Post by Dave Homewood on Sept 6, 2023 20:51:50 GMT 12
LIFE IN THE R.N.Z.N.
Internal Economy Of A Cruiser
AT SEA IN THE BELLONA
[By a Staff Correspondent of “The Press.”]
Although the greater part of the Royal New Zealand Navy is manned by New Zealand officers and ratings, and although these men are tax-paying citizens of the country, they live in a world of their own which, in the case of the ship’s company of H.M.N.Z.S. Bellona, has as its poles the bows and stern of a fighting ship.
Even the language—a hybrid growth of several hundred years—is a curious exercise in speech, is governed by no recognised semantic laws, and is a formidable barrier to intercourse between sailor and landsman. The traditional anonymity of the navy is understandable, therefore, when an attempt is made to interpret naval occasions to lay readers.
Silence in a cruiser, and, indeed, in any ship of war, is comparative only, since the dynamos never cease their turning and ventilation intake and exhaust shafts roar day and night. Also, there are the loudspeaker system and the sound power telephones. Over the former, preceded by a warning wail on the bos'un’s pipe or an adenoidal flourish on the bugle, come orders, announcements, and rebukes, which penetrate every compartment in the ship. The power telephone, which is not unlike the public telephone system, shrieks when it requires to be answered.
Then again, in every ship, not excepting the Bellona, there is always some curious noise which defies analysis or discovery. These noises, together with the sudden pattering (or stamping) of feet above one’s head, the creak of woodwork, the scraping of wire ropes, and the industrious purring of the punka louvres (those circular ventilation ports which are like a universal joint and are directional), are continuous even when the ship is alongside a wharf or at anchor; but when the ship is at sea, larger pieces join the mechanical orchestra.
Emphasis on Training
Since the R.N.Z.N. is still in its formative stages, lacking trained key ratings, the Bellona only observes her motto, “Battle is our Business,” in that she is a training ship for newly-joined young ratings who may some day engage in that business. Everywhere about the ship gaiters are worn by training classes — there are 250 ratings under 20 years in the ship, many of whom are undergoing post-basic training. Others are undergoing the instruction which will qualify them, after examination, for one of the specialist rates in gunnery, seamanship, torpedo, electricity, and communications.
Less of that afternoon indolence known as “make and mend,” which sometimes occurs in the Navy, is permitted the Bellona’s trainees. They are kept industriously employed from 0600 hours, when they are noisily summoned by bugle or pipe to wash down decks, until 1600 hours, when they are piped to tea. To one who was used to war-time routines in naval vessels, this industry, and the enthusiasm of the trainees for instruction, came as a surprise, while the efficiency of the qualified ratings who attend to the care and maintenance of the complex mechanics which keep a cruiser floating, moving, and fighting, is a testimonial to the exacting tenets of the Navy.
Importance of Damage Control
Notable emphasis is placed on damage control drills and procedures in the Bellona’s daily routines. During the latter part of the war at sea the ship was one of the “mystery ships” operating on Russian convoys—“mystery” because of her armament and because of certain structural characteristics not common to similar units of her tonnage, and she might be called a damage control ship for this reason. Damage control embraces a wide field in a ship of this type. Provision must be made for alternative electrical supply systems and bulkheads and doors which will ensure watertight integrity should the hull be pierced either through enemy action or through misadventure. So effective is the damage control organisation in the Bellona that, allowing for heavy structural damage and loss of life, while the armament is manned, and with threequarters of the electrical supply installations out of order, sufficient power—both DC and AC—to keep the ship in a fighting condition would be available in less than 10 minutes, and flooded compartments could be sealed in less than that time.
To anyone who knows the labyrinth of passages and compartments below decks in a major war vessel and the bewilderment which comes when those spaces are plunged into hot darkness, this is a striking commentary. Concerning those hot and airless spaces or “rooms,” well below decks within the armoured belt of a cruiser, which house precision equipment,— gunnery radar, electrical, anti-submarine, and navigational—and which, during the war, were manned by officers and ratings who inhaled stifling oil-tainted air and sweated in temperatures of more than 170 degrees Fahrenheit, and in humidities of nearly 100 per cent., much has been done in the Bellona.
Where space permits, and even where it does not (and space in cruisers is something that is computed in inches), large and powerful air blast cooling units have been installed. and others will be installed as they come to hand. So that, and it is an important point, those whose business it is to be locked away in steel below the waterline, can face danger at least in comparative comfort.
Sunday Divisions
In the more bustling circumstances of war-time sailoring there was usually little time to observe faithfully the letter of that impressive rite known as Sunday Divisions. For this occasion the sailor is required to put on his “number ones,” and to fall in in his division or “part of ship,” and to subject himself to the hypercritical but friendly scrutiny of his commanding officer. In the Bellona, Sunday Divisions are held on the jetty, if she is alongside, and the whole of the ship's company, except those excused, is fallen in, while, during the captain's inspection, the band of the Royal Marines plays in what the Book of Common Prayer calls a “cheerful and subdued manner.”
After the inspection, the band strikes up a more martial tune, and the parade moves up the gangways back on board, and then to voluntary church on the quarterdeck. There, the chaplain (“Sin Bos'un" to the lower deck, and “the Bish" to the officers) conducts his service after the naval fashion—usually two or three popular hymns, a short sermon, and always the Naval Prayer..."... Be pleased to receive into Thy Almighty and most gracious protection the persons of us Thy servants and the Fleet in which we serve. Preserve us from the dangers of the sea and from the violence of the enemy, that we may be ... a security for such as pass on the seas upon their lawful occasions.”
Pom-Pom Firings
When the Bellona exercised her forward two-pounder pom-poms at sea, using rocket parachute targets, it was the first time that many of her ship’s company, including members of the guns crew, had seen these four anti-aircraft weapons in action, so short is the service of many of the Bellona’s company. There was, however, a critical interest in the markmanship, laying and training of the pom-pom’s crew. A capricious cross-wind, the slow roll of the cruiser, and the perverse unpredictability of the rockets, set the layers and trainers a pretty problem of deflection, which, considering that they were making their first acquaintance with live rounds (a pompom group is a deafening weapon), they countered professionally.
None of the Bellona’s trainees regards the service as merely a six-years' expedient. (The present engagement is for six years, instead of 12 as in the past). The enthusiasm of the classes is as marked as that of the war-time R.N.V.R. officers’ training groups who entered the Navy under the Scheme B system, although to listen to the conversation of these men is to get the impression that they are the victims of the press gang—a hoary naval habit as amusing as it is insincere.
PRESS, 13 DECEMBER 1947
Internal Economy Of A Cruiser
AT SEA IN THE BELLONA
[By a Staff Correspondent of “The Press.”]
Although the greater part of the Royal New Zealand Navy is manned by New Zealand officers and ratings, and although these men are tax-paying citizens of the country, they live in a world of their own which, in the case of the ship’s company of H.M.N.Z.S. Bellona, has as its poles the bows and stern of a fighting ship.
Even the language—a hybrid growth of several hundred years—is a curious exercise in speech, is governed by no recognised semantic laws, and is a formidable barrier to intercourse between sailor and landsman. The traditional anonymity of the navy is understandable, therefore, when an attempt is made to interpret naval occasions to lay readers.
Silence in a cruiser, and, indeed, in any ship of war, is comparative only, since the dynamos never cease their turning and ventilation intake and exhaust shafts roar day and night. Also, there are the loudspeaker system and the sound power telephones. Over the former, preceded by a warning wail on the bos'un’s pipe or an adenoidal flourish on the bugle, come orders, announcements, and rebukes, which penetrate every compartment in the ship. The power telephone, which is not unlike the public telephone system, shrieks when it requires to be answered.
Then again, in every ship, not excepting the Bellona, there is always some curious noise which defies analysis or discovery. These noises, together with the sudden pattering (or stamping) of feet above one’s head, the creak of woodwork, the scraping of wire ropes, and the industrious purring of the punka louvres (those circular ventilation ports which are like a universal joint and are directional), are continuous even when the ship is alongside a wharf or at anchor; but when the ship is at sea, larger pieces join the mechanical orchestra.
Emphasis on Training
Since the R.N.Z.N. is still in its formative stages, lacking trained key ratings, the Bellona only observes her motto, “Battle is our Business,” in that she is a training ship for newly-joined young ratings who may some day engage in that business. Everywhere about the ship gaiters are worn by training classes — there are 250 ratings under 20 years in the ship, many of whom are undergoing post-basic training. Others are undergoing the instruction which will qualify them, after examination, for one of the specialist rates in gunnery, seamanship, torpedo, electricity, and communications.
Less of that afternoon indolence known as “make and mend,” which sometimes occurs in the Navy, is permitted the Bellona’s trainees. They are kept industriously employed from 0600 hours, when they are noisily summoned by bugle or pipe to wash down decks, until 1600 hours, when they are piped to tea. To one who was used to war-time routines in naval vessels, this industry, and the enthusiasm of the trainees for instruction, came as a surprise, while the efficiency of the qualified ratings who attend to the care and maintenance of the complex mechanics which keep a cruiser floating, moving, and fighting, is a testimonial to the exacting tenets of the Navy.
Importance of Damage Control
Notable emphasis is placed on damage control drills and procedures in the Bellona’s daily routines. During the latter part of the war at sea the ship was one of the “mystery ships” operating on Russian convoys—“mystery” because of her armament and because of certain structural characteristics not common to similar units of her tonnage, and she might be called a damage control ship for this reason. Damage control embraces a wide field in a ship of this type. Provision must be made for alternative electrical supply systems and bulkheads and doors which will ensure watertight integrity should the hull be pierced either through enemy action or through misadventure. So effective is the damage control organisation in the Bellona that, allowing for heavy structural damage and loss of life, while the armament is manned, and with threequarters of the electrical supply installations out of order, sufficient power—both DC and AC—to keep the ship in a fighting condition would be available in less than 10 minutes, and flooded compartments could be sealed in less than that time.
To anyone who knows the labyrinth of passages and compartments below decks in a major war vessel and the bewilderment which comes when those spaces are plunged into hot darkness, this is a striking commentary. Concerning those hot and airless spaces or “rooms,” well below decks within the armoured belt of a cruiser, which house precision equipment,— gunnery radar, electrical, anti-submarine, and navigational—and which, during the war, were manned by officers and ratings who inhaled stifling oil-tainted air and sweated in temperatures of more than 170 degrees Fahrenheit, and in humidities of nearly 100 per cent., much has been done in the Bellona.
Where space permits, and even where it does not (and space in cruisers is something that is computed in inches), large and powerful air blast cooling units have been installed. and others will be installed as they come to hand. So that, and it is an important point, those whose business it is to be locked away in steel below the waterline, can face danger at least in comparative comfort.
Sunday Divisions
In the more bustling circumstances of war-time sailoring there was usually little time to observe faithfully the letter of that impressive rite known as Sunday Divisions. For this occasion the sailor is required to put on his “number ones,” and to fall in in his division or “part of ship,” and to subject himself to the hypercritical but friendly scrutiny of his commanding officer. In the Bellona, Sunday Divisions are held on the jetty, if she is alongside, and the whole of the ship's company, except those excused, is fallen in, while, during the captain's inspection, the band of the Royal Marines plays in what the Book of Common Prayer calls a “cheerful and subdued manner.”
After the inspection, the band strikes up a more martial tune, and the parade moves up the gangways back on board, and then to voluntary church on the quarterdeck. There, the chaplain (“Sin Bos'un" to the lower deck, and “the Bish" to the officers) conducts his service after the naval fashion—usually two or three popular hymns, a short sermon, and always the Naval Prayer..."... Be pleased to receive into Thy Almighty and most gracious protection the persons of us Thy servants and the Fleet in which we serve. Preserve us from the dangers of the sea and from the violence of the enemy, that we may be ... a security for such as pass on the seas upon their lawful occasions.”
Pom-Pom Firings
When the Bellona exercised her forward two-pounder pom-poms at sea, using rocket parachute targets, it was the first time that many of her ship’s company, including members of the guns crew, had seen these four anti-aircraft weapons in action, so short is the service of many of the Bellona’s company. There was, however, a critical interest in the markmanship, laying and training of the pom-pom’s crew. A capricious cross-wind, the slow roll of the cruiser, and the perverse unpredictability of the rockets, set the layers and trainers a pretty problem of deflection, which, considering that they were making their first acquaintance with live rounds (a pompom group is a deafening weapon), they countered professionally.
None of the Bellona’s trainees regards the service as merely a six-years' expedient. (The present engagement is for six years, instead of 12 as in the past). The enthusiasm of the classes is as marked as that of the war-time R.N.V.R. officers’ training groups who entered the Navy under the Scheme B system, although to listen to the conversation of these men is to get the impression that they are the victims of the press gang—a hoary naval habit as amusing as it is insincere.
PRESS, 13 DECEMBER 1947
