Daft Old Duffer is back with his weekly column. Ed
All the talk about the new aircraft carriers has reminded me of an incident.
Long, long ago, in the days when the Yanks loved Saddam Hussein more than reconstituted meat, they were troubled by an altogether different bogeyman.
The President of Syria was being nasty to their other mate in the region, Israel.
And as the Yanks didn’t have many mates – then as now – they sent their 6th Fleet into the Mediterranean, ready to pop off assorted missiles and fighter bombers and marines, complete with charged-up chewing gum packs and general artillery, should films of John Wayne killing everybody prove insufficient to intimidate.
Takes me down memory lane
One day during this time, I was serving on-board an ancient cargo tub, ten knots and bits falling off, trundling towards Gibraltar on the way home when word spread that part of the 6th Fleet was passing on the horizon.
You should know that despite the way it looks in your school atlas, the Med is a very large sea indeed and it is perfectly usual to cruise its entire length without catching sight of any other vessel at all, even though it’s one of the busiest stretches of water to be found anywhere.
So those of us not on watch went topside to have a look. And it was a fine sight – ginormous aircraft carrier, cruisers, destroyers, fuel oil tankers, the lot.
As we watched an aldis lamp on one of the escorts began signalling us. Being merely a humble engineer it meant nothing to me.But a deck cadet translated for me
“W.H.A.T. S.H.I.P. A.N.D. W.H.A.T. I.S. Y.O.U.R. D.E.S.T.I.N.A.T.I.O.N?”
After a long pause our fourth mate appeared, stationed himself on the wing of the bridge and sent this reply. To what was quite probably the most powerful war fleet ever assembled, certainly in peacetime. And one fully primed with missiles, torpedoes, warplanes and marines, all raring to go at the slightest provocation.
“M.I.N.D. Y.O.U.R. O.W.N. F.L.I.P.P.I.N.G. B.U.S.I.N.E.S.S.”
Did I hear that correctly?
Not entirely believing the cadet’s reading, I checked with the fourth mate later.
“Is it right that you told the American 6th Fleet to mind it’s own flipping business?”
“Bloody right. Bloody Yanks. Think they own everything.” he said.
“Well, judging by what I saw this afternoon, they probably do.Or could if they put their mind to it.”
“Sod ’em. I ain’t scared of them.”
I refrained from pointing out that I was, and that we were on the same boat.
I had the impression that had the Yanks turned stroppy, we’d have turned hard to port and rammed, leaving some quite nasty rust marks on their paintwork as we sank.
