Another post that may be unfamiliar to most on here. This is taken from a Book Called Cruiser by Mike Carlton. it is based on HMAS Perth, an Australian WWII Cruiser and her fate. I served on HMAS Perth II (modified Charles F Adams Class DDG), and when we went to Crete in 1991 for the 50th Anniversary, we had some of our WWII Predicessors onboard, and they were just as good on the light as they were back then. Again, Read and Enjoy. Taken from “The Cruiser” by Mike Carlton Signalling was one of the Navy’s most demanding skills, for officer and sailor. You needed a sharp eye, a quick brain and an iron constitution. In many respects, it had changed barely at all from the days of fighting sail. Long after the advent of wireless, which could be listened to by an enemy, much of the communication between ships by day was still done with flags, clusters of them sent soaring up halyards attached to the ship’s foremast. Over shorter distances, there was the semaphore system, where a signalman could send messages with a flag waved in each hand, letter by letter. And, on top of all that, the signal staff would have to be fully conversant in another language by night: Morse code. Signal projectors, similar to a searchlight, flashed and blinked their messages to and from far¸ starlit horizons, or through lowering storms that might reveal only a flickering pinpoint of light. Young Roberts had labouriously mastered a bewildering array of multicoloured flags shaped as rectangles, triangles or swallow-tails to represent each letter of the alphabet. There were more flags for numerals, and a complex international code employed by every ship at sea – warship or merchantman – plus the specific Naval codes and recognition signals to grasp. All up there were 201 flags and pennants in a ship’s locker. Each had to be instantly recognised, and the possibilities for confusion were countless. The most famous signal in Naval history, Nelson’s legendary “England expects that every man will do his duty” at Trafalgar in 1805, had required 1 flags flown in 12 separate groups. The codes had been simplified several times since then, but Rowley Roberts would find that transmitting messages from orders from ship to ship was still an exciting job, even on a calm sea in clear sunshine. Receiving them was more testing again. In filthy weather, on a rolling and pitching signal deck, with eyes red from sea spray and his binocular lenses smeared with salt, a signalman would strain to read small scraps of colour flying on another ship several miles off. The task became nigh-on impossible in a storm that blew those distant flags directly away from him, or on a howling night when the dots and dashes of a signal by lamp could so easily disappear in the gloom. But somehow it was done, for the safety of the ship might depend upon it. At best, a simple error or too long a delay in reading or sending a signal would bring down the wrath of the Captain or the Officer Of The Watch. At worst, a mistake could be fatal and occasionally it was. The job was both an art and a science. ’Bunting Tossers’, the signalman called themselves. They were the eyes of the Navy, proud of their abilities and entitled to be so. On the dock at circular Quay that Saturday morning, Rowley Roberts was one of an elite.
Posted on: Fri, 25 Jul 2014 15:08:26 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015