ADM 199/2130
REPORT OF AN INTERVIEW
WITH
SKIPPER A.E. THOMASON OF
THE TRAWLER ALVIS.
CASUALTY AND STATISTICAL
SECTION
TRADE DIVISION.
25th September, 1939.
Will you tell us all that
happened to your ship.
About 20 minutes past one
on the 18th September, a submarine fired on us broadside, and the shot fell
short or the ship. The next thing I saw was the submarine on the starboard
quarter. He waved his hand for us to launch a boat, and of course I stopped the
ship, and we rowed from it. He had two shells all ready to put into the ship. We
eventually rowed away from the ship, and he waved for us to go up on board. He
said "Bring that ship alongside and hang it aft" in very good English.
When we got alongside he said "Where's the Captain?" I said "Here
Sir" He then said "Come aboard here"
We went aboard to the conning tower, and he said "Help that Captain
up". When I got on the conning tower he shook hands with me, und said he
was very sorry he would have to sink the ship. I said very little. He said then
"Have you got the ship's papers?" I said "Yes Sir, they are in
the small boat" "Go and fetch them" he answered. I went and fetched
them, and he took them from me and read them. He said then "Everything in
order Captain?" I said "Yes
Sir" The Commander and one
Officer spoke in German, and then he said to me "Is that the only boat you
have got?" I said "Yes,
this is the only boat" "Are
you quite sure there are no more men on board that ship?" I said "Yes I am quite sure" He said "How many men are in that boat?" "13 Sir" He then said that the English should be ashamed of this, to
send ships to sea with only one boat. "What is your position" I told him N.N.W. of St Kilda's. "What
is the depth of water?" "200
fathoms" He said "195
fathoms" He then said that he
would put a boarding party on my ship, an Officer, and three men including a
wireless Operator. We got to the ship, and the first thing they did was to go on
the wheel house and destroy the wireless.
They threw the transmitter
over the side, and they smashed the receiving set, batteries and everything. The
Wireless Operator said to the Officer "What about this sounding machine?" The Officer replied "Don't destroy
that, it will come in useful for the Captain afterwards" The next thing the Officer said was
"Strip everything" They threw everything over the side, port trawl, and all the
gear out of the fore hold, and two 550 lengths of wire. The Officer was following me about all the time, and he asked
me could he look through the ship.
He looked into everything
to see if there was anything there. He was with us from 1.20 BST until 4.40, and
he was taking photographs of everything he saw. At last he said "I think
that will be all now. You steam full speed ahead, and don't stop anywhere, but
carry on all the way home, and I hope you get home quite safely". I put
four of my crew in the boat again, and rowed them back from the submarine. They
all waved their hands end said good-bye, and when my ship got alongside the
submarine the Commanding Officer came off the conning tower with a parcel and
handed it to the Bosun. "Give this to your Captain with my compliments, and I
hope he gets home quite safely" he said. It was a bottle of gin. The
Commanding Officer had no Naval uniform on.
The Commander was about 45
years of age and he was very fair. About 6 ft tall, and he just had a blue
jersey on, and a pair of leather trousers, and sea boots. The Officer that
boarded us hall one ring, and a star above it, also gold braid. The buttons were
brass. I tried to read the tallies (ribbons) on the sailors' hats, but could not
make anything out except the word UNDER. They were all armed with small
revolvers. When he handed the bottle of gin, the crew came back to the ship. He
gave us time to get it forward and hove it up by the fore mast, and dropped it
on board. I asked for the Commander's name. He said "He regrets that he
could not give me his name" and he then said "You will take notice
that there is no name or number on my boat"
While the Lieutenant was on board the ship, he asked me
for a souvenir. He wanted a life-buoy. So I gave him a life-buoy, and, he put
his hand through it and shook hands with me. He took no food with him, as he
said that he had plenty. He did not say how long they had been out, but I judge
it was a week or a fortnight, by the growth on the mens's faces. There were only two shaved and they were
two officers.
After we put the crew on board, and we got the boat in, I
steamed her in for St Kilda's Islands full speed, and while we were steaming he
kept on top of the water for 1¼ hours broad side, and then he submerged. I ran
into Kilda's 29 miles, and when I looked astern he was well on my stern
submerged. Then I saw them go off to the west.
That is the last I saw of them.
The only damage done on board ship was breaking up the
wireless gear, except the sounding machine, end also all my fishing gear was
damaged. The catch was left.
The first I saw of the submarine was the shot which fell
about 100 yards away from the sh1p. I was keeping a lookout at the time, and
when I first saw the submarine he was very close to the starboard quarter. I saw him immediately after the shot
fell.
When the incident which I have described occurred, I had
been at sea for a week, having left Fleetwood on the previous Monday September
11th. Our normal trip lasts a fortnight. During
the trip in question, the fishing area extended over a radius of about 40 miles
from St Kilda up and down between W.N.W. and N.N.W. I had certainly not been down anywhere
in the vicinity of Donegal Bay or St Johns Point. I know the Trawler RUDYARD
KIPLING well, but certainly did not sight her during this trip. I also know both
the LORD MINTO and the ARLITA which are St Kilda's ships, but did not see either
of them. The first trawler I met coming in after the U-boat had stopped me was
the AVON WYKE. He turned round and
warned me, then followed me.
The Commander of the U-boat had no hat on, and was very
fair. He had a lot of hair which was short, not cropped, with enough hair over
the forehead for a parting. H was very fair complexioned, with a fresh healthy
colour, and was clean shaven. I did
not notice the colour of his eyes. He
was 6 ft tall, and broad and big, but not stout. He was very pleasant and spoke
very good English, with no noticeable accent. The Officer who boarded the ship
was also a big man, and told me his age was 26.
He was also very fair, and clean shaven and though thin, was well built.
As the submarine sat on the surface there was a
perceptible rake. She seemed to go a way to nothing aft. The bow was very blunt, and there was no
sharp stem. The hull spread quickly
from the bow in a bulbous fashion.
When I boarded the U-boat I was aft of the conning tower,
and at no time went forward of it. On reaching the deck I found myself on a
wooden platform screwed down, and I walked along it to the aft base of the
conning tower where there were four iron steps leading up to the conning tower.
At the top of these four steps which were on the aft side, there was an opening
through which one could pass, so that it was not necessary to climb over the
lift of the conning tower. The
platform on the aft deck reached to a point about 8 ft short of the water line.
Astern there were no stanchions that were between them that is to say around the
aft deck, and there was a jumping wire forward. Aft of the conning tower where I
was, there was a machine gun with a long barrel of about 5 ft in length with a
shoulder butt mounted on a swivel, so as to give high angle, as I thought, for
A.A. use. I did not see any drum on
this gun. The base of the gun would
be about 12 ft from the conning tower. The Conning tower was cut aft with a
railing round the aft portion so as to form a kind of platform. There was no
shield round the lip of the conning tower, but there was a wooden rail around
it. I did not notice any flare of
the lip.
The colour of the submarine was very light grey, but its
sides were painted black, I mean a freeboard of about 2 ft was black. I could see the screws aft, but there
were no tunnels, and the under water parts so far as I saw were black, and she
had no barnacles or growths, and she seemed to me to be quite fresh.
Through each of the two nights preceding this incident I
noticed quite close to me lights low on the water with no navigation lights
which I took at the time to be the deck working lights of a trawler, but that
day broke and I could see 20 to 25 miles around me, and there was no vessel of
any kind or any smoke to be seen. The
Commander was well aware of the fact, as he showed in conversation with me, that
St Kilda was uninhabited.