Voyager Captain Told Officers What He Thought Happened

Press, Volume CIII, Issue 30396, 21 March 1964, Page 13

Voyager Captain Told Officers What He Thought Happened

(N.Z. Press Association —Copyright) SYDNEY, March 20. The morning after the Voyager disaster, the captain of the aircraft-carrier Melbourne told his officers “what he thought had happened,” the Royal Commission was told today by Robert Tabor Everett, leading tactical operator aboard the Melbourne. He said Captain R. J. Robertson “had a run-through up to the collision.”

Proceedings were opened Io the public this morning after a 90-niinute secret session. Everett said that on February 10 he had come on duty shortly before 7.58 p.m. and remained on the bridge right up till the collision occurred. He had sent and received all messages from the Melbourne to the Voyager over the tactical primary circuit.

EveMl, questioned by Mr Smyth about the location of the Voyager, said: “My first impression of the Voyager was when she was coming in on the starboard bow. When I first saw her she was 200 or 300 yards away. My first impression was that she was going to cross our bows; then I thought it was a little bit fine.

“When she was 80 yards away I realised we were about to collide. She was almost on us, 58 yards away, and 1 told the yeoman, ‘We are going to hit her'.” Asked about the position of the officers, Everett said he had heard the navigator order the engines to be stopped, then half speed astern, when Voyager was possibly 80 to 100 yards away, before he had said to the yeoman, “We are going to hit her.” Asked by the Royal Commissioner (Mr Justice Spicer) if he had heard anything from Captain Robertson, Everett said: “He ordered the engines full speed astern." Everett told Mr Smyth he had not seen where the captain was. “He came on to the compass platform ... I might have noticed him, but 1 was looking at the Voyager at the time," Everett said. The captain had come from the starboard side and he had hettd him giving orders as he was coming on to the compass platform. Everett said he had passed messages between the Voyager and the Melbourne on that night and there had been no request from the Voyager for permission to cross the Melbourne’s bows, it was his impression that at the time of

collision the Melbourne was still turning slowly to port. On the morning after the collision, he and officers had assembled on the bridge, where Captain Robertson made a statement. "We had just had a run-through up to the collision," Everett said. "The captain was saying what he thought had happened.” Mr Justice Spicer asked Everett to give as much detail as he could of exactly what was said. Everett said Captain Robertson had told them: “We were steaming along and I saw the Voyager turn to starboard and then alter back to port, and then come across our bow.”

When asked to amplify as much as possible, Everett said he could not remember exactly, lie could remember the captain saying the Melbourne was on a course of 020 and travelling at a speed of 22 knots.

“After he said this, he asked us to inform him what we thought happened, and asked us to give our impressions,” Everett said. The captain had asked if anybody disagreed, and he thought the chief yeoman had, said Everett. He remembered him talking, but could not remember what he disagreed with. “It was just a small point, and I think it would have been the angle of the Voyager as it came across the bows,” he said. Captain Robertson had thought it was a right-angle, and the chief yeoman had more of an impression of the Voyager coming towards the Melbourne on something greater than a right-angle. Everett could not remember what the captain had said then. He remembered the captain making a statement to the crew of the Melbourne “over the pipe.” “He just gave an outline of events leading up to the collision and, 1 think, a little to do with the rescue work,” Everett said. Everett told Mr Norman Jenkyn, Q.C. (for the Navy), that he had noticed the time of the collision was 8.56. He agreed with Mr Jenkyn that he would have been concentrating his attention on the chief yeoman, rather than on

any other person on the bridge. It would have been 20 to 30 seconds after he had first looked up and seen the Voyager that the collision occurred. There would have been a lot of thoughts running through his mind, and the impression that the Melbourne was turning slowly, at the moment of collision, might have been wrong, he said.

Everett told Mr Justice Spicer that when looking at the Voyager he saw a genera) outline of a grey ship. It would have been the for'ard section—a blurred grey shape. To Mr L. W. Street, Q.C. (representing the interests of the late Captain D. H. Stevens), Everett said he had checked his watch about five hours after the collision and found it to be 20 seconds fast. He had never told anybody his watch and the clock on the bridge agreed. He had last set his watch on the morning of February 10.

His purpose in writing the log, he said, was to keep signals passing between both ships. It was his practice to write every signal sent to the Voyager, and every signal from the Voyager, and he had no doubt that he had logged everything sent to the Voyager, and everything the Voyager sent. Cross-examined by Mr Street, Everett said that at 7.56 p.m. he had sent a message to the Voyager, meaning the carrier was ready to operate aircraft when wind conditions were suitable. He agreed that on his log there was no record of the message being acknowledged by the Voyager. Everett said he “must have” received the acknowledging message, but not logged it. The chief yeoman must have been talking to him when the acknowledgement came through, as the yeoman had given him the message which he had logged out at 7.57. He said he had assumed (he Voyager acknowledged the message at 7.56, as It had acknowledged the message he sent one minute later. Mr Street, referring to the signal log, directed Everett's attention to a message at 8.40 in which the Voyager had

sent the carrier a question on speed. He had not logged the acknowledgement sent to the Voyager. "I remember sending the ‘roger’ distinctly," he said, adding that he had not logged it. “I could have been talking or thinking of something else.”

Everett said he had referred to the signal log when making a written statement about the events on the night of February 10, but he had not written anything into the signal log after the events. Mr Street questioned Everett about discrepancies in his signal log and a statemest he made about the collision. Everett agreed that the absence of some figures and letters on the record could indicate he had not placed them there because they had no significance. These messages had not involved telling the Voyager what to do. To Mr Street, he said the laid down system of indicating reception of a message was the one word, "roger.” He had omitted to log two "rogers.” Everett then was questioned by Mr C. L. D. Moares, Q. (on behalf of the widow of Lieutenant D. H. M. Price, R. who was officer of the watch aboard the Voyager). At Mr Meares’s request, Everett gave his wrist watch to Mr Meares.

Everett agreed it was a Helios watch which only indicated minutes each five minutes.

in setting his watch and recording times in the log he had been estimating the minute in question, between five, 10 or 20, simply by visual- observation. He could easily have been a minute out, but “after having a watch a few years you get to know it.” He did not know whether the second and minute hands had been synchronised on February 10. At Captain Robertson’s request, Everett demonstrated his procedure in sending a message to the destroyer to alter course to 020. The commission adjourned until Monday.