5. THE NEW BROOMS
The training of the officers and ratings for the Minesweeping Branch of the Royal Naval Patrol Service is carried out at the naval establishment known as H.M.S. Lochinvar, based on the shore of a Scottish firth.
Every three weeks a score of officers arrive from H.M.S. King Alfred, where they have completed their cadet course; they have taken an additional gunnery course on trawler weapons in H.M.S. Excellent. All have served varying periods as ratings and have been commissioned as Sub-Lieutenants in the Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve. They have volunteered—or perhaps it would be more correct to say that they have expressed a preference for—the Minesweeping Service, of which some of them may have had experience on the lower deck.
At the beginning of the war trawlers were regarded (by those who did not man them) as the lowest form of marine life: all they could do was to “tow a bit of wire.” The sweepers themselves have changed all that. Now that the Navy has seen what they can do, there is competition to join them. Some men prefer to serve in battleships and cruisers, but those who have shared the more intimate life aboard a sweeper believe their branch to be the finest in the Royal Navy.
The applicants are, however, specially selected, for the work makes peculiar demands upon a man besides those ordinary “officer-like qualities” which the navy requires. A minesweeping officer must be a Jack of many trades and master of most. He must be technically-minded, to understand the intricacies of the modern sweeping-gear. He must have a bent for pilotage, for when in command of a sweeper he will be his own Navigator and must be familiar with the particular navigational problems of trawlers. He must be competent to keep his charts up to date, to plot the position of a minefield, and to read signals. He will also be his own Gunnery Officer, and requires a sound knowledge of the armament used in minesweepers. And besides all this he needs the endurance of a strong body, the initiative of a quick mind, and the resolution of a gallant spirit.
The object of the six weeks’ course in H.M.S. Lochinvar is to develop these qualities and to fit the “trainees,” as they are called, to become officers of minesweeping vessels. At the beginning of the course the officers spend two days at sea in trawlers or paddle-steamers. These are special training ships, and their Commanding Officers and First Lieutenants are members of the instructional staff. Not more than half a dozen officers are sent to each ship, and as soon as the vessel is under way they go up on the bridge, where the Captain gives individual instruction in station-keeping and signal recognition, allows in one to navigate the ship in turn, and gives him practice in dropping and picking up the dan-buoys which are used to mark the position of mines or the limits of a cleared area. During the day the officers have an opportunity to watch the sweeps being veered and hauled in.
Sometimes they are sent for instruction to a newly-commissioned minesweeper which is “working up” in the firth. These exercises are also under the supervision of the Lochinvar instructional staff, their object being to accustom the Commanding Officer and Navigational and Watchkeeping Officers to shiphandling and station-keeping when using the various types of sweep, and to train the ship’s company in the handling of sweeps and dans. Usually one week is devoted minesweeping, one to gunnery practice, one to general drill, and the fourth to seamanship, so that the sweeper may join her Base with her officers and ratings confident of themselves and their ship.
By visiting these vessels the officers under instruction were able to obtain some experience of the practical side of minesweeping before studying the theory. The subjects of the lectures ashore include the mechanism of mines, the movements of tides, chart work, the technical side of minesweeping and its application, seamanship and pilotage, store-keeping and the internal administration of minesweeping vessels. The classes are small, so that teaching may be individual. Increasing attention is being paid to visual instruction by means of films. During this period the officers live in the hutment camp on the wooded hillside above the firth.
At the end of their training “on the beach” they go afloat for three weeks’ training in trawlers which are fitted with Gun Rooms to accommodate ten officers. There the form the non-specialist crews of the ships, veering the sweeps and doing the work of the men whom they will later be called upon to command. Much attention is also paid to gunnery, watchkeeping and pilotage, and each officer takes his turn of duty as First Lieutenant.
On “Action Stations” they will range the guns on an imaginary submarine or hostile aircraft. Masked figures will race along the decks when the gas alarm is given, on fire duty or putting out collision mats. The commands “Man Overboard” and “Away Seaboats” demand the appropriate drill. Sweeps are veered in various formations. Dan-buoys are laid and recovered, sights taken, the fog-buoy streamed, the anchor weighed by hand.
Thus are bodies and minds trained to be vigilant and alert, and all learn to work in a team. For this is the chief lesson which minesweeping training has to teach; efficiency is achieved not only by the Captain and the First Lieutenant knowing their job, but by the whole ship’s company working together with the precision of a rowing eight and the co-operation of a rugger fifteen.
Having completed the course, the officers sit for a written examination. Those who pass (and few fail) go to the Minesweeping Officers’ Pool to await posting to ships.
In addition to the course for newly-commissioned Sub-Lieutenants, a number of officers from different branches of the Navy come for a week’s training in minesweeping, either as a refresher course, if they have been in the Minesweeping Branch and left it for a time, or for concentrated instruction if they are new to the work. Many officers of the Royal Naval Volunteer Reserves of Canada, Australia and New Zealand, and of course the Royal Indian Navy, have taken this course, also those of the Allied Navies—Americans, Dutch, Belgians and Norwegians.
No less important than the training of officers is the training of ratings, of whom 50 arrive every week for a three weeks’ course. To-day these are all “H.O.” men—those who have joined the Navy for hostilities only. After receiving their general training in one of the establishments ashore they have been drafted to the Patrol Service in accordance with requirements, and, having been fitted up at their Headquarters, those who are destined for minesweeping are sent to H.M.S. Lochinvar for special training.
Like the officers, they spend two days at sea and acquire practical experience in the manual working of the sweeps, in splicing the wire hawsers, in steering the trawler, and in those deck duties which the Navy describes by the expressive term “pulley-hauley.” Ashore, Petty Officers give them instruction in trawler gunnery, rifle practice, deck work and general seamanship, so that they may take their places as efficient members of any minesweeping ship, whether she be trawler, drifter, dan-layer, or fleet sweeper.
At the end of the course the majority return to their Headquarters to await drafting, but a certain number go to the ships of one of the training flotillas in the firth, where they too form the non-specialist members of the crews for a further three weeks. This practical instruction has proved immensely valuable and is being extended as more vessels become available.
In this way nearly 2,000 officers and over 10,000 ratings have been trained in H.M.S. Lochinvar since the outbreak of war. Among them have been 500 Skippers, R.N.R., but to-day the newly-commissioned officers all belong to the R.N.V.R. No officer who has passed the Lochinvar course has been found incapable of doing the duty required of him, and none has ever applied for transfer to another branch before sitting for his examination.
One of the most remarkable aspects of the naval side of the war is the increasingly important part the R.N.V.R. officers are playing in all branches of the Service. In the last war there were very few in the minesweepers and there was a tendency throughout the Navy to regard them as amateurs. To-day the fine work they are doing is appreciated by their brother officers in both the Royal Navy and the Royal Naval Reserve, and nowhere is it more valuable than in the minesweepers, the majority of which are now commanded by officers of the R.N.V.R., who have thus become entitled to regard themselves as much an integral part of the Fleet as officers who specialize in submarines or naval aircraft.
All the more credit is due to these young officers because, before they joined the Navy, the majority were landsmen who knew nothing of the sea and they have had to earn the respect of their men. On a single course in H.M.S. Lochinvar recently, the R.N.V.R. officers under instruction included those who in civilian life had been a Local Government clerk, a surveyor’s assistant, a chemist, a shop manager, a schoolmaster, a chartered accountant, a printer, a bank cashier, a glove manufacturer, a cine-technician, a salesman in the woollen trade, an inspector of the Metropolitan Police, a fur-buyer, a display artist, a fiction writer, an architect, a cabinet-maker and an Australian sheep-farmer.
There is a Negro proverb “New broom sweep clean, but de old broom know de corner.” The new brooms of the R.N.V.R. and the old brooms of the R.N.R. are proving a formidable sweeping combination for the German minelayers.
[Caption] THE MEN OF THE SWEEPERS learn to be masters of their dangerous job in H.M.S. Lochinvar, a shore establishment. Left, rating trainees are taught wire splicing. Above, the mechanism of a mine is explained to officers, seen through the shrouds of a mine-dropping parachute; an officer studies pilotage and chartwork; another takes a compass bearing.
[Caption] THE SWEEPER AND HER SWEEPING GEAR. It is the sweep wire curving back from the trawler to the otter that does the work. In the black part of the diagram, where everything you see is under the water, the sweep wire cuts the mooring cables of the mines. They then bob to the surface, and are exploded by gunfire-unless the sweep wire has already exploded them. In the diagram one mine has been severed and the mooring cable of another is being cut. The otter and kite work on the principle of air kites; the kite holds the inboard end of the sweep wire down; the otter, suspended from the flagged torpedo-shaped float, takes the sweep out on the trawler's quarter. This sweep is called an Oropesa. Balls at the masthead show that sweeping is in progress.
[Caption] “OUT SWEEP.” Above, the float with its flag is ready on its chocks. The otter is being lowered from the davit. Right top, launching the heavy Oropesa float needs both strength and care, especially in rough weather. The careless, if there are any, may crush their hands between float and vessel. Everyone lends a hand except the stokers below. Right bottom, down the float goes. Soon it will be bounding along 500 yards astern and 250 yards out on the quarter.
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