“LITTLE SHIPS”

Timaru Herald, Volume CLVIII, Issue 23317, 28 September 1945, Page 7

“LITTLE SHIPS”

A Record Of Honour Work Of H.M.S. Ayrshire (R.N.Z. Navy Official News Service) At a Western Approaches port recently a small trawler, which since 1939 has steamed nearly 250,000 miles under the White Ensign, was finally paid off, her naval service completed. She was H.M.S. Ayrshire, and her story is worth recording if only as an indication of the superb part played in the war at sea by the “little ships” of the Royal Navy. Apart from those joining the Fleet Air Arm, the great majority of New' Zealanders who have gone overseas on loan to Royal Navy have served in small ships, either in the fast mosquito craft of coastal forces or in the minesweepers and escort vessels the tasks of which have been legion. Several New Zealanders have served in Ayrshire herself over the years, and the commanding officer of the trawler for the last six months of her final commission was Lieutenant G. D. Gray, R.N.Z.N.V.R.. formerly of Dunedin. Ayrshire was a newly-built fishing trawler at the outbreak of war, and was one of many such vessels taken over by the Admiralty for naval service. She was equipped both for minesweeping and for anti-submarine work, and was in action as early as February 1940, when she was attacked bv German bombers off the east coast of Scotland. She spent several months in Iceland immediately after the protective occupation of that island by Britain, and was engaged in surveying the Iceland fiords and also on examination duties. Fury of the Atlantic Then came the full fury of the Battle of the Atlantic. Ayrshire joined one of the escort groups based on the Clyde, and throughout 1941 the little trawler played her part in the escort of Atlantic convoys. Bad weather, large convoys, the Incessant activity of German U-boat packs—these were her lot. and occasional spells in port were generally only sufficient for fuelling and provisioning ship and carrying out urgent repairs. From all the convoys that Ayrshire helped to escort that year only one ship was lost. After another spell of comparatively peaceful duty in Iceland waters Ayrshire, in the summer of 1942, was given her biggest job of the war. She was attached to the escort force of a Russian convoy. In a nightmare passage she hrmted U-boat contacts opened up with her small armament against German bombers, and ultimately cleared a passage through Arctic ice for a group of merchant ships when the convoy had been dispersed to avoid possible attack by a German Fleet unit. She used her last shovelful >f coal just off the mouth of the Dvina and was finally towed into harbour by a British corvette. When she finally made fast at Archangel her ship's company were able to take off their clothes and have a full night's sleep for the first time in three weeks. The return passage to the United Kingdom was less eventful, although U-boats were, still active, necessitating constant vigilance on the part of all units of the escort. After one Iceland convoy run early in 1943, Ayrshire was ordered .to Canadian waters to assist in overcoming the growing U-boat threat in the Western Atlantic. For nearly a year she carried out these duties, often steaming as far north as Iceland and not infrequently battling with the hazards of blizzards, ice and fog. More Convoy Duty Then, early in 1944, Ayrshire returned to Liverpool to join an escort group in the Western Approaches Command. Her principal task was the escorting of Iceland convoys, and weather, rather than enemy activity, constituted her chief source of trouble. Two convoy runs to Gibraltar broke the monotony, and then, when the Germans made their last despairing fling with U-boat attacks off the English coast, Ayrshire was switched to coastal convoys. V-E Day, however, found her once more in Iceland waters, and her last war-time task, before she paid off on June 27. was to escort two surrendered U-boats to a Western Approaches base. During nearly six years of service, Ayrshire assisted in escorting nearly 2500 merchant ships, and from all these convoys there was a loss of only 1 per cent. Her service never reached the level of the spectacular, but, in common with that of all the other small ships of the Navy, it represented that dogged perseverance which is one of the essentials in the application of sea power. Every New Zealand sailor who has served in small ships has his own particular Ayrshire. Their record is one of great honour.