…but true!

Time has way of setting records straight. Putting the doubters to shame. That time came for John Capes, a British submariner, in the late 1990s. Unfortunately, it was years after his death.

I recently released my fourth historical novel, The Weight of Loyalty, which is loosely based on the story Capes told his superiors when he suddenly reappeared after an 18-month absence from the King’s Navy during WW2. A story met with great skepticism by many.

A story that captivated me as an historical fiction writer. I couldn’t resist.

The BBC published an article (Dec. 2, 2011) about what happened. Here are some excerpts:

“When she left the British submarine base at Malta at the end of November 1941, HMS Perseus had on board her 59 crew and two passengers, one of whom was John Capes, a 31-year-old Navy stoker en route to Alexandria.

“Tall, dark, handsome and a bit of an enigma, Capes had been educated at Dulwich College, and as the son of a diplomat he would naturally have been officer class rather than one of the lowliest of the mechanics who looked after the engines.

“On the rough winter night of 6 December, Perseus was on the surface of the sea 3 km (two miles) off the coast of Kefalonia, recharging her batteries under cover of darkness in preparation for another day underwater.

“According to newspaper articles Capes later wrote or contributed to, he was relaxing in a makeshift bunk converted from a spare torpedo tube when, with no warning, there was a devastating explosion.

“The boat twisted, plunged, and hit the bottom with what Capes described as a ‘nerve-shattering jolt.’

“His bunk reared up and threw him across the compartment. The lights went out.

“Capes guessed they had hit a mine. Finding that he could stand, he groped for a torch. In the increasingly foul air and rising water of the engine room he found ‘the mangled bodies of a dozen dead.’

“But that was as far as he could get. The engine room door was forced shut by the pressure of water on the other side. ‘It was creaking under the great pressure. Jets and trickles from the rubber joint were seeping through,’ said Capes.

“He dragged any stokers who showed signs of life towards the escape hatch and fitted them and himself with Davis Submarine Escape Apparatus, a rubber lung with an oxygen bottle, mouthpiece and goggles.

“This equipment had only been tested to a depth of 100 ft (30m). The depth gauge showed just over 270 ft, and as far as Capes knew, no-one had ever made an escape from such a depth.

“In fact the gauge was broken, over-estimating the depth by 100 ft, but time was running out. It was difficult to breathe now.

“He flooded the compartment, lowered the canvas trunk beneath the escape hatch and with great difficulty released the damaged bolts on the hatch.

“He pushed his injured companions into the trunk, up through the hatch and away into the cold sea above. Then he took a last swig of rum from his blitz bottle, ducked under and passed through the hatch himself.

“‘I let go, and the buoyant oxygen lifted me quickly upward. Suddenly I was in the middle of the great ocean.

“‘The pain became frantic, my lungs and whole body as fit to burst apart. Agony made me dizzy. How long can I last?

“‘Then, with the suddenness of certainty, I burst to the surface and wallowed in a slight swell with whitecaps here and there.’”

But having made the deepest escape yet recorded, his ordeal was not over.

His fellow injured stokers had not made it to the surface with him so he found himself alone in the middle of a cold December sea.

In the darkness he spotted a band of white cliffs and realized he had no choice but to strike out for those.

The next morning, Capes was found unconscious by two fishermen on the shore of Kefalonia.

For the following 18 months he was passed from house to house, to evade the Italian occupiers. He lost 70 pounds (32 kg) in weight and dyed his hair black in an effort to blend in.

He recalled later: “‘Always, at the moment of despair, some utterly poor but friendly and patriotic islander would risk the lives of all his family for my sake.’”

I could find little information about those months he evaded the Italian occupiers, so I did as all fiction writers do. I created a story. A love story that, as one reviewer put it, “…presents all-too-human protagonists who feel big emotions, regret their flaws and mistakes, and find themselves torn between conflicting desires and responsibilities at one of humanity’s darkest moments.”

Karen and I traveled to the Ionian Island of Kefalonia off the mainland of Greece to conduct research for this novel.

The bits you read above came alive…

And The Weight of Loyalty was born.