Naval Training.

Joining the Royal Navy for war-time service must have been quite an ordeal for young men torn from the heart of their families and subjected to harsh Naval discipline. The Training Establishments or Stone Frigates as they were commonly known, was staffed by retired Chief Petty Officers who had been brought out of their retirement to pass on their knowledge and prepare recruits for a life at sea. Most of these men were the salt of the earth, had grandchildren the same age as the young men put in their care, so alot of the harshness that was expected of them was tempered with kindness and understanding. But like everything else in this world, there were always some who would raise doubts in peoples minds.

In the early days of the war it was obvious that numbers joining the Armed Forces did not come up to requirements, so certain measures were taken to rectify this deficiency. One was that serving Policemen, under 23 years or age would be released from their Reserved Occupation, their places being taken by the First Police Reserve, an untrained body of men, made up of elderly men with good intentions, public house
landlords who could combine the two duties, and professional footballers who could plead some slight ailment which left them unfit for the forces, but did not prevent them playing soccer.

So one training establishment on the south coast suddenly had an intake of over a thousand young Policemen. They were obviously going to be a problem, because these were not men who had known only family life, as the majority had left home at the age of 19 years, and after a couple of years police service were fairly street-wise. They tried to imitate life aboard a ship at these establishments and the recruits were divided
into two watches, Port and Starboard, so that in the evening, one watch was allowed shore leave whilst the other was ‘watch aboard’. It was all very well but there was no tuition in the evenings, no room to walk about, and the only place of recreation was the canteen. But one instructor, a former Chief Petty Officer, could see a use for a few hundred men every evening, which in his case would a good financial speculation so he
soon put it into use.

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Men would be loaded into lorries and taken to local farms where they would be set to work picking potatoes. It was a welcome change to moping about the grounds all evening, but it did not take long before these work-parties realised they were manna from heaven for the farmers, a good source of labour and not having to pay out for it..I would imagine the only expense was to pay off the Chief Petty Officer who organised
these work details. I nearly forgot, there was to be a payment for the lads, a threepenny ticket for the local cinema on a Saturday night.

So as they settled down for three house back-breaking work, without pay, a great idea was concocted. For every three potatoes that was placed in a sack, there would be one large stone. Naturally, the farmer was over the moon when he saw this great harvest, far more sackfuls of spuds than he had ever imagined. But after a couple of weeks, the bubble burst. There were lots of complaints from customers who did not expect to pay for stones, and potato cleaning machinery was ruined when they tried to take the skin off a large pebble. So potato picking was taken off the agenda, the CPO’s pocket suffered and he made no secret of his feelings, and woe betide anyone who crossed him.

It came to a head a few days later when he was marching a group of men from one class room to another. One of the lads incurred his displeasure in the way he was marching, and after shouting at him, he pushed him in the back, causing him to stagger into the man in front. And that was his downfall. Each class had one of the members as a class leader, and after he saw this, he immediately called the class to a halt. He asked the marchers if they had witnessed this grievous assault and quite a few had, so he told the CPO that he was going to report this to the divisional officer, which brought a look of utter amazement to the assaulter. The leader did report the occurrence to a languid young RNVR lieutenant, who listened in an off-hand manner, and said the matter could be left in his hands, and he would sort it out.
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I do not think he had realised who he was dealing with, because after hearing nothing for three days, and still having this tiresome CPO down their collars, the leader with a small deputation made another visit to the divisional officer, and this time he lost some of his languor when it was pointed out to him that a criminal offence of assault had been committed and if he was not willing to inform the Police for the proper action to
be taken, they would, to ensure the man appeared before the Court. He asked them not to be too hasty, and that he would have something done, and after doing what he should done in the first place, an enquiry was convened, the class leader was allowed to be present, the instructor was admonished and told that he would be changed from instructional duties to administration work. All this for a few potatoes.

In German waters
One of the larger wooden hulled Motor Mine Sweepers, otherwise known as a ‘Mickey Mouse’ was peacefully carrying out her business of clearing sea mines from the mouth of the River Elbe. The Armistice, which signalled the end of the Second World War had been signed three days previously and to save a lot of work it was decided to make the river safe for shipping so that essential stores for the Army of Occupation could be taken directly to the heart of Germany, by coastal vessels, instead of the long journey from Channel ports to points inland.
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The Skipper of the vessel was a peace time yachtsman, now commissioned in the Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve, and his deputy, or ‘Jimmy the One’ had been a bank clerk prior to his Naval Service.

The ‘Jimmy’ was very enthusiastic and conscientious about his job, and decided a spot of rifle practice would be in order, so told the seaman gunner to bring a .303 Short Lee Enfield rifle to the bridge with some ammunition, then stand by in the bows to throw a saved supply of tins and bottles over the side to act as targets. The crew were always very interested in this, because if he got within six feet of the object he was aiming at, it would be a good shot for him. In other words, he was no great shakes with a rifle, but he had full marks for trying.

On this particular afternoon, after he had tired of this, he leaned his rifle against the bridge binnacle and started to pay attention to what he should have been doing, acting as a bridge officer.

We were the outside vessel of a line of five, and steered along a compass course set by the group senior officer. The helmsman was an experienced seaman and was nevermore than a couple of degrees off course which he rectified by letting the head swing a couple of degrees to the other side, and maintaining a mean course. Suddenly the ‘Jimmy’ called out in a seamanlike bellow - “Watch you’re head” - which meant pay attention to your steering, and got the usual reply - “Aye,Aye, Sir.” The helmsman could not understand this because he was right on course, but very quickly he got the order - “Steer 10 degrees to starboard.” He glanced at the other vessels and saw that they were steering away from them, but your is not to reason why, the officer knows best. He was soon steering 20 degrees away from the group when further disaster struck. Prior to their sweeping task they had embarked German gear for the purpose, and so had an acoustic cylinder hanging over the side, about 6 feet below the keel, and the new course brought them into shallow water, with the result that this object snagged on the bed and the boat began to steer round it. The helmsman alerted the officer, “Ship not answering to the wheel Sir” but no sooner had he said this than the long magnetic Double LL sweep towed astern swept down on the sweeper, and became entangled in the screw, causing a complete seizure.
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The cause of this was the rifle leaning against the binnacle had given a false reading, and the ‘Jimmy’ had accepted this without checking on the course of the remainder of the group. The engines stopping brought the skipper to the bridge and he promptly saw the rifle, removed it, but it was far too late. The current was ebbing strongly and in no time, broke the wire harness attached to the acoustic cylinder, so that the sweeper
was swept along with it, out of control.

The skipper quickly had the appropriate signal hoisted - ‘Vessel out of control’ - and made it known to the senior officer of the group by lamp signal. There was little they could do. by the time they got their gear inboard, about half an hour, they would have been some distance away, so a call went out by radio for a tug. There was a barrage across the mouth of the river, which had a small gap in the middle for vessels using it,
but it was quite obvious that without control, they would hit the barrier half way along. Many of these had explosive devices fitted to prevent enemy craft entering, but it was not known about this one, so it looked as though the crew could be facing their
Nemesis.

But ‘Jack’ is never at a loss on occasions such as this. One of them would always bottle his daily rum ration, and he disappeared below to return with two pint bottles full of the stuff, and invited his ship-mates to join him, ‘it would be a shame to waste it’ he thought. The Jimmy, true to his peace time calling went to his cabin and re-appeared with a cash box, bearing the ship’s petty cash. The skipper sent his steward to his cabin to bring up two bottles of Scotch, poured a large one for himself and his deputy and sent the rest for the crew us to share out, so by and by, the next quarter of an hour was a riotous occasion. The boom came nearer and nearer and eventually they struck it. Sub-consciously, they all tensed waiting for the big bang, but it never came, the boom was not protected.
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The German Lifeboat came out and towed them off. The coxswain must have thought these ‘Englanders’ were a funny lot and it was beyond him how they had won the war, there they were, singing, laughing, and drinking what must have been tea or coffee out of cups. They made it back to Cuxhaven alright, and the vessel had to be drydocked to clear the obstruction, and wait for a new Double LL sweep to be sent across from England.
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But there was no rest for ‘Jack’ as most of them were put to work doing menial jobs round the docks. Only one struck lucky. He was delegated to act as a guard on a German ‘E’ boat running between Cuxhaven and Hamburg carrying mail, signals and despatches. The crew were a bit Iffey for a start, but on the second run he took a supply of tinned food and cigarettes for the crew and the atmosphere changed then, even with the officer. It was the German practice for members of the crew not below, to line the deck when they passed another ship, and the officer would salute until they had passed. The officer invited the Englishman to put on his officers cap, stand on the small bridge and do the saluting. It caused a good laugh.

One of the German crew had been a merchant seaman and in peacetime had visited many British ports. During the war, sweepers operating from Grimsby down to the Thames Estuary, would take a day to go down there, anchor on a shallow sand bank out to sea, then return the next day. This was a favourite hunting area for ‘E’ boats and normally it was a very brave man who slept below, as these fast vessels could often be
heard in the distance. This came up in conversation and the German sailor said that they all knew about the trawler anchorage, but used to give them a wide berth, as it was not worth wasting a torpedo on them. How many cold and uncomfortable nights had been spent quite unnecessarily in whatever shelter was available topsides. It was a pity the enemy did not make this clear to those trawlermen.

The Mickey Mouse was eventually declared fit to sail and off they went again, to the Frisian Islands to clear the channels there, when all the Group was in harbour, not by arrangement, the people celebrated the birthday of the late Queen Wilhelmina. What a holiday that was. Everyone took the day off and had a day long celebration, dancing through the streets, and generally carousing, with bands playing, and lots to eat and drink. An unforgettable day.
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But it was soon back to work again, with orders to return to Kiel, where the group was to clear a channel, and provide an escort for quite a few elderly German freighters, which were loaded to the gunwales with canisters of poison gas. Prior to leaving, all crews were equipped with German respirators and protective clothing, just in case anything went wrong, which put a lot of doubt about our issue of these items, when it
was said that they ‘were a complete protection against all known gases.’ Soon they were under way to a rendezvous off the coast of Norway where all the vessels were scuttled in deep water, together with their deadly cargo. The crews were taken off in a large tug which had accompanied the convoy and returned to Kiel.
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11.7.03

Weapons of War
During the course of the Second World War the back room boffins invented many things which were to prove of great use. My mind goes back to the bouncing bomb, a wonderful achievement which made it possible to bomb German dams, which under normal circumstances would have been impossible owing to their situation.

Another one was the Mulberry harbour, for unloading vessels after the second front was started, to provide food and ammunition to our troops. Another one was the Radar, which proved an invaluable asset in the war against U-Boats, and was the beginning of the end of the Battle of the Atlantic. These are just a few of what was produced to help the war.

Nowadays there is a lot of talk about ‘Weapons of Mass Destruction’ which give the impression that they are too awful to even think about, but how many people knew about that other invention, which could be called a ‘Weapon of Sole Destruction’, also known as the Holman Projector. I am sure some back room chap must have looked at his blue print and congratulated himself upon thinking about this weapon, which would
be cheap to manufacture, did not need explosive, and would be deadly to attacking low flying aircraft
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So what was this weapon? Well, it can be described very simply as a six feet long length of iron drain pipe, with two one foot long rods welded to either side about 2 feet from one end, which served as handles. The whole thing was mounted on a pivot which allowed the trajectory to be raised or lowered by the operator using the two hand holds, and it was mounted on a base which allowed it to be swung round 360 degrees. The bottom end was sealed, and had a steam pipe connected which in turn was connected to the boiler. There was a foot treadle at the base which the operator could depress with his foot, and so allow steam to enter the pipe. The idea was, that a Mills bomb could be armed by removing the split pin holding the firing arm, and carefully inserted down the pipe which held the firing arm in the safety position. With his hands on the two arms, the operator could raise or lower the barrel, swing it round, and when a low flying aircraft came along, he would depress the pedal, a blast or steam would enter the pipe, the bomb would be ejected to a height of about 60 feet, explode, and the attacking aircraft would plunge into the sea.
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The trouble was that it was not as simple as it appeared to be. First of all, when ‘action stations’ was sounded the Chief Engineer had to be asked to turn the steam on. Hopefully, there would be a full head of steam in which case the contraption worked perfectly, but if there was not a full head, or the vessel was steaming at full speed, which could be expected if it was under attack, then the steam pressure fell, and when the bomb was ejected, it might only rise for ten feet before it fell back on the deck with dire results. So although these weapons were fitted to most smaller vessels, there was a very strict, unwritten order, that they were never to be used in anger.

Whenever there was practice firing, a Carnation Milk tin, filled with water, was substituted for the bomb, and everyone was happy, the practice shoot had been undertaken, and no-one was hurt. There was one snag, the base Gunnery C.P.O. would regularly check the ammunition store, so three or four grenades had to expended. This could be done in two ways, throw them over the side in deep water, with the safety pin in position, or the other popular was for one of the lads to stand in the stern whilst the vessel was going Slow Ahead, pull out the pins, and throw them as far as he could, then by the time they had steamed back on the reverse heading, there would be a fair amount of stunned fish floating on the service, there for the taking, and what nicer for supper than good old fish and chips.

So all the inventor achieved for his thoughts was a weapon which allowed the crew to have a good old traditional meal about once a week. After hostilities are over, many weapons are placed in moth balls should an occasion ever arise for them to be used. I would think the only place the Holman Projector ever went to was a scrap metal yard.

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11.7.03