Polar Voyages

by Gray, Gordon

  We finally arrived in Singapore about mid-morning on a hot and steamy Singapore day and went on board HMS Rhyl, We were hot, tired, grubby, jet-lagged and dispirited after the marathon flight. As we got to the top of the gangway, a lieutenant commander in tropical white shorts was standing by the rail talking to a chief petty officer. He was a large man but had a friendly open face and from the way he was watching everything that was going on I thought he must be the first lieutenant. He watched Tim and I struggle up the gangway with our bags and came over and introduced himself to us. ‘I am Mike, the first lieutenant’, he said, extending his hand. ‘You two must be our new joining officers?’ We put down our bags and shook his hand. ‘The bad news, I am afraid, is that, as part of the maintenance work, the ship’s water main is down today so there is no air conditioning and no water in the ship today. The good news is the engineers hope to have it back on tonight. That’s why I am up here in the tropical sun as it is cooler than being inside the ship. Welcome to Rhyl!’ ‘Thanks’, was all either of us could say! The ship was like a sauna inside and it was certainly hotter than the outside air but we just had to bear it and sweat it out until late in the evening when normal water and air conditioning were resumed. Having flown out together and both of us with Wrens as fiancées, as well as both being ‘New Boys’ on board; Tim and I became good pals.

  HMS Rhyl was an anti-submarine frigate of the Rothesay Class; commonly called the Type 12. She was 370 feet long and weighed about 2,500 tons. A twin-screw ship with a top speed of 30 knot, she had a long, thin hull that sliced beautifully through the water. She carried a crew of 235 including about sixteen officers. HMS Rhyl had been built in the Naval Dockyard at Portsmouth and launched in 1959. She was equipped with ASW Mortars, a twin 4.5-inch gun and an ASW Wasp helicopter. She lived a long life before finally being sunk as a torpedo target ship in 1985. The Type 12 was replaced by the highly successful and, in my view, one of the most attractive ships the Navy ever built, the Leander-class frigate.

  HMS Rhyl post 1972 refit. She now carries a Wasp helicopter. She was decommissioned in 1985 and sadly sunk as a torpedo target.

  The CO was Commander John Hall. He was an aviator, in fact an observer as had been the CO in HMS Nurton. On first meeting him he struck me as a slightly shy man but he tried to be friendly. However, as most of his welcoming words were what he did not expect his officers to do, I decided that he was a bit of a stickler for things being done his way and this proved to be the case over the coming months (I suppose that as he was the captain this was to be expected). After the formal introduction and his pep talk, he told me what my responsibilities would be on board. ‘Now Gordon, you are one of my sixteen officers on board and I expect the best. As you know, you will be one of my bridge officers of the watch at sea as well as an officer of the day in port. You have passed your FDO Course so you will be an FDO. I also want you to be the “Top Part of Ship” officer and the boats officer’. The Top part of ship was the main midships section of the ship’s upper deck and it was here that the boats were stowed. This meant that all upper-deck maintenance and painting schedules were my responsibility along with the top part of ship petty officer. HMS Rhyl had two boats, both wooden motorboats, which were expected to be ready to be launched at any time and whose maintenance and appearance was now in my hands. ‘In addition you will be the divisional officer for all the operations room senior and junior ratings and I want you to be the wardroom mess treasurer’. This last task involved keeping a check on all the officers’ food and bar bills, laundry bills and other expenses that they built up each month and issuing them with their mess bills, collecting their money and keeping the books straight. ‘Any questions?’ ‘Err, No, Sir’, I managed. ‘Good. Carry on.’ I left his cabin thinking ‘Where the hell do I start with this lot?’

  As I left the captain’s cabin, my head spinning, a voice called out ‘Hi Gord! How’s tricks?’ It was Dave Askham. He was also one of the other lieutenants on board and we had been at Dartmouth together. He had been here for a few months already and was the ‘Baby Guns’ or Deputy gunnery officer, to give him his proper title. ‘I think need a drink’ I said. ‘No problem, it’s on me.’ ‘Thanks Dave.’ After a large horse’s neck (brandy and ginger ale) in the wardroom to recover I tried to remember what I had been told.

  Hong Kong

  About a week later the last dockyard worker left the ship and our Maintenance period was over. We cast off and sailed for Hong Kong and a deployment that would mean endless days at sea on defence watches, doing six hours on, six hours off on the bridge or the flight deck. I soon found my way around and got into the routine of life on a ‘big’ ship. In between the continual two- and three-week-long exercises we had just two or three days break in various ports around the region.

  We were working with HMS Tiger, a helicopter cruiser, and HMS Dreadnought, the RN’s first nuclear-powered submarine as well as other RN frigates in the region and an RFA that kept us fuelled and fed. Mostly, we carried out anti-submarine exercises, but there were replenishments at sea (RAS) every other day, OOW exercises and damage control exercises. No one was ever going to be bored in Rhyl.

  We arrived in Hong Kong and berthed at the RN Base, HMS Tamar, right in the middle of the harbour front on Hong Kong Island. Hong Kong, with all the bustle of the harbour, the junks and sampans, lighters loading cargoes into the moored freighters out in the harbour; was exactly as I had imagined it to be. The Star Ferries constantly thrashed their way across the harbour to Kowloon. In fact, there are only two places in the world that were exactly as I had imagined them before I went there. One was Hong Kong and the other was New York.

  On the first day that I was clear to go ashore, Peter, the navigator, and I went over to Kowloon one Saturday morning. Peter had been here before. ‘If you have never been here then you have to go on the Star Ferry!’, he said. We travelled First Class, on the upper deck, for 20 cents and watched as the harbour carried on its daily business around us and the green and white double ended ferry Evening Star ploughed its way between the tugs and barges over to Kowloon. In Kowloon, the main street, Nathan Road, led all the way to the border with Communist China but, at its Kowloon end, its fascinating side streets were a series of Aladdin’s caves crammed full of electronics, stereos, cameras, clothing and watches. ‘Buy here Jonny, I give you good price!’ ‘Heh, Mister! You want watch!’ ‘No mister you come back here, I give another 20 per cent discount!’ It was a fantastic place. Peter and I explored as much as we could but after a while, the noise, the dust, the heat and the humidity pressed down on us until we had to get out of it all. Peter led the way. Just off Nathan Road, on Canton Road, we entered the Hong Kong Hotel through heavy glass doors. The air conditioning hit us like a cooling shower. Its lobby was a haven of peace, civilization and culture, instantly shutting out the noisy chaos and heat of the street. I followed Peter straight into The Gun Bar, just off the lobby, which offered chilled, draught San Miguel beer and soft easy chairs. ‘Two pints of San Miguel please’. ‘Yes Sir,’ replied the immaculately smart barman, his red jacket matching the red décor. The soft, cool atmosphere of the bar wrapped us in its luxury. He returned with two brimming, pint-glass tankards of chilled beer sitting on a white-napkin-covered tray. We salivated while he carefully laid out the paper coasters, then the beer, the condensation already forming on the glass. Finally, he moved away with a genuine ‘Enjoy your beers Sirs’. We did. Oh the joy as the iced liquid slid over our dry throats and cooled us as it went down.

  We were berthed near the Wanchai area, so in the late evenings we used to make our way down to the world of Susie Wong. Wanchai covered a few blocks of narrow streets by the waterfront, but here were streets full of food stalls, bars, restaurants and local food shops. Just above our heads, hundreds of dazzling, coloured, neon signs were directing us down to see bigger, better, barer girls in the dim, dark, girlie bars. ‘Heh, Gringo, you want lady? I fix for you lady, very good price!’ ‘I am not a gringo!’ I growled back.
The noise of people filled the air, stall owners chanting their wares, club hostesses calling to sailors, cyclist ringing their bells and pop music blaring our from some of the street-front bars. There always seemed to be wall to wall people; mostly they seemed to be those who lived and worked here, carrying boxes or pushing loaded hand carts, but also American sailors on R&R from Vietnam and some, just like us, tourists. We drank in the heady atmosphere of the place and its non-stop vibrancy. Exploring the bars, (a San Mig’ beer here, a San Mig’ beer there) and then sitting at the food stalls eating all sorts and watching the local ladies was something new and exciting for most of us. The tourist sights could wait until tomorrow!

  Before we docked in Hong Kong, Tim flew the helicopter ashore to the RAF station at Kai Tak as he could not fly it off from the ship when the ship was alongside the main naval base at HMS Tamar. One day at breakfast Tim took me aside. ‘Can you get off for today? I am taking the helicopter up for a training flight over the harbour and up into the New Territories. Do you want to come for the ride?’ ‘You bet I do.’ I quickly cleared it with the first lieutenant and we flew from Kai Tak out low over Hong Kong Harbour, past the ship berthed at Tamar and we hovered over the wreck of the old Cunard liner, RMS Queen Elizabeth. She had been sold by Cunard to CY Tung, a famous Hong Kong ship-owner who had nearly finished converting her into a floating university, to be called Seawise University. Unfortunately a fire broke out on board and she was destroyed. She was lying on her starboard side with half of her rusted and blackened hull and superstructure sticking out of the water and looking anything but the fine ocean liner that she had been. She was a really sad sight. She was eventually broken up where she lay, which was close to the main channel into the container berths. We carried on our flight almost up to the Chinese border, then back to Kai Tak.

  During our second stop in Hong Kong a couple of months later there was a Typhoon warning and we were ordered to sail at once and head to the south to avoid the projected route of the typhoon which took it right over Hong Kong. Thirty-six hours later, the typhoon had passed and had missed Hong Kong so we were told we could return to port. We were planning to arrive at the entrance to the main harbour at 7 a.m. I was on the midnight to 4 a.m. watch (or ‘The Middle’) that night when a signal arrived from Hong Kong HQ telling us to re-plan our ETA for 0730. I handed over the message to the navigator when he came on watch at 0400. I was asleep in my cabin after my watch when at a quarter to seven the captain called me to the bridge. ‘Why did you not call me when this signal came in?’ ‘Well, Sir, it was only a thirty minute delay and I did not think it was important enough to call you. I gave the signal to the navigator when he came on watch at 0400.’ The captain disagreed. ‘I will be told of all signals concerning our programme when they come in. Your shore leave is stopped for the next three days. Now, carry on.’ ‘Yes Sir.’ Three days stoppage of leave over the last three days in Hong Kong before we headed for home. ‘Great! No chance to buy any presents now!’ I muttered to myself and vowed to return one day.

  In the course of the next few months, as breaks between these exercises, we visited some super tropical places such as Rabaul and Manaus, both down in jungles of New Guinea; Guam: and the huge American base at Subic Bay in the Philippines, where the American insisted on buying us whisky whether or not we drank it, as well as Mauritius and Simonstown in South Africa.

  South African Waters

  South Africa was as lovely as I remembered it from our stay there in Puncheston. Unfortunately, we were not able to stay as long this time and after a couple of days we were off again, back out to chase submarines. During our time in South African waters we did a number of exercises with the South African Navy. During one of these two things occurred that helped to convince me that I was probably not cut out to be an Admiral. As a bridge watch-keeping officer in the RN you are totally responsible for the safety of the ship and her crew. While you are always under the captain’s orders, the actual handling of the ship and collision avoidance and safe navigation during your watch are your responsibility. As a young twenty-two- or twenty-three-year-old this is a massive responsibility as you have, in HMS Rhyl for example, over 200 officers and men sleeping below decks in a ship with a wafer thin hull, who are totally dependent upon you for their safety. The following two events reflect the seriousness of the job and show how easy it is for major mistakes to take place.

  Near Misses

  Collision avoidance is probably the most important aspect of the bridge watch-keeping and 100 per cent pass mark is demanded in all exams during training. This covers all the different lights, shapes and sounds that every type of ship undertaking every possible activity will display or make at different times and from different angles, day and night and in fog. It is therefore something that becomes second nature as you spend at least eight hours a day on the bridge. However, there are times when things go awry.

  On the first occasion one of my fellow watch keepers and pal from Dartmouth days, Dave, came down to the wardroom from the bridge at midnight where he had been officer of the watch since eight o’clock. I was having a late coffee when he came in. He was white and shaking. I asked him what was wrong. When he had got a brandy in his hand he told me. There was yet another submarine exercise going on and Rhyl was working with two South African frigates to try and locate and ‘catch’ the submarine. Dave explained that he had been concerned during the watch that the captain and ops officer down in the ops room were not totally aware of where the other ships were in relation to ours as we had all been maneuvering at high speed all over the place and a certain amount of competitiveness between ships of different nations creeps into these exercises. However, there was nothing he could do but drive Rhyl exactly where the CO ordered him to via the intercom. Quite often this was at speeds of up to 28 knots. During these exercises all the participating warships were in a state of ‘Darkened Ship’. This meant that they had all their navigation and upper deck lights switched off and all the deadlights down over the scuttles to prevent visual detection from the submarine’s periscope. The only exceptions were the helicopters, which always had all their lights on including their flashing orange strobe lights. Dave had been driving the ship all over the ocean with big and frequent course and speed changes all night. When suddenly, a dim, round, light, low down near the sea level, appeared out of the night and moved rapidly down the starboard side of our ship and very close to us. So close, in fact that Dave lost sight of it as it passed below the level of the bridge window. After a second he realised that it had been a single scuttle of another ship. He called the ops room to report it and mayhem broke out as they had no idea that we were anywhere near another ship. In fact, it was one of the South African frigates, also darkened down. Someone had forgotten to drop the deadlight on a single scuttle near the stern. We had passed her within 50 feet at about 25 knots and had not even known there was a ship nearby. If we had hit her, both ships could have ended up in half.

  A few nights later, on another similar exercise, on a dark and cloudy night, a similar thing happened to me but in a different way. Again, all ships were darkened, except the helicopters. I was OOW and spent the watch holding the ops room/bridge intercom microphone in one hand and listening to and responding to orders from the CO in the ops room; and the wheelhouse intercom microphone in the other hand to pass on those orders to the wheelhouse team. At the same time I was hanging onto the compass stand, or pelorus, by my arm as the ship heeled over during another tight turn. In this exercise HMS Tiger was the ship we were protecting and we had been deployed as a screen to detect submarines out in front of her. During these exercises it is accepted that the OOW never has time to go to the back of the bridge to check the bridge radar screen or to go to the bridge wings for a visual check outside as the orders come up in a constant flow from the ops room below and you have to remain fixed to the conning position. As the ops room had all the relevant radar and sonar information they knew where all the other ships in the exercise were. During th
is exercise, the ops room team was desperately trying to keep track of a submarine contact on the sonar.

  As we were altering course at 24 knots and steadying up on a new course I looked out ahead and was glad to see that there were no merchant ship’s lights down the course we were now on. Then, dead ahead, out in the blackness, a red light came on. It was one small, steady, red light. In the dark it was impossible to gauge its distance from us but as it was quite high up it must be quite close or, something very big. However, it still looked like a small light and not really like a ship’s red port light, which have a faded glow about them; this was a sharp crisp light. I stared at it hard through the bridge window to try and work out what I was looking at. ‘Ops bridge, can you identify any contacts dead ahead. I have a single red light on our current heading?’ I never got a response. My brain was racing. Was it a red flare of some sort? This one red light could not be a merchantman as there were no other masthead lights or deck lights. It was most unlikely to be one of the warships in the exercise as they were all fully darkened and the light was too high up to be from any of the ships with which we were working. In the absence of any guidance or information from the ops room and, as we were doing 24 knots directly towards this light, which was now getting ever nearer; I decided that I needed to act. ‘Starboard 20, Revolution 120’, at the same time I switched on all our navigation lights. We came round 40 degrees off our original course and reduced speed to 15 knots. I put the lights on so that whatever this red light was, it would be able to see us while I worked out what was going on.