From Parsons apprentice to wartime flier

C A Parsons, Heaton’s once famous turbine-engineering factory on Shields Road is well-known to many residents in Newcastle upon Tyne. The plant was visited by the Royal Family in 1923, as explained by Heaton History Group’s Arthur Andrews in ‘The Prince at Parsons: 100 years on’ (https://heatonhistorygroup.org/2023/05/29/the-prince-at-parsons-100-years-on/).

As a fairly new resident in the borough, I had not known of the firm’s significance. Until, that is, a local acquaintance told me the story of his father, William Mackay, who began a somewhat intrepid career with an apprenticeship at the firm.

Bill Mackay, who worked for C A Parsons in Heaton from leaving school at 15 to the start of WWII, had a notable working life. He began his career in 1935 as a Parsons apprentice at the Heaton plant. Shortly after the outbreak of hostilities in 1940, and just 20 years old, he left his job at Parsons to join the Royal Navy, and later in 1943 went on to join the Fleet Air Arm as a pilot. But it all began on the Shields Road.

CPO William Mackay in Royal Navy uniform 1943.

In the early 20th century, Charles Algernon Parsons was one of the most signficant heavy engineering firms of the day. In 1884, Charles Parsons had invented a radical new propulsion engine, the steam turbine, and used it to revolutionise power generation as well as marine propulsion for ships of all kinds.

The Parsons steam turbine

At the start of the 20th century, Parsons steam turbines were rapidly being adopted by major power stations all around the world. In the process, generator sizes increased from less than 10 kiloWatts per hour to units capable of generating over 10,000 kiloWatts/hour. Parsons became the ‘go to’ supplier for electricity generation equipment, and was soon producing up to 50 turbines a year from its Heaton factory.

Sir Charles Parsons demonstrates a Parsons turbine to the The Prince of Wales, 1923. Courtesy Heaton History Society.

The Parsons company newsletter in February 1951 mentions the four 100,000 kW power-generating turbines it was building for the Richard L Hearn Generating Station in Toronto, Canada. Managing director Sir Claude Gibb also notes that expansion would be needed in Heaton South to meet the number of new orders, but that the most urgent task was to expand the capacity of the Apprentice Training School, due to the shortage of skilled craftsmen and engineering office staff. ‘We shall have to create more “Parsons” men’, he said.

Parsons 10,000 kW turbine-powered generator at Carville Power Station, Wallsend, 1922. The plant was designed by Merz & McLellan, inventors of the UK’s first three-phase electricity supply network, a precursor to the National Grid.

Not all of those turbines were destined for power stations however. The Royal Navy discovered the benefits of steam-turbine power for its warships, after Charles Parsons built a revolutionary fast steam vessel in 1894, and demonstrated it to disbelieving Admiralty officers in dramatic fashion at the Spithead Navy Review in 1897.

‘Turbinia’ turned up unannounced at the review, and in front of the Prince of Wales, foreign dignitaries and senior officers in the Admiralty, she demonstrated by racing up and down between the lines of moored warships how much faster she was than any other ship in the review. A navy picket boat sent to intercept her was left helpless in her wake.

The Turbinia at speed in 1897. She is on public view at the Discovery Museum, Newcastle upon Tyne. Copyright: Alfred John West.

The Navy was, reluctantly, convinced, and after further high-speed trials Parsons set up the Turbinia Works at Wallsend to construct engines for its fighting ships, the first of which, two destroyers, were launched in 1899. Steam-turbine engines then set the standard for the next generation of warships. The first turbine-powered battleship, the Parsons-powered HMS Dreadnought, was launched in 1906.

The marine turbine also incidentally created the market for a new kind of vessel, the express passenger liner, developed by the Cunard shipping line amongst others to appeal to passengers happy to pay for a faster and more luxurious sea voyage. The prize being aimed for was the Blue Riband award, for fastest crossing of the Atlantic.

Cunard planned a new liner to take this prize. RMS Mauretania was, however, originally designed with a conventional reciprocating engine. But after hearing of ‘the Parsons effect’, Cunard changed the plans as Swan Hunter was beginning construction in Wallsend, and when launched in 1904 Mauretania had the new Parsons turbine. She became one of Cunard’s most successful liners, and went on to hold the Blue Riband for 20 years from 1909 to 1929.

RMS Mauretania, built 1904 and holder of the Blue Riband award for 20 years, was one of Cunard’s most successful passenger liners.

With such an early hold on the steam-turbine market, Parsons expanded rapidly. Yet as well as one of the largest companies in Heaton, the firm was known throughout the first half of the 20th century as a benevolent employer. Retirements after 48 or 50 years service were not uncommon. The company football team Parsons Athletic played in the Northern Amateur League, the table tennis club in 1951 had over 60 playing members, and the chess club met at 6 pm every Monday evening in the works canteen.

War in the Mediterranean

In 1939 Parsons employee Bill Mackay had completed his three-year apprenticeship at the Heaton works, serving his time in the machine shop. WWII intervened however, and on being called up in 1940 Bill opted for the Royal Navy. He joined as an Ordinary Seaman, despite being a skilled marine engineer.

After completing initial training at Portsmouth, he was posted as a Chief Petty Officer to HMS Carlisle, a light cruiser built in 1917 which was newly fitted out in 1940 as an anti-aircraft cruiser. In fact she was the first naval vessel ever to be equipped with a radar-controlled anti-aircraft gunnery system.

HMS Carlisle, an anti-aircraft light cruiser, in 1942. Courtesy Imperial War Museum.

Based in Alexandria, Egypt, the Navy’s Eastern Mediterranean HQ, HMS Carlisle had regular convoy duty in the eastern Med between Alexandria, Aden, Haifa and Piraeus in Greece. In March 1942 she was also stationed off Valetta Harbour, Malta, to provide anti-aircraft cover for the port during the worst of the German and Italian air attacks on the island.

CPO Bill Mackay and some of the crew of HMS Carlisle - Portsmouth Barracks. Courtesy David Mackay collection. — CPO Bill Mackay and some of the crew of HMS Carlisle – Portsmouth Barracks. Courtesy David Mackay collection.

This period of Malta duty explains why Bill was awarded a George Cross Memorial medal in 1993. HMS Carlisle was one of the many ships that contributed to the island of Malta’s survival during the Malta Siege between 1940 and 1942 (see https://shoeman.eu/george-cross-window-tyneside-black-church/).

Carlisle was unfortunately disabled by air attack during subsequent service in the eastern Mediterranean. She suffered a twisted propeller shaft during a German air raid off the coast of Rhodes on 9th October 1943 – we have the report of a German JU87 Stuka dive-bomber pilot involved in this attack. After being towed back to Alexandria lengthy repairs proved necessary.

German Stuka pilot report on HMS Carlisle attack, 9th October 1943.

For HMS Carlisle, the damage caused had been severe. This time she was judged as being beyond economic repair for a warship, and converted to a base ship docked in Alexandria harbour. Carlisle’s crew were re-assigned to shore duty, and Bill Mackay found himself in a dockside facility providing support services for various military units.

It seemed that he didn’t overmuch relish this role, so that when invitations were posted to join the expanding Fleet Air Arm (the Royal Navy’s young aviation arm), he applied and was accepted for interview in the UK.

But to take advantage of the invitation, he had to be back in England as soon as possible. Accordingly, so family legend has it, Bill got hold of a dispatch-rider’s motorcycle confiscated from the German army, and proceeded to ride it across the whole of north Africa from Alexandria to Tangier. There he managed to hitch a lift on a landing craft crossing the Strait to Gibraltar. He was lucky, because of the two landing craft making that journey, the second one was sunk by a raid from enemy aircraft.

Training as a navy flier

Catching a train from Gibraltar to England, Bill used what shore leave he had remaining to get married, joining with Nora Fittes of Dover at St George’s church, Cullercoats on 20th November 1943. His interview with the Fleet Air Arm also being successful, he then shipped out to Canada in 1944 to start flight training.

Initial training commenced on 4th July 1944 at Royal Canadian Air Force WWII airfield St Eugene, near Ottowa, Canada, where he began on a Fairchild Cornell two-seater training aircraft. He must have been a fast learner, because by 23rd July he was flying solo. On August 30th, with just 30 hours in the air, Bill commenced service-flying training in a North American Harvard. Still officially ranked a CPO, he completed basic training on 15th December 1944.

William Mackay in a Harvard trainer over Ontario, Canada, 1944. Courtesy David Mackay collection.

Bill Mackay in flying kit off-duty in Cullercoats, WWII. Courtesy David Mackay collection.

By the 15th March 1945 he had returned to the UK, and gained a ‘Proficient’ award in advanced flying training at RAF Errol, near Dundee in Perthshire. On the 22nd March he was promoted, given the official rank of sub-lieutenant in the Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve, and marked ‘Above Average’ in the naval air fighter school.

He began flying Vought Corsair single-seat fighters on 21st April 1945 at the Royal Navy’s airbase RNAS Yeovilton in Somerset, and was posted on 8th June to 794 Squadron at RNAS St Merryn, near Newquay, Cornwall.

At the culmination of his training in July 1945, Bill was practising aircraft-carrier landings with the Corsair fighters of 768 Squadron Fleet Air Arm at HMS Wagtail, Ayr, Scotland (near Glasgow’s Prestwick Airport). Landing such planes with the arrester-wire system was apparently still innovative, and pilots had to find out for themselves how best to do it.

Bill Mackay’s flight-training logbook showing a Corsair fighter, April 1945 at Ayr, Scotland. Courtesy David Mackay collection.

He subsequently shipped out, together with six other pilots, on August 21st 1945 to the Royal Navy’s East-Indies HQ in Ceylon (present-day Sri Lanka). The young fliers were destined for the far eastern theatre, and staged via Avro York transport aircraft from England to Malta, Cairo, Shaibah airfield (Iraq), Karachi (then India) and Ceylon.

However the United States detonated two atomic bombs over the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki on 6th and 9th August 1945 respectively, Six days later on 15th August the Japanese government announced its surrender. That same day British Fleet Air Arm pilots were still engaged with Japanese fighters over Tokyo Bay, in what was probably the last dogfight of World War II.

War ends – back to the north-east and Parsons

When the final surrender document was signed by the Japanese on 15th August 1945, Bill Mackay, like so many servicemen and women at this point, found his new skills surplus to requirements. He and his fellow pilots were turned around and sent home.

Demobbed in Whitley Bay on 1st April 1946, Bill returned to the Shields Road works of Parsons, where he transferred to the often fractious ‘time and motion’ department (setting piecework rates). In 1958 he moved on, becoming a production engineer at Doxford Engine Works in Sunderland. The company’s name is misleading, because between 1946 and 1966 Doxford’s built not just marine engines, but 123 ships of all types on the river Wear.

Marine-engine crankshaft undergoing inspection at Doxford Engine Works.

In 1962 he moved again, this time as a factory manager for MacGregor Naval Architects in Monkseaton, Whitley Bay. Robert and Joe MacGregor were famed for their invention of the first safety-oriented articulated-steel hatch cover for cargo ships back in 1929, and went on to offer a variety of marine architectural services. The company exists to this day as a diversified supplier of marine services.

In 1984 Bill Mackay retired to his home in Cullercoats. It seems that retirement kept him busy – he had a collection of bicycles, bought a motorcycle and sidecar combination to get around on, and even an early electric bike on which he did a succession of Great North Rides.

Bill Mackay and son at Kirk Yetholm, June 1979. Courtesy David Mackay collection.

He also joined the north-east branch of the George Cross Island Association, becoming a frequent contributor to association meetings. Bill passed away on 19th June 2015 at the age of 95; and according to his wishes his ashes were scattered at sea.

Letter to William Mackay 1993 - the Malta George Cross 50th Anniversary Medal. Courtesy David Mackay collection. — Letter to William Mackay 1993 – the Malta George Cross 50th Anniversary Medal. Courtesy David Mackay collection.

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Postscript 1 – from Parsons to Siemens Energy

C A Parsons has morphed over time and a complex series of amalgamations into Siemens Energy. Located at the same site on Shields Road, the plant has been named the C A Parsons Works in honour of founder Charles Parsons. Siemens acquired the business from Rolls-Royce in 1997, and remains a specialist in energy generation. The 550 staff at the site focus mainly on the servicing side of the business and still handle gas and steam turbine work, but are also involved in the latest renewable energy projects.
Siemens Energy – https://www.siemens-energy.com/uk/en/home.html

Postscript 2 – George Cross window and the Malta siege

The north-east branch of the George Cross Island Association was eventually wound up in 2000. Upon closure, the association used its remaining funds to commission a stained-glass window in the church of St Thomas the Martyr, next to the Civic Centre, Newcastle upon Tyne. The George Cross Memorial window can be viewed in an alcove on the north side of the church. See also: https://shoeman.eu/george-cross-window-tyneside-black-church/.

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Note. I have to thank Bill Mackay’s son, David Mackay, for the details of his father’s life and varied career.