MARY
 
HMS MARYTON’s ship’s dog was naturally called Mary.  She had joined the ship’s company in Malta, and the Sixth Minesweeping Squadron, including MARYTON, then sailed for Singapore.  The Squadron was to take part as patrol ships in ‘Confrontation’, initially between Malaysia and Indonesia and then Malaysia and Singapore, against Indonesia, when Singapore left Malaysia.  The Indonesians were trying to take over Malaysia, and we British were helping the Malaysians.
 
MARYTON was fitted with two 40mm Bofors, the second replacing a twin 20 mm gun, abaft the funnel.  She also had two twin Vickers and two single ones, two Rocket Flare launchers for night actions, a mortar on the Bridge roof, two Bren guns, lots of Sterling machine guns and I, one of the two Midshipmen, had my Very Own 9mm Browning Pistol.  With one in three or four tracer rounds when we were in action, as we were most nights, there were LOTS of bullets flying - very spectacular.
 
I had joined the ship off Kuching, Sarawak. Thanks to previous Sea Cadet and RNR experience in sweepers, I was on watch, on my own, that night in tropical waters off the western end of Borneo, on the lookout out for Indonesians.  I’d bought for 2/6d a Wanchai Burberry (an oiled paper and bamboo Chinese umbrella) in the market that morning, it was raining as usual.  Shortly after leaving the market an Indon had let off a hand grenade so that I knew we weren’t there for fun.
 
The ship had at least 300 bullet holes in her - I wasn’t counting - from a previous action in the Singapore Straits, when the Captain, Lt-Cdr Doug Holder, had been awarded a DSO and the Leading Seaman gunner a DSM.  My Division included the two Locally Employed (LEP) Singapore Chinese, the Cook and the Steward, whose Action Stations were in the Wardroom Flat, replenishing ammunition when necessary.  They were less than impressed with bullets coming in one side of the wooden hulled ship and going out of the other.  There were two other officers, the First Lieutenant Ken Darby who was to be my Captain in HMS TORQUAY ten years later, and Alan Lewis, the Navigator.  His father was an admiral but he never mentioned this – he later became a vicar.  We two Midshipmen made up the rest of the officers out of a ship’s company of 35, including the Unofficial Chinese dhobeyman and the canteen operator, the best fisherman in the ship.
 
And Mary the dog.  She was alpha dog of the squadron, and did not allow the other dogs in the Squadron any leeway.  Each ship had her own dog, sometimes two.  In those days there was no problem with pets and most frigates and other smaller ships had at least one.  Mary was very well known.  She was quite capable of catching the liberty bus, on her own, from the Dockyard into Singapore proper to visit the Services club for a run ashore – and catching the bus back.  At sea, when coming off patrol, the relieving ship would bring out mail, and we would transfer this by ‘graunch’; that is coming alongside without lines, while slowly underway.  Each ship’s dog would be ready on the foc’s’le, barking wildly at the other dog, egged on by the crews. As soon as the ships came alongside, the dogs would circle round each other, jump onto the other ship’s foc’s’le, and raise a leg on the forward Bofors - and then return triumphantly (without fighting) to their own ship.
 
We had a stoker, somewhat of a loner, but a good man.  He was tall, and with another big AB, they were my prisoner reception party.  Once we’d stopped the enemy boat, but not alongside as one of my midshipmen friends was killed when the ship he was about to search blew up, we’d get the enemy crew to swim to our ship and climb up the jumping ladder, the deck aft was only a few feet above sea level. My two sailors would then swing the prisoner hard against the engine room bulkhead to stun him.  I would search him – they used to hide hand grenades in their crutches.  They would then be secured on the foc’s’le in the hands of our Malaysian or Singaporean policeman.
 
Our stoker took on abandoned animals, and found homes for them in other ships.  This wasn’t always a success; he took on two ducks who’d had their wings clipped.  As soon as we got alongside, the ducks would jump over the side aft and go for a swim.  Unfortunately on one occasion we went into a floating dock – the ducks jumped over the side - and that was that. 
 
But Mary remained very popular indeed, and was a definite morale booster for the ship.
 
We didn’t just take on animals. Alan Lewis, the excellent Navigator, spent what leave time he had working with a local orphanage.  We decided that when we were in for a weekend we’d have a banyan – a beach party - and invite 20 of the orphans to join our own families, and the ship’s company.  About a third of our crew were accompanied by their families.  At the beach, one young 10 year old very black Tamil orphan got out of the bus, clutched my hand and we went swimming. This was his first time at the seaside and he’d never been in waves.  He held tight, which was just as well as he was blind. This brought home to me that there’s always someone worse off than yourself.  Sailors like children and when we had a foreign visit in the years to come we would always have a kids’ party and help out at a children’s home – this still happens.
 
The ship was slightly piratical; at sea the troops wore boxer shorts and sandals and the officers brown shorts and thin short-sleeved blue shirts – all made in China.  A new First Lieutenant joined; he’d come direct from a large Guided Missile Destroyer under the command of a Naval Captain - of Polish origin - a real disciplinarian, who’d run his big ship on very strict lines. The new first lieutenant’s first action was to insist that all the sailors sewed up the fronts of their boxer shorts. Oh well…
 
But our ship was smart, we knew how to use our weapons, no-one was injured and we did make plenty of captures. And the Indonesians eventually gave up.
 
23 Feb 2014                                                                 Ken Napier
 
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