| British India Steam Navigation Company Ltd. |
Richard Douglas Crow
During my career in the B.I. from 1932 to 1948 I served in 29 ships of which four were lost by enemy action in WW2. Fortunately for me I was not in any of them at the time. While I have some memories of most of them, three ships in particular stand out more clearly than the rest; my first ship, the cadetship AUSTRALIA, my first ship on the Indian coast, the KHANDALLA and, in 1944, the EMPIRE TUGELA.
I joined the AUSTRALIA as a first voyage cadet on my 17th birthday in Falmouth on 12th September 1932 and did two voyages to Australia and one to India in her before the cadets were transferred to the NERBUDDA. The AUSTRALIA was a German built (1912) coal burning single screw vessel and, when used as a cadetship was manned by 39 cadets ( although to comply with B o T Regulations a Bo’su’n, Carpenter and 4 Able Seamen were also signed on ) The cadets did all the normal work of a ship’s crew. Outward bound to Australia we used to go south about South Africa to save canal dues and, in 1932., a year of depression, at an economical speed which meant that after leaving Liverpool we saw no land at all until we reached Freemantle 42 days later. We first voyagers were beginning to think the old man, Capt. Scutt, had lost it and we would never see land again.
Homeward bound with a better freight paying cargo we came through the Suez Canal. Our entertainments were simple, all home made, a first tripper’s concert when each first tripper had to do a solo turn. An inter watch boxing competition, another concert when any talent could be displayed and, of course, the traditional crossing the line ceremony. On the Australian Coast we fielded teams against local clubs at the sport which happened to be in season. In Brisbane our popular contact was with the St. Andrew’s Ladies Hockey Club and, if you want to live life dangerously play, hockey against an Australian Ladies team.
The cadets were berthed in two watches, Port and Starboard, and at sea alternated week and week about one watch on deck and the other studying below with the Cadet Instructor Officer, an extra 2nd Officer. All in all an excellent training that gave young men a good grounding in things nautical with a certain ‘esprit de corps’ that has always been a feature in the B.I..
I joined the KHANDALLA as 4th Officer in 1937 when she was on the Calcutta/Singapore Straits Mail run, my first ship on the Indian Coast.
It was usual in the B.I. for the 4th Officer to stand the 4 to 8 watch with the Chief Officer. On my previous ship, the MODASA on the Home Line service, I was only ever allowed to be alone on the bridge in charge when out at sea and out of sight of any land and shipping. You can imagine my thrill when we were leaving Singapore on my first trip in the KHANDALLA , with the Chief Officer below dealing with other things the Captain turned to me on the bridge, with land and other shipping all around us and said “I’m going below now, she’s all yours 4th. Call me if you need me” He certainly made my day. Of course, although I did not realise it at the time, he was on his deck below keeping a close eye on proceedings but it was still a great boost for my confidence. The KHANDALLA was a very happy ship, Captain Jackie Moon in command and the other officers being Otto West Chief Officer, Dickie Ayres 2nd. and Harry Busfield 3rd. Dickie Ayres subsequently suffered the traumatic experience in WW2 of being the sole survivor of his ship, the GAIRSOPPA which was sunk by U101 in the South Western approaches. I spent some six pleasant months in KHANDALLA and was sorry to leave her even though it was to an equally good ship, the old SANTHIA on the Calcutta/Japan run. I served in the KHANDALLA again, as 3rd. Officer, during the war when we were trooping. We were employed mostly up and down the Red Sea and carried, amongst other troops, a unit of the Indian army’s Camel Corps with their camels and on another occasion 600 Abyssinian guerrilla troops commanded by a Prince of the Royal House of King Haile Selassie. We embarked them in Aden and took them down to Mombasa so that they could be entrained and sent up to the Northern Province to re-enter the fray from there. They had been fighting the Italian army in the mountains for some years and looked a very potent, if unorthodox, fighting unit. We were in Aden when it was bombed by the Italian air force from Massawa. The KHANDALLA was a coal burning vessel with, I think, many furnaces. On one occasion at midnight in the Red Sea we blacked out a whole convoy with smoke whilst endeavouring to raise steam pressure and speed quickly to transfer from a very slow convoy (5 knots) to a fast convoy (15 knots)
Rangoon 1938
3/O Harry Busfield, 4/O Dick Crow, R/O, 2/O Dick Ayres.
The EMPIRE TUGELA German built as the WARTENFELS, she had been scuttled by her crew in Diego Suarez, raised by the R.N. and handed over for the B.I. to manage. She was a typical well built pre-war German ship and in her I served for a 9 month voyage from Madras to Calcutta the long way round via Durban, then a full cargo of coal to Buenos Airies thence back to South Africa, Walvis Bay, then home to Liverpool via Freetown for convoy. After some three weeks in Liverpool., Avonmouth and Barry for bunkers, we sailed for New York to load military stores for India and ended up in Calcutta after a nine months cruise that would cost you thousands of pounds today. The EMPIRE TUGELA was also a very happy ship with Captain G. A. Paterson in command and Big Bill Bishop as Chief Officer.. When we were in the U.K. I was the only officer onboard whose wife was in the U.K. She was able to stay onboard with me most of the time, even, with the others turning a blind eye to the breach of rules, for the short sea voyage from Avonmouth to Barry.
Apart from those three ships there are some other clear memories. For example in November 1943 I arrived in Colombo as 2nd. Officer of HOWRA and was transferred to the HAI YANG, an ex China coaster being managed by Mackinnon Mackenzies, as a temporary replacement for her Chief Officer who was in hospital after attempting to commit suicide. The Captain and 2nd Officer were Americans and regaled me with China coast stories of pirates and illicit cargoes stowed, to their own account, in spare cabins. She was a rather cranky little ship with stock anchors that had to be catted when stowed for sea, which was the short Colombo –Tuticorin run.
Howra. © Ian J. Farquhar Collection
I left her after some three months when her former Chief Officer had recovered and returned to his ship and was then appointed to the SHINFU based in Trincomalee.
The SHINFU,was the oldest ship I ever served. in ,built just after the turn of the century, 1901, as the RAJAH OF SARAWAK by Ramage and Ferguson Ltd. Of Leith a small flush decked steamer of some 1400 tons gross she was the flagship of the Rajah of Sarawak’s fleet. Later sold and renamed SHINFU she then traded around the East Indies and, evading the Japanese when they entered the war in 1942, made her way to Calcutta where B.I.’s Managing Agents, Mackinnon Mackenzie, took her over. Loaded with a full cargo (some 1000 tons) of coal she was sailed to Trincomalee where she remained bunkering the many small vessels, Bar boats, trawlers etc. of the Royal Navy stationed. there. The BI’s WARIALDA brought coal from Calcutta for the Navy and during her stay would fill up the SHINFU so that when the WARIALDA went back to Calcutta for another cargo the SHINFU could continue to supply the fleet with bunkers. The SHINFU no longer had a seaworthiness certificate and was classed in the navy list, I believe, as ”An efficient mobile coal hulk”. The ship’s company comprising a Norwegian Master, whose ship had been lost by enemy action in the Bay of Bengal and myself as Mate, two elderly Chinese Engineers, a Butler, a skeleton Asian crew, a small Jack Russell dog and a Mongoose, the pet of the 2nd. Engineer. She was a simple little flush deck ship, 2 holds, one forward and one aft, reciprocating steam engine and rod and chain steering gear. The crew were berthed forward, the officers aft on the poop and the bridge structure with the Master’s cabin, saloon and galley amidships. My chief memory of her is that she was infested with the biggest cockroaches I have ever seen and no amount of cleaning on our part seemed to have any effect on their numbers. Captain Thorkilsen was a charming Norwegian gentleman who spoke his English with a strong skowegian accent (Kom, Chief Mate, let us jump into the jolly boat and go ashore) He was continually amazed at Mackinnons old fashioned business correspondence. He would receive quite a stern rocket of a letter saying, for example:-
Warialda © Alex Duncan
“Dear Sir, We regret to note etc. etc. but ending with the usual We have the honour to be, Sir, your obedient servant.”
In Norway, he would say, with perhaps a touch of nostalgia, you are the servant and the Owners would say “You bloody fool, why did you etc..etc After four months in the SHINFU Mackinnon Mackenzie relieved me to go back to my substantive rank of 2nd. Officer in the B.I.
During my service as a pilot in the East African Railways and Harbours, mostly in Dar-es-Salaam from 1948 to1955 I must have piloted several thousand vessels. Most of them have now faded into the general background of those days but some occasions and ships, for often quite trivial reasons, remain quite clear in my memory. ( or I think they do , after some 60 years).
Take, for example, the very first ship that I, as a brand new pilot, took to sea. She was a Prince Line motor vessel in ballast and, in my inexperience, I completely underestimated the combined effect of a fresh SE’ly breeze and a strong ebb tide on a ship in ballast trim with the result that we were soon desperately trying to claw ourselves off a lee shore using Full ahead and Hard a’starboard. We made it, just, but it is not an experience that I, or the Master for that matter, is likely to forget in a hurry.
During the immediate post war years, the late 40’s and early 50’s the ships that visited the East African coast comprised, British wartime Empires, Oceans or Forts, American built Liberty ships, some of the larger faster American Victory types known, I think, as VC2’s and 3’s , together with many pre-war old timers. Of course the old B.I. “M’s”, those stately old ladies the MANTOLA, MATIANA, MODASA and their sisters were still with us and seemed likely to go on for ever. The Union Castle’s LLANSTEPHAN and LLANDOVERY CASTLES were also regular visitors, shortly to be joined by their new intermediate RHODESIA and KENYA CASTLE class vessels.
Mantola. © P & O Collection
Kenya Castle
The LLANDOVERY handled beautifully but I often found the LLANSTEPHAN a bit of a handful to manoeuvre. She was not, however, nearly as bad as Lloyd Triestino’s old passenger ship the GERUSALEMME who was a bit of a cow and at times seemed to have a mind of her own. Indeed on one occasion when she was swinging gaily to port with the rudder hard over to starboard I actually asked the Captain, only half jokingly, if the steering gear was switched on. The GERUSALEMME was replaced by Lloyd Triestino’s two new passenger vessels, the EUROPA and AFRICA and they were a joy to pilot.
Gerusalemme, in hospital livery.
The B.I. soon had their two new large passenger vessels KENYA and UGANDA, with her distinctively large funnel, on the UK/East Africa run to supplement the “M’s”
The B.I. also had ships on the India/South Africa service calling at East African ports. The KAMPALA and KARANJA were regulars and for time the AMRA and ARONDA. Of these two sister ships I much preferred handling the ARONDA as her engine manoeuvring revolutions were set higher than the AMRA’s . Half ahead on the AMRA was about the same as slow ahead on the ARONDA which made the passage of the entrance channel in the former unnecessarily tedious as it did not feel seamanlike to use ‘Full ahead’ in such close waters.
Amra. © P & O Collection
Indeed the B.I. was very active on the East African coast during the 1950’s and Sunday 16th. September 1951 is still known in Mombasa as “B.I. Sunday” as, on that day, every deep water alongside berth at Kilindini was occupied by a B.I. vessel.
The MANTOLA, MOMBASA, KENYA, KARANJA, MODASA with the B.I. coaster TABORA alongside her and KAMPALA.
(B.I. Sunday)
Of the wartime cargo ships I always thought that the Liberties were slightly under powered and had a rather large turning circle but the British built Forts Empires and Oceans handled well although there was the ‘Fort’ that I attempted to pilot to sea when either the main engines or the steering engine would work but not both together. They said that after repairs the steam pipes had been crossed so that instead of blowing they sucked .but I think it was more likely a lack of steam pressure, not enough to work both together, as, after half an hours wait, both worked normally.
The American VC2’s and 3’s, handled beautifully. The Farrell Lines AFRICAN PLANET and her sisters were regular and welcome visitors to Dar as were those of the Lykes Line but what were, I suppose, their British counterparts, the Union Castle’s DRAKENSBERG CASTLE and GOODHOPE CASTLE who had double reduction turbine engines with minimal astern power were not so good,. Although they could be steered through the eye of a needle, they were difficult to bring to a halt or manoeuvre in the limited confines of Dar-as-Salaam harbour in the days before we had ship handling tug assistance. The knack was to order ‘dead slow astern’ long before necessary in order to have the engines turning in the right direction when you needed them. Even so, I recall bringing the DRAKENSBERG in to a single anchor berth at dead slow speed, going dead slow astern long before dropping the anchor and then with ‘full astern’ it took 6 shackles of cable before she was finally brought up. I also recall that when I was a new pilot the GOOD HOPE CASTLE gave me a bad weekend. She had arrived fully laden one Friday and because of her deep draft was neaped until Monday morning. Every time I looked out of the window of my flat at the signal station there she was at anchor off the fairway buoy waiting for me. In the event she was no trouble at all when we entered harbour on Monday.
Good Hope Castle.
Another American ship that visited us once or twice, the MARINE RUNNER, had the bridge structure right forward on the fo’c’sle head. We were told it was a design commonly seen on the Great Lakes of North America. She handled quite normally but as our anchoring marks were all set for a fore deck of 150 feet one had to do a mental reassessment and drop the anchor accordingly. Also, when making the 70 degree turn to starboard when entering the port one wondered whether, wit so much ship to follow, the stern might not just clip the sunken drydock. My theory was that if the bow got through, surely the stern would follow.
The American Robin Line ships were regular traders to East Africa. All their ships were named after characters of the Robin Hood legend, ROBIN HOOD, ROBIN LOCKSLEY and so on and most of them were of a design with an extended fo’c’s’le and little or no sheer. By the time they had reached Dar-es-Salaam they were usually of very light draft and so were frequently berthed in “C” berth, a large ship berth for shallow drafted vessels (from memory only 20 ft. 6 ins at spring tides) just off the Customs Jetty. Very convenient for their agents Mitchell Cotts except on the occasion when one of them had combustion malfunction and spewed oily soots out of the funnel onto nearby houses which gave rise to claims for compensation for fouled curtains and upholstery from irate residents.
Robin Line Ship
During my piloting days in Dar-es-Salaam there were sometime incidents, mostly minor, some quite hilarious, some quite tragic.
Take the occasion when, piloting an American ship to sea, we had just got started and were heading up for the entrance when a very large and very drunk sailor accompanied by a very small but equally drunk sailor arrived on the bridge and announced, in an aggressive voice “Tich here hasn’t done any worked today so he must do his trick at the wheel” Fortunately the Captain was even larger than the large sailor and he walked slowly towards him and, when they met, stomach to stomach, eyeball to eyeball just kept on walking until both sailors were pushed back to the ladder and off the bridge.
On another occasion, piloting a ship in from sea, the Captain was sweating profusely and kept leaving the bridge for a few moments every now and again. He told me he had a bout of fever. Meeting the ship’s agent next day I was asked how I had found the Captain and said that he had told me he had a fever. “Fever my foot”, replied the agent,” he was blind drunk and that evening he had DTs and chased the ship’s cook around with a fire axe. We had to have him landed in a strait jacket and taken to hospital”.
The most serious accident while I was a pilot at Dar-es-Salaam was the loss of the Norwegian motor ship SLEMMESTAD by fire. The ship had just left the port when a fire in the engine room, which immobilised the fire pumps, spread to the cargo holds containing some flammable cargoes including safety matches and drums of bitumen. The pilot boat was able to take off the crew and no lives were lost. The port tug put a line aboard and beached her clear of the fairway where she burned furiously for some days.
In those days the Bank Line had two small white painted twin screw passenger ships on the run, the INCHANGA and INCOMATI. , both very easy to handle and manoeuvre but, I suppose, one of the potentially most serious incidents in which I was concerned as a pilot was with one of them, I think the INCHANGA She had arrived during the night and was anchored off the fairway buoy ready for a dawn entry. I boarded her and when the anchor came aweigh she was heading with the channel entrance fine on the starboard bow so the orders were “Half ahead two and starboard a little”. She swung slowly to starboard and as we came abreast of the fairway buoy we were nicely lined up on the channel leading lights, so “Midships and steady as you go” Still swinging to starboard so “port your helm”, no response so “hard a port”. Still swinging to starboard so” Full astern both engines, let go both bower anchors” and we ended up athwart the channel with our bow embedded in the sand of one bank. It transpired that the 3rd Officer when testing the controls that morning had forgotten to switch on the electric steering gear . Fortunately we had not been moving too fast so that when the steering gear had been switched on and tested we were able, by weighing both anchors together and with stern power on the engines, to back her off quite easily and enter port in the usual way.
I should like to mention another vessel., although I did not handle her.
In 1948/9 the Crown Agents for the Colonies arranged for the ORBITA to do a trip to East Africa to bring out some of the backlog of expatriates. ORBITA was an ex Royal Mail Steamship Co’s vessel built by Harland and Wolff in 1914 as a triple screw vessel and had been an Armed Merchant Cruiser in WW1. By 1948 the centre screw had been removed and she was reputed to be a difficult vessel to handle. The two pilots at Dar at that time, Bill Oliver and myself were both relatively inexperienced so the Harbour Master, Captain Vic Anderson decided to do her himself taking us with him for the experience. In the event she handled perfectly normally without any trouble.
Orbita.
I myself have piloted only one triple screw vessel, the Dutch Royal Interocean liner TEGELBERG. From memory I think I mainly used the centre screw and the wing screws for manoeuvring in the harbour and she handled very well.
In reminiscences such as these I must mention my only sea-going command, the steam tug NGUVU. In the 50’s she was the smallest of the ship handling tugs based at Mombasa and was used to do the buoys, beacons and lights safaris up and down the coast. The first occasion I had her was the Southern Province safari of 1950 when we did all the buoys between Dar-es-Salaam and Mtwara (the new port) at the extreme south of the Tanganyikan coast. It was a very pleasant three week safari, accompanied by my wife and dog, with Bob Dewar from the Dockyard as Chief Engineer. We visited the small ports along the way, the two Kilwa’s,Kisiwani and Kivinje, Mikindani and Lindi, where we spent two days with Jimmy and Mary Campbell, the Lindi pilot and his wife. A day and a half at Fanjove Island working on the automatic light house which had been originally built by the Germans in 1896 and manned by two lighthouse keepers.
The second occasion I took her for the Southern Province Safari in 1954 was not so successful. My wife was in the U.K. on sick leave but the Chief Engineer this time was Chris Flatsteth from Mombasa accompanied by his wife. All went well until about midnight on the third night when, anchored off Kidandoni, Mafia Island, we were awoken to find the ship on fire. Despite the efforts of Mohammed, the skipper and the crew with the fire hoses the superstructure with our cabins and galley were destroyed. During the fire Mrs. Flatsteth and the surplus crew were put, for safety, into the lighter carrying the replacement buoys that was alongside. Next day when I went ashore to the District Commissioner’s to send a cable to Dar-es-Salaam aborting the safari I was told that the previous day had been the Sheik’s birthday and as bonfires had been lit all over the Island they thought that that was what we were doing too! The upper works were gutted but fortunately the wheel and compass binnacle had survived so that we were able to make our way back to Dar-es-Salaam. It was evident that the fire had started in the galley, but how and why was in dispute so it was decided that I should take her back to Mombasa for the enquiry. Memory is fickle, I have absolutely no recollection of that short voyage from Dar-es-Salaam to Mombasa yet it must have posed it’s problems. The cabins, galley and toilets were gutted, my sextant, binoculars and the ships navigation equipment destroyed and all that remained were the ship’s steering wheel, the compass, with unknown deviations, in a slightly charred binnacle and the engine room telegraph standing on an open deck.
The enquiry was held by Commander Fordham, Senior Harbourmaster in Mombasa. To my relief the Mombasa Firemaster was able positively to determine the cause of the fire. Our kerosene powered refrigerator! It was the rainy season and water had got into the kerosene which, when it reached the burner turned to steam and caused a blow back . He had just returned from investigating two similar incidents up-country.
I suppose I could go rambling on, the prerogative, they say, of old men, but it is really now time to ring down “Finished with Engines” and make myself a soothing hot drink.. The other day, lunching at a restaurant overlooking Southampton Water I looked out of the window and was astonished to see what looked like a floating Dutch barn sail past, a modern ‘state of the ark’ ship! Take the Queen Mary 2 and the other large cruise ships of today. Little more than large elongated complexes of floating modern apartment blocks, navigated by the latest satellite technology and propelled by pods and without rudders. Limited by their very size and draft to the places they can visit and then, when they get there, the several thousands of passengers aboard will have to queue up to go ashore and, no doubt, queue to get back onboard again. I’m now in my ninety first year and, I’m sure life must have been much more simple in my days. We had our sextants and the three “L’s”, Log (the patent log towed astern), Lead (the deep sea sounding machine) and Lookout. On a Home Line “M’”, sometimes, if lucky, an approximate fix by Sparks and his D.F.
I’ve had a good life, my participation with ships is now long past and I don’t really envy the modern seafarer at all. Being a small ship man I’d settle any day for the good old seven thousand ton KHANDALLA!
Khandalla
Painting by Richard Crow