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Written by 21 August 2025
HMS King Alfred was not a ship but a shore base, named in traditional naval fashion. Also in Sussex during the Second World War, HMS Vernon was actually based in the requisitioned Roedean girls’ school, still with notices in the dormitories saying, ‘Ring the bell if you require a mistress during the night.’ From 1939 King Alfred trained around 22,000 officers, most of them with no previous experience, to take responsibility in the ships of the greatly expanded wartime Royal Navy. They might take charge of a watch, in command of the ship during four-hour periods, or direct crews of weapons and sensors on patrol or in battle, and look after the welfare of a group of seamen.
Among those who trained there were Ludovic Kennedy, Nicholas Monsarrat, Alec Guinness, the McWhirter twins of the Guinness Book of Records and Richard Baker the newsreader. Early trainees were yachtsmen who were given a smattering of naval knowledge in a very short course, like Moran Caplat who went on to direct the Glyndebourne Festival. Later entrants did basic naval training and then served at least three months as ordinary seamen in ships on active service before being selected for King Alfred. They wore the uniform of ordinary seamen with a white band round the cap.
The main sites were in the newly-built leisure centre at Hove – ‘The swimming pool that became a ship’ – which is still known as the King Alfred Leisure Centre - and at Lancing College which had been evacuated by the school. Between these two, Shoreham Harbour was available for practical training in boat and ship handling. In peacetime it supplied the needs of the resorts of Brighton, Hove and Worthing with coal for gas, electricity and domestic consumption, with foodstuffs and with building materials. But the holiday industry was practically shut down in wartime and the beaches were mined and covered with barbed wire. There was little building apart from defence works and urgent repairs, and in any case the English Channel was virtually closed to shipping due to enemy activity, so the Port was largely empty until 1944 when it was filled with landing craft in anticipation of the Normandy invasion.
In peacetime the Sussex branch of the Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve (RNVR) was based at Hove and trained part-time sailors for the navy. It maintained a fleet of boats at Shoreham. The area offered several kinds of boating experience. At the eastern end was Hove Lagoon, separated from the main harbour and used for leisure in peace. King Alfred used it for training in rowing, or ‘pulling’ as the navy called it, to reinforce what the cadet-ratings had supposedly learned in basic training and at sea. Then came the harbour proper, which consisted of sheltered water with no tides or currents. By going through the locks the trainees could then enter the running water of the Adur, encountering the ebb and flow of the tides. Going a step further towards reality, they could leave the harbour for the open sea, though it seems that Newhaven was more often used for such training, at least in the early days.
After spending the first half of the three-month course at Lancing the trainees transferred to Hove where the first week included periods on handling a seaboat, a skill which would be essential for an officer picking up survivors in the Atlantic.
The seventh week of the course was dominated by Shiphandling Practice at Portslade, at the eastern end of Shoreham Harbour. At least two boats were available, one with a single and one with twin screws, both converted fishing boats but fitted with bridges like small warships, and rubber tyres on each side in case of a rough berthing.
Cadet Ratings came in classes of 25, with twelve per ship (with rather loose mathematics). Each had to take 15-minute turns on both ships as captain and first lieutenant, ‘so all have an equal chance of crashing the ship up’, according to Cadet-Rating Geoffrey Ball. They also took turns as quartermaster (helmsman) and telegraphman to transmit the orders to the engine room. The others were stationed by the first lieutenant, mainly to handle ropes when leaving the quay and coming alongside. A captain could score a maximum of 25 points and so could the first lieutenant; but he might have 25 deducted if he failed to correct mistakes by the crew, who might also lose 10 points for any mistakes they made themselves. On the first day they practiced getting away from a berth and coming alongside, on the second they were to steady on a compass course, use the ‘Dutchman’s log’ which consisted of dropping an object over the side and observing it as the ship passed it, then come to a buoy, and turn on it if weather permitted.
They were instructed, ‘They are to imagine they are taking over, as the new CO, from the demonstrator. Each in turn called to the bridge, and given the opportunity to ask the demonstrator to put into practice any manoeuvre they might want to know when taking over a new ship.’ Each was called to the bridge in turn to ask questions such as ‘How does she steer, going astern?’ ‘How do you put her alongside in a tight berth, Starboard side to?’ and how to ‘Proceed half ahead, stop ship by going slow astern.’ The questions and answers were relayed by loudspeaker, after which the demonstrator would ‘give a running commentary on proceedings, explaining effects of transverse thrust, etc.’ Instruction continued with three more periods in a later week, on bringing to a buoy and to ‘compare behaviour of a vessel adrift in strong tide with vessel at anchor and with vessel dredging.’ Geoffrey Ball did the exercises in pouring rain at the end of January 1944. He ‘had two or three goes at bringing the ship alongside, and did moderately well, not too many bumps.’ Unfortunately one of the C/Rs [Cadet Ratings] jumped ashore with a rope and his oilskin caught on the guard rail. It ripped apart and he fell into the water, to be rescued by his comrades.
If successful (and the failure rate was quite high) the Cadet Ratings were commissioned as temporary officers in the RNVR and given £40 to buy uniforms from the tailors at Hove. Many would go on to small warships such as motor torpedo boats and landing craft. They might be promoted quickly to take charge of a ship, sometimes to their horror. The actor Peter Bull was offered the command of a tank landing craft. ‘I was flabbergasted, and begged Commander Bostock to reconsider his decision; I told him that I was more than content with my job and needed further experience. … But he pointed out that the shortage of officers was so acute that risks had to be taken. I saw that further resistance was useless.’ His friend of Alec Guinness called a chapter on his spell in command of another landing craft, ‘Damage to the Allied Cause’ and maintained that the greatest role he had ever played was ‘That of a very inefficient, undistinguished, junior officer in the Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve.’
Despite their modesty, the temporary RNVR formed the great majority of the naval officer corps at the end of the war, winning the Battle of the Atlantic against the U-boats and landing the armies in Normandy in 1944. The training in Shoreham Harbour had stood them in good stead.
