gunnery school

[Neville Roberts]

anyone went to the gunnery school in Liverpool, it was while we were hoime and didnt, have a ship, trained on the four inch , 36 pound shell guns ,and anti aircraft Boffers in a dome and the deck moved like the deck of a ship. the image of a plane would move across the top of the dome and you had too shoot it down the gun recoiled just like a real one a lot of fun, but could imagine what it must have been like for the real thing ,bloody scary. Nev

[Phil Crawley]

I nearly did the gunnery course, HMS Eaglet at the back of the pool, the CPO GI took me to one side monday morning and said you live in the IOM dont you, yes chief, get yourself on the 10.30 ferry and get back on the 09.00 ferry on friday and bring me some kippers, that was the gunnery course,a few days home.
Neville is your surname Roberts?
Phil Crawley.

[Arthur Jenner]

My first trip was on a supply ship for the navy home fleet in scapa flow. One day it was decided that we should do a two day gunnery course.
I don't know which island it was on. The first day was quite interesting. In the morning we had to learn all about some variety of machine gun and how to take it apart (don't ask me what variety of machine gun). In the afternoon we had a fun time in the dome. We first had to learn about 'aim off' and how it related to the speed of the plane and then there were moving pictures of German planes flying across the dome and we had to take turns in firing a dummy gun at them. Looking through the gun sight we couldn't see if we were aiming correctly but everyone else could see a yelllow dot so they could tell if we were aiming properly.
The second day we were lined up on a cliff top. It was bitterly cold. There were guns of every type imagineable lined up along the cliff - machine guns ack-ack guns, oerlikons you name them. A plane would appear towing a target drogue and we had to fire at it with real ammo. I have never heard such a noise. All guns firing at once. That pilot should have had the VC because I'm sure a lot of the nutty merchant seamen would have been firing at the plane.
It was an interesting couple of days and a nice change from our normal routing.

[Pete Leonard (Bruno)]

I was sent by Dock Street Pool to attend a Gunnery course on HMS Chrysantheum and HMS President. These were then berthed on the Thames embankment at Blackfriars. We all thoroughly enjoyed it because not only being instructive it was a good laugh. The instructors were ex Whale Island GI's and real characters. We trained on a sawn off 4" twin Oerlikons and Pompoms. It was so enjoyable that I opted to goback on it about 2 years afterwards when I was on the beach.

[Mick Burke]

Yes Nev Had a great time we used to play football nearly all day .If you wanted a day off we would give the instructor a dropsie//

[Stuart Henderson]

[ref post #4

Hi Bruno,
Yes I did same,thoroughly enjoyed the courses on HMS President and repeated it like you. The second time we all went to Sheerness for the day to RN base where we actually fired the gun at a drone towed by an old Tiger Moth type plane. Mind you getting home every night was great too and an incentive. Looked up your About Me entry and see we sailed on a couple of the same ships namely GSNCs DRAKE and P&Os MALOJA, the latter put me off Aussie for a while when we arrived there to find all the pubs closed at 6pm in those days except in Queensland ,Brisbane last port. I was Vindy 1947 and catering
Cheers
Stuart

[Pete Leonard (Bruno)]

Hi.Stuart
I've just replied to your other posting, which I made a bit of a cock up on, sorry about that. It was good to hear from someone who did the same course as me. It's a different world now. At that time everyone was a bit twitchy about the threat from Russia hence the need for that preparation. You could hardly stop anything these days with a 4" gun or an Oerlikon.
I sympathise with you about the old 6 o'clock swill in Oz. in those days it was a bit grim. I was in Sydney when they changed it by referendum. The irony was that Victoria had the same referendum shortly afterwards and it was defeated. The reason being that the drinkers didn,t bother to vote thinking if NSW got it through it was a foregone conclusion. But the church was very strong in that state and of course they voted in strength. I think they had to wait another 5 years before they could have another referendum.They had learned their lesson by then.

Cheers
Pete

[happy daze john in oz]

Six O clock swill, if you have not seen it you have seen nothing. One of the most enlightening experiences you could ever have particularly in the Port Melbourne pubs. Very intimidating for any one seeing it for the first time.

[Stuart Henderson]

Yes my first one I recall well because Id "escaped" early and got First & Last about ten minutes before six. Crammed in corner of well crowded bar and with spare pints or two and literally swilling it down like you said.Britght sunshine outside of course but thenfor me the most amazing thing along came a Salvation Army man with WarCry........ Normally seen on wet dark Saturday night in the UK. Weird.....
Stuart