All at Sea in Arctic Waters

By Dennis McDonald

This book is experiences of the author aboard a destroyer on the Murmansk Arctic convoys of WWII. In spite of it being related to war, the content of the book is really to show what life was like for the ordinary ratings and their tasks, not the fighting. Many of the happenings are strangely amusing, depending on how they are read. Most of the occurrences were just everyday duties or chores that somehow went wrong or were the result of naivety of the crew, most of whom had never reached the age of 20 years and were thrown into doing things they had never contemplated before. So this book is really short yarns, mostly of amusing instances of life aboard a ship at war. These yarns are short, but the book as a whole is unique in as much as it is history as far as life was concerned on small RN ships in WWII, much of which few people have ever looked into or even heard about. The author’s work dealt with intercepting messages from and locating German submarines by shortwave radio direction finding. This was specialised, little of which has ever been reported, although closely related to the work at Bletchley Park. Here it is dealt with extensively.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Austin Macauley
• Release date: Oct 31, 2018
• ISBN: 9780463362570

Dennis McDonald

Dennis McDonald volunteered for the RN during WWII. Having a choice, he opted for the Navy and chose telegraphy as his duty. He was selected for special service – intercepting messages from U-boats and locating them by radio direction-finding. Service life was tough but Dennis saw the amusing side of it, reflected in the titles of the chapters or yarns in this book. Most of his service was in the Arctic on the Zodiac escorting convoys on western approaches and Murmansk, Russia. His aim is not to deal with action well documented elsewhere, but with the problems of the individuals. He claims this is unique and you will always want to read the next chapter.

Book preview

Dedication

This book is dedicated to all those who have been through a war and have seen the futility of it and look forward to a time when, as is promised in the most ancient writings, the Bible, there will be no more war.

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All At Sea In Arctic Waters

Published by Austin Macauley at Smashwords

Copyright 2018 Dennis McDonald

The right of Dennis McDonald to be identified as author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with section 77 and 78 of the

Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. All Rights Reserved. No reproduction, copy or transmission of this publication may be made without written permission. No paragraph of this publication may be reproduced, copied or transmitted save with the written permission of the publisher, or in accordance with the provisions of the Copyright Act 1956 (as amended). Any person who commits any unauthorised act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.

Smashwords Edition, License Notes

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

A CIP catalogue record for this title is

Available from the British Library.

www.austinmacauley.com

All At Sea In Arctic Waters 2018

ISBN 9781788230261 (Paperback)

ISBN 9781788230278 (E-Book)

First Published in

Austin Macauley Publishers Ltd™

CGC-33-01, 25 Canada Square

Canary Wharf, London E14 5LQ

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Table of Contents

Glossary of Naval Terms

Foreword

1

Getting Hooked

-Or Where to Sleep on Small Ships?

2

Watertight Doors?

-Or Things Are Not What They Appear to Be

3

Shepherd’s Pie

-A Stoker’s Nightmare

-Or Who Says Beans for Supper?

4

Peas Pudding

-Is It Really a Part of Roller Skating?

5

Battle of the Airways

-Oh, Where Can You Be?

6

Up the Mast

-A Signaller’s Nightmare

7

It Takes Two to Tango

-Or Locating a U-Boat at Close Quarters

8

What’s That Going Beep, Beep in the Night?

-Or the Enemy Is Listening with ‘His’ Ears

9

Ditching the Gash

-Or Caring for Your Cutlery

10

The Matelot’s Sport

-Buoy Jumping

-Or, the Seaman’s Delight

11

Things That Go Bump in the Night

-And Sometimes in the Day

-Or Unexpected Visitor

12

A Pennyworth of Entertainment

-But Really Worth a Bit More!

13

So You Wanted to Transfer to the Navy?

-Or a Soldier’s Sad Story

14

The Inspection

-Or Be Prepared for Anything

15

Die Feind Hört Mit Ohren

-The Enemy Is Listening with His Ears!

16

A Word in the Captain’s Ear

-Or, Captain Are You Sleeping There Below?

17

All Alone in the Drink

-Or, How Ditching Can Save You!

17a

It’s in the Book!

-Or in the Sea Depending on Your Point of View

18

Bath Night

-Or Making Your Water Count

19

What Are Tables for Anyway?

-Or There Is Plenty of Space Down Below

20

Hazards at the North Cape

-Or, How to Keep the U-Boats Down

21

Entertainment Arctic Style

-Or, It’s Cold North of the Arctic Circle

-Telegraphists Know How to Keep Snug

22

What’s Wrong with Yer ’And Mate?

-Or Telegraphists and Signallers Will Never Be the Same

23

Surprise, Surprise

-What! Messages in Clear?

24

Entertainment: German Style

-Or Everything Has Its Price

25

Let’s Take a Gamble

-Or Easy Go, Easy Go!

26

Come Cap in Hand

-Or How to Find Your Way out of a Mess

27

The Fulcrum Point

-A Matelot’s H(e)aven

-Or Where to Spend Your Off-Hours

28

The Making of Telegraphists(S)

-Or, What the ‘S’ Is All About!

29

What Was It All About?

-Above or Below People Are Surprisingly Similar

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Synopsis

All at Sea in Arctic Waters is just what it says. It is written from actual experiences aboard a destroyer on the Murmansk Arctic convoys of World War II. In spite of it being related to war, the content of the book is really to show what life was like for the ordinary ratings known as ‘hostilities only’, and not the war itself. Many of the happenings were strangely amusing, depending on how one views the occurrences. Most of the happenings related were everyday duties or chores that somehow went wrong, or were the result of naiveté of the crew, most of whom had not reached the age of 20 years and were thrown into doing things they had never contemplated before. Hence, it is a book mostly of amusing instances of life aboard a ship at war.

The author was a specialised telegraphist whose work involved intercepting shortwave radio messages from U-boats to their bases in Germany, with the intent of fixing a U-boat’s position when it came within a striking distance of a convoy. This was known as Huff Duff or High Frequency Direction Finding; at that time a secret process of which it seems the Germans were only partially cognisant.

Some chapters touch on this work, but action of that kind is not the purpose of the book. However, as very little seems to have been written or broadcast about that service, perhaps because of its association with Bletchley Park who supplied us with essential information about U-boat transmission frequencies at that time, it is discussed in some chapters. It was these intercepts and the breaking of the four ring German Marine Enigma Machine that played such a great part in the battle of the Atlantic and the Arctic.

For the landlubber the book also has a glossary of naval terms which, after these last 70 years, are probably unknown to many. It also includes a chart-like image of the ship and shows where the various incidents took place.

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Glossary of Naval Terms

(I suggest that you consult this often, preferably to read it first)

Beam

On or towards the side of a ship.

Beam sea

Wind and waves coming against the side of a ship.

Buoy jumping

In a port when not moored alongside a jetty, ships were tied up to buoys that were anchored securely. In order to attach the anchor chain to the buoy, a seaman had to get from the cutter on to the buoy. In bad weather, this was often difficult and he had to jump at the right moment. Often, this resulted in a fall into the water.

Convoy

It was discovered during World War I that the best way to protect merchant ships at sea, from attack and from sinking, was to assemble ships into groups of as many as fifty ships or more, and give them an escort of vessels, which were capable of detecting and sinking their attackers: the U-boats. In World War II, convoys used to assemble in Halifax Nova Scotia, Canada, to cross the Atlantic for the UK, and convoys for the Americas and Russia used to assemble mainly in the Firth of Clyde, Scotland.

Corkscrewing

This describes the motion of a ship, especially smaller ships in very bad weather. It is caused by a heavy sea and wind from ahead, but to one side of the ship (known as the Port or Starboard bow). The wind and waves would force the bow of the ship off course, as the bow rose over a wave top. The bow would then fall over the wave crest and have to be brought back on course by the coxswain, causing the opposite movement to that made by the waves. This means that the bow of the ship was continually describing a circular motion and was hence termed corkscrewing. It was a movement greatly hated at sea, and was the cause of some violent seasickness; especially to those who worked, or had their mess right in the bows of the ship.

Cutter

A rowing boat with a team of four that was used for general use for getting between ships in harbour, for retrieving things from the water at sea and for ‘buoy jumping’.

Davits

Swivelling brackets used for securing and launching rowing and motor boats.

D/F (Direction Finding)

The usual abbreviation for direction finding by radio. It could be used to determine one’s position in relation to a shore station, which is a navigational aid, or to determine the bearing of a ship or U-boat sending a message by radio. In World War II this was usually done by Morse code. In this book, the D/F work was essentially to fix a position of a U-boat sending a sighting report (of a convoy etc.) (see also Goniometer).

Ditching the gash

Throwing waste water from dish washing over the side of the ship.

Doughbeying

A naval term for doing your laundry. On shore stations in various parts of the world, individuals could be found who would do this work for you. They were known as ‘Doughbey boys’.

Enigma (Naval)

This was a machine used by Germany almost exclusively for the coding of messages which were supposed to be secret. The code was eventually broken using a captured Enigma machine and other code books showing how to set the machine and by the extensive work at Bletchley House. This, because of its secrecy, was known as the ‘Ultra secret’ and ultimately just as ULTRA.

Although it was not known at the time, it was due to the work at Bletchley House that the frequencies were determined on which all U-Boats would be working and was made known to escort vessels at sea. This enabled them to listen to, and monitor continuously, their communications with German Naval bases and, when they made sighting reports, determine their position in relation to the ships that were monitoring them. The failure of the Enigma was the failure of all codes: It was used too much! To break any code it is essential to have multitudes of messages to compare with. That was what the over-use of Enigma provided for Bletchley Park. The British Navy also had a machine code, but for absolute secrecy, it was used only for top secret messages. Whether it was ever broken is unknown.

Flat as a mill pond

The sea when it was dead calm. Different people had different opinions about this expression. A very heavy swell could have a flat sea surface, but could still bring on seasickness to many.

Following sea

A situation when the weather: wind and waves are coming from behind the ship. Usually this motion is far more tolerable than when the motion is from ahead.

Goniometer

This was the device connected in the antenna circuit of the direction finding receiver that was used to ascertain the bearing of a signal from another ship’s transmitter. For the telegraphists(s), this meant U-boat transmissions. As this took time, and sometimes thwarted the operator because of the shortness of U-boat sighting reports; it was later superseded by another device, based on the cathode ray tube (CRT), which indicated the bearing as soon as the first dot or dash of the transmitter was keyed. This was a great step forward in locating U-boats at sea. (See also H/F D/F and D/F).

Grog

A rum ration was provided daily. This was not neat rum but a mixture of one measure of rum to two measures of water. This was known as ‘Grog’ in the navy.

Hatchway

Access between decks of different levels was by means of a hatchway and a step ladder.

H/F D/F (High Frequency Direction Finding)

This was a system of detecting radio signals on short wave which was thought to be impossible owing to the signal arriving from the ionosphere above. The fact that the short wave signals in which we were interested were also coming in on the ground wave because of the proximity of a U-Boat to the convoy made this a practical proposition and was used extensively by escort vessels in World War II. The short wave detection on the sky wave also provided valuable information about U-boat activity though of a different nature. See also D/F.

Jimmy the One

This was a term used for the executive officer on a destroyer and other small ships. He was usually a senior full lieutenant (otherwise known as a two ringer). Due to having complete oversight of the ship under the captain and being responsible for carrying out the captain’s orders, he was the most disliked officer on the ship. Even fellow officers were uncomfortable with him owing to the duties he had on his back.

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Liberty Boat

The boat that was used to take men ashore from the ship. It might be a large vessel collecting ‘Liberty