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Happy Days
IT IS (a) unusual and, generally speaking, (b) unwise to
upstage the Royal Marines.
But as the green berets knuckled they’re getting for their money,” he
down to their trademark display taking said of his £1bn warship.
down ‘terrorists’ on the Hamoaze, the “It gives us a chance to brag about
youngsters of Tameside Sea Cadets what we do – and this ship is worth
knuckled down to their trademark bragging about. You look at the lads
display: performing on the window showing people around and they’re
ladder. smiling – although they do get a bit
And so it was that the hundreds of annoyed when the public call Daring
people gathered on the vast deck of a ‘boat’. She’s a ship, not a boat. Boats
RFA Mounts Bay found themselves sink, ships don’t.”
captivated not by Royals’ jumping out Navy Days was the RN’s showcase
of helicopters and whizzing about in event of 2009… and like every other
raiding craft, but by the gymnastics showpiece in 2009 it wasn’t exactly
of Sea Cadets to a Thunderbirds and blessed with the fi nest of weather.
Superman soundtrack. But that didn’t stop more than
So for those who didn’t see the 20,000 people fi ling through the
‘dynamic display’ on and above the Devonport gates.
water at this year’s Navy Days in Once inside they found a ‘village’
Plymouth, here’s what you missed. dedicated to the Royal Marines
It was typical bad-guys-seize- (complete with enormous cardboard
tug-demanding-response-from-Sea- cut-out green beret), marching
Kings-Merlins-raiding-craft-HMS- bands plus Her Majesty’s own Royal
Tracker-green-berets-abseiling-from- Marines band performing, they saw
helicopter-with-gunfire-rippling- the Royal Navy Raiders parachute
across-the-water fare – all carried out display team drop in, trailing White
with typical aplomb, as you’d expect, Ensigns beneath them, the Hawk jets
by the Royal Marines (aided by their from FRADU passing low over the
Fleet Air Arm and Surface Fleet water, the Black Cat Lynx display
brethren, of course). team pirouetting in the sky, and, if
Meanwhile the cadets – who not distracted by the Sea Cadets, that
performed their famous ladder display on the river.
display at half past the hour aboard At least one in 24 visitors to the
the auxiliary, hence the ‘clash’ with show (1,048 persons to be precise)
the commandos – completed their toured HMS Tracker (the smallest
performance to generous applause vessel on show by some 1,623 tonnes)
from the crowd aboard the large which just made it to the two-day
landing support ship. event.
As the cadets fi nished, a torrent of The patrol boat left home in
people headed for the passageways in Portsmouth on Commanding Offi cer
the RFA’s superstructure. Lt Conor O’Neill’s second day in
“Either it’s raining or a display’s charge, sailed straight into near gales
fi nished,” C/Sgt Roger Elsley, Mounts which forced her to take shelter in the
Bay’s senior warrant offi cer, observed sanctuary of Dartmouth, and by the
drily. junior offi cer’s fi fth day in command
Both actually. But they were he and his ship’s company – full-
interested in what was aboard Mounts time RN sailors and students from
Bay (roughly 500 people fi led through Oxford, Oxford Brookes and Reading
the ship every hour). Where else, for universities – were performing in front
example, could youngsters squirt of several thousand people.
fi re hoses or build Airfi x kits (dozens Navy Days hasn’t been staged in
of visitors could be found pensively Devonport since 2006 (although there
fi tting together small plastic models in was a similar ‘Meet Your Navy’ event
the ship’s cavernous loading dock)? last year in Portsmouth). It does,
Mounts Bay was one of a dozen concedes Lt Cdr James Edwards,
warships, submarines (including the Somerset’s weapon engineer offi cer,
Dutch Walrus) and auxiliaries on “demand quite a lot of work”.
show from the very small (Tracker) But he continues: “Our people
to the very large (Ocean), from the really enjoy talking to people, giving
veteran (Trafalgar and Roebuck) to them an understanding of what we
the brand new (Daring). do.
Or as one elderly visitor buttonholed “There’s a general ignorance about
a member of the Type 45 destroyer’s the Navy in Britain, but that’s not
ship’s company: “You’re the oldest mirrored by the people who attend
ship in the Fleet. When are you Navy Days – and they’re particularly
decommissioning?” impressed by the attitude of our
In about 40 years… (I think he young sailors.”
confused Daring with HMS Exeter – Some of the older ones were quite
Ed.) enthusiastic too. “I want to be a
There was a constant stream of gunbuster,” one youngster told CPO
visitors passing through Daring. Steep Steve Hull aboard Somerset. He
ladders meant they couldn’t get up picked the right man, for the chief
to the bridge, but they could see the looks after the frigate’s guns… and
cutting-edge ops room. There they promptly gave the boy a special tour
would have found CPO(AWT) Dean of the relevant parts of the ship.
Button, not just a good advert for the But then that’s what Navy Days is
ship, but for the RN. about. Sure people want to see how
“I love my job,” he told visitors. £1bn of taxpayers’ money’s been
“I cannot wait to get to work in the spent, they want to clamber around
morning.” the biggest ship in the RN (HMS
The senior rate is CHOPS(R) – the Ocean for the record), but all that hi-
ops room chief when it comes to all tech kit is nothing without the people
things radar. He and 24 shipmates behind it.
volunteered to show the public around ■ Navy Days next year moves back
Daring. up the coast to Portsmouth from
“People are interested in what July 30-August 1
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