H.M.S Rodney - Iain Ballantyne
IN WHICH THE AUTHOR REFLECTS ON
The Creation of H.M.S. Rodney ‘H.M.S. RODNEY’
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Devon, 2 February 2008
Finally, it is over…well, almost.
The long journey from research and writing to publication reaches its end.
I have just signed off on ‘H.M.S. RODNEY’, which will in the very near future be printed and bound. It is a very weird experience, after four years hard labour, to finally let go and have nothing more to do. For close on four years, I have lived with this book and now it must go out into the world to either acclaim or derision. Good luck my child.
The fourth in a series on the fighting lives of legendary British warships, I feel ‘H.M.S. RODNEY’ represents the finest installment, but every author thinks his latest is his greatest, doesn’t he? Certainly, it has taken the most effort to put together, but the deeper I got into the story of HMS Rodney, the more remarkable it became; the more determined I became to turn out a really fine manuscript.
IT is nearly a decade ago since my first meeting with the folk at Pen & Sword Books to discuss how we might translate naval history into something approximating their success with regimental histories.
I told them it was easy to find a solution: Famous warship names have come down through various incarnations over the centuries, garnering battle honours as illustrious as any army battalion.
We started with HMS Warspite (‘WARSPITE’, 2001) because she won more battle honours in British naval history than any other warship. Next came HMS London, a good choice because, while not so well known, the name had a long history during which there was a great deal of controversy associated with it. Also, I had a personal affection for HMS London, having encountered her while covering the 1990/91 Gulf War as a newspaper journalist and then sailing in her to the Soviet Union at the end of the Cold War. ‘H.M.S. LONDON’ (2003) was followed by a book on the British and American fleets at war in the Middle East (called ‘STRIKE FROM THE SEA’), which aimed to put the Iraq War of 2003 in the context of previous maritime-influenced conflicts in the region. It drew in part on my past journalistic experiences, reporting on the activities of front line warships in the Gulf.
In the autumn of 2004 a friend of mine asked if I would ever consider writing a book on HMS Rodney, as his dad was the former secretary of the battleship’s veterans’ association, which had disbanded just three years earlier. I agreed that Rodney was an illustrious fighting ship and certainly worthy of a book at some stage. Shortly thereafter, I persuaded Pen & Sword that a tome on HMS Rodney should be next in the series. However, the Trafalgar 200 anniversary of 2005 loomed and it was suggested that, before a book on HMS Rodney, it might be an idea to turn one out on Nelson’s flagship, HMS Victory. This made sound commercial sense and, with my friend and colleague Jonathan Eastland, who has photographed and written about Victory many times over the years, I embarked on that project. Having somehow completed ‘H.M.S. VICTORY’ in record time, getting it on the shelves around the 200th anniversary of Trafalgar, I returned to ‘H.M.S. RODNEY’.
Aside from the difficulty of carving out time for research and writing between editing editions of ‘WARSHIPS International Fleet Review’ magazine, the sheer volume of material was quite overwhelming. In addition to hours and hours of eyewitness testimony on CDs purchased from the Imperial War Museum – every second of which I had to listen to (after all, it cost me an arm and a leg to buy them!) - and transcribing notes from researching primary source documents in the IWM, National Maritime Museum and Royal Naval Museum, a superb response was elicited from more than 150 letters sent to HMS Rodney Association members throughout the UK and around the world. Knocking it all into shape was a mammoth task and I was determined to do my best for the many veterans that I interviewed and also those whom I encountered via the Imperial War Museum’s CDs or in the pages of manuscripts held in museum collections. There may never be another opportunity to give them a voice; above all, ‘H.M.S. RODNEY’ is, like the previous titles in the series, about ordinary men hurled into extraordinary events.
Having been very young ratings or junior officers at the time many of them have never believed their perspective worthy of note. Naturally that is far from being the case and with my help the veterans have opened up. Therefore, once again many of the participants in the drama are telling their stories for the first time.
That is the whole point of ‘H.M.S. RODNEY’ and its predecessors in the series. Nobody will get rich from naval history books; the effort involved in turning out a decent book is woefully rewarded fiscally but writers as a breed are forever chasing the dream of creating a classic saluted in the naval pantheon if not in the bank balance.
The experience of touching history, so to speak, and being touched by it in return is priceless. During the course of researching ‘H.M.S. RODNEY’ I was privileged to handle diary the diary of a chaplain who saw action in the Crimean War; the Lieutenant’s Log of an obscure officer captured by the French in 1782; journals and diaries belonging to veterans of the Second World War – unearthing in each case the naval history equivalent of buried treasure, breathing life into events that previous books had regarded as mere footnotes.
In short, as I said to someone the other day, who doubted my sanity for expending so much effort for so little money, these books are not about the dosh; they are about changing perception, for history at the coalface is rarely as straight forward as it might appear on the surface . At risk from repetition, it is worth stating yet again that the ‘Warships of the Royal Navy’ books are for ‘the Old Boys’, to give the veterans a voice before they take their incredible stories to the grave.
IT does seem profoundly strange that it should come down to me, a middle aged father-of-two hammering away at a keyboard in a converted garage, to write what will probably be the last full chronicle of the exploits of British warships named Rodney.
The name Rodney - these days in the UK associated more with a character in the TV comedy ‘Only Fools and Horses’ - is unlikely to bless another Royal Navy warship. In the 21st Century the naming committee avoids christening vessels in honour of admirals, battles or, indeed, anything else too war-like. We may not see her again in steel form, but this book, hopefully, means Rodney’s deeds, and the men who sailed in her, will live on.
IN my capacity as the editor of a naval affairs magazine – ‘WARSHIPS International Fleet Review’ - I am a frequent visitor to Devonport Naval Base, where battleship Rodney was once such a frequent sight, alongside or at anchor on the Hamoaze. It is hard to imagine such a gigantic warship sliding out past the Hoe to the open sea, but on a glorious summer’s day in the 1930s there can have been no more majestic sight on Plymouth Sound. Earlier ships to carry the name also set sail from the Devon city on their many adventures, southward-bound for the Mediterranean to fight against Napoleon or against the Russians in the Black Sea. In ‘H.M.S. RODNEY’ their stories are told too. Thousands of men served in Rodneys down the years, between 1759 and 1948, the majority of them in the battleship that forms the main subject of the book. And many famous fighting admirals and other ‘names’ in British naval history also sailed in the Rodney, including Andrew Cunningham and John Tovey. They recognized the battleship’s worth as a key instrument of State. Winston Churchill himself regarded Rodney and sister ship Nelson as the primary guardians of British security in the darkest days of the Second World War, referring to them as “the Captains of the Gate”.
For all the above reasons this book was worth writing: To remind Britain of why the Navy remains its first line of defence; as a memorial to sailors and marines who readily risked their lives to defend the nation and its interests. If that sounds jingoistic, then, tough, for that is Rodney’s story. You may have to wait a little while longer to read it, but hopefully, once the book hits the shops (on-line and high street) you will agree it has been worth it.
• For more detail on my other books and how to buy ‘HM.S. RODNEY’, see other pages on this web site.
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