How far back do you want these dits?
My great-uncle Bobby Burridge was an RNR in WW1. In 1916 the Admiralty, worried that its submarines were way out of position and even miles outside their proper patrol areas, drafted in 'Rockies' (RNR officers who knew how to navigate) as extras on a scale of one per boat. My uncle, who had served as a mid. in the foretop of the Kent at the battle of the Falklands and whose grandstand-view account was published in the Daily Mail, was one of these.
His first boat was E8 in the Baltic under Tommy Kerr ‘one of the finest men I have ever met‘. Also crammed into each of the four E-class to help with the navigation was a Lt of the Imperial Russian Navy. The four Cs in the Baltic, less than half the size, went without. Burridge emerged from the experience with a tolerable grasp of Russian. Cromie (who was shot dead on the steps of the British Embassy in St Petersburg) was Cdr S/M. Burridge loathed Cromie but others adored him. For those of you old enough to have been brought up on Percy F Westerman's boys' adventure books, he spun ‘A Sub and a Submarine’ about this Baltic adventure.
Later, Burridge was at Harwich in E4. E4 had been in collision with E41. After E4 was refitted they found two dead fingers in the periscope well. He once reminisced to me how it was in Harwich when boats didn't return from patrol - twenty-seven Es were lost, over half the class.
Pierhead jumps were no unusual occurrence. In May 1918, just in from patrol in E4 under 'Madman' Hugh Babington, Burridge was lurked for a minelaying trip in the Heligoland Bight in E41, after E41's own navigating officer, Tubby Thompson, went down with 'flu. The absolute key to submarine minelaying is of course navigation. Sixty years later Burridge was still griping that for that trip Marrack the CO got a DSC, Garnons-Williams the Jimmy got a Mention, but "poor old Pilot like Mother Hubbard's dog, I got none."
The COs were worth a look. Shove (rhymes with cove) was famous for his tame rat "Ratto" who lived up the sleeve of his reefer. If it peed up there Shove just shook the urine out onto the deck without a falter in his conversation. Once the Bishop of Stepney visited Maidstone (Harwich S/M Depot Ship, complete with long bowsprit) and Shove engaged him in a theological argument that reduced the bishop to complete gibbering impotence. Shove had his enemies one of whom said that of the two of them, he preferred the rat. Another CO wore nothing at sea except a pair of tropical shorts with large airy holes cut out of each cheek. Another, Winn, used to take his fox terrier on patrol with him. Those who have seen the film 'Crimson Tide' now know that the SSBN captain's dog had a valid precedent!
CAC Russell was Burridge's CO in H8. "Russell was transferred to G8 with Prinsep and Guts Allerton. I had sailed with Prinsep in E4. Guts and I tossed up. He won and chose G8. In the long run I won; H 8 never came back."
"When I left Harwich to join Captain Archdale and the H boats in Stornaway in the Outer Hebrides Captain Addison, without a smile, gave me a flimsy that read ‘He has conducted himself entirely to his own satisfaction and occasionally, to mine.’ I looked at it and almost puked. Then the old devil grinned and handed me the right one. To Windy he handed a flimsy 'I have known this officer to be sober.' He had a brutal sense of humour".
Burridge remembered how amazed they were in the Trade after Norman Holbrook (who won a Vc for the exploit) took his ‘ricketty old B11’ through the Dardanelles and torpedoed a Turkish battleship. Holbrook had ‘Ha Ha Ha, He He He, I see you but you can’t see me’ cut into a large brass plaque which he carted around with him and had mounted in each of his later boats.
Burridge’s last boat was K16, remembered by him as a happy boat under SeeGee Brodie. I could never get my uncle to talk about the really dangerous bits.
This thread smells of diesel oil!
