Christmas In Basra

After 27 years in the Navy I had finally got to deploy on an operational tour (not including my time on 'bombers'. I had been given desert combats, ID tags, a gun and everything. All the Booties and modern day MAs will be giving a big yawn at this but I had missed every scrap since 1973 through no fault of my own and I really wanted to do this; Mrs C less so.

We landed at Basra airport late at night on 11 December in a charter aircraft and with the aircraft being only about a third full we could all have a second (a third for some) in-flight meal and stretch out over 3 seats. As we walked across the apron in the 'a-lot-warmer-than-Brize-Norton' night air, I could see that this was a modern airport which had been abandoned by the builders at the 65% complete point. After we received an induction on some dos and don'ts, I was met by a TA RAMC MSO Captain, who got me into the Headquarters and showed me where I was to sleep for the first night - an inner office with no air conditioning and holes beaten into the walls to the next offices.

After a sweaty few hours sleep, it was through the swing doors into the headquarters of HQ Multinational Division (South East) (HQ MND (SE)). What I actually walked into was a very large, windowless airport terminal with subdued lighting. The place was full of PCs, desks, wiring looms, desert DPM, carpet and pongoes of many nationalities. Admittedly there was a good handful of Crabs, but my presence increased the RN presence by a staggering 33%, and the Submarine Service presence by 100%.I was shown where everything was and promptly forgot, and met the J4 Med bunch with which I would be working, including a great Dutch Major Theo van der Zanden, and Commander Medical, Colonel Ewan Carmichael, an Army dentist and now Director General Army Medical Services as a Major General. I was allocated my tent which I shared with 3 Crabs..er..RAF officers, 2 Italians and a US Army officer, and made myself at home.

Two days into the tour and I was extended an invitation to go into Basra city with Theo and I duly accepted. With body armour and weapon in place, I walked up to the left hand side of the Land Rover Discovery, realised that it was left-hand drive and moved to the right hand side. Theo stopped that and told me I was driving. So on my first ever trip to Basra I'm driving a left-hand drive automatic 4x4, mostly on the left hand side of the road (Iraqi lorry drivers drive their lorries using a random number generator to determine which side of the road to to drive on any particular day), with a pistol under my left thigh, and learning the drills for driving under bridges or when slowing down in the city.

Christmas decorations were already being put up
when I arrived and it wasn't long before the whole of the terminal..--.the headquarters was festooned with the usual garlands baubles, cards and figurines. The joy of having the Italians with us was that they provided panetonne. Big ones. Always nice to grab a chunk when getting coffee (Douwe Egberts courtesy of our Dutch chums). Daily working routine was 0800 - 2000, except for Sundays when it was brunch and a 1000 start and we would be working Sunday routine on Christmas day; otherwise, all other activities such as patrols in the city or of the airfield perimeter didn't change. As Christmas day approached our gift boxes from major companies back home arrived, and the usual surge in cards and personal gift boxes happened in Iraq as well. On Christmas Eve, there was to be a Midnight mass in the main hall of the airport. Many attended, and so did the press. It all seemed a little unusual but went well. When one of the patrols returned they came into the hall and were photographed in all their kit holding candles by the Christmas tree. I took a picture but my little Nokia 7250 phone wasn't really up to the job.

After the service, it was on with the body armour and a solitary walk back to the tent. As I walked past the overhead road gantries with their bilingual signs and the modern,air traffic control tower with its Christmassy greeting, I briefly pondered on my situation, about my family back home, knowing they would be missing me, and how ever so slightly bizarre the whole thing seemed. Christmas Day with its welcome lie-in arrived and once at work and after the daily routines had been done, it was into the gift boxes and enjoying the Christmas spirit. Each of the corporate boxes contained a red hat of some description and I still have mine.

Cmdr Med had been on a shopping trip and he had bought everyone in the section a shemagh, and after some swift instruction, we all donned them. The day was spent doing not much at all, other than chatting, swapping jokes and messages, and occasionally taking updates from the outlying units. There was a surprisingly good selection of Christmas nibbles, and some....er.. 'blackcurrant juice' had also been obtained. A Christmas film was watched on a laptop; a pirate copy of Finding Nemo, if I recall -$2 in Kuwait. Christmas dinner was pretty damned good although I think the Iraqi kitchen staff and cleaners were all pretty bemused by it all.


And then, it was all over. The panettone lasted  few more days. Life continued to be unpleasant in Al Amarah. The decorations came down. And nothing much had really changed.

This piece originally appeared in 'Doc RN' the magazine of the Royal Naval Medical Branch and Sick Berth Staffs Association

Memories and Loss

A couple of days before Christmas, some flowers were delivered to the Royal Navy Submarine Museum. Each year a lady leaves a floral tribute to the crew of HMS P48, a Royal Navy submarine sunk in the Second World War, and her brother in particular.

Coincidentally, another lady visited just after Christmas. Her god father was Able Seaman Miller who, along with Lieutenant Low was posthumously awarded the Empire Gallantry Medal (which later became the George Cross). An account of his actions on HMS UNITY can be found online:

"Lt. F. J. Brooks. RN (On the first day of his first patrol, on his first command) was lost in an accident in the North Sea, while operating out of Blyth. (ack. Ron Biddle). In collision with Norwegian SS Atle Jarl. At 1730 on 29-April-1940, Unity sailed from Blyth for Norway. The weather was poor, with visibility down to 300 yards as Unity moved out of the harbour; in the main channel, where the Norwegian ship Atle Jarl was proceeding inbound on her way from Methyl, Scotland to the Tyne, visibility was down to 100 yards: Neither vessel was aware of the other until the submarine spotted the ship at 50 yards and on a collision course. At 1907 a prolonged blast of a ship’s siren at 50 yards was heard on Unity's bridge. There was just time to shut the bulkhead doors and order the engines astern before the Atle Jarl smashed into the submarine. The order to abandon the submarine was given at 1910 and Unity sank only five minutes after the collision.
The order to abandon the submarine was given at 1910 and most of the crew made their way topside and were crowded on the bridge. HMS Unity had taken an angle of 25 degrees and sank within four-five minutes. Although all the members of HMS Unity, bar the 1st Lt., Lt JNA Low RN and AB Miller, escaped from the stricken vessel, Leading Seaman James Hare and Stoker 1st Class Cecil Shelton were not picked up by the crew of the Atle Jarl during the subsequent search. A subsequent investigation revealed a breakdown in internal communications between the Submarine and the fact that the Methyl-Tyne convoy had not been due off Blyth until at approx 1930.
Four men were lost - Leading Seaman James S HARE P/JX 145574; Lieutenant John N A LOW; Able Seaman Henry J MILLER P/J 55387; and Stoker Cecil SHELTON P/KX 91083.
Lieutenant Low and Able Seaman Miller were the two men on duty in the submarine control room. When the order to abandon ship was given by the submarine commander they were instrumental in helping almost every member of the submarine to escape. Lt John N. A. Low RN and AB Henry J. Miller were each awarded a posthumous Empire Gallantry Medal, later (Sept 1940) exchanged by their next-of-kin to the George Cross."
(Source: http://www.ww2talk.com/forum/war-sea/20681-hm-submarine-unity-ss-atle-jarle.html)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HMS_Unity_(N66)
http://uboat.net/allies/warships/ship/3385.html

As far as the ladies are concerned, it's touching that someone should be remembered for so long after their death. It also shows, perhaps, how traumatic, how scarring it can be to lose someone in such violent circumstances, and where there is no grave or memorial. The Area of Remembrance at the Museum takes on that role for many people it seems.

Having read of the actions of Lt Low and AB Miller, I find myself wondering if I could do anything as selfless and as brave. Of  course our actions are always tempered by the time and the environment and I'm sat at home watching telly. So who knows?

Christmas Under The Sea

As has happened for the past 50 years or so, there will be at least one British submarine at sea today. The ships' company won't get boxes from The Sun, a mention on the BBC or additional minutes on their Paradigm cards. If they're lucky they will get their 40 word Familygram from home, which may have been censored; they certainly won't get the chance to talk to their families. They will be at 15 minutes notice to fire their terrible weapons against which ever foe they are directed. Their routine will be unchanged from any other day.

Spare them just a fleeting thought.

Ignorance and Want

"'Forgive me if I am not justified in what I ask,' said Scrooge, looking intently at the Spirit's robe,' but I see something strange, and not belonging to yourself, protruding from your skirts. Is it a foot or a claw.'

'It might be a claw, for the flesh there is upon it,' was the Spirit's sorrowful reply. 'Look here.' From the foldings of its robe, it brought two children; wretched, abject, frightful, hideous, miserable. They knelt down at its feet, and clung upon the outside of its garment. 'Oh, Man. look here. Look, look, down here.' exclaimed the Ghost. They were a boy and a girl. Yellow, meagre, ragged, scowling, wolfish; but prostrate, too, in their humility. Where graceful youth should have filled their features out, and touched them with its freshest tints, a stale and shrivelled hand, like that of age, had pinched, and twisted them, and pulled them into shreds. Where angels might have sat enthroned, devils lurked, and glared out menacing. No change, no degradation, no perversion of humanity, in any grade, through all the mysteries of wonderful creation, has monsters half so horrible and dread. Scrooge started back, appalled. Having them shown to him in this way, he tried to say they were fine children, but the words choked themselves, rather than be parties to a lie of such enormous magnitude. 'Spirit. are they yours.' Scrooge could say no more. 'They are Man's,' said the Spirit, looking down upon them. 'And they cling to me, appealing from their fathers. This boy is Ignorance. This girl is Want. Beware them both, and all of their degree, but most of all beware this boy, for on his brow I see that written which is Doom, unless the writing be erased. Deny it.' cried the Spirit, stretching out its hand towards the city. 'Slander those who tell it ye. Admit it for your factious purposes, and make it worse. And abide the end.'

That's Not A Bad Christmas THIS Is A Bad Christmas

This year's Christmas won't be as extravagant as other years because of the lack of work. However, compared to the people in Cornwall and Stonehaven who've been flooded out of their homes, the friend of my wife whose father died 2 days ago and the old Naval friend who is going into hospital on Christmas Eve for an orchidectomy, and faces the prospect of chemotherapy, I would say it's going to be a pretty stonking time. And some people have a cold and bitch about it on Facebook.

Pass me another mince pie and a sherry. matron.

Tying Up A Loose End

I last had contact with  a particular friend about 25 years ago, just as his own career was beginning to take off. We went different ways and our paths never crossed again. Both our similar careers were on the up except that one was a much steeper curve! Last year I worked out where he was (or where I thought he was) and sent him a Christmas card, and he eventually received it in February, when he wrote back to me. Well, I mislaid that note but rediscovered it this Christmas, and vowed that I would make contact again.

Well, I made that telephone call tonight. For half an hour we had an excellent  chat and compared our summarised histories. Mt friend does not seem to have changed one iota, although he has done extremely well in his career. We've agreed to meet for a beer in the New Year and, I suspect, an even longer chat.

The thing is, once we hung up, I actually felt quite good. Inwardly I was smiling, and I felt rather pleased and calm. I think it was to do with tying up a loose end - a sense of completion, albeit a small one.