Chapter Three

Sweeping in the Phoney War September 1939 – April 1940

Robert was called up on 27 October 1939 with orders to join HMS King Alfred and, subject to interview and medical, to become a sub-lieutenant RNVR. HMS King Alfred was ‘a stone frigate’ initially sited in the municipal marina at Hove on the coast of Sussex, just beyond Brighton.

Virtually all RNVR officers went through their basic training there from the date it opened, 14 September 1939, until it finally closed its doors in 1946. Fully trained RNVR officers who had joined before the war were immediately appointed to ships. By early 1940, most of the King Alfred in take were CW ¹ candidates, that is to say, ratings who had been recommended by their commanding officers as likely candidates for a commission and then sent for an interview before admission to King Alfred for training. However, between September and December 1939, King Alfred went through an initial phase of dealing with the RNV(S)R, the Royal Naval Volunteer (Supplementary) Reserve, often known as the Yachtsman’s Reserve. As noted in the last chapter, Robert was one of those who pressed for such a body to be formed.

In 1936, the then First Lord of the Admiralty proposed that a list should be drawn up so that the Navy would know where to look for additional officers quickly in the event of a war. There is an apocryphal story that the First Lord needed to find something more to say to the House of Commons when introducing the Naval Estimates and asked for ideas from his staff. The Admiral Commanding Reserves sent in this suggestion. The Admiralty was then astonished by the speed and scale of the take-up. The list ended up 2,000 long and most of those men passed through King Alfred during the first three months of the war.

There was no formal training requirement for members of the RNV(S)R before the war, but a number of men on the list undertook training at their own expense, even getting temporary billets in ships at their captain’s invitation, paying for their own messing and travel. Judy Middleton, the author of a monograph on King Alfred published in 1986, records that:

some Supplementaries went so far as to find their own vessels so that members could gain experience handling powerboats. The Admiralty gave moral support but not much else. It was down to the individual to come up with a suitable boat. For instance, Response started life as a naval steam pinnace but had been pensioned off and lay in a private yard at Gosport. Then along came Henry Chisholm and Henry Trefusis, both RNV(S)R as well as members of the Royal Ocean Racing Club, and paid £150 for her.

Henry Trefusis was Robert’s close neighbour and they joined King Alfred together.

The first batch of RNV(S)Rs, 140 men strong, joined King Alfred a week after she was commissioned. Robert joined on 27 October. There was no set time that had to be spent in King Alfred. It depended upon your knowledge of the sea, and what your training officers thought of you. As Robert passed out in early December he spent only five or six weeks there, whereas a full training period was three months.

The first commanding officer of King Alfred was Captain J. N. Pelly and he served in that capacity until his untimely death in 1945. Pelly was initially backed up by a number of retired officers, though later it became the norm for officers serving afloat to be sent to King Alfred for a period of a few months each, both to bring their fresh experience to bear on training and no doubt to give them a rest from the stress of constant sea-going in wartime. Perhaps the member of the training staff most vividly remembered by those who passed through King Alfred was Chief Petty Officer Vass, ‘a short stocky man with a face burned a deep nut brown and a voice like a bull’. Vass was there throughout the war and was responsible for inducting young officers under training into the mysteries of marching, saluting and generally bearing themselves in a smart and naval manner. His greeting of one new arrival may well have been typical. Speaking in a deceptively quiet voice, that individual remembers him saying ‘In five minutes you are going to hate me’, then in a bellow ‘I hate you already’. Vass’s bark was worse than his bite and, by the end of a squad’s period of training, to most men he was seen as a very necessary part of the experience that they had to go through. A gunnery instructor from Whale Island, where HMS Excellent was the Navy’s School of Gunnery, Vass brought with him not only a smart uniform and the traditional shiny black gaiters, but also that trick of personality that makes young men remember with pleasure their erstwhile tormentors.

King Alfred’s staff had to improvise mightily to be able to accept the first batch of supplementaries on or about 18 September 1939. Van loads of collapsible chairs and tables for use in classrooms arrived with minutes to spare. Hard chairs designed to line the seafront bandstand ‘left an indelible impression ’ on their users. Part of the underground car park, designed to hold 480 cars on one level, was converted into dormitories with rows of double-decker bunks. Other officers made their own arrangements in the town. There was a restaurant cum-dance hall which was ‘turned into a very comfortable wardroom and rapidly furnished with suitable chairs and tables, a grand piano and two billiard tables’.

Supplementaries had no uniforms and they turned up in every type of clothing. In a world not yet used to the shortages to become so common in the Second World War, every tailor capable of making naval uniforms descended upon Hove and soon everyone was fitted out with the appropriate range. The tailors must have done very well out of King Alfred. They were able to clothe 1,700 officers in the first seven months of its existence. Robert went to Gieves, the doyen of all naval tailors.

The curriculum must have been rough and ready in 1939. It concentrated on navigation and seamanship, but there were also initial lessons in gunnery, including for instance the stripping and reassembly of an Oerlikon, the 20mm automatic gun, which was just coming into service with the Royal Navy. No doubt much time was spent on teaching the young men the meaning of naval parlance and teaching them what their relationship with their men should be in future, as well as their brother officers. CPO Vass is particularly remembered for taking a leading role in bayonet drill.

When it was all over, sooner or later depending on age and ability and previous experience, most passing-out officers had their photograph taken by Charles the photographer in Palmeira Square, Hove. I have a picture of Robert looking very young, very serious, in his brand new Gieves uniform, starched white collar and brand new cap with its crown and anchor badge as yet unsoiled by seagoing, a single wavy stripe visible on his right arm, the hands being folded to permit its subtle message to emerge from the bottom lefthand corner of the photograph. He looks particularly young because his early baldness is invisible under the cap. The lines which etch themselves into the face of experience are not yet there. They were to come all too quickly over the next two and a half years.

Robert’s War Diary starts on Monday, 11 December with the words:

I left Bodrennick this morning, probably for the last time even if I survive this war, as we might like Treworval better and never go back there.

Catherine and his two sons saw him off at Penryn station:

a forlorn little group waving after the train until it disappeared round the bend, better than leaving a wife with no children behind to keep her company.

His travelling companion was his friend and neighbour Henry Trefusis who had joined King Alfred with him. They were both returning there for orders to join their first ships.

Robert’s first appointment was as a lieutenant with special navigating duties in HMS Halcyon, a fleet minesweeper. On his way north to Grimsby to join her he passed through London and called in at Gieves to put up his second stripe, a moment of deep gratification in a naval officer’s career. He then suffered a typical wartime journey with unexplained delays, arriving at Grimsby at 5.45 a.m. A bath and a shave at the Royal Hotel made him feel better before he reported at the Naval Base, only to be told that his ship had been sent to Newcastle, so that he journeyed on there and then to North Shields and at last found Halcyon. He met his first commanding officer, Commander St John Cronyn:

fat and extremely cheerful and pleasant and the other members of the wardroom. We had many gins. I shall have to find a way of not having too much of this.

On Saturday, 16 December Robert went to sea for the first time in a Royal Naval ship in wartime conditions:

Cold east wind blowing but clear and fine for once after all the fog and filth we have been having on the east coast since I came up. We did an eight mile run to the swept channel, then a twelve mile sweep out and twelve miles back. A few minutes after we started sweeping a mine bobbed up in front of us. We were the second ship in the line. We avoided it and shortly afterwards our Oropesa trawl cut one. They were sunk by gunfire. Nothing more occurred until nearly the end of our sweep when the ship two behind us blew one up in her trawl. The explosion shook our ship a bit about a mile off and I saw the tremendous fountain of water.

Sunday, 17th December. Out at 6.30. Cold with a fresh easterly wind and rising lollopy sea. Swept to the south first, then a long sweep north. We picked up five mines, one of which exploded, all near one place. We got no others on the way back and therefore thought that we had cleared the field. In at about 5.30 after much cursing at our flotilla leader’s delays. Had a bath and felt better. This life combines a fair amount of discomfort, extreme boredom and much danger. A bad combination, but someone has to do it as it is a vital job.

Monday, 18th December. Out at 6.30. The same northerly sweep. Nothing until the return journey. Then two mines in quick succession right in front of us. Only just in time to dodge. One cut by our sweep and four more shortly afterwards by the other two ships, one exploding and blowing away a sweep. I was having lunch at the exciting moment that we struck the field. When the sirens began blowing to show that mines were cut one of the RN lieutenants hopped out and the surgeon looked rather scared. The Chief Engineer, an oldish man sitting beside me, didn’t turn a hair. Neither did I, I am glad to say. It was satisfactory feeling self-possessed and unaffected in the circumstances, rather like getting through one’s first baptism of fire and knowing that your nerve is alright.

So on went the drudgery of minesweeping with, as Robert noted,

its constant accompaniment of extreme danger. The humdrum nature of life must have been all the more marked because almost every evening they returned to harbour and normality. For 22 December Robert noted:

The skipper was very pleasant in the evening. He quoted the famous historic remark ‘It was only the small storm-tossed British ships blockading the French fleet at Brest, upon which the Grand Army never looked, that stood between Napoleon and world domination.’²It is the same now and it is satisfactory to feel that one is assisting, in however humble a way, in the maintenance of those storm tossed ships at sea.

Robert also reflected on the beauty even of war ships as humble as minesweepers. On 22 December:

A lovely day with a North Sea sunrise, dull grey mist being dispersed by a red sun. A hard west wind. The flotilla looked very fine behind us like miniature battleships with their high bows. We were the leaders today. The 5th Minesweeping Flotilla looked lovely astern with the red rags of the sun lighting up their grey hulls. There is beauty in a grim sort of way in warships at sea.

25th December, Christmas day. Out early and a rather short sweep. But we got seven mines and exploded one. A typical and rather beautiful North Sea sunrise, cold, hard and wintry with some livid red patches just as the sun came up. I really know there is a war on when I am running a minesweeper here while the children are opening their Christmas stockings. Nothing else would keep me from that. Went for a long walk in the afternoon and rang up Catherine in the evening. Very lucky in catching her at once. Then Christmas dinner with turkey and plum pudding, followed by my rum punch which I brewed over the wardroom stove. A very cheerful party considering we were all pining to be at home. The Captain is a delightful and amusing person and I am beginning to get on well with the other officers. Finding my niche.

26th December, Boxing Day. A very hard day’s sweeping. Twelve hours solid. Picked up five mines on the long sweep up. It blew up to a northerly gale and got very rough. Luckily my stomach is settling down though I feel queasy at times, which is foul. It is alright on a channel crossing when you know it will be over in a few hours but it is foul when you feel you may have years of it. After the main run we went out to the Eastward and got out double Oropesa sweeps and swept inwards. We picked up several mines, two exploding. One exploded quite near us and it was getting dark and it made a most magnificent firework, clouds of bright sparks. Two ships got mines caught in their sweeps, which was very dangerous. As it was very rough and almost dark they had to cut the sweeps. I went off and watched our sweeps come in from the stern as it was interesting in the big seas. A wild sight, almost dark, with the seas coming up astern and banging all the gear about. The toughest day we have had. There was a bright moon up as we rolled into port, a lovely wild sight with the ships steaming in line ahead.

Saturday, 30th December. Out sweeping. An uneventful day. There was quite a lot of motion on the ship and for the first time today I didn’t notice it, which shows that I am getting acclimatised. I do hope so because feeling seasick is the most lousy thing of all. I don’t worry about the mines or the aircraft but I shall be mighty glad if I can get my stomach so that it doesn’t worry me at all.

At this point a reader without much knowledge of naval warfare as conducted in the middle of the twentieth century needs some explanation of what minesweeping was then all about. It was, as Robert noted, an unpleasant, boring but extremely dangerous job that nevertheless had to be done. In the First World War the Germans and the British had laid extensive minefields off each other’s coasts, using broadly the same technology in the form of a moored mine. These mines had positive buoyancy but were attached to the seabed by a cable that allowed them to float just under the surface where a passing ship could strike them. The explosion was triggered by the impact of the hull breaking one of several protruding horns. To clear a path through a minefield the minesweeper was invented. This was normally a relatively small and inexpensive ship, sometimes originally a trawler, which had the unpleasant task of itself steaming through the minefield trailing a length of wire hawser behind it that was held at an oblique angle from the ship’s line of advance by a float at its end, known as an Oropesa from the ship that first trialled the system. The Oropesa was so designed that it pulled away from the line of advance of the ship towing it and thus kept the cable well out to one side or other at an appropriate depth below the surface. A ‘kite’ kept the inboard end of the hawser at the appropriate depth and an ‘otter’ marked on the surface the position of the Oropesa itself. On the hawser were cutters so that, if the hawser were pulled across a vertical mine anchor cable, the cable was pulled down the hawser until it reached one of the cutters and then, with any luck, was severed, causing the mine to float to the surface where it could be destroyed by gunfire.

The obvious problem was that the minesweeper itself had to steam through minefields with a fair chance of being blown up. Sweepers could gain some protection by working in groups of three or four so that each sweeper steered a course protected by the sweep of the ship in front of it and in turn protected the ship behind. That still left the lead vessel unprotected. If you knew where the edge of the minefield was, you could place your lead vessel just outside it and then each ship astern would extend further into the field, cutting mines while protected by the ship ahead, but of course finding the edge of a minefield was not a precise science. Generally speaking little attempt was made to clear whole minefields but rather effort was concentrated on keeping a well-marked channel swept, up and down, which ships could pass in reasonable safety so long as you kept sweeping it. Continuous sweeping was necessary, partly because you didn’t always get every mine you passed over when sweeping, partly because the enemy might come back and lay more mines, often from submarines or dropped from the air, sometimes from small surface ships, and partly because mining became more sophisticated and mines could be put in place with a timed release that allowed them to float up to a dangerous height from the seabed only after some days or weeks.

Britain faced a major advance in mining technology in 1940 in the form of the magnetic mine. When the Germans first deployed their version the British were very hard pressed to know how to deal with it. It relied on the magnetic field which every steel ship has, resulting from its construction, to trigger a mine lying on the seabed or on a cable well below the level at which sweeps cut contact mines. Due to a remarkably brave and fortunate recovery of one of these mines very soon after the Germans first started dropping them, its method of working was discovered, and the answer emerged as a process known as degaussing whereby the ship’s magnetic field was neutralized so that it no longer triggered magnetic mines.

In joining the Fifth Minesweeping Flotilla Robert found himself in a part of the Navy with a dangerous job to do even during the Phoney War. German strategy was to blockade Britain with minefields and U-boats. The job of the minesweepers was to keep swept channels all round the British coast as clear as possible of mines so that warships and convoys could pass along them. It was an unglamorous and daunting task.

Robert’s diary entry for Monday, 1st January reads:

Today we are flotilla leader still as Sphinx is boiler cleaning. Pretty thick fog for the first time. We got out and then it came down much too thick for sweeping. So we came back and found it exceptionally thick in the harbour. About one cable³ visibility. It was interesting navigating up the river to the dock where she was to lie for boiler cleaning.

Robert got leave while Halcyon was having a boiler clean and spent it in London at Brown’s Hotel, with Catherine and the children coming up from Cornwall. On the first day everyone was taken to the zoo and then off to Trafalgar Square to feed the pigeons followed by ‘an exhausting tea at the Criterion’. The next day it was Hamley’s to buy toys in the morning, returning to Browns for the children to rest before a pantomime while he and Catherine went to Catherine’s dressmaker, Lonval, and ‘bought two most successful dresses there at the sales’. Then off to the pantomime.

The show was hardly up to the best standard but Bobby loved it and could not be stopped bouncing in his seat with laughter, much to the discomfort of those behind. Antsie sat on my lap and lasted very well from 2 to 4.30 when there was a bit of an uproar, which we finally beat down to a subdued mutter, so managed to save taking him out.’

Two more days of leave in London followed. On the 5 January his family saw him off on the train back to the north-east.

We walked up and down the platform, one child each with a hand in mine and I couldn’t help wondering whether it was the last time I might ever see them. Anyway it’s no good worrying about that. We examined the engine and then got back into the carriage. Finally I kissed Bobby and Antsie good-bye in front of strangers and went to the door with Catherine. There I had to talk about business as the only thing to do to make the parting less unbearable. It seems strange to think that my father must have been through just the same experiences and for the same reason. I suppose unmarried people are really luckier in war.

On his return to Halcyon on the 6 January Robert found that his captain had been made Senior Officer of the Fourth Minesweeping Flotilla, known as M/S 4. Robert was now a watch keeping officer and assistant navigating officer, a job principally entailing keeping chart corrections up to date, one of the more boring jobs known in the Royal Navy and which particularly required a cast iron stomach when done at sea.

On Tuesday, 9 January Halcyon saw more action than normal.

Out sweeping and a nice day. Working at the charts after watch keeping. I felt rather sick in the stuffy hot little chart room but had to stick to it. Then down to lunch. I found the Doctor, Chief Engineer and Number One⁴ there. I said we should be cutting mines in ten minutes as we were approaching the dangerous area. Sure enough while I was having lunch the siren began to blow again and everybody shot out except me and the Steward, who proceeded to tell me how he was mined in the last war. Then a mine exploded close by shaking the ship and more siren blasts. Everybody was so excited by this time outside that I thought I had better see what was on. I found that our sweep had cut seven mines and exploded one, all in the space of about four minutes and we were leading ship. Then I heard Number One say that the float had disappeared after having been seen for some little time after the explosion.

It is Number One’s job to deal with the sweep. I saw him go aft to the hawsers and then call for the watch to man the winches to get it in. So off I went aft to help and be with him for moral support. It was grim getting in the kite as the trip wire had broken and there might have been a mine in it. But no, it was all right. Then we began to haul in the sweep wire. It was obvious at once that there was very much greater strain on it than usual. Number One and the sweep man kept on feeling it and saying there must be a mine and a sinker if not two in it. I couldn’t help thinking that, as the float had survived the explosion and then gone down, that it was probably the float full of water that was causing the extra strain. But no, Number One and the others were sure it was a mine or two and it was grim slowly hauling it in wondering when it might go up or if it would go up when it was right under us. There were only two other men aft with Number One and myself, the men for handling the cutters. When we got to fifty fathoms⁵ Number One stopped. He was so sure that there were mines in it after the clutch we had come across that he went to the bridge to consult with the skipper. He came back with the skipper and it appeared that the latter had decided to veer the sweep again and tow it into shallow water, cut it there and clear it.

I was still standing right aft and Number One rejoined me and veered the sweep to one hundred and fifty fathoms. Then he stopped it. I said to him again that I felt sure it was the float and probably not mines, and suggested that we might haul in and try to see. I don’t know what inspired me to be so persistent and careless of danger, but I felt I was right. In the end he suddenly said ‘yes we will’. Then he ordered all hands back behind the winch about sixty feet from the stern, and there was Number One and I alone waiting and watching. It was very dramatic and very exciting. Then some little time after, the hauling in must have taken about ten minutes, the skipper joined us. In came the sweep slowly. One couldn’t help being a bit frightened of sudden death, but I was so glad to be able to prove to myself that I was able to control myself and be quite indifferent to it. After what seemed ages we saw the otter porpoising about. Still we couldn’t see whether it had a mine in it.

Number One had given it as his view that there must be a mine there because without the buoyancy of a mine the otter without a float would be dragging much more directly downwards instead of outwards as it was. Finally we could see that the otter was clear and hauled it up under the stern. Then the float. After considerable difficulty we fixed heaving gear to it and hauled in. When we first saw it it looked as though it had a mine in it. There was something large and black, but as we got it right close to we saw that the float had been cut in half and one half was being dragged back like a drogue in the water, with its black bucket mouth towards us. So I was proved right after all. We got the half float in with great relief amidst considerable rejoicing. It was a very exciting incident and a lucky one for me.

I have included this diary note in full because it was the first time that Robert had chosen to stand his ground in front of danger in the Navy and pursue the course of action that he thought right. Two years later he would probably not have bothered even to record it but at that particular stage in his development as a naval officer it was a major event for him.

The next diary entry of note is on the 11 January, a foggy day on which they could not go out. Robert was Officer of the Day.

I persuaded the Captain to let me come aft in the event of air attack to be in control of and fight the 0.5 pom pom⁶ and the after four inch.⁷ This is much better than taking cover on the bridge and having nothing to do.

Friday, 12th January. A very exciting and interesting day. Out at 6am with up to twenty dan buoys⁸ and doub le Oropesas. At once our starboard wire parted. We were lucky in being able to retrieve the float and otter, but it took us about forty minutes. Meanwhile the other two ships swept on and later we heard sixteen curious deep thuds that meant mines exploding at a distance. So the enemy had laid them right in the fairway. Presently we got going. After we had turned back, boom, up went a beauty on our starboard sweep. I was right aft with Number One and it was a magnificent sight. We both thought it was a more powerful mine than anything we had seen before. Then a few minutes later, boom, a mine in the port sweep went up. Then within five minutes, boom, boom, almost on top of each other the ship astern put up one in each sweep. It was an uncomfortable feeling as the tide was getting low and we were on a searching sweep, with no swept water. You felt that the next one might lift the ship out of the water. But there was no time to worry, the doctor wanted me to check a cipher message he had to get out to the Admiralty, informing them of the mines we were exploding in the so called swept channel. It was vital to get it off at once, as there were convoys going up and down the lane at any time, and it was a sheer death trap. We had already put up eight mines in a short distance. I found he had left out the most vital word ‘mines’ in the excitement, which meant ciphering over half of it again. While we were doing this there was the biggest explosion of all. In the captain’s cabin, where we were working, it seemed as though the ship had been struck and it made one stagger. We think it was two exploding together in the port sweep. Anyway nothing more was seen of the port float and otter.

We got the cipher off quickly after checking it again together. It was exciting and made one feel we were doing very important work, as that information might save thousands of tons of shipping and many lives in the course of the next few days. After that there was an air attack alarm. Aircraft sighted flying low to the westward. After yesterday and the mines today everyone was on tiptoe. The shells were all ready and everyone at action stations in a flash, but the aircraft did not come to us. After this alarm I decided to get to know my guns, and had a good look over the 0.5 pom pom. It’s a lovely gun, but I think it is just as well I am taking an interest in it. The gun layer, who runs the whole show, told me repeatedly, in spite of continued and doubting questions on my part, that an ammunition drum would last for two minutes continuous firing. I felt sure this was wrong and have since checked upon it and found that it is used up in precisely eleven seconds. A bit of a difference! I shall tomorrow go into it fully and work out a technique as far as possible.

Saturday, 13th January. I have today sent Bobby his first cheque. A birthday present for his eighth birthday. I hope I may be permitted to send him many more, as all fathers should.

Out very early today. Started a clearance sweep where we had our exciting party yesterday. We hadn’t long to wait. One exploded in our sweep as leading ship about ten minutes after the kite was veered, and then they went on, boom, boom, boom all morning. I was working on the charts in the chart room. I don’t know why but it’s very much more difficult to stand it with equanimity in a confined space by yourself. But I made myself do so. Then there was one terrific smack that threw me on my face on the chart room table. Then I heard a shout that the sweep had parted. So I went down aft to see if anything exciting was on. Only the end of the wire coming in this time, no wire throbbing and straining with the extra weight of presumed mines.

Since I was a boy I have always had a wish that I had fought in the last war. I wanted to know that I could undergo fire and keep cool. Now I have had my experience and I am glad to find that I can. It meant a lot to me and it was a thing you never could tell for sure until it had happened to you. Motor racing was the nearest thing I could get to it in that direction and that proved alright too.

Monday, 15th January. I saw in the Daily Telegraph of the blowing up by a mine of the Lucinda,⁹ a trawler. She just disintegrated with the loss of all hands in the space of about three seconds. What the paper did not say was that it occurred in the middle of our swept channel, just where we go, almost twice a day. It must have been a delayed action mine. These German mines are terrific. I heard several of the older men who swept in the last war say that the mines in the last war were like pimples compared with these. I certainly have succeeded in getting myself into one of the toughest jobs going in the war and in many ways I am glad. At least one feels that one is on real active service.

Friday, 19th January. Out at 4.15 am this morning as we have to rush up north to sweep a longer convoy of eighty ships through this mined area round the Tyne. So we don our little inflatable life belts and led the way. The other people ought to say ‘God bless the minesweepers’, but their usual attitude appears to be that we’re a bloody nuisance for getting in the way with our sweeps. At least they nearly always seem to make no effort to get out of our way. It was very funny the other day because a merchantman was coming right across our sweep in spite of all our efforts to get him to keep clear, when suddenly we exploded one of these big German mines. I have never seen anyone put about and clear out of it so quickly.

Saturday, 27th January. Out early and found it blowing hard from the south east. A lovely big sea running when we finally got right outside. When I had breakfast I had an active time. First I was pinned by the table sliding against the ward room wall, then having given that up and tried sitting at the side of the table instead of the end, I kept on sliding down chair and all to the wall, skilfully grasping my coffee and kipper, until in the end I gave it up and remained leaning against the wall. Finally the nearby table, with all the books and papers on it, fell over on my toe. So after that I thought it best to return to the comparative safety of the bridge. But the great thing was that in spite of a really terrific roll on the ship, I felt quite alright, not a qualm. I’m so frightfully pleased about that as I always wanted to be sure that I should get quite used to motion, and I do, and it makes all the difference to your happiness if you are trying to live on the sea.

Thursday, 1st February. At last we were able to go out. When we got to the breakwater there was a tremendous swell where the seas were running in over the shallow water. The ship seesawed and plunged, burying her nose which is a considerable feat with her high bows. We wondered seriously whether we should be able to bring her back if that swell continued, as if she started to yaw in the narrow entrance it might be impossible to stop her before she rammed the breakwater. As we were in the worst of it, with the stern coming right out each wave, the engine room voice pipe bell went and I answered it. I heard the Chief’s plaintiff voice ‘The engines are racing very badly Sir’. I nearly said ‘So what’.

It was a bit better outside and then further off shore it was very rough again. We were doing a special job, sweeping the cruiser Southampton out of the Tyne southwards along the War Channel¹⁰ for about twenty miles. It was really much too rough to sweep properly and we should only have gone out for a special job like that. Later in the day we saw the Southampton racing up astern through the mist to pass us, as we came to the end of the swept channel. She was a fine sight doing about twenty knots in that big sea.

After the Southampton had gone by, we gave the order ‘in sweeps’. I went off to assist. It was a fine sight with the waves at one moment well above your head and then you were careering high up with the sweep wires drumming under the sudden strain of the ascending stern. One couldn’t help feeling rather stirred that one was part of this life that required toughness to enjoy it and get the work done. You can see how the men like an officer who is there when there are dangerous or unpleasant things to be done. It is a rather curious thing the immense effect that cool officers will have on the men when there is any question of panic. The fact that I can make myself indifferent to danger is the greatest boon, as I feel that I can be really useful by just being with the men when there is any excitement on, such as mines exploding or aircraft attack.

Saturday, 3rd February. The news came in of the Sphinx being hit by a bomb up at Invergordon and being towed in by the Speedwell. The Sphinx was our flotilla leader when we were part of the Fifth Minesweeping Flotilla. So we all know her very well and the officers aboard. We have heard no further news as to casualties or the damage done. We suspect from signals that keep coming in now instructing us about aircraft look-outs, etc., that she was caught napping and failed to open fire before she was bombed. I spent quite a while perched on the 0.5 platform when the worst aircraft scares were going on in order to supervise the fighting of the gun if attacks should start.

Sunday, 4th February. My work will be even more useful for a bit now as today Pilot¹¹ was smitten with an attack of bronchitis and hauled off to hospital in a distinctly groggy condition. The doctor says he will be there for a fortnight, so now I am flotilla navigating officer pro tem and still more busy.

Tuesday, 6th February. More news came through today of the total loss of the Sphinx. Apparently the Captain and four hands were killed when the bomb exploded. She was then taken in tow without removing the crew. She then turned turtle in the heavy seas, probably through a bulkhead giving way and four more officers and fortyseven ratings were lost. A terrible thing after the comparatively light casualty list resulting from the bombing.

I heard today also of the secret and terrible story of the loss of the destroyer Exmouth. Apparently she was escorting the Cyprian up to Scapa, Cyprian having an immensely valuable and vital cargo in the shape of all the new anti aircraft defence equipment for that base. At dawn, as they were proceeding at ten knots, the Exmouth was torpedoed and broke in half. The Captain of the Cyprian at first stopped his engines and then almost at once went full speed ahead. He went right through the sinking destroyer and could hear the men screaming on either side, hence the fact that there were no survivors out of the whole ship’s company. He was congratulated by the Admiralty on his decision, as the cargo was so vital and the danger of torpedoes was so great had he stopped to help, or even hesitated. It must have been a terrible decision to have to take, with one hundred and seventy men being drowned and battered to death in the water around you.¹²

Just heard another discouraging story. A trawler with a party of mine experts from HMS Vernon managed to pick up a German mine and get it on board. Subsequently she was found still floating but with everything in her blown to bits, including of course everybody on board. While she was steaming home the mine must have exploded for some reason and just wiped everything out on the ship. People ashore don’t realise what a grim war we are waging at sea with the Germans. A cold blooded war, in a way I think requiring the maximum of bravery from the men on both sides in the long run, as it is so ceaseless and intangible. You just don’t know whether the next moment will be your last, and it’s surprising how untroubled by it most people manage to be.

Wednesday, 7th February. We swept fifty miles north to clear the War Channel for the cruiser Sheffield to come south. It was a long tiring day on the bridge. It got dark about 5pm and we weren’t in until 7pm. I had been handling the ship most of the day and was doing so as it became darker. First we had to negotiate a convoy and numerous ships without light or with very little light. Finally I brought her successfully towards the Tyne entrance and there we could hardly believe our eyes; as we approached it looked more like Brighton in peacetime than a blacked out port. Finally we realised that it was a huge convoy of probably eighty ships anchored in a cluster all round the entrance to the Tyne, with their riding lights showing. Fortunately with my good sight at night I was able to pick up our entrance and then suddenly we found ourselves surrounded by black hulls. It was most difficult. The night being pitch dark and the riding lights bright, one could not see the hulls or tell how near you were to them until you were almost on top of them. I kept on handling her, expecting the Captain to take over at any minute, as I had hardly ever handled a large ship before in traffic and it was a very difficult ordeal getting through this. I managed to zigzag her through the anchored ships going very uncomfortably close at times. Then the Captain said ‘are you alright because I haven’t quite got a hang of this yet’. He couldn’t see our way through as well as I could.

Finally I brought her triumphantly through and right up the river to the dock, the first time I had done it and in the dark. It certainly was rather nerve racking. As we were tying up alongside with the ten inch searchlight playing on the quay, accentuating the great sheer of the bow overhanging the wharf, I had that rather peculiar and pleasant feeling of lassitude at being able to stand still and do nothing, watching others tie up, after the intense strain of the preceding half hour.

Another boiler clean for Halcyon was due. Robert was rostered to stay aboard but Catherine came up from Cornwall to be with him.

Tuesday, 13th February. I read in the paper today that on good authority it is proved that in the transport of the Polish population out of the Corridor into the centre of Poland, great numbers perished of the cold and lack of food. The Germans probably intended it. In one case when a cattle truck was unlocked it was found that the occupants, thirty Polish children, were all frozen to death. It makes me see quite red when I hear of cruelty to children. Just think if Bobby and Antony had been in that truck. And it’s exactly the same as if they had been, as children all the world over are the same. I am glad I have read that as nothing will now stop me from doing all I can to avenge those children, and that will help if things get tough. One can’t help being afraid of death though one can control it, but the thought of what one is fighting and if necessary dying for, the extermination of things like that, will I think make all the difference.

Wednesday, 14th February. I was much interested in doing my first pay for the men. Each man’s name would be called and everyone below the rank of a petty officer would come forward and take off his cap and hold it out and I would put the pay envelope on it. It seemed almost feudal. Some of the older men had a priceless way of coming forward the few paces to the table in a kind of forced run, lifting their legs rather high. Hard to describe but evidently the idea being to come forward at the double even though you have no distance to do it in.

Tuesday, 20th February. The Captain had taken the opportunity to arrange to have us docked and the oil tank put right. Accordingly we waited for the tide until 12 o’clock and then in a thick fog came into the dock and thence into the Royal dock by the great tower. The professional pilot who took us in was very funny calling out to his pals in the tiny little tugs. One was called ‘Perce’. I remember ‘Touch ahead Perce’ and then with a masterly waggle of his bottom he would indicate to Perce that he was to give her a touch to port or starboard as the case might be.

Robert’s turn for leave now came up. Catherine had come up to Grimsby to be with him for a few days, so they journeyed home together.

Wednesday, 21st February. We had decided to go to Cornwall for my leave at all costs. I was relieved therefore to find that there was nothing to prevent me getting off. Indeed in the end the Captain travelled down to London with us. On the way into the station I asked him if he would give me my watch keeping certificate. I thought that as I had just finished successfully my term of office as full flotilla navigator it was a good moment before I made an utter balls of something. He said he would give it to me. I was highly pleased.

Thursday/Friday/Saturday/Sunday, 22nd/23rd/24th/25th February. As this is a diary of my war experiences I shall not set down in detail my doings during these four days of leave. I shall merely comment for my own satisfaction upon my outstanding impressions.

First of course the children. A lovely impression. They both seemed so lively and cheerful and enormous and full of life. Bobby was so much improved. Physically better looking and much fitter and less skinny, and so much more sensible. Very much the schoolboy. Antsie copying him in every way, very tiresome but very loveable. A vivid remembrance of perpetual rough and tumbles on our beds with both children sitting on my head, of uproarious joy at this, of sudden peace when I would read to them and they would sit one on each arm of my chair. Of little Antsie singing ‘I’ll see you in Scotchman’, (a reference to the fact that I had said that if I went up to Scotland they would perhaps come up there to visit me) of him crying because I was going away in the evening before my departure, and of his complete unconcern (luckily for my peace of mind) on the actual night of leaving. They were very delightful and one of the hardest things of this war for me is being away from them.

My other vivid impressions are of my joy at seeing Cornwall again and realising more clearly than ever what a lovely place it is compared with the east coast. Of sitting in that delightful old room at Treworval¹³ with Catherine in the evening, of waking up in the mornings and looking out from my bed right over that lovely peaceful countryside away to the Helford river, or the Dodman with the sun rising out of the sea behind the high land. I loved those early mornings, hearing the first little chatter of the children and knowing that soon they would come bustling in ready for the fray. So different to my little cabin with its closed porthole. It was fun too seeing one’s friends but rather difficult in some ways to talk to them, because four months in a minefield changes one’s point of view so much.

Finally the sad parting. A sad little evening meal in spite of a bottle of champagne, a last look at the children fast asleep in bed after hours of playing and reading, a rather desperate drive to the station with practically no lights thinking we were rather late, then a few minutes on the platform in the dark with Catherine clinging to my arm. Then it was all over, except for a lovely memory.

Monday, 26th February. Having some gins with two RNVR officers off another boat they told me of a new A.F.O.¹⁴ that had just come out asking commanding officers to recommend RNVR officers for commands of trawlers, MTBs, armed yachts, etc. They said they were going to try to get a recommendation and I decided to also, but I thought I had better see that I got my Watchkeeping Certificate first.

Tuesday, 27th February. The Skipper had seen the A.F.O. about recommending RNVRs for command and had talked about it to the Secretary who came to see me. Apparently the Skipper said to the Secretary that he would give me a recommendation if I asked for it, but that I was so useful he didn’t want me to go and that he thought I might be wasted. Then the Secretary said that the Skipper had told him to get out my Watchkeeping Certificate and he was trying to find out whether we (RNVR officers) were allowed to have them after only two months at sea whereas RNs had to have three months at sea first. Finally he gave it to me though they weren’t sure whether the time was too short or not, which was very nice of them I thought.

Monday, 11th March. Work on the charts and lots of QZ’s¹⁵ in the morning. In the afternoon we were told that the Duke of Kent would be coming aboard. So after lunch we all changed into our Number Ones¹⁶ and put on clean collars and in some cases shirts. I looked round next door into the doctor’s cabin and found him rolling up his shirt sleeves. That was his method of preparing for the ‘Duke’ as his cuffs were dirty. Finally, when we were all teed up, had missed our golf and had waited for ages, we were informed that the Duke would not be coming but had sugared off to Liverpool!

I know that I must see the Skipper about being recommended for a command and about the volunteering and I went down to my cabin to consider the C.A.F.O.¹⁷ again and to make a final decision, as the consideration of the children was still worrying me and I hate being undecided on any important matter. While I was below Catherine’s letter arrived saying that she hoped I’d get my MTB and sink all the Germans I could. This seemed to me a coincidence arriving just as I was pondering a final decision. It fell in with my wishes and I decided to go forward with it all.

So I went to the Captain and volunteered. He was surprised and said ‘Are you sure?’ I said I was. Then I asked for a recommendation for a command, especially for MTBs. He said he would give me one and to tell Scratch¹⁸ to see about them. So that was that. I saw Scratch and we worded up a recommendation for me for an MTB especially on the ground of my knowledge about engines and experience of high speed. In the recommendation for special operations we merely said ‘he is of good physique’ which is what is required apparently.

Friday, 15th March. I was sitting writing to Catherine about six when the last person in the world that I expected was ushered into my cabin. Henry Trefusis, beard and all, looking very flourishing. We had a lot to talk about so spent the evening together and in the end got rather sozzled. It was great fun seeing him. He is so much more communicative than he used to be. He seemed to be enjoying life in his destroyer very much, though I gathered that he was suffering from the same complaint as all of us, namely not enough responsible work to do. He hadn’t been so lucky as me in stepping into things, very naturally in a larger ship, and he isn’t allowed to touch the charts or QZs, so his navigating is nil.

On the 18 March Robert went down with German Measles. He spent an uncomfortable week in hospital but then enjoyed the bonus of recuperation leave in Cornwall.

Tuesday, 26th March – Thursday, 4th April. The joy of waking in the morning to see the hills of Cornwall going by in bright sunlight, with a glimpse of the sea at Par and St Austell Bay. I cannot describe how lovely it all seemed to me after the east coast. It makes me realise how desperately fond one gets of Cornwall.

Then Catherine, the children and Jenny¹⁹ all looking out of the car when they arrived. The children rather shy and Catherine rather upset at being late. Then my old clothes and comfort and just the joy of being home. It is worth living in the discomfort of a small warship at sea in the winter in wartime to get days of leave like this.

The children get better than ever. Making the most wonderful mess of themselves out doors. One little incident stands out. I was pacing up and down the room talking with my hands behind my back, as one often does on the bridge or the quarter-deck. Suddenly I became aware of little Antsie by my side pacing step for step with me, his hands behind his back, very long strides to keep up with me and turning just as I turned. It was delicious. I engaged him in serious conversation as we paced!

Then it was back to Halcyon.

Friday, 5th April. The same old dull train journey back to Grimsby. I could not help thinking how strange everything was. I was going back to the war, mines, bombs and machine guns. Recognition signals, CBs,²⁰ QZs, and all the paraphernalia of the British Navy at war. That seemed already to be the most natural thing for me. The past week was an interlude. A peaceful happy experience in a rather grim but exciting life. The children playing, Catherine knitting or dealing with her little domestic problems, a dance, old Smith discussing at length the fearful problem of whether a client should pay five shillings²¹ a year or ten shillings a year for his use of a water supply. All the old usual values no longer usual. Wiped out and replaced already in my mind by the fierce wastage of war.

I got a shore boat almost at once and arrived at the ship by about 6.10. After parking my bag I went up to the chart room and found Pilot very busy making out supply and receipt notes for all the chart room equipment. Cronyn was to take over Niger and he had decided to take his whole ship’s company with him.

Saturday, 6th April. Went into the lock and docked alongside Niger who had entered before us. My last trip in Halcyon. One feels quite sentimental about leaving a ship you have lived in even if only for a short while.

Niger had picked up the day before a peculiar little pear shaped black mine which the Germans had just started to lay for the purpose of cutting our sweeps by blowing them up. It was hanging by its tail from one of the float winches on the quarter deck. I noticed an RNVR Lieutenant, who came aboard with Niger’s Captain, go and examine this mine. Being interested I stepped over to see what was going on. It appeared that the RNVR man was an expert on mine destruction but, as this was an entirely new thing, had had no experience of the type. He undid a top nut which held the whole guts of the mine and withdrew this mechanism leaving only the empty shell. He proceeded to examine it and said that he thought there was some explosive there but did not wish to try and take it to bits unless ordered to and he would get in touch with Glenny, one of Vernon’s²² experts who had taken the first magnetic mine to bits. So he and the Captain left, telling a sentry to see that no one touched it. That of course did not apply to an officer. So I proceeded to examine it, in a curious way fascinated by the idea that it might blow up.

A Chief Petty Officer called Ramsby off Halcyon was also there, and he was by way of being knowledgeable as he had done a short course at Vernon. So he examined it with me and we spent about an hour with it, fiddling about and trying to work out theories. When we had pulled and pushed and unscrewed all we could and generally kicked it around the deck we had finally arrived at a theory that there was no explosive in the part we had, and that it was only the release and firing mechanism, the explosive being elsewhere.

Sunday, 7th April. The change-over proceeded. We got our cabins changed over today and slept aboard Niger tonight for the first time. The hands are marvellous, rushing around grabbing all they can for their own ship as a matter of honour. For instance, in the end we changed everything in our chart room over except the parallel rulers and sextants because everything of ours was better and kept up to date better, except as I heard him say in the most matter of fact way ‘we haven’t got a sextant on Halcyon and they have two parallel rulers and a sextant on Niger, so I left those’.

I heard today of the narrow squeak that Sutton had. She is one of our flotilla. She was pulling in her sweep when she found she had a mine in it. Then the First Lieutenant rushed forward with everybody and told them to slacken out and go full speed ahead. As he did so the mine went off about ten feet astern. Luckily they were all forward of the winch. The explosion was terrific. Everything breakable on the ship went. Number One said he was knocked down twice. Once by the force of the explosion and just as he got up he went down again with the weight of water landing on the deck. The decks were knee deep in water for some time. The kite, a piece of iron weighing a good half ton, was chucked clean over the bridge and landed in the water about one hundred yards ahead of the ship. Actually she was lucky not to sink. She managed to creep in and she is so badly damaged that she will take about eight weeks to repair. Lucky blokes.

We find to our pleasure that Niger has about 650 hours in her boilers, well over the due amount, so that we shall have to boiler clean right away. It is to start on Tuesday, and I of course will stay and look after the ship.

Monday, 8th April. I spent the whole morning settling the chart room in. Finally I had got everything to my satisfaction and went aboard Halcyon for a last gin in her ward room. Here I found the RNVR mine officer called Armitage talking to the Captain. It appeared that Glenny of Vernon was coming up to take the mine to bits and that there was three pounds of hexanite, the most devastating of German explosives, in it. That made me laugh when I thought how we had decided that there was no explosive in it and had kicked it around for so long. Especially as hexanite is a notoriously unstable explosive. I couldn’t help thinking of the hushed tones with which the Romney Foxs²³ had mentioned the fact that Andrew Le Grice had nearly been with a party who had been examining British mines for instruction purposes one of which had blown up, and how his wife wasn’t being told that he had nearly been in danger. It was all very funny. Before turning in tonight I made notes and diagrams of what I had learnt on rendering a German mine safe and pinned it up in my cabin. You never know when it may be useful in this job to be able to step forward as an expert and render a sausage safe if need be. Or try to. There’s one thing, you wouldn’t try unsuccessfully more than once.

Tuesday, 9th April. At 12.45 I came down from the chart room and was called in to the Captain’s cabin. There he was having a drink with Sutton²⁴ and in a high state of excitement as he had just heard the news of the attack on Norway. He clearly thought that we might be going over to Norway at any minute. Later in the day we got a signal to say that all ships of the 4th and 5th M/S Flotillas were to take on coal,²⁵ stores and a full complement of dan buoys and stand by to sail for Norwegian waters. We received a demand to know how quickly we could close down our boilers and be ready for sea if necessary. I said about twelve hours.

All this was frightfully exciting and Scratch and I are thrilled at the prospect of going to Norway. To our surprise no one else seems to be. We must be very belligerent or something but anyway we are both so longing for it that we shall be bitterly disappointed if we don’t go.

Wednesday, 10th April. Feverish work on the charts in the morning coupled with a lot of dashing about to the docks arranging that the degaussing should be finished earlier than promised. Then the first news began to come through on the wireless of the smashing of German Fleet by the Navy.²⁶ Scratch and I could hardly contain ourselves. Our desire to be in it is terrific. The only consolation is that with any luck we may be off in a day or two. It is funny this terrific desire to be in the thick of it when anything exciting is going on. I would have given anything to be in the fray at Narvik yesterday.

Thursday, 11th April. Armitage told me an interesting story about how poor Baldwin had met his death. Baldwin was one of the men who took the magnetic mine to bits and one of the chief experts in Vernon. He was killed when a mine exploded on a trawler and blasted the whole of the guts out of it. Apparently an RNVR officer had survived long enough to say what happened and had then died. They had swung a British mine on board. These are quite safe once the mooring wire is cut unless a considerable pull is put on the mooring wire again to make contact. The horns had been broken when it was swung over the side and when Baldwin was not looking a hefty trawler hand (knowing nothing about mines) had jumped up to steady the mine which was swinging from the gallows, by holding on to the end of the cut mooring wire. He missed the first time but caught it the second time and his weight coming on to the wire made the necessary contact and, the horns being broken off, up went the mine. I think it is the most infernal bad luck on Baldwin to die as a result of that silly mistake after all the risks he had taken in mine destruction work.

Saturday, 13th April. About dinner time the Captain arrived. He had been at the Admiralty for some time while he was on leave. We are not going to Norway, at any rate for the time bring. We were returning to routine at Grimsby. A bitter pill.

Wednesday, 17th April. I heard a rather interesting fact today. Apparently after Zeebrugge the Admiralty allotted so many VCs to the expedition and one was to be given to the Vindictive. The second-in-command under Carpenter,²⁷ I forget his name but I think it was Morgan, and Carpenter were the obvious people to give it to as being in command. So the ship’s company voted on it and everyone was supposed to vote. Well Morgan voted of course for

Carpenter and when the results were brought to Carpenter the numbers were exactly equal for both of them but Carpenter hadn’t voted. His C-in-C told Carpenter that he must vote, but Carpenter, knowing that if the numbers were equal he would have to get the VC as senior officer, refused to, because of course he ought to have voted for Morgan. In spite of protest he refused to vote and so got the VC. A pretty low piece of work in my view. Apparently Morgan was the man who deserved it as he had led the party onto the Mole.

Thursday, 18th April. Still standing by for Norway, lying at anchor in the stream. I started my training of the 0.5’s gun crew. It was quite successful as a start and I won over the Chief Gunner’s Mate, which is important. At first he viewed me with suspicion. I shall cut their reloading time down from about five minutes to forty seconds, in time.

Friday, 19th April. It was blowing hard and rough outside. I put my 0.5 crew through their paces as I thought it would do them good on an unpleasant day. They got on quite well. It was fine up there on the high gun mounting with the ship careering about and the gun firing. It was exciting. I made them fire about 400 rounds and got the gun into good trim, which it wasn’t before.

Monday, 22nd April. The Captain told Number One the other day that I had better take over all the gunnery. Rather flattering, but a tall order for me with no training and all the other work I have to do. I have no doubt however that in time I could effect great improvements. It is really incredible the slackness and lack of preparation for action that I find. It is illuminating that I, an utterly untrained (so far as gunnery is concerned) RNVR officer should be the only person to get anything done.

Later this evening, about 23.00, we have just had quite an excitement. There was an air raid warning from ashore and enemy aircraft reported over Spurn Point about four miles off. The 0.5 gun’s crew was ordered to be closed up. So I popped on a coat and went up. It was a wonderful night with a low full moon and a hard east wind blowing out of a clear sky. The tide had swung us against the wind, so we trained the gun aft towards Spurn Point and waited. There were about twenty searchlights from ashore working all over the sky. It was really a wonderful sight and very exciting standing there by the gun with its four muzzles feeling that at last I had made something of it. We were not nearly ready for them but at least nearer than a few days ago. Presently the searchlights died away and we all went below.

Sunday, 28th April. Four magnetic mines were blown up by magnetic sweepers round the Chequers buoy after the German aircraft raid last Tuesday. As we went around that buoy about three times (and either side) immediately after the mines were laid, it looks as though the degaussing gear may be fairly hopeful.

Tuesday, 30th April. We are standing by today while two of the flotilla are making a searching sweep off Yarmouth, a long way out, where the SS Cree was mined. If she finds mines we go, if not we revert to ordinary routine.

As it turned out fine I had a game of golf with the Captain and played very well, beating him handsomely. When we got back to the club house at the end of the round the steward came running out for the Captain saying that Scratch was on the ‘phone for him. The news was that Dunoon had struck a mine during the searching sweep and was sinking. We got a taxi and dashed back. We are off tonight at once as soon as the tide serves. She has Elgin standing by. Everyone seemed surprised at the news. Personally I was not. I think we have been lucky not to be sunk like some other sweepers. That is the second ship in our flotilla to be mined, but Sutton got home without casualties. I wonder how many will be lost with this sinking.

Skippy told me this morning that now that I had applied for MTBs and volunteered for dangerous work, and as I should get one, he knows that at the beginning of the war the intention was to use them in an attack on Wilhelmshaven. We should indeed then be death and glory boys! I think after motor racing and the strange way that I feel quite impervious to danger now, I should welcome the job. Anyway what I feel is that Englishmen have got to do this work now to defeat Germany, and I must be one who does the worst work as I am fitted for that particular type of fighting. If I was killed on such a job my sons could at least feel proud of me, and is that not better than dying of old age in one’s bed with your children tired of you?

The latest signal from Elgin. She says Dunoon is sunk with her stern showing, and that she is returning to Yarmouth with forty two survivors. If there were no other ship there and that is all the survivors it is a terrible loss of personnel. It brings it home to you when you knew all the chaps well and only saw them yesterday.

Wednesday, 1st May. I am writing with the ship at anchor in the middle of the North sea. It seems such a strange place to be at anchor. Not at all friendly with the thought of enemy aircraft and submarines. When we got the news from "Elgin" it appeared that "Dunoon" had hit a mine forward and that it had blown most of the forward part of the ship away, including the bridge. Consequently all the officers on the bridge had been killed. These included the Captain, the navigator and the assistant navigator and Hill who I had seen a lot of at Hove and had liked very much. He also was a solicitor and being in my squad at Hove²⁸ we had made rather special friends, and I had seen quite a bit of him since as he was in our flotilla. In fact I had had a drink with him only two days before. It made me think how much chance one’s continued existence was. Our names both began with ‘H’ and I might just as likely have been in his place yesterday as where I am now. We were each allotted to a ship and now he is at the bottom of the sea.

We had not long been sweeping however before signs of the lost ship reminded us vividly of her fate. First clothes and barrels began to float by, then parts of the bridge and superstructure generally. There evidently must have been a very violent explosion forward as we saw part of the chart house float by. This was presently vividly confirmed by the presence of charts floating by. First a few, curiously unreal floating face up. I remarked to the Pilot ‘There goes part of the tidal atlas’. Then more and more until whole folios were floating by still with their strings tied. There must have been a great eruption in the chart room. My special sanctuary!

We swept for some hours and then as it was growing dark about nine o’clock we anchored off Smith’s Knoll, one of the sand banks in this part of the North sea.

Thursday, 2nd May. We started sweeping at daylight with a long day ahead of us. It appears that Elgin and Dunoon had cut or exploded about six mines before the latter was blown up. They were doing a searching sweep endeavouring to ascertain the western limits of the minefield. We were now instructed to do a clearance sweep out to three miles beyond the War Channel. The captain of Elgin felt sure that we should not find any mines in this area as they were all further out to the eastward. But the Admiralty policy was to clear for certain a sufficient area to make the channel quite safe, and then leave any mines that might be beyond in the hopes that submarines coming back later might blow up on their own field thinking that we had cleared it.

At dusk we anchored again off Smith’s Knoll and so left poor Dunoon to her fate and the remaining mines. I am sorrowful for poor Hill. He had had no chance of having a wife and children. If I am to be blown up, I shall remain for ever thankful that I have been allowed these advantages. They are the only great things in life worth having, and the only thing that can in any way ensure that something of oneself remains behind.

Sunday, 5th May. A lovely day. We went into a small church service, held in the herring sale room of all places, in memory of those lost in Dunoon. It was rather an attractive and touching little ceremony. Only sailors there. Even the padre had been a Lieut. Commander (G)²⁹ before he heard the call. As the dead men’s names were read out it seemed so extraordinary that they were gone. This day a week ago I was laughing and talking with two of them. They were nice chaps too. Anyway they are alright. It is the people they leave behind.

Directly the service was finished we went out sweeping. There has been a ‘blitzkrieg’ of magnetic mines. They have exploded eleven in magnetic sweeps in the last few days. It is rather disturbing to find that in the latest mine obtained when the plane crashed at Clacton they have reversed the polarity of the switch. Therefore unless our degaussing gear is correctly calibrated, neutralising our magnetism, it will be increasing the risk for us. We have reason to believe that it is not correctly calibrated, as this is difficult and requires time.

This evening after dinner I was listening to the wireless and they had a rather attractive programme of all musical comedy hits. They brought home to me what a gulf was fixed between my present existence and pre-war life. I find that somehow mentally I have made a clean cut. I have in a sense blanked off the past. I suppose instinctively I have found this necessary in order to steel myself for death at the worst or laborious days cut off from all I love at the best. The comfortable pleasure loving pre-war self has had to be cut clean out, so that I can dedicate myself entirely to the cause of destroying the enemy. I feel that very strongly. Englishmen have got to be brave now and be willing to make the supreme sacrifice of death. I have fortunately been able to make up my mind fully to that idea, and so I wish to press on to my MTB and throw it and myself if necessary at a German warship if thereby I can feel that I am really wrecking the enemy in greater proportion than ourselves. It is a funny feeling to be like this and in many ways very satisfactory. One feels in some way that thereby one is being true to a tradition that is more worthwhile than anything else in our little lives. But in order to be able to be like that the past has to be cut out. And so this evening the music cast disquieting shades of the past over me. Especially when someone sang ‘Lover come back to me’. I remembered that it was Catherine’s favourite during the time of our engagement.

What lovely times we have had together. And what lovely children we have created. I often think of them all. I loved Antony’s remark when chanting ‘What shall we do with the drunken sailor’,³⁰‘Mummy, how do you drink a sailor’. Most logical for his little mind which knows nothing of intoxication. Sometimes when I think of them I wonder whether I should not try to preserve my life a bit more by at least not pushing myself forward for dangerous work. And then I reassure myself by the knowledge that I am fitted for the work and that England needs those who are fitted, and also by the knowledge that Catherine would not have me hold back, in just the same way that she would not try and restrain me from motor racing. A thing I have always greatly admired in her.

The Phoney War came to an end in April with the German invasion of Denmark and Norway. The invasion of France and the Low Countries in May followed close on its heels. The pattern of work for the 4th Minesweeping Flotilla varied very little until the order came to head for Dunkirk and assist in the evacuation of the British Army. Thus this is the point at which we should look back at Robert’s experience in the Phoney War and take stock of what it meant for him.

In the course of just over five months it had turned him from a very green young RNVR lieutenant, joining his first ship, to a respected member of that ship’s company, holding a Watchkeeping Certificate, responsible for the ship’s gunnery, and quite able to take the flotilla navigating officer’s place when he was ill. He had found his feet thoroughly in the wardroom and had something of a reputation amongst both officers and men for courage and determination. His commanding officer had recommended him for the command of an MTB. He had endured the brutal winter of 1939/40 at sea, one of the coldest of the century, and he had endured the danger and boredom of minesweeping.

To be in minesweepers during the Phoney War was, to many thoughtful officers and men, a surreal experience when they came ashore and back to normality, as they did almost every night. At sea they endured the worst that the weather could throw at them while undertaking the dangerous but meticulous task of keeping swept channels around the British coast clear of mines. Returning on leave, to a place as remote from the war as Cornwall, must indeed have been a peculiar sensation.

I have recorded Robert’s innermost thoughts drawn from his diary, not because I would not normally wish to respect his privacy, but because I believe it is important to understand how tentative the first steps may be in the creation of a reputation for determination and courage. The confidence necessary to achieve both objectives does not spring fully formed to a man’s aid. Both qualities are built on experience, and it is important to understand the doubts that assail the bravest of men until they know themselves to be thoroughly tested. I think it also important to understand how much his family meant to Robert and how that sustained his belief in where his duty lay. Throughout his narrative he comments to himself on how much he would have liked to find himself where greatest excitement was afoot, for instance bemoaning how much he missed being at the Battle of Narvik. He was shortly to get all the excitement he craved.