Royal Navy – Post War
At the end of the war operations at HMS Masterdon were
wound down – ultimately resulting in the decision to close
the base entirely. I was ordered to remain and oversee the
closure of the base. On the whole the closedown of the base
went very smoothly, but to see the huge amount of stuff
being sent for burning and destruction was amazing. On
completion of closing down the base I was drafted back to
Portsmouth The area we had covered under the guise of HMS
Mastodon was all in the New Forest near the town of
Lymington; it was only taken off the secret list about 30
years after the end of the war.
After returning to Portsmouth barracks in 1946 I was
elected to be in the Gun Crew of Portmouth Command which
took part in the Royal Tournament that was held in Olympia,
London. That year was one of the best shows as it was a
gathering of all the Commonwealth representatives. The Navy
gave a display of taking a gun carriage and limber over a
chasm and also over and through an imitation wall. All of
the main divisions took part – Portsmouth, Devonport,
Chatham and later on the Fleet Air Arm. The Army performed
drill movements and the Royal Artillery gave a motorbike
display and also a display of horse artillery and gun
carriages with limbers crossing each other at speed. The
commonwealth sent different army units and there was also a
representation from the Scottish Pipers regiment. To
complete the show, the bands of all units gave a display –
with the Royal Marines being the most impressive. The Royal
Show was always well supported by the public with all of
the profits going to various charities.
After my time as part of the Portsmouth gun crew I was
drafted to HMS Bruce – a boys training area in Fife
Scotland (Crail). Whilst there I played on the Scottish
Cricket Ground against a representative Scottish XI in
Edinburgh. I was the Seamanship Instructor and my opposite
Gunnery instructor was P.O. Robottom. During our training
period we obtained the highest passing out points of any
class. As it was an ex-airstrip for the fleet air arm it
was near the coast, and being someone who liked shellfish,
one of the local fishermen gave me 2 crab pots. I used to
lay them just off the airfield on a weekend. We would
normally get a good few crabs and lobsters which the P.O.
Chef would cook for the instructors. We had a bingo night
on Sundays for which we provided the winkles and crab for
sandwiches at the break time. Whilst at HMS Bruce I found
my Dads sister Jessie in Dundee but on leaving the people
she was living with moved and I lost all contact.
I was drafted back to Portsmouth in September 1949 and was
retained in Portsmouth to oversee the decommissioning of
HMS Duke of York and HMS King George V in the Portsmouth
dock yards. It was from there that I was discharged from
the Royal Navy in November 1950.
On leaving the Royal Navy we lived in Carpenters Park
(Muirfield Close) and I obtained employment with British
Rail as a booking clerk. My station was Bushy and Oxy, but
I would also work at other stations on overtime – Watford
and Wembley stations.
On being called up again to active service due to the
Korean situation, I was reengaged in January 1952 when I
was drafted to the base HMS Vernon. HMS Nightingale (which
was attached to the land base) was an experimental mine
unit where different mines would be laid with recording
clocks for different effects. We would also practice with
different experimental recovery methods of picking up
mines. One of the advantages was that we were a small ships
company. When we recovered experimental units, one had to
be careful when taking off the side panels of the sinker,
as you could find a big conger eel inside and they had
nasty bites. We also would find crabs and lobsters that
would make a good meal for the ships company. It was whilst
onboard HMS Nightingale that I was promoted to Chief Petty
Officer. I really enjoyed my time onboard HMS Nightingale.
I got to meet the famous Commander Crabb who was accused of
being a supposed defector when he disappeared on a dive. On
completion of my time on HMS Nightingale I was posted to
HMS Gamecock near Nuneaton – once a fleet Air Arm base, but
now a training camp. On joining I was appointed as Chief
Petty Officer of the training block Ark Royal and my C.O.
was Lieutenant Sutton. He did me the great favour of
obtaining my Guardian a service pension for Ninian, my
Brother, who was killed on active service, as a sub
lieutenant, on an armed merchant cruiser that had been sunk
in Weymouth Bay.
On our first talk Lieutenant Sutton said that he had
noticed we did not have any trophies in our cabinet and
stated that between us and the Petty Officers we could
change this – and we all agreed. From that day on we had a
grand leader, on the block. The block consisted of 4 living
areas (dormitories) each with 40 trainees, with 2 petty
officers to each dormitory. I used the Shotley (Ganges)
method for training and appointed senior boys in each area
(3). We then started to build up our teams for the
cross-country, football, rugby, cricket and Gymnastics.
Cleanliness in the block was not overlooked as Captains
Inspections were every Friday. Slowly we pulled together
and formed a good working team, and over time we got the
results from the teams. The trophy cabinet began to fill up
with trophies. We were doing really well! It was good to
see the efforts of all the instructors reflected in the
trophies and to be able to see the self respect in the
graduating trainees. When my time at Nuneaton came to an
end the trophy cabinet was bulging.
During the 18 months I spent at HMS Gamecock I made many
friends and one in particular was a local man, Mr Allcock.
He had a small holding where he grew farm produce for
selling locally in the villages, and also had about 10 pigs
in very good sties. Myself and another Petty Officer would
help him cleaning out the sties when he was busy. On
Sundays’ if we were staying for a weekend, he would take us
out in his Rover car for a pub run. His Rover car was very
old and had carbon lights – in fact Rover had offered him
any car they made if he would allow them to put the car in
their museum, but he had always declined saying that he
enjoyed himself in the car too much with his friends. On a
Sunday run he once told me that he liked Seed Cake. When I
was home on leave my wife made him one and he didn’t know
how to thank her enough for it.