So you think you know all about the “LACONIA Incident” do you? Well, here is the way one survivor remembered the attack, with photos taken by one of the crewmembers of a U-Boat that came to help! The story is by Oris M. Hawkins, passenger on the LACONIA, and the photos by WILHELM GRAP (213-+-1986), crewmember of U-506. His widow, our dear friend MARIANNE furnished the text and the photo of WILLIE. All other photos were shot by WILLIE himself during the ‘LACONIA Incident’.

We were homeward bound and in two or three days, we should be in Freetown Harbor, then the last stage of our journey would begin. We should be home before Christmas. We were (British) Army, Navy and Royal Air Force personnel from Malta and the Middle East, service families evacuated from danger zones – a few nursing sisters, and 1,800 Italian prisoners of war. It was a curious mixture of shipmates. We had been at sea for a fortnight in a rather slow liner, and we all knew the perils of the U-Boat infested Atlantic; but surely, now we were safe……..or were we?

I, who was responsible for bringing home a fourteen-month-old baby Sally, was specially looking forward to home after five years of Palestine. On the night of 12 September 1942, I came up from dinner. As usual, I looked at Sally. She was asleep and beside her, all was ready in case of emergency.

I went into the opposite cabin to talk to a friend named Mary. We were talking quite calmly about submarines and torpedoes. Calmly that is, until there came a shattering explosion. The ship shuddered, then stood still – and the air filled with the smell of explosive. It had happened – the first torpedo had struck. I fled to Sally. She was still asleep, and I wrapped her in her woolies, picked up her shipwreck bag, and turned. As I did so, the second torpedo struck. The ship rocked and we were flung across the corridor. Sally remained in my arms, unhurt.

Just ahead of me was Mary, and together we made our way upstairs. We were carried on a surging wave of people, some with their emergency outfits, many without, for they had been unable to reach their cabins. As we went, the lights failed.

All this time, the ship had been taking on an increasingly heavy list and by now, it was very difficult going with my precious burden. I stumbled over fallen doors, broken woodwork and shattered glass to our lifeboat stations, and there we waited.

The torpedoes had hit the engineroom. The mainmast, the wireless transmitter and some of the lifeboats had been carried away. The listing of the ship made it very difficult to swing out the remaining boats and moreover, it was a dark night and a fairly heavy sea was running. The second torpedo had apparently burst among the prisoners, and their panic and turmoil were following. They rushed their Polish guards and streamed upstairs where they either stormed the lifeboats or leaped into the sea.

So we waited for what seemed like an age – really it was only for about fifteen minutes. Then we were told that our lifeboat had been blown away. We wondered what to do. It was pitch dark. Sally never once cried, either then or throughout the whole experience despite the noise and confusion. She remained quiet in my arms, making only gentle little talking sounds.

There was no one to direct us. Just as Mary and I were considering feeling our way around the deck, Squadron Leader H.R.K. Wells came upon us. Taking Sally from me, he led us from boat station to boat station, but all the boats seemed to have left or to be full, or else so jammed in the falls that they could not be launched

Nearly three-quarters of an hour after the torpedoes had struck, we saw below us a lifeboat, already in the water but still alongside the ship. A young Fleet Air Arm lieutenant volunteered to carry Sally. He tucked her down inside the back of his greatcoat, tied a blanket around his waist just under Sally’s feet level to prevent her from slipping, and so he carried her papoose fashion, down a swinging rope ladder and into the crowded boat, which was heaving and tossing like a cork. It was well done.

Mary and I followed as quickly as possible. We found ourselves on top of the arms and legs of a panic-stricken mass of humanity. The lifeboat filled to capacity with men, women and children. It was leaking badly and rapidly filling with water and at the same time, was crashing against the ship’s side.

Just as Sally was passed over to me, the boat filled completely with water and capsized, flinging us all into the water. I lost her. I did not hear her cry even then, and I sure that God took her immediately to Himself without suffering. I never saw her again.

So it was that I found myself among numbers of Italians screaming and struggling in the water. One, in his terror, grasped me with both arms around my neck, and dragged me down, down, down under the water. Thoughts came to me in that moment with amazing clarity, and in rapid succession. I heard, as I thought she were beside me, the voice of Sally’s young mother, as she bade us farewell. “Never forget,” she said, “if anything happens and Sally has to go, that you must do all you can to save yourself. We cannot replace you, and you have work to do.”

In that awful moment, her courageous words came as a clear message to me. I saw too, my parents, eagerly awaiting my return after five years’ service overseas. I struggled and I came to the surface. My hand touched a piece of wood and I clung on. Another Italian began to drag at me. Finally I came up to a raft, to which I managed to hold. There were already four Italians hanging on to the sides, but they were quiet and even helped me up on to the top. I lay there, and we drifted away from the ship.

When we were about 120 yards away, I saw the ship rear half out of the water, and then she sank like a great monster – hissing and roaring. It was an awe-inspiring sight. I thought of the men who had built her, the money that had been spent upon her, the work that she had done in peacetime and in the war. I thought of the cargoes which she had taken safely back and forth, and of our men whom she had carried to and from the theaters of war. Her epitaph perhaps would be:

‘The Admiralty regrets to announce that a ship of 20,000 has been sunk in the Atlantic. The next of kin have been informed…..’

Not even her name might be mentioned. Many would hear the unmoved voice of the announcer telling of her loss, and in sharp contrast, I pictured the homes where the shadow of anxiety and of death would lie; of men and women and little children whose loved ones would never return.

‘Lost at sea by enemy action, September 1942…..’

I recalled my thoughts suddenly to hear the voises of Squadron Leader H.R.K. Wells and of Lieutenant I. J. Tillie, calling out to find out whether there were any more English people about. I answered, and Squadron Leader Wells swam towards me. At that moment, there was a loud explosion which I was told later, must have been the bursting of the submerged boilers but whatever the cause, the explosion through the water was terrific. I felt a sickening pain in my back, while Squadron Leader Wells, who had been facing the explosion, seemed to curl up just as we reached the raft that he and Lieutenant Tillie were using. His condition gradually improved as the night wore on, but he never lost the abdominal pain. My own back had been injured, as revealed in an X-ray many weeks later.

I was helped on top. Nine or ten men were clinging to the sides of the raft. Later we put the Italians on to another raft, to which some more of their compatriots were clinging, they all we who remained on the raft were British.

In the water, we had swallowed a good deal of thick oil from the wreck as well as the sea, and in turn we were all violently sick. Our hair and faces were thickly covered with oil. We were cheerful and even optimistic. I remember Squadron Leader Wells saying,

“This is a lie. It can’t have happened to us!”

And so it seemed, unreal – fantastic. We felt detached from it all. Lieutenant Tillie appeared to be in splendid form and he cheered us with assurances of rescue on the morrow, leading us in community singing and making us confident and at times, almost merry. He decided that each man should take it in turn to sit beside me on top of the raft, and they changed places every ten minutes. After a while, he produced from his life jacket, a small flask of brandy, telling us how his mother had put it there some years before in case of need. He passed it round from time to time and when its contents were getting low, someone let the salt water in. He said,

“Salt! What a pity! Never mind.”

Suddenly he became quiet and I felt suspicious. He changed places with the man beside me and leaned heavily against me. I felt his pulse and found it very weak, and I became really anxious. He spoke slowly and a little thickly in answer to my questions, though he declared that he was all right. Only then I noticed that his right shirtsleeve was soaked with blood. We had nothing out there on that small raft with which to stop the hemorrhage. He refused to remain more than the allotted ten minutes out of the water.

Squadron Leader Wells supported him with one arm as he gradually became exhausted. After some time, he lost consciousness and at about midnight, he died facing death with the same high courage & cheerful optimism which had always been his outstanding qualities.

I learned afterwards that when the ship was torpedoed, he had rallied the small naval draft of whom he was in charge, and had told them to help in getting the women and children away. Only when he saw the last boat go did he clamber over the side. As the shi was about to sink, he jumped and he injured his arm on the way down. Homeward bound after several years, he had served in the Narvik Campaign where he won his D.S.C. and in the Mediterranean where he had gained the Bar.

I took his watch and promised that if I should ever reach safety, I would somehow get it to his mother. It is in her keeping now, with his name engraved on the back.

Throughout the long night, the men continued to sit beside me in turn. It was terribly cold in the water, and I was terribly cold out of it. My thin wet clothes clung to me and I shivered and longed for dawn. We saw lights in the distance from time to time showing us the position of other rafts, but we did not contact any lifeboats. All through the night the mournful cry for help rose in a wail from the Italians wherever they were. We occasionally met other rafts carrying men and women. We passed doors, orange crates, pieces of wood large and small, with men clinging on desperately and crying for help. Sometimes our raft overturned and we were flung off into the water. Each time it was more difficult to get back, for our limbs were stiff and our fingers numb from clinging on so tightly. When at last dawn came, there was a fairly high sea. Only occasionally did we glimpse any other raft or lifeboat as we rose on the crest of a wave.

The sun came up and warmed us, then it came higher and scorched us. By midday an equatorial sun was blistering our arms, legs, faces and every exposed surface. We were not really hungry, but terribly thirsty. An Army Captain shared his emergency chocolate ration with us. An orange floated by and someone grabbed it. We divided it, and chewed the peel for hours.

SS Laconia U-Boat Attack From Both Sides [Part 1 KTB 170]
SS Laconia U-Boat Attack From Both Sides [Part 2 KTB 172]
SS Laconia U-Boat Attack From Both Sides [Part 3 KTB 173]
SS Laconia U-Boat Attack From Both Sides [Part 4 KTB 174]
SS Laconia U-Boat Attack From Both Sides [Part 5 KTB 175]
SS Laconia U-Boat Attack From Both Sides [Part 6 KTB 175]