Fragments of War. Joyce Hibbert
four o’clock the breeze increased slightly so the oars were pulled and the sail hoisted. The oarsmen welcomed the rest and crawled around tending to the wounded.
“An almost paralyzing stiffness had set in over my whole body, the swinging lifeboat had injured my back, the wood splinter had punctured an artery, and I had open shrapnel wounds in both legs. To add to my discomfort the sun’s heat created a terrible thirst. The freshwater keg was opened and the drinking ladle passed around. Although the water was brackish and oily it moistened our dry tongues and cracking lips. The cigarettes and matches were saturated; there was nothing to soothe our shattered nerves.
“It was slow progress but at last we entered a wide bay where black smoke was pouring from a grounded blazing Dutch freighter at the north end. In the centre of the bay a few native fishing boats rested on the beach in front of a small settlement of mud huts. There was a heavy surf running, another obstacle to overcome before we could reach the beach. The old man was dubious about attempting a landing but he decided that if we pulled down the sail and our oarsmen rowed with all their strength, it might be done. Native fisherman ran down to the beach to help us. As we came in with the surf, they seized the boat and dragged us to safety. No words were spoken as the natives carried the wounded to the sanctuary of that dry sandy beach.
“I lay on the warm sand and once again blood was spurting from the artery and my head began to swim. The village spokesman who seemed to be the headman went round with a black earthenware pitcher. He came over to me, placed the drinking hole to my lips and when the burning liquid had trickled down my throat, my dizziness was dispersed. The native brew helped boost our flagging spirits.
“One of our surviving Indian stewards acted as interpreter and we learned that we were seven miles from the nearest doctor – with no transport available. It was arranged that one of the local people would act as guide while two of our party would go with him to summon aid. After they’d gone we were moved to the shelter of a hollow in the sand dunes that headed the beach. At sunset we settled ourselves to await the return of our aid seekers.
“As we lay there in the dark a cool breeze sprang up and it soon became apparent that a storm was brewing. Lightning forked down on the sea while the rain increased in intensity until it became a torrential tropical downpour. The village huts were situated back from the beach to afford them shelter from the monsoons that occasionally swept the area. Shortly after the rain commenced the natives invited us to their huts. Two men carried me and my back was filled with excruciating pain. One of the bearers placed his hand in the centre to support me; I yelled for him to remove it but he kept it there – and with his free hand helped himself to my wallet from the pocket of my shorts. This gave me considerable misgivings as to the motives of our apparent saviours but after we arrived in their dwellings and the womenfolk fed us from a communal dish of rice stew, my confidence returned. I had merely been the victim of an opportunist.
“In the early hours of the morning our first sign of aid appeared. The keen-eyed natives spotted a pinpoint of light. Its progress seemed outrageously slow and we waited for its reappearance each time the flashlight carrier had been obscured by vegetation. At last the solitary figure was silhouetted against the light of a hut and soon we were receiving our first medical attention. The Indian doctor did his best with his scant supplies. Counting the men who needed morphine, he found nine. He had only eight shots and Len the gunner volunteered to be the unlucky one.
“Before the morphine took its effect on me I heard the old man extracting the information we all awaited. The Englishspeaking doctor informed him that the nearest hospital able to provide adequate treatment for our men was ninety miles off in Vizagapatam. There was a small native hospital at Chicacole, fourteen miles away but no surgery was performed there and some of our wounded were in urgent need of surgery. It was seven miles to a mission at the nearest road point. The villagers possessed three ox-carts and were persuaded by the doctor to put them at our disposal; we were to make for the mission at dawn. I woke from my drug-induced sleep in daylight and to the sound of raised voices coming from the village compound. The natives were unwilling to harness their oxen without an extortionate fee for the services. The old man gave them a promise that this would be forthcoming and they reluctantly set to work preparing the carts. We were loaded into the straw-filled primitive conveyances and set off. Swaying from side to side, we bumped over the trackless baked earth, and each time we rolled over a bump we were thrown painfully against one another. The drivers cracked the slow-gaited beasts resoundingly on the rumps while urging the animals on, remaining completely oblivious to the sufferings of their passengers. The painful journey continued for over two hours until we reached the smoother surface of the road.
“The mission was a red metal building and we were welcomed by a Eurasian missionary who also supervised the unloading. We were placed very carefully upon thin straw mattresses on the floor of the little mission schoolroom and fed hot tea and sandwiches by our hosts. In the afternoon fresh transport arrived in the form of a delapidated old bus with open sides. And thus we continued our journey. The driver raced down the bumpy road at breakneck speed with the bus swaying sickenly at each bend. I was hanging on to the back of the seat with my good hand (my left one proved to be fractured) but eventually one turn was too much for me and I landed on the floor with an agonizing thud. This induced the driver to go a little slower and we arrived in Chicacole without further mishap.
“The tiny native hospital boasted a staff of one doctor and two nurses who worked on throughout the night as survivors from other ill-fated vessels continued to arrive. By next day about 200 seamen had been accommodated in the town, many of whom were wounded. The following day we learned that Vizagapaptam had suffered an air raid and that the hospital staff there had been sadly depleted because some native members of the staff had absconded into the countryside. Now our nearest hospital was 200 miles away and too small to handle our numbers.
Stanley Salt recuperated from his wounds for several months at the Presidency General Hospital, Calcutta.
“Fortunately, the District Commissioner arrived the next day and he made the necessary arrangements for our removal to Calcutta. We arrived there on the Saturday, exactly five days after the Sinkiang had plunged to the ocean bed.
“Her Second Engineer was to die a few days later. My own injuries confined me to hospital in Calcutta for seven months and then to an additional five months of medical supervision which included repatriation and convalescence. I returned to sea duty in March 1944 and served until discharged in 1945.”
Editor’s Note: The Japanese Malaya Force under its Commander, Vice Admiral J. Ozawa, was responsible for the havoc created among Allied shipping in the Bay of Bengal in early April, 1942. The Malaya Force was deployed as part of ‘C’ Operation, Naval Operations in the Indian Ocean, March-April 1942 under C-in C Vice Admiral Nobutake Kondo.
A light aircraft carrier, five heavy cruisers, one light cruiser, and four destroyers constituted the Malaya Force. The force was split into three detachments on 5 April, and separated to attack specific targets on or close to the east coast of India.
Of the fifty-five merchant ships ordered to sea during the period 4-7 April, with S.S. Sinkiang among them, twenty were sunk with a total loss of 93,260 tons. Having virtually no protection and without naval escort vessels, the merchantmen were easy prey for the Japanese warships. All were attacked close inshore.
It was 1950 when Stanley Salt wrote this account of his five-day wartime ordeal. Obviously the sequence and details of the Bay of Bengal incident were vividly imprinted in his mind.
The Englishman had trained at Colwyn Bay Wireless College and joined his first ship in August, 1940. “Having always been fascinated by stories of foreign lands and peoples, I had a strong desire to travel.”
In June 1941 he arrived in Montreal to join a large complement of seamen in the Montreal Pool. From this, Merchant Navy crews were chosen to man the new 10,000 ton, 11 knot Liberty Ships as fast as they were completed in U.S. shipyards.
“I had a three month stay and during that time became completely enamoured of Canada, emigrating