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Leaving
Aden aboard SS China
As with most commissions, the end was both welcome and
sad. Although the real Mecca was half way down the Red Sea, our Mecca
was Aden. That is where I said goodbye to officers and men who had tolerated
me for rising two years; the ebullient Gunner; the shrewd little Welsh
Doctor; the outstanding cheerful Pilot; the rogue elephant First Lieutenant,
alternately kind and terrifying; the quiet little Captain who kept himself
so much to himself; and my favourite petty officer, Tozer. I was quite
ready for England as I mounted that long gangway into the homeward bound
P & O Mail boat "China". I would have liked to bid my friends
in Egypt farewell too, but homeward bound mail ships don't dally, even
through the Canal.
Overlooking the Canal at Port Tewfik, in a lovely hospitable
house, lived the French Chief Engineer of the Canal. His daughter and
I thought vaguely, we were in love, until the great liner flashed past
her veranda, and all I could offer was a limp wave. Half way up the Canal,
at the luscious haven, Ismailia, lived a cousin, married to Tommy, an
attractive, carefree, young Englishman in the Egyptian Police. His boss,
slightly older but also carefree, Billy, lived at Port Said. We had had
memorable parties in Clematis and ashore. Once, I stayed for the annual
Camel Derby at Ismailia. The favourite, which no Gippo bookie could touch,
was Tommy's white beast, a legacy from Lawrence of Arabia's Bedouins.
Tommy, Billy and I spent most of the night before the race staining that
camel with onion juice. We won a packet. Small wonder I was determined
to bid that gang farewell.
A short spell at Port Said was forecast for SS China.
In answer to a friendly Canal Pilot's message, the gang was waiting on
the jetty at Port Said.
It was a touching moment as we all drove down the jetty after the party
and, with tender farewells, I stepped into a felucca, and, said "China".
It was still more touching when the felucca man replied "China mafish,
China gone two hours"Ten days later, thoroughly in the red, but getting
pretty hot at washing smalls, I boarded the lesser P & O Nore, and,
believe it or not, won the "day's run" sweep twice. What are
Guardian Angels for? At Tilbury, when customs asked for my luggage, I
gave it to them, in a small parcel. But my nail biting didn't cease until
the official to whom I reported at the Admiralty, made it clear that he
neither knew nor cared of my existence. That Angel again?
Furthering Education at Cambridge
Then came a lucky, memorable interlude at Cambridge
University. As Rudyard Kipling, then Poet Laureate, put it and which I
illustrated for our 1922 Christmas Card * Our accelerated passage through
Osborne and Dartmouth had, naturally, left gaps in our education; academically,
mine still remains incomplete, for because of a built-in addiction to
cartooning and caricature a great deal of that time I should have spent
in the lecture rooms at Cambridge was passed in the editorial office,
one table, two chairs of "The Granta", the Cambridge University
magazine for which I became Art Editor. I can claim no circulation explosion
but I do, modestly, claim one sell-out. We published an article by an
infuriated Don, protesting that during May Week, the modern uncivilised
undergraduate had the effrontery to forsake the "hallowed river"
in favour of dancing, all day and all night. "What decadence"
he cried. It was my turn to compose the poster. I settled for "Don
says May Week is all balls"! The naval Eight which nearly bumped
its way to "Head of the River" and whose crew called themselves
"The Plymouth Brethren” a Plymouth Gin bottle mounted in their bow
worried the Wet Bobs, they just looked the other way. The Navy cooperated,
wholeheartedly, in "Operation Tutenkhamun", a beautifully organised
"Rag" centred on his tomb, which was the underground loo in
Market Square. We spent months, secretly tunnelling into it from strategic
points and what emerged from that dreary little dungeon to form the Grand
Excavation Procession, astonished the vast audience. I was about the 40th
Egyptian nanny pushing a mummified baby in a golden pram.
1923 Trinity Hall, Cambridge
When I went down from Trinity Hall in 1923, I specialised
in the branch of the Navy, which will always be nearest to my heart, Submarines.
Admitting to extravagant habits unsupported by private means, I still
remember how submarines and the extra pay they carried, fascinated. Today,
their discomfort would appal me; so would riding a motor bike. I will
be for ever grateful to those five vital marks which scraped me into,
and enslaved me for sixteen years to a life of cramped space, foul air,
machinery and noise where everyone knew everyone else from temperament
to smell. Other specialist branches often scoffed at the grubby, over
clad submarine sailor with his grimy cap flat aback and drooping fagend.
Come some ceremonial "do" when parade ground smartness was demanded,
the submariners showed that under those oily overalls was discipline and
pride. On "the day", it was invariably those men who were commended
for smartness. Submarining then was a human as well as a technological
way of life, full of individuals with character.
1941
A submarine was in harbour, slapping on some paint,
prior to a top brass inspection. It rained. The grey and black enamel
mingled and streaked down her sides into the sea. What did the skipper
do? He sent for a Bible and, to repay this injustice, he solemnly peed
on it in front of the crew. Everyone felt better. At sea, those closing
stages of a submarine attack: in a "pin drop silent" control
room, the skipper flat on his stomach on the deck, edging the periscope
up inch by inch for a last look at his target; a pause; his order, "Firedownperiscopesixtyfeet"
all in one word; the eerie compressed air "Choom" as the torpedoes
went. One skipper used to name his torpedoes. Instead of the usual preparative
order "Flood number one and two tubes", he would say "Give
Horace and Bert their hats and coats". He wasn't trying to be funny;
no one laughed; it came naturally. Another ignored attacking instruments
and laid off his torpedoes by eye, as if his target was passing pheasant.
He rarely missed. In wartime, submarines were nobody's friends. One, returning
from patrol in 1941, signalled that he expected to arrive at his homeport
at 1800, "if friendly aircraft will stop bombing me".
Like diamonds, submarine technique lasts forever. From
the outset of World War II to Convoy PQ17, as an escorter of convoys,
sent like many other ex-submariners as a thief to catch thieves, I instinctively
saw the attacking problems of Uboat skippers probably much the same as
they did, which often gave me chances to upset their tactics. Before PQ17
sailed, I hadn't killed a Uboat but, permitting myself a bronchial puff
at my elderly trumpet, I hadn't lost a ship either. Once in the submarine
service, there one remained, except for occasional breaks, which were
called penal servitude back to the navy proper.
HMS Tiger
My first of these stretches was a spell in the veteran
battle cruiser Tiger. After commanding a submarine, it was a bit humiliating
to return to "teak flogging", but, doubtless, it did us good
and brought me into sharp contact with a remarkable milestone; Tiger's
Captain Gordon Campbell, V.C. Going back to World War I, the great naval
historian, Arthur Marder, paints a frightening picture of the immediate
result of Germany's decision to launch "unrestricted" Uboat
warfare in January 1917. In desperation, an anti-submarine branch burst
open at the Admiralty, overburdened with ridiculous ideas of ineffectual
contraptions to hurl at Uboats. Remotely operated drums of Eno's Fruit
Salts were suggested, for example, to drive Uboats to the surface. Sea
lions were trained to follow propeller noises, only to be returned to
their zoos in disgrace when they failed to distinguish between British
and German propellers. At focal shipping points, surface Uboats were,
by then, merrily sinking merchantmen in dozens by gunfire.
With more sanity, Qships were introduced and not without
success. These were innocent looking merchant ships bristling with hidden
guns behind flaps, which let down when a Uboat had been lured to point
blank range. The Qship's lure power lay in her half sunken appearance
appealing to the Uboat captain for a coupdegrace. Their crews were brave
and highly trained men. Gordon Campbell, part bulldog, part man, became
a legendary Qboat skipper. In Dunraven Castle, while the Uboat approached,
one of his crew, a navy cricketer, paraded the upper deck disguised as
a "nanny" carrying a bomb in swaddling clothes, ready to bowl
down any passing conning tower hatch in reach.
Before our bemused Admiralty, eventually, resorted to convoying, the Uboat
captains prudently returned to diving and attacking with torpedoes which
put paid to Qships, but certainly not to Gordon Campbell; in HMS Tiger,
he chased us mercilessly, scared us stiff, drank like a fish, but those
who survived, loved him.
One day, on the bridge at sea, with that long yellow
tooth gripping that gurgling pipe, he said "Broome, I hear you've
had the impertinence to caricature your Captain; get it". I have
redrawn the two bulldog sketches from memory. Had I shown the first which
seemed to typify his contemptuous attitude to us watch keeping officers, it could well have been my last act in the Royal Navy. In two minutes
flat, I drew the second in my cabin. When, breathless, I handed it to
him on the bridge, he crunched it up and threw it overboard without comment.
Later, when I knew him better and feared him less, I gave him the original.
He framed it. Later still, he asked me to illustrate his book "My
Mystery Ships".
First Commission
Back in submarines, I served in many, including the
only RN submarine to have carried a floatplane. Then there were those
two submarine commissions on the China Station. The first, before my spell
in Tiger, when I was a submarine "drone", the second, later
as a skipper. These commissions spanned from 1924 to 1937, with a bite
out of the middle, which included a commission in Royal Oak with the Mediterranean
Fleet.
For the Orient, this was a reasonably peaceful period
with British prestige and business booming. The China Submarine Flotilla
consisted of a round dozen up-to-date boats, moving around within the
limits of WeiHaiWei, Japan, Malaya, Hong Kong and almost independent of
our China (cruiser) Fleet which we "attacked" from time to time
as it flashed by.
My first commission started with a jolt when I was woken
up at midnight to replace the First Lieutenant of submarine L8 who had
just shot himself. We sailed on schedule at dawn. Hong Kong was fun. My
father, in China before me, gave me some introductions to old friends,
valuable assets on a foreign station. How lucky, when shortly after my
arrival, all my father's friends were congregated at a large nearby dinner
table at the Hong Kong Hotel. Louis Broome's son approached, oozing ingratiation,
and nonchalantly helped himself to a mouthful of their salted almonds.
But they were sucked olive stones!
The station provided everything from typhoons to typhoid
with fun and lots of games in-between. Lots of sea time also, above and
below Eastern waters and sound advice from the solitary entry in my Captain's
standing order book: Fear God, honour the King and keep your bowels open.
On the other side of the milestone, throughout my visit, life revolved
around HMS Rainbow, my last and favourite submarine command. Two of her
other officers were to become legends in the war ahead; others would have
matched them had they survived.
For me, a far more pleasant awakening one morning than
my sudden appointment to L8, ten years previously. On this occasion, it
was to find the submarine flotilla captain ramming his brass hat round
my ears, having intercepted the half yearly promotions signal at 4am.
A pleasant social finish, too, in an age when farewell parties competed
for originality. We asked most of Hong Kong to lunch on top of Tai Moshan,
a neighbouring mountain of 2,500 feet. It was a stiff climb and many turned
back. With powerful glasses, from the summit, we rediscovered our true
friends.
Royal Naval College, Greenwich
For me, this sea borne cornucopia between the wars ended
when I joined the Royal Naval College, Greenwich as a newly promoted Commander
and fairly experienced submarine skipper, to attend a twelve months Staff
Course. Once again, Arthur Marder leaves no doubts that up to the end
of the First War, naval officers were taught nothing about strategy, tactics,
administration, staff duties, or even how to write. Senior officers rated
the study of such matters time wasting and that withering judgement unseamanlike.
At Greenwich, there we all sat, like battery hens, comfortable and well
fed, absorbing elementary principles and laying, instead of eggs, hypothetical
minefields and whatever. It gave our seaweed-coated brains a healthy jerk.
Lectures left us blinking and saying to ourselves "Well, well, there's
more to it than I thought". It was all interesting and enjoyable.
That clown within me enjoyed it too. Towards the end of the course, the
RN and Army Staff courses always had a gala get-together, either at Greenwich
or at Camberley; in 1938 it was our turn to be hosts. Gala week opened
with a full-scale paper invasion by the navy on an imaginary, sun scorched
beach in the Middle East, defended by the army. Both sides took it all
very seriously. The clatter of typewriters and copying machines grew deafening
as every detail was worked out to the last corkscrew. At 0930 on Day 1,
we all assembled in the biggest lecture room for Service Chiefs to open
the ball. The atmosphere was tense and sombre; sombre because current
lecturing technique demanded enormous sheets of black paper to be pinned
over diagrams which draped the wall, so we shouldn't be distracted before
their moment came. Under their covering, these huge diagrams were plans
of the four beaches, A, B, C, and D, on which our bloodless skirmish was
to take place. The army, naturally, knew all about the beaches, after
all they lived there. The navy knew nothing and were only allowed a few
moments to note their features. The Chiefs said their pieces and handed
over to the Instructors who grasped the bottom edge of the first black
sheet. In tense silence the signal was given, the drab covering billowed
to the floor, revealing not a diagram, but printed in large letters across
the blackboards: How dare you call my wife A BEACH.
WW2
Declared
I had two days' warning of the actual declaration of
World War II by missing a putt which my partner and I agreed would decide
the matter on Liphook Golf Course. For a week I sat at home biting everyone's
fingernails. What could be the delay? Here was I, a fully trained, paid
up, submarine pirate ... Then my phone rang, and Captain Ian Macintyre,
Chief of Staff to Admiral Max K. Horton, submarine ace of World War I,
and then in command of the Submarine Service, delivered his shattering
verdict. He ruled that as from the outbreak of war, 35 was the age limit
for sea service in submarines. I was 38, and mortified. How could we win?
This was a bitter blow. Here was my favourite navy branch, full of friends
amongst officers and men in which, by being promoted to Commander, I hadn't
done so badly; here was Admiral Max Horton, my God Admiral, flinging me
out.
Four years later, over a quiet drink after a needle
match on Hoylake Golf Course, Sir Max convinced me how right he was to
make that decision, but he never would have convinced me in 1939. I well
remember this bad news week. On leave, speechless, I was no company for
anyone until I met a similarly treated pal taking things more philosophically.
"They've given me an old Reserve Destroyer" he said "bristling
with antisubmarine gadgets. If I can't teach those bloody Uboats a thing
or two, I'll change my sex and join the Wrens". And so it came to
pass. A handful of us doddering antisubmarine specialists and ex-submariners
soon got similar appointments. Thieves to catch thieves. I suppose we
could have called ourselves Founder Members of World War II's convoy escort
racket, with any other odd job thrown in for destroyers are, essentially,
maids-of-all-work.
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