[Juha]

Hello Rolland
a nice catch.
I pretty sure that the singnalman served on Sharpshooter, AA/light cruisers are much more valuable ships than minesweepers, even fleet minesweepers, and rescue ships were there just to pick up survivors and allow escorts to concentrate their proper duties. Minesweepers were also better suited for the job, very manouevrable and had lower rear deck. And Scylla was also the flagship, it had other duties than play a sitting duck in an area where enemy torpedo and bomber a/c were active and were there might be U-boats lurking around.
And that the man belived that he was the only survivor was clearly the source of the story that he was the only survivor of Mary L. I really did not buy the story that a man could survive a blast so powerful that it threw him a half a mile. Too big forces in work there.