Death of Allied POWS by British hushed up
British submarines torpedoed merchant ships carrying Allied prisoners of war in World War II. Two disasters, in which 162 New Zealand soldiers died, were hushed up to preserve public morale. Mike Crean reports.
Nelson brothers Charles and Eric Costello were among thousands of Commonwealth soldiers in two Italian merchant ships torpedoed by British submarines in the Mediterranean in World War II. Hundreds of the soldiers died as the disabled ships foundered in stormy seas. Among the victims were 162 New Zealanders. The Costello brothers survived.
The tragedies, which occurred eight months apart, were hushed up at the time for propaganda reasons. They remain little known today.
An account by survivor Spence Edge appeared in the book, No Honour No Glory, published by Collins in 1983. Edge says the British Admiralty knew in advance the Italian ships were carrying Allied prisoners of war from North Africa to Italy.
Edge wrote: ‘‘Both incidents [are] virtually unknown outside military circles and [have received] scant treatment in the New Zealand Official War Histories’’.
The Costello brothers were on the first ship, the Jason, when it was wrecked. The sons of a Nelson hotel proprietor had enlisted early in the war. They were posted to 26 Battalion and shipped to Egypt. They fought and were captured at the Battle of Sidi Rezegh, in North Africa. After the shipwreck, they endured captivity in prisoner-of-war camps in Italy and Germany.
Charles married Edith in 1946. He became removals manager for Nelson firm Kirbys Transport. He died in 1979 and Eric died soon after. Edith now lives in Christchurch.
Edith remained close to the Costello family during the war. She remembers the parents receiving a telegram saying their sons had been reported missing and were believed to be prisoners of war.
The parents had no inkling of their sons’ ordeal on the Jason, Edith says. Even after the war, Charles seldom mentioned it. But the diary he kept during the war provides a grim record. Edith read it after he died. Then she found Edge’s book in a public library sale of culled items. She bought it and found out more. She wants the story told.
The Jason was carrying 2000 prisoners. It was sailing near the coast of the Peloponnese, south of Greece, when Royal Navy submarine HMS Porpoise fired on it, on December 9, 1941. A torpedo blasted through the ship’s hull, killing many prisoners instantly. Edith says her husband always felt sorry for the many South African troops who never had a chance, and for the 45 Kiwis who died.
The ship drifted helplessly to-
Doomed: wards a reef and a large wave washed it on to rocks. It became stuck there as darkness descended, and began to break up. The Italian captain and the cook, still wearing his white hat, abandoned ship and jumped aboard the first lifeboat. A German marine engineer on board took control. He tried to stabilise the ship but huge waves were crashing over it. He organised the men to go over the side on ropes and drop into the cold, raging sea.
The prisoners did not know the German’s name and never saw him again.
Charles’ diary says: ‘‘Much confusion and wet through.’’ As the men clambered over the side, they knew if the ship rolled, they ‘‘would all be gone’’.
Survivors struggled over rocks and through waves to land, where they were rounded up and marched to a shed. It was mid-winter, they were soaked and had only the drenched clothes they were wearing. So tightly were they packed into the shed that they had to stand up all night. It was ‘‘cold as hell’’, Charles wrote.
The next six months were a tortuous grind, marked by cold and hunger. The prisoners were issued one blanket each, on the second day. Three weeks later they were each given a greatcoat. Meals were infrequent, mostly cold and always skimpy. Sleeping conditions were cramped. Mainly on foot, but sometimes in trucks or trains, the prisoners were moved from place to place. For much of the time they had to endure snow. Many nights were spent in tents, until torrential rain washed them away.
Charles’ diary entries are ‘‘a record of hunger, cold, pain and misery’’, says Edith. The diary notes Christmas as ‘‘just another day, no extra meals’’. By New Year they were ‘‘nearly starving’’.
As this section of his diary ends, he seemed increasingly depressed. He wrote of the pain in parts of his body where he would later suffer severe arthritis. On June 4, 1942, he noted 200 prisoners arriving from Crete – presumably Allied soldiers who had been captured there after hiding in the mountains when the fighting ended a year previously. Next day he noted the prisoners were about to embark for Italy.
A gap in Charles’ diary follows, from June 5, 1942, to January 16, 1943. During this time, unbeknown to him, an eerily similar disaster was played out. Eight months after the Jason was wrecked, Royal Navy submarine HMS Turbulent torpedoed Italian merchantman Nino Boxio. It, too, was carrying Allied prisoners. It, too, ran on to rocks and foundered. This time 117 New Zealand soldiers died.
Charles and Eric were held in Campo 75, at Bari, in Italy. Conditions were terrible. The lice problem was so bad the worst-affected prisoners climbed trees to sleep where the lice could not reach them, Charles used to say.
Edith was amazed to receive a letter telling her where Charles was. Two priests from the Vatican were visiting camps and taking names and details of New Zealand prisoners.
They wrote to the prisoners’ contacts, enclosing a coupon on which to send a 25-word message in reply. The priests delivered these messages to the prisoners. Edith says it was tough trying to condense all she wanted to write into 25 words.
Each night the priests read the prisoners’ names on Vatican Radio, which could be picked up on short wave in New Zealand. Edith listened to this, too.
As the war turned against Germany, Allied prisoners in Italy were moved to camps in Germany. Then, as the Russians closed in from the east, thousands of prisoners were forced to march westward across Germany. Many died of starvation, cold and illness.
The Costello brothers again survived. They were repatriated to England at war’s end and were back in Nelson by late 1945.
Edith says Charles told her only a few details of his ordeal. When he met old cobbers who had gone through the war with him, they usually only joked about the humorous memories. Edge’s book filled in the background for her.
The general lack of recognition of what had happened angered Edith. However, her anger was tempered by the book’s foreword. It was written by fellow Nelson soldier and prisoner of war Jim Henderson, a family friend of the Costellos who became an author and radio personality.
Henderson wrote of the Jason and Nino Boxio disasters.
‘‘What is amazing to me is that the shocked survivors, to a man, did not curse the Royal Navy or the submarines, feeling they did their duty, did it well, and showed courage and skill in attacking and succeeding.’’