RN 20Kt Fast Oiler, 1945 Programme

[DWG]

In reading "Diary of A Wartime Naval Constructor", DNC Sir Stanley Goodall's wartime diary, I can identify most of the ships referred to, but there are repeated references to a 20Kt Fast Oiler, probably for the 1945 Programme, where I'm coming up blank.

1942
P136. 11 November: … Bateson [Captain S L, Naval Assistant to Controller], came over re 20 knot oilers, told him the difficulty, wrote Rebbeck [H&W], Swan [Swan Hunters], Johnson [Cammel Laird?] & Rowell [Hawthorn Leslie].

P140. 7 December (Sunday): … At Future Building C’tee, ... got 20 knot oilers back to DMB [Amos Ayre, Director of Merchant Shipbuilding]

P143. 14 December: At Contr’s Liaison C’tee re 20 knot oilers, DMB & I agreed that best proposition was to ask USA offering to supply machy. ... Lunch with CMSR [Lithgow], Ayre & L[awrie] Edwards [Director of Merchant Ship Repairs DMR, previously of shiprepairers Middle Docks], talked 20 knot oilers & corvettes. With DWP saw Contr suggested McCarthy [S A, Director of Warship Production] should be the one man responsible, he agreed,

1944 (Goodall is now Assistant Controller (Warship Production) and relinquished the DNC role to Lillicrap in mid-January).

P218 14 March: … Got Fardell [Commander G E of Plans dept] up re fast oilers, he said they were not to be mentioned in the Cabinet paper. 1st L was writing a screed on the Fleet Train & was going to put the oilers in (Contr thinks this unwise as it will be another excuse for holding up the Train). …

P227. 15 May: … Touched Ayre on Fast Oilers, he says ‘they’re not merchant ships’.

P230. 17 June: … Phoned DNC re fast [20-knot] oilers, he will give me approx. dimensions when Crawford [J B, constructor] calls on 19th. Then went into situation with DWP: looks as tho’ HL [Hawthorn Leslie] is out (slip too small); it will take too long at V-A Walker & Clydebank. At H & W and SH it could only be done at expense of merchant ships.

P230. 22 June: … At Contr’s Policy meeting, another cut in shipyard labour forecast, I said ‘Ridiculous’. Contr annoyed & ticked me off: but here from one side the Govt is reducing the possibility of carrying on with our present prog[ramme], while on the other the Navy is filling up the plate (e.g. fast oilers). …

P231. 27 June: … Rowell called, said he does not want a fast oiler, fears we are going to earmark his best slip for a cruiser & prevent him building a liner. …

P235. 28 July: … Contr gave me paper re fast oilers, phoned DMB to see if he could give me facts about USS Cimarron but he hadn’t anything reliable.

P239. 23 August: DNC called, told him my advice to look into loading of fast oilers. He deprecates D of S [Director of Supply] bossing this job but agrees D of S has staff and DNC doesn’t. …

P248. 11 October: … Young Swan [Sheriton C; chairman C S died in December] with Turnbull & McPherson [Thomas, director of Wallsend Slipway & Engineering, a Swan Hunter subsidiary] called re ECF [Europe Cease Fire]. In general they agreed to my scheme but don’t want a fast oiler [they were already building Hyalina/Olna for Shell]

P252. 6 November: … Wrote Jubb [E C, Director of Contracts and Purchases] re fast oiler.

P255. 2 December: ... DNC called ... Discussed with him ... also fast oiler under ASCBS [i.e. White Ensign].

P257. 18 December: ... Fardell (Plans) came up to discuss ’45 programme further: oilers will not be in

Buxton, Ian. Diary of a Wartime Naval Constructor: Sir Stanley Goodall. Pen & Sword Books.

So it looks like a slightly faster British equivalent to the US Cimarron class (24,800t Full Load, 18kts) for the Fleet Train for the British Pacific Fleet (the Admiralty was planning for end of hostilities vs Japan being end 1947, so 1945 ships were potentially relevant), that ran into issues with being too warship-like for the merchant building side and that none of the warship yards wanted to build because they wanted to get back to more lucrative merchant contracts post VE Day.

It's interesting because the BPF was notoriously short of fast oilers and this makes it clear there was actually an attempt to address that. It's clear from other stuff in the diary that there was a huge amount of internal politics between No 10 and the various production ministries that limited progress on the Fleet Train to much less than Goodall would have liked. The gap in entries between '42 and '44 is interesting, did the focus shift off the design when Wake-Walker replaced Fraser as Controller?

Anyone have any further details?

 

[EwenS]

In 1942 a new design of of "standard fast tanker" was introduced. 12,000 dat, 14.5 knots loaded. Laid down from late 1942 and completed from late 1943. 21 ships built.

The plan was for them to be fast enough to sail independently. In practice they sailed in convoy while on MOWT service.

These became the Wave class replenishment oilers. Some went straight to the RFA From mid-1944 while others started life in the merchant marine in WW2 before entering RFA service post war. Eventually 20 of the 21 ended up with the RFA. 5 of the 13 wartime completions were with the BPF by Aug 1945, with more scheduled to join before 1945 was out.

Wave Class Tankers - Historical RFA

WAVE CLASS TANKERS By the early part of 1943 the Admiralty had decided to take over two 15 knot tankers of the standard “Fast” type, to supplement their overworked tanker fleet. These two tankers were being built by Harland and Wolff as the “Empire Sheba” and “Empire Venus”, arrangements were...

historicalrfa.uk

RFA Historical site says the 20 knot oiler planned was dropped in early 1944.

As part of the replacement plan two large fast tankers building at Swan Hunter for Anglo Saxon were taken over. The first became the RFA Olna which completed in May 1945 and joined the BPF in July. The other was scheduled to become Oleander but was completed power for her original owners.

Olna and Oleander of World War 2 - Historical RFA

By the middle of the Second World War the Naval Staff started to give some serious thought to a fast fleet tanker, the ship or ships that were envisioned would have a speed of around 18 knots and would be able to keep up with a Naval Task Force, whilst supplying them with fuel oil,...

historicalrfa.uk

It would have been of immense help to the BPF if all 11 of the Wave class completed by the end of 1944 had been completed as replenishment oilers and sent to the Pacific instead of just 2. Instead they were running to and fro between the Caribbean and Britain as ordinary transport tankers.

 

[PMN1]

I've seen a possible very brief reference to this suggesting thinking started in 1942 and included a small hanger and arrangements for operating aircraft for self defence.

IIRC it is in one of D K Brown books 'The Design and Construction of British Warships 1939-1945: The Official Record : Landing Craft and Auxiliary Vessels: 003'

It went nowhere and Olna and Oleander was what the RN ended up getting.

EwanS link to Olna and Oleander desribes it more or less word for word

By the middle of the Second World War the Naval Staff started to give some serious thought to a fast fleet tanker, the ship or ships that were envisioned would have a speed of around 18 knots and would be able to keep up with a Naval Task Force, whilst supplying them with fuel oil, lubricating oil, aviation spirit and water as well as some stores.

Planning of this type of ship continued into 1943 and various ideas were thrown into the melting pot, including the need to incorporate a flight deck into the design, so that the ship could operate aircraft for self defence, this would have meant building a small hanger and space for a limited number of aircraft, however the work entailed in this sort of design was considerable, as all shipyards in the UK were full to capacity, as were those in the United States and Canada..



The air component of the RN idea reminded me of the USN Flight Deck Oiler.

 

[DWG]

RFA Historical site says the 20 knot oiler planned was dropped in early 1944.

Goodall clearly considered it live into mid-December 44, and as he was doing the production planning for the building programme, he'd be in a position to know.

 

[DWG]

I've seen a possible very brief reference to this suggesting thinking started in 1942 and included a small hanger and arrangements for operating aircraft for self defence.

IIRC it is in one of D K Brown books 'The Design and Construction of British Warships 1939-1945: The Official Record : Landing Craft and Auxiliary Vessels: 003'

There's a similar comment in Nelson to Vanguard now I've thought to check it. But it's described as a 1942/43 project, which makes me wonder if there were two goes at it.

 

[EwenS]

From Moore's "Building for Victory" puts a lot of context behind the proposals for these tankers.

When the 1942 Programme was being developed in spring / summer 1942 a "plethora" of specialised ships were sought by the Naval Staff, including "two 10,000 ton 16 knot oilers". Further it appears that Goodall as DNC had only heard about the requirements for all these specialist ships in April 1942.

By Nov 1942 the Future Building Committee was proposing a plan for "a very ambitious" fleet requirement that included 10x 20 knot oilers and 20x 16 knot oilers. This plan was put before the Board of Admiralty but they 'refrained from giving official approval'. It was "considered undesireable to take a decision on numbers of each design of warship wanted at this stage'. Moore describes it as "a polite reaction to ideals which were quite unrealistic". It was however to be used as a general guide to new construction by the Board but was not to be put forward to Cabinet.

EwenS comment:-

The Future Building Committee was created in July 1942 with a view to determining what a future fleet should look like. It was the body responsible for the move from the capital ship to the carrier. It produced its first interim report in Nov 1942, looking at what an "ideal" fleet should look like in Jan 1944 based on the known requirements for war in each ocean, but only extending as far as the Indian Ocean. I've not seen details of the auxiliaries being proposed, but the numbers of carriers was way beyond what could be produced by British industry.

Moore again:-

Away from the "blue sky" thinking of the FBC, Nov 1942 was a time when thoughts about the 1943 Programme were beginning to be formulated. Moore notes that one project in the "very early planning stages in November 1942" was the 20 knot fast oiler carrying 8,000 tons of oil, but it had not evolved very far.

EwenS comment:-

The problem in this period is finding space in the yards for them without disrupting other programmes. Around this time plans for both submarine minelayers and another pair of fast minelayers had to be shelved due to the disruption and delay to the light carrier and destroyer programmes. These oilers would probably have to have been built in merchant yards specialising in building tankers, with disruption and delay to tankers needed in numbers to import oil to Britain.

The nature of the vessel required for the oiler role was also changing. Inter-war the role of the RFA had been to transport oil from the refineries around the world in which British companies had an interest (Caribbean, Persian Gulf, Burma & the DEI) to the various ports in Britain and abroad where the RN had storage facilities. Virtually all RN ship refuelling had taken place in harbour. Only around Aug 1940 did trials of oiling at sea of cruisers in the South Atlantic begin. March 1941 Director of Plans recommends development of floating hose, and the first refuelling at sea of Force H took place. So this was all very new to the RN (the USN wasn't much better at this point in time it should be said). As the war went on, RAS gear and the necessary working platforms on oilers evolved. So your bog standard freighting tanker was now far removed from the RAS capable fleet oiler.

Moore again:-

The next mention of a fast tanker comes in the discussion following production on 28 April 1944 of a paper titled "The Empire's Post War Fleet". This included a proposal for a fast tanker to operate with an 'operational force or composite squadron'. The Board merely noted the paper when they considered it in a meeting on 19 May 1944.

Around the same time, May 1944, a requirement for two fast tankers to operate at sea with the Eastern Fleet by May 1945 began to emerge. New build was expected to take until mid-1946. This was when the 2 Anglo Saxon ships Hyalina (launched Dec 1944, completed April 1945 as HMS Olna) and Helicina (intended as HMS Oleander. Launched April 1946 and completed for her original owners in Oct 1946. In Aug 1945 thought to be ready for the BPF by March 1946) were identified and taken over for the RN.

EwenS comment:-
Note these ships were originally intended to be RN manned. Olna only became an RFA in April 1946.

May 1944 was a time when RN eyes were still on an Eastern Fleet based on Ceylon and operating in the Indian Ocean. So the tanker requirement was not that great. It wasn't until the Octagon Conference (Second Quebec) in early Sept 1944 that political agreement was obtained to RN joining the USN in the Pacific in the war against Japan. And initially those plans involved a force of to be deployed in the area of the Philippines by the end of 1944. And so the tanker requirement to support such a fleet began to grow. It became much worse with an acceleration of the US advance, delays in going to the Pacific to meet US requests to bomb the Sumatran oil refineries in Dec 1944 / Jan 1945 and the increase in distances involved from operating against the Ryukyus and then Japan rather than the Philippines. The BPF was always short of oilers. It managed off the Sakishima Gunto in April / May 1945 but it struggled in July / Aug off Japan itself, with the USN helping out by refuelling some of the cruisers on a couple of occasions. It also meant that a second BPF Task Group built around the light carriers of 11 ACS couldn't deploy to Sydney until July 1945 for operations planned to begin at the end of Aug.

Going back to the Wave class, I noted 5 with, or on their way to, the BPF in Aug 1945. Another 4 were scheduled to join by the end of 1945 along with many more, both large & small.