- Author
- Stevens, Cliff
- Subjects
- Early warships, RAN operations
- Tags
-
- RAN Ships
- HMAS Brisbane I, HMAS Sydney I
- Publication
- March 1982 edition of the Naval Historical Review (all rights reserved)
So throughout the forenoon; ‘Teddy Hoggies’ for dinner. ‘Not bad, any gash, Chef?’ Temperature over 100°. Sweat, blisters, bruises, curses, and laughter. Inevitably minor injuries, a trolley fails to take a bend. One fractured arm and two cracked ribs. Numeral 660. Temperature 107°. And still the fuel rattles down upon the stokers as they frantically toil to trim their bunkers. For them it is just hard work with little fun.
1600 – ‘Hands to tea.’ Cups of tea and buttered slices of ‘pusser’s’ fruit cake. Sunburned sailors everywhere. The SBA busy with bottles of Calamine lotion.
The sun dips to the horizon. The Still on the bugle. We face aft as the ensign is lowered. Simultaneously riding lights, gangway circuits, yard arm groups and festooning flick on.
1900 – ‘Hands to supper.’ What! Bloody stew! Dixies full of it.
‘Hands coal ship.’ Backs and legs aching. Bruised, blistered and sunburned. The Yeoman of Signals focuses the 10” signal projector on the yard arm hoist.
Numeral 870. Only 190 tons to go. ‘Let’s get the flamin’ job finished.’ Each urges the other to greater efforts. Shovels flash under the working lights.
Trolleys scream faster round the curves. The order ‘Roundly’ replaces ‘Handsomely.’ An ERA, oil can in hand, hurries anxiously around the winches as these machines rattle at speeds for which they were never designed. Lights are dimmed by the thick pall of coal dust. And in the bunkers the stokers curse as the coal descends upon them faster and faster.
2132 – The bugle – ‘Secure.’ Unbelievingly we look up the yard arm. A burton whips ‘close up’ into the beam of the signal projector and the pendants 1060 break into the still night. Our enthusiastic cheering is soon silenced. ‘All watches of the hands fall in’.
But we knew it had to be.
The Commander’s order ‘Unrig and stow away all coaling gear. Wash down superstructures, ship’s sides and upper deck,’ is repeated by the ‘Chief Buffer.’ Never was this four funnelled b . . . . d rendered shipshape so quickly.
Then the futile rush to the inadequate facilities of the bathroom. Having washed ourselves as best we can, we force ourselves through the mass of sweating bodies packed in the tunnel outside waiting their turn – until we are almost as grimy as before.
And too tired to find and sling our hammocks, we flop and sleep on the first bit of clear deck space we can find.
Editor’s Note
The record coaling for light cruisers was set by HMAS Sydney on 5th March 1917, when she took in at a rate of 227.6 tons per hour. It is believed that this figure was never bettered in light cruisers. Sydney was operating with the 2nd Light Cruiser Squadron of the Grand Fleet when she set this record.