The Naval Review

THE
NAVAL
REVIEW
TO PROMOTE THE ADVANCEMENT AND SPREADING WITHIN THE
SERVICE OF KNOWLEDGE RELEVANT TO THE HIGHER ASPECIX OF
THE NAVAL PROFESSION.
Founded in October, 1912, by the following officers, who had formed
a Naval Society:
Captain H. W. Richmond R.N.
Commander K. G. B. Dewar R.N.
Commander the Hon. R. A. R. Plunkett R.N.
Lieutenant R. M. Bellairs R.N.
Lieutenant T. Fisher R.N.
Lieutenant H. G. Thursfield R.N.
Captain E. W. Harding R.M.A.
Admiral W. H. Henderson (Honorary Editor)
It is only by the possession of a trained and developed mind
that the fullest capacity can, as a rule, be obtained. There
are, of course, exceptional individuals with rare natural
gifts which make up for deficiencies. But such gifts are
indeed rare. We are coming more and more to recognise
that the best specialist can be produced only after a long
training in general learning. The grasp of principle which
makes detail easy can only come when innate capacity has
been evoked and moulded by high training.
Lord Haldane
Issued quarterly for private circulation, in accordance with the
Regulation printed herein, which should be carefully studied.
Copyright under Act of 1911
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in
any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying.
recording or by any information storage or retrieval system, without permission
from the Editor in writing.
Vol. 81
No. 1
JANUARY 1993
Contents
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
VICE ADMIRAL SIR PETER GRETTON
EDITORIAL
ARTICLES:
'AGENDA FOR PEACE'
--
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
MILITARY ISSUES
WHAT PROPORTION OF THE ROYAL NAVY'S FUTURE EFFORT SHOULD BE DEVOTED
TO PREPARING FOR OUT OF AREA OPERATIONS?-I
...............
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
............
DEFENCE AND INDUSTRY OR INDUSTRY AND DEFENCE
A SMALL POINT . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
............
BAUBLES, BANGLES AND MASTER OF ARTS DEGREES
GOODBYE MR PEPYS?
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
NATO'S OUTREACH TO THE EASTERN NATIONS
.
ADRIATIC OPS -- NATO AND/OR THE WEU?
.
THE EFFECT OF PEACE ON PEOPLE
. . . .
THE PURPOSE OF THE ROYAL NAVY
. . . .
HMS NORFOLK
--
THE FIRST OF THE DUKES
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
DEFENCE POLICY 1945-1982-111 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
THE PEACE DIVIDEND . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
OFTIONS FOR CHANGE OR M = f l ~ ~ - ~+'hls t
HURRICANES TO EGYPT . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
BOARDING OFFICER
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
THE CHIEF GI-CIRCA 43 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
.........
OPERATION GAMBIT 6 JUNE 1944 - AN EYE WITNESS REPORT
STEAM PICKET BOATS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
IT'S THAT WORD AGAIN (LOGISTICS)
RFA BACCHUS IN THE FLEET TRAIN
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
MORE 'MAN OVERBOARD'
CORRESPONDENCE
RESERVES
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
.
PRINCIPLES
LOGISTICS-THE RNSTS
OF WAR
.
THE
.
THE
ENVIRONMENT AND THE MILITARY .
JUST WAR AND NUCLEAR DETERRENCE .
A MAN FOR
ALL SEASONS -- A WOODEN BOW
--
PORTLAND INCIDENT
-- OTHER
TIMES . . . - - FIVE
MINUTES OF TIME
REVIEWS .
I1
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Page
1
3
Editorial
This issue
HE usual Editor's Butterflies after a bumper
issue in October - hardly anything in the
reserve stock and little apparently coming in quickly subsided and we have almost an
embarrassment of riches again. There is much
variety too, so much that it is impossible to
summarise or fully to categorise the contents
list.
However one can single out three aspects that
make this issue distinctive. First, there is a
noticeable movement in the strategic articles
away from defined and well-known structures
towards the more fluid situations that we shall
have to become used to. That seems to me to
be up to date and realistic. Second, there are
several articles and letters on Logistics,
including two from RNSTS members that are
particularly welcome. Third, the Reserves have
- not before time, it may be thought - found
voices to support them, and there may be more
to come.
T
Dates for Diaries
We have had an unprecedented number of
notifications of conferences and other events.
The following summarises those that happen in
the next few months:
23 February 1993: A one day seminar
on Microbes in Fuels, LubOil and Bilges
in the IME City Conference Centre.
Details from The Conference Department,
Institute of Marine Engineers, The
Memorial Building, 76 Mark Lane,
London EC3R 7JN.
March 1993: Relaunch of main galleries
in the Old Royal Observatory, Greenwich,
London SElO 9NF.
31 March - 2 April: International
Maritime Defence Exhibition and
Conference on 'Meeting the Challenge:
The Changing Naval Defence Scene' at
Brighton. Organised by Spearhead
Exhibitions Ltd, Rowe House, 55/59 Fife
Road, Kingston upon Thames, Surrey
KT1 ITA.
26-28 May: Conference on the Battle
of the Atlantic at the Merseyside Maritime
Museum, Liverpool. Contact Derek G.
Law, Librarian, King's College, Strand,
London WC2R 2LS.
Appeals
There has also been news of several appeals that
merit members' attention:
The
Fieldhouse
Appeal:
to
commemorate Admiral of the Fleet Lord
Fieldhouse at Falklands Gardens, Gosport.
Joint sponsors are the Royal Navy and the
Gosport Borough Council, Town Hall,
Gosport, Hants.
Restoration of the Chapel of the Order
of the British Empire in the Crypt of St
Paul's to commemorate the 75th
anniversary of the founding of the Order.
Contact the Central Chancery of the Orders
of Knighthood, St James's Palace, London
SWlA IBH.
Warship Preservation Trust: Plymouth
and Onyx are still being kept afloat with,
and by, the Trust (Lodge Hill, Liskeard,
Cornwall PL14 4EL). The ships are still
at Birkenhead and 'go live' - electrical
and electronic systems operating - from
time to time.
A plea
A member of advancing years but an abiding
interest in naval history is missing Vol. I11 Part
1 of Roskill's The War at Sea. If anyone knows
of a spare copy, could they please contact the
Secretary-Treasurer?
The Navy List (Retired Officers)
A vigilant member has brought an interesting
fact to light. Observing a small error in the latest
(1992) edition of the List, he went on to notice
much larger errors and omissions in the case
of his contemporaries. Enquiries brought a reply
from the authorities as follows:
'In order to minimise cost production the
Navy List of Retired Officers is made using
information passed from records held by the
Paymaster General. Unfortunately a large group
of officers were omitted from the information
...
Anyone seeking correction of an error should
write to the Editor of the Navy List,
2
EDITORIAL
HMS Centurion, Grange Road, Gosport, Hants
PO13 9XA.
Back numbers
A member has back numbers from 1944- 1953,
missing No.4 of Vo1.34 (1946). Bids please to
Mr J. B. Wells, Flat 34, Buckingham Gate,
London SWlE 6PA.
Annual General Meeting
By courtesy of the Commanding Officer, the
next Annual General Meeting of 7he Naval
Review will be held in HMS President, the shore
HQ of the London Division RNR, at 5.30 pm
on Thursday 13 May 1993. The Wardroom Bar
will be available after the meeting. Members
will be most welcome and will be asked to
identify themselves on arrival. For security
reasons it would be helpful if they would inform
the Secretary-Treasurer beforehand if they plan
to attend.
HMS President is at St Katharine's Way, just
downstream of the entrance lock to St
Katharine's Dock. The nearest Underground
station is Tower Hill.
RICHARDHILL
Subscriptions Those members whose subscriptions are not paid automatically by their banks and who have not
yet paid their subscriptions for this year are asked to do so as soon as possible - £ 15 (or £7.50
for Sub-Lieutenants and below).
Changes of Address
Please remember to tell the Secretary-Treasurer when you change your address.
Vice-Admiral Sir Peter Gretton KCB, DSO**, OBE, DSC
page 384 in Volume I1 of 7he
0PPOSITE
War at Sea (Roskill) are two photographs.
The caption is 'Famous Escort Group Leaders,
1942-43'. One is of HMS Duncan (Commander
P. W. Gretton), B7 Group, and the other is of
HMS Starling (Captain F. J. Walker), 2nd
Escort Group. Inset are snapshots of these two
outstanding naval leaders. The 'relentlessly
determined' Gretton faces you squarely;
Walker, pipe in mouth, and already muchdecorated, is more relaxed, but this barely
conceals the strain that by July 1944 had killed
him. How sad it is that Peter Gretton has died
just before the commemoration that will take
place this year (1993) at Liverpool, of victory
in the Battle of the Atlantic.
Early in April, 1943, Gretton's B7 Escort
Group brought convoy HX 23 1, of 6 1 merchant
ships, safely in for the loss of only three of them,
against a strong concentration of U-boats, two
of which were sunk, and others severely
damaged. A couple of weeks later B7 set off
westward with ONS 5, of 42 merchant ships.
Appalling weather prevailed. In the course of
a ten day running battle a total of 41 U-boats
were homed in on the convoy, of which seven
were destroyed, two lost by collision, and
another five badly damaged, for the loss of 12
ships. No escorts were sunk. Before the climax
of the action Gretton's ship, the Duncan, ran
short of fuel; the weather was too bad for
replenishment or transfer to another escort, and
Gretton had to make the hard decision to turn
the Escort over to Lieutenant-Commander
Sherwood RNR, in the Tay, who rose
magnificently to the occasion. Despite the fact
that the Duncan had only 4% fuel remaining
when she reached St. John's, Newfoundland,
Gretton said later that the decision had haunted
him ever since, and that he had missed the
'golden moment' which comes but once in a
lifetime. The fact remains that with all the
evidence now to hand there is no doubt that the
successful defence of convoy HX 231 had
marked, as Gretton said, 'the end of the
beginning' of the campaign against the U-boats,
with the even more decisive outcome of the
ONS5 transit 'the first milestone' towards final
victory.
Lord Chesterfield, writing to his son, said
'Pliny gave mankind this only alternative - of
doing what deserves to be written, or writing
what deserves to be read'. Peter Gretton
achieved both. A long-standing member of 7he
Naval Review, he joined our Committee in 1956
and served on it until 1975. As a contributor
his articles (7), letters (6), and book reviews
(24), reflect his intellectual integrity, his
professional mastery, and his sustained concern
for the good of the Service. In particular, NR
of January, 1958, contains 'Why Don't We
Learn from History?'; this shows conclusively
how failure to act upon readily available antiU-boat experience from World War I brought
victory for the U-boats so near in World War
11. In NR of January, 1981, Gretton argues,
again convincingly, that the system of seaman
officer specialisation into (G), (T), (N) and (C),
with (AIS) as the Cinderella, was primarily
responsible for the shortcomings of the Navy
in 1939, not only in anti-submarine warfare, but
in the application of modem technology to every
kind of armament and equipment. Pointing out
that 'Since the 1920s, there have been only two
Salt Horse First Sea Lords, David Beatty and
Andrew Cunningham' he went on to say 'This
small number of Salt Horses in the list is not
surprising in view of the difficulty which faced
a young officer with, say, five firsts in Subs
courses (N.B. Gretton's own achievement) in
dodging conscription as a specialist'. He
therefore welcomed the advent of the PWO:
and, in response to complaints from senior
gunnery officers that he had been too hard on
their specialisation, he conceded that 'Gunnery
departments of ships were well run, the morale
of the branch was high and it contributed much
to discipline as a whole'.
For all this, Peter Gretton would not, I think,
care to be remembered as a Whitehall warrior,
even with a book on modern maritime strategy
to his credit. For him, and his fellow
commanders of escort groups, what mattered
above all was victory over the dangers of the
sea and the violence of the enemy. It is widely
held (cf Roskill) that the main protagonists at
the height of the Battle of the Atlantic were
Donitz and Horton, the great admirals; Gretton,
41
VICE-ADMIRAL SIR PETER GRETTON
though, after studying all the records, concluded
that 'in fact the two chief protagonists were
Donitz and Rodger Winn' (N.B. Winn was the
genius in charge of the Submarine Tracking
Room in the Admiralty). In my view it was
Admiral Donitz against each in turn of the
'admirals' (of commander's, or at best
captain's, rank), who fought a convoy through,
disposing and deploying his ships, with his
maritime aircraft in close support, utilising to
the best advantage the latest weapons and
equipment (without benefit of staff officers)
while all the time training his Group as well as
his own ship, then bringing the whole force
successfully into action when the chance came.
Indeed, Donitz himself virtually acknowledged
this when he wrote, concerning the passage of
ONS5:
Such high losses could not be borne . . .
I regarded this convoy battle as a defeat.
All honour to the memory of Peter Gretton,
one of our greatest and most gallant members.
'Agenda for Peace'
United Nations has been involved in
THE'peacekeeping',
an operation requiring the
deployment of armed forces from the
international community, for some forty years.
It is not a task that was enunciated in the
Charter. As the Boutros-Ghali report says (para
46) 'Peacekeeping can rightly be called the
invention of the United Nations'. 'Action with
respect of breaches of the peace and acts of
aggression' was addressed in Chapter VII of the
Charter, and has come to be described as
'peacemaking'. The broad principle that
differentiated these two forms of action was that
peacekeeping required the consent of all the
parties concerned. Peacemaking did not.
The world has, however, moved on, and this
simple differentiation no longer suffices. The
report attempts to define three terms Preventive Diplomacy - Peacemaking - and
Peace-keeping (para 20). Significantly, the
definition of peacekeeping includes the phrase
'hitherto with the consent of all the parties
concerned'. However within the report, the use
of military forces is envisaged in:preventive diplomacy (para 3 1)
peacemaking (para 42)
peace-keeping (para 50)
peace enforcement (para 44)
peace building (para 55).
There should now also be added the role of
protection of humanitarian assistance. The part
that can be played by units of the armed forces
in the relief of natural disasters should not be
overlooked.
Concepts
Whilst it can be well argued that there are
important theoretical and conceptual differences
in the definition of these various roles, the
practical complexity of today's issues is such
that in operational terms. there will seldom be
clear dividing lines between them. Preventive
deployments may turn to enforcemnent
operations (Desert ShieldIStorm); peace
building should be part of peacekeeping
(Cambodia); peacekeeping operations of very
different natures may proceed in closely
proximate areas (CroatiaiBosnia): what is
peacekeeping when there is no legitimate
-
Military Issues
government to give its consent (Somalia)?
These complexities arise not only through the
developing nature of conflict itself, in which
historical, ethnic, religious, economic and
political issues are closely interwoven, but also
through change in the perception of the
responsibilities of the international community
in respect of human rights and the rights of
minorities, responsibilities that were in the past,
and in many cases still are, considered to be
matters 'within the domestic jurisdiction'
(Article 2 -7 of the Charter) of a member state.
They are further complicated by the impact of
modern weapon technology that has put the
ability to inflict severe damage on an opponent
within the hands of both the professional and
amateur warrior alike.
Command and control
The result of these complexities is that it is often
no longer feasible to give clear political
directives to the military commanders; nor is
the military commander able to establish a single
military aim. Often it will be impossible to
determine who is 'the enemy', when clearly
there is one, because you are being shot at! To
cope successfully with such situations, there
needs to be a high degree of professionalism in
the operational management of the forces which
are engaged, a high degree of flexibility in their
use. and the ability to respond rapidly to
changing circumstances in their task. None of
these characteristics is now evident in the
present organisation for either the political
direction or the military command and control
of UN forces.
I believe it is difficult to overstate the
importance of early action to achieve
improvements in this respect. There is evident
reluctance of the public in many countries,
including Britain, to send their soldiers to risk
their lives in far off regions, in which there is
no readily discernible national interest. And yet,
there is widespread acknowledgement that, as
members of the international community, we
all have responsibilities for doing everything that
we can to prevent parts of the world sinking into
anarchy and chaos. with the attendant misery
and suffering that is inflicted on innocent men.
6
'AGENDA FOR PEACE' - MILITARY ISSUES
women and children; and the danger of
horizontal escalation. This reluctance is
undoubtedly re-enforced when casualties are
incurred, as inevitably they will be. If such
casualties are seen to be the result of
mismanagement, of conditions in which 'our
boys' were not given a fair chance to defend
themselves, or of situations in which sound
military judgment was over-ridden by political
expediency, then reluctance is most likely to
turn to outright opposition. Such opposition
could make the United Nations impotent.
The line of political direction from the UN
may seem at first glance to be clear and simple.
It runs from the Security Council, through the
Secretary General, and the Under Secretary for
Peace-keeping Affairs to the senior UN
representative in the field. But I believe this is
misleading. The complexities arise out of the
multitude of other agencies, of the UN, of
national governments, of regional organisations
and of non-governmental organisations that are
part of the action. Improvements have been
made to try to ensure better co-ordination
between civil agencies. But much more needs
to be done if full coordination, including
coordination with the military, is to be achieved
in New York, Geneva, and in the field.
A particular facet of such coordination is
related to the balance of roles that might be
played by regional security organisations. This
subject is addressed in Chapter 7 of the Report,
in which the importance of the UN maintaining
close relationships with the various regional
organisations is stressed. However the report
deliberately refrains from trying to set forth a
formal pattern of relationships (para 64). If the
UN is to be successful in the deployment of
military forces in support of international peace
and security, it is vital that there is a clear
understanding of 'who does what', and where
authority and responsibility properly lies. A case
study of the interaction of the EC, WEU,
NATO, CSCE and the UN in the former
Yugoslavia might provide useful lessons in this
respect.
The lines of military command are far from
clear. There is no available senior military
'element' in New York to whom UN Field
Commanders can be responsible, from whom
they can seek advice, to whom they can refer
their military problems or by whom they can
expect reasonable coordination of the overall
effort. Thus in the former Yugoslavia, the
military headquarters in Zagreb, and that in
Sarajevo, are reported to find it difficult to
acknowledge each others' missions.
The tasks in support of the UN military units
in the field that require to be carried out in New
York can be listed as follows:(a) to give general military advice to the
Security Council and to the Secretary
General.
(b) to provide military advice to UN
Commanders in the field.
(c) to coordinate inputs from national
military intelligence sources relative to
potential conflict areas.
(d) to maintain records of the status of
forces that are earmarked by nations for
UN assignments (see under 'Provision of
Forces').
(e) to prepare and maintain outline
contingency plans for UN deployments.
(f) to provide advice to nations on
training for UN operations.
(g) to advise on the establishment of,
and changes in, 'rules of engagement'.
(h) to maintain standard operating
procedures for UN operations.
(i) to coordinate certain logistic
planning, control and operational functions
including
transportation
and
communications.
(j) to act as a repository for the
collective experience of the military
aspects of UN operations.
To fulfil these tasks, it is necessary to set up
a military planning cell for the UN in New
York. What is to be avoided is for this cell to
be seen as some sort of embryo of a 'UN
Ministry of Defence'; or yet as an operational
military headquarters. What is required is the
means to carry out those military tasks that can
only be done successfully at the highest level
in order to achieve the flexibility and rapid
command response at the highest level that are
vital to the effectiveness of UN military
deployments, in whatever role. The organisation
also needs to recognise that every UN operation
has its own particular and special characteristics,
that require it to be treated on a separate, but
'AGENDA FOR PEACE'
co-ordinated basis. UN operations cannot
successfully be forced into a single mould.
How this military planning cell (or
International Military Support Staff - IMSS)
is integrated into the UN's New York
headquarters is an important and politically
sensitive issue. There is a prima facie case that
it should serve the Military Staff Committee
(MSC), which would need to be enlarged
(probably to include a representative of all the
fifteen member states of the Security Council),
since the Charter charges the MSC with the
'strategic direction of any armed forces placed
at the disposal of the Security Council' (Art.
47-3). However, the military cell could be
integrated with the operations staff of the
Security Council; or come under the direction
of the Deputy Secretary General for
International Peacekeeping Affairs. This issue
requires further detailed study. Action to set up
the IMSS need not, however. await the result
of this study.
The provision of Forces
The comments in para 42 of 'Agenda for Peace',
which call for full implementation of the Article
43 commitments of the Charter, whereby
nations are asked to make available armed forces
to the Security Council for its use, have given
rise to widespread support for what are referred
to as 'UN Standing Forces'. Experience in other
fields has shown that such .forces are very
expensive to maintain; and discourage
flexibility. In the UN context, it would also be
extremely difficult to agree their size and
composition. What is required is for nations to
commit themselves to the provision of
'earmarked capabilities'. Such earmarking of
general and specialist military capabilities. at
various levels of notice, would provide the
IMSS with the ability to create 'a la carte forces'
rapidly and flexibly to suit various and changing
situations. It is important that the IMSS should
have good knowledge of the capabilities, the
state of training. and the degree of interoperability with forces of other nations
(including problems of language) of which they
are capable. The deployment of ill equipped,
badly disciplined or poorly trained units into the
field may well prove a significant handicap to
the achievement of the aim. Nor can the need
-
MILITARY ISSUES
7
for sophisticated equipments be discounted.
Success in UN peace-keeping is unlikely now
to be achieved with just a display of sound sense,
sensitivity and side arms.
However high the standards of the troops in
the field, success is unlikely to be achieved
without
good
command,
control.
communication, co-operation and information.
In the UN context, the acknowledged vital
importance of C31 in war is replaced by the
similarly vital importance of C41 in peacekeeping. This requires a 'worked-up' multinational headquarters, into which all the various
military and civil functions can be moulded.
It is unrealistic to expect officers and officials,
brought together at short notice in unfamiliar
circumstances, to function as an efficient and
effective command and control team. There is
thus a strong case for the provision of a limited
number of UN field headquarters units which
would be assigned to the UN on a semipermanent basis. They would be available 'on
call' to undertake operational assignments on
behalf of the UN. Their composition and
location would require detailed study. They
could be based on existing national military
headquarters units that would provide the
skeleton
structure
and
appropriate
communication support, to which would be
attached military and civil staff from other
countries and agencies. They would act under
the authority of the IMSS. Initially and
occasionally, the whole HQ staff would be
brought together to conduct a UN staff exercise;
and from time to time, if operational
requirements permitted, undertake an exercise
deployment. The headquarters would, over
time, build up its own experience and expertise.
The undoubted success of the international
nature of the many multi-national NATO
headquarters has, to a significant extent, resulted
from the foresight of General Eisenhower who,
as SACEUR, set up the NATO Defense College
(NDC) in order to provide a corps of military
and civil officers to fill senior NATO
appointments who had been trained in a NATO
environment. Facilities of the NDC have now
been extended to members of the former
Warsaw Pact Countries in order to contribute
to overcoming the divisions of Europe. The
possibility of further extending the concept of
8
'AGENDA FOR PEACE' - MILITARY ISSUES
the NDC to that of a UNDC, aimed at providing
civil and military officers trained for UN
headquarters duties, seems to merit further
study.
Costs
There is ample evidence that the present system
of UN procurement and of UN field payments
requires review. The report's proposal (para 53)
that there should be pre-positioned stocks of
basic peacekeeping equipment needs to be
further studied. A system that all costs should
lie where they fall, as is suggested for air and
sea lift capacity (para 54), would clearly be the
most simple to operate. Unhappily though, it
would deter the less well off nations from
offering forces for UN operations; and might
inhibit the success of an operation in which no
nation was readily willing to 'pick up the tab'
for an essential provision. There is no simple
solution. But a detailed, independent review of
present procedures and practices is called for.
Conclusions
For the above considerations, the following
recommendations for action by the British
Government, can be drawn.
(a) The concept of earmarking appropriate
national and civil 'capabilities' for UN
operations should be encouraged. The concept
of UN 'standing forces' should not.
(b) The possibility of setting up semipermanently assigned multi-national UN field
headquarters units, including civil and military
functions, should be examined.
(c) The means of setting up in New York of
an International Military Support Staff (IMSS)
should be progressed as a matter of urgency.
(d) A study of how the IMSS can be fitted
into the UN New York headquarters should be
originated.
(e) The possible establishment of a UN
Defence College for the training of senior civil
and military personnel in UN peace-keeping
should be investigated.
(f) An independent review of the present
policy and practice of costing, procurement and
payment for UN peace-keeping operations
should be initiated.
(g) The appropriate balance of roles for
regional security organisations with respect to
the global security responsibilities of the
Security Council should be the subject of further
examination.
J.H.F.E.
What Proportion of the Royal Navy's Future
Effort should be devoted to Preparing for Out
of Area Operations?-I
~
'No man is an island, entire of itself;. every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main;
ifa clod be washed away by the sea, Europe is the less, as well as i f a promontory were, as well
as i f a manor of thy fiends or thine own were; any man's death diminishes me, because I am
involved in mankind and therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee.'
[John Donne 1573-1631]
Introduction
OR over 43 years British defence policy has
been committed to the defence of the
'West', and a bipolar balance of power between
NATO and the Warsaw Pact. Christmas Day
1991 marked the end of the Soviet Empire and
the demise of that bipolar balance.
With ending of the cold war one might assume
that there is now 'a new strategic environment
with mutifaceted risks which are harder to
predict and assess'. ' - but is it totally new?
Since 1945 21 million people, 7 million of
whom were military, have died in over 90 'out
of area' (OOA) conflicts. * Indeed although
Britain's main point of effort in defence
expenditure has been ostensibly directed
towards NATO, in the last four decades (95%
in 19903), in practice British armed forces,
particularly during the last 10 years, have
countered 90% of actual security threats OOA.
The loss of bipolarity, therefore, has at least
resulted in a relative increase in the importance
of OOA challenges, when compared with the
declining threat in Europe. The level of OOA
challenge has proved neither constant nor
predictable, and, as this paper will argue, will
probably tend to increase as the moderating
brakes of the declining cold war superpowers
are released.
Britain is thus posed with the dilemma obtaining a 'peace dividend' from reduced
defence requirements 'in-area' or countering the
probability of increased OOA challenges.
Certainly the Government's position in this
debate has been clarified by the recent adoption
of the '3 Roles of Defence' Strategy,' where
greater emphasis is placed on OOA activity.
F
Aim
The aim of this paper, following the
promulgation of this new defence strategy, is
to suggest why, and how, the Royal Navy (RN)
should re-orientate its main point of effort to
OOA operations, in the wake of the collapse of
the Soviet Empire.
The scope of discussion
The greatest difficulty in planning defence for
the 'new world order' (NWO) is that there is
no immediately obvious threat to British
interests. Thus, to achieve the above aim (after
defining where OOA begins), it is first
necessary to discuss the new global balance of
power, what motivates OOA conflict and where
future OOA conflict is likely to arise, before
discussing how these conflict sources will affect
British interests, and thus future RN roles and
composition.
Where is OOA?
Historically OOA is regarded as the world
outside an area defined by Article 6 of the North
Atlantic Treaty (NAT).' However, since the
Rome declaration of November 1961, NATO
nations have agreed to expand their operational
boundaries in support of certain operations, such
as peace-keeping.' Thus NATO OOA
operations in support of members' collective
security interests, emphasising Article 4 of the
NAT, appear more likely in future.
OOA boundaries are, therefore, becoming
blurred, particularly with the respect to the
interaction between the Maghreb and southern
NATO nations, and with the position of former
Warsaw Pact (WP) countries. such as
10
WHAT PROPORTION SHOULD BE DEVOT'ED TO OUT OF AREA OPERATIONS?-I
Yugoslavia. For the purposes of this paper the
historical definition will be assumed, placing the
Maghreb OOA and former WP states
(questionably) 'in-area'.
The New World Order
The cold war ended without getting hot - why?
The most simple explanation is that economic,
rather than military, power became a greater
force for change in the world. Both sides
realised that the arms race was ultimately unaffordable; however the USA was the only
superpower with sufficient resources to meet
the short-term cost of the escalating arms
race.
America's victory was, however, almost
pyrrhic. Rather than emerging as a clear military
victor, in a position to sustain a world wide 'Pax
Americana: lo she entered the NWO as one of
four economic power blocs (North America,
Europe, Japan and AustraliaINew Zealand).
Indeed
America's
current
domestic
shortcomings have the potential to reduce, even
further, her military superpower status. Poverty
and riots in American cities (for which there
appears limited political will to resolve the
situation); " a growing budget deficit o f f 100
billion by 1996 l2 (the solution to which requires
further cuts into the 'discretionary' 30% of the
Federal budget - of which Defence makes up
about two-thirds; l 3 coupled with a more
introverted American public, l 4 provides strong
motivation for further American withdrawal
from the world stage. Indicators of this trend
are already apparent. For example, from an
original 25% cut in the US Navy to 450 ships,
announced by President Bush in January 1992, l5
further cuts to a 300 ship Navy l6 are already
under discussion.
What of the vanquished superpower?
Economic catastrophe in the CIS, with 900%
inflation1' and a soaring budget deficit £40
billion in 1992, coupled with nationalistic and
ethnic rivalry growing throughout the former
USSR, means the CIS is incapable of sustaining
its superpower status, or acting as a credible
short term global threat - although the
disintegration of the Soviet empire may, in the
short term, produce concerns over the possible
spill-over from ethnic or nationalistic conflict
within the former WP; Yugoslavia being the
most obvious example to date.
Notwithstanding these short-term 'in-area'
concerns, military bipolarity, dominated by
polarised ideology, is yielding to economic
multipolarity, where power blocs are more
enmeshed in a collective security and trading
system which significantly reduces incentive for
both political and military adventurism. As
Buzan comments, following the definitive defeat
of fascism and communism in the last 50 years,
'Liberal capitalism now commands a broad
consensus . . . a difficult formula of political
pluralism plus market economies has many
critics, but no serious rivals: l 9
Thus the NWO power blocs are woven into
a series of interdependent regional economies.
Nationalism and ideology in this sytem would
tend to be constrained by the pragmatic
consideration of promoting an open international
trading system to benefit all in this club. As
Brzezinski points out, 'average citizen
consumption becomes more important than
those of territory or doctrine: Intra-economic
bloc conflict in this club, which Buzan calls the
'Centre'," becomes increasing more unlikely
and undesirable. Thus Europe, in the coming
decade, is likely to see a significant reduction
of 'in-area' threat.
What of Britain in this club? As a medium
sized nation, on the geographic fringe of
Europe, the Govenunent has long r e c o g n i ~ e d ~
that the country's future lies in greater
integration with Europe. Although problems
with the 1991 Maastricht agreement have
delayed this integration process, progress to a
more federated Europe appears almost
inevitable. Membership of the Exchange Rate
Mechanism (ERM), as a step on the path to
European Monetary Union (EMU), 2' coupled
with a strong interwoven security structure, and
underlaid by an ever expanding network of
multinational corporations only serves to
reinforce this premise.
What of the world outside the 'Centre'? The
term 'third world' now encompasses a whole
range of economies from the newly
industrialised countries (NICs) of ASEAN24
(which, with increasing stability in governments
and states, are rapidly approaching a position
where they may enter the 'Centre' in the next
decade as another economic power bloc), to
WHAT PROPORTION SHOULD BE DEVOTED TO OUT OF AREA OPERATIONS?-I
countries in the Horn of Africa where poverty,
famine and war have reduced them to a
collection of feuding fiefdoms. Thus the
definitionof a 'third world' country is now more
imprecise. This also confuses other convenient
divisions, such as the NorthISouth divide
( N I C S ~are
~ developing in both hemispheres).
To avoid a large number of subdivisions,
therefore, it is easier to classify NWO states as
those under the collective security blanket of the
'Centre', and those outside - the 'Periphery: 26
How has the 'Periphery' been affected by the
advent of multipolarity? The 'Centre' is
increasingly dominating the 'Periphery' through
such organisations as the IMF, World Bank,
OECD, GATT, G7 and through a dramatic
upgrading of the importance, and power, of the
UN Security Council. However, this dominance
is predominantly economic and is not
ideologically based; thus devoid of the
traditional EastlWest rivalry. Superpower
moderation of the 'Periphery' has therefore
vanished, as has its former use as a lever in
achieving a particular superpower ideological
goal. 'Peripheral' disputes now have diminished
global impact; even though it is likely that local
conflicts will be fought at a much higher
intensity, may promote regional arms races and
encourage the ascendancy of regional 'midipowers'.
The New World Threat
In a world no longer conducive to interference
by major powers, as it once was, what are the
sources of threat in the 'Periphery'? A distinct,
potentially immediate and massive threat from
a single source has disappeared, leaving less
obvious, dispersed, 'Peripheral' concerns. To
decide whether these concerns are a threat, one
first needs to examine the factors that motivate
the development of the capability and intent to
use 'Peripheral' ~ i l i t a r yforce.
Capability motivators
International Arms Trade/Proliferation. The
Gulf War (1991), yet again, reminded the
'Centre' that arms sales are potentially damaging
to long term collective security interests.
However, despite attempts to stem the flow,
through organisations such as CSCE, CFE and
the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), arms
continue to pour into the 'Periphery' - 80% of
the international arms trade consists of purchases
made by developing countries 27 (Figure 1).
T w l apcm Iron each caunw In LS S m
60 199
53 1111
13 7113
7
7-
I
LSSR
USA
11
PILhVCE
CK
OiIS.4
To ~nduvlrliscdr & d
Figure 1. Comparison of Arms Exports 1986-1990
(Source: Harvey M., in RUSI Journal, Feb. 1992)
12
WHAT PROPORTION SHOULD BE DEVOTED TO OUT OF AREA OPERATIONS?-I
Five main factors maintain this trade:
a. Arms deals are big business. The
arms trade represents some £30-50 billion
in new defence agreements and actual sales
each year. Arms exporting countries
cannot afford the loss of income by
stopping the flow; especially countries like
Russia who desperately need hard currency
to sustain their crumbling economies.
b. The EastIWest 'peace dividend' has
produced a surfeit of old cold war arms;
thus placing cheap, technically advanced
arms, into the market.
c. Regulation of movement of arms
across borders, particularly from the
former USSR, has decreased.
d. Most domestic arms procurement is
at levels too low to sustain an indigenous
defence industry. Thus exports are the only
means of ensuring firms' viability.
e. Arms, particularly weapons of mass
destruction (WOMD), confer influence on
the possessor. Imbalance caused by attaining that influence, now that superpower
influence has declined, is leading to
regional arms races; for example between
India and Pakistan or Iraq and Iran.
It is probable, therefore, that in the next 10
years 'Peripheral' armed forces will achieve a
significant increase in both quality and quantity
of their orders of battle. Of particular concern
to the 'Centre' will be the 'Periphery's'
increasing access to WOMD and their delivery
systems2', coupled with the apparent
willingness to use them - as demonstrated in
the IranIIraq war.
Peripheral Wealth. Rapid increases in
'Peripheral' nations' wealth, primarily as a
result of oil, has resulted in one of two effects.
Either the shock to a primitive socio-economic
systemg0is so great that it leads to the toppling
of regimes with subsequent internal unrest, like
Iran and its Shah, or, like Iraq, it allows an
authoritarian regime to build huge armed forces
(even though the country has an undeveloped
manufacturing base) which enables suppression
of internal dissent whilst presenting a significant
regional threat.
Intent motivators
One dominating principle that appears to drive
the governments of the 'Periphery', particularly
the least developed countries, is that of
'Realpolitik'. These governments invariably
have no choice in their actions, other than in
insuring their own short term interests. They
do not have the benefits of the 'Centre's' wealth
to 'spend to save'. Without the benefit of long
term planning, pressures are increasing which
might be termed 'intent motivators'.
Poverty
and
economic inequalities.
Developing countries' share in world trade has
fallen to less than 20% in the last 20 years. 32
This, coupled with a rise in oil prices (since
1974), increased protectionism in the 'Centre'
(for example the lifting of cross border trade
tariffs within the EC from 1992), and the
collapse of raw material commodity prices
(many 'Peripheral' governments rely on unique
resources as a country's main source of
income), has led to a rapidly increasing debt
burden in the 'Periphery' (£700 billion in 1990g3
of which some 20-30% was accounted for by
arms trading).
'Periphery'/'Centre' inequalities have led to
increasing socio-economic degradation in the
'Periphery'. Deprivation, and envy of the
'Centre's' life-style, has increasingly led to
political conflict, civil strife and division of
countries along ethnic or tribal lines. The lure
of 'easy money' from narcotics, terrorism or
crime, to rectify some of these inequalities, only
further aggravates this human misery, as
corruption and intimidation undermines
' ~ e r i ~ h e r asocieties
l'
and their governments.
Population pressures. Man reflects the
common ecological principle that populations
under stress tend to breed. In 1990 the United
Nations (UN) forecasts that the world's
population will increase by 1 billion by the end
of the centuryg4 (Figure 2). By that time the
'Periphery' will constitute 80% of the world's
population, of which the young will become an
ever increasing proportion (50-60% are aged
15 or less). Improved education and communications will raise the aspirations of this
group, whilst poverty and economic stagnation
ensures these expectations are unrealised.
Frustration and bitterness will inevitably
increase, as demonstrated in Algeria today, "
with potentially explosive consequences which
would affect not only the individual state but
WHAT PROPORTION SHOULD BE DEVOTED TO OUT OF AREA OPERATIONS?-I
13
North America
L a t i n America
Figure 2. Total Wor.Id Population Prediction
could spill over borders in the form of refugees
or competition for 'living room' or resources.
Migration. As a result of political instability,
conflict, poverty, population growth and
environmental degradation there are, today,
over 25 million refugees world wide. The sheer
size of this problem generates xenophobic
reactions in the countries on which the refugees
alight, as competition for those countries'
resources increases. This xenophobia tends to
violence more readily in poorer countries, who
become rapidly swamped by refugees - the
Horn of Africa demonstrates this most clearly. 36
In Europe, the failure to deal effectively with
the relatively modest refugee problem from
Yugoslavia, does not bode well for the problem
of coping with the likely influx of economic
refugees from the Maghreb in the near future
(where the population is expanding by 5 million
annually ").
Natural/Ecological disasters. The above
intent motivators exacerbate the effect of natural
disasters. Deforestation and desertification had
led to the increase in intensity of natural
disasters such as drought (for example East
Africa) and floods (for example Bangladesh).
This in turn increases the pressure on
populations (leading to increased breeding),
increased migration (leading to an expansion of
the crisis area) and increasing debt burdens as
'Peripheral' governments attempt to provide the
required resources.
Natural resource scarcity. In its most basic
form 'Peripheral' resource competition can be
divided in four:
a. Water - Approximately 40% of the
world's population depends on fresh water
from rivers shared by two or more
'Peripheral'
population
countries. 38
expansion has increased demand for water
for irrigation, drinking and hydroelectric
power. Thus the possibility of upstreamdownstream conflicts has grown - such
as the IndianIBangladeshi dispute over the
Ganges.
b. Food - Food production in the
'Periphery' has failed to keep pace with
population growth, particularly in South
Asian and sub-Saharan countries where
over 700 million people suffer from
chronic food shortages. 39
c. Oil - Those 'Peripheral' countries
without oil or gas reserves continue to be
damaged by the world recession, that was
initiated by OPEC price rises in 1974.
Without affordable energy to develop, their
economies have stagnated.
d. Non renewable resources Declining world commodity prices have led
to increased utilisation of non renewable
14
WHAT PROPORTION SHOULD BE DEVOTED TO OUT OF AREA OPERATIONS?-I
resources to help 'Peripheral' countries
stave off bankruptcy. This undermines
long-term economic prospects and thus the
future stability of those countries.
Territory. Although associated with all
aspects of the above motivators, border disputes
can motivate intent based purely on historic
rivalries. As earlier colonial division of the
world did not consider ethnic or tribal groupings
in establishing boundaries, with the removal of
Cold War superpower moderation, post-colonial
border disputes are now more prevalent.
The new arc of crisis
The demise of superpower hegemony has,
therefore, re-orientated what has been called the
'Arc of Crisis' (AOC). 'O No longer is the world
security agenda dominated by the possibility of
a Eurocentric world war. Although the CIS
retains military capability, and thus represents
a possible adversary, economic decline and a
lack of political or public intent to use that
military machine, means that the probability of
attack is markedly diminished. In addition it is
probable that that capability will be reduced in
future as resources are switched to more
pressing social needs. This reduction, together
with a probable growth in CIS economic
integration with Europe, means the threat from
the North East can now be considered
negligible.
The reverse can be argued about the East and
South. On 2 August 1991 as President Bush
heralded in the NWO of increasing international
peace, stability and prosperity, Iraq invaded
Kuwait, totally surprising the 'Centre'. This
demonstrated the problem now facing the
'Centre's' security system - identifying where
capability matches intent, in the 'Periphery', to
present a threat. As outlined earlier the
motivators for such a threat are diverse and as
such do not lend themselves to the 'indicators
and warning' systems developed to counter the
Soviet threat.
Warning is therefore likely to be limited at
best and imprecise, or non existent, at worst.
One can, therefore, only assess risk to European
security in this new AOC (stretching along the
southern coast of the Mediterranean through the
Middle East to Asia). Thus the quality and
quantity of 'Centre' forces maintained in being,
to counter the 'Periipheral' risk, is a matter of
balancing the risk to one's interests, or concept
of what you are trying to defend, rather than
just adjusting the balance of forces to match a
specific threat.
B. N. B. WILLIAMS
LIEUT.CDR.R N
(to be concluded)
References
' 'A Rationale for Maritime Forces in the New
Strategic Environment,' DNSD Paper, 19 May 1992.
Segal, G., The World Affairs Companion (Simon
& Schuster, 1991) p.6.
Dunn, D. H., 'Defence Planning and the New
Parliament,' RUSI Journal, June 1992, p.59.
UK OOA Defence Strategy - Role 1: To Ensure
the protection and security of our . . . dependent
territories even where there is no major external threat.
Role 3: To contribute to promoting the UK's wider
security interests through the maintenance of
international peace and stability. Statement on the
Defence Estimates 1992, HMSO, p.6.
' NAT area: The North Atlantic (North of the Tropic
of Cancer), Mediterranean and member states'
territories within that boundary. See NATO Handbook
(NATO Information Service) p. 14.
Rome Declaration on Peace and Cooperation
(NATO Information Service, Nov. 91).
' Independent, 22 May 92, p. 10. 'Undermining the
Pillars of an Alliance.'
Op. cit. Supra n.5, p. 14.
' Guardian, 12 May 92. p.8. 'US Seeks FireFighting Role for Revamped NATO'. European, 28
May 92, p.2, 'NATO Ready to Police Global Trouble
Spots'.
l o Brzezinski, Z., Consequences of the End of Cold
War. Adelphi Paper, No.265, pp.15-16.
" America's Cities - Doomed to Burn' (The
Economist, 9 May 1992, pp.23-26).
'I
'United States - Fourth Quarter 1991 ' (Economist
Intelligence Unit
-
Global Forecasting Services).
'American Survey - The Entitlement Cuckoo in
the Congressional Nest' (The Economist, 30 May
1992, pp.49-50).
Huntington, S. P., 'America's Changing Strategic
Interests', Survival, Jan-Feb 1991, p. 16. '
Truver, S. C., 'Tomorrow's Fleet,' US Naval
Institute Proceedings, June 1992, p.43.
l 6 Barnett, R. W., 'Regional Conflict Requires Naval
Forces,' US Naval Institute Proceedings, June 1992,
p.33.
'' 'CIS - First Quarter 1992' (Economist Intelligence
I'
Unit - Global Forecasting Service).
'' Guardian, I1 Jul92, p.21. 'CISDeeper inDebt'.
WHAT PROPORTION SHOULD BE DEVOTED TO OUT OF AREA OPERATIONS?-I
l 9 Buzan, B., 'New Patterns of Global Security in
the Twenty-first Century,' International Affairs, June
1991, p.436.
' O Op. cit. Supra n. 10, p.6.
'' Op. cit. Supra n. 19, p.432.
" 'Foreign Policy ,' FCO Survey of Current Affairs,
Nov. 1991, p.400.
'' Op. cit. Supra n. 22, p.420; Britain 1992, HMSO
Official Handbook, pp.2 12-213.
" ASEAN - Association of Southeast Asian Nations
(Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippines, Singapore,
Thailand and Brunei): loc cit. Supra n. 2, p.198.
'' Sayigh, Y., 'Confronting the 1990s: Security in
the Developing Countries ', Adelphi Paper No.25 1,
p.9.
l 6 Buzan, Op. cit. Supra n. 19, p.433.
l 7 Harvey, M., 'Arms Export Control: an Analysis
of Developments since the Gulf War,' RUSIJournal,
Feb. 1992, p.35.
Cordesman, A. H., 'After the Gulf War: The
World Arms Trade and its Arms Races in the 1990s,'
Brassey 's Year Book 1992, p.20.
'' Independent, 22 May 92, p. 10. 'Survey Warns of
Global Build-up of Nuclear Arms'.
15
Op. cit. Supra n. 25, p.23.
Realpolitik - Politics based on realities and
material needs, rather than on morals or ideals.
Ravenhill, J., 'The North-South Balance of
Power, ' International Affairs, Oct. 1990, p.740.
" 'International Debt,' FCO Background Brief, Nov.
1990.
" 'World Population Issues,' FCO Background Brief,
Aug. 1990.
" 'Fear of Fundies,' Economist, 15 Feb. 1992,
pp.69-70.
3 6 'East Africa Swamped,' Economist, 6 June 1992,
p.72.
Widgren, J., 'International Immigration and
Regional Stability,' International Affairs, Oct. 1990,
p.760.
Prins, G., 'Politics and the Environment,'
International Affairs, Oct. 1990, p.714.
j9
'World Food Supplies,' FCO Background Brief,
Feb. 1990.
Gasteyger, C., 'European Security and the New
Arc of Crisis, Paper I,' Adelphi Paper No.265,
pp.69-81; and Joffe, G., Paper I in the same,
pp.53-68.
'O
I'
''
"
NATO's Outreach to the Eastern Nations
down to the Moskva river from
LOOKING
the Kremlin, you see a dark, wide and slow
moving artery. As you muse on the progress
made by your nation, your eye will be drawn
to a large imposing house - on the other side
of the river - which has a fine view (looking
up) at the golden turrets all over your castle.
Your castle now has red walls, because it
became too difficult to maintain them in their
previous white plastered state; your empire now
has fewer adherents than hitherto; your wealth
seems to be ebbing away with the flow of the
river. Again your eye will wander to the large
building on the other side of the river and you
will wonder how to make the transition even as
well as the owners of that fine mansion - which
is the British Embassy.
The break up of an empire is bound to be a
difficult period for those involved. It varies from
the near farce of the so-called Central African
Empire under Bokassa, to the ending of the
British Empire, long drawn out; very painful
for those concerned and economically still
affecting daily life in the UK as we still struggle
to adjust to the reality of the world market place.
This struggle has been going on for over 100
years and we are only now beginning to come
to terms with the many losses which came with
the change: of cheap sources of raw materials,
the plentiful supply of poorly paid labour, the
ready market place available when
manufactured goods were sold back at high
profit to the providers of the raw materials.
There are interesting parallels with the former
Soviet Empire, even if the political systems were
somewhat different.
Concepts and language
Immense effort is being devoted to the reintroduction of the Russians and others into the
world community in all its different aspects. It
means introducing the concepts of democracy;
freedom;
personal
responsibility
and
accountability. Visitors from the West have no
difficulty in telling the Eastern Partners what
they should be doing. There is a need for such
a large change to be made that the menu from
which advice can be chosen is simply endless.
One great difficulty, however, is the
fundamental one of language and its meaning.
The concepts of freedom and democracy are
well appreciated in the West. We all understand
that the application of these concepts has
produced many different solutions, but the
fundamental concepts are largely maintained.
They are almost meaningless words to many in
the East. At a recent meeting in Brussels,
Marshal Shaposhnikov, the Chief of Defence
Staff of the CIS, quoted a Russian saying: 'the
higher the fence, the better the neighbour'.
Immediately the concepts of openness, trust, cooperation and general friendliness take on a
totally different meaning. How can a Westerner
have a constructive debate about co-operation
when the split in meaning is so large? At the
same meeting, Shaposhnikov went on to say that
he had, for the first time, seen how a debate can
be conducted. 'In Russia, we just shout louder
to get our way.' On a recent visit to Moscow,
it &k two French professors and myself to
persuade the Chairman of the seminar group to
allow any kind of discussion - and then it only
lasted a matter of minutes. Their concept of
debate was diatribe followed by further
statements unrelated to what had gone before.
Difficult.
Objections
With such a background, the West must ask
itself what the aim and expectation for all the
assistance can realistically be. There should be
a clear purpose, a series of milestones by which
progress can be measured and a realistic
assessment of the point at which we will say that
the current ideas are not working, that the
money is being wasted and that the programme
will need to be redirected. It is too easy to
assume that the Russians have the same view
of the target as we have, but that cannot be the
case. Their telescope has been looking in such
a dramatically different direction for so many
years that they have no measure of what
freedom has meant for us - nor would they
recognise the pain in the West at present over
the recession which is causing a reduction of
standard of living for so many people - people
who still live with a lifestyle unimaginable to
most of the Russians. They have never had a
NAVY'S OUTREACH T O T H E EASTERN NATIONS
middle class on the Western model. There is
no strength of purpose as we know it; there is
no mobility, or history of mobility, there is little
ambition because there is no hope.
Material standards
To visit the flat of a Major in Moscow is a rare
privilege and is utterly humbling. His ambition
was to be a Colonel because that would give him
a flat to himself. On the sixteenth floor of the
block, the entry hall was 8 foot square; there
was a crude loo, which worked but had no seat;
the bathroom was adequate with a very old bath
and a single source of water while the walls were
thin plywood and did not fit at the edges. The
kitchen had two fridges, one basin and two plate
racks and a very old cooker with two hot plates.
Those three rooms were shared with another
family and the only privacy was in the living
room, some 15 feet by 8. There was a sofa bed,
a further bed for the 10 year old son, a wardrobe
and a table with two chairs.
By contrast, on the fourteenth floor of a block
in a better part of town, the Colonel had a
kitchen, bathroom, loo, living room - with sofa
bed for himself and his wife - and bedroom
for his daughter. The rooms are much the same
size as the Major's, with the whole area being
about 30 feet by 15. This small space is lived
in by the couple, their 17 year old daughter, who
is studying at University, and two dogs one of
wbich is a pit-bull terrier lookalike. Security in
these housing areas is a serious problem, but
bared teeth do helo.
In the country there were scenes which really
hadn't changed for hundreds of years. The
Peasants, for that is surely what they are, living
in small wooden houses, in the middle of
nowhere; no plumbing or electricity comes
anywhere near many of them as they run their
smallholdings. Mud and standing water is all
around the house and poverty is on a scale which
the West shed long ago. The clothes are coarse
and poorly made, the faces show signs of life
having been hard but their generosity is on a
remarkable scale.
When that way of life is the norm, while some
will ache for change, for the majority it is surely
impossible to have a driving ambition to be free,
or to be rich as others are said to be rich.
Survival is the daily diet and the effort required
17
saps the energy for other ideas. If that is the
background to the vast majority of the Russian
population - be they peasants in the country
or urban dwellers, then NATO has to have a
programme to take account of that. One of the
most difficult problems facing anyone who
operates with the Russian hierarchy is to decide
who the people are who are worth dealing with:
do they have authority; do they have longevity;
do they have the ear of the President, and so on.
Political factors
What is going on in Moscow at present is a most
complicated juggling act. Yeltsin, in particular,
is having to accommodate the different wings
of the political spectrum, keeping the Army
happy while trying to force at least some realism
upon the spending plans of the different parties.
The entire structure has woodworm, some due
to corruption and some being a systemic
problem dating from the days of the communist
system. Many of the same people are in the
same places and are exercising the same power
- but this time for their own profit. The black
market is thriving - to the great loss of the state.
The vested interests in all areas are so deeply
embedded that it becomes ever more difficult
to generate change. Change can all too easily
mean the loss of privilege, of houses, cars,
dachas and a very fine way of life which,
hitherto, has been the preserve of the senior
Communist Party members of society. Yeltsin
has to allow the powerful people to continue to
operate as otherwise the economy would stop
in its tracks. There is substantial evidence of
a very powerful and rich mafia, not only in
Moscow and the surrounds, but also in other
great cities - in Siberia and elsewhere. NATO
therefore has to find the best compromise
between the idealistic - of dealing only with
those who are whiter than white - and the
pragmatic, where anyone who looks to have
some influence, crooked or not, should be paid
some attention.
Such a network is being established by
numerous contacts and visitors being brought
to Brussels, other headquarters and NATO
schools in order to see how the West operates.
The Russians are establishing many new bodies
as various interested Military Groups become
more apparent. They all have the idea of
18
NAVY'S OUTREACH TO THE EASTERN NATIONS
Military and Political Democracy, but very few
have much understanding of what this really
means. The common thread appears to be that
NATO has been seen as an oasis of stability and
success. Many of the Eastern Partners know that
they want to join the NATO club because the
wealth of the West is assumed to have come
from NATO's strength, while no connection is
made with the immense potential wealth of
Russia, in particular, were the Siberian raw
materials to be exploited sensibly. The
connection is not made that the wealth of the
West and Japan comes primarily from invention
and hard work as much as it does from a
successful defensive system. The concept of
having to develop a working economy over
many years is very difficult for them to grasp.
They expect results immediately and the idea
of a 50 year wait to achieve what the developed
world has already achieved is utterly alien to
them all. So NATO has to educate Russians at
every level. The programme of contacts is
designed to spread the word as widely and as
deeply as possible.
If NATO continues to spread the word and
to encourage democratic methods, then we are
clearly expecting to see some change. I have
already suggested that we should be developing
some method of auditing our efforts; of ensuring
that we are getting out of the effort what we
intended to produce.
Defence suff~ciency
In the political/military world at present, there
is an expressed desire that defence should be
based on the concept of 'sufficiency'. Broadly,
this means that the forces should be adequate
for the job; be not excessive and be clearly
related to the threat and therefore be a source
of confidence to those who monitor the potential
of nations. However, one of the great difficulties
of the sufficiency equation is to define what it
really implies. A given level of armaments may
well produce peace: would a lower level have
had the same effect? A level of armed potential
has been entirely satisfactory for years. There
is a change of government - and with it a
change of intention; the nation is attacked after
years of peace. Why? Because the intention of
governments is a vital part of the sufficiency
equation. In other words. to define sufficiency
may be possible for a snapshot in the life of a
nation, but if any parameter is changed, then
the analysis can become unsafe. If forces have
been reduced, they can not be increased
instantly. In a similar way, then, we have a
problem over the achievement of an effective
Outreach contacts programme. It is not possible
to measure whether men's hearts have been
changed although it may be possible to observe
that changes have been made, and then rate
those on a scale of satisfaction. But even that
may not work well, especially in a country in
the turmoil that is Russia. The forces at work
there are particularly strong and dangerous.
With the increasing reduction in freedom of
action available to Yeltsin as the traditionalists
tighten their grip, perhaps the chances of seeing
anything really change deep in the system are
minimal. Time and again there are hopes which
then are lost when a further tightening is
required to keep a particular faction on line. On
this basis, it is difficult to see how we can
measure the changes and assess whether the
NATO investment is paying off. This is not only
a NATO problem, of course. it is just as much
a national problem for all who are involved in
the search for a better Eastern picture.
The best we can do
Perhaps in the end the best we can do is to keep
on trying to change the system from without.
We should continue to visit, give seminars,
provide workshops and information. We need
to continue to develop personal contacts and
therebv have a steadv bench mark. We want to
be seeing increasing benign political control of
the armed forces - surely one of the key aims
of the cooperation programme - and to see that
the many arms control treaties are being adhered
to. We want to see some acknowledgen~entof
the sufficiency idea, even if details are vague.
This may not really satisfy the ideal of
measuring progress in an absolute sense. but
NATO and the nations will be able to see the
developments and an improving internal control
and balance. If that is not seen, even on a
subjective view, then we will have to change
and develop a different sort of carrot. However.
as progress is made it should be acknowledged.
not in a patronising way. but by increasing the
quality of cooperation. We should be hoping to
NAVY'S OUTREACH TO THE EASTERN NATIONS
get to a stage one day when some of the nations
could become serious candidates to become
members of NATO and to be able to do so with
as seamless a join as possible. For this they need
to understand the levels of achievement
required. Their organisation must broadly match
the NATO average and the political stability and
orientation must be suitable to be in this
grouping of democratic states. As these
improvements are made, so NATO should step
up the quality of assistance. The
politicalldemocratic controls will not be the
same as the West's; the method of financing the
forces will be different for many years to come
as the economies emerge from the dark
19
ages but the really key question will be whether
there is a movement for change in the right
direction. Some nations will move much faster
than others; Russia is certain to be slow as the
scale of the problems they face is so large, and
they have to do it with a geographical and ethnic
picture which is difficult to comprehend. Other
new states may be much quicker, but such is
the instability in almost all the new republics
that even the quickest is most unlikely to achieve
membership of NATO until well into the next
century - whatever NATO may mean by then.
HMS Nogolk
- The
of 1991 HMS Norfolk, the
INfirsttheofAutumn
the new Duke class Type 23, joined
the Operational Fleet after extensive trials. She
then progressed through Basic Operational Sea
Training, achieving a creditable overall
assessment of Very Satisfactory with many
Good aspects (in Flag Officer Sea Training
speak), before participating in Area
Continuation Training and a Joint Maritime
Course in the North Atlantic in January and
February 1992. The work-up over, Norfolk then
sailed as part of the On Call United Kingdom
Task Group on the deployment known as Orient
'92. We are now over half way through this
deployment and your readers may be interested
to hear our news from sea (After all, Ricochet
in his letter from Orient, NR July '92, trailed
a few doubts as to Norfolk's capabilities).
Evolution of the Type 23
Well over 10 years ago the Naval Staff
embarked on a project to build a small cheap
frigate that could deploy the towed array in the
North Atlantic. Its cost was pegged to that of
a long-refit for a 'Leander' - some f67m. It
was to have been an unsophisticated, lightly
armed ship, with a flight deck to operate the new
Merlin EHlOl helicopter but with no hangar or
helicopter maintenance facilities. These were
to be in the attendant AOR of the Royal Fleet
Auxiliary. The ship's company was to be 145
and the endurance was expected to be just 30
days. Great emphasis was put on the shore
support to be given to this class of ship when
it returned alongside. The Falklands war of 1982
did much to alter the design of the Type 23.
Considerable extra weaponry was added and
survivability was re-assessed and much
improved. Over the years the ship grew in size
and tonnage. Fully laden, HMS Norfolk is a
5,000 tonne General Purpose frigate of very
considerable ability.
Armament
Norfolk has an impressive weapon fit that serves
her well in every role. The 8 harpoon missiles
give her a long range anti-ship capability,
backed up by the 4.5 inch gun for short range
engagements and Naval Gunfire support. There
First of The Dukes
are two 30mm guns together with GPMGs for
close range work. Perhaps the most interesting
and spectacular weapon system is the Vertical
Launch Seawolf (VLSW). Norfolk has carried
out extensive trial firings with this new system
with excellent results. VLSW is certainly a step
forward from the previous Sea Wolf systems
and is a superb self defence system.
On the anti-submarine side the helicopter,
currently a Lynx, is the long range weapon
carrier armed with her Stingray torpedo. For
close range engagements torpedoes are fired
from tubes mounted in the air weapons
magazine - a new system called Magazine
Torpedo Launch System. No longer do the tubes
have to be reloaded on the exposed upper deck.
The Merlin helicopter EHlOl has already flown
from Norfolk for deck trials. When it arrives
in operational service it will much enhance the
Duke's ASW area of operations, giving a
particularly long range detection and attack
capability.
Propulsion
A novel form of propulsion has been developed
for the Dukes. The combined Diesel Electric
and Gas Turbine System (CODLAG) allows a
quiet economical propulsion at normal
operational needs. Two Spey Gas turbines can be
clutched in through the gear box for boost
speeds, but our experience to date has shown
that they are used only occasionally. On electric
propulsion Norfolk has shown staggeringly good
fuel consumption giving her an excellent
endurance.
Of interest to some, the only steam onboard
is the steam iron in the laundry! Water is made
through the Reverse Osmosis plant.
Ship's company
Today's complement is 186 and involves a very
small training margin. This number has increased from the original 145 because of the embarked flight personnel and some extra maintainers.
It is the smallest ships's company ever known
in the RN for a ship of this size and sophistication. It has meant a radical review of the way
in which manpower is used onboard, and many
innovative ideas have been introduced.
HMS NORFOLK
-
THE FIRST OF THE DUKES
Rumours - not all favourable - abound
about the manning of these ships. I believe we
have got it just about right. Undoubtedly the
ship's company works harder to a man than in
other surface warships. But they do so
cheerfully for a number of reasons. Delegation
is a key: everyone takes on responsibilities well
beyond those of their contemporaries in other
ships. They work largely unsupervised and get
good job satisfaction. Departmental barriers
have been broken down and there is
considerable work across the specialisations.
This is healthy and creates an understanding of
each others' problems. Further, all junior rates'
messes are mixed. No longer is there a stokers'
mess, a chefs' mess and so on. All are in
together and know each other well. Finally, with
fewer people, communication is easier and a
sense of purpose is invariably present. Some
WRNS will join Norfolk's ships company early
next year.
The concept of lean manning depends upon
support from ashore and to date this has been
largely successful. Extra personnel are available
(albeit in small numbers) from the shore bases
to assist the ships when they return from sea.
A major advance is in the contract cleaning that
is organised to help the ships alongside. The
squadron controls a budget to hire civilian
cleaners and painters to keep the ship smart.
This relieves the ship's company of some dreary
work and is a popular concept that has worked
well on deployment as well as in base port. To
make the point there is no paint store onboard.
So in manning terms we are settling down,
still finding ways to improve our lot, but
generally content. I have to report that the
atmosphere and morale onboard is the best I
have encountered in 25 years' service.
Operations
The key to a warship's effectiveness is its ability
to fight. Norjblk has now undergone the full
rigours of Operational Sea Training, and of
national, bi-national and NATO exercises. She
has invariably acquitted herself with distinction.
Her excellent sensors - many new to naval
service - allow her to compile a compehensive
picture to use her weapons to maximum benefit.
Her stealth qualitie\. quiet below water and hard
to detect on radar because of her reduced
21
signature, have been shown to be first class.
Much has been achieved to date with an
interim fit in the Operations Room to assist the
command to fight the ship. The Combat System
Highway is fitted and connects most weapons
and sensors. The Surface Ship Command
System, currently under development, will soon
be fitted to new 'Dukes' in build and refitted
to the 'Dukes' currently at sea without it. Once
fitted I have no doubt that the class will be
amongst the very best warships in the world;
meanwhile its capabilities make it entirely
capable of carrying out a cross section of Fleet
directed tasks.
Deployment
A far cry from the 30 day patrols in the North
Atlantic, Norfolk has (at the time of writing)
completed 20 weeks away from home port at
a particularly high degree of operational
readiness throughout. She has had a
considerable amount of sea time and has
steamed 24,600 miles since May.
Noflolk has shown the flag in Crete,
Alexandria, Mauritius, Diego Garcia, Lumut
(Malaysia), Pusan (Korea), and Brunei. A twoweek Self Maintenance Period in Penang was
sufficient to get the ship and her people into first
class shape. In previous deployments Fleet
Maintenance Units have deployed to assist ships
mid deployment. A conscious decision was
taken not to do this for ORIENT. Contract
cleaning (and some painting) has been achieved
during port visits, generally to a very high
standard - and at prices very much lower than
in the UK (Thought: Dukes should always
deploy, in order to lower running costs!) Should
Ricochet care to visit Norfolk at any time I
believe he would be highly impressed with how
she sparkles internally. After all, fewer people
means less mess!
Exercises have been a regular feature.
Exercise Dragon Hammer, the first NATO
exercise for a Duke, allowed Norfolk to display
her potential, especially in the Anti-Surface
Warfare role. Most recently she has spent two
weeks in a busy Exercise Starfish - the Annual
Five Powers Defence Agreement exercise off
Malaysia. 36 ships and 47 aircraft participated
and Norfolk acted as CTG for the majority of
the exercise, further proving her capabilities in
22
HMS NORFOLK - THE FIRST OF THE DUKES
a multi threat scenario.
Much interest has been generated in the RN's
latest warship and many have visited us to see
our latest technology. All have been highly
impressed and British Industry stands to gain
much from our presence. Defence Industry
Days have so far been held in three countries
and have been declared great successes both by
our industrialists and the host nations.
Conclusion
Visit Norfolk and talk to anyone in her ship's
company and you will quickly realise how
intensely proud we are of this fine ship. With
60%equipment new to Naval Service, we are
manned at 60%of an equivalent ship (much the
same capability of a batch I11 Type 22), use only
60% of the fuel, and cost only 60% of the
previous class in the first place. Yet the
capability is 100%, as is the enthusiasm. This
makes value for money the key word; that
cannot be bad for the RN or UK!
JOHN LIPPIETT
CAPTAIN,
RN
Adriatic Ops
-
NATO and/or the WEU?
the moment there are two separate, but
AT identical,
embargo enforcement operations
in progress in the Adriatic - MARITIME
GUARD, a NATO operation utilising Standing
Naval Force Mediterranean (SNFM) run by
COMNAVSOUTH from Naples, and SHARP
FENCE, a WEU operation run by CINCNAV
(the Italian CinCFleet) from Santa Rosa near
Rome. Each operation is supported by its own
Maritime Patrol Aircraft (MPA) force, although
their patrols are co-ordinated to provide 24-hour
cover and the on-task MPA supports both
operations equally. There is also daylight hours
AEW cover provided by the NAEW force with
British E-3D and French E-3F augmentation.
To late November. the total number of units
involved since the embargo surveillance
operations started last July has varied from
11-16 DDIFF. up to 22 MPA and 415 AEW.
These are not 'asset poor' operations!
Reductions were imminent - probably
accelerated by the approach of Christmas leave
periods rather than a breath of reality. but the
change to enforcement in early November has
delayed. if not cancelled. their implementation.
What are all these forces doing? Until 22
November they were rnonitoring - and only
monitoring. because until 15 November no UN
Mandate existed to stop and search compliance with UN Security Council
Resolutions 713 and 757. These UNSCRs tbrhid
the import of arnis into all of 'ex-Yugoslavia'
and the import or export of all goods (except
for food and medical supplies) intolfrom Serbia
and Montenegro. Traffic levels are not high:
about 20-25 vessels a day (excluding ferries and
other scheduled traffic) are passing north or
south through the Otranto Channel and the area
of the Adriatic off Bar and Kotor.
Why have so many assets been devoted to
these two operations'? Why indeed are there two
operations at all'? The answer appears to lie in
the political relationship between NATO and the
WEU. At a Ministerial meeting in Helsinki on
10 July. the WEU -- no doubt driven. in part.
by the widespread feeling that 'Europe' should
be seen to be doing something about Yugoslavia
- decided to mount a maritime patrol in support
of thc UNSCR\. 1-utcl-tlic \:uiie da) . NATO
-
seeming not to want to be seen to be doing
nothing - followed suit and in a 20 minute
meeting decided to mount a parallel operation.
I would suggest that a WEU naval operation.
supported by NATO with MPA, AEW and all
the
necessary
communications/logistic
infrastructure would have been a much more
cost-effective military solution and could have
been publicised as an example of how well the
WEU and NATO can work together. Has not
the WEU been touted as the 'European Pillar'
of NATO'? Here we had an ideal opportunity
to show this idea in action. so why did the
Nations feel that the expense of a second
operation was justified? It is almost as if NATO
sees the WEU as a threat, but as many of the
Ministers at the two Helsinki meetings were the
same people. . . ?
I suspect that the answer lies in the differing
political perceptions of, and aspirations for, the
futures of NATO and the WEU. The present
membership of the WEU is restricted to those
countries that are both members of NATO and
the European Community. There are clear
indications in the fog surrounding the Maastricht
Treaty that the EC federalists see the WEU as
the beginning of a 'European SecuritylDefence
Identity'. However. the WEU has no
communications systems. no doctrines or
procedures, no logistics back-up - in fact no
military infrastructure at all. It only exists a\
it viable military organisation by courtesy of
NATO (and is therefore partially funded by the
non-WEU members of NATO, particularly the
USA). Provided its aim is to provide a
strengthened 'European Pillar' of NATO, thi\
wems to me to be all hell and good, bur if
nations wish the WEU to have an independent
existence, to be 'The Defence Pillar of the
European Community'. then surely they must
expect to have to pa) for its infrastructure.
unless their aim is to destroy NATO. so that the
Wt:U can ariw cheaply from the wreckage. This
latter alarming possibility certainly seems to he
on the agenda in certain parts of Europe.
Having said all the above. it is only fair to
the WEU to point out that LieutenantCommander DaLenport is in error in his article
t,n 'the New Ei~l.opcctc.' OYR. Oct. '92). The
~
-
24
ADRIATIC OPS
-
NATO AND/OR THE WEU?
WEU, represented by Italy, was on task in the
Adriatic monitoring the UNSCRs on 13 July,
3 days before SNFM arrived on the scene;
whilst NATO did 'act quickly', in fact the WEU
took the initiative and was there first using,
initially, solely Italian national resources until
joined on 15 July by a French frigate, with other
members following rapidly thereafter. Despite
my earlier comments, the WEU can run a
limited military operation without using NATOfunded infrastructure.
I realise that the above raises many questions
and only partly answers some of them, but I
cannot be the only one who is quite unclear as
to the direction in which we seem to be drifting.
It will be refreshing if the Government's
perceptions of the future roles of NATO and
the WEU are spelled out in full in the next
annual Defence White Paper. Most Members
will have spent their entire service within
NATO. Are we being taken (willingly or not?
- knowingly or not?) into a new Alliance?
AUTOLYCUS
The Effect of Peace on People
the last paragraph of his published 1962
ICollege
Lees Knowles Lectures, delivered at Trinity
Cambridge, General Sir John Hackett
N
ended thus:
The profession of arms is an essential
institution offering an orderly way of life,
set a little apart, not without elegance. 'The
performance of public duty is not all that
makes a good life,' said Bertrand Russell
in language that would have pleased
Cicero; 'there is also the pursuit of private
excellence'. Both are to be found in the
military life. It gives much and takes more,
enriching freely anyone prepared to give
more than he gets. It will remain with us
for as long as man continues to be what
he is, too clever and not good enough. This
looks like being a long time yet.
The Editor, about a year ago, rightly drew
to a close articles concerning 'The Effect of War
on People' so this article purports, in a military
context, to discuss the effect of peace on people
who may have to sustain the first shock of war.
The article is triggered by three events. A
considerable correspondence in the newspapers
about the sacking from 'Headships' of several
innovative and indeed well known men and
women due to parental pressure; consideration
by the European court of the infliction of three
strokes of a gym shoe on the bottom of a 7 year
old; and the sentences in Pablo's War (Squadron
Leader Mason, Bloomsbury Press) about Desert
Storm which read as follows:
'We were all reluctant to carry on
delivering these lethal weapons. A few
crews and individuals had already refused
ro go to war (This writer's italics). Others
were fast approaching breaking point. In
the Second World War they would have
been branded as lacking in moral fibre and
would probably have lived a life of misery,
shunned by their Service comrades for the
rest of their days. In the First World War
they would simply have been taken out and
shot. '
In Chapter 10 of my book From Fisher to the
Falklands I wrote about my year at Birmingham
University:
'Here I found myself one of a mob of
(mostly) ex RAF officers studying for their
degrees on Forces Educational Grants;
young men with old faces from bomber
command, whose record of courage has
never been properly acknowledged but
who, amongst the many kindnesses they
showed me, gave me an abiding respect
and admiration for their Service.'
That was 45 years ago and nothing I have seen
or learnt since, including close friendship with
a number of RAF officers, serving and retired,
has caused me, in the slightest, to alter that
opinion.
And who could forget that paragraph in a
letter to his mother written by a young bomber
pilot before a sortie and to be delivered to her
only if he did not return, as he failed to do:
'You must not grieve for me, for if you
really believe in religion and all that it
entails that would be hypocrisy. I have no
fear of death; only a queer elation. . . I
would have it no other way. The universe
is so vast and so ageless that the life of one
man can only be justified by the measure
of his sacrifice. We are sent into this world
to acquire a personality and a character to
take with us that can never be taken from
us. Those who just eat and sleep, prosper
and procreate, are no better than animals
if all their lives they are at peace.'
Three times in my father's lifetime and twice
in mine the Germans have brought down France
or Europe in flames. In 1948 I was a small cog
in Western Union working from a bomb
damaged 36, Whitehall when the tentative
decision, Operation Dunkirk, was taken to
evacuate all the Allied occupation forces from
Western Europe should the Soviets attack. I saw
the assault on merchant ships bound for Spain
in 1936137; I was made aware, almost before
anyone, of Gadhaffi's attempt in the early
seventies to torpedo the QE2 full of Jews on the
way to Haifa. Littoral States are already
purchasing ships of the Soviet Navy to give them
restrictive power on their adjacent sea routes
and choke points; China ferociously hates Japan,
covets the oil in the South China sea (as does
Japan) and is buying an aircraft carrier to add
to her fleet already building. The USA has
26
T H E E F F E C T OF P E A C E O N P E O P L E
supplied Japan with sufficient hardware to build
6 Aegis Class cruisers and has supplied 150
F116s to Taiwan. Maritime war and trade denial
of the most difficult sort to overcome, from
many causes, is likely in the near future.
Intensive farming in Britain uses 10 joules of
fossil fuel energy brought from overseas for
every joule of edible energy produced. Gas
supplies are easily interrupted. We are killing
off our mining industry. Under EC rules much
land is going out of cultivation. If the supply
of fossil fuel lapses for more than ninety days
we should quickly starve, while our armed
forces were 'grounded'. Even Germany, as a
result of trying to swallow her Eastern element
at one gulp is in trouble again. It took 28 Italian,
8 Rumanian and I I crack German Divisions to
oversee the Balkan peninsula. War not peace
is in the air.
Between the first and second world wars the
Germans carried out a virtual spring cleaning
of the minds of their younger generation. There
was a calculated (and largely successful) policy
to inculcate the whole German nation with the
prized qualities of a soldier. I met some of the
wandemogel in the Thirties and the 'Strength
through Joy' movement had much to impress
anyone who had seen the squalor of Jarrow and
In different
Britain's mass unem~lovment.
,
forms and under different guises the same
process used by the Germans (and for the same
reasons) is being carried out in a dozen countries
today. No democracy can attempt anything like
this yet, demonstrably, as General Hackett
asserts, 'war will remain with us for as long as
man continues to be what he is, too clever and
not good enough. This looks like being a long
time yet.'
Today with our accelerating science applied
to war we, in the industrialised world, face a
dilemma particularly in our small increasingly
overcrowded island. Should our officers in the
Services (as I have always held) be well above
the intellectual median of the nation, innovative,
imaginative, and deeply thoughtful? Have we,
over the last 5 0 years in our preoccupation over
a major conflict with a nation no less
ideologically motivated towards war than was
Germany, sought to avoid the difficulties of
training democracies in peace to accept the trials
of war as a natural feature of our national life,
.
by turning too much towards the development
of weapons operable only by the brainy?
Crudely put, in our officer recruiting, have we
gone too much for brains to the exclusion of
brawn? In our search for the former, are we in
danger of soft pedalling the search for that
quality so much more difficult to discuss at an
early age - character?
Has our educational system, under the
influence of parents, particularly single parents,
started to become too soft? 'More life', Thomas
Hardy has written, 'may trickle out of men
through thought than through a gaping wound.'
And does this policy into which, in peacetime,
we have (quite necessarily) been forced, affect
the fighting qualities of men (and women) in the
sea-going fleet? A fleet that can be said in
general to be the most sophisticated battle
apparatus yet devised and so needing the highest
academic calibre officers and ratings to operate
it; and similarly has this 'softening' of our
society affected also the almost incredibly
skilled RAF pilot in his cockpit, alone with his
highly complicated battle apparatus and the
elements, in particular? 'The man of character
in peace is the man of courage in war': so writes
Lord Moran with his experience as a doctor in
the trenches in World War I and as Churchill's
shadow in World War 11.
Admiral Woodward's book with its
references to men who 'cracked' even before
the Falklands were reached and Squadron
Leader Mason's paragraph quoted above would
seem, if Thomas Hardy was right, to suggest
that the softening policy has gone too far and
search for character, in the true sense of the
word, not far enough.
Bartlett's Psychology and the Soldier, The
Rev Norman Copeland's book of the same
name, MacCurdy's The Structure of Morale
and, in the context of World War I, Trotter's
The Instincts of the Herd in Peace and War,deal
mainly with the soldier's morale and leadership
problems. And to some extent these are quite
different as regards the detailed application of
technological expertise in the crash and din of
battle than (say) that of the young officer seeing
a missile approaching on his screen, in an air
conditioned operations room below the
waterline, or a lonely pilot intent on a bombing
run hearing the squawk indicating the same
THE EFFECT OF PEACE ON PEOPLE
danger. But peacetime training has to ensure that
all three possess equal courage however
differently, as the crisis approaches, such
courage needs to be demonstrated.
Janowitz defines 'ascription' as meaning that
an individual's position in the military depends
on social characteristics and not on personal
achievement. Until the beginning of this
century, certainly in general, men were only
born into the officer class or they were excluded.
Now personnel records of both academic and
leadership qualities have supplanted social
pedigree. At the beginning of this century in the
Army and Navy and since World War I1
particularly in the Navy and pilotlnavigator
element of the RAF, technical skills have
inevitably undermined the impact of ascribed
authority. And between 1914 and 1945 many
of the genes which made the hereditary and
almost feudal skills of leadership in the British
Army so particularly effective on the field of
battle, despite the benign drawbacks of
peacetime democracy, have been left in the mud
of Flanders, on the beaches of Italy, Normandy
and Gallipoli, in North Africa and the Middle
East; never to return. Some too would hold that
the Royal Navy's heavy casualties in World War
I1 and those of the RAF also contributed to the
lost-for-ever national gene bank.
In the second paragraph of this article I
mentioned the sacking of school 'Heads' and
the extraordinary case of a small boy lightly
'slippered', now under advisement by the
European Court. It has been my delight since
retiring, to be for five years (until I was to be
relieved by the late Admiral Sir Richard
Clayton) the Chairman of Governors of a
smallish Independent School founded some 70
years ago by a far-sighted and extremely rich
man, who had been desperately unhappy at his
Public School, but was still big enough to
appreciate the benefits he had absorbed there.
So he devoted a large part of his fortune to
instilling the best of those benefits into the sons
of his estate workers by purchasing (initially)
a large house with 200 acres and setting up a
(free) school which in a few years reached 90
pupils. There was to be be no corporal
punishment; no marks; a school parliament
known as the General Meeting was to be largely
responsible for good order and internal
27
discipline without bullying; lovely playing
fields; beautiful pictures and a musical tradition
extending to this day were all provided for. A
bunch of sojiies I thought and how wrong I was.
The founder's aim he enshrined in one short
sentence: The true aristocracy is an arisrocracy
of bruins und charucrer.
To someone who had undergone the sadistic
discipline at Dartmouth, which I have described
in The Man Around rhe Engine, and who had
accepted the post of Chairman of Governors
rather reluctantly and only at the instigation of
a childhood friend, the son of the founder, the
whole ambience was a revelation. There could
be no doubt of the success of the experiment.
From the original roll of 90, up to the war
mostly from the Estate, 24 went to Oxbridge
and the same number during the 6 years of war.
In the 25 post war years by which time the roll
was rising to 150, there were over 100
scholarships to Oxbridge and with the roll now
at about 270 a proportionate increase since has
taken place, together with many going to other
universities and polytechnics and a steady
stream into the Services. An Editor of the
Financial Times, a partner in one of the great
PR firms, a highly placed Foreign Office
official, the Keeper of Bodleian, the Keeper of
the British Collection at the Tate. a member of
the Council of Lloyds, 15 authors with 42 books
ranging from novels, through woodland ecology
to Chinese Art, were some of the achievements
of only a few of that early 'vintage'.
In the post war era when even the very rich
were feeling the pinch the arrangement was
amended. Twenty Boys (and now girls) from
Primary Schools largely paid for by the
Founder's Trust, or by 'Friends' and Old Boys
of the school and, until Labour gained a
majority, by the County Council, were merged
in their third year with another twenty 13 yearolds, the children of fully fee-paying parents
from independent preparatory schools. And so,
to quote just four rather different instances
personally known to me, a pigman's son who,
while at the school and paid for by the original
Trust, climbed the Eiger, became a brilliant
pianist and gained a scholarship to Oxford;
another, with fees also provided by the Trust
has just won his cricket blue at Cambridge; yet
another wrote from the gun turret of a
28
THE EFFECT OF PEACE ON PEOPLE
Challenger main battle tank on a quiet evening
in the Arabian desert just before Operation
Desert Storm, while another boy with 10
0-levels under his belt who chose to defy the
Head and his parents and leave at 16, has
become one of the two bravest National Hunt
jockeys of the present era.
I came to believe in those five years that
desperate though the loss of natural leadership
genes may have been in two world wars there
are still plenty about if we, in the Services, look
for them widely enough and somehow manage
to recognise them, both abundantly difficult
problems which we have to solve in peacetime
if our Services are to give of their best in any
conflict. I have been impressed too by the names
on the gravestones in the churchyard by.our
home. Apart from Captain Bligh who was born
here in St Tudy but buried in Lambeth, the same
names appear century after century, as well as
on the war memorial for the two wars, on the
photographs of those who went to World War
I and amongst the sterling yeomen fanners in
the neighbourhood and on the parish council.
In the Navy of today, it seems to me, the
intellectual gap between the best of the artificer
entry and the (academically) worst of the officer
candidates is virtually non existent; and this is
borne out by the fact that 30%of the engineering
branch, weapons, propulsion and air, who
graduate with an Honours degree are exapprentices. Quite often the two types of
candidate were separated only by their
immediately preceding social status, which
initially or by chance tended to aim them at one
type of entry or the other by their maturity (or
lack of it) at school and as seen by the recruiter,
and the success or otherwise of their school
teachers in giving them the necessary numeracy ,
literacy and savoir faire to pass one or other of
the Selection Boards. I surmise that the same
differences may well exist between some of the
new entry rating recruits, who might always
remain a rating and those who might develop
petty officer or even officer intellectual and
leadership potential.
And what of discipline? I have written
elsewhere (From Fisher to the Falklandr) of how
between the mutiny at Invergordon and 1939,
the leadership of Chatfield, Kelly, James,W. W.
Fisher, D'Oyly Lyon, A. B. Cunningham and
many others, produced a Navy once more
spiritually, if not technologically, ready for
battle.
Lord Moran writes of the survivors of HMS
Glorious:
What is it in the spirit of the Navy that
kept from quarrelling these tormented
sailors whose reason had nearly gone after
65 hours adrift in the Arctic circle?'
would answer I think, in the words of AF Lord
Jellicoe:
'Discipline engenders a spirit of
calmness in emergency. The same spirit
which keeps a disciplined man at his post
when all his comrades have fallen, will
keep a man brave and cool in the midst of
emergency, panic and disaster. In other
words discipline renders a man more
capable of facing the changes and chances
of human existence. '
I treasure a letter from a young stoker in my
ship who, as the water rose around him,
described how he concluded that his mother's
last words to him when we sailed six months
before, Remember, never desert your post,
Harry, were perhaps no longer entirely
applicable to the situation he faced.
So where do we go from here now that
'ascription' has disappeared, that the fee-paying
preparatory schools and public schools (today
rather the prerogative only of the very moneyed),
have largely ceased to provide the officer corps
of all three Services, that brains and technical
expertise are in danger of becoming the main
criteria of leadership in an increasingly secular
society, where (to quote the Dean of Peterhouse)
. . . 'the priest in his sanctuary no longer speaks
to (people) of the evidences of the unseen world,
discovered amongst the rubble of the present
one'. . .? And in particular, for that is the purpose
of The Naval Review, how in the case of the
Royal Navy should we solve the equation? How
should we attempt, in our diminishing Navy, in
a rapidly changing type of society, to select
officer candidates, who will be accepted by those
peers they will be trained to lead, who will
understand comradeship, and who, in critical and
dangerous moments will spread fortitude rather
than put on their survival suits and curl up in the
foetal position under a table as Admiral
Woodward records?
THE EFFECT OF PEACE ON PEOPLE
Would it be better to emulate the school I have
mentioned where, during 5-7 years, regardless
of social background (a factor during that period
almost entirely forgotten and anyway
discounted), the real aristocracy, the
aristocracy of brains and character, is seen
amongst some, slowly to emerge and to be
identified?
The Navy could not spare all that time of
course for such a selection process and anyway
the entry ages are greater and therefore perhaps
the characters more recognisable; but should we
perhaps revert to something on the lines of HMS
King Alfred which, from an always young and
sometimes rather motley crew entering the Navy
as sailors gave us that vast and, on the whole,
outstanding supply of reserve officers without
whose help the war would never have been won.
Who, with any knowledge of Coastal Forces,
almost entirely RNVR, could deny the quality
of its young officers selected straight from civil
life? My five years on the civil service and
police selection boards convinced me that the
two or three days 'Wosbee' type selection
procedures, effective though in some cases they
might be, were really no substitute for a far
longer observation and selection procedure.
I believe there is a lesson here which we
should not neglect. I visualise an entry
examination based, as at present, on about three
broad levels of academic ability and whatever
age ranges for each might be considered
appropriate. The first academic standard would
constitute the lowest level acceptable for the
rating recruit and might have a wider age range
than the other two; the second the lowest level
acceptable for the apprentice entry and the third
and highest for officers, to be of university
standard preferably with some maths and
physics. Both the last two batches of candidates
having fairly low ceiling age ranges. All
candidates for service in the Royal Navy would
have the choice of which of the three academic
examinations they wished to opt for; and, on
passing at whichever grade, would be offered
(say) 12 weeks (what might be called)
'pupillage' while dressed and living as sailors
in HMS Raleigh. HMS Raleigh itself would
contain, besides the necessary training staff, a
greatly enlarged Selection Board watching for
officer potential in all three entries. Clearly the
29
third and second types of entry would need the
closest observation; but the chase for academic
potential (as opposed to achievement) should
cover all three ate developers are often the
best in these fast moving times.
Prima facie such a change suggests the
abandoning of Dartmouth. And it well may
ultimately come to that. But if, after selection,
and (say) a year's seatime still as sailors, there
is obvious officer material in a candidate, then
some additional academic 'cramming' may be
needed provided the maximum age limits are
not exceeded and, for a time this might be
Dartmouth's role. All officer selectees would
anyway finish their training at Manadon (now
allied to Plymouth University) by taking
courses, some leading to Honours degrees,
tailored to their ultimate specialisation in one
or other of the appropriate 'schools'.
Experience in the Fifties when the officer
academic standard of entry was similar to that
of a Post Office clerk demonstrated that
Manadon and Dartmouth were both hamstrung
in their endeavours to produce good officers,
by the need to 'cram' a small proportion of
entrants to achieve the minimal academic
standards required, too often to the neglect of
the brightest. And in many cases where even
the 'cramming7 failed with its accompanying
drag on those not needing it, the officer
concerned who failed his exams was discharged
from the Navy with no hope of being
downgraded perhaps to Special Duties Officer
or petty officer, where his adequate leadership
qualities would have served the Navy well. If
such cramming could also be accomplished at
Manadon or Raleigh rather than Dartmouth.
then the latter would indeed have to be
abandoned as a naval training establishment.
Such an arrangement, the writer holds, would
greatly enhance the early and (by reason of the
much longer period for the selection process the full 12 weeks for officers) more certain
spotting of those with officer potential whatever
their social background. It would also enhance
the all of one company philosophy by making
clear, at the earliest stage, and amongst their
peers, who should lead and who, however clever,
would be more likely fated only to follow; those
who welcomed and overcame stress and those
who seemed to succumb too early.
30
THE EFFECT OF PEACE ON PEOPLE
The abandoning of Dartmouth with its chapel
and books of Remembrance for the multitude
of naval officers who gave their lives in two
world wars would be an unbearable wrench. But
in the last 25 years this country, despite the
wonders of the North Sea oil exploration, has
fallen far behind the United States and France
in the exploration and development of the seabed
beyond the Continental Shelf. There needs to
be one centre of applied scientific research. The
'undersea-men' trained at Dartmouth could well
add lustre to the seamen who once made that
little Port so famous. Sir Edward Heath, when
joining the European Community, is said to
have given away 80% of British fish stocks to
our continental rivals and once remarked to me
that shipbuilding was a purely 'Third World
Activity'. Pressure, constantly exerted on the
government may one day restore to British
fishermen what is rightly theirs; and as for
shipbuilding being a 'Third World' activity tell
that to the Finns, the Koreans, the Japanese, the
Norwegians, the Germans, the French, the
Italians and they will surely dispose of such a
gross misjudgement.
If, as many hope, the UK distances itself from
the more bizarre of the Brussels lawmakers,
(what British sailor requires a Delors approved
standard sized condom as defined in one of the
latest orders from Brussels?) then training in all
types of construction of (once more) British
seagoing merchant ships and those deck officers
who will man them (the Treasury refused in
1956 to contemplate training merchant navy
engineers at Manadon although no extra
overheads would have been needed) could well
also be concentrated at Dartmouth. There could
be training too in more up to date fishing
techniques, training in the properly organised
harvesting of the oceans, training in seabed
exploration. In a world dying because of the 200
extra mouths to be fed and 200 extra aspirations
(never to be satisfied) for every minute of every
day, Dartmouth could become in time one of
the most important centres by which our planet
might be saved.
,For those who recall the Georgics, Sedfugit
interea, fugit inreparabile tempus. For those
who don't - 'Meanwhile time is flying flying, never to return'.
The Purpose of the Royal Navy
T should not be necessary to ask the
INavy'?;
question 'what is the purpose of the Royal
it should be possible to go to some
publication and find an official definition. From
time to time Defence White Papers come up
with what can only be described as rather
'bland' statements on this subject, but no formal
standing official definition is available. The aim
of this short article is, therefore, to discuss and
then define the primary purpose of the Royal
Navy.
The position of both the nation and NATO
is that their intent and therefore that of their
armed forces is defensive and that their aim is
to deter aggression.
In order for deterrence to work one's enemy
must be convinced that he is facing forces which
are effective and efficient; armed forces must
therefore exercise and be seen to be able to do
their job. Accordingly it is necessary for the
armed forces to promote and publicise their
capabilities.
The fundamental task of armed forces is to
be able to apply force where and when directed
by legitimate authority (the Government of the
day) as necessary to achieve a required aim.
Hence it is the task of the Royal Air Force to
apply force in the air and the army on land. It
is the task of the Royal Navy (including the
Royal Marines) to apply force as directed at,
below, above and from the sea. The armed
forces are, by definition, in the business of
applying armed force, or, in more simple terms,
in the business of 'waging war'; if this were not
so then all that would be required would be an
unarmed coast guard and merchant service, and
that is not what the Royal Navy is about.
Lastly, it is not enough to be able to apply
force; to be successful in one's purpose, one
must be able to win. If one fights (uses force)
only to lose, it would be better not to waste
money (and lives!) on armed forces in the first
place.
Everything should be done to achieve a
clearly defined aim. The armed forces should
only ever be used in their fighting role to defend
the nation's vital interests; that is to say those
interests, as decided by the Government, which
are so important to the nation that they are worth
the loss of life to protect. In a word they must
be 'vital' interests; if they are not 'vital' - then
the use of armed force in their fighting role
should not be contemplated because otherwise
involving them becomes a bluff which the
enemy could well call. It is clear that, in 1982,
the government decided that the Falklands were
part of the vital interests of the United Kingdom
because they were prepared to use force and,
in the last resort, accept the death of some of
our personnel. (As an aside - Is this the case
in Bosnia?)
From the above it follows that the primary
purpose of the Royal Navy, acting always as
an instrument of government policy, is:
To be seen to be able to wage war at,
below, above and from the sea - and win
- in order to defend the vital interests of
the nation.
This, surely, is a precise and accurate
statement of the Royal Navy's primary purpose.
Disaster relief, lifesaving, fishery protection,
and other roles are secondary and must never
be confused with the primary purpose,
particularly when deciding where limited
resources should be applied.
Without such a precise statement, officially
promulgated, how can the Navy or our political
masters when resourcing the Service ever act
with clarity of purpose - itself a fundamental
principle of war. The statement of primary
purpose proposed here is not contentious, but
nowhere is it or anything remotely like it
officially promulgated. I contend that this or
some very similar definition should be in the
forefront of every naval officer's mind, and
everything that he does in his career should be
directed towards assisting in achieving this
purpose - otherwise his efforts are misapplied.
Such a definition should be formally and
conspicuously promulgated at paragraph one,
page one of the Navy's premier book - namely
BR 2 - the Queen's Regulations for the Royal
Navy. There's a lot in the new QRRN - pages
of preamble with statements by the Defence
Council with even its letters patent from the
Queen; but where is the purpose of the Navy
stated? I can't find it.
In the preamble to the 1652 version of the
32
THE PURPOSE OF THE ROYAL NAVY
Articles of War King Charles I1 rightly stated:
'It is upon the navy under the Rovidence
of God that the safety, honour and welfare
of this realm do chiefly attend.'
Have the British people really forgotten that
fundamental truth? I doubt it. Have the
politicians? Perhaps. Let us help remind them,
and perhaps even ourselves, with a clearly stated
primary purpose.
J . L. MUXWORTHY
COMMANDER,
RN
Defence and Industry or Industry and Defence
Note: R e following article was completed at the end of 1991 and the3gures and some terms used
reflect that dating. H m e r it is clear that the principles involved still apply - Editor.
Introduction
RITISH Aerospace (BAe) and VSEL
shipbuilders announced the combined loss
of 15,000 Defence related jobs in the same week
that it was revealed that the Social Services
budget had exceeded £63 bn. With two-thirds
of that devoted to servicing pensions and a single
year's increase of 20% the country can not
afford to bail out Health, Education, Local
Government and Defence or, with 20%-30%
cut in the latter post the 'Options for Change'
rationalisation, its ailing industry. The
numerical increase and longevity of the elderly
and the reduction of the taxpaying workforce
will exacerbate this mismatch of expenditure
indicating that Government collective
management is required.
This paper questions the survivability of
Britain's Defence Industrial Base and ultimately,
with its possible demise, the capability of
Government to discharge Foreign Policy with
the aid or back up of appropriate military power.
In both the retaking of Kuwait and the relief
effort for the Kurds no-one can gainsay the
usefulness of effective armed forces and the
credibility that they impart to participating
Governments.
B
Aim
The aim of this paper is to expose the need for
an Industrial Policy that safeguards production
for Defence so that national aspirations may
continue to be supported by effective Armed
Forces. '
scope
After examining some historical aspects and
discussing various security organisations as they
may appear to Industry the paper will look into
a few procurement philosophies before
identifying some weaknesses in the UK's
Defence Industrial Base (DIB).
prevailed in the 1920s when Winston Churchill
was Chancellor of the Exchequer. The
economic climate was broadly similar with
promises of a better life after World War I. Then
as now the choice was between Economy and
Strategy with concern for the optimum
allocation of scarce resources. Industry was
helped by lowering taxation and socialism was
countered by increased expenditure on social
services. The budget still had to be balanced,
the Gold standard maintained and interest rates
kept down so that industry and unemployment
would not be adversely affected. Ipso facto the
defence budget was reduced, held at a flat rate
for 10 years and predicated with the assumption
'that there would be no major war for ten
years'.' The map of Europe was almost
identical to today's new order.
The table below shows the rate of increase
of Defence expenditure that was necessary from
1932 to prepare for World War I1 at which point
Lend-Lease took over and there was no attempt
to control the economy. The aircraft industry
was in poor condition with few experts around
after the stagnant years and the eventual
readiness of all arms in 1939 was remarkable
but still questionable. With so many similarities
today it must not be forgotten that the expertise
to produce modem weaponry is far more at a
premium and the lead time much longer.
Summary
The 1923-45 period encapsulated a major
industrial recession and terminated with a six
year war. It is not a recipe to repeat. Modem
conflict depends on forces in-being and any
acceleration in the production train requires the
minimum infrastructure to remain in place even
if, in peacetime, it is less than competitively
economical. The problem is that with the key
skills now in private hands they will wither
unless Governments take steps to preserve the
strategic minimum. Industry has no long-term
incentive to stay in the defence business
privately.
Historical
Much of what Britain is experiencing today
Defence Expenditure per annum 1923-1938
1923
24
25
26
27
28
29
32
33
34
35
105
115 119 117 117 114 113 103 108 114 137
36
186
37
265
1938
400
34
DEFENCE AND INDUSTRY (IR INDUSTRY AND DEFENCE
Security policies
International scene
What is the defence industry to make of
today's international scene? First, it recognises
the loss of business emanating from the
breakdown in disciplines associated with the
North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO).
When the threat was numerically assessable,
poised and just over there the military cohesion
of nations was evident in determining and
providing for the response. With 3% growth per
annum politicians were keen to be seen
achieving the material commitments of the
Defence Planning Goals. Industry had a remit
and guaranteed business. Now that the
introduction of buffer states from the former
Warsaw Pact countries has opened up the
warning time from 36 hours to a perhaps
exaggerated two years the heat is off, the
urgency for solutions to military problems has
gone and politicians promise their voters 'peace
dividends'. Industry lies exposed.
NATO
The greatest single military threat still
emanates from the Soviet Union. NATO will
remain the principal forum for setting out
nuclear policy issues on an allied basis and for
providing the command and control in any large
scale European conflict. What is not so clear
is the scale or positioning of defensive resources
when warning time allows for both regeneration
of forces and their redeployment, or
reinforcement, when necessary. This is the bad
news for industry. Whereas NATO remains a
central plank in British Defence Policy and
while NATO thinkers rekindle a new Strategy
nations will nonetheless unilaterally, if not
collectively, reduce their current commitments
on a significant scale (the USA and UK already
talk of 25 % ,20%respectively). Economics may
be the principal driver, as it has been in the
USSR, so there is little chance of the reduction
being coordinated or gradual under the auspices
of CFE (The Negotiation on Conventional
Armed Forces in Europe) which presupposed
a modest 10%-15% reduction overall. Largescale reductions will herald a period of defence
stagnation for industry which will span several
years and make survival of the defence industry
more difficult. All 16 NATO nations,
particularly those who find conscription harder
to justify, will also be keen to reduce to a similar
if not greater degree. Military integration and
commitment depends on having a common
threat; NATO could not adapt to take on other
contingencies in a wider area and retain its
military framework. It is not a political club.
The Nuclear issue is important and although
Europe might doubt the commitment of the USA
if troop withdrawals are too fast or
uncoordinated, it must remember that the USA
cannot leave Europe to Europe with the
possibility that French or British nuclear
responses could somehow expose America to
an unattributable Armageddon. Burden-sharing
takes on a new meaning if everyone reduces but
the residue must necessarily become more
European. The promotion of collaboration has
unleashed a dynamic process between
com~aniesthemselves to ensure survival and
this is emerging as a competition, if not an
economic war, between Europe, America and
Japan.
United Nations
The recent Gulf conflict has apparently given
the United Nations (UN) teeth as an
enforcement agency. Will such an undertaking
be repeated; is the UN taking on the role as the
world's policeman? Basically, this comes down
to asking if the USA will underpin any UN
military action and the answer must be 'only if
American interests are sufficiently at stake' or
the Security Council (USSR) again lets it. There
is insufficient unanimity within the UN to
generate a sort of global NATO to face unknown
eventualities and hence no prospect that
industrialists can expect a sustained military
commitment to any reserve UN force.
UN peace-keeping forces are certainly a
growth industry but, the Gulf apart, they have
seldom been effective when coercive. As
observer forces they enhance stability but do not
prevent conflict. Their numbers and associated
equipment do not represent a lifeline to their
suppliers, industry.
Western European Union (WEU)
The nine WEU nations may be just the forum
for showing common purpose and providing the
burden sharing that the USA often seeks but if
DEFENCE AND INDUSTRY (3R INDUSTRY AND DEFENCE
it is to be an executive group then the USA needs
to be part of it. It cannot be a competitor to
NATO or even a select executive arm of the
larger but less coordinated 35 nation CSCE
(Conference on Security and Cooperation in
Europe). The WEU has demonstrated its
cohesion twice in the Gulf, principally as an
amalgam of naval forces, operating outside the
NATO area. It has as yet no infrastructure nor
funding to present itself as anything other than
a political grouping sanctioning the common
operating of authorised national commanders in
set piece scenarios.
The WEU will not evolve as a duplicated
expansion of the NATO defence case to the
added benefit of industry. Neither the WEU nor
the CSCE nor even the Common Market (EEC)
are for a executive European security
governance nor is this ever likely. The
expansion of the market economies to include
Turkey, Austria and perhaps Cyprus and Malta
or even Norway, Sweden, Morocco, Hungary,
Lithuania and Finland, long before any serious
integration of government could occur, dictates
that agreement on security policy could not be
TurkeyIGreece
or
achieved
(viz.
Austria/Germany). Even France's perception of
the WEU, as a step to EC security post political
union, runs counter to UK's view of it as a
subset of NATO.
British defence policy
Of greater concern to British industry is the
future of Britain's defences and it is reasonable
to assume that Defence Policy as a whole will
not change; what will change is scale and
priority. It is tempting to suppose that Out-ofArea operations, so clearly seen in both the
Falklands and the Middle East, will assume
greater ascendancy but it is extremely difficult
to predict scenarios and then match resources.
In essence what can be done with available
resources will be done, as both campaigns
showed, but such events are not quantifiable
causes for retaining or justifying the inventory.
Flexible, highly-trained, well-armed mobile
forces are certainly in vogue but by scaling
down and retaining a more expensive 'quality'
one is then confronted with the 'quantity' issue
whereby token contribution to the allied cause
is not enough. The use of a heavy armoured
35
brigade as was seen in Kuwait may satisfy
American desires within NATO for such an UK
led ACE-wide rapid reinforcement force (RRF)
of multinational dimension, but it will have
confounded the 'Options for Change'
assumptions on affordability .
If national role specialisation appears
inevitable but is as yet politically unacceptable
then the current trend of salami-slicing to retain
capability will continue6 if for no other reason
than that at least a nucleus on which to build
will have been preserved. Two things are clear:
there will be no increase in Defence expenditure
and decisions will be slow in coming. The
upshot is that the Defence programme remains
overextended and short-term measures to slow
down running costs or reduce future
commitment will continue to bedevil industry.
Worse still, the longer the delay in biting the
bullet the more that is expended on residual
upkeep, the greater the enforced change that is
required and the higher the expenditure in
carrying out that change. Stop-go and Go-slow
all in an era of defence stagnation at home and
abroad cause another word to be added to the
in-house vocabulary: Diversification, ' as
industry seeks to adapt its military techniques
for civil purpose.
Special Relationship
Industry might wonder, from the Westland
saga, exactly what strength there was to the
'special relationship' with the USA. The
military know that nkarly all major operational
capability hinges on US assistance and that
means especially Trident. There is US dependence to support it, service the missile and to
coordinate operating techniques and targeting.
The UK could use its relationship as a Eurocommunication means to maintain faith in
NATO or it could independently exercise
leadership within Europe on the assumption that
the WEU-pillar is industrially inevitable. The
danger is that without decisions and being seen
as 'in' but not 'of' Europe then UK loses
influence in both camps and becomes
marginalised. Politicians may hedge bets but
most of the defence industry sees only a oneway street with America and must necessarily,
along with its civil business, collaborate within
Europe. Some, most recently BAe and the
36
DEFENCE AND INDUSTRY (I R INDUSTRY AND DEFENCE
Patriot option, could be biasing West.
Summary
The immediate prospects for the British
defence industry look bleak and diversification
out of the defence sector would appear to be
justified. The issues of NATO, WEU and
security within the EEC will take a long time
to evolve in any form that gives a clear purpose
for defence forces, the responsibility for which
unquestionably remains with National
Governments. Common foreign policy, security
policy and defence seems an unachievable goal
in an expanding EEC which is not constituted
to become a federation of nation states9 and
currently excludes the NATO flank countries.
If collapse of the DIB seems likely then it is right
to expect that Government will recognise the
strategic vulnerability of some industries and
manage change carefully in order to preserve
national capability.
Even America can see that defence spending
in the UK finances much of the life-blood of the
country and defence issues must be intensely
political. The 'special relationship' is a tool that
can keep the USA involved in the multilateral
integration of Euro-defence but the UK must not
consider itself or its industry as 'special' or the
relationship will become a myth that leaves
Britain isolated; the power in the USA is money
and that is what drives politicians; the economic
competitor is Europe. The UK's current military
deoendence must colour its future industrial
policy; if defence dependence stays left (West)
but industry leans right (East) the UK's DIB will
crash.
The management of procurement
SDE-90 stated that the best recipe for an
efficient and healthy industrial base remains the
open market competitive principles. l o It
reported progress with collaboration and
competition and expressed faith in the
Independent European Group (IEPG). The
thrust is that cheaper procurement is attainable
by ever more efficient management and there
are optimistic competition chances for British
industry in Europe. A plethora of National Audit
Office (NAO) reports indicates that there is still
room for improvement in both management
initiatives1' and procedures but they do
recognise the progress that has been made while
being more sanguine about the scale of savings
envisaged.
Collaboration
About 15%of the 90191 procurement budget
was spent in collaborative projects which are
predominantly aviation based. The savings on
development costs are a key objective but the
growth factor here has been alarmingly high and
firms are progressively less competitive as
international industries merge. Economies of
scale with larger production runs should show
unit savings but the delays in the negotiating
machinery tend to offset most of this, especially
when through-life support permits duplicate
national facilities to emerge (Harrier). NAO
concluded that they could not prove value for
money because, usually, projects undertaken
collaboratively are too advanced for any
single nation and hence there were few
comparators. ''
The IEPG has difficult issues to resolve
including apportionment of the work share,
'juste retour ', for developing industries in lesser
partners. This is anything but competitive.
There is no short cut to high performance quality
equipment other than spending ever more
money amongst the fewer experts who have
themselves retained or put in the R&D, not all
of which can be contained within the
ESPRITIEUREKA collaborative research
projects. The IEPG's Action Plan, difficult
enough in normal times, seems set to founder.
With the commitment level of all participating
nations now on the wane it will be harder and
more expensive to sustain programme as nations
are now less likely to have either common
requirements or timeframe or priority for
reduced funds. Collaboration seems to be
expending itself as a cost-cutting cause cPIPbre
but it will necessarily continue.
competition
The exposure of defence business to the open
market has made the battle for contracts more
keen but unless losers gain somewhere then
competition next time is eroded and is anyway
bogus if the loser is artificially protected. Also,
the regular supplier who has tooled up and
proved himself efficient and reliable stands to
DEFENCE A N D INDUSTRY 0IR INDUSTRY A N D DEFENCE
lose out to the cheaper competitor. This militates
against a new found aim to achieve reliability
and maintainability because of the diversity that
builds into repeated or renegotiated long-term
contracts. There is also a balance to be made
between the expenditure in time and
administration that a tender demands against the
possible but unproven additional costs that a
direct contract from a known supplier might
cause; the value of the purchase is relevant but
all too frequently management does not have the
authority to use his judgement particularly when
moratoria on spendingraise the decision point,
add to the time lost, the administration, and
reduce bulk orders. This is inefficient.
The entry into Europe will bring civil practice
into much of the defence sector but that does
not necessarily mean that there will be greater
opportunities for competition. Nations,
especially when squeezed, can be very
protective of their defence industries and will
cite exemptions in the law as it pertains to
defence to justify any political support that may
be given to ensure that their man gains the
contract. Not all European nations are sold on
the competition idiom and many industries
remain state owned. Britain's privatised DIB
must not be held hostage to Euro-procedures.
It is. however, possible that an era of realistic
'Cooperation' will transpire as industries merge
by market force or otherwise pool resources in
a bid to survive. Bilateralism may boom, as seen
in the Anglo-French bid for a frigate
replacement for the collapsed NFR90.
Free market
If the IEPG is effective in managing the
defence handouts in a free Euro-market the
natural development will be the creation of
national monopolies of expertise. If role
specialisation finds favour then the right
industries must be kept in the right countries;
an uncontrolled erosion must not be allowed to
dictate future policy. Off-the-shelf purchases
will increase and expose a very contracted (and
insular) market in which over-capacity will have
been competitively removed. l 3 Scope for rapid
regeneration will be curtailed and there is bound
to be much politicising and blood-letting along
the way. National aspirations will surely cause
governments to intervene and sidetrack any
37
natural process.
Such interventions will be temporary
setbacks; the inescapable push forward towards
European unity, after implementation of the
Single Act, will bring economic, social, and
political changes. The evolution has taken 40
years since Churchill's speech in Zurich (19
September 1946) and may take another 20 years
to complete. Pan-European management is
required to oversee a European defence industry
of fewer and larger firms serving a larger and
more uniform market. "
United Kingdom
Before examining some issues concerning the
UK's DIB itself it is worth considering the
British Government's approach to DIB
management. The 'value for money' ethic,
earnest in proving public responsibility for
money, has also become a significant element
in the campaign to keep costs down so that
defence policies can be upheld within resources
without recourse to a Defence Review. This
even as industry has been depressed, diversified
out of the defence sector, or lost out abroad.
There has been and is no long-term strategy for
sustaining a DIB and policy statements through
the years have been contradictory. l 6 Even in
1990 the Ministry of Defence espoused a policy
of letting market forces run their course so long
as 'the needs of national security' and
'protection of [ its] interests' ' ' were in place
but did not state what these were, in the
industrial sense, or how they would be
managed. Some indicators showed in: the
Westland issue which was a public choice
concerning alignment of the helicopter DIB,
towards America rather than Europe; the
necessity to give the SSBN contract to the one
and only remaining national submarine builder
(VSEL); the decision to preserve some UK
electronics competition by forbidding GEC's
takeover of Plessey. Case-by-case political
expediency prevailed and this is likely to
continue as long as policy direction is
undefined and social considerations come to the
fore.
The defence industrial base
Scale
SDE 90 reported the 90191 procurement
38
DEFENCE AND INDUSTRY (I R INDUSTRY AND DEFENCE
budged as some £8,296 million of which 75 %
is to UK industry direct and 15% is collaborative
with over 40 UK participants. 115 companies
are in receipt of contracts worth over £5mL8
with five in the big league at over f250m; the
whole makes the Ministry of Defence British
industry's largest single customer. Defence
literature indicates that there are over 800 firms
that make equipment for military use and some
10,000 in total if you include the service
industries. It is estimated that over 515,000
people work in an £8 bn industry. Add to this
the domestic support that surrounds such large
scale involvement country-wide: then it is easy
to see that a 30% reduction in defence over a
few years will hit industry and the supporting
cast equally. The minds of politicians will be
concentrated wonderfully but piecemeal ad hoc
decisions will not leave a coordinated industry
that can sustain defence that conforms to any
recognised policy. Domestic politics will drive
the issue unless Government puts down a
realistic blueprint.
'Over-capacity'
Privatised industry that is not working at full
competitive efficiency has over-capacity.
Market forces may shortly bring the country to
monopolies in submarine building and tank
factories and near single figures of major
aviation, electronics and warship yards. These
are still inefficient and unlikely to survive unless
there are sufficient orders to bring them to full
capacity. Then there is no reserve when threats
drive up the demand:
a. Vickers (Defence Systems) await the
order to produce the now accredited
Challenger I1 tank and have two new
factories employing 1,600 men surviving
on not much else than throughput of one
Challenger recovery vehicle per month.
b. VSEL (Vickers Shipbuilding &
Engineering Ltd) have closed down their
Cammell Laird Birkenhead yard (for the
conventional Type 2400 'Upholder' class)
leaving Barrow as the sole venue of
submarine building in the UK. Without
follow on orders, eg the SSN 20 class,
expertise to support the Trident SSBNs for
the next 20 years will be at a premium.
Compromises with the former royal yards
must emerge.
c. British Aerospace has trimmed the
privatised Royal Ordnance factories (ROF)
from 16 to 1 1 sites producing about 45 %
of Britain's ammunition needs. Now more
efficientthey did not have the spare capacity
to produce 155mm artillery shells' for the
Gulf war which occasioned an
embarrassing scrounge around the market.
Discontinued production runs are not easy
to resurrect even with 6 months' warning.
'Over capacity' should no longer be used as
an expression of wastage; there are strategic
security issues at stake here and controlled
management is called for and perfectly possible
if the pace is not forced.
Sustainability
Westlands, the 'UK-based' helicopter concern
is a major partner in the EHlOl collaborative
project which runs serious risk of being
rendered unaffordable. 2 0 Reducing the buy or
elongating the period will not solve the cost
overruns being encountered but the real damage
of allowing the company to go to the wall is not
just a loss to the Royal Navy's anti-submarine
capability but the inability to remanufacture
spare parts to service existing aircraft.
Replication of this sort of production
requirement to stand still for longer costs big
money.
A specialised British CHAFF producer
making false radar echoing material, one of
three world-wide, has a corner in the United
States space market but without the business to
fill countless rockets, shells and pods he is
diversifying from a 70130 defence heavy base
to a 30170 proportion. The scope for accelerated
production is disappearing fast.
The management of the former ROF is
another post Gulf lesson in sustainability.
Mobility
Critical to mobility is the availability of air
and sea lift capacity. Soviet freightliners cannot
be relied upon any more than can the response
of the fourth arm of defence: Britain's merchant
fleet whose companies are contractors in the
DIB. Whereas there was sufficient British
element to set up the Falklands sealift that for
the Gulf was less satisfactory. 142 merchant
DEFENCE AND INDUSTRY (3 R INDUSTRY AND DEFENCE
ships were chartered to provide a sea-train of
14 vessels to transport 300,000 tons of stores,
including 55,000 tons ammunition and 12,000
vehicles, which represented 90% of the total
required to move and support UK forces. This
time only eight were British flagged and six
foreign ships had to be off-loaded when their
crews refused to enter a war zone. It is easy to
imagine what a difference it would have made
to British participation if ships had been
interdicted en route or had had to join an
amphibious force in the threat waters of the
Northern Gulf. Of the UK's 600 ship fleet P&O
now threatens to reflag 142 of its ships in order
to halve crew costs to offset its 31 % drop in
trading profits. International market forces
ensure that shareholder's interests take
precedence over national concerns and it does
appear a false economy to refuse tax concessions
when the migration of those concerned, either
abroad or to the dole queue, results in a similar
loss of govenunent income anyway. In recalling
'success in the Gulf remember that our partners
were not competing in the same depressed ship
market and there was little threat.
The USA also found scarcity of sealift to be
an Achilles heel as it transported 85% of
requirements in a sea-train twelve times the size
of UK's. Some high capacity SL7 ships had
problems and reserve ships were difficult to
mobilise, principally because crews and
expertise had vanished.
Building indigenous sealift or air-freight
vehicles can only meet part of the requirement,
and as their peace-time use is both uneconomic
and unfair competition to civil industry, projects
do not find favour with local politicians.
However, as mobility and rapid reinforcement
are key military objectives in all future defence
scenarios then some managed solution, short of
a command economy, has to be found.
Cooperation between government departments
and industry is essential for this national
purpose.
Electronics
This paper is not a catalogue of the DIB nor
is it a precis of textbooks which have been
written on a very complicated subject. The most
expensive R&D and production corner of the
whole is the Electronics sector which is a
39
managing base for many subcontractors and
even a source of prime contractors for some ship
and aircraft projects. Smart weaponry, stealth
technology and satellite support for all things
from ICBMs, logistic management to the soldier
on the ground contribute to that sustained
technology that is vital for continued deterrence
not forgetting that adequate production in peacetime is equally important so that manufacturing
skills keep pace with ideas.
The British electronics sector is dominated by
GEC who alone gain nearly one-fifth of the
defence procurement budget. They are backed
up by Plessey and others while BAe is
developing its own electronic section to support
its aero and missile production. All are heavily
dependent on MOD contracts with their
attendant R&D support and are not very
competitive in the civil market. This is an
inherent weakness in the Euro electronics
industry; the IEPG have noted the American and
Japanese ability to accelerate development and
convert to marketable systems. Euro electronics
are under threat such that the 'value for money'
approach of short-term savings is to the
detriment of long-term strategic thinking and
undermines rather than strengthens national
security." State of the art development
programmes are necessarily long-term (at 15
years plus) for the heavy investment to realise
marketable return and profit-making. Even the
civil sector requires a reappraisal of industrial
policy.
Defence sales
Recall the then Prime Minister's words when
the Royal Navy jibbed at selling its ships to
further defence sales:- 'Tell the Navy that
without sales there will be no Navy'. 2 2 Defence
export sales are vital to its industry and fast
becoming a dirty word. The home market is not
sufficient to sustain competitive industry and
from whatever gains British industry may make
in Europe, 1992 will ensure that Europe inflicts
corresponding compromises at hoke, even
assumingu that subsidised state-owned firms are
sold to make the field equitable." Further
abroad, the well intentioned support for Iraq in
its struggle with Iran will be seen to have been
a mistake and Western governments will wish
to show themselves more responsible, and to
40
DEFENCE AND INDUSTRY OR INDUSTRY AND DEFENCE
industry more restrictive, than they already are.
Sales to the Third World will present even more
serious security and moral dilemmas to the
Western democracies just at a time when the
USSR needs foreign currency and has massive
stocks of suitable material. China, Brazil and
Korea have established industries that meet the
demand more competitively and with less
restriction and are unlikely to be held back by
any UN overtures. European competitors will
be affected similarly which constrains a EuroDIB to the Euro-market; role specialisation
seems inescapable.
Summary
It is unrealistic to demand self-sufficiency in
the UK alone or even Europe. The bottom line
is that whatever forces are deemed appropriate
must at least be sustainable or transportable
under one's own auspices with minimal risk
dependence on others (foreign purchase or
commercial hire). Simultaneous exterior
demand or embargo must not remove operating
capability. A few examples have been given
above to illustrate that the defence industry is
fragile in many areas and that issues of sufficient
importance need careful management which is
not the responsibility of the industry itself. It
is highly unlikely that any WEU member could
sustain a major campaign without the
connivance of the USA who alone has the
capacity to embrace all the skills and production
required.
Conclusions
The manufacturing sector of British Industry is
down to 23% of GDP instead of an erstwhile
healthy 32%. It is overtaxed, underpopulated,
undertrained, underfunded and a basic wealth
source of the country. 2 4 The Defence sector is
3 % of GDP alone with a high export take (25 %)
and, from the influences above, about to take
a dive as demand drops (Options for Change)
and markets shrivel (Defence Sales).
Competitive rationalisation will continue but
fro111the opening paragraphs it must be apparent
that supporting the casualties on a bludgeoning
social security is not the answer. If the
Government fails to compensate for the loss of
defence GDP by corresponding reinvestment in
Industry there could be 500,000 additional
unemployed by the year 2000. 2 5
The title suggests that with a clear foreign
policy together with the defence forces to
support it then industry will be found to make
it possible. The reality is that without industry,
without wealth, there is little defence,
insufficient base to support it and less credibility
for the Foreign and Commonwealth Office. On
the world stage the challenge at the United
Nations might not be that membership of the
Security Council should be widened (who and
why) but whether the UK and France deserve
to remain permanent members? The
contribution in the Gulf may have shown France
under-committed or the UK over-extended but
if either are to maintain top-table positions then
each has to sustain the capability to go on acting
proportionately, albeit collectively, when
necessary. Cooperation is required.
The central message is that the UK DIB needs
explicit attention beyond cries of inefficiency
and over-capacity or disorganised attrition
through local piecemeal politics. Not least for
the sake of healthy cooperation with the United
States, the UK DIB needs to be considered as
one very significant element in the European
defence industrial capacity and a creator of
wealth in this country. The circumstances of
1926-39 must not be allowed to recur and some
capacity to regenerate essentials must be
earmarked. The long-term proposition is that
even the defence industry will become
integrated within Europe but that could take at
prudent
least another 20 years;'%eanwhile,
management of constituent parts is called for.
Recommendations
The British Government as a whole (not just the
Ministry of Defence) should:
a. acknowledge that defence exports,
Euro or world-wide, are set to suffer and
that critical production, admittedly at a
reduced total, has to be maintained,
b. consider careful management of the
defence sector before strategic
- concerns or
regeneration capacity are unnecessarily
unhinged by regional domestic pressures.
c. recognise that a fast high-percentage
reduction is not manageable especially if
it is unbalanced across the sector or
frightens its supporters out of the business,
DEFENCE AND INDUSTRY OR INDUSTRY AND DEFENCE
41
d. think explicitly through the types of 91an Gambles: Prospect of Western European Security
defence industrial capability which it wants Cooperation: Adelphi Paper 244: Autumn 1989.
10Statementon the Defence Estimates: April 1990: Vol.
to maintain within the EEC or in parallel 1,
p.43.
with the United States and evaluate the "Initiatives in Defence Procurement: NAO Report
capacity for defence production in security Ministry of Defence: 6 Feb. 1991.
as well as economic terms. Role- "Collaborative Projects: NAO Report Ministry of
specialisation within Europe could become Defence: 26 Feb. 1991.
M. Bittleston: Cooperation or Competition? Defence
a necessity.
Procurement Optionsfor the 19POs: Adelphi Paper 250:
An immediate industrial policy based on Spring 1990.
European economic imperatives is more urgent "Down, Down and Campbell: A Single European Arms
than a definitive defence statement which cannot Industry?: Brassey's: 1990.
hope to address all the security imponderables "Sir Peter Levene KBE (Chief of Defence Pmurement):
Future Defence and Security: Military and Industrial
in the short-term.
Needs in the 1990s: RUSI Journal Summer 1990.
T. M. MASTERMAN 16T.Taylor and K. Hayward: The UKDefence Industrial
CAPTAIN,RN
References
'King faces several defence options but no big political
design: The Times: 28 May 1991: p.2.
'George Peden: The Limitations of Military Power Churchill, Neville Chamberlain and the Defence of
Ernpire: Macmillan: 1990.
IG.C. Peden: British Rearmament and the Treasury
1932-1939: Edinburgh Scottish Academic Press: 1979:
p.7.
'Admiral Sir Peter Stanford: NATO Must Go: USNI
Proceedings: March '9 1 .
'Euro-buzz on Defence: The Economist: 18 May 1991:
p.61.
Philip Sabin: British Strategic Priorities in the 1990s:
Adelphi Paper 254: Winter 1990.
'Counting the Ploughshares: The Economist: 2 June
1990.
SM.Clarke and R. Hague: European defence cooperation
-America, Britain and NATO: Fulbright Papers (No.7):
Manchester University Press: 1990.
Base - Development and Future Policy Options 1989.
"Op. cit. supra n.10 p.13 para 20.
lSSDE90 Vol. 2 Table 2.10.
19DrawingBlueprints for Defence: The Economist: 26
Jan. '91.
mM.Evans: Future of Navy helicopter is still in doubt:
The Times: 28 March 1991.
2 1 0 p cit.
. supra n. 16 p. 19 para 27.
nSale of SRMHlHunt Class Minecountermeasures
Vessels to Saudi Arabia: Minute from No. 10 Downing
Street: 1988.
"Sell by 1992: The Economist: 2 March 1991: p. 16.
"I. R. Yates CBE FENG: Innovation. Investment and
Survival of the UK Economy.
2'P. Dunne and R. Smith: The Peace Dividend and the
UK Economy: Supplement to the Cambridge
Econometrics Spring Report 1990.
"Op. cit. supra n. 16 p. 19 para 27.
A Small Point
SMALL point occurred to me as I was
A
standing on the Flight Deck on a grey and
miserable day at Portland, waiting to meet, if
not to greet, some grey and miserable men from
FOST coming to make my life . . . well, grey
and miserable. It was reinforced when I finally
sloped off down below and read the signals, and
coincidentally came across one that made me
think about it again.
Now, don't laugh - I am serious. All the
ship's sailors working part of ship that day were
wearing full foulies, and on a grey, dull and
overcast day that most days at sea are for us,
what would happen if someone fell overboard?
Of course, the organisation would swing into
action, but life ain't quite so simple as that. As
a bridge watchkeeper, I know how very difficult
it is to see a man in the water. To be more
precise, if a sailor overboard is not wearing any
high visibility clothing and if he is lost from
sight, to all intents and purposes he is dead. Now
I know that the Navy being what it is, we would
do everything we could to find him (or her!),
but the chances are slim. In the chilly waters
of the Channel, how long would someone last?
Probably not long enough when you're trying
to manoeuvre a ship, organise a search and
perhaps action a helicopter, and that is assuming
the alarm was raised promptly. Make it dark
and the factors multiply horribly. My personal
thought as an OOW was that in anything other
than good conditions, especially above sea state
3, I would cut my losses and go for a
Williamson. These uncomfortable thoughts
were wallowing in my mind when I came across
this signal from a Type 23, also working up,
who shall remain nameless, though I suspect
they are feeling pretty sheepish, which said that
they had lost their man overboard dummy, poor
old 'Oscar', in such and such a position. If a
bright orange, made to be visible, marker could
not be found in what were relatively mild
conditions, when the organisation is worked up
and half expecting a MOBEX, what hope has
Jack, or far more importantly me, if I ever drop
off the boot topping?
Let's think about it for a moment. Chances
are the person falling over the side will be
wearing blue, making him difficult to find, and
also won't be spotted going; already, it's looking
shaky. Now that, to an extent, I can live with
as an occupational hazard, though these fools
that jump over the side deliberately to test the
organisation need their heads read. But what
about a sailor who, wearing foulies during a
seamanship evolution, falls overboard? The
Navy has kitted him out, and not allowed him
to wear anything different, in foul weather
protection gear that is no better as a survival
aid than a mackintosh. No thermal insulation,
no proper waterproofing, no high visibility
markings, not even a sensible colour or
reflective patch for visual identification. He may
well be wearing a lifejacket, though sod's law
says that he won't, but, as that Type 23 can tell
you, that is no guarantee of being seen.
Wouldn't the Navy be liable under the Health
and Safety Act for not taking proper and
reasonable precautions for its men working in
exposed conditions?
What we should be providing is a decent,
multi-layer dayglo orange two piece foul
weather suit, like the RNLI have. They are
readily available off the shelf from companies
like Henri Lloyd or Musto & Hyde. Make it out
of Goretex so that it is comfortable and
practicable to wear and actually keeps out the
water (which would be a welcome change over
the Mk3 foulie) with proper braces so that the
trouser length is not a problem, and with an
integral safety harness. It would also need some
sort of integral head insulation/protection, again
available on commercial suits. I noticed that a
Dutch ship also at Portland had its upperdeck
personnel dressed in orange suits, apparently
the multi-fab type, though I would have thought
that a two piece is probably better given the
circumstances that our sailors are likely to
require it for. Above all, it needs to be suitable
for the needs of a practical, working seafarer;
sadly, it seems that Musto & Hyde and Henri
Lloyd can do it, but not our own organisation.
But what are the drawbacks of this idea? Well,
someone is bound to say that orange would stick
out a mile for the upperdeck weapon crews.
Indeed it would, so keep the old blue foulies to
issue to wear over the top in wartime. Not ideal,
but a perfectly workable solution. What about
A SMALL POINT
the issue of these new foulies? Issue them
individually at some stage at Raleigh and
BRNC, with some form of establishment stocks
for the new joiners to avoid excessive wastage
from the early volrets. They go in your kit
record book with a serial number and you take
them around with you for the rest of your career,
to be produced for an inspection at some interval
or other. It would then be your responsibility
to keep them in good repair, for your own
benefit, with a NILE rating trained to do proper
repairs. Generate some Internal Public Relations
(IPR) to get across the idea that these spanking
new foulies are not a freebie, but something that
could save a life.
Some gnome somewhere is bound to raise the
question of cost. I am not an expert in these
things, but I think one of these suits from a
chandler costs about £200, roughly 4 times the
cost of the standard issue foulies. But then add
in the economies of scale, for the Navy would
need tens of thousands, and why not let the
manufacturer have his logo on the suit and use
the kudos of the RN buying his suits in his
advertisements, all for a discount.
Of course, there is bound to be some retired
admiral out there, who claims to have had ten
commands or whatever, exploding with the
thought of men dressed in orange suits running
around on the upperdeck of one of Her
Majesty's warships. To him, I would say we
have changed and other more practical priorities
are, and quite rightly should be, pre-eminent
nowadays. I would wager a fair sum that anyone
with a fair amount of sea experience, and even
those, like me, who have not, have winced at
the thought of falling overboard, and worked
out that the likely chances of being recovered
entire and whole and perfect are close to zip.
There is no reason why the orange suits should
not be smart, and though I accept that keeping
them clean will not be easy, nowadays most suits
are made of impregnated stain resistant
materials. When, through fair wear and tear,
they get too crabby, one for one exchange them.
43
Of course it wouldn't be cheap - nothing
worthwhile in life ever is, but what price a life?
Compared to the potential cost of liabilities if
the Navy was ever found negligent in Health
and Safety terms over our existing foulies,
perhaps very little. As I said earlier, an orange
suit is no guarantee that a man overboard will
be picked up, but at least the Service has
provided the very best it can for its most
valuable assets. In these days, that is becoming
an ever more critical aspect. A good quality suit,
with clever IPR, could substantially increase the
Navy's esteem amongst its personnel at the
sharp end, and believe me, such apparently
small things as this do matter, because they all
blob up into making a man decide to leave the
Service. Now, I am not naive enough to suggest
that high quality orange foul weather gear will
lower PVR rates, but sadly, it is symptomatic
of the Navy's approach in many areas that
something known to be inadequate will do
unless or until forced to the fore (witness foam
mattresses). Moreover, the RN should be in the
van of using such clothing, working in company
with industry to develop new products, in a
similar fashion to yacht race crews.
On the face of it, I accept that foul weather
gear is probably not at present a priority for the
Admiralty Board, and that if I was ever to be
accused of being a Single Issue Fanatic, foulies
are not the most glamorous of subjects to have
picked. But I did say that it was a small point.
As I said, as an OOW, I known how difficult
it is to spot a man in the water in anything other
than ideal conditions, so it does slightly jar a
nerve. As for the masses, ignorance is probably
bliss, and the slick man overboard routine that
ships have is reassurance enough to Jack that
the ship and their fellow sailors will do the very
best they can. In these sort of circumstances,
our sailors are worth their weight in gold. It is
time, in one small way, that we started treating
them as such.
A. H. TALBOTT
SUB-LIEUTENANT,
RN
Baubles, Bangles and Master of Arts Degrees
OME in the Royal Navy have long been
S
ambivalent as to the benefit of Staff
Training. Certainly it has never been afforded
the respect that the other Services grant it,
neither is it a necessary hurdle on the route to
fast-path promotion. Nevertheless supporters
have been encouraged in recent years by the
Centre's hardening line in demanding Stafftrained matelots, and the growing appreciation
of the benefits of Staff Training within the
Service itself; overall things were on the up. So
it is of concern to see the Staff Course indulge
in the vainglorious quest for a qualification of
dubious value and, arguably, for the sake of
keeping up with the light Blue Jones. I refer to
the decision by RNSC to re-align the Staff
Course in order to qualify for a Master's Degree
in Defence Studies.
The purpose of Staff Training, as defined by
BR 8374, is to 'give Naval staff training and
associated higher education'. It presupposes that
the 'associated higher education' will be relevant
to the Staff officer's future career. The need to
broaden the minds of the officers so that they
are equipped intellectually to develop policies
in a changing world, rather than be mere
apparatchiks in the system, is agreed; but should
the emphasis be on Defence Studies, or are there
more pertinent skills for today's staff officer?
And what lessons does an examination of the
value of past Staff Training have for us?
Ask any gathering of officers employed on
the Naval or Central Staffs what aspects of their
job they feel least well trained for, and most will
deplore their lack of financial and resource
management training; ask DNETS where the
demand for extra-curricular training is greatest,
and the answer will be about the thirst for
MDAs, MBAs and Management Options on OU
Courses or the like. The Officer corps is alert
to the demands of NMS, the ever tightening
strings on the Defence purse and the need for
financial and resource management skills.
Trenchard stated '. . . the one great thing to
which you should at all times apply your
thoughts and brains is the expansion of the
power of material and personnel without
increasing either'. RNSC should be following
his lead and pursuing Business Skills, rather
than lamely mimicking Bracknell in the pursuit
of academic Post Nominal Letters, and if any
re-alignment is necessary then it should be
towards an MBA, utilising the resources of
RMCSICranfield, or a London business school
as necessary.
Consequently there is dismay at the stance of
RNSC, enthroned Canute-like on the Chair of
Academia, gazing out to sea at an MA in
Defence Studies whilst awash in the tide of
financial change. And what of those officers
who for years past have studied cold war centred
international affairs under the guiding hand of
the Department of History and International
Affairs (DHIA)? Certainly most found it an
interesting intellectual exercise, but few will
claim that it has in any way equipped them for
today's challenges. Similarly a Master's Degree
in Defence Studies will prove interesting, but
hardly provide officers with the skills for the
year 2000. Let us not forget that for those with
an academic bent, and for the few who may be
employed in true defence policy desks, there is
already the opportunity to study for a Defence
Fellowship, or a Master of Philosophy degree
in International Affairs at Cambridge.
The existence of the DHIA might just have
led RNSC to have ignored their own teaching
and to have 'situated the appreciation'. No other
Staff College finds it necessary to employ
directly such an illustrious body of academics.
Re-alignment of the Staff Course to an MA
however does guarantee full ultilisation of the
DHIA for the foreseeable future - or at least
until the phrase 'Market Testing' is heard at
Greenwich, if such heresy is permitted!
Will future generations look back at 1993 in
much the same way as today we regard those
who resisted the introduction of steam
propulsion? 'How could they have been so blind
as to ignore the obvious demand for financial
and resource management skills?' In the
meantime the Pelican, once renowned for
feeding its young from its own flesh, is in danger
of gorging itself on a diet of junk food whilst
tomorrow's staff officers are starved of relevant
skills.
Goodbye Mr Pepys?
RNR Economics
HE Fleet can now look forward to a
period of less constraint on spending due
to the effects of one aspect of 'Options for
Change' that was very swiftly implemented a
couple of months ago. I refer of course to the
quite far reaching cuts that have been applied
to the RNR. If you are reading this at sea and
are wondering what cuts and what beneficial
effects you would have got my point precisely.
The exercise of implementing these
reductions took up the full time efforts of several
regular and reserve senior officers and I would
conservatively estimate the cost (in terms of
capitation rate etc) for the regulars alone at about
a million pounds (and that excludes the human
costs in stress etc) taken up in making what were
very hard and difficult decisions courageously
pressed for by the Treasury (I presume).
This has abolished a few branches, retired
early or curtailed service of about 800 or so
which should save about a million a year over
the next three years in which timescale most
would have gone anyway. The total savings will
be reduced a little because many will be recalled
to fill exercise billets for a couple of years but
the annual bounties that will no longer be paid
will save about £3,000,000. Overall not a lot
of return for a f l m investment of resources, a
performance that would not impress managing
directors out here in real life!
As you may imagine the cuts have caused an
awful lot of short term pain and grief,
particularly for those whose service was very
abruptly terminated. The RNR pyramid has
been rightly lopped however in the upper
reaches to what is a more appropriate size
because augmented effort in the staffs and
squadrons at working level is what is required,
not more 'management'; however the perceived
'downgrading' of local Commanding Officer
ranks (Commanders instead of Captains) has not
been that well received in some cases, 'their'
Navy has been cut.
No one would have disagreed that the RNR
was due for some comprehensive review - we
live in the real world and know the winds of
change that are about out here. Some weeding
out of the 30 or so who had been employed on
T
a semi full-time basis in the divisions writing
training packages and doing the admin was also
accepted. A lot of cuts however fell upon
sacrificial lambs of small specialist branches that
did not have anyone really senior to fight their
corner and where like many of the decisions
taken over the last 300 years weight of historical
precedence held sway over logic.
Some of the operational implications of the
RNR cuts will not be realised by those unaware
of what the RNR actually does. In effect they
removed the only specialist Signature Reduction
and half the Intelligence expertise the RN had
(notwithstanding so called civilian 'specialists)
as well as spare dentists, divers and postmen
(I didn't know they existed either so there
couldn't have been that many of them to cut!).
The chopping of the handful of Chaplains
caused the biggest storm, well out of proportion
to their numbers and therefore importance in
earthly terms but perhaps not so in the light of
the influence they wield elsewhere! The cost of
dealing with the wrangling however in terms
of time and effort probably outweighed the
savings their demise has provided tenfold!
Beneficat!
Brilliant economics and bearing in mind how
much of the Andrew runs on a wing and a prayer
sometimes, methinks not so wise a move all
round. We haven't all turned pagan or bought
a job lot of Harry Secombe videos by the way
- some loyalties continue even if the cash stops.
It was almost as if the irony was to be pressed
home when a defence firm exhibition brochure
showed their system (a portable measurement
range) being operated by a young female officer
from a branch that had just been ditched a few
weeks earlier! I know the requirement has not
gone away and the equipment is brand new so who is going to use it or is some RN branch
going to expand by stealth (sorry about the pun)?
These cuts, in themselves hardly in line with
current trends, are more worrying as they were
seemingly finalised before any considerations
from the Gulf War permeated down, thus
smacking of economic considerations alone.
The severing of these supporting arms may have
helped to preserve (temporarily?) the RNR's sea
going capability but it has detracted from the
46
GOODBYE MR PEPYS?
overall capability of the Service as a whole. Just
who is going to do all the essential back room
and less glamorous things when the balloon goes
up? Sorry lads (and lasses now) mail is orf and
so is degaussing - best of luck and hope you
don't meet any mines.
You may be asking where were the RNR
eighteen months ago? The answer is lots were
there and here doing the 'unseen' bits and that
many more were champing at the bit to do the
'seen' bits when called. You would be wise to
remember that it was the political will and means
that were sadly lacking - not the capability and
willingness of the volunteer. Many however will
not be around next time so be prepared for some
instant learning curves in obscure subjects.
Notwithstanding all this the RNR is bearing
up despite having lost much of the general admin
effort that was perceived as 'fat'. Please
remember that all the S2061264, CB musters and
dreaded audits etc. etc. is just the same in scope
and frequency in the RNR as the RN and we
have to do it all in two hours a week average
- after, not instead of, a day's work. Not
complaining -just stating a point, but we will
carry on because we have a long term
motivation which is not in any way dominated
by finance, in fact quite a few of us lose out
substantially in financial terms or have to
overcome considerable employer hostility by
doing our Reserve time.
It is not the emotional aspects of the effects
on the RNR's morale that spurred this second
tome from the bilge however. It is the cost
effectiveness of this whole 'cost reduction '
exercise from the point of effective deployment
of the RN's overall resources that I wish to take
issue with.
Penny wise Pound foolish?
A few months ago (about the time that we were
told that we were to have all our allowances cut
to the bone (ie pay yer own fare, audits in yer
own time etc)) we were told via the national
media that the new AOR was three years late
and £60,000,000 over budget - no real reason
given but I imagine that a lot of the trouble arises
over the traditional pragmatic RFA design
tradition having to come to terms with the
intransigent dictates from the prima donnas of
the weapons systems brigade. Another I suspect
is that problems were 'dealt with' at meetings,
rather than someone actually taking
responsibility: no doubt well structured and
reported but seemingly ineffectual at preventing
the appalling results.
Whatever the reasons, in project engineering
terms that is quite abysmal and totally
unnecessary and yet I see no heads impaled on
the Great Gate of Foxhill or rivers of blood
running down Prior Park, just this merciless
savaging of the volunteers instead.
In company with a very significant number
of other ex RN and RNR people I do a lot of
work in the offshore design industry. At the time
the AOR announcement was made I completed
some work on a fast track North Sea Platform
design that will be pumping oil within three
years of completing the conceptual design - and
I venture to suggest left to the RFA alone so
would the AOR have been. If an offshore
platform installation does not meet its dates,
'windows' for weather and heavy lift will be
missed and losses due to lost production and
second attempts will be massive. The very much
reduced margins in the North Sea do not allow
sloppy economics either; the oil industry does
not throw money around any more. Offshore
design and project management is a hard,
uncompromising environment to work in;
however it is also rewarding, not just financially
but in terms of professional achievement too.
That £60,000,000 thrown down the drain with
the AOR would keep most of the RNR going
for two years or more, including the dozen and
a half ships. Indeed the most expensive bit is
the cost of them and the permanent staff
'instructors'; we do not actually cost a lot at all
and the figure above would keep us going for
about 10 years. If you wanted to save real
money on the RNR let us use the RN ships
during the 6-8 weeks a year those very
expensive assets are sitting in base ports to let
the ship's company go to Butlins.
Why is it that we have got one group of British
engineers who can get oil platforms delivered
to time and cost (better than anyone else I might
add) and another who cannot get it done with
ships for the RN? After all we have been
building ships for longer than 30 years (the 'age'
of the North Sea Industry). I am sure that the
intelligence, motivation and loyalty of both
GOODBYE MR PEPYS?
groups is equal - indeed I would suggest that
the RN's design agencies have on balance better
qualified people, so why oh why such a mess?
The Pepys legend
I think the causes have their roots in history.
Our friend Mr Nott said recently that the RN
was the least cerebral of the three services the reason for axing the couple of dozen
intelligence officers to preserve the couple of
hundred seamen? Going to sea is seen, quite
rightly up to a point, as the prime function of
all the RN and RNR but we have to recognise
that there is a lot of effort involved in getting
there, much of which goes unrecognised
especially by the Seaman branch ever since they
no longer had to get several hundred square
furlongs of bedlinen to hang out to achieve it.
We have traditionally handed most of the
support functions to others.
Belatedly I have been reading Pepys. This
burst into wordprocessing was spurred when I
discovered his sudden and quite amazing
progress from being a landowner's PO Writer
to Controller and Chief of Fleet Support in one
virtually overnight, so quickly that I thought at
first I had missed a few chapters!
I think the way in which he achieved this
was:a. Being in the right place at the right
time, his boss was on the right side at the
Restoration.
b. The 'officer corps' were quite happy
to let him do it as it was boring non
operational work while they got on with
the Yo Ho bits.
c. The Navy was then just starting to
achieve respectability and was eager to
enhance its organisation and hence
respectability.
Not much has changed. The system Pepys
initiated took the burdens of the minutae of
procurement and support off the shoulders of
those at the 'sharp end' in return for a steady
remuneration and the comfortable feeling that
the likelihood of finding themselves in a wood
or tin floating bath or sewer pipe with some
ungentlemanly person shooting at them was very
small.
The problem is that this produces two
diametrically opposite and mutually exclusive
47
cultures. One wants to go off and operate, freed
from the burden of the costing and organisation
and the other is quite happy to sit in the
background and do that bit as long as they are
out of range of the nasties. Mr Pepys
concentrates on his administration, committees,
costings plans and accounting while everyone
goes off to sea (or Gosport). He has developed
a finely tuned system of management
information so that parliament knows exactly
what has been spent that year and on what.
Apportioning, reviewing and fighting over slices
of financial cake takes up a great deal of time
in Pepysland to make sure that everything is
properly accounted for.
Time for real accounting
Before the so called end of the Cold War much
of the raison d'etre for the Services went unsaid
(protection of trade, defence of the realm etc).
While enthusiasm for the Services is still
prevalent in the media and public emotion,
especially post Corporate, so is the expectation
for the peace dividend. The historical
justifications for expensive development
projects cuts less and less ice with the purse
holders and Joe Public who thinks that the
balance of world peace can be held with River
Gunboats, Enfield 303s and Tiger Moths.
This is made worse by the passing on of the
generation of people in politics and the civil
service with war experience who 'understand'.
With no perceived threat the current young turks
see no reason for most of what we see as
contingency for what could happen. They
simply have to balance books for this year and
by the time next year comes they have moved
on and in any case are not the ones likely to be
shot at. This is not only true in the Treasury but
throughout the Ministry. Financial restraints,
applied according to the perception of those with
control of the budgets, reign supreme.
'But we have now got accounting' you say,
and I am sure it is causing maximum nausea
everywhere (it had better be - if it's only the
RNR that is getting it then watch out on my next
tome!). However the accounting that the RN has
seems to be split up to ensure that only the trivia
is able to be addressed; after all does the Flotilla
Commander have control over what he buys in
terms of new vessels and aircraft or is it just
48
GOODBYE MR PEPYS?
fuel and stationery? All the big decisions go on
in Pepysland.
Apparently from now on all non essential
spending has to go and the axe is poised in all
sorts of places. I always thought that if spending
is not essential then it should not have been
authorised in the first place and if it was essential
then but not now, then have the through life
effects of postponing maintenance, rebuilding
and investment been properly costed?
No one likes to see money wasted but applied
negatively, financial accountability can be the
greatest excuse for not doing anything ever
invented - and I detect that sort of ethic is being
imposed upon us.
One oil company had a rush of blood to the
head when the oil price collapsed four years ago
and stopped all upgrade investment, planned
maintenance and refurbishment offshore.
Within two years their platforms had virtually
stopped producing and it has cost mega bucks
to get it all going again. That is the sort of thing
accountants, if left unchecked, come up with.
It seems a stupid thing to do now, and to a lot
of the engineers in the oil company at the time
it seemed stupid, but no-one listened.
We seem to account year by year by capital
expenditure alone in Pepysland. The budgets
are apportioned out largely following the
patterns of the past. This means that the system
grinds on, everyone fighting their corner for
money for capital expenditure (R&D,
procurement, baked beans etc) largely divorced
from any assessment of the relative necessity
with respect to the threat or the through life
costs, not because of any intention to avoid it
but because of the constraints of the annual
costings and the time it takes to get a slot on
the estimates for future spends. Some degree
of stability is required, 1 grant, but I think things
have become distorted.
What actually happens in Pepysland is that
the squeaky wheels get the grease and historical
big spenders being first in line hoover up the
money. Long Term Costings take a long time
to change and if you were down for big whacks
you will still get relative big whacks after the
cuts. Yet if we had done our homework we
would know what was necessary to improve the
Fleet's capability (through procurement or
modification) and have a ready made list of
priorities. I don't see any evidence that we do
yet, and those working hard to introduce such
methods are having to push hard and uphill.
By the system of voting money by Type of
Pepysland Function (R&D, Procurement,
Training, Clothing etc) rather than by
Operational function (eg Area defence
requirement)
or
even
by
Type
(SurfaceISubmarinelFAA) Mr Pepys can keep
a weather eye on things all the better but the
person in the front line with an appreciation of
the requirements and more importantly an
appreciation of the shortfalls cannot divert funds
where they are most needed; and those in the
parts of Pepysland that are trying to do their best
have a misty view of the front line problems.
The operational commander cannot personally
fund a programme to get rid of a stupid problem
that he knows that stops his squadron of
shipslaircraft for 30 days a year but as a
consolation he can do something about excessive
wastage on oranges for the sports teams or some
other minor expenditure of the Parkinson's Law
variety.
Other things have to wait for the cries of help
to be heeded by someone else quite remote and
not under any real obligation to anything about
it! Often replies to heartfelt agonies are that there
is no money to do anything about the problem.
That is simply not true; what they mean is there
is money (no MOD department has no money),
but it is being spent on something that they from
their perspective genuinely think is more
important. Frankly too many people have a say
in what priorities are and the wide variety of
perspective and accountabilitiesmake it unlikely
that what is needed appears. The fog is enough
to prevent any blame being attached to anyone
if a real crumbles happens because no single
person has responsibility for it all.
The 'system' has too long a chain of people
increasingly remote from the experience of
staying up all night trying to fix things and
getting it in the neck from 'Father' and therefore
the motivation to make sure it never happens
again.
To take as an example of the result of all this,
the Commanding Officer in an RNR unit cannot
choose whether to send people to training or to
tarmac the car park and the latter happens
because those people in the tarmac division of
GOODBYE MR PEPYS?
Pepysland put in their long term costings for it
and they still have their funds, even though
'across the board' there has been a notional cut.
As an M E 0 I had no money to sort out the
stupid little things on my machinery; after all
I lived with it for 24 hours a day. Yet I could
have gone to that design authority section on
leaving the ship and written submissions for
something to be done; and then it probably
would have been. As an M E 0 I was on the
wrong side of the tracks; Mr Pepys thinks he
knows best but in many cases he does not.
It is not all Mr Pepys' fault however. The
'system' until now has also not allowed those
who have been users to see just how much it
all costs, after all we have all 'proffed'
something at some stage and a culture of the
magic self-replenishing stores and the morning
watch bacon sandwich creation device in the
galley has grown up at sea. Frankly we have
had it easy until now and we must become aware
of how much everything costs and not just the
bits we have to account for either.
If we really knew just how much things cost
we would soon learn to live without the nice to
have. Consider conventional boats on frigates
for an example. I think that if the user had
actually to pay for them - and associated
equipment and manpower - out of a budget and
was faced with a choice of buying and
maintaining or hiring locally only when needed
we would have lost them and used the money
for extra weapons before Suez rather than as
a result of Corporate!
What we need is a system that looks at the
total cost of providing all operational and non
operational functions. If unreliable equipment
is a big cost driver then the 'cost effective'
apportionment of R&D to fixing it can be
identified and implemented by one organisation
- not a whole host of committees.
Sometimes however costs perceived at the
front end as being exhorbitant shrink into
insignificance alongside others in the wider
picture. Perhaps prohibitive development costs
for an alternative to save operating costs make
it easier to put up with what you have (when
you are told). In this way we would get at the
big 'uns first and leave the little 'uns to later.
But at least everyone would know and
understand. In the current organisation all is
49
relative and all is confusion.
If the philosophy of true cost effectiveness had
been in place then one thing is for certain: we
would not have wasted so much effort hacking
the 'soft target' of the RNR to save a relative
pittance. No one seemed to be overly concerned
at wasting millions over the years constantly
repairing Leander frigate generators probably
because it was a bit technical and we preferred
to listen to the man in Pepysland who said it
couldn't be made better rather than giving him
the money to 'fix it' and strict instructions not
to come back until it was.
Engineering standards
I think another aspect of the problem is that we
have become 'adjusted' to low expectations
from our equipment and systems.
Engineering has undergone a fundamental
revolution over the last 25 years. The old heavy
and inefficient generation of machinery and
equipments have gone. Lovely to look at but
prohibitive in costs, old steam engines were
limited by the fatigue limits of the poor blighters
who had shovel the coal or, even when that was
replaced, by boiler cleans and leaking joints.
If we get design and manufacture right it
works for far longer than our grandfathers
would have believed possible with minimal
attention and servicing. Cars with 20,000 miles
service intervals are now coming on to the
market yet it was not that long ago that 1,000
miles was the limit before the grease gun (grease
gun?!?) was reached for. Materials are lighter
and yet stronger and large scale engineering has
been able to take advantages of scaled up
techniques previously limited to small ones. For
example, railway coaches are made from half
a dozen extruded sheets welded to form a very
strong tube in a fraction of the time it took to
make them 15 years ago using methods little
changed from the stage coaches of the 1800s.
~ h e s eadvances offer superb prospects but
also require much more investment in R&D and
care in design. Put in other words it means that
much more effort has to be put in the thinking
stage. Preconceptions must be challenged and
techniques developed to ensure that reliability,
maintainability and quality are assured not just
assumed will happen. New materials and
technology must be explored; we must not let
50
GOODBYE MR PEPYS?
Mr Pepys play safe all the time.
Some would say that the defence budget
cannot afford all that detailed R&D - that is
rubbish. Much of the costs in the automotive
industries is in tooling for large scale production
and the whims of boy racers. We do not have
that problem - well, not the first bit. We cannot
afford not do do the R&D properly and must
never sacrifice quality for timescale to please
Mr Pepys. Changes at the concept stage can cost
f 1, at the design stage f 10, at manufacturing
f 100 and £1000 when in service, and we can
all think of instances where things have had to
be sorted out in service. Car manufacturers need
to get it right or it does not sell and they go bust
and don't eat - we need to get it right too.
Mr Pepys' ordered system gave birth to the
old Admiralty engineering standards which,
when properly established engineering standards
were rare, stood supreme as examples of good
engineering practice. Defined engineering
standards however are no longer the preserve
of the Admiralty and indeed we should not be
reinventing them with defence numbers except
for areas that are specifically unique and actually
there are not that many of them. I am talking
about quality engineering not quality
documentation.
The need for a full time organisation to write
and be custodians of engineering standards
purely for us has diminished save in those few
unique areas. Yet we still have a large effort
deployed in developing 'specialist' equipment
designs some of which are designated 'for future
fleet' without any specific real requirement and
many are just adaptations of commercial
equipment.
We can specify the duty, the environment and
let the manufacturer demonstrate he has done
it, not sit on his shoulder while he is trying to
think. We should be putting our effort in to
getting that specification right and realistic. I
remember placating an irate manager who made
several tens of thousand parts for the automotive
industry per week and had received a pompous
delegation from Pepysland who told him how
he was to make their 200.
We should flow with this river and redeploy
our design resources into an important thinking
process that recycles informed experience at a
faster rate than at present whereby it has to
overcome the hurdles of ship-squadron-base
port-fleet staff-CFS-Ship Section-Specialist
Section-DRA-manufacturer chains. This leads
to engineers being meeting attenders and too
busy to address the critical technical detail of
the subjects.
How much simpler it would be if each
flotillaltype commander was in charge of all
aspects of his area of responsibility from beans
and bullets to conceptual designs for the future.
He (or she) would be responsible (and
accountable) for providing a capability at a
stated readiness and reliability and left to get
on with it.
If this smacks of privatisation to you then I
remind you of our roots pre Pepys - it was not
my idea to suggest that this might develop into
a 'franchise' system when I set out but it seems
a logical step! In fact not so very different from
the ship project I served in - no one understood
us because everything was smaller and used
different materials and we were left to get on
with it!
Ordered administration has the aura of
authority and respect. The problem is that that
has become a bigger priority than sorting out
the detail of getting the engineering right. It was
not really a problem in Pepys' day because what
passed for engineering remained the pure black
arts of the bosun and shipwright and they were
left to it (and one suspects they were fully
exposed to the wrath of any dissatisfied
customers on their return). There must have
been a very short feedback loop - QA was swift
and brutal no doubt!!
NASA have recognised that there has been
no single successful mission that took over seven
years to conceive and deliver. Apollo took five
from inception to landing on the moon. Those
taking longer get bogged down in their own
inertia. We are in that state of inertia now and
have been for some time. We need a cultural
change and accounting for travel and light bulbs
is not it.
When a large problem arises the action taken
is usually to instigate a well structured research
and development and get well programme and
that sets in motion a process that itself becomes
the prime mover and not the aim. I was very
lucky to serve with the last of the wartime
generation in Bath and in a project that was one
GOODBYE MR PEPYS?
of the last to have authority for all the aspects
of the ships and the R&D facilities (and hence
a grip on priorities) and not merely tasked
with co-ordinating the dictates of all the
'specialists'.
We had a few major problems, one of which
had been going on for seven years and this had
resulted in a (well minuted) 'get well'
programme, R&D for alternatives (very nice for
the equipment specialists) and the nightmare
scenario of shoehorning a completely different
equipment in. Believing that all engineering
problems are due either to lack of lubrication,
adhesion or supervision (or all three) and digging
up of all the available literature on the subject,
doing a few sums to see if the system could be
adapted, a morning's trials in the shore test
facility run by an old carrier watchkeeping
partner in creative feedwater accounting was all
that was needed to solve the problem and it all
died away. In fact it was the 'three turns of a
nut' solution that I referred to in my last dit. The
modification procedure however took two years!
Mr Pepys must have time to do things right.
I ask the question - is it the result or the
procedure we need?
Sorting it out
The Pepys approach to that problem did not
work but getting the books out and getting down
to detail did. OK we were lucky but another
class did a complete redesign to solve the same
symptoms (did they have to?).
I think that a fundamental culture change is
due. We should be concentrating efforts in
solving problems we have that are costing us
dear and not stopping until the answer is found,
and not breaking off for writing minutes. Tackle
the engineering problems at the detailed level
and let Mr Pepys wait for once.
Instead of concentrating on budgets for each
department in Pepysland in isolation we must
cost the provision of functions and all the aspects
of achieving them. We must find what is
expensive, how much it is costing and how
much it is cost effective to spend on stopping
51
the rot and then spend to stop it rotting. We may
not get instant savings but unless we get a handle
on this we will never get it right. Mr Pepys may
worry that he doesn't know what is going on
but engineering common sense suggests it will
not be any worse.
Hacking insignificancies like the RNR travel
budget was easy and visible and in the grander
scheme of things totally ineffectual. It may have
got somebody some brownie points but in the
overall scheme of things achieved absolutely
nothing at all and, worse, used resources that
could have made real savings if deployed
properly. I may be out of touch but soft targets
were never in the tradition of the Royal Navy.
Any system that perceives that concentrating
on one tiny part of the service costing relative
peanuts would have any noticeable effect on the
efficiency of the whole must surely now be
totally discredited. It is akin to worrying about
the coffee machine in the living quarters of an
oil platform when the main process system is
not-working.
So goodbye Mr Pepys, your overwhelming
neurosis for balancing books above all other
considerations is only part of the story and while
you have served us well in the past the methods
applicable to a 17th century landowner are a
little out of date for us now.
When we have the new order we shall need
some form of independent (commercially
minded) body to vet occasionally what is going
on - people qualified in the professions and
experienced in industry to audit the whole
process on an occasional basis.
It already exists - it is called the RNR. To
give an example of the talent we attract
(discounting near geriatrics like me) a fleetboard
recently for Sub Lt counted bamsters (including
one near to becoming QC), PhDs, and other
dedicated people with sound professional
careers. Would they not be a useful auditing
capability?
I have also just read Machiavelli -watch this
space!
STEAMTRAP
It's that Word Again (Logistics)
OMMODORE Craig's judgment (NR,
C
Jan. '92) that logistics took 50% of his
command attention in the Gulf and Falkland
conflicts and his inclusion of logistics as a
principle of war, intimates that this function of
war must be high on the agenda of any
commander who seeks success at sea. The
recent notification that a Naval Support
Command is to be constituted from Departments
and Directorates that traditionally resided in
different Board areas of responsibility suggests
that logistics in its widest sense - the practical
art of moving and sustaining a naval force is moving to the forefront of current naval
strategic thinking as the fallout from economic
and political change arising from the cessation
of the Soviet Empire forces a fundamental reappraisal of our future defensive posture.
Perhaps it is thus opportune to attempt to
emulate Commodore Craig and to delineate what
I believe are the relevant logistic principles in
an endeavour to show the inter-action that is
necessary to provide successful logistic support
to a Fleet.
Continuity
The ideal logistic support activity that must be
in situ is that the procurement chain for materiel
should be a constant process of order and reorder to produce a high level of support to all
equipments to ensure meeting eventualities,
planned or otherwise. Maximising this aspect
enables the logistic pipeline to be effective and
cost efficient. Disruption in this area of supply
will if permitted, penetrate into all facets of
support activities and will be detrimental to the
Fleet's capability. A rolling programme of
continual replenishment of the Inventory to
sustain future requirements (known or
unforeseen) provides a secure foundation to
develop Fleet initiatives. The present financial
limitations inhibit the provisioning parameters
from being maximised and increasingly
necessitate random judgments being made to
tailor purchases to cash limits. These expedients
that are currently enforced upon provisioning
calculations will be reflected in declining
availability of many ranges of items in the future
and no other indicator is necessary to illustrate
the need for continuity in this sphere of logistics.
Continuity - a long term planned procurement
loop based upon accurate expenditure and
forward analysis of future needs - is absolutely
critical to Fleet operational capabilities.
Timing
The fog of war will invariably produce
uncertainty and an inability to plan for every
contingency, but logistic resources must be
controlled to produce the maximum gain from
their issue to meet tactical or strategic aims. Of
all the ingredients needed to ensure success,
timing is probably the most complex to attain,
especially when attempting to determine future
requirements and their distribution, but this
activity is vital as it is this that produces
flexibility to the Commander's short and
medium term intentions. Timing embraces all
aspects of the logistic support chain judgments
from when to buy, to issue, to provide outfits,
to move forward, to collect, etc. Effort spent
determining the control of time in the logistic
loop will always produce dividends that will
enable a Commander to exploit situations.
Economy
No military leader has ever been supplied with
the amount of materiel he deemed adequate for
success. Resources are finite and it is essential
that materiel is concentratedlhusbanded to
achieve success. Economy matters as the
increasing sophistication of weapon systems or
hull equipments necessitate long lead
manufacture that, irrespective of manufacturing
performance, can rarely reduce lead times
significantly to produce more in less time than
standard, unless radical innovation in build can
be introduced. The German initiative in the
construction of U-Boats is a prime example.
There is a direct linkage between timing,
continuity and economy in the successful supply
of stores to the Fleet, which if not achieved. are
very likely to constrain a Commander. The least
expensive, but equally the most effective and
efficient in resource terms, means of sustaining
a military force must be chosen, irrespective of
how attractive an alternative solution might
appear. For Desert Storm, it would have been
IT'S THAT WORD PiGAIN (LOGISTICS)
far better if the pre-stored and pre-positioned
merchant ships in the Indian Ocean had had a
strength twice as large as they did, with a
commensurate growth in capacity to produce far
more immediate on station reinforcement rather
than the extremely costly airbridge that had to
be enacted to make good the deficiencies.
Presumably budgetary constraints determined
the size of this pre-deployed reserve, but
whatever the calculation it seemingly did not
take into account the resultant costs of having
to produce a huge airlift to make good the
eqJipment shortcomings. There seems to be a
correlation between short term expediency that
appears fiscally attractive, and the consequential
penalty that costs far more to rectify matters in
later years. Dare I mention the RAF and its trials
and tribulations with its airborne radar aircraft
procurement when a political judgment
intervened. or indeed the industrial/~olitical
judgment seemingly made on the placiAg of the
initial order for the AOR?
Distribution
Naval warfare demands distribution of its forces
with a subsequent concentration of force at a
crucial point to achieve success. To sustain such
forces, logistic support must be as flexible as
the units it maintains. While allocation of
materiel into distinct stockpiles overseas or at
sea is costly, it has to be balanced by the factor
such distribution produces to the preparedness
and efficiency of the force it supports and the
flexibility such immediate support provides to
the Commander. With onboard outfits in the
Fleet valued at something approaching £180m,
they are an easy target for achieving immediate
stock reductions to meet arbitrary Treasury
stock reduction targets. Irrespective of their
consun~ption(or otherwise) whilst deployed.
such assets ensure immediate availability and
should enable the hull to remain at sea for 'x'
days in a war scenario and meet anticipated war
consumption rates. However, where the
movement of such materiel is slow or even
dormant, economy demands a reappraisal of the
technical judgments that placed them onboard.
Consumption rates, based on a unit. batch and
class. need to be scrutinised and any trend
acknowledged. More emphasis on analysis is
needed to avoid arbitrary removal that could be
53
detrimental to the operational status of the ship
or submarine, especially when the consumption
was based upon peace time deployments and
expenditure and possibly totally unlike its
envisaged operational profile.
Control of dispersed assets is essential but it
is a moot point how far to the rear the
operational Commander's remit should run.
Whilst control of their immediate logistic
organisation is paramount to any operational
Commander. command should be relieved of
all possible logistic details without prejudicing
their control of it. Subsequent replenishment of
forward units should ideally be by automatic
resupply of bulk loads tailored by experience
(and cost!) to the needs of the unit or units
concerned, to reduce the strain on SO(S)
personnel. Where the logistic support
necessitates tri-service supply, that logistic
avenue should be rationalised as a single channel
for supplies to provide ease of control and
management.
Correct dispersal of assets provides two
important adjuncts to a Commander: flexibility,
in that it can provide opportunity to a force
whilst an incorrect disposition will prejudice
operations by its reduction of options, whilst
another factor provided by correct stock
distribution, is feasibility, and the provision it
imposes on alternative tactical options. It is thus
imperative that the constitution of bulk RFA or
STUFT loads be tailored to reflect the
supporting force in all respects and that the outfit
can provide an extra dimension by carrying
additional items that could well enhance the
effectiveness of the deployed force, but again.
within the bounds of a specific budget for that
purpose.
Summary
It is suggested that the constituents required to
conduct successful logistic support at sea are
continuity in provisioning replacement materiel.
timing (that embraces planning), economy allied
to efficiency, distribution (producing flexibility
and feasibility). These are the basic principles
that need to be present so that they can combine
to produce the mechanics whereby 'logistics'
enables a Fleet to deliver potential or actual
force to critical points at crucial moments to
achieve tactical or strategical objectives. The
54
IT'S THAT WORD AGAIN (LOGISTICS)
identification of the place of contact resides
elsewhere, outside the ambit of logistic
management, and should be based upon
intelligence and strategic considerations.
However, before that judgment can be
accurately determined the third prong of the
trident, logistic capability, needs to be evaluated
to ensure the success of any mission.
L'envoi
In a letter to Lady Hamilton, 13 March 1801,
Nelson wrote, 'I hate your pen and ink men:
a fleet of British ships of war are the best
negotiators in Europe: they always speak to be
understood and generally gain their point: their
arguments carry conviction to the breasts of our
enemies.' That voice has on occasions been
weakened by political and financial
considerations, which when allied to constant
technological change, has left the Royal Navy
under strength and underequipped to face its
enemies. With an evolutionary change under
preparation that in scope is akin to the demise
of the Navy Board in June 1832, the onus will
reside with the Naval Support Command to
delineate logistic principles within its
organisation and its software. However, if that
organisation is crippled by acute, even arbitrary,
financial limitations imposed by the Treasury
(another 10 year no war rule?) then the majority
of the Fleet in being will become no more than
a motley collection of hulls, swinging around
buoys denuded of capability with equipments
and outfits missing from constant storerob
activities to sustain a diminishing number of
hulls on high priority missions. This in war,
becomes the Price of Admiralty, a penalty
traditionally paid by Sailors for the inadequate
funding of a peace time Navy by politicians who
studiously ignore the dictates of history and the
penalties it imposes upon the innocent. Enough
blood has been paid in this century alone into
that particular ledger to ensure that the
consequence should never be repeated.
RFA Bacchus in the Fleet Train
FA Fort Grange, 30,000 tonnes Persian
R
Gulf 1991; RFA Bacchus, 3,000 tons
Leyte Gulf 1945. Different gulf, different scale,
-
-
same task - support of RN ships.
The modern concept of logistic support of
Out-of-Area operations is for large, multipurpose replenishment ships moving in
company with Task Groups. RFAs Fort Grange
and Fort Austin carry stocks of drummed oils,
ammunition, food, water, stores and machinery
spares for supply simultaneously to front-line
warships at sea. They have a complement of 280
of whom some are RN personnel for operation
and maintenance of embarked helicopters and
the rest are RFA officers and seamen and some
34 or so civilians for the store and supply
activities. For internal stores handling they have
fork lift trucks, lifts and cranes, and for transferat-sea operations they have high-performance
jackstay rigs and helicopters. For self-defence
of these valuable naval units, albeit that they are
registered as merchant ships, they are provided
with air surface radars, 20 mm guns and decoy
systems. Their sophisticated communications
systems conform with both naval requirements
and with international merchant shipping
legislation, and include a satellite system.
By comparison with these sophisticated units
the arrangements in supply ships of the British
Pacific Fleet Train in 1945 now appear
inordinately crude and simple. Yet for their day
they were quite effective.
The British Pacific Fleet
The scale of operations then was completely
different. The British Pacific Fleet, the largest
fleet of RN ships ever assembled, consisted of
150 ships from battleships and aircraft carriers
to submarines and minesweepers, all of which
had to be supported some 4,000 miles from the
nearest shore base. And it was there and then
that the concept of a Fleet Train was developed.
John Winton in The Forgotten Fleet (1969) has
written 'the story of the British Pacific Fleet
1944-45' and he included a chapter on the
assembly and role of the fleet train which by
the end of the war consisted of 60 ships tankers, naval. victualling. armament and air
store issuing ships, repair ships, water carriers,
salvage vessels, hospital ships and a
headquarters flagship, all under the command
of Admiral Douglas Fisher, Rear Admiral Fleet
Train (RAFT) (who later became Fourth Sea
Lord and Chief of Naval Supplies).
One of these ships, RFA Bacchus, a Naval
Store Issuing Ship (NSIS) and water distilling
ship, was the only ship of that specialisation to
be present during the whole operation, from
1944 when support ships were being gathered
on the East Indies Station right through to the
assembly of the Pacific Fleet Train in March
1945 and to the end of the war in August 1945.
Some detail of how she was equipped and how
she carried out her task may be a useful
contribution to the history of that unique event
in the annals of the Royal Navy, to complement
and augment the overall account given by John
Winton. Here then are personal recollections
from the Naval Store Officer of Bacchus which
may serve also to bring out the contrast with
the
huge
ultra-modern
multi-purpose
replenishment ships which accompany the
modern naval task forces.
Leyte Gulf, Philippine Islands
'Undine, we've finished your storing, will you
leave now please'. First Lieutenant of Undine:
'We expected to be alongside you for an hour
and it's been only 15 minutes; I can't tell the
Captain, he's only just gone below for lunch'.
Barchus: 'I'm sorry but I need the side for my
next storing'.
In that 15 minutes ten tons of naval stores had
been passed across, a replenishment storing for
a ship which had not seen a port for several
months. Before the destroyer Undine had come
alongside at 1300 on 23 April 1945 the foredeck
of Bacchus had been completely covered with
a mass of stores assembled ready for immediate
transfer. There were coils of cordage and steel
wire rope with strops through and ends seized
together, drums of oil with drum hooks ready
rigged, drums of paint on cargo trays, cargo nets
bulging with crates and boxes, wicker hampers
full of flags, rags, cotton waste, coir fenders,
gas cylinders; all had strops and slings and eyes
prepared completely ready to receive the hook
of the ship's derrick as it swung down for
56
RFA BACCHUS IN THE FLEET TRAIN
the next lift. Everything possible had been done
in advance to make the transfer from ship to ship
in the shortest time. The supply rating had
climbed over immediately the ship was secured;
he had settled down in the deck office to sign
the thick batch of receipt notes and had
subsequently emerged on deck saying he had
to 'check the stores' and was disconcerted to
find they had all gone; he was told he had better
get back on board his own ship as she was just
about to cast off.
A similar load of stores had been assembled
on the 'tween deck ready for the hatch covers
to be removed and the stores hoisted over the
side. A third ship's replenishment load was
ready again in the lower hold. We told Undine's
First Lieutenant that we needed the ship's side
cleared so that we could bring our two boats
alongside to load the second ship's stores and
take them to her as she lay alongside a tanker,
and then we should be ready for the third ship
we were due to store that afternoon to come
alongside when she in turn was free.
This operation has been described in some
detail as it epitomised the sort of activity in the
fleet train at that time. Compared with modern
replenishment methods there were no neat unit
loads, no pallets, no fork lift trucks, no inboard
lifts, no electric high-speed winches, no cranes,
no helicopters. The assembly of these
replenishment loads had taken many hours'
work in advance - selecting small items from
drawers and racks, weighing, counting,
parcelling, labelling; hand-carrying from no. 3
hold over the deck to no.2 as there was no
through passage below decks; screws, nails,
split pins, shackles, radio and radar valves and
components, signal flags, inflammable liquids,
oils, paints, electric cable, cordage large and
small - the myriad of items listed by ships'
supply staffs on their demand notes over a threeor four-month period at sea.
Main replenishment period
The context of this particular activity was a main
replenishment of the entire task force of the
British Pacific Fleet. They had returned to Leyte
Gulf in the Philippine Islands on 23 April after
a long period of operations with the American
fleet in the forward area against the Japaneseheld island of Okinawa, In the words of John
Winton, 'TF57 had been continuously at sea for
thirty-two days, longer than any other British
fleet since Nelson's day'. Careful plans had been
made in the fleet train for their arrival. Each
ship of the task force as it arrived at 1300 on
that auspicious day was to proceed to an
appointed anchorage or alongside an oil tanker
or armament, victualling or naval store supply
ship or repair ship. After one hour designated
ships were to complete their initial
replenishment and move to their next operation,
and again after a further hour. All storing and
fuelling operations were to be finished in five
days and then there was to be a complete shut
down for the fleet to rest and recuperate for a
further two days before they were due to leave
for further operations in the forward area with
the American fleet.
At preliminary planning meetings Bacchus
had been given the task of storing all destroyers
and below; cruisers and above here allocated
to City of Dieppe, a combined naval and
victualling store ship. As Naval Store Officer
Bacchus I had been called over to HMS Tyne,
the destroyer depot ship and flagship of Rear
Admiral Destroyers, to work out detailed plans
with RAD's staff, from which it appeared
Bacchus would be required to store up to 25
destroyers and escorts during the five-day
period. This was a tall order and would be
possible only if we could have the bulk of the
ships' demands several days in advance in view
of the time required to assemble each ship's
requirements. The detailed timing and order of
the operation was worked out with SO(Plans)
with Undine named as the first ship to be done.
and arrangements were made for a destroyer to
be detached from the fleet a few days in advance
and bring all the ships' demands ahead of the
main force's arrival. It was this that enabled
Bacchus, working flat out, to be completely
ready for Undine and the next few ships in the
plan. (It was only later that we learned that SO
(Plans) and Undine's first lieutenant were
brothers, Baillie-Grohman).
Fresh water
The supply of fresh water was a major problem
at Leyte. Bacchus had been fitted with two
distilling plants from the old Resolution of the
First World War. She could distil water and
RFA BACCHUS IN THE FLEET TRAIN
store a thousand tons. During the main
replenishment period at Leyte she was
constantly required to move around the fleet,
programmed in with her naval store
replenishment activities, to supply much-needed
distilled water. For this reason she tended to be
better known as a water boat or distilling ship
than a naval store issuing ship.
Special tasks
Throughout the seven weeks from 26 March to
13 May that the fleet train remained in Leyte
Gulf there were frigates and sloops continually
arriving and sailing as they escorted fuel tankers
to and from the forward area. Bacchus looked
after these ships as well. One evening a frigate
'new' to us dropped anchor a couple of miles
away. I went across by boat and asked the
Warrant Engineer who acted as Supply Officer
whether he needed any naval stores. 'Naval
Stores here? We haven't seen a port for three
months. But where are they?' I explained that
I was 'the local NSO'; the supply assistant was
sent for and told to bring his demands; he
produced a thick batch of demand notes he had
been preparing over the months. I glanced
through them and said I could do most of that,
but the engineer said, 'That would be fine, but
we are leaving at first light'. I said I would bring
the stores alongside at two in the morning if he
could take them on board then. After some
feverish activity back in Bacchus and with our
young store assistants thoroughly exhausted we
took the boat alongside again filled with their
stores. They woke the crane driver from his
sleep on the deck and hoisted the tons of stores
on board with surprise and gratitude.
One destroyer, Ulster, had come in with the
task force with a hole in her side from a suicideplan attack. When they had removed several
bodies from the engine room for burial at sea,
the repair ship HMS Resource was given the
job of shoring up the side. The Warrant
Shipwright came over to ask about timber. He
was somewhat distraught because it would take
his whole stock of timber, and asked whether
we could let him have some. He was shown
below where the timber rack in the 'tween deck
had been filled to capacity in Sydney, well over
Bacchus's proper 'allowance'. He said half of
it would do, and could he have that much? He
57
was told that we had brought it all this way for
an emergency and this was surely the
emergency. He could scarcely believe we meant
it until he saw it loaded into his LCM alongside.
The fleet was very short of a particular
electronic valve or 'tube', called a magnetron,
for an American radar set, which we had been
unable to get flown out from Sydney or the UK.
We made unofficial contact with an American
supply ship and when we went the ten miles
across the harbour which separated the British
and American supply trains we were welcomed
and given suppl& of that and other essential
shortages most generously.
An incident on the return trip across the huge
harbour of San Pedro Bay demonstrated one of
the dangers of that vast Pacific Ocean. We saw
from our motor cutter a water spout from only
a few miles away when a black ominous cloud
descended in a great swirl and sucked up the
sea from a wide circle to form a tall dark column
of water joining sea and cloud, twisting and
writhing and weaving about for several minutes
until it split in the middle, the top half being
sucked up right into the cloud itself and the
bottom half splashing back into the sea in a huge
widespread spray. It was a frightening prospect
to realise that if our puny boat had been closer
it too would have been sucked into the air and
dashed into small pieces.
Air freight
DC3 Dakotas, flown by RAAF officers fresh
back from bombing raids over Berlin, and still
fitted with parachute-dropping rails in the cabin
and canvas bucket seats against the sides, were
ferrying supplies up from Sydney at a peak rate
of seven a day. They called at Manus and the
Palau Islands (which still, we were told,
contained Japanese snipers in the hills who shot
at these planes if they flew too near) on their
way to and from Leyte. They landed and
disembarked their loads at a US air strip at the
local village of Tacloban from where shore
working parties distributed the stores around the
fleet train by LCM. Bacchus was occasionally
called upon to act as 'inward shipper' for stores
for ships of the fleet not at the time in harbour.
One Dakota arrived filled with buoyant rubber
hose for fuelling-at-sea operations by the fleet
tankers, and another full of foam compound
58
RFA BACCHUS IN THE FLEET TRAIN
for the aircraft carriers to put out fires on flight
decks resulting from kamikaze attacks.
Kamikaze
We heard that when the Japanese kamikaze
suicide aircraft landed on the wooden flight
decks of US aircraft carriers the decks were
burned and destroyed and the carriers had to
return to America for repair; on British carriers
with their armoured steel flight decks the crew
hosed the deck with foam compound, pushed
the remains of the aircraft over the side with
jeeps and carried on flying their aircraft on and
off. Foam compound became scarce and at one
stage Bacchus had to collect all the foam
compound in ships of the fleet train and load
it on the next tanker going to the forward area.
Radio silence
Radio silence was maintained and all signal
traffic was by 10-inch signalling projector or
aldis lamp. GXYB, the call-sign of Bacchus,
was frequently observed across the harbour as
ships signalled additional requirements. On one
occasion a US Navy supply ship passing our
anchorage signalled, 'Shoot ya breeze' which
we surmised meant that the signalman just
wanted to chat with our signalman.
RAFT'S message
While at Leyte RAFT sent a message to the
fleet:
Replenishment
This paper is of no interest to anyone
who is not anxious to avoid wasting men
and time, or getting the fleet to sea quickly,
after a replenishment period.
2. It is very dry reading, and deals with
such things as 'demands', which many of
you know as little about as I do (or did).
3. But this logistic business, which
affects us all, has got to be faced - and
if Flag and Commanding Officers will give
a few minutes to reading what I've got to
say their time will not be entirely wasted.
4. Don't read the appendix to this; I
didn't write it and I don't expect you'll
understand it either. Hand it, therefore,
with befitting ceremony, to your technical
officers.
5. Have you heard this one? HMS
Undine went alongside the Bacchus and
received three months' replenishment of
Naval Stores (about 10 tons weight) in 15
minutes. The assembling of this
represented some 15 hours' work, but her
demands had been received well in advance
and everything was ready to slap on board
her when she came alongside. See what cooperation by the customer will do.
6. This one is not so hot though:
One big ship with two big funnels sent
in 49 demands in l 1 different batches; and
one slightly smaller vessel, who also
should have known better, sent in 78
demands in 11 different batches.
And didn't they complain about the
shocking service they received.
7. If you see some snappy American
gadget, don't say, 'Please RAFT buy me
that'. I am only allowed to get spare parts
for things made in the USA, or whatnots
'otherwise unobtainable which are of
operational necessity'. (I've already had
one large bottle from Admiral Nimitz for
asking for a pretty toy - not for myself,
but for one of you.)
8. I know you sympathise with oilers,
water boats, ammunition ships, etc., trying
to come alongside in their (and your)
dinner hour. But why on earth can't you
all show it practically? The complaints I
have had from these wretched ships who
are only trying to help - you'd be
surprised.
9. And fuelling, too. We can fuel all the
fleet some of the time, or some of the fleet
all of the time - but we can't fuel all the
fleet all the time though we'd love to.
10. We crave your custom - but we
need your help - and please don't get the
idea that the customer is always right.
(Signed) Douglas Fisher
Rear Admiral
Bacchus
A description of the resources available in
Bacchus to carry out her activities may be
appropriate here.
She was the smallest of the store issuing ships,
smaller than City of Dieppe, Fort Colville the
air store issuing ship or the armament store
RFA BACCHUS IN THE FLEET TRAIN
issuing ships. She was 3,000 tons with a tripleexpansion steam engine which gave her a speed
of 12 knots. The three holds of which number
2 was the main store operations centre had no
direct access from one to another. Apart from
the ship's derricks with steam-operated winches
all humping and carrying below and on deck was
done by hand.
The crew of 69 included the captain and
officers of the RFA service, lascar seamen,
Goanese stewards, and five naval store staff
headed by a deputy naval store officer who held
a temporary commission as Lieutenant
Commander RNVR (Special Branch). There
were 12 DEMs gunners (for Defensively
Equipped Merchant Ships) led by a Leading
Seaman, and at times a naval signal rating for
lamp work.
The defensive armament consisted of an old
4-inch breech-loading gun on the poop, a
12-pounder HAILA gun mounted amidships
above the engine room, and four oerlikon guns.
For defence against mines she could stream four
paravanes from the bow. As the DEMs gunners
were insufficient to man all the guns at the same
time the ship's Second Officer and the naval
store officer volunteered to join the guns' crews,
and it was interesting to hear the leading seaman
giving crisp orders to these two officers during
training and practice shoots on the 4-inch gun
and receiving a respectful acknowledgement
'aye aye'.
Apart from emergency carley floats and the
ship's own lifeboats, only an old open motor
lifeboat and a 32-foot motor cutter were carried
for store work.
She had no specific equipment for transferat-sea operations but was sometimes required
to pass emergency stores to escorting vessels
while on passage in convoy. On one occasion
a cruiser's refrigerating plant had failed and she
needed a supply of carbon dioxide to replenish
the cooling system. As the convoy and escorts
were re-arranged and the cruiser steamed close
a line was fired across and a seaman climbed
to the foremasthead to carry the line up and
secure a snatch block there. As ten C 0 2
cylinders were swung across half a dozen lascar
seamen held the heavy line on deck taking it in
and paying it out as the ships rolled towards and
away from each other. There were no modern
59
jackstay rigs with self-tensioning winches
then.
This Bacchus was the second of three of that
name. She was taken over on the slip at the
Caledon Shipbuilding Company, Dundee, in
1936 and modified by shortening the stem which
gave her a cut-off appearance and made her
sensitive to side winds acting on her high
forepeak, particularly as she w a s relatively
lightly loaded in her role as an NSIS. Initially
a store carrier on the UK-Mediterranean run
she was converted to an NSIS in 1941.
Manus, Admiralty Islands
After the sevenday main storing period at Leyte
the task force sailed again for the forward area
on 1 May and City of Dieppe withdrew to
Sydney to replenish her victualling stores.
Bacchus stayed with the fleet train until she
returned to Manus in the Admiralty Islands on
21 May. She had originally arrived at Manus
on 13 March when the first elements of the fleet
train were being assembled there, and was
immediately required to do a 'rush storing' of
four flotillas, one destroyer from each flotilla
collecting the stores for all, two hours alongside
each and taking all they could in the time.
During this second period at Manus stocks were
replenished by Dakota loads of supplies from
Sydney and notably by a chartered merchant
fleet auxiliary (MFA) Slesvig which carried
among other things a hold-full of grey paint
which had to be transferred to Bacchus in one
day to enable Slesvig to join a convoy leaving
for Sydney.
Eniwetok, Marshall Islands
The distances from Manus to the fleet's
operating area off Japan were so great that a
number of oil tankers and supply ships,
including Bacchus for her water distilling
capacity particularly, were sent forward on 12
July to Eniwetok in the Marshall Islands, to
support the fleet with shorter supply lines. They
sailed from there for return to Manus on 6
August, the day the first atom bomb was
dropped on Hiroshima and the war virtually
came to an end. Soon after that the fleet train
- the greatest gathering of supply and support
ships in the history of the Royal Navy - began
to disperse.
60
RFA BACCHUS IN THE FLEET TRAIN
Exmouth Gulf, Australia
More than a year before the Eniwetok exercise
a similar forward deployment of supply ships
took place on the East Indies station, a
forerunner to the fleet train and perhaps an
exemplar of it.
HMS Illustrious and the American carrier
Sararoga with a screen of escorts sailed from
Trincomalee to carry out a bombing raid on the
harbour of Sourabaya in Java, but fuel and water
were needed nearer than Ceylon. An embryo
fleet train consisting of six tankers and Bacchus
with two cruisers as escort sailed from
Trincomalee on 30 April 1944 and arrived at
Exmouth Gulf on the North West Cape of
Australia on 14 May. The fleet arrived, fuelled,
stored and watered and sailed for the operation
which took the Japanese completely by surprise
as they assumed that a strike force could not
mount an attack at that distance from the nearest
base in Ceylon. (Indeed there was a rumour that
they would come to the conclusion that there
were support ships in the Indian Ocean and
come out from Singapore looking for us during
our two weeks' sail back to Trincomalee.) On
19 May the fleet returned to Exmouth Gulf after
the raid, replenished once again with fuel, stores
and water and left for return to Ceylon. The
support ships were to follow at their slower
speed with their two cruisers as escort.
Water boat
Am amusing incident, but with a moral to it,
occured as they were leaving. One cruiser and
the six tankers had left the anchorage and
Bacchus, tied alongside the second cruiser, had
finished giving her water and was due to leave
next with the cruiser following as rear escort.
A voice from the cruiser's bridge high above
Bacchus hailed: 'Water boat, you can push orf
now'. Nothing happened, and, when
questioned, our captain explained sotto voce that
the side wind was holding the ship with her high
forepeak on to the side of the cruiser, and if he
let go and went ahead the life boats would be
damaged by the cruiser's gun sponsons; the
answer was for the cruiser to use her twin
propellers one ahead and one astern to swing
the two ships together on the anchor cable into
the wind. After a few further minutes the
cruiser's captain leaned over the wing of his
bridge and called down, 'Captain what is the
matter?'. Bacchus's captain called back simply,
'The wind is on my starboard bow.' The cruiser
captain waved a hand and withdrew into his
bridge. Soon there was a thrashing of water
astern and both ships swung head to wind.
Bacchus let go forward and aft, the wind
separated the two bows and she went slowly
ahead at an angle to the cruiser. As we left the
captain said, 'I will not be called a water boat
like a dockyard barge, I am a Master Mariner'.
LIONELHALL
Defence Policy 1945-1982 - I11
1979-1983: The election of the Conservative
Government to the aftermath of the
Falklands campaign
HE domestic situation worsened during the
period of the Callaghan Government until,
following the 'winter of discontent' in 1978179,
a General Election returned the Conservative
party under Margaret Thatcher to power in
1979. Francis Pym was appointed Secretary of
State for Defence, but was replaced by John
Nott in 1981.
The Conservative party whilst in opposition
had vigorously opposed the defence economics
of the Labour Government, and one of its first
acts on coming to power was to approve a large
pay rise to the armed forces with the aims of
restoring parity and improving retention,
recruitment and morale. This pay rise put an
increased load on the defence budget, and to an
administration dedicated to reducing public
expenditure compensating reductions had to be
found elsewhere. The invasion of Afghanistan
in 1979 had forcibly reminded the world of the
Soviet Union's expansionist policies and its
willingness to use military force to achieve its
ends, particularly when it considered it could
do so safely without the risk of international
escalation. The situation was not therefore
propitious for any major alterations on defence
policy in the early years of the Thatcher
premiership. The 1979 and 1980 Annual
Statements on the Defence Estimates said little
new although making the point that expenditure
on defence was not an alternative to more direct
benefits such as housing, education and health,
but an essential pre-condition to being able to
enjoy them in peace. Numbers in the surface
fleet, however, were progressively reduced
from 1978 onwards, principally by the disposal
of older units, the first generation of post war
ships such as the Type 12s, 41s and 61s being
close to the end of their useful lives.
The major decision to maintain the British
nuclear deterrent by ordering Trident to replace
Polaris was announced in 1980, but otherwise
there were no significant changes in the
direction of defence policy in the first years of
the new government. There was a substantial
over-spend of the defence budget, leading to
T
unsatisfactory short term palliatives resulting in
serious reductions in activity and in ordering of
new equipment. For the Royal Navy drastic cuts
in fuel allowances for ships and aircraft and in
provision of spares and support in 1980181 led
to a reduction in the operational effectiveness
of the Fleet. Severe economic pressures
continued to cause problems and the costs of
the armed forces as constituted could not be met
within the defence budget.
In January 1981 the newly appointed
Secretary of State, John Nott, set out to conduct
a radical and far reaching review of defence,
starting with a re-assessment of the country's
strategic priorities, followed by plans to
restructure the armed forces to what he saw as
the best shape and size to meet the revised
priorities within the allocated budget. A former
merchant banker and junior Treasury Minister,
he subjected the whole defence scenario to a
close financial scrutiny. In the words of the
subsequent Defence White Paper ' 'Defence,
like other programmes, must be managed in
cash terms' and 'We cannot go on as we are.
The Government has therefore taken a fresh and
radical look at the defence programme'. The
process was to be extremely painful for the
Royal Navy, and in some measure recalled the
problems faced during the 1957 'Sandys'
review. However, in 1957 the Royal Navy had
successfully demonstrated the need for a
substantial east of Suez navy. This time there
was no such fall back position.
One of the principal reasons underlying the
1981 Defence Review was the steadily
escalating cost of equipment. This was no new
phenomenon but it had become more marked
since the end of the Second World War with
both NATO and the Warsaw Pact striving to
gain the utmost military benefit from a rapidly
advancing technology. A considerable volume
of paper was generated on this subject, which
became known as the 'Road to Absurdity', the
ultimate reducrio ad absurdurn being
mathematical projections of escalating costs
within a limited budget resulting in a one
'supership' navy. As one senior civil servant
trenchantly stated 'no-one would be stupid
enough to let it happen', but nonetheless, the
62
DEFENCE POLIC
cost escalation factor had led to major reductions
in the size of the armed services since the war.
There were many facets to the problem, not least
the establishment of an average cost escalation
factor, where estimates differed between 3 and
8 per cent a year, and whereas the costs of some
items rose rapidly, others remained reasonably
steady, the real cost of SSNs being an example
of the latter. An overall average of 6 per cent
in real terms was accepted as a reasonable
compromise figure, but the equation was further
complicated by attempts to relate the costs and
capabilities of older ships with their more
sophisticated successors. SDE8l 's comparison
of 'like with unlike', (the Leander v. the Type
22), gave an unfair, but influential, picture.
There was considerable discussion over whether
British equipment was too elaborate but nothing
suggested that this was in fact so when the
criterion for assessing our own needs must be
the efficacy of the potential enemy's equipment.
The problem was faced by all countries with
modem armed forces, but the smaller arms
producing countries, such as Great Britain,
found it more acute. As numbers of ships and
weapons systems decreased the costs rose out
of proportion on the basis of 'the smaller the
production run the greater the unit cost'. In
particular, research and development amounted
at times to almost one half of the total production
costs and the desire to achieve technical
perfection led to soaring expenses and long
delays out of proportion to the benefits accruing
from the last few ounces of performance gained.
In the past the gravity of the effects of the
steady increase in unit costs and the consequent
reduction in the size and shape of the armed
forces had been partially concealed by the
reduction in commitments, although for the
Navy the 1966 decision to abandon the fixed
wing carrier had been a prime example of
escalating unit costs pricing an item out of the
market. The 1974175 Defence Review had
reduced non-NATO commitments to an
irreducible minimum, and by 1981 the only area
remaining for change was in NATO. The
Secretary of State therefore concentrated on
what he perceived as the best means of reshaping the armed forces to meet NATO
requirements within the allocated budget, which
was set to reflect annual growth of 3 per cent,
possibly involving an increase in the share of
the GNP absorbed by defence. Before
considering the details of the review it would
be as well to look at some of the proposals put
forward to ease the cost escalation problem.
There was universal agreement on the need
to reduce cost escalation, but major difficulties
in deciding the measures to be taken. There
were no easy solutions in either the short or the
long term, the simpler options of reduction of
commitments, cutting the tail to benefit the teeth
and abandoning over expensive projects (for
example Blue Streak and CVAOI), having been
almost exhausted. Further options included
avoidance of over elaboration in requirements,
maximum use of commercial and industrial
facilities, collaboration with allies, greater
attention to sales potential and spending more
on project definition to ensure the best end
result. In the longer term, further reductions in
ranges of equipments and military specialisation
by different countries in different areas of
equipment were postulated. The latter solution
had the potential disadvantages of a situation of
almost total dependence on the USA as the
primary arms supplier, and reliance on other
nations' opinions as to what Great Britain
needed. However, it was seen as the most
logical solution if the NATO nations were not
to be overwhelmed by the unavoidable increases
in costs of advanced technology.
The stated Government policy was not to cut
defence efforts, but to exploit a substantial
increase in budget to enhance front line
capability in as many areas as possible, but the
current force levels were seen as unsustainable.
The defence priorities were assessed as:'
a. the independent element of strategic
and tactical nuclear forces. The decision
to purchase Trident was confirmed, and the
operation of the strategic nuclear deterrent
was seen as the Royal Navy's first and
most vital task.
b. The direct defence of the United
Kingdom homeland. This had been a low
priority for some years, but the importance
of the United Kingdom in Alliance support,
in the reinforcement of Europe and in
maritime tasks was emphasised. More
resources were to be devoted to this
area.
DEFENCE POLICY 1945-1982 - 111
c. A major land and air contribution on
the European mainland, specifically the
Central Region. The forward defence of
the Federal Republic of Germany was seen
as the forward defence of Britain itself.
d. A major maritime effort in the
Eastern Atlantic and Channel. This
relegation to fourth place, which is covered
in more detail below, brought forcibly to
mind the similar problems in the 50s, when
the 'Global Strategy' studies on future
nuclear wars saw a relatively less important
role for maritime forces.
e. Activities beyond the NATO area, so
far as resources permitted, both to meet
specific British responsibilities and to
contribute to world stability.
The importance of the defence of the United
Kingdom was reflected in increased air defence
capability in both manned aircraft, SAM and
air defence radar and communications systems,
and the intention to expand the Territorial
Army. On the naval side, the threat of mining
operations was recognised by a commitment to
continue the MCMV building programme, and
to provide additional hulls for the RNR. Plans
for defensive mining, a somewhat neglected
aspect of naval warfare, were to continue to
exploit the best ways of using this capability.
The British contribution in Europe was
considered of such importance that it was to
continue, despite all financial pressure on the
defence budget. BAOR was to stay at the same
size, but was to undergo some structural reorganisation. There was to be a considerable reequipment programme, and an enhancement of
air defence, and air strike capabilities.
It was in the maritime area that the principal
changes were to occur in the effort to reduce
costs. The Secretary of State stated3 that 'major
platforms', such as aircraft and surface ships,
were becoming increasingly vulnerable, and that
the 'balance of over-investment between
platforms and weapons needs to be altered so
as to maximise real combat capability'. More
resources were to be devoted to 'hitting power
and staying power in combat' and less to 'large
and costly platforms' a policy which would lead
to 'substantial and uncomfortable change in
some fields'. The principal victim of this policy
was to be the surface fleet, although in terms
63
of maritime warfare it is not clear how the
'hitting power' was to be in the right place if
adequate platforms to carry it were not
available. The current force structure was too
costly to be maintained 'within any resource
allocation which our people can reasonably be
asked to afford' and the surface fleet, like the
carrier in 1966, was seen as the least critical
area in which reductions could be made.
In the Secretary of State's concept of
operations, submarines and maritime air power
provided the two most effective maritime
weapons systems; in terms of cost effectiveness
a surface fleet of the size and sophistication
required to meet the threat posed by the Warsaw
Pact could not be sustained. He did, however,
accept that the surface ship would remain
essential for a wide variety of tasks both in peace
and war, but its numbers were to be reduced.
Sir Henry Leach, who had succeeded Sir
Terence Lewin in 1979, was CNS during the
Nott Defence Review. The Royal Navy
presented a strong case for the need for maritime
power in general and the surface fleet in
particular but it was not accepted. Sir John Nott
publicly remarked some years after the Review
that 'he made every effort to obtain rational,
analytical and coherent answers from the Royal
Navy but normally failed to do so'. Like Dennis
Healey some 16 years earlier he found the Navy
to have great difficulty in expressing itself and
its cause in a format that he found convincing.
The proposed cuts were viewed with the utmost
dismay and concern by the Royal Navy and on
15 May 1981, Keith Speed, the US of S(RN)
and a former naval officer, made a speech in
which he publicly deplored the proposals, and
called for the maintenance of existing naval
strength. Shortly afterwards he was dismissed
from his post by the Prime Minister and not
replaced. His departure finally marked the end
of single service representation at ministerial
level, and two functional tri-service junior
ministers subsequently replaced the former three
single service posts.
The results of this shift of emphasis away
from the surface fleet were summarised in
Cmnd 8288. The new construction programme
was to proceed, but maintenance of the current
fleet required a massive, costly and continuing
programme of refit and modernisation backed
64
DEFENCE POLIC
by an expensive support organisation. A smaller
but more modern fleet with less expensive
overheads would give better value for money.
The SSN fleet was to be increased to 17, and
new SSKs were to be built. The new Ark Royal
was to be completed, but only two ships of the
class would be retained and the Hermes was to
be disposed of as soon as the second of the
'Invincible' class entered service. The number
of destroyers and frigates declared to NATO
was to be reduced from 59 to 50, the reduction
being achieved by disposal of older and more
manpower intensive ships such as the 'Leanders'
and surviving Type 12s, timed to avoid the need
for costly refits and modernisation. The
emphasis was to be on the new, and cheaper,
Type 23, whose capability would be cost-driven
and no more Type 42s were to be built; the
future of the Type 22 was left open. Mid-life
modernisation would cease. The three Royal
Marines Commandos would remain in being,
but HM Ships Intrepid and Fearless would be
phased out in 1982 and 1984 without
replacement. Mairitime Patrol Aircraft were
seen as a highly effective weapons system, and
the Nimrod fleet was to be augmented and
armed with Stingray. The maritime strike role
would be carried out by Buccaneers and,
possibly, Tornados.
The planned reduction in support facilities
included the closure of Chatham dockyard and
naval base, a major reduction in dockyard work
at Portsmouth and reduction to the status of a
naval base, and the closure of a number of oil
fuel and stores depots. The future of dockyard
facilities at Gibraltar remained uncertain, and
depended on the results of negotiations with the
Gibraltar government.
The growing world wide Soviet influence
made it increasingly necessary for NATO
countries to look at Western security concerns
outside the NATO boundaries. The Royal Navy
was seen as having an important role to play
in this area, the presence of RN ships on
Operation Armilla being quoted as an example.
Group deployments world wide were to
continue.
The Royal Navy set about restructuring the
Service in the light of the Secretary of State's
decisions. The aim was to achieve maximum
front line efficiency by absorbing the cuts
imposed by the Review as far as possible
elsewhere, eg dockyard closures, manpower
reductions, shift of training from shore to sea,
no modernisations for surface ships. However,
events moved swiftly in 1982 and the successful
campaign in the South Atlantic was to lead to
a number of changes to the decisions in Cmnd
8288.
The Falklands Campaign began on 2 April
1982 when Argentinian forces invaded the
Falkland Islands, and ended when the
Argentinian General Menendez surrendered at
Port Stanley on 14 June. The lessons learned
from the campaign were presented to Parliament
by the Secretary of State for Defence in
December 1982.
The conduct of the campaign had been
extremely successful, but there were, inevitably
after so long a period of peace, a number of
areas where improvements could be made, and
gaps in capability filled. In the maritime sphere
these included a lack of close range anti-aircraft
weaons, AEW aircraft and shallow water sonar,
and a need for measures to improve the
survivability of ships and reduce the spread of
smoke and fire. The SSN proved to be a most
effective deterrent, and after the sinking of the
General Belgrano by HMS Conquerer the
Argentine surface fleet effectively took no
further part in the campaign. A total of six ships
was lost, all to air launched weapons, either
bombs or air to surface missiles, and a number
of others were damaged. Of the six ships lost
four (HM Ships Shefield, Ardent, Antelope and
Coventry) were warships, one (Sir Galahad) a
RFA and one (Atlantic Conveyor) a merchant
ship taken up from trade.
Just as there was no declaration of war before
the invasion, so there was no agreement that
hostilities had ceased after the surrender of 14
June. Argentina was still perceived as posing
a serious threat to the Falkland Islands and a
naval task force in the surrounding seas had to
be maintained to deter further Argentinian
aggression. This involved, initially, a sizeable
naval force, both surface ships and submarines,
and included a carrier until improvements to
Port Stanley airfield enabled it to operate
Phantoms in October.
Cmnd 8758, in reviewing the effects of the
campaign, stressed that nothing learnt from the
DEFENCE POLICY 1945-1982 - I11
Falklands in any way invalidated the policy in
the 1981 Defence Review that the Warsaw Pact
continued to pose the main threat, and that the
British response to this threat must be the first
call on our defence resources. However,
following the campaign, we would now be
devoting substantially more of our resources to
defence than previously planned. The direct and
immediate results insofar as they affected the
Royal Navy were:
a. a reprieve for the two LPDs, HM
Ships Fearless and Intrepid, which were
to continue in service. They were noted as
having 'emphatically proved their worth
in the campaign3.
b. Two carriers were to be available for
deployment at short notice, necessitating
a total force of three. HMS Invincible was
not, therefore, to be sold, although HMS
Hermes was to leave the service.
c. The ice patrol ship, HMS Endurance,
whose future had been very uncertain, was
to be retained.
d. New Type 22 Frigates were to be
ordered to replace the two Type 42 and two
Type 21 Frigates lost. Three of these were
to be Batch 111s.
e. The number of front line destroyers
and frigates was to be increased from fifty
to 'about fifty-five', to meet the Falklands
commitments. Plans to reduce four ships
to the stand-by squadron would not now
be effected.
f. Replacement of battle losses of
aircraft and an additional purchase of Sea
Harriers and Sea Kings would be made.
Each operational carrier was to be given
an AEW capability in Sea Kings.
g. Various improvements to weapons
systems were to be made including the
fitting of point defence weapons in various
classes of ship.
Conclusion
During the 37 years covered by the paper the
status of the United Kingdom has changed from
that of a victorious first class power with major
world wide and imperial responsibilities to that
of a European power within the EEC with
limited resources and a reduced influence in
world affairs. This major change was the result
65
of political, economic and human factors beyond
our control. It is all too easy to look back with
nostalgia on the size and world wide role of the
fleet in the 1950s and 60s, and to compare it
unfavourably with the smaller and more limited
force of today, but when the magnitude of the
reduction in Britain's role is considered it should
be recognised that the Royal Navy has survived
the change remarkably well. As stated in the
introduction, defence policy in peace must be
based on the provision of armed forces to meet
political commitments at an affordable price,
and this, in general, has been achieved.
Although there have been a number of failures
and gaps in capability, we have maintained a
fleet to meet changing commitments which,
when compared to the naval forces of our
European allies, is out of proportion to our
economic capabilities. We have the second
largest navy in NATO, we continue to operate
maritime aircraft from carriers, we are the only
country in the alliance other than the USA to
provide a strategic nuclear deterrent, we have
a nuclear submarine fleet and our ships have
largely kept pace with changing technology and
are modern and well equipped. In the Falklands
war we demonstrated the ~~ofessional
capability
to conduct successful maritime owrations in a
region remote from base support. This is not
to suggest that all is perfect; it is not, but a very
great deal has been achieved in times of difficult
circumstances.
MEWSTONE
References
'Cmnd 8288, The United Kingdom Defence Programme The Way Forward (HMSO, 1981).
'Ibid.
'Ibid.
'Cmnd 8758, The Falklands Campaign - The Lessons
(HMSO, 1982).
66
DEFENCE POLICY 1945- 1982 - I11
DEFENCE POLICY 1945-1982 - I11
ANNEX B
ACTIVE UK ROYAL NAVY PERSONNEL IN THOUSANDS
(Including Royal Marines)
(as at 1st April each Year)
Men
120.1
123.0
125.6
135.5
133.7
121.0
114.2
106.6
102.7
97.8
95.8
93.7
91.9
91.0
92.3
94.1
95 .O
94.1
93.2
91.3
86.7
82.7
79.2
78.9
77.6
74.7
72.5
72.2
72.2
71.3
68.6
68.1
70.2
Women
7.3
6.0
5.4
5.1
5.2
5 .O
4.7
3.9
3.7
3.5
3.6
3.5
3.3
3.3
3.5
3.5
3.6
3.7
3.8
3.8
3.5
3.3
3.3
3.5
3.6
3.6
3.7
3.9
4.0
4.0
3.8
3.8
4.0
Servicemen
17.1
11.0
7.2
4.6
6.7
7.8
9.5
11.6
9.6
5.3
2.2
0.6
0.1
Total
144.5
140.0
138.2
145.2
145.6
133.8
128.4
122.1
116.0
106.6
101.6
97.8
95.3
94.3
95.8
97.6
98.6
97.8
97.0
95.1
90.2
86.0
82.5
82.4
81.2
78.3
76.2
76.1
76.2
75.3
72.4
71.9
74.2
DEFENCE POLICY 1945-1982
-
111
ANNEX C
MAJOR EVENTS - 1945-1983
Labour Government elected to power
under Mr Clement Attlee.
Establishment of single Cabinet Defence
of concerned Ministers and Chiefs of
staff under a Minister of Defence
Western European Defence Organisation
established
USSR produces its own nuclear weapon
Formation of NATO
Start of 1950 Re-Armament programme
Korean War begins
Conservative Government elected to
power under Mr Winston Churchill
Britain carries out successful nuclear
tests at Monte Bello Islands
Korean War ends
USA, followed shortly by USSR,
carries out successful trials of thermonuclear weapons
Mr Anthony Eden becomes Prime
Minister
America and West Indies Command
abolished. C.-in-C. AWI replaced by
Senior Naval Officer West Indies
Suez campaign
Mr Harold MacMillan becomes Prime
Minister and appoints Mr Duncan
Sandys as Minister of Defence
The 'Sandys' Defence Review
Britain carries out successful trials of
thermo-nuclear weapon
East Indies Command abolished
Unified Command established in Middle
East Command
Nore Command abolished. C.-in-C.
Nore replaced by F. 0 . Medway
Unified Command established in Far East
Nassau agreement. USA agrees to
provide UK with Polaris missile system
Confrontation with Indonesia begins
Creation of unified Ministry of Defence
Labour Government elected to power
under Mr Harold Wilson with Mr
Dennis Healey as Secretary of State for
Defence
The 'Healey' Defence Review
France withdraws from NATO military
structure
Confrontation with Indonesia ends
Mediterranean command abolished.
C.-in-C. Mediterranean replaced by
Flag Officer Malta. C.-in-C. Home
Fleet becomes C.-in-C. Western Fleet
with full command of ships west of Suez.
NATO Ministers agree to formation of
STANAVFORLANT
NATO replaces 'tripwire strategy' with
'flexible response'
Middle East command abolished on
withdrawal from Aden. Flag Officer
Middle East replaced by Commander
Naval Forces Gulf in Bahrain
South Atlantic and South America
command abolished
Prime Minister announces plans to withdraw from East of Suez by end of 1971
F l l l A purchase cancelled
Posts of Cs-in-C. Portsmouth and
Plymouth abolished and replaced by
Area Flag officers. New post of C.-inC. Naval Home Command established
RN Polaris force assumes responsibility
for nuclear deterrent from RAF
Conservative Government elected to
power under Mr Edward Heath with
Lord Carrington as Secretary of State
for Defence
Withdrawal from Far East and Persian
Gulf. Posts of C.-in-C. Western Fleet
and Commander Far East Fleet replaced
by Commander-in-Chief Fleet with full
command of seagoing fleet. Post of
Commander Naval Forces Gulf abolished
Labour Government under Mr Harold
Wilson elected to power with Mr Roy
Mason as Secretary of State for Defence
The 'Mason' Defence Review
Post of Senior Naval Officer West
Indies abolished
Mr James Callaghan becomes Prime
Minister
Closure of Malta Naval Base. Post of
FO Malta abolished
Conservative Government elected to
power under Mrs Margaret Thatcher
with Mr Francis Pyni as Secretary of
State for Defence
Decision announced to replace Polaris
with Trident
Mr John Nott replaces Mr Francis Pym
as Secretary of State for Defence
The 1981 'Nott' Defence Review
The Falklands Conflict
The Peace Dividend
RITISH spending on defence sharply
B
declined after World War I, and the world
entered a long period of relative peace. When
dividend is needed to help restore it. However.
reduced defence spending exaggerates the down
turn of the economy in defence related
industries.
It was the Callaghan government which
committed Britain to meet NATO's target of 3 %
annual real growth in the defence budget. The
Thatcher government took up this policy. The
result was that between 1978 and 1985 the
Defence budget grew by some 47% in real
terms. Even after the Thatcher administration
abandoned that policy, the Defence budget
continued to grow. This is in sharp contrast to
the problems facing British defence
programmers and planners today
The average growth in the Defence budget
for the sixteen years from 1979 was about 9%
annually in cash terms. This is largely as we
might expect. since the general rate of inflation
used by the Treasury for most of this period was
about 5 % , and inflation in the defence industry
is held to be above the general rate of inflation.
As the graph (upper line, figure I ) shows, had
war clouds gathered once more over Europe,
the Baldwin and Chamberlain governments
resisted calls for rearmament in large part
because they believed that such a programme
would ruin the British economy. Even when the
need for rearmament was accepted, the
government of the day moderated that
programme with a policy of appeasement. They
feared that even if Britain were to emerge
victorious from another world war, the effect
on Britain's world position, and on the domestic
economy, would be devastating. '
We might draw parallels with today's
situation. Britain, allied in NATO with Europe
and North America, has recently won a major
war, the Cold War. But the victory is a Pyrrhic
one. Spending on defence during the Cold War
distorted the economy and has left Britain poorly
placed to compete in civil markets. The
economy is in desperate decline. and a peace
Defence spending
in cash terms
EB
Financial year beginning April
-
PESO2
-I-
*3W
I
++PESO1
1
Figure 1
69
70
THE PEACE DIVIDEND
Defence spending 1978 to 1995
Historical comparison - cash terms
CB
Y
30
5
-.....
...............-- .-
"
"
.
"
....... . .
"
GNP
.
6
1
o " " " l " l " l l l '
0
79 80 81 82 83 84 85 86 87 88 89 90 91 92 93 94 96
I
-
Year
Defence CB
+Defence
% QNP
I
Figure 2
the Defence budget continued to increase at even
a modest 3% annually, it would have exceeded
£30 billion by the end of the century. Options
for Change enabled the government to agree
much revised figures for the budget and these
were announced in last year's Public
Expenditure Settlement (PES91). After PES9 1,
the Ministry of Defence assumed only a very
small growth in its budget, some 0.75% and this
is shown in the graph too (middle line).
The latest revision of cash plans for the
Defence budget contained in Public Expenditure
Settlement 1992 (PES92) announced on 12
November 1992 are shown on the third, lowest
line of figure 1. This line assumes no growth
in the Defence budget at all. Together the lines
show that, compared to expectations only a few
years ago, the Defence budget will have some
£8 billion per annum less available to it by the
year 2000. Even compared to expectations of
one year ago, within three years the planners
must take some additional £2 billion p.a. out
of their programmes. This is a very steep task
indeed and one can only speculate what the
consequences must be for the shape and size of
British armed forces.
The share of the Gross National Product
(GNP) must also be taken into account. The
second graph (figure 2) shows the actual cash
budget from 1979 up to the end of the PES92
period, in 1995. It shows the Defence budget
both in billions of pounds sterling and as a
percentage of the GNP. The cusp year was
1987. Until then the budget was more or less
steady at about 5 % of GNP. Since then it has
been in steady decline, and is likely to reach
3.2 % in 1995. That represents a peace dividend
of nearly 40 % .
The contrast between the 1980s and 1990s is
very sharp indeed. For all of the previous decade
the Defence budget was growing: for most of
the 1990s it will be contracting under
inflationary pressure and as a
of
GNP. A reducing budget gives rise to difficult
enough circumstances. Considering the threats
in the world to peace and stability, perhaps we
should agree that the present peace dividend is
a sufficient return on the nation's investment in
defence.
P. G. HORE
CAPTAIN.
RN
Reference
'Chalmers. British Economic Drcline: the Contribution of
Milircrr?. Spending.
Options for Change
or
just a case of M=f [KE-W'+st+hl?
post battle, followed by slow decline until the
cycle builds again. All we have to do is match
these empirically derived trends with a
mathematical function which follows 'the LINE'
(see below) and before your very eyes, a
Defence Strategy emerges at the twiddle of a
cursor. (Figure below shows the relationship
between the actual manpower numbers post
WW1 and the prediction using the LINE
formula). Having decided how many men
you're going to have, all you then need to do
is decide what to do with them. What could be
simpler . . . and before you ask, yes, the formula
holds good whatever the circumstances; the
period post 1762 (the Spanish Wars), Waterloo
(the RN remained at 'post Trafalgar' levels until
1814), and both World Wars.
So, hats off to Pythagoras, Apollonius,
Babbage, et al. It's high time we acknowledged
that our Defence Strategy is built on sound,
mathematical logic. Let's admit we're planning
to 'the LINE' (Law of INEvitability). After all,
it's high time we all saw the colour of the log
tables in DN Plans!
M=f[Ke-wt+st+h]
where: M =Total Manpower (Trained &
Untrained)
f =Peak Manpower
K =50,000
w =wane factor (-0.9)
t =time (yrs) since conflict
s =smaller but better factor (- 1.5)
h =hayday factor (130,000)
RUBBERDAGGER
HE news that there is to be closer
T
collaboration between the two great and
learned journals, The Naval Review and The
Journal of Naval Engineering, has presented an
opportunity, perhaps for the first time, to lay
a ghost.
Many readers of the former may have
developed the view that the eventual size of the
Navy will be a function of defence policy,
political expediency and some carefully crafted
strategic thought. After all, there has been no
shortage of cogent, persuasive articles in the NR
over the last couple of years. Readers of the
latter, of course, would be astonished by this
naivety. They, as always in times of difficulty,
will have reached for the trusty slide rule
(maintained at extended readiness (case
permitting) in a perfect state) and without a
second's deliberation, calculated the size of the
navy, year on year, for every year until the onset
of the next major conflict. Having taken but
minutes to reach their conclusions, these
wizened grease monkeys will pass the rest of
the time wondering what all the fuss is about
and furthermore, just what the hundreds of staff
with MB extensions think they are up to.
But how can this be? Who is the guardian of
the formula; is the Secretary of State a covert
mathematician? Well, he may be, but as with
all things, the answer lies in history. Since 1760
(but probably even earlier), the size of the Navy
(in terms of number of ships and/or manpower)
shows a simple and most understandable trend:
rapid build up for a crisis, peak, sharp decline
Naval Manpower
post conflict
--
-
---
by LINE formula
0.7
\
Actual Manpower post WW1
0
Years from Conflict
formula + Actual
71
1
Hurricanes to Egypt
(A version of this article jirst appecwed in Aeroplane Monthly, to whom
acknowledgements are due - Editor)
HAVE had a soft spot for aircraft carriers
Iboardever
since I was taken as a schoolboy on
Courageous in Portsmouth during Navy
Week in the early 1930s. The Fairey IIIFs and
Flycatchers ranged on deck were a source of
wonder to someone already smitten, as I was,
with the flying bug. Argus, Glorious and Eagle
were familiar sights at Spithead in those golden
days and I once had an extremely close view
of furious faces in Furious as I took emergency
action in a Wyllie class dinghy to get out of its
way. This was also a time when the prototype
Swordfish (TSR2) came to grief in a hedge at
Gosport, when Lieutenant Horsley spread his
Baffin over the foredeck of the French liner
Nomandie and when the submarine M2 was lost
tragically with all hands - together with her
Parnall Peto seaplane. A former captain of M2
once told me that he was inclined to regard his
boat as an aircraft carrier rather than a
submarine.
More formal association with the Royal Navy
came for me in the late 1930s when I joined a
general reconnaissance (GR) squadron of
Coastal Command. The atmosphere during my
time at Leuchars in Scotland still carried faint
overtones of its earlier life as a Fleet Air Arm
station. One or two old hands persisted in a run
ashore when we went into St. Andrews to play
golf, gin and onions flowed liberally in the mess
at weekends and naval aviators flew in from
nearby Donibristle and elsewhere knowing they
would get a particularly good lunch. There was
a rumour on the station that a ghostly IIIF could
sometimes be seen being launched from the
defunct catapult which sat rusting on the edge
of the tarmac.
Early days of the war
Then came the early days of the war in the North
Sea and off Norway in our American-built
Lockheed Hudsons. This period frequently gave
rise to incidents which tested the close and
amiable relationship between our two Services.
'Friendly fire' it would be called today;
counsellors would pile in and families would
demand detailed enquiries. Not so then - it
would be a matter of a hasty colour-of-the-day
from the Very pistol, the undercarriage going
up and down like a yoyo and the Aldis lamp
flashing madly. Knowing the penchant of HM
ships for ecclesiastical exchanges, one chap
always carried a bible in his aircraft so that he
could drive home his recognition signals with
a well-chosen text. Had he known, as he closed
the cruiser Suffolk under attack off Norway on
17 April, 1940, the one about: 'Knock, knock
. . . a long way to China,' he might well have
flashed that as well.
A little later in that April three of us turned
into Romsdal Fjord at low-level on our way to
the evacuation port of Aandalsnes, only to be
greeted in the customary 'friendly' manner by
the AA cruiser Curacao lying alongside below
the town. In the ensuing melee, joined by the
Norwegian guns on the quay, I was thoroughly
peppered and my Number 2 shot down. I
eventually ran Curacao's Major of Marines to
ground a year or two later in the Union Bar in
klexandria and the counselling on that occasion
was quite lively.
In June four of us had a go at the battle-cruiser
Scharnhorst with her screen of destroyers and
torpedo-boats off the coast of Norway. Out
came the Aldis lamp and we flashed a courteous
'Guten morgen'. However, they were not fooled
and a German report of the action recorded that
900 rounds of 4.1 " and 1200 of 3.1 " were fired
at us - and at Beauforts attacking below - by
Scl~urnhorstalone. As the flak came up to our
perch 10,000 feet above the ships, my co-pilot
wondered if an ecclesiastical message might put
a stop to it - or maybe something like: '. . .
a long way to Wilhelmshafen'. Perhaps Captain
Hoffman would have appreciated it and he might
well have replied by lamp that it was a long way
back to Scotland - especially on one engine for those of us who survived the attack.
To Victorious
I make no excuse for this preamble to an article
about Hurricanes to Egypt. Its purpose is to
HURRICANES TO EGYPT
demonstrate that it was not altogether surprising
- after this early association with naval affairs
- that my arrival on board the carrier Victorious
in Scapa Flow in May, 1941, was not too much
of a shock to the system.
The task of Victorious was to ferry two
squadrons of RAF Hurricanes to a point in the
Western Mediterranean from where they would
fly off to Malta and thence to Egypt. Before
describing the chain of events, it might be
helpful to touch on the background and run-up
to the operation which - for those in my
squadron whose knowledge of the sea and ships
was confined to bucket-and-spade holidays gave rise to a feeling of mild apprehension.
The development of the air war in the Middle
East in 1940-41 has been recorded in detail by
a number of eminent historians. In particular,
Philip Guedalla - in his book Middle East,
1940-42, A Study of Air Power - gives a wideranging account of the part played by the fighter
squadrons of the RAF and the urgent need for
their reinforcement - notably in Malta, the
Western Desert and up in Palestine and Iraq.
At first, this reinforcement was with Hurricanes
from the United Kingdom and it was carried out
in two ways. They were either sailed through
the Mediterranean in aircraft carriers or shipped
to Takoradi on the West Coast of Africa before
flying some 3,800 miles across the African
continent to Khartoum and thence up the Nile
to Egypt. Ferrying them the whole way by air
was regarded as impracticable, although an
experimental idea had been put forward earlier
for a disposable top wing which would serve
as a long-range fuel tank. The possibility of
towing Hurricanes behind long-range aircraft
had also been explored. Perhaps wisely, these
curious proposals had been discarded and the
eventual reinforcement plan was based on the
methods outlined above. These arrangements
were expanded later for the Spitfires,
Tomahawks, Kittyhawks and Martlets which
would follow from America, the UK and
elsewhere as the build-up and re-equipment of
the fighter squadrons proceeded.
I had the opportunity to fly a Hurricane over
both routes, secure in the knowledge that I could
not possibly be let down - over the sea, the
rain forests of Nigeria or the inhospitable terrain
of Chad and the Sudan - by the Rolls-Royce
73
machinery purring away in front. This is an
account of one of the two methods of delivery
which, as I mentioned above, was by courtesy
of the Royal Navy to a point at the western end
of the Mediterranean.
We were a Hurricane squadron (No.238) on
the small Fighter Command airfield of
Chilbolton in Hampshire, far from the events
unfolded by Philip Guedalla in his book. The
squadron had been in the thick of the Battle of
Britain, under the inspired leadership of
Squadron Leader H. A. Fenton, and it was
destined for a spell in the Middle East. It was
now April, 1941, and I had joined from another
Hurricane squadron which had welcomed me
earlier - albeit with mild astonishment - as
a renegade from Coastal Command. My
previous experiences over the fleet - ours and
theirs - had persuaded me that it was time to
do a little shooting myself.
The normal sounds in the crew-room of people
at 'readiness' - snoozing after the activities of
the previous evening, the shuffle of cards, the
click of Monopoly and so forth - were disturbed
one morning by the arrival of a small Group
Captain from Air Ministry. He was to reveal
details of our impending departure for Egypt.
In simple terms, the squadron air party would
embark in an aircraft carrier at Rosyth and sail
off for the Mediterranean. Then, at a prearranged point of departure, we would fly off
the carrier, join up with an escort and bowl along
in formation to Malta and Egypt. Meanwhile,
the squadron ground party would go by sea to
South Africa and then make its way by train and
air to Egypt.
A couple of 'scrambles' later, we stood down
from readiness and stumbled to the mess in a state
of considerable shock. As a start, it was agreed
that naval routine should be instituted forthwith,
so horse's necks and gins were set up. Flying
Ofticer Morgan, our tame soldier seconded from
3rd Hussars, began to think of returning
immediately to the Army but we persuaded him
of the folly of such a move. The married officers
looked a bit glum at first, although they
brightened up when the implications of a trip to
the hypnotic East began to sink in. The squadron
adjutant was detailed to take the ground party
round by the Cape, while the rest of us would
form the air party to join the carrier.
74
HURRICANES TO EGYPT
It was one of those Hampshire mornings in
May with fine-weather cumulus moving softly
across an expanse of blue and not a vapour-trail
to be seen. The fat trout in the Test were chasing
the first of the mayfly and one or two lucky
people were taking time off from the war to fill
their baskets. A few wives and girl friends had
formed up on Andover station to see us off on
the slow journey to Scotland. A second
Hurricane squadron (No.260), commanded by
Squadron Leader C. J . Mount, joined us in
Edinburgh, where we were surprised to be told
that our carrier had sailed from Rosyth for Scapa
Flow. So we all puffed our way by train on up
to 'the spacious melancholy of Caithness', as
Eric Linklater put it, before coming to rest in
the port of Scrabster; casting off from there, as
generations of the Royal Navy had done before
us, we bore down on our temporary home for
the next few weeks - the aircraft carrier
Victorious, lying silent and grey in the Flow
with the other ships of the Home Fleet.
We must have seemed a pretty curious lot to
those of the ship's company who had assembled
to welcome us. Victorious was a new ship and
was still working up, so our arrival on board
must have been a headache for Captain Bovell
and his executive officers. The embarked Fleet
Air Arm Swordfish squadron and a flight of
Fulmars were also new to the ship, having only
just arrived themselves from Hatston. There
were plenty of singular characters amongst
them, including the gallant Lieutenant
Commander Eugene Esmonde - later to
receive a posthumous VC for his action against
Scharnhorst in The Channel - and Lieutenant
Frank Furlong who won the Grand National on
Reynoldstown in 1935.
The aircraft lifts in the ship were too small
to accommodate an assembled Hurricane, so our
aircraft had already been taken apart and stowed
in the hangar with engines 'inhibited' while not
in use. Flight Lieutenant E. J. Morris and I
shared a cabin aft over the thundering screws
and its number - 109, as with the German
fighter - was a gentle reminder that we were
on our way to some serious business and not
in the ship for a luxury cruise.
The ship sailed to continue its work-up in the
Pentland Firth and we were allotted a viewing
position on the goofers' platform in the island.
That was our vantage point for most of the
voyage and it was from there that we watched
the bows go round as the ship turned into wind
for flying-on, leaving a curving wake of cream
and green shimmering into the hulls of the
escorting destroyers. The sparkling waters of
the firth, against a backcloth of the mountains
and crags of Sutherland, were a breathtaking
sight on those pale blue days of gunnery shoots
and flying. The prototype of that remarkable
naval aeroplane the Barracuda made its debut
on the flight deck and all were astonished when
it demonstrated its prowess with some low-level
slow rolls with torpedo attached. My wife, who
was a Wren officer at Macrihanish and secretary
to the Commander Flying, occasionally flew in
the back of a Barracuda. She has a disgraceful
song about the aircraft and can produce a
passable rendering to this day.
Bismarck
Meanwhile, matters of supreme importance
were shaping up in the Home Fleet at anchor in
Scapa Flow. Air reconnaissance had revealed
that the battleship Bismarck, and her cruiser
escort Prinz Eugen, had left their Norwegian
replenishment base and were at sea.
Accordingly, as soon as Victorious returned to
Scapa Flow from her exercises in the Pentland
Firth, she found herself preparing to sail with
Admiral Sir John Tovey and the Home Fleet in
pursuit of the German ships. This action against
Bismarck - and the part played in it by
Victoriousand her embarked Fleet Air Arm units
- has been recorded comprehensively
elsewhere. We, in the two Hurricane squadrons,
took no operational part in the affair because,
as I have already pointed out, our aeroplanes
were stowed in pieces in the hangar. At one point
there was a move to assemble some and range
them on deck but fortunately that wheeze was
swiftly discarded. It is impossible to imagine
how we could have contributed to the action other than in a doubtful reconnaissance role and we should in any case have been thoroughly
in the way of the Fleet Air Arm operations. In
any event, none of us had flown from a carrier
before and the Hurricanes had no hooks for
landing back on - although Hurricanes without
hooks had landed on in emergency from Norway
on the ill-fated carrier Glorious.
HURRICANE:S TO EGYPT
Victorious sailed in pursuit of the German
ships on 23 May, 1941, in company with the
other ships of the Home Fleet. In the carrier
were 48 petrified RAF pilots, wearing their Mae
Wests most of the time and resigned to the
likelihood of a salvo of 15" shells carving their
way through the toast and marmalade at
breakfast. We did our best to keep out of the
way of everyone else and shared with the ship's
company shock at the damage to Prince of Wales
and horror and sadness at the loss of Hood. At
the same time, we gave moral support to the
Fleet Air Arm crews who operated in filthy
weather and whose professional skill and
courage in the action were quite unbelievable.
There were few who were not stirred by the sight
of Esmonde and his observer Lieutenant
Ennever quietly slipping away in the first
Swordfish - from a rolling and pitching flight
deck and in conditions of fading light, drizzle
and low cloud - to strike at Bismarck at
midnight some 100 miles from us. The
subsequent recovery of the striking force seemed
little short of a miracle.
Our stowed aircraft survived the tremendous
seas as we pounded along south of Iceland at
28 knots, giving a rise and fall to the flight deck
of some 60 feet. This was really only appreciated
by Morgan and Furlong, the two steeplechasing
horse-copers, who were inclined to go on a bit
about Becher's Brook. It certainly was not
appreciated by one Swordfish pilot returning
from an AS patrol with depth-charges hanging
from his wings. Misjudging the moment to
engage the arrester-wire, he swept off his
undercarriage and the aircraft slid across the
deck with sparks flying from the depth-charges.
There were a few white RAF faces on the
goofers' platform at that moment.
Victorious eventually sailed into the Clyde
after her part in the chase. The bows needed to
be inspected - twisted in the heavy seas - and
she had to re-victual and replenish with fuel. She
then sailed as part of a convoy before breaking
away to Gibraltar and the Mediterranean.
To Gibraltar
After the excitement of the Bismarck affair, the
voyage to Gibraltar was pleasant and uneventful,
although there must have been a good scattering
of U-boats in the area. In fact, a dream target
75
for any U-boat captain was set up as we drew
south of Cape St. Vincent and shaped a course
for the Straits of Gibraltar. We were joined by
the carriers Argus and Furious, empty from an
earlier delivery of fighters, together with Ark
Royal which was due to join us at Gibraltar and
take off 260 Squadron. The four ships sailed
together for a while and formed a picture which
must have been quite rare in naval circles. Argus
and Furious then broke away to sail home while
we carried on to Gibraltar with Ark Royal. As
we secured at the detached mole in Gibraltar,
it was clear that our holiday cruise and was now
over and life would begin again for us in earnest.
The ship moved later astern of Ark Royal and
a wooden ramp was laid fore-and-aft between
the flight decks of the two carriers. 24
Hurricanes of 260 Squadron were brought up
on deck, assembled and wheeled across to Ark
Royal under the watchful gaze of the two
Commanders Flying - Ranald and Sholto
Douglas. Our own aircraft were also brought
up and ranged on deck and, during the ensuing
two days, hoisted down to the jetty for compassswinging.
While the aircraft were being prepared, some
fairly hard talking was going on between the two
RAF Squadron Commanders and the naval
authorities. Everyone was pretty jumpy about
capital ships penetrating the Mediterranean especially two carriers, each of which, so to
speak, had one arm behind its back because of
transit aircraft ranged on deck. It was no place
for them to be in 1941 without adequate air
cover. Moreover, a daily visitor to Gibraltar was
a Vichy French Maryland which flew across
from North Africa to take pictures of the ships
in the harbour. The original intention was that
our Hurricanes would be led to Malta by the
embarked Fulmars but the moderate range of
the Fulmars meant that Force H -of which we
were now part - would need to sail well
eastwards into the Mediterranean. Vice Admiral
Sir James Somerville, Flag Officer Force H, was
not at all happy with this and said so vigorously.
As a result, it was proposed that we should sail
at night and fly off in the dark.
Having only just recovered, thanks to liberal
quantities of duty-free gin, from the shock of
chasing Bismarck, we reeled again; this time at
the idea of being cast into the night sky to join
76
HURRICANES TO EGYPT
up in formation, to fly some 700 miles and arrive
- if we ever got that far - on the island of Malta
in the middle of one of her nightly air raids.
When the Squadron Commanders argued against
this plan as being quite impracticable - although
they themselves were quite prepared to go there were some pointed remarks about lack of
courage and discipline. One or two people
suggested that the Fleet Air Arm would have
been quite happy to fall in with the idea. As a
result the two Squadron Commanders were
summoned to see the Admiral and they too spoke
up vigorously. They felt bound to advise him
that this nocturnal scheme had the makings of
a shambles of the first water - particularly as
none of us had flown from a carrier before and,
in any event, a number of our pilots were fresh
from training units. They emphasised that, in
their opinion, the whole operation to deliver 48
badly-needed Hurricanes to the Middle East
could be seriously prejudiced if the plan were
to go ahead. The Admiral took account of their
views and was big enough to concede the point
with good humour over a glass of gin, although
others less senior were not so happy.
It was finally agreed that the ships would sail
in daylight to a point about halfway between
Majorca and Algiers. A Hudson squadron,
which was passing through Gibraltar en route
to West Africa, was directed to provide
navigational escorts for the two squadrons.
When the escorts had made rendezvous, the
Hurricanes would fly off and point eastwards
to Malta. It was made abundantly clear to us that,
the moment the last pair of wheels had left the
deck, the ships would alter 180 degrees and
hurry back to Gibraltar. We were briefed that
we would have about a quarter of an hour to get
back on the carrier - probably downwind in the event of a technical malfunction. One
likely failure, apart from the usual things which
happen to aeroplanes and their electronics when
they sit on the ground in pieces for any length
of time, would be in the fixed long-range tanks
under the wing. Fuel was fed from these tanks
by integral electric pumps which could only be
properly tested in the air. Failure of a pump
meant that there would be insufficient fuel to get
to Malta. The first half hour or so of the flight
was the period in which to find this out. If it was
too late to land back on a carrier, pilots were
instructed to make for the North African coast
and fall into the arms of the Vichy French. This
was not an attractive prospect as Commander
Charles Lamb was to discover, in different
circumstances, when he cast up there in a
Swordfish.
Flying off to Malta
14 June 1941 was a typical early summer
Mediterranean day - bright and clear with a
slight chop on the water. We had sailed from
Gibraltar with a battleship and destroyer escort
and were now almost ready to fly off. The ship's
Navigating Officer had given us a wind for the
flight and we had been fully briefed about
landing back on, falling into the sea, diversion
to North Africa, the appearance of enemy
fighters and so on. Unlike Spitfires - which
were also ferried through the Mediterranean by
carrier and could jettison their long-range tanks
in emergency - our Hurricanes were fitted with
two large fixed tanks under the wing. The
unexpected arrival of grinning enemy fighter
pilots would therefore not have been at all
welcome. Our gear had been crammed into all
available spaces in the aircraft and the time had
come to say goodbye to our naval hosts who
would now be taking their turn up on the island
to watch the fun and cheer us on our way.
Walking across the flight deck to my
aeroplane, bending against the stiff breeze and
getting a familiar whiff of sulphurous fumes
from the funnel, reminded me that I had not
flown for a month. Neither had I flown a
Hurricane at all with full long-range tanks.
There would be no quick familiarisation flight.
In off the deep-end was the cry, although not,
one hoped, in the full sense of the expression.
I cocked a baleful eye at our Fleet Air Arm
friends - Shaw, McEwen, Harrington and
others - who were jeering and gesticulating
from the goofers' platform with mock signs of
entering the water. The deck was heeling over
and the screws thumping as the ship came round
into wind. The Flight Deck Officer waved his
little flag like the guard on Andover station a
few weeks before, propellers started to turn and
23 Merlin engines coughed and spluttered into
life. The 24th remained silent and unserviceable
below in the hangar. Our Squadron Commander
lined up and was away. 'Keep straight down
HURRICANES TO EGYPT
77
the middle,' they had said, 'and all will be well'.
I joined the queue as, one after another, our
aircraft cleared the flight deck. We all circled
for a few minutes in strict radio silence, gaining
height like ducks put up from their feeding,
before setting off in a loose gaggle behind our
Hudson escort. As had been predicted, the ships
turned about during our climb and, as we set
course, our comfortable home was high-tailing
back to port. It had really all been quite
straightforward, although most of us felt a little
strange at suddenly being thrust into the air over
a large expanse of sea after a month of relative
idleness. No doubt the two carrier Captains and
their Commanders Flying heaved an enormous
sigh of relief.
Malta lay some 650 miles ahead and there was
no trouble during this first leg of the flight to
Egypt, except that one of our sergeant pilots had
the dreaded long-range tank trouble and diverted
smartly to North Africa and internment. For the
remainder, the Hudson led us south of Sardinia
and, with the North African coast beginning to
emerge from the haze, we dived to sea-level
abreast of Bizerta and Cape Bon before entering
the Sicilian Narrows. The enemy islands of
Lampedusa and Pantellaria were close on either
side of our track and we had been warned to
be prepared for enemy fighters from these
islands. In any event, we had no wish to be
picked up by the French radar on Cape Bon.
All was strangely quiet, although the Hudson
made a pretty fair attempt to lead us smack over
Pantellaria. A last-minute swerve enabled us to
negotiate the island at wave-top height until a
welcome brown fudge on the horizon shaped
up into the rocky coasts of Gozo and Malta.
Willing hands appeared as we taxied in at Luqa
and the aircraft were quickly stowed into bombprotected pens for immediate preparation for the
next stage of the flight. 260 Squadron, flying
from Ark Royal, were not so lucky. Their
Hudson escort missed Malta altogether and, by
the time they turned back to find the island, the
Hurricanes were short of fuel. Two fell into the
sea and a third crashed during its approach to
land.
defence of Malta but there was no move to do
this. The aircraft were therefore made ready as
planned for departure the following day. The
second stage of the flight to Egypt was not
entirely without incident. My squadron split into
two parties, one setting off from Malta shortly
before the other. I was in the first formation and
we were given a Wellington navigational escort
which happened to be passing through Malta and
was fresh from a training unit. This aircraft rose
steeply up from Luqa like a lift and we all had
the greatest difficulty in keeping station. It then
took us straight to Crete which had just fallen
into the hands of General Student and his
airborne forces. Realising their blunder at the
last minute, the Wellington crew chose to make
a steep climbing turn into cloud and this
introduced a further note of chaos into the
Hurricane formation. My aeroplane had clearly
had enough of it all. The laws of aerodynamics
took charge and we tumbled out of the cloud
into the haze below. Nobody else was in sight,
so I put on my Coastal Command hat and set
course alone for North Africa. My fuel ran out
after 6% hours in the air and I carried out an
exciting forced-landing in the desert some ten
miles short of our destination staging-post. The
remainder of the squadron arrived at the stagingpost at about the same time, having crossed the
coast in enemy-held territory and flown over
several enemy fighter airfields. The Wellington
was not seen again after Crete which was
probably just as well.
The second half of the squadron was ordered
back to Malta after a false start and it set off
again the next day. They were led by a
Wellington fitted with an enormous anti-mine
degaussing ring driven by a Ford engine in the
fuselage. In addition, the pilot was an extremely
portly
officer.
Halfway
across the
Mediterranean an engine of the Wellington
failed and the whole contraption fell into the sea.
Flight Lieutenant Morris, leading the
Hurricanes, decided to press on the whole 1,000
miles to the Nile Delta in Egypt and the
formation arrived there in good order - as did
260 Squadron from Ark Royal.
Second stage to Egypt
AOC Malta must have been sorely tempted to
cream off some of the Hurricanes for the
Conclusion
The aircraft carrier operations, ferrying
Hurricanes and Spitfires through the
78
HURRICANES TO EGYPT
Mediterranean in 1941, were a vital factor in
the survival of Malta and in countering the buildup of Luftwaffe aircraft in North Africa which
started in earnest in February, 1941. For our
part in Victorious and Ark Royal, the majority
of Hurricanes were delivered as planned although luck was very much on our side. There
was no time to offload the Hurricanes at Scapa
Flow before the Bismarck chase, so it was a
great relief to arrive in the Mediterranean
unscathed by major surface forces and U-boats.
Thereafter, our flight to Egypt could well have
been seriously prejudiced if enemy fighters had
reacted in the Sicilian Narrows, off Crete or
over the Western Desert and it was quite
astonishing that they did not appear. It must also
be said in retrospect that planning and staff work
- particularly over the escort arrangements were surprisingly haphazard in view of the
importance of the operation.
We made good friends in Victorious and were
to continue to rub shoulders with the Royal
Navy when my squadron took up its operational
role in the Western Desert. The Royal Naval
Fighter Squadron (RNFS) flew its Martlets with
us-and many hours were spent sitting over the
destroyers on the exposed western sector of the
Alexandria-Tobruk run. By this time I was
commanding my Hurricane squadron and I
established a happy relationship with the
destroyer Farndale each time she secured in
Tobruk. Her Captain, Commander Stephen
Carlill, was always delighted to see us on board
for gin and hot baths and this was a most
welcome relief from the rigours of our spartan
existence in the desert. He was equally kind later
in Malta, where he was Captain (D) in Quilliam,
to those of us who by then were swooping about
in Spitfires.
I began this article on a nostalgic note, so I
shall end with a little light relief. Who, amongst
the readers of The Naval Review, has flown twoup in a Sea Gladiator? I keep this episode up
my sleeve as a counter to my wife if she is
tempted to go on about the rear seat of
Barracudas and Swordfishes at Macrihanish and
St. Merryn. While a gallant lieutenant
commander (A) - the owner of the Sea
Gladiator - sat on the fully-lowered seat and
operated the rudder-bar, I perched on his knee
and manipulated the throttle and stick. We thus
bowled alone in fine style on leave from
Palestine up to Lebanon. It was a perfect
example of the kind of inter-Service cooperation we enjoyed in Victorious. They were
great days and, as my naval neighbour in
Yorkshire distributes gin on Sunday mornings,
one occasionally remembers them and wonders
if the present Service generation has as much
fun as we did - mildly startled though we were
from time to time.
H. F. O'NEILL
GROUPCAPTAIN,
RAF
Boarding Officer
was September 1939. I was Sub in the
ITFleet
Destroyer Javelin. We were carrying
out an offensive sweep in the Southern North
Sea with C.S.2 in HMS Southampton. Admiral
Collins was a tough egg and a stickler for good
station-keeping and correct behaviour of ships
on the screen.
We had heard the rather tremulous voice of
Neville Chamberlain announcing that, 'a state
of war now exists as a result of Herr Hitler's
invasion of Poland'. Hitler was a bad thineu and
having heard his ravings at the Jews on the radio
we all realised he was a mad thing.
Extraordinary it was the way the Hitler youth
allowed themselves to be led to destruction by
this little moustachioed madman. The German
race must have a screw loose to be so taken in
by such a little freak.
Anyway, here we were steaming along on a
calm September afternoon. Searching the seas
for U-boats or German ships up to no good.
'Ship bearing red 45' the port lookout sang
out from the Crow's nest. We were nothing if
not keen in these very early days of war.
Binoculars were trained on the stranger and a
sighting report was flashed to C.S.2 who was
centre ship of the screen.
'~nvestigate and report'. Our Captain,
Commander Anthony Pugsley, altered course
towards the stranger, increased speed to 30
knots and ordered 'Action Stations'.
The Captain turned to me and said, 'Sub, take
a boarding party in the whaler; you will find
an automatic in the top drawer of my desk in
my sea-cabin with a few rounds. You can
borrow it, but for god's sake keep the lanyard
round your neck - all the time and don't be
too trigger-happy !'
'Your job is to search the ship and question
the Captain so that we can tell C.S.2 what the
ship is doing, where she is bound etc.'
Steaming at 30 knots towards the lumbering
merchantman had closed the gap between us and
we could make her out to be wearing a Finnish
flag, light grey hull high out of the water as
though in ballast. One funnel painted black. Her
name was rusted and barely legible; it looked
like Olfin.
Pugsley ordered her to heave-to and await a
boarding party, which she meekly did.
Our whaler was already manned by our
boarding party of steel-hatted seamen with a
signalman and an acting Petty Officer
Coxswain. I climbed aboard the whaler, trying
to look aggressive and competent. Neither of
which I felt.
Pugsley had bought Javelin to about a cable
from the Finn where he stopped and told the
First Lieutenant who was in charge of lowering
the sea-boat, to slip the boat.
'Get on with it, Sub, good luck'. The whaler
was slipped and swung out from the ship's side
as the weight came on the bow rope.
The Finnish Freighter towered above us as
we pulled over towards her. Two seamen
appeared at the guard rails as they lowered a
chain ladder down to us. The whaler rose and
fell about 15 feet in the sea running which made
boarding up the chain ladder no easy task.
'Follow me, chaps!' I croaked to my gallant
boarding party as I leapt across the yawning gap
and seized the ladder with desperate
determination.
The climb was not an easy one and seemed
to take half an hour or more. When finally I
clutched my way over the ship's side trying to
maintain an air of determined aggression all I
wanted was a few minutes to regain breath and
strength. But it was not to be. Rest was out of
the question. This was serious business. A war
was on.
I was conducted to the bridge and was
received by the Captain who spoke a little
broken English. I asked him his destination and
was told it was the Baltic but he had been blown
south off course in a recent gale. I said that I
wished to search the ship before allowing him
to proceed.
An inspection of her gaping empty holds
revealed nothing. I told my signalman to report
to Javelin that:'Ship Elfin bound in ballast, for
Helsinki, off course due to recent gale.
Released ship to proceed on intended
course. '
Having made my own tour of inspection,
including the Chart Room pinups, I initialled
the ship's log, instructed the boarding party
80
BOARDING OFFICER
to man the whaler and followed them thankfully
down the precarious chain ladder into the whaler
forty feet below.
'Shove-off and pull back under our davits',
I called out to the Coxswain. We were soon
hoisted to the davit heads and I made my way
up to the bridge and reported to the Captain.
My air of modest smugness was soon removed
smartly from my face when I heard the Yeoman
calling out C.S.2's cold comment on my report.
'Your 081218. Ships do not usually drift to
windward. Report rank and name of Boarding
Officer'.
My heart sank into my boots. What a fool I
was. The recent gale had been southerly which
should have driven our stranger a great deal
further North of her present position. Pugsley
looking at me thoughtfully.
'We live and learn, Sub, but she was only in
ballast. Anyway you have got my pistol and had
better return it to my cabin before you blow out
your brains!' I saluted sheepishly and tottered
below.
A. G. VANRENEN
LIEUT.CDR.RN
The Chief GI
circa 43
HE North Battery was cold. HMS Excellent
T
felt cold to recruits at any time of year but
this was 1943, the coldest winter of the war.
The seven trainees, seventeen or eighteen year
olds, standing in a straight line facing the breech
of 'their' gun, were cold - apprehensive too.
They were hoping, soon, to put Seaman
Gunners' badges on their, as yet,
embarrassinglybare right uniform sleeves. They
should have been warm, sweating as they
worked training on the type of gun that they
would use, in action, on board one of His
Majesty's ships. For the moment though, they
were standing motionless - waiting.
Authority, it had been rumoured, was
concerned that a high proportion of trainees
were losing the tops of their thumbs when they
were loading shells into guns like the one they
faced. For once, rumour was correct and they
were waiting for the representative of that
Authority to appear. Quite what this emissary
was to tell them they did not know; they had
trained until they could serve their gun in the
dark - as, who knew, they might have so to do.
The accepted way of loading a shell into the
breech of a gun was to lift it, cradling it in the
left hand, taking its weight and the weight of
the attached cartridge with that arm. The right
hand, making a fist, was held at the end of the
cartridge case ready, when the nose of the shell
was inserted into the breech, to push shell and
cartridge into the barrel of the gun. This was
when the Breech Worker, the Captain of the
Gun, pulled the handle that allowed the breech
block to spring up from its open position to close
tightly against the breech ring, throwing the
loader's right arm into the air with some
considerable force but taking his hand away
from any potential danger. The loader had, of
course, taken his left hand away as he pushed
the projectile on to the breech block and into
the breech. Every trainee was told to make a
fist like a boxer but not every new recruit to the
Gunnery School had boxed. The trick of curling
one's thumb down outside the middle phalanges
of the fingers was not easily remembered. More
often than not, the thumb stuck out over the top
of the fist like - well, like a sore thumb.
Boxing, this would probably mean a sprained
thumb but the scissors action of a closing breech
block could amputate stuck out sore thumbs.
The seven trainees waited, almost looking
forward to running back and to, from
ammunition locker, to gun, to ammunition
locker to get warmer. They were waiting for
the spokesman of Authority - a Chief GI. Here
in the Whale Island Temple of Gunnery he
would tell them how things were done, giving
them the benefit of some fifteen or twenty years'
experience gained from joining the Navy as a
boy of thirteen, through each of four promotions
in rank and from seeing service in every far
flung corner of the world.
He appeared. To call it anything less than an
appearance would be to do this - to them awesome personage less than justice. A square
shape of a man, not tall, his broad shoulders
were emphasised by the short neck set well back
on them and on which sat a close cropped head
surmounted by a squared-off, laurel badged cap.
He stood in front of them in the position of
attention. The six buttons on his jacket front and
the three on each sleeve gleamed with that deep
burnished shine that comes from a regular daily - polish. The badges of crossed gun
barrels over a star with a crown above them,
worn on each of his lapels were of gold wire.
Gold wire! and they were hoping for a badge
showing a single gun barrel, no crowns, no stars
and made of red embroidery thread. His
webbing belt, buckle shining to match his
buttons, and his gaiters were balanced - Khaki
Green No. 97 - to that smooth, matt finish that
tyros like them emulated but, generally, failed
to achieve. It was fortunate that bell bottomed
trousers did not, in the Royal Navy of that time,
have creases down the front of the legs.
Comparison with the sharp creases in his
trousers was, fortunately, not possible - his
were perfection. His boots appeared to be made
of black glass so deep was the spit shine that
had been worked into them. He spoke in a voice,
not loud but carrying, a voice developed through
making himself heard from one end of parade
grounds as large as two football pitches, to the
other,
82
THE CHIEF GI
'Gun's Crew':
they pulled themselves into something
approaching the position of standing at ease. He
ignored their amateurish attempt.
'Gun's Crew, shun':
they moved to the position of attention, seven
very apprehensive trainees.
'Gun's Crew, Number', ordered the Chief
GI.
'One, Layer. '
'Two, Trainer.'
'Three, Fuse Setter. '
'Four, Breech Worker, Captain of the Gun.'
'Five, Loading Number.'
'Six, Loading Number. '
'Seven, Loading Number.'
'Gun's Crew, stand at ease, stand easy: I am
now about to show you the correct way to load
a projectile into the breech of this gun in such
a way that you and your thumb comes to no
harm: What you does is' . . . and they were
regaled with a lurid, adjectival description of
what they were sure they knew and could do.
He demonstrated, picking up what he called
a 'projy' as easily as if it had been a pencil, and
continued:
'The breech block closes throwing your hand
and arm up into the air and' - he stopped with
his arm held above his head, looked up, saw
blood trickling from his right thumb at the neatly
amputated top knuckle joint - 'that's how you
lose the top of your bleeding thumb'.
Operation Gambit 6 June 1944 An Eye witness Report
was the successful attack by Italian
ITfrogmen
on HMS Queen Elizabeth and HMS
Valiant in Alexandria Harbour on 19 December
1941 that first pointed me in the direction of the
D-Day Beaches.
At that time in 1941142 I was serving in the
Western Desert and in March 1942 a signal
(instigated by Winston Churchill) was sent by
Flag Officer Submarines asking for volunteers
for 'hazardous and secret operations involving
vigorous underwater training'. I submitted my
name and in July 1942 was ordered to return
to the UK by air sea route.
On arrival in England, I spent some days at
HMS Dolphin undergoing underwater tests, and
having passed these successfully was sent to
HMS Varbel at Rothesay, the Headquarters of
the 12th submarine flotilla.
After a concentrated course, covering
electrics, diesel engines, navigation and not to
forget diving (very cold in the Scottish lochs)
we were all frogmen trained to leave the X craft
to cut nets and attach limpet mines.
Following this course I was lucky enough to
get command of X4, one of the two prototype
X craft, and as her sister ship X3 had sunk and
was now under refit, X4 took the brunt of the
training programme.
In early 1944 I was appointed in Command
of X23, a new craft under construction at
Markhams in Chesterfield.
By this time it had been decided that two X
craft, X20 and X23, were to be detached from
the 12th Sub-Flotilla, to act as navigational
beacons off the D-Day beaches, and to be based
at HMS Dolphin, and Gosport to train and make
ready for the day.
These craft were 12ft. long and 6ft. in
circumference with a a range of 1,000 miles,
surface speed of 7 knots, submerged 3-3%
knots, normally carrying a crew of four, but for
this special operation this was increased to five:
three X craft crew and two members of the
C.O. P. P. party (Combined Operation Pilotage
Party). Our task was to cross the Channel
submerged and undetected to our marking
position approximately 1 mile off Ouistreham
surface before dawn on D-Day and erect an 18ft.
telescopic mast showing a green light to seaward
together with other navigational aids.
We sailed from HMS Dolphin on the evening
of Friday, 2 June, escorted by trawlers to
beyond the Isle of Wight. From then on we
carried on alone running submerged across the
Channel for the 90 odd miles to the French
coast. We passed through the mine barrier in
the Baye de la Seine reaching the French coast
by dawn on Sunday, 4 June. We were able to
fix our position by periscope; this was made
easy by the low level aerial photographs
supplied by the RAF clearly showing the
churches and other prominent buildings. A light
was still showing at the mouth of the Orne
Canal.
Having fixed our position we bottomed and
waited until darkness to surface again and set
up our wireless, receiving a message that the
landings had been postponed, not surprising as
the weather was very rough. We took the
opportunity to drop our anchor, to ensure we
kept our marking position and returned to the
bottom to wait for darkness the next night
(Monday).
During all this time submerged we had been
on oxygen. This was fed to us from air bottles
taken from German Luftwaffe bombers, being
the lightest bottles available at the time. We had
no idea how long the postponement was to be
and our oxygen supply was therefore limited.
On the Monday night we once again surfaced
at darkness and received the signal that the
invasion would start at first light on Tuesday,
6 June.
Once again, we bottomed until just before
dawn on the Tuesday. At 044516 we surfaced;
it was still rough which made entry and exit
through the hatch difficult, but we set up our
18ft. mast and commenced flashing at 050616.
At sunrise a D-Flag was substituted for the
lamp.
One of the main objects of our operation was
to mark the limited beaches when the D-D
swimming tanks could emerge from the sea,
after they had been launched from the landing
84
OPERATION GAMBIT 6 JUNE 1944-AN EYEWITNESS REPORT
craft and had proceeded to the beaches under
their own power.
As dawi broke there were ships of all sizes
approaching the shore, from battleships to the
smallest landing craft, and the shore installations
were under bombardment from sea and air.
Once the tanks and commandos had landed,
our job was done; we cut the anchor rope (we
were too exhausted to put it up) and reported
to the Headquarters Ship HMS Largs at 0935.
We then proceeded back across the Channel
to our base at Gosport to be greeted in the
traditional way after a successful operation.
The operation had covered a period of 72
hours, during which we had been submerged
for 64 hours.
We were especially relieved to return safely,
as we had looked up the definition of our Code
word Gambit in the dictionary and it was defined
as 'the pawn you throw away before a big move
in chess'.
G. B. HONOUR
LIEUT.CDR.RNVR
Steam Pic:ket Boats
sailor has no knowledge of
THEthesemodem
beautiful boats, one of which, HMS
Iron Duke's First picket boat, was my first
command: and was I proud of her even to the
extent of having blue silk curtains made for the
after cabin in Gibraltar.
They were 50 feet long driven by a triple
expansion steam engine and a Yarrow water
tube boiler giving them a speed which seemed
very fast but which I never actually timed; about
twelve knots perhaps.
My crew consisted of Petty Officer Pook, a
charming old skate who knew all the tricks of
the trade, a bowman who was a first class
seaman having been disrated from Chief Petty
Officer for some peccadillo, a sternsheetsman,
stoker petty officer and a stoker. We burnt coal
of course, as did Iron Duke.
It was whilst running this boat that I had my
first glass of gin. I had to go over to the
Submarine Depot Ship at Portland to collect an
officer at about noon. When I got there the
OOW said 'come on up Snottie, so and so isn't
ready yet'. Down in the Wardroom I found
myself with a glass of gin thrust into my hand.
When I staggered down to the boat in due course
P.O. Pook summed up the situation at once. 'I
know just how you feel sir, may I suggest that
you go through the motions and I will guide the
boat and when we get back to the ship I wouldn't
risk going over the boom, just nip up the
gangway when the OOW isn't looking.'
Another time we had to go into the Camber
at Portland for the night owing to a gale. Once
we had secured the crew disappeared into the
forepeak and I retired in solemn isolation into
the after cabin, but not for long. A face appeared
round the the door of the cabin. 'With the
coxswain's compliments sir but he thinks you
may be a bit lonely and would you like to come
and warm up in the forepeak'. There was a
lovely fug and a bottle of rum on the table, and
I was regaled with all the lower deck scandal!
Another time we were carrying out a landing
exercise off the Culbin Sands in the Moray
Firth. My job was to tow two cutters each with
a platoon of soldiers embarked under the
command of a subaltern.
Approaching the shore we were told to wait.
To my horror as we stopped I heard a cry of
'Follow me men' and a loud splash. One of the
subalterns had assumed that we had arrived. I
need not have worried; although there must have
been at least three fathoms at this point, the old
three badge able seaman bowman of the cutter
was equal to the emergency, he just hooked his
boathook into the officer's equipment and
hauled him dripping back on board.
I feel this was a case of that well known Whale
Island Gunner's Mates' saying: 'Thems whats
keen gets fell in previous'.
More 'Man Overboard'
Overboard' in the October issue
'MANprompted
me to recall an odd incident
which happened some years before World War
11. HMS Resolution was detached from the
Home Fleet spring cruise to proceed
independently to Devonport for D2 refit. On
Sunday afternoon in a very rough Bay of Biscay
'No-one to go on the upper deck' had been piped
and evening quarters were fallen in on the
messdecks. One young Ordinary Seaman - call
him Snooks - was adrift. He couldn't be found
in his mess or the heads, and a messmate then
reported that some half-hour earlier Snooks had
said that he must get some fresh air and was
going on the upper. It was quite likely that he
had done so as he was often in trouble for
disobeying orders, so the possibility of his
having been washed overboard was reported to
the Bridge. The ship was turned round and
swept with searchlights on the reverse course
and 'All hands search ship' was piped. A very
thorough search organised by divisional officers
found no Snooks on board and the sea search
was equally fruitless; his presumed loss
overboard was reported by signal, the Captain
wrote a letter of sympathy to Snooks' mother
and the Padre held a short committal service.
Shortly before arriving at Devonport an
officer passing through a little-used passageway
on the lower deck was mystified when a halfeaten bar of nutty fell at his feet. Search
overhead revealed a very cramped Snooks
squeezed into the narrow gap between the
deckhead and a large ventilating trunk. The
signal was cancelled and the Captain's letter was
retrieved from postie's mail bag.
The whole story came out later at the
defaulters' table. The messmate who had
reported Snooks' intention to go on the upper
was an accomplice in an ingenious plot to desert.
He had helped Snooks climb into his hiding
place with provisions for a couple of days; when
the ship was alongside in the dockyard he would
sneak on deck and fall in, hopefully
unrecognised in the dark, with libertymen. But
for the errant bar of nutty the plan might well
have succeeded.
Some years later in the cuddy of the Home
Fleet flagship the talk after dinner turned to
'man overboard' and I told this story. The Flag
Captain - that great man Philip Mack - capped
it with an even more bizarre story told him by
an uncle of his who had been Flag Lieutenant
to the Rear Admiral of a battle squadron in the
Mediterranean towards the end of Queen
Victoria's reign. The Admiral, an unremarkable
looking man with a greying beard, had only very
recently hoisted his flag and was not yet well
known in the squadron.
One summer day on passage back to Malta
after an exhausting week of exercises the
Admiral told Flags after lunch that he didn't
wish to be disturbed for a couple of hours.
During the afternoon watch the rear ship of the
line was observed from the flagship's bridge to
be stopping and lowering a seaboat. A few
minutes later she semaphored 'have picked up
an elderly bearded seaman in his underpants
who refuses to reveal his identity. Who claims?'
Nobody in the squadron had been seen to fall
overboard; all ships were ordered to muster
ships' companies and all in due course reported
no-one missing. The Flag Captain went aft to
report the mystery to the Admiral. The keyboard
sentry confirmed that the Admiral had not left
his cabin, but he wasn't in his day cabin or
sleeping cabin through his uniform was on a
chair by his bunk. The Captain went through
the open door to the sternwalk: he found there
a deck-chair and a book - but no Admiral.
R. W. PAFFARD
REARADMIRAL
Correspondence
RESERVES
Sir,-Lieut. Cdr Collins (NR, Oct. '92) has
touched a raw nerve in his letter concerning the
present treatment of our volunteer Reserves. I
too have been puzzled, disappointed but not
entirely surprised by the lack of comment on
the subject in recent issues of the Review.
I believe that the problem stems from a
complete lack of understanding of, and interest
in, the purpose of the Reserves in peacetime
throughout the Royal Navy: 'Oh aren't those
the chaps who come and help us in wartime?
Can't see there would be any place for them in
the modern Navy - far too complicated for a
civilian. ' Junior and middle rank officers rarely
meet a member of the RNR, though the
Reserves might be mentioned briefly during a
Staff Course lecture on Preparations for War.
It is only senior officers in shore command and
staff appointments, and passed-over Lieutenant
Commanders, who ever have face-to-face
contact with the Reserves. I know this from
personal experience. The end of the Cold War
and the cessation of the WINTEX series of
exercises will reduce such opportunities still
further. There is nobody to fight the RNR comer
on the Naval Staff, and with the extreme
pressure on the Naval Budget, 'equal pain for
all' means 'but a bit more for the RNR - they
can't answer back'.
It is my belief that this void in the general
education of Naval officers, and the failure of
the RN to recognise the long-term importance
of its Reserves, will lead to a rapid run-down
of the RNR far beyond that envisaged as a result
of 'Options for Change', and there is no-one
who will care enough to prevent it. Compare
this with the attitude of the Army, which
continues to regard the TA as an integral and
vital part of its core structure, with clearly
defined tasks in many contingency plans.
Why should any civilian, faced with a 50%
cut in his routine naval training (to one evening
per week), a mandatory limit on his sea training
of 14 days (though he may be ready and willing
to do much more), and the sudden withdrawal
of his Division's ship (on which he has expended
much voluntary overtime, money and affection)
to a distant sea training 'pool', continue to give
his time to the Navy? He is obviously not
wanted. I predict that this insensitive, arbitary
and vindictive treatment will so alienate the
individual volunteer Reservist that he will vote
with his feet, and once gone he will never come
back.
JEREMYSTEWART
CAP~AIN
RN
Sir,-May I endorse Lieut. Cdr. Collins's letter
in the October 1992 Number. My last job in the
RN was on the Central Staffs of the Ministry
of Defence in the '60's when there were a series
of 'Defence Reviews'. The Politicians and Civil
Servants then adopted a policy of 'Divide and
Rule' and the Services fought each other: I like
to think we have since learnt that lesson and
present a more united front under the Chief of
the Defence Staff. However then, after the Navy
had 'lost' its new carrier and the spotlight fell
on the army they elected, as I remember, for
the TA to bear the brunt of the cuts. I think it
is true to say that the TA was decimated and
its morale sank to an all-time low which it has
taken many years to restore. Under the current
'Options for change' the cuts have fallen in very
general terms equally on the Regular and
Territorial Army. However 'the RNR seems to
be treated in a cavalier fashion and MOD (Navy)
has yet to reveal a strong commitment to its parttime volunteers' - not my words, although I
strongly endorse them, but an extract from an
official report by a well-informed and objective
writer.
HONESTJOHN
PRINCIPLES OF WAR
Sir,-I read Commodore Craig's article on the
Principles of War (PW) with great interest;
correspondence in October's NR provides
further stimulating thought.
One area that has not been addressed is
INTELLIGENCE; both
military
and
intellectual.
Without military intelligence, other PW
become difficult to sustain. Knowing where the
enemy is, how he operates, his strengths and
weaknesses are essential ingredients that support
every other PW.
CORRESPONDENCE
87
Cerebal intelligence permeates all other PW, knitting needles!' in the Wardroom etc) has
but at the same time stands alone. Its importance largely been solved by the hard work of
should be recognised by inclusion in both the Greenpeace and Friends of the Earth. The
old and new PW lists. Our antipodean greatest obstacle, as with any industrial pollution
colleagues in the Australian Navy have for many problem, is money, and the only way round that
years added Intelligence as number 11 to our is legislation, with the teeth to back it up. If we
traditional list; I believe Intelligence has a place are to be really serious, we need something like
in Commodore Craig's new list.
a UN sponsored monitoring body, with the
And finally, why do PW not receive wider power to fine and ban offenders. Only then
promulgation? Their application through every would the poor publicity, and risk of being
walk of naval life can clearly be seen by those refused entry to ports, generate action.
who know them. PW provide excellent headers
AIDANTALBOTT
SUB-LIEUTENANT.
RN
in planning virtually every evolution, and they
also have an application in leadership training.
LOGISTICS - THE RNSTS
PW should be widely promulgated in every ship
and establishment. and their use encouraged; Sir,-As a member of the Royal Naval Supply
PW is not the sole province of the Warfare and Transport Service (RNSTS) I am heartened
Officer.
to note the recognition of the importance of
E. F. K. SEATHERTONlogistics in recent issues of The Naval Review.
Logistics were central to success in both 1982
LIEUT.CDR.RN
and the Gulf, and few I imagine will disagree
with Commodore Craig (NR April '92 p. 107)
THE ENVIRONMENT AND THE
MILITARY
'that it is a Principle of War in its own right,
Sir,-I found Cdr McClement's piece on I have not the slightest doubt'.
That the uniformed service has hitherto by and
ecology and the military interesting and
valuable, and think that it is long overdue that large taken logistics for granted I take as a
we put more effort into this critical area. backhanded compliment to the RNSTS and
However, I have a couple of points to raise other support agencies. Although in the Spring
of 1982 particularly we all improvised, it simply
about the article.
Not much was made of the contribution, both would not have been possible to have stored the
military and BAS, made by Endurance to Fleet, in some cases literally 'overnight', and
ecological research. Her regular visits must to have maintained it in the South Atlantic so
surely provide a valuable sequence of results successfully, without building on a sound and
in an especially critical area; the RN is already efficient pre-existing logistics infrastructure.
doing good work, though I accept that that is The civilian manned RNSTS (and its
no reason to be complacent.
predecessors which stretch back four centuries
Secondly, I thought the article too idealistic. to the reign of Henry VIII) has been in the
I have been in two warships that almost had to forefront of this role, serving with the RN in
leave ports early due to greywater restrictions, the UK, overseas, and afloat in the RFA. The
and I have only been serving for a dogwatch. RNSTS is in a great many ways closer to the
The sheer impracticality of trying to store gash Navy than to our civil service colleagues
in a Type 42 on an operational deployment elsewhere in MOD. The strong corporate
defeats even the most virtuous First Lieutenant, identity and spirit - the sense of 'belonging'
and our gash compactor is, to all intents and - has been the secret of success, and has
enabled the RNSTS to weather many a storm.
purposes, useless.
Resulting however from the PROSPECT
The pollution free ship talked about would,
of course, be wonderful, but the harsh realities exercise to reduce HQ manpower by 20%, the
of the defence budget create the biggest RNSTS is destined to lose its separate identity
difficulty, not the will to be green. The when the support community is re-organised
perception problem that for so long dogged the under the new Naval Support Command.
green movement (cries of 'Pass the man his Planning is not yet complete, but it seems likely
88
CORRESPONDENCE
that the management of the specialist stores
ranges and the staff concerned will be
transferred to in-service technical directorates,
leaving what remains of the RNSTS to manage
the less sophisticated stores ranges and the
storage depots themselves. The emphasis
therefore will change, so that in future the
support of a weapon or platform equipment will
be undertaken by the technical department,
rather than as now by a centralised logistics
organisation, as part of the overall support task.
Clearly savings have to be found, but we
could pay a heavy price for the dismantlement
of the RNSTS if in a future conflict the supply
organisation cannot 'deliver the goods' as it did
in 1982 and 1991. There appears to have been
remarkably little consideration given to the
wider effects of such a radical change in support
philosophy, but it seems that we are about to
dismantle an organisation that has a proven track
record and to replace it with a complete
unknown. Even if in a narrow sense the concept
is better, there is a real danger that the corporate
spirit and sense of belonging so carefully
nurtured will simply not survive the transition
into the NSC. I sincerely hope that I am
worrying unnecessarily.
BJM
THE JUST WAR AND NUCLEAR
DETERRENCE
Sir,-As a Christian and a supporter of nuclear
deterrence I very much enjoyed reading Captain
Malbon's detailed and comprehensive article in
the October edition of the Naval Review. Whilst
in broad terms I accept what he says I would
like to make a few points.
1. Is non-combatant immunity as important
as the Just War theory makes out? If it is a
county that is going to war and not just its
armed forces surely one might argue that the
principle of non-combatant immunity is not
always sacred. There might be circumstances
where the principle might be overruled.
2. James Turner Johnson argues an
interesting case in his book Can Modern War
Be Just? He asks us to picture an area in West
Germany which has been invaded by the
Warsaw Pact armies. (The book was written
before recent events in Eastern Europe). The
inhabitants have all fled from the area. The
question of non-combatant immunity does not
therefore arise: there are no non-combatants
around. Johnson proposes that in such a situation
it might be morally right to use a neutron bomb.
A neutron bomb is a nuclear weapon but one
which is significantly different from the
traditional atomic weapon like that used at
Hiroshima. The neutron weapon attempts to
exploit the radiation effect as compared with
blast and heat. In a neutron bomb the proportion
of energy released as blast and heat is
considerably smaller than in traditional atomic
warheads. The amount of damage done by blast
and heat is therefore small in comparison. The
neutron radiation, however, is not longenduring so that the lingering radioactive
contamination in the affected area is diminished.
In practice this would mean that a neutron
weapon would kill the invading army but
because of the lack of the effects of blast and
heat the buildings in the area would be largely
left intact, ready for use again shortly after the
explosion.
Turner believes that the use of the traditional
nuclear weapon in this situation would be unjust.
The damage done to property, and particularly
the long term effects on the environment, would
force us to classify its use as unjust according
to the Just War theory on account of the damage
that would be done by blast, heat and radiation.
More importantly, however, Turner maintains
that the use of traditional weapons in this
situation would also be unjust according to the
Just War theory. It would be unjust because in
order to stop advancing Warsaw Pact tanks, the
collateral damage to property would be
enormous were the advance to be stopped with
traditional weapons which rely on blast and fire
alone. He therefore concluded that
'In cases like the one sketched here the
possibility does seem to exist that in some
conditions the neutron weapon can be used
with greater moral discrimination than
tactical fission weapons and even
conventional high explosives. '(p. 1 17)
I would want therefore to disagree with
Captain Malbon and say that the Just War
principles may in fact permit the offensive use
of (certain) nuclear weapons in some situations.
Bearing in mind the question of possible
retaliation and escalation these situations will
CORRESPO
have to be weighed very carefully.
3. I believe that the Just War principles
cannot be used in abstraction from 'real life'
considerations. The facts of a particular
wariproposed warlscenario will need to be taken
into account, for example, before one can decide
whether any form of damage is 'proportionate'
and this will involve estimating possible
retaliation or escalation. Applying the principles
in a vacuum is impossible: the 'real life'
situation of the potential conflict will need
careful consideration. To that extent, therefore,
it is not simply the application of the principles
of the Just War which determine whether to
wage a war is right or wrong: it is also the
consideration of various facts about the
particular case. In this way Christian ethics is
not 'clean' and easy but somewhat 'messy' and
difficult and open to debate. In that sense it
mirrors the incarnation - as one might expect
it should.
DAVIDG. KIBBLE
LIEUT.CDR,RNR
A MAN FOR ALL SEASONS
Sir,-I much enjoyed the short article about
Frank Trickey. What a book it would have made
had he recounted his life story before he died
and others' recollections had been added to give
it spice.
One small amendment if I may: The Royal
Hospital School moved to Holbrook in 1935 so
Frank was at school there rather than at
Greenwich.
C. M. J. CARSON
RN
CAPTAIN.
A WOODEN BOW
Sir,-In 1941(?) HMS Liverpool had 100 ft of
her bow blown off in the Eastern Med.
Alexandria Dockyard fitted her with a wooden
bow, with which she sailed to the USA via the
Cape. Could any member with information on
this epic make contact with me, please?
J. R. POUND
Oak House, Wrenbury
Nantwich CW5 8EW
PORTLAND INCIDENT
Sir,-The sad news of Portland reminded me
of my childhood days early in WWI when my
mother and I were in nearby digs while my
father was serving in a ship based there.
My mother got to know the Matron of the
Portland Naval Hospital well, who one day
asked her to tea to meet a lady who had come
to live somewhere high up on the Bill, and who
had befriended the patients. The Matron, a
splendid Miss Keays, asked my mother if she
had noticed anything odd about the lady, and
mother said 'No' - she seemed very pleasant
- but it was perhaps odd she kept her gloves
on the whole time!
A little later on the lady kindly presented a
large box of chocolates (rare in the days of
rationing), for the sailors, whom she talked to
in the wards. Strangely the recipients all seemed
to get unnaturally sick - so Matron thought it
prudent to report it to the police.
Suspicion was aroused - and no wonder! The
visitot was a man, who was eventually shot as
a German spy!
I. G. AYLEN
...
OTHER TIMES
Sir,-I recently came across a volume in an
American second-hand bookstore called
Britannia at Dartmouth by Captain S. W. C.
Pack, C.B.E. It was published in 1966 by Alvin
Redman Limited, 17 Fleet Street, London
E.C.4, and details the course of RN cadet
training through the first Britannia at
Portsmouth (1859) through the second.
Osborne, and Dartmouth up to the time of
writing, a year or two before 1966, presumably.
I thoroughly recommend it. For me, it brings
to mind much that I had forgotten during my
two stints at the College and, indeed, much that
I had never known.
The winds of change, at least for those of us
long-in-the-tooth enough to have entered at the
age of thirteen, that have blown through the
system are delightfully illustrated by the
following.
Miss Bulla, who took over the catering early
in the war and was still in office, apparently,
when the book was written, was exhorting a
cadet of the time not to leave his milk
unfinished.
.'It's good for you,' she said.
'That's what I tell my children,' said the cadet.
BADHAM
MICHAEL
90
CORRESPONDENCE
FIVE MINUTES OF TIME
Sir,-Reference 'Five Minutes of Time' by
Captain Rotherham (NR, Oct. '92), is it possible
that the small freighter he refers to was built
of wood?
I have a good reason for asking.
I was once persuaded, reluctantly, that the
Mickey Mouse radar in the yacht I was driving
in Maine's notoriously foggy Penobscot ~ a y ,
really was reliable. Echoes regularly
materialised out of the fog where and when the
screen said they would. So I pressed on full of
confidence until, quite suddenly, out of the
murk, a vessel incarnated herself within handshaking distance on the starboard bow. The
subsequent and vociferous verbal exchange
revealed that she was built entirely of, yes,
wood.
MICHAELBADHAM
Book Reviews -11
FOR THOSE IN PERIL
50 Years of Royal Navy Search and Rescue
by JOHNWINTON
(Robert Hale-£ 25)
'SAR is bloody dangerous!. . ..' I have never
forgotten the first words of my instructor in the
dingy classroom of the Observer School at
Lossiemouth during my introduction to the
techniques of Helicopter Search and Rescue.
John Winton in For Those in Peril has
chronicled a history of rescue operations which
only serves to reinforce the theory.
This is a prodigious work which embodies the
result of painstaking research. Commissioned
by the FONAC, Rear Admiral Roger
Dimmock, in 1988, virtually every one of 3 13
pages describes an act of skill, bravery or even
heroism which make up the story of Royal
Naval airborne SAR. The first appendix adds
weight to this opinion by listing the 217
servicemen who have won honours and awards
in recognition of their efforts on behalf of SAR
from the early 1940s to the present day.
Repetitive one might think? perhaps; rather too
professional for the laymen? maybe; pricey at
£25 for most of us? certainly; but no, it is an
excellent and enthralling read. Thanks to the
ever changing twists of the drama and the simple
but highly illustrative nature of the text the
reader is led from incident to incident in a way
that makes it hard to put the book down.
Starting with the early rescues of the air-sea
rescue launches in the Second World War it
quickly moves on to the daring exploits of the
Vickers Walrus or 'Shagbat' as it was familiarly
known.
One of the vital spin-offs to military aircrew
involved with SAR is that the type of demanding
flying that they experience in peacetime is the
best possible training for war. Men and
machines fly close to and sometimes beyond
their limits. But then in war itself SAR is even
more relevant and, of course, even more
demanding. Thus it is not surprising that many
of the most vivid accounts in this action packed
book are those which took place in war.
During the Malay emergency in the fifties,
the Whirlwinds of 848 Squadron transformed
the art ofjungle warfare. One minute they were
lifting casualties out of clearings in the 100 foot
trees which were not much wider than the span
of their rotor blades, and the next they were
inserting troops to cope with operational trouble
spots in a fraction of the time it would have taken
them to march. Similarly in Korea, Suez and
Borneo the helicopter proved itself as much a
lifesaver as a weapon of war.
Off Cyprus in 1974 following the Turkish
invasion, Winton tells us of the considerable feat
of flying by Lt McKechnie in HMS
Andromeda's Wasp where after 4 hours 20
minutes of non stop flying and 55 night deck
landings he had transferred 72 Turkish
survivors. This was just one of many occasions
that the Boyd Trophy, the Fleet Air Arm's
premier award for the finest feat of Aviation in
a particular year, has been awarded in
recognition of SAR operations.
Perhaps the most graphic of all the wartime
accounts is the description of the Falklands War.
The story of Lt Cdr Ian Stanley and HMS
Antrim flight's heroic rescue of SAS soldiers
from South Georgia makes the tales of Rider
Haggard seem mundane. Surgeon Commander
Rick Jolly plucking the Ardent hero, AB Dillon,
from the water using only his own physical
strength is again the stuff of the most exciting
of novels. The intrigue of the 846 Squadron
Sea King's one way trip to Chile and the gallant
rescue in Fitzroy of the men from the stricken
RFA Sir Galahad all add spice to this
extraordinary tale of adventure and
professionalism. But most telling of all the
author sums up the role of the helicopter in the
South Atlantic with the words: 'Every single
Falklands casualty who entered in the
evacuation chain - 778 injured is the official
total - spent some part of his life in a
helicopter. '
But it would be wrong to concentrate solely
upon the wartime accounts, because it has been
during the every day, humdrum moments of
peace that some of the finest rescues have been
achieved. Indeed the first ever major operation
resulted in the 407 hours 55 minutes flown by
the Dragonflies of 705 Squadron when they
rescued over 800 people during the Dutch
flooding disaster of 1953. Other classic rescues
92
BOOK REVIEWS-I1
include the Orion oil rig in 1978, the Fastnet
Race disaster of 1979 and the loss of Penlee
lifeboat later that year. More recently, the
horrific sinking of the Herald of Free Enterprise
and, in the final incident of the book, in 1989
when the Pakistani vessel Murree foundered in
the English Channel provide yet more testament
to the continuing challenge of SAR.
There the story stops abruptly, and the reader
is left sated but wondering what happened next.
But of course life and its adventures continue.
As I write, a gale is lashing the sea around
Portland into a frenzy and the SAR crew of 772
Squadron do yet another check of their
equipment and their procedures. This is SAR
weather. As Winton says on the first page of
his book, 'they smoke, they chat, they brew
cups of tea, they watch TV or a video. But most
of all they wait.' And yes, it is bloody
dangerous.
A. B. Ross
RN
CAPTAIN.
NODAYTOOLONG
An Hydrographer's tale
by REARADMIRAL
G. S. RITCHIEc.B., D.s.c., F . R . I . c . ~
(The Pentland Press Ltd - f 15.50)
How times have changed! In 1953 Commander
Ritchie was given advance royalties to produce
the story of a RN surveying ship whose activities
had caught the public imagination (Challenger
- The Life of a Survey Ship, 1957). In 1962
his publishers invited him to write another book,
which emerged as a classic account of the great
nineteenth century hydrographic exploration of
the UK coast and the wider world into which
British trade was expanding (The Admiralty
Chart, 1967). In 1992, Admiral Ritchie, retired
Hydrographer of the Navy and former President
of the Directing Committee of the International
Hydrographic Organisation, had to search hard
before he found an outlet for this autobiography.
Thank goodness that there are still some small
publishers who recognise that this genre is as
important as the sweeping works of Roskill,
Barnett and Grove, or the specialist monographs
which emerge from beneath the curtain of the
30-year rule.
To the chagrin of a Charge Surveyor of the
old school one conspicuous type-correcting
solecism - a misspelling of the name of the
current Hydrographer of the Navy - slipped
through. Otherwise the publishers have served
Admiral Ritchie well with his text. At the snip
of a price it would be uncharitable to expect
sufficient maps and chartlets to cover this
voyager's tale, and for full enjoyment a good
atlas should be ready to hand. The author has
perhaps been allowed to be slightly overindulgent with fancy dress photographs,
although they certainly reflect a colourful
character whose leadership style became
legendary during his service career. However,
inclusion of a marvellous sketch by war artist
John Worsley more than compensates.
The writing is delightful, which will be no
surprise to those who are lucky enough to
possess copies of Admiral Ritchie's earlier
works. The narrative flows logically and
effortlessly, with unforgettable characters
passing across the stage, many of whom have
the perennial traits of naval types. There is the
Australian bibliophile transferring from ship to
ship with his precious collection, including The
Notebooks of Leonardo da Vinci, and the MO
(ex Combined Ops) who arrived onboard with
a pickled, truncated corpse which, in the style
of the less successful brand of ships' doctors,
he stowed under a table in the smallest
messdeck. There is much classic humour,
including an account of a train journey across
Sicily during the Allied invasion which is
straight from 'Private Angelo '. But while the
whole account of the WW2 Port Survey Teams
is often reminiscent of Evelyn Waugh, the stark
ingenuity and professional determination which
contributed to the logistic chain upon which
victory ultimately depended is made plain. The
Arromanches survey of Lieutenant (later
Commander) Nesbit Glen, the clearance of the
Scheldt by Captain (later Rear Admiral Sir)
'Egg' Irving, and the backroom work of Harvey
Schwartz, creator of the DECCA Navigator
system, all receive just tribute. Overall, the
account of the clearance of the ports and wreckstrewn seaways of Western Europe conveys the
atmosphere of the period most compellingly.
An inevitable theme of the book is the impetus
to technological development which resulted
from WW2, but this is well-balanced by
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treatment of eternal themes which run through
the life of a hydrographic surveyor. Indeed this
book should be required reading, not only for
the present-day 'droggies' who wish to know
how the RN Surveying Service evolved in the
Twentieth Century, but also for those who must
determine whether this Service is to continue
into a new millenium. I will not be alone in
noting with wry appreciation that Admiral
Ritchie was recruited by a retired surveyor with
a rich repertoire of foreign voyages and
explorations, that he could discover nothing
about hydrography from the staff at the Naval
College, that he gained fleeting glimpses of odd
ships, painted in different colours and engaged
in peculiar activities remote from the rest of the
Fleet, and that he was positively discouraged
from volunteering for H by his Commanding
Officer in a capital ship.
The career profile which followed for the
author is neither available, nor recommended,
for today's surveyor. Admiral Ritchie's story
reveals the extraordinary variety of activities
which come the way of an X(H). Yet now
'broadening appointments' are the order of the
day, and there is little appreciation of the
catholic grasp of maritime and scientific affairs
which a surveyor acquires. With the hard-won
exception of the Ice Patrol Ship, it is
increasingly difficult to give the field experience
in remote areas which pays dividends in a crisis.
Having read this book I can see how WW2
experience was fostered in ingenious
improvisation and seamanship in surveys
throughout the Commonwealth. The SubLieutenants in Captain Ritchie's ships turned
into heroes of our own generation, men like
Commander Chris Gobey who led with such
flair in the South Atlantic in the wake of the
conflict of 1982.
1982 was perhaps a turning point for the RN
Surveying Service. It is the moment at which
this book closes, with Admiral Ritchie in his
final days at Monaco, and the UK Hydrographer
presiding over the 12th International Conference
as war clouds gathered. Sir David Haslam's
conduct of this difficult forum won him
international acclaim. However, back in UK the
Surveying Service, with its deep knowledge of
the South Atlantic theatre, became marginalised
in the unseemly scramble to jump on the
operational band-wagon. In the succeeding
decade it has searched somewhat desperately for
a 'warfare' role, while the fine new flotilla
which Admiral Ritchie helped his predecessor
to secure has been eroded and replaced with
ships taken up from trade and commercial
contracting. Admiral Ritchie remarks that, in
his first Whitehall appointment, 'I learnt . . .
that every Hydrographer has to fight for his
continued existence in the corridors of power. '
This book contains a clear account of a plucky
battle which secured most of the assets with
which I and my contemporaries have pursued
our productive careers. It also makes plain the
crucial importance of men of vision such as
Lord Carrington, who told the RGS in 1963,
as the Polaris programme progressed:
'In order to promote naval knowledge
of marine exploration we have some
thousand men and eleven ships under the
command of the Hydrographer of the
Navy, and the job he is doing is of the
utmost importance - not only to the Navy
but to all of us.'
The young X(H) officers who are today's
counterparts to Admiral Ritchie remain
desperately proud of their skills and
qualifications, and convinced of their relevance
to Fleet operations and national prosperity. They
badly need the loyal support of influential men
of insight. I hope that some of the latter will read
this book.
M. K. BARRITT
COMMANDER,
RN
MARINE MANAGEMENT IN DISPUTED
AREAS: THE CASE OF THE BARENTS
SEA
by ROBINCHURCHILL
and GEIRULFSTEIN
(Routledge - f 37 .SO)
One reason for concentrating academic research
on the Barents Sea region has been its
importance in maritime security terms. It is
where the Russian Northern Fleet feels at home
and, since the development of genuinely
intercontinental SLBMs it has been an
increasingly important operating area for that
fleet's SSBNs. The USN's Forward Maritime
Strategy, and Gorbachev's Northern Waters
speech in Murmansk in October 1987, further
contributed to the raising of the region's profile.
94
BOOK RE\
Academics have also been attracted by the
region because it is relatively easy to define and
it lends itself to inter-disciplinary approaches.
Some of the more useful and informative
contributions to the literature on 'Northern
Waters' have been produced under the auspices
of Chatham House's Northern Waters Study
Group (NWSG). Although this book is not
Chatham House sponsored, Robin Churchill is
a member of the NWSG, so one can at least
regard it as an honorary occupant of the NWSG
stable. It is certainly of a similar quality and can
be recommended, despite its price.
It deals with four main issue areas: The
Svalbard Treaty; boundary delimitation;
fisheries
management;
and
offshore
hydrocarbon exploration.
The problem with the Svalbard Treaty is its
age. It grants Norway sovereignty over the
archipelago but endows signatory states
(including the UK and Russia) with rights to
exploit its economic resources. Drawn up well
before continental shelves, extended fisheries
zones and EEZs, the Treaty does not answer
some important questions. Can resource rights
enshrined in the Treaty now be exercised in
Svalbard's extended maritime zones? Or are
those rights restricted to the area originally
covered by the Treaty, giving Norway exclusive
rights to the resources of the shelf? This book
provides a description of the dispute and the
arguments deployed; it is as clear a summary
as any this reviewer has read. It concludes that
legally the Treaty probably does extend to
maritime zones but that politically it would be
preferable for Norwegian sovereignty to
prevail.
To the east of Svalbard lies Russia's Franz
Joseph Land archipelago. Between the two and
south to the land boundary between Norway and
Russia is an area of sea subject to a long running
maritime boundary dispute. The Norwegians
would like to agree a median line. The Russians
prefer a sector line running north from the land
boundary on the coast. Negotiations have been
in train for twenty years, with little movement
from either party. However, the dispute is well
managed, as the agreement in force since 1978,
to create a 'Grey Zone' for fisheries
exploitation, well illustrates.
Fish stocks in the Barents Sea are prone to
large natural fluctuations and thus require
careful management. Despite the establishment
of 200 mile zones. cod stocks have declined due
to over fishing. Both states have demonstrated
a willingness to co-operate and have even agreed
to set Total Allowable Catches at levels below
those recommended by the International Council
for the Exploration of the Sea (ICES). However,
there is still dispute over the best measures for
protecting immature cod and enforcement
arrangements need to be more effective.
Finally, the book discusses oil and gas
exploration in the region. Gas has been found
in recoverable quantities in the Russian sector
and may be present on Norway's shelf. Both
sectors may contain commercially viable oil
reserves. One question for the future: will the
existence of oil on Svalbard's shelf lead to a
resolution of the dispute over resource rights
ol: will the dispute deter oil companies from
investing in the region?
I enjoyed reading this book and learned a good
deal from it. My only criticism is levelled at its
cost, which I imagine will ensure not a single
member will buy it.
STEVENHAINES
LIEUT.CDR.RN
HISTORY OF THE US NAVY,
Vol. I 1775-1941
by ROBERTW. LOVEJunior
(Stackpole Books - $39.95)
This review will begin with the conclusion: this
is an excellent, highly recommended survey of
the history of the US Navy in the period up to
the start of the Second World War. It is easy
to read, evidently well researched, full of
photographs nicely integrated with the text, and
at 73 1 pages very good value for money. It has
recently been followed by the second volume
(which will be reviewed in the next edition of
7ke Naval Review) a sequel which adds another
904 pages to the collection and takes the story
up to 1991. Both volumes together give'you the
page equivalent of about six normal British
naval books for only a little more than the price
of one; this tells us something about the
economics of British publishing, and reinforces
your reviewer's conclusion that you should go
out and buy both volumes. They will make a
very effective sledge (not a stocking - they're
BOOK RE\
much too large for that!) filler for a late
Christmas present.
In some ways, the even more extraordinary
thing is that this is the third (and the biggest!)
blockbuster on the US Navy to have come out
in the last year. The other two were Kenneth
Hagan's This People's Navy: The Making of
American Sea Power [a mere 434 pages1 and
Stephen Haworth's To Shining Sea: A History
of the US Navy 1775-1 991 (whose 620 pages
were well reviewed in the last edition of this
journal). It all sounds as though the academic
community has concluded that the US Navy
could well be at a major turning point in its long
development, and that this is a good time to
reflect on the lessons of the past before plunging
off into an uncertain future. With the recent
American Presidential election, such a view
could well be right.
But of course, this isn't the real explanation
for the simultaneous appearance of such an
inundation of historical analysis on the US
Navy. After all, all three are major works of
scholarship, thoroughly researched, well written
and evidently not thrown together over the past
year or so. Haworth is a British historian who
has moved onto the US Navy having done the
Japanese (and one or two other projects on the
way), and the appearance of his very good book
at this time is mere coincidence. The other two
authors, Hagan and Love, are both American,
both members of the History Department of the
US Naval Academy at Annapolis (obviously
don't have enough teaching to do if they have
time to write books like this -joke) and to judge
by the contents of their books do not see eye
to eye. To some extent at least, their books are
the product of academic rivalry and as such are
a classic example of the way in which the
concept of critical mass works in the academic
community. Putting two historians together
provides the output equivalent of three, and so
on. The result is seen in terms of coverage,
alternative insights and an enhanced ability to
compare and contrast ideas and interpretations;
all this helps the enhanced ability for readers
to approach The Truth and is wholly good.
(Complement reviewers, please note.)
All three authors provide us with examples
of the large concept of naval history, not so
much in length as in the breadth of the topics
they cover. This is 'holistic' history in which
the authors seek the explanation of naval
development within the broad political,
economic and international environment in
which the US Navy operates. Hagan's book,
frankly is a polemic. Love's is the solid,
reliable, dependable counter. Both are
indispensable.
To illustrate the point, and to focus on the
particular relevance of such studies of US Naval
history at this time of change, let us look at just
one of the countless themes that Love explores.
We have all got used to the global dominance
of the US Navy, to the Mahanian image of a
major Battle Fleet-dominated blue-water fleet,
determined to be second to none. We may have
slid unwittingly into the view that it has always
been like that and will always be like that. Both
Love and Hagan remind us that this in fact has
not been the case. A major US deepwater fleet
is a relatively novel development, much newer
in fact than the existence of a major Russian fleet
(so much for the idea that the US is by nature
a much more 'maritime' power than the old
Soviet Union!)
In fact, for the major part of Love's book we
are provided with graphic illustrations of the
difficulty that Admirals and others have had in
persuading their people and government that it
was necessary to be strong at sea. Their ability
to do so was dependent on the particular thrust
of US foreign policy at the time. For most of
the 19th Century, US concepts of maritime
strategy were determined by the need to
maintain and defend access to the high seas,
largely for purposes of trade, and to extend and
defend the territory of the continental United
States.
In their two wars against Britain, the
Americans found even these limited aspirations
dangerously difficult. Love shows how their
ideas evolved. Individual US warships could be
used almost symbolically in distant raiding
deployments which would irritate the British,
reminding them of the continuous cost of their
American policy, inflicting harm on their war
economy and stimulating neutral opinion into
support for the United States. In the 1812 war,
the only question was whether their super
frigates should pursue these aims by operating
singly or in combination. The issue boiled down
96
BOOK RE
to the question of which method would more
effectively force the British to disperse their
forces to defend their trade, thereby reducing
the density of the British blockade of American
ports and the likelihood of large scale assaults
on the American coast. In neither case would
it have made strategic sense for the US Navy
to embrace the large scale fleet concepts of the
British.
In those wars, the policy worked, at least to
an extent because Americans could rely on the
direct or indirect support provided by French
naval activity. Afterwards, and in the same way,
America's maritime aspirations could be kept
at a relatively modest level because Americans
could rely, most of the time at any rate, on the
beneficial consequences of British naval power.
This informal alliance meant that the focus of
the US Navy could continue to be on the defence
of the commercial interests of American traders,
against Barbary pirates, against exclusion from
the markets of the Asia-Pacific and against
disorder and local rivals around the western and
southern parts of the American continent.
Above all that, there was the sense that 'We may
regret the necessity of a navy . . . but we must
have a navy, or we are not an independent
nation.' On the one hand, American leaders
were increasingly keen to use the Navy as a
means of extending the principle of
continentalism to more distant places. On the
other, they were unwilling to pick up the bill.
Their readiness to do so grew slowly through
the last half of the 19th Century, and was often
stimulated by differences of opinion with the
British. This was not through any real fear of
conflict between the two nations, but because
it pointed up the diplomatic disadvantages of
relying on British naval power.
By the end of the Century, the Americans
were plainly moving into a new phase of
maritime independence, and it was then that the
Mahanian model of sea power came into its
own, replacing earlier alternatives. For the first
40 years of this century, the Mahanian theory
and aspiration became practice. These are huge,
vital themes but Love takes us slowly, clearly,
meticulously and enjoyably through them. One
may not agree with everything that is said, and
even in a book as long as this it is possible to
see topics that have been skimped [naval
personnel policy for one] but on the basis of this
700 page appetiser, I can hardly wait to see how,
in Volume 11, the story will end. The best tribute
I can make to the book is that I mean exactly
what I say.
PROFESSOR
GEOFFREY
TILL
RNC, GREENWICH
NOT A NINE TO FIVE JOB
by REARADMIRAL
P. G. LA NIECECB, CBE
(Charltons Publishers, Yalding,
Kent ME18 6DF, 1922 - £12.50)
'When I joined Lydd early that morning the first
comment by a sailor helping with my baggage
was "Blimey, the French navy has arrived"!
Winston Churchill had recently offered British
nationality to French expatriates; the sailor had
seen the name on my baggage.' The Lydd was
a coal-burning fleet minesweeper of World War
.One vintage. It was 24 September 1940and SubLieutenant La Niece, fresh from commanding
a single decked Portsmouth Corporation bus
deployed on Portsdown Hill, in a counterparachutist role, was to be her Navigator. He
had joined HMS Erebus as a cadet in 1937 and,
since the outbreak of war, had taken charge of
a cutter picking up survivors from the Duchess,
which his ship the Barham had run down; been
torpedoed in that ship; transferred from her to
the Hood and then to the Warspite; his Sub's
courses had been interrupted by service with the
beach party which was just too late, sadly, to
evacuate the 51st Highland division from St
Valery-en-Caux; and he had Served with an antiinvasion coastal battery on the Isle of Wight.
Just about par for that particular course.
'Duty', said Nelson, 'is the great business of
a sea officer'. As we follow Peter La Niece's
modestly-given account of his naval career, we
get the sense, not only of duty happily and well
carried out, both in war and peace, but of a fullydischarged obligation to record events with
accuracy unadorned by heroics or hyperbole.
From December 1940 until July 1942
Lieutenant La Niece was a watch-keeper in
HMS Birmingham, experiencing thereby the
wide-ranging and diverse operations of our
cruisers, with a spell of 203 days at sea out of
222 - not untypical; it was not lack of seatime
that impelled La Niece to put in a formal request
to serve in a destroyer, but the feeling that it
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was time he caught up with some of those junior
to him who were already First Lieutenants. War
being what it is - or at any rate was - a year
passed before Peter La N. found himself, after
service as Liaison Officer in Dutch cruisers and
a 28-knot passage back to UK in the Queen
Mary, joining the sadly teased-out old Viscount
as Number One. In due course:
Useless as an escort we limped into
Freetown . . . At this juncture a letter
arrived from our erstwhile operational
authority, Captain (D) Liverpool,
declaring that . . . Viscount was not in a
fit condition to continue operating without
an immediate major refit! Since the
despatch of this report, which had taken
three months to reach us, we had steamed
over 12,000 miles.
The first post-war Long (G) Course saw
Whale Island back to pre-war form, and P. G.
La Niece emerged from it not only qualified but
duly blooded as a result of the inevitable
'Whaley' horse-play; he had indeed been lucky
not to lose an eye. In the event, he was made
Gunnery Officer of the Ajax, of Battle of the
Plate fame, and enjoyed a spirited
Mediterranean commission in her. But it was
his next job that, fortuitously, prepared him for
the key Cold War appointment which he would
hold in the rank of Captain; for in March 1948,
just married to the 210 WRNS whom he had met
in Malta, Peter joined HMS Dolphin 'and as
Staff Gunnery Officer to Captain SIM 5 and
FOSM' .
It is salutary to be reminded that in October
1956, at the time of 'Suez', Anglo-US relations
were so bad that Commander La Niece, then
a member of the British Naval Staff in
Washington, was unceremoniously bundled
ashore from the US cruiser flagship in which
he was observing an exercise. Happily, by 1963,
when Captain La Niece returned to Washington,
this time as the representative of Rear-Admiral
Hugh ('Rufus') Mackenzie, the newly appointed
Chief Polaris Executive, President and Prime
Minister were on good terms; and this was
reflected by the uniquely close cooperation
between the USN and the RN and all concerned
with giving effect to the Polaris Sales
Agreement. Naval historians (even if not now
required reading for naval officers) of the Cold
War are here provided with valuable source
material.
It was fitting that La Niece's next appointment
should be in command of HMS Triumph, the
light fleet carrier converted to be a heavy repair
ship, for she was the finest command that an
officer on the dreaded 'dry list' could have, and
he managed to take her to sea quite often.
Thereafter, command of the Clyde Submarine
Base was a 'natural', with Flag Officer Spithead
to follow, thus rounding o u t a naval career of
which the admiral's family, for whom the book
was written, have every right to be proud. An
adequate index, and photographs, enhance the
narrative. Only the title, perhaps, might be a
bit more catchy - I should have preferred, for
example, From Parade Ground to Polaris: the
Memoirs of a Gunnery Jack - but then I wasn't
one.
IANMCGEOCH
THUNDER IN THE MORNING CALM:
The Royal Canadian Navy in Korea
1950-1955
by EDWARD
C. MEYERS
(Vanvell Publishing Ltd., distributed by Airlife
Ltd - £16.95)
This is a valuable addition to the Korean War
literature, covering the RCN destroyers' war
in detail, and at the same time describing the
operations and conditions experienced by all the
small ships at the sharp end of this conflict.
When the war started on 25 June 1950 the
three operational destroyers - Athabaskan,
Cayuga and Sioux - were all in dockyard refit
at Esquimalt. By cancelling most of the
outstanding work and by rapid resupply and
rearming, they sailed for Pearl Harbour and
Guam. General MacArthur wanted soldiers not
sailors so they did not reach Sasebo (and warm
British beer in the canteen) until 30 July.
Their first duties were as convoy escorts and
neutralisation of the islands on the west coast
prior to the Inchon landings. Difficulties in
communications were resolved by having
interpreters who understood both American and
British English.
They acted as escorts to the supply ships and
troop carriers for the Inchon landings, after
which they were involved with clearing the
islands south of Haeju. Here the young sailors
98
BOOK RE\
had their initiation into war when they saw the
misery and tragedy experienced by the
islanders.
Good coverage is given to the excellent work
done by Captain J. B. Brock RCN with Cayuga,
Athabaskan and Sioux together with HMASs
Bataan and Warramunga and USS Forrest B.
Royal when they were operating in support of
the US 8th Army at Chinnampo during the
withdrawal from the north after the Chinese and
North Korean offensives in November and
December 1950; they assisted with demolitions
to dock installations and with the evacuation of
Chinnampo.
It was UN policy to retain the islands off the
west coast as a threat to North Korea. The
chapter on liaison with the guerrilla forces
operating from these islands describes the
problems encountered to achieve this aim. The
northern Chorusans, close to the Chinese
border, were lost in December 1951, but the
southern islands of Paengnyong-do, Chodo and
Sok-to were to be held at all costs. Invasion
forces could be launched from them; guerrilla
raids were regularly mounted from them;
Paengnyong-do was the emergency landing strip
(on the beach) for damaged aircraft from the
carriers.
The Train Busters Club on the east coast the preserve of the USN - is given a chapter,
Crusader finally holding the record for the
largest number of trains destroyed.
A thread running through the book deals with
problems of low morale, apparently triggered
initially by the poor mail arrangements. Later
causes of trouble were long, boring patrols;
dress regulations; and continuing problems with
mail from home. Details are given of steps taken
by Commanding Officers to overcome these
problems, and mention is particularly made of
Iroquois as being probably the happiest ship.
Though morale may at times have been very
low, discipline never broke down.
Apart from recording the patrols carried out
by all eight destroyers during the three years,
the other side of naval life is well covered in
the chapter 'Happy Days' - rest and recreation,
crime and punishment, non-naval money
making schemes and pedi-cab racing. Similarly
a number of stories relieve the patrol reports,
Alice the dog in Cayuga (and other mascots);
Ferdinand Demara who passed himself off
(successfully) as Dr J. Cyr in Athabaskan.
A series of appendices completes the book
with details of the ships, their battle honours,
Commanding officers. Korean service and final
disposal; a list of awards to RCN personnel;
command organisation charts; and excerpts
from the enquiry into the grounding of Huron
on 13 July 1953.
This is a book that should be read by anyone
with an interest in post- 1945 conflicts and should
be bought by those who served in Korea. It
presents, too, a view of the Royal Canadian
Navy that we in Britain may not have seen and
highlights the dangers of a single Unified
Defence Force.
JOHN R. P. LANSDOWN