In February of 1976 I was serving on the staff of Admiral Stansfield Turner, who was then both the commander of the U.S. Second Fleet and commander of the NATO Striking Fleet Atlantic. I was a Lieutenant Commander, and one of the lowest ranking staff officers. My two main jobs were as assistant readiness officer and inspector of surprise operational inspections. As assistant readiness officer I kept a record of the status of each ship’s fuel, ammo, readiness to sail, etc - so I was otherwise known as the bean counter. As inspector, I was no doubt the least popular staff officer, at least among the captains of the ships in the fleet. When things were quiet at sea, Admiral Turner would give me a scenario for a surprise inspection, such as “Captain, suppose your ship has just been hit by a torpedo, your forward boiler room is flooded, several men have been killed or missing and your starboard engine is out of commission. What do you do, and the clock starts now.” I would get in the Huey (the helicopter) and be flown to the ship being inspected. The Huey could often not land on the ship since either the ships were mostly not equipped for helicopter landings or the sea was too rough (or both); so I would be lowered onto the ship by a cable and then hoisted back aboard the Huey after the exercise. The ships I inspected always took good care of me in the hopes that I would give them good marks, but their smiles usually showed gritted teeth.
We had been conducting a NATO exercise for a couple of weeks. The sort of things we were doing, for example, was refueling a British frigate from a Danish tanker, etc. After the exercise the flagship anchored off Edinburgh in the Firth of Forth. The highest ranking officers got together in the finest hotel (I believe it was called the Caledonian) for a Post Exercise Discussion or PXD. One day I was the duty staff officer on the flagship, and one of my duties was to read all the incoming messages and filter out any which were important enough to take to the Admiral. Since the ship was anchored out in the firth, I went ashore in the shuttle boat and took the few important messages to the Admiral, who read them quickly. I had a couple of hours to wait for the boat so I strolled around admiring the hotel. I was in uniform and there were other officers from other NATO navies who were also killing time. I assumed they were also waiting for the admirals to finish their discussion. After a while I decided to step outside and have a look around the hotel grounds. As I was going out the door I met a young British Navy Lieutenant who was entering the hotel, along with a small group of Royal Navy sailors whose shoulder patches showed they were from HMS Bronington, a small wooden hulled minehunter. I was a Lieutenant Commander and I outranked the Lieutenant - so he gave me a sharp salute and said the obligatory “Bye your leave, sir”. I automatically returned the salute and replied “Carry on”. He entered the hotel and I continued to walk around the hotel grounds; we did not meet again.
Shortly after that encounter I caught the shuttle boat back to the ship. At dinner that evening a shipmate asked me if I had seen the Prince of Wales. He had just taken command of HMS Bronington, and had been seen around the hotel with his entourage. After my chance meeting with Prince Charles I occasionally followed his career. It seemed, at the time, that his marriage to Dianna was off to a good start, since they were married on 29 July 1981, exactly 20 years to the day after Donna and I were married. But we all know what became of Charles and Dianna. [10 Feb 2023]
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