HMS Triumph - September 14, 1955 to February 8, 1956

 

Displacement: 13,350 tonnes

Length: 695 ft

Beam: 80 ft

Draught: 24.5 ft

Speed: 25 knots

Crew: 1300

So now I'm off to the Triumph - it's a light fleet carrier. Didn't mean diddly to me - could have been Noah's Ark as far as I'm concerned, but they're getting bigger as we go along. I get on board this thing, and go to the boy's mess deck - and you have to remember that even though the Navy is trundling me around like this - and "paying" me - my time in the Navy doesn't actually start until I'm 18. So they're getting free time up to this point.

So we're off to Scotland on the Triumph's Autumn Cruise. We left Plymouth - well, Devonport - on September 26 heading up the west coast to Invergordon (Sept 29-Oct 5), which I remember nothing about, and then to Rosyth on the east coast (Oct 6-7) for fueling and supplies. Then, we're heading for Leningrad (Oct 12-17), now called St Petersburg - and will spend 5 days there. The Triumph was among the first Allied ships to go to Russia after the war. So we go up the Neva River - and it was quite interesting because there were lots of dockyards on either side - and seeing a lot of women dockworkers. I remember when we got to Leningrad it was quite wide, but I think we went up the river stern first and that it took a few hours to get there. We lined up on the flight deck because it's a courtesy as Leningrad is a Naval base as well. Also, alongside the Union Jack and the Andrew, we had the Russian Naval Ensign flying on the masthead too. So we're moored and there's a possibility of organized trips ashore and they're doing bus tours. We had advisements to be very careful what we said on the coach - like you mustn't say anything derogatory about your hosts or anything that's going to be perceived as political, because we're still in the Cold War, and the buses were probably bugged. We went for a trip around the countryside and went to see something in one of the Russian theatres. They said if you get invited to someones home - you go the first time, but don't go again. There was somebody always following you.

We weren't allowed on the upper deck in our regular working gear - which was #8s. We had to wear our secondary blue serge suit. One night, one of the buoys broke loose, and we drifted right into shore, and the quarterdeck is overhanging the jetty, which it's not supposed to be doing. So the jetty is here, and the stern is about 35 feet higher. So we're all up on the flight deck looking at them, and all of them looking at us. Anyway, somebody started a singsong - not canteen songs, but British songs, like White Cliffs of Dover and all this patriotic stuff. There was always a big crowd on the jetty - they weren't kept away from us. We weren't in a dockyard - two steps off the ship and you were in the main street. Anyway, when we finished, then somebody on the jetty started singing a Russian song. And for the 3 or 4 nights we were there this became a regular occurrence. Late one evening, a Russian got a bit enthusiastic and he got pushed into the chuck. So this guy climbs out of the water, he stood there, took all his clothes off, wrung them out, and put them back on. Nobody batted an eyelid.

I was always impressed with the public transport - the trams. They'd go beetling down the street, and they'd sort of semi-stop, people would pile on and off while it's still going, and there'd be arms and legs hanging off all over the place. On every corner there was a soldier, with a big long coat and the long black boots and a Tommy gun of some sort over his left arm. People were big on those souvenir badges - they were just as potty then as they are now about these things. We exchanged several of those - but I don't have them anymore. A couple of us got invited for eats at a local cafe with some guy, and I think the main part of the dinner was raw fish and vodka - or as the gentleman so delicately put it "Russian white wine". People were super-friendly once they got used to us. Nobody got into trouble ashore, because you'd be hung, drawn and quartered if you did.

So, we've departed Leningrad and we're back out in the Baltic Sea. And the Russian Naval Ensign gets taken down and stowed on the Flag deck in a little cubby hole along with all kinds of other flags. I thought "this would be a nice memento of our trip to Russia". So one night when I was on watch, I took a little stroll around the back of the flag deck and sort of relieved it from it's spot; tucked it in my sweater and quickly left the scene. I put it in my locker. There was never any hue and cry about this flag disappearing, so I guess it couldn't have been that important. I just "borrowed" it before someone else did. It now resides on a wall in the Army, Navy and Airforce Institute where I live. :)

So, there's a 3-badge Killick (Leading Seaman) in charge of the boy's mess deck, and as far as I can remember he was a grumpy Scots bugger, but he couldn't help where he came from. One day we're doing something up on the upper deck, can't remember what, and he told us to go and do something else, and most of us read the message as "Go back into the boy's mess deck until I come and tell you what to do." So we're sitting there waiting for this guy, and then he comes in and says "What are you doing here? You should be there." And I says to him "No, you didn't tell us to do that." And he says "Well, I'm going to charge you!" I thought, well you miserable bastard. I still believe to this day he forgot what he said, and didn't handle it very well. I can't remember what punishment we got - extra duties; cleaning up. Because when everyone's finished supper, they have cleaning up - that's a punishment. The object of punishment aboard ship is to make your life inconvenient from the daily routine for about a week, so that you understand what's been said to you. I still think we were wronged.

Just after that, I graduate from boy seaman to Ordinary Seaman (Oct 22). I've been moved out of the boy's mess deck and I'm in the real Navy, and finding somewhere to hang your hammock (your 'mick) - well, it's really inconvenient, because you're low man on the totem pole. The older hands had the best billets. And in the greater scheme of things, you're really insignificant when you're in this big mess deck with all these guys that have one badge, two badges - means they've been in 4 years, 8 years or whatever. And really, the only thing distinguishing you as an Able Seaman is a conduct badge on your left arm when you turn 22. On your regular suits it's red, on your best suit it's gold. Other than that, not much has changed for me - I'm still not drawing my grog. And the money, such as it was, was slightly better.

And then we head down into the Med to a place called Pollensa (Oct 29-Nov 3), and I can't remember that - it must have been really exciting. Then we go to Ville Franche (Nov 4-9) on the French Riviera. I thought "this is going to be nice". Well we're anchored out in the bay (anchored being you've dropped the hook - moored being on a buoy). So because there's no jetty, you have to go ashore by boat. And some of the other guys in the mess deck said "Come on Hancock, you've got to come ashore with the sailors now". So we go into this bar and we're sitting there chatting, having a couple of French beers and bullshitting about life in the Navy, and I'm sort of awed - these are real sailors I'm with. Then one said "Oh, it's about time, isn't it?" The other guy agreed. So they call this lady over - and all I remember is that she had dark hair - and one guy says "This lady's going to show you something, Hank. You'd better go with her." I think they'd paid her already, right? So I went into the back room with this "lady" and well, I'll skip the gory details, and later when I got back all the other sailors applauded. I must have gone about ten shades of red. I guess that was my inniation into sailor-hood.

Then we get to Malta (Nov 11-18) - been there, done that. Been in the Navy all of a year, and feel like an old hand by now. There's not much in Malta to go ashore for. Well, there's bars, but I'm too young for that. You go anywhere near these bars, which have been operating since forever, and they say "you can't come in here, you're too young". "But I'm a sailor!" "Go away."

From Malta we went to Aranci Bay (Nov 19-24) in Corsica, then onto Barcelona. Now you have to remember we're in the sunny Mediterranean here - blue skies, calm seas. But there are times when the Med can be as ugly as any ocean or body of water in the world. We went from Aranci Bay to Barcelona, and there were times when the bow of this light fleet carrier - whose bow is about 60 feet above the water - and we had winds of 100 mph and the bow was dipping in the ocean. So if you can imagine this thing slipping and sliding over waves 60 or 70 feet high. Yes, people were sick - only the strongest survived. And it wasn't me, I tell you. Of course, being an aircraft carrier, you always have to have a support vessel - either a destroyer or a frigate - because if you're flying planes you have to have a rescue boat in case one of the planes dumps itself into the ocean and the ship will then come and rescue said pilot. I think the ship we had for our escort was HMS Venus and it's a frigate, and we are an aircraft carrier, and if we're having trouble in these waves, then god knows what these guys on the frigate were thinking. I got brave enough at one point to get up on the upper deck and smell some fresh air, and I looked for the Venus and all I could see was a little bit of metal sticking up out of the ocean - that was the mast - the rest was submerged for the rest of the time. The storm lasted most of the night - about 16 hours, I guess. For a ship that big to be that overwhelmed by the weather was quite awe inspiring, and frightening to a certain extent.

So we get to Barcelona Nov 25-30) - and it's almost like sailors have a homing device when they get ashore. They know the place they're not supposed to go and that's the place they head for. I think we were there for 2 or 3 days - took a couple of bus trips.

Then the Triumph went to Gibraltar for a few days (Dec 2-8) - everybody has to stop at Gib - and then back home to Plymouth (Dec 12/55). We'd covered 9010 miles on our journey.