HMS Obdurate

I was only in Chatham barracks (HMS Pembroke) for just under a month when I was drafted to HMS Obdurate. This was the middle of April, 1955. She was another destroyer, and as the name implies an O-class. At that point I was still an Ordinary Seaman, but now that I was a Radar Plot 3 my qualifications would be useful at sea and there was no point my sitting around in barracks. Obdurate was based in the Chatham area, and her main task was that of a navigational training ship. She mainly worked from Chatham Reach on the river, to just outside the entrance to the dockyard.

     It was the only time I ever came across National Servicemen (in the Royal Navy, that is). We had about six of them on board, and all of them seemed to have come from the ‘upper crust’. Maybe their mater and pater had pulled a few strings; although it seemed most of the offspring of that set didn’t get called up or were temporary Officers (not in the Navy at all). Perhaps the young men thought it might be a jolly jape (joke) to be in the 'Andrew' (the navy).

     Three of them were in my mess, which was mainly made up of RPs. One was them was the son of a major brewery owner (Mann’s); the second one was from Nottingham and the son of 'White's' (a top-of-the-line shoe manufacturer); the third one was from a top-notch family, but as his family just seemed to have money and no business, he told us he was just a “makey-learny” (a beginner), and studying to become a Vicar.

     At first when they joined the mess (everyone being aware of the so-to-be Vicar amongst our company) we all watched our language when he was around. That is until a few days after joining he tripped over the mess deck ‘gash’ bucket (the garbage can), I think all of us learnt a few swear words on that occasion that we had never heard of!

    All the mess members were older than I, but age and background just don’t make any difference in 'the mob' (the navy). The same goes for religion and politics. These are subjects which were just not discussed by any sailors at any time, because the discussion always lead to an argument.

     One amusing thing that was connected with having National Servicemen on board, was the fact that, if on weekends, the ship was alongside the jetty in the harbour and weekend leave was granted, the N/S had their cars parked on the jetty ready for them near the ship. The N/S men never did a duty weekend. Not that they were not supposed to, but the fact was they had enough money to pay someone else to stand in for them!

     The only ‘regular crew' owner of a motorcar was the Captain, who owned an old Morris 8. Other than that no one aboard had a car except those N/S. On the jetty there were at least 2 MGs; an Austin Healy, a Triumph Spitfire and 'the Vicars' Aston Martin. Watching the Skipper with his head down getting into his car was a bit of a giggle. The N/S disembarked the ship; donned their hacking jackets, the driving gloves and the tweed peaked caps and climbed into their cars.

      As they roared through the gates they would throw a casual salute to the gate staff who were standing rigidly to attention giving them a smart salute! It worked every time. The old saying in this case being: it is the Queen’s uniform that is saluted, not the man inside it.

     The ship spent most of its time going to and from the the North Sea, though most of the navigational training took place up and down the Thames. But often we would exercise the trainees in blind piloting (that is, trusting the team in the Operations Room to give them their directions and turning points). This not only trained them, but it made the R/Ps probably the most efficient team there could be.

     I soon settled into this way of life. The Radar branch was living up to my expectations. I was warm and in the know, and had hot coffee on tap. Of course I had to carry out seaman-like duties when not on watch. Buoy jumping was one of the hairiest. Two of us were taken by boat and deposited on a buoy the ship would be tying up to. If the tide was very swift, the buoy would spin and turn, and sometimes even half disappear underwater. Our job was to catch a small heaving-line, and then pull it through the large eye on the buoy.

     Sounds easy enough, but the heaving-lines were often loaded with lead, and could do you a very nasty injury if it happened to bounce of your head! The size of the line was gradually increased until the buoy was directly under the bow of the ship and then the cable would be lowered for us to get back on the ship and affix it to the buoy. We were taken off the buoy at the hauling-in part of the operation, because no one could hold their feet while the buoy was reluctantly pulled towards the ship (actually the ship was pulled to the buoy).

     On one trip we went to Holland, and while there we played a football game against a prison team. A number of us went to watch, and by the fouling and swearing, one would have been hard pressed to tell the ship's team from the prisoners! On the way back to the ship a sing-song started, and with the stuff he came out with, our trainee Vicar made the Rugby-type of songs we were used to hearing sound like hymns!     
     In those days we were allowed 3 train tickets per year. This of course, was enough to get you to and from home on main leaves. Pity we couldn’t accumulate them when being on a ship abroad! However, as the pay was so poor, most of us hitched rides home on weekends. Somewhere we would change from our uniforms into the civvies we had in our holdall, not forgetting to leave our sailor hat tied to the outside of the suitcase. We would then start to thumb lifts. Most people in those days thought enough of Servicemen, and knew that we had little money and would willingly give us a lift. A couple of times I was very lucky and got a lift all the way home to Ipswich. But mostly I just tried to get onto the Woolwich ferry, and I was almost always guaranteed to find a lift as the ferry made its way across the river. I remember one lift I got very well. It was with a chap about 30 years old in a bug-eyed Morris. We drove quite sedately until we found a good stretch of road, then the chap put his foot down and I was slung back in the seat. Glancing across to the dash I noticed we were doing about 95 mph. Over the roar of the engine, I asked 'what on earth had he done to the car'? Dropping back to a normal speed due to the road being very twisty, he then stopped at a small transport cafe. Before we went in he lifted the bonnet. Underneath the hood it was all engine; a Jaguar replacement, as I recall. Once inside the cafe he told me this was what he did for a living - making small, old British cars with Jaguar engines in them, turning them into what the Yanks called hot rods!

   He told me a tale of driving in California to deliver one of his cars to a customer. He was motoring along at a normal speed (very slow in the US) when he was overtaken by a flashy Yank in a flashier car - the sort with a trunk as long as a bowling alley. The driver with a 10-gallon hat on his one-gallon head, removed a cigar as big as a baseball bat from his mouth, and having been alongside my newly-found chum for a while, put his foot down and with a wave he shot off! Now this was just too much for this Brit to take, so down went his foot, and quickly he caught and passed the chap. The American then shifted up, put his foot down to the floorboards and went ahead again. A quarter of a mile later my chap again drew up along side the flashy car, and with a flair changed into the next gear and lost the Yank. Stopping a few miles up the road for a coffee he saw the car pull in, and the Stetson-hatted man came to him and offered to buy the car then and there. He didn’t sell it but later took an order for 3 of them from the guy.     

     Anyway, when leaving home the return trip was normally by the Royal Mail train (which passed through Ipswich about 4 in the morning on the way into London), or the London train. Both were going through Ipswich picking up hundreds of bags of mail to be sorted as the train made its way to London, or snatching small bags in a net as the train passed through the smaller stations on the way.  

     My life on the Obdurate was pretty routine. Most of the week was spent at a mooring in the Short Reach (the name given to the stretch of river opposite Chatham dockyard), and maybe in the dockyard over the weekends. The winter could be very harsh due to the flatness of the area, high winds and a very swiftly running tide. The winter of 55/56 was particularly bad - so much so that for a few days there were small dirt-encrusted ice flows clawing their way down the river in the fast tide.

     I went up on deck above the quarterdeck for a quick breath of fresh air, with no intension of being there long. There were 3 matelots on the deck below me lounging on the guardrails watching the water rushing past the stern and skylarking about a bit. Suddenly one of them slipped on the icy deck and shot under the bottom guard rail into the water. One of the other lads ran to the man-overboard alarm and pressed it, then ran back to look aft with his mate. Eventually they sighted their mate who was now 50 or 60 yards astern, rapidly being swept away down stream!

    The sailor who had pressed the alarm whipped off his oilskin, but just at that moment the ship's boat passed the stern going after the man overboard and the two on the quarterdeck realised that they should leave the rescue to those in the boat. At this point the man in the water started to yell “Help! I can’t swim!” The two on the quarterdeck glanced at one another, then cupped their hands around their mouths and yelled in unison, “Now’s a bloody good time to learn!”

     I was expecting to be on that ship for at least another 12 months, but out of the blue I got summoned to the 1st Lieutenant's cabin, and was informed that I was to report to HMS Dryad a few days later. What for no one knew, particularly me. This was June 1956.