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- Devonshire's Last Commission 1976 - 78
Devonshire's Last Commission 1976 - 78
- By Robby G
- Published 05/18/2008
- HMS Devonshire
-
Rating:
THE MARINE
ENGINEERING DEPARTMENT
Life in Devonshire never lets you get bored. It all really started after last DED when we faced Portland with even more juniors than normal, but we gritted our teeth, smiled when we were being examined and generally set out to please. It must have done the trick because although we had to go back again it wasn't because of the Black Gang.
PHOTO Control Room.
The only event we were famous for during this period was putting on the longcast an emergency docking that hadn't been there before.
At the post-review visit to Torbay we started a lasting friendship with the Flight Commander who was making his first recovery, by greeting him with a thick black cloud of smoke that enveloped the helicopter completely, only his rotor tips being visible.
The emergency docking did enable MEM's to gain experience in steaming a latter-day Stephenson's Rocket masquerading as a donkey boiler. They all enjoyed this new-found responsibility and provided amusement by standing on the boiler with a piece of toast in their left hands, rigidly at attention saluting as colours and sunset took place, sometimes at first burning the toast.
We then had an unpleasant period at sea when we grew adept at changing G6 fuel filters in a 30 degree roll and having to clean them with an old tooth brush for re-use. The weather was as filthy as the fuel and we tried hard to convince ourselves that our super. smooth machinery state changes hadn't contributed to the parting of the tow for the crippled RFA Blue Rover.
Exercise Ocean Safari went on record for blowing up a diesel during a RAS which was exciting in itself and we all learned a great deal about how it would run on 15 cylinders. The real mockery was that we had to borrow parts from a museum to put the engine right!
Murphy's law struck again in early December when one of our always hardpressed Gear Room watchkeepers became confused and engaged something he shouldn't have. The resultant expensive noises put the ship alongside until Christmas was over and the time had come to sail to London and the forthcoming Admiral's Inspection.
It was en route to Gibraltar that POG6 upped and died. It, also, happened during a RAS, as all the exciting breakdowns seem to in Devonshire. It was a very sad occasion like the passing of an old friend. What did frighten the FDO however, were 'large balls of fire descending on to the flight deck' as PIG6 went into mourning. However PIG6 recovered and all was well. It was during the same period we had a very trying middle watch when the firemain burst in two places. It certainly kept the Chippies on the hop!
Every ship's company has its characters and the ME Department of Devonshire has its fair share. For years to come people will remember such characters as MEMN 'Willy' Wilbraham whose 'Good morning mortals this is God speaking' unexpectedly echoing over the machinery broadcast at 0300 will take some forgetting; also such characters as MEM 'Womble' Gawthrop who could be relied upon to do the dirtiest job imaginable in the most cheerful manner; people ike MEM Stonestreet whose piercing shriek 'Chiefl Chiefl' usually precede a question on the number of spoonfuls of sugar taken with tea rather than a repo of a serious breakdown or fire - that will be hard to forget.
There were also characters such as MEM's 'Jock' Grant and 'Milly' Milward -'theoldmen of the evaps' who could usually cajole them into producing water where others had failed. There were characters like JMEM 'Manny' Mansell, who looked so young that he was mistaken for a Sea Cadet and had to fight his way off a bus taking a party of them home after a tour of the ship. There were of course many many more.
3Q stokers' messdeck has a creditable list of achievements, being overall winners of the Tug of War, much to the annoyance of the seamen, and having arguably the best inter-mess football team. MEM 'Terry' Campbell won the cartoon competition by showing us his idea of what the inside of the Officers' Heads looked like. 3Q also won the inter-mess indoor games competition and MEM Milward won the Ship's darts competition.
The DB tankies perhaps deserve a mention. They have, over the last 18 months, taken charge of enormous quantities of various liquids. They have also occasionally stored it in some unusual places and made tenuous friendships with members of 3D and 3R messes who have once or twice had an impromptu bath. They have taken on board enough fuel to have taken the Landrover to the Sun and halfway back, and enough water to fill St Paul's Cathedral five times. They have been ably led by CMEM'Winkle' Perry whose cry'Where's the fuel finding paste?' has been heard echoing from the Fuel Working Space. They also have a message for the First Lieutenant: 'Dieso is good for paintwork'. This stems from an occasion when we fuelled so fast that the dieso was pumped into the tanks and it shot straight up the vents without stopping.
Achievements of the rest of the department include shooting down a PTA with black smoke and unravelling a wire from each screw, on different occasions.
It has always been comforting to know that when the Captain wants a real cup of tea he comes to the MCR.
Life in Devonshire never lets you get bored!
There is a POME whose name is JAN,
Who is the Blue Watch No 1 fan,
He is a short and little bloke,
Took off a burner and too much smoke.
He didn't panic and wasn't hasty
Then he lifted the f***ing safety.
The folks ashore looked on in horror,
1 hope he's not on watch tomorrow.
But with that smoke all black and smudgy
He nearly broke the paraffin budgy.
The yeoman's hands all had a moan,
Oh f-----jng hell, the soots been blown.
He took 10 lads and off they marched,
To clean the masts all black and starched.
So when you're told 'Take off a burner'
Please make sure that he's not a learner.
SHIPWRIGHTS
. . . and so to the Chippies. For so long, we the willing, led by the unknowing have been doing the impossible for the ungrateful. We have done so much for so long, with so little, we are now qualified to do anything with nothing.
The boys, Joe Curtis, Jan Poole, Steve Berry and Dave Shelley must have something going for them because over the past two years they have got through one in number FCMEA(H), three in number CMEA(H)'s and are on their second Shipwright Officer.
Crests or picture frames, floods or blockages, ATU's or filters, salt water or fresh, it makes no difference to us with our long arms, universally jointed elbows and no sense of smell, we press on regardless and the standard answer always has been, still is, and must remain: 'Put in a Job Card!'
In conclusion a chuck up for the lads of the Vent Party and chippies mates who have put up with our ways and whims over the commission:
'The Vent Party Chucks Up!'
ENGINEERING DEPARTMENT
Life in Devonshire never lets you get bored. It all really started after last DED when we faced Portland with even more juniors than normal, but we gritted our teeth, smiled when we were being examined and generally set out to please. It must have done the trick because although we had to go back again it wasn't because of the Black Gang.
PHOTO Control Room.The only event we were famous for during this period was putting on the longcast an emergency docking that hadn't been there before.
At the post-review visit to Torbay we started a lasting friendship with the Flight Commander who was making his first recovery, by greeting him with a thick black cloud of smoke that enveloped the helicopter completely, only his rotor tips being visible.
The emergency docking did enable MEM's to gain experience in steaming a latter-day Stephenson's Rocket masquerading as a donkey boiler. They all enjoyed this new-found responsibility and provided amusement by standing on the boiler with a piece of toast in their left hands, rigidly at attention saluting as colours and sunset took place, sometimes at first burning the toast.
We then had an unpleasant period at sea when we grew adept at changing G6 fuel filters in a 30 degree roll and having to clean them with an old tooth brush for re-use. The weather was as filthy as the fuel and we tried hard to convince ourselves that our super. smooth machinery state changes hadn't contributed to the parting of the tow for the crippled RFA Blue Rover.
Exercise Ocean Safari went on record for blowing up a diesel during a RAS which was exciting in itself and we all learned a great deal about how it would run on 15 cylinders. The real mockery was that we had to borrow parts from a museum to put the engine right! Murphy's law struck again in early December when one of our always hardpressed Gear Room watchkeepers became confused and engaged something he shouldn't have. The resultant expensive noises put the ship alongside until Christmas was over and the time had come to sail to London and the forthcoming Admiral's Inspection.
It was en route to Gibraltar that POG6 upped and died. It, also, happened during a RAS, as all the exciting breakdowns seem to in Devonshire. It was a very sad occasion like the passing of an old friend. What did frighten the FDO however, were 'large balls of fire descending on to the flight deck' as PIG6 went into mourning. However PIG6 recovered and all was well. It was during the same period we had a very trying middle watch when the firemain burst in two places. It certainly kept the Chippies on the hop!
Every ship's company has its characters and the ME Department of Devonshire has its fair share. For years to come people will remember such characters as MEMN 'Willy' Wilbraham whose 'Good morning mortals this is God speaking' unexpectedly echoing over the machinery broadcast at 0300 will take some forgetting; also such characters as MEM 'Womble' Gawthrop who could be relied upon to do the dirtiest job imaginable in the most cheerful manner; people ike MEM Stonestreet whose piercing shriek 'Chiefl Chiefl' usually precede a question on the number of spoonfuls of sugar taken with tea rather than a repo of a serious breakdown or fire - that will be hard to forget.
3Q stokers' messdeck has a creditable list of achievements, being overall winners of the Tug of War, much to the annoyance of the seamen, and having arguably the best inter-mess football team. MEM 'Terry' Campbell won the cartoon competition by showing us his idea of what the inside of the Officers' Heads looked like. 3Q also won the inter-mess indoor games competition and MEM Milward won the Ship's darts competition. The DB tankies perhaps deserve a mention. They have, over the last 18 months, taken charge of enormous quantities of various liquids. They have also occasionally stored it in some unusual places and made tenuous friendships with members of 3D and 3R messes who have once or twice had an impromptu bath. They have taken on board enough fuel to have taken the Landrover to the Sun and halfway back, and enough water to fill St Paul's Cathedral five times. They have been ably led by CMEM'Winkle' Perry whose cry'Where's the fuel finding paste?' has been heard echoing from the Fuel Working Space. They also have a message for the First Lieutenant: 'Dieso is good for paintwork'. This stems from an occasion when we fuelled so fast that the dieso was pumped into the tanks and it shot straight up the vents without stopping. Achievements of the rest of the department include shooting down a PTA with black smoke and unravelling a wire from each screw, on different occasions.
It has always been comforting to know that when the Captain wants a real cup of tea he comes to the MCR.
Life in Devonshire never lets you get bored!
There is a POME whose name is JAN,
Who is the Blue Watch No 1 fan,
He is a short and little bloke,
Took off a burner and too much smoke.
He didn't panic and wasn't hasty
Then he lifted the f***ing safety.
The folks ashore looked on in horror,
1 hope he's not on watch tomorrow.
But with that smoke all black and smudgy
He nearly broke the paraffin budgy.
The yeoman's hands all had a moan,
Oh f-----jng hell, the soots been blown.
He took 10 lads and off they marched,
To clean the masts all black and starched.
So when you're told 'Take off a burner'
Please make sure that he's not a learner.
SHIPWRIGHTS
. . . and so to the Chippies. For so long, we the willing, led by the unknowing have been doing the impossible for the ungrateful. We have done so much for so long, with so little, we are now qualified to do anything with nothing.
The boys, Joe Curtis, Jan Poole, Steve Berry and Dave Shelley must have something going for them because over the past two years they have got through one in number FCMEA(H), three in number CMEA(H)'s and are on their second Shipwright Officer.
Crests or picture frames, floods or blockages, ATU's or filters, salt water or fresh, it makes no difference to us with our long arms, universally jointed elbows and no sense of smell, we press on regardless and the standard answer always has been, still is, and must remain: 'Put in a Job Card!'
In conclusion a chuck up for the lads of the Vent Party and chippies mates who have put up with our ways and whims over the commission:
'The Vent Party Chucks Up!'