†I was reminded of these words when, going through my father’s effects recently, I came upon a letter from his brother, my Uncle Arthur, written from Gallipoli in the thick of the fighting in 1915. He had been sitting on a parapet of the front-line trench with a field telephone to his guns some way back, calling down fire on every Turk that moved. ‘I never had so much fun in my life’ he wrote.
‡The History of the War at Sea, Vol 4, says ‘The cruisers Sheffield and Bermuda were heavily attacked, but came to no harm. Of three German aircraft destroyed that day, two fell in the Algiers area, probably during this raid.’
*Readers of the present generation may have to ask their elders about this!
*Japanese fighters were given boys’ names, other aircraft girls’.
9
Kamikaze
When HMS Formidable approached the jetty at Woolloomoolloo on March 10 I stood looking up at her great grey bulk with understandably mixed feelings. She looked much like the Indomitable, but in fact as a sister of Illustrious and Victorious was a couple of years older.
Having said my traditional joining piece to the Officer of the Watch I repaired to the spacious Wardroom and was musing on the last occasion of being there—bearded and somewhat lighter in weight from Sederhana Djohanis—when a large hand descended on my shoulder and a pleasant Canadian voice said ‘My relief I believe?’ I turned to find an immensely tall Lieutenant—he made my six feet look diminutive—who introduced himself as McPhee. After a few pleasantries, ‘What’s the job?’ I asked. ‘You’re Fire and Crash Officer and Chief Flight Deck Director.’ ‘I’m what?’ He laughed. ‘Yes, it’s a bit unusual; you are part of the flying organisation when at sea, not allowed below the flight deck in fact. In harbour, you’re the Commander’s Assistant.’ ‘But what on earth is a Flight Deck Director?’ He explained that, when taxiing, the nose of an aircraft stuck up in the air so that the pilot could not see his way ahead and relied on hand signals from a Director to one side. The half dozen Flight Deck Directors were all ‘fish-heads’—seamen officers—including the Captain of Marines.
Some time back the Fleet Air Arm officers so employed had indulged in a number of prangs until the Captain, fuming, had said ‘Bring on the seamen officers, it’s only common sense!’ The ‘A’ boys had stood back and waited for the inevitable smash-ups, but there weren’t any and to their chagrin the system had become permanent. ‘It’s an excellent idea anyway’, said McPhee (who I soon learnt was called ‘Moose’; with a large proboscis and equally prominent adam’s apple, he did look rather like one), ‘because it gives the ship’s company a stake in the flightdeck. There’s none of the “them and us” you so often get and she runs like clockwork.’
Responsible for action at all flight-deck fires and crashes, I would have a large specialist fire party and live entirely in the island at sea. A full turnout of the other ship’s officers would only be required for operating a good number of aircraft—so I was the Chief Flight Deck Director. I must have looked a bit rueful. ‘It’s not very difficult really’, said McPhee. ‘Only common sense; just like the Captain said.’ He went on to indicate that the Captain (Philip Ruck-Keene) was a ball of fire, adding rather ominously that I would find that out soon enough anyway. It struck me that Moose was something of a ball of fire himself and might be a hard man to follow.
‘Come and meet the Captain and the Commander; then we’ll have a good look round.’ Both were naturally preoccupied with the business of arrival; the Captain shot me a steely look, the Commander (D.H. Fuller, very good looking with curly grey hair) indicated a discussion later and I was soon following my leader, who stopped to introduce me from time to time on the tortuous route to a hangar. Its central fire-curtain being up, this stretched nearly the whole length of the ship and held a conglomeration of Corsairs and Avengers which were being worked on by their ground crews, oily near-naked bodies dripping with sweat. Throughout was the distinctive aroma of ‘dope’, that most evocative of all smells to anyone who has served in a carrier. A strident bell pealed its warning at which we ran for the after lift—a cut-out section of the deck operated by huge ‘bicycle chains’ at the sides—that wafted us, in company with an Avenger with its wings folded back, to the welcome breezes of the flight-deck.
The fire-fighting equipment of this near 800-foot expanse was headed by eight red machines, strategically placed around the perimeter just below deck level. They looked basic but were apparently efficient enough, big open coffers into which were poured the contents of adjacent drums of a stinking glutinous liquid, ‘I believe its mainly blood from slaughter houses’, said my mentor. ‘Terrible stuff, you mustn’t get it on your clothes.’ A fire hose extended from one end with a special five foot nozzle and usual handwheel. On switching on, the water sucked the liquid up a pipe from the coffer and on passing through the nozzle the mixture became foam much like the top of a glass of Guinness; this settled on the flames from burning oil or petrol and put them out. Looking at the contraption with some interest I wished I could remember more of my Midshipman’s fire-fighting course; something told me I was going to need it.
There were a number of hand ‘foamites’, water-spraying versions, an asbestos suit which allowed a man to go right into a fire and various gadgets (including a CO2 machine, a cylinder on wheels with a long rubber pipe) for fighting fires in confined spaces such as the cockpit of an aircraft. These were kept at the foot of the island, through the main door of which we passed to climb several ladders. ‘The Bridge Mess— your home from home.’ I looked into a small room where a table and chairs took up most of the space not occupied by surrounding bunks. ‘A round dozen live here’ said McPhee. ‘Most of the junior officers with essential jobs.’ We had a look at the bridge which was straightforward, at the Aircraft Direction Room (ADR) which was not (I had never been in Indomitable’s and a large perspex screen, facing several complicated looking control consoles, meant very little) and descended to the Wardroom for a mass of further introductions.
The CO of the Avenger squadron proved to be ‘Pablo’ Percy, a prematurely balding two-and-a-half whom I remembered from Dartmouth, but most of the other aviators, including both Corsair squadron COs (Lieutenant Commanders A.M. ‘Judy’ Garland and R.L. Bigg-Wither) were RNVRs whom I had never met before. One of the Fighter Direction Officers—Philip O’Rorke—had been at Dartmouth with me and I had been shipmates with a Lieutenant Berger before, but that was the sum of known faces. Joining a new ship, especially a big one, is always something of a trial and doing it twice in two months a bit hard. However, the spirit of this particular one was almost tangible and the good luck of dropping into such an unusual and challenging job too good to be true. In any case, being up to the eyes learning the ways of the Commander’s Office (mainly planning the next day’s routine under his aegis), making the most of Moose before he left, and keeping the Battle of Sydney boiling out of working hours, hardly left time for consecutive thought.
The few days before we sailed for the forward area were crammed with last minute preparations, mostly topping up with minor stores that had been overlooked or hearsay suggested would be needed. In the latter connection I was most fortunate.
We were shown a US Navy film called Fighting Lady, a magnificent record—several cameramen died in the making—of a carrier’s recent experiences in the Pacific (though actually made up from several different ships). Kamikazes screamed down to crash yards away, blow up just beyond the muzzles of belching guns or plummet on to the next ship. Appalling fires raged, aircraft landed on to skirt smoking holes in the deck and all in all we were very impressed. I noted in particular the plethora of excellent fire-fighting equipment deployed, some of it unfamiliar.
The Illustrious was to go home—she had engine trouble—as soon as we joined the fleet and her gunnery officer materialised to give us an equally graphic account of what to expect. I came to the unpalatable conclusion that our firefighting equipment was totally inadequate and was shocked to discover that there
was no more left in the dockyard store; it had all been drawn by our predecessors. In some trepidation I went and bearded Captain Ruck-Keene who, hardly looking up from his papers, said ‘Are you sure? Then buy some; buy some!’ Knowing better than to ask how, I took myself off to the largest store in Sydney and asked for the firefighting department. To my surprise there was an excellent one, full of the latest American gear. I ordered a variety on approval, had a field day testing them on the flight deck and invited the skipper to witness a demonstration of the chosen items. On completion he said ‘Come ashore with me in half an hour’ and I found myself the rather embarrassed third party to a verbal meal, with much table thumping, of the unfortunate Captain of the Dockyard. By the end of it he was only too glad to get rid of us by underwriting the expenditure of many thousands of pounds.
This proved to be typical of ‘Ruckers’, as the Captain was affectionately called. A lock of grey hair over a round face gave him an engaging boyish air that could be in considerable contrast to the fireworks exuding from it. Inclined to speak in staccato bursts, he was a mass of energy and drive. His gimlet look approved or withered with equal intensity and a dressing down—known by the ‘A’ boys as ‘the full nausea’, shortened to ‘the full’—was something to avoid. (A minor rebuke was ‘My twelve year old daughter could do better than that!’ and most of us developed an almost manic curiosity to meet this paragon.) As can be imagined fools were not suffered at all—officers who did not measure up were inclined quietly to disappear—but at the same time one knew exactly where one was with him and it was soon apparent to me that anyone who at least tried hard was not likely to come to too much harm. Though feared, Ruckers was very popular, not least because his ferocious energy made sense. Also it was catching. To be highly motivated is, to go one better than Napoleon, three quarters of the battle—and it makes one feel good.
A submariner by trade, the Captain had, on appointment, immediately learnt to fly and two recent tours de force had been the replacement (by dint, one understood, of much postal table thumping) of the ship’s British aircraft by American ones more suited to the Pacific; and also the Formidable’s unprecedented do-it-yourself repair at Gibraltar. On the way out from England after a long refit and much working-up of aircrews, she had stripped the 12-foot, 45-ton centre engine gearwheel, located deep in the bowels. This pointed to a return home with additional time lost but the Captain thought otherwise. The edict went forth that the job would be tackled by ship’s staff with local assistance, and it was, the first move being round the clock digging through many decks by the whole ship’s company working in shifts!
In short, nothing was impossible to Ruckers and such was his personality that the ship was very soon to demonstrate that this went for her too.
Of 23,000 tons, she was 740 feet long, capable of 32 knots and had the same gun armament as the Indomitable. Some 20 Avengers were carried (848 Squadron) and 36 Corsairs (1841 and 1842), four night fighters being added later. The total number of officers and men was about 1,800. Few of them could have been feeling as apprehensive as I when we put to sea for concentrated flying exercises on March 21. Moose having left, I was on my own with a vengence, rather self-conscious and hot in a yellow jacket and red skull cap on top of overalls (the standard khaki shorts and short-sleeved shirt being no rig for fire-fighting) as I waited at the foot of the island with the remainder of the fire party-including an unfortunate in the heavy asbestos suit—for a dash into action. My first duty would be to get the pilot out before the aircraft went up in flames, to which end there was the standard aircrew knife with blunt end for cutting free if necessary. I went over the various connections for the umpteenth time (it was best to assume that the pilot would be knocked out or at least dazed)—parachute harness (twist to the right and bang in), safety harness (a variety of methods of release), r/t lead, oxygen tube—cravenly hoping I would not be called upon too soon.
Seen properly for the first time, the dark blue Corsairs did nothing to slow the adrenalin. ‘Jolie laide’, they were beautiful and brutish at the same time with incredibly long snouts that had the pilot sitting near the base of the very large tail, with kinked gull wings that combined to give a curiously reptilian air. I have read that one pilot on first introduction went straight off and made his will and can quite believe it*. The view forward was even worse than usual and enforced a method of landing on that kept my heart in my mouth to begin with. They came skidding in at a sharp angle with nose up and flaps down but seemingly pretty fast, until straightening up at the last moment. At first I found it difficult to tell whether they were making a good or bad approach, except that the ‘batsman’, a lonely figure right aft on the port side, would in the latter case be gesticulating frantically with his two circular red bats. In a hopeless case he would wave the pilot round for another go, 18-cylinder engine roaring with the sudden full throttle. After a satisfactory approach the batsman would cross the bats in front of him to signify ‘Cut!’ at which the pilot would cut the engine to sink—or virtually drop in the case of a Corsair—on to the deck.
There were eight wires lying across it, about ten yards apart, the object being to catch an early one with the special hook lowered for the purpose. The wire went round revolving sheaves at the sides and disappeared into hydraulic systems below. When a wire had been caught it gave enough to halt the aircraft in a few yards and then went limp, at which two aircraft handlers would run out and disengage the hook. The pilot would then taxi forward, folding his wings as he went (Avengers’ were folded manually) to take instructions from a flight deck director waiting for’ard; these included a beckoning ‘come on’ with both hands held high, clenched fists for ‘stop’, or one hand pointing to the side the pilot was to alter direction by pivoting on that wheel. When he came abreast you pointed at the next director and so passed the aircraft up the deck.
Both Corsairs and Avengers were very heavy and strong. Sometimes, coming in a little too high but still catching a late wire, they would be clawed down to land with bone-shaking force, but none the worse. Beyond the wires were two vertical barriers, made of three heavy wires slung between large steel uprights and held apart by vertical pieces. These, one just abaft the island and the other a few yards forward, were to prevent aircraft that had missed all the wires from crashing into others manoeuvring or already parked forward. On an aircraft catching a wire the barriers were lowered for taxying over and then raised again for the next customer.
That first day one Corsair came in right over on the port side; the batsman jumped for his life into the escape net but was caught by a wing tip en passant, fortunately not badly damaged. And an Avenger requested an emergency landing for some reason. This was broadcast by Commander (Flying) from his position overlooking the flight deck and of course we were all keyed up, but it landed safely. To the best of my memory there were no prangs on deck; however, the nature of the world in which I now found myself, if only at its perimeter, was made starkly clear when one Corsair took off, banked sharply to its left and fell into the sea. It sank quickly and though our escorting destroyer, Nizam, rushed to the scene the pilot was not recovered.
The pale green Avengers were more staid and with a good forward view, made normal approaches, but they had not the manoeuvrability or reserve of power of the more glamorous fighters and seemed to provide their share of nail-biting moments. When flying was finished for the day, we had secured to a buoy and it was all chatter in the Wardroom. I found myself both awed and determined. Awed at the existence—so much tougher than I remembered from my air course in the Ark Royal—that these men (mostly two or three years younger than me) looked on as their daily fare; and determined to do my best for them.
There followed two more days of concentrated exercises, DLTs (Deck Landing Trials) and practice shoots. By way of a final fling our Avengers carried out a massed torpedo attack on the ship, after which she sailed for Manus in the Admiralty Isles, 1,000 miles to the north. In company with the Canadian cruiser Uganda and the destroyer
s Urchin and Robin’s Ursa, we took a week to get there, exercising hard all the way. An aircraft crashed—my first—missing all the wires and ending up in the barrier with showers of sparks and much raucous rending of metal; I got to him pretty quickly but it was a ‘walk away’ as far as the pilot was concerned, with no fire. Not too badly damaged, the aircraft was hauled to the forward left by Jumbo, the mobile crane, via a wire strop round the boss of the badly bent propeller.
After oiling at Manus, a very large anchorage bounded by distant grey hills, we left again for Leyte in the Philippines, anchoring in the even larger San Pedro harbour four days later. Leyte had only recently been wrested from the Japanese, in fact fighting was still going on in the north.
HMS Formidable
8/4/45
‘It is Easter Day today. We had quite a nice service on the flight deck. I imagined you both in church at home although you would have been asleep at the time. Everything is going well and though working pretty hard I am thoroughly content. Have just finished writing out the orders for my responsibility which fortunately my predecessor didn’t do, so the whole thing will be organised as I want it…
… I live in a small mess on the bridge at sea which is great fun and of course cool compared to below. Am mess secretary and we are all a happy lot. I think this is certain to be the most efficient carrier in the fleet. We do things the others with better facilities don’t do. There is deck hockey on the flight deck but I don’t take part as it is too hot…
‘I always think it would be rather marvellous to be able to free the actual people I was with in Sumatra, but of course am never likely to get ashore in a forward area in a thing like this … We get constant heavy showers which are lovely by day but infuriating at night when sleeping in the open … It seems incredible I have already been away four months, the time has flown so!’
Alarm Starboard!: A Remarkable True Story of the War at Sea Page 31