British India Steam Navigation Company Ltd.      


Journal By Cadet Philip Dilworth.



Cadet Ship - S.S. Waroonga

I left Castleford Grammar School in July 1939 after gaining my Higher School Certificate (Subsidiary), in the Lower Sixth Form. My subjects were Maths, Physics, French and Geography. I should have stayed on at school a further year to take the Higher School Certificate, but as I wanted to go to sea I left a year early.

In August of that year, I joined the Merchant Navy as a Cadet with the British India Steam Navigation Company (popularly known as B.I.)- At that time B.I., which was a subsidiary of P & 0, had about 100 ships trading mainly round the Indian coast, and Persian Gulf but with some of the larger vessels on regular runs between India and Japan, and between India and the South and East coasts of Africa. Most of the ships were in the range of 4,000 to 11,000 tons, but the Company also had two troop ships - the Dilwara and the Dunera which were about 12,000 tons. The ships were essentially cargo ships, but on most of them there was accomodation for passengers.

I had been undecided whether to try for a course in Aeronautical Engineering at Hull University (one of the few places at that time which had a course in Aeronautical Engineering), or go to sea. The sea won, and my father paid £100 for me to take up a 4 year apprenticeship with the B.I.S.N. Company. In those days £100 would be equivalent to about 9 months pay for a skilled tradesman. I left with my father and mother for Fa1mouth, where I was to join the S.S Waroonga on the 23rd August - my parents stayed on in an hotel for a holiday, until after the Waroonga sailed. We must have travelled to Fa1mouth by train, because I cannot imagine the family car - a 1933 Morris Ten - carrying my sea chest and all the other luggage.

The Waroonga was a 10,000 ton refrigerated cargo ship, originally owned by the New Zealand Shipping Company. It had been bought from them by B.I. to use as a Cadet training ship, and at Falmouth modifications had been made so that it could accommodate about 40 Cadets who would act as the crew. The normal run would be to Australia, to load up with frozen meat and return with its cargo to the U.K.. The round trip would take about 6 months. On this particular trip it was planned to call in at New York and Newport News, and load up with farm machinery and oil drums, to be offloaded in Australia, after passing through the Panama Canal. The return from Australia would be via Columbo and the Suez Canal. The Cadets' accommodation consisted of two large and long cabins in the stern and at either side of the ship. Those in the starboard cabin were known as the Starboard Watch, and those in the port cabin were known as the Port Watch. There were 20 bunks in tiers of two, along the inboard bulkhead of each cabin and at one end, and along the opposite bulkhead were the Cadets' lockers. Between the lockers and the bunks was a space of about 10 feet. A large messroom, with tables, occupied the space between the Cadets' cabins. This served as a dining room and it was also used as a schoolroom. Aft of the central messroom, right in the stern, was a large space containing wash basins, showers, and 4 baths. The Cadet accommodation was completed by a cabin on the deck above for the Chief Petty Officer Cadet, and for the two Petty Officer Cadets in charge of the Starboard and Port Watches.

I joined the ship on the 23rd August, together with 11 other new Cadets to await the arrival of the remainder of the Cadets who were to be transferred from the old Cadet ship, Devon. Eventually a tug with a lighter in tow, crowded with people hove into sight, and we realised these were the Cadets we were awaiting. When the lighter got near enough to pick out details, my heart skipped a beat - there were about 30 or so scruffy individuals, clad mainly in well worn blue dungarees and wearing peaked naval caps, gazing interestedly at us and the ship which was to become their new home. As they got nearer they focussed their attention on us, in our brand new uniforms, who were leaning against the ships rails looking down at them. They then started to yell out cat calls to us, and accompany these with rude gestures. They appeared to me to be a wild and fearsome bunch.

Eventually the lighter came alongside, and this awesome crowd swarmed up the ship's gangway and then down into the Cadets' quarters. They then appeared to go mad, leaping about and whooping delightedly. The reason for this behaviour was that they were absolutely astonished at what to them was the lavishness of their new quarters in comparison with the accommodation they had been used to on the Devon. Eventually, when some sort of order had been restored, six of the new Cadets were allocated to the Starboard Watch and six to the Port Watch. I found myself in the Starboard Watch together with newcomers Inches, Taylor, Leney, and two others.


Waroonga
İP & O Collection

The duties of a "Rook"

 The Senior Cadet of the Starboard Watch called the new Cadets together to inform us what our duties would consist of and what life was going to be like for us on this first voyage. We were told that on his first voyage a Cadet was known as a "rook". A rook would be at the beck and call of the Senior Cadets, during non-working hours. The Senior Cadets were those Cadets who had been at sea for 2 years or more. At the call of "rook", all the rooks had to rush to the Senior Cadet who had made the nail. The Cadet who arrived last would be punished, and the one who arrived next to the last would be given the job to do as required by the Senior Cadet. The job could be anything - make toast, clean shoes, do some ironing etc. etc.. The punishment was severe, and usually consisted of up to six lashes on the bent over behind, with a "bimster". A "bimster" was a length of rubber covered electric cable, about 3/8 inch diameter. The future looked bleak - the thought of being a rook for the next 6 months was rather frightening and depressing. I comforted myself with the thought that I wasn't the only one and the other rooks must be feeling the same. The Cadets were a mixed bunch of people - some were ex public school - and one of the Senior Cadets in our Watch was the son of the Bishop of Ripon. He was a short, wiry individual with a face like a monkey, and he was invariably drunk on returning back to the ship after shore leave. On one occasion after answering a "rook" call, I remember being told by him to take a cardboard cut-out of Donald Duck on deck (stolen from outside a cinema), for a pee over the stern. A few days later I was bimstered for the first time by a senior cadet called Goodson, who instructed me to make him some toast in an electric toaster which he gave to me. The toast was not to his liking, being slightly overdone, and so I received 6 of the best. Goodson was the most disliked of the senior cadets, having a sadistic tendency, and he got his uppance later on.

The Atlantic

 We sailed from Falmouth on 31st August 1939 bound for New York, where we would load up with agricultural machinery for Australia. Three days out into the Atlantic, on 3rd September, war was declared with Germany. Before sailing, a sealed envelope had been delivered to the ship from the Admiralty, with orders for the Captain to open the .envelope if war was declared whilst we were at sea. The Admiralty orders instructed the Captain to do three things:-

1. Alter course on to a more northerly route passing Iceland and Greenland towards the north east coast of Canada, and then turn south towards New York.

2. Alter the B.I. house colours on the ship's funnel to that of a Japanese shipping line (the B.I. funnels were black, with 2 horizontal white bands round the top of the funnel - the instruction was to paint diagonal white lines, herring bone fashion, between the two horizontal bands).

3. On sighting another ship, alter course away from the ship and make off at full speed.

In addition, a large barrel was hoisted and fastened to the yard arm of the for'd mast to be used as a crows nest for look-out purposes. This was equipped with a telephone connected to the bridge, and binoculars, and being much higher than the bridge considerably extended the lookout capability. The crows nest was manned continuously on a 24 hour basis, by Cadets relieved every hour.

This was a very exciting and stressful time, with nobody really knowing what the dangers were and what to expect. However it wasn't very long before the reality of the situation came home to us. In the first few days of the war there was no restriction of the news broadcast by the BBC, and the day after war was declared we heard on the radio that a passenger ship in the Atlantic, the Athenia, had been torpedoed and sunk by a U-boat and many lives had been lost. In the early days the names of the torpedoed ships were broadcast, and I remember we listed the names of every ship sunk, on a blackboard in the messroom. Within a few days we had a long list of ships - some having been sunk quite close to us. In those early days radio transmissions were not banned, and our radio operator picked up the distress calls and positions of some of the ships. One day, not far from Iceland, a ship was spotted on the horizon, and so we turned our stern on to the ship and made off as fast as we could. The other ship did the same thing - whether it was a German ship trying to get back to Germany, or whether it was one of ours, we never knew. We arrived in New York after about 14 days instead the 9 or 10 days we would have taken on the direct route.

New York

 We berthed in Brooklyn and remained there for about two weeks whilst the ship took on the main cargo of agricultural machinery - tractors, ploughs etc. - and drums of oil. After that we moved further south to Newport Mews where we stayed a further 4 days or so taking on more cargo. Whilst in New York, we attended a dance specially organised for us by a club of young socialite women. It was impressed upon us that we must be on our best behaviour, and threatened with dire consequences if we misbehaved or drank too much. It was a very fine occasion - we were attired in white mess jackets with tow ties and dark uniform trousers - and the girls were wearing long evening dresses. I asked one of the girls, with whom I had had several dances, if I could escort her home -she said she lived on Riverside Drive - but. unfortunately for me she had promised this favour to Pluto Inches, one of the other rooks in the starboard watch. Later on Pluto and I found ourselves on a troopship together, where we became great pals.

On the only Sunday we spent in New York, I remember attending a church service in Brooklyn with 2 other Cadets. We entered the church after the service had started, and found the congregation to be about 99% black. The service was fascinating, with individual members of a very animated congregation calling out "Halleluia" whenever they felt like it, and enthusiastically singing negro spirituals - this was an eye opener to someone who had always attended a low order Church of England. After the service many of the congregation crowded around us and told us how delighted they were because we had attended their church.

The only other thing I can remember about New York was having a haircut - the barber was of Italian extraction - and I can remember how astonished I was when he said that he thought Germany would win the war. It had never occured to me that we could lose the war, and I was most surprised that anyone could think otherwise.

U.S.A. to Australia

 We left Newport News where we had loaded more agricultural machinery, and then at the beginning of October 1939 sailed for Australia, via the Panama Canal. Our next run ashore would be at Brisbane in Queensland. When we reached Colon at the entrance to the Panama Canal, we were boarded by Americans who took over the ship - they brought aboard their own telephones for communication purposes, and had their own people in our engine room to oversee what went on there, as well as people on the ship's bridge. I believe the journey through the Canal took about 16 hours. We left Balboa on the Pacific side of the Panama Canal, for Brisbane, Queensland. Apart from passing one or two islands on the way, the journey was non stop.

Crossing the line ceremony

 An event which sticks out in my mind on this particular voyage was the "crossing the line" ceremony, which took place as we crossed the equator. It was an event which we rooks were not looking forward to. All the rooks were given 15 minutes to go off and hide anywhere on the ship. After 15 minutes we were hunted down by the Senior Cadets and when found, were hauled in front of the Chief Petty Officer Cadet who was dressed up as King Neptune and who was holding a harpoon in one hand, and a large brush in the other. Our faces were lathered with a soapy solution, shaved with a large wooden razor, and after some cantation had been read out, we were pushed backwards into a large canvas swimming pool which had been rigged up on the deck. After that, each Cadet was manhandled down below into the wash room, where he was stripped and made to perform various tasks. I remember being given a length of rope and made to skip 100 times without stopping. If you broke down before completing the 100 skips you were made to start again. After that I was given a glass of sea water-to drink, which contained bits of orange peel and one or two cigarette ends and then I was manhandled into one of the baths which had been filled with sea water, and pushed below the surface of the water several times. Each time I was held down until my lungs felt like bursting, and I eventually crawled out of the bath feeling like a drowned rat. The final indignity was to have one's private parts painted with grey paint - this took some getting off!

The Routine at Sea

In addition to the 40 Cadets, the deck crew consisted of an elderly Bos'n called Pritchard, and 2 rather old seamen. Every morning we were awakened at 0600, and assembled on deck at 0630, after getting washed and making one's bunk. The Bos'n was the one who decided what needed to be done and the jobs were then allocated to everybody by the 3 Petty Officer Cadets. There was a multitude of work to be done such as holystoning the wooden deck, caulking the deck, painting, washing paintwork, work in the paint locker mixing paint and cleaning paint cans and brushes, coiling hemp and wire ropes, oiling and greasing wire ropes etc. etc.. At 0800 we knocked off for breakfast, and at 0900 we assembled on deck once more to carry on working until 1300. Lunch was then taken and we assembled for work again from 1400 until 1700. The evening meal was at 1730. After the evening meal was over our time was our own until the following morning. Holystoning was a particularly onerous job. It consisted of kneeling on the wetted deck and scrubbing the deck, backwards and forwards, with a sandstone brick held by both hands. If done long enough, the deck would come up white. [The holystone got its name because in the old days it was about the same size as the New Testament]. Caulking consisted of forcing oakum (hemp fibres) into the gap between adjacent deck planks, and then pouring molten bitumen along the top of the hemp, to make the joint waterproof.

Australia

 We arrived at Brisbane about the end of October 1939, where we offloaded most of our cargo. The ship then moved down-river to a jetty not far from a large abbatoir. It was then that the hard work started. The empty holds of the ship had to be cleaned out, and then the floor and sides of the holds lined with lengths of 3"x3" timber in preparation for loading carcasses of frozen meat. The lengths of timber were laid in three layers 12 inches apart, one layer nailed on top of the other, in honeycomb fashion, so that the total depth of the lining was 9 inches. The spaces between the wood were then filled with sawdust to provide the insulation. The floor and sides of the hold were thus insulated to a depth of 9 inches, ready for the frozen meat to be loaded. All the Cadets were engaged in doing this work, which I remember as being very arduous, hot, and rather dangerous. Apparently, on the previous trip, one of the Cadets had been killed falling down a hold.

Sharks were plentiful in the river, being attracted by the discharge of effluent from the abbatoir which contained plenty of blood. I remember one of the Cadets catching a young shark about 6 feet long, one evening, by attaching a lump of meat to a hook on the end of a length of rope, and using a piece of wood as a float. He cut off the dorsal fin, mounted it on a block of wood, and varnished it to make an attractive ornament. After about a week in Brisbane we set sail for Sydney to load on more frozen meat. I can vaguely remember having a bus ride across the famous Sydney harbour bridge, and visiting a large fun fair, which I think was called Luna Park. On one occasion I remember visiting every book shop I could find in Sydney to try and buy a book of poems by an Australian poet named Banjo Patterson. This was for Goodson, as a result of a rook call. I was unable to find a copy of the poems, and on reporting this to Goodson when I returned to the ship, I was rewarded with 6 bimster strokes on my behind. At the time I didn't really believe there was a poet by the name of Banjo Patterson, but many years later I found out there really was. Whilst we were in Sydney, a 3.7 inch gun was mounted on the stern of the ship as an anti-submarine measure. We understood it had been made in Japan in 1918 and had been stored in a Naval depot in Sydney for many years.

We left Sydney and called at Melbourne and then Port Pirie before eventually leaving for home via the Suez Canal. At Port Pirie, a visit was arranged for the Cadets, to a factory where gold was smelted and cast into ingots. An offer was made to each of us, that if we could pick up an ingot of gold, which was about the size of a small brick, with one hand - then we could keep it. Naturally, we were all keen to try, and of course none of us could do it.

We left Sydney without one of the rooks (named Fulcher),from the Port Watch, who had "jumped ship". Presumably he had had enough of being a rook. Privately, I didn't blame him.

Australia to Colombo

 In a way it was a pleasant change to get to sea once more, and to settle down into the familiar routine at sea. The deck work was relieved, very infrequently, with school work on subjects such as navigation, seamanship etc.. These lessons were given by a 2nd Officer, especially appointed to carry out the teaching. He was known as "Schoolie". In actual fact we got very little teaching. The Senior Cadets, in addition to working on deck, also did spells of watchkeeping on the ship's bridge. All of us carried out lookout duties in the crows nest, for an hour at a time. To reach the crows nest, which was about 70 feet up the mast, two vertical rope ladders had to be climbed, changing from one to the other, half way up. This could be a hair raising experience, particularly if it was done in the middle of the night in bad weather, with the ship pitching and rolling, bearing in mind that the ship was blacked out. It was a question of waiting until the ship was more or less on an even keel and then scrambling up the ladder as far as one could go before the ship heeled over - and then hanging on until the ship righted itself once more. It was on this part of the trip that Goodson "got his uppance". We had finished work for the day and were in the wash room getting showered etc., when Clark the Chief Petty Officer Cadet noticed some particularly vicious looking weals on the bottom of Bill Inches (Bill Inches was a big fellow, about 6 ft 2 inches, who came from Grimsby where his father owned a fleet of trawlers - he was known as Pluto, because he had a face which reminded one of the Walt Disney character). The weals were the result of a bimstering by Goodson, the night before. Clark, the C.P.O. Cadet was apparently horrified at what he had seen, sent for Goodson immediately, and banned him from any more rooking. Needless to say, all the rooks (and I believe, many of the other Cadets) were mightily relieved and pleased that this sadistic individual had been disgraced and had his power removed.

We arrived at Colombo in early January 1940, and learned that all the Cadets were to be split up and allocated to various B.I. ships operating around the Indian coast. The Company had decided there was a risk that they could lose all their Cadets if the Waroonga was torpedoed on the way home. A year or two later, the Waroonga was in fact torpedoed and sunk.

Part Two