way. After the action attempts were made to collect survivors, but being strung out over a huge distance at night, half the crew were casualties and were either drowned or killed in action.
Like the other British ships, most of the crews came from Tyneside, largely from North Shields and they all had that typical Geordie cheerfulness, stoicism and quiet endurance and were to prove later the most wonderful and staunchly loyal friends that I could ever have wished for. The youngest crew member was a boy just turned 16 years who had lied about his age to join as cooks assistant. Tim Melia was tall and well built with a very white complexion and long curly jet black air giving him quite a Spanish appearance. Poor Tim had been caught forehead when the action started, and a shell blew off one buttock completely, and also caused some damage to a tendon so that when he stood up, his left leg would not straighten, yet it would when he sat with both legs at right angles to his body. He had very good treatment on the raider by the naval surgeon, and this continued on the Regensburg, and finally when the ship reached Yokohama, the Germans had his skin grafted over the wound in a Japanese hospital not far from the harbour where he was later to witness the final end of the “Thor”. But to the end of his days in captivity he had a constant slow suppuration from his groin, which gave him great anxiety. Another Tynesider who was later to become a very close good friend was a 20year old seaman Alfie Round who with his Geordie mates were to become so good and supportive, in a years time when I was taken away from Mother and lived for two years with the men.
As mentioned above to get to the men’s section on the “Regensburg” one had to pass through steel mesh doors one on either side of the mid section. Each had a guard posted with a tommy gun and beyond that was a white line over which the men were not allowed to pass, but I and young Howard Guy could at any time if we asked the guards, who generally speaking were all very friendly. Few spoke English but I soon became very adept at sign language and with a few words of German could easily make myself understood. On either side of the bridge as well, were mounted machine guns, which the only time I saw them fire was at floating bales of wool or at the odd shark that had been tempted close by with some food. Occasionally they would get one and then its tail would be cut off and strung up on the rigging as a trophy. They also had baited lines set out for this purpose. There were about a dozen tails like that strung up!
Also constantly flying around in a most graceful manner was an enormously winged Royal albatross. He flew round and about gliding in the breeze, hardly moving his wings yet all the same covering a vast area all around. Later when we were underway he would lie about 30 or 40 ft away from the bridge, constantly keeping his position in the slipstream of the ship and viewing us with a steady beady eye. The Germans never once dared to fire at him, obviously someone must have read Coleridge’s ‘Rime of the Ancient Mariner!’ One day whilst the cargo was being transferred we had a visit of a school of about four whales. They passed repeatedly between the two vessels, and eventually pushed off never to be seen again.
As mentioned the Germans were for the most part very human and polite. The only completely obnoxious individual who was also a confirmed fanatical Nazi was the Chief Engineer. I once was invited to his cabin which was amidships, just along from the women’s hatch. There spread out on the wall was a huge map upon which he had innumerable small pins marking out the boundaries of the German Army’s conquests. “You see how steadily we are advancing” he would gloat, and then continue, “ in Africa it will not be long before we have the Suez Canal and then that will have cut the British Empire in two. In Russia we are advancing and now are so close to all the

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