Old Canon

Old Canon - I started this talking about how I started as a journalist and got as far as the model boats when Vernon and the Bismark intervened. I was taking pictures at a Navy day at Simonstown when it was announced there would be a canon firing at noon. Having been a Hornblower fan I went to watch and things took off at a tangent. I was given a lecture on preserving old canon. If you take one from the sea and let it dry out it will just crumble into dust. The salt must first be leached from the molecular structure of the cast iron. I tried to get a picture of one shooting out flames but all I got was a picture of a cloud of smoke.

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Having put down my notes of interviews from Vernon and his naval experiences from clipper ships to sinking Bismark and being sunk by Japanese bombers, I must get back to my other journalistic notes. I'm in the last stages of editing a book of short stories and that made me wonder if I could turn the notes on Vernon, the 1740 silver mining scam and the Cape Corps in East Africa in 1915 into a kind of series. Not short stories exactly but maybe three books in one. Something to think about anyway.

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I thought I'd finished with Vernon's story when he brought out photographs of his brothers. One was in the army with the Dukes at Tobruk. (Prince Alfred, Duke of Edinburgh granted the CTVR the title "Duke of Edinburgh's Own", after it had formed a guard of honour for him during a visit to Cape Town. The nickname "the Dukes" appears to have come into use in the 1880s.) Another was with the RAF as an aircraft fitter and saw service in Somalia and Italy. Quite a contribution by one South African family to the war effort during WW2. People tend to regard South Africans as being tainted with racism but I never heard Vernon say anything that indicated anything other than concern for others. His comment about his medals - that he wouldn't wear awards he had been given for trying to kill young men from the Bismark that could have been his friends in different circumstances - was typical.

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HMS Oxfordshire dropped the survivors of HMS Dorsetshire in Durban and the wounded were taken to Addington Hospital. Just over the hill from the hospital was an airfield where pilots were being trained in Harvards. One day the learners thought it would be a good idea to"buzz" the hospital. I don't know where the others were, Vernon Brill told me. I was under the bed. Vernon hesitated but his wife Joyce urged him on and Vernon began a reluctant story about his paybook. 'Inside the paybook was my Liberty Book, the little book you had to have when you were on shore. If you went ashore without it the MPs would lock you up as a deserter, so it was always in a safe place. When we were bombed it was two decks below but when I was in Addington, the Sister came with a paybook in her hand and asked me if it was mine. The Liberty Book was still inside. Who brought it, or how it got to Addington, I have no idea,' Vernon told me.
I thought that would be the end of Vernon's story but there was more to come.

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I am tempted to add atmosphere and detail to my notes from Vernon but that is for a day when I write it up as a novel. For the present let me stick to what he said.
Vernon was in the water not far from the sinking Dorsetshire. He found a piece of timber an clung to it. His bum smarted but the salt water would cleanse it and he was more concerned about the noise of the Japanese planes . One came and machine gunned those in the water. Vernon couldn't see if anyone was hit but later learned it killed the doctor and the priest. The plane, or another, came back again but Vernon just clung to his driftwood. Some time later, someone in one of the lifeboats that had survived said, 'Look at Brilley's hand.' When Vernon looked there was a hole right through his left hand. They later found two bullets in his leg so he must have had a lucky escape.
There were bodies floating among the survivors but no sharks came. From time to time someone would ask about so-and-so. Sometimes someone had seen them, sometimes not.
One of the first to go was the chief killik of vernon's mess. Although firm friends, they had had a bad start. The killik had a bad habit of touching Vernon's plate as he ate. After a bad night looking through frost rimmed binoculars, the killik touched Vernon's plate and, before he had time to think, Vernon laid him out on the floor.
'What could I do?' Vernon asked me. 'It was a serious offence to hit a superior.'
Defaulter's parade.
The captain listened to the story, remembered the bitter cold watch and decided they should settle it on deck with boxing gloves.
'After a few knocks we apologised and became really good friends,' Vernon commented.
Day passed into cool night and now and then Vernon could hear people shout as he hung on to his bit of timber. In the morning things settled down and one or two adventurous spirits swam races between the boats. Vernon just hung on and by evening knew that, if they weren't rescued, he wouldn't see another dawn. Just as they grew desperate, HMS Enterprise appeared and they were hauled on board.  

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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 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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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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This is a photograph of the chap I mentioned who was on the ship that torpedoed the Bismark. His first experience of the navy was being ill in West Africa and being flown off his ship to be looked at by a doctor on shore. They sent him off on the plane in the second picture. He said he was sure he was going to drown. He was sitting in the bit at the front when the engine started, then there was a lot of hissing from steam pipes and the thing shot off the catapult and dived towards the sea. It was almost touching the water when it pulled away and took him to hospital. He said he was glad to be taken back to the ship in a boat.

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This is the fifth radio controlled model of the Bismark built by one of the model boat builders in Cape Town. Each build had more detail added and on this one, the radar turned, the guns could be elevated and the turrets rotated as well as an action stations siren and navigation lights. It was about four feet long and I saw it at a dam called Sonstral. I also met one of the sailors who fired the final torpedoes into Bismark through the club but that's another story.

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