TSS Manxman (1904) - Second World War : HMS Caduceus

Second World War : HMS Caduceus

The Manxman had started the Great War in the colours of the Midland Railway Company, and had been converted to a seaplane carrier. During the Second World War, however, she was requisitioned by the Ministry of War Transport as a personnel ship. Manxman served alongside seven of her Steam Packet sisters during Operation Dynamo. On May 29, she was one of ten personnel ships which together took off 14,760 troops from the East Pier. She returned to Dunkirk on the morning of June 2, when the operation was getting near its close, and embarked 177 troops. In all, Manxman evacuated 2,394 men.

No sooner had she returned from her final journey to Dunkirk, she was ordered west to Dartmouth, where she had the ironical experience of being fired on by a small guard boat that had obviously not been alerted to her arrival. Within a few hours she was redirected to Southampton, and this was to be the start of the most active phase of Manxman's war.

The evacuation of the ports of north-west France was beginning, and Manxman's crew knew the coast well, having spent some months before Dunkirk carrying troops to Le Harve and Cherbourg. Within what seemed a few days she made a succession of trips to the French ports under the command of Captain P. B. Cowley. At Cherbourg she embarked retreating Allied troops as the enemy approached the port, and returned to Southampton, often under air attack. Once back on the South Coast of England she disembarked the men she had brought back, refuelled, and was off again almost at once. It was dangerous and sleepless work well remembered by veterans from the Manxman's officers and crew, among whom were Chief Officer Lyndhurst Callow, and Second Officer A. W. G. Kissack, who later became the company's Marine Superintendent. As the days advanced the shelling came nearer, the raids more frequent, and the Cherbourg harbour area necessarily more congested with survival boats, wrecks and the debris of battle. It was "Dunkirk" again, but on a smaller scale. Meanwhile the Manxman, with no protective armament of her own, continued to venture in and out of the firing.

As conditions became desperate and further Allied evacuation became impossible, the destroyer L.11. was specifically sent at full speed of 36 knots from Portsmouth to help cover the Manxman's escape. Chief Officer Callow, who survived to become Commodore of the Steam Packet Company fleet, vividly recalled how the ship eventually pulled out from Cherbourg:

Despite the odds, Manxman escaped, with her crew having been forced to cut her mooring ropes with axes. The Manxman then pulled out, thanks to fire cover from a Royal Navy destroyer, which had turned her forward guns on to the German tank column as it advanced down the quayside. Rommel is even said to of referred to her in his papers, describing her as a "cheeky two-funnel steamer". When Manxman pulled out for the last time, Rommel's main army was only a few miles away.

The Manxman's main duties were at Cherbourg, but she was also deeply involved at the small port of St Malo, to the east, where she was the last ship to leave the shattered harbour.

In October 1941, she was fitted out as an RDF – Radio Direction Finding Vessel – and having been taken over for the second time by the Admiralty, she was commissioned as HMS Caduceus. She was then ordered to her former home port of Douglas, where on Douglas Head there was situated one of the early radar training stations - HMS Valkyrie.

From Douglas she spent some time on patrol in the Irish Sea, while naval personnel were initiated into the workings of radio direction finding. Her work was not without its mishaps, and Caduceus was twice damaged when colliding with the Victoria Pier, Douglas, and was sent to Belfast for repairs. Following her repairs, she made passage to the River Clyde and continued her radar training duties, only to be driven ashore near Greenock in a fierce gale in February 1943. She was reconditioned and returned to personnel vessel duties.

She acted as a troop carrier and eventually moved to the traffic between Harwich and Tilbury and the Belgian and Dutch ports, bringing over service personnel, civilians and displaced persons.