Royal Australian Navy

TALL TALES & TRUE FROM THE BOYS IN BLUE

A Book By Allen Lyne

ex-Royal Australian Navy

Read two sample chapters of this book full of great stories about life in the Royal Australian Navy.  Once you do, you will immediately contact me to buy the entire book. These are amazing mostly true stories from the men who served at various times in the Royal Australian Navy.

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THE APE THAT LOVED A SAILOR

Let's call him Lofty. We won't name the ship or the year. It is enough to mention that it was Q Class Frigate back in the days when sailors still lashed up hammocks each morning.
We'll call him Lofty because he was a big man. He was the ship's rugby fullback. A man his shipmates mostly liked and admired, but all had learned to avoid him when he was really pissed. Lofty could, and did, fight like the proverbial thrashing machine. It was okay by all concerned when Lofty took it out on members of other ship's companies—especially if they were not Australian ship's companies, or on civilians, but not when he filled in members of his own crew.
At the time of which I write Lofty was a quartermaster, one of the least sought after jobs in the entire Royal Australian Navy. Quartermasters were killick seamen—leading seamen to you landlubbers. They were, and are, the equivalent of the army corporal in rank. Quartermasters were in charge of the wheelhouse at sea—yes, this was before the wheel was moved to the bridge on R.A.N. ships—and manned the gangway in harbour along with their offsider the bosun's mate. The reason quartermaster was such an unpopular job was that in most small ships these poor buggers were in four watches at sea, while the rest of the seamen killicks were in 12 or 13 watches. In harbour, Q.M.s were 24 hours on, 24 hours off, except at weekends when it was 48 hours on. In those 24 or 48 hours, the Q.Ms and their bosun's mates worked 4 hours on and 4 hours off. Meanwhile, in harbour the other leading seamen would have one night's duty in however many leading seamen were onboard.
Quartermasters were known to go mad if kept on this duty for too many months in a row. This may explain what happened to Lofty at a port of call in Borneo. He had been a quartermaster for almost four months before the fateful Saturday and early Sunday morning.
That weekend Lofty stepped ashore on his 48 off after the ship had been in port for a few days. It was 9 am on a stinking hot Saturday when he stepped. The heat was humungous and the humidity bordered on 100%, and Lofty was wet through with sweat before he got ashore.
He found a bar, as sailors sometimes do when they step ashore. In the bar were a motley collection of locals and a few sailors off his ship and more off some merchant vessels also in harbour. Even at this early hour a few of the local ladies were in attendance, but Lofty ignored their overtures. There is a time for everything, and after the middle watch—midnight to 4am—and a couple of hours sleep, now was time for a drink. But at 9 am in the bright light of day, he was feeling a little bit spaced out. He chugged his first two beers and then settled into a more leisurely imbibing pace.
By mid-afternoon Lofty was shickered. Enough so that a couple of his messmates had to talk him out of going outside to fight a huge merchant seaman. They knew if something started between Lofty and that large gentleman, it would probably spread to members of the opposing crews, and they had a better idea. "Let's all have another drink and have a good time." Their good sense prevailed and Lofty and the merchant sailor finished up best of mates. Life can be a weird and wonderful thing ashore on the piss in the R.A.N.
Around 3 pm Lofty decided to wander downtown and find some food. He hadn't eaten since breakfast and had imbibed huge quantities of the local amber fluid. He relieved himself in an alleyway between two buildings. It was just as he finished that he met Bongo.
Bongo was an ape.
A large, black ape.
Bongo was being led by a one-eyed slightly hunchbacked person, who went up to Lofty as he was buttoning up and offered to sell him. The price wasn't high and Lofty was always one for a bargain, so he completed the transaction. The one-eyed gentleman went off chortling with delight.
Lofty and Bongo found a roadside food stall and Lofty bought them both a meal. Bongo hardly touched his, but Lofty figured that he'd probably had a late lunch. What the ape and Lofty both needed was another beer. Lots of beers.
And so began one of the most amazing pub crawls in Australian navy pub-crawling history. It is possibly unique in any naval history of any country. Even though the ape hadn't thought much of the food, he was quite happy to down as many beers as Lofty and the other sailors they encountered along the way cared to buy him.
Most of the time, Lofty and Bongo had their beers outside on the roadway, but a couple of more liberal-minded bar owners let them inside. Lofty didn't remonstrate with the bar owners that refused to have him and his new-found best mate inside their establishments. It was hot outside, but cooler in the shade than in any of the non air-conditioned bars. Lofty was just happy to share time and beer with his mate.
One peculiar thing was that Lofty had to be the one that gave Bongo his beer. No one else could get near him. When they tried, the ape, normally a gentle peace-loving creature as all apes are, would draw back his lips in a grimace, showing his large teeth, and growl a low, grumbling, very threatening growl. From time to time he beat his chest and roared. Maybe it was the alcohol.
In fact, Bongo seemed to be becoming attached to Lofty in a somewhat unhealthy way. A couple of sailors remarked that from the looks Bongo was giving Lofty, he was falling in love with him. Lofty replied that this was ridiculous. Bongo was a boy, and who ever heard of a poofter ape?
A bit after 6 pm Lofty realised that he was short of cash. He was running out of smokes as well, so he needed to repair back on board to fix these things. Lofty led Bongo out of the latest bar and they reeled their way back to the ship. In the condition they were both in, they walked about three times the actual distance between the bar and ship.
When they reached the Q…, Lofty started up the gangway with Bongo trailing behind. The quartermaster called on Lofty to stop halfway up the gangway. The bosun's mate found an urgent reason to go below. Lofty stopped, peered owlishly at his fellow Q.M and inquired as to the reason. The Q.M explained that apes were not allowed on board. Lofty replied that this was no ordinary ape, this was his friend.
The quartermaster was in a bit of a bind. Lofty was much bigger than he, and so was the ape. Lofty could also be a very nasty drunk very quickly when crossed. Even so, the quartermaster knew that the hook (anchor) on his left arm—insignia of his leading hand status—depended on his keeping the ape off the ship. He explained in a clear if shaky voice that it was against Queen's Regulations and Admiralty Instructions for apes to board Her Majesty's Australian warships.
Lofty and Bongo looked at the Q.M. and it was touch and go whether the two of them were going to barge up the gangway and onto the ship despite the quartermaster's objections. But then Lofty belched and said that he'd never read Q.R.s and A. I.s and it was something he was going to look up directly. He took Bongo back down the gangway and tied his leader-rope to the rail at the shore end.
Lofty came aboard—being careful to salute the flag as he came—as the Q.M was protesting about where he'd left the ape. Lofty told him not to worry. He'd be back in two shakes of a lamb's tail after he got more dough and smokes from his locker and he and the ape would be gone like a flash back into town. With that, Lofty lurched below and up the passageway.
When Lofty finished putting the little money he still had in the world into his wallet and stowing two packets of cigarettes in his pockets, he stood up quickly from his locker. Too quickly. The mess deck spun around and he felt a bit queasy. He made it to the open scuttle—porthole to the civvies—and threw up all the beer and food he'd imbibed since stepping ashore. Still feeling a bit crook, he decided to lie down inside the hammock-bin—the place where everyone threw their hammocks in the morning—just for a few minutes while he recovered.
Meanwhile the bosun's mate had returned to the quarterdeck and now stood with the quartermaster and the Officer of the Day. They were all looking at the ape tethered at the end of the gangway and didn't like what they saw. Several liberty men arriving back and attempting to come onboard were terrified out of the idea by Bongo.
The Officer of the Day suggested that the quartermaster go down the gangway, untie the ape and shoo him away. The quartermaster thought the bosun's mate was better qualified as he'd once lived on a farm. The bosun's mate thought the duty watch should go down en-masse and complete the task.
No one moved.
Several of the more enterprising liberty men climbed aboard up the head rope. The fatter and unfitter or drunker languished on the wharf.
The Officer of the Day ordered the bosun's mate below to get Lofty to take the damned ape away. He returned after 15 minutes to say that Lofty had his head down and couldn't be woken.
The Officer of the Day and the Petty Officer of the Day went below to sort things out. They couldn't wake him either.
One of Lofty's messmates tried pouring water over him. Lofty snored on. They tried tickling him, blowing cigarette smoke on him, blowing a bosun's pipe right in his ear hole. Nothing worked. Lofty snoozed on in his drunken slumber. In the end, the Officer of the Day gave up and went back to the gangway, forlornly hoping that the ape might have somehow vanished.
Bongo hadn't vanished, but the captain had appeared on the wharf and was anxious to come aboard his ship. A tense dialogue ensued between the captain and Officer Of the Day, resulting in the captain suggesting that the Officer of the Day himself should come down the gangway and release Bongo. The Officer of the Day declined, whereupon the captain—being a man of great heart and courage, not to mention a belly full of the local governor's whisky—took on the task himself. He approached the gangway with great confidence, shouting that no brute of an ape was going to keep him from his own ship.
This was not the right tactic to get Bongo onside. It is doubtful that any tactic would have worked. Bongo was a drunk and angry ape. His mate had gone he knew not where and he was missing him. Bongo curled his lip, bared his teeth and let out one of the low growls that had so disturbed the sailors ashore. He began to pound his chest and let out a mighty roar, and then he lifted up the gangway that weighed several hundred pounds and dropped it with a mighty crash.
Bongo repeated this several times.
The captain gave pause. He was a brave man as all captains are—would you go to sea with a bunch of R.A.N. sailors?—but not even he was brave enough to take on Bongo.
The Officer of the Day and the duty watch were sent below once more to try to waken the drunken sailor. Nothing worked, Lofty slumbered on. The angry ape remained at the end of the gangway. The captain contemplated following some of the returning liberty men up the head rope. He decided against. Imagine the loss of dignity if he slipped and fell in. Imagine the shame if he got stuck half way up what was a fairly steep slope. Captains of ships have to consider these things.
And so the ship settled down to a stalemate. Everyone who was aboard was staying aboard. Everyone ashore was staying ashore. Bongo was custodian of the gangway. Lofty began to snore.
The captain returned to the governor's house and finished up staying the night there. The liberty men that were too drunk or unfit to climb the head rope went back into town and got even more pie-eyed. The cook was unable to go ashore to empty the gash buckets. Crew men from the merchant ships alongside astern and ahead of the Q… came to stare at the unusual sight of a sometimes sleeping and sometimes awake and angry ape tethered to the gangway of one of Australia's finest warships.
Lofty woke at around 11 pm in the hammock bin. It was after lights out and most of the hammocks had been removed from the bin by their owners and slung in the mess. He didn't have a clue what time it was, nor did he remember about the ape. So, he took his own hammock, slung it and went to bed. The duty bosun's mate of the First Watch—8 pm to midnight—had been ordered to check on Lofty every half hour until he woke up. He roused Lofty at half-past eleven and told him to get his arse up to the gangway double-quick time because he was in a load of trouble. Lofty had a sudden memory of the ape at the gangway, hurtled out of bed, got dressed and went to repair the damage.
Bongo was so pleased to see Lofty that he began to cry as soon as his friend came into sight on the ship. It had been a long, lonely time for Bongo. Lofty untethered him and they shambled off into town for some more beers.
Early the next morning, Lofty sold Bongo back to the one-eyed man for a quarter what he paid for him. Apparently the one-eyed man made a habit of selling the ape to sailors—always of the merchant variety before Lofty came along. Bongo would eventually free himself, or be let go, and would return home, ready for the next sale. It was a precarious existence for both one-eye and Bongo, but Bongo developed a great taste for beer along the way.
Lofty said that Bongo was sad when they parted. The ape cried out as if in pain. He knew that his Australian navy mate was going forever and that they would never meet again. Lofty confessed to being a bit sad as well.
I wish I could say that this story had a happy ending, but it did not. I'm not sure what the charges finished up being—drunk in charge of an ape…? No, more like that old catch-all charge 'Conduct Prejudicial to the Good Order of Naval Discipline'—but Lofty was duly shunted through the system from Officer of the Day's defaulters, to First Lieutenant's defaulters and on to Captain's defaulters—the big one we all feared.
Lofty lost his hook. He was demoted to able-seaman, and as he paid off from the navy a little under a year later, he never picked it up again.
At least he got out of quartermastering for the rest of his time.

TORPEDOS READY, SIR

H.M.A. ships Vendetta, Vampire, the lamented Voyager and (I think) Duchess, when she joined us from the Royal Navy as Voyager's replacement, were the last ships in the fleet to have conventional torpedo tubes. They had 5 tubes situated amidships and very potent weapons they were. Well, when they fired they were potent.
I was a part of the Torpedo Action Team in the Vendetta's Operations Room. My job was as the TBT operator. Forty-something years later I can't remember what on earth TBT stood for, but never mind. My job was to mirror the bearings that were fed into the main handraulic computer that set the firing bearings for the torpedoes. In the event of the main machine failing, the TBT could be used to fire the fish. It was a backup system. There were a number of backups in the system, but they didn't always work, as we shall see.
We were steaming in company with our flagship, the carrier H.M.A.S. Melbourne. Melbourne had the Flag Officer Commanding the Australian Fleet onboard, as usual. I can't remember which Admiral it was now, but not to worry. Vendetta was to carry out a mock firing using dummy torpedoes, firing only the two wing, or outer, torpedoes, so that the spread could be checked and we could see if our fish would have hit. I imagine that Melbourne was also carrying out evasive action to see if they could avoid our torpedoes.
We did the death or glory bit of firing from two thousand yards at our maximum speed of thirty-two knots. This was a big deal. We didn't get to fire our dummy fish all that often and never before at such an exalted target. One of the RPs (Radar Plotters) or someone was calling the range as we closed in. "Three thousand yards, Two thousand five hundred yards—the machinery was whirring, I was turning the little handle of my TBT to keep backing up the correct bearing—everyone was concentrating hard. Two thousand yards. We heard the skipper call 'port 30' and we began to turn into our firing arc.
"Fire One." TASO (the Torpedo and Anti-Submarine Officer—a man I knew and liked and served with more than once so I'll do him the kindness of anonymity) pulled the firing trigger. Fire Two. Fire Three. Fire Four. Fire Five. TASO pulled his trigger with a will on each command. Then the voice of the U.W. (Underwater Weapons rate) from the roundhouse atop the tubes:

ALL TORPEDOES MISFIRED, SIR.

There was a stunned silence in the ops room that seemed to go on for a long time, but was probably a matter of a few seconds. Then TASO's voice was clearly heard. "Oh, no, I forgot to pull out the pin in the trigger."
The trigger had a simple interlock system, a pin which had to be extracted to allow it to work. This prevented accidental firings by overwrought TAS officers.
There was another stunned silence in the ops room, but this time it was a silence that felt like it was building up to an explosion. It was. "TAS officer." (the skipper called him by surname in reality) "Get out of my ops room. The whole torpedo firing team, get out of my ops room. GET OUT. GET OUT. GET OUT." The captain was so red in the face I thought he'd explode.
None of us were game to laugh until we were out of the Operations Room, but as soon as we were out, we all exploded. I can still remember TASO's tremulous voice: "Don't laugh, you bastards, that was my career."
Remember I said that there were a number of backup systems? Well, the other that didn't work was the one located in the roundhouse on the tubes. The weapons rate had five firing levers. When he heard the firing orders, he depressed each lever. In practice he would be a fraction of a second later than the pressure on the firing trigger, so if the trigger failed for some reason, the manual system in the round house should have worked. In this case it didn't. Tubes one and five were loaded with the dummy torpedoes. Tubes two, three and four were empty, to avoid the unpleasant accident of sinking the Melbourne I suppose. This would certainly have been frowned upon as it was our only carrier at the time. The U.W. depressed his levers alright, and the firing pins punctured the charges that were meant to launch the fish, but they malfunctioned as well.
There are procedures that must be followed in the event of unexploded ordinance. In this case everyone had to stay clear of the tubes for an hour, after which time the charges could be removed. TASO was on hand for their removal, and when the U.W. had extracted them, he took the charges and said: "We must send these back to the manufacturer to see what went wrong." The Gunnery Officer was standing nearby and he snatched the charges and hurled them over the side. I think he was sharing a cabin with TASO and no doubt had the heeby-jeebys that he might put them under his bunk until we reached port and he could mail them to the manufacturer.
Memo: Petals, if you happen to read this: Unexploded ordinance over the side every time.
My sympathy really was with the captain because the stuffup made him, and our ship, a laughingstock. I couldn't see the scene from my position in the Operations Room, but I have carried an image of it ever since. I know what it must have looked like from the Melbourne. The Admiral and all of the officers would have been on the bridge to watch the death-or-glory charge of the beautiful destroyer coming at them (the Daring Class Destroyers were the most beautiful warships I served in). Every vantage point on Melbourne was no doubt taken up by men wanting to see the rare sight of a torpedo attack from a surface ship. I have no doubt that many camera shutters were opening and closing as we approached.
All that expectation as the destroyer creams in, huge bow waves and high bubbling wake as she glides through the water at her maximum speed, the heel over, the... big fat nothing. I can hear the mocking laughter of the Melbourne's crew. Feel the fury of the Admiral. See the officers that were not on duty hurriedly leaving the bridge to be well clear of his wrath. I can imagine the feelings of our captain. The egg on the face. The jibes from fellow-officers for years to come. The after-dinner stories. What a mess.
But it was funny.

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