Recent Posts - page 14

  • A Matter Of Honour

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    On 10th December 1941, the Royal Navy Battleship, HMS Prince Of Wales and the Battlecruiser, HMS Repulse, together with other vessels in the seaborne Naval,  ‘Force Z’ – deployed from Singapore into the South China Sea offshore from Kuantan, in… Read More ›

  • The Pearl Diver*

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    “Kanzo Makame, the diver, sturdy and small Japanee, Seeker of pearls and of pearl-shell down in the depths of the sea, Trudged o’er the bed of the ocean, searching industriously. Over the pearl-grounds the lugger drifted — a little white… Read More ›

  • Helium: a, “philological atrocity”.*

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    Opening the first International Seminar on Helium Conservation (held in the UK in 1979, at Plymouth’s, Fort Bovisand Underwater Centre – then a world leader in providing commercial diver training for the North Sea gas and oil fields) Surgeon Vice-Admiral… Read More ›

  • Trouble Brewing

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    Given the passage of time it’s probably safe to now tell a story about the evils of strong drink, hopefully without fear of incrimination and reprisals. 😊 During the 1969/1970 winter, Sylvia and I were living in Naval married-quarters in… Read More ›

  • The Diver Who Saved a Cathedral

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    With one of Europe’s largest Gothic cathedrals in danger of collapse when its 11th century foundations began to sink into the peat bed on which they rested, the authorities in charge of Winchester Cathedral, in Hampshire England, began an ambitious… Read More ›

  • Cutting The Cable

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    Adapted to meet the warmer conditions encountered in tropical climes, the XE class of midget submarines, developed by the Royal Navy during WWII, were slightly larger than the X-craft used in the attack on the German Battleship, ‘Tirpitz’, in 1943…. Read More ›