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?