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Navy News PLAIN ENGLISH CAMPAIGN AWARD WINNER 1996 NOVEMBER 1996
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up the Skagerrak 1 Aircraft of the Royal Navy - series starts in page 14
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Bed October THE SUN comes up like thunder from China cross't the bay as HMS Exeter prepares for the Royal Navy's first visit to ding Dao in the People's Republic. The Type 42 destroyer spent five days of October in the port to develop contacts with China's navy. J Mor ore pictures by CPO(PHOT) Paul Cowpe and a full report in our centre pages.
Bonus offer to combat shortage of 'stokers' 'STAY-ON' bonuses of up to £3,000 are being offered to many of the Royal Navy's Marine Engineering Mechanic ratings in a bid to reverse growing shortages in the specialisation. A shortfall in recruiting has been cited by the Second Sea Lord as one of the factors which has caused the shortage. Another is that "lean manning" of ships and submarines has limited the training capacity available for junior rates on their first sea drafts. Although recruiting is now bringing in the maximum numbers that training capacity will allow, almost 200 MEMs are due to leave the Service over the next five months - well before the new recruits will have been trained sufficiently to join the Fleet.
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Crisis ship returns from the hot spots
THE BRITISH warship on Armilla patrol duties when US forces launched their retaliatory cruise missile attacks on Iraq, has returned home to Portsmouth after an eventful deployment. HMS York, which handed over her Gulf task to her sister-ship HMS Edinburgh, had spent over seven months away, returning to the UK via Suez, Malta and Gibraltar. Her travels were punctuated with crises; she was off Oman and heading back into Gulf when the Americans hit at Saddam Hussein's air defences. And her visit to Chittagong in
Bangladesh coincided with a coup in that country. Even as she approached Portsmouth on her final leg home, she became involved in an emergency. Fifteen miles off Weymouth a yacht got into trouble in rough sear and York was asked by coast guards to posi'.ion herself to provide a lee shelter for the craft until a lifeboat was able to reach her. During her tour of duty in Gulf she was the busiest of all naval ships on patrol at the time. While enforcing UN sanctions against Iraq she challenged 27 vessels, boarded 12 and arrested two.
Retention bonuses are forming a major part of the package to redress the problems and are available to AB MEMs in General and Submarine Service who have between three and nine years reckonable Naval service. They must also be recommended for retention by their Commanding Officers. The bonus, to be paid in February, offers a taxable payment of £3,000 for ABs who guarantee that they will not put in their notice for 18 months. Once notice is given after that period, ratings who have received the bonus will have to wait the normal time before leaving — a further 18 months. Effectively it means that ABs who opt for the bonus will be retained in the Service for at least
three years from the date they sign their application forms. A smaller bonus of £1.500 is being offered to the ABs who waive their right to give notice for six months - effectively guaranteeing two years' service. Re-entrants who have served more than 2 years (i months since they rejoined are also eligible for a bonus. Ratings who have already given notice to leave would also be able to apply for the bonus on withdrawal of notice. This even applies to AB MEMs already on terminal leave. J Drafting advice - page 4. U Letters - page 6. J An ageing Navy - page 8.
Harrier test pilot dies BILL BEDFORD, who test flew the Harrier prototype and became the first in 1963 to land the aircraft on a carrier, has died aged 75. The Navy's latest variant of the aircraft, the Sea Harrier FA2, has just made the first in-service firing of the AMRAAM air-to-air missile on test ranges in Puerto Rico.
J SUEZ ASSAULT p16 Q PHOTO WINNERS p28 Q LETTERS p6-7 Q OLD SHIPMATES p22 LJ RNA p23 U SPORT p34-35