Answer: 899 Naval Air Squadron
Although 899 Naval Air Squadron was originally formed between 1942 and 1945, the major part of its history dates from its reformation in 1955 as a Sea Hawk squadron operating from HMS Eagle. Although disbanded two years later, it was reformed for a second time in 1961, this time operating the Sea Vixen. Initially operating as a trials unit, in 1964 it was re-tasked as an operational squadron, and again embarked in HMS Eagle, serving as the ship's interceptor squadron until 1972, when the ship was decommissioned. Following Eagle's decommissioning, 899 Naval Air Squadron was disbanded once again, only to be reformed for a third time in 1980, when it was commissioned as the headquarters and training unit for the Royal Navy's new Sea Harrier aircraft, preparing aviators to be posted to one of the two front-line units. Chapter Two of "Harrier 809" describes how, in early April 1982, 899 Naval Air Squadron was used to reinforce the two front-line squadrons, which at the time usually deployed with just five aircraft each, bringing each up to a total of eight aircraft each.
From Quiz: Phoenix 809 Part II
Answer: Kotlin
The 'Kotlin'-class was a destroyer type designed by the Soviet Union in the early 1950s. Initially built without guided missiles, in the 1960s, the Soviet Navy began retrofitting a number of Kotlin-class vessels to carry the SA-N-1 'Goa' surface-to-air missile; a total of seven of the 27 ships of the class were so-fitted. In November 1970, one of the retrofitted ships, Bravyy, was shadowing HMS Ark Royal in the Eastern Mediterranean. On 9 November, while Ark Royal was conducting flying operations, the Soviet ship cut across the carrier's bow, with the British vessel hitting the destroyer amidships. The event is described in the opening of "Phoenix Squadron", during which Lt Commander Nick Kerr, the commanding officer of 892 Naval Air Squadron, is about to be launched in his F-4 Phantom and sees the aftermath of the collision.
From Quiz: Phoenix 809, Part I
Answer: Dolphins
The term 'dolphins' is used to describe the badge given to qualified submariners in the Royal Navy. The badge is gold in colour and depicts two dolphins either side of a crown and anchor. Qualified submariners are allowed to continue to wear their dolphins even if they move to a different section of the Royal Navy. In 2020 a black coloured version of the badge was introduced to be worn by trainee submariners.
From Quiz: The Silent Service
Answer: HMS Courageous
On the outbreak of the Second World War in September 1939, "Courageous" was assigned to anti-submarine patrol duties in the Western Approaches. On 17 September, the ship was struck by two torpedoes fired by the German submarine U-29, resulting in the loss of all electrical power. "Courageous" rolled over and sank within twenty minutes of being hit, with 519 of her crew lost, becoming the first Royal Navy warship to be sunk in the war.
From Quiz: Capital Ships Lost in WW2
Answer: Cammell Laird
The third ship to be named Ark Royal was laid down in September 1935, launched in April 1937 and commissioned in December 1938.
From Quiz: The Arks Royal
Answer: Confectionery
All kinds of confectionery, such as chocolate and sweets, are known as nutty, sold on board in the NAAFI canteen.
From Quiz: NavySpeak
Answer: HMS ALLIANCE
ALLIANCE was decommissioned in 1973, and was then used as a static training boat at the submarine school in HMS DOLPHIN until 1979, when her hull was strengthened so that she could be lifted out of the water to become a museum exhibit.
AENEAS had a claim to fame of a different kind when she featured, in 1967, in the James Bond film "You Only Live Twice".
(Please note I am using upper case letters for all RN ships' names, as this was the standard way of writing them throughout my 34-year career, and it is also the way they are written in my principle book of reference, "Jane's Fighting Ships")
From Quiz: Ships of the Royal Navy - 1950s
Answer: HMS EAGLE
Many people considered the decision to scrap EAGLE and refit ARK ROYAL to be a travesty - she had much better radar and had already shown in trials (during my time on board her) that she was capable of operating the Phantom.
(Please note I am using upper case letters for all RN ships' names, as this was the standard way of writing them throughout my 34-year career, and it is the way they are written in my principle book of reference, "Jane's Fighting Ships")
From Quiz: Ships of the Royal Navy - 1970s
Answer: Radio Operator (Tactical)
Bunting Tossing and Flag Wagging related to the use of flags in signalling, and indicating what ships were doing, where a specific flag, or combination of flags, would be hoisted - e.g. conducting flying operations, diving, preparing to leave harbour.
From Quiz: Odd Job Titles of the Royal Navy
Answer: A Royal Navy Flag Officer.
Since her commissioning in 1956, HMY Britannia has always been commanded by a Rear Admiral with the exception of her last captain; Commodore Anthony Morrow (still a "flag officer" however). She carried a full RN crew including a detachment of Royal Marines. I'm not positive about this but I think HMY Britannia may have been the only naval vessel in the world to have been regularly commanded by an Admiral.
From Quiz: Things Nautical and Naval #2
Answer: All of these
Though France's La Gloire was the first iron and steam battleship built for oceanic service and was truly revolutionary in every respect, HMS Warrior, built to counter her, did her one better in every category less than one year later. England took a huge gamble in designing and building Warrior so much larger, but was betting on France's industrial capacity being unable to keep the pace. They were right. France was never again a serious world naval power.
From Quiz: Battleships: Past and Present #4; HMS Warrior
Answer: Battleship still in commission
HMS Victory, although an 18th century wooden sailing ship, was classified as a First Rate, Ship of the Line ("Line of "Battle Ship" hence "Battleship") for her day. She was built before the age of the ironclads but was protected by as much as two feet of timber! She is still in commission in the Royal Navy and is crewed by active duty sailors. She is in permanent dry-dock in Portsmouth, England. USS Constitution is also still in commission, in the US Navy, although she is a few years younger and not classified as a battleship. There are numerous vessels of other classifications that predate HMS Victory but none are battleships.
From Quiz: Battleships, Past and Present, #3; HMS Victory
Answer: Duke class
There are 16 Duke class frigates in service.
From Quiz: Modern Royal Navy
Answer: Dublin
Andrew Browne Cunningham (ABC) was born on 7th January 1883 at Rathmines, County Dublin. His father, Professor John David Cunningham, who held at that time the post of Professor of Anatomy at Trinity College Dublin, and his mother Elizabeth Cumming Browne, were both of Scottish ancestry. Neither family had a naval pedigree - both grandfathers having been clergymen.
From Quiz: Admiral Andrew Cunningham
Answer: King George V Class
HMS Prince of Wales had a short but eventful career. She was completed on 31 March 1941, by Cammell Laird, and was one of the King George V Class of British battleships designed to the constraints of the London Treaty.
From Quiz: HMS Prince of Wales and HMS Repulse
Answer: Lord Samuel 1st Viscount Hood
The 'Mighty Hood' was not, as is widely believed, named specifically after Admiral Sir Horace Hood who died at Jutland. She was named for the greatest of the naval Hoods, Lord Samuel 1st Viscount Hood.
From Quiz: HMS Hood
Answer: Buccaneer
The Blackburn Buccaneer was originally designed as a response to the new Sverdlov-class cruisers introduced by the Soviet Union in the 1950s. Instead of attempting to match the new ships with a cruiser design of its own, the Royal Navy instead elected to introduce a new, carrier-borne low-level strike aircraft with the primary purpose of being able to attack and destroy the Sverdlovs. The Buccaneer entered service in the Royal Navy in 1962. In its original S.1 version, it was fitted with the underpowered de Havilland Gyron turbojet engine, which meant it was unable to be launched from a carrier with full fuel tanks and a full weapon load. By 1966, these problems had been solved through the introduction of the S.2, which used the more powerful Rolls-Royce Spey turbofan. The Buccaneer was operated by the Royal Navy until 1978, when HMS Ark Royal was decommissioned and 809 Naval Air Squadron disbanded. The type was also introduced into the Royal Air Force in 1969, with the RAF receiving the Royal Navy's surplus aircraft in 1979.
From Quiz: Phoenix 809, Part I
Answer: HMS Royal Oak
On the outbreak of the Second World War, "Royal Oak" was dispatched to the Royal Navy's major fleet base at Scapa Flow. In October 1939, the ship had been one of a number of British vessels sent to undertake an ultimately fruitless search for the German battleship "Gneisenau", for which her poor condition made her unsuited, returning on 12 October. The ship was at anchor on the night of 14 October when the German submarine U-47 penetrated the defences of Scapa Flow; U-47 fired a total of seven torpedoes at "Royal Oak", with the final three causing catastrophic damage that led to the ship rolling 15 degrees to starboard, which led to water flooding through open portholes. "Royal Oak" eventually rolled over and sank with the loss of 835 of her crew.
From Quiz: Capital Ships Lost in WW2
Answer: Admiral Graf Spee
A large force of British warships, including Ark Royal, was ordered to engage in the hunt for the Admiral Graf Spee but, before they could encounter the German ship, it was scuttled in Montevideo harbour in December 1939.
From Quiz: The Arks Royal
Answer: Ludo
Uckers is the RN variant of ludo, but has its own rules and its own language, including words like blobs, mixy blobs and suckbacks. Most messdecks have their own huge uckers boards, and sawn-off and painted sections of broompole are used as pieces.
From Quiz: NavySpeak
Answer: HMS RECLAIM
RECLAIM was not the speediest of ships, and the sails, when rigged, could add a little over half a knot to her top speed of 12 knots. In June 1951, at a depth of 280 feet off the coast of Alderney, her divers identified the wreck of HMS AFFRAY, the last British submarine to be lost at sea, which had gone missing two months earlier. She found brief fame much later when she was used as the main location for the Doctor Who TV series "The Sea Devils" in 1971. PLOVER and ABDIEL were minelayers, and PROTECTOR was an ex-netlayer converted to an ice patrol ship.
From Quiz: Ships of the Royal Navy - 1950s
Answer: Type 21
HM Ships ARDENT and ANTELOPE were both sunk by Argentine aircraft in May 1982.
From Quiz: Ships of the Royal Navy - 1970s
Answer: The First Lieutenant
The Jimmy, or Jimmy The One, was the First Lieutenant. In all but the biggest of ships he was the Executive Officer and second-in-command.
From Quiz: Odd Job Titles of the Royal Navy
Answer: Chaplain
Chaplains, or padres, have a number of other amusing nicknames - Devil Dodger, God Botherer, Bible Basher, Sin Bosun, Sinister Minister. It was always thought funny, when one of them joined a ship, to allocate them the mess number 666.
From Quiz: Life in the The Royal Navy
Answer: The day of the last fleet wide issue of the daily grog allowance.
On 31 July 1970, the last "tot" of grog was issued. The recipe for grog has varied over the years but in 1970 the standard issue was an eighth of a pint of rum. For junior ratings, it was diluted 2 to 1 with water, but senior ratings (Petty Officer and above) got it neat! The loss of the grog ration was compensated by issuing an extra can of beer.
From Quiz: Things Nautical and Naval #2
Answer: The British author, Charles Dickens
This quote from Charles Dickens, was just one of many quotes regarding the HMS Warrior including this one from the French: "Should this ship meet our fleet, it will be as a black snake among rabbits!" and one contemporary quote: "The Warrior could have sailed through every battle fleet in the world, and sunk them."
From Quiz: Battleships: Past and Present #4; HMS Warrior
Answer: HMS Victory Damaged by German Bomb
HMS Victory was indeed damaged by a bomb dropped by a German bomber. The bomb impacted Dry Dock #2 and inflicted minor damage on the historic ship, although the German propaganda machine claimed that she was destroyed. The Admiralty issued a denial to that report.
From Quiz: Battleships, Past and Present, #3; HMS Victory
Answer: Charles Howard
Charles Howard, Lord Howard of Effingham and Lord High Admiral, commanded 'Ark Royal', the Flagship of the English fleet. Frobisher captained the largest ship of the fleet, 'Triumph'; Drake was in command of 'Revenge' and Hawkins was captain of the 'Victory'. The 'Ark Royal' was the first ship to engage the Spanish fleet. She won battle honours in the Armada, 1588 and at Cadiz in 1596.
From Quiz: HMS Ark Royal
Answer: Dardanelles
In 1915, came the Dardanelles Campaign. HMS Scorpion's role included, at various times, escorting bombarding ships, covering minesweeping trawlers and, later on, acting as minesweeper herself. Cunningham was to witness the loss of Battleships to mines and the landing and evacuation of troops.
From Quiz: Admiral Andrew Cunningham
Answer: KMS Bismarck
On 24 May 1941 Prince of Wales and the battleship HMS Hood engaged the German battleship KMS Bismarck in an historic naval engagement in which Hood was sunk and Prince of Wales was damaged, but not before Prince of Wales struck Bismarck with three of her 14 inch shells.
From Quiz: HMS Prince of Wales and HMS Repulse
Answer: The Cornish chough holding an anchor on a blue field
The crest was that of Lord Samuel 1st Viscount Hood , the Cornish chough holding an anchor on a blue field, that the ship used.
From Quiz: HMS Hood
Answer: Chief Petty Officer
During the 19th century, temperance movements began to be founded in Britain, promoting the idea of temperance (which can also be defined as "moderation") or complete abstinence from consumption of alcohol. In the United Kingdom, the first temperance organisation was founded in 1829 in Glasgow, while, in response to the social problems that alcohol was seen to cause, especially in newly industrial cities, the promotion of complete abstinence, which came to be known as "teetotalism", began to rise in influence from the 1830s. Although the temperance movement in the UK was never able to gain the levels of traction on a national basis that it did in other countries, such as the United States, organisations still had enough influence to be able to make a mark on policy, to the extent that, in 1850, Parliament discussed the complete abolition of the rum ration in the Royal Navy. Although it was retained, the amount was cut - having been reduced from 284 ml to 142 ml in 1823, in 1850 it was halved again to 71 ml, with the issue of rum taking place once a day at noon. Those who elected not to take their ration were compensated to the tune of 1/2d per day, which came to be known as "grog money".
In 1881, the issue of abolition was debated again in Parliament and, although the daily ration was retain, in that year it was finally withdrawn for officers of both the wardroom (ranked from lieutenant to commander) and the gunroom (ranked as midshipman or sub-lieutenant), as well as junior ratings aged under 20. Almost forty years later, the ration was also stopped for warrant officers, the highest non-commissioned ranks in the service, leaving only those ranked as chief petty officer and below eligible. Ultimately, only those marked on the ship's books as "G" (for "grog") were eligible to receive rum, while those marked as "T" (for "temperance") received grog money, which eventually rose to 3d per day, while only those below the rank of petty officer received grog; petty officers and above were permitted their rum neat.
From Quiz: Up Spirits - The Rum Ration in the Royal Navy
Answer: Germany
In 1958, the newly formed German Naval Air Arm (Marineflieger) formed two new units intended to form the core of their fixed-wing capability - MFG-1 and MFG-2. By 1963, the two units had evolved into pure fast-jet squadrons undertaking the low-level anti-shipping role, and had been equipped for this purpose with the F-104 Starfighter, which they operated until the 1980s. In 1971, while the runway at its home base of Eggebek in Schleswig-Holstein was being resurfaced, MFG-2 transferred temporarily to RNAS Lossiemouth in Scotland, where it shared facilities with 809 Naval Air Squadron. As recounted in Chapter 19 of "Phoenix Squadron", during the six-week period that the German unit was resident at Lossiemouth, it took advantage of the opportunity to practice the low flying skills required for its role alongside the British aircraft. One joint flight, between a Buccaneer flown by Lt Commander Carl Davis, the commanding officer of 809 Naval Air Squadron, and one of the German aircraft, is described to show the strengths of the Buccaneer in its high-speed, low-level role, and the weakness of the Starfighter in performing the same task.
From Quiz: Phoenix 809, Part I
Answer: Perisher
The Submarine Command Course or "perisher" is a multi-stage course with a mixture of learning in simulators and at sea. The final stage of the course is an assessment which features simulated war-like conditions during which those on the course must prove they can command a submarine in these conditions. Each "perisher" course has a maximum of six participants of which only four are likely to pass. A candidate can be failed at any time on the course at which point they leave the course and are no longer eligible to serve in the Submarine Service and must transfer to another element of the Royal Navy.
From Quiz: The Silent Service
Answer: HMS Glorious
HMS "Glorious" began the Second World War as par of the Mediterranean Fleet where she remained until October 1939. "Glorious" was recalled to the Home Fleet in April 1940 and sent to provide air support to British forces serving in Norway. On 2 June, the ship was assigned to evacuate RAF fighter aircraft from Narvik. Six days later, "Glorious" and two accompanying destroyers were intercepted en route back to Scapa Flow by the German battleships "Scharnhorst" and "Gneisenau". The two battleships first sunk one of the destroyers, before opening fire on "Glorious". "Glorious" was subjected to an hour of sustained fire, eventually sinking with the loss of more than 1200 of her crew.
From Quiz: Capital Ships Lost in WW2
Answer: HMS Hood
Hood served alongside Ark Royal as part of Force H until August 1940 when she was ordered back to the UK. Hood was subsequently lost during an engagement with the German battleship Bismarck in May 1941.
From Quiz: The Arks Royal
Answer: HMS VANGUARD
VANGUARD was the Royal Navy's last battleship, laid down in 1941, launched in 1944, but not completed until 1946. With the increasing prominence of maritime air power she rapidly became a symbol of a bygone era and by the mid-50s she had been put into reserve. On that fateful day in August 1960, only the quick reactions of the pilot prevented VANGUARD from ramming the Still and West pub, where there were hundreds of spectators, before she ran aground by Customs House Jetty. VANGUARD too was used as a film location, with her bridge, Admiral's quarters and gun turrets being used to film parts of the film "Sink the Bismarck". ANSON, HOWE and DUKE OF YORK were all battleships, but they were broken up several years before VANGUARD.
From Quiz: Ships of the Royal Navy - 1950s
Answer: HMS BRISTOL
HMS BRISTOL was something of a white elephant as soon as she was commissioned, as she had been intended to be an escort for a class of aircraft carriers which was never built. She is still afloat though, in 2013, as a training ship at Whale Island in Portsmouth.
From Quiz: Ships of the Royal Navy - 1970s
Answer: A member of the Fleet Air Arm
WAFU was a usually derogatory term used by members of the General Service (largely seagoing) for members of the Fleet Air Arm, who tended to spend most of their time ashore in air stations and, when they were on board ship, spent most of their time in their bunks. The acronym comes from a special anti-static, sheepskin-lined leather jerkin once issued to Weapon And Fuel Users, although sailors have a number of less complimentary alternatives.
From Quiz: Odd Job Titles of the Royal Navy
Answer: Hard Lying Allowance / Hard Lyers
In the 50's and 60's and even into the 70's there were still many ships in service which dated back to World War II and the immediate post-war era. Many had no dining rooms, so sailors took their meals back to their sleeping accommodation. Some still had hammocks and camp beds instead of bunks. Others could not produce large amounts of fresh water so showers were rationed. Today's warships are luxurious by comparison.
From Quiz: Life in the The Royal Navy
