Tony Hinde Navy Days
Channel: hindesite
Date: 15/08/2017

A slideshow of Tony Hinde's photo record of some of his time in the Royal Navy.

None of the images are dated, but they are from 1953 and 1954. There are captions for some of the images, make sure to click the CC button to show these.

They cover colleagues, ships and operations at sea, time in port, and snapshots around Hongkong, Singapore, and Sasebo.

Most were taken in 120 format and where appropriate, and especially for the images of ships at sea, I have cropped to widescreen for clarity. The camera that was probably used for the majority of these images is shown at the beginning of the slideshow, it is a Mihama Six Model II. There may be earlier photos, which may have been taken with a Kodak Box Brownie; the difference in quality shows. The other camera that may possibly have been used would have been a Yashica 635 twin lens reflex.

All these images came from the original negatives (which are deteriorating) and were photographed and then mostly post processed in DxO Optics Pro; the slideshow was assembled after some final editing in Picasa.

If you can identify or comment on any aspects of the slideshow, please share in the comments.

Some interesting comments from Derick Frost (thanks Derick!)

2.22 Inside a water drum of an Admiralty Three Drum Boiler showing water tube ends (After a boiler clean each tube has to be checked (all 3642 of them!)(and we had four such boilers!) by dropping a steel ball down the tube from the steam drum above — usually a junior ERA drops them and a poor Engineering Mechanic ("Stokes") has to catch them. The balls are contained in a velvet lined, lidded, box. A complete box has to be witnessed going in and when the balls are returned by "stokes" the box has to be complete again. To take anything into the boiler is a big no-no and this photo would have earned Tony a big black if it had been seen by the Senior Engineer! The whole process was horrible and more than once claustrophobia caused individuals to panic. The "manholes" to get in and out were minimal. To get in was difficult— to get out, wet through with sweat and swollen from the heat, was occasionally impossible and a cold water spray had to be used!)

9.44 "The Mighty Mo", USS “Missouri”. She lay off at about 20 Nm and "Birmingham” at about 11 Nm and we bombarded the same targets early in January 1953. Her shells passed right over "Birmingham" and those on deck said they could actually see the shells going up! She is now in Pearl Harbour permanently. Margi and I were on the Arizona Memorial site when "The Mighty Mo” paid off at an adjacent jetty.

14.07 Alongside in Hong Kong. The donkey boiler provided steam for the galleys etc. when the ship was shut down. They were a constant source of problems — usually at some ungodly hour and. Some poor junior ERA had to turn out to get the damn thing working again

17.45 Kuala Lumpur station — half way point on rail journey from Singapore to Penang. We all had a week in an ”R & R" camp on the beach in Penang. "Newcastle" went in July/August 1953, ”Birmingham” in December/January 54 We were issued with a Lee-Enfield rifle and ten rounds of .303 ammunition each for the trip up and down due to the "Malayan Emergency”. Since we were all dressed in whites it would not have been too difficult for the terrorists to find targets had the train been ambushed. The journey was about a full day and half was in a sleeper. I think we overnighted out of Singapore but cannot recall. On the way back, during the stopover in KL, one of our number discharged his weapon accidently. The bullet went through the ceiling and ricocheted off the metal coach roof and plunged into the seat, alongside a startled shipmate in the next compartment. All hell broke loose —the train was shunted out of the station mmediately (leaving many ”ashore") ancl the Army swarmed all over!