by Ian Dear
When dealing with a miscreant, a warning was sometimes sufficient, the memorandum added, especially in the case of a young and inexperienced person. But where this did not apply a procedure should be swiftly adopted that would end with the officer in question being reported to the appropriate Naval Authority for disciplinary action. ‘CCRT relies on Commanding Officers in upholding the standard of the Rescue Tug Service in which there is no room for anyone who lets the “side” down,’ the memorandum concluded, ‘especially when the “side” is composed of members of the Mercantile Marine of which our country is so proud.’35
This was followed on 5 April 1943 by a memorandum from the CCRT himself, warning all commanding officers about the mismanagement of duty-free goods: ‘Pay careful attention to the regulations concerning duty-free stores, and the great privileges given by this provision, thus misunderstandings need not occur which may, on occasion, lead to the withdrawal of such privileges.’36
From these pronouncements, and another about ensuring all ranks wore the correct uniform, one can infer that it was taking time for Martin to instil the required level of naval discipline. But at Campbeltown, the punishment for ratings of such a minor misdemeanour as drunkenness was hardly draconian. Often it involved an old ship’s wheel. This was hung in the water from a bollard to accumulate barnacles and rust, and was hauled out for the offender to clean and polish like new. It was then put back in the water to await the next defaulter. Confined to barracks, extra rifle drill with full pack and spud bashing, as it was called, were also regular punishments.
More severe was the punishment meted out to Fred Radford. After a boisterous evening at the pub, he had a contretemps with the regulating petty officer, not noted for his benevolence. To Fred’s surprise, the next morning he was told he was on a charge, which his commanding officer, Lt Robinson, told him was too serious for him to deal with, and that he would have to go before the NOIC Campbeltown:
I was taken before this officer who had about a half a yard of gold braid on his sleeves. He asked me a few questions about the previous night and decided not to hang me. However, he did sentence me to fourteen days cells with three days’ low diet and no bed.
I spent the next fourteen days in a cell about nine feet square. It had a grilled skylight and a solid door with a small observation hatch in it. I had to clean the floor every morning. At one side facing the door was a wooden bench, about three foot wide, which served as a bed, but for the first three days there was no bedding and after that I was only allowed one blanket. I was marched out every morning by a sentry to the wash-house to wash, but no shave, and if I needed the toilet at any other time I would have to bang on the door and ask the sentry and he would march me to the toilet and stand by the door and then march me back. Also, for the first three days my food consisted of sixteen ounces of ship’s biscuits, called hard-tack, and water. After that I would get a few potatoes and gravy; sometimes with a trace of meat in it.
A naval padre came to see me after about four days to see if I wanted any spiritual guidance. I told him to get lost. The experience didn’t bother me a lot but I was pleased when it was over and I went back to the hall and the cheers of my mates. My sentence obviously was not too detrimental for me because shortly after I was released I applied for, and got, a promotion to the job of cook. On a big tug like the Bustler [in which Fred was serving at the time of his incarceration] there were three people in the galley so the first cook was in charge of a small team. I was therefore promoted to petty officer cook. Probably one of the very few teenaged petty officers in the Royal Navy.37
In action
No sooner had he sewn on his badges than Fred was transferred to Mammouth, a French rescue tug with a British T.124T crew. She was based at Harwich and escorted convoys up and down E-boat Alley. The rescue tugs were always positioned astern of a convoy ‘but we saw plenty of action and the Mammouth towed quite a few damaged ships in’. One he remembered assisting was a ‘Woolworths carrier’ – naval slang for an MAC ship. She had hit a mine and Mammouth towed her into the Humber Estuary. Fred lived at Hull and thought he might get a night at home, but was foiled by the standard procedure of harbour tugs taking over a damaged ship from the less manoeuvrable rescue tugs to take it into port.
While serving aboard Bustler, Fred was involved in a lot of rescue work at a critical time in the Battle of the Atlantic. In August 1942 she searched for, and found, the 5661-ton City of Cardiff torpedoed and abandoned off Lisbon while in convoy SL-119 from Freetown:
She was down by the stern and there were two dead men with their feet trapped in the rail hanging over the side with their heads dipping in the water as she rolled in the swell. It was presumed they had been blown out of the after accommodation alleyway by the explosion which killed them. We towed the City of Cardiff for half a day but then she reared up, practically stood on end, and sank. We had to quickly chop our wire then return to base.37
In January 1943 Bustler assisted two American Liberty ships in three days. Both the William M Stewart and John Marshall were on passage from Swansea to the Clyde to join a Mediterranean-bound convoy when the former developed mechanical trouble north of the Isle of Man, and Bustler towed her to Belfast. Two days later, the John Marshall ran aground south of Portpatrick on the south-west coast of the Scottish mainland. Bustler managed to refloat her and towed her to Kames Bay at the southern end of the Isle of Great Cumbrae, a sheltered spot where rescue tugs often left damaged ships to be picked up and taken to the nearby Clyde repair yards.
Fred’s last ship was Director, a wooden Lend-Lease rescue tug, whose sea trials had not been auspicious. She was steam-powered and at inconvenient times lost power due to a loss of condenser vacuum. On one occasion, it occurred during a Christmas dinner of ham sandwiches while beam-on to a heavy swell off Cape Cod, with predictable results:
On another occasion she would not go astern when berthing and instead of going alongside the wharf ploughed straight into it causing the foreman in the shed immediately above the wharf to sing out: ‘Come right in folks!’ She also leaked continuously and eventually had to be dry docked at Bermuda where it was found that only wooden dowels inserted where ten keel bolts should have been had prevented her from sinking as soon as she had been launched. A hurricane force wind en route for Newfoundland to join an eastbound convoy proved her subsequent seaworthiness.38
On the afternoon of 23 April 1945, she helped one of the last U-boat victims of the war when the 7345-ton British freighter SS Riverton, in ballast and bound for Bristol, was torpedoed while in convoy TBC-135 near Land’s End:
[The torpedo] completely demolished the stern and flooded the ship as far as the forward holds. HMRT Director, commanded by Lt CA Hire RNR, was in the vicinity, and proceeded to her assistance immediately and took off 46 survivors. The vessel was sinking slowly; nevertheless, it was decided to attempt salvaging her. A tow rope was connected and the sinking and waterlogged vessel towed to the nearest sheltered bay [St Ives], where salvage pumps were put aboard her. Pumping continued throughout the night, and on the afternoon of the following day the vessel was again taken in tow, and after covering a distance of over 100 miles the badly damaged ship was brought into port and saved.39
The last operation of the war involving a rescue tug was on 27 April 1945, when the frigate HMS Redmill was hit aft by a U-boat’s gnat torpedo,40 killing twenty-eight of her crew. At the time she was hunting U-boats with the Twenty-first Escort Group north-west of Ireland. Another frigate took her in tow until the Assurance class Jaunty – whose valiant rescue work during the famous Operation pedestal convoy to Malta is described in Chapter 8 – arrived the next morning and connected up with the damaged frigate.
There was now a heavy swell and a northerly gale, force 7–8, and the tow parted twice before the Redmill was passed that evening to harbour tugs off Moville, on the north coast of Ireland. The frigate’s commanding officer later reported that ‘the success of the tow in very unpleasant weather was entirely due t
o the superb seamanship and ship-handling of the commanding officer, HMRT Jaunty’.41
Disciplinary issues
The matter of discipline sometimes surfaced when official reports were submitted on a rescue tug’s operational efficiency. One such case was the French steam tug Mastadonte, a sister ship of Mammouth. After her escape from France, she was manned by a British crew, who appeared to have a somewhat happy-go-lucky attitude. At the time, June 1941, she was stationed at Greenock and employed in target towing, an important but hardly exciting role, and tedium may have had a role in their behaviour.
On 5 June her chief engineer wrote to the CCRT, ostensibly to submit details of the repairs that were being carried out. After pointing out the difficulties of finding spare parts that would fit a French tug, he wrote that his main problem was ‘fireman trouble’ (stokers). In his opinion, this was due to lack of discipline of long standing where the men, the majority from Glasgow, had unlimited leave so that they ‘come and go as they please. While coaling at Greenock they disappear for two or three days and nothing can be done to punish them. The naval authorities refuse to crime the men, the civil police cannot interfere, I have tried Merchant Service methods with use of force but to no effect.’42
The problem of discipline also taxed the new CCRT, Captain CC Walcott OBE RN, when he was appointed in July 1942, and was one he immediately raised with all rescue tug commanding officers:
It is most essential that Commanding Officers of HM Rescue Tugs realise in every way their responsibilities with regard to the personnel under them, their guidance and comfort, and also the responsibility of the Commanding Officers regarding all Government stores and the observance of privileges, especially those that affect the provision of duty-free wines, spirits and tobacco. It is also essential Royal Naval procedure be understood by all concerned. The Commanding Officer only is entitled to deal direct with the appropriate Naval Authority (FOIC, NOIC, or RNO), and only when circumstances arise where there is no appropriate Naval Authority he may deal direct with the CCRT at the Admiralty…
The efficiency of the Rescue Tug Service very largely depends on the Commanding Officers of the Rescue Tugs. They will have every possible support to effect this efficiency. CCRT is anxious that the Rescue Tug Service shall be second to none. There is no room for malcontents, neurotics or weak-minded characters who, cowardly at heart, only show a pretence of bravery under the influence of alcohol, and generally let the side down on shore and afloat. Such characters must be weeded out if they exist, and Commanding Officers will bear in mind that personnel, removed as no longer required in the Rescue Tug Service, will not be employed by the Pool, and will have no alternative but to be conscripted for the Army. From my short experience of the personnel I have already met, I have great confidence in the loyalty and future efficiency of the Rescue Tug Service...
In conclusion, I would like a portion of Lord Nelson’s last letter, which was written in his cabin on board HMS Victory immediately before the battle of Trafalgar on October 21st, 1805, to be a guidance to all the personnel I have the honour to be in charge of, and I am endeavouring to promulgate this prayer by the provision of a framed copy to be hung in every HM Rescue Tug in a suitable position where all can see. The portion of this letter reads as follows: ‘May the great God whom I worship grant to my country and to the benefit of Europe a great and glorious victory, and may no misconduct in anyone tarnish it.’43
One wonders how the hard-bitten readers of this unusual missive reacted to its sentiments, and what provoked them. One wonders, too, why it was necessary in December 1942 for the CCRT to recirculate a letter first sent out in December 1940 to all flag officers-in-charge and NOICs at home and abroad. This began: ‘I am to state that examination of reports on the loss of one of HM Salvage Vessels and other recent incidents in HM Rescue Tugs, indicates the necessity for greater supervision of the administration of these vessels, and of the welfare and discipline of their personnel, by Flag and Naval officers-in-charge.’44
The letter was promulgated as a CAFO, and spelt out the obligations the naval authorities had to rescue tug personnel:
[Although rescue tug officers and ratings] are drawn from the Merchant Service, and in particular and as far as possible, from those normally employed on towing duties, nevertheless, they are subject to naval discipline; and the fact that these officers and men have little or no knowledge of naval routine, procedure and discipline, makes it all the more important that they should be assisted and led with care, tact and foresight under the constant supervision of senior officers…
The work of Rescue Tugs is generally arduous and exacting, although there may be unavoidable periods of idleness, which are bad for morale. Only by careful supervision of the welfare of the personnel, and thorough understanding not only of prevailing conditions but also those under whom they have been accustomed to serve, can discipline and efficiency be retained.44
In short, tread carefully.
It is impossible to know what sparked all this and why it was felt necessary to quote Nelson; and it may, or may not, have been a coincidence that Captain Walcott received another appointment in August 1943, though by then, as will be seen, there had been a number of complaints, from the C-in-C Western Approaches downwards, on the way the Service was being run. He was replaced by Captain GS Holden RN, who remained CCRT for the rest of the war.45
Pilfering, looting and mutiny
If Captain Walcott was reacting to a serious offence, such as looting or mutiny, very little has come to light in official documents. Looting was, quite rightly, strongly condemned, but pilfering was not uncommon, especially in ports where damaged ships were taken in by harbour tugs after a rescue tug had handed the wreck over. But working with damaged and abandoned ships at sea presented temptations and opportunities, and all officers were on the alert to make sure it did not happen on their watch.
However, there is an amusing anecdote where the officers knew exactly what was happening. It occurred after the North African landings in November 1942 when a rescue tug, investigating a merchant ship aground and abandoned by her crew, discovered part of her cargo was sugar. The crew ‘rescued’ some of it, but after returning to Algiers, or perhaps it was Bône or Oran, they heard that the local custom officials were making spot checks on all recently arrived vessels. Panic ensued, and in the middle of the night they threw the lot overboard, only to find the next morning that a barge had been moored alongside, and was now covered in sugar. Quick action had to be taken with hoses to clear it. The customs officers never appeared.
‘Acquiring’ government stores that had been abandoned was one thing; taking someone’s personal belongings was quite another. The only hard evidence of this happening occurred when the 8,457-ton Dutch freighter Mangkalihat was torpedoed and badly damaged off the Mozambique coast on 1 August 1943, while en route from Beira to Durban in convoy BC-2. Eighteen members of the crew were killed and, with the ship’s engine room and boiler room flooded, the rest took to the boats, and were eventually taken aboard one of the convoy’s escorts, the South African corvette Freesia. The next morning, the captain wanted to reboard his ship, but was not allowed to when he refused to sign a document stating that he had abandoned her. Instead, the corvette put a party aboard and began to tow her towards land, presumably under the assumption that the corvette’s crew would be entitled to claim salvage.
The freighter’s captain later wrote that the tow ‘proved very cumbersome’, and they did not get far.46 On the morning of 3 August, the rescue tug Prudent appeared and Mangkalihat’s crew was transferred to her from the corvette. The captain and some of his crew were then allowed back on board the damaged freighter, while the rescue tug’s deck crew rigged a pump on board her to tackle the flooding, which had made the ship settle further into the water.
What happened next is not entirely clear, but Mangkalihat’s crew went to and fro gathering what they could of their personal belongings, and they also gave some items – including a canary –
to the crew of Prudent. The ship’s captain went to his cabin, retrieved some of his belongings and took them across to Prudent. When he returned to collect a few last items, he found that some shirts he had wrapped in a parcel were missing. He went to the officers’ quarters and found two men from the Prudent there. He told them to clear out and when they passed him he noticed, too late, that one had a suspicious bulge under his shirt. He drew his revolver and took a shortcut to the deck to prevent them leaving the ship, but was only in time to stop the second man, who was about to board the rescue tug. The captain then saw that he, too, had a bulging shirt, and levelled his revolver at him.
At this point one of the corvette’s officers who was aboard the crippled freighter intervened. He reminded the Dutch captain, rather forcefully one would imagine, that the man was not under his command. Prudent’s captain was called and made the culprit – the young second steward – empty what was under his shirt on to the deck, and the Prudent’s captain later listed them in his report of the incident: ‘Small items of clothing, two or three small rupee notes, an ink pad, a belt, and a carton of cigarettes which I have found out since was given to him by an officer of the wreck.’47 The shirts, of course, had been taken by the other crew member who had escaped on to the rescue tug. The Prudent’s commanding officer, Lt CT Atkinson RNR, wrote:
I informed the captain that the boy was doing his first trip to sea and that I would punish him as heavily as I could and would try and find the other culprit and his shirts. Remaining on board the wreck I gave orders to my lieutenant on my bridge to inform the men remaining on board that a paper parcel containing shirts had been taken and was to be placed on deck. About half an hour later these were found on deck and returned to the captain, but despite questions the other culprit has not been found and a comprehensive search of the ship has revealed nothing…
