Bed bugs, land ships, concert parties and lost halyards
My first recollection of Malta is bed bugs. I arrived at Camarata Barracks, a holding place pending transfers, at 2330 one night and it was full. The PO in charge had gone missing and left an old Maltese to take care of eventualities. No place to sling my hammock (and it was all hammocks) he gave me an old canvas camping bed to sleep on. The bloody bed bugs were in the lapped over canvas of the wooden frame legs. I woke up about 0300 and my pillow was saturated with blood from my neck that I had been tearing at and scratching and the bugs were all over the canvas bed. I had two showers that night and precious little sleep and had to report to the sick bay next morning. It took some convincing the doctor that it was just a case of bed bugs. But as they say you live and learn!! It was a bloody awful start to my time on Malta.
I frequented Bighi Hospital in Malta where the doctor was based for examination and he reckoned I was unfit for service at sea (his way of being kind), so I ended up at Palace Tower Signal Station in Valetta. This place was a shambles instead of a signal station, and the staff concentrated more on practising for concert parties mainly and it was the very best on the island (in great demand by all the services). It was a collection of blokes acting as women, comic singers and brown hatters. It was really nutty and they rehearsed all day long, dancing in a chorus, singing and rehearsing. While about 40% ran the signal staff side, the remainder got on with their concert party which caused a bit of animosity among the workers as it extended their duties somewhat.
The Palace Tower Signal Station had one of the biggest signal masts in the RN. Very high set up on a very high turret built on the roof of the Palace in Malta. From the roof of the turret people were in miniature. Going up the mast for loose halyards was a weekly operation and yours truly got the job in a bosun’s chair - just a plank of wood hoisted by ropes.
The general policy is considered to be the man who lets the halyard go has to retrieve it, but the number of wimps on this station cried off, as the wind might have affected their lipstick or powder…There was a consultation and it cost them two days rum ration which they gladly paid as it was pretty hairy once up there and if you missed your grip you could become a 60-foot pendulum with the main mast in the middle to avoid to check the swing.
Going up to retrieve lost halyards made me a firm favourite of the Chief Yeoman who needed a volunteer for this dangerous task. I once saw a signalman literally ‘frozen’ to the mast with fear about 20 feet up and he took an absolute age to coax back down.
The reason so many halyards went adrift was all the navel vessels called in at Malta and it was common practice to carry out signal exercises twice or three times per week, from 0900-1200. The signal station had four signalmen one on each corner of the station on the main platform sending out difficult semaphore questions that had to be answered by flags. This could entail anywhere between 12 to 20 flags on the mast. The ships in the exercise could range from aircraft carriers to submarines; the latter had no chance but still had to take part for practice. Destroyers had a much better chance of answering correctly and about the lowest level to compete to be successful.
There could be a complement of 30 sigs and coders working on these particular days and preparation took two days per week, with a team of six. During the exercise normal signalling had to continue with a separate staff. The exercise involved five different questions and the ship that answered the most correctly, which could be a full mast of flags, would get a congratulatory signal from the C-in-C Med. regarding their staff – it was much coveted.
We had to show all answers on our mast to all ships and this was the time our halyards went astray. Sometimes they went adrift in the middle of a flag hoist that made the station look sloppy and send the Chief Yeoman nuts. This was to be avoided in all cases because the leading sigs suffered for this and in turn we suffered too.
I frequented Bighi Hospital in Malta where the doctor was based for examination and he reckoned I was unfit for service at sea (his way of being kind), so I ended up at Palace Tower Signal Station in Valetta. This place was a shambles instead of a signal station, and the staff concentrated more on practising for concert parties mainly and it was the very best on the island (in great demand by all the services). It was a collection of blokes acting as women, comic singers and brown hatters. It was really nutty and they rehearsed all day long, dancing in a chorus, singing and rehearsing. While about 40% ran the signal staff side, the remainder got on with their concert party which caused a bit of animosity among the workers as it extended their duties somewhat.
The Palace Tower Signal Station had one of the biggest signal masts in the RN. Very high set up on a very high turret built on the roof of the Palace in Malta. From the roof of the turret people were in miniature. Going up the mast for loose halyards was a weekly operation and yours truly got the job in a bosun’s chair - just a plank of wood hoisted by ropes.
The general policy is considered to be the man who lets the halyard go has to retrieve it, but the number of wimps on this station cried off, as the wind might have affected their lipstick or powder…There was a consultation and it cost them two days rum ration which they gladly paid as it was pretty hairy once up there and if you missed your grip you could become a 60-foot pendulum with the main mast in the middle to avoid to check the swing.
Going up to retrieve lost halyards made me a firm favourite of the Chief Yeoman who needed a volunteer for this dangerous task. I once saw a signalman literally ‘frozen’ to the mast with fear about 20 feet up and he took an absolute age to coax back down.
The reason so many halyards went adrift was all the navel vessels called in at Malta and it was common practice to carry out signal exercises twice or three times per week, from 0900-1200. The signal station had four signalmen one on each corner of the station on the main platform sending out difficult semaphore questions that had to be answered by flags. This could entail anywhere between 12 to 20 flags on the mast. The ships in the exercise could range from aircraft carriers to submarines; the latter had no chance but still had to take part for practice. Destroyers had a much better chance of answering correctly and about the lowest level to compete to be successful.
There could be a complement of 30 sigs and coders working on these particular days and preparation took two days per week, with a team of six. During the exercise normal signalling had to continue with a separate staff. The exercise involved five different questions and the ship that answered the most correctly, which could be a full mast of flags, would get a congratulatory signal from the C-in-C Med. regarding their staff – it was much coveted.
We had to show all answers on our mast to all ships and this was the time our halyards went astray. Sometimes they went adrift in the middle of a flag hoist that made the station look sloppy and send the Chief Yeoman nuts. This was to be avoided in all cases because the leading sigs suffered for this and in turn we suffered too.