By John Fitzgerald
(Part One)
Along with the horrors of war, we hear the occasional feel-good stories…of narrow escapes and heart-stopping brushes with death
A County Kilkenny woman, the late Kathleen Aylward, told me of how divine intervention saved her from the wrath of the German Air Force during World War 2.
In July 2002, I called to her farmhouse at Ballydaw, just outside Kilmacow to learn of her stranger-than-fiction ordeal- what you might call the ultimate “Near Death Experience.”
On June 12th 1941, Kathleen left her home at Clonassey, Mullinavat, to return to the hospital in England where she worked as a nurse. “It was St. Severall’s Hospital in Colchester, Essex”, she recalled, “and I was going back after a brief holiday.”
The prospect of returning to war-torn Britain, which was being subjected to daily and nightly bombing by the German air force, and across waters that concealed hundreds of deadly U-boats lying in wait for Allied shipping, did not bother Kathleen. From an early age, she had a profound faith in a higher power that would protect her from danger. She believed that the Hand of God “was never far away”, and that faith could move mountains.
At Waterford station, Kathleen just happened to bump into Willie McLoughlin, a neighbour from Mullinavat. As both of them were travelling alone, they decided to travel together as far as London, where Willie worked.
As they boarded, the S.S. St. Patrick, a mail boat, at Rosslare, Willie asked Kathleen if she were travelling 1st or 2nd class. She had booked 1st class, but when Willie mentioned that he had a 3rd class ticket, she changed her booking so that she could travel with him.
As the steamer made its way across the Irish Sea, Kathleen and Willie sat together on deck until about 2 AM. Then Kathleen grew tired and decided to retire to the bunks to grab some sleep.
But she had no sooner closed her eyes and settled down to rest when the ship was rocked was by a massive explosion. She described for me what happened next:
“My ears throbbed with the almost deafening sound of the bomb going off. I knew it must have been the Germans, but didn’t dwell too much on who was responsible. There was an explosion that seemed to shake the world to pieces, the lights went, the engines stopped, and I could hear the water lapping and people screaming. I raced for the stairs and managed to get up on deck. People were falling and screaming all around me.”
The sight that greeted Kathleen resembled a vision of hell: The St Patrick had taken a direct hit from the German dive-bomber and had split in two. The section containing 1st class travellers, was ablaze and sinking fast. All the crew and passengers in this part of the ship were lost. Though panic stricken like the others aboard what remained of the St. Patrick, Kathleen realised that her decision to change her booking to 3rd class had saved her life-for the moment at least.
The remnant of the stricken vessel began to list, and Kathleen heard through the chaos and mayhem the frenzied voice of a sailor shouting at her to “keep climbing upwards”. “I tried that”, she said “but suddenly the boat lurched violently and I was swept out into the sea quite a distance from where the boat had gone down. I was terrified. I sank beneath the waves. I was drowning, and there seemed no hope. I was a non-swimmer and I thought the end had come. I started praying”.
In total despair, Kathleen asked God to save her. She was completely at the mercy of the freezing waters. But somebody up there was listening, it seemed.
As she was about to “yield the ghost”, she heard a voice utter softly: “Put up your hands”. She did this, and found herself grasping a piece of wood. She pulled herself to the surface and managed to stay afloat with the aid of a three-foot long board from the wreckage. As she drifted in the water, she could see no one anywhere near her, so where, she wondered; had the voice come from?
She caught hold of a larger and wider piece of wood that looked safer. “It was an unreal situation, but I had to keep my wits about me”, she recalled, “I tried to hold on to my bag for as long as possible as it contained my late mother’s rings and jewellery and my passport, but I eventually had to let it go. I was cold and frightened, and was afraid of being hit by the floating barrels from the ship which had popped up on the surface.”
After what seemed an eternity, Kathleen spotted two men clinging to rafts in the distance. They drifted closer to her and shouted words of encouragement. Then, a short time later, the three of them breathed a sigh of relief when they caught sight of a lifeboat from the St. Patrick rowing towards them.
But Kathleen’s troubles were not over yet. After picking up the men, the rescue team tried to lift her into the boat, but found this extremely difficult as she was covered in oil from the sunken ship. Her heart, like the ship, sank when she heard a crewmember say: “we’ll have to leave her.” But one of the survivors made a superhuman effort, and succeeded in hauling her into the boat.
