The Sinking (well almost) of the Shell Tanker mv Helisoma

[Phil Crowther]

I spent 18 months on the SS Hemisinus in the early 70’s (or quite often nicknamed the Saigon Flyer) mainly on the Singapore / Saigon run. But we occasionally did Nha Trang, Cum Run Bay and Da Nang trips. In Da Nang we would come in at dawn stern first on drop both anchors and tie up to three buoys in the bay. A diver would go down and hook up the subsea pipeline to be lifted onboard and booked up to the discharge manifold. You could only discharge about 1800 tonnes a days and would have to depart before dusk and come in and repeat the process everyday.
The Hemisinus midships accommodation was finally struck by a wire guided Russian twin war head rocket fired from ‘Shooting Corner’ just a few miles from Saigon in 1973. Some very interesting experiences during my 18 months there and as you say the bonus system was very lucrative.

[Archie Macdougall]

I had only been at sea seven months when I joined the Helisoma bound for Singapore from the Gulf.
Before we had a chance to say 'Boogie Street here we come', we were politely informed we were going
to Vietnam. 1968 was not a good year for tourism in Vietnam.

Since the war zone bonus was quite good none of us jumped ship. We bravely entered Vietnamese waters and came back safe and sound.

The second trip(all about two weeks long) was much the same, no dead bodies to be seen but no shore leave either, no complaints there.

Then came the third trip OMG. We anchored in the Da Nang Bay, waiting to be offloaded into barges.
It was a saturday night, about the end of November, and I turned in for the night slightly inebriated.
The explosion occurred about 2o'clock in the morning. I slept through it but I was told the ship seemed to lift out of the water.
Apparently a VC had swum out and put a limpet mine on our port bow, blowing a massive hole in the for'rard tank. We went down by the head and stayed in that position for about three weeks, unable to move. There were no cases of constipation during that time.

As we waited patiently for the US Navy to rescue us, we were sitting ducks.
One of the engine room crew went insane and tried to swim ashore to fight the VC.
Not a good idea as the Yanks were about to drop depth charges in the water, a regular feature every evening before dusk.
They brought him back to ship where he was handcuffed to the bed in the sick bay.

A few nights later a US gunboat thought they had spotted a diver near the ship so started firing machine guns into the water. Watching this from a half laden tanker was seeing your death being created in front of your eyes. These yanks were really trigger happy and had no idea of the danger they were putting everyone in including themselves. Only dead fish came to the surface

Eventually the divers put a temporary membrane patch over the hole , pumped out the water in the tank and the ship came back on an even keel. A wooden patch replaced the first one and we set sail for Singapore.
On the slow journey back fights started breaking out amongst the crew, the mooring ropes disappeared over the side and the Captain, Capt Baker was on the verge of a nervous breakdown.
For those who were not already sacked were given the choice of going home if they wished. Most of us took that option.
I think we all went insane to some degree.
I must have done because my very next ship was a BP tanker the 'British Guardsman'.

I to went to viet name 1967 on cerithinthes my next ship .British guardsmen. 1967 asst steward..