Two Worlds Collide: A richly illustrated true story of the Arctic Convoys and the German submariners in WW2

By Patrick Shirley

The story is told through the words of the author’s dad, John Shirley, a Sub-lieutenant in the Royal Navy on board the Alnwick Castle; and Herbert Lochner, a mechanical engineer on the submarine U425.
They fought separate wars, but were brought together in one dramatic and tragic incident that changed their lives forever.
Find yourself immersed in life aboard a Royal Navy minesweeper on the River Thames and an Arctic convoy Royal Navy corvette. Experience life as a German submariner, below the waves in a U-boat. Immerse yourself in the emotions of both combatants, their humour and their appreciation of the beauty of the Arctic Ocean.
This account is richly illustrated by John Shirley, with original water colours, painted from memory and based on sketches made at the time.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Austin Macauley Publishers
• Release date: May 31, 2022
• ISBN: 9781398424050

Patrick Shirley

Patrick Shirley, a new author, is the youngest son of John Shirley, who wrote and illustrated the main account. Patrick’s mother, Alice Shirley, wanted his father’s richly illustrated account to be shared with the general public alongside the account of the German submariner Herbert Lochner who was saved by the Royal Navy ship Alnwick Castle. Patrick wanted this to be a tribute to the bravery of both sides in one of the most inhospitable marine environments to fight a war. For this reason, he wanted both accounts to be published together. To survive the Arctic war was a blessing and for that both families are truly thankful. Patrick was also inspired to study Geography by his father at Lincoln Christ’s Hospital School and he has a successful career in IT consultancy. He is happily married with two beautiful daughters.

Book preview

Two Worlds Collide

A richly illustrated true

story of the Arctic Convoys

and the German submariners

in WW2

Patrick Shirley

Austin Macauley Publishers

Two Worlds Collide

About the Author

Copyright Information ©

Acknowledgement

Foreword

Chapter 1: My War – The Beginning

Chapter 2: Training

Chapter 3: Minesweeping – Queensborough (4 April 1943)

Chapter 4: Interim Period Between Minesweeping and Russian Convoys

Chapter 5: HMS Alnwick Castle (From July 1944)

U-425 The Fate of a U-Boat in the Arctic Ocean

In Memory of My Comrades from U-425 Who Perished in the Arctic Ocean

Appendix: My Account of the Sinking of U-425 by HMS Alnwick Castle on 16 February 1945

About the Author

Patrick Shirley, a new author, is the youngest son of John Shirley, who wrote and illustrated the main account. Patrick’s mother, Alice Shirley, wanted his father’s richly illustrated account to be shared with the general public alongside the account of the German submariner Herbert Lochner who was saved by the Royal Navy ship Alnwick Castle. Patrick wanted this to be a tribute to the bravery of both sides in one of the most inhospitable marine environments to fight a war. For this reason, he wanted both accounts to be published together. To survive the Arctic war was a blessing and for that both families are truly thankful. Patrick was also inspired to study Geography by his father at Lincoln Christ’s Hospital School and he has a successful career in IT consultancy. He is happily married with two beautiful daughters.

Copyright Information ©

Patrick Shirley 2022

The right of Patrick Shirley to be identified as author of this work has been asserted by the author in accordance with section 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publishers.

Any person who commits any unauthorised act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.

This is a biographical work based on true events that were relayed by Patrick Shirley’s father John Shirley and Herbert Lochner in their own written accounts. Names, characters, places, events, locales and incidents are based on their memories. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is based on their memory.

A CIP catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library.

ISBN 9781398424043 (Paperback)

ISBN 9781398424050 (ePub e-book)

www.austinmacauley.com

First Published 2022

Austin Macauley Publishers Ltd®

1 Canada Square

Canary Wharf

London

E14 5AA

Acknowledgement

Thanks to my dad for kindly writing this account and illustrating his experiences so well. Remarkably, the colours of the pictures were preserved in his memory for 30 years before they were completed as watercolours. Thanks to Herbert Lochner for also writing his account, so that we can appreciate the story from the German submariner’s experience of World War II. I dedicate this to both our families, who have benefited greatly from our fathers survival. May we continue to enjoy the long period of peace since those times and our good health forever during this global pandemic.

We acknowledge the support of my Mum and my family in encouraging the publication of this book. Finally, many thanks to Austin Macauley for their support and expertise to bring this account and the illustrations to a wider audience.

John Shirley, K405 – The Way of a Ship, 1993.

Herbert Lochner, U425 – The Fate of a U-boat in the Arctic Ocean, 1991.

Claus Reuter, Both Sides, 2012, for the Royal Canadian Legion Branch 67 Sir Sam Hughes.

The Way of a Ship by John Alfred Shirley from the Garton Archive at Lincoln Christ’s Hospital School Occasional Paper No 43. Edited and compiled by Peter Harrod. From Jack Shirley’s Naval Memoir, July 2015

https://uboat.net/

https://www.naval-history.net/

Foreword

The opportunity to finally compose this true story came during the Coronavirus pandemic and the 75th anniversary of VE Day. It seemed an appropriate time to compile in parallel two accounts of the WW2 Arctic maritime conflict. This was a war that any participant was very fortunate to survive; battling the enemy and also the sea and elements. The two narrators are my father, John or Jack Shirley, a second lieutenant in the Royal Navy serving on the corvette K-405 Alnwick Castle and the Mechanical Engineer, Herbert Lochner, serving on the U-boat U-425. This is a story of their relative experiences of war from a very young age; both were close to their 18th birthdays in 1940, through to their relative survival of the war, with a common conclusion, that they were the lucky ones.

It seemed to make sense to start with my father’s account up to the sinking of U-425. I have then introduced Herbert Lochner’s account prior to the sinking. The two accounts of the sinking are then presented in parallel when both their worlds ‘collided’. Finally, their separate accounts following this event that brought them together and their separate histories to the end of the European conflict are included.

It remains to sincerely remember those on both sides that died in this conflict and pray that there is no repeat in any of our future generation’s lifetimes.

By John or Jack Shirley

I do not claim to be a sailor – a real sailor. I just happen to have been a young man who was of an age to be caught up in the last Great War. My memories are still there, so perhaps there is a point in putting them down, not as an exorcism, but in the hope that they may be of some interest to those who believe in the value of memories.

1938

John Shirley foreground with his brother, Walter.

Chapter 1

My War – The Beginning

I was born a few years after the end of the First World War; and for a young boy, it was starkly obvious what a veneer of sadness affected the population. In my mind’s eye, I can still see rows of men, mutilated in the trenches, sun-bathing in the swimming pools, their flesh folded back over limbs, like pinned layers of cloth.

When my brother and I went to Grammar School, apart from reproductions of Turner’s ‘Fighting Temeraire’ and Bellini’s ‘Doge’, hanging against the brown-tiled corridor wall there was a large sepia photograph of the Somme battlefield, with a corpse face down in the mud of the foreground, his light trousers speckled with flies. This last picture soon disappeared from the wall, for the 1930s saw the growth of a strong pacifist movement in Britain, which was to prove a factor in the burgeoning of Hitler’s power in Germany.

As the 1930s progressed, my economics teacher brought us into contact with the ideas of John Maynard Keynes, a Cambridge economist, who pronounced, as the Second World War approached, that no modern war could last more than three years; such were the implications of war technology. This had a strong influence on our thinking of the time.

The League of Nations was active in the promotion of international understanding. In support of this, school pupils were invited to attend camps, where we were able to meet our peers from France, Germany and Czechoslovakia. The camp we attended was organised by a French Protestant Church, of genuine sincerity, in Nemours, in central France. Our naivety, and that of the French boys, was in marked contrast to the tense posturing of the Germans and Czechs. This was August 1938. Very soon, fighting broke out, and the Germans decided to depart, followed by the Czechs. The Sudetenland had been invaded by Hitler’s Germany.

Our immediate concern was the invasion of our camp by flying beetles. We went on excursions in the sweltering heat of mid-France, which in itself was a novelty to us. We obliged our hosts by attending a Protestant service in a church, across the street from a house bearing a commemorative plaque for a French violinmaker, well known to my father, who owned a fine violin by him.

France slumbered on in the heat. Fishermen watched their lines, by river and canal; we went about our sightseeing in ignorance of the fact that, within about 2½ years, these special landscapes would be overrun by Hitler’s panzers. We returned home via the port of Dunkirk.

At the age of 18, I was able to start my university career and after completing two years, I was called up into the Royal Navy. This was in 1942. The intervening years saw the ‘Phoney War’, the invasion of France via Belgium, the