Destroyer With Women In Crew

Press, Volume CVI, Issue 31093, 23 June 1966, Page 2

Destroyer With Women In Crew

. (N.Z.P.A. Reuter— Copyright) GIAS GOW, June 22. For the first time in history, a Royal Navy ship will have women aboard officially when at sea.

H.M.S. Fife, the latest guided-missile destroyer, and the first warship in the world to have a fully automated missile system was commissioned at Glasgow yesterday. Today, it will embark two English women to programmefeed its computers while at sea.

The commanding officer, Captain R. H. Graham, said

at a press conference before' the commissioning ceremony: “This is the first time in naval history that we will be carrying ladies on board at sea.” A Royal Navy spokesman said in London that the women were Mrs Joan Hayter, a Royal Navy senior [scientific officer, and Miss Jill Wicken, an assistant experimental officer, employed as civilians. Both live in the Portsmouth area. Mrs Hayter, a system analyst, is married to a scientist.

Captain Graham said that although their programme was “classified” to some ex-' tent, he could say that the ship would be in United King-1 dom waters for the next 18 months, and that the women would be on board for the next nine months while men were being trained to take over the job.