Help please Royal Navy Chief Petty Officer

[kentishkiwi]

Hi
Hoping someone can help with my queries. My relative had over 30 years service in the navy but it is the years from 39-45 i am interested in at present. I have his service record and have all his ship/shore establishment movements. i would like to know why he moved about so much. His moves between shore establishments were quite frequent. His family lived near HMS Drake so I believe that had been his main base. An example of some of his movements follows.
HMS Helicon24 May 1942 - 17 Jul 1942,
HMS Cochrane 19 July 42- 20 July 42,
HMS Helicon 22 July - 31 July,
HMS Cochrane 2 Aug 42 - 5 Aug 42,
HMS Drake 10 Aug 42 - 15 Aug 42.
He then moved onto the HMS Ariguani 16 Aug 42 - 31 Jan 43.
Passage 1 Feb 43 - 26 Mar 43 ( I don't know why that took so long)
HMS Drake 27 March 43 - 29 April 43
HMS Gannet 30 April 43 - 1 May 43
RAF Eglinton 2 May 43 - 14 May 43
HMS Gannet 15 May 43 - 19 Dec 44
HMS Drake 20 Dec 44 - 19 July 45
HMS St Budeaux 20 Jul 45 - 30 Jul 45
HMS Drake 31 Jul 45 -18 Sept 45
I have looked at the locations and notice how far apart they are.Perhaps someone can tell me why he would move around so much.
I would also like to know what a chief petty officer's role was. What kind of duties etc. I am completely ignorant with military knowledge even though I am reading up as much as i can for my research.
Thanking you in advance
Pam

[MaxD]

Slowly does it!  The role of a Chief Petty Officer, which at that time was the senior non commissioned rating (rank if you will) would depend on what his trade or speciality was.  Thus a CPO in the engineering branches would have different responsibilities to a CPO in the medical branch.  Common to all was his supervisory position.  Your relatives record should hold clues as to his speciality.  Have a look first at the branches paragraphs in this https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Royal_Navy_ratings_rank_insignia to see if you can identify the initials of his trade (best done when he was a lower rate than CPO).
That in itself may give us a clue to move forward on.  Give us his official number also, the letters on it mean something.

Just to jump ahead a bit, the large number of ship and establishment names didn't mean he bounced back and forth and visited them all.  The Royal Navy had accounting bases where a man's career was managed from while he was physically somewhere else or between ships and some are there in the list.

maxD

[kentishkiwi]

Hi Max

Thanks for your reply. I have looked at the wikipedia page you recommended but couldn't seem to identify any initials.
He joined as a Boy in 1915 and his record up to 1928 is on Ancestry which you can see if you are a member. His name is Douglas Stableford Stevenson Number J35902 This changed to JX160148 on 12 September 1938.

Thanks for the info regarding the ship/shore details. Although I listed a lot of the bases, often there was an entry for 'passage for 1 -3 days between some of them so assumed that was travel.
Pam

[MaxD]

I'm sorry, the Wiki page dealt with the current system not the ones current in your man's time.
We can tell from his J number in the 1915 to 1928 record only that he was either a seaman (general duties on board ship) or a communicator (signalling), both trades had that same prefix letter.  His division was Devonport which explains the constant references to Vivid 1 which was the accounting base at Devonport which looked after his pay etc when he was on a vessel that didn't act as its own accounting base (usually the smaller ones).  Vivid also had the seaman and signalling school so the longer stays there may be courses.  The only other thing we can tell is that he ended that period of service as a Petty Officer.  The number system changed, not for the first time, in 1925, which is where the later JX came from.
There is another sheet of pre WW2 record that you have presumably seen which says re-entered 12 Sep 1938 for duty with RFSP D/JX 160148- does the WW2 record you have include Sep 38 onwards and does it have the same 160148 number ? (I can't at the moment identify RFSP and am taking advice from RN contacts).

Slow but sure!

maxD

[MaxD]

Pam

I think you can bracket some of the places together:
Helicon, Cochrane, Helicon, Cochrane are all the same place essentially related to the naval base at Rosyth.
Drake (Devonport), on to Ariguani a Fighter Catapult ship, then Devonport
Gannet, Eglinton (which was Gannet) Gannet - a fleet air arm station in N Ireland
Drake, St Budeaux (which wasn't a ship but a barracks in Plymouth), Drake.
A pattern of the accounting base having him on the books while he was physically somewhere else some of the time.

Are you able to post the whole record?  There are clues elsewhere which should help.

maxD

[kentishkiwi]

Max

Have attached copies of his records post 1928. As i haven't done this before I hope it is okay.
The record from June 41 to Sept 45 is just a list as I have done in first post . The information was not recorded on his service record so was extracted from Payment and Victual (P & V ) ledgers.
Pam
Will send in 2 posts

[kentishkiwi]

Max
2nd attachment for DS Stevenson
Pam

[MaxD]

Thanks Pam.  I need to take advice.  Back in due course. Others may come along meanwhile!

maxD

[Regorian]

Your relatives record looks very much like that of one I have a copy of. He was also a CPO from my wider family. As a rating he was a 'signaller' on an armoured cruiser in 1914. Next posting was the battleship HMS Queen Elizabeth. Aha, I thought, Jutland, But QE was in dock undergoing maintenance. That is probably one of the reasons crews were in shore establishments. Then there were training courses and holding until reposting. My example was often in shore establishments. He was on Malta during the siege in 1941. Cousins here have some photographs from rating 1922 to CPO WWII.