I have recounted to you many tales about Gunners; an endless topic of mirth and bewilderment with me.
Today, after a few years, I return to this.
His name was Lieutenant B and he was the Gunnery Officer of the ship on which we were borne as Midshipmen (a rank between being Cadets and full-fledged commissioned officers).
He was as clear-headed as all the gunners that I have told you about in the anecdotes so far; gunners, as I told you, seek clarity at both ends.
Long before the Army’s Bofors guns landed into media controversy, the naval ships had guns from Swedish company Bofors. Indeed, Bofors 40 mm anti-aircraft gun, designed by AB Bofors in 1930s, was a standard gun on all our ships and the gun was simply called Bofors. In 1934, Bofors improved this gun and came up with a model 40mm L/60. It was simply called Forty-Sixty on board the ships. All of us, whether gunners or not, have been trained on this gun. Here is a picture of this gun, many many years later on Sukanya class of Offshore Patrol Vessels:
Even after the gunners moved into the missile world, they continued playing with these toys.
Generally, evening twilight times used to be reserved for these AA Firing serials called CRAA Firing (Close Range Anti-Aircraft gun firing). As cadets and midshipmen we have often manned and fired these guns.
Gunnery Officers when they are conducting these serials, have an air of importance about them. After all, signals, navigation and other things are only supporting roles; the main role of the navies is to slam the daylights out of the enemy and that’s where gunners come in.
Lieutenant B, after his Policy orders for the firings by our Starboard and Port Bofors, called G1 (Starboard) and G2 (Port) started giving orders about the bearing and range of firing. To our horror, he had crisply (GO’s are always crisp), instructed the Port Gun (G2) to train to Green 90 (Right) and Starboard Gun (G1) to train to Red 90 (Left).
After that, he smartly saluted the CO and asked permission to commence firing. We were manning the guns and at that stage the logic of both guns firing at each other had totally beaten us. However, we had been trained in:
Ours is not to reason why,
Ours is but to do and die.
Fortunately, the Captain made a last-minute visual check and found both the guns pointing at each other and cancelled the firing.
Lieutenant B, incidentally, was the same officer, who angrily picked up a sound-powered telephone on the Bridge when he was on watch as OOW and barked out, “Engine Room, stop making black smoke”. From the other hand, Captain who had been woken up at two in the morning shouted, “Captain here; who is this idiot (who has picked up the wrong phone)?” And, Lieutenant B had the presence of mind to answer, “Sorry Sir; Midshipman of the Watch here.”
