Surviving the First Attack and the Hunt for the Bismarck

Alf Burton spent 23 years in the Royal Navy, beginning his career just as the Second World War broke out. His service almost ended before it began: while working high up a funnel on HMS Edinburgh in the Firth of Forth, his ship was strafed in the first German air attack on Britain. Sixteen naval personnel were killed across three ships and Alf’s funnel was left riddled with machine-gun holes.

In his interview, Alf speaks candidly about life at sea. He recalls the poor condition of some wartime vessels, the sheer scale of the guns on HMS Rodney, and the moment an ingenious German pilot nearly sank her. He gives a gripping account of the chase for the Bismarck and a bird’s-eye view of her sinking — a reality for which no training exercise could prepare the crew.

His memories offer an extraordinary window into the Navy’s endurance and transformation, from the war years to his later reflections on visiting a modern warship.

Alf died on Thursday 27th January 2018, aged 1998.

On the same day a 16-year-old Harry Card was turned away from the Army for being underage, he was signed up to the Navy by a passing chief petty officer, and so began his death-defying military career. Harry joined HMS Swift, an S-class destroyer, in late 1943 and set sail on the Arctic convoys. He describes the Arctic’s mountainous seas in terrifying detail, and recalls various hair-raising moments of his service including submarine attacks, clearing ice from the ship’s masts, and Operation Tungsten: the Navy air raid that targeted the German battleship Tirpitz. Later on in the war, HMS Swift was on the front line of the D-Day landings. Harry vividly recalls the opening bombardment as they sat poised off Sword Beach in Normandy, before describing the exact moment the ship was struck by an oyster mine and split clean in half. Despite the sinking of the Swift, Harry survived and was given six weeks to recover, after which he set sail once more.  This time he was on HMS Odzani, heading for the Far East where he embarked on further convoy duties and assisted in the liberation of Hong Kong and Singapore.

Harriet Wight was living in the countryside in North East Scotland at the outbreak of war and recalls seeing an enemy aircraft drop a bomb over Aberdeen. It was then she decided ‘to do her bit’ and joined the Women’s Royal Naval Service (WRNS). After a medical in Dundee she did her initial basic training at Balloch on the edge of Loch Lomond and began her duties as a messenger. She was eventually posted to Ilfracombe in Devon as a signaller and was involved in taking and logging signals which at that time mainly related to noting casualties from the North African campaign in 1943. Harriet moved on to operating telephone switchboards after a period of training and was posted to Hatston on the Orkneys, close to the vital naval base of Scapa Flow. Harriet spoke of meeting her future husband, who was a sailor involved in Arctic and Atlantic convoys, and how she never concerned about the danger he was in until she found out that an American soldier pen-friend of hers had been killed in Belgium and then the reality of war hit home. Harriet concluded by saying how very proud she was of having been a Wren.