The Battle of Britain Five Months That Changed History, May—October 1940 by James Holland (z-lib.org).epub

remarked to the Second Officer, ‘We should be able to see Cap La Hague
and Alderney.’ With that, he left the Chart Room and went back out on to
the bridge. Visibility was excellent – about fourteen miles – and without
bothering with binoculars he could see Cap La Hague and the French coast
and all the now German-occupied Channel Islands. It did not make him feel
easy. ‘In my opinion,’ noted Rogerson, ‘we should have wheeled almost 90
degrees as we were parading before the French coast.’
The reconnaissance aircraft – not to mention watchers on the French
coast – had reported the movement of the convoy and shortly before 1 p.m.
Stukas from St.G 2, led by Major Oskar Dinort, suddenly appeared
overhead and in waves of six peeled off and began diving on the hapless
ships below, their sirens wailing. Again and again they attacked, diving,
releasing bombs, then climbing again for another diving run. Since his
attack on British ships off Calais, Oskar Dinort and his crews had
marginally improved – in any case, dropping bombs on freighters chugging
along at ten knots was easier than hitting a speeding destroyer.
‘The enemy aircraft appeared to drop straight out of the clouds,’ noted
Captain Rogerson on board the Hartlepool. Recently armed with a fourinch
ack-ack gun and a twelve-pounder, his gun’s crew immediately opened
fire. Three salvoes of bombs were dropped near the ship, with ten in all
falling horribly close by, huge spumes of water erupting into the sky.
However, as one of the Stukas came out of his dive, Captain Rogerson’s
gunlayer managed to hit the aircraft, which then plunged into the sea. ‘It
was probably a lucky hit,’ Captain Rogerson admitted, ‘but the gunner was
hot stuff with the 4 inch gun.’ He had been practising every day and clearly
this had now paid off.
Hartlepool escaped unscathed, but others were not so lucky. Captain
Rogerson saw bombs hit the Irene Maria on his port bow; it immediately
went up in flames and had to be quickly abandoned. He also saw the
Britsum and Eastmore hit, the former also flaming. Further along the
convoy, another ship, Dallas City, was also burning; frantic messages for
help were coming over the radio. Captain Rogerson decided to open up the
engines and go through the rest of the convoy.
As Hartlepool cleared the leading ships, a signal now arrived from the
convoy commodore for the ships to turn forty degrees north, towards the
coast. Shortly after it wheeled, a second attack arrived. From the bridge,
Captain Rogerson looked back and saw the remainder of the convoy being