0N

MAY 9, 1945,when the lights ofBritain blazed in

celebration of peace,three sailors died and19 were wounded whentwo Japanese suicideaircraft crashed on tothe flight deck of HMSVictorious.

Another of the kamika-zes spread flame and de-struction across HMS In-domitable's deck. It wasthe second time in fivedays that she had been hit;on May 4 an enemyfighter-bomber had torninto her deck just as thecarrier was about tolaunch aircraft. The deckhad been crowded withaircrew and aircraft han-dlers. Eight had beenkilled and 47 wounded -13 suffering serious bums.

On VE Day one of the pilotscaught in that inferno lay dy-ing in the hospital ship Ox-fordshire

Except for the bereaved rel-atives - for whom the laugh-ter and singing in the streetsmust have rung hollow indeed-the savage incidents on theother side of the world wentvirtually unnoticed by the Bri-tish public. The Big News forthem was, understandably,

the end of the dangers, hard-

ships, heartache and drab te-dium of war on the doorstep.

It is also understandablethat the British Pacific Fleetand the East Indies Fleet areregarded by the men whoserved in them as forgotten,just as veterans of GeneralSlim's 14th Army in Burma de-scribe themselves as The For-gotten Army, using the termthese days with as much prideas regret.

PublicityIn a sense, the 600 vessels

and 250,000 menwhich Britainand the Commonwealth de-spatched to the Far East, asthe last embers of the Euro-pean war burned, were forgot-ten - for a number ofreasons.

Although they formed thelargest and most powerful na-val forces that Britain hadever sent to war, the USNavy's 3rd/5th Fleet in the Pa-cific was much larger andmore experienced in theatre.

Publicity of the role of theBPF had its difficulties. Oper-ating under US orders andwith lines of supply and com-munication stretching up to2,500 miles, there were ser-ious physical obstacles totransmission of the BPF's ac-tivities for home consumption.And unhappily the relation-

ship between the senior com-manders afloat and the em-barked press often left much

" 'I AM not certain that those at homehave any idea of what these lona ooeratinaperiods mean, nor of thethose in the ships, so mansofficers and men, areI look back on thatyouth has managedstick out, then I have

strain put onof whom, both

mere children. When

ton

of the Navy .. .' - VicRawlings, commanderPacific Fleet.

to be desired. In contrast tothe US Navy's polished treat-ment of the press, on Britishships there were - at first-no facilities for the transmis-sion of press copy at sea.

byAnton HanneyThis resulted in immediate

friction between the fleet'scommander afloat (Vice Ad-miral Sir Bernard Rawlings)and embarked pressmen. Theadmiral's renowned sense ofhumour failed him with regardto journalists, his attitude tothe news media being encap-sulated by this (later) com-ment from his flag lieutenant:"No brighter red was evershown to a fiercer bull."

hich this untrainedaccomplish and too fear for the futureAdmiral Sir Bernard

afloat of the British

Apart from those problems,there was a conscious effortby the Americans to allocatesubsidiary roles to the BPF, atfirst because of the fleet's rel-ative inexperience, but finallyto ensure that no other nationshared in what they saw astheir right alone to exact re-venge for the May of Infamy"- the Japanese surprise at-tack on Pearl Harbor in 1941.

Though relations betweenthe British and US com-manders were close through-out, and founded on mutualrespect and personal friend-ship, the British were exclud-ed from the high-profile raidswhich specifically targetedthe major elements of the en-emy fleet which remained inJapanese ports.

Since Japan's onslaught in

1941-42, and until ate in 1944.British naval presence in thePacific was thinly spread withonly weak forces of the Eas-tern Fleet covering the IndianOcean and East Indies formuch of that time.

All the decisive bathes toregain ascendancy in the cen-tral Pacific had been plannedand fought by the USA, andalthough Churchill's offer of a"fast, powerful and balancednaval force" was acceptedwith alactrity by PresidentRoosevelt at the Quebec con-ference in 1944, the com-manders of the new BritishPacific Fleet were involved ina struggle - initially at least- to prevent the BPF beingsidelined away from the cam-paign's main axis, which rest-ed on the Japanese mainlanditself.

UnforgettableWhile weak publicity, and

subsidiary roles contributedto the feeling, which persiststoday, that the British PacificFleet andthe greatly strength-ened East Indies Fleet wereforgotten, in reality the partplayed by the Royal Navy inthe last 12 months of the warin the Far East is, paradoxi-cally, unforgettable.

It is remembered, of course,by the hundreds of thousandsof British families who weredirectly affected, several ofwhom were bereaved in themoment of victory; it is re-

membered by the Americans,old men now, from whom theBritish won respect andadmiration.More lasting, however, is

the historical contribution thattheBPF made towards the de-velopment of today's Navy. Itwas to a large extent forged50 years ago in the violentheat of a campaign in whichdistances were measured inthousands of miles by fleetsprojecting naval air power atits wartime zenith.The scale of the British Pa-

cific Fleet was remarkable. Itshundreds of ships includedaircraft carriers, battleships,cruisers and destroyers,which depended on anotherfleet .- of supply and repairships of every kind. It was notonly the largest fleet that Bri-tain had ever sent to war, butit had the longest lines of sup-ply of any major force in RoyalNavy history.

It was truly Commonwealthin composition, with two cruis-ers from New Zealand, a Ca-nadian cruiser, and one com-plete destroyer flotilla madeup of Australian ships. Therewere also many Canadian andSouth Africans among the air-crews, while some air squad-rons were made up entirely ofNew Zealanders.The great majority of the

men who served in the fleetwere "hostilities only" per-sonnel. In the escort carrier

" Turn to next page

1945 95Elli

Stories of survival amidHMS Ruler, for instance, thecommanding officer was theonly regular RN officer onboard when the ship joinedthe fleet, while there was apreponderance of RNVR offi-cers throughout the BPF'ssquadrons.

By the time the armada wasformed, Britain's naval build-up against the Japanese hadalready begun. Early in 1944,while the Royal Navy's role inthe Pacific was still the sub-ject of Anglo-American delib-eration, the first of more than100 vessels were sent to rein-force the Eastern Fleet basedin Ceylon.The new arrivals included

the carrier HMS Illustrious,two battleships and a battle-cruiser, which enabled the C-in-C, Admiral Sir James So-merville, to mountan air strikeon enemy installations on the

Sumatran island of Sabang.In July the carriers Victor-

ious and Indomitable joinedthe fleet, and took part in asecond attack on Sabang witha bombarding force of battle-ships and cruisers.When in the autumn the BPF

was formed, the victor of theBattle of North Cape, AdmiralSir Bruce Fraser, was appoin-ted C-in-C under AdmiralChester Nimitz, Commander-In-Chief Pacific Ocean.Admiral Fraser would re-

main at Sydney while thefighting ships would be underthe command of Fraser's dep-uty, Vice Admiral Sir BernardRawlings, flying his flag in thebattleship HMS King GeorgeV. Rear Admiral Philip Vianwould command the carriertask group.The BPF's fighting ships

would form a task force of theUS 3rd Fleet under Admiral

Halsey and the 5th Fleet un-der Admiral Spruance (the 3rdand 5th Fleets were titles forthe same fleet which changedits designation under a sys-temIn which Halsey andSpru-ance alternated command).Many of the ships of the for-

mer Eastern Fleet were trans-ferred to the BPF. Those re-maining formed the EastIndies Fleet under the com-mand of Admiral Sir ArthurPower. Both Fraser andPowerraised their flags in Novem-ber, 1944.

It had been agreed with theUSA that the BPF would beself-sufficient in all respects,therefore its size was gov-erned by the number of shipsthat could b taken up fromtrade to keep the fighting ves-sels supplied over the vastdistances involved.

Fuel shortageShortage of fuel would,

prove to be a constant head-ache for Admiral Rawlings, attimes causing him more prob-lems than did the enemy. Allre-fuelling and re-supply hadto be conducted at sea duringthe long weeks of operationaldeployment. And for that hehad to depend on tankerswhich were slower, fewerandless adept at the task thantheir American counterparts.The tankers were elements

of a Fleet Train which by VJDay comprised 125 vessels ofall types, shapes and sizesunder the command of RearAdmiral Douglas Fisher - re-garded by many as having themost arduous job of any Bri-tish admiral in World War II.

His stores, repair, hospitaland depot ships were basedon the uninviting island of Me-nus, in the Admiralty group, orin Leyte Gulf in the Philippinesfrom where fuel, spare parts,food, clothing, medical sup-plies and mail were shuttledto the fighting units.Mobile Operational Air

Bases (MONABs) were estab-lished at sites ashore, whilereplacement planes were em-barked in escort carriers fortransfer to the task force.

PalembangAt Manus, 2,000 miles from

the BPF's main HQ at Sydney,life was unpleasant. Thosemen of the Fleet Train not atsea suffered the island'ssteaming days and suffocat-ing nights. Rainfall was l5Oin,the humidity turning boots andclothing green with mildewwithin 48 hours.

Within ashort time of its for-mation, the BPF was makingits presence felt. Operatingthree fleet camera, the Britishwere asked by the Americansto strike at enemy oil installa-tions at Palembang, Sumatra,on their way to Sydney.

Air groups from KM shipsIllustrious, Victorious and In-defatigable mounted the lar-gest raids by the Fleet Air Armin World War II to seriouslydamage two of the most im-

BYTHE time Japan

surrendered, heronce mighty fleet

had been swept from theseas, and her highlyskilled aircrew dissipatedin grandiose misadven-ture.Their successors were

barely trained, fanaticalyoung men indoctrinated bybankrupt strategists to ig-nore the inevitability of de-feat by immolating them-selves and their aircraft onthe decks of enemywarships.Their inspiration was drawn

from the series of swift andcrushing victories enjoyed byJapan in the first six months ofthe war - days of glory forthem:the greatest defeats in themilitary histories of Britain andAmerica.Those hardest days were re-

membered, too, by many ofthemen in the British fleets that in1945 were helping to bring Ja-pan to her knees.

THE

I ")

--1-

/\ \

,,±...

" Minesweepers " Submarines " Carrier OperationsEThe Fleet Train

introductions byHRII Prince Philip. Duke of Edinburgh and

Rt Hon Lord Callaghan of Cardiff K(;

Please SUPI)I Inc \1/4 Oh .. Cot)iCS of (lie "Foirg~ll

publication£4.95 (+ £ un p&p) percopy. I enclo.c a chcqucJpostai order for £..........Payable to ItrotI: Publishing Ltd

Name (NlrlMrx/Othcr)Addres.s.

'Cnd Co,,1'km OUOC so

po&aI cw,k

Brodie I'ubilshiiig I irnitedI10-1i4 Duke Street, Liverpool LI SAG.

Telephone: 0151 707 2323

ortant refineries in the Faralst. Fifty-two Avenger

bombers and 88 fighters tookpert in the operations onJanuary 24, and a further 128aircraft were involved in asecond attack the next day.

US respectThe site was strongly de-

fended by enemy fighters andanti-aircraft guns, and Britishlosses were high -41 aircraftin all, with 30 of their crewskilled or missing. Many les-sons were learned, not leastof which was the need for areserve aircraft carrier andspare air groups. However,Palombang did prove the BPFin battle and won from theAmericans a respect and ad-miration that was to grow forthe "Umeys" over the nextseven months.Meanwhile, in the Bay of

Bengal, the East Indies Fleetwas providing the means forthe 14th Army and 3 Comman-do Brigade Royal Marines toleapfrog down Burma's eastcoast in a series of amphi-bious landings aimed at cap-turing airfields and cutting offthe Japanese retreat via

Force Z

One such was P0 J. (.iaynoron board HMS Victorious. Thekamikaze attack on the carrieron May 4 brought back chillingmemories:

Just over four years before,he was among the first Britishsailors to get a taste ofJapaneseoffensive air power when hisship, HMS Prince of Wales,was sunk with the battlecruiserHMS Repulse. Both vessels, thebattle elements of Force Z, hadsailed out from Singapore onDecember 8. 1941 to attack a

" 'Over all this vast expanse of waters Japan wassupreme, and we everywhere were weak and naked'- Sir Winston Churchill.

up on the Japanese air fleet.Crozer then climbed to 1.00011and circledWhat followed was a perfect-

ly co-ordinated attack. Bomband torpedo hits on Prince ofVales knocked out her dcc-

tries, plunging the battleshipinto darkness and silencing hercommunications. Escapingsteam and smoke from the

- boilers stifled the atmosphere

1and she listed alternately. toport and starboard with the im-pact of torpedoes.His equipment useless, L/Tel

- Bernard Campion staggered1 out ofhis transmitting room by

Bill Crozer. - . Repulse'sthe light of a torch. Aroundhim in the battleship damageWalrus pilot. control and repair parties and

Japanese invasion fleet oil Ma- stretcher bearers struggled toIaya. Two days later the Japa- carry out their duties: ammuni-nese were over them with 61 lion handlers passed shells bytorpedo aircraft and 27 hand.bombers. Repulse had already beenAs the planes approached, sunk when the order was even-

Repulse's Walrus spotter air- tually given in Prince of Walescraft was in the air and circling to abandon ship. Campion andthe ship, seeking instruction via his shipmates climbed the lad-Aldis lamp on what to do about ders to the upper decks. It wassome small vessels she had not easy - by then the ship wassighted. almost lying on her port sideThe pilot, P0 Bill Crozer. and the young leading hand

dived his seaplane to sea level wondered whether he'd ever getas Repulse's AA guns opened out.

The lost ~me of HMS Prince of Wales...

.

passes to the lrrawaddyRiver.Supported by landing craft

and motor launches, thetroops waged war in the man-grove swamps of the Arakan,where lurked crocodiles, poi-sonous snakes, stinging in-sects, mosquitoes and -most dangerous of all - Jap-

=nesesoldiers at bay. As the

ps advanced south, theonly access to the sea wasalong "chaungs" - narrowtidal creeks winding throughthick mangroves up to 4011high.

During the six-month cam-pi n which ended in Mayrla9T5, Royal Marines werelanded on Cheduba Island,Burma in the only purely navalassault of the war.

With the build-up of surfacewarships, came more submar-ines, mainly S and T-class

boats. By March 1944 12boats were operating from thedepot ships HMS Adamantand HMS Maidstone along-side at Tnncomalee, Ceylon.By September Eastern Fleetboats had made 88 patrols tosink eight merchant ships,three submarines and acruiser for the loss of KM sub-marine Stratagem.

In that month Maidstonewas transferred to Fremantleto be depot ship to the 8thSubmarine Flotilla.

Although by then there wasa shortage of targets, the Bri-tish boats enjoyed a markedsuccess. Among the highestscoring of them was HMSStatesman which during ninepatrols destroyed or damaged44 enemy vessels. And onJune 8, 1945 HMS Trenchantsank the heavy cruiser Ashi-gara in the Banka Strait.

Midget submarines werealso used to good effect. InJuly 1945 two X-craft put outof action seabed communica-tions cables from Saigon andHong Kong. In the followingmonth XE-3 sank the Japa-nese heavy cruiser Takao inSingapore, a feat for which Ltfan Praser RNR and LS JamesMagennis were awarded theVictoria Cross.Submarine losses during

the campaign were not heavy.Apart from Stratagem, HMSShakespeare was damagedbeyond repair and HMS Por-poise was lost in January1945. She was the last Britishsubmarine to be sunk in WorldWar II.

By March 1945 the Ameri-cans were ready to launchtheir attack on Okinawa, an is-land 350 miles south of Kyu-shu and whose capture would

HMS King George V. Admiral Rawlings flagship, at Guam

II NAVY NEWS; 'AUGUST 1995

Grumman Avengers on the flight deck of an escort earner inthe Indian Ocean.

NAVY NEWS. AUGUST 1995 III

the greatest military defeats in British history. .

HARDEST DAYSHe emerged at the last min-

ute, just as the battleship wasslipping under. Despite his life-jacket, he was sucked downamid a mass of wreckage. Afterwhat seemed to him an age hepopped up to the surface, blackwith oil.A derrick boom had broken

one of his legs and he was cov-ered with bruises and deepcuts. He was helped into a liferaft by his shipmates beforebeing picked up by one of thefour Force Z destroyers. HMSElectra.

ExeterWith the Japanese seemingly

uninterested in his ancientlooking biplane. Bill Croicrwatched from aloft the destruc-tion of the first British capitalships to be sunk by aircraft.Eventually he headed

towards Singapore - but thatwas too far away for his re-maining fuel. Reporting hisposition in a mayday signal.Crozer landed in the sea wherethat night the destroyer HMSStronghold found the Walrusand crew and began an unu-sual, 12-hour tow to Singapore.Weeks later, when HMS Exe-

ter arrived short of an aircraftand pilot, Crozer was orderedto)oin her with his Walrus. Theship was detailed to escort eva-cuation convoys to Java and,keeping radio silence, the sea-plane was employed dropping

weighted messages on to thedecks of convoy leaders - untila Japanese air attack off Suma-tra damaged it.Crozer was disembarked in

Java and so by good fortune

Bernard Campion.. . wit-nessed Japanese brutality.escaped the sinking of thecruiser on March I. He even-tually made it back toCeylon

Bernard Campion and the2.080 other survivors of ForceZ were landed at Singaporewhere he was admitted to amilitary hospital. There, hisbadly fractured thigh was putinto plaster and suspendedfrom a beam by means of aweight and pulleys.

Just over two months afterthe sinking, Campion was still

in that situation when the Japa-nese arrived. The first troopsran amok through the hospital,bayoneting or shooting medicalstaff and patients.

Helpless in bed, Cam-pion could follow the ap-proach of the Japanesetowards his room by theshots, shouts, groans andscreams which accompa-nied their terrible progress.

When at last they burst intohis ward, one invading soldierwent over to a Gurkha in a bednear Campion's and repeatedlycrushed the butt ofhis rifle intothe man's wounded and ban-daged chest.Others found the position of

Campion's injured leg highlyamusing and tested the systemof pulleys by suddenly releasingand applying the weight.Although sutlèring excruciat-

ing pain as his leg bobbed upand down, the sailor musteredthe wit to smile and laugh withhis tormentors. That may haveearned him four years as a pris-oner of war rather than thedeath by bullet or bayonet thatwas meted out to 280 staff andpatients in the hospital thatday.Some other shipmates of

Campion's were more fortu-nate. P0 Gaynor, who hadbeen picked up covered in oilbut otherwise unharmed, was

set to man an anti-aircraft gunin Singapore.When it became clear that

the Japanese were likely to takethe colony. Gaynor and the restofthe gun's crew, led by an offi-cer, requisitioned a steamyacht, armed it with a l2lb&un, and headed for Sumatra.They coaled the vessel thereand, although on one occasionthey were on the receiving endofa hand grenade hurled by thepilot of a Japanese reconnais-sance aircraft, they, eventuallyreached Ceylon

Risky journeyMarine Bill Capseed was also

among those who made the tor-tuous and risky journey toavoid capture. Drafted to Sin-gapore early in 1941 to join thecruiser HMS Danae, he was lat-er posted ashore to join a NavalBrigade being formed to fightthe Japanese.

Just before the fall he wasamong a group who comman-deered a local steam vessel andheaded for Java. En route they,were bombed and machine-gunned, although they hadenough weaponry on board toshoot down one of theirattackers.

Lacking enough coal to keepthe boiler going, the groupburned tables, stools andwooden fittings. In this way

MW HMS pulss as *my $.ft singapore on their fatal mission.

" Turn to next page

after the Japanese govern-ment had capitulated - hewas murdered by his armycaptors.Sadly, he was not the last

FAA casualty of World War It.Nine aircrew who survivedbeing shot down over Palem-bang in the previous Januaryhad been held in Singapore.On or about August 19 - fivedays after the surrender -they were beheaded and theirbodies weighted before beingdropped into the sea from aboat.The formal surrender of the

Japanese was accepted byGen Douglas MacArthur onboard the USS Missouri in To-kyo Bay on September 2. Ad-miral Fraser, whose flagshipHMS Duke of York had joinedthe armada of 200 ships in thebay, signed on behalf ofBritain.

Mercy missionThe last task of the British

Pacific Fleet was one of mer-cy - towards tens of thou-sands of prisoners of war andcivilian internees, many ofwhom had suffered malnutri-tion, cruelty, sickness and in-jury at the hands of theircaptors.By the end of October, the

Allies had found, fed, clothedand repatriated 125,000 for-mer prisoners of the Japa-nese. The hospital ship Ox-fordshire alone left Yokohamawith 321 serious medicalcases. Hundreds of fitterpeople left in the escortcarri-ersHM ships Speaker andRuler.Formal surrenders at Singa-

pore, Penan9, Hong Kong and

-.-

.5

4

" - -j

HMS Exeter sinks as a result of shell and torpedo fire in the Battleof the Java Sea.

Kuala Lumpur followed theMissouri signing. But much toAdmiral Rawlings' disappoint-ment, the BPF was dispersedand denied a triumphal returnto Britain. He saw the "fadingout" of the task force as atragic let-down and one whichwould commit it to historicallimbo.

In an unsuccessful plea forat least a token force to returnintact to the UK, he wrote

enable land-based fighters tocover amphibious landings onthe Japanese mainland. Forthe Okinawa campaign theBPF was given an importantbut subsidiary task -Opera-tion Iceberg, intended to neu-tralise the airfields of the Sa-kishima Gunto islands, thuspreventing them being usedagainst the US assault fleet.

KamikazesBetween March 26 and May

25 five fleet carriers - Indom-itable, Victorious, Indefatiga-ble, Illustrious and Formidable- took part in Iceberg, mount-ingatotal of almost 5,000 sor-ties, delivering almost 1,000tons of bombs and the samenumber of rockets.Enemy aircraft destroyed

by the British force totalled104 for the loss of 98 aircraftwith 37 aircrew killed or miss-ing. The airfields of the Saki-shima Guntowere successful-ly denied to the Japanese.

It was during the Okinawacampaign that the kamikazestrikes reached their fearfulclimax. The Americans, whobore the brunt of it, sufferedterrible casualties.

In three mass attacks bymany hundreds of planesbetween April 6-16, the USNavy had two aircraft carriersso badly damaged that theyhad to be withdrawn. Threebattleships were damaged,four destroyers were sunkand four other ships were da-maged, as were 31 ships ofthe assault fleet. In one of thecarriers alone casualtiesamounted to 800.The BPF did not go un-

scathed. Although there wereno mass attacks on the Bri-tish, four of the five fleet carri-ers involved in Iceberg suf-fered hits: Indefatigable onApril 1, Formidable and In-domitable on May 4, Victor-ious twice on May 9 and, onthe same day, Indomitableonce again.The Americans were aston-

ished at the speed of recoverywhich the British showed inthe wake of such potentiallycrippling hits. Similar attackson wooden-decked US carri-ers usually meant withdrawalfor repairs in Pearl Harbor.

Although hits by suicide air-craft wreaked havoc amongparked planes, the Britishships' armoured decks gener-ally protected them from moreserious damage, and as littleas an hour after a strike, airoperations were resumed.

Carrier sunkAfter Okinawa, the next

major role for the BPF came inJuly and August when main-land Japan became the targetof the 3rd Fleet. Again, Britainwas given a subsidiary role,this time because the Ameri-cans seemed to want to com-plete the destruction of theImperial Japanese Navy with-out any help from theirfriends.The FAA's first air opera-

tions over Japan were con-ducted on July 17 when morethan 200 sorties were flown.

In subsequent attacks, BPFaircraft discovered the Japa-nese light carrier Kaiyo whichthey bombed and left in asinking condition. During 416

sorties that day they also de-stroyed two frigates, manyminorwar vessels and 15 air-craft for the loss of four oftheir own.Such strikes went on

throughout the rest of Juneand the first two weeks ofAugust, the FAA flying moreintensively than at any time intheir history, with shippingand airfields providing theirtargets.

Last VCOn August 9, the day the

second A-bomb was droppedon Japan, the squadrons flew407 sorties, sinking three des-troyers, a submarine chaserand many small vessels. Theydestroyed 42 aircraft on theground.One of the destroyers was

sunk by Lt "Hammy" Gray, aCanadian veteran of air raidson the Tirpitz, who pressedhome his attack even thoughhis own aircraft was ablaze.He was awarded a posthu-mous VC, the last VictoriaCross to be awarded in WorldWar II.Admiral Rawlings' length-

ened communications finallyleft him critically short of fuel,and most of his force had toretire on August 12, leaving atoken group comprising theflagship King George V, Inde-fatigable, two cruisers andtendestroyers.

In the small hours of August14 the last FAA raid on Japanwas flown from Indefatigable,during which Seatire pilot S/LtHockiey RNVR was forced tobale out over land. He wascaptured and later that day -

prophetically:"It may well be that the

days will come when the Navywill find it hard to get themoney it needs. Perhaps thena remembrance of the returnand the work of the British Pa-cific Fleet might have helpedto provide a stimulus and anencouragement to wean thepublic from counter attrac-tions and those more allur-ingly staged."

IV NAVY NEWS, AUGUST 1995

IRE~OVERY ANDF1ElrFli liisiEl 01Vi."'THE ROYAL NAVY had achieved undisputed /;command of the sea. They could and did convey the / _Army in safety wherever it was needed.'- Prime /Minister Winston Churchill on the culmination of the

/Burma campaign in 1945.

frICE ADMIRAL In addition 43 aircraft were .

'\TNagurno's damag-ing raid across the plete squadron of Swordfish

torpedo bombers-and severe E-,.-Indian Ocean with his damage was inflicted in a 11st Carrier Squadron - bombing raid on Colombo r'i '.including all but one of harbour.

1 Somerville's re-the six flat-tops that maining fleet of five elderly.

-

struck at Pearl Harbor- battleships and the carriers in-'

marked the westerly high domitable and Formidable. - -

tide of Japanese naval were forced to withdraw toBombay and East Africa.

dominance. . -Just two months later, in Reinforcement

June 1942. Nagumo's crackforce had its heart ripped

disastrousout inThe fleet would he even

further depleted during 1942a attempt meet more pressing needs into inflict a decisive defeat the European theatre. H~on the Americans at Mid- ever, with the Italian surrenderway Island. the Eastern Fleet was steadily ' -

Nevertheless, it would take reinforced from the beginningthe British Eastern Fleet time of 1944 with battleships, air-to recover from the blow they craft carriers and destroyers.had been dealt. In a five-day From his headquarters in Co- the time, was drafted to RN airblitz Nagumo had accounted lombo. Somerville could now station Bherunda occupying thefor the aircraft carrier HMS take part in offensive action site of Colombo's pre-warHermes, the cruisers HMS against the enemy facing Vice racetrack.Cornwall and HMS Dorset- Admiral Lord Louis Mountbat- "The first accommodationshire, the destroyers Tenedos ten's South-East Asia provided was a primitiveand Vampire, the corvette Hol- Command, camp-bed or charpoy', pluslyhock, the auxiliary cruiser For many, memories of Co- mosquito net and space for kit-Hector, two tankers and 23 lombo are not particularly bags in one of the tiers ofmerchant vessels totalling fond. Navy News cartoonist stands built for viewing the112,312 tons. Charles Miles, an air artificer at races," he said.

1.THE

ROYAL NAVALASSOCIATION

Patron: HER MAJESTY THE QUEENUnity, Loyalty, Patriotism, Comradeship

Reg. Char. 266982The Royal Naval Association believes firmly that "welfare is notonly money." It offers a broad range of support to people with aRoyal Naval connection, We are 'all of one company' in helpingthe disabled, looking after the needy, cheering up the distressed,maintaining naval traditions, supporting naval cadets, enjoyingsocial activities and re-uniting shipmates. The 487 branches in theU.K. and abroad offer an instant 'network' of local knowledge andopportunities to shipmates going to live in a new place or startinga new career.The Association is for all serving and former officers, men andwomen of the Royal Navy, Royal Marines, WRNS and QARNNS'.For details of RNA membership please complete the slip below.

---------------------------

Name' ........................................................................................

Address'. .,,.,,,. Postcode'

Send to: The General Secretary, Royal NavalAssociation, 82 Chelsea Manor Street, London. SW3 50J

d

Later, on promotion, hemoved to the senior rates messarea where he and another rat-ing lived in a large woodenpacking case. "It had beenmodified to provide an en-trance, two window holes andspace for two chaps completewith a tinful of poisonous fluidon each leg to deter the invad-ing insect predators.

---It paid to tuck in one's mos-quito net firmly under the ob-,ject issued as a mattress to savebeing wakened by the patter oftiny feet over one's turn - orworse, the sliding thing that leftyou wide-eyed and awake forthe rest of the night."

In late September, followingthe conquest of North Africa

they reached Java from wherethey, managed to get on board aDutch merchant vessel whichtook them to Ceylon. There,Capseed found that his troubleswere not over: he was sent tothe destroyer HMS Tencdoswhich was bombed and sunkduring the Japanese 1st CarrierFleet's raid on Colombo onApril 5.

The next day the cruis-ers HMS Cornwall and Dor-setehire were attackedand sunk off Ceylon by 53enemy dive bombers fromthe same carriers.

The bombers dived so lowthat LS Bert Gollop in Dorset-shire felt he could have reachedout and touched them. His taskthat day was to assist the airdefence officer on the bridge -but, as it turned out, not forlong.

Bombing with frightening ac-curacy, the Japanese knockedout the cruiser's after fire con-trol position, destroyed herWalrus aircraft and wiped outthe port forward 4in AA gun,all with three successive hits.The third was just aft of thebridge and Gollop felt a searingpain in his neck and was blownto the deck.Communications were down,

and with his officer woundedhe leant out of the bridge toshout to the guns to keep firing- but found himself yelling atso much twisted metal

With those first hits. StokerStan Higgins felt the shipalmost leap out of the water asifa huge hand had grabbed andshaken her. Higgins, who was

and the Italian armistice, moresubmarines could be sparedfrom the Mediterranean to har-ry Japanese shipping off thewest coast of Malaya and in theMalacca Strait.

Five T-class vesselsarrived at Trincomalee tobeef-up the Royal Navy'sstrength - among themHMS Taurus which, underher commanding officer (LtCdr Winglield) had built upa notable record in "Mus-so's Lake".

Taurus didn't have long towait for her first success in theFar East. Visual Signalman DesRadwell well remembers theevents of one day in Novem-

ABOVE: Grim-visaged war.a tough determination speaksthrough the eyes of this stok-er photographed at work in aship of the East Indies Fleet.

LEFT: Eight ratings of HMSPathfinder display a Japaneseflag presented to her by Indi-an troops she had supportedby gunfire on Ramree Island,Burma in 1945. All the men inthe picture had receivedeither a DSM or a Mention inDespatches.

ber. 1943. It was the 13th -unlucky, for the Japanese.Taurus had been occupied

laying mines at the entrance tol'enang harbour and had re-turned to normal patrol. It wasthen that she spotted the Japa-nese submarine 1-34. a 360ftlong-range type displacing2.000 tons and equipped withan aircraft.

Forced to proceed on the sur-face after being damaged in anair attack. 1-34 was making forthe safety of Penang. "We at-tacked and sank it with two tor-pedoes," said Des Radwell."Alter the attack we were

pursued by sub-chasers fromPenang and heavily depth-charged. We took avoiding ac-

- -

Bert Gollop (left) and Stan Hi

in charge of a fire party nearthe fore peak, felt the cruiserlist alarmingly to port. Thelights failed and there was a tre-mendous cacophony as cutleryand loose utensils in the messcrashed and clattered across thedeck.

Desperate swim

"Gerron on the upper -quick" he barked at the morejunior stokers in his party.They needed no further bid-ding. By the time Higgins madeit to the upper deck behind hismen, scores of his shipmateswere already in the water asternof the doomed cruiser.

Eighteen bombs hit Dorset-shire in as many minutes.Cornwall's experience was si-milar. With the order to aban-don ship, Gollop slid downfrom Dorsctshire's bridge andfound that he could walk downthe side ofthe ship into the sea.As he swam desperately to

clear the cruiser before she

1 1.

gglns... Dorsetshlre survivors.

sucked him down with her, hesaw machine-gun bulletssplashing all around him, hit-ting many ofthe men strugglingin the water. When the aircraftfinally flew away, more than1.000 men were left to fight forsurvival in waters in whichsharks abound.

Most of the life rafts hadbeen blown to pieces and only,one boat was left from the twocruisers - and that was usedfor the wounded. For 30 hours1,122 survivors kept afloat andkept alive through the searingheat of day and the cold ofnight.

Just as the second - andpossibly fatal - night ap-proached, the flashes as the dy-ing sun caught an open biscuittin fixed to a raised oar in theboat, were spotted by a lookoutin the destroyer HMS Paladin.Gollop and Higgins and many,of their shipmates had comethrough their ordeal. To thisday they remember the 424who did not.

THE HARDEST DAYS "From previous page

N \\'t NI \k s, \ ( I '?' \

I 'All eyes were upon asand one could feel the S

greatexpectations

of

t1. iShips of thc East IndiesFleet at sea: 111m battileshipHMS Qusn FM,~ witheveryone in the FleeV

;i AL the fomgm~

11 oil and in silent routine set-tled on the bottom at about200ft. It was quite muddy. butwe were unable to shake themoff, and depth charges wereraining down."

Wingfield decided that theywould have a better chance ifTaurus fought it out. Surfacingbetween the two enemy, ships.Taurus's 4in un opened lirealmost immediately."The first shot struck the Jap

amidships, blowing its gun andbridge to pieces. The secondround hit further aft and upsetthe steering."After that the 4in gun

trained on the other beam, toengage the other sub chaser.while our Oerlikon and twomachine guns finished off thefirst."

Taurus's first victim sankand the second was forced tolimp away.. Three Japanesefighter aircraft arrived on thescene too late, and Taurus wasable to submerge and resumeher patrol.

Coastal forcesAs the war drew on, the role

of supporting the 14th Army'sBurma campaign grew in im-portance for the Eastern and(later) East Indies Fleet. At firstthe coastal forces availableamounted to a motley handfulofmotor launches and steamersbased at Chittagong on the Bayof Bengal and manned bymembers of the Royal IndianNavy and Burma RNVR.Paymaster Lt Peter Ed-

wardes RINVR was sent to thearea to help establish a coastalforces and landing craft basefurther south at Teknaaf. lie re-members that the flotilla's newhome was as close to the enemyas it could possibly, be. the flo-tilla being ensconced on oneside ofthe River Naaf while theJapanese held the other.The small vessels were used

in support of the Army in theunsuccessful first Arakan offen-sive which opened in Septem-ber 1942. By the time the Bri-tish and ( nm mon veal th troops

Des Radwell. . - his subma-rine fought it out on thesurface.

.-. 'f.e

pp-I

L"V'I''I \lCharles Miles. . . lived in apacking case.

were ready to try again, inJanuary 1944. they were keptsupplied and supported by fourflotillas of motor launches, in-cluding one manned by SouthAfricans.Many of the small craft had

to travel all the way from UK- manned by men such asNoel Shakespeare, a Telegra-phist who in that January leftin tank landing craft LCT1157bound for ('ochin. southernIndia.The craft was one of a group

of II being transferred to theFar East, and it took themalmost three months to reachtheir destination, stopping torefuel at almost every, port onthe way - and being towed

::r4

4Ci:

:I

The Royal Navy in the Far East were fighting a second enemy-disease, potentially more deadly than the Japanese. Here, rat-ings from the RN School of Malaria and Hygiene Control, Co-lombo, take specimens of mosquito larvae from a swamp.

across the Arabian Sea b anAmerican ship."The II craft had made a

journey of close on 7.000miles." he said. "Their fate isunknown to me as I. along withseveral other ratings, were senton to other duties - myself toColombo for service on WITstations and later in HMSCleopatra."

The flotillas of small ves-sels secured the troops'seaward flank, landedcommandos and made di-versionary attacks, all inthe course of which manyof their members receivedgallantry awards.

The third and final Arakancampaign, which opened at theend of 1944, was supported byForce 64 - nothing short of afleet of mainly coastal vessels:22 flotillas of landing craft ofalmost every type, five ML flo-tillas, a flotilla of harbour de-fence MLs, a flotilla of BritishYard Minesweepers (BYMs). aflotilla of motor minesweepers,three frigates, seven sloops andthe cruiser HMS Phoebe.

MountbattenEarly in that campaign. AB

Dick Blake on board HMmotor launch 829. had an ex-perience that he was to remem-ber and treasure.His vessel, of the 49th ML

Flotilla, had been kept busytaking commandos on night-time recce raids into enemy-held territory, when one nightthey had orders to embark twounnamed passengers from thejetty at ('ox's Bazaar at 0700the next morning.One of Blake's duties was as

a bow linesman, and as thelaunch neared the jetty hecould make out in the halflight, two figures standingalone. lie shouted: ---Catch theline, Jack!" as he threw theweighted end towards them.They took the line and securedit professionally.However, when they, stepped

on hoard he stiffened withamazement - and embarrass-ment: the passengers wereMountbatten and Lt (ien BillSlim, C-in-C of the 14th Army.The two great commanders

were bound for the small portof Rathedaung further south onthe Arakan Coast. Although at

" Turn to page VIII

Royal Marines commandos storm ashore at Cheduba Island in the only purely naval amphibiousassault of the war.

IAllied submarines were devastatingly effective in the Far East and Pacific. Here, HMS Stoic's crewshow off their skull-and-crossbones flag, each symbol cataloguing a success.

Escort carriers in choppy seas during attackson Japanese targets in Sumatra in April 1945.HMS Speaker (right) and HMS Slinger are pic-tured from the carrier HMS Khedive. In the dis-tance is the destroyer HMS Eskimo.

--

E- -z.. -., . ..

5 - . - . -

-'

VI NAVY NEWS, AUGUST 199~

ILI ___

-"

"-

14

T1'

"._

.:...

r

... t

These pictures of HMS Formidable convey the terrible ferocity of thekamikaze attacks on British carriers off the Sakishima Guntobetween May 4-9, 1945. TOP: burning aircraft on the flight deck aftera suicide attack. ABOVE LEFT: A kamikaze pilot, his aircraft on firefrom AA hits, presses home his attack on the ship, enveloped insmoke from an earlier hit (picture supplied by Mr J.M. Montgomery).ABOVE RIGHT: a near miss as a suicide plane crashes into the seajust short of the carrier. RIGHT: the remains of a kamikaze aircraft ishoisted overboard after hitting the base of Formidable's island onMay 4 (picture supplied by Mr Noel Rolfe).

r-- _c*

-

' pic

.:-

--

4"2

LEFT One of the first Seafures over Japan in July, 1945 ABOVE Avengers during a raid" on the airfields of the Sakishima Gunto (picture supplied by Mr D.F. Salisbury).

I

BYTHE middle of Jul

1945 the British PacificFleet's four aircraft carri-

ers forming its main striking ca-

pability- Formidable. Victor-

ious, Implacable and

Indefatigable- were offTokyo

Bay with their 255 aircraft.

Britain's Avengers. Hellcats.Corsairs. Fireflies and Seafireswere ready to join Admiral Hal-sey's US 3rd Fleet in a sustainedand intensive assault on what wasleft of the enemy's naval, shippingand air resources. It was intendedas a preliminary to a massive am-

phibious invasion under the victorof the Philippines. GeneralDoug-lasMacArthur.Often operating in difficult weather

and sea conditions, the Royal Navy fli-ers under Admiral Vian's commandpressed home their attacks with greatcourage against targets defended byheavy flak, and knowing that the proba-bility of survival was loss if they werebreed to bale out over the turbulent seaor over a land where the enemy couldhe expected to show little mercy.

'Very dicey'On July 30. Lt Cdr Mike ('rosley was

flying his Seal-ire fighter on his sixthraid over Japan in less than a fortnight.Already a holder of the DSC. and aveteran of D-Day, he was in commandof 880 Naval Air Squadron embarkedin HMS Implacable.

Since the British began air operation'over Japan on July. 17 he had lost two 01his squadron and another colleaguefrom 801 NAS, killed in attacks orcoastal targets around Japan's InlandSea. Now Mike ('rosley was leadingthree-flight force of Seafires despatchecto attack an airfield near the town 01

Nagoya.As they climbed to I 0.000ft in prcpa

ration for the attacking run, they werein Mike Crosley's words. "humped oulof their seats" by flak. They turnecaway and came in taster from anothcidirection.

"The dive through the cloudswas very dicey indeed - watch-ing the altimeter unwind - andas I came out of it I was relievedto see the target."Heading towards the hangars. I sho

at a black-painted twin-engined jobI flew on between the hangars whielseemed to o by above me. I could sepeople staring up as I passed - andalso began to notice a hit of flak.

"Above the clouds and the airfieldturned once more to see what was happening to the others, and I could heasome voices on the nt warning someonabout flak. I could see a mass of 4Omnbursting over the clouds over the airfield, and Seafires turning and twistinto get away from it."Out to sea and safety once more,

heard [)ougy Yale's voice shout. 'I'vbeen hit!" . . . Then after a pause. l'nin trouble.' Pain was in his voice. Theiagain. 'I'm in trouble.' I told him hmust fly over the sea and bale out. W"would look after him.

ISf

I

y.-

An Avenger crewman is hauled to fety atthe side of HMS Indefatigable.

.an

I 'IT WOULD be a mistake to suppose that the fate of Japan was curtain had been damaged and couldettled by the atomic bomb. Her defeat was certain before the not be lowered to prevent the flames .

irst bomb fell, and was brought about by overwhelming maritime sweeping across thehangar.hangar.---The sprinkler system was operated

iower - Sir Winston Churchill. throughout the hangar deck. The ship'sengines were stopped. Motionless, we

hit the deck and bounced, her arresterwere a sitting target for any lurkingmy sub.

- ..I!

hook catching the wire. The Corsair slid Up on the flight deck sc realisedacross the deck crab-like to spill over that the ship was starting to list to port

.. the port side of the ship, hanging by the ... the seawater from the sprinklers and - .

--T- . - -

wire. debris from burning aircraft had collect- ' - -ed on the port side of the hangar deck. "- - -"The deck handling crew dived and the collective weight was causinginto the safety net as the cable the list As the list increased we began

parted and the aircraft plunged to wonder when we might reach thef~-7! into the sea. The incident was all point of no return."over in seconds. The pilot had no-

chance of survival." Achievements- .Often, the demands of war felt no

I .- time for standard safety procedures. On Fire and list were eventually brought- I board HMS Indomitable Leading Air- under control, but all the ship's aircraft

craft Fitter l'aul Chase maintained had been put out of action. Those tin-" _" Avenger aircraft making strikes on the damaged by fire were made unservicea- .

I,Palembang oil installations After the ble by the seawater from the sprinklers .

Formidable withdrawn to Svdne. .

first raid the aircraft flown by the corn- wasmantling officer of 857 NAS. Lt Cdr W.

da-Dot: Stuart. returned withfor repairs and replacement aircraft.

Lt Cdr Mike Crosley , We knewthanhad done

an enginemaged by hits Though the FAA had suffered - __ . -we more our duty'. This meant an engine change before sorely, and in the last days of the

"I thought I could see his aircraft. but the second raid the next day, and l'aul war the bulk of the British fleet A pall of smoke hundreds of feet high rises from Japanese oil installations afterprobably was not him. I told the Chase was one of the team who carried had to be withdrawn through lack the British Pacific Fleet's attack on Palembang.

litters to watch for the splash if heInched and went over to the I)umbo

out the work in hangar temperatures of100 degrees F.

of fuel, the aircrews could beproud of their contribution to the

adio channel. (I)umbo was the code "After several around runs there was successes of Halsey's 3rd Fleet.vord for US air sea rescue aircraft no time for an air test before the next With quarterwhich patrolled off the coast during raid. So, with an engine that had not her of aircraft to the Amen:ai 5 . been tested the CO and his crew took cans, the FAA had destroyed or da- c."I searched on my knee-pad for the off from a heaving deck with four maged 356.760 tons of shipping'ode word for the rescue position 5001b bombs, flew over a l.SOOft more than _5 per cent of the total forOne downed Circus Chicken. 15, mountain range, over ISO miles of in- the joint operation s off Japan.Slother's Monthly, 260, over.' The re- hospitable jungle to l'alembang.)1v came immediately,. They were on through determined Japanese fighter pi damaged enemy aircraft matched thatcir way. lots - a proportion of whom were in- Of their allies.I changed back to the squadron structors - through heavy flak, and On board Implacable, Lt Cdr W.R.

rt4gko?ldown through barrage balloons to bomb MacWhirter. commanding officer ofHad Dougsbalcdo the refincry.--- NAS equipped with Fireflies. hadcame un and said that 17.71

)ougy had turned over on his back andtad gone straight in. 'I was right behindtim when it happened.' he said."

Accidents

bt Dougy Yale's Scat-ire ~~ts one of' 39~bat losses suffered by the fleet Air\rrn in the last four weeks of the war

-iloss rate 48 per cent higher than thatuffered by the US Navy. Thirty-twoN aircrew were killed.But combat was not the only cause of

iircraft being written off. In difficult)perating conditions, almost as many.FAA planes were lost due to deck-anding accidents.Earlier in the campaign. when the

3PF was attacking airfields in the Saki-hima (jun10. S/Lt Noel Rolfc RNVRwatched some spectacular accidents on)oard HMS Formidable. He saw one\venger roar down the flight deck until,it the moment of launch, its engine'altered."She disappeared from our view. We

waited, but she didn't rise and we'eared she'd been sucked beneath thehip. Suddenly the aircraft surfacedibout 200yds astern. The aircrew aban-Joned her and were rescued safely, byur escorting destroyer."Not every accident ended so luckily.

'A Corsair fighter approached fromIstern, the deck landing officer guidingter in. But the aircraft drifted to port.

after

his crashed aircraft dangles over

mixed feelings at the end. .We had L ..'

.. . .-

-

'I

-

been keyed upfor

striking Japan:it had

made the adrenalin run.

-Conditions githhi 4-temperatures . poor food. no green vege-vege-tables and dchsatcd spuds But - - rw'd helped to win. We had lost threeeaircrew out ofabout 26. which was verysad

' . -

"The aircrew were 99 per cent RNVRor RNZVR, and great tribute is due tothem - they were a wonderful team

along with the maintenance crev.s A wounded Avenger pilot is helped from a Walrus rescue aircraft. It had pluckedhim from the sea under the guns of Japanese coastal batteries after his aircraft

Visitation crashed close inshore.

Lt Cdr Doc Stuart and his crew - LtI. J. Davies and CPO Bill Pine. Lt Cdr During the ship's last days oft Japan m by the ts;o strike days immediately There. Admiral Vian adsanced on himStuart held the DSC and two Bars. she was treated to a visit by Rear Ad- before us." and asked: "Are you afraid of flying.

miral Sir Philip Vian. For Mike ('ros- After that exhortation - which to young man?"Kamikaze attacks off the Sakishima Icy, the event was one not to be so- Mike ('roslev implied that the aircrew "No sir."

(lunto also took their toll of the BPF"s voured. Vian. renowned as a were cowards - casualties doubled on "Well, get hack into your aeroplane"aircraft, 32 being lost on deck as a formidable and uncompromising char- the next strikes, and included l.t Ham- ('rosley comments: "had I heard ofdirect result of suicide bombin. acter was, in Mike ('rosley's mind, no my Grey, the last V(' of the war, this, and that Joly had been accused ofFormidable lost many aircratt which friend of the aircrew. Mike ('rosley. who was awarded a cowardice in this way. I should have

were on deck during the kamikaze at- Before his visit the Admiral had sig- Bar to his DS(' while in Implacable, been able to tell the Admiral that theretacks on May 4 and 9. Then, on May nailed his aircraft carriers and fliers: and who ended his naval career in the was no one in the entire ship who could22. there was an even more serious "Board of Admiralty have signalled rank of Commander. relates the follow- have got closer to the enemy than Johnincident, that high percentage of strikes and good ing story about Admiral 'ian's visit: Jolv. Mechanics were still picking hitsWhile the carrier was rendezvousing results achieved reflect great credit on One of the pilots. S/Lt John Job . was of 'Japanese destroyer out of the fuse-

with the supply fleet, an armourer acci- all concerned, in the cockpit of a Scat-ire as it warmed lage of his Seal-ire from his action two

dentally fired a live round from a Con- "I doubt Their Lordships can have up ready for launch. The ('I'O aircraft days before at ()nagawan.sair in the hangar. It hit another aircraft known how high in some cases has been artificer didn't like the sound of Jol 's "None of us bothered too much at theand set it alight. The fire spread our percentage of abortive sorties which engine, so the pilot dismounted 10 gel time. for that night we heard that peacequickly. must and will reduce. into a spare aircraft, was indeed imminent, and we had aNoel Rolfe recalls that during the "Let us be judged both as to sortie As he was doing so a tannov message party in the wardroom. We knew st'

second suicide attack the foreward fire output and damage inflicted on the ene- ordered him to report to the bridge, had done more than our (July - -

the raids the problem of

-

landing

,ft

-a

The auxiliary fuel tank of a Corsair tighter ignites as it lands. Remarkably the pilot, The pilot of this Corsair also walked away unhurt after crash-landing on board HMSLt Cdr Freddie Chariton, escaped injury. Illustrious.

NAVY NEWS. AUGUST 1995 VII

VIII NAVY NEWS, AUGUST 1995

"1Y11:1'M1 ':Il:4 :Ul[S

Death nf the Haguro" From page V

that time of the morning it wasstill in Japanese hands, theywere confident that when theystepped ashore it would be oc-cupied by Slim's troops. Theywere right.

Dick Blake remembers par-ticiilarI how Mounthatten

Dick Blake... vivid memo-ries of Mountbatten.

made time for ever one onboard, ignoring the tact that themen's uniforms were virtuallynon-existent.

---He asked if there were anyproblems which we may have.He was taking his own notes.and when I spoke of my worriesabout my family enduring airraids by 'pilotless aircraft', lieexplained what they were andassured me that he would make

enquiries on my behalf as soonas possible. And this he didwithin a couple of days."

RangoonIn May the Burma campaign

virtually ended with the unop-posed seahorne landings inRangoon. the only. Navy, casual-ty being a tank landing craftwhich hit a mine.

After Nagumo's raid, rever-sals in the Pacific kept the Jap-anese out of the Indian Oceanin any strength. Apart fromSomerville's air strike on Sa-

hang and the British PacificFleet's debut at I'alemhang.most actions by the major shipsof the East Indies fleet in-volved the destruction of whatfew vessels the Japanese couldmuster in attempts to replenishwithering outposts - such asthose on the Andaman and Ni-cohar Islands.

It seemed that the fleet wouldhave no chance to show itsprowess in a surface actionwith major elements of the Jap-anese navy. However, just asthe mainhrace was beingspliced in celebration of Vii

Day. that chance came.On May 9 the hulk of the

fleet had returned to Trincoma-Ice after covering the landings

at Rangoon, when news was re-ceived that a Japanese cruiser- later identified as the Ha-

guro- had left Singapore. ap-

parently to relieve the garrisonin the ..ndamans.

At the time Cdr Tom Briggs(later a Rear Admiral), wasstaff operations officer to ViceAdmiral ftT.('. Walker, com-mander of the 3rd Battle

Squadron, flying his flag inIIMS Queen Elizabeth.Admiral Briggs remembers

how the squadron was hurried-

ly restored and refuelled to sailthe next morning in an attemptto cut off and destroy, the Ha-

guro before she could return to

Singapore.

DestroyersAdmiral Walker's force ',%as

more than a match for one Jap-anese cruiser. Besides theQueen Elizabeth he had undercommand the French battle-

ship Richelicu, the cruiserHMS Cumberland. four escortcarriers and the 26th Destroyerflotilla comprising IIM shipsSaumare,. Venus. Verulam. Vi-

rago and Vigilant. But could hereach the cruiser in time, and in

daylight remain out of thereach of Japanese land-basedaircraft?Amid submarine reports of

the presence of the Haguro atthe northern end of the Ma-lacca Strait, the fleet sailed on.

By, the fifth day of the opera-tion ('(IF Briggs had been on the

bridge for tutu

At 0200 on May. 15, Cdr

Briggs' first sleep in days was

interrupted. An intelligence sig-nal had indicated that an escortvessel had sailed from Sabangin Sumatra. Was that connect-ed with the cruiser?

Admiral Walker took his ad-ice to act, and Cdr Briggs was

instructed to draft a signal tothe 26th Destroyer Flotilla. Init. he ordered them to proceedat 27 knots and conduct asearch of the mouth of thestrait

Our Grade... Gracie Fields entertains the ship's company ofHMS Verulam during a visit to the East Indies Fleet. Not longbefore, the destroyer had been involved in the classic nightaction which sank one of Japan's few remaining major warships- the cruiser Haguro.

initiated an air search which hefelt would alert the enemy, be-fore the trap could be sprung.Then at 1100 came another

setback - a signal from Ad-miral Power's HQ cancellingthe whole operation. Withinminutes of that. Admiral Pat-terson signalled the destroyersto locate and sink a number ofsmall enemy vessels before

returning.

Capt Power was now in

receipt of two somewhat

contradictory orders. Thenthere was the earlier orderthat had been drafted byCdr Briggs which indicatedthat Haguro was probablystill in the area.

(apt Power chose to con-tinue the search, a decisionwhich was vindicated an hourlater when Avenger bombersfrom the fleet located Haguroand her escorting destroyer Ka-

echo was dismissed as a raincloud. Poole insisted that it wasa ship ''to the point ofinsubordination---.When Saumarez also picked

up the echo. I'oole was provedright. On Venus's bridge. ('YEdward Bush heard the order"Full steam ahead!"

"The arena was mademore spectacular by anelectrical storm and regu-lar flashes of lightning," hesaid. "I balanced my bino-culars on the transom onthe front of the bridge.Anxiously I waited for thenext flash and sure enough- there was the enemy."

Every pair of night lasses onthe bridge were trained for-ward, and in another flash oflightning the Haguro. nowaware of the close danger, was

turning away to flee to thenorth. However, she soon al-tered course again, to port, put-tins Venus in what her ('() de-scribed as "a perfect position tofire torpedoes at close range."

'All guns firing'He was to be disappointed.

Despite having given an orderto launch the torpedoes forstraight running on the beam.they had been angled ahead -

and missed.Cdr de Chair had to break

off, but more torpedoes werefired from Verulam and Sau-mare,., and three of those foundtheir mark. Saumarez engagedthe cruiser with shellfire - butin the melee also took hits, oneof which penetrated her boilerroom to disable hertemporarily.Venus returned to the attack.

"We fired star-shell and steeredtowards the action with all gunsfiring," recalls Edward Bush."The cruiser appeared to be onfire aft... From my position onthe bridge it was possible to seethe actual fall of shot - and itwas really good. The Japanese8in shells could be heard whis-

tling overhead, but causing no

damage".There were four more tor-

pedo hits - from Venus. Vira-

go and Vigilant- which left

Haguro motionless in thewater, with just one of her AA

guns weaving weird patterns inthe sky.without sleep. "For me it was a

full-time occupation day andnight dealing with the opera-tional requirements. Importantdecisions had to made everyhour... At last we in the EastIndies fleet had the chance of

combating a large Jap surfaceship. All eyes were upon us.and one could feel the great ex-pectations of everyone in theFleet."

r $MODERNWARSHIPS

KITS IIJSM,t0. i,ODSEY. TYPE Z3 HULLS- KGV. COUNTY CLASS. ARK ROYAL, FEARLESSPLANS E1SI PEPOAN -CC TYPE Ts"i 2FITTINGS - £. :PP S,CCfS.l :KLS ARPccu P'IA.AN

'E1)CCPTE S[ NIRRIES SEA Kui;

x SCAuE P..ASTC 015 RA'F IP1LC[SCV REPULSE. ARK ROYAL SUFFOLK. MODERN AMAZON TYPE 42. FEARLESS & RUSSIAN SHIPS

- PA .-

.s To

MIDWAY MODELS (Dept NN)157 ST LEONARDS ROAD. LEICESTER LE2 38Z

TELEPHONE (0116 270 1609

Pact1Ev inserting into the signal a

position up to which the des-trovers should search, he ful-filled a pact he had made atTrincomalee with the flotillacommander. Capt M.L. Powerin HMS Saumarez. It was thatif he received a signal orderinghim up to a position, he was toassume that top secret intelli-

gence had been received as tothe cruiser's movements. In thelight of subsequent develop-ments, that was to provecrucial.

Capt Power was further or-dered to rejoin the fleet if theoperation was cancelled by theGin-(' in Colombo. AdmiralPower. At 0400 Queen Eliia-beth steamed hack to refuelfrom an oiler, temporarily pass-ing command to Rear AdmiralPatterson ill ( umhE'rland.

By dawn that morning,Capt Power's destroyerswere conducting theirsweep across the MalaccaStrait, four miles apartfrom each other and be-

yond the immediate help ofthe fleet's "heavies".

In the flagship. ('(IF Brigswas coming to the painful con-elusion that 1-laguro would es-

cape: that morning the escortcarriers signalled hat They had

FRESH CUTFLOWERS FROM JERSEY WITH LOVEucimd 1"1k k lioit' .1 gut tlit'v'll .uuiu'rc. ht'atiiiiol Iru.lucuit tlouvu'r-. irom the l-.laiiul

u, :mtt uvr,Irlsed ,uiid '-ciii to their door by '.1 (. Ia-.'. l'o'.i tt K only). mu Ioduni. your own

loo-.e tmoili till, nountlu''. '.[s'ui.d ilowu'r":

*18 long-stemmed Carnations £12,50**l2single..stem Roses £12.99**20 lovely Freesias only £9.99*

Call 01534 863621 or fax 862439 7days aweek to order or ask forour brochure.Garland Flowers Jersey. Le Pressoir, %Ioi Major credit card,

Rue de Bechet, St. John. Jersey, C,!. accepted ( heque..JI'O". payableto Garland 1 lower'. ler'.cy

r

,i

-

mikazc 100 miles north of theSumatran coast. Althoughheading back to Singapore, the

Japanese were far enough fromhome for them still to be withinPower's reach.Without the support of heas-y,

units, the flotilla commanderwould have to time his attackcarefully - at night, when theadvantage of Haguro's 8in gunswould be greatly reduced.Throughout the rest of the

day and the following evening,the destroyers closed with the

enemy cruiser. The initial radarcontact came at 2245 - and atfirst was not believed. A youngradar operator in HMS Venus,OS Poole. reported an echo at adistance of 34 miles, a rangethought to be beyond the capa-bility of shipborne sets at thetime.

Venus's commanding officer.Cdr Graham de ('hair, recalledin his memoirs that when the

.Ii

With the after l4in guns of HMS King George V towering abovehim, Lord Mountbatten is filmed delivering a speech to the ship'scompany at Trincomalee in January 1945. (Picture supplied by MrP. Able).

The killVenus was ordered to deliver

the coup de grace. "With two

torpedoes remaining we closedin for the kill. After what ap-peared to be an interminablewait the two explosions were

enough to make the cruiser foldand sink. The CO wanted to

pick up survivors, but an air-craft report by Vigilant putpaid to that."

From the sighting of Ha-guro shortly after midnighton May 16 to her final des-patch, barely two hourshad elapsed,

Cdr Brigs. who with his ad-miral had firmly believed thattheir quarry, had evaded them.was greatly relieved by the faintsignals received from the 26thFlotilla indicating that thecruiser had been sunk after all."There was tremendous jubi-

lation.--- he said. "especially asour casualties and damage wereso small, and great pride thatthe East Indies Fleet had sue-cceded in the one major surfaceoperation that presented itself,and in such a brilliant, epicnight action.Although such large prey

sould not appear at sea againfor the fleet's surface warships,almost a month later HMS Nu-bian sank submarine chaser.S('-56 20 miles north-cast ofSahang, while her Tribal-classsister, HMS Eskimo. de-spatched the supply vessel Kir-oshio Maru with torpedoes. Interms of World War II surfaceactions, it was the RoyalNavy's curtain call.

Edward Bush,., Chief Yeo-man in HMS Venus whenshe delivered the coup degrace to the Haguro.

NAVY NF\VS U (d ST I)Q IX

Loneliness oflong-distancq

BEFORE

the BritishPacific Fleet hadbeen formed. the

US Navy stipulated thatit would have to be self-sufficient. This meantthat replenishmentwould have to be con-ducted at sea by a gigan-tic caravan of supportvessels operating overgreater distances thanhad ever before been en-countered by the RoalNavy's supply system.'The size and efficiency of

the fighting force wasgov-ernedby the size and effi-ciency ofthe armada of ves-sels which would keep itfuelled, equipped, fed andwatered.Many members of the Fleet

Train endured privationswhich today arc hard to ima-gine in any. British ship. And ontop of it they got none of theglory.

IllnessLate in the campaign. when

the submarine depot ship HMSMaidstone left Australia. ABDonald (Mac) Grant and hisshipmates had ahead of them anightmare voyage of fivemonths. Without setting footon land they, sailed to SubicBay via New Guinea, LeyteGulf, Manus, Mindanao. theCelebes and Christmas Island.

"We suffered every con-ceivable complaint knownto matelots - dysentery,malaria, prickly heat, tropi-cal ringworm, body lice,dhobi itch, severe sunburnand - In some cases -madness. I lost almost 1/2stones.

"Our only leisure was tom-bola, films we'd seen over andover, and hands to bathe overthe side - with armed guardswatching for sharks."During one ofthose swims he

and a shipmate were fired uponby an American sentry postedon a landing craft. "Bullets hitthe water all round us, but wesurvived to do three days'No. 1 Is for going too close tothem!"There were small conso-

lations: "Because of our hard-ships, on June 14. 1945. we be-came the first RN ship to beallowed beer on board for thelower deck - two small bottleseach per week'

runners"'WITH THE FLEET operating off the coast of Ja-pan itself, the length of the supply line betweenManus and the fuelling area was at times as muchas 2,500 miles, which is roughly the same as thedistance between Montreal and the Clyde, orbetween Portsmouth and Tobruk' - Admiral Sir BruceFraser, C-in-C British Pacific Fleet.

Mac Grant... nightmarevoyage.If Mac Grant's was a mara-

thon voyage, that of John(Lofty) Banks was an epic. Hewas one of the crew ofAdmiral-ty Floating Dock (AFD) 20which left Greenock on NewYear's Eve 1944 and arrived atManus six months later afterbeing towed 14,000 miles -possibly the longest tow in mar-itime history.

Near-lossThe little flotilla that accom-

panied her included theocean-going_tugs HM ships Destiny,and Eminent, two HM trawlersand four gunboats.On the first leg to Gibraltar

the 2,750-ton AFD was almostlost when in heavy weather inthe Bay of Biscay both her towsparted. Two days later, with thebottom of the dock about 2ftabove sea level, Eminent man-aged to reconnect the tow.From Gibraltar the dock

made her slow progress to Mal-ta, from there to Port Said,then Aden, Cochin in India -and a five-week stretch fromCochin to Darwin, Queensland.On reaching Manus in the

Admiralty Islands, the dockwas soon in operation "garag-ing" warships. Her odyssey was

not over, however. After thJapanese surrender, AFD 20was sent to Singapore - andthere she stayed.

In recent years JohnBanks checked up on thefate of his old "ship", andfound that she is still in fre-quent use at Sembawangdockyard.Entertainment for the BPF

was in short supply, but as Ad-miral Fraser realised, it was vi-tal to provide as many off-dutycomforts as possible if moralewas to be kept up.

Lt Eric Morley RNVR wason the staff of Vice AdmiralCharles Daniel, head of Fleetadministration and based atMelbourne. But the young lieu-tenant was also given the taskof producer and announcer ofthe British Pacific broadcastsvia Radio Australia.

Mail

"Those broadcasts wereheard in Singapore and HongKong and all the islands inbetween, and went out for twohours in the middle of the dayand 15 minutes in the even-ing." he said. "The mail res-ponse was terrific from the B1Fand the Allied forces in the re-ception area."High priority was also put on

mail deliveries. In Sydney thefleet Mail Office was staffedmainly by Wrens, while sortedletters and parcels were de-spatched as quickly as possibleb RAF Transport Commandand Fleet Train ships.

Particularly, welcome sightsfor sailors thousands of milesfrom the nearest base were theVictualling Stores Issue Ships(VSISs). Among the most effi-cient was Fort Wrangell whichonce supplied eight destroyerswith all their requirements be-"Turn to next page

I.

WESTGATE PARKSALTASH 4

ArSsts wrtcesson The Oassngton4 bedroom dethedhouse.

External specrficalons will vary.

'

Ht _ _A ship being repaired in Admiralty Floating Dock 20 which made an epic voyage from Greenock tothe Admiralty Islands. Among her crew was John Banks (inset).

-

During operations, all fuel and supplies for the British Pacific Fleet had to be transferred at sea.Here, the minesweeper HMAS Ballarat is provisioned.

Al- ------ ------ -

C..,.,'

'PLC ;,;() ..111

F E A T U R E S

Fitted kitchen indudir oven, hob, (edge/freezer " Gas-fired central heatingOpen fireplace in living room . Separate utility room " Fitted wardrobes in bedrooms 1 &2

En-suite shower room

2 Bedroom Houses 3 Bedroom Houses

4 Bedroom Houses

From £47,950 From £64,950 From £92,950Showhome open Thursday to Monday

10.30 a.m. to 5.30 p.m. For details telephone:(01752) 848759

490

ALFOI&l) HOMES

"CHAINMAI1'"Ir* dw,Qi'wwSxrw-. ves& C, g'#b W-orel II i'ç çx tir irtr

ri &m __Io,ck

VSIS Fort Wrangell... on one occasion she supplied eight destroyers with all their requirementsbefore breakfast. (Pictures supplied by Mr R.C. Hill).

NEW SHOWHOmE Now OPEN

X NAVY NF\ \t(t' I

" 'MEN of the British Pacific Fleet, you have everyreason to be proud of the part you have played inthe defeat of Japan. You have reason, too, to recallthose fine words from one of the prayers which weuse in the Service which says that we may return insafety to enjoy the blessings of the land and thefruits of our labours'- Admiral Sir Bruce Fraser,August 15, 1945.

the war is On August 30 KG moved

'N over we are into Tokyo Bay to join AdmiralFraser's flagship HMS Duke of

busy scrubbingbusy York and to anchorjust SOOydspaintwork, painting and from the Missouri. Then on

polishing brightwork." September 2. Able records in

complained A B Phil awe the huge armada of 500carrier aircraft and 500 B29 Su-

Able in his diary entry perfortress bombers whichfor August 17, 1945 on overflew the Fleet for the sur-board 1-IMS King George render ceremony.V. "Routine is lousy.

On board Duke of York there

Working all day."was an evening ceremony.which gunnery officer Lt Ro

The Fleet, it seemed, Neath remembers as beingwas wasting no time in re- equally as impressive as the

surrender itself. On the quarter-adjusting to peace. deck of the battleship the Bri-The battleship KGV, wearing tish Pacific Fleet was honoured

the flag of the scaborne com- by Admirals Nimitz and Halseymander of the British Pacific as they attended SunsetFleet. Admiral Rawlings, had ceremony.taken an active part in eachmajor operation of the BPF, Historic dayfrom bombardment of shoretargets with her l4in guns to "General Spaatz and almostshooting down attacking all the famous Allied leaderskamikazes. who had come to Tokyo forDuring the campaign she had

steamed more than 78,000 that historic day were presentmiles, spent more than ISO to witness it." Massed bands of

the Royal Marines were drawndays at sea and expended 652 up under the ship's l4in gunsrounds of l4in ammunitionand 1,234 rounds of 5.25m. and, as Royal Marines buglersEven at the very end - on Vi sounded Sunset, the ensigns of

all the Allied nations were cere-Day. August 15 - she was at moniously lowered.action stations for 21/2 hours.

Not all the victory celebra-1,500 aircraft tions went exactly to plan. On

Now that was all over, and VJ Day, Don Mace was P0gunner's mate on board the de-

Phil Able and his shipmateswere kept busy, making the flag- stroyer HMS Whelp, escorting

ship look her best for the dress Admiral Fraser's flagship atfinale of World War II - the sea.formal signing of Japan's sur- From Duke of York came arender on board the USS Mis- signal that the fleet would firesouri in Tokyo Bay. star-shell at midnight in celc-"Rig ofthe day must be worn bration. Don Mace arranged

on upper deck unless on a dirty, for B Gun crew to be closed upjob." Phil Able noted in his di- at 2345 and saw to it that prep-ary. "They are taking photos of arations were made for firing.the whole Fleet from the air After that he was summoned bytoday." the first lieutenant.And on August 22: "1.500 "He informed me that he

American carrier planes flew would take over and be respon-over for a demonstration. Most sible for the firings and that Iships ever seen - IS carriers, would not therefore beII battleships and over 24 required.cruisers." "Just prior to midnight I

I

Guarded by a single Britishsailor, some of the 6,000Japanese troops who sur-rendered at Kowloon, HongKong, disconsolately carttheir belongings to aprisoner-of-war camp.

among others gathered outsidethe mess door directly under BGun deck to watch the display,which was most impressive as

Don Mace ... a question oftiming.all ships fired - EXCEPTWHELP!

'I rushed up the ladder to BGun to find out what waswrong. The captain of the gun,a leading seaman, reported to

I

me that no order to commencehad been received.

"I then scrambled at speed tothe bridge and to the directorcontrol, where I found the firstlieutenant frantically pressingthe director layer's master trig-ger. But star-shell was notequipped with electric and per-cussion primer and so couldnot be fired by the director lay-er's trigger.

'Stop it,

"I told the first lieutenant topass the order 'Star-shell com-mence' verbally, which he did- and B Gun fired.

"Unfortunately, by this timeall other ships - about 16 in all- had completed their firings.and Whelp was alone. Thecommanding officer screamed'Stop it! Stop it!' and so all fellsilent."The first lieutenant of HMS

Whelp was Prince Philip.About a week after the Japa-

nese surrender, the ship's com-pany of HMS Newfoundland -

t0.

.r .1

I.,

a

which had taken part in theBPFs bombardment of Japa-nese targets - were grantedshore leave in Yokohama,which Allied bombing hadturned into a wasteland ofrubble.CERA Godfrey (TafT) Rees

recalls that as the first leaveparty departed they were hand-ed food parcels comprising a"hogg,ie" (pasty) and two veryhard rock cakes which hethought would come in usefulas ammunition should the na-tives prove unfriendly.

"I and my messmates wentashore later and were amazedto see at every street cornerJapanese eating hoggies -men, women and children... Itappears that Jack, ever crafty,had flogged his food packet foryen which he then used to buytinned food from the AmericanPX store. He then exchangedthe tinned food from the Amer-ican PX store for yet more yenfor spending in the canteen."Meanwhile, as the Fleet

stood down from war, a major

All over but for the scars

.1

i-1

/ p

rescue operation was underway. Hundreds of thousands ofprisoners of war had to befound, provisioned andrepatriated.Ron Neath vividly remem-

bers seeing, close to the water-front, a landing craft full of fig-ures waving frantically. "As itdrew near an outburst ofcheer-ing was heard, getting louderand louder. These were amongthe first Allied POWs to be re-leased - dirty, unshaven, hag-gard, yet exultant with a joywhich we, who did not knowthe privations and sufferingwhich they had undergone,could never imagine.

Bewildered"Some waved in a bewil-

dered sort of way as if thecould not believe we were rearor that what they saw was true.Scrambling on board, helped bya hundred willing hands, thesemen shook hands and em-braced us wildly. But therewere others who could notmove or speak. Several were on

41

Another scene on board the hospital ship. These former prisoners of war, toasting their freedom, arecheerful enough, though several of them have lost limbs and two are blind. Any mental scars remainhidden

The wretched condition in which many Allied POWs were found shocked their rescuers. Here, anursing sister on board the hospital ship Oxfordshire in Hong Kong tends a patient who had been inJapanese hands for four years.

-I

NAVY NEWS. AUGOST 19q5 XI

-1

-j.

4g?

;

-

fls.-------

.5

--

S --:irc

-

- -

_%__

- :

-

--

; ;

' ;

I

Admiral Sir Bruce i-raser signs the Japanese surrender document on behalf of Britain. Behind himstand General MacArthur andtwo keyseabome admirals of theBPF-Sir Philip Vian who command-ed the carriers, and the fleet's commander afloat, Sir Bernard Rawlings.

makeshift stretchers." Avenger aircraft was one atOn board the destroyer HMS Yokkaichi. One of the prison-

Wakeful OA Ken Perkins re- crs there wasaUS Army major,calls that the POWs embarked Donald Thompson, who wrotein the ship at Sendai for trans- a moving letter ofthanks to In-fer 200 miles south to Tokyo, defatigable's commanding offi-were Scaforth Highlanders who cer and ship's company:still had their regimental tro- "It is beyond my ability as a

phy - a set of antlers which writer to express the heartfelt

they had kept throughout their thanks which my men and my-captivity, self feel towards the men

In gratitude they presented aboard your ship. The wonder-them to the ship where they ful spirit which they showed inwere mounted and displayed in gathering up all of the manythe wardroom, food, clothing and tobaccoMany of the camps in Ja- items from their own personal

pan's hinterland could not be supplies and messes is whatreached at once, so relief sup- makes life really worthwhile.plies and medicines were Especially after having spentdropped by the carrier aircraft 31/2 years under the Japs.of Halsey's 3rd Fleet- includ- "There were many, manying HMS Indefatigable, tears shed that first day whenAmong the camps located

and supplied by British " Turn to next page

I Long-distance runners )" From page IX

fore breakfast one morning.When the Japanese surren-

dered she was the first into To-kyo Bay to replenish the 13111-

ships there, and to store theescort carriers Ruler andSpeaker with bedding, tobacco.food and clothing so they, couldimmediately embark freed pris-oners of war.During the BPF's last opera-

tion off Japan, the sloop HMSPheasant was one of the FleetTrain's escort ships. One day _,Pheasant came alongside one ofthe best known and highly val-ued VSISs, (ilcnartnev. Her ef-ficiency was renowned through- Harry Knight received a

out the BPF - and she had surprise package of

wonthe praise of the fleet's sea-going commander. Admiral the radio spares - which wereRawlings. hurriedly taken into the WITBy the time she was relieved office and the door closed. The

by Fort Wranell on August 6 boxes were opened and con-she had provisioned 77 ships tamed 12 bottles of Whitbreadand discharged 422 tons of pale ale and a bottle of gin."stores at a rate of 71/, tons anhour. The most remarkable

Bartender 9/Tel Harry Knight in Pheas-

ant was pleased to see Glenart-ney after weeks of eating driedpotato, beans and "corneddog" (tinned corned beef)."She was a pleasure to go

alongside for stores transfer -even the lines seemed to be ca-ger to get aboard her. Some ofthe crew, waiting to exchangerepartee with those of us notdirectly concerned with thetransfer, pelted us with freshapples and onions."

(Ilenartney's cailsign wasBartender 9, and over the ntHarry Knight casually men-tioned to her operator that hewished she really was.

"After a couple of minutes hecalled to say that 'radio spares'would be in two metal boxes tobe sent over with the nexttransfer of stores at 0600 thenext day."At 0600 the next morning

off-watch sparkcrs assembledon the upper deck to receive

and sought-aner snip inthe Fleet Train arrived toolate to serve during hostil-ities. Shewas the "floatingbrewery" Menestheus.

She, and the Agamemnon in-tended for service in South-East Asia Command, were for-mer Blue Funnel Line vesselsfitted out as fleet amenitiesships.On board, the Mcnesthcus

brewed mild ale and sold it inher Naafi bars at 9d a pint. Her400-seat theatre ran a profes-sional "topical tropical revue"entitled "Pacific Show Boat" inwhich the RN School of MusicTheatre Orchestra featured. Itwas a sort of sea-going "It Ain'tHalf Hot Mum".

In addition Menestheus hada restaurant, library and shops.The last word in Fleet Traindevelopment, she left for theUK in 1946, her owners' pres-sure for her return outweighingthe attempts by Admiral Fraserto retain her and the Americansto buy, her for themselves.

With their hands in the air, Japanese suicide-boat pilots are covered by wary sailors from thedestroyers HMSWhirlwind and HMS Quadrant as they approach the explosive motor boats in Picnicbay, Hong Kong. Some of the craft can be seen on their trolleys ready for launching.

Xl! NAVY NEWS. AIR;(S I I

ItBurn KAA-VE1314

F cjz' \'r

/ I \t79

Moment of joy as a member of the British liberation forces, P0John Wright-Brown is reunited with his wife and sees his five-year-old daughter for the first time. MrsWright-Brown and herdaughter, Elizabeth-Ann, had been prisoners of the Japanesein Hong Kong.The five-year-old is devouring the contents of ahaversack -the first British food she had ever seen.

5z I_'

ABOVE: Waving captured Samurai swords and flags, sailorsandRoyal Marines show their high spirits on capturing Kal Takairstrip in Hong Kong.

LEFT: The tension ends, and for these sailors it's time for alaugh at an open-air show on Guam Island.

I I

C

More than 1,000 Allied aircraft overfly HMS Duke of York as the battleship heads for Tokyo for Ships of the British East Indies Fleet are lit up by star-shell during VJ Night celebrations inthe surrender ceremony. Trincomalee harbour.

SURRENDER From previous pageBIBLIOGRAPHYThe Forgotten Fleet by JohnWinton, published by Michael

your Avengers came over our ship's company to be at ,eOofl eat ,11e I'U\\ i d oil iner prisoners ol em- eccessars \ ar -- because Joseph. 1969.camp and dropped the food stations," said Cliff Stones, the island. barked. "They were in such an never had there been a war Chronology of the War at SeaEverything which you and yourInthe event Rotherham's en-Lt Bill Procter RNVR was emaciated state that at firstwhich could have been more1939-1945 by J. Rohwer andmen dropped to us was saved,try proved peaceful. "As we ap-struck by their emaciated ap-they were too weak to stand,easily prevented.G. Hummelchen, revised edi-even those that dropped in theproached the jetty, among my pearance. "They came on and could only be fed diluted Two small ribbons on the tion published by Greenhillbay - we saved all. The per- other duties I was buoy-jumper. board for a meal and general condensed milk and sugaredbreast of Rear Admiral Uzurni,Books, 1992.sonal items the men sent were and when the ship was near bonhomie. It fetches tears towater."theJapanese officer who signedThe War at Sea by Gordonwonderful."enough I jumped ashore to mr eyes even now to think of The recovery from a war that the surrender of Pcnang.Smith, published by fan Allan,Although the formal surren- make fast the stern line before it.' had left 50 million people deadseemed a symbol of the waste1989.

der took place on September 2. running down the jetty to takeFrom there Argonautwould be long and difficult,and senselessness of what ruth-The Victoria Cross at Sea bythe Emperor's forces were the bow lines. steamed up the Yaflg4 River and the scars would not heal ! ambition had inflicted on John Winton. published by Mi-spread widely throughout thePacific and South-East Asia,where the process of capitula-tion continued well intoSeptember.

Singapore

Enemy forces in Sumatrawere surrendered on board thecruiser HMS London onAugust 31, and the surrender ofI'enang. Malaya, was acceptedin the battleship HMS Nelsonon September 2.

10 Shanghai where Bill rroctcrfor the first time encountered ashape of the future - cannedbeer, on board an Americanlanding craft.All remaining Japanese

forces in South East Asia sur-rendered to Lord Louis Mount-batten in Singapore on Septem-ber 12. Four days later, withAdmiral Fraser and HMS Dukeof York at Hong Kong, the for-mal surrender of the CrownColony was accepted. In fact,the first British ships had

easily. For many, they have nothealed yet. But at least the kill-ing had stopped - and thatwas something to celebrate.Prime Minister Winston

Churchill was once asked byPresident Roosevelt what nameshould be given to the war.Churchill replied. "The tIn-

humanity. The ribbons werethose of Britain's DistinguishedService Cross and the AlliedVictory Medal, both of whichAdmiral Uzumi had receivedfor gallantry and service as afriend of the tJnited Kingdom,fighting in a war which hadended just 27 sears before.

cnaei Josepn,The T-class Submarine by PaulKemp, published by Arms andArmour Press, 1990.British Submarines at War1939-45 by Alistair Mars, pub-lished by William Kimber, 1971.They Gave Me a Seafire by CdrR. (Mike) Crosley DSC andBar, RN, published by Para-press Ltd.The Second World War by SirWinston Churchill, publishedby Cassell & Co. 1954." All pictures in this supple-supple-

Two days later Singapore Cliff Stones . first ashore reached Hong Kong I I days - -. "ment have been supplied by

surrender took place on board at Singapore naval base. before. r the Imperial War Museum un-the cruiser HMS Sussex. AB One of them was the cruiser - less otherwise stated .Cliff Stones, a gunlayer in Sus- "Thus I became the first HMS Swiftsure . Her navigatin gsex's escort, HMS Rotherham .recalls the ship's entry into Sin- (free) British subject to set foo ton Singapore naval base for officer was Lt Cdr John Well swho remembers that in corn- " THANKS TO YOU

six three and seven months." NAVY NEWS thanksJapa-gapore preceded by yearsOn September 6 the Japanese

pan\ with HMS Euryalus they,landed

all con-tributorsriese minesweepers. 500 sailors and Royal " to this supplement.

Rotherham, under her CO, surrendered their forces in the Marines "armed to the teeth." _- - Unfortunately, it was notCapt Hilary Biggs, was ordered Bismarck and Solomon Islands "On arrival at the jetty, they possible to use all the hun-to proceed to the naval base and New Guinea on board the were met by an obsequious Jap- dreds of accounts and pie-and accept its surrender. "Capt carrier HMS Glory off Rabaul. anew officer only too keen to tures received from readers.Biggs, not knowing whether the Capitulation in Formosa discuss surrender." However, we are most grate-Japanese ships would open fire came on September 9. and the On board the new battleship ful to have them and will re-on him, gave orders for the bat- cruiser HMS Argonaut was HMS Anson. AB David Howe Rear Admiral Uzumi surrenders Japan's forces in Penang on tam all accounts in ourtIc ensign to be hoisted and the among the ships sent to help saw Canadian and Indian for- board HMS Nelson, Vice Admiral H.T.C. Walker's flagship.

-

archives.