大象传媒

At the beginning of the war (1939-1945) merchant ships were fitted with a 4" gun of uncertain vintage. The gun was placed on the poop and was purely for defence against surface craft. The ammunition was a 4" shell and a cordite charge loaded Separately
At that time the gun crew consisted of a Royal Marine gunner (retired) and a merchant seaman gunner, the rest of the gun crew was made up by members of the ship's company trained by the R.M. gunner
After Dunkirk the Luftwaffe targeted ships and as a defence ships were fitted with Marlin and/or Hotchkiss machine guns firing .303 ammunition. They were known as peashooters. Various other air defence measures were introduced:- 12 Pdr. Anti Aircraft gun, very good - P.A.C. (Parachute Aerial Cable)lethal to ships personnel in a strong wind-FAM (Fast Aerial Mine)-a rocket fired from a steel channel trailing a wire which had a grenade at one end. The idea was a plane ran into the wire and the grenade slid up the wire to explode on contact with the plane - chance is a wonderful thing. Now this a beauty, a Holman Projector, a steel tube 2" diameter and 30" long. The idea was to hold a grenade, pull the pin and drop the grenade into the tube - now to fire the grenade into the air STEAM or AIR pressure was used. Alas there were some disastrous results. On one ship the weapon was sighted abaft the ship's funnel The Holman Projector was operated by steam. The grenade was duly plopped into the tube and the steam turned on, of course the steam pressure was insufficient and the grenade simply flopped out of the tube. Sadly personnel were killed and it didn't do the funnel any good.
Another hair brained was the AWD(Acoustic Warning Device). This was a thing not unlike a bull rush fitted to the top of a mast. The bull rush affect was caused by the construction of the AWD basically several micro phones covered with mesh wire. Wires were led to alarm bells on the bridge, hopefully the AWD would give due, warning of the approach of an aircraft. Trouble was wind whistling through halyards etc or somebody banging a hammer set the alarm off. As time passed the old 4" gun on the poop was replaced by a new 4" LA/HA gun with fixed ammunition. Very good. The Marlin and Hotchkiss guns were replaced by Oerlikon 20 mm guns. Excellent. A unique ammunition was used with the Oerlikon to aid the gunner, it was called TITA (Tracer Incendiary Tracer Amour Piercing) fired in that rotation. A rocket launcher called a Pillar Box was introduced, it consisted of twelve rockets on either side. They had a limited range and I don't think they were all that successful. If practical small barrage balloons were used, a good deterrent to low flying aircraft.
Some ships were fitted with a limited number of depth charges. The 5th Engineer and I (Cadet) were sent aft to the poop to secure one of the housing brackets as the nut/bolt had worked loose. The ship was pitching into a head gale. The 5/E and I contemplated the result if the depth charge dropped over the stem. With the weather we sure were not making much headway.
Latterly certain ships were fitted with 271 RADAR. We had one on the "Clan Chisholm" when I was 4th Officer.

To conclude I'll mention the defensive layout on the liberty ship "Sampenn'' when I was a cadet on her (1943). 1 12 Pdr. Forward, 2 Oerlikons (P & S bridge) 2
-Oerlikons (P & S) aft end bridge deck, 1 4" LA/HA run on poop. Plus anti torpedo nets that swung out on long booms to cover the ship's hull from the aft end of No. 1 to aft end of No.4 hold.
With all the armament mentioned we eventually carried more gunners. They were known as Dems ratings from the Royal Navy and Royal Artillery Maritime Regiment. Plus ships personnel. The Gunnery Officer was generally the ships own 2nd or 3rd Officer. I had a Merchant Seaman's gunner certificate which earned me 6p per day, a fortune for a Cadet.

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