While serving on the battleship HMS Vanguard and after our scheduled world cruise with the Royal family was cancelled because of the King's illness we were sent in January 1949 to the Mediteranean as Flagship of the Med Fleet. Although based in Malta we spent a lot of time exercising with other ships and in between visiting ports around the Mediteranean and so one time we found ourselves anchored off Beirut, We were of course next door to Isreal which had just been founded the year before and as there was still a lot of Anti British feelings there our Commander decided to post Marine sentries at the front and back of the ship. During the night the Marine on sentry duty at the Bow of the ship spotted a frogman surfacing right underneath the Bow and immediatley fired at him, the Frogman dived down and of course the alarm was sounded throughout the ship, this was about 4am. ships divers were sent down to check for Limpet mines underneath the ship and especially around the propellars. nothing was found but to be on the safe side the Captain decided to leave right away and so we weighed anchor but instead of sailing straight out we went astern for a number of miles in case the divers had missed explosives on the propellars by going astern would throw the timers off, however everything seemed Ok so we headed straight back to Malta.

This was our second scare since arriving in the Mediteranean as there was also an attempt by Algerian rebels to attack the ship while we were in Algiers but because of the tight security around the wharf this was unsuccessful. Mauri

yet anoter great yarn of your past life Mauri ,hey you should write a book on it all as i have seen someone make that remark a few times on the forum

Mauri, gripping stuff. As I said before, you've certainly lived a life some of us could only dream about.

Hi Mauri,



Another great story, I agree with Barney, you should write a book.



Beano

Mauri,

Got goose pimples just imagining what could have happened. Someone up there sure was watching over you Mauri.

Pat