CHRIS PROBERT ON HIS NAVY DAYS

NAVY DAYS By Chris Probert The late Chris Probert wrote this manuscript for possible publication. He was a sailor in the former Soth African Navy. His daughter, Lara, married Christo de Beer, son of Karel de Beer. Subsequently we are still trying to get the manuscript edited and published. THANKS TO ALL THOSE WHO HELPED ME. My thanks go out to all the people who have been on my „Help List‟ I have had this book in mind for a very long time, but I never really knew how to get started on it, and then one day I decided to „ Just Do It‟. That was after many hours of prayer, and thought, and so I made a start, from the very beginning, just the way it was. A great deal of this story is fact, and it is written just the way it happened, as I remember it. I have changed all the names of shipmates, however, anybody who was there at the time will soon find out whom I was talking about. I have written a little bit of fiction into the story, this concerns the rescue of the Portuguese trawler, all of it is fiction. I just thought I‟d put a little excitement into the trip to Marion Island. I have combined two trips, the eighth relief, and the tenth relief. I missed the ninth relief trip, because I happened to be on a course in the Base at Salisbury Island at that time. That was the trip on which a very dear friend, Johnny Bold died, after falling overboard into freezing water, normally they give you three minutes to survive, regrettably Johnny didn‟t make it . He was buried at sea there at Marion. I owe thanks to so many people, mainly to God, because I am not an I.T. boffin, so I had to call in certain people who are. The first one who came to my rescue was Hansie Swanepoel, he gave me lots of I.T. information and help, then Duane Reeve came into the picture in a very big way, without his expertise, devotion, and friendship this story would probably still be in my laptop but, he put his all into making it a great success, not only in the Internet, but also in the form of C.Ds to be offered to eager readers who don‟t have access to the Internet, but they are able to play a CD. My wife Rita lost me for many hours on end while I was writing, she only saw or even heard of me when I remembered to find something to eat, she realised that I could not be disturbed, mainly because I was reliving the whole story from the beginning, every step of the way I was back at sea, or in harbour. These few years were undoubtedly the best years of my whole life, and if it had not been for parental pressure I would never have left the Navy. 1 DEDICATION. To my wife, Rita, a virtuous woman, whose price is far above Gold, and Diamonds, she is a continuous blessing to me, and to the praise of God‟s glorious Grace. Navy Jargon A Aft Rear end B Bulk Heads Bubbly Bunting Tosser Bos‟n‟s Mate Bos‟n‟s Pipe Walls Rum Signal man Quarter Master‟s Assistant A whistle blown to draw attention to an announcement. C Clobber Char Colours Clothing, goods etc. Tea Ship‟s Flags hoisted astern D Dicky Duty Watch Square necked “T” shirt Men on duty F Floozy Fanny For‟d Girl Oval shaped bucket used in the scrubbing of the Mess deck floors as well as washing up the dishes after a meal. Forward, front end of the ship 2 G Gash Galley Rubbish Kitchen L Liberty Men Men going on short time leave. Ashore for the night M Mess Peggy Mess deck Matelot Duty man, fetches food from galley +++ etc. Living quarters for all Ratings. Pronounced: Matloe, French for Sailor. Q Q.M. Quarter Master R R.P. Ratings: Radar Plotter All men carrying the rank of: Boy seaman 2nd class, anyone under 17yrs of age. Boy Seaman 1st Class, anyone under the age of 18yrs. Ordinary Seaman (O.D.) 18yearts old, not yet promoted to Able Seaman (A.B.) After having passed qualifying exams an O.D. is promoted to A/B. After that rank it is up to him for any further qualifications. In other words, all Lower Deck Men. Therefore one finds a 3 Badger A/B. One who has served 18 years, and has never qualified in anything. This does not include special qualifications such as Signalman, Wireless Telegrapher, Radar Operator, Gunner, Cook etc. S Soogee To Wash Down Bulk Heads T Tiffy (Male Nurse) An Assistant in the sick bay, afloat or ashore W W.T. Wireless Telegraphers 3 DEPARTURE. My Dad‟s birthday was the 12th February, they, the „Old People‟ were going to celebrate his 43rd birthday at the „Veldskoen‟. This place was like an old time night club. They would dance through the night. All their friends would be there, and there was a happy mood in the house, that was until about 5pm. It was raining real heavy outside when I dropped the bombshell on all this joyous feeling, it started like this “Dad, I‟d like you to please sign these papers for me. “What‟s this all about?” I have decided to join the Navy and, I need you to sign the papers giving your permission seeing as I am only 18 years old. Nonsense, I‟ll not sign anything of the sort, my Dad retorted. Then I‟ll sign them myself, I said. I‟ll have you up for fraud, he said. Well, when I‟m sitting in jail, just remember that my name is also PROBERT. By this time my Mom was having a cadenza. How could you do such a thing to us, she said, what‟s the matter with you? I don‟t think I answered, however, in my mind I just wanted to get out of that house, away from it all, especially my Dad. 4 All my life, if anything went wrong at any time, I was always to blame. It didn‟t matter if any one of my three brothers or two sisters were the guilty ones, I was always told that I was the eldest, and that I should see that the others did not get up to mischief, well, I had had it, I just wanted out. It was enough that as a little boy I was bundled off to boarding school in the Northern Transvaal. They, my parents could not take me any more, now it was my turn, I wanted out and, out I would go!!! After a lot of hassle my Father decided that he would sign. Give me a pen he said. No Dad, it‟s got to be signed in front of a Commissioner of Oaths. So where must we find a Commissioner of Oaths at this time of a Saturday afternoon. At the Police Station. But it‟s raining cats and dogs out there. Do you want me to sign Dad? Oh, well come on then. Off we went to the Police Station where the papers were duly signed. I stuck them into my jacket‟s inside pocket, feeling very pleased with myself. When we got home my Mom wanted to see what had been signed, but, I did not trust her „cause I knew that she would tear them up. She asked me when I would be leaving, thinking that it would be at least another month or so. Well she nearly fainted when I told her that I already had my train ticket to Durban. 5 I‟d packed a few pieces of clothing which were not really necessary, because, the Navy supplied you with everything, even a toothbrush! Wednesday morning I must report to Salisbury Island to be sworn in to serve my King and Country, I told her. Well, I don‟t know how that night went at the „Veldskoen‟ but I was very happy, I was going to become a sailor man!!! NAVY, HERE I COME. Monday morning I was on the tram, off to the Railway Station in Johannesburg to catch my train to Durban. Sure there were good byes, and so on. My Father‟s grave advice to me, this was after my Mom reminded him that I was his son and, that it was his duty as a Father to talk to me before I enter the big wide world out there. After all, I had to know the facts of life, Hah, as if I didn‟t know already!! I shall never forget the wonderful advice he gave me. “Keep away from dirty women.” That was it, my Father. My Mom had something to say as well. “Now don‟t come home with Tattoos.” Well, what women, dirty or not was going to look at me, a pimply faced kid, and as for the tattoos, I ended up with only 5. I‟ve always said that I was a born rebel, and I‟ve 6 always been one. Up until 1999 anyway, but -, that‟s another story which will only come onto paper later. START OF A NEW LIFE. The very first guy I met there was Alex Banyon, he was only sixteen, I was his senior in age by two years, wow! I mean, I would be rated as an O.D., Ordinary Seaman, and he would only be a Boy Seaman. Nevertheless a great friendship started there that day, one that lasted for many years, I called him Boyo, and he called me Daddio, I mean, after all, I was two years older than he, at that time, two years counted, I mean one cannot buy wisdom, can one? I‟ll never forget, as our ferry boat was nearing Salisbury Island Alex leaned over to me, and very confidentially whispered in my ear,”I don‟t even feel sea sick, do you?” A long time after that we still laughed about his remark, especially when we were at sea, and some poor A C F was puking his guts out. My P.F. Number was P13655, and Alex was P.F. 13656, that‟s how close we were, always. I often wonder what ever happened to him. We were quite a few chaps from all walks of life who had mustered in front of the Admin Block to be Sworn in that day. After this ceremony we were shown to the Naval Training Base, 7 where we were to receive sixteen weeks of basic training. Here we would be taught the left foot from the right, how to stand to attention. Which was the right end of a rifle, how to quick march, and how to double march, this came when ever you were found guilty of a little misdemeanor like not saluting properly, or not having your cap on properly, or any such little abnormality. We soon leaned that this was where you got kicked into shape and, the sooner you learned the better for you. The Seamanship Manuel became your Bible. This book taught you how to do all kinds of things, things that you would need to know all through your Naval Career. Even after years of being a sailor you would still refer to your Manuel for all kinds of facts concerning seamanship like clearing up an argument about the name of a certain knot, or the proper way to make up your hammock so‟s it would keep you afloat if ever you should end up in the drink after a torpedo struck your ship, all kinds of things, it was all new, and very exciting. 8 FOOD, GALORIUS FOOD! The food, it was pretty good, it kept us alive anyway, no, it wasn‟t the same as home cooking but, we survived. One soon got to know the routine, that on a Monday supper would probably be left overs from the weekend, this dish was given a very fancy name, it is universally known as bubble, and squeak, the reason being that over a weekend there were never so many mouths to feed as there were on a Monday, because over week ends lots of guys wangled a weekend pass, sooooo there was a lot of food left over, which you got on Monday, see! Simple, isn‟t it? Breakfast was always the same, it never ever changed, whether you were based on board one of the ships or ashore. Navy breakfast, I don‟t think has ever changed since the days of Lord Nelson. Breakfast was Bangers, and eggs with bread and coffee, that was it. Now let me explain what a Banger is. There is a certain Super Market advertisement that riles me every time I hear it and, this is it,‟Buy your PORK BANGERS from so and so. PORK BANGERS. A banger IS a pork sausage. It is called a banger because when it is fried in a hot pan the fat in it tends to explode with a bit of a bang, so, now you‟ve got it, or have you? 9 Supper normally started with soup of the day which could be anything that had been left over from lunchtime; veggies, meat, chicken, who knows, there was always bread to fill you up though. What we, in the Training Base used to do was, we‟d make sure that we took an extra mug of coffee with us to our dormitory. After the evening rounds, which was normally conducted by the Duty Officer, we‟d sneak into the laundry building, take an electric iron, turn it upside down between two bricks, and……….Viola, you „ave ze „ot plate, n‟est pas? Now one can put at least two mugs of coffee on your hot plate, depending on the size of your iron, or your mug, to warm up, before going to bed. In fact there were some adventurous types who cooked all kinds of delicious dishes this way, all after „lights out‟ of course! There was one bright spark who did not turn the Electric Iron off after ironing his pants, next morning there was a very neat hole, the exact shape of the iron, burned through the table. Young chaps will always find some kind of bright idea with which to amuse themselves, normally at some body else‟s expense. One of the most exciting games was to put a little guy into a blanket, and then toss him high into the air, and then catch him again just before he hits the ground, Shorty Meadows was usually this guy, Shorty didn‟t weigh much, so he really flew up 10 high. Another game was the Pillow Fight. This little game normally ended when just about every pillow was featherless and, I for one was knocked unconscious. Fortunately there were no real casualties, maybe because it was all just great fun. One chap, who snored heavily was tied to his bed one night, and then him and his bed were dumped into the swimming pool, fortunately someone dived in to loosen him, otherwise he might have drowned, that sure put an end to his snoring, I wonder if he might have been too scared to sleep! Nobody ever used to bother with Alex, maybe because he was still a Boy Seaman 2nd Class, when he turned 17 on the 26th January he would become a Boy Seaman 1st Class and then an O/D, and after that, an A/B, it would be up to him if he ever got promotion past being an Able Seaman. There were guys who had been A/Beez all their lives, like Stripy MacCall, he was a three badger. Let me explain, after three years service, with a clean record you automatically got your first badge, that would be like what the Americans would call a good conduct award. This badge was very much like the Army uses for their Corporals, and Sergeants. Now after 12 years good service you‟d get your second stripe, that‟s what they were called, „stripes.‟ Finally after 18 years of good conduct you would get a 11 third stripe, and that is when you would be named Stripy or, a three badger. That would be a person who had served 18 years, and had never gotten anywhere, maybe because he had no ambition or inclination to becoming a higher ranking seaman or, maybe even an Officer. The other past time was to see just how much beer one could consume during canteen hours, that would be from about 16:00 to 22:00. With beer costing one shilling a pint you could not afford to drink too much, not on an Ordinary Seaman‟s pay, six shillings a day didn‟t go very far. In today‟s money, six shillings would be 60¢ per day which equaled £9.0.0 per month, which today is R18.00, work it out for yourself! The ruling champion was a chap called Steve some body or other, he managed to down 27 pints of beer in one sitting, needless to say, he wasn‟t sober after that lot. You used to invite your pals to the canteen for a few beers, so for ten shillings you could buy a case of beer, and then there would be about six guys to share it, so that wasn‟t really a booze up now was it. Lots of chaps used to try their hand at fishing off the quay, and I might add, some of them came up with pretty good catches, only problem was if you took 12 your prize catch to the shore galley, and it landed up in the hands of Cook Sandelson, it would end up in a mess. Time went by, time for our final exams, which would mean that we were now ready to join one of the ships as bone fide seamen. Alex, and I had by now become closer than blood brothers, of which, incidentally, I had three ,and he had one. We were hoping to join the Frigate HMSAS Transvaal, time would tell where we would be going. We had both passed our final exams with flying colours, mainly because we both studied very hard for this step up. Now, came the news that we were all waiting for, which ship? WHERE TO NOW? Instead, twelve of us, were told, only the best, were chosen, I still think that, that statement was just a moral builder, but it worked ! We had been chosen to become the Governor General‟s Guard. At that time the Governor General was the Right Honourable Mr. J.J. Jansen. We would be doing our duty at “King‟s House” in Durban. This turn of duty would last only for one month, then the Air Force would take over, and finally the Army would fall in line for 13 duty. The Governor General at that time was going to be in Durban for three months, after which he would return to Cape Town. We had to undergo special training, so as to know exactly what the routine would be. Not that by now, we didn‟t know which was the business end of a .303 rifle. Wow! We were the chosen few, just think; we‟d be living at King‟s House, how privileged could one be? We hadn‟t all studied so hard for nothing, at least the higher ups had recognized our hard work. The day after this news was given us we all had to go to King‟s House for a trial run, just to see how things worked. Now this was really exciting, could it ever get any better? When we arrived at King‟s House, a truck was already there waiting for us, loaded up with equipment. What was it all about, the question on everybody‟s lips. Here it came, hold tight!!! „Pitch that tent here, as close to the guard room as possible, with the entrance facing the fence. Make sure that the rain water run-off trench is deep enough.‟ Still we thought that this was for us, just in case we got bad weather, at least we would have some sort of shelter, then came the beds, and mattresses, then came the realization. 14 This tent would be our home all the time while we were on duty at King‟s House. We would be staying at Salisbury Island Naval Base. Our food would be delivered from Salisbury Island by Motor Cycle, carrying all our food in hot boxes in the side-car. These hot boxes were supposed to be kept hot by filling the outer casing with hot water, it didn‟t really matter how much water spilled into the food which was dished up into the inner casing, now did it? This definitely was not Daddy‟s Yacht!!! Now the laugh was on us, not with us any more. DUTY CALLS. We were the first guys in the entire Navy to be issued with the brand new rifles, and the shorter length bayonets. The second World War rifles, and bayonets had all been scrapped, the new issue was much lighter too! What we also found out later was that the new short bayonet fitted very snugly under the armpit of an issue Great Coat. I think that these coats were made of calf leather, very strong, and very warm too. This assisted one very adequately while you were standing to attention, the point of the bayonet tucked into the material of your coat, which was so thick it could not penetrate unless one forced it. There you stood at attention, 15 rifle by your side, and you, fast asleep. Nobody was ever caught, in fact nobody even knew who else was doing this, maybe only us. We started by standing guard for two hours on, and four hours off. Alex, and I were partners. We then decided that we would change this by convincing our relief guardsmen that it would be better to stand four hours on, and eight hours off, well, we ended up by standing twelve hours on, and twelve hours off, this arrangement at least gave one enough time to rest, and sleep except when the G.G. went out in the evenings, and returned around midnight. When this happened everyone had to fall in on the verandah of the guardhouse, naturally, in full ceremonial dress, with rifles, and fixed bayonets. Denis Pitto was our bugler, he had to play, I can‟t remember what, maybe it was réveiller. I think it probably was, just to wake us all up. This drill was carried out every time the G.G. either departed, or returned after a night out. TIME-OFF. Our days off were glorious, yes, this was one of the perks that those who laughed at us, now considered it to be unfair. We had every second day off. The routine was: At 07:00 the relief team would fall in at King‟s House for the next 24 hours duty. 16 Then, the whole crew would have to march up the hill to the Parade Ground in front of the main entrance to the actual King‟s House. Here Denis would blow „Colours‟ on the bugle, everyone would present arms, and the National flag would be hoisted, as well as the Governor General‟s house flag. He would come out to take the salute, and to receive the daily report from the, now off duty, Guard Commander. Those who had been on duty for the past 24 hours were taken back to Salisbury Island. The time off was meant for you to clean up your uniform, your white belt, and gaiters, your boots, your cap etc. Remember, those days we still wore the Royal Navy Uniform. Everything had to pass muster, or else, you were in serious trouble, no place for scruffs!! Later, after all your cleaning up was completed, your time was your own. We could go ashore, or we could do whatever we wanted to, just as long as we were ready to leave for duty the next morning at 0600, to relieve the men who had been on duty since yesterday morning, and so it went. After about three weeks of this routine one starts getting crabby, ones nerves start wearing thin, you start counting the days left over before the Air Force comes to take over from the Navy. Two days before this great day, that we, the Navy would be relieved, the Air Force chaps came over, just to practice, and learn 17 the routine. Everything was going well, all according to plan when, out comes the G.G. ,and his Lady, remember, he was King George V1 of England‟s representative in the British Commonwealth State of South Africa, in the year of Our Lord 1951. He, the Governor General, beckons to Petty Officer Pieter Botma the Guard Commander. He wants to know what is happening. When P.O. Botma tells him that the Air Force is going to relieve the Navy, and that at the end of that month they will be taking over our duties, he, the G.G. shakes his head, and says, “NO!!!” the Navy stays. Now, we did not look upon that as a stroke of luck, no sir!!! Well, needless to say, after three months of this G.G. thing Alex, and I, together with a lot of other chaps were drafted to various ships. 18 NEW HOME AFLOAT. THE FRIGATE, HMSAS TRANSVAAL F602 Entering Durban Harbour 1951 The great day arrived, and Probert, and Banyon were duly given orders to report to the Frigate Transvaal, along with quite a few others as well. We soon fell in with the old hands, sorted ourselves out, packed out lockers, and fell in for our first upper deck duties. 19 Naturally all the menial jobs were always dished out to the new ones, Alex wasn‟t very chuffed to be made “Captain of the Heads”, in other words he had to clean, and maintain the toilets. A ship‟s head is where the toilet always used to be in the old days of sailing before the mast, probably because that was where the least space could be spared. We each also had a certain section of the upper deck to take care of. I became part of the Quarter Deck team, and Alex was up „for‟d on the Fo‟c‟s‟le, pronounced fohk-sŭl = forecastle, in other words, the sharp end of the ship! In the days of sailing ships they built what was known as the fore castle. This castle was where they also mounted guns with which to defend themselves against an enemy or to attack an enemy. There were castles on land, so, why not at sea as well, those old ships also had what was known as an after castle, this however, changed in later years to the quarter deck, that is the blunt end of a warship. Midships is self explanatory. „Tween decks is down below where the living quarters are situated, and, store rooms, ammunition magazines, for instance, shells for our 4” gun, bullets for the two Oerlikan anti- aircraft guns, mounted on the bridge, ammo for the two Bofor anti-aircraft guns, mounted aft, and ammo for the Pom-pom anti- aircraft gun, mounted on the Pom-Pom 20 deck.The large anti-submarine armaments were the Squids. They were on the top secret list since after the war until just before I went on discharge. From fore to aft the messes were set out as follows: Right up for‟d, Signalman‟s mess, Starb‟d side, Quartermaster‟s Mess, Port side. Next was the Engine Room Artificer Officer‟s Mess, Port Side. Chief Petty Officer‟s Mess, Starb‟d side, Petty Officer‟s Mess, Starb‟d side. Port Side Midships was the Coxswain‟s Office, Starb‟d side Midships was the Ward Room, that is the Officer‟s Mess, then the Steward‟s mess, and the Heads after that. Below all this, was the area that was set out for the crew. Now we are going to the lower deck. For‟d was the Engine Room Staff i.e. all the stokers, boiler men etc. they are the guys who work in the boiler room, and the engine room. Lower deck midships, much more comfortable, a lot less movement in heavy weather, was the Main Seaman‟ Mess Deck, which was divided up into four sections, namely #9 #10 #11 and #12, there were sometimes as many as 15 men to a mess. I didn‟t mention which was Port, and which Starb‟d. Aboard all ships, and even Aircraft, the even numbers are always on the Port side, which is the left hand side, of anything in the marine world. The Stard‟b side is always on the 21 right hand side, and this is always signified by the uneven numbers. Now we come to the different watches, in harbor, there was Port, and Starboard which was divided into: starting at Midnight, the Middle watch, Midnight to 04:00, Morning watch, from 04:00 to 08:00, Forenoon Watch from 08:00 to 12:00, Afternoon Watch 12:00 to 16:00, then would be the first dog watch, from 16:00 to 18:00, second dog watch from 18:00 to 20:00, and lastly the first watch from 20:00 to Midnight. That was the cycle, one day would be Port Watch who would be on duty through this cycle and the next day would be Starboard Watch again. The dog watches were put in so that the same people did not always have to do the same hours as yesterday, very good seamanship, no? At sea the hours remained the same, only there were three watches, not just two as in harbour, there we had Red White and Blue. This meant that at sea, if you were red you would be on duty 4 hours, and off 8 hours around the clock, the dog watches were also strictly adhered to, at sea. Starting to get the picture now? The duties could be anything that was happening out there, the Buffer, who was the upper deck Petty Officer would get his orders from the Duty Officer who would be up on the Bridge. 22 The Duty Officer may decide through the Asdics Officer to have a Depth Charge Drill, this would obviously be at sea. This would mean that all the Ratings, i.e. Upper Deck men, such as Boy Seamen, Ordinary Seamen, and Able Seamen would have to muster aft with their particular Leading Seaman in charge who would in turn report to his Petty Officer as to how many men he had available, this would then be reported to the Asdics Chief P.O. who would in turn report to the Asdics Officer. This sounds like a great deal of hullabaloo, however, this whole operation wouldn‟t take more than two minutes, so now everybody knew exactly what was happening. The order would be given, “Clear One, which would be the Depth Charge Rack on the Starboard side, how would anyone know that it had to be the Starb‟d side, because uneven numbers were always Starboard, and even numbers were always Port side, right? “One cleared, and ready, SIR!!! Now the Asdics Officer will talk to the Bridge, and report that #1 was ready. The Bridge would in turn call the Wheelhouse to change speed to full speed ahead, both engines, the Bosun‟s Mate would then move the telegraphs for both engines to full speed, in the Transvaal‟s case it would be ± 120Revs and, that would be something like 16 knots. 23 The Bridge would report to the quarterdeck that the ship was moving at full speed so, it would be safe to fire a depth charge. All this business takes maybe 1 minute, if that long. the Asdics Officer calls Bridge, permission to fire 1 Sir!!! Bridge answers, FIRE!!! All of these orders, and requests are written down on paper by one of the Scribes, with the time taken from a chronometer which is synchronized with GMT. Don‟t forget the count down, wow, that‟s very important, the charge sinks at about one foot per second, that would be in less than a minute you would not only hear but also see the explosion. The Captain‟s voice would boom over the Upper Deck Louspeakers, All the Kingklip to my Steward. By now the boats have been lowered, and are busy collecting all the fish that have been bombarded. What a life that was, always very exciting, never a dull moment. Now after all is said, and done, the decks cleared, all the gear stowed away, ready for another day it would be just time to have a quick wash, and clean-up to be ready for “Up Spirits” . 24 IMPORTANT NAVAL TRADITION. Up Spirits? O.K. Let us go back in history to about 1652, more or less when Jan van Riebeek was ready to set sail for the East Indies. It was a long time ago, O.K.! Jamaica, an Island in the Caribbean Sea had a spot of trouble, what it was all about I do not know. The Royal Navy was called in to settle the matter but, Jamaica had no money with which to pay their debt to England soooooo, all they had was Rum. An offer was made, Jamaica would supply the Royal Navy with rum for ever, in payment of their debt, this settled the matter, and so the Navy went onto good Rum from Jamaica. No it was not Captain Morgan! We, the South African Naval Forces, were affiliated to the Royal Navy so we also had to get onto this Rum Wagon, it didn‟t last long though because Jamaica didn‟t have ships with which to deliver the rum, the Royal Navy had to fetch it. By this time the South African Naval Forces was well into this rum thing, and having so many Ratings seconded to the SANF from the RN this rum story became quite a problem. Hooray for Huletts Sugar Mills in Durban. They got the recipe from Jamaica, and so Huletts made the rum for the SANF. It was so good that the 25 RN ships visiting here were absolutely delighted, they said that our rum was a lot better than Jamaica‟s. The navy got their rum for many years, every day just before lunch time, it was “Up Spirits”. Every mess Peggy had to go to the Coxswain‟s Office to collect his mess‟ rum. Chiefs and P.O.s got a tot of neat rum and Ratings, over the age of eighteen got their tot mixed with two equal measures of water, i.e. a Rating‟s drink amounted to about a beer glassful. Ratings under the age of eighteen were paid a ticky, (three pence per day, they were put on the temperance list.) While we are talking about Rum, let me tell you how Rum eventually got thrown out of the South African Navy. It happened like this. Some bright spark in Parliament got to hear about this tradition and, he, whoever he was, said, NO, why should the South African Navy get a daily issue of very expensive Rum from Jamaica. Here in South Africa we produce some of the best Brandies in the World, from now on they shall have Brandy. It is quite obvious that he did not do his homework, and nobody in Parliament objected to what had been declared. Probably because not one of them knew anything at all about Naval Tradition, and nobody bothered to find out. 26 The routine was that at around 10:00, just enough rum had to be pumped from the wooden cask in which it was supplied from Huletts. This would be enough for the daily requirements of the ship‟s company. The Coxswain was in charge of this operation and, me being the Galley Tanky had to assist him, we needed an extra hand because the casks were pretty heavy, so I summoned Alex to help. It was then, to our dismay that we learned that that would be the last cask of rum to be pumped in the South African Navy. Alex and I plus the Coxswain felt rather chuffed that in fact we were making history in the Navy, not that we were pleased about the whole affair. When that rum was finished there would be no more. I later learned that the Brandy only came on the scene long after I went on discharge, so I never tasted it, but some of the chaps who did, told me two years later, that that brandy was rotgut, maybe some body had a finger in the distiller‟s pie! Nobody wanted the stuff, so it was stopped, and the Navy went dry!!! 27 MESS DUTIES. Let me quickly explain what a Mess Peggy is, I know you are guessing now!!! A Mess Peggy is the chap who is on duty, remember, red white and blue at sea and Port and Starboard in harbor! Right, the only difference was for the Chief Petty Officers, and Petty Officers, they had a permanent Mess Peggy, he had to serve them by fetching their food from the galley, and do the washing up afterwards, and keep the place nice, and tidy, scrubbing the mess deck every morning after breakfast, this was a privileged job. Because it carried a lot of favor that the other crew members couldn‟t even dream of. Lunch was from 12:30 to 14:00 so one had plenty of time to have a nap before continuing the day‟s activities. We had another consignment of ACF guys on board ,Dick was the Mess Kellick, the one in charge of the mess, he details this chap off to go make a kettle of tea. It was a fourteen pint capacity kettle. He was supposed to be the duty Mess Peggy. This poor creature went up to the Main Seaman‟s Bathroom, fetched the kettle of warm water from the bathroom tap, came back, just to be caught in the act of putting a handful of tealeaves into the kettle. Yes, no tea bags at that time in history!! An hour later he was still 28 trying to drink the last of his tea. After that, he was appointed as the tea maker of mess eleven, every time it was tea time. By the time he got back home he would be a world champion tea maker, and he‟d win all the prizes for making the best tea ever! LIFE BOAT DRILLS. The Gunnery Officer might decide to have Life Boat Drill. Now bear in mind that you may be busy with something else when, all of a sudden the call goes out on the Upper Deck Loud Hailer, “Man overboard Port Side For‟d. Man the Lifeboat!!! Life boat crews are appointed when you join the ship, if a call goes out you know just what to do. The “Jimmy” (First Lieutenant) keeps an eye on the crew with his stop watch in hand. Timing is taken from the time the call first rings out, until the Lifeboat hits the water. So there were competitions between all the teams, sometimes the winning team would be given special recognition for a job well done, like going ashore for the whole day instead of only leaving the ship at 16:00, and returning the next morning instead of at 23:59. This kind of shore leave was always a big thing. It would give you a lot more time to spend with friends or relations, or girl friends, who knows what! 29 SEA TIME. The first trip at sea; this came about around the end of August 1951. We, that is “K” class of the training base had all been drafted to various ships. As I said earlier Alex, and I were very happy that we had been sent to the ship HMSAS Transvaal. No I‟m not getting things into a chronological knot, eh, eh, just go back to the beginning, I started off by saying, “What I still remember” right, and this is just how certain events come to mind. Back to that first trip at sea. We sailed from Durban en route to Saldanha Bay. It was all very scary, all kinds of thoughts seemed to invade one‟s mind. The greatest expanse of water lots of guys had ever seen, was perhaps Florida Lake or maybe Germiston Lake but, this big dam was something else. Even I felt queesey and, I‟d been to Durban quite often on holidays with my folks but, I‟d never been to sea, I‟d had this craving to go there but, I never ever thought it would be quite like this. The first twelve hours I thought I was going to die, because of the sea sickness, and the second twelve hours I darned well hoped I would die!!! By the way, did you know that Admiral Lord Nelson of HMS Victory fame suffered with chronic sea sickness, every time 30 he went to sea he was sick!! This, by the way, was no consolation to a lot of us! Our first port of call was East London, lots of us were very excited to be able to go ashore, and feel solid ground under our feet. The older hands called it land sick, like when you‟ve grown used to the deck coming up to meet your foot, only now it doesn‟t, so you almost stumble, it doesn‟t take too long before you are walking quite normal again though. After the first beer you feel O.K. We sailed again the next day, the only reason that we stopped over at East London was to take on fresh water because we could not get near the water jetty in Durban, the queue was too long, and we didn‟t have an emergency, simple as that!!! Our Captain, a two and a half ringer, was a well loved Officer, his friends called him Flam, Flam St.Johns, the Flam was because he had red hair. Everyone liked him because it was said that with him one knew exactly where you stood, he was a very fair man, and he had no favorites, either you were right or wrong and, beware, if you were wrong on any account, you had a major problem. Port Elizabeth was our next stop, the only reason for it was because we had to pick up about 40 A C F Ratings, (Active Citizen‟s Force). Here comes a story, hold on. 31 CLEAN UP IN PORT ELIZABETH. This was told to us, “New Ones” like all the trainees from “K” Class for instance. Long before our time, our ship, the Transvaal was lying in P.E. on a visit. A little while after „Liberty Men‟ had gone ashore to see the sights of P.E. a couple of chaps returned to the ship, it looked as if a locomotive had hit them. Flam St.Johns the Skipper happened to see them come on board, it turned out that they had been beaten up in the city by a bunch of P.E. pub thugs saying that nobody needed the Navy, especially the South African Navy, in Port Eliazabeth. The next thing that happened is what we learned from chaps who were there when this incident took place, and here is how the story turned out----- From the Captain: “Clear Lower Decks, all men to muster on the Quarter Deck! Coxswain, see that belts, gaiters and batons are issued to everyone, when they are dressed, call me in my cabin” This having been done the Captain was duly called. The next order that was given, and he, Flam St.Johns, also attired in Belt, Gaiters, and Baton led his men ashore with the order, “Let‟s clean up this town men!!!!!!!!!” So they did, they went into every pub, and cleaned them all up, whoever was there, irrespective of whether you had anything to say or not. 32 After every pub in the city had been cleaned up all men were ordered back to the ship, it is said that the S.A. Police didn‟t do or say a thing, in fact it is rumored that they rather enjoyed the cleanup, it saved them a lot of trouble later in the night with drunks looking for trouble. Needless to say, the Frigate H M S A S Transvaal was banned from ever entering harbor again in Port Elizabeth again in the future. Right, let‟s pick up our story where we had to stop at P.E. to pick up A C Fs. Flam St.Johns, our Captain, hey man, he was quite a guy, decided to lay to, outside the harbor, he sent a signal to the Authorities telling them to send their A C Fs out to the ship, they had one-half-hour, then we would sail with or without them. This exercise brought the Mayor out, down to the “A” berth quay side, armed with a loud hailer asking our Captain to please come alongside to pick up the A C Fs. Flam let him know that he, the Mayor, had about twenty minutes left to get his men on board, we would not enter harbor. They saw that we would sail, and then the Mayor would have to answer to the Military Authorities. The weather was starting to pick up by this time, and the sun was on it‟s way down, being late afternoon, and all, you know! In double quick time the Harbor Master organized a tug 33 boat to take these poor chaps, who were sitting in the midst of all this lot, out to sea, in choppy weather by now, to the ship. They all managed to come aboard in a good condition, some of them a bit wee zee but they would have to sort themselves out during the night. Of course our ship‟s company sort of let them know that on THIS SHIP nobody takes nonsense from anybody, and believe me, they believed it too! I‟ll never forget there was one chap who, a few years later, joined our ship again, he had a very morose attitude about all the goings on of that day in his life. When I asked him just what he did for a living, he said he was an Undertaker, well, that sort of explained his attitude, didn‟t it? 34 CAPE TOWN, THE MOTHER CITY. 358 years ago when Jan van Riebeek landed here, there was nothing. By this time Captain Flam St.Johns had been promoted, and had moved on to other shore duties. Alex, and I were very happy because our old Training Base Captain had taken over the Transvaal, Lt. Com. Dick Nephews. Straight as a die!! The next stop was in Cape Town, Wow, what a site, that mountain. Remember I grew up in Johannesburg, and there are no mountains anywhere near there, so this was something for me to enjoy. It was early morning, I remember my Mom gave me a 35 Kodak Box Brownie Camera, to take a few “Snaps”, as they were referred to in those days. Today people don‟t take “Snaps” anymore, they are photographs, begging your pardon, Sir!!! We were lying so close inshore that I could not fit the whole scene into the view finder so I had to turn the camera diagonally to get my picture, but I got it!! Cape Town 1951. If one looks carefully you will see the chimney stacks of the old Fore Shore Power Station. It is ± in the centre of Table Mountain. This, my Box Brownie “Snap”. 36 We didn‟t stay long in the “Mother City” as she is affectionately called. Yes, the Mother City, do you know why the Mother? I‟ll tell you what I was told by a Tourist Guide, he had been in the business for about fifty years, his story was, in Cape Town one can experience all four seasons in one day, so the weather changes, just like a woman can change her mind in a flash so, there you have it. Of course Cape Town is the “Mother City” because all the rest of South Africa has grown out of her, despite the fact that Jan van Riebeek first dropped anchor at Saldanha Bay, could not find water so he carried on to what became Cape Town. It must have been a very clear day, no smog, „cause on a very clear day one can see Table Mountain from Saldanha if you climb to the top point at the entrance of the bay. The distance as the crow flies is under 100kms, so it wasn‟t even one days‟ sailing from there not with all the wind in Cape Town anyway!! Only one night ashore in Cape Town was not nearly enough time to see all there was to see. We sailed the next morning, right after „Colours‟,that is the ceremony of hoisting the flag every morning at 08:00. That evening we dropped anchor in Saldanha 37 Bay, granted it doesn‟t take an entire day to sail from Cape Town to Saldanha, but, bear in mind that lots of other things also happen at sea on board a warship. I can remember clearly, we dropped a depth charge or two so‟s we could have fresh fish for supper. That was an old trick, whenever a school of fish was sighted, and there wasn‟t anything else happening the Captain would decide to have a depth charge dropped. Just to keep us all in training of course! One can see the white foam rise to the surface, soon after the charge explodes. The call from the bridge was always the same, ”All the King Klip is mine!” The caller being the Captain, he loved King 38 Klip, a deep sea delicacy. Once we even came up with a Sting Ray, now that was really something. CPO Cook Roberts knew just how to prepare it, yes, I also got a smallie piece, but that was a long time after this episode. Hey, lets get back to Saldanha. SOUTH ATLANTIC SQUADRON EXCERSIZES. This was the big event of the year for the South Atlantic Squadron of which we were an integral part. This maneuver included all the Navies based in the South Atlantic. HMS Bermuda fires a Salute. 39 HMS Bermuda was the flag ship, a Light/Heavy Cruiser, she carried a crew of around two thousand officers and men, including a detachment of Royal Marines on board. Her largest guns were twin turret 6” guns. What a sight to see her fire a full broadside, we all saw that on the last day we spent in Saldanha. The Royal Navy was well represented. In addition to Bermuda there was the Acteon, and the Neiride, they were sister ships, HMS Nereide , Sloop, note twin 4 inch gun turrets. Depth charges, Squid and, Torpedo Tubes on after deck. 40 sloops, carrying ± four to five hundred officers, and men. The old HMs/m Sturdy, was a very old Sub-Marine on her last voyage, when she got back to Malta she would be taken to the scrap yard. The French Navy was also included in a small sloop, the Gazelle Gazelle, small French Sloop. The South African Naval Forces were there in force as well, we had our flag ship the Jan van Riebeek, a destroyer, the picture shows the JvR in heavy seas. Destroyers are very fast vessels known as the Greyhounds of the Sea! 41 HMSAS Jan van Riebeek, her sister ship, the Simon v/d Stel had not yet arrived from U.K. The Minesweeper HMSAS Bloemfontein. 42 Bloemfontein a Mine sweeper, and our ship the Transvaal a Frigate. A total of eight war ships. The Air Force was there as well, the Langebaan Air Force Base is situated just about on the doorstep of Saldanha Bay. The South African Naval Gymnasium is also based in Saldanha, so it was quite a big to-do especially for youngsters like Alex and I, let alone the other chaps with whom we‟d been in training in “K” class. The whole idea of these maneuvers was to keep everybody in top condition in case of any emergency, one never knows what might happen in the wide world out there. Quite a variety of activities were set up, for instance, boat sailing competitions between all the ships, the boats that were used were lifeboats called „Whalers‟. The same as used by Captain Bligh when Mr. Christian set him, and a few crew members adrift from the “Bounty”, in the story of the Mutiny on the same ship, remember? Nobody ever thought that Captain Bligh would ever get to England from Australia in a Whaler, never, but he did!! 43 Taken after a Depth Charge explosion. Note the Coxswain of the Whaler stretching his arm to pick up a fish. Granted, he didn‟t have to row to England, he did have sails, and Oars. Diesel motors were not yet invented! Another competition was boat pulling, some people might call it rowing, but believe you me, when you pull that oar, you 44 really have to pull with every once of strength in your whole body to get anywhere. There were competitions about who can man their heavy guns in the least time, and also who can man the Depth Charge gear in the least time. Which ship‟s crew could pin point the position of the Sub-Marine „ HMs/m Sturdy‟ the most accurately, and in the least time. The fishing competition was very popular. This bay was noted for it‟s abundance of Sand Sharks, they are bottom feeders, and proper scavengers, they would take any kind of bait, we even caught them using bits of cotton waste on the hook, sounds incredible, but it is true! The older hands on our ship knew the drill for the end of the games. It was this: The winning ship would have to kidnap, as it were, the bell of the ship which came in second. In order to rescue the bell, the First Lieutenant had to be the ransom, and spend a night on board the winning ship. The next day he would be displayed in the winning ship‟s motor boat, which would cruise all around the fleet, while the crew of the boat would hold the cup high, and wave the flag, so that everybody could see that they were the “Cock of the Fleet”. Now comes the time to grab the ship‟s bell, and it has to be defended at all costs because, if the attackers do not succeed in 45 capturing the bell, and are beaten, the runners up automatically become the Cock of the Fleet. These are the rules, so let the games begin. The Transvaal was running neck a neck with the Acteon who were leading so far, now came the fishing, for Sand Sharks, and could our guys catch fish? Or could they? Man we caught baskets full, the baskets being empty bread baskets which were pretty large, we had plenty of ammo to ward off any attackers who would come in the night, and they did too, shortly after dusk the first wave of them arrived. Never have you seen so many sailors scatter, being beaten with a wet fish. The only deck that they could attack from was the quarter deck because it was low in the water, so it was quite easy to defend. Have you ever been hit across the back of your head with a wet sand shark? Those fins are very sharp too, after a gallant fight the whole attack was called off maybe because the Acteon‟s crew saw that it was a hopeless battle or perhaps because one fellow caught a shark fin across his cheek which split it open, and it became a bloody mess. Doc. Clelland had to put in a few stitches. That was it, we the HMSAS Transvaal were the undefeated “Cock of the Fleet”. for that year anyway. 46 In the morning everybody was very busy making preparations to weigh anchor, and be off to their bases across the AtlanticOcean. Our Captain had received a signal from HMS Bermuda telling the whole fleet just how good it had been there in Saldanha, where Seamanship of the Highest Order had been manifested. As a fond farewell, they were going to give us a full broadside salute. All I can say is “WOW” Now that was really something. Can you imagine what it was like, with four twin 6” (150mm) gun turrets blasting off, first four barrels to Port side for‟d followed by the Starboard sides four barrels aft. The two British sloops were off to the far east, the frogs were going back to Madagascar, their base being Diego Suarez. Sturdy was off to the scrap yard in Malta. Bermuda was going to the Clyde in U.K. for a refit. After that she would be drafted to other duties, who knows where. Her relief was going to be, this time a heavy Cruiser, HMS Euryalus. 47 HMS EURYALUS She was quite close in here, loud hailer distance, note lots of crew members standing on the Foc‟sle. Huge 6” guns too! HMS EURYALUS the new Flagship of the South Atlantic Squadron 48 As for us local yokels, we would all go back to Salisbury Island in Durban, except the JvR, she was going to Snookie (Simonstown) for a refit as well. HOMEWARD BOUND. That left the „Vaal, and the Bloem, we sailed in convoy back to Durbs. This was a good ending to an exciting few weeks. We as young sailors had seen so much, and learned so much that by now we sort of felt that we were a notch up on anyone who wasn‟t in Saldanha with us. We probably were too, except for the old salts who had been there, seen it all, and tried to get out of going again; one always finds those types doesn‟t one? This tidbit has probably been entered into the annuls of Naval History. The Bloemfontein was a nice little Mine Sweeper, and had done great work in the North Sea during the war, that is the Second World War. She was a bit slow, a mine sweeper isn‟t supposed to be a fast vessel, how could she sweep mines if she was? Her Skipper had seen all these other ships perform in Saldanha, some of them very fast vessels, like the JvR, our Destroyer for instance, she could top 35knots(i.e. ± 65Kms per hour or ± 40mph) whereas the Bloem could not get near that, the 49 most she could muster was about 10 knots, ± 18km ph. Get the picture? HMSAS Bloemfontein, a Mine Sweeper. Ignore the date on the picture. It is the date on which it was copied to the story board. The exercise was to check the speed in which the Bloem‟s crew could run out a depth charge. Just to the ready, that is, O.K.! However some bright spark wasn‟t listening. Charges are normally set to go off at 50ft (±15m), and the ship should be moving fast enough so‟s she is out of the way before the charge goes off, otherwise she is likely to have her tailend blown off. That is exactly what happened to her. 50 We only found out afterwards what had happened. Just as well this happened just outside of Durban otherwise it might have been tragic. Fortunately help got there in time, and she managed to keep afloat. Naturally there was a big enquiry, one doesn‟t allow your ship to blow her own tail off, and nothing is said or done about it, now does one? Oh, well, another day of life on the briny, wot? The middle of September had arrived. The routine didn‟t change much, there was always talk about some or other ship going somewhere exotic, we in fact heard that we were bound to take a good will trip to Rio De Janeiro. All talk it turned out to be, there were many such rumors. It was then that one learned never to believe any such stories. The only time one should believe such a story was when you were actually there, where they said you would be going, nothing else. One could become quite skeptical about many things under such circumstances. 51 CAN YOU MAKE TEA? Now that all the activity had settled down, and we could all get back into normal living in harbor, special duties were handed out. Alex, oh Alex, he was still the Captain of the Heads. I don‟t think that he really minded his job so much because, nobody seemed to bother him, and once he‟d got everything ship shape it was easy to keep it that way. I was still the Galley Tanky. Now, behind every story or name there hangs a tail!! In the old, old days, when men were made of iron, and ships of wood, there were tanks on board into which water was either pumped or caught up in a rain storm or carried on board while the ship was in harbor. These tanks had to be kept in order, and so the fellow who got that job was called “The Tanky”. When ships grew larger, and the galley grew more sophisticated the Cook needed more help than what he used to have. Please note that in an hotel they talk about a Chef, in France they too have Chefs, but in the navy a chef is a COOK as in Captain, O.K. Sure, you‟ve heard about Captain Cook? No, where have you been? Now, when the galley grew the Tanky had to fit into this scenario, so I was made the Galley Tanky. It was my job to see that there was enough bread put out each day. I had to fetch the 52 meat out of the deep freeze compartments below the deck of the Main seaman‟s mess deck. Eggs, and milk were kept in the Cool Room which was adjacent to the Deep Freezer. I was also put in charge of the grocery store rooms. That, made me very popular, young sailors are always hungry. Nobody really kept tabs on what went into the store, and what came out so it was easy to lay claim to a tin of Pilchards or Condensed milk or what ever. I was originally put in mess eleven in the Main Seaman‟s mess deck, the popular mess, why so popular? Well we had all the goodies, you see, Dick Henson, and I were great friends. Tea time was around 09:30 to 10:00. Dick would approach me. Hey Tanks, how‟s about some Bully. O.K., and off I‟d go to the store, only to come back with a tin of Bully Beef. Yes, here comes another story, the Bully Beef of course is Corned Beef. From Bully, it became Bull Dog, and eventually the Bull Dog became just plain DOG. This would be opened with a sailor‟s knife. Dick would see to the onions and tomatoes. This whole lot would be mixed up together in a bowl, and that on fresh bread, and butter out the galley, man, oh, man, who could ask for anything more? Sometimes it would be a tin of Pilchards in tomato sauce plus the 53 onions and tomatoes. These feasts would always be with tea of course. Talking about tea, we had another consignment of ACF guys on board. Dick details this chap off to go make a kettle of tea. A large kettle, 14 pints capacity. This poor creature went up to the Main Seaman‟s Bathroom, filled the kettle with warm water from the bathroom tap, came back, just to be caught in the act of putting a handful of tealeaves into the kettle. Yes, no tea bags at that time in history!! An hour later he was still trying to drink the last of his tea. After that he was appointed as the tea maker of mess eleven, every time it was tea time. By the time he got back home he would be a world champion tea maker, and he‟d win all the prizes for making the best tea ever! 54 MARION ISLAND, DINKUM! Yes, as the Aussies would say, it was dinkum. The day the news broke, the Vaal was going to Marion Island, things started to happen. This would be the Eighth Relief trip in October/November. Where on Earth is Marion Island, and what‟s there, lets see. It‟s a little speck of Volcanic rock lying about four days‟ sail from Cape Town due south of Port Elizabeth. Hold on as this story unfolds, fasten your seat belt, and hold tight!! 40° South, here we come. The Jimmy had just received the signal that every body had been waiting for. Our ETD was 25th October. That gave us exactly sixteen days to make ready for sea. Sure, the ship was ready at all times, but this was something special, one doesn‟t sail to Marion Island every day. Certain preparations had to be made, like making space on the Upper Deck for carrying provisions for instance. A year supply for ten men to survive on a desolate island in the South Atlantic. Dick Jewel, the wireless operator wasn‟t very impressed with this development. He knew that it was inevitable but, he didn‟t expect it to happen so soon. He wanted to put in for his leave, his wife having recently presented him with his only son 55 and heir, not that little Joe would inherit much. Mary, like so many other young wives, seemed to have a mania for wanting to buy everything she laid her eyes on. Dick always complained about not having enough beer money. Navy pay wasn‟t the best a man could earn, but then not every man got to enjoy all the excitement that the Navy had to offer, and a wireless operator could get quite a cushy job back in civvy street, if he wanted to. The airlines were crying out for men with his experience, and they were offering good money, but it just wasn‟t the same, in fact it could never be! The first lieutenant wasn‟t the easiest of men to get along with, nothing was ever to his satisfaction. He would have to make sure that Sub-lieutenant Dunks, the victualing officer, and CPO Cook Robby had everything under control, bearing in mind that we would have quite a few civilians on board for the trip, plus the ever present possibility that we might strike bad weather in those latitudes, we would be sailing right to the perimeter of the Antarctic circle, thank goodness it wasn‟t winter time, that would have been something else. Chippy Lewin, the ship‟s carpenter just waited for the 4” gun to be lifted ashore to make space on the For‟d deck so‟s he could transform the deck into a sheep‟s pen. The guys on Marion needed fresh meat for as long as possible. 56 The Big Gun is lifted off to be put into storage. We had another contingent of “Week-end” sailors on board, these were the ACF chaps. Every few weeks we got a new batch for training, among them there were all kinds, one of them claimed to be a Barrister, personally, I thought that he might have been too young for a job like that, but anyway, who was I to argue? Another one was a well known musician, he had made quite a few records in his time, his name was Charles Seagull, as in Nelson! Thought he was just the boy, so he was made the new „Captain of the Heads‟, now that sorted him out, Alex was so chuffed, he was needed for some other special duties. 57 I was detailed off to do an accurate stock take of all the dry goods in the after stores. Each rack had to be numbered, and everything in every rack had to be listed. This wasn‟t such a big job for me because this is the way that I had set up the stores from my first day as Tanky, it was just a matter of routine. It had been arranged that a truck would arrive two hours before we were scheduled to cast off, that would be the last load to come on board, all the fresh produce like bread, milk, and fresh meat etc. So the ship was made ready for sea, every man knew what his duty was, which watch he would be working, where he would have to fall in, in the event of a life boat being needed. What he had to do in the event of a call to action stations was made. Which X and Y doors he would be responsible for when once we were piped to close them. Can you imagine all the excitement involved in such a venture? By the way, let me explain; X and Y doors are water tight doors situated in strategic positions in the ship. Nobody ever touches them or opens or closes them without prior instructions, and even then that is done, under supervision of a Petty Officer, and double checked by the ship‟s carpenter, (Chippy Lewin). These doors are so constructed that they can take a huge amount of pressure without collapsing, they are used in 58 compartments in the ship so that in the event of a gun shell from an attacking ship should strike, the door being closed will prevent any water from entering an adjoining compartment, and thus it will form a barrier, so doing; no more water will be taken, and thus there is a better chance that the ship will not sink. Very important doors these!!! Once the ship is at sea, having cleared the breakwater these doors are normally re-opened to give people free movement in the ship, however, if in the event of very bad weather certain of these doors are closed or, during emergencies like an attack from a hostile ship the doors would straight way be closed, got the idea? Good!! SEA LEGS. At sea a light swell was running, this is normally welcomed because it puts life into the ship, one feels that wonderful movement underfoot, and you know that things are happening. Unfortunately a lot of those poor “Week-end” sailors do not like that sort of movement. Not long before some of them were hanging their heads over the hand rails feeding the fish, some of them daren‟t go below decks because the smell of diesel, and crude oil, would flatten them right away. Much better to stay 59 topsides with face in the wind. I‟ve mentioned Dick Henson before, he could be quite callous at times, and he had no time for men that couldn‟t take it, no matter what, he himself was quite a toughie. There was this poor wretch hanging around one of the Engine Room Skylights, trying to keep warm, sick as a dog, not daring to even think of food. Dick goes over to this guy, and offers him a nice juicy pork chop, dripping with fat. Dick stuck it right under this guy‟s nose. Well that was it, we thought he was going to die. I remember how I felt on my first trip, it goes to make a man out of you though. We didn‟t see this guy for two days after that, where he had got to nobody knows. When we did see him he was all smiles, fighting fit and ready for a good meal, he had found his sea legs. 60 AN S.O.S. CALL FOR HELP. SOS, yes everybody knows that sos means, save our souls, or didn‟t you? Never mind! A report, Bridge, Sea guard, contact bearing 336º , 12,000 yards. (11Kms), in relation to the ship, geographically he was probably about 16° East of Greenwich. It seems to be a small vessel, Sir. Keeps disappearing below the swell, and also appears to be stationary.‟ Sea guard is the Radar operator on watch. „Very good sea guard, report range, and bearing every minute.‟ „Bridge, Sea guard, contact bearing 300º, 12,200 yards.‟ (13Kms) Then came the faint crackle of the SOS call on the radio. A vessel in distress. „He says he can see us Sir, and would we please assist him, seems to be a foreigner. It was Dick Jewel reporting to the Officer of the Watch, who happened to be Lieutenant Hutch. „How bad is he, Jewel?‟ „Can‟t make out Sir. Between his bad English, and failing batteries, it‟s hard to tell.‟ Very well Jewel, thanks.‟ Just then the phone on the bridge buzzed, it was the Captain. „Guns, what‟s happening, why have we slowed down?‟ „With your permission, Sir, I‟d like to investigate an SOS call, just received. „I‟m on my way up Guns, what‟s it like topside?‟ Guns of course was our Gunnery Officer, a very 61 compassionate man with a red head, and a red beard to go with it, a fantastic officer though, he‟d come up through the ranks from an Able Seaman to now, a Lieutenant. „Wind‟s coming up to Westward, temperature a steady 50ºF (10ºC), Sir.‟ „Very good!‟ „Bridge, Sea guard, contact bearing, 280º, range 1000 yards. The whistle of the Engine Room‟s voice pipe was loud in the ears of Chief Engineer Mac Pherson. He was always moaning, and couldn‟t understand why he could not be left in peace to drink his umteenth mug of char. Scotsmen inevitably made the very best Chief Engineers afloat. „Engine Room‟. „Chief, we‟re going to do a bit of maneuvering, and I want you chaps to look alive!‟ Aye,aye, Capt‟n. Mac moaned again that nobody ever told him what was happening. Just then the engine room telegraph rang out. „Both engines slow ahead, Sir. It was the quartermaster repeating the instruction from the bridge. „Stop Port engine‟ Stop Port engine, Sir. „Port engine stopped, Sir.‟ You will come to realize that the Bridge gives the order, say, to the wheelhouse which, the quartermaster repeats. Once it is carried out the quartermaster(QM) reports back to the bridge, and the same goes for the engine room, These commands are spoken into what is called a voice pipe, which in fact is, a 2” (50mm) copper pipe, 62 (steel would rust), which has a funnel attached to both ends, fitted with a lid like one would find on a teapot. The reason for repeating everything that is said is so that hopefully there would be no mistakes, a command which is misunderstood could turn into a disaster. This method has proved to be the best so far. Modern technology, and automatic pilots, had not yet arrived, remember!! „Slow astern port.‟ „Port engine slow astern, Sir‟ „Steer 150º „Wheel 150º, Sir.‟ She was bringing her head slowly around to Port now. „Stop Port‟ Stop Port, Sir‟. „Port engine stopped, Sir‟ „Slow ahead both‟ Slow ahead both, Sir.‟ Both engines slow ahead. Sir‟ „Steer 320º.‟ Steer 320º. Sir‟ After about two minutes the Vaal was on her new course which would bring her to within hailing distance of the stricken vessel. „Bridge, wheelhouse, new course 320º. Steady as she goes, Sir‟ Thank you wheelhouse, both engines half ahead. „Both engines half ahead, Sir.‟ There was a steady swell running across the Starboard bow, it might not be so easy to hold her on course, but Able Seaman Alex Banyon handled the wheel very well. He was proud in that he never ever chased the compass. Always said that one day he would be rich, and then he would buy himself the latest model Cadillac. I need to explain the engine room commands. When the Captain originally called the Engine room it was through the voice 63 pipe, however, subsequent commands, such as „stop both engines‟ for instance are given to the QM in the wheelhouse, he then rings the engine movements on what it called the Engine Room Telegraph, it has two handles, and is cranked back, and forth in order to ring bells in the engine room to draw the Chief‟s attention. Once the handles have been moved back, and forth they are then set on the desired speed, ahead or astern, whichever the Captain, or the Officer of the watch desires, as soon as the chief has reset the engines he in turn rings the telegraph, which then rings a bell in the wheelhouse, then and, then only may the QM reports „Port engine stopped, Sir‟ or „Both engines full ahead, Sir‟ etc. Got it? „Trawler, ahoy!‟ came the call from the bridge. It was Coxswain Jimmy Scott using the loud hailer, radio communication was not possible, her batteries must have been stone dead by then. She‟s Portuguese Sir. Their flag I.D. has just been confirmed by the Chief Yeoman, Sir‟. It was Jeff Story reporting, he was the duty signalman. His girlfriend called him “Jeffrey with the lovely body”. The number painted on her Bow confirms that she is registered in Lorenço Marques, Sir. (Today it‟s called Maputo). „Thank you Story‟. 64 „Guns, I‟d be obliged if you would take us in close, to windward. Keep both engines on stand-by, if you please. The Captain‟s voice was steady as he spoke. Lt. Hutch was still on duty as the Officer of the watch. Now everybody who could be there lined the upper deck, to pick up the story. „Bom dia, senhor Capitáo. O senhor fala Portuquese?‟ „Cox do we have anybody on board who speaks Portuguese?‟ Captain Nephews was hoping that the answer would be in the affirmative‟ „No Sir, I‟ve already checked, recognized their flag soon‟s I saw it, Sir.‟ „Pity, thank you Coxswain, tell them that we don‟t speak Portuguese, and that we shall be sending a boat over to bring their Captain on board. I‟m sure he could do with a bit of our South African hospitality, probably been terrified long enough by now.‟ Within one minute, and twenty two seconds the Captain‟s Launch was away, but of course Lt. Rob King wasn‟t satisfied, said it could have been off in less time. The best crew was in the launch, PO Tubby Keys at the helm with Dick Henson as his 2 IC, plus the rest of the chaps, they made up a champion crew. The companionway was already being lowered over the Starboard side, quarterdeck. 65 Captain‟s Launch away, to the rescue. It took almost a full half hour for Captain Manuel da Costa to dress for the occasion, he had never been aboard a warship before, to him this was a great honor, “Navio de Mar-e-guerra” ,a Warship, wow, he just had to look his very best, dressed in his going ashore clobber, and all. Two big baskets filled with L.M. prawns were loaded into the launch. He clutched another parcel to himself, refusing to let anybody touch it. After giving final instructions to his crew, who were all on deck he turned to Tubby Keys, „O.K. senhor, we go, si? Obrigado‟ „Aye,aye, Sir‟ Tubby showing the normal respect he would to any other sea captain. The Vaal‟s first Lt. ,and the Gunnery Officer 66 were standing by for Captain Manuel da Costa to be piped on board by the duty Quartermaster. Instructions were given back, and forth ,and then he was escorted to Captain Nephews‟ day Cabin. Senhor Capitáo Nefews, me thanks for you verr maash, me say mutissimo obrigado, because á you make á de troubles to „elp me, my barco, and my peoples. If á you do not á stop, my Maria, and my chiléren, they no see á the Papa after. I bring á for á you the camaróes, the beegá one from Lourenço Marques, and special for á Senhor Capitáo, um litro „Carlos Tercero Coñac‟ from España. It was Carlos the Third Brandy, very good and very expensive. So that‟s what he had been hiding inside his jacket all the time! The Chief Yeoman came to report that the “John Collins”, a deep sea rescue tug would be with them within the hour. It was later learned that a radio ham had picked up the SOS from the Santa Anna some 27 hours earlier, had contacted the Port Captain‟s office in Cape Town who, in turn contacted the John Collins, however, John Collins had also picked up the SOS, and her Captain, knowing what the conditions in that part of the world could be like, had not wasted any time to make ready, and sail to 67 the rescue. She had already been at sea since the previous day, that is why she could be there so soon. Captain Dick Nephews could not understand what a Lorenço Marques trawler was doing in these waters, until the story came out. It turned out that Captain da Costa had come south for the Snoek season, and to visit family living in Cape Town. Their No.1 Generator had lost it‟s crankshaft, and the spare they had didn‟t fit. No. 2 wouldn‟t start because there was water in the fuel, or so it seemed, meantime they were adrift, the weather was deteriorating, his, the Captain‟s cousin was the Engineer. He had tried everything, and eventually he, after almost three days, gave up in despair, and fled to a demi-john of red wine. This tale of woe just had no end, some people call it life!!! „ Sea guard, Bridge contact, range 20,000 yards, ± 18Kms. closing rapidly. Bridge, Sea guard, very good, that must be the tug “John Collins”. Report her position every two minutes.‟ „Aye, aye, Sir‟. It would not take her long to get there, with those powerful engines, and large props she could plough through the water with much more ease than any conventional vessel. Within an hour we were back on course, heading for our ultimate destination: Marion Island. 68 The wind had freshened a point or two since we left the Santa Anna in the capable hands of the „John Collins‟. There had been much cheering, and obrigadoes from both sides, from them to us for rescuing them, and from us to them for another two baskets of L.M. Prawns. CPO Cook Robby was going to have his hands full preparing them. A pity we didn‟t have any fresh lemons on board. Robby would make a plan though, he usually did. Albatross had been sighted, the Porpoises had left the day before. The weather was holding well but, the temperature had dropped considerably. Lieutenant Colburn, the ship‟s navigator gave the news that the temperature had decreased steadily during the past 24 hours. The wind had freshened too from the South East, it had reached 15knots, clouds were scudding across the sky. Murphy‟s voice came over the intercom „Bridge, Sea guard, contact 090º, range 10,000 yards, suspect Iceberg, Sir‟ „Thank you Murphy, it‟s just been spotted from the bridge, well done.‟ That was Captain Nephews speaking, always, please, and thank you. No wonder the men would do almost anything for him!! The temperature had now dropped to around 40ºF (±4/5ºC) Lets say it was cold!! 69 MARION ISLAND ALMOST IN SIGHT. By noon the next day the Transvaal should reach her destination, all being well. Spirits were high among the crew. A list of boat‟s coxswains, and crews was put up on the main notice board. The shore side crews‟ names as well, mainly chaps who had been there before and who knew the drill. They had to be ashore early to set up the derricks at „Gunner‟s Point‟ if the islanders hadn‟t already done so. It would be to their advantage if they had. The sooner this job got done the better, one didn‟t stay in these waters any longer that what you had to. The weather could become very nasty here, no not in a couple of hours, in about 15 minutes it could be a totally different scene. Let me explain how this operation would work. There would be ten men stationed on Marion Island, which is the South African, South Atlantic Weather Station. These men needed all the home comforts they could get for a year. That would include food, fresh meat, in the form of live sheep, as far as possible, liquor, like whiskey, brandy, beer etc. Warm clothes, cameras, film and, just about anything you can think of that you would like to have on a desolate island, on the border of the Antarctic. The weather one finds there can become quite viscous, gales that last for days on 70 end, snow storms, patches of ice on the walkways. Yes, walkways, built with treated blue gum poles sunk into the ground, as anchor supports for the treated timber planking used for the actual walkway. It was extremely dangerous to venture off the walkways for fear of disappearing into a mud hole, if you were careless. Remember, anyone who was new to this territory, had to learn from experience. Better to be careful than dead! 71 Fanie, has already taken his shirt off. This was the walkway leading up to the ladder which took one to the top of Gunner‟s Point. 72 The store room at the top of the cliff where all the dry goods were kept. Part of the derrick‟s anchorage can be seen on the left hand side. The wooden walkway was most essential for your safety. 73 The bottom of the cliff, on the landing platform where the cargo nets were filled, and hoisted to the top of Gunner‟s Point. 74 The top of Gunner‟s Point. The horizontal beams support the landing platforms. The derrick was used to hoist the cargo to the top, for storage, until required. The ship is lying at anchor, about half a mile off shore, say ± 800 metres. 75 The sounds of the animals is never ending. Sea Elephants make very loud noises, seagulls screech all day long, not to mention the Albatross, and millions of penguins, the small African Species as well as the large King Penguins, that is just a few of all the other kinds of bird life there is. Talking about Penguins, they are the most inquisitive creatures. After we had dropped our anchor, we watched them through binoculars. First one would swim out to the ship, right around the ship, then he would be off, next, two or three would come over to inspect this unknown monster, then they would go back ashore. With a bit of imagination one could hear them discussing what they had seen, in the meantime we had thrown a few loaves of stale bread over the side, the Baker‟s bread was now off, so Robby had to bake fresh bread, daily for us, wow, can that man bake bread? The penguins on the other hand told us that we were friends for life, they loved stale bread! I happened to notice that the water there was so clear, one could see almost right to the bottom of the ocean, later I learned that that is so because the water is so cold. One day we stood on the upper deck watching a whole school of Killer Wales, they too were just checking us out I suppose! Very dangerous creatures we were told, they would attack anything, in fact they were rubbing themselves against the ship‟s hull. Somebody said it 76 was because they were trying to get rid of „sea lice‟, I don‟t know, do you? Right, back to what is happening; all this stuff has to be taken ashore for storage on the island. To do this we used boats, hence the boat‟s crews, and coxswains, and all mentioned earlier. All of these boxes or crates have to be first of all loaded off the ship by derrick into the life boats. i.e. the Cutter, the Whaler, and the Motor Launch. The boats are then put in tow astern of the Launch which heads for a landing platform which is lowered by winches from the top of the cliff called „Gunner‟s Point‟. The boats then come alongside the landing platform where the goods are taken out of the boats, put onto the landing platform, into large cargo nets which are in turn hooked up to a steel wire rope on a derrick, the winch which is mounted at the top of the cliff, hoists the loaded net to the top. Here the derrick is slewed around where the goods are then put into a storage room, which has been built there, so this operation carries on 24hours a day until the ship has offloaded all the cargo, weather permitting, never forget that. 77 A young Sea Elephant Cow. 78 Cargo being taken off the ship, and loaded into a boat which will be towed by the Motor Launch to the Landing Platform. 79 Mama Albatross with her chicken on the nest. Papa is out hunting for food, and he takes the night watch. They are not afraid of human contact at all. We caught one, and then proceeded to measure his wingspan. Now this you have got to believe! It was twelve feet from tip to tip. They hardly ever flap their wings, they just glide on the air currents. It is wonderful to see how graceful they are. This one stands about 1metre (39”) high on the nest. 80 Now tell me again, who was it said that,…… can you describe him? At that time we were told that one King Penguin would fetch £100.00 in the London Zoo. Problem was, how do you get him there alive and well? 81 You will never believe me if I tell you that these three Sea Elephant Bulls were singing, “On a Saturday Night, Glascow belongs to me” You don‟t have to believe me if you don‟t want to! 82 Don‟t let them bight you, Sea Elephants are dangerous. 83 This was the fresh meat supply. I‟ll never forget the ACF chap that carried one of these sheep to the top of the cliff, up the ladder way. He carried it over his neck, holding onto the legs. To his disgust, the poor sheep must have had a weak bladder. There wasn‟t even a hot sun to dry his neck and shoulders, oh well! 84 Attention: Do not take any notice of the date you see on some of the pictures. That is the date on which I copied them from my photo album, thanks! The ship‟s crew is divided up into three watches: Red, White and Blue, so nobody has to work longer than four hours at a time. The only people who do get a break are the boat‟s crews, and that is while your boat is being laden alongside the ship again. Cook Robby welcomes you with a large mug of very strong coffee laced with plenty of Rum. Very necessary, because by now you are wet through with icy cold water, you‟re tired, and sweaty, and probably hungry, but once that Rum hits your stomach, even your ears are on fire, and you‟re ready for the next trip across to the island. So this routine carries on for about thirty six hours. One gets drenched from the sea spray coming over the open boat‟s bow. You get just enough time to have a mug of coffee, run to the heads, and by that time your boat is ready to leave. Working four hours on and eight hours off didn‟t make life too unbearable. It was during one of these breaks that I got special permission to go ashore to take photographs. 85 Now I‟m ready to go ashore for the photographs I want to take. 86 MY HOBBY. Before I go any further, let me just explain, that most of the photos in this story were the scraps that were left over, which I managed to salvage for my album. The best were all sold, perhaps you will come across a few in your Grand Fathers album. At that time, I was using an ARGUS C3, 35mm camera, one of the best available at that time, in my affordable price range, the main thing is that it took pretty good pictures. In my darkroom I had an Omega Enlarger, a Zeis easle, a Pattersen Developing tank for 35mm only. I used Kodak D20 developer, and Kodak fixer. I washed all film, and prints in the Urinal, which worked with sea water. Yes, the Urinal, this was the ablution cabin, remember! One learned to use what one had available. This whole darkroom of mine worked out very well. I bought 35mm HP3 film, it was packed in a tin which held 100 metres. I used to fill my own cassettes, which took enough film for ± 36 pictures. On this occasion I only took two cassettes of film which would give me 72 pictures, which to my thinking would be more than enough, which it was in fact, one did not go around taking pictures of everything that moved, you used discretion, not like today with digital cameras, where one can take hundreds of 87 pictures, and then delete what is rubbish afterwards, no, those days every picture had to count. After all the processing of my Marion Island Pictures, I sorted out 24 of the best, with them one could tell the whole story of the trip. What I did then was to shuffle these pictures, like a pack of cards, then I made up set “A” and set “B”. So, if you wanted to tell your folks back home the whole story, you had to have both sets, which were sold for 7/6 i.e. 75¢ for 12, naturally they were all post card size. The other little enterprise which we entered into was to take a portrait picture of every ACF chap that joined our ship. I would then superimpose his face using a picture of our ship as the back ground. These too, were sold at 7/6 each, so we were not really robbing any body, we were just making good money, but working very hard for it in our own time, while other guys were running around ashore having a good time. You will notice that a few of the photographs have got colour in them. At one time I was experimenting with the art of colouring photos with oil paints. Some of them came up pretty good. It will also be noticed that the quality of some pictures is not up to standard, because when they were taken I was still using an old camera. 88 A picture like this would surely warm the cockles of a Mother‟s heart, now wouldn‟t it? DETERIORATION IN THE WEATHER. The temperature had dropped to minus -4ºC this was about the coldest it had been since our arrival at the island. One could see sheets of ice forming on top of the water. I believe that it is a scientific fact, that at -4°C the sea starts to freeze up, and it is at this point that water starts to increase in size. This is what causes glass bottles to break, and steel pipes to burst, just to mention a few things that could give one many hassles in life, don‟t forget 89 about your car‟s radiator in the winter time on the High Veld in South Africa, I know!! By the way, did you know that water is the only element on Earth that comes in three forms: Ice, i.e. Solid, Liquid which flows, and Gas, in the form of steam, which is invisible. Ref. Oxford Dictionary. Fortunately, I managed to get aboard the motor launch just in time to get back to the ship. The wind was already screaming, and the sky was turning black, even the penguins who were normally very inquisitive had fled to shelter. It took forever to reach the ship, the launch was having a hard time battling against the heavy seas. At last we were alongside, everyone clambered aboard except the boat‟s crew, they would go for‟d to make ready for hoisting the boat on board, and settled into the chocks, made fast, ready for sea. The other two boats were also hoisted up, and made fast into their chocks. Everybody was accounted for. The civilians who had to go back to South Africa would just have to stay on the island until such time as the storm abated, they would be picked up later. Well, that‟s what the weather was like at Marion, within a half hour you could be from a flat sea to a raging gale, and that was what we were in for, 5pm, and already it was dark. The Vaal was 90 in for a hectic night, she rode the storm well, straining at her anchor cable, like a frisky dog on a leash. Able Seaman Jimmy Grey was on anchor watch, dressed in oil skins he had to stand by on the foc‟sle to give warning to the bridge if he should see anything that needed to be reported. Jimmy was an old salt, this was his eighth year at sea, so he knew the drill. By now he had tied himself to the lifeline with his safety belt, just in case he should perhaps be washed overboard when a wave broke over the bow. Then it happened, her bow went down into the trough of a wave, then when the next one lifted her head the anchor cable could take the hammering no longer. With one mighty bang she broke loose. The bridge had been waiting for it because two hours earlier there had been an abortive attempt to weigh anchor but, it was impossible to break loose from the rocky seabed. „Wheelhouse, Bridge, slow ahead both engines, course 210º‟ „Bridge, Wheelhouse, course 210º, both engines slow ahead, Sir.‟ The ship wasn‟t making any headway, this move had merely been made to keep steerage on the wheel. All X and Y doors had been secured, and the upper deck had been put “Out of Bounds” as a safety precaution during the hours of darkness. „Tween decks it was very uncomfortable, very few chaps could sleep. 91 The ACF sailors were taking turns to puke in the heads, there were twelve toilets, so they did not have to wait their turn, how lucky can one be? They could not go outside for fear of being washed overboard, and besides it was out of bounds. Others who were not seasick spread their hammocks open on the deck in the main seaman‟s mess deck. They would not have it that one could not fall out of your hammock if it was properly slung, and you lay still. Calmer weather came, at dawn, we had been circling the island throughout the night. A grand opportunity for our Navigation Officer to do some map checking, he was up on the Bridge at first light, of which there wasn‟t very much. It was the first time that any of us had seen the other side of the island. Now we could appreciate why the landing stage had been built at Gunner‟s Point. All along the shoreline there were high cliffs, against which the waves crashed mercilessly. Gunner‟s Point was the only place which afforded any kind of shelter at all. There was one inactive Volcano, however, still hot enough to melt any snow that might fall on it. 92 We dropped anchor at 14:00 that afternoon, and sent the motor launch over to pick up the civilians who were soon to be with their loved ones back in civilization. In an hour we were ready for sea again. A signal had just been received that there was a bit of a blow due to hit us in about an hour‟s time, however, it shouldn‟t last for more than 24 hours, by which time it should have blown itself out. „Wheelhouse, Bridge, steer 30º,both engines half speed ahead.‟ ‟Bridge, Wheelhouse, steer 30º, both engines half speed ahead, Sir.‟ „Both engines, half speed ahead, Sir.‟ New course 30º, steady as she goes, Sir‟. „Very Good wheelhouse.‟ Now everybody was happy, by that course, we were heading for home!!! It was very quiet throughout the ship, everybody just wanted to be left alone, they were all dog tired, longing for home and plenty of sunshine. The crew had been worked to breaking point for days on end, they had weathered a gale, and now another storm was out there wanting to test them. Everything always seemed to happen during the middle watch, it was Dick Henson, moaning to himself as he was being pitched about in his hammock. He‟d awoken everyone around him except me, I was bushed, quite surprising actually, because I slung my hammock right next to Dick‟s but, I didn‟t stay asleep for very 93 long, now the ship was really rolling, and pitching like never before, it was impossible to sleep. She was hitting “Milestones” every so often. NEAR TRAGEDY. Let me explain, a Milestone is when the sea is very rough, and you happen to be sailing with your head into the wind, the ship‟s bow lifts up under the water, in the meantime, the wave moves on under the ship, now there is no water under the bow, it comes crashing down, perhaps twenty feet or more, while tons of water rush along the upper deck, (just in passing, a ton of water is one cubic metre in size.) next thing the bow plunges into the next wave, she goes down, down until she cannot go any further, the propellers are now almost out of the water, the ship starts to shake, trying to lift the load of water off her bow. The propellers are now free of all water, and they are whirring in the air, suddenly the bow breaks free, and shoots up into the air, by this time the next wave has passed under the ship, and the bow comes crashing down again, hitting another milestone, and so the whole process is repeated. 94 This action has broken many a ship‟s back, in fact the Transvaal‟s sister ship, Natal, had her back broken right there in these same waters, also on a trip to Marion Island. Fortunately she got back home, but she could never go to sea again, she was subsequently used as a training ship alongside the quay at Salisbury Island. Every time we hit a milestone, lights went out, sailors shouted, some even cried, lots of them were still very young, their first time at sea, and now this! It seemed as if the ship was going to break up, fortunately she was built on the Clyde in U.K. Give the British their due, they had been building ships for a very long time, and they knew how to build a good one, and the HMSAS Transvaal was one of those. With a captain like Lt. Comm. Dick Nephews, what could go wrong, especially when you knew that God was out there, and you believed that He was in control, and knew exactly what was going on, and that you would be safe. Sub-lieutenant Dunks, our victualing officer had me summoned to the bridge. „Tanky, I want you to take stock of all the food supplies on board, bring me a list as soon……..DUCK!!!‟ he shouted. He had seen the wave coming because he had been standing on the compass binnacle‟s platform. Water came gushing over the bridge, hundreds of gallons rushing along the full length 95 of the upper deck. A quick look at the foc‟s‟le showed that three of the four rope reels had already been torn from their holding down bolts. The fourth one was hanging on with what seemed like only one bolt. Just then I saw the most unbelievable sight, our Navigation Officer Lt. Colburn, clawing his way along the upper deck towards the loosened rope reel. The next wave was coming very fast, and if he didn‟t get under cover we would never see him again. Next thing a pair of powerful arms grabbed him from behind, one couldn‟t see who it was because of the Balaclava he was wearing. Colburn was literally lifted off his feet, and then the pair of them were out of sight from the bridge, where I was witnessing the whole horror of it. The mass of water crashed once again over the bows as she hit yet another milestone, this time bringing the remaining rope reel with it and, dumping it over the Starboard side. By now the meat locker, used to hang frozen meat in to thaw, had been ripped off the deck further aft, and the fresh vegetable locker was also ripped from where it had been welded to the deck, and lost over the side. Subbie Dunks wanted to know what all the commotion on the upper deck has been about. 96 He sent me below to try, and find out just what had happened. It turned out that the Navigation Officer had been downing more Gin than he could manage, the storm had un-nerved him totally. Somehow he had become aware of the rope reel that was just hanging on by one bolt, ready to come adrift. He decided in his drunken stupor to go, and tie the reel down, or to do something with it with his bare hands, never mind the fact that the reel was about twice his weight, and that the sea was raging at the height of a Hurricane. That is wind force 12, ± 75 mph or 120Km/h or 65 Knots. The waves were estimated to be around 30m (100ft) high. By shear chance it was, that Duggie Batson was on his way below from the wheelhouse to see why that door was banging when he spotted Lt. Colburn, just in time to drag him to safety. Apparently, Lt. Colburn had also heard the banging of the rope reel, still held to the deck by only one bolt. He had opened the water tight door in order to go outside to see what he could do. It was thus the water tight door that had been banging to and fro with the movement of the ship. That is what Duggie had heard. Naturally Captain Nephews was not very pleased about the whole episode, he confined the Navigation Officer to his cabin for the rest of the trip, and put a stop to him being served any more 97 liquor, and if he had any stashed away somewhere in his cabin he would be in very serious trouble if he was caught drunk again. Everybody on board knew by now what had happened, now all kinds of stories were going to circulate, well, that‟s just the way it is on board any ship, one cannot keep a secret!!! BY THE GRACE OF GOD, ALMOST HOME. All we could do was just ride out the storm. We were steering in a Westerly direction, just to keep the bow into the wind, which was still blowing at about 65 Knots. It was said that if we kept this up we‟d end up in South America, but I can assure you, nobody was interested in any America at that time, all we were interested in was for us to stay afloat, dry, and have food in our bellies. One could not sleep anywhere except on the deck, no, not the upper deck, below, in the mess deck, because you could not fall off the floor!!! This heavy weather continued for 3 days and 4 nights. The ship wasn‟t making much headway, however, we could just about keep steerage on the wheel. The greatest fear was that if we were not able to keep our head into the wind, no matter how 98 uncomfortable that might be, there would definitely be the very serious situation Shipping “Green Seas” across the Quarterdeck, in a storm. of the ship being rolled over in the trough of a wave, and that would be the end of it all, nobody would ever find us because we‟d be on the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean. That was the bottom line of our situation, and then came the morning of the fourth day, the storm had abated somewhat, the wind had eased off, and when a very small patch of blue sky broke through, I saw grown men fall down upon their knees, me 99 included, and thank God Almighty that at last we had new hope of getting back home, and so it was. God is good! We pulled into Simonstown Dockyard, straight into the Drydock. The date was 6th November. When we first went ashore it was rather difficult trying to walk, we had been so used to falling around, waiting for the deck to come up to meet your feet, it did take a little time to find one‟s „landlegs‟ again. What an experience for a young kid of 18 years like me, the excitement just never seemed to end!! ASSESS DAMAGE, AND REFURBISH. The damage sustained was immense, for starters, the Quarterdeck had a split in it about 3.5m long, and at the greatest width it must have been all of 50mm. The Depth Charge racks were gone. Mid-ships, the Beef locker was torn off the deck and was gone, on the Starboard side the Vegetable locker was gone, the life boats were stove in. Hand rails along the upper deck were missing, and the hull had taken on a green colour, this was surprising until somebody remembered that she was originally part of the escourt flotilla in the North Sea during the war. The sea colour in the 100 North Sea is green, here in the South Atlantic it is more of a light blue / grey colour. In order to fit in with the environment all Royal Navy ships are painted to match the colour of the sea in which they operate, this as a matter of camouflage. Thus, when HMSAS Transvaal became part of the South Atlantic Squadron she was painted over the green to match the colour of the Indian/Atlantic oceans. All the blue/grey paint had been stripped off the hull by the very force of the sea. Up for‟d the four rope reels were gone, each was held in place with eight 20mm bolts, welded to the deck, each foot piece had two holding down bolts. They were all gone. The Asdic well was stove in, and the plates were split open in her bottom , thanks to X and Y doors, and properly fitting hatch covers, properly bolted down. If it weren‟t for them we would have shipped enough water to drag her nose down, and then??? The Chernakeef Log was bent, almost broken off, the only thing that prevented it from breaking was because it was made of Phosphor Bronze. The Asdic dome was gone. At midships there were also some buckled plates, however they were not too bad, a bit of leakage might have occurred, but once the ship was up on the chocks in the drydock it was difficult to see where there had been leakage, except for waterline marks. 101 So we stayed in Simonstown Drydock for six weeks, repair teams working from 0700 to 2100 on a daily basis. We, the crew busied ourselves with cleaning up the interior of the ship, painting, chipping, scraping, steel wire brushing, soojeeing all the upper deck paintwork, and then painting everything again, all of this, naturally, in a proper seamanlike manner!!! Let me explain the word „soojee‟, I‟m not sure where this word originated, I think it might have an Indian origin, in the Navy, however, it means to wash down the bulkheads, using a scrubbing brush, with a bucket of soapy water, and a clean cloth for drying, before painting. No, one doesn‟t soojee the deck, you scrub the deck, but before you do that you soojee the bulkhead, because if you don‟t follow that rule, you will have all the dirty water from soojeeing on top of your clean deck!!! Got it? LET’S HAVE A LAUGH. After that trip I think we could all do with a laugh, don‟t you? On board a warship all personnel must wear their caps while they are on the upper deck, otherwise they could be charged with being „out of the rig of the day‟. This is the scene, there must have been about six of us standing on the quarterdeck, it was early 102 morning, of course the ship is now lying in dry dock, right? None of us are wearing our caps, including Chippy Lewin. The next thing the First Lieutenant appears up on the Pom-Pom Deck, he shouts down at us, “Where are your Caps?” Chippy wispers, leave this to me. “Cats, Sir, no we ain‟t seen no cats” “I said caps, Chippy. “No Sir, like I said, we ain‟t seen no cats here!” “Oh! Just get below the lot of you!” No more was said, the Jimmy knew when he was beaten, however, this little incident remained a laugh for quite while. This Marion Island trip was really something else, there were so many happenings. One of them was quite phenomenal, in that there were five members of the crew who suddenly went down with appendicitis after we got back to base. Four of them were operated on in Cape Town. They were: Donkey deVries they called him donkey because when he‟d had enough to drink he neighed like a donkey, Stanley, the electrician, he collapsed outside the station pub in Adderley Street, he nearly didn‟t make it to the hospital. Jannie Galjoen, André Lombardy ,and myself, mine wasn‟t so acute so I could wait until we got back to Durban, it was a lot closer to hitch hike home from Durban in any case, more adventure. In those days, if one was in uniform, it was quite easy to pick up a lift as a hitchhicker. 103 HOME BEFORE CHRISTMAS. André Lombardy and I decided, there on Durban Railway Station, on the spur of the moment, that we‟d sell our train tickets for £7, that is R14.00, and then hitchhike to Johannesburg. Naturally we only sold half of the ticket, we had to keep the return part to get back to Durban after our leave. There I was, my eight stitches had been removed just that morning, it was now about 14:00. I had my suitcase to carry with me too. Who cares, we were going to be home for Christmas, that was important. Next thing were on a bus going towards the main Johannesburg road, we hoped to find a lift there. No sooner had we got off the bus when someone stopped for us. This chap had a Panel Van, it turned out that he had been touring all over Natal for a month, showing films to the local people, wherever he went. There were plenty of blankets in the van, so we didn‟t get cold. The blankets were used for blocking out light from the windows in school halls where he showed his films, so we were in luck! Early the next morning he stopped at Standerton, to buy us each a steaming cup of coffee. It turned out that he took me home, right to the front door. The time must have been around 06:00. Later I found out that André had also been 104 taken home. Now, what does that tell you? I knocked on the front door, and I heard my Mother shout, “That‟s Chris!” next moment the front door opened and, there she was, eyes spilling over with joy. Her first born son was home on three weeks sick leave. My Mom had no idea when I would be home. Mothers are wonderful people now, aren‟t they? Doctors said that the cause of all these Appendicitis Patients was the sudden change of climate; from hot to frigid and back to hot again. Plus all the exertion of very hard work. 105 My Mom and I enjoyed a day in Johannesburg while I was on my first leave. Bell bottoms flapping around my feet! She was so happy, her Sailor Son was back home, she hadn‟t seen my tattoos yet! 106 My leave at home was very good, met up with old friends again, they all wanted to know what the Navy was like. Some of the stories I told got them on edge, some of them didn‟t believe me, and others just drifted along. I could not wait to get back to my ship. We were scheduled to sail off to Saldanha Bay again early in January. MY LAST NIGHT IN JOHANNESBURG. My last night out in Johannesburg turned out to be quite an eventful one. I was on my own, a young chap, not quite 19 years old in the Big City. I decided to go to the Metro Cinema, I don‟t remember what was showing, however I do remember being mugged by a bunch of hooligans, they crowded around me, when I got away from them my wallet was gone. This included my train ticket back to Durban, yes I didn‟t sell the return stub as well, all the money that I still had, in the region of about £5, which in those days was worth quite a lot, I mean it was nearly a whole months pay. This was reported early the next morning at our local Police Station where I signed an affidavit to this effect. Now I had to find a way of getting back to Durban before our ship sailed for 107 Saldanha. Our Coxswain, CPO Brox had warned me to be back in time, because the day of departure was Wednesday. I had until then to be in Durban, today being Sunday, and I didn‟t like the idea of hitch hiking again. Someone I knew, suggested that I contact Zwartkops Air Force Base to find out if there would be a shuttle aircraft to Durban, and get time, and date as well as availability for a stranded Matelot. All was O.K. and set for departure at 0700 on Tuesday. That was fine for me because the ship would only be sailing on Wednesday. I would be a day AWOL but, that could be explained, that is why I got the affidavit as proof for my dilemma. This would be the first time that I had ever flown, and that in an Air Force Dakota, wow, now who says that life is dull? I managed to organize a bed for the night at my Aunt‟s place in Pretoria for Monday. My cousins were ever so envious not only of me but also of my smart sailor suit, what with 36” bell bottoms and all, man oh man, I was just the boy. Cousin Steve, he was the eldest, got me to the airport well before 7am the next morning, take off was scheduled for 7am. Indemnity papers had to be filled out, and signed, and sealed with a half crown revenue stamp 2/6d, in to-days money, that would be 25¢. That was just in case the aircraft crashed, nobody could sue 108 the SAAF. Take off was smooth, and as we flew over the mine dumps in Johannesburg, I looked down to see what looked like cakes that had been iced. This was the impression that I got, iced cakes, they looked great. I was sitting there minding my own business when somebody comes walking down the isle, he stopped, and looked at me, “Chris!” he says, and lo, and behold here was George Berry, we were at school together. George says for me to come up for‟d to the cockpit, and see what they do there, he was the wireless operator. While he was still explaining everything to me, the plane started falling about, I got a fright, so he explained, that this was due to air pockets, we were crossing the mountains at Pietermaritzburg, this was what caused the plane to wobble, for want of a better word. Just think of it, that trip took two hours, from Johannesburg to Durban. Today, I wonder if it takes one hour, my, how things have changed, WOW! No, I decided, I was very happy being at sea, ships hit milestones in rough weather, but a long drop was not for me!! As we eventually flew over Salisbury Island, I noticed that the Transvaal was not alongside, I told the chap next to me that it seemed to me that my ship had sailed. He was flabbergasted that I 109 could see that my ship wasn‟t there, couldn‟t believe that from that height I could pick out one ship among plenty others. As soon as I disembarked I went to a call box, right there, asked to be put through to the Transvaal, the voice on the other side said that she had sailed for Saldanha the previous day. So, now wot? As I got off the ferry at Salisbury Island I was immediately put under open arrest, awaiting the Captain‟s report. The Captain of the base, at that time was Lt. Tommy Nero I was given a place to sleep in the base quarters. Next day, he, Lt. Tommy Nero heard my story, studied my affidavit, then he decided that I would be kept out of mischief by painting his house on the island in the married quarters, until such time as he had contacted my Captain in Saldanha. He also made sure that his house was completed before I was put on a train. No more open arrest, no escort, all by myself on my way to Saldanha Bay in order to rejoin my ship. Little did I know what sort of a ride I was going to have. It took about three days to get to Cape Town from Durban, we had travelled via Kimberly, and DeAar, and many other places, this was by no means an express train. 110 JOURNEY’S END, DETENTION OR FREEDOM? At Cape Town I thought I‟d have a nice breakfast in the station restaurant, then wait for the train on the last leg to Saldanha. That was when I heard the announcement on the loud hailer, “All passengers for Saldanha, platform 10, please board now, the train leaves in 5 minutes time”. So that was my nice breakfast gone, I‟d hardly had enough time to have a cup of coffee, but I thought,‟ oh, well, I‟d have breakfast on the train. Sorry once again, no dining car! I was starving, can you guess just how hungry an 18 year old can get? Hours later the train stopped at Darling, there was no proper station there yet, this place was still in the sticks at that time. There was just a railway siding where a bunch of old ladies set up their tables to sell fruit, cakes, milk tart, pies, and so on. I didn‟t have a lot of money on me, so I couldn‟t buy such a lot, this left me still hungry. The next station was Hopefield, then after that we pulled into Vredenburg. This was something to see. The train first went past, then it reversed into the station where it stood for the best part of an hour, loading and off-loading milk cans, when it was 111 time to go it just pulled straight out of the station on it‟s way to Saldanha. By this time it was getting on for late afternoon, and it was overcast, looking like rain. Eventually, when we got to Saldanha the rain was pouring down. In those days there were no tarred roads there. I had to walk from the station, down a rough cliff, slithering in the mud, to the jetty, which, was the concrete filled hull of a small vessel, which had stranded there during a storm, years ago. There was no shelter whatsoever, I just stood there hoping that the ships motor launch would come along. After a long while I decided to climb back up the cliff, and make my way to the Saldanha Bay Naval Gymnasium which was close by. After having reported to the Duty Officer, he sent a semaphore message to the Transvaal, lying at anchor in the bay. About an hour later the boat arrived, by now I was almost freezing, wet, cold, and very hungry. Remember, there was no dining coach on the train, and now I did not have any money left, so I could not even buy something to eat in the village. Yes, village is all that there was at that time. 112 As I stepped on board the motor boat, I was put under open arrest again. This action has always seemed a little crazy to me. Here I was, having travelled alone, un-escorted from Durban to Saldanha Bay, almost four days journey. Now all of a sudden, I‟m treated like a criminal, oh well, Dick Henson always used to say, ”It‟s not for you to ask the reason why, it‟s for you to either do, or die!!!” Having come aboard I was called to „Starb‟d side for‟d‟ for the First Lieutenant‟s Report. All he could say was that I was under open arrest, and that I would be on Captain‟s Report the following morning, in the meantime I had to stay on board ship as all my leave had been cancelled, crazy, wasn‟t it, all done strictly according to the book in a proper seaman like manner! Did I have stories to tell all my friends down bellow in mess No.11 Now this was adventure, some of them said I‟d be lucky if I got off with 90 days‟ Detention Barracks in Cape Town. I made sure that nobody would be told about my affidavit, this was My Trump card, I hoped!! The next morning about 10am the call came, „All men under detention, fall in, Starb‟d Side For‟d for the Captains‟ Report.‟ That was my call. What a committee, most of the Ships‟ Officers, the Coxswain, Chiefs and Petty Officers, the whole works, this 113 had to be something. I didn‟t see all the guys who were peeping over the rail of the Squid Deck, they could see, and hear all of the goings on, however, nobody could see them. I always said that this was a special feature built into the construction of the ship for occasions just like this!! The Coxswain gave the command, “ Able Seaman Probert, Attention, off caps, stand at ease.” The First Lieutenant opened the proceedings by reading all the charges against me: 1. Absent without leave after the lapse of my sick leave. 2. Being AWOL from my place of duty. 2. Failing to re-join the ship before her date of departure ex Salisbury Island, Durban. Able Seaman Probert, “How do you plead?” Not guilty, Sir! On what grounds do you plead not guilty, Probert. Now this gave me the break I was waiting for, to be able to explain that I had been attacked, and robbed of my wallet which contained my I.D. Card, my train ticket, and all my money. That I had gone to the Police Station to report the matter, and here was my affidavit to prove what had happened, that I had reported to Zwartkops Air Force Base, and had organized a flight to Durban in the hope of catching up with my ship, thinking that I had enough 114 time on my hands because the Coxswain had told me before I went on leave that the ship would be sailing on the Thursday, I had no way of finding out that the ETD had been shifted forward by 24 hours. Lt. Tommy Nero had already reported that I had done a good job, as far as painting his house was concerned. At this time the First Lieutenant put in his bit, by saying that if I‟d hitch hiked I would have made it in good time, thus I would not have missed the ship. This was just what I was waiting for. My answer came out very boldly, I looked Lt. Com. Dick Nephews in the eye as I said that he was my Captain in the training base, that he had forbade any of us to hitch hike, and if he ever found out that we had disobeyed him we would be in serious trouble. That was the main reason why I opted for the next best speedy means of travel. In respect of my Captain‟s wishes. My Captain looked at me, winked, and said, “Case dismissed”. Once again I was a free man. The very next day we sailed for Durban, we would be there just in time for my 19th birthday on the 9th January. This was a year that proved to be very eventful. Our trip back to Durban was quite uneventful, just the usual sea exercises, although we did 115 attempt to enter harbor at Knysna, but our timing was bad in that it was low tide, and that meant that we would not have enough water below the keel due to the water being very shallow at the Heads. Next we stopped over at East London where our very own “Little Boy Blue” decided that we had to lower the whaler, detail off an „Exploration Party‟ to row the Whaler up the Buffalo River, just to have a look at what ever we could find there that might be of interest, perhaps at a later date or perhaps in case of an emergency of any kind, who knows how the minds of the powers that be work? JANUARY 9th 1952 The 9th of January arrived; we were lying alongside in Durban, and I had turned 19. A bunch of us got together, there must have been about four or five of us, each one bought his own case of beer at 10 bob a case of 12 pints. ( ten bob was 10 shillings, which in today‟s money would be 1 Rand, unbelievable, isn‟t it?) Now that one comes to think of it, it seems impossible that money was worth so much, that one could buy so much for so little. I remember my Dad complaining that petrol was so vey expensive at 2 shillings per gallon. Today petrol is R7.21 per 116 litre. That would have been approx. equal to £3.10. At that price, a gallon being 4.5 litres, it would have cost approx. £32.10 per Gallon, bear in mind that at that time my pay was £9 per month. It really is laughable, I mean, a gallon of petrol would have cost almost 4 months pay, this becomes mind boggling to say the least!!! Right let‟s get back to the birthday! 12 beers was not such a lot, it seemed, Steve held “Beer Drinking Champion” status, he downed 27 pints in one evening from 7 to 10pm, how he managed it nobody could figure out, but he did, there were many witnesses. Quite few of them helped me to get rid of my 12 pints too! As the night wore on the weather started to change, by the time we were ready to wend our way back to the ship, it was raining, then the lightning started. We had quite a long way to go, and now we were full of beer, very clever! Who could walk the longest distance on the railway line without falling off? So we went, full of hops! I don‟t remember who it was, but when the lightning struck, the guy on the line lost his balance, fortunately he fell off the line into the roadway, he was safe, and bang!!!!!!!!!! The lightning hit the railway track, bouncing from one line across to the other, this electric flash ran up the line ahead of us for about 300 yards (about275 metres) The surrounding area was all lit up, 117 and that smell one gets when you are in close proximity to someone who is doing a welding job, was in the air. Guess what, all of us were stone cold sober, scared out of our wits!!!!!!!!!!!!! There are so many stories about the antics that we got up to, one could go on for hours telling all these things, however, I‟ll try to stick to the best of them, I promise you, they were all true stories, and I‟ll try to relate them just as they happened. Smoking, no! No smoking was allowed on the upper deck in harbor, one had to go „tween decks for a smoke, or on the quarter deck, the only time one was allowed to smoke other than that was while painting the ship‟s side. In order to do that one had to sit on the stage. The stage was made up of a scaffold plank with a cross piece of wood at each end which was padded, this so that the plank itself could not scratch against the ship‟s side as well as the fact that one could sit on this plank, and still have space for your legs to dangle down between the ship‟s side, and the plank on which you were sitting. There was a “Jacob‟s Ladder” which was used to climb either up or down to the stage, and this was also used when it was time to lower the stage. Your paint bucket was tied to the hand rails, and your brush also had a lanyard tied through the hole in the handle of the brush, and then tied to the stage, this so that 118 there was no excuse for dropping your brush into the water. I hope you have now got the whole picture, just use your imagination! This was the best place where you could discuss all kinds of things, depending of course on who else may be sitting on the stage at this time. You could talk about the Jimmy or even the Captain or the fellow who slings his hammock next to you in the mess deck, some fellows liked to discuss their girl friends or perhaps a certain floozy who was well known among the crew. This was a great job, however, there were times when one forgot where you were, and you forgot the prescribed routine, like having to tie your paint brush by it‟s lanyard, to the stage. It was one of these times that Fanie Justin forgot. Unfortunately Fanie dropped his brush, which promptly sank into the ocean blue. When it came to him, having to appear “Starb‟d Side Fo‟rd” for negligently destroying Naval Property, the First Lieutenant put the question to him, “was the lanyard tied?” “Yes Sir!” Well how did the brush then fall? The lanyard broke Sir! Well that was a laugh for a very long time, Neverthless, it cost him 7 days C.B. (Confined to Barracks) which meant that he could not go ashore on “Liberty Men‟s Leave” ,and he had to fall in for extra work after hours. 119 This little incident made his love for First Lieutenant Rob King a great deal less, Fanie could not stand the sight of him. This brings to mind a little story concerning both Fanie, and the Jimmy. Now remember, Rob King had been to Whale Island in the UK where he had qualified as a Naval Officer, he had had quite a few years service with the Royal Navy before he ended up here in South Africa. With him everything had to be spot on, or else…………. You had a problem. The only reason why he was drafted to the Transvaal was because our first Lieutenant Colburn had been removed from office, and there was nobody else to take his place, so it went to little “Boy Blue” as Rob King was known. Now with Fanie, things were not always spot on, especially in Rob King‟s eyes. As usual every afternoon after „secure‟ (Knock-off time) the duty wireless operator would tune into some or other radio program. At that time there was a program known as the Ovaltinies. Their signature song went something like this – We are the Ovaltinies, little Boys and Girls, blah, blah, blah. Then would come time for requests to be played. Many popular songs were always requested, like Blue Berry Hill, Home on the Range, and so on. One song which was also very popular at the time was “Sit down, You‟re rocking the boat!!” This was where Jeff Story, the 120 duty man in the wireless office turned the speakers on full blast, including the upper deck speakers, loud hailers ,the lot, he had inside information, no doubt. The request came through, loud, and clear. Our next request is for Little Boy Blue, Rob King of the ship HMSAS TRANSVAAL, enjoy this Rob, it‟s just for you “SIT DOWN, YOU‟RE ROCKING THE BOAT!” There was no need to guess who had sent this request in, it was automatic to assume that it was Fanie. After that little incident, it seemed as if Rob kept clear of Fanie, just in case he, Fanie may send in more such requests because by the next morning the whole base was buzzing about this lot. About six months later we were lying in Dry dock in Snookie (Simonstown) when Rob found out that Fanie was quite an artist with a paint brush, yes, he had his spies out alright. A very cushy job was thus allotted to Fanie, he had to repaint the ship‟s crest against the dry dock wall, which he did very well indeed, in fact Rob congratulated Fanie on the quarter deck for his very good work, and so that hatchet was buried. Please bear in mind that I am putting things on paper as they occur to me, and not in any kind of order, chronological or otherwise. 121 Our ship‟s crest, re- painted by Fanie Justin on the wall of the Dry Dock in Simonstown. The date 1948 was when the Transvaal joined the South African Naval Forces. This picture was done in beautiful colours. No colour photography those days though. All there was, was Ansco and Kodak colour film. Very expensive, I stuck to black and white. This particular shot I gave a Sepia tint to, that is why it is brownish! 122 As time went by I became the Chief Quartermaster. Explanations again, that‟s the difference between Army and Navy, remember the Navy has always been the Senior Service, ask anyone who ever knew Admiral Lord Nelson of the Royal Navy Flagship, HMS Victory, so, we got there first!! In the Army the quartermaster looks after the stores. In the Navy the Chief Quartermaster is in charge of the chaps who keep the Bridge, and the Wheelhouse spotless, including all the brass work, normally referred to as „brightwork‟, like all the various voice pipes, the compass binnacle, etc. these things were made of copper, they had to shine, hence „brightwork‟, and of course the decks as well had to be scrubbed, till they were white. This reminds me of a Greek chap who joined our ship, an ACF of course. He had been appointed as a Bos‟ns Mate, his name sounded like Gotchabush or something like that, he spoke English with a limp! Whenever he was told to do something he would reply, “Tamarra,Tamarra”. I in fact thought that this was an affirmative answer in Greek. Later I‟d find that the job had not been done. When asked why, he just kept on with his Tamarra. “What is this Tamarra” I asked him, I could have kicked him, he said, “Don‟t you know, Tamarra never comes?” Some characters could drive one to drink! 123 The Quartermaster on Gangway Duty keeps an accurate record of who comes on board, and who goes ashore, logging name, rank and time of arrival, and time of departure, whom he came to visit etc. Temperatures are also logged, wet and dry, every four hours. Naturally we are talking about when the ship is tied up alongside. Quartermasters on watch must be properly dressed at all times. Duty Watch on the Gangway, consists of a Quartermaster and his Bos‟ns Mate, he gets ordered to do all kinds of odd jobs, like going to fetch a Cuppa for the Duty Q.M. Holding the fort while the Q.M. goes for a quick smoke, he is a proper „dog‟s boddy‟, if you get what I mean. Normally there are about eight or nine men involved in the Quartermaster‟s Duties. DO NOT TOUCH OTHER PEOPLES PROPERTY. This little anecdote is about Ronnie Shamblin, he too was a Q.M. Always used to groom himself before going ashore. Those days the „in thing‟ for grooming was a hair product called “Brylcream”. Even Elvis used it on his hair. Ronnie kept his jar inside his locker, which wasn‟t always locked, especially while he 124 was in the shower, getting ready to go ashore. Over a short period of time Ronnie noticed that his supply of Brylcream was diminishing, this irked him because the stuff was expensive. On nine quid a month everything is expensive, so he set about catching the thief. The next time he went ashore he bought himself a tube of “Veet”, this was a product that ladies used in order to remove the hair from their legs and, it worked very fast, and very well. What he did was to put a lot of Veet into a half empty jar of Brylcream, mixed well, and set it in his locker. His jar was put away in another locker, just so‟s he would not get the two mixed up. Now the scene changes, come in Koos van Denter. Koos had a beautiful black beard, his pride and joy, he was always grooming himself, and checking his looks in the mirror. Koos came from somewhere in the Cape Province, up the West Coast, I think, a place where English was a foreign language and, he spoke with a lisp. On top of it Koos was the Mess Kellick, a Kellick is a Leading Seaman, sort of equivalent to an army Corporal, he was in charge of the Quartermaster‟s Mess deck. Koos was a one badger, so he had more than three years service, the guys always said that he had become a Kellick on good behavior, not on merit or skills, be that as it may, sorry, 125 Koos, but that is how it was. I only speak the truth! Right now you know who I‟m talking about, fine. Now get the picture, Ronnie is in the Main Seaman‟s bathroom having a shower, Koos is watching him, he knows where Ronnie is, so he helps himself to some “Brylcream”. Of course, Leading Hands knock off a half hour before ordinary ratings, „cause they are seniors, so Koos is all spruced up, ready to go ashore, „tis only his beard that needs that final touch. He is quite liberal with Ronnie‟s Brylcream, he rubs it in well, WOW. Look at all this hair, it‟s facial hair, it‟s his beard, it‟s falling out by the handful. The shout echoes through the „tween decks. “Shamblin, I‟ll KILL you”, Ronnie hears this as he comes down the alleyway, so he ducks into the P.O‟s mess, before Koos sees him, Koos would never enter there, Ronnie explains quickly, he has many allies, they hide him, the storm passes and, Koos is beardless, what a WHAM!!! Nobody ever heard of Koos stealing anything again, he had been taught a lesson, in fact I don‟t think he ever grew a beard again either. 126 THE DOORMAT. Young men can get up to lots of things, especially sailors, no it‟s not as the saying goes „having a girl in every port‟. Very often sailors are very lonely people, they can amuse themselves with a piece of rope or a book about Captain Horatio Hornblower, or a booze-up ashore, and the Devil may care as to how they get back to the ship again, they were willing to face all charges against them, but today they live for today, nothing like a bit of adventure. So we come to the crazy Irishman as Pat Windlay was known, he‟d stop at nothing, wasn‟t scared of anybody, not that he was a terrible fighter, just that he was Irish, well his father was, he was South African. His great pal was Cyril Dunn; those two were inseparable, where one went the other followed. The two of them had many runs ashore but, one stands out among all the others. They were Asdic Ratings, in other words they knew all about Torpedoes, Depth Charges, Squid, Anti Submarine Armaments, etc. They had been on course together, and that was where their friendship was cemented together. Their mentor was Chief PO Tubby Mowitt, he taught them everything about their Torpedoes etc. Right, their claim to fame came one night when 127 they had been painting the town red, the town being Durban. They had missed the last Ferry boat back to Salisbury Island, probably realized this by the sound of the Post Office clock‟s chimes. A decision had to be made, never mind the fact that they were dressed in their number ones, they had to get back to the ship at all costs, no matter what. In order to fulfill their mission they would need something that would float, like a boat, for instance. When Pat looked up he saw the answer to their need. A little boat, named, „Lucky Strike‟ with the logo of Lucky Strike cigarettes painted on her sides, she wasn‟t very large, but adequate for their needs, which I must add included the front door mat of the Mayfair Hotel which they had swiped, this mat was huge, coir and pretty heavy, „cause it was thick as well. No problem, they had lugged it from the Mayfair Hotel, down Smith Street into Gardner Street, past Dick King‟s statue to the jetty. Fortunately for them, the tide had not gone out completely, however, there was still enough water to float the boat. The fact that by now their shoes were wet, their Bell Bottoms were wet, in fact by now I‟m sure just about everything was wet except their determination to get their prize on board the ship. They did not have oars with which to row, I found out later that 128 they used their shoes instead, I believe that they got to Salisbury Island, alongside the ship around 04:30 am. Eventually down the hatch into the ASDIC well in the for‟d mess by about 05:30. They weren‟t very happy when the duty quartermaster came around with his Bo‟suns Call at 06:00 shouting “Wakey, wakey,” Oh how clever booze makes one!!!! No doubt by this time they were stone cold sober, after all that effort, but, they were proud of their prize, never mind the fact that they could have ended up in prison for theft. Irish!!!!??? We are still with this crazy Irishman; another night, quite sometime later, Pat has a run ashore again, gets back to the ship, somehow. Eventually manages to get settled into his hammock, but something keeps him awake, he has to see if his Mayfair Hotel Doormat is still there, so he gets out of his hammock, opens the hatch cover to the asdic well, this is situated directly under his hammock. He checks up; yes his mat is still there, but he doesn‟t close the hatch cover again. Back into his hammock he eventually falls asleep but, about two hours later he has to go the heads to get rid of some of the beer which he had consumed hours ago. Getting the picture? 129 Yes that‟s exactly what happened, he lifted himself up by the steel bar above his hammock in order to lower himself to the deck beneath him, then he let go the steel bar above, in doing so he did not stop on the deck about four feet below his hammock, no, he went straight down into the Asdic well, which must have been close to 15 feet down, fell onto the mat, and promptly fell asleep again. Miraculously he had no injury, nothing. In the morning when he awoke, here he found himself down the asdic well. That was the end of his drinking, forever. He had had the fright of his life, just thinking what could have happened, never mind a broken leg or an arm, perhaps his neck or his skull. From then on Pat was a different person, he stuck to coke, and fresh water if no coke was available. About a year after I got out the Navy I heard that Pat was heavily involved in a church somewhere, with a lovely young lady by his side, whether they ever got married or not I never ever learned. It was good to know that he had turned over more than just a new leaf!! 130 GANSBAAI BLUES. The English translation of Gansbaai would be Goose Bay, a tiny fishing village up the South Coast of the Cape Province. Here is another little story about a chap who was always in trouble. Isn‟t it funny, how one always finds some people whether they are men or women, doesn‟t matter. They can be dressed in the best clothes that money can buy, and yet they always look shabby, no matter what. The same story goes for people who are always in trouble with the authorities, or anybody for that matter. These people always seem to get off the worst, with black eyes, cut lips, broken arms, you name it, they‟ve got it. Now Johnny Grunveldt, he was one of them, always in trouble. I‟ve not yet spoken about how justice was meted out on board. First of all you would have to go “Caps off, Starb‟d Side For‟d” on First Lieutenant‟s report, if he deemed it necessary he would put you on “Captain‟s Report” also caps off Starb‟d side For‟d. This area during a session was like Holy Ground, we used to watch from the Squid Deck, making sure that nobody saw us, I‟m talking about Alex and myself. Captain, Lieutenant Commander Dick Nephews. A man that was well loved by all his men, even those who got into 131 trouble, only because he was very fair and square in all things, and he always had time to listen to your story. Now Johnny had already been on „Jimmy‟s Report‟ twice, and he‟d only been drafted to the Vaal six months ago. The first time it was for being cheeky to a senior officer, and disobeying a lawful command, the second time for being drunk, and disorderly while ashore and, now he was up for being adrift for 7 days, running after a girl in Gansbaai, can you believe it? Well that sorted him out for 90 days D.B. at Snell Parade. His story later came out that while he was in D.B. he had built up a venomous hatred for a certain Sergeant van Zyl. He said that this van Zyl was a proper animal, and van Zyl looked upon Johnny as an insect. He, van Zyl, used to make Johnny dig a hole 6feet square and 6 feet deep, then he‟d take a look into the hole when once it was finished, take his cigarette butt, toss it into the hole, and tell Johnny to cover it. So his days went by, digging holes, and covering cigarette butts. That was enough to break most men, all that kept Johnny going was the memory of his girl in Gansbaai, and his hatred for his tormenter. He never ever got into trouble again after that, as a matter of fact we became very good friends, and guess what, when he got out of the Navy he didn‟t 132 waste any time in marrying his girl. I once saw him, years later, and they were still very happily married with a bunch of kids to go with it. He joined the Prison Services, but I don‟t think he ever made anybody dig holes while they were in prison!! A NIGHT OUT. On board a warship there are two kinds of people, yes, I say kinds because they are so far removed, one from the other. This, naturally is the „tween deck crew. One finds the upper deck sailors, and one finds the “Stokers”. Now, if one wants to go back in history, say a few hundred years, one goes to the advent of the steam ship. This was the answer to rapid transportation of both passengers and cargo. In order for this concept to work, one needed some hard crust men who could be put into the bowels of the ship, in order to stoke the fires which produced the steam needed by the ship‟s engine in order for the engine to turn. So “Stokers” were born, hard men, couldn‟t care less men, mainly heavy beer drinkers. Imagine the heat down that stoke hole!! After a four hour watch, one would probably have sweated about a gallon of sweat down the drain, these guys were real tough cookies. 133 The upper deck sailors on the other hand had it all made, clear skies, seabirds crying, dolphins playing about the ship‟s bow, in calm water the occasional fish was landed at the quarterdeck, this was the life, Daddy‟s Yacht could never have been better, but an upper deck sailor could never call himself an “Engineer” now could he? Of course this title of being an engineer could work among land lubbers or people who did not know any better, to us he was just another stoker, and as far as the sailors were concerned, however, in order to keep the peace, they just, and only just tolerated each other. At the end of the day this tolerance was on a par with the English and the French, get my drift? Right, now I think the stage has been set, here comes the little story. Across the Bay on the bluff side there used to be a very nice quiet little pub. To get there one would either have to go by car, right around, to the Bluff, or one could take a boat around the back of Salisbury Island, past the Marine Fuel Terminals. Naturally, a boat would be the easiest way of getting to this pub. After the Duty Officer‟s rounds, normally at 21:00 a bunch of us sneaked out, over the ship‟s side, into the Whaler, which was tied up astern of the ship. Very quietly we moved the whaler down 134 the full length of the quay, toward the open sea. Stop, just a while, can you imagine the implications of such a move? 1. Breaking out of ship. 2. Stealing the ship‟s life boat. 3. Being out of the rig of the day. This is just for starters!!! Us, upper deck sailors had the sense to check out the tide table, you see this operation was not just a spur of the moment decision, this had been planned far in advance. Having arrived at our destination, with as little noise as possible, we disembarked, dragging the boat along the mud flats as close to the pub as possible. Here the water was about ankle deep. We anchored her good and solid so‟s she couldn‟t move. Then we entered the pub, which was situated at a place called Fynnlands had a few beers, a friendly game of darts, checking the time, and watching the tide come in. At chuck out time we silently went back to the boat, which by now was floating merrily, being held by her anchors. We all climbed aboard, happily full of beer, and off we went, back to the ship. 135 Now the rest of the Military Law comes into play viz: 4. Being under the influence of alcohol. 5. Breaking back into ship. These were all very serious charges that could have been laid against us,…….. if caught. Fortunately we were never caught, but the next day the news flashed through the ship like wild fire, once again, fortunately there were no witnesses, the boat had been put back into her position, astern of the ship, in fact nobody even knew that she had ever been moved, let alone by whom, and we were not dropping any names. Fortunately, once again, if the duty Quartermaster had been doing his job properly, he would have reported the missing boat to the Duty Officer, and that would have been the end of our little jaunt. Imagine the Duty Officer waiting for our return in order to arrest us for our misdemeanor. At that age one does very stupid things!! There were no witnesses ! Let us now get back to the “Stokers”. Yes the story of our little escapade had reached them too. If a bunch of Matelots could have such an exciting adventure, what makes them better than we? That was the question on their lips, so, they start planning their 136 outing. They had it all worked out, except for one thing which they did not even think about, but wait, let us not jump the gun!!! Sometime later, as planned, they also stole the whaler, rowed around to the back of the island, past the Marine Fuel Terminal. Everything was going according to plan, and look what they saw when they came closer to the pub, man oh man, they were in luck, they could row to almost the very doorstep of the pub, things could not have been better. Once ashore, they were inside the pub, having a wonderful time, Time, yeah, the old, old enemy, Father Time never stands still, he is always on the move, and so it came time for them to go, because it was already long after chuck – out time, but they always wanted just another one for the road, or was it for the row? Eventually the Barman got rid of them, and what did they see? Here was the boat, all 27feet of it, lying high, and dry on the shore side of the basin, the water at least 100 meters away, the boat sucked fast in the thick black mud. By now it was already after mid night. The tide might be in again around 6a.m. but what did a bunch of stokers know about tides, high tide, low tide, neap tide, spring tide, so what, it was all about water, the stuff they needed most right now, to float the boat. 137 They dragged, slipped, and fell into the thick black quagmire, trying to drag the boat toward the water. Eventually, at just about Sunrise they managed to get the boat afloat, and back to it‟s tie-up position astern of the ship. Nobody ever found out why the boat was covered in black grime, „cause nobody dared talk about it, but we Upper Deck Sailors knew, you see, the duty Quarter Master saw it all happen, these black faced, dog tired stokers, stone cold sober by now, crawling back on board. He also knew that if he ever dared report the matter his life would not be worth sixpence. We laughed about this episode for a very long time afterward. THE DOLPHIN AND THE SHARK. It had become quite a habit while we were lying in Durban. Every morning at around six o‟clock, or shortly after six a group of us would take the ship‟s lifeboat out into the bay. The crew normally would be eight rowers plus the coxswain, making a total of nine men in the Whaler. We did this not only for the exercise, 138 but also for the adventure of it. Can you imagine what it is like, early in the morning in an open boat in Durban Harbour? You watch the water taxis taking, still half drunk sailors back to their merchant ships, especially the Americans, mostly they came off the “Robin” lines, there was the “Robin Hood”, the “Robin Goodfellow”, the “Robin Sherwood” etc. The Yanks loved to party, especially down Point Road way, they were known for it.That was were lots of the „Ladies of the Night‟ hung out. This particular morning we had rowed past the “T” Jetty, anybody who knows Durban Docks knows just where that is. All of a sudden there was this massive turmoil in the water, very close to us. We automatically stopped, slid the oars inboard, and waited to see what would happen next. All our attention being on the spot where we had first seen this massive upheaval of water, the next thing a Dolphin jumped right clear of the water, then a Shark came up. The Dolphin plunged down upon the Shark. All went quiet, now we wait, too awestruck to do anything. This was obviously a huge fight between a Dolphin, and a Shark. What seemed like ages went by, then the whole performance would start all over again. Nobody realized how time had flown until Mac checked his watch, we had 139 been out, away from the ship for the best part of a hour, by now we should have already been back on board. Just then came a huge explosion of water again, as we sat there we saw a patch of blood come to the surface, not long after that, the Dolphin jumped quite clear of the water, just to show us that he was the Victor. He swam out to sea, some time later the Shark‟s carcass surfaced. We just had to wait for the finale, fortunately, the Duty Officer had also been watching the whole show through binoculars, we were excused for getting back to the ship, almost after breakfast. What a story that was, I remember it as if it happened yesterday, and this goes back to around 1952. We are now, as I write, in the year 2010. Hey, that‟s 58 years ago!!! BOAT SAILING IN THE WHALER. Laying alongside in Durban was always a very boring experience, maybe that is why we used to get up to so much mischief. It was one of those Sundays when we did not feel like doing anything, Canasta? No. 140 Poker, no money, Vantoons? No, Drafts jughhh. Craps, 7 - 11? still no money, reading Zane Grey,ugh. Enter Lappies. Now, he had a very bright idea, why don‟t we go sailing in the ship‟s whaler? There was a fresh breeze out there, and we had nothing else to do, so why not? Lappies came down into the mess, that is the Main Seaman‟s Mess Deck. He said that he had been to see the Duty Officer, fondly known as the Goose, had spoken to him, him was Lieutenant Gander, our newly appointed Gunnery Officer. He wasn‟t too clued up on the do‟s ,and don‟ts of our ship. According to Lappies, we had the Duty Officer‟s permission, and that was all that mattered, our heavy boredom would be broken, at last; Our crew was as follows: Our Organiser, Lappies, Mac, Alex, Grunwald, Pat, and myself. We had stepped the mast, and the sails were rigged up in next to no time, and off we went, heading for the Graving Dock which is situated on the far side of the harbor towards the Yacht Basin, running before the wind was exciting. We must have been cruising at about 12knots, which for that little boat was pretty good, now came time to change coarse, as it was, we had been out 141 almost one hour. This was where our Seamanship skills would be tested to the full, „cause we now would have to sail against the wind, in other words we would have to tack. To be tacking one has to sail at about 60º against the wind until one had no more space to do that, then you change coarse to the other tack, in other words, one now has to swing the main sail‟s boom over to the other side, and this action changes your direction either Port or Starboard, the order must be given by whoever is the skipper. He must issue a warning “ready, about” ,and so you sail in a zigzag fashion until you reach your destination. This order must be given so that all aboard must be ready to change direction, because if you are not ready you could get a very hard bang on the heat as the main sail boom comes over to the other side of the boat. It was a slow maneuver, but it did bring results. Meantime the sky started clouding over, we were too busy tacking to really notice what the weather was doing until it was virtually too late. A full gale had suddenly sprung up, and we were in the middle of it, the sea became very choppy, the wind icy cold. We were all dressed in casual clothing, far from the „rig of the day‟. We kept on heading for the „T‟ Jetty so as to get into the lee of the Jetty just to find shelter from the storm. All of a sudden 142 the gale just took us away from the Jetty, and out almost into the middle of the harbor, then it turned, pushing us head-on toward the key side. Fortunately, it was high tide. As soon as we could, we all scrambled ashore, jumping for it, one of us, I don‟t remember who, grabbed the for‟d painter, rope if you like! We tried tying the boat to a bollard, without any success. The next thing we knew the Port Captain‟s Launch was on the scene, they took charge of our boat, which was eventually towed off back to Salisbury Island. The Port Captain‟s Launch comes to our rescue, look at that sea! 143 We, the motley crew made our way along the quayside to the Gardener Street Jetty to await a ride back to the Island in the Navy launch.The whaler had been pretty badly damaged in this storm, some of us had lost articles of clothing, shoes, and a fair amount of skin!! As we came on board the ship, we were all put under open arrest. The charges against us were: Breaking out of ship, removing the ship‟s life boat without permission. (In other words, Lappies lied to us by telling that he had received permission. Being out of the rig of the day. Causing the whaler to be very badly damaged. For safety sake the Port Captain had to come to the rescue, at great expense. Breaking back into ship. On the strength of all these charges we could quite easily pick up at least 90 days D.B. which is more or less equivalent to a prison sentence, let alone a very bad report on our Naval record. Somehow, nobody ever found out how; all charges were dropped against us, the whole case was dismissed, and we were free. Till this day I still believe that the Port Captain must have had a lot to do with us being let off the hook! 144 Five in the picture, one behind the camera. Alex didn‟t half complain. Here they were, trying to get a rope to the boat, and I‟m taking pictures! Check, no shoes! 145 A YEAR OF MANY CHANGES. The year 1952 was a very eventful one, by now I had been in the Navy one whole year, I‟d learned so much; things that I would never ever have experienced in Civvy Street. The first big thing that happened was that King George V1 died, I‟m not so sure of the date anymore, however, what I am sure of is that we, that is, the South African Navy, paid homage to him on the 15th February, exactly on the date of my first anniversary as a sailor. We were lying in Cape Town, probably at “K” berth. It must have been, because a ship had discharged a massive load of timber from somewhere in Africa, and we needed a clear area for the ceremonial saluting guns to operate to the best advantage, our usual place was “M” berth, right up in the corner adjacent to the Royal Cape Yacht Club, and the Naval base, “Unity”. This was to be a very solemn ceremony. Because the King died at the age of 56 years, he was to have a 56 one minute gun salute. This would then be answered by the signal guns up on Signal Hill. We would fire a shot, all blanks of course, then they would answer, then a minute later we would fire again, and so on until 56 shots had been fired, and answered. Being February we 146 had to be dressed in our white, tropical suits. I still have the Cape Argus newspaper clipping, and this is what they published: ‘At the Passing of a Beloved Monarch’ London, Friday. In accordance with custom, the Poet Laureate, John Masefield, O.M., has marked the occasion of the late Monarch‟s funeral with the following poem which appears today in „The Times‟: AT THE PASSING OF A BELOVED MONARCH, OUR SOVEREIGN LORD KING GEORGE V1, OF BLESSED MEMORY The everlasting wisdom has ordained That this rear Soul, His earthly service done, Shall leave the peoples over whom he reigned For other service at a higher throne, Where Life’s rewarders sing at triumph won In nobleness attempted and attained Through years more terrible than any known. 147 What is a Nation’s love? No little thing; A vast dumb tenderness beyond all price; Surely a power of prayer upon a wing; The living anguish of a hope to heal, Offered by all hearts here in sacrifice To spirits bowed in sorrow for the King, That it may touch, to comfort or anneal. May this devotion help them in their grief, May the devotion kindle to resolve To make this stricken country green with leaf, Glad with another hope to be again A Sun about which singing orbs resolve, A Kingdom grown so worthy of her Chief That millions yet unborn shall bless her reign. ___ JOHN MASEFIELD As I have said, this was a very solemn ceremony, there were crowds of people all along the full length of our ship, waiting on 148 the Quayside in anticipation to see what was going to happen next. After the first shot was fired, to seaward, everyone gave way before the next shot came, knowing that, that would be toward the quay side. This gun salute started at 14:00 so as to coincide with GMT which would have been Mid-day. By this time of day there was a certain guy, and his dog, who came to see what was happening, it was a big dog, looked like an Alsatian, probably, as the Germans say, a Promanaden Kreuzen. Anybody who has ever heard the Noon Day gun in Cape Town will know that those guns make a loud bang. Bear in mind that at that time, there were no fences around the docks, anyone could walk right in to the ships moored there, now this guy must have had quite a bit to drink by then, nobody knew if he was in mourning for his King or if he was happy about his death, and was celebrating, because I think he had more than three sheets in the wind! The ship‟s crew, had to line up all along the upper deck, facing the public. We had to stand, motionless, to attention, hardly blinking an eye, when along comes this guy with his big dog, he came almost right up to the ship, almost immediately after the 149 seaward gun had fired, so that left about 2 minutes before the ship had to fire it‟s next round, because Signal Hill had to fire in reply first. By now this guy is addressing us, “Hey, you, HMS Never Sail, what are you doing? Wasting the Taxpayer‟s money” or something to that effect. In the meantime, the tide was ebbing, which brought the gun barrel just above the level of the quay side. Then came the command to our gun crew, “Fire!” Needless to say, his hound dog, under a cloud of gun smoke skedaddled under the pile of wood that was lying on the quayside, dragging him along as well. The dog was yelping, he was screaming, the dog didn‟t stop, and he couldn‟t let go because the dog‟s leash was tied around his wrist. We, the well disciplined, had to keep straight faces, but the watching public were screaming with laughter, this drunk did not think anything was funny, he soon disappeared off the scene. I‟m sure that anyone who witnessed this little scene will never forget it. 150 This newspaper cutting was taken from the Cape Argus. Dated Friday February 15th 1952. Note, here we were still wearing the RN uniform! 151 MANY CHANGES, STILL. The 6th April 1652 was the day that Jan van Riebeek landed at the Cape. As the years passed Van Riebeek day had always been a special day for South Africans, it was sort of like Founders Day in other countries, only here it was always tied up with politics. Our ship was detailed off to be in Cape Town for the Van Riebeek Festival that year, 1952. This was special, because it would be the three hundredth anniversary, commemorating the sea farer, Jan van Riebeek‟s landing at the Cape of Storms. BELL BOTTOMS OR A CREASE DOWN YOUR LEG? Our then Minister of Defence, one Honourable Mr. Ernest Rastus, would be there to officiate the Military proceedings. This was a time of great consternation among us, the Navy. It was all about our uniforms. We had for years and years been wearing the Royal Navy uniform, mainly because we were at that time still part of the British Commonwealth. The Royal Navy uniform had been designed with lots of very special features built into it. It was 152 very traditional in that every piece of it meant something. The cap had come down to us from about the nineteenth century, the collar with it‟s three white stripes was significant because of the stripes, anyone could see if it was clean or dirty, and the stripes signified the three main battles of Admiral Lord Nelson RN the black silk, worn around the neck was in mourning for Admiral Lord Nelson. The lanyard, also worn around the neck, was for the Bosun‟s pipe. The pipe, when properly blown emits a shrill note, which brings every body within earshot to attention. This pipe is used mainly to „Pipe‟ Officers on board or ashore as they mount the ship‟s gangway. Further it was also the signal for all within earshot to take note of all important announcements which may be made. It was placed under the collar, coming out at the front, and is tied with a double Turks head knot on which to hang. The Jumper was very tight fitting, with one small inside pocket, just big enough for your I‟D‟ Card. In fact some of the chaps had tailored suits made. Quite often they were made to fit very tight, the length was such that the bottom of it just covered the buttocks of the wearer, some suits were even fitted with zippers down the one side, not legal though! This was all so as to present a picture of slim neatness. 153 The trousers had a frontal overlapping section, covered with a flap which was buttoned up to cover this frontal section, into which was sewn one little pocket for a small wallet. We never earned enough money to have a large wallet! All this was covered by the tight fitting jumper. See the photo of myself on page 97, the Bosun‟s pipe lanyard is visible, but check those Bell Bottoms! The Bell Bottoms, yes, I for one had gussets sewn into my No.1s enlarging the bells to about 30 inches across. The main reason why this fashion came into existence was that in the days of Yore, when men were men, and woman were double breasted, ships, that is sailing ships often came to grips with pirates. That would mean a battle with guns blasting off, blood and guts all over the decks. In order for the men not to get their trousers all messed up, they would have to be able to pull them up to almost above the knee, quickly, so that the decks could be washed off without getting their trousers wet, so for that purpose, the bell bottom was born! There are many old sea shantys that used to be sung in which the Seven Seas were mentioned, and so the Seven Seas were incorporated into the trousers of the modern day sailors. 154 From the bottom up, the trousers would be folded, one leg at a time, to a distance of about 2 to 3 inches (50/75mm), and ironed flat, this fold would then be reversed and, ironed flat the other way. After this had been done seven times the other leg would be folded, and ironed in the same way, so now the legs would be equally creased, in concertina fashion, and if done properly it would look very grand, and was totally acceptable. The seven seas was entirely optional. A warship, quite bluntly put, is a fighting machine. Maybe that is why my Mother said that she didn‟t raise a son to become „Gun Fodder‟! They are not built in competition to one of the top notch hotels anywhere in the world, what I‟m getting at is that you do not have wardrobes, there is no provision made for coat hangers. All you get is a steel boxlike locker, in the mess deck, approximately 2 feet square (600mm) chair height, and another little cupboard like compartment approximately 30 inches square, and 20 inches deep (750mm square X 500mm), fitted against the bulkhead used for stowing your toiletries, socks, dickeys, the original “T” shirts, so called because they resemble the capital letter “T”, shoes, personal things like your cigarettes, matches, 155 your pipe, and tobacco etc. The deck lockers had smart leather cushions, so they could also be used as bunks to sleep on. I hope you have now got the picture of what the accommodation was like. Our uniforms were designed to be rolled up into a sort of sausage, and tied with a length of cod line. This way it could be taken out of the locker, unrolled, and you could be dressed in two shakes of a duck‟s tail, you would be passed for shore leave, provided you stowed your clothes properly, the last time you wore them. This method of stowage was also designed to prevent any clothing lying around, if for instance the ship was in a skirmish with an enemy vessel, and she was holed below the water line, and she was taking water. Immediately the bilge pumps would come into action to pump the water out, however, if there was any clothing lying around, it could block up the pump, the water could not be expelled, the ship would keep on taking water, and could perhaps sink, all because Charlie Chomp didn‟t put his number 1 suit away after he had worn it. It‟s as simple as that, it could happen, and who says that it never ever did? Now comes a gracious lady who knows sweet Fanny Adams about ships or shipping, her son is very comfortable in the Air 156 Force, he is an Aircraft Technician, he doesn‟t get wet when it rains because he works in a very comfortable place, he doesn‟t care what the weather man has got dished up for South Africa. He says, sorry Jack, I‟m inboard. This lady has a dream, she sees sailors dressed in the Royal Navy uniform. The politicians have claimed the only bit of the British Commonwealth remaining in South Africa, namely Simonstown, and that, without one shot being fired. This RN uniform is too British, I will design a new one for our boys. The jumper, very neat, tight fitting, smart is now replaced by a navy blue Bunny Jacked, like the Army had, only theirs was khaki. The dickeys? No they can stay, the trousers must have a pleat down the front of the leg. The collar, well it does look like a bit of an overgrown shirt collar, but it does have two white stripes though. The cap, well, any member of the German Kriegsflotte would have felt quite at home wearing one. Stowage? Where does one hang your trousers that need to be put on a hanger, the bunny jacket can‟t be rolled up and put into a locker, it has to be hung up. Now your uniform had to be pressed, because you had to look your best. You could not just take the trousers out of a locker, and put then on. Your Bunny Jacket would be a mess, 157 all creased. Going ashore wearing this lot caused a great deal of harassment, the British sailors called us, Nazis, escaped from the German Navy. We would not stand for such insults, and Mrs. Ernest Rastus, who designed these things, Oh, well! God bless her! Royal Navy in the centre, and us with our new style uniforms .At the Del Monaco, in Cape Town, nobody cared what you wore, just as long as you paid for your drinks, and did not make a noise! Note my RP3 badge on my right arm! Those ears! My Mom always said they were ornaments, because I never used them! 158 SPLICE THE MAIN BRACE! My Grand Father, William, was a great old man, he too was a sailor, however, he sailed before the mast, in other words, in sailing ships, that‟s why it was “Before the Mast” right? Whenever I saw him while I was home on leave he would ask me if I‟d ever spliced the “Main Brace”, and I always had to say no, not yet. He would say, don‟t worry Boyo, the time will come, and then you will find out. Boyo? Yes, he was a Welshman, and all young lads are called “Boyo” in Wales. I didn‟t even know what was meant by “Splicing the Main Brace”, and he never told me, sure I knew what the main brace was on a sailing ship. Later I found out that it was part of the rigging on the Main Mast and, if it needed splicing it would be because one of the braces had been damaged, probably in a storm. This would necessitate the repairs to be done up the main mast, perhaps to splice a new section into the existing brace, or to replace the whole length of rope. The main Mast of one of those old ships could be as much as 60 feet above the deck, if you missed your footing while you were up there, there would just be a big splash and, it might not be in the water, so to add a little 159 incentive to the job, the accepted reward would be a double tot of neat Rum and, this is where the saying came from: “To splice the Main Brace” meant to be given a double tot of Rum. 160 THE CORONATION. That day came on April 2nd The Coronation of Queen Elizabeth of England and the whole of the British Commonwealth. We, that was the Frigate, SAS TRANSVAAL F602; notice that the HM had now been dropped, because Simonstown had now been given to South Africa, and we were no longer part of the British Commonwealth, however, this take-over had not yet become official as such, tradition lingered on. Our ship had been cordially invited to come to the City of Port Elizabeth, all ill feelings concerning past history had been forgiven and forgotten. We were given the “A” berth, a place of honor in the docks. We were awarded the „Freedom of the City‟, this meant that we were allowed to march through the streets with our rifles at the slope, with fixed bayonets and all. This exercise would be effective only during any official ceremony. The morning of the Coronation we received a signal from Admiralty House, London, sent by Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth the Second of England, that all men afloat were to muster on the after decks of their ships, and were to “Splice the Main Brace” in 161 accordance with British Naval Tradition. Remember, at that time we, South Africa, were still part of the British Commonwealth. At last my Grand Fathers prophesy had become manifest. 162 Many celebrities were on board for the 21gun Salute. Lt. Jenner counts the seconds between shots Captain Nephews and Lt. King take the Salute. 163 The Guard of Honour Present Arms in a Salute to the Queen. Note the Stoker‟s badges on their right arms. A ship‟s propeller! 164 SAS Transvaal all dressed up with flags (bunting) flying from Stem to Stern. 165 Under which we serve. It was a large Green Cross on a White background. The South African flag in the top corner. These pictures were all taken after having Spliced the Main Brace. Something very strange happened there on the Quarter deck. We all lifted our glasses, drank a toast to Her Royal Highness Queen Elizabeth the Second of the British Empire. It was something that our Captain said. He said that he had never, ever Spliced the Main Brace. Officers were only permitted to do so if, and when such a command was given by Royalty. He grew up in the Royal Navy from the age of 10 years. He was sent to 166 Whale Island where he was educated, and groomed all his life to, one day, be a Naval Officer as were many of his Ancestors before him. He might have been too young with the coronation of King George the 6th after the death of King George the 5th THE DONKIN PARADE. After this „on board‟ ceremony we all marched from the docks to the Donkin. This is a very well known landmark in Port Elizabeth. A pyramid-shaped Memorial was erected on top of the hill by, Sir Rufane Donkin, and the City named after his wife Elizabeth, who died in India in 1818. Thus was the Donkin Reserve established. A large open space, ideal for ceremonies like what was to follow, when hundreds of men in all the known uniforms in South Africa would be there for the March Past. The Governor General of South Africa would be taking the Salute while a 21 Gun Salute would be fired. Sometimes the organizers of such events prove to have quite a sense of humour. When the Army marched past the massed brass bands played a smart march, when the Air Force marched past, 167 they too were blessed with a smart march by one of the old masters, now, after the Sun had been beating down upon our heads, and the Main Brace Rum had taken its toll, the Navy had their chance to march past, so what does this massive brass band play? O.K; so you guessed it. Loud and clear, “What shall we do with a drunken Sailor?” Funny? After all the speeches, and the salutes, and all the hoo-hah, the merciless Sun beating down upon heads that were not too clear, especially after the previous night‟s run ashore, where every drink was drunk to „Her Majesty, the Queen‟ we were all tired out, in fact one or two guys passed out, and fell with their rifles, yes, we were told that if you feel you are going to fall over, you had better fall with your rifle, or else! We were duly dismissed, given a half hour just to stretch out a bit, and then be transported by Military Vehicles back to the ship, one cannot have a bunch of sailors walking around the streets with rifles and all, even if they did have the freedom of the city! 168 RUMOUR MUNGERS ARE RIFE! Like I‟ve said before, one never believes all the stories that float around the ship, not until they really materialize, like what happened when the talk was rife about an East Coast Tour, this was going to be a “Good Will Tour”, and we, on the “Transvaal” were included. The very first orders that were issued were to clean ship, if it didn‟t move you painted it, if it did move, you saluted it, and carried on with whatever you were doing, as long as it was in order to get the ship ready for a foreign cruise. The Jimmy‟s eyes were everywhere, naturally one had to do a very good job of work, for fear of being drafted ashore, and missing out on such an adventure. 169 Decks were scrubbed and bulkheads were soojeed. Paint work was spruced up, and every body was busy and excited. The main change in my life was that my promotion had come through. I was now a Leading Seaman, a Kellick, I could now, “Put my Hook Up” A badge in the form of an Anchor on the left shoulder, with a rise in pay too! 170 PROMOTION AT LAST. By now I‟d moved on from being the Able Seaman, Galley Tanky to being, wait for it. Leading Seaman Probert, Chief Quartermaster. Yes, I had my Hook up, I was now a Kellick. Becoming a Leading Seaman wasn‟t just a matter of putting your hook up, and that was it, no Sir! There were examinations, Oral, Written and Practical. For starters a Chief PO would ask you a lot of questions concerning practical seamanship. For instance he wants to know all the commands needed in proper order for lowering the Whaler for a sea rescue for instance. All the commands to be given by the Coxswain, in the boat during the rescue. After the rescue he wants to know how the boat would be put back into it‟s chocks on the upper deck. The lower deck would have to be cleared. One needed all the man power available. This could happen while the ship was lying alongside in harbor or it could happen at sea, as it did happen at Marion Island for instance. 171 Here the Whaler is being hoisted at sea, to be put back into her chocks to be made fast for sea travel. Notice. Lower decks were cleared in order to have as many hands as possible. Note the peaked caps, these are petty officers, some men are not properly dressed. When lower Decks are cleared you just drop everything, and get where you are required…….. FAST! 172 Your examiner would give you a piece of rope and tell you to make a double Turks Head, this is a knot, and where and what would it be used for. You would have to make all kinds of bends and hitches, these are all kinds of knots. You would have to tell him where they are used and why you would not use some other kind of knot. You would have to know how to rig up the Whaler for sea, you might have been on board a ship that had been torpedoed. How were you going to sail to the nearest land. Remember Captain Bligh of the ship HMS Bounty sailed from Australia to England in a Whaler, same as those we had! These questions are never ending! The written part of the examinations were not so difficult, however, one had to know how to make a proper report in the Ship‟s Logbook, which was kept daily by the Quatermasters. There were times when there were unprecedented incidents on board, and you may have been present when such an incident took place, so you would have to make out a proper report in case of an official inquiry. 173 The practical part of the examination had various parts, one was on the Parade Ground. Normally you would get a platoon of officers to drill. All the normal parade ground commands had to be done, especially rifle drill. The whole purpose of this was to ascertain whether or not you had „power of command‟. The reason for using officers was to see if you could control your nerves or not. You could not, on the parade ground say, for instance, “Begging your pardon, Sir, would you mind standing to attention?” No way, you would, in a very loud voice give the command, „Squad, or whatever, depending on how many men you had, quick march, pick up your feet, lift your chin there, you‟re not a bag of potatoes, that‟s better! Squad HALT. Fetch your rifles lets see if you can handle one! So they all go over to where the rifles are stacked in wigwam pattern on the parade ground. “ come on then, we don‟t have all day, look alive.” Squad, attention, slope arms, by the left, quick march! By now our Captain would come up, and sort of whisper in your ear, to dismiss, with a very broad smile on his face, you knew that you had passed this leg. There was a chap who had been seconded from the Royal Navy because of his brilliant knowledge of ASDIC, but he was 174 still an able seaman, had been for many years, he‟d been up for Leading Seaman quite a few times, knew all the answers, in fact he had caught some of the examiners. When it came to the power of command exam he failed miserably. He didn‟t have a very loud voice for starters. The day came when once again when Shorty Hancock had to do his exam on the parade ground. Big Dup decided that Shorty was going to pass this day. Dup gave him a heavy dose of Rum as well as some heavy encouragement, told him that no officer would bite him, that they were all just men like him, more Rum. The time had arrived. Shorty had his officers on the parade ground, a few of us watched from a distance. Man oh man, did he drill those officers, and the names he called them, like any regular G.I. Shorty now could put up his hook! 175 EAST COAST GOOD WILL CRUISE. Our Naval Contingent consisted of three ships: The Frigate, “Transvaal” The Destroyer “Jan van Riebeek”, and the Mine Sweeper, “Bloemfontein.” With the Bloem as part of our fleet it would definitely mean that this was going to be a slow cruise, mainly because the Bloemfontein had a maximum speed of about ten knots or so, very slow, but that would make it all the more interesting, especially if we came across schools of Dolphins or even whales, but the chances of encountering whales in those latitudes would be very rear. Our first port of call would be a little place stuck up in the very North Eastern corner of Madagascar, called Diego Suarez. We had a very interesting cruise up the Eastern Coast of Africa, veering Eastward away from the normal shipping lanes because this would be an ideal time to carry out some exercises, bearing in mind that this was a fleet of Warships, and we did have a few things in our armory that were still listed as top secret, so we couldn‟t just go about exposing such things to all, and sundry, now could we? We even passed the sea Jackstay, first with a bread basket loaded with about twenty loaves, and then we got really courageous, Captain Foughs was invited over for Sunday Dinner, 176 so we passed him over from the JVR, our flagship to us, yes you guessed it, by the Sea Jackstay. He said later that he quite enjoyed the ride!! Later Fougy went back to his own ship, however, in order to get this operation down to a fine art, we passed all other kinds of stores from one ship to the other. This was just a practice run using the sea jackstay before we passed Captain Fouhgs over from the JvR to Transvaal. 177 Passing the Captain from the JvR to Transvaal by means of the Sea Jackstay, while steaming on the Indian Ocean. 178 The following day we practiced towing ships, just to sort of get us used to the idea, perhaps for, in an emergency like, you know. Man over board or something like that this was the Navy all right, anything to keep us from getting bored, the sea being flat and all, one could quite easily get bored, without any life under your feet!! In order to get the tow rope from one ship to the other, one had to first of all shoot a light line across from one ship to the other, by using a .303 rifle, fitted with a special device, once this had been accomplished a heavier line was attached, and so the lines became heavier and heavier until a proper tow rope could be attached from one ship to the other. The Jan van Riebeek, being the most powerful of the three ships in our little convoy, was chosen to tow us, that is the Transvaal. Even if it did take quite a few tries at getting the lines across, due to a bit of a cross wind, everything went off very well, in fact we were all quite proud of our expertise during the whole operation. Our Captains too were very pleased, and so the order was given to “Splice the Main Brace”. Now to any land lubbers who may be reading this story, that means, a double tot of rum to all the crew. No, not the 179 Officers, they only get to splice the main brace on a direct order from the reigning Monarch. DIEGO SUAREZ, MADAGASCAR. At last we were nearing our destination, Diego Suarez. What a sight to see, the bay was massive, it looked like the sea itself, in fact we later learned that both the American, and the British Navies had been trying, without any success, to lay hold of this port because they maintained that they could, during the war years, anchor their entire fleets in this bay, it was so large. As one looked about it was obvious that plenty other shipping companies also thought so, judging from the number of wrecked tankers as well as cargo ships, lying half submerged in the shallower water, there must have been some heavy fighting there during the war. It so happened that foreign tankers, especially, sailed into Diego Suarez either to avoid bad weather or perhaps to effect repairs. Unfortunately for them, they never got out of the bay again because, the Japanese had their spies out, reporting all the ships that ventured into the bay. This gave the Japs ideal targets to eliminate any supplies of much needed oil, and other supplies 180 carried by the merchant ships. The wrecked remains of the ships were there to prove this point. The mooring jetties were quite ancient too, not very spacious at all. Mind you the best joke of all was when the Pilot came aboard. Now, let us get one thing straight. A warship Captain never ever needs a Pilot to berth his ship, however, here this was a French Government regulation, that no ship will venture into Diego Suarez without a French Pilot in command, the reason being that the bottom of this particular bay is so treacherous that it would be absolute suicide to even try to find your way into the safe channels, which the French had dredged. The joke was that the Pilot could not speak English or, knowing the French, would not speak English, and eventually we found one of the ACF ratings who knew a few words of French, so at last we could tie up alongside. The Minesweeper Bloemfontein was the only ship able to moor along side the quay, for lack of space, the JvR, and Transvaal had to tie up Stern to. 181 Moored, Stern to in Diego Suarez, Madagascar. Fortunately, I wasn‟t on duty the first night, so I was one of the lucky ones to be able to go ashore when “Liberty Men” fell in at 16:30. 182 What an experience. The town was not very large, maybe about the size of Muizenberg, which would make it a little larger than Snookie. The taxis were another thing, this was quite unique, they would charge you 10 francs anywhere, which was very reasonable considering that we got 940 francs to £1. That made one franc worth almost a farthing, seeing as there were 960 farthings to £1. Now in today‟s money here in South Africa in the year 2010 the equation looks like this. R1 would be worth approx. 10 shillings, which would be approx. 100 ¢, so that would be equal to say 470 farthings. Now, to bring it back to francs, your taxi ride would cost you, approximately 10f which in turn would be worth 4.7 farthings. Crazy, isn‟t it? In any event, it was a very hot day, the only beer we could find was Dutch, called “Oranje Boom”, it had a little picture of an Orange tree on the bottles label, it didn‟t taste too bad, but it was a long cry from our South African Lager. There were no fridges anywhere, so there were no cold beers anywhere that we could buy, so we went onto hard tack, Cognac was cheap as well as Whisky, trust Fanie Justin to discover Parfait Amour, this was a drink in an upside down cone shaped bottle, the colour was purple, and it was very potent, if you drank enough of it, the price was 183 good, so it went down well. It was only the next morning that Fanie found out just how dumb he had been, his hang over lasted almost the whole day. I suppose it is the law of averages that makes some guys the ones that are always in trouble. Well, Tex Lastmann was one of them, trust him to get mixed up with a woman who had crabs. These are creepy crawlies that men pick up from a certain type of woman who roams the streets. Tex went to see the Doctor about his dilemma. The good Doctor decided that the best way of getting us to keep away from the “Wayward Floozies” of Diego Suarez would be to show just what these Creepy crawlies looked like, so, lower decks were cleared. We all had to line up, down the alleyway to the sick-bay, to await our turn to have a good look into the Microscope. I assure you there was not one of us who, having had a good look at a crab, crawling around inside the microscope, came out of the sick-bay without scratching his, you know what!! After this little lesson there were no more alien creepy crawlies reported on board our ship. Doc Clelland knew just how to make us guys aware of all the shore side dangers lying out there, once again proving that 184 Confusious was right when he said that „every picture is worth a thousand words,‟ scratch, scratch!! SIGHT SEEING OUTING. The next day we were all, except the duty watch, invited to go out into the bay on board a French Tug. We were going to see some of the sights that Diego Suarez had to offer, remember, this was a “Good Will” tour, we were on! So how could we refuse, even if we could not speak the language? We did manage to get by with hand signs though. These Frogs were out to give us a real good time, because no sooner were we out of the harbour, and the anchor dropped off a magnificent beach than the booze up started. The sign language came in real handy here, I must say, all you needed to do was to show how large you wanted your drink to be, and the host would just go ahead and double the size of it. We found out that they were drinking what they called “Pastis” in other words this was Aniseed brandy or something of that sort. One didn‟t feel anything in the beginning, but later on, when this stuff hit you, you knew all about it. 185 The skipper then decided to take his tug as near inshore as possible, they dropped two anchors, one for‟d ,and one aft, just to be safe, in case the wind turned, and the tug ran aground, good seamanship, ne‟s pa? We had to wade ashore in knee deep water, but after all that Pastis, who cared? This was one of the most magnificent beaches one could imagine. It wasn‟t very wide, but the sand was so fine, it squeaked underfoot. The only other place that I have ever experienced that, was years later at Camps Bay, in Cape Town. Along the beach we discovered a fisherman making himself a new fish net. His thread consisted of rayon thread, nylon thread had not yet hit the market at that time, well at least not in Madagascar. This rayon thread was taken from an old truck tyre which he was stripping, cleaning the rubber off by the use of two corn cobs, the thread in between, the cobs dragged over the thread to remove the rubber. The thread was held tight by hooking it around his big toe, and the next one. When he had cleaned enough thread, he would knot it into his net. One will never know how many tyres he needed to make one net, or how big the net grew to, or how many fish he would catch with it. One thing we do know, and that is, that here we saw the true meaning of “Human 186 Resources” one hears so much about it now a days. I‟m sure that people are getting softer by the day. There is more than one way to catch a fish, you either hook „em or net „em. He nets „em! 187 The other thing that took my interest was a sign on a gate, it read “ Hotel Plage”. This hotel consisted of a few chalets, three or four, a place to cook food, no, I wouldn‟t even call it a galley or kitchen, it was just somewhere to make food on an open fire. The bar was the main attraction. The setting was grand though, on the beach, under great big palm trees. Years later, when I was studying the French language, I learned that Plage meant beach, so this then was in fact the Beach Hotel! Care to go fishing in my Dugout Canoe or a drive in my posh Automobile? 188 Eddy Lawson poses for a picture, in front of the Hotel Plage, mind the dog. 189 Around 16:00 we were all back on board the tug, heading back to the harbour. When we disembarked from the tug we had to walk through the centre of the town, in order to get back to our ships which were moored on the other side of the harbour. You would never believe what we saw there. Standing on a box we saw a Gendarme who was directing traffic. Being late in the day, there was quite a lot of traffic, however, what we saw, I‟m sure would never be seen again anywhere. I wanted to take photographs of what we were looking at. When the Gendarme saw the camera, he showed me in no idle manner that photos were not permitted, but, he could never rub that picture out of my mind. This Gendarme, dressed in a very smart uniform, with long white plumes in his, what looked like an 18th Century military pith helmet, Putties wrapped around his legs, and bare feet!! Without blinking an eye, he walked over to the side of the road, with his big toe hooked over the edge of a bucket, he tipped it over, spilling the contents into the road. Let me explain. The men‟s urinal consisted of a corrugated iron enclosure alongside the main street. Once inside one found a corrugated iron 190 trough, on a stand, set at an angle, so that the urine could run along the length of it, spilling into a bucket, probably about 25ℓ. This was the bucket which the policeman tipped over; we stood aghast watching the whole performance. Maybe you would like to send this one in to Ripley‟s believe it or not, if there are any of my fellow sailors still alive, who saw this on that trip, I‟m sure they would corroborate my tale. I don‟t know what facility there was for the fairer sex! Early next morning we waved adieu to Diego Suarez. By the Grace of God we would be in Mombasa in due course. MOMBASA, KENYA EAST AFRICA. The harbour of Mombasa is built on the river, so ships have to sail up the river to get to their mooring in the docks. This place was really in the jungle at that time. We didn‟t stay there very long, I think lots of us were quite happy about that. When we got ashore we were swamped by Indian money changers. 191 Kenya, being a British Colony at that time, also used the British monetary system, however, with a slight difference. The Pound Sterling was equal to ours, they also had shillings, one shilling was equal to 100 cents, they didn‟t have pennies, don‟t ask me why, I never could find out, and quite frankly at that time, I didn‟t care either! These Indian money changers kept on offering us a shilling more for our Pound, in other words they offered us a guinea for a South African Pound. We had been warned about this, these guys were very sly, you see, we were not familiar with their one pound notes, so we would not know counterfeit from the genuine thing. Thanks to our intelligence boffins, I don‟t think anybody was caught out. Generally speaking we did not like Mombasa very much, more so after, when entering the river mouth there was a huge bill board advertising “Cold Castle”. We happily thought, at last, we could enjoy a good South African beer, instead of the “Oranje Boom” we had to endure in Diego Suarez. To get into town it was necessary to go in by taxi, because it was quite a long walk, so four of us hailed a taxi, when we asked him what the cost would be he said 7/6, so seven shillings and sixpence (75¢) seemed quite reasonable to us. When we got to our 192 destination, which could not have been more than a few miles away, which in the heat of Tropical Africa, was very far for us to walk, never mind the safety aspect, which one always had to bear in mind in any foreign port, this taxi driver wanted £3/0/0. That would be 75¢ each. Quite happily we directed him to the nearest lake, and told him to jump!! These Indian fellows never do business without bartering, they love it. This was what one had to do if you wanted to buy anything. He would start off by asking £5.0.0 for an item, you would immediately knock him down to £2/10/0, That would have been R5.00, half of what he wanted, then he would quibble about it, and so it went with just about anything one wanted to buy, even fruit. We did this just for fun, we didn‟t have a lot of money to buy anything, only beer money. When you had bartered, and come to an agreement, you would just turn, and walk away, it was quite a game. Some of them became very abusive, then, we would go at them in Afrikaans. What got to us were the big gobs of red juice all over the streets, this was from the beetle nuts that these people chew, all day long. Their teeth are so badly stained they are almost black. I suppose one could call it tradition. 193 The first night ashore took a few of us to the BESL CLUB. Alex, Fanie, and I, were always together. We were sitting there, quietly minding or own business over a couple of drinks when, the dance floor was pointed out to us. This dance floor wasn‟t very large, large enough though but, the marvel of it was that originally it had been a massive Cream of Tarter Tree which, had been sawn off, polished ,and then the club was built around it. Gentle soft music was playing, I don‟t remember what, however, I do remember the three lovely young ladies who came walking in, show me the sailor who doesn‟t look. There we were, cracking jokes as to what a night it could be, of course we were speaking in Afrikaans. One does not discuss somebody sitting close to you in any language that they may understand, now does one? These three young ladies were speaking in the best English one could ever hope to encounter, accents and all. That was when the bubble burst, the quiet one, she had been listening to us, and our bravado, piped up in perfect Orange Free State Afrikaans, wanting to know just which one of us was going to do what with them. Well now, we ended up dancing, and more drinks, and so 194 the night wore on. It was all very pleasant actually, they were lonely, and so were we, and then we weren‟t so lonely anymore! DAR – ES – SALAAM TANGANYIKA (Now called TANZANIA) EAST AFRICA. SAS Transvaal. A beautiful little harbour, well protected from the open sea. I took this shot from the ferry boat jetty while on a run ashore. 195 The water taxi which took us to the Dolphin Hotel, across the bay. No, there are two oarsmen, it‟s just that the other one was sitting directly behind his partner. The charge was probably about a shilling, if that! Dar – es – Salaam, what a really beautiful little harbour city, it was small, however, I suppose one could call it a city because, in that part of Africa a town would probably consist of just a few little houses, if one could call them that, so this was a city we are now talking about, at least it did have a very smart hotel, but to get to it meant that you had to hire a water taxi. 196 When we got across to the Dolphin Hotel, maybe it is still there, operating under the same name, who knows? We had to jump ashore onto a jetty, and then walk up the jetty, to the entrance. The first thing you think of is a nice cold Castle, no Castle! So now what? O.K. Bells, it cost a shilling a tot, large tots at that! Soda was free if you were in uniform, now that was a bonus! The main drink in those parts, however, was Gin and Tonic, or just plain G&T. The English believed that because the Tonic contained Quinine it would prevent them from contracting Malaria, and sure death, as a result, that‟s why it was more expensive, I suppose. The next day, Friday, we decided to try the other hotel closer to the city, it had a unique lounge, with large live palm trees growing in it, a magnificent view of the harbour. The waiters spoke perfect English, probably educated in a private English school. The service, however, was a bit slow, maybe because of the heat! 197 This was the „other hotel‟, the one with the palm trees. The steps lead up into the lounge. A beautiful view of the entire harbour. In the town centre was a Mosque, directly opposite the hotel on the other side of a very wide roadway. Now, everybody knows what happens inside a Mosque at mid-day on a Friday. A bunch of us were sitting in the lounge of this hotel. Happy Bobkins had ordered his beer, and because the waiter was taking such a long time bringing it, and Happy had a vicious hang-over, he was getting restless, it was then that he saw all the hundreds of shoes set out upon the steps of the Mosque. 198 Oh, what sailors will do, especially when they are still half shot from the night before, so, no problem to our hero, he jumps up, runs across the road, and does a re-shuffle of all those shoes. Man, you should have been there when those guys started looking for their shoes, nobody knew whose shoes were whose. Ah well, anything for a little excitement. I still don‟t know how we got away with it, they would not have just grabbed Happy, they‟d have gone crazy, and blamed all of us, maybe they were afraid of our uniforms, who knows? Early the next morning we weighed anchor, once we were clear of the harbour we set our course for home. Now we had heard that the Moçambique Channel could be very treacherous, in that, from a beautiful calm sea the weather could change into a raging monster in a very short space of time. Well, that is just what we experienced the first night out there in the wide open sea. All of a sudden we were in the middle of a raging storm. 199 THE MOÇAMBIQUE CHANNEL. The sea watches had to carry on as usual, and it so happened that I had been on the middle watch, from mid-night to 04:00. Steering the ship had been a tough job for the duty quartermaster, I‟m sure. Remember that when we were at sea I had to do my duty in the Radar cabin. I cannot remember if I have mentioned this before, however, I had qualified as a Radar Operator, I carried the rating as an R.P.3, which stands for, Radar Plotter, 3rd class. Did you know that the name RADAR stands for Radio, Direction and Range. Thus a Radar operator could send out a Radio signal, which would bounce back to him, giving the direction of an object, and the range in Kms or Nautical miles. With this information it is now possible for him to determine where the object is, in relation to the ship, this gives one the direction, and range. This one reads off on what is called the PPI. Thus the Radar becomes the eyes of the ship. While we are on this subject, the ASDIC becomes the ears of the ship. Only by experience can any body identify what the object on the screen is, fishing vessel, large oil tanker, low flying aircraft, sub marine snorkel. In the case of the Asdic information, there too experience teaches one to identify 200 various objects like a school of Porpoises, a floating container that has been lost by a passing Box Boat, and it is barely visible on the surface, a sub marine which is moving 100 feet or deeper below the surface, a torpedo, which is headed toward the ship. Sorry to get carried away like that, let us continue to where I was just coming off watch at 04:00; I was on my way to my hammock after having been relieved of duty by Tubby Van. A WET AWAKENING. As I entered the for‟d mess, all of a sudden, the ship rolled over, probably about 40º to Port. Ronnie Shamblin had put out a windscoop at mid-night when he came off watch, right opposite his hammock. It had been a very hot night. Let me explain, a windscoop is a length of steel pipe, probably about 15” in diameter (380mm) and about 40” (a little more than a meter) long. It is made so that it cannot fall out of a port hole because that is where it gets used, in order to scoop cool air into the mess deck. How was Ronnie to know that at 4 o‟clock in the morning this windscoop was going to scoop cold water, instead of air, right into his hammock where he was fast asleep. 201 Just imagine this full scoop if cold water right into your hammock, by the time the second scoop of water arrived, Ronnie was screaming down the alleyway, thinking that the ship was sinking. That was just when I was there to stop him, make a dash for the porthole, pull the scoop back out of the porthole, and close it, before the next roll of the ship. Ronnie was standing there in his birthday suit, looking very sorry for himself, by now everybody was awake. They made Ronnie get a bucket, and dry up all the water, which by now was about a foot deep, swishing back and forth with every roll of the ship. If clothing was left lying around the previous night, which was strictly against the rules, it would all be wet by now. Just as well ships are built with combings in the doorways. What‟s a combing? Let me explain, in a normal house the floor is level throughout, in a warship a combing is built in the doorways, this is just a sheet of steel about 300mm high between compartments. This makes it possible to seal off a compartment with a watertight door that is specially built for the purpose. Our Flotilla arrived safely in Durban, the very first thing that happened was the Customs Officers came on board. They 202 wanted to know what we had to declare, I don‟t know if anybody had anything except one chap who thought that he was going to make a joke of it, he held up a cocoanut to declare, can you believe it, he had to pay 7/6 (75¢) duty on his cocoanut! We did not think it was very sporting of the Customs Officials. SPROG SAILING. Dick Henson, and I, used to go sailing in his Sprog sailboat, we used to set sail after deciding which way we were going to go. This all depended on how the wind was blowing. We always went out on a Wednesday, which, in the Navy was called, Make & Mend day. That was the day on which one was supposed to see to all your clothes etc. Like sewing on buttons where they had come loose, or lost. Cleaning your number one shoes. Doing your „doughby‟, and all that sort of thing. O.K. So you want to know what doughby is, I cannot tell you where the word came from, anyway, this is what it means; All it is, is your washing and ironing. Most of us however, used to pass all our dirty washing on to an Indian Laundry. They used to come to the ship, collect all your doughby and bring it back sparkling clean. Of course one had to make a check list in duplicate, one copy to him, and the other stayed in your book. When you paid him one had to make sure that 203 you obtained his signature for the money. People who didn‟t bother with all this sort of thing often used to become very frustrated, they‟ed eventually end up having to do all their own doughby, because the laundries didn‟t want to do business with them. This made things a lot worse for them, especially if they did not wash their clothes properly, either they would end up with doughby rash, or they would get into trouble because their cloths were dirty, not having been washed properly. The moral of the story was, „Let the Indian Laundry do your doughby‟ after all, they were not expensive. Oh, yes, I nearly forgot, doughby rash. This is what happens when all the soap is not properly rinsed out of your clothing, especially your trousers, and even your dikies too. When that happens you develop a most irritating itch in your crotch or under your arms, and on your feet as well. Just as a matter of interest, in those days there were not any of the fancy washing powders which are available today. All we used to use was a cake of Sunlight Soap. Wednesday was a half day for us on which we could do whatever. Lots of guys went ashore, others did a bit of fishing, Dick and I sailed in his Sprog, which is a very small sailing craft, there used to be another one called a Dabchick, this was even smaller than the Sprog. 204 STORMY WEATHER. There came a day when we were out, and suddenly a storm blew up, we were far away from Salisbury Island. We had been running before the wind, doing about 8 knots, we were past the Graving Dock, close to Hullets Sugar when the weather just changed. Now we had to go about, which meant that we had to tack, all the way back. It was decided that we would make for “T” Jetty, the nearest place for shelter, hoping that the wind would drop, and then give us a chance to make a run for the Island, and safety. The same circumstances as what happened to us that time with the ship‟s Whaler, that Sunday afternoon, remember? I‟ll never forget it! The wind was so strong that it seemed as if we were hardly making any headway, however, when one looked at the buildings ashore, like the Yacht Club for instance, you could see that we were progressing. By this time we were both soaking wet from the wind, and the spray being thrown up. I for one, was half frozen, blue with cold, and Dick was just as bad, but we had to keep going or drown. What would the Newspapers say about such an 205 incident, imagine the head lines. “Two Sailors drowned after being caught in a storm”. Well we weren‟t, now were we! This was the night that 10% of the South African Naval Forces‟ Vessels sank in Durban. You may not believe me, I‟ve got photographs to prove it, pull up a chair, and let me tell you. How I got to 10% is like this. There were a total of ten vessels based at Salisbury Island in our Navy at that time, viz: Jan van Riebeek – Destroyer. Simon van der Stel – Destroyer Transvaal – Frigate Good Hope – Frigate Natal – Frigate Pieter Maritzburg – Mine Sweeper Bloemfontein – Mine Sweeper Bar Brake – Boom Defense Vessel Bar Cross – Boom Defense Vessel Spindrift – Boom Defense Vessel – Sunk during storm. 206 During the World War 2, the German Navy was very active around our South African coast. The Germans would try anything to gain information concerning our Naval strength, so they sent out three vessels disguised as fishing boats, however, they were equipped with the very latest modern technology at that time. It is not known if these vessels did any successful spying in our waters before they were captured. They were then turned into Boom Defense Vessels, and re-named Bar Cross, Bar Brake, and Spindrift. It was during this storm that HMSAS Spindrift sank at her moorings. She just lost her bottom! 207 HMSAS Spindrift, still tied to the Bollard on the quay side! 208 HMSAS SPINDRIFT 10% of the South African Naval Forces‟ Vessels based in Durban sunk at her moorings during very heavy storm. The reason why she sank was quite simple. In order for them to be used in Boom Defense activities, they had to be made more stable in the water than what they were originally, so the Bilges were filled with concrete in order to give them the added stability that was needed. After the War these vessels were tied up alongside, and never maintained again. This resulted in her bottom 209 rusting through, the concrete which had been pumped into her bilges about fifteen years earlier just dropped out, and the sea rushed in, making her sink at her moorings. SICK BAY. Two days after the storm in which we were caught I was admitted to the Sick Bay with a heavy dose of Pneumonia. I was kept there for ten days, being pumped full of Penicillin. I think I had to get a dose every 4 hours, and because of that I very rapidly became allergic to the stuff. I have since been warned that if I should ever be given one more Penicillin injection I would die, so be careful! I had already reached the stage of recovery where I did not have to be in bed all the time. I decided to go, and see what all the noise was in the casualty ward, it was Saturday night, a rough one. There were quite a number of Zulus who were also stationed on Salisbury Island, they were mostly used for menial jobs in the Galley, cleaning in the Training Base, and the Senior Officers‟ gardens etc. One of these Zulus came into the Sick Bay, covered in blood, running down his face. He had been stabbed in the head 210 during a fight, the wound in his head, an open gash, was bleeding profusely. Dozy was detailed off to see to this casualty, now Dozy should rather have been a little girl, if you know what I mean. The Doctor told him to give the patient an injection to calm him down, and then to stitch up the wound after cleaning it. Dozy came along with the Hypodermic Needle filled with what have you, and as he was about to administer the injection he fainted. I was just in time to catch him, otherwise he might have done himself an injury. Time had come for Dozy to say to himself, “Myself, I‟ve had enough of this man‟s Navy, I‟m off.” So, he was, he just disappeared without a trace, naturally, he was reported as being AWOL The South African Police, the Military Police, everybody was on the lookout for this chap. Eventually, after about two months, who pitches up? Dozy, he had been caught in Southern Rhodesia, now Zimbabwe. When asked how he managed to get across the border without a passport he said that all he did was to show them his I.D. Card. He had no money either, just shows you, if you are pressed hard enough wonders never cease. I don‟t remember what ever happened to Dozy, I think the Navy gave him a Medical Discharge and, 211 recommended mental treatment. He was the sort of guy who could quite easily drive any G.I. to drink. At Parade Training he was the only guy to end up with the muzzle of his rifle pointing to the ground when he was supposed to slope arms. He once dropped his rifle and, the G.I. told him to drop next to it, and stay there until the drill was over, so, he dropped down, and lay next to his rifle, when he got up eventually everybody could see that he had been crying, oh, well! That was when they sent him to the Sick-Bay to try and turn him into a Sick Bay Tiffy. Nobody knows how he ever got into the Navy! Your guess is as good as mine! 212 THE GREAT ZULU WARRIOR! Just a little quip about Zulus who used to work on the ship in Durban, on a casual basis, as I mentioned earlier, to do the cleaning up, and so on, because we were always short staffed. Now get this picture, we are all lined up on the Quarter deck, time, about 07:30. Petty Officer Ginger Wilkinshire is the duty P.O. His patients are very limited, as are those of many red headed guys that I have ever known. His job this morning is to detail these Zulus off to get certain things done on the Upper Deck, anybody who was not a member of the crew was forbidden to go between decks. Ginger knows about three words of Zulu, the Zulus know zilch about English. The battle rages on, Ginger gets madder, and every body waits. We, the ships crew dare not interfere, in fact we want to see where this is going to end. Paul Pulpit, who speaks perfect Zulu, buttons his lip, and so does Bernard Marist, who also speaks the lingo. They are too scared to speak up in case they get hammered for insubordination. Remember, by this time Ginger is boiling. A loud voice is suddenly heard among the bunch of Zulus, this giant of a guy steps forward, with his hands in the air. “Take it easy Ginge”, jess yo take it easy, my man, he says, with a very 213 strong American accent, direct from the Deep South. Ahl tak care o dees black fellas fer yo, now watcha want „em doin? Meantime we just have to keep very straight faces. Ginger nearly fell over, however, he does manage to compose himself, only just in time too. He tells this big guy what he wants, the big guy details them off in perfect Zulu, and the day‟s work begins, and runs like clockwork. It turned out that this big guy, we found out later was Benjamin Khumalo, born and bred in Durban, at the age of 18, he left home as a stowaway on an American merchant steamer. When he was discovered the Captain of his ship felt compassion for him. In New Orleans he managed, with the help of his Captain, to get his paper work all sorted out, eventually obtaining American Citizenship. Now, some fifteen years later he found himself at a loose end, had missed his ship somehow, and had to find a job, somewhere, so there you have it. 214 THE COCKTAIL PARTY. A „Cocktail Party‟ had been arranged for some dignitaries who were coming to visit the ship, the Mayor of Cape Town, and quite a few of his Councilors, plus some overseas visitors as well. Anyway, the Quarter Deck had to be made up with light stringers, you know, like they do around to tops of buildings at festive seasons. Tables were set out for all kinds of fancy eats that are normally served at Cock Tail parties. Booze was plentiful, all kinds, Champers in abundance, plus all the rest. Now this is where a sailor‟s brain starts working overtime. The big question was „how to lay hands on a few bottles without getting caught.‟ Now remember by this time I had passed the duties of being the Galley Tanky. I had been given the job of working with Dougie Batson, who was to teach me how to splice steel wire rope and, in general to take care of all the upper deck rope work. I even had a set of keys to the Port, and the Starboard Sponson Lockers, in which all the ropes, lines, Crosby clamps, cod line, shackles of various sizes, and Manilla rope of different sizes were kept, under lock and key. 215 Equipment like this could very easily find it‟s way ashore, to be sold or exchanged for drink or cigarettes or what have you, so this was a pretty responsible job, I‟m sure you will agree. Right; back to the Cocktail Party preparations. Happy Bopkins, was quite a schemer whenever it came to booze, one will always find some guy who gets very clever when he is full of booze, Happy was one of those, maybe that is why he was called Happy, always smiling, always scheming. He comes to me with a long story about needing some cod line, this is manila cord about ¼” thick, say 5mm. This cord is urgently needed for the hand rails on the quarter deck, a certain section has to be cordoned off in the Bar area, and the Jimmy needs it like pronto. Three six metre lengths with soft eyes spliced into both ends. Well, if the Jimmy said so I‟d better look alive, and get on with it, so I did. Happy said that I must not bring them to the Quarter Deck, because only those who were involved in the preparations were allowed to enter the Quarter Deck area. Ratings were not allowed there, only those who had been detailed off, for this very important job of getting everything ship shape for the visiting dignitaries. 216 The duty watch had been given orders not to come near the quarter deck. They could, however, march up, and down the quayside, just to see that nobody touches the official cars. Jeffry, the one with the lovely body, remember him? The Signalman on the Marion Island trip, O.K. Well he, and Dick Jewel, the Radio Operator, had to see that soft music was played through the ships upper deck loud speaker system, only the music must not be loud, it must be soft, catchy, and up to date, top of the Hit Parade stuff, you know! I remember songs like, Moon River, Via Con Dios, Quanta La Mera, My Funny Valentine, Frankie and Johnny, Pretty Women, Blues in the night, I‟ve Got Rhythm. Those days we sure had song writers, and Big Bands, and singers, not mumblers, screaming all three words of the lyrics over, and over as they do nowadays, and get paid millions for their trouble. Among other things, somebody made a huge bowl of punch. In it were various kinds if alcohol, plenty of Cane Spirit, naturally, and Pine Apple chunks as well, raisins, sultanas as well, a wee drop of Rum I‟m sure, and lots of Champers, man, this stuff was potent. I didn‟t know this in the beginning, only found out afterwards. A very good time was had by all though, the rest of the ship‟s crew were all asleep when the party ended, only the Duty 217 Watch was up, they had to clean up everything, so that by daybreak, nobody would even know that there had been a riotous party on the go until about 2am. The officers, including the Jimmy had all retired for the rest of the hours of darkness. This is what Happy had been waiting for, he had arranged with Stanley, the Electrician to put off the quarterdeck lights for about two minutes, that is about all it took. The electrical store‟s door was to be left open, all part of the deal, right. I had unknowingly made up the lengths of cod line for the bottles of booze to be hung over the stern of the quarter deck, that was the only reason that I was let into this little caper. The bottles were dangling over the end of the stern, into the water, where they would be kept cool, and totally out of sight! Happy gave the signal, the bottles of booze, which had been tied with the cod line, were now, very rapidly hoisted up, put into a wooden box and, carried very quickly into the Electrical Workshop for storage, and consumption at a later date! In the meantime the rest of us got stuck into eating the booze soaked pine apple chunks from the punch left overs. That in itself was a party. We all still had hangovers for most of the next day. An experience one never really forgets. 218 DETENTION BARRACKS, SO EASY TO GET THERE! A day or two later, another incident took place. I often wondered why so many dignitaries came to visit the ship. Then I realized that these were some of the visitors who had been at the „Cock Tail Party‟. They were all coming to say thanks for a wonderful party. In the meantime J.J., a Stoker, had been ashore, he had gone via the Station Pub, picked up a bottle of Brandy, and was now on his way back to the ship after knocking back a few doubles. In those days the docks were still open, no fences, so there were no Customs Officers to stop you. He arrived at the gangway just as our Captain was going ashore with one of the visitors. The South Easter was blowing force 7to 8, a fresh gale. J.J. in a proper Seamanlike manner stands to attention at the foot of the gangway, ready to salute his Captain, as he gets to him. He, in his drunken stupor puts the bottle under his right arm, maybe to try, and hide it, I don‟t know. As the Captain gets to J.J. he lifts his right arm in order to salute his Captain, the bottle falls to the ground, in this case it‟s the concrete quayside, the wind grabs the bottle, and blows it all along the quay, no it doesn‟t 219 break, who knows why? J.J. forgets all about his Captain, he is not letting his bottle get away that easy, no sir, he immediately chases after it, and rescues it, just before it falls over the edge into the sea. In the meantime Alex, and I just so happen to be standing on the upper deck at the top of the gangway, we witness this whole scenario in full colour and stereophonic sound. Captain Nephews, turns around, always the proper gentleman, calmly says to Alex, who happened to be the duty quartermaster, and says, ”Quartermaster, arrest that man!.” And then he calmly gets into the car waiting for him at the quayside, not a flicker of emotion on his face at all, completely dead pan, although, I‟m sure he must have had a very good laugh later on, because this whole thing was so spontaneous, and it all happened so quick. The next day J.J., still under open arrest had to appear Starboard Side For‟d on Captain‟s Report. He was up for a Court Marshall. Court Marshall! Now here‟s a nice little tidbit that was almost forgotten. In the event of anyone going up for a Court Marshal, the ship‟s largest gun has to fire a shot, blank of course, to open the proceedings. Remember, this is always a very serious offence that has to be judged. The ruling is, if the Defendant is found to be 220 „Not Guilty‟ he does not have to pay for the gunshot that was fired. If, on the other hand, he is found „Guilty‟ he has to bear the cost of the gunshot, which will be docked off his pay. Under normal circumstances the minimum sentence is 90 days Detention Barracks. In this case, the felony having occurred in Cape Town, sentence would be served at the Wynberg Military Barracks, if he were to be found „Guilty‟ The charges being, breaking out of ship, because he had gone ashore without permission. Breaking back into ship. Not giving a proper salute to his Captain. Being under the influence of alcohol. Attempting to smuggle an alcoholic beverage into the ship. If there was anything that had been forgotten then Section 40 of the Military Disciplinary Code of Conduct was also thrown in, just for good measure. As a matter of interest, in the Navy he could not be charged with drunkenness, because in the Navy you are either drunk or sober. If you could still stand on your own two feet, you were considered sober. If on the other hand you are flat out on the ground, you are drunk, no half measures, so in this case J.J. could not be charged with drunkenness!. I was one of the escorts who took him away to the Wineberg Military Barracks to serve out the 90 days in Detention, 221 which he had been given. When he got back to the ship, believe me, he was a changed man, he had calluses on his hands from digging holes like Johnny Grunwaldt had to do when he was sent to the Detention Barracks. Yes, they either make you, or break you, fortunately these guys were tough! Africa is no place for Sissies, they will never be able to take the pace. CAPE-EX. Every time I take a look at pictures in my Photo Album, old stories take up a new position in my memory. In the Navy one is continually busy with some or other exercise, between ships. There are always ships that are part of the South Atlantic Squadron who come here to South Africa on a visit. When they do there is always an excuse for going out on maneuvers. Cape-Ex, in other words Cape Exercises was an integral part of special training for the South Atlantic Squadron, of which we were a major part. This happened to be one of those times. The British Sub-Marine HMs/m Tabard came to visit us in Durban. I often used to think that it was their senior officers who had had enough of cold 222 rainy weather, and were longing for some of our bright, warm Sunshine. The Tabard was a “T” class sub, in other words she was built with a „Snorkel‟ which enabled her to sail about twelve to fifteen feet below the surface without being seen, because she had a snorkel, of course one could see the snorkel if your look-outs were wide awake, or if you had very good Radar equipment. The other advantage was that they could see any surface vessel which came into range of their Periscope. If they came into a threatening situation among hostile shipping, they could house the snorkel, and the periscope within seconds, and dive to a great depth. Within less than one minute they could be gone, only to surface a few kilometers away, if just to observe the enemy, set a torpedo on a course to blast him out of the water, and that was that. Maybe you, the reader can remember the J. Arthur Rank movie, “Morning Departure”, starring John Mills, and Richard Attenbourough. Their sub was the “Triumph”, also a “T” class sub. Those who came to visit us in Durban were the Trump, and the Tabard. Only, they didn‟t dive, and not come up again. Those were the days when, if you wanted to go for‟d, you had to ask 223 permission from the Duty Officer, because if you moved about, fore to aft, you could unbalance the ship. That is why one had to get permission so that the necessary adjustments could be made. Now here comes a story, and if you don‟t believe me then you will have to settle by calling me a liar, however, I tell you the honest truth, this is no longer a Naval Armament Secret, so, here goes. This is the situation, we, the Transvaal are out on the Ocean blue towing what was called a „splash target‟. This was an article that, when it is towed astern of a ship it throws up a plume of water to a height of about 5 feet, depending on how fast the target towing vessel is steaming. We the hunter, must detect the sub-marine, using our Asdic equipment. Radar must also look alive just in case you can spot the Sub‟s snorkel as it breaks the surface. The target is being towed about three hundred feet astern of us. I was on watch in the Radar Cabin, I spotted the Periscope, reported to the bridge, the order was given to Asdics, they were supposed to fire Depth Charges to eliminate the sub, in this case we used hand grenades, thrown over the ship‟s side which, I can tell you make a lot of noise underwater. In the meantime, from the moment that the 224 snorkel is sighted, the stop watch starts ticking, the sub breaks the surface, fires three shots from her 3”, (75mm) gun. The first shot was over the target, the second one was too low, the third shot destroyed the splash target, and the sub was gone, we could not even detect her on our Asdic equipment. We learned later that they crash dived straight to the bottom, and lay there in ninety feet of water. Silent, engines stopped, nobody could hear her. Now, here is what you must judge me on, whether or not I‟m lying, believe me, this is the truth, I was there. From the moment that the snorkel was spotted until that Sub-Marine, having fired three shots, and disappeared. Time elapsed, LESS THAN SIXTY SECONDS!!! We found out later just how they managed it, this was how. They too use Radar, while just under the surface, so now they have range and bearing on our position. The gun crew are already sitting crouched up in the Conning Tower, they are in Radio communication with the control table inside the sub. it‟s watertight door is now closed. The escape hatch is already open. The sub is still about twelve feet below the surface, they go through the escape hatch, making sure that the Conning Tower water tight hatch is properly closed, to prevent water getting into the sub., 225 now they swim onto the gun, load it, they have the bearing, as the barrel clears the water the first shot is fired, in this case it was over, the second one was under, and the third one on target. The gun gets locked into it‟s stowage position, they swim back into the escape hatch, batten down, pump out the water, and they are home, and dry through the Conning Tower again. Can you ever imagine just how much practice, discipline, courage, and just plain guts it takes to reach such a degree of expertise. Become a Sub-Mariner, and find out!! As for me, I prefer to see the Sunshine. I could never imagine being in a sub. for months at a time. At night in a calm sea they do get a break, because it is then that they surface in order to charge the batteries which they run on while under water. The Diesel generators run through the night, batteries are checked regularly while they are under cover of darkness. What a life? 226 HMs/m TABARD, a “T” Class Sub-marine, enters harbour in Durban. 227 Here she is again, preparing for an early morning departure. This will give her time to get lost, so that we can find her again! Note the Torpedo Tubes, those three black circles facing you! 228 The Destroyer Jan van Riebeek and the Fritgate Transvaal are out, prowling the seas in search of an enemy Sub-Marine. The Transvaal is closest to you. 229 This Sunderland Sea Plane was sighted off the coast of Moçambique. Now it was here off our coast. This they hoped would be an air attack, however, our Anti Aircraft fire was too fierce for them. They decided to surrender! 230 The Pom-Pom Anti-Aircraft gun made the Sunderland reconsider her attack. With four barrels spewing hot projectiles at them, whew! 231 The Oerlikan, a 30mm Anti-Aircraft gun is also a vicious weapon, note the Pom-Pom below in the centre. At the end of this caper we had all learned a great deal about what to do and what not to do. Have you ever been up in a Sunderland Sea Plane? Now, there is an experience that you will 232 never forget. What about being 100 feet below the surface of the sea in a Sub-Marine? Permission to go for‟d Sir, permission to go aft Sir. Up periscope, trim ship, Radar, report. Enemy bearing 60° Sir. These degrees that we talk about are not related to those on a geographical map of the world. They relate to the ship only, therefore 60° would be to the Starboard side of the ship. The ship‟s head being either 0° or 360°. If for instance the object was lying at 270° he would be directly on the Port side of the ship, got it? The Cape Ex. Maneuvers happened once a year, and we always enjoyed them. It was a lot of hard work mind, the main thing was, it made one truly realize that we were all in the same boat as it were. One learned to appreciate your fellow man, and to look out for him. There was no time for back biting, if you wanted to say something, you learned to say it, talk it out, shake hands, and the main thing was, FORGET IT! 233 DRINKS ALL ROUND. There are still so many things that I want to talk about, however, I‟ll only tell a couple of these stories with your permission, how‟s that? Danny Fences, he was a little chap, but full of bright ideas, always a laugh. The story goes like this, we went to the Cinema in Durban, there was a crowd of us, maybe five sailors. When interval came we all made a dash for the pub next door in the Mayfair Hotel, Danny, the little guy with a big voice calls the barman over, he announces, “When Danny drinks, everybody drinks!” Man, there were plenty drinkers there, you know the types who, at those prices only drank Brandy and Coke at a shilling a throw, but when Danny made this announcement they all just ordered whiskey. Danny says, “Right Gents, cheers!” He quickly puts his glass down with his money, and shouts, “When Danny pays, everybody pays!” He just made it out the door and, gone. Those drinkers were not happy, whiskey, those days was about 2/6 (25¢) a tot. He says he ran down the road, between the Playhouse and the Mayfair, around the block, and back to his seat in the Metro before the main show even started. 234 TOBACCO ADDICTION. Those years I smoked Cavalla Cigarettes, very expensive, used to buy two cartons for the month at 1/9 (19¢) for a packet of 50 cigarettes, of course we got then „Duty Free‟. There will always be one or two guys who will go ashore, paint the town red, spend all their money, and then bum smokes or tobacco or anything that they don‟t have money for anymore. I soon got the zigg to this sort of thing because I lived to a strict budget. I never borrowed money, and I refused to lend money to anybody. Oh, they came with all kinds of sob stories, the dog died or his Mom was coming to visit or ,or, or. You know all the stories. I decided that I was going onto “Ticklers”. A tickler is a home grown cigarette. You first of all bought your Rizzla cigarette papers, and your tickler tobacco. Now you were ready to roll your own, it took a lot of papers, tobacco, and patients, eventually you managed to make a smoke able Zoll. You think this would put the bums off, no way, the first thing they would say, “Hey, Proby, howz about the makings, man, I‟ve got the time!” Eventually I decided the only other way was to start smoking a pipe. I went in to a Tobacconist shop, opposite the Post 235 Office in Gardener Street. Bought myself a smart Dr. Plum pipe, and some tobacco; Boxer. This was a totally new experience to me, I never thought that it would be so difficult to smoke a pipe. All it took was perseverance, eventually I managed to use less matches, and I got to enjoy it, much more satisfying than a cigarette. Remember, all these things I just simply had to share with my adopted younger brother, Alex, I mean what did a Boy Seaman earn anyway, peanuts! Now I used to buy my pipe tobacco at my tobacconist in town. The Vultures were there all the time though, they would come there with all kinds of pipes, brown paper to roll a zoll with, even toilet paper. I had had enough of this, I decided that it was going to stop. I mean, these people only knew you while they could bum something from you, not one of them would ever offer to buy you a beer, not that I would have accepted it, it was just the principle of the whole thing. If I did accept a drink, I would be stamped as a drinking pal, and then I would be expected to pay their drinks as well! 236 I never ever thought that I was better than any of these guys, I never refused to give them what they wanted, however, I did let them know that they should not push their luck too far. This situation had become a bit too much, especially when you see these chaps boozing in the Canteen night after night, and the next day they are on the bum again. I decided that drastic situations needed drastic action. Off to my Tobacconist again, by now we had become good friends, I had bought about four pipes from him, so I did not have to smoke the same pipe day after day, at least I could make a change. He made a very good suggestion, it was this. I was to buy two tobacco pouches, identical. The one I would fill with my Boxer, and the other I would fill with a potent Magaliesberg mixture, this stuff was grey in colour, it reminded me of the gravel they use in road building. My Boxer went into my shirt pocket, and the Magaliesberg I kept in my back pocket. When one of the bummers came along for a „stop‟(a pipe fill) I‟d very happily pass on my Magaliesberg pouch. Just to watch these guys, they‟d pack the tobacco so tight that I often wondered how they could ever get the stuff to burn, that was with the Boxer, the Magaliesberg got the same treatment. 237 The first guy tried lighting his pipe, he had to light it there in front of me because he didn‟t have matches either. The first puff that he inhaled scared me, it knocked the breath out of him, I though that he was going to pass out. He went quite pale, gasping for breath he disappeared. He never came back again, so it went with the others as well. I had eventually solved my problem! Alex and I just could not stop laughing about this little joke, these guys knew that I would give them a fill, anytime, however, they were not prepared to take a chance. The Fleet is in, Salisbury Island, Durban. 238 My new Ice Cream suit. 239 Well, we always said that one day we would be Sailors. 240 AN OLD SALT’S GOOD ADVICE Any of you young men out there who may have read my stories. STOP NOW! Don‟t think that it is all a Bed of Roses, you have good days, and you have bad days, it all depends on YOU. All I can say is “Keep to the rules, and enjoy every day!” Remember when you laugh the whole world laughs with you, but when you cry, you cry ALONE! The years that I spent in the Navy were those years; today in this, the year of Our Lord 2010, is totally a different kettle of fish. It would be folly to try, and compare the two time periods. So many things have changed. The language, the dress, the regulations, everything is totally different. By now you would have realized that I was never a goody goody, I was always in trouble, however, I never once had to be under detention, I never had one day C.B. or D.B. for that matter. The main thing is to just behave yourself, do as you are told, keep out of trouble, by not taking unnecessary risks. Above all, keep clear of the law of the country in which you may find yourself. 241 NAVY DAYS GONE BY FOOTNOTE So, this is my story, I hope that you have enjoyed this short period of my life, with me. If you ever decide that you want to go to sea, then go, because if you don‟t, you will regret it for the rest of your life. The thought will always be with you. I promise you that these few short years have been with me all my life, and my greatest regret is, and has always been, that I did not make the Navy my life‟s career. I always tell young men that I should never, ever have left there, the biggest mistake of my life, except for the tattoos that I had put on my arms, in defiance of my dear mother‟s parting words “Now don‟t come home with Tattoos, my boy” I was a born rebel, so I only had 5 tattoos done, only because I was young, and very stupid, the only difference is that now I‟m not so young any more! If it should so happen that you are invited to go on an Officer‟s Course, then go! Don‟t worry about what your pals are going to say, it‟s YOUR NAVAL CAREER, and that is all that matters. Read your Bible, daily, yes, you can, make time, and live your entire life by what your Bible teaches you. May God bless you richly. 242 GOD bless you, HAPPY DAYS AT SEA. nb. Dry bread will ease the effects of sea sickness ! Christopher William Probert P 13655 All questions, if any, will be answered, just send to the address below E-Mail proby@mtnloaded.co.za