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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HMS Oxfordshire picked up HMS Dorsetshire's wounded from the beached hospital ship and made for Durban. 'It took three weeks,' Vernon remembered. HMS Oxfordshire broke down in the warm sea around Mombasa doing Vernon's injured hand no good. By the time they got to Durban the hand wass smelling and gangrenous. First opinions were that it must be amputated but Dr Wassing intervened and and, although inflexible, Vernon still has his hand- no doubt with the help of the new miracle drug Penicillin.

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