HMS Hornet

Haslar Creek has always been an important part of Portsmouth harbour. The first ‘permanent’ fortifications at Blockhouse were constructed in the fifteenth century following the burning of Portsmouth during the Hundred Years War. It was connected to the Round Tower by a chain to keep marauders and Southampton supporters at bay. During the Civil War, the site was used to bombard the Royalist forces who controlled Portsmouth. Thereafter, depending on how seriously the government took the threat of French, then German and latterly Soviet invasion, the military fortunes of the site flourished or foundered.

The Haslar Gunboat Yard was opened in 1856 – part of an ebb and flow of activity in Haslar Creek as small craft came in and out of fashion amongst tacticians and accountants at the Admiralty. In 1876, HMS Lightning was the first torpedo boat in the Royal Navy. She held the world speed record for a while and was based here. The research establishment (owned and operated today by QinetiQ) first opened in the 1880s and provided much of the expertise that went into the design of ships and propulsion systems. Here were huge test tanks and equipment for developing hull forms, testing and developing propellers of all types from Edwardian Dreadnought battleships to modern nuclear submarines.

Much of the Victorian Admiralty’s early work on propulsion was incorporated into the site and great advances were made here on the study of propeller noise and cavitation. Famous engineers of the period including Brunel and Froude contributed to the work. In later years, development work on HMY Britannia, America’s Cup yachts, Fast Patrol Boats and high-speed racing craft all took place in Haslar Creek.

The Fort Blockhouse Submarine Mining Establishment was founded in 1878 – if you look very carefully at the right-hand side of the 1919 painting below, you can see a minelayer alongside.

This painting by Arthur McCormick was commissioned by the Imperial War Museum during the First World War as part of a collection known as ‘Women’s Work’. It originally included art, models, documents, uniforms and memorabilia of every variety. The collection is closely linked with the formation of the Museum itself to ensure that the role of women would be recognised and recorded.

The painting shows a group of WRNS cleaning a Coastal Motor Boat at what is now HSSC. The original is in storage at the IWM in London and can be viewed on request.

There are several very interesting features:

  • CMB 100M was one of a class of twelve 70’ Coastal Motor Boats ordered in 1918 (only five were built). She was equipped as a minelayer and designed to operate at high speeds in very shallow water. She had a crew of six. She was built of mahogany by Camper and Nicholsons in Gosport, had two Thornycroft petrol engines and could reach speeds of over 35 knots. Her sistership, CMB103 was the Hornet ‘Gate Guardian’ until 1972 and saw service on D Day.
  • Note the yachts in the background. They were on trots where Haslar Marina is today.
  • Note the camouflaged ship in the background. She is almost certainly the SS Willochra, built on the Clyde, which saw service with the Royal New Zealand Navy as a troopship at Gallipoli, before being requisitioned by the Royal Navy and repainted with dazzle camouflage as a countermeasure to the German submarine threat.
  • The warship entering harbour is almost certainly HMS IRON DUKE. She was a Dreadnought battleship launched in 1912 and commissioned into the Home Fleet as fleet flagship in 1914. She was Jellicoe’s flagship at the Battle of Jutland.
  • On the far right of the painting is a minesweeper, believed to be a Hunt Class. The pennant number is M519 (or MS19).
  • The WRNS Officer is Assistant Principal Leila Campbell Taylor. She lived at 5 Brodrick Avenue in Alverstoke and had been a teacher and a police officer before joining the WRNS in 1918 at the tender age of 50. She was initially employed running a gas mask facility over in the dockyard, but there wasn’t much to keep her occupied and after hassling her employer, she was sent across the harbour to take charge of the WRNS unit at Hornet. We have her Service History. She was not a ‘high flyer’…
  • Perhaps the most interesting piece of the painting is the patch.
    • The official story is that the painting was damaged whilst on display at Crystal Palace (the initial home of the Imperial War Museum) in 1920. Apparently, somebody put their foot through it. The painting has been in an IWM storeroom ever since.
    • The official story may well be true – at least in part. Given the size of the painting (it’s five feet high and seven feet across) you would have to have been fairly athletic, unless of course the painting was lying on the ground. Or perhaps an irate Naval Officer might have put his foot through it… but as a rather crude form of censorship. Because we also have a photograph taken at roughly the same time which shows three Distant Control Boats alongside CMB 100M, with the same ships (apart from Iron Duke) in the background. The Distant Control Boat programme, an early attempt at unmanned, remote-controlled boats, was classified Top Secret.
      • And how many paintings in important collections such as this that have been ‘damaged’ over time carry such a blunt repair? Imagine if they did that to the ‘Mona Lisa’…!
    • Poking out of the top of the patch you can see the unusual masts used for the radio antennae. You can also see the Wren is clearly cleaning something similar in shape but smaller than CMB 100M. The Distant Control Boats were only 40’ long and were based at HMS Hornet.
      • They were part of an experimental unit set up to trial remote controlled vessels using radio transmitters in Royal Fling Corps aeroplanes and receiving equipment onboard the boats. Trials took place in the Solent and some good control ranges were achieved – limited only by visibility. But accuracy was a big problem.
      • So too was the trim of the vessel. By the time you placed any ordnance in the bow, the trim was awful and the boat was almost impossible to control. So they moved the engine aft and put the bomb amidships, mounted on rails. On impact with the target, it should slide forwards at 30 knots!

Coastal motor boats were based in Haslar Creek during the First World War and the location remained an important focus for the development of high-performance propulsion systems and vessel design.

The site decommissioned as a Coastal Motor Boat base in 1926, just as financial stringency phased out the fast boat programmes. Between 1927 and 1938 the site was used by the RAF as a marine craft base. By Sept 1939 there were no Coastal Forces bases equipped with the necessary staff or facilities to maintain and operate the boats and HMS Hornet was recommissioned in December. It became the headquarters for Coastal Forces Command and also the home of an important trials and development organisation.

From early 1940 onwards, several Motor Torpedo and Gunboat Flotillas (comprised of anywhere between three and fifteen craft) were based at Hornet. Few stayed there for the entire war, as the centre of effort moved up and down the coast from Falmouth to the Wash. The gunboat sheds were in constant use for repairs and thousands of men and women passed through the gates of what became a major logistics and support base.

St Nazaire

Coastal Forces were involved in a remarkable array of naval actions throughout the war. Operation Chariot was one: the Combined Operations raid on St Nazaire in 1942.The aim was to breach the caisson in the entrance to the docks, which were a vital strategic asset for the German Atlantic fleet. Success would deny them the use of the port for the battleship Tirpitz. 

The obsolete destroyer Campbeltown was escorted by a Coastal Forces task group. She was packed with delayed action explosives which, when they detonated, put the dock out of action until 1948. Of the 16 Coastal Forces craft that took part in the operation, one turned back with engine trouble, ten were sunk by the enemy, three had to be scuttled because of the damage they sustained and only two made it home. Of the seven (yes seven) Victoria Crosses awarded for the action that night, a posthumous award was made to AB Savage of Coastal Forces which mentioned ‘the valour shown by many others unnamed in MLs, MGB, MTBs who gallantly carried out their duty in extremely exposed positions against enemy fire at close range.’ The operation has been called ‘the greatest raid of all’.

Sobering stuff.

Fairmile MTBs at Hornet in May 1944 (courtesy of IWM)

Later in the war, as preparations for the D Day landings progressed, coastal forces craft based at HMS Hornet were used extensively to support Combined Operations Pilotage Parties (COPP) based nearby at Hayling Island Sailing Club. These were essentially high-risk reconnaissance missions, designed to gather vital information about potential landing beaches and coastal defences.

Hornet’s role in the D-Day operations

Operation NEPTUNE was the name given to the amphibious phase of Operation OVERLORD, the invasion of Normandy. As planning progressed, it was soon very clear that the scale of activity to be coordinated was far greater than anything the Allies had undertaken before and HMS Hornet would have to maintain operational craft on an unprecedented scale. The site grew to include elements of HMS DOLPHIN and the overall focus was to maintain the highest possible levels of availability throughout.

By October 1942, HMS Hornet had been in commission for nearly two years but was still a relatively small operational base. As the strategists looked ahead to an invasion of the Continent, Hornet started to expand with the construction of accommodation for almost a hundred officers and 800 ratings, together with a massive expansion of workshops, storage and office accommodation. Dredging commenced on an industrial scale. Trots were laid and fuelling arrangements at the Shell Mex Pier on the Hamble extended.

From the outset, pontoons (or catamarans as they were known) were a major issue, but by April 1944 everything was in place with the exception of some electrical work.

Haslar Bridge was a problem and the heightening of the Haslar Toll Bridge went down to the wire. So did the provision of suitable winches to slip the 110 ft craft, but by May 1944 there were six operation slips at Hornet and the Gunboat Yard.

Throughout this period, the daily operational output of vessels at readiness for operations continued seamlessly.

How familiar this all sounds!

The ‘assembly’ phase started in April 1944. All Coastal Forces craft in the Isle of Wight area were maintained and administered by Hornet.

HMS Hornet – the assembly for the invasion of Normandy 31 May 1944

In the weeks running up to D Day, Hornet MTBs were involved in minelaying operations along the French coast and regular engagements with German E Boats.

When the main assault commenced, there were about 140 craft directly maintained by Hornet. Of these, only three were non-operational, giving an availability on D Day of 98%.

The Hornet MTBs main role was as part of the western protective flank of the invasion area. A seven-mile gun zone was established outside the main convoy route and any vessel entering it was presumed hostile. The MTBs worked closely with the frigates as well as conducting outlying offensive patrols off the enemy coast with ‘freedom to attack anything sighted’. Coastal forces worked almost exclusively at night, often relying on the radar-equipped frigates to cue them onto contacts of interest.  An hour before sunrise, they would wind up to 20 knots and return to Hornet for a bit of rest and a turnaround.

In addition to this, on the night of the invasion, a group of four Hornet boats were sitting off Barfleur acting as radar decoys.

The principal source of trouble was not necessarily enemy fire, but rather the risk of vessels striking underwater obstructions. In the second, third and fourth weeks of the operation, vessels returned to Hornet needing engine maintenance and extensive hull repairs caused by the appalling weather then prevailing.

In July 1944, Captain Coastal Forces (Channel) moved his entire operational command team into Hornet, to work more closely alongside the maintenance and repair teams and the drafting office.

The administration worked like clockwork: a boarding officer would meet the boat on arrival, followed by mail and stores and the technical teams. Everything was focused on a quick turnaround.

Several MTBs were crewed by Polish Navy personnel. One, S-8, ended up as a houseboat on the River Itchen renamed the ‘Whimsical MacGoffley’. The MacGoffley story goes as follows: a lucky MTB was said to have a MacGoffley aboard as a mascot. They were unseen spirits that kept the crew safe but were ultimately rather ‘needy’. Not-so-lucky boats had goblins. To keep the MacGoffley benign, it was the crew’s duty to put down a saucer of gin in the wardroom every night. [Rumour has it there’s one outside the Admin Manager’s office…Ed]

SURRENDERED E-BOATS ARRIVE AT PORTSMOUTH. 22 JUNE 1945, HMS HORNET, PORTSMOUTH. 3 SURRENDERED GERMAN E-BOATS ARRIVED TO BE TAKEN OVER BY THE ROYAL NAVY AT HMS HORNET, LIGHT COASTAL FORCES BASE AT PORTSMOUTH. (A 29323) German crews leaving the 3 E-boats at HORNET. The crews will be taken back to Germany in due course. Copyright: © IWM. Original Source: http://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/object/205160565

The Coastal Forces contribution to the war effort was invaluable – and the bravery of the personnel involved outstanding – with 3000 decorations, including four Victoria Crosses, Second World War Coastal Forces personnel received more gallantry awards than any other branch of the Royal Navy.

The Post War Period

After the war, starting in about 1952, Hornet was involved in the trials programme for the Napier Deltic diesels which went on to do such sterling service in Ton and Hunt class mine countermeasures vessels right through into the new millennium. The first engines were installed in one of the former German E-Boats; they went into production in the ‘Dark’ Class which were painted black, mainly because nobody could work out

how to compensate for the clouds of soot that came from those engines.

The last petrol-powered vessels in the Royal Navy were the Gay Class MTG/MGBs, and they were based at Hornet. There’s a good story behind this photograph of HMS Gay Archer, taken alongside at Hornet, in August 1952, not long after she was delivered. Two lieutenants decided to ‘borrow’ a dinghy from HMS Vernon to row back across to Dolphin after a night out in Southsea. They didn’t make it, so the following morning HMS Gay Archer was despatched to search the Southsea seafront. On her way back, she ran aground on the submerged barrier which damaged her starboard shaft and by the time she was towed back alongside there was rather a lot of water in the ‘people tank’. So far, Hornet historians have not established whether the intrepid rowers survived…[1]

HMS Gay Archer with ‘water in the people tank’

In September 1954 the Coastal Forces War Memorial was unveiled by Mrs Catherine Hichens, widow of one of the most outstanding MTB skippers of the war, Lieutenant Commander Robert P Hichens DSO RNVR, a peacetime solicitor who was killed in action, in April 1943. His book ‘We Fought Them in Gunboats’ is a remarkable read. The original text was heavily redacted by the Admiralty when it was first published in 1944, but thanks to some remarkable work by his granddaughter Tamsin, it was republished in its original state in 2023[2].

Unveiling of the Coastal Forces memorial at HMS Hornet, September 1954

The memorial was designed by Charles Jerram who served with distinction in Coastal Forces during WWII and gave his services free of costs. It was built by the Bath and Portland Stone Firms Limited. Some 450 individuals contributed to the cost, with donations ranging from an anonymous £100 to a shilling’s worth of postage stamps from an old age pensioner.

It was refurbished with assistance from the Coastal Forces Heritage Trust in 2019 and rededicated by Tamsin Hichens, granddaughter of the legendary Robert Hichens.

Final Decommissioning

The Royal Navy since the seventeenth century has been a blue water navy, focussed on power projection and the freedom of navigation on the high seas. Coastal Forces played a critical role in both World Wars, but in peacetime, with the maritime threat seen primarily as a Soviet submarine menace and the Treasury focused on creating the Welfare State and rebuilding Britian after WWII, the ‘small ships navy’ was always going to struggle for funding. The decline of the Empire, the Korean war, the Suez crisis and the need to balance the defence budget meant some difficult decisions were required. A repeat of the 1925 decision was inevitable.

Manpower would have been at the heart of this debate (nothing changes – Ed): most of those who served in Coastal Forces in the war were Reservists and in 1957 National Service began to phase out. The pool of manpower was drying up rapidly. That year’s Defence Review decided that we could no longer sustain the Coastal Forces capability at the same scale as we had seen in the previous two decades. HMS Hornet, recommissioned in anticipation of hostilities with Nazi Germany in 1939, was decommissioned in October 1957.

CMB 103, a 70′ Thornycroft hull a,d sistership to the vessel in the 1919 painting at the top of this article, was the Hornet ‘Gate Guardian’ until 1973. Today she is on display at the IWM Duxford site.

[1] The ‘submarine barrier’ as it is probably marked on your charts, continues to catch out the occasional yachtie. It was NOT designed to deter submarines per se – the water is far too shallow. It was (and is) very effective at stopping surface craft of all sizes from approaching Portsmouth Harbour from the east. It might more accurately be described as the ‘submerged barrier’. A discussion for the bar?

[2] Published by Golden Duck, available on Amazon or through the Coastal Forces Heritage Trust ISBN 978-1-899262-59-5