A Naval career - part 4 of 4

A Naval career — part 4 (of 4)

Northern Waters and duties new

After a most enjoyable leave, partly spent in Northants, I was posted to HMML 155. This was one of the boats fitted with an impressive radar tower bearing a PPI 660 radar which had been used to fix position as they led in one of the landing craft columns to Normandy beaches. I joined the boat up the Thames at Isleworth, where high technology gear had been added to help with accurate navigation (QH2, taut wire measuring gear, echo sounder etc.) to enable us to position and supervise German Fleet Minesweepers to be employed clearing up their mine barrage in the Mid-north Sea. Together with ML 154 (similarly fitted) we were to operate from a base in Cuxhaven but work out of Flekkefjord, Norway. To enable the boat to get up to Isleworth the radar tower had to be removed at Hay’s Wharf were it was restored on our return down the Thames. We enjoyed the trip down river and especially having Tower Bridge raised just for us to pass. After a day or two in Sheerness, we left in quite dense fog and placing faith in the magic of radar to hop from buoy to buoy, passed through much shipping but saw nothing until we successfully picked up the breakwater at Ijmuiden, The Netherlands. What a difference our new toys made to confidence at night or in fog, as compared with hours peering into nothingness through night glasses! Bad weather gave us an opportunity to spend a day or two in Den Helder, where we had a chance to see the desperate shortages that were still being suffered. Another break in the island of Borkum proved interesting because the N.O.I.C. (naval officer in charge) seemed almost to be running a harem of German code-breaking WRNS equivalents. The daily codes that we had religiously used were regularly broken by mid-day but they remained puzzled by the `RT slang' that we had been so heavily warned against using and "Who is this darling Clementine?” On to Cuxhaven where fishing was just beginning again. This was not too damaged but Hamburg and Heligoland were wrecked.

Through no fault of ours, our mission was a failure because our ability to navigate with sufficient accuracy to direct the German minesweepers in the middle of the North Sea, depended entirely on the sophisticated electronic navigational equipment which we had fitted in Isleworth. QH2 had been the distant position indicating system used by the pathfinders for allied bombers to define German targets accurately, (now replaced by the much more convenient GPS, global positioning system). That need no longer existed and as civilian needs had not yet developed, the day we were due to start was the very day when the air forces chose to close down the chain of land stations. Without these, the German Sweepers could be much more accurate than we could hope to be. Nevertheless, we were able to keep ourselves busy with a variety of quite interesting tasks. Among these was the escort of Soviet Navy ships to Bremen and Wilhelmshaven, carrying crews that would (under our escort) take back their share of the German Navy through the Keil Canal to the Baltic and what would become `behind the curtain'. We also did several trips to the island of Heligoland in the Elbe approaches, to take RAF teams who had the job of assessing the damage our bombs had (or had not) done to the U Boat pens. We also had to show the White Ensign among the German sweepers operating from Flekkefiord in Norway. These were interesting episodes, not least because they took us through the Baltic with opportunities to call at Copenhagen and other Danish ports.

The comparison of quality and morale between the victorious Russians and the defeated Germans was most strikingly in favour of the latter. The former were undisciplined scroungers wanting to pinch anything moveable. The latter were efficient, punctilious about maritime courtesies and went about their dangerous work efficiently. Denmark was nothing like so badly damaged or its population so starved as were the Dutch and perhaps both were better off than the remaining inhabitants of Hamburg. Once into the Keil Canal at Brunsbuttelkug the land had only suffered isolated bombing rather than land warfare. After the first trip north, we took the precaution of landing most of our ammunition to make room in the magazines for the products of the Carlsberg and Tuborg Breweries. This ensured us a very favoured reception on arrival back home at our base in Cuxhaven. The pleasure of the Danes at liberation was also shown when we happened to be the first to show the White Ensign in the northernmost port of Jutland (Fredrikshafen by Skaw). At the time of the Occupation, the local ships chandler had buried all his stock of British spirits, vowing that he would not unearth them or open a bottle until liberated. Although a little late, we were deemed to give him that excuse. The parties for all were long and furious and the local police were needed to return the crew who had shore leave. Of course this needed to be followed by return hospitality for locals and the judiciary. By midday the next day it was high time to sail to calmer conditions in Norway. I liked both the lands and peoples of Denmark and Norway but did not have very long among them because I had to hand ML155 over to my successor in Flekkefiord and return to UK via Cuxhaven for `demob'.

As I was lucky enough not to have suffered shipwreck or wounding, I can say that in retrospect I enjoyed my `sailor's life'. I learnt a great deal from the somewhat harsh school of the `lower deck' and a good deal more from the experience and privilege of being in command of some of His Majesty's (tiddler) Ships from the age of 23. By the middle of 1946, I was due to be demobilised and to gain entry to university, finally to research on potato diseases. To my surprise and disappointment this apparently prevented me continuing in the then RNVSR, so I ceased to be a sailor (in all but memory)!

J.M.Hirst
Bristol
20/5/1997

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