Talks recall Atlantic sacrifices THREE talks at the home of wartime codebreaking this month help to get events surrounding the Battle of the Atlantic 70th anniversary under way. Two official Royal Navy historians – Jock Gardner and Dr Malcolm Llewellyn-Jones – and diving expert Innes McCartney will help to shed light on the six-year-long battle to keep Britain’s lifelines at sea open in the face of the Nazi threat. The battle is the Royal Navy’s key commemorative effort for 70th anniversary events marking WW2 sacrifices (the RAF chose the Battle of Britain, while the Army marked victory at Alamein last autumn). To set the ball rolling ahead of the main events in London, Derry-Londonderry and finally Liverpool in May, Bletchley Park in Buckinghamshire is hosting the day of talks March 16. Now a museum, Bletchley Park was the home of Ultra codebreakers in WW2 – the men and women who famously broke the supposedly unbreakable Enigma code used by the Germans. That they broke the code was thanks in no small measure to RN personnel seizing codebooks and even a working Enigma machine (such as a boarding party from HMS Bulldog who went aboard the sinking U110 in May 1941). Mr Gardner will explain the role of Ultra in the Battle of the Atlantic, while his Naval Historical Branch colleague Dr Llewellyn-Jones will look at how ‘special intelligence’ – as it was known at the time – influenced the battle for SC130 in May 1943; the convoy safely made it from the New World to the Old without losing a single ship, while three U-boats were sunk and another one was damaged. Finally Mr McCartney will talk about the U-boats’ inshore campaign at the war’s end and the wrecks of sunken German submarines around the UK. Tickets for the day-long event cost £45 and include a guided tour of the Bletchley Park site, plus lunch and light refreshments. Details at www.bletchleypark. org.uk or call 01908 640404. ■ Details of other ‘BoA70’ events are now beginning to ‘firm up’. There will be an Evensong at St Paul’s Cathedral on May 8, a fly past by the Fleet Air Arm the following day and RN ships in the capital will be open to the public on May 11 and 12. More precise information – including which ships are attending – will be revealed at www.royalnavy. mod.uk/BoA70. In Derry-Londonderry, the RNA will dedicate a statue on May 11, and there will be a parade the next day, plus wreath laying in the River Foyle. Up to two dozen ships will be in Liverpool from May 24-28, with a national service of commemoration in the Anglican Cathedral on May 27.
Shaun gets another piece of POW going WHILE most of the media attention has been fixed on her sister Queen Elizabeth, work on HMS Prince of Wales is continuing apace. Twenty-one-year-old apprentice Shaun Collins was given the honour at BAE Systems’ Portsmouth facility, pressing the button to cut the first steel on the latest segment of the 65,000-tonne carrier. And thus did work begin on Centre Block 02 – which will sit beneath the Prince’s flight deck and house cabins for the ship’s company to inhabit, plus mess decks, a laundry, a bakery and parts of the hangar. It will sit on top of another section also being built by BAE in Portsmouth, Lower Block 02. www.navynews.co.uk
Thanks in Bahrain
Picture: Mass Communication Specialist 2nd Class Corbin J. Shea, US Navy
Getting a handle on the future THIS is the awesome sight of an Osprey – the US Marine Corps’ unique aerial battle wagon – lifting from the deck of the assault ship USS Kearsarge off the Eastern Seaboard of the USA.
And guiding it safely into the sky is LA(AH) Wayne Bowring – RN, not USMC – one of three experienced Fleet Air Arm aircraft handlers assigned to the ship. As well as dealing with the world’s first tilt-rotor aircraft (the Osprey can land, take-off and hover like a helicopter, but once airborne can fly like a traditional propeller-driven aircraft at speeds over 300mph and heights above 25,000ft), the trio are directing Seahawk helicopters and American AV8B Harriers safely on to and off the deck of the Waspclass amphibious assault ship. The Brits are three of eight Fleet Air Arm personnel working with the US Navy as part of a Long Lead Specialist Skills programme to help pave the way for flight deck operations on Britain’s biggest ever warships. In five years’ time F35 Joint Strike Fighters, Chinooks, Merlins, and Wildcats will be buzzing around the deck of HMS Queen Elizabeth (followed two years later by her sister Prince of Wales). The Royal Navy’s never had a flight deck like it – roughly the size of three football pitches – and with nearly four decades having elapsed since the days of the big carrier (the last one was HMS Ark Royal IV of Sailor fame in the late ’70s), we need to build up the experience of working on a large flat-top. Hence the exchange programme. Wayne’s joined on the Kearsarge by fellow handlers CPO Scott Iszard and LA Damian George – collectively they have more than 40 years’ experience of working on RN carrier decks. “We’ve been very welcomed,” says Scott. “People want to talk to you and find out what you’re doing here. I think that will wear off, but there are days where you see people you haven’t seen before. We’ve enjoyed our time here so far.” As well as the handlers on the Kearsarge, five FAA personnel are enjoying a similar experience aboard the carrier USS Dwight D Eisenhower – with the added excitement of catapults and arrestor wires for Hornets,
Super Hornets and Prowler jets, plus Hawkeye and Greyhound propeller-driven aircraft. On both leviathans, the Royal Navy handlers had to pass US Navy qualifications to allow them to operate on a working flight deck. “It’s been a big eye opener to see how things are run differently: routines, manpower, general quarters, battle stations,” says Damian. “It’s a lot more to take in than I expected. There’s a lot more people and a lot more spaces, but it’s fun. It’s enjoyable.” He continues: “Just trying to get used to the way another group of handlers do their job on a different type of flight deck with different types of aircraft is not easy. “Trying to get your head around how their routines are different and the working hours – it’s all totally different.” His shipmate Wayne agrees: “I feel really good about being here because it’s a completely different challenge for me. I am looking forward to the next eight months.” Damian adds: “If you come on board and get involved, get out there, enjoy the flight deck and do C what you’re here to do, then nine months will go like that and we’ll M be on an Osprey out of here.” As for our American cousins, Y they’re loving the Jackspeak CM and banter which the Brits have brought to the Kearsarge’s MY COMPTUEX (Composite Training Unit Exercise) – a sort of US Navy combination CYof Operational Sea Training and CMY Joint Warrior. “Their terminology is hilarious K – so having them joke around in between flight quarters is a blast because they bring something new to the table every day,” says Aviation Boatswain’s Mate (Handling) 3rd Class Josh Lyman. The Brits are similarly enjoying their time with the US Navy. “They are a great bunch of people,” says Damian. “They’ve really welcomed the three of us in. Nobody’s said a cross word to us and I think they’re welcoming because we’re something new, something different. “We’ve come with fresh opinions, fresh ideas and a fresh set of eyes on a lot of things, and I think that most of them will listen to our opinions and they’ll take them on board.” Scott adds: “What I’m hoping to achieve on board USS Kearsarge is to take all of the good things that I’ve learned from your way of operating your flight deck
and all the stuff that we do and put both together, so that when we go back and start writing the Standard Operating Procedures Advertv1-print.pdf for the newOPScarrier, we can mix
them both together.”
With thanks to PO(3rd Class) Karen Blankenship, USS Kearsarge.
Writing the Queen Elizabeth
1‘manual’, 29/01/2013 13:47 page 16-17
23rd - 25th April 2013
MID-way through her eightmonth deployment to the Middle East, HMS Northumberland paid her first visit to Bahrain – hub of the Royal Navy’s ongoing east of Suez mission. Overseeing that mission is the UK Maritime Component Command, headed by Cdre Simon Ancona, who visited the Devonport-based frigate once alongside to thank the ship’s company. The commodore invited Brig Gen Ahmed Khalifa Salman Al Khalifa, commander of the Royal Bahrain Naval Force, a major supporter of the work carried out by Coalition naval forces. Twenty-seven nations are committed to the Combined Maritime Forces, providing ships to support three permanent Combined Task Forces: 150 and 151 (maritime security/counterpiracy in the Indian Ocean); and 152 (the Gulf). “Northumberland has come alongside fresh from providing valuable and direct support to the Combined Maritime Forces,” said Cdre Ancona. “She is operating in a challenging environment and it’s obvious the ship’s company have risen to the challenge.” No port visit is complete without the opportunity to get kitted out for a game of rugby and Bahrain RFC were very willing to test their skills against the sailors – who’d only played together five times in the previous two years. Despite a strong performance, the ship’s company lost 21-12 to the locals, but the result was a big improvement on the frigate’s run out in Muscat, Oman – Northumberland’s previous port of call. Buffer Jamie McNeil, the team captain said: “I feel the performance that they gave was great. Training was limited in the run-up to the game but we have further games to look forward to and prepare for.”
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