It cut our Aerial, Then Machine-gunned the Decks

Heroes Remember

It cut our Aerial, Then Machine-gunned the Decks

Transcript

In ten days out of (inaudible) on Good Friday, a seaplane come over. We didn’t see it. I mean, it just came out of the sun. It was at noon and it cut our aerial, radio aerial. Then it machine gunned the decks. I heard, “Action stations,” and everybody started running around and this seaplane was machine gunning the decks. Then a few minutes later I heard, “Abandon ship!” And we stopped because a raider was shelling us, off in the distance. Now a raider is disguised as a merchant ship, but it’s really a battle ship. It had six inch guns, torpedo tubes, seaplane and all that, so we didn’t have a chance. We were travelling all alone. And the first thing when the “abandon ship” came up we all ran to our lifeboats. I got in the lifeboat and another fella got on the other end of the lifeboat and they lowered us down into the water. It was a metal lifeboat. And when we hit the water, she started to leak. They asked me if I had the plug in. The plugs were already in, but there were bullet holes in the lifeboat from the seaplane. So what we did, the two of us just stayed in the boat, because it has flotations. It won’t completely sink and the crew that was on top got into another lifeboat, you know, the ones that lowered us down got into another lifeboat and the two of us were sitting there waiting for another lifeboat to come up to us and take us off. And about 15 minutes later, the other boat came around from the other side of the ship and picked us up. I managed to, Ozzy was very nervous, and I managed to get him from the half sunken lifeboat into the other lifeboat. And I was very familiar with boats because I was from Nova Scotia. That’s when I was, all my spare time I was in a boat rowing around doing something as a kid so I was very familiar with boats. So we got into the good lifeboat and we started rowing and about an hour later this big ship came up to us, this big raider came up to us and we went over to it and climbed up the rope netting to the deck and they washed us down, we stripped off and they washed us down with a hose and we went below. They took us below in this compartment. She had already had three ships’ crews onboard of her but they were in different compartments.

Description

Mr. Yeadon describes being attacked ten days east of Brazil on a voyage to India, having to abandon ship, and being rescued and held captive by a German “raider.”

Francis Edison Yeadon

Francis Edison Yeadon was born in Spryfield, Nova Scotia, on September 24, 1924. He was the youngest in a family of eight. After leaving school at the age of 16, he joined the Merchant Navy in Halifax. Mr. Yeadon completed one successful North Atlantic convoy, before being captured at sea while transporting a shipload of arms to India. He remained aboard the German “raider” for several months, finally being turned over to the Japanese at Yokohama. Included is a good account of the American bombing(s) which led to Japan’s capitulation. Mr. Yeadon remained in the merchant marine after the war, due, as he says, to the lack of educational opportunities offered to Veterans of the Armed Forces.

Meta Data

Medium:: Video
Owner:: Veterans Affairs Canada
Duration:: 4:11
Person Interviewed:: Francis Edison Yeadon
War, Conflict or Mission:: Second World War
Location/Theatre:: Atlantic Ocean
Battle/Campaign:: North Atlantic
Branch:: Merchant Navy
Occupation:: Seaman

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Date modified:: 2019-04-03