136 CHALLENGER 



ship. The Marines said that they would arrange for the Captain 

 to invite him onboard for luncheon. This had seemed easy at 

 the time, but somehow the Marines never plucked up the neces- 

 sary courage to tell the Captain that they had issued an invitation 

 on his behalf. 



By the time the refit was completed at Cape Towai in April 

 1943 the tide of war was turning in the Indian Ocean and the 

 Japanese Fleet were never again to range freely in these waters. 

 The naval base at Trincomalee was coming into its owoi as the 

 land forces moved into Burma and our naval forces moved east- 

 wards in support. 



So when the ship sailed from the Cape only a brief visit was 

 paid to Kilindini, to collect the Survey Unit which had been left 

 there, before she sailed onwards across the Indian Ocean, and 

 in early May she was surveying in the Palk Straits between India 

 and Ceylon. Preparations were already being made for the Allied 

 invasions which were eventually to take place in Burma and 

 Malaya; the first requirements for large-scale combined operations 

 are spacious anchorages in which the convoys can assemble, and 

 well-surveyed sea training grounds where the combined operations 

 exercises may be carried out in realistic conditions without en- 

 dangering the numerous craft taking part. Such exercises will 

 include bombardments and the landing of troops over beaches. 

 Charts of such remote and spacious locations are unlikely to 

 exist on anything like a large enough scale for these purposes ; such 

 areas must first of all be selected and then surveyed and operational 

 charts prepared at an early stage. 



The surveys in the Palk Straits were followed by a visit to the 

 Seychelles, the incredibly beautiful group of islands which forms 

 the British Crowm Colony far out in the Indian Ocean. It was to 

 be used as a fleet oiling base and it was required to survey three 

 approach channels across the reef plateau upon which the islands 

 stand. On 2^th June the ship anchored off Port Victoria, the 

 capital, situated on the island of Mahe, and a triangulation scheme 

 for the Seychelles group of islands was being vigorously planned. 



A month later Captain Wyatt left the ship to travel to Colombo 

 to discuss with the Commander-in-Chief the future hydrographic 

 organisation of the Eastern Fleet Command. Great moves by the 



