They Gave Me a Seafire Quotes

“less than 300 yards. With Eagle beam-on and at this point-blank range, U73 could not miss. The time was 1315. Aboard Eagle, at 1317, no one had yet thought of jumping over the side from the quarterdeck. Even with dead engines, Eagle’s 21,000 tons momentum still took her through the water at about four knots, two minutes after being hit. If anyone dived over now, they would fall astern and not be rescued. In any case I had no Mae West yet. It was hopeless trying to get to the Island by the normal route. There was only one way. I had used it once before. This was the batsman’s escape route from the flight deck to the main deck, a vertical distance of about 50 feet. It was a pipeshaft, about three feet in diameter, with a rusty ladder fixed inside. It was entirely dark inside and as its lower level on the port side was by now under water and at about 40 degrees from the vertical, once I had started up the ladder, there would be no turning back. Just as I bent down to get into the tube, with my feet already in the water on the low side of the heeling ship, I looked above me. I could see an officer trying to organise the launching of the ship’s whaler. As”
― Mike Crosley, They Gave Me a Seafire