大象传媒

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His Majesties Motor Gun Boat No. 21

While they were still on board I considered it a good idea to meet the rest of the crew, as they were all there I already had met the captain and the coxswain; the midshipman (called a snotty in the navy) was in the wheelhouse and I met him on my way to the mess deck. The coxswain, a chief petty officer, was in charge of the boat and crew when the two officers were ashore and he hardly ever left the boat and never talked about his private life or anything else unless spoken to first.

The engine staff consisted of three, a petty officer engine room artificer in charge of two stokers (mechanics), all big chaps, and then came two gunners and three ordinary seamen and myself, thirteen in all.
Later in the afternoon after I had been to the naval loan clothing store with my pay book and obtained a thick white polar neck jersey, H.M.M.G.B hat band and white plimsolls, the coxswain told me to stay on board as a petty officer telegraphist, long service 鈥漰rofessional鈥� (or POTS as they were all called) who was attached to the naval base communications as H.Q staff, should have met me on my arrival and given a full days tuition in handling the radio system on the boat.

I found out later that he had given up waiting for me at the Coastal Forces base (H.M.S. Attack) due to the heavy delay in my travelling and had taken himself on shore leave without permission in the afternoon and evening. Later that day, POTS turned up, he was obviously annoyed, probably having been reprimanded, and only gave me information on the things that he was asked, he seemed to be under the impression that it was me that had reported his absence, so I put him right on that and told him that it was the fault of the totally inefficient Royal Navy regular transport organisation that was responsible for the delay.

There were many things that he should have told me during his time with me but were omitted, and instead of a complete full day鈥檚 tuition, I only received a couple of hours.
I believe the coxswain had a word with him afterwards before he left the boat, as he was in his cabin (directly behind my curtained off radio room) during the visit and heard all that was being said and he immediately came in after having his chat with the so-called instructor and told me that I could go on evening shore leave today if I wished.

He added that all the boats were listed on a standby roster and when it was our turn we were moored on the outer side of others and had to be ready to leave harbour at a moments notice with full crew aboard or maybe scatter in the harbour during a heavy air raid attack at any time. As we got nearer to the date of the invasion, he added, all leave would dry up completely, so 鈥渕ake the most of it now鈥�, (this was the longest talk he had with anyone and lasted all of five minutes) so we would all know roughly when D-day was imminent, as would most of the populace of Portland and Weymouth who would notice the absence of British service men in the town.

The new electrical gadget on the shelf in my sleeping berth was an IFF set which was said by my so called instructor to mean Indicate Friend or Foe, but I am sure that it meant something more technical than that, I rather fancied Identification Frequency Finder (?).

It had to be switched on all the time we were at sea, and had a transmitter built in which sent out a very high frequency signal that could be picked up on the radar screens of our own ships, shore stations and aircraft, and the transmitted pattern on their screens created by our set, indicated to them only, that we were a British vessel, this piece of equipment at that time was top secret.

Any ship or boat picked up on the radar screen which never had an I.F.F. signal would most probably be an enemy vessel. So in effect, if we were at anchor at sea at a known fixed position with the I.F.F. switched on, other British craft could take a bearings from us to obtain their precise position.

The two RED buttons on the control panel of this gadget when pressed simultaneously, detonated a small explosive charge, inside the set, enough to blow the whole gadget to smithereens if there was a danger of the boat falling into enemy hands, the delayed action time being set was for one minute, enough to get off the boat (or in my case, head for the shore like a torpedo).

So I was sleeping virtually with my head adjacent to a time bomb, and during the night every time that my eyes were opened, those two red buttons glared at me and I had a good mind to paint eyes on them facing the other way, but decided it was best not to touch them.

This new equipment meant in practice, that the telegraphist should be the last one off the boat if there were ever the danger of the boat sinking, or falling into enemy hands; the code books had lead covers so that they would sink if thrown overboard to avoid capture by the enemy, both the IFF time bomb and code books were my responsibility, mind you I was seventeen.

There was a small cable running from the back of the wireless set, not mentioned by POTS so by tracing the wiring round the radio cabin I discovered that the communication receiver, built by Marconi Ltd, was also connected through a separate switch, to two small loudspeakers, one in the wheelhouse and the other in the mess deck, probably so that any signal to the boat would not be missed if the telegraphist had to leave the cabin, which was rare, but in the same way it showed that the set could be tuned into 大象传媒 radio stations and connected to the loud speaker system for music or news broadcasts providing media coverage for the benefit of the crew, apparently up till now it had never been used for this purpose.

I was now getting more confident at tuning this set to different stations.
When I first switched it through during the evening however when all the crew were on board, the petty officer artificer who seemed very argumentative mainly directed at his two underlings, complained that the power in his batteries was being run down if I 鈥渨asted鈥� it by putting music on, so I passed on the fact that the facility was available, to the coxswain, if the captain or crew wanted the radio on, it was up to them.

The engine room artificer was the only member of the crew that I instinctively disliked, as he was always ready for an argument with the others and despite his rank of Petty Office, threatened by his attitude, to back it up physically if challenged.

He was, however, the only one of the crew besides the captain, Jock and myself who were completely unaffected by the weather conditions and rough seas, and on one occasion when the sea was particularly bad, Jock told me that our artificer had sunk his teeth into a chunk of cooked lambs fat left over from a restaurant lunch he had been to the previous evening.

He had brought it back to the boat for this specific purpose, (what a mind) and laughed at his two stokers as the greasy fat run down and dripped off his chin, the affect on them was obvious.

This attitude seemed strange to me as he came from somewhere in Yorkshire yet he appeared to delight in belittling the efforts of his engine room colleagues who came from another part of the same area.

A couple of days later in the early hours of the morning when returning to base from an all night 鈥渕ission鈥� the whole of the harbour wall and entrance was obscured by a dense sea mist and fog making the harbour entrance and wall invisible, the midshipman was obviously concerned and called me into the chart room and asked me if I knew how this thing worked, this, turned out to be the new unused radar set, (I then switched on my radio extension speaker in case a message came through for us).

Although having been told nothing regarding the working or controls on the set, when I went to pick up my loan clothing, I met at the store another telegraphist also new to the naval base, doing likewise, who had told me something about the theory of the system of Radar as he also had one fitted on his motor torpedo boat but had received full instructions on its operation from a different technical instructor at the base.

I switched the set on with 鈥渟notty鈥� watching, (it could only blow up), and on rotating the directional aerial handle a signal peak was picked up on the port side of the green graduated screen, so then I swung the aerial handle round slightly the other way and picked up another peak on the starboard, the midshipmen was delighted and from these two readings on the illuminated dial face he selected a course which he reckoned was the harbour entrance and we cruised through it very slowly, we were all pleased not only at the result, but the confidence that it must have inspired in the others on board and in the equipment, (I was not so confident at the time).

I never received any training on Radar but two weeks later we learnt that a new naval rating grade of 鈥渞adar operator鈥� had been introduced in the navy due to the specialisation and rapid growth of this new navigation and identification system and the midshipmen told me that anyway I couldn鈥檛 be expected to leave the radio room (with the possibility of missing a message), to man the radar set, so we were going to be assigned one of the new ratings as another crew member.

I did wonder at the time what other uses the equipment could be put to as it seemed to me that probably after watching the small screen for half an hour it would become quite boring and probably bad for the eyes.

The actual set was only around a foot square. Britain at this time having invented it, led the world in this new Radar development and we were teaching the American military all about it.

This new crew member was a real character and become the butt of many 鈥渏okes鈥� played on him by the others, as he believed anything that he was told, he come from the east end of London and his knowledge of the world was even worse that mine, he kept on about how important his job was, which riled the others to start with, and as he was assigned quarters with the seamen on the mess deck when we were on standby he probably got on their nerves slightly, I wondered if he was a telegraphist failure.

They christened this lad 鈥淩adar鈥�.
He had only been on board a few days when he asked one of the seamen if he knew of a good local hairdresser, as he wanted to save time and have a slight trim before going into town for the first time, but a stoker interrupted the conversation and told him that it was his lucky day as we had in the crew a chap who was a hairdresser before volunteering for the navy and a few of the others were going to have a trim after lunch, having (then) a mop of hair I was advised to attend the session to assist in making the set up look genuine.

After lunch we all sat waiting in the mess deck and someone got a box from a pile of rubbish waiting to be removed at the end of the jetty, for the 鈥渃ustomer鈥� to sit on, and then the 鈥渂arber鈥� appeared (he was one of the seamen).

He had borrowed a pair of hand operated hair cutting shears from a mate of his who had been a hairdresser before enlisting in the navy and was serving on another gunboat and as our gunner entered the mess deck with the borrowed clippers he announced that Radar was the first client to be served as he wanted to go ashore now and no one else was in a hurry, (least of all me).

His confident manner would have fooled me into thinking that he knew what he was doing as he draped a tea towel round Radars shoulders.

We were all sitting there quietly 鈥渁waiting our turn鈥�, and it seemed to me to be unnatural as there was a complete lack of conversation, although normal in a gentlemen鈥檚 hairdressing saloon, and when the 鈥渂arber鈥� started to perform I expected to see some attempt at a trim to the front and sides, but starting at the nape of the neck, he cut a deep rut up the back, then over the top of his head to a point only just behind the front, it looked as if a farm harvester driven by a drunk had been let loose in a corn field and all the time he was keeping up some inane patter about Scottish football teams, I could hardly believe it.

During a lull in the proceedings the victim carried on a conversation about how good his father was at his job as a high class hairdresser and this inspired the barber to even greater efforts, then Radar passed on to the subject of his mother who gave private massage treatment in a room above the hairdressers shop in south east London, which invited even more suggestive comments. By now one of the stokers was so choked up that, holding a 鈥渟weat rag鈥� to his mouth, he bolted up the ladder and we could hear him faintly on the upper deck whimpering like a dog as he tried to suppress his laughter.

Now came the really strange part of this calamity, the demon barber briefly showed his victim the back of his head in a small hand mirror, radar nodded and said, 鈥淭hat鈥檚 ok, how much?鈥� The barber who had kept a straight face throughout the whole magnificent performance then told him it was free on a Tuesday and whipped the tea cloth off his shoulders.

At this point the coxswain called out from the wheelhouse that the boat was now off standby duty and the crew could go ashore, Radar then put on his cap which appeared to be a bit loose and left the mess deck without another word to go into town.

This may well have started off the post war modern hair creations worn by young men to attract the attention of girls and others.

After he had disappeared through the hatchway on his way to the jetty we all burst out laughing as the 鈥渂arber鈥� said, 鈥渘ext gent please鈥�, but strange to say, no one else volunteered, and I wondered for some time whether the joke had been on the demon barber who had to clean the 鈥渕ess deck鈥� up, or the victim, the incident was never even mentioned again.

On another 鈥渟ocial.鈥� occasion on the boat, it was the twenty first birthday anniversary of one of the gunners, and as we could not go ashore on that day, (standby duty now becoming more frequent), to celebrate the occasion Jock said that he would try to make some kind of fruit pudding, but there was only an old basin in the galley, never the less he said that he had frequently seen his mother make both puddings and cakes, and thought he could do it too, so we had a whip round to pay for the ingredients. (Which would have paid for the cost of a good shop made pudding).

After lunch we all remained on the mess deck to wish the gunner a happy birthday, and the few ratings old enough to draw their rum ration gave him 鈥渟ippers鈥� from their mugs and the birthday boy ended up quite merry.

Then came the 鈥渃utting the pood ceremony,鈥� the basin was upturned onto a plate by Jock, and after a few gentle taps the basin came clean away revealing a steaming golden pudding inset with sultanas, then a few odd plates were produced and amid cheers the cutting commenced.

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