The Shropshire Star has linked up with Ron Cope of Horsehay to bring you extracts from the dramatic first-hand account of his late father, Cyril Cope, who was a torpedoman on the destroyer HMS Hardy in the First Battle of Narvik, which took place 70 years ago. In this final extract, Cyril tells of his escape from the stricken destroyer HMS Hardy and subsequent rescue.

Because I could get no response from the bridge on my headset – there was nobody alive to answer me – I decided to go to my next “action station” in the engine room.

The engines packed up. The Engineer Commander said: “This is it, we have had it.” He told me to go to the upper deck to find what was happening.

As I opened the hatch the First Lieutenant was bending down to open it. I noticed he had smoke coming from his pistol in his hand. I thought: “Good God, he’s gone off his head and shot somebody.”

I was about to drop down the ladder when he said: “Cope, tell the Engineer Commander it’s every man for himself. Abandon ship!”

I swam to a whaler but it turned over. I saw a messmate, Tony Hart, whom I knew was a non-swimmer. I swam back to him, grabbed hold of a lanyard attached to his lifebuoy, and started pulling him to the shore.

I could not use my legs, or even feel them, because it was so cold. We arrived on a snowy and icy beach.

In a nearby house we found just over 100 survivors. Everyone had been forced to take off their clothing as it was solid with ice.

Once we were thawed out we looked for clothing and all we could find were ladies and girls’ clothes.

(Cyril goes on to describe how they were sheltered by Norwegians, and he was later given a full ski outfit. Three days later he witnessed a renewed British attack.)

We saw a wonderful sight, HMS Warspite with nine destroyers coming up the fjord.

When all the German ships had been sunk our ships came down the fjord, passing us. It was with dismay and despondency that we saw them go out of sight. They did not know we were ashore waiting to be rescued.

Two officers decided to go out in a launch and just managed to catch up with the last destroyer, and were able to tell the Captain about the survivors from Hardy and that a number of merchant sailors needed to be rescued.

Two destroyers were sent back to pick us up at midnight.

Most of us came home to Scapa Flow in “Ivanhoe”. From there we travelled by train to London to be met and welcomed by Winston Churchill on Horse Guards Parade.