The Captain—L.K. ‘Turtle’ Hamilton—proved to be a very small, fair-haired bachelor who clearly stood no nonsense but there was a humorous twinkle in the eyes that studied me from under bushy brows and he gave the impression of being ridiculously young. Asking after my father, he told me that they had commanded sister destroyers in the Dover Patrol. I knew this—in fact they were still close friends—and I also knew that Lieutenant Commander Hamilton had run his ship aground and the two of them had sat up all night concocting the best possible ‘Report of Collision or Grounding’ which was unfortunately required of him. It had obviously been well done! ‘I didn’t ask for you’ he said, ‘I merely requested a disciplinarian.’ I hope he, or rather his successor, got one. I only beat two snotties in the ensuing year (one came up to me much later and thanked me, rather embarrassingly, saying it had done him a lot of good). But this is to anticipate. There were as yet no ‘young gentlemen’ to crowd the pristine Gunroom, which smelt of new leather, new corticene and fresh paint and, apart from getting on the right side of important people like the Foreman of Joiners for the clandestine production of brass telescope racks and other Gunroom embellishmens, there was nothing much for me to do but clamber about the ship.
Among other intriguing discoveries was the fact that the new-fangled radar extended even to pom-pom directors (shades of my old Nelson device). I was fascinated but the two Gunnery Officers, Lieutenant Commander C.W. McMullen (‘Guns’) and Lieutenant R.C. Beckwith, were far too busy to explain anything in detail. Although below the waterline, my cabin was an improvement on the Douglas’ especially as it was unlikely to leak. Dick Beckwith heard me bemoan the lack of daylight for watercolour purposes—painting being my principal hobby— and straightaway offered the use of his when not wanted, a kind gesture indeed. He was engaged to a charming and very pretty little girl called Yvonne Pridham whom he would introduce—most inappropriately we thought—as his ‘fiasco’.
Other officers joined, including Lieutenant Commander A.H. Terry who, among his various duties, was Snotties’ Nurse. It was important that we should see eye to eye and fortunately we always did, in fact becoming good friends. A recent survivor from three sinkings, including the Royal Oak and one of the destroyers lost in the Norwegian campaign, he had seen a lot of action. A slightly hesitant manner hid a determined personality. A fine practical seaman and keen fly fisherman, he looked like the ‘jack tar’ who used to be on Wills Navy Cut cigarettes, with a very powerful frame and thick, light brown beard framing strong features. Another who one noted at once as a most congenial character was Lieutenant Commander George Ferguson, RNVR, a florid bright blue-eyed officer who did everything with great gusto and friendliness.
Commissioning day came and HMS Prince of Wales breathed with real life for the first time. Midshipmen joined in ones and twos from then on, until total Gunroom strength was about 25. Few had been to sea and all were roughly of the same seniority. Thus there was no hierarchy of senior Midshipmen to help knock the others into shape and everything from straight discipline and routine to watchkeeping, boat-running and the various mess administrative duties had to start from scratch. My inactivity of recent weeks became very much a thing of the past.
The Prince of Wales left Birkenhead on January 28 1941, sailing northabout to anchor off Rosyth in the Firth of Forth, for ammunitioning and storing. I remember being rather rough with the wheel and engine revolutions and the Captain cautioning ‘This isn’t a destroyer you know!’
Rosyth became the scene of much inter-mess entertainment—the first Gunroom guest night, with Wardroom guests, featured a haggis—and we decided that ordinary cocktails were too hard on a Midshipman’s wine bill. Accordingly a special meeting of the mess committee (myself as President and half a dozen others) was convened and the wine steward instructed to produce a bottle of every type we possessed. There followed an orgy of concoction which put the Macbeth witches to shame. Few knew what they were drinking at the end, but the winner was ‘Seaweed’—half gin, nearly half the dregs of fruit tins specially kept over the last week, a touch of crème de menthe to give colour and a drop of angostura to counteract its taste!
‘Turtle’ Hamilton—who had been promoted to Rear-Admiral—was relieved by Captain J.C. Leach and simultaneously another Commander, H.F. Lawson, was appointed. As fine a pair as you could wish for, they had both been Gunnery Officers (the former was not a little deaf in the best Whale Island tradition) but were as unalike in appearance as could be imagined. Captain Leach was very tall and athletic—I believe an ace squash player—with rather boney features, blue eyes, grey hair and a ruddy complexion. He had a wonderful sense of humour and, though to prove a tight disciplinarian, was fair and transparently decent. One took to him at once. Commander ‘Tarzan’ Lawson was very short and broad with a long, narrow face, prominent jaw and black hair. He had a long, supple stride and his black eyes darted sparks. Otherwise, the same could be said and one took to him at once too.
The battlecruiser Hood was in a nearby dock. In mid-March she moved out to anchor in the stream and a few days later the Prince of Wales followed suit, to weigh and proceed to Scapa Flow on the 24th. As the Forth Bridge passed overhead, with little enough room to spare, there was many a wistful glance—at least among those who knew their Flow—at receding civilisation (I was even inspired to write a poem, the full extent of which was ‘Sad to see—the last tree!’). Gliding up to our buoy off Flotta, with the usual shrill salutes to and from the ships at hand, followed by a flurry of official calls, was a bit like returning after the school holidays: to feel one had never been away. But I do not think I was ever to be seasick in the Prince of Wales and henceforth that made all the difference!
A terrific programme of gunnery exercises began almost at once and lasted for seven weeks. All day, and latterly most nights, we carried out drills, shoots and more shoots. Many became fed up with the ‘gunnery octopus’ as some wag dubbed our tormentor from whose tentacles none could escape, but I thoroughly enjoyed this period, having always found teamwork on a large scale a satisfactory business.
There was particularly good reason for us to become worked up, ie, ready for battle, as soon as possible. The new and formidable German battleship Bismarck, rather larger than Prince of Wales and thoroughly efficient after much exercising in the Baltic, could be expected to break out at any moment and the Home Fleet at this time had few capital ships fast enough to catch her. If the Bismarck evaded our patrolling cruisers, not difficult to do in bad weather, the fat would be in the fire; if she could then evade superior forces for long enough she could be joined by her new sister Tirpitz (known to be working up like we were) or by the battlecruisers Scharnhorst and Gneisenau, or all three. The idea of this quartet loose in the Atlantic was too awful to think about: they could starve out the entire United Kingdom.
The Flow was busy with ships of all sizes, including the Hood, but Prince of Wales was ‘out of routine’ acting independently at the will of St Barbara, Patron Saint of Gunnery. Our 14-inch guns, only the second examples to be built, gave a lot of trouble. In particular the loading machinery was entirely new, including the innovation of a ‘vehicle’ that ran on rails round the bottom of the turret, receiving shells from the fixed structure and locking itself on to the revolving part for transfer. The 5.25-inch secondary armament was newish too; the barrels elevated to nearly 90°, obviating the need for separate heavy AA guns. Lastly, there were six multiple pom-poms, four of which had the new, sophisticated directors to be mastered (a Bofors and several 20mm Oerlikons were added later). With all this to contend with and a large proportion of untried manpower to boot, the task of welding the ship’s company into a fit state to fight for its life would have taken at least eight months in peacetime.
My action station was Spotting Officer in the standby 14-inch director. Mounted on top of the after superstructure, it was a complete replica of the one above the bridge, whence Guns would normally control the main armament. If anything prevented his doing this
it was only necessary to move a big switch and all the circuits were transferred to us. Until this happened, however, we had nothing to do except spot the fall of shot. Three officers sat at the top of a compact pile of men and machinery, the Control Officer—Dick Beckwith—slightly raised in the middle, with the Rate Officer (Lieutenant T. Baker-Creswell, RM) on his left and me on his right. Dick had an all-round view through thick glass ports; ‘B-C’ and I could only see forward, unless we stood up. All of us had huge binoculars supported on pedestals* and the two flanking officers each had three brass knobs. In my case they indicated ‘over’, ‘straddle’ (shells each side of the target), or ‘short’. B-C’s referred to ‘left’, ‘straddle’, or ‘right’. When one of the knobs was pressed a pin perforated a rolling chart in front of the Gunner in the Transmitting Station (TS) 100 feet below. We had a rangetaker who pressed a foot pedal with the same result, as did each turret, and our radar aerials fed a display in the TS. Strange things can happen in the heat of action, as we were to find out (for instance, one of the directors might be on the wrong target), but the TS Gunner with all this information, was well placed to advise the Gunnery Officer if necessary. When the stand-by director was controlling the shoot, B-C’s and my findings had more direct parts to play. Our Control Officer ordered corrections of range and deflection according to a set plan, and as a result of the fall of shot which he saw himself, accepting our verbal reports or not as he thought fit.
The Director Gunner (Mr J. White) was below us and in front, keeping the crosswires of his telescope on the target for elevation, the Director Trainer beside him doing the same in the horizontal plane. As the No 2 of each gun closed his interceptor switch, the last act in the loading sequence, a light burnt in the TS. As soon as all—or in dire straits the majority—of the lights had come on, the fire gong would be pressed. This, sounding throughout the gunnery octopus, told the Director Layer he could press his trigger (providing the Control Officer had ordered ‘Shoot’) and also warned the rest of us; as learnt in the Nelson it is best to shut one’s eyes and imperative to do so at night.†
The circuits carrying the director’s instructions to the guns (the turrets trained in similar response to the Director Trainer’s movements) passed through the TS where additions or subtractions were made by settings applied to the fire control table. These took into account the arc described by the shells for different ranges, temperature, one’s own and the enemy’s estimated course and speed, and such finer points as barrel wear. The Control Officer’s corrections— also applied in the TS— would be superimposed on these. It can be seen how one weak link could upset the whole delicate apple-cart, and how not only the need for initial training, but constant practice thereafter, was very great.
The secondary armament needed nearly as much attention and the new pom-pom systems claimed their share. Each of the four 5.25-inch batteries had its own director, fairly light contraptions open to the sky. They stuck out like ears fore and aft, switching arrangements allowing any director to control any group of turrets, a considerable insurance against surprise. When a threat from the air only was anticipated, some of us had alternative Air Defence Stations, mine being as a pom-pom Direction Officer on the starboard side of the Air Defence Positions which was as high as one could go on the main bulk of the bridge structure. The pom-pom director was on a lower level and, armed with a long cane, I would lean over and attract the control Petty Officer’s attention with a tap on his shoulder. Though it sounds primitive, the idea was to pick out his next target while he concentrated on the threat in hand, and it worked well enough.
My 21st birthday came and went on April 25, unmarked unless a voluntary turn-out at 04:00 counts. A drifter from the mainland arrived then with stores, among which I knew there was a crate containing a large Peter Scott print. Noted by me in Edinburgh when equipping the Gunroom with similar prints, it had been ordered by an old friend. The hoisting in of this delicate package was not entrusted to anyone else.
At last, on May 21, Captain Leach reported to Admiral Tovey, the Commander-in-Chief, that HMS Prince of Wales was fit to join the Fleet. This was less than two months after leaving Rosyth.
Only hours later the very same day, Hood (flying the flag of the Second in Command, Home Fleet, Vice Admiral L.E. Holland) and Prince of Wales were ordered to two hours’ notice for steam. Excitement and speculation ran high. Rumour—usually well founded—gets round a ship in an uncanny way and somehow one felt this was no routine exodus. The signal to sail followed and then the Captain spoke over the broadcast system. He said that air reconnaissance had revealed that the Bismarck and an 8-inch cruiser were in a Norwegian fjord near Bergen. They were probably about to make a dash into the Atlantic to attack convoys and the Home Fleet was moving to strategic positions to prevent this. Our destination was an area west of Iceland.
Midnight saw us falling in astern of the big black shape that was the Hood. Six destroyers, including Echo and Electra of the old 5th Flotilla, were awaiting us outside and after they had formed screen we settled down to butt into the weather on a north-westerly course. This was the first time we had been in company and with hindsight I would hazard a guess that the date of the Prince of Wales officially joining the fleet had been optimistically advanced on account of recent events.
The bad weather, with periods of very low visibility, that was experienced on the two-day steam to our appointed station also precluded air reconnaissance off Norway and it was not until the evening of May 23 that a very enterprising flight (of a Navy-manned target-towing bomber) returned with the news that the fjord was empty. If he was making for the Atlantic, the enemy had a choice of four routes, the most likely being the Denmark Strait, between Iceland and Greenland. Running roughly NE to SW, this was narrowed at one point to some 24 miles by ice to the north and a British minefield to the south. It was to the westward end of the Denmark Strait that Hood and Prince of Wales were presently steaming at about 25 knots.
Suffolk and Norfolk (flying the flag of RA 2nd Cruiser Squadron, Rear-Admiral W.F. Wake-Walker) were already at the narrowest part of the Strait. The former, with a newer and much superior radar, was patrolling to and fro to the north, Norfolk doing the same a few miles to the south.
All day Hood and Prince of Wales ploughed on. The weather moderated a little and some gunnery control exercises were carried out, Hood signalling that if the ships were together when fire was opened they would concentrate (on one target). Guessing that we would go to action stations at dusk and stay there all night, with a good chance of a fight, I made the usual preparations of changing into clean underclothes. (This habit has been described as an old naval rite but is simply to ensure that any wounds would not be contaminated by dirty material.)
Suddenly it came—out of the blue, about 19:30—an enemy report from Suffolk: ‘One battleship, one cruiser, bearing 330°; distant 6 miles, course 240. My position so and so’. This was relayed over the broadcast system with the added information that it put the enemy about 300 miles north of us and if all concerned held on as they were, contact could be expected next morning. Half an hour later speed was increased to 27 knots and course altered slightly to the northward (to 295°, 25° north of west) which was calculated to advance the time of meeting. 27 knots was only two short of our maximum (it probably was the Hood’s maximum, at this stage of the 20-year-old ship’s life) and the after part of the ship vibrated with a continuous and uncomfortable urgency as it rose and fell to a beam sea.
By midnight the Bismarck and her consort were 120 miles away and we went to action stations. Climbing through the small door in the back of the director, settling myself into the familiar padded seat, laying out anti-flash gear (long gloves and balaclava of special white flame-resistant cloth) and adjusting one’s headphones was no different to the hundred other times one had done it, except for two things. These were thundering at us somewhere out in the murk, and the drill of lining up pointers, checking receivers and testing communications was carried out with un
usual care. The order came through to sleep at our stations. Though the odd catnap on folded arms was possible for the three Director Officers it was difficult to relax physically and impossible mentally. The near-certainty that we would be hard at it a specific number of hours ahead had a finality that made one’s mouth dry. I kept thinking of our opposite numbers in the Bismarck, sitting there with nothing to do either as they rushed towards us in the darkness. What were they thinking about? Not for the first time I cursed a fertile imagination. The hell of a fight was inescapable, not that one wanted to escape it (the hollow feeling in the pit of my stomach, reminiscent of the ring, was for some strange reason not wholly unpleasant), but the inexorable approach of this big test was awesome. There were sure to be casualties. If I had to be one I hoped it would not be too painful. I shifted my headphones for the hundredth time—they numbed one’s ears after a period—and so the night wore on.
The destroyer screen dropped astern during the night, having been detached to effect a search for the enemy. Sporadic reports from Norfolk—she had contacted the Bismarck shortly after Suffolk and both cruisers were now shadowing from astern—indicated that the enemy was on much the same course, about south-west. Ours, adjusted occasionally in response, was such as to converge at a fine angle, meaning that the action would start around 06:00. It would be broad daylight in these northern waters long before this. The weather improved; the visibility was going to be good. The Hood was four cables (800 yards) ahead. Suddenly, ‘Lookout bearing green seven-0’, and the director swung round. The time was 05:10. The light increased. It was to be a grey day with a strong north wind (Force 6) in our faces and a moderate sea. I studied the horizon again and again as the minutes passed.
Alarm Starboard!: A Remarkable True Story of the War at Sea Page 7