IN TIMES OF WAR

by Stuart Magee

It was in 1942 that two Irish girls got jobs in an accountancy firm in London.  Usually the firm recruited young men already well advanced in their accountancy studies, but they were all away at the war.  

So, under the eye of an elderly accountant, the girls were thrown in at the deep end and left to flounder along as best they could. Not that they minded. They liked the work, and found that if they put their heads together they could cope well enough. 

They were the two best looking girls in the office, not that there was much competition, and well aware of it. Molly Brown, with her black hair and fair skin, was a Catholic girl from Dublin. Edna Adair, with her fair hair and olive complexion, was Protestant, Presbyterian to be precise, from Monaghan.

Not that it even crossed their minds to ask such a question, but then they didn’t need to ask. The Irish know these things without asking. It mattered not one whit anyway. They liked each other greatly and grew closer every day.

There came a day when a well built and good-looking young fellow, dressed in an RAF officer’s uniform walked into the office. It took little time for him to sort out his accountancy problems, and then he stood himself in front of Edna’s desk.

“I’m Arthur Franklin,” he said. “I’m Rhodesian on loan to the RAF for the duration of the war. I have two weeks leave then I have to go back to flying my Sunderland flying boat. I don’t have time for the usual niceties. Will you have dinner with me tonight?”

Sunderland Flying Boat similar to the one piloted by Flight Officer Arthur Franklin

She would. Two days later he proposed, but stipulated that the marriage would have to wait until he returned after the war. That would not do, Edna said, she would prefer they do it now. They were married the next day. Three days on and he was recalled urgently from leave to resume his place in the war. 

Nine months later, Edna gave birth to a baby boy, which she named David. Now she would always have a little piece of Franklin, come what may.

 

It was two years later she got the telegram with the thick black line across the corner of the envelope. Arthur Franklin was missing in action, presumed dead.

Edna waited for four years after the war, hoping against hope that their presumption was wrong. No further news came and she married again, to a man named George Martin. Edna and George Martin had two children - John and Christine.

Meantime she had settled in County Down. Her wee boy David, from her first marriage to Franklin, was full of questions about his daddy. Old Mr Shinnick across the road became known as Daddy Shinnick and did his best to fill in. It didn’t really work but it helped a bit.

Back in the Accountant’s office, not long after Arthur Franklin called, another good-looking fellow in an RAF Officer’s uniform arrived. He approached Molly Brown.

“I’m Sid Hirst”, he said. “I’m Australian, an Architect normally, but presently with the RAAF on loan to the RAF. Will you have dinner with me?” His offer too was accepted.  

It was nothing like the whirlwind affair Edna experienced, but within three months they thought to marry. Sid was Protestant, however.

Molly went off to Dublin to see what her mother might think of it all, though she had little doubt as to what the answer would be.  Mummy Brown, as she was generally known, had gone to a French nunnery for her secondary education with the expectation of joining the institution when she graduated. 

For whatever reason, that didn’t eventuate, though her schooling left its mark. For the rest of her life, if things got a bit much, Mummy Brown would lapse into French. She returned to Dublin, married, and after a while, produced Molly. She listened patiently while Molly explained her problem.

“Dear Girl” she said. “What nonsense is this. Without thinking hard I could list at least six eligible Catholic boys, three of whom will be wealthy men, and any one of which you could land in two minutes if you put your mind to it. Go away and tell this wretched Australian to go find himself another girl.”

Meantime, Sid had sent an expensive telegram to his father in Sydney, setting out the matter on which he needed a reaction. The father had been a member of St Andrew’s Anglican Cathedral in Sydney for years, and held a very responsible lay position. His return telegram arrived quickly.

“My dear boy. What a remarkable turn of events. Marriage, as I would have thought most educated men would know without having to be told, can be a bit tricky at the best of times, but mixed marriages are immeasurably harder to manage. In which Church would you marry? Which would you attend? Where would the children be Christened? What school would they attend, and to which Church would they adhere? To say nothing of difficult relations with both sets of in-laws. I cannot and will not support you in this.”

When Molly returned to London they got together. What to do? The brief separation had reinforced their affection. They chatted for a while about the impossibility of it all, then Sid got himself down on bended knee and put the question. Molly’s answer was quick. “Go hiffron with the lot of them”, she said, “I will”. (Go hiffron being Erse for ‘to hell’.)  

They married, came to Sydney and there ensued one of the most successful marriages imaginable. Mummy Brown, who would have been left on her lone, and they couldn’t have that, came too and spent the rest of her life here. 

After a while she found she and her son-in-law got on very well indeed. At times if she disagreed with what he was up to she would tell him so, at length, in French, of which he spoke not a word. It gave her great satisfaction and bothered him not one bit.

Many years later, on 15 August 2018, the magazine ‘War is Boring’ published an article written by Sebastien Roblin entitled ‘The Forgotten Tale of how Allied Bombers Chased and Sunk a German Sub to its Doom.’ At the end of his piece Roblin carefully lists the sources on which he has relied.  

The article was concerned with the operations of the German submarine, U-966, which was launched in March 1943 under the command of Lt. Eckehard Wolf.  Wolf was only 25 years old and his crew were mostly inexperienced 19 to 21 year-olds.

This is either German U-boat U995 or U966 (the one in this story). They were basically identical, but different sources on the internet are ambiguous about which of the two submarines it actually is. Sebastian Roblin, whom Dad referres to in this story, believes it is U966.

In October 1943 the sub was detected by two British destroyers. Wolf dived to 150 meters. 

The destroyers dropped 87 depth charges, each one shaking the sub violently from stem to stern. The boys were terrified as they sat there powerless for half an hour, waiting for a direct hit. The sub survived but its radio did not and they were unable to transmit. As a result they twice failed to rendezvous for refuelling. 

Wolf decided to return to base in southern France. On the way back the sub surfaced one night to allow its diesel engines to recharge the batteries. It was detected by an RAF Wellington bomber. The Wellington swept down to 100 feet and released six depth charges. U-966 replied with its own guns but the tail and front gunners on the Wellington raked the sub with 500 rounds, wounding two of the crew.

Even though Wolf had dived to 150 meters, the U-966 was badly damaged and the sub continued to dive beyond its safe depth. 

Between 250 and 295 meters its hull would begin to collapse from the pressure of the water. U-966 stabilised at 240 meters. Even then, the hull creaked and groaned terrifyingly. They were grievously damaged. One of the main bearings was gone, water was leaking from cracks in the ballast tanks, and one of the two engines was out.

The Wellington’s activities had been spotted by a US Liberator which also began circling the area. Wolf kept U-966 submerged as long as he dared but had no option but to surface after 4 hours. It was 8.30 am and he ordered the crew to put on life jackets. 

They were about 85 miles northwest of Spain when seen by another Liberator which dropped 5 depth charges injuring three of the sub’s crew. It was a Czech bomber on loan to the RAF which entered the fray next. It was armed with four armor-piercing rockets under each wing. 

The rockets hit the sub rupturing several compartments and three ballast tanks. U-966’s speed fell to just two knots. Wolf mustered the crew on deck to abandon ship, and set a scuttling charge on a five-minute timer. They were already close to shore when they ran onto rocks. Their inflatable life rafts were swept away by the rough seas and they were forced to swim for it.

Roblin’s tale of the unfortunate U-966 and its oh so very young crew continues as follows:-

“There was one final tragic act to the day’s violent events. The submariners struggling in the water spotted a portly seaplane approaching. This was a Sunderland piloted by Flight Officer Arthur Franklin of 228 squadron. The Sunderland was a capable sub hunter, but when Franklin saw the crew of U-966 in the sea, he dropped them a life raft.

At that moment, a flight of three German fighter-bombers arrived and raked the Sunderland with their cannons and machine guns. The flying boat’s port wing caught fire. The plane split in two and crashed into the water belching fire and smoke. Spanish fishing boats braved the perilous rocks to rescue the shipwrecked submariners and brought them to shore.

Of the U-966’s crew, three perished on board and five drowned swimming to the shore. 

All 12 men aboard Franklin’s Sunderland were killed. 

The fishermen recovered the bodies of six of the Sunderland’s crew and all five of the drowned submariners. They were first interred locally, then re-buried in German and British military cemeteries in Cáceres, a city in western Spain and Bilbao, a city in northern Spain, respectively.”

Edna never learned of Arthur’s fate. Many years later, their son David did. 

Note by Tony Magee (eldest son of Stuart and Audrey Magee): This story referres to our Great Aunt Edna’s first husband, Arthur Franklin (Flight Officer Arthur Franklin), as well as Edna herself, whose maiden name was Edna Adair. Also mentioned is Edna's great friend Molly Brown who married a man named Sid Hirst, an Australian architect normally, but flying with the RAAF, on loan to the RAF.

Edna was the younger sister of our Gran, Dad’s mother, Mrs Eileen Mary Magee. There was also a middle sister, Eva, plus three brothers - Gary, Jim and Harrison.

Edna came to Australia in 1978 and stayed with our grandmother in her unit in Mount Eliza on the Mornington Peninsula, Victoria. Our family also lived in Mount Eliza at this time.

Apart from our father Stuart, (author of this story) who had travelled to Ireland on a few occasions as a boy, with his mother, none of us had ever met Edna! So it was a great privilege and honour for our family to share many dinners, BBQs and other social events with Edna and our Gran.