Your feature on Lizzie Nunnery (Horror on the high seas, G2, 16 January) contains accounts of hatches being closed on drowning men after a ship had been hit, and the allegation that “the heaviest British losses were self-inflicted”. This contrasts starkly with the report from my grandfather, Captain Sidney Goffey, whose ship the Clytoneus was attacked and sunk by a German aircraft in 1941. After establishing that the ship was “blazing furiously”, main machinery out of action and the engine room taking water fast, Captain Goffey ordered abandon ship and had the lifeboats launched. He then took a walk round the ship to ensure nobody was left on board before getting into his own boat. He reported that “the behaviour of my crew, including the Chinese, was excellent in every way throughout the ordeal”. They were picked up after two days and – apart from the able seaman manning their anti-aircraft gun, who despite being wounded by machine gun bullets from the aircraft maintained he had secured a hit on it – no casualties were suffered.
Chris Goffey
Forest Hill, Oxfordshire
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