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- HMS Devonshire 1964- 66 Commission
HMS Devonshire 1964- 66 Commission
- By Robby G
- Published 05/6/2008
- HMS Devonshire
- Unrated
The Upper Deck
Difficult to say what we’ve done and achieved in two years really, apart from making a lot of yo-ho and other noises while we’ve been doing it, but perhaps it’s not quite as simple as that.
The Ship hasn’t looked too bad from the outside for most of the time and the drums of light-grey paint we’ve got through, although they wouldn’t reach half way to the moon like the Galley’s bangers, would have been enough to do the outside of 1,500 average-size houses!
We’ve replenished at most hours of the day and night and got on board 8,250 tons of Dieso, 240 tons of victuals and Naval stores, 50 tons of ammunition and 4,000 gallons of that blasted lub oil in 55 replenishments. We hold the existing records for “dead time” amongst the D.L.G.’s that have been East of Suez and the best transfer rate—and all, touch wood, without a single accident. All good sound stuff and we have to thank the Buffer mainly for that.
Whilst we’re on personalities, congratulations are due to ex-L.S.’s Bird and Smith and ex-A.B.’s Lloyd, Athow and Cunningham for their advancement during the commission and hope that L.S.’s Hall, Miller and Wilkinson and Lloyd (again), and A.B.’s Anscombe, Johnson, Gardner, Griffin, Beynon, Baker and Stansfield who have passed for higher rate will
come out of the hat soon.
Clubs has done us proud on the Sports side and the Department has managed to keep the Captain’s Cup, and the Inter-part Cups suitably engraved from time to time—rather more frequently than M.U.D. would like as his canteen beer bill has been astronomical! Representation in and support of Ship’s teams has been well up, too. Floodlit matches at Terror will never be quite the same again without Clubs in the middle and Caruana entertaining the crowd,
As the commission comes to an end we are starting to get our Draft chits in. M.U.D. is off to DRYAD as the Head Gardener, Lt. Rhodes goes back to sea in TARTAR as tb6 Gunnery Officer, Lt. Wright and S/Lt. Black also go to DRYAD to qualify “N” and “D” respectively. Lt. Bawtree has left the Ship already to get his leave in before going outside.
Petty Officer Kingswell and Petty Officer St VINCENT where no doubt they will become
—and probably the “one round the corner”
Watts, Middleton, Feeney, Spurling join Lt. Bawtree in civvy Street and although that’s all we know so far. By the time this is in print, we should all know our various fates.
To sum up: its been an interesting commission—we’ve worked and played pretty hard, had some fabulous and also some pretty dreary runs ashore, exercised. ceremonialised, socialised, and with it all, managed to keep our sense of humour and a smart and clean-looking ship.
Difficult to say what we’ve done and achieved in two years really, apart from making a lot of yo-ho and other noises while we’ve been doing it, but perhaps it’s not quite as simple as that.
The Ship hasn’t looked too bad from the outside for most of the time and the drums of light-grey paint we’ve got through, although they wouldn’t reach half way to the moon like the Galley’s bangers, would have been enough to do the outside of 1,500 average-size houses!
We’ve replenished at most hours of the day and night and got on board 8,250 tons of Dieso, 240 tons of victuals and Naval stores, 50 tons of ammunition and 4,000 gallons of that blasted lub oil in 55 replenishments. We hold the existing records for “dead time” amongst the D.L.G.’s that have been East of Suez and the best transfer rate—and all, touch wood, without a single accident. All good sound stuff and we have to thank the Buffer mainly for that.
Whilst we’re on personalities, congratulations are due to ex-L.S.’s Bird and Smith and ex-A.B.’s Lloyd, Athow and Cunningham for their advancement during the commission and hope that L.S.’s Hall, Miller and Wilkinson and Lloyd (again), and A.B.’s Anscombe, Johnson, Gardner, Griffin, Beynon, Baker and Stansfield who have passed for higher rate will
Clubs has done us proud on the Sports side and the Department has managed to keep the Captain’s Cup, and the Inter-part Cups suitably engraved from time to time—rather more frequently than M.U.D. would like as his canteen beer bill has been astronomical! Representation in and support of Ship’s teams has been well up, too. Floodlit matches at Terror will never be quite the same again without Clubs in the middle and Caruana entertaining the crowd,
As the commission comes to an end we are starting to get our Draft chits in. M.U.D. is off to DRYAD as the Head Gardener, Lt. Rhodes goes back to sea in TARTAR as tb6 Gunnery Officer, Lt. Wright and S/Lt. Black also go to DRYAD to qualify “N” and “D” respectively. Lt. Bawtree has left the Ship already to get his leave in before going outside.
Petty Officer Kingswell and Petty Officer St VINCENT where no doubt they will become
—and probably the “one round the corner”
Watts, Middleton, Feeney, Spurling join Lt. Bawtree in civvy Street and although that’s all we know so far. By the time this is in print, we should all know our various fates.
To sum up: its been an interesting commission—we’ve worked and played pretty hard, had some fabulous and also some pretty dreary runs ashore, exercised. ceremonialised, socialised, and with it all, managed to keep our sense of humour and a smart and clean-looking ship.