- Author
- Roberts, W.O.C., DSC, Lietutenant Commander, RAN
- Subjects
- Naval history
- Tags
- None noted.
- RAN Ships
- None noted.
- Publication
- September 1976 edition of the Naval Historical Review (all rights reserved)
Murchison proceeded direct to Hong Kong, shaking down en route. On arrival the Royal Navy provided facilities for a few days simple work-up exercises which were to comprise the ship’s sole organised preparation for war before she found herself in the operational area. The next stop was Kure in Japan, the base of the British Commonwealth Occupation Forces. There Murchison relieved HMAS Bataan which had completed a year in the area. Shortly afterwards she proceeded on her first patrol – an inshore patrol on the west coast of Korea.
So off we went on our first patrol, keen as mustard with our Captain, as forceful a press on character as I ever met, fairly rearing to get to grips with the enemy and no sooner did we reach the operational area than we broke down – trouble with the fuel pumps; first one packed up then the other with the Engineer Officer improvising like a man demented and finally both failed together so we were reduced to steaming by hand. It was very reminiscent of a century ago with relays of sailors manning the pumps, though of course then the. object was to pump water out of the ship whereas now it was to pump oil into the boilers. Steaming by hand is not a very effective way of getting about the ocean. The best speed we could make was four knots and in this fashion we made our way back to Sasebo in Japan to get fixed up. Then we found there were no spare parts available nor could any be made and this really put our tail between our legs.
So there we lay alongside for about a week or 10 days in the middle of summer, and the Japanese summer can be pretty unpleasant, with everybody getting more and more depressed and the Captain pacing around like a caged tiger. This was another bad time. Eventually the spare parts were flown up from Australia and the stokers were able to put the pumps back together again and away we went on our second patrol. From then on everything in the ship worked perfectly.
A few days later we were on patrol along a part of the West Coast where undulating grass covered country sloped gently down to the sea. We were possibly a couple of miles out when some shell splashes were observed, not very close but obviously directed at us because there was no other target around. A quick inspection revealed a couple of tanks having a shot at us with quite small calibre weapons, a truck was there too. Anyway we opened fire on them and we hit one of the tanks which burned very nicely and we hit the truck too. The other tank got over the hill and was not seen again. This was a most valuable little action from the point of view of the morale of the ship, which thereafter never looked back. Bad luck for the chaps in the tank and truck though.
The following day the operations in the Han River commenced. Led by HMS Cardigan Bay, two Royal Navy frigates, a Republic of Korea frigate and Murchison, with ship’s boats out ahead sounding, made a hazardous journey through the uncharted estuary of the Han River, eventually arriving in a broad basin (‘Fork‘) where they came to anchor having covered 30 miles in 40 hours. At this stage of the war, for part of its course the Han comprised No Man’s Land between the Chinese forces on the North bank and the Allied forces holding the South bank. From this new anchorage the guns of the frigate could dominate a considerable area of enemy territory including several fair sized towns and at least one important rail junction.
On arrival in Fork there was some small calibre opposition; a few shell splashes which soon ceased and I cannot recall whether we ever spotted the source; certainly there was no brisk engagement. Whoever was doing the shooting must have withdrawn immediately because we were not shot at again whilst in Fork and in fact were given two months to consolidate before any further opposition manifested itself, at least as far as the ships were concerned anyway.
In these two months the ship’s boats assisted by some South Korean patrol boats moved all over the basin taking soundings and generally establishing the navigable channels which appear in the adjoining diagram – these were given such exotic names as Lambeth, Piccadilly and Woolloomooloo; the latter in Murchison’s honour. The small craft frequently came under rifle and machine gun fire which generally ceased abruptly when the ships in Fork provided cover by strafing the area from which it was coming with 4 inch high explosive and air bursts. During the same period the ships began to move about the established channels carrying out bombardments further and further inland until it was routine to move freely about all the channels marked on the diagram.
With a rise and fall of some 30 feet the tides ran very strongly in the estuary, up to six or seven knots, and the ships always carried out their operations on a rising tide to give the opportunity of freeing themselves in the event of stranding; in addition the turning areas at the end of each leg were so restricted that the ships found it necessary to turn on their anchors, a manoeuvre greatly assisted by the brisk tide from astern.
The Han River operations covered the period end of July 1951 to end of January 1952 with the ships rotating regularly: each spending 12 to 14 days in the river, which was generally occupied by three ships at any time and never less than two. An interesting point is that such was the expenditure of ammunition that ships proceeding to the river would carry with them a complete extra complement of 4 inch ammunition stowed on the upper deck to replenish the ships already there but with a few days to go. The framers of that excellent publication ‘Naval Magazine and Explosives Regulations‘ must have turned in their graves at the thought of such reckless conduct but its justification is that it achieved its object without incident.
On completion of a period in the river ships would return to Kure or Sasebo in Japan for a few days replenishment and unwinding before proceeding on a more normal type west coast patrol, so that generally speaking periods in the river comprised every second patrol. Destroyers were not employed on Han operations but every available frigate had its turn or turns and it so happened that Murchison with a total of 60 days in the river eventually took the record for length of time therein.
As a result of the frequent bombardments Murchison became quite the best gunnery ship I have ever been in. Granted her gunnery system was simple, but it just worked and that was that. Every other ship I have known always seems to have had some sort of hiccup. Comes the order ‘Shoot’ and nothing happens except lots of shouting or you find the director is looking one way and the guns another or when the Control Officer says ‘Action Starboard’ the whole lot train immaculately to port but Murchison’s gunnery was absolutely perfect, accuracy, drill, mechanics, electrics, the lot. However, when one considers that she fired an average of something like 100 rounds of 4 inch for every day she was in the river perhaps her excellence is not so surprising.
As the occupation of the Han progressed, with the ships expanding their patrol areas and bombarding daily, action firings became as routine to the ships as washing down decks or darken ship and Murchison settled down into a smooth running machine, totally efficient to the limits of the sophistication of her equipment. Those majority of her company so readily discarded by their former ships proved, indeed, that any previous misdemeanours had been prompted by boredom and lack of purpose engendered in them by service in a peacetime navy rather than by any basic defect in character.
A realisation of the vital importance of every man to the efficiency and in the ultimate case even the survival of the ship, and a rueful pride in a hard driving fighting skipper welded the ship’s company into a rock solid unit of the highest efficiency and dedication.
Then came Friday, 28th September 1951.
On 28th September Murchison was given the honour of showing Rear Admiral G.C. Dyer USN commanding the Escort and Blockade Forces around the river. He arrived on board accompanied by a fairly high powered staff and the first leg took us to Knife where we anchored and fired 50 or 60 rounds; then up anchor and along to Woolloomooloo and Sickle to Pall Mall. We were about half way along Sickle when shell splashes were observed in the mud at the water’s edge about half a mile short of us. Almost immediately we located the offending gun flashes which we engaged whilst the enemy fire quickly became much more accurate and we found ourselves under what I suppose might be termed moderate fire, which shortly included heavy machine gun (.5 in) fire.
As the ship passed the promontory between Sickle and Pall Mall about 100 yards off the shore we could see quite a lot of soldiers in the long grass firing rifles at us and our 40 mm Bofors were able to stir them up pretty well. The heavy guns seemed to be concealed in farmhouses, which presumably had been gutted to accommodate them. Having turned at Pall Mall on our way back the enemy fire slackened considerably and by the time the ship had returned to Fork we were pretty pleased with ourselves. It had been nasty for a while and the ship had been hit by quite a number of splinters and bullets but we had had only one casualty – a bullet through the arm – we had more or less silenced the enemy; our gunnery had been superb; everyone had acquitted himself well and the US Admiral told us he considered we had turned on an outstanding performance. It was an exhilarating moment. That was the Friday action.