Veteran, 102, recalls German torpedo attack horror

"The Sergeant Major said to me 'Do you see that cruiser coming in? Its yours, you join it in an hour's time'"

It was a fateful conversation for 19-year-old John Eskdale. He went to sea aboard HMS Charybdis on 22 October 1943, but in the early hours of the next day, in dark and freezing conditions, the cruiser was sunk by two German torpedos in the English Channel.

"We got thrown to the deck and the chap behind me had a large shell in his arms, and he came down on top of me with the shell on my leg. He was washed overboard."

As HMS Charybdis went down John and other survivors swam off the deck into the freezing waters desperately holding on to debris and a lifeboat to stay afloat.

Speaking to John at his home in the Forest of Dean he tells the story like its the script of a movie. But this is his lived experience, the reality of war, the loss of friends, the fight for survival.

"It was pitch black," he said. "We were covered head to foot in oil, you couldn't recognise anybody. If you knew their voice, then you knew who it was, but not by their face."

John was in the water for four hours before he was rescued by a passing naval destroyer sent to search for survivors. But by then nearly 500 men had lost their lives. Just over 100 survived.

"In the early stages, there were lots of people shouting out," he added.

"The boys, even, were crying for their mother. Not a very nice thing. You don't want to go through it."

This wasn't the first time John had escaped a German attack. Three years earlier, at the age of 16, he was living in Bath and worked as a runner for the Auxiliary Fire Service in Bristol during the Blitz. Later, he was in the Home Guard when the German's bombed bath.

"It was 11 o clock at night. No air raid sirens had been sounded and we were putting out almost the last fire alongside the gas works. The bombs came down and we shouted 'we haven't had any sirens!'"

"Then later up in Stanhope Street... down comes a big one and I ended up in Bristol Road on the other side! Bruised? Yes. Damaged? No."

Despite his young age, John says he wasn't scared by the experience.

"I wasn't frightened. I was just angry and I just said I'm gonna fight back. So I went to the recruiting office."

It was then that John enlisted in the Royal Marines and ended up on HMS Charybdis.

After survivors leave, following the sinking, he joined the commandos and saw a queue for volunteers for what was described as "Hazardous Service".

John was accepted, still not sure about what he'd joined, but was soon sent on a parachute jump ... without any training.

"I jumped, and then there was this lovely crack up above me, and I looked up, and the chute was opening, and I looked down and the ground was rushing up at me."

Still unclear what was happening John was sent to have a photograph taken in French civilian clothes. "I later learned that we'd all had that done and we'd all used the same suit!"

John then discovered that he'd joined Ian Fleming's secret "30AU" commando unit where he became a driver.

"We had glider pilots, we had frogmen, you name it, we had it."

Later John was preparing to head to the D-Day landings in 1944 but he had problems with his vehicle. He was then sent to Australia ahead of the planned invasion of Japan before the devastating atomic bomb at Hiroshima.

After the war John worked as a driver for the British Embassy in Tokyo and the war crimes tribunal. He acted as escort for photographers through Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

But John's experience of HMS Charybdis defined his career in many ways.

For decades after he and other survivors have attended an annual service to remember those lost in 1943.

Now he is the only remaining shipmate from HMS Charybdis and says remembering what happened, and ensuring new generations remember too, is as important today as it always has been.

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