Martlets
Cockthorpe Road
Langham/Holt
Norfolk, NR25 7BP

24 October 2006
Mr. Barry Turner,
c/o Hodder & Stoughton Ltd.
Hodder Headline
338 Euston Road
London NW1 3BH

Dear Mr. Turner,

I have enjoyed reading your recent book “Suez 1956”. The title caught my eye as soon as I saw it being reviewed in the Sunday Times recently. It seems that like you I was caught up in the event of the time as a National Serviceman. There was something I thought you might have liked to mention if you had been aware of it.

I have not researched the subject in depth, and so might have missed references to the action in which I by chance took part. Let me explain. During the year preceding the Suez affair I served as a midshipman and sub lieutenant in the Royal Navy attached to the 108th minesweeping squadron on patrol duties around Cyprus to prevent smuggling of arms etc to EOKA. My ship HMS Fenton a coastal mine sweeper was commanded by Lieutenant Commander Michael L. de Vere Hart second in command of the flotilla. As an officer under training I had performed various duties from gunnery, wardroom mess secretary, boarding and search, watch keeping etc.

After the seizure of the Suez Canal by Egypt in July our sea going program increased by the need to be proficient in any mine sweeping operations that might be involved in taking back the Canal. In particular we practiced “A sweeping” (A for assault) this is a specialised one shot only sweep ahead of any landings by the marines. We also initially practiced taking on board soldiers from one of the guards regiments. They were to take up positions behind sand bags on deck amid ship. From there they would be able fire their heavy machine guns in addition to the ships armament of a twin 20mm Oerlikon machine gun and a 40mm Bofors. This was at the stage where we thought we would be going into Alexandria.

The saga dragged on until Lieutenant Commander Hart as senior MS officer in the Eastern Mediterranean and his navigating officer were required to attend a briefing at Allied HQ in Nicosia. This must have been around mid/late October. Since it was my turn to be navigating officer I went along. I had never before or since seen so much gold braid, decorations and other paraphernalia of rank gathered together in one place. Frankly I don’t remember who they all were or if I ever knew. The gentlemen talked about bombing with Canberras, parachute drops all over the place and all manner of other activities. I dutifully kept my place next to my captain and wondered but at the same time fascinated that I should be privy to such top secret stuff. I started taking rather more than observer interest when it came to more details about the actual landing. The briefing officer simply commented that the British and French minesweepers would sweep ahead of the landing craft in their respective sectors. He further commented that we could expect 40% or higher casualties at this stage, partly because of the Naval 6 inch guns that we had left behind at the entrance to the canal when we abandoned it a couple of years earlier. The role of the MS108 flotilla ships based at the time in Cyprus was to join up with the allied fleet coming from Malta some where North of Port Said. Since Lieutenant Commander Hart was senior officer of this flotilla of five or six vessels he was in command. The role of making a successful rendezvous fell to me as navigating officer. The senior officer of the Royal Navy’s Mediterranean minesweeping force, Commander Templeton- Cotrell (name from memory) was coming from Malta in his ship HMS Sefton with the main fleet. He would then take command of the whole MS flotilla for the actual landings ahead of the landing craft going as close to the beach as possible.

Our minesweepers were based in Famagusta Harbour when not at sea, which we were most of the time. Our ships were almost the largest vessels that could get in there. (How this could ever be considered a forward base for a fleet of any size eluded me at the time and still does today). They did manage to get in some Greek cruise ships from time to time. That’s another story. About this time as part of the build up for whatever was going to take place HMS Theseus arrived and anchored off Famagusta. Incidentally I had done part of my upper yardman training in her and HMS Ocean when they were attached to the Home Fleet. We had to go alongside to pick up stores and ammunition from her. From the deck of a 360 ton minesweeper her 20,000tons did look impressive. I was somewhat amazed to see her nevertheless as in my recollection of her from 14 months earlier she had no armament at all and had long since given up her last aircraft. When I had served in her, the commanding officer had been Captain Myers VC., he had in the meantime been appointed Flag Officer Middle East with the rank of rear admiral. I mention this because soon after Nasser nationalised the Canal at the end of July, we were on patrol off Limassol in the first week of August. Rear Admiral Myers had his residence on the coast there. We were sailing past about a mile off shore when we were signalled and invited to come to lunch. The captain decided to take me with him. We were sitting down to an informal lunch served by his Royal Marine steward. Present at the lunch were Mrs Myers, an attractive woman some years younger than the Admiral, Lt. Cmdr. Hart and two civilians from the high commission. As we sat down, the Admiral looked at me and said “I remember you, you were on my ship last year. You nearly sank her when you altered course into the path of an oil tanker during an anti submarine manoeuvre going up the Firth of Forth” I was amazed that he remembered since I was one of many upper yardmen who were practising the duty of an OOW (Officer of the watch) on the bridge of HMS Theseus. The conversation moved on to the sole topic of the day, the Suez Canal. I did not say much until suddenly the Admiral turned toward me and said “what would you do about Nasser, Sub. (sub lieutenant)”. Astonished as I was, I said that I would immediately go with what ever ships and forces we had available and retake the Canal or forget about it. He practically jumped up with delight and called over to his steward to fill the glasses and said that’s what he keeps telling his higher ups to do, but they won’t listen.

As far as a base for moving troops Famagusta harbour was obviously inadequate. The only means were a couple of so called Z barges, with flat bottoms that could pull up to the quay and load a couple of trucks or 50 or 60 soldiers. I witnessed one such loading with a full military band. I just prayed that the weather would hold until they were all safely on board what ever vessel was waiting for them some where anchored in the bay.

In due course events moved forward and finally we were on our way. We did meet up with the main fleet much to my relief the following day. Command passed to HMS Sefton and we followed her and took up our place. We manoeuvred during the night so that before dawn we were in place to take up our “A” sweep formation. This consists of an inverted V with the lead sweeper at the apex streaming her sweeping gear so that the following ships are to some degree covered by the streamed sweeps of those in front. My job as navigating officer was to ensure that we kept our right place in the flotilla. Initially I could see from our open bridge the darkened ship in front by a very faint blue stern light. This soon became impossible so I had from then on to go to a very small compartment behind and below the bridge and where we had our Radar PPI . On the screen I could make out the coastline patchy in places as it was all very low lying and the mole and lighthouse at the entrance to the canal somewhat easier to identify. The first and only A sweep went well and I could clearly see on the radar where we were. There was some firing and I was told that a couple or so destroyers had come in somewhere behind and blasted some tanks on the foreshore in front of us who had it seems opened fire. Since we sustained no damage and no six inch shells came our way we were all much relieved. Some time early in the battle, Commander Templeton- Cotrell decided that he would go off and charge up the Canal on his own. His precipitous action had him very quickly stuck on a block ship that had been sunk near the entrance. This put him out of action and command of the whole flotilla now passed back to our ship HMS Fenton. For the next 48 hours we swept up and down the entrance to the canal with all the various anti mine gear we had from contact, acoustic and magnetic sweeps. We prayed that there were no pressure mines as we had no means of dealing with that. Finally we must have swept at least 10 times or more over the same area in case there were mines with delayed action devices. In the event there were no mines found. All this I was responsible for recording on a number of charts. My artistic creativity came into its own as I put many colours in to differentiate between all the types of sweep and the number of sweeps made. The captain whisked them all away and went to the debriefing probably on HMS Tyne 56 hours after we started our role. 24 hours later I surfaced as I had not slept in all that time. By then he had returned and told me that charts were much admired. How much easier it would have been if laptops had been in existence.

It seems that the 6” guns never fired as they had been supplied with 4.5” shells. I have often wondered if this was true. There were also some contact mines that had been incorrectly laid. They were never released from their anchoring devices. I was much impressed on going ashore and seeing the heaps of East European automatic weapons collected on the beach. To see the tanks that had fired at us and that had been knocked out by the destroyers and the devastated remains of the shanty town.

I do hope that you find this little vignette interesting, if there is anything more you would like to know about please let me know. The 14 months I spent in the Mediterranean I filmed on 16mm Kodachrome when ever I could and had the film available.

Yours sincerely





Rodney Farkas (In the Navy I used my full name of Fowler-Farkas)

PS. May I just point out that in the maps at the beginning of the book Romania is incorrectly labelled Hungary. It was of course European Coal and Steel community and not the European Canal and Steel Community (Page 265)