British Voices (7 page)

Details

This is an extract from the personnel papers of Commander De L'Faunce held at the Imperial War Museum in London. He was a naval cadet at the Royal Naval College Osborne from 1912 to 1913. He served as midshipman in the HMS
Hercules
with the 1st Battle Squadron of the Grand Fleet in 1916, seeing action at Jutland. He served as a Sub Lieutenant on the aircraft carrier, HMS
Vindictive,
from 1918 to 1919, including a period of service in Baltic waters. From 1920 to 1922, L'Faunce sailed on the HMS
Badminton
, a minesweeper, which was engaged in coastal patrols off Ireland, mainly in supply and support role to coastguard stations, but also targeting possible gun smuggling. After his service in Ireland he served in both submarines and aircraft carriers in the inter-war years.

A
FTER FINISHING THE
subs courses I was appointed to the twinscrew minesweeper,
Badminton
and joined her at Southampton whence we sailed the next day for Queenstown. Piggy Morgan, the skipper, told me that I was the navigator and he expected our working relations to be the same as if
Badminton
was a battleship and I was the fully qualified ‘N' specialist. Piggy was a navigator, and a very good one, himself, and this arrangement was excellent training for me, but I needed a lot of guidance at first in spite of my first class in the navigations course. It was a pity that we didn't have any long passages so that I could practice my book knowledge of astro-navigation.

The
Badminton
spent about half her time in Irish waters and half with the rest of the Mine-sweeping and Fishery Protection Flotilla at Portland. We were based at Galway some of the time, where we could take in coal and provisions, but spent a lot of time up and down the west coast with the object of hindering gun-runners – we never saw any – and in provisioning the isolated coast-guard stations and their marine garrisons, and finally, in evacuating some of them, men and belongings and furniture too. This was not always easy. To load our whalers up with furniture alongside a very rough stone pier with a big sea coming in, and to tow them off to the ship with our dinghy and a temperamental early outboard motor, was a slow, laborious business.

We hit some nasty weather occasionally. We tried for some days to evacuate a coastguard station on our exposed bit of coast near Achill Head. Eventually the weather worsened and we got underway at dusk with the idea of going back to Galway, as we would soon need to go there to coal anyway. However, the south west gale set up such a sea that we decided to put into Elly Bay, an inlet in Blacksod Bay, instead. After anchoring, we set anchor watch as the wind was now storm force. I had been on the bridge since we sailed but stayed up until midnight, when the other sub, Gott, was due for the middle watch. The messenger who went down to call him could not find him. His bunk had not been slept in and a thorough search of the ship failed to trace him. We never knew what happened to him. Twin-screw minesweepers were generally very dry and it was unusual to take green-water on deck, but when we turned across the sea to alter course for Blacksod, a big sea could have crashed on board on the port side and swept him aft and overboard.

It was on leaving Blacksod and heading south for Galway that we had an unusual experience. I was relieving No.1 on the bridge as Achill Head came abeam some four miles off. It was still blowing hard from the west and a big swell was coming in from the south west. I was looking at the chart when Maclean said: ‘Look at that – Port 30!' There appeared to be a depression in the sea a few cables ahead and to port. It did not look like a whirlpool, but the water was not breaking over quite a wide area. We only saw it as the ship rose on a swell and after a few minutes we could not see it any more and turned back to our proper course. The skipper, who we called, came up too late see it, and was sceptical – as everyone else has been who I have warned to look out for ‘a ‘hole in the sea' off Achill Head!

We were involved in one engagement with Sinn Féin. This was after the truce, when Irish were murdering Irish. We had occasionally delivered mail to a member of the new Senate who lived on the shore of the Kenmare River. We anchored off and sent in our dinghy with outboard, with an officer and one seaman. I was still on the bridge when the dinghy was on its way in. There was the sound of shots and I saw them splashing in the water round the dinghy, which Maclean quickly turned round and headed back. As the shots went on, I aimed the twin Lewis gun mounting on the bridge wing into the trees above the boat and let loose one burst. That stopped whoever was shooting.

We thought we might try to parley with our attackers and moved the ship opposite an evacuated coastguard station, which we had reason to believe was their headquarters. The men were at tea and the Captain, First Lieutenant, Chief Engineer and myself were having a cupper in the ward-room discussing what to do next. Suddenly there was a noise like hailstones on a corrugated iron roof. Our friends had opened up on us with a machine gun. I got up to the bridge, but we were out of effective Lewis gun range, and so I dropped over the front of the bridge to the forward gun platform where I found a stoker petty officer sheltering in the gun shield. The gun had been left with a shell in the breach. I finished loading, brought it to the ready, took gun-layer and directed the SPO who took trainer, and we put a shell through the front door of the Coastguard Station – a good shot. What effect it had apart from stopping whoever was shooting at us, we never heard. Our only casualty was the Chief who got a splinter off one of the guard rail stanchions in his trouser leg as he dived for the engine-room ladder from the ward-room. This drew blood but only just. We reported this ‘battle' to Queenstown and were told not to try to deliver the senator's mail.

At Queenstown we were able to use the Royal Cork Yacht Club, which had a lively bar and served a good dinner reasonably cheaply. There was one of the old-fashioned scales outside the dining room, the sort like an armchair with a rocking arm on which one adjusted weights until it balanced. One day an elderly member was found mumbling as he rose from the scales after a good dinner: ‘Most extraordinary phenomenon – most extraordinary phenomenon.' On enquiry he said that he had weighed 2 oz. less after his dinner than he had done before it.

At Portland, the seven sweepers of the flotilla, or those of them that were not off Ireland, lay alongside each other at the loading jetty, and went out of harbour frequently for sweeping exercises. There was great rivalry between the ships to put up the smartest performance passing sweep-wires and manoeuvring.
Badminton
was usually near the top of the league, and this may have led to her choice to accompany senior officer's ship
Sherborne
up to the west of Scotland for special trials. We made our main base at Oban but spent most of our time anchored at Kyle of Loch Alsh at night and doing trials with the new ‘Oropera' sweep in Raasay Sound or Inner Sound inside Skye by day. It was a lovely late summer and early autumn and a very pleasant interlude.

Details

The following details are taken from a memoir held in the Imperial War Museum in London. Penny transferred from the Australian Imperial Forces to the Royal Flying Corps in 1916. He served as a pilot and observer with the No.12 (Artillery Observation) Squadron in France in 1917, and with the No.36 (Night Flying) Squadron in England in 1918, and with the No.141 Squadron in Ireland in 1919. He was demoblished and returned to Australia after his service in Ireland.

N
OW THAT THE
War was over, we all wondered what the Air Board had in store for us in the immediate future, but having flown Bristol Fighters for many hours, I was posted to the famous 141 Bristol Fighter Squadron, then stationed at Biggin Hill in Kent. 141 was commanded by Major B.E. Baker, who had an outstanding record in a Fighter Unit in France. In the Second World War he became Air Marshal Sir Brian Baker. He was not a strong disciplinarian on the ground, but one who required every one of his pilots to be 100 percent efficient in every phase of flying. He was affectionately known as B.E. Biggin Hill is reasonably near to London and opportunity was taken by most of us to visit the city at frequent intervals after our flying and other duties had been concluded for the day. After spending a few happy weeks at Biggin Hill, 141 was ordered to proceed to Ireland as a complete unit and I went with them. Administrative and other personnel proceeded to their new destination via Holyhead and thence by boat to Dublin. All pilots flew the Bristol Fighters first to Castle Bromwich near Birmingham, thence to Liverpool and from there across the Irish Channel to Tallaght aerodrome located about seven miles from Dublin.

When we arrived in Tallaght the aerodrome was occupied by an English regiment under the command of Major the Hon Oliver Twistleton Wykeham-Fiennes. This unit was occupying the Officers' Mess and all other quarters and our C/O Major Baker wished to occupy the whole aerodrome and quarters for his officers and men. (We were temporarily housed at various hotels in Dublin.) I well remember the acrimonious discussion which took place between the two majors. Our major won!

I was accommodated at the Shelbourne Hotel in St Stephen's Green. Although outwardly we were treated with great respect there was an underlying current of hostility against anything English, especially those who were in British uniforms. This was the time of the ‘troubles', the Black and Tan, Sinn Féin era. Our aircraft meanwhile had been placed in hangars at Tallaght under strict guard day and night. After a few days in Dublin we took up our quarters at the airfield, established messes for officers, other ranks and WRAFs. We received warning that an attempt would be made to destroy our aircraft so we decided to place the aerodrome hangers and all living-quarters ‘out of bounds' to all but squadron personnel. Guards were placed at strategic intervals with orders to fire if any intruder failed to halt. The first night this order was put into operation another officer and myself
were leaving the mess when we heard a shot being fired in the vicinity of the hangars. We rushed to the scene to find that one of our guards had fired a shot at a civilian who had failed to halt after being given the necessary warning. It was a simple story of misunderstanding. At one end of the aerodrome there was a quarry and the intruder was the night watchman who every night had been accustomed to walking across the airfield to take up his night duties. He carried a lantern and the guard, seeing the light, ordered the person carrying it to halt. The man took no notice, so a shot was fired, the lantern dropped and the poor innocent watchman ran across the airfield, breaking all records. He was caught, and my fellow officer and I interviewed a very frightened and subdued Irishman who was only doing what he was accustomed to do for many months past. We accepted his explanation and think he understood the reason for the order, which had been imposed.

Our presence in Ireland was for the purpose of keeping peace and good order in Dublin and surrounding areas. Information was received to the effect that numbers of Sinn Féin or IRA troops were undergoing military training in the Wicklow Mountains, which at their highest peak reached 4,000 feet. With our Bristol fighters we searched the mountain sides and glens but rarely found anything of significance to report. One important event happened about this time. Attempts were being made to cross the Atlantic from west to east with no success, until John Alcock and Arthur Whitten Brown, in a Vickers Vimy, made their successful attempt, but running short of fuel they were forced to land at Clifden on the west coast of Ireland. We had been advised previously of this attempt and were ready to assist if it became necessary. On being advised of the mishap the C/O with another officer and myself ordered one of our best transport vehicles to be made available so we could proceed at once to the scene. When we arrived we found that the Vimy had ‘landed' in a bog area and had come to rest on its nose and wheels. Little damage had been done to the aircraft itself, so with the use of gear such as ropes, spades, shovels, etc., which we had brought along and with the very valuable assistance of dozens of Irish villagers, we were able to get the machine on to an even keel and by towing, pulling and shoving we moved it to a position where in the opinion of Capt Alcock he could take off. Only sufficient petrol was put in the tanks for the flight to England where they arrived safely. They received a wonderful welcome on the completion of this most meritorious flight, the first west to east flight from the United States. They received a well-deserved knighthood and I think a prize of £10,000. We were very happy to have been of some assistance to these very brave airmen whose flight was a momentous event in aviation history.