Page 5 Murchison
Baron Of Han
Dollard took Murchison
along Lambeth to Knife and finally anchored at Knife Edge, seven miles
west of Fork, where Frank Smith, who already knew his targets, swung
his two twin four-inch and waited.
At last Dollard
gave the order.
"Stand by bombardment starboard."
"Ready to open fire, sir," reported Woe Roberts, the Principal Control
Officer.
"Open fire."
The guns cracked
and the shells went away—over the paddy fields, over the foothills,
to burst on the railway yards at Yonan, five miles from the river.
Smith could see the tall buildings of the town among the hills, but
he could not see the fall of his shells. Then, from their naval spotting
plane, came the word that he was right on the target, and after that
he wasted no time. He put fifty-two shells into Yonan before Dollard
lifted the anchor and headed back along Lambeth.
One of the problems
in the erratic Han was that all patrol and bombardment trips along
the channels had to be made on the rising tide and all return trips
had to be completed before high water. This meant on average a frigate
had about an hour and a half to do a round trip. Speed was therefore
very important.
Back at Fork,
Dollard swung north up Piccadilly and then made for Pall Mall along
Sickle, bombarding into the foothills beyond Paekchon as he steamed
at fourteen knots. He was nearing the mouth of the Yesong River, just
north of Pall Mall, when aft and bridge lockouts reported:
"Gun flashes
on the port bow."
"Action port," Dollard called. "All positions engage."
As he spoke enemy
shells burst black in the mud of the river bank, then beat the black
water into white columns as the Communist gunners found the range.
And, with the shells, came long bursts from machine guns back from
the river and bullets from riflemen, dug in along the bank, hammered
the ship or ricochetted and whined away.
Murchison's four-inch
and Bofors were pumping out shells as the frigate reached the mouth
of the Yesong, anchored, swung to the anchor, and moved back along
Sickle at fifteen knots. An enemy mortar bomb exploded near the stern
and another alongside. Then a burst from a machine gun rattled the
ship's side with die noise of a street drill, and rifle bullets scarred
the deck and sprayed the bridge and Director Tower.
Fifteen hundred
yards from the river enemy gun flashes were little scarlet stabs of
colour across the flat paddy green. The guns were inside farmhouses
and covered from the air. The muzzles pointed through broken walls.
The shells came in and Dollard thought, "Thank God they're going over."
And they did. Then more shells hit the bank and shrapnel cried above
the bridge like kittens in a basket. Murchison put a broadside into
one of the houses and an umbrella of greyish smoke opened above the
roof. This was a direct hit on a T). Then another of her broadsides
exploded in a trench, so South Korean guerrillas reported later, and
the forty soldiers in it never knew what hit them.
While this was
going on, the Bofors, coughing like noisy old men, were concentrating
on the Chinese riflemen along the bank. Some were dug in, some lay
in the grass. With glasses you could see the faces of some of them
as they fired. One man came out of his hole and began to run, but
he had moved only a few yards when a shell blew him to pieces. Then
another soldier made for a patch of long grass but two Bofors fired
at him and he disintegrated among the bursts. As Murchison went along
Sickle enemy fire seemed to hesitate. Then it came on again in one
final burst, which filled the air with lead and metal, before the
ship moved out of range.
There was only
one Australian casualty that afternoon. This was Able Seaman Chandler,
on one of the Bofors, who was hit in the arm with a rifle bullet.
His friends, however, wouldn't believe it. They said nothing could
hit him because he was so thin he had to stand twice to even throw
a shadow. But the Chinese were still not finished with the Australian
frigate. During this Friday's action the English frigate St. Brides
Bay, anchored at Fork, had been bombarding at extreme range over Murchison.
But the New Zealand frigate Rotoiti relieved St. Brides Bay on the
Saturday and Dollard, who was to take Murchison out of the Han on
the Monday, agreed to show the channels to the Kiwi captain, Lieutenant-Commander
Brian Turner.
On Sunday, 30
September, Murchison again went up Piccadilly and along Sickle. The
afternoon was fine and steamy, with cloud banks, like dirty crumpled
handkerchiefs, down river above the Yellow Sea. The hills seemed very
close and above and beyond them, far inland, were specks that were
planes. On one of the Bofors sailors were singing, with the irony
of sailors, "Sailing down the river on a Sunday afternoon", but the
singing suddenly stopped as the body of a Chinese soldier, in bleached
khaki, his face paper white, his cropped hair very black, rocked gently
in the wash and was left astern. "Poor bastard," one of the bridge
lockouts said.
Dollard reached
the Yesong, turned and gave the order to bombard as he began his run
back along Sickle. But as the four-inch fired the Chinese replied
with everything they owned--75's, 50-mm. anti-tank guns, mortars,
machine guns and the rest. It was a repetition of Friday's battle,
but enemy fire was much heavier and more accurate. An anti-tank shell
went into Murchison but nobody heard it above the clamour of the armament.
A 75 exploded in the engine room but did no vital damage. To Frank
Smith, the shrapnel and bullets hitting his Director Tower was like
someone belting nails into an iron roof. Then a shell—he swears it
was 120-mm.—went through the radar aerials a foot above his head with
a fluttering roar. Once he yelled for binoculars from the bridge and,
as he swung his turret, he put his hand behind him to receive them.
Instead, Woe Roberts put a lump of shrapnel in his hand. It weighed
four pounds, it was jagged, it was still hot.
Part of the way
down Sickle the enemy fire weakened and faded. Then Dollard had to
reduce speed and almost stop as a stray rain squall came in from the
sea across the river and spread grey drapes over the vital navigational
buoys. For fifteen seconds Murchison was lost in the mist. Then the
squall passed, the sunlight polished the wet ship, and Dollard was
able to go on.
Murchison was
nearing the western end of Sickle when, suddenly, the Chinese began
again from a new cluster of guns, the nearest only 600 yards away.
But as shells and bullets hit the frigate Dollard was too busy with
his navigation to notice them, although he knew that one shell in
his steering gear and he would be aground and being pounded to pieces.
Like a native medicine man he kept up his monotonous chant:
"Steer one seven
zero."
"Steer one seven one."
"Port fifteen." "Steady."
"Steer one six zero."
Once he noticed
that the two leadsmen, abreast of the wings of the bridge, had ignored
the enemy fire and were still calmly swinging and calling, although
none could hear their reports above the gunfire.
"Lay in the lead
and take cover," he yelled.
Then he resumed
his chant.
Once he glanced
up and saw enemy tracer shells, like flaming onions, rising incredibly
slowly it seemed and in a high curve, and heard Turner, the New Zealand
captain, call, "This lot's coming right on the bridge." But the shells
went over, and behind and above in the Director Tower Jock Chalmers
yelled "Mortars" to Smith and pointed. Four mortar bombs were dropping
towards the ship and four more had just been fired. The four-inch
swung. They fired. The two men watched the four tracer shells go out
from the muzzles towards the land and explode, and in the black explosion
stained with orange and grey four bodies jerked into the air and seemed
to lie there before they slowly fell. And as the soldiers fell and
disappeared from view white darts rose from the ground behind them
and came swiftly towards the ship, and as they moved they got higher
and whiter and Smith watched them coming and said to himself, "Bazookas".
During that Sunday
afternoon run one sailor was seriously wounded and two were slightly
wounded, and Murchison had seven shell holes in her, shrapnel and
bullet scars all over her, and one of her Bofors damaged and out of
action. In return she destroyed a 75, mortars and machine guns.
Later, when the
New Zealander Brian Turner wrote his official report of that action
he left no doubt what he thought of Dollard or his crew. In one part
he said: "Dollard set an admirable example of coolness and concentration
at a time when divided attention might have spelled disaster." In
another part he had this to say: "Dollard's handling of his ship and
general direction of the armament was faultless and imperturbable.
The range was barely 600 yards, which reduced the accuracy of the
four-inch armament even when it could bear. . . . The guns' crews
and the control parties were admirable and this spirit . . . was right
throughout the ship down to the engine room in which a shell exploded
after having neatly drilled the ship's side and the reinforced corner
of the watertight door. . . ."
No one was surprised
when later Dollard and his Navigator, Lieutenant "Ned" Kelly, were
awarded Distinguished Service Crosses.
