Diary of a Wartime Naval Constructor - Sir Stanley Goodall

The work of the Naval architect at any period of history to meet current and future technological and military challenges is always going to be testing, but wartime adds a whole new layer of problems. Sir Stanley Goodall was Director of Naval Construction for most of WWII and his diaries, as the editor Ian Buxton comments, provide a “unique and revealing insight… to the RN’s successes and failures” during the war. Goodall would be described today as a workaholic – he even worked Christmas Day – but the underlying theme is the extraordinary range of his workload covering ships from LCTs to battleships, not helped by having to move offices from London to Bath because of heavy bombing. Limited resources meant that there was a tussle between building aircraft carriers or battleships; Goodall was a carrier advocate. There was criticism of the KGV-class battleships – too wet for’d - and Goodall was initially held to blame for the loss of the Prince of Wales but subsequent investigations absolved the Constructor’s Department of blame. Goodall was a strong proponent of welded as opposed to riveted construction and was reluctant to put significant funding into refitting old ships such as the C and D Class-cruisers, but was over-ruled. Constantly visiting shipyards, Goodall cast an expert eye over construction and with a fine eye for detail picked up, for example, that the Castle Class lattice masts had too few cross stays. Goodall faced a number of constant headaches. Labour disputes were a perennial issue – an example was the naming of LCTs as Transport Ferries to avoid the higher wages paid to those working on Landing Craft! Another issue was political interference, not least from Churchill as First Lord and later as PM. A constant irritation was Project Habakkuk – the idea of a floating island in the Atlantic – “a pain in the neck”. On the construction side, a shortage of gun mountings resulted in ships being fitted out with less than ideal weapon fits; 4.5” guns were fitted in the Dido Class owing to a shortage of 5.25” guns. The first Hunt Class suffered stability problems; Goodall accepted that he had failed to spot the error and the ships needed ballasting with precious pig iron, needed for manufacturing. Goodall retired in October 1945 after a career which started with approving drawings for a Chinese River Gunboat and culminating with those for a Light Fleet Carrier. Goodall wrote a diary page a day for all the war years, covering everything from notes on construction progress to frustrations with people and yards unable to deliver. His handwriting was not the easiest to decipher and with over 400, 000 words, this book only covers about 30% of the wartime years. Not the most relaxing read but the editing is superb and perseverance will be rewarded.