A HARD FOUGHT SHIP
The
story of HMS Venomous
Christmas at Sea in the Royal Navy
HMS Hecla
"Fingers" Frowde
Ernest Vincent "Fingers" Frowde played the organ for Wiinston Churchill in the chapel on HMS Hecla and the piano in pubs when ashore with his shipmates. He survived the mining of HMS Hecla
off South Africa and its torpedoing off North Africa and remained in
the Royal Navy until his premature death in 1966 when he was still only
47. He was a Steward in Hecla but by the time of his death had been commissioned and was Lt Ernest V. Frowde, the Supply Officer, Victualing, at HMS Heron in Yeolviton.
The photograph was taken at HMS Heron
(RNAS Yeovilton) where Ernest (far right) is helping prepare the dough
for the Christmas pudding. His daughter Pam recalls how incensed he was
when nobody found the silver sixpence which in accordance with
tradition had been baked in the mix. Ernest was livid and put it down
to the chefs “stealing” the sixpences from the mix before it was cooked
– a typical “Jack jape”. Pam Macgill (nee Frowde) and her husband Bill
(who served in a later HMS Hecla, a survey ship) are helping me tell the story of her father on the website for HMS Hecla.
HMS Venomous
At Peace in the Mediterranean in 1926
From Chapter Three of the hardback edition of A Hard Fought Ship published in May 2017:
Christmas and New Year were spent at Malta in Sliema Creek alongside the oiler Brambleleaf and on 5 January 1926 she spent the day at sea with the cruiser HMS Coventry for gunnery and torpedo exercises. Venomous
sailed to Palmas Bay on 17 January where a shocked stoker discovered
the body of Chief Stoker Alfred Hatton who succumbed to a heart attack,
aged 39, perhaps the result of years of exposure to the sweltering conditions prevalent in the engine rooms of that period.
Colin Donald was a sub lieutenant on HMS Venomous when he sent this card home to his family from the Mediterranean in 1926 or 7.
"Minky" was his pet name within the family
Courtesy of Frank Donald
Christmas in the German Navy
In 1933 Colin Donald successfully completed a course as a German interpreter and in 1934 was a lieutenant on the sloop, HMS MIlford, on the Africa Station. The German Cruiser Emden visited
Cape Town for Christmas and New Year and Lt Colin G.W. Donald RN got his dream
appointment as liaison officer and spent eleven days on board. He described his Christmas on the Emden in his Journal:
"Christmas Eve was most strenuous.
First of all I had to take eighteen officers and cadets down to
Simonstown to call on the Squadron. The taxis were late and so we
missed our train, which made me nearly burst with rage as I had
everything beautifully taped off. However I was so short with the taxi
company that they took us down to Simonstown for nothing and it was
much more pleasant to go in that way and they had a nice drive.
We came
back and I was just going to have my lunch when I was dragged away to
the Bachelors’ Christmas-tree, where we sang songs, drank Bowle (spiced
wine) and gave each other presents. I got very nice picture of the ship
as my share of the spoils. Then more arranging things at the telephone
and then Christmas Service at 6.30 pm.
The Quarterdeck looked lovely
with an enormous Christmas-tree all lit up and the whole ship’s company
singing “Stille Nacht”. We then went round the Messdecks and wished
everyone “frohliches Fest”, and I must say that everything was
beautifully decorated. Then we had dinner in the Mess and then we
returned to the Messdecks where they kept it up, drinking and singing,
until 6.00 am on Christmas morning. Personally I went to bed about 1.00
am as I was very tired. On Christmas eve they brewed 850 litres of
Punch onboard and Heaven knows how much beer and wine were drunk and
yet they all remained remarkably sober. The singing of course was
magnificent and I am full of German songs.
Christmas day was very strenuous
as I had heaps of organising to do in connection with the Emden being
open to visitors; arranging about gangways with the Harbour Board and
drawing up plans with the Police for the regulation of traffic. In the
evening I went to a party organised by some very rich Germans, from
which I finally returned to bed at 6.30 am. Boxing Day I spent taking
some of the officers racing."
When Colin Donald left the Emden her Captain, Fregattenkapitan Doenitz, gave him this signed photograph (now in the Imperial War Museum). The inscription reads:
"Lieutenant Donald in memory of his time as Liaison Officer on the Emden with sincere thanks, Cape Town, 2.1.1935.
Doenitz, Commander, Cruiser Emden."
To find out more about the life (and death) of this young officer read the three linked pages about his time on HMS Venomous (1926-8), the interwar years including his time on the Emden (1928-39) and his death on the bridge of his first command, HMS Vimy, on the 23 May 1940.
HMS Venomous at War in 1940
From Chapter Nine of the hardback edition of A Hard Fought Ship published in 2017:
Christmas celebrations were enjoyed in the safety of Belfast Harbour and yet it was here that Venomous suffered one of her few wartime casualties as Lt Kershaw recalled:
“On Christmas Day 1940 a very well-liked sailor died on board through
drinking rum (proof) and I was informed as I came on board. I asked how
old he was and was told ‘45 – a great age Sir.’ He was right as we
rarely had anyone of that age.”
Sydney Compston remembered how “poor Lodwick, a WW1 veteran who had his
Christmas dinner and his tot, went to sleep and never woke up.”
AB William Lodwick, ON D/J 17820 (1895-1940), had been awarded the DSM for his part in the Zeebrugge and Ostend raids on the 22-3 April, 1918.
The Christmas card sent home by Eric Pountney, the telegraphist on HMS Venomous, in 1940
Courtesy of Frank Donald
Christmas at sea in V & W Class Destroyers
These stories were told by members of the V & W Destroyer Association and first published in their magazine, Hard Lying,
and republished in the book of the same name edited by Stormy
Fairweather, the Chairman of the Association. The contents of this book
are now to be published on the web site of the V & W Destroyer Association.
The ships and the men who served on them will sail through time and
space on the waves of the World Wide Web for future generations to
read. A letter from Prince Philip, First Lieutenant on the V & W Class Leader, HMS Wallace in 1942, was read out to the veterans attending the reunion at Harrogate in April 2015.
HMS Woolston in 1942
There was no food for the ratings'
Christmas dinner so the CO ordered two depth charges to be dropped and
lowered a boat to collect the cod floating on the surface.
Cod, dried biscuits and rum for
Christmas Dinner on the stokers' Mess Deck of HMS Woolston, a sister ship of HMS Venomous, in 1942
Neil O'Rouke from Glasgow is centre nearest the camera, Bill Perry
holds a
binnacle lamp and Jack Boore and "Spider" Kelly
are seated holding the keg of rum
Also in the photograph are "Smokey" Meadows and Ronnie Barnes
Courtesy of Frank Witton
On passage to Hong Kong in HMS Westcott
J. A. Jolliffe D/MX. 52106
Then it was on to Penang where Christmas was celebrated, the mess in
common with the others was decorated with bunting and the menu
supplemented. A present from the Captain, an unexpected one, two
bottles of beer for each one of us. A generous act, particularly as
apart from the rum issue the Royal Navy was dry as far as the lower
deck was concerned.
HMS Vanessa, 1939
Christmas saw us in Dover at anchor. I went ashore to a dead town, no
pubs open and nowhere to go. However Buxton and I were outside an army
drill hall where there was a party starting when the officer in charge
turned up to join in the Christmas dinner. He was a good friend of mine
from my hockey playing days in Folkestone and we were invited inside
and well dined and wined. We returned to our ship with a large bag of
left overs for our mess shipmates. The winter of 1939/40 was to
be one of the coldest and stormiest for many years and convoy work in
the North Atlantic was pretty grim
Den Lynch, Chef on HMS Verdun and the aircraft carrier, HMS Implaceable
I was an experienced chef who had worked at the posh Carlton and Ritz hotels and the fabulous Frascati Restaurant, and had also roughed it a lot with the boy scouts. The Verdun's
officers could not believe their luck that they had a cook who could
rise to any emergency on convoy. The Petty Officer Steward had been a
valet in hotels, the rest of the gang were all great to work with. Most
of our food came from the Elgin Farms on the Firth of Forth, so
rationing was virtually non-existent.
That is where Lieutenant Prince Philip comes in. He was on the Wallace at Rosyth in Scotland. The Coxswain warned me that the 'Jimmy' from the Wallace wanted me to change ships because of the extra functions held on the Wallace.
The First Lieutenant put it to me that if I did not volunteer. I could
be officially 'Shanghaied'. I assured him that, in that case I would
lose all my inbred skill and become an embarrassment. He got the point,
the decision was relayed immediately to the worried wardroom and the
skipper, who would, until further notice enjoy his huge 'Convoy'
breakfasts and the very best of 'West End' catering. Afternoon tea
cakes, were tentatively suggested, but, please no 'fairy cakes', as
they wouldn't go down well if the rest of the escort found out.
As Captain's Chef on the Implacable
at Sydney in 1945 I should have provided him with a Xmas lunch but he
had been invited to the Lord Mayor of Sydney's function, so I had
nothing at all ready for him. At five o'clock the Captain's secretary
sent for
me. Evidently the Mayor, a few pints abaft the beam, had in the
skippers words, insulted the King, the whole British Pacific Fleet and
himself. He was returning to the ship post haste and required a proper
Naval Christmas Dinner, but, I was warned, he particularly wanted his
Xmas pudding. Now on being on very good terms with the ship's cook's
for'd, they managed to get a good meal together, soup, turkey with the
trimmings, lovely veg etc; but the only Christmas pudding they could
get me was a hard round ball that had been left in the heater for
hours. I feared the worst.
My watch lined up with heads bowed, when after the meal the Captain,
sent for me. I knocked on his state-room door. "Enter" he said. I stood
reverently to attention, "Good afternoon" I ventured. He slowly looked
up. "Lynch" he said, "It is not a very good afternoon, neither was it a
very good morning, as you have been told. I walked out leaving behind a
very good meal. However I must say that I enjoyed your presentation. I
will not ask where you got it from. But! Where the hell was my
Christmas pudding. I had especially requested some. I was aware, he
continued that Nelson had lost one eye and one arm, what I had on my
plate, disguised with rum sauce, was something a bit more personnel and
delicate. If he had lost the other one, Lady Hamilton would not have
been privy to his peccadillo's. And history would have taken a
different course". I apologised and said something about how one could
learn a lot from one's mistakes. "And that goes for Nelson and that
bloody Mayor of Sydney" the Skipper said. He thanked for my effort, and
to the relief of my watch, I wasn't keel-hauled. Such happening
usually go unrecorded in the annals of Naval History.
And finally a story about Christmas Decorations ...
My father, Petty Officer William Dodds, a telegraphist on HMS Marne when Hecla was
torpedoed, told me that on one of his ships they had a
competition for the best Christmas decorated Mess. Each member of the
mess donated some money towards the cost of the decor.The
two oldest members of the mess volunteered to go ashore to purchase
the decorations. Some hours later, members of the mess were called on
deck, they looked over the side and there laying in the bottom of a
boat absolutely legless, were their two mess mates . One had a piece
of tinsel the other one of those squeakers that you blow and all the
money gone. The two articles were hung up in the mess. My father told
me this taught him a lesson on selecting the right man for a job.
After the war was over ...
The youngest officer aboard was appointed "Captain for the Day" (left) and Santa Claus brought the Christmas mail (right)
Can anybody identify the young officer promoted to Captain of the Day on HMS Corunna at Christmas 1956?
Photographs courtesy of Tim Lewin
"My father, Admiral of the Fleet Terence Thornton Lewin, Baron Lewin, KG, GCB, LVO, DSC (1920-99), was Commander Lewin in HMS Corunna at Malta in 1956/7.
By the 20th December Corunna
was back in Sliema Creek and Christmas was coming in a somewhat unusual
way. Mail at that time came mostly by land to Sicily, and in the run-up
to Christmas the mail steamer that brought it across to Malta went on
strike. Lewin volunteered the Corunna
for a mail run to Syracuse, and left at 1 am on 24 December. She picked
up hundreds of bags of mail and returned to Malta at 5 pm, going into
Grand Harbour with the leading seaman postman dressed as Father
Christmas in a prominent position on the bridge. The fleet cheered, and
got its Christmas mail and Corunna was the most popular ship in the Mediterranean Fleet.
I should add that in those days it was a tradition to give the youngest
sailor in the ship the skipper's uniform to wear, sadly I do not have
his name but someone out there must recognise him and know if he did
well?"
What does the New Year hold in store?
For HMS Venomous and her crew peace was just a matter of months away when the city of Loughborough sent this calendar to Lt Cdr Derek Lawson RNVR
HMS Venomous was adopted by Loughborough during Warships Week in 1942 and the Sea Cadet Unit in Loughborough was named TS Venomous
after the elderly V & W destroyer on which my father, Lt(E) William
Redvers Forster RNR served. On the 5 February 2012, exactly 70 years
after Loughborough raised the money to adopt HMS Venomous during Warship Week, the buildings on the Grand Union Canal where the cadets of TS Venomous trained were destroyed by fire.
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Have you anything to contribute to this page about the War at Sea at Christmas?
And how it differed from Christmas in the Royal Navy when the country was at peace.
Please e-mail your ideas to Bill Forster at Holywell House Publishing
Holywell House Publishing
88 Holywell Hill, St
Albans, Hertfordshire AL1 1DH, Britain
http://holywellhousepublishing.co.uk
Telephone: +44 1727 838595
contact online
