The story of this commission starts at the end of December, 1952, when about two thirds of our present company joined. Some of us still onboard date from before that time and we therefore know that, in 1951 and 1952, the ship had earned a reputation and some honour for service in support of Malayan military and police operations, and on the West Coast of Korea.
The beginning of 1953, then, saw us refitting in Singapore and to give us a good start the dockyard had a strike. Men of this ship manned tugs and pumping stations - took their part in scraping, cleaning and painting the bottom of HMS Unicorn, who was in dry dock - and undertook the major task of replacing our own propeller shafts and propellers without outside assistance.
On 15th February we sailed for Hong Kong, where a three weeks working-up period was carried out, and on the 18th March we went on towards the North. We stayed a day at Sasebo where HMS Ladybird was flying the flag of our own Admiral in American fashion as CTG.95.1, and then proceeded to the area assigned to us, arriving off the island of Taechong-Do on 27th March.
After fuelling from the RFA Wave Prince we went on to Chodo for a front seat view of a modern war - even the planes dive bombing with napalm and rockets. As good as MGM - technicolour and all. Then round the islands - Chodo, Paengyong Do, Sochong Do, Yongpyong Do - their names are more attractive than their appearance. Bombarding gun positions and possible enemy assembly areas, screening of tankers, mail trips, controlling raiding parties, checking fishing junks and so on, occupied until mid April.
This period, of course, was a United Nations responsibility and we met - as always in Korea - ships of many Commonwealth Navies -Dutch ships - French ships, ships of the Republic of Korea and, most numerous, those of the United States Navy. Sometimes we commanded a mixed force, and on occasions took our orders from others. The smooth operation of these polyglot forces was the great technical achievement of the Korean War.
We then returned to Kure for a week on 'Rest and Recreation', and here the remnants of the old commission showed us side lights on Japanese family life which have to be seen to be credited. By the beginning of May we were on patrol on 'the Coast' again and a stirring event dates from that time.
Near to the island of Sokto, which was one of the most northerly held by the US Marine Corps, an operation was in progress which included bombardments by HMS Newcastle supported by HMS St Brides Bay and the Netherlands frigate Mauritz. During the firing a battery on shore hitherto undiscovered opened fire on Newcastle, who had come within range the better to carry out her task. Our skimmer, which had been prepared for such an eventuality with a large smoke float, set off to lay a protective screen between the cruiser and the shore. She was completely successful and the splashes of the North Korean shells, which had begun to fall dangerously close, now showed that the Communists no longer could see their target. Newcastle continued her task unhampered. This was no small feat, an extremely small boat belching black smoke from aft, and shell splashes looking wickedly large, is no place for making cool and unhurried decisions. Able Seaman F P Troy, who has now returned to his native Dublin, and Able Seaman J B Gray, still with us, are to receive the Distinguished Service Medal for their gallantry.
And we remember the motor cutter, undeterred alike by fear of the shore or orders to 'sink the thing' from Newcastle, salving a fine rubber life float - and having to deal with the find in (as they say) 'a non-consumable manner.'
Commander J G T Western, Lieutenant M J N Foster and Chief ERA Sherriff were 'mentioned in Despatches' for services during the Korean War.
At the end of May, we served our last war patrol off the Korean campaign, for a truce was agreed as effective on 27th July, 1953. Early in June, HMS St Brides Bay was withdrawn to Hong Kong for a self-refit - an expression covering, in the classic expression, Heat, Noise and Propinquity. Hong Kong in June is not our first choice for such activity. However, we got the ship up to inspection standard and in mid July Captain (F) 4th Frigate Squadron put us through our paces. The hoped-for feat of securing to the buoy with three engine movements and no picking up rope was achieved on this testing occasion.
Hardly was this over when a change of Commanding Officers
occurred - the new Captain, seeing us in our post inspection pride, received
an impression which he has been trying to keep the ship to ever since. We
are still doubtful as to whether he should not have seen us first in a less
attractive condition. But we showed him something - in a single month we had
· A Typhoon.
· A Regatta.
· The first of all the Formosa Straits Patrols (and like all the others,
it blew).
· A visit by the Parliamentary and Financial Secretary to the Admiralty
(and how we bashed his ear on the length of foreign commissions!).
· A mention on the BBC.
· A second Formosa Patrol during which an adversary actually fired
in our direction (with a rotten aim).
'Nigelock' was a case of a British ship being met by a Chinese Nationalist gunboat and taken for searching and possible illegal condemnation as a blockade-runner towards a Formosan held port. Our difficulty was in finding her, and as she knew not her own position (but when pressed was quite prepared to make a blind guess) the odds were against us. Those interested in the safety of ships at sea would be interested to hear that when we picked her up she was 5 miles off the unlighted and rocky north tip of the Pescadores Islands, without radar, steering SSW at 10 knots. Wind, thunder, lightning, tropical rain (the tail of Typhoon 'Nina' it was) and St Elmo's Fire were bemusing the lookouts and cluttering the radar in St Brides Bay and according to a doubtful source the Master of the Nigelock was in the bath. His reactions (reported at a later date) were:
Psalm 104 Verse 7.
Psalm 48 Verses 5 and 6.
But that was unnecessarily flattering and, when the reference is looked up, not entirely clear.
Once again to Sasebo and thence, with HMS Mounts Bay through to Yokosuka where, by the fortune of bad weather and perhaps an over-full US submarine practice period, we had time to make a short trip to Tokyo. Was 'Susan' the typhoon which made the final day so very unpleasant? Then the long haul back to Sasebo for the 4th Frigate Squadron manoeuvres - eventually only attended by Mounts Bay, St Brides Bay, and HMAS Culgoa. In these we were without doubt the smartest ship, though Mounts Bay invariably cheated in competitions! We lay, for a time at Sasebo between HMAS Culgoa, and HMCS Huron with HM Netherlands Ship Mauritz close-by and felt that, at any rate, the future of the Commonwealth was assured. Our northern cruise finished with a delightful and somewhat destructive week at Kure.
The period that follows - November 1953 into the new year - was the height of the Battle for the Formosa Strait. Time after time this vital task was entrusted to our willing (but not over voluntary) hands. It invariably blew a full gale during this period. One of our contempories even reported it impossible to get through the Strait, North of Ocseu - another broached to at 14 knots - and we sprang the forcastle breakwater on three occasions. The operational interest, of covering 300 miles of China coast - guessing where the next incident would be reported from and trying to influence conditions so far to windward that no intervention could have been made, was unfortunately limited to a few onboard. But we all learned a lot of the behaviour of small ships in heavy seas.
On the 19th November, we were driving into a heavy Northeaster in an attempt to make way to windward towards the Foochow approaches when SOS signals were received from the Danish MV Laura Maersk - she having come upon the British Tefkros in distress, fortunately to leeward of our position. Doubts as to the feasibility of steering across a really high sea died away as the necessity arose, but Oh! that rolling! Tefkros had fractured her rudder head and being a single screw ship was completely helpless. The importance of a rescue was added to by the presence of the Formosa Bank - an unpleasant shoal with dangerous overfalls - some way to leeward.
It is unnecessary to retail the technical details of the tow. Suffice to say that the wind was about force 9, and although it took two and a half hours to prepare the gear on the wave-washed quarterdeck, the tow was passed in twenty-five minutes and way being made through the water very charily by 11 a.m.
Such a good start could not last - a combination of high seas and heavy rolling snapped the hawser after 50 minutes and from noon till 3 p.m. an agonising period of recovering the wire, manoeuvring, passing and parting gun line and hemps was the prelude to a second try at towing at tea time. Even more careful and tender this time and not quite so much chain cable, but though we held her into the night we had less confidence than determination. The Officer of the Watch reported that she had gone at about 9 p.m., but it was only her lights dowsed by some unknown incident.
A pair of less than hopeful signals were prepared and pinned into the Captain's Night Order book for despatch when the necessity arose, The first, addressed to Commodore Hong Kong (our operating authority) started, 'Tow parted again. We get better at this every-time but will not try again before daybreak, etc.', and the second, to Tefkros, 'At dawn we start another method. This time you can recover, etc. etc.',
These draft signals seem to have put providence itself on its mettle, because the bite died out of the wind during the middle watch and our struggles the next day in 'freshening the nip etc.' were carried out at least partly with an eye to the legal niceties of salvage. Alas! We had to turn her over to a black painted, black-hearted, lubberly salvage tug, in spite of the generous Tefkros signals, 'I regard myself as already in tow by a good firm and refuse to allow you to transfer me'.
But we got her out of danger, into waters that she could have anchored in, safely, and the Treasury Solicitor is active on our behalf, so hopes are neither dead nor avaricious.
Any award, you will be interested to hear, is subject to Income Tax at the earned, not unearned, rate.
The next period in the North was in January and February, and little of note occurred. It was considerably cold - at this time we had no 'Arctic heating' - and in spite of a little sport at Paengyong Do, real warmth had to wait for a return to the sportiveness and heating arrangements of Kure. The remainder of the Spring was notable for further Formosan Patrols (we completed the tenth in March) and word of our recommissioning in October.
And then the refit - two and a half months immobilised at Hong Kong. There are some that enjoyed it, but they, as well as the rest of us, found the return to sea-going duty something of a welcome shock - and then the sea again. Gunnery, patrolling, final passage to Japan - Kure - and the Korean West Coast - the 'Hong Kong Ration' and finally a return to Singapore to square off the ship in preparation for our successors.
This is a story of one day following another, rather similarly, with a well known routine, and yet with so many interruptions to that routine, that continually one was looking forward with interest to another day: and sometimes with distaste for whatever was in store. The breaks in routine by shore-going are normally brief, sometimes turbulent and for a regular few, spasmodic. On the face of it this is not an easy life to grow to love though with long experience that is just what happens. It can clearly however, go on too long, particularly for less youthful members and a lot of us sigh heavily when the first eighteen months are passed. The future holds a cheerful promise: Great Britain has been warned for the third week in October