12


NAVY NEWS, SEPTEMBER 2011 655


MAKING her way down the Clyde to begin another unsung deterrent patrol somewhere beneath the surface of the Seven Seas is the second of the Royal Navy’s quartet of ultimate


war machines. And while 135 men guide HMS


Victorious through the latest three-month deployment, out of sight and largely out of mind, some of their comrades have been flying the Victorious flag very publically. All the Vanguard-class ballistic


missile boats have two crews to ensure the constant vigilance of the deterrent patrols are maintained 24/7/365. While the starboard crew were


at sea, ten members of Victorious’ port crew reaffirmed links with the Faslane-based boat’s affiliated town. It’s been quite some time since


the deeps have visited Burton- upon-Trent, so they left Argyll and Bute for a three-day 650-mile round trip to put that right. First stop for the submariners,


TS Modwena, Burton’s Sea Cadet unit, where they chatted with youngsters, instructors and enjoyed Evening Colours. Next port of call, the town hall to


meet local councillors/officials, led by Mayor Cllr Patricia Ackroyd, who gave the submariners a tour and opened the East Staffordshire silver and trophy cabinet to mark the occasion. Fundamental to ties between


the town and submarine are the efforts of former reservist and submariner (WW2 X-craft midget boats, slightly smaller than Victorious) Cdr Keith Hornby Priestnall.


of the Burton Club, and invited the Victorious men to dinner where guests included a French officer with the NATO Rescue Submarine team who has close links with the town. A good meal requires a good


drink, and as it happens Burton is one of the nation’s great brewing towns: Carling, Worthington, Bass and Coors are all produced here. So too is Marston’s, a very


The retired officer is a member


experience: Fountains Primary School, one of the boat’s chosen good causes. The school provides education


the carrier launched Swordfish strikes against the Bismarck. Later in the war – and equipped


and support for children with a wide range of disabilities up to the age of 19. After joining pupils and staff for morning exercises, the submariners split up to spend time with the younger children in the classrooms. Today’s Victorious is the fifth


popular tipple in the Midlands especially; it’s probably very popular aboard Victorious too now after the submariners were given a guided tour of their Burton works, were shown how the firm’s famous cask-fermented Pedigree beer is made and bottled… and were made an offer they couldn’t refuse: a free pint. The last port of call was a humbling and heart-warming


and most powerful Royal Navy vessel to carry the name, but it’s her predecessor which was crowned with the laurel wreath of victory. The fourth Victorious, an


with more potent aircraft – she would deal blows to Bismarck’s sister Tirpitz in Norwegian waters. In between, Victorious saw


action on convoys to the USSR and in the Mediterranean; she was damaged during the famous Pedestal mission to support Malta in the face of the Axis onslaught. She was damaged again when


Illustrious-class fleet carrier, earned 11 of the 12 honours today’s boat proudly displays on her battle board. The first of those 11 honours


was earned within a fortnight of the ship being commissioned as


meant she was operating aircraft again just hours after being struck by Japanese kamikaze. She was almost completely


service at very short notice in March 1968. She was towed to Faslane to be broken up in the summer of 1969. The Victorious line begins in


1785 with a third rate two-decker of 74 guns which spent the bulk of her career in the East Indies. She was followed by a near-


dispatched to the Far East with the British Pacific Fleet in the closing months of WW2. Her armoured flight deck


rebuilt in 1958 and continued her career in the Atlantic, Mediterranean and Far East before being withdrawn from


identical vessel in 1808 which fought the French in the Med before eventually ending up in Portsmouth as a receiving ship for more than four decades. The third Victorious was a 15,000-ton Majestic-class pre- Dreadnought battleship, launched in Chatham in October 1895. She spent many fairly uneventful


years in both the Mediterranean and Channel Fleets before taking up a permanent mooring at Scapa Flow as a dockyard repair ship midway through World War 1. She was broken up in the early 20s.


PHOTOGRAPHIC MEMORIES – THE SECOND COD WAR


IT’S September 1973 and while General Pinochet was settling in at the presidential palace in Chile following his coup, Henry Kissinger was getting used to his new role as US Secretary of State and Syria and Egypt were finalising plans to attack Israel and avenge their defeat in the Six Day War, a rather brutal game of cat and mouse is reaching its climax in the North Atlantic. This is the moment that the


Second Cod War reached its high point. It was captured by an official


RN photographer, who wired the image back to the UK where it was promptly labelled ‘restricted’ by the MOD. The photograph was eventually declassified and handed to the Imperial War Museum’s photographic archive. Twice on Saturday September 22 HMS Lincoln ‘came into collision with’ the Icelandic gunboat Aegir while the frigate was trying to protect a British trawler. First astern, then amidships,


the two ships came into contact (Whitehall preferred the blameless ‘in collision’; Lincoln ship’s company were rather more to-the-point, protesting that the Icelander rammed their frigate), inflicting “a certain amount of damage” on the warship. Indeed it did, because a few days later Lincoln was back home in Chatham for repairs. Oddly, it was Reykjavik


rather than London which took the hump over the incident. The Icelandic government threatened to break off diplomatic relations unless Britain pulled all its ships – warships and trawlers – outside a 50-mile limit. Whitehall complied, an agreement was reached between the two nations and the Second Cod War came to an end. The cause of all this kerfuffle


(and the First Cod War in 1958)? Fishing rights.


company were reprimanded for lobbing spuds at the coastguard cutter’s crew), but they could take defensive steps. In Lincoln’s case, the bow


was bolstered by masses of timber, while sailors created a crude, but effective, anti- ramming device: two rail lines welded to her stern jutting off at an angle – enough to ruin anyone’s day should they try to barge the frigate from behind. (For good measure, the ship’s company erected a London Underground Sign: Lincoln Junction.) Such measures and the “superb reaction” from her stokers to shore up the ship after the ramming ensured the damage was not worse. Indeed, with typical RN understatement, Lincoln’s CO Cdr David Howard felt more aggrieved at having to take part in the operations off Iceland full-stop, as he didn’t care much for fish... Despite the 1973 agreement,


‘war’ resumed in November 1975 when the fisheries limit was stretched to 200 miles – again without warning. The resulting dispute dragged on for nine months – it proved to be the most bitter of the three wars, with three in every four British vessels sent on Operation Dewey, as the mission to protect the nation’s fishing vessels was dubbed, damaged in runs-in with Icelandic craft. Yet again, Reykjavik


when Iceland extended her fishing zone from four to a dozen nautical miles to prevent overfishing, much to the chagrin of British trawlermen. Despite a sizeable Royal


The first conflict flared up


Navy presence (in all 53 vessels were committed to operations to enforce the seagoing rights


of British fishermen), the new 12-mile limit was eventually accepted by London. All was fine and dandy for


fishing industry and Iceland’s authorities. It proved to be a far more


the next dozen or so years, until September 1 1972 when Reykjavik suddenly extended its territorial waters to 50 miles – prompting another confrontation between the UK’s struggling


confrontational affair. Icelandic gunboats frequently cut the fishermen’s trawling lines and increasingly opened fire on the trawlers to drive them away (largely with blanks, but they did hole fishing vessel Everton


below the waterline with live rounds). And so once again, the RN


was called upon to shield Britain’s fishermen. The strange nature of the stand-off with Iceland forbade ships from taking what might be perceived to be offensive action (some of Lincoln’s ship’s


largely got its way – not least because it raised the stakes by threatening to close Keflavik air base, one of the most important NATO staging posts at the height of the Cold War.  THIS photograph (MH 030038) – 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 5333.


V is for Victorious


Rivoli ...................................1812 Bismarck.............................1941 Norway.............................1941-4 Arctic................................1941-2 Malta Convoys....................1942 North Africa.........................1942 Biscay .................................1942 Sabang................................1944 East Indies .......................1944-5 Palembang..........................1945 Okinawa..............................1945 Japan ..................................1945


Class: Vanguard-class ballistic missile submarine Pennant Number: S29 Builder: Vickers Shipbuilding, Barrow-in-Furness Laid down: December 3 1987 Launched: September 29 1993 Commissioned: January 7 1995 Displacement: 15,680 tons (dived) Length: 149.9m (491ft) Beam: 12.8m (42ft) Draught: 12m (39ft) Complement: 14 officers; 121 ratings Propulsion: Rolls Royce PWR2 (Pressurised Water Reactor) nuclear reactor; two GEC turbines; two auxiliary retractable propulsion motors; two WH Allen turbo generators; two Paxman diesel alternators Sensors: BAE Systems SCMS; Thales Underwater Systems Type 2054 composite sonar suite comprising: towed array sonar, hull-mounted active and passive search sonar, passive intercept and ranging sonar; Kelvin Hughes Type 1007 I band navigation radar Armament: 16 ballistic missile tubes capable of firing Trident D5 SLBM missiles carrying up to 192 warheads, four 21in (533mm) torpedo tubes capable of firing Spearfish torpedoes


Facts and figures


Battle Honours


Page 1  |  Page 2  |  Page 3  |  Page 4  |  Page 5  |  Page 6  |  Page 7  |  Page 8  |  Page 9  |  Page 10  |  Page 11  |  Page 12  |  Page 13  |  Page 14  |  Page 15  |  Page 16  |  Page 17  |  Page 18  |  Page 19  |  Page 20  |  Page 21  |  Page 22  |  Page 23  |  Page 24  |  Page 25  |  Page 26  |  Page 27  |  Page 28  |  Page 29  |  Page 30  |  Page 31  |  Page 32  |  Page 33  |  Page 34  |  Page 35  |  Page 36  |  Page 37  |  Page 38  |  Page 39  |  Page 40  |  Page 41  |  Page 42  |  Page 43  |  Page 44  |  Page 45  |  Page 46  |  Page 47  |  Page 48