LOUIS MOUNTBATTEN, Earl Mountbatten of Burma, rarely spoke about May 23, 1941, when the destroyer he captained was sunk by German aircraft during the Battle of Crete.

However, in 1979 he was at the opening of a naval cadet unit at Hebburn, South Tyeside, where the destroyer HMS Kelly had been built in 1938.

HMS Kelly was nicknamed the U-boat Killer because of its daring exploits under Mountbatten’s command.

John Hobbs, now one of The Northern Echo’s correspondents, was then working for the BBC and persuaded Mountbatten to give a graphic account of the sinking, in which 130 men died. At 7.30pm tonight, John will play his recording to a meeting of Weardale Society in Wolsingham Methodist Chapel. All are welcome.

This is an excerpt:

"It was sunset when we set off, the rest of the fleet was 500 miles away.

As we came round the north-west tip of Crete, we were attacked continuously by high-level German bombers.

They all managed to miss us, so we paid little attention to them.

Then, suddenly, we saw on the horizon, doom appearing in the shape of 24 Junkers 87 dive bombers. They had a very distinctive appearance.

So I ordered by the engine telegraph to put engines full ahead and we started jinking the ship about to avoid the attacks.

The bombs came down at an angle of around 70 to 80 degrees, practically vertical.

We were at first successful in avoiding the attacks and, indeed, managed to shoot down one or two aircraft.

Then, suddenly, one came lower than the remainder. We were at full starboard wheel with the ship listing to port, doing 30 to 40 knots when we were hit by the after gun deck.

We started listing over farther, so I immediately said to the coxswain: ‘Hard a port’. He replied: ‘The ship won’t answer the wheel sir.’ I said: ‘Stop both engines.’ He replied: ‘The engines won’t answer the telegraphs sir.’ Then I realised we were going down, but as the next wave of bombers came in, I ordered: ‘Keep the guns firing.’ We started to turn over, we turned over very quickly. At 35 knots, once you have started, you really go quickly.

Then we were upside down and I remembered the captain must be the last to leave the ship, so I held on as long as I could before diving out under the bridge and coming to the surface.

I called for the navigation officer to come up and said: ‘Swim like hell pilot, get clear.’ Then we saw a stoker, Second Petty Officer Garner, who had got up a moment before us.

He smiled and said: ‘Funny how the scum always comes to the surface on these occasions’."

Lord Mountbatten was murdered by the Provisional IRA in 1979. A bomb went off on his yacht while he was fishing for lobsters off the coast of County Sligo.