Rumbled

Philip Smalley writes in The Telegraph explaining why he was 'rumbled for tobacco smuggling' during the second world war:

Once back in Home Waters we then took part in what was to be called "Operation Halbert". This was a desperate attempt to get supplies to Malta. For company we had the Battleships Nelson and Rodney and the Aircraft carrier Ark-Royal, 5 cruisers and 18 destroyers. A major Naval operation to get desperately needed supplies to the beleaguered island.

About a third of the way through the Mediterranean we started to get attacked by aircraft but these were fought off successfully and at least 2 Italian torpedo bombers were shot down but tragically one of the Ark Royal fighter planes was shot down as he had been following too close to the enemy. The P.O.W. and Rodney tried to find the Italian Navy which was supposed to be in the area but we could not local them, so naturally we assumed they did not want to be found!!

This was our second piece of action and we felt we had come out of it with some credit. We needed some boosting up as we were still suffering from the verbal pasting we had got from the Home Fleet about having to quit the Bismark scrap. I suppose some leave was given when we got back to U.K. as the next thing we knew was that we were at sea again and travelling in a Southerly direction...