HMS OPOSSUM ASSOCIATION SPRING NEWSLETTER 2016 1945-1958 Welcome to our Spring Newsletter. Despite repeated requests for Newsletter stories, sorry to report none has been received, as a consequence this edition lacks the usual human element. So I have had to fill the pages with a variety of articles that I hope will be of interest to members. This edition includes a revised Membership List and an earlier than usual Reunion Questionnaire of who will be attending, those wishing to lodge their apologies and a request for their £15 subscription. Sorry to tell of the passing of member Ian Janes whose funeral I attended in February. Again a further appeal for your personal stories for later Newsletters. Ed. CHAIRMAN’S COMMENTS Greetings to all members. To remind you of our coming reunion, the highlight of our year. [See separate sheet for details] Not only urging you to attend but to bring along, if still around, your Grand Dad and Grand Mum. Joking apart – the price is right, the company good, come ye all and enjoy. With Best Wishes Lewis Trinder Chairman Chairman Lewis Trinder 108 North Lane, Aldershot, Hants GU12 4QT 01252-323861 [email protected] [45] Secretary/Editor Eddie Summerfold 28 Greymont Road, Limefield, Bury BL9 6PN 0161-764-8778 [email protected] Treasurer Sam Edgar 21 Heathlawns, Fareham, Hants PO15 5QB 01329-235732 [email protected] [57] Website www.hmsopossum.org.uk 1 TREASURER’S REPORT Brought Forward £1,388.57 Income – raffle/subs £670.00 [plus donatiions] Funeral expenses £493.79 Balance £1,564.72 Roll of Honor John Cartwright John Eardly Wilmot Ronald Bradley Harry[Scouse]Barlow Albert Corless J W Powell Les Wood Bob Gray David Jarvis Ken Harris John Williams George Scott Harry Roach Reg Parker Pat Norman Fred Thompson George Fletcher Ivan C Haskell Fred[Mick]Bodel George H Richards Fred King John Davison Sid Pemberton George Curry Steven Hart George Brown Cliff Harthill Jack Marshall Arthur Pope Stewart A Porter Dick[Ginger]Bird Jackie Scholes Les Dimmock Joe Gornall John Bray Doug Banks Cornelious Canon Jim Tribe Harry Woolams Pete Maddox John Fraser Doug Goulding John Hardman Cyril Mason Bill Bolton Harry Catterson Mike Swayne Ken Phillips Jack Richards Bill Bovey Ron Hare George[Jan]Lobb William Wilder Bill Price Edward[Ted]Longstaff Ken Slater Martin George Peter Lockwood Mike Cole Jim Payne Bert Rimmer Ron Blundy Roy Cope Ken Carson John W C Clark John Blair Willy Mitchell Tony Harris Charles Parker Alan Percival Alister Hunter Blair Brian Healey Roy Wood John Jones Stan Oldfield John Mackenzie Ian Janes 2 Rear Admiral DAVID JOHN MACKENZIE CB [Rtd.] 1929 – 2015 Admiral D J Mackenzie Our former President died 26th November 2015. His funeral and thanksgiving service took place St. Mary’s church Birnam, Perthshire, Scotland on the 4th December attended by members Eddie Summerfold and Nick Whytock. John Mackenzie served on the frigate HMS Opossum between April 1952 and August 1954, including active service as the ships gunnery officer during the Korean War, his other ship duties included fo’c’sle divisional officer and handling official correspondence. During his 40 year naval career he had the unique distinction of having nine commands, some were small gun boats as on the Rhine Flotilla others much larger that included HMships :- Barrington, Hardy, Lincoln and Hermione, also NBCD school HMS Phoenix, Captain ‘F’ Eighth frigate squadron in HMS Ajax, Director of Naval equipment, Captain of the cruiser HMS Blake and the aircraft carrier HMS Hermes. In 1981 promoted Rear Admiral – Flag officer and Port Admiral at Gibraltar during the Falklands conflict. Younger Brother of Trinity House. Member of the Queens Body Guard for Scotland [Royal Company of Archers.] Vice President Nautical Institution. Vice President Seafarers UK [formally King George Fund for Sailors] He’d not been well for sometime, his wife Ursula died in June 2015. We wish him a safe anchorage. [SEE later pages with his Opossum photos.] 3 PORTLAND as a NAVAL BASE Portland Harbour Portland harbour is the second largest man-made harbour in the world. Natually protected to the South by the Isle of Portland, to the West by Chesil beach and to the North by Dorset main land. The harbour consists of four breakwaters – two Southern and two Northern, with a total length of 2.83 miles making an enclosed area of 1,295 acres. Here from the middle of the 19th century the Royal Navy operated as a Channel base up until 1995. During two World Wars it was especially useful for examining neutral vessels for contraband as well as the work-up programmes of newly commissioned ships. For these reasons it was of special interest to the German Luftwaffe. During World War Two no less than 48 separate air attacks took place, the harbour sustained over 500 tons of bombs. During one of these bombing raids in 1940 the Royal Navy was awarded the second VC of the conflict - posthumously to Leading seaman Jack Mantle who died at his gun on board the HMS Foylebank. Portland played a big part in the preparation for D-Day. Phoenix caissons were towed into the harbour before going over to France, 418,963 U.S troops of the First Division assembled prior to their arrival at Omaha Beach head together with hundreds of thousands of tanks and trucks. After the war anti-submarine training resumed at HMS Osprey. A helicopter base was established to increase the range of a ship’s asdic search and also there was the case of “The Portland Spy Ring,” a Soviet espionage operation. [SEE separate article] 4 Sadly Portland Harbour was also the place of some peace-time tragedies, these included, the overturning of a liberty boat, the explosion of experimental torpedoes and witnessed the crashing in the sea of helicopters on exercise. On a stormy night, 17th October 1948 a returning liberty boat, a pinnace carrying about 50 junior rates, cox’ned by Midshipman Richard A Clough was returning from Weymouth to the carrier HMS Illustrious, anchored in Portland Harbour, when within sight of the ship the boat was overwhelmed by seas and sank. Sadly 29 drowned. Numbered among the worst of peacetime naval tragedies. Seven years later, 16th June 1955, HM Submarine Sidon, moored alongside the depot ship HMS Maidstone sank to the bottom of Portland Harbour, after the explosion of an experimental peroxide fuelled torpedo. Twelve men died at the scene. A further casualty was Surgeon Charles Rhodes, of Maidstone, suffocated going to help the casualties. At the time he was wearing a DSEA breathing apparatus which he hadn’t been trained to use. Early one morning in March 1961, while my ship the frigate HMS Troubridge was undergoing a work-up programme in Portland Harbour, the pipe was made “Away lifeboats crew.” With others, I a young Acting Killick, manned the whaler. The ship brought us a few yards away from the crash sight of a ditched helicopter. There was surface debris and only one ‘bobbing’ head, that of the pilot, who was saved, but not the Observer or the Asdic rating. We stayed around the area for some time, hoping the missing men would surface, collecting whatever debris we could, but not the missing men. [E. Summerfold GRINS and SNICKERS The reason politicians try so hard to get themselves re-elected is – they would hate to make a living under laws they have just passed. A man goes to a ‘shrink’ says, “Doctor my wife is unfaithful, every evening she goes to Larry’s bar and picks up men, she will sleep with anyone who asks her, what should I do?” Relax, says the doctor, take a deep breath and calm down, now tell me exactly where is Larry’s bar.” 5 THE PORTLAND SPY RING Harry Houghton and Ethel Gee The Portland Spy Ring was a Soviet enterprise operating in Britain from the late 1950’s until January 1961. In 1958 the U.S.A’s CIA received information from a spy that classified intelligence was being transmitted to the Russians about the work done at Britain’s secret underwater experiment establishment at HMS Osprey in Dorset. This was passed to MI5. Suspicion fell on Mr Harry Houghton a retired ex-RN Master-at-Arms, now a civil service clerk, who was living way beyond his means and his mistress Miss Ethel Gee, a filing clerk who were both put under surveillance. Gee had access to under water experiment trails at the base, these she passed onto Houghton, her lover. At least three more suspects emerged, Gordon Longsdale [in reality a Russian KGB officer and ringleader of the group] as well as Peter Kroger, an antiquarian book seller and his wife Helen. About every fortnight, always on a Saturday, Houghton and Gee would travel to London, there meet Longsdale exchange packages betraying Britain’s secrets and being well paid for their work. On the 7th January 1961, a Saturday, [MI5 cannot make arrests] on Waterloo Bridge officers of the Special Branch apprehended and arrested Houghton, Gee and Longsdale. The contents of Gee’s handbag revealed huge amounts of photographs as well as other classified material involving HMS Dreadnought, Britain’s first nuclear submarine, and the stalling speed of the Borg Warner torque converter. Special Branch also paid a visit to 43, Cranley Drive, Ruislip, Middlesex, the Kroger’s house, gaining access under a false pretext before revealing their true identity and arrested the pair. Just before being taken away to Scotland Yard for questioning Mrs Kroger asked to be allowed to stoke up the central heating boiler. An officer accompanied her, she was about to take papers from her bag 6 and feed the boiler, these were taken from her and later found to contain microdots, photographic reduction to make information small enough to be easily smuggled out of the country.