Henderson, who mixes comfortably across all ranks, thinks the modern navy has become a little bit too ‘touchy feely’ and the lines between friendship and discipline have become blurred. ‘In those days [when he joined] there was a very clear rank structure and I enjoyed it. I was used to that way.’
The structures and routines of navy life, along with his wife of thirty years, Rhonda, also helped him overcome one of his biggest personal problems by giving up alcohol. His marriage was in trouble due to the grog and he was staying with his dad when he told his father that the beers they were enjoying would be his last.
‘He said, “You won’t last,” and I said something very colourful like, “We’ll fucking see,” and it’s only been twenty years since I have had a drink,’ Henderson says. ‘When I joined up drinking was part and parcel, and one reason I wanted to become a PO [Petty Officer] so quickly was because you could drink during the day as a senior sailor. That was part of the deal – you could go in at lunchtime, stand easy and have a beer. I was a pretty heavy drinker and it does impact and it does impede you. I think it’s better that we’ve got rid of that culture.’
In 2008 Henderson was serving as Senior Marine Technician Warrant Officer on the former amphibious ship HMAS Manoora when he decided to move to what sailors like to call the ‘dark side’ by joining the ranks of commissioned officers. The final straw that pushed him across to the officer corps was the navy’s $80,000 retention bonus offer that was given only to chiefs and leading seamen but not warrant officers. ‘They still wanted us to do the job and I said, “I’m over this, I’m out of here.”’
His first sea posting as an officer was on board the navy’s notorious ‘sex ship of shame’ HMAS Success, after she had been the subject of numerous media exposés and a bruising public inquiry. The navy wanted a core of older, more mature officers and sailors on the ship to implement the cultural change required following the scandals.
‘We had a new team, new purpose, new focus you know, and I enjoyed my time on Success,’ he says.
‘Goonga’ Sims would certainly be regarded as a fully qualified member of the ‘tight’ guided missile frigate community that Trevor Henderson encountered when he joined Darwin. A laconic and good-humoured sailor, Sims has been in the navy for twenty-nine years and has spent almost twenty-two of those away at sea on board frigates. The 2016 deployment in Darwin was his fourth to the Middle East. His first was in Melbourne and he remembers when the ship was in Bahrain to protect the ABOT oil terminal on the day Saddam Hussein was captured. In the early days he was also a ‘boardo’. Sims was rewarded for his outstanding service with a Conspicuous Service Medal (CSM) in the 2017 Queen’s Birthday honours.
One of the biggest changes he has noticed is the boost that comes from being almost always in touch with loved ones at home in the modern age of Wi-Fi and satellite communications. Back in 2003, sailors in the Gulf were allowed just two phone calls home in the entire six months.
‘We were actually gone over Christmas and the calls had to be restricted to five minutes,’ he recalls. ‘You try and talk to your wife and two kids in five minutes when you’re at sea. It’s really hard to try and fit everything in.’
Being a ‘chippy’ is one of the most diverse and essential roles in the senior service. On top of fresh water and sewage, Sims says other regular problem areas are the doors and hatches, especially when the ship is at sea and closed down to ‘readiness state Yankee’. That involves keeping all of the hatches and doors from ‘two deck’ (which contains the galley, the café, the chiefs’ accommodation and other working spaces) and below closed to maintain water and gas-tight integrity. This means they must be opened and closed each time crew move about the ship, generating high levels of wear and tear.
Other things that require regular repairs include bunks, latches, hinges, showers, taps and sinks. The fire-fighting main and cooling lines use salt water so they are always corroding and in a thirty-two-year-old ship pinholes frequently appear and must be repaired. During the 2016 deployment a tiny leak was discovered in the cooling line to a mission-critical radar.
‘We had to pull out the old degraded pipework and manufacture new elbows and pipework to get it back up and running,’ says Sims. ‘When we’ve got defects like that it’s all hands on deck until the job’s finished.’
It takes a special group of cooks to bake vast platters of sweet and savoury pastry scrolls and sticky buns to top up the post-dinner crowd at a charity auction on a navy frigate. For Petty Officer Maritime Logistics Chef Rob Bateman and his team of ‘chefos’, the bake-up for an auction in May 2016 is their contribution to a successful fundraising effort.
Fitting the task into their frantic schedule of providing 228 hungry sailors with four hot, tasty meals every day for seven months is no mean feat. The wiry and full-bearded Bateman and his seven-person team prepare, cook and clean up after more than 125,000 meals during the deployment – not including ‘mornos’ (morning tea) and ‘arvos’ (afternoon tea).
Despite the uncharitable moniker of ‘tucker fuckers’, navy cooks play a vital role.
‘Full bellies are happy bellies,’ says Bateman.
He is not only the petty officer chef but also the senior caterer and line manager of the two leading seamen and five able seamen who staff the galley. The leading seamen, or ‘killicks’, cook and look after the galley and the stores while the more junior seamen cook, clean and man the galley and serving line. One is always rostered on as night chef to bake fresh bread and create desserts and salads for the next day.
They also cater for special occasions and VIP events such as cocktail parties where the canapés can vary from party pies to crocodile croquettes, mini pavlovas and chocolate mud cake. There are ‘steel deck’ barbecues where 200 steaks, 300 sausages and 100 chicken kebabs as well as salads, coleslaw and dessert are served on the steel flight deck at the stern of the ship – a long way from the galley and its larders and pantries two decks below. And they keep the hard-working boarding parties sustained with toasted sandwiches and other goodies at all hours of the day and night.
A week’s typical meals includes roast lamb and veg, spicy pasta and apricot crumble, peri-peri chicken, stir fry, beef vindaloo, chicken cacciatore, crumbed snapper, rump steak, beef rissoles, creamy bacon pasta, teriyaki chicken, cheeseburgers, spaghetti and meatballs, and many more. All meals are served with vegetables, the salad bar is always open and a variety of freshly made desserts, from cakes and custard to fruit salad and jelly, are available.
Another highlight is the ever-popular soft-serve ice-cream machine. Newcomers soon find out that going hard and early is the best ice-cream strategy because the machine does run dry.
‘You could leave that on 24/7 and no one would complain, I’m pretty sure,’ says Bateman.
A conscientious country boy from Dalby in Queensland, he joined the navy when it became apparent that the family farm would be unable to support him. There was a drought, so he virtually went straight from Year 12 at Dalby High School to the navy’s recruit school at HMAS Cerberus in Victoria.
He qualified first as an electronics technician, but after a stint in the galley he re-trained as a chefo. ‘I love being a cook. I’ve got to be on the go constantly, I can’t sit dormant for too long, so catering and being a cook seemed like the perfect set up for me.’
The father of two school-aged children has been at sea for more than ten of his fourteen years in the navy and the 2016 deployment in Darwin is his second to the Middle East. His family lives in Cairns where his wife works as a nurse. They moved north after he was posted to Cerberus for three years as an instructor teaching ‘baby chefos’ their trade.
The chefs’ biggest job is trying to keep everybody happy and healthy for up to thirty-eight days at sea with a limited supply of fresh, frozen or canned foodstuffs. The cooks work off a six-week cyclic menu set by the chef with the ship’s doctor, and each cook can see what is coming up on the card and create their meals accordingly. One of
their biggest pressures is maintaining a high level of food excellence in cramped and often tough conditions.
‘It’s an extremely hot environment in the galley and you are on your feet the whole time and it’s day after day after day,’ says Bateman. ‘It is a relentless job and it can be a thankless job. We’re very, very fortunate on this ship that the crew is very grateful for what my guys produce along the line, so that’s been a breath of fresh air and that can make or break a deployment for the chefos.’
There are usually four able seaman cooks on duty from 6 a.m. until about 9 p.m. One preps for the next day, one cooks the next meal, one makes salads and desserts and cleans up in the scullery and the fourth assists the stores ‘killick’ with supplies and works as a general hand. They might get a break around 3 p.m. for an hour or two, but otherwise are on their feet in their sweatbox deep in the bowels of the ship where the low stainless steel ceiling and walls keep the heat locked in. The fifth cook’s night shift starts around 6 p.m. and goes through until 7 a.m., baking about thirty loaves of bread and other specialist baked products.
In the unlikely event that the cooks get bored, there are constant cleaning jobs to ensure that all food and preparation areas are spotless. An outbreak of food poisoning would be a disaster, and Rob Bateman and his galley ‘killick’ are responsible for maintaining the standards.
‘If you [have food poisoning] the crew loses faith in you and you’ve got to rebuild the reputation that you’ve built up,’ he says. ‘That’s the worst thing that could happen to a chefo and his team so we stay on top of personal hygiene and galley hygiene and make sure we are adhering to our food safety plan.’
The ‘killick’ is the linchpin for hygiene and drives all aspects of galley life from peeling spuds to whipping up a chocolate mousse and washing the dishes.
‘He’ll make sure everything is up to scratch,’ Bateman says. ‘I come in as the overseer or quality controller before the meal goes through. I’ll taste everything, make sure it’s all visually appealing as well as tasting good and then we open those shutters and the hordes come through.’
The stores killick monitors stock levels, rotates stock and assists with the ordering. Few people have access to the dry store and the freezers located one deck below the galley. Says Bateman, ‘That is so we don’t have our Tim Tams go missing or people think, “Oh I’ll just grab extra milk,” because there’s only so much stock we can carry on board so we have to calculate it.’
Supplies are never completely exhausted as the ship must have an emergency food supply in case it has to ‘crash sail’ or extend a mission at sea and cannot be resupplied.
Waste food is processed in a large unit known as the ‘Egor’ and pumped into the sea when the ship is more than twelve nautical miles offshore. All other rubbish is sorted and stored until the ship docks in port.
Bateman sets high standards and aims to train his cooks to become better than he is. He also allows them to extend themselves with favourite dishes. ‘Our resident Russian, Dennis, has got some amazing dumplings and some dishes that are traditional for him that he thoroughly enjoys making. So when it’s possible I’ll say, “Okay, sweet, make your whatever-your-dish-is.” We’ve got people who love making curries so it’s, “Right, here’s all your stuff, make the curry, make it however you want, as long as it tastes good, it’s good to go.” All they’ve got to do is put up their hand and say, “I’d really love to try to make this.” “Absolutely, go for it.” Or if we don’t have the stores for it we can’t necessarily make it.’
Where they can really show their creative flair is when VIPs and dignitaries come on board for cocktail parties and CO’s luncheons. ‘It’s fine dining, it’s dress it up, be as creative as you want, make art on a plate basically and send it up. Because you’re working with small numbers of, say, five people for a CO’s luncheon, you can put all your effort into it and make something that really jumps off the plate.’
All the skills of the galley would be on display later, after the ship docked in Victoria Harbour, Mahe Island in the Seychelles, when the CO co-hosted a cocktail party with Mauritius-based Australian High Commissioner Susan Coles on the flight deck.
The VIP guests were treated to Darwin’s unique version of a ‘sunset guard’ ceremony complete with a performance by the resident indigenous dance troupe. Under a starlit sky with the Southern Cross blazing above the guests, including many who were in town for a major piracy conference, they consumed kangaroo sliders and crocodile croquettes washed down with cold beer and Aussie wines as the painted dancers and the ship’s formal guard strutted their stuff.
Among the crew these events are known as ‘cake and arse’ parties and there is a usually a rush to try and avoid having to serve as waiters or waitresses or don formal uniform and make small talk with VIPs. However, for the guests they are a unique and memorable sample of far-away Australian culture.
The Maritime Logistics Officer, or ‘pusser’, Lieutenant Commander Chris Duke, is the power behind the throne. The pusser, which is navy slang for a warship’s purser and translates to many as ‘punching bag’, supplies everything from peas and pens to pumps and potatoes, apart from weapons. Duke and his stores team even supply and maintain spare parts for the ship’s helicopter.
Duke was born in the UK and comes from a long line of navy men, both his father and brother having served in the Royal Navy. He joined the RAN as a clerk in 1991, three years after the family moved to Australia. Fourteen years later he transferred to the officer stream.
His is a lengthy association with Darwin because he first joined the ship as an able seaman in 1993. He did two further tours on board including one as deputy supply officer before his latest posting as the boss, looking after the supply, personnel administration, chefs and steward departments. The dry-witted father of one son takes great pride in keeping the frigate in tip-top fighting condition.
Duke cops a lot of good natured flak from his shipmates in the wardroom, but the reason Darwin is a happy ship is due in large part to his hard work and diligence.
Operating a long way from home and in some exotic locations throws up unique problems. His job is made easier by a shore-based team of RAN supply and logistics experts led by Operation Manitou’s Maritime Logistics Officer, Lieutenant Commander Neil Krauklis. Based at the Australian headquarters in Al Minhad Air Base, Krauklis and his team travel ahead of the ship to the next port to ensure that everything from a berth to fuel and fresh food and water are ready for ship’s arrival.
One of the most complex methods of resupply is the replenishment at sea. While used mainly to resupply the ship with fuel and water, it can also be an opportunity for Duke to land extra supplies, transferred either directly or using the ship’s chopper for a vertical replenishment, known as VERTREP.
‘It’s a fine art because you’ve got to take into account how long it will take to get it from where it’s boxed and packed out to the ship, and then from the ship to us. You may lose about ten days’ endurance with that, so you have to calculate the risk that by the time it gets to me – within twelve to fifteen days – I will be putting a lot of it in the bin,’ Duke says.
He also manages the food budget – a strict $2 a person per meal. That is $1380 a day or $250,000 for food alone for the six-month deployment, so the type of food is driven by the budget and time left at sea. Yet his biggest challenge is not food but sourcing the spare parts required to keep the ageing American-built warship operating.
As the ship approaches a port, the list of new supplies grows and Duke’s stress level rises accordingly. Thanks to the internet and satellite phones he knows what to expect at the wharf. The navy’s sustainment system is reliable and internal supplies can be tracked electronically all along the chain.
Once loaded onto the ship, supplies become the responsibility of the ‘storbys’. The six-person team, run by Chief Petty Officer Colin Benbow and his deputy, Alex Rossi, manages a stores system that supports all of the ship’s departments, from
electrical to medical, and holds some 35,000 individual items in crowded compartments in the bowels of the vessel.
Stocktaking is done manually so attention to detail is vital.
Rossi says that the need to prioritise often results in conflict between engineering and aviation – the two areas with the most time- and mission-sensitive demands for spare parts.
‘Funding is a big part of that,’ he says. ‘For example, is it priority one or priority three? And do we get it overnight by DHL and spend $20,000 to move a $500 piece of equipment, or go through the sustainment process and have it filtered down to us at a minimal cost?’
In the end, those decisions are above the team’s pay grade. Final judgements are made by Duke with the skipper, the headquarters of Task Force 633, and Joint Operations Command back in Australia.
Like everyone else in the warship the storbys have ancillary duties that take them away from the stores department. It might be as a bowman on the RHIB for a boarding or a lineman in the fire-fighting department – for example, as a fire fighter, Able Seaman Louis Mahutariko must do at least an hour’s training each day and is on stand-by away from his job during operations such as replenishments or refuelling.
Compliance is another major challenge. Alex Rossi says new rules have seen the administrative workload doubled in the past few years. ‘It’s always a juggling act, but we do the best we can and it’s easier for us now that the tempo is constant. The twelve months leading up to deployment is probably our busiest time.’
Benbow, a jolly and rotund chief who hand-embroidered a detailed cross-stitch image of HMAS Darwin for his wife during his downtime on the ship, keeps close tabs on who is buying what. Once a ship is being deployed the gloves come off with regards to replacing stores – especially for the engineering department.
‘There’s probably 10,000 line items that we [now] have to buy,’ he says. ‘But our budget did not increase. That includes stationery, cleaning gear, tools, parts, paint, all those things.’
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