This article, by permission of the copyright holders, is from ‘Not Just Chalk and Talk, Stories of Schoolies in the Royal Navy,’ Published in 2013 (ISBN 978 1902838 52 6)

Not Just Met

John Hartley

I joined Antrim, a guided missile destroyer, in my first sea appointment as a Commander in early 1973. Fresh from Met course and with little forecasting experience, a six-month Far East deployment was a challenging and exhilarating undertaking. However the port visits were exceptional: Mombasa, Port Sudan, Massawa (for Haile Selassie's last birthday), Jeddah, Gan, Singapore, Thailand, South Korea, Japan and Hong Kong; then home via Mauritius, Beira patrol and the Cape.

HMS Antrim – one of four Mark 2 County class guided missile destroyers by permission of Navy News (MOD)

The weather in the South China Sea was appalling with three typhoons in July and two of these, close together, meant our having to sail from Hong Kong. As a department of one and one leading hand, such incidents made for hard work and long hours on the bridge as we had no ships in company. The sight of ocean-going Japanese tugs poised as the Glomar Challenger drilling rig dragged her anchors in the Taiwan Strait will stay with me forever.

In a ship the size of a guided missile destroyer many extraneous lurks come your way: Confidential Books Officer, Flight Deck Officer, prisoner interrogation team leader, oh, and of course education and resettlement. Balmy nights on the flight deck in the Indian Ocean at flying stations contrast with recovering the helicopter at anchor in Mauritius with the aircraft facing aft, with me in the flight deck netting and the tail rotor inches from the hanger bulkhead; hours spent page-by-page mustering books of dubious value were followed by dashes ashore with bags of classified paper to burn conscientiously in the nearest large incinerator; time spent with the Master-at-Arms practicing interrogation techniques and trying to get information from captured enemies in exercises, alternated with watches in the Ops Room writing the diary. All these combined to make a varied and edifying experience.

My next sea appointment, also as a Lieutenant Commander, was to Ark Royal in early 1977 for her last commission. This was a much more challenging deployment for a METOC, with five types of aircraft embarked and many aspects of meteorology and oceanography to explore and exploit. Again there were extraneous tasks to carry out and

1 the post of Confidential Books Officer went with the appointment. I had thought that managing confidential books in a guided missile destroyer was hard. Looking after a carrier's books, and often the ships-in-company as well, followed by the return of them all to the depots and issuing authorities when Ark Royal paid off was a step increase in intensity, not least because the Captain was anxious to get the ship's clearance certificate before moving on. I was very lucky to inherit a comprehensive and detailed system set up by my predecessors, and no pension traps crept from the woodwork.

On the meteorological front another brush with a tropical disturbance, the tail end of Hurricane Flossy in the Norwegian Sea, Mistral winds off Toulon and strong Etesian winds off Piraeus, made forecasting for carrier operations in this busy deployment a challenge for us all.

Another job, as a Commander stands out. I was appointed to Portugal to IBERLANT, a small NATO command based near Lisbon, with a British contingent of about 18 officers and a few more other ranks, and manned by a representative selection of the older NATO nations. As METOC to Commander-in-Chief, IBERLANT, my peripheral involvements dominated and included local school liaison as a governor, supervision of the Ibershop where British families could buy their much needed sausages, legs of lamb, brown sauce and firelighters, and the duty free drink store, convincing host nation personnel that a limit of five bottles of whisky did not mean five one-gallon flagons.

Postscript, 2019

New Entry Instructor Officer Class, RNC Greenwich, 1967 Instructor Lieutenant John Hartley (back row, left)

List of Appointments

 Jan 1967 HMS Victory/ RN College Greenwich. NEIO. Instructor Lieutenant.

 1967 - ‘72 HMS Fisgard/HMS Collingwood. Engineering training instructor.

 1972 Promoted Lieutenant Commander.

 1972 - ’73 RNAS Culdrose. METOC Training.

2  1973 - ’77 HMS Antrim/CinCFleet WOC/RNAS Yeovilton. METOC Forecaster.

 1977 - ’79 HMS Ark Royal. Senior Forecaster.

 1979 RN Staff Course.

 1979 - ’80 RNAS Portland. Senior Met Officer.

 1980 Promoted Commander.

 1981 - ’83 CinCIBERLANT, Portugal. OIC METOC Centre/Staff METOC.

 1983 - ’86 RNAS CULDROSE. OIC RNSOMO.

 1987 MOD DNMT(I). Branch/Engineering Training Study.

 1987 - ’89 RNSC Greenwich. Directing Staff and Course Design.

 1989 - ’92 FONAC/FONA RNAS Yeovilton. Command METOC and CIO.

 1992 - ‘94 SACLANT Norfolk VA. Staff METOC.

 1994 - ’96 AIB HMS Sultan. Board Member.

Commander John Hartley at RNSOMO RNAS Culdrose (Middle, front row), circa 1984

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