pets on union castle line

[cappy]

hi john sabourn #13
good evening, i suppose it was the 4 to 8 or dog watch you where on, also cappy i presume stood the same only with his emu.
tom

The old man on the tanker i had my monkey jacko on was a ist rate plus old man ......he was rescued from the ship up the norwegian fiords by the royal navy.....all MN suevivors from vesssels sunk by U boats ...he new i had the monkey aboard as his wife would by nuts and bananas for jacko .....but on the weekly old mans inspection would keep saying i smelll a monkey round here mr mate ......whereby i used to mumble there is more of them on the bridge ......under my breath of course ....when in madrass the port authority took jacko away .....he had been in every other indian port no prob ......the old man called me up top and said he was sorry but they wanted a bloody fortune to keep him ashore till we sailed.....i can still remember the indian in a uniform dragging him on his leash and the little jacko trying to get back to me ....one thing for sure he didnt like dark skinned folk ....as when i bought him in bangladesh they had a wire round his neck which had cut him badley.....i was not well pleased with indians in general after that ......enough said......R683532

[cappy]

The vessel the old man was rescued from was of course the Altmark ....a great story in itself .....sadly i cannot even remember that captains name... the indian coast and the persian gulf was a crap place to be inthe summer months ....crap food crap water sometimes rationed to hot by any standard ....certainly a young mans job .....R683532

[Roger Millard]

Hello Doc with Reference to the photo, It appears that "only cats and babes come out in the midday sun" Regards R.

[j.sabourn]

#22 A past post about the Altmark I mentioned a bloke I relieved , who was rescued by the Cossack off Narvik during the last war he was only a teenager at the time. He is now dead as passed away a few years ago . Anyone who has a list of survivors his name was Norie Smith a Welshman. The last time I saw him was when he was master of a vessel belonging to World Wide Shipping , as he really rolled up to my house looking for a mate. I was otherwise employed or would of gone. JS

[John Arton]

We had a cat on the Beaverfir, the crew fished it out of the harbour in Toronto where someone had tossed it in in an attempt to drown it. It slept in the bosun's cabin curled around his head. When going down the seaway it lived on the bridge on a small table next to the captain's chair, watching all the proceedings.
As soon as we got in the locks at KG5 it was off like a rat up a drainpipe. We thought that it would be the last we saw of it but a couple of weeks later, just before we were due to sail from Vic docks, it came trotting up the gangway. The crew made it a tiny discharge book and actually tried to get the shipping master to sign it on the articles after they got the purser to put it on the crew list he gave to the shipping master that he copied into the articles, when he read out the cat's name the crew put it on the table saying this is him, the shipping master went ape and tore up the articled free list and stormed off. He only came back 24 hours later with a new set of articles. At sea it would lie up against the engine room bulkhead waiting for anyone to come walking along when it would leap up and attack your ankles.
Rgds
J.A.

[thomas michael]

hi john sabourn #24
good evening, i also met someone off the altmark, it was when i was very young i was taken into a local pub my old-man frequented, just to speak to his old mate for ten mins, ( he promised ) and as we entered the bar up jumped one man and he greeted my old-man hugging him and laughing , anyway i found out later his name was sandy Gant from bootle and he was on the altmark, but what i learned much later in life was that sandy Gant and another seaman named Andrew Whelan whom where both from bootle and where both trimmers on the SS Tairoa when she was sunk and taken prisoner on the altmark, and before they where both freed they broke into the captains cabin and stole his ceremonial dagger or sword, i believe their account became local legend around where i was born.
tom

[Graham Shaw]

Re ALTMARK in post #26.

The Altmark Incident ,concerning the oil tanker supply ship for the German armoured cruiser Admiral Graf Spee,of February 1940 in Norway is obviously well known and documented,but I of course always like to know what became of ships like her!

The ship, renamed Uckermark (named like the Altmark as a region of Germany ) on 6 August 1940, then resumed in the role for which she had been built. During Admiral Lütjens' Atlantic adventure with the battleships Scharnhorst and Gneisenau between January and March 1941, Uckermark, under Captain Zatorski, was a supply ship and scout attached to the squadron. As the result of her reports the battleships were directed to various merchant vessels, which were then sunk.

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On 9 September 1942 she left France for Japan with a cargo of vegetable oil and fuel, supplying the auxiliary cruiser Michel on the way, arriving at Yokohama on 24 November 1942. Uckermark was then intended as the replenishment ship for the German raider Thor, which was raiding merchant shipping in the Indian Ocean and western Pacific Ocean areas.

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On 30 November 1942, Uckermark was anchored in Yokohama, Japan, next to Thor and the ex P & O Australian passenger liner Nankin, which Thor had captured in March five days out from Fremantle, Australia, en route to Colombo, Ceylon. The Germans renamed her Leuthen.
While the crew was at lunch, Uckermark suffered a huge explosion that ripped the vessel apart. Uckermark, Thor, and Leuthen were sunk by the explosion.

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The cause of the explosion was thought to be a spark from tools used by a repair gang working near the cargo tanks. The Uckermark had delivered 5000ts of gasoline to Yokohama. It seems to be logical that the residual fumes and gasoline did explode. Diesel fuel does not explode the way the ship went up. 53 crewmen from Uckermark died in the explosion. The severely damaged ship was beyond repair and was later scrapped.

NANKIN-later LEUTHEN O.N. 131857.jpg

Picture of Nankin,later Leuthen, courtesy of Green Coll'n,State of Victoria Library

[j.sabourn]

#26 Thomas funny you should come up with that name Whelan as there is a member on this site with the same name , and it sticks in my mind due to the fact he as a friend of someone I knew at pre school in 1952. I don’t know anything about Mr. Whelan only that he was at sea , as at the time was in communication with him was concerning the death of this mutual person we both knew .I hope he sees this post especially if related to the person you mention .Cheers JS

[j.sabourn]

Plus #28 Is Joe Whelan and was a friend of John Eggleston now deceased. JS

[happy daze john in oz]

WE had an engineer on the Windsor who picked up a Bush Baby in Durban and kept it in his cabin wardrobe.
Got back to UK with it but from there no idea what happened to it.
Bloody thing stunk his cabin out and i had the displeasure of looking after it.