Elmira District Secondary School - Oracle Yearbook (Elmira, Ontario Canada)

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16 THE ORACLE Cutting Out, 5 la Drake -1942 By DAVID ROWLAND, GRADE XIII fFirst Prize Senior Storyj We were cruising through the tropical darkness at twenty-three knots. The lean ship slipped silently through the leaden waters, only the phosphorescent glitter of the shipis wash betraying our pres- ence. On our bridge a silent group lined the rail, endeavouring by sheer will-power to penetrate the encompass- ing darkness. Our ship, the Free French destroyer Le Triomphantv, was thirty-six hours out of Duala, French Cameroons. We were under sealed orders, direct from Admiral Muselieu, who had arrived at Duala only two days previously. Our job was outside the rules of Inter- national Law, but if the enemy could get away' with unwarranted torpedo attacks, we could with our job. At the island of Fernando Po, off Spanish Guinea, there were six axis mer- chants. Previous to this date there had been nine, but three had succeeded in eluding the none-too-watchful Spanish authorities and had made good their escape to an unknown mid-Atlantic ren- deivous with a German raider. One had been intercepted by the vigilance of the British fleet. Our duty was clear. We were to capture or destroy as many of the remaining ships as we possibly could without arousing too much of an inter- national crisis. Our ship was admirably built for the job. She was the largest and fastest destroyer in the world. She could out- run and out-gun anything fast enough to catch her. At six o'clock the preceding evening, our commanding oflicer,CaptainGeorges Legues, had called the officers to his cabin where he had opened his sealed orders. A thrill of excitement ran through us as he read, You are to pro- ceed to Fernando Po and eliminate as an effective threat to allied sea supremacy, any Axis shipping found in the harbour. If you are recognized, or sunk, no allied government will acknowledge responsi- bility for your mission. Although our ship flew the double- barred cross of Lorraine and was listed as a Free French fighting ship, she con- tained a very cosmopolitan crew. Our captain had rallied to General de Gaulle right after the fall of France, escaping from Brest under the very noses of the conquering Nazis. Our commander was a Pole, and had sailed on the Siom until that famous Polish destroyer had been sunk. Two of our lieutenants were F renchmen, both in their early twenties, another was a Greek, and still another, a Norwegian. I am a Canadian. Our crew was composed of hard-bitten Bret- ons with a smattering of men from almost every Allied nation. We had aboard a landing party of negroes from Northern Ubangi, recruited to fight un- der the Free French banner. They were born sailors, although they came from such a rough country, and as fighting men they were without peers. Silently our ship steamed ahead. We knew that we were now entering the harbour of Fernando Po, although the lights of the town were blotted out by a high promontory jutting into the har- bour entrance. On our right rose the citadel of San Cristabel, outlined by the gleam of watchfires. As I peered into the darkness, I was conscious of the two forward five-inch guns swinging slowly to starboard. I knew without turning to see, that our after guns were likewise swinging on their well-oiled mountings, to point in a similar manner at the ancient, but still powerful, fortress. But no alarm was sounded, and Le Triornphantv steamed in undisturbed. Suddenly we swept into sight of the inner harbour of Fernando Po. As we glanced around, a searchlight blinked

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THE ORACLE 17 on from somewhere to the left and Hickered back and forth around the har- bour, finally lighting on us, outlining the ship in brilliant white splendour. However, in its brief trip around the harbour, the light had shown us the ships we sought, huddled for protection against a large quay on the east side of the harbour. The helmsman, at an order from the captain, spun the wheel, swinging the ship hard-a-port. At that moment, a battery of field-guns posted on the pier towards which we were steaming, let go a round. The sleepy gunners, aroused by the alarm bells which could be heard ringing in the town, were but poor adversaries for our own zealous gun- layers. All their shells were over, and before they had time to reload, our own shells ripped into the earthworks pro- tecting the field-guns, silencing the en- tire battery. Slowly Le Triomophantv lost way, and drifted leisurely into an empty berth beside the quay. Our marines were landed and in a short time they had wiped out all resist- ance in the harbour area. The few pro- testing Spaniards that were around at that time of night were ,hustled un- ceremoniously into a small, waterfront shed to await our withdrawal, when they would be liberated by their country men. As time was precious, we wasted none of it in trying to heave up the anchors of the ships to be removed from the harbour. Three were in the process of being removed from Lloyd's shipping lists by their crews. Two were sinking at their moorings, scuttled by their own crews, the third lay just off the pier, blazing merrily. The other three had been captured by our marines, whose sudden attack on the Spanish levies must have seemed like the assault of a horde of black devils. Depth charges were dropped into the waters of the harbour to blast the anchors away, and the three ships were ready to leave the harbour. The largest, a ten thousand ton freighter, had had steam up, so a prize crew was put aboard and in a few minutes the ship was ready to leave under her own power. The other two ships, a six thou- sand ton passenger liner, and a four thousand ton freighter, were taken in tow by our ship. All this had been ac- complished under brilliant light sup- plied by a kind searchlight operator who thought he was hindering us by playing his light on the ship. Inside of twenty minutes our marines were re-embarked, the ships, engines rusty from disuse, had fallen silently into line in our wake, and we were steaming slowly toward the mouth of the harbour, followed by a futile hail of machine-gun bullets from a single gun. It had been set up and manned by the ships' ofhcers who were spending the night ashore, and who had been aroused by the nocturnal fusilade which had greeted our arrival. Slowly we drew out of range and rounded the promontory, which put us out of sight of town, but Within range of the battery of modern naval guns mounted at San Cristobal by the German sailors. First one gun, and then another, opened up against us, and this time there were no superstitious Negroes manning them. They were well-trained gunners drawn from enemy warships. One shell landed on the freighter we were towing, but the prize crew smothered the re- sulting iire before it gained any ground. Our gunners rapidly regained their positions and were soon firing briskly to port against the fortress. Although well-manned, the light guns mounted there were no match for our five-inch rapid-iire rifies, and in a few minutes they were silenced and we steamed safe- ly past. For twelve hours we ploughed through an oily surf, and in the mid- afternoon our look-out reported a ship on the horizon. We recognized her as our flagship, the cruiser La1nottee- Piquet . As ,she rounded up to leeward we could read from her halyards the message Well done, Vive la France .