! HMS Hermes 4th Commission 1968 - 1969 !1 ! Personal account by Kit Colbeck 1967 – 1969 (Supplemented with photos, explanations, data and re-assessments 47 years later) Copied from page 257, this is the inside page of the Hermes Herald Monday 31 March 1969 Issue 205/4 Today many ship’s crews are turned-over on a rolling system; of some joining and some leaving, ensuring some experience remains with the ship whilst always having inexperienced staff in the process of finding their way around. Previously a ship might go into re-fit and 100% of the crew changed over; [less those personnel who requested to remain with the ship]. As a result of which a ship would put to sea requiring a shake-down of every conceivable event and putting the entire crew through a repetition of exercises until they and the ship was considered ‘fully worked-up’. The ship and crew would be deployed for a period of time; during which time records would be kept of: the route taken by the ship, photos and stories of places visited and social / charitable / humanitarian events which took place. Also photos of the crew and stories of the various departments within the ship were recorded. Toward the end of the commission all this information would be collated and used to create a book to be given to every member of the crew as a permanent record of their place in the trip undertaken by their ship. A choice was put to the crew of HMS Hermes in 1968 to be resolved by a vote. 1) Have a commissioning book at the end of the deployment. Or, !2 2) Have a one pint silver-plated tankard engraved “HMS Hermes” to be collected in Hong-Kong whilst we were deployed. On page 236 there is a photo of me holding my tankard on the day of my 19th birthday. I wanted a book to keep my memories alive and share with my family. However I was in the minority. The tankard was given out. I no longer have mine; it was a poor thing which tarnished and stained in use. And so I produced my own; albeit personal, journal. My own HMS Hermes 4th Commission Book. The journal was produced on a day by day basis as was the Hermes Herald which was a source of data about which I was able to utilise and /or add to with my personal experiences. To give credit to others help in producing my journal I wish to acknowledge. 1) The Hermes Herald; a daily paper produced on board. This was the source of sea-chart detail which provided me with the means to relate the route taken by the ship. Also it provided articles of historic interest of places we passed which was provided by people on board. And it was a source of jokes, cartoons and even pictures of girls [What the national, Red-Top paper, the Sun, calls page three girls] 2) The ships photographic department which produced so many pictures which I was able to purchase; of activities aboard the ship and places we visited. 3) Newspaper articles; I cut-out and pasted from such places as the, Cape Times and Cape Argus from Cape Town and the Straits Times from Singapore. 4) Scribblings inserted along the way and articles written, at the end of the Journal, by mess mates. When I came to copy, to computer format, I introduced additional italicised blue text where I felt Naval Slang and jargon needed further explanation. Further to that, access to the ‘world wide web’ allowed me to find pictures and associated text of other vessels with which we were in company from time to time. As the endeavour to enhance my Journal was for purely personal use I never considered any Copyright aspects when copying in pictures and text. In respect of copyright issues I have deleted most of the pictures of ships from personal and organisations collections, which in any case are available to view by anyone wishing to see the particular vessels. Further blue text was added when I found text now available to the public regarding enhancements to the Journal e.g. German war records [South Atlantic] and a very enlightening news article regarding the Diego Garcia Atoll [Indian Ocean] written by journalist John Pilger, and others. The following are contained in my HMS Hermes 4th Commission Journal 18 drawings of subject matter relative to the 4th commission 55 sea charts, mostly hand drawn. 72,802, miles from start to finish. 150 photographs: Official, personal, and post-cards and post-card stubs. 6 newspaper articles: referring to visits by, HMS Hermes. Many cartoons; primarily gained from the Hermes Herald, but from others sources as well. 265 foolscap size pages hand written: About 69,000 words. Word document with additional text: 374 pages utilising: 71,800 words in Arial size 11 font text. For photos and records of Royal Fleet Auxiliary ships referred to visit: http://www.historicalrfa.org/rfa-ship-classes !3 For additional photos and records of Royal Navy and other ships referred to visit: http:// www.worldnavalships.com Introduction Born in 1950 in Solihull, Warwickshire, but brought-up on the North-East coast, with no links to any of the armed forces, joining the Royal Navy was not a natural or expected choice of career. I was an avid reader and had read, at an early age such books as: Treasure Island and Kidnapped, by Robert Louis Stevenson, The Coral Island by RM Ballantyne and the entire, Hornblower series by C S Forester. Captain James Cook [1700’s] was a prominent figure of local history at the fishing port of Whitby and more locally at Staithes, just along the coast from where I lived. Even so I can think of no single factor determining my choice, but by the time I was 11 years old I had made my mind up to join the Royal Navy and never considered any other options. At a critical point in time my school was visited by the RN recruitment team who showed a movie-clip showing some Fleet Air Arm aircraft which approached an island at low level and proceeded to drop large, high explosive bombs with great visual impact. I thought to myself “I want some of that”. I completed all the preliminary requirements and 4 months after my 15th birthday and just a few days after school broke-up for the summer holidays I had left home to start a new life at HMS Ganges. During the following two years I trained as a Naval Air Mechanic specialising in ordnance and consolidated my training with work done in workshops, on aircraft and a short time on a bombing range. This record of my life starts in Portsmouth 30 August 1967. I was a Junior Naval Air Mechanic 1st Class; age 17 years and 5 months old, when I was drafted to join HMS Victorious, then in dry-dock undergoing a re-fit prior to a planned re-deployment to the Far-East; where the UK Government had maintained capital ships; deployed since the end of the last war. I did not know then that the future 4th commission was to be the last Carrier Force to be sent to the Far-East; due to military cut-backs; ‘East of Suez’. !4 HMS Centaur Commissioned: 17 Sept 1953. Designation R06 Operated: mostly in the Mediterranean and Far East. Decommissioned: Dec 1965 and hulked as an accommodations ship, mostly for crews of carriers in overhaul. Stricken for disposal 1971. Sold 11 Aug 1972 and subsequently scrapped. In 1967 the Centaur was floating alongside in Portsmouth dockyard being used as an accommodation ship for the crew of HMS Victorious. I arrived in August 1967 and was billeted aboard her sharing the mess with those of us, ‘Wafu’s’ intended as the next crew for HMS Victorious (the ‘Vic’) as well as a number of ratings who, having returned from the Far-East on the Victorious had applied to ‘re-commission’ and stay with the ship for a second stint. The accommodation afforded by the Centaur was very Spartan. There was no piped ventilation in our mess. During that summer the heat was oppressive within the ship and to aid a flow of fresh air into the mess-deck, powerful fans were set up on the weather deck with a great length of ‘Lay-flat’ polythene tubing which was connected to the fan and then routed like an enormous snake down into the messing areas and wound throughout the living/sleeping area with a few holes punctured here and there in the tube to provide fresh air. Over the course of a couple of days we would add to the holes, strategically, in the hope of getting a better share of the air on our own bunk space. The down side we discovered was; like the function of the perforations provided in toilet tissue, and on more than one occasion I recall the holes joining up during the night as the polythene tube ripped open. The rent which followed was a great rasping, fluttering noise which woke us with a start. You could not sleep with the noise and the tube had to be ripped down, leaving the mess to become much hotter and stuffier. The forward heads (toilets) were the next eye opener for me; a row of about a dozen cubicles with doors, the size and in the style of Western saloons. When sitting on the toilet the privacy afforded, started at your knees and only came up to your shoulders; and so you could go about your ablutions in full view of each other and conduct conversations face to face with other heads users.