Bunting Tosser QL3 – Message Handling

9 12 2025

IMO, the least glamorous job a NavSig had was message handling. Any message leaving the ship had to go through the message center dayman. Some officer wants 100tonnes of food when we hit port, they scribbled on a piece of paper, handed it to the dayman and the dayman had to make it look pretty to give to the Commanding Officer (CO). If there was a spelling mistake, it had to be corrected before the CO saw it – this was in the days before personal computers so I became pretty efficient with white out and correction tape.

Once the message was all nice and pretty for the CO to look at and approve, there was always the possibility that he could say “NO, send it back and tell that officer to do it again”. The dayman could do a lot of walking around the ship getting one message actually signed and ready to be sent ashore.

The Basic Message Form (BMF) was a sheet that had all sorts of little boxes to fill in when you were making up a message. Some of the obvious ones were
Who was it going to?
Who is it coming from? a very important distinction when you had a senior officer aboard
How important is this message?
How classified is this message?
There were other little boxes that could be filled out and, as a signalman, I had to know what they were, how they were identified and what they all meant.
The message handling section of my course was the most difficult for me and when it came time for that particular test, I did a lot of sweating.

On the day of the test I sat at my desk and did the easy bits first. Then it was panic time, until I noticed a copy of the BMF, with all the boxes filled in, taped to the wall at my elbow.
I passed the test.
Two days later I was called into the office of the CHIEF.
You never want to be called into the office of the CHIEF.
The CHIEF spoke
“There was a copy of the BMF on the wall beside your desk during the test. Did you look at it during the test?”
“No CHIEF” I replied. Like what the heck else was I going to answer?
“Don’t make me have you brought in here again, Carry On”

The CHIEF said don’t do it, I obeyed.
I also passed that test




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OSQAB – Monday Morning

26 08 2013

In civilian speak – the course to teach you how to be a sailor

After being released from CFB Cornwallis, I was sent to CFB Naden, on the beautiful west coast of Canada. I thought I was all good to go, put me on a boat – that was my first error, I said boat to a chief and was given a very passionate description of just how ignorant I really was, they are ships- and I am good to go. Apparently not. First I had to learn exactly what a ship was, how it was designed, how it operated, how it was cleaned (daily and on my hands and knees), how not to cause the ship to self destruct, and, and, and…….

Monday morning, I marched my way to the Seaman ship division and was screamed at for walking across the parade square by the division chief. I still avoid walking across that patch of black top. I finally get myself to where I was supposed to be and get yelled at for being late to class. I tried to explain that I had just been detained by some chief and it was his fault and yadda yadda yadda when all of a sudden that chief walks into our classroom to give his lesson about parade square etiquette. He took one look at me and decided that the adage of if you teach it, you will learn it applied here.

I spent the better part of 20 minutes in front of my classmates explaining exactly where the bounds of the parade square were and exactly how many chiefs had windows facing said boundaries. The other point I had the pleasure to hammer home was when you saluted the Ensign and exactly how to execute said salute.

That was a very long 20 minutes but by the end of it, I was an expert.

And that was Monday Morning, day one of OSQAB

 

 

 


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