Those who have commented recently on the tragic collision of a
multihulled ferry and a pleasure cruiser may be interested in a brief
account of an notable collision
between two warships in the Mediterranean in 1950. I was serving in the
Second Cruiser Squadron of the Royal Navy's Mediterranean Fleet as a
Midshipman
aboard H.M.S. Euryalus. The squadron comprised four cruisers, HMS
Liverpool (the flagship with an admiral aboard), HMS Phoebe, HMS Gambia
and
ourselves. We were at sea on a fine sunny Sunday afternoon in company
with a number of escorting destroyers. A replenishment exercise was
under way in
which only the other three cruisers were directly involved; Euryalus
had been ordered to take station three and a half cables astern. My
duty as Midshipman of the
Watch on the bridge was to squint into the rangefinder and keep us on
station by adjusting our rpm fractionally up or down as required.

The three cruisers taking part were to rig jackstays to exchange mail,
personnel, stores and ammunition and to connect hoses to transfer oil
fuel back and forth
between them. They were steaming at 18 knots, with Liverpool to
starboard, Phoebe in the centre and Gambia on the port side. This type
of exercise was
undertaken routinely to keep all the crews familiar with the operations
involved. The three ships took station and established a flow of oil
and goods satisfactorily.
Gambia completed the required transfers first, disconnected, retrieved
all her gear and increased rpm to clear ahead. Liverpool and Phoebe
were still connected and
exchanging goods and fuel.

As Gambia went ahead the forward part of her hull cleared the effect of
Phoebe's bow wave and the ship's head started to swing to starboard. A
bit of port helm
was applied to correct this swing. Her stern, alas, drifted perilously
close to Phoebe's bow, requiring a sharp correction to starboard to
prevent the starboard outer
propeller from opening Phoebe like an oversized can opener. At this
point things started happening fast and silence fell on the bridge of my
ship as we watched
with fearful anticipation.

With the application of starboard wheel Gambia's head passed through the
exercise course and again swung into the path of the still connected
cruisers. Faced with
the need for an immediated decision, Gambia ordered full ahead (that's
navy for emergency power) and hard to starboard in an effort to pass
ahead of Phoebe and
Liverpool. From our vantage point it was clearly impossible for her to
make it across. A serious accident was about to happen, and it did.

Seeing Gambia's plight, both Phoebe and Liverpool went full astern
(emergency power again). Happily there was nobody on the personnel
jackstay at the time, as
stores cascaded into the water, fuelling hoses parted and black bunker
oil sprayed over the side and superstructure of the the flagship,
Liverpool. Both Phoebe and
Liverpool lifted their boiler-room safety valves and a scene of
devastation unfolded before us. Time seemed to stand still from the
moment at which it became
inevitable that a collision would occur. Indeed it looked as though
three quarters of the Second Cruiser Squadron might well go to the
bottom that afternoon.

When Phoebe plowed into Gambia's quarterdeck the noise was horrific.
Still not a word was spoken as our Captain, Commander and Officer of the
Watch stood
with binoculars trained on the scene. Miraculously, and to this day I
don't know how they did it , Liverpool managed to slow and swing clear
without direct
involvement in the actual collision. They must have been incredibly
fast in their engine rooms to have reacted so quickly. Equally amazing
was the merciful fact
that nobody was seriously hurt in what could easily have been a most
costly incident in human terms.

The damage to H.M.S. Gambia was extensive, both starboard shafts buckled
with consequences all the way to the engine rooms, and the ship was
retired from
service. Phoebe's bow was rebuilt and she returned to service for a
short while before also being consigned to the scrapyard. I was back in
college again when the
courts martial rendered their decisions and apportioned responsibility
for the fiasco, but I'm sure one or more officers' careers took abrupt
turns for the worse as a
result.

Being from the engineering fraternity myself I heard little of the
fallout from this accident though I have always assumed that the ship
handlers of the future must
have had this incident disected in some detail for them countless times
to ensure that the lessons associated with bow wave pressure effects
were learned in the
classroom rather than via the more expensive school of hard knocks.

Don Cruickshank
crukshnk@...