12 NAVY NEWS, FEBRUARY 2010
No.6
Tiger ayes
Aircraft: Merlin HM1
Engines: 3 x Rolls Royce
Turbomeca 2,200shp gas
turbines
Rotor Span: 18.6m
Length: 22.8m
Speed: 167kt
Crew: one pilot; one
observer; one aircrewman
es
Endurance: operational
radius of over 200 nautical
miles
Sensors: GEC Marconi
Blue Kestrel 5000 radar;
Thales Flash AQS 950
dipping sonar; GEC-
Marconi sonobuoy acoustic
processor
Weapons: 4 Stingray
torpedoes or Mk 11 Mod 3
A Merlin from 814 NAS conducting a Helicopter Infl ight Refuelling (HIFR) on HMS Ark Royal; behind it can be seen a Sea King ASaC of 854 NAS
Picture: LA(Phot) Gregg Macready
●
depth bombs
Motto: in hoc signo vinces
THE Flying Tigers of 814 Naval Air Squadron safely together all around the ship in all conditions – After repairs from a minor collision with the – after the
saw out 2009 in style, embarked on HMS
these two weeks of OST are essential in re-establishing AMC Corfu, she joined efforts to contain the pocket squadron had
Facts and figur
Ark Royal and helping the men and women
the basics after Ark Royal’s recent refit. battleship Graf Spee. served on ships
of the carrier complete their operational sea
“814 NAS has had a long association with HMS It was while she was in convoy from Trincomali Bulwark and Hermes, and played a role in the
training package.
Ark Royal and they will be a vital part of our Carrier to the Maldives that she was attacked and sunk by evacuation of Cyprus – and in addition 814 was
Strike Group when we deploy for operations.” Japanese aircraft in April 1942 – but the Swordfish of the first Naval squadron fitted with passive sonar
Marked out by their distinctive tiger nose cones,
It was indeed on Ark Royal, but an earlier 814 NAS had left her at the start of the month. equipment.
the Merlins will be returning to their floating home
incarnation, that the nascent 814 NAS began its life The squadron next formed up with Barracudas in It was in April 1976 that the squadron settled in
next month as Ark Royal assumes the mantle of the
after forming up in December 1938 with six Fairey the summer of 1944 to embark in HMS Venerable Cornwall’s RNAS Culdrose – where it has remained
UK’s Strike Carrier.
Swordfish aircraft. for the Far East. to this day; although its aircraft have been through
The Merlin HM1 maritime patrol squadron will
At the outbreak of war, 814 and its aircraft moved Post-war the squadron adapted to a succession of both reincarnations and total transformations.
join the ship as she heads westwards for exercises
on to HMS Hermes – Hermes’ aircraft, limited Fireflys, Avengers and Gannets in the anti-submarine The Sea King moved through its Mk5 and Mk6
with the US and Canadian navies and the US
endurance and stability did not particularly suit warfare role. incarnations through the last two decades of the 20th
Marine Corps for Exercise Auriga over the spring and
European seas, so she was principally used for convoy Then in 1960 814 NAS welcomed its first rotary century. The HAS 6 Sea King was called upon to fly
summer months.
protection in the South Atlantic and Indian Ocean. wing – the Whirlwind helicopter. From Whirlwind from carrier HMS Invincible during the Gulf, Bosnia
Ark’s Commander Air Cdr Al ‘Rocky’ Salmon
She enjoyed a brief spell working off Africa; and to Wessex, in 1967 the Wessex Mk3 brought the and Kosovo conflicts as the century drew to an end.
welcomed the men and women of the squadron
in July 1940 six of her 814 NAS Swordfish attacked squadron its first radar-equipped ASW helicopter. And 814 marked the birth of the new millennium
on board saying: “An aircraft carrier absolutely
the Vichy French ship Richelieu at Dakar – against A brief lull saw the squadron out of commission (depending on the year you start the count) by
requires the embarked air squadrons to be completely
the onslaught of concentrated anti-aircraft fire the between 1970 and 1973, before bursting back onto disbanding in December 2000.
integrated with the ship as one team. Swordfish only managed one successful hit, but the scene in 1973 at HMS Gannet with the new Sea But ten months later the Flying Tigers were back
“This needs time at sea to develop an understanding the damage was extensive enough to take the new Kings ASW Mk1. – the striped faces now borne (subtly) upon the body
of each others’ capabilities so that we can operate 35,000-ton battleship out of action for over a year. The new Mk 2 ASW Sea King arrived in 1977 of the Merlin HM1.
photographic
HEROES OF THE ROYAL NAVY No. 70
Gunner’s Mate PO George
Oatley, Albert Medal 2nd Class
FOR centuries merchantmen and whalers had The merchantmen looked doomed, until Oatley
mustered off the headland of Buchan Ness, the decided to take a more direct course of action –
southern ‘book end’ of the two natural harbours he stripped off his clothes and plunged into the
at Peterhead. icy waters of the bay.
From the roadstead, ships sallied forth for Oatley made for the rocks using the breast
Archangel, Spitsbergen, the New World. stroke – a contemporary life-saving manual
The twin harbours offered shelter and held up his deed as an example of the “value of
sustenance to mariners, but the rocky breast swimming” – and when he reached the
promontory of Buchan Ness offered only death Augusta, the crew threw a line down to him and
and destruction. hauled him aboard.
Renowned Scottish civil engineer Robert Despite the cold and exhaustion, the senior
Stevenson – the grandfather of Robert Louis rating then climbed the rigging to fix the safety
Stevenson – was the man who decided on the line.
location of a lighthouse on the headland at One by one, the Augusta’s five crew were
Boddam. pulled ashore. Oatley ignored the wishes of the
The lighthouse, one of more than a dozen schooner’s skipper and was the last man to
designed by Stevenson, was completed in 1825 leave.
and its light first burned in 1827. When he returned to terra firma he was
For 53 years now its beam had shone out into “benumbed with cold and fatigue”, and his body
the North Sea. “cut and bleeding” from being flung against the
It was of little comfort to the five-strong crew rocks.
of the Swedish schooner Augusta. Apparently it was the Duke of Edinburgh,
The 102-ton vessel had left the small west- Queen Victoria’s second son, a first-rate sailor
coast port of Fiskebackskil bound for Bo’ness in and rear admiral to boot, who recommended the
the Firth of Forth, carrying a cargo of pit props senior rating for an award.
for the nearby mines. He was not the only one: the Royal Humane
By the early afternoon of February 16 1880, Society, shipping insurers Lloyd’s and the
the Augusta was in sight of land – and she was Swedish government all honoured Oatley.
in trouble. Only one presentation was immortalised in
Battered by a Force 8 east-south-easterly lithograph, however.
gale, her crew were powerless. At Ferryhill Junction, just
Coastguards in Peterhead watched as distress south of Aberdeen, the Royal
signals arched over the bay from the struggling Train interrupted its journey
schooner. from Windsor to Balmoral.
Augusta’s crew tried to direct their ship A small wooden platform
towards the calmer waters of the southern bay, was erected and there,
but the power of Nature was greater than the watched by hundreds of
power of Man: the schooner was dashed against people including a platoon
the rocks just short of Buchan Ness. of his fellow sailors, Queen
There the stricken vessel “lay exposed to all Victoria pinned the Albert
the fury of the gale”. Medal on the chest of George
Peterhead Coastguard had by now arrived on Oatley, who wore his Naval
the beach ready to effect a rescue. uniform for the occasion.
Among them was PO George Oatley, a 37-year- According to his citation,
old gunner’s mate and drill instructor with the Oatley’s rescue was all
In this month’s image from the Imperial War Museum a Royal Marine mortar troop exits a Westland
Royal Naval Reserve in Peterhead. the more remarkable for
Wessex HU5 of 845 NAS during Exercise Strong Express, Norway, in September 1972. Strong Express
Oatley had served in the Royal Navy for two the fact he was “not of a
was a combined exercise by 12 NATO nations specifically designed to test and develop NATO’s rapid
decades, seeing action in the Far East, before strong constitution and was
reaction capability to a Soviet threat in the North Atlantic area. In September 1972, 65,000 troops, 350
joining the Coastguard. invalided five years ago with
ships and 700 aircraft were used with a large landing force being provided by Royal Marines from HMS
The Londoner and his comrades fired two phthisis [tuberculosis].”
Ark Royal and HMS Albion and airpower from the American carrier, USS John F Kennedy. (HU 102697)
rocket lines over the stern of the Augusta, Despite that ‘weak’
but the Swedes had no idea how to use the constitution, the sailor would
■ THIS photograph – and 9,999,999 others from a century of war and peace – can be viewed or
purchased at www.iwmcollections.org.uk, by emailing photos@IWM.org.uk, or by phoning 0207 416
device. live to the age of 90.
5333.
012_NN_feb.indd 1 22/1/10 15:23:33
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