Hi Jim
Yes I was on HMS Duchess of Fife, Pennants J115.

In peacetime she was used as a passenger ship from Glasgow down the Clyde to Rothesay, Ardrossan, Inverary, Isle of Arran and other places in the Bay of Ayr and Western Isles of Scotland.

In peacetime of course she had huge cabin/lounge spaces below the upper deck and a huge Dining Lounge and on the upper deck seating for about 300 passengers - so in wartime there was plenty of space for messdecks. Most of the Ships Company were peacetime Fishermen many from the Orkneys and Stornaway, big rough tough bastards who spoke a language like gaelic - but marvellous Seamen, old Trawlermen, RNVRs

The W/T office was in a little Cabin on the upper deck, we had a Marconi TW12 Transmitter of about 50 Watts on full power, 1500 kcs up to about 4,500 kcs, Voice and Cw, and also a Marconi 394G receiver 1,500 to 6,000 Kcs - no 500 kcs, as in peacetime they did not carry a Radio Officer as they only operated within Coastal Waters. and were on 2182 voice, or a frequency to his Company HQ, done by the Master

There was a Killick Sparker and an OD or Boy Tel who kept 4 on 4 off for the 4 to 6 days we were at Sea - (usually on "I" method on Port Wave) We had 1 Bunting Tosser. Watch on, Stop on. The Coal was usually mostly burned by then so we had to come in to Coal Ship.

..Shit of a job, everybody had to turn to for coaling, and because I was a Boy and was then quite slim I was always sent down to trim the coal in to the corners of the bunkers and when they got nearly full and I was up just underneath the upper deck they would pull me up through the Manhole. The reward was that the old Coxswain would usually quietly slip me a Tot.

They only had a draught of about 5 to 6 feet, Coal fed boilers, and the horizontal two cylinder compound engine could give her about 18 Knots when she had a clean bottom etc. and she was built in 1903 of steel plate half an inch thick.Main armament was a 12 pounder breech loader of 1898 vintage - never got more than 2 rounds away before the cartridge case jammed in the Breech - and we had 2 x .303 Lewis Guns and a fiendish weapon called a "Morrison Projector" which was about 6 feet long steel pipe about 3 inches diameter - connected by pipe directly to the main steam line of the boiler. This was an anti-aircraft weapon, used by pulling the pin out of a Mills 36 grenade with a 7 second fuse, keeping hold of the clip so that it did not trigger the fuse, letting it slide down the tube to the bottom. Then judging the right moment as the Aircraft came at you, Throw open the steam valve and hopefully it would propel the grenade up in to the air a couple of hundred feet where it would explode near the aircraft. Half the time the bloody grenade just went a few feet up and boiling water cascaded all over the man on the valve and it either fell just over the side into the water, and on one sweeper fell back inboard and blew up and killed most of the lads on the deck - Hitler must have been terrified of it - it killed more of us than it did of them. We were terrified of it even if Hitler wasn't.

A few years ago I managed to obtain a little book about Paddle Minesweepers giving their Histories etc and sadly most of them were scrapped after about 1950 and I believe there is only one still going and that is Diesel Powered. Called the "WAVERLEY"

Rgds

Jim B


I well remember one Sunday forenoon when we were laying off the Pier at Lee-on-Solent waiting for orders and the Skipper gave leave to a few of the men from 1200 till 1600 and I was the Bow oarsman in the 26ft Montague Whaler to pull them ashore to the Pier - Naturally the boats crew nipped in to the Pier Hotel Bar for 1 swift Beer before pulling back to the ship, and I went with them, and got a quick smack around the ear and thrown out by my own shipmates.. "NO bloody Under 18's allowed in Here Sparks..on your way" - I was Peed Off.

You know Dinger, a Boy was on about 1s3d a day pay - thats say 12 cents in todays money but we were only allowed to draw 5/- or 50 cents a fortnight of this - but as an Ord it went to 1/9d (17 cents) a day and you could draw it all and better still on a small ship like Minesweepers and Landing craft or MTB's you got 1/- (10 cents) "hard layers" money..pay as a Tel (able Rate) was 2s3d per day (23 cents) and as a Tel (T.O.) that was a "Trained Operator" (and usually a single operator on a small ship, ) you got 2s9d (27 cents) per day, absolute untold wealth - or so it seemed ..till you went ashore.

Best of all for me was , that when we were at Sea, there was an allowance of one tin of Gooseberries between 16 men for every 24 hours at Sea, so we usually got a Duff of Gooseberry Pie about once a week, There were about 30 Gooseberries in each Tin, so it worked out say 2 gooseberries a day. Profligate luxury living.

Funny how things stick in the memory isn't it.

Rgds
Jim B


Thanks for passing on some of your memories Jim.

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My Father is about the same age as Jim Blackburn and he was in the Army during and after WWII. His memory is as sharp as Jim's. What is it with the older generation? I can't even remember where the LRR was situated on the Royalist and what equipment was in that office! I can remember who was in the same watch as me, except for who the AB was. Is it because of modern day living with all its stresses, or was it because of too much Rum, Beer, 'Baccy and Penicillin Injections?

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The Laughing Cavalier in Borneo.

By David Davies Lt. Cdr. Rtd Royal Navy/Royal New Zealand Navy. On Saturday, 8th December, 1962 elements of the Far East Fleet together with some other ships doing their "East of Suez" stint were in the Java Sea headed back to Singapore having been at Perth for the Commonwealth Games which Þnished a few days before. The usual exercises and OfÞcer of the Watch manouvres had been carried out under the watchful eye of the force commander in H.M.S. "Tiger" and by stand-easy things in H.M.S. Cavalier were settling down to a quiet Saturday morning at sea in good weather. H.M.S. Cavalier (Captain - Commander Black, a naval pilot) was a CA class destroyer and the fastest ship in the group. I was a special duties sub-lieutenant in the communications branch of about one year's standing and was the squadron's assistant communications officer who had been sent to Cavalier for the trip to Australia. The night before we had all become aware of problems developing in Brunei by listening to the BBC Far East Service broadcasts.

Like other off-watch officers I was having my morning tea in the wardroom where a very large, gold-framed print of the Laughing Cavalier watched over proceedings when the Radio Supervisor came to the door and told me that a coded message had been received which was for ofÞcers eyes only. The message turned out to be from C in C FES (Commander in Chief, Far East Station) ordering Cavalier back to Singapore at best speed to embark stores and personnel and transport them to Labuan in Borneo. This was quickly followed by an instruction from the force commander telling us to detach and proceed. The Cavalier was capable of over 31 knots and we used a fair proportion of that speed as we headed for Singapore. We only slowed down when we got to the Changi Channel leading to the Singapore Dockyard and even then we caused a fair bit of excitement among the locals who had boats moored at buoys and jetties in the channel.

HMS Cavalier

On arrival at the dockyard at about first light on Saturday 8th December work was started to remove both of our quadruple torpedo tubes which were mounted midships on the upper deck. This was to make room for Land Rovers, trailers and other stores. We were also going to take about 180 troops consisting of members of 42 Commando, Royal Marines and Gurkhas in roughly equal numbers (each at about company strength). After a very hard-working day for everyone the troops and their stores were embarked and we left the naval base just after midnight to a great send-off. A Gurkha piper positioned himself at the back of the bridge and started to play his bagpipes as the ship began to move. The Gurkhas were going to war and the Cavalier was taking them there. However, no-one could hear each other on the bridge and the piper was invited to position himself in the waist of the ship where the pipes did not affect the operation of the ship! It was both eerie and exciting as we moved off in the dark back down the Changi Channel towards the open sea.


On the Sunday we were about half way to Brunei when I took over the bridge for the first dog watch (1600 - 1800) and, as I remember it, we were moving at about 22 knots and a good lookout had to be kept for small fishing boats. By my next watch, the Morning watch (0400 - 0800) we had rounded the north-west corner of Borneo and had passed Kuching. Before I went up to the bridge I remember offering my bunk to a Royal Marine who was trying to sleep in the cabin flat (happily Cavalier was like that). At first light we passed Seria and could see flames on the shore which we thought might have been from fires caused by the uprising though it turned out that they were flames from gas burn-off at the offshore oil wells.

We came to anchor in Labuan Bay at about 10.00 a.m. and the troops and their equipment were disembarked. The Royal Marines and Gurkhas, I understand, were almost immediately ßown by RAF Beverley to Brunei airport which was still partly in the hands of the "opposition" but which was soon after liberated. I remember being amused by the RAF's means of deciding whether the Beverleys were alright to fly. Five bullet holes meant the aircraft could fly but six meant it was grounded.

When we arrived there was just one small Royal Navy ship in the area. This was a "Ton" class minesweeper which might have been H.M.S. Dartington. The minesweeper was sent upriver to Brunei town wharf to see if they could be of any assistance there. Meanwhile Cavalier was changing its role from "troopship" to a forward communications headquarters and by the end of the morning practically every radio set in the ship was in use. The ship's operations room became an information centre and was to be my permanent home for many long hours. Members of the ships company who were not involved in this work also had plenty to do. They carried out a variety of tasks both afloat and ashore including setting up and running a P.O.W. camp on Labuan island. The ship's boats were all in use and a number of us were sent in all directions to carry out a myriad of different jobs from time to time. I saw most signals that were passed via Cavalier but the saddest one I read was the one that reported the death of five Royal Marines killed in action. They were, as far as I know, the first fatal casualties in Borneo and it really brought it home to us what we were there for. I suspect they were men who had traveled to Borneo in Cavalier and might even have included the lad to whom I had given my bunk so that he could have a few decent hours sleep. We also saw the first RAF fighter aircraft to be involved, Hunters, pass over Labuan Bay headed up the Limbang River to support the Royal Marines in the interior. The photo on the right is me in Brunei. It was taken in the girl's school in Brunei town which was used as a headquarter's for General Walker and his staff. This is one of the classrooms that we, the communications cell, used. Desks and chairs can be seen stacked in the background.

I remember our time in Labuan as a time when the ship was very quiet. Everyone who wasn't ashore working was so tired out that they were sleeping whenever they had the chance. On about the fourth day and when we were all suffering badly from lack of sleep we received word that H.M.S. Tiger was coming to relieve us and surely enough, round about midday she was steaming into Labuan Bay with one or two other smaller ships. The Þrst message we got by light from Tiger was one telling us to set radio watch on three more channels. My thoughts were "Typical big ship. How many damned radios do they think we've got?" Fortunately the Communications Officer in Tiger was a personal friend and I was able to diplomatically point out the impracticability of this request in simple words both of which he understood.

In due time we turned everything over to H.M.S. Tiger and then sailed away from Labuan at a much more leisurely pace than we had arrived. On the way we tried firing a practice torpedo and did some damage to the hull of the ship when we were attempting to recover the torpedo. This necessitated our going into commercial dry-dock on arrival in Singapore. On arrival at Singapore Roads we passed H.M.S. Albion bound for Borneo with a full deck compliment of helicopters with whom we exchanged information on the situation back in Labuan. Shortly after arrival in dry-dock at Singapore the Fleet Communications Officer came onboard. Soon I was packing my kit. Cavalier had finished with Borneo after a hectic few days of holding the fort while the bigger ships got themselves organized. As for me I was headed back to Borneo as the Naval Communicator on General Walker's staff at the headquarters of Commander British Forces, Borneo where I was to stay for four months or so sleeping in a bed made for a very small schoolgirl and being looked after by a Gurkha batman.

David Davies

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From Jim Dell

Prior to my joining Pussers, I was a Telegraphist in the NZ Post and Telegraph Department.

Training was done at the Telegraphists School, Trentham Camp, and included the following:
1. Receiving CW at 25 wpm - by hand and on a typewriter
2. Transmitting CW at 22 wpm
3. Touchtyping on a Creed reperforator at 50 wpm - this increased to 80 at the ITO.
4. Landline teletype procedures
5. Shore to ship procedures - 500 kHz and the Long Distance Organisation

6. Radio Theory - some of this was done at the School, but most of it we had to travel into Wellington for night classes at Wellington Polytechnic (used to be up behind the old Wellington Museum).
7. Voice procedure training was carried out on the job at the respective Coast Stations.

On passing out of the School, we were sent on our way to the various Stations:
ZLD - Auckland Radio - Local and medium distance ship/shore
ZLW - Wellington Radio - Local and medium distance ship/shore

ZLW/ZLX - International Telegraph Office, GPO Wellington - NZ and Overseas HF circuits
ZLB - Awarua Radio - Local, medium and NZ Area Long Distance Organisation
ZLC - Chatham Islands - Local and medium distance ship/shore and fixed service to ZLW.
ZLK - Scott Base - Local support comms and fixed service to ZLW

ZLW and ZLD operators were also used as a pool for merchant ships. If a Radio Officer onboard a ship was taken off through illness or other type of emergency, then the P & T would supply an operator on a temporary basis.

I initially went to ZLW up at Tinakori Hill in Wellington. Did a couple of months there then was sent down to the International Telegraph Office at the Wellington GPO. This was situated on the first ßoor to the right (to the left was the Telegraph Office which had circuits to all the Post Offces throughout the country).

The ITO's circuits consisted of the following:

Sydney - 75 baud via cable - continuous
Melbourne - 75 baud via cable - continuous HF facsimile - as required
Papeete - 50 baud HF - skeds
Chatham Islands - CW skeds
Scott Base - CW skeds
Rarotonga - CW skeds
Nuie - CW skeds
Apia - CW skeds
Nukualofa - CW skeds
Tokelaus - CW skeds

Peter Hart and Jim Dell at ZLW, Tinakori Hill

The Pacific Island operators used to ask us to increase speed on the autohead (all CW traffic was pre-taped) and I have seen the Cook Island operators receiving it at 35 wpm. If you needed a rerun, you just transmitted a "B" short for back an inch. The transmitting operator would then pull the tape back an inch on the autohead and let it go. Very efficient - no mucking about with service messages or Opsigs at the end of each message. The Pacific Island circuits ran at a minimum of 25 wpm. Between each message, there were three lots of "VE" this gave you just enough time to type in your TOR, initials, take out the telegram form and put in the next form (in triplicate). Just as you wound up the Form to the starting point on the typewriter, the next telegram would start "CT.."

The ITO's transmitters were at Himitangi - some 50 miles away and the receivers were at Makara - on the west coast of Wellington at about 12 miles. We had direct telephone contact with both stations. The operator sat at a bay with the typewriter in front of him, morse autohead to the left, morse key to the immediate right and push buttons for transmitter and receiver control lines to the extreme right.

You would ring up the stations ten minutes before your sked started and ascertain which control lines would be used. At the appointed time, you established contact with the other station by key, exchanged traffic states and then proceeded. 90 percent of the Pacific Islands traffic was in their native tongue and there was no confirmation (collation) at the end of each telegram!

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Not many know that Bob Ohlsen served for a few weeks on a merchant ship - MAF Research Ship "WJ Scott" -

Vessel Name: W J SCOTT
Vessel Type: Research ship
Tonnage: 167 gross
Owner: New Zealand Government
Built: 1962
Builder: Brastad Skibbs A S, Brattvag
Engine: Diesel
Abstract: New fisheries research trawler W J SCOTT was originally built for Sigbjorn Hammer, Norway as HEMNESTRAL. 9 Mar 1966 arrived Auckland on her delivery voyage.

Following received from young Bob:

Jeem,

You are right - I did spend 4 weeks or so on the WJ Scott when she was called in to assist Pussers in the search for the Kaitawa when she went down in a storm off Pandora Bank in 66. The Scott had just been purchased and brought out from Norway by Minagfish. She was a research vessel for the Ministry, with a difference in that they sold the catch with the crew being paid standard bonus/per basket from the catch. (For the record I never got any bonus's but I did get plenty of fish).

When I joined her she was about to do her maiden voyage round NZ, however, because of her sonar her services were requested and she was included in the search group.

Her comms were very simple in that she had an HF transceiver (100watts max from memory) operating on voice. I recall when I joined the ship the Marconi rep was onboard & his advice was something like - here is your set, the spares (valves etc) are in "this drawer" and the operating instructions are in that drawer; and with that he disappeared. Well that was all bloody fine except the instructions were written in Norwegian. Perhaps because of my surname he thought I could read them! I also recall that later in the trip (I was fishing by this time Jeem), I had to call on the spares. Well that was a bloody lottery & it was by sheer good luck that we managed to get back in to Auckland with the set working on low power.

Cheers Bob

Thanks for that Robert.

The Kaitawa sank on the night of the 23/24 May 1966. A search for the vessel was conducted by the RNZN and WJ Scott and the hull was found nearly intact and upside down on the 8 June 1966.

Jim

The Taranaki was also with the Scott searching for Kaitawa, having made a dash up north with depleted ships company as retard leave away after coming back from FE. Once she found Kaitawa, Taranaki immediately went way down South to act as weather ship for Antarctic evacuation. Lovely rolling seas and no hot meals for a couple of days and worries about icebergs. Happy days

John Snow

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We have another sparker who spent time on deep sea trawlers - Allan Parker, WORS, Retired:

I worked on trawlers in 1962/63 after leaving the RN and before joining the RNZN and sailed out of Hull and Grimsby. My employer was Marconi International Marine Company.

Marconi provided radio operators to the deep sea fishing ßeets operating out of UK. Before working for Marconi I had trained at Brooks Bar Radio College in Manchester and held a PMG Class II Certificate for Radio Operators.

I was assigned to Consolidated Fisheries Ltd and did trips on the following deep sea trawlers - Stella Capella, Blackburn Rovers, Crystal Palace, Notts County, Churchill, and Derby County. The vessels were about 165 feet long and had a crew of sixteen - Skipper, radio operator, mate, bosun, two engineers, third hand, 8 fishermen including a deckie learner, and a cook.

Fishing was done at Iceland, the North Cape of Norway, Bear Island, and the White Sea off Murmansk, Russia. The average trip lasted three weeks. Only 48 hours was spent in port between trips. Of that only about 36 hours was free time. The other twelve hours was spent arranging repairs to equipment, waiting for the catch to be sold, picking up pay, travelling , and getting personal provisions for the next trip.

A basic weekly wage was paid by Marconi and a percentage of the sale of the catch paid by the fishing company.

This is the Company that Allan worked for.

The radio room was immediately behind the bridge and the radio operators cabin one deck down immediately below the radio room.

The equipment differed a little between vessels but generally speaking I think it included the following:


An HF/MF Main Transmitter - IKW Marconi Oceanspan - Which was used for CW and DSB Radphone ship to shore communications. MF Radio Telephone - for communication between vessels and skippers on the fishing grounds. Seaguard Automatic Watchkeeper tuned to 500khz Two MF/HF Receivers. Marconi Atlanta - one of which was always monitoring the activities of other vessels fishing MF/DF Receiver - Marconi Lodestone - Used for navigation and fishing VHF Transceiver
Lifeguard Auto Alarm and Auto key
Battery Charger
Emergency Lifeboat Transmitter - Marconi Reliance Wire Aerials - centre fed as I remember - Frequencies used most frequently were in the range from 500KHZ up to 12 MHZ

Activity at Sea
It took about 7 days steaming to get to the fishing grounds. I kept watch on 500khz and 2182khz when leaving port. VHF was mainly used for communicating with pilots when entering and leaving the fish dock and the Humber River. I sent my TR reports on 500KHZ

I tuned to a broadcast traffic schedule at 2000 daily from Wick Radio. That carried normal traffic to all the trawlers at sea in northern waters. A company schedule was kept at 1400 daily. All company vessels at sea kept this sked. Position, destination, catch and ETA was reported in company code. Vessels to the south sailing to and from the fishing grounds acted as relay stations for vessels fishing in the far North. You could not believe half the stuff reported on these skeds, even though it was in code and between vessels of the same company. You only got the true story when a vessel was about 24 hours away from landing his catch. Skippers got big money and keenly protected their information and position as a skipper.

During the trip North to the fishing grounds all the "personal" ship/shore communication occurred - the skipper would often ask for a Radphone connection to his wife and the crew would receive and send interflora telegrams, bets on the horses etc. Once you got further North communications became a problem because of poor propagation conditions and the skipper also demanded radio silence.

The trip North also gave the crew the opportunity to sober up after a hectic 48 hours in port and repair the trawl nets.

After about three days sailing north the skipper would become very interested in the location of other boats and what they were catching. A decision had to be made as to whether to turn to port and go to Iceland or turn starboard and go through the fjiords up to the North Cape, the White Sea or Bear Island. Now most of my time was now spent monitoring voice traffic on the fishing grounds and reporting to the skipper my guesses as to who seemed to be catching what and where . All of this occurred on the MF and HF bands CW and AM Voice. Each company used its own code when communicating by morse and for disguising fishing locations . Monitoring the plain language voice chat between skippers was a challenge as strong regional accents were deliberately used.

Ship/Shore communications was via the series of Post Office Coastal Stations on the East Coast Britain although once in the Arctic regions Wick Radio in North Scotland became the only station that could be contacted in the UK

Once on the fishing grounds and catching fish the radio operator was expected to keep the vessels actual position secret and to consistently deny to absolutely everyone who asked that any fish was being caught .

Hours were from about 0730 to 0200 the following morning. Most of this time was spent in the radio room or on the bridge, monitoring activity on the fishing grounds, keeping an eye on the distress frequencies, keeping company schedules, Reading traffic schedules from Wick Radio, getting weather reports, keeping equipment going, steering the vessel, boiling the fish livers and occasionally helping out in the fish hold or going up the mast to free the radar aerial of ice. There is a long history of trawlers sinking or going aground in the far North so it was important to keep a close eye on 500KHZ.

When on the fishing grounds the only decent weather forecasts I could get was from Icelandic or Norwegian Stations. All us radio operators learnt enough of these languages to know whether a force 12 gale was forecast !

Towards the end of the trip the skipper became very interested in the price of fish at the morning markets back in England and how many vessels were running for home. So the focus now turned to provide him with this information so that he could time his run back to port to land the catch.

The radio operator was also expected to keep the radar and fishfinders going and fix any electrical problems on board. There was spares for everything so it was relatively easy to keep equipment operational. However one Skipper gave me a challenge I was reluctant to meet. He kept pestering me to get more power out of the electric trawl winch - it was already drawing 600amps on full load so I was very reluctant to draw any more from the ships generator

I would also prepare a long list of items requiring repair at the end of each trip and the experts would come on board as soon as we berthed and started fixing equipment ready for the next trip.

The radio operator was also the ships doctor and held the key to the medical chest. We carried a range of drugs and equipment. The most common problem I had to treat salt water boils of the fishermen caused by long immersion in sea water which occurred shooting and hauling the trawl and gutting fish on the upper deck.

The trip home was always timed to arrive for the best market conditions. So after seven or so days constant fishing the skipper wanted to know what the price of fish was at auction and so I would spend a lot of time getting market reports and intercepting the communication of vessels returning to Hull and Grimsby.


Working Conditions were pretty spartan. You had to provide all your own wet weather gear, Arctic clothing and bedding including a mattress for your bunk . You are required to take all of this gear off the vessel between each trip. I had an inflatable mattress for easy carrying.

There was enough basic food to get us to the fishing grounds. After that you lived off the fish caught and your own provisions. There was no fridge so most of us took our own fresh provisions. I would take enough fruit to last me for three weeks. Only enough water was carried for washing. No shower. After a three week trip you can imagine the smell. I kept a large supply of primative deodorants in the bond store which everyone applied just before we all went ashore and before we got home for a shower or bath.

The ships cook always seemed to be a disabled fisherman, usually having lost a leg when a trawl warp snapped.

These ships were well fitted with communications gear and needed to be because of the amount of time they spent at sea in adverse conditions.

Regards

Allan

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Royalist was part of the invasion fleet during the Suez Crisis.

The following is an account of Communications by the British invasion fleet at Suez, given by WORI Godfrey Dykes, RN, Retired.

Given the conditions of the 1950s, the British forces relied heavily on the morse code to convey command and control orders, and the Royal Navy, above all other UK forces, had mastered this media par excellence. Moreover, because it was a deep-sea Navy and roamed in every ocean and sea on the planet, it had few international competitors, not even the Americans, when it came to communicating. When trouble was brewing, the speed of the dots and dashes increased exponentially as more and more signals were drafted by the commanders. When there were too many signals in the system and the limits had been reached on speed of morse transmission, a minimise, ordered at the onset of the situation, was rigidly enforced. Another way to speed up the overall signal ßow, was to send the message only once, which made a huge difference, for it had long been the practice to rerun as many messages as possible, particularly those of a high precedence. In times of trouble, the vast majority of signals are sensitive and kept away from enemy eyes [and ears] by coding them. In heavy traffic [signals] periods, the coders were hard put to keep pace, especially when every signal coded, had to be checked-decoded correctly by a second person, before it was transmitted by morse code. In the 1950s [and at other times of course] the Royal Navy frequently exercised the handling of ever increasing traffic loads, by generating dummy messages, testing the ability of the Communications Branch to keep the battle commanders informed of an ever changing battle plan. I can remember it being hard work, and a four-hour watch would fly by, such was the intensity in the communication offices onboard ships.

The Royal Navy had very little experience of working with ships of foreign navies, and despite the successes of the British naval units in the Korean War [1950-53] under the United Nations' banner, when we did manoeuvres together, the union caused great frustration to the Royal Navy, a navy without peers.

NATO was a new organisation with almost insurmountable teething problems, and once again, the Royal Navy had to be geared back to allow the shallow-water naval units to acquire a NATO skill, which, notwithstanding its potency, didn't match the modus operandi of the massive, skilful, competent and omnipotent Royal Navy.

Thus, in communication terms, the scene is set. We have a Royal Navy which is au fait with handling wartime communications around the world, shore and sea. Relatively few R.N., ships are given over to NATO duties, so, by and large, the R.N., is a loner, willing to give assistance to an ally, but happy in its own company. The bread-and-butter way of sending and receiving signals is by morse code, although much R and D work is in the pipeline to move us away from the skills and machinery honed sharp in the Second World War. Trials have taken place between sea and shore units, whereby all traffic, sensitive or not is sent in plain language [with no need to code] and, as importantly, by a machine using a high speed code other than by slow morse code, but still maintaining the status quo of using radio frequencies shared by on-going morse code channels.

Then, after the relatively happy days of post Korea were becoming the norm, the Suez Crisis came and we entered into an affray with the French as an ally. It has to be remembered that France was not part of the military wing of NATO and the R.N., had no dealings with them, especially at sea. As you have read in many articles written about the Suez Crisis, the French committed fewer ships than did the R.N., although they sent the Jean Bart, the only battleship present, and yes, she did use her big guns for naval bombardment purposes. Our communications inter operability with the French, was, as I recall, a shambles. Additionally, by changing the goal posts whereby we introduced "modern" communications, tested by trials only, but not operationally, as the main means of communicating between the flagship HMS Tyne and CINC Mediterranean {now domiciled in Cyprus and not in Malta, his normal base}, we were almost doomed to complications, frustration and partial failure. As a further complication, the R.N. was changing the way it coded its messages by machine in those days, we also coded by hand using OTP {One Time Pad}, etc. The outgoing machine was called TYPE X updated by a device called CCM, and the incoming machine was called a KL7, an American device, also proverbially known as ADONIS.

The Flagship HMS Tyne


I joined Tyne in Portsmouth from the carrier HMS Eagle, along with several others. At that time Tyne was based in Portsmouth as a destroyer depot ship. She was large, old, and unattractive without the lines or good looks of a warship. Tyne was fitted-out as a communications ship and her facilities were mind blowing. That is why she was chosen as the flagship for the Suez Crisis. She had taken part in many ship-to-shore communication trials, and her fit included automatic machines which were designed to be a panacea to all known problems in naval radio communications afloat. The communication branch represented a large part of the ships company, and from sailing until reaching Port Said where we anchored in the mouth of the Canal itself, it grew to be the largest ever sea-going staff, a record which stands to this very day. In Portsmouth the staff was R.N. with the exception of about six R.M. Signallers and comprised of six communication specialist officers; two CPOs; ten POs and lots and lots of junior rates. At our first stop, Gibraltar, we embarked the RAF Signals HQ unit from RAF North Front and whilst in Malta, further communicators from the Royal Signals Regiment. We also borrowed more R.N., communicators stationed ashore in Malta. When operating in Cyprus waters, we had to make room for a few more RAF men from Episkopi and the advanced team of French communicators, increased in size when in the Canal area proper. All of these extra units comprised of officers, sergeants, and other ranks, all crammed into a ship without air conditioning as we know it today, and in Mediterranean temperatures. Add to this, that after Cyprus, the dress of the day was such that every area of our skin was covered [action working dress and anti flash gear] to protect us from burns should the ship be attacked by Egyptian forces.

The Command Structure for the War affected Tyne greatly, for it not only meant that we were the flagship, but that we were the host ship; the ship in which all war correspondents were accommodated; where high ranking Egyptian prisoners-of-war were incarcerated; where surgery took place to repair front line unit injuries, and a whole hosts of other functions and duties which pre occupied our time. Living and working in Tyne, apart from an over crowded non air conditioned space, was like living on a knife edge, because being stationary, berthed alongside the jetty in Port Said, actually on the front line, there was a continuous worry about divers and underwater saboteurs; at night time we were lit up like a Christmas tree, not from any source above the water line, but from scores of powerful underwater lights placed at near keel level. The water line was patrolled by small boats carrying our divers and it was the responsibility of all who wandered on the upper deck to be observant.

On paper, the Communications for Command and Control were designed by clever and shrewd minds, and had the conditions prevailed on which these senior officers had cut their teeth, i.e., on the coding/morse code navy with strict rules for minimise, then, I am sure all would have been well! Equally, as you will have read in other pages on the Suez War, about the political situation which I am not going to expand upon, suffice to say, that we, Britain, had several enemies at that time. Our belligerent enemy was of course Egypt: our confrontational, frigid, non-belligerent enemy {at that time anyway!} were the French, a so called ally: our sternest and most unforgiving enemy were the Americans who, as it turned out, won the day and defeated Britain, and bringing up the rear, most of the people of the rest of the world. Unlike the 1982 Falklands War, which our men went to, fought in, and came back from, with great pomp and circumstance, we went unnoticed in dribs and drabs over a lengthy period of time; fought a short and most unpopular war, and came back without ceremony with our tails between our legs. However, unlike others who had served in the Suez Canal area before us, we at least did get the Naval General Service Medal [GSM] {1919-1964 series} with a "Near East" clasp. I am pleased to see that the petty oversight has now been rectified. Well done you men. (Royalist's crew were awarded the NZGSM (Warlike) with clasp "Near East". Jim)



The Command and Control function was of course centred in London {and not Paris} with a British General in overall charge. His subordinates, British and French, were scattered and linked by ambitious [notwithstanding the clever and shrewd minds mentioned above] communication plans. The following plan gives one an idea of the Command and Control chain:-

The French commanders were afloat in French ships. The Deputy CinC in the heavy cruiser Georges Leygues. which we used to call the "Gorgeous Legs", and the Deputy Allied Land Forces Commander was in a most unattractive auxiliary ship called the Gustave Z;d.

The communications plan was that our ship, the Tyne was to be a floating communications centre, a COMMCEN, with the ability to handle a traffic load hitherto only seen in large shore COMMCENs. This would be done in two quite separate ways. Firstly, the strategic communications, the bulk of the traffic, would be sent and received by the new technology I have already mentioned, namely by a high speed machine, using a code other than morse code, and not requiring the coding processes. These machines were the work-horses of shore COMMCENs but had never been used for real in and from a ship at sea. They were called BID30's but became better known as the 5 UCO machines. I was trained to be an operator of these whilst in Grand Harbour, Malta, and again in Cyprus at Episkopi when on the final stages for the attack on Egypt. As operators of such "new technology" machines, we were seen as a cut above other peer group operators, and we were rarely taken away from our prime task to undertake more mundane jobs, with one exception, and that was to operate the equally new cryptography machines, the KL7's. The 5 UCO's would send and receive signals by radio frequencies directly to Cyprus. There in Cyprus, was CinC Mediterranean and his Commanders. Cyprus was connected to London via comparable machines, channels and radio frequencies, and also to Malta, so the route to the CINC at his HQ in the UK was high speed with an instant read at the end - no decoding. Malta was critically important because the COMMCEN there completed the Strategic Communications route, converting this high speed, non-morse, plain language data into a morse code ethos which every ship in the Mediterranean was listening to for their information. The second type of communication platform that Tyne had to perform was based wholly on the use of morse code. The tactical situation covering the in-situ daily needs of fighting the war; the intelligence gathering required, particularly about the Israeli's intentions and Russia's bullying in Hungary; the routine spuds-and-bread signals for stores, food, fuel, etc., and the enormous amount of press telegrams written by our many War Correspondents, all engaged a phalanx of senior radio operators sending and receiving signals in morse code for the whole time they were on watch, which was a six-hour shift. They were communicating by morse code with Cyprus, Malta, Gibraltar, Portishead [UK]; with most of the large warships supporting Operation Musketeer, and with French warships, which were playing host to French commanders. There were no "passengers" within the Communications Branch onboard Tyne.

The "system" from the very beginning was intense, and it was clear to all that there was no slack or flexibility. However, some plan had to be available should either the STRATEGIC or the TACTICAL side fail or under perform. There was, but when it came to putting it to the test, it failed, and failed miserably.

Interference [noise] on radio frequencies had [and has] always been a weakness in using them for communicating. When the noise increases to a point where it is stronger than the signal itself {poor noise to signal ratio} the frequency cannot be used. However, radio operators were always trained in using their ears to, as it were, tune in on the signal and ignore the noise, as far as they were able. Highly competent operator's could read a morse code signal even in the worst possible conditions of interference. Thus, whilst not desirable, interference did not stop us from communicating. Regrettably, it did stop machines from working. From the very beginning, when we had sailed some distance from Cyprus towards the Suez Canal area, the reliability of the 5UCO machines became a matter for concern. Ignoring the defects and the difficulties with paper tapes in a sea going environment at that time, our down times of periods without contact ran into hours and into many hours. This down time meant that the signals waiting to be sent to Cyprus, had to be coded by hand and then sent as high precedence signals over morse code circuits to places like Portishead [UK] and Malta. Quite often at these times, tactical traffic prepared for morse transmission had to take a back seat, and I can vividly remember signals which in non down times would have taken up to an hour waiting in a queue [such was the size of the traffic generated in Tyne] would have to wait three hours {by which time, it had no tactical value of course.} Other morse code but non tactical traffic, would take 24 hours or would be ditched under the minimise rules. The down times began to come thick and fast, and the morse code boys were being stretched to their limits. This led to a major problem far away from the Canal and the transmitters of HMS Tyne. Malta and Portishead particularly, were ship/shore Stations [an integral part of the COMMCEN] and listened to the radio frequency bands for ships calling in to send their messages. Clearly, there were many more merchant ships than warships, so it was a first come, first served basis facility. HMS Tyne by herself, was beginning to have that much traffic to send that these stations had to lay on extra facilities to cope. Like Parkinson's Law says, "The more you give 'em the more they will use," and Tyne more or less, took over the show. Operation Musketeer had many naval units, which included at least five aircraft carriers, all of whom wanted their share of the bands to send their traffic: after all, they didn't have a "magic machine" like the Tyne did! All this lead to a knock on effect, and for the ships of Musketeer, morse code was king. The Fleet load was climbing and the only way signals could be sent to ships, was by utilising a broadcast common to all ships. Every ship read every message, just in case the message coming through at that time was for their ship. If it was, and they were a small ship, then possibly the next twenty would not be for them. To get rid of these messages, Malta was ordered to increase the speed of the morse code. Ships had to put their very best radio operators on to read the broadcast, but in reality, they were needed to send messages out of the ship on the various ship/shores available, now few in number because they were swamped. The more the 5UCO circuit failed between Tyne and Cyprus, the greater grew the load on morse code, coding and delays, and the frustration shown by Theatre commanders was tangible. We had a room full of sixteen people at one time [I was one of them] and each one would spend hours sitting at a KL7 machine coding signals. When we had finished, we would pass it to a colleague who would then try to decode the signal as though he were receiving the signal for real in some distant part of the world. If it was successful, it would be passed to the morse code operator; if not I would get it back to start all over again.

Tens upon tens of thousands of words were transcribed by our war correspondents, and, after scrutiny by the ship's intelligence office, the correspondent would want his script transmitted straight away. We had no long distance voice and satellites were yet to be thought of.

When deep into Musketeer, the 5UCO machines began to behave and settle down, but at no time in the Operation could they have been considered reliable assets. After Musketeer, at a wash-up which had a heading "Lessons Learned", the swamping of ships/shore and the various broadcasts were high on the agenda. The inadequacies of the 5UCO afloat were legend, and whilst not publicly stated, they must have proved a major disappointment to the commanders. As for Tyne and her many senior telegraphisits, one can only admire the sheer physical effort they put into transmitting by hand millions of words in terrible conditions [full action working dress with anti flash gear] in Egyptian temperatures without air conditioning. As for the Ship's Communications Officer, Lieutenant Commander A.H. [Hugh] Dickins, Royal Navy, I don't think he ever went to bed, such was the hapless man's responsibility, and he didn't even get an MBE for all his sterling efforts. He would have been knighted in today's give-away awards!

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Reference the above:

I have a personal interest in the Suez Crisis as I was there just prior to it. The events leading up to this are as follows:

On July 26 1956, The Egyptian President, Gamal Abdel Nasser, nationalised the Suez Canal. The crisis was provoked by an American and British decision not to finance the construction of the Aswan Dam, as they had promised, a response to the growth in Egypt’s affinity with Czechoslovakia, and the Soviet Union. Nasser reacted to the American and British decision by declaring martial law in the Canal Zone and seizing control of the Suez Canal Company, predicting that the tolls collected from ships passing through the canal would pay for the dam within five years. England and France feared that Nasser might close the canal and cut off shipments of petroleum between the Persian Gulf and western Europe. When diplomatic efforts to settle the crisis failed, England and France secretly prepared military action to regain control of the canal and, if possible, to depose Nasser.

Prior to this, my father was in the British Army as an Ordnance Technician and left the Army in 1952. At the end of 1955 he was working for ICI (Imperial Chemical Industries) and we found ourselves being airlifted to Egypt. From memory, it was a chartered BOAC flight and as we winged our way over the Egyptian desert, we could see the Suez Canal and about half way along, a remote airstrip appeared. This was our landing site – no buildings, no nothing. There were some British Army buses, trucks and an aviation tanker to greet us. The army had to supply a ladder to the forward end of the airplane in order for the passengers to alight.

We were taken to an ex-British army camp near Fayid, which is on the Great Bitter Lakes, through which the Suez Canal passes, and billeted in married quarters. Things were great for about six or seven months, and then I noticed heavy troop movements by rail. The railway passed within about 100 yards of the barbed wire of the camp, so it wasn’t hard to see what was being transported – troops and tanks. My Father had purchased a brand new Peugeot 203 in Egypt, of which he was extremely proud. We used to travel up and down the canal to Port Said, Port Suez and visit an old friend of his in Cairo. We noticed that things were getting worse on our last trip back from Cairo – as we drove back through several villages, the local people pelted our car with sugar cane, rocks and bricks. As a nine year old I had been experiencing things akin to “Boys Own”, but it was now getting serious.

  Little Jim with the Sphinx

Prior to the beginning of November 1956, when the British and French forces landed at Port Said, Egyptian authorities started rounding up British and French male civilians. The only way that the women and children could get out of the country where we were, was to be evacuated by Civilian flying boats. We all mustered at the British Club at Fayid on the Great Bitter Lakes in preparation for the evacuation. The men had to remain behind as hostages. We flew back to England on Solent flying boats, via Malta and landed at Southampton. Eventually, allied forces took the equivalent amount of prisoners in order to exchange those held in Cairo prison, my father included.

He arrived back in England, a bitter and pissed off man as the British Government wouldn’t recompense any of the imprisoned men for all the money and chattels lost. He enlisted in the NZ Army and we emigrated to NZ. To this day, I still don’t know what ICI were doing in Egypt at that time – prior to both of my parents passing away, they wouldn’t tell me.

  Solent Flying Boat

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Further enlightment toward the understanding of HF communications, came about as a result of trials done indepedently by the RN and the USN in the 1920's.

In April 1925, USS Seattle (an armoured cruiser) sailed from San Francisco on a tour to different countries within the Pacifc (including Aust and NZ). The Seattle was also to conduct communications trials with USN Communications stations and Amateur radio operators on the following bands (MHz) - 3.5, 5-6, 7, 11 and 14.

The equipment, which included 1kW transmitters - crystal controlled, were housed in the compass shack - at the base of the fourth funnel. Two single wires, both 42ft long, were run from there to the starboard and port yardarms of the mainmast. One aerial for transmitting and the other for receiving. In essence, they used sloping wire antennas (interference from the surrounding stays was quite bad). Communications were established with many stations, including Aust and NZ, the furtherest contact being with Johannesburg, Sth Africa - a distance of approx. 12,500 miles.

That same year, the RN conducted their own HF trials. These trials concentrated on finding the following distances for various frequencies between 6.25MHz and 25 MHz:

Skip Distances in miles
Range of earthbound component in miles
Width of first dead space in miles
Width of first zone of reception in miles
First overlapping zones using the above

These trials were conducted by HMS Yarmouth ( Town Class cruiser) whilst on deployment from the UK to Hong Kong and back and took 12 months to compile.


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The following is about one of our oldest known Telegraphists who passed away today - 13 December 2005:

*SILENT KEY - Henry Albert (Harry) GRAY ZL4AB of Wanaka*
The family notices section of this morning's Otago Daily Times records the passing of Harry Gray ZL4AB on 13 December 2005 at Dunstan Hospital, aged 92 years. His funeral service will be held in Wanaka on Monday 19th December at 2pm.

RADIO IN PEACE AND WAR
Alan, ZL4PZ, has asked me for a resume' of my ham life, but where did it begin? An interest in "signalling" in the boy scouts followed by joining the R.N.V.R., Wellington Division, concentrating on telegraphy and doing courses away in the HMS Dunedin, the Wakakura. Then a move to Dunedin and more instruction in reading CW and learning something about the basics of telegraphy. Another move to the UK and joining the London division of the RNVR.

Training was very concentrated and supervised by Admiralty. The various RNVR divisions around the British Isles would link up for instruction in navy procedure and of course exercises to help your proficiency in reading and transmitting the morse code. My "holidays" from work were mainly spent with the home fleet, one such time being in the HMS Nelson, flagship of the home fleet. What with the Rodney, Royal Oak and Revenge, all battleships, plus destroyers and cruisers doing full scale exercises, your four hour watch was a very busy experience! I returned to this country, just before war broke out and did time as a single operator in minesweepers and later in Fairmiles in the Pacific where one was also the signalman. Between ships, our allies preferred semaphore rather than the aldis lamps we used so we became adept at that particular method of passing messages.

We hardly ever transmitted because you could give your position away. Messages for the ship would be transmitted from Auckland to NPM Honolulu and repeated back to Auckland, giving you two chances of reading them. A good system with the bad atmospherics in the Pacific which most nights included St. Elmo's fire running along your aerials!

We kept a watch on 500kcs for distress signals from commercial shipping. They would give "sss or rrr" to signify the type of attack and then give their name in plain language followed by lat. and long. if they could. It very rarely happened, I suppose a shell through the wireless cabin fixed that. Reception in (I think it was the Chathams) must be very good because they were on air almost immediately with a signal, "following has been read" and pass on to all shipping what they had read.

Well the war came to an end and once settled in civilian life I decided to have a go at amateur radio. Three of us living in Balclutha went in to Dunedin each week to do the study and with the call sign of ZL4AB I made my first call on sixth of December 1977 to my old friend, ZL4HB, Vernon in Invercargill. 3750 was our frequency and later we were joined by Lloyd, ZL4BC, in Alexandra, ZL4 "Happy Days" Jock in Balclutha and many times ZL4IE, Alex in Dunedin. The main subjects of conversation were aerials, equipment made, (everything Jock had in his shack he had constructed himself) and stations worked the previous evening around the world. Unfortunately that group have all passed on. I have held three call signs during my lifetime. A N.Z. one, ZL4AB which I still hold. Australia, VK6AHG and England, G4HBN have not been renewed. My travelling days are unfortunately over!

Many thanks to Alan Gilchrist for passing this on.