Minesweeper Life - Picture Gallery

Classic positioning shot
Funnel badge of 104 Minesweeper Squadron  (later to be re-numbered  6 MSS The Blackfoot Squadron)

Picture taken in 1961 aboard HMS HOUGHTON (Commander Gus Halliday), the Squadron Leader - indicated by broad black band round top of funnel.

Signal flying near port yardarm is “preparative at the dip”- meaning “stand by to execute the manoeuvre previously indicated”  e.g all ships turn 90 degrees to starboard together, typically  from line astern to line abreast.

The badge derives from a peculiarity of the high speed DELTIC diesel engines. They were water cooled but in the Mediterranean, and more so in the Gulf, the cooling water was never that cool. The engines heated it so much that salt was left as a residue. This mixed with diesel soot in the funnel uptakes and caked the inside of the funnel with a glutinous black solid. When the engines went to full speed or the diesel generator was put on full load , such as sweeping for magnetic mines, the whole ship shuddered. The funnel also shuddered and the glutinous sooty black cakes were ejected all over the First Lieutenant’s nicely scrubbed white wooden teak decks. This did not amuse First Lieutenants. Worse, the sailors, who often went barefoot in the tropics (even though there were standing orders not to), then tramped sooty black footprints throughout the ship.

Hence the ”heraldry” - Blackfeet from a bloody delta !

Most of the above is true. The badge is attributed to various characters serving as Captains and Jimmys in 104 MSS .WOOLASTON and WILKIESTON are usually credited with its invention during 1956-58. The badge with associated mythology was certainly well established when the 104 arrived in the Far East in 1959.

We have a Blackfoot tie and maintain correspondence with the Blackfoot native American people in Montana. I hope to call to see them when I visit my son in Canada later this year.
 

The Jimmy trying to prove that diving  officers do sometimes  get wet !

1961/early 62 from the background with a group of inshore minesweepers, possibly on a visit to Sandakan or Tawau on the east coast of Borneo. Several sweeps were carried out in shallow waters trying to clear American mines laid in 1944 which by the1960’s were posing a hazard to the Japanese ships taking timber from the rain forest.

No Comment on changing political values and environmental concerns !

In those days if a head of coral got in the way of boats approaching a jetty we just blew it away. Don’t tell the Greens. I’m sure  the RN is much more socially responsible now .