinand (Ferdy)
Freda Bullen and twin boys Michael and Peter
Francis & Peggy Marr
Dr. Ronald Tasker
Daniel McNeill
George Blagrave-Dean
Flyleaf description of this book:-
On the 6th November 1942 the S.S. City of Cairo, alone in the middle of the South Atlantic making for Recife in Brazil was torpedoed by the German U-boat U68. She had nearly 300 passengers and crew aboard, who moved quickly to the lifeboats. Twenty minutes after the first torpedo, Karl-Freidrich Merten sent another to scuttle the ship; in passing it sank one of the lifeboats and damaged another. As those in the water fought to clamber into the remaining boats, most of them already overloaded, he surfaced to identify his kill, to criticise the Captain of the Cairo for his lack organisation, to tell him how far he was from land (nearly 2000 miles from Brazil, over 1000 from Africa and nearly 500 from St. Helena) and to wish him “Goodnight. Sorry for sinking you.”
What follows forms one of the greatest tales of survival and endurance. The Cairo’s Capt. decided that their only hope was to sail for St. Helena, despite the considerable chance of overshooting and being lost in the ocean beyond. Three boats did become detached from the main group and their story is the most extraordinary of all. In the weeks that followed, the survivors growing steadily fewer and weaker, found and knew the extremes of selfishness and depravity of which human being are capable. But they also discovered in some of their number a nobility and heroism that defies easy description. It is this latter which is the lasting impression of his book.
In years of meticulous research Ralph Barker has reconstructed the story of the sinking. (The reader finds, almost accidentally, that an authentic picture of life and attitudes in the 1940’s is presented in the course of his description.) The thoughts and words of the participants as here recorded are not his suppositions, but as told to him by those who were there. He has eschewed dramatisation or fantasy, preferring to allow the facts to speak for themselves and as written a book whose dignity is wholly appropriate to its subject.
Premonitions and Superstitions
... For many of the passengers, however, the voyage offered escape from traumatic experiences in the retreat from the Japanese to a haven that even in wartime seemed indefinitely desirable. Among the numerous widows ... Dulcie Kendall and her three year old son Colin. Four years earlier, at 20 ... Dulcie had married an Engineer with Burma Railways. When the Japanese advanced on Rangoon, Dulcie and the child were evacuated to India but her husband remained in the extreme north of Burma, working on an extension of the railway through to China. As the Japanese penetrated farther into Burma he was forced to flee and during the crossing of the great jungle covered mountain barrier that separates Burma from India he contracted cerebral malaria. Dulcie was in Calcutta, about to visit him in hospital when she was told of his death. Stunned by the news, she headed for Bombay and home. Even now, with her fair hair and blue eyes and impeccable taste and dress sense, she did not appear an object of sympathy, nor did she wish to. But when she went to buy clothes for the voyage an intuitive Indian girl in a Bombay dress shop saw through her facade. “Will you have my St. Christopher medal?” she asked. “I couldn’t do that,” said Dulcie, with the characteristic assent and accentuation of her kind. “That’s yours.” “No – you must take it. You’re going on a journey, a dangerous journey. I can get another.” And Dulcie Kendall was wearing the charm when she boarded the City of Cairo.
Among others families on the run from the Japanese ... were a Dutchman and his wife and son ...
W. Ferdinand Dieckhaus was a self made man who had established himself in Rangoon with a Dutch import-export firm in the thirties and married an attractive part Goanese girl whose father had been Chief Justice of Burma. After sending his family ahead to Calcutta, Dieckhaus had a gruelling experience as one of the last European civilians to escape from Rangoon and neither his physique (he was over six feet tall and well build) nor his nervous system had fully recovered. His son Ferdinand junior (“Ferdy”) was a lusty infant of two years and three months. ... asked passengers with the necessary qualifications to come forward and offer themselves as boat wardens ... another recruit, although not a seaman, was the Dutchman Dieckhaus, welcomed because of his experience as a St. John’s Ambulance Brigade volunteer during the bombing of Rangoon. All four were active men in their thirties who were glad of something to do.
... Kindred spirits, and those with comparable experience, found a sympathetic hearing, Dulcie Kendall gave welcome support to another Burma widow, Freda Bullen, and felt supported in return. Freda had gone to Burma in 1937 to visit a brother and see a new country and there she had met and married an engineer; in 1940 she gave birth to twin boys. Freda escaped from Burma by transport plane with the children but her husband was yet another victim of the debilitating trek across the mountains, he reached Calcutta safely, then contracted malaria and died. For this gentle, reserved young woman, burdened by grief and two lively twin boys, there was no alternative but to go home to her parents in xxx. The self-assured Dulcie Kendall was the best possible cure for her melancholy.
Since sighting the wisp of sulphurous smoke at 19.21, Karl Friedrich Merten, in U68, had been closing the range. Soon he was focusing on what he judged to be a cargo/passenger ship ... Merten’s underestimate of the City of Cargo’s speed did not save the vessel, 29 seconds later, abreast of the after-mast, the torpedo struck.
... Dulcie Kendall and Freda Bullen were lingering over their coffee in the saloon when they were almost thrown out of their chairs. In the ensuing darkness they grabbed their life jackets and made their way to their cabins which were at the opposite end if the ship. Dulcie missed her way in the dark and had to feel her way back along the corridor wall. The torpedo had exploded immediately under her cabin and the disorder was such that she was frightened to look at Colin’s bunk. But he was sitting up in bed rubbing his eyes. By the time she had gathered a few essentials unto her panic bag, a tall, grey-haired well groomed retired Army Colonel named Arnold Silcock, a man with such a veneer of discretion that he was popularly supposed to be attached to M.I . 5 (he admitted to being a King’s Messenger, but that was dismissed as a “front”) appeared in the doorway as pre-arranged and although carrying an armful of coats, jackets and jerseys, he took charge of Colin. Dulcie felt quite unperturbed now. The ship did not seem to be sinking, she was in good hands and it didn’t occur to her that there might be another torpedo. Silcock had served in Intelligence, he was a Fellow of the Royal Institute of British Architects and his wide-ranging interests included Chinese porcelain, on which he was an authority, and comic verse. But only his Military training was of use to him – and to Dulcie Kendall – now.
Freda Bullen, whose cabin was on “C” deck, had even farther to go to reach the twins. A shy person, she had not liked to trouble anyone else, but one of the distressed British seamen [Seamen whose ship has been torpedoed) had offered to help and had kept his promise. The twins, lying naked in their bunks, were asleep. Freda selected a few items of clothing and they grabbed one twin each. Pulling the miniature kapok lifejackets over bare flesh and gathering up two tiny pairs of pyjamas, they hurried up to their boat station, No. 1 boat, the farthest forward on the starboard (torpedoed) side.
... Nutter’s boat was one of the first away. ... (Dulcie Kendall was in his boat with Colin.) ... One man who baulked at getting into this boat because of its over-loaded state was Francis Marr, 49 year old Geologist with the Burma Oil Co. Having see his wife Peggy safely aboard he stood back. Violet Williams was in this boat ... and she was a witness to Francis Marr’s unselfishness. She hoped he would get away on a raft.
... he bumped into the Dutchman Ferdinand Dieckhaus, one of the wardens of this boat, who had just rescued a sleeping Ferdy – having wrapped him in blankets – from the cabin, “go up to my cabin,” Boundy instructed,“ and get my panic bag. My navigation books are inside it.” Dumping Ferdy in the lifeboat, Dieckhaus obeyed.
In boat 1, Margaret Gordon was nursing one of the twins and Freda Bullen was trying to dress the other ...
Merten was an opportunist whose professional task, in a war to the death, was to sink enemy ships, whatever the cost to human suffering. He was merciful enough to give the lifeboats twenty minutes to get clear. Then from the safe range of 800 meters, he fired a second torpedo at the now stationary ship.
Nice Night for a Bathe
... The adjacent lifeboat, the much bigger boat 1, although escaping the blast, was lifted up like a cork and turned over, pitching nearly everyone inside it into the sea. Someone fell on Margaret Gordon and knocked little Michael Bullen out of her arms, and when at length she came spluttering to the surface the child was gone. After a frantic but fruitless search she struck out away from the ship. Meanwhile Freda Bulled, similarly flung out, felt herself sinking, and she wondered, without great curiosity, how soon she would drown. She could imagine no other denouement. But she too came to the surface eventually. She was still clutching Peter. ... Margaret Gordon, still looking for the missing twin hoped he might still be in boat 1. She reached it and strong hands pulled her in, but there was no sign of Michael.
... Thrown out of boat 1, Mona Rooksby had found the second Bullen twin floating perfectly happily in his lifejacket, quite alone, gurgling away to himself as though he were enjoying a bath. He was handed into the boat, to be restored to a grateful Freda Bullen. She knew someone else had been nursing Michael but she had not realised he was lost.
... Amongst those still on board the City of Cairo when the second torpedo struck had been Capt. Rogerson and a dozen others, a mixture of passengers and crew ... Passengers included ... Francis Marr... Capt. Rogerson was dragged down to a considerable depth ... Britt and Humphries of the crew and McGregor of the passengers, trapped for a time by the swirling vortex below, were somehow regurgitated. But nothing was seen of the others.
... Was the submarine German or Italian? Would it make any difference? Nothing intimidated them more than the oppressive shadow thrown, forward of the conning tower, by the submarine’s long range gun. Still hoping they might not be seen, the survivors in the boats, ostrich-like, remained silent and still ... boat 6 was the nearest to the submarine and indeed the only one properly within earshot ... “keep still and stop rowing” ordered Merten ... “I said what ship are you?” ... Merten, in fact, had not ordered his guns to be trained on the boats. He had never experienced resistance from any of the lifeboats he had approached in the past ... “Have you anyone who would prefer to be taken prisoner?” ... “Your nearest land is the Island of St. Helena. It’s four hundred and eighty miles to the north-north-east ...” “Take case for those in the water.” Merten’s manner throughout had been considerate, once answers were forthcoming ... Now he completed his farewell to his victims with an apology. “Goodnight. Sorry for sinking you.”
... Most of the women and children in this boat, however, were transferred to the drier and half-empty boat 4. They included... Freda Bullen and the twins ... Another woman fraught with anxiety was Peggy Marr: torch-light messages flashed from boat to boat brought no firm news of her husband, the man who had chosen not to add to the overload in boat 6.
Sharks and Cats
... but the names of Crawford Gordon and Francis Marr were called in vain. ... The absence of these two men and of three others lost with them ... all five stayed with the ship to help in various ways. Together with a Lascar fireman, killed in the first explosion, they were the only people lost in the sinking. ... The rest of the morning was spent checking names for the muster ... Incredibly, no one was missing from the capsized boats, so only six out of 289 had been lost. No bodies were found.
... There was a surgeon in this boat, Dr. Ronald Tasker, who in circumstances like these would normally have been an asset. He had served in the Royal Navy in WW1 and besides enjoying a distinguished medical career he had been in his day an outstanding athlete, playing football as an amateur for Bristol City. He was still only 50 years old. But as an employee of the Burma Oil Co. he had suffered the inevitable privations of the retreat and although he seemed to have recovered his old form on the Cairo, his recuperation, like Ada Taggart’s, had gone for nothing when he was thrown out of boat 3. He had since suffered a mental and physical disorientation that left him listless and vague.
... Just before eleven o’clock on that Sunday morning a gravelly Scots voice called across the stern of boat 8 ... “It’ll soon be time for a spell of praise!” The speaker was Daniel McNeill, born in Perthshire 60 years earlier of humble stock and apprenticed as a boy to an ironmonger. Seeking to better himself, he had applied for a job with a famous Scottish company n Burma, of which, after many years of service, he became a Director. Life in the tropics had aged him, but he had made enough to retire in 1939. With all his investments in Burma, however, he went back there when war threatened to salvage what he could, which was little enough. He had survived the great trek across the Shan mountains into Assam, but to virtual impoverishment was added the anxiety that his younger son had been reported missing in the Libyan Desert. Yet it was Daniel McNeill who revived their spirits that morning with his call to lift up their hearts. ... You’re right,” answered Miller warmly “... Suppose you choose the first hymn?” McNeill’s years as an empire builder had not coarsened his gentle, kindly disposition and he gave some thought to his choice. It must be something uplifting, nothing sentimental or morbid. ... McNeill led them in the hymn he had chosen.
“Let us with gladsome mind, Praise the Lord for He is kind, For His mercies aye endure, Ever faithful, ever sure ...”
Pages 94 and 95 gives the list of names of those in boats 1,4,5,6,7, & 8.
Britt goes it Alone; and the Night of the Sea Anchors
... By Monday, 9th November, their third full day in the boats, the survivors of the City of Cairo were still scanning a vast and empty panorama of sea and sky ... A suggestion by Ferdinand Dieckhaus in boat 7 that they improvise a “jury” or substitute rudder out of various items of equipment in the boat, thus easing the task at the helm, gained little support because it meant sacrificing a valued protection for those on the weather side of the boat. A canvas side-screen fastened to two eye-bolts protruded from the gunwales ... Dieckhaus’s suggestion included removing these ... It was an ingenious plan, cannibalizing a number of suitable items ... Dieckhaus was a forceful character, which was why he had cut a niche for himself in Burma. But the sinking of the Cairo had done nothing to repair his shattered nervous system ... His size, for instance - he was a hefty fellow – although not entitling him to extra water, doubtless increased his need ...
The old Scot, McNeill, numb with cold and cramp, was attempting to urinate over the side of boat 8 when a vicious roll caught him off balance. Before he could grab anything to steady himself he was thrown over the side. “Man overboard” shouted those around him and people in other boats saw a figure drift past them with arms flaying not twenty yards distant. The commotion reached Capt. Rogerson in the leading boat, but with six boats strung out in a line and tied together, it seemed futile to try to bring the convoy round for a search in darkness in such seas. Indeed Rogerson dismissed the idea as impossible and his voice rose grimly above the elements “Keep on!”
... The squalls that had been responsible for McNeill’s loss of balance caused difficulties of control in most boats and disappointing progress was made. ...He had also to be careful not to let the boat get beam onto a wave ... No one admitted it but the Dieckhaus plan was gaining adherents.
... The imminent danger of foundering was especially exasperating for Dieckhaus whose advice had been so hurtfully ignored. “It’s bloody no use!” he shouted. “it’s madness to go on with these oars!” ... Riding the waves remained precarious in the extreme and there was still much back breaking work to be done by the rowers ... By this time it was after three o’clock in the morning of Thursday 12th November, but several hours of darkness remained, the storm showed no sign of abating ... Bailing and rowing remained essential and there was no rest for anyone ...
... Europeans and Asians alike were giving up hope and the first deaths persuaded Rogerson that Britt, perhaps, had been right after all and that the faster boats should go on ahead ... The calmer weather made an attempt to fashion a jury rudder opportune and Dieckhaus more than redeemed himself in the eyes of his fellows by his flair and enthusiasm for the task ... he swan round to the stern of the boat on a rope to offer up the jury rudder while Skea dived under water to hammer home the bolts and fasten the nuts. They simply took a chance on any sharks that might be around. It was not until it came time to get the swimmers back on board that anyone realised how weak they had all become; only by a concerted effort did they succeed. Hauling Skea and Gerner in was awkward enough but hoisting Dieckhaus was like landing a whale. With more than 300 miles still to go to reach land, it was an unwelcome revelation of their declining strength.
... Boat 8 developed an ominous crevice and had to be lashed to a splint. Issuing and guarding the rations and keeping the boat ship-shape kept Nutter and his chief helpers busy. One of these helpers was a middle aged man named George Blagrave-Dean, a Scientist with an oil company reputed to have spent his last weeks in Burma sabotaging oil and other installations to deny them to the Japanese. Hair brushed sleekly to his scalp, round expressive eyes, a narrow upper lip camouflaged by a moustache and frequent jocular references, in a hoarse whisper, to the “noggins” and “chota pegs” he was missing, earned him the nickname of “Ruggles” after a cartoon character of the time. His natural ebullience acted as a tonic and he had a way of telling risqué stories in mixed company without giving offence that made him a popular figure. When someone asked him what had happened to his voice he explained: “A man has seven vocal chords, but I’ve only got one.” “What happened to the other six?” “They rotten away with the booze in Burma.”
... Peggy Marr, who had lost her husband in the sinking and Mary Williams were extremely unwell ... and the remaining women, apart from Dulcie Kendall, were middle aged or elderly. Dulcie never lacked animation and she regretted that her colleagues were not more companionable. She learned little or nothing about them and failed to achieve any level of intimacy with them. They were all wrapped up in themselves and she did not exclude herself from this disapprobation; for many days Colin had absorbed her completely. Now he had quietened down but she feared it was more languor than submission. He had found his lifejacket so uncomfortable that he had refused to wear it, so she discarded her own. If they met some further mischance she really couldn’t see herself coping.
In boat 5 too, their first task next morning, the twelfth since the sinking, was to commit to the deep the bodies ...
... Among the survivors were Dulcie Kendall and Colin, Peter Marr ... By nine of clock the ship [Clan Alpine] was alongside boat 7, taking aboard the Dieckhaus family ... The most volatile of the children, in more ways than one, was “Ferdy,” Capt. Rogerson, having unwisely picked him up, set him down again rather more rapidly ... Then it was the turn of boat 5. As with boat 7 many had to be assisted or carried up the accommodation ladder. Among these were ... The surviving women and children were Freda Bullen and the twins ...
Of the 166 souls who had embarked in these three boats or been transferred to them subsequently, 16 had been lost, 14 Asians and two Europeans, 66 Asians and 84 Europeans had survived the ordeal. ...
It Began with a Quarrell
... There were others whose lack of response to Britt’s urgings was traceable to injury or sickness ... To add to their number was Burma Oil Company doctor Ronald Tasker, who was failing both mentally and physically and had temporarily lost orientation ... but at first his restlessness was put down to the discomfort and insomnia that plagued them all ... That night Dr. Tasker slumped heavily against MacDonald, who sensed at once he was dead. At dawn Britt recited the Lord’s Prayer and they lifted his body overboard ...
Appendix 1
The Commemorative Scroll, place in the Civilian hospital on St. Helena *
The S.S. City of Cairo Survivors
On November 6th 1942, the S.S. City of Cairo, carrying 301 passengers and crew, was en route from Cape Town to Pernambuco, homeward-bound from Bombay to the U.K. At night, un-convoyed, in the mid South Atlantic, a thousand miles west of the African mainland, she was attacked without warning and sunk by two torpedoes fired from an enemy submarine. Two ships’ lifeboats were shattered and the remaining six - all overloaded and two of them severely damaged - containing 294 survivors made contact the following morning and set course for the Island of St Helena. Of these boats one containing 54 persons lost touch, but was happily rescued by a steam-ship which landed the survivors at Cape Town. Another and smaller boat, containing 18 survivors, lost touch, and was picked up by a Brazilian minesweeper off that coast on December 27th: by which time – after 51 days at sea – only two were left alive. A third boat, containing 54 survivors, lost touch and was never heard of again. A fourth boat, containing 56 survivors lost touch, after seven days and nights, but sailed on alone for a further six days, when she was rescued by the S.S. Clan Alpine, bound for St. Helena. After a hazardous voyage extending over 590 miles and enduring for thirteen days and nights, without sight of land, or ship, or aircraft, the remaining two of these six open boats sailed safely within sight of the Island at daybreak on November 19th. Later that morning they were sighted and picked up by the S.S. Clan Alpine and – during the afternoon – this ship landed the 151 survivors. Of the 169 who had set out in these three boats 11 were children, all of whom arrived safely. But of the remainder, comprising various nationalities, one woman and three men – all British – and also 17 Indian seamen died in the boats, or in hospital after being landed. Of the 148 men, women and children who survived, some were enabled, after a few weeks, to leave the Island. The others who remain believe that all would wish this inscription to fulfil the following three purposes; thankfully to record the marvellous feat of seamanship by means of which their ordeal was safely passed: sorrowfully to commemorate their companions who perished; and gratefully to express their thanks to those, both on ship and on shore, who welcomed them with generous kindness and hospitality.
* some of the facts and figures in the preamble are marginally incorrect.
Where Are They Now
Freda Bullen – still lives in the house to which she returned ... in 1943. Neither of the twins, she says, remembers anything of the ordeal.
W. Ferdinand Dieckhaus – later became Manager for xxx , in Bangkok. He is now retired and living with his wife Avis in xxx. “Ferdy” too is in .... the elder Ferdinand made a special visit to London to help with research for this book.
Dulcie Kendall – ... She says that four years after the sinking, when Colin was about seven, he started waking up screaming in the night, a disturbing symptom which continued for about a year. She could not trace it directly to the experience in the lifeboat but could find no other cause.
On the 6th November 1942 the S.S. City of Cairo, alone in the middle of the South Atlantic making for Recife in Brazil was torpedoed by the German U-boat U68. She had nearly 300 passengers and crew aboard, who moved quickly to the lifeboats. Twenty minutes after the first torpedo, Karl-Freidrich Merten sent another to scuttle the ship; in passing it sank one of the lifeboats and damaged another. As those in the water fought to clamber into the remaining boats, most of them already overloaded, he surfaced to identify his kill, to criticise the Captain of the Cairo for his lack organisation, to tell him how far he was from land (nearly 2000 miles from Brazil, over 1000 from Africa and nearly 500 from St. Helena) and to wish him “Goodnight. Sorry for sinking you.”
What follows forms one of the greatest tales of survival and endurance. The Cairo’s Capt. decided that their only hope was to sail for St. Helena, despite the considerable chance of overshooting and being lost in the ocean beyond. Three boats did become detached from the main group and their story is the most extraordinary of all. In the weeks that followed, the survivors growing steadily fewer and weaker, found and knew the extremes of selfishness and depravity of which human being are capable. But they also discovered in some of their number a nobility and heroism that defies easy description. It is this latter which is the lasting impression of his book.
In years of meticulous research Ralph Barker has reconstructed the story of the sinking. (The reader finds, almost accidentally, that an authentic picture of life and attitudes in the 1940’s is presented in the course of his description.) The thoughts and words of the participants as here recorded are not his suppositions, but as told to him by those who were there. He has eschewed dramatisation or fantasy, preferring to allow the facts to speak for themselves and as written a book whose dignity is wholly appropriate to its subject.
Premonitions and Superstitions
... For many of the passengers, however, the voyage offered escape from traumatic experiences in the retreat from the Japanese to a haven that even in wartime seemed indefinitely desirable. Among the numerous widows ... Dulcie Kendall and her three year old son Colin. Four years earlier, at 20 ... Dulcie had married an Engineer with Burma Railways. When the Japanese advanced on Rangoon, Dulcie and the child were evacuated to India but her husband remained in the extreme north of Burma, working on an extension of the railway through to China. As the Japanese penetrated farther into Burma he was forced to flee and during the crossing of the great jungle covered mountain barrier that separates Burma from India he contracted cerebral malaria. Dulcie was in Calcutta, about to visit him in hospital when she was told of his death. Stunned by the news, she headed for Bombay and home. Even now, with her fair hair and blue eyes and impeccable taste and dress sense, she did not appear an object of sympathy, nor did she wish to. But when she went to buy clothes for the voyage an intuitive Indian girl in a Bombay dress shop saw through her facade. “Will you have my St. Christopher medal?” she asked. “I couldn’t do that,” said Dulcie, with the characteristic assent and accentuation of her kind. “That’s yours.” “No – you must take it. You’re going on a journey, a dangerous journey. I can get another.” And Dulcie Kendall was wearing the charm when she boarded the City of Cairo.
Among others families on the run from the Japanese ... were a Dutchman and his wife and son ...
W. Ferdinand Dieckhaus was a self made man who had established himself in Rangoon with a Dutch import-export firm in the thirties and married an attractive part Goanese girl whose father had been Chief Justice of Burma. After sending his family ahead to Calcutta, Dieckhaus had a gruelling experience as one of the last European civilians to escape from Rangoon and neither his physique (he was over six feet tall and well build) nor his nervous system had fully recovered. His son Ferdinand junior (“Ferdy”) was a lusty infant of two years and three months. ... asked passengers with the necessary qualifications to come forward and offer themselves as boat wardens ... another recruit, although not a seaman, was the Dutchman Dieckhaus, welcomed because of his experience as a St. John’s Ambulance Brigade volunteer during the bombing of Rangoon. All four were active men in their thirties who were glad of something to do.
... Kindred spirits, and those with comparable experience, found a sympathetic hearing, Dulcie Kendall gave welcome support to another Burma widow, Freda Bullen, and felt supported in return. Freda had gone to Burma in 1937 to visit a brother and see a new country and there she had met and married an engineer; in 1940 she gave birth to twin boys. Freda escaped from Burma by transport plane with the children but her husband was yet another victim of the debilitating trek across the mountains, he reached Calcutta safely, then contracted malaria and died. For this gentle, reserved young woman, burdened by grief and two lively twin boys, there was no alternative but to go home to her parents in xxx. The self-assured Dulcie Kendall was the best possible cure for her melancholy.
Since sighting the wisp of sulphurous smoke at 19.21, Karl Friedrich Merten, in U68, had been closing the range. Soon he was focusing on what he judged to be a cargo/passenger ship ... Merten’s underestimate of the City of Cargo’s speed did not save the vessel, 29 seconds later, abreast of the after-mast, the torpedo struck.
... Dulcie Kendall and Freda Bullen were lingering over their coffee in the saloon when they were almost thrown out of their chairs. In the ensuing darkness they grabbed their life jackets and made their way to their cabins which were at the opposite end if the ship. Dulcie missed her way in the dark and had to feel her way back along the corridor wall. The torpedo had exploded immediately under her cabin and the disorder was such that she was frightened to look at Colin’s bunk. But he was sitting up in bed rubbing his eyes. By the time she had gathered a few essentials unto her panic bag, a tall, grey-haired well groomed retired Army Colonel named Arnold Silcock, a man with such a veneer of discretion that he was popularly supposed to be attached to M.I . 5 (he admitted to being a King’s Messenger, but that was dismissed as a “front”) appeared in the doorway as pre-arranged and although carrying an armful of coats, jackets and jerseys, he took charge of Colin. Dulcie felt quite unperturbed now. The ship did not seem to be sinking, she was in good hands and it didn’t occur to her that there might be another torpedo. Silcock had served in Intelligence, he was a Fellow of the Royal Institute of British Architects and his wide-ranging interests included Chinese porcelain, on which he was an authority, and comic verse. But only his Military training was of use to him – and to Dulcie Kendall – now.
Freda Bullen, whose cabin was on “C” deck, had even farther to go to reach the twins. A shy person, she had not liked to trouble anyone else, but one of the distressed British seamen [Seamen whose ship has been torpedoed) had offered to help and had kept his promise. The twins, lying naked in their bunks, were asleep. Freda selected a few items of clothing and they grabbed one twin each. Pulling the miniature kapok lifejackets over bare flesh and gathering up two tiny pairs of pyjamas, they hurried up to their boat station, No. 1 boat, the farthest forward on the starboard (torpedoed) side.
... Nutter’s boat was one of the first away. ... (Dulcie Kendall was in his boat with Colin.) ... One man who baulked at getting into this boat because of its over-loaded state was Francis Marr, 49 year old Geologist with the Burma Oil Co. Having see his wife Peggy safely aboard he stood back. Violet Williams was in this boat ... and she was a witness to Francis Marr’s unselfishness. She hoped he would get away on a raft.
... he bumped into the Dutchman Ferdinand Dieckhaus, one of the wardens of this boat, who had just rescued a sleeping Ferdy – having wrapped him in blankets – from the cabin, “go up to my cabin,” Boundy instructed,“ and get my panic bag. My navigation books are inside it.” Dumping Ferdy in the lifeboat, Dieckhaus obeyed.
In boat 1, Margaret Gordon was nursing one of the twins and Freda Bullen was trying to dress the other ...
Merten was an opportunist whose professional task, in a war to the death, was to sink enemy ships, whatever the cost to human suffering. He was merciful enough to give the lifeboats twenty minutes to get clear. Then from the safe range of 800 meters, he fired a second torpedo at the now stationary ship.
Nice Night for a Bathe
... The adjacent lifeboat, the much bigger boat 1, although escaping the blast, was lifted up like a cork and turned over, pitching nearly everyone inside it into the sea. Someone fell on Margaret Gordon and knocked little Michael Bullen out of her arms, and when at length she came spluttering to the surface the child was gone. After a frantic but fruitless search she struck out away from the ship. Meanwhile Freda Bulled, similarly flung out, felt herself sinking, and she wondered, without great curiosity, how soon she would drown. She could imagine no other denouement. But she too came to the surface eventually. She was still clutching Peter. ... Margaret Gordon, still looking for the missing twin hoped he might still be in boat 1. She reached it and strong hands pulled her in, but there was no sign of Michael.
... Thrown out of boat 1, Mona Rooksby had found the second Bullen twin floating perfectly happily in his lifejacket, quite alone, gurgling away to himself as though he were enjoying a bath. He was handed into the boat, to be restored to a grateful Freda Bullen. She knew someone else had been nursing Michael but she had not realised he was lost.
... Amongst those still on board the City of Cairo when the second torpedo struck had been Capt. Rogerson and a dozen others, a mixture of passengers and crew ... Passengers included ... Francis Marr... Capt. Rogerson was dragged down to a considerable depth ... Britt and Humphries of the crew and McGregor of the passengers, trapped for a time by the swirling vortex below, were somehow regurgitated. But nothing was seen of the others.
... Was the submarine German or Italian? Would it make any difference? Nothing intimidated them more than the oppressive shadow thrown, forward of the conning tower, by the submarine’s long range gun. Still hoping they might not be seen, the survivors in the boats, ostrich-like, remained silent and still ... boat 6 was the nearest to the submarine and indeed the only one properly within earshot ... “keep still and stop rowing” ordered Merten ... “I said what ship are you?” ... Merten, in fact, had not ordered his guns to be trained on the boats. He had never experienced resistance from any of the lifeboats he had approached in the past ... “Have you anyone who would prefer to be taken prisoner?” ... “Your nearest land is the Island of St. Helena. It’s four hundred and eighty miles to the north-north-east ...” “Take case for those in the water.” Merten’s manner throughout had been considerate, once answers were forthcoming ... Now he completed his farewell to his victims with an apology. “Goodnight. Sorry for sinking you.”
... Most of the women and children in this boat, however, were transferred to the drier and half-empty boat 4. They included... Freda Bullen and the twins ... Another woman fraught with anxiety was Peggy Marr: torch-light messages flashed from boat to boat brought no firm news of her husband, the man who had chosen not to add to the overload in boat 6.
Sharks and Cats
... but the names of Crawford Gordon and Francis Marr were called in vain. ... The absence of these two men and of three others lost with them ... all five stayed with the ship to help in various ways. Together with a Lascar fireman, killed in the first explosion, they were the only people lost in the sinking. ... The rest of the morning was spent checking names for the muster ... Incredibly, no one was missing from the capsized boats, so only six out of 289 had been lost. No bodies were found.
... There was a surgeon in this boat, Dr. Ronald Tasker, who in circumstances like these would normally have been an asset. He had served in the Royal Navy in WW1 and besides enjoying a distinguished medical career he had been in his day an outstanding athlete, playing football as an amateur for Bristol City. He was still only 50 years old. But as an employee of the Burma Oil Co. he had suffered the inevitable privations of the retreat and although he seemed to have recovered his old form on the Cairo, his recuperation, like Ada Taggart’s, had gone for nothing when he was thrown out of boat 3. He had since suffered a mental and physical disorientation that left him listless and vague.
... Just before eleven o’clock on that Sunday morning a gravelly Scots voice called across the stern of boat 8 ... “It’ll soon be time for a spell of praise!” The speaker was Daniel McNeill, born in Perthshire 60 years earlier of humble stock and apprenticed as a boy to an ironmonger. Seeking to better himself, he had applied for a job with a famous Scottish company n Burma, of which, after many years of service, he became a Director. Life in the tropics had aged him, but he had made enough to retire in 1939. With all his investments in Burma, however, he went back there when war threatened to salvage what he could, which was little enough. He had survived the great trek across the Shan mountains into Assam, but to virtual impoverishment was added the anxiety that his younger son had been reported missing in the Libyan Desert. Yet it was Daniel McNeill who revived their spirits that morning with his call to lift up their hearts. ... You’re right,” answered Miller warmly “... Suppose you choose the first hymn?” McNeill’s years as an empire builder had not coarsened his gentle, kindly disposition and he gave some thought to his choice. It must be something uplifting, nothing sentimental or morbid. ... McNeill led them in the hymn he had chosen.
“Let us with gladsome mind, Praise the Lord for He is kind, For His mercies aye endure, Ever faithful, ever sure ...”
Pages 94 and 95 gives the list of names of those in boats 1,4,5,6,7, & 8.
Britt goes it Alone; and the Night of the Sea Anchors
... By Monday, 9th November, their third full day in the boats, the survivors of the City of Cairo were still scanning a vast and empty panorama of sea and sky ... A suggestion by Ferdinand Dieckhaus in boat 7 that they improvise a “jury” or substitute rudder out of various items of equipment in the boat, thus easing the task at the helm, gained little support because it meant sacrificing a valued protection for those on the weather side of the boat. A canvas side-screen fastened to two eye-bolts protruded from the gunwales ... Dieckhaus’s suggestion included removing these ... It was an ingenious plan, cannibalizing a number of suitable items ... Dieckhaus was a forceful character, which was why he had cut a niche for himself in Burma. But the sinking of the Cairo had done nothing to repair his shattered nervous system ... His size, for instance - he was a hefty fellow – although not entitling him to extra water, doubtless increased his need ...
The old Scot, McNeill, numb with cold and cramp, was attempting to urinate over the side of boat 8 when a vicious roll caught him off balance. Before he could grab anything to steady himself he was thrown over the side. “Man overboard” shouted those around him and people in other boats saw a figure drift past them with arms flaying not twenty yards distant. The commotion reached Capt. Rogerson in the leading boat, but with six boats strung out in a line and tied together, it seemed futile to try to bring the convoy round for a search in darkness in such seas. Indeed Rogerson dismissed the idea as impossible and his voice rose grimly above the elements “Keep on!”
... The squalls that had been responsible for McNeill’s loss of balance caused difficulties of control in most boats and disappointing progress was made. ...He had also to be careful not to let the boat get beam onto a wave ... No one admitted it but the Dieckhaus plan was gaining adherents.
... The imminent danger of foundering was especially exasperating for Dieckhaus whose advice had been so hurtfully ignored. “It’s bloody no use!” he shouted. “it’s madness to go on with these oars!” ... Riding the waves remained precarious in the extreme and there was still much back breaking work to be done by the rowers ... By this time it was after three o’clock in the morning of Thursday 12th November, but several hours of darkness remained, the storm showed no sign of abating ... Bailing and rowing remained essential and there was no rest for anyone ...
... Europeans and Asians alike were giving up hope and the first deaths persuaded Rogerson that Britt, perhaps, had been right after all and that the faster boats should go on ahead ... The calmer weather made an attempt to fashion a jury rudder opportune and Dieckhaus more than redeemed himself in the eyes of his fellows by his flair and enthusiasm for the task ... he swan round to the stern of the boat on a rope to offer up the jury rudder while Skea dived under water to hammer home the bolts and fasten the nuts. They simply took a chance on any sharks that might be around. It was not until it came time to get the swimmers back on board that anyone realised how weak they had all become; only by a concerted effort did they succeed. Hauling Skea and Gerner in was awkward enough but hoisting Dieckhaus was like landing a whale. With more than 300 miles still to go to reach land, it was an unwelcome revelation of their declining strength.
... Boat 8 developed an ominous crevice and had to be lashed to a splint. Issuing and guarding the rations and keeping the boat ship-shape kept Nutter and his chief helpers busy. One of these helpers was a middle aged man named George Blagrave-Dean, a Scientist with an oil company reputed to have spent his last weeks in Burma sabotaging oil and other installations to deny them to the Japanese. Hair brushed sleekly to his scalp, round expressive eyes, a narrow upper lip camouflaged by a moustache and frequent jocular references, in a hoarse whisper, to the “noggins” and “chota pegs” he was missing, earned him the nickname of “Ruggles” after a cartoon character of the time. His natural ebullience acted as a tonic and he had a way of telling risqué stories in mixed company without giving offence that made him a popular figure. When someone asked him what had happened to his voice he explained: “A man has seven vocal chords, but I’ve only got one.” “What happened to the other six?” “They rotten away with the booze in Burma.”
... Peggy Marr, who had lost her husband in the sinking and Mary Williams were extremely unwell ... and the remaining women, apart from Dulcie Kendall, were middle aged or elderly. Dulcie never lacked animation and she regretted that her colleagues were not more companionable. She learned little or nothing about them and failed to achieve any level of intimacy with them. They were all wrapped up in themselves and she did not exclude herself from this disapprobation; for many days Colin had absorbed her completely. Now he had quietened down but she feared it was more languor than submission. He had found his lifejacket so uncomfortable that he had refused to wear it, so she discarded her own. If they met some further mischance she really couldn’t see herself coping.
In boat 5 too, their first task next morning, the twelfth since the sinking, was to commit to the deep the bodies ...
... Among the survivors were Dulcie Kendall and Colin, Peter Marr ... By nine of clock the ship [Clan Alpine] was alongside boat 7, taking aboard the Dieckhaus family ... The most volatile of the children, in more ways than one, was “Ferdy,” Capt. Rogerson, having unwisely picked him up, set him down again rather more rapidly ... Then it was the turn of boat 5. As with boat 7 many had to be assisted or carried up the accommodation ladder. Among these were ... The surviving women and children were Freda Bullen and the twins ...
Of the 166 souls who had embarked in these three boats or been transferred to them subsequently, 16 had been lost, 14 Asians and two Europeans, 66 Asians and 84 Europeans had survived the ordeal. ...
It Began with a Quarrell
... There were others whose lack of response to Britt’s urgings was traceable to injury or sickness ... To add to their number was Burma Oil Company doctor Ronald Tasker, who was failing both mentally and physically and had temporarily lost orientation ... but at first his restlessness was put down to the discomfort and insomnia that plagued them all ... That night Dr. Tasker slumped heavily against MacDonald, who sensed at once he was dead. At dawn Britt recited the Lord’s Prayer and they lifted his body overboard ...
Appendix 1
The Commemorative Scroll, place in the Civilian hospital on St. Helena *
The S.S. City of Cairo Survivors
On November 6th 1942, the S.S. City of Cairo, carrying 301 passengers and crew, was en route from Cape Town to Pernambuco, homeward-bound from Bombay to the U.K. At night, un-convoyed, in the mid South Atlantic, a thousand miles west of the African mainland, she was attacked without warning and sunk by two torpedoes fired from an enemy submarine. Two ships’ lifeboats were shattered and the remaining six - all overloaded and two of them severely damaged - containing 294 survivors made contact the following morning and set course for the Island of St Helena. Of these boats one containing 54 persons lost touch, but was happily rescued by a steam-ship which landed the survivors at Cape Town. Another and smaller boat, containing 18 survivors, lost touch, and was picked up by a Brazilian minesweeper off that coast on December 27th: by which time – after 51 days at sea – only two were left alive. A third boat, containing 54 survivors, lost touch and was never heard of again. A fourth boat, containing 56 survivors lost touch, after seven days and nights, but sailed on alone for a further six days, when she was rescued by the S.S. Clan Alpine, bound for St. Helena. After a hazardous voyage extending over 590 miles and enduring for thirteen days and nights, without sight of land, or ship, or aircraft, the remaining two of these six open boats sailed safely within sight of the Island at daybreak on November 19th. Later that morning they were sighted and picked up by the S.S. Clan Alpine and – during the afternoon – this ship landed the 151 survivors. Of the 169 who had set out in these three boats 11 were children, all of whom arrived safely. But of the remainder, comprising various nationalities, one woman and three men – all British – and also 17 Indian seamen died in the boats, or in hospital after being landed. Of the 148 men, women and children who survived, some were enabled, after a few weeks, to leave the Island. The others who remain believe that all would wish this inscription to fulfil the following three purposes; thankfully to record the marvellous feat of seamanship by means of which their ordeal was safely passed: sorrowfully to commemorate their companions who perished; and gratefully to express their thanks to those, both on ship and on shore, who welcomed them with generous kindness and hospitality.
* some of the facts and figures in the preamble are marginally incorrect.
Where Are They Now
Freda Bullen – still lives in the house to which she returned ... in 1943. Neither of the twins, she says, remembers anything of the ordeal.
W. Ferdinand Dieckhaus – later became Manager for xxx , in Bangkok. He is now retired and living with his wife Avis in xxx. “Ferdy” too is in .... the elder Ferdinand made a special visit to London to help with research for this book.
Dulcie Kendall – ... She says that four years after the sinking, when Colin was about seven, he started waking up screaming in the night, a disturbing symptom which continued for about a year. She could not trace it directly to the experience in the lifeboat but could find no other cause.
The ABL feels very privileged to be able to provide the usual 10% that is available within copyright. The book is well worth reading.