Guns Report on Bismark

While they were on London leave after the Bismark incident, Vernon was walking down the street when someone came out of an office and called to him. It turned out to be one of the officers. 'I think I have something that might interest you, Brilly,' the officer said and gave him a few sheets of paper. To Vernon's surprise it was the report Guns had made out about the Bismark engagement. It speaks for itself, so I am attaching the image I took of the brown old paper Vernon showed me in Cape Town.
While the Bismark incident is well known and the rest of Vernon's story doesn't have the same historical significance, it is a very human story and worth telling.www.sullatoberdalton.com/books

After the Bismark's sinking, the crew of HMS Dorsetshire were invited to tea with King George V1, Queen Elizabeth and the two princesses, Elizabeth and Margaret, at Windsor Castle. The King shook their hands, his grip feeling like velvet according to Vernon.
The tea was laid out on a patio on the edge of the great lawns of the castle and Vernon said he found the family  very down to earth, the Queen showing a motherly concern for her young guests, making the sailors feel at home. When the Queen asked Veron how he came to be in the Navy, Vernon told her he was from Cape Town and had lived beside the sea all his life.
The two princesses, in blue uniforms, were in gracious attendance - at least one of the princesses was. Margaret was a real terror and in the end, her father told her, 'Leave my ears alone and stop tormenting me.'
Who

www.sullatoberdalton.com/booksknows. Maybe Vernon may have made such a big impression on the Royal Family that they couldn't resist visiting his home country themselves.

After the Bismark sank, HMS Dorsetshire went in toe look for survivors. Vernon Brill told me they threw nets and ropes and anything the survivors could hang on to the side over the ship and hauled them up. One lad caught a hold of Vernon and wouldn't let go; he looked as if he they could have been friends at school, Vernon said. They offered them tea but they German sailors refused it, thinking it was poisoned, until one of their officer, whom Vernon said, spoke with an Oxford accent, said it would be all right. Then came a warning of U-boats and an order for the Dorsetshire to withdraw. Vernon looked up and saw tears streaming down the face of the Captain as he rang the telegraph to start the engines and leave. Those who had been almost saved and were close to the ship were sucked in but the propellers. Vernon was given medals but refused to wear them on Remembrance Day parades because they were given for killing young men who, in other circumstances, could have been his friends.

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Vernon Brill's action station was the forward port 4" gun but his cruising station was Captain's lookout on the port side and he got to know the skipper, Captain Martin, the navigating officer and Guns, the gunnery control officer well as personalities, which makes his comments about them more poignant. When the Bismark sneaked out and into the Atlantic, then, chased by ships of her own capability, turned for Brest to refuel, HMS Dorsetshire was escorting a convoy across the Bay of Biscay when she got the news. Despite the difference in fire power, Captain Martin, without permission, according to Ludovic Kennedy's book, Pursuit, took the courageous decision to put Dorsetshire between Bismark and Brest. Chased Bismark was disabled by a torpedo bamber, caught by the big ships, which opened fire at twelve and a half miles. HMS Dorsetshire arrived and opened fire with her 8" armament but the shells bounced off Bismark's steel sides and exploded  twenty yards away in the sea. By now Bismark's decks were a mess of tortured steel but the guns were still firing. Captain Martin decided to make a direct attack. When the Skipper's voice told them ' Hang on, we're going in,' Vernon knew it was going to get rough. Head on, the ship as small a target as possible and the Captain ordered the guns to fire for Bismark's upper works. When the superstructure was hit, Bismark lost central control of the guns and Dorsetshire stood off to make a torpedo attack. When the torpedoes hit, Bismark listed, righted, then turned turtle and slid under the waves, stern first. What happened next lived with Vernon all his life.

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As HMS Dorsetshire was being refitted, Vernon Brink and some of his shipmates were invited to watch a football match between Arsenal and Everton at Wembley. As far as Vernon could remember it was the last professional football match before the war stopped such things. Dixie Dean, the Arsenal legend was playing and after the National Anthem, the players changed from khaki into their strips, played the game and changed back into khaki. The trip was organised by South Africa house and they were taken to and from Wembley by bus. When I mentioned that was convenient, Vernon pointed out there was a blackout and it was easy to get lost in the streets of London. The picture is a view of the open bridge from the lookout barrel up the mast, obviously taken in warmer climes.www.sullatoberdalton.com/books/king-kaiser

As HMS Dorsetshire was undergoing her refit, the sailors were allowed leave. The South Africans were told they could stay in Devonport or go to London, where South Africa House would look after them. Vernon decided to go to London and in the city heat decided to get a drink. Little more than a teenager, he found a pub, saw what he assumed was bottles of the apple drink he had known since a boy and asked for a bottle. It tasted fine and he asked for another. The barmaid looked at him and asked if he was sure. when he said yes, she gave it to him but kept watching him. Vernon enjoyed the second bottle, still felt thirsty and asked for another. The barmaid asked the barman is it was all right. The barman spoke to Vernon, who told the barman, they drank that stuff like lemonade in South Africa. The barman looked doubtful but gave Vernon another bottle. Vernon told me - he nearly made it outside but the next he remembered was being in hospital after the scrumpy cider had been pumped from his stomach. When he was telling me the tale, he smiled ruefully and said it was lucky the barman had called an ambulance instead of the Military Police, the MPOs would have thrown him in jail. After the refit, the Bismark sneaked out to be chased by men like young Vernon from around the world, including South Africa.

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In WW2, when HMS Dorsetshire left Cape Town for Devonport, she was sent to help convince the French sailors in East Africa to either hand over their ships or scuttle them. Whether the sailors agreed with the Vichy government or not, sailors become attached to their ship and their shipmates and the idea of deliberately sinking her, or even handing her over without a fight is abhorrent. The French naturally resisted and sent out two submarines to teach the intruders a lesson but the captain was to crafty and Dorsetshire to quick and agile to be caught and survived. The French then sent a few aircraft out and it was in chasing those off that Vernon Brill's gun, P1, the first 4" on the port side, suffered a misfire and, instead of calling 'misfire and letting it cool, Vernon opened the breach and the shell fell out and burned his legs badly. That's how he came to be airlifted in an old Walrus float plane to hospital, as I mentioned earlier. It is when you start putting down notes like this that you realise you have a story on your hands.

I left Vernon Brill half way up the mast of HMS Dorsetshire waiting for the rating he was relieving climbing out of the barrel like crows nest. As he hung on there, one hand on a rung, the other grabbing the stay, he could see the ship bury her bows into a big Atlantic wave, the mast swung forward and he had to hold on tighter to prevent being cast off . Looking down he was sure the bows would keep on diving under and under but then, the bows lifted, showered white water along the decks and he was pressed against the crosstrees as the mask flicked back. When the waves were coming from the side, one moment there would be nothing below but a wave and he hung on tight, the wire strands of the stay biting into his hand, trying to hold on with his feet as the mast started to come upright and leave him hanging. When the mast was upright, he could relax, with the steel deck and bridge structure under him but, a few breaths later, he would be pressed against the rising mast with nothing but the sea below.
Once inside the barrel, he was connected by a voice tube with a mouth he spoke into to the bridge. Being there on your own was a bit frightening but - you get used to it, Vernon commented.
The picture, taken around the late 1990's, is Vernon with the last of his old shipmates. Vernon is on the left with his woundded hand behind his shipmates back.
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I've found the notes I made about the chap who became involved in the Bismark, so let me start at the beginning. The dorsetshire heavy cruiser was on her way from her station in China to a refit in Devonport, when she called in at Cape Town. She was short of 15 gunnery ratings and Vernon Brill transferred from the South African Navy to the Royal Navy as a rating. His first 'adventure' was climbing the mast to the lookout position in a kind of barrel half way up the mast. To get up there, he had to climb up the mast on metal rungs till he reached the crosstrees - a wooden boom held horizontal by wire stays. Once up he had to grab a stay and hang on while the chap he was relieving told him anything of interest, then climbed out of the barrel and allowed Vernon to climb in. It wasn't much better when you got in, Vernon told me.
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