As part of our Heroes In Our Midst series ABBY ALFORD talks to Bill Peel about serving on the submarine that sank 50 Japanese ships
SAT in a submarine thousands of feet below the waves, Royal Navy engineer Bill Peel wondered if he would ever breathe fresh air again.
Aged just 24, he had already served almost 10 years in the service and was now playing a pivotal role in the fierce battle between the Allied and Japanese fleets in the waters off Singapore in 1944.
As an engineer on HMS Statesman, which was stuck in mud at the bottom of the sea, the fate of the 45 officers and men lay in his hands.
“Our main job was to cut off the supply line between Singapore and the Japanese army in Burma,” said Mr Peel, 89, of Rhiwbina, Cardiff.
“I was in charge of all the machinery outside the main engines. It was quite a big job.
“We hadn’t been out there long when we started having trouble with one of the batteries. It wouldn’t hold a charge so the captain decided we would have to carry out a repair.
“The next day we went down to the sea bed and got on with the job of repairing the battery. It was a long job. We went down at 6am and it was about 7pm in the evening when we finished.
“When we tried to surface I started blowing out the ballast tank and nothing happened, we didn’t move. We realised then that we had sunk into the mud.
“Then we blew high-pressure air out through the ballast tanks to clear the mud.
“There was terrific vibration, which went on for what seemed like an eternity.
“But then we shot to the surface. We had a lucky escape.”
Having joined the Royal Navy in 1936 aged just 15, Mr Peel initially served as an engineer on the 32,450-ton Queen Elizabeth class HMS Warspite in the Mediterranean.
It bombarded the African and Italian coasts and took part in the Battle of Cape Matapan off Greece on March 28, 1941, sinking three enemy destroyers.
“Then we were evacuating the Army from Crete when we were hit by a rather large bomb which killed 40 men and injured a lot more of us,” he said.
But it was in the Far East that Mr Peel saw the most action.
Between 1944 and 1945 HMS Statesman sank around 50 Japanese vessels.
“They were mostly smaller ships, which the Japanese deliberately used to make us go on to the surface to use our guns instead of being safe at depth.
“Often we were surprised by enemy aircraft attacks and would have to break off the attacks on the ships and go down quick.”
During his service in the Far East he was awarded the Distinguished Service Medal for his bravery and ingenuity in keeping the submarine at sea.
“We dived one morning and our starboard forward hydroplane got stuck,” he said.
“Although we could dive and control the boat without hydroplanes, the captain couldn’t possibly carry out an attack without them.
“He asked me if anything could be done about it and I replied yes because it was my job.
“But then I realised the magnitude of the job facing me. It should’ve been done alongside a ship with assistance and a light.
“But I would have to do it in the middle of the Malacca Straits and the only light I was going to get was from the moon.
“It was a hard job but I managed to do it. I had to hit the pins out and grease them up.
“It took me a couple of hours and all of that time I was underneath the casing of the hull.
“If the captain had had to dive quickly it would have put me in a perilous situation.
“But fortunately it didn’t come to that so I had another lucky escape.”