HMS OPOSSUM ASSOCIATION

SPRING NEWSLETTER 2017 1945-1958

Welcome to our Spring Newsletter, 2017. The dispatch of this will be a little earlier this year, because I’m off again on another ‘foreign’ down to the Falkland Islands then island hopping back up the Atlantic, with lots of lumpy sea-time in between! Well sCoHmAeIoRnMe AhNas’S t oR EdoP OitR!!T!! In the absence of any incoming Newsletter material, this edition is mostly my effort to keep our “Opossum’ band together and hope that it provides some interest to the membership.

th nd With winter days behind us Spring is here. One thing on our minds is the HMS Opossum reunion at the Royal Beach Hotel, Southsea. 19 - 22 May 2017. Please make every effort to be there. In February the Aldershot four enjoyed a five day break at Warner’s Warren Hotel, Hayling Island, where the sun shone as it will do when we all meet up again in May – excited at the prospect. Very Sincerely Yours Aye Lewis Trinder Legion de Honneur Chairman

Chairman Lewis Trinder 107 North Lane, Aldershot, Hampshire GU12 4QT 01252- 323861 [email protected] Secretary/Editor Eddie Summerfold 28 Greymont Road, Limefield, Bury Lancs. BL9 6PN 0161-764-8778 [email protected]

Treasurer Sam Edgar 21 He1ath Lawns, Farnham, Hants PO15 5QB 01329-235732 [email protected] Website www hmsopossum.org.uk TREASURER’S REPORT

Brought Forward £1,818.96 Income 20.00 [Tony Blacker] Balance ROLL OF HON£ O1U,8R38.96

Ronald Bradley John Eardly Wilmot John Cartwright J W Powell Albert Corless Harry Barlow David Jarvis Bob Gray Les Wood George Scott John Williams Ken Harris Pat Norman Reg Parker Harry Roach Ivan C Haskell George Fletcher Fred Thompson George H Richards Fred[Mick]Bodel Fred King Grorge Curry Sid Pemberton John Davison Cliff Harthill George Brown Steven Hart Stewart A Porter Arthur Pope Jack Marshall Les Dimmock John Bray Joe Gornall Doug Banks Dick[Ginger]Bird Jackie Scholes Harry Woolhams Cornelious Canon Jim Tribe Doug Goulding John Fraser Pete Maddox Bill Bolton Cyril Mason John Hardman Ken Phillips Mike Swayne Harry Catterson Ron Hare Bill Bovey Jack Richards William Wilder George[Jan]Lobb Bill Price Martin George Ken Slater Mike Cole Edward[Ted]Longstaff Jim Payne Peter Lockwood Roy Cope Ron Blundy Bert Rimmer John Blair John W C Clark Ken Carson Charles Parker Tony Harris Willy Mitchell Brian Healey Alister Hunter Blair Alan Percival Stan Oldfield John Jones Roy Wood John Mackenzie Tom Tolson Ian Janes John Owen Ken Hodgkin

2 LIFE ON A MINESWEEPER

by Eddie Summerfold

HMS Yarnton

It’s the late summer of 1959 and I’m on a lone draft from Devonport up to South Queensferry in Scotland. None too pleased that I am to join a minesweeper with no fire control system that I’d spent the last eight months of intensive training learning about to be drafted to a frigate, destroyer of some bigger ship that would have been more acceptable to a newly qualified Second class Fire Control Armourer! Still an A/B [passed for Killick] I am the relief of a Leading hand and soon realized I’ve much learning to do about minesweeping and all the subject entails. Mine warfare had progressed considerably during the Second World War and in 1947 the R.N. Construction Dept. had been tasked with producing designs for a new class of minesweeper that would incorporate all the latest advances. This was to be the Ton Class, named after British towns and villages ending in ‘Ton.” In a ten year period 119 were built. They were designed to be as anti-magnetic as possible, having a hull of double layer mahogany planking and deck houses of aluminum, a shallow 8ft. draft, a displacement of 440 tons, a length of 152 ft. long and a beam of 28ft. Powered by either Mirlees or Napier Deltic diesel engines with a top speed of 15knots. Armament of a single 40mm Bofor on the foc’s’le and a twin 20mm Oerlikon behind the funnel. And having the onboard facilities to tackle conventional moored, magnetic or acoustic mines. There were five boats in the Hundredth Mine Countermeasures3 squadron Coniston [with a four ring Captain in squadron command] Wolverton, Appleton, Upton and Yarnton. The complement was around 30 and each had a bunk bed. With only one trained cook the menu was the same for all onboard, when he was off duty and a seaman or stoker took over - meals were at best simplistic. With a shallow draft and a high free board most seas were lumpy and pot mess was the staple diet. Sweeping exercises took place on a regular basis often in the Forth estuary but the ship did venture to the Portsmouth area and on one occasion as far as Malta. Few foreign visits came the way of Yarnton, Kiel is remembered so too was Gothenberg. In between the squadron did frequent sweeping exercises with our NATO partners. From the whole 16 months spent on the ship one incident stands out. While exercising with the French Navy, Yarnton received an urgent signal to retrieve sweeps and head at once for Plymouth. Here in a hurry we embarked survey ratings and equipment and headed around Lands End into a rough Irish Sea our destination Greenock for fuel and on to the Kyle of Lochalsh. The Royal Navy’s atomic submarines were coming on stream and there was an urgent requirement for them to be tested in deep water yet close to land in case of problems. Charts around the Inner Hebrides being ideal but were the depths accurate since last surveyed many years before? This was Yarnton’s task to find out. For three weeks the ship was based at Kyle of Lochalsh, securing to the end of the pier each evening after another boring day steaming back and forth between the island of Raasay and the mainland taking soundings recording the figures on the charts. We soon discovered the railway station bar was conveniently only twenty paces from the ship. This together with becoming involved with the local community when young and not so young gathered for their Gaelic ceilidh dance evenings proved very popular with the men of Yarnton. The conclusion of the surveying work came like this. Taken from the 1985 Guinness Book of Records [page 89] “The deepest point in the territorial waters of the United Kingdom is an area 6 cables [3,609ft] off the island of Raasay in the Highland Inner Sound at Lat. 51 degrees 30 minutes North – Long. 5 degrees 57 minutes West. A depth of 1,038ft. 173 fathoms,[ 316 metre’s] was found in December 1959 by HMS

Yarnton [Lt. Cdr. A.C.F David RNst .” HMS Dreadnought [S101] was Britain’s first nuclear submarine built at Vickers Armstrong at Barrow-in-Furness and launched on Trafalgar Day [21 October 1960] Why the big rush in December 1959 for the Yarnton to do the survey?

4 CONVOYs

As Britain’s survival depended on supplies from overseas, right from the start of the Second World War the Admiralty instituted the convoy system, in it’s war with Nazi Germany - to give protection to merchant ships that would bring foodstuffs to feed the British people, ship raw materials and fuel from around the world. The biggest threat was U-boats, but mines and bomber aircraft would add to the woe of merchant seamen and their naval escorts. Sailing in close company was not popular with the merchantmen, nor was the necessary time taken to attend convoy conference’s or the days to muster a collection of ships before they sent off for their destination. Slowly convoy organization built-up it was to be a vast enterprise to receive ships in specific home ports and oil terminals, carry out ship repairs, if necessary, and send ships out to sea again for further cargoes. This round the clock activity required speed and efficiency at all times, often interrupted by enemy bombing, this enterprise went on month after month throughout the whole six years of the war. Ships were required to carry cargoes for which they were not built, over seas they were never meant to sail – they travelled from Halifax, Nova Scotia to Glasgow or Liverpool, coming to the U.K. from the long haul around the Cape of Good Hope, from Rangoon or Singapore and those through the Suez canal and the Mediterranean - later deliveries of war supplies would go via Reykjavik to Murmansk. While each and every convoy was important, perhaps the most important were the Atlantic convoys bringing from Canada and the USA war materials, food and fuel – then returning in ballast for more of the sam5 e. Convoys would spread out into five, six or seven columns each ship a thousand feet apart, each towing a fog buoy that the ship behind would keep their eye on by day and by night and to avoid collision. Convoys would cover many miles of sea. In charge would be the Commodore, usually a long retired Royal Naval Captain, maybe in his fifties, sixties or even seventies, always in the lead ship of the centre column. Under his command would instructions be given to alter onto a prearranged zig-zag course as an anti-U-boat prevention. Around the convoy’s outer flanks would be the naval escort, a destroyer perhaps, certainly some sloops like “Opossum” and a bevy of corvettes or armed trawlers. There would be fast convoys up to 14 knots and slower ones down to 6 knots or less. And then there was the seasons of the year, the sea and the weather in all it’s moods, the hours of darkness, a favorite time for U-boats attack, the moon in it’s phases to give night time cover or be like a homing beacon to the undersea aggressors. While rough seas and gales could be very uncomfortable for the merchant ships and their escorts they were greatly favoured as such conditions kept U-boat crews heads down from making an attack. Amongst the cargoes of vital war materials would be moral boosting tobacco and doubtless supplies of Havana cigars for the Prime Minister and cocoa beans a destination for which would be the firm of Carson’s of Bristol to make slabs of Ky for the Royal Naval ships. No forgetting barrels of the dark brown stuff from the West Indies that gave sailors hearts a leap at the mention of ‘Up Spirits.” In January 1940 began food rationing, with experience from the Great War, not only did the Ministry of Food instituted a fair system of rations for each and every family but also controlled inflation so that no one was profiteering from a scarce supply of food stuffs. Perhaps a commodity not thought about was petrol and avgas without which the Battle of Britain or the victory in the Western Desert could not have been fought. When the Persian Gulf supplies were deigned through Axis intervention brave merchant seamen from the tanker companies brought this vital fuel from the Caribbean and U.S.A. For all purposes Britain required at least four such tankers a day. It is the most dangerous of cargoes to carry, for which the merchant seaman received an increase in pay - and of course such ships were prime U-boat targets. Ships under torpedo attack, may be loaded with meat, wheat or iron ore, might be holed and sunk, catch fire and turn over but rarely burn like a torpedoed fuel tanker until they exploded into a blazing cauldron in which a quick death by drowning was a merciful release. This is what such a crewman said, note he never speaks of the dangers:- “I enjoyed being on tankers the conditions were better than on freighters and so was the food. The downside was that we berthed at oil installations well away fr6om town and city centre’s and when we got to port, discharge only took a day. But when we had a chance we lived life to the full, our motto, ‘Live each day as though it was your last.’ The story of tanker ‘San Demetrio’ is worth retelling.

MV San Demetrio

Built in Glasgow in 1938 for the Eagle Oil Company damaged by enemy action in mid-Atlantic, abandoned by her crew, later re-boarded and successfully brought into harbour. The subject of a feature film “San Demetrio London” one of the few films recognizing the heroism of the Merchant Navy in War. She had been loaded at Galveston, Texas, bound for Avonmouth, England with

11,200 tons of aviation fuel. [Enough juice to keep several squadtrh ons of Spitfire’s airborne and top-up the cigarette lighters in the officers mess!] One of 38 ships forming Convoy HX-84, left Halifax, Nova Scotia on 24 October 1940. Initially escorted by ships of the Royal Canadian Navy, but once clear of coastal waters the sole escort was the Armed Merchant Cruiser ‘Javis Bay’, a converted passenger liner, armed with seven outdated BL 6-inch naval guns. Twelve days into the voyage, the German heavy cruiser ‘Admiral Scheer’ found the convoy and immediately attacked. ‘Jarvis Bay’ ordered the convoy to scatter and turned towards the enemy to engage. The one sided fight lasted 22 minutes before the battered ‘Jarvis Bay’ sank taking with her 190 lives including her commanding officer, Captain E.S.F, Fegen, who later received a posthumous Victoria Cross – because 32 ships of this convoy reached port safely ‘Admiral Scheer’ now tried to sink as many of the convoy before darkness fell, hitting the ‘San Demetrio’ with several shells destroying the bridge and poop deck and left the upper deck in flames. Despite the resulting fires the highly flammable cargo did not explode.

Nonetheless the Master believed that a7 t any moment the fires could set off the aviation fuel and ordered the ship to be abandoned. Still under fire from the German cruiser two boats got away, ‘Admiral Scheer’ turned her attention to other ships. Twenty-four hours later the second boat with sixteen survivors sighted a burning ship, closing - to their surprise she was the ‘San Demetrio’. After spending a further night in the open boat were they to risk death by freezing exposure or re-board their ship and face the fires? Under the command of Second Officer Arthur Hawkins and Chief Engineer Charles Pollard they re-boarded, fought the fires, made engineering repairs to the pumps and steering gear and got the engines turning again. The bridge was a shambles, so no navigation equipment, no charts or radio, a secondary compass had survived so using this and glimpses of the sun they headed East towards Britain. They were a lone straggler so a prime U-boat target. But after seven days they reached Ireland and were escorted to the Clyde. Out of the sixteen survivors they lost only one. Since they had not received any assistance they were entitled to salvage money from the insurers. The Admiralty Division of the High Court valued the aviation spirit [over 11,000 tons, the remainder being lost to the fires] at £60,000. The ship almost brand new was worth £250,000. The Court awarded the claimants £14,700 in salvage money - £2,000 each to the Second Officer and Chief Engineer [A very tidy sum in 1941] and lesser amounts to all the others in relation to their efforts. Even a largish amount went to the relatives of the dead seaman. Heroes all.

Some of the crew on their return to Glasgow

8 CHINESE STEWARD, POON LIM SURVIVOR EXTRAORDINAIRE

rd Poon Lim

On the 23 November 1942 Lim [aged 24] was working as a Second Steward on the British merchantman SS Ben Lomond. The ship was armed but for some reason moving slowly, perhaps with engine problems, as she was alone and not in convoy when she was torpedoed by U-172, about 750 miles East of the Amazon Basin, Brazil. In a few minutes the wreck was below the waves, not before Lim had grabbed a life jacket and jumped over board. The crew of 54, including the master, 44 sailors and 8 D.E.M.S, {Defensively Equipped Merchant Ship] gunners were lost – Lim being the ship’s sole survivor. After a couple of hours in the sea he found an 8ft wooden raft thrown up with the flotsam wreckage. This raft had several tins of biscuits, a 40 pint jug of water, some chocolate, a bag of sugar lumps, some flares, a couple of smoke candles and a flash light. The food and water lasted several days, unfortunately he had no means of propulsion, no paddles or mast and sails and so just drifted with the current. He hoped to be rescued soon! In the meanwhile he had to survive. Lim caught rain water in the canvas life jacket covering, dismantled the flash light, with some wire fashion a fishing hook, took apart the rafts rope handles for the line, but where was the bait to attract a fish? This came from birds hitching a ride on his raft - he became adapt at catching them, drinking their blood as a means of moisture. Out of a biscuit tin he made a handy knife, braided more rope that became a stronger line, with a nail from the raft his aim w9as to catch a larger fish. With another bird as bait he attracted a small shark. This fish gulped the bait and pulled the line with full force, with the now empty water jug, part filled with sea water he continually hit his pray, stunned he brought it on board but it revived and attacked him - more effort with the water jug did for the shark! In future with such encounters he must get covering for his hands, hence forward canvas stripes would give some protection. His hands were bleeding from his efforts. But very thirsty, there had been no rain for days, he got to work on the shark with his crude knife, cut open and sucked the blood from it’s liver, this quenched his thirst, then he collapsed exhausted and slept. Next day he cut off the shark’s fins, dried in the sun, a Chinese delicacy. Day passed day in such activity. Still no rescue in sight! At first he counted the days by tying knots in the rope, then began counting the full moons. Hope of a rescue kept him going. On two occasions ships passed close by. Lim could see the crew, noting his waving arms, but it didn’t stop, Lim believes they did not rescue him because he was Asian, the crew may have assumed he was Japanese! Once he spotted a German U-boat doing gunnery practice at seagulls. Another time U.S. Navy planes flew overhead, even dropped a marker buoy, but a large storm struck that same afternoon and he was lost again. Fortunately at that time of year there was rain every day or so, often fell at night when in the darkness he would grope around for his canvas life jacket covering to catch the precious liquid. Slowly, very slowly the current took him shorewards. One day Lim noticed the colour of the sea had changteh d not oceanic deep blue but more brownish, each passing day the colour lighten. On 5 April 1943 after 133 days land could be clearly seen and in a few hours his feet touched the beach. In almost four and a half months he’d lost nearly half his body weight. He could barely stand but did walk some way unaided, Brazilian fishermen helped him, then he spent a few weeks in hospital before the British Consul arranged for his return to Britain. As of 2016 no one has ever survived alone at sea for so long. Poon Lim said “ I hope not a soul will ever have to break that record.” He was awarded the

British Empire Medal for his feat otfh endurance. The Royal Navy incorporated some of his survival technics. Later he emigrated to the U.S.A. and died aged 72 in Brooklyn on 4 January 1991.

During a visit to a naval training establishemnt I came accross an office door which read “Engineering Information and Educational Instructor Office’ I said that such a title seemed a bit of a mouthful, and was told the Officer concerned had described his job that way because he long had the ambition in this age of initials to pick up the pho1n0 e and say ‘EIEIO’! SURVIVAL AT SEA and CAN SEA WATER BE SAFELY DRUNK?

In open boats there are many examples of men surviving forced long sea voyages; yet there are at least three who did it voluntarily in the interests of advancing survival knowledge. In 1947 there was Thor Heyerdahl’s [1914- 2002] Kon- Tiki expedition from Lima, Peru to Polynesia in the mid Pacific Ocean, more to test his theory that Peruvians could have populated the Pacific islands travelling on balsa wood rafts - with five companions he covered 4,300 nautical miles in 101 days. A Frenchman Dr. Alain Bombard [1924-2005] set himself the task to save life at sea, that castaways could confidently live off the sea by catching fish and plankton and drinking small amounts of sea water. Bravely he put this idea to the test in October 1952, taking 62 days to reach Barbados from the Canary island’s. His beliefs were that despair and terror were the real killers not exposure, starvation and dehydration. However his sea water intake was supplemented by water squeezed from the fish he caught, he had also an emergency pack that may have contained fresh water, in addition half way through his voyage he was taken aboard the British merchantman ‘Arakaka’ on it’s way from Liverpool to Georgetown, British Guiana who also gave him, his position 600 miles East of where he thought he was, water supplies, a shower and a small meal [that nearly killed him!] Hannes Lindemann [1922-2015] a German doctor used his solo trans Atlantic voyage to test Bombard’s theories of survival, especially the drinking of sea water. Basically sea water is three percent salt, the kidneys can cope with less than about 1 percent but never as much as three percent! Result more thirst – dehydration, perhaps madness and death!!! Don’t drink sea water! Or for that matter urine which contains waste matter and is useless to the body. What doctor Lindemann believes Bombard did was in increasing his supplies was to mix sea water with fresh thereby reducing the salt in a rough ratio of 90 percent fresh water to 10 percent sea water. It is known that man can live for days without food – but not without water. Many a shipwrecked sailor set adrift on the sea must have thought on the poem ‘Rime of the Ancient Mariner’ by the English writer Samuel Taylor Coleridge [1772-1834] who wrote these lines in 1778, “Water, water everywhere and all the boards did shrink, water, water everywhere, nor any drop to drink.”

According to the law of the Old West a 1C1 olt 45 beats four aces. On board the frigate ‘Opossum’ during 1950’s in addition to the whaler and motor boat the ship carried 8 Carley floats, 4 on either beam, supposedly to provide buoyancy for the 194 officers and ships company, each secured to the ship by a blake slip. This had to be released to free the float, otherwise it would go down with the ship. Carley floats was an American idea invented by and named after Horace S. Carley [1838-1918] who obtained in 1903 a U.S. patent [US734118A] for such a life saving device. Construction of a Carley floats was from copper or steel sheeting forming tubing with a diameter of 18-20 inches into an oval ring and the cavity filled with a buoyant mass of kapok or cork, covered in canvas and rendered waterproof by doping or painting. Inside the ring would be rope webbing, though open to the sea, it supported boxes of water, biscuits and paddles. Those floats on ‘Opossum’ designed for about thirty men, half of them sitting on the float with their feet inside, the other half in the water hanging on to rope handles on the outside of the ring. In scenes from the War time movie ‘In Which We Serve’ is of survivors from the sunken destroyer in a Carley float, as they reminisce in ‘flashback’ of past events in their home lives. As Carley floats didn’t provided any shelter the survivors would suffer the sun in the tropics or arctic cold and succumb to exposure. Only slowly did RN ships get supplied with more modern life saving rafts based on Second World War experiences these began to be issued to the Fleet in the late Nineteen Fifties. These consisted of a rubber raft, coloured orange, for easy identification, with maker lights, the raft inflated by CO2 cylinders, a tent to keep occupants from exposure, desalination equipment - rain collection facilities, lots of ancillary tackle to repair the raft, plus a medical pack that contained ampules of morphine and sea sickness tablets, and first aid stuff; even a pack of playing cards. Attached was also a water provision valise, including packs of glucose sweets, ‘Spangles.’ Found from experience to conserve body fluids while giving sufficient energy for short periods of a few days. Rafts were to be kept together for easier recognition by air or sea. While it has been recorded that during wartime conditions enemies may attack survivors in the water, had such rafts been on R.N, ships many lives would have been saved, especially from exposure in cold arctic regions, even in the tropics nights can be cold.

12 CONVOY RESCUE SHIPS

From the beginning of 1940 convoy rescue ships were supplied to each convoy, usually situated right at the back in the middle column. At first poorly equipped with just boats to recover survivors, but as the war progressed having more and more facilities to offer shipwrecked seaman. No such service existed and had to be conceived from scratch. Prompted by the Admiralty through the Ministry of War Transport passenger/cargo ships of about 1,500 tons formally employed on UK coastal trade were initially commandeered. As the War went on other ships were requisitioned for such duties, mostly with low free board to ease recovery of men in the water. All spent limited time in dockyard hands to convert them into rescue ships, on deck providing extra boats and rafts , below decks – much more bunk accommodation, bath rooms and latrines, a proper equipped sick bay with often an RN. Surgeon or similar qualified doctor and an assistant Sick Bay Tiffie - to administer to the wounded. All this in addition to upping the catering department to received many mouths to feed. A department created to re-clothe the survivors who may have come on board with very little. Torpedoed ships might be replaced but much more difficult to duplicate experienced personnel, so take special care of those you have already. Thoughts not lost on other Merchant seaman that boosted the moral with having a rescue ship in their convoy.

13 SHIPMATE HUMOUR

The captain of a 40 oared galley barge goes below to speak with the slaves. “Men I have some good news and some bad news. Today the Pharaoh Is joining us for a trip up the Nile.” The slaves cheered and rattled their chains. “The bad news is he wants to go water skiing.”

A novice chicken farmer buys 2,000 baby chicks. A week later he goes back to the salesman for 2,000 more. And the following week a further 2,000. The salesman asks, “What’s the problem?” “Well, says the farmer, I’m not sure if I’m planting them too close together or not deep enough.”

A man was out one evening with friends, had several beers, some wine and a few shorts. Relaxed he had the common sense to know he was over the limit. That’s when he did something he’d not done before he took a taxi home. His cab came across a police road block, but as it was a taxi they waved it past. He arrived home safely, this was a real surprise as he had never driven a taxi before! He doesn’t how he got it, or where it’s from, but it’s now in his garage and a bit of a liability as to know what to do with it.

An archaeologist was digging in the Negev Desert in Israel and came across a casket containing a mummy. After examining his find he called the curator of a prestigious natural history museum. “I’ve just discovered a 3.000 year old mummy of a man who died of heart failure,” said the excited scientist. To which the curator replied, “Bring him in and we’ll check it out.” A week later the amazed curator called the archaeologist “You were right about the mummy’s age and the cause of death, how in the world did you know?” “Easy, there was a piece of parchment in his hand that said 10,000 shekels on Goliath.

A college instructor was giving a lecture on survival in the mountains and all the necessary equipment needed, included a pack of playing cards. Some bright spark asked what a pack of cards were for “Ah, said the instructor, once you have tried all other means of attracting attention, lay out the cards to play patience, in a couple of minutes some bugger will come along and say – black eight on the red nine!”

14 AND NOW FOR SOMETHING COMPLETELY DIFFERENT

Do you recall the BBC Light Programme at 1845 each weekday evening, when a serial would unfold of a hero famous long before James Bond. He was DBSA - aka DICK BARTON – SPECIAL AGENT. It wasn’t that Dick Barton could extract himself from the most dangerous of situations about to be blown up by a ticking time bomb or that fire was consuming the rope that was preventing him being dropped from a high cliff or strapped to a chair in a dingy waterfront cellar as the incoming tide lapped at his feet – it was the opening bars of fast thunderous music captivated the listening audience that lived long in the memory. The title of this music was - “The Devils Galop.“ Rolling drum beats, fast playing violins and blasting trumpets was the stock in trade of this chase piece, that kept listeners on the edge of their seats waiting for the next episode of their hero’s adventures. This famous signature tune was written by Charles Williams

[1893-1878] a prolific composer of lighth t music, responsible fothr at least 50 movie film scores. Dick Barton – Special Agent was a popular radio thriller serial broadcast by the BBC between 7 October 1946 and 30 March 1951. Aired in 15 minute episodes each weekday evening, with an omnibus edition of all the weeks programmes repeated on Saturday mornings. The serial achieved a peak audience of 15 million. It’s demise was marked by a leading article in The Times. The serial followed the adventures of ex-Commando Captain Richard Barton M.C. [Noel Johnson,] later Duncan Carse and Gordon Davies, who with his mates Jock Anderson [Alex McCrindle] and Snowy White [John Mann] solved all sorts of crimes, escaped from dangerous situations and saved the nation time and again. Scripts were by Edward J Mason and Geoffrey Webb. “With one bound Dick was free” was a late 1940’s popular catchphrase; no matter how dangerous the situation Dick Barton would always escape usually by the easiest and most contrived method. Episodes included:- The Curse of the Pharaoh’s Tomb, The Tango of Terror, The Flight of the Phoenix, The Excess of Evil, The Devil Wears Tweed, The Quantum of Porridge, Affair of the Black Panther and many others, each episode usually covering about two or three weeks. Long after the series was replaced by The Archers- a story of country folk, [never had the same excitement] Hammer film company made three Dick Barton films, Southern Television tried a revival, there has been a tongue in cheek stage play and a spoof radio comedy, but none replaces the original radio recordings with

Dick, Jock and Snowy and of course the15 renown signature tune “The Devil’s Galop.” ROYAL NAVAL RECRUITMENT LEAFLETS of TIMES GONE BY

16