Ernest Henry Parker

Ernest was in the Merchant Navy. The story below relates to an incident in which he and his crew-mates of the S.S. Blue Jacket were involved in during Dec 1943.

"Friend or Foe" (acknowledgment: Bud Shortridge, http://navalmerchantshiparticles.blogspot.com)

"On 16th December 1943, the U. S. Flagged merchant vessel Blue Jacket, making just under 16 knots in over cast and misty weather and a brisk wind, plied through rolling swells toward her destination. With changing viability up to five miles, the lookouts kept a sharp watch for enemy U-boats. About 500 miles northeast of the Azores, one of the ship's armed guards, Seaman First Class Robert Edmonds, stationed at the 4-inch gun aft, spotted a red blinker light off the starboard quarter. His report to the bridge began one of the most unlikely and unusual surface engagements of World War II.

The Blue Jacket, a 6,180-ton C2 "reefer" (refrigerator ship), began her routine voyage at New York. She sailed alone on 21st October, bound for several South American ports. On 8th November she arrived at Santos, Brazil, and began discharging a portion of her cargo. The next day she sailed for Montevideo, Uruguay, where she discharged all her remaining cargo.

On 18th November she sailed for Buenos Aires, Argentina, arriving there the following day. There she loaded 4,200 tons of frozen meat and butter and departed at 1800 on the 26th . To avoid detection by U-boats, she lay off the river Plate until dark and then proceeded unescorted to the United Kingdom. On 6th December, after a week at sea, an Admiralty radio message gave the master a slight deviation in course, and eight days later the Admiralty relayed a message that Cardiff, Wales, would be the ship's destination.

On 16th December, the Blue Jacket proceeded on a zigzag pattern, changing course at about four-minute intervals. At 0315, Greenwich Mean Time, Seaman Edmonds, one of nine lookouts posted, reported a red blinking light to the officer of the watch, the second mate, Robert J. Curtin. Curtin quickly received several similar reports from the lookouts forward, amidships, and aft.

The blinking light seemed close aboard, and Curtin, peering into the darkness, could not determine at what distance the light shone. Likewise, he could not decipher the signal. It seemed to be a series of "A's," and Curtin presumed it was a surfaced enemy submarine and sounded the general alarm. Lieutenant Frank C. Battey, the armed guard officer, ordered the 32 armed guards under his command to load and train the ship's 4-inch .50, the two 3-inch .50's, and the eight 20-mm guns on the light.

Curtin reported the sighting to Master John Shiell through the voice tube that led to his bed. Shiell ordered his second mate to return no signal. Before Curtin could finish the conversation, the sound of gunfire came from astern. Shiell jumped from his bed when the general alarm sounded and rushed to the bridge after speaking to Curtin. Shiell then rang up full speed, ordered the helm hard to port, and instructed the signalman to send the ship's recognition signals.

Lieutenant Battey ran to the flying bridge and arrived withing five seconds. The blinking light continued from astern, but the men could not decipher a recognizable signal. A moment later, star shells fired from two unidentified vessels lit the sky. Battey ordered his gunners to open fire in the direction of the lights at the next sound of gunfire. Visibility at this point had decreased to about one mile.

But the vessels looming in the darkness ware not U-boats. Instead, three Captain-class British frigates of the Third Escort Group had detected the Blue Jacket on radar. Ironically, the three frigates were all ex-U.S.-built destroyer escorts. Previous to contact, the three ships - HMS Duckworth, HMS Cooke, and HMS Berry -patrolled in a southerly direction in line abreast five mile apart with the Cooke on the starboard side and Berry and Duckworth abeam to port at five and ten miles, respectfully.

The Cooke's radar first picked up a large surface vessel bearing roughly northeast at eight-and-a-half miles distant. About ten minutes later, both the Duckworth and Berry also made radar contact. The senior officer of the escort group, Commander Ronald B. Mills, on board the Duckworth, ordered the Cooke to examine the strange vessel.

Meanwhile, the Duckworth began closing rapidly at 20 knots. At 2,500 yards the Cooke spotted the Blue Jacket through the rain and mist, but an inexperienced signalman on board the frigate used only a small light to signal the freighter and never established two-way communication.

The lookouts on the Blue Jacket never saw these signals and could have seen them only if someone had been looking directly toward the light. The Blue Jacket, making 16 knots, passed into the darkness and left the Cooke astern.

The British lookouts never determined if the ship was an armed raider, a blockade runner, or an Allied merchant vessel. The Blue Jacket's failure to answer the Cooke and her zigzag course confused the British.

At this point, the Cooke's commanding officer assumed that this was a large transport supposedly traveling westward and known to be in the area. After the Duckworth made radar contact, Commander Mills went below to re-examine the plot and found no evidence that any Allied ship should be in the area except a westbound transport. Since the ship continued on an easterly heading, he concluded the vessel was hostile.

The Duckworth altered course, came up on the starboard quarter, and used a read-shaded Aldis Lamp to signal the freighter to stop. This was the signal spotted by the lookouts on the Blue Jacket that went unanswered. When the Blue Jacket failed to answer, Mills ordered star shells fired to halt the mysterious vessel.

The Blue Jacket, however, stayed her course, and a few minutes later the Duckworth sent a 3-inch shot screaming across the bow of the merchant ship from just more than 2,000 yards. This gunfire was the cur for the U. S. naval gunners to return fire. A faulty primer caused the 4-inch gun to misfire, and the 20mm Oerlikons could not answer the attackers. About five minutes later, the crew got off its first 4-inch gun shot. With the engagement under way, Shiell ordered Signalman Second Class Louis S. Dizon to repeat the ship's international call sign, secret identification, and recognition signals.

As the Blue Jacket worked up to more than 18 knots, Battey began directing fire over the battle phones from his position on the bridge. The ship's radioman, James E. Merritt, sent distress calls and received more than three replies. Within minutes, a 3-inch round disabled the radio and wounded Merritt, who had to be taken below.

Some 17 minutes after the first contact, another 3-inch shell from the Duckworth passed through the 20mm ready ammunition box on the flying bridge, exploded in the radio antenna box, and disabled the battle phones. The explosion severely wounded Seaman Second Class Louis S. Dixon and Third Mate Robert Burkhard. Shrapnel also struck Battey and threw him several yards across the deck. Battey called to the flying bridge and ordered the 20mm guns there to fire at the enemy gun flashes, hoping to confuse the attackers even if they could do no damage. Bleeding and slightly dazed, Battey went forward to direct the fire of the two 3-inch guns, as the frigates had come from astern onto the freighter's quarters. He also organized men from among the eight officers and 48 men of the merchant crew to pull all the ammunition up from the magazine. Battey "figured then that it was going to be a fight till our last shell was fired."

When the firing began, the third British frigate Berry had her foxers deployed, and thus did not enter the fray immediately. Within 20 minutes the Berry's commanding officer, Acting Lieutenant Commander C. S. Pirie, slipped his foxers at 20 knots and set a course to come up on the unengaged side of the mystery ship. The Berry opened fire at 4,000 yards with star shell and high-explosive 3-inch rounds.

The Cooke and Duckworth continued to attempt communication by radio, but got no response because gunfire had disabled the Blue Jacket's radio. Several times during the engagement the ships passed close aboard where the officers on the Blue Jacket could see visual signals. At first, however, they were unintelligible. The signals eventually indicated the attackers might be British, but Shiell ignored the messages, believing them to be an enemy ruse.

During the melee, the Duckworth kept generally east of the Blue Jacket and the Berry and Cooke kept to the west.

While his men continued firing at the flashes, Battey worked his way aft to direct the fire of the 4-inch gun.

The zigzag course of the freighter and the evasive movement of the frigates kept the U. S. Gun crew changing their bearings and range constantly. They had difficulty hitting their target because of the bad visibility and the fact that they took their ranges and bearings by sight alone. The British guns, guided by stereoscopic range finders, struck the Blue Jacket repeatedly.

A small shell struck the Blue Jacket's Number 2 gun and wounded both the sight setter and the pointer and partially disabled the gun. Several of the armed guards had their helmets creased by shell fragments and machine gun fire.

Most of the damage to the U. S. Freighter came from the Duckworth's fire off the starboard quarter. Several 3-inch shells hit the flying bridge, two struck the radio shack without exploding, and one hit under the first officer's bunk and then passed through the steward's room. Another hit the starboard side at the Number 2 hatch just above the waterline and two more struck in the Number 3 hold and started a fire.

Battey claimed shells from the British guns whizzed around "like bees." The engagement continued on and off for nearly two hours as the ships lost sight of each other repeatedly. The naval armed guards in the Blue Jacket fired 43 shells from the 4-inch mount, 168 3-inch rounds, and 2,000 rounds of 20mm fire.

At 0450 the captain of the Duckworth received word that an Allied vessel was sending distress signals and gave the order to cease fire. The armed guards also stopped firing because they no longer had gun flashes to sight on. The Duckworth dropped astern of the Blue Jacket to made a positive identification.

Within an hour, lookouts in the Blue Jacket could see the dim outline of the Duckworth two points off the starboard quarter. Battey conferred with Captain Shiell, and they decided to hold their fire. The Duckworth then began to signal with a blinker "Is help required?" This occurred about the same time that a crewman on the U. S. Freighter noticed English markings on the shell fragments. The Blue Jacket once again signaled her identity and the British frigates theirs. The battle was over.

HMS Berry came up abeam on the starboard side and signaled "Do you need assistance?" The signalman replied "Yes, give me your reply to Ident." The Berry identified herself and she put a medical officer off in the port motor launch.

While the doctor attended to the wounded, the able-bodied men extinguished a fire in the upper 'tween deck of the Number 3 hold. The Berry provided escort, since the U. S. Freighter had one disabled gun and had expended most of her ammunition.

The British frigates suffered an unknown number of casualties while seven armed guards and four merchant seamen suffered injuries. The most serious, Seaman First Class Howard Dentremont, had a serious eye injury and Seaman Second Class Louis Dixon's foot was broken in several places. Frank Battey suffered more than 30 shrapnel wounds to the back of his legs and body.

A board of investigation determined that Lieutenant Commander L. C. Hill of the Cooke had signaled the Blue Jacket with a light that was too small to be seen clearly. Moreover, the Cooke, instead of challenging the U. S. Freighter with a merchant vessel challenge, sent a naval challenge that meant nothing to the men on the freighter. The board also concluded that Hill showed a lack of Initiative by not following the ship and identifying her. Instead, he passed the information to the senior officer who believed that all the proper challenges had been met and he reacted accordingly.

The board reprimanded the senior officer of the Duckworth for not challenging the Blue Jacket properly and failing to identify her by using the correct procedure. The board also reprimanded Commander Mills for using a star shell to determine the vessel's identity. It concluded that the use of a star shell could be construed only as a hostile act.

The board likewise faulted the duty officer at Western Approached Headquarters, who failed to make the presence of the Blue Jacket known to the Third Escort Group. And finally, the board reminded the three British commanding officers to be more careful in the future.

British and U. S. Authorities felt that if this information became public, it might cause bitter feelings between the two allies at a time when preparations were underway for the landings in France. Thus, this episode was to be kept a secret at all cost. Both the merchant crew and naval armed guards mustered separately on deck before the ship docked. Intelligence officers warned them to keep this incident quiet. The officers informed the crews that any revelation of the facts would be treated as a court-martial offense, and they would be prosecuted. The same warning went to the pilots, agents, and War Shipping Administration representatives. An intelligence officer instructed Shiell not to tell anyone, even his operators, and to refer all inquiries to the U. S. Navy. In his report to the local authorities Shiell stated only that "surfaces" damaged his ship. The naval armed guards received high praise for their efforts to defend the ship. The U. S. port officer in Liverpool may have summed it up best by saying that it was "A praiseworthy piece of gunnery....by a merchant vessel which could prevent three H. M. Frigates from closing and the Blue Jacket's fire undoubtedly saved her from a severe mauling."

The Navy Department's Board of Decorations and Medals reviewed the incident, based upon the conviction that the men believed they were in action with the enemy. Since Lieutenant Battey and his men defended their ship against an attacking and unidentified enemy, the board recommended and the Secretary of the Navy approved the Commendation Ribbon for their heroic actions."