New Zealand Naval History and Maritime Bits

[Brian Probetts (Site Admin)]

Hi Team
In this month's column we have a few interesting articles from this year's 75th Anniversary of the RNZN and the early days of the New Zealand Navy to WRNS's black stockings.

There is also a video of the U.S.Navy's underwater weaponry, an account of the loss of HMS SPARTAN in WW2 and the story of the second life of a North American lake freighter.

With the NZ National Flag referendum about to be held I thought it was appropriate to include the following report about the change to our own navy's ensign almost 50 years ago. Everyone has a right to choose but to many of us with a memory of our past, I believe most would like to see our own current New Zealand Ensign continue to fly

Regards
Peter Hogg
RNZNA South Canterbury N.Z.

"peterhogg222@gmail.com"



THE WHITE ENSIGN CHANGES TO THE NEW ZEALAND WHITE ENSIGN 1968

When the New Zealand Naval Forces were established under the Defence Act of 1913, an Agreement was reached with the Admiralty that New Zealand ships would wear the same ensign and jack as ships of the Royal Navy. This Agreement was the authorisation for His Majesty’s New Zealand ships to wear the White Ensign, as was the case with HMS Philomel, commissioned into the New Zealand Naval Forces in July 1914. It is unclear, however, whether or not Philomel wore a New Zealand national flag in addition to these. Certainly from 1921, units of the New Zealand Division wore the New Zealand national flag as a jack.
During the 1920s New Zealand ships began wearing the New Zealand national flag as a jack, although there seems to be no consistency either between ships, or even within the same ship during different commissions. Certainly, by the 1930s the New Zealand flag was customarily worn as a jack. At sea, however, a jack is not usually worn and the White Ensign did not provide a sufficient display of the national identity, particularly in baffle. Even during the First World War HMS New Zealand wore the New Zealand national flag when in action (we have no information on whether or not Philomel did, although I suspect that she did not). During the Second World War New Zealand ships wore the National Flag in addition to Baffle Ensigns.
The granting of the title Royal New Zealand Navy to the New Zealand Naval Forces in 1941, was essentially an incidental matter at the time, albeit one of some significance from an historical perspective. With this view, it is understandable that there was no discussion of changing ensigns at the time. Throughout the remainder of the Second World War RNZN ships fought under the White Ensign as they did in Korea and during Confrontation in Malaya.
Early documentation on discussions in respect of the development of a distinctive white ensign for the RNZN is particularly sparse. It would seem that the spark for the change was the introduction of the Australian White Ensign by the Royal Australian Navy in 1967. The White Ensign continued to be worn by New Zealand naval vessels until 1968. The question of a distinctive New Zealand White Ensign was addressed. Mr E.W.Jones of the Hydrographic Branch was invited to propose a suitable design and drawing of a New Zealand White Ensign.
Following consultation with the Admiralty, the proposed New Zealand White Ensign was submitted to Her Majesty the Queen for approval, which was given on 20 June 1968. This is seen as an important milestone in the development of Royal New Zealand Navy.
Change of the Ensign A snapshot of the Navy 20 June 1968 On Thursday 20 June 1968, the Royal New Zealand Navy hoisted the New Zealand ensign for the first time. This book is about the ships and establishments on that date and how they celebrated the occasion. 84 pages with colour and black and white photos.

THE NEW ZEALAND INTERNATIONAL FLEET REVIEW 2016 This article courtesy of ex RNZN 'Old Salts' This six-day event is scheduled from17 to 22 November 2016. We have secured the tug William C Daldy for our use during these celebrations. Sailings and functions onboard are in the planning stage at present. The proposed programme It is still early days, with many allied navies yet to confirm the ships they will be sending to the South Pacific owing to operational requirements. It is expected to have some 15 ships from friendly countries, along with the New Zealand fleet. All RNZN ships which are not on deployment or in refit will participate. William C Daldy WILLIAM C DALDY The William C Daldy is a twin screw, coal-fired steam tug, built at Renfrew on the Clyde in Scotland for the Auckland Harbour Board in 1935. After an 82 day delivery voyage to New Zealand, she entered service in February 1936, handling shipping in the port of Auckland. She served the Harbour Board well for 41 years and by the time she was retired in 1977 was one of the last working coal fired tugs in the world. The vintage steam tug has been secured as the official vessel for the ex RNZN Old Salts participating in the 75th Anniversary of the formation of the Royal New Zealand Navy. At 80 years old, she is a large stable heritage steam ship, the last of her type surviving in the world today. Apart from some basic creature comforts, like seating and the covered aft deck, a bar and BBQ, she remains original. Burning one ton of coal per hour, she is powered by twin triple-fires: hand-fed coal-fired Scotch boilers developing 2,000IHP driving twin triple expansion engines connected to twin 11’9” four-bladed propellers. There is a total of 17 steam reciprocating engines on board driving winches, pumps, fans and the 240v dynamo/generator from the minesweeper HMNZS Kiwi. Many of our old engineers will be able to take a trip down memory lane as they recall the smell and steady beat of open crankcase triple-expansion steam engines. The silence is the first indicator as the ship remains an experience in itself, and the Society is proud to be able to offer it as the Official vessel for the ‘Old Salts’ during the 75th RNZN celebrations. NEW ZEALAND's OWN NAVY 1920 The ‘New Zealand Station’ formally split from China station

1921 In January 1921 HMS CHATHAM a coal fired cruiser arrives and became flagship on the new station. The first task was to make the now rusting and obsolete Philomel seaworthy and move her to Auckland from her Wellington Berth as a training ship which was completed in April. While these two ships were the nucleus of the new New Zealand Division the Admiralty stationed ships in New Zealand to maintain an adequate Royal Navy presence in the South Pacific. The New Zealand Naval Board set up by Order in Council dated 14 March; this was followed by Regulations under Order in Council dated 20 June that same year. These set out how the Navy was to function and named it the New Zealand Division of the Royal Navy. Ships were to be prefixed HMS and a training scheme was to be established to recruit and train New Zealanders for service within their own navy. There would be a large proportion of loaned RN personnel for many years yet, but New Zealand’s own navy was underway. HMS Chatham was a Town-class light cruiser of the Royal Navy launched on 9 November 1911 from Chatham Dockyard. She was the lead ship of the Chatham subgroup. She was initially assigned to the 2nd Light Cruiser Squadron in the Mediterranean, where she participated in the pursuit of the German ships Goeben and Breslau, but in 1914 was detached to operated in the Red Sea. In November that year Chatham (Captain Sidney R. Drury-Lowe) was involved in operations against the German commerce raider SMS Königsberg. In May 1915 she returned to the Mediterranean to operate in the Dardanelles to support the allied landings at Gallipoli. She oversaw the landings at Suvla Bay, where she was the flagship of Rear-Admiral John de Robeck who commanded the landing fleet. In 1916 she returned to home waters and joined the 3rd Light Cruiser Squadron of the Grand Fleet. On 26 May 1916, Chatham struck a mine and had to be repaired. After the war, Chatham was lent to the Royal New Zealand Navy from 1920 to 1924, and was sold for scrapping on 13 July 1926 to Ward, of Pembroke Dock. In 1922, the crew of the Chatham donated a cup to the New Zealand Football Association. This became the Chatham Cup, New Zealand's local equivalent of the FA Cup, and its premier knockout football trophy. The U.S. Silent Service An interesting 3 minute 30 recruiting video for the U.S. Submarine service forwarded to me recently by one of our readers from Indiana. Thanks Paul (who is a retired U.S.N.R. Captain) http://www.navy.mil/media/multimedia/silentsub/silentservice.mp4 VIRGINIA CLASS ATTACK SUBMARINE W.R.N.S. Black Stockings to be removed 1975 : Another black day for the Royal Navy. The ‘infamous’ DCI T641/75 announced that black nylon stockings for Wrens (Vocabs 45500-05) were to be replaced by black tights. ‘BR81 and BR96 will be amended’. The Navy had not fully recovered from the withdrawal of the Rum ration in 1970 when this further blow landed. A vigorous but futile ‘Fight Tights’ campaign was led by the FAA. The black stockings calamity ‘had a devastating effect on morale’. .........."We are not amused"............... THE LOSS OF HMS SPARTAN (Thanks to Ngapona Association N.Z.) The story of Derek Evans, a young seaman whose action station was a loader on an oerlikon gun starboard side aft. HMS SPARTAN was a Dido-class light cruiser, the same class as HMNZS ROYALIST. She was laid down on 21 December 1939 and launched on 27 August 1942. The first operation SPARTAN undertook in Italy was to bombard the German navy whilst a crossing was being undertaken on the River Garigliano. The American Army who were operating on the West coast of Italy were reinforced by British regiments of the Eighth army. On returning to Naples after the operation, it became apparent that the ship would be involved in another large operation. This proved to be the invasion of Anzio. This took place on the 22nd January 1944. SPARTAN was part of the original invasion fleet. The Army unfortunately could not get their vehicles ashore, and this led them to becoming surrounded by the German forces. On Saturday, January 29th 1944, the Anzio beachhead was under intensive air attack, SPARTAN was not designed for that type of conflict in a confined space and was attacked by a radio-controlled glider bomb which sank the SPARTAN with much loss of life. We were still closed up to action stations and the 5.25 A.A. guns were firing, it was very noisy but I failed to hear any explosion after we received a direct hit from a glider bomb, which, of course had been controlled by a parent aircraft. My action station was at an oerlikon gun starboard side aft. After being told by an old messmate recently that I was lashed to a Carley float and put over the side, apparently the float overturned and Dennis Brownhill then presumed that I was dead and it wasn't until we got in touch last year that he found out the truth. I have a very hazy memory of being in the water, wondering how, and why, I was in this predicament. My legs wouldn't work and my fingers on my right hand were bent backwards at right angles to the back of my hand. No proper recall then until I came round in a sick bay or something similar. It was definitely a ship as we were moving, but there was only dim sheltered lighting visible. I was freezing cold and very thirsty but my needs were soon attended to. Back into oblivion and my next lucid memory was coming around in a hospital bed and receiving ministrations from a padre, turned out later he was administering the last rites !!!! I didn't realise the full implications of this until later. The hospital was the 92nd General Hospital in Naples on the top of a big hill. We visited Naples a few years ago and saw the building but didn't visit. The hospital ward was very large and between every bed there was a stretcher complete with a casualty. One night there was a great commotion as a Yugoslav partisan, who had lost a leg, crawled out of bed, fell on a stretcher case below, and then with a knife in his mouth tried to get at a wounded German P.O.W. in one of the other beds. This effort was unsuccessful and peace was restored to the ward. Eventually the powers that be decided that I would be repatriated, and eventually I was embarked on a Hospital Ship, the name eludes me but it could have been the Devonshire, and we set sail for the U.K. There was a large hold with a serried rank of cots, all suspended in gimbals bolted to the deck. Consequently whenever the ship rolled all the cots remained on an even keel. I don't have much recollection about dates, times at sea, routine or anything really at this time. We eventually docked at Avonmouth, nr Bristol and thence by Hospital bus Ambulance to R.N.Aux. Hospital at a place called Barrow Gurney. I remember every bump in the road on this never ending journey !!! We eventually arrived and I was put into bed in a small ward with about half a dozen other patients. I applied for a transfer nearer home, home being Llandudno in North Wales, and sod's law prevailed and I ended up in Sherbourne in Dorset, However eventually I was transferred to the Ministry of Pensions Hospital at Childwall in Liverpool and had a lengthy stay until my discharge home nearly two years later. THE LOSS OF HMS SPARTAN 29th JANUARY 1944 HMS SPARTAN A DIDO CLASS LIGHT CRUISER OF THE BELLONA GROUP At sunset on 29th January, the Luftwaffe began a glide bomb attack on the ships in Anzio Bay. At the time of this attack, HMS Spartan was anchored providing AA protection for the ships in the vicinity of the beachhead. Smoke had been ordered in the anchorage but was not fully effective owing to the short time it was in operation and the strong breeze. HMS Spartan was making smoke from stem to stern but was not herself covered.

[Peter F Chard]

I have actually surveyed the boilers on this tug in years gone by when working as a surveyor for the Marine Dept. ( and I have even stoked them a couple of times ) She is in brilliant condition, hull and machinery wise and the volunteers do a fantastic job. It will be an amazing day out !! Regards Peter in NZ.

[Des Taff Jenkins]

Hi Brian.
I have been on quite a few ships berthing in Auckland which used the William C Daldy to go alongside, great to see the old boy is still going.
Cheers Des

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[j.sabourn]

Ref. to the posting of the initial column it says or refers to the second life of a Great Lakes, Laker. I cant see any ref. to this in the report, maybe my short sightedness is progressing faster than I thought. However in 1968 I had just completed about 11 months running around the West Indies on a ship based in Montreal. On getting back to the UK received a phone call from an American who was thinking about putting it ( a Laker) to some use in the same sphere of operations as I had just left. The second engineer accepted the position and tried to cajole me into doing the same, however he was single and I wasn't, so the life of wine women and song I had to put away. I wondered if the laker that is mentioned had anything to do with that same progressive person who was seeking work for at least one ship he wanted working outside of the Lakes. It would be interesting to know also how they performed in the different sea conditions in more open water. Due mainly to their especial construction details being that different to the norm. Cheers JS Further to Merchant vessels being used for Naval use, I was master for a short time on the British Magnus in 1989, she was a DP ship and had 4 thrusters as well as being twin screwed. She was in or about 1994 requistioned by the Australian navy as a submarine depot ship and stationed at Garden Island Fremantle. I often thought to myself a good exercise would have been to come off the submarine with the appropriate escape gear ( think the Davis lung is now probably a bit out of date) come up through the moon pool and say I"ve just come aboard for my tea. Having spent about 4 years with divers and under water experts know what they can get up to. I used to get the occasional shake up when someone would throw a thunder flash in the cabin and left me clawing the deck head after being in a profound sleep. No wonder I now suffer from sleep apnea. Cheers JS

[Peter F Chard]

Hi Brian, The mention of the book " Change of design " by Gerry Wright stirred the memory banks a little. I worked with Gerry at the NZ Marine Dept in the early eighties and I recall his yarns about the Russian submarines off the South East coast of the South Island of NZ. They were spying on the American built and operated Waiohai installation just inland from coast -- this was ( and still is ) a listening post eavesdropping on Soviet intelligence. He spent a couple of years around 1982/3 chasing subs from the area, he even chased one from Wellington harbour !! Regards Peter in NZ.

[j.sabourn]

About a year previous to your report on sub traffic Peter, believe have put this in another descriptive incident, but a stingray torpedo was lost at the bottom of Loch Fyne. It had a 7 day pinger on and we attempted to recover and had the assistance of a manned submersible and a Jim suit ( for those not aware of a Jim suit one was used in a James Bond Film, forget the title). We knew exactly where it was but was that deep in the mud could barely touch it with a 7 foot probe. When the pinger went silent the job was classed as over. Days later it was reported in the press that a Russian sub had been sighted in Firth of Clyde, obviously in my mind after the same target. As far as I am aware the lost torpedo was never mentioned in the media but the submarine was. A lot of the general public are unaware of some of the secretive and surveillance work that is carried on continuously and is only on a need to know basis. Maybe an M notice was stuck on the press to keep them quiet. Although some news must have been released but not what it was, as the fishermen who fished for Herring in the area and believe at the time it was about the only place it was legal to do so, were putting in claims for damaged nets etc. I have my doubts it was even there by that time, and even if it was 7 feet into the mud would have been hard to cause any damage. Cheers JS