From Dartmouth to War E-Book

Adrian Holloway

• Herausgeber: The History Press
• Kategorie: Geisteswissenschaft
• Sprache: Englisch

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2012

Beschreibung

Adrian Holloway was only seventeen when he left the Royal Naval College at Dartmouth in 1940 and joined HMS Valiant as a Midshipman, sharing a gunroom with Midshipmen Terry Lewin and HRH Prince Philip. He arrived in the Mediterranean in time to witness the darkest days of the Mediterranean Fleet – providing cover for the Fleet Air Arm's raid on Taranto, fighting at the Battle of Matapan and taking part in the evacuation of Crete – during which time the Royal Navy's vessels were decimated. He also witnessed the sinking of HMS Barham, and after returning from an appointment to the Australian destroyer HMAS Nizam, was back on board Valiant when Italian frogmen mined her in Alexandria Harbour in 1941. In From Dartmouth to War Adrian Holloway presents a fascinating first-hand account of the war at sea, vividly recalling what it was like to be in battle whilst still little more than a schoolboy. He describes the transition from the safety of Dartmouth to the terror and confusion of the open ocean, at a time when Britain stood alone against the Axis. Complete with personal photographs, track charts and naval signals, this book provides an invaluable insight into the wartime activities of a junior officer.

Leseprobe

The author as a young man. (Author’s collection)

For my wife Tim with love

Acknowledgements

My grateful thanks are due to the following, without whose help and encouragement my task as author would have been infinitely more difficult. I would add that the names are not listed chronologically, nor reflect the degree of assistance given.

Mr Philip Knightley, author and biographer of Kim Philby, who introduced me to the world of publishing and gave me valuable advice on how to construct my book.

Mrs Christina Petyan, whose knowledge of the Italian language was invaluable in translating the records of the frogmen’s attack and in telephone conversations with the late Admiral Luigi de la Penne.

The late Admiral Luigi de la Penne, whose courage was only matched by his willingness to assist me with his recollections of the frogmen’s attack.

The late Commander Antonio Marceglia, who described to my wife and myself in vivid detail how he carried out his attack on HMS Queen Elizabeth.

Mrs Daphne Bruton and Mrs Pamela Griffin of AD Secretarial Services of Nailsworth, Gloucestershire, for typing the remainder of my manuscript.

Mr Leo Cooper, military publisher, for help and advice.

Doctor Christopher Dowling of the Imperial War Museum, together with his colleagues Mr Roderick Suddaby, Keeper of Documents, and Mr Paul Kemp of the Photographic Department.

The staff of the Public Record Office, Kew.

Captain J.H. Gault, Royal Australian Navy, of the Australian High Commission, London.

The Naval Historical Officer, Department of Defence (Navy), Canberra.

Mr J.C. Woods, of the Naval Historical Branch, Great Scotland Yard.

The Construction Department, Ministry of Defence, Bath.

Amrniraglio di Divisione (R) Carlo Gottardi, of the Conservatore Museo Storico, Venice.

Amrniraglio di Squadra Enzo Consolo.

Professor Francesco Berlingieri.

Mr Tony Sheldon for introducing me to his publisher daughter, Miss Caroline Sheldon.

Mr Paul Sampson, of Messrs. Osbome Clarke, Solicitors, of Bristol, for legal advice.

Mr Brian Power, himself a published author, for introducing me to my original publisher,

Mr John Thorpe, whose courtesy and help I have greatly valued.

Mr John Hamilton, whose magnificent painting of the Battle of Matapan is reproduced on the cover, photographed by Martin Stone. Also to Vice Admiral Sir Roderick Macdonald, who was there at the time, for his painting of the Stuka attack, 10 January, 1941.

To Mr Evert Abendanon and Mr Peter Lapping for correcting my Afrikaans spelling.

Commander John McGregor for detailed information on the enemy minefields off Tripoli.

My wife for assistance in proof reading.

Mrs Gillian Grim, who assisted greatly with the bulk of the proof reading and whose objective views on the text were of great help.

Last but not least, Mr Stan Clark of Minchinhampton, Gloucestershire, who also served in the Royal Navy, and to whom I am indebted for a constant supply of naval journals.

The author and publishers would like to thank the following for the use of copyright material: p. 13 Royal Naval College, Dartmouth; pp. 2, 13, 42, 44, 47, 52, 53, 77, 137, 166 and 204 author’s collection; pp. 127, 135, 141, 143, 175, 177 and 212 Imperial War Museum; p. 82 from the painting by Vice-Admiral Sir Roderick Macdonald; pp. 99 and 101 from The Battle of Matapan by S.W.C. Pack, published by Batsford; p. 147 Blandford Press; pp. 179 and 181 from Battleship Barham by Geoffrey Jones, published by William Kimber, an imprint of Harper Collins Publishers Ltd; p. 204 Museo Storico Navale, Venezia.

Contents

Title

Dedication

Acknowledgements

Foreword by HRH the Duke of Edinburgh KG KT OM GBE

Introduction

1

Dartmouth

2

War

3

To the Mediterranean

4

Valiant

5

The Taranto Raid

6

Action Stations

7

The Dive-bomber Attack

8

Crete and Malta Convoys

9

The Battle of Matapan

10

The Battlefleet Bombards Tripoli

11

Crete – The Battle is Joined

12

Crete – Evacuation

13

Syria

14

Temporary Respite

15

The Sinking of Barham

16

The Italian Frogmen Attack

17

The Battlefleet Disabled

Epilogue

Afterword

Appendix I

Summary Of V/S Signals During the Night Of 18/19 December 1941

Appendix II

Letter from CO HMS Valiant to C-in-C Med

Appendix III

Midshipman P.B. Edwards’ Account of the Loss of HMS Barham

About the Author

Copyright

Introduction

It was with great trepidation and misgiving that I decided to add to the thousands of books which have been written about the Second World War.

The keeping of diaries by anyone in the armed forces of the Crown was strictly forbidden during wartime. I suppose therefore that is why so many senior officers kept copious records of their often top secret decisions and doings which later formed the basis for their remunerative memoirs after the cessation of hostilities. But midshipmen, Royal Navy, were in a very different category as regards being latter-day Pepys. We were not only allowed to keep a day-to-day record of our duties and the movements of the ships in which we served; we were ordered to do so.

My midshipman’s journal, on which this book is based, had been returned to me by the Admiralty in 1946, having lain in some secret repository from 1942 until then.

This journal contained a faithful record of everything that had happened to me during my naval service in the eastern Mediterranean from 1940 to 1942. It had accompanied me all that time during which some of the fiercest fighting of the war had taken place.

Not for us the dreary swinging round a buoy in Scapa Flow waiting for the emergence of German heavy naval units. We were constantly at sea, often in action, and all this was written down by me within hours of its occurrence.

A midshipman may well be in Bligh’s possibly apocryphal words ‘the lowest form of animal life in the British Navy’. He certainly was little more than a schoolboy at sea, for that is how the sobriquet of snotty came to be given to him. Young boys wiped their noses on their sleeves, hence the three buttons on a midshipman’s uniform to discourage this revolting practice.

We were sent to sea and to war at seventeen and a half, an age when most youths of similar years could look forward to eighteen months before going up to university.

Midshipmen might well have been striplings at sea, but they learned speedily the unpleasantness of war and how best to survive its rigours. They had feelings like anyone else but they could not confide these to their journals, for the latter were official and confidential books, inspected regularly.

Others of much higher rank than myself have recorded their experiences at this time together with their emotions. Fifty years on I felt that it was time that these events and the feelings consequent upon them should be published as from a lowly midshipman’s point of view. Moreover, whilst a number of the actions about which I have written have been described by other historians, no one, so far as I know, has written an account of the attack by Italian frogmen on the battlefleet in Alexandria harbour in December 1941 as seen from the British side.

The dark and often adverse days which I have set down in the following pages are now half a century old. Our late adolescence was given over to war and not to enjoyment of parties. Nevertheless, if I have been able to bring my journal to life and to describe to the reader what it was like to be a midshipman at sea in wartime I shall have succeeded in my purpose.

1

Dartmouth

‘Oh really?’ said my brother Michael, and without looking up, continued the washing of his car.

In days long ago the bearer of bad tidings was as often as not summarily executed by his king or chieftain. This particular moment was centuries later, the date being 3 September 1939, the time 11.15am, and I had just brought the news to Michael that we were at war with Germany.

I was rather disappointed – my sense of a theatrical announcement had acquired all the airborne qualities of the legendary lead balloon, and yet it had been naive of me to have expected any other response. The Munich crisis of 1938 had been but a foretaste of what was to come, and ever since then, with Hitler’s promises breaking like plates in a Martian pantomime, we had been living in the shadow of impending war.

There is nothing in the mass of historical material concerning the Second World War to indicate that there was any hesitation on the Führer’s part. Had he quailed at the thought of Midshipman Holloway joining the fleet and being plunged into conflict against the sea-borne field-grey hordes? Was the launching of Bismarck and Prinz Eugen a year or two earlier some attempt to redress the balance in his favour? History does not relate but WaIter Mitty may have something to answer for.

My naval career was almost terminated soon after it might have been said to have begun. It was May 1936 and I, in common with other blue serge suited aspirants had arrived at the Admiralty for the dreaded naval interview.

Which way did Nelson face atop his column? Which was his blind eye? What was the White Ship? What was the significance of Flores in the Azores? Had Victory two or three masts and how many guns? What was the number of the taxi that brought me here?

All these and other questions which I had been told might be asked of me raced through my brain.

At the end of a long corridor I was ushered into a room which contained a table and three chairs. On two of these sat two other thirteen-year-old boys like myself. I was told by an old naval pensioner to sit on the third chair. A piece of paper was placed in front of me and a pen.

‘Yer writes ESS-AY at the top of the page,’ said the pensioner, in a strong Liverpudlian accent. I was frightened, bewildered and apprehensive of the interview to come, but then blessed relief came. Surely I was to be entrusted, albeit at this tender age, with some esoteric naval code or cipher?

Yes, that was it and so without further ado I proudly wrote the letters S A at the top of the page and felt much better.

Later, when the essays on such piffling subjects as ‘A day in the life of a penny’ or ‘Why I want to be like Nelson’ were read, I can only conclude that my solecism had gone unnoticed. Hitler was not yet to be spared.

‘Do not sit down until you are told to do so’ I had been warned.

‘Sit down,’ said the Admiral in charge of the interview board, and I obeyed. Opposite me were a school-master, the Admiral and a Commander. I stared in fascination at the gold rings. On the wall was a map of the world.

‘Point out Ceylon,’ I was ordered. It was then I discovered that Philips the cartographers had omitted the names of countries and places on the map. Nothing daunted, I pointed unerringly to the right spot. Nods of approval.

‘There are four brothers in a family, each of them has a sister, how many of them are there in the family?’ from the schoolmaster, obviously a failed trick cyclist.

‘Five, Sir,’ I said smugly. Nods of approval, all was going splendidly; the old buffer had expected me to say eight.

‘What is the valley called that runs from Stroud towards Cirencester?’

Horrors, what was it? ‘The Chalford Valley?’ I ventured.

‘No, boy, the Golden Valley, because of its autumn colours.’ Theirs was the wrong answer also, I was later to learn, but I felt I had failed. How stupid – it was only two miles from my home in Gloucestershire. Next a strict medical.

Three days of examination took place the next month in Russell Square, also the scene of my brother’s battles with his medical examiners.

We were allowed to use Latin dictionaries which surprised me. ‘Place your dictionaries quietly on the floor,’ said the invigilator. The ensuing boom must have shaken the Bloomsbury avant-gardes out of their left-wing reveries.

During the examinations my prep school headmaster drove up with me from Hertfordshire each day. His name was Paul Griffith, a man I greatly revered. He had strong religious beliefs, but he never forced them upon other people. Once he took me into our school chapel, the lighting of which had just been restored.

‘Rather Trocadero, don’t you think?’ he enquired deprecatingly.

He also loved the small boy’s prayer ‘Our Father which art in Heaven, Harrods be thy name…’

Each day he took me to lunch at the Savoy where, to his amusement I ordered whitebait. When, to the wonderment of all, not least myself, the Dartmouth Pass List was published in the papers, and my name was included among the successful candidates, Griffith sent me a telegram. Instead of the usual congratulations it said simply, ‘Whitebait to you.’

The Royal Naval College, Dartmouth.

‘At first sight,’ said the Gieves booklet, ‘One feels that the Royal Naval College Dartmouth is either a prison, a lunatic asylum or the house of a profiteer.’

This was not entirely reassuring to the 43 puny cadets who stood on the Mew, the GWR ferry taking us from Kingswear to Dartmouth. Surely ferries were the usual method of transport to take convicts to Parkhurst or Alcatraz?

The huge College building dominates the pretty little town of Dartmouth. If one has never seen it, you have only to cross Horse Guards Parade, look at the pink and white building to the back of the Admiralty, multiply it about six times and you have an idea of the Royal Naval College.

During the following three weeks we were to learn the discipline and customs of the College and were ‘untouchable’. That word is not used in the Indian sense, but indicates that infringements of rules and customs were overlooked. After that probationary period punishments could be doled out and our bottoms were vulnerable.

Discipline was very strict but mostly fair. Presumably in order to instil respect for one’s seniors, cadets had to double past the gunrooms (living quarters) of cadets senior to them; they were forbidden to talk whilst doing so, or to look inside. To speak to a cadet senior to oneself was a ‘guff’ offence, as was failure to double past a senior gunroom. ‘Guff’ offences were punishable by a beating. Cadets were divided into eleven terms, each named after an Admiral. We were the ‘Blake’ term, our predecessors had been known as the Bloody Blakes. We were not distinguished or ill-disciplined enough to warrant this appellation, but it was sometimes applied.

‘North side will stand by to open their windows half. Stand by. Go!’ It was unbelievable, a simple act like opening a dormitory window was carried out by numbers, the command being shouted by our cadet captain in stentorian tones.

‘Rounds’ of the dormitory were taken by the officer of the day at lights out time. Dressed in mess kit, stiff shirt and black tie, he would parade through the dormitories accompanied by his cohorts, whilst the cadets would ‘lie at attention’ gazing fixedly at the ceiling. Before that, at another command, ‘Books away, lie down’, we assumed our bed inspection postures.

At the foot of each bed was a large chest in which cadets kept their clothes. A flap let down from the top half and pants, vest, reefer jacket and shirt had to be folded neatly and displayed on top of it. Failure to satisfy the cadet captain’s eagle eye as to the neatness of one’s chest meant a ‘chest strafe’ – early to the dormitory folding and refolding one’s uniform.

Quite the most barbaric of punishments was ‘Official Cuts’. The wretched victim, having been previously examined by the MO, was marched into the gym guarded on either side by two burly PT instructors.

Drawn up in front of him would be his whole term, standing rigidly to attention. Opposite them would be the Captain, Commander, Term Officer and MO. In the centre, like the guillotine in the Place de la Concorde, would be a boxhorse. The cadet to be beaten would be spread-eagled on this, his trousers removed.

A third PT instructor, generally a huge Royal Marine Sergeant, would inflict on the victim the prescribed number of ‘cuts’ with a cane. The strength of those Royal Marine Sergeants and the terrible pain they could mete out is best left to the reader’s imagination.

Needless to say this horrific and humiliating punishment was not ordered lightly. A cadet two terms senior to me received it, and naturally did not sit down for a week. I regarded him with awe and fascination at what he had undergone.

His offence? He had been caught in a somewhat amatory embrace with a farmer’s daughter. Cadets were allowed to visit approved farmhouses for Devonshire teas. A blind eye was turned to their smoking but a possibly innocent excursion into the realms of sex was another matter.

Having been a magistrate for some 34 years I have often been shown round penal establishments, especially those for young offenders. I asked one inmate what he did for recreation. He replied that he fished the Usk! I reflected wryly that no one had ever invited me to do that, or anything so pleasant, and that my parents had actually paid for me to be subject to Dartmouth’s discipline whilst this little tearaway was incarcerated at Her Majesty’s pleasure.

‘Mr Holloway, you do not seem to know whether you are in elevation or plan.’ The halitosis breath of the Drawing Office instructor assailed my nostrils.

He was of course perfectly correct, but then I loathed the Drawing Office in the engineering workshops at Sandquay. I could not then and cannot now see how I could possibly have benefited from the engineering training we were all obliged to undergo. A cross-section of a crankshaft, work at the lathe, the making of screws, how did any of this make me a more efficient executive naval officer? Had we been taught the capabilities of the engine rooms to which we were later to telegraph countless revolution orders it might have made more sense. I could only conclude that it was a hangover from the days of ‘Jacky’ Fisher to drag the Royal Navy kicking and screaming into the twentieth century. The birthpangs had been unduly prolonged, and to my mind and many others, the big workshops had long since served their purpose.

To be appointed to the naval staff at Dartmouth was very definitely a major step on the promotion ladder. Hardly a Captain of the College failed to achieve flag rank and indeed during my first term R.V. Holt was promoted to Rear Admiral whilst still in command of the College. He was succeeded by Frederick Dalrymple-Hamilton of cherubic countenance and kindly demeanour. His wife and daughters were good enough to ask me and three other junior cadets to tea in the Captain’s house. It was delightful to be in the company of a family for a while and I have always remembered how much I appreciated seeing an open fire. That was something you never saw at the College.

Our Term Officer was Lieutenant WaIter Starkie, a very humane man, and one who I was sorry to see moved on with the advent of the House system. He became engaged to Admiral Cunningham’s niece during the war but tragically was killed in the Mediterranean in 1941.

As Blake House Officer, we found we were to be under the command of Lieutenant Peter W. Gretton. A cadet said in later life, ‘Gretton should never have been sent to Dartmouth.’ This statement in no way reflected on Gretton’s ability as a naval officer. When war came his rise was justifiably meteoric becoming a Captain at 38, the same age as Nelson. Retiring as a Vice Admiral, Sir Peter Gretton’s ill health prevented the, till then, certainty of his promotion to First Sea Lord.

However, Gretton simply had no sense of humour and was totally unable to communicate with young cadets. During his two years at the College he was seen to smile twice and I am sure that one of those was a mistake. Conversation was non-existent, rather there were staccato barks of command at which everyone jumped and obeyed instantly.

Another officer who was never seen to smile was Captain Campbell R. Hardy, Royal Marines, later to become General Sir Campbell Hardy, Commandant General of the Corps. I am told his vocabulary on Ward Room guest nights was however quite extensive and that he was fully conversant with the sexual abilities of Eskimo Nell. This of course was a side of him that we never saw. As our PT Officer he was responsible for weighing cadets each term. We stood stark naked on the weighing machine in the gym, a gym instructor shouted out our names and weight, and Hardy, moustache bristling, would record it in his book. It never entered our heads that this seemingly unbending man might have a more human side to him. The side we saw was about as friendly as a piece of cold steel bedecked with a Sam Browne belt.

In May 1937 the rigid term system was replaced by the House system to make the College more like an ordinary public school. Terms one to five were in the junior houses, six to eleven in the senior houses. This certainly relaxed the atmosphere of awe in which we had previously held our seniors. However, at first it seemed strange to talk to a cadet quite openly whereas the previous term it would have been a beatable offence.

A typical cadet’s day would start at 0625 when the College porters would shout, ‘Turn out’. Cadets, who slept 40 to a dormitory, rushed to the bath place where one was given five minutes to wash and go through the cold salt water plunge. If no cadet captain (the equivalent of a prefect) was looking, a quick wetting of the head and vigorous towelling would give the impression of total immersion.

Five minutes to dress, in silence, would precede a rush to the huge Mess room where milk and hard ships-biscuits were provided. An hour’s work period before breakfast was loathed equally by staff and cadets. Yawning heads cannot take in subjects well and in the dark winter months it was highly unpleasant.

Divisions were held after breakfast, cadets performed PT exercises on the parade ground before lining up in serried ranks for short prayers. We marched off to the strains of the College band which consisted of aged pensioners with brass instruments. Their repertoire was not extensive but they did add ‘Roll out the Barrel’ once the war had started. That fatuous song ‘We’re going to hang out our washing on the Siegfried Line’ was not surprisingly, dispensed with after Hitler’s blitzkrieg had been unleashed.

Instruction followed till lunchtime. This might take the form of ordinary subjects such as History, Navigation or Mathematics but also included Seamanship, an hour’s gym, or squatting on the parquet flooring of the quarterdeck or main hall taking down semaphore or Morse. It is just as well that I never had to signal to someone in an emergency as I was hopeless at both. My mind had a mental block for some letters, whilst I never forgot others. Naval history occupied hours of our instruction, the Battle of Trafalgar even being re-enacted with models. When I had the temerity to enquire what use this was to cadets in the steam age, I was told, ‘History repeats itself.’ Wisely for once, I kept silent.

A Professor Callendar, who was Professor of Naval History at Greenwich, had written a tome entitled Sea Kings of Britain. This contained the potted lives of our wooden wall Admirals and was required reading for all cadets.

Two History masters, Hodges and Hughes, wrote Select Naval Documents, a small book containing extracts from letters written by Admirals in the sixteenth to eighteenth centuries. Our parents were forced to buy both these books for our education, but I doubt whether they furthered our learning. Doubtless it helped to line the pockets of their authors.

‘Clear College’ followed lunch. Cadets were not allowed back in for one and a half hours and during that time the place was cleaned. Exercise had to be ‘Logged’. ‘Logs’ were divided into full and half logs. Obviously a game of rugger was a full log. A half hour’s run had to be married with half an hour’s squash to make a whole.

Astoundingly enough, ‘shooting and haircut’ counted as a whole log. I never understood why. At first, I was such a bad shot that I shot out the lights illuminating the target instead of the target itself. Gretton could not abide such inefficiency and saw to it that my shooting improved.

Instruction followed tea until Evening Quarters on the quarter-deck – a sort of ‘Appel’.

Supper was followed by prep and lights out at 2125. One was usually glad to get to sleep. The latter might well be interrupted by the College clock which of course, boomed its hours in naval bell fashion.

The civilian masters were, on the whole, far more likeable and kindly than their service counterparts. They did not have the promotion ladder in front of them and were not the awe-inspiring figures which many of the super efficient officers were.

One man however, who inspired awe was the Headmaster, E.W. Kempson. A huge figure of a man with jowls like a bulldog, his robed presence struck dread into cadets. He wore a monocle and if that dropped it was a signal that thunder was imminent. Kempson had a daughter, Rachel, the famous actress, who had married Michael Redgrave shortly before our term entered Dartmouth. Twice they came to the College and performed some sketches. Little did we know how famous they were to become. Perhaps it was as well that Kempson did not live to see the left-wing antics of some of his grandchildren, he would have been horrified.

In the summer of 1937 the whole College, with the exception of the three junior terms was taken to witness the Coronation Naval Review at Spithead. We were naturally furious and disappointed but there was a small sop. As compensation, those left behind were embarked in two destroyers and taken to Devonport where we watched the launching of HMS Gloucester by the Duchess of Gloucester. Looking back it was just as well that no one could foresee the fate of this beautiful 6″ gun cruiser. I was to be only miles away from her in May 1941 when she was sunk by German bombers off Crete during the hellish battle for the island.

We were constantly drilled in what would be expected of future naval officers, cadets even having to fall in outside a classroom should it be locked or occupied.

Later we progressed to Guard duties and paraded with black gaiters and bayonets fixed. The drills which I am unlikely to forget involved the unfixing of bayonets and sheathing them home in their scabbards. At the command, ‘Unfix’, you grasped your rifle between your knees and slipped the bayonet catch. At the command, ‘Bayonets’, you were supposed to carry the bayonet across your body and place it in the scabbard on your left-hand side, without looking down.

Women were conspicuous by their absence at Dartmouth. In fact, unless one was ill and reporting to Sister Cheetham in the Sick Bay you hardly ever saw one. Sister Cheetham was not exactly Marilyn Monroe either. The absence of women may have led to the fact that there was no false modesty in the huge swimming pool attached to the gym – cadets swam naked. This afforded opportunities for backsides to be inspected for signs of a beating. No cadet could keep it quiet for long that he had received this punishment; the new raw red weals turned to blue bruises later, and comments were made on the accuracy or otherwise of the cadet captain who had inflicted them.

In July 1938 one of the earliest combined operations exercises was carried out when the Ninth Infantry Brigade landed on Slapton Sands nearby. Bad weather prevented their re-embarkation and thus 1300 officers and men of the King’s Own Scottish Borderers and Lincolns were housed and fed by the College. A statuette of a soldier was later presented to the College to mark the British Army’s gratitude. The presenter was a then unknown Brigadier, Bernard Law Montgomery.

The start of the winter term 1938 saw the College being put on a semi war footing due to the Munich crisis. We filled sandbags and air raid precautions were exercised. Some rudimentary air raid shelters were built, the heating corridors below the College having proved unsuitable for this purpose.

Some RNVR officers appeared – we had never seen ‘Wavy Navy’ stripes before. Later of course their wearers vastly outnumbered the straight stripes of the Royal Navy.

Machine gun emplacements were constructed on the roof of ‘D’ Block. To cadets this was all heady stuff. After all, this was what our training was all about, wasn’t it? We knew nothing of the realities of war and rather relished the prospect of its imminence. We practised bayoneting sandbags and hoped the enemy would not stick cold steel into our stomachs, reminiscent of Corporal Jones in the immortal Dad’s Army: ‘They don’t like it up them, Sir!’

In the spring of 1939 it was evident that war would come sooner or later and the training cruiser HMS Frobisher was withdrawn to prepare for active service. Normally, Special Entry or ‘Pubs’ (eighteen-year-old) cadets and the Darts would make three cruises in her: West Indies, Mediterranean and Scandinavia. Now this had to be foregone and the ‘Pubs’ were sent to Dartmouth, much to their chagrin.

The two different entries of cadets had mixed in the training cruiser, but they were segregated at Dartmouth. There was nowhere else to accommodate the ‘Pubs’ but in the disused seamen’s barracks at Sandquay. The ‘Pubs’ worked a separate routine and we were extremely envious of their freedom compared to ours. They could smoke, buy a pint of beer in Dartmouth, and generally behave like grown-ups whilst we were still schoolboys.

Among the ‘Pubs’ in the summer of 1939 was Prince Philip of Greece. On his departure from the College he was awarded the King’s Dirk for the best all-round cadet.

In the summer term of 1939 three things of note occurred. The first was the making of a film by Maurice Elvey. The theme was supposed to be a fictional picture of life as a cadet at the College. Fictional it certainly was, and like the media today, what the producer and director did not know they made up. The film went by the sickening title of Sons of the Sea and the opening credits were superimposed on Dufaycolor pictures of sixteenth century men-o’-war.

An amateur cinematographer myself, I was fascinated by the film making. I had never before realised how disjointed ‘shooting’ a film could be. The director did actually sit in a canvas chair with his name on the back and shouted ‘Cut’ occasionally.

The film was shown to cadets the following term. It provoked alternate groans and laughter as scene followed scene, any resemblance to reality being totally coincidental. The final straw came when a cadet approached his House Officer and asked, ‘May I borrow your car, Sir?’ Since 95 per cent of cadets were prevented by law from driving due to age and cars were strictly forbidden at Dartmouth, the request had us rolling in the aisles.

The second event was the tragic sinking of the submarine Thetis in Liverpool Bay. The terrible drawn out saga continued for days with the entombed men tapping messages on the steel walls of their coffin.

The only comforting aspect of the disaster was the escape to the surface of Captain Oram, one of the only three survivors. His son, John Oram, was a member of my term and my House. She was a Jonah of a boat. I was later to see her in Alexandria in 1941 renamed Thunderer. A change of name did not prevent her being sunk by the enemy.

The third event was a private visit by their Majesties, the King and Queen, to Dartmouth at the end of the summer term. We had known about this for weeks and my term was chosen to exhibit our prowess at gymnastics before the royal visitors. I was apprehensive at the prospect. Indifferent as I was to gymnastics, I thought of them verging on the side of boredom. Moreover I had never quite mastered the art of vaulting a boxhorse.

We liked our PT instructor however, and were determined not to let him down, even when we heard that the whole performance would be in silence – our display commands would be by whistle only.

The royal yacht Victoria and Albert steamed majestically into Dartmouth harbour, the Royal Standard at her masthead. I had been to lunch on board her when, as a small boy, my parents and I had been invited by Paymaster Captain Louis Ricci, better known as ‘Bartimeus’ the author of naval books. Ricci, who was serving on board at the time had adopted his pen name by reason of the fact that he was blind in one eye.

What I could not of course foresee, would be that I should spend a week on board the royal yacht, but in less glamorous circumstances. Late in the war, in the winter of 1944, the ‘V & A’ was moored alongside HMS Excellent, the Portsmouth gunnery school at Whale Island. There she provided accommodation for officers, of which I was one, undergoing courses at the school. A very narrow gangplank was provided, and this proved fatal for some inebriated officers returning on board.

Matters of interest in the royal yacht were electrical points in the bathrooms (highly dangerous?) labelled ‘Curlers’, and padded loo seats to comfort cold royal posteriors.

Our gym display duly took place without a hitch, the royal party being kind enough to applaud us. If they were totally bored, since our gymnastics were not exactly of Olympic standard, they were too polite to show it. I can now with truth say that I have taken part in a Royal Command Performance.

Prince Philip was invited for tea on board during the week-end and it is said that this was the first meeting between Princess Elizabeth and her future husband. Much turbulent water was to flow under bridges between that peacetime meeting and the royal marriage after the war.

The King inspected Divisions on the Sunday and presented awards. I was not among the recipients.

In company with what seemed the whole population of Dartmouth, College and town, I was in the flotilla of boats which followed the departure of the royal yacht to the harbour mouth.

Peacetime pageantry, frock coats and swords, all this was to be swept away in the hecatomb which was to be suffered by the world. Six weeks later we were at war.

2

War

The summer leave of 1939 passed with tennis, dances and diversions galore for sixteen-year-olds. My parents had a cook, a housemaid and a gardener, beside our faithful nanny, Frances Mills. When she died, still with my parents, she had been with the family for 67 years. Faithfulness like that does not exist any more; life was enjoyable.

We returned to wartime Dartmouth in late September to find a very different College from the one we had left in peacetime. Gone were all the young, keen and super-efficient House Officers, their places taken by older ‘re-treads’. A subtle change was at once apparent. The ‘re-treads’ were kindlier, because like the civilian masters, they were no longer subject to the promotion ladder. I welcomed the change.

Dalrymple-Hamilton soon left for his wartime appointment, to be relieved by Captain Cunliffe. Dalrymple-Hamilton was I hear, at Paddington Station in uniform waiting for the train to take him back to Dartmouth when war was declared. He was surprised and not a little put out to hear an old lady accost him with the words: ‘Stationmaster, what time does this train leave?’ Until war broke out, civilians had never seen officers in uniform, so perhaps the mistake was, almost, forgivable.

The hated blackout was rigorously enforced, but at least we now had curtains. Such luxuries had been unheard of at Dartmouth in peacetime.

Cadets carried service gas-masks everywhere. These were at least less demeaning than the dreadful civilian types in their cardboard boxes, and probably more efficient too.

Familiarity breeds contempt as always and the diverse contents of the gas-mask bags at chance inspections had to be seen to be believed. These varied from apples (‘Darts’) to cigarettes (‘Pubs’). We felt rather juvenile – and were.

Films were shown on the quarter-deck and a special wooden projection room was set up. This was in the charge of the science master assisted by a lab technician. The science master had an accent alien to cadets’ ears and the phrase, ‘Stroike yer arc Green’ill,’ used to echo around the assembled auditorium as the projector sparked into glowing life.

Our new House Officer was Lieutenant Commander ‘Pluffy’ Plowden, a charming man whose employment after retirement from the Navy had been with the BBC. He would bring his radio in to the gunroom so that we could listen to Winston Churchill’s broadcasts. I remember being really thrilled and uplifted by these. For the first time one heard a politician who did not mince words and when he spoke of ‘that guttersnipe Hitler’ instead of the craven ‘Herr Hitler’ of the sycophants, one felt that here was a man with guts, a leader one could follow.

Churchill had been recalled as First Lord of the Admiralty, an appointment he had held in the First World War. On learning that the old warrior had returned to his post the Admiralty sent a signal to the fleet: ‘Winston is back.’

The new First Lord wasted no time in impressing himself on the future officers of the Service, and that term he inspected us at Divisions. He affected the curious ‘uniform’ of First Sea Lord, a reefer jacket and cap, which many thought made him look like a chauffeur. Churchill has often been likened to a bulldog, both in looks and in bellicosity. He proved this in a rousing speech afterwards and was cheered to the echo. It made one proud to have had the honour to have actually been in his presence.

There had been little as yet to show cadets that they were at war, but soon tragedy corrected this. The venerable battleship Royal Oak was torpedoed in Scapa Flow on 14 October with the loss of 24 officers and 809 men. Some midshipmen who had left Dartmouth only that July were among those who perished, and that did more than anything else to bring home to us what war was all about – killing, and being killed.

We also reflected on the vulnerability of Scapa Flow, an anchorage that we, and the Admiralty, had thought to be impregnable. One has only to look back on such disasters as the Maginot Line, Singapore, Pearl Harbor and the sinking of the Prince of Wales and Repulse to realise how wrong we were.

On the plus side however, there came in December 1939 a tremendous boost to the nation’s morale in general and to Dartmouth cadets in particular. The spectacular action between the ‘pocket battleship’ Graf Spee and our cruisers Ajax, Exeter and Achilles, led to the scuttling of the German ship at the mouth of the River Plate. It is no part of this book to relate the history of the action; the morale booster to us was a visit to Dartmouth in January 1940 by Captain Woodhouse, who had commanded Ajax in the battle.

It was fascinating to have the tactics explained to us by someone who had been so intimately involved in their execution. It was even more fascinating to listen to an officer who had been under heavy enemy fire, and returned home victorious. We cheered him to the echo. Little did I realise that I was to spend six weeks in that delightful cruiser, Ajax, when in 1942 I was ordered to return home in her from the Mediterranean.

The dark and intensely cold winter of 1940 gripped us all with profound dreariness. No one who has not endured the blackout can have any idea what it meant never to have lights blazing from uncurtained windows. Even car lights (if one had the petrol to run a car) were confined to tiny pencils of light behind which it must have been a nightmare to drive. Add therefore, cold, darkness, the onset of rationing, to 1001 wartime restrictions and the reader will have some idea of the depression thus generated.

The Easter term 1940 was our eleventh and last as Dartmouth cadets. We were real ‘dogs’ lording it over our juniors just as we had been subordinated to our seniors throughout our College career.

We had pockets in our trousers, our lanyard knots reached almost to our navels, and we could walk where previously we had doubled.

We had ‘cabins’ or studies, even though we were three to a space suitable for a small dwarf. The bliss of this was privacy; somewhere where we could retreat and play Artie Shaw records on our HMV portable gramophones. Looking back, we may not have valued it as much as we should have done. Midshipmen at sea had a total lack of privacy. One might almost have been on the lower deck in this respect.

The passing out examinations lasted a fortnight and cadets sat this in D Block, at the rear of the College. No one was allowed near and complete silence reigned. All the normal subjects were examined plus Navigation, Mechanics, Electrics, Hydrostatics and Engineering.

With History, English and Geography, I had no difficulty – I had been in the top set in these subjects all my time at the College. I was tolerably good at French, being in the middle set, and enjoyed it. But, Mathematics and anything allied to it were anathema to me and since a great deal of the examination was set on these matters, my performance in those warranted the remark ‘could have done better’.

There were unexplained gaps in the Dartmouth curriculum and Shakespeare was one of them. Incredibly we were only introduced to the Bard at the passing out exam, in the shape of Coriolanus. I found the play uninteresting, and did not consider that Roman politics furthered my education. Contrast our lack of Shakespeare with the fact that one term was devoted solidly to learning, and acting, R.C. Sheriff’s Journey’s End. That the top English set should have been made to waste their time on this rather minor play was due to our English master. He was ‘Sammy’ Sampson, a delightful man but preoccupied with the last war in which he had served as an Army Officer. He thus recreated through us, his captive audience and actors, reminiscences of trench warfare. He affected the rank of Captain which has irritated me from that day to this. No army officer below the rank of Major should retain his rank. I am often inclined, when an elderly moustached gentleman is introduced as Captain Carruthers to enquire gently what ship he commanded.

The long fortnight of exams eventually came to an end. We had all passed out and next term would be Cadets, Royal Navy, not RN Cadets – a subtle distinction.

I said goodbye to the College without a backward glance. This was for two reasons, the first and foremost being that I had hated the place and was glad to get away. I had come to the conclusion when I had been at Dartmouth for a year and a half that I was ‘Not quite cut out for the job.’

However, resignation was, in 1940, unthinkable, and even if allowed, would have ended in my being called up, probably as an Army Private. Horrors! If one had to fight a war I certainly was not going to do it otherwise than as an officer.

That at least opened many doors and ensured some comfort. I had no false ideas about thinking one should learn how the other half lived by practical experience. Secondly, we knew we would return to Dartmouth in May but as Frobishers not College cadets. We were growing up.

The so-called ‘phoney war’ ended during the Easter leave. The Ftihrer invaded Denmark and Norway. That, though the West had no inkling of it, was but the lull before the storm.

May 1940 saw us back at Dartmouth but leading a very different life to the one we had led for three and a half years.

The Frobisher cadets were accommodated in the former seamen’s barracks at Sandquay, half way down the hill from the College, going towards the engineering workshops. There, as Marie Antoinette played at being a milk maid with her courtiers, so we were playing at being on the lower deck.

Having said that I would not voluntarily wish to learn how the other half lived, here I was living the life of an ordinary seaman. There existed some important differences however. Provided we passed all our technical examinations we were certain of leaving Dartmouth as midshipmen. There was, thank heaven, no question of waiting to be made a CW (Commissioned and Warrant) candidate, of serving a year or eighteen months on the actual lower deck, with the real possibility that we might remain there. Perish the thought.

We wore blue serge trousers and sweaters, we slung and slept in hammocks (surprisingly comfortable) and we were organised as Cooks of the Mess. This fortunately did not mean that we were dependent on each other’s culinary expertise. Whoever was Cook of the Mess had to fetch the meal for his messmates and clean the crockery afterwards.

If we committed a misdemeanour, we were ‘in the rattle’, caps off before the Commander’s table. A punishment drill or stoppage of leave would result. Our bottoms were safe, beatings were left behind at the College, although as midshipmen at sea we could again be subject to a beating for a serious offence.

A cultural shock now hit the ‘Darts’, some will doubtless say long overdue. To those reading this now it may seem strange, but as Royal Navy cadets we had never come into contact with boys of any social class but our own. Matches were played against Downside and Blundells, both fee-paying public schools. To enter Dartmouth town was strictly forbidden, so where would we have met boys of a different strata?

We now encountered cadets from grammar schools who had entered the Navy via the Special Entry System. Accents grated on our ears and expressions were used which were anathema to us. One particular cadet was the son of an Engine Room Artificer. All credit to him, but because he was poisonous and overbearing, he was debagged a number of times pro bono publico.

Dominion and Empire cadets were also present; the Canadians I always liked and the Indians were charming. We were allowed to smoke and to frequent pubs, and we could wear plain clothes when ‘ashore’. We felt very grown-up.

We had left schoolboy subjects behind, and concentrated instead on Gunnery, Torpedoes, Signals and Seamanship. Little did we know how soon we were to put our gunnery instruction to practical use.

There were some who were good at signals. I was not among them. Chief Yeoman of Signals Tarling would show us a flag and intone, ‘Aircraft detected by RD/F [later radar] approaching the fleet.’ We had no idea what RD/F was, but how glad we were of it when it came to the ‘real’ war!

As with Morse, I took some signals in and others I could never keep in my head. For this reason I was thankful that when I became an Officer of the Watch later in the war, the dreaded ‘Officer of the Watch manoeuvres’ were somewhat modified. This was something I feared. It was usually practised in the Dog Watches between 1600 and 1800. The signal to carry this out would be hoisted by the Senior Officer’s ship. The correct drill would then be for everyone to clear the bridge except the wretched Officer of the Watch and the Captain. The latter was there only to take over should his ship appear to be endangered by its learner driver.

Signals indicating particular manoeuvres would then be hoisted by the flagship and the Officer of the Watch was supposed to: (a) be able to read the hoist (b) to translate it into a manoeuvre (c) turn his ship into the ordered pattern.

Horrors! The signals would have been beyond me but Richard Shelley, my Captain in the cruiser Suffolk, and descendant of the poet, allowed the Chief Yeoman to remain on the bridge, for which I was thankful. Possibly Shelley was anxious that his young Sub-Lieutenant should not be shown up in front of the fleet, and suffer the ignominy of the dreadful hoist, ‘Signal the name of Officer of the Watch’. There, in the flags for all to see who could read, would be proof positive of the OOW’s poor manoeuvre. Fortunately, I enjoyed turning the 10,000-ton cruiser, and was tolerably good at it, even on occasions meriting the accolade ‘Manoeuvre well executed’ from the flagship.

A signal which was not so complimentary however, was sent to Shelley; the subject matter being myself. We were in the Indian Ocean, five large troopships in convoy from Fremantle to Bombay. Our mission was to escort American and New Zealand troops to the war in Burma.

Fremantle had been a battlefield too, as the New Zealanders, rightly or wrongly thought that the Americans had been too amorous with their womenfolk back home. Leave was only allowed to separate nationalities on separate nights. This did not prevent the New Zealanders climbing down the hawsers, knives between their teeth, and beating up the Americans on shore leave. And we won the war!

I had the Middle as Officer of the Watch on the voyage back to India and had to keep station on the Commodore’s ship – Something happened which taught me never, but never, to take anything for granted.

The convoy manoeuvred in Zigzag No. 10. This meant turning 10 degrees to port of the MLA or Mean Line of Advance. Then 10 minutes later, swing through 22 degrees to achieve the same effect on the starboard side. The Mediterranean fleet had used practically no other zigzag throughout the sixteen months I had served in it.

As Midshipman of the Watch in those Mediterranean days it was my responsibility to watch the clock and caution my Officer of the Watch when it was time to give the order to turn. I knew the zigzag by heart, or thought I did – this was nearly to prove a very costly mistake. Familiarity breeds contempt.

I was now Officer of the Watch on the Compass Platform, or bridge, of a l0,000-ton cruiser in the warm darkness of an Indian Ocean night; we were in the middle of a war zone.

‘War is mostly waiting,’ someone once said. So it is, and it can be very boring, interspersed with short periods of exciting hyper-activity. Throughout my watch I had been talking to the PCO or Principal Control Officer, a Torpedo Lieutenant who was there to control the armament in an emergency.

The huge bulk of the Commodore’s troopship loomed in the semi darkness of the tropical night.

‘Port 10,’ I ordered down the voice pipe.

‘Ten of port wheel on, Sir,’ replied the helmsman, 20 feet below me.

lt takes a large cruiser quite some time to answer to the wheel, my ghastly error was therefore not immediately apparent. I was saved by my good friend Charles Stephen, a paymaster midshipman who had been junior to me at Dartmouth. He was on watch in the Plot below and fortunately had his wits about him. He could see the giro compass repeater on the bulkhead, and was horrified to see it beginning to click the wrong way.

‘I say Sub, aren’t you going the wrong way?’ came his anxious voice from below. Oh my God, I thought, it can’t be, but it was. The PCO had heard Stephen’s voice too, and we both swung to the left, training our binoculars on the Commodore’s ship.

There was no doubt. She loomed larger in the lenses of our night glasses, a sure sign of closing range, we were turning towards each other, not together to starboard as the zigzag demanded. Commands came quickly. The PCO gave orders for increased propeller revolutions. I ordered the wheel amidships, and then 20 degrees to starboard. No time to call the Captain, asleep below in his sea cabin and blissfully unaware of the imminent danger to his ship.

Seconds ticked by; I know now what the hackneyed expression ‘on leaden feet’ means. We were still closing the gap, and I braced myself for the ghastly impact of two big ships. A combined tonnage of 30,000 tons at a closing speed of 36 knots made a horrific picture in my mind.

Slowly, ever so slowly, we began to heel to starboard and the terrible nearness of the Commodore’s ship began to lessen. We had done it, but only just. I must admit I was shaking, and was glad of the darkness to conceal it. I gave the necessary orders to bring us back to proper station-keeping on the Commodore’s ship and wished I could have had a stiff drink. (Only the MOs and the Padre drank at sea, and to be fair, they didn’t consume much alcohol either.)

Then came my second error of that awful night. I did not tell the Captain that his ship had so nearly collided whilst he slept. To be fair to myself, I thought the Torpedo Lieutenant would do it, as he was the Senior Officer on the bridge at the time. Shelley slept on and was totally ignorant of what had happened.

The morning came, I was in my cabin. A knock at the door, the Captain’s messenger: ‘Captain wishes to see you in his sea cabin, Sir.’ Butterflies, no, large moths, invaded my stomach. I knocked on the Captain’s door and entered.

Richard Shelley stood there, a signal in his hand. I liked him, and he was always kind to me. His kindness was going to be sorely tried that morning.

‘Read that,’ he ordered, handing me the signal.

I read: ‘To Suffolk from Commodore. Why did you commit unfriendly act last night and try to ram me?’

I had no defence. It did not need a Marshall Hall to spell out my guilt. Later, Shelley sent me a copy of the signal. I took it as having been forgiven. It taught me a lesson no other training could have done. Always, but always check your facts, however well you think you know your subject.

The German blitzkrieg in the West was launched on 10 May 1940. For a while we were unaffected in our beautiful Devonian backwater. Bland communiques were broadcast: ‘The BEF is withdrawing to prepared positions.’ We believed it all at the time – little did we realise, as in so many theatres of war later, that it was a euphemism for ‘Retreat is in danger of becoming a bloody rout.’