MAY WATSON

I was still in school at the time of the Free French but I remember seeing them in the town. They looked quite strange to me because they dressed differently from our own sailors. They had the same navy blue suits, but their berets were different. They had red pom poms on the top of their beret and that’s how we knew straight away that they were French sailors.

I didn’t meet any of the sailors and just saw them about the town. They came over around 1940 and I would only have been 13 at the time. I clearly remember the day their ship, the Maille Breze, exploded. I was in my art class at the time and we just heard this tremendous bang and we all wondered what it was. It was a bang that we had never heard before, really dreadful. We were excited and afraid at the same time wondering what this big bang was and it wasn’t until we went home from school that we were told what had happened. Some of the sailors were killed and others managed to swim to safety but even those sailors were badly injured in the blast. The sailors were brought ashore and were taken to halls in Greenock. A lot of the ladies in the town went along to the halls and helped to bathe their wounds until they could be taken to hospital – the old Greenock Royal Infirmary in Duncan Street.

The dead were buried in Greenock cemetery until 1946 when the bodies were returned to France. There was a service for those who had died in St. Mary’s church. The Free French memorial on Lyle Hill was erected in memory of those who had died. There’s something about the granite that it stands on, I think it represents the solidarity of this country with France.

There was a church in Greenock called the Martyrs North Church and they gave their halls over to the Free French Navy. The sailors had a canteen there and also beds for those off on shore leave, if they didn’t want to go back to their ship. One time Charles De Gaulle came over and broadcast to the French people from Martyrs North Church just to let them know that things were going well in Greenock and this was the homeport for the Free French Navy.

GEORGE LOGAN

What struck me as funny about the Free French sailors were their hats. They had a hat something like ours, but they had a daft pom pom on top, like a big red cherry, and we used to laugh at that. We thought they looked funny compared to our more manly sailors. Apart from that the uniform was similar to ours although it didn’t have as much of a flare in the trouser leg. Our sailors had quite a large flare in their trousers.

The Free French sailors were brave guys though and lost a lot of men when the Maille Breze went down. One of the boats torpedoes exploded on board and the ship sank. It was a terrible tragedy. I was in school at the time, Cartsburn in Ingleston Street, and we were out playing when the first explosion happened. The teachers were demented trying to get us all lined up to go to the shelters before they realised that we weren’t under attack. We were only schoolboys and didn’t know what had caused the explosion. From the school we could see right down on to the harbour and everyone was lined up along the wall watching the explosions. We saw the rescue boats go out to rescue the sailors but lots of the men couldn’t escape. The portholes were too small to escape from and they could only get their heads out. There were rows of guys hanging out of portholes just waiting to die. It was terrible.

There was a big loss of life and the sailors that died are commemorated with the Cross of Lorraine on Lyle Hill. I go up there sometimes to visit, especially when I’ve got relatives over from Canada and Australia – they like to see it.

LACHLAN MACKINNON
SHEILA McLEOD

We met one or two of the Free French sailors when they were serving here because of our brother. He was a secondary school teacher, French was one of his subjects, and he got speaking to one of the sailors one day. He came to have tea with us a couple of times and as I recall his name was Julien Vandenkirken. I think he came from Lille. It was fun for us children, trying out all the wee French words we knew.

The Free French uniform was a bit different to our own. They wore a flatter cap with a red pom pom on top. I remember there being so many sailors in the town. You’d walk along the town and see servicemen from all kinds of places, not just France. But the French were one of the first lots to be here, so they were very noticeable.

I was in high school when the Maille Breze exploded. I remember the terrible bang. It was afternoon and we all wondered what this bang was. We were confused because when there was an air raid we would hear the planes in advance, the engines overhead. Then we learned the bang was nothing to do with an air raid and there had been a terrible accident. There were lots of wardens, police and ambulance folk out trying to help. They had a terrible time because when they went to the boat they found bodies and bits of bodies. Awful. We heard later on in the war about somebody whose father was an undertaker at the time and he had a terrible job trying to get the pieces and put the bodies back together.

It makes me sad now when I look out at the Clyde now. I remember seeing all the ships and the convoys. You could hardly see the water for the number of ships and now there’s hardly anything on the Clyde and there aren’t many shipyards left either. That makes me very sad.