826 Squadron Aircrew: * LS John CHARNLEY; AB Norman DARBY; LS Dave PARROTT; Lt P. A. FISH; S/Lt M. C. PEAKE; Lt C. W. WAITE; LS Dick GODLEYPO Larry LARCOMBE; LS Norman CHROSSAN; LS Buster BROWNE; LS Sid SHARMAN. ** S/Lt J. R. PRIcE; Lt A. B. VEALE; Lt A. B. ROSS; Lt J. B. HARVEY;Lt D. H. BESWICK; Lt I. C. DOMONEY; CPO(TASI) Sugar BUSH; Lt J. G. EACOTT; Lt E. J. DOBINSON; Lt D. S. DOUGLAS; S/Lt C. D. FERBRACHE; S/Lt B. D.HILL; Lt I. THORPE. *** Lt K. G. LAMPREY; Lt A. SOMMER; Lt P. J. G. HARPER; Lt-Cdr I. A. SOMERVILLE-McALESTER (SOBS; Lt-Cdr H. A. MAYERS (XO);Lt-Cdr R. E. VAN DER PLANK (CO); Lt C. L. L. QUARRIE (SP); Lt C. P. YOUNG; Lt C. R. A. HILL; Lt J. E. V. MADGWICK; Lt D. A. RAINES.

entered harbour. After a hectic visit,we were once more back to work withDANAE'S ORI which turned into aSUBMISS when one of a submarine'sindicator buoys came adrift. Thesubmarine surfaced happily a fewhours later, in complete oblivion of theconcern above the waves.

Back to Singapore and SIMBANG

where the bachelors and unaccompaniedmembers did most of the work, theothers having their wives with them.Again our talents as salesmen were putto the test demonstrating the SeaKing's Search and Rescue capabilitiesto the Singaporeans. A week later theywere to hear of an excellent example ofthe aircraft's capabilities.

We were to carry out an exercise inthe Subic Areas, but because ofTyphoon ELAINE'S presence, it wascancelled. During the storm the shipreceived an SOS from Mv STEEL VENDORaground on a reef and breaking-up.Four aircraft were scrambled and theMaster and crew of forty men were backon board EAGLE within three hours, theship having been seventy miles awayat the time of the distress call. Our nextport of call was Hong Kong where onarrival the ship was presented with asilver tray by the members of theAmerican Sailors' Trades Union for ourpart in the rescue. During our stay wecontinued flying in yet another role,lifting building materials for the HongKong Government and the RoyalEngineers. ( Photo, right.)

On leaving Hong Kong we lookedforward to six weeks at sea. We werekept fully occupied during this time,which involved an unprecedentedamount of flying. Our first task was tolead the helicopter formation flypastfor the departing Commander-in-Chief,Far East, at Singapore. Then followedExercise CURTAIN CALL which was twoweeks of intensive anti-submarine andanti-FPB exercises split up by an enjoy-able and relaxing week-end on thebeaches of Langkawi.

After a fast passage westwards, wecarried out another week of exercises offGan.

From Gan we journeyed to Masiraand, because of the political situation inthe Middle East, the planned exerciseswere cancelled and only limited flyingwas carried out. Our intended visit toMombasa was also cancelled and weremained off Masira until mid-Decem-ber. It was then decided that three air-craft with five crews should be detached

to HMS ALBION to assist in the evacuationof foreign nationals from East Pakistan.By the time ALBION had reached thesouthern tip of India, the evacuees hadalready been flown out. After a briefvisit to Gan, ALBION sailed for SouthAfrica where the three aircraft wereflown back to EAGLE in Durban harbour.For the crews and aircraft that hadremained in EAGLE a reasonable amountof flying was done, including the lastCASEX of the commission.

A very enjoyable Christmas wasspent in Durban with hospitalitylavished upon the squadron. The lastleg of the commission included a visitto Ascension Island to collect anddeliver mail and to make a photographicsurvey for a new golf course. Then afinal `rabbit' run in Gibraltar prior toreaching Culdrose, where the squadronfinally disembarked complete with anenormous number of `rabbits'.

Now the inevitable statistics to datesince receiving the new aircraft: Wehave flown 4,500 hours, taken part in95 Casexes, carried 2,000 passengers,taken part in 6 Casevac operations, andlifted 17 Spey engines for our friendlyBuccaneer Squadron. We have also hadthe pleasure of carrying COMFEF,FOCAS, and FO2FEF and `sinking'8 British, 2 Australian, 1 American and2 Norwegian submarines. Apart fromEAGLE, we have also operated fromsix other ships and 45 different air-fields spread all over the world fromNorway to New Zealand.

forty-seven

849 NAVAL AIR SQUADRON, D FLIGHTDuring the summer of 1970 the Flighthad an almost complete changeover ofPersonnel. During the Brawdy run-down period we had to get to know notonly each other but also the improvedversion of the APS 20 radar w ith whichour AEW3s were equipped. In October,a single Gannet was embarked inEAGLE for deck trials whilst we foughtto keep Brawdy open for just one morenight flying period. By the time S/LtNoel Pinder had returned the decktrial aircraft, S/Lt Brian Hardy hadjoined us, having taken over the dutiesof AEO from Lt Mike Kerry.

We finally left Brawdy for the lasttime on 9 November for the first work-up flying period, disembarking to ournew base at Lossiemouth exactly onemonth later.

After re-embarking in January withLt Ken Patrick as new COD pilot, wemade our way to the Mediterranean,the ORI, and Villefranche. An excellentrun was enjoyed in Villefranche, andtwo parties of flight officers and ratingsdisappeared on expeds. Lt McGhee'sparty returned with monstrous hang-overs and CAM Wentworth's withblisters. After we left Villefranche we

forty-eight

lost Lt Pearce, who will always, infuture, check the security of deadlightsbefore looking out of scuttles! We arehappy to relate he has now recoveredand is flying again. 073 had a nastybump as well, and Lt Steadman andSOBS flew it back to UK. They returned,some considerable time later, to Malta,after an epic journey during w hich theyencountered most of the emergenciesin the book: low cloud and gliders inFrance, and snow at Hyeres and Sar-dinia. The ubiquitous Welgate Travelhad meanwhile managed to ferry outvarious wives and girl-friends whoappeared in summer cottons to a windy,wet and cold Malta. Nevertheless, thedisembarked flying at LUQA provideda change, and some NAVEXES wereflown to Sicily. A good flight run wasorganised, and the soccer team sur-prised everybody. 073 (new) was finallypatched up enough to return on board;wives and girl-friends were flown home;and we embarked for the final spell.

After Malta we had a further flyingperiod during which the Senior Pilottook the COD to the USS F. D. ROOSEVELT

and returned without the use of a cata-pult. Whilst off Gib, the Vixens and

Gannets put on a `shop window' whenwe managed to get all five Gannetsairborne. Needless to say, all fivemanaged to disembark to Lossiemouthagain for leave; maintenance; instru-ment ratings and a couple of distilleryruns.

Buzz and counter buzz had beenflying round, but not until Capetownw as it obvious that the Far East reallyw as our destination. On the operationalside the flying before and during theSingapore SMP was fairly uninteresting;however, both aircraft and men re-mained fit and thrived on Tiger andsunshine. The SPLOT also enjoyed buy-ing us drinks with his £500 GrandDraw prize. There was still a Lightningsquadron at Tengah, and 849, with899, were able to thoroughly confusethem and the radar unit at BukitGomback from time to time. We thenembarked for our Australasian tour.However, one AEW3 diverted withassymetric flap. Eventually, after fur-ther Alarums and Excursions, weheaded for our second winter that sum-mer.

The mammoth fly-past at Sydneybehind us, we secured down under

849 `D' Flight: * NAM Cliff PARKES ; LA(AH) Blood REED L/Std Terry RICE; REM(A) Mid MIDDLETON; LEM(A) Tony WEBSTER; LREM(A) Harry TAYLOR;LREM(A) Dennis HAYNES; LEM(A) John SCHOFIELD; LAM Ken BICHARD; LAM Ed JONES; LREM(A) Paul BESTWICK; NAM Merve NASH; EM(A) Taff HALE;EM(A) Isaac NEWTON; LAM John RAWLINGS; LAM Doc VASS; NA(AH) Paddy COSGROVE. ** LSA Dusty PILLING; Std Dave WARNE; NAM Mick PARKES;LAM Ray MURKIN; REM(A) Collin ASHWORTH; Std Ginge O'Brien; NAM Dave CLACHAN; REM(A) Tom CHESHIRE; EM(A) Ian DIMBLEBY; LEM(A) BiffBURTON; LA(SE) Jock KLAR; Std T. C. COONAN; LREM(A) Lofty DAVIS; REM(A) Mick SEABROOK; NAM Nelie COOMBES. *** LMN2 Fred BROWN; PO(AH)Spike HUGHES; REA(A)2 Pat CAMPBELL; AA2 Pete FRENcH; CAF John PERKS; REA1 John PURDY; CAM Bill WENTWORTH; CEA(A) TOm WINN; POEL(A)Ned DRAPER; POREL(A) Jan WOOTTON; RMN3 Bill BAILEY; LMN(A)2 Terry MORGAN. **** NAM Ginge LEWIS; CAF Mac MACFARLANE; AA1 Tony LAMBERT;Lt Noel PINDER; F/Lt Al BRUYN; Fg/O John (Min) McNEIL; Fg/O Chris (Max) O'CONNELL; F/Lt Bill FOXALL; Lt Jim LAW (USN); S/Lt Brian HARDY (AEO);CAF Stan FULCHER; AMI Dave BROWN; Std Ken HOLLOMBY. ***** Lt Kevin MEEHAN; Lt Nigel HAYLER; Lt Ken PATRICK; Lt Peter MOULDING (SOBS);Lt-Cdr Keith HARRIS (CO); Lt Doug STEADMAN (SP); Lt TOm McGHEE; Lt Rodger BOWLES; Lt Al GRIFFITHS. ****** EM(A) Terry CONWAY; LAM GarethTUCKETT; Std Frank GALLAGHER; L/Wtr Scribes WILKINSON; EM(A) Basher BATES; L/Ck Chris BENNET; NAM Benny HOWARTH; LAM George BOYD; Std JoeHADLEY; Std Fred GREEN.

849 'D' Flight - continued

near the still unfinished Opera Houseto 'recharge our batteries' and acquireLt Peter Moulding, our new SOBS,

losing 'Rusty' Gealer to the USA. Theday of sailing plunged us into Exercise

Southern Clime, part 1. Part 1 wasfrustrating for us tactically; but plentyof day and night flying was logged.Part 2 was plagued by weather which,however, enabled the diverted aircrewto enjoy a sample of Kiwi hospitality.Despite the weather, we managed afly-past in Wellington Bay and beganthe wonderful visit with some goodpublicity. The Kiwis obviously liked849.

All good things come to an end, andsoon we headed West, having reachedthe easternmost point of the commis-sion. With batteries further exhaustedby Fremantle, we found ourselves backamongst our old Hunting Grounds inSingapore. This time a number of thewives were with us by courtesy ofCrabair. This meant that many of usgot further afield than the nearest barand saw some of the country. Aninteresting flight run was drunk (whoDID produce that brandy?) in the Half-way House, Bukit Timah.

And so to Hong Kong via any Ty-phoons we could find, while some wivesbraved the trip in the appropriatelynamed SS TYPHOO(N?) SHAN. We dis-embarked two AEW3s at Kai Tak andthe flight split up, some ashore andothers on board. An excellent visit,with members going as far afield asMacau and Wanchai. Lt-Cdr Tom

899 NAVAL AIR SQUADRON

Take 14 Sea Vixens, 215 first-classmaintainers, an assortment of aircrew,throw them all together on HMS

EAGLE and you get 'The Bunch with thePunch'; 'The First Division'; or 'MontyRedwood's Flying Circus'. Whateverthe name, the result means professional-ism, and that is 899 Squadron.

The story of this commission reallystarts on 11 November 1970 whenmost of our aircraft embarked and thework-up got underway. 'Six days shaltthou labour', and on the seventh finish

Lowrie left at this juncture to join theteam waiting in a bar somewhere for anAEW Shackleton to happen, and all theofficers at the top took one step up withLt-Cdr Keith Harris taking over as CO.A new crab joined us, and we now havethe Biggest, Smallest, Brainiest andMost Senior Crabs in the ship. Withour leaving Hong Kong, we closed achapter of British History and weheaded for the Indian Ocean, pausingbriefly to bow out of Singapore. A veryuseful period of flying followed offPenang with exercise Curtain Call; weleft the Far East fully worked up andready for the final phase of the tour.The flyex off Gan showed us thatthings could still crumble, and weexchanged some shell-cases for nomarine markers with our friends at

flying, sail to Southampton and rest-the aeroplanes, that is.

To continue the work-up, the shipsailed into the Bristol Channel, withthe main aim of the Squadron being tofire as many missiles as possible onAberporth Range. However, the bigFlyco in the sky had a different fly-proto ours and, on several occasions,weather, ships in the range, and targetunserviceabilities, caused us to cancelmost of the firings. Nevertheless, w henit came to disembark for Christmas, wehad more than justified our existence onboard and were looking forward to whatthe New Year would bring: that is,the two-thirds w ho had the good luckto remain with us!

The first two weeks of 1971 werespent at Yeovilton, introducing the newmembers to the Squadron; re-formingthe aircrew; and generally clearingaway the alcoholic haze and other left-

Over Sydney

Gan. At the time of writing we are justgetting stuck into the final major flyexbefore our visits to Mombasa, Durbanand, finally, Gibraltar, for last-minuterabbits and a quick dive into the ErosClub.

Once it is all over, most of us willlook back on an interesting cruise w herewe have seen a medley of faces andplaces; but, professionally, it mightperhaps have been a bit frustratingand a bit sad to have ended our era.We have, in just over a year, seen theend of Brawdy, EAGLE, 'D' flight and thebeginning of the end of Lossiemouth.However, men and aircraft have heldtogether and standards maintained tothe end and, with luck, we will be theonly fixed-wing squadron to fly offexactly what we flew on last May.

overs from leave. On Tuesday, 19 Janu-ary, all aircraft were onboard again;but, owing to bad weather, instead ofoperating in the English Channel, wemoved north to the Isle of Man andcommenced hitting the splash (well,nearly) with 2-in R/P.

With the GPO strike in full swing atthis time, another role was added to themany of the Vixen - that of mail van -and, on several occasions, the 899 PonyExpress could be seen on the bow cata-pult with its dashing riders (normallythe Senior Pilot) raring to go.

Better weather enabled us to achievesome night flying and, on the 31st, wemade passage south for Gibraltar; alas,only for one day before we were straightinto the Ship's ORI. This meant twoCAP airborne throughout daylight hours,a commitment which was fulfilled com-pletely. The reward was another visitto Gibraltar.

forty-nine

899 NAS - continuedIt was back into the Med. on 8 Febru-

ary and for four days our main taskswere AI and 2-in R/P attacks. Duringthis period an old hulk, FRESHNER, wasto be used as a target for Ship's gunsand Seacat, but '99 were kindly givenfirst shot with R/P. Of course, it sank!That's what we are here for, but therewere a few red faces in the planningoffice afterwards.

A quick visit to the Cote d'Azur wasfollowed by exercise `Perfect Princess'in the waters off Sardinia, which pro-vided us with a diversion and some veryinteresting TAC-R routes. On completionthe ship sailed towards Malta wherethree weeks ashore at Luqa awaited,plus, for some, wives as well.

March started with an achievementunsurpassed by any other fighter air-craft. The Squadron had accumulated20,000 flying hours since February 1961when it formed with Sea Vixens. Withan average of 10 aircraft on the Squad-ron at any one time, each aircraft hasaveraged 200 hours per year. TheQueen of the skies is aptly named.

Our visit to Malta coincided with theleaving of the CO, Lt-Cdr M. H. G.Layard, destined for fishhead duties,and a welcome was given to his replace-ment, Lt-Cdr F. Milner. The usualrun on the island was enjoyed by all,but eventually the roads took their toll

on the hired cars and it was safer andcheaper to return on board and sailinto combat with the American CarrierFRANKLIN D ROOSEVELT. EAGLE struckfirst and remained ahead. The strikerole was also allocated to '99 as theother squadron had a slight crumble.With the war being brought to a suc-cessful conclusion, we started home-ward, with the usual stop at Gibraltarfor rabbits, and to pick up Lt Burnside,who joined us on April Fool's Day.

Just before leaving the Med., a fire-power demonstration was organised,which turned out to be an 899 Squad-ron benefit day as the bomber squadronhad already disembarked. Then into theAtlantic, fly off, and fight our waythrough Customs before taking twoweeks' leave. At this time we lost somenotable aircrew, including the AWI,Lt Mike Garlick, who appeared to havea change of heart and left the Navy togo and heal. Fortunately for the humanrace, his activities will be directedtowards the animal kingdom.

On 26 May we re-embarked, and thiswas followed by five days' intensive dayand night flying to work-up both Shipand Squadron to their former peak. Itwas then south to Capetown where thatgood ol' trophy appeared again. Ourstay in South Africa was short butmemorable. Next, we took part in a flypast off Mauritius, quickly followed by

a beat-up of Diego Garcia and fourdays' day and night flying in the Penangarea before disembarking eight air-craft to Tengah.

Thus commenced two weeks' plea-sant flying in and around Malaysia andSingapore. During this period Lt-CdrW. L. T. Pepe assumed the duties ofSenior Pilot. The old Splot was dinedout in the best '99 tradition: ten-courseChinese meal followed by the usualTiger hunt. Talking about sport, itmust be mentioned that the Squadronhas an outstanding record on the sportsfields of the world, and we also havePO Cronin who has been selected forthe English Karate Team: no meanfeat, as most of his training is done onboard. (We often wondered who crackedthe boom of 122.)

Unfortunately, all good things haveto come to an end and we set sail on21 July. This was followed by two days'flying, mainly CAS, 250 miles north ofthe ship. As luck would have it, we wererequired in Sydney on 4 August andfor a fly past the day before, so again wecrossed into the Southern Hemisphere.Five days in Sydney soon got rid oftanned skins, to be replaced by the usualsquadron brand of night-club pallor,but exercise Southern Clime Part Oneawaited, so we went back to sea tooppose the R.A.A.F.

With Part One under our belts, Part

899 Naval Air Squadron - Daymen: * Std CATANIA; LREM FERRIDAY; L/Std MOFFAT; Std POOL; LA HOLLOWAY; NAM BUSH; Std VEASEY; EMA BREWARD;LA PUGSLEY: NA WILKINSON; NAM BUCHANAN; NAM BIRD; LAM BADHAM; NA WAREHAM. ** Std MOULD; Std O'NEIL; L/Std KEIFER; Ck STUART;A/PO/Wtr PAYNE; LSA KELLY; OEM BETTS; LAM WHEELER; NA MASON; Ck BRITTON; NA SZYCAK; EMA REID; NAM BYRNE; LREM VAN DE CAPPELLE;Ck ROUGHT. *** Lt BRUMHILL; F/O PARKER; Lt ALLAN; POAF BURLINGHAM; CAF MORRIS; RELMI FRASER; EA1 BARTLETT; AA1 COX; FCEA REDWOOD;CREL TROW; PO/Sid BREMNER; POAF RICHARDS; RELMI JOHNSON; POAF BUSH; CREA MARGETTS & Lt SCOTT; CEL ASHFORD; CAF COPESTAKE; RELMITAYLOR; EA1 PRATT; CAA WILLIAMS; F/O WISTOW; Lt BROCK. **** Lt DIcK; Lt CHAPLIN; F/O LAWTON; Lt LLOYD; Lt EITZEN; F/O McNAMARA; LtWHALEY; Lt-Cdr TAYLOR; Lt-Cdr PEPPE; Lt-Cdr MILNER; Lt-Cdr WATERHOUSE; Lt FULLER; Lt ALDRED; F/O SHELBOURN; Lt NEWSON; Lt GAVIN; F/OWHITTLE; Lt SHARMAN; Lt EDWARDS .

fifty

Two commenced, but, owing to badweather, most of it was scrubbed. TwoVixens flew to OHAKEA in New Zealand,the next country to have the pleasure ofour company, where they were, un-happily, grounded for two days, aswere the aircrew - happily.

We arrived in Wellington shortlyafterwards and this visit will probablygo down with Durban as one of thebest runs of the commission. It was sogood that a replacement pilot from UK

was immediately made Duty Boy,because there was nobody else onboard and if there was they were sixfeet up, conserving with one lung shutdown and the alcoholic suction pumpgoing at full stroke. Not many of ussaw the ship on 26 August but some-body said that we had to be in Fre-mantle on 9 September and who werewe to complain?

Fly? Only three days of it beforeentering Fremantle and two days en-route to Singapore where we hoped tohave a rest from all the work we wereputting in. But it was not to be, becausesome had their wives out from UK,

while the rest had to make the usualsocial calls on the pools at TENGAH,

TERROR and CHANGI, plus the night-spotof the Orient, Bugis Street. Neverthe-less, in between times the aircrew werekept in practice in the aircrafts' numberone role, AI, and on several occasionsHunters of the SAF and Mirages of theRAAF became missile fodder.

On 5 October all aircraft re-embarkedsuccessfully and, despite many difficul-

ties, such as the lorries being unable tocarry enough, all the rabbits werestowed on board before the ship sailedfor the Philippines.

This next period at sea should haveseen all the aircrew firing missilesagainst targets provided by the Ameri-cans from Cubi Point, but Typhoons' Faye' and `Gloria' reigned supreme inthe area and, after persevering withflying in very difficult conditions, wefinally gave up and sailed for HongKong. We put five aircraft ashore toKAI TAK for continuation flying and,during this period, took part in thefarewell salute for the retiring Governorof Hong Kong and also a fly past inhonour of Princess Anne who was visit-ing the colony.

Again, there were no complaintsabout the life ashore even though somehad their wives and girl-friends to lookafter them. But standards were notallowed to drop, not even on the foot-ball field, where the Ship's Trophywas won by our goal-happy footballers.Sadly, however, on 27 October, the shipsailed south-west for the Singaporearea followed by exercise `Curtain Call'off Penang and so starting a period of56 days continuously at sea.

By this time several members hadleft for the UK; 'arry had gone, but` Taff' took over, the only differencebeing the accent; George (SD) Phepoenever recovered from his leaving run inHong Kong and was seen leaving theship with tears streaming down hisface; and `definitely 25th for the next

launch' Wheeler left leaving all his pensto the aircrew.

`Curtain Call' found us pitting ourwits against the Malaysian and Aus-tralian squadrons based at BUTTER-

WORTH and also against the ever-elusive splash targets at which we werenow firing 2-in R/P. The night-flyingprogramme was also put into full swingand a regular eight Vixens launchedeach night on Lepus strikes and avariety of AI sorties. Most returned backon board as planned but one night theship took pity on our aircraft having tobe at sea for such a long time and sentthem ashore to BUTTERWORTH overnight.The aircrew, deeply distressed at thethought of being on dry land again,drowned their sorrows in typical fashionat the Ambassador Hotel.

The next stop was at Gan for sixdays' and nights' flying, and then wewent into the Gulf area. With the flyingdays now numbered, we looked forwardto the visits to Mombasa (alas, we nevergot there) and Durban, where the hos-pitality and friendship shown over thefestive period was fantastic. We sailedon 4 January for the UK via Gibraltar.After a short visit there, the aircraftwere catapulted off the ship for thelast time, and there our tale endsbecause on return the last remainingVixen Squadron will be no more andthe number 899 will be parked. How-ever, we can be sure that the Squadronwill go out in style. Just like that rundown Bugis Street in '71: `Yes, I re-member it well - I was on '99 at the time!'

899 Naval Air Squadron- White Watch: * LREM FERRIDAY; EMA KNELLER; REM URWIN; A/LAM BARNES; EMA HARPER; OEM CHAPMAN; A/LAMCHAMBERLAIN; NAM ALLEN; LAM CLARKE; REM HAUGHEY; REM COUSINS. ** OEM GOODBY; NAM GREHAN; A/LAM RACHER; NAM O'NIELL; NAMREYNOLDS; EMA GREEN; NAM GROOMBRIDGE; LEM RENSHAW; REM STEVENSON; LAM BOND; LAM WATERS; LAM BARANSKI; NAM DOWNEY; NAMMAHONEY; EMA STEWART; NAM LITCHFIELD; NAM HARMER. *** A/POOEL O'KILL; POEL MABBOT; AA2 DIXON; LM2 SANDERS; POREL KNOWLES;AA1 CROFT; POOEL KEATING; EA1 COLE; EA2 COOPER; A/POREL CASSAR; AMN2 KAVULOK. **** CAF(O) RUTHERFORD; EA1 MOORE; Lt BENNETT; LtROWELL; AMN1 CLARKE; CAF(AE) THOMAS; RMNI MOORE.

fifty-one

EAGLE SEARCH &RESCUE FLIGHTDuring the summer of 1970 the flighthad a complete change-over of per-sonnel. This was followed by our ownwork-up and ORI, before we joined theship in September with two WessexMk. I aircraft.

Friday, 13 November, 1970, producedour first, and happily our only, aircrewrescue job when a Vixen crashed off thebow catapault. Since then our excite-ment has all come from the many oddjobs we are called upon to do, such asVERTREPS; VERTREVS (the Sunday morn-ing padre transfers); passing the tow;mail and passenger flights.

We disembarked to Culdrose forChristmas leave before heading for theMediterranean and the ship's ORI.

While anchored in Gibraltar Bay theSAR was scrambled to take a firesuitmanand extinguishers to SS BYZANTIUM, amerchant ship on fire alongside themole. On completion of the mission theaircraft was unable to return to theship owing to dangerous turbulence, sodiverted to North Front for what,perhaps only, the crew considered awell-earned, crafty week-end, ashore.

After a splendid visit to Villefranchethe ship proceeded to Malta, where ourhighlight was a scramble to assist thecrew of ss P OPI which had run agroundon Comino, a small island betweenMalta and Gozo. However, we werenot needed as the crew were able tostep off the fo'c'sle onto the shore.

We again disembarked to Culdrosefor Easter Leave when the ship returnedto Plymouth, and re-embarked withthree aircraft on 25 May. Our thirdhas been kept mainly in reserve but hasproved invaluable in keeping us on thejob during our various maintenancecrises: notably six engine and two maingearbox changes.

In Capetown, Rear-Admiral Williamsjoined us, and we had our first experi-ence of being the Admiral's Barge: ajob which has kept us quite busy eversince. On arrival at Singapore we dis-embarked to SIMBANG for continuation

SAR Flight: * LAM Andy ANDERSON; LAM Ken MOORE; POAM Chris GRANT; POEL Ian ARTHURS;POAF Roger HENLEY; POOEL Flipper OLKES; NAM Jan GIBSON; AA1 Tug TUDGAY; LS Alf TUPPER.** EA1 Charles ABRAHAMS; Lt Mike LAWRENCE; Lt Alex MARSH; Lt Buzz BARR; AM1 Robbie ROBERTSON.*** NAM Al PUNT; LAM Stew CROWTHER; POREL Gerry STEPHENSON; LREM Ken MOULTON;LREM Don MCKENZIE; LEM Tug WILSON; EMA Trev LUCAS; NAM Willie LYNES.

training, after which we had to leaveone aircraft there for a major corrosionjob to be carried out for us by MARTSU

while we paid our respects to Australiaand New Zealand. On return we dis-embarked again and found the thirdaircraft ready and waiting for us.

THE FLEET CHIEF PETTY OFFICERSOn 24 May 1971 the Fleet Chief PettyOfficers, long talked about under othernames, came into being. Aboard HMS

EAGLE there were twelve promoted atthat time and since then two othershave been promoted.

They occupied jobs within the shipfrom flying to eating and supplying tosteaming. The Captain approved thatthey should have their own mess andthe first and probably the only Presi-dent at that time of a Fleet Chiefs'Mess was FCMEM Lilley. When hewent on to his new appointment atLOCHINVAR, his position was taken overby FSCA Ellwood. On both occasionsthe Vice-President has been FCMEA(H)

In Hong Kong we were able to assistthe local inhabitants by lifting severalloads of playground equipment froman MFV to an inaccessible site on a hill-top, and we also joined in the farewellflypast for the departing Governor-General.

HusbandThe Fleet Chiefs have played impor-

tant roles in the various sections asManagers and Divisional Officers andthe Ship's Company are slowly begin-ning to appreciate their wide experiencein and out of their own departments.

Not only have they left their markupon the Ship's Company of HMS

EAGLE but upon the various ports thatthey have called in; in particular, Well-ington, where they were known as `TheDirty Dozen' (affectionately, of course).

All in all, it was a notable and enjoy-able commission for all of them andwill long be talked about in days tocome.

Fleet Chief Petty Officers and Senior Chief Petty Officers: CRS PARKER; Mr MUSK; CCY SLATTER;Mr FIELDING; Mr WILKINSON; Mr COLLINS; Mr ALFORD; Mr LOCKWOOD; SBM TOMLIN; Mr REDWOOD;Mr PEASEY; Mr ELLWOOD; Mr BIGGINS; Mr HUSBAND.

fifty-two

THE MEDICAL DEPARTMENT` The Emergency Ward 10 Of HMS EAGLE,

where steely-eyed teams of skilledMedical experts work long hours intothe night resuscitating the intrepidaviators and dissecting other unfor-tunates to remove their elusive appen-dices.' A description of the Sick Bay?Well, not quite, but we do have ourmoments, and HMS EAGLE's last com-mission has not been at all uneventful,medically.

The new Sick Bay team had mostlyjoined by May 1970 and smoothly tookover with capable guidance fromCPOMA `Wally' Soulsby. Surgeon LtGibson was still on board, and thePMO, Surgeon Cdr Adamson, was stillin overall charge as he completed hissecond year in EAGLE. The PMO in fact'signed on' for this commission andwill have served four years continuouslyin EAGLE by the time he leaves in 1972:such dedication.

Our Physiotherapist, MT2(P) Wood-mason, was `made up' about halfwaythrough the commission and, in con-trast to the last Physiotherapist, shavedhis beard off. He now looks about tenyears younger. Laboratory work hasbeen capably undertaken by MT4(L)Iorns, whose services were naturallyheavily in demand in the Far Eastflesh-pots. He also was made-up fromActing MT4 to MT4. The ward hasbeen run by MT3 Nickson, who joinedus originally as an MT4. He is ourState Registered Nurse.

The commission began inauspiciouslywith a six-month docking and main-tenance period in Devonport Dockyard.This produced the usual mess and upsetall departments, not least the MedicalDepartment. Whilst EAGLE was inDock, we were all accommodated inCENTAUR, and the new Sick Bay teamwas faced with the problem of runningtwo Sick Bays.

EAGLE's Sick Bay was also being re-furbished and looked like a disasterarea most of the time. In addition, thecockroaches were found in many partsof EAGLE, and there were outcries fromall over the ship. It was pointed outthat an old lady of EAGLE's vintage hadby this time built up a sizeable cock-roach population, which can never becompletely eradicated. The situationregrettably worsened in the Far East.There was at least a ready source ofsupply for Cockroach Races.

Dr Stronge had already gone off toHASLAR to get married (and to work,presumably) and the PMO found thingsbusy when Dr Gibson was called awayto HMS RALEIGH on two occasions for atotal of about six weeks. Surgeon Lt

Rendall, our new Anaesthetist, cun-ningly delayed his joining date untilSeptember and so missed the chaos.During the maintenance period, MAsWatt and Edwards and MT2(P) Wood-mason were married; nothing like theprospect of a few long weeks at sea toaccelerate the decision.

On 26 September 1970 EAGLE was atlast looking ship-shape and sailed o ntime. Everyone was glad to get to sea atlast, although we soon became familiarwith the appalling chaos caused byRAS (solids) every few days, with flourand peas floating around the maincorridor o f the Sick Bay in CourageNo 1 or Tiger Beer. These RASs wereoften enlivened by the Flight DeckParty `lubricating' the canvas chuteswith buckets of water, which added

nicely to the melee down below. TheShake Down Cruise gave everyone achance to really get to know the ship;find out the duties of a Flight DeckMA, and try to find space for theinnumerable Medical Stores.

The First Work-up was an instruc-tive time for all of us, and a casualtyfrom a ditched Sea Vixen provided uswith a genuine Medical case. He laterturned out to have a crushed vertebra(from ejecting), but fortunately made afull recovery. The first visit of thecommission - Southampton - was en-joyed by all, and relations were cordialwith RNH HASLAR. Parties of MAs andNurses came to visit the Ship from theMedical Training Division. The latterwere much appreciated by everyone.

Dr Rendall joined the bandwagonand got married during ChristmasLeave. MA(O) Neal and MA Edwards

left us in January 1971 and werereplaced by MA(O) Nelson and MAMcLaren.

January saw, at last, the start of ourMediterranean Cruise. We had onemore work-up to do before our Opera-tional Readiness Inspection. After thiswe were all allowed to relax and enjoyGibraltar, Villefranche and Malta.Malta was a busy time for the SickBay, and we were ably helped by theDavid Bruce Hospital (RNH M'TARFA).

Dr Rendall and Dr Gibson both wentto RAF LUQA to help with the extra workcaused by our squadrons, as did MAWatt. MA McLaren, MT2 Woodmasonand MT3 Nickson on the other handdecided to do their Commando bit atGhain Tuffieha camp and seemed tosurvive. During the Mediterranean

Medical Department:

* MA Mac McLAREN; MA Alan WATT; MA Colin WASLEY; MA GeorgeBRADLEY; MT4(L) Bob IORNS; MA(O) Tony NELSON; MA Danny Ross. ** A/POMA John HAMLIN;MT2(P) Geoff WOODMASON; Surg Lt C. M. S. RENDALL; SUrg Cdr R. J. W. ADAMSON (PMO); SUrg LtD. W. R. GIBSON; FCMA Peter PEASEY; MT3 Nick NICKSON.

Cruise we inoculated the wholeShip's Company against Cholera forwhat amounted to be a false alarm.This disease was apparently raging inall areas east of Gibraltar, but a weeklater was not! However, once started,we decided to carry on with the six-monthly booster jabs as they would beneeded later in the commission anyway.The PMO celebrated the fiftieth appen-dicectomy he personally has performedat sea, just before Malta. The rest of theShip's Company buckled their trouserstighter and steered clear of the Sick Bayfor a while.

Easter at Devonport saw mountainsof dressings and drugs littering everyconceivable space in preparation for ourFar East trip. They were eventuallydisposed of one way or another. ChiefWally Soulsby left the ship in May andwas appointed to RNH GIBRALTAR in

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June as a Fleet Chief MA. Chief PeterPeasey arrived in May to replace thebold Wally and was rapidly elevated toFleet Chief MA on 24 May, two daysprior to the Ship sailing to the mys-terious Orient.

During the trip, various members ofthe Sick Bay Staff were summoned toKing Neptune's Court as we crossedthe line, including the PMO completewith his lovely blond wig, and JMAStatham, fresh out from HASLAR, andthen the youngest member of the Ship'sCompany. We arrived at Cape Townand our first night in Port as far as theSick Bay was concerned could be aptlychristened the `Battle of Capetown'Make and Mends were well deservedthe next day.

The PMO had `contacts' in CapeTown, and several Senior Consultantsfrom the Groote Schuur Hospitalvisited the ship, including ProfessorJannie Louw. MAs Nelson and Wattwent up to the hospital to witness openheart surgery: a fascinating day forthem.

Singapore was remarkable, from amedical viewpoint, for the incrediblenumber of ear infections: the dreaded` Singapore Ear'. On the worst days upto fifty people a day were having ear-drops put in four times a day.

The Antipodean leg of the commis-sion proved interesting to all, and thehospitality was particularly good inWellington. Also in Wellington, BruceMills, a young Maori boy who wasparalysed from a spinal tumour, visitedus and enjoyed being shown around theShip. Afterwards he was fed with hugehelpings of ice cream and fruit in theSick Bay by MA(O) Nelson. In Fre-mantle, MT3 Nickson was given thetask of organising the final Ship'sCompany Dance, which was held in thePagoda Ballroom. He made a greatsuccess of this and it certainly set thevisit off with a swing.

The Australasian trip was marred bythe LOX Plant fire, when the two badlyburned men came under our careinitially. It made us all realise thateveryone was needed for the intensivecare of just two casualties. We werethankful that there were no more. TheLox fire also burnt out both DentalSurgeries and the Dentists were loanedour Emergency Operating Theatre.Later, the forward Dental Surgery wasre-equipped for the Dentists, and theafter one was then used to house themedical stores previously stored in theEmergency Operating Theatre .

After our final Far East visit, thistime to Hong Kong, the Sick Baylooked like a departmental store withcamphor wood chests, tables and

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bicycles stowed in every nook andcranny. Nightly games of Mah-jonggmade the Sick Bay sound like a Chinesesuburban flat with the rattle of thetiles. After Hong Kong we were slowlyhomeward bound, but with much sea-time to go first. MA Watt had to be leftashore at Hong Kong with severe con-junctivitis and did not rejoin us for aconsiderable time.

During the commission we had visitsfrom: Surgeon Lt-Cdr Martin, RNR

(a gynaecologist!); Surgeon Lt Fraser,RNR; Surgeon Lt Clarke, RNR; and,last but not least, Surgeon Lt-CdrFrank Golden, RN, an Aviation Medi-cine Specialist, and an Irishman, whoproved very interesting with an inex-haustible fund of flying and non-flyinganecdotes.

Statistics? - Well, just a few takenover a fairly representative six months

of the commission from May to October1971. During that time we got through20,000 Penicillin tablets; 40,000Aspirinand Codeine tablets; 8,000 Cholerainjections; 30,000 gauze swabs; and50 gallons of rot-gut mixture. In addi-tion, four people had appendices re-moved and seven circumcisions weredone. The total number of appendi-cectomies since DED at the time ofgoing to press was seventeen.

Finally, although we would hate any-one to think that we cannot deal withany medical situation, we have leftpatients in Lossiemouth; Gibraltar;Malta; Ascension Island; Cape Town;Singapore; Sydney; Wellington; Fre-mantle; Hong Kong; Penang; Gan;Masirah; Mombasa; Durban and, ofcourse, Plymouth and Portsmouth. Welike to do the best thing for our patients.

REFLECTIONS IN A DENTAL MIRRORThere are 75,000 teeth carried inHMS EAGLE, give or take a few: wehave done both. The mammoth taskof making the ship's company dentallyfit was started in Devonport on boardHMS CENTAUR during the DED. Treat-ment was carried out in rather crampedand archaic conditions by SurgeonCommander Gregory, assisted by PettyOfficer Marshall and Leading MedicalAssistant Matthews. The return to`alma mater' at the end of July was awelcome event.

The dental team was completed bythe arrival of Surgeon LieutenantHargreaves shortly before the shipsailed for sea trials. The new manmoved straight into a newly furnished,well-lit surgery: the dental departmentwas now fully operational. With the

Dental Department: * MA D. HUGHES;POMA G. MARSHALL. ** Surg Cdr (D) W. J.GREGORY; Surg Lt (D) J. HARGRAVES.

embarkation of the squadrons the taskbecame even more formidable, butafter three months in the Mediter-ranean great progress had been made.

During the passage to the Far East,Lt Hargreaves was detached, with aportable unit, to HMS GLAMORGAN toattend to the dental health of 550 moremen.

Shortly after sailing from Singaporethe disastrous fire occurred in the Lox

plant immediately below one dentalsurgery, which was completely gutted.The other was badly damaged, and atemporary dental surgery was openedin the Emergency Operating Theatre.The portable unit was flown back fromGLAMORGAN, and further stores wereborrowed from the Royal AustralianNavy on arrival in Sydney. After muchhard work by the Shipwright and Elec-trical Departments, one of the surgerieswas reopened early in September. TheDental Department was once againfiring on all cylinders.

Since the DED, treatment carried outincludes over 4,000 fillings; 250 extrac-tions; 550 scale and polishes; 200 newdentures and over 40 dentures repaired.There have even been three pairs ofspectacles mended. Over 5,000 an-guished visitors have been treated: afew only came to see the pin-ups on thedeckhead; one admitted coming onlyto see the model railway.

LMA Matthews left the ship inAustralia and was replaced by MedicalAssistant Hughes. Petty Officer Mar-shall, and the ship, was honoured when,on 14 August, 1971, he was presentedwith the Sick Bay Petty Officers'Efficiency Medal.

THE WEAPON SUPPLY PARTY - GREETHAM ' S GORILLASWhat is the Weapon Supply Party ?The snappy catch answer would be toask the Weapon Supply Officer - butit's the Weapon Supply Officer askingthe question! After five confusedmonths on board I still have not readone of these magazines that go therounds everyday. So far I've gatheredthat WSO II rides bicycles when notcounting fuzes; Chief Arnott flogscrests, probably stolen from the ship'sboats; Chief Ashby - he's a bar mana-ger or something; PO Lloyd sits andgrowls at WSO II, muttering 'redun-dant' to himself; POs Brown andSavage (a right name for a gorilla) dowatch and watch about sunbathing onthe roof. Then there are the twomysterious Americans who marchround the ship - GIs they call them -what they have to do with weaponsupply is anyone's guess. I think theyflog crested paper, or something!

The rest 0f the party spend all daytransporting 2 x 1,000-lb bombs; 2 x500-lb bombs, and 2 Lepus up anddown Nos 1, 2 and 3 bomb lifts. Theytell me they do this for two reasons.One is to make the command thinkthere are lots of these down below; theother is that it disturbs the ACRO, whoobjects to holes in his playground. Iknow there's no bombs down below.For one thing, no one would allow theWSP to play with live explosives, andthe other is that K section is an illicitstill and T section a motor-cycle garage.

As for supplying Weapons - that's alaugh. The 4.5 guns have a taperecorder in the barrels that makes bangsounds (or is it G3 quoting the gunnerymanual in his dulcet tones?) and thesmoke is really the exhaust from thatgarage in T section. As for supplyingAir Weapons - well, they put G2 0n

Midshipmen ( December 1971): * R. P. HODGSON;R. S. KENNAN; R. M. L. BURROWS. ** V. S.JAMES; W. J. KNIGHT; J. P. MILTON-THOMPSON(Senior Mid); S. C. MARTIN. Absent: R. S.CRIGHTON; N. P. GARWOOD; C. J. BROWN.

Weapon Supply Party: * AB Bwyan RODGERS; LAM(O) Legs ORDERS; NAM(O) Holly HOLLINGS-WORTH; NAM(O) Mick WELHAM; AB YOrky BRAMMER; OEM(A) Chris BLOWERS; LAM(O) Olly OLIVER;LAM(O) `5T3' BLAKEMORE; LAM(O) Steve HEMMING; LAM(O) Steve STEVENSON. ** OS John HEELEY;AB Nick NICHOLAS; AB Fess PARKER; AB Father O'KELL; AB Ted THAXTER; AB Jim HATTON; AB ChrisPEARSON; AB Phill FLAKE; AB Spider KELLY' AB D. D. JONES. *** OEM(A) Fanta SCOTT; NAM(O)Danny KNOWLES; LAM(O) Fred FURNESS; NAM(O) Stu STAPLEFORD; OEM(A) Paddy WALKER; LAM(O)Bungy WILLIAMS; NAM(O) Wraz WRAZEN; LAM(O) Annie OAKLEY; NAM(O) Sleepy GLEESON; LAM(O)Brum DAVIES. **** LS Scouse LONDON; POAM Derek SAVAGE; CPO Norman ARNOTT; Lt C. S. C.MORGAN (G2); Lt-Cdr F. O. PIKE (GO); Lt E. W. GREETHAM (WSO); S/Lt J. A. NUNDY ( WS02);POOEL Mick LLOYD; POOEL Bomber BROwN. ***** 1,000-lb Bomb, No. 742.

top 0f FLYCO with a pair 0f binocularsand told him if he looks long enoughhe'll see the nudes of Cote d'Azur. Hethinks we are in the Med (mind you,with WSO II watchkeeping, we couldbe off the South 0f France!). Heshouts peculiar numbers into a micro-phone: I think it is to the tick-tackmen in yellow coats on the flight deck.

In harbour the WSP drive the cranes;for this they take their percentage ofall stores loaded onto the ship: it'squite a big cut as they have to keepBig G happy. They seem to know whenhe's happy: he wanders round the shiploaded with paper saying `Fantastic' toeveryone.

During my five months on board,theWSP achieved a record: 1,000-lbbomb No 742 had its 5,000th trip upto the flight deck. They held a specialceremony for this and gave the LiftGod a human sacrifice. They threw medown the lift! At least, I did give theWSP one thing. My name. No I didn't.They even stole that. Nothing is sacredto these gorillas.

The WSP have worked out to a finedetail the de-ammo at Porstmouth.They are off loading their six `weapons'on the port side, quickly taking thelighters to the starboard side, bringingthem back onboard and repeating thewhole operation for two and a halfweeks. They won't even be there to doit: they'll have the rest of the ship'scompany doing it. If they don't let meout of this padded cell on 25 FebruaryI can see de-ammoing of EAGLE takingyears! It will not worry theWSP. Theywill either be working rackets on other

ships or will be outside (inside if I canprove certain things).

The question, `What is the WeaponSupply Party' still remains a mysteryto me, but I'll stay quiet as long as theyvisit me every day.

LAUNDRY CREWA few words from the Laundry Crew, writtenshortly before the ship reached Hong Kong.

We, laundry crew, every day workfrom 7 am in the morning till 10 pmin the night. That's up to how manylaundry is handed in. Of course somedays we finish the work in midnight,especially on Mondays, Tuesdays andWednesdays.

Twenty-three persons form the crew.The oldest of us is Mr Keung, theNumber One Boy. He is sixty. Theyoungest one only twenty-two. Ofcourse our hobbies are different fromeach other, but usually we like to play` Mah-Chung' a Chinese game whichtakes four persons to play. We likedrink tea, coffee and beer 0f course,but we don't like steak and chips so wehave our own cook to cook our ownfood every day.

We are all come from Hong Kong,and we are now looking forward to goingback to Hong Kong for some of us notsee their family more than three years.

We receive six to seven hundredbundles of laundry every day, notincluding the officers'. There must besome mistake between us, so we hopethe Ship's Company will excuse us,and we always try to do our best.Thanks very much.

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MET OFFICEProviding weather all day long to suitall tastes is more in the Padre's line ofwork, but unfortunately the Met Officeis expected not only to do this but alsoto write forecasts and get them right.We could tell you how we have never(well, hardly ever) written a duff fore-cast, but no one would believe us.However, we do handle more signalsthan the Communications Centre, andhave not yet failed to provide sufficientlygood weather to enable the ship toenter harbour on the right day. Wenever close, like the bars in Wanchai,where sometimes the overnight charthas been drawn up.

Ours is a small office with two fore-casters: the Senior Forecaster (or DuffGen Leader, as the aircrew call him),and Forecaster (Duff Gen 2), PettyOfficer plus five. We make up for whatwe lack in numbers by technicalexpertise and sheer efficiency. Theefficiency and speed of response when`Secure from flying stations' is pipedis almost unbelievable. The technicalexpertise is provided by the SeniorInstructor Officer, Commander Dacam,who also subsidises his runs ashore fromthe wardroom accounts.

Lt-Cdr MacDonald, or `D.D.' to hisfriends, took the ship to sea, but soonwore out under the strain of his beard'seffect on the Captain, and his habit ofhaving a cigar at breakfast. Leaving inSingapore, along with NA Plackett, theonly baldheaded teenager on board, hewas replaced by Lt-Cdr Sidford, whoonly appears to be here for the beerand is seen wandering vaguely aroundthe ship modelling the latest in maxi-shorts. Lt Sullivan, as Met 3, developed

The Met Office and Education Department show their teeth: * Instr Lt BINKS; NA GOALBY;LA HALES; PO KNIGHT; LA SQUIBB; NA HARDYMAN; NA BURGESS; Instr Lt HARRISON. ** Instr Lt-CdrSIDFORD; Instr Cdr DAGAM; Instr Lt SULLIVAN.

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an insatiable appetite for (among otherthings) coffee, and spent half a fortuneon Hi Fi, but can't remember, or won'ttell, where the other half went.

PO Knight, that ace diver of thecrew, also runs the office coffee boatwith such efficiency that it subsidisedan office movie run in Singapore: butthat's another story. Suffice it to saythat no one was actually caught by thepolice. Also a diver, LA Burgess isreported to have spent a fortune insticky greens in the Wanchai, and histattoos have to be seen to be believed(once is enough, though). NA Hardy-man, a quiet, well-liked lad, but for thedemon drink, did his thing in the RoyalGuard at Singapore and is spreadingthe rumour that he was asked to repeatthe performance outside BuckinghamPalace in time for Christmas. Also keenon sport, LA Hales regularly plays for

EDUCATION

the Ship's 2nd XV and is also a keensupporter of the Bugis Street team.LA Squibb has more than a lingeringmemory of Capetown and Fremantle,and NA Goalby referees FA matches(for a consideration) in spite of hiswooden leg.

Men always find it more difficult tostudy than they think: filling in anapplication form for a correspondencecourse does not get the work done;enrolling for maths classes does notproduce an `O' level certificate bymagic within a month or two. As thehundreds who have tried it couldtestify - it's a long slog that requiresquite a sacrifice of time.

The early DED days were especiallydifficult since students had to trekacross from work of one kind in EAGLE

to their studies in CENTAUR. The school-room in CENTAUR was ideally situated,just aft of midships on the most fre-quently used deck. In EAGLE, the firstlesson any new pupil has is that offinding 7E1. ` You know the canteenflat?' - Always a good teaching pointto work from the known to the un-known - 'Just forrard of there is thebakehouse, and opposite is a ladder.Go down two ladders and turn right inthe messdeck and down another one.It looks like a laundry down there butturn right and you'll find it.' Withroom for about twenty, seated, at apinch, the ventilation was never reallyadequate. The fog clouds of tobaccosmoke rolled in as the topic of the daydeveloped, be it long division withdecimals; quadratic equations; thedesign of the vacuum flask; or theadventures of Drake. Small classeswere always a blessing to take.

Education - continuedThe regular round of the Naval

Maths and English Test every fourmonths, and of the GCE Ordinary Levelsevery five or seven, made routine land-marks for the staff: for the pupils theseevents invariably arrived too quickly.Instructor Lieutenant Harrison, theEducation Officer, has been on boardfor over three years now and hasbattled with countless NAMET candi-dates, who are often reluctant to cometo school - the prospects of cash andpromotion never seemed as motivatingas the metaphorical boot of the divi-sional officer.

At the time of deployment to theFar East, the main problem was that ofkeeping the Maths `O' level class to amanageable size. There were days when,in two sessions, sixty men weresqueezed into the narrow box pastwhich the bow wave could usually beheard sloshing. `Come early and get aseat,' was the cry, and the keener oneswere doing just that, arriving early instandeasy to get a seat in the front rowstalls. (Of the original sixty, about twen-ty fell by the wayside, another scoredecided to wait awhile before takingthe exam and, of those remaining, nine-teen passed.)

With eight months away from home,and much of that at sea, classes werefairly popular. Not only did InstructorCommander Dacam and InstructorLieutenant Sullivan make the time toteach, along with their meteorologicaland other duties, but we were able toemploy Instructor Lieutenant Braleyfor the first few months. Spared fromthe wilds of CALEDONIA for a short timeonly, he took his leave in Wellington,

Royal Marines Band: * Musn Nobby CLARKE; Musn Dicky VALENTINE; Musn Bert PARTON; MusnSmiler RUMMING; Musn Andy MYTUM; Musn Max HILL; MUsn Oscar PETERSON; MUsn Ray SMITHSON;Musn Harry MARTINSON. ** MUsn Alan UPTON; Musn Mick MURRAY; Musn Gazz DAVIES; MusnPete KING; Musn Geoff McGARR; Musn Pete SCOTT; Musn Taff JONES; Musn Tug WILSON. *** BugAlan BROOKER; B/Cpl Jim MCMEEL; S/Bd/Mr Jack TOMLIN; Captain I. G. W. ROBERTSON; Lt C. E. G.BONNER; B/Sgt Wally WALTON; B/Cpl Dave FILLINGHAM. **** Bug Plum PLUMMER; Bug Jan BETTINSON.

to to replaced by Instructor LieutenantBinks, who managed to take timeenough off from drumming-up en-thusiasm amongst his NAMET candidatesto find out all about the computers onboard - his next appointment is todevelop them for future ships. Forthose who have been able to make theeffort and sustain it, the reward ofobtaining an `O' level or two, or thedesired grade in NAMET, has been worthwhile. Maybe it has meant writingfewer letters, or playing less cribbage.

If the appeal to study has not beenthere in every case, the need to thinkto the future has meant that severalhundreds of men have sought resettle-ment advice, especially with the re-dundancies declared in the Fleet AirArm. Men have shown interest ineverything from lighthouse keepingand applications for Government Train-ing in sheet metal work to physio-therapy in New Zealand. And thepotential emigrants have had a goodchance to job-hunt round the world.

Royal Marines Beat Retreat on Ascension Island

THE ROYAL MARINES BANDSince the Band embarked on 1 Septem-ber, 1970, we have given you musicalentertainment whenever possible. Wehave done this with one or other of ourseveral variants - the 16-piece DanceBand; the 7-piece Dance Band; theMilitary Programme Band and, of

course, the now very popular 'Straw-berry Jam Factory'.

We have provided a Band Display forOfficial Cocktail Parties in every port ofcall, and we also visited AscensionIsland to Beat Retreat. In Wellington,we went to Wanganui where we BeatRetreat and also gave a Military Bandand Dance Band Concert in aid of theCommonwealth Games Appeal Fund.At the Governor's Farewell Celebra-tions in Hong Kong we took part in amassed band display with bands fromthe Hong Kong Police, Gurkhas andRoyal Welch Fusiliers.

Many of you are probably unawarethat we also have an Orchestra whichusually provides music for WardroomDinners. While in Singapore we wererequired to play for a Farewell Dinnergiven by The Commander, Far EastFleet.

It has also been our pleasure toprovide music at Ship's CompanyConcerts, Ship's Dances, SundayChurch Services on the Quarterdeckand the Concerts in the Junior Rates'Dining Hall. Seen, but not alwaysheard, we have also played a few tuneson the flight deck during RAS(S).

At Action or Emergency Stations ithas been our job to man the First AidPosts and provide Gunnery Recorders.

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REVUES, PANTOMIMES AND ALL THATIn March 1971, ashore at Malta, theEAGLE PLAYERS were busy putting thefinal touches to what turned out to be avery professional performance. `Pano-mania' was the name for the revue inwhich all the ships of the Western Fleetcurrently in Malta took part. EAGLE's

contribution was a fast-flowing forty-five minutes' worth of thrills, spills andfun all neatly woven together into non-stop entertainment by the producer,Lieutenant Peter Turner. The two-actrevue was given a necessary touch offeminine charm by Pan's People of theBBC, flown out for the occasion. Theprogramme announced that it was aguide as to what might happen, but ithappened as planned and was a greatsuccess, thanks to the talents of thedirector of the whole show, Lt-CdrPeter Nightingale of the FOFWF staff.EAGLE's contribution was aptly de-scribed by the Captain when he said,`I was very impressed with the extreme-ly high standard of EAGLE's contribu-tion to Panomania. It would have beena frail show without the Big E. Welldone, everyone.'

In July, `Vote for Crun', a musical com-edy, gave another demonstration ofEAGLE talent in the Sultan Theatre inSingapore. It ran for three nights, butwas poorly attended: those who saw itwere most impressed, but the Playersenjoyed it, and that was the main thing.Written by Tom Taylor and PaulHaines, it was a lively, very entertainingshow combining a selection of well-known tunes with well-chosen skits onthe words. Tom Taylor, who playedthe lead part, also directed the 'song-sters', and the overall production andthe acting out of the plot were underthe direction of Peter Turner. It was awell-polished and slick show, and theexpert playing of the Royal MarinesBand was a main contribution to it.

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Sounds Fayre at Malta

On 23 and 24 November, whilst atsea, an EAGLE REVUE was put on. `Theevening's entertainment was as freshand sparkling as any bunch of amateurscould concoct on a village hall stage: todo so well in a desolate hangar on afloating airfield-cum-factory does greatcredit to all concerned.'

-EAGLE EXPRESS.

`The show was put on stage, and tosay it was "good" would be a grossunderstatement.'

-EAGLE EXPRESS.The Ds, 800 squadron, and the

artists who had been steadily makingthemselves well known and popularthrough the weekly informal 'Sing-alongs', put together a splendid even-ing's entertainment. The Ship's groupsby that time had settled down well:the jam Factory; Sounds Fayre; theYellow Boot; the `B' Unit Choir; eachperformed its own type of specialitywell. There was individual talent in

abundance, too: James Bond; RickyDennis; Nelson and Hardy. And theaudience was not left out, and theyjoined in heartily with the choruses.

The Christmas pantomime, CINDER-

ELLA, was written and produced byJohn Laurijsson. It was to have beenheld in Mombasa, again with the helpof Pan's people. Instead, it was per-formed in the Upperanger Theatre.Busty Den Wright and miniskirtedClive Cheney as the ugly sisters (howugly can you get ?), and Chris Master-man as Cinderella, were helped out bysome other gorgeous females. Manypeople were surprised at the effect thata wig, a couple of old socks, a yard ortwo of pusser's bunting and six weeksout of sight of land could have! Thebirds were stunning. The rest of theshow went off very well, too, with all theusuals and several other excellent sub-sidiary acts as well. Buttons (MalcolmFuller) looked remarkably like a golli-wog, and Brian Taylor, as PrinceCharming, brought the house downwith his mime to the strains of `SomeEnchanted Evening'. The plot workedout its inevitable spell only too quickly,and the size twelve steaming boot wasduly fitted (with the help of Dandini,Colin Bonner), leading up to the finalchorus, superbly led by Mick Ficklingand Bungy Edwards. The backstageteam, under the charge of John Nundyand Trevor Ling, worked as hard asever - and thanks went out, as always,to the nameless, faceless multitude whodo the chores . . . shipwrights, elec-tricians, AED workshops, hangar con-trol, sailmaker, and so on. It was asplendid final evening's entertainmentfrom the EAGLE PLAYERS who haveserved the Ship so well during thecommission.

Line-up at the panto