heading for the shore at thirty knots. Since the wheel house was below him and nobody was answering his increasingly desperate orders to put the wheel over, he managed to drag himself down a ladder to the wheel house and alter course, enough to stop hitting the shore. When he regained the bridge helped by some seamen, he saw that they were now heading for two German destroyers. Since he could not slow down he decided to ram one of them. Luckily for all those left alive on board, whilst he was deciding which one to have a go at, one of the boilers was hit and the engines ground to a halt. All the forward guns on the Hardy were by now inoperable, but one of the stern guns was still banging away at the Germans who naturally returned fire into the burning wreck. Luckily the Hardy still had some 'way' on her which allowed Stanning to manoeuvre her into Vidrek where she ran aground. As she glided ashore still blazing furiously Stanning gave the order to abandon ship. One hundred and forty men plunged into the icy water, and in between the shell bursts from the German destroyers, managed to clamber to safety on the shore. Captain Warburton-Lee was awarded a posthumous Victoria Cross and paymaster lieutenant Stanning the DSO. (Source: and the Supplement to the London Gazette of 1 July 1947 – see ). Training and employment since 1950 Owing to a shortage of Fleet Air Arm pilots in the 1950s, four supply officers qualified as fixed-wing pilots; both Brian Brown and Andrew Richmond rose to flag rank in the 1980s. There was a similar, but short-lived, scheme in the late 1960s when at least three supply officers were trained as helicopter aircrew; at least one "pusser pilot" served in a number of flying appointments. The three-month junior supply officers' course (JSOC) was undertaken, certainly from 1973, by all junior supply officers before their first appointment; this became the initial logistics officers' course (maritime) – ILOC (M) – in January 2004. From May 1963, the three-month supply charge course (SCC) prepared senior lieutenants for their first appointment as supply officer (head of department) in a destroyer, frigate or ocean-going survey ship (the supply officer was often the junior head of department); SCC became the advanced logistics officers course (maritime) – ALOC(M)) – in January 2004 and the