Saltus Grammar School - Yearbook (Hamilton, Bermuda)

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26 that some of the destroyers had come fairly close with shots overhead but that fortunately none had landed within 100 yards of Porte St. Jean. The ship has a very small radio room equipped with audio and morse receiving and transmitting gear, and also a small table for making up and decoding massages. In the adjacent wheelhouse, equally small, is a radar set with a range of approximately twenty miles. The bridge is completely open; it is from this platform that a grounded Air Force pilot, assisted by two lookouts, guides the target drones by radio. The target drones are of all aluminium construction with detachable — and thus replaceable — wings and tailplanes. They are about seven feet long and have a wingspan of eight feet. They weigh five hundred pounds and have an estimated value of $2,500 each. Their 85 h.p. engines give them a speed of 250 knots. They can carry fuel for ninety minutes of flight. They are launched on a catapult by compressed air at a pressure of 250 lb. per square inch. Each drone must be launched into the air within ten seconds of starting its engine, otherwise the engine, with no rush of air to cool it, overheats very rapidly and seizes up. During a shoot these drones are flown at an average altitude of 2,000 feet in huge circles around the destroyers who use their radar- controlled guns on them. Notwithstanding the great speed of these tiny targets, they occasionally receive a direct hit. On the understandably many occasions when this does not happen, the engine, by ceasing to turn, allows a lever to open a small door in the side of the aircraft. Through this a small pilot parachute drags a larger on e, suspended by which the drone drops gently to the water whence it is soon picked up. These drones may be used any number of times, provided a direct hit does not make them irrecoverable, and so the ten which Porte St. Jean carries supply her with all she is likely to need on a six month cruise such as the one in which she is now engaged. We wish her good luck, and her attendant hunters good shooting. K. H. CHIAPPA Upper Sixth Form

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25 H.M.C.S. Porte St. Jean Many readers will have noticed during recent weeks a small Canadian Navy vessel tied up at the flagpole on Front Street. On the foredeck she appeared to carry several small red aeroplanes. Here is a report on this ship, H.M.C.S. Porte St. Jean. She was commissioned in June 1958 together with three similar vessels, ' Torte Dauphin, Porte St. Lucia and Porte Quebec. When these vessels were first built (in Quebec, at Levis), they were intended for use as civilian trawlers, but in 1951 the Canadian Navy purchased them with the intention of putting them into service as ' gate vessels ' , that is to say vessels whose chief function is to swing open and closed antisubmarine nets at the mouth of a harbour. Lacking duties of that kind, she is at the present time in service as a target towing facility. Porte St. Jean is 132 feet long, 32 feet abeam. Her main con- struction is of aluminium and displaces 450 tons. She draws only seven feet of water forward and fourteen aft; one consequence of this is that in any sort of sea she pitches and rolls fearfully ferocious. It is not uncommon, crewmen say, to be thrown out of their bunks. Forward, under the launching catapult is housing for a 40 mm. gun during wartime. The magazine for this gun is next to the storeroom under the forecastle. The forecastle is also used as a repair shop for the target drones and the radio sets which control them. The engine room is in the after section of the boat. Here are three diesel engines; a main electricity generator, the main engine in the centre, and a standby generator. Except for an occasional puddle of oil the engine room is as clean as the rest of the ship, but much more noisy. With only the comparatively small standby generator working it is almost impossible to carry on a conversation. Hooked up to the main generator is a hydraulic pump which supplies power to winches on deck. These winches are used when Porte St. Jean tows surface targets for the destroyers to shoot at. The targets in question are approximately twenty feet high and are towed on a cable 600 feet long. When asked whether the ship had ever been hit one of the crew replied

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27 The Odyssey The Sixth Form presents its compliments to the shade of Sir George Somers with this story of another great sea adventurer. A pretty poem, Mr. Pope, said a sniffing scholar, on another such occasion, but you must not call it Homer. A home run, then? Homeward, rather. After the downfall of Troy everyone who had not been slain or cap- tured returned home. But Odysseus did not reach Ithaca; instead, he had been imprisoned, on the island of Ogygia, by Calypso, who wished to marry him. At length the gods pitied him and thought the time had come to let him come home to recepture his kingdom from the irresponsible Suitors who were laying it to waste. Poseidon Earthshaker, the sea god, was the only one who hated Odysseus, but as he was feasting at the other side of the world, he was not likely to cause trouble. So the father of the gods called a meeting, at which Athene, the God- dess of Wisdom, asked that Odysseus be set free, to come home to his wife, Penelope, and his son, Telemachus, who both suffered greatly on his account, wondering whether he was dead or alive. Zeus agreed to Athene ' s request and so Hermes was sent to Calypso ' s isle to release Odysseus. At the same time Athene went in disguise to put new hope into his son. When she arrived at Odysseus ' house she was warmly greeted by Telemachus. She told him to call an assembly of the Suitors who were singing and feasting at his house, and who all wished to wed his mother for her riches. He was to complain about their behaviour and then leave Ithaca for Sandy Pylos and Sparta to seek his father. Telemachus went to bed in his room, which was built high above the courtyard, and there he thought long about the news, curious that a goddess should take interest in his affairs, confident that all would eventually come out well. At last he slept. When dawn came, showing her rosy fingers through the early mists, Telemachus got up, dressed and went to the Council himself. He told all those present that his announcement was not a public matter, not a warning of a raid for example, but of domestic affairs. His speech became more and more an angry one and at the end he dropped the speaker ' s staff and bust into tears of rage. Antinoos answered, saying that Telemachus was childish and a boaster; he complained bitterly to the others about Penelope, who taunted her Suitors saying that she would not choose one of them until she had finished weaving a shroud for her husband ' s old father and yet who, every night, undid the weaving she had done during the day.