Lt Cdr William Brook (‘Uncle Bill’) Filer GM MBE Royal Navy

I regret to report that Uncle Bill succumbed to a suspected heart attack or stroke at his home in Lee-on-the-Solent on the morning of 31 January. He was 93 and had lost his wife Eileen two years previously. His son Richard informs me that there is likely to be a funeral at Portchester Crematorium but not for 10 to 14 days owing to the need for a post-mortem. I am sure that everyone will join me in extending our condolences to Bill’s son Richard and daughter Judy, their respective spouses Jennifer and David, and their families.

I first met Bill at HMS Vernon in March 1973 and soon came to realise why he was held in such admiration and affection by his contemporaries and those who followed in his footsteps. He had done it all before but still found time to listen to other members of the branch, including young officers and sailors, and offer them encouragement and advice when approached. In 1979 he was still in charge at the Deep Trials Unit (DTU), part of the Royal Naval Physiological Laboratory (RNPL) at Alverstoke, when I and many others undertook experimental dives to 90 metres on Trimix. Though long retired from active service, he still took pride in wearing his uniform as he was perfectly entitled to do. Even in more recent years, he has remained a good run ashore and wont to invite a few friends, including me, to drink with him at Lee-on-the-Solent Sailing Club, where he was a revered member, before lunching at the Tennis Club where he had his regular stool at the bar.

William Brook Filer joined the Royal Navy in 1933 as a 15 year-old Boy Seaman at HMS Ganges. He said his reasons included being hungry and admiring the picture on the front of the Players cigarette packet depicting a very seamanlike bearded sailor from HMS Victory but most of all because he had spent the previous five years at the Barnados-run Watts Naval School in Norfolk. He also found the weekly pocket money of 5/3 (26 pence) as a Boy 2nd Class particularly appealing.

Bill spent 15 months at Ganges, the latter as an Instructor Boy which involved looking after a batch of New Entries from the time they arrived until they joined one of the mainstream messes. One such entry was a boy called J. Peach whom he collected with others at Shotley Pier on arrival from Harwich. Johnnie Peach had a distinguished diving career in the RN and, following his retirement as a CPO(D), he spent the next 20 years as Bill’s Chief Supervisor at DTU. By the time they finally retired, their association had lasted 50 years and continued long afterwards.

Bill had been the ‘heavyweight’ boxing champion at Watts Naval School but was reduced to ‘middle weight’ at Ganges. He was selected to represent Blake Division in the divisional championships and seemed to be doing quite well. However, he found himself coming round in the Sick Bay after having been knocked out by a ‘Boy Green’ of Collingwood Division. Jimmy Green, his opponent, subsequently went on to win all his fights and became Med Fleet Champion before buying himself out of the Navy and turning professional. Bill’s final experience at Ganges was being awarded the prize for the best all-round boy of the year. His prize was £5 worth of text books, signed and presented by Captain (later Rear Admiral) H. H. Rogers RN. These books proved a great asset later on when Bill was striving to pass the Higher Educational Tests for promotion.

In 1934, Bill joined the battleship HMS Nelson at Portsmouth in time for the Home Fleet’s Cruise to the West Indies. The Atlantic crossing was rough and he remembered battleships losing their sea boats and cruisers completely disappearing from view in the troughs. The Home Fleet Boxing Championships were held in Barbados and Bill fought a boy from the cruiser HMS Neptune. After three tough rounds he ended up with a big hand for the loser and decided to give up boxing there and then. His opponent, Nobby Noble, went on to win the Combined Fleet Championship when the Home Fleet subsequently met the Med Fleet in Gibraltar.

In Gibraltar, Bill helped the RN divers, who all wore standard dress in those days, work up to their maximum depth of 30 fathoms (180 ft). After a day’s vigorous pumping, the thought crossed his mind that the divers had the better deal, especially as they were paid ‘dip money’ of five shillings (25 pence) for the first half-hour and four shillings (20 pence) for the second half-hour. Although he had never won any other aquatic events at his school. he had triumphed in the ‘diving for plates’ competition in the swimming pool. By the time Bill’s ship eventually returned to the UK, he had been rated Ordinary Seaman at 14 shillings (70 pence) per week and Able Seaman at 21 shillings (£1.05) per week. He was given the option of specialising in Gunnery or Torpedoes and he chose Torpedoes whereupon he passed the course for Seaman Torpedoman (ST) at HMS Vernon in 1935.

On completion of his ST Course, Bill was drafted to the ill-fated light cruiser HMS Curacao, then running for the Gunnery School at HMS Excellent, Whale Island. By this time, he had ‘taken the plunge’ and requested to undertake the course to become a diver. Owing to a candidate dropping out at the last moment and Bill’s close proximity to Whale Island, he found himself drafted to HMS Excellent to qualify as a Diver 2 much quicker than expected. On his first night, he was assigned sentry duty on the pig compound. The pigs were fed scraps from the galleys and their sale subsidised the Canteen Fund. Bill remarked that he wished they had sold the peacocks that screeched him awake each morning, too.

Bill found his diving course an experience never to be forgotten. He described his Instructor, Fred Jenner (a PO Gunner’s Mate) as ‘absolutely first class’ and responsible for ensuring that his course passed ‘with flying colours’. Bill suddenly found himself the youngest diver in the Navy and richer by thruppence (1p) per day. The new divers were extremely proud of the newly sewn-on gold embossed diving helmet badges on their left cuffs but Bill recounted how one of his course mates was taken down a peg on the train to London when an elderly lady asked, “Excuse me young man, but what instrument do you play in the band?”. The completion of Bill’s course coincided with Navy Days so they put on a diving display in a flooded dry dock. On seeing the attendants turning the handles of the air pump, one lady was heard to observe that the diver must have been very deep because it was taking such a long time to wind him up to the surface. There were several ‘tricks’ to keep the public entertained, one of which involved the diver calling up on the loud speaker system and asking for a bottle of beer. He was sent down a transparent bottle of cold tea which he held upside down over his spit cock and blew the contents out before returning the re-capped empty bottle and asking for more.

Bill’s first draft as a newly qualified diver was to the submarine base at HMS Dolphin. His tasks included underwater maintenance, clearing inlets, freeing propellers, taking readings of stern glands and recovering items lost over the side. He recalled being assigned one day as mate to a Tiffy (Artificer) who had a Brotherhood engine from one of the torpedoes on the bench for test. The Tiffy inadvertently blanked one of the apertures with the screw top from a can of Bluebell metal polish instead of the proper item and, when the 3,000 psi supply to the motor was opened up, the top went right through his wrist.

Bill’s next draft was to another ill-fated ship, the sloop HMS Penzance. To join her, he was among seven RN personnel with 170 tourist class passengers who sailed from Tilbury to Cape Town in the coal-burning SS Durham Castle. The voyage took seven weeks. On his first night aboard Penzance, he was turned out of his hammock to help fight bush fires on Table Mountain. Bill much enjoyed the hospitality of the South Africans but his only diving comprised a wreck survey at Port Elizabeth and a Navy Days display in Simon’s Town. He remembered Cape Radio interviewing a diver from HMS Amphion, the Senior Officer’s ship, when the interviewer asked the inevitable question, “What was your most memorable experience?”. The diver ended up saying, “…and when I woke up, I found that I was unconscious.” It took him some time to live this down. Before leaving the South Africa Station, Bill responded to an Admiralty Fleet Order (AFO) inviting ratings to apply to become pilots in the Fleet Air Arm (FAA).

Bill next qualified as a Leading Torpedo Operator (LTO) at HMS Vernon but didn’t remember much about the course. While waiting to be drafted back to sea, he teamed up with the Vernon divers and helped to install the Degaussing Range at Clarence Pier. He also assisted with trials of the Mine Recovery Suit (MRS) headed by Lt Cdr Leon Goldsworthy GC GM DSC RANVR and Lt Cdr John ‘Mouldy’ Mould GC GM RANVR.

From out of the blue came instructions for Bill to report to Chatham Naval Base for No. 5 FAA Pilot’s Course for officers and ratings. For around a month, he and his fellow trainees underwent ab initio training on Avro Tutor aircraft at Rochester Aerodrome before proceeding to No.1 Flying Training School at RAF Netheravon for advanced training on North American Harvards and Fairey Battles. On completion, Bill was awarded his wings and became the first ‘flying diver’ although he wasn’t allowed to wear his diving badge as well. While the officers went on to Torpedo Spotter Reconnaissance in Fairey Swordfish, Bill and the rest of the ratings underwent either fighter or flying boat training, using the Gloster Gladiator or Supermarine Walrus respectively. After flying boat training, Bill was put on flying Blackburn Sharks for Observer Training Courses until a ‘death notice’ appeared ordering all five ratings to return to General Service. Bill was told that he would be of more value to the war effort as a diver than a pilot. When he and his fellow trainees requested to be transferred to the RAF, they were told that they could not transfer to a more junior Service. Bill later discovered this was untrue because two ex-RN Radio Supervisors became Squadron Leaders in the RAF, one being awarded a DFC. To add insult to injury, the ratings were reverted to their rank prior to acquiring their wings. For Bill, this meant demotion from Petty Officer Airman to Leading Seaman. As he had just got married and had been living off base owing to a shortage of accommodation at HMS Daedelus, the simultaneous loss of PO’s pay, flying pay and RA’s lodging allowance meant a reduction of 50% overall, which came as a particularly bitter blow. On the other hand, Bill believed that the whole of his squadron, complete with aircraft and crews, was sunk on the way to the West Indies with no survivors including two members of his No. 5 course.

Back at HMS Vernon, Bill passed for Petty Officer and next set his sights on passing for Warrant Officer which, in those pre-SD days, constituted wardroom status. He managed to qualify sometime around 1941 but his results were declared null and void because his time spent flying meant that he had not acquired the necessary four years of sea time from the age of 18. He was on the point of appealing when he received orders to join the 10,000 ton landing ship, HMS Glenroy. When Bill pointed out that his draft chit made no mention of his diving qualification, it was immediately cancelled because Glenroy was not entitled to divers and his services were desperately needed elsewhere. He was sent from Vernon to Rosyth to join the newly refitted battleship HMS Queen Elizabeth as an Acting Petty Officer LTO/Diver. On arrival, Bill was tasked to help repair the controlled minefield protecting the mouth of the River Tay.

HMS Queen Elizabeth’s first job was to help escort a massive convoy to Halifax, Nova Scotia. The ship was two days from her destination when she was ordered to turn around because the German battleships Scharnhorst and Gneisenau had broken out of Brest on 11 February 1942. The Queen Elizabeth was too late to play any role in this affair and was subsequently ordered to join the Mediterranean Fleet at Alexandria where Bill soon found himself busy diving. However, his worst experience was helping remove the mangled remains of sailors and soldiers from the cruiser HMS Orion returning from the evacuation of Crete. On a lighter note, Bill was seconded to the submarine depot ship HMS Medway to qualify as a Diver 1. This involved performing much-needed practical work on ships in harbour with the theory being reserved for the dog watches. Back on board the Queen Elizabeth, Bill was required to help recover hundreds of 15″ shells from a sunken merchant ship in the harbour. During this task, Bill had to find and recover the body of a diver whose helmet had been punctured by a shell falling from a grab hoist in one of the holds. Bill also witnessed the death of several personnel when a mine exploded in the anchorage recently occupied by the aircraft carrier HMS Formidable before she was towed into a dock.

In January 1942, Bill was seconded to the shore-based bomb & mine disposal team where the incumbent diver had gone sick. He subsequently found himself travelling by camel to help Lt George Goodman GC MBE RNVR render safe and recover an Italian circling torpedo washed up on the beach near Ras el Tin, about 11 miles east of Alexandria. A similar weapon had killed the Torpedo Officer of HMS Medway (Lt Cdr J G S Cunningham RN – uncle of MCDOA member Tim Trounson) on 23 Sep 1940. As a result of the team’s efforts which led to the recovery and examination of the torpedo, Lt Goodman was awarded the George Cross (GC) and Bill Filer and Painter A. J. Russell were each awarded the George Medal (GM).

Shortly afterwards, Italian charioteer frogmen attacked the battleships Queen Elizabeth and Valiant, inflicting enough damage to put them on the seabed for months although this was not obvious to aerial reconnaissance. Bill was tasked to find out where the invaders had cut through the boom defence nets but discovered enough gaps, where sections hadn’t been laced together, to allow a double decker bus through. When the newly developed Cox’s bolt gun was brought from the UK to help patch up the Queen Elizabeth, Bill received a shrapnel injury to his leg during a demonstration in a crowded shoreside shed of the ability of its ‘D’ type bolt to penetrate armour plate. The foreign object remained lodged in his thigh for the rest of his life.

Bill was then instructed to rejoin HMS Medway as the Senior Diving Instructor. With Rommel at the gates of Alexandria, it was decided to evacuate the port and Bill found himself on board when Medway was struck amidships by three torpedoes from U-372 on 30 June 1942. She sank within half an hour with the loss of 30 personnel. After abandoning ship, Bill found himself swimming with two WRNS cypher officers to the destroyer HMS Hero whose Coxswain was one of his shipmates from his days in HMS Penzance. After a couple of days at Suez where the Red Cross provided Bill and his surviving shipmates with pyjamas, they were sent to a transit camp in Durban where they were issued kit and then repatriated to the UK in the troopship Monarch of India. Bill remembers the voyage for the good food and the fact that most of the soldiers had little appetite so there was plenty to go around.

Following survivors’ leave, Bill was drafted to HMS Tedworth to qualify as a deep diver. Only nine of these were complemented in the entire RN, each qualified to dive to depths of 180 to 300 feet. After several encounters with nitrogen narcosis (rapture of the deep), Bill passed the course and was sent to HMS Excellent for a short period as an instructor, better off to the tune of thruppence (just over one new penny) per day. He was also tasked with writing instructions for underwater demolitions which took him to HMS Volcano at Holmrook Hall near Whitehaven in West Cumberland (now Cumbria). Just over a year later, Bill qualified as a Gunner(G) at HMS Excellent with the rank of Warrant Officer and a thin stripe on his arm.

HMS Tedworth, the deep diving tender, was originally a WWI Hunt class minesweeper. The Senior Commissioned Gunner and Diving Officer on board was happy to be responsible for her main armament, an ancient 12 pdr gun. This suited Bill admirably as he didn’t know much about gunnery. Instead, he looked after diving and counted himself lucky with his appointment as most of his ex-course mates were sent to ships of the Fleet, mainly as ‘Third or Fourth Hand’, while he was ensconced in a virtual independent command and allowed to run his own department.

In Tedworth, Bill oversaw underwater oxy-hydrogen gas cutting trials down to 120 ft and no-stop surface decompression diving trials down to 150 ft. He sustained his only ‘bend’, in his shoulder, after attempting 250 ft with a single in-water stop and surface decompression. He was unable to enter the chamber immediately owing to its occupation by another diver who had collapsed and needed further treatment. This left Bill suffering occasionally painful osteoarthritis for the rest of his life. When Tedworth came due for refit, she was sent to post-war Antwerp. Bill had been made the Navigator and found the trip along the coast and up the River Scheldt particularly daunting owing to the number of wrecks littering the fairway.

Bill left Tedworth in the hands of the Dutch and returned to UK on board a Landing Ship, Tank (LST). By this time, Lt Cdr Bill Shelford had been appointed as Superintendent of Diving. As such, he was also Head of the Admiralty Experimental Diving Unit (AEDU). He initiated the move of several organisations to HMS Vernon including AEDU from Siebe, Gorman at Tolworth in Surrey, Clearance Diving training from HMS Lochinvar at Port Edgar in Scotland, ‘P’ Party training from HMS Vernon(D) at Brixham, the amphibious team from Poole and Standard and Deep Diving from HMS Excellent. Thus, for the first time, all RN diving was focused under the single umbrella of HMS Vernon. Cdr Shelford also acquired the ex-German torpedo trials ship and seaplane tender Walter Holtzafel to replace HMS Tedworth and she became the diving trials ship, later a floating diving school, HMS Deepwater based at HMS Vernon with Cdr Shelford in Command. Bill was initially appointed as Deepwater’s Diving Officer and went on to continue his very successful career in RN diving and deep diving trials.

After the RN’s new deep diving ship HMS Reclaim was launched by Lady Lillicrap at William Simons & Company, Renfrew in March 1948, Bill was appointed to stand by her as technical advisor. Although he had missed the launch, he had some compensation as he was selected for direct promotion to Lieutenant. This involved leaving Reclaim for 12 months of courses including a period at the Royal Naval College at Greenwich. On completion, he was delighted to be appointed back to HMS Reclaim but this time as her First Lieutenant and Chief Diving Officer. His first mission on board was the search for the submarine HMS Affray which disappeared on 16 April 1951 and was believed sunk ten miles south of the Nab Tower. She was eventually detected on 14 June in 287 ft (86m) of water on the edge of the Hurd Deep. Despite the depth and horrendous tidal stream, Reclaim’s divers conducted an initial investigation but an experimental underwater camera, brought along by Cdr Lionel ‘Buster’ Crabb GM OBE RNVR, confirmed the submarine’s identity. Recovery of her snort mast indicated a combination of faulty welding and metal fatigue which could have caused her flooding. For their contribution to the operation, Reclaim’s Captain was appointed an OBE, Bill was appointed an MBE and four of the divers received C-in-C’s Commendations.

Bill’s next appointment was to AEDU from where he toured the USA with Cdr Gordon Gutteridge OBE RN to evaluate and acquire much diving equipment for the RN although the Minisub was not procured as a towed diver search was considered faster, more practical and far cheaper. However, Bill also got the idea for a Deep Trials Unit which was subsequently completed at Alverstoke in 1963. While at AEDU, Bill was promoted to Lieutenant Commander. His subsequent jobs included two years in Command of HMS Diver, the diving tender attached to the 50th Minesweeper Squadron based at Port Edgar on the Forth, Diving Acceptance Trials Officer at HMS Vernon where he oversaw the acceptance of Surface Demand Diving Equipment (SDDE), and back to AEDU as Cdr John Carr’s Deputy Superintendent of Diving when he was largely responsible for bring into service suit inflation, neck seals, foam neoprene mittens and hoods, woolly bear undersuits, Divers Underwater Communications System (DUCS), Swimmer’s Air Breathing Apparatus (SABA) and SDDE. The warm diving clothing proved especially useful during cold water trials of the Mine Radiographic Outfit (MRO) from HMS Reclaim off Inverary. He was also embarked in Reclaim to oversee deep water trials of SDDE off Norway and Tenerife when six divers dived to 450 feet using a heliox mixture and nine later dived to 600 ft for an hour.

Bill cross-trained as a Clearance Diver before retiring from active service and being appointed civilian Officer-in-Charge of DTU for the next 20 years. During his time in the RN, he had completed 29 years, 25 of which involved diving. At DTU, he oversaw the conduct of many deep diving trials including the pioneering of saturation diving, the introduction of Trimix, two sessions of ‘Bhulman Dives’ (700 ft dive for one hour and 1,000 ft dive with excursions, total dive time 88 hrs 25 mins, decompression 88 hrs), two sessions of US Navy experimental dives and the establishment of a new deep diving record in March 1970 when MCDOA member Dr John Bevan and Peter Sharphouse of the RN Scientific Service at RNPL spent 10 hours at a simulated depth of 1,500 feet of seawater (457 metres of seawater). This dive was 300 feet beyond the predicted maximum of around 1,200 fsw (366 msw) and was described by American colleagues as “a hyperbaric moon landing”.

For several years after he retired for good, Bill enjoyed a weekly round of golf at the Lee-on-the-Solent course, especially against his old diving buddy Frank Spragg. He and Frank also helped set up a hyperbaric oxygen therapy facility in North End to treat the sufferers of various diseases and ailments. A few years ago, Bill’s doctor advised him for the sake of his health to stop accompanying his customary lunchtime pints of bitter with rum chasers. Bill promptly complied by switching to whisky.

God bless you, Uncle Bill. You had quite an innings.