When you like humour and your navy career brings you into FOST you get your share of the cake...-:) FOST, Flag Officer Sea Training is a British institute of the Royal Navy at Portland Bill. Navy vessels of NATO get here their weapon and ships training to make a navy vessel a well trained unit. The training is mostly given when a ship has a new crew or an important exercises or mission is at hand. The training takes about eight weeks and consist of weapon training, action training, emergency procedures, etc. Though the training is intense (you make long days) there are a lot of humoristic situations. When things go wrong the reaction of the FOST instructors is very clear however, given in such a typical British way that it made us weak with laughter. My first experience with FOST was when I was sailing at Hr Ms Limburg and due to join ACLANT. The second time in FOST was with Hr Ms Groningen that was becoming operational with an entirely new crew. Portland Bill is a mountain with an old prison on top of it. Below is the harbour with the buildings of FOST. The most nearby town to enjoy yourself is Weymouth. Both times I was there for training it was winter time that makes the area grey, sombre and dull.
- iron Nell -
Hr Ms Groningen still in dock we went with the AIO personnel via Schiphol on a flight to London and from there by train to Portland Bill for a one week training. Arriving at the FOST buildings we got a place to stay in a large room with beds and a few tables. Early in the morning our room was alarmed by the entrance of a female sergeant of the British navy. She held a kind of a stick in her hands that she used to hit the iron wardrobes while she called: "get out! get out!.... get your feet on the ground! If you wasn't quick enough she hit you with it on your feet. Her name was Nell, 1,90 m tall with a sturdy figure and a pretty face. We named her Iron Nell. Our last evening we went out to Weymouth and found in a corner of a bar a nice walking stick with a silver knob at top of it and took it with us. The morning of our leave we offered the stick to Nell and told her that if it wasn't useful now it might be handy in the future. She accepted it with a smile, a bit suspiciously and said: "You guys, get out of my building ... and have a safe trip home!
- aboard Zerstörer 3 -
More navy vessels from different nations joined FOST at the same time. From the practical point of view they held exercises with each other. Exchange of personnel was a common event. In one of the period's two West German destroyers came to join FOST, the Zerstörer 1 and Zerstörer 3. Both vessels were former American destroyers of the Fletcher class - build by Bath Iron Works Corp. at Bath, Maine U.S.A. The ships were sold to West Germany. During one of the exchange programs I was stationed on Zerstörer 3. This was the ex- USS Claxton. I was to stay there for three days and I had a good time. In the ops room I was addressed with Holländer. My German language wasn't that good so I could report information from the ops room to the bridge in English. At night I was off from watch and was taken to the mess to taste the German beer..-:)). The atmosphere aboard the Zerstörer 3 was excellent compared to our vessel a bit more at ease. We had a good laugh very often in sharing jokes. We shared many good times aboard of our vessel supported by our Heineken...-:).
- new balls please.. -
During one of the anti submarine actions we had the sub trapped and didn't lose sonar contact anymore. Time to throw a hand grenade over the side to signal the sub "game over!". The grenade did not explode so a second one was thrown over the side that didn't explode either. Once more we tried with a third one, but nothing happened, some thing must be wrong with those hand grenades. It was reported to the FOST officer watching the exercises in the ops room as he reacted with: "New balls please!
Picture at the left: Aboard Hr Ms Groningen during FOST in the messroom, the ships band The Seagulls with F.Kubatz and H.Wieffers.
- in a disaster area -
One of the tasks for a navy crew is to give aid to civilian area's that are hit by war or nature. In order to practice this FOST has an area created that looks like a village hit by fire and earth quakes. Almost every one of the crew was involved in this exercises. I was instructed to search for people under collapsed buildings and get them out with the help of a group of my colleagues. All over the place actors and volunteers were hidden provided with the most terrible wounds. A small building was set in fire that we had to extinguish. Just doing so the water power of the harbour area failed and wasn't established. What next, we looked at each other......! Flames were already high in the air and a small instruction building close to it was beginning to show smoke. It took a while but at last the fire department of FOST itself entered the area with two cars and started to extinguish the fire.....-:)
In a deep well two people were down at the bottom and screamed, we had to get them out using ropes and a stretcher. The well was about 6 meter deep. However the victims were of formidable size (probably chosen for that) and it was a hell of a job to get them out. We didn't succeed in time and the signal of the end of the exercises was heard. One of the victims yelled that there was also a fire in the well now and we should hurry. Lucky us....an oil barrel next to the well was filled with water so we emptied it in the well and went our way back to the ship...-:)).
- going out and in vice versa -
For the AIO a lot of exercises were done in the cubicles of the FOST navy base, mainly fleet formation and asw. The next day an exercises was brought into practice and back at the base the results were discussed with the FOST instructors. Very often this was done with one or more other ships present in the training. During the practical exercises FOST instructors came aboard to watch the whole exercises and give their advice or discus misunderstandings.
- rebellion -
Another aspect of the training was the assistance to local authorities to restore public peace or to prevent more worse. FOST created a prison rebellion in the disaster area. This time no actors but crew of another vessel. The only actor involved was a FOST instructor dressed like a mayor from one of the popular English Tv series. I loved it!..-:) Only the English are perfect in that kind of thing. I still see that mayor in my mind, like mister Peacock, poppy at his jacket, typical English hat, umbrella and typical two colour shoes. With the landing force you had to enter the prison area and was instructed to isolate the rebellions from the other people. Finally we succeeded to force them in a corner of the area where one of us drew a white line that was not to be grossed over or to be shot. We fired with blanks if needed. During the attempts to isolate them all kind of dirty objects were smashed at your head. That crew of a British frigate gave us a hard time. To calm them down a smoke grenade was used.
At the end we looked so dirty full of nasty smelling things.
A few days later it was our turn to act as rebellions and that same crew of the British frigate was doing the landing force. We prepared very well. Small plastic bags we filled with leavings from the galley and with flower. Armed with potatoes and the plastic bags our little party started...-:)
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