Officer Passes Test For Command

Press, Volume XCVIII, Issue 29060, 24 November 1959, Page 20

Officer Passes Test For Command

An atomic attack was imagined in Lyttelton Harbour on Saturday morning for the benefit of a reserve naval officer being passed out for command of the seaward defence launch Pegasus. When the “explosion” was reported by the testing officer to have been observed off the port bow, Lieutenant George Shaw sounded an alarm klaxon and cleared his crew off the upper deck and went with them to continue to con from below. Fans were shut off, hatches were tightly closed down and previ-ously-positioned hoses washed water over the enclosed superstructure and deck to rid the vessel of “radioactive fallout.”

Later, Lieutenant-Commander J. S. Pallot, told the crew that their launch was an unlikely potential nuclear target, but the protective procedure they had practised was identical in effect to that adopted in a big warship under similar conditions and to methods they would exercise in larger ships of the New Zealand Navy during sea training. As captain of a British warship before assuming his present appointment as staff officer at H.M.N.Z.S. Pegasus in Christchurch, Commander Pallot spoke from personal experience. The nuclear alarm was only one of several tests that Lieutenant Shaw was required to perform before the day was out. He had one unscheduled test —that of bringing his vessel alongside another of similar size. This was the white Fairmile tender Takapu from the survey ship H.M.N.Z.S. Lachlan calling at Lyttelton and moored at Pier 4 while its crew washed their clothes and painted the deckhouse.

It vas suggested that the two launches might make a suitable subject for a photograph and so Pegasus was brought alongside to pose for several minutes. Critical eyes of the regular navy in Takapu and a camera ready, to record any mishap must have been a, mildly unnerving come-

bination but Lieutenant Shaw brought off his manoeuvre with competence. His first lieutenant was Sub-Lieutenant M. Ballantyne. A call at Diamond Harbour and further tests on the way to Port Levy and home again in the afternoon completed the test for the new commanding officer, 11 years ago an ordinary seaman newly enlisted in the Canterbury division of the Royal New Zealand Naval Volunteer Reserve.

One of the navy’s 85 week-end sailors in Christchurch, Lieutenant Shaw is a printer. He was commissioned as a sub-lieutenant in 1951

His career as a reservist is considered a typical example of the kind of experience and promotion volunteer reservists can expect if they join a division. Recruiting Campaign

Recruiting for reservists in Christchurch will be intensified this week with the object of bringing the division up to its authorised establishment of 120 and, perhaps, beyond it. The men in the four New Zealand divisions are keenly aware that their numbers decide in a certain measure the type and quality of equipment they are given to work with. Recent Navy League moves to obtain coastal minesweepers from the reserve fleet for the division have sparked an effort to improve strengths to a state where manning of the vessels would be no problem. The idea of recruiting at this stage of the year is to finish the “paper war” of interviewing and medical examinations quickly so that sea training can be started this summer.

It is not unlikely that a few reservists accepted before Christmas could go to England next year to assist the Royal New Zealand Navy regular crew bringing the new Whitby class frigate Taranaki out to the Dominion. New recruits would have to be medically fit, the officer commanding the Canterbury division (Captain J. N. Allan) said.

During compulsory military training the standard was lower, including a lower eyesight standard for ratings for certain branches.

“There is only one standard now—that of the Regular navy,” he said.

Captain Allan said that recruits would have to be between the ages of 17 and 24. It was expected there would be an intake from the four secondary schools and one open sea cadet units with which the division kept up a liaison, but it was not essential for a recruit to have been a sea cadet to volunteer his service.