大象传媒

This article, presented here in 8 chapters plus an introduction, is the naval autobiography of Alec Kellaway. Alec served in the Royal Navy from January 1936 to November 1947. His story shows what life was like training for the Navy immediately before the war as well as service in a wide variety of ships during the conflict. The book was written by Alec himself and has previously been published on the HMS Hood Association web site (www.hmshood.com) and in the HMS Cossack Association newsletters.

I was There! Where? Chapter 7a - H.M.S. Loch Tarbert (The Naval Autobiography of Alec Kellaway)

H.M.S. Loch Tarbert

Commissioned: October 1944

Two reciprocating engines 6000 HP

Top speed: 19.5 knots
Displacement: 1400 tons
Length: 307 feet
Beam: 38 feet
Draught: 17 feet

Armament: 1 x 4鈥� gun, several anti-aircraft weapons
Main attacking weapon: Squid Mortar bombs

Crew of 160 plus

I joined her February 1945 and left March 1946

After makers trials Loch Tarbert was accepted by the Navy and fully commissioned, I finding myself the third senior Stoker Petty Officer again, though the only one qualified for chief this was a minor problem in that the Senior P O always worked with the Chief Stoker yet when the Chief was indisposed I had to take over the Chief鈥檚 duties on this ship and my last ship. H M S Concord.

My first department on Tarbert was in charge of the engine room and when required to do boiler room watch keeping. Loch Tarbert was built for anti submarine and escort duties with an excellent steaming range having two small boilers and two triple expansion reciprocating engines going away from the normal turbine engines.

One great asset for the engine room staff was that to get to their place of duty, there was no need to go on deck as the upper deck covered the entrances to all engine room departments unlike destroyers where engine room staff had to face the elements along open decks and many a man was washed over board.

The Loch Tarbert was a prefabricated ship most of her construction being made in various places around manufacturing areas, sent to Troon and then assembled in the dry dock this was a good practice under war time conditions, but she was not of sturdy construction as the Skate built in 1916.

After commissioning Tarbert proceeded to Tobermory for extensive crew training this training to get the crew alert to receiving and reacting to the necessary instructions required on a new ship.

While at Tobermory a regatta was held and on finals day, a Canadian destroyer took all the honours and quite rightly displayed a cut out of a Rooster at its mast head but the following morning this Rooster was found down on the mooring buoy this caused a panic on the destroyer as someone from Tarbert had during the night climbed the destroyer鈥檚 mast and placed the Rooster on the buoy without being detected by the night watch. It was always that the ships crew who won most rowing races would be Cock of the Fleet, hence the Rooster on the mast.

Before any enquiry could be made Tarbert had sailed to her operational base Liverpool. 0n the way the C O called over the Tannoy that if the person who removed the Rooster would report to his cabin the person would be given seven days leave this the C O honoured.

Until V E day Tarbert was engaged on convoy duties from Liverpool into the Atlantic and always suffered from main bearing trouble, always having to have work done on these bearings on return to Liverpool, this default stayed with us for many months.

On V E night leave was given and the celebrations will always be remembered it was fantastic Liverpool was alive with thousands of people letting their hair down.

The next day Tarbert was again in the Atlantic this time rounding up U boats that had been ordered to surrender by Donetz the German admiral now Hitler鈥檚 substitute.
Loch Tarbert entered dry dock for cleaning and inspection and the crew sent on leave in two watches.

After about two weeks in dockyard hands the ship was made ready for sea and ordered to sail with the Lord Roberts a monitor, for gunnery practice off the coast, during this exercise both ships were ordered to proceed south and after about four days arrived at Gibraltar the crew knew then that both ships were going to the far East to take part in the Japanese war. A monitor is a shallow draft ship normally with 15鈥漡uns and suitable for warfare in rivers.

During our stay in Gibraltar our engine bearings were once more repaired and after a few days the ship sailed for Malta.

Staying for about four days our engine bearings being once again serviced only this time there was a surprise in that the Maltese engineer on hearing the history of our bearing trouble gave a quick examination of the engine and stated that the engine was out of line and should be realigned, this was done the bearings repaired and the big problem caused no further trouble.

Tarbert then sailed for Port Said where we stayed a few days with a few hours leave being given to each watch. It was on a Sunday morning during our stay and I had the morning watch in the foreward boiler room just keeping steam for domestic use when about 9o/clock the remainder of the crew were mustering on the quarterdeck for divisions and a church service. My stoker doing his normal turn of changing oil sprayers on the boiler for cleaning purposes, suddenly switched back to the dirty sprayer as a cloud of smoke drifted out of the ships funnel onto the crew all dressed in their white tropical gear the panic was over in seconds but there was a lot of washing to do. On inspection it was found that the earlier watch had cleaned the suspect sprayer and had left out a vital part that caused the hot oil to whirl and become atomised unfortunately the P.O of the earlier watch was reprimanded for not supervising the cleaning.

On the Monday we set sail through the Suez Canal for Aden, just before setting of we took on a Lady passenger who was going on war service to Aden. Now passing through the canal is a monotonous journey as there are only the two banks of the canal to look at, but there was a little excitement when we passed a group of natives standing on the right hand bank among this group was one man who stood out in that he was taller than the rest and completely nude his private parts being tucked between his legs out of sight until he saw our passenger he promptly pulled his privates out and shook them in the ladies direction 鈥� a fairly large piece of his anatomy 鈥� our lady just ignored his gesture and went into the cabin put at her disposal, -not much excitement in a days steaming.

We arrived at Aden taking up a mooring along side a destroyer to refuel and take on stores. Fuelling at Aden was done at the mooring the supply being pumped from shore tanks. We and the destroyer were taking on fuel at the same time, now the control of supply was organised through a series of signals 鈥攆lags by day coloured lights by night 鈥攖he shore personnel would control the fuel supply in response to these signals.

Now there is a difference in the way a destroyer fuels to a frigate in that a destroyer can remove its tank tops giving better visibility to the intake of fuel where a frigate has to rely on the sounding by dropping a tape into a tube and continually taking readings, this in itself was no problem to us as when the oil fuel was entering the tanks air would be expelled through the vent pipes. However on this occasion the destroyer, on completion of fuelling did not signal ashore that they were shutting down and closed their intake valve, and in doing so we took the full force of the supply which gave us such a volume of oil that oil was forced up our air vents to spread over the ships decks and over the ships side, after frantic signals being exchanged pumping pressure was stopped leaving us with a cleaning up problem while the destroyer made her way to sea.

The unfortunate outcome of this mishap was that a local trader had tied his boat along side Tarbert and the gushing oil fuel cascaded into his boat completely drowning his fresh fruit and souvenirs with oil fuel, this saved us because the oil going into his boat did not go into the harbour which saved a cleaning up operation in the harbour, but to the trader a disaster.

Anyhow after refuelling taking on stores we sailed for Ceylon now (Sri Lanka) arriving at Columbo the capital to take up our escort duties in the Far East War.

On the way to Ceylon a notice was put on the ships notice board asking for three members to run the Bingo sessions, I put in for this and was selected, this proved very profitable, when Bingo was played on the quarter deck there were over thirty sailors taking part and those who won always gave the odd coins back. When two other ships were tied up along side we would get around a hundred sailors playing Bingo, this was very rewarding, the monies returned being shared with us three committee members.

It was also asked on the notice board if there was any one who had experience in hair cutting who would become the ships barber, two of my mess mates volunteered and were both accepted. The First Lieutenant who gave the permission for the application said he would be the first customer, the haircut made his head look as if tufts of hair had been torn out. The barbers improved in time.

Alec's Story continues in Chapter 7b - H.M.S. Loch Tarbert

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