The Naval Review

THE
NAVAL
REVIEW
TO PROMOTE THE ADVANCEMENT AND SPREADING WITHIN THE
SERVICE OF KNOWLEDGE RELEVANT TO THE HIGHER ASPECTS O F
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 .80
No. 3
JULY 1992
Contents
Page
EDITORIAL
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193
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195
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201
ARTICLES:
DEFENCE POLICY 1945-1982
--
I
THE ENVIRONMENT. GREEN ISSUES AND THE MILITARY
WHAT ARE THE IMPLICATIONS OF INCREASED IMMIGRATION FOR THE ECONOMIC
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209
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222
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231
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
236
.........
242
AND SOCIAL STRUCTURES OF WESTERN EUROPE?
WHITHER OR WITHER FISHERY PROTECTION?
.
WAR A NATURAL HUMAN PHENOMENON
QED .
I
HISTORY OF 1913 ENTRY TO THE AUSTRALIAN NAVAL COLLEGE
DESERT SHIELDIDESERT STORM: COMMAND PRIORITIESIPRINCIPLES .
WHY IS THE WHITE ENSIGN THE WRONG SHAPE?
........
243
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
246
DISPOSAL LIST
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 248
UNOFFICIALLY
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FIVE MINUTES OF TIME
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254
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
256
THE LOSS OF HMS CHARYBDIS
CORRESPONDENCE
LETTER FROM ORIENT
250
.
TWO
RESPONSES
.
AN
AXE TO GRIND
.
REVIEW
OF THE
THE ROYAL OAK AFFAIR .
SHIPS' NAMES .
AIR COVER .
ORIGIN
FIGHTING ADMIRALS .
.
OF A SIGNAL AND OTHER MATTERS .
NAVAL ARCHITECT=DESIGNER O F SHIPS
NAVAL ANECDOTES ANTHOLOGY
.
HMS
.
ROYAL SOVEREIGN 1943
REVIEWS -I:
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
265
REVIEWS -11:
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
270
Editorial
Annual General Meeting
HE Annual General Meeting of The Naval
Review was held in HMS President on 28
May 1992. In the absence of the Chairman
(explained immediately below) Vice Admiral
Sir Ian McGeoch took the chair.
Sir James Eberle, Chairman of the Trustees,
was, as he explained in a letter to the Secretary
Treasurer, absent on duty. He had been asked,
with Admiral Willian Crowe US Navy (Retd),
to arbitrate between Russia and Ukraine on the
disposal of the Black Sea Fleet. Part of his letter
read 'I feel like an umpire in a game that has
no rules, in which the goalposts are moved
frequently and for which I am not provided with
a whistle'. Nevertheless those at the AGM felt
rightly pleased that the Boss was on such an
important and responsible mission.
In a survey of an eventful and successful year
for the Review, the editor found one cause for
mild disappointment, which was that the new
strategic situation had not yet had in our pages
the depth of study and discussion that it
deserved. Perhaps it is early days; after all, a
year ago there was still a USSR, and NATO was
working along the old lines (maybe it is still
working to the old limits now: see 'Reviews-I'
in this issue). Still, other publications are
grappling the new problems; more treatment in
our pages would be welcome.
The financial position of the Review is very
sound, with a substantial surplus having been
made in the wake of the subscription rise. But
of course that will erode over the ensuing years,
as we don't intend to put it up again for some
time to come. Membership is still over 2,500
but not growing much, and all members are
asked to think about introducing colleagues to
what the Review can offer. Our aim is to
increase the serving membership to something
like 2,000 - still only a quarter of serving
officer numbers - within a couple of years. I
have some leaflets saying what we are and what
we do; these go to training establishments
anyway, but if anyone sees a gap in our cover
I can supply them direct.
T
This issue
The way the world wags at the moment is
demonstrated by two of the longer articles in
this issue: one about the environment and one
about immigration. These are tough subjects,
both very well covered by their respective
authors but not comfortable reading. Are they
central to the Navy's concerns? That is for
members to judge. They certainly deserved
airing.
The main historical article is indeed so recent
in its cover that it is almost contemporary, and
subsequent instalments will be more so.
'Defence Policy 1945-1982' won't be
comfortable reading either for some, but it is
essential factual background and we all owe
Mewstone a debt for producing it.
I cannot pretend to cover even in summary
all the other topics this issue addresses. As
usual, it is to be hoped there is something of
interest for all, and even that those who read
from cover to cover - and there are some will find it worthwhile. If anyone can spot a
technical experiment in one of the articles,
perhaps they'd let me know.
A book of naval anecdote
In the correspondence column members will
find a letter from Captain Pat McLaren, asking
for contributions to a book of Naval Anecdote
that he is compiling. This looks a particularly
promising venture - a companion to Jackspeak
perhaps - and it is to be hoped that all will
search their dittyboxes.
Plymouth and Onyx
The Warship Preservation Trust announces with
justifiable pride that on 8 June 1992, the frigate
Plymouth and the submarine Onyx open their
gangways to the public in Birkenhead. The date
is symbolic because it is ten years to that day
that Plymouth was heavily bombed in San
Carlos: graphically recalled, by the way, by
'Trotter' in Part I1 of 'Q.E.D.', but that is to
come in October. Any enquiries should be made
to Lieut. Cdr M. A. Critchley RNR (Rtd) (who
194
EDITORIAL
also runs Maritime Books), at Lodge Hill,
Liskeard PL14 4EL.
Book on Captain F. J. Walker
Alan Burn, who asked for recollections on this
subject in the last issue, has asked me to point
out that Captain Walker never held a DSC as
we implied: our mistake, not his. Walker had
a CB and a DSO and three bars, mind, so as
Burn says he might not greatly have missed a
DSC. A great man, and we will all wish success
to the book.
National Maritime Museum Seapower
Gallery
A permanent gallery 'Twentieth Century
Seapower' will open in the National Maritime
Museum on 21 July. It is sponsored by the
Evergreen Group, Taiwan, and includes
(ironically one may think) a 'graphic depiction'
of 'the break-up of the British Empire and the
dissolution of Britain's merchant fleet'.
However, that is the flip side, and there are
many dramatic exhibits that are less depressing.
Royal Naval Museum: Operation Pedestal
With generous financial support from the
Maltese Government, The Royal Naval
Museum recently opened an Exhibition at the
National Maritime Museum in Vittoriosa.
Malta, commemorating the Fiftieth Anniversary
of the August 1942 Operation Pedestal ('The
Santa Marija Convoy'). In August 1992 the
exhibition will return to the Royal Naval
Museum in Portsmouth. One more for the
Diary.
Defence Policy - 1945-1982 - I
at intervals by much publicised defence reviews,
Introduction
HE aim of this paper is to give a brief back- specificallythe 1950 Re-Armament Programme,
ground history of the formulation of defence the 1957 'Sandys' review, the 1966 'Healey'
policy from the end of the Second World War review, the 1975 'Mason' review and the 1981
to the aftermath of the Falklands campaign. The 'Nott' review. The political author of each
paper is written from a naval perspective and will review set out to provide a blue print for the most
mention the other services only when their effective and affordable armed forces for the
policies bore directly on those of the RN, of medium term future. Each review, in turn, failed
which the most important example was the to achieve its aim, principally because of unforequestion of maritime versus land based air seen economic problems although, in the case
power. However, it is all too easy, when view- of the 1981 'Nott' review, the highly successful
ing the massive reduction in British maritime part played by maritime forces in the Falklands
power, to see the Navy as the principal sufferer campaign helped to alleviate the worst of the proin an almost continuous process of decline in posed measures for the Royal Navy.
A comparison of the strength of the Fleet at
defence capability. This is not so, and it should
be recognised that the other services suffered various dates is at Annex A, and for continuity
this will be printed at the end of each part of this
equally, if not more, painfully.
The most significant single factor in the formu- series. At the end of the series there will be in
lation of defence policy has been the state of the addition a comparison of the Vote A strength at
economy, the British financial position and in- Annex B, and a list of major events in the
dustrial base since the war having, with a few evolution of naval policy at Annex C.
exceptional periods of growth, been almost continuously weak. In peace defence policy must be 1945-1950 - The Years of Stagnation
based on the provision of military resources to .The end of the Second World War saw Great
meet political cormnitmentsat an affordable price. Britain as a victorious world power with her
As the abortive 1950 Armament programme Empire and Commonwealth still intact, although
demonstrated, and as the USSR found out the the cracks, beginning with Burma and the inhard way, if you cannot afford it you cannot have dependence of India in 1947, were beginning to
it, at least without drastic economic consequences. show. The post war Labour Government of
There have, of course, been other major factors Clement Attlee faced the enormous problems of
shaping our defence posture, specifically re-structuring the country's economic and inchanges in the politico-military situation and the dustrial base, shattered by six years of war,
long retreat from Empire, although the major whilst at the same time being reluctant to accept
withdrawal from East of Suez in 1971 was in- any diminution in Britain's long standing
fluenced more by economic than political con- position as a first class power. On the political
siderations. Despite the clamourings of extremists front SovietIWestern bloc hostility increased,
on both sides of the political spectrum, and the fuelled by such Soviet actions as the Berlin
rhetoric of both parties whilst in opposition, Blockade and the Invasion of Czechoslovakia,
party politics appear to have played only a small until it became accepted that war in the early
part in policy making and both parties when in fifties was possible. Until 1949 America was the
power acted responsibly to provide what they only nuclear power, although the British Government had decided to develop a nuclear capability,
saw as the best Defence Policy.
Defence policy since the war has been subject but in 1949 the USSR perfected its own atomic
to a continuous process of change and review weapon, leading to a major re-appraisal of
against a background of a harsh economic defence policy, the 1950 'Global Strategy'. The
climate, changes in the world politico-military Treaty of Brussels founding the Western Union
situation and major advances in technology Defence Organisation (Great Britain, France, the
resulting in enormous increases in equipment Netherlands, Belgium and Luxembourg) was
costs. This ongoing process has been highlighted signed in 1948 and, more importantly, NATO
T
,,:
196
DEFENCE POLICY - 1945-1982 - I
was formed in 1949. From this time on Britain
accepted that it would no longer act alone in largescale war, but would in future participate only
as a member of an alliance, a major change from
traditional concepts. The costs of maintaining
both a worldwide imperial presence and
contributing forces to NATO were, however,
considerable.
During the immediate post war years the office
of CNS was held by Lord Cunningham of
Hyndhope (1943-46), Sir John Cunningham
(1946-48) and Lord Fraser of North Cape
(1948-51). The Navy was drastically reduced
from its wartime strength, with the demobilisation of Hostilities Only personnel and the reduction to reserve of a large part of the Fleet.
There was very little new construction and acute
manpower shortages, particularly in technical
rates, and economic stringency adversely
affected fighting efficiency. The Navy ran
largely on its wartime 'fat', which allowed the
naval budget to be unrealistically small, and
reached its nadir as anoperational force in 1949.
A major attempt to define the problem by deciding what forces could be provided within the
allocated defence budget (the Harwood Report)
made such drastic recommendations, including
a virtual cessation of fleet activity outside home
waters, that it was considered unacceptable and
shelved.
In 1949 the three services proposed measures
to alleviate matters, and simultaneously the
Chancellor announced a major financial crisis
and devalued the pound. The Foreign and Commonwealth Relations Secretaries remained intractable on the need to retain commitments.
Committee after committee sought remedies to
no avail, and by 1950the state of the armed forces
was a matter of serious public concern. The situation was &acerbated by the outbreak of the
Korean war in June, and there was a major
defence debate in the House of Commons in July,
leading to the decision to introduce the 1950 ReArmament Programme. Subsequent events
proved it to be greatly over ambitious, neither
the financial nof industrial resources to implement it being available, but it marked the bottom
of the post war slide and the beginning of the slow
and painful climb to modernisation.
In 1947 the Prime Minister took the first step
towards the unification of the direction ofdefence
policy by appointing a Minister of Defence with
a small staff to chair a joint service Cabinet
Defence Committee comprising Ministers and
the Chiefs of Staff. The single service ministers
lost their ex officio position as members of the
Cabinet. The new Minister of Defence suffered
from the problem of having responsibility with
little authority, but his position was strengthened
during the Conservative Government which
came to power in 1951.
1950-56 Korea to Suez
A Conservative Government under Winston
Churchill took office in 1951. Like its predecessor, it faced the massive economic and industrial
problems resulting from the war, and inherited
a re-armament programme incapable of achievement within the economic resources available.
Anthony Eden succeeded Winston Churchill as
Prime Minister in 1955, and Sir Rhoderick
McGrigor held the office of CNS from 1951 to
1955, being relieved by Lord Mountbatten.
The hardening of attitude by the Warsaw Pact.
the acquisition by the USSR of the atomic bomb.
initiating the first phase of the nuclear balancing
act, and the successful production by both the
USA and the USSR of thermo nuclear weapons
in 1954, led to a series of major reappraisals of
defence policy. The 1950 Global Strategy paper
was revised in 1951 and was followed later by
an ongoing Radical Review. The defence
priorities were assessed as maintenance of the
UK's world wide interests in the cold war
scenario, contributing with NATO to an effective deterrent and, lastly, preparing for hot war
should it break out. The emphasis was on peacekeeping anddeterrence, with the RAF's bomber
forces having first priority and the army in
Europecoming second. The Navy, to itsdismay,
was accorded the lowest priority, and its traditional roles were seen as overtaken by the advent of nuclear war where the new strategic
concept envisaged a short sharp nuclear exchange
followed by a prolonged period of 'broken backed' war post strike. The CNS fought hard and
determinedly to re-establish the importance of
the Navy's role in deterrence. in maintaining the
vital sea lines ofcommunication, and in fighting
the 'broken backed' phase, which would. it was
thought, be conducted largely at sea. To add to
the Navy's problems, the role of the centrepiece
DEFENCE POLICY - 1945-1982 - I
of the Fleet, the carrier, came under considerable
pressure. The carrier force was at that time
divided into Fleet Carriers, with principally a
strike role, and Light Fleet Carriers whose role
was convoy protection. The Light Fleet Carrier
was seen as essential, as there was no other means
of performing its tasks, but doubts were cast on
the maritime role of the Fleet Carrier in view of
the increasing range of shore based aircraft and
the advent of guided missiles. However, after
considerablediscussion and stiff offensive action
by the CNS the future of the Fleet Carrier was
confirmed in 1955, and approval to develop the
Buccaneer was given at the same time.
The Fleet at the end of 1949 was largely unchanged from that of 1945. Apart from the
completion of some destroyers and frigates laid
down at the end of the war new construction was
practically at a standstill, and almost every
aircraft in service with the Fleet Air Arm was
obsolescent. The 1950 Re-Armament Programme could not be progressed because the
necessary economic and industrial resources
were not available, and, as the threat of major
war was perceived to reduce, aprocess of 'rolling
forward' expenditure was adopted. This was no
more than a palliative, and served only to store
up trouble for the future, but there was little
alternative. However, progress was made in the
late 40s and the early 50s. HM Ships Eagle, Ark
Royal, Albion, Bulwark and Centaur, and the
eight 'Daring' class entered service, the conversion of destroyers to frigates began and the new
generation of Types 4 1, 6 1, 12 and 14 frigates
were ordered. The strength of the Fleet in 1949
and 1955 is shown at Annex A and whilst
numbers look impressive by today's standards
the bulk of the Fleet was unmodernised and
ageing, and faced the serious problem of wartime
hulls wearing out in the mid 1960's with no major
new construction programme in existence.
However, the end of the Korean War in 1953
eased some of the pressure on resources, and the
America and West Indies command was
abolished in 1956. The period ended with the
Suez Campaign, which resulted in the resignation
of Anthony Eden as Prime Minister and his
replacement by Harold MacMillan. It also reawakened an interest in amphibious warfare. a
subject which had been virtually ignored since
1945.
197
1957-1964 The 'Sandys' Defence Review to
the Fall of the Conservative Government
On taking office the Prime Minister appointed
Duncan Sandys as Minister of Defence with considerably increased powers and a firm brief to
produce a new defence policy in the light of
current strategic concepts which would result in
a substantial reduction in expenditure and
manpower. Sandys was a forceful and determined politician with a reputation for getting his
own way. As Minister of Supply he had been a
forthright opponent of maritime power in general
and the carrier in particular, and saw future wars
in terms of a short, sharp and final nuclear
exchange. He did not accept the post strike
'broken backed' war concept, and saw defence
policy as the provision of forces to maintain
Britain's world wide role in peace, to deter
aggression and to fight the first six weeks of the
hot war. Whilst a strong supporter of strategic
bombing, his predilection for unmanned missiles
to replace manned aircraft was not entirely
welcome to the RAF, whilst his remit from the
Prime Minister to abolish National Service
caused dismay to the Army, which relied heavily
on conscripts to maintain its strength. His
appointment was therefore viewed with some
trepidation by all three Chiefs of Staff.
In presenting the naval case for the Defence
Review the Naval Staff, under Lord
Mountbatten, emphasised that large wars were
likely to develop from small ones, and that the
Navy, with its mobility, integral air power with
the carrier, and amphibious capability with the
Royal Marines, was in an excellent position both
to deter would be aggressors and to contain small
wars should they break out. This emphasis on
amphibious warfare, which had languished from
1945 until Suez demonstrated its importance, was
in marked contrast to more recent 'blue water
navy' policies, but the plan was accepted. The
Naval Staff made a good case, helped considerably by Mountbatten's personal influence
and prestige and an extensive lobbying
campaign, and the Navy suffered far less than
the other services when the terms of the Review
were finally settled. ' Naval manpower was to
be reduced: but only by some 17 per cent. The
size of the operational fleet was not seriously
affected. although the obsolescent reserve fleet
was to be greatly reduced. and the importance of
198
DEFENCE POLICY
the carrier in the world wide peacekeeping role
was emphasised. It was not possible to convince
the Minister that maritime forces would play a
major role in 'hot' war, but a potentially serious
programme of cuts had been averted. The RAF,
however, was to lose some 35 per cent of its
personnel and the Army, the most manpower
intensive of the three services, a swingeing 45
per cent of its strength, leading to the painful
process of amalgamating or disbanding many
famous regiments. National Service was
abolished, with the final batch of conscripts
entering in 1960.
The 1957 Defence review sought to achieve
a realistic balance between economic resources,
political commitments and the size and shape of
defence forces. However, the ink was barely dry
before fresh economic problems led to a demand
for further cuts in defence expenditure.
Proposals were put forward which were unacceptable in the face of unchanging commitments, and the Admiralty came under renewed
pressure on the Navy's offensive role. No major
changes were made, however, and the need for
the Commando Carrier was identified.
Duncan Sandys was replaced by Harold
Watkinson in 1959, and Lord Mountbatten
became CDS. He was relieved as First Sea Lord
by Sir Charles Lambe, who retired after a short
period in office as a result of illness, being
succeeded by Sir Caspar John, the first naval
aviator to hold the post. 1958-1961 were years
of relative calm, with no major changes. There
were the customary grave financial situations,
Treasury alarm, and requirements for more
detailed appreciations of future fleet proposals,
but the fires of the carrier controversy were
banked and smouldered gently. It was becoming
apparent that they would not erupt into open
flame until the decision to replace the existing
carrier fleet had to be taken. Meanwhile Fleet
construction continued with the laying down of
the Dreadnought and the first of the County class
DLG's, and the identification of the need for a
second Commando Carrier and replacement of
the ageing AW squadron, resulting in HM Ships
Fearless and b~trepid.The strength of the Fleet
in 1957;is at Annex A; much dead wood from
the obsolescent ships of the Reserve Fleet had
been cut away since 1955 as part of the 'Way
Ahead'. The East Indies Station was abolished
-
1945-1982 - I
in 1958, Hong Kong Dockyard was run down
and Malta Dockyard transferred to commercial
management (1959). In 1961 CinC Nore hauled
down his flag for the last time, being replaced
by an Area Flag Officer, Sheerness dockyard
was closed, and the first unified command was
established in the Middle East.
The possibility of the RN using a developed
VISTOLdesign, which had been rejected some
years previously, was again raised as early trials
with the Hawker PI 127 were encouraging, but
was again turned down by the Admiralty. The
RAF, who saw V/STOL as a means of providing
air support for land operations without the need
for established airfields (and therefore as an
argument against the intervention role of the
carrier) pursued the concept. With hindsight the
Admiralty's reluctance to accept the V/STOL
concept, which was to continue until the decision
to end the era of the fixed wing carrier was taken
in 1966, was inflexible, unimaginative and short
sighted. However, at the time and subsequently,
it was regarded as an untested and second best
option, which indeed it was.
The Kuwait crisis of 1961, when Britain
assisted Kuwait to forestall an anticipated Iraqi
invasion, highlighted the problems of rapid
reinforcement by air, as Turkey and the Sudan
initially refused overflying rights for military and
troop carrying aircraft. Fortunately a commando
carrier and a fixed wing aircraft carrier were both
in the area and held the fort until a scratch force
of military reinforcements was gathered together. The Iraqis, luckily, did not attack and
a basic muddle did not develop into a fiasco, but
the operation clearly demonstrated the advantage
of maritime over air forces in this type of
situation. This lesson was soon to be conveniently swept under the carpet as the future
of the carrier grew increasingly vulnerable.
During this period the design for the first
replacement carrier (CVAO1) crystallised into
a 53,000 ton vessel, an intermediate design
selected from four possible alternatives. A
smaller design of some 40,000 tons, and with
the capacity to operate V/STOL aircraft, was
considered but rejected on the grounds that it
would not provide the capability for the world
wide deployment of air power which was
considered necessary at the time.
Peter Thornycroft took over the Defence
DEFENCE POLICY
Portfolio in 1962 and remained in office until
the Conservative Government fell in 1964. By
the Autumn of 1962 the problem of reducing
defence expenditure was becoming focused on
the carrier and a number of studies on world
wide deployment and the carrier's role were
commissioned. The Royal Air Force
propounded the 'Island Strategy' whereby land
based aircraft could perform the entire maritime
role from fixed bases, principally on Indian
Ocean Islands. The Royal Navy disputed this
and suggested that both shore and maritime
based air power were necessary, but that a
degree of rationalisation between the two
services could reduce the extremely high cost
of tactical air power. Even at this early stage
of the 'carrier battle' the Navy's case was
weakened by its necessary acceptance that land
based air power would always be necessary in
addition to carrier borne aircraft, whilst the Air
Force claimed that it could do all that was
needed without the carrier, a contention likely
to be well received when seeking to reduce
defence expenditure.
This irreconcilable exchange of views was
conducted against the background of the transfer
of responsibility for the United Kingdom's
nuclear deterrent from the 'V bomber force' of
the RAF to the Royal Navy's Polaris
submarines. This had been mooted for some
time, but the decision was finally taken after the
USA had cancelled the Skybolt air launched
long range stand off delivery system, which was
to have been supplied to the RAF. Without
Skybolt the 'V bomber force', armed only with
free fall bombs and the short range Blue Steel
delivery system. would rapidly have become
ineffective in the face of greatly improved Soviet
Air defences. Against a situation of mounting
concern and unrest among Conservative back
bench MP's that Britain's defences were in
disarray, the Prime Minister negotiated the
purchase of the US Polaris system during
meetings with President Kennedy at Nassau in
December 1962. For the RAF the Nassau
Agreement nieant the loss of one of its most
important roles. strategic nuclear bombing. to
the RN.
This paper has, of necessity. tended to
concentrate on the problems facing defence
policy making. and it would be as well. at this
- 1945-1982 - I
199
stage, to relieve a picture of apparently
unremitting gloom with a short appraisal of what
had in fact been achieved. Annex A gives the
strength of the Fleet at 31 March 1963, and
considerable progress toward a modern fleet had
been made. There were four post war
operational carriers and two commando carriers
in service, and the first four County Class DLG
were with the Fleet. With the exception of the
four surviving CA class destroyers and four
Loch Class frigates, the surface fleet was almost
entirely of post war construction, or wartime
hulls modernised and converted, eg Battle class
AD destroyers, Type 15 frigates. A fifth carrier.
HMS Eagle, was in refit. The Amphibious force
was extremely elderly, but the Fearless and
Intrepid had been laid down in 1962. In the
Submarine Command, the Dreadnought was in
service, the Vuliant launched and the Warspire
ordered, 8 Oberon class were completed with
5 more either ordered or under construction, and
8 Porpoise class were in service. The 'A' (with
one exception) and 'T' classes had all been
converted or modernised. The Reserve Fleet
still contained some old vessels but its role had
been changed to provide back up and
replacement for the active Fleet rather than for
mass mobilisation in war. In the Fleet Arm the
Buccaneer and the Wasp helicopter had entered
operational service, and by March 1964 the four
Polaris submarines had been ordered. Overall,
much had been achieved since the dark days of
1950, and a healthy new construction
programme was well under way with more ships
due to enter service in the years ahead. The
greatest question mark lay over the future of the
carrier with the current ships having only a
limited operational life and no firm decision
taken on replacements.
On I April 1964 the unified Ministry of
Defence was established, the last meeting of the
old Board of Admiralty being held on 26 M a r ~ h .
Sir David Luce was CNS, having relieved Sir
Caspar John in 1963. Shortly after unification
doubts were expressed as to whether the costs
of both the SSN progran~nleand CVAOI could
be afforded, and it was suggested that the Navy
might be forced to choose between the
Submarine and the surface fleets.
MEWSTONE
(to be cor~tirirced)
200
DEFENCE POLICY - 1945-1982 - I
The Environment, Green issues and the Military
Introduction
NTIL the early 1980s most people thought
'Greens' were the vegetables that went
with a Sunday roast. Since then, however, there
has been a significant change in the British
public's understanding of 'Green' issues. In
1985 Andrew Sullivan described this when he
said:
'To be British and to be Green is far
more accurately reflected in our national
passions for fishing, gardening and country
walking, than in any radical, ecological
fervour. We are indeed a green nation, but
not in the way the Left would like. We care
about the details of our immediate
surroundings, street corners and
hedgerows, our parks and fens, our rivers
and hillsides - small pockets of quiet
sustenance - which protect our sense of
community, of history and of beauty. We
care too most of all for our own property
- and widespread property ownership is
the natural friend of environmental
responsibility. Above all this, there is a
deep patriotic pride in the natural beauty
of these islands, which, as George Orwell
observed, the intellectual Left could never
understand. ' '
Towards the end of the 1980s a series of
disasters occurred in and around the UK that
involved major loss 'of life. These, plus the
horrifying accidents at Bhopal and Chernobyl,
reinforced people's perception that not only
could something be done to halt the decay of
the environment, but that something ought to
be done, and done now.
In 1990 J. Porritt further refined the
description of 'Green' as:
'Putting the environment at or near the
top of one's list of priorities, and
recognising that we can never genuinely
enrich ourselves or properly protect our
children's future without first protecting
the natural wealth of the la net.'^
This is the attitude now shared by most of
today's general public. However, when did the
military start to be concerned about 'Green'
issues?
u
Military involvement in the environment
In the early 1970s Lord Carrington, then
Secretary of State for Defence, commissioned
Lord Nugent to head a Defence Lands
Committee to review the Ministry of Defence's
3,000 land holdings - 600,000 acres of
aerodromes, research stations, firing ranges,
etc. - in Britain. In this report Lord Nugent
recommended that:
'The Ministry of Defence should adjust
itself to a new climate of public opinion
expectation: the old system of blasting on
regardless had to go. Public access to the
Ministry's lands should be provided
wherever possible. There should be proper
liaison with local communities, and special
training should be provided to raise the
environmental and aesthetic awareness of
service personnel. ' '
In addition, Nugent recommended that a
conservation officer be appointed to co-ordinate
activities across the different services and 'to
act as a link between the Services and civilian
bodies concerned.' This, then, was the first real
stirring of military consciousness about an
important responsibility that those in the Armed
Forces had to accept.
In September 1990 the British Government
published its first White Paper on the
environment, This Common Inheritance, setting
out its environmental strategy. This initiative is
fully supported by the Ministry of Defence,
which aims to further the Government's
environmental strategy and set an example for
the rest of the community in all activities
affecting the natural environment. The Secretary
of State for Defence has made the Parliamentary
Under Secretary of State for Defence
Procurement responsible for overseeing
defence-related environmental issues. He chairs
the Ministry of Defence's Defence Environment
committee and is responsible for policy
decisions and Parliamentan
business
concerning the environment. The Parliamentary
Under-Secretary of State for the Armed Forces
is responsible for energy efficiency, which is
co-ordinated with more general environmental
issues where there is an overlap.
202
THE ENVIRONMENT, GREEN ISSUES AND THE MILITARY
To support fully the Government's policy will
need time and careful planning to ensure that
the military's contribution is used effectively.
However, what the military has in abundance,
which is readily available now, is manpower and
transportation; facilities that the scientific
community lacks. It is these valuable
commodities that can be used immediately and
at no, or minimal cost to support environmental
scientific expeditions, because they are deployed
regularly on exercises and are therefore 'in the
field' already. This is not a new idea. In 1768
James Cook, the outstanding navigator and
surveyor of his day, was charged by the
Admiralty to conduct the first of his three highly
successful voyages of discovery. In addition to
the botanists and other scientists he always
carried to record scientific data in the new lands
he discovered, he carried a scientific expedition
from the Royal Society to observe a transit of
Venus from the Pacific. When Captain Fitzroy
was charged with surveying southern South
America in the Beagle in 1831, he took with
him, at the Admiralty's behest, Charles Darwin
as his naturalist. In 1872, HMS Challenger set
off on a three and a half year, 68,000 nautical
mile voyage round the world. She was
sponsored by the British Government, on an
expedition organised by the Royal Society and
the University of Edinburgh. This was the first
ever major oceanographic survey, with the aim
to 'chart the depths, the movement and contents
of the seas; to scour the oceans for marine life,
for clues to climatic phenomena, and for
minerals'. It was an outstanding success. In
1901, Captain Scott led the first National
Antarctic Expedition in the Discovery, under
the aegis of the Government, the Admiralty, the
Royal Society and the Royal Geographic
Society. The precedent for using the Military
for scientific research is well founded.
Long-term prospects for the future - or
sooner?
Some pertinent facts concerning the longterm
prospects for the world:
Global Warming. This is made up of the
'Greenhouse Effect', regional climate change
and possible sea level rise. These could affect
food production, water resources and fishery
patterns. The effects are likely to be felt by those
least able to cope, leading to significant
movement of people.
Population. The world's population has
increased dramatically during this century; 1.65
billion in 1900, 3.7 billion in 1970, 4.5 billion
in 1980, 5.4 billion in 1990 and on projection,
8.4 billion by 2025. In 1985 the third world
accounted for 73% of the earth's population,
by 2025 it is expected to account for 84%.
Water. Water is expected to play a major role
in inter state relations in the future. At present
35-40% of the world's population depend on
fresh water from river systems shared by two
or more countries, in fact fifty countries are
affected by this sharing. One county's dam has
the potential of becoming another country's
drought; already wars have been fought over
river water redirection.
Coastal Zones. The area from the beach to
the edge of the continental shelf, known as the
coastal zone, represents about 10%of the area
of the oceans and about 0.5% of their volume.
They are the most productive part of the sea and
are crucially involved in the global carbon cycle.
They are also the most used and abused. Seventy
per cent of the world's population live on the
coastal plains. The coastal zones provide food
and other resources for them and are a sink for
their waste product^.^ By the year 2000 two
thirds of the world's total flow of freshwater
will be controlled by dams, which will have a
profound effect on the coastal zone, through
changes to salinity, nutrients, silt and the
injection of sewage, poisons and other
pollutants.
Putting these major environmental problems
together leads to some very unpalatable - in
traditional security terms - possibilities; major
world instabilities, mass movement of people
and conflict over waterlsea resources. This will
lead to the increased possibility of armed
confrontation or armed conflict. But more of
that later, where are we now?
Conservation, the environment and
'Green issues'
Whilst it can be seen from Porritt's description
that the term 'Green' now covers a much
broader spectrum, it is more often used in a
narrower sense when referring to some form of
environmental 'disaster'. For clarity, it is better
THE ENVIRONMENT, GREEN ISSUES AND THE MILITARY
to divide this broad heading into three separate
ones: Conservation, Environment and 'Green
issues'. Conservation is as it implies, the
maintenance and protection of what we already
have. The Environment includes matters
relating to resources, demography, ecology and
climate. Environmental awareness is evident at
many levels: personal - e.g. smoking and the
local by-pass; national - e.g. pollution
(degrading the quality of the air, water, soil or
natural scenery) and inner cities; international
- e.g. acid rain and shared water sources;
global - e.g. ozone depletion, climatic change
and global warming. As already stated, the
term 'Green issues' is now more commonly
used when referring to disasters.
Today it is impossible to find a newspaper
which does not contain an article about the
environment; usually some ecological disaster
that is either poisoning the water, polluting the
air, destroying the crops or doing all three.
Pollution of one kind or another is getting
worse. Although the exact impact on the globe
of human activity, and the scientific basis on
which the various predictive models are based,
continue to be hotly debated, it is quite clear
that the concern of Governments is now global.
The ideal we should live by is that of 'sink or
swim together'; for some, however, the
problem is too vast to grasp, and 'out of sight
out of mind' is a truer statement.
A new phrase that is gaining credibility is
'sustainable development'. This means living
off the earth's income instead of eroding its
capital; handing down to future generations not
only our man-made wealth but also natural
wealth such as clean and adequate water
supplies, good arable land, a wealth of wildlife
and ample forests. Both the United Nations and
the British Government have accepted this
principle. Achieving this will require coordinated international action. Unilateral action
on these issues will be insufficient, and the
Government is taking a leading role in
encouraging international initiatives. Once an
international approach has been agreed, action
is required by everyone, especially large
organisations such as the Ministry of Defence.
The necessary responses to local environmental
concerns and to global threats are very diverse,
but fall broadly into two categories, pollution
203
prevention/control and sustainability. The
former is generally susceptible to legislative
action, the latter much less so.
In its 'Environmental Manual' the
Government lists the different kinds of pollution
prevention and control, which can be seen as
protecting:
1. the ozone layer by minimising the
emission and use of ozone depleting
substances.
2. ground level air quality by reducing
the emission of pollutants, some of which
may cause pollution hundreds of miles
away in the-form of acid rain.
3. the general amenity of where we live
through controls on litter, noise and
radiation.
4. surface waters by restricting polluting
discharges.
5. the seas by reducing the accidental
or deliberate discharge of pollutants or
waste.
6. the soil and underground water
resources through measures to prevent,
and sometimes clean up,
land
contamination from accidental spillage,
such as of oil or improperly dumped waste.
The pursuit of sustainability requires us to:
1. help reduce the consumption of
energy from fossil fuels, and hence the
build-up of carbon dioxide, and the
emission of other greenhouse gases such
as nitrous oxides and CFCs, to help sustain
the world's climate.
2. reduce the consumption of other
items, e.g. paper to save energy and other
non-renewable resources.
3. recycle waste and encourage the
recycling industry by buying its products,
for similar reasons to 2 above.
4. help protect endangered species and
rainforests (the destruction of which
contributes to global warming) by not
purchasing products from such sources.
5. conserve and encourage nature on the
defence estate.
6. avoid developments or activity that
damage the countryside or heritage. '
The military's record to date
So, what is the Ministry of Defence's record
204
THE ENVIRONMENT, GREEN ISSUES AND THE MILITARY
so far? Where does the Military stand now? In
simplistic terms: on Conservation its record is
good, on the Environment its record is adequate,
and on 'Green issues' its record is poor.
Let us look at all three in more detail.
Conservation first. The Ministry of Defence
employs 5,000 people to manage its estate,
which is larger and more diverse than the
National Trust's. Botany, archaeology,
ornithology, geology and entomology are
unlikely bed fellows with the Ministry of
Defence; that they are intertwined is due to the
Ministry of Defence's aim of positive
conservation. This is not just the restriction of
certain practices, but the beneficial creation of
habitat sanctuaries for Britain's wildlife. Great
efforts are made to maintain good liaison with
local conservation, naturalist and scientific
societies and organisations, and to establish
conservation groups at sites where there is a
known natural, scientific, environmental or
historical interest. The Ministry of Defence's
interest in conservation covers the whole of its
land, from the management of the archaeological
wealth of Salisbury Plain to the monitoring of
the breeding success of Barn Owls at Bicester.
A good case study is that of the Chemical
Defence Establishment at Porton Down in
Wiltshire. Almost everyone has heard of this
establishment, which has been used
intermittently since 1916 for troop training and
Defence research and it has. as a conseauence.
a slightly forbidding reputation. Many will,
however, be surprised to learn that within its
downland it contains a large 'Site of Special
Scientific Interest'. Porton is probably next best
known for its archaeology. The Establishment
contains 180 recorded features of which six are
scheduled Ancient Monuments. These include
two rare Neolithic Mines. 15.000 metres of
linear earthworks and examples of all the major
types of prehistoric burial barrows including the
largest known bell barrow in Wiltshire. A
number of interesting finds were made in the
1930s and several artefacts have been lent to
Salisbury Museum for display. The local
Ministry of Defence conservation group has
been vefy active in its work and has conducted
a number of surveys and detailed excavations.
A planned conservation scheme is now
underway, which includes scrub clearance and
preservation work undertaken by members of
the group and volunteers from the British
Conservation Volunteer Group. This work
reached a peak of achievement in 1985 when a
site archaeological exhibition and museum were
opened.
However, to the cynic the conservation effort
at Porton Down is just a public relations initiative
to balance the horror of the nature of the
establishment's work. While this view is nearer
the truth than the proclaimed purely
environmental reason given, the Ministry of
Defence can take credit for what it has achieved
so far. It must now take a step further, but more
of that later.
For the Environment, although this is
changing for the better, there is still one major
exception in the eyes of the general public the as yet unanswerable problem of the disposal
of nuclear waste. This very difficult issue needs
an answer as soon as possible; we must stop
pinning our hopes on tomorrow's technology
solving today's problems. Time and money must
be spent on this issue now. The more easily dealt
with problems of garbage removal and
destruction, increase in the use of recycled
paperlgoods, better understanding and control
of pollution (noise, sewage, smoke) are all being
addressed with many new initiatives in hand, but
almost totally within the constraints of no extra
cost.
On 'Green issues' the Ministry of Defence's
record is poor; it is always defensive, reacting
to accusations or events instead of leading
positively from the front. This is an area where
with vision, some lateral thinking and a degree
of investment, a great deal more could be
achieved. The question to be answered is not;
'What can t h e Armed Forces do to make
themselves more environmentally acceptable?',
but: 'What role do we want our Armed Forces
to fulfil in the future?'
The role of the Armed Forces in the future
The British grand strategy for defence is based
on what are known as the 'Three Pillars of
Defence':
1. Ensuring the security of the British
Isles.
2. Maintaining a favourable balance of
power in western Europe.
THE ENVIRONMENT, GREEN ISSUES AND THE MILITARY
3. Projecting and protecting British
interests overseas.
Stealing from Porritt's 1990 definition of
'Green', which said: '. . . we can never . . .
properly protect our children's future without
first protecting the natural wealth of the planet',
we could add a fourth 'pillar' to the British grand
strategy:
4. Protecting the natural wealth of the
planet.
The Armed Forces have three ways of doing
this; continuing the traditional security role,
adopting the concept of sustainability and
accepting a policing role to stop others harming
the environment. Realists will say that this is
much too ambitious to have as part of any
Governmental strategy; they are right in the
immediate term but wrong in the long term. The
future role of the Armed ~ o r c e iis being
reviewed and redefined in the light of recent
world events; the opportunity to include the
Environment in this review should not be
missed; this is the time for 'vision'. The Armed
Forces should be charged with the protection
of the British People from both 'armed enemy
forces' and environmental disasters.
This is already happening to a degree. For
example the West Indies Guard Ship is
invariably involved each year in civil assistance
to hurricane damaged islands and their
inhabitants. Closer to home, the Armed Forces
were required to help the civil authorities after
the January storms in Britain in 1990 and 1991.
Expanding still further, warships should (but do
not yet) cany the necessary detergent and booms
and be trained to deal with oil pollution when
they encounter it. The possibilities are endless,
necessary, and the benefit would outweigh the
cost. We need to start planning now. Put in Fleet
Street parlance; Bullets and Brushes for
the Army, Deterrent and Detergent for
the Navy and Missiles and Mops for the Air
Force!
The Government must give a strong lead, both
to the country and to the world. However, when
it actually comes to knowing what to do, it is
more easily theorised about than put into
practice. 'Now the question isn't why, but
how?', says Porritt. The Greenpeace slogan of
'Think Globally, Act Locally' sounds trite, but
is in fact correct.
205
The new link between the Military,
Environment and Green issues
There are two distinct parts to this new link;
the immediate, almost no cost part, and the
second, which is long term, requires new
equipments, and will require a readjustment of
the Directed Tasks given to the Military by the
Government. Environmental concerns and
implications must, in future, be considered in
the decision making process of all military
matters - of the latter, more later. First what
can we do now? For a scientist to get to his area
of interest and then stay there to conduct his
experiment could cost him the whole of his
annual budget; as said previously the Military
have the men and the equipment to do this at
almost no cost. The Treasury refers to the cost
of using the Military in this way as an
opportunity cost, i.e. the unit and its people are
there so the extra cost of the experiment
(marginal-cost) is minimal. The net savings to
the country are obvious. This is already
happening in certain areas; but only on a very
small scale. It could be used to a much greater
extent if people would look ahead and grasp the
opportunity.
The answer is simple. The Military goes out
on exercises to areas (land, sea and air) that are
often difficult, or costly and sometimes both for
the scientific community to reach. Even when
the researchers do go into the field, they are
invariably understaffed and underfunded. The
most significant area is in the collection of data;
the military can do this for them. Some
examples:
The Greenhouse Effect. The present level of
carbon dioxide in the earth's atmosphere is 350
parts per million, up from 315 in 1958, and 335
in 1980. ' O The generally held view is that a
doubling of the level of carbon dioxide (or more
accurately the carbon dioxide equivalent) in the
atmosphere, expected by the middle of next
century, would cause a mean temperature rise
of two or three degrees Celsius. This could lead
to a rise in sea levels and changes in the weather
pattern. One of the many unknowns in this large
equation is how much of the atmosphere's
carbon dioxide do the world's oceans absorb?
A simple and cheap method of measuring this
absorption rate is to fit a device to the seawater
intakes of all warships (and the Royal Yacht!).
206
THE ENVIRONMENT, GREEN ISSUES AND THE MILITARY
To keep the cost of the installation down it need
not be too sophisticated; a watchkeeper could
note down the readings and obtain a position
from the bridge (or Control Room if in a
submarine, where the depth would be significant
too). The problems of security will be addressed
later. The James Rennel Centre for World
Ocean Circulation in Southampton has a seven
year programme running that could be assisted
greatly by the correct information being
collected by warships on ocean passages.
Global Warming. One area that scientists are
very interested in is the thickness of the Arctic
ice cap. Is it thinning like the ice in the
Greenland Sea did between 1976 and 1986? If
it is, is it caused by Global warming? An ideal
platform for measuring this phenomenon is a
Nuclear submarine, which can (and in some
cases already has done ' ' in conjunction with the
Scott Polar Research Institute) obtain very
accurate readings.
Whale Migration. The institute for marine
studies in Tromso, Norway, first asked the
Norwegian Government twelve years ago if its
ships could record all sightings of whales and
report them to the institute. This has always been
refused on 'security grounds', even though the
institute said it was happy to receive the
information years later, and then even if it was
only a tenth of what was available. What a
missed opportunity!
Miscellaneous. Determination of the chemical
composition of seawater, i.e. the percentages
of the various minerals present, is an important
indicator of the 'well being' of the ocean. If the
balance is upset beyond a certain limit, then
plant life cannot be sustained in the water.
Similarly with the levels of phytoplankton,
which not only underpin the oceanic food-chain
but also the climatic-control and salinity-control
mechanisms of the seas. Early indication of a
problem would give us more time to react.
The Royal Navy has huge quantities of
scientifically scarce historical bathythermal
observations routinely made by naval vessels
for use in anti-submarine warfare. These contain
descriptions of the thermal structure of the upper
ocean, and are often from places for which
civilian observations are not available. They
have not been released to the general public for
security reasons.
The problem of security needs to be thought
through logically. In the examples mentioned
above, the requirements of traditional and
environmental security meet head on. The extent
to which we should compromise our operating
patterns to help with environmental research
requires a careful judgement to be made. The
important points to note are that the scientific
community do not require the information
within any time scale, nor must they have it all,
to make their calculations. Therefore if the
information, once sanitised, was passed through
NATO for example, the problem of who
collected what from where could be overcome.
A review of the security classification of
positional information, at the very least, is
required in the post-cold War era. There are
similar initiatives that the Royal Air Force and
the Army could, and in some cases are, doing;
for example the Royal Engineers have used their
skills to create 'wetlands', and soldiers training
for Northern Ireland duties are used to observe
and catch nest robbers. The Chief Scientific
Advisor to the Government, under the title,
'Science and the Armed Forces', has proposed
an initiative whereby the Armed Forces would
render assistance to approved programmes of
civil science and to promote collaboration with
civil scientific bodies. Let us hope this is just
the tip of the iceberg.
Before dealing with the second part of the
'link' it is necessary to look at practicalities.
What can we realistically achieve within the
political will of the Government and with the
Military's projected resources? It is axiomatic
that we must plan carefully to do the most with
the little we have. However, it is easy to have
a planning organisation that is so cumbersome
it achieves nothing, or so keen that it goes off
half-cocked; a balanced approach is all
important. So, where in fact do we start?
The world cannot be changed overnight, so
we must educate the Armed Forces. This is
beginning to happen in a small way with, for
example, the Army showing all recruits a
specially made video on conservation. There are
hidden benefits too. The military personnel will
pass on their newly acquired knowledge to their
families and friends, and well handled public
relations will help the Government's overall
'Green drive' and improve the Armed Forces'
THE ENVIRONMENT. GREEN ISSUES AND THE MILITARY
public image. However, action speaks louder
than words and this is where the two points
mentioned earlier come in. What to do must be
viewed in terms of environmental economics to
make the best use of our resources. The cost,
however, must not be so great or so burdensome
that the environmental benefits are lost when
balanced against the adverse effects on the
people operating the equipment, or the actual
cost of implementing the change. We must
obtain value for the taxpayer's money. The new
terms used to monitor this are: cost benefit
analysis, opportunity costs and environmental
impact assessment. These are just new ways of
saying we must get our money's worth,
financially and environmentally! We must
'spend to save' to achieve this. Although good
financial wisdom, this concept is difficult to use
in the Military, apart from our major equipment
projects, because its finances are run on an
annual basis. 'Pollution Prevention Pays',
known as the '3 Ps', makes good economic
sense.
In the case of ships, ad hoc improvements to
the disposal systems for sewage, engineroom
oily-bilges and soapy-water have all been made
so that we no longer pollute the oceans.
However it is now time to abandon this
piecemeal approach to equipments that directly
affect the environment, and to consider, as a
high priority, the funding, development,
procurement and fitting of a complete
environmental package to a ship. If we spend
money on equipment that will not cause
pollution in the first place, we will not be faced
with a much more expensive cleaning-up bill
later on. l 2 What is the point of having a navy
if its ships cannot be deployed at will because
they do not meet the international standards and
laws on pollution control? The answer,
obviously, is very little. If a ship cannot be
deployed at will, then its prime peacetime role
of deterrence will be eroded. The ideal is a
totally pollution-free ship, which has the
capacity to meet all existing and anticipated
pollution regulations; the technology is already
available to achieve this. The same can be said
for new aeroplanes, new tanks, etc.
There are other areas too. Should the Armed
Forces only use organically-grown vegetables?
Should they only accept stores supplied in
207
biodegradable plastic containers? Should they
crush but store and then return glass, tins and
paper for recycling? Should ships tow electricity
generators, like Salter's 'Duck' design to
produce energy at no extra cost, accepting that
whilst it is less efficient in scientific terms than
burning fuel to run the onboard diesel generator,
it supports 'sustainable development'?
The key is 'Political direction'. The Armed
Forces are servants of the Government in
power; as such they can be used to demonstrate
the Government's commitment to the
Environment. The Government should identify
suitable reductions in Directed Tasks and
Commitments, with due regard to the world
scene and Britain's defence requirements, to
enable initiatives like those mentioned above to
be implemented.
The second part of the 'link' is world-wide.
The instant reaction by most of us to major
problems such as global-warming, depletion of
the ozone layer, etc., is to throw up our hands
and say that we, as individuals, are powerless
to affect the situation. We are wrong. Berry
takes the view" that no problems are planetary,
they are personal and solutions must be based
in our homes and communities. Local action,
i.e. at the level closest to the people, involves
an awareness of individual responsibility,
resulting in a real change in the way in which
we all conduct our lives - the might of the
people. This sounds grand, but human nature
being what it is, is it possible to make people
change? The answer is that some will and some
won't, for a variety of reasons. What is needed
is to continue educating people and encouraging
(or bribing with financial incentives?) them to
do the right thing. This is where the Government
and the Armed Forces come in; both must lead
from the front. As said earlier, no one can
change the world overnight; the proposals
outlined above will take years, if not decades
to come to fruition - but we must start now.
While traditional security must be maintained
commensurate with the perceived threat, the
future role of the Armed Forces could be
expanded to that of 'Global Policeman'. In some
areas this is happening already (countering drug
running on land, sea and air, and policing
fishing limits), but it could be expanded almost
immediately to include enforcing pollution
208
THE ENVIRONMENT, GREEN ISSUES AND THE MILITARY
limits and controlling the illegal dumping of
waste. Even more ambitious would be to
enforce the International Law of the Sea. The
role of 'Global Policeman' would obviously
depend on universal agreement and treaties,
negotiated through the United Nations, to enable
the Armed Forces of the world to act together
in this way. Today, in 1992, it is difficult to see
how a 'Global Policeman' could compel another
nation, seen to be an environmental aggressor,
to manage itself in a world-friendly manner
through the application of traditional security
methods. However, who knows what the world
order will be like in ten, let alone fifty years'\
time? Individual countries' laws will, one hopes,
cover pollution issues on and above their land
and in and under their own territorial seas.
Hopefully international law will cover
environmental transgressors in and under the
seas, in the air and in outer space. The United
Nations will, hopefully, go from strength to
strength and will be strong enough to call for
sanctions against such nations, backed up by UN
sponsored 'Environmental Forces'. This is the
direction in which we should be heading.
Summary
We must start to tackle the more difficult
conservation, environmental and Green issues
now. The knowledge we possess of the adverse
effects on the environment of our present way
of life must be used so that we start working
towards a sustainable life-style. That we have
already started is true, but it is more by luck
than careful planning. Our present 'Green'
image is only skin deep - scratch the surface
and you will find no deep commitment and
insignificant resources allocated; in reality we
do only what is necessary to avoid
embarrassment. Now is the time to start
planning a future additional role for the Armed
Forces in our Concept of Operations; one that
will be properly funded and that incorporates
fully conservation, environmental and 'Green'
issues.
T. P. MCCLEMENT
COMMANDER, RN
References
'Sullivan, A,, Greening the Tories (Centre for Policy Studies,
1985).
'Porrit, I . , Friends of the Earth Handbook (Optima, 1990).
p.33.
'Wright, P., 'Guns 'n' Roses': Independent Magazine, 19
Oct. '91, pp. 55, 56.
'Prins, G.. 'Politics and the Environment'. International
Affairs, Volume 66, October 1990, p.714.
'0p.cit. n.4, p.720.
'Gallen, I., Commander Royal Navy, 'Environmental
Security Meets Traditional Security Concerns', Lecture notes,
February 1991, p.4.
'MOD, JSP 418 - Environment Manual. 1991,
A1t2.9-2.13.
'Morrison, K., 'Editorial', Sanctuary Magazine, No.20,
1991, p.2.
9MOD PR, Defence and the Environment, 1987, p.22.
'OBrown, N., 'The Greenhouse Effect, A Global Challenge':
The World Today, April 1989, p.62.
"Wadhams, P., 'Sea Thickness Distribution in the Polar
Drift Stream', Rappom et Proc2s-Verbarcx. No. 188, 1989,
p.61.
"Morgan, D. H. G.. Captain Royal Navy, 'The Environment
and the Royal Navy'. 1990 RCDS paper, p.35.
I 'Berry, W.. 'The Futility of Global ntinking ', Resurgence,
No. 139, 1989.
What are the Implications of Increased
Immigration for t6e Economic and Social
Structures of Western Europe?
But why, oh why, do the wrong people travel,
When the right people stay at home?
Noel Cmard, 'Sail Away'
Introduction
T seems that hardly a day goes by without
some reminder in the press of the
Immigration problems facing Western Europe.
In France, concern over increasing numbers of
North African immigrants has provided a focus
for Jean Marie Le Pen's National Front. In
Germany, incidents of racial violence provide
an uncomfortable reminder of past Nazi
atrocities and reflect the growing support for
extreme right-wing parties such as the Deutsche
Volksunion.
Although France and Germany represent the
most widely recognised instances of antiimmigrant feeling, there is ample evidence to
show that such sentiments are plentiful
throughout WesLern Europe. In Belgium, the
nationalist Flemish Vlaams Blok is capitalising
on a racialist revulsion against non-European
immigrants. The Lombard League in Italy and
the Free Austrian Party follow a similar line.
Even in Denmark, with perhaps the most liberal
image of all, the immigration issue has been
used to boost the fortunes of the Progress Party.
The problems of immigration are new ones
for Western European countries. For much of
the nineteenth and twentieth centuries the pattern
of population movement was away from
Europe, mainly towards North America, but
also to South America and to the possessions
of the European colonial powers. With
European countries being net exporters of
population, there was little perceived need for
any form of immigration control. It was only
in the late 1950s that the tide started to flow the
other way, notably into Britian, France and
Germany. Immigrants came as welcome
workers, providing a pool of cheap labour in
a period of industrial expansion and relatively
full employment. Now that such migration is
seen in a very different light, it is relevant to
I
ask what has changed this perception.
This paper will first examine the typical
reaction to economic and political migrants, and
how they are received in the host country. It will
then summarise the extent of the immigrant
pressures facing Western Europe at the moment.
The political reaction to these pressures is still
developing, and the paper will describe the latest
state of the European Community's reaction as
demonstrated by agreements at Schengen and
Maastricht. Next will follow a discussion of the
economic pressures, and the ways they are being
resisted. Finally the paper will examine an
economic approach that may help to curb the
immigration flow.
Attitudes to economic and political migrants
In the normal course of events, economic
migration is determined by the demand for
labour. This is because the country of
immigration has the right to decide who and how
many it admits, whereas in general the country
of origin cannot close its borders to emigrants
without violating the Universal Declaration of
Human Rights. Many migrants have been
driven by economic forces, of which perhaps
the most extreme was the paranoia which fuelled
the Gold Rush. The migrants have seen the
move, and been encouraged to see it, as the
means to a better and more prosperous life.
There has been the promise of at least the
opportunity to achieve a higher standard of
living. There is no need to define any absolute
standards, but merely to establish a favourable
differential between the country of departure
and the destination. Other migrations have been
driven by political pressures alone, as for
instance the Jews from pre-war Nazi Germany
or from the USSR in recent years, and Ugandan
Asians to Britain fleeingddi Amin's repressive
regime. Between the two extremes of economic
210 WHAT ARE THE IMPLICATIONS OF INCREASED IMMIGRATION TO WESTERN EUROPE?
and political migration lies a continuum made
up of an infinitely variable mix of these
pressures, and it can be difficult to define
precisely where the motive lies. The political
refugee may see himself escaping intolerable
repression, whereas the reluctant host may see
him merely as looking for a more comfortable
life, and imposing an unacceptable economic
burden on the state in so doing. The tendency
for political refugees to arrive in the host country
in a destitute state only serves to fuel this conflict
of views.
The welcome accorded to immigrants will
depend on the perceptions of the host
community. In the developing years of the North
American economy, immigrants provided a vital
labour reserve on which the growing prosperity
of nations depended. Similarly, the early
Caribbean immigrants were accepted in Britain
as an essential input, particularly to support the
transport and health services in a period of full
employment, though with the benefit of
hindsight it might be argued that the labour
market would not have been under so much
pressure if it were not for restrictive working
practices leading to inefficient overmanning in
much of manufacturing industry. On a lesser
scale, Italian immigrants were welcomed to
support the brick-making industry around
Bedford when British workers would not
tolerate the working conditions. Where political
migrants are concerned, there will be some
societies who see it as their duty or destiny to
take them in: Israel has so far extended a
welcome without any apparent limit on numbers
to Jews from the states of the former USSR, and
Britain provided a haven for the Asians from
Uganda.
Antipathy towards immigrants can be difficult
to rationalise. The simplest is the economic
argument: an influx of migrants or refugees
represents an additional burden on society.
Particularly where unemployment is significant,
as is the case in most countries in Western
Europe at the moment, the immigrant is seen
as yet another competitor for scarce resources,
and very often an unfair competitor receiving
preferential treatment because of his displaced
state. However this straightforward financial
argument can easily mask more complex issues.
The immigrant is seen as an intruder. Often he
is categorised by his very appearance into an
easily defined and alien ethnic group, and the
native population can identify clear social.
cultural and religious differences. Language
difficulties can inhibit communication, and it is
all too easy for the immigrant population to be
driven into a ghetto situation, and a ghetto
mentality, from which it can be difficult to
escape. Meanwhile the unspoken fears of the
native population provide a fertile breeding
ground for the doctrines of the far right
politician, a situation which is not helped by the
liberal pressures in society which make it
difficult to articulate such reservations for fear
of being branded a racist. Rational debate is
curtailed and racial hysteria encouraged.
Immigrant pressures on Western Europe
Western Europe's immigrant pressures stem
from two sources, the South and the East. While
neither is at all easy to quantify, that from the
South is easier to define. The Mediterranean
represents the boundary between a group of
relatively prosperous developed countries with
fairly stable populations, and the developing
states of North Africa with their impoverished
and rapidly expanding peoples. The economic
pressures are simple to understand. The
precedent for migration to Europe is well
established, from Africa and particularly the
Maghreb countries of Morocco, Algeria and
Tunisia, to Spain, France and Italy.
A more complex situation obtains in Eastern
Europe. The arbitrary boundaries established
in the aftermath of two World Wars created
states with substantial minority populations of
displaced persons. The dissolution of the Soviet
Union and the relaxation of border controls
create the potential for significant population
movement, driven by a wide range of pressures.
Not only is it difficult to quantify the possible
migrations; it is also difficult to assess the impact
of political and economic forces. For instance,
will the substantial Russian minorities in the
newly-independent Baltic states be driven back
to Russia by political persecution, or will a more
comfortable economic climate persuade them
to stay where they are? Similar questions can
be asked about ethnic Germans in Poland and
the former Soviet Union, Poles on Soviet
territory and Magyars living outside Hungary.
WHAT ARE THE IMPLICATIONS O F INCREASED IMMIGRATION T O WESTERN EUROPE? 21 1
but with one important difference: in all these only. But while Britain, Denmark and Ireland
cases there must be an overall economic promote this line, significant moves are already
pressure tending to move them westwards.
in train to liberalise movement across national
Despite the fact that none of the Western boudaries.
European nations any longer offers any
The Schengen Agreement was initially signed
encouragement to immigration, numbers in the Luxembourg village of that name on 19
continue to increase. The significant change is June 1990 by Belgium, France, Luxembourg,
that statistics have become more a matter of the Netherlands and West Germany, after
estimation now that much of the immigration
reconciling a number of differences relating to
is clandestine and illegal. Temporary migrants cross-border rights of pursuit, issues of citizens'
disappear into the host community unrecorded: rights, and the definition of Germany's borders.
fruit and vegetable pickers in Spain and Italy, Italy, Spain and Portugal have subsequently
traditionally a migrant activity, swell the signed as well. The agreement provides for the
unofficial population. Building workers arrive complete freedom of movement between the
in Portugal on visitors' permits and stay. participating countries, including the abolition
Wherever industries have become dependent on of passport controls on flights between them;
cheap migrant labour, officialdom is likely to controls will apply at the borders of the new
have turned a blind eye in the interests of the united
Germany
with
Poland
and
local economy.
Czechoslovakia, rather than at the old internal
Along united Germany's eastern borders with border between East and West Germany.
Poland and Czechoslovakia, the immigrant tide Specific concerns have already been expressed
builds. So easy has it become to cross into the about the movement of drugs and criminals as
West that parallels are often drawn with the well as immigrants within the Schengen Group
movement of Mexicans across the United States countries once the Agreement takes effect. Such
border. Pressures may well increase as more 'concerns were behind the initial refusal of the
liberal emigration laws take effect following the Schengen Group to allow Italy to participate in
dissolution of the Soviet Union. Meanwhile the agreement since she was seen as having a
Germany offers two specific inducements to poor record on controlling immigration,
immigration. Firstly her rules governing the exacerbated by her long coastline and proximity
treatment of those seeking political asylum are to North Africa. It is likely that it was the Italian
liberal and generous, and tempt many to try that reaction to such criticisms, and a desire to
method of entry, secure in the knowledge that demonstrate a forceful approach to the problem,
even if they are unsuccessful they are unlikely that encouraged such a hard-line approach when
to be expelled. Secondly she also retains a she expelled 17,000 Albanian refugees who
commitment to accept all those who can tried to gain entry in August 1991. Of the other
demonstrate their ethnic German origin, a countries in the European Community, Britain
facility that is likely to be severely tested as East and Denmark have already made it clear that
European border controls are relaxed.
they could not support an agreement as liberal
as Schengen unless it was coupled with a much
European Community reaction
tighter control of the Community's borders, and
The extent to which the immigration pressures anyway the agreement is proving difficult to put
within a country may spill over and affect its into practice. Although initially intended to
neighbours spreads the concern about the topic become effective, after ratification, as early as
throughout Western Europe. Countries that 1 January 1992, so far only France has ratified
might otherwise hope to remain relatively the treaty, and the Dutch have yet to finish reunaffected are already worried about the organising their airports to differentiate the way
implications of a more liberal European they handle those flights destined to be regarded
Community policy on the movement of labour, as 'internal'.
and seek to apply their own interpretations. For
Those who looked to the European
instance it has already been suggested that Community discussions at Maastricht in
freedom of movement be limited to EC nationals December 1991 for some clarification of the
2 12 WHAT ARE THE IMPLICATIONS OF INCRE ASED IMMIGRATION TO WESTERN EUROPE?
way ahead are likely to be disappointed, not least
because the talks focused on monetary issues
and problems of social policy. Only one article
(Article 100c) was proposed to cover the whole
immigration issue, including the free movement
of persons in the internal labour market, the
control of the external European Community
frontiers and short-stay visitors, a proposal that
the issue of who would require a visa should
be the subject of a majority decision, and a
standard European Community visa. Opinions
varied about how to handle immigration
matters, and there is still no common approach
to such matters as political asylum. Germany
favoured placing the whole topic of immigration
under European Community control. By
contrast the United Kingdom would prefer to
keep immigration as a national issue, with
common rules determined by inter-government
cooperation rather than by Brussels. However
it is worth noting that it has been accepted that
common rules would not prevent a government
operating any routines necessary to maintain law
and order and safeguard internal state security.
Obviously the United Kingdom is better placed
than most nations, by virtue of its geography,
to exercise such controls.
The nations at Maastricht ultimately agreed
that issues of asylum should be kept out of the
jurisdiction of the European Court of Justice to
avoid paralysing the work of the Court by
overload, but Brussels will have control over
visas for short-term visitors. This means that
the Council of Ministers can take a decision on
which nationals should be admitted to the
European Communitv as a whole. for the
moment by a unanimous decision but a majority
decision will be acceptable by 1996. However
the Community members are still struggling
with the visa problem and unable to agree on
who should be subject to control. Critics point
out that this leaves unresolved the issue of how
to distinguish a short-term visitor from a longterm one. It must also be emphasised that any
agreement from Maastricht will not achieve
formal status until the treaty is signed in
February or March 1992, and it must still be
ratified by all the parties thereafter.
Economic pressures
On the economic front, Thomas Straubhaar has
studied the extent to which a true Common
Market for labour might increase migration, in
an analysis' based on the experience of the
original six countries of the European
Community. He found little increase in labour
mobility between these countries, suggesting
that the increased trade in goods provided
sufficient correction for any economic
imbalance between them. However this finding
needs to be treated with caution on a number
of counts. Firstly, Straubhaar's figures were
taken from official returns, so they exclude
undocumented and unregistered migrants.
Secondly, the Common Market was formed
between countries with similar national
economies, so there was little incentive to
reallocate labour resources by migration.
Coupled with individual social, cultural and
language restrictions on labour mobility, there
was little incentive for mobility within the
Common Market. As the European Community
grows to incorporate new members with less
well developed economies, the pressure for
labour movement could grow stronger. Thirdly.
during the period covered by Straubhaar's study
the extent of migration within the Common
Market was very much overshadowed by
immigration from countries outside, as indeed
it still is today. He suggests that this is a likely
reaction to the formation of a Common Market,
in that the growing protectionism of the
integrated area against goods from outside will
stimulate international labour migration.
The economic threat from immigration will
depend on the volume of population movement,
and commentators have suggested some
forbidding worst-case scenarios. A typical
example2 points to the dramatic disparity in
population growth between the Maghreb
countries at 2.5% per year compared with the
European states at a near stable 0.2% per year.
It also highlights the high proportion of foreign
descendants in Britain (8%)and France (I 1 % )
and emphasises the unreliability of official
statistics, suggesting that there are already
500,000 illegal immigrants each in France and
Spain, and possibly double that number in
Italy3. Where Germany is concerned. it is
estimated that there are up to 3 million ethnic
Germans with a right of entry, to say nothing
of the other East European peoples who might
WHAT ARE THE IMPLICATIONS OF INCRE:ASED IMMIGRATION TO WESTERN EUROPE? 2 13
be tempted by its higher standard of living.
Over all hangs the spectre of widespread
famine in the countries of the former Soviet
Union. Reports of a poor grain harvest, coupled
with a breakdown of the centralised control of
food distribution, are seen as heralding a mass
migration westward. There must be some doubt
over the credibility of this scenario: much of
the Soviet Union's food distribution never went
through official channels. Martin Woollacott,
writing in the Guardian4,has suggested that this
doomsday prophecy has been quite deliberately
generated to encourage Western aid. So far
events seem to bear out his scepticism. Aid has
already begun to flow eastward, and there is no
sign of a westward migration. Indeed, given the
unattractive prospect of travel in a Russian
winter, it seems that the threat of mass migration
may have been overstated. All kinds of transport
difficulties have been reported, generally
blamed on a shortage of fuel or spare parts, and
these must surely militate against migration just
as much as they hamper food distribution. But
of far greater significance must be the fiercely
patriotic attachment of the average Russian for
his motherland. The Russian people
demonstrated their resolve to endure incredible
hardship in their Great Patriotic War (the
Second World War) next to which their current
problems pale into insignificance.
In considering the economic and social
implications of a worst-case situation, it is
difficult to find any recent historical precedents
which apply to the Western European case,
where a great mass of impoverished people have
descended on an unwilling host community.
Perhaps the nearest parallel which might be
drawn, to appraise the economic effect, comes
from the incorporation of the East German
people within a united Germany, with the
important distinction that such a move was
welcomed, at least officially. Even so, there
have been plenty of reports of tension between
the two halves of the new Germany, and by all
accounts achieving full social and economic
integration will be a slow process. Even the
most optimistic commentators recognise that it
will take years before the incoming East
Germans are fully absorbed in the new state.
Resistance to immigration
The possible extent of immigration pressures
is only one half of the equation: the other half
is the extent to which such pressures will be
resisted. Already there are signs that the most
hard pressed countries are beginning to close
their borders. Speaking to the Association of
Indian Journalists in 1988, Douglas Hurd
emphasised the importance of controlling
immigration, in maintaining good race
relations5. From France it is reported6 that
Franqois Mitterand has suggested that a
'threshold of tolerance' may have been reached
and Edith Cresson has proposed repatriation of
illegal immigrants. In response to the Schengen
Group criticism, Italy has enacted a
comprehensive immigration law that has already
started to take effect. Quite how far the
European Community as a whole will follow
this line remains to be seen, and it may be some
time before a common policy can be agreed.
Germany's liberal stance on political refugees
might require constitutional change before she
falls into line. Other measures have been
advocated. Both France and Germany have tried
tempting migrants to return home with cash
payments and a one-way fare, with only very
limited success. Jacques Delors has advocated
an aid programme, in part to boost East
European economies so that they might one day
become full members of the Community. All
this will take time, and meanwhile the racial
tensions remain.
Unpleasant though the activities of the right
wing extremists may be, they have at least
fulfilled the valuable function of bringing the
immigrant issue into the mainstream of political
debate, while their worst excesses fortunately
remain relatively limited. Politicians are
beginning to appreciate that there is perhaps an
undercurrent of insecurity, a feeling of being
threatened, that many feel but few are able to
articulate, and at least the economic pressure
of migration provide them with a rationale for
action. That the debate has been brought into
the open can only be for the good.
How best the immigration problem should be
tackled remains to be resolved. On the economic
front. perhaps Straubhaar's work provides some
clues. He identifies how in the early years of
the Common Market there were fears of
migration from Italy, then less developed than
the other five countries, to the rest of the
2 14 WHAT ARE THE IMPLICATIONS OF INCREASED IMMIGRATION TO WESTERN EUROPE?
Community. These fears did not materialise. It
appears that the effect of combining a less
developed country with others in an integrated
area stimulated commodity movement rather
than labour movement, and helped develop the
Italian economy. Straubhaar suggests that this
experience may provide a key to curbing
immigration pressures, by encouraging growth
in potential emigration countries.
~traubhaar also makes the important
observation that immigration from outside the
Common Market was much greater than that
within it, and he suggests that this is an
inevitable reaction to the growing protectionism
of the integrated area against goods from the
outside, that stimulates international labour
migration. The message is clear: the growing
European Community must beware of
deveioping its own
at the expense of
those economically less-favoured states outside
it. Although Straubhaar's fears7 were mainly
directed towards uncontrolled mass migration
within an expanded Common Labour Market
taking in less developed countries in the South
such as Greece, Spain, Portugal and possibly
Turkey in the future, his conclusions are just
as valid when applied to illegal and uncontrolled
mass migration from outside the Community.
The more prosperous countries of Western
Europe must help to redress the economic
differentials with their poorer neighbours if they
are to reduce immigrant pressures.
Conclusion
It has been shown that the economic and perhaps
also the political pressures encouraging
migration to Western Europe are very real. It
is also clear that they are already causing
concern, not only for the economic and social
burden they may bring, but also for the way they
are providing a focus for right-wing inspired
disruption of political stability in many
countries. To place effective physical controls
on immigration will take time, and may never
be achieveable; certainly such controls are
difficult to reconcile with the freedom of
movement that the European Community will
wish to see within its borders. The developed
countries of western Europe must therefore look
to redressing the economic imbalance between
themselves and those countries that harbour
potential migrants. The immigration problem,
however it may materialise, is one that the
Western European nations will be forced to
share.
T. J. RUSSELL
COMMANDER, RN
References
'Straubhaar, Thomas. International Labour Migrarion wirhin
a Common Marker: Sonie Aspecrs of EC Experience: Journal
of Common Market Studies. Vol. XXVII, No. I , September
1988, pp.45-62.
'Chua-Eoan, Howard G, 'Get Out of Here': Time, 23 August
1991, p.14.
'Economics Brussels Correspondent. 'The Other Fortress
Europe': The Economist, I June 1991, p.47.
'Woollacott, Martin, 'Immigration Pressure - Fact or
Fiction?': The Guardian, 16 November 1991, p. 19.
'Hurd, Douglas 'Immigration and Race Relations in Britain':
The Round Table. 1988, Number 307, p.247.
Thua-Eoan, Op. Cir, p. 15.
'Straubhaar. Op. Cit, p.58.
The Tactical Theories of
Captain Wayne P. Hughes USN
T H E R E are many contributors to the
1 extensive public debate on maritime
strategy. In contrast, Captain Wayne P. Hughes
USN (Ret.) is the only prominent contemporary
~
naval tactician. His Fleet Tactics: 7 h e o and
Practice is the one lengthy treatment of the
subject.' It appears in summary form in a
collection of essays, published under the aegis
of the United States Naval Institute with the clear
intention of providing a definitive historical and
theoretical foundation to the US Maritime
Strategy.
The US Maritime Strategy has embedded in
it an emphasis on the tactical offensive. In
contemporary American thinking this can be
traced back to Herbert ~osinsk's claim that
'once on the open sea an attacker enjoys
practically unlimited possibilities for evading the
defender's forces and falling by surprise upon
some part of his far flung commitments.
Incertitude as to the opponent's dispositions and
nlovements is thus the normal and characteristic
condition of naval warfare'. There is thought
to be no counterpart at sea to the prepared
positions and effects of terrain which favour the
defenders on land. The offensive is thought to
be the stronger form of combat at sea.
Hughes examines the trends and constants in
naval tactics and claims to identify the
fundamental tactical maxim behind them all to
be the necessity to attack effectively first. To
attack
effectively
requires
superior
concentration of firepower and to do so first
requires longer effective ranges for weapons and
sensors. Attention has to be focused on the
processes of locating, tracking and targeting the
enemy. the role of the defence is to blunt the
enemy attack so that an effective counter attack
capability is retained. He distinguishes his
maxim from a crude emphasis on the offensive.
which he defines as the mere ambition to attack.
The application of theory to practice
Hughes is able to identify concentration to have
been the basic method of attacking effectively
first in the age of fighting sail. Effective attack
was first achieved by concentrating firepower
in individual ships by moving from two to three
gun decks. The short range of gunnery meant
that it was difficult to concentrate the fire of two
ships against one of the enemy. Although in
theory it was tactically possible to double up on
one part of the enemy's line this was very
difficult to achieve in practice. A proficient
enemy could counter most moves except where
thwarted by the vagaries of the wind.
Hughes then uses Frederick W. Lanchester's
famous differential equations to provide a
theoretical model of naval gunfire during the
battleship era. He illustrates the overwhelming
cumulative impact of small initial advantage. If
the attrition of force A is proportionate to the
remaining strength of B and vice versa then two
simple equations illustrate the change in force
strength with time:
dA=-B
dB=-A
dt
dt
These can then be solved to give the
relationship between the strength of the two
forces at any time, where A(0) and B(0) are the
initial force strengths and A(t) and B(t) are the
strengths at a later time, t.
A,'-A I =B 2 -B 2
t
o
t
For the less mathematically inclined reader
an example is shown in Table 2, based on an
engagement between two ships, one of which
has a 50% advantage in effective offensive
power over the other. At the moment the combat
power of the inferior ship is eliminated over two
thirds of that of the victor remains. This example
shows the overwhelming advantage of a three
decker over a two decker. The same model can
also be used to show the theoretical advantage
of opening fire first.
The continuous fire model successfillly
illustrates an important feature of decisive naval
battles; the destruction of the enemy fleet is
often achieved with few losses for the victorious
force. At the battles of the Nile, Trafalgar,
TsuShima, Coronel, and Falklands (1914) the
losers were eliminated as fighting forces. In the
age of fighting sail the tactical doctrine for small
squadrons mirrored those for fleets. In many
216
THE TACTICAL THEORIES O F CAPTAIN WAYNE P. HUGHES USN
frigate actions casualties were often very
unevenly distributed between victor and
vanquished because of this cumulative impact
of an initial advantage.
The extensive literature on tactics before the
First World War again emphasised
concentration. Fiske in America and Baudry in
France showed the cumulative effects of
superior firepower using earlier versions of
Hughes' continuous fire model. The increase
in gunnery ranges had by then allowed the fire
of numerous ships to be concentrated against
a single opponent, but achieving this was still
restricted b y the continued necessity for ships
to carry their offensive power on the broadside.
This made the ultimate object of every admiral
to cross the 'T' by placing the broadsides of his
fleet across the path of an advancing enemy. The
achievement of surprise was helped by the
increased speed, the certainty of manoeuvre
given by steam power and better systems of
command and control. Many of the tactical ideas
were still unrealistically complex. Fisher found
the double indented columns of Admiral Gervais
and the circles of Admiral Fournier unworkable
during manoeuvres in the Mediterranean at the
turn of this century. Hughes perceptively
condemns complicated manoeuvres as a
peacetime disease. "
Hughes recognises that his gunfire model of
cumulative erosive attrition does not effectively
explain the aircraft carrier battles between the
Americans and Japanese in the Pacific. The
firepower contained in a carrier's air wing is
delivered in one pulse rather than by a
cumulative process. Once airborne this could
destroy an enemy force even if the enemy
simultaneously delivered an effective attack on
its carrier. The possible results from these
battles are illustrated in the table below6 on the
assumption that each carrier's air wing can
eliminate the effectiveness of an enemy carrier.
It can be seen that by attacking effectively first
the inferior force, B, is able to achieve positions
of advantage. If the survivors of the originally
superior but surprised force A are able to
counter attack then A can regain superiority if
its initial advantage had been more than 3 to 2.
The Battle of Midway showed clearly how
making the first strike enables a numerically
inferior force to emerge with a decisive victory.
The result was the same as would be predicted
by this model based on the assumption that one
TABLE 1
Attritition: Carrier Battle
Initial Number of Carriers (A/B)
212 413 312 211 311
A Strikes First
B Strikes First
210 410 310 210 310
012 113 112 111 211
B Strikes First
012 112 111 110 210
& A Counter attacks
A&B Strike
Simultaneously
010 110 110 110 210
carrier has the offensive power to destroy one
enemy carrier. By making the first effective
attack the US Fleet ensured that it retained
superiority even after the Japanese counter
attack was successful in sinking one carrier. It
should be noted that in the model both forces
are equally effective in the actual delivery of
firepower or absorbing attacks. Victory is
instead determined by effective scouting and
tactical decisions to make the first effective
strike.
The importance of manoeuvre in the geometry
of naval warfare has been reduced by the
increased range of modern weapon systems and
the potential to concentrate firepower from
dispersed forces. It has been replaced by the
more basic problem of whether ships should be
concentrated in fleets and squadrons or
dispersed as individual units. In the conduct of
the Pacific campaign in the last world war these
problems had already become important.
Carrier forces should have been dispersed if a
concentrated force was certain to be eliminated
if it was targeted by the enemy. However the
defensive advantages, and the benefits from
pooling scouting resources, continue to
encourage the concentration of ships into
squadrons. Today the existence of layefed area
defences. such as F- 14 Tomcat interceptors
and AEGIS guided anti-air missiles, still gives
a defensive advantage to groups of ships. The
simple pulsed power model needs to be refined,
however, to incorporate the distinction between
destroying weapons platforms and the missiles
which they deploy. Hughes and his student,
Lieutenant Jeffrey Cares USN, have extended
THE TACTICAL THEORIES OF CAPTAIN WAYNE P. HUGHES USN
the model to include hard-kill close in weapons
systems as well as a soft-kill factor for chaff and
other deception devices. '
In modern missile warfare a single ship has
the firepower to destroy several of its opponents.
This was illustrated by the Batch 111Broad Beam
Leander class update. This gave a ship with a
previously insignificant anti-ship capability the
potential to destroy up to four opponents with
its surface to surface cruise missiles. There is
little evidence to test the reliability of the pulsed
power model in explaining contemporary
missile based warfare. The naval battles of
Latakia and Damietta, during the Yom Kippur
War, resulted in the sinking of a number of
Syrian and Egyptian warships at no loss to the
Israelis. These were the first significant clashes
of naval forces armed on both sides with
surface-to-surface missiles. The Falklands
confirmed the ability of single shots from
modern weapon systems to neutralise modern
surface warships. The great offensive power
most ships combine with this vulnerability was
less in evidence because of the timidity of the
Argentinian Navy.
A contemporary example
Hughes illustrates his principles with an
imaginary example which is clearly derived
from the sort of tactical scenario contained in
the US Maritime Strategy. The Blue Force, a
concentrated carrier battle group, attacks a Red
base defended by two SSGNs and a land based
missile system. Hughes argues that the Blue
force must try to move forward undetected by
minimising electronic emissions, launch its long
range cruise missiles and then move in closer
to launch an effective air strike against the Red
base. The first strike will alert Red, so once it
has been delivered Blue will be able to make
full use of electronic devices to maximise the
effectiveness of the defence against Red's
attack. Red counter attack capability will either
have to be eliminated by the first strike or
blunted sufficiently to be ineffective against the
concentration of defensive weapons in the task
force. For Red the problem is one of locating
the Blue force in sufficient time to prevent Blue
eliminating his initial advantage by making the
first effective attack with cruise missiles. It is
the lack of any locating, tracking or targeting
217
problems for Blue which gives it an incentive
to attack first. This allows it to close in
undetected because it has no requirement to emit
electronic radiation from scouting systems.
The impact of strategy
Hughes makes reference to the impact of
strategy, but it is not a prominent theme in his
work and is not followed through firmly into his
conclusions. He correctly states that 'sea battles
are not fought for their own sake' and that 'while
it is proper to think of the destruction of the
enemy's fleet as the fleet's foremost objective,
beyond that immediate objective is always some
higher goal. The seat of purpose is on land'. He
also realises that 'it should come as no surprise
that [the fleet] can lose a battle but with suitable
tactics obtain its objectives of protecting a
beachhead or convoy'. He, however, then makes
the ambivalent observation that 'sea control aims
at protecting the sea lines of communication, but
it usually focuses on the destruction of the forces
that threaten them'. Finally he contradicts his
sound recognition of the influence of the higher
strategic goal with a statement that 'in theory,
we know a fleet's foremost objective is the destruction of the enemy's fleet in a decisive
battle'.
Hughes contrasts Spruance, who was
criticised for clinging tenaciously to his mission
and defending the beachheads in the Marianas,
and Halsey, who carried out his mission to
destroy the enemy fleet so single mindedly that
MacArthur barely escaped a debacle on the
Leyte beaches. Hughes then goes on to leave the
commander with a biased choice between
destruction of the enemy at sea or safeguarding
an operation connected with events ashore. A
commander has the freedom of the greatest
operational autonomy when the goal is to disarm
the adversary quickly and decisively by offensive
means. For this reason Hughes finds it very
difficult to accept the evidence against his own
instinctive preference for making the destruction
of enemy forces the primary aim:
'the Japanese navy usually tried to
destroy warships first: sea control was their
priority. The American navy, while
schooled in the philosophy that the enemy's
fleet is the primary objective, stubbornly
protected its beachheads, sometimes at
218
THE TACTICAL THEORIES OF CAPTAIN WAYNE P. HUGHES USN
great cost. The obvious conclusion, that
assuring the success of the projection
operations is the wiser course, is not,
however, unambiguously endorsed by the
facts. If the US Navy had not had its
advantage in radar, cryptanalysis, and shipbuilding, the more classical efforts of
Japanese strategy might have been less
futile' '.
By making attacking effectively first a
universal doctrine, through his emphasis on the
decisive battle, Hughes can make the claim that
'at sea, offence dominates in a way foreign to
ground commanders' ' '. For him a defensive
posture is usually weaker, inherently risk prone
and subject to incommensurate losses so that
offensive action is essential to achieve positive
combat results. This may be true for a very
narrow definition of tactics in which the only
objective is the destruction of the enemy force,
regardless of the consequences of failure. It is
a claim which again seems to reflect Hughes'
instinctivepreferences rather than be an outcome
of his more thoughtful analysis.
Hughes identifies technology dominated
tactical decisions, such as when to end control
of electronic emissions. An effective
commander must move beyond these
considerations of a very narrow definition of
tactics focussing on the broader context of the
battle. The scope of strategy itself is very general
and will generate obiectives which are too broad
for operational planning. Strategy may include,
for example, the decision to use maritime forces
to achieve control of the sea rather than only to
deny complete control by the enemy. The gulf
between narrow tactics and broad strategy has
to be bridged by the intermediate concepts of
grand tactics or operational art.
Decisive battles were not, as Hughes implies,
the ultimate purpose of the blockades of the
Eighteenth Century. Both Hawke and Nelson
realised that their mission was to prevent the
enemy fleet breaking their blockade and
threatening British trade or territory. While a
decisive battle was desirable, to release the fleet
for other purposes, an effective blockade was
sufficient to achieve the strategic objective.
There was a significant difference in the
operational art of the two admirals. Hawke
operated a close blockade which only permitted
-
the Comte de Conflans to make a poorly
conceived foray when the British squadron was
driven off by bad weather. In contrast Nelson
was able to operate an open blockade which
sought to encourage Villeneuve to sortie and
provide an opportunity for the British to achieve
a tactical victory.
In considering operational art or grand tactics
it will be recognised that there are indeed
counterparts at sea to the prepared positions and
effects of terrain which favour the defenders on
land. Because they would have been able to
make use of their land based aircraft and short
range conventional submarines the Soviets had
defensive advantages against any threat to the
Kola Peninsula from US carrier battle groups.
More generally a posture which emphasises the
strategic objective may still be one which
increases the destruction of enemy forces. In
the open ocean the convoy combines
achievement of the mission of delivering
cargoes with the greatest probability of a
successful engagement with the enemy.
Detaching an escort to search for a submarine
exposes the merchant vessels, without any
increase in the probability of destroying the
enemy. The balance of advantage is greatest for
escorts with the convoy since they have the
benefits of concentration and a surveillance
problem eased by the knowledge that the
submarines will have to approach them to attack
the convoy.
The Royal Navy in the Falklands campaign
was engaged in the strategic offensive but
adopted-the tactical defensive by concentrating
on achievement of the mission rather than the
destruction of the enemy. The lack of airborne
early warning prevented the British task force
obtaining the maximum benefit from its strong
defensive concentration of force, but the
Argentine Air Force had to attack at such an
extreme range from base that their effectiveness
was curtailed. The Argentine pilots made the
fundamental error of attacking British warships.
If they had correctly recognised that their
mission was to prevent a landing then they
would have attacked the vulnerable assault
shipping. The Argentinian Navy did not have
to be destroyed while it remained in harbour and
presented no threat to the task force.
In his contemporary practical example
THE TACTICAL THEORIES OF CAPTAIN WAYNE P. HUGHES USN
Hughes explores the tactics of attacking shore
based forces. He states that his subject, fleet
tactics, excludes issues of the projection of
power against the shore and only considers
battles over sea control or command of the
sea. l 2 It follows that the ultimate strategic
mission, in his contemporary example, is to
achieve sea control rather than simply to project
power ashore. He presumes, but does not prove,
that attacking the Red base is the best way of
achieving this strategic objective. Hughes
eliminates consideration of its ultimate purpose
or mission by ignoring the alternative means of
achieving that strategic objective. The narrower
the definition of tactics the more correct is the
emphasis on the offensive and destruction of
enemy forces, the broader the definition the
greater the emphasis on strategic purpose. It is
perhaps significant that Hughes dismisses
operational art as 'a contemporary term I rarely
find it necessary to use'.
Risk and uncertainty
To elaborate on the benefits which flow from
a decisive victory also distorts the tactical
perspective if no recognition is given to the risks
of losing. The decisive battle will only be sought
when one combatant has absolute confidence
that it is the more effective force or when the
inferior one has no alternative. While Hughes
does recognise that the commander of an
inferior force must be disposed to run risks to
win a battle, the theme of risk needs to be
developed at greater length.
Risk is a consequence of uncertainty over the
performance of individuals, sensors, weapon
systems and over the enemy response. Its
influence is determined by the value of the
combat forces in action and the importance of
the strategic objectives. If the forces engaged
are a small proportion of a navy, or can easily
be replaced, then inherently risky tactics are
more acceptable. One of the arguments of the
Jeune Ecole was that the risks of offensive action
could be accepted with easily replaceable
torpedo boats and submarines of its era.
Alternatively even the most valuable and
irreplaceable forces will be risked in combat
against overwhelming enemy forces invading
the territory of your nation state since there is
no prospect of future benefit from withholding
219
them. In these circumstances only destruction
of the enemy can ensure survival.
It is particularly difficult to assess risks at the
opening of a war because the combat
effectiveness of the participants is unknown.
This is especially true when the progress of
technology since the last conflict have been so
rapid as to diminish the value of previous
experience. The escape of the Goeben and
Breslau in August 1914 was a result of
specifying the wrong mission and making an
incorrect assessment of the risk of an adverse
outcome. The Admiralty defined the mission to
be the protection of the transports moving the
French African army back to Europe without
being brought to action against superior forces.
For this reason Admiral Sir Archibald Berkeley
Milne kept his superior battlecruiser forces to
the west. Rear-Admiral Troubridge declined to
engage because he considered that the
combination of speed and the effective range of
her guns made the German battlecruiser
superior to his cruisers. It is now clear that the
benefits of even only inflicting serious damage
to the German force were sufficient for
Troubridge to risk the destruction of his own
ships.
An important feature of the twentieth century
has been the increased complication of tactics
through the development of underwater and
airbome weapons. Computer based systems are
now used to calculate the risks and identify all
the possible outcomes. A knowledge of the
capabilities of the weapons used by oneself and
the enemy allows effective rules of enagement
to be developed. Computer software also allows
the characteristic of a weapons system to be
altered to reflect new threats or to eliminate
unsatisfactory responses. It has been reported
that during the Falklands war the Sea Wolf's
computer guidance system had to be modified
to deal with attacks by several hostile aircraft
weaving together.
Game theory is the analytical device
commonly used to model the situation when the
outcome depends upon the choice made by an
opponent. In naval planning the estimate of the
situation is essentially the formulation of a
matrix game. ' The commander arrays his own
courses of action against his estimate of enemy
capabilities. The appropriate response is to
220
THE TACTICAL THEORIES OF CAPTAIN WAYNE P. HUGHES USN
select that course of action which promises to
offer the most prospect of success in the mission
regardless what the enemy chooses to do on
opposition. To seek the destruction of the
enemy, if it involves an unacceptable risk of
failing to achieve the mission, is a movement
from this optimal strategy. This is an important
point. A recognition that the strategic mission
is paramount may mean sacrificing the
possibility of destroying the opposing fleet.
In the heat of battle commanders do not, of
course, use game theory! It does, however,
model the dilemmas that will be faced. In
November 1940 Somerville kept Force H
covering its convoy rather than pursuing the
superior Italian force which he had driven away
off Spartivento. His decision was vindicated by
an unnecessary Board of Enquiry. In contrast
Langsdorff disregarded orders not to engage
defended targets and did not slip away when he
sighted Harwood's cruiser force. He did not
give enough weight to the risks to Graf Spee's
mission of tying down enemy forces and
disrupting enemy shipping. In neither case was
the correct choice determined simply by
Hughes' criterion of attacking effectively first.
Instead the best tactics balanced the chance of
the ideal outcome against the one most likely
to be sought by the enemy.
Hughes rejects the game theoretic approach:
'it is not sufficient to simply plan for the worst
and act accordingly'. l 4He firstly considers it
flawed because it uses static estimates and
assumes all the options have been identified.
Instead the battle is dynamic; 'time and timing
will add and subtract alternatives' and as 'new
knowledge unfolds unforeseen contingencies'.
He is correct to criticise the simplest matrix
models because they overlook misperceptions
caused by not recognising all the options or
assessing the outcomes imperfectly. A failure
to identify all the options or possible future
outcomes must, however, undermine any simple
tactical rule, including Hughes' own one of
'attacking effectively first'.
Hughes uses the Japanese decision to attack
in the Battle of the Philippine Sea as his example
of the hilure of game theory to cope with
unanticipated possibilities. The Japanese longrange carrier air strike was doomed before it
was launched because Spruance already
dominated the airfields where the Japanese had
to land. The failure to identify this eventuality
would have prevented the Japanese identifying
the correct option if they had adopted a game
theoretic approach. Hughes' own doctrine of
attack effectively first would also, however,
have misled them in those circumstances into
making an ineffective strike.
Hughes more fundamentally rejects the game
theoretic approach for not considering fully the
case of the inferior force commander, for whom
'worst case planning is not a winning option'.
This may be true if the mission is to destroy the
enemy forces in a decisive battle. The inferior
force will then have no choice but to risk the
option which gives it a chance of winning even
if the same course contains a risk of failing to
achieve the mission by being destroyed itself.
The weaker fleet normally has an incentive to
avoid decisive battle except on favourable terms
since its mere existence hampers the superior
force exercising its potential to obtain complete
command of the sea. The inferior force in such
circumstances might not attempt to take
command of the sea through a decisive victory,
but instead seek either to whittle the enemy
down or to dispute control while avoiding major
fleet action. The doctrine of attacking effectively
first is only true of the inferior force where
destruction of the enemy is essential to the
achievement of the war aims.
In the First World War the British sought
decisive battle, but they came to realise that the
German Fleet would only seek to engage when
it sensed an opportunity to reduce British
superiority. This was reflected in Jellicoe's
historic letter to the Admiralty of 30 October,
1914 in which he explained that he would
decline to be drawn if the enemy battle fleet
turned away since he assumed that their
intention was to lead him over mines and
submarines. The Germans knew that the
maintenance of an effective 'fleet in being'
supported the U-boat campaign by preventing
the British dispersing the Grand Fleet for
convoy escort. However without the prospect
of a strategically useful engagement the morale
and technical competence of the High Seas Fleet
as a 'fleet in being' could not be sustained. In
contrast Beatty was able to maintain the morale
and efficiency of the Grand Fleet in the hope
THE TACTICAL THEORIES O F C APTAIN WAYNE P. HUGHES USN
of the opportunity for a decisive battle. Although
both fleets wanted to attack effectively first this
was irrelevant while neither could develop an
operational doctrine or grand tactic which forced
the enemy to expose itself to such an attack.
Conclusion
Captain Wayne P. Hughes' tactical dictum to
attack effectively first is unsatisfactory because
it eliminates the influence on tactics of the
strategic aims of the conflict. He does recognise
the importance of the mission but this is not
followed through into his tactical guideline.
Only with a very narrow definition of tactics
is it correct always to emphasise the offence and
destruction of enemy forces. The decisive
battles sought by Hughes are rare at sea because
navies do not always seek to attack effectively
first. His perceptive exploration of the
interaction between individual naval platforms,
and formations, is misleading if not firmly
integrated into a hierarchical model of naval
warfare which recognises the impact of the
higher levels of operational art and strategy.
MATTHEWALLEN
TABLE 2
Continuous Fire Model
End of Minute
0
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
Units of Firepower remaining
SHIP A
15
14.4
13.8
13.3
12.8
12.4
12.1
11.8
11.6
11.4
11.3
11.2
11.1
SHIP B
10
9
8
7.1
6.2
5.4
4.5
3.7
2.9
2.1
1.3
0.54
0
After 1 minute ship or fleet B is assumed to
have lost a tenth of its fire power. On the basis
of Hughes' continuous fire model the firepower
of A remaining (X) is calculated as follows:
22 1
References
'Captain Wayne P. Hughes, Jr. USN (Ret), Fleet Tactics:
7lleory and Pracrice (United States Naval Institute Press,
1986).
'Wayne P. Hughes, 'The Strategy-Tactics relationship' in
Colin S. Gray and Roger W. Barnett, Seapower and Strategy
(United States Naval Institute Press, 1989).
'Gray and Barnett, op. cit. page xi.
'Public Records Office, Kew. ADM 117506.
'Hughes, Fleer Tactics, op. cit. p.191.
'Hughes, Fleer Tactics, op. cit. pp.94-95.
'United States Naval Institute Proceedings, July 1991
pp.44-457.
'Hughes, Fleer Tactics, op. cit. pp.33, 218-222.
"Hughes, Fleet Tactics, op. cit. p.221.
''Hughes, 'The Strategy-TacticsRelationship', op. cit. p.49.
"Hughes, Fleer Tactics, op. cit. p. 143.
' I Hughes, Fleet Tactics, op. cit. p.10.
"Fundamentalsof Naval operations Analysis (United States
Naval Institute Press, 1970). pp.37-59.
"Hughes, Fleet Tactics, op. cit. p.192.
Whither or Wither Fishery Protection?
Introduction
HE Fishery Protection Squadron is in grave
danger of becoming extinct. The Navy's
oldest squadron could disappear without a shot
being fired unless it is decided that it is in the
national interest for the RN to continue the
fishery protection task. How can this be, and
do we care anyway?
T
Background
In recent years ships of the Fishery Protection
Squadron (FPS) have enforced fisheries
legislation at sea under contract to the Ministry
of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food (MAFF) and
the Scottish Office. The Squadron is also under
contract to the Department of Energy to provide
a monthly presence in every offshore oil or gas
field. The revenue from these contracts amounts
to some f7.8m annually, with the largest share
of f5.3m coming from the MAFF contract.
These tasks require five ships on patrol all
round the coast of the UK, 365 days a year. At
least two will always be at sea, and those on
standoff are at eight hours' notice. Thus they
are well placed for their secondary roles of
SAR, assistance to vessels in distress, assistance
to HM Coastguard (Eg Dover Strait Traffic
Separation Scheme), anti-pollution duties and
intelligence gathering - or in other words,
coastal patrol. On average there are some 200
such incidents involving ships of the FPS every
year.
As regular visitors they raise the visibility of
the RN significantly in non-Naval ports, and let
us not forget the major contribution they make
to training, particularly of Young Officers.
The threat
MAFF are currently examining bids from
private companies to carry out enforcement at
sea, mainly as a cost-saving measure, and partly
because they wish to have greater control of the
ships' activities. If our political masters decide
in favour of one of the 'privatisation' bids then
the RN will either have to undercut the lowest
tender, or lose the MAFF contract.
Without the MAFF contract it will be
impractical to continue with the two smaller
contracts, and the RN will lose the f7.8m which
funds about a third of the running costs of the
Squadron. In the present financial climate this
will force the disposal of the OPVs, which,
ironically, will probably be bought by the
company which has won the MAFF contract.
The future
If the RN does retain the task of Fishery
Protection, what assets should we use?
At present the Squadron has seven 'Island'
class OPVs, a 'River' class MCMV, and a
'Castle' class OPV (except when refitting or
preparing to relieve the Falklands patrol ship).
For many years the FPS has been augmented
by MCMVs on roulement, and this continues
with, for the first time, the use of 'Hunt' class
ships.
It is planned to reduce these numbers in 1993,
resulting probably in a force of six OPVs.
The 'Island' class have served the FPS well,
but they are getting old, and by today's
standards are expensive to run, particularly in
manpower terms. They are also slow, being
unable to catch anything apart from a fishing
boat.
In a balanced fleet, 'Patrol craft provide the
means of establishing a presence and carrying
out policing duties in a low threat
environment'. ' St. Emilion argues in his article
'New Bottles, Old Wine' (NR, April '92) that
expenditure on 'peacetime ships' is wasteful.
There is always the option to use frigates for
fishery patrols but undoubtedly it would prove
more costly.
Likewise, though using 'Hunt's for fish
patrols does satisfy the requirement for hulls,
it is not very economical to use these f40m ships
in this way. On the other hand a 'Hunt' on fish
may be better than no 'Hunt' at all!
One possibility is the creation of a US-style
coastguard force, combining the roles of the
Fish Squadron with those of the Customs
cutters, but the creation of a separate service
of such a small size is almost certainly out of
the question, and it is important that the OPVs
can be deployed to other areas if required.
No, what is needed is a new class of patrol
ship. Unfortunately for those who would like
to see a new 'Scimitar' class appear (ideal for
WHITHER OR WITHER FISHERY PROTECTION?
an anti-smuggling role, be it arms or drugs) the
weather around the UK would keep them tied
up for much of the year.
Specification for future patrol ship
15 years' experience of the 'Island' class, and
the success of the 'Castle' class provide a good
basis on which to design the next OPV. The
need to cope with the worst UK weather and
a required speed of the order of 20 knots suggest
a ship of about 75m LOA and 1,500 tonnes
displacement. For economy, endurance and
flexibility it should be diesel-electrically
powered, with four or even five identical
generators providing power for both propulsion
and domestic use. This would avoid the
problems of a Controllable Pitch Propeller
system, ease the maintenance load, and reduce
the spares inventory. It must have a bow
thruster, as a tug to stand by in a civilian port
can cost f 1,500 a time. A flight deck may well
be too expensive but remains an option.
The ships must be equipped with GPS - very
affordable, and fitted to nearly every fishing
boat in the EC. For boardings, the Searider RIB
has proved a fairly reliable workhorse, but a
diesel version incorporating some of the
standard safety features found in the offshore
supply sector would be better. These include
self-righting buoyancy system, fixed navigation
lights and radar reflector. A reliable hydraulic
launch/recovery system is essential to reduce
manpower, and perhaps one of the stabilised
systems now available would be an advantage.
Finally, the complement must be kept small,
and with unmanned engine-room, ARPA,
hydraulic cranes and so on, a basic complement
of 24 would suffice. Of course in a ship of this
size there would be plenty of space to
accommodate trainees or additional hands in a
war role.
Conclusion
If privatisation of the fish task goes ahead,
whether next year or in 1994, the RN will be
left with a fleet of ageing, manpower-intensive
and expensive-to-run patrol ships which do not
have the speed to catch anything other than
fishing boats.
223
'Our economic well-being is also
dependent on our free use of the seas for
trade . . . Fishing activity takes place from
230 British ports and harbours, with 8,100
active seagoing fishing vessels in the UK
. . . Closer to home, Naval forces help
safeguard our offshore oil and gas
installations and our fishing interests.'*
These statements by DNSD will remain valid
for the foreseeable future. The prospect of the
United Kingdom, an island state, having a bluewater navy but (with the exception of Northern
Ireland) no coastal patrol at all is extraordinary.
Disastrous from an officer's point of view would
be the loss of these ships which provide an
excellent training ground for young officers and
the opportunity of command to many Lieutenant
Commanders. We must decide that:
a. It is in the national interest to retain
some form of coastal patrol
b. The RN wants to retain the fishery
task
c. We need to look now at a new class
of patrol ship.
It was quite a coincidence to read, also in NR
April '92, Michael Ranken's article on debating
and supporting Naval and Maritime issues in
Parliament. It seems unlikely that this issue will
be debated at all in parliament, and the RN could
well be presented with another fait accompli.
The majority of the Great British Public will
probably remain silent on this, as usual, but one
wonders about the reaction of those who actually
earn their living from the sea if the only White
Ensigns they see are either dashing past at
twenty knots, or tied up alongside for iack of
fuel!
B. G. WAINWRIGHT
LIEUT.CDR,RN
References
'DNSD's Back Pocket Briefs 1991
'Ibid.
Postscript: The recent conflict between French and
Cornish fishermen off Land's End has suddenly
brought the whole issue into the open, and it has
even been aired in Parliament. This will probably
turn out to be the opening salvo in a more public
campaign to keep the squadron, but ministerial
replies showed that it is by no means won.
The New Parliament - promising:
climate after elec6on
The new parliament
OLLOWING the election on 9 April,
the new House of Commons comprises 651
Members (including a record 60 women) and
the Government's overall majority is now only
21 compared with 93 in the previous parliament;
the proportion voting Conservative is almost
unchanged. 85 MPs of all parties retired at the
election (a few will go to the Lords), a number
of others lost their seats, and 138 new members
were elected (including 13 who had served in
pre-1987 parliaments, at least a couple of these
with maritime experience in the City or an
earlier government). A few first-time members
are supportive of maritime issues, but it is not
thought that there has been an appreciable rise
in technically qualified members (engineers or
scientists); one ex-NO lost his seat and there has
probably been a further loss of members with
Service experience, certainly with any wartime
experience.
Government ministers and officers of the
Commons account for 89 Conservative MPs out
of the 334 elected. (In addition there are 23
ministers and officials in the Lords.) 21 is a
workable majority, but it is reasonable to expect
ministers to be much more sensitive to
backbench concerns and Select Committee
inquiries and recommendations in this
parliament than they have been during the past
13 years; also the present Prime Minister is
always ready to listen. These changes may well
prove helpful when it comes to persuading the
government to consider policy issues which
might otherwise have been ignored, handled
ineptly, or delayed indefinitely 'for lack of
parliamentary time'; this applies not least in the
maritime sector, which so seldom generates
urgent public support unless there is some
disaster like the Herald of Free Enterprise,
which gave priority to the passage of the
Merchant Shipping Act 1988, under which a
host of long-delayed measures were put through
Parliament.
F
Select Committees
It is disappointing that the departmental and a
few other Select Committees in the new House
of Commons are unlikely to be re-constituted
until parliament reassembles in October, though
on the editorial deadline date for the July
number there will be only some six weeks lost
as a result before the summer recess; but, as
a great deal of the detailed supervision and wellinformed questioning and probing of
departmental work and decisions is normally
carried out by these Committees (only rarely
on the floor of the House itself), it is desirable
that the Select Committees start their work again
at the earliest possible date. The Defence
Committee now needs a new chairman to
replace the highly effective Michael Mates, who
has become a Northern Ireland minister. Tribute
should also be paid to the high calibre of the
Clerks who serve the Committees of the two
Houses and draft their reports. There is some
indication that the committee structure is being
reconsidered, with the aim of returning, at least
in part, to the pre-1979 situation where each
committee studied its subject area (which might
be quite wide) without being irrevocably tied
only to the conduct and work of one particular
department; since so many issues span two or
more
Departments'
boundaries
and
responsibilities, there is a clear need to provide
for backbench scrutiny to be similarly flexible,
and able to call on ministers and officials
irrespective of the department in which they
work.
The Lords committees continue as before
doing an invaluable (unpaid) job without any
affiliation to individual departments; their
detailed work on draft European Community
legislation is particularly important, and for a
long time past was not matched by similar
patient study and reporting in the Commons,
where there was the inclination to ignore
Community legislation, if at all possible;
certainly not to influence it constructively at the
drafting or draft legislation stages, which
required ministerial commitment and directives
to their officials to be proactive. Other member
states, particularly France, have often gained
considerable advantage by wooing Brussels
THE NEW PARLIAMENT - PROMIISING CLIMATE AFTER ELECTION
officials even before first drafts had been
started.
Help from the Lords
The recent Report of the Lords Select
Committee on Science and Technology on
'Safety Aspects of Ship Design and Technology'
(HL Paper 30-1; Evidence HL Papers 75
(90-91) and 30 (91-92); HMSO) is a most
important document, complementing for
Shipping (including the RFA) what the Cullen
Report ('The Public Inquiry into the Piper Alpha
Disaster,' Vols. 1 and I1 Cm1310, HMSO,
Nov. 1990) recommended for the offshore
industry, now largely implemented since 1 April
1991. This latest Lords Report was debated
favourably in the House for the first time on 1
June, and welcomed by Lord Caithness,
replying for the Government; it remains to be
seen whether the major, very important
recommendations are implemented, especially
as they seek to make the regulation and
enforcement of safety more effective and
consistent. This report deserves an article on
its own, perhaps in October, by which time we
may have some indication of Government
intentions; its proposals may provide a new
avenue for the salvation and regeneration of the
merchant fleets of the major nations, by making
flags of convenience unattractive and hopefully
superfluous.
An earlier Lords Report led to the
establishment of the Co-ordinating Committee
on Marine Science and Technology (CCMST),
now chaired by Sir John Mason; that has already
resulted in very useful improvements in cooperation throughout the maritime agencies and
numerous outside bodies. It remains to be seen
whether it also leads to more government
funding being provided in several areas of great
importance, where possible complemented by
private monies.
The long-running saga in the House of Lords
concerning the retirement and replacement of
HMS Endurance by the Polar Circle came to
its conclusion on 14 May with the announcement
by the new Parliamentary Under-Secretary of
State for Defence, Viscount Cranborne, that the
new ship would be renamed Endurance before
she commences her next deployment in the
autumn. This will be after permanent
225
modifications to improve the handling and
accommodation of her helicopters and boats,
also various storerooms, to provide magazines,
and to instal a full defence communications
outfit.
Cross-party support
Many of the major programmes in the maritime
sector need all the support they can get from
numerous agencies and several ministries.
Parliamentary support - in both Houses - can
be extremely effective in encouraging proper
co-operation between Departments, and
occasionally
in
overcoming
narrow
departmental obstruction that fails to take into
account the greater national interest. Cross-party
support can often be marshalled in a constructive
spirit to persuade ministers, even the Cabinet,
to reach sensible co-operative solutions - even
in the face of massive Treasury resistance. But
these happy results can only be achieved by
actively courting the relevant sympathetic peers
and MPs (and increasingly MEPs too); without
adequate
information
and
briefing
parliamentarians are impotent - they cannot do
all their own homework on every subject.
Well-supported Early Day Motions on
maritime issues may possibly influence
ministers, but it will be hard to generate active
debate on the floor of the House of Commons
on most of the important issues. In either case,
one or more individual MPs have to initiate and
lead any concerted campaign. In many cases
informal approaches to Ministers are the most
effective.
Prospects for progress
The climate at Westminister since the election
is buoyant and optimistic; the political situation
should remain stable and forward-looking for
at least four years ahead. The implications of
Maastricht and the Danish negative vote will
dominate the UK's six-month Presidency of the
Couricil of Ministers of the EC, leading up as
it does to the projected start of the free internal
market - Europe without (internal) frontiers
from 1 January 1993. Defence is not high on
the political agenda at present, apart from such
threatened projects as the European Fighter
Aircraft, and of course continuing civil war in
disintegrating Yugoslavia. There are also the
226
THE NEW PARLIAMENT
-
PROMISING CLIMATE AFTER ELECTION
future roles of NATO and its rapid reaction
force (only in area, or also out of area?) vis-avis FrancolGerman delusions and overt action
aimed at a purely European force structure
(dominated by France and Germany and with
no US or Canadian participation), not even
within the WEU. And where does the maritime
dimension come in all this, despite the Gulfs
total dependence on maritime supremacy, total
blockade and unhampered logistic support, all
of it putting into practice the long-term interoperability developed within the NATO forces?
Peacetime out-of-area commitments and the
increasing need for enforcement of law and
order at sea are obvious enough to the
'aficionados', but they are seldom the tinder to
fire red-hot political debate in parliament.
Entry into force of the UN Convention on the
Law of the Sea 1982 is likely before the next
election, but it is to be hoped that useful work
presently in hand on rectifying the defects in its
deep-ocean regime (Part XI) can be completed
before the necessary 60 national ratifications are
achieved, so that the United States, Britain,
Germany and a small number of other countries
feel able to join the Convention; 51 states have
ratified so far. There are considerable demands
for declarations of Exclusive Economic Zones
around our Dependent Territories, and
ratification of UNCLOS 82 will surely lead to
these; several will then require various levels
of enforcement.
Another issue is the need to strengthen
international co-operation in oceanography,
meteorology (as opposed to forecasting) and
possibly hydrography as well; the InterGovernmental Oceanographic Commission,
presently under the umbrella of UNESCO, is
greatly hampered by the political and financial
limbo of the latter UN body, from which the
United States, Britain and some other countries
withdrew several years ago, and are in no hurry
to rejoin. The work of the IOC is important in
numerous major oceanic research programmes
like ocean circulation; these in turn are very
much within the political and environmental
orbit of interest at the Earth Summit in Rio de
Janiero.
The EC Common Fisheries Policy is due for
review shortly; at the same time the Spanish and
Portuguese industries are due to be brought fully
onto an equal footing with ail other member
states' industries. Since the Spanish fleet is by
far the largest, 37.4% in number, 35.3% in
GRT of the EC total, there are formidable
problems to be overcome. Experts consider the
present CFP virtually unworkable in its present
form, primarily because the method of
restricting landings to prevent overfishing
involves the imposition of numerous
uneconomic disincentives on the landings of
each and every vessel; since modern fishing
vessels are highly sophisticated, whatever their
size, and therefore of high capital value, every
restriction on catching and landing fish imposes
another financial burden on the fishermen, and
cumulatively these threaten their ability to pay
off heavy long-term mortgages on their vessels.
over and above the very considerable operating
costs of every vessel - fuel, fishing gear, fish
handing and preservation, maintenance and
repairs, insurance, port and selling costs, and
of course crew. All of every fisherman's
livelihood must come out of the 'cod end', ie.
the fish he ultimately lands and is able to sell.
The present fishing regulations are expensive
and complicated to police and enforce; many
are now questioning their effectiveness.
It is daily becoming more obvious that the
only practical method of achieving a viable
fishing industry with a worthwhile, profitable
future is by licensing all but the very smallest
boats, and then restricting the number of vessels
allowed to enter each sector of the industry, so
cutting the fleet's catching capacity, hopefully
also gradually raising the sustainable yield of
each fish stock to near the theoretical optimum.
This is a political hot potato, because the present
catching capacity of the fleet is reckoned to be
at least 40% too high, and every new ship built
increases that proportion; cuts of this magnitude
mean putting a great many vessels. crews and
owners out pf business.
Achieving a reduced fishing fleet needs
financial incentives to the fishermen to take a
lot of their vessels out of service, so-called
'decommissioning grants'. Having vehemently
opposed these on grounds of cost and
impracticability, fishery ministers announced a
£25 million decommissioning scheme one
month before the election, as part of a package.
which includes also the licensing of all
THE NEW PARLIAMENT
-
PROMISING CLIMATE AFTER ELECTION
commercial fishing vessels from 1 January 1993
and a doubled reduction in capacity to 20%for
those over 10m.; the impact of this measure on
the small boatbuilder could be very serious,
some say catastrophic. (One of the
recommendations of the Lords Committee on
Safety is that vessels down to 7m. in length
should be subject to proper safety rules, and this
would hit the 'rule beaters', who are already
producing vessels below 10m.)
Of course some of these measures will affect
Fishery Protection, and maybe simplify the
227
inspection work at sea. It is important that the
Royal Navy does not lose this worthwhile
peacetime task through shortsighted demands
for excessive contributions to the defence budget
from the fisheries' departments.
No doubt The Statement on the Defence
Estimates 1992 will appear shortly; its
consideration in the House and by the Defence
Committee will probably need to wait until after
parliament reassembles in October.
u
Envoi
people in my generation remember
MOST
exactly where they were when they heard
of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbour.
What was not apparent to most of us, though
Roosevelt's speech including the words Risday
of infamy might have alerted many of those in
higher positions of power, was that by this action
Japan not only brought about a declaration of
war, but also electrified the whole psychology
of the American Nation; and created a unity of
outrage and purpose in the wider field of
international conflict which continues to this
day.
In fact Japan broke America loose from its
own history and Jeffersonian tradition of
isolation from Europe which had driven the early
settlers westwards across the Atlantic away from
revolutions, conflicts and starvation. Pearl
Harbour was the start of half a century of
American global engagement against the threat
of Nazi fascism in a Hot War, and Soviet
communism in a Hot War in Vietnam and a Cold
War world wide. But whether this philosophy
will continue is a matter for great concern.
PatrickBuchanan, a right wing neo-isolationist,
for some time ran President Bush close for the
Republican nomination. Not very long ago
Buchanan said:
We cannot forever defend wealthy
nations that refuse to defend themselves;
we cannot permit endless transfusions of
the lifeblood of American capitalism into
the mendicant countries and economic
corpses of socialism without bleeding to
death.
And Congress, predominantly occupied with
'pork barrel' politics and therefore isolationist
by inclination, has recently turned down
Secretary Baker's request to increase the US
contribution to the United Nations to help pay
for the peacekeeping force destined for
Yugoslavia.
Nazism has (almost) disappeared and, it may
just be, communism too. A Commonwealth of
Independent States has been proclaimed in Minsk
with the accompanying statement that the
colossal and inherently evil Empire about which
so much has been written is dead; and dead (as
the US Ambassador to Britain so vividly put it)
-
-
in its own spiritual gangrene.
Now we have to ask ourselves where does this
leave the world? What has been called the pax
ballistics, that era when the two great superpowers faced each other in a balance of terror
called Mutual Assured Destruction has now
ended. Will it bring peace? Fifty years from
Pearl Harbour to Minsk. What next for our own
UK and indeed for the whole world? If after five
decades the now single super-power across the
Atlantic divests itself of its world role (for
isolationism is only just below the surface) where
shall we all end up?
Modern communications and TV, however
malign some of us believe them to be in their
immediate impact on crime and terrorism, have
done something else. They have diminished the
world's size to an extent many hardly realise.
A slaughter in Peking, a riot in Moscow, the
death of a Colombian drug baron, a tank battle
in the Middle East, a tanker explosion in the
Persian Gulf, all these and many at first
seemingly less important events, not only impact
at once on the millions of viewers, but call
immediately in the longer or shorter term for
relevant, often rapid and, above all, effective
international action to contain their effects on
the rest of humanity. Furthermore, above all,
everywhere, there is still great uncertainty as to
whether the super-power confrontation is really
ended or, like a Phoenix. will arise again in
another form.
In the last 500 years whenever one regime in
Russia has been succeeded by another, invariably in the end the successor is either authoritarian or totalitarian. Furthermore it would be
wise not to underestimate Russia's regenerative
power or the Bismarckian doctrine that what is
good for Russia is good for Germany. If history
proves wrong in this case and a Commonwealth
of (real) Democratic States evolves over the next
few decades it is still certain that nuclear weapons
will continue to exist and proliferate.
Impossible as it is fully to cover it in this brief
survey, there is also the problem in this
electronically shrunken world of a world
economy. At the bottom of the 1987 financial
panic were the computers which automatically
sold as shares depressed. But instant
5. The constant threat of international
communication is not the main problem. At a
terrorism and hostage taking, made more
conservative estimate the world population is
easy as arms flood from the factories and
increasing at the rate of about 200 each minute.
regional populations overflow well beyond
And a vast proportion of those, in their standard
of life, will hardly progress beyond the Neolithic
their own available resources to keep them
age though many will have TV sets and see
alive.
In 1972 I reminded the Chiefs of Staff, in the
things beyond their wildest dreams. The
difficultiesprovided by the EC's arguments over presence of the US Chairman of the Joint Chiefs,
that the Arabs once reached Toulouse and the
GATT are already doing infinite damage.
Empire,
Vienna.
Islamic
Allies in the Cold War have become economic Ottoman
competitors; no one country can now or for ever Fundamentalism is the one flourishing and still
control its economic destiny. This competition increasingly militant religion. And though this
can only increase regional conflict. And besides may not pose a threat for many years, the influx
, well as refugees and displaced
the impact of an exploding world population, of ~ u s l i m s as
ethnic, tribal, nationalistic and local warfare will persons from the Third and Fourth worlds, all
of them seeking work or a better way of life
intensify in the years ahead.
However much one might hope it is not, P a amongst the riches of Western Europe (as
Americana is now a fact of the past: although portrayed by TV) certainly does. As they stream
the ability with the UK to insert into another westwards in their hundreds of thousands to
country in an unbelievably short time, % million over-crowded countries already unable to find
men, their arms and equipment 10,000 miles work for their own people, they constitute as
away shows what a deterrent and stabilising great a threat to the societal stability and
factor such a capacity may still have, in this economic well being of the European
disorderly world. Western Europe will indeed Community as the Mexican, Caribbean and
be indebted to the USA if US Forces can still South American influx into the USA already
be kept in Europe until it can be seen which way does to that country and to Canada.
There is a need for Europe as a regional power
the old Soviet Union goes. Beyond that Regional
Organisations, however contrived, will surely to evolve. But within that regional organisation
have to deal with regional disputes as Admiral it simply must be recognised that this small
Moorer foresaw in his 1969 proposals for island on Europe's ocean flank has a special
regional naval arrangements leading to political place and has to assume a great maritime
responsibility. The properly ordered harvesting
groupings.
There are at least five major dangers to be of the sea, the development of the seabed as a
source of mineral and fresh water, all these
confronted internationally:
1. Nuclear proliferation as smaller should be a great part of the UK's contributian
countries arm themselves with nuclear to the solving of the terrible difficulties referred
to above. In a world and a Europe where the
arsenals.
2. Piracy on High Seas (remembering accelerating population reaches towards critical
the chaos caused to international shipping proportions envy, hunger and thirst will quite
and to the marine insurance market by the soon, if they are not already, be the detonators
sinking of merchant ships by only two of explosive conflict.
submarines in the Western basin of the
So long as the United Nations tries to cover
Mediterranean in 1938: and Libya's the whole of the world problems, so long will
attempt in the early 1970s to sink the QUCPII it remain relatively impotent. But it must have
Elizabeth IIwith a shipload of Jews on their a role as the organisation of last resort in the
ultimate search for peace. But beneath it there
way to Haifa).
3. Regional conflict such as the present must be subordinate regional organisations, not
Serbian battles which may well serve as a only of like thinking nations, but also of nations
still mutually hostile from centuries of conflict,
trigger for wider conflict.
4. Drugs which are slowly but surely but now economically interdependent and so
undermining Western and other societies. needing to be brought together.
230
ENVOI
Wherever it exists unity must be maintained
and if possible, enhanced. The United States,
the United Kingdom, Canada, Belgium, The
Netherlands, Germany, Czechoslovakia,
Nigeria, China, are all melting pots for men and
women with very different genes.
America is God's crucible, the great
Melting Pot where all the races of Europe
are melting and re-forming! Here you
stand, good folk, think I, when I see them
at Ellis Island, here you stand in y o u r m y
groups, with your $fry languages and
histories, and your$& blood hatreds and
rivalries. But you won't be long like that,
brothers, for these are the jres of God
you've come to - these are the jres of
God. A j g for your feuds and vendettas!
Germans and Frenchmen, Irishmen and
Englishmen, Jews and Russians - into the
crucible with you all. God is making the
American.
But of course it has not quite worked out as
Israel Zangwin, an English Jew, foresaw it.
Louis Heren's chapter 'The People' in his
seminal
work
The New
American
Commonwealth may not be directly applicable
to all the world regional groups within which
some small degree in achieving regional peace
and a common economic advance may just
succeed. But in the United States, it has already
taken two centuries, a terrible civil war, constant
riots and the disturbances of ethnic politics, even
to reach the present partial solutions of
federalism and bigness.
However the regions of the world are not yet
even where America was two centuries ago.
'Patience', Heren says, 'is not always a political
virtue, it can tend towards indifference and
smugness, but nevertheless it is essential in the
United States, because the country's unity is at
stake'. How much more patience is needed if,
under the aegis of the United Nations, loose
regional organisations with some degree of unity
of purpose, dedicated to peace and economic
betterment for a more closely controlled
population, are to evolve.
Patihce and a much greater degree of selfcontrol by the media, especially TV is needed.
There can be no quick-fixes however well
meaning. No sudden Geldof or Buerk or Deedes
inspired solutions to the terrible famines, to the
drying out of the Nile, to the mud flats of what
was once the Aral Sea, to the 30 million
Kalashnikov rifles in the hands of ruthless men
and women anxious to use them, to the
destruction of the rain forests, to the steady
march forward of the deserts; not one of these
crises can be solved without patience.
But patience is what we so badly lack in the
West, thanks in the main to the opportunities
in all democracies for a multiplicity of muddling
pressure groups who constantly assail us
through the media with comparative trivalities.
It might be well to remember the old saying:
Faced with the Gordian knot,
Cut it if you dare,
Undo it, if you can,
I f you can do neither, don't despair,
The rope will rot.
I once heard a great American say this:
The human and material resources of the
United States, Great Britain, the Old
Commonwealth countries of Canada,
Australia and New Zealand constitute the
supreme power bloc in history. Other
cornbinations may outnumber us, but none
approach us infaithfultzess in international
conduct, in sincere devotion to peace
through justice, in excellence in those
attributes that distitzguish civilisation @om
barbarism.
For the greater portion of two thousand
years, Western cultures established order
where chaos had been endemic. I make no
apologies for the West except in matters
of detail. We should be proud, as fallible
human beings, of having cherished ideals
even when we have not fully energised
them, and cease to beat our breasts
because of extertzal and propagandisr
criticism.
Today we in the West are in danger of
destroying all the influence for the improvement
of civilisation we once possessed. Only by a
close association between the United States and
Europe
and
the
English
speaking
Commonwealth can such influence be reenergised and extended for the benefit of
mankind.
Louis LE BA~LLY
War, a Natural Human Phenomenon
Admiral Sir John Woodward's
BYmostreading
interesting and informative book,
I have learnt much about the
One
Hundred Days,
very heavy responsibilities that a Commander
of a battle group bears in modern sea-warfare,
and that the inscription Si pacem vis, bellum
para on the crest of HMS Excellenr is as much
applicable today as when it was first expressed.
For centuries mankind has searched for the
means of eliminating war in the settlement of
their disputes, but today there is no hard
evidence available to show that they are likely
to succeed 'in turning swords into
ploughshares'. One consequence of this has
been the strengthening of the belief that war is
a natural, human phenomenon.
I am one who holds this belief and, at the risk
of being thought an aged, apprentice war lord,
or a geriatric misery maker, I am aiming in this
article to explain why I do.
My entry into this world took place during
the First World War, shortly before my father
had been killed on the Western Front. My
formal education was received at a typical
English village school, and long before the time
when the subjects of cookery, dress-making and
gardening were deemed worthy to be called
sciences, and grandmothers took the places of
boys in English village church choirs.
By about the age of 13 years, I was aware that
attempts were being made to make the First
World War 'the War to end all Wars'. Later
I was to learn that a process of disarmament was
being carried out by Britain and other nations
to realise this. When, therefore. I entered HMS
Ganges in 1932.1 was not sure whether during
my naval career I should experience war.
However. on leaving that one-time RN Boys'
training establishment, both the training and
education I had received there left me in no
doubt that I had been prepared primarily for
warlike pursuits.
My first ship was HMS Rodnc~ywhich 1joined
as a Boy 1st Class in 1933. Looking back to the
time I spent in this battleship, I was later to
realise that it was from Admiral of the Fleet the
Earl of Cork and Orrery, who then was Admiral
Sir William Boyle. that I learned my career was
to include the experiences of war.
This happened during the address he made to
the officers and ship's company of Rodney
shortly after he had hoisted his flag in HMS
Nelson', as C-in-C Home Fleet. After
commenting on the damage the disarmament
process was doing to the fighting strength of the
Royal Navy, and explaining why, because of
this, 'the Japanese were throwing their weight
around in the Far East' 2 , he told us to aim for
pre-eminence in fighting efficiency and to be
prepared for war. To emphasise this, he
concluded his address by quoting a signal which
the Japanese Vice Admiral Heichachiro Togo
made to his victorious fleet after it had defeated
the Russian one at the Battle of the Tsushima
Strait in May 1905. This signal was 'Keep the
Sword bright'.
The wisdom of this signal and of the reason
for quoting it I was to learn in two ways. One
by experience, the other by interesting myself
at the beginning of old age in the philosophy
of War. It was by relating what I had learnt from
the former to what I had learnt from the latter
that1 came to the conclusion that war is as much
a natural, human phenomenon as, for example.
a thunder or a lighting storm is a natural
meteorological phenomenon.
My learning from experience began in
September 1935 when, as a carefree and newly
rated Ordinary Seaman, I joined the destroyer
HMS Echo at Devonport. After I had placed my
kit-bag and hammock on the starboard side of
the iron-deck, abreast the searchlight platform,
1 noticed that warheads were being fitted to
torpedoes and HE shells were being placed in
racks on 'X' gun-deck. To satisfy my curiosity,
1 asked a torpedoman what whas happening. His
reply was 'We're preparing for war.'
The evening of the same day that I joined
E c l ~she left at high speed for Portland. Here
she joined other ships of her flotilla and la;er,
in company with another flotilla of destroyers
and the aircraft carrier HMS Courageoits, she
sailed to re-inforce the Mediterranean Fleet at
Alexandria.
The reason for this re-inforcement was for
Britain to have the sea-power available should
the League of Nations decide to use force to
prevent Italy from carrying out her intention
232
WAR, A NATURAL HIUMAN PHENOMENON
to invade and occupy Abyssinia. The League
of Nations did not decide to prevent Italy from
carrying out her intention, and one consequence
of this was the serious weakening of the hope
that World War I was going to be 'The War to
end all Wars'.
From the end of what has been called the
Abyssinian crisis until my discharge to pension
in 1957, my experiences of one inter-nation and
two civil wars and of being prepared on several
occasions to engage in conflicts of one kind or
another, were sufficient for me, later in life, to
agree with the claim that 'History shows us the
life of nations and finds nothing to narrate but
wars and tumults; the peaceful years appear only
as occasional brief pauses and interludes. In just
the same way, the life of the individual is a
constant struggle, and not merely a metaphorical
one against want or boredom, but also an actual
struggle against other people. He (man)
discovers adversaries everywhere, lives in
continual conflict and dies with sword in hand'.
It was while I was an Open University
undergraduate that I convinced myself that by
relating some of my service experiences to the
relevant writings of three philosophers of
distinction, I could justify the belief that war
is a natural human phenomenon. These
philosophers are the Greek-born Heraclitus of
Ephesus (died after 480 BC), the English-born
Thomas Hobbes (1588-1679) and the Germanborn Arthur Schopenhauer (1788- 1860).
Heraclitus was one of those early Greek
philosophers who began to give rational
explanations of what they observed of the world
external to themselves. One question which
some of them tried to answer was 'What is the
essence or dynamics of existence?' Heraclitus'
answer was simply Strife.
Evidence of this answer is contained in three
of his surviving fragments. These read:
a. 'We must know that war is common
to all and strife is justice and that all things
come into being and pass away (?) through
Strife.''
b. 'War is the father of all and King of
all, and some he has made gods and some
men, some bond and some free. '
c. 'Homer was wrong in saying
"Would that Strife might perish from
among gods and men". He did not see that
he was praying for the destruction of the
universe, for, if his prayer were answered,
all things would pass away. '
At the first reading of these fragments I
thought Heraclitus saw Strife and war as being
one and the same thing. However, later, I
realised that it is in the last fragment that he
makes implicit his belief that war is a human
phenomenon: his reason being because it is one
manifestation of what keeps all things from
passing away, namely Strife.
The philosophical masterpieces of Hobbes
and Schopenhauer are, respectively, 'Leviathan
or The Matter, Forme and Power of A
Commonwealth Ecclesiasticall and Civill' and
'The World as Will and Idea (Representation)'
- Die Welt als Wille Und Vorsrellung.
Hobbes lived during a period of English
history during which turbulent, political
instability was to become one of the principal
causes of the outbreak of what is known as The
Great English Civil War. This war began in
1642 and finally ended in 1649.
One of the causes of the political instability
that developed in England following the
accession of James VI of Scotland to the English
throne in 1603 was the failure of the Monarchy
and Parliament to agree where in the English
constitution sovereignty lay. Some for example
believed it lay with the monarchy as of divine
right, while others believed it lay with
Parliament whose members represented the
people in whom, wrote one Henry Parker,
'Power is originally inherent'. '
Hobbes' philosophical masterpiece is a
political theory of sovereignty. He wrote it to
explain how peace can be preserved within a
civil society by the rule of a form of government
which he calls a Commonwealth. Many of the
ideas he expresses in this theory are believed
by some political thinkers to be relevant today,
not only because they are applicable in
preventing the outbreak of civil wars, but also
inter-nation ones.
One of these ideas amounts to stating that
force must always be available for use to a
Commonwealth to ensure obedience by its
subjects to the laws it enacts. The reason for
this he states is that 'Covenants without the
sword are but words. '
The basis upon which Hobbes grounds his
WAR, A NATURAL HUMAN PHENOMENON
theory of sovereignty he states as:The universe, that is, the whole mass of
all things that are, in corporeal, that is to
say, body, and hath the dimensions and
magnitude, namely, length, breadth and
depth; also every part of body is likewise
body, and hath the like dimensions, and
consequently every part of the Universe is
body, and that which is not is nopart of the
Universe;and because the Universe is all,
that which is no part of it is nothing and
consequently nowhere.
One conclusion that can be drawn from this
claim is that, since men are part of the universe,
they are therefore bodies in motion and hence,
according to Hobbes' definition of body, they
occupy space, are divisible, moveable and
behave mathematically. l o
Hobbes accepted this conclusion and to give
an example of how, like everything else in the
universe, men are constantly in motion he writes
'Continuall successe in obtaining those
things which a man from time to time
desireth, that is to say, continuall
prospering, is that men call FELICITY: I
mean Felicity of this life. For there is no
such thing as Tranquillity of mind whilst we
live here; because Life it selfe is but Motion
and can never be without Desire nor without
Feare, no more than without Sense. 'I1
In this passage Hobbes makes clear his belief
that as we pass through this life, one way we
show ourselves to be in constant motion is in our
striving to obtain what we desire and avert what
we fear.
If this belief is true, and there is much evidence
in daily newspapers and books on the history of
mankind to say that it is, then I think it is not
unreasonable to conclude that evidence to
support this belief is also evidence to support the
belief that war is a natural human phenomenon.
The reason for this is that at times while being
in constant motion striving to satisfy their desires
and to avert what causes their fears, men come
into conflict with one another and one dimension
of human conflict is war.
An example which Hobbes gives of this and
which can be extended to account for the outbreaks of both civil and inter-nation wars is that
'. . . ifany two men desire the same thing
which neverthelesse both cannot enjoy, they
233
become enemies and on the way to their End
(which is principally their owne
conservation and sometimes their
delectation only) endeavour to destroy or
subdue one in another. ' l
A chronological table of the history of the
Royal Navy from the beginning of this century
to the present day, provides ample evidence to
justify extending what Hobbes says can happen
when two men become enemies to what can
happen when two or more nations become the
same.
Although Hobbes' philosophical masterpiece
does not contain claims that the outbreak of war
can eternally be prevented or that the
phenomenon of war can be destroyed, that of
Schopenhauer's does contain evidence which
shows that like Heraclitus he believed that if such
a phenomenon were destroyed then 'all things
would pass away'.
Schopenhauer was the son of a very
prosperous businessman, and his adolescent
education was intended to prepare him to follow
the same career as his father. However, in his
youth Schopenhauer showed that his main
interests were in scholarly pursuits and that he
was beginning to see the activities of the
marketplace as being odious.
On the death of his father Schopenhauer
inherited wealth that was sufficient to make him
financially independent and prepare him for his
entry into Academia.
After matriculating in Greek, Latin,
Mathematics and history, he became an
undergraduate at the University of Gottingen.
At the time, this university was a centre of
German scholarship 'where it was possible to
keep abreast of all new knowledge of the
century. '
Schopenhauer spent the first year of his
university life in the faculty of medicine,
thereafter in that of philosophy. His combining
the study of medicine with that of philosophy was
one consequence of the influence on him of the
writings of the German-born philosopher
Immanuel Kant (1724- 1804).One of the beliefs
of this philosopher was that 'medicine is a
discipline adjacent to philopsophy. '
The view of life which Schopenhauer had was
a tragic one. One way in which he makes this
known is by reference to words he says were
234
WAR. A NATURAL HUMAN PHENOMENON
used by Mexicans to welcome a new-born child.
These words were 'my child you are born to
endure, therefore endure, suffer and keep
silence.'I5 Another way is by asking '. . .
whence did Dante get the material for his hell,
if not from this actual world of ours?'16
With this tragic view of life, it is not
surprising that, like Hobbes' philosophical
masterpiece, that of Schopenhauer's is based on
a materialistic concept of what is the essence
or dynamics of existence. There is, however,
this most important difference in the religious
content of these masterpieces. For Hobbes the
creater of the universe was a benevolent and
merciful god! but for Schopenhauer, 'more
likely a devil?'
Two of the principal aims which
Schopenhauer had in mind were those of
explaining the world as he understood it to be
and why he had concluded that 'life is an
unpleasant business. ' ' '
Among the fundamental propositions on
which he based his arguments are the beliefs
'that matter and energy are one and the same
thing' l 8 and that, because human bodies are
made up of bits of matter, occupy space and are
subject to the same physical laws that govern
all material objects then, to be human beings
we must at least be material objects.
From these propositions, it must follow that
with regard to our physical make up, we are
energy.
A hundred years or more before science had
discovered that matter is transmutable into
energy, Schopenhauer had found this out by the
observations he had made into how we obtain
knowledge. His explanation of this is that we
obtain it in two different ways. One of these is
indirectly by means of our senses and faculties
of understanding; the other directly from within
our bodies by means of a feeling or what is
usually called our inner sense. It is, he states,
by this sense or feeling that we can be conscious
of ourselves as being energy through and
through. By analogy Schopenhauer argues from
this that since our bodies are material objects
then the same energy that is immanent in them
is in all other material objects and, as such, is
'their true inner being' l 8 or what they are
independently of what our sensory and
intellectual apparatus proclaim them to be.
The name Schopenhauer gives to this energy,
which he sees as inseparable from matter, is
Will. Of this Will he says 'It always strives
because striving is its sole nature, to which no
attained goal can put an end. Such striving is
therefore incapable of final satisfaction; it can
be checked by hindrance but it, itself, goes on
for ever.'
War, states Schopenhauer, is one of the ways
by which this energy manifests itself as an
eternal, striving phenomenon. He illustrates this
by making as its personification Eris, the ancient
goddess of Strife and Discord. About this
mischief making deity he writes that if she is
'checked by hindrance' in one place she will
eventually find another and there 'she will
demand in bulk and all at once as an
accumulated debt the bloody sacrifices which
singly had previously been denied to her.'"'
This illustration may not be accepted as
evidence to support the belief that War is a
natural human phenomenon. It is therefore
worth drawing attention to what Schopenhauer
sees as the alternative if it were otherwise. It
is 'the actual overpopulation of the whole planet,
the terrible evil of which, only a bold
imagination can conjure up in the mind.'21
To assert that this evil does not bear within
itself the germ of war goes, I think, well beyond
the bounds of commonsense.
A modern writer on war is Martin van
Creveld 'who teaches history at the Hebrew
University in Jerusalem and is an internationally
acclaimed military historian. ' In 1991 the first
edition of his book On Future War was
published by Brasseys (London). On its dust
cover it is claimed to be 'The most Radical
Interpretation of Armed Conflict since
Clausewitz'.
After I had read this I began to worry, for
I thought that perhaps this book contained
evidence to show that Heraclitus, Hobbes and
Schopenhauer were mistaken and that
consequently the belief that war is a natural
human phenomenon is false. However, on page
2 18 of this book, there is a paragraph the reading
of which convinced me that I need not have
worried. It states:
'In this volume war has been somewhat
arbitrarily taken as given. One by one, the
phenomena that surround war - including
235
WAR, A NATURAL HUMAN PHENOMENON
the organisations by which it is waged, the
conventions to which it is subjected and the aims
for which it is fought - have been shown to
be the product of historical circumstances: Even
as they changed, war stood up as the eternal,
unchanging axis' around which revolves the
whole of human existence and which gives
meaning to all the rest. In the words of
Heraclitus, polernos panton men pater esti Strife is the origin of all things.'
Re-reading all that I have written above, I feel
that I may have given the impression that during
my service in the Royal Navy, I spent my offduty hours either in philosophical contemplation
or reading books on the divine and eternal
truths. This was by no means the case, although
I do recall a gunnery officer whose assessment
of me included that of my being a thoughtful
soul! However, it was not until I had reached
middle age that I intuitively learnt that I had
spent twenty-five years of my life in a profession
that has been invested with a certain moral
dignity. The reasons for this, I was to learn,
were to be found in an understanding of the
languages and literatures of ancient Greece and
Rome, and of the philosophies of War and
morality.
After an almighty struggle trying to obtain this
understanding, I was assured when well into old
age that, amongst other things, I could consider
myself an apprentice classical scholar.
To justify my entitlement to this status and,
at the same time, give what I see as an
appropriate ending to this article, I conclude it
with two lines written by the Latin poet Horace.
These refer to Cyrus the Great who was the
founder and first King of the Persian Empire
and they say something about what he did after
his bloodless capture of Babylon in 539 BC.
This was, . . . rnetuensque futuri/In pace, ur
sapiens, aptarit idonea bello! - being fearful
of the future he did as becomes a wise man,
prepare in time of peace all things that are
needed for war.''
LESLIEV. M. MARTIN
References
'Autumn 1933.
>From memory.
"Life and Meaning': A Reader. Edited by Oswald Hanfling.
An Open University set book for Course A310.
''Before Philosophy '. The Intellectual Adventure of Ancient
man. Penguin Books, p.258.
'Ibid.
61bid.
'Seventeenth-century England: A changing culture, Ed. by
Ann Hughes (Ward Lock Educational, in association with
The Open University), p.99.
'T. Hobbes, Leviathan, Ch.27.
'Ibid., Ch.46.
I 'Morris Kline. 'Mathematics in Western Culture'.. 0.289.
I l o p cit supra n.8, ch.6.
"Ibid, Ch. 13.
' 'Rudiger Safranski, Schoperlhauer and the Wild Years of
Philosophy, (Weidenfeld & Nicholson), p.202.
"Op cit supra, n. 13, p. 103.
'>Arthur Schopenhauer, 7he World As Win and
Representation. Translated from the German by E. F. J.
Payne, Vo1.2, p.586.
I6Op cit supra n.15, Vo1.2, p.325.
"Op cit supra 11.13, p.105.
' W p cit supra, n.15, Vo1.2, p.294.
I 'Op cit supra, n. 15, Vol. I, p.308.
' "Op cit supra, n. 15, Vol. I, p.350.
' Ibid.
"Inside flap of dust cover.
"Satyr i ~ .1-2.
.
Q.E.D. -I
ROM the remoteness of civilian life it is
F
now difficult to recall at what moment the
subject of South Georgia and The Falkland
Islands came into our consciousness that spring
ten years ago. Cocooned as I was in an office
in the south of England, I was more concerned
about trying either to make something of the job
to which I had been sent under duress,or
proving to the powers that were, that at a time
of impending contraction in the wake of Cmd
8288, my billet could be sacrificed to the overall
benefit of the manpower equation. As I put my
small collection of less than exciting paperwork
in my safe that Friday evening and made my
way home, I was also realising that despite my
best endeavours, and I might say the support
of the system, my efforts to find a role the
impending operations in the South Atlantic
seemed to have come to nought. My appointer
was sighing even louder down the telephone,
and had said to me, in the nicest possible way,
that they then had everybody they wanted, they
thought, but, casting a slight ray of hope,
reminded me to leave a contact telephone
number should I go away during the
forthcoming Easter leave. In short he didn't
want me to ring him again.
The following day I was in the midst of cutting
the grass when the telephone rang. Every time
that happened it was rather like those calls on
30 June and 31 December; could this be it?
Indeed it was the duty boy in NavSec, who of
course couldn't say too much . . . but could I
please present myself at the MOD at 0900 the
following day as there was a STUFT - Ship
Taken Up From Trade - for which I was
required. It was at this moment that I
appreciated, not for the first time, the true value
of a wife. She just smiled broadly and reminded
me that we were going on holiday in August,
and could I please ensure that Mr Galtieri had
been sent packing before then, preferably with
no harm done to yours truly. I think, indeed I
know, that she had decided that she had had
enough of the caged animal, and perhaps a spell
of seatipe might sort me out.
That day was a bit of a blur. We were having
some friends for supper, I needed to get some
uniform put together, not least some whites, and
the children, then small, had to be kept out of
their Mother's way if peace was to be
maintained in the kitchen. However, if it was
a blur to me, then that day was certainly busy,
as we now know, for those in Northwood, in
Whitehall, at Chequers, and in the Task Force.
We had watched them go four weeks earlier,
and with the TEZ now firmly established and
being enforced, things were hotting up. Stanley
airfield had been bombed and the Belgrano
incident was but hours away. My wife and I
decided that we would say nothing that evening
about my intentions for the following day; it was
not easy as, to the chagrin of at least one wife
to my certain knowledge, the conversation was
virtually exclusively on one subject.
Nevertheless, rather later than we had planned,
noting that an early start was required in the
morning, we managed to keep our silence until
the last guest, my daughter's godfather who at
that time worked in an adjacent office to me,
had left. We had, incidentally, also decided that
I ought to tell him all about it the following day,
as his pastoral services might, although we of
course hoped not, have been required at some
future moment.
I duly arrived at Waterloo the following
morning, and strode off up the platform, to be
almost tripped up by the very same man, on his
way to the same meeting! He too had kept quiet
and was as it transpired, destined for my
chummy ship. Feeling in fine spirits, we duly
presented ourselves at the Naval Secretary's
front door.
The toss of a coin
I had never, until that day, been invited to toss
a coin as to which ship I was to go to. Despite
the pronouncement on the telephone the day
before, the appointers had not actually allocated
either of us to a specific ship; there were two
to choose from, and would we therefore please
choose. We tossed a coin. I called and won,
chose alphabetically, and at that moment
became Senior - and as it turned out, only,
Naval Officer of a Naval Party. My chum
assumed the same role in the other ship, and
he being the senior of the two of us also became
OTC of our little group. Despite the choices
made that day, the competence of the
administrative system was not all that it could
have been, and the wrong officer of same name,
was sent to my ship, as far as the records were
concerned. All that worried me, when I
discovered the problem when a new copy of the
Bridge Card appeared some weeks later, was
that I should be paid, and that should anything
happen, the right people were told the right
news. It took considerable shaking of the tail
to achieve this, yet the downstream effects upon
home were more marked. No point of contact
was established; my feedback was passed to the
bemused wife of another officer o f the same
name, also serving in a temporary appointment
in the Task Force, and mine received no news
at all for over two months, not even from my
parent organisation in Portsmouth, who for
reasons best known to themselves, neither
acknowledged any signals, nor so much as
telephoned either of our respective 'base camps'
despite knowing all about us. I have inserted
this small statement, not through any particular
bitterness, but simply to record how
thoughtlessness amongst essentially nice people
with little or no additional work above the norm,
did considerable damage to at least one highly
independent and capable wife's faith in a system
that promised so much.
The briefing was not until 1400, so we set out
to pass the time, partly in Westminster Abbey
- not my idea but I felt better for it - and partly
walking interminably around St James's Park,
talking over ideas. Surely we said, someone has
a master plan; then again perhaps they haven't,
and if so what are we going to do. It was a useful
walk, as the latter was the case, logistically and
organisationally at least, or so it seemed, and
we duly arrived in the Main Building to sit in
on one of those nitty-gritty meetings that were
the business of making things happen. We left
only a little the wiser, knowing only that we
were to convert the ships - that was already
in train - and sailing 7 days later, take elements
of the 5th Infantry Brigade, and their stores, to
a bridgehead somewhere on the Falklands,
which would by then have been secured. Both
ships were due in Portsmouth the following
morning, so a little confused as to what we ought
to do next, and warmed by slaps on the back
and cries of 'lucky b . . .s' from every naval
officer we saw, we decided to go home and think
it over that night, meeting at the Dockyard gate
the following morning.
Whilst in the Main Building, we managed to
fit in a 'smash and grab' lunch in that rather
good canteen. Sitting two tables down from us
that day was a well known and senior member
of the Government taking a break from his
office. All I can remember about him was his
appearance of exhaustion and abject dejection;
perhaps such an observation was wrong, but I
recall that I was glad, for the sake of the Service,
that he was a member of the Government, and
not the First Sea Lord. I have never seen anyone
of such apparent importance looking so beaten
flat.
Preparations
To put things in perspective the 5th Infantry
Brigade had been allocated to Task Force when
it had become apparent that even the 'beefed
up' 3rd Commando Brigade, consisting of 40,
42 and 45 Commandos, together with the 2nd
and 3rd Battalions of the Parachute Regiment,
and all their supporting arms, would not be
numerically strong enough to guarantee
superiority over Argentine forces on the
Falkland Islands. 5 Brigade was made up of the
2nd Battalion Scots Guards, 1st Battalion Welsh
Guards, and the lst17th Gurkha Rifles. They had
initially been detailed as the Garrison force,
once hostilities were over, and the pace of their
work up - which they had actually not
completed when called forward - had been set
accordingly. The advanced departure, coming
hard on the heels of an apparently less than
satisfactory exercise in Wales, had clearly come
as a surprise, particularly to the Brigade staff.
I first saw the ship as she arrived alongside
in the Lock - can't remember the number in Portsmouth Dockyard. She had high slab
sides, was about 450 feet long with
superstructure aft and stern ramp, was about
16,000 gross registered tons, and painted bright
orange, just in case you couldn't see her. I
reckoned then that she would roll like a pig, but
as the major 'plus' of the entire campaign, I had
the Pilot's cabin abaft the bridge - the highest
cabin in the ship, but the one with the only
athwartships bunk. I was not to see it very often,
but when I did it was bliss in even the roughest
weather. The space inside the ship, designed to
take articulated lorries from Felixstowe to
Rotterdam, was comparable to a CVS hangar
on the lower deck, with another shorter vehicle
deck of slightly lower deckhead height above,
and an upper deck, which when converted and
despite obstructions, could take a Chinook with
consummate ease. I didn't officially have
clearance for Chinook operations, but that didn't
seem to matter too much later on! It seemed that
it was the light blue system, rather than its
inhabitants, that was hide-bound by the rules,
and I-'remain in awe of what the Chinook singular - and all the other aircraft did in that
space over the following weeks. Accornmodation consisted of about 100 berths - mainly in
four berth, sparsely furnished, cabins - and that
for a crew of about 12 officers and 25 ratings
- all single cabins with the usual facilities:
My Naval Party consisted of one Seaman
CPO, one PO Aircraft Handler, one PO Radio
Supervisor, three Radio Operators, four aircraft
handlers - two of whom were aged 17 and
straight from training, but who performed
magnificently nonetheless - and one LMA. a
mournful character and harbinger of
whose previous civilian occupation I discovered
from his document had been that of an
undertaker's assistant - a role to which his
demeanour seemed well suited. In addition there
was a one stripe RFA radio officer, who was
quite the most outstanding radio technician I had
ever niet. From frequency shifts to emergency
repairs and jury rigs, he was outstanding.
Mercurians amongst readers may find it of note,
that due to this officer's expertise and practical
knowledge of frequency shifts throughout a 24
hour period, we were able to read the Pitreavie
small ships broadcast, re-radiated from
Gibraltar, continuously and without missing a
'number', all the way from UK to just,north of
South Georgia, when we eventually shifted to
the Task Group broadcast. Despite his hair cut
- or rather the reverse - he was also a damn
good officer.
My arrival onboard the ship was somewhat
hesitant; there was no-one in sight, and we
couldn't - the dockyard project manager and
myself - find our way out of the vehicle decks.
Thinking of the LPDs, I set off into the 'walls'
only to come to a dead end in a locker full of
oily rags and associated junk. Eventually
however, the pilot, who had brought the ship
in, appeared and pointed us at a lift, at the top
of which I eventually found the cheery Chief
Officer, and the Master. Both were kindly, but
bemused - who could blame them. They had
been finishing a routine run into Felixstowe the
previous afternoon, when they were told about
HMG's intentions for their ship, and were
invited to get her to Portsmouth, which they did
on a rather out of date chart, which they
happened to have in a bottom drawer, the ship
having never operated out of the North Sea since
delivery some years earlier.
So far so good. I had collected a ship, outline
knowledge of what I had to achieve in 6 days
- this was Monday and we were to sail from
the UK the following Sunday - a Dockyard
Project Manager who had enlightened me on
what he was to do to the ship and set off to get
on with it, and the first of my Naval Party, the
ever smiling Glaswegian PO Aircraft Handler,
who in the absence of anybody else, was made
the Regulator on the spot, and got on with it
splendidly thereafter. The ship's Master who
was a quiet and charming man, told me that he
would not be coming with us - can't remember
why - but that another Master would join that
day. He duly did, and we have been friends ever
since. The rest of the officers - one Chief
Officer, two mates, a Chief Engineer, four
engineer officers, an electrical officer, and a
purser, sorted themselves out by the time we
had moved to Southampton to load troops and
stores later that week. The merchant navy
ratings were a different story, but that said, in
the end proved far easier to handle. I soon
discovered, in the midst of a degree of confusion
brought about by trying to do a DEDICUP, and
store, in about three days, that the MN ratings
were a remarkable team of people, and were
game to fight anything - me included if
necessary. Given half a chance they'd have
taken Galtieri's trousers off single handed,
having laid out the entire Argentine army en
route. Some of them, incidentally, were rather
too fond of trousers, but that is another story
- the Chief Steward's name incidentally was
Dolly.
All these people were Company employees,
under contract t o it and it was herethat the
National Union of Seamen took a hand.
Unknown to me they had persuaded, the day
before sailing, all the company men to walk off,
forcing the Company, faced with a de facto
situation, to take on a pool crew from
Southampton, whilst at the same time having
to pay the original crew in accordance with their
contracts. The new crew arrived on the day of
sailing - actually about four hours beforehand
- and we were faced with a new team, albeit
that one or two key members of the original one
had remained.
Our move to Southampton had been on 4
May. We berthed at a roro berth opposite
Vosper's yard at Woolston, and were in the
midst of our evening meeting, when the Chief
Engineer rushed in with the news about
Shefield. The moment ranked alongside that of
Kennedy's assassination in its impact, and I
found a little difficulty in getting the meeting
back on the rails.
The Army had impressively detailed plans to
reinforce everywhere, except the Falklands.
Their staff tables bore witness to sound
organisation and clear thought, yet they were
useless in the current situation. HQUKLF at
Salisbury were working like trojans to produce
new ones, yet my basic, and perhaps selfish
concern was to know how many troops I was
getting, and what stores. My initial enquiries
resulted in a total of some 250 troops therefore 500 in both ships - and an amount
of stores and ammunition that I could not
measure in volume terms. 1,000 tons of
ammunition plus 200 tons of phosphorous
(smoke grenades), six 105mm howitzers and
four Scout helicopters were the only bits I
remembered or noted. The ship would patently
not take 250 troops, but UKLF said that was
what was written-down, and that was what it
would be, adding that QE2 - also getting ready
to take the largest part of 5 Brigade - was
'overflowing'. I eventually asked the Naval
Medical Officer of Health from Portsmouth to
come and have a look, pointing out the heads
and bathrooms problems. I could not
accommodate over twice the number for whom
there were bunks, but I decided that a mattress
on the deck in each four berth cabin was
adequate and acceptable austerity. He and I
therefore concocted a signal to HQUKLF,
CINCFLEET and most of the world, stating the
number that we would take, and that seemed to
do the trick. We were on sailing therefore about
160 strong, with about 30 ship's crew, a dozen
of my own, and the remainder troops from a
variety of regiments and corps, a total which
included 8 or so officers, with one Gunner major
as OC troops, one Sapper Captain from the
Brigade staff and the remainder assorted
subalterns amongst whom was a seasick doctor,
and no two of whom, in the best traditions of
the British Army, ever dressed alike.
I have rather skipped over the modifications
that were made to us. The upper deck forward
of the bridge was strengthened to take a Seaking
- and Chinook as well so it turned out. GPI,
anemometer and 'stoplgo' lights were added although I generally used a thumbs up from the
bridge as it seemed to work better. We also had
a large yellow fuel bowser, flight deck tractor
- which I later donated to the RAOC, and
eventually I suppose a grateful farmer, who
seemed at the time to have greater need of such
a thing, and I doubt if it ever saw Yeovilton
again. A rudimentary RAS point was fitted, as
was a fuel line to the ship's tanks. I actually only
used it once - off Portland on the way through
- preferring to fuel alongside some friendly
RFA in San Carlos when I needed a 'suck'
which wasn't often. To help with water
problems, we had a Reverse Osmosis
desalination plant fitted in the lower vehicle
deck. This worked well in warm climes, but its
performance fell exponentially in the cooler
waters of the south Atlantic. We managed
nevertheless, although the heads were,
surprisingly, fresh water flush and we had to
resort to buckets from the firemain later on a very good levelling experience for those with
ideas of grandeur. The only other drawback
with the remarkable 'RO' plant was the fact that
it had to be welded directly to the deck, and its
vibrations, coupled with those of the ship, set
up a violent and destructive resonant 'beat'
frequency about once a day, which kept the
Chief Engineer busy with a welding torch,
repairing broken joints.
Communications-wise the ship was fitted with
two HF lines, as well as two UFH ones.
Additionally we had a Marisat terminal through which, ignoring whispered instructions
not to do so, I cleared all shiplshore traffic,
suitably encrypted through a 'literaliser' into
Pitreavie, as if they were telexes. It was often
incidentally the
way of communicating
with other s h i ~ in
s the Task Force. I eather that
the USSR, aAongst others, complaked about
such practices through diplomatic channels, but
I wasn't too worried about that at the time.
Sometime earlier that year I had passed my
Ship Command examination in Supply. Such
things went some way to prepare one for
eventualities such as this, but inevitably there
was the question for which I did not have an
answer or a clue. It came, strangely enough,
from the Purser who, not surprisingly, wanted
to know how long he had to store the ship for,
and for how many - such minor details were
my bread and butter. Nobody of course knew
the answer - DFSD's tables didn't take account
of converted car ferries going to the South
Atlantic - so I took a deep breath and after
some thought suggested six months and 500
people, which seemed to me to give us a bit of
latitude. To my surprise he took it all very
calmly, and went away and fixed it without a
murmur. The ship's chandlers and suppliers
must have thought it was Christmas - heaven
knows what they charged us. All, to my
amazement, fitted into a total of about half a
dozen containers and 'fridgicons' in the vehicle
deck, and included a large amount of beer and
spirits which was to prove an especial attraction
to the Army later on, when we became known
as one of the better off-licences south of the
Equator. I used to discover little groups of
soldiers, always Gurkhas strangely enough,
clearly just back from the 'front' as they were
filthy, wandering round the ship asking for the
'Naval Sahib'. They would stand to attention,
salute me punctiliously, and, proffering a blank
cheque signed by someone whose name had at
least one hyphen, say 'Sahib say he like
Glenfiddich, and we can take case of beer, if
you fill in amount and keep cheque Sir'. I used
to give them what they wanted, within reason,
as well as a shower and a hot meal, which
coupled with a couple of 'tinnies' put a smile
back on their faces. Although of all the infantry
units in 5 Brigade the Gurkhas were
undoubtedly the best, those fabulous little men
found the conditions of cold and damp hard
going - but who didn't.
Within the ship I enforced the standard
pusser's rules applicable to junior and senior
rates, which worked fairly well, although I had
cause to put the Merchant Navy ratings'
accommodation, where beer and spirits were
openly available without any check, out of
bounds to Service personnel. That also
prevented other difficulties, which fortunately
never occured, as far as I knew.
South
We two car ferries sailed at 1400 on Sunday 9
May, and to the music of a band on the jetty,
proceeded west down the Solent to a chorus of
good wishes from literally hundreds of boats.
I wrote in my diary that dry eyes were not in
fashion. I had fallen all 160 of us in, guns and
all, so we looked ship-shape, I hoped. QE2
followed a couple of days later.
After a brief SAT(Air) and RAS(L) off
Portland, we set course, in company for
Freetown in Sierra Leone, where at 16 knots,
we arrived the following Sunday evening, and
fuelled, sailing the following morning, and
being cheered on our way by an enormous and
enthusiastic crowd. Thereafter we made passage
to Ascension Island, arriving on 20 May, where
we embarked several tons of stores for the Task
Force and some rather lost and leaderless RAF
other ranks who didn't seem to know where they
were going. Our passage to the TEZs was to
take another week, and we arrived in it on 28
May, making our first visit to San Carlos two
days later. Having therefore set the timescale
and positions in perspective, some observations
are appropriate.
Firstly, the Merchant Navy. In making these
observations I do so in the knowledge that what
I am writing may well not sit easily with some
members of the NR, yet this needs to be said.
The ratings were an excellent bunch, by and
large, and whilst I made it plain from the outset
what the rules of Active Service meant to them,
and that I would enforce whatever disciplinary
action was necessary without 'let or favour', I
only had to mention the subject at the outset,
and thereafter we enjoyed a splendidly informal
and jovial relationship. My Naval Party ratings
found the same.
The officers' attitudes was sometimes
unexpected. Active Service, with all its
ramifications, was announced the day before we
arrived in Freetown. I discussed it with the
Master, who suggested that the fact that his
people were under the NDA from then on might
not go down too well, and perhaps I ought to
leave the announcement until after we had
sailed! We did so, and just as well, as a number,
mostly the engineers, claimed that they had been
'Shanghaied', and would have got off in
Freetown if they had known early enough. Just
talk perhaps. The deck officers watch kept
unsupervised in the main - on the principle that
they had a ticket and must be alright - but it
seemed that the principle of the movement of
visual bearing as the empirical proof in collision
avoidance was unknown, or unused, by the
majority. Nevertheless they were keen to learn
and with practice and to their great credit, they
actually became quite good at fleetwork, which
they seemed to enjoy, though there was the odd
interesting moment on dark nights later on.
Joining the main body in the middle of the
night could be an interesting evolution. We did
not have a manoeuvring board, and made do
with a paper form, which worked well except
when the screen axis was other than North. On
re-joining one dark night, with the axis at 270
and some thirty ships in Cartwheel formation
with a diameter of perhaps 15-20 miles, the
relative velocity problem, and the sorting out
of where my sector actually was, was not made
any easier by the need to identify the Guide something that was not immediately apparent,
as indeed it should not have been. I eventually
narrowed it down to four possibilities, but even
with amplification from Hermes the Guide's
precise position was not clear. I couldn't keep
asking for clarification and ships were of course
darkened, not displaying any navigation lights,
and silhouettes were difficult to discern. So, in
total darkness I decided that the only thing to
do was to make close passes down the sides of
the first three, which must have made them
think, until we found the Guide by reading the
name on her quarter with a search light or
exchanging identities. After that the rest was
easy, but I could not help feeling that my
cavalier fleetwork might just have attracted the
odd remark at Portland. Such was the freedom
of the open road - within reason.
The ship had plied her trade across the North
Sea for several years. It was therefore surprising
that securing for sea was an unknown art, and
that many compartments and spaces were
festooned with loose gear and liquid, often
inflammable. A check of the ship's fire
extinguishers by my Buffer - we had been
given a veritable treasure trove of additional
stores by Phoenix - revealed that despite
recent DOT test certificates, about half did not
work, and some were lacking either C 0 2
canisters, water, or both. One could not blame
those on the spot too much, as no-one had ever
set a standard, and they had all been brought
up to accept one which fell far short, even in
the most generous terms, of anything
acceptable.
All of this having been said, relations were
actually pretty good, all things considered.
Soldiers, sailors and 'the Merch' got on well,
allowing for the odd moment. I had cause to
wind my Buffer in at times - good though he
was, and he had to learn a degree of tact in
dealing with civilians, especially when they got
it wrong. He was, nevertheless, an exceptional
man.
Put soldiers and sailors anywhere, and they
will soon make themselves at home and this was
no exception. I was particularly fortunate in the
OC Troops - a very bright and energetic
Gunner Major of similar age. We did rounds
of the ship at least twice a day - such was
essential to keep her clean, and it also gave me
an interesting insight into the Army. As my
khaki counterpart pointed out to me, the smarter
the tunic on parade, the dirtier the individual.
As we ploughed our way southward we
received an irate signal from QE2 at the behest
of 5 Brigade staff, asking for details of what
stores we had embarked. This was despite
having signalled copious details and a request
for intentions, on sailing. The stores had been
loaded in no particular order - simply thrown
in - and a team had spent 72 sleepless hours
going through a hold the size of a CVS hangar,
tightly packed, cataloguing it all. It was at this
moment that I began to wonder if all was well,
a suspicion increased by the further exchanges
of uncoordinated signal traffic. We duly replied,
and asked for instructions as to how they wanted
things arranged for disembarkation, etc., etc.
No answer was ever received, but the first
question I was asked on arrival in San Carlos
a couple of weeks later by the Brigade DQ
(logistics officer) was . . . 'what have you got'.
(to be concluded)
TROTTER
History of 1913 Entry to Royal Australian
Naval College
entry to the RANC (1913) is
THEbeingfirstcommemorated
in a history to be
written by A. W. Grazebrook, a Commander
RNR and Naval Review member.
23 boys passed out from the College *as
Midshipmen in 1916 and all went to join the
Grand Fleet. Two were lost in World War I
submarines. Of the remainder, three were
Captains when World War I1 broke out and
many others were still serving.
Captain J. A. Collins commanded HMAS
Sydney where she sank the Bartolomeo
Colleoni, was later involved in a Kamikaze
attack on HMAS Ausrralia and ended his career
as Vice Admiral and Chief of Naval Staff.
Captain H. A. Showers commanded several
RAN warships including Adelaide, Shropshire
and Hobart, bringing the last-named back to
harbour after a torpedoing in the Indian Ocean.
Several of the team died in World War 11,
among them Captain J. Burnett (HMAS Sydney,
in the action with the Kormoran) Captain F. E .
Getty (HMAS Canberra, Savo Island) and
Lieut. Cdr L. L. Watkins (HMAS Perth, Java
Sea).
Captain H. B. Farncomb, the first of all to
be promoted Captain, commanded several ships
in World War I1 including HMS Attacker. He
was promoted Rear Admiral in 1947.
Finally, mention should be made of members
of this entry who helped set up and control the
coastwatching organisation in New Guinea and
the Solomons: Commander R. B. M. Long.
Commander E. A. Feldt and Lieut. Cdr H. A.
Mackenzie.
Readers who have material which may be of
interest to Mr Grazebrook in compiling this
history are requested to contact the Historical
Collection Officer (Lieutenant G. J. Swinden),
HMAS Cresswell, Jervis Bay 2540, Australia.
Eventually all research material will be stored
in Cresswell to provide a central repository for
further research.
Desert ShieldIDesert Storm
- Command PrioritiesIPrinciples
N addition to Christopher Craig's two
Ipaper
articles in NR (JanJApr. '92) I have read his
to the Nautical Institute Command
Seminar and had the privilege of hearing him
speak to the Anchorites in May. I know that he
intended to provoke response and comment.
The Gulf and the Falklands
The Gulf, like the Falklands, was first and
foremost a maritime operation dependent on sea
and air supremacy, and on denying their use to
the enemy; the Gulf had the advantage of
abundant and well-equipped ports, airports and
shore facilities, as well as unlimited oil, though
not necessarily all the refined products needed.
Although 25 % of the massive air support was
US carrier-borne, land-based war and transport
planes were in no way restricted by want of
airfields and ground support. By contrast
Ascension was some 3,500 n.miles from the
Falklands, heavily congested, and too far away
for any sustained support of offensive
operations; withdut our leaders' fully justified
confidence in the ability of the Harrier to defeat
Argentina's land-based aircraft near the limits
of their range, the Falklands operation could
never have been attempted.
Free use of the sea and air was also essential
for the vital supply of vast quantities of stores,
food, armaments, tanks, aircraft, vehicles and
much else, thankfully over a protracted buildup period, but nevertheless supplied over
enormous distances mostly from Western
Europe and the United States (See my article,
NR Apl. '9 I). The Allies had to be prepared to
protect these long supply lines, especially
through the Mediterranean, Suez Canal and
round the Arabian peninsula. Assets were
presumably deployed accordingly, just in case
anyone tried something. The fact that this was
a UN operation was vital to the availability of
merchant ships flying many flags; it also
simplified the provision or availability of
warships from many countries.
The long experience of the Armilla Patrol had
equipped us with long experience of boarding
and inspecting merchant shipping and the all-
important practical means of carrying out this
important, now greatly expanded task, not only
controlling Gulf movements, but also, with our
Allies, those through the Red Sea, including into
Aqaba. Good boats and helicopters, and above
all well worked-out procedures and trained
teams must surely have contributed to the
success of this still continuing task. Blockade
on this scale is a major, time-consuming, but
important chore, presumably complete by sea,
though there must be considerable 'leakage' by
air into Iraq, hopefully not large from any nearneighbours. (By contrast the Falklands
exclusion zone was much less demanding in
asset and people terms, since the fear of
submarines kept most supply vessels in port or
well outside the zone, especially after the
Belgrano was sunk.)
Our unsung prowess in mine counter-measure
assets, techniques and trained personnel and
divers was very important, and one essential
.talent we have maintained and greatly improved
since WWII. Even so floating mines are major
hazards, difficult to spot, usually impossible at
night, and then just as hard to sink as in the past,
even by Bisley-class marksmen.
NATO experience
The enormous advantage of long NATO
experience in developing integrated joint
warfare operations, very close co-operation and
inter-operability must be emphasised again and
again, and brought home to our national leaders
as key capabilities to be nurtured and
maintained, under whatever allied grouping is
put together to deal with future crises. The great
advantages of Security Council resolutions and
the UN umbrella for action need to be developed
to deal with future operations whenever
possible. NATO has to re-think its objectives,
but we must not lose its great practical
achievements, and the new Rapid Reaction
Force must retain a major maritime component,
and means probably need to be devised to widen
the area within which NATO forces can be
deployed; the Alliance itself may need to be
widened in membership, but Franco-German
244
DESERT SHIELDIDESERT STORM - COMMAND PRIORITIESIPRINCIPLES
moves to exclude US and Canadian participation
are unacceptable. The WEU is a political
mechanism to help perhaps in the short-term,
but it would surely be pointless to set up
duplicate
military
command
and
communications structures. The European
Community may emerge in time through
increased foreign policy into security and
defence, but that should not be allowed to make
it a rival to NATO, rather than a realignment
of member States' forces within the European
region, itself likely to be extended eastwards in
due time.
Performance of material
The spectacular performance and accuracy of
much military technology was a major
impression for all of us of the Gulf operation,
possibly more so than in the Falklands, because
of its wider extent and better media coverage.
The vital human element in that technology and
in its command and control was much less
obvious.
But two subjects from Commodore Craig's
articles do call for serious comment, both of
them major issues too in 1982:Two major issues
1. Logistics. The management of logistic
supplies to the fleet took 50% of its
commander's time and 'was the very heart of
both victories' (Gulf and 1982). Nevertheless
he describes logistics variously as unglamorous,
all-pervading, tedious, sapping (of tired men's
'free' time), wearing and pre-occupying 'like
no other', dreary. But this is only to emphasise
that logistics 'deserves star-billing. That it is a
principle of war in its own right, I have not the
slightest doubt'. He also made the important
point that 'those more sophisticated navies, for
whom day and night replenishment of fuel,
stores, and ammunition, conducted thousands
of miles from home is the norm, had no recourse
to wasteful off-task time in base ports'. And he
also emphasises the important ability of virtually
all the coalition ships to take supplies from each
other's supply ships. 'This uninspiring subject
proved to be a war-winner.'
Replenishment at Sea was virtually nonexistent in the Royal Navy in 1939, and the
systems developed during the war were
primitive in the extreme, as witness the great
difficulty of refuelling convoy escorts in the
Atlantic, too often resulting in their having to
leave the convoy to refuel in port; the lack of
any dedicated fleet train delayed the formation
of the Pacific Fleet, and greatly curtailed its
operations in 1945, particularly as compared
with the US Navy (and the quality of its ships).
The Royal Fleet Auxiliary is surely one of the
most important developments we have made
since WWII, first for taking fuel, stores and
ammunition by hose and jackstay, the latter
greatly assisted for some items and people today
by vertical transfer using helicopters, latterly
of much larger capacity. What are still lacking
in too many ships are the systems to handle
many of the items transferred once they land
on deck. Far too many of them have to be
manhandled along passages and down hatches.
when forethought could have provided simple
rails. chutes and other facilities to reduce or
eliminate much of the manual labour, especially
when trying to move such heavy items as
torpedoes or maybe missiles with the ship
rolling and pitching. The location of stores and
magazines should also take account of
replenishment, not only of usage during
operations.
An aspect of the Gulf which was not
mentioned is the very high sun temperatures,
as soon as the sun rises. I have measured sun
temperatures in March of 75°C twenty minutes
after dawn, which must have made overalls and
antiflash gear unbearable for men humping
heavy boxes and other items on the open deck.
The other point which will arise is the lack of
people, eg. in the Type 23. for RAS and store
handling operations.
The Royal Fleet Auxiliary is an integral.
essential part of the fleet today, and it guards
its merchant service traditions most jealously.
But the legal status of the RFAs must become
increasingly difficult as these vital ships
undertake more and more tasks that are elements
in the military operations themselves, eg.
providing platforms and afloat support for
helicopters, and maybe Harriers, also
increasingly being fitted for self-defence. The
Argus was recently criticised in her hospital
role, because she has military capabilities.
The planning and direction of logistics is
DESERT SHIELDIDESERT STORM
-
certainly not an interesting occupation, and
neither is the design of systems both for RAS
and for proper handling and movement on
board. One must hope that real thought will go
into removing their unglamorous reputation and
developing senior officers who treat it not as
a chore, but as the key to any chance of success
in every operation. Senior Admirals in the US
Navy, including former CNOs, have gained
their reputations in logistics, and it is disquieting
to hear that we do not treat them with the same
degree of automatic priority, or at least equality
with all the other elements in taking a fleet to
war.
2. Handling The Media. Commodore Craig
reckoned that dealing with the Media took a
further 15% of his time, but I think it is fair to
say that in the Gulf campaign the media were
not such a headache as in 1982, partly perhaps
because they were not dependent on the Navy
for their transmissions home, and subject to
closer, not always enlightened minder controls.
Then there were several occasions where they
could have done immense damage, including
helping the enemy, almost certainly one or two
when they did; part of that was due to too
accurate speculation by editors based on sparse
press statements, usually hours or days old.
Today all commanders have to live with
'instant' news and pictures transmitted by
portable satellite dish, probably from both
COMMAND PRIORITIESiPRINCIPLES
245
sides, by rash news teams, apparently oblivious
of their own danger, too often quite unconcerned
for the security risks posed by their reports, and
most difficult to control on shore.
Nevertheless, in the Gulf, from a spectator's
point of view, the press reporting seemed to be
far less of a problem than in 1982. How to
handle the press does however need to be given
high priority on a continuing basis and at all
times. It can be very helpful, but will certainly
not be unless those responsible are trained how
to deal with reporters and to know what they
need to do their job.
I most strongly endorse the statement that 'we
must harness appropriate effort to publicise the
achievements of our Navy to all who need to
be reminded of its utility for all the years ahead'.
That applies also to educating the public again
and again to the importance of the sea, not only
to this country, but to Europe and the world as
a whole, and that means much more important
than at any time in the past, not least because
world trade has increased 12-fold since the war,
and will go on increasing, virtually all of it
carried by sea in ships.
This subject certainly 'deserves an article in
its own right'. and I hope Commodore Craig
or someone else will oblige us. Things have
advanced greatly since 1982.
Why is the White Ensign the wrong shape?
ES its the Bunting Tosser again. I'm
Y
glad to say the flags on the MOD roof are
in much better order following my last outburst
(NR, Vol. 76 No. 4) so this time I'll give you
something else to pipe the Carry On about.
I submit that the White Ensign is the wrong
shape! This is simply the result of sloppy
staffwork and lack of attention to detail, but
because it occurred nearly 300 years ago the
guilty parties cannot be brought to book.
However that is no reason not to make amends
and put things right at this late stage. I should
add that the problem now extends to most naval
flags and ensigns, not just the White one. But
first let me give you some background. A little
art. a little science, a smidgen of tradition and
there you have it.
The aim in manufacturing a rectangular flag
is to make it the most pleasing shape consistent
with its design. There is a universally agreed
formula for achieving this which every
schoolboy knows. It is based on the Golden
Ratio.
a
b
c = a
. . . . . . . . . .. ......I . .. .. . .. . . . .. where
c
a
b
Translated into a rectangle this produces an
aspect ratio of 1: 1.6180339, which is clearly
absurd for practical purposes (here you should
note that the reciprocal of 1.618 etc. is
0.618034; isn't that interesting'?).So what, NBG
for flag-making you rightly cry. However the
numerate amongst you will already have
realised that this matches very closely the aspect
ratio of 5:8. Flags in proportion 5:8 (or close
approximations to it) are common the world
over and this is the most common and attractive
shape for the vast majority of rectangular flags.
The ancient Greeks understood this ratio and
built the Parthenon using it; it occurs in the
proportions of the human body, and the
mathematician Fibonnacci knew about it when
he constructed his famous series. Go on, prove
it. Divide each Fibonnacci number by its
predecessor and you will see that the results tend
rapidly towards 0.618 and stay there (I told you
it was interesting).
In 1687 Samuel Pepys issued a table of sizes
and shapes for Ensigns and Jacks of the Royal
Navy. He directed that: 'It is in general to be
noted that the bewper of which Colours are
made being 22 inches in breadth, and the half
of that breadth, namely 11 inches going in
ordinary discourse by the name "Breadth"
when wrought into Colours, every such Breadth
is allowed about half a yard for its fly'. In other
words the proportions of flags and Ensigns were
fixed in 1687 at 11:18 or very nearly 5:8. I
submit that this was no accident because Mr
Pepys is well known for his excellent staffwork.
Early in the 18th century the Breadth of
bewper, or bunting as it came to be known, was
reduced from 11 inches to 10 inches, but (and
here the sloppy staffing begins) no alteration was
made to the specifications for flags, hence by
error of omission the proportions altered from
11: 18 to 10: 18 (or 5:9). It is interesting to note
that when the USA gained independence in 1776
a Breadth was 9.5 inches and the same error
implies that flags at that time will have been in
proportion 9.5:18. This is very close to the
current aspect ratio of the Stars and Stripes
which is 10: 19. So this problem had already
reached international proportions (sic) over 200
years ago.
Around 1837 the Breadth of bunting was
reduced yet again (and for the last time) to 9
inches. Again no action was taken to alter the
specifications of flags so again the proportions
changed. This time to 9: 18 or in other words
1:2, the ratio in which our Ensigns and Jacks
are made to this day. Naval flags are still
measured in 'Breadths' despite the creeping
scourge of decimalisation and a Breadth is still
9 inches - for instance a size 4 Jack measures
36 ins by 72 ins (but it should really be 36 ins
by 60 ins shouldn't it). So it is that Ensigns and
~ a c k became
s
twice as long as they are wide due
to incomplete staffwork as the Breadth of
bewper was progressively reduced during the
18th and 19th centuries.
It is of interest to recall that in 1938, Sir
Gerald Woolaston, the Garter King of Arms.
issued guidance that flags on land (he did not
seek to usurp the Admiralty authority over flags
at sea) should be in proportion 3:5. It can
easily be seen that 3:5 is a very close
approximation to 5:8. but that the latter is even
WHY IS THE WHITE ENSIGN T H E WRONG SHAPE'?
closer to the Golden Ratio. Apart from the
Sovereign, there is no higher authority in
vexillological matters than Garter.
In passing I should mention Admirals'
distinguishing flags. Currently they are made in
proportion 2:3. Goodness knows why. 2:3 is a
better shape than 1:2 but not so pleasing to the
eye as 5:8. I see no reason for theadded procurement complication and suggest they follow the
same route.
Sad to say this is not just an RN problem. We
have exported it vigorously, not only to the USA
but to the entire Commonwealth and to Eire, and
of course to the Royal Air Force. the Merchant
Service and Other Government Departments in
247
Britain too numerous to mention. Oh dear Oh
dear!
Isn't it time we came clean and admitted our
mistake. apologised to the world and put matters
right. We should standardise on flags and ensigns
in the proportions of 5:8 and, while we are at
i t , standardise the measurement of a 'breadth'
at 25 centimetres which will greatly ease
procurement. The Golden Ratio rules OK.
PINDSVIN
Postscript: I urn indebted to Comtnander Bruce
Nicho1l.s OBE Ro~crlNtrl:\., Presiderlr ofthe F k r ~
Institute, for sortie of the clefailcontrrirred in this
article.
Disposal List
Carrier had only had a
THEshortAircraft
wartime career, but it was crowned
by the surrender of an enemy commander on her
flightdeck. Her post-war service spanned an
active decade at the end of which it had been
intended to convert her into a Troop Tansport,
but for some reason her refit was abandoned and
she was moved out to a buoy in the estuary. Over
the succeeding years wind-blown seeds from the
shores sprouted on her decks; no trees took root
but local repute had it that she was the only
carrier with grass runways.
She had been destored but not de-equipped
which under the Regulations then current meant
that her powerboats remained onboard, their
covers providing upholstered perches for massed
squadrons of seagulls. One in particular of her
boats attracted the desire of a local yachtsman
who, assuming that it was of no further use to
the Navy, wrote on several occasions to the
Dockyard offering. to purchase it. His
applications received bureaucratic brush-offs
which annoyed him to the extent he ended his
final letter by saying that he intended writing
not only to his MP but also to The Scorsmun,
The Times and The Daily Telegraph.
This dire threat gave its recipient pause for
thought, followed by the inspiration that as the
Carrier was in Class I11 Reserve this was a
matter for the local Senior Officer Reserve
Ships. The letter was redirected accordingly.
SORS was a very senior Captain RN, a
bachelor who lived onboard his headquarters
ship. His habit was to do his own
correspondence on a portable typewriter in his
cabin after dinner, to the mixed horror and
delight of his secretary when he saw the carbon
copies the following morning. He read the
yachtsman's letter with the morning mail. He
considered the matter, made a couple of
telephone calls and told his PO Writer to make
another. and that evening sat down to write two
letters.
Lerrer No. 1
'Dear Mr . . .
I much regret to inform you that the
powerboat you desire to purchase cannot
be released from HMS . . . until it is
approved that she be scrapped, a matter
upon which Their Lordships have yet to
come to a decision.
I have however consulted Mr . . . of the
Small Craft Disposal Branch at Bath, who
tells me that he has an identical boat on the
Sale List about which he is writing to you
today. '
Letter No. 2
'Dear Mr . . .
I entirely agree with you that it is
scandalous that HMS . . .'s boats should
be left to rot just because nobody can make
up their minds to scrap her. Unfortunately,
the Regulations being what they are, there
is nothing I can do about it.
However I have reason to believe that if
you were to write to the Admiralty offering
to purchase HMS . . . complete with boats
the matter would receive Their Lordships'
speedy and favourable consideration.'
In due course SORS received two replies from
the yachtsman.
Reply No. 1
'Dear Captain . . .
I am very pleased to inform you that as
a result of your intervention I have been
able to purchase a Fast Motor Boat which
will meet my requirements admirably.
Her commissioning party will be next
weekend and I enclose an invitation which
I very much hope you will accept.'
Reply No.2
.
'Dear Captain . . .
During my wartime service in the Royal
Navy I was frequently awoken during the
Middle Watch in harbour by messmates
returning from shore leave who then
offered to sell me a Battleship. It is
therefore of considerable gratification to
me to be officially invited by a Senior
Officer to purchase an Aircraft Carrier.
I have discussed the matter at length with
my daughters, who crew for me, and very
much regret to inform you that we finally
decided, by a majority of one to three, that
HMS . . . would be too large for us to
navigate. '
249
DISPOSAL LIST
The matter being resolved the Carrier
continued to slumber at her buoy, but not for
long. Work had begun on the long needed road
bridge across the estuary. At the same time
someone started a whispering campaign which,
in the form it reached the Ears of Their
Lordships, implied that if HMS . . . broke from
her moorings in the autumn gales and collided
with the bridge works, they would be exposed
to not merely considerable expense but also
considerably more ridicule. They accordingly
Commanded that the Carrier be removed to a
nearby shipbreakers' yard at the earliest
opportunity and that SORS was to arrange what
de-equipping was possible in the time available.
SORS turned all available hands to this task,
their priority objective being kitlockers as the
Carrier's ones were considerably more modern
than the wartime Canadian ones in the
Headquarters Ship. Internally, by the weak light
of black AP 54 Torches, she was in very good
condition with only a thick layer of dust to mar
an otherwise Captain's Rounds standard. The
exception was the Engineer's Office, where
paper strewn desks topped by fossilised halfemptied tea cups implied that her refit had been
abandoned in the middle of Stand-Easy.
On the appointed day SORS stood on the
Headquarters Ship's upper deck and watched
the Carrier move down the estuary and round
the headland. As she disappeared from sight he
turned to his Chief Yeoman and dictated a
signal TO ADMIRALTY
INFO FLAG OFFICER COMMANDING
RESERVE FLEET
FLAG OFFICER SCOTLAND AND
NORTHERN IRELAND
ADMIRAL SUPERINTENDENT
ROSYTH
ICHABOD
- the GLORY has
departed.
FLOOK
Unofficially
was a time in the 1960s when
THERE
'Unofficial Chinese' were affected by the
Immigration Laws of this country. The Locally
Employed Personnel (LEPs) who were Chinese
and who were recruited, trained and drafted by
the Commodore Hong Kong in HMS Tamar
were, of course, RN personnel and therefore
not mixed up in this immigration problem.
It was the Chinese Contractors and their
laundering, tailoring, shoe making etc. firms
who seemed to arrive off the coast of UK in one
HM Ship and then be transferred to another
outward bound East-of-Suez ship in a sort of
Flying Dutchman musical chairs which ensured
that they did not get much of a chance to set
foot in the UK.
This story relates the problems of what could
occur when these rules were broken; and how
those problems were overcome.
The incident occurred at Portland where I was
serving in the Office of the Flag Officer Sea
Training as a Senior Lieutenant. We were
working up a Ca class destroyer and she had
collected her Chinese Dhobi crew from another
ship. One day she was at sea, the weather was
rough, and the upper deck was out of bounds
with all the weather deck doors closed and with
appropriate notices positioned. However the
laundry was aft and 'Dhobi 2', an old man who
could not read English, got on to the iron deck,
was caught by a wave and washed overboard.
He was seen to go over the side by the bridge
staff and although the ship was turned and the
sea-boat lowered and helicopters from HMS
Osprey assisted, 'Dhobi 2' was drowned and
his body was recovered and brought ashore.
There was a problem with the Coroner from
Dorchester who wondered if he had jurisdiction
to preside over the case but eventually this was
resolved, an Inquest was held and the body
released for burial. If my memory serves Dhobi
2's religion was discovered to be an 'animist
and idol worshipper' but this did not defeat the
Chaplain and a suitable funeral service and
cremation was organised and Dhobi 2's remains
came to live in my safe in a casket to be returned
to his next of kin in Hong Kong.
Now anyone who has been through a work
up in those days at Portland will know of the
continuous delivery of miracles achieved by the
RNSTS Naval Stores Officer for FOST work
up ships. No matter what the unavailability of
the store was declared to be the NSO and his
team conjured bits out of the most unlikely
places and lorries, cars or trains thundered
through the night and by dawn the bit was
delivered to the ship in the Staff Boat and off
the ship went to sea. So with a light heart I rang
the NSO and asked him to arrange for Dhobi
2's remains to be collected and sent to Hong
Kong. Nothing happened.
He rang me back a few days later - would
I please telephone Mr X in Marriages, Births
and Deaths in Naval Law Division in London.
I did so and heard, for the first time, the dreaded
words 'he didn't immigrate in, so he can't
emigrate out again, can he?' I appealed to the
Head of Naval Law - to no avail. He told me
to ring Mr Y in the Foreign Office. I did so and
got the same 'official' answer - that the books
had to balance and that, as he hadn't come in
he couldn't go out again - could he.
Meanwhile the signals from Commodore
Hong Kong requesting the whereabouts and
despatch details of Dhobi 2 were becoming
more difficult to answer. Officially it couldn't
be done but that did not seem to be either a
satisfactory or humane answer.
I discussed the problem with my Chief Writer
and he, of course, had the answer. We made
up a brown paper parcel of Dhobi 2's casket
and sent him by air mail as an unsolicited gift
to the Chief Writer in Commodore Hong Kong's
office. In due course we got a receipt as what
he had done, you must understand, was all
desperately Unofficial.
Five Minutes of Time
AMBLING through my journal the other
R
day, I came across and relived the nastiest
moments in my career at sea. Since I was
fortunate not to hit the world's press, and since
I am now an octogenarian, I wondered whether
I should not share my experience with fellow
members.
As a lead-in to the story I should say that as
the war ended I was 'Pilot' of HMCS Uganda
in the Pacific. Prior to that I had been in HMS
Belfast for the Normandy landings. On
completion of my Nf course at Dryad I became
OIC the Royal Canadian Naval navigation
school.
An unexpected 'brass hat' coincided with my
appointment in command of the tribal destroyer
HMCS Micmac, which was also flotilla leader.
My dreams had come true!
16 July 1947
Out we went into a calm Atlantic at just over
30 knots on full power trial after refit. It was
a perfect July day for the purpose, and on
reaching the half-way point I turned to starboard
on a small amount of helm to the return course
for the Sambro Light Vessel in the approaches
to Halifax harbour. When we had about
fifteen minutes of trial left, I started slowly to
reduce the revolutions and speed. I had not left
the bridge at any time, and my enjoyable vigil
was shared by my navi~gatorand the officer of
the watch.
With about ten miles to go to the light vessel
the horizon suddenly became somewhat hazy,
but since there was nothing to see except a
fishing vessel just forward of the port beam at
three miles range, and the light vessel was still
out of visual range, there was no need for
concern. Nevertheless I stationed my navigator,
Lieutenant Campfield, at the two radars with
instructions to warn me should anything appear
on the two radar screens. At this time the
shoreline was clearly marked as also the light
vessel, but nothing else.
With this care taken I now felt that I could
continue for the few minutes left, while reducing
speed every couple of minutes. The alternative
was to turn and head back out to sea for those
few minutes of time, but I could see no reason
why, in the apparently simple navigational set
up, and with every care taken to line up both
radars, we should not proceed.
Five minutes went by, a further reduction in
revolutions, and the visibility had quite
definitely reduced to about two miles; this based
on the fisherman visible on my port quarter.
The radar screens were quite empty of traffic
except for the fishing vessel and light vessel.
I considered all the factors and decided that
providing the radars were manned so as to check
each other out, all was well. So I could see no
reason to turn away, provided one took every
precaution. Had there been any radar evidence
of shipping I would have instantly turned to our
reverse course for the very few minutes left; but
after checking and double checking there was
no reason to deviate for the next three miles,
or just over six minutes. We were alone on the
sea. I reiterated my instructions to 'Pilot' and
the radar plot, and was once again reassured that
nothing other than the light vessel lay ahead of
us, and this fine on the starboard bow.
With about two minutes to go, the visibility
suddenly reduced markedly to perhaps four
ship's lengths, and I quickly moved to the
wheelhouse voicepipe, and bent while looking
ahead, so as to give an order to the coxswain
at the wheel to reduce speed drastically. As I
did so, I saw a vague huge shadow dead ahead,
which I knew instantly knew for what it was;
a merchant ship about three lengths ahead on
an opposite course. I ordered the helm hard a
starboard; engines stopped; a blast on the siren;
all hands away from the port side of the ship;
and watertight doors and hatches closed.
The bow swiftly swung to clear the high steel
bow ahead; but then in a fraction of time, I
realised that I was swinging my stern into the
path of the ship with most of my officers in the
wardroom having their lunch. I conned the
Micmac so that she would pass clear.
Unfortunately, the effort of bringing the stern
out of danger, and the effect of rudder action
on the still swiftly moving ship, caused Micmac
to heel more than the gap between us. I found
myself standing in an archway of steel sparks,
as the flare of the merchant ship's bow first
caught the deck edge of our port bow, and then
252
FIVE MINUTES OF TIME
finally the twin 4.7" gun barrels of B turret,
these curved back over my head protecting us.
This was over in a matter of seconds, and the
pressure of the merchant ship's flare on B turret
caused Micmac to come instantly upright, and
to move with reasonable clearance down the
ship's side, to come to a stop with steam venting
from the safety valves, to save the boilers which
had been at high pressure.
A fire in the paint locker was quickly put out.
The port anchor and chain were out to their
extremity so we were at anchor. It was thought
that someone might have gone overboard, but
a search revealed no one had done so. Eight of
my sailors had been caught asleep in their bunks
and had been killed instantly.
Afternath
The SS Yarmouth County, for such she was,
proceeded on her way and we neither saw nor
heard anything of her; so I presumed that
nothing vital had happened to her. This was
confirmed by subsequent radio contact.
We eventually proceeded up harbour under
our own steam and berthed in H.M.C.
Dockyard, landing our dead with appropriate
honours. I reported to the Flag Officer Atlantic
Coast, Rear Admiral Cuthbert Taylor, who
extended the genuine sympathy of a sailor to
a sailor, and offered me every assistance
necessary.
A few days later, my entire ship's company,
commanded by myself, and accompanied by the
full band of HMCS Stadacona, marched in slow
march from the dockyard to the Halifax
Cathedral to bury our dead. It was an agonising
march for all of us, but perhaps mostly for me.
I felt as though I was going through a religious
purification of both body and soul. Chopin's
beautiful funeral march welled up through and
through me, while my intellect was reeling
under a non-stop quivering mental question.
Why had two radars failed to pick up a huge
steel merchant ship? Why had they shown
everything else except that merchant ship? Why
had I been able to navigate up harbour
afterwqds with everything showing at all times?
I could only thank the Lord that I had not gone
below to check the radars myself; for it was my
sea eyes which had spotted the shadow in time
to avoid total disaster. No one else, including
the lookout in the bow. had seen the approaching
menace.
To this day, I cannot forget the way the Royal
Canadian Navy stood by me through all the
ghastly days which ensued for quite a time. The
Chief of Naval Personnel, Rear Admiral Gus
Miles, flew down from Ottawa to see me, and
to encourage me as a brother officer.
All those senior to me who voiced their
support had commanded destroyers, and had
had their fair share of narrow shaves and worse.
Their support meant everything to me, for it
showed that we really were a band of brothers
who did not fail one another; even though the
necessary enquiries and trials must be proceeded
with for the good of the Service.
So I did not falter or betray any weakness;
although one day, after a rather nasty but not
obscene telephone call from an evil well wisher,
I quite suddenly lost my way. I was driving in
down town Halifax; a city which I knew like
the palm of my hand, when suddenly I knew
not where I should go next. I drew into the kerb;
waited a moment while I ticked myself off for
being too weak for my liking. I forced myself
to think clearly and drove away with everything
under control. That evening, I very dramatically
threw my cigarettes out of my bedroom window
in a supreme gesture of defiance, and to this day,
apart from the very odd cigar, I have not
touched the weed. I was determined to survive
with dignity, and to do better by the men I
thought so much of. From then on, my devotion
to our Navy was supreme in my life, and I
refused to look back, except to remember the
lads who had died on that awful day in those
few seconds of time. I was now the Training
Commander at the naval barracks of HMCS
Stadacona, but after the necessary court martial
I was appointed to the west coast as Training
Commander in HMCS Naden.
Court martial
The court martial established nothing new, and
the only reason I could bring for the radar failure
was that an extraordinary narrow band of
anomalous propagation had ducted the radar
beams over the precise bearing of the
approaching ship, so that no ship showed.
No one had experienced this and I will always
regret I was unable to present to the court the
FIVE MINUTES OF TIME
true reason for the collision. Too late to be of
assistance, I discovered that unbeknown to me
and without my permission, a group of radar
technicians had been aboard that day injecting
a line of light into the radar sets as the radar
moved though the dead ahead bearing. This line
of light would come about through injecting a
higher voltage for a fleeting second into the
circuit; and this would cause up to a five degree
blank arc from right ahead to five degrees on
the starboard bow. An Admiralty Fleet Order
had been issued warning those in command of
this limitation, but this A.F.O. had not yet been
distributed. Under no circumstances would I
have trusted those radars for those few minutes
had I known of the technical visitation into the
circuits of the sets, let alone been able to read
the A.F.O.
I had recently completed my N t and a long
radar course, which had me familiar with the
253
maintenance of all the sets in our service, but
the line of light had not yet been invented.
I rather feel that someone in our electrical
world had let Micmac down very badly, and
what is more, did not come forward at the
enquiry to expose the truth. Doing my own
sleuthing after reading the A.F.O., I discovered
the rest of the story; but decided not to open
the wounds which had healed somewhat, as I
pressed on with the training of officers and men
and keeping my mind firmly fixed on the future.
Years later when Chief of Staff to the Atlantic
command, I was able to help young destroyer
commanders when they ran into the misfortunes
which occasionally happened to those who
sought to emulate those supreme Royal Navy
destroyer captains of Mr Hitler's war.
JOHN LITTLER
CAPTAIN,
RCN
The Loss of HMS Charybdis: 23 October 1943
RAHAM Turner's article (NR,Oct. '91)
G
on the loss of HMS Charybdis stated that
the records were not available. Having read the
BoI Report whilst sewing in the present HMS
Charybdis about 15 years ago, I couldn't
remember any reason why it should still be
classified. The ever-helpful NHB, in the shape
of Mr Claro, have since provided a copy of the
BoI Report, the C-in-C's Covering Report and
subsequent Admiralty Staff comments.
The response provided by MOD in early 1988
is an accurate prkcis of events, but such a brief
can never have the immediacy of words written
just after the event and also avoids the question
of the attribution of blame. I shall attempt to
fill in some of the gaps in Graham Turner's
version.
The Operation Order for Operation Tunnel
(OPTU) dated 21 October '43 was distributed
to all ships involved. It provided accurate
intelligence on the likely composition of the
Convoy Escort (a covering force of at least four
(there were in fact five) destroyers or torpedo
boats with a close escort of minesweepers (and
possibly SperrbrecherIE-boats) and the location
of radar stations capable of detecting surface
ships.
Own Forces are laid down as 'Cruiser(s),
destroyers and coastal forces'; this is later
qualified as 'primarily . . . cruisers and
destroyers, with the possibility of coastal forces
acting simultaneously as a separate force in
different areas'. Provision is made for fighter
protection in the plan and, having swept through
the positions designated in the signal activating
the Operation (so although this was a preplanned operation, there were a number of
options available within it), 'Ships are to
endeavour to be within 20nm of own coast by
first light.' A previous iteration of the OPTU
OpOrder dated 3 September ('42 or '43 is not
clear from my copy) was cancelled by the issue
of 21 October 1943.
From the above, it is clear that OPTU was
an established operation and may well have been
activated on the night of 314 October '43, when
Limbourne and Grenville were involved (and the
same German tactics of firing torpedoes and
turning away at high speed had been employed).
It is also clear that all those present at the
Briefing were aware of the likely opposition,
which may explain why it was not specifically
mentioned. In his appreciation C-in-C Plymouth
states that it was his intention that the cruiser
and the fleet destroyers should engage the
convoy escort, whilst the (slower and less wellarmed) Hunts destroyed the convoy.
To put the events of 22/23 October in
sequence:
22 1900 Sailed from Plymouth in line ahead
in the order Charybdis, Grenville, Rocket,
Limbourne, Talybont, Stevenstone and
Wensleydale. Initial letters will be used in the
remainder of the sequence.
222315 T detected German R/T carrier
wave.
230030 Passed through point HH (325 Les
Heaux Lt 7nm). AIC 267 Sp 13. Visibility ahead
poor due to low clouds and rain squalls. Sky
clearing to the east and visibility there better.
0045 W detected German RIT carrier wave.
0103 L detected unintelligible speech.
Reported to C as 'Y raw material indicated 3
units close'. Probably not understood by C who
asked for a repeat. Subsequent analysis assessed
this as possibly the German radar station at
Ploumanach reporting the force to the convoy
escort.
0125 Moonrise brg 066. The Force was now
well silhouetted.
0117 L detected German signal to A/C
together 50 degrees to stbd.
app 0130 C detected several small vessels and
2 larger ones right ahead at 14,000 yds. Not
reported to ships in company.
0130 L detected German signal to turn 20
degrees stbd together. 5 callsigns heard with a
6th possible. Not reported to C.
0135 L and T detected German signals to
form line ahead. Not reported to C.
0135 Range C to contacts 9,000 yds.
Contacts reported to Force and Force ordered
to turn together to 280 sp. 18. Signal only
received by S.
Note: The radar in destroyers was masked
between Red 27 and Green 27, so they could
not have detected the contacts seen by C, which
C did not report to them until the range had
THE LOSS OF HMS CHARYBDIS: 23 OCTOBER 1943
closed to under 9,000 yds. Conversely, T and
L were aware that there were 5 or 6 probably
destroyers in the near vicinity, but had not
reported this fact to C.
0145 C opened fire with starshell and was hit
by the first torpedo before the stars had burst.
0152 L torpedoed and C hit by a second.
There is little more in the BoI Report and the
CinC's covering letter to add to that already
published about the aftermath of this action.
One of the Admiralty minutes does observe
that an A10 Organisation is necessary and,
looked at from today's warfare perspective, the
paucity of information exchange is astonishing.
Charybdis was a new arrival in the Plymouth
area and perhaps she was unaware of the
destroyers' radar blind arcs, as she clearly was
about the function and capability of Headache;
in which case, why didn't the staff arrange
mutual briefings? This failure to use friendly
assets fully was clearly a major contributory
factor.
Three of Graham Turner's questions remain
unanswered - why was the Munsterland so
important, did the calibre of Charybdis' main
armament contribute and who was to blame? On
the main armament, it is difficult to see this as
a significant factor, especially as Captain
Voelcker actually closed to 4,000 yds before
opening fire - well within the MER of the 4.5"
guns.
As to the importance of Munsterland, the
reports throws little direct light on this and
simply state that opportunity was there.
However, ACNS(H) comments:
'During the last 2 years the enemy traffic
in the channel has been reduced to a very
small volume, but with the reinforcement
by Narviks and torpedo boats there has
been a tendency to greater boldness. The
255
C-in-C attached great importance to
checking this tendency at once, for, not
only was it necessary to stop enemy
movement, but any extra boldness might
soon lead to a serious threat to our weakly
protected convoys. '
It is also clear from the Admiralty comments
that the C-in-C had 'frequently pressed for
reinforcements and emphasised the need for a
trained homogenous force' which 'the
Admiralty were unable to provide'.
Nowhere in the Admiralty comments is the
mounting of the operation questioned. The clear
implication is that the risks were considered to
be worth the potential benefits.
ACNS(H) sums up:
'Although it may be considered that the
force was ill assorted and not trained
together, I do not consider the loss of the
two ships can be attributed altogether to
this cause.
The loss was due in large part to a lapse
of judgement by an experienced and very
well thought of officer - the Captain of
Charybdis. To continue on a steady course
towards unknown vessels alfiost ahead
was dangerous, particularly in view of the
unfavourable conditions of light - a rising
moon. '
The draft reply for Their Lordships' to send
in the C-in-C (I do not have a copy of the final
version) says:
'(a) TL consider no blame attaches to
any surviving officer.
(b) That the need for a well-trained
force of Destroyers at Plymouth is
appreciated. '
Correspondence
LETTER FROM ORIENT
Sir,-You will note that I have headed this piece
Letter From Orient. This is for the simple reason
that we haven't got there yet. I refer, of course,
to the current ORIENT '92 deployment, which
sailed for exotic locations East on a windswept
Tuesday morning on 12 May. Task Group
318.01, otherwise known as the On-Call Force,
is at last underway bound for Japan and assorted
locations in between. Much media interest
accompanied the departure from Portsmouth,
witnessed by no lesser VVIPs than our new
Secretary of State for Defence, Malcolm
Rifkind MP, and the Commander in Chief Fleet,
Admiral Sir Jock Slater.
One of the measures of the recent
reorganisation of the surface fleet which became
effective on 5 April was that Rear Admiral J.
R. Brigstocke, formerly known as FOF 2 (Flag
Officer Flotilla Two - though we ceased having
a Second Flotilla a few years ago) became the
Commander UK Task Group (COMUKTG).
Recognising that the Battle of the Atlantic Mark
I11 against the Russians is an ever-diminishing
possibility, the RN has been casting around for
new enemies to fight and new scenarios to plan
and prepare for. Fortunately there seems to be
no shortage of likely candidates. The new
emphasis on 'Out of Area' Operations (we used
to call it East of Suez) and response to shortnotice crises has led to the nomination of a
number of ships as an On-Call Force ready to
go anywhere, do anything. ORIENT '92 is
therefore the first 'activation' of ships currently
allocated to this task, and COMUKTG, as the
OOA 'lead authority', takes charge of the show.
We are a small but select group, headed by
the flagship Invincible. Escorts comprise
NorJolk, Boxer and Newcastle, with the RFAs
Olwen and Fort Austin in support. Other units
deployed East will be attached to the Task
Group from time to time. We departed in good
heart with a variety of recent histories.
Invincible's time in her Base Port before sailing
was not long, having taken part recently in
Exercise TEAMWORK which did not allow
much time for leave and maintenance before six
and a half months away from home. Newcastle
finally struggled out of FOST's embrace in
March, after the longest BOST in living
memory - some four and a half months from
beginning to end, bedevilled by equipment
problems. The frigates perhaps fared a little
better, though they did have to leave Devonport
a day earlier, turn left instead of right, and go
to Spithead in order to present a united front
to the world as we all set off together. The
appearance of the Grand Old Lady of the group
Olwen belies her age, but only time will tell
whether the decision to deploy a single 27-yearold tanker without back-up for much of the time
will come to embarrass us. Nogolk of course
goes without a Command System, and a ship's
company, if no longer a weapons fit, that was
originally intended to support 30 day towed
array ASW patrols in the North Atlantic, not
a trip to the other side of the world. Maintaining
and of course cleaning her for that period should
fully test the imagination and flexibility of her
management team and ship's company.
Noticeable in a group intended to be able to
project limited power around the globe is the
shortage of aircraft. The allocation of airframes
to the Sea Harrier and Sea King update
programmes, to FRS 2 and HAS 6 standards
respectively, means that the carrier has a
reduced air group. Boxer can carry two Lynx,
but has only one. NorJolk is designed to operate
the new and very capable Merlin, but in the
meantime only has a Lynx. The RFAs can
between them carry a further six Sea Kings, but
only two of the Mark IV Commando variant are
carried in Fort Austin. Only Newcastle has its
full intended aviation capability - a Lynx.
Why are we going? For the ship's companies
the answer is obvious. Sun, Sea, early
Christmas Shopping and a chance to earn some
LOA (although you only get it when actually
in port these days). For the government, the
MOD, Fleet and the staff embarked in the
flagship there's a bit more to it. We are meant
to demonstrate an effective naval presence out
of area (scare the baddies), and show support
for friendly nations (reassure the goodies). In
doing so we aim to continue to maintain and
develop the the UK's ability to deploy forces
at long range and for extended periods. It's
interesting to note that during the Gulf War
CORRESPONDENCE
many of the navies not used to sending ships
so far from home came to the RN to ask how
it's done. Even matters such as getting the mail
to and from home are problematic if you've
never had to do it before.
Inevitably a trip like this brings us into close
proximity with a mixed bag of states with
varying attitudes towards the UK and its
deployment of force into their respective
backyards. We of course have reservations
about some of the people we will or may come
into contact with. The list of actual or potential
trouble-spots in the itinerary seems to get bigger
by the month as the world becomes
progressively a more volatile place to be in.
Many of the planned visits are subject to shortterm political sensitivities, and no-one would
like to lay any odds that a crisis somewhere
won't disrupt the whole plan. We live in
interesting times.
Such considerations have, however, little
bearing on our day-to-day lives, other than
keeping a weather eye on the nearest potential
source of inconvenience. The first few days at
sea were somewhat confused, even traumatic,
as the Task G r y p settled down and got used
to working together. Gibraltar we bypassed in
order to get in position for the start of the final
phase of Exercise DRAGON HAMMER, a big
CINCSOUTH bun-fight involving literally
dozens of ships and hundreds of aircraft,
including five carriers - only one of them
American. For years every exercise we've ever
done has been based on a scenario in which
'Blue' (the good guys) have to respond to
provocation and escalation by 'Orange' (the bad
guys). The end of the Cold War now affects
even the colouration of opposing forces.
'Orange' is out - it was always a code for 'Red'
-the real bad guys. We now talk about 'Green'
and 'Brown', and in DRAGON HAMMER
each deployed similar forces, with similar
missions, and 'playing' themselves, instead of
one side pretending to be Soviet. The two sides
started from opposite ends of the Western
Mediterranean and tried to get their own convoy
to its destination and carry out strikes against
the other's territory, whilst preventing the other
side doing the same. With forces from nine
NATO countries taking part, in some cases split
between the two sides, the problems of deciding
257
what belongs to whom when it hoves over the
horizon or pops out from behind the nearest
island, can be horrendous, particularly in the
case of aircraft. An interesting and challenging
few days ensued which gave us all an
opportunity to hone our war-fighting skills as
a group, and got the ships' companies used to
working in Defence Watches again.
Our first run ashore now beckons - Piraeus
for some, Crete for others. After that a few days
working with an SSN and then through the Suez
Canal after which we can start to justify the
ORIENT title.
RICOCHET
TWO RESPONSES
Sir,-Two articles caught my eye in the January
'92 edition:
Shooting the messenger: Lieutenant Commander Atkinson protests too much. His
defensive response to Lieutenant Commander
Forsyth's widely held views of the Careers
Service tellingly suggests that his department
should not be criticised as it may affect their
morale!
However well briefed and motivated the
retired senior ratings manning the Careers
Information Offices may be, they are not able
to give up-to-date advice on life at sea - work
practices in Type 23s and the integration of
women at sea are just two examples of an array
of changes of which these elderly gentlemen
have no experience. Many of us who have dealt
with young ratings recently have come across
cases of disenchanted sailors who have joined
an organisation that bears no resemblance to the
one sold them in the Careers Office. Quite often
they would be prepared to put up with the
exigencies of service life if only they had been
told the truth.
DNR often receives accolades for his department's achievements in meeting its targets. In
turn he must also accept that by filling his quotas
with square pegs in round holes (Atkinson's
hackneyed phrase) he generates extra costs to
other budgets in the need for retraining or
through having to replace unhappy, misplaced
personnel who leave at the earliest opportunity.
More important to the front line is the significant
divisional effort required in helping these
individuals whilst they remain in the Service.
258
CORRESPO
The argument that continuity justifies a
careers service made up of retired senior rates
and Lieutenants promoted from within those
ranks could equally be applied to any
appointment. The Active List Officer Corps and
most senior ratings are professional and flexible
enough to be able to make significant
contributions very shortly after taking up new
appointments. They would also bring to this
vital area the advantages of current personal
knowledge and their (relative) youth. Such
individuals also more accurately portray today's
Royal Navy.
Unfortunately, Atkinson's instinctive defence
of the status quo does not give confidence that
the Career Service is willing to face up to the
very hard challenges we all face in encouraging
the right person to come forward at the right
time to fill the appropriate job.
Geofffey Penn's book review on From Fisher
to the Falklands: Commander Penn's excellent
review on Admiral Le Bailly's book has inspired
me to acquire a copy, which I have much
enjoyed reading. However I would like to
comment on Commander Penn's observations
that the executive branch still retain a belief in
their superiority over lesser mortals. I do not
think he should hang too much of his argument
on a derogatory comment by a GL(X)
Lieutenant. If he asked a similar question of an
Engineer or Pusser he would, in all probability,
receive the same reply rooted in the pride of the
individual's own specialisation rather than in
dismissal of the worth of others. A more telling
illustration that full integration has been
achieved was the composition of the Service
Members of the Admiralty Board a year ago:
1SL - seaman
2SL - supply officer
CofN - weapon engineer
CFS - weapon engineer;
Tangible proof that the Senior Service makes
full use of the talents available from
wheresoever thev come!
However, it is possible that the position may
change significantly very shortly when the
recently formed Officers' Study Group (OSG)
under the Chairmanship of Vice Admiral
Layard reports on the future structure of the
officer corps. It may well recommend sweeping
changes which might do away with some of the
more obvious artificialities of our branch
structure and it is probable that there will be
changes that will be at least as radical as those
of AFO 1/56. Their recommendations are
awaited with great anticipation and, I am sure,
will fill many pages of the NR in the years to
come.
M. C. COWDREY
LIEUT.CDR,R N
AN AXE TO GRIND
Sir,-Commander Jackson does not tell the full
story of Draper Kauffman as the latter who, with
his wife, became amongst our greatest friends
in the USA between 1967-70, recounted it to
me.
Draper earned an electrical engineering
degree either at Annapolis or after he first left
the US Navy. Determined to get into the war.
he came to the UK at his own expense and (in
his words) hammered on the Admiralty doors
and demanded a job. On being asked what were
his qualifications he replied he was an Annapolis
graduate and had an electrical engineering
degree. The somewhat chilly answer he received
was 'what's Annapolis' and 'we don't have
electrical engineers in the RN'. Depressed but
undeterred he took himself over to Paris and
received much the same answer at the Ministry
of Marine. The Kauffman family were not
without this world's goods so he bought himself
an ambulance, hammered on the doors of the
Ministry for the Army in Paris and repeated his
CV adding that he had his own ambulance and
would like to join the French Army. He was
clei~viP111e
classc~' and
immediately rated 'Soldc~r
during the German advance failed to reach
Dunkirk and was captured by the Germans.
Draper's father was a US Admiral and
Admiral Leahy, Roosevelt's ambassador to
Vichy, obtained Draper's return to the USA.
From there he took passage to a beleagured
Britain, knocked on the door of the Admiralty
and repeated his CV once more. This time the
response was immediate and he was invited to
sign a document before being rated QuasiActing-temporary Sub-Lieutenant RNVR.
When he asked what he was signing he was
informed he was now a 'Bomb and Mine
Disposal Officer'. His father, then commanding
in Iceland and seeing his son's name with his
quasi-temporary-acting status in The Times
wrote 'careful chaps those Brits'.
After training he was sent to Glasgow and (I
seem to remember) was decorated for good
work during the Blitz there and promoted
Lieutenant.
When his own country entered the war, as
Commander Jackson writes, Draper was on
leave and was eventually transferred to the US
Navy albeit after a considerable squabble as they
tried to take him on only as a Lieutenant (JG);
but finally agreed that he would be a Lieutenant
USNR.
Anglophile to his finger tips Kauffman (from
a well known Philadelphia family) invited me
as the principal guest to a Dinner in that city
so that he could extol the merits of the 'Special
relationship' and the need for our two Navies
to stay close to each other.
He backed me to the hilt when Superintendent
in successfully seeking an exchange of officers
between Annapolis and Dartmouth and needless
to say he and two selected senior midshipmen
were always honoured guests at the Trafalgar
Night Dinner given annually by the British Navy
Staff.
He left his sword to be given to the first
coloured officer to become senior midshipman.
Lours LE BAILLY
REVIEW OF THE FIGHTING ADMIRALS
Sir,-Lieut. Cdr G. A. G. Brooke's hostile
letter concerning the review of my book The
Fighting Admirals unfortunately gives a very
inaccurate impression of the book.
The letter suggests that I criticise all the
Admirals in the book, with the exception of
Admiral Sir Tom Phillips. Nothing could be
further from the truth. It has apparently escaped
Lt Cdr Brooke's notice that The Fighting
Admirals is dedicated to the memory of Admiral
Sir Bertram Home Ramsay. and that it contains
nothing but unstinted praise for that officer. The
book also contains entirely positive comments
on Admiral Sir James Somerville, defending
him against some of the allegations that have
been made against him, on Admiral 'Bob'
Burnett (neglected by many modern works),
Admiral Sir Percy Noble and a number of
others. The book does not damn Horton, but
suggests instead that he was one of the most
complex men holding flag rank during the war.
It does state what anyone who sewed under Vian
will confirm, which is that he was a far from
easy man under any circumstances. That fact
is never used to detract from his virtues as a
fighting Admiral.
The new information which Lieut. Cdr
Brooke denies exists in the book comes from
the Archives held at Churchill College, the
private papers of Admiral Sir Tom Phillips
(hitherto only made available to one other
historian) and extensive interviews with those
who sewed under the Admirals dealt with in the
book. In addition to these sources several
references are made to hitherto unpublished
information in the Public Records Office and
the British Library. The new information is both
'indicated' (the book has extensive footnotes),
and 'evident'.
It is perfectly understandable that Lieut. Cdr
Brooke objects to my treatment of Cunningham.
Cunningham was a man of immense courage,
with a capacity to inspire devotion that perhaps
'only Somerville could equal. I do not criticise
Cunningham for his 'excessive keenness on
smartness of ships or personnel.' These were
features which any effective Admiral of the time
shared. I do criticise him when 'keenness'
became an obsession that reduced operational
efficiency, as with his perpetual nagging of
submarine crews to wear full uniform when
their conditions of service simply did not allow
for this to be done. Unfortunately, Cunningham
was jealous and failed to support his friends in
the manner in which they supported him. His
dislike of staff work and modern technology
ceased to be a joke when it meant that men lost
their lives for the sake of it, and his parsimony
led directly to the sinking of two battleships in
Alexandria harbour. Cunningham was a great
man. As with all great men, he had many faults.
He would have been a superb Admiral under
Nelson. Unfortunately the Second World War
demanded rather more than pure aggression.
Cunningham was also a man of attractive
simplicity and straightforwardness. The Second
World War, however regrettably, punished
simplicity. Lieut. Cdr Brooke fails to note one
of the major points of the book, the bias in the
Royal Navy against 'intellectual' officers, those
260
CORRESPO
who challenged the system and those who were
not good seamen. This bias was understandable
and perhaps desirable in the wooden Navy; it
was sometimes detrimental in the Navy of
1939-45.
I can only stand by my account of the
Bismarck episode, in which Lieut. Cdr Brooke
produces no facts but only his own opinions.
My comments on ASDIC (that the early models
lost contact with the target at a crucial stage in
the attack) are extensively documented
elsewhere. My attempt to exonerate Admiral Sir
Tom Phillips must also stand. Phillips was told
in the clearest possible terms that fighter cover
was not (in the words of the signal, 'repeat, not')
available on the day of the sinking. Phillips'
manoeuvring of both vessels in formation by
blue pendant was almost certainly based on a
desire to keep Repulse under the cover of Prince
of Wales '5.25" anti-aircraft guns, and stop the
Japanese from isolating the older and far weaker
target. It did not work, but no commander
before had ever had the chance to use these guns
in these circumstances. Admiral Sir Tom
Phillips predicted before the war that such a
force-ashis, setting sail under the prevailing
circumstances that he found himself in later,
would inevitably be sunk. The only way out that
he saw was a recall from the Admiralty and an
order to scatter any vessels out of harm's way.
That order never came. In doing what he did
Phillips acted in the very best traditions of the
Royal Navy, and with immense courage. He
failed through no fault of his own and, alive just
before Prince of Wales rolled over, chose to go
down with his flagship. He deserves better from
Lieut. Cdr Brooke, and from history, than he
has been given.
I agree with Lieut. Cdr Brooke that the
conclusions of The Fighting Admirals are not
always conventional and sometimes not
comforting. It is true that I have never served
in the Royal Navy. The book was, however,
proof-read by two men who did. Perhaps the
argument that only those who have served in the
Royal Navy are qualified to write about it should
be compared to the argument which states that
only the police are qualified to investigate
complaints against the police. Theformer might
produce comfortable views, but they would not
be history; what the latter has produced readers
of The Naval Review can conclude themselves.
What concerns me most is that Lieut. Cdr Brooke
has failed to record what is clear in The Fighting
Admirals, namely my immense admiration for
all those who fought, and won, the war at sea
between 1939 and 1945.
MARTIN
STEPHEN
Sir,-I am grateful for the chance to have a
'ding' at Lieutenant-Commander Brooke's
'dong', but find myself slightly disadvantaged
as I a h presently in Italy and most of my library,
including my copy of Fighting Adtnirals is in
storage. In addition, Members will have noticed
that Martin Stephen is now a Member, so I hope
that he will respond to some of the detailed
criticisms of the book, whilst I shall defend my
review.
Reviewing books is a personal business and
must be based, almost totally, upon the
reviewer's own experiences and past reading.
I joined the Service in 1968, so my experience
of war is limited to the Falklands (at sea) and
Gulf Wars (in MOD). I have also served on a
seagoing Flag Officer's Staff. These factors will
have influenced my review. I suspect that
Brooke and I are of different generations, which
may further separate our viewpoints and colour
our perceptions of what is fair comment. I have
read many of the 'authorised' biographies and
autobiographies on Dr Martin Stephen's
subjects (including A Sailor's Odyssey) and
firmly stand by my sideswipe at their partiality.
Dr Stephen may not be correct in all his facts,
there are (admitted) errors of production, and
misuses of jargon - irritating in a book written
for a specialist audience, but does this really
matter, if the sense is unambiguous? He has
taken a deep look at the fighting Admirals of
the Second World War and has come up with
some new conclusions, albeit arguable ones.
Personally, I enjoyed The Fighting Admirals;
it is much better written than most on such a
'heavy' subject and I would still recommend it.
unreservedly, to Members. It may (in fact. for
many, will) irritate them in places. but that does
not mean that it is not worthy of
recommendation. I still think that it is.
A. T. WELCH
COMMANDER.
RN
(This correspondetlce is now closed - Ed.)
CORRESPONDENCE
THE ROYAL OAK AFFAIR
Sir,-Quite
recently your critic, A. B.
Sainsbury, dismissed my latest book R e Royal
Oak Affair (Pen and Sword, Leo Cooper) in
terms considerably less than glowing. Such a
review is painful to read but granted that the
reviewer is reasonable one can only wince and
turn to kinder opinions.
In this case one jibs. First Sainsbury describes
my book as an oft told story. Yet only two books
have been written - one thirty years ago by
Cdr. Leslie Gardiner RN (Retd) - and mine.
I had the access to the Courts martial papers
which at that time were not available to him.
I also had his very pertinent advice.
Where on earth your reviewer found the
phrase that the book's interest lies in what has
been left unsaid I cannot tell, save that it is not
in The Royal Oak Affair. As for a reference to
an obscene tale about the event . . . it is certainly
unknown to those who helped me in my research
and to me.
Although Sainsbury took the best part of five
hundred words to attack my book I will deal
with only a couple more points. He complains
that I describe battleships as mighty and aircraft
carriers as huge. Bearing in mind that HMS
Royal Oak had just had both her towing hawsers
parted what other urbane adjectives would have
come to the mind of Captain H. S. Monroe,
DSO and his navigator Lieut.-Cdr R. H.
Caldwell DSC, on the bridge of HMS Ramillies
as she squeezed her way to her buoy in Grand
Harbour with Royal Oak on the port hand and
HMS Eagle on the other?
Sainsbury calls the index skimpy and accuses
me of quoting only one document from the
Public Records Office. He should do a little
research. The file mentioned contains the
assembly of the court of inquiry. the evidence
of that court, the findings, the decision to hold
two courts martial, the summary of evidence,
the short hand note of the evidence, the Board's
review of the findings and the Judge Advocate's
advice on sentence. What more could there be?
Enough of all this. What hurt most in what
1 must regard as a very remarkable review is
Sainsbury's statement that I was 'jaundiced' in
my writing. When one spends a deal of time
studying the lives. backgrounds and natures of
three senior officers one gets to know them very
26 1
well and to regard them with understanding and
even affection.
That they should have come to grief in such
a ridiculous way does not merit your reviewer's
triviality.
ROBERTGLENTON
This correspondence is now closed - Editor.
SHIPS' NAMES
Sir,-With reference to Commander Bird's
mention of the King's objection to the proposed
ship name Crornwell 'just before the war' the
version that I recall reading is that the war was
World War I and the King, George V, who
demurred at two names out of the batch put
forward, Crornwell and Pirt, on the grounds that
HM Ships were traditionally not named after
politicians. Winston Churchill (for he was the
First Lord) characteristically refused to accept
the royal view without argument and put
forward reasons in favour of both names. He
had to give way, however, when the King's
private secretary replied that His Majesty's real
objections were slightly different: to Cromwell
that he did not wish to cause offence to his Irish
subjects and to Pitt because 'the sailors would
introduce ill-conditioned words rhyming with
it'.
This version, if true, adds piquancy to the
breach of the King's supposed rule only in the
naming of HMS Churchill.
C. R. H. STEPHEN
RN
COMMANDER.
FRIGATE NAMES
Sir-Commander Bird (NR, Apr. '92) mentions
the Monarch's objection to Crornwell as a
warship name. This would have been King
George V, who vetoed Winston Churchill's
proposal in 1912 that it be given to one of the
Queen Elizabeth Class Battleships.
In 1946 I was wandering around Charham
Dockyard when I came upon a brand new
destroyer dressed overall wearing Union Flag.
Commission Pendant and White Ensign with the
addition of the Royal Norwegian N;V~'s Jack
and Ensign bent on and ready to hoist. I later
discovered that she was one of four CR class
being transferred to the R Nor N; their names
were Crown, Cro:iers, Cnstal . . . and
262
CORRESPO
Cromwell.
A few questions thereby arise a. how far down the scale is the
Monarch consulted on warship names?
b. with a Royal veto on record how did
Cromwell get on to the Ships' Names
Committee's approved list?
c. why was Cromwell picked as a
second choice; the destroyer was originally
ordered as Cretan?
d. did Winston Churchill have any say
in warship names after he moved from
being First Lord to Prime Minister?
D. M. MURRAY
LIEUT.CDR.. RN
AIR COVER
Sir,-Yes - Tommy Phillips did make a
mistake - but not that of failing to arrange
Shore Based Air Cover. You had to be very
close to your Air Fields to enable a Shore Based
Air ~ o r c eto give you adequate permanent
cover, and they must have no other potential
diversion - and you couldn't call them in when
the enemy aircraft appeared - you would be
too late. If you intended to venture into range
of shore based Air Striking Forces you needed
a Carrier - with fighters - in company. His
mistake was expressed to me by Commodore
Ralph Edwards, whom I met in Ceylon not too
long after the disaster - and here I quote from
my book - It's Really Quite Safe.
'We (Formidable with Admiral
Somerville) went on to Capetown,
refuelled, and continued on to Ceylon
where we were to join the rest of the Fleet.
In Colombo I once again met Ralph
Edwards whom I had known so well at the
Admiralty. He had been enroute to join
Admiral Tommy Phillips who was in
command of Prince of Wales and Repulse,
but when both ships had been sunk by the
Japanese he was instructed to wait and join
Somerville. The words he said to me
haunted me for years. "Hank, I swear to
you that if I had got to Tommy Phillips in
time it would never have happened.
Toinmy never believed in aircraft, and he
found out too late".'
I tell other stories of Phillips - at Admiralty
- in my book, and I fear that I can only say
that I had little faith in his judgement. The book
can be obtained from the Fleet Air Arm Officers
Association.
Tommy Phillips was not the first Admiral to
put his trust in guns. Admiral Sir Charles
Morton Forbes, C-in-C of the Home Fleet, a
Gunnery Specialist, who led a foray into the
Heligoland Bight - just like in the 1914- 18
War - took Ark Royal with him because she
was not allowed to fly off fighters - the guns
would do the job. Bombing did not stop. Then
fighters were flown off - and bombing stopped.
G. A. ROTHERHAM
CAPTAIN
RCN(R) ex R N
ORIGIN OF A SIGNAL, AND OTHER
MATTERS
Sir,-Following major reinforcement of the
Eastern Fleet in the early months of 1944, which
included the Renown, Valiant, Queen Elizabeth,
Illustrious, Unicorn, the escort carriers Shah
and Begum, the French battleship Richelieu and
the very impressive (and distinctive) US fleet
carrier Saratoga, together with a large number
of cruisers and a very few others (including the
Dutch van Tromp) who had been in the Indian
Ocean during the lean years and reopened
Ceylon late in 1943, a considerable Allied fleet
left Trincomalee around 10 April to attack
Sabang, north of Sumatra, on 19 April.
Admiral Somerville sent a detailed
operational signal around the fleet at action
stations the night before the attack describing
what we were about to do the following early
morning. Aircraft from the Illustrious and
Saratoga were to attack the oil tanks and other
installations at and around Sabang; it ended 'as
Japanese are of regular habits, we expect to
catch them with their kimonos up!' He was
much in tune with his men, and knew very well
what would inspire as well as amuse them. He
was a much loved and successful fighting
admiral, who had a very frustrating time with
very few ships during most of his two years as
CinC, Eastern Fleet, after losing the Hermes,
Cornwall, Dorsetshire and some smaller vessels
just after taking over in March 1942; sadly he
only survived the war for four or five years,
becoming Lord Lieutenant of Somerset.
One Hundred Days. I will not trespass on
your commissioned review of 'the Woodward
CORRESPONDENCE
book', but what made it for me was the long
overdue and handsome tributes to Sir Henry
Leach, not only by Sandy himself but also in
the foreword by Margaret Thatcher. I have no
doubt that Sir Henry saved the Government at
that time (ineptly assisted, it must be added, by
Galtieri's inability to wait until projected major
cuts had been made!); the success of the
operation also replenished the self-confidence
of all NATO forces at that time, when so much
depended on paper speculation and imagined
confrontations with Soviet forces, not to
mention spurious 'political' strategies; above all
he saved the Navy from John Nott, whose
understanding of the world scene and infinitely
flexible roles of Navies in maintain world order
was and still is totally lacking. Some of his
henchmen continue to threaten the Navy's
continuing great utility through flexibility, not
helped by the reluctance of many of who should
know better to look again at the many more
peaceful, and maybe mundane roles of navies
in peacetime that depend on flexibility, mobility
and almost instant readiness to respond to
unexpected threats. The Gulf has provided
another confirmation of this, where the
marvellous inter-operability of naval forces and
logistic support honed on the NATO anvil were
demonstrated beyond question in quite strange
circumstances well out of area, building partly
on what 'just happened' to be there for quite
different reasons, the Armilla patrol and US
presence in the Indian Ocean - traditional
attributes and dispositions of Navies down the
centuries.
Chapter 10 of One Hundred Days describes
the sinking of the stern trawler Nanrtal. It may
be of interest to your readers that she was
designed and built about 1963 by M. Chardame,
a very good naval architect, in his Beliard
Crighton shipyard, Ostende. for M. de
Brouwer, a Bruges trawler owner, to operate
out of Matadi at the mouth of the Congo River,
Belgian Congo (which became Zaire only a year
or two later); she was used on the prolific fishing
grounds off Angola and SW Africa (now
Namibia). She was very well built, and I had
a hand in the original proposals for her freezing
and cold storage plant. at a time when I was also
working on another revolutionary design of
stern trawler for Greek owners in the same yard.
263
to be equipped for tropical operation. I
remember the Nanval again in 1972, when she
was laid up in Buenos Aires harbour; so far as
I know, apart perhaps from a voyage or two
when first purchased, she was never used for
fishing in Argentine waters, as she was
unsuitable for the types of fishing common in
the area in the 70s. Nanval seems to have been
a ship always in the wrong place at the wrong
time; she never earned her keep for her various
owners, and certainly not for Anaya.
RANKEN
MICHAEL
NAVAL ARCHITECT=
DESIGNER OF SHIPS
Sir,-It is often claimed and almost as often
challenged that the design of a ship should be
led by a naval architect. In one sense the claim
is certainly true: the Concise Oxford Dicrionav
definition (reproduced above as the title of this
letter) shows that anyone who designs a ship a
naval architect. The debate is over the need for
a designer to have formal education and
experience in the profession of naval
architecture.
Since the Finniston report, the Engineering
Council has made great efforts to introduce and
encourage the teaching of design in the
education of all engineers but such teaching has
been a major part of the syllabus of naval
architects since the first School of Naval
Architecture opened in Portsmouth in 181 1.
Since then, young naval architects have been
taught the elements of design, encouraged to
think of better ways of carrying it out and this
has led to an attitude in the profession in which
senior, experienced men have made efforts to
train young graduates 'on the job'. No other
branch of the engineering profession has such
a long tradition of rooting its teaching so firmly
in design.
A warship is the largest and most expensive
single artifact in the defence budget and the first
of a new class must work on conlpletion without
the benefit of prototype testing. It is becoming
recognised that the key to a successful design
lies in the spatial relationships and their
interaction with shape (Hydrodynamics) and
internal arrangement (Structural design,
Vulnerability). The complexity and cost of a
'system' does not lie in its length but in the
264
CORRESPONDENCE
number of its prime units (generators, pumps
etc) and in the number of bulkhead penetrations.
In turn these depend on the layout of the ship
- the architecture.
It is sometimes suggested that 'systems
engineering' is a substitute for design but this
shows a misunderstanding of both. Systems
engineering is a very useful tool for the designer
but is ill adapted for the fuzzy requirements
inevitable in warship concept.
D. K. BROWN.RCNC
NAVAL ANECDOTES ANTHOLOGY
Sir,-May I please use your columns to offer
your readers a unique opportunity to contribute
to posterity and charity? I have been
commissioned to produce and publish a
collection of post-World War I1 naval anecdotes.
The aim of the book is to provide a good
montage of what the Royal Navy does and how
it does it, told by the RN's people through their
own experiences. A supporting objective is to
raise money for naval charities through the
proceeds of sales. A willing publisher has been
found and I now seek the raw material. What
I would like from many of your readers is one
or two rattling good true naval yams. They could
be about anything of interest to the general public
and fellow sailors alike - operations or events,
successes or failures, bravery or cowardice.
They could be sombre or funny, but wit and
humour would be appreciated. I would expect
them to be people oriented whilst avoiding the
pitfalls of libel. The final output should
demonstrate our traditional ability to spin a good
yarn, providing a fascinating insight into the
Senior Service and help mariners in need.
Would contributors, of all ranks and ratings,
both sexes, all ages, active and retired, please
send their stories to my address. These may be
complete (500 words would be a sensible
maximum) or in note form for the Editor to
write. All will be acknowledged. I would be
grateful if contributors could assign copyright
to the Editor to support the book's charitable
nature. I would also appreciate contributors
stating, if their yarn(s) were selected for
publication, whether they wished their names
to appear in print or the source identified merely
as that famous writer 'Anon'. Timescale: as
soon as possible please and no later than 30
September 1992.
CAPTAINP. MCLAREN
The Blue House, East Marden, Chichester,
West Sussex PO18 9JE.
H M S ROYAL SOVEREIGN - 1943
Sir,-At the age of 11, I joined HMS Royal
Sovereign, together with twenty-four other
children for passage back to Scotland.
The battleship was under the command of Acting Captain Peter Skelton, later Rear Admiral.
In 1985 I contacted Admiral Skelton at his
address in Scotland to discover how such a tribe
of children managed to travel back on a battleship
in 1943. He replied as follows:
'I was asked to bring the British Ambassador, his wife and a 'high up' lady secretary.
I refused to take women, as conditions of my
day cabin would be intolerable at sea and the
ladies, if they wanted to move to any other
part of the ship would have to pass through
the marines' mess deck.'
He went on to say that 'there were some school
boys wishing to go home and so I told the
Admiralty that instead of the Ambassador's party
I would take twenty-four boys home.'
October, 1993 will be the 50th anniversary of
that remarkable voyage, of which I kept a log
at the time, although only young. I am anxious
to write something for the Mariners Mirror on
the voyage, and in this connection I am trying
to discover the names of people who may have
memories of the days spent on 'Tiddlyquid', as
she was affectionately known, in those darkdays
of October, 1943.
I have been unable to discover a list of the
children's names, though I know four of them,
one of whom has since died. I have a list of
officers who served during 1943, though not
necessarily on that particular voyage. I have had
great assistance from Lt. Royal Marines, later
Major, I. F. Wray and from Temporary Sublieutenant Special Branch Royal Canadian Navy
Volunteer Reserve L. R. Haywood and, of
course, the Captain. I wonder whether through
your columns I might ask for others tocontact me.
I hope to organise a reunion too in October,
1993.
MALDWIN
DRUMMON
Cadland House, Fawley, Southampton.
Hants SO4 1AA.
Book Reviews-I
NATO REVIEW, DECEMBER 1991
NATO'S SIXTEEN NATIONS,
Vol. 37-No.1192
It has often been a source of speculation whether
anybody - from dedicated NATO buff through
to the most rabid of NATO-sceptics -could find
NATO publications, of any sort, exciting. The
two journals that head this review are of different
sorts: the first is a freebie published under the
authority of the Secretary-General, the second
a Monch (and therefore, no doubt, hardheadedly
commercial) publication. Yet both bear the
unmistakable NATO stamp, the authentic
atmosphere of Evtre: the careful wording, the
cultivated consensus, the avoidance of any whiff
of overt controversy. Even experienced hunters
of subtexts will have to burrow deep to detect
divergences of opinion, much less of national
interest. Solidarity is all, and boring it is to us
meretricious souls brought up on the language
of crisis and conflict. It is like a soap-opera
written by a family about itself, determined to
present a united front to the world: you are
conscious of tensions but they don't surface, like
7be Archers before it got all steamy and explicit.
But there is good reason to read these
particular volumes with great care. The first
contains the Rome Declaration on Peace and
Co-operation and the Alliance's New Strategic
Concept, both agreed at Heads of Government
level on 7-8 November 1991. The second is a
maritime issue of NATO's Sixteen Nations, with
standard-length articles by each of the Chiefs
of Naval Staff of member countries - a welltried formula of this magazine. The second
needs reading in the context of the first, and both
need reading several times unless you are
singularly good at verbal reasoning.
The Rome Declaration on Peace and Cooperation is meant to be the political primemover of NATO for the future, and
consequently can be regarded as a successor to
the Harmel and Onawa Declarations. It is mildly
self-congratulatory, as it has every right to be;
the collapse of the politico-military system
facing NATO, the specific threat against which
the Alliance was formed, was due in part to the
inherent health and sturdiness of NATO, among
many other factors both internal and external.
Family loyalty has its uses.
The Declaration then gets down to business
with a reference to the new strategic concept,
of which more later; at this point one should
just note the sentence 'The military dimension
of our Alliance remains an essential factor; but
what is new is that, more than ever, it will serve
a broad concept of security' - the point being
that 'we no longer face the old threat of a
massive attack', but 'prudence requires us to
maintain an overall strategic balance'. Well, I
said the wording was cautious.
Thereafter however the Declaration breaks
new ground, with warm statements about the
developing role of Western European Union
(WEU) and the need for the Alliance to have
'practical arrangements to ensure the necessary
transparency and complementarity' (nothing so
crude, of course as 'This is a way of getting
France on board, but watch it'). There is also
a most interesting couple of paragraphs on the
role of the Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe (CSCE) and the support
NATO will give to the new institutions and
structures of that body, which although mainly
consultative at present are beginning to show
signs of more executive clout as, for example,
in the Conflict Prevention Centre. The
Declaration stops far short, of course, of any
suggestion that NATO should consider eventual
merger with CSCE.
The section on Relations with the Soviet
Union (in fact it ceased to exist during the
November 1991 meeting, but the wording could
not be changed in time) and Other Countries of
Central and Eastern Europe is the most
innovative in the Declaration. Invitations are
issued to a variety of consultations at political
and military staff level, and the first mention
is made in an official document of the 'North
Atlantic Co-operation Council' (NACC) which
has since taken its first tentative steps.
Unofficially, many contacts have been built up
over the past five years or so; but to have put
them on the Alliance level is a significant move.
After a fairly standard statement on Arms
Control (with no word about the maritime
aspect), the Declaration has near its end a brief
reference to 'Broader Challenges': Alliance
266
BOOK RE
security 'must take account of the global context'
and 'will continue to address broader challenges
in our consultations'. Perhaps the most
significant fact about this passage is that it
occupies 15 lines of text in a 400-line document.
Almost inevitably, the New Strategic Concept
overlaps the Declaration in much of its wording.
Nevertheless its purpose is quite distinct and its
emphasis on security is more pronounced. It
begins by describing the New Strategic
Environment in terms that may by some be
thought ever so slightly euphoric. 'All the
countries that were formerly adversaries of
NATO have . . . rejected ideological hostility
to the West . . . the political division of Europe
that was the source of the military confrontation
of the Cold War period has thus been overcome
. . . (these) historic changes. . . . which have
led to the fulfilment of a number of objectives
set out in the Harmel Report, have significantly
improved the overall security of the Allies'.
That sort of language is understandable from
an organisation that founded its strategy on a
single threat and, almost, a single scenario.
But then the mood darkens. There are still
'challenges and risks . . . . multi-faceted and
multi-dimensional . . . the adverse consequences
of instabilities . . . faced by (my italics) many
countries in Central and Eastern Europe. '
Later, the Gulf War is mentioned, in the context
of the wish of the Allies 'to maintain peaceful
and non-adversarial relations with the countries
in the Southern Mediterranean and the Middle
East'. Beyond a brief reference to 'the global
context' and the possibility of Alliance
consultation if there are 'risks of a wider nature',
no account is taken of dangers beyond the
NATO area.
This insularity is confirmed by the statement
of the 'Fundamental Tasks of the Alliance': 'A
stable security environment in Europe . . .
forum for Allied consultations on any issues that
affect their vital interests . . . deter and defend
against any threat of agression against the
territory of any member state . . . preserve the
strategic balance within Europe', and is
hammered home in paragraph 23: 'In defining
the core functions of t h e ~ l l i a n c ein the terms
set it above, member states confirm that the
scope of the Alliance as well as their rights and
obligations as provided for in the Washington
Treaty remain unchanged.' That means, among
other things, that at sea NATO's writ runs as
it has always done, to the Mediterranean and
to the Tropic of Cancer in the Atlantic, and no
further.
Thus, in spite of much intervening wording
about 'a broad approach to security' and 'new
guidelines', the Alliance's new missions and
force posture are not fundamentally changed
from the old. Certainly the single Threat has
gone as both justification and strategic basis; but
(although Flexible Response as such seems to
have dropped out of the vocabulary) there is still
emphasis on 'the capability to deter action
against any Ally and, in the event that aggression
takes place, to respond to and repel it'.
Well and good; history has proved the
soundness of that basis. Nor can there be any
quarrel with the perceived need for 'ground, air
and sea immediate reaction elements able to
respond to a wide range of eventualities, many
of which are unforeseeable'. It is the scope and
reach of those forces (which in any case are to
be 'in a limited but militarily significant
proportion') that give cause for concern, for
they seem to be confined to those required to
'defend the territory of the Allies', no more.
This emphasis on territorial integrity recurs at
several points in the New Strategic Concept. It
is, of course, one vital interest. For an Alliance
which includes most of the principal trading
nations of the world, is it enough?
Let us turn now to the statements of the Chiefs
of Naval Staff in NATO S Sixteen Nations. The
first and most important contribution is not from
a CNS at all, but from The Supreme Allied
Commander Atlantic, Admiral Leon A. Edney
USN. There is a mass of interesting and often
encouraging information in his 2,500 words.
NATO clearly has gone quite far in developing
'an overarching non-threat specific maritime
force structure'. There are three levels of multinational forces envisaged, corresponding with
varying intensities of crisis: Reaction Forces
(Standing Naval Forces together with individual
national naval deployments), Main Defence
Forces to give escalation support, including
sustained crisis management, and Augmentation
Forces to provide the balance of Alliance
maritime forces required in the event of full
scale conflict.
BOOK REVIEWS - I
The Multinational Maritime Force (MNMF)
Concept will be exercised frequently enough to
keep it warm, and as is known the Standing
Naval Forces will be increased in number to
include a more nearly permanent Mediterranean
force. It is sensibly based on sound principles.
The only question is whether it is enough; and
here one must turn to the individual
contributions from the Chiefs of Naval Staff.
Here a real attempt has been made - perhaps
by a perceptive editor, which Frederick Bornart
certainly is, or perhaps fortuitously - to put
some individuality into the points of view
expressed. Thus the Belgian CNS writes with
justifiable pride about the Gulf minesweeping
effort, while the Norwegian describes the
complex and highly interesting law-of-the-sea
situation in Northern waters, as well as their
strategic aspects, and the Spanish contribution
concentrates on the singular relationship Spain
has built up with the rest of the Alliance.
But I should like to concentrate on three pieces
in particular. Admiral Filippo Ruggier from
Italy (now relieved by the equally perceptive
Admiral
Venturoni)
describes
the
Mediterranean situation in terms that are
carefully non-alarmist but extremely telling.
There are two principal concerns for Italy:
actually significant and potentially massive
immigration flows from the Maghreb, and
instability in the landmass to the east of the
Mediterranean stretching to the far end of the
Gulf and beyond. Italy's Navy is seen as 'acting
in the Mediterranean as a forward asset within
the NATO collective defence effort': it will have
plenty to do there.
The German contribution is notable for
having, in some respects, the most forwardlooking and expansive outlook in the magazine.
Vice Admiral Heinz-Peter Weyher writes: 'The
German naval forces will no longer be tailored
to defence against attacks launched via the Baltic
Sea . . . the decision to abandon any specific
orientation of naval warfare assets towards a
specific geography results in the concept of a
non-regionalised German Navy . . . the German
Navy is preparing itself for participation in
operations aimed at safeguarding law and peace,
containing and defusing international crises,
delivering humanitarian aid and for those
operations necessary to maintain the integrity
267
and economic basis of Germany and its allies,
if so required.' Those are significant words, and
though the Admiral is careful to cover himself
by later referring to 'risks arising on the
periphery of the area covered by the North
Atlantic Treaty', they represent a very large
shift in German thinking - always supposing
that the Auswartiges Amt thinks that way too.
Finally, one comes to the contribution of our
own First Sea Lord. He has chosen to write on
Amphibious Capability and places it firmly in
the context of the rapid reaction required by the
New Strategic Concept, but he brings in links
with the wider requirements of ad hoc coalition
operations. This is but one of what I guess are
a number of coded messages, to various
addresses, in Admiral Oswald's piece: every
single one ought to go home. They range from
general points, often historically-supported, that
are familiar to most naval persons but need
reiterating to general readers, to quite specific
and technical statements of requirement. One
hopes they will be read and understood by those
for whom they are intended.
So where does all this get us? First, it seems
to me, NATO has missed an opportunity to
break out of the limits it imposed on itself all
those years ago, the painfully artificial boundary
of the NATO area and particularly of its sea
area. It is not the first time; a similar crux was
reached in the late 1970s when, emboldened by
force reductions in the West, the Soviet Union
reached out beyond the maritime flank. A
combination then of American unilateral
response and NATO's three per cent per year
force augmentation helped correct the position;
it is arguable that an overt NATO out-of-area
initiative would have been the most telling factor
of all. Now, with threat from the Eastern
continental powers so diminished but with all
sorts of other risks, dangers and difficulties to
handle, it is harder than ever to justify the selfimposed limitation.
Second, there is clearly some perception
among the national naval leaderships of Europe
that more change, over and above that already
agreed in NATO constituencies, is going to be
needed and that they had better prepare for it.
That is nothing new either, though it is much
more widespread than it was. It is after all what
the Royal Navy has been doing tacitly for the
268
BOOK REVIEWS-I
past forty years. Why did we manage to
maintain an organic air arm, long-reach
amphibious forces, and a large ocean-going fleet
auxiliary? Not, you may think, for NATO
alone.
So, I suppose, my end is my beginning.
NATO is a cautious old alliance. Within the
limits of its caution it has responded to the new
strategic situation. It is, as Gryphon indicated
in his excellent article (NR, April, '92), far too
valuable an instrument to be discarded. But it
cannot of itself provide the necessary basis for
force planning, particularly naval force
planning, because it is so often lags rather than
leads events and responds to, rather than
initiates, the more productive strategic ideas.
Only if we base our strategy on the national
interst, nationally worked out - by all means
taking alliance considerations into account shall we get the naval force structure the
developing world situation requires.
RICHARD
HILL
REVISTA DE MARINA: 1991-1992
The Navy of the Republic of Chile would claim
neither remarkable age nor a tremendous record
of innovation. It retains, however, a catalogue
of traditions, naval heroes and successes (as well
as failures) sufficient to grace the history books
of many another Navy.
The Chilean Revista de Marina (a publication
with some years' seniority over the NR) recounts
in great detail the past adventures of the Chilean
Navy. Much effort is spent on the 1879 War
of the Pacific which gave Chile a future source
of wealth, nitrate, and its best-loved national
hero, Captain Arturo Prat Chacon. His statue
graces even the smallest village and the day of
his heroic death, 21 May, is a national holiday.
The story of his death is in the best naval
tradition of heroic defeats: Prat's ship, the
Esmeralda, was trapped in the Bay of Iquique
by the two biggest battleships of the Peruvian
Fleet, the Huascar and the Independencia. Prat
refused to surrender and his ship resisted the
enemy fire for two hours, until the Huscar
rammed it. Sword in hand, Prat leapt into the
Huascar with only a handful of men and was
cut down. The Peruvian commander, Admiral
Grau, was gentleman enough to send back the
Chilean's sword and a letter he had written to
his wife. It earned him equally generous
treatment when the Chileans fought and
captured the Huascar later that year, and so
gained control of the seas. So much for heroism
and national days off. The Revista de Marina
has a wider ambit than historical reminiscence
alone. By its own claim, it exists to promote the
basic principles of the naval profession:
strategy, tactics, logistics and planning. This,
and a commitment to encourage scientific and
technical progress, it does well.
Obviously enough, many articles in the
Revista include analysis of the areas of the world
frequented by the Chilean Navy, and
justification of that maritime projection. We
perhaps view the 'new world order' as
something fairly localised in its influence, i.e.
Europe, the C.I.S. and the U.S. The Chileans,
understandably, see further than the North
Atlantic in their consideration of geopolitical
realignment. In fact, as well as exploring
European political strategy and the strategic
consequences (for everybody) of the Gulf War,
the Revista has a major interest in examining
the geo-political and geo-strategic concerns of
the whole Pacific basin. This is not, however,
to accuse the Chileans of undue introspection
and self-interest. There is much to learn from
an in situ Pacific maritime state of the growing
economic, political and strategic importance of
nations whose coasts are lapped by the waters
of the world's largest ocean.
One article by Spanish Rear Admiral Jesus
Salgado Alba examines in some depth the new
world order and the ocean politics of the Pacific.
Harking back to the geopolitical history of the
sea, Admiral Salgado uses the rather simplistic
approach of Henri Pirenne in his Les grands
courents de 1 'histoire universelle. This theorises
the existence of two basic types of society in
the world: maritime and continental. These are
characterised by two ways of life and two classes
of human and political mentality: maritime as
tolerant, liberal and cosmopolitan with cultural
and commercial interchange with other states;
continental as closed social group with
confidence and security in itself, a cult of
national prestige and racial superiority.
The collapse of the Communist Bloc in
Europe affected not only the old Soviet Union
and her satellites but also, indirectly, all the
BOOK REVIEWS - I
world's nations. There has been a dissipation
of the basic geopolitical structure of the world
as marked by the two major antagonists, East
and West (guess which is 'continental' and
which 'maritime'): an unstable equilibrium
maintained by permanent tension.
The old tensions have subsided and been
substituted (in the eyes of Admiral Salgado) by
a North-South tension. This is not, in
character, essentially geopolitical
but
fundamentally geoeconomic, characterised by
development and prosperity in the north with
underdevelopment and poverty in the south. The
location of the world's economic power bases
(the United States, W.Europe and Japan) in the
northern hemisphere contrasts with the popular
picture of underdevelopment and poverty in
subsaharan Africa, black Africa, SE Asia, and
Central America; all in the southern
hemisphere.
It is, however, still difficult to generalise any
North-South divide. You don't have to look
far to find underdevelopment in the northern
hemisphere,
for example the south
Mediterranean shore, whilst finding developed
economic, social and political zones, such as
Australia, New Zealand and South Africa in the
South.
The reality of the 'new world order',
according to the Revista, is a residual
East- West tension in the northern hemisphere
only, a tension of economic circumstance
between the north and south, and a series of
junctural tensions provoked by very diverse
causes. Some of these are ethnic differences,
nationalism, fundamentalist religions and
migration. These provoke 'crisis situations': a
multitude of conflicts more or less localised
which will be, in general, of low intensity. They
are also most numerous in the northern
hemisphere.
But what of the Pacific? How does it fit into
the new order? Like the Atlantic, it has distinct
north and south parts. The north Pacific, in
surface area inferior to the South, is a
'supersaturated' geopolitical, geostrategic and
geoeconomic space. Geopolitically, it is
dominated by the hegemony of the Treaty of
Cooperation signatories (US, Japan, S.Korea)
whilst the geoeconomic rivalry of Japan and the
United States results in a huge density of
269
maritime traffic. Geostrategically, the former
Soviet presence, centred around the base at
Vladivostok and Cam-Ranh in Vietnam, rivals
the extended influence of the United States
whose Hawaiian and Filipino bases give her a
strong central position. Increasingly we must
also consider the very notable presence of China
whose strategic potential is in its infancy in the
Pacific.
An eloquent contrast to the 'supersaturation'
of the north is provided by the immense ocean
space of the South Pacific. Using the same
criteria applied to the North Pacific, it is clear
that the levels of exploitation in the south are
particularly low. The exercise of oceanic
control, or 'the dominion of ocean space', is
somewhat scant, as is geostrategic activity in
the presence of forces and naval bases.
Economic exploitation is weaker in the South
in two principal respects: oceanic maritime
traffic, and the extraction of animal and mineral
resources.
These determinant characteristics of the South
Pacific have given rise to a new concept, a new
and attractive idea within the ambit of
geopolitics: ocean politics. Chile might be seen
to have a privileged position in all this, since
there is no competition in the area, especially
the south-east. Indeed, the importance the
Chileans attach to it is very apparent from the
Re vista.
In the words of Almirante Martinez Busch,
the Commander in Chief of the Chilean Navy,
'Oceanpolitics is the concept that considers the
existence of the ocean in the geographical realm
and the influence it holds over political
decisions. Its fundamental proposition is to
consider the ocean as a natural space for the
growth and future development of the state'.
Certainly, Admiral Martinez Busch speaks in
the furtherance of Chilean interests, to which
the opportunities of the South Pacific peculiarly
apply. But what of other countries? Martinez
Busch attempts no further application.
Optimistically for the South Pacific, he does
offer the area as a patrimonio comun de la
Humanidad; as heartening a prospect for our
new world order as any.
The Revista de Marina sinks its teeth into
some difficult ideas. But whilst there is neither
space (or perhaps desire) for critical
270
BOOK REVIEWS-I
correspondence nor contributions from anyone
below the rank of Captain, the Revista tempers
its solemn endeavours with a section devoted
purely to sea poetry. Perhaps the Naval Review
might promote such an idea. After all, it has
followed its Chilean counterpart before.
P. C. SMITH
LIEUTENANT,
RN
Book Reviews-I1
ONE HUNDRED DAYS
The Memoirs of the Falklands Battle Group
Commander
by ADMIRAL
SANDY
WOODWARD,
with
PATRICKROBINSON
(Harper Collins - f18)
This is a task to be approached with humility,
but then, Richard Hill wanted someone who
wasn't there. It is a handsome book, bigger and
thicker then expected, with an inspired dust
jacket. This portrays the Admiral, sitting halfleft, the one thick and three thin of his golden
arm reflected in a highly polished table surface,
these colours picked up in the title lettering, the
background gloomy, behind his head the
statutory undecipherable maritime picture.
Sandy confronts the reader with the hot glare
of his penetrating glance, something with which
those who have been on the receiving end will
be very familiar.
'With Patrick Robinson' is worrying; so often
the illiterate film-star has the 'as told to' by-line
because slhe can't string the lingo together. The
results aims itself at a 'popularised' readership,
reflects the vocabulary and thoughts of the
writer not the author, substantially taking away
from the authority of what is on the page. In
his preface Sandy is frank about his need for
an interlocutor, someone to interpret the jargon
which for all of us is not jargon and to point
out the drama in those things which for us are
not dramatic. The result, I am happy to report,
is pretty seamless and the style of the preface
(presumably neat Sandy) continues throughout
the book with well-judged and unobtrusive
technical explanations for the lay. The purists
will be jarred by 'Hugo White's Avenger'
instead of 'HMS Avenger (Captain H. M. White
Royal Navy)', but this is not official history.
What it is, however, is one of the most selfrevealing autobiographical campaign accounts
ever written by a senior force commander. For
that alone it is valuable; there is a selfexamining, self-doubting dimension here which
is hardly seen in Caesar, Montgomery, Carver,
et al, and which is an important contribution to
the (for want of better word) sociology of
leadership.
The Rt Hon Margaret Thatcher appropriately
enough provides a foreword, considering that
the Navy saved her bacon, but although she
made the ultimate decisions and bore the
ultimate responsibility, I did not find the
triumphalist tenor attractive, given the
antecedent mismanagement. Read it and see if
you see what I mean.
But Admiral Sir Henry Leach here and later
(p.72) receives his proper recognition as the
Saviour of the Navy. Once battle is joined the
tri-service Ministry of Defence structure
diminishes the role of the service chiefs, the
chain of command going from the four-starjoint
operational headquarters to the CDS with the
central staff manned Defence Operations Centre
acting as the political interface. But there's a
PhD thesis around for someone on the subject
of exactly when Henry woke up to the problem
and what staffwork was set in train, such that
he had a credible solution to take to those
bewildered politicians in that Commons office.
And it was not an 'appreciation' to get wrong.
In the balance was the fall of a Government;
the future of the Navy in the climate of the Nott
axe; the restoration of any losses; the UK's
position as the adhesive jam in the NATO
transatlantic sandwich; the special relationship
with a USA bruised in its South American
policies; a strengthened Washington-Bonn
axis; a galling position second to the French in
'out of area' credibility and possibly, given
Labourite thinking, in Euronuclear matters; the
unravelling- of the theatre nuclear force
modernisation programme from Greenham
Common through to the Netherlands, Germany
BOOK REVIEWS -11
and Italy; perhaps a prolongation of the Cold
War? Not to mention the fate of the islanders.
Certainly a devaluation of sea power as a
political instrument. Some decision, even for
a First Sea Lord. How many hours?
The story opens with the sinking of one of
Sandy's commands, HMS Shefield, the first
British warship to be sunk for over forty years.
Forget JFK, where were you when you heard
about it? Here the account serves several useful
purposes; it reminds us that this little war, ten
years ago, was a desperately serious event; it
presents the reader early to the complexity, the
rapidity, the shock of modern naval warfare;
it describes the equipment and its performance,
outlines the external and internal organisation
of a warship in a Task Force and introduces the
problem of command - in this case, re-dispose,
don't think about it, get on with the next thing.
Including 'getting seriously sharper if we were
to survive'.
The next chapter, 'The Submariner', will
raise a wry smile or two from those who went
through the same mill. Sandy was not an
outstanding cadet at Dartmouth; I recall a midly
eccentric aeromodeller in 'Monday evening
activities', dinghy sailer, probably rather clever,
not a contact-sport 'blood' (he was a St
Vincent, you see, a bit wet. You had to be a
Blake to be a brutalist). No awards, except for
scripture at age seven and a knighthood at fifty,
but it does leak out later that he made Chief
Cadet Captain alongside Mike Barrow in his
final term.
The tally of appointments thereafter describe
the shaping of the Task Force Commander and
his thinking, both at sea and in the Ministry of
Defence. It has become fashionable in some
circles to decry the army's regimental system
for its manpower inefficiencies and its bizarre
manifestations of tradition. We should not join
that club, for this account clearly shows the
benefits of a regimental system writ large. The
vast majority of commanding officers down
south and the staff at Northwood had known
each other for many years, had done the same
tactical course, got drunk together, knew each
others' minds. This Navy was small enough to
have been able to generate a pervasive
comradeship based on mutual respect and
professionalism. It used to be bad form to be
27 1
'keen'. Now it's bad form not to be, provided
you don't ram it down everyone's throat.
There's a splendid set of photographs of many
of the commanding officers, some dressed as
action men, some in the posed, optimistic,
glossy style favoured for port visit propaganda.
A cheerful sight. The gallant fellows.
What of the account of the war itself? The
events are by now all too familiar, but there are
several aspects here which make this book, ten
years late, the ultimate and final brick in the vast
wall of Falklands literature. It was probably
right to have waited ten years; we are bound
by rules in these things; the politics are now less
sensitive, more can be said; distance lends
perspective. For example, Sandy is harsh in his
judgments about the media. And now we are
clear of all that posturing fuss in front of the
Commons Select Committee, I do believe that
it does emerge, in perspective, taking a cool
view, thinking about it, that the media actually
had rather a bad war. Perhaps there's another
study to be done comparing the Gulf with the
Falklands, less hype, more discipline, more
foreign correspondents in the pool, better
analyses?
In this area as in others, the relationship
between the Task Force Commander and
headquarters is revealing. Despite the common
thread of a submarining background amongst
the Commander-in-Chef, Sandy and the Flag
Officer Submarines, their deep personal
acquaintanceships and the modern ability to
communicate on a voice satellite channel, there
were elements of misunderstanding and misappreciation. Interpretation of Sandy's
television appearances, the political and military
meaning of the Exclusion Zones, the opcon and
disposition of the nuclear submarines and the
Belgrano affair, teach once more the lesson
about being alive to what the chap at the other
end really knows and understands.
That Sandy sent the order to Conqueror to
sink the Belgrano and that this was vetted off
the broadcast would have been dynamite in
Clive Ponting's day. This account finally lays
the Belgrano affaire to rest. It was an inevitable
military decision. The Argentinian navy
acknowledged this. There is no more to be said.
The writer is necessarily coy about
intelligence sources and there is no mention of
272
I
1
BOOK REVIEWS-I1
the mustachioed, deep-chested, taciturn Fleet
Air Arm aircrew who found their way back
from Chile.
The final differentiation between this and
other Falklands battle accounts concerns the
state of mind of the author. To others a loss was
a tragedy, here it is also 'my fault?', 'can we
go on?', 'what must I do next?'. Grim
determination at all levels won the day, under
circumstances of great risk and difficulty. It is
a glorious page in the Royal Navy's history. The
outcome benefitted the Argentine people. Let
us all hope that further additions of perspective
will place it in a process of benign post-Cold
War political evolution. It is very likely to be
the last war fought on such a scale by the United
Kingdom alone. It may well be the Royal
Navy's final campaign.
On his return, Sandy was faced with a bill for
a Naval Pay and Pensions overpayment of £649
because of a reduction in his entertainment
allowance due to his recent underspending in
that category. He turns this mean little anecdote
into a reminder that we are all just naval
officers, products of the System, reminding us
of the slave who whispers into the ear of Caesar
during a Triumph: 'remember you are only a
man '. We should be grateful to that half of us
who went 'down south', not least for their
modesty in their achievement.
Well recommended, and get it autographed.
GUYLIARDET
JANE'S FIGHTING SHIPS 1992-1993
ed. CAPTAIN
R. SHARPE,Royal Navy
(Janes Publications - f 135.00)
850 pages
It strikes me that asking an Engineering Officer
to review Jane's Fighring Ships is somewhat
akin to The Lord asking Jesus to review the
Bible. Nevertheless, the honour of reviewing
this impressive publication, this year, was given
to me, by our editor.
There are those that enjoy train spotting, and
the vast majority of us who do not. On the
surface, there is a temptation to place Jane's
Fighting Ships amongst the train spotters'
paraphernalia, as an example of both the best
and the most expensive. This would not be to
do Jane's Fighting Ships (JFS) justice.
Nevertheless I do come away from JFS
disappointed, at times, both by its content, and.
at times, the lack of it.
In his review the Editor gives the standard JFS
warning of the impending decline of the Royal
Navy, the Merchant Marine and our essential
manufacturing base. The warning is, as always,
well and opportunely made, only to be
completely ignored by our Political masters.
Perhaps, like the boy who cried wolf for too
long, The Politicians, and more importantly
their key Civil Servants, no longer pay heed to
their Naval advisers or to JFS, and choose to
ignore the overriding case for a Maritime
Strategy. Long gone are the days where the
Royal Navy could rely on its Admiralty Civil
Servants to fight the corner as expertly, one
sidedly and professionally as their Naval
brothers in arms. In addresung hi5 sectlon on
the Royal Navy and the United K~ngdornthe
Ed~torchooses a particularly prescient quote
from General Murray, when he was
Commander-in-Chief Allied Forces Northern
Europe in February 1968. as saying: 'In my
view the course we should follow is that the
British Army of The Rhine and our Air Force
should be reduced to token forces and the three
services given the opportunity to evolve on a
tri service basis to meet worldwide
commitments which must remain with us for a
great number of years to come. We should
revert to our Centuries old tradition of mobility
and flexibility. based on Sea Power. at the
earliest opportunity.' It can only be hoped that
someone out there is listening'?
JFS have moved with admirable speed to
include the flags of the rapidly emerging
countries and fleets of Eastern Europe and The
Commonwealth of Independent States. In this
sense this issue of JFS is indeed a collector's
item. starring, as it does, the last probable
presentation of the Soviet Navy, still under the
guise of The Russian Navy. It is quite probable
that a similar grouping of countries and ensigns
has not been seen since before the Second World
War. It would, therefore, be interesting to find
out if Jane's actually went back to their older
publications to determine some of the Flags and
Ensigns? On the other hand the inclusion of The
Yugoslav Navy. under the heading of
Yugoslavia and Croatia, was perhaps a slightly
premature assumption. given the present. tragic.
BOOK REVIEWS-11
events unfolding in Serbia and Croatia. The
Editor does, however, point to these changes
in his review, with a particularly interesting
analysis of the Black Sea and Baltic Fleet(s),
and the emerging Russian Navy(s). 1 wonder
how long it will be until Russian and Royal
Naval Officers are once again training alongside
each other?
When examining JFS, one tends to examine
one's own, and look for gaps or oversights in
the detail. Most arguments, concerning the
future deployment of Naval Forces, would agree
that most of these engagements are likely to be
high profile and low tech. One of the roles being
examined for the Royal Navy is indeed to return
to 'Pirate Patrol', in the South China Seas. In
both the Falklands and, to a greater extent, The
Gulf, the importance of Mine Warfare was
clearly demonstrated. Without the RN MCM
efforts in The Gulf, the elongated logistical line
would have been unable to provide the vital role
that they came to play in the relief of Kuwait.
An important part of the Royal Navy's success
in this area has been the inclusion of the
Hydrographic Fleet, working closely alongside
the MCM Flotillas, and providing- essential
support and expertise in Precise Navigation
(PN). You do not come lower tech than North
Korean Mines. built in the 50s. from 1914 and
1940 designs. Any smart 'Pirate' is going to
conclude the same. If the Royal Navy is about
to embark seriously upon 'Pirate Patrol', then
it is likely to require more than the odd Frigate,
and quite possibly the inclusion of the odd
Minesweeper. or two. within the patrol.
JFS makes little, if any. reference to the
importance of the smaller Ships and the
MCMIHydrographic relationship that has
evolved over recent years. When examining
details of these vessels no mention is made of
their navigation systems. or the Navigation
Processors (NAVPACS) used to evaluate this
information. Fitted to the ageing TONS is. in
fact, one of our better NAVPACS. known as
the QX3. and used to interface PN systems with
the Command and Sonar displays and to operate
the Sonar: a type of Command System in itself.
not dissimilar to the highly sophisticated system.
known a SIPS, that is fitted to Hydrographic
vessels and in fact does get a mention. Generally
JFS tends to concentrate more of its efforts and
273
details on the large ships in the Fleet, the
Frigates and Destroyers. This leaves me slightly
wary that similar, albeit minor, oversights may
have been made in other areas, and in other
Fleets? Perhaps JFS needs to examine again the
details that they have taken for granted for so
long, and to update their data base accordingly.
As a professional Engineering Officer I work
to two overriding principles, the first 'that if it
works it does not need fixing', and the second
(almost a reverse of the first) 'that if it is
working where will it go wrong?'. Generally
the technician can tell you the first, but it takes
a trained Engineer to spot and remedy the
second. It is this information that I looked for,
but did not find in JFS. What is the reliability
of a Meko Frigate, when compared to a Type
23, for instance, or of one weapon system over
another? Perhaps this is getting closer to
espionage than JFS would care to be, or that
this type of information is available in other
Jane's publications. Nevertheless it should be
possible to provide details of the Docking and
repair cycles for different classes of ships.
Information that in itself would provide a clue
as to the inherent reliability and maintainability
of the Ship.
Most ships can expect a life of 25 years, about
a generation. The construction and manning of
navies is, indeed, a Generational cycle. Given
this as a basis, and combined with the known
number of existing ships and those in build, it
should be possible for JFS to make a projection,
given certain criteria, of the size of the major
Fleets into the future, say over the next 15 years
or so. A graph could make this information
particularly visible. It should also be possible
to provide an estimate about the peace time level
of activity for a particular Fleet, ie the number
of Frigates, Submarines etc, available at any one
time. I found that one of the most interesting
statements, when looking at the Nigerian Navy.
was the fact that the armament for two of its
modern vessels (commissioned in 1980) was
non-operational. It takes a sophisticated nation.
with full support and backup from ashore, to
keep a Fleet at Sea for any length of time. One
of my concerns, for the Royal Navy, is that this
infrastructure has been critically denuded over
recent years. Perhaps JFS might also comment
on this aspect. when evaluating the performance
I
BOOK REVIEWS-I1
form or another, directed by economically and
militarily vigorous peripheral powers, indicates
a flaw. Containment of burgeoning continental
(or heartland) powers was for generations a
British speciality, inherited by the USA. During
the 1950s it found an American cold-war
architect in George Kennan, with strategic
nuclear underpinnings which he subsequently
(1978) denounced. In the event, the USSR,
profoundly defensive to a degree that was
stultifying militarily and ruinous economically,
failed even at the height of its powers to justify
Mackinder's ideas.
By ill fortune, Neville Brown was writing just
before the USSR disintegrated. He offers
nonetheless some imaginative post Cold War
thinking for the newly uncertain strategic
criteria. He starts with a thoughtful review of
evolving western attitudes to the military
element of its political inventory, speculating
whether refined culture and effectiveness are
inseparable. There follows an evaluation of
future military trends. This re-emphasises the
difficulties of the topic and holds rather less
water than MOD attempts familiar to many of
us. The maritime prognosis contains
simplifications echoing the Nott era.
To the layman, the strongest section of the
book deals with climatic aspects and the quest
to predict environmental change. Historical
perspectives are ,well sustained. The huge
uncertainty of global warming first-order
effects, let alone second and third, makes only
too clear the magnitude of our dilemmas. We
are taken through a well-ordered, crossreferenced review of the demand/resources
simultaneous equation.
The concluding chapters on 'Strategy
Unbound',
'Geopolitics and Beyond',
'Defended Peace' and 'Planetary Horizons' are,
relatively, less focussed. Rather than pulling
threads together under these grand themes into
a global strategic plan, they impress as a series
of essays. Since the author merely offered
'Thoughts', this reservation is perhaps unfair;
but the opportunity has been missed. The text
throughout shows occasional signs of haste and
incomplete editing.
In sum, a vital subject on a gigantic scale,
scholarly, intensely relevant, well marshalled
and readable in the main, but falling short of
&
275
a masterpiece due, quite probably, to pressures
of time. An essential handbook nonetheless for
those with a rational interest in their
grandchildren's
wellbeing.
Highly
recommended.
LARKEN
JEREMY
THE CHIEFS: THE STORY OF THE
UNITED KINGDOM CHIEFS OF STAFF
By General SIR WILLIAM
JACKSON
and
FIELDMARSHAL
LORDBRAMALL
(Brassey's (UK) - £30)
This outstanding book traces the development
of the staff system at the headquarters of each
of the three Services from the start of this
century until the eve of the Gulf War. It
describes how the Chiefs of Staff were gradually
persuaded to cease fighting for the interests of
their own Service against those of the other two,
and to meet in committee to present a joint
opinion to their political masters, a committee
which naturally needed one of them as its
chairman. It follows the relations of these
'chiefs' with the politicians - often difficult
when the former were battling for the means
they believed necessary for the security of the
national interests,
The authors are both distinguished soldiers,
one of them a former Chief of the Defence Staff,
but the three Services get impartial treatment,
with the characters of the great Chiefs of each
being brilliantly portrayed.
The supreme test of the efficiency of a staff
system is, of course, the manner in which it
functions in a major war. But in war the issues
are generally fairly clearly cut and finance is
not normally an obstacle to the supply of
essential needs. In peacetime, however, the
problems are in some respects more complex,
including, for instance, possible developments
in the international situation which might lead
to war and the available methods of conducting
it, and the organisation and equipment of each
of the three Services best suited to meet national
needs and commitments.
Strategy, as one might expect, figures
prominently in the book. As the authors point
out, since the days of Queen Anne there have
been two opposing schools of strategic thought,
one 'maritime' and the other 'continental',
which have vied with each other. Traditional
276
BOOK REVIEWS -11
British strategy has been maritime, and even up
till the outbreak of the First World War,
Haldane envisaged the expeditionary force of
six infantry and one cavalry divisions (which
was his conception) as a central military reserve
for use in support of British sea power. Yet due
to the influence of the all too articulate Director
of Military Operations, Major-General Henry
Wilson (later Field Marshal and CIGS), the BEF
went to France in support of the French Army,
and the nation was drawn into a continental war.
During that war, the only great chief of staff
was a soldier, Sir William Robertson, for the
functions of First Sea Lord and Chief of Naval
Staff were not combined until 1917. Robertson,
Chief of Imperial General Staff, had the almost
impossible task of dealing with devious and
untrustworthy Prime Minister, Lloyd George.
But the First World War did at least show that
political and military strategy were indivisible.
The lesson was learned, and there were never
such conflicts between Winston Churchill and
the Service Chiefs in the Second World War.
Churchill only rarely overruled the advice of
the Chiefs in a major matter.
The successful Chiefs of Staff Committee
under Churchill owed its origin to the Chanak
crisis of 1922, when all three Chiefs submitted
contradictory advice to the Government as to
the forces needed if the crisis deteriorated into
war with Turkey. It was obvious that concerted
Service opinion was essential, and a Chief of
Staffs Committee was established with one of
three Chiefs nominated by the Prime Minister
as Chairman. Its success was confirmed under
the admirable Chairmanship of Admiral Sir
Ernle Chatfield, who had as his aim the unity
of the three Services and the rebuilding of them
into a state of readiness for war. The result was
a team that so impressed the Americans, that
early in 1941 they set up a Chiefs of Staff
organisation themselves, which was very similar
to that of the British, and from this there arose
the Combined British and American chief of
Staffs Committee, of which the likeable Admiral
William Leahy USN was elected unanimously
as the neutral chairman.
The two committees, British and American,
frequently disagreed on strategy. General Sir
Alan Brooke, Chairman of the British Chiefs
of Staff Committee, saw the traditional British
maritime strategy as the proper way to employ
the British and American forces, whilst the
American Chief, General Marshall, in that
country's typical continental approach, wanted
a premature invasion of German occupied
France - a recipe for disaster.
After the war, unfortunately, inter-Service
squabbling returned, largely due to the mutual
dislike of Montgomery and Tedder. In a later
team of 1955 Templer and Boyle both distrusted
Mountbatten: in this case, with some reason,
for Mountbatten, a very ambitious man, looked
forward to an amalgamation of all three Services
under his leadership. The idea of one Service
is superficially attractive, so attractive that
Canada introduced it - with lamentable
consequences! As the authors point out, the
three Services operated in three separate
environments; and whereas unity of command
is important, when it comes to the composition,
organisation, and equipment of the Services,
advice is needed from the experts on operations
in each of these environments. The authors draw
attention to the Army analogy of separate arms
under one commander but with advisers from
them on his staff.
But due to the influence of Mountbatten and
successive Defence Ministers, such as Sandys
and Heseltine, the position of Chief of Defence
Staff was given even greater powers than that
of a Chairman of the Chiefs of Staff Committee,
including his own Central Staff, to the detriment
of the individual Service Chiefs. The authors,
indeed, seem to infer that the 'Options for
Change' review of recent times was worked out
by the Central Staff with little consultation with
the Chiefs of each Service.
The authors stress that the test of a major war
would bring out any weakness in a Chiefs of
Staff organisation, and as to how the present
system would stand up to that they do not know.
The greatest Chief of Staff in war has
undoubtedly been Field Marshal Lord
Alanbrooke, and the only criticism the authors
make of him is that he was impatient to a fault.
When Sir Alan Brooke (as he then was) was
commanding 2nd Corps (not I st, as the authors
state) in the Flanders campaign of 1940, I, as
a Signal officer, had occasional contact with
him. At a critical time during the withdrawal
we
lost
line
communications
with
BOOK REVIEWS -11
Montgomery's 3rd Division, which we were
trying to restore. At about midnight Sir Alan
Brooke asked me, the duty Signal Field Officer,
when he could speak to General Montgomery.
His need was obviously urgent, but there was
no impatience in his reply to my time estimate;
he just said, 'Thank you'.
Under Brooke the Chiefs of Staff Committee
proved itself to be the finest war winning system
for command and control that has ever yet been
devised. The authors, in their Epilogue, make
the point that: 'The final argument in favour of
curtailing the swing away from the Chiefs of
Staff system is that if an effective military voice
is to be heard in national affairs, the Chief of
the Defence Staff needs to be seen to be able
to call upon the full support of his professional
colleagues, each at the head of his Service and
with its full weight behind him.'
The following statement, slightly earlier in
the book, seems to summarise the manner in
which the Armed Forces should be handled in
war. 'The principle of not giving power to those
who do not hold responsibility for executive
action is still as true in the 1990s as it was in
Churchill's and Alanbrooke's day. . . When
men are fighting for their lives, there must never
be any blurring of the executive lines of
responsibility. '
HUGHROGERS
COLONEL
WITH THE CARRIERS IN KOREA
by LIEUT.CDRJ. R. P. LANSDOWN
(£ 18.50 plus £2 postage and packing from the
author at 'Greenhills', 200 Old Bath Road,
Cheltenham GL53 9EQ)
Naval participation in the Korean War was
dedicated to support of the land battle. There
was no challenge to the command of the sea
established from the outset by the naval forces
of the United Nations which were able to
transport troops and supplies, bombard enemy
positions, carry out amphibious landings and
launch offensive air strikes from the carriers
without intervention. All this is well chronicled
in Lieut. Cdr Lansdown's book and the part
played by all the surface ships in the various
Task Forces is given good coverage. No less
than 6 cruisers and over 40 destroyers and
frigates of the Royal and Commonwealth navies
277
took part.
The contribution made by the carriers of the
RN and RAN may have been small by
comparison with that of the US Navy but was
significant in broadening the base of the
response of the United vations to the invasion
of South Korea. It also demonstrated once again
the effectiveness of joint operations despite-the
occasional Command and Control problem.
Memories of the Korean War are too easily
lost in the shadow of Vietnam. This book not
only reminds us of the war itself, which started
less than five years after the end of World War
II, but specifically of the part played by the Light
Fleet Carriers and the Squadrons embarked
which were at the heart of the naval force. There
can be few front-line pilots at the time who did
not take part and they bore the brunt of the
losses. They alone provided the United
Kingdom's offensive air contribution to the UN
forces throughout the three long years. The
carriers had never worked with such effect nor
at such a high daily sortie rate. It was, by any
comparison, including that of the much bigger
USN carriers, an outstanding achievement
which had a lasting effect on the operating
efficiency of the Fleet.
The author opens with an introduction Prelude to War - which sets the scene well
enough in its first four pages. He then goes on
to comment on subsequent phases of the war,
specific aircraft accidents and the effect of the
weather which really do not belong here. But
one of the difficulties of his narrative approach,
which is in essence a sortie by sortie account
of each carrier's operations in the forward area,
is the problem of explaining to a wide readership
the cause and effect of each incident reported.
Appendix F offers some useful technical
information on flight deck machinery and
aircraft embarked but a broad explanation of
how a carrier actually operates her aircraft
would have helped.
It is never easy to position the contribution
of an individual unit in an overall tactical picture
and the case of the carriers is no exception.
Although chopping the narrative back and forth
between the flight deck and the land battle is
at times uneven, the author gets into his stride
after the first few chapters and handles the
interface with considerable skill. Apart from
278
BOOK REVIEWS-I1
certain set-piece operations such as the Inchon
landings, which launched the first major
counter-attack resulting in the re-capture of
Seoul and driving the North Korean army back
to the 38th parallel, and the sensational first
encounters with the MiG 15s in air-to-air
combat, the work of the aircrews could be both
monotonous and unrewarding. There was very
often little to be seen of the enemy, little to be
seen of the results of an attack and frequently
a high price to be paid. Because operations were
mainly close air support, flying intensity was
constant; there were no troughs and peaks, only
the steady grind of support missions flown
throughout the day, every day.
The author captures the mood and laces the
routine reports with individual recollections.
Chapter 12 is a very particular example. By
devoting chapters to the carriers for each of their
operational periods, even coverage is given to
all despite some of the carriers - for example
Glory and Ocean - spending more time on
station than the others.
Among the many sources consulted in
compiling this book the author includes
Squadron Line books. These provide a rich
seam of information but as they seek to entertain
as much as to record they tend to be anecdotal
and seldom place more than light hearted
emphasis on events others may come to consider
of -historical importance. High drama is
invariably played down, and rightly so, but it
is often hard for the researcher to get the balance
right. Some readers may feel their personal
experiences are less than adequately covered:
what may have appeared to have been a routine
operation in that no aircraft or aircrew were lost
may have been full of danger and drama for
individual aircrew. Many of these events are
well reported, some no doubt will have been
missed, but not many. The author knows his
Line Books and has chosen well. Taken with
other personal records and reports he has
achieved a readable blend and a sensible result.
The first chapter on operations places
Triwnph on a summer cruise to Japan and makes
no reference to why, after a gap of nearly four
years, there was once again a carrier in the Far
East. It would perhaps have interested readers
to be reminded that the carriers had been
withdrawn at the end of the Pacific War because
an organic air capability for the Far East Fleet
was deemed unnecessary. Until, that is, the
Amethyst became trapped in the Yangtze River.
Triumph, just at the start of a two year
deployment in the Mediterranean for what had
every appearance of being an attempt to return
to the old pre-war operating cycle and with
families happily ensconced in Malta, was
ordered to sail with all despatch and arrived in
Hong Kong in early September 1949. Thereafter
the ship alternated between China Sea
operations and the Singapore area when the
squadrons were employed extensively in an antiterrotist role in Malaysia.
Unicorn gets good coverage in later chapters
(12 and 13) but her role was vital right from
the start. She sailed from the UK in September
to support Triumph in the absence of any back
up facilities ashore on the Far East station. It
would also have been valuable to hear more
about those who maintained the aircraft in
Unicorn and in all the Task Force carriers. Their
herculean efforts are mentioned but I did not
get a true feel for the depth of the commitment
of the engineers, the air mechanics and all the
other specialists in every aspect of operations.
Their technical achievement was outstanding,
the hours worked unrecordably long, their
dedication absolute. From the frontline
mechanics and armourers to the parachute
packers, they were all only too aware how often
their equipment would be used. The author
played a distinguished part as the Air Engineer
Officer of one of the embarked squadrons and
this may have been why he chose to be so
restrained about their fine performance.
Many aircrew, American as well as British
and Commonwealth, and also some senior
Commanders at times questioned the
risWreward ratio in this distant war. But morale
remained high, leadership was tough but
understanding and the author has portrayed this
feeling of frustration and boredom, particularly
towards the end of the second and through the
third and final year, clearly and sympathetically.
The book contains a number of good
photographs but would have benefitted from
better maps: many place names are mentioned,
too many are unmarked. There is a wealth of
tables, statistics and crew lists in the appendices
and, while it is possible to find errors and
BOOK RE\ 'IEWS -11
279
omissions which contrast with the text, there analyse and write a most thorough study of the
seem to be few. These are minor criticisms. collision and the subsequent Royal
Lieut. Cdr Lansdown has produced a splendid Commissions. It is very readable and clearly set
and detailed record of the part played by the out, being fully supported by some 20 tables and
Light Fleet carriers in the Korean War. Those diagrams presented in evidence, as well as over
who served in these operations may be tempted 1,000 document
references
and
a
to read only those chapters which cover their comprehensive list of all those in any way
individual participation. I hope they will resist. involved. This book is of particular interest to
They, and the wider readership which this book those who might be concerned in the legal side
fully deserves, should read from cover to cover. of maritime collisions and (the RAN'S great
failing then) the handling of politicians and the
It is greatly rewarding.
JOHNTREACHER media in times of trouble. It also highlights the
Note: The author has asked us topoint out that complications arising when an enquiry is in the
three errors which appear on the contents page hands of the judiciary with counsel on all sides
of the book were not seen by him in prooj He and media reports putting every witness on the
national stage. In this review I am going to
takes responsibility for any others.
confine my remarks to the collision and the
WHERE FATE CALLS:
relevant evidence as to why it probably
THE HMAS VOYAGER TRAGEDY
happened. Let me start now by summarising the
by TOM FRAME
events at sea as seen from the bridge of
Melbourne. Few survived from Voyager's
(Hodder & Stoughton - $A32.95)
On the evening of 10 February, 1964, during bridge area and the evidence of these ratings was
HMAS Melbourne's first night flying exercise apt to be confusing.
* * *
after a refit, she sliced in two HMAS Voyager,
which had turned across her bows en route to
Both ships were just out from refit and about
her planeguard station. The destroyer and 82 to work up before an operational deployment
men were lost. It was Australia's worst in the Singapore area to confront potential
peacetime disaster and it followed a series of Indonesian aggression. Neither had carried out
naval accidents over the few years which had night manoeuvres in company. Captain Duncan
cast doubt, both public and political, about the Stevens on Voyager's bridge had been in
Navy's efficiency and the Navy Board's ability command for a year but both his (N) and OOW
to put its own house in order. Prime Minister were new to the ship. On the bridge of
Menzies wasted no time in announcing that Melbourne (a flagship) Captain John Robertson
'there will be a full public investigation and all the Officers were new to the ship; the
conducted by a judge' . . . 'the normal Admiral was not onboard. Although he had not
machinery for Naval investigations is been to sea for three years Robertson had been
inadequate. . .' The Royal Commission (with Exec of the carrier Glorious and commanded
full press reporting) took six months to produce a destroyer when a Captain. The evening of 10
a woolly answer with unanswered questions and February was calm and clear so not surprisingly
some smears. Media and Parliamentary disquiet Melbourne was having trouble getting enough
continued as fresh evidence and dirt was wind over the deck for 'touch and go' with shore
unearthed until a further Royal Commission was based aircraft. Voyager'splaneguard station was
held in 1967 which in its turn was not much R160 which was ordered on a Flying course of
more fruitful. Looking back the author considers 180 and put her on bearing 020 from
that although painful for the RAN at the time Melbourne. After trying several other Southerly
with Voyager acting as a long running soap headings without success Melbourne sent the
opera there was useful spin-off in that the Navy aircraft back to base and with a TURN 020 tried
Board had to improve its act and did so.
to find the desired wind in the opposite
Tom Frame, still only 30, is an exceptionally direction.
A Northerly wind it is. The time is 205 1 and
gifted RAN officer who was allowed time and
full access to records and archives to research, the ships have been on course 060 for some
BOOK REVIEWS - I1
4 minutes with Voyager about 1400yds fine on
Melbourne's port bow. The decision is made to
carry out Flight Operations; 020 TURN STANDBY - EXECUTE
immediately followed by
FOXTROT CORPEN 020 TIME 2053
On the carrier bridge they watched for
Voyager, now bearing about 05S0, to move to
her new Planeguard station of 240" from
Melbourne. She turns a little to Starboard,
steadies and then starts turning slowly to Port.
Reactions on the carrier bridge started at 2055
in the following sequence:Fleet(N):
'CHRIST! WHAT IS VOYAGER DOING.
HALF ASTERN BOTH ENGINES'
Robenson: 'FULL ASTERN BOTH
ENGINES'
Tac Operator: 'WEARE W I N G TO HIT
HER. '
At 2056 Melbourne hit Voyager, now heading
about 250, on her portside at the after end of
the bridge. She was cut in two.
An account of what happened onboard
Voyager is largely based on the evidence of the
Tactical Operator (Evans). The other bridge
survivor was a newly joined 0 . D at Port
lookout, keeping his first watch, who at the last
minute had shouted to the OOW. The first
important point is that the bridge Loudspeaker
on Tactical Primary was unreadable at 20 knots
and Evans reported all signals to the OOW and
apparently to no one else although Stevens and
his Yeoman must have heard the reports. On
receipt of the FOXTROT CORPEN the OOW
started altering to Starboard only to be
countermanded by his Captain who would
appear to have been of the opinion that both
ships were turning together to a Westerly
course. The Captain, (N) and Yeoman then
disappeared into the Chart table with ATP- 1,
to sort out what the last signal
meant. On hearing the lookout's shout the
Captain reappeared and ordered Hard a
Starboard, full ahead - but far too late.
*
*
adviser he had Captain Peek, ex-Carrier Captain
who was expected to be promoted Admiral
shortly. He had others including a Merchant
Navy man. The Navy Board, Stevens family and
others all had their own Counsels with
supporting staffs. The RAN view was that
Voyager had turned the wrong way and was
entirely to blame; the only question was why?
Smyth saw otherwise and made every effort to
pin some blame on Melbourne (should have seen
collision coming and transmitted some form of
warning - voice or siren) and the RAN for
using unclear communication procedures, lack
of training etc. There were questions also about
planeguard operations to which varying answers
were given to the Commission. Perhaps you,
the reader, would like to try them? Firstly, what
should Voyager's bearing have been at 2052
noting that the last actual course into the wind
had been 190? Secondly, should Voyager have
started moving to her planeguard station at 2052
or awaited a TURN FOXTROT or CB l?
*
The first Royal Commissioner (Spicer) was
a respected judge who had conducted a number
of comparable civilian enquiries - air and
maritime. His leading counsel (and hatchet man)
Smyth came from the Sydney bar. As naval
In his report which was published at the end
of August Spicer criticised Robertson in that he
had not alerted Voyager by passing '. . . some
signal. . .' as soon as he detected that she was
BOOK REVIEWS - I1
turning to port and acting dangerously. In fact,
to quote the author, 'Spicer had concluded that
Robertson did not take all reasonable steps to
avoid danger, and had been negligent.' To an
extent he had also hazarded his own ship. The
Fleet(N) and OOW were also criticised. In
defence of Robertson it must be added that he
said in evidence that he thought Voyager might
have been doing a 'fishtail' to lose bearing and
would then go under his stern.
The Commission came to no firm conclusions
to explain Voyager's turn to Port. Due to
mismanagement by the Navy Board Captain
Robertson left the Navy in disgust and without
a pension. It was a complex story which aroused
much public sympathy in particular when it was
alleged that Stevens of Voyager was too fond
of the bottle! A second Royal Commission was
set up in 1967 to investigate this and also, if
found true, to examine what effect this would
have on the findings of the previous
Commission. To the Navy Board's
embarrassment it was found that for 'medical'
reasons Stevens should not have been in
Command at all. This made more likely the
theory that there' was confusion on Voyager's
bridge perhaps because the signal was wrongly
reported as FOXTROT CORPEN 220; even so
would a 'normal' Captain leave an untried OOW
alone during such a manoeuvre? It is plausible
that during the turn from 020 to West the OOW
assumed the carrier was turning as well - he
would continue to see her Green light, note that
the bearing remained about constant and at first
not realise that her range was closing. Had
Melbourne made a voice warning or better five
or more short flashes it would have alerted him
and perhaps avoided collision. However the
Commission, this time with three judges, found
that the Melbourne bridge team were in no way
to blame.
End of story? No! Let me give you a
postscript. In June 1968 HMAS Melbourne took
part in joint exercises with the USN. At 0300
a US Destroyer ahead of her on the screen was
ordered to take planeguard station astern. She
turned the wrong way across the carrier's bows.
A radio warning message was made but to no
avail. Melbourne's wheel was put hardover to
avoid collision but at the same time the destroyer
altered course violently so the inevitable
28 1
occurred. The ship and 74 men were lost. Her
Captain was turned in and 2 unticketed officers
were on watch.
SPENCERDRUMMOND
CAPTAIN,
RN
ATTACK ON MARITIME TRADE
by NICHOLASTRACY
(Macmillan - f 45.00)
Dr Tracy has taken on a mammoth task here.
If, as Richmond and Corbett said in their various
ways, and Mahan on some analyses came close
to saying, Sea Power is essentially the ability
to control sea communications, then Tracy is
trying to cover almost the whole of a thousand
years' history of maritime conflict, pressure and
influence in a book of 245 pages.
The subject is not only wide, it is also
complex. There are two sides to any economic
method of conducting conflict, the damage
inflicted on one's opponent and the advantage
- or at least the damage-limitation - achieved
by oneself. Neither is cost-free, and opportunity
costs arise at every point of the process; and
there is always the danger of alienating neutrals.
Tracy is particularly good at pointing out that
the balance is seldom clear-cut, very difficult
to calculate in advance and often hard to analyse
even in hindsight.
Given the complexity and size of the subject,
it is no wonder that the condensation of his facts
and arguments is at times extreme, and that the
reader is often left groping for the conclusion
of any particular passage. This is not helped by
what this reader found a tendency to dart about
within a period; chapter headings are
chronological all right, but facts within them
turn up sometimes at unexpected places, and
summaries often seem to appear before the
evidence on which they are based is presented.
This is a transatlantic tendency that maybe is
becoming more prevalent, and this reviewer at
least finds it confusing.
Tracy's main conclusions are however well
expressed in a succinct final chapter that repays
careful reading. I do not agree with all of it.
In particular, his statement that 'the sporadic
raiding of the trade routes by submarine was
not decisive in either World War' is only one
half of the story, in two senses: first, it does
not take sufficiently into account the economic
282
BOOK RE\'IEWS -11
crippling of Japan which he well documents in
earlier chapters; second, it does not pay enough
attention to the importance of tempo (in the chess
sense) in the Atlantic campaign, for had the
Allies been two more steps behind in early 1943,
then we might have learnt a new application of
'decisive'.
But, particularly in this last chapter, Tracy
has much to say that is salutary about the balance
of advantage in trade warfare, and a proper
modification of any Mahanian extremism. We
shall need to go on playing the percentages as
best we can in a changing world environment,
and nothing should escape our analysis, from
new forms of mercantilism on the one hand to
the staggering problems of conducting aid and
famine relief by sea (if that is what the world
decides it wants to do) on the other. Between
those, as Tracy says, 'economic warfare may
continue to have appeal in the nuclear age'.
It is seldom that this reviewer picks up
misprints, but I am bound to say the
proofreading in this book is well below
Macmillan's usual standard and (thoroughly
letting down a Canadian author) the French and
Latin are both wrong in places. And I very much
liked the reference to a chap called Normal Hill
on page 158. It takes all sorts.
RICHARD
HILL
U-BOAT ACE:
The story of Wolfgang Liith
By JORDAN
VAUSE
(Airlife - f 15.95)
Wolfgang Luth survived four years in U-boats,
became a full Captain in the German Navy and
was awarded the Knight's Cross of the Iron
Cross with Oak Leaves, Swords and Diamonds,
the highest award for valour, only to die from
a sentry's bullet, and that sentry was a German.
Surely the Valkyrie, appointed to bear to
Valhalla the bodies of dead warriors, were all
present at his funeral on 16 May 1945.
This book was first published in 1990 by the
United States Naval Institute Press and the
author is a graduate of the US Naval Academy.
In consequence one must suppress one's
irritation at the stern being referred to as the
fantail and the German Navy having 'battled the
Royal Navy to a standoff at Jutland', which
allows one even to accept the geographical
solecism of the Moray Firth being on the west
coast of Scotland!
For this is an interesting book about an
interesting man. The author tries to suggest to
us initially that here is a dyed-in-the-wool Nazi:
one who had no idea of the misery he so often
inflicted on the crews of sunken ships, nor did
he care. It is as well to recall these comments
made by Admiral Donitz at the Nuremburg
Trials in 1946 before passing judgement. 'I had
preached to my U-boat commanders for five and
a half years that they should be hard towards
themselves. And when giving this order I again
felt I had to emphasise to them in a very drastic
way my whole concern and grave responsibility
for the submarines, and thus the necessity of
prohibiting rescue activities in view of the
overwhelming power of the enemy air force.
After all, it is very definite that on one side there
is the harshness of war, the necessity of saving
one's own submarine, and on the other the
traditional sentiment of the sailor!'
Luth's survival may have been due to the fact
that he sank half his ships in the South Atlantic
and Indian Ocean where ships were less
protected and the weather better. His second
patrol lasted 203 days. Your reviewer can vouch
for this fact because he was in the area himself
during Liith's second patrol, in 1943, in the
Indian Ocean and Mozambique Channel, in a
Fleet destroyer, chasing him without success!
The author compares Luth to Gunther Prien.
who sank the Royal Oak. Whilst Prien was loud,
Luth was quiet, moreover he was loved by his
men. One of the most successful U-boat
captains, Otto Kretschmer, who survived the
war, regarded Luth as essentially an equal.
During his time in the Atlantic the author
credits Luth with sinking the armed merchant
cruiser Cheshire, but in fact she did not sink
and was beached in Belfast Lough and repaired.
only to be torpedoed once again and survive.
All due to the thousands of empty oil drums in
her holds. Apart from this lapse the book is well
researched and has an index and many
interesting illustrations.
'Luth's style of leadership', says another Uboat ace Erich Topp in the Foreword. 'was
formed prin~arily by events far out of the
ordinary in the U-boat war: long voyages
. . . that lasted anywhere from two to seven
BOOK REVIEWS -11
months'. This style he set out in a lecture he
gave as a staff officer, 'Problems of
Leadership', which has remained a minor
classic. he author invites us to decide whether
Liith was a hero or a villain. This is a book
worth reading in order to decide for yourself.
TAILYOUR
PATRICK
THEFARCORNERSOFTHEEARTH
(Coronet - £4.99)
THE STRENGTH OF THE HILLS
(Hodder and Stoughton - £14.99)
By ANDREWSINCLAIR
Andrew Sinclair's first two parts of his 'Empire
Quartet' go some way to explain the resilience
and dour nature of the ubiquitous Scotsman that
one finds in a myriad of roles throughout the
world.
He begins in 1835 by decribing how a farming
family of seven children, along with the rest of
the Sinclair clan, are cleared from the highlands
by the laird to make way for sheep and deer.
In desperation, the family strike out for the New
World in an over-crowded, disease-ridden
emigrant ship, leaving their two eldest sons
behind to enlist in the army.
Hence, suitably equipped with a highly
versatile medium. Sinclair uses the family
graphically to illustrate the historical milestones
of the 19th Century, and the contribution made
by the Scots in the building of the British
Empire. Whilst the core of the family just
survive a harrowing Atlantic crossing, and then
attempt to eke a living out of the dense forests
of Nova Scotia, one son finds himself wounded
whilst fighting the Russians at Balaclava, and
then nursed back to health by Florence
Nightingale. Meanwhile, the other son is in the
thick of the Indian Mutiny at Cawnpore and
Lucknow. By gradually developing the
characters and placing them strategically in
every area of interest to Britain around the
globe, Sinclair vividly conveys the suffering and
drama surrounding each episode. In this way
he sets the reader the ambitious challenge of
juggling up to six different events
simultaneously. He sets off at a fast pace,
moving swiftly from the desolation of Nova
Scotia and Northern Canada, via Lucknow, to
the sacking of the Summer Palace in Peking,
to Africa for battles in Abyssinia, West Africa
283
and in the Zulu War, to the American Civil
War, and on to South America building railways
over the Andes. He allows you to pause for
breath with Kitchener fighting the dervishes in
Egypt and the Sudan, before returning you to
Africa for the start of the Boer War and a
meeting with Churchill as a war correspondent.
He concludes with a final sprint through the
1887 Fleet Review, and Queen Victoria's
Diamond Jubilee of 1897.
Sinclair's second book, The Strength of the
Hills,continues the family saga, moving on
from the eight major characters in the first book,
to introduce another 24, encompassing the next
generation of Sinclairs. However, he makes the
task easier to follow by restricting his narrative
to a smaller circuit comprising London, India,
South Africa and Canada. He then concentrates
our attention far more on the characters and the
drama within the family, as influenced by the
backdrop of the Boer War, the birth of the
Suffragette Movement, sail giving way to steam
and the development of seaplanes in the Royal
Navy, and the beginning of the First World War
'leading to Zeppelins over London.
Sinclair is a social historian who has
embarked on a mammoth task in historical
coverage, in addition to the construction of a
family saga. By merging the two tasks he faces
the third and even greater challenge of making
them balance, in being faithful to historical fact,
in conjunction with the unfurling of a tangible
fictional saga with characters of depth and
plausibility. In the first novel the combination
requires an element of 'that willing suspension
of disbelief; however the second novel's more
limited series of historical events makes
Sinclair's task easier, and consequently enables
him to spend longer on each scene giving it
greater conviction and credibility.
Both books have a romantic picture of a couple
in a clinch with a sunset in the background, which
would probably produce guffaws and ribald
laughter in most Wardrooms. However 'never
judge a book . . . etc.,' and fight the instinctive
Naval Officers' instant aversion to Mills and
Boon book covers! Notwithstanding the Tardislike sweep through time, the Scots' idiomatic
dialogue, and the grim events of the first quarter
of the saga, both books are thoroughly absorbing, fast moving, and an uncomplicated
284
BOOK REVIEWS -11
introduction to the major historical events of the take a mensa intellect to realise very early on
last century. As such they are both worthwhile, the nature of the sting in the tail; it takes
albeit light-hearted, additions to the Wardroom Honeycombe over 200 pages to tell the reader
(rather theatrically) what had been blindingly
library.
TONYJOHNSTONE-BURTobvious to him for at least the preceding 150.
COMMANDER,
RN
Were I not reviewing, I would have lost patience
and put the book down long before I was half
way through. That, to be fair, would have been
SIREN SONG
a pity, for once the author has released the
by GORDONHONEYCOMBE
reader from his agony by telling him what he
(Hutchinson - f 16.99)
Gordon Honeycombe may be better known to already knows, the reader's attention is focused
most of us as a newscaster (ITN, 1965-77 and more intently on wondering how Honeycombe
TV -AM, 1984-89) and television narrator will extract his lead characters from the melee
rather than an author or playwright. In my least into which he has (with an extraordinary amount
charitable moments as I waded my way through of detail) woven them. In that process there are
Siren Song, I found myself reflecting that his some surprises, some credible glimpses of the
foray into writing fiction might have been a frailty of human relationships and even some
mistaken diversification; I was surprised to read mild excitement in store for the reader; in short,
on the fly sheet, therefore, that this is his it gets better, albeit necessarily so, from the
long, tedious and perspicacious first half. There
eleventh book (not all novels). I say 'mistaken',
because it seems to me that while in factual are also, however, some passages where
accounts it is primarily the subject matter which description of the development of a passionate
holds the reader's attention (given an adequate relationshiop gives way quite unnecessarily to
ability to write interestingly), in fiction it has gratuitous smut; designed perhaps to shock or
to be more the author's ability to consume the titillate, it succeeds only in irritating.
The Naval context is curious. It provides a
reader with his style and imagination. There can
be no denying Honeycombe's imagination in basis (of sorts) for a story which would
Siren Song, which verges on the incredible; but otherwise be beyond all reasonable bounds of
his style, for all his valiant attempts to emulate credibility and it gives the reader a rather
the compulsion of Alistair Maclean or Frederick necessary break from the daily surfeit of
Forsyth, resembles for large parts of the first amorous tripe which David and Diana pour out
half of the book a rather bored newscaster telling to each other while the story develops (at a
pedestrian pace). While not grossly inaccurate,
us about a rather dull piece of news.
Before I am too critical, I can do no better however, the passages describing life at sea in
than quote the fly sheet: 'Siren Song is a story, an aircraft carrier, warts and all, are (perhaps
stranger than fiction, of David, a young sailor not surprisingly) simplistic and thin; they might
on the aircraft-canier HMS Ark Royal, who falls interest the lay enthusiast for matters maritime,
in love with a girl he has never met . . . many but they are-about as interesting to a Naval
complications, dramas and even deaths ensue Officer as a Midshipman's journal!
I may not have succeeded in my attempt not
. . . and a story so bizarre as to be almost
unbelievable in which nothing is as it seems . to be too critical; it is difficult to imagine a book
. . this finely imagined recreation presents a tale less to my taste. But Honeycombe has compiled
of extremes of love and betrayal, of sexual a tome which is nothing if not different and
intrigue and deception, in which farce and which will be food and drink to a middle-aged
tragedy are inextricably mixed. It is also a housewife who needs a break from women's
riveting tale of the basic and sometimes brutal magazines, Neighbours, Eastmders, Hotne and
existence of a sailor's life on a warship . . .' Away and Brookside; in the unlikely event of
True, largely, although the use of the word her being a reader of the Naval Reriew,
'riveting' is somewhat flattering. Personally, however, I do not recommend that she is
nothing would make me put a book down more tempted if she has a young son at sea!
IANWELLESLEY-HARDI
quickly than such a description but I dutifully
RN
COMMANDER.
plodded on. Plodded is the word. for it doesn't