Polar Voyages

by Gray, Gordon

  The Tot

  Officers were not entitled to a daily rum ration, or the tot, as it was known. However, as officers under training we were required to witness the issue of rum that took place on board every RN ship every day at noon. This tradition ended in July 1970 after being a central part of RN life for nearly 300 years.

  CHAPTER 3

  HMS Keppel – Midshipman’s Training

  After our year at Dartmouth and successfully passing the final exams, we graduated or ‘Passed Out’ of the college at Lord High Admiral’s Divisions. This major ceremony is held annually and was normally attended by HM The Queen. This is followed, the next day, by the summer ball. It is a huge affair with bands, pop groups and discos playing in different areas all over the college. Sumptuous buffet dinners for all and every Dartmouth hotel and guest house full of parents, girlfriends and close relations. Later in the evening some of us went down into the old town and looked back up at the college. Now that we had overcome the challenges that we had been set, the college’s wide imperial facade of red brick and Portland stone with its central clock tower did not seem so intimidating. It looked magnificent under the floodlights and seemed to float majestically above the surrounding trees high, up on its hill overlooking the town. The warm, soothing sounds of a Caribbean steel band playing outside on the parade ground drifted down over the town, making Dartmouth a Caribbean hot spot for the night.

  We were now promoted to midshipmen and sent off for a year’s solid sea training in the Fleet. Here, we would live in the wardroom with the other officers and be treated as colleagues. After the trials and indignities of life as mere cadets, we left the college excited and eager to see what being an officer at sea in the Royal Navy really meant. This next period of sea training was to cover all aspects of operating a fighting ship from learning to be the officer of the watch to working in the boiler room, understanding the practicalities of stores management and catering to learning about gunnery and anti submarine warfare as well as trying to gain our qualifications for bridge watch keeping and ocean navigation. We were also expected to learn how to become a valued member of the wardroom. Oh yes, and how to clean the bilges underneath the main boilers! This year was to put all the theory we had learnt at Dartmouth into practical application. We also had to complete task books that formed a vital part of the final Midshipman’s Board exam that we had to take at the end of the year at sea.

  HMS Keppel, a Type 14 Blackwood-class ASW frigate, turns at speed in a calm sea. With thanks to David Page at www.navyphotos.co.uk. Also thanks to Peter Swarbrick at swarbrick.com.

  I was fortunate in that, purely by chance, I was paired up with my good friend from Dartmouth, Graeme, for our first spell as midshipmen. We were both sent to HMS Keppel for the first half of our midshipman’s year of training at sea.

  HMS Keppel was a Type 14 frigate, one of the 12 Blackwood Class of second rate ASW (Anti-Submarine Warfare) frigates built for the RN in the early/mid-1950s and all named after famous RN captains. They were of 1,456 tons displacement and 94 metres long with a beam of just 10 metres. They were designed to be single role, anti-submarine ships and built to help address the growing Soviet submarine threat in the north Atlantic. They were smaller and cheaper than the Type 12 frigates, such as Tenby. They had a single screw and were powered by a steam turbine. They were armed with two Limbo ASW Mortars mounted aft. Although they were essentially good sea boats, they had a terrible reputation for rolling in any sort of a seaway. Her CO was Cdr Richard Onslow.

  In the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s, Britain’s main fishing efforts were in the Arctic, especially round Iceland and the Barents Sea off northern Norway. One of HMS Keppel’s main roles was fishery protection in the Arctic. Graeme and I joined her in her home port of Rosyth in Scotland.

  We arrived on board, feeling nervous and excited but looking forward to life at sea as a ‘proper’ naval officer. However, we were greeted on board by a strangely subdued and reticent atmosphere in the wardroom. No one seemed keen to talk to us or make us very welcome. The steward showed us where our cabins were and left us to it. Later in the day we were called down to meet the first lieutenant. Without preamble he began ‘You are here for training. When not on duty you are expected to be studying in your cabin and not sitting around drinking coffee in the wardroom. The wardroom is for meals and that is all. You will address every officer on board, including the sub-lieutenants, as “Sir” and will not fraternize with the senior rates. I will inspect your Task Books every week and failure to meet the required standard is totally unacceptable due to the disgrace it would bring to the ship.’ This friendly greeting took us by surprise, as this was totally contrary to what we had been led to believe that life in the fleet would be like. Everyone at Dartmouth had said how much better life as a middy would be after the strict regime of the college. We believed that we would be part of the wardroom and treated as equals (well almost equal) by our fellow officers so we could learn from them.

  It was also accepted that you could call sub-lieutenants and lieutenants by their Christian names. Lieutenant commanders and above were ‘Sir’ to everyone below them anyway. Being told not to fraternise with senior rates was also strange as we had been told that the senior rates were the guys who could help us the most in learning about the ship and completing out task books. This was not a good start. Graeme and I found ourselves on our first day aboard sitting in my cabin wondering whether we had all been told a load of rubbish at Dartmouth.

  It took us a few days to find out what was happening. The correspondence officer, or Corro, was a sub-lieutenant called Simon who was one of the good guys. He took pity on us and one afternoon called us down to his office when the first lieutenant was ashore. ‘The two previous midshipmen here both badly failed their boards,’ he said. ‘It was obvious to everyone that they would, as they had not done any work on board and had spent most of their time loafing in the wardroom or senior rates mess. The previous first lieutenant did not chase them up at all and they failed so badly that the ship has been warned by the Admiralty to buck up. The Captain took it personally and 1st Lt got a roasting for being too lax with them’. Graeme and I were now reaping the rewards of their efforts. ‘I am afraid that you two will have a tough time here as the CO and Jimmy will be onto you if they think you are not doing well enough, hence this nonsense about not being seen in the wardroom.’ He added, ‘Personally I think it is wrong. You have just arrived from Dartmouth and should be treated as midshipmen should be and not punished for the failings of others.’ The First Lieutenant, Dave Marsh, was actually a pretty good bloke but could not show us he was.

  We accepted the situation as we had no choice and were effectively excluded from the wardroom. The only officers who tried to show us some companionship were Simon, and the Torpedo Officer, Tom. At first I thought Tom was a bit stand-offish as he was very much in the image of a smooth and proper naval officer, complete with white silk handkerchief in his breast pocket. However, he was also kind and helpful as well as professional. In the meantime, Graeme and I just ate our meals and went to our cabins if we were at sea; or ashore if we were alongside and not on duty. In fact, poor Graeme did not even have a cabin. We were told that accommodation was scarce in Keppel and while I was allocated the last spare cabin, Graeme was told he could stow his gear in my cabin but was to sleep in the sickbay.

  Luckily, Graeme had a pal in the Navy who was a couple of years senior to us and who had been based in Rosyth until just recently and he knew a group of girls in Edinburgh. They were mostly physiotherapists and nurses, and he kindly introduced us to them. Therefore Graeme and I went ashore to the ‘Burg’ by bus most free evenings to enjoy the company of these ladies and the comforts of their Edinburgh flat and the nearby pubs; rather than the emptiness of the cabin. The girls introduced us to others in Edinburgh and our circle of friends grew. We all went out in a group to pubs or to dinners and dances in Edinburgh. Although no romantic relationships grew from these friendships, the girls’ kindness
provided us with a warm and reassuringly normal base whenever Keppel was back in Rosyth and both Graeme and I were most grateful to Maggie, Debbie and Barbara for all their kindness.

  HMS Cavalier – Gunnery Training

  As part of our midshipman’s training we had to complete the section on gunnery. Keppel did not have a big gun, well not one that would count in the gunnery exam, so we were sent off to the famous Second World War destroyer HMS Cavalier which was doing a gunnery work up in Portland. HMS Cavalier is a fine looking, open-bridged destroyer and was still one of the fastest ships in the Navy. She also evoked a strong feeling of the last war and memories of the black and white movies about the war at sea. I always expected Kenneth More in a duffle coat to come round the corner at any moment.

  She was, by our standards, a big ship too, having 2 x 4.5-inch gun turrets forward and one 4.5-inch turret aft. Our gunnery training proceeded well alongside the ships own gunnery exercises and we seemed to do OK. During the firing exercises we spent time in all the main compartments including the magazines, the gun turrets, the ops room and even the gunnery radar dome at the very top of the mast. It seems strange now to remember that the computers used for gunnery predictions were mechanical systems dating from the last war and full of cogs, rods and gears grinding round under a big, glass-topped table rather than the Laptop/PC type of systems that ships have today.

  HMS Cavalier, in dock at Chatham, a true warship and a fine-looking ship. She was also one of the fastest ships in the Royal Navy. (Photo with thanks to David Page at www.navyphotos.co.uk and Peter Swarbrick at swarbrick.com.)

  In between the gunnery exercises it was a great thrill to be on the open bridge with the ship going at speed. The open bridge was designed so that most of the wind was swept up and over the bridge rather than allowed to blow through it so it was not as windy a place as you might think. I loved to be on watch and lean over the front of the bridge, look down onto the two gun turrets and the finely-pointed bows as they sliced through the Channel throwing the seas aside in disdain. The nearest comparison I can make is that it is the difference between being in a car and on a motorbike. With an open bridge you are part of the seascape, at one with all that is out there and aware of any changes. You can hear and see things more easily, without reflections on glass windows or bulkheads getting in the way. In a closed bridge, while it may be warmer and dry, you are removed from the real world outside and isolated from the weather and other ships. However, I am not sure I would be saying that if we had been in Cavalier in the Arctic winter as we were in Keppel!

  Graeme and I were made welcome in Cavalier, being treated well by the captain and the officers in the wardroom and even getting an invitation down to the chief’s mess when the training was over. We both came away feeling proud to have spent time on such a famous old ship and even better for feeling that, at least in some ships, midshipmen were treated as fellow officers. HMS Cavalier is now preserved in Historic Chatham Dockyard and is well worth a visit.

  North Sea Storm

  Back in Keppel, life went on. We sailed from the Forth on a fine day but with the weather forecast to be bad with a storm on its way. We were off to take part in an exercise with aircraft and submarines well out in the northern areas of the North Sea. The exercise commenced and we midshipmen were expected to witness most of the activity in the ops room. This was always difficult as the officers directly concerned in the exercise spent their time leaning across the plotting table and so it was normally impossible to see anything except their backsides and they never had time to stop and turn round to tell you what was happening so it was all a bit of a waste of time! After we had been chasing around the sea for a couple of days the weather deteriorated rapidly and seasickness took its firm hold. The sickbay attendant gave me Marzine tablets to counter it. They were supposed to dull the brain’s senses to movement. They did that OK, and they also made me very, very sleepy. I spent most of the next couple of days doing nothing more than trying to stay awake. I had no idea what was going on in the exercise and cared even less. At one point I woke up to find myself standing up and literally hanging by one hand onto an overhead pipe in the ops room. I could not have been asleep for long but I had definitely been asleep on my feet. We were also tormented by the RAF Shackleton Maritime Patrol aircraft that flew low over us during their searches for signs of submarines. As we bucked and rolled in the rough seas below, they turned round at the end of their time on task and flew back to their base, for a pleasant afternoon tea with scones and jam by the fire in the mess at RAF Turnhouse. In the meantime, the weather continued to deteriorate. We were now well out in the middle of the North Sea and well clear of any shelter that the land might have offered. The winds blew down from the Arctic with nothing to break their blast and increased beyond Force 8 and were soon well into a Force 9 from the north-west and the seas quickly building up.

  Early in the storm they had been lumpy and confused, as if the waves themselves were not sure which way they should be going. These would hit the ship with a loud bang on the bows that shook the ship, and knocked her out of her rhythm as she tried to make her course. The smashed wave disintegrated into a mass of spray that rose high above the bows, was caught by the wind and sent smashing against the bridge windows blocking all vision for three or four seconds before it drained off. The ship would judder as if we had hit a submerged object, and we grabbed for a hand hold as we did not know which way the ship would fall away from the wave. The sound of breaking crockery from somewhere down in the ship, often followed by a muffled curse or a yell often, accompanied the sea’s attack. We could sometimes see these lumpy rogue waves coming, sometimes not, but they always seemed to catch us unawares; forcing us to grab any handhold available or risk being sent flying across the ship into any sharp projection that always seemed to be where you landed. Finally, the exercise coordinators ashore wisely decided to cancel the exercise as it was now a full Force 9 or even Storm Force 10 at times and impossible to do anything except try and stay afloat.