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NAVY NEWS, SEPTEMBER 1998 Options

No 514

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New craft join Oxbridge units THE VALUE of the University RN Units (URNUs) to the Service is demonstrated by the fact that more than a fifth of URNU graduates join the Navy, making up a quarter of the annual graduate entry to Dartmouth. But the aim of URNUs is not simply recruitment - their brief is "to educate a wide spectrum of high-calibre undergraduates who show potential as society's future leaders and opinion-formers in order to better inform them of the need for the role of the Royal Navy." Even that is not the full picture, because the Navy's patrol boats head for far-flung shores during the annual summer deployment, bringing the White Ensign to parts of the world their bigger sisters cannot normally reach. So it is with the two newest additions to the URNU team, HMS Tracker (Oxford) and HMS Raider (Cambridge), which commissioned in May this year. Built to the same design as earlier Archer-class boats, but with improved engines, the two craft have already made their mark, with Raider leading a five-

ship deployment to the Baltic (including visits to Germany, Denmark and Sweden) and TVacker cruising the west coast of France and the north coast of Spain. Sister ships were at Expo '98 at Lisbon. Both URNUs have a strength of around 50 people, with weekly drilfnights and a number of weekends spent learning seamanship and other practical naval skills, while undertaking port visits where possible. While with the URNUs undergraduates are members of the RNR, and have the rank of Honorary Midshipmen. Tracker is based at Portsmouth Naval Base, and also caters for students at the University of Reading, while Raider, which also draws from the University of East Anglia, is based at Ipswich. Both vessels are part of the First Patrol Boat Squadron, which covers all 14 URNUs. Despite their size - only 49 tonnes - Tracker and Raider, and their sister craft, are run to the same high standards of discipline and professionalism as any other ship in the Royal Navy.

Honourable ships

Fast Tracker - the new Oxford URNU craft shows goes through her paces. To order black and white postcards of the 'Ships ot the Royal Navy' series please contact Sarah Geary in the Business Department on 01705 826040

BATTLE HON Tracker: Atlantic Normandy Arctic Raider: Arctic Sicily Salerno Mediterranean Sabang Burma..

1943-44 1944 ...... 1944 1942-43 1943 1943 1943 1944 . 1944-45

BOTH Tracker and Raider had two predecessors, all from the 20th century. The first Tracker was an escort carrier of 11,420 tons built in Seattle in 1942 as the Mormacmaili and sent to the Royal Navy under lend-lease. She returned to the United States in November 1945, having served with the Second Escort Group under Capt Johnnie Walker. This ship was responsible for the name's three Battle Honours, for the Atlantic, Normandy and Arctic.

Facts and figures

Shortly afterwards, in 1947, a tank landing ship formerly LSI 3522, built in 1945 and renamed in 1947. She took part in the Monte Bello nuclear programme of 1952, and was sold in 1970 and broken up. Both earlier Raiders were destroyers, the first being an Rclass built by Swan Hunter in 1916, which was sold in 1920. The second amassed six battle honours in a brief career with the Royal Navy. Built by Cammell Laird in 1942, she was transferred to the Indian navy in 1949.

Class: Modified Archerclass P2000 patrol vessel Builder: BMT Commissioned: May 8, 1998 Displacement: 49 tonnes Length: 20.8 metres Beam: 5.8 metres Draught: 1.8 metres Complement: Five (one officer) Machinery: 2 MTU diesels Speed: 25 knots Armaments: 1 Oerlikon 20mm can be fitted

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Blackburn Shark THE BLACKBURN Shark, predecessor of the Fairey Swordflsh of greater renown, was designed as a combat aircraft, but Is probably better remembered as a trainer - by the many Fleet Air Arm telegraphists and observers who were taught their trade in the type during the late 1930s and early war years. In fact, although the Shark's front-line service lasted for only three peacetime years, a late version of the aircraft was still in service as a trainer in Trinidad as late as 1944. The Shark, last of a line of torpedo/reconnaissance biplanes produced by Blackburn, entered service with 820 Naval Air Squadron in HMS Courageous in 1935, replacing the Fairey Seal. The next year 810 and 821 Squadrons (operating from Courageous and HMS Furious respectively) were also re-equipped with the , but lust two years later the Shark's frontservice came to an end when it was replaced by the superior Swordfish. Altogether 143 Shark Is and Us were pro-

duced, followed in 1937 by 95 Shark Ills - with the refinement of a glazed canopy. It was this variant that was so widely used as a trainer up to 1942-43, along with some earlier, reconditioned models. Training units to be equipped with the Shark included 750 Squadron at Ford; 753 Squadron at Lee-on-Solent; 755 and 757 Squadrons at Worthy Down; and 758 Squadron at Eastleigh. The Blackburn Shark, with a crew of two or three, was also used as a floatplane by 705 (Catapult) Flight in the battleship HMS Warspite and the battlecruiser HMS Repulse. The aircraft was powered by a 760hp Armstrong Siddeley Tiger VI engine giving a maximum speed of 152mph at 6,000ft and an initial climb rate of 895ft per minute. Maximum range - without pay load - was 1,130 miles, and service ceiling was 16,400ft. The Shark could be armed with a 1,500lb torpedo or an equivalent load of bombs. It had one machine-gun fixed forward and a flexible Vickers or Lewis machine-gun In the rear cockpit.

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