Apprentice recalls the Foylebank disaster as ‘all hell broke loose’ (From Dorset Echo)

Apprentice recalls the Foylebank disaster as ‘all hell broke loose’

10:32am Tuesday 14th February 2012 in Looking Back

A RECENT Dorset Echo article about the death of Ernest Pettiford, the last survivor of the Foylebank disaster, has prompted reader Jack White from Portland to get in touch.

He writes that the article reminded him of what he was doing at that time – July 1940.

“I was a 16-year-old apprentice engineer employed at the Whitehead torpedo factory at Ferrybridge which is now a housing estate. On that Thursday morning, July 4, we had several ‘yellow warnings’, which meant that enemy aircraft were in the vicinity, until around 11am when the sirens sounded in the factory for a ‘red warning’ when the aircraft were almost overhead.

“We had to go to the air raid shelters which were in the sports field, now the Downclose housing estate. I went out the side gate of the factory overlooking Portland Harbour and I can only say that all hell broke loose then.

“Every anti-aircraft gun in Weymouth and Portland was firing and I stood for a very short time looking towards Portland dockyard. I could see and hear the JU 87 Stuka divebombers screaming down on to the Foylebank – they say there were over 20, which I can quite believe. They were also escorted by fighters, which were machine-gunning.

“By this time I was on my way to the shelters, but not before diving under a railway truck when the machine gunning sounded too close for comfort.

“We really had a grandstand view from the other side of the harbour and at a safe distance, and we could only imagine the awful experience and the bravery of the men on the Foylebank, especially Able Seaman Jack Mantle who was awarded the Victoria Cross posthumously for continuing to fire his gun until he died. It was brought vividly to mind when I read Ernest’s story.”