Rum Tub February
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Volume 10, Issue 1 February 2021 The Rum Tub or Norrie’s Nocturnal and Nautical Editorial Natter By Shipmate Norrie Millen Hi! Shipmates, In this issue This will be the first newsletter of the New Year, a Editorial ...................................... 1 year which I know we all hope and pray will see us Captain Duncan Knight Obit .......... 2-5 The Ships Cat .............................. 5-6 emerge from this terrible pandemic and into a French Submarine Cruiser Surcouf . 7-10 better place. As I sat down to write this, I received Blue Liners .................................. 10 A Modern ASW Frigate .................. 11-13 another of those dreaded calls with bad news. As Humour ...................................... 14 soon as a friend of a shipmate’s wife calls, I know what the devastating news is going to be. A guy who I joined the Royal Navy with in 1957 at St Vincent and who I still maintained contact with, succumbed to C0vid this morning. Tim (named changed for personal reasons) had completed nine years in the RN, when he decided to transfer to the Royal Marine Commandos. After nine years as a Royal Marine Commando, he decided to transfer back to the RN. I tried to establish why, but he was always tight lipped "OLD" IS WHEN Your sweetie over this. says, "Let's go upstairs and make love," and you answer, "Honey, I Tim had not been too well the last few years. In the last six can't do both!" months he suffered 10 strokes, which left him almost speechless, unable to walk anymore and confining him to "OLD" IS WHEN Your friends a wheelchair. A devastating blow to a super keep fit compliment you on your new alligator shoes and you're barefoot fanatic. Obviously with these serious health issues he was most vulnerable and tested positive three weeks ago when "OLD " IS WHEN A sexy babe he was admitted to hospital, never to recover. catches your fancy and your pacemaker opens the garage door. Sadly he had not left any finances or plans for his final journey and only instructions he left for his widow was no OLD " IS WHEN Going bra-less pulls all the wrinkles out of your funeral, no flowers, and no cards. He just wants to be taken face. to local cemetery and buried without any fuss or ceremony. I was able to point his widow in the right direction to try and "OLD " IS WHEN You don't care secure some money for a plot, burial expenses and the where your spouse goes, just an long as you don't have to go along. undertaker’s fee. The lesson here: Be like a boy scout, be prepared. "OLD " IS WHEN You are cautioned to slow down by the 2020 was a terrible year for us all in one way and another. doctor instead of by the police. Let’s all hope and pray that 2021 will see a massive improvement for us all and on the right side of Covid-19 and "OLD" IS WHEN “Getting a little action" means I don't need to take leading normal lives again. any fibre today. By the time your get around to reading this I will have reached another th "OLD “IS WHEN "Getting lucky" milestone, my 79 birthday. I often reflect on past years and wonder means you find your car in the where they all went, years which seem to pass more quickly as one parking lot grows older “OLD” IS WHEN An "alI nighter" The way I see it anyway! *means not getting up to go to the bathroom. Volume 10 Issue 1 February 2021 Captain Duncan Knight RN (Rtd) – Obituary The naval officer who took part in the destruction of two U-boats. Submitted by Shipmate Kevin Maguire He was awarded the DSC “It was the most exciting moment of for his actions in 1941 and my life”, Knight wrote. “For 18 1942 off Gibraltar. months we had hunted for U-boats without success and suddenly we Captain Duncan Knight, who were almost alongside one!” has died aged 100, sank As Hesperus passed two U-boats in similar through the swirl of circumstances, five water left by the U- weeks apart. boat on the In the early hours surface of the of December 7 darkened sea, 1941 he was officer Knight released a of the watch in the pattern of five destroyer depth charges set Hesperus, in the to explode at Atlantic west of shallow depth. For the Gibraltar, when the rest of the night radar operator, Leading Hesperus, joined by Seaman John Sheard, her sister ship reported an echo dead ahead. Harvester, searched using their radars and sonars, but dawn broke Ordering the ship’s searchlight to be on an empty and silent sea with no switched on, Knight expected to see sign of a U-boat or any a fishing boat: instead, right wreckage. Hesperus ahead, fully illuminated returned, by the searchlight, disappointed, to was a surfaced U- Gibraltar; boat on the same however, post- course and a war analysis similar speed to proved that Hesperus. Knight had sunk Knight could see men U-208. in the conning tower On January 15 that had obviously 1942, Hesperus been unaware of was part of the escort of a homeward Hesperus’s approach, and as they bound convoy from Freetown, in disappeared below, and the U-boat foggy weather and a heavy swell, not dived, Knight rang for “Action far from Gibraltar. Again, Knight and Stations!” Sheard shared the middle watch, when at 02:10 Sheard suddenly Rum Tub Page - 2 Volume 10 Issue 1 February 2021 reported an echo on the to Falmouth for repairs. starboard side about one and For skill and enterprise in a half miles away. action against enemy Knight altered course and submarines Knight was increased speed, called the awarded the DSC and captain, and ordered Sheard the DSM. “Action Stations!” When Duncan Dalziel Knight starshell was fired to was born in Kingswood, illuminate the radar echo, Surrey, on October 20 there was a U-boat at full 1920, a descendant of speed on the surface. Captain Charles Mansfield, His captain, Commander who had commanded the 74- A. A. Tait, took over the gun ship-of-line conn while Knight, whose Minotaur at the Battle of action station was as gunnery officer, Trafalgar in 1805, and scion of a had opened fire with Hesperus’s family who peopled the 4.7 in guns when Tait decided to Empire over several ram. Hesperus struck the U- centuries. Educated at boat a glancing blow, so Banstead prep, he chose forceful that the German Dartmouth over captain, Kapitänleutnant Harrow and joined the Horst Elfe, was catapulted Navy in the Anson into the sea. term of 1933. As the U-boat scrunched along Knight served in the Hesperus’s side, a pattern of cruiser Amphion on the depth charges was released and Africa station under the the U-boat stopped about 200 future Admiral Sir Bob yards off. Lieutenant David Seely Burnett, victor of the Battle of North and a boarding party set off in the Cape, and had been at sea for a year ship’s whaler, hoping to capture an when the ship received the signal Enigma machine, but the U-boat “TOTAL GERMANY”, the call that sank less than 15 minutes after war had been declared. Sheard’s first radar detection. He recalled his first wartime order, Despite the known risk of when during the night of other U-boats being September 4-5 1939; he present, Tait picked heard the guns up some 40 ordered to “Load, survivors of U-93 Load, Load, and who were landed in no bloody Gibraltar before skylark!” Hesperus was sent Rum Tub Page - 3 Volume 10 Issue 1 February 2021 As a newly promoted sub- specially trained German- lieutenant in June 1940, speaking operators he was one of the armed embarked, she boarding party who intercepted the radio stormed the French conversations which flagship in not only gave away the Portsmouth after enemy’s position but the fall of France. also their intended Later that year, movements. Knight and he took It was Knight’s first part in Operation experience of being Lucid, one of under fire, and as the Churchill’s madcap night erupted in a blaze schemes to blockade of explosions, at first he the invasion ports and found it difficult to not to set them on fire. Bad duck, but took his example weather prevented a first from his captain, Lieutenant attempt: on a second try, Commander Nigel Pumphrey Knight’s ship, the elderly merchant DSO, DSC, who “was quite ship River Tyne, was sunk by a mine unmoved”. The merchant ship and off Dieppe and Knight was rescued an escort were sunk, but several men by an MTB, only to find that his in Goathland were wounded, uniform and effects had already been including Knight, who was admitted sent to the “deadmen’s store” to hospital, and Mentioned in because his initials were “DD” – Despatches. which in naval parlance means Knight specialised as a signal officer, “discharged dead”. and saw the end of the war as Fleet Throughout the war the weather was Wireless Assistant in the British the worst enemy, and Knight could Pacific Fleet in the cruiser never forget the experience of Bermuda, whose duties took hauling exhausted and injured her to Formosa, Yokohama, men, often covered in oil, on Shanghai and Hong Kong. board: “The merchant Post war, Knight seamen,” he wrote, “were undertook a number of the real heroes of the Battle highly secretive of the Atlantic.” Knight appointments, as liaison himself was permanently between the Admiralty seasick, a condition which and GCHQ, including was cured on return to responsibility for the harbour by a bowl of hot 1,500 strong Admiralty chips and tomato sauce.