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Clifford Simkin
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Sea service
Sea Service
The Royal Navy soon sent Clifford abroad fixing ships in Bombay, Aden, Egypt and the Mediterranean. He eventually found himself on HMS Lucia in August 1940.
'It was an ex-German merchantman that was captured in 1914. It was not only old but falling to bits and the Lucia captain liked to capture artificers to hold his ship together. I replaced more boiler tubes in that ship than on all the rest of the ships on which I served put together.'
After transferring to HMS Flamingo, Simkin was involved in the Red Sea Convoys. He recalls the danger faced on board as the ships sailed exposed to the German attack -
'We had not been at sea long before the Stuka raids started, and they hammered us all the way to Tobruk and back, the ships were carrying much needed supplies but they were very slow which meant it took days to get there, suffering air attacks the entire time.'
Although in the midsts of war the Navy required all Engine Room Artificers to continue their training - Clifford Simkin was no exception, as he recalls -
'While all this was going on we still had exams to pass so we had to study as well. First it was for a boiler room charge certificate. I was fortunate having served on coal-burning and oil-burning ships. Next it was for an Auxiliary Machinery ticket, this was the running and maintenance of all plant other than the main engines, such as steering motors, capstans, dynamos, all the various pumps, evaporators... the refrigerators were also part of this group.'
The majority of time was spent keeping the ships running, especially whilst at sea.
'During Action Stations we used to double bank in the Engine Room, which meant there would be two artificers, plus extra stokers and the engineer officer plus his writer would come down. The reason for this is we are responsible for damage control and during action there are many more engine movements.'
