The Orcadian Features - Royal Oak Survivor wrote of swimming in 'liquid tar'

Survivor wrote of swimming in 'liquid' tar
(From The Orcadian dated October 18, 2001)

Rear Admiral Derek Anthony is pictured presented the wartime medals of HMS Royal Oak survivor Stanley Cole to OIC heritage officer Steve Callaghan. Also pictured is Mr Cole's widow, Mrs Nancy Cole. (Picture: Craig Taylor)

The medals of Stanley Cole, a survivor of HMS Royal Oak, were presented to the Scapa Flow Visitor Centre and Museum at the weekend.

Mr Cole's medals - the 1939-1945 Star; The Atlantic Star; The Africa Star (with clasp North Africa 1942-43), The Burma Star (with Pacific Clasp), War Medal 1939-1945 as well as two Arctic Convoy comemmorative medals and two Soviet medals commemmorating the 40th and 50th anniversaries of the ending of the war - were presented by Rear Admiral Derek Anthony, along with Mr Cole's widow Mrs Nancy Cole.

At the time of the sinking of the Royal Oak, Mr Cole was an 18-year-old Able Seaman.

He kept an account of his experiences on the night the warship sank when, on the evening of October 13, he and his mess mate had turned in about 9pm. They were woken though by the first explosion in the early hours of the morning.

“We swung out of our hammocks to see what it was all about,” he wrote. “The story was that it was either a CO bottle explosion, or something in the paint store right forward, and some even said the anchor cable had snapped as it was ‘blowing up rough.’

“My mate Bill said ‘I don’t like this, I’m going up top,’ and off he went. I never saw him again. Believing the situation to be not serious, many turned in again, but about ten minutes after, I heard two very loud explosions, separated by only seconds and the ship listed whilst the lighting failed.”

He made it to the deck by which time there were already plenty of men in the water, but he fractured his right foot while trying to get off the ship and then began to struggle through the oily water.

“It was like trying to swim through liquid tar and I was convinced I wasn’t going to make it,” he said. “The water was bitterly cold and from all around me in the darkness I could hear cries for help from injured, burned, despairing bodies. Kicking out as best I could with my good leg, I was sure I could feel bodies of drowned shipmates under my foot.”

Able Seaman Cole was eventually pulled out of the water by a ship’s whaler where he was dumped in a “cold, sodden, oily heap.”

He later went on to serve with ships on convoy escort in Russia, North Africa and the Far East.