NAVY NEWS, MAY 2008 25
-25˚C. Now add dust, mud, ice and snow and you “It’s not our job to weigh in How do I know it’s 7.01am? than fi ve days, which means fi ve days of back-
have an idea of the demands Afghanistan places like John Wayne and the 7th Because the shrill bosun’s to-back work, all hands to the pump,” said Lt Cdr
upon our men and women. Cavalry. There are huge legal call has barely faded over the Ashworth.
So the air-conditioned comfort of Lusty must be issues, but if it was a British tannoy. “My team has worked extremely hard and their
a godsend by comparison – not least because, as ship which was attacked then the For exercise, for exercise, for families have shown a great deal of patience.”
Lt Gray says enthusiastically, “the ship has really taxpayer would expect us to do exercise. Quickdraw. Quickdraw, The engineering department has been worked
welcomed us”. something – although the ultimate Quickdraw. every bit as hard as the ship herself – not easy
decision rests with the Foreign and A mock attack by a FIAC – fast inshore when it is short of one in five sailors.
T
he Strike Wing aren’t the only naval Commonwealth Offi ce.” attack craft, basically a speed boat armed with “Our most valuable asset is our people and our
aviators adjusting to life at sea once Legal issues may constrain what the task force guns or explosives. workload has probably gone up three times in
more. can do, but it does not stop the ships and aircraft One ship in the Orion task group needs no keeping a ship 26 years old going,” said WO Ritchie
The last time 814 Naval Air Squadron keeping tabs on the seas. reminder of the threat such boats pose: the USS Richmond.
deployed en masse, they were flying Sea Kings. The buzzword in the RN these days is Maritime Cole was badly damaged by suicide bombers in “What this ship’s company has achieved probably
That was more than half a decade ago. Security Operations – scouring the Seven Seas, Yemen eight years ago, costing 17 sailors their no other ship’s company could have done. Although
Since then, the ‘dipper’ Sea Kings have gone to looking for illegal activity and monitoring shipping lives. the problems in the ship are not our fault, we’re the
the great helicopter graveyard in the sky and the movements. As with yesterday’s air attack, so Cole and ones who fi x it.”
Flying Tigers have learned to master Merlin. Monitoring those movements has become Edinburgh are expected to shield the carrier and Port visits offer no respite for the engineers,
814’s Merlins have been to sea before, but not considerably easier thanks to a ship’s ‘DNA’. Yes, prevent the go-fasts getting close. but they do present evidence of the RN’s ‘can do’
on this scale. each vessel over 300 tons is electronically tagged But as with air defence, Goalkeeper also proves mentality.
The Flying Tigers hangars and offices at Culdrose (offi cially it’s AIS – Automatic Identifi cation System), the weapon of last resort against seaborne targets In Muscat, the team needed to change an engine
are locked, the lights are off. There’s nobody constantly beaming details of its name, position, – bolstered by Lusty’s 20mm and Miniguns blazing (a 24-hour-a-day job over four days). Volunteers
home. course and speed. away. from the rest of the ship’s company stepped forward
Instead, all 140 personnel and six ‘cabs’ can be That data can be fed on to the console used by I assume the raiders were successfully thwarted. to help out and bear some of the burden – proof
found aboard Illustrious. Merlin’s observers. that they might not always voice their appreciation
And that’s a good thing, says the squadron’s CO “We can get a really good picture of the area,
Cdr Steve Deacon. particularly thanks to the AIS - basically IFF for
“With the jets on board ships,” explained 814’s W
hile hell rages outside, I enjoy a Hollywood for the stokers and engineers, but they do at least
dhoby (a longish, very hot shower). know what they’ve been through.
That I can do so is thanks to the carrier’s “Illustrious is a classic car expected to do a Le
as well it feels like a Cdr Deacon. marine engineering department. Mans every day of the week,” Lt Cdr Ashworth
proper carrier air group, “It’s good to get back to our “If there is a ship Now I’ll probably receive flak from the rest of added.
just like 20 years ago which is down there and the ship’s company for saying this but... probably “She’s high profi le – and she’s expected to do
when I joined the Ark
core role and it’s good to be
doesn’t give off a signal, no-one aboard has worked harder during Orion to high-profi le things.
Royal,” he enthused. back on a carrier. With the you immediately ask: make sure Lusty is (a) here and (b) fit to fight. “If things go wrong, then they go wrong
“It’s good to get back what’s going on?” As alluded to earlier, Illustrious’ deployment didn’t spectacularly because everyone’s looking at us.”
to our core role and it’s
jets on board as well it feels
There’s another begin in particularly auspicious circumstances. She continued: “I can say with pride that my team
good to be back on a like a proper carrier air group, gadget which has proved “People think that ships are like cars – you turn has pulled out all the stops.”
carrier.” to be a godsend over the ignition and go. They are not,” Capt Chick Back to that Hollywood dhoby. It’s not for my
814 has concentrated
just like 20 years ago when I
the oceans: Wescam, stressed. benefit. Fresh water is not intended to keep the
much of its sub-hunting joined the Ark Royal.” an electro-optic camera “Illustrious is a vintage car. She requires a little bit sailors clean or topped up with wets. It’s there to
activity to UK waters. with thermal imaging for more to look after her and keep her running.” wash the aircraft down (using salt water really isn’t
But what works
– Cdr Steve Deacon
night vision. Barely had she left Pompey than she was back a good idea).
off Blighty doesn’t “To visually identify again to fix a faulty ‘fridge’... provoking much Air conditioning is not there for the benefi t of
necessarily work half way around the world thanks something, you have to get within a mile. With the Schadenfreude in Fleet Street. the ship’s company either. It’s there to keep the
to changes in climatic and sea conditions. camera, you can do the identifi cation at ten times Let’s get a few things straight. machinery, particularly the computers, cool.
So why the emphasis for much of Orion on anti- that range. It’s a great piece of kit, we’d just This is not a Zanussi from Comet. In fact, Outside in April it’s normally 36˚C. Inside it’s a
submarine warfare? like more of them,” Cdr Deacon added. it’s not even a fridge. It’s a freezer. pleasant 22˚C (although it touches 50˚C in some
“There has been a proliferation of diesel boats, Proof of the increased interest in And not one with a few Bird’s Eye burgers, machinery spaces).
midget submarines and the like around the world,” movements by sea comes 15 minutes into a a couple of loaves and some Mr Whippy. Without air conditioning, Lusty would be warmer
explained Cdr Deacon. fl ight from Lusty to Muscat. It’s a freezer half the size the ward room inside than outside. Computers would cook. So too
One Merlin can cover roughly half the area a At fi rst, the sea seems devoid of crammed with £60,000 of food to keep her crew.
Nimrod patrols on a sortie and – perhaps more shipping. 800 sailors happy for several weeks. All of which you don’t notice. No, all of which you
crucially – four times as much sea as the Sea King Appearances are invariably The freezer was actually fi xed by the don’t notice as long as it works.
used to. deceptive. engineers even before Lusty turned “Marine engineering is the unsexy part of the
Its prey at present is HMS Trafalgar, but the T- The silvery ribbons meandering around and got back to Pompey. Navy,” Lt Cdr Ashworth conceded.
boat was being joined by other boats at the end through the blue-grey of the Gulf of But the team needed to chip away at Unsexy, yes, but also fundamental.
of last month for a major anti-submarine exercise Oman are a tell-tale sign of a ship’s 18in of ice which had built up inside it as “There’s professional pride and a feeling of ‘don’t
off Goa. wake. a result of the initial fault. let the bastards get you down’. That’s what keeps
“Expeditionary warfare needs anti-submarine For the ocean here is brimming with So that meant emptying the freezer, us going,” said Lt Cdr Ashworth.
warfare – you cannot ignore the submarine threat. shipping (the Merlin’s display is peppered with a chain of sailors passing food down “I wanted a challenge – there are basically two
If you do, you cannot enter a theatre,” Cdr Deacon with green dots thanks to AIS). to a cold storage truck on the jetty, while the Type 42s worth of equipment in this ship and my
added. The aircrewman suddenly leans over a handful ice was burned away with blow torches. department is the size of a ship’s company on a
Submarines are not necessarily an obvious threat of passengers in the rear of the cab – never a “I don’t think people comprehend how big Type 23.”
– they’re not easy to fi nd. particularly encouraging sign. the freezers are – they’re huge, and this was our A ‘challenge’ (that fi nest of RN euphemisms) it
More prevalent – and more obvious in this part of The passengers look up a little nervously. biggest,” said Lt Cdr Helen Ashworth, Lusty’s senior has been and one which has at times driven many in
the world – is the surface-borne threat. Their faces become even more tense when the marine engineering offi cer. the ME department to despair. Still, they carry on.
If Kandahar was no benign environment for the aircrewman returns and again leans over for a The freezers, like much of Illustrious, are ageing. “You cannot sit in a corner and start crying. You
Naval Strike Wing then the Indian Ocean is no second look. The carrier is officially 26 years old, but some of get on with it,” said Ritchie.
benign environment for mariners. He points downwards. There, racing across the the machinery which drives her dates back to the There is, at least, some light relief to ease the
The day before I visited Lusty, pirates had seized Gulf of Oman at high speed, is a speedboat. 1960s and ’70s. pain.
a luxury French yacht in the Gulf of Aden (there It may, of course, be entirely innocent, but But it’s not so much the age as the mileage which There are fi lm nights for the wardroom where
were more than two dozen similar incidents off the something which would probably barely have has taken its toll. offi cers vote on the movie they wish to watch... and
Somali coast last year). registered fi ve or ten years ago is now second Illustrious has been worked hard – especially in then someone else decides.
“We forget, probably at our peril, how much nature. the past two or three years since emerging from her There are band and bingo nights (accompanied
merchant traffi c passes through these waters – a lot This alertness is something I’ve not noticed most recent refit. by the odd drop of alcohol).
of it directly affecting the UK.” said Capt Chick. before. Last year was pretty much non-stop for the ship. The chefs, sorry logisticians (catering services
“If these two straits – the Bab el Mandeb and Before Telic, the entire task group was on its 2008 is no different. (preparation)), provided a dial-a-pizza service
Hormuz – were closed, it would have an impact on guard to be sure. And when the ship does stop, the engineers do (which proved immensely popular).
trade – and upon the UK.” But for an apparently relatively routine exercise, not. They must squeeze in all the work they can There was hands to bathe (both accommodation
Cdre Cunningham added: “There’s a level of it’s proof that (a) we take the threat from suicide before Illustrious returns to sea. ladders were lowered and sailors swam from one
lawlessness and anarchy on the sea which is boats very seriously and (b) sailors are kept As the nation’s on-call strike carrier, the ship is at to the other, quite challenging as there was a bit
unusual – all the time we’ve been out here there constantly on their toes. five days’ notice to move... constantly. of a swell).
have been pirate attacks. Such as at 7.01 on a Monday morning. “If maintenance is needed then it can’t take more Continued on page 26marina
● A naval airman refl ects on another day’s operation aboard HMS
Illustrious in the Gulf of Oman as a merchant vessel sails past
023-026_NN_May.indd 3 21/4/08 10:14:48
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