Alarm Starboard!: A Remarkable True Story of the War at Sea Read online

  The time came for the ship to sortie yet again from between the moles, but to turn east for a change. A leisurely week at Malta ensued, welcome breathing space before the manoeuvres. Soon after our arrival the Captain addressed the ship’s company; he said the Nelson was at last fairly clean and now it was the duty of everyone on board to make her an efficient unit by knowing not only his own job but the next man’s as well; that we must be prepared to fight in the not too distant future, and success would only come from hard personal effort. I think this fell on somewhat heedless ears as far as the Midshipmen were concerned. Everyone talked of war but we lived for the moment.

  Across the limpid water of Grand Harbour, its glorious blue contrasting with the yellow cascading terraces of ancient Valetta, lay two battleships and two battlecruisers of the Mediterranean Fleet. They were Warspite, the flagship, Malaya, Hood and Repulse. In particular Hood and Repulse evoked admiration—huge, majestic and beautiful. The symmetry of their stately battlements, shining almost white in the hot sun, was mirrored in the limpid water, broken only by the wash of a picket boat or the more leisurely passage of a high-prowed Maltese dghaisa. They looked unbeatable. Perhaps if I could have had a glimpse into the future to see both of them sink only yards away, the Captain’s words might have been more strongly heeded.

  The visit to Malta was finally made memorable by a faux pas at the opera, to which I had been bidden by the Marquesa Mattei, a grande dame of Malta (my cousin, Lieutenant Commander John Tothill, had married her daughter Mary). We were promenading sedately in the entr’acte when, to my consternation, there loomed the venerable figure of Admiral Sir Dudley Pound, Commander-in-Chief, Mediterranean, approaching to talk to her. We were both in uniform, he splendid in mess dress and I in my less gilded round jacket. I hid behind her skirts, shifting from one leg to another, until he, obviously aware of my embarrassment, gave me a kindly wink. Without thinking, I winked back and received a very old-fashioned look.

  On return to Gibraltar the Home Fleet battleships carried out a main armament shoot at a battle-practice target. The junior Midshipmen were put in a turret on this occasion and it was with a pleasant tingle of apprehension that we watched the three guns’ crews go through their preliminary drill. The officer of the turret with his Midshipman and turret Petty Officer sat at the back. Behind and above them was the rangetaker, peering into his 30-foot instrument that spanned the whole gunhouse to protrude, like a pair of ears, each side. The guns’ crews, some ten to a gun, wearing white flash-proof balaclavas and gauntlets, stood or sat in bucket seats beside their particular bits of machinery. Orders from the Gunnery Officer in the director came through with staccato precision. The whole place gleamed with hospital whiteness and reflecting metal.

  It is not difficult to recall the atmosphere. All is ready; no-one moves and the air is expectant.

  Suddenly, ‘Follow director! All guns load!’, and controlled pandemonium takes charge. The huge breech nearest me swings open with a shrill hiss (compressed air automatically loosed to clear smoking barrels), clang goes the loading tray and an ever increasing rumble announces the approach of a shell. ‘Salvoes!’ Thud and the shell cage locks itself on to the rear of the tray. Then a rattling roar as the hammer—a bicycle chain as thick as a man’s waist—hurtles up the same path, round a hidden sheave and, its great joints a horizontal blur of speed, punches the black one-ton shell into the gaping barrel. The copper driving band bites into the rifling with an echoing ring. Each action is followed by a report from its originator, yelled with the full force of his lungs but only just audible; each report is the signal for the next man to move his lever, and unleash another mass of hydraulic power. Back rattles the rammer (more gently and not so far) and we just glimpse the white cotton cylinder with its red tip as the first cordite charge is sent in. Another goes in behind it, the rammer disappears, the cage drops, the loading tray leaps back and the breech swings shut. Some of it revolves as precision grooves lock with their static partners. Machinery hums and the whole affair drops down. It wavers gently as the gunlayer picks up the slowly moving pointer from the director eighty feet above him. ‘Layer on!’ he shouts. ‘Right gun ready’, yells the breechworker and knocks up a big brass switch with the palm of his hand. This burns a light both in the Transmitting Station and in front of the director layer; when all the guns are seen to be ready he can press his trigger. The breech is deep in the gunwell below us, moving gently on its trunnions, 20 tons of cannon balanced like a child’s seesaw as the ship’s roll is counteracted and the range increases or decreases according to a dozen varying factors. I find I am holding my breath. One cannot see the barrels, of course, but they are high in the air. ‘WOOMF!’ goes the gun, leaping six feet backwards; up comes the breech; it opens with a hiss, and all begins again.

  The spectacle of huge chunks of metal moving as if they were made of wood, being placed with instant precision and split second timing, the shouted reports, the angry recoil of the guns, the noise, the smell of burnt cordite, and the whole scene being enacted in glistening white triplicate, never failed to thrill. I felt that ‘this was what I had joined up for’, a phrase more often employed in sarcasm for the unpopular chores of naval life.

  The end product was also spectacular. A broadside of nine 16-inch shells would send up a white curtain 200 yards wide and almost as high, to fan out and subside with leisurely grace.

  Eventually the day of the Combined Fleet Manoeuvres dawned. The Red (Home) Fleet left harbour to form up eastwards in Algeciras Bay, the Nelson slipping last, to glide through an avenue of shrill salutes, to her place at the head of the battle line. With the destroyers in their usual protective formation and beyond them the cruisers, the dark grey armada moved into the Atlantic. Our pale grey opponents, the Blue (Med) Fleet, were making for their war base—Madeira—and we were out to intercept them on the way. A night action took place between the cruisers and destroyers, the former spread in a ten mile diagonal line before their respective battle fleets. I saw starshell fired for the first time—yellow balls of light that, projected in our case from the high angle 4.7-inch guns, descended gently on their parachutes to turn night into jaundiced day beneath. As with a good firework display a new batch would take over just as its predecessor dropped into the sea. Sometimes they would be behind the enemy who stood out silhouetted, like a model in a bowl of molten brass; at others in front, when every detail of his upper deck could be discerned.

  At first light the sky was dotted with Courageous’ aircraft, waiting to break up a Blue air attack. Later both fleets combined for tactical positioning manoeuvres. Another night encounter after dark, and so it went on. The following year, when increasing familiarity bred a more blasé attitude, I found little to record in my journal, but the combined manoeuvres, 1938, saw a fascinated youth covering page after page of a sketch book as cruisers careered, destroyers darted and battleships bowled along. Destroyer torpedo attacks were the most exciting, usually materialising as dots in line abreast from behind rolling black smoke screens, furious heaving midgets that, rocketing to head us off, would suddenly elongate into sleek grey ships as they turned as one to fire. ‘Blue four numeral—down’ a voice would yell; ‘Starboard twenty’ in level tones from the Officer of the Watch on the bridge nearby, and it was our turn to shudder and heel as the battle fleet altered course to ‘comb’ the tracks, whether real or imaginary, of torpedoes. The destroyers would be away again, probably back into their smoke screen, departure hastened, as in fact their approach had been harassed, by the long accusing fingers of our 6-inch guns.

  The danger past, we would alter course back again, the Rodney, Resolution, Royal Oak, Ramillies and Royal Sovereign (in order of the seniority of their Captains) hauling ponderously round as the flags dropped from the Nelson’s yardarm. It was interesting to see how each ship came into her station; a simple enough manoeuvre but requiring only a few seconds delay at the start, slow reaction from a raw quartermaster, or too heavy an application of opposite rudder, fo
r the delinquent to find herself nakedly out of line. On these occasions one could imagine an exasperated Captain growling at a flushed Officer of the Watch, as I had witnessed on our bridge, or perhaps a few words of quiet encouragement as I had also seen. Both would be dreading the dry comment from Nelson’s yardarm ‘Manoeuvre badly executed’ if the Admiral had been looking aft at the crucial moment—as it seemed he always was.

  I would study the battleships astern through binoculars (issued strictly for the early detection of attacking aircraft), watching them roll with the slow dignity of their kind; great pyramids of power that looked as if nothing in the world could stop them. I could see the bridge personnel of our next astern and wondered who the Midshipman of the Watch might be; it looked like that chap who robbed us of the hockey final—‘Alarm port!’ shouts my communication number. Zeep, zeep, zeep, goes the alarm buzzer and I am guiltily aware of screaming aero engines. Half a dozen Nimrods are diving down sun and the first three are over and away before we are properly settled. But we reckon to have got two of the remainder. There are white smudges on the fo’c’s’le, where bags of flour have arrived, and then it is ‘return to lookout bearing’.

  Darkness seldom brought abatement. All one saw of the nearest ship was a denser blackness poised over the intermittent glow of her bow wave. With the ship’s company closed up at night action stations, the great 16-inch guns trained over the inky water that glided under them, and everyone with binoculars sweeping slowly back and forth, the atmosphere of expectancy was almost tangible. Perched on top of the towerlike bridge stood the main 16-inch director and two smaller 6-inch ones, both with the same basic tasks as my little pom-pom director. Heavy cylindrical towers, mounted on roller paths and ingeniously full of men and machinery, they hummed and groaned away the waiting minutes, training slowly from side to side with grim expectancy.

  Suddenly, ‘Enemy in sight, bearing 154’ from Cartwright, a snottie with gyro-stabilised binoculars. ‘Alarm starboard, green four-0’ from the Captain, echoed immediately by his communication number at the back of the bridge and then taken up, like ‘noises off’ by colleagues in various stations around. The groaning of the directors rises to a near scream as they churn themselves on to the bearing indicated. By this time the Captain can see the enemy (if he had not been first to spot them at the outset)—a line of battleships at 6,000 yards. ‘3BS-160-3-070-20!’ The enemy report comes out pat. Click goes a switch and a microphone hums. ‘3BS-160-3-070-20!’ intones the Chief Yeoman of Signals and if the remainder of the fleet do not know already they learn that Nelson has three enemy battleships in sight, bearing 160° at three miles range, steering 070° at 20 knots. ‘Searchlights on’ from Snow. ‘Director target’ from the Gunnery Officer. ‘Battle fleet from C-in-C stand by to alter course 20 degrees to starboard’ from a metallic voice. ‘Battle fleet from …’ ‘Yes, I heard it’ from the Captain. ‘Ready to open fire!’ from the Gunnery Officer. ‘Open fire!’ from the Captain, ‘Shoot’ from the Gunnery Officer, and then ‘Illuminate!’ Ting-ting from the fire gong and clang, a fat pencil of white light has shot out from half way up our only funnel to reveal the Queen Elizabeth about 4,000 yards away and the suggestion of her consorts astern. We have just time to see that we are looking down the barrels of her guns before she disappears in a ball of brightness, her searchlight on us.

  ‘Stand by to alter 30 degrees to port together, Sir!’ ‘Stand by; EXECUTIVE SIGNAL!’ ‘Port twenty’, says the Officer of the Watch, almost confidentially, bending over a voice pipe. His eyes, lit from the side, are strangely translucent. ‘Twenty of port wheel on, Sir’ reports the Quartermaster, 90 feet below. Ting-ting from the fire gong again, warning of an impending salvo. It looks as if we beat the QE to the punch, a first class example of where seconds count. ‘Midships’ from the Officer of the Watch. ‘Ready to fire torpedoes’ from the Torpedo Officer at the wing of the bridge. Ting-ting. ‘Battle fleet from C-in-C, stand by to resume previous course together.’ ‘Torpedoes fired, Sir.’ ‘Switch off.’ ‘Stand by … executive signal.’ ‘Starboard twenty.’ Ting-Ting. ‘Cease firing!’ And then all is blackness and comparative calm. Soon the signal ‘Exercise completed’ arrives, guns come slowly fore and aft, canvas covers are put over exposed instruments, ladders clang with feet eager for hammocks and I join the queue outside the gunnery office where recorders are handing in their columns of words, deeds and split seconds.

  Night firings at battle practice targets, if more deliberate, were just as exciting. If those in exposed positions did not shut their eyes at the warning ting-ting of the 16-inch fire gong, the great orange wall of flame that belched out of the muzzles would leave them blind for 30 seconds. A hot pressure wave would surge over one but the sound, more of a majestic roar than a bang, was not as unpleasant as that of the 6-inch secondary armament.

  * * *

  When Gibraltar finally faded astern, most of us were sorry to see the last, for a year, of this hectic work-and-play ground. Soon after our return the Commander-in-Chief left (to become First Sea Lord) and all the officers were introduced to the new one, Admiral Sir Charles Forbes. A small, well-built man with a lined face, heavy jaw and inquisitive eyes, he was to take on Jellicoe’s mantle and with it the ability to ‘lose the war in an afternoon’ as Churchill had put it.

  The idea that such a thing was not impossible had begun to dawn on some, but by no means all. Just before the ship sailed on the second cruise of the year, the area was blacked out, or was supposed to be, for trial. The C-in-C, Portsmouth, flew over the city and expressed himself dissatisfied with what he saw. No doubt the man in the street’s attitude was the same as that of the average junior officer: a definite apprehension, not without its tinge of excitement, fed by political speeches from both Hitler and our side, but the whole under an umbrella on which was painted ‘It can’t happen to us’. Chamberlain’s visit to Munich was just four months off as ships of the Home Fleet began to leave their respective bases for assembly at Portland.

  Fitted into the heavy programme of firings and exercises there, was training for the Battle Squadron pulling regatta. Dovetailed might be a better word. On entering harbour, boats descended immediately from davit and derrick, returning to an exact timetable for fresh crews, the process continuing till supper. In all some 50 crews trained in cutters, gigs and whalers of which less than a quarter would represent the ship. A regatta training news sheet was printed daily with the times of the various trials; challenges were made and accepted and interest fanned to fever pitch. Though the accolade of the Gunroom ‘A’ crew passed me by, a fair share of hand and bottom blisters did not. With each ship putting so much into it, the result would be a fair reflection of the general spirit of all concerned. Came the day and race after race peeled off to non-stop cheers, a tight organisation of picket boats and launches towing fresh crews to the start as the gladiators of the hour struggled for the line, muscles straining, heads rolling and coxswains bellowing the stroke. At the end of it all we had come third—a considerable disappointment—beaten by Royal Oak and Rodney.

  Morale was shortly restored, however, when the Nelson’s 4.7-inch battery shot down a pilotless, wireless-controlled Queen Bee aircraft. (As it happens, I was to marry the niece of the officer who developed the Queen Bees, Commander The Hon Henry Cecil, a charming and most talented man.) The satisfactory splash made by this plummeting plane seemed a healthy augury for the great event, now only a fortnight off, that was everyone’s dateline from the staff completing plans for three days’ demonstrations to boys sewing chinstays into new caps. King George VI was to visit the fleet.

  It was late one evening when His Majesty’s sleek blue barge came in sight, planing out to the Royal Yacht, Victoria and Albert, with an escort of fast motor boats. The whole fleet, anchored in Weymouth Bay, was spread seawards of ‘The Yacht’, their ships’ companies paraded. The Royal Standard billowed out from the masthead as the King stepped on board the Nelson at 09:30 next morning (and with such a bevy of VIPs that, half w
ay through the day, when a signal boy was told ‘Look out! There’s someone important comin’’ I saw him glance down from the flagdeck and say ‘Oh, its only the C-in-C’.)

  We put to sea immediately for a demonstration programme to unfold with clockwork precision. The 2nd Cruiser Squadron ( Southampton Class) came past at 25 knots, catapulting their aircraft; these formed up and dipped over the flagship in salute; by this time the 4th and 6th Destroyer Flotillas, led by Rear Admiral (D) in his cruiser Aurora, were already coming in with a massed torpedo attack; the close screen (5th Destroyer Flotilla) counter-attacked; they were not back in station before aircraft from Courageous swooped down, thunderous dive bombing runs being synchronised with the bubbling tracks of torpedoes as several passed right under our keel; the air was no sooner clear than Newcastle launched a Queen Bee to be shot at by the cruisers, Southampton bringing it down.

  The King then walked round the upper deck, watching the boys at field training and the normal work of the ship in progress. It was on his return to the Admiral’s bridge that, on my way down, I nearly disgraced myself. Passage was via many steep ladders in the enclosed structure and one’s usual method of descent was to slide down with hands on the rails and feet in advance, well up. I was launched into this manoeuvre when the landing spot was suddenly filled by a gold-braided cap and body to match. With a great effort I managed to land short and scramble back. The cap, now followed by another, looked up. It was Captain Lord Louis Mountbatten and Rear-Admiral the Duke of Kent. They were both chuckling over something and as they continued past (I was pressed hard against the bulkhead) the Duke of Kent said ‘And the killing thing is they’ve forgotten to pack the monarch’s dinner jacket. There will be a row!’

  Momentarily marvelling that such a homely error could be made in such exalted circles, I realised that someone else was coming and then, by the hum of voices, many more. First was the Master at Arms, looking important fit to burst. He was holding his black handled sword clear of the steps in front of him like a bishop’s crook. We exchanged horrified glances but flight for me was out of the question; I was in a royal sandwich and must stand my ground. The King came next. He gave me an inquisitive glance and I tried hard to look composed. He passed a few inches in front of me, turning to the foot of the next ladder and continuing up. I studied him as carefully as I dared; he was a little shorter than photographs had led one to expect and looked incredibly healthy with frank, clear eyes and a bronze skin. Then followed most of the retinue but, in common with the earlier signal boy, I had lost interest in mere Admirals and they passed in a blur.