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

dive-bombed. Flaming ships floundered, diving sirens could be heard,
columns of smoke and spray were rising into the air. Captain Rogerson
ordered the ship to increase speed again, this time to full steam ahead at
nearly fourteen knots. Making towards Bury Head, he wanted to try and
find some protection by hugging close to the shore. Soon after, however,
came another signal, this time for the convoy to head into Portland, where
the commodore hoped the harbour defences might make a better fist of
protecting them than the lone escort corvette.
This was a bizarre decision that reeked of panic. At Portland, Oskar
Dinort’s Stukas were nearing the edge of their range, and had they
continued on their way the convoy would have been soon clear of the fray.
By going into Portland, however, the ships would become sitting ducks. In
any case, Portland could hardly offer them a wall of steel; the shortage of
anti-aircraft guns had affected almost every port in Britain, but especially
those further away from the vulnerable south-east, and which were naval as
opposed to trade ports. In fact, Portland’s sole protection was a lone naval
anti-aircraft guardship, HMS Foylebank, an ageing freighter that had been
requisitioned by the Admiralty and on which had been bolted a number of
anti-aircraft guns.
On board Foylebank was Ron Walsh, a twenty-year-old from
Lymington, in Hampshire. Although he came from a naval family, Ron had
never really wanted to go to sea himself. After school he’d briefly joined
the Merchant Navy, then switched to the Royal Navy, only to desert after a
year, and go and work on a farm. All was well until war broke out;
eventually, Ron had known that his past would catch up with him as he was
obliged to register for service. For a while he thought about joining the
army, but at the last minute decided to return to the navy after all.
Immediately put on a charge for desertion, he was offered a King’s Pardon
with the promise that his desertion would be wiped from his record.
His first draft was to Foylebank, which he joined in Belfast after a rail
and sea journey via Stranraer. The ship had only just been commissioned
into the navy and almost immediately set sail for Portland. Ron’s action
station was as a range setter on the starboard 3.5-inch ack-ack gun near the
stern in X Turret, which was about twenty feet above the deck. At Portland,
he had soon been relieved of his gunnery duties, as he had volunteered to
drive the motor launch that took the crew and mail back and forth between
the ship and the port. However, just the day before, on 3 July, another