THE COMMUNICATIONS DEPARTMENT The Communications Department 1989 By Lieutenant Commander Bill Hagger RD RNR During much of my service with HMS WILDFIRE, which I joined from London Division in 1974, I have been the Communications Officer, having taken over from 2/0 Celia STADDON. At other times the Department has been most competently run by Lieut. Cdr Brian BAKER and Lieu’s Bob PRICHARD and Vic SOOTARSING. Foe many years 2/0 Stella DAVIS has been an adopted Communicator as the Divisional Officer. Perhaps one day we will regain possession of our only other Ce officer, 3/0 Jackie HANSEN. The Communications Department, like the Branch, has undergone many changes over the past 25 years. Initially we were all trained as HQ Communicators Teleprinter Operators, Message Handlers and Crypto Operators. We could even muster a few Telephonists, but I cannot remember the training they got! The PABX switchboard was Second World War, or even before, and was isolated down a long corridor. What night watches - all alone hour after hour waiting for someone to make a call. Despite its age we did operate the DTN in Simplex through the board during one exercise. It was not only the switchboard which was old in the LCHQ, almost all of our equipment seemed left over from the War, and constantly broke down. If Richard HICKS, our local friendly resident telephone engineer, hadn't retired from the GPO nothing new would ever have arrived. He was so successful at cannibalising other machines - what wonders he performed, and never a complaint. He even came back during his retirement to fix some for us, and he was never on the Navy payroll. In the early days training was very much a low key affair. Little was specified, we just trained TP Operators and Message Handlers as best we knew, with a little bit of Crypto thrown in. In principle we could all do each other's job, but in practice each had a favourite job. A certain amount of self selection happened in the exercise watch bill, usually under the supervision of Harry TROLLOPE or Jacko JACKSON. However the quality of the product was good and the standard achieved during exercises in the 60s and 70s was high; the Comcen being upgraded to the full status of a MINOR TRC. It was quite surprising how the old equipment kept pace with the modern TARE. However the inevitable did happen -Richard HICKS did retire and we did get some modern equipment. The time was also ripe to redefine training standards - an RTM of 1974 concerning HQ Ratings Advancement being the only official guide. On his second tour as PSI at WILDFIRE CCY Dave FIELD - deservedly rewarded with the BEM - greatly assisted with the redesign of the training programme and the introduction of higher standards of qualification. Three qualifying papers for each rate in the different skills were introduced along with keyboard skills. At this time the HQ Units were very much tied to the requirements of the Area Flag Officer, but these changes gained wider acceptance. Practical Drill Night exercises were also introduced - THURSEX, in which the TRC was linked with other classrooms in the LCHQ so that it could function as a normal TRC. This proved a very popular way of learning. By 1982 the concept of training to a common standard throughout the HQ Units had found favour. The standard was set as that of the WRO WRNR, and HQ Communicators were to be RO(S). Mobility was also introduced. The process of requalifying was a major task, particularly for the Senior Ratings who had to effectively requalify in all their rates. Most accepted the challenge and achieved the higher professional standard. Closure of the Naval Base followed soon, and with it CTC status; of course RO(S)s had to requalify as RO(G) or RO(T) and the Wrens were absorbed into the WRO Branch. For many of the older hands this change coupled with the move to a new Headquarters, proved too much and although their reasons were understood their leaving was much regretted. For others there was a new challenge, made the more difficult by the lack of Senior Rates qualified to teach the new skills. It was not long before Steve DONOVAN and Tony MATHEWS became the first qualified RO(T) and RO(G). The Senior Rates did very well from the start, particularly since their own careers had been curtailed by these changes and the valuable contribution of people like CRS(S) Dave MILWARD and RS(S) Chris SPIESER continues today. We were also very fortunate to recruit the retiring PSI, CCY Jim LORD - our only qualified Tactical instructor. The introduction of WRO(T)s and the chance to retrain and go to sea was a particularly pleasing departure. The girls loved the idea and all jumped at the first course. Soon Debbie BAKER qualified as our first WRO(T)1. These successes coupled with successes on NAVCOMEXs gave a feeling of real achievement. However change was on the horizon again - from CTC to Ops(HQ)TC. The RO(G)s were to go, and once again they started to retrain, this time as AB Ops(HQ) ratings. Communicator/ RO(S)/ RO(G)/ AB Ops(HQ) MATHEWS is a highly trained operator! Being part of the modern Navy does require flexibility and to train for the tasks actually required by that Navy. We are now a long way from the TP Operators and Message Handlers of the 60s and 70s. We have adapted well and we all look forward to fresh challenges and changes in the next 25 years of WILDFIRE. Communications Department

THE OPERATIONS DEPARTMENT The Operations Department 1989 By Petty Officer (HQ) (Ops) Bill Bunce, RNR. In the Beginning. Once upon a long ago, when real men still wore battle dress, there was a long, dark deep tunnel. From the outside it looked like a bus shelter. Inside, it grew and grew, like stepping inside the Tardis. First you would descend some hundred feet or more, through the heavy metal fire door into a labyrinth of tunnels, reminiscent of the London Underground. Onward and down into the Main Plot Room. The nerve centre, the very reason for H.M.S. "Wildfire’s" existence. This was the Wartime Headquarters of Flag Officer Medway (the LCHQ). Here below the ‘Fish Tank’, the Plotters worked with pens, pencils, chinagraphs, parallel rulers and plot symbols. This was home to people like Alex, Heather, Jim, Ron Pat and Les to name a few. The first thing that took my eyes as a new recruit, all those years ago, was a large sign which read "If you can keep your head , whilst all about you are losing theirs - YOU haven’t read the Op-Order". How true. What’s and Op-Order? What are those symbols? What are those Stateboards for? And a hundred other questions sprang to mind. As you walked around the Tunnels, past the rest room, classrooms, Comcen and Offices, it was hard to imagine that much the same thing was going on during the Second World War, with people working, eating and sleeping down there. Alas no more. Up from Middle Earth. It was decided that "Wildfire" would move to Collingwood Block in Khyber Road, and become a CTC (Communications Training Centre). Death to all Plotter? No way. Plotters don’t die, they just lose their bearings (for a while). It was said we were to become a "mobile" division. Go anywhere - do anything. The Plot P.S.I. of the day, P.O. Jim Duncan, could be seen everywhere at once, beads of sweat dripping, organising carrying parties etc. Gradually "Wildfire" surfaced from being a Submarine to be transformed into a Concrete Frigate. The light and space was almost unbearable. Instead of sitting on each others laps, we had a desk each! The drill deck where Evening Quarters are held is the size of a football pitch. You can even get lost in the bar (according to my wife I still do). Even or name changed we became known as the Operations Division. Our first assignment as a mobile division was down a hole (again!). "Somewhere in London". We had to learn a new set of procedures and a new method of plotting. We are still there "Somewhere in London". So far from being a mobile division it looks like we will be there for ever. Still, forever is not a long time in the Navy. And now…. Remember long ago when Plotters’ tools were pencils and rulers? Oh, we still see them from time to time, but nowadays we ply our trade with a strange electrical box called a ‘Computer’. Its’ magic! No tedious speed , time distance triangle. No Latitude or Longitude. No Rel-Vel or Time Zones. At least not until the Computer "falls over" (technical term). Then it is back to the pencils, rulers and brain power. The modern day Ops Rating still has to be taught basic plotting skills and more besides. As well as being a computer operator, we have to run our own Comms systems (on shore) via the dreaded computer. Even old familiar name have changed. There are no such thins as signals any more - they are now call messages. New word have to be learn, such as Floppys, Disc Drives, Hardware and software. Tomorrow, The role of the Operations Division is probably more important now than it was 25 years ago. Then we were responsible for a local area plot. These days we play ‘World-wind’. The information we provide is used Nationally instead of Locally and it is at the centre of the Naval Control of Shipping World. There are new challenges ahead. Refining the existing systems, updating and modernising the training courses and recruiting more ratings to supplement the Royal Navy. This year H.M.S. "Wildfire" celebrated 25 years of service by reverting, once again, to being an Ops HQ Unit. THE PLOT IS STILL ALIVE. LONG LIVE THE OPS. The Operations Department

NAVAL CONTROL OF SHIPPING IN HMS WILDFIRE Based on the reminiscences of Lieutenant Commander Ron Alfrey VRD RNR Naval Control of Shipping Department 1989 It is often the case that the lessons of war are soon forgotten. Such was the fate of Naval Control of Shipping (NCS) after both World Wars. During the 1950s and 1960s it remained the interest of the few, and they were largely to be found in the ranks of the RNVR and RNR. HMS WILDFIRE has played no small part in keeping NCS alive and in its development, until it has become one of the major roles for the RNR. From the outset the mainspring of the NCS Department was Lieut. Cdr Ken "Sandy" Sanderson and it was his enthusiasm that set the pattern for future events. He was soon to be joined by Lieut. Cdr Ron Alfrey who "met" WILDFIRE in September 1965 during an exercise in Chatham. In those days NCS was still very crude and exercises unrealistic; much was left to a blackboard and chalk. Sandy worked hard to produce an efficient office system, which could be used in any PHQ, and, based on a card index system he finally produced what became known as the Wildfire System. He later developed this into a larger stateboard with moveable plastic strips - the prototypes being made in the Dockyard. Although the Wildfire System no longer fits in with current practices and the stateboards have all but been replaced by computer VDUs, they were until very recently standard fittings in all PHQs. Another early innovation were CHATSHIPS. Introduced in the late 1960s they were based on the FO PORTSMOUTH concept of an annual training weekend to bring together the RNR, RNXS and port authorities within the Command. The difference in MEDWAY was that they were organised by WILDFIRE with back-up from the RN, rather than the other way round. In addition other weekend training was organised with Sandy planning the training and arranging the lectures. It was about this time that there was a blank year for exercises and in order to help people fit in their Annual Training the Unit offered to run a two week training course for any reservist who wanted NCS training. Despite scepticism in high places the SOP, Lieut. Cdr Tony Johnson-Newall, said, "let them go ahead and you will be surprised what they can do", but we were the people who got the big surprise. Having invited all and sundry to send their Officers and Ratings to us for training, we hoped the response would be at least twenty to make it worthwhile, and we would have liked to see thirty to forty if possible, forty being the maximum number we could get into either of the available lecture rooms. Who would ever have guessed that the Gibraltar HQ unit, HMS CALPE, would ask to come over in a body? But they did, and we had not the heart to restrict their numbers, so with a dozen or so from Scotland, and others more local we had 80 people to handle. This forced us to split them into two groups of forty, and give every lecture twice. It was hard going, but SOP’s faith in us was vindicated. During one training weekend in the late 1960s Encrypted Call Signs were to be taught to about 40 students. 20 copies of the necessary publications and the machines were sought. It was Thursday night before the big day that Tony told Ron and Sandy that the publications were there, but the machines were not available and only the two held locally would be available, could they manage? Never slow to react to a challenge, Lieut. Cdrs Ron Alfrey and Sandy Sanderson devised a pencil and paper method using the mathematical system and relying on a blackboard diagram. Later that day Sandy suggested that if this simple diagram had a few notes alongside the various sections it would act as a memory aid. This idea has tried out, and tested on a class, and two revisions later we had what was the "Encrypted Call Sign Guide", and used by Lieut. Cdr Cliff Kindel to train NCSOs at MOD. He found it saved training time and he asked for a similar guide for the Mersex system. This was done and both these guides were in use after training moved to the MTF in Portsmouth. They remained in use until both systems became obsolete. NCS exercises were still most unrealistic in the middle 1970s, after Lieut. Cdr Mike Smith had become SOP, and it was in the WILDFIRE wardroom one Thursday evening when it was suggested to Mike that we would never get a true idea of the real workload at any given PHQ unless the exercise shipping list was based on the actual traffic at that port during the exercise period. Only a reservist would be imprudent enough to suggest breaking with accepted practice but only a staff officer of Mike Smith's calibre would have digested it and decided that it could work if the co-operation of the shipping companies could be gained. Exercise Galleons Reach was born, and took place with live boarding of ships and briefing of Masters. For this, the first in the series, only Gravesend was closed up, but the subsequent Barrow Deep saw all the FO MEDWAY ports brought in. At the third, Kentish Knock, the attention of NATO had been attracted; the senior officer of the Belgian NCS organisation came over for two days and there were a number of RN Flag Rank visits. The exercise name attracted some transatlantic interest and comment in view of the connotations of "knock" in American slang. In 1989 live boarding in NCS exercises is commonplace, but then it was innovative and this lead became incorporated in subsequent WINTEX and other NCS Exercises. In 1979 when RNR units were being encouraged to form NCS Groups for the benefit of List 5 and 5A officers in their areas, Lieut. Cdr Tom Cooper, the Staff Officer Inshore Warfare, invited WILDFIRE to set up such a group. Six founder members were required and the following Thursday six names were submitted. Commander Frank Smythe was appointed head of the Group and it functioned successfully until the passing of time took its toll due to retirements. Those remaining were amalgamated into the Unit's NCS Department in 1983. By 1980 regular training was being given to RNXS TP operators in the Command by the Unit once every two months, and the RNXS Plot ratings asked for the same. These Sunday Monthexes lasted until the Command was abolished. However the close liaison with the RNXS remains; the Chatham Unit being co-located and Unit NCS training taking place on a joint basis with RNXS personnel. in 1989 the NCS Training Officer is Lieut. Cdr John Strachan and the Department numbers 19 Officers. The Naval Control of Shipping Department

THE MEDICAL DEPARTMENT. Surgeon Commander John Maitland, RD., Senior Medical Officer. The Medical Department 1989 When I joined H.M.S. "Wildfire" in 1977, as Medical Officer, Chatham was still a Royal Naval Base, and I was allowed to use the Sick Bay facilities of H.M.S. "Pembroke" (Chatham Naval Barracks) to carry out routine medical for the Royal Naval Reserve. This meant that my work for the Unit was isolated (just as well - some said!) from the main centre of activity, but of course the best part of a drill night was meeting up with everybody in the Club, and Wardroom - in the old Nissan Hut next to the Tunnel. The Tunnel led to a hole in the ground, a warren of rooms and tunnels buried in a hill, which comprised the Admiral Reserve Headquarters (LCHQ). A dedicated and happy bunch worked there, or so it seemed. The Royal Navy left Chatham and the Units’ role changed - The Falklands War, the shrinking Merchant Fleet, and changes in the Royal Navy, were some of the factors which led to a reappraisal of the RNR Medial Branch in war and peace. It was concluded that the Branch would have a specific war task, and peace time training should be geared to it. i.e. to provide Medical and Nursing Staff to man ships taken up from trade to evacuated troops from areas of conflict in Europe. Consequently our own Units complement for Nurses etc. was greatly increased, and recently Three Medical Support Assistants have commenced training. The Medical Branch has come of age, continuing to service the Unit, but now developing a training role for itself. The last twenty five years have seen enormous changes in the Senior Service, and we in the Reserves are not immune to their effects. We will have to work hard to ensure that H.M.S. "Wildfire" can continue serving the Crown for another twenty five years.

THE NEW ENTRY DIVISION & THE EXECUTIVE, THE ADMINISTRATION AND THE TRAINING DEPARTMENT The New Entry Division 1989, The Executive, Administration and Training Department 1989 The New Entry Division, By Third Officer Jackie Hansen, WRNR. The New Entry Division is every rating’s introduction to life in the Royal Naval Reserve. Our current policy is that all Officer Candidates also receive the same treatment. A New Entry course contains an average of 15 individuals ranging from 18 years of age to 30 years of age. For the majority we are the first taste of belonging to a disciplined force. It is our aim to teach them that they can become an integral part of the armed services of this country. Discipline, smartness and commitment are all emphasised during the 26 weeks they spend in the New Entry Division. Teamwork, physical fitness, a stringent swimming test and, lets not forget ,Drill are the padding around the classroom sessions of Naval General Knowledge, History and the role of the Royal Naval Reserve. Together with Mine Counter Measures, Ceremonial etc., etc. Not to detract from the past 25 years of new entries, standards required of today’s courses are increasing high. A syllabus designed by CINCNAVHOME and external examinations clearly demonstrate the professional standards required of the RNR today. The Excutive, the Administration, and the Training Department by Lieutenant Commander Steve Dickinson, RD., RNR. The everyday details of life always happen, often without anybody noticing. Pay gets paid, training records get kept, life goes on. All these natural things happened as if by magic. Nothing happens by magic or even au naturel, there is a real science of administration and it does exist and has been run over the may years by such doughty persons as PO WRN Dixie Dean (remember the clothing store?), by Ch Wrn Lee Burgon (monthly orders - have you read yours?) L Wrn Kathy Fullick (pay - bet you know if its wrong!) and L Wrn Viv Norman or new Training Support Assistant. Without this tremendous support al our previous XO’s and First Lieut.’s (remember them?) would never have gone on to greater things. The Administration of the Unit has changed immensely over the years, in line with the changes within the Royal Navy and the Royal Naval Reserve. Recently introduced Computerised pay has replaced such wonderful forms as RNR 19’s, RNR 25’s and RNR 21’s (what are they?), we have moved on from quill pens and that black typewriter (steam driven variety) and now have been trained in the new wonder package "RNR Computer Database" with which all will now happen automatically, (trouble is the software has a few bugs). These changes have not always reduced the work load, merely wiftediit to a position where more information is available, wanted and kept. It is all needed in the modern RNR. Whilst there is an RNR and a Navy the administration will be required and will silently and selflessly produce a copy of the memo which was distributed to you last week - Wasn’t it, Sir?.