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 6a - H.M.S. Skate (The Naval Autobiography of Alec Kellaway)

Commissioned: 1916

Two turbine engines 27,000 HP
Top speed: 36 knots
Fuel capacity: 300 tons

Length: 265 feet
Beam: 26 feet
Draught: 10 feet
Displacement: 90 tons

Armament: 1 X 4鈥� gun, 1 x 12pounder plus several anti-aircraft guns
Also many depth charges
A crew of 98 plus

I joined her September 1943 and left December 1944

Arriving at Portsmouth I did my joining routine and was sent on seven days leave. It was not long before I was drafted to HMS Skate, a WW1 destroyer being refitted at Hull. Skate was being converted from being a destroyer to an escort vessel. My feelings about the draft were very apprehensive because here was I was a confirmed Stoker PO going to a ship where I would be carrying out duties in charge of boiler rooms of which I had very limited knowledge. In fact my time on operational boiler work was about two - three weeks as a stoker in HMS Cossack in 1940.

On arrival at Hull with Bogey Knight another Stoker PO we found in the dockyard a scruffy looking three-funnel destroyer nearing completion of her refit. The next day the Chief Stoker who had been on the Skate for quite a few years introduced us to the Warrant engineer in charge. This introduction was not at all welcoming as Bogey had just left service in submarines and had limited experience in boiler room operations and being senior to me saw our engineer first. When it came to my presentation on being told of my definite lack of experience the engineer nearly exploded saying that I was no use to him, he hastily departed probably cursing his supposedly misfortune.

After a few days the other Stokers PO arrived and it was soon realised that I was the third in seniority and therefore when at sea would be in charge of the regulating boiler room. This entailed, that no matter how many of the three boilers were in use it was my responsibility when on watch to maintain the correct steam pressure. Now the Skate had two boiler rooms; 0ne with two boilers and one single boiler room.

Each boiler had its own funnel, this was a different layout to the Cossack which had three separate boiler rooms with two funnels. The Skate鈥檚 layout caused quite a problem which I shall describe later.

To get back to the early days on Skate and my dramatic initiation to boiler room watch keeping. It was not long before we were due to proceed on trials and I was on watch in the double boiler room preparing to get up steam pressure on one of the boilers to be connected into the steam system. The steam pressure on my boiler on reaching equal pressure with the other boiler was given instructions to open the main stop valve. As the valve was slowly opened the steam packing around the valve gland blew out.

Fortunately it was possible to close the valve before anyone was injured though this meant that the boilers had to be closed down for the valves to be re-packed with more suitable packing. This meant that the trials were cancelled for the day, which brought my work experience to a halt.
A few days later after the repairs had been completed it was decided to do the trials.

I was in the double boiler room when the Skate was making her way through the lock gates, when suddenly thick black smoke poured out of the two forward funnels dropping down on to the bridge covering the CO and many others on the bridge, making them look like black minstrels. In the meantime I am definitely trying to eliminate the black smoke with not much success. However the Chief Stoker came into the boiler room and after a while it was found that a fuel valve was not closed properly. When this was shut things returned to normal. The Skate did her trials and we returned to Hull to await our sailing orders. I had expected an enquiry to be held regarding the black smoke but everything passed as normal though the personnel on the bridge were said to be in a sorry state from the smoke, not from its blackness but the taste of sulphur in the air. Anyhow I had my first experience in sailing in charge of boilers and except for the smoke episode everything went by the book.

To get back to the problem of having two boilers in one boiler room, it鈥檚 to do with keeping clear funnels. NO SMOKE UNLESS ASKED FOR. To ensure that no smoke is made mainly requires that the crude oil to the sprayers is at the right temperature and there is correct air supply to allow perfect combustion. This was very hard to achieve in the double boiler room as the air being drawn into the boiler room was not getting evenly distributed between the two boilers. One boiler was getting more air than the other. This could be regulated by having less sprayers in use on one boiler than on the other. Experience in the operation of sprayers was the only way which could keep the funnels clear. Should the Skate be required to get up speeds of more than thirty knots with all three boilers in use the after boiler would take control of steam regulating allowing the two forward boilers to keep sprayers on with out making smoke. Any adjustment of steam control being done by the after boiler. However when getting up to top speed smoke problems did occur. It was said that when the Skate was steaming at full power she was very patriotic as from one funnel sparks were flying 鈥� Red- from another funnel white smoke was seen 鈥� White 鈥� and from the other funnel black smoke 鈥� Blue.

By now we had our orders to go to Londonderry in Northern Ireland, which was to be our operating base. Our main duties were to escort merchant ships to Iceland and part Arctic convoys. The Skate would leave Moville to accompany merchant ships from the Clyde area to Reykavich, where the merchant ships would join convoys to Murmansk. We at times would go part way with the convoy but as we had limited fuel we would return to Reykavich refuel and then back to Londonderry. This procedure was done many times.

Now the Skate had been launched in 1916 as an (R) Class Destroyer and at 900 tonnes was a small ship more prepared for North Sea work than the arduous duties encountered in the North Atlantic where rough and mountainous seas seemed to be ever present. On our trips back and forth the vicious seas we encountered cause many problems. On one journey sea water leaked into the fuel tanks and suddenly all the boiler sprayers went out. There was not a flame on any boiler. Steam pressure was dropping and the engine speed decreasing causing the ship to wallow in the heavy sea. After a while oil was brought into use and we carried on with our journey. On another occasion quite the reverse happened, oil got into the boiler feed waters tanks and in the boiler water gauge glass a measure of oil was appearing on top of the water level. This was a big problem but emergency action soon sorted the problem out. On this occasion we had to enter dockyard hands for boiler cleaning and water tank inspection and repairs.

During all this time my experience in my duties was improving. It could be said that every emergency procedure in the stoker鈥檚 manual was used during my time on the Skate, she completed my education. Twice we had fires in the boiler rooms which could have developed seriously but for the swift action of the engine room staff. The fires were started because during Skate鈥檚 refit her boiler room bilges had not been properly cleaned. If one looks back at Skate鈥檚 early days she was built as a destroyer her armament consisting of four 4鈥� guns and torpedo tubes. During her conversion to an escort vessel three of the guns were removed along with the torpedo tubes. This left the Skate an unbalanced ship requiring cast iron ingots to be placed in the bilges under the boilers to ensure her stability at sea. It would appear that before the ingots were placed into the bilges these bilges had not been properly cleaned and oil was at the bottom.

During normal working in the boiler rooms water from the steam drains enters the bilges and in time this water with oil on top would roll around the bilges in rough seas. In normal times the distance between the bottom of the boilers and the depth of the bilges would be quite respectable, but as the ingots had been placed under the boilers there was only about a four-inch space between the boilers and the ingots.

During the rolling of the ship in heavy weather the bilge water on its way to and from over the ingots left the residue of the oil on the bottom of the boilers and eventually this oil ignited and we had unwanted fires in our boiler rooms. It was only the action of the POs and stokers on watch that prevented a disaster.

Alec's Story Continues in Chapter 6b - H.M.S Skate

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