16 NAVY NEWS, AUGUST 2008
● A landing craft lowers its ramp in the light surf
Surf’s up
● Marines from 9ASRM bring a raiding craft close to the beach at Whitsand Bay to practise recovery amid the Cornish surf
ON THE sand at my feet there is a ragged drawing of Xs, arrows and
a line for the shore.
Watching the
In front of me, there’s a landing craft coxswain dropping his
kedge anchor and spurring his engines to achieve that ideal curve
and range to shore drawn in the sand.
Two Royal Marines stand next to me on Whitsand Bay, watch-
ing with experienced eyes as the landing craft of 9ASRM are put
through their paces.
This is FOST training by 1AGRM, putting the landing craft spe-
cialists of the Royal Marines to the test, watching as the recently
reformed assault squadron proves its skills on the water have not
wildlife
been forgotten.
Maj Chris Fomes, one of the dedicated 1AGRM staff at Devonport,
OF THE 31 men that made
grimaces slightly, then grins as the coxswain and crew drop the
up HMS Ocean’s assault
ramp amid the raging foam of Whitsand Bay. squadron last summer, only
The 1AGRM staff within FOST at Devonport is a small team. “Tiny” two remain.
to quote one of its members. The other one would agree. 9 Assault Squadron Royal
But as 1AGRM recently came under the FOST banner, the chang- Marine have had to regenerate
es in organisation have brought some rather handy benefit. The almost from scratch, with a lot of
amphibious FOSTies can now easily call upon the vast expertise recently-trained LC3s (the initial
and experience across 1AGRM for training tasks. rank of landing craft specialists).
Maj Fomes nods at the warrant officer from 11 Amphibious Trials The Officer Commanding
and Training in Instow stood next to him: “He’s got over 20 years’ 9ASRM Lt Col Tom Blythe said:
experience in landing craft. He knows everything there is to know “This is not standard business. It
about this. I let him get on with it.” doesn’t happen very often.”
WO2 ‘Spud’ Bartlett is talking on his headset to the men on the South-West Cheetah was a
landing craft before us, setting challenges and watching intently as six-day exercise set up by the
the LCVPs and RIBS poise on the waves. 1 Assault Group RM (1AGRM)
These are surf drills, and the Marines of 9ASRM have brought team at FOST Devonport to
their landing craft to the shore as one of the closing challenges of prove the squadron’s basic opera-
exercise South-West Cheetah. tional capability, or as Maj Chris
Overnight they had been tasked with vehicle movements along Fomes explained to me in simple
the dark length of the Devon coast. terms “that it was safe to operate
Here, now, after a few scant hours of rest they are racing into on the water”.
shore on raiding craft (see pictures below), before plunging into the Obviously it was – as the squad-
sea to stand up to their chests in the euphemistically-termed ‘brac- ron then plunged headfirst into
ing’ waves ready to jump into the intervening RIB. the trials of South-West Leopard
on board RFA Lyme Bay (see pre-
vious pages).
Although the assault squadron
belongs to HMS Ocean, the ship
herself has only just emerged from
the cocoon of refit.
However the squadron began
to reform some months earlier
under the aegis of 1AGRM, apart
● Surf drills off Whitsand Bay for the landing craft specialists of 9ASRM
from its two senior officers who
remained pegged to the ship as
separate units and on board ship. extremely challenging. what they will be doing in their
the last months of refit drew to
This means that the small “It was an extremely useful work-up early next year.”
a close.
1AGRM team within FOST – Lt exercise.” He grinned: “Especially A number of the LC3s in the
“This has been a really good
Col Russell Paul and Maj Chris with a number of mechanical reformed squadron had not oper-
way of doing business from a RM
Fomes – are in the fortunate posi- issues that added to the ‘chal- ated from a ship before, and the
perspective,” said Lt Col Blythe,
tion of being linked in with both lenge’.” dock of RFA Lyme Bay replicated
whose title within the ship’s com-
the dark blue and lovat elements Lt Col Russell Paul found that the routine environment they will
pany of the helicopter carrier is
of sea training, and able to call his position within both FOST come to know so well on board
Amphibious Operations Officer.
upon experts on both sides. and 1AGRM meant that he was other assault ships.
“It’s allowed us almost three
For 9ASRM the initial FOST able to ally the assault squadron’s Lt Col Blythe said: “I appreci-
months of self-generated training,
burst came under the heading of regeneration directly with the ate the training value that we’ve
working as a coherent body, based
‘independent boat group training’ RFA’s amphibious training within been able to get out of these
from RM Poole.”
– working the squadron up as a South-West Leopard – with huge two exercises. The opportunity to
This time was used by the men unit away from its mother ship. benefits to both sides. train together as a formed body in
of 9ASRM to catch up on both Exercise South-West Cheetah He said: “We were able to work a Royal Marine environment.
their landing craft drills and their saw the Royal Marines deploy up Ocean’s landing craft but then “I will not get another oppor-
essential military skills. their landing craft along the continue the collective training in tunity to have three months to
“But most importantly to get south-west coast, taking on a vari- to Lyme Bay.” myself with the assault squadron,”
the team gelled,” he added. ety of tasks ranging from beach He points out that there are he added.
“The CO of 1 Assault Group reconnaissance through to troop a number of fundamental simi- “But now the focus changes.
will be able to deliver to the CO of pick-ups. larities between the structures of The team is working. Now we join
HMS Ocean an assault squadron Lt Col Blythe said: “It was the two amphibious ships, but it the ship and will make every effort
with a high level of operational a really, really valuable exercise. wasn’t just the architecture. to fully integrate into the whole
capability.” The external assessment element “In terms of joint planning ship programme.
1 Assault Group RM (1AGRM) gave it an added edge. there were some real tangible “The ship is developing from
not only trains individual Marines “In terms of what we were advantages here in having Ocean’s a building site into a functioning
as landing craft specialists, being asked to achieve over Amphibious Ops Officer (Lt Col warship that can deliver its weap-
but in recent months it has a short period of time, operat- Blythe) embarked and others from on system – a landing force.
come under Flag Officer Sea ing LCVPs and inshore raiding HMS Ocean. “We’re ready to really contrib-
Training bringing with it craft in some testing conditions, “So it’s been a very good train- ute to the challenges that the
responsibilities for watching over independently from the ship ing opportunity for those indi- ship is going to face in coming
the three ship-borne squadrons as with no outside support – it was viduals to come on board and do months.”
Pictures: PO(Phot) Sean Clee, RN Photographer of the Year 2007 and 2008
0014-016_NN_aug08.indd 314-016_NN_aug08.indd 3 110/7/08 17:27:530/7/08 17:27:53
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