245319 Able Sea. Ernest Gaskell Royal Navy HMS Abercrombie I joined HMS Abercrombie in June 1944 in Italy. My first view of her was a huge hole being repaired on her side. We left for Malta after being repaired and started knocking a pretty green crew, myself included, into shape. My memory of 21st of August 1944, a Sunday I think, is that sometime mid morning we were at gun stations when there was a violent explosion which shook us followed by a second explosion. I wasn't sure what had happened, torpedo came to mind. An old hand near by said "blow up your lifebelt scouse", something I had not thought of. We had stopped dead in the water and it didn't look good, an order came to get all ammunition up on deck. We were getting low in the water when a couple of mines bobbed up on the port side where I was working. A couple of 20mms opened up, I think they sank one with no explosion. One started bobbing close and an order came for a boat crew to stand by, but it cleared the bow. Sometime in the afternoon a tug appeared. It was a hard day, I cannot remember eating or resting all day. We made it back to Malta. I was back at sea a few days later aboard HMS Colombo. found myself on board a very efficient ship on route to Alexandre from where started to operate in the Aegean sea our job was to support the operation to re-occupy islands in the Eastern Mediterranean held by German troops. It was a busy time, I can't remember all the names of the island's we bombarded once to cover a commando landing. In the build up to the re-occupation of Greece we bombarded shore targets at Heraklion, Crete and Aegina Island in the Gulf of Athens. We were then transferred to the Adriatic to provide AA defence in support of military operations deployed at Zarder we accepted surrender of German forces. We set out for the UK in early May 1945 via Malta. The war in Europe finished on the way. I have been asked how we celebrated the wars end. I remember that when the news came through I was on the mess deck.There was hardly a sound. Some of my shipmates had been abroad two years and four months,I had been a year. I still remember that I walked aft, Cape Bonn was on the port side I remember that, I sat down and said Thank God.
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