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Memories of Stan Hannaford as a naval officer from 1940.
My early days in the navy were spent at HMS St George. I was quartered in Howstrake Holiday Camp. My instructors were Chief Tel Doggett and Yeoman King. Names remembered from that era include George Eady, Tom Green, Totty Glanville, Bill Cooper, Don Mitchell, Alfie Hammond, Claude Boshier, Bob Thompson and Con Rowland
Boys were not allowed to smoke or have smoking materials and this inevitably led to some trying to get cigarettes and matches into the camp. This resulted with us being searched going in, not out and woe betide anyone caught with cigs or matches.
I was sent to Guildford Tech to learn electronic circuitry. Being wartime, the lecturers did not know how these circuits were to be used. We went to HMS Valkyrie and found how they were used in Radar. Since we were to be Radio Mechanics we took a trip to HMS Mercury to find out about wireless equipment.
I was now a Leading Radio Mechanic and I changed from C/JX 245646 to P/MX 125450
I then joined HMS Westminster - Rosyth Escort Force - East Coast Convoys. I became one of the 'Headache operators' listening for E boat transmissions in German. The almost inevitable German convoy spotter plane off Flamborough Head, affectionately referred to as 'Flamborough Freddie'
HMS Westminster was an old V and W boat, my father's last ship was HMS Versatile, another V and W circa 1918.
This is where I became Charlie as well as Lofty and picked up my PO's rate. On going aboard for the first time I slung my kitbag (with my name C S HANNAFORD stencilled across bottom strap) down into the mess, it was picked up by Paddy Dacey who immediately said 'Ah Charlie' and the name stuck.
Other characters I remember from that time include Jimmy Nolan, L/Sig Hinchcliffe - skipper Bowerman. I remember runs ashore to Dunfermline and Edinburgh and using the Nethertown public baths on ladies day provided we kept quiet!!!
We had Boiler cleaning leave which was for four days - one to travel home - bus to Inverkeithing, train to Edinburgh, Edinburgh to Kings Cross, cross London, train to Plumstead - two days at home - one travelling back. I never ever got a seat, only the suitcase in the corridor the whole way.
I remember spending part of my 21st birthday up the mast in snow on a radar aerial. We had the odd run ashore at Immingham with a trip to Grimsby and when we got back to Immingham we found the gangway almost vertical due to a twenty-foot tide drop. There were a few accidents after an evening at the Mucky Duck in Grimsby!
At the end of the war we did courier runs to Rotterdam, Oslo, Christiansand South, Bergen and Tromso with the forecastle piled high with potatoes and other food. We got a good welcome everywhere.
I was then sent to HMS Collingwood. I was an instructor on the gunnery radars until I decided to take a trade course to change to artificer. I made REA3 a week after and made up to CREL so I never did sew on the badges.
Names from this era that I remember are John Henson, Jim Smithers and Tom Bainbridge. We trooped out to the Far East on Bibby Line Lancashire to Port Said, Aden, Colombo, Singapore and Hong Kong and then I was moved on to HMS Cossack, my home for the next 2½ years.
HMS Cossack - Captain D 8th DF. I recall Hong Kong harbour full of Royal Navy Ships, most out at buoys. Immediately on joining our feet were measured for sandals, this only needed doing once in the whole time out there and we got replacements whenever needed.
Everything was strange at first but it soon became natural and home. I remember Liberty boats, the China Fleet Club, Wanchai and Happy Valley.
Then we went to sea for a month's patrol off Yangtze awaiting the escape of HMS Amethyst (July 1949). The evaporators were dodgy, and so we did not have much water, I can still remember the call 'Slope awnings, out buckets, it's raining', so we could catch the rainwater!
My first trip to Japan, the Shimoneseki Straits, Inland Sea, Kure. My very first time ashore in Kure, having walked quite a way out of town, I was offered a lift by an Australian jeep going back to their mess. I found I was sitting next to Colin Hannaford Sgt RAASC. I eventually became an Honorary Member of their mess.
The currency was Scrip dollars for American goods, BAFV's (British Armed Forces Vouchers) and of course Yen. At that time the yen was 1760 to the pound and a bottle of beer cost 400 yen!
No one who was aboard will easily forget Kagoshima. We were just beginning to enjoy showing the flag where no forces had been before and the Korean War started so we were off to Subic Bay to join up with the 1st American Task Force - carrier chasing.
Stan Hannaford, 2001
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