FROM ABADAN TO KARACHI
We left Abadan on the 6th of June. Since Abadan is further east than
Europe, we did not hear of the invasion of Normandy until later in
the day. We had all known it as "the second front" which was the
popular term for the expected invasion. We were all pleased that at
last, it had started, but from memory, I don't remember anyone
being either particularly happy or sad that we were not involved.
Several of the crew had been involved in other invasions - North
Africa, Sicily, Italy etc., and knew what it was all about. Like the
rest of the world, we listened with at first nervous interest to the
progress of the Allied armies, and were relieved when it was sure
that the Allies had indeed, established themselves once more on
continent Europe. Once the armies had established themselves, I
don't think we had any doubt about the eventual outcome.
We soon became aware that our destination was to be Karachi in
India (now Pakistan of course) and we settled in for the three or four
days steaming that it would take to get us there. Whereas when we
had first entered the Persian Gulf, it had seemed confined and very
hot, now, after leaving the even more confined Shatt al Arab river,
The Persian Gulf was truly a "breath of fresh air", and it was
pleasant to get away from the odour of petroleum products that was
always apparent in Abadan. Again, the sea was like glass, and I
experienced the pleasure of coming off watch at midnight, and
sitting on the bollards on the after deck with a mug of hot tea, (even
in the tropics, a mug of tea works wonders!) looking at the sea and
the stars, and wondering at the beauty that surrounded us.
Looking over the ship's side, we could see that where the ship's bow
wave was breaking the surface of the water, the resultant "froth"
was showing signs of the presence of phosphorus in the water, and
leaving a glowing trail which could be seen quite clearly in the
existing light. This in itself is not an uncommon sight, and we had
all seen the resultant display as the glowing phosphorus contained in
the disturbed water of the bow waves glowed in the dark.
Sometimes, even the dolphins left a trail of glowing phosphorus
both on the surface, and below it as they leapt out of the water, and
then dived back into it around the ship.
It was during one of these late night sojourns that I experienced
probably the most remarkable sight that I ever saw whilst I was at
sea. The sea was like glass, and although we did not have a full
cargo, the propeller was completely submerged, so it was not
breaking the surface of the water as it rotated, and the usually frothy
wake was completely non existent until one looked a few hundred
yards astern of the ship where the disturbance caused by the rotation
of the propeller finally rose to the surface and showed a somewhat
subdued wake.
However, between the ship and the point some few hundred yards
astern where the wake broke to the surface, we could see the outline
of a complete underwater tube, which was being created by the
rotation of the propeller. The "tube" was "glowing" with the
phosphorus that was also being created as the water was being
disturbed by the propeller. The "tube" could quite clearly be seen,
just as if someone was holding a giant glass tube beneath the surface
of the ocean. What was even more remarkable, was the quite distinct
Archimedean spiral that also appeared, completely contained within
the "tube", so that the "tube" now looked like a giant steel rod that
had a screw threaded on it, and which was being held just below the
surface of the water as we travelled. The whole sight was truly
amazing, and kept us up much later than we would normally have
stayed up, in order to savour the moment.
As a ship's propeller rotates, the leading edges of the blades, even
though the blades are completely below the surface, create
something called cavitation. Cavitation has quite a detrimental effect
on the metal in a propeller blade, but in this instance, the bubbles of
oxygen created in this manner were giving us a show to be
remembered. We steamed on, unaccompanied, and (thankfully)
unmolested for a few more days to reach Karachi.
It had been almost two years since I had been here last. On the
previous occasion, I had been the Bridge Boy, and Staff
Commander's Messenger on a large troop ship; as such, my duty
had been to stand in an "out of sight" position on the bridge until I
was required to run an errand for the said Staff Commander. Even
so, I had been able to enjoy the view of the port as we approached.
This time, I could hardly believe my luck at being yet again at the
wheel of the St. Clears as we entered Karachi. From my
limited vision from within the wheelhouse, there was precious little
to see, other than the foremast, and what was immediately ahead of
the ship. First there was a course to be steered as we approached the
shore line, then as we entered the waterway that took us into the
dock area, the wheel commands changed to more reflect the position
of the ship, and the pilot's immediate manoeuvres to bring us
alongside. For the relatively short run from where we had picked up
the Pilot, to our berth in the docks, the experience for me was not
quite so exciting as had been the case whilst traversing the Suez
Canal or the Shatt al Arab river on our way to Abadan. Exciting or
not, during my remaining years at sea, I never tired of the
opportunity of "being on the wheel" as the ship berthed or traversed
a waterway.
As soon as we had "Finished with Engines", I left the bridge and
joined the crew who were now directed to uncover the hatches.
Although by this time, some stevedores were beginning to arrive
from on shore, the Mate made sure that we uncovered the hatches. I
think most Mates preferred the crew to do this job because he knew
that we would remove the tarpaulins, fold them up properly, and
stow them in an "out of the way" place. This would make sure the
stevedores did not use them (or part of them) as awnings for the
winch drivers who, admittedly had to sit in the hot sun all day, just
operating a winch. For this purpose (personal awnings) most winch
drivers used their own initiative, and either brought something
aboard with them, or scrounged a spare bit of canvas from
somewhere on the ship. It may seem a bit ungenerous, but generally
speaking, in any port, the crew did not allow the shore based
stevedores to use ship's equipment, or ship's conveniences such as
crew mess rooms or toilets. We removed the tarpaulins, hatch
boards and beams from the hatches that were to be worked, and the
job of unloading the barrels of pitch or tar, began.
We had not expected to be in Karachi for more than a week or so,
but things didn't quite work out as intended, and we stayed longer.
When we went ashore that night, we heard from other British
Seamen in the Club there that a Fort Boat had exploded in Bombay
sometime in April, causing the loss of many lives, and huge damage
to the port area. The story we were able to get hold of said that a fire
had started on a Fort Boat, which also had a hold full of explosives
and ammunition. Before the fire could be contained, the ammunition
exploded almost causing the ship to lift out of the water. Other ships
had been affected by the blast, parts of ships had been hurled
through the air, damaging the lock gates. Somewhere along the line,
either the Fort Boat concerned, or another ship, had been carrying
bars of bullion. It seems these were scattered far and wide over the
area of Bombay. Remarkably we heard, all of the gold bars were
found, and returned to the relevant authority! I think overall,
something like nine or ten ships were either sunk or damaged in that
incident.
Within a couple of days, some of the problems we were to have with
the barrels of tar began to show up. As the unloading began,
everything went according to plan. As the top layers of barrels were
removed, they found that some of the barrels lower down had
buckled as the heat had caused the tar to melt, and become fluid.
This, coupled with the sheer weight of the barrels on top, had caused
them to give way. As they buckled, so the tar escaped, and spread all
over the barrels in the lower tiers, and on to the floor of the hatch
itself. They even found that some of the barrels had been stowed
improperly on their sides, and the tar had began to run quite freely
out of these. It was the same in all the hatches. It was then that the
value of having sand as ballast became of prime importance,
because the sand prevented the tar from running into the adjoining
hold.
As I said earlier, on the foredeck, although numbers one, two and
three hatches had separate hatches on deck, down below, the hold
was all one space, so the lower hold covered all three hatches
without any dividing bulkheads. The sand that had been loaded in
numbers two and five hatches, was now all that was separating the
pool of tar that was building up in number one hatch, and number
three hatch, and it was the same down aft, with the sand in number
five hatch separating the tar that had escaped from the barrels in
numbers four and six hatches.
Whereas when they started unloading, they were slinging about six
barrels at a time with their "can hooks", once they found that many
of the barrels had split open, they had to dig each barrel out of the
tar (which by now, with open hatches, was cooling off, and setting a
little firmer) then sling each barrel separately, and discharge them,
sometimes on by one. Not only did they have the tar to contend
with, the dunnage that had separated the tiers of barrels had also
now become part of the viscous mess, and just had to be broken as
pieces of it came out with the barrels. This slowed up the discharge
of the cargo considerably. As the barrels were lifted out of the hold,
tar was dripping from them, and as the barrels were caught in the
breeze, slivers of tar were landing all over the deck and
superstructure of the ship.
The fore part of the bridge soon began to look like a roadway, with
tar slicks all over it. We had to stop the unloading and spread
tarpaulins to cover the complete fore part of the bridge, also over
each deck space adjacent to each hatch, and over the ships' side
adjacent to each hatch. To do this, we had to use all our "older"
tarpaulins, and fortunately, the ship's chandler that sold us new,
replacement tarpaulins, also had a supply of "older" tarpaulins that
the ship bought to cover all the affected areas. It was a very messy
situation, and instead of unloading the ship within a couple of days,
as it should have been, the whole job took much longer. The Captain
was not a happy man!
When all the barrels had been discharged, we left Karachi, and
proceeded to Bombay which was only a couple of days sailing.
Whilst the quickly erected tarpaulins had saved the superstructure
from being completely covered in tar, There was still a considerable
amount of tar on there which had to be cleaned off, and this was to
be our next job whilst the ship was in Bombay.
As mentioned, we had heard about the "Ammo ship" that had
exploded in the port, and even the brief accounts that we had heard
were borne out when we viewed the devastated area. It had occurred
in April, and this was early July. A very strong acrid small still hung
over the dock area. The docks themselves had been patched up and
brought into working order again, but the
Dock sheds and cranes had been flattened, and in other instances
just piles of twisted metal remained; indeed, it all resembled some of
the English Dock areas that had suffered repeated air raids from the
Luftwaffe.
I'm not exactly sure just why we went to Bombay, because we
didn't load anything there, but the ship certainly needed cleaning up
before any cargo could be loaded. The crew (Deck Department)
were set about cleaning up the fore part of the bridge. Even though
the tar, now that it was quite cold, was easy to pull off, where we
were able to pull it off, it left a black stain. The entire superstructure
so affected had to be repainted. The ship's side was in a much
worse state, and shore based workers were brought in to scrape the
tar off, and repaint. Gangs of workers were sent down into the holds
to remove the tar from there, which by now had settled into a layer
of tar, something like one or two feet thick. It was not completely
hard, and it was not runny, and it was this "half way" condition that
just made it harder to remove. Anyway we thought, that was going
to be the problem of the shore based cleaners, and we got on with
our own job of cleaning up, and repainting the superstructure.
We had only been in port for a day or so, when all the crew were
called to a meeting in "The Saloon". The Saloon is the place where
the officers have their meals, and is only used by ordinary crew
members for "signing on", or "paying off" the ship. Being
"summoned to the Saloon" meant that something special was about
to be announced. We were, indeed, curious.
|
