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Visit to Clyde Naval Base at Faslane,

Friday 2nd to Sunday 4th September 2011

 

Twenty members of the Association made their way from various points in the UK by air, car and train to Faslane in the Firth of Clyde. HMS Neptune is a shore base for training, servicing and repairs to submarines, minesweepers and minehunters. Among the group were family members of nine Neptune fatalities – one widow, two sons, two daughters, two grand-daughters, one nephew, two nieces, one sister-in-law and two sons-in-law. Also with us were Norma Hudson and her husband. Norma’s father, Norman Walton was Neptune's only survivor.

 

After registration, the issue of several passes and a ten minute Health and Safety video, we arrived in the Warrant and Chief Petty Officers' mess and bar just in time to get a meal before the kitchen closed for the night. Later, after some liquid refreshment, we were allocated our rooms (cabins) in the newly built accommodation blocks. We had been advised that only bedding would be supplied (no toiletries or towels) but we were somewhat surprised to discover that bedding meant just that – the beds were not actually made up!

 

Saturday morning started very wet and squally but the weather did improve during the day. After a hearty breakfast, where the very helpful kitchen staff served us with almost any cooked combination requested, Commander Philip Ireland, the Base Commander welcomed us. He explained that the base has been much extended but is to be still further developed to become the main submarine training and minesweeper base for the whole of the UK. As a result, the name of HMS Neptune is safe for the future and has a long life ahead of it. He added that the connection with our Association was important to the Base and that as long as he was in the post, we would always be welcome there

 

After that, we went in three groups on a police launch tour, up and down the Gareloch to view the Base facilities from the water. Two nuclear submarines, HMS Astute and HMS Vengeance were moored on the jetties, but unfortunately the huge ship lift was unoccupied. We saw four ships alongside, three Sandown Class minesweepers and one minehunter. While each group was out on the water the rest of us spent time in the Reading Room where we were able to listen to the recording of the Christmas messages made by the New Zealand sailors on Neptune in December 1941 to their families back home. The recording is now available and can be heard on www.radionz.co.nz/podcastys/SoundsHistorical/HourTwo-19June2011.

 

After lunch in the mess we were taken by the Visits Officer, Chief Petty Officer Michael Taylor, to the Trident missile carrying submarine, HMS Vengeance. There we were provided with temporary radiation monitors and were split into two groups. We walked along the top of the submarine to the conning tower and climbed down the twenty foot ladder into the nerve centre of the ship. The first group was escorted by Leading Sick Berth Attendant Aron French. Our group was led by twenty year-old Weapons Engineering Mechanic Arron Henry who took us through crowded control rooms, operational nerve centres, past the nuclear missiles, into very cramped living and sleeping quarters and into the incredibly small galley which had to cater for a crew of between 140 and 180. After going down five floors we were shown into Arron’s favourite workplace, the torpedo store and firing station. The impressive cleanliness and tidiness of this area was explained by Arron as the result of a recent inspection which can only have given it the cleanest bill of health possible. The enthusiasm of the young crew and their pride in the jobs they do, especially of our guide, was heart-warming. We felt that everything was truly in safe hands. Then came the climb back up. This was somewhat daunting for some of us and a slightly shaky group re-assembled on the dock to be transferred back to the mess for dinner.

 

Before dinner we had a fascinating talk by Gavin Don who had himself been a Lieutenant RN, serving in several ships but had retired after finding he was too old for a full submarine career. He told us of his childhood memories of seeing the sword, portrait and medals (DSC with two bars) of his uncle Robert who was a submarine gunnery officer and who died in January 1942 in the submarine HMS Triumph, sunk with all hands off Greece (just a fortnight after Neptune's sinking). When he was 18, Gavin spent a year sailing in the Aegean and had wondered idly if he was passing over his uncle's tomb.

 

Triumph had six torpedo tubes, plus two external torpedo tubes, and carried a total of 16 torpedos. She had a gun firing 4 inch shells which could be operated within 40 seconds of surfacing. Early in the War in 1939, she had actually struck a mine and survived. 18 feet of her bows had been blown off, and she spent 9 months being repaired in Chatham Dockyard to rebuild her bows and torpedo tubes.

 

Last year, with a few spare days in London, Gavin decided to visit the records office in Kew to see if he could find clues as to HMS Triumph's resting place. She had been given a patrol area by the submarine operating staff in Alexandria of a “box of sea” 250 miles x 200 miles in which to operate and to take out any enemies found in that area. He began by reading the patrol reports of HMS Triumph and her T boat sisters, aiming to get inside the operations head of her CO and officers. The reports itemise virtually all activity (torpedo firings, navigation etc.) and also contain some ironic humour. The Admiralty tended to accept “gallows humour” because of the danger experienced by submariners in the Mediterranean. 

 

During the final hours of his research Gavin discovered a report from 1952, from Axis records which had been seized after the war, which gave no information on the sinking but did show a report of a torpedo exploding on a beach off Cape Sounion on 9 January 1942, and reports of periscope sightings from shore made by Greek authorities. Triumph's orders were to drop a raiding party off Piraeus on December 30th and then patrol at will before returning to pick up her party on 9 January 1942. She failed to make the rendezvous. He extrapolated from this that HMS Triumph had retreated until pick-up time to a safer location at depth but took the opportunity to fire a torpedo at a passing Greek lighter and this firing was mentioned in the Axis reports. This attack was at 6.00 a.m. but Triumph never turned up to pick up the landing party so she must have sunk somewhere between the torpedo firing point and the port of Piraeus.

 

Gavin knows that there was a large Italian minefield between these two points and he is planning to buy a suitable craft and sonar equipment to try to locate the wreck. He is aware, however, that before that he will need to obtain permission and approval from many Greek naval and civil authorities who might be involved. We all wish him well with his endeavours.

 

After dinner the evening was rounded off by a few libations in the bar where the low cost of the beverages was met with unanimous approval. After another hearty breakfast on Sunday morning we were given an up-date by our Chairman, John McGregor, on the long term aim of finding the exact location of HMS Neptune and some of his research on events leading up to the loss. The present situation in Libya will undoubtedly delay any further activity on locating the wreck as the Libyan authorities will have other priorities, and the political situation may take long to stabilise. He emphasised that any search must be done through Libya as Neptune lies in her territorial waters.

 

John went on to give the background to events in the Med at the end of 1941. British forces in North Africa had broken out from Tobruk and were advancing west for Benghazi. General Rommel, in full retreat, urgently needed ammunition, tanks and fuel. Preventing these supplies from getting from Italy to North Africa was the top priority for the Navy and RAF in the Med. In Rome, Kesselring’s top priority was to get supplies to Rommel and on 13^th December 1941 the Italian fleet (3 battleships, 9 cruisers and 27 destroyers) were deployed to protect a convoy of eight big merchantmen carrying the necessary re-inforcements. That night the RN submarine Upright attacked and sank two of the merchant ships, and the submarine Urge put a torpedo into the battleship Littorio. In the confusion, two merchant ships collided and the Italian convoy returned in disarray to port. German high command insisted that the four remaining merchant ships be despatched again to Libya. By chance a British cruiser squadron was escorting the merchant ship Breconshire, carrying urgently needed supplies and fuel from Alexandria to Malta and the two forces met in a confused and inconclusive night action known as the 1st Battle of Sirte. Neptune escorted Breconshire into Malta on 18^th December 1941. The Italian convoy, however, reversed course yet again and headed for Libya with cruiser protection. Flag Officer Malta was receiving Enigma de-crypts of virtually all the Italian operational signals, and ordered the dispatch of all available ships in Malta harbour to chase and destroy the convoy. Three cruisers and four destroyers set out under the command of Captain Rory O'Conor.

 

The minefield north of Tripoli had been laid on May 1^st and June 3^rd 1941 and the submarine Undaunted was sunk on May 8th. Two more submarines P32 and P33 were sunk in August 41, after which the submariners kept well clear of the Tripoli minefield. The Board of Inquiry report shows that Vice Admiral Wilbraham Ford, Flag Officer Malta sent the operational signal to Force K to head directly for Tripoli. Whether or not Captain O'Conor was fully briefed on the extent of the minefield is unknown but it seems that the ships astern of Neptune knew they were approaching the minefield and Penelope’s navigator gave a ten minute warning of mines ahead. The fact remains that Neptune was steaming at 24 knots when she hit the first mine just after midnight on 19 December.

 

After two hours, Penelope assumed that Neptune had drifted clear of the mines, and sent two destroyers to take Neptune under tow. Lively was alongside Neptune and had thrown a line across when Kandahar hit a mine. After another hour, Neptune hit a fourth mine. With dawn approaching and so close to a hostile coast, Penelope made the agonising decision to return to Malta. That night, HMS Jaguar was sent to rescue the ships company of Kandahar. The two captains decided the rough seas made it too dangerous to come alongside and the crew was ordered to swim with the current to Jaguar. 180 men were taken on board and saved.

 

John concluded by saying that after the sinking of Neptune, the four Italian merchantmen succeeded in landing 45 Panzer tanks in Tripoli and Benghazi, plus fuel and ammunition. The next convoy landed 55 more tanks. With these re-inforcements, Rommel made a surprise breakthrough the Allied army in early January and in four months advanced all the way to the Egyptian border.  

 

After this talk, we attended the regular Sunday service in the chapel after which there was a short service of remembrance for those lost in Neptune. The Reverend Richard Rowe took the service which was also attended by Commodore Mike Wareham, the naval base commander, who made a point of speaking to most of the Association members. He was presented with a copy of MINEFIELD.

 

After a great week-end we all made our various ways home. 

                                                                   written by Chris Hayhurst

LATEST IMPROVEMENTS TO WEBSITE & NEW PAGES ADDED (May 2011):

(click on item to bring up new page)

A third original diary has been added to the Diaries section, that of Electrical Artificer Jack Evans, covering the period August 1939 to February 1941.

Further photographs have been included in the Group Photos section and visitors to the site are encouraged to have a look at these and contact the Forum if they can identify any of the crew members depicted.

Members' Guided Tour of Bletchley Park

Thursday 28th April, 2011

Following a suggestion at the recent AGM Valerie Pennifer kindly arranged a visit for 27 Association Members to Bletchley Park. The weather was fine and after refreshments Nick Hill, a very experienced and knowledgeable guide gave the Members the history of Bletchley Park and a guided tour.     

In 1883, Bletchley Park became the home to Sir Herbert Leon, a London financier and his family. A friend of Lloyd George, Leon was for one term Liberal MP for North Buckinghamshire and became one of Bletchley’s greatest benefactors, much loved by the local people. He added to the Mansion considerably over the years, in a curious mixture of architectural styles reflecting his changing tastes. His initials can be seen over the main entrance.

 

By 1938, as the threat of war loomed, the Government Code and Cypher School, then based in London, needed a safer home. M16 found Bletchley Park, now in the hands of a property developer, Captain Hubert Faulkner, following the deaths of Sir Herbert and his wife. At a junction of major road and rail connections, it was ideally placed to become the most important communications centre in the history of modern warfare.

 

Bletchley Park became Britain’s best kept secret. Today the Park is open to the public as a heritage site and museum and offers an insight into its code-breaking successes which helped shorten World War II by around two years, thus saving countless lives.

 

The story of Bletchley Park was a desperate race against time. The mission of code-breakers, like Alan Turing, was to crack Germany’s coded communications, such as those sent via the German Enigma machine. Churchill called the code-breakers his “geese that laid the golden eggs but never cracked”. Bletchley Park gives one an opportunity to discover how 8,500 people worked in total secrecy with technology designed to crack the codes.

 

The first half of the tour concentrated on the outside of the wartime buildings in the grounds of Bletchley Park. Members were given a detailed history of the site and its code-breaking activities. They discovered what went on at each of the key locations, including the famous wooden code-breaking huts and the Polish Memorial in the stable yard. The second half of the tour, which resumed after a delicious lunch, included a visit to B Block museum which revealed the complete Bletchley Park story. It housed the Abwehr Enigma machine, Lorenz machine, Bombe Rebuild, Alan Turing statue, World War II Aviation display, Home Front exhibition, Toy collection, Milton Keynes Amateur Radio Society, Oxford & Bucks Light Infantry at Pegasus Bridge display and German Signals Group. The tour also included a visit to the rebuild of Colossus, the world’s first semi-programmable electronic computer.

 

John McGregor gave the vote of thanks to Nick Hill, the guide, and the staff of Bletchley Park for all their efforts on behalf of the Neptune Association. A splendid day was had by all.

 

Bletchley Park – www.bletchleypark.org.uk - Tel: 01908 640404   

 OBITUARIES

Frank Brown - 6 February 2011 

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