It
was with great regret that YPAM learnt of Tommy's death
on July 18th 2005.
Everyone at YPAM who met Tommy felt a great sense of
privilege to have known him.
Article by Bob Crookes
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Tommy Shields in
the Red Sea in 1939 |
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Larne man Tommy Shields joined the Royal Navy in 1936
when things were alright in the world and he was enjoying
a sunny life with the Mediterranean fleet when war was
declared in September 1939. His ship, HMS Gurkha - a Tribal
class destroyer - was immediately recalled for Atlantic
convoy duties. They returned to Rosyth and went straight
out into the very cold North Atlantic still equipped with
their kit that was designed for life in the Mediterranean,
it was definitely not designed for Atlantic winters. The
only extra comfort was very hairy woolly long underwear
donated by a monastery.
Audio
Clip 1:
at the start of the war
HMS Gurkha was detached from the convoy duties and
sent to aid the evacuation of Norway and participated
in the very first moves of the Norwegian Campaign sailing
with HMS Afridi and a force of cruisers and destroyers
from Rosyth on 7/8th April 1940.
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Tribal class Destroyer HMS Gurkha in 1941 |
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On the 9th April at 1400, the force was attacked by
Ju88 and He111 bombers. One bomb hit Gurkha's aft end
and blew a 40 foot hole in the starboard side and very
soon the stern was awash and she had a 45 degree list
to starboard. All the lights were out but the wounded
were brought up and laid on the fo'c'sle. Many were
blinded by fuel oil and everyone had to cling to the
guard rails or anchor chains to keep from falling overboard.
Some made it to the boats and Carley floats.
It was now getting dark and cold but Tommy and a few
other gunners were still manning their guns as best
they could but eventually the Captain was obliged to
abandon ship. Tommy, with few others, survived and lying
in the oil covered sea he had to watch his ship slide
under the sea not more than fifty yards from him. Fortunately
one of their sister ships, HMS Aurora returned to look
for survivors and he was rescued; there were only 190
survivors. HMS Gurkha was the first British destroyer
to be sunk by air attack.
Audio
Clip 2:
Norwegian Campaign
He was returned to UK and after a few days
'survivors leave' he was given the strange job of travelling
backwards and forwards on the Torpoint ferry the main
link between Devon (Plymouth) and Cornwall though never
having been told why he was there or the exact duty
he was on Actionless and bored he and a friend volunteered
to join the hazardous small boat crews who manned the
motor launches and motor torpedo boats. He was lucky
and left his backwards and forwards life and was assigned
to ML1030 which returned him to the Mediterranean Fleet
and eventually they were tasked to Crete.
Audio
Clip 3:
Tommy joins ML 1030
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ML 1030 |
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Life took a quick turn for the crew of ML1030 and very
soon they were in the thick of some of the worst action
Tommy had seen since he was off Norway. After very fierce
attacks from the air they managed to survive the German
invasion of Crete but when it became obvious the Germans
would take the island they were ordered to take their
motor launch back to their base in Egypt.
Audio
Clip 4:
attacks in Suva Bay
Harold J Siddall was a stoker on ML1030 and he had
written his own war memoirs.before his death in August
1997 In his memory those memoirs have been recorded
in a web site by his son and daughter. There, Harold,
when writing about their attempted escape from Crete
back to Egypt, recalls some of Tommy's heroic action
in an effort to save ML1030 from the attacking German
planes.
Click
here to read it...
The BBC is not responsible for the content of external
websites.
The following sound clips from the BBC Sound Archive
were originally transmitted in the General Overseas
Service this first clip is the original signature
tune and introduction of 'Marching On' a programme
on which the other archive clips would have been heard
Audio
Clip
Opening of 'Marching On'
By 1941 the BBC had correspondents throughout
all the theatres of war and most of the activity in
the Mediterranean was covered from Cairo. The German
invasion of Crete started on 20th May 1941 and was
witnessed by an Englishman (name now unknown) who
was resident on the island and who managed to escape
to Egypt. This was recorded by him for the BBC in
Cairo on 31st May 1941
Audio
Clip - 1941 BBC archive recording of a broadcast about
the invasion of Crete.
The sudden and unexpected air invasion of Crete
in April 1941 was a hard fought battle with the Germans
eventually won but not without huge casualties. This
is a BBC archive broadcast from 5th June 1941 where
an unidentified New Zealand Army major gives his eyewitness
account of the air invasion.
Audio
Clip - 1941 BBC archive recording of eyewitness account
of the invasion of Crete.
Alone in the Mediterranean and heading for Egypt ML1030
was constantly bombed and strafed by the Luftwaffe until
they were so badly damaged they had to abandon it. In
a 10 foot dinghy the ten surviving members of the crew
rowed all the way back to Crete.
Audio
Clip 5:
escape from Crete by Motor Launch
After a few adventures in the mountains with
Maori troops and friendly goat herders, Tommy found
himself captured but made his first of many escapes
by quietly slipping away in the confusion and headed
back into the mountains. Eventually his luck ran out
and he was captured by Austrian mountains troops who,
because of his now very long beard and bedraggled appearance
took him to be an old man - he was only 20!
Audio
Clip 6:
Maoris, evasion and eventual capture
He was put into into a very unsanitary POW
camp in Canea along with thousands of other British
and Commonwealth troops but soon found himself being
put aboard a ship to be transported back to Germany.
Life aboard the POW ship was worse than the camp for
they were all put into the hold where their daily ration
of food was thrown down to them through the hatches
and huge scrums developed of prisoners trying to get
something to eat. Fortunately for Tommy, and for some
inexplicable reason, one of the Austrians who had captured
him in the hills made arrangements for him to be brought
out of the hold and made sure he got food. The next
thing the POWs knew was that they were docking in Salonika
in Northern Greece.
Audio Clip 7:
POW ship took Tommy from Crete to Salonika en-route to
Berlin
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Tommy Shields pictured here with his wife at a
reunion in Crete in 2003 |
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Then came a long train journey in cattle trucks
through southern Europe as they were transported back
to Germany and to Stalag IIId in Berlin. There he and
the others were required to work, first in railway marshalling
yards where he and other POWs immediately set about
sabotaging the tracks as he embarked on a series of
attempts to do as much damage to the German war effort
as he could.
Audio Clip 8:
POW and sabotage
Other duties included loading barges with
supplies for the Germans' Eastern Front. It was here
that Tommy and friends 'cultivated' a very pro-British
German who supplied them regularly with information
from BBC news broadcasts. They asked him to translate
their own propaganda messages into German, which he
did, although it was returned in the old German script
which made life a bit more difficult as it was difficult
to copy - they were not to know it probably saved their
lives. They then wrote out messages, to slip into cartons
of food, telling the soldiers on the Eastern Front how
desperate things were at home, how the war was being
lost - working on the premise that causing a little
despondency for the German troops on the Eastern Front
might be worthwhile.
The SS discovered these message and the Irish contingent
were interrogated but luckily the SS made the assumption
that none of them could possibly have enough knowledge
of the German script to have written the notes but they
were taken off that duty and given two months solitary
confinement just in case!
Audio Clip 9:
the pro-Brit German
At this time the German Waffen-SS were starting
the British Free Corps, a unit of the German Army composed
British and Irish nationals (little more than traitors)
who were persuaded to join with promises of 'a better
life'. History shows that very few POWs fell for the
story the SS fed them. Stalag IIId was, at the time
the headquarters of the newly formed British Free Corps
and Tommy of course, being from Ireland, was a natural
to be 'invited' for interview because the Germans thought
their best chance was with trying to recruit disaffected
Irish. Unfortunately they were not very competent at
determining who were the 'disaffected'
Audio Clip 10:
invited to join the British Free Corps by SS
There were very few pleasures available during
these days of captivity in Stalag IIId but the arrival
of a priest attached to the Irish Embassy in Berlin
led to Tommy and his pals discovering a way to get free
cigarettes.
Audio Clip 11:
going to Mass just for the cigarettes...
It was from this camp that Tommy and his
friend Michael Collins spotted a way they might escape
and just decided to take their chance with a very unexpected
consequence.
Audio Clip 12:
the first escape... and then back in again!
There were, unbelievably, moments of relief
and during one of these Tommy allowed the Welsh POWs
to introduce him to the game of rugby - a game he'd
never played. With all the enthusiasm of a twenty year
old he joined in and took their advice.
Audio Clip 13:
the broken leg
With a leg well plastered in a German hospital,
Tommy was not very mobile and spent his time on a pair
of home made crutches. When the POWs were moved to another
camp he was not allowed to join the forced march.
Audio Clip 14:
Wuisterberg and Jacobstal
Another move on to a camp at Mulburg gave
Tommy a glimpse of what he described as 'Hades' and
the appalling conditions the Russians POWs had to endure.
He and a friend Ray Davey persuaded British POWs to
donate items from their own precious Red Cross parcels
to help the Russians.
Audio Clip 15:
Mulberg and the Red Cross goods for the Russians
Having been the solitary sailor in army camps
throughout the time he'd been a POW the sight of a group
of new sailor prisoners gave him a new hope and he decided
to reinvent himself as a new POW..and just joined them
as they went through the administration process.
Audio Clip 16:
Tommy becomes a new P.O.W.
Tommy, now properly documented as a naval
prisoner, was moved to a naval POW camp near Hamburg
called Marlag Milag Nord which he described as 'almost
like Butlins' where there were music groups, theatre
groups, libraries and courses in virtually anything
you wished to learn. However far seeing Able Seaman
rank prisoners had passed themselves off as Petty Officer
rank leaving very few of the lower ratings to do the
mundane work around the camp. Tommy was ordered to clean
up the camp but objected pointing out that there were
dozens of prisoners of lower rank than him and refused
to work. As a punishment he was transferred to a small
satellite camp of Marlag Milag Nord in the Harz mountains.
Here, at Thale, just a few naval prisoners where confined
in a small POW camp situated within a large German Naval
establishment that had been moved there from Hamburg
- full of naval architects and designers.
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