Would you fathom it?
Navy recruit, 23, sets sail 77 years after grandads fought at sea – on opposite sides
WhEN Ben hoffmeister decided that a sailor’s life was for him, he was entering well-charted waters.
For the 23-year-old’s grandfathers were both naval men – and even fought each other in the Second World War.
Now, more than 70 years later, SubLieutenant hoffmeister has joined the Royal Navy and was due to set sail this week on board patrol ship hMS Trent.
his paternal grandfather, Ernest hoffmeister, served in both the Arctic and Atlantic oceans for the Royal Navy during the war. his other grandfather, Erwin Menzel, fought against him on a German U-boat, attacking Allied shipping lanes.
The mechanical engineer sailed on ten war patrols out of bases in Norway and France in the final two years of the war.
These included a failed attempt to attack the Normandy invasion armada in June 1944. he also manned the U-boat’s anti-aircraft gun and was awarded the Iron Cross for his part in an action against an RAF Liberator bomber.
The submarine – U-963 – was scuttled off Nazare in Portugal 12 days after VE Day and Mr Menzel was taken prisoner with his shipmates. he later emigrated to Britain, where he settled.
Ernest hoffmeister was assigned to the Royal Naval Patrol Service after training as a coder, serving with a converted trawler in the Atlantic and Arctic. he then transferred to a destroyer based in Ceylon – now Sri Lanka – as part of the war effort against Japan. Mr hoffmeister died when his grandson was ten. Sub Lt hoffmeister said: ‘One of the few stories I remember him talking about was having to climb up the mainmast during the convoys to chip off ice that had accumulated and risked capsizing the vessel.’
he added that Mr Menzel was ‘instrumental in raising my interest to join the Navy’. ‘By the time he died, when I was 17, I had already decided I was going to join,’ Sub Lt hoffmeister said. It is unlikely that his grandfathers fought each other personally, although his parents were nervous when the men met.
But Sub Lt hoffmeister, from Oxford, said: ‘They got on incredibly well.’
he said their shared experience of the war in the Atlantic was more important to them than which side they had fought on. ‘That legacy is perhaps the most important aspect to take away from their story,’ he added.
hMS Trent will be deployed alongside the German Navy on Nato duties as part of Operation Sea Guardian, a counterterrorism mission in the Mediterranean.
Lieutenant Commander David Webber, in charge of its marine engineering department, said: ‘It’s an interesting story from the perspective of how far Europe has come, with Ben now serving in the Royal Navy on a ship that will work alongside the modern Deutsche Marine.
‘his family history acutely tracks the human impact of the history of 20th century Europe: World War Two, the division of Europe in the Cold War, reunification and cooperation.’
‘Climbed the mainmast’