大象传媒

H.M.S.IMPREGNABLE - Joining.
During my time in the Royal Navy I wrote long letters home, often two or three each week, and my father kept them all in a file+. Between December 1944 and June 1946 alone there are 243 letters, - 181 of mine [about 150 of them from Australia], 60 from my parents, and 2 from my grandmother. Our intention was to inform but also to be cheery, and, like Mark Tapley, to come out strong in spite of adversity and separation, and perhaps some explanations are due. George was my parents' budgerigar, a bird of very comical habits, and the letters usually end with a reference to him. [I learned only in 1944 that it is a bird from Australia, and its name is aboriginal and means good eating.] We often used catch-phrases from popular songs and from popular radio programmes, particularly from ITMA [It's That Man Again, the most frequent being T.T.F.N. [Ta-Ta For Now]. Two very frequent ones are from Lewis Carrol's poem Jabberwocky. The original line is, All mimsy were the borogroves, but we altered mimsy to minsy, perhaps via the comical porter at Whitmore Estate, Mr.Minns; so our minsy meant silly or sad. There is a great deal of banter about my becoming enamoured of various young ladies, and in this connection the term littul gel came from Jack Warner in the wartime radio programme Garrison Theatre. These present chapters are written largely from memory, but with details checked, and forgotten incidents added, by reference to my diaries and to the letters. Anyone who wishes to savour the full experience of those times, including some graphic accounts of air-raids, some very brave and movingly understated passages, and my many humorous variations on the official address, should read the letters.
Letters were subject to censorship in wartime. There was a famous poster-series on the theme Careless Talk Costs Lives, and obviously the fewer people there were who had sensitive information the less danger there would be of Careless Talk. However, censorship of letters was designed not so much to deprive the legitimate addressees, the family and friends of the serviceman, of information, but to prevent restricted information from falling into the wrong hands by the theft or misdirection of mail. Letters posted (unsealed) in boxes aboard ships and establishments were read by the Duty Officer, and any material thought by him to be prejudicial to the safety of H.M. ships and personnel, by revealing positions, armaments, intentions, strengths of forces, et c. was cut out, so it was wise to write on one side only to avoid unnecessary loss of material. Civilian mail was also liable to be delivered re-sealed, and stamped, Opened by the Censor. Thus sailors could not expect to circumvent the censorship by posting a letter ashore, and, if discovered to be betraying censurable matter in such a letter, would be punished. All this accounts for a certain reticence and vagueness discernible in many of my letters. For instance, when on draft to Sydney, I wrote, I am going to where Uncle Jack lives.
On Monday 11th January 1943, at the age of 18陆, I reported to H.M.S.Impregnable at St. Budeaux, Plymouth, part of the Plymouth Command under Admiral Sir Charles Forbes, having used a travel-warrant sent for the purpose. The train goes through Newton Abbott, and near Dawlish runs in and out of short cliffside tunnels, giving glimpses of the beach, a pleasant reminder of two happy summer holidays.
The earlier Impregnable had been a wooden ship which, when its sea-going days were over, lay at anchor for use as a prison-hulk or a training-ship. The present Impregnable was a shore-establishment, occupying a high-point overlooking the harbour. It had been a Naval Prison, which could be plainly detected in the construction of the main mess-block, with its first-floor iron-railed gallery, but was then a Signal-School. When I visited an old sailor, Mr.Gitsham, in Torquay, I found that he had trained aboard the Impregnable in 1878. It had then contained a Signal-School, though he had trained as a bugler. On October 24th 1994 I photographed the Impregnable bell hanging on a frame outside the Navy Museum in Portsmouth Dockyard.
At the Orderly Room I was given the Official Number JX424096, later prefixed D for Devonport. All ratings in the Service belonged to one of the three divisions, - Devonport, Portsmouth, or Chatham. Sailors called Devonport Guz (from guzzle, because it often rains there), - Portsmouth Pompey (the name of an old ship of the Line, though since the Barracks are called H.M.S.Victory, the old wooden Victory has to be referred to as Victory [Ship], - and Chatham Chatty Chatham, (an alliterative reference not to conversation but to lice); and why many Londoners were sent to Devonport rather than to Chatham I have never discovered.
I was logged as number 2832 on the Ship's Books, allocated to the Maintop Division, and to Class V78. I was also given a tiny folding card called a Station Card which contained these details, and had to be presented to be kept in the Guardroom when one went ashore, and collected upon return. This system operated in every ship and shore-station in the Service. Upon commission of an alleged misdemeanour, the Officer or Petty Officer would say, Give us your card!, which meant that one was confined aboard until the case was heard by the Officer of the Day. If punishment were ordered, perhaps Ten days Number Eleven, this confinement continued for ten days, during which time one had to report at certain times throughout each day, to confirm one's presence and perhaps to be given extra tasks. Number One punishment was death, which gave rise to a joke about suffering Ten days' Number One.
I was also given the H.M.S.Impregnable Handbook+, which gave information about the Service, Organization, Terms used, Flags, Saluting, Regulations about Smoking, Gambling, Fighting, Discipline, Sickness and Property, Religion, Recreation, Leave, Kit and Pay. We were taken to the clothing-store and given our uniform clothing, and a name-marker. The latter consisted of wooden blocks, two inches long and about half-an-inch in square-section, (letter I being 录" wide, and W, 戮"), each having a capital letter carved in relief at one end, and a 戮" slot at the other. The blocks were held together by a strip of 3-ply wood driven into the slots, and they were also wrapped around with adh忙sive tape. They were inked in a tray of white paint to mark dark material, or in black paint to mark light material, after wiping. My short name plus two initials gave me a block+ less than 3" long, but longer names, like HOLLINGSWORTH, took up to eight inches.
We were paid a quarterly Kit Upkeep Allowance of 拢2-4-6 to help us to maintain our kit by purchases at the Clothing Store. I bought a jack-knife there, for 3/2d+. In peacetime each man had also been given a Commodity Box, colloquially known as a Ditty Box, about a foot by 8" by 6", and this gave rise to the mock-order, Fall in outside my ditty box, but, sadly, none was issued in wartime.
We sat an intelligence test, and the six with the lowest scores were removed from the course and sent to H.M.S.Raleigh for training as Ordinary Seamen. I was second in the list with 88%, and was called for a short general interview with the Divisional Officer. Aware that this might be connected with promotion to commissioned rank, I guessed that I might now be under special observation, and that I had better put forth my best efforts.

On our fifth day we were taken by lorry to the swimming baths at H.M.S.Raleigh. We had to don a lifebelt, blow it up, and jump into the 8' end, float on the back, swim on the back one length, and swim two lengths without the belt. The names of the non-swimmers were noted, and they were designated as Backward Swimmers and taken there every week to learn, presumably, to swim in a forward direction. However, on active service I encountered the opinion held by some, that it was better for a sailor not to be able to swim. I could not agree, but perhaps they thought it better to drown quickly rather than linger, or that a non-swimmer might be among the first to receive aid.
For the first month we slept in hammocks in the Drill Shed. In a store-room we were each allocated a locker which could be padlocked. The padlocks available on board could easily be opened by a sharp blow from the edge of a steel helmet, so I took steps to acquire something stronger. During the day the concrete floor was entirely clear, but at night we fetched a number of heavy steel posts and bars from a store-room and erected a rectangular grid of horizontal bars five feet in height, covering the whole area. The posts all fitted into short steel tubes cemented into the floor at the requisite distances. The corner-posts had two diagonal supporting-stays. Near the top of each post was a flange with holes into which were pegged the turned ends of the horizontals. Thus the completed grid formed a large number of rectangles, each measuring about ten feet by eight. Each rectangle accommodated three hammocks, the horizontals on the short sides being furnished with three equally-spaced dips, and one retrieved one's hammock from the hammock-store and slung it from a dip at one end to the corresponding dip at the other.
The hammock was a rectangle of tough white canvas, and if the miniature hammock+ I made in 1945 is correct in this detail, it was furnished with sixteen brass eyelets at each end. A boat-rope was tied around the bar or other chosen slinging-point, and to a steel ring spliced in the other end were cow-hitched eight yard-lengths of codline, thus producing sixteen half-yard clews. One could spend much time trying to adjust the knotting of these clews to their respective eyelets so that the hammock-end described a convenient semicircle when hung, of comfortable shape for sleeping, with sides high enough to prevent one from falling out, but sundry thuds and groans during the first few nights betrayed the unsuccessful. The secret was to deal first with the sixteen clews after the manner of sword-matting. This is a method of weaving them into a triangular wedge at the ring end, which automatically renders them of gradually increasing length from the sides to the centre, producing the desired result, as you may see if you sling my model. The latter is too small to have used eyelets, and the rings, the best I could find aboard ship, are too large in proportion, but it is otherwise a faithful model.
When turning-in for the night, one placed one's boots in the clews of the hammock, and rolled up one's clothes to form a pillow, and slept on one's back on a thin mattress enclosed in a washable cover, under a blanket. It is a most comfortable and cosy way for one person to sleep, and especially so of course at sea, because it remains virtually still as the ship rolls, but unfortunately a double-hammock is impossible to design. In the morning one used a length of rope to lash the hammock and the bedding within into a sausage-shape. At sea, up to about 1860, these were placed in netting along the sides of the upper deck as a protection against shrapnel and musket-balls, and the dead were lashed into their weighted hammocks for burial at sea.
One of our class came aboard late one night from shore-leave having over-indulged in beer, and next morning complained that somebody had mistaken his boots, which he had left on the floor, for a chamber-pot, but the others insisted that he himself was the culprit.
It was in that Drill-Shed that I first experienced the efficiency and speed with which a body of trained men, all knowing what to do, could complete an operation, and appreciated the sense of pride in being part of such a body. From the time that the signal was given to erect the posts and bars, the job was finished in a few minutes. It happened similarly when the Shed was in use, once every three weeks, as a theatre for an ENSA (Entertainments National Service Association) performance. The audience would rise to sing the National Anthem, and before the last strains had died away and the first of them had reached the exits, all the benches they had occupied would have been swiftly and silently carried away and stowed in the store-room, leaving just a bare floor. This evolution was also necessary after our thrice-weekly film-shows, although they were not open to visitors.
The traditional wide blue collar, with its edging of three white lines, (the three famous victories of Nelson) when new-issued was almost black, and in this condition was felt rather to label one as a rookie, or very new entrant, so one spent a great deal of time and labour soaking and soaping and scrubbing it in order to dissipate the dye and render the collar a beautiful pale blue, thus hoping to appear in public as an old salt.
The wearing of this collar, which covered the blue serge collar, of identical size, of the uniform jumper also made it necessary to employ a particular method for donning one's overcoat. If a companion were available, he would pass his wrists under one's armpits and hold the collar down whilst the overcoat was donned in the normal way, otherwise, one held the coat in front of oneself, with the back towards oneself, inserted one's arms right into the sleeves, ascertained that there was a clear space aft, and then threw the coat on over one's head. Oilskin coats, being rather stiff, were easier to manage.
One was issued with a black cap-band, upon which in peace-time would have been embroidered the name of one's ship, but, cryptically for wartime purposes, our cap-bands read H.M.S. This band was placed around the vertical rim of the cap, and was supposed to be tied in a bow above the right ear. (Early photograph Ph4,11) This, however, we did not consider smart enough. It was possible to cut the band about an inch from the letter 'S', pass it around the cap and sew the ends together, and then with cotton to tie the cut-off length into a very smart 'bow', with carefully-shaped top-halves, and tie this bow over the sewn ends. The effect then was to bring the bow to the front of the cap. (Ph4,12) The Navy word for smart is tiddley, and, having learned how to make a tiddley-bow, I was able to earn odd sixpences occasionally by making them for others. When I joined a destroyer I was able to buy a ribbon which read, H.M.DESTROYER, which was not officially sanctioned but could be quickly substituted for the H.M.S. band when clear of the official inspection, and greatly enhanced the splendour of one's appearance ashore.
I must explain here that at the stated times when shore leave was available, the bugle-call Liberty-Men was sounded and the candidates for leave presented themselves at the Guard-Room, this muster being known as a Liberty-Boat. There they were inspected by the Officer of the Day, and their station-cards were collected. From a shore establishment or ship moored alongside a quay it was merely Quick March through the gates or down the gangway, but aboard a ship at anchor one usually boarded a liberty-tender, which went the rounds of the ships in harbour collecting the libertymen. These were sometimes crewed, as to the two deck-hands and the coxwain, by Wrens - (Women's Royal Naval Service) - who suffered some good-natured teasing. The Coxwain's shout of Let go for'ard! and Let go aft! might provoke a chorus of Let's go foreign! Let's go daft! On rare occasions the ship's own boats were used. In Tobermory Harbour I remember seeing our motor-boat approaching from shore with our whaler in tow, both riding rather low in the water, and in danger of capsize from the uncontrolled lurchings of certain drunken sailors aboard.

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