Picture of the day

HMCS NIPIGON DDH 266

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On 18 Oct 1965, a fire broke out aboard the ship, causing the death of three crew; no official cause for the explosion and subsequent fire has ever been given. LS Doyle Clement White and Able Seaman Wendell Tolson Gray were awarded the British Empire Medal for Gallantry for their actions that day.



B.E.M. Citation for LS Doyle White: "At approximately 2030 hours on 18th October 1965, while at sea, two explosions occurred in 12 Mess on HMCS NIPIGON. The force of these explosions blew the locked cover off a tank containing JP 5 helicopter fuel causing a flash fire in the Mess. The compartment directly above the Mess contained ammunition. At the time of the explosions there were eleven men in 12 Mess, one of which was Leading Seaman White. Although burned about the face and hands when 'escaping from the Mess, Leading Seaman White rushed to the Quartermaster's lobby to inform the lifebuoy sentry of the explosions in order that Command could be informed. He then returned to the area of the Mess to assist where needed but when advised that one man who appeared to be unconscious had not escaped from the Mess, immediately 'donned a set of breathing equipment and re-entered the Mess. The Mess at this time was filled with fumes from the JP 5 fuel and heavy black smoke. Freeing the unconscious man Leading Seaman White, with the assistance of Able Seaman Gray who had just entered, carried the man to the foot of the hatch and then searched all bunks to ensure no one else was trapped. Then - with the assistance of the Able Seaman and other crew members, brought the man up to the mortar well on the deck above. Leading Seaman White then assisted the damage control parties in flooding the JP 5 fuel tank with sea water and the removal of smouldering material. Although burned by the initial flash fire, Leading Seaman White alerted Command, re-entered the fume and smoke filled Mess to rescue a comrade, and did excellent work in a dangerous area which contained an open JP 5 fuel tank adjacent to stored ammunition before obtaining medical attention for himself. This fine display of courage in the face of serious injury or possible death, is a credit not only to Leading Seaman White, but also his ship and the Canadian Forces.



B.E.M. Citation for AB Wendell Gray: "At approximately 2030 hours on 18th October 1965, while at sea, two explosions occurred in 12 Mess on HMCS Nipigon. The force of the explosions blew the locked cover off a tank containing JP5 helicopter fuel causing a flash fire in the Mess. Directly above the Mess was a compartment containing ammunition. At the time of the explosion, Able Seaman Gray was in the main cafeteria. Immediately making his way to the upper deck, he was instructed by the Damage Control Officer to break out all available breathing equipment. When informed that LS White had entered the Mess to free an unconscious man, he quickly donned same, and following the Leading Seaman into the mess, assisted in the evacuation of the man to the mortar well on the deck above. The Mess at this time was filled with fumes from the JP5 fuel and heavy smoke. Returning to the area, AB Gray entered the Mess on three successive occasions with fire fighting and other equipment and assisted the damage control parties in clearing the Mess of the smouldering material. Although the youngest in the group, AB Gray assisted in the rescue of a comrade, entered the Mess on several occasions where there was an open JP5 fuel tank, and assisted the damage control parties with the fire-fighting and removal of smouldering materials. His actions throughout this incident, in 12 the face of serious injury or possible death, have brought credit not only to himself, but also to his ship and the Canadian Forces."

Why has this incident been hidden for so long?

There was a bad dockside incident on HMCS Protecteur that caused multiple deaths of crewmen who were asphyxiated when they entered an empty fuel tank for work. This happened in the 1970's as I recall. A very bad day for the community.

To be honest and truthful, peacetime RCN service at the sharp end throughout the entirety of the Cold War was quite dangerous, especially in the North Atlantic.

A vast storehouse of RCN history:

https://www.forposterityssake.ca/RCN.htm
 
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'A Grisly Business'

https://www.americanrifleman.org/me...australian-smle-sniper-rifle-1.jpg?quality=60

Ian Robertson, Third Royal Australian Rifles Sniper Section

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The Lithgow SMLE Sniper Rifle In Korea: Pvt. Ian Robertson at Hill 614​

​

by
  • Daniel Cotterill
posted on June 12, 2020
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This article appeared originally as "A Grisly Business" in the August 2003 issue of American Rifleman
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Australian-made Lee-Enfield sniper rifles were only just coming on line as World War II ended, and for that reason, their use in that conflict was limited. Some were present during the mopping-up campaigns on islands in the southwest Pacific during 1945, and the Australian War Memorial has pictures to prove it. The majority of active service use occurred during Australia's participation in the Korean War in the early 1950s.

According to Ian Robertson, who was a sniper with the 3rd Battalion of the Royal Australian Regiment in Korea in 1950 and 1951, during fighting for a terrain feature known simply as "614," he was sniping on and off for a whole week at very long range. The company commander's map indicated the range varied from between 900 and 1,200 yds., though Robertson says it didn't look to be any more than about 600 yds.

Operating at high altitude and firing from ridgeline to ridgeline into a light headwind, shots started to hit home with the scope adjusted either to or above its maximum elevation setting of 1,000 yds. Robertson noticed a steady flow of single enemy soldiers making their way down from the top of the ridge to a forward position that was sheltered from his view.

"I would say I had hit after hit there.... when I saw these blokes suddenly drop or fling themselves away or something like that, I thought that, most of the time, it would be a near miss. They were flinging themselves out of the way to give the impression that I'd hit them or something like that. I was able to do it time after time—every time I fired, the figure would disappear. I had the idea that they must have had a huge bunker, because so many people were going down there.

"I nutted it out that when they passed a particular point, if I fired then, they would run into the bullet. They had to come down at the same speed because of the rough ground they were moving on. I tried an experimental shot low down and saw the blast of the bullet just above that bloke, so I made another guess and fired another shot, and this bloke disappeared. It seemed to confirm what I thought. Then I got the measure of them coming uphill as well.

"Once in a while, one of them would come uphill. A lot of them were going down, though. What seemed to happen was that one or two might have made it, and then they were eventually coming back and being replaced by others. But they weren't getting down there, because I was knocking them off as they went.

"I kept doing this in between other duties, sniping across there. All this went on for about a week. Each time I'd come in I was exhausted, so I'd go out and fling myself down on the ground in a little sort of a borough and then get my position and range in nicely, set my range and all that and then away I'd go again.

"They were mortaring a tangle of rocks not far from where I was, about 60 or 70 yards away. They were hammering the daylights out of it, and I thought, 'What the hell are they doing this for? We have never had any troops in among those rocks, yet.' I could see through the scope that there was a number of important figures in control of all this, the FOO (forward observation officer) and all this, so I very cheerfully waited and put another shot in amongst their group, and they'd all disappear.

"When we finally took the hill, I thought 'I have got to have a look at this thing, I have got to see this 'Flinders Street Station' they have up here that they have been manning all the time.' It was only a pit that would hold a few fellows, but there was a steep drop about 25 feet deep in front of it, which was why they had to stick to the ridgeline to get in there.

"There were about 30 bodies down there in front of the pit. I went a bit like jelly for a minute and thought, 'oh sh*t, I'm in a grisly business here.' All the verve and dash sort of went out of me for a moment and I thought, 'Gee I've been working on this for a bloody week, what sort of mayhem have I done?'”

When I recorded an interview with this old soldier some years ago, I was a bit skeptical about the long range involved in this incident. The story remained the same no matter which way I came at it, and a number of other things he had told me had checked out.

Regular competition at the rifle range I shoot at only went back to 900 yds. in those days and using a high-mount sniper rifle in good condition (the one pictured above) and several different sorts of ammunition, I set out to see for myself.

It took a while to get the hang of the rifle, and to get calm conditions similar to those Robertson had described, but when I did it became clear that what he had described was achievable under the right circumstances. A score of 48 out of 50 on a 900-yd. full-bore target was the best I managed.
 
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The Fairchild 91.

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Seven built total, only one (HK832) in RAF service. From the IWM:

Fairchild 91, HK832 'M' of the Sea Rescue Flight, on an airfield in Egypt. This single-engined amphibian, formerly NC16690 on the US civil register, was purchased second-hand by the British Air Ambulance Corps, a New York-based charity, and delivered to the Middle East where it served with the SRF until sunk in a take-off accident near Benghazi on 17 May 1943.
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The Japanese had one too, but lost it in 1937.

Good looking this, at least to my eye:

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FINALLY found a picture of an SMLE MkV in UK service. In this case, it's a home guard soldier in 1940, after the fall of Dunkirk. You can make out the extra front barrel band and rear sight.

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