1914 - War Declared
1915 - Dartmouth College
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1917 - Off to Sea

Veteran damaged by Mine
For reasons unknown to us at the time, invasion didn't seem to materialise. Tension eased. Veteran was ordered to Chatham for a very overdue boiler clean. Meanwhile, our merchant shipping losses still mounted. While the Uboats concentrated on our ocean convoys, the Luftwaffe went for our coastal shipping with bombs and mines. We seemed to have the German magnetic mine under control; what else had they to offer? As we steamed peacefully up the Thames estuary, we found out. Mines could, we had been told, be fired acoustically by ships passing nearby. The sudden explosion and upheaval close on our port quarter proved it. It was a cruel shock to a lady of Veteran's years. It snapped the feet of her port turbine, not only putting it out of action, but allowing it to waltz round her engine room. It smashed her steering gear and started some formidable leaks. The mine that felt you coming was on the way out. The one that heard you had arrived. On the bridge, it was like a near miss from above which came from below. Measurement of time goes a bit haywire while deciding whether you, and/or your ship, are sinking. I have no idea how long I stood there, helpless, watching steam billowing out of the engine room, wondering who was dead. Gradually, reports trickled through from aft. No danger of sinking; no serious casualties; other engine OK.

Later came the giggle, which invariably follows drama. A bridge four had been in progress in the wardroom; the Gunner who took his bridge very seriously, was in the act of taking an important trick when he was hurled across the wardroom putting his fist through the wooden serving hatch but he never let go of the highest, and very bloody trump. All manmade weapons have counterparts and, in war, weapons emerging from the brains of Boffins on one side are only effective until their particular villainy is revealed to the opposite Boffins. As we struggled through the Chatham lock gates and into dock, we were met by a pack of eager Boffins, whimpering like hounds casting for scent. I don't know if they found any but, as suddenly as they appeared, they vanished, leaving me with a long questionnaire to answer in my report. When I reached a question asking if I heard any strange noises before the explosion, I gave up and drew the original of this sketch, with the caption: "We didn't, but it seems like the mine did." A ship surviving from any new type of fiendishness, naturally, becomes not only important and valuable evidence, but hot news from summit to sea level; my report and sketch were rushed to the Prime Minister. His Personal Assistant, Commander "Tommy" Thompson, an ex-submariner and once my Captain in HM Submarine L19, wrote me a note saying that when the PM got the sketch he was "not amused". Our Chatham dock "platform" provided a never to be forgotten view of the surrounding Battle of Britain. Spellbound, we wricked our necks raw, we cheered, we scored with chalk on a huge blackboard, as "The Few" gave their peak performances. When had Britons ever watched their extermination being thwarted, from their gardens, roofs, and dry docks?

In the autumn of 1940, with Veteran patched up and back in business, I left her for a brief spell in a job ashore. She and my experiences in her, had taught me a lot of convoy lore which, founded on the background of past wars, was vigorously adapting itself to deal with yet another desperate challenge. We must eat. We must fight which could be made possible by succeeding with a third "must", the achievement of the object of every convoy that sailed, its safe and timely arrival across contested water. The vital importance and the ever-growing attendant setbacks were making convoy escort duty with its high proportion of Reserve officers and men, a separate branch of the Navy.

Shore duty in Derby House, Liverpool
Of the regular RN officers, I was one of the few who had been in it from the start. My age and seniority now put me in a position which, if spared, would find me commanding larger escorts of more important convoys as the war progressed. My future seemed as simple as that. In the meantime, Admiral Sir Percy Noble had taken over as CommanderinChief Western Approaches operating from his new underground headquarters at Derby House, Liverpool. I had never served under Admiral Noble but knew of him in peacetime as an immaculate, popular diplomat. He certainly went to Derby House at a critical time, and took with him more than a Secretary in "Slosh" McBride, more than a Chief of Staff in Commodore Jack Mansfield, and more than a Staff Officer Operations in Commander John Litchfield who we meet again at sea.

At that moment, it struck me that whatever P. Noble might lack, he knew how to pick a Staff. Then he added me! No one had ever contemplated me seriously as a Staff Officer. In answer to the obvious question: "Then why waste time sending Broome on staff courses?" I come back with: "That is a good question, except that (a) I would have been even less use without that year at Greenwich; and (b) there are plenty of Greenwich Old Boys far more distinguished than I, who never even sniffed at a job afterwards." But, at least, I was the only chap on the staff who had been at sea since it all started; and, with a built-in distaste for staff officers who never go to sea, I was very glad to note, on arrival at Derby House, a placard hanging over the Operations Room bearing that quotation from Nelson reminding us all that the Navy ashore was the servant of the Navy afloat.

Another refreshing impression of this new convoy control centre was the spacious Operations Room, which contained The Plot, a floor to ceiling map of the Atlantic battlefield, showing all the convoys ploughing their various hazardous ways. Some unmolested, others under running attack with Uboat symbols clustered around them, sunken freighters strewn in their wake. In front of the map, hopping up and down ladders with mouths full of pins, spare hands full of symbols and tape, were the agile Wren plotters who kept the picture alive and up-to-date. At long benches behind them, were the operational watch keepers, sorting out signal information as it came in. Navy and RAF were, at long last, side-by-side. Behind them, across the floor, were glass-fronted rooms, with duty control officers, again RN and RAF side-by-side. Above these, overlooking the whole scene, were the CinC and the AOC Coastal Command with praise the Lord a communicating door. The redraw sketch I have slipped in here originated from personal observation of our courtly, spick, span and sexy Admiral. It concerns his personal observation as he directed operations from that crystal perch in the Operations Room, opposite the huge wall map.

Of all the Wren plotters who hopped up and down the sliding ladders, the luscious Wren Appleton was indisputably "Miss Plotter of Western Approaches". Whenever she ascended to northern latitudes, the Admiral was down his stairs and across the Operations Room floor like a streak of light. The Ops Room and Plot were always "at home" to escort skippers in harbour but it was not often possible for those based beyond Liverpool to call and have a look between convoys. Sometimes the picture, exaggerated by the absurdly unrealistic scale of the symbols used, looked disproportionately disturbing to a skipper of say a Halifax convoy, naturally, interested to see how his homeward bound predecessor was faring. The picture was, indeed, factually correct, but we hastened to remind visitors that, reduced to scale, those Uboat symbols would be actually invisible to the eye. Out there, in the Atlantic, in changing weather conditions which no plot could show, the SO Escort of that particular convoy might well be scaring the pants off those clustered Uboats and holding his own admirably. That plot was certainly a fine display, fed as smoothly and efficiently as human ingenuity could contrive, but the full story of these running or perhaps, at 7 knots, "walking” battles was by no means complete until the convoy, or what remained of it, was home and dry.

My first lesson at Derby House was that it was all too easy to look at a symbolic convoy being battered in mid-Atlantic, and say to oneself from personal experience: "Full moon, wind behind, two more Uboats reported closing from there and there. Why on earth doesn't he turn the convoy south? It looks all clear enough down there." The true facts, revealed in discussion with that particular SO Escort a week later, were that there was no moon, the convoy was hove to in a full gale, three escorts had temporarily lost touch and, in any case, as confirmed in the next Uboat situation report, those two Uboats were neither there nor there.

One object in writing this is to keep ramming home this basic fact which no improvement in "communications" can alter: the situation confronting the man on the spot will never be exactly the same as that visualised anywhere else. Another object could be to commend the rich flow of comic relief, which the ChiefofStaff, Commodore Jack Mansfield, always managed to inject into the relentless gloom of our daily staff meetings. If some of my sketches, which follow, helped to take the jagged edges off the critical moments we were all going through, it was Jack Mansfield with boot-faced seriousness to reassure him that there was nothing to laugh about, who sewed their seed, and promulgated them.

Take an example: On the agenda of one meeting, three items appeared. The first suggested that the large rooms allocated at the various convoy assembly ports, where escort and merchant skippers attended the all important conferences before their convoys sailed, should be reasonably furnished and decorated in a manner calculated to dispel rather than enhance gloom. Before passing on, the ChiefofStaff chucked in "What about a few posters, Broome?" The second, further down the agenda, was the need for speeding up and improving methods of passing all the documented convoy details while at sea, from SO Escort to SO Relieving Escort, when the custody of the convoys changed hands. "And could something be added" someone asked, "to make these longwinded manifests less boring?" "Add something, Broome”, the Commodore concluded. The third suggestion came when discussing the vital subject of signalling and signals. It ended with quotes of some of the more refreshing signals, recently passed, and it was decided to keep a "Scrap Log" of these for the record. "Broome might illustrate it", the CinC murmured. "Broome will" his ChiefofStaff added. The first of the three "Staff Requirements" from that meeting produced four posters in colour, which later adorned the walls of conference rooms far and near. Through the hands of Paul Hammond, Lieutenant Commander USN, a personal friend of President Roosevelt, a set of these posters strayed far beyond the Atlantic and on to the Pacific battlefield. One of the set, Winston Churchill's favourite, I have redrawn here.

Stragglers, usually Greek ships in my experience, were the convoys' black sheep and, invariably, became the prey of lurking Uboats. To the second Staff item, I offered these two minor obscenities, which were reproduced in colour in postcard form. The fact that they had a bearing on the ever-important security angle, won approval for them to be officially printed and liberally distributed. First one, and later, the other. People asked and still do why ‘Miss Snodgrass’? There is no reason at all. If there ever was a Wren Snodgrass, I hope she had better luck than I have bestowed on her. The cards soon found their way round; many, alas, must have been dragged down to unfathomable depths. The torpedo one was shown to me by an Admiral USN, in the bar of the Statler Hotel, Washington D.C., who insisted it was the "original". I laughed respectfully but had no idea, I said, who the artist was. The actual "original" now rests in the National Maritime Museum, Greenwich. Then there was that third item, The Scrap Log, of which I soon found myself honorary editor. Little did I know then that this collection, started on the Atlantic battlefield, would be supplemented after the war by contributions from the Royal and United States Navies, until it became the "meat" of my book "Make a Signal" published in 1955.

The Scrap Log
The distribution of this ceaseless flow of ether borne jabber condensed into signals was, as I have already said, an important part of communication organisation. Had everyone wished to see all signals at Derby House, there wouldn't have been enough hands to distribute them, or hooks to hang them on, but if signals were not shown to all those virtually concerned, chaos might ensue. Distribution, therefore, was a subtle balance between two extremes. I don't know where I stood on the Derby House distribution list before the innovation of The Scrap Log, but, afterwards, I got the lot. The WPB took most, but there were some gems, which, as the Admiral suggested, were duly illustrated. Others just stood up on their own, without need of embellishment. From: Frigate in mid-Atlantic fog To: Corvette JOIN ME. WHERE AM I? And so on, and so on, this Scrap Log steadily grew, long after I left Derby House. The signals weren't all funny. There was one later on, for example, which marked a memorable turning point in the Atlantic when the Uboats had been steadily gaining ground. Convoy ONS5, crossing the North Atlantic, had been shadowed and reported for days. Then, in came the Uboat wolf packs to attack. Each time they ran into a tough ring of hardened escorts and were either sunk or fought off. It was a resounding victory and marked the last appearance of the German wolf pack technique.

On arrival at St. John's, Newfoundland: From Prime Minister to Escorts of Convoy: “ONS5 MY COMPLIMENTS TO YOU ON YOUR UNCEASING FIGHT WITH THE UBOATS PLEASE PASS TO COMMODORE OF THE CONVOY MY ADMIRATION FOR THE STEADINESS OF ALL SHIPS.” The above signal also indicates what was probably the greatest development of all, the firm relationship that had grown up between escorts and merchantmen. It may look as if my appointment to the CinC WA's Staff was exclusively for cartoon duties. Before coming to my final, and possibly most useful, cartoon assignment, let me perish the thought by swearing all this drawing was homework, done at night to the soothing accompaniment of bursting bombs over Liverpool. At that stage in the war, a standard framework had emerged into which convoy and escort could be slotted for assembling, sailing, journeying and dispersing with reasonable hope that most of those present had done it all before; if they hadn't, they had WACIs (Western Approaches Convoy Instructions), which was the Convoy Bible, at their elbows. Like the Bible, WACIs had an Old Testament and a New, but in WACIs they were blended. The Old reiterated the basic principles learnt the hard way down the ages; the New applied the modern and ever-changing cut and thrust between the Uboats and us. We, at sea, were its contributors; the CommanderinChief Western Approaches was its editor. I had read it dutifully but, perhaps, I paused here and there to yawn for it was heavy reading. The letter Admiral Noble wrote later, reproduced here, explains my personal contribution to WACIs, samples of which are reproduced. The Admiral certainly approved, but the actual sketches originated, once again, from a terse order from his ChiefofStaff. "Go away, Broome", he growled "and draw something that will make those clots at sea look at the bloody book."

When the Admiral hoisted his flag over Derby House, it flew above what must have been the strangest assortment of warships and honorary warships ever collected. The whole conglomeration was divided into three sections based at Liverpool, Greenock and Londonderry. At each base, a Captain (D) reigned. Normally, Captains (D) command destroyer flotillas, but these three commanded whatever came into their webs. Noone had got around to giving such a seabourne miscellany a name. My dictionary infers that an Admiral is one who goes to sea. Admiral Noble certainly did go to sea occasionally but, normally, he commanded his "fleet" from the centre of his super web, along sensitive lines of communication and personal contacts, reaching outwards over the whole convoy structure. The Admiral himself, as I have already implied, was shrewd and very "visual". Whether or not he had ever seen action at sea I don't know but, he was more statesman and diplomat than firebrand and, from where I stood, I thought that with his shrewd brain and astute staff, he spotted what was needed almost as soon as he hoisted his flag at Liverpool. Even though his escort fleet, with its overworked, untrained crews, was lamentably inadequate. Morale and efficiency could, he thought, be more easily injected if the ships were formed into reasonably balanced groups and allowed to train, work and stick together under the same boss. In this, the Admiral had universal support from us all. It made good sense at a time when escorts were floundering from one convoy to the next on strange, lonely seas. Sometimes, Noone even knew who their boss was until they got to sea and then some signal yeoman, surveying the motley through his telescope, with a seniority list between his teeth, would discover his captain was Senior Officer and delegate him accordingly. Then it was the boss's turn to look round and check if he had ever seen or heard of any of his commanding officers before. Somehow it worked, because it had to, but, undoubtedly, what we all wanted was the formation of permanent teams. On paper, I helped implement the scheme. Each Escort Group Leader invariably a destroyer would have EG, followed by the group number painted on her funnel. Everyone, and how important it became would, belong to someone. One important mark to Admiral Noble.

Another was his quiet, unruffled, dignified presence and authority. That may sound rather a package deal in characterisation but I still carry a picture in my mind, illustrating it. From Liverpool, he made a weekly visit to the Admiralty, travelling down by the night train and, generally, taking one member of his staff. When it was my turn to accompany him, our train was kept a long while before being allowed to creep into a badly bombed Euston, and what a dark, wet, stinking mess of a station it was. Staggering through broken glass and dribbling fire hoses, I made my way along the platform towards the Admiral's sleeper. His carriage door swung open and out he stepped, resplendent, a boat cloak over uncreased uniform, with one corner thrown back over his shoulder, showing its white satin lining. "Goering must have known it was your turn, Broome,” he said, with one corner of his mouth turning up in a smile. I can see him now. The effect of this dignified, immaculate calm, not only on me but, on all my grey fellow travellers, was memorable. They stopped, looked, then stepped aside in grateful awe to let him pass to his waiting car. Field Marshall Lord Alexander, also, had that burnished, "lighthouse comfort" quality built into his presence; so, too, had the bemedalled and frockcoated Lord Nelson, as he calmly paced his quarterdeck at Trafalgar. Virtue is no news, even in the historical sense. I belong to a generation taught to respect seniors without really knowing, caring or judging. The fact that they were seniors presupposed their merit. I still think Percy Noble even now I pause, wondering if I dare call him by his Christian name did a very good job at a time when diplomacy and coordination were more necessary on the vital Atlantic battlefield than the ruthless drive which followed and won.

Before very long, the dynamic Captain (D) at the Liverpool escort base had to leave suddenly and, equally suddenly, I found myself with an "acting" fourth stripe, in his shoes. At that moment, the USN built base at Argentia, Newfoundland was our escorts' western terminal. At first, we had not enough escorts with fuel endurance to take convoys right across the Atlantic, so we turned them over to USN escorts at a position called MOMP a prearranged mid-ocean meeting point. As escorts with longer endurance came into service, they made the whole trip. Hence, Argentia became their turn round base. The ISN, naturally, called for an RN Captain (D) out there. There couldn't have been a better choice than Liverpool's Captain Barry Stevens, with his monocle, ebullience and vast destroyer experience, witnessed by an array of DSOs and DSC’s. Anglo-American cooperation, certainly, made great strides in World War II. It had to. I had my share of those exasperating initial misunderstandings with my American contemparies  the bastards  until, perhaps, through the bottom of a tumbler as we sipped our ol'fashions, we saw each other for the first time and, in many cases, are still friends. My short stint as Captain (D) Liverpool was more in my line than Derby House, for it brought me in contact, once again, with the seafarers themselves.