Send Out the Chryssy

DESCRIPTION: "Send out the Chryssy, The Moy, Ouse, and Issy, But for God's sake don't send me!" Reported to be a song about the Mediterranean Fleet.
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1960 (Tawney-GreyFunnelLines-RoyalNavy)
KEYWORDS: ship navy derivative
FOUND IN: Britain(England)
REFERENCES (1 citation):
Tawney-GreyFunnelLines-RoyalNavy, p. 145, "Send out the 'Chryssy'" (1 fragment)
CROSS-REFERENCES:
cf. "Send Out the Army and the Navy" (form)
NOTES [303 words]: Tawney-GreyFunnelLines-RoyalNavy believes the ships here were from World War II, and suggests the four ships he knew were target towing vessels. Certainly there were ships known by these names.
Chryssy = Chrysanthemum. "Flower" class corvette, built Belfast; transferred in that year to the French navy as Commandant Drogou; returned to the Royal Navy 1946 (Young, p. 53). The date of her building is disputed; Young says 1942, Jane's-WWII, p. 133, and Lenton, p. 23, say 1941. Probably this is by confusion of launching and commissioning dates, or the 1942 date on which she was transferred to the French.
Moy. Mersey class trawler, built 1917 as Alexander Hills; survived the war (Young, p. 117).
Ouse. Mersey class trawler, built in 1917 as the Andrew King, mined off North Africa, February 20, 1941 (Young, p. 120).
Issy = St. Issy. Saint class tug, built 1918, lost off Benghazi December 28, 1942 (Young, p. 138).
It will be observed that there is a chronological problem here: Even if the Jane's-WWII date is correct for the Chysanthemum is correct, she would not have been in service with the British fleet and did not go into service at all until after the Ouse was lost! Thus there is no possibility of these four ships being sent out together for any purpose. Of course, it is possible that one or another name is an error -- e.g. I thought of the Oursay for the Ouse or the Islay for the (Saint) Issy.
The other possibility that occurs to me is that the first ship is not the Chyssy=Chysanthemum but the Cressy. There was no World War II ship with that name, but there was a World War I cruiser that became famous for being sunk by a submarine. That would force us to find fits for the other names, of course. Ultimately, the question cannot be settled unless we find more text. - RBW
Bibliography

Jane's-WWII: Jane's Fighting Ships of World War II (1946; I use the 1989 Crescent Books reprint with modern foreword by Anthony Preston)
Lenton: H. T. Lenton, British Escort Ships, Arco Publishing Company, 1974
Young: John Young, A Dictionary of Ships of the Royal Navy of the Second World War, Patrick Stephens, 1975

Last updated in version 5.2
File: Tawn110

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