7. HMS Tiger - Swanning Around the Med

From RRPedia

Swanning Around the Med

Before setting off on Tiger’s next cruise our Inspection loomed. To prepare for this, amongst other things, we sailed round to Marsaxlokk to practise Operation Awkward. That is Navy slang for precautions against underwater saboteur attack. The measures to be taken have varied with the opinions of those taking them but for this exercise Hutch decided we would be totally darkened so as, theoretically, to deny information to the putative attackers. We were rolling heavily to our hawse as we set about lowering the boats from which explosive charges would be dropped, these being thought to deter swimmers. Feeling our way, for it was utterly pitch black on the boat deck, we got the pinnace hooked on to the crane and began to hoist. The evolution was complicated by the need to cant the pinnace bow inboard as soon as the boat left its chocks so as to clear a nearby ladder. As the ship rolled, as soon as the pinnace came off its crutches it swung violently, took charge and smashed into its own starboard after crutch, leaving a four foot hole. That was the end of Operation Awkward. Ted Edwards, a rare friend in need, was adamant that it was no fault of mime although I always felt that in some way I could have avoided this smash-up. No doubt there was acrimony at higher levels but nothing landed on me in the end.

As it happened I had already put in an A and A (Alteration and Addition) to get cleats fitted around the superstructure so that my hands could catch a turn with their steadying lines during hoisting. Two Captains eventually flew out from England and looked at this business of welding half a dozen cleats on each of the three ships. Much later my A and A was refused on grounds of cost. On board the raising of an A and A, neatly typed on the correct forms, by a fish-head, raised some eyebrows since normally only engineers initiated this procedure. But I had read the books and knew my way. For want of a nail the horse was lost. I had written a long letter to my counterparts in Lion and Blake to warn them what they were in for.

To prepare for the Harbour Inspection all manner of mundungus was loaded into the MFV, which was then sent on a trip well out of view of any admirals. This cleared the decks for any evolution that might be heading our way. We had the usual Admiral's Divisions and Rounds but in a more penetrating fashion than was usual, with staff officers peering into every cranny. My usually perfect motor boat's crew let me down a stinker. The staff person lifted the bottom boards in the cabin of the motor boat and found all the hoisting shackles lying in the bilge water. Curiously I escaped censure over this, too. What would I get away with next?

After Admiral's Rounds we were sailed around Delamara Point for evolutions. My own little world on the boat deck had an easy time. The staff had obviously thought it would take me a couple of hours to lower all the boats. But my troops were on top form now and it took only a few minutes. The staff then had to think up odd funnies to keep us busy. The point about General Drill is that all hands must be ready to do just anything. Actually it can be quite fun, particularly when you are on a winning streak.

Came the Sea Inspection. We should sail at Action Stations. Now that put me on the bridge as Officer of the Watch. Normally entering and leaving harbour the Special Sea Duty Officer of the Watch, the experienced Beagle Burne, would have been up there. But he was in the Gun Direction Room with his wardrobes full of fizzing valves. It is the custom of the Navy to pay marks of respect entering and leaving harbour, saluting with boatswain's call or bugle, according to protocol, senior officers and passing ships. It was particularly important leaving Malta to pipe the Commander in Chief. Quite apart from Beagle being the usual Officer of the Watch for doing this, in any case it was usually all handled by the Commander, but he would not be there either as he would be closed up in the emergency conning position. Tiger slid gracefully out of Grand Harbour and saluted nobody. And most oddly I, who was in the strict letter of the regulations responsible, got clean away with that one too. No recriminations whatever.

At about this time there was also a major Shop Window for big-wigs and the press; these things are very necessary to get an otherwise invisible Navy in front of the public that pays for it. The centrepiece of this Shop Window was not flagship Tiger but Ark Royal, visiting on a round-the-world deployment, armed with Scimitars, Sea Vixens, Gannets and Whirlwind helicopters. Polaris not yet being in inventory, the Scimitars and Sea Vixens were the Navy's Sunday punch.

At the beginning of June we set off for a major Fleet visit to France and Spain. Besides Tiger the Fleet included two squadrons of destroyers and frigates, and numerous auxiliaries. Our first call was at Barcelona. As flagship (to Admiral Dryer) we were smack in the centre of the town only a block away from the Columbus memorial. Our visit coincided with an international fair on a site near the town and so Barcelona was full of visitors.

We were thus only a short walk from the Ramblas, the main street where every Spaniard of any status paraded up and down in the evening. The treat in Barcelona, apart from a return cocktail party somewhere miles out of town where I ended up having to figure out the local bus system in order to get back to the ship, included dinner at Caracoles, reputed one of the half dozen best restaurants in Europe. Its unpretentious appearance belied truly excellent food.

On an earlier Fleet visit the official cocktail party had caused an awful upset. It was given aboard Ark Royal, which was lying off - she and her sister Eagle were the largest warships ever to serve in the Royal Navy; thirty years later there was nothing even half the size - as there would be ample space for hundreds. Unfortunately the weather blew up an unseasonal hooligan and not all the guests could be got ashore. They were bedded down onboard Ark as best could be, but various husbands and boyfriends even terminated connection over this "insult" to their ladies. One might think the Spaniards were idiotic and illogical, but in Catholic countries this sort of nonsense would not be thought unusual. Just one of so many ways in which the dead weight of the Catholicism and its mediaeval overlay of superstition and irrationality had the Spanish inextricably locked into thought patterns so obsolete they would have disgraced the Middle Ages.

From mediaeval Spain to rather more present-day France. To Villefranche in fact which I had visited only a few years before as a cadet in the Triumph. Now I was back as a grown-up with money in my pocket. Not much but when I was single, my pockets would jingle... Villefranche itself was not the great attraction; just to the west along the coast was Nice. Again it was a bus ride there and another silly midnight walk back. Dogs barked at us this time as we sang. We had had a jolly evening in a night-club near the end of the eastern end of the Promenade des Anglais, culminating in a floorshow whose chief turn was a female who trotted on stage with a small paddling pool and a bar of soap. Unfortunately for her the sailors had got to her already, filling her up with scotch in a bar across the road . The result was not a tasteful tableau but mamzelle floundering around on the dancefloor like a beached pink whale.

As we left there was a jolly tale going the rounds about one of our Officers, to the effect that he had been caught out on the beach with a woman, as dawn was breaking, by a gang of French workmen come to mend the railway. Allegedly they pelted him with pebbles and he was seen hurtling up the beach hauling on his pants with one hand and returning fire with the other. This tale of course begs the question of what the eye-witness was up to.

We now sailed for a major Nato exercise which covered most of the Western Mediterranean between Sardinia and the Balearics. Basically Tiger stooged around, screened by frigates, while various threats were disposed of at great distances beyond the horizon. A key to this was keeping the ships spaced out so as to make any nuclear threat impractical. So we were hundreds of miles from anywhere when, on 16th June, a telegram arrived onboard for me. Sensitively the communications people passed it to the Commander who sent for me. "Dick killed". My teenage half-brother had fallen to his death while fossicking for fossils on the face of Durdle Door in Dorset. To compound the disaster my mother and stepfather were touring in France and could not immediately be found. I was totally unable to be any help at all. There could have been no question of hauling Tiger out of the line to land me anywhere with an air service to England and there was no practice of whipping people out of ships by helicopter in those days. So all I could do was take this hammer blow straight on the chin and bash on with my duties. There were further telegrams. My girlfriend and my stepfather's brother, whom she had called in to help, enlisted the Automobile Association to trace my stepfather's car. Eventually of course they were found and there was a funeral which I could not attend.

For me, besides the loss, the incident brought into sharp focus how, as a Naval Officer, I should be quite unable to be of the least use to my nearest and dearest when they needed me. I had other lessons to come in this respect.

After a short wash and brush-up as it were at our Flagship buoys in Grand Harbour, we were off again at the end of June to Venice. This was the most majestic place I ever visited. We were berthed abreast St Mark's Square and could not have been better positioned to appreciate the glory of La Serenissima, Ocean’s nursling that once held the whole Orient in fee, throned on her hundred isles. Indeed from my entering-harbour station on the boatdeck I had had a privileged view of her treasures as we approached. Normally when arriving at a port the main view is of flat sea, the odd navigation mark against a backdrop of morning fog, and then the port area with cranes and industrial mess. But Venice was something else; truly a jewel on the face of Ocean. Later amid her peopled labyrinth of walls, I could dimly understand what had harnessed Shelley, Byron, Wordsworth to their pens in praise of the Queen of the Seas, and Canaletto and Turner to their brushes. See [1].

Our boats were busy because we were out in the stream and for once they had to operate in heavy traffic, all of which understood the rules much better than our people did. The Royal Marine pinnace crew got into a bit of a contretemps with the natives up by the Rialto bridge at one time but carried their point by reason of the size of their boat.

For us it was all a marvel and, having, as I usually did on a cruise, traded my watchkeeping duties with the married members of the watch keeping union so that they could have more time ashore with their wives in Malta, I burnt the candle at both ends. Indeed I saw the sun rise over the Piazza San Marco two mornings running. But I would not have you think I let culture pass me by; I proffer a view of the petrified thumb of St Timothy, seen in the basilica, as evidence. A bizarre exhibit in the same location was a chastity belt - an extraordinarily uncomfortable, not to say impractical and unhygenic garment to be sure. I was granted an entree to one of the local houses - a palace behind its dark facade, as our boat slid into the private dock, much like a ground-floor garage, and just as private. Behold marble, gilt, luxury. We also had an obligatory (and expensive) drink in Harry's Bar.

There was a greater treat in store. The Bienniale arts festival was in full swing. After our official reception on board I was one of a party invited to dinner ashore by Peggy Guggenheim, the millionaire heiress and art collector. Following dinner, which, after the Mediterranean custom, did not appear until midnight, we were taken to her villa and shown the private collection of, mostly surrealist, paintings and sculpture, which is now on public exhibition; but we had a private tour. The by then hideous Peggy had been Max Ernst's mistress and there was much of his work on show and many works by Salvador Dali. This private viewing was a rare privilege and just the sort of eclectic bonus that balanced out the irritating nonsenses that went on in more mundane moments in the Navy.

The sponging of course continued and a party of sailors was sent up the canals to paint the Consul's gondola posts.

From Venice we went to Ancona for a couple of days. I was so whacked by all the excitements in Venice that apart from my watch-keeping, I spent most of the stay crashed in my bunk. However I did not miss all the fun. This started as soon as we arrived. The ship was berthed alongside a narrow jetty with too little room to deploy a proper brow. So we had to put out a short aluminium brow, with the end balanced on a packing case. Ships always surge around somewhat when secured to a wall but it looked as if the rollers on the end of the brow might just stay where they were put.

Appearances can be deceptive. Up the gangway wobbled a short fat Italian photographer in shirt and slacks. Half way across he disappeared. Leaning over the guardrails one could see that the brow was dangling in the water and two chipolata-fingered Italian hands were hanging on to its ropes. Pretty soon a short bald gurgling Italian appeared. We hauled him inboard and dried his camera in the wardroom galley. Soon after that he had the brass nerve to send in a bill for having a suit cleaned.

We proceeded to our official cocktail party. As usual the guests considered themselves much grander than their hosts. One, a member of what Continentals believe to be their nobility, squired by her son, thought she was receiving insufficient attention. So, as she came aboard, she let go her wrap so as to trip him up. He measured his length on the brow and that put the spotlight more firmly on her, to her great social satisfaction. I suppose her son had to put up with this everywhere they went.

Mudros had been the main base for the catastrophic Dardanelles expedition in the First World War. Now it was totally deserted. The Fleet guidebook indeed said that there was a mail boat but only once a week. It did not remark that there was a mail plane every day. Even there the twentieth century was just beginning to catch up. We got there just in time.

On arrival I was set something of a challenge, to use the MFV to land the Land Rover. It turned out there was just enough room to squeeze it onto the MFV's foredeck on a hastily-arranged raft. Ted Edwards took charge and the evolution went well, as also the return, but we would have been in a mess if there had been a lop on the sea when it was time to retrieve it. We were "assisted" on the jetty by some Greek sailors who looked as if they had been hastily kitted out from the scran-bag.

Dryer's Flag Lieutenant (= personal assistant) (and an ex-Newfy), caught the full flavour of the old Greece. He had to sit through a dinner given by his admiral for the local Orthodox prelate. This character in long black cassock, black stove-pipe hat and black doormat beard. was markedly odoriferous as well as speaking no English, and the same was true of his curate. Flags was sandwiched between the two, barely able to breathe, let alone eat.

For the rest of us there was a bit of a stand-off after our exertions in Italy. I had bought a mask and flippers and was able to enjoy what one of our plumbers called the fish in football jerseys. With almost no population there was almost no pollution and the water of Mudros Bay was full of shoals of brilliantly coloured fish. What Greeks were about were markedly friendly to the British and on one stroll through the fields I had a huge watermelon presented to me by a local farmer. Based on practical experience of them, Germans were by contrast deservedly loathed. There were still areas where it was prudent to walk behind the donkey so that something else got first turn at the landmines (in North Africa I understood the walking order was wife, donkey, man). The island of Lemnos, of which the small town of Mudros is the capital, seemed so open and simple. I doubt it is now.

It had been intended - a five-star opportunity - that Tiger should visit Constantinople. Years later I discovered that I was descended from two different sets of Byzantine emperors, but I did not know that then. So are you, probably, but possibly you have some research to do to prove it. Back to the present, or at least 1960. The Turks, unfortunately, took umbrage at us planning to precede thither from anywhere Greek. So the gold turned to dross and we spent the last week of July in Salonika instead. Salonika was a dump. The Cowplain of the Eastern Med. We did do the honours in the local war cemetery which commemorates hundreds of British losses, mostly I suspect to disease, from a little known sideshow campaign based there during the First World War.

Our next stop was better news. Navarino is where Admiral Codrington on his own initiative thrashed the Turks and earned a place in history nowadays unremarked. The British people liked him better than his government when they heard about his victory and named a pub after him (in Mossop Street, South Kensington, long since ruined by its brewers), which is the English equivalent of canonisation.

Also the Greek. The hostelry at Pylos at the mouth of Navarino Bay is called the Nestor, after Nestor King of Pylos who was the brilliant tactician who plays a sardonic role in the Iliad, mostly telling hot- heads like Achilles that he told them so. I was musing on this while figuring out where to go in my Land Rover to buy petrol, preferably somewhere that would get me a nice day's drive in the countryside. While contemplating the glories of our classical heritage I failed to notice that some evil Greek urchin had stolen one of my jerry cans. For this its cost was stopped out of my pay, a discipline always enforced on us uniformed people but never on our pampered civilians, and totally unknown in the world of business.

Not to worry. At the head of the bay there was marvellous swimming and spearfishing for which I was allowed to borrow a harpoon from our Young Doc. It is a tricky sport under water because of parallax and refraction and the only fish I ever shot, which seemed a sizeable catch under water, was pitifully small when I surfaced with it. Indeed I felt a complete fool for shooting such a sprat but then I thought what a good shot people must think me to hit anything so small. In its owner's hands I thought the harpoon somewhat dangerous; I used to sunbathe while the Doc was in the water. I expect there are hotels and karaoke bars and all that sort of stuff there now and that the peaceful beaches of Greece, which I was privileged to enjoy, have gone for ever, ruined by Sir Frank Whittle.

We were not simply there to loaf. The Commander in Chief was there in his Dispatch Vessel "Surprise", a converted frigate with all her armament removed and a large quarterdeck aft, which was the private yacht of Commander in Chief, Mediterranean. I bring you the departed glories of the Raj! Also with us were four destroyers and frigates, a similar train of auxiliaries, and Ausonia, a depot ship of uncertain age, which was given away by her antique counter stern. There was a hidden agenda about trying to operate a Fleet without a fixed base. The main business was the sailing part of the annual Fleet regatta, which could not well be staged in Grand Harbour because of all the other things going on there. As flagship we should have been mad keen and Cock of the Fleet and so forth but sailing and indeed sport generally were not Tiger's forte. Just as well for me! I was very happy to be in the high-tech Navy and not the sporty one. We returned to Malta at the end of July having "done" the Eastern Med.

It was key strategy for the Fleet to store and fuel at sea. We rarely, if ever, embarked stores or fuel in Malta. Whenever we set out for a cruise we would replenish at sea starting soon after we cleared the harbour. We would take fuel from Wave Knight, ammunition from Fort Rosalie, and stores and provisions of all kinds from Fort Duquesne. The last two of these Royal Fleet Auxiliaries were converted liberty ships. Fuel would be embarked by the abeam method, hoses swung across from enormous derricks on the RFAs, and in turn we would use our crane to fuel smaller ships such as destroyers and frigates, which needed to top up every third day. We still had the short-legged Fleet of which Admiral Ernie King had been so critical in the 1940s. The Royal Navy, masters of the ocean, had had to learn abeam fuelling from the Americans, in a hurry, in 1945, when fuelling from hoses trailed over the stern of the tanker took so long, and went wrong so often with parted hoses, that we were a public embarrassment.

Replenishment at Sea (RAS) was highly competitive with Fleet league tables showing tons of fuel embarked per hour, numbers of stores pallets passed by heavy jackstay, and time in seconds from the firing of the nylon Costen gunline, the first line across, to the passing of the first pallet. Speed was of the essence to drill ships into spending the least time exposed to submarines while steaming alongside the store ship. Even so we would conduct a zig-zag turning on the siren while still alongside and embarking stores. This is very tricky because there comes a point, if the separation between the ships diminishes, when there is nothing you can do but wait for the crunch, if you are captured by the suction zone of a larger ship, as the Royal Yacht found out at some cost to her beautiful paintwork on her last trip in 1997. To expedite fuelling we experimented with a male/female rapid action coupling developed by Flight Refuelling. However all this competition produced no small number of injuries on deck and for safety reasons within a few years the policy had changed.

One bonus from replenishment was the sight of the female form even if the lady did belong to somebody else. Spare accommodation in the RFAs was available on what was called an "indulgence" basis for use by Admiralty employees. Some of our wives did get the odd trip. However it did seem that priority went to the parasitic layabout civilian dockyard officers.

Hutch was keen to train all his seaman officers when he could and always ordered that all off-watch fish-heads must be on deck to witness replenishment. Unfortunately, I think because of the competitive aspect, this did not mean us getting a turn on deck managing the evolution. After a while - perhaps a pretty short while - one has learnt all that mere goofing can teach. The whole thing degenerated into hours spent standing about on the after superstructure chewing the fat.

Another activity when ships were in company was dog-watch manoeuvres. Sometimes these were ordered as Officer of the Watch manoeuvres but otherwise they would be conducted by the A-Team. Again off-watch watchkeepers were ordered to witness the manoeuvres. For this we could not all crowd onto the bridge so we had to gather on the flag deck, usually in the way of the signalmen who were frantically bending on and hoisting the associated flag signals. All rather frustrating. The purpose of the exercise was not to practice war manoeuvres but to train Officers in precise ship-handling, for instance in taking station from ahead, where my turning diagrams came into play. In form nothing had changed, except a rather improved regard for safety, after Admiral Tryon sank the Victoria and the Camperdown while manoeuvring two columns of ships. It was a privilege to serve in a Navy that still had just enough ships to conduct such exercises! After a few months' exposure to operating in company, Hutch graciously confirmed my second stripe but it was an irony that by volunteering for a big Gunnery ship, I, the senior officer of my entire term, was the last to have my Lieutenancy confirmed. It was a further irony that I had less involvement in practical Gunnery in Tiger than I should have had in almost any other ship.

John Ayrton had gone on to other things and had been replaced by Tiger Tim, an Acting Sub Lieutenant of engaging demeanour but little brain and totally skewed motivation. For want of any other idea he was assigned to the Commander's Office as a sort of side-kick but it was difficult to find a contribution he could make. He was perfectly happy with this and plunged into a busy social life ashore. This did bring one dividend when he helped Karl organise an all day picnic and barbecue trip to Gozo in the MFV called "Slow Boat to Gozo". So I had done Gozo, and seen the Kaiser's old yacht, which made the ferry run there from Malta.

Shortly after this Tiger Tim got his comeuppance. His serial inefficiencies accumulated until his superiors could stand them no longer. Indeed he would have been removed earlier, I think, had not T-C something of a soft spot for a fellow poseur. Tiger Tim was ordered home, and while waiting for a passage was ordered ashore to live in the barracks at St Angelo. A few days later it was discovered that he was still living onboard. Chesty, who had general supervision of junior officers, blew his top. "But if I go ashore my friends won't know where to find me," was Tiger Tim's plaintive but logical response. He was off the ship for full due pretty quickly after that. I believe he managed to transfer to the army; one of his oddities was the private possession of a full set of webbing; it was as if in joining the Navy he had inadvertently come to the wrong address. He was a very dapper soul and all his kit was beautifully tailored. One of my treats was having him as a second dickie for harbour watchkeeping. One day when it was pouring with rain we were allowed to wear seaboots on the quarterdeck rather than ruin yet another set of decent shoes. When this happened we use to pull our trouser legs down over the top of the wellingtons so that as far as possible we continued to look smart. Tim had his trouser legs tucked in. T-C appeared and took exception. Tiger Tim, whose trousers were cut as the then-fashionable drainpipes, explained that the required change was not possible as his trouser legs were cut so elegantly narrow. However as above his charmed professional life came eventually to an end.

Our otherwise invisible padre now makes an appearance in the story, but even now in absentia. It was still the custom in the Navy for those Officers remaining on board, and not having the Watch, to dress for dinner and go in together at 2000. T-C at the centre of the table looked about him. "The Padre's ashore, who'll say Grace?" First Lieutenant: "I will." "Oh thank you First Lieutenant". BANG with the gavel.

Ted Edwards: "Thank God. Amen."

"I don't think we'll have that grace again, First Lieutenant."

"Why ever not, Sir?"

"Well, what exactly are you thanking him for?"

"For the sheer joy of serving with you, Sir".

Ted used to while away his time painting nudes in his cabin. After the pattern of Pete Forrow in the Newfoundland, Ted's had allegedly started out as Mrs Edwards but as the cruise wore on they became more and more exotic. He produced one, after the manner of Manet's Olympia but reclining on (what else?) a tiger skin. Just before we were due to foregather with our guests for Sunday cinema - before the ritual Naval Sunday supper of consommé, then herrings-in, then Ascot Pie with limp salad - Ted brought his offering into the wardroom and plonked it on the bar for well-deserved admiration. The timing was perfect. Enter T-C, who had guests invited, possibly but I think mercifully not on that occasion Mabel Strickland, an imposing matron whose father as Governor had made Maltese a written language, and who now headed a small and doomed Conservative party on the island. T-C was always well-in socially. Now he walked into the punch.

"Whatever's that, First Lieutenant?"

"A woman, Sir."

"I can see that. (coming back for more) But she hasn't got any clothes on."

"Hasn't she Sir?"

"Oh well, I suppose our guests have seen themselves in the bath."

And Olympia having done her job in the wardroom went forward to the seaman Petty Officers' mess, as a gift from The Jimmy via his acolyte the Sailmaker. Sails was one of the last Artisans - sailmaker, blacksmith etc. - skilled petty officers but a shade of precedence below artificers. Besides sewing sails - not many needed for Tiger! the sailmaker maintained awnings, liferaft covers and so forth and traditionally would run up fancy dress on his busy sewing machine. Some also jewed (acted as ship's tailor). The sailmaker in Triumph had once been asked by a cadet to darn his socks! They went back to the officer with brass cringles neatly punched over each hole to stop its edges fraying.

Following this little gift -and other kindnesses not normally to be expected of their Officers - Ted had quite a bit of credit with his senior rates in spite of what had happened to the previous two Buffers.

We were now on our last lap.