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We joined up in Durban with the battleship HMS Ramilles, aircraft carrier HMS Wasp, the cruiser HMS Ceylon, and 4 more destroyers including the Australian ship HMAS Nepal and headed off into the Indian Ocean bound for Bombay, India.

The silhouettes of German and Italian aircraft which we had been looking at for over 4 years were removed and replaced by Japanese versions, and we were made to practice Action Station drills to be used in the event of attack by kamikaze pilots. More time was spent looking at and learning the silhouettes of Japanese warships and submarines, so our passage across the Indian Ocean was not a time of relaxation.

We stayed in Bombay for two days, then headed down to Tricomale in what was then known as Ceylon, now of course Sri Lanka, where we refueled before steaming to Darwin in N. Australia. Some of our battle group split off to support the troops heading down the Malay peninsula to Singapore.

From Darwin we were ordered to escort two troopships bound for Borneo and Sumatra. All lookouts were doubled as we were wary of enemy aircraft, but in fact during the first 2 months in the Far East everything was fairly routine, and we did not suffer a single attack.

That situation soon changed when we moved north of Sumatra, up past Sarawak and into the South China Sea where we were to support the 14th Army who were swinging round from Malaysia and heading for Bangkok and Saigon with the Americans. Australian troops had already cleared out the Japanese forces from Borneo and Cebes.

We were escort destroyer along with 3 others for a carrier task force attacking air bases in Vietnam and the island of Hainan, south of Hong Kong. This job gave us our first taste of the kamikazes. What the Japanese knew as the ‘Divine Wind’ pilots. In one day alone we brought down 3 kamikazes. One of them slumped dead in the cockpit, wearing the distinctive prayer headband. Some quick reactions and a smart change of headings were the only thing that saved us from a direct hit that day.

Two days later one of the kamikazes got through to the aircraft carrier. A series of dramatic pictures was taken from one of the other destroyer and you can clearly see the plane (arrowed) just before it hit the carrier. Four pilots heading back to the carrier were unable to land as a result of damage to the stern steel deck, and they were ordered to ditch because they did not have enough fuel to reach a nearby American carrier. They were told to ditch in a group to make it easy to pick them up, and in the pictures the ship steaming to get them is HMS Wilton herself. We had to race to their position at full speed ahead because in those waters the sharks take no prisoners, and a man might not last long. Happily we got them all aboard and 2 days later were able to transfer them back to their carrier which had been made operational again despite the fact the deck hoist was jammed in the shut position.

As related to Steve Lamb Gateshead Council@Blaydon

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