23rd Flotilla

DESCRIPTION: "Up to Kola Inlet, back to Scapa Flow... Why does it always seem to be Flotilla number Twenty-Three, Up in the Arctic Ocean, up in the Barents Sea." The singer describes the difficulties of being a convoy escort on the route to and from Russia
AUTHOR: C. J. Cunningham with "Dicki" Birks (source: Tawney-GreyFunnelLines-RoyalNavy)
EARLIEST DATE: 1962 (Tawney-GreyFunnelLines-RoyalNavy)
KEYWORDS: navy hardtimes technology
FOUND IN: Canada Britain(England)
REFERENCES (2 citations):
Tawney-GreyFunnelLines-RoyalNavy, pp. 92-93, "Twenty-Third Flotilla" (1 text, tune referenced)
Hopkins-SongsFromTheFrontAndRear, p. 112, "23rd Flotilla" (1 text, tune referenced)
Roud #29405
CROSS-REFERENCES:
cf. "Lili Marlene" (tune) and references there
cf. "Little Ships (I)" (subject: the hard life of convoy escorts)
cf. "The Kola Run" (subject: the hard life of convoy escorts)
cf. "Beneath the Barber Pole" (subject: the hard life of convoy escorts)
NOTES [989 words]: Tawney-GreyFunnelLines-RoyalNavy calls this "without a doubt the finest the Royal Navy produced in the Second World War and a worthy rival of the Army's 'D-Day Dodgers.'" Certainly it is better than the vast majority of songs produced by the navy.
Hopkins-SongsFromTheFrontAndRear seems to say that this song was from the crews of the Sioux or the Algonquin, although it is the latter that is (briefly) mentioned in the song. Both did at least serve on the northern convoy route. Tawney is explicit that the authors served on HMS Savage.
If Hopkins is correct about the ships involved, the song is wrong in saying that they never got to fire a gun; McKee/Darlington, pp. 156-157, says Algonquin was part of a force that sank the minesweepers M416 and M427 in August 1944. In addition, both destroyers were involved at times in the attempts to sink the Tirpitz.
Hopkins calls the two ships members of the Tribal class, but the list on p. 28 of Whitey shows that they were not members of Canada's own Tribals (a class that is not the same as the British Tribal class -- neither of which had a ship named Tribal!). Sioux was the ex-Royal Navy Vixen, transferred to Canada on May 5, 1944; Algonquin was the former Valentine, transferred February 24, 1944 (upon completion). Worth, p. 114, shows these two as members of the "V" class of destroyers, which were not the same as the British Tribals although experience with the Tribals had influenced their design; the "Vs" were not quite as large or heavily armed. But they did have some features to suit them for arctic sailing which were omitted from other classes.
Things become much more interesting if the song really is about the Savage. The Savage, and the Scorpion, also mentioned in Tawney's text, were members of the "S" class, ordered in 1940 and consisting of Saumarez, Savage, Scorpion, Sentinal, Scourge, Shark, Success, and Swift. Most were laid down in 1941, launched in 1942, and commissioned in 1943. They were about 1700 tons displacement, capable of 36 knots, and armed with four 4.7" guns and eight torpedo tubes (Whitley, p. 129). But among them "Savage was unique in that she was used as a test-bed for the new 4.5-inch Mk IV twin mounting" (Whitley, p. 130). So she in particular might have had trouble firing her guns because they were experimental.
The best evidence that Tawney is right and Hopkins wrong about the origin of the song is the fact that the "S" class, including Savage, "all... served with the Home Fleet as the 23rd Destroyer Flotilla in northern and Arctic waters" (Whitley, p. 130).
Three of the class, including Savage and Scorpion, were part of the biggest battle in northern waters, the Battle of the North Cape (December 26, 1943), in which the German battlecruiser/light battleship Scharnhorst was sunk (Pearce, pp. 234-235); Becker, p. 360, credits Savage with at least one of the torpedo hits that helped sink the German ship. It was the last time a major German naval unit would engage the enemy.
There is much cleverness in the song. Tawney notes the second line, which refers to taking oil at Petsamo -- a port which happened to be in German hands, and was very close to the Russian bases. The line is perhaps even more clever than the authors realized; the Germans had very few sources of petroleum (something that hampered their land forces as well), so even though Petsamo was a German base, there probably wasn't much oil there. (Its biggest value to them was probably its nickel mines; Pearce, p. 94).
Scapa Flow, the base mentioned in this song, was the British Navy's primary harbor during World War II. It had been made a major base during World War I, because (being in the Orkneys) it was the closest calm harbor to the German fleet bases in the Baltic. Well-located it was; comfortable it was not. It had few recreational facilities and had a crummy climate. For more about it, see the notes to "Bloody Orkney."
There are many small channels into Scapa Flow, but (I read somewhere) only three that could accommodate large ships. To prevent submarine access, the British had blocked all but one of the major channels (von der Porten, p. 40 -- although the blockage of one channel in proved insufficient, allowing U-47 to enter and sink the British battleship Royal Oak; von der Porten, pp. 40-41). The one exception was the Switha channel, which was fitted with anti-submarine nets and other defenses; this is the Switha gate of the song.
The complaint in Tawney's text that the battleships and cruisers get all the attention (with the implicit addition that the destroyers do all the work) is partly true -- the big ships certainly got most of the attention. It is not fair to say that the destroyers were the only ones who went to the Arctic -- when the Scharnhorst was sunk, the British battleship Duke of York was largely responsible! (Becker, p. 360; von der Porten, pp. 219-221). But the big ships generally engaged in "distant escort" -- in other words, the destroyers rarely saw them, and when the convoys weren't attacked, they weren't there. So it's not hard to understand the destroyer sailors' resentment.
And the destroyers did get called out more. Most of the time, there were no German ships for the Home Fleet battleships to fight; they only came out when one of the big German raiders was at sea. But convoys ran all the time, even more in the North Atlantic than the Arctic, so the destroyers were always needed. The big ships had more chances to rest in port.
And the big ships had another advantage over the small: they were more comfortable. Often they had more space for each crewman -- but even if they didn't, they were more stable and less affected by the sea's motions. The destroyers felt rough seas far more. For background on this, see, e.g., "Destroyer Life" and "Showing the Flag." See also "The Kola Run" for information about the arctic convoys. - RBW
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