Month: July 2022

China Coast memories of a 19 year old.

To read too many books is harmful’ according to Mau Tse-Tung.

Yokohama, in Tokyo Bay, was our first port of call of our Japanese coastal trip. If I thought Singapore and Hong Kong were foreign, Yokohama was really ‘foreign’ The people were different from Chinese, very friendly, but different. Fortunately at that time the exchange rate for a British pound note was 1060 Japanese yen. The current exchange rate is 172 yen for a British pound. How the mighty have fallen.
At least this time we were alongside, and we didn’t have to worry about shore boats, just taxis getting in to & out of the dock area so that we didn’t have to walk too far. We were alongside for three days, and the evenings were spent in the town, but as time passed, I realised that even at the fabulous exchange rate I was running out of money. My weekly wage was about £5.00 a week and a taxi to / from the city was expensive. I didn’t see much of Yokohama city except in the evening when it was dark. Being October the sunset came early.
At 3.30 am on the third night we were called for departure stations. We manoeuvred off the wharf to the outer harbour around 6.00 am, and as the pilot climbed down into the pilot boat I looked back at Yokohama and saw the sun shining on Mount Fuji.
When I was in Japan, they told me that if you see Mt Fuji on leaving, you would return.
Each voyage I used to look for the mountain and I was able to see it, until on my last voyage when I couldn’t, because we sailed at night.
I didn’t return to Japan again until the late 1980’s. This time I arrived by plane, because I was working for another company, and no longer at sea.

IMG_27922a

The short trip to Kobe saw us off the wharf the following day. It was a very short visit because within hours we had left and moved across the bay to Osaka.

I had a very unusual experience on my first run ashore in Kobe. As we left the ship my friend asked about the railway station, and I pointed out the street and where we would turn right and then left for the station.
I’d never been to Kobe and hadn’t seen a map of the city, so I do not have any idea how I knew the directions, but I knew I was correct.
We followed my directions, and they were correct. I must admit it left me with a very funny feeling. Sannomiya was the name of the station, but I didn’t know the name when I gave the directions.

Kobe_Port_TowerThe Kobe Port Tower had just been finished, but I don’t think it was open to the public. At 108 mtrs it looked huge to us at the time.

Kobe Tower at night.

After loading in Kobe, we sailed through the Inland Sea to the open waters of the Yellow Sea off the coast of China, our next port was Tientsin (now Tienjin).

This was my first visit to Communist China, and I had been warned about what we could take into the country, and to be very aware of the sensitivity of trading with the Chinese.

blue_antsAt the time I had just finished reading a novel called The Blue Ants by Bernard Newman, which was about a war that breaks out between China and Russia. In the novel the Chinese army is supplied by millions of people carry the supplies on their head. The standard dress for everyone at that time in China was blue shirt and blue trousers – everyone wore the same, hence from the air they looked like blue ants. The book was banned in China, and I was warned that I could get in to trouble if the book was found in my cabin. I am sorry to say that I threw the book overboard as we approached the pilot boat. Even though I’d finished the book, I intended to buy a fresh copy to keep, but I have never seen it since.
I cannot pass a second-hand bookshop without going in for a browse, but not just for The Blue Ants. :-o)

My first impression of China was not a happy one – an armed guard at the top of the gangway and another at the bottom. The dockside labour would not speak to us unless it was via the foreman (political officer??). As part of our crew,we had Hong Kong Chinese – the carpenter, the ‘donkey men’, who were engine room fitters, and one or two others. None of them spoke to the shore labour and the shore labour made sure that they were never in contact with these ‘gweilo’ (foreign devil) Chinese.

The one thing that I noticed when visiting Shanghai later in the trip, was the lack of seagulls and domestic cats. I often thought that perhaps the local population had eaten them, because many of the people looked hungry.

Before sailing from Tientsin I was instructed to take the draft reading. To do this I had to be given special permission to pass the armed guard at the top of the gangway, and on stepping ashore on to the wharf an armed guard accompanied me to the bow and stern as I read off the draft. We did not go ashore for any entertainment – entertainment was banned. Loudspeakers on the wharf blared out Chinese propaganda twenty-four hours a day exhorting the labour to work hard. I wouldn’t have minded if the exhortations had been accompanied by music, at least I could have slept through the music, but the constant shouting did cause us to lose sleep. At least the shouting was in Chinese (Mandarin) so there was little chance of us being distracted or ‘converted’.

We were not sorry to see the back of Tientsin as we sailed for Tsingtao. The city of Tsingtoe was different, it was a naval base, and the locals were very twitchy.

Once again armed guards boarded us, along with the pilot, and watched our every move. We passed a Chinese submarine moored to a buoy, and the guards became quite agitated as we used binoculars to scan the sub, more out of interest than spying. After all we could see that it was an old diesel sub, circa WW2, and it was showing a lot of rust. Once the guards saw what we were looking at they became very ‘upset’ waving their rifles etc so we quickly looked the other way.

They authorities went through the ship in detail checking every cabin and the crew’s quarters. I was glad that I had got rid of ‘The Blue Ants,’ the local guards appeared to be a little unstable.

During our time in Tsingtao, an army officer came on board and asked me if I could read English. I told him that I could, at which point he presented me with several books, in English. They were all propaganda books, and one was a red book containing the sayings of Chairman Mao. I still have three of these books. I wonder if the silver fish found them as unappetising as I did, when I tried to read them at the time.

Two Different Lines on the Question of War and Peace – a 38-page tome.

One 2

On the Question of Stalin – a thin book of 23 pages, obviously the question was quite short.

One

People of the World Unite etc see title – which is quite thick at 208 pages

One 3

Once again it was guards on the gangway, and we were not allowed ashore except to read the draft. This was another port to be crossed off my bucket list.

Next stop Shanghai. What a city to spark the imagination, from the early days of the 1800’s to recent times. Shanghai conjured thoughts of romance, white Russian émigrés, Charlie Chan types, and all the excitement of the East.

We were allowed ashore! But we could only visit the Friendship store and the old Shanghai Club, locally known as the ‘British Club’, now (in 1963) called the Seaman’s Club, which used to have the longest bar in the world.

Noel

Noel Coward is supposed to have placed his cheek on the bar, squinted along it, and said that he could see the curvature of the Earth. There isn’t a record of how much he’d had that evening.

The Friendship store sold Chinese goods, but only to foreigners. The local Chinese where not allowed to shop in the store.

As I, and another cadet, stepped out of the dock area, a trishaw driver offered his services to take us to the Friendship Store at a rate that we couldn’t refuse. The trip was not far, and as we stepped down, we offered the fare, which he refused and said that he would wait for us. After a little arguing with him in broken English (Chinglish?) we agreed that he could wait, and we entered the multi-storey shop.

The store contained many items of carved wood, from huge wardrobes to tiny figures pulling rickshaws. Much of the furniture was covered in dust showing us that business was not all that good. I did buy two decent size Chinese jars of pickled ginger.

They were to be a present for my mother, who loved pickled ginger.

Ginger

After about half an hour we had our fill of ‘shopping’ and left the store to be greeted by our friendly driver. 

Next stop was the Shanghai Club, come British Club, come Seaman’s Club – we used the British Club title, and the driver knew exactly where we wanted to be taken. Even though the Government had renamed the building, everyone referred to it as the British Club.

The above building, which used to to be the Seaman’s Club is now the Waldorf Astoria Hotel.

An old photograph of the Bund Shanghai – the heart of Shanghai.

The trip along the Bund was bumpy as we crisscrossed the tramlines and bounced over the cobbled stones, but who cared it was the Shanghai Bund!

Once again, our driver told us that he would wait.

On entering we came face to face with a large statue of Chairman Mao, with his right hand held out in greeting and the words ‘Workers of the world unite’ carved at the foot of the statue.

mao

The picture shows the idea of the stance of an eight-to nine foot-tall-statue of Chairman Mao in the foyer of the British Club. (Seaman’s Club).

After passing the Chairman we found the world-famous bar. Highly polished dark wood that one would expect from this type of British Club – all old-world charm, three bladed fans on long stalks hanging from the ceiling added that little bit of yesteryear; but not quite old world. The Chinese had cut the length of the bar in half, and created a dining room, after one walked past the beginning of the world-famous bar.

Long barr

The above picture was taken in 1912, and fifty year later it hadn’t changed much at all.

To jump ahead a few months –

I returned to Shanghai and the British Club some months later, but this time on a different ship. Once again, I went ashore with a colleague for a drink or two.

We had our drinks and something to eat, and as it was getting late, we decided to return to the ship. In the alcohol half of the Long Bar there was a group of Scandinavian seamen who were a little worse for drink, and they were very noisy.

As we moved out of the bar to the foyer, I saw that one of the drunken seamen had climbed Mao’s statue and was trying to hang a small American flag from the Chairman’s little finger of his right hand. The statue appeared to be extremely heavy, so there was little chance of it toppling over, even with the extra weight of the seaman.

We took one look at the scene and made a beeline for the exit door. The last thing we wanted was to be involved with the start of WW3. As we left the building police cars arrived, and a great deal of shouting began. We managed to climb into our trishaw during the confusion, and make our ‘escape’.

Returning to my first trip –

We had a strict curfew and had to be back on board by 11.00 pm – the curfew was enforced by the Chinese authorities, not by our Captain. On leaving the British / Seaman’s Club our personal trishaw was still waiting. The driver (it was a bicycle style rickshaw) was dozing on his haunches near his trishaw and jumped up to make sure that we did not use a different trishaw.

On reaching the dock gates, with armed guards patrolling the gated area, we climbed down from the trishaw and paid the driver, giving him a good tip. He handed the tip back to us shaking his head and looking sideways at the guards. We then offered a couple of packs of British cigarettes (Rothmans) to show our appreciation (his fee for the night was so low we couldn’t see how he could possibly survive without tips) – the packs were refused; he bowed low and climbed on to his trishaw, his eyes constantly checking the movement of the guards who had been watching us since our arrival. It was obvious that one worker could not earn any more than the soldiers, and he was not going to take a chance of being arrested, or causing any trouble for himself. The best we could do was to smile, thank him again, and wave him good night as we carried our ‘friendship store’ purchases through the gates towards our ship.

Our next port of call was to be Hong Kong, where we knew our tips would not be refused.

 

Be careful about what you wish for . . .

And all I ask is a tall ship and a star to steer her by;

Landaura – 9,750 dwt

Launched in 1946 and was named after a very small village in Chandigarh in northern India.

As much as I enjoyed my leave, I found that I had changed, whereas my Birkenhead friends had not, other than growing a little older. I had been given eight weeks leave, my friends worked during the day and our friendship had cooled because we no longer had anything in common.
Other than playing rugby for HMS Conway I was never a sports fan, TV was limited and I was bored so half way through my leave I rang the company for a ship.
I was hoping for a Calcutta to Australia & New Zealand run, anything but the Persian  Gulf. I’d seen enough sand to last a lifetime.

and let’s not mention loading oil in Kuwait.

The Company agreed to my request for a ship and a day or so later I was on a plane for Kuwait. As ‘they’ say be careful about what you wish for . . .

I left Heathrow in a Comet 4 for Rome, next stop should have been Damascus, but we were diverted to Beirut, and finally we arrived in Kuwait.
On landing I was met in the arrival hall by a representative of the shipping agent and within minutes I had my bag and was through customs and immigration, while many other passengers were still queuing.
Outside I was escorted to a very large American car; (see similar cars in the picture below) the driver opened the rear door and indicated that I should sit in the back. The agent shook my hand and wished me a safe journey, which at the time I thought was a strange comment. After all we were only going to a city hotel.
The driver smiled at me, via the rear-view mirror, and put his foot down on the accelerator. Now I understood the agent’s comment, within minutes we were travelling at over one hundred miles an hour along a freeway to the city. At that time cars did not have seatbelts. I just hung on to the roof strap. Thirty minutes later we pulled up at the Bristol Hotel in a cloud of dust and sand. I was to wait in this hotel until my ship arrived into Kuwait.

It was mid-July and I only ventured out of the hotel in the early morning or late afternoon – it was the height of summer, and it was HOT & dusty. The hotel was ‘dry’ i.e they were not allowed to sell alcohol, so one couldn’t have a cold beer in the cool of the evening. I sent the above post card to my parents to let them know that all was well.
After about five days I received a phone call from the agent to let me know that I would be collected and taken to my new ship in the early afternoon, she was the Landuara.
What a difference between this vessel and the tanker. The tanker was just over two years old, and my latest posting was to a vessel that had been launched in 1946, two years after I had been born. Her deadweight was 7200 tons. She didn’t have any air-conditioning, cadets slept two to a cabin, and the cabins were not at all large, in fact the shared cabin was smaller than the single cabins on the tanker.

Landaura tramped from the Persian Gulf to China and Japan. She was old and unlike the Ellenga, Landuara did not have air conditioning and in the heat of August anchored off Basrah in Iraq, we did not have a choice but to sleep on deck. A large wet towel on the wooden deck and another wet towel to cover you in the hope that you would fall asleep before the towel dried out  . . I have paid for this in later life with aches and pains, but at 19 you were tough and you would live for ever.

Our first port of call, after leaving Kuwait, was Basra, about 60 miles (100 km) up the Shatt al Arab. Many people refer to it as the Shatt al Arab River, but the Arabic meaning is Stream or River of the Arabs, so by putting river at the end we have Stream or River of the Arabs River, which is a bit of a mouthful.

In the evenings if we were moored in the river we would sit outside our accommodation and eat watermelon and hold pip-spiting contests across the river – we never reached the shore.
The melons were obtained via barter. Wood in Iraq was expensive and hard to obtain. Our ship used wood as dunnage when stowing cargo during loading cargo (well before containerisation), because it was inexpensive or a waste material from another process.
After we had unloaded cargo, we would always have plenty of dunnage left over, and we either dumped it at sea (many years before the PC brigade were invented), or we would reuse some of the dunnage for the next time we loaded cargo.
Our old dunnage had value to the local Arabs, so we would swap some for huge watermelons that grew along the banks – we were happy and the local Iraqi boatmen were happy.
After completing our unloading and the loading of export cargo (dates), we dropped down the river to Khoramshah, which is on the Iranian river bank, so we had to remember to refer to the Shatt al Arab as the Arvand Rud (Swift river), which is the Persian (Iranian) name for the river.

In Khoramshah instead of watermelon we swapped dunnage for pistachio nuts; we didn’t spit, but flicked the shells across the water. Iran, being the largest producer of this nut ensured we had a regular supply.

Eventually we left the Shatt al Arab / Arvand Rud and sailed for Bombay.

For all my moans of lack of air-conditioning Landaura was a happy ship and I enjoyed my time in her, but after four months I paid off in Hong Kong and the company sent me as a passenger in the P & O liner ‘Cathay‘ to Yokohama, Japan.

The ‘Cathay‘ arrived in Yokohama on the 23 November 1963. We were scheduled to arrive around 8.00 am and we had been told to expect brass bands and Japanese traditional dancers to welcome us as the ship moved slowly alongside the Yokohama pier.

I went to the main dining room around 7.00 am for breakfast and found many of the passengers in tears. I asked what had happened and was told of the assassination of President Kennedy. He had been shot about 3.00 am on the 23rd November Japanese time.

The welcome bands and the traditional dancers had been cancelled and a single Japanese lady in traditional dress stood at the bottom of the gangway to greet those who were disembarking. This lady pinned a man-made small cherry blossom badge to my jacket and wished me welcome to Japan.

It was an odd feeling to be in Japan at such a time and not knowing if the assassination was the first move in a new war. The Cuban crisis was just over a year earlier when the US & the USSR had a stand-off to see who would blink first. Was the assassination of President Kennedy the first move of a new conflict?
The Company’s agent met me and took me to where my new ship was berthed. 

Chanda – Launched in 1944, 6,957 gt – she was the same age as me . .
named after a town in the Gondwana area of India.

Our first destination after we left the Japanese coast was China where we
visited Shanghai, Tientsin and Tsingtao, which was a memorable experience for this nineteen-year-old. (The next post will have details of my China experiences). 

I was not sorry to leave the China coast as we sailed for Hong Kong with all its love of life.  I sailed in Chanda for just under eight happy months trading between Japan, China and all ports to the Persian Gulf.

In late June 1964 I was once again paid off, but this time in Karachi in Pakistan to await a homeward bound ship, the Chakdara. I had been away from home for just over a year and was again due leave.
In Karachi I stayed in the Beach Luxury Hotel for sixteen days while waiting for my next ship. The hotel was very pleasant but as a lowly cadet my wages did not go all that far when I wanted a beer or two. The Company paid for the hotel and all meals, but all ancillary costs were on my account and at my wage of about AUD $15 a week there was little chance of drinking too much.

Baggage sticker from the 1960’s

Beach Luxury Hotel 1965

 

Farewell Birkenhead

I must go down to the seas again, to the lonely sea and the sky

In October 2022 it will be sixty years since I first went to sea.

I had eight days to pack and join my first ship, did I have everything  . . .

I had only been to Woodside station once before when I was a lot younger, and we were visiting relatives in Stafford. Most of my train travel had been from Liverpool Lime Street, so Woodside was a new experience.
The station had been opened in 1878 and thanks to the Beeching Report in 1963 the station would close in 1967.

When I arrived at the station in October 1962 it was it was busy with trains arriving and leaving all the time.

My trunk was packed with my uniform for the tropics and for a European winter, along with civilian clothes if I wished to go ashore.
Mum & Dad took me to the station, and I was glad of Dad’s help to drag my sea chest to the guard’s van. The type of sea chest that I picked was invented before the wheel!
My passport and my brand new red British Seaman’s Card, and my new blue Seaman’s Record Book and Certificate of Discharge were stowed in a safe place in my jacket pocket.
       

Must not forget my collection of International Certificates of Vaccination, which over the next few years I collected details of varies ‘jabs’ starting with HMS Conway when I was about to leave in the summer of 1962 , followed by Liverpool (five times over the following years), Dubai (twice), Singapore, New Zealand (three times), Karachi (at least once, but could be twice – a blunt needle comes to mind) and even received a jab from the doctor on the Dunera, which saved me a trip ashore.
The Company was very strict that our various vaccination records were kept up to date.

Photo thanks to Bevan Price (picture taken in 1967).
In 1962 Woodside was busy and bustling with people travelling.  

       Picture thanks to Alan Murray-Rust ([Picture taken in 1967)
The smell of steam and hot oil remains a memory of happy train journeys because the engine was a living machine unlike the current rolling stock.   

There are many pictures of Woodside Station that were taken just before the station was closed, but little had changed from when I boarded the train to Falmouth in 1962. 

Falmouth Docks Station (the only station in Falmouth at the time) picture taken in 1966 – copyright Patrick English.

A quick phone call to the agent and I was soon in a launch because Ellenga was moored in the Fal River. 

Ellenga – 37,420 dwt

Launched in 1960 and was named after a village in the Tangail district of East Bengal, which at that time was known as East Pakistan and today is Bangladesh.

I was eighteen when I stepped aboard Ellenga and I was paid the grand sum of £16-10-0 a month  (about £200 / month in today’s value).
It was hard work, (we were not paid overtime) but she was a happy ship and I began to learn Hindi as most of the crew were from India.

The book was recommended by the Company, so I purchased The Malim Sahibs Hindustani as a guide to learn Hindi. I still have this book, and even now I can remember certain words and phrases. 

Once we arrived in the Persian Gulf we carried out what was known as the ‘Mina- Aden- ferry’ – which meant that we loaded crude oil in Mina El Hammani in Kuwait and five days later we discharged the cargo at a refinery in Little Aden, which is across the bay  from Aden  (which is now part of Yemen).
Once we had completed our discharge we sailed for Kuwait and the next five days we tank cleaned.
I was one of four cadets and we were worked in pairs – six hour on six hour off – each pair of cadets had three crew members working with them. 
H&S was in the future as we manhandled large flexible hoses with a  three legged Butterworth pump on the end of the hoses to blast the oil from the sides of each tank.
Each tank was just over fifty feet deep, and we blasted sea water at three levels – we had a total of thirty three tanks, but we only used twenty seven for oil, the others were used for sea water as ballast for when we were empty.  

I am second from the left and as you see tank cleaning was a dirty job. At the end of the process for each tank one of us would climb down the fifty-foot ladder into the oil sludge at the bottom. We had a large rubber brush to brush the sludge to the pumps to maximise the amount to be sucked out of the tank. The action of brushing caused fumes to rise, and these fumes made you feel drunk so climbing the fifty foot vertical ladder could be dangerous due to everything, including the ladder, being slippery due to the oil residue. Welcome to life at sea in tankers in 1962.

The ship carried breathing apparatus, and it was available for us to wear, but in the heat of the Persian Gulf wearing it was out of the question, it was far too hot.
Plus it was heavy and trying to climb out of the oil tank via a vertical slippery ladder wearing the full gear was unacceptable.

Tank cleaning went on day and night, and at night when cleaning the forward tanks, we had to use shielded torches so as not to ruin the night vision of the those on the bridge. 

The water used to clean the tanks was pumped overboard when we were more than 100 miles off land – the oil slick followed us for days because we had to have the tanks cleaned before we arrived in Kuwait for a fresh cargo.        

I sailed in Ellenga for just under nine months and besides the Mina -Aden ferry we also carried oil to Europe, and we did do one trip in mid-winter from Kuwait to Philadelphia in the US, 28 days without touching land, after which we sailed to Venezuela for a cargo of oil for Germany.
Our destination was LEFO, but even after checking the ship’s large atlas I could not find where LEFO was, until the 2nd mate mentioned Lands’ End For Orders – in case the oil had been on sold and was not destined for Germany.
In our case we discharged in Wilhelmshaven as planned and sailed in ballast back to the Persian Gulf, tank cleaning of course.  
While I was in Ellenga I was taught how to steer, it was not as easy as it looked, but eventually I mastered how to do it correctly (my certificate below).

Not long after I had started to learn to steer the captain commented to me that as the war was over, I did not have to keep zig zagging to avoid submarines. Steering such a large vessel one gets a ‘feel’ for her, and once this happens you no longer zig zag.

During the Mina-Aden ferry we had a bit of luck – we sailed from Kuwait fully loaded so tank cleaning was not required over Christmas.

Breakfast on Christmas Day 1962, and all cadets were off duty!

Lunch on Christmas Day 1962

Dinner Christmas Day 1962
The one thing about British India Steam Nav. Co, most of the vessels in which I sailed were all good ‘feeders.’ 

It was hard work but it was interesting and after nearly nine months I paid off Ellenga at The Isle of Grain, which is at the mouth of the Thames, and I was given another rail voucher, this time to Birkenhead and sent home on leave.