GROUPS AND SINGLE DECORATIONS FOR GALLANTRY
Aboard Campbeltown Lieutenant Commander Beattie rang the ship's bell to signal 'open fire'. The Kriegsmarine ensign was struck and the White Ensign run up in its place. Klaxons sounded throughout the fleet and the night became alive with the sight and sound of battle. The biggest problem for Savage, assisted by his loader Stephens, was identifying the enemy positions against the blinding glare of searchlights. Steaming in at 18 knots and with the port column only 100 yards from the bank, Ryder began to wonder how long his vessels could withstand the rifle and machine-gun fire from the left bank, not to mention the 75 mm., 150 mm., 170 mm. and 6 in. howitzers of the coastal batteries. Incredibly every ship sailed through it all, but Campbeltown suffered badly. Two of her Oerlikon Crews were hit, the Quartermaster and Coxswain were killed in the wheelhouse, and her 12-pounder high angle gun was blown into the sea along with the crew of a 3-inch mortar. Bullets and shells, and red, white and green tracer were hitting the ships from all angles.
Blinded by searchlights, Beattie followed behind in the wake of M.G.B. 314, as they passed the East Jetty of the Avant porte. Here 314 passed an anchored Sperrbrecher (a heavily armed German gun platform which was known to British Coastal Forces as a ‘mini-pocket battleship’), which was blazing away with all its armament. Savage and his pom-pom team sprayed Sperrbrecher 137, traversing from end to end without a single stoppage and silencing every weapon on board, including its formidable 88 mm. gun. This was a remarkable feat of gunnery, bearing in mind they were firing from a pitching and moving platform. Closing fast on the Normandie Dock's massive southern caisson, Curtis swung 314 away to starboard, allowing Campbeltown to accelerate during her final run in to ram the lock gates. 314 turned in a complete circle, giving those on board a perfect view of Campbeltown as she cut through the anti- torpedo boom. Beattie ordered a slight change in direction to ensure hitting his target square on, leaving the nearby opening to the Old Entrance clear for the
M.Ls. At 0134 hours Campbeltown smashed into the caisson, tearing back forty feet of her bows.
Her main mission accomplished, 314 now dropped off Newman and his staff at the Old Entrance, while Ryder also came ashore to ascertain how effectively Campbeltown had been placed. While he was away, disaster befell most of the
M.Ls. One after another fell victim to the horrendous point-blank fire - four
M.Ls were destroyed within minutes. Meanwhile, 314’s decks were crowded with the crew of Campeltown. By the time Ryder returned, it was time to head for open water - but not before witnessing the destruction of two more
M.Ls at the Old Mole, where 314 also came under heavy fire. Just at this moment, fully exposed in the bows of 314, without armour or any protection whatsoever, the pom-pom team - Savage, the No. 2, Able Seaman Frank Smith, and Stephens, the loader, in a magnificent display of accuracy and cool courage which inspired all who witnessed it, fought a savage duel with the powerful Gun 63 in its thick concrete emplacement, just 250 yards away on the Old Mole The team worked as if at a Gunnery trial, all the while regardless of the webs of tracer rounds passing close around them. German Gun 63 was silenced, several pom-pom rounds going through the bunker’s embrasure.
Her decks now a shambles, 314 came under coastal artillery fire while passing Les Morees Tower at 24 knots. Then disaster struck the gallant pom-pom team, when 314 met a heavily armed enemy trawler. Quickly working up to her full speed, the gunboat raced away, on this occasion sorely missing the firepower of her after pom-pom and powered machine guns. Up on the fo'c'sle, gunners Savage, Smith and Stephens had only seconds in which to train and fire their gun before the German ship passed behind the gunboat's stubby superstructure. ‘It raked us from stem to stern,' recalls Frank Smith, 'with small-arms fire, bullets and shrapnel flying around, pinging off guard rails and metal fittings, and dull thudding sounds as the bullets hit the splinter mats which were secured to the sides of the bridge. The action was sudden and unexpected; we were no more than a hundred yards away when she opened up on us. We only had time to fire a few rounds off before she was abaft the bridge, and the pom-pom couldn't bear.’ (Storming St. Nazaire refers)
‘And then, almost as suddenly as it had begun, the brief but violent encounter was over. A small fire was visible on the enemy's deck, while the gunboat, sporting a new collection of holes, appeared to have got away with a clumsy encounter which could have spelled the end for all of them. The engines were all right, there was no vital damage to the structure, nor was there any evidence of fatal casualties. It was only when Frank Smith attempted to train the pom-pom and found it would not budge that it was discovered that Bill Savage lay slumped across the elevating wheel. Thinking at first that Bill had merely fainted, Frank was greatly distressed to learn that his fellow gunner, with whom every danger of the night had been shared in equal lots, was in fact dead. Hit by a small shell or by chunks of shrapnel, Bill had died instantly from a massive, open chest wound, during the very last throes of an action whose enviable list of honours would include a Victoria Cross in his name, in recognition of the courage displayed by so many of the ratings. Ordinary Seaman Bill Whittle fetched a blanket and covered Bill's body with it. Later Peter Ellingham and Ordinary Telegraphist Reynolds would be detailed to prepare the remains for an eventual transfer to a destroyer. With Bill dead and the loading number, Able Seaman Stephens, dying nearby, Frank was left alone on the gun until such time as Curtis could detail a relief ... ’
Able Seaman Dick ‘Lofty’’ Stephens was given first aid by 314’s medical officer, Sub-Lieutenant Christopher Worsley, R.N.V.R.: ‘I found a sea-boot containing a torn-off leg, which I threw into the river, lying between the pom-pom and the forward ready-use locker. I looked around for the limb's former owner and found him lying on the deck near the site of my first action station. The leg had been ripped off obliquely downward from the inner side of the groin, leaving so short a stump that it was not possible to apply a tourniquet. To try and stop the bleeding I bound a field dressing on it as high and as tightly as I was able, then covered the rest of the wound with more field dressings. Except for injecting a syrette of morphine, there was nothing more I could do for him, so I continued on my round.’
Soon after, the destroyers Atherstone and Brocklesby were sighted. It was decided to scuttle 314. Her survivors and casualties were transferred to Brocklesby. Stephens died in the ship’s sick bay later that night. His body was bought home to Himbleton and interred in the cemetery of St. Mary Magdelene Church.
Savage was buried at Falmouth. The award of his posthumous V.C. was announced in the London Gazette of 21 May 1942, for his own bravery and on behalf of ‘many others unnamed, in Motor Launches, Motor Gun Boats and Torpedo Boats, who gallantly carried out their duty in entirely exposed positions against enemy fire at very close range.’ Men like Stephens, who, in accordance with the practice at the time of restricting the grant of certain gallantry medals to casualties, was awarded a posthumous mention in despatches.
Sold with a quantity of original documentation and photographs, including the recipient’s M.I.D. certificate in the name of ‘Able Seaman Albert Richard Carver Stephens, D.S.M., H.M. M.G.B. 314’, dated 21 May 1942, and related Admiralty forwarding letter to his mother, which states ‘this Seaman served as Second Coxswain. During the action he showed outstanding zeal and devotion to duty, doing invaluable work wherever it was most wanted. He was mortally wounded while helping at the pom-pom’; his Buckingham Palace memorial scroll, in the name of ‘Able Seaman A. R. C. Stephens, D.S.M., Royal Navy’; the above quoted letter from Christopher Dreyer, congratulating Stephens on the award of his D.S.M., undated, sent from H.M.S. Beehive, Felixstowe; a Christmas card with photograph of M.T.B. 102 at speed, inscribed by the recipient, ‘To Aunty from Dick’; and a fine selection of childhood and Naval career photographs (approximately 25 images).
www.dnw.co.uk
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