When John Creedy found a box of letters in his mother’s attic he had no idea he was looking at a treasure trove of incredible wartime stories with characters that could have included one of the people on which Ian Fleming based James Bond.
“I found the box in 2014 when my mother passed away,” says John, a retired viral purification specialist. “I knew nothing about the letters before. She had moved several times and every time the box went with her. They were in Hastings – she was principal of art & design at Hastings College. When she died my sister and I were clearing out the house and I saved the box because the letters looked interesting.”
John Creedy with the letters from his grandfather. Picture: Keith Heppell
John put the box into the attic at his home in Linton and left them until he retired in 2016. He then started reading the letters, and gradually became enthralled.
“One letter in particular completely stunned me,” John says. “It was from my grandfather Norman Howard, when he was a Lieutenant in Berks & Bucks Yeomanry.
“He left about 100 letters, some short, some long, some to parents and some to the girlfriend who became his wife. He lived in Cambridge, including at several addresses in Chesterton, as a young man, and after the [First World] War he set up a nursery in Willingham. He was a dyed-in-the-wool Cambridge man, though born in Stockport. His family moved down here: he was one of five siblings.
Lt Norman Howard
“In 1922 he went to Cambridge University to study crops and animal husbandry: he didn’t say too much about it, but my mother reported on him becoming an eminent cattle breeding specialist.”
A lot of the letters were sent from Gallipoli – the Allied campaign ran from April, 1915 to January 1916. He was still finding his way as a private at that point (Norman Howard was born in 1896). As part of the sanitary corps he was close to the fighting though not part of it.
John Creedy with some of the letters from his grandfather. Keith Heppell
“He understood that the campaign got stalled by indecision,” notes John, adding: “He was very forthcoming about conflicts with his mates and officers – particularly quartermasters who gave more provisions to their favourites, so he stood up to that. He was very conscious that Cambridge newspapers of that time were reporting information fed by some of his mates, and the paper was gullible. A ship that sank was reported in the Cambridge press as being his platoon and it wasn’t.”
The letters continued and towards the end of the war Norman Howard had an incredible escape which left his grandson John Creedy spellbound.
Lt Norman Howard
“As second lieutenant in the newly formed Machine Gun Corps and after training in Egypt he and his company were among 2,900 men who embarked on the troop ship HMT Leasowe Castle on 26 May, 1918,” says John.
“About 100 miles out of Alexandria, bound for Marseilles for troop redeployment on the Western Front, the ship was torpedoed by UB-51 around midnight local time.
“In his letter home to his newly wedded wife he describes leaning on the ship’s rail in a calm fully moonlit sea, remarking it was a splendid opportunity for a submarine attack, before turning in – only to be awakened by a tremendous crash as the torpedo exploded towards the stern not far from his accommodation. ‘The ship shook and trembled as if some great monster was shaking it like a rat in its teeth…’
HMT Leasowe Castle. Picture: Warwickshire Yeomanry Museum Trust
“After collecting his wits and admitting it had ‘put the wind up’ him, Norman goes on to describe how he counted the men in his section with his sergeant, reporting all correct and present to his company commander, and lifeboats were filled and rafts deployed with efficiency and discipline due to the training provided before sailing.”
The master (captain) of the Leasowe Castle was Edward John Holl, who John says “is to be remembered for his cool and encouraging authority in a crisis and his strong grasp on survival”. This behaviour was characteristic of Master Holl, who went down with his ship on that night in 1918 in the Mediterranean. His last words were “Do your utmost, they must be saved”.
As an apprentice mariner, aged 18, Holl was on watch at the stern of the three-masted cargo clipper Dunnottar Castle when it ran aground near the Hawaiian island chain at Kure atoll – miles from anywhere. The vessel was stuck fast and after four days the decision was made to send the small ship’s life boat with just six volunteers – including the boy Holl – for help. The solid seaworthy ‘hooker’, designed for fishing rather than long distance navigation – which Holl described as ‘an old crab’ – took 52 days to reach Kauai Island, over a thousand miles from Kure atoll. For several weeks the crew existed on one biscuit and a pint of water a day.
The Dunnottar Castle. Picture: San Francisco History Centre
“It was a miracle of survival,” notes John, who adds that Holl’s grave is in Notting Hill. [Another such miracle was that everyone survived the grounding of the Dunnottar Castle – those who stayed behind, including three dogs, were rescued by a passing ship on its way to South America.]
By 1917 Captain Holl had become a very successful and popular senior ship’s master on several Union Castle liners. He took command of the Leasowe Castle in 1918.
John’s grandfather, Norman Howard, never met the storied mariner. He ended up in water “with only his watch on” before being rescued. He and 1,200 other souls were saved because a nearby ship stopped to assist.
Master Edward John Holl, who took command of HMT Leasowe Castle in 1918, was in charge when John Creedy’s grandfather Norman was being transported to the Western Front from Alexandria. Picture: Dwinnells family and Eric Dwinnells, Captain Holl’s great grandson
This was the HMS Lily, sent at the last minute to boost the convoy escort due to intensive submarine activity and heavy loss of life in recent incidents. The HMS Lily was moored together at the bows with the stricken Leasowe and was almost dragged down by the sinking ship as she went down stern first.
On board HMS Lily was a young man called Jocelyn Evans, a sub-lieutenant aged 19. He had recently been promoted from midshipman. As the Leasowe Castle began sinking, it was Jocelyn Evans – who later came to Ian Fleming’s attention with an entirely different name, as we shall discover next week – who saved the Lily from being dragged into the depths by personally cutting the hawsers that joined the stricken vessel and the rescue ship…