A Tale of Two Castlemaines: Part II

Way back in January I posted about some of the research I was doing for my WIP.
I talked about a trip I was planning to a WWII era RAN (Royal Australian Navy) minesweeper.

As I said then I was researching the ship on which one of my characters serves for part of WWII.

Being in the RN (Royal Navy) operating out of Russian ports Ronnie is likely to have served on a Halcyon Class minesweeper. So it seemed too good to pass up an opportunity to visit a similar ship that is preserved as a floating museum at Williamstown in Melbourne.

What is the link to Castlemaine? Well during the war Australian shipyards built 60 Bathurst Class minesweepers.

The only surviving example is HMAS Castlemaine, named for the very town I last posted about.

Castlemaine served as an escort vessel for convoys in Australian waters for much of the war. In 1942 it participated in an operation running commandos to Timor in which its sister ship HMAS Armidale was sunk by Japanese aircraft.

After the war, Castlemaine served around Hong Kong clearing thousands of sea-mines sown in the area by both sides during the war. Then for some decades the Castlemaine was used as a training ship by the RAN.

Finally in 1973 HMAS Castlemaine was gifted to the Maritime Trust of Australia to serve as a museum ship. Today it is lovingly maintained and opened to the public by a dedicated group of volunteers.

So one sunny day I tootled off to Williamstown to do a tour of the Castlemaine.

My first impression of the Castlemaine as I approached it was “Isn’t it small.”Closer up it looks larger, but still small to be home to a crew of over 70 for months at a time.

I guess I was not specifically interested in the Castlemaine rather I wanted to get a feel for the similar ship my character Ronnie would have served on.

Boarding the Castlemaine the first thing you see is the floats that were used to tow cables behind the ship to literally sweep for mines. I want Ronnie to see Russia from British eyes during the war. One of the best ways I can do that is putting him on a minesweeper, because many RN sweepers operated out of Murmansk and Archangel for long stretches during the war.

Down in the bowels of the stern is the “steering gear compartment” a sort of auxiliary wheel used if the bridge was damaged in combat.Forward of that, but still below the waterline is the “engine room” which is filled with a maze of pipes.The upper deck, looking astern to the rear anti-aircraft gun. Castlemaine’s guns look out over a busy marina these days.On the foredeck is the main armament, a 4 inch naval gun.The lifeboats hang in their davits, loyally waiting service that will never come.Inside the superstructure on this upper deck is the captain’s cabin. On Ronnie’s ship this would have been his quarters and office where he conducted the business of running the ship.

From beside the captain’s cabin is a steep ladder up to the bridge.I guess the warning sign is a later addition. This is exactly the sort of ladder I have already imagined Ronnie bashing his head on in an emergency.

The Castlemaine’s Bridge is enclosed. Most RN minesweepers had a bridge open to the elements.I can only imagine what a watch on a bridge like that might be like in the winter’s dark north of the Arctic Circle.

You’ll have to excuse me I have some imagining to do.

Ronnie

This afternoon I have been doing a little research on Royal Navy (RN) ships. Specifically I have been looking at information on minesweepers. The first half (or so) of my current work in progress is set during WWII. Most of the novel takes place in Russia and other chunks of what was the USSR.

One of my characters comes to know Russia and Russians by serving on a RN vessel operating out of Murmansk and Archangel. Interestingly a number of RN ships particularly minesweepers spent months at a time operating from Russia, often returning to the northern ports over several years.

Now before anyone leaps to the conclusion that I am trying to recreate something like Monsarrat's The Cruel Sea, I most emphatically am not. I like to write from differing points of view. In Veiled in Shadows (hopefully creeping closer to publication) for example I look at the events in Germany and Western Europe through the 30’s and 40’s from viewpoints as different as those of an SS officer and a Holocaust survivor. So my RN officer (his name is Ronnie by the way) is planted in the Soviet Union to give an outsider’s viewpoint.

Most of the research I am doing now will never directly appear in the novel. However, it is important to me to know as much as I can about a character. In fact, it seems I have to become intimate with them before they speak their stories to me. So I know quite a lot about Ronnie’s background. He is from a well to do family with a loving sister, a socialite mother and a distant father. Like a many young men in the RN during the war he has been thrust in over his head. He is in his early twenties but he has been given a command (albeit a small one) largely on the basis of a yacht-masters certificate he obtained before the war. This actually happened to quite a number of young RN Volunteer Reserve officers during the war.

Today in my imagination Ronnie has been guiding me through some of the material available through the wonders of the internet. We have been looking at the vessels of different classes such as Halcyon Class and Flower Class (aren’t they amazing names).

HMS Britomart a Halcyon Class minesweeper. Photos for this post are from Wikimedia Commons.

Then quite by chance (or perhaps Ronnie was nudging me) I found the HMAS Castlemaine site. Here in Melbourne is one of the few WWII minesweepers that still exist. Now to be sure HMAS Castlemaine is a Bathurst Class and so different to the vessels Ronnie would have served on, but she is similar enough to allow a far more accurate feel than any number of photos or plans could ever give.

HMAS Castlemaine a Bathurst Class corvette

As an aside for those of you who don't know HMS stands for Her (or His during WWII) Majesty's Ship while HMAS stands for Her Majesty's Australian Ship.

So if you ever read about Ronnie meeting Valentina at a dance in Archangel and if Ron has a bruise on his brow, you might wonder why? If he does it will be because he showed me on the Castlemaine how he cracked his head by not ducking as he left his cabin.

Can anyone guess where I might be going next weekend?