Civilians sailing to war

Press, 20 April 1982, Page 8

Civilians sailing to war

NZPA-Reuter' London The seamen with the most experience of war in Britain’s Falkland’s' task force are not manning the warships. They are civilians on the cruise liner Canberra, hastily converted to a troopship — crewmen such as the onearmed steward who looks after the ship’s cinema, and the “A” deck steward. Both saw plenty of action in World War Two. By contrast the man commanding the task force of about 30 ships has never been in a sea,battle. RearAdmiral John Woodward joined the Royal Navy in 1946 when the war was over. So too did nearly all the men with the task force. The Navy has seen very little action since then, except for some skirmishes during the ill-fated Suez invasion of 1956. The one-armed steward said it was like sailing back in time. “It seems the war was only yesterday,” he said, recalling how he served on merchant ships and corvettes in World War Two.

Close by, crew-cut young Roval Marine commandos

swung bazookas round to fire at imaginary tanks, and wiry paratroopers stripped and assembled their weapons blind-folded. The deck steward, was a sailor in World War Two and still had vivid memories of a bloody landing at Okinawa in the Pacific.

“Nobody who has seen war would look forward to it,” he said, as he doled out the wisdom of years and mugs of tea to soldiers. “But these lads are tremendous and it’s a privilege to be looking after them. The way I see it these lads are after revenge. They saw their own marines made to lie flat on the road in the Falklands by the Argetines,” he said. The picture of the surrender had been splashed on the front page of Britain’s big-grest-selling daily, the “Sun.” '’The two veteran stewards volunteered without hesitation to stay with the luxury 45,000-ton P and O liner when the Government pressed it into action as a troop carrier. They are just two of 424 civilian crew on board.

The Canberra had just returned from a round-the-

world cruise. Now it has soldiers, instead of bikiniclad girls, sunbathing on.,the decks.

It took just 60 hours from the time the 1750 fare-paying passengers were? disembarked to turn the world’s third biggest cruise ship around with 2000 fully-armed troops aboard. ■ Britain stopped using pur-pose-built troopships in the 1960 s when abandoning its historial role as a global power in favour of a military and political commitment to Western Europe. So now the Government has to requisition or charter passenger liners to ferry troops to far-flung troublespots. After it sailed from Southampton on April 9, the Government requisitioned another P and O liner, the 16,900-ton Uganda, as a hospital ship. The Canberra could be regarded as a legitimate target in time of war because it has troops aboard. But the Geneva Conventions require that the captain be given time to get his passengers off the ship. While the men are only too aware they could be sailing

into battle and the atmosphere is generally serious, they like to unwind in the

Crow's Nest Bar. But the beer ration has been reduced to two cans a night for each soldier as the Canberra gets closer ■to the Falklands and the rpilitary preparations are intensified. No such restriction applies to officers, but one said: “We drink sparingly and as we near the action it will tail off altogether.” “Morale is high and our problem will be to maintain it at this level," said a marine officer. “The men are in a very sharp state of readiness and if the crisis drags on for weeks we could face some psychological problems.” Somewhere over the horizon is one of the latest Soviet spy ships. It has monitored the Canberra’s communications since the liner left Southampton. They will know of her speedy conversion to a troopcarrying role, with the installation of two helicopter pads. “I would have thought they were extraordinarily impressed," said Captain Dennis Scott-Masson.