DEMISE OF SS ESSO NORWAY

At half past three in the morning, Don’s bedside alarm clock woke him.  Throwing the blankets aside so that he wouldn’t fall back to sleep, he lay for a while letting himself become fully awake.  He slowly slid out of his bunk and made his way to the bathroom for a quick cold splash to rouse himself, and pulled on his working clothes getting ready to go on watch down the engine room.  No one in the world is himself at this time of day.  It’s unnatural to be awake then.  Everyone, except watchkeepers, are curled up in a warm bed fast asleep at this time.

The ship was heading roughly south west in the Arabian Sea, part of the Indian Ocean off the coast of Muscat, a wild and desolate part of the world.  It was August and the monsoon period, so the ship was performing a long rolling motion due to the swell of the waves, so Don had to keep hold of whatever he could to keep steady while he washed and dressed.

He was in charge of the 4/8 watch of the 47,000 deadweight tons vessel Esso Norway, a steam turbine driven crude oil tanker.  As Junior Second Engineer, he was number three in the pecking order, working under the Chief and Senior Second Engineers.  The Junior Second, or J2 as everyone called him, was the most senior of the watchkeeping engineers who covered three separate watches around the clock, seven days a week, fifty two weeks a year.  The engine room never shut down so had to be manned permanently.  The three watches were know as 12/4, 4/8 and 8/12.  Each watch was supervised by a senior engineer and assisted by a junior, or 5th, engineer.  These maintained watchkeeping duties in all of the machinery spaces.

In the boiler room a fireman tended the boilers.

That was it, these three men looked after everything that was running in the machinery spaces to keep this monster ship moving.

The Junior Second kept the 4/8 watch, Third kept the 12/4 and the Fourth the 8/12, each assisted by their junior engineers who were all known as ‘fiver’.

On the bridge it was a similar story.  Deck officers were on the same watches, assisted by a helmsman and a lookout.  It was their job to keep the ship heading in the right direction.

At quarter to four, the 12/4 junior engineer, knocked and opened Don’s cabin door, shouted, “Quarter to, Sec.”  “Okay, I’m up thanks.” Don’s reply in acknowledgement, not one to indulge in chat at that time in the morning.

Don made his way slowly down into the engine room checking various items on his way down, temperatures of this, pressures of that, water levels of the other until he reached the manoeuvring platform where the departing watch were making ready to go up top to their beds for a few hours sleep before breakfast time.

He checked the log that was maintained by the watchkeepers to see if there was anything untoward that he should know about and received the verbal report from the 12/4 senior engineer, the Third.  The last job of the departing watch is to fill in the log that is maintained of every important aspect of the machinery space, temperatures of everything, pressures of everything, water levels, soundings, fuel used, water used and so forth.  This is for the permanent record which is passed on a monthly basis to the head office in London.  The bilges must be pumped dry before departing the watch and everything left in good order for the coming relief watch.

Once these formalities were over, the 12/4 watchkeepers departed, leaving the 4/8 to continue where they had left off.

The vessel was on its way home to Southampton, UK, after loading its 47,000 tons of crude oil in Ras Tanura, Saudi Arabia situated about half way up the Persian Gulf. 

The ship was a fairly new vessel, just three years old and had been built in Hamburg where a number of the company’s ships had been built.  The Germans were known as excellent ship builders so there was no need to be apprehensive about the strength and stability of this big ship.  This was in 1964 when this was one of the larger tankers around.  It would be a few years yet before the huge supertankers and VLCC’s came into being.

Don had joined the vessel just three weeks earlier at Port de Bouc in Marseilles, France, accompanying the new Captain.  They had flown from Newcastle upon Tyne together via London Heathrow.  This was the first time Don had flown and he hadn’t wanted to be disappointed with some small ancient plane.  He hadn’t, as it was a new French Caravelle jet and all very plush inside.  Once in Marseilles, they had had to wait a couple of days for the ship to arrive and had stayed at a small hotel near to the port.  Don would have rather waited at home with his wife and small family than be stuck there but this was their orders from ‘head office’ so who were they to argue?

On joining a ship, it was considered quite the norm for the departing engineer to show the joining engineer around the engine room pointing out bits of information here and there.  There was no set parameters for this handing over ceremony, just what could be considered as ‘important’ to the departing one.  Don had noticed a few detrimental aspects of the engine room and one that had claimed his attention was that a broom handle was jammed into the condenser end cover.  On asking the meaning of this, he was told, “Oh that’s just a little leak that we have stopped like that until you can shut the plant down and repair it properly.”  Don made note of the pointed ‘we’ and ‘you’.

The departing Junior Second engineer also advised that it was generally thought that the sea water side of the main condenser was becoming dirty, so they’d also been running the auxiliary condenser sea water circulating pump to assist, until such a time that you can clean the condenser tubes.  Don noted the ‘you’ once again.

So leaving Marseilles bound for the Persian Gulf, things settled down to the normal routine of shipboard work.  It always takes a few days for the engineers to settle in to a new ship that they’ve never been on before, but the company’s ships were all very similar in design so it wasn’t considered strange, immediately on joining the ship, to be put in charge of a watch in a ship you’d never even seen before.  You just went around on tiptoe for a few days, praying that nothing unusual happened suddenly before you were fully acclimatised.

Slowly but surely everything turned into routine and all things ran nice and smoothly on the ballast passage towards ‘The Gulf.’

Each senior watchkeeper has something specific that is their responsibility.  In this company, the Fourth Engineer looked after all the lubricating oil.  He kept it all clean by running the centrifugal purifier on a continuous basis and also kept the purifiers clean, dismantling them on a daily basis.

The Third Engineer had to look after the chemical dosing of the boilers and checking their chemical content on a daily basis.  He carried out chemical analysis checks and carefully tabulated the results and ensured that the boiler and feed water was in good order.

The Junior Second was responsible for making distilled water for the boilers from sea water.  There were sea water evaporators on board these ships and these needed to be maintained in good working order to affect this.  These needed to be shut down and cleaned on a daily basis to remove the scale that formed from boiling the sea water.  He did this around six o’clock each morning when it was quiet and everything had been checked and double checked on his watch.

Don had jointed the ship on 3rd August 1964.  Now three weeks later, most things were now considered as routine.  Keep everything working efficiently for four hours at a time and pass the watch over to your relief.

At four o’clock in the morning of 24th August, the watch changed hands from the Third Engineer to the Junior Second Engineer.  The 4/8 junior’s first job was to make a tour of all the machinery spaces checking everything that he would for filling in the log at the end of the watch.  During the time he had been on board, some three months, this junior engineer had found nothing that could cause him great concern.  Once in a while the previous fiver hadn’t pumped the bilges correctly and he’d complain about this next time he saw him.  But nothing of great significance had previously occurred and he couldn’t see why this good state of affairs shouldn’t carry on.

The first tour usually took around an hour to complete and he’d report back to his senior engineer what he’d found.  So returning to the manoeuvring platform that was their station, he reported that, as usual, ‘All is well’.

Don had been studying the huge gauge board at the manoeuvring platform and could see that all the gauges were standing at their usual and normal readings.  On the return of the junior, he wandered around the engine room and boiler room checking things for himself.  The fireman had his own specific duties.  He ensured that there was always water in the boilers and standing at the correct level.  He had to ensure that the burners were firing correctly with a nice bright yellow flame, no black smoke being emitted from the funnel.  He always had a spare set of burners ready for a quick change if any of the working burners functioned incorrectly.  Each fireman changed the burners just before the end of his watch and dismantled and cleaned the removed ones ready for the fireman of the next watch.

All was well in the boiler room at Don’s inspection.

Around the middle of the watch, the fireman would make everyone a cup of tea or coffee and they all looked forward to this mini break.

After they’d had their tea, Don walked over to the evaporator flat to shut down the evaporator for cleaning.  In obtaining fresh distilled water from sea water, this leaves behind heavy deposits of salts that need to be removed on a continual basis.  These salts still, however, deposit a film of scale on the steam heating coils and it is this that needed to be removed to maintain the evaporator in an efficient condition.  The best way to do this is to completely empty the evaporator of water, apply a short blast of steam through the coils to make them expand and become hot.  The steam is turned off and cold sea water quickly blasted onto the coils.  This cools them rapidly, contracts them and, hopefully, break the scale from the coils.  The evaporator front cover is then removed and the scale raked out and everything left clean for starting up again.

This was nicely in hand when, at about 0615, suddenly a bell on the alarm panel rang.  Don looked up and saw a red light flashing indicating some major fault.  Now, when shutting down the evaporator, an alarm generally rings to indicate that the water passing through the test cell was impure.  This had already occurred so Don knew it wasn’t this.  The junior engineer was looking at the alarm panel but couldn’t see what was wrong.  Don could see from where he was that it was on the water feed circuit alarm board and ran over to check what was causing it to ring.

No. 1 condensate pump had tripped out.  This was situated on the lower engine room platform below where they were standing.

There are always two of everything important and No. 2 condensate pump was set to cut in automatically if the operating pump stopped for any reason.  This hadn’t yet happened, so Don shouted to the junior to run down to check the pump while he looked at the electric panel to ensure that the electric breaker for the pump motor was still on line.  The junior departed.  Don checked the electric panel.  Sure enough No. 1 condensate pump motor breaker had tripped.  He reset this breaker, but it kept tripping itself out.  Similar with No. 2.  He didn’t have very long to get things working as, without water being circulated around the feed system, the whole plant would quickly shut down.  He was about to inform the bridge that there was a bit of a panic in the engine room when the junior came back, ashen faced, and advised that he couldn’t get the pump to run and ‘I think there’s a big problem down there’.  Nothing of what he’d found.

Shouting to the junior to ‘ring the engine room alarm’ that would bring all the engineers running to assist, Don ran down to have quick look at what was wrong.  When he arrived at the lower platform, his heart almost stopped.  There was about eight feet of water in the bilges of the cargo pump flat, and this water was now up to the level of the lower flat on which he was standing.  He could hear the engine room alarm ringing so knew that the other engineers would be down in seconds so prayed that they would stop the engines and secure the boilers.  He had to see from where the water was coming before it became too deep to see.  He ran around all the spaces and eventually saw water boiling around the discharge valve of the main sea water circulating pump.  He knew there was a large flexible rubber bellows in this region so took it that this had ruptured.  Nothing could be done about this, so the main thing was to shut all the ship side valves supplying the sea water to the cooling system.  He shut the main sea suction and opened up the emergency bilge suction valve which was connected into the same sea water pump, hoping that at least some of the water would be pumped overboard.  Now the auxiliary condenser sea water circulating pump was also running so this had to be closed as well.  The main valves were 26 inches in diameter with huge handwheels that took an age to close.  Same with the auxiliary.  Don was nearly collapsing with the stress before someone came to help him close all these valves.  Other engineers had turned up and were all shutting valves furiously.  By this time the water had risen to around knee height at the lower platform.  A number of the steel floorplates were without fastenings and, due to the heavy rolling of the ship in the monsoons, these were shooting around like surfboards.  There was a definite danger of these taking off someone’s leg or at least causing a serious injury.

Next came the overboard discharge valves, namely the main and auxiliary condenser sea water overboards.  These needed to be closed as well.  The auxiliary one was closed fairly quickly, but the main overboard valve just couldn’t be moved.  It was jammed solid in the open position and it was just on the ship’s water line.

Water was now pouring into the engineroom from the overboard discharge valve, through the main condenser and out through the hole, wherever this was.

In the meantime all the engineers had run to their emergency stations, the Chief Engineer taking command, stopped the engines and shut down the boilers. 

The ship’s electrician, ‘Lecky’ as he was known, was dispatched to the emergency generator room to start up the emergency diesel generator to supply power to the switchboard feeding all the emergency equipment; lights, steering gear, various pumps and so forth.  This done, the main steam plant could be completely shut down.

The deck department were turned to, and they secured the ship as safe as they could.  The water was far too deep to drop anchor, so they just let all ships in the area know that they were in trouble, their ship was ‘Not Under Command’ and to maintain a good distance clear.

Everyone, together, tried to close the overboard discharge valve, but it was stuck fast and just would not budge one inch.  The captain was advised of the problem so he took charge of the bridge sending the Chief Mate aft to assist where he could.

The Mate came to the engine room and received the status report from the Chief Engineeer.  The Chief Mate came up with the idea to rig a collision mat for dropping over the overboard discharge valve opening, so raced away to grab the bosun and a number of deck hands.

They found a cargo net, tied some tarpaulin to the net and weighted this with some spare zinc anodes that were used to protect the paintwork of the shell plating.  All of this took a considerable time with people trying to rush things.  The water was coming into the ship at an alarming rate.

This was relayed to the Captain who feared that the ship would sink.  He feverishly searched for the ship’s Stability Book that would show how many compartments could be flooded before the ship became unstable.  To his horror, he couldn’t find it and no one else knew where it was.  He had no way of being able to determine the ship’s stability under these conditions.  He was beginning to feel a bit out of his depth.

He sent a runner for the Pumpman.  The job of the pumpman is, working under the Chief Mate, being responsible for loading and discharging of the cargo.  He knew every cargo and ballast pipeline and every cargo and ballast valve in the ship better than anyone else.  When he arrived on the bridge, the Captain ordered him to open up whatever valves he could to jettison the cargo overboard.  He scurried away to obey this order.

Down aft the Chief Mate was putting together the collision mat and was progressing well but it was taking an age.  They had dropped a circle of rope, weighted with more zinc anodes, over the side, manoeuvred it under the rudder and were pulling it along to the area where the valve was located.  Next came the job of attaching the collision mat to this rope with the idea of pulling it over the side, keelhauling style, until the mat was over the valve opening, a rather monumental task but it was progressing, slowly…..

Down the engine room, when it was realised that they were not going to be able to shut the overboard discharge valve, the only hope was to pump out the water from the bilges using every pump available.  None of the pumps in the main part of the engine room could be operated as these were now below the rising water level.  Various bilge valves had been opened and, it was hoped that other pumps could be made to draw from the main bilge line.  The water tight doors leading to the lower aft engine room were shut and the emergency bilge pump, general service pump, and stand-by ballast pump were started and put onto the main bilge line.  The effect was not promising and the water level continued to rise.

Suddenly everyone in the engine rooms could smell oil.  Looking around, the rising water level was seen to be covered in crude oil and this was emitting a haze of gas.  The engineers couldn’t breathe properly and no one understood from where this crude oil had appeared.  The main steam lines, and the main high pressure turbine, had been operating at temperatures of around 800 degrees Fahrenheit and this was heating up the gas.  The Chief Engineers shouted to everyone to get out of the engine room.  He herded everyone together, made sure that no one was missing and took them all out of the engine room, having every door and skylight battened down tight.

When everyone reached the open deck, they were amazed to see that the sea was awash with crude oil.  It was so dense that it had calmed the sea and the ship wasn’t rolling as much as it had previously.

It was then learned that the captain had jettisoned the cargo to prevent the ship from sinking, and the cargo was still leaking from the ship.

The Senior Second called everyone around him and stated that he wanted a watch maintained on the level of water in the engine room.  One or two of the engineers weren’t happy about this.  “We’ve just abandoned the engine room because we couldn’t breathe.  It’s not a good idea for someone to go below on their own in that gas.“ from one of them.  The Second wouldn’t have it.  “The Captain will need to know how far the water has risen, so we’ll make a roster.”  One of the junior engineers had left his watch in the desk at the manoeuvring platform level, so he volunteered to be first to go down, so off he went to have a look.

All of the engineers were soaked to the skin and covered in black oil, so most went to their cabins to get cleaned up and into a change of gear.

Don was one of these and he went to his cabin to clean himself up.  His cabin was high up on one of the upper decks of the aft accommodation, same level as the Chief and Senior Second Engineers.  He quickly stripped off, went into his bathroom, scraped the mire off himself as best he could, washed and began to change into dry clothes.  He was standing in his thick woollen work socks with his clean vest and jockey shorts on when an almighty thunderous bang went off and he was suddenly standing in pitch blackness.  Momentarily shocked, his brain couldn’t quite take in what had happened.  He was inside the bathroom which was the only part of his cabin that was made of steel plate.

Then it came to him.  The gas in the engine room had exploded, probably caused from one of the hot steam pipes or from the switchboard.  Whatever it was, this ship wasn’t going anywhere on its own now.  He hoped that it hadn’t caused too much damage, but first things first, get out of this cabin now.

With his hands outstretched in the pitch blackness he felt his way to the bathroom door and pulled it open.  There was a mountain of debris in front of the door, but still he couldn’t see for the dust that was flying around.  Treading carefully in his stocking feet he climbed over the debris to the main door of his cabin.  This was wrecked and couldn’t be opened.  Still working in total darkness, he made his way to the side of his cabin.  There were two rectangular windows there that opened out onto the side of the deck.  Feeling for the catch he tried to open each window in turn but it was not to be as the blast had damaged the frames.  He began to panic a little.  Picking up his desk chair he tried breaking the glass.  Not to be, these are toughened glass windows, able to resist the biggest storm.  Taking a deep breathe, he waited to calm himself.  “There must be a way out of here”, he thought.  “Calm down and you’ll find it”.

The dust had begun to settle and Don spotted a feint light appearing about ten yards away.  As it settled more, he realised that he was looking aft through three other cabins and could see the deck aft of the upper accommodation.  The blast had blown out every dividing bulkhead between the cabins.  These were only compressed fibreboard bulkheads so wouldn’t be able to withstand any major forces, not like the steel bulkhead of the bathrooms.  He realised that he’d been saved by standing inside the bathroom that was surrounded by steel bulkheads; this being normal in ships.

He found his workshoes but, still in his underclothes, he tentatively made his was through these stricken cabins out onto the deck.  He found a boiler suit lying on the floor of one of the cabins and pulled this on.  As he exited the accommodation, he found the ship’s electrician wandering around in a daze with a deep cut over his eye and pouring with blood.  He didn’t seem to know what was going on.  Shrugging off the top of his boiler suit, Don took off his vest and wrapped it around ‘Lecky’s’ head and, putting his arm around him, half carried him along the deck to the bridge and handed him over to the Chief Steward who was the responsible person for first aid on the ship.  That was the last Don saw of Lecky for some time.

Don returned aft to see what he could do to help the situation.  There were cries coming from the portholes of the lower decks.  A few of the crew were searching for ropes to pull the trapped people from their cabins so Don joined these.  Between them they pulled just about everyone out through the portholes.  Luckily no one was too large to pass though these small holes.

Someone mentioned that one of the junior engineers had gone down the engine room just before the blast, obeying the Senior Second’s instruction to ‘keep an eye on the level of water.’  Not knowing who this was Don ran along the deck to one of the engine room doors, pulled it open and went into the engine room.  He was aghast at what he saw.  Down by the manoeuvring platform, at the forward end of the main turbine, a huge fire was burning and smoke was everywhere.  There was still a strong smell of gas in the air and Don felt that it was just a matter of time before another explosion occurred.  He closed the heavy steel water tight door after him, rammed the dogs in position and made his way along the deck to advise the Captain of the conditions down the engine room.  The Captain looked stricken when he heard what Don had to say.  Looking aft he could see black smoke pouring from the top of the ship.  There was obviously a huge fire somewhere.  He held his hands up trying to get attention and shouted “Time to abandon the ship.  Pass this order around and make for the lifeboats.”

Everyone was mustered and a head count taken.  Three people were missing.  A search was made, but the Captain couldn’t delay the departure much longer, he could well see the black smoke emanating from aft end of the ship.  If there was gas down there, another explosion wasn’t far away.  And, he realised, the shipside valves jettisoning the cargo were still open.  The cargo was still pouring into the sea and into the engine room.  Heaven help us, he thought.

A number of ships in the area had stopped to see what was the result and if they could help.  A ship rescuing another ship at sea and towing it to a safe haven can claim salvage of that vessel and everyone in the crew receives a part of the salvage monies paid.  Everyone wanted to get into the act.   One cargo ship came very close and fired a heaving line across the bows of Esso Norway.  Some of the crew caught the line and an attempt was made to receive the towline from this cargo ship.  Also nearby was a British Royal Navy vessel that turned out to be a tank landing craft named HMS Anzio.  This was a very small vessel compared with Esso Norway, but the Captain felt he’d rather be rescued by the British Royal Navy than a foreign flagged cargo ship and ordered the received towline to be passed back to the cargo ship.  He had been in contact with the Anzio and agreed that they would carry out the salvage operation.

Everyone mustered, there were four lifeboats, two per side, two with diesel engines and the other two with oars.  Everyone put on a lifejacket and climbed into their designated boat.  Don, being an engineer, took charge of the engine of one of the boats, started it up in readiness and waited for the crew to fill the boat.  The Captain told the mate at the helm in the boat to wait for him while he collected the ship’s papers and came with a briefcase and a number of files.  The main things that needed to be kept were the discharge books of the crew.  These were irreplaceable being a complete  record of every ship a man sails on, dates of joining and leaving, comments on ability and conduct.  These books just cannot be lost, it would be a disaster.  So, obviously he would bring them with him.

With tears in his eyes, he told Don to pull away from the ship.  The Captain must be the last one to leave his ship, he’d made sure that this command was carried out.  Grey and black smoke was billowing from the aft end of the ship almost hiding her completely from view.  The entire top deck plate over the engine room had been blasted off in the explosion.  There were bits of steel littered on the deck looking for all the world like shrapnel Don had seen during the war years.

Everyone was sorry to leave their ship, a lone hulk that was obviously doomed to the scrapyard.  It could never be recovered after an explosion of that calibre.  The deck department who lived in the amidships accommodation no doubt had rescued some of their belongings.  Those living aft left the ship with what was on their backs.  As for Don, the only thing that belonged to him was his shoes, socks and underpants, he’d lost everything else.

HMS Anzio that had agreed the rescue was waiting for the shipwrecked sailors.  The boat in which Don and The Captain were in was the last one to come alongside the craft.

Don worked the engine to keep the lifeboat alongside Anzio whilst everyone climbed out.  Eventually there was only The Captain and Don.  True to laws of the sea, the Captain ordered Don out first leaving him, again, last on board.  When it was his turn to jump on board the landing craft, he jammed the engine lever full astern and leapt on board, leaving the lifeboat to drift off into the distance.  This had happened to all four of the boats.  A nice prize for someone to pick up.

As Don boarded the landing craft, one of the sailors handed him a cardboard box, which he accepted.  Puzzled at what it was he just tucked it under his arm and was led to a mustering room that had been made available.  It turned out that as well as having the normal crew on board, they were carrying 150 marines from the Gulf to Aden and also a cargo of tanks, armoured cars, ammunition and the like.  The little ship was packed tight.  There was just no room at all for anyone, so the theme was, ‘We can just put you wherever we can find a bunk.  Hope that will do.’

Well anything was better than the last ship we were on, so thanks, we’ll accept that.

Don was passed over to the engineering department and shared a cabin with about six of the ship’s engineers.  He was grateful for anything and the food they were served was fit for a king.  He got on famously with the engineers and quickly found friends he had things in common with and settled down to the life of the rescued shipwrecked sailor.

Opening his cardboard box, Don was quite amazed to see that it contained everything he would need under the circumstances.  There was a complete set of clothing, royal navy type of course, underclothes, bell bottom trousers, a jersey, socks, sandshoes, washing gear, soap, razor, toothbrush and paste, even a coat.  This was amazing.  All Royal Navy ships apparently carry this equipment for just such an event.

In the meantime, the crew of Anzio had put a line on board Esso Norway, fitted a towline and taken the vessel under tow.  Anzio was a tiny vessel compared with the loaded tanker, but she managed to make a couple of knots headway and kept the stricken vessel away from the beach.  The strong winds were constantly pushing the tanker towards the shore.  It may not last long and a 24 hour watch was kept on the tow line.  The sailor on watch actually had a huge axe with which to chop the tow line should it look like causing danger to Anzio.  The sailors who had boarded Norway had made themselves useful in salvaging whatever they could from the provisions stores.  First priority, of course, was the entire alcoholic drinks store on board.  The Captain of Anzio wouldn’t let them keep it as there would be riots on board with so many drunken sailors.  He doled it out in small measures for reward purposes.

On board Anzio there were medical staff.  However one of the crew members had suffered a broken arm in the blast.  The other, Lecky had a bad head wound.  Standing by was an Italian passenger ship heading for Aden and it was learned that there was a real doctor on board.  So these two injured men were transferred over to this ship for proper medical treatment.  They were transferred in the vessel’s motor launch and not seen again until the rest of the crew reached Aden.

After a day or two, cables were running thick and fast between London, New York and the ship.  A number of head office representatives were on their way to take charge of whatever rescue operation could be mustered.  It was going to take some time for this to happen as the ship was ‘in the middle of nowhere’, heading towards Aden in the Arabian Sea in monsoon conditions.  Travelling to this part of the world was not going to be one of the best planned journeys.

In the meantime the Norway’s Captain tried to keep up everyone’s spirits and he certainly did this to the extreme.  He wouldn’t hear of blame being allocated to anyone and took responsibility for the cargo jettison on himself.  He really could do no other, but all in all, he proved to be a tower of strength to his men.  He had even rescued his harmonica and kept the crew amused many a time with his expert playing and antics.

Most people had handled the situation fairly well.  After getting on board, everyone was mustered and it was found that the three missing people were a junior engineer who’d apparently been down the engine room at the time of the blast, a catering boy, of whom it was said had climbed up to the top deck to have a look down the engine room just before the blast and a donkeyman who had last been seen in his cabin getting changed.

Everyone else had been able to send a telegram to their next of kin advising them that they were safe and had been rescued.  Don was particularly worried about his wife.  She was pregnant with their second child.  The shock and worry she would be suffering would surely affect her.  He made sure that she knew that he was perfectly well and not to worry.  Some hope!

The vessel remained under tow for a few days, but with the weather deteriorating daily, it was plain that Anzio could not hold the tow for very long.

After a few days under tow, somehow or other the head office representatives arrived and were seen to be approaching the ship in a small launch that was bouncing all over the sea in the heavy waves caused by the strong winds.

Coming alongside, the first one on board was a superintendent from the London office that most of the officers knew.  He just collapsed onto the deck and vomited into the scuppers.  He just wanted to die, everyone knew the feeling, he was terribly sea sick.

He was escorted away to lie down and recover.  He was not seen ‘till the next day.

There were four others who had travelled from various places, the very head office in New York, London office and one from the Southampton office.   A meeting was called and they wanted to interview all of the leading officers to find out what had happened and how.

They grilled the Captain unmercifully.  Their theme was ‘everyone knows that oil tankers can’t sink.  What were you thinking of in jettisoning the cargo?”  His only explanation was that the Stability Book wasn’t on board, so he had no way of determining if this statement was true on this ship or not.  It transpired that it wasn’t on board, but in the London office being amended.

The next thing was, “How was it that the overboard discharge valve had jammed?”  They had checked all recent correspondence from the ship and found that it had been put into the drydocking specification to be attended to in six months time.  So this was known on board as well as in the London head office.  ‘Why had the ship been allowed to sail in this condition?’

The Chief Engineer had been on leave recently during which time he attended the head office.  He had been advised that the ship had had some repairs carried out in Marseilles on a previous trip where it had been necessary to list the ship over to carry out some ‘overside repairs’.  The Chief had understood that these overside repairs were to this overboard discharge valve, but hadn’t followed this up.

The Second Engineer had known about the jammed valve, but had been happy to leave it in this condition knowing that it was going to be repaired in dry dock soon.

It was highlighted by the representatives that the vessel had been sailing with an assumed dirty condenser and had merely used an additional sea water pump to remedy the problem.  ‘Why hadn’t the condenser been cleaned?’

The Chief Engineer was the head person in the engineering department, so everything was his responsibility.  He was feeling dreadful and he permanently looked ashen.  He had an upset stomach and always had his hand clutched to his abdomen.

Don, having been on board only three weeks, had known nothing of the valve, so wasn’t involved in the aspects of this.

However, the vessel needed to be salvaged.  The cargo needed to be taken off and transported to some refinery.  Whilst the vessel was under tow by Anzio, Esso had made arrangements with a tug and towing company called Svitzer of Denmark.  Soon two tugs arrived with the aim of taking over the tow and then getting on board and making the vessel ready for towing, initially to Aden and from there, goodness knows where.  They stood by waiting to take over the tow line from Anzio.

Eventually the winds began to blow the tanker towards the beach, Anzio could not hold her off, so the tow line was cut.  The tugs couldn’t pick up the line and it took no time at all for Esso Norway to drift ashore and become stuck fast on the beach.  She was so far below the water astern it was difficult to see the draught marks.  It was grounded aft and just swinging with the tide.

As the senior officers were to proceed to London, it was decided that two of the other senior officers were required to remain with the tugs to assist with the salvage.  It was quickly decided that these two were to be the Chief Deck Officer and Don the Junior Second Engineer.  So these two stalwarts were transferred to the Svitzer tug with the Danish and Arab crew waiting for the monsoon winds to abate to enable them to board Esso Norway.

Anzio was proceeding to Aden where the representatives would depart for London.  They wanted the Captain, the Chief Engineer and Second Engineer to attend the head office immediately so would be travelling with them.  The matter had come to the attention of the British Board of Trade, who was responsible to the Government of all safe aspects of British Registered Vessels so there would be an enquiry into the event by this body.  Esso needed to hold their own enquiry prior to this, so all senior people involved were needed at the head office.

Anzio disappeared over the horizon leaving Norway, the two tugs and the two senior officers behind.  They were bound for Aden, where all hands would be offloaded, cared for, put in a hotel for a day or two and then flown home

The two injured men had already arrived in Aden and were waiting for the remainder of the crew to arrive when they could all fly home.  These had been doctored on the Italian passenger ship and treated rather royally for the few days they were on board and had more or less recovered.  They’d had a somewhat better time than their shipmates on Anzio.

Meanwhile, on board the tugs, the next couple of weeks were just spent waiting for the winds to blow themselves out.  Eventually around the middle of September this happened and a small boat was made ready and transported the two officers to the tanker.  They were accompanied by a couple of Danish officers and a few Arab seamen.

Don and the Mate were first on board, scrambling up a hastily rigged rope ladder.  They immediately made their way aft to have a look at the engine room.  Being the middle of summer it was extremely hot and humid.  Approaching the engine room area, their senses were accosted by an overwhelming stench neither of them had encountered before.  They both had an idea what it was and, together, entered the engine room.  The top of the engine room had been completely ripped off in the blast.  The water was, naturally, at the level of the sea.  There was still a thick scum of crude oil lying on top of the water.  Floating not far away on the top of the water was the hugely bloated corpse of one of the missing men.  It was unrecognisable, but as it was dressed in a white boiler suit it could only be one person, the missing junior engineer.  Don had been quite friendly with this young lad, called Arthur, just 21 years of age and the only child of elderly parents.  The Arab crew members all had their scarves tied tight around their faces to dispel the smell of the body.  Don and the Mate did the same and proceeded to search around for something to recover the body.  The cargo net was still where it had been dropped, together with the attached ropes and heavy zinc anodes.  This was ideal for the purpose.  Throwing the rope over the body, they gently pulled him over towards the side.  The net was manoeuvred under him and, helped by the Arabs, lifted him out onto the deck.  It was a very difficult job, but he was eventually bundled up into the canvas and rope bag, securely tied up and dropped over the side and tied to the boat.   The boat dragged the body out into deep water and he was ‘buried at sea’.  A short prayer was said by the two and, hoping that this was sufficient to his needs, he was left in that spot.  The position of the burial spot was noted for future use, possibly to show his parents where their son’s grave was located.

Now to assess the extent of the damage.  The top of the engine room had disappeared completely, neatly removed at the bulkheads.  The aft bulkhead that divided the engine room from the boiler room was heavily bulged and could be seen to be cracked.  This meant that the boiler room was also completely flooded.  The boiler room was open through to the steering compartment.  There is a door leading into the steering compartment, but it was felt that this was open as it was normally left that way.  The pump room, which was the next compartment forward of the engine room could be accesses and this was seen to be flooded to the same level.  Obviously the bulkhead was breached.  Due to the attempt to jettison the cargo, all of the cargo tank valves were open.  Oil had been dumped, but these would all be flooded to sea level as well.  It was amazing that the vessel was still floating, completely full of oil and sea water.

Having accessed the ship at last Don had a look into his cabin.  It was in total ruins, everything destroyed by fire.  He poked around where his desk had been and found a few bits and pieces that the fire couldn’t completely destroy.  A few coins had melted together, his watch was just a molten mess, he saw the remnants of an electric razor, a photo frame that held the photo’s of his wife and son and, in the wardrobe, beside the buttons of this dress uniform he found the strings and steel attachments of his beloved banjo, gone now forever.  That instrument had sailed almost as many miles as he had.

He’d had all of his technical books and notes collected over the years with him as he was studying for future examinations.  The whole lot had gone up in smoke.

Picking up a couple of souvenirs to show the folks back home, he left the cabin with all of its, now, worthless junk.

The Mate was a little more fortunate.  His cabin was completely intact and he was able to salvage a number of small irreplaceable items.  He didn’t consider taking anything big as, hopefully, the ship would be towed to Aden where he could extract some of his equipment.

It had been hoped that it may be possible to use divers to seal off the openings in the hull and pump out the flooded sections.  Also it was hoped that a barge could be brought alongside and the cargo transferred into this.  This was a forlorn hope and eventually the Mate had to pass this information back to London.  As nothing could be done locally, it was decided that Don could travel home.  The Mate was to remain a little longer until a full scale rescue team could be put together to pull Norway off the beach and tow it, as it was, all the way to Aden.  This was done and, cutting a long story short, the vessel eventually ended up in Aden, the cargo was removed and all the holes closed up by welding.  The vessel was towed from Aden, North up the Red Sea, through the Suez Canal and ended up in a scrapyard in Greece.

That was the end of the good ship Esso Norway.

Whilst in Aden the body of the donkeyman was discovered in his own cabin that had been flooded for some time.  He’d apparently been killed in the explosion.  He must have been hit by flying debris and no one had looked in his cabin during the confusion.  The catering boy was never found.  He would have gone up with the top of the engineroom and disappeared forever into the sea.

Meanwhile, back on the tug Svitzer, Don packed his cardboard box with his meagre belongings and was told to go ashore where he would be picked up by some British Army personnel who were in the area and given an assisted passage to Aden where he would be met by two of the head office superintendents and escorted home.

This was good new for Don.  The tug’s launch delivered him ashore to a very remote area called Salalah which is in Muscat.  Where he was dropped off there was just a short wooden jetty, a little wooden hut and the rest was desert, not a building in site.  However, true to the promise there was an army Land Rover with a driver and four armed soldiers.  Climbing on board, he was given a 20 mile trip across the desert escorted by this armed guard.  It appeared that this was necessary as there were many roving Arab tribes in the area who would think nothing of robbing a wandering traveller of all he possessed.  Hopefully you may be left with your life, but nothing guaranteed!  Anyhow the vehicle eventually arrived at their army camp on which there was a small landing strip and, parked nearby a very famous type of plane, Dakota DC3.  As soon as Don arrived he was put on board the plane that had been waiting for him before its departure.  Hasty goodbyes and thanks to the soldiers, Don climbed on board and it took off, bound for Aden.

The journey seemed to take forever, flying fairly low due to not being airtight, it eventually arrived at Aden airport.

Passing through customs, travelling using his seaman’s discharge book instead of a passport he searched around for the two superintendents who were supposed to be meeting him.  There was no one there to meet him.  What to do?

He’d travelled with a high ranking army officer who’d shown great interest in Don’s tale and had hung around to make sure that he’d be met safely.  When the two Esso men hadn’t shown up, this officer gave Don a lift in his car to, what he called, ‘the only hotel you would surely be booked into’.  This proved to be the case for, as Don entered the lobby of the hotel, he spotted these two at a table having their dinner.  When they saw Don, astonishment showed on their faces, full of apologies, ‘The plane wasn’t due in for another two hours’ and such like were their excuses.

Thanking the army officer profusely Don joined them at their table for dinner.  They were booked on a flight to London, via Beirut the next morning, so that would give them time to buy some clothes in the local market for Don, as he was still wearing his Royal Navy shipwrecked sailor’s outfit, bell bottoms, jersey, white sandshoes and all.

So they travelled to the local outdoor Arab market.  Don was fitted out with some lightweight clothes, shoes and sock, and began to feel human after long last.

Next morning, on time they all departed Aden, stopped off at Beirut for a couple of hours where they changed planed and then flew via British Air to London Heathrow where they were all met by another from the London head office.

Saying goodbye to his two companions, Don stayed with the new representative who had with him a couple of heavy work jackets as it was fairly cool and Don only had the lightweight clothes he’d purchased in Aden.

The main thing this man had met Don for was to advise that he had been in touch with the parents of the dead junior engineer, Arthur.  They had asked if Don would meet them and tell them all the details of their son’s death, how he had been buried and the location of the burial spot.  Don was a bit horrified at this, but saw the reason and agreed to meet them.  They lived in Huddersfield and arrangements had been made for the meeting within seven days.

Don was given a first class rail ticket from King’s Cross to Newcastle and some money to pay for a taxi home once he got there.  Given a lift in a car to King’s Cross, Don was left to his own devices.  He received a few strange looks, sitting in the first class compartment in his heavy duty working jacket and a cardboard box as his luggage.

The train eventually arrived in Newcastle, he jumped on the local train and arrived not far from his home.  He’d already phoned his wife to let her know when to expect him so she was patiently waiting his arrival.

She’d received the telegram he’d sent the day of the explosion so she knew he was safe and sound.  She just wanted to see him to convince herself that he was as well as he’d made out.

Their reunion was a happy one.  He’d only been away for one month so had accrued little leave.  Luckily the head office investigation took some time to be carried out so this was added to his leave period.

They both travelled to Huddersfield to meet Arthur’s parents.  These two elderly people were so devastated at losing their only son.  They never recovered from the shock of this and were bitter for evermore.

Don and his wife made good friends of these two and made a number of journeys to see them until this eventually died out as this type of friendships do.

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The investigation that was held at the head office of Esso was chaired by two representatives of the Board of Trade.  The final result of this investigation was that ‘no one was to blame for the tragic occurrence’.   There was never a formal investigation and the results of Esso’s were accepted as the true statement of facts.

The Captain was absolved due to the missing Stability Book.  However, he never again went to sea.  He was given early retirement from Esso.

It was decided that the Second Engineer was just doing what he thought was correct under the circumstances and not held responsible for the death of the junior engineer.  However this engineer was given a job in the head office assisting with the training of new recruits.

During the investigation, the Chief Engineer suffered from a burst stomach ulcer.  He was rushed to hospital and, on the operating table, died.

A number of the crew suffered from stress caused by their experiences and never went to sea again.

Don continued his sea career rising to become a Chief Engineer.  Leaving the sea at an early age, he still spent his whole life in ship related employment and never regretted his decision.

This is the story of the demise of the steamship SS Esso Norway as understood by Don, the Junior Second Engineer, who was on watch when all these events started.

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