=== THE NIGHT WE SANK THE DOMIAT ===
The author was a Midshipman aboard HMS Newfoundland when she and HMS Diana sank the Egyptian frigate Domiat. This, while rather tame by World War standards, was the last occasion on which a warship was sunk in conventional gun action by other warships. It was also the last time (pending possible, but unlikely adoption of the army's 155mm gun with bagged charges for NGS) that the RN's BL (breech loading, as opposed to QF (quick firing, with brass cartridge cases)) spoke in anger.
The account is based on the author's Midshipman's journal, supplemented by reminiscences of various shipmates, and has been reconciled to the ship's log for the period and the Captain of HMS Newfoundland's official Report of Proceedings.
The first section shows the peace-time RN going about its normal peace-time business while storm clouds loom on the horizon. Nefoundland's programme changes as she is retrieved from a trip to Hong Kong and kept handy in the Malacca Strait. She is then moved closer to the action, to Aden.
In the second part the Newfies and others are concentrated at Aden, effectively twiddling their thumbs while those far above decide what to do.
In the last section action is joined and the RN's big guns speak for the last time.
'Ship me somewheres East of Suez where a man can raise a thirst .. ' (Kipling)
Map of the area of operations, from my Midshipman's Journal (click to enlarge)
On Thursday 6th August 1956 in Singapore, via the traditional church service held on the quarterdeck, HMS Newfoundland recommissioned under Captain John Hamilton. Ascetic, athletic, a Gunnery Officer through and through, Hamilton had been Gunnery Officer of HMS Warspite off Salerno under Bertie Packer. The latter, a really impeturbable G, had already been Sub and then Gunnery Officer of that ship. One of my great-uncles had been Packer's A-turret midshipman at Jutland in 1916. In the middle of mayhem and battle off Salerno in 1943 a lieutenant appeared on the bridge. "Sir, Sir, the hangar's on fire!" "Put it out then" replied Packer.
Onboard Newfoundland, a submariner took over as Commander, replacing an ex-Upper Yardman Gunnery Officer. I was not sorry to see go the latter's rule about wearing stiff shirts every evening, even at sea. Thereafter Officers commonly wore Red Sea Rig (tropical shirt, navy trousers, cummerbund) in the mess in the evenings at sea. No doubt this was something of a misfortune for Number One (Dhobey) Boy.
Immediately previous to this, at the end of July, Colonel Nasser who had taken over as dictator in Egypt, seized the Suez canal, which was joint French and British property. Nasser's idea was to use the Canal's revenue to pay for a giant dam on the Nile at Aswan, which originally had been going to be funded with US aid, but John Foster Dulles had peremptorily stopped the cheque. So Nasser decided to help himself to another source of funds... Far away in London politicians debated how we should get our property back.
The new Commission settled in. Hamilton hit the ground running. We went to General Quarters, Emergency Stations and so forth and the hands were put through a taut few days of gun drill, boat practice and storing ship. The next few days were taken up with initial drills for Action Information and Gunnery crews and with basic seamanship drills.
For this period we sailed from Singapore and based ourselves, as the Far East Fleet always did, on Pulau Tioman and its smaller sister Pulau Aur, two virtually uninhabited islands off the east coast of Malaya. When we had leisure between workup serials these were delightful spots. At Telok Juara where one landed, the sandy beach was bounded at either cape by enormous boulders that rose up in crystal clear water from a bottom of sand and coral. A few yards inshore the eye was stopped by lush tropical vegetation, tall grass and coconut palms, rhododendrons and banana palms, that covered the two thousand foot slopes of the island. A bare fifteen miles across, Tioman sported the odd attap hut or shack and one could buy coconuts green from the tree. Out to sea one could see the occasional fisherman, in canoe or motor sampan, trolling for his lunch. One could also see sea snakes so one did not swim out too far. Tioman in its virginity was used to film the musical "South Pacific" (which was actually set in Honiara Bay in the New Hebrides). I got a sea-egg spine in my foot and Young Doc had to dig it out. Later Tioman became a tourist resort.
For the various anti-aircraft exercises I was stationed on the Gun Direction Platform to control the target aircraft, normally an elderly Beaufighter towing a sleeve. On occasion a Meteor was provided but these flew fairly slowly so as to conserve fuel for the hour's practice. Even so, when they made use of ground it was apparent that, inshore, we had little chance of detecting them in time to deal with them. This lesson for the Falklands a quarter of a century hence. A massed attack by Venoms from Tengah and Meteors from Seletar caught us totally on the hop and we were quite unable to cope. However it was cheering to note that we now had (at Tengah, Seletar and Changi) the air cover we needed to defend Singapore, even if the RAF was fifteen years too late.
My boss in the ADR had been superseded by Gil Alder, a relaxed and rather unmilitary man who was always immensely tolerant of his inexperienced juniors' shortcomings. He had just the right touch with his midshipmen, both in the ADR and as Quarterdeck officer. He later became a Chinese interpreter and was employed on hush-hush intelligence work in Hong Kong. By terrible misfortune he and his most elegant wife were eventually murdered in their house near Chichester. I was much moved by this and wrote to his son. It turned out that he was the murderer. It seemed most strange (not to say tragic) that the delightful Gil, who had such a sound touch with young men, should apparently have had such a disastrous relationship with his son.
As a diversion the Gunroom also got in on a demolition exercise with the new TAS Officer. We landed in a small bay and amongst other excitements wrapped several turns of Cordtex round a palm tree, which ascended vertically and then came crashing down. A very satisfactory noise reverberated round the bay and a fisherman, caught out crossing the mouth of the bay at the time, fell out of his dugout in surprise.
We also practised what was called "Operation Awkward", the defence of the ship against swimmers. For this we cruised around the ship in the motor cutter, trolling lines with grapnels attached, and heaving 1/4lb charges over the side. Rather fun. On board armed sentries would patrol the upper deck with Lanchesters, a strange carbine with wooden furniture I think known only to the Navy but perhaps an Army castoff from the 'twenties, replaced in the sixties by the 9mm Sten gun. To assist these sentries we rigged underwater lighting on booms along the ship's side. While the Commander and the Electrical Officer were congratulating each other on the jolly good job they had done, a Royal Marine in swimming trunks came dripping up the starboard accommodation ladder having swum right around the ship undetected.
The First Lieutenant from the old commission was still with us and as cable officer must have somewhat upset Hamilton by getting the mooring pendant entangled under the ship's forefoot while carrying out a moor (having two anchors down with the cables crossing at a swivel so that the hawse is not fouled).
On the eleventh anniversary of VJ Day we set off for Hong Kong. It was usual at sea for Wardroom officers to be told off to lecture the off-watch midshipmen, which passed the time for us, and we were pleased to help them hone their presentation skills on such a lively and intelligent audience. Hardly were we clear of the Horsborough Light, enjoying a most interesting talk on infantry and armoured tactics by Young Joe (the Lieutenant of Marines, OCRM's side-kick), than we were diverted by seeing the sunlight from the scuttle slowly moving round the gunroom. We were putting about. Our lecturer was dismayed as he had a lady waiting for him in Hong Kong.
We put back into Singapore and Hamilton reported to the naval C-in-C for orders.
In the immediate present we continued our workup in local waters, progressing to 6", 4" and 40mm Bofors firings. The Pacific war in mind, we carried five twin Bofors mounts and two singles, but, even with a full war complement (except for sparkers (telegraphists), who were in short supply) crammed into this un-air-conditioned ship, one twin had always to be left unmanned. The paired twin 4" batteries were controlled by MRS6 directors either side of the bridge, installed in a post-war refit, and it was their topweight that had cost Newfy her torpedo tubes. One exercise for training the 4" crews and for checking out the fire control was a "Regen Run". In this rates were set artificially on the system and the explosions of the shells would dutifully appear in the cross-hairs of the director sight - and if not, then it was Guns' job to determine why not.
The port battery was manned by Royal Marines, as was (by custom) "Y" 6" Mk23 triple turret. This was an icon of Royal Marine smartness. Enamelled without, burnished within, it was always immaculate, and was always on show, turret door open, when visitors were about. The 6" could deliver at about six rounds per gun per minute, normally in broadside fire (all guns firing together). It also provided an example of Royal Marine leadership and bravery when Left of Y misfired. The Sergeant Gunnery Instructor removed the cordite charge himself and popped it over the side - fortunately for him without any explosion.
To round off this workup we were invited to blast some CTs (Communist Terrorists) off the top of a hill at Khota Tingghi. Eighty rounds later, with four targets destroyed according to the spotter in his little Auster aeroplane, we were well satisfied, and so was the Admiralty, thereby enabled to score a publicity brownie point back at home. Many years later I received something of a put-down on this. It transpired that the moving spirit behind this escapade was the naval C-in-C's Chief Staff Officer, who was keen for the Navy to be seen to be joining in the bashing of the CTs. His younger brother, a soldier who did not love him, was at that time on Intelligence duty with the Army following two years in the jungle. This officer was duly presented to C-in-C who fished for a compliment regarding Newfy's bombardment. "Do you want the real facts, Sir?" The Admiral walked into the punch. "Of course." "When the CTs hear the Navy is coming they get out the bottle and dance". What he meant was that the jungle canopy quite protected the CTs from anything we could do.
On Sunday 2nd September we enjoyed what we little suspected would be our last piece of fun for quite a while, a boat picnic to Peak Island in Singapore Roads. A curiosity on landing was a deserted Chinese temple (or love nest?) carrying a brass plaque inscribed in English "erected by Lye Kee Fook". Our hostess had I think been brought into our orbit by our newly-promoted Sub Lieutenant who had been fishing at Braddell Rise, a sort of bungaloid barracks for female Foreign Office cryptography staff. These girls were all Positively Vetted which usually meant that their fathers were Army officers and that they had been to a pukka girls' Public School. The ladies - some new ones - were promptly signed up for Sunday evening on board in Singapore in two weeks' time.
We were then sailed for Penang where the Gunroom spent a very enjoyable week as a female friend from a previous visit rounded up her chums to help entertain us.
On the way up to Penang, and while there, I and another had four days with the Supply department, partly with Chief Cook Baker in the galley and partly with Chief Cook Cook in the bakery. Newfy like other big ships always had fresh bread for herself and any starving small ships that might be in company. Some of the time I was below being shown round the ship's storerooms. This was just a tiny bit unpleasant as the ship was doing a full power trial at the time and the store rooms felt as if they were made of rubber (a relic of Newfy being fished by an Italian torpedo that had blown her stern off in 1943). We made only thirty knots on four shafts; Russian cruisers could do 35 on two! - we ended the trial with one boiler red-hot with sparks flying off it. You may not know it but steel CAN catch fire. I have no recollection of ever being seasick in Newfy - that was to change.
Boat Electrician's Log, Penang: "Lights reported not working. When I got down there the midshipman had thought of switching them on."
In the dogwatches the sailors were allowed to buy beer - two bottles per man (which made their daily alcohol intake up to about seven units a day). To make this possible the upper 4" magazine was given over to beer storage, from which there was some pilfering during storing. The magazine was immediately below the Marines' barracks; I say no more. Even so we had cases of ratings trying to smuggle beer on board on their own account.
We would now recognise the sun as another threat to health, but skin melanomas had then had little chance generally to develop, as the soldiers and sailors only started being allowed to work without shirts during the war. Some of the sailors were a sort of mahogany colour; I wonder what happened to them. The only control was that being unfit for duty through sunburn was a disciplinary offence.
An uncovenanted beneficiary of the rum issue was Charlie, the ship's monkey, who was often to be found in the starboard tube space, kept from straying by a length of codline secured from his waist to the overhead channel plating. Charlie eventually died, perhaps from too many well-meant sippers and titbits of tobacco.
From Penang, after the weekend, we sailed for Port Dickson, following something of a hiatus when our crane broke down so that I nearly had to make the 120-mile trip in the pinnace instead of in a cruiser. We felt our way into the harbour, with a motor cutter sounding ahead and leadsmen in the chains forward.
The place was something of a Duty Run for the officers although better news for some of the sailors, who were taken off to visit rubber estates, and given flights in the Army's Auster spotter aircraft. However one evening a British officer of the Federated Malay Regiment took three of us Mids to Malacca for a bit of night life. We were traversing a black terrorist area and I assumed each bush concealed a grinning CT just waiting to bag a terrified Midshipman, but maybe the rain put the CTs off their aim. We ploughed through dense jungle in such a torrential downpour that it stopped the wipers of our host's asthmatic baby Ford. When we got back a Sumatra was blowing, boat traffic had been stopped, and we had to put up in a chalet hotel on the beach until morning, Mids in a heap in one room, our host and his newly-recruited Local Acting Temporary girlfriend in another. Decently he picked up the bill..
On the Thursday we were told that our visit had been extended to the Sunday. We gave thought to all those popsies waiting for us in Singapore. However there was nothing to be done, no way to tell them that they were being stood up; we were effectively incommunicado.
Quite a crowd turned out to see us sail on the Sunday afternoon. We had a shock. On leaving harbour we turned to starboard and headed for the Indian Ocean. We were well clear of Sumatra before we were told that we were ordered to Ceylon. Even then it was not clear to which port we were heading.
It turned out to be Trincomalee. As we closed the coast we were overflown by an RAF Sunderland flying-boat from China Bay. "C-in-C's daughter come to spy out the Midshipmen" quoth Captain Hamilton. No such luck. Newfoundland was only to stay overnight, to fuel and load stores. There was no shore leave although the totally encircling bay, one of the finest warship anchorages in the world looked extremely inviting. It was certainly easier navigationally than little Port Dickson.
We were travelling in dead secrecy. It was (I was naive in those days) a surprise to be met by twentyfoot packing cases on the jetty with "HMS NEWFOUNDLAND ADEN" on them in huge capital letters. So that's where we are going, we thought. We hadn't been told.
We were sharing the bay with most of our East Indies Fleet - our sister cruiser Superb (Admiral Biggs' flagship), a destroyer, a submarine, and two Black Swan class frigates, Crane and Modeste who were to accompany us on our adventures. We were to relieve another Colony, HMS Kenya, in Aden so that she could return home. Back in the Far East our slightly larger Town-class sister Newcastle would be left to lick the cream and would be representing the Navy at the Melbourne Olympics. I mention all this, ship-name-dropping, to show that in those days we had, even in Peace, a measurable Navy, although at the time, with the paying-off of the battleships, we already thought the rot had set in. Oh, there was at least one Dido-class cruiser at Simonstown, where we had another Commander-in-Chief, with other "small ships" any one of which would now be accounted a major war vessel.
We were hard at it well into the middle watch with our storing and we sailed before Colours on 21st, accompanied by Modeste and a rather battered Crane, her bows stove in where she had collided with Modeste in a recent night exercise. We sent our Shipwright Officer (they, with their silver cloth distinguishing colour between their lace, disappeared when the Engine Room took over hull maintenance later) across by jackstay and he had her forepeak, or what was left of it, packed with cement made from ground-up furnace bricks, which dodge worked surprisingly well. We did not actually RUSH. I suppose we did the trip at eleven knots or a bit more, on cruising turbines with two shafts trailing; it gave just a pleasant breeze for bronzie-bronzie on deck. We saw whales, and waterspouts, and a flying fish carried out a flawless deck landing through Gil Alder's scuttle onto his bunk, while he was in it. You can cook and eat flying fish (a sort of winged version of a herring).
We passed Minecoi light on 23rd. We had plenty of time to brush up our stations and to muster and train the landing and boarding parties, and to exercise brain and brawn with quizzes and tug-of-war between divisions and messes. On 27th we raised Cape Guardafui and, at Action Stations, exercised Action messing whereby, to test the organisation, each man (or nearly each man) received a token wooden tiddy-oggy (Cornish Pasty).
On 28th September we entered Aden harbour, which we instantly regretted, as we drove smack into a sandstorm. Suddenly face, eyes, teeth, everything was full of gritty sand. Finally we were secured, abreast the oiling buoy with wires out to buoys forward and aft and the port anchor down so that we could warp off without tugs if necessary. Perhaps the local "help" (although mostly, on the water, Somali) was seen as of doubtful reliability.
It all went rather flat. While Anthony Eden and the brass deliberated and Mountbatten demurred we sat at our mooring and went ashore when we could in our boats. Ashore the Gunroom had the run of the (RAF) Officers' Club at Tarshine, a protected beach at Gold Mohur bay, and the Union Club. The beach had a shark net but there was a story that it sometimes had a shark IN it. We discovered all too quickly that Aden was a bachelor run although the Chief Crab had two charming daughters.
One of our contacts was a passed-over RAF Flight Lieutenant of Polish origin. One of our Officers made friends with his wife. This precipitated a drama. Well lubricated in the club, one evening he made his way to the RAF married quarters, rank on rank of MoD noddy boxes. Arriving at what he thought was his friends' quarter he walked in and found nobody downstairs. Weaving his way upstairs into the master bedroom, he announced in that breezy way that sailors have, "Get out you old b+gger it's my turn now". A large and humourless RAF sergeant rose up out of the bed. Our shipmate fled. Sarge complained.
The next morning all Officers' leave was stopped throughout the Navy in Aden. At breakfast the miscreant turned up in the gunroom for his usual starter (which was how nobody gave us a hard time about our wine bills). The story broke and we all realised who it was, except the anti-hero of this story who didn't remember any of it. The Fleet waited. Finally the finger homed in and he was rapidly flown back to UK in some obscure medical category. Last heard of running an off-licence in Buckinghamshire.
Ashore there was nothing for the sailors who were surprisingly well-behaved. Aden's only curiosity was an execrable piece of botched taxidermy exhibited as a "mermaid". The locals fussed up to one - "Nasser good, Nasser good, wanna buy fountain pen?"
One evening I came down from the odd Horse's Neck on the roof garden of the Crescent hotel to find a bit of a commotion going on and a local with a scratch on his head pointing at a paving stone and shouting "my blood all come out". Officers don't, if they are wise, get mixed up in that sort of thing so I disengaged and went back on board. At noon I took over the pinnace for my day on. Corporal Nelson's chest was puffed out. "You know that punch up by the Crescent last night Sir? I started it." Carry on, Corporal. I have difficulty believing that a smack with a paving slab from a Royal Marine would leave the recipient standing around complaining about it.
The 'Unofficial' Chinese traders on board began to get the wind-up. The cobblers packed up and went aboard our store ship, RFA Fort Charlotte, for passage to Singapore. Their normally flawless buzz machine was out of order. Fort Charlotte stayed around and eventually, on our return passage, we overtook them, by then in a tug, which they had not enjoyed one bit, and recovered them by jackstay. The Lower Deck was getting restive (Aden was a truly lousy run for Jack). We were detailed to take the Governor on an official visit to Mukalla, capital of the then East Aden Protectorate, so we busied ourselves about and put to sea.
Mukulla turned out to be one of my most bizarre ship visits. It is a waterless trading port on the southern coast of the Arabian peninsula. Apart from sand, and a ramshackle fort, there seemed to be nothing there. We started with an 11-gun salute to the local sheikh, belatedly answered by muzzleloading cannon (fortunately not shotted) in the fort. This was then repeated for the British Resident who came off to us in a home-made cutter, propelled by a crew of local police using round-bladed paddles of a type used by the houri canoes in Aden harbour. Then 17 guns for the Governor as he departed on his calls. The Resident was offered a lift back in the Captain's motor boat. Misunderstanding the etiquette (too many old novels) he clambered into the sternsheets and got his foot stuck in the cleaning bucket.
At this point we lost all power on the ship. All our intakes had been blocked by jellyfish. We tried to shift them by dropping charges although first we had to explain (not easy), to all the odds and sods goofing from local canoes and trying to flog us rubbish from bum-boats, what was intended. The first charge finally did the trick, clearing the goofers - but not the jellyfish, which are virtually incompressible in water. However the exercise yielded some other fish, most of which were grabbed by the bum-boat men although the Gunroom managed a fine Grouper.
We sweated through the weekend, with very little water as our condenser inlets had repeatedly to be cleared. The sailors were offered a swimming trip. A truck that looked as if it was one of Lawrence of Arabia's left-overs appeared. The lucky selected sailors were bumped miles into the hinterland. The pool was green with slime, and had camels drinking from it.
We returned this hospitality by being Open to Visitors. The local police came, and other locals (men only), in robes garnished by vicious-looking daggers, which reminded me of nothing so much as the one my father took off an Arab in Palestine in 1938, which piece of persuasion required sticking it into the Arab (the Arab had tried to stick it into him), so you may be assured they work. What the visitors got out of it I don't know, but they were very polite, and at the end one pulled a flute out of his robes and they all did a graceful thank-you dance on the quarterdeck.
Somebody must have sounded a note of caution as we had upper-deck sentries (unarmed) posted at night. Perhaps that was just to protect against pilferers. We weighed on Wednesday morning and fled the jellyfish just as soon as we had recovered the Governor. On return we were allocated to a new berth, stern to buoy, two anchors out forward and pointing down harbour so that we could make a quick getaway, but with so little water under our hull that there was some rather feverish sounding going on aft while we were securing. By now it was 10th October; something was up; like the swan we glided along but paddled manfully where it could not be seen. For the first time we headed into the Red Sea. The French lent us some islands off their part of Somaliland for a bombardment practice. Then we proceeded to Kamaran island, which lies about a hundred miles up the Red Sea from its entrance, the straits of Bab El Mandeb, at what was then the northern end of the Aden Protectorate at its border with the Yemen.
Anchored, Hamilton dealt by warrant punishment with three hands who had jumped ship, in plain clothes, in the motor cutter. They had I believe intended to desert via an American merchantman then lying at Aden. Warrants, signed off by someone senior to a Commanding Officer, were used for sentences such as detention. When read, Lower Deck would be cleared - the whole Ship's Company paraded - and the Articles of War would first be read, the audience bareheaded in salute.
At Kamaran we put our Landing Party ashore and the seamen fought a mock battle against the Royal Marines. The Lieutenant commanding the seamen, shouted "Follow me, Men" in best Boys' Own Paper fashion and charged forward. I'll bet he thought he was a good kid. The seamen, worldly wise, followed at the correct distance to get a good view of their leader charging over a cliff and breaking his ankle. He was hors de combat with his leg in plaster for some weeks.
The tactical scheme included building a hut for a gun's crew, and provisioning it and so forth. We would have landed a bofors but the our state of readiness would not allow this. This scenario turned out, we were to discover later in Hong Kong, to be a pet game of Captain Hamilton's.
The Marines were led by Pete Forrow, a good hand and an accomplished artist who used to muse in his cabin painting ever more beautiful nudes of his wife. As OCRM he had, by tradition, nothing to do and fifty bullocks to do it, organised by Sarnt Major who needed no prompts from an officer. Pete was a friend of the gunroom and also used to keep the rain off us somewhat. He used to say he had taken a commission after finding that, as an ordinary Royal, he had to hump the Officers' Mess garden around in his pack in North Africa.
Kamaran was run by a British resident who was said to have, by taking the appointment, avoided other consequences. Resupplied with gin he departed happy. In the anchorage - miles from anywhere - was a Russian cargo ship presumably unloading arms and mischief to our intended detriment, and that of the then Royal government of Yemen. Kamaran is now, allegedly, a tourist resort.
John Hamilton always had his eye on us Midshipmen and always saw to it that we were involved in the ship's activities. This included twice making us take Divisions without our officers, and when seaboats were to be exercised, ordering one to be crewed by the Gunroom. Apart from our boatcoxing we were always given our head and for instance hoisted and lowered our boats with the ship's crane without supervision. Hamilton liked exercise, for himself and for others, and liked to have a Midshipman for company when he strode up Shamsan, Aden's 1725 foot peak, in broiling tropical sunshine. Avoiding being that Midshipman took no little guile.
We were getting other useful life experience in the Mess. The Sub had shipped his second stripe and disappeared into the Wardroom, our seniors had gone following their Fleet Board in July, and it was up to us to run our mess and to fill all the posts of Wine Caterer and so forth that were needed to keep it running. This might seem quite a challenge for nineteen-year-olds but as ever there was a Navy Way to do things. Down in our minute compartment we were a proper Officers' Mess, where at dinner it was our cherished privilege, given by William IV, to drink the Loyal Toast seated, quite apart from learning the drill regarding decanter stoppers. Mr Vice, The Queen!
We also joined in Wardroom functions, for instance helping to host the At Homes or cocktail parties (to the sailors, cake and arse parties) in ports we visited. This gave us a chance to talk to dignitaries and functionaries that we should otherwise never have met. I recall receiving a very detailed briefing on Penang's share of CTs (forty, we catch one occasionally) at our party there. I wish I had known then about one of my great-great-great-grandfathers being Secretary to the Governor there. I could have dined out on that.
It was quite convenient not to have a Sub in the loop between me and the Snotties' Nurse, who basically let me get on with everything. One custom we dropped was the after-dinner relay race out of the scuttle, up the ship's side, along the quarterdeck and down into the gunroom again. Not in harbour, at sea. If the Officer of the Watch had known this was happening during his watch I think there would have been a real nausea (a favourite phrase of ours) about it.
The Army also had a problem keeping its hands amused. It had at least two battalions - Cameron Highlanders and Durham Light Infantry - cooling their heels in Aden. We used to take parties of these to sea with us and in return were lent a piper to play us in and out of harbour. Their officers discovered our bar which I think they thought was free. As gin was 7/- (35p) a bottle if bought straight from the storeship - whisky 12/- (60p) - our real worries were being run out of ginger ale, or ignorant land animals ordering expensive beer.
Hearts and minds with the locals continued. One timeless Navy activity in this respect is the Children's Party with swings on the gun barrels and the sailors dressed up as pirates. The sailors seemed to get as much out of this as the children. We had a large wooden slide and other cumbersome accoutrements to support these parties. Out of use they lived with all the Chief Boatswain's Mate (Buffer)'s other mundungus in the anti-blast flares which a kind constructor had fitted above the 4" mountings. The flares also contained the Flotanets, huge nets with cork floats, which had replaced the Carley Rafts that used to be supplied for lifesaving, but which cost many lives through exposure of soaked bodies to Arctic winds.
In between whiles we spent days at sea exercising with the frigates and honing our war-skills of every sort. Quite apart from the contemporary urgency it was then down to each Captain to work up his own ship. There was little help from shore staff in Singapore; there was no shore staff at Aden, only a snowed-under Resident Naval Officer now trying to keep a very large number of unfamiliar balls in the air without losing his own.
Our Captain was not the type to miss the least opportunity for training. We trained the Action team, we trained the Defence Watch teams, we practised seamanship exercises like towing, we fired HE and Starshell, we fired at floats, danbuoys, rocks, rocket flares, we fired small arms at a towed splash target - what do you sailors find to do when you are just steaming round the ocean?
We had been joined by two National Service midshipmen. They took some digesting as they completely opted out of our training programme and made it clear that now they had their patches it was downhill for them. And they didn't take kindly to discipline or being disciplined. Socially they slid in very well though and when it came to parties, well, this was what they HAD joined for.
We acquired a new trophy. It was Modeste's Battle Honours board, a large carved wooden plaque carried by every ship recording the battle honours of herself and her predecessors. Martinique, China, Java, Crimea, Egypt - Modestes had done their bit. Their Officer of the Day, fearing for his neck, did his nut. Point made; we returned it.
We paid close attention to our lectures. Instructor, to the class that is supposed to be working out an example using the Nautical Almanac: "When do we get Sunrise and Sunset?" Midshipman, wide awake: "In the morning and evening."
With the clouds closing in, we landed our Australian and Malayan messmates, and some Malay and Pakistani ratings who were on board for training, as their Governments were not in on Eden's little picnic party.
On Sunday 28th October the Gunroom took the whaler, under sail, round to Gold Mohur beach. Coming back we were becalmed, and, too lazy to pull, hitched a tow from the motor cutter. When we got back alongside the ship there was a fine panic on and lots of "Where the hell have you been?". Besides steam coming out of our new First Lieutenant, there was smoke pouring from the funnels.
Decanting our lady guest, whose sandshoes were found later under the bottom boards of the boat as a sad reminder of what fun real life was, we were rapidly hoisted. We rather assumed our usual Sunday Guest Night was off, but no, we were sailing IN SECRET; Wardroom and Gunroom would entertain as usual and then shift out of mess jackets and sail at midnight. It was rather like the Duchess of Richmond's ball before the Battle of Waterloo. Or perhaps we were deemed to have time to finish our game of bowls.
We cracked off up the Red Sea at twenty knots and the next morning were bidden shift into Action Working Dress. This flummoxed some of the officers who had long since stopped bothering to cart that sort of kit - denim trousers, flash-proof shirts - around with them. It might have been "Anyone for tennis?" for some of them rather than "Hands to Action Stations". Scratch (the Captain's Secretary) even turned out in a silk shirt. We were then issued with lifebelts, and lights for the same, and First Field Dressings to be carried in our respirator haversacks. Even the dimmest began to think Something might be Up.
Keeping loose station on us was the Daring-class heavy destroyer Diana. We rigged and adjusted our lighting at night so as to look as far as possible like two merchant ships.
By now we were under the command of C-in-C Mediterranean (Admiral Sir Guy Grantham) whose instructions (which reached us via Vancouver - no satellite comms in those days) were interpreted as orders to seek out and destroy the Egyptian Navy. Communications were a continuing problem and a rendezvous signal to bring our tanker, RFA Wave Sovereign further north never reached her.
A midnight 30th/31st the balloon went up and we cracked on to full speed. On the Wednesday 31st we went to cruising stations, with anti-aircraft readiness (4" and Bofors manned) by day and surface readiness (6", and one 4" per side for starshell) by night, on a three-watch system, assuming we should have the time to go to full Action Stations if required. That afternoon Newfoundland had to fuel Diana, with consequences for Newfy later.
All our radars started to show signs of strain. At least one would usually go off the board when the 6" were fired and fires in the sets were not infrequent. That's just the way radar, with its rather warm thermionic valves (valves, Grandpa?) was in those days. We also used to get odd anomalous propagation effects (anaprop), whereby echoes from very distant objects would return after the pulse had been repeated. The result was that a target at, say 200 miles, would paint as if at 100 or closer. In this way we even at one point "saw" our Mediterranean Fleet doing its rather more publicised thing off Port Said.
For all of this period I stood my watch in the Air Direction Room (ADR) and had a pretty good idea of what was going on, even if I could not see out.
It was Hallowe'en. At dusk on 31st we went formally to Action Stations. In the ADR I could hear the war-cries over various broadcasts.
"Six-inch closed up, cleared away"
"Four-inch closed up, cleared away" and so forth.
"This is PCO [Principal Control Officer]. Policy SURFACE. Provide HE fuzed DA [Direct Action]. Lookout bearings standard. GDR [Gun Direction Room] directing. All positions STAND TO!" We were then stood down to "Action Stations Relaxed" and a proportion were allowed to curl up and caulk where they could. The other ADR Mid. sloped off to the Radar Display Room, an annexe of the ADR, and settled down for a night's sleep in a quiet corner.
For some while we just roared along with nothing happening. Then on the Armament Broadcast "LOAD THE HOISTS!"
We had been tipped off that an Egyptian warship was thought to be laying mines in the area and then that one was bullying neutral merchantmen. Captain Hamilton, who obviously knew much more than he could let on, studied the plot. Pointed to a contact. "That one looks fishy".
Then: "Six-inch Surface, Red 40" "Director Radar" "Six-inch, Broadsides!" "All guns with HE/DA and Full Charge LOAD LOAD LOAD!" Gun Ready lamps come on: "Six-inch Radar" "ENGAGE!" "Fixed sight procedure" (Blimey - this is close) "SHOOT" Ding-ding on the fire gong WOOMFAH!
The whole ship shook as I had never felt her shake before. We were firing on the beam with the guns almost horizontal. Away went a nine-gun, full charge, full-calibre cruiser broadside of 130 pound High Effect shell, smack into the bridge structure of the Egyptian frigate Domiat, about 1400 yards away.
It wasn't quite as straight forward as that. For a start there had been some hectic ordnance work in the Director where the main sight had been in pieces all the afternoon. Then the Gunnery Officer couldn't believe he was really being asked to fire at an actual ship and Hamilton had to order him to Open Fire. What someone with an attitude like that was doing in Gunnery goodness knows; Hamilton got rid of him as soon as he could afterwards. At "SHOOT" there was a further hiatus as the Midshipman in the Director couldn't see the target. He could see a ship, just, but not the large rectangle of canvas he had been carefully drilled to expect. Shouts from the Transmitting Station, far below, of "Pull the f'cking trigger" put this right.
Meanwhile the Domiat, illuminated by our 20" Signal Projector, had acknowledged our signal to 'Stop or I Fire' - L in International Code - but was visibly turning towards us. Rather fresh for a Gyppo. We could see their hands running to man their guns - puny 4" - so there was some urgency to get one in first. Domiat's Officer of the Watch later said that she saw us just before we illuminated her and he confirmed that she had turned to ram.
However with the first broadside we settled in and every ten seconds there was the CRASH! of anther one, beautiful rhythm. This was the music of my Country's guns and no sound would ever be so sweet again. As Lord Fisher put it "What we want is Gunnery, Gunnery and more Gunnery!"
As the geometry changed and the bearing drew forward the odd cry - "Y turret will not bear" but the job was being done. Our next broadside smashed into Domiat's bows and ignited her paintshop so that her bows glowed cherry red in the dark night. Diana, astern, had seen Domiat turn and got in seventeen rounds of 4.5" from her A and B. As we closed the range the 4" and Bofors joined in and the Captain of one of the port Bofors later received a DSM for his good work hosing Domiat's deck down with 40mm. Y turret was able to join in again later.
After five minutes or so, at 0130, and after 51 rounds of 6" in nine broadsides we checked fire because the Domiat was visibly sinking. She capsized and sank five minutes later. We picked up two Egyptian officers out of the water, and Diana recovered 67 other survivors, but then we decided that hanging about in the area might be silly because of the MTB threat, so asked a nearby South African merchantman - what must they have thought about all the pyrotechnics? to see if they could find any more people in the ocean. She was one of a large number of merchant ships getting out of the Gulf of Suez just as quick as they could.
Hole made by Egyptian 4" round (click to enlarge)
There had been the odd extra bump within the rhythm of our broadsides. Our searchlight, necessary for the Bofors, had of course given Domiat a prime aiming point and she managed to get two 4" rounds inboard. One wrecked the (unmanned) Pay Office sending shards into the NAAFI canteen below and making rather a mess, and one entered the cinema and exploded, blowing the head off Sewsew's boy and wounding another Unofficial seriously and a Chinese steward more slightly, and sending a splinter into the Master-at-Arms who was escorting a cell prisoner (it is customary to let prisoners out of cells in action). Also, a ricochet of a piece of an Egyptian 4" round injured a Marine there in the leg at the port 4", a 20mm round winged the RM Bandmaster who was the port 4" Officer of Quarters, and another cracked a wardroom sidelight. An SBA was also slightly injured. Domiat had put up a cracking good fight but had no chance against something like twelve times the weight of her own metal. She had started life as the British River-class frigate HMS Nith. She was the last warship ever to be sunk by traditional warship gunfire. She lies at approximately 28'34'N, 33'18'E. PoWs confirmed that Domiat had been carrying mines.
History students will notice that this all took place before the start of Suez proper, although the French cruiser George Leygues was already supporting, by 6" bombardment, the Israeli advance in Gaza (for the actual landings at Port Said our Government had banned our own ships from using 6" in case too many Egyptians got hurt and our troops had to make do with our destroyers' 4.5"). Interference with neutral shipping was an act of piracy, and so far from cossetting Domiat's people as PoWs we could quite legitimately have hanged the lot from the centre gun of B turret.
The party over, Action Stations relaxed and the odd ghoul from the ADR went down to the cinema in search of bits of shell as souvenirs. There was much conversation as the story of what had happened passed around. The Mid. in the RDR woke up and came into the ADR. "What frigate?" He had slept right through the whole thing.
At home, in spite of the treasonable snivelling of the Guardian and the Observer, most of the press was pretty pleased with us and we had our moment, with banner headlines in the Dailies, including the Herald and the Express, - NAVY CRUISER SINKS NASSER FRIGATE etc. Poor Diana got never a mention - not even from the Defence Secretary in the Commons - although she had manfully served her guns.
Newspaper headline (click to enlarge)
The situation was well summarised in a signal from one of the merchantmen that Domiat had been harassing to our Commander in Chief in the Mediterranean (into whose charge we had passed) later on, in January: 'Following received from Master of [BP tanker] Nassarius: "Now that all clear may I on behalf of the Nassarius express our deepest thanks to yourselves and a certain vessel mentioned on the BBC News [=Newfy], we had nineteen extra men and women British and Dutch on board at time who would all wish to join in our message of Thank You" ..
Next day Diana jackstayed over her prisoners to us - some rather battered - and we stowed them below, ratings in the cinema and officers in the gunroom. The transfer was rather hairy as we got a bit close to Shadwan Island and had to stage an emergency breakaway. Some of the more damaged survivors had to be slung across in a big canvas bag. Diana had fitted the prisoners up with overalls and gym shoes; we produced blankets, and a few towels and razors, and put them under guard in the cinema. The officers were billeted in the gunroom and were also lent camp beds and issued with cigarettes. Guards were provided by the centre gun's crew of Y turret.
The Egyptian ratings made a fuss about being all shoved in together as their artificers didn't like being messed with peasants, and vice versa, but we told them to shut up and get on with it, as the Geneva Convention makes no provision for separate accommodation for different sorts of non-commissioned ranks. The officers were as good as gold and when they left the ship had a whip-round for their RM guards. After five days we sent all the PoWs across to Diana in the pinnace. After our man in Khartoum refused permission to land them at Port Sudan, and the Governor refused to have them in Aden she took them down to Djibouti - nice run ashore for her people to make up for missing out on the glory - and handed them over to the French. This the Egyptians did not like at all. I had a neighbour later who had been a PoW of the (Vichy) French in North Africa who said he preferred the Germans. Some two months later, in the New Year when Newfoundland was in Djibouti, a plaintive message arrived on board for the OCRM as the war was long over and the French showed no sign of sending their captive Egyptians back home. They had sent to our OCRM as the only person they knew that they could regard as a friend. Whether he was able to help in a rather political situation history does not relate.
One problem was the disposal of the body of Sew-sew's boy. Number One Boy wanted us to clear all the beer out of the wardroom fridge and put the corpse in there, and take it back its ancestors in Hong Kong. Three months without a fridge didn't appeal so there were negotiations. In the end we were allowed to bury the poor lad at sea.
At about this point the Unofficials got really windy and the laundry crew downed tools. Stokers were put in to man the laundry. Number One Boy showed them round the machinery. NONE of it worked. ALL the ship's laundry had been done by hand for months. The Chinese preferred it that way.
Meanwhile the RAF went in and bombed the Egyptians' air bases and our people were told that the Egyptian Air Force had been destroyed on the ground. This was certainly true for part of it. However about fifteen of her Russian-supplied Il-28 Beagle bombers escaped in a flock to sanctuary in Saudi Arabia two days later, so the Crabs clearly missed some. I know this because I watched on radar the Beagles flying past us.
The Israelis swept into Sinai in a blitzkrieg. Unfortunately our Black Swan class frigates Crane and Modeste looked like, very like to the military eye, a River. Crane, patrolling in the Red Sea, lay off shore watching a tank battle. Suddenly she was bounced by a flight of four Israeli F-84 Thunderjets (wrongly reported as Sabres - C minus for aircraft recognition) who shot her up with 20mm and rockets. Crane managed to down one of these as they flew away. She had taken quite a lot of upperdeck damage and her people had taken several splinter wounds which Modeste's doctor was jackstayed over to patch up. Crane had been caught absolutely cold and her Gunnery Officer later told me that he had had difficulty pressing the alarm buzzer from a prone position, because his Captain was lying on top of him on the bridge. Crane was the only HM Ship (or perhaps anybody's ship) to be attacked from the air between the Kamikazes of 1945 and one attack on HMS Kenya off Korea, and the Argies of San Carlos Water in 1982.
Basically Crane got bounced because she was too close inshore and her guard was down. The Israelis would have known that Domiat had been dealt with but may have thought that Crane was the Egyptian ex-River Class Rashid, normally patrolling the Gulf of Aquaba who in fact had tucked herself away at Sheik Hamid, in Saudi Arabia just inside the strait of Tiran ('gone to earth in a Saudi Arabian burrow' - Hamilton), or the Aboukir, stationed at Adabiya in the Gulf of Suez itself along with a small squadron of MTBs. The function if the Rashid was to operate an entirely illegal blockade of Israel. Similarly the Aboukir was part of Nasser's equally totally illegal prevention of Israeli shipping using the Suez Canal, contrary to International Law.
This episode made us rather jumpy about stray aeroplanes, particularly as our metric airguard radar (Type 960) could not be relied on in close proximity to land. On one occasion we got very excited about an aircraft tracked diving on the ship. We went to Repel Aircraft stations (sounded on the main broadcast, on the bugle - there's a tune to stir the blood) but fortuitously power was put on Young Joe's port 4" Director while the training locking bolt was still in place, and the director jammed. I say fortuitously rather than infortuitously, as out of the clouds came a white DC-3 with UN markings. We would have shot it out of the sky blind. Dakotas are easier meat than Thunderjets. Later in the month we tracked a contact coming straight towards us from the west at 260 knots. There was some relief when it proved to be a Trans-World Airways Constellation. There would have been relief in the aircraft, too, if its passengers had known what was nearly unleashed on it from below.
After the frigate action we had withdrawn to a patrol line running approximately north-east from Shadwan, which covered the approaches to both the Gulf of Suez and the Gulf of Aquaba. We were called to assist a Shell tanker, the Borus (oddly, the B on its bow was painted back to front), whose Egyptian crew, emboldened by Cairo Radio's account of Nasser's victories, and worrying about their families back home in Suez, were feared to be possibly intending to mutiny against their British officers. We sent across our Boarding Party and eventually left a picket of a leading hand and three on board which effectively sorted that nonsense out. We also gave her some food on the ensuing Saturday but I'm not clear how she had come to run out. Annoyingly the National Service Midshipman coxing the motor cutter (not his fault, there was a sea running, but we had no motor seaboat) managed to crumple its quarter while he was coming back alongside. I mention this trivia to show that some of our National Servicemen had a rich character-building experience.
We now settled into a patrol routine or so we thought. On 2nd I decided on an early night, as I had a watch coming up. I was just nodding off when at 2115 the Action Stations alarm sounded, a penetrating high-low, high-low note like a police siren. I grabbed lifebelt and respirator and tumbled up to the Bridge structure as fast as I could. Crossing the upper deck in the dark I tripped over a 4" round and measured my length in a sprawl among all the Royal Marines' 4" ammunition. I scurried away from the resulting abuse as fast as I could.
The Operations room had been tracking five echoes coming up on us at 36 knots. As we turned south and increased to full power they appeared to be carrying out a copybook MTB torpedo attack; the Egyptians were known to have had a force of about five MTBs at Adabiya. At 2145 we engaged with Y turret which had the chief effect of knocking out the High Definition Surface Warning radar which had only just recovered from its usual attack of the vapours during the frigate action. The after 6" Director Type 274 radar DID pick up a target but the 4" directors' Type 275 could not "see" anything. We tried using a 20" Signal projector to illuminate the sea (inadvertently shining it right down the ship's side) and we fired off some starshell to see what we could. Nothing was ever seen by anyone's eyeball but the radar picture could not be ignored. We started blazing away with everything that would bear. The Royals in Y turret established a record for the 6" Mk 23 for the maximum number of shells in the air per minute from that type of mounting.
A passing merchantman nearly got the benefit of our attentions when it was thought that it might be a control vessel. It rather rapidly put on its navigation lights. As the contacts closed to two miles we opened up with Bofors. The cacophony was incredible, even inside the ADR. On the Gun Direction Platform, the First Lieutenant, I fear, rather got the wind up with a cry of "They're firing back" which turned out to be our own 6" bursting on the water, and of "Torpedo Attack" when the 4" fired into the sea rather close to the ship. Confusion was total. The next day we looked at the damage. A turret, firing right on the stops, had blown the B gundeck ladder clean over the side. Y turret had smashed all the crockery in the cuddy and brought down all the packing on the wardroom deckhead and had sprung some of the planks on the quarterdeck. The after cabins were a shambles.
The debate about whether there really was anything there raged for years. One of the Gunroom, who spent his later career as an expert in such things, was adamant that it was all a freak of radar. However Nasser put out a press release which said:
"Anglo-French Navies attempted a landing in the Suez area and were repulsed by shore batteries and the Egyptian Navy, following which the Allied units withdrew south and were pursued by the Egyptians.
"The battle resulted in one British naval unit and one British troop carrier sunk and a third damaged".
This is the Reuter version of this farrago of rubbish so goodness knows what Cairo Radio put out in Arabic. I do wonder, if the Egyptian shore batteries did shoot at anything, what on earth (or on sea) it was. There was certainly nothing of ours north of 29 south. The Aden locals were quite convinced (and jubilant) that we had been sunk. When we reappeared they thought that was quite simple, we had been raised again and salvaged.
After these excitements and fast steaming we were very low on fuel. We crept down the Red Sea in search of our tanker, 180 miles to the South. We had to pump all our diesel over into the Furnace Fuel Oil tanks and even then had to reduce speed to 3 1/2 knots on one unit.
Mercifully the RFA, Wave Sovereign, had eventually steered north towards us - although condenser trouble had slowed her down to 7 knots - with her 7,500 tons of FFO which she was able to pump across at 450 tons an hour on two abeam rigs. We were six hours fuelling and took 1483 tons of FFO, 60 of diesel and 55 of fresh water off her. The Egyptian officer prisoners came up on deck to watch.
Right at the end where we are refuelling - the bodies in overalls are Egyptian officer prisoners.
On Tuesday 6th we were back in the Gulf of Suez with Modeste in company, sent to succour a crew of British engineers on a station at Abu Zenima, half-way down the western coast of the Sinai Peninsula. We closed the coast to drop them some supplies. We were a fine sight as both ships had broken out their Battle Ensigns, more I think to persuade any Israelis that we were friendly than for any other reason.
Nasser had now threatened to mine the Gulf of Suez so, caught flat-footed with no minesweepers East of Suez, we set about looking for suitable craft to take over. At lunchtime skunks (unidentified radar contacts) Oscar and Papa (with two others, one Italian) resolved as fishing vessels. Their ensigns were not Egyptian, but their papers were; and in spite of the pitiful pleas of the fishermen to take their fish but not their boats - their only means of livelihood - we put the crews on a third boat and took HMS Oscar and HMS Papa in tow. However Captain Hamilton decided, after a lengthy discussion with the Supply Officer as they pored over the Naval Prize Manual, that he might be without right under International Law in seizing the boats, since although large enough for deep sea fishing, it might be argued that they were coastal fishing vessels and as such immune from seizure. So Modeste took them into Ras Gharib, about 20 miles to southward of the place where we had captured them, secured them to buoys and struck their White Ensigns.
Now the cease fire sounded - Britain forced into submission by American financial blackmail in a decision Eisenhower later recorded as the worst foreign policy mistake of his Presidency - and the French turned up to "help". Their contribution consisted of two frigates, La Perouse and Gazelle, and a minesweeper, the Jasmine. Being diesel ships they were difficult to handle alongside and one nearly came inboard during a transfer. We were able from 12th to relax our routine somewhat, clearing guns - we had been driving around with everything loaded - and on 13th another RFA, Fort Langley (like all our "Fort" RFAs, a converted Liberty ship) - topped up our depleted ammunition.
Apart from chasing after a few wild geese, none of which came to anything, we kept busy with drills and shoots with Diana which had come back from her Djibouti jolly. We were a bit cautious about this, making sure there were no aircraft about, as reports of stray gunfire could - indeed would - have been gratuitously misinterpreted. Diana also tried a torpedo firing, which ended in a fiasco when the Gunroom were sent out in the whaler by the First Lieutenant to recover the tin-fish without any of the right gear. However one CANNOT so tow a torpedo floating vertically! The torpedo has to be captured in a special torpedo strop, which ships without torpedoes don't have, and brought horizontal - and then it will come along nicely.
Finally on 27th, after thirty days at sea and over a hundred jackstay transfers, we passed the Fairway Buoy and secured at Aden.
We received a very pleasant chocolate signal from C-in-C Med - ".. by your resolute action you have confined the Egyptians to harbour, sunk the only ship you came in contact with. .". Even better, the Gunroom also received a cheering letter of support, approval and congratulations from our girlfriend in Penang. Decent of her to write.
John Hamilton, a glowing recommendation from C--in-C Med speeding him towards his flag, went on to become a full Admiral and our last Commander in Chief in the Mediterranean. He died in retirement at Abbotsbury, Dorset in 1994.
Some jokes:
Ops Room: "Contacts.. " OOW: "Are they jumping?" Ops Room (puzzled) "Why?" OOW: "They're Frogs".
OOW: "Contact is classified Egypt" Ops Rm: "We've got news for him, Egypt's doing 070 seven knots"
"GDR, Green CP, why does your radar cut lamp keep going on and off?"
"This is GDR, probably because I keep putting my foot on it"
"This is Port CP, hearing someone blowing down the microphone loud and clear"
A reflection on Oriental dhobeying: "It's a sign that you have been in the Far East more than eight months - all your fly buttons keep dropping off. I'm on my second dose."
Sources:
National Archives, ADM 53/144737, log of HMS Newfoundland, November 1956
National Archives, ADM1/26764, Captain Hamilton's Report of Proceedings
Author's Midshipman's Journal
Reminiscences of various contributors to The Newfoundland Times & otherwise
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