Remembrance Sunday: Jesuit WWII veteran speaks on Songs of Praise

Fr Ted Rogers SJ

A Jesuit priest who served in the Second World War as a young man, will be one of the principal contributors to this Sunday's Songs of Praise for Remembrance Sunday on BBC One.

Fr Ted Rogers SJ was on his first voyage in the Merchant Navy when his ship - the Alfred Jones - was torpedoed in the Battle of the Atlantic. During the Second World War, German U-boats hunted in packs to destroy British merchant ships that were bringing vital supplies such as food, raw materials and oil to the civilian population.

The merchant vessels provided a vital lifeline during this time, but they were constantly at risk as they traversed the Atlantic Ocean."We were about 120 miles off Freetown [West Africa - where Britain maintained a naval base and had an assembly point for convoys to Britain from Sierra Leone] and we'd reduced speed," recalls Fr Ted on the programme. "We weren't even zigzagging - we thought it was a safe area."

When the lookout shouted that there were 'torpedoes on the starboard bow', Fr Ted noticed four weapons heading towards their vessel; two of them hit it, setting the ship on fire.  When the captain ordered the crew to abandon ship, Fr Ted got into a lifeboat.  But it was damaged as it was lowered into the sea and sank.  He jumped into the sea and swam to a raft made of wooden slats on oil drums.  There were further perils waiting for the survivors in the Atlantic Ocean: sharks! Fr Ted spent four days at sea on the life-raft before eventually being rescued.

In this weekend's Songs of Praise, Fr Ted speaks matter-of-factly about being torpedoed on the Alfred Jones.  But he adds that the convoy battles were even more harrowing. "We got worn out because we were on double shifts - that's four on and four off," he explains. "We hardly got any sleep for days and, as time went on, you know, you felt more and more tense: sleep deprivation.  And then the dangers all the time of being torpedoed … We lost almost half the convoy each time.'"

At the end of the Second World War, Ted decided to enter the Society of Jesus and applied to become a Jesuit priest.  He was ordained in 1958. "I thought the priesthood was a way of helping people," he says. 'You know, your life has been saved really.  What can you do to thank God? What can you offer? Can you offer yourself?'

Songs of Praise for Remembrance Sunday will be broadcast on BBC One on Sunday 10 November 2013 at 4.30pm.
Follow the link to watch a preview: www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p01l0w2k