HERE IS A STORY I WROTE A WHILE AGO, MAKE A CHANGE FROM WEATHER REPORTS

ESSO YORKSHIRE, in 1975.
In January 1975, Esso flew me to San Francisco to join the ESSO YORKSHIRE, a 90,000 ton tanker. When we arrived the Agent put us in the Travelodge Hotel on the Wharf, The ship was anchored underneath the Bay Bridge across the Bay having just arrived from the Persian Gulf with a cargo of crude oil. My brother, John, was on board having joined a couple of weeks earlier in Singapore. Next day the Agent put us in a boat to take us out to the ship and when I got there I went to John`s cabin and woke him up. What a surprise, for him, he didn’t expect to see me. My cabin was next door to his. The lad who was paying off was just leaving the cabin as I moved in . He said you won`t get much sleep in here, it`s effing haunted. I just laughed thinking that he was joking. The men who were going on leave left and went back to Frisco and for a flight home. That evening after work, John, Ted and I got the boat and went ashore to Frisco for a few beers. We were in Ginsbergs Bar on the waterfront when there was a lot of shouting, big car headlamps lit up the bar and then shooting. I was sat near the big plate glass window at the end of the bar when with a big crash it came in, shattered all over me, a bullet had come through. We all hit the deck as more shooting outside and then a man ran through the door, shouting he had been shot and then collapsed onto the floor. I knelt up and looked through the window, the Bar Tender, shouted , “Get down you crazy Limie, the cops shoot anything that moves, I hit the deck again into a pile of broken glass and spilt beer. Then it went quiet, a couple of Cops walked in with guns in their hands, we had to raise our hands and not move as they examined the shot man , he was dead. They confirmed with the Bar Tender that we were just customers. Some more sirens and lights and then two ambulances, looking like armoured truck appeared outside. And then they removed the body, outside in the door way was another body. They were picked up, into the ambulances and then taken away. The bartender gave us a beer each, and in a few minutes he had swept up the broken glass and mopped up the blood from the dead man and a few minutes later a van appeared outside and a new window installed. And a few minutes later the street and the bar was back to normal. The Barman said it happens a lot down there. A few more beers and we went to the Wharf and got our boat back to the ship after an exciting night out in Frisco. Next morning we heaved up the anchor and sailed up the Bay, we were going to a place called Bernicia where the oil refinery was, about 40 miles up the bay and river. When we were mooring the ship a wire rope carried away and flung me across the deck and I hit the rails injuring my back, so I was sent to hospital in a place called Martinez City. I thought, I have been in Frisco for 24 hours and nearly been killed twice, be glad to get away from here. I had x rays nothing broken but a few torn ligaments. I went back to the ship and was excused work for the duration. The following day after completing discharging the oil we let go and sailed back down Frisco Bay, under the Golden Gate Bridge and out into the Pacific for a 42 day voyage to Ras Tannurah in Saudi Arabia, with a call into Singapore for fresh food stores. It started on the first night at sea as we sailed across the Pacific for the Gulf , a 42 day trip. I was on the 4am to 8am watch and at midnight the cabin lights came on and there was a guy wearing a white boiler suit, Esso logo on, but face was just like a mist. He grabbed my leg and heaved me out of my bunk and I crashed onto the deck, I shouted and got to my feet and he was gone, I legged it up to the mess room and the only guy around was the 12 -4 standby man, smoking a ciggy and drinking coffee, "Some bastard has pulled me from my bunk" I said " Have you seen any one?" He replied no, he had been there all alone. On watch at 4am I told the Mate all about it, he had known about the cabin being haunted but there were no spare cabins on board as we had 12 Spanish NIKO workers on board doing maintenance .so I would have to stay there. This went on for several nights and my brother who had the cabin next door woke up one night and saw a man in a white boiler suit walk through his cabin door and then he heard the shouting and banging coming from my cabin, the coward legged it up to the mess room and stayed there for night , he did not come in to see what was happening to me. The ghost could pick me up as if I was completely weightless and throw me across the cabin at the formica bulkhead and bounce me off it, The bulkheads were all badly cracked.. Then one night he got my ankle and twisted it round and heaved me out including the mattress and crashed me onto the deck and broke my ankle, the cabin was completely wrecked and I was lying there in shouting agony, My brother legged it up and got the Mate and the Captain and they were horrified at the destruction of the cabin and what they saw. Though they had known about it they didn`t realise how bad it was. The Captain said he could not Log it as no one in the Office would believe it so he said he would log it as if I had fallen down a ladder. My ankle was strapped up with elastic bandages. I was off watch and laid up. I stayed up all night until about 2am to give the ghost time to sort himself out. I wasn’t in the bunk at midnight. The Captain went through the old Log Books and discovered that a man, who was on the 8 to 12 watch had received a dear John letter from his wife and so he hung himself in the cabin. So every night at just after midnight this man`s ghost was going to turn in and I was in his bunk. At Ras Tannurah 3 weeks later I went to the hospital; and had it x rayed and it seemed that it had healed OK and I was kept on light duties on day work for another two weeks just to make sure it had healed. After loading 90,000 tons of marine diesel fuel for the US Navy we sailed for Guam in the Mariannas, in the Pacific. When I got to Guam, John and I got a telegram to say my Dad had died. The Captain said he could only send one of us home so being the eldest I sent John home and I had to stay behind. Not very nice being out there with no contact with home at a time like that. Quite upsetting and a bad shock, a good man was Dad, he was fit and healthy when I left home a few weeks before. It was 12 April.1975. John got a plane to Hong Kong and then a flight to Heathrow, and then home for the funeral. I went ashore in Guam, a very nice tropical island, an American Service man, he had just been evacuated from Viet Nam, it was falling to the Viet Cong in Saigon, leaving his wife and children behind, got talking to me and Clayton, we shared a few beers and then he took us round the island, showing us the highlights, and a few more beers on the way round. There was a big Hotel , with a bar in the middle of the swimming pool, some of the lads off the ship were already in there. and in the lounge was a group of Korean Girls singing, They were very good too. A couple of days later we sailed for the Gulf again. Over the top 0f the Philipines and down the coast of Viet Nam, the seas were full of American warships and we were buzzed a few times by their planes, Viet Nam had fallen when the American Embassy in Saigon was taken over by the VC. After sailing from Guam, the haunting in my cabin stopped, after more than two months, I like to think my dear old Dad had a word with the ghost. We called in at Singapore and John joined us again he had flown back the day after the funeral. We carried on to Mena al Ahmadi in the Gulf to load a cargo of crude oil for Adelaide in Australia. I went ashore with the Agent, we were going to his Office to collect some papers for the ship`s cargo, on the way we were stopped by the Police and had to go into the town Square it was crowded with people. The police were stopping all vehicles including school buses, and making everyone go to the Square. It was an Execution of three men. Everyone has to watch. A big white sheet was on the ground and the three men were kneeling down on it, An Arab with a long sword was dancing around them then suddenly chops of the head of one of them, a spurt of blood and he was down. The crowd cheer, then he did the same to the other two men, a bit gruesome to watch. They do it every week on a Friday.
We then sailed for Adelaide, down the Indian ocean, round Cape Leeuwin and across the Australian Bight to the refinery just south of the harbour. When we arrived in Adelaide, the agent was taking the crew who were due to go on leave straight down to the airport and away home. John and I wanted to stay for a couple of weeks to visit relatives and friends so he kept us behind and then took us to a Motel and booked us in there. We went to see Uncle Fred in Largs Bay and told him that Dad had died. After a couple of weeks we flew to Melbourne and Sydney and then a flight home via Singapore, Bahrain and then London.


The end of an interesting but sad voyage.

Cheers
Brian