Just a general feeling about the way that the ship
is run and therefore the general atmosphere onboard. Bear in mind that that bit of floating ( or submerging ) metal becomes your home very quickly and you form attachments to it. And the people therein.
Hermes had the nickname the Happy H. Quite where it came from Lord knows and I’m not sure it was overly applicable during Corporate… see the foregoing. It was however quite well run as a fighting unit. Others better placed than me but the carriers in general had a good reputation, Eagle, Ark and the later Ark and Illustrious. Perhaps it was just the space available and the work.
In general terms the old man on any ship or boat ( sub for you landlubbers) had more than his part to play in the atmosphere on the ship. But it was management at every level that counted and the senior rates were the real man managers. Led usually by the Master at Arms or Coxswain on lesser ships or subs. It could also just boil down to the actual material state of the ship, (Hermes was in a dreadful state from age, as were Plymouth, and the rest of the Type 12’s, some of the RFA’s. Some limped home with damage {just about} .like Glasgow etc). Exeter had a terrible hammering, saw lots of action, had been dragged off an exercise on the wrong side of the planet, had a green ships’ company that wasn’t trained fully or worked up properly, yet managed to survive Bomb Alley reasonably intact and was an extremely ‘ happy ship’. I doubt that any one reason could be pinned down for that. It would make for an interesting case study some day.
Finally the ships’ programme ( applicable obviously in peacetime) had its part to play. A decent time ashore, as opposed to a “gash run”, and a bit of vitamin D etc worked wonders for morale. In that part of the world the only decent run would have been Buenos Aires or Montevideo; we were frankly a bit PNG in one and we used the other for disembarking prisoners ( a story for another day ). And we were a bit short on sunshine. However I had visited both with the Navy in pre conflict days and they were excellent. And great for morale.. and indeed queues outside the sick bay, for certain parts ( pun intended ) of the ships’ company.
Witness that recent execrable offering about the carrier on TV where a) there are no vantage points to occasionally watch flying ops { vital for morale for the non flyers } and therefore they are locked down in the Stygian doom for days on end and b) they went all round the Far East and couldn’t get off due to Covid and c) had Covid outbreaks on board and were confined to their mess decks and quite frankly I’ve no idea how they avoided a mutiny.
I was fortunate to serve in primarily happy ships. Despite some fairly dire circumstances on occasion.
Last edited by MENELAUS; 15th Apr 2023 at 06:22.