Ernie Shakleton's Story

This story was originally published in the Toronto Star on October 9, 1941. It was reprinted in the RCNA-DEMS newsletter of November 2003.
I have added a number of comments in colour. Much of the information I used for my comments came from John Asmussen's website and details about "Operation Berlin" (marked with an *).
Gabe Thomas also provided some insight into escapes from trains. Other references are linked to the relevant website.
Roger Griffths very kindly copied from the British Archives the Crew List of the AD Huff and the Admiralty debriefing report that Shakleton and Coe gave.
This original content of Shakleton's story is published here with the permission of Torstar Syndication Services.

I'm a Canadian, 32 years old. I was born in Calgary and brought up in Medicine Hat I went to sea when I was 17, and I’ve seen a large part of the world. When war was declared I was odd jobbing for an oil company on the Island off Aruba, off the east coast of Brazil. Six of us quit our jobs and shipped to England. I joined the Canadian Merchant Marine there.

I was on the Cadillac when she was torpedoed off the Azores. I was on the Neptune when we sank a U-boat west of England. Another vessel was mined. (The Cadillac was a tanker sunk in the North Atlantic by a U-Boat in March 1941.. The only Neptune I could find was HMS Neptune which was a light cruiser that sank no U-Boats. Shakleton was a merchant seaman and would not have been on a naval ship sinking U-Boats in any case. It is possible that he was on a ship in a convoy where the escorts sank a U-Boat.)

Hit By Aerial Torpedoes In October 1940,1 joined the crew of the A.D. Huff, an 8,000 ton cargo vessel, out of Montreal. I was Bo'sun. We made two trips. The first time we had aerial torpedoes dropped on our foredeck when we were 600 odd miles from a British port. (The crew list of the AD Huff can be seen here.) .We laid up in drydock in Canada, took another cargo back to England, and were home bound again on February 22, 1941. The sea was choppy, it was 12.44 noon

The AD Huff

I was standing on deck talking to the chief officer about overtime for the men who had painted the deck, readying for port. Next thing 1 knew, a shot was laid alongside us from astern. I ran to my post on the bridge. We could see a ship astern, but couldn't make out her type. Mr. Scott, the second Officer handed me his glasses and said "what do you think of it?" I looked and said "a whole handful of trouble. The emergency stations bell was ringing and the men were running to their stations.

Mr Barham, our senior Gunner, (Bert Barham -mentioned in Fred Hutson's story.) had started a smoke screen. Captain McDowell ordered full steam ahead, zig-zag. The Raider we learned later she was the Gneisenau-raced up our quarter, keeping off about ten miles, and started shooting in earnest. Her fire was deadly accurate.

Killed Toronto Fireman

She was shooting 11 inch shells. Her third shell carried away our windlass. The fourth opened our counter, the fifth was dead center, blowing the boilers wide open. I think that shot killed 24 year old Fireman Roy Tustain, of Toronto and Third Engineer Mr. Smith of Scotland.

The sixth wrecked part of the wireless room and carried away one lifeboat and damaged the other starboard boat. The A.D. Huff started to list to port. Captain McDowell sent for me.

"Look Bo'sun," he said, "see if you can get some of the boys to stand by and get a shot at him. The rest of the crew will shove off." A lot of the men wanted to stay aboard, but we had to send off enough to make the Raider think we were abandoning ship. All this time the Radio Operator, an Ontario boy named Conrad, was hammering out SOS and position, to spot the Raider for the Navy. (The "Ontario" boy was George Shaker, the radio operator was Gerald Conrad of Dartmouth, Nova Scotia. George Shaker was the one sending the signal.)

The Chief Officer was being lowered into the live steam to try to locate the engine crew.

The first boat shoved off. We tried to hide behind No. 5 hatch until Jerry would get close for our 4.7 gun Small shells were landing all around us. The seventh big one wrecked our plan by carrying away the gun. The Huff was losing way and listing heavier all the time. So the last 11 lowered the last lifeboat Fire was blazing fiercely amidships when I jumped in. We shoved off about 300 feet and circled the ship. There was still small stuff coming over. We saw Romeo Hamlin, an A.B. from Montreal, trying to untangle himself from some drifting cordage, and picked him up. On the other side we got Mr. Barham and the Chief Engineer. Next time around we got the fifth Engineer, who had jumped from the poop, and a couple of minutes later 1 saw Captain McDowell, still up on deck.

He jumped and we hauled him over the gunwale. He was badly burned so he told me to carry on in command. By this time the Raider was broadside to us, 500 yards away. He'd picked up our other boat but we didn't know it. The Captain asked me if I knew our last position. I told him I'd heard we were 626 miles off Cape Race, Newfoundland. He gave me a course, and we started off as the Huff went under.

Other Stories from the AD Huff George Shaker Fred Hutson John Roy "Seaboots" Monroe Preston Ross -his story is in Mike Parker's book "Running the Gauntlet" Nimbus Publishing 1994. Alphonse Arsenault(offsite link)There are a number of inaccurices in this story as it was told by his nephew from memory.

 

Then the Raider's reconnaissance plane roared over us, low, and we were all sure we were finished. But nothing happened. (None of the other stories on the sinking of the AD Huff mention crewmen hiding to prepare to fire the gun or the Captain being burned.)

Come Alongside Or Be Sunk
Then a tremendous voice blared out of loud speakers from the Raider; "Come alongside my ship or I will haff to zink you." We went. When we got aboard we saw the rest of our own men, except Tustain and Smith, on deck among the German crew. The Admiral, I forgot his name-he wore a monocle-shook my hand and complimented us on foolish courage for remaining under fire to pick up our own men. They sent us down to a drying room, and the doctor bandaged our wounded. They asked us if we had any contagious diseases, and if anybody could speak German. I kept my mouth shut. I took German at high school in Medicine Hat, and had practiced it with Germans living there, and in different ports. I had often had talks with sailors who spoke in German.

But I certainly didn't intend to let them know. Nobody on the Gneisenau spoke good English. One of our officers was a real expert in modem Naval equipment. He and I planned together to find out as much as we could aboard the German Raider, so that if either of us got away we would be able to give accurate information to the Admiralty.

Found Secret of Gadget
I would keep my ears open for the chance phrases that the Germans would drop, and he would piece them together. He spotted one gadget that seemed to give the Germans advance warning of other ships that were far beyond sight, and I kept listening and watching to see what made it work. I was locked up three times for snooping, but I think we got the answer. I don't quite understand it myself but after I got back to England, I told the Admiralty what he said about it, and they told me that he should be congratulated for a splendid job completed. (the Gneisenau did carry radar equipment.*) (Roger Griffth obtained the Military Intelligence report for me. You can see it here.)

The German sailors were cocky and politely offensive. Our food was quite good—pigs knuckles and sauerkraut, plenty of brown bread, an occasional serving of syrup or jam, and good coffee. They gave us five cigarettes a day. Nothing was wasted aboard the Gneisenau. One of my jobs was picking up cigarette butts and saving the paper from them. We could keep the tobacco. One sailor was given only a quart of water for 24 hours because he threw away a crust of bread. There were always 100 men on lookout duty—and they were quick to spot any other ship near them. One day there was a big change in the atmosphere aboard, and we were hurried below decks from the place we were allowed to exercise

Tanker Scored a Hit
Later I found out that the reason was that we had overhauled a British tanker, one of the '"Sand" fleet, manned by a Chinese crew with English officers and gun crew. The Gneisenau opened fire on her without warning, but the little tanker answered with her 4.7 and scored a direct hit on No. 4 gun turret, killing 20 of the German crew, before she blew up. There were 11 survivors, eight gun crews had to be marched back to their turrets at gun point. From what I could hear, the little tanker's courage was a complete surprise to a German crew, that had such an overpowering superiority of gun-power, speed and armament. (The Chilean Reefer, a small Danish freighter was the only ship to put up any resistance to the Gneisenau. This occurred after Shakleton would have been transferred off the Gneisenau. There was no damage to the Gneisenau.*)

Another time we were bundled downstairs again for another reason. I heard from the murmurs of the men that there was a British reconnaissance plane in the area, and that the Gneisenau had been sighted. I immediately told the Masters of all the British crews on board—there were the remnants of four crews, then, 183 all told—what was up.

They told their men, and their hopes began to rise. The Gneisenau swung around and opened up to her full speed of 35 knots.

Met in Sargasso Sea
We were hoping that we'd hear British guns, but we were disappointed. Two days later we swung into the Sargasso sea and met three other vessels. They were the Scharnhorst, the Altmark and the Ermland. That was their rendezvous. We met there three times, altogether. The weather conditions, the seaweed and talk among the men gave the place away. While they were there the ships transferred their prisoners.

Wounded seamen were transferred first. The Scharnhorst sent all her prisoners to the Altmark, and ours went to the Ermland. It was afternoon, March 2. When we got aboard the Ermland we were searched thoroughly, because there were only 34 of crew to 183 prisoners. (This transfer would have taken place on Feb.. 26, 1941, 4 days after the AD Huff was sunk .German records say there were 180 prisoners.*) I was 30 days on the Ermland. I confessed I could speak German there because I saw a little German carpenter whom I had known in New York in peace time who knew I could. I was made official interpreter and was told to tell the British officers that they would have to work like the men...or"..."

Lucky Not On Altmark
The food was a little better than on the Gneisenau. We were lucky that we weren't on the Altmark. (The Altmark was famous because HMS Cossack rescued a number of Merchant Navy prisoners she was holding over a year earlier. The Altmark was scuttled but by the time of this story, she had been raised and renamed the Uckermark. She blew up in Japan in 1942 due to an accident while her holds were being cleaned..) The Gneisenau commander who had been a British prisoner in the last war had been excellently treated and remembered that. There were several times when we planned to overpower the crew and capture the Ermland. As interpreter I had pretty much the freedom of the ship. I managed to make two brass keys. One opened the small-arms locker that was beside the six inch gun on the stem. The other opened the door which kept us separated from the ship at large. I got 12 luger pistols and 90 rounds of ammunition. Smuggled into our quarters and divided them among the men who hid them all over the ship. Once we were almost ready for a break, but that afternoon the Ermland pulled in for another rendezvous -her last—with the two Raiders. We transferred food and supplies, oil and aeronautical equipment which we had in our hold to the Gneisenau and Scharnhorst, and the Altmark did the same.

Tanker Did 27 Knots.
I heard that a ship's inspection was likely, so we had to pass the word among the men to get rid of their guns. We didn't see the Raiders again until we were three days out of Brest. But in that time the Ermland made a clean escape from H.M.S. Nelson, which was out looking for her as a result of the reconnaissance plane which had spotted the Gneisenau earlier. Fog and wireless tips from the Gneisenau helped her, but I found to my surprise that the Ermland, only an 18,000 ton tanker, was able to do 27 knots at top speed. (The Ermland had a top speed of 20.9 knots.) During my 30 days aboard the Ermland I often saw a tall, very thin fireman who had been on the Huff with me. But I was a sailor and he was a fireman, and we never talked beyond passing the time of day. His name was Percy Coe. That's about all I knew. I met him soon again.

We were picked up, three days out of Brest, by the Raiders and escorted into harbor (the prisoners were unloaded at La Rochelle, not Brest on March 22, 1941.) We were searched before being sent ashore, and we were locked up under heavy guards that night in an old building that might have been a dance hall.

We were issued with food rations supposed to last five days-at one skimpy meal a day—and herded into the old French box cars, 56 to a car. The Altmark had unloaded 400 British seamen-we were 183—and there were 700 others already ashore.

Gave up Code Books
They came from vessels like the Kantara (Tommy's ship) the Trelawney, the San Mileto (no reference anywhere to a San Mileto -possible the San Casimiro), the Sardinian Prince, the Polycarp (a Norwegian whaler factory-ship under the British flag. It's Captain gave the Germans the British code books for their promise they would feed his wife and crew from the ship's stores. The promise was broken.) The stores went to 1200 German soldiers at La Rochelle, as Senegalese prisoners told us afterward.

We were shipped in our box cars from Brest to a prison camp east of Bordeaux, called St. Medard en Jalles. We were 1300 men. We spent eight days there. I suddenly discovered that Percy Coe and I had been thinking the same thought—that it was possible to escape and was certainly worth trying. We talked in hushed whispers, inside our barracks. Outside drafted French workmen were putting extra barbed wire up at a spot where some Senegalese had escaped before we got there.

Nearly All Wires Cut
We were there eight nights. Every night we would take turns sneaking out to the barricade, with a signal string tied to our fingers, and cutting the wire. When we had to quit for the night we would twist short pieces of wire into the cut strand, so they wouldn't show. Nazis patrolled outside, and inside in group of four. They had short automatic rifles and sidearms. We had three wires left to cut—one night's work—when we were moved.

The whole 1300 were sent off in groups of 100 by train to a concentration camp in Hamburg. We got to ride in coaches all the way. Some other groups were split off on the way. At Hamburg, Percy and I were kept two days in the coaches and the whole group seemed to be getting sorted out. The men in our car were changed several times. Then our car was switched back towards Paris.

Terrific Damage in Hamburg
In Hamburg I saw terrific damage done to industrial and dock areas, but I saw little damage in residential areas we passed. The Germans in Hamburg seemed pretty glum. They didn't smile or even gloat. They were dead-pan.

There were 36 British sailors in our coach as we started back toward Paris. There were eight guards. The corporal in charge sat in the center with a steel helmet and pistol, rifle and bayonet. Another guard paced back and forth, with bayonet fixed, on each side of him. Two more stood at each end of the car, and an eighth man relieved the corporal at short intervals. I was in the compartment opposite the corporal. I spoke to him casually in German, and he began to chat. He wouldn't believe me when I told him that there were still buildings standing in London. I asked him when we would get in to Paris, and he said at midnight. Later on I asked him the time, and he said it was 10:30. I looked at Percy. I picked up a two-pound tin of meat. The corporal had taken off his helmet once or twice before. I sat and waited. Finally he yawned and pulled it off again. (This whole section seems a little funny. The spring of 1941 was after the Battle of Britain, London and other British cities had been bombed extensively with numerous civilian causalities. This section seems to say that Allied air attacks were successfully damaging German cities, but not aimed at civilians. It is also unusual that the prisoners would be taken to Germany, then back to France. Most trains went to the prison camp at Sandbostel where Merchant Navy prisoners were kept until Milag Nord was built. According to Gabe Thomas, there were a number of escapes from trains including Shakleton's.) (This incident is not mentioned in the Admirality Report taken from Shakleton and Coe.)

Jumped at 30 M.P.H.
Percy sat beside the door of our compartment. I reached out and slugged the corporal across the back of the head with the tin of meat, and Percy wrenched the cheap lock off the door and we both jumped out. The train was going about 30 miles an hour. Percy scraped his knee and elbow and I plowed into the cinders on my face.

We ran up and hid, the way we had arranged, 100 feet apart in the brush. We had exchanged all our information, so that either of us could report all the other knew about German secrets. We looked to see if anybody else had taken advantage of the confusion to follow us out of the train. Pretty soon, two English sailors crept up to us. One was Jerry, about 24 and the other was Al, about 22. We never learned their last names. They told us that there was a hullabaloo in the train after we jumped. We arranged to keep separated, so as not to be caught in a bunch, and hid till morning.

The train jouney and escape route don't seem to fit very well with the actual facts. It is unlikely Shakleton went to Hamburg and returned towards Paris. This may have been added to the story to confuse German intelligence. Gabe Thomas has prepared a map showing the route Shakleton claims to have taken and the locations where other escapees left the trains. Click on the map to see a larger version. George Shaker remembers that Shakleton and Coe walked away from the train along with some others when the Germans let everyone out for a relief break.

Dawn Revealed Nazi Camp
Dawn showed us that we had jumped right into the heart of a German army camp. It was a semi-circle in front of us. We stayed all that day and when night came we circled the camp and started out by the stars in a south easterly course. We decided to make for the Pleinmontagnes. (I think that's how it's spelled) or some other spot in the unoccupied territory. We had no food—only our clothes, a few matches, a little tobacco and cigarette papers.

Fifteen or 20 miles away from the track, we came to an isolated French peasant's home. Percy went alone to the door, and explained that he was English and asked for food.

After talking for a while, the people welcomed him, and he gave us all the sign to follow. We were there an hour. We got a little bread, cheese and wine, a small map, tobacco, papers, matches and a piece of bread each to take with us. But we got a lot of information about the German patrols and decided to head for Pleinemontagnes.

Pray for Day of Freedom
"We just pray for the day when England can again free France," the old couple said. They apologized for France's failure but we assured them that the world understood and that they would be free again.

Two nights later, following in the bush along a river, we came to a small bridge. The river was deep and it was cold. We decided to cross under the bridge, and crawled toward it. I was leading and Percy was next. We had no warning. Suddenly a shot rang out, to my left. There was a gurgle, and then a German voice said "I've shot this damn Englishman in the throat." Then we could hear men running, and guttural voices asking how many there were and "diese weg" or "over here" several times. Then someone who sounded like a corporal said "Kommen sie hier—macht schnell!" and there was quiet for a little and then there were more shots. There was a pause and then the corporal said "That's the other one", in German. Percy and I froze. I don't know which they got first—whether it was Jerry or Al—or what their last names were.

"Where Are The Other Two?"
Then the corporal said: "This way" and the soldiers moved away from us. As they went I heard him ask the other soldiers with him: "Wo sind die andere zwei?" - "Where are the other two?" That was to be our motto.

Maybe twenty minutes later we slid into the water and drifted downstream, carefully paddling toward the other shore without a splash. Two nights later, with nothing to eat, we got to the border of Vichy France. It is patrolled by both the Nazi soldiers and the French gendarmes, with a 300 yard no man's land between them. We waited for hours, waiting until both the Nazi and French patrols were out of sight. I had an argument with Percy, who wanted to change our course. He finally agreed.

 

Mad Sprint Across the Border
Finally the moment came. We made a mad sprint across the border between the gray and black posts on the German side and the red and white posts on the Vichy border.

Nobody saw. We breathed easier for a minute, because we thought it would be easier in the so-called Free France. We were wrong. But the first people we met were very kind. Three miles past the boundary we came to a farm and walked boldly up to it. There were four young Frenchmen there, who questioned us closely, then gave us bread and wine and insisted that we sleep in their beds in a separate bunkhouse. We didn't even wash—just dropped and slept 14 hours.

We ate eggs (I ate nine) and milk. But the boys warned us that we would have to be just as careful in "Free" France as in the Nazi portion. We had no papers. Fortunately our seaman's dungarees, Coe's beret and my cap looked very much like the peasants around us. The boys directed us to two women, who were very kind. They gave us money and information, and two days later we walked down the hill into Marseilles. On the way we had picked up one end of the underground railroad that leads out of France.

Get Knives, Food
There we were able to get knives, tobacco, matches, dried beans from the black market, and a little chocolate. Then started the business of getting out of Marseilles.

We had entered without a single question, but we found that all exits from the city were watched. The city is overrun by Gestapo agents, by agents of the Italian commission, and by ambitious French policemen trying to get in good with both.

Sank Traitor's Launch
Once we were able to smuggle aboard a launch, hoping to get past the twelve mile limit which the Italians patrol, so that some American vessel could safely pick us up. But we had been double-crossed by the launch owner. There was only enough gasoline to get us half way to the limit. We had to set sail and drift back in, so that we wouldn't be held and questioned. Then we pulled the plug out of our "friend's" launch, as a thanks for his courtesy, and sank it off the beach.

We went back to our contact, and were advised to try the railroad. As bad luck would have it, we went with a number of others—and one of them spoke to me in English too close to a French gendarme. I got questioned, and managed to make enough fuss that the others could escape. I finally talked my way out of my own mess, and went back for further advice.

Next time we got as far as Perpignan, where we were picked up again. This time we were sent to a military concentration camp at St. Hippolyte du Fort, and were kept there 16 days. While we were there a British soldier was shot in the leg for attempting a break.

Got Only 100 Yards
We had a hacksaw blade and had sawed through one bar, plugging it with soap and cobwebs in the
daylight. He was first out—but he got only 100 yards. I was halfway out the window, and I had to get back in, and get to my own quarters fast. Finally we convinced the guards that we weren't soldiers and the commandant ordered us to be escorted back to Marseilles.

On the coast, opposite Perpignan we heard a French patrol challenge us. We both knew what to do. We ran as fast as we could in opposite directions. We had already arranged that we would meet at a place called Palloux-or something that sounds like it.

There were no shots fired and we met as arranged. But just outside Palloux we were caught again This time there were two gendarmes, with pistols, and we didn't have a chance. They handcuffed us by running padlocks through the links at the end of a chain. Then one guard went back on patrol while the other started to take us to a small French jail.

Make Escape on Way
We never got there. The guard walked beside Percy, who began to talk to him in French While he did this I worked at the padlock on my wrist. They were flimsy 15-cent store locks. "Ask the guard if he can speak English," I said to Percy. He asked, and the guard said no. Then I told Percy in English that my hand was free. So we tripped the guard, took his revolver away from him, gagged him with his own tie and handkerchief, and chained him to a tree with the good padlock which I unfastened with his own key We cut back on our course and hid. But to get ahead of pursuit we took a chance at traveling in the daytime.

But they caught us again and we were shoved into the concentration camp at Argeles at 4:30 the next day. They weren't tough on us, because they hadn't heard of our other escapades, and we were free to talk with other internees. Four of them were Luxembour-gers, and I could overhear them planning to escape. They had a compass and a big bar of hard candy. We still had our five pounds of beans, which had been escaping with us every time we left Marseilles.

Burrow Through Wet Soil
The camp was closely guarded, and there was a high barbed wire barricade. But a heavy rain began. The sentries stopped pacing, and stayed in their boxes. Percy and I burrowed under the wire and went down to the edge of the river. The four Luxembourgers turned up there shortly after.

To avoid pursuit, we headed east toward the Mediterranean. When we came to the mouth of the river we decided to swim across. The tide was low and the river was narrow. But as we crept down the bank, we were seen by four guards. They fired at us in the darkness. I fell to the ground, slipped on the bank and landed in a quagmire.

I began to sink, slowly but hopelessly. I lay flat on my stomach, stuffing all the reeds I could reach under my stomach to slow the suction of the quicksand.

I didn't dare yell, because the guards were still looking for us. Finally someone noticed I was missing and when the guards moved away they stole back and all four of them came back to where they had seen me last. I hissed at Percy and the four of them managed to pull me free. I was up to my waist by then. They found part of an old oar, and I hung on to it while they pulled.

Feet Mass of Blisters
We swam the river and began the long climb up the Pyrenees. The rain kept pouring down. Our feet—in spite of the shoes we had taken from guards we overpowered—were a mass of blisters. We didn't dare stop walking because our feet hurt the moment we started again. Even more than they hurt before we stopped.

We were completely lucky in crossing the mountain range in Spain. Although there are guards in them from Germany, France and Spain, and although any of them will shoot first and ask questions later, we got across those mountains in 16 hours, stopping to warm our raw beans, and eat the Luxembourgers' candy at a deserted mountain cabin at the summit of the pass.
I don't know how we ever managed to keep going. 1 had to tell Percy I'd kill him if he didn't get up and keep going once. I slit his pants to ease the pressure on his badly swollen knee, and had to cut my own boot because of a badly sprained ankle

Moved From Camp to Camp
I don't want to complain about the treatment the Franco police gave us, but they considered it treason for us to try to get in touch with a British or American consul.

We moved from one internment camp to another across the neck of Spain, and down to Madrid, where we finally got passage to Gibraltar after nine weeks of bad food and worse manners.

I got passage to Scotland and went to the British naval intelligence with my information-about the rendezvous of the German raiders—the mystery ship locator—the morale of the men—the way in which a number of merchant ships had met their finish—and so on.

They were splendid to me, arranging my passage back to Canada and entertaining me royally in London.

On September 29 I got back to Toronto. Since then I have been trying to find my wife to tell her where I've been since I was reported "missing... feared dead" last March.

Ernie visited with George Shaker's family around the time this story was published to assure them that George was all right the last time he saw him. The family and Geroge were very grateful for the visit. Ernie never did find his wife. He died a few years ago.

 

While there are a number of parts of this story that don't make sense in light of 65 years of historical research and the flood of information that is available on the internet, there is no question that Shakleton and Coe were extremly brave men to successfully escape Occupied France.