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Articles
Edwin Robinson
"HOW
TED WENT TO SEA IN 1937 AND SAW THE WORLD" by Mike
Webb
Part Two
After an
action-packed life, Captain Edwin (Ted) Robinson, aged 94, now
lives in well-earned quiet retirement in Walmer. His three-part
story offers fascinating social insights into 1930s Britain and
foreign countries he visited as a 16-year-old just before the
war, and his eventful war years ...
The ship's next
six-month charter took Ted to Morocco, to Spanish-held Melilla,
where phosphates were loaded for delivery to Livorno, Italy. For
the first time he crossed the treacherous Ba of Biscay, where
U-boats would soon patrol, enjoying the warmth and the easygoing
lifestyle along the Portuguese and Spanish coast. Eventually,
however, Ted's ship, the Rio Azul, passed through the Bosphorous
into the Black Sea to Nikolayev, Russia. Although at the
opposite end of Russia to Murmansk, the ideological mask and
tough conditions were identical.
Christmas Day
aboard was a doleful experience. Apprentices were allowed to eat
the meagre leftovers from the officers' festive dinner. However
this resulted in a rollicking form the captain for finishing the
turkey.
In a blizzard
the ship's steam-winches froze on deck, making coal loading
impossible. Eventually, by defrosting the winches in appalling
conditions, this was accomplished. Ice-breakers had to be
employed to enable departure. The frozen crew enjoyed no
respite, forced to spend every available minute hacking ice from
the endangered ship, to prevent the vessel becoming top-heavy.
Eventually the weather eased on Ted's maiden Atlantic crossing
to Boston, Massachusetts, via Naples. The clock ticked on;
Naples was soon to be plunged into war and the Atlantic was soon
to become a burning hell, infested with U-boats.
For a poor
apprentice, Boston was paradise. Kind-hearted Bostonian women
ran a welcome club to succour young seagoers of all
nationalities. Apprentices rarely wore uniforms in Ted's ship as
boiler suits were the dress for such skivvies. However, the
captain could hardly forbid his uniformed apprentices from
benefitting from American goodwill without appearing churlish.
Leaving the USA,
the ship travelled to Buenos Aires, Argentina, via Norfolk,
Virginia. Onboard work was unending as the holds had to be
completely fitted out to prevent the scheduled load of grain
from shifting. This arduous task was interrupted off the Florida
coast when the ship grounded on a coral reef. For more than 24
hours the crew worked non-stop, trying again and again to plant
a spare anchor, suspended between two oar-powered lifeboats.
Having secured
the sea bottom, the ship engines went full astern to pull
herself free, only to fail, so that the whole benighted exercise
had to start all over again. Eventually, however, after running
repairs, the ship arrived in Argentina. Buenos Aires was a
vibrant noisy place, where loudspeakers blared ear-splitting
South-American rhythms from every plaza. But time ticked
onwards; the first sea battle of the Second World War, on the
River Plate, was only 15 months away.
After bunkering
in South Africa the vessel trudged onwards, to Mauritius in the
Indian Ocean, soon to become a pivotal naval base. The grain was
unloaded in clouds of dust; holds were scrubbed and loaded with
sugar bound for Melbourne. In Australia Ted felt so at home.
Whilst street names were in English, the warmth, wide roads,
luxurious spaces between houses, and absence of the greyness,
dust, and noise of London were alien. His sense of wellbeing
grew for, as in Boston, local women organised greeting parties
for young seafarers, taking them out, respelendent in their
uniforms.
As Australia
slipped astern, Rangoon, Burma, part of the British Empire,
beckoned. There rice was loaded for delivery to China. Grain
residue permeated everywhere, including the bilges. There it
grew, necessitating cleaning in awful conditions, known as
"bilge-diving". The rice had to be specially packed to stop it
sweating as, when damp, it deteriorates.
The war-clock
ticked on; Japan's invasion of Burma was fast approaching. The
ship arrived in Shanghai in June 1938. China and Japan were
already at war so Shanghai was a hive of activity. The Rio Azul
was chartered by the Japanese to import iron ore form the
Philippines, with return loads of coal. Stories of Japanese
atrocities against the Chinese were circulating, though with no
visible evidence. Just two years later Pearl Harbour would
herald Japanese incursions into the Philippines, Burma,
Singapore, and Malaya, where gruesome evidence soon supported
atrocity claims.
The ship arrived
in Tabaco, Luzon Island (soon to be the first part of the
Philippines overrun by the Japanese). There Ted bore witness to
another dangerous maritime incident. While the captian was
ashore a hurricane rendered the starboard anchors useless, as
the holding ground proved inadequate. The shhip swung on its
other anchor, perilously close to another vessel anchored
astern. Danger increased as the port anchor refused to heave in
on the windlass. The Rio Azul, swinging wildly on its jammed
anchor, crashed repeatedly into the ship astern.
Given the
emergency, the officer of the watch decided to sacrifice the
anchor, ordering its shackles to be uncoupled. This was
extremely hazardous given the tension on the wire. The battered
ship limped to another anchorage. Eventually, the captain
returned, having been rowed from shore through pounding waves.
Maybe it was an understatement, but Ted opined that the master
was "not best pleased". An anchor had been lost, the Rio Azul
had suffered a huge hole in her stern plating, and had severely
damaged the bows of the other ship.
For the
term of the six-month charter the ship commuted between Japan
and the Philippines. In Japan, the authorities, like their
Russian counterparts, exuded suspicion and hostility towards
foreigners. Accordingly the crew was again lined upon deck for
several hours as the vessel underwent security checks prior to
port entry. The impression gleaned of Japan was of a very
foreign and strange land, where women wore kimonos and
click-clacked on wooden sandals, with narrow blocks under heel
and toe.
This article first appeared in the Dover
Express, 20 November 2014
Reproduced with permission
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