THE DEPLOYMENT OF H.M.S.
‘KIRKLISTON’ (LT.CDR. I.A. ROBINSON)
WITH H.M.S. ‘SHERATON’ (LT.
CDR. J. WATSON)
FROM HONG KONG TO MALAYSIAN WATERS
FROM 29TH
MAY, 1970 – 5TH JULY, 1970.
The Ships sailed from
Hong Kong
at 1000 on 29th May and set course for
Labuan.
The passage was calm and uneventful. Routine exercises were
carried out and ships arrived in
Labuan
at 1000 local time on 1st June to be met with a host
of invitations from COMNAVEAST. We were able to meet a number
of these, including an R.P.C. for Officers at 1200 and sport for
ship’s companies during the afternoon. Leave was granted until
1800 and ships sailed for
Singapore
at 2000 after replenishing and a most enjoyable 8 hours with our
hosts, the Royal Malaysian Navy.
Our passage to
Singapore
was choppy for the first night and day, including frequent
tropical downpours, but otherwise uneventful and we secured
alongside H.M.S. Blake in the stores
basin
of
SNB
at 1400 on Friday, 5th June.
On arrival it became immediately apparent from the reception
party that Minehunters were in
demand for a number of jobs. The most important of these being
a sea demonstration of the capabilities of Type 193 sonar and
the minehunting system in
conjunction with a shore presentation to the Royal Malaysian
Navy and the Singapore Armed Forces. Other tasks were to
include the hunting for a crashed R.A.F. Lightning aircraft,
looking for a lost submarine torpedo and exercise MATLOCK. The
problem was how all this could be fitted into our short
deployment in
Singapore
waters. The aircraft accident had occurred in the Malacca
Straits about 8 hours steaming time from
Singapore,
and the torpedo had been lost in the vicinity of
Pulau Tioman.
We had been fully briefed on the sales presentation prior to
leaving
Hong Kong
and its importance had been made well known. A short rehearsal
for this took place on Monday, 8th June.
On Monday evening, both ships gave a combined informal cocktail
party attended by COMFEF and a number of his Staff Officers and
their wives.
Both ships sailed at 0600 on Tuesday, 9th June and
made passage for the Datum area of the Lightning aircraft
crash. We arrived and commenced hunting at 1430. The initial
area was of 9 square miles and three quarters of this was
completed by 0030 on 10th June. ‘Sheraton” was
detached at 2100 to arrive in Port
Swettenham in time for a further presentation rehearsal
as at this stage Lieut. Cdr. Watson was planned to give a talk
on M.T.G., which was subsequently not required. A shore side
berth was provided at Port Swettenham.
This proved to be a small jetty near the new Marine Department
building, not shown on the chart and ‘Sheraton’ had an
interesting time making it out between myriads of small boats.
‘Kirkliston’ secured alongside
‘Sheraton’ at 1200 on Wed. 10th June and I was met by
a car and whisked to
Kuala Lumpur
in time for the main shore presentation to the Royal Malaysian
Navy.
Both ships sailed at 0900 on Thursday, 11th June with
15 Royal Malaysian Navy Observers
on board each ship for the sea demonstration of the
Minehunting system.
The area chosen was large for what amounted to only 5 hours
minehunting time. Bottom conditions
were type 2 to type 4 and the speed of search was slow. By the
end of the demonstration, only one mine had been found by
‘Sheraton’, however, on seeing the mining plan after the
exercise, it was gratifying to see that no mines had been
missed, the remaining three mines were not found owing to the
ground not having been covered. The observers were impressed
with the assortment of other metallic objects found, including 5
gallon paint drums, also four mines were laid in the
northern quarter of the area. The
reason given by the Malaysian Minelayer was “to make sure the
minehunters would not say that they
were finding mines when there weren’t any.” This reason did not
satisfy Captain Jessop, who was the
senior Royal Malaysian Navy representative present and was on
board ‘Kirkliston’ in the southern
half of the area. He was annoyed that his staff had allowed him
to witness a demonstration of finding mines, knowing full well
that there were none to be found.
On completion of the wash up of the sales demonstration ashore,
both ships slipped at 1900 on 11th June and made
passage for the crashed Lightning area to complete the search.
Hunting commenced at 0530 on the morning of 12th June
and having found nothing significant in the initial 9 square
miles, the area was extended by 1 mile all
round, which increased the overall task to 26 square
miles. Bottom conditions were good type one but very muddy,
there being over six feet of silt in many places. In view of
the time given to complete this, a fast search on main engines
was carried out and, although a number of contacts were found
and dived on, there was not a trace of any aircraft parts.
At 2000, both ships left the area and made passage for Singapore
Naval Base, arriving at 0830 on Saturday, 13th June.
A further demonstration of the minehunting
system was given to the Singapore Armed Forces on Monday, 15th
June. This consisted of the same shore presentation as that
given to the Royal Malaysian Navy in the forenoon, followed by a
3 hour sea demonstration during the afternoon. Two areas in the
Straits of Johore were
selected, both proved to have many
bottom contacts and were close to type 4 areas. One mine had
been laid in each area by the Singaporeans and ‘Kirkliston’
found and recovered the one in her area on the third dive.
‘Sheraton’ was unlucky on this occasion and did not, in fact,
reach the position of her mine. On return to
harbour at 1830, a post
demonstration wash-up was held.
The main MCMV force slipped from S.N.B. and the R.M.N. jetty at
1400 on Tuesday, 16th June for ‘Exercise MATLOCK’. ‘Kirkliston’
and ‘Sheraton’, however, were not with them. ‘Sheraton’ was
sailed one hour earlier to hunt for a lost torpedo to the north
of Pulau Tioman
for 5 hours, whilst the other ships made a slower passage to
Dungan, the main mine exercise
area. ‘Kirkliston’ developed a
defect to her A/C electrical machine switch, which delayed her
sailing by three quarters of an hour. The defect had been
worked on throughout the previous night by
Sembawang shipyard and the Fleet Maintenance Group, but
rectification was hampered by the lack of drawings. The trouble
was finally solved and the ship joined the main force off
Johore Shoal Buoy.
The main force consisted of 6 minesweepers and 3
minehunters with R.F.A. ‘Gold
Ranger’ as support ship with CTG 901.2 embarked. On passage,
all ships were at action stations for a proportion of the night,
during which an F.P.B. attack took place. ‘Kirkliston’
took charge of H.M.A.S. ‘Curlew’ and H.M.A.S. ‘Ibis’ forming a 3
ship Surface Attack Group and a spirited engagement ensued with
all ships firing break up shot and 2 inch rocket flares.
‘Sheraton’ was still detached, but carried out a strenuous flank
attack on what turned out to be a number of startled fishing
boats.
The main force arrived at Dungan as
planned. I was CTU 901.2.3 in charge of the
minehunting
operations and on arrival the Hunters carried out a fast
route search down the main entrance channel, some 13 miles
long. A large number of mine-like
contacts were detected and reported and at the subsequent
wash-up it was found that only one
mine had been missed.
The initial minehunting task was the
clearance of the anchorage box, an area of approximately 6
square miles. H.M.A.S. ‘Curlew’, the third
minehunter who had been plagued with defects since
arrival in the exercise area became non-operational, and ‘Kirkliston’
and ‘Sheraton’ cleared the entire area after 18 hours of task
time, each ship finding and recovering 6 'A' MK 12 mines. The
minesweepers were working in the channel and were most reluctant
to stand down to let us in, after working off possibly a number
of ship counts they were keen to see results. CTG 901.2 had a
problem as to what to do with the
minehunters. He temporarily solved this the following
day by standing us down off a beautiful beach, but this could
not be a lasting solution!
‘Curlew’ became operational and all three ships were sailed the
following day to an area approximately 30 miles further north to
locate and recover 10 ground mines laid some 8 months before,
for a Royal Malaysian Navy exercise called ‘Flying Fish’. These
mines were Malaysian owned and they were keen to get them back.
After 16 hours’ task time all mines were recovered;
‘Kirkliston’ finding 4,
‘Sheraton’ 2 and ‘Curlew’ 4. The mine echoes were interesting
in that generally all that was seen was a small flash of side
echo coming from the edge of a large hole. The mines were at
the bottom of 6 foot tidal holes in the shingle. On completion
of this task, ships rejoined the main force off
Dungan.
The task unit was then stood down for another day before being
allowed into the channel. The minesweepers had had a certain
amount of success in our absence and had also suffered a large
number of breakdowns, so by this stage they were quite glad to
suffer any loss of face the use of
minehunters might entail.
The monsoon current in the 13 mile channel was very strong,
ranging from a steady 1½kts at the shoreward end to 4
kts at the seaward end. The
minesweepers had been using an angle Echo of 16 degrees. This
made diving conditions for 2/3rds of the channel impossible and,
although mines were detected and classified
correctly and could have been destroyed by the Mine
Disposal Weapon in time of war, only two could be recovered at
the shoreward end. A number of moored mine sinkers were also
recovered.
During the Mine recovery phase in the channel, the force was
under air attack, but both friendly and enemy aircraft were in
the area and, although ships fired break up shot when attacked,
the Air Defence Picture was confused to say the least.
‘Curlew’ suffered a further breakdown during the Mine recovery
phase and proceeded with the minesweepers when they left the
area, ‘Kirkliston’ and ‘Sheraton’
remaining behind for a final unsuccessful battle with the strong
current.
Both ships left the area and rejoined the main force off
Horsburgh Light on the morning of 26th
June prior to returning to Singapore Naval Base.
The Exercise proved the effectiveness of our
Minehunting system Of 20 ground
mines laid for ‘Matlock’, 14 were recovered and the remainder
detected. As a bonus, we were able to return to the Malaysians
10 further ‘A’ Mk 12 mines, which
they had reluctantly written off. This in itself backed up one
of the sale arguments put to them that mines used in an exercise
can be recovered and used again. Final Ship recovery scores
were ‘Kirkliston’ 12, ‘Sheraton’ 8
and ‘Curlew’ 4.
Logistic support during ‘Matlock’ was limited. Gemini petrol
had to be obtained from ashore and fresh victuals were not
available except through the generosity of the Master of R.F.A.
‘Gold Ranger’, who willingly supplied ‘Sheraton’ from his own
ship’s stocks on one occasion. Due to our commitments prior to
‘Matlock’, there had been little time to liaise with the Royal
Malaysian Navy prior to the exercise and, had I known the
situation in advance, both ships would have put stocks of
provisions in the support ship prior to sailing.
Both ships berthed in Singapore Naval Base at 1400 on Friday, 26th
June. We were met on arrival by a team of Officers with charts
of the Lightning crash probability area and it became apparent
that we would be employed in another hunt for the crashed
aircraft prior to departing for
Hong Kong.
An Orion aircraft fitted with MAD gear had detected five large
metallic contacts, three of which were in the area which had
already been searched.
After essential maintenance had been carried out over the
weekend and after the Post Exercise discussion on Exercise
Matlock MCM Phase, both ships sailed at 1300 on Monday, 29th
June for the area of the Lightning crash to investigate all five
MAD contacts.
Hunting commenced at 2100 and the task was completed by 0300.
The area of each MAD contact was thoroughly searched, but the
only significant contacts were an old wreck about 1,000 yards
outside the original area and a metallic contact which had been
detected inside the area on the original search, but once again
proved to be too far down in the mud to be located and
identified by the divers.
Due to the inaccuracies of MAD in shallow water and the type of
contact it is designed to detect, it is doubtful if it can be of
very much assistance in the search for a crashed, probably badly
broken up aircraft.
Both ships commenced changing domes at 0400 in a severe
rainstorm. ‘Kirkliston’s davit’s
non return ratchet failed during the lowering of the hard dome.
The weight of the dome pulled the purchase wire out to the
securing bolt and parted both lifting wires. New lifting wires
were rigged by divers, but the whole operation delayed the
ships’ sailing time by 2 hours.
Both ships left the Lightning area at 0700 Tuesday, 30th
June and set course for the Singapore Exercise Areas. An AA
firing at a Rushton target was
programmed at 1600.
On arrival at the exercise area, cloud base proved too low for
the aircraft to stream its target and an AA tracking exercise
and Gun Direction exercise was carried out instead.
Ships left the exercise area at 1645 and headed for a
pre-arranged rendezvous with R.F.A. ‘Gold Ranger’. This was
achieved at 2200 and the force set course for
Hong Kong.
Both Minehunters replenished at sea
on the 2nd July. Conditions for this were marginal,
with a large swell and force 5 winds from the south-west.
‘Sheraton’ had an interesting experience at the very end of the
fuelling when she had luckily disconnected the hose, but was
still attached by slip rope and distance line. Her Coxswain
reported that the steering joystick had come away in his hand
and only some violent engine orders and emergency slipping
prevented the ships coming together.
‘Kirkliston’ and ‘Sheraton’
proceeded independent of ‘Gold Ranger’ on completion of the
R.A.S. and anchored in Junk Bay at 0300 on Sunday, 5th
July, prior to finally securing alongside in H.M.S. ‘Tamar’ at
0800.
The serviceability of both ships during the detachment was
good. During exercise Matlock, no time on task was lost due to
breakdowns. This was partly due to the good state in which both
ships had left Tamar and partly to the excellent performance of
the ships’ staff technical rates, who had weekends only in which
to carry out maintenance and repairs.
Iain A. Robinson
Lt.Cdr. Royal
Navy
Commanding Officer HMS Kirkliston
