The Naval Review

THE
NAVAL
REVIEW
TO PROMOTE THE ADVANCEMENT AND SPREADING WITHIN
THE SERVICE OF KNOWLEDGE RELEVANT TO THE HIGHER
ASPECTS OF THE NAVAL PROFESSION.
Founded in October, 1912, by the following officers,
who had formed a Naval Society:
Captain H. W. Richmond R.N.
Commander K. G. B. Dewar R.N.
Commander the Hon. R. A. E. Plunkett R.N.
Lieutenant R. M. Bellairs R.N.
Lieutenant T. Fisher R.N.
Lieutenant H. G. Thursfield R.N.
Captain E. W. Harding R.M.A.
Admiral W. H. Henderson (Honorary Editor)
It is only by the possession of a trained and
developed mind that the fullest capacity
can, as a rule, be obtained. There are, of
course, exceptional individuals with rare
natural gifts which make up for deficiencies.
But such gifts are indeed rare. We are
coming more and more to recognise that the
best specialist can be produced only after a
long training in general learning. The grasp
of principle which makes detail easy can
only come when innate capacity has been
evoked and moulded by high training.
Lord Haldane
Issued quarterly for private circulation, in accordance
with the Regulations printed herein, which should
be carefully studied.
Copyright under Act of 1911
VOL. 66 No. 1 JANUARY 1978

Contents
EDITORIAL ...... ... ... ... ... ... ...
NOTICES ... ... ... ... ... ... ...
ARTICLES :
'CHARLIE B' ... ... ... ...
Aux Armes! Aux Armed Mes Camarades ...
140 DAYS AT SEA-I ... ...
THE WEAPON ENGINEERING BRANCH OF THE 1980s
'YOTTIE' ... ... ... ... ...
RECOLLECTIONS OF ASSAULT UNIT ~0.30-11 ...
AST 403 AILI) YOU ... ... ... ...
ALL TO DE OF A COMPANY-IV ... ... ...
WITH 'ARC' IN TFIE MED-IV ... ... ... ... ...
ECHOES OF THE PAST ... ... ... ...
...
... ...
CORRESPONDENCE ... ... ... ... ... ...
W4TCH TAE OFFICERS! . 'WE BAND OF BROT~!ERS' . THE
AIIMIRhLTY, BOMBS AND BATTLESHIPS . BRITISH SHIP-
BUIII)ING IN WAR . STRAIGHT TO SEA . 'COUNTY' CLASS
CRUISERS
REVIEWS -- I : NAVAL PERIODIC4LS ... ...
REVIEWS -- 11: BOOKS ... ... ... ...
... ...
... ...

It has been estimated that about nine-
tenths of the sum total of human
knowledge has been gained in the last
half-century or so - during the lifetime
of The Naval Review, in fact. This
knowledge now includes the ability to
organise, store and retrieve at will in-
formation relevant to almost every
purpose. The demands made upon
mental capacity by the knowledge ex-
plosion increase in proportion. Informa-
tion is not the same thing as knowledge;
and knowledge is not the same as
wisdom. But to dispute over ascertain-
able facts is always fruitless. Education
provides the power to select, to order, to
analyse, to appraise and to deploy facts
- the critical faculty; but the motiva-
tion must be a determination to under-
stand, the spirit of enquiry. It has been
suggested that 'The understanding of the
knower must be adequate to the thing
to be known' (Schumacher's principle of
'Adequatio', in A Guide for the Per-
plexed). Creativity, the soul of action,
springs from the operation of imagina-
tion upon knowledge.
These reflections are prompted by
'C.C.A.'s authoritative letter in the
Correspondence 'Watch the Officers! '
(p 58). He writes: 'Few candidates
(before the Admiralty Interview Board)
had even bothered to find out what ships
we had. One soon learned to expect a
total lack of enthusiasm or even interest.'
The inference must be that many who
are now lieutenants began their naval
careers in profound ignorance of the sea
and ships, in general, and of warships in
particular. Are these naval officers now
fluent in the grammar and the vocabulary
of their chosen profession? If not, does
it matter? When Captain Richmond and
his friends founded The Naval Review
they had a strong desire to know how it
was proposed to employ the Fleet in the
first major war at sea for over a century.
Editorial
They could take for granted, in the
officers of that Fleet, a high degree of
professional knowledge and competence;
about ships, about the sea, and about
seamanship almost everything was
known. As to strategy, the Admiralty in
its mysterious way grouped ships and
deployed them, sometimes after polite.
if desultory correspondence with the
Foreign Office and the Colonial Office
(the War Office had its own 'net' in
Whitehall and was seldom consulted by
the Sea Lords). Commanders-in-Chief
tried out tactics, and subordinate flag
officers organised weapon-training and
competitive evolutions. The officers,
chief petty officers, petty officers and
men knew their stuff, and took an
immense pride in knowing it. As to 'what
it was all in aid of', only those few in
whom the 'divine discontent' was mani-
fest, felt that the naval officer must know
more than was to be found between the
covers of the Admiralty Manual of
Navigation, the Seamanship Manual and
Jane's Fighting Ships.
Today, discussion of international
politics, alliance strategy, naval plans and
operational concepts, as well as tactical
doctrine, and weapon-system perform-
ance, is commonplace. The duty of a
higher authority, in a system inevitably
hierarchical, to explain and to seek
'participation' in decision-making, is
recognised. But, can we be sure that the
degree of professionalism, which in
Richmond's day could be taken for
granted, has not been lost? And if it has
been, does this matter? Perhaps we
should be more concerned about lack of
enthusiasm for, and interest in, naval and
sea lore, than in social solecisms. Good
manners and smartness remain indispens-
able. But competence in manipulating or
maintaining complex equipment, in
conformity with carefully calculated
procedures, in stereotyped situations,

2 EDITORIAL
does not amount to professional mastery. Rear-Admiral retired), undertook his
There is a great deal more to be known ' 140 Days At Sea ' in the four-masted
now than in 1913, are we sure that our barque L'Avenir (p. 11). But consider
young officers 'want to know'?
the job of furling heavy, wet canvas,
aloft in a freezing gale. Delay in jumping
to it; a careless action; failure to heave
together-and disaster could result. The
essence of discipline, which is to accept
and act upon legitimate orders, must in
the modern world be explained and
demonstrated as deriving, not from
'authority' as such, but from 'one set in
authority over others', specifically to
meet the demands of the job itself. On a
lighter note, members should enjoy John
Winton's latest-Good Enough For Nelson.
It is about the Britannia Royal
Naval College, Dartmouth, in 1976. 'The
Bodger' is in command-nufT said!
The discipline of the job
Few will regret the passing of that
idiosyncratic way of life - cadet training
at Dartmouth pre-1939 - described so
vividly by Admiral Le Bailly in the latest
instalment of 'All to be of a Company'.
But is it true that the superior staying-
power and resistance to the stress of war,
alleged to have been displayed by the
'Darts', was because of, and not in spite
of, that rigorous Dartmouth experience?
Could not determination on the part of
one who never, for example, was made
a cadet captain, to show that he had as
much guts and leadership as any of his
term, have provided the driving force?
Self-discipline has to be taught; and
young officers should learn to ignore
physical pain and discomfort in the
execution of their duty. In place of the
regirne of the cane should not the dis-
cipline be that imposed by the nature of
the task? It is not proposed to resuscitate
the arguments about sail-training in the
navy, which raged at the time when
Lieutenant-Commander Fisher (now
garded as our legitimate interests.' Could
not - or would not?
Prize Essay
It has been decided to award the
£20.00 Prize for the best article sub-
mitted for publication during 1977 to
Lieutenant C. J. de Mowbray Royal
Navy for ' Farewell Wasp! Welcome
Lynx! ' (January 1977).
The Prize Essay Competi,tion is open,
Notices
Scientific advice
Professor Ronald Mason FRS, profes-
sor of chemistry at Sussex University,
has been appointed Chief Scientific
Adviser, Ministry of Defence. In a radio
interview he envisaged 'a new range of
problems'; 'more diversification' and the
development of 'more flexible responses'.
In the Cod War, he said, we were at 'a
substantial disadvantage . . . . we could
not defend what at that time were re-
once again, to members of the rank of
lieutenant, or junior, for the best article
submitted for publication during 1978.
Contributions to The Naval Review
Acceptance by the Editor of an
article for publication can only be
provisional. A good flow of contribu-
tions, -whilst very much to be desired,
imposes the necessity for choice. This
may mean delay, or in the end non-

NOTICES 3
publication. The Editor trusts that no power of modern naval forces, and the
member will be discouraged therelby conditions in which they may have to
from continuing to offer material. fight, remain in short supply.
Analyses of factors affecting the fighting
Admiral Lord Charles B e r e sf o r d
(1846-1929) was a very well known and
distinguished naval officer with whom I
served as a midshipman in his flagship
the King Edward VlI when he com-
manded the Channel Fleet in 1907-1909.
He was born at Curraghmore in County
Waterford, the home of the Beresford
family, the third of five brothers. He was
a friend of my family who lived nearby
in the County and, as a small boy, I
often met him in our house in London.
I had always wanted to go to sea and he
encouraged me to do this.
'Charlie B.' was immensely popular
with the Lower Deck and was very well
known to the British public of his day.
Astonishing as it may seem to us today
he was, for some years, when on the
Active List, Member of Parliament for
a County Waterford constituency near
Curraghmore, continuing to do this even
when he was serving abroad! !
The Channel Fleet in his time con-
sisted of about twelve battleships, in-
cluding the latest built King Edward
class, two large cruiser squadrons and
two flotillas of the latest destroyers. The
principle base of the Fleet was Portland
where, outside the huge breakwater,
Weymouth Bay and the adjacent waters
of the English Channel provided a con-
venient area for Fleet exercises, gunnery
and torpedo running.
The C.-in-C. lived in great style in his
flagship. His galley's crew and stewards
were all Irish. His accommodation in-
cluded a modern bathroom but he never
'Charlie B.'
used it, preferring the old fashioned flat
round tub, known in the Service as a
'canary flutter'. It was supplied by the
galley's crew with large cans of hot and
cold water as required.
For the midshipmen of the morning
and forenoon watch the Admiral's
morning ablutions were of absorbing
interest. If one took up a strategic
position on the Quarter Deck close to
the bathroom skylight, placing oneself
where one could not be observed from
below, one could get a good view of the
old man scrubbing himself. He was
tattooed all over with pictures of the
Waterford Hunt in full cry with the fox
going to ground 'behind'. Just its 'brush'
showing!
Later in the forenoon, the C.-in-C.
came up on the Quarter Deck with his
telescope and had a good look at his
Fleet. He always had his trousers pressed
down the side not down the front. He
was generally accompanied by his bulldog
bitch Kora who, in her turn, was
shadowed by one of the galley's crew
armed with a dustpan and brush. Kora
had the unpleasant habit of making
messes on the upper deck and parti-
cularly the sacred Quarter Deck. With-
out delay the dustpan and brush came
into action and all traces of Kora's mis-
deeds were removed.
The officer and two midshipmen of
the watch kept a sharp look out at all
times for the C.-in-C. coming on deck
and as soon as he appeared, at any time
of the day, called the Quarter Deck to

'attention'. Everyone within sight be-
came rigid until the Admiral said 'Carry
on Mr. Officer of the Watch', when all
relaxed and carried on with their jobs.
Boatwork and breakfast
The Admiral was very interested in
the running of the boats of the Fleet.
It was his wish that, as far as possible,
boatwork should be carried out under
sail and oars. This gave an excellent
opportunity for very good training for
the midshipmen. Ships were supposed
to ask permission to hoist out their picket
boats and steam pinnaces. This was not
very closely adhered to when the long
trips round to Weymouth had to be
organised. However there was plenty of
sailing and pulling for the cutters and
whalers.
For nearly a year I was midshipman
of the First Cutter which was a %-foot
boat fitted with a dipping lug foresail and
standing lug mainsail. She sailed well,
was very strongly built and had a
crew of twelve. When I was Duty Boat
for the day we were being constantly
called away for trips into Portland or
communication with other ships. When
it was blowing hard quite a big sea got
up inside the breakwater and it was not
too easy bringing a big 34-foot cutter,
with both sails reefed, alongside the after
gangway without damaging the boat or
the ladder. Everybody on the Quarter
Deck was watching including, very
possibly, the C.-in-C. with his telescope
fixed on one's efforts.
A trip to bring off lihertymen from
Portland late at night could be quite an
adventure as there were always a few of
them who had had too much beer and
were inclined to be noisy and, occasion-
ally, violent. One's only weapon in an
emergency was the tiller of the boat! !
However most of those who had had too
much went to sleep on the way off.
The C.-in-C. entertained in a big way,
but the midshipmen of the Flagship were
only asked to breakfast on Sundays.
Sharp at eight o'clock two of us pre-
sented ourselves in the after cabin in our
best uniforms and were very kindly
welcomed by the old man, who led us
into breakfast in the dining cabin and
seated one of us on each side of him.
The staff made up the rest of the party.
An excellent and abundant meal fol-
lowed during which we were always
regaled with Irish stories at which we
laughed loudly. It was best to do that.
Breakfast over and dismissed with a
'Good Morning, young gentlemen', we
made ourselves scarce.
Trout Fishing
For a long time I had the job of being
Admiral's 'Doggie' and when the fleet
was in Irish waters I used to go trout
fishing with the Old Man. These expedi-
tions were major operations and done in
style. There was a Commander-in-
Chief's motor car on board complete
with a Marine chauffeur. It was kept on
the booms and when wanted it wa.;
hoisted out by the main derrick into our
42-foot launch. If there was no pier
available the launch was run up on the
beach and, with poles and planks and
about twenty sailors, landed for . the
purpose, the car was run ashore and
started up. The C.-in-C. and his party
then arrived in his barge with a whaler
in tow for the landing on the beach.
The party consisted of one lieutenant
to fish with the Admiral and keep him
company and carry the landing net. and
two midshipmen of which I was usually
one. Our duty was to help in a general
way and particularly to disentangle the
Admiral's fly if it got caught up in a
bush which it did quite often. Two of
the galley's crew were in attendance
with rugs and coats and a luncheon
basket with lunch for all.
We midshipmen were not invited to
fish but had our reward when we got
back to the ship in the evening. At about
seven o'clock the Admiral's steward
knocked on the Gun Room door and

announced 'half a case of champagne
for Mr. Wyndham-Quin'. The other
'Snotties' knew what was in the wind
and there was an ugly rush. The case
was ripped open and the bottles opened
and consumed in no time. I and my
companions had a job to get our share.
We enjoyed our expeditions with the
Old Man. Particularly on the Erriff
River which runs into Killary Bay on the
West Coast.
To return to life in the Flag Ship. the
C.-in-C. had a yacht, H.M.S. S~crprise,
in which Lady Charles used to occa-
sionally stay. It was a great occasion
when the barge was sent to bring her
over to lunch. The C.-in-C. watched her
approach through his telescope. When
he had had a careful look, he closed his
glass and, turning to the waiting officers,
said to them: 'Here comes my Dot with
a fresh coat of paint'. He was quite
right.
The barge was a 52-foot picket boat
manned by the galley's crew and kept
spotless. It was always called away well
before the ordered time but, on one
occasion, there was a serious hitch.
When manning the boat one of the crew
fell overboard from the lower boom and,
of course, the boat had to stop to pick
him up. This took time and the Officer
of the Watch had to go and take charge
himself.
It fell to me to go down and tell the
Admiral why his boat was delayed. It
was with some trepidation that I knocked
Saved by ' Flags '
When we were at sea with the Fleet
the C.-in-C. spent a lot of time on the
upper bridge attended by the Fleet
Signal Officer, Lieutenant Roper, and
his Flag Lieutenant George Gibbs. The
foretopmast had been specially lengthen-
ed to carry the Admiral's flag at a
conspicuous height. Unfortunately the
dockyard had rather overdone it and, on
one occasion, when we were passing
under the Forth Bridge, probably near
high water, the upper topmast with the
Admiral's flag on it hit the under-
structure of the bridge and crashed down
on our upper bridge, narrowly missing
the C.-in-C. If the Flag Lieutenant had
not quickly pushed him violently out of
the way of the falling spar he would
probably have been killed.
During his term in command of the
Channel Fleet the Admiral was involved
in a quarrel with Jacky Fisher, the First
Sea Lord. This had been going on
intermittently for some years. The two
men, of widely different backgrounds
and personalities, had different ideas on
how to conduct naval affairs and, in-
cidentally, how to get to the top them-
selves.
It was an unfortunate state of affairs
in which the politicians of the day
became involved and the Press took
sides. Eventually Lord Charles was
ordered to haul down his flag sometime
before his term in command was due to
end. I was in the flagship when this
on the door of the after cabin and was happened. We were lying alongside the
faced by an obviously annoyed C.-in-C. South Railway Jetty at Portsmouth and
'Where is my barge?' he demanded. I the then Commander-in-Chief Ports-
explained what had happened. If, I said, mouth, Sir Ashton Curzon Howe, sent
the bowman had not fallen overboard his carriage and pair to take Lord
and, again, if the boat had not had to Charles to the Harbour Station.
stop and pick him up the barge would The midshipmen in the flagship all
have been alongside as ordered. All turned out to run alongside the carriage
'Charlie B.' said was: 'Boy, if my aunt to the station. When we got through the
had balls she might have been my dockyard gates on to the hard there was
uncle! ' A few minutes later he got into a large crowd of the people of Portsea
the barge and we heard no more about waiting to see and cheer the Old Man.
it. The crowd overflowed into the station

and onto the railway line and there was
some difficulty in starting the train.
When it eventually got to London there
was a crowd there also to greet him.
' Ammick Ladders '
So ended my service with 'Charlie B.'
though I met him occasionally when he
came to visit my family in London, and
I was at Portsmouth when he stood for
one of the local constituencies, an
election which he won easily. At one of
his meetings at the Town Hall there was
a crowd of bluejackets who gave him a
great welcome and he had difficulty in
starting his speech. In the end all he was
able to get out was: 'All I can say is
"Well Done Pompey"! '
His opponent was a lawyer named
Hemmerde who used to invite questions
at his meetings. A bluejacket asked him :
'If you are elected will you get us
'ammick' ladders?', meaning ladders by
which to climb in and out of their
hammocks. The candidate answered that
if he was elected he would certainly take
up the matter with the Admiralty. Of
course it was all a joke and Hemmerde
became known as 'old Ammick
Ladders'.
Charlie B. gave me a photograph of
himself when he left and I have
bequeathed it to my great nephew, the
present Lord Charles Beresford, son of
my niece, Lady Waterford. When I
served with him he was just over sixty
and, though quite active and alert, he
looked his years and was getting a little
slow in his movements.
The second in command of the Fleet
was Sir Archibald Berkeley Milne and
also, flying his flag in the Good Hope,
was Admiral Percy Scott, a well known
specialist in gunnery, then commanding
the First Cruiser Squadron.
In the summer of 1908 a Royal Review
of the Channel Fleet at Portland had
been arranged and just before this was
due to take place Percy Scott was at sea
with his cruisers carrying out battle
practice and gunlayer firing. The
C.-in-C. ordered him to break off the
practices and return to harbour to get
ready for the Review.
'Spit and Polish' was still very much
the order of the day and all the ships
looked, and were, very smart. They had
to be super-smart for a Royal Review.
Percy Scott didn't like his gunnery
exercises being curtailed and made a
signal to his cruiser squadron which read
as follows: 'As paintwork is more im-
portant than gunnery you are to return
to harbour and make yourselves pretty.'
By chance the C.-in-C. learnt about
this signal and 'the balloon went up'!
The Good Hope was ordered to
'expunge' the signal from her signal log
and those of the rest of his squadron.
and Percy Scott was ordered to 'repair
on board the flagship.' I was one of two
midshipmen on watch when he arrived.
We were ordered to clear the quarter-
deck, close the two doors into the waist
and guard them so that no one came
through.
In 'frock coat and sword' Percy Scott
came on board looking rather apprehen-
sive, and the C.-in-C. took him right aft
on the quarterdeck and spoke to him for
a few minutes. He then returned to the
Good Hope. What passed between them
we never learnt.
Of course the signal Percy Scott had
made to his cruisers was certainly im-
proper and it was natural that the
C.-in-C. took exception to it.
I count it a privilege to have served
with 'Charlie B.' and shall always
remember his kindness to me.
V. WYNIIHAM-QUIN

Aux Armes! Aux Armes! Mes Camarades!
Today the door to the Admiralty
Boardroom stands ajar awaiting a new
Fisher. In the next decade the Royal
Navy will have its first opportunity in
nearly sixty years or more to reshape
itself for the future. If North Sea oil
does bring the State as a whole out of
the economic doldrums of post-imperial
stupor, and we do enter a period of full
employment and busy industrial enter-
prise, it could allow the navy, also, to
discard the accumulated inefficiencies of
thirty years of post-war decline and
invest in equipment for the future. The
time approaches for revolution: evolu-
tion has failed us and had its day, for
the time being.
Why revolution?
The lessons of 1939-45 appear to have
been ignored. One is conscious that they
have not been forgotten, but between
1945 and 1977 few seem to have been
absorbed and applied Take for example
the air-launched guided weapon. The
Germans lethally demonstrated the
vulnerability of all surface warships to
such weapons in the South Western
Approaches in 1944145. The known
antidote was, and still is, to shoot down
the aircraft, (not the missile, which is a
far more difficult target) with another
aircraft. But in 1978 aircover for ships
at sea will be provided by the creaking
mechanisms of HIGHWOOD or by the
United States Navy. Similar deficiencies
can be demonstrated in every other field
of naval arms. If it has taken a genera-
tion of naval development to arrive in
this position, something must be wrong
with the organisation that has been
trying, all this time, to provide our ships
and equipment. If it has been wrong for
the past thirty years then there is un-
fortunately a more than equal chance of
it being wrong for the next thirty.
What were the lessons of the 1939-45
War? The two most important (with
hindsight), though not for discussion
here, were the outstanding success of the
organised and well-supported civilian
resistance movement, and secondly, the
immense value of the successful intel-
ligence operation. For a Navy the
lessons, in no particular order, were:
The need for air cover
The vulnerability of the surface ship
The importance of new technology
at sea
The need for equipment to be easily
maintained
Post war history has served to reinforce
all those lessons, even to the Western
European nations involved in the rela-
tively limited military operations caused
by the rundown of their respective
empires. The lessons are self evident and
too straightforward to justify: they are
unambiguous, but they have not been
learnt.
They have not been forgotten how-
ever. The need for aircover was to have
been met by CVAOI. The massive A/S
A/A surface ship screens provided for
Carrier Striking Groups are evidence of
NATO's very real consciousness of the
vulnerability of large surface units to
submarine launched and air launched
attack; but the vulnerability of the very
escorts themselves render their deploy-
ment into such an environment nothing
less than suicidal. Who, for example, is
going to hunt a nuclear submarine with
frigates alone? In some cases the
alternatives do exist; the dipping sonar
A/S helicopter instead of the frigate; the
submarine launched tactical missile to
replace the missile armed surface unit,
and so on. But we have clung to the
surface ship, abandoned integral air
cover and the ability to strike from a
distance. In doing so we have effectively
created a Fleet capable of little or no

offensive action. We have dropped the
bow and arrow to build a target instead!
The new technology
All of the alternatives are 'new
technology'. The Fleet we know is but
one part of an advanced technological
society; it has its own scientific service;
there is a Defence Scientific Staff; and
there are well trodden paths which bring
the MOD into contact with some of the
leading industrial, scientific and technical
innovators in the country. More im-
portant still, the awareness of technical
change that these contacts have nurtured
has not been lost. But despite the best
efforts of those trying to get the new
technology to sea, the evidence of our
technical awareness is only to be seen in
the cancelled developments, the stillborn
ideas, the closed and still classified files
on technical secrets undeveloped, and
occasionally the equipment developed
overseas from British ideas. There is
evidence at sea too, but, as far as
weapons are concerned, only a little.
Look at your bridge card; what do you
see? Exocet (1 960s): 4.5s (1 940s); Seaslug
(1 950s); Seacat (1 950s); Seadart (1960s),
the Mk 24 torpedo; radars conceived in
the 1950s etc. How many of these
weapons meet the lessons learnt at such
cost since 1939? The lessons of aircover,
the vulnerability of surface units, and
the need for technology at sea?
An unbalanced Fleet - why?
The process of evolution, the gradual
adjustment to a changed environment,
the system within which the naval uni-
formed and civilian hierarchies work,
has provided us in 1977178 with an in-
dividually efficient. but badly unbalanced
Fleet. The processes evolved by this
hierarchy for the selection of new ship
and weapon designs have signally failed
to keep pace with the speed of tech-
nological and economic change and the
maior reason is that the naval 'organisa-
tion' as a whole is grossly overmanned
ashore. This last statement has been
made so very often, and qualified so
very often, that we are in danger of
losing sight of its basic truth. Choosing
but one set of figures, do we really need
1.000 commanders and captains (X, E
and S) to look after sixty surface ships?
But far more important; how many
hundreds of thousands of civilians are
there at work in the Royal Dockyards,
in the Stores DepBts, the Aircraft Yards.
in Bath, in London. in AUWE, in
ASWE, at Portland, Faslane, the Schools
and Shore establishments? How many
support the Navy from the Department
of the Environment, Property Services
Agency, HMSO, the Home Office, etc.,
etc.? It is very probable that no one
knows how many, not even the vote-
holders and complementers. They cer-
tainly don't know how much they all
cost. And for all the combined efforts
of these people we have a Fleet of sixty
or so 'big' ships and twenty-odd
submarines; we have a dockyard or-
ganisation that cannot return a ship,
undergoing normal 'planned' main-
tentance, to the operators on time; and
we have the imbalance in weaponry
described above.
There exists a diagram, in the shape
of cake, cut into slices, which purports
to show where the navy's money goes.
In the main it goes to people. It is
periodically used to justify under ex-
penditure in areas other than personnel.
or to present the very real difficulties
posed by pay rises. The most important
lesson to be learnt from this diagram is
that if you cut the amount spent on
people you have more left for other
things. You cannot have your cake and
eat it!
Returning to the basic contention,
that there are too many people involved
in running this small Fleet, surely
'organisation' is overmanned because it
has not evolved properly? The Fleet has
diminished; the number of uniformed
personnel has decreased more slowly;

ut civilian support has not diminished
accordingly (if indeed it has not actually
increased! ). This civilian population is
totally without centralised control or
supervision.
In summary we have an unbalanced,
not very well equipped, Fleet at sea,
totally outpeopled by the support or-
ganisation ashore. An organisation more-
over which is uncontrolled at a time
when labour and administrative costs
are very high. This situation has come
to be regarded as normal; it is not in the
best interests of the Fleet; it will get
worse.
It will get worse because the support-
ing organisations will, without central
control, continue to evolve and expand,
to become ever more expensive and
inefficient in the process. It is this massive
organisation which is in part meant to
ensure that the country has a properly
equipped navy. If the ships and their
equipment do not appear to reflect the
lessons learnt since the last war, then
some part of the organisation has failed.
This failure cannot be totally blamed
on the 'organisation'.
Maginot thinking again
The whole raison d'i?tre of navies was
brought into question by the advent of
nuclear war. Any fleet's ability to survive
such a war was doubtful after the
Bikini Atoll trials, and nuclear war
seemed to be all the future held. Korea,
Cuba, and Vietnam have given the lie
to this, but it has taken time to realise
that navies are not Cinderella Services.
The 'Cold War' and 'deterrence' have
also produced a large measure of
defensive thinking. Deterrence could
be described as the free world's Maginot
Line, and it has been as effectively by-
passed as its namesake by Soviet
adventures in Cuba, Egypt, Somalia and
elsewhere. The defensiveness it created
has permeated the design and procure-
ment of ships and weapons in the United
Kingdom, tactical thinking and foreign
AUX ARMES! AUX ARMES! MES CAMARADES 9
policy as well. It would have been
strange indeed if such a climate of
opinion had not produced a flabby rump
of overmanning ashore, and in con-
sequence today's ineffective Fleet.
But still? Why revolution? Things are
changing. President Carter's human
rights initiative is a more challenging
approach to foreign policy than was
deterrence. The deploying R.N. Groups
are visiting ports that DS5 would not
even have considered five years ago.
The Harrier has done its trials from
Hermes. Sea Skua and Sea Wolf look
good. Is it not possible that having
achieved this, things will improve left to
their own devices? Yes, of course they
will. But it will be exceedingly slow,
expensive and clumsy, because the wedge
of shore staff inserted between the Board
and Northwood is so ponderously large
that it cannot by any means be efficient
in such matters.
The reader is already bored. Another
tirade from an officer who should know
better. After all it would have been a
nicely balanced Navy with three CVAs
afloat: everything centred on them.
Three powerful offensive weapons plat-
forms, and all the air cover they implied.
Without them the Fleet was emasculated.
Then why in heaven's name did we
get ourselves into a position where they
had to go? Why has it taken thirteen
years for the alternative to come to
fruition, in the shape of Invincible? It
must never happen again and a revolu-
tion is needed to ensure that it doesn't.
The Peter Principle
An excellent short book, required
alongside Birds from Britannia in every
wardroom library, is The Peter Principle.
One of the author's propositions is that
when an organisation's efficiency declines
a perfectly normal reaction is to employ
more people, so as to try to increase the
output. The book goes on to point out
that although the amount of work done
inside the organisation naturally in-

creases, output may not change at all. pool of skilled labour must be retained,
It may even decline. The corollary of and none of the dockyard towns really
this statement, and one with which every offer any alternative form of employ-
competent and experienced naval officer ment. However, no one I hope will dis-
will agree, is that the smaller a team
working on a particular project, the
more likely it is that that team will
actually come up with a result. The
revolution would start from that axiom,
and arbitrarily slash the organisation by
a half; not to save money, but to make
it more efficient. To take an example.
Open your MOD telephone directory at
any page you care, choose a department
from that page, and ask yourself 'Is it
likely that if that department were cut
in half, it would seriously impair the
efficiency of the present and future
armed forces?'. Mine falls open at page
15-7: there listed is an organisation
called SPM 4(PE), which deals with the
Personnel Management of Professional
and Technology Group Staff in the
Procurement Executive's Air Systems
Department. It has listed, and named, a
staff of thirty-one souls; that is to say
fifteen clerical offices containing heaven
knows what number of typists, clerks,
and secretaries, and presumably a team
of cleaners, tea ladies, catering staff, and
superior and subordinate authorities all
busily communicating on this subject of
Personnel Management in Air Systems.
Let's cut 'em out: if we are about to
enter a period of full employment let
industry use them; if we are not, then
give them to the 'Min. of Ag and Fish'!
Of course such an exercise may
produce no real cash savings to the
MOD which may well instead sustain a
budget reduction. Nevertheless I am
convinced that we would see an increase
in efficiency. An increase which in
theory could be achieved by sending the
people concerned on paid leave for ever!
To return from the absurd. Massive
manpower cuts will clearly not work in
the Royal Dockyards: they may do in an
administrative organisation like the
MOD, but a dockyard's highly skilled
agree that the yards are not as efficient
as one would desire, and that this
inefficiency must be tackled. The
Australians have got round the problem
by building an entirely uniform-manned
naval base at Cockburn Sound, but how-
ever attractive such an idea, it is of
course unacceptable in the United
Kingdom.
The Royal Dockyards might, however,
be more efficient if their administrative
structures were severely pruned, and if
Wedgwood Benn's idea for worker parti-
cipation were introduced; in exchange
of course for certain conditions ,e.g.
every yard to be a union closed shop,
with annually negotiated contracts for
every man out of uniform in the yard?
It sounds terrible. But could it really be
any less efficient, any less tortuous than
the present organisation?
What of the MOD itself. We do not
need four Ministries. We don't really
need a Deputy Chief of the Defence Staff
for Operational Requirements, and a
Director of Naval Operational Require-
ments, and a Deputy Director of Opera-
tional Requirements (Royal Air Force),
and an Assistant Chief of The General
Staff (Operational Requirements). Do
we? Tempting though this sulbject is, this
article is for The Naval Review. What,
therefore, of the revolution afloat?
Where is this lean and efficient organisa-
tion to take us?
At the very start of this article I
referred to the 'lessons of the last war'.
The revolution afloat is to accept these
lessons, and to change our manpower
structure to meet the requirements of
new weapons and equipment. We must
accept that a ship is not an end unto
itself: it is only a platform for weapons,
and an exceedingly vulnerable one if it
moves upon the surface of the sea.
Above all we must realise that the best

means of defence is offence, and so equip A revolution requires leadership. The
our chosen weapons platforms that they doors to the boardrooms of the
are capable of hitting the enemy hard Ministries stand open.
and from sufficient distance to ensure
that they can hit, again and again. A.D. J.
140 Days at Sea-I
In 1934 the Admiralty were seriously considering a sail training vessel for the navy.
The author, then a young lieutenant commander, being keen to have a job in such
a vessel, asked for unemployed time to enable him to fit himself for such an
appointment. What follows is the, necessarily factual, report he wrote for the
Admiralty at the time.
There are only about forty ocean-going
square-rigged sailing vessels afloat today.
Sixteen of these are training ships for
the Navy or Merchant Service in various
countries, and carry no cargoes. The
remaining twenty-four struggle to sur-
vive in trade in face of low freights and
steam competition. An enterprising
retired sea captain named Gustav
Erikson, a Swedish Finn, has gradually
bought up the best remaining vessels
until he now owns a fleet consisting of
fifteen out of these twenty-four. They
range between three thousand and four
thousand five hundred tons dead weight
carrying capacity, that is to say from five
thousand to seven thousand tons dis-
placement loaded.
Since the days when sailing vessels
regularly carried wool, coal and many
other bulk cargoes they have gradually
been squeezed out by steamers. Even
after the Great War they could always
get cargoes of nitrates from Chile to the
United States and Europe. Now even
that trade is gone and wheat from
Australia to Europe is the only cargo
left for the big vessels. This too is a
precarious business, for charters cannot
be arranged months beforehand and the
ships have to be sent out to Australia in
ballast with the possibility of failing to
get a cargo and having to sail right round
the world in ballast, as has been done
before now. On arrival in Australia the
ships anchor off Port Lincoln or Port
Victoria at the entrance to the Spencer
Gulf and with luck the agents will have
a charter for them to load at one of the
S. Australian ports. This year (1934) ten
ships arrived at Port Victoria within
twenty-four hours and made a brave
sight at anchor in the roads; surely one
of the last such gatherings there will
ever be. Having been given her charter
(at about 24/6d. a ton) the ship pays
all expenses thereafter, including loading
(at about 2/6d. a ton), tugs, pilots, port
dues etc. When loaded she sails for
Falmouth or Queenstown for orders.
Meanwhile the cargo may change hands
several times and the ship on her arrival
at Falmouth receives orders to go to any
European port outside the Mediter-
ranean to discharge. Again the ship has
to pay for unloading, towage and port
dues which two latter seem to be ex-
tremely variable quantities depending on
the port of discharge which is a matter
in which the ship owner has no say.
Consequently profits are uncertain. It is
the opinion amongst sailing ship men
that this trade cannot be carried on for
more than another five years when

steamers are now offering a six weeks
voyage at 281- a ton. The crux of the
matter seems to be that the owners of
the cargo cannot afford to have the
money represented by the value of their
wheat lying idle for four months. Fore-
seeing this, Captain Erikson has since
the war made a rule of never buying a
ship at more than her scrap value so
that he cannot lose when he finally has
to sell them for breaking up.
Most of the ships have water ballast
tanks with large lids so that the tanks
can be used for cargo, but a few of the
biggest ships have no tanks and must
carry sand. In these cases ballast is a
costly item. The Pommern for instance,
would have to load 1,600 tons of sand into
her main hold in Europe. If she was
going to Port Augusta to load she would
sail as far up the Spencer Gulf as possible
and then anchor and with her own crew
discharge about 500 tons overboard. The
rest must be kept onboard to make the
ship stable even for towing. She would
then have to take a tow of fifty miles to
Port Augusta, load 1,000 tons of wheat
into her forward and after holds, tow
fifty miles to the nearest permissible
spoil ground, discharge the remainder of
her ballast, tow back to Port Augusta
and finish loading. Even water ballast
tanks are apparently a mixed blessing as
they are particularly liable to rust and
plates frequently require renewal. More-
over water ballasted ships are a problem
if they are to be laid up for a winter in
the Baltic where the sea freezes. Sand
ballast can be a serious danger if not
properly secured with shifting boards.
Only a few years ago the Herzogin
Cecile, one of the biggest vessels, shifted
her ballast in a gale off the Orkneys and
lay with a list of 70" for three days while
the crew lived on her upturned side and
worked feverishly in the holds building
staging and gradually trimming the
ballast even. Luckily the weather moder-
ated and they completed the job success-
AT SEA-I
fully and continued the voyage to
Australia.
Gustav Erikson's Fleet
The headquarters for Gustav Erikson's
fleet is the little port of Mariehamn in
the Aland Islands off the S.W. coast of
Finland. There he has a tremendous
collection of spare anchors, yards and
other gear bought up from ships that
have been broken up.
His ships sail in ballast in September
each year bound for Australia via the
Cape of Good Hope, arriving about
Christmas. They load and get away in
January and February bound for
Europe, occasionally via the Cape of
Good Hope but usually via Cape Horn,
arriving at their discharging ports in
May and June. After discharging they
sail in ballast to Mariehamn where they
pay off and have about a month before
signing on a new crew and setting out on
the next round voyage. Mariehamn
might be interesting enough for a visit
of a day or two by destroyers during the
Baltic cruise. There are always several
deep water square-riggers in during June
and July.
In February 1934, together with
Commander C. M. Butlin, D.S.C., R.N.,
I joined the 4-masted barque L'Avenir
as a passenger for the voyage to
Falmouth. She was lying at Port
Germain, South Australia, a miserable
and unattractive little place on the east
side of the Spencer Gulf. At Port
Germain the tide recedes about a mile
from high water mark and the ships load
at the seaward end of a wooden jetty
over a mile long. On the evening of our
arrival there were three vessels lying at
the end of the jetty making a beautiful
picture together against the sunset. They
were L'Avenir (four-masted barque)
Winterhude (three-masted barque) and
Mozart (four-masted barquentine).
L'Avenir had been a month loading and
had nearly finished. The others were
awaiting their turn. No pneumatic grain

elevators here. The wheat in bags comes
in from the surrounding district on
horse drawn wains and rattles down the
crazy jetty on a little train of which the
engine-driver is also the harbour master
and the pilot. At some of the other ports
in the Gulf where there is no proper pier
the farmers drive their waggons down
to the beach and load the bags into small
ketches which sail off to the vessels
lying in the roadstead.
The bags are hoisted in by yard and
stay whips and carefully stowed close
in the ballast tanks and holds, a small
proportion being cut and the grain
allowed to filter down and partly fill up
the gaps to make the cargo more solid.
With most vessels it is difficult to stow a
grain cargo closely enough to bring the
ship down to her marks before the holds
are full to the hatches. L'Avenir's cargo
was to consist of 46,000 bags, but during
the last day's loading it became obvious
that there was not going to be room for
them and about 1,000 bags had to be
cut and the contents poured into the
gaps between the bags already stowed.
These gaps had an astounding appetite
as the grain filtered away like sand to all
parts of the hold. This grain has to be
swept up and bagged again at the ship's
expense at the port of discharge.
The vessel
L'Avenir is Erikson's latest acquisition
and one of his finest ships. Until 1932
she was training ship for the Belgian
merchant service, kept up by an association
of shipping companies. Some
particulars are given below:
Built: 1908, of steel, by Rickrners,
Bremerhavn as a training ship for
75-100 cadets.
Length O.A.: 313 feet (with jibboom
346 feet).
Beam: 45 feet.
Draught: Deep load: 24 feet. Ballast
trim: 17 feet.
Sail Area: 31,000 square feet
(approx.)
Displacement of Hull: 2,300 tons.
Cargo Capacity: 3,400 tons.
Displacement Loaded (say): 5,700 tons.
Minimum Ballast for Sailing: 1,600
tons.
Masts: of steel, with lower and top-
masts in one piece and fidded top-
gallant masts. Main truck to keel:
192 feet.
Yards: Rigged with courses, double
topsails, double topgallants and
royals on fore, main and mizzen and
with spanker and gaff topsail on
jiggermast. Lower yards: 90 feet
(= twice beam of ship); diam. at
bunt 2 feet; weight 5 tons.
All yards of steel except royals which
are wooden spars 45 feet long.
During the last two days of loading,
the crew were bending sail and as soon
as loading was finished the ship was
towed about two miles from the pier by
tug and anchored to wait for a fair wind.
One morning at 3 a.m. a light northerly
breeze came and all hands started weigh-
ing by hand, a long job. In these ships
they cannot afford a ton of coal a day
to keep steam in the donkey boiler on
the off chance of the windlass being
needed. It took about two hours to get
the anchor and another two to set all
the sails, twenty-seven of them; mean-
while we began to move slowly down
the Gulf. Although it is only 200 miles
from Port Germain to the entrance of
the Spencer Gulf, ships have been
known to take three weeks to get clear
of it in light and contrary winds. How-
ever we were very lucky as our northerly
breeze freshened and we made a steady
five knots all day. We caught a glimpse
of masts and yards at anchor off Port
Broughton, Wallaroo and Port Victoria.
The route
On asking the captain whether he
proposed to go to Europe via the Cape
of Good Hope or Cape Horn it was
amusing to receive the reply: 'Oh, we'll
see what the wind's doing when we get

14 140 DAYS AT SEA-I
clear of the Gulf.' This is not so vague young Australian blacksmith and car-
as it sounds, however, for the shortest penter out of work and must have had
and best way is via the Cape of Good an extremely uncomfortable time in his
Hope if one can only work to the West- hide where he had been for over a week
ward of Australia, as one can then cross - in fact since the night before the ship
the Indian Ocean in the latitude of the was towed away from the jetty at Port
S.E. Trade. In February and March it Germain. The captain interviewed him
is possible to round the Cape of Good in a sufficiently gruff fashion and he was
Hope without serious danger of meeting immediately put on to cleaning the
heavy Westerlies and there is always the pigsty.
Agulhas current at one's back. After
that the difficulties are the same as one The ship's company
has when coming from Cape Horn. The The ship's complement was:
great, in fact the only, objection to this 1 Captain
route is the difficulty of crossing the l Chief Mate
Australian Bight in the teeth of the 1 2nd Mate
Westerlies. If one happens to strike one 1 3rd Mate
of the rare spells of Easterly weather on 1 Carpenter
coming out of Spencer Gulf the West- l Sailmaker
about route is well worth consideration. 1 Donkeyman
The breeze dropped at night but came l Steward
from the North again in the morning 1 Pantry boy
and got us clear of the Gulf in two days. l Cook
We felt mighty pleased with ourselves 1 Galley boy
and began to talk of a record passage as 4 A.B.s.
one is liable to do at this stage. The 13 Ordinary Seamen
passage from Spencer Gulf to the 7 Apprentices
Channel has been made occasionally in -
under ninety days, but an average good 35 (+ l stowaway)
passage is 100 days. In the afternoon a -
sail was reported right astern which
quickly came up and walked past us at and Ords.
dusk. She was the Killoran, a threemasted
barque and much smaller than
us, but faster in light winds. 'You vait! '
said the Captain.
For the next week we were close
hauled on the starboard tack steering to
' Swede
1 Belgian
' Dane
Finns
pass to the south of New Zealand. The Apprentices
hands were busy catting and securing the include:
anchors, unshackling and striking down 1 English
the cables and plugging the hawse pipes.
Meanwhile the carpenter with another
1 Canadian
1 Dane
party was battening down the cargo 1 Finn
hatches with an ominous thoroughness.
The fore hatch in particular looked as if
the ship was expected to plunge over
Niagara.
On the fourth day out a stowaway
was found somewhere below. He was a
1 Belgian
2 Swedes
This is a large crew, put in by the
owner to get the ship UP to scratch after
being taken Over in very Poor condition

from the Belgians. Next voyage she is but liable to fits of uncontrollable rage
to have five less Ords. when they were not - the dirtiest in-
The Captain, aged thirty-six, was a dividual I have ever seen. In harbour
stout, red-faced, hearty, pleasant man he is kept busy with the boiler and
from the Aland Islands. The Aland winches. L'Avenir has a small diesel
Islanders, although under the Finnish
flag, are at heart Swedes and Swedish
was the language spoken onboard except
for a proportion of the orders on deck
which, by general custom of the sea, are
given in English. The Chief Mate (26)
and the Second (24) were both also
Aland Islanders and very pleasant and
friendly. These officers and the Captain
spoke excellent English, in fact English
is one of the subjects in their examina-
tion for certificates as mate or master.
For the few officers who care to stay on
in sailing ships promotion is tolerably
good and both the Chief and Second
Mate had risen a step since the previous
voyage. The Third Mate (21) was a
rather grubby little Finn who spoke
practically no English and almost un-
intelligible Swedish. The position of
Third Mate is never a very satisfactory
one. He does not have a watch of his
own but is a kind of midshipman of the
Chief Mate's watch. The Chief Mate
gives all orders, so there is nothing for
the Third Mate to do but haul with rest
of the watch. Third Mates are only
carried in the biggest vessels. I gathered
that the Captain's pay is about £17 a
month and the mates' about £12, £10
and £7 respectively. . . . Stewards being
hard to find and mates easy, L'Avenir's
steward drew more pay than the Chief
Mate, rather a pathetic state of affairs.
The Carpenter, Sailmaker, and
Donkeyman are Daymen Petty Officers
and mess together. The Sailmaker comes
on deck when both watches are called
for emergencies. The Donkeyman is the
Chief E.R.A., L.T.O., Blacksmith and
Plumber all rolled into one. L'Avenir's
Donkeyman was a wild looking savage
with long black hair just as one pictures
an illiterate Russian peasant; a clever
craftsman when things were going well,
engine and battery for lighting and at
sea one of his jobs was to run this for
an hour or two a day. The Carpenter
only works with wood, so that many of
the jobs of a naval ship-wright fall to
the Donkeyman.
The Apprentices, A.B.s and Ordinary
Seamen are mostly between sixteen and
nineteen, although there was one veteran
of twenty-eight and one Danish boy who
made his first voyage at fourteen. The
A.B.s are boys who have done one
voyage as Ordinary Seamen. They draw
pay equivalent to about £2 a month. The
Apprentices pay a premium of £50 to
make the round voyage to Australia and
their position is otherwise precisely
similar to that of the Ords. except that
they mess separately - though they
have the same food. Until the last few
years there was an understanding that
the captain would teach them navigation
during their spare time, but as they have
no spare time that myth has been
definitely exploded. The Apprentices do
not in fact have any special opportunities
of learning their job. They learn to steer
and they go aloft with their watch but
the greater part of their time is spent
chipping between decks, while any skilled
refitting work is always given to the
A.B.s. One asks at once why they are
willing to pay £50 to go to sea under
precisely the same conditions as others
who are being paid to go. The reason
is that in Finland four years sea time, of
which two years must be in sail, are
required before sitting for a Second
Mate's certificate, and Captain Erikson,
being in the strong position of owning
practically all the sailing vessels in which
it is possible for them to put in their
time, refuses to take a boy on his first
voyage except as an apprentice. Similarly
in Germany twenty months, in Denmark

eighteen months and in Sweden twelve Food and water
months in sail are required and in all On a voyage of several months without
these countries the regular training ships cold storage or distilling plant, food and
have long waiting lists. For a Finn the water are a matter of some difficulty.
necessary two years cannot be fitted in The principal dishes provided for the
in less than three round voyages to boys were salt beef, which few of them
Australia and so most of the boys sign touched, pea soup and salt pork,
on for their second voyage as Ords. porridge, potatoes, lobscouse, boiled
and their third as A.B.s. In the same rice, dried fruit stew, Stavanger stocksense
that none are onboard to fish and tinned meat balls, bread and
earn their living, the whole crew are margarine with tinned sausages once a
virtually apprentices. The parents of
Ords. and A.B.s have to deposit with the
week. The potatoes lasted very well for
four and a half months owing to careful
owner a bond of f 100 against the possi- stowage, periodical inspection and
bility of their running in Australia. sorting. The bread baked onboard was
L'Avenir's crew was made up of boys of excellent. In the saloon we had the same
good family who, after their third voyage basic diet but immensely improved by
would go to a navigation school ashore the substitution of tinned butter for
for a time, take their examination and margarine and the inclusion of more
go to sea as officers in steamers. In these tinned sausages, also tinned salmon,
therefore, the and
the hard case mates of thirty years ago
sardines, tongue, peas, carrots and beetroot,
In the tropics lime juice and
do exist, for the boys are
keen and well behaved. And they are
worked so hard and are perpetually so
physically tired that they do not even
want to skylark.
Finland is proud of her sailing ships
marmalade were provided for all hands
We took eight pigs to sea with us and
killed one every fortnight in the
Southern Ocean and in the North
Atlantic. Most of the fresh meat was
and it does not seem probable that she eaten aft but the boys had One Or two
will change her shipping laws which, by
each pig.
providing the crews for practically
nothing, alone make it possible to run
The regulation allowance of fresh
water is four litres Per day (just under a
the ships at all. The profits, however, gallon). Three litres of this goes direct
do not allow of building new ships and to the cook, leaving one litre for all
the sailing fleet can only continue during other purposes. L'Avenir has ample
the life of existing ships or as long as fresh water tanks, and aft we had about
vessels built as training ships by foreign
nations and suitable for trade continue
a gallon a day for washing.
R. L. FISHER
to come into the market at scrap prices. (to be continued)

The Weapon Engineering Branch
of the 1980s
THE THIN GREEN LINE OF THE FUTURE
Change is not made without inconvenience even from worse to better.
We are today in the midst of a second
scientific revolution whose impetus is
breathtaking and whose final effect is
unpredictable. Technology is making
advances in many areas (medicine,
computers, nuclear engineering and
electronics to name but a few), the
results of which are revolutionising our
industry, education system and whole
way of life. The present WE Branch has
its origins in this second scientific
revolution.
In this article I will attempt to justify
yet another change to the WE Branch
both in rating and officer structure, focus
on some of the problems this change will
create and discuss how best it may be
implemented.
WE branch origins
The ME Branch has its origins in the
first scientific revolution which produced
iron to build our dreadnoughts and
steam to propel them. The first steam
ship was built for the navy in 1822, and
the first ERA went to sea in 1868. Soon
afterwards electrics were introduced to
ships, followed by weapon electrics in
1873. Wireless came at the turn of the
century, revolutionising naval com-
munications, with far reaching con-
sequences for command and control
which are still felt today. However, the
advent of all these techniques could be
absorbed without changing the organisa-
tion. The torpedomen, the wireless
operators, the marine engineers all
looked after the electrics of their own
equipment. There was no need for any
organisational change. It was not until
the Second World War with the advent
Richard Hooker (1 554-1600)
of radar and electronics that organisa-
tional changes came about. R.N.V.R.
officers and 'hostilities only' ratings
were recruited to deal with this new
technical challenge. Thus it was that in
1946 the Electrical Engineering Branch
was first formed to embrace the wide
diversity of electrical engineering appli-
cations which existed in the navy. The
new techniques of the second scientific
revolution were out of the reach of tradi-
tionally trained seamen and engineers.
But technology did not pause to
applaud the formation of a new branch
dedicated to its service, it marched on
even faster. The 1960s saw the introduc-
tion of weapon systems using a mix of
engineering disciplines both mechanical
and electrical. The Electrical Branch
went through a series of changes leading
in 1965 to the formation of the Weapon
Electrical Engineering Branch, com-
prising a three prong structure. These
three prongs - Radio, Control and
Ordnance - reflected the three engineer-
ing disciplines which the branch was
designed to encompass. In the last ten
years we have grown much more systems
orientated and seen further technological
development in digital computers,
satellites and missiles. The R.N. has
been in the forefront of the application
of these developments, albeit slightly out
of breath, and the end result has been a
new generation of computerised weapon
systems which do not match our present
rigid three prong structure. A modern
fire control radar, for example, is a
classic case of an equipment containing
elements of radio, control and ordnance
engineering to say nothing of its intrinsic

link with a digital computer. It makes a
mockery of the three prong structure if
the REA complemented to look after it
has to know as much about control
engineering as a CEA and as much about
mechanical engineering as an OEA in
order to maintain the radar satisfactorily.
However, assuming that an REA can
rise to the occasion and master these
various disciplines, and the evidence
shows that most of them can, he has also
to operate the radar. He is one of a
growing breed of user-maintainers
brought about by the formation of the
Operations Branch.
Relationships with other branches
The accelerating pace of technology of
the second scientific revolution not only
brought about the formation of an
evolving Electrical Branch, but also
changes to the Seaman Branch. The
advent of missiles and electronic warfare
led to defence tactics based on rapid pre-
planned responses; also the likelihood of
operating in a multi-threat environment
led to the control of these tactics being
vested in one man - the Principal
Warfare Officer. Increased automation
in weapon systems led to a reduction in
the number of men needed to operate
them. It could be argued that this was a
chicken and egg situation, and that low
recruiting in the early 1970s led to fewer
seamen and hence hastened the intro-
duction of automation. Whichever way
it was, the net result was the formation
of the Operations Branch on 1 January
1975 and the start of user/maintainer
schemes. These changes to the Seaman
Branch have had a profound effect on
the WE Branch, the ramifications of
which are still being felt. It is a great
pity that more consultation did not take
place with other branches, particularly
the WE Branch, when the formation
of the Operations Branch was being
considered. Whereas previously the WE
Officer was accountable to his Captain
solely for the material efficiency of all
ship-borne weapon systems, he now finds
himself more and more involved with
the operational efficiency of weapon
systems and additionally responsible for
the custody and accounting of explosive
material.
As well as interfacing with the new
Operations Branch the WE Branch inter-
faces with the ME Branch, and here the
issues are much more clear cut and the
future easier to see. With the advent of
gas turbines and remote machinery
control systems using advanced electronic
techniques there is a growing overlap of
responsibility between ME and WE
Departments. It has seemed logical for
some time that responsibility for the
generation and distribution of power
should return to the MEs. They already
look after the mechanical side of the
generators; it is not a big step to include
the electrical side as well. Two attempts
were made in the 1960s to transfer 'High
Power' to the MEs but both failed, not
because the principle was wrong, but
because the implementation was not
thoroughly thought through.
Engineering Branch Working Group
Report
It was against this background of
technological change producing multi-
disciplinary enginee~ing systems on one
hand, and the fait accompli of the
advent of the PWO, User Maintainer
and formation of the Ops Branch on the
other, that the Engineering Branch
Working Group produced its report in
1975. It was aimed at the navy of 1985
and was a profound and far reaching
report encompassing every conceivable
aspect of naval engineering. For the
purposes of this article I shall only con-
sider the recommendations which affect
the WE Branch. The first of these was
the need to set up an electro-mechanical
ME sub-Branch responsible for the hull
and its systems, propulsion system, gen-
eration and distribution of power and
ship's services, hence involving a transfer

of some responsibility from WE to ME out introducing the trauma and up-
Branches. This was approved by the heaval of change. There is some truth
Admiralty Board. The second reflected in these arguments as well as being
the increasing interdependence of the attractive to those who possess a laissez
maintenance and the operation of modern
weapon systems, and recommended a
greater commonality of training and
employment of Ops and WE officers at
junior level. A further study was
authorised of the X/WE interface, or
the X/WE relationship as it has now
become known. These two recommenda-
tions are official Admiralty Board policy
and were published in DCI 166175. So
much is history. I will base a possible
future WE Branch structure on these
two recommendations.
Theneed for change
The first problem to address, and a
vital one to the whole argument, is
whether we need to change at all. In
recent times the advocacy of change has
become part of our daily life in the
armed services and the traditional con-
servatism of the service officer is being
gradually overcome. However there are
still pockets of strong resistance to
change and their argument runs some-
thing like this. In the military forces
there is generally a high turnover rate of
those in positions of power. A person in
power at a particular level notices im-
perfections in his own organisation and
introduces changes to correct them. But
however well intentioned his changes may
be, inevitably they will produce problems
in other areas of his organisation. At-
tempting to cure these imperfections is
left to his relief, who will introduce im-
perfections in another area of the organ-
isation, and so on. Eventually the culmin-
ation of these iterative changes bring the
organisation back full cycle to its
original state. Another way of looking
at the same phenomenon is to consider
that organisational changes are triggered
off by cycles, and so if we leave the
organisation unchanged, it will eventually
match the environment once again with-
faire, no change philosophy. By return-
ing heavy electrics to the MEs and in-
troducing userlmaintainer schemes it
can be argued that we are returning to
the pre-Second World War days, and all
the intervening upheavals caused by the
formation of the WE sub-Branch and
attempting to adapt it to a changing
technological environment have been
irrelevant and wasteful. A number of
officers and senior rates are quite rightly
cynical about the prospect of further
upheaval, since many changes in the WE
sub-Branch have all occurred within their
service careers.
One point which ought to be
emphasised at this stage is that the WE
sub-Branch is not at present working
badly. Its standards are high as is its
morale. However there are important
developments on the horizon (explosive
accounting, drill etc.) and in order to
maintain the high technical standards
and efficiency some adaption will be
necessary to meet these developments.
Those who advocate no change may be
right when they say that the Branch in
its present form will once again match
the environment at some date in the
future when events have turned full
cycle, but there will be an indeterminate
period in between when standards will
fall and efficiency will be lost - a high
penalty to pay for a cosy option.
New WE rating structure
The transfer of heavy electrics to the
MEs will involve the transfer of all those
billets involved with high power gener-
ation and distribution in ships and shore
establishments. The MEs obviously
cannot produce their own electrical
experts overnight to fill these billets so a
proportion of the WE ordnance electrical
prong will need to be transferred to
fulfill this commitment. This proportion,

20 'I IIE W~APON ENGINEERING BRANCH OF THE 1980s
which is estimated to be well over half
the current strength of the OE prong,
will make the OE stump, comprising the
remainder, unviable on its own. If a
three legged stool has over half of one
of its legs cut away, it becomes unviable
as a stool. Clearly then the remainder of
the WE sub-Branch consisting of the OE
stump, the REs and CEs will have to be
shaken up and remoulded into a
coherent and viable structure to cope
with weapon systems on a systems basis.
The artificers and mechanicians will need
to be multi-disciplinary to cover all the
engineering aspects like:y to be found in
modern systems. Due attention must be
given to the development and retention
of their valuable expertise, since training
will become increasingly expensive and
employment outside their specialist areas
will become increasingly wasteful.
A proposed new structure for WE
ratings, which is currently under con-
sideration, would be headed by a Chief
Weapons Electrical ArtificerIMech-
anician who would have control of a
whole system including the sensor, the
weapon delivery sub-system, the am-
munition and, where appropriate, the
user function. He would be supported by
two streams of Weapon Electrical
Artificers/ Mechanicians - one special-
ising in sensors i.e. radars, sonars, A10
systems; and the other specialising in
delivery systems i.e. guns, launchers,
mortars and their relevant control
systems. Their specialist training would
be given by a balanced combination of
Adquals and PJTs.
The mechanic rating would receive
a very basic Part 2 training which would
equip him for his first sea draft, and no
more. With the much shorter engage-
ments that exist today it seems wasteful
to give an expensive technical training
to a rating who is liable to leave the
Service in three years with very little
return from the investment. He would
go to sea as an uncategorised Weapon
Electrical Mechanic (WEM) and only
when he has shown he is likely to remain
for further service will he be given
further technical training in the form of
a categorisation course. He would then
be categorised either 'ordnance' or
'radio' engineering mechanic. Unlike the
artificerlmechanician, it is proposed
that the mechanic structure should be
based on engineering discipline lines.
since the level of maintenance and fault
finding expected of him would not
require a systems-orientated training.
The 'radio' category would continue
to carry out much the same semi-skilled
engineering tasks as they do today.
perhaps with a greater emphasis on com-
munications and WIT. The ordnance
category would take on the additional
tasks of custody of explosives and
ammunition as well as drill responsibi-
lities, the tenancy of which has been
left vacant since the formation of the
Operations Branch in 1975. With the
gradual phasing out of the GI and the
TASI of today their mantle would fall
on the POWEM(0) and the CWEM(0)
of tomorrow.
Implementation of rating structure
Having arrived at a proposed WE
rating structure for the 1980s consisting
of two streams of systems-orientated
artificers/mechanicians, supported by
two categories of engineering mechanics,
we must next consider how is this to be
implemented. It must be borne in mind
that the last two attempts to transfer
Heavy Electrics to the MEs failed, not
because the basic idea was wrong, but
through inefficient implementation.
Everyone must understand fully what
the aim is and it is vital that the plan
be perfected before it is executed. The
main thing to remember is that: 'the
Engineering Branch consists of 26,000
human beings, AE, ME, SM and WE,
all with their individual skills, knowledge,
expectations, prejudices and loyalties. In
changing its organisation we are not just
altering a jigsaw we are dealing with a

large organic human structure and we plement transfer of responsibility.
must carry out any changes with care CINCNAVHOME would have similar
and consideration.'
control over shore establishment im-
Certainly two fundamentals must be plementation dates.
satisfied when implementing the new One of the trickiest facets of the
branch structure. The first is that condi- whole problem is to gear the training
tions of service and career prospects machine so that it produces new style
must not be degraded. The second is electro-mechanical men to replace the
that the operational efficiency of the initial wedge of transferees as they leave
Fleet must not be impaired. In order to the service over the years. This transfer
uphold morale in the branch during this of personnel must be a once and for all
reorganisation, only volunteers will be expedient. There will be no second bite
called for to transfer from WE to ME. of the cherry. At the same time as the
They will be guaranteed similar career new ME sub-Branch is evolving into an
prospects if they transferred as if they electro-mechanical branch, the new WE
remained with the WE sub-Branch. sub-Branch will be evolving into its
It would seem logical to match the systems orientated structure. There is a
implementation of the new branch certain amount of urgency to this
structure with the period over which change, since the WEs are already being
High Power is transferred from the WEs forced to take on responsibility for
to the MEs. There are a variety of custody and accounting of explosives and
options from a sudden switch of res- also for drill in some weapon quarters.
ponsibility in all ships and shore The new structure is designed to accept
establishments on one day, to a very these responsibilities and the new style
gradual change in line with the introduc- ordnance mechanic will be heavily intion
of COGOG ships which would take volved in this. The sooner he is trained
over ten years. The disadvantages of the the better. On the other hand any headformer
option are obvious. Some ships long rush into implementation before a
would be in refit, others in the middle of plan has been thoroughly thought
work-up or on an operational mission. through and prepared and all the
Moreover, with trickle drafting it would preliminaries completed would be
be impossible to guarantee that the right
men would be in the right jobs in all
suicidal.
ships on a particular date. The latter New WE officer structure
option is more attractive in that it in- So far 1 have considered only the
volves an evolution not a revolution. rating structure. It now remains to
However to match implementation with discuss how the WE sub-Branch of the
the phasing in of COGOG ships would 1980s can best be officered. In this area
lead to a 'two Navy' administration and there is very much less to go on than in
all the waste involved with maintaining the area of rating structure and the only
two structures, duplicate training and firm Board directive is that the WE
inflexible drafting for over a decade. officer of the future will not be res-
A compromise middle course would ponsible for heavy electrics. Some very
be to implement transfer of responsibility sensible proposals were made in the
over a three year period (slightly longer Report of the EBWG about greater
than a normal drafting cycle). Once commonality of training and employcertain
necessary preliminaries have ment between Ops and WE officers at
been completed it should be up to junior level, but they were not accepted.
CTNCFLEET to determine the optimum A further study of the X/WE interface
point in a ship's programme to im- was authorised. We have already seen

how the creation of the PWO and
formation of the Ops Branch has led to
a heavier dependence on the WEs for
drill and operator knowledge. User/
maintainer schemes have meant the
replacement of seaman ratings by WE
ratings at weapon quarters, and where
the senior rate in charge of a quarters is
a WE rating then the WE0 becomes
accountable to the Captain for the
operational as well as the material
efficiency of those quarters. The PWO
no longer has the deep specialist gunnery
nor TAS knowledge his predecessor the
GO or TASO had, and those bastions of
traditional expertise the GI and TASI
are no more. The Ops Branch are with-
drawing into the secluded shell of the
Ops Room, leaving the occupation of
the outer quarters to the WE Branch.
Thus the PWO, enshrined in tactical
doctrine and procedural dogma lacks the
first hand knowledge of the capabilities
and limitations of the weapon systems at
his command, and finds it increasingly
difficult to meet his responsibility for
overall system operational efficiency.
The WEO, on the other hand, burdened
by increasing operator responsibilities, is
not able to devote his time to his
primary task of maintaining the equip-
ment in his charge in a high state of
material effectiveness.
As when discussing a future WE
rating structure in our navy, we must
consider the merits of a no change
philosophy in officer structure and
maintaining the status quo. There are
some who argue that we should allow
the PWO concept to mature, relying on
Advanced Warfare Training and deeper
warfare training to regenerate the
technical judgement required of seaman
enough to regenerate deep specialist
knowledge in all seaman officers. Any
solution to the problem must restore to
the PWO the previous weapon system
knowledge of the GO and TASO and
allow the WE0 to concentrate on
technical matters, or else the future
operational efficiency of the Fleet will
suffer seriously. We cannot allow the
present situation to continue.
A possible solution would be to
amalgamate the officer structure of the
Seaman and WE Branches completely.
This would allow all officers the oppor-
tunity to have a broad technical and
operational training, open up ship-
command jobs for technical officers and
technical jobs for seaman officers. How-
ever this would lead to a lessening, not
increasing of specialist knowledge held
by officers, and we would have the same
problems that the Americans are
experiencing with their 'line officer'
philosophy. It already takes six years
to train a WE officer effectively, and the
same length of time to train a PWO, if
sea experience is included. The time
taken to train a combined PWO/WEO
would be far too long. Although the
number of graduate entries into the
Seaman Branch is increasing, and of that
a fair proportion possess technical
degrees, a number of officers would not
be able to cope with the post-gradua:e
technical training a WE officer currently
undergoes.
Another less radical way to overcome
the problem would be to combine the
training and employment of seamen and
WE officers up to the level of mid-
seniority lieutenant. On completion of
initial Fleet and Degree training all
officers would take a separate Warfare
officers. The vexed problem of weapon Management course which would con-
system responsibilities in ships could be sist of the present seaman OW course
investigated as a separate issue. However plus the management part of the present
only about half of PWOs are currently WE application course. He would go to
being trained in Advanced Warfare, and sea then as a weapon-system manager.
of those only a few will be given deeper The weapon-system manager would be
training. This is not considered to be responsible for both the operational and

technical performance of his system,
being accountable to the relevant PWO
for the operational use and the WE0
for the technical performance of the
system. He would be supported on the
technical side by a Chief Weapons
Electrical Artificer and on the opera
tional side by a Chief Petty Officer (Ops).
The weapon manager would have to
coordinate the work of both these men
and their staff. However the senior rates
would have direct access to the WE0 or
PWO on specialised professional matters.
The weapon manager would also act as
a bridge watchkeeper. It is recognised
that this will place a heavy load on the
officer, particularly at the stage when he
is working for his OOW certificate and
he will to some extent be 'carried' by his
more experienced senior rates. At mid-
seniority lieutenant level streaming
would take place into the WE stream or
Ops stream. The WE would complete the
technical part of the WE application
course and the Ops Officer the PWO
course before their next sea appoint-
ments. From then on their careers would
be identical to those at present.
A possible disadvantage of this scheme
is that of mixed responsibilities for the
weapon-system manager. He is res-
ponsible to the PWO for the operational
performance of the system and to the
WE0 for the technical performance
This dual accountability is not con-
sidered to be a setback and is certainly
not worse than the mixed responsibilities
for weapon-system effectiveness which
exist today. The over-riding advantage
of the scheme is that it gives future WE
officers personal experience of the
operational use of weapon systems and it
gives future Ops officers personal exper-
ience of technical management Hence
we have regenerated the deep specialist
knowledge in the Ops officer and allowed
the WE0 to concentrate on technical
matters.
Conclusion
We have seen that the rapid advance
of the second industrial revolution has
forced changes in the WE Branch if it
is to serve the navy with the same high
standards of professionalism as before.
The formation of the Ops Branch, the
advent of the PWO and the proliferation
of UserIMaintainer schemes have alreatly
happened. Taking on responsibility for
custody and accounting of explosives
and transferring Heavy Electrics to the
MEs is about to happen. The Branch
must adapt to these changing circum-
stances. A future rating structure based
on two streams of system-orientated
technicians supported by two categories
of engineering mechanics is thought to
be the best organisation to meet the
changing environment. The Branch
should be officered by professional
engineers but having gained weapon
system operational experience and also
bridge watchkeeping certificates as junior
officers. This will ensure a broadly
based flexible branch while still retaining
high technical standards. As the "last
CNEO - Admiral Sir George Raper
said: 'Any adaption by the Engineering
Branch to the future of the Navy has to
be combined with an inflexible determin-
ation to uphold the professional
standards in our keeping.' These
standards must be jealously guarded, but
not in a narrow sense. The WE Branch
of the future must be outward looking
and flexible enough to adapt to any
future change in technology as well as
the role of the Navy of which it is proud
to be part.
J. A. TREWBY

Having just finished a two year appoint-
ment in H.M.Y. Britannia I thought
N.R. readers might be interested in
knowing a little more about the Royal
Yacht in this Jubilee Year. Perhaps
everyone has viewed the Yacht from afar
at one time or another but fewer will
have had occasion to get on board and
an up-to-date picture of how she
operates may be of interest to those who
have had previous connections.
History
Britannia was launched in April 1953
and commissioned for service in January
1954, in time to sail out to Malta to meet
the Queen returning from her first
Australasian Tour in S.S. Gothic. She
has therefore been in existence for
twenty-four years, a fact often forgotten
by many who think that she is almost
new. Hopefully, she looks so after all the
loving care and attention that has been
and is expended upon her, but it is as
well to remember that she won't go on
for ever. In fact there is as yet no
planned 'terminal date' and the 1972-73
Major Refit was known as the 'half-life'
refit. Materially, the engineers and
constructors will tell one that there is no
reason why the Yacht should not steam
for many more years, although items like
electric wiring cause worries purely
because of their age and the less ad-
vanced 'state of the art' when the Yacht
was built.
Since commissioning the Yacht has
steamed over half a million miles and
has been the equivalent of once round
the world for every year of her life.
Statistics are sometimes a bit meaningless
but in terms of time this means that the
Yacht has been away from her base
(Portsmouth) for over half her life and
in only six years out of the twenty-five
of the Queen's reign has there not been
a Major Royal Tour abroad. We found
'Y ottie'
this useful ammunition to fire at the
occasional 'doubting Thomas' we met
who thought the Yacht lay at her berth
off Whale Island doing nothing for most
of the time.
Typical programme
Rather than running through the rest
of the Yacht's life since 1953, I thought
I would describe what we did in my two
years on board to give perhaps a typical
picture of her operations. I joined in
May 1975 immediately after Britannia
had returned from a Carribean/South
America Tour and we then did a delightful
short tour of the Channel Islands
with the Queen Mother. In August we
'did' Cowes and a national exercise,
HIGHWOOD, in which we attempted to
imitate a rather luxurious Russian AGI
trawler and harass the Blue forces as
they circumnavigated the U.K. Incidentally
this is not an unusual ernployment
for the Yacht and several exercises
have been undertaken over the years
when the Yacht has not been required
for Royal Duty. The only drawback to
such employment is of course over-use
of the Yacht and indeed in HIGHWOOD,
in spite of our desire to keep up with the
battle we were forced on two or three
occasions to reduce speed in typical
North Sea weather conditions to preserve
the priceless Royal Treasures 'down aft'.
At Christmas 1975 we docked for three
months DED which included a complete
repaint of the ship's side, coming out in
April 1976 to accompany the Queen on
a short State visit to Finland returning
with her to Tilbury. Then in June, July
and August we visited the U.S.A. for
the Bicentennial Celebrations and
Canada for the Montreal Olympics. We
crossed back in early August in time to
take the whole Royal Family round the
Western Isles of Scotland for their
annual family holiday. From the officers'

point of view this is perhaps the most
enjoyable Royal Duty undertaken, be-
cause there are no external engagements
apart from private Royal Picnics on
some of the islands, and one sees a great
deal more of the Royal Family than on
a formal Royal Tour.
A quiet autumn followed in Ports-
mouth but on 28 December we set out
for the Royal Jubilee Tour of the Pacific.
New Zealand and Australia from which
the Yacht returned in May. My two
years were up by then and as I write, the
strenuous summer programme of visits
round the U.K. has begun. This includes
the Fleet review of course and then, in
September and October, the final
Jubilee tour to the West Indies.
All this has been an extremely potted
run-through and of course the memories
I have of each individual part of my
'tour of duty' would fill another article
but I suppose the ground I covered was
about typical of any average two years
in the Yacht's life.
Secondary role
I have already mentioned the Yacht's
participation in exercises but in fact the
laid-down secondary role is that of a
hospital ship. It is of course extremely
difficult to exercise this realistically but
the Royal Apartments lend themselves
to being turned into hospital wards and
this was indeed exercised in 1972 when
all the Royal furniture, carpets etc. were
removed and the full outfit of 250 sick-
cots erected. I hasten to add that these
cots are stored ashore in peacetime. One
may think that the hospital ship concept
is somewhat outdated in modern warfare
but the more likely scenario we foresaw
was that of a natural disaster such as an
earthquake or flood occurring within
reach of the Yacht whilst she was on her
travels. In her secondary role she would
then be well-placed to render medical
assistance and provide emergency
accommodation.
Officers
The Yacht is commanded by a Rear
Admiral, the Flag Officer Royal Yachts
(the 's' is a throwback to,-the halcyon
days when there were several Royal
Yachts floating about) and indeed he is
the only Admiral commanding his own
ship at sea. The command structure is
somewhat unique in that when the
Queen is on board, FORY, as a member
of the Royal Household, spends most of
his time 'back aft'. The Commander
therefore carries out a great many of the
executive and administrative tasks
normally done by a CO and the Com-
mander 'N' is the 'sea captain', called by
OOWs for collision avoidance situations
at sea. Apart from these two Command-
ers there are three more, 'E', 's' and
PMO. The Wardroom totals twenty-one
and below the Commanders is broadly
organised as in any General Service ship
of comparable size, with a few additions/
exceptions. Three Engineer Lieutenants
(usually S.D.) are borne in order that
there may be an EOOW on watch whilst
the Queen is embarked. Three junior
Seaman Lieutenants are appointed for a
Royal Tour or 'Season' and are known
as 'Season Officers'. Their full titles are
Royal Barge Officer, Household Liaison
Officer and Assistant Navigating Officer.
These titles are probably self-explanatory
but in fact the Season Officers are borne
mainly for watch-keeping - an OOW
is maintained in harbour whilst on
Royal Duty as opposed to an OOD.
Finally mention should be made of the
Keeper and Steward of the Royal Apart-
ments, A.S.D. Lieutenant or Lieutenant-
Commander promoted from the Steward
Branch who looks after everything aft.
By tradition he wears plain clothes on
board except when on Royal Duty and
his title is Mr. . Incidentally
he is the only officer who remains semi-
permanently on Royal Yacht Service -
other officers do a normal two-year
appointment apart from the Season
Officers already mentioned, and FORY

himself who does about five.
Contrary to popular belief, officers are
not selected for the Royal Yacht by their
parentage or their ability to speak the
Queen's English. After the Appointer's
eye has alighted upon one, the only
hurdle to be overcome is a short inter-
view with FORY so readers may be
reassured that there is nothing super-
natural or abnormal about Royal Yacht
Officers!
Ship's Company
The Ship's Company of the Yacht are
always called Yachtsmen, Senior and
Junior Yachtsmen equating to Senior
and Junior Rates in General Service. A
rating joins the Royal Yacht by
volunteering and waiting lists are main-
tained by Drafty. A volunteer is not
usually given a personal interview before
joining except for key Senior Rate posts,
but papers are sent ahead for perusal to
weed out those obviously unsuitable.
Once on board, a man is on probation
for a year after which he may if he so
wishes, and subject to the Commander's
approval, become a member of the
Permanent Royal Yacht Service. He can
then remain on board until the termin-
ation of his engagement provided he
works well and doesn't step out of line.
As 'fifth five' engagements are usually
granted to Yachtsmen who ask for them,
this system leads to some extremely long
serving men -- indeed there are still two
Yachtsmen on board who commissioned
the Yacht in 1954, the Coxswain and the
NAAFI Manager. A three-badge A.B.
is a rare sight in the Fleet these days but
I think we produced twenty for a Navy
News photograph in summer 1976.
The drawback to this system is that
advancement/promotion is on the 'dead
man's shoes' principle and can be very
slow, so one tends to lose the bright
young sailor who is ambitious to get on.
However the advantage of having a solid
body of men with a wealth of experience
to handle the various jobs, evolutions
and unexpected crises which inevitably
arise and which are nearly always right
in the public eye far outweighs this.
Those who arrive on board and who then
find they don't wish to become Per-
manent Yachtsmen do a normal Sea
Service Commission of thirty months
and then leave and apart from this the
General Service Rules for Premature
Voluntary Release apply.
The Senior Yachtsmen are all first
class citizens as one might expect -
anyone not pulling his weight usually
moves on. The great majority have
worked up through their respective
'trees' on board and very little catches
them out. They are traditionally called
by their Christian names by officers -
this may seem anathema to General
Service Officers but I can only say that
in the special environment of the Yacht
it works and is not abused in return.
Discipline
Divisional Officers are extremely spoilt
in the discipline aspect as there are no
punishments on board the Yacht. Minor
transgressions receive a 'Caution' from
the Commander and 'totting up' three
Cautions usually leads to a man being
dismissed from the Yacht. A major
trangression results in a 'crash draft' and
the offence is usually dealt with by
H.M.S. Nelson. Likewise a Yachtsman
who becomes a major compassionate
problem is usually drafted in part be-
cause the separation in Royal Yacht
Service is just as great as in General
Service and if full careers are compared,
a Yachtsman is quite markedly worse
off.
Dress
There are a few unusual aspects of rig
worn on board which may be of interest.
Officers wear large black silk ties with
No. 5 uniform by day and in the even-
ings mess jackets without link buttons -
a legacy from King Edward VII who
forgot to wear his link button one

evening when he arrived in a previous
Yacht's Wardroom. The Wardroom
officers, ever tactful, all removed their
own link buttons in sympathy and the
tradition has remained. Incidentally, the
popular myth that one needs a private
income to kit oneself out for service in
the Yacht is simply not true. Most
officers use their appointment as an
opportunity to get their No. 5s and Mess
Dress up to scratch i.e, renew if neces-
sary but otherwise there is no extra un-
usual dress required on board.
As far as Yachtsmen are concerned,
the Duke of Edinburgh takes a personal
interest in their dress and any proposed
rig changes are sent to him first for
vetting. The Junior Yachtsmen wear a
special No. 1 suit, the jumper tucking
into the trousers rather than outside and
the trousers having a black silk bow at
the back. On No. 2 suits all Yachtsmen
wear white badges instead of red and
plimsolls are worn by almost everyone
apart from officers and engineers on
watch to reduce the noise level - the
whole concept of the Yacht is that it
should be a quiet restful home for the
Queen to relax in whilst she is on an
arduous Royal Tour.
Yachtsmen will not be changing to the
new No. 1 rig when it comes into service
but will continue to wear their present
rig with the lanyard, silk etc. The
'woollie pullie' has come to the Yacht
but traditionalists will be glad to hear
that it is worn only at sea and when not
on Royal Duty i.e. when Royalty is not
embarked.
General description
It is very difficult to describe the Yacht
without sounding like a museum
catalogue so I will only mention a few
aspects. She is never open to visitors but
Yachtsmen are allowed to ask family
and relations on board at weekends in
Portsmouth. As officers, one of our main
duties was to conduct Yacht Tours for
Royal Guests and Visitors. On these
tours one cannot go into the Royal
Apartments but the main Reception
Rooms can be viewed from outside and
are illuminated at night. There are many
marvellous treasures within and some
most interesting pictures. As OOD, one
is required to do Middle Watch Rounds
inside the Apartments when not on
Royal Duty and I often found it difficult
not to linger over the pictures. Mention
should be made of the fantastic highly
polished Royal Dining Table, the leaves
of which can be arranged in forty
different ways to seat up to fifty-six
guests at a Royal Banquet. No tour is
complete without a visit to the Engine
Room. Most guests expect to be im-
pressed by the Royal Apartments, but
the absence of steam. dirt or oil in the
bilges and the super high polish on all
the pipes, dials and valve handwheels
surprise everyone. In addition the Yacht
boasts a real golden rivet.
Below decks, the laundry always
elicits sympathy. The machinery is some-
what antiquated and the Laundry Crew
produce a marvellous 'same day' service
even in tropical climes when one some-
times uses three different rigs a day. The
crew are Ship's Staff and sometimes
work twenty-three hours out of twenty-
four in a hot, sweaty atmosphere to
complete the load. The Messdecks are
not on the Yacht Tour route but they
were radically done up in the 1972 Refit
already mentioned to put everyone in
bunks. Prior to this many Yachtsmen
were still slinging hammocks - some of
the last ratings in the Fleet to be so
doing. The Yachtsmen also have a very
nice Beer Bar known on board as the
Unwinding Room. Beer is not rationed
and this is a highly valued privilege
which is seldom abused.
Perks
I was often asked how much one sees
of the Royals whilst they are on board.
The whole concept of the Yacht is that
it is a Royal 'home'. as already men-

tioned, and our aim was to be as un-
obtrusive as possible whilst 'they' were
embarked. As an example all my seamen
had to be clear of the Royal Decks aft
after 0900 in the morning if the Queen
was on board.
However all officers are personally
introduced to the Queen and the Duke
of Edinburgh as soon as possible after
joining, and again before they leave. We
were also all required to assist at Royal
Receptions, Presentations etc. These are
quite often fairly large evolutions re-
quiring briefing beforehand and tact and
firmness in execution. Perhaps the best
'privilege' is dining aft with the Royal
Household. This usually happens at sea
and one or two officers are asked down
individually to lunch or dinner. One is
seated next to the Queen or the Duke of
Edinburgh and I suppose most officers
would say that this is the memory they
cherish most long after they've left the
Yacht.
Apart from the on board 'perks' there
are some rather nice shore-side ones
- invitations to Ascot, Royal Garden
Parties, the Staff Dance at Windsor
Castle, a biennial lunch and tour of
Buckingham Palace etc.
To sum up I hope I have given an
indication of what Royal. Yacht Service
is like. To anyone who ever questions
the validity or cost-effectiveness of a
Royal Yacht in this day and age,
FORY's PR reply is that, apart from
being the best and most secure way of
conveying the Queen on Royal Tours, it
is worth five frigates in 'selling' the U.K.
abroad. Yacht Service is totally unlike
any other branch of the Navy but it is
enormously rewarding and I am very
glad to have had the opportunity to
serve on board.
N. A. F.
Recollections of Assault Unit No.30-I1
The first positive evidence of the
existence of Walterboats was found at
Hamburg, which was entered on 3 May;
there two of them, U 1408 and 1410,
heavily damaged by bombs, were lying
on the jetty. The form of their hulls,
resembling a gigantic fish rather than a
conventionzl submarine, was an imme-
diate clue to unusual speed. It was clear
that certain parts, mainly the 'boiler'
unit of a turbine drive, had been cut out
with a blow-torch and removed. I got
hold of Rudolph Blohm of Blohm and
Voss, who after a show of reluctance to
discuss the machinery, eventually re-
vealed the performance figures for this
type, the Type XVII U-boat; disclosed
the principle of the Walter drive, and
confirmed that the fuel was the
mysterious hydrogen peroxide.
On the same day the Army advance
was halted at Liibeck on political in-
structions owing to negotiations with the
advancing Russians. Colonel Quill ob-
tained permission from the British
general to proceed unofficially to Kiel,
on the clear understanding that there
could be no support if things went
wrong. So on 4 May a 30 A.U. team
under Commander Dunstan Curtis,
together with a troop of S.A.S., raced
into Kiel ahead of the first Army
detachments, and proceeded direct to
the Walterwerke which they made their

HQ. They secured Doctor Walter who
was living next to his works, which they
found 90% intact.
I was at Hamburg on VE day which
stran'gely passed unnoticed in the rather
breathtaking pace of events, and the
next day drove up to Kiel. In the
comfort of a staff car it was a uniquely
moving experience heading through the
hordes of Wehrmacht, still fully armed,
straggling dejectedly in their thousands
towards the detention camps to which
they had been directed. On arrival at
Kiel I did a preliminary interrogation,
with Captain A. L. Mumma of the U.S.
Navy, of Doctor Walter, who spoke good
English. We quickly realised how im-
portant the place was, clearly needing
long term investigation; particularly
important, of course, was to find out
what technical developments had been
passed to the Japanese who were still in
the war. After a few days I set up (quite
irregularly, but not without justifica-
tion! ) as Engineer Overseer, and was
soon joined by Lieutenant-Commanders,
(E) 'Bill' Haynes and John Pearson,
with Lieutenant-Commander D. R.
Carling, R.N.V.R. and Sub-Lieutenant
W. Crowdy, to coordinate the countless
investigators (Bfitish and American),
and to control the production side.
The Walterwerke, Kiel
The plant itself, situated on the south
bank of the Kiel Canal, consisted of a
series of well-planned red brick buildings
with extensive testing cells, laboratories,
machine shops, drawing offices and
record rooms, and a handsome Board
Room which was taken over as our
Mess. A feature was the storage arrange-
ments for hydrogen peroxide, contained
in two thick-walled 'bunkers', each
holding ten 20-ton aluminium tanks. A
detachment of the East Surrey Regiment
took over security dudes, though in the
event there was very little for them to
do.
RECOLLECTIONS OF ASSAULT UNIT ~0.30-11 29
A preliminary investigation was most
revealing. There were numerous tor-
pedoes in varying stages of completion;
the entire stern of a Type XVII U-boat
which was coupled to a test brake, and
many other test rigs. Nothing seemed to
have been sabotaged except that in each
rig the vital combustion chamber
arrangements had been removed, clearly
in accordance with a pre-arranged
policy.
Dr. Walter, a rather heavy, fiabby-
cheeked man of about forty-five, talked
freely up to a point about generalities.
He had joined the Nazi Party about
1932; become a leader of industry in
Kiel; formed his own company and
eventually employed some 4,500 people
spread over seven branches some of
which were already in Russian hands.
He claimed that his underlying thought
for many years had been to produce a
fast U-boat, and his primary objective
was therefore to produce an efficient
oxygen carrier for which, after many
substances had been tried, hydrogen
peroxide had been chosen. The concen-
tration had been raised from 30% in
1934 to over 85%, in which state it was
extremely prone to detonation unless
properly handled. When it came to dis-
cussing the methods of using this liquid
in combustion chambers, Walter was
most reluctant to reveal anything, and
it was clear that his attitude accorded
with the sabotage of the combustion
components. Walter, it transpired, was
torn between his previous oaths of
secrecy, his intense fear of releasing any-
thing to the Russians (who were only
forty miles away, beyond Liibeck), and
the evident pressure which was being
put on him by the British and Americans.
Colonel Quill accordingly made an
immediate visit to Donitz's H.Q., which
had been set up at Flensburg on the
Danish border, primarily to demand
detailed information of minefields and
any technical data which had been
released to the Japanese. The matter of

3 O RECOL1.ECTIONS OF ASSAULT UNIT ~0.30-11
divulging secrets was also raised. The intended to launch a hero into im-
next day Captain Mumma U.S.N., mortality sitting on top of a V-1; (Walter
Lieutenant-Commander Bryan Connell affirmed there had been plenty of
R.N.V.R. (now the well known journal- volunteers but the weapon had not yet
ist) and I were sent to collect this in-
formation from the German Fourth Sea
Lord who appended his signature forty
times to a German order that all develop-
ments and secrets of research work were
to be made known 'to the unit under
Colonel Quill' (described as 'Herr
Oberst Quel). Donitz, by now the
Fiihrer, who was seen walking freely in
the street before he was interned, sent a
Kapitan sur Zee to tell Walter (who was
a friend of Donitz) personally that
nothing whatever was to be withheld.
The effect was instantaneous. From that
day 7 May, Walter and his team kept
back nothing.
Then ensued a hilarious series of
discoveries. The average rate of finding
new weapons for the first fortnight was
about two per day. Combustion
chambers were retrieved from the
bottom of flooded bomb craters. A case
containing key torpedo data was dug up
from a hole whose position had been
revealed by the German Director of
Torpedoes; (I was told that his Deputy
then committed suicide because of the
disgrace brought on his superior by thiq
action). Parts of Messerschmidt aircraft
iet engines were fetched from the
Danish border in a train driven by
Lieutenant A. Cameron, R.N.V.R. (now
Professor Cameron), the first train to
cross the Kiel Canal down which
Cameron also brought Walter's peroxide
tanker Polyp. At an outstation near
Boseau on the nearby Ploner Zee, a
sinister ' lake where midget crews,
swimmers and other marine pests were
trained, was found Walter's latest
miniature twenty-five knot one-man
U-boat which had been scuttled so
successfully that the hull had collapsed
~rnder pressure. Here also was a battery
of V-1 launching ramps and early
catapults for trials: one of these was
been tried out). A scorched earth pdlicy
had in many instances only been applied
half-heartedly, if at all, as, for example
in the destruction of only half the
peroxide storage tanks. It was stated that
just before the occupation every single
drawing and calculation had been
burned, which was true; but the devious
German mind needed to play for safety,
and in the event there was found to be a
complete microfilm collection of every-
thing, which was produced from under
the coal in the office coal cellar. These
microfilms formed the basis of the
complete investigation of all Walter's
developments, and were copied for
London and Washington.
With Walter now cooperating fully,
he was ordered to complete the sub-
marine test units. various torpedoes,
aircraft jet engines, the V-1 launching
ramp and other weapons ready for
demonstration to the countless in-
vestigators, the naturally curious and the
V.1.P.s who arrived by the dozen, in-
cluding the First Lord, First Sea Lord
and the U.S. Secretary of the Navy.
About 600 Germans were employed,
being paid initially from the firms
reserves, 'put by', as Walter naively re-
marked, 'to provide for such a con-
tingency'. About 300 Russian slave
workers had been employed in the works,
but they had vanished to their com-
patriots thirty miles to the east as if by
magic. Walter said that whereas they
had arrived like wild beasts, they had
become respectable members of the
community. They had caused little
trouble, except one day when they
demanded to have a bath en masse, and
on another occasion had shot dead one
of the German guards.
We were, of course, acutely conscious
of the proximity of the Russians. It was
a surprise, to put it mildly, when one day

a large North Country sergeant was
shown into the office, nearly brought
down the ceiling with the vigour of his
salute, and announced that not only had
he brought the Russians, but he had
locked them in a room down the
corridor. Expecting an international
incident it was with much relief that we
discovered he was talking about rations
not Russians. The fear of the Russian
soldiery was very real among the
German civilians - particularly the
women, many of whom, including
Walter's secretary whom I took over,
carried cyanide capsules for use should
their homes be overrun from the East.
About this time I again visited
Flensburg for some reason in a small
armoured scout car, to see the liner
being prepared to accommodate the
Allied and German Naval staffs being
called to agree on the official surrender
details. A smooth-operating R.N.V.R.
(Sp) Lieutenant-Commander had been
appointed to arrange the domestic side
of accommodating so many V.1.P.s in
the ship, and kindly offered me two or
three cases of German 'NAAFI'
champagne which I gladly accepted for
our small Mess. But he did not make it
clear, until I heard gutteral shouts and
heavy boots on the jetty that each case
contained twelve dozen, not twelve
bottles! In the event I settled for just
one such case, roped over my head in
the passenger seat. Mercifully there was
no Road Traffic Act or busy Red Caps
to worry about; but I badly needed that
first bottle when we made it back to Kiel.
Hydrogen peroxide
All Walter's energies were directed to
producing an oxygen carrier to produce
large bursts of power for short periods
such as might be required by any one of
a great many weapons. Briefly, hydrogen
peroxide looks like water though it is
heavier, and in its concentrated form
decomposes very readily into steam and
oxygen. In contact with certain sub-
RECOLLECTIONS OF ASSAULT UNIT ~0.30-11 3 1
stances such as paper, oil or rag com-
bustion is immediate and the fluid bursts
into flame. It will react chemically with
any inflammable material, and with any
substance easily oxidised, such as iron,
in contact with which the temperature
will rise rapidly, and unless reduced by
dilution with water will explode at about
180 deg. F., the resulting fire supplying
its own oxygen. So the materials used
with hydrogen peroxide must be very
carefuly chosen indeed - usually certain
aluminium or stainless steels or plastics,
all of which must be scrupulously clean.
To achieve the quick but controlled
reaction needed for power bursts a
catalyst was used; it was to the choice
of catalyst that much of the early
research was directed.
As an example of the need for
cleanliness, Walter told of a factory hand
who had eaten far too many onions for
his health's sake before entering a
peroxide tank to clean it. 'Unfortunately,
his gases they escaped, you understand,
and he was blown - poof - through
the manhole of the tank' (which should
perhaps be taken with a pinch of salt, or
perhaps sage? )
A further development was to pass the
steam and oxygen on dissociation into a
combustion chamber into which diesel
fuel was injected, the burning of the oil
producing superheated steam at an
extremely high temperature (3,500-4,000
deg. F.), too hot in fact to be used in a
turbine without further treatment. This
'hot drive' was the basis of the Walter-
boat machinery, and of certain other
weapons.
For a variety of reasons the peroxide
could not be stored in the U-boat's in-
ternal tanks, and was held in large
external bags made of a plastic (PVC);
so the report of 'fuel in leather bags' was
by no means off the mark.
A further property of peroxide
deserves mention. Walter's research
chemist, Herr Oestreich, had a remark-
able talent for producing a most ex-

3 2 RECOLLECTIONS OF ASSAULT UNIT ~0.30-11
plosive potion by adding a teaspoonful
of it to a bottle of commercial spirits of
wine and letting it mature for a day or
two. It went under the name of 'T-Stoff
Special'.
Walterboats
Walter, starting in 1933 with only
three employees, by 1938 had designed,
produced and actually done trials on a
most remarkable small submarine,
known as V 80. It had a displacement of
eighty-seven tons, a crew of five, and
actually achieved an underwater speed
of twenty-five knots, a speed never again
realised by any submarine until after the
war. Its very novel hull form had been
tested in a wind tunnel at Brunswick
instead of the usual test tank. Sub-
merged speed trials had to be carried
out at night with a light in the conning
tower which an accompanying Edboat
attempted to follow. It is fascinating to
speculate what the Admiralty's reaction
would have been had they known before
the war of this potentially deadly
weapon; a clear example of our in-
different pre-war technical Intelligence.
Thus encouraged the Kriegsmarine
produced to Walter's design a whole
family of trial and operational boats of
up to 1600 tons, including a class of
twenty-four Type XVIIB, two of which
we had seen, damaged, on the jetty at
Hamburg. But the German losses of their
standard diesel-electric boats became so
severe that the production of a fast
U-boat at the earliest possible moment
became imperative. However the Walter
drive was not quite complete and there
was a serious difficulty En the bulk
production of enough peroxide for
operational use. So Donitz decided to
use one of the larger Walterboat hulls,
prefabricated, with battery propulsion
for high underwater speed, and this
became the well known Type XXI which
should have been operational in the last
few days of the war. Eventually only
five of the Type XVIIB were proceeded
with: two we had seen, and the remain-
ing three had passed down the Kiel
Canal to go operational only a matter
of hours before the entry of 30 A.U.
into the Walterwerke. They were
scuttled, and two were finally salved by
the Allies to be towed away to U.K. and
U.S.A.
By 1946 all the important components
at the Walterwerke had been transported
to Vickers, Barrow, where Walter and
seven of his key staff and their families
were taken to work on submarine
developments for the Admiralty. The
peroxide drive was of course to be over-
taken by atomic propulsion, but a great
deal of knowhow on high speed sub-
marines had been learned from the
German developments under Dr. Walter.
The U-boat brought back to U.K. was
used by the Navy as a high-speed target.
Other weapons
Once having established the potential
of hydrogen peroxide the applications
seemed limitless. Walter's team set about
manufacturing devices intended to oper-
ate below, on or above the seas, the sum
total of originality displayed being
formidable. The ubiquitous V-1 flying
bomb, for instance, relied for its initial
speed on launching from a 150 yard
ramp, with the primary boost provided
by peroxide. A trials ramp on the
Planer Zee was reactivated by 30 A.U.
and the launch of a dummy provided a
popular sideshow for visitors. It was in-
vestigated at great length by Commander
C. C. Mitchell, R.N.V.R., who had in
parallel patented and developed the
slotted cylinder catapult, later to be
used in the carriers of many nations,
and incorporating some of the ideas of
the Germans. Then there was the huge
V-2 rocket, a trial launch of which I
actually saw, which relied for its pump-
ing power on peroxide.
Among the surface vessels were
various jet-driven hydrofoil boats, un-
manned and packed with explosives: and

RECOLLECTIONS OF ASSAULT UNIT ~0.30-11 3 3
a somewhat ludicrous thing called another year. Ship and aircraft torpedoes
Cleopatra which was designed to run up were in full production at a nearby
on dry land like a stranded whale to factory at Eckernforde (even a week or
explode beach defences. Of the things so after VE Day as 'no one had told us
dropped from the air there was the to stop'! ); though none had gone into
notorious radio-controlled HS 193 glider service 800 had been delivered to the
bomb which caused extensive damage to
Allied shipping, and a jet brake for
mines to reduce the impact on hitting
the water. The Blohm and Voss 143 jet-
driven glider bomb was designed for use
against coastal shipping.
There were many small 'freak'
weapons. When the Russians were un-
sporting enough to coat their military
tanks with concrete to prevent the
gallant Wehrmacht running up and
attaching 'sticky' magnetic charges,
Walter produced a grenade with a jet,
the reaction from which would force the
thing against the side of the tank. There
is a Chinese proverb 'Only velly sly man
can discharge cannon silently'; so it is
hardly surprising that Walter produced
a 'flashless and silent cannon' rejoicing
in the name of 'P-Werfer'. There was
also a remotely controlled small military
tank, loaded with explosives, which was
German Navy in Norway. They were
turbine-driven which explained the great
number of small diameter turbines which
the Unit had noticed at many factories
during the advance. But the really
superb achievement was the engine for
the Messerschmidt 163 interceptor
fighter, which was the first aircraft in
the world to be powered solely by jet.
The plans for this engine were sold to
the Japanese for twenty million marks
in the last months of the war. From an
engine weighing only 3901b. a speed of
600 m.p.h. was obtained; a film showing
a take-off and climb to six miles almost
vertically in two minutes was as breath-
taking to an audience of 1945 as was the
first moon rocket film many years later.
Trials of this engine were frequently run
for investigators at the Walterwerke; the
noise produced could only be described
as shattering, and even with ear protec-
treated with derision by the Allies, tors it produced a strange physical
though it was meant for use against nausea. In a final desperate attempt to
Moscow. Other developments using master the Allied air attacks, the engine
peroxide included a small short range had been incorporated into an astonish-
torpedo fired from U-boats designed to ing manned flak rocket. When under a
burst and make a patch of oil to deceive flight of bombers the unfortunate oper-
surface hunters; an extremely long range ator was intended to release four smaller
gun, some lengthy barrels of which had
been uncovered during the Allies'
advance and which had holes along their
length into which peroxide was injected;
a high-speed wind tunnel; and a mine-
sweeping device producing repeated
explosions underwater to detonate
acoustic mines.
Apart from U-boat propulsion, how-
ever, the firm's major efforts were
directed towards torpedoes and aircraft
jet engines, and in both these fields some
staggering technical advances had been
made, the results of which would have
been devastating had the war lasted
rockets towards the target, and then
descend by parachute. Only one manned
trial was carried out, the luckless victim
achieving immortality quicker than was
intended, as he did not return.
Walter himself and Kriegsmarine
personnel
All in all Walter and his team pro-
duced a very formidable armoury,
perhaps of the sort which might have
looked well in a catalogue of weapons
thirty years later designed to appeal to
certain Middle East gentlemen. But, as
so often with German engineering at

34 RECOLLECTIONS OF ASSAULT UNIT ~0.30-11
that time, the solutions were brilliantly
elegant but at the expense of over-
complication and with the true require-
ment in doubt. One of Walter's staff
thought his master's name would go
down in history in the same category as
Dr. Diesel or Dr. Otto. Undoubtedly the
development of the fast U-boats; V-1 and
V-2; and the Messerschmidt jet engine,
were probably out-ranked in technical
merit only by the Allies development
of atomic energy and radar. At V-J Day,
when asked what he thought of the
atomic bombs which had just fallen on
Japan, Walter replied that he considered
that atomic energy was only one stage
ahead of his own work in that both
processes were merely accumulators of
energy - a nice conceit but not without
some element of truth. He added that
'our Dr. Eisenburg was doing very well
in Norway, but unfortunately the British
disarranged him'!
I got to know Walter and his key staff
very well, and though our relationship
was of necessity coolly formal, mutual
respect was established, and he worked
loyally for U.K. interests. This was,
perhaps, in keeping with his background
as an entrepreneur par excellence who
would have employed his undoubted
technical ability in the service of what-
ever political system happened to be in
the ascendant. His close friendship with
Donitz helped, and he had, I believe, the
ear of the Fiihrer in so far as Hitler had
any interest in anything naval. After
some years at Vickers, Barrow, he was
released to work on his own account in
U.S.A., and I believe is now back in his
native country.
Though it is risky to try to remember
exactly what one thought over thirty
years ago, I had at that time the clear
impression that the few German
admirals I met were people who one
somehow felt demanded almost the same
respect as did our own flag officers. One
in particular who was being most helpful
and courteous used to receive occasional
small gifts in the way of tins of bully
etc., which he badly needed, without any
loss of dignity on his part. One felt he
was a genuine survivor of a pre-Hitler
navy, hating much of what he felt
obliged to accept. Yet the few of my
own contemporaries - commanders
downwards - whom I met were gen-
erally arrogant and insufferable. At the
bottom end of the scale the ordinary
young sailor resembled our own in nearly
everything except language and uniform.
Two in particular I remember we kept
on as boat-keepers. They were clean,
efficient, intensely obedient - and
particularly responsive when they
suddenly realised that they were being
treated as human beings instead of re-
mote working hands dominated by
fanatical young Nazi officers.
Other activities
The German surrender brought little
respite for 30 A.U. whose teams became
increasingly busy as more and more
targets were uncovered, calling for visits
to sites all over Western Germany. In
June I went for a few days to Frankfurt,
the HQ. of SHAEF, which was situated
in the seven story office block of I. G.
Farben, the giant chemical concern. It
was rumoured that this quarter-mile long
building completely escaped the devasta-
tion of the surrounding city owing to the
complex pre-war commercial connec-
tions which the firm held with U.S.A.
On another trip I visited a V-1 and
V-2 factory at Nordhausen, built in four
miles of tunnel cut into the hillside, with
components entering at one end and the
completed missiles emerging on railway
wagons at the other. The huge V-2s,
6Jfoot diameter cylinders, reared up
about thirty feet as if in some Wagnerian
devil's kitchen, as indeed it was since it
was largely staffed by slave labour.
Outside, the slave hospital continued to
hold many walking skeletons, too ill to
be moved, still in their grotesque striped
overalls, dying off at two or three a day.

The sight of the cremation ovens, the
slab where gold fillings were abstracted
and the bone ash-pit left one with a
blind and sickening rage against the
Nazi regime. ,
As for Kiel itself, little remained: the
ruins still covered many thousands killed
in the raids just before VE Day. Flag
Officer Schleswig-Holstein not un-
naturally moved out to the more
salubrious surroundings of the barracks
on the banks of the Ploner Zee - an
operation described most divertingly in
The Naval Review recently.*
Happier days of superb relaxation
arose with the taking over of the
German Naval yachts, the two largest
of which, Nordwind and Skaggerak,
were based at Kiel, and 30 A.U. ran the
former as a Mess yacht. Haynes,
Pearson and I had all cruised quite a lot,
but seventy tons was a little larger than
anything we had enjoyed in peacetime.
Nordwind had done very well in the
Fastnet race of 1939 and sailed like a
witch, but needed a crew of over a dozen
to handle the heavy gear. Being wooden
and without an engine she could sail
with comparative safety over the ground
mines littering the Baltic. There was
nearly an ugly incident one night when
sailing with an Army week-end crew. A
large unlit wreck suddenly showed up
100 yards ahead, and a gybe all-standing
was necessary. The Danish harbour-
master at Nykobing next morning asked
what route the yacht had taken, and
when told of the wreck expressed
astonishment that we had come south of
Lolland, where 'there are forty wrecks,
and no-one knows where they are! '
After a season of tremendous enjoyment
in the Baltic I took the yacht back to
Portsmouth the following spring with a
crew of seventeen where she was turned
over to C.-in-C. Portsmouth.
"Thirty Years On' by Zilch, The Naval
Review, October 1975.
RECOLLECTIONS OF ASSAULT UNIT ~0.30-11 35
Conclusions
By the autumn of 1945 30 A.U. in
Germany had been disbanded (though
Glanville with the redoubtable Marine
Booth continued in the Far East with
great success); the Engineer Officers
remained behind and moved into a
delightful mess in the Torpedo Research
Station overlooking the Baltic at
Eckernforde. All essential information
had been indexed on microfilm. The
U-boat stern and its test rig was shipped
to U.S.A., and a later version went to
Vickers, Barrow, for use with the
German team. The factory was cleared
of all war materials, the peroxide
bunkers were blown up and the buildings
were turned over to Military Government
for civilian use.
Looking back on this fascinating
period I realise the great importance of
two things. First, of building up Intelligence
in peace time, a subject excellently
covered in Donald MacLachlan's
Room 39, and in particular the importance
of keeping technical Intelligence
abreast of advances of technology - an
aspect obviously now fully recognised, at
least by the Russians. Secondly, for
anyone involved, the value of a language
goes without saying. I am sure I could
have done better had I had something
more than the rudimentary elements
culled, in the days before language
laboratories, from an excellent little
Army booklet narrating the adventures
of 'Bill und Jock ein Deutchland',
designed for the British occupying
forces. This was a great advance on a
terrible American counterpart which
listed categories of needs, such as:
'Which is the way to . . . the barracks,
the lavatory, the beerhouse. . . ?'
'I want a . . . tooth brush, woman,
money exchange, meal.. . .'
The creator of James Bond had
certainly initiated something the results
of which he could hardly have foreseen.
certainly not on the scale of
Sean Connery's hair-raising exploits, and

36 RECOLLECTIONS OF AS SAULT UNIT ~0.30-11
regrettably quite devoid of any
glamorous overtones, our fun and games
had, if nothing else, provided all mem-
bers of the Unit with a grandstand on a
page in history.
Note: My sincere thanks are due to
Colonel R. H. Quill, C.B.E., D.S.O.,
M.V.O., Royal Marines, Rear Admiral
AST 403 and You
W. A. Haynes, C.B., O.B.E., and Lieu-
tenant-Commander T. J. Glanville,
D.S.C., R.N.V.R., who so kindly racked
their brains to recollect some of the
things which happened to us over thirty
years ago.
I. G. AYLEN
(concluded)
After the existing Jaguar and Harrier special gift for procurement crystal ball
aircraft end their useful Royal Air Force gazing, but each has shown a sad dislives
in a decade or so, the R.A.F. plans position for spending a lot of money on
to be committed to two combat aircraft. things that don't come to fruition, or are
One, you will know, is the Tornado, virtually useless if they do. TSR2, the
also known as the MRCA, now on order Bird class patrol vessels, and that species
at E6m. each; the other, and the cause of jeep which had to be sold off to the
of this article, is currently being staffed armies of newly independent ex-colonies
around Whitehall under the pseudonym in the mid-sixties as it was of no practical
of AST 403 (Air Staff Target four oh value to any professional army, are all
three). As a naval officer one can only examples of this misfortune; but the
know what has already been divulged to costliest and most frequent problems
the press, but as a new aircraft type can have traditionally occurred in the air
be ten years or more in gestation it is world, both in this country and elsequite
clear that AST 403 will soon be a where.
very hot potato indeed if the aircraft In theory, since the days of the
that results is to reach service by the end 'V'-bombers procurement effort, a lot
of the 80s.
has changed. For a start we have fewer
403 aims to meet the requiremerits
of tactical ground support, and
interdiction of the enemy's tactical
ground support, in Europe. To do this
the Air Staff believe an aircraft should
be supersonic, highly manoeuvrable,
capable of shifting a good weapon load,
and working in an electronic environment.
They have in the past eighteen
months refined their selection of designs
capable of meeting these criteria down
from thirty to five.
U.K. aircraft companies competing for
a limited amount of R.A.F. work; there
is more, far more, international collaboration,
e.g. Jaguar, Lynx and
Harrier; and importantly, procurement
(nasty word) for all three Services has
come under the umbrella of MOD(PE).
There is some evidence of the success
of these changes, which has already
been quoted; but equally there is
evidence to show that the Services'
mistakes such as H,M. ships
Kingfisher et a1 are not prevented by
As we all know, either from experience MOD(PE). This is not to say that
or reading, neither the Air Staff, nor the AST 403 will not produce an excellent
Naval Staff, nor the General Staff has a aeroplane: I am sure that even now the

lights are burning late at Adastral House Now it happens that Invincible can
in an effort to ensure that at this early only operate VSTOL aircraft, and that
stage AST 403 is staffed thoroughly, so the last of the five designs currently
that the baton for its design and procure- being examined for AST 403 is for a
ment can be passed cleanly from team to VSTOL aeroplane. There is a military
team over the next ten years or so, until view, backed strongly by people with
the aircraft is in service. Harrier experience, that conventional
But whatever type of aircraft is aircraft will never succeed Under future
eventually rolled out one thing is sure - battle conditions in Europe because their
it will be of the expensive kind. And runways will be 'taken-out' very early in
with equal certainty it can be said that
knowledge of past mistakes and fore-
knowledge of AST 403's eventual very
large slice of the Defence budget will
provoke controversy of the fiercest kind
between the three, or is it four?, staffs.
The arguments will spill beyond this
small arena too, because the U.K.
market for battlefield superiority aircraft
is too small to support the national
development of AST 403, and the final
outcome will compete with American,
French, and consortium designs, for an
international market of which the
R.A.F. are but a small part.
In the midst of the discussion there
is only one question of major importance
to the Navy. What, if anything, is going
to replace the Sea Harrier? Of course
there are other questions, but of the
defensive kind. Questions of what
projects can we protect from the
Treasury, as the budget for AST403
starts to perform Alice in Wonderland
tricks. But that one basic question is
the reason why AST 403 is of relevance
to this Review. The through deck cruiser
will still be with us at the turn of the
century, but unless it has a useful air-
craft with which to strike at potential
enemies, the class will join Hampshire
on the scrap heap of naval history.
However it cannot be conceived that the
Navy will re-enter the field of carrier
aviation to the extent of designing and
building new aircraft designs for its own
use. Nor indeed would any firm wish to
be involved unless it was hell bent on
bankruptcy. So the Navy must look to
the R.A.F. and AST403.
the proceedings. It is not a new thought.
and is the reason why you will
periodically see photographs of more
normal strike aircraft being put through
their paces taking off and landing from
motorways. It is the basic justification
for including a VSTOL design
amongst those under consideration. But
the Navy has already backed VSTOL in
launching the TDCs, and unless AST 403
also backs VSTOL, the Navy will once
again run out of fixed wing aircraft,
some time between 1990 and 2000.
We already know that the chances
of the AST producing a VSTOL result
are about five to one against. In fact it
had done well to survive this far because
there was only ever one design; the
other twenty-nine were more standard.
However the odds are even longer than
5: 1 because a VSTOL aircraft will fore-
seeably be more expensive and because
fighting aircraft have traditionally used
runways. The chances of another nation
going VSTOL are small. Tactics have
traditionally followed technical develop-
ments, and that tends to depend on
investment; only two countries have
invested in VSTOL, and the American
Harrier is continually sniped at from the
Congressional lobbies of the American
aviation industry. Depend upon it, if as
looks likely AST 403 does not go
VSTOL, the future of the Invincible as
an operator of fixed wing aircraft is
bleak.
There are four options which provide
a solution for the R.N. The first is to
scrap the rest of the TDC programme.
which would effectively emasculate the

3 8 AST 403 AND YOU
Navy. The second is to back AST 403's
VSTOL design with Navy votes, if
necessary sacrificing some surface ships
into the bargain, which is a fairly
realistic idea provided we let the R.A.F.
get on with the subsequent programme
so as to avoid compromising our
different requirements into some hideous
hybrid aircraft. The third is to buy the
Harrier and Pegasus production lines
from BAC/Rolls Royce when produc-
tion ceases so that we can carry on
building aircraft when the need arises.
All to be of a
Gone were the Eton suits and bowler
hats as, arrayed in our cadet's uniform,
we gathered on Paddington Station,
anxiously eyeing our parents for any
social solecisms, before we were handed
over to the Navy in the shape of our two
cadet captains and the 'Term' chief
petty officer.
Conformity was what seemed to matter
in those days and my mother, always a
non-conformist at heart, had seen no
reason why she should buy an expensive
green Gieves trunk when the old (and
far larger) black one which had served
my brother at public school was still
available. Speechless with embarrassment
I joined the others and we took our
seats four-a-side and listened to the un-
comprehended words of warning and
advice delivered to us by our mentors
As we reached Kingswear the Navy
seemed less and less attractive. Followed
by forty-one green trunks and one black
one we huddled aboard the Mew to be
ferried over to Dartmouth. And from
there, a raggle-taggle crew, we marched,
although that word hardly describes our
graceless progress, through the rain
driven streets and up the hill to the
College.
After all, recent experience seems to
have shown that obsolete airframes can
acquit themselves well in combat even
if modern surface ships cannot, without
air support. The fourth option is
Micawber's, 'something will turn up',
i.e. do nothing, or do a little bit of every-
thing to while away the time. There is
not a bookmaker between DolphEn Creek
and H.M.S. Vulcan who would not take
money on the last option.
A.D. J.
Most of us were sensitive, reasonably
intelligent and, often, athletic children.
Academically we were towards the top
of the Common Entrance standard and
several could certainly have won scholar-
ships to a good public school. For each
one of us who boarded the train five or
six had failed. At Dartmouth we lived
totally under the dominion of the past
and in fear of the cane. Indeed, like the
Beadle in Oliver Twist, the Cadet
Gunner paraded it before us as we lay
'at attention', shivering, in our beds, on
our first night. We were still far short of
fourteen.
The Fleet, as we now know, was on
the downward path to mutiny. But
mutiny, like sodomy, rum or the lash
would always be part of the naval scene;
so most of us, painfully and usually with
considerable surprise and embarrass-
ment, would soon come to learn.
Those fearful, faithful pedagogues of
the Dartmouth establishment linked us
back to the wooden walls of the
Britannia and soaked us in its tradition.
In this they were aided and abetted by
the 'Term Officers', their pupils of a few
years before and the Cadet Captains,
their pupils still. At a moment in naval

history when promotion to commander
came to less than one in three an
appointment to Dartmouth and still
more the performance of their 'Term' at
games, on the River or Parade Ground,
could well shorten the odds. So keenness
was called for and there was also acute
frustration. It was a College rule that
no married executive officer could keep
his wife nearer than Plymouth. And
there were few officers, on naval pay,
who could afford a wife and a car.
Although, in after years, I found the
two whose unlucky chance it was to
deal with my Term to be utterly charm-
ing and cultured people no bridge and
little understanding ever developed
between us. With hindsight I suspect
we all, perhaps unconsciously, sensed
that the (E) officers were cast in a rather
different mould to their executive
counterparts. There were fewer of them
and they were not seen much about the
College, but in the workshops or off
duty they came over as talented and
much more relaxed individualists. There
was the one who raced his car at Brook-
lands (as many other (E) officers did)
and who had ideas before Von Braun on
rocket propulsion. Few who were
there will forget the hilarious afternoon
he fired a small rocket propelled car
across the sacred rugger patch. And
then there was he who, in years to come,
was to be the first (E) officer 'to fly his
flag' as an admiral, who used to take us
out on Sundays in his speed boat and
cheerfully recount some of the few
repeatable exploits of the younger
masters and officers he had transported
by sea to Torquay, the night before. The
(E) officers seemed to be relegated to the
background in the college life, but their
influence, almost subliminal, was quite
considerable.
The Dartmouth system
Life quickly settled into a rather grim
routine. The first wild ringing of the
firebell sent us naked into the plunge
ALL TO BE OF A COMPANY-IV 39
and out again before the ringing stopped.
Then half dry and shivering we stood
at attention at our basins awaiting the
orders to 'wash our necks', 'our teeth',
and to 'stow tooth brushes' (bristles to
the right): then 'get dressed'. Godliness
at Dartmouth, coming after cleanliness,
the next order was 'say your prayers'.
Here, so innocently, we thought at first,
was an opportunity to catch our breath.
But although a leisurely meditation on
the life hereafter may be good for the
soul we soon found that 'Heavenpower'
was no match for naval discipline. The
price we had to pay for dallying was
infinitely painful on more precisely
identifiable parts of our anatomy. Alas
we were not the stuff of martyrs. Then
there were 'Strafes'. Space does not
permit a description of these psycho-
logical and physical punishments. Today
the authorities would be landed in the
Law Courts, at least.
So, wherever we came from, whatever
we were, poor or rich, bright or dim,
Dartmouth took us and hammered us
and beat us, as far as it could, into a
pattern. Some could not stand it and
left. Others feigned or actually attempted
suicide and were removed. Just a few
beat the system and retained their
individuality unscarred. I was fortunate
that one such was my own close friend;
and he carried me through. He had a
supreme contempt for the whole regime.
He did his level best to avoid games,
because games bored him. He ate
plentifully and well at the canteen, be-
cause he could afford to and he enjoyed
the good things of life. He was neither
popular nor unpopular; and did not care
a jot anyway. He did the minimum of
work which would ensure that he passed
out successfully. Strafes, beatings, that
mysterious thing 'The Term Spirit', left
him largely unmoved. But he it was who
sustained me as he was to sustain others
in the years ahead. The same equable
spirit took him, on a rare leave, into the
R.A.F., to help fill a shortage of navi-

40 ALL TO BE OF A COMPANY-IV
gators; and thus over Germany. Then
into a fireship, destined for a one-way
trip to Calais. An MTB and then a
River Gunboat in which he was sunk
failed to satisfy him. So after a few days
living in Alexandria in the luxury he
enjoyed, he hitched a lift with the R.A.F.
to Tobruk, for which he had volun-
teered. When the plane crashed on take
off he went back to the Cecil and the
flesh pots, and then took passage in
H.M.A.S. Parramatta. And that is the
end of the story because with Captain
Walker and many gallant Australians he
paid the price of Admiralty, as I think
he always knew he had to. But he proved
quite conclusively that 'The System' at
Dartmouth was not omnipotent.
For the majority of us who feared to
buck it, who were cast in a softer or
more malleable mould, few ordeals in
the war to come were quite so bad as the
sum of our Dartmouth time. Indeed the
(true) tale is told of he who is now
Gentleman Usher of the Black Rod and
whose enduring courage and fortitude
in a Japanese Prison Camp did so much
to sustain his fellow prisoners. 'How did
you stand it?' one of his rescuers asked,
when the story of his savage beatings
and maltreatment was retailed by others.
'Well, four years at Dartmouth helped'
was the cheerful reply from the small
emaciated figure.
Whatever the truth of the matter,
somehow in the process we managed to
build a veneer of manhood before our
time. And it was to grow deeper as we
joined the Fleet, before more of our
contemporaries had reached the VIth
Form.
'Remember then that your vocation,
deliberately chosen, is war'. So ran the
words of the old seamanship manual.
Statistically, Lord Moran seems to
suggest', fewer of those with a Dart-
mouth upbringing 'broke' under the
strain of war than those with a more
conventional education. Painful though
it had been at the time, perhaps that is
what it was all about.
Anyway, barely half of us were to
see our t'hirtieth birthdays. And for those
fortunate enough to do so, and thus to
play a part in 'the ordering of the Fleet'
in the fifties and sixties, Dartmouth and
even more the crucible through which
we were to pass left us with a sense of
comradeship, a sense of being 'all of one
company', however we entered the Navy
and in whatever role the Navy finally
cast us. Happily, too, some of our
seniors were of the same mind.
And so to sea
Here we must turn for a moment to
the broader naval scene at the start of
the thirties. Captain Roskil12 has des-
cribed the evolution of the Mate Scheme
and the enhancement of the Lower Deck
Entry which Mr. Alexander initiated but
in the general discussion of officer train-
ing the question of sail training has to
be mentioned. Towards the end of the
twenties a number of different currents
of public and naval opinion came
together and resulted in some powerful
advocacy for the reintroduction of sail
training into the Royal Navy. There was
the strong feeling, already referred to,
that the failure to achieve a Trafalgar
during World War I was due to a lack,
somewhere, of the 'Nelson Touch'.
There was the introduction of Staff
Training, so long resisted in the Navy
and as Admiral Chatfield describeshtill
mist-usted and believed inimical to good
leadership; and finally there was the
Invergordon mutiny, as a culmination
to a number of cases of ill discipline. If
the circumstances of Invergordon raised
public doubts about the leadership
qualities of naval officers (as they did)
there was also an inept Board of Ad-
'Lord Moran, Anatomy of Courage
(Constable) D. 101.
'~aval ~olic~ Between the Wars, Vol. I1
pp. 31-35.
3The Navy and Defence, p.229.

miralty looking for any excuse to cover
up their own negligence, vacillation and
general incompetence. Nearly all other
navies had sail training, as indeed many
do to this day. Here, surely was what
had been wrong. The malign influence
of machinery and Fisher was coming
home to roost. Sweep it all away. Lithe
young figures, cadets and seamen,
running up the ratlines and out onto the
yards; surely service 'before the mast'
must be the answer. Old eyes gleamed
with excitement. Cheeks made ruddy by
the weather on open bridges (or by gin)
glowed brighter. The 'Senior' reaffirmed
that engineer officers would never be
admitted to membership.
Happily for the Navy, with a new
Board and under Admiral Chatfield's
wise direction, the temptation was
resisted. But the Training Cruiser came
instead. And so with my term mates I
found myself amongst the last cadets to
join the Fleet direct from Dartmouth.
The crisis of leadership
Although like most of my generation
I had read Charles Morgan's The Gun-
room and was prepared by four years at
Dartmouth for the bullying it portrayed,
the reality in the Hood at least (and I
believe it was general) was wholly
different. The contrast between the
primitive tribalism of Dartmouth and a
mature Gunroom was breathtaking. We
were not mature all the time, of course,
and the cane or dirk scabbard were
occasionally, and very effectively,
used. But the whole life was a boy's
dream come true. They were all there
as Bartimeus and Taffrail had told us
they would be. Guns and Torps, the
Pilot and the Bo'sun, the Chippie and
the Gunner, the Springer, the Schoolie
and the Senior, and best of all the brass
funnelled picket boats on which those
of us lucky enough to have the chance
spent most of our 316 per day. From
0600 when we slipped out of our ham-
mocks to do our morning PT or arms
ALL TO BE OF A COMPANY-IV 4 1
drill, and to polish the Gunroom brass-
work, until 2200 when we swung our-
selves into them again we rarely stopped
- or wanted to. As we kep5 watch on the
Bridge or on the Quarterdeck, or ran
over the great Lower Boom and down the
jackstay to our heaving boats, from our
hammock boys (the only people onboard
younger and poorer than we were), from
the ordinary and able seamen and from
the lordly chief and petty officers, from
that unhappily now extinct dinosaur the
Royal Marine Gunner and (in our parti-
cular case in the Hood) from Lieutenant
Commander Pursey, still happily a con-
tributor to The Naval Review, we
learnt so much and certainly more than
any book or formal instruction could
teach us.
So, in the pursuit of 'Leadership' all
this was abandoned. To those who assert,
rightly, that the Training Ship merely
postponed the arrival in the Fleet for
eight months I would answer that the
psychological factor was neglected. The
whole Dartmouth training was tailored
to the moment when the Cadet would
join THE FLEET. To postpone this
even for a month, let alone eight months,
and to substitute for it a return to all
the early absurdities of the Dartmouth
regime, created a high degree of bloody-
mindedness, or so my near contem-
poraries at Keyham always asserted. It
had another interesting impact too. For
many of the best and most thoughtful
Dartmouth cadets it was becoming ap-
parent, through some strange alchemy I
cannot precisely identify (as I was not
one of them) that there were two sorts of
leadership in the Navy. There was
'Executive' leadership, founded on noise
and shouting and smartness and drill.
On the other hand there was submarine
or engine room leadership which ap-
pealed more to a man's spirit and
intelligence. In the Fleet I think that as
midshipmen we instinctively recognised
the practitioners of the two arts;
although in my case it was not till

42 ALL TO RE OF A COMPANY-IV
Commander Rory O'Conor joined the operational as long as they are needed.'
Hood that we came to accept that the And he added, seeing that I still doubted,
second, not the first, was the wave of 'mobility is by no means the least,
the future. For those who went to the though perhaps the oldest of these
Cadet Training Cruiser however, on top weapons. Do you not think this is a
of Dartmouth, the subliminal influence cause worth staying in the Navy to
of some of the (E) term officers, the promote?' Few young midshipmen
cruises in the Forres at Dartmouth, and
what they saw went on above and below
decks in the Training Cruiser convinced
an appreciable number of the best and
the brightest that their future in the
Navy should be in engineering and (I
suspect but without such precise
statistics) in submarines. It is certainly
true that the Geddes axe was only just
in the immediate past and that the
country was going into a slump, and so
possibly parents encouraged the switch
to a profession more likely to earn bread
and butter outside the Navy. But I have
little doubt that the sudden influx of
alpha class and cadet captain 'Darts'
to Keyham in the mid-thirties had a
very considerable impact a few years
later, on engineering practice in the
Navy, as well as on helping to bridge
the gap which Fisher had sought to
bridge, and which reactionary elements
in the twenties had tried to make per-
manent.
Twofold tragedy
But the tragedy of all this bickering
needs much more precise definition. It
was not just amour propre on the part
of engineers. It was not the stupidity of
the executive. Though doubtless there
were both. The tragedy was naval and
national.
As my Captain' said when the extra
time he had won for me as an executive
ran out and I had unwillingly to shed
my dirk and telescope and either leave
the Navy or ship the purple, 'engineers
have to place into the hands of those
who fight the naval battle the most
effective weapons that the state of their
art can achieve; and then go into battle
with those weapons and keep them
could have had wiser council.
The engineer in the navy requires to
be given a training which will make him
an effective bridge between the highest
state of the art in industry and the future
state of the art as research indicates
such may be, on the one side, and those
who control the battle and the money
bags on the other. To do this he has to
achieve the respect and understanding of
both sides. But he also has to have a
sure judgement (and in the nature of
things it can only be a judgement) of
what the market can stand. And the
market is the rough sea, the human
material of his own navy, and the
enemy's potential. It is a grim respon-
sibility.
The tragedy was twofold. There were
the Fisher officers (E) with bridge
watchkeeping certificates and the
respect of their contemporaries and some
subsequent - excellent but rather short
- engineering training at Greenwich;
there were the 'Engineer' officers whose
entry had stopped in 1910; and there
were the new Keyham (E) officers whose
entry had restarted in the mid-twenties
and who, by the early thirties were only
just establishing themselves. No re-
search. No development. Very little new
in the pipeline. And for what there was,
in the shape of the 16-inch turrets in
Nelson and Rodney, no provision had
been made for maintenance, other than
a few gallant warrant ordnance officers
and artificers, and a couple of tin sheds
at Whale Island. Like Messrs Gieves,
Vickers have long been the recipients of
naval 'flak'. It is terrifying to con-
4Captain T. H. Binney who, by chance, had
been on the Interview Board which sent my
Term to Dartmouth.

template where we would have been
without Commander Craven and his
ardent colleagues of that great firm.
It is certainly true that money was
short, then as now. And it is by no
means certain that if the Navy had had
the technologists it should, the situation
would have been much better. Never-
theless the responsibility for neglect,
amounting almost to treachery, would
have rested where it should, and where
it rests today, on the shoulders of the
government. As it is, sadly, the blame
must rest with the successive Boards in
the twenties. And the price of Admiralty
exacted between 1939 and 1945 was
correspondingly exorbitant.
But the mood was changing fast and
if I quote the obituary notice in The
Times of a Fisher (E) officer, I know
that he would be the first to acknow-
ledge that he was only one of a couple
of dozen or more who, by their inspira-
tion, and friendship with their executive
contemporaries, contributed immeasur-
ably, over a great span of naval activity,
to the injection of the Fisher legacy into
a new generation:
Rear Admiral C. P. Berthon C.B.
Charles Pierre Berthon was one
of the group of Fisher scheme
officers who opted for engineering
when the idea of a combined
executive and engineer officer was
abandoned.
With others he set himself to
damp down the acrimony the
abandonment had caused and
during his two spells as Dean of the
Royal Naval Engineering College
at Keyham he forcefully proclaimed
the unity of purpose which must
exist between seaman and engineer;
and the unlimited personal res-
ponsibility of the Engineer Officer
of any ship, to his Captain, for the
machinery. During this period he
foresaw the future technical needs
of the Navy and it is a matter of
ALL TO BE OF A COMPANY-IV 43
history that he first 'beat the
bounds' of Manadon where the
great new engineering . . college now
stands.
His 'unlimited personal responsibility'
got him into trouble in 1939
with the Admiralty when, as Chief
of H.M.S. Hood, he forcefully
denounced the decision not to retube
her condensers; and how right
he was became apparent within a
few weeks of war starting.
The machinery of A.B.C.'s small
ships was his. And he was never
happier than waiting at the 'Gate'
in Alexandria to board a destroyer
as it limped back from Crete or
Greece or Tobruk, and give to the
weary Chief, often an ex-pupil, all
the great engineering and personal
help of which he was capable.
From there he went to build up
the material side of the Fleet Air
Arm. And it was then that he wisely
insisted on a proportion of Air
Engineers becoming operational
pilots, to enhance the confidence of
their customers. And so eventually
to Headquarters where, as Director
of Aircraft Maintenance and Repair
he initiated the Air Repair Yards
and where, too, his immense
sympathy for the men 'at the coal
face' made him impatient and unreceptive
to the ways of Whitehall.
Just before he left the Navy he
inspected H.M.S. Fisgard and, as
was customary for senior engineer
officers at that period, he was
received, not by an armed guard but
one equipped only with broom
handles and the officers, as befitted
a non-military branch, with walking
sticks. His sense of humour never
deserted him. But this on top of his
time in Whitehall left him with a
deep sense of failure. However this
gradually dissipated as he read of
the General List and saw some of
those he called his 'seed potatoes'

44 ALL TO BE OF A COMPANY-IV
come to command the Empire Test
Pilots School and other purely naval
establishments, and take their places
on the Navy Boards of Canada,
New Zealand and Australia; and
finally too on the last Board of
Admiralty itself.
Two matters were not mentioned in
this and both should be recorded. What
the executive officer was to the engineer,
the engineer was to the naval con-
structor. And at Keyham although the
latter when under training in the dock-
yard were allowed to eat in the Mess
they were banned from the ante-rooms.
Berthon, when he became Mess Presi-
dent, would have none of this. Thus he
helped, perhaps not a little, towards the
relationships in the Ship Department a
couple of decades later. Certainly his
action was then gratefully recalled.
Berthon's other considerable exploit
needs a rather longer description. There
is no doubt that, in the first decade of
its second period as an engineering
college (from the early twenties on-
wards), owing to the quality of those who
entered (academically and athletically)
as well as the guidance given by staff
officers from all three 'types' of en-
gineer, the 'Engineers', the Fisher (E)s
and, latterly, from the new entry itself,
Keyham had built up a formidable
reputation for brains and brawn. This of
itself, taken with the fact that the
number of 'ex-Darts' was minimal, ex-
plains in part some of the anti-Keyham,
anti-(E) feeling that manifested itself
amongst many of the older masters at
Dartmouth and (taking their cue from
all the bickering in Whitehall) amongst
some of the executive naval staff as well.
By the early thirties there were fears
that the old 'adversary relationship' was
increasing rather than diminishing.
Berthon had seen this in his first in-
carnation as Dean and resolved to
reverse the trend, in his second.
Writing as 'the senior Fisher scheme
officer on the Staff', through his
Engineer Captain-in-Charge to the
Engineer-in-Chief, he asserted that the
present College 'situated between the gas
works and the dockyard foundry' was a
wholly unsuitable venue for future (E)
specialists of the quality which the Navy
was now receiving and would increasing-
ly need; and that the restrictions on
space at Keyham (there could never be
more than about 100-120 officers under
training including the Dominion officers)
anyway made a move inevitable. This
attack on the traditional home of
engineers by one of the old school
'Engineers', as well as his prophecy that
there would be a need for many more of
them, was NOT well received in White-
hall by the Engineer-in-Chief or anyone
else. It is sad that a copy of his original
letter and the excessively stuffy reply
(indicating that it was none of his busi-
ness, that a move was already con-
templated to Raglan Barracks which was
suitably adjacent to the dockyard and
had a boundary wall which Keyham
lacked) seem both to have been lost
since they were deposited at Manadon
in 1957. But he persevered and as war
came closer even Whitehall saw the
need. And so, eventually, two-thirds of
the Manadon Estate was bought back
from a developer at double the price for
which the whole could have been pro-
cured where Berthon first suggested it.
The spiritual principle
When he joined for the second time
the Mess was in the process of a complete
reorganisation and Berthon reaped the
benefits of his predecessors' foresight.
Money became available not only to
help subsidise the conventional sports
at which Keyham already excelled, but
other activities not usually associated
with engineers, from hunting with the
Dartmoor, to mountaineering in the
leave periods. All this Berthon felt would
assist in broadening the engineers' out-
look, which he and his fellow Fisher
scheme colleagues felt was becoming

obsessively constricted by the 'Engineer'
hierarchy. A naval engineering syllabus
would also be helpful.
His third exploit however, in terms of
influencing the future, was probably his
greatest. It was Berthon who, after a
great deal of lobbying, obtained the ser-
vices for Keyham of one of the most
remarkable naval chaplains of that
notoriously remarkable band. The in-
fluence of 'Reckless Reggie'" friend
and confidant of the Lower Deck during
the Invergordon mutiny; friend and
councillor of Admiral Sir John Kelly as
he brought the Fleet back to true dis-
cipline; friend of Admiral Drax the
Commander-in-Chief Plymouth - who
served at Keyham for so many years-
spread throughout the engineering
branch. His methods were peculiar.
Deprecating compulsory church and
well aware that many of his flock would
have a 'hang over', he often substituted
some of his friends to perform in front
of his captive audience. Speakers as far
apart as Dennis Wheatley on 'Black
Magic' or Ben Travers on 'Farce' or
Ivor Brown or Gerald Heard may not
have contributed at all to our knowledge
of engineering but they helped to open
up a world we hardly knew existed. He
took us into parts of England of almos:
unbelievable squalor and misery; he sat
us down in St. Paul's to listen to
Dick Sheppard; he talked to those of us,
which was the majority, who chose to
listen, about the depression, about the
world of the sailor. Over stupefying
glasses of sherry he would needle us on
our beliefs and tell us of his. He some-
times preached. But the message, put
over in a hundred different ways, was
always the same. 'You must all' he would
say 'develop a "Divine discontent".' This
is the message of the Gospels. Tradition
is only something to be lived up to; it
must never be lived on. The Navy was a
ALL TO BE OF A COMPANY-IV 45
living entity which, at Invergordon, had
nearly died. Discipline was a thing of the
spirit. The world was changing. The
Navy must change. Engineers must
change. Society will change.
As much as one man could, and
backed by Berthon and others, 'Reckless
Reggie' prized open our search for
understanding, which Dartmouth had
slammed shut. He even wrote a book for
US.^
Conclusion
In this instalment I have sought, by a
series of small vignettes, to indicate only
for those who were not there, some of
the influences which played on a very
ordinary, but perhaps not untypical,
young naval officer who unwillingly be-
came a naval engineer.
The post World War I bickering about
all facets of engineering and electrics
effectively emasculated any engineering
development and I think it must be
accepted that the naval constructors,
responsible for the overall design,
suffered from this as well as from other
difficulties of their own making.
The Navy had become a rather in-
cestuous organisation with all the
different specialisations dancing an ill-
tempered minuet around each other.
Suddenly we had a Fleet Air Arm again;
steaming time increased enormously; the
anti-aircraft problem loomed; turbine
development in industry was far ahead;
damage control was invented; radar
arrived. The technological impact was
like a ton of bricks; and then the war
came. LOUIS LE BAILLY
-
'The Rev. R. R. Churchill, later Chaplain to
King George VI at Windsor.
OR. R. Churchill, I Commit To Your Intel-
ligence, Dent & Sons.
(40 be continued)

With 'A.B.C.' in the Med-IV
For the next three weeks we had a quiet
time operationally, broken only by two
searches for the usual elusive U-boats
and a trip to tow in Kipling who had
broken down at sea. Between these trips
we were kept busy with exercises of all
kinds, including a particularly aggravat-
ing one where we acted as target for a
squadron of torpedo-carrying Sword-
fishes, who returned happily to their gin
at Dekheila after a brief sortie, leaving
us to search for twelve hours for their
'fish'.
On 13th November, being the anniver-
sary of the day when Decoy had been hit
by a bomb in Alexandria harbour, we
arranged a party to mark the day, com-
bining the affair with a late Guy Fawkes
celebration. The guest of honour was
Terry Herrick, now captain of Hotspur.
He entered fully into the spirit of the
thing and arrived on board, to the
concern of the quartermaster, dramatic-
ally muffled in a cloak and carrying a
dark lantern. After dinner a white
chamber pot was placed on the table,
filled with Chinese crackers which were
ceremoniously detonated by some con-
trivance of the Gunner's. We were all
more or less singed by the explosion;
the wardroom was filled with smoke and
debris and the Maltese stewards fled. An
hour later, when the party was really
going with a swing, we were suddenly
ordered to sea. Being at short notice, we
only just had time to get rid of our
guests before zero hour. I trailed dismally
up to the bridge, cursing heartily, and
waited dispiritedly for the order to
proceed. The fo'c'sle party stood by to
slip; I pored over the chart laying off the
course for the hafiour entrance; the
Captain peered into the darkness and
then a light began flicking from head-
Memoirs of an R.N.V.R. Officer
quarters at Ras-el-Tin. 'Cancel my so-
and-so,' read the Yeoman, 'revert to one
hour's notice for steam.' We gathered
again in the wardroom, but the party
spirit had ebbed away and we went to
bed, with no idea what sudden 'flap' in
Operations Room had spoiled our
evening.
Barham torpedoed
Two days later we sailed on what was
to prove the very last Tobruk run; in
fact we had the distinction of being the
last destroyer to leave Tobruk during the
siege. On our way back we had a signal
cancelling the rest of the current opera-
tion and we guessed that the long-
rumoured attack in the desert was
beginning. Five days later the army re-
captured Fort Capuzzo and soon after-
wards came the relief of Tobruk.
The day after this last last trip to
Tobruk we joined a dignified 'club run',
returning next day, after giving a rude
shock to a Junkers 88 which suddenly
appeared through a gap in the clouds to
find himself engaged by the concentrated
fire of three battleships, six cruisers and
about a dozen destroyers.
Two days later we were out again on
a similar sortie, again drawing the
attention of the German reconnaissance
planes and no doubt causing anxious
consideration of our intentions in the
minds of the enemy high command.
Another two days in harbour and then
we set out on a third club run. The
next day, 25 November, found us being
carefully shadowed by enemy aircraft.
We all opened fire on the 'shads' as
opportunity offered, but not with un-
qualified success, or so we gathered from
a general signal from Admiral Cunning-
ham, in Queen Elizabeth: 'I have seldom

seen anything so disgusting as the to feel the same way. We were all very
shooting of the battleships'. The rest of subdued at dinner that evening, and by
us, I need hardly say, found this signal tacit agreement we had a round of stiff
highly diverting, but one could almost
see the big ships shrinking with shame
and embarrassment.
That afternoon the Gunner and I had
the first dog. We had just taken over at
4 o'clock and I was 'driving' when Guns
called out: 'Bomb dropped alongside
Barham! ' I turned round in time to see
a splash subsiding, and rang the alarm
rattlers for air action stations. Wc
watched the Barham, which was the
second battleship in the line, and were
horrified to see her begin to list to port.
It was an unexpected effect for one
bomb, but we still had no thought of
anything else. In a surprisingly short
time the battleship was listing heavily
and we saw a few little figures beginning
to jump over the side. Suddenly, as we
watched, there was a terrific explosion
amidships on her port side and the whole
ship disappeared in a cloud of yellow and
black smoke. The smoke cloud rose to
a great height, much like the photo-
graphs of atomic bombs on a small scale,
and when it cleared there was no sign of
the Barham. To our surprise, for it
looked as though no one could be left
alive after the explosion, we saw a
number of survivors swimming about.
(Some four hundred were eventually
picked up). Several destroyers, includ-
ing most of the 14th Flotilla, turned
back to rescue survivors and hunt for
the. U-boat but we continued to screen
the two remaining battleships, Queen
Elizabeth and Valiant.
With the smoke of the Barham
hanging like a beacon in the sky I ex-
pected that we should soon be discovered
and attacked in force by aircraft, but
although we saw the 14th Flotilla in
action astern of us at dusk, we of the
main body were not molested.
This incident, I think, shocked me
more than anything 1 saw during the
whole war, and everyone else seemed
drinks.
It was disclosed later that Barham was
hit first by one and then by a salvo of
two or three torpedoes, which exploded
one of her magazines. Between the two
attacks the submarine surfaced momen-
tarily on the port bow of Valiant, third
in the line, but she had just started to
alter course to starboard in pursuance
of a zig-zag and the chance of ramming
was lost. We all returned to harbour next
day and did not go to sea again for six
days, despite several signals to come to
immediate notice which of course
blocked all shore leave.
Collision
On 2 December we went out on a
patrol with Napier, Griffin and Hotspur,
our object being to intercept caiques
which were reported to be running stores
from Crete to the Axis forces between
Sollum and Derna. On our way we
passed D.14'~ party coming back from
a similar patrol, with Jackal limping
along after being badly damaged aft by
a torpedo. We found no enemy ships
but had an uncomfortable time in rough
cold weather. In bright moonlight we
swept right into Sollum Bay, which I had
not seen since my spell of duty with the
Inshore Squadron in Kingston Cora'
nearly a year earlier. The escarpment
showed up black and white in the cold
light but the shore was silent and the
enemy gave no sign of life. We returned
to Alexandria late on 4 December.
It was about this time that the First
Lieutenant left us to go home. John Holt
was promoted Number One in his place
and I became Navigator and Signal
Officer, also retaining my job of A/S
Control Officer.
Two days later, after returning from
exercises which had been more realistic
than usual owing to a J.U.88 suddenly
appearing to take a hand in them, we

had an unfortunate mishap. We had
fuelled as usual from a large oil tanker
and were proceeding to our buoy when
we collided with a large Polish merchant
ship. It was pitch dark and blowing hard
and my chief impression of the affair
was of the surprising shower of sparks
which marked the actual impact, which
was a glancing one. The Pole was hardly
damaged, but we buckled our stem so
badly that it was impossible either to
secure to a buoy or to anchor, and
we eventually had to go alongside
Woolwich. The Captain was naturally
much upset by this, but at the subsequent
Court of Inquiry, which I attended as a
witness, he was exonerated, the presi-
dent, Captain Arliss, in Napier having
himself been on the other side of the
oiler while we were fuelling and seen for
himself how bad the conditions were.
After inspection of our damage the
dockyard announced that it would take
at least six weeks to repair. With
Christmas only about a fortnight ahead
it did not take us long to see the bright
side of the picture and we looked for-
ward to having Christmas leave ashore,
with perhaps even permission to go out
of the port at last and a chance of a
few days in Cairo or doing some sight-
seeing at Luxor. Unhappily C.-in-C. had
different ideas, and we soon heard, to
my great disappointment, that we were
to go to Malta for our repairs. I fancy
that we should never have been sent to
Malta had anyone had any idea what the
conditions there were going to be,
conditions which resulted in our being
out of service for over two months.
With Breconshire to Malta
The weather is at its worst in the
eas'tern Mediterranean in December,
and on the 15th we sailed for Malta in a
full gale, having just heard that the
cruiser Galatea had been sunk a few
hours earlier at the end of the Alexandria
approach channel by a U-boat. The
operation was to pass to Malta a small
but important convoy of one ship only,
the fast Breconshire, which sailed under
the White Ensign. To escort this valuable
vessel and her even more valuable cargo
were the cruisers Naiad (Rear Admiral
Vian, C.S.15) and Euryalus and eight
destroyers besides ourselves, who were
something of a lame duck by reason of
our damaged bow.
All that day and the next night it blew
the worst gale I ever saw in the Mediter-
ranean, and by next morning the convoy
had become rather scattered; although
we found ourselves still in company with
our fellow destroyers, the cruisers and
Breconshire were not in sight. Eventually
they were found some way ahead, having
passed us unobserved during the night
(this was of course in the early days of
radar), their speed having been less
affected by the weather than ours. A
more personal trouble was the fact that
the best breakfast that could be got out
of the stewards in the weather condi-
tions was dry ship's biscuits and coffee.
John Holt and I ate ours sitting down
on the deck in the wardroom, surrounded
by the wreckage of tables and chairs.
In the afternoon the weather moder-
ated ,to our relief, as we were becoming
anxious about our lightly patched bows.
We took stock of the state of the ship
but found no serious damage beyond
both our boats being stove in. By night-
fall it was clear and calm.
Next morning, 17 December, we were
joined by Force 'K' from Malta, consist-
ing of the soon-to-be-famous cruisers
Aurora and Penelope with several large
'L' class and Tribal destroyers and the
big Dutch destroyer Isaac Sweers, an
addition which made us quite an impos-
ing squadron.
It soon became obvious that we were
in for a busy time. A party of Italian
torpedo bombers circled hungrily round,
just out of effective range, but seemed to
have difficulty in making up their minds
to come in to the attack. At last one
gallant fellow came in. He passed down

the port side of the squadron, in a hail
of fire, and then turned in to attack from
astern. Although being repeatedly hit he
came on steadily till he was in among
the ships, obviously making for one of
the cruisers. Suddenly his aircraft burst
into flames, but still he came on,
apparently with the idea of anticipating
the Kamikazi technique and crashing his
blazing machine on to the cruiser's
quarter deck. But he just failed to get
there, and plunged into the sea about
two cables astern. His fate discouraged
the rest of the party, who went home.
There was no rest for us, however, as
high level and dive bombers then ap-
peared in strength, and attack followed
attack all day. Despite a number of near
misses none of our ships was hit or
damaged and as the sun got lower and
lower we began to think that the worst
was over.
About five in the afternoon we were
puzzled to see some of the bombers over-
head dropping red flares and wondered
what it was all about. Soon afterwards
a look-out reported a ship on the
horizon, and there gradually came up
over the edge of the sea the masts of
what appeared to be a destroyer and a
cruiser. We had been receiving reports
all day of a strong Italian battle squadron
at sea, but as the last position given for
this force was some eighty miles to the
north of us there seemed no danger of
their intercepting the convoy before
dark, and on Decoy's bridge we decided
at once that these ships must be the
cruiser Neptune and destroyer Kandahar,
which were somewhere in the vicinity,
so we examined them with interest but
without excitement. As we watched,
however, more masts appeared, among
them the unmistakable control tower of
an Italian eight-inch gun cruiser, with
one or more large ships astern. As we
watched there was a dim red glow from
the leading Italian, like a cigarette end
as the smoker draws on it in the dark
(it was beginning to get dusk by now)
WITI-I 'ABC' IN THE MED-IV 49
and then a bunch of tall thin splashes
came up round us. Our cruisers at once
opened fire; there were more glows from
the distant enemy; the splashes round us
grew larger, and the action was fairly
joined. Admiral Vian turned towards the
enemy at full speed, while the Brecon-
shire, our convoy, turned ?way to the
southward. Our captain's only thought,
of course, was to plunge into the fight,
and I had to remind him of our leaking
and shored-up stem and of our per-
emptory orders to act as close escort to
Breconshire. So he most unwillingly
disengaged and we turned away, with
Havock, whose orders were the same.
His disappointment was somewhat as-
suaged by the fact that the battle ended
almost as quickly as it had begun, the
Italians wirhdrawing at high speed as
soon as our force turned to attack. We
heard long afterwards that they mistook
the Breconshire for a battle-cruiser,
which seems rather incredible. For a
squadron which, as it turned out, in-
cluded two battleships, it was anyhow
not a display of great determination.
Safe . . . . but not so timely . . .
It was nearly dark when the engage-
ment ended, and we plodded on towards
Malta with Breconshire and Havock,
the rest of the escort not having re-
joined. It was an anxious night, as we
had no idea either where the Italian
flying squadron or their main force had
got to, and we should have been
awkwardly placed if we had been inter-
cepted by them. But dawn next day
showed nothing at all in sight, and when,
shortly afterwards, masts appeared over
the northern horizon, they proved this
time really to be those of Neptune and
Kandahar. We had one torpedo bomber
attack (during which one of our 0.5-inch
machine guns shot down one of the
enemy) and several by the ubiquitous
JU88s before the cliffs of Malta were
sighted to the north west, but by tea time
we were safely in Grand Harbour, with

our precious convoy. Clustered on the preferable and one returned to one's
high walls and along the quays of cabin on board, sleeping there until a
Valetta the Maltese stood in crowds and particu'larly frightening night raid drove
cheered us up the harbour. one back to the sandflies again.
Our arrival at Malta coincided with The day after we reached Malta,
the beginning of the full scale air attack 19 December, was a depressing one. The
on the island and although we left before weather was wet and cold and air raids
it reached its height my memories of our
stay were all set against a background of
air raids. To give an idea of the fre-
quency of the raids, we entered in our
log, during our two months in Malta, no
fewer than 497 air raids.
Actually the raids had remarkably
little effect on our daily existence. Every-
body in Malta was very blask about
them mainly, no doubt, because the deep
shelters provided everywhere in the
easily-cut soapy rock of the island
reduced casualties to a minimum. Excel-
lent shelters of this kind were tunnelled
into the cliffs round French Creek,
where we were berthed, and the dock-
yard maties often spent the greater part
of a so-called working day inside them,
comfortably and safely playing cards or
gossiping, a fact which made the repair-
ing of ships a slow process.
So far as the ship was concerned, we
used to close up the close-range weapons
crews on an alert, but unless an attack
developed on the dockyard itself, the
ship's work otherwise went on as usual.
At night the ship's company, other than
the duty part of the watch, slept in the
shelters. Personally I never quite made
up my mind as to the advantages of
sleeping there. One night one would
retire to the shelter feeling gloriously
secure and perhaps listen comfortably
to a raiu going on outside before
dropping off to what should have been
undisturbed sleep. But a few hours later
one would wake to hear a mosquito-like
buzzing in one's ear as a swarm of sand-
flies came into action. Then in the
morning one would take up one's clothes
to dress, only to find them wringing wet
from the damp of the caves. Two nights
of this, and the risk of bombs seemed
were almost continuous. I went over to
Ajax to lunch hoping to be cheered up,
but instead I heard the dismal news that
during the night Force 'K' had run into
a minefield north of Tripoli, losing
Neptune, sunk with all hands, and having
to leave Kandahar, too badly damaged
to move, in full view of Tripoli town
itself.
That evening Kandahar's survivors
were taken off by Jaguar and brought
safely back to Malta. John Alliston, our
captain, being an ex-Kandahar, and
John Holt an old member of the 'K'
flotilla, we made their officers free of our
wardroom and most of them, including
the Captain, Commander W. G. A.
Robson, and Lord Milford Haven had
supper with us that evening and told
how they lay helpless all day examining
the town of Tripoli and waiting for the
bombers which they never doubted
would arrive to finish them off. But by
one of the unexplained vagaries of war
they were left completely unmolested.
Refitting routine
Next day we began to settle down to
what was to be our routine for two
months and the usual refit scenes were
soon to be observed in every part of the
ship. In the forenoon the ship's officers
could be found in turn in the wardroom
plying dockyard officers with sycophantic
conversation and gin, each putting
forward the claims to first priority of his
pet items on the defect list, or possihly
merely paving the way for a request for
a auite unofficial redecorating of his
cabin Chief and Number One of course
had the heaviest part of the work, but I
also found myself constantly being
cornered by earnest technical officers

with green stripes who wanted to know
obscure facts about the wireless (always
a complete mystery to me) or with whom
I descended into the bowels of the ship
to discuss some improbable modification
of the asdic. After I had dealt with them
I would retire to the warmth of the
Chart Depot in Sheer Bastion, behind
whose reassuringly thick walls I would
correct my charts and watch the air
raids.
In the afternoons there was plenty of
football and hockey on gravel grounds
on the Corradino, the plateau above
French Creek. The grounds were dam-
aged by bombs, and the proceedings
were liable to be interrupted by frag-
ments from the barrage during air raids,
but I have seldom enjoyed any games
more. We also had occasional field days
of a rather Boy Scout variety on the
Corradino, or occasionally inland with
the Army, which were always the
greatest fun, and usually ended with a
cutlass charge by the stokers.
Meanwhile we did not neglect social
activities ashore. Those who had been
in the ship when she was in Malta a year
earlier had many friends in the island
and through them and others we soon
found our way to some of the local
dances and parties. Despite a shortage
of partners the dances, particularly the
Saturday night affairs at the Sliema
Club, were always crowded and everyone
seemed to enjoy themselves enormously.
The excellent orchestral concerts
which were given in the British Institute
once a week were very popular with us,
but they were liable to be interrupted,
or even abruptly ended, by air raids. The
practice was for the orchestra to stop
playing as soon as the warning was
heard and allow anyone who wished to
leave to do so. They then continued the
concert Cbecoming occasionally slightly
staccato) through the raid or until the
noise of the barrage and bombs drowned
the music. They were a gallant band, and
we were very grateful to them.
After the usual social functions on
board we sat down to our Christmas
dinner, which was followed by a general
siesta, from which I did not awake until
it was time to go ashore to a dance at
Sliema, where I met an old friend of
Oxford days, Edward Scicluna, a delight-
ful person and notable as the first
Maltese Rhodes scholar and football
Blue. The party, which was given by
Edward's sister, ended too late for us to
return to the dockyard, so Rodney
Cundall and I were very kindly put up
for the night by the officers of the
distinguished submarine Unbeaten, at
Lazaretto. Either on that occasion or at
other times during our stay we met most
of the commanding officers of the
famous 10th Submarine Flotilla, includ-
ing the bearded V.C., Wanklyn, all of
whom we regarded with tremendous
awe. They looked pale and had a curious
preoccupied air.
A few days later, after lunching with
Edward Scicluna at the Casino Maltese,
the Maltese club in Valetta, I went with
him to call on a distant cousin of mine,
Fitzroy Fyers, of the King's Own
Scottish Borderers, who was the Command
Welfare Officer. Fitzroy had a delightful
flat in Floriana just outside Valetta,
looking over the harbour towards
Corradino, from the windows of which
he used to take vivid photographs of air
raids. Although a soldier by profession
my cousin had developed a strong
partiality for the Navy and was soon a
familiar figure on board Decoy, where
it was his greatest pleasure to be allowed
to man the Breda gun during air raids.
We were indebted to him for adding very
greatly to the amenities of Malta for us
all.
In the early morning of 4 January we
had our c'losest escape in an air raid. A
stick of bombs fell right across the creek,
but though one landed on the quay be-
side the ship it made only a few holes
in the superstructure. Across the creek
Havock was not so fortunate, a bomb

from the same stick killing three of her
ship's company and causing considerable
damage. It was after this that I made
my first experiment at sleeping in the
shelter.
Our repairs and refitting, interrupted
as they were by stoppages for air raids,
proceeded slowly and it was not until
February (1942) that we re-embarked
our ammunition and got ready for sea.
One result of our long stay at Malta was
that we al'l got to know each other and
the comparatively new ship's company
very well, and until we paid off late the
same year Decoy remained a very happy
ship.
Readers will remember the two berths,
with bow and stern buoys, lying just
inside Isola Point at the entrance to
French Creek: they have the engaging
name of Ropewalk Trot. To the inner of
these berths we moved on 15 February,
the big Tribal class destroyer Maori
being at the other berth. That evening
John Holt and I went ashore to the
birthday party of one 'Pinky', a pay-
master from Penelope. We had an excel-
lent party (it was to be our last night in
Malta) and arrived back on board quite
ready for bed.
The Maori blows up
A few seconds, as it seemed to me,
after falling into a heavy sleep, I found
myself being shaken by a rating, who
was shouting excitedly something about
a ship being hit by a bomb. My first
reaction was one of annoyance at being
woken up just to hear that, but when the
sailor added 'It's the Maori, sir', I
jumped lip, pulled on some trousers and
a duffel coat and rushed on to the upper
deck.
The Maori was blazing all right and
the whole scene was lit up almost like
day. She had been hit just forward of
the after superstructure, but the fire was
already beginning to spread aft, and
although dark figures could be seen flit-
ting about with hoses and extinguishers
these seemed to be having no effect on
the flames. John Holt was getting the
whaler lowered and shouted to me:
'I'm going to see if they want anybody
taken off - you'd better stay here'. He
was acting C.O. since the Captain,
whose cabin was not yet ready for use,
was staying ashore in my cousin's flat.
On board I prepared for possible
survivors, including injured, and started
to remove the depth charges and ready-
use ammunition from the after end of
the ship, where it was already getting
quite warm from the blaze. The whaler
pulled across to the Maori and began
taking people off from her fo'c's'le and
ferrying them across to us. Our late host,
Pinky, appeared mysteriously alongside
in a dghaisa and called for a volunteer
to go with him and help in the rescue
work. The Gunner jumped in and they
pushed off rather unsteadily.
Up at the flat in Floriana the Captain
had gone to bed, but Fitzroy was, as
usual, watching the raid. Seeing a ship
hit and on fire he called his guest, who
only gave one look before flinging on his
clothes and pelting hell-for-leather down
Kalkara Hill to the quay, followed by
Fitzroy himself, anxious to miss nothing.
The cautious dghaisamen absolutely
refused to take them anywhere near the
burning ship (which the Captain only
then realised was not Decoy) but the
officers managed to persuade a police
boat from the Custom House to make
the journey. So as I was struggling along
the upper deck with one of the last of
the ready-use shells from 'Y' gun in my
arms I saw the two of them appearing
over the side, and the Captain took
charge.
When we had moved all the ammuni-
tion we stood on the quarterdeck and
watched the Maori. 'I think her after
magazine should go up soon,' said the
Captain with interest, and I thought so
too. It also occurred to me that when
that happened it would not be healthy
where we were standing as she was only

WITH 'ABC' IN THE MED-IV 53
about a cable and a half away, so I It was obvious we must move quickly,
moved discreetly behind the after super- and at this critical moment the squat
structure, where I found a number of figure of Chief emerged from the engine
the other more prudent members of the room, wearing his usual happy smile and
ship's company, headed by the Coxswain, dreadful old cap, sought out the Captain
already gathered. The Captain and and reported steam raised for slow speed.
Fitzroy refused to move and seemed to Two dockyard tugs having now appeared
be as excited at the prospect of a big
bang as children at a firework show.
I had no sooner reached cover than
there was a brilliant flash and a roar as
the Maori blew up. Immediately a shower
of burning debris rained down on us,
and a fire started near the loaded torpedo
tubes. I gathered a party from those
nearby and we began beating out the
flames with anything handy. I took off
my duffel coat and used that. Unfor-
tunately it caught fire itself, so I slung
it into the sea. As it sailed over the
guardrails I realised with horror that in
the pocket was my favourite new toy, a
miniature camera which I had bought
in Egypt not long before. We soon put
out the fire and I had time to look
around. There seemed to be quite a to-do
on the quarter-deck and I found that
everyone who had remained there had
been hit by fragments from the explosion
and were casualties. The remarkable
thing was, considering the large number
of holes to be seen in the superstructure
and ship's side, that only two men were
killed. The Captain and his guest had
both been hit in the leg or foot, and the
Captain in addition had a small wound
in his chest.
The Maori was still afloat, though
down by the stern. She seemed to have
broken away from her stern mooring
and was swinging over towards us, still
burning, while a carpet of blazing oil
fuel was spreading in the same direction.
Survivors were in the water swimming
and somewhere in the outer darkness a
man was screaming. (In the end I believe
they only had one fatal casualty, and he
was kitled by the bomb itself; all the rest
were taken off or picked up by
Penelope or ourselves.)
to help us, we lost no time getting under
way. I half carried and half assisted the
Captain up to the bridge (he was bleed-
ing all over my best flannel trousers, I
noticed with disapproval) and put him
in a chair, from which he gave orders.
It was not until we had slipped round
Isola Point and picked up a buoy at the
entrance to Bighi Bay that he sur-
rendered to the anxious doctor. Shortly
afterwards the ambulance boat came
alongside and 4 said goodbye to him and
Fitwoy as they and the other casualties
were carried away in stretchers.
Next day, after we had moved back to
the dockyard to have the holes in our
hull patched, a temporary captain was
appointed in the person of Commander
Somerville, the Captain of the Kingston
which was in dockyard hands. Although
he only stayed a short time with us,
Commander Somerville endeared him-
self to us all in a remarkable way. His
unlucky death in an air raid a few weeks
later was a tragedy.
Back to Alex.
The following day bore the ominous
date of Friday the 13th (of February) and
what with this and our casualties and
also the fact that one had got out of the
habit of seagoing during our two months
in Malta, I felt sad and depressed as we
left that evening for Alexandria. We
were once more forming part of the
escort for our old friend Breconshire,
which was accompanied this time by
three merchant ships that had come in
with the last convoy. The escort con-
sisted of Penelope and five destroyers
besides ourselves. This escort, other than
ourselves, was to join an inward bound
convoy and return to Malta while we

went on to Alexandria with the escort
from that end.
All next morning we steamed east-
wards unmolested, the enemy being, as
it turned out, busy with more valuable
game than our empty ships. As we
approached the rendezvous about noon
a tall column of black smoke appeared
on the horizon and when we got nearer
we saw the blue sky speckled with black
and white puffs of anti-aircraft fire. We
soon saw that the column of smoke was
from a large merchant ship on fire and
that the convoy was being fiercely
attacked by JU.88s and Italian Savoia
81s, the latter large high-level bombers.
Our force joined the convoy escort and
added our weight to the quite impressive
barrage. A signal from Admiral Vian, in
command of the escort, ordered us to
sink the burning ship, the Clan Chattan,
whose crew and passengers had already
been taken off. We closed her and fired
a torpedo; at least we went through the
motions of doing so but nothing
happened as the charge misfired. We
circled again and came in for another
attempt, hastened by the inevitable
'What is the delay?' from the Admiral.
This time all went well; the fish leapt
from its tube and after what seemed an
age hit the target amidships. But the
Clan Chattan was made of sturdy stuff
Echoes sf the Past
and another torpedo was necessary to
finish her off. The Gunner (T), whose
whole professional training had at last
reached its consummation, went about
for several days with a mystical look in
his eyes, muttering 'I sank a ship! '
Our Malta colleagues now turned back
with the sole surviving merchant ship,
the Rowallan Castle, while we continued
eastwards with the returning Alexandria
force, having embarked about a hundred
survivors of the Clan Chattan from an
overcrowded 'Hunt' class destroyer.
Before dark we heard, as we followed
the progress of the Malta party from
intercepted signals, that the RowaNan
Castle had been so badly damaged by a
near miss that she had to be sunk. Thus
not one ship of this convoy reached
Malta.
We were pursued by bombing attacks
until dark, when our nerves were further
teased by the flares of aircraft searching
for us, fortunately without success.
Next morning they found us again, but
now our own fighters arrived on the
scene and we had the enormous satis-
faction of seeing them shoot down two
frightened torpedo bombers. Late that
night we reached Alexandria.
A. G. PRIDEAUX
(concluded)
Some random recollections cmd .a sketchy review of the development and use of
electrical systems in H.M. &hips over the past forty years m y (be of some interest,
and even amusement, to those now carrying the can. It is also hoped that it may
ussist some of rhem in ,appreciating that the Royaf Navy, though elderfy for an infant,
is srill growing, v~nd suflering from growing pains. That they themselves (must
inevitably feel many of those pains, and that the bearing of them for the good of our
Service is, though something of a personal tribulation, also a privilege to be proud of.
It is my present impression that in my electrical responsibilities were concerned.
early days at sea in 1904 the Tonpedo There was electric lighting bhroughout
Officer sat very pretty so far as his the ship, but that, on the whole was

eliable, as one dynamo took the nice
steady load and there was no need for
a jwatchkeeper to play tunes on the
switchboard, nor was there a watch-
keeper.
The 'black out,' as I came to know it
later, did not exist, in fact failure seldom
went further back than a distribution
box and, if the senior officers' quarters
were not affected, who cared? There
were lots of candles.
Apart from his lighting, any little
extras that he was able to provide, such
as ,an occasional fan or something
decorative when rigging entertainments,
were received with gratitude.
He might even inspire awe, as when
some packing cases of wireless apparatus,
complete with instructions on the lid,
were received on board, put together as
per instructions, and in due course beat
the mast head semapjh'ore by a mile or
two in establishing communication with
our base. It may have been a hazy day
and it would not always work, the noise
and smell in the midshipmen's chest flat
were insufferable, but the officer res-
ponsible had done something very
remarkable.
It wasn't long before the situation
began to alter rapidly, and too rapidly
it seemed at times. Ships became really
dependent on their electrical syst,ems.
The stage, still with us and likely to
continue indefinitely, had been reached
where the electrical officer got no credit
for what worked, but marked attention
when things did not. He was in fact
firmly settled in the class where first prize
is nothing and second prize something he
does not want at all.
The difficulty design had at this stage
in keeping pace with electrical require-
ments at sea made life an anxious
business. It was all very natural, as
designers had little experience of ,the sea
conditions to be met, and ~~bviously
everything had to be tried out at sea for
tBhe first time once.
ECHOES OF THE PAST 55
I do remember thinking there were
altogether too many things to be tried
out in my ship In about 1913, but she
was no new sh~p then. The trouble
started at the switchboard, where over-
loads of a most revolting type were fitted
~nstead of simple fuses. They were
adjusted by hanging weights on them,
and though they sometimes worked it
was never at an appropriate time. I got
the impression that the contraption was
about as satisfactory for use at sea as a
pendulum clock.
Other anxieties were engine room fans,
coaling winches and the main derrick;
neither ship nor dockyard resources
could ever put any of these even near
the reliable class. I remember being
thankful at the time tihat I had not got
electric turrets, which I used to hear of,
and spoken of in a very disrespectful
manner.
At this difficult time some officers
recalled the old and unreliable adage 'If
you want a thing done well do it your-
self.' This did not work at all well. The
fam~liar cry of 'Send for the Torpedo
Officer' was all too often followed up by
a meeting, on an immaculate quarter-
deck, between an immaculate Senior
Officer and one looking most unworthy
of the occasion who was disguised in an
overall suit with screwdriver adornments.
No one was pleased.
Our attitude to our material was I
think rather odd, as we never even
thought disrespectfully of its designers.
Perhaps we did not know enough about
design, or it may have been our placid
good nature, but I have a suspicion that
it was due to the attitude of our seniors,
many of whom being little concerned
with technical matters, took the line very
strongly, that-there the stuff was, and
it was your job to make it work, and the
less you try to pass the buck the better.
Undoubtedly the attitude of Senior
Officers could at times be embarrassing,
as there was a fair proportion of them

56 ECHOES OF THE PAST
whose strong line was leadership, and
whose aptitude for frank discussions on
material matters was definitely elemen-
tary. An example was an order I received
from a very senior officer to move the
main W.T. office to a more protected
position whenever the ship went to action
stations, or to first degree of readiness
as we should now say, and which,
admitted of no argumen't, was six weeks
job for a Dockyard. One just hoped the
idea would pass.
It was a milestone when, prior to the
1914-1918 war, a real effort was made to
introduce supply syste~ms tlhat would
compete with action damage conditions
and, early in the war, con,trol systems on
which the capacity of the ship to fight
depended. A reasonable start was made
with supply systems, but the development
curve flattened out all too soon, for
causes which are fairly obvious now.
One was that the satisfactory develop-
ment of such systems must depend to a
great extent on practical experience
gained under those conditions which they
are designed to meet. Very little of this
experience was in fact gained during the
1914-1918 war when, in general, ships
were either sunk or got back without
much damage.
In particular we had hardly any
experience of flooding capa~ble of satis-
factory analysis wit~h regard to the effect
on su8pply systems. No one was in the
position to say 'This happened, with this
very serious result, therefore we must'
which is so much more convincing than
'This might happen, so we oughmt,'
especially when for political reasons
ships were being buil't to a limit, and
weight and space were at a premium.
Olther factors were that diesel dyna-
mos, though highly regarded in theory,
had got off to an indifferent start and
were not so popular in practice; also
supply systems do not lend themselves
at all readily to satisfactory and realis&
tests and exercises at sea. The net result
was probably too much optimistic think-
ing, that systems as fitted would do their
stuff, instead of a healthy suspicion that
they might not.
This article cannot compete with a fire
control history, but my first experience
of it in 1905 was supremely non-
electrical. We built a small foretop and
fitted it with wooden dials on which
pointers were set to register range. As all
our weapons were upper deck their crews
could all read off the range-sometimes.
In 1908 I met the forerunner of the
fire control table-again non-electrical.
Ranges and bearings and odd bits of
information were passed by voicepipe to
me, and I, on a drawing board, with
some dexterity and a lot of imagina,tion
did fihe rest. This was elaborated in 1909
in a much larger ship w~here I did the
sam'e lbut with three assistants. This
needed a lot of practice to get the drill
right.
Range and deflection step ;by step
transmissions were now available, and
they, though unreliable, were seldom
troublesome as they were backed up by
telephones whiuh were quite he~lpful in
keeping a local sigh't set. I't was with the
advent of directors, early in the first
world war, that fire control systems
began to come into the limelight. Even
then they were not in fact quite such a
pain in the neck as might have been
expected. They missed steps very fre-
quently, because, until the 'M' type
mo'tor came along, the instruments were
not good enough for the job, but there
were lot of estimations and the like in
gunnery, and a few steps missed were not
al~ways very obvious at the time tlhey
happened, and the he'at might have gone
off a bit belfore they perhaps showed
their little heads in the analysis.
Searchlights of course were problem
children for many years. And any bad
behaviour on their part, whiuh was
almost the rule over a long period, was
so painfully obvious to all as to cause

grave embarrassment to those respons~ble
for them. They undoubtdely were
responsible for more concentrated fury
on the brdiges of H.M. Ships than any
other electrical device ever introduced
at sea and only started to get tame about
the time interest In them was on the
wane.
Two other occasional embarrassments
were 'illuminat~ng ship wilth oultine circuits'
and 'the black out.' They could
bo~th provide so much unrequired personal
advertisement and, who knolws,
perhaps they still will.
It is my belief that in nearly every
case in my time-I am not speaking
atbout yours-the incidents could have
been classed under the heading of bad
luck, or act of God, rajther than bad
management, but that never made much
difference. Outline circuits are of course
a lash up, and chancy under bad conditions,
and tlhough there is nothing
vulgar about the front half only going
on at the appointed time, there is little
reason to suspect that the senior officer
will regard it as funny if the look of the
outline is spoilt.
The 'black out' has, I think, under
peace conditions, provided more fun
than agony. I have not known one that
caused any harm or thalt happened at
sea. For the electrical officer tthey are a
good test of nerve, particularly if he is
in the wardroom at the time, and a quick
loud enquiry about the steam, and aimed
at the chief, could often help one out.
Towards the end of the first war the
electronic valve moved into naval
circles, and as th'is was naturally considered
rather too mysterious for t~he
ordinary run of Torpedo Officers, was
reserved for those specialised in W.T.,
who took it over to the signal branch and
subsequently fathered Asdics and some
loud speaking.
The rest of the electrical apparatus
altered little in character for some years.
though it improved in relialbility. This
ECHOES OF 'THE PAST 5 7
was rather a good time for the officer
in charge o'f electrics, provided his sea-
plane crane worked and his cabling was
not too decrepilt.
In control systems the pointer was
being followed, albeit with more and
more difficulty as A.A. fire came to the
fore, and step by step systems, wi8th their
'M' type motors, were functioning with
far more reliability than many people
wi'll ever give ,them credi,t for. There was
a distinct desire for simplicity, with a
view to reliability under all conditions
and the minimum of maintenance.
This was all very well in its way but,
as speed went up, the poor sailor, with
his pointer-following and the like, was
getting more and more overloaded. A
step forward early in the 30s was the
introducltion of tshe 'Magslip.' with its
smooth, synchronous transmission. and
the oil motor it most effecltively con-
trolled. An efficient remote power
con,trol arrived for searchlights, and
consideration was given to the more
difficult job of doing the same for guns.
Tshe stage was approaching with which
you are all familiar. It was esta~blished
beyond doub't that too much was being
asked of the human machine. 'R.P.C.'
became less of a requirement and more
of a vital necessity. Radar crashed in,
speech became louder and louder, sim-
plicity went by the board. The electronic
valve had broken its bounds. become
less of a mystery and more of a house-
hold utensil, behaving more like a lamp
-Aladdin's.
Everything is now set for the approach
to the final goal. The s~pecification for
the human will be reduced to the mini-
mum-just a little judgment, able to push
a button, to eat and sleep well if air
conditioned, to take his leave wlhen piped
at the end of a five-day week and-this
is the crux of tlhe pro'blem--carry out
efficient maintenance.
We once used to say a ship could be
judged by her boats. It looks as if in the

5 8 ECHOES OF THE PAST
future a ship will have to be judged by 'Echoes of the Past,' which was written
her Elecltrical Branch. by his late father-in-law, Captain E. J.
Wickham, R.N., for many years a
(We are indebted to Captain T. A. subscriber to The Naval Review-
well^, R.N., for permission to print Editor.)
WATCH THE OFFICERS!
S~~,-CAMOMIL.E hopes that his article
will lead to 'informed discussion' about
the calibre and entry of today's young
officers. Having spent some six years as
Director of Naval Recruiting and then
Flag Officer Admiralty Interview Board
during the period when most of those he
criticises were being attracted and
selected, perhaps I should try to start it
off?
Firstly, I share his nostalgia. I, too,
was one of those devoted little prepschool
boys, weaned on 'Bartimeus' and
'Taffrail', who joined Dartmouth at
thirteen to be stamped into the genus
Naval Officer. Had we had to wait till
the age of eighteen, many of us would
never have joined. Instead we might
have become successful business men,
stockbrokers, actors, judges or even
criminals. You could say that we joined
when we were too young to know better.
However, the system produced a wealth
of characters in the wardrooms of the
Fleet that was markedly lacking in the
Army and the R.A.F. and, at the same
time, succeeded in providing totally
dedicated and idealistic naval officers who
put the interests of the Service first and
their own a long way second.
Of course, it was relatively easy for
us. At a time of grinding poverty and
unemployment, we came from a social
class where it was economically possible
to afford ideals. We came from homes
where it was normal to employ servants.
Correspondence
It was as natural to us to give orders as
it was to those on the messdecks to take
them. We all came from a world cf
rigid class distinctions where the com-
parative top and bottom of the com-
munity worked well together with
mutual affection and respect and where
a somewhat incompetent officer would
often be 'carried' by his sailors if they
liked him and considered him 'a real
gentleman'. On top of everything, we
had the pride of belonging to a navy
which stood high in popular esteem, a
world in which to be a naval officer
really meant something.
How different things had become by
the late sixties and early seventies - the
era of hippies, CND, and 'flower power'.
Amongst the young generation, parti-
tularly in the universities, the Armed
Forces were viewed with apathy at the
best and, at the worst, hostility and
derision. However unfairly, our own
Services even suffered for the un-
popularity of Vietnam.
At the same time, during a period of
prosperity and high employment, the
series of Defence cuts had given us the
dread image of redundancy whilst the
Navy had suffered, particularly, from the
loss of the battle for the new carrier.
When I started as BNR, early in 1966,
we reckoned that 60% of retired officers
(mostly of the Golden Bowler genera-
tion) were advising boys against joining
the Navy. Three years later, at the end
of 1968, the proportion had increased to

90%. Worse, whereas in my youth to
be able to say 'I am a naval officer' set
one above and apart from the other
young men in the room, the same state-
ment now would produce cries of 'Good
God, why?', or 'I didn't know we still
had a navy'.
Such an atmosphere was hardly con-
ducive to successful recruiting and so it
is not surprising that most of the
material appearing before the Admira!ty
Interview Board was mediocre. Of
course, we were only entering two-thirds
of our officers, the remainder having
already come from the Lower Deck. Of
the candidates for these two-thirds, about
one third came from Headmasters'
Conference schools, one third from
Comprehensives and one third from the
whole range between. The passes
reflected the same proportions. Unlike
the old thirteen-year old entry, real
motivation was fairly rare. Few candi-
dates had even bothered to find out what
sort of ships we had. One soon learned
to expect a general lack of enthusiasm
or even interest.
There were a few, very few, obvious
'fliers'. There were rather more who
obviously possessed the qualities for
which we were looking and so presented
no problem. There were a lot who were
self-evidently useless. Our difficulty was
in sorting out the great majority of
candidates somewhere in between. We
took, as our pass mark. 500, and this
represented the candidate who was by
no means ideal but who appeared to have
a potential which, with training, could
be turned into an adequate naval officer.
I fought a bitter fight with the
Personnel Department of the day to keep
the standard at 500. Those in Whitehall
who saw the shortfall in entry numbers
increasing month by month naturally
wanted to take in more in the hope that
Dartmouth could make something out
of what appeared to be unpromising
material. Knowing where we already
stood, the A.I.B. argued that it would
CORRESI 'ONDENCE 59
be better to reduce the navy even further
and pay off some of the few ships we had
left rather than knowingly accept naval
officers who would simply .not be up to
standard. I am glad to say the AIB won
and the pass was held. The point is,
however, that with the great majority of
our successful candidates in the five
hundreds, to raise the standard as
CAMOMILE suggests to, say, 600, would
be very nice and might, eventually,
attract a very few more higher quality
boys. But, in the meantime, three-fifths
of our entry would have fallen away. We
simply could not do it. In fact, as I shall
argue in a minute, experience has since
shown that our standard was just about
right.
Meanwhile CAMOMILE asks 'If we are
not attracting enough young men of the
right kind, what is being done about it?'
The answer, of course, is that, for many
years, some pretty high priced help and
some very good brains have been
struggling with just this problem and
have found no solution because there iq
none. Advertising professionals, psychologists,
civil servants, naval officers --
all have tried to come up with an answer
and all have failed. There is no specific
wand which can be waved which nobody
has yet discovered and there are no ideas
which have not already been thought up
and chewed over ad nauseam. In short,
the candidates we attract reflect the
esteem in which we are held by the
public as a rewarding career and a way
of life. Unfortunately, after a long
peace, a rotten press, and a series of
Defence cuts, our image is low and so,
therefore, is our appeal to the type of
candidate we wish to attract.
Let us keep it all in perspective however.
God knows we have produced
many great naval officers and even more
good ones. But behind the famous
admirals of the Napoleonic wars there
were some fairly mediocre captains and
lieutenants. The decorative Victorian
navy had plenty of men in the ward-

60 CORRESPONDENCE
rooms, and in the higher ranks, who
would not have lasted five minutes today.
The twenties and thirties of this century
were vintage years with a navy held in
the highest esteem and a system of entry
which could skim the cream off the
country's young boyhood. But this was
a transient bonus and an unfair yardstick
by which to compare the past or the
present, even if it is, by the nature of
things, the one which that generation
must obviously use.
Today, as always, the wardrooms of
the Fleet reflect the outlook and the
standards of the time. Of course you
will hear the ratings' 'on' as opposed to
'in' a ship when one third of our officers
were ratings. Many attitudes and reac-
tions will be different with an officer
corps totally different socially from that
which obtained pre-war - but that does
not necessarily mean they are any
worse.
Bareheaded saluting is not 'a practice
which appears to be growing'. It was
ordered by the Admiralty Board nearly
a decade ago when, encouraged by the
example of the highest in the land, hats
went out of fashion. One wonders what
cries of despair were uttered by the
Camomiles of the day when Port (helm)
Twenty became 'Starboard (wheel)
Twenty'. Surely that was the writing on
the wall!
Let us be fair to today's young officers.
With none of the advantages their
fathers had, with ratings in many cases
from the same schools and streets as
themselves, they have an infinitely
harder task than we ever faced. Today
you are not handed your rank and
respect on a plate with only yourself to
blame if you fail. You must earn it by
showing that you possess the qualities
which justify your precedence.
Of course some fail to measure up.
Some always have. I can think of just as
bad examples pre-war as CAMOMILE
quotes today. But the point is, that with
the material available, Dartmouth has
worked wonders and the young men
themselves have passed a test which we
might well have failed. In spite of an un-
helpful public attitude, defence cuts,
redundancies, disappointment and dis-
illusionment, these youngsters have
faced up to far greater demands on
themselves as leaders, and the require-
ment for much higher technical skills
with modern ships and weapons, than
ever we had to provide. They have over-
come all these difficulties and they are
the backbone of a Fleet whose efficiency
and morale is as high today as it has ever
been. For that, my generation can only
be grateful to them.
C.C.A.
Sir,-CAMOMILE'S observations are
thought-provoking and timely. There is
much in what he writes to agree with
and quite a bit with which to take issue.
In the first place we must all recognise
that times and customs do indeed
change. The first ship I joined, a six-inch
cruiser, had no bar in the wardroom.
Most people in civil life wore hats and
an officer always wore a hat when in
plain clothes unless playing games. I
regret the advent of the bar and I find
the very idea of saluting without a cap
on my head to be strange and disturbing,
to say the least! But, much as we dislike
change, these are new customs, new
traditions if you like, which I am afraid
we must accept, albeit with mental
reservations. On the other hand, there
are things which rise above tradition and
at all costs must be preserved. For
instance, ships and establishments must
be properly squared off; officers and men
must always be smart and particularly so
when in uniform. Despite those who
decry 'bull' I do not believe that a ship's
fighting efficiency is impaired by devoting
reasonable attention to outward appear-
ance, and in the same way an officer's
ability to perform his duties well is hardly
likely to be impaired because his shoes
are well polished. (However, in all my

years in the service I can not to my
sorrow remember anybody taking the
least notice of my shining shoes, so
probably this is not accepted as much of
a criterion; platform shoes are quite
another matter! )
My present work brings me daily into
contact with young men between the
ages of eighteen and twenty-two and I
am only one of the great number of
people in my position who can and do
assert with complete confidence that
there is no shortage today of young men
of intelligence, good manners, ability and
self-discipline, I have little doubt that
with the occasional exception, the
Admiralty Interview Board selects from
such candidates young officers who are
well suited for a naval career and most
of them should do well.
I am not sure, however, that all of us
of the last generation of naval officers
fully recognise just how much more
difficult it is for the present-day midship-
man or sub-lieutenant to retain his early
and mostly emotional enthusiasm. It is
all too easy for young enthusiasm to be
dispelled by disillusion on better
acquaintance with the Service. It might
be helpful if I suggest one way in which
this disillusion may be brought about.
I say that there are many splendid young
men available and the ways the recruiting
divisions of all three Services go about
attracting them is to present Service life
as a challenge guaranteed to stretch their
fine qualities to the full. John Winton's
excellent account of life at Dartmouth
which is amply and unanimously con-
firmed by several junior sources of my
acquaintance, stresses this element of
challenge. The young men (and ladies
no doubt now!) are extended both
physically and mentally and the success-
ful majority find an enhanced confidence
in what they can be called upon to
perform.
Perhaps the element of challenge is
overdone. I suspect that at sea in a ship
already adequately complemented to
CORRESI 'ONDENCE 61
fulfil every task it may be very easy for
an officer under training to find the
sense of challenge rudely dispelled. The
lack of challenge induces boredom and,
with boredom, disillusion. For my generation
it was all very different. There
was never any question during the
thirties that the Navy had a vital role to
perform and when the real war started
it did not matter greatly that there were
times when life in the Service was
boring. There was after all no alternative
career available! One could dream about
other pastures green - farming, the City
or keeping a pub; but one had to awake
to realities - long, boring watches,
occasional excitement or terror and
living basically for the chance of a few
days' leave from time to time. Dedication
to one's career is a simple matter if all
other choices are barred. Even those
whose dedication was by no means total
recognised that even during periods of
boredom it was well to keep efficient
and alert if only to increase one's chance
of survival.
The remedy for shortcomings in the
qualities of some junior officers, and I
sincerely hope these are less numerous
than CAMOMILE'S article might suggest,
would at first sight appear to be to continue
the pace of training and the challenge
to the individual as set by the
B.R.N.C. This, however, is probably
impossible. To a significant extent the
young officer will be a happy individual
providing he is kept very busy doing
those things which are recognisably
necessary. This must however be very
difficult to arrange, considering the
number of officers under training who
must be squeezed into a shrinking
number of small ships. It was a problem
in my day and I am sure it is a
much greater problem now. I think
therefore that it has to be accepted that
officers under training at sea may well
feel cheated when the promises of being
challenged and extended are replaced
by the reality of having too little to do

62 CORRESPONDENCE
(or being loaded with too many unnecessary
or time-wasting duties, which is
a worse alternative to the intelligent).
They become bored but their dreams of
pastures green. unlike ours, can be
turned into reality with comparatively
little effort on their part. When this
happens to an individual considerable
encouragement is going to be needed if
the Navy is not to lose first the enthusiasm
and then the services of what
might have been a good officer.
What is the answer? CAMOMILE appears
to blame the new entries themselves
and no doubt there are occasions
when he is right. But I feel that the
root cause of the malaise, if indeed such
exists, is much deeper and underlying it
all must be the morale of the officers of
middle seniority; in other words the
wardroom officers of the seagoing fleet.
By all means let there be greater efforts
to keep the officers under training on
their toes when they get to sea; better
still to make them use their brains and
powers of leadership even if a few bits
of hardware and maybe one or two heads
are broken in the process. Concurrently
the B.R.N.C. might taper off the
'challenge' aspect as the sea training
period approaches, but no doubt this is
already carried to its practical limit. In
the end the only answer to lack of quality
at the bottom must be better leadership
from the top. 1 think I should have said
'apparent lack of quality' because I am
sure the quality is there to be developed.
Just as we see (twice in the last issue of
The Naval Review) the phrase - 'No
bad ratings; only bad officers'. which in
civilian life is expressed as 'no bad
unions, only bad managers', so I think
we can extend the relationship to 'no bad
junior officers, only bad senior officers'.
In the civilian context I must confess to
bewailing on more than one occasion the
clumsiness and ineptitude of middle
management in their dealings with their
subordinates. But this in itself does no
good at all and I have little sympathy
with an officer who is fed up with the
Service because the new entries do not
seem in his opinion to be up to scratch.
Wellington is on record as having
voiced grave doubts about the abilities
of his officers, but he got them pretty
successfully, on the whole, from Torres
Vedras to Toulouse and on to Waterloo.
Quite a few famous admirals have had
similar sentiments. Their success was in
showing their juniors what to do.
Perhaps they had more time to do it.
More and more since 1935 I have formed
the impression that some admirals work
so hard that they can have no time to
show anybody anything! Does this
example of hard work at the top tend to
lead to a Navy where there is no fun?
Does this lead to an 0830-1630 mentality
in the wardroom? I do not know, but
for reasons I have already mentioned
I think the leadership required to sustain
good morale in the middle ranks is much
greater now than was needed forty years
ago. 'Watch the officers! ' certainly, but
I respectfully suggest 'Officers watch
yourselves and your effect on those who
will follow you.'
GILDAS
SIR,--When I read CAMOMILE'S article
of this title in the October 1977 edition. I
was seized with an aggressive response
which I hope may have made Lord
Nelson twitch comfortably in his grave.
As the Captain of one of Her Majesty's
Ships, I am on the whole unkindly disposed
to Jeremiah's who tell me that the
Royal Navy is going to the dogs, especially
at a time when self-depreciation of
a flavour not far removed from the tone
of CAMOMILE'S article, is one of our
worst endemic diseases, and one which
he omits, curiously, to mention.
However, the fact that my hand flew
to my sword (metaphorically, of course,
these days), told me that here was a case
which called for a reply. Thus I have
followed CAMOMILE'S eloquent example
by 'carefully and fearlessly', if quite

CORRESPONDENCE 63
briefly, setting my thoughts on paper. much to be concerned about in the
The overall question would appear to problems facing shore establishments,
be: does CAMOMILE diagnose a funda- and I am dismayed that so much by way
mental weakness of the Service today, of manners and appearance of young
'a downward spiral which will feed on officers has to be instilled at sea rather
its own momentum'; or is he speaking as than during basic training. But I cera
noble ornament of a previous age who tainly seek to moderate the overall
contemplates the present with only significance of what CAMOMILE has to
partial comprehension? CAMOMILE'S con- say.
tention is that the officer body of the Let me take CAMOMILE'S points in
Service is significantly inferior in order:
quality to that at some previous time, (1) IN-fitting uniforms and poor
by implication the time when he was bearing. The Admiralty Board has
serving last. His definition of quality can striven, with only modest success,
be summarised, reasonably, by the to achieve smart uniforms at low
virtues which would earn 90 in an S.206 cost. CAMOMILE might be amazed
and 'which together deserve - and are at the proportion of officers who
always given - spontaneous and un- still go to elaborate lengths to dress
grudging respect'. There is no contest smartly on very straightened
here. Indeed the more I read the article, budgets. I would add parenthetically
the more I am compelled to endorse the that many Service-issue garments
desirable qualities which CAMOMILE virtually promote slovenly appearparades,
but apparently finds lacking ance, although there have been
today.
some recent changes for the better.
However, by the same process it be- (2) Outrageous plain clothes. The
comes clear that his thesis, insofar as it tendency described is exaggerated.
is specific as a whole, is partial and No officers in my wardroom are so
subjective. This doesn't mean that his afflicted.
points lack value, but it makes them (3) Reluctance to go to sea. This
suspect as a basis for a conclusion. failing is not unknown, alas espe-
Indeed, I am left with the enduring view cially in the engineering branches.
that this is a conspicuous example of a It is generally treated with the
'situated appreciation', a very tender contempt which it deserves.
hybrid to expose to the tempests of
debate.
(4) Fouled ensign in shore establishment.
I am constantly amazed at
Much as I would like to be able to the high standards still achieved at
spot this opening salvo, I am confident shore establishments in the face of
that it has straddled. This is because I great difficulties. Standards have
do not believe that CAMOMILE could fallen in some respects. Reasons are
possibly have based his article upon manifold and as a habitual seagoer
observations made in well-run seagoing I am poorly qualified to rehearse
ships. CAMOMILE'S disconcerting ex- them with authority. In outline, I beamples
appear to belong principally if lieve that shore establishments have:
not exclusively to shore establishments a. Complements cut to the bode.
and social encounters, whereas authori- b. A pronounced 9-5 instinct, not
tative comment on the quality of the entirely unreasonable since many
officer corps must necessarily start if not of their fully-fit personnel are
finish in the Fleet. I hasten to add that enjoying the often short shore
I conjure no pride or comfort from these element of their sealshore ratio.
criticisms; for I believe that there is c. A significant proportion of

atings in reduced medical
categories, who often have a way
of not being the brightest and
best anyway.
d. A preponderately transit
population.
(5) Poor Sentries. Consequently it
is difficult to fill sentry rosters and
very difficult to sustain the high
standards undoubtedly required.
(6) Apologetic young officers. In
the late 50s and early 60s, I per-
sonally was guilty of just this crime
when among my worldly-wise
civilian friends. This was because I
was not certain, in my heart, of the
role of the Navy. I believe that the
role of the Navy today is very much
clearer to most young officers; in-
deed here is a downward spiral
which we seem to have reversed on
a national basis. Consequently I
expect the unfortunate remark
referred to is more uncommon than
in my time.
(7) The Service 'another job . . . .
for the money'. This reflects a
national attitude which gives me
the opportunity to say that I
believe the Services to be a tre-
mendously valuable and on-the-
whole effective bastion against some
of the very self-centred motivations
which have assaulted and ravaged
British society these last two decades.
Whereas some would argue that a
hard-headed monetary approach is
essential to the effective modernisa-
tion of Great Britain's industrial
base, I look around my wardroom
and see none who would not rightly
be offended by CAMOMILE'S charge.
(8) An officer who clearly . . . had
no officer potential at all. I trust
this officer has left the Service.
CAMOMILE follows this list with a
general discussion which, with respect,
does little but make some irrefutable
points of principle against the implication
that they are being neglected. He
says that he has talked 'with a number
of promising young officers in the
twenty-five to thirty-five age group who
have left or are contemplating leaving
the Service for no other reason than the
fall in standard of so much of the officer
entry'. He does not mention how this
compares proportionally with other
reasons for leaving, or the degree to
which the Service is or isn't in difficulty
with officer retention as a whole. It is
also unclear to me how the 'many more
younger men of the highest quality -
who will not consider entering the
Service for the same reason' can be
aware of this particular alleged facet,
except of course by repute. The charge
is highly subjective, although if generally
believed it is extremely worrying,
whether or not it has foundation in fact.
I find it very difficult to take seriously
the arguments and contentions about
dying traditions which follow, or to
accept that these few examples cut to the
roots of the integrity of the officer corps.
In any case, countless traditions survive
and flourish.
Having now achieved a few direct hits
and neutralised CAMOMILE'S offensive
capability, it is time to take him under
escort and conduct him to a safe anchorage
by lending some perspective to the
several useful points he makes. The
Royal Navy has been undergoing a period
of rapid and fundamental change. Much
but not all of this was necessary. Major
changes always involve several surprises
for each expected outcome. We are left
with many scars, especially ashore and
in training establishments and these scars
are inclined to be extremely visible even
if they are not otherwise fundamentally
important. There are problems at sea
too, of which the weakness of the PWO
system is perhaps the most evidently
serious. But ships make men of boys as
they always have, and it is here that we
must look for the heart and soul of the
officer corps, indeed of the Royal Navy
as a whole. There is not much wrong

CORRESPONDENCE 65
with our ships, either in the world league
or by our own standards of ten and
generally expect of my officers, I have
taken the liberty to attach, as an annex,
twenty years ago. Overall I see a the introduction to my Standing Instrucstronger,
sleeker Navy. However, I have tions. I do not think that he would either
a profound desire to see a period of find fault with my expectations or be
consolidation, with emphasis more on disappointed in the threads of tradition
evolution than revolution. This would, I which tie them together. I can assure him
believe, provide the opportunity to put a
lot of CAMOMILE'S incidental worries to
rest.
As to the officer entry as a whole, at
that my officers have proved more than
equal to my demand for excellence in
these matters, in circumstances which
have been trying more often than not.
an age when I really do find policemen
looking younger, the junior officers I
happen to know seem to be of a generally
Complacent I am not; but in conclusion
I have no doubt that CAMOMILE is seeing
distorted reflections in a glass which has
higher quality than a few years ago. I a depth he is no longer in a position
am much more proud of their breadth fully to comprehend. Nevertheless, his
of background than I was, although I comments are valuable, both in themshare
CAMOMILE'S disquiet at the little selves and as a salutary critique of the
time that can apparently be devoted to face we may present to a discerning and
what I think we all mean by basic train- expectant public. We should take care
ing.
that our face is fair and firm, and the
As a profile of the officers in my ship, glass not needlessly darkened.
I offer CAMOMILE this:
I am sure that CAMOMILE will not be
a. They work very hard indeed, much offended if I remind readers that he is in
harder probably than CAMOMILE fact an 'aromatic creeping plant, used
would remotely expect other than medicinally' CCollins English Dictionary),
in war. I do not imagine he realises and on that note I rest my case.
the degree to which parts of the
SHACKLETON
Royal Navy perform what amounts
H.M.S. NONSUCH -
to a war task for much of the time. CAPTAIN'S INSTRUCTIONS
b. They work with exemplary dedi- Introduction
cation, and with flair and imagina- 1. Our aim is to promote H.M.S.
tion too.
Nonsuch's readiness to support the conc.
They see far less of their families cept of operations. Thus we need to
than I would wish, yet they receive ensure that Nonsuch is not only prepared
a degree of support from their for war but is also ready to be operawives
in their work which would tionally committed to today's confrontaamaze
the general public.
tion for as much of the time as possible.
d. If married, they are mostly des- 2. During the siege of Toulon in 1792,
perately short of money to make Admiral Nelson wrote 'I have but five
ends meet.
sail, and I keep them out absolutely by
e. Nearly all have developed into good management.' I presume to believe
good leaders, respected by their that he meant management in its
men. They are conscientious divi- broadest sense, not least embracing the
sional officers, although sometimes leadership by officers which inspires the
initially naive which is nothing new. ultimate vitality in any force or unit.
f. They are extremely well-mannered 3. To achieve our aim, the ship's comand
always make visitors to the pany must be well-trained, well motivated
wardroom feel at home.
and contented. It is not always under-
To illustrate to CAMOMILE what 'I stood by less experienced officers and

66 CORRESPONDENCE
senior rates that efficiency and content-
ment are complementary to a high
degree. It is my experience that men
derive great satisfaction from working
extremely hard, best as a team but also
individually, provided that:
The aim is clear and understood,
They are given the compliment of
being well directed,
They are provided with every con-
sideration and support possible in
the circumstances.
@ Their efforts are recognised, and
when time allows, their leave is
regarded as a matter of importance.
4. Consequently I lay great store by
sound administration as well as good
leadership. Without, our aim will be
jeopardised both directly and by the
distraction and discouragement which
will arise. Rory O'Conor, the remark-
able Commander of H.M.S. Hood
1933-36, wrote: 'It takes more work to
keep a slovenly ship slovenly than it
does to keep a smart ship clean.' Nonsuch
has a fine reputation as a smart ship, in
organisation, habit and appearance. We
must maintain this, taking care that the
daunting difficulties in certain areas do
not deflect us further than they directly
dictate.
5. Additionally I stress divisional work.
not only because it is fundamental to the
well-being of our people (and hence our
aim) but also because I believe that
standards of divisional work in the
Flotilla are not always as meticulous as
they should be. Ensure that your Divi-
sional Senior Rates are entrusted with
their fair share of the task.
6. Everyone should work hard at the
art of wise delegation, a very important
element of leadership and management
alike.
7. Be prepared to use your initiative,
pausing only to remember that when you
act for the ship you do so in my name.
8. Feel free to consult me at any time.
On Service issues I shall generally expect
you to present the available options, as
you see them, when you do so.
Commanding Officer
Sir,-As a junior officer I feel I must
comment on CAMOMILE'S article in the
October 1977 number of The Naval
Review. It appears that the author has
not been on the active list for the past
ten or twenty years. Therefore his
observations must be seen as critically
benevolent. First, however, I must
totally agree with his comments vis-Li-vis
poor professionalism e.g. sloppy ceremonial.
Bad officer-like habits are inexcusable
and must be corrected
wherever they occur. It is therefore with
his comments on the social conduct of
young officers that I wish to take issue.
I would beg to suggest that when
CAMOMILE was a young officer he was
required to live in the wardroom under
the eyes of his superiors, having already
completed a long apprenticeship at
Dartmouth and in the gunroom of his
first ship as a midshipman. Therefore as
a junior lieutenant he was able to observe
his superiors both during the working
day and in the mess at night, at sea and
ashore. Mess functions were frequent;
he was probably often entertained by his
superiors, when time permitted, in their
homes, where he was able to observe at
first hand the necessary social 'niceties'.
Whenever in doubt concerning the
correct rig, etiquette, or whatever he
could obtain advice easily and act
accordingly.
The young officer of today has no such
experience on which to draw. On completion
of his short introduction to the
Service at Dartmouth, where he probably
achieves the exalted rank of sublieutenant
or even lieutenant, he
departs for another short period of
training afloat. However if his ship is in
home waters he will observe the now
commonplace commuter rush of his
seniors back to their married lives from
1600 onwards every night. His only com-

panions in the evenings therefore are
probably his contemporaries and other
bachelor officers themselves probably
fairly junior.
If he is unlucky enough to be despatched
to further education instead of
sea i.e. University or Manadon, he spends
perhaps the next three years totally in
the company of his peers. His Service
outlook and standards are therefore
conditioned by his friends and not his
Service superiors. Can we blame him if
his ideas of dress and bearing fail to
measure up to those expected of him?
Today's junior officer more often than
not has a state school background and
finds more kinship with other junior
officers namely the sub-lieutenants and
lieutenants (SD), themselves probably
newly promoted and feeling their way.
Lower Deck slang therefore assumes a
natural part of the young officer's
vocabulary because there is no competition
from example set by the more senior
wardroom officers.
I quite understand CAMOMILE'S concern.
Many officers have expressed the
same sentiments. However, is it not our
job to assist the newly promoted officer
and kindly but firmly point out his errors
and assist him to correct them? To a
young man from a non-Service background,
and possibly University, the
customs of the Service need to be explained
and encourqged. Remember that
the cost of equipping a young man with
civilian clothes he has never had the need
to own before (bespoke as well?), on top
of his uniforms, is prohibitive. I am sure
Messrs Gieves and Hawkes can attest to
this!
Only strong leadership by example
from above can help the situation. The
present tendency of the Service to
become a married mens' preserve, with
the consequent loss of mess life as their
links become more tenuous, means that
our new junior officers have no guides
bar their own during the very important
CORRESPONDENCE 67
evening social hours. Have we not failed
the young officer?
P. L. RICE
'WE BAND OF BROTHERS'
Sir,-I was one of presumably many
members who read D. J. CHILDS' article
with interest and concern. Having
recently served a tour of duty in Norway
it may be that your readers would be
interested in a brief, if somewhat
sketchy, account of how matters stand
there.
It must be borne in mind that Norway
has had many years of uninterrupted
socialist government; although broadly
of the social-democratic form the
customary 'lunatic fringe' may have
helped to push things along a bit.
The overall organisation and adminis-
tration of the Norwegian armed forces
is very similar to that of our own, the
whole coming under an integrated MOD
with a central staff bestriding those of
the individual Services. In so far as is
possible the same rules and regulations
apply to all. Apart from a small cadre
of regular officers, and some senior
NCOs, the bulk of serving personnel are
conscripts.
All Norwegians in the government
service, including members of the armed
forces, are organised into equitable
'bands' for pay and certain allowances.
Hours of work are also specified, on a
weekly basis, after which either overtime
or time off in lieu is applicable: this
applies as much to Service personnel as
to government employed civilians.
As far as officers are concerned there
are a number of 'associations' which they
may join. These, broadly speaking, are
organised on a branch or specialisation
basis, but may be sub-divided according
to rank. Such associations are affiliated
to a national trade union, so that
members may benefit from any agree-
ment negotiated with the government as
employer: members of these associations
are not permitted to participate in any

of EWS tanks by firemen, on the
grounds of protecting the employ-
ment of members of the building
trade.
4. I question whether there is evidence
to support the contention that the
idea of mobile columns of the NFS
accompanying the AEF to Europe
in 1944 originated with the FBU.
Three of the four columns never
crossed the Channel and the one that
did did not live up to the expecta-
tions of its creators.
As for the last full paragraph on
p. 349 - res ipsa loquitur.
The FBU has rejected its self-imposed
limits invoked by D. J. Childs: his article
could not have been published at a
moment less favourable so far as its
analogies are concerned.
A. B. SAINSBURI
THE ADMIRALTY, BOMBS AND
BATTLESHIPS
Sir,-So much could, and should, be
written about naval aircraft between
the wars, but what is written is seldom
written by an expert. The Admiralty did
go for allrounders and I think rightly so,
there being so few aircraft carriers and
so many functions to fulfil. However
not having control of our own design
and supply we were dreadfully handi-
capped. We were lucky to have the
Swordfish, which was a private venture
by Fairey at the request of DNAD.
However, the Swordfish was a great
aircraft and with all its failing as to
speed it was far more deadly than its
U.S.N. counterparts. The Avenger
whose torpedo was not so hot, could not
dive steeply, so could not do real dive
bombing, nor a really devastating
torpedo attack.
With regard to the controversy that
raged between the Ministries I have the
following comments:
The Admiralty thought that aircrew
would be so disturbed by anti-aircraft
fire that they would not be able to aim
CORRESPONDENCE 69
straight. I wonder if they also considered
that Gunnery Officers might also be
disturbed by enemy fire? The strangle-
hold that the Gunnery Lobby held on
the Navy at that time probably persuaded
them that Gunnery Officers were super-
men. In fact, the only time that I went
through the motions of releasing bombs
at a battleship, which occurred over
Wilhelmshaven, and when we were being
fired at by shore defences, and by
Scharnhorst and Gneisenau, I was so
wrapped up in my business that I had no
idea that we were being fired on.
I also saw that the Air Ministry com-
mented that their pilots would not be
disturbed, regardless of the fact that the
bomb-aimer dropped the bombs.
Before the last war the Air Force did
not have officer personnel in the back
seat of their aircraft. Hence they did
not have their best brains there, presum-
ing that men are promoted to officers
because they have the better brains. As
a result their navigational skills suffered,
and their back-seat aids such as radio
sets, and particularly their bomb sights,
were far below par.
The bomb sight was so poor that it
made high bombing an art rather than
a science. The compass lacked direc-
tional force and would readily spin if
disturbed. When I was at Lee-on-Solent
in the fall of 1939 with our Service
Trials Unit, I asked a scientist if we
could have installed a small gyro to spin
up and be accurate for at least five
minutes, enough for an attack. He
replied that this would be simple. This
alone would have made high bombing
relatively easy. With regard to radio
sets, I had to use a First World War
TF T21C radio in my Osprey from 1936
to 1938.
Chatfield apparently saw little danger
in bombing in 1931, and later he may
have missed the experimental work done
by Furious aircraft in 1934-35. We were
given the task of using pattern bombing
against the radio controlled battleship

70 CORRESPONDENCE
Centurion which was to have full avoid-
ing action available. I was then teamed
up with Tony Colthurst, the commander
of 822 Squadron and with the assistance
of Ben Bolt and his pilot Flight Lieu-
tenant Revington we got to work.
We used a squadron formation of two
flat Vs disposed astern and dropped three
bombs per aircraft, 90 feet apart, while
the aircraft were 90 feet apart also, and
the rear flight was 270 feet astern. So
we covered an area 450 feet square,
enough to allow for quite a lot of error,
and also for avoiding action by the
target. We did a number of attacks on
Centurion and never failed to get five or
six hits per attack from 12,000 to 14,000
feet, from which height bombs would
reach their terminal velocity and have
full penetrating potential. We played
fair and found our own wind within
fifteen miles of Centurion using smoke
floats and smoke puffs without breaking
formation, using our own techniques.
When I joined an R.A.F. Squadron
for a bombing raid over Wilhelmshaven
so inexperienced were their bomb aimers
that I was selected as bomb aimer for
the Squadron Commander's aircraft.
Individual bombing, of course. We ap-
proached from the sea, but had no wind-
finding method, and the Navigator being
a young Pilot Officer of some sixty hours
flying, we made a landfall north of
Heligoland instead of south. Such was
their opinion of the skills needed for the
navigation of a 'Balbo' of twenty-four
aircraft. I had previously heard it stated
from R.A.F. sources that 'though they
understood that the Fleet Air Arm had
devised a method of finding the wind
over the sea, this was considered to be
of no value to the R.A.F.'
Despite all, I was about to enjoy one
of my extreme ambitions, which was to
drop a high bomb on an enemy battle-
ship - only to be foiled because my
pilot failed to make the Master Switch.
And I do believe that I might have got a
hit.
Incidentally these Wellingtons carried
three 5001b. bombs - the same load as
carried by the despised Swordfish.
HANK ROTHERHAM
BRITISH SHIPBUILDING IN WAR
Sir,-In your review of Allied Escort
Ships of World War II in The Naval
Review of October 1977 you gave British
shipbuilders a gratuitous 'whiff of grape
shot' about slow production. You quote
Yarrows building a 'Hunt' class destroyer
in thirteen months, compared with
the U.S. Boston Navy Yard production
of a DE in five and a half months.
There are many reasons (if not always
excuses) for this occurrence:
(1) Britain was at war and knew it, the
USA did not; the disruption of supply of
materials and support to shipyards, and
the drain of skilled manpower to the
Services was evident.
(2) The pressures of wartime building
were so heavy as not to be advantageous;
designs were not fully worked out,
teething troubles occurred during build
etc.
(3) The rate of turning out ships was
good, and this of course affected the
actual build time of individual ships.
(4) The rivetting versus welding con-
troversy was very real and affected by
cautious attitudes, not least in the Naval
Staff itself. The U.S.N. were ahead in
accepting all-welded ships, with the
advantages of prefabrication, to advan-
tage in this instance.
For the record, the first 'Hunt' was
turned out in nine months, by Cammell
Laird; subsequently production got
slightly slower, which bears out my thesis
that the pressures of war, including
bombing, hinder rather than help.
However, we did seek to improve our-
selves; at Vickers, in Barrow and New-
castle, we were turning out submarines
every two or three weeks, although they
took about ten months to build even
after both 'S' and 'T' Classes had been
redesigned for welding. The 'X'-craft

were seven months from eye-twinkle to
hardware acceptance.
The difference between US and British
yards production time may be notalble,
but not very.
T. R. W. MUNDY
STRAIGHT TO SEA
Sir,-May I claim, on behalf of my fellow
Special Entry cadets of September 1921,
the record for the time between first
putting on naval uniform and being at
sea in a sea-going ship, excluding, of
course, being press-ganged!
There were only fifteen of us that year
and we were told to be at the Harbour
Station, Portsmouth, where we would be
met by an officer from H.M.S. Antrim.
Those who came from afar were to catch
a specified train from Waterloo, where
we assembled, some looking very self-
conscious in superfine and shining gold
while others bore suitcases. These latter
had ample time while the train was in
motion to use various lavatories, which
they entered as chrysalises, to emerge in
the full splendour of His Majesty's
uniform.
We were met at the Harbour Station
by an officer and a working party to
hump our luggage to a launch which
took us out to Spithead where Antrim
was riding at anchor. Two days later we
CORRESPONDENCE 7 1
were at sea in the Channel and in the
Spring we cruised to Gibraltar and
Sierra Leone.
We were enchanted and I should like
to join other contributors to The Naval
Review in saying 'Thank you, My Lords'.
G. T. LAMBERT
'COUNTY' CLASS CRUISERS
Sir,-In The Naval Review for October
1977, there appears, towards the foot of
the right hand column of p. 373, (I quote)
'. . . and two County class cruisers.'
It so happens that when war broke out
in August 1914, I was at Hong Kong,
serving as a midshipman in the cruiser
Hampshire which, if recollection serves,
was assigned to the so-called 'improved
"County" class'. Thus the heaviest gun
she mounted was the 7.5-inch, as against
the 6-inch in the ten ships of the original
'County' class.
Incidentally: the very last time that I
can recall seeing my old ship was on the
evening of the Battle of Jutland.
To the best of my recollection we
never had any of the original 'County'
class serving in the China Squadron.
Next to the Hampshire our next two
most formidable vessels were the much
smaller and less powerful Yarmouth and
Newcastle.
W. M. PHIPPS HORNBY

REVIEWS-I: Naval Periodicals
LA REVUE MARITIME
In July attention was drawn in the
Editorial to the increasing importance
of the sea in the affairs of mankind. 'Are
we at the beginning of a "sea-dominated
civilisa~tion"?' The sea is an increasingly
impoftant source of food through agri-
cultural fishing and 'aquaculture' (sic),
as well as being a source of as yet un-
exploited raw materials. It is also a
strategic platform for missile-armed
submarines.
Until recently the sea was an area of
freedom. Now, with questions of the Law
of the Sea coming to the fore, nations
are drawing up their own regulations for
the protection of their assets against, e.g.
pollution. Nations extend their areas of
jurisdiction and a recent manifestation
has been the adoption of the 200 miles
economic zone under this code. The
writer (J. Sparfel) reviews the various
historical developments and conflicts in
this conltext. This is an interesting back-
ground article to set against the Third
and Final Law of the Sea Conference
due to be held in March 1978.
The study on Soviet Naval Power by
David Rees, published in the U.K. by the
Institute for the Study of Conflic't, is
reproduced in full translation in this and
the immediately following issue with
good and ample illustrations. Part I1 of
this study takes pride of place and weight
in the August/September issue. The
Editorial page of this issue prints the text
of an address given by M. Yvon Bourges,
Minister of Defence, to the Admiral,
Officers and Ship's Company of the
carrier Clemenceau on 21 June 1977 on
the ship's re~turn to Toulon after com-
pleting a mission to the Indian Ocean
which covered the transfer of Independ-
ence to Djibouti (La Territoires des Afars
et Issas). The Minister referred to the
difficulties of maintaining operations in
a bad tropical climate. Work would duly
be undertaken to improve living condi-
tions in the ship. He emphasised the
qualities and capabilities of the Fleet and
its task in maintaining territorial waters
rights as the Law of the Sea evolves. He
concluded that they could be proud of
their role in maintaining France's in-
dependent position in the community of
nations.
In this issue the French M.D.G., or
more correctly in his tri-service hat the
Head of the Armed Forces Medical
Services, contributes a succinct and
valuable article on the Naval Medical
School. This is a useful historical study
for students and researchers. There is a
bibliography of some eight references.
Naval surgeons (as opposed to the
more erudite and highly trained doctors)
were first taken into the Fleet on a
regular and organised basis in 1642 under
Louis XIV. The requirements were: 'To
write legibly, shave, bleed, have clean
hands and be without deformity'.
The all-Services Medical School is now
at Bordeaux and in a United Services
Medical Service the esprit naval and its
many traditions live on happily within
an integrated service.
The principal article in the October
issue merits the greatest attention of all
those reviewed over the period. Entitled
'La clef de La Voute' - 'The Keystone,'
the writer is Andre Leost, a frequent
contributor of significant articles.
M. Leost develops the argument that,
in the defence of Europe, France is the
keystone as she alone provides easy
access between Easlt and West, by land
and by sea. However, Spain, with an
Atlantic seaboard and being at the
entrance to the Mediterranean has also
an important strategic capacity, and 'the
Franco-Iberian key position, the basic
oceanic "shoulder" of the French key-
stone in the arch stands as a matter of
vital interest'. The Franco-Iberian theme

appears to be close to M. Leost's heart
as he has touched on it before alt length
and with great persuasion. To resume
M. Leost's argument: With the develop-
ment of the Law of the Sea, it is
absolutely necessary to organise so as to
counter economic as well as military
intrusions particularly along the lengthy
western seaboards of the 'old Continent'.
The Atlantic approaches, the only ones
close to the deep sea, are also the only
ones which could be vulnerable in con-
flict (even conventional) where a mining
campaign could have a considerable
effect on access to the great ports. Europe
must therefore unite around her Franco-
Iberian keystone to resist pressures and
remain free.
In his opening acknowledgements, the
writer quotes two authorities who, at the
time of quotation, would (on a superficial
glance) be unlikely advocates of any
strong line 'deep sea' views to a French
reader. The first quote is from General
de Corps d'Armee Jean Paul Etcheverry
when he was recently in command at
Metz of the IVth Military Region,
France's advance bastion to the eastward.
General Etcheverry stated plainly: 'In
short, we risk some day subjugation in
the economic realm, for we are not
strong enough at sea where there will be
increasingly played out the material
future of the world'. Great weight is
given to this pronouncement by the
distinguished soldier who, while watching
to the eastward remains alert to the
threats from the sea behind him.
The next wri'ter, quoted at greater
length, is the present Chief of Defence
Staff, Marshal of the Royal Air Force
Sir Neil Cameron; the occasion and
REVIEWS-I 73
source of quotation are not given
explicity. Great prominence is given to
Sir Neil's view that every day the USSR
exercises more strongly its control over
our means of survival. Among other
points made are the contention that we
cannot count on the permanent availability
of the Suez Canal ana the vital
importance of the Southern African
aspect in the affairs of the West.
In a review of this nature it would be
out of place to reproduce in full or
disseclt such distinguished opinions. It
can only be reported that they are being
propagated, hopefully to good effect, to
French readers.
This particular article is lengthy and
its themes as outlined preach to many of
the converted, such as the readers of
The Naval Review. Let us hope that
La Revue Maritime with its wider
national circulation can spread the word
effectively.
There is a brief review of the American
project ARAPAHO, being the consideration
of operating helicopters from container
ships which with minimal modification
could be adapted to operate
helicopters in an anti-submarine role.
Special container modules to support
helicopters could be loaded involving no
structural allterations.
It is welcome to note inaugurative
responsive French thinking on what one
might hope could be a latter-day MAC
ship, or dare one say AMC concept.
This, in addition to a R.A.S. capability
with selected merchant ships (even if for
exercise purposes only) and a thinking
along the same lines as our friends, is at
least intriguing - it could be exciting.
C.M.S.

REVIEW S-11:
BOOKS
CHURCHILL AND THE ADMIRALS
by STEPHEN ROSKILL
(Collins-£8.50)
Captain Roskill has placed his contemporaries,
and posterity, still further in his
debt. Members of The Naval Review,
from the most junior to the most senior,
can hardly fail to be rivetted by Churchill
And The Admirals. To the former it
provides proof of Churchill's comment
'On the problems of deploying a fleet'
that: 'Out of intense complexities intense
simplicities emerge' (The World Crisis).
To the latter i.t offers an extension of
their own experience when, during
World War Two, they found themselves
at the receiving end of signals from the
Admiralty, a Commander-in-Chief, or a
Force Commander. The material in the
book is mainly selected from sources
already used to such powerful effect in
Hankey, Man of Secrets (3 vols.); Naval
Policy Between the Wars (2 vols.); and
The War At Sea (3 vols ). Once again,
also, and with even more advantage,
Roskill has been able to call upon the
personal recollections of many naval
officers, from close friends to professional
acquaintances, in order to
illuminate the events and relationships
which he records.
Some reviewers have regretted the
public display, in a comprehensive
Appendix, of the 'Historical Controversy'
between Captain Roskill and
Professor Marder. But it would be wrong
to suppose that this amounts to no more
than an academic dispute. What is at
stake is a true understanding of the
relationship between the political leader
and his professional advisers, as a general
problem, and the nature of this relationship
in particular cases. Churchill was
First Lord of the Admiralty in two
world wars, and became Prime Minister
and Minister of Defence in the second.
His First Sea Lords included Battenberg,
Fisher and Pound; his Commanders-in-
Chief included Jellicoe, Beatty, Forbes,
Tovey and Cunningham; between the
wars he worked wlth Chatfield. To
impugn Roskill's personal testimony on
certain matters which he was well placed
to observe, as Marder has tended to do,
seems to ignore the reputation for
integrity which Roskill's work has gained
for him, and to be inconsistent with the
duty of an historian to get as near to the
truth as he can. As to the final judg-
ment, this is not for us mere mortals to
make. But Pound, though ill, did not
crack under the relentless probings and
pressures of Churchill, the phenomenal,
the eccentric, the titanic overlord
Perhaps Field Marshal Montgomery's
judgment of certain generals may be
adapted to fit Pound: 'Un bon amiral
ordinaire'?
As to Churchill himself, the attitudes
and propensities which determined his
actions in regard to the conduct of war,
and specially of the war at sea, seem to
have sprung from deep feeling, rather
than systematic thought. As a very young
man he had written:
Why should we regard as madness
in the savage what would he sub-
lime in civilised man? For I hope
that if evil days should come upon
our own country, and the last army
which a collapsing Empire could
impose between London and the
invaders were dissolving in rout and
ruin, that there would be some -
even in these modern days - who
would not care to accustom them-
selves to a new order of things and
tamely survive the disaster.
The River War
Coupled with this sombre view, that

proof of the fittest peoples to survive
must ultimately be the test of war -
and hence to be engaged in it as a
leader would be the highest destiny -
there was an unequivocal zest for
combat, a gladiatorial spirit akin to that
of the youthful, doomed tlite who went
to war in 1914:
And when the burning moment
breaks,
And all things else are out of
mind,
And only Joy of Battle takes
Him by the throat and makes him
blind,
Julian Grenfell's Into Battle enshrines
this pre-Passchaendale intoxication. A
more modern and sardonic poet, W. H.
Auden, goes to the heart of Churchill's
'special relationship' with the Navy:
Limping but keeping a stiff upper lip
Churchill was speaking of a battle-
ship:
It was some time before I had
guessed
He wasn't describing a woman's
breast.
A Happy New Year
For it was the Royal Navy as an insltru-
ment of war, technically advanced,
infinitely complex, yet capable of being
wielded by a single individual (himself)
which appealed so profoundly to
Churchill. No wonder he did not like the
admirals. But - no wonder they
signalled to the Fleet with glee:
'Winston's back'.
IAN MCGEOCH
NIMITZ
by E. B. POTTER
(Patrick Stephens Ltd.-£12.95)
As his Catalina flying-boat banked over
Pearl Harbour early on Christmas
morning, 1941, Admiral Chester W.
Nimitz, the new C.-in-C. Pacific Fleet,
looked out of the window and saw
through driving rain the great black oil
stain still spread over the waters of East
Loch, the main anchorage. The battle-
ship Oklahoma and the target ship Utah
were lying bottom upwards, .The super-
structures of California, West Virginia
and Arizona could be seen, blackened
and twisted, above water. Further off,
near the channel, the battleship Nevada
was aground.
When the aircraft door opened, Nimitz
could smell the oil, the charred wood,
the burned paint, and the stink of rotting
flesh from the corpses which were still
surfacing in the harbour every day.
There was also a smell of defeat and
despondency. To the shock of the
Japanese attack on Pearl Harbour had
been added the gloom of the failure to
relieve Wake Island, in circumstances
which did the U.S. Navy no credit.
Admiral Kimmel, the man Nimitz was
to relieve, had been standing in his office
on that terrible Sunday morning when a
spent Japanese cannon-shell broke the
window-pane and struck him on the
chest. 'Too bad it didn't kill me,' he told
Nimitz.
Such was the atmosphere at Pearl
Harbour when Nimitz took over. But
Nimitz wasted no time in moping or
jobbing backwards. He told the remain-
ing staff officers he had every confidence
in them. There would be no witch-hunt.
At once, morale began to rise. Under
Nimitz's leadership, that great surge of
confidence had begun which was to take
the Allies in the Pacific from Pearl
Harbour to Tokyo Bay.
The new C.-in-C. was fifty-six years
old and virtually unknown outside the
U.S. Navy. He was nowhere near the
top of the admirals' list and had never
heard a shot fired in anger. He was quiet
and polite. He had blue eyes, fair hair
turning white, and a rosy, healthy-pink
complexion. People meeting Nimitz for
the first time, expecting a fiery man-
eating admiral, all bull and broadsides,
used to look at him and then ask them-
selves, 'Can this be the man?' As Profes-
sor Potter's excellent biography makes

clear, Nimitz certainly was the man.
He was a perfect example of the boy
from a poor background who made it
to the top by his own efforts. He was
born on 24 February 1885, in Fredericks-
burg, Texas, the son of Chester Nimitz,
an invalid who died shortly afterwards,
and Anna Henke, a butcher's daughter.
The boy was brought up by his mother
and his paternal grand-father, 'Captain'
Nimitz, who kept a hotel in the town.
Young Chester applied to his Congress-
man to join the Army but when he was
told all the appointments were full, he
accepted one for the Navy, although he
had never heard of the U.S. Naval
Academy or of Annapolis. He graduated
seventh in his class in 1905.
He had his ups and downs. He once
ran his ship aground, but survived with
his career unscathed - although ever
afterwards he had a special sympathy
for anyone in the same predicament.
He was always an ambitious man. When
his son Chester Junior, then a midship-
man at the Academy, asked his father
where he expected to get in the Navy
and how he expected to get there, Nimitz
said he intended to do his best, as he
had always done, and he wanted some
day to be Chief of Naval Operations, the
top professional job in the Navy. He
said he was sure that everybody got what
they deserved in the Navy, although he
admitted that good timing and good luck
could play a part.
Nimitz worked himself and others very
hard. He was a superb organiser, able to
cut through inessentials. As Captain of
the cruiser Augusta pre-war, he ran the
tautest ship in the Far East. But his
main talent was with people. He was a
brilliant judge, manager, and rewarder,
of men - although he was less sus-
ceptible to service women: the WAVES
and the Women Marines tried des-
perately hard to get some of their most
pretty and intelligent women employed
at his headquarters in Pearl, and later
in Guam, but he absolutely refused to
have women in the war zone.
He was always accessible. Every com-
manding officer arriving at Pearl,
whether he was a lieutenant (jg) in a
landing craft or a senior four-ring
captain in a battle-wagon, was expected
to call upon the C.-in-C. at precisely
eleven o'clock in the morning, and stay
for fifteen minutes. (Callers who out-
stayed their welcome were gently shunted
next door to Spruance, the Chief-of-Staff,
who always worked standing up and had
no chairs at all in his office).
Nimitz would sum up his visitors
keenly and say to Lieutenant Arthur
Lamar, his flag secretary, 'there's an
officer we must watch, he's going to be
one of the good ones'. Some of Nimitz's
callers were unexpected - by him and
by them. One sailor in Enterprise bet his
messmates he could get in to see the
C.-in-C. They put up several hundred
dollars that said he couldn't. Lamar
always tried to inject some variety into
his chief's life so the bluejacket, dry-
throated and watery-kneed, was wheeled
right in to see the big boss. Nimitz wel-
comed his visitor warmly and, after
getting his story out of him, called for
the staff photographer so that the sailor
would have visible evidence of his
exploit.
As a submariner, Nimitz had great
technical ability and an original mind.
In his day he was one of the U.S. Navy's
most knowledgeable men on submarine
diesel engines. In 1914, when he was
supervising the installation of diesel
engines in the new tanker Maumee, the
Busch-Sulzer Brothers Diesel Engine
Company of St. Louis, the best engine
manufacturers in the country, sent a
'hotshot recruiter' to Brooklyn to offer
Nimitz $25,000 a year and a five year
contract to work for them. 'This was
when a dollar was a real dollar and we
were not paying income taxes! ' Nimitz's
naval pay was then $240 a month, with
$48 married quarter allowance. Nimitz

turned the offer down, and a subsequent
one to write his own salary cheque. TO
the end of his life, Nimitz refused all
offers and lived on his naval pay and
retirement pension.
When Maumee put to sea, Nimitz was
her Executive Officer and Chief En-
gineer. He and her captain, Lieutenant-
Commander Henry C. Dinger, together
pioneered techniques for fuelling ships
underway, with the refuelled ship steam-
ing alongside the tanker. They rearranged
the fittings on Maumee's upper deck and
on 24 April 1917, while on passage from
Boston to Queenstown in Ireland, six
destroyers of Commander Joseph K.
Taussig's Division 8 became the first
ships ever to refuel abeam while under-
way at sea.
Many of the events of World War Two
which Professor Potter retails are
familiar, but the aspect is fresh. One
now follows the great stories, such as
Coral Sea and Midway, from the point
of view of the man who had simply to
wait at Pearl Harbour for news. Nimitz
had done all he could, given his task
force commanders all the ships, men,
aircraft and Intelligence he had. He also
gave them something else, more precious
than rubies: the freedom to act as they
thought fit, as the men on the spot.
After that, he just had to be patient,
and with Spruance he had to be very
patient. Raymond Spruance was (in my
opinion) the greatest sea captain of the
Second World War but he was not
exactly a garrulous communicator and
he gave his C.-in-C. some anxious wait-
ing.
Nimitz was appointed Chief of the
Bureau of Navigation (later the Bureau
of Naval Personnel) in August 1939 and
if he had done nothing else he made his
contribution to victory there. His pre-
parations enabled the U.S. Navy to
expand enormously in wartime. Even
there, he showed a nice knowledge of
psychology: he refused to countenance
any 'wavy stripes' or any uniform dif-
ferentiation for reservists. He knew they
would all be doing the same jobs, so
they all wore the same uniform.
But, as Professor Potter's account
shows, it was as CincPac that Nimitz
showed his greatness. He was tactful
almost to breaking point in the early
days with Admiral Bloch, who was
actually senior to him and kept on trying
to tekl him how to run the Pacific fleet.
He was unperturbed by the sledge-
hammer personality of 'Ernie' King,
COMINCH. He was reassuring in the
autumn of 1942 when the question on
every lip was not 'Can we win in Guadal-
canal?' but 'Can we hold on?' In all the
conferences and weighings of various
courses of action, he was, as Spruance
said 'one of the few people I know who
never knew what it meant to be afraid
of anything. Typical of his character was
his first reaction each time we thought
of a way to hit the Japs. He always said
"Let's go and do it! " Arguably, he only
made one mistake, in insisting on the
costly invasion of Peleliu, in the Palaus,
in September 1944, which was probably
unnecessary.
He was grimly realistic in authorising
the air ambush which killed Yamamoto;
his only question was 'Have they got a
better fleet commander to put up in his
place?' He was loyal to Halsey, when
for the second time Halsey was held
responsible for leading the Third Fleet
into a typhoon's path and some said he
should be dismissed. He simply ignored
the rather petty squabbling that deve-
loped after the Marine General Holland
M. ('Howling Mad') Smith relieved the
Army General Ralph Smith for his
division's poor showing on Saipan. He
swapped jokes with Cardinal Spellman,
and reminiscences with Churchill. (They
both asked each other what was their
worst moment of the war. Professor
Potter does not give us their replies.) He
was diplomatic with MacArthur, indeed
one suspects that Professor Potter, too,
is being diplomatic; their relationship

was surely not as bland as represented
here. He was an advocate on Donitz's
behalf, providing an affadavit that sub-
marines under his command had con-
ducted the same sort of unrestricted
warfare as those under Donitz.
By the end of the war Nimitz com-
manded thousands of ships and aircraft
and millions of men and women. After
the war he became Chief of Naval
Operations and presided over the coming
of the nuclear age to the Navy. But his
writes Louis Allen, rather than because,
as hinted by Wave11 and others at the
time, the troops were lazy and cowardly,
that a British army of well over 100,000
was defeated by 35,000 Japanese in
Malaya and Singapore. Something rather
similar, deleting the tanks and substitut-
ing for the blame laid on the troops that
laid on Admiral Sir Tom Phillips, could
probably be said of the loss of the Prince
of Wales and Repulse.
Mr. Allen's narrative of the fighting
capabilities seemed to expand to match inclines to be over-condensed and in
his responsibilities. Nobody and nothing consequence hard to follow. The detailed
ever got to the bottom of Nimitz, al- narratives available in the official history
though Professor Potter must have got and other reliable accounts, however,
nearer than anybody else.
He married Catherine Freeman, a
ship-broker's daughter, of Wollaston,
Massachusetts, in April 1913, and they
lived happily ever after. After his death,
in his 81st year, on 20 February 1966,
Catherine received condolences from all
over the world. 'I'm not feeling sad,'
she said. 'To me, he has just gone to sea
and, as I have done so many times in
the past, some day I will follow him. In
the meantime, he's always in my heart,
and I can hear him laugh when I do
something silly'.
Altogether, a great man, and a book
worthy of him. With its large size, 500
pages of glossy paper, photographs,
maps, source notes and bibliography, this
book is not cheap. Even so, for any
student of the Second World War - it
is strongly recommended. For any
library worth the name - essential.
JOHN WINTON
SINGAPORE 1941-1942
by LOUIS ALLEN
(Davis-Poynter, The Policy and Strategy
of the Second World War Series-£6.50)
'They underestimated their enemy. Their
intelligence was poor. Their dispositions
were wrong. Their training was inferior.
They had no tanks. They did not have
enough aircraft.' It was for these reasons,
confirm his conclusion. Blunders and bad
luck seem to have dogged British efforts
all through the fifty-five days fighting
between the Japanese landings and the
fall of Singapore. But blunders and bad
luck are part of the inevitable friction
of war; it is the inability to recover from
them that leads to disaster. And in
modern war the ability to weather the
storm depends on policy and strategy
decisions taken in time to have the right
weapons and the right skills available
when and where needed.
It remains to explain why the decisions
went so badly wrong in this campaign.
That, Noble Frankland and Christopher
Dowling, the series editors, explain in a
short introduction, rather than a detailed
narrative of the fighting, is what this new
series is about. Mr. Allen's familiarity
with South East Asia and the Japanese
language enable him to see the problem
from both sides.
The popular notion that no one ex-
pected the Japanese to attack from
Malaya and that the guns of Singapore
were wrongly sited has already been
demolished. Almost everyone seems to
have realised that the Japanese might
attack through Malaya; the question was
whether to defend Singapore as an
isolated fortress depending on early relief
by the fleet, or to try as well to hold
Malaya, an important source of strategic

materials and dollar earnings, and its air-
fields, on which effective air defence and
air reinforcement of Singapore depended.
Conflicting opinions, inter-service dis-
agreements and local reversals of policy
on this questions stultified defence pre-
parations. Those guns could and did fire
northwards as well as seawards, but a
few large-calibre guns are by themselves
a poor defence against determined
infantry.
The German threat which developed
in the 1930s might have turned the
balance in favour of defence of Malaya,
but, as well as pre-empting naval re-
sources intended for the relief of Singa-
pore, it also, and rightly in 1940, pre-
empted land and air forces for the
defence of Britain. Then, as in the
course of 1941 the Japanese threat in-
tensified, reinforcement of the Middle
East and aid to Russia were allowed to
take precedence over precautionary
reinforcement in the Far East. In
London Churchill fell into the trap of
imagining that Singapore was a fortress
that could hold out for an estimated
period increased at convenience, and on
the spot local authorities pursuing
divergent policies dispersed inadequate
resources.
Having traced the strategic contro-
versies and briefly described the sequence
of disaster that followed from failure to
resolve them effectively, Mr. Allen in
his last four chapters and supporting
appendices examines the charges and
counter-charges made by participants
and others in hindsight. The result is an
instructive and valuable book, useful to
historians and publicists who may be
tempted to follow unreservedly one or
other versions of what went wrong and
how it might have been prevented. and,
if they could be persuaded to read and
ponder it, to planners and politicians as
an awful warning of what can come
from following too long and too wishfully
an accepted line of policy. Strategy and
tactics in real life, however, inevitably
overlap, and one could wish here for a
rather fuller and clearer account of the
fighting and for better maps - with,
please, scales shown.
J. L. MOULTON
BATTLESHIP
The Loss of the Prince of Wales and the
Repulse
By MARTIN MIDDLEBROOK
and PATRICK MAHONEY
(Allen Lane-f 5.95)
Over the years this tragic story has
attracted the attention of authors, historians,
and latterly of TV script writers;
the bibliography at the end of Battleship
lists fourteen different titles dealing in
one way or another with what is generally
considered to be the greatest disaster
suffered by the Royal Navy during World
War 11. The distinction of this latest
addition to the list lies in the fact that it
is the first to include not only Japanese
records but also the personal accounts
of many British survivors. As a result
the authors have produced a most comprehensive,
enthralling and at times
deeply moving account of the whole illfated
operation from its conception in
Whitehall to its ending off the coast of
Malaya. As such, it is strongly recommended
to all Review members.
Whatever one may think of Mr.
Middlebrook's enthusiasm for analysing
the great British military defeats and
disasters of this century, it has to be
admitted that he brings to the task a
combination of painstaking research,
prolonged study, balance of judgement
and economy of phrase which always
does ample justice to the stupendous
events he portrays. Here once again the
vital pieces are extracted from the mass
of official records and moulded with
vivid personal stories from nearly two
hundred survivors from the two ships.
Inevitably, there are a few errors of fact
or technical detail (vintage signalmen
will notice a small one on p. 173) and
the authors have sometimes found fault

where none existed-'nothing fails like
failure'? For example, the gunnery of
the Prince of Wales in the Bismarck
action, far from being bad, was good for
a newly-commissioned ship of a new
class; indeed, it was a hit from one of
her 14-inch shells which caused Bismarck
to abandon her mission and led to her
destruction. It is wrong to give the
Prince of Wales a reputation for being
an unlucky and unhappy ship, supposed-
ly reflected by a so-called 'mutiny' of
survivors, in a Penang ferry-boat. The
fact is that only a handful of men, less
than half of them ex-Prince of Wales,
and one badly shell-shocked officer, were
involved in an incident that happened,
in any case, a fortnight after the ships
had been sunk. But in general this book
reveals the same mastery of the naval
technology, tactics and organisation of
the period that was such a notable
feature of Convoy (see The Naval
Review, January 1977).
Why did it happen? Like others before
them, the authors convict Admiral Sir
Tom Phillips of serious professional mis-
judgements arising from his under-
estimation of the air threat to which his
force was exposed and his inexplicable
failure to call for fighter support from
shore once he knew that his force had
been sighted by enemy reconnaissance
planes and the necessity for radio silence
ceased to exist. Mistakes there un-
doubtedly were, but in attributing blame
to individual commanders military
historians need to tread warily, especially
where a posthumous reputation is at
stake. It is altogether too sweeping a
condemnation to claim that 'two great
ships anti many good men were lost be-
cause one stubborn old sea dog refused
to acknowledge that he had been wrong'.
As the authors rightly point out, many
other factors contributed to the disaster
and the final blow could easily have been
struck in other ways. Indeed, after read-
ing this book one is increasingly driven
to the conclusion that given the swift
and unexpected unfolding of events
Prince of Wales and Repulse were
virtually doomed from the moment of
their arrival at Singapore.
Once the Japanese landings in Malaya
had taken place, with the consequent
threat to the Singapore base, the
deterrent function for which the two
heavy ships had originally been des-
patched to the Far East ceased to apply,
and their active participation in the
defence of the peninsula became a matter
of honour for the Royal Navy. But once
at sea the ships became exposed to the
variety of threats represented by the
substantial naval and air forces which
the Japanese had already deployed in the
area, and the story of the sortie confirms
this. Before the final action force Z, as
it had become known, had already been
unsuccessfully attacked by a Japanese
submarine at short range, and it was only
the chance sighting of a flare which had
prevented the force from becoming
involved in a night action with six
Japanese cruisers (some armed with
fifteen six-inch guns), the outcome of
which would have been at least un-
certain. Although both ships were finally
sunk by the torpedo component of a
large striking force of shore-based
bomber and torpedo carrying aircraft,
it will forever remain a matter for debate
whether the arrival on the scene of ten
Brewster Buffalo fighters just as the
first Japanese attacks were beginning
would have been sufficient to deal with
the fifty torpedo and sixteen bomber
aircraft which actually carried out the
attacks.
The sinking of Prince of Wales and
Repulse was not only a military disaster;
it was also a human catastrophe in which
in the brief expanse of two and a quarter
hours 840 officers and men lost their
lives, often in terrible circumstances. The
authors are worthy chroniclers of the
bravery, steadfastness and devotion to
duty of the two ships' companies and of
the skill with which they fought against

overwhelming odds. Throughout the
action their Commander-in-Chief set
them a fine example and went down with
his flagship. Perhaps this is how history
should remember him?
MICHAEL CHICHESTER
and frequently not in communication
with his own naval subordinates because
of the need (surely over-rated on many
occasions) to maintain radio silence.
THE ARCTIC CONVOYS
(More than ten years were to elapse before
C.-in-C. HF eventually came ashore).
In consequence he was dependent on late
and filtered intelligence which could not
by Vice Admiral B. B. SCHOFIELD easily be queried for amplification while
(MacDonald & Janes-£5.95) his subordinates, lacking adequate opera-
On receiving this book for review my tional information, had often to guess at
first reactions were 'Why write another interpreting his wishes. By contrast the
one?' and, 'What does he now say about Admiralty, which lacked tactical touch
PQ 17?' In fact this is more than just an with the situation, had no need to
update of Russian Convoys*; a number maintain radio silence and was someof
new sources have become available times induced to intervene when it felt
and Admiral Schofield has followed C.-in-C. HF was either not fully in the
them up with zeal and now presents picture or unwilling to break radio
the Arctic Convoy War as seen by silence. It is little wonder that some
both main participants. The saga of decisions were made which with hindsight
P Q 17 is but one of many Russian convoy appear to have been mistaken. It says
operations, albeit an interesting one, much for the R.N.'s 'band of brothers
which has been further highlighted by spirit and mutual understanding' that
the court case in which Captain 'Jacky' most operations were successful. Of
Broome (the Escort Commander of belated comfort, the Germans appear to
PQ 17) successfully sued author David have suffered from a comparable system.
Irving. Regarding the critical Admiralty Furthermore, they were inhibited, by
order to scatter the convoy, members political constraints, from risking their
will not be sur~rised to note that the heavy units.
author, while impartial in his presentation This book contains a clear and lucid
of facts and admitting that the decision account of the Arctic convoy battle and
may have been premature, remains in is supported by fifty pages of appendices
favour of the correctness of the decision, and many excellent photographs of ships
quoting Admiral Tovey (C.-in-C. HF) in and the conditions under which they
support.
operated. This Arctic convoy battle was
Your reviewer was induced to re-read a microcosm of the whole war at sea set
other studies of this operation and what in a simple scenario and as the author
comes out most clearly to him is that all brings out the interplay of political and
decision-makers, from the First Sea Lord military factors, I would particularly
down to individual C.0.s of escorts of recommend this book for those of the
the scattered convoy, were victims of the younger generation who are interested
archaic system of command which pre- in getting a feel for the operational
vailed throughout the Arctic War. At a problems of World War Two. Many of
time when air and military commanders the problems remain with us.
in the desert were parking their caravans
alongside each other C.-in-C. HF was
SPENCER DRUMMONI)
closeted in his battleship, perhaps 1,000 PROLOGUE TO A WAR
miles from his fellow air commander,
by EDWARD BROOKES
*Vice Admiral B. B. Schofield, Russian
Convoys, Batsford, 1964.
(White Lion-£5.75)
This book was first published by Jarrolds

in 1966, but was not noticed in The
Naval Review at that time. It is sub-
titled 'The Navy's Part in the Narvik
Campaign' and the present publishers
justify its reissue by saying 'Such events
and such times cannot be recalled too
often,' echoing Captain Donald Mac-
intyre in his book Narvik: 'Such deeds
can never be told too often.' Even so,
eleven years - less than half a new
generation added to the reading public
- seems a short time.
Writing in what may be described as
a popular style, the author seeks to show
that mistakes, of which there were many,
were not made by the men of the small
ships, who 'time and time again were
asked to do the improbable and went on
to achieve the impossible.' This is a
huge claim; it would be contrary to all
human experience if it were altogether
true. What is true is that the higher up
the chain of command that mistakes are
made, the more obvious they are and
the more far-reaching and often
disastrous are their results.
The book's title is well chosen. The
Norwegian campaign was for the Royal
Navy an introduction to the harsh
realities of war. For the German Navy
too it provided a rude awakening; losses
of ships were so severe that there was
virtually nothing left to support an oper-
ation across the Channel later in the
year. On the British side there were some
sternly taught lessons about command
and control, and plenty of guidance for
the future conduct of combined opera-
tions.
All this has been said before. The only
merit of this book is that, relying on
secondary sources rather than on original
research, it brings together all aspects
of the campaign in a lively narrative. It
has sixteen illustrations (mostly from the
Imperial War Museum), three maps and
an index.
T.P.A.
THE GREAT ADMIRALS
by RICHARD HOUGH
(Weidenfeld & Nicholson-£6.50)
Richard Hough has set himself a
formidable task. In order to write about
twenty-one great admirals he has set
their careers within their historical
contexts. Thus in discussing Don John
of Austria, the Duke of Medina Sidonia,
Lord Charles Howard of Effingham and
Sir Francis Drake the background is
galleons and galleasses, Lepanto and the
Armada and the Navy of Elizabeth I.
The Dutch wars act as a back drop for
Tromp and Blake. King Gustavus of
Sweden enters the stage next, as the
last monarch to lead his fleet into battle,
at Svensksund in 1790. Nelson takes
pride of place in 'The Classic Years', a
chapter which features only one other
Admiral, de Grasse, victor of Chesapeake
Bay, the battle which ultimately lost
Britain the American Colonies. But
where are Hood, Rodney, Jervis, Howe
and Suffren during these years?
Richard Hough reminds us that in this
epoch the French had the best designed
ships in the world. Was it not Nelson
who chose H.M.S. Foudroyant, originally
captured from the French, to be his
flagship in the Mediterranean, after the
Vanguard had been damaged in the
Battle of the Nile?
Moving on from Trafalgar, into the
19th and early 20th Century, we encounter
Admirals Togo, Dewey, Tirpitz,
Jellicoe, Scheer and Beatty against the
background of steel, steam and cordite
developments. Of these six, Admiral
Dewey's annihilation of the Spanish
Admiral Montojo's squadron in Manila
Bay in 1898 resembled another victory
at the Nile. Admiral Togo's annihilation
of the Russian Baltic Fleet at Tsushima
in 1904 ushered in the birth of the steel
battleship. The lessons of Tsushima
confirmed the belief of many experts, of
whom Lord Fisher was one, that mixed
batteries were less efficient than those
with a single calibre broadside. Thus the

REVIE
building up of the German Navy is discussed
as Tirpitz's task and the inevitable
clash of the Dreadnoughts at Jutland
sets the scene for Jellicoe, Beatty and
Scheer. To encompass Jutland in the
space of a few pages is a difficult feat
and deserves more than one map.
The Second World War is covered in
two sections: 'To control the Narrow
Seas', bringing in Admirals Cunningham
and Raeder; and a second part devoted
to the Pacific War, with Admirals
Yamamoto, Nimitz, Spruance and
Halsey. To attempt to describe the lives
of great admirals is a task daunting
enough. Richard Hough has written an
introduction to the study of the admiral
in war at sea and the impact of sea
battles on history. But, were all the
admirals he has selected really great
admirals? He has not given us the
criteria by which he made his choice.
P. I

tions. 'As always, the only thing that
could upset the sailor was a bad officer.'
'It has been demonstrated again and
again, up to modern times that no out-
break would ever take place if the petty
officers as a body did their duty.'
Alan Villiers once remarked, discussing
the injustice done to Bligh of the Bounty
by historians repeating one another:
'Anyone could have a mutiny in Tahiti.
I had one there myself.' Apart from the
major issues that arose in 1797 and 1931,
beyond control by anyone afloat, it is
surprising how easily and unexpectedly
a hardship, represented as an injustice,
can be exploited by a few rabble rousers
into a clash with authority and a blow
for freedom. This has occurred more
often than has come to general notice.
It is disappointing to find that the
outstanding Admiral of the Fleet, Sir
Frederick William Richards, figures
here only as Commodore at the Cape in
1879-81 and in a shabby and unconvinc-
ing anecdote from Lord Fisher's
Records. 'Old men forget' and Fisher
was more given than most of us to
dining out on events that never hap-
pened. Papers reprinted in the N.R. 1932
show how strongly Richards represented
the hardships of anti-slavery patrols
when he was a commander on the West
Coast in the 1860s and how he strove to
spare his ship's company. The Gunner
of his flagship in the East Indies 1885-88
wrote as a lieutenant-commander forty
years later: 'I firmly believe that there
was not an officer or man who would not
have died for him. . . . He was an
Admiral and a father and even a king,
for was he not "King Dick"?' (N.R.
1933, p. 349). Adding insult to injury,
Winton lists him in his Bibliography as
Sir Frank Richards.
Altogether, there are too many errors,
perhaps the least excusable being the
statement that after the loss of the
Victoria Admiral Markham 'went on
half pay and rose no further in the
Service' - doubly untrue.
A final and more trivial complaint is
the omission of the definite article (or
'H.M.S.') before ships' names through-
out. Admittedly, Nelson sometimes did
this, but he was writing with his left
hand, usually in a hurry. The practice
was condemned in the N.R. in 1933 by
an officer who became our last Chair-
man, and by a consensus of opinion of
the Society for Nautical Research in
1951 it was thought best left to journal-
istic 'naval experts'. In some thirty
volumes listed by Winton I could find
only an occasional exception.
Notwithstanding all this, the verdict
might be: 'Worth reading, but should
have been better.' History is more de-
manding than fiction.
P. W.B.
THE VICTORIAN ARMY AT HOME
by ALAN RAMSAY SKELLEY
(Croom Helm-£9.95)
During the last half of the nineteenth
century the British Army changed
gradually from a force still largely organised,
drilled, and clad on the model
of Wellington's troops in the Peninsula,
to the khaki-dressed open formations
needed to face rifled artillery and
machine guns; and with these changes in
tactical organisation and uniform went
improvements in the well-being, housing,
feeding, education, medical care, and
status of the soldier. Flogging as a
punishment was practically abolished:
various forms of sport, libraries, and
rooms for recreation were provided;
arrangements were in hand to make
provision for the future of men on discharge
from the Army; and short-service
enlistments had been inaugurated to
build up a reserve. These, and many
other developments are dealt with in
detail by Mr. Skelley in his admirable
book. The industry of his research is
immense, and there seems to have been
no essential source of information which
he has neglected. The notes at the end
of the chapters are excellent.

The value of the book would have
been enhanced by the inclusion of illus-
trations to show some of these develop-
ments pictorially. Unfortunately there
are none and the price is very high.
Nevertheless no student or writer dealing
with this period can afford to exclude it
from his reading list.
The character of Mr. Skelley's work
can perhaps best be summarised by
his own concluding sentence: 'One
cannot come away from any examina-
tion of the conditions under which these
men served with anything but a deep
affection for them'.
H. C. B. ROGERS
IN PURSUIT OF FREEDOM
by JACK BISHOP
(Leo Cooper Ltd.-£3.95)
As one who is constantly urging every-
one to publish their wartime experiences,
or at least write them down for their
family's benefit, far be it from me to
utter a disparaging word about anyone
who has actually gone and done it. All
the same, honestly, I have to say that as
memoirs go, this book only just about
gets under the wire. Mr. Bishop's book
concerns submarines and escape from a
POW camp - two sure-fire faourite
WW2 themes - but his writing is
generally rather ordinary and pedestrian
and his story, when you boil it all down,
not all that unusual. Any of the personal
reminiscences in last October's N.R. -
on Assault Unit No. 30, A.B.C. in the
Med., T.B. 037, and Jutland - are, in
my opinion, better written and more
interesting to read than these.
When war broke out Jack Bishop, a
seaman gunner with some years ex-
perience as a submariner, was serving
in the veteran boat Oswald in the
Mediterranean. 'She was a temperamental
old girl and gave her crew several thrill-
ing moments. Jack Bishop calls her end
'sad and inglorious' but she was probably
too old for operational patrols. She was
rammed and sunk by the Italian des-
troyer Vivaldi in the early days of
August 1940, east of Sicily. All but three
of her crew survived and were landed
at Taranto later the same day, the first
prisoners of war to be taken by the
Italians.
Jack Bishop was resourceful and
resilient in prison camp, always keeping
his eye cocked for escape. Eventually he
made it, during the period of civil and
military dislocation after the Italian
armistice in September 1943. He and a
companion made for the tiny mountain
village of Bardi, where the inhabitants
were supposed to be helpful and to speak
English - and here followed an episode
of pure Evelyn Waugh. Dozens of other
escaped POWs had had the same advice
and for a time the POWs considerably
outnumbered the native population in the
village.
Jack Bishop was recaptured after an
odyssey lasting some time, being some-
what improbably betrayed to the
Germans by an old lady he stopped to
speak to in a village. He was taken to
Germany, to Marlag und Milag Nord.
In April 1945 he and the other prisoners
were made to march eastwards away
from the advancing Allied armies. They
had with them two horses from the
camp, pulling a wagon with the sick in
it. Somewhere along the road, unfortu-
nately, they were strafed by an Allied
fighter. Jack Bishop records that 'our
two horses took fright, whereupon a
commander of the Royal Navy leapt
to their heads to pacify them. As he did
so the fighter appeared out of the sun
and on levelling off opened fire with its
cannon and killed the commander and
the horses'. (Could this commander, I
wonder, have been B. G. Scurfield, DSO,
OBE, AM, who was Peter Scott's captain
in Broke (The Eye of the Wind) and who
described Bedouin's last fight in defence
of a Malta convoy in a letter to his wife
from a POW camp, published in Black-
wood's Magazine after the war?)
The book is only 126 pages and even

then there are acres of white space on
every page, as though the publisher was
making use of type already set up for a
paperback edition. It is one for those
who like to collect anything about sub-
marines and POW escaping. But at least
Jack Bishop has had his war memoirs
published and he deserves every credit
for that. Go, and do thou likewise is the
watchword!
JOHN WINTON
SUBMARINES OF
WORLD WAR TWO
by ERMINIO BAGNASCO
(Arms & Armour-£12.95)
THE MONTH OF THE LOST
U-BOATS
by GEOFFREY JONES
(William Kimber-£5.95)
All the signs are that the diesel-electric
submarine will prove one of the most
lasting and effective warship designs of
all time. Born in 1904-08, it appears still
to have substantial potential for design
development, and the striking thought is
that it may yet outlive the big gun
battleship.
Submarines of World War Two, first
published in Italian in 1973, is an
encyclopaedia of the 2,500 submarines
of all nations that accounted for the
sinking of more than 23 million tons of
merchant shipping between 1939 and
1945. Its 256 pages are splendidly and
profusely illustrated. Taking for instance
the British 'S' class as an example, there
are no less than thirteen of the class
pictured. with five line drawings in addition.
Your reviewer - who served in
four of the 'S' boats post war - was duly
impressed. and found class variations he
had not before appreciated.
Each class is accompanied by a text
giving builders, performance, armament,
eventual disposal or fate of the submarines,
and a summary of the achievements
of the class in World War 11. To
judge from the boats I knew, and cross
checking on German submarines with
the authoritative J. Mallman Showell
(U-Boats under the Swastika, 1973), the
research has been both painstaking and
accurate.
The coverage is complete - I would
say definitive-and includes all sub-
marine navies. I had not, I regret to say,
known that Finland had five submarines
in 1940, nor that they were historically
significant as the ancestors by design of
the famous German Type VII C boats.
Particularly interesting, because less
generally appreciated in this country, are
the sections on Japanese and Italian
submarines. Japan had sixty-five boats
in 1939 (as did Germany) including a
streamlined, single screw, high capacity
battery submarine capable of over twenty
knots submerged. This was the fore-
runner of the snort fitted Ha 201 class.
looking a remarkably handy equivalent
of the German Type XXI, built in 1945
just too late for operational use.
The Italian Navy entered the war with
107 submarines, the largest fleet, save
that of the USSR. They achieved little,
as the author points out. owing to the
weakness of the Italian high command
and to the design of their submarines,
which, surprisingly, were peculiarly ill-
suited to Mediterranean conditions.
Small quick diving boats such as the
British 'S' and 'U' classes got results in
the Med., but the large Italian boats
with their high enclosed conning towers
were clearly visible on the surface, and
must have taken over a minute to dive.
The many photographs bring out the
point well.
The book is preceded by a long and
excellently written introduction on the
development of the principal classes of
World War I1 submarines, their tech-
nology and armament, and a summary
of the main submarine campaigns. I
found Submarines of World War Two
an absorbing and professional treatise,
good value at the price. and a serious
contribution to the maritime history of
the period.

The Month of the Lost U-boats is a illustrate his approach - Impracticable,
documentation, pitched somewhat un- Emergent, Warlike, Unrestricted, Un-
easily between narrative and history in certain, Wolf Pack, Trans-Pacific,
style, of the Atlantic campaign in May Nuclear. 'Uncertain' refers to the inter-
1943. The Spring of that year was the war period when Britain on the one
turning point of the Second World War, hand built huge 12-inch gun and aircraft-
and in the Atlantic battle the balance carrying submarines, and on the other
tilted decisively in May when forty-one hand proposed abolition of all sub-
U-boats were sunk.
marines at international disarmament
Geoffrey Jones describes the sinkings conferences.
of all forty-one, as a result of hitherto It would perhaps be cavilling at this
unparalleled cooperation between naval excellent little book to suggest what I
and air forces. It is a fair account, not might have liked better covered. The
without interest, and an attempt has much neglected British WW I1 Medibeen
made to personalise the story with terranean submarine operations, which
names and personal details where cut off the Axis forces in North Africa
possible.
from their supplies (and which even
On the whole, however, a book of this Montgomery managed to omit somehow
nature has a claim to one's attention to from his published accounts) continue
the extent that it draws upon first hand to be overlooked. The U.S. Pacific subinformation,
or in-depth research, or the marine campaign does get a chapter, but
exploration of some fresh aspect, or even so there is insufficient appreciation
striking narrative powers. With due of the momentous and unprecedented
respect to Geoffrey Jones' work and to scale of their demolition of the Japanese
the worthwhile nature of his subject, his Navy and Merchant Marine. And all the
book exposes the limits of what can be pictures are of Japanese submarines!
done by a journalistic treatment of patrol The pictures of British nuclear subreports
and personal files.
marines bother me a little as well, with
R. G. HEASLIP their accent on Dreadnought and on
submarines tied, unhappily out of their
SUBMARINES
element, to building or launching. Do
by RICHARII GARRETT MOD(N) or FOSM not have more up
(Weidenfeld and Nicholson-£4.95) to date or lively shots to set before the
Submarines is a comprehensive treat- public?
ment of the subject, in 143 large well At the head of Submarines opposite
produced lavishly illustrated pages. Of the Introduction are two - somewhat
course, in so short a span no distinctive incongruously mixed - quotations. The
illumination of any particular submarine first, presumably for a trendy effect, is
aspect is to be expected. Richard Garrett's from Len Deighton of spy thriller fame.
crisply written and very readable book The second is a notable quote from
does manage to summarise the material Admiral McGeoch, recently Flag Officer
development of the submarine, the major Submarines: 'In two World Wars, and
submarine campaigns and their effect on in the military effort needed to prevent
t
,
,
I
maritime warfare, and something of the
men who fought in them.
It is, too, as balanced an account as one
could reasonably get into a short work
written to make a general rather than a
specialist appeal. Garrett's chapter headings,
which I particularly like, nicely
a third, a few hundred submarines,
manned by a few thousand officers and
men, at a cost of less than one per cent
of the total expenditure on armaments,
including research and development,
have been a strategic factor of potentially
decisive importance.'

I recall, when Training Commanding
Officer at the Submarine School and
looking for ways in which to spur the
expanding new entry ratings classes,
suggesting that a suitable book might be
awarded to class leaders. We had (and
still have for that matter) an extensive
array of sticks but few carrots. However,
no appropriate book could apparently
be found. Submarines would, I believe,
do quite well - and as a present to
anyone connected with or interested in
the Submarine Service.
R.G.H.
SUPERSHIP
by NOEL MOSTERT
(Book Club Associates, London,
1975 - now in Penguin)
BLACK TIDE
by JOHN WINGATE
(Weidenfeld & Nicolson-£3.95)
When Noel Mostert first sailed in a big
oil-tanker, in 1966, 'she was a mere
50,000 tonner,' he writes, and 'Everyone
on board regarded her as belonging to
the past.' Within a few years the 'super-
ships', Very Large Crude Carriers
(VLCC) of a quarter of a million tons
deadweight (Mostert uses deadweight
tonnage throughout) were being built
by the score. On 31 December 1973
there were in service 388 ships of
200,000 tons or over, with 493 more
under construction or on order. Of these
119 were in the 260,000 to 280,000
category, and 26 were of more than
400,000 tons. Urged on by the editor of,
surprisingly, the New Yorker, Mostert
shipped aboard the S.S. Ardshiel, 214,085
tons, 1,063 feet in length, with a beam
of 158 feet and a draft of sixty. Most
owners of superships were reluctant to
have a journalist as supercargo and
Mostert acknowledges the courtesy and
tolerance of Ardshiel's owners, the
P & 0 Line.
The potential for disaster on a scale
commensurate with their size, already
evidenced by the record of the superships
since their too-rapid introduction, is
convincingly explained in this book. The
blame is squarely attributed to the
avarice and greed of shipowners. Look-
ing at seafaring as a way of life, rather
as did Joseph Conrad, Mostert is des-
pondent about the revolution in maritime
mores wrought by the advent of the
supership. Certainly, given that his book
is not a novel but a documentary, the
personality, character and outlook of
the individuals whom the author en-
countered in the course of his voyage are
sharply, although not unsympathetically
drawn. Perhaps one should see beyond
the greed and avarice to the enterprise,
skill and determination with which, for
all its evil potential, a great boon has
been brought to the 'toiling masses' of
the world. After all, in 1972 the world's
oil consumption was 2,600 million tons,
55% of which was moved by sea.
As to the future, naval officers should
read this fact-filled book, not only to
enlarge their understanding of the revo-
lution at sea, but to concentrate their
minds upon the future:
. . . . the Anglo-French landings at
Suez in 1956 might now be viewed
more properly for what they really
were, not the last convulsive kick
of militant imperialism, as we have
been inclined to regard them up to
now, but as the first of the energy
war-crises that, enlarged to universal
proportions, now involve our entire
future, not only our politics,
diplomacy, and strategy, but also
our alignments, posturings, loyalties,
and perfidy.
According to Shelley, poets are the un-
acknowledged legislators of the world.
Be that as it may, novelists can achieve
important movements of public opinion.
Few white, or even green papers become
best-sellers. More power, therefore, to
John Wingate's elbow (or typewriting
finger) for his effort, in Black Tide, to
stir the public into concern for the

failure of the maritime community-the
sea-users - to cope with the dangers
inherent in densely-crowded, ever faster
moving and more lethal, shipping in, for
example, the Straits of Dover.
With something of the inevitability
of a Greek tragedy he narrates the
preliminary movements and motives of
a number of ships and their masters -
a VLCC, her 'lightening tanker', a con-
tainer ship, a cross-Channel ferry, a
Latin-American manned Greek coaster.
a motor-yacht, a hover-ferry and a
French trawler - as they approach the
SandettiC Light Vessel on the same
afternoon in June, with the visibility
rapidly falling to half a cable. Disaster.
Tragedy. Failing, perhaps, to maintain
his aim with sufficient rigour, John Win-
gate caps the first series of calamities,
which had a certain unity of time and
place, with an even worse catastrophe as
the VLCC, having safely passed through
the Sandettie death-trap, is delayed by a
capsized sailing dinghy on her way up to
Thames Haven. In consequence, she is
late on her tide and has difficulty in
turning in the river. A huge container-
ship, faced with missing her berth up-
river and hazed by the Greek coaster,
which also has come scatheless through
the Sandettie chaos, though undeser-
vedly, fails to pass astern of the VLCC,
which has unexpectedly gathered stern-
way. The result - a collision between a
tanker laden with 200,000 tons of crude
and a container-ship carrying inflamm-
able cargo - then, as observed by the
Harbour Master, East Thames:
. . . . a blinding light flashed from
forward on Pollux's upper deck. A
flame flickered, then burst into an
orange glow: a nucleus of crimson
and green glowed slowly along the
deck level. There was a blinding
sheet of flame . . . then pin points
of fire were dancing on the surface
of the jet black water.
It could happen. Black Tide is well
worth reading.
IAN MCGEOCH
NATIONAL MARITIME MUSEUM
CATALOGUE OF THE LIBRARY -
Volume 5
NAVAL HISTORY: Part I; Middle
Ages to 1815
(HMSO-E 12)
Here is a finely produced book, printed
and firmly bound in accordance with the
traditionally high standards of its pub-
lishers, but printed in 1976 and not
available until early in 1977. At £12 it
would have been expensive even if its
208 pages had been up-to-date. As it is.
they include all accessions up to the end
of June 1974 so that unless the library
grows at so slow a rate as to raise doubts
about its value, they are already limited
in their own.
It is, of course, very helpful to have
such a comprehensive and well-ordered
list of what must be the core of the
collection covering the period under
consideration. The design - an arrange-
ment to facilitate a reader's search for
material appropriate to a particular topic
- is largely met. But the book, like all
its predecessors, is open to the same
major criticism that has been made of
all its predecesors as they have been
noticed in the Naval Review: danger-
ously near to being out-of-date when
eventually published, how is it to be
kept up-to-date? The Museum authori-
ties have so far failed to respond to this
point, though it has been made regularly
in these pages since Volume I was re-
viewed in October 1968, when the
promise of a supplement 'to be published
at the end of the series' was noted.
Reasonably enough, no terminal date
was predicted, but equally it is reasonable
to suppose that unless very great care is
taken, supplements to the supplement
will be needed as soon as the latter
appears.

This volume in particular contains a
few irritating inconsistencies. Some
authors are dated, when others are not.
It can only be assumed that the informa-
tion is not available about the dead.
Could the dates of birth of the living not
have been included? It is sensible not to
labour through the academic qualifica-
tions of all the authors, but vexing to
see some denied a naval rank to which
they are entitled, irritating to see a very
few credited with their decorations when
the majority are - wisely - not, and
eye-brow raising to see some academics
credited with the possession of a chair
when some members of the professoriate
are denied their title. These are each
small points in themselves but together
they form a lurking unease that the
preparation of the text as a whole may
not have had the attention it deserves,
and suggest the lack of proper copy-
editing, e.g. Lieutenant-Commander
R.M.
Part I1 of this volume, which 'will
continue the story into modern times',
will be even harder to produce without
incipient obsolescence, and the now
perpetual criticism of the lack of infor-
mation about how such expensive books
are kept up-to-date requires attention,
action and answer.
WAR AND SOCIETY: A YEARBOOK
OF MILITARY HISTORY,
Volume 2
(Croom Helm-£8.50)
Edited by BRIAN BOND and IAN ROY
This is the second year in which this
Yearbook has appeared, and in their
foreword the editors say that its future
is uncertain. It is difficult to see, indeed,
that this venture has yet established a
character of its own, and in comparison
with existing Service annual and
quarterly publications, it gives the im-
pression of being rather amateur in its
contents and their presentation. In
writing about any profession (and that
of arms is no exception) there are certain
matters in which the knowledge gained
by training in that profession are necessary
if pitfalls are to be avoided. There
are too many instances in this Yearbook
where the absence of such knowledge is
apparent. No such criticism can of
course be levelled at the articles by
Brigadier F. H. Vinden on War Office
Selection Boards, by John B. Hattendorf
on the early American Navy, or
Anthony R. Wells on Naval Staff training,
for they deal competently with
subjects within their professional sphere.
On the other hand, one wonders whether
Professor V. G. Kiernan, writing on
'Colonial Africa and its Armies', arrives
at such surprising conclusions because
he lacks personal experience in the command
of Indian or African troops.
Again, Miss Suzann Buckley has undertaken
most diligent research in preparing
her article on the failure to resolve the
venereal disease problem in the First
World War; yet her conclusions are
almost worthless because she has omitted
the efforts made by commanding officers
to educate and safeguard those under
their command. There are other
instances, but these will suffice. One
must, however, take exception to a cheap
A. B. SAINSBURY comment by Ian Roy, one of the editors,
who in a review article says, 'So one
criminal class, the soldiery, continued to
be billeted on another, the innkeepers.'
H. C. B. ROGERS
THE STORY OF GREENWICH
by C. M. DAWSON
(Obtainable from the author,
R.N. College, Greenwich-£3.00)
This account of the buildings at Green-
wich and the history of the site is by no
means the first to be written, but as the
author has been on the civilian staff of
the College for the last thirty years he
is able to add a great many details which
will be unfamiliar to the hundreds of
naval officers who have been on course

there. The booklet is illustrated with a
with a Historical Postscript by
number of pictures which have never R. M. Bowker
appeared before, though unfortunately (Bowker & Bertram Ltd.-£4.50)
&any of them are smudgy in reproduc-
tion. As a popular history of the place
from the earliest times it is a book to be
recommended: indeed, it is the only one
available at present.
For the history of Greenwich Palace,
when the place was the centre of
national affairs, the author has had to
rely on works which have long been out
of print, often written in the inflated
style of an earlier age. His account of
the pensioners, however, is original and
throws much light on their mysterious
and boring existence. The hospital was
transformed into the college just over
a hundred years ago, much against the
wishes of many distinguished serving
officers such as Fisher, who regarded its
proximity to London as a danger to
morals.
It took a long time to make the place
an efficient educational establishment,
but the author's account of the post-war
innovations shows how this was done -
for the Senior Officers War Course, the
Staff College and above all the junior
officers, whether sub-lieutenants or lieu-
tenants. All is changing now: the
S.O.W.C. is no more, the W.R.N.S. have
gone to Dartmouth and the Latimer
joint services course has moved to the
Co'llege, but the buildings, now properly
cleaned, remain as beautiful as ever and
the Painted Hall is still the grandest
dining hall in the world.
THE ENIGMA WRAPPED IN
THE RIDDLE
The Riddle of Erskine Childers:
A Biography
by ANDREW BOYLE
(Hutchinson £6.95)
THE RIDDLE OF THE SANDS
by ERSKINE CHILDERS
It is good to have an excuse to re-read
The Riddle of the Sands and Mr.
Bowker's supplemented edition provides
this at least, though not a great deal
more. True, there are his photographs
of a 1973 cruise in the wake of the
Du'cibella, but these fail to evoke the
forlorn mystery of Friesland - perhaps
only the livid cloudscapes of Emil Nolde
can do that. Mr. Bowker has done some
sleuthing of his own into the reality
behind the story and characters of
Childers' tantalizing novel. but his
conclusions seem pretty wide of the
mark. This is understandable, since
Childers' own letters and diaries were
safely in the hands of his biographer,
Andrew Boyle, who has woven them
into a very professional and almost
wholly convincing account of his
enigmatic subject.
I say 'almost', because when assessing
a man of such fertile imagination and
complex motivation, it is surely rash to
rely on that man as the prime witness.
The book is rather short on objective
contemporary evidence, but what there
is, is often uncommonly revealing.
Mr. Boyle does not dwell much on The
Riddle of the Sands, since there is so
much else to discuss - the traumatic
separation from his Irish mother, when
Erskine was only six; his scholastic
success, his South African war service
and military writings, his brief attempt
at nursing the Devonport constituency
in the Liberal cause, and of course his
fatal involvement with the Irish
Republicans.
Although there is still a question-mark
over The Riddle-its origins, and the
influence it had on events - there are
enough leads in Boyle's life of Childers
to make a definite assessment possible
for the first time.

The topographical detail of The Riddle
is of course absolutely authentic. How-
ever, the plot is, as Childers confessed to
friends, pure invention. Looking at that
little-known coastline for the first time,
he saw that an invasion of England could
be mounted from there, but did not
examine too closely the military logic of
such an enterprise. To recall the scenario
(purporting to have been recovered from
the treacherous 'Dollmann'): troops and
equipment would be loaded into lighters,
towed out from the seven 'siels' by tugs
across 300 miles of open sea, to land on
the Lincolnshire coast, and make a
paralysing strike at industrial centres like
Derby and Sheffield. To make this seem
more plausible, Childers hints darkly at
a fifth column, preparing the way for the
Germans: 'Joint action (the occasion
for which is perhaps not difficult to
guess) was distinctly contemplated, and
Germany's r61e in the coalition was
exclusively that of invader.' Whom can
he mean? Socialists, Little Englanders,
Irishmen, our French allies (whom
Childers certainly mistrusted)?
At various points in the book,
Childers rails against a naval strategy
which left the North Sea undefended,
but admits rather lamely in a final note
dated March 1903 that, as the book was
going to press, the Rosyth base had been
established, the Home Fleet built up and
a naval volunteer reserve brought into
being. Ironically, it was not Fisher and
the naval lobby who were to use the
book as propaganda in the years imme-
diately following, but Lord Roberts,
with his National Service League. The
invasion scare was a splendid pretext for
building up an army ostensibly for Home
Defence, but behind this was in fact the
concept of an Expeditionary Force to
fight on the French flank, in the event
of a continental war. Northcliffe was
also in this camp, and in 1906 one of his
journalists wrote the bestselling Invasion
of 1910.
At the outbreak of war in 1914,
Churchill, who had met Childers through
their mutual friend Eddie Marsh, imme-
diately summoned him to the Admiralty
and passed him on to Herbert Richmond,
the assistant director of the War Staff's
operational division. His first contribu-
tion there was to rewrite the Riddle of
the Sands scheme in reverse. Borkum
would be seized and used as a spring-
board for a massive invasion up the
valley of the Ems to strike at the heart
of the Rhine-Ruhr triangle. This, wrote
Childers, 'seems to present the best
opportunity of ending the war at a
decisive stroke.' He was in no way
daunted by the fact that the target area
lay 130 miles south from the coast; that
there was (and still is) only one road, a
secondary one at that, along the valley;
and where the valley narrows at Rheine
and Miinster, the path of the invaders
could easily have been blocked.
Before any action was taken, Churchill
had switched his attention to a link-up
with the Russians in the Baltic. Fisher
still hankered after Borkum, but as
Churchill wrote in his Wor.'d Crisis:
'Within a week at the latest of the island
being in our possession, much more
probably while the operation of landing
was still in progress, the whole German
Navy must have come out to defend the
Fatherland from this deadly strategic
thrust. . .' If it is true that the strategic
concept of an amphibious landing was
entirely derived from The Riddle of the
Sands, then surely our failure at Gallipoli
demonstrated, among other things, that
our technology was then still too
primitive for such a concept to be put
into practice with success.
Most of the foregoing emerges in
Andrew Boyle's book, more or less co-
incidentally, and not in any debunking
spirit. If anything, Boyle gives Childers
too much credit for turning Britain's
strategic thinking in new directions. On
a popular level The Riddle was of course
highly successful, which it would not

have been had it run against the grain
of public sentiment. It gave the
Edwardians a delicious frisson by appear-
ing to confirm their growing fears. As
Childers' old friend, Basil Williams,
writes in the Dictionary of National
Biography: '(the book) at once touched
on the prevalent feeling of suspicion as
to German plans, and became even more
popular when it was republished in 1914.'
(my italics)
It is perhaps a mistake for us to get
led into too much speculation about
landings and invasions. Childers had
another, more important theme - that
of 'guerilla' warfare at sea: the use of
small, fast craft, manned by volunteer
officers with detailed local knowledge,
to inflict damage on enemy coastal
installations and ships in harbour. This
was a lesson he had learnt indirectly
from the Boer War, and which he re-
stated with deep conviction in The
Riddle of the Sands. Later, in his 1914
memorandum, he stressed the im-
portance of rendering Zeebrugge use-
less to the enemy. Ironically, it was
again our inadequate technology that let
him down; there were by his own
reckoning some thirty ineffectual raids
on Zeebrugge before it was finally
blocked in April 1918.
As I have said, Boyle does not
examine The Riddle at length, but
he does extract the crucial clue it
offers to Childers' own personality: that
'Carruthers', the Foreign Office sophis-
ticate, the 'peevish dandy', and 'Dlvies',
the 'brine-burnt zealot,' represent the
two conflicting sides of Childers himself.
This duality was remarked on by his
acquaintances. Thus, Eddie Marsh:
'There was a wide-eyed innocence under-
lying his sophistication.' Basil Williams:
'Few realized that (he) was leading a
double life. He let none of us know . . .
that his weekends were spent in the
Thames Estuary, sailing singlehanded a
scrubby little yacht.' At the root of this
duality there was in Childers a deliberate
subjugation of intellect, caution and
reason, in favour of an existential urge
to self-realization through action, push-
ing him to the limits of physical endur-
ance and to a systematic confrontation
with danger and death. As he once
wrote to a relative: 'I believe I want
action more than anything. It has
always been the best for me.' In a
rather purple passage near the beginning
of The Riddle Childers in his Carruthers
persona writes: 'I knew that it was
Romance who handed me the cup of
sparkling wine and bade me be merry.
I knew the taste when it touched my lips.
It was not that bastard concoction I had
tasted in the pseudo-Bohemias of Soho
. . . it was the purest of her pure
vintages, instilling the ancient inspiration
which, under many guises, quickens
thousands of better brains than mine, but
whose essence is always the same: the
gay pursuit of a perilous quest.' From
that moment on, Carruthers' urbane
detachment melts away and the 'Davies'
side of his personality wins through.
To such a temperament, it is no sur-
prise to find that Germany exerted a
powerful appeal. Childers' first cruise
to the German co st was made in 1897,
when he was twe ", ty-seven, and from
entries in his log it is quite clear that
this experience was the direct inspiration
for The Riddle of the Sands. Although
the book was not written until nearly six
years later, the emotional impact of
Germany still comes through strongly.
Carruthers describes 'her marvellous
awakening . . . under the strength and
wisdom of her rulers; her intense
patriotic ardour; her seething industrial
activity . . .' and talks of the 'dim
instincts of her people not merely
directed but anticipated by the genius of
her ruling house. . .' Davies puts it more
bluntly: 'By Jove, we want a man like
this Kaiser, who doesn't wait to be
kicked, but works for his country and
sees ahead.' Even in 1903 Childers
seems to have remained unaware of the

Kaiser's psychotic nature, the cynical
perversion of popular German aspira-
tions into rampant nationalism, or the
financially inspired warmongering of the
Flottenverein.
The chief German characters in the
Riddle of the Sands are not ogres or
catchpenny caricatures. There is Bartels,
the friendly, dependable barge skipper;
von Briining, the dashing gun-boat com-
mander, whom Carruthers both liked
and admired; and Boehme the engineer,
'the embodiment of that systematised
force' in the German people. Childers
reserves all his loathing for 'Dollmann',
the renegade British naval officer, whose
motives are never explained, and who
never really speaks. Dollman had,
significantly, written a little book on
pilotage, in which, as Carruthers relates,
he showed 'a certain subdued relish in
describing banks and shoals, which
reminded me of Davies himself.'
It may be pure fancy, but I have
always thought that the very name
'Dollmann', is something of a clue in
itself. It is, after all, a very odd name for
the author to choose, with its incon-
gruous English connotations. It is, ad-
mittedly, a recognised German surname,
but an extremely uncommon one -
there are only half-a-dozen Dollmanns
in the Hamburg telephone directory
today. However, the word 'doll' is the
North German form of 'toll', a very
common word meaning 'mad', 'crazy.'
One can well imagine that Childers
himself, taking his Vixen out of
Norddeich or Bensersiel into a rising
gale, would have heard across the water
warning shouts of 'Sie sind doll, Mann! '
Was Childers perhaps writing about
someone he felt in his heart he might
some day become? In South Africa he
had felt exasperated at British obtuseness
and sympathetic towards the Boers. This
exasperation, for different reasons, per-
vades The Riddle. And for the remainder
of his life his attitude to Britain became
increasingly ambivalent as his involve-
ment with Ireland deepened. It is not
easy to overlook the fact that, only weeks
before the outbreak of World War I, he
rendezvous-ed with a German arms
dealer off the Belgian coast, and shipped
thousands of rifles aboard his yacht
Asgard, which he ran into Dublin, and
which subsequently made possible the
abortive but bloody Easter Rising.
During the war, when some Irish
extremists attempted collusion with
Germany, his reaction was not that this
was treacherous, but that it was simply
stupid and unhelpful to the cause of
Irish freedom. This is not the place to
examine the r61e of Erskine Childers in
Irish politics, except to say that Boyle
produces evidence to show that his
participation in the London Conference
of 1921 hindered the achievement of a
broadly based agreement, and led directly
to the split between the constitutional
Free State government and the break-
away I.R.A., whose strategist he then
became. The tragic outcome of this was
an inevitable reckoning - a settling of
scores in which Childers, seen as an
interloper and provoker of dissent, was
the natural scapegoat. Childers' combina-
tion of romantic idealism with legalistic
intransigence led him step by irrevocable
step to the firing squad which he faced
with such characteristic courage. As
Sean O'Faolain put it: 'He was what
the Russians call a " fatal " character
and the shadow of his doom was over
him from the first.'
A.L.H.McG.