THE MORNING I CAME UP SMELLING OF ROSES (well diesel anyway)

Power (electricity) supply on board Ocean was totally inadequate to meet the ship’s demand, especially during flying operations.

Installed generation comprised of 2x500Kw turbo generators (identified as Nos. 2 and 3), 1 in each machinery space – these were expected to supply all demand. There were also 2x250Kw diesels (identified as Nos. 1 and 4). No. 1 diesel was located in the after squadron messdeck, just forward of the canteen flat. No. 4 diesel was back aft in the keyboard flat area. There was also an emergency diesel of 150Kw output.

To try to satisfy demand when flying, the turbo generators were continually run with the overload valve wide open, which probably caused some of the problems we had with the T/Gs. If a T/G was down for repair or maintenance, the diesels were brought into service. I was watchkeeper on both T/Gs and diesels – I spent a lot of time as diesel watchkeeper. The diesels were Allan four stroke 7 cylinder – a physically large engine compared to modern 250Kw diesels.

I took over the middle watch (midnight – 0400) on No. 1 diesel, did the usual check around. I noticed the lubricating oil pressure gauge was fluctuating and oil pressure was down slightly. Had a quick check on the ready use fuel tank – this was well down and needed to be replenished urgently. Went back to change the oil filter over to the standby one – this had been left in an uncleaned state – changed back to the original which seemed to restore the lube oil pressure. Went to put the De Laval type centrifuge purifier in service to put clean diesel into the ready use tank – this started filling the tank. Checked the lube oil pressure again – it was falling and fluctuating. Removed the top of the standby filter and withdrew the filter, cleaned it, replaced it and changed over to make that the running filter. Hey presto – back to normal running pressure. Cleaned the other filter and replaced it. This took a bit of time. Checked round the rest of the engine and generator, then sat down and put my feet up whilst having a drink of water.

I was wearing sandals (bare feet – should have been in overalls and shoes) – put my feet back to the deck and INTO DIESEL!! The purifier had lost its seal, overflowed the saveall and flooded the diesel compartment. I re-established the purifier, and looked at the mess which was also a fire hazard.

How to get it cleared? The engine was cooled with pure water on a closed circuit. This in turn was cooled by seawater through a water/water cooler. The seawater was pumped by a Monopump – a remarkable pump. I connected a flexible hose to the pump suction and managed to pump most of the diesel overboard (oh dear). The rest –I was on my hands and knees with rags and waste. I had just about completed the job, and I must say the deck plates looked sparkling, when the duty Engineer came to visit, Lt. Sherriff I think. He gave me a big recommend for taking the time to clean the diesel room during middle watch! Had he arrived an hour earlier it would have been a very different story!

Don Steele

I was engine room crew. On the port after end of the flight deck - well the sponson area - there was a unit fitted which I took to be a direction finder.  This had a dome on it which was probably fiberglass of some description, about 1.5metres across and 2metres depth.  It was taken from the flight deck and manhandled to the starboard forward boat space, and left there overnight whence it was to go into the workshop.   Unfortunately, at that time, the forward starboard boat space was the designated area for garbage stowage (whilst on Korean patrol), until after dark, when it was all ditched over the side.  Who should be in charge of this garbage and doing the ditching at this particular time but one Bungy Williams - a 3 badge + - stoker (allegedly).  I can never remember him doing a watch below throughout the whole commission.  Well darkness fell, and Bungy disposed of all the gear from the boat space, dome included!!!  When the radar techs came to pick it up the following morning or whenever - there it was, gone.

And the proverbial then hit the fan.  Bungy was put on Commander's Report.  We gather his comment was "My job is to throw all the garbage over the side and the job was done to my satisfaction with not a scrap left".  Cannot remember that he received any punishments (or recommendations!).  The dome was worth a few thousand pounds I believe.  In his time in the RN Bungy must have cost the navy as much as a new carrier (or at least a frigate).

  Don Steele

Don  -  I remember the incident crystal clear. The dome was as you said in fibreglass, a relatively new technology, and as you said very expensive. It was the cover for the Air Traffic Control radar. Remember the expression SATCO and ATCO to cover the Senior and ordinary Air Traffic Control Officers? By comparison with modern air traffic control, it was in its relative infancy. I'm not sure who dumped the dome  in the waist awaiting repair before that delightful Welsh scoundrel, Bungy, ditched it but it must have been a member of the Electrical Dept as it was then known. Bungy did have a brief spell below as TG watchkeeper in the Forward Machinery Space but he certainly had the art of dodging well weighed off.

   Incidentally Don you are absolutely right about Bungy and his rate and badges. He shed them like snowflakes His problems were mainly ashore and drink related.  I well remember him waking Lt Mike Goble and myself early on Christmas morning 1951 in our cabin with the ship in Grand Harbour and asking Lt Goble `Hey Scouse ? where do you keep the Ormig fluid`. You may remember the Ormig machine which duplicated signals and used a purple ink and a roller which was soaked in an evil smelling spirit liquid which I learned on that Christmas morning was drinkable if laced with orange squash. At least that's what Bungy said though I did not put his statement to the test.

Euan MacLean

BUNGY AND THE BURNS

In 1952 I took a bunch of Stokers (real title Stoker Mechanics) to Hiroshima from Kure and inevitably we found ourselves surveying the area around Ground Zero in which stood the fairly intact shell of that domed church building which had been used as the aiming point for the bomb.. Hiroshima had just become a visiting place for a small number of American tourists who wanted to see the devastation of the city. A stall had been set up from which the Japanese were selling small souvenirs associated with the bomb such as fused brickwork and I recall seeing a typewriter key which had been fused by the intense heat into a piece of masonry being offered for sale.

There was another interest for them - a Japanese man who had been badly burned over a large section of his upper body who lowered his kimono to his waistline to display those hideous and shiny kelloid scars associated with radiation burns. He then wandered around past the tourists and collected money from them on a small dish.

It was at this stage that a voice rang out from amongst the stokers `Show `em your burns Bungy` We were allowed ashore in uniform only and we were in whites ,the stokers in white bell bottoms and the short sleeved white front.  Bungy was short and as wide as he was high and I shall never forget the scene as he crossed his hands in front of him, grasped the bottom of his white front and slowly wriggled it up and over his head in the way that women do. There stood little Bungy displaying scars if anything more hideous than the Japanese gentleman and every bit if not more extensive.. He took off his white cap and with the same technique as the Jap walked around the American group and accepted their dollars and yen

How did Bungy get his burns? It was during the Battle of the Atlantic when he was serving in a small vessel, a sloop or a corvette. The burners on the ship's boilers were ignited by a torch which consisted of a steel poker-like rod attached to the end of which was a fistful of cotton waste. To ignite a boiler burner the cotton waste was dipped into diesel oil and then ignited by match or cigarette lighter. The flaming torch was then thrust into the boiler furnace, the boiler burner valve opened and the burner ignited. The diesel fuel into which the torch was dipped was held on a short length of vertical pipe which acted also as stowage for the torch.

The diesel in the stowage pipe was running out and Bungy had been sent up to the upper deck with a bucket to hand pump up a bucketful of fuel to take back down into the Boiler Room. As he descended the Boiler Room ladder, perhaps the result of rough weather, he fell and doused himself in diesel which for whatever reason ignited. Bungy in flames was badly burned.

He was taken into a makeshift Sick Bay and the Sick Berth Attendant who had probably been selling insurance until a few weeks before, covered Bungy in cotton wool. On arrival in the Clyde at the end of the convoy, Bungy who was tough enough to survive all this was taken to hospital where much of the cotton wool which had embedded itself had to be cut off him. Hence his scars. Despite all this he was a great wag, a popular and cheerful rascal whose company I always enjoyed as I am sure did his messmates though they had to tolerate his idiosyncrasies, rascality and scrimshanking. The counselling profession would have gone into bankruptcy had it waited for chaps like Bungy to present themselves at its door.

Euan McLean

I was a trainee Boy Seaman straight out of training ship Vindacatrix (Merchant navy) on RNR duty before even joining my first Merchant Ship. This was circa 1955-56. I slung my hammock on B deck and at that time Ocean was based at Plymouth. On a visit to Penzance I was recalled to ship when the start of the Suez problem started up. I vividly remember Harbour stations on entering Plymouth harbour, as I only had nine days service left in the RNR I was discharged before Ocean sailed for the Near East station and I went to join my first Merchant ship. One of my highlights was to dive off the flight deck into Portland Harbour and be lifted back on board by the ships crane. At that time this honour was only afforded to those who could/would dive off the flight deck - this was particularly difficult as you had to dive over the gun sponsons.

Tony Selmes, ex-Boy Seaman

The date is 1956 just as OCEAN is sailing on her way out to Suez; the position on board is the After Fresh Water Tank adjacent to the After Victualling Store which contained supplies of tea, in those days stowed in plywood tea chests. The Fresh Water Tanky succeeded in over-filling the fresh water tanks so that several tons of water flooded out into the store which soaked the tea chests to the extent that they swelled up in their attempt to become as near spherical as possible at which point they split. The flood water which filled the flat turned a shade of brown and was pumped over the side with portable pumps.

We had landed our trainees and embarked the soldiers who were on their way to Cyprus. How could pusser account for such a loss of expensive victuals? Easy ! That night the tea chests were hauled up from the store and taken up to the large drying room at the after end of the hangar where they were opened and the contents spread out on the hot steam heated drying room deck with shovels. The tea dried out and was issued eventually to the unsuspecting soldiers though it was believed that Jack` got his share as well. Had anyone a conscience?  Well they say strong tea can be bad for you. Euan MacLean

One of the first visits made by OCEAN after I joined her was to Hamburg. We enjoyed an uproarious week alongside sampling the delights of what was then a fairly sinful city (the Reeperbahn was and is notorious). As a Junior Writer my leave was restricted, but I still had a great time.

When we sailed down the Elbe again I took away more than I had bargained for. Shortly after clearing the mouth of the river en-route to Portland I fell sick and reported to sick bay - and after a quick check I was put straight into isolation. No, not what you might think, dear reader. According to the MO I had developed scarlet fever. I spent the next few days shut away wondering what would happen next. I soon found out - I was to be part of a damage control exercise! As soon as we anchored in Portland Harbour things began to happen. First, my messmates came to wish me good-bye and to give me little presents to take ashore for them (i.e. items that they did not want to pay duty on). Then a Seaman PO came in and had a good look at me, before going away and coming back with a group of trainees and a Neil Robertson stretcher. Remember them? Made from wood (bamboo?) and canvas, the casualty is tied into them so that he can be manoeuvred along passageways and up ladders. Before I knew what was happening I was trussed up like Tutankhamen. I later learned that if a patient is conscious their arms can be left free - but no one had told the stretcher party. They also managed to slip more contraband inside the bindings. Once lashed up like a hammock I was dragged, lifted, and tilted through the ship by the long route (in order, I was told, to enable them to practice carrying a casualty through all types of obstacle) to the gangway. Then came the most frightening bit - I was raised pretty nearly vertical and manhandled down to the waiting tender. I was completely powerless, immobile, and very nervous of the jolting and bumping. I had visions of the Navy saving on expense by just dropping me into the harbour where I would have sunk like a stone. Once ashore I was taken off the NR and put into an ordinary stretcher in the back of an ambulance. More contraband was placed under the blankets, and off we went. When, inevitably, the Dockyard Police opened the doors to inspect us the SBA said "Highly contagious patient, mate - we need to get him to hospital". The copper beat a very hasty retreat.

Once at Weymouth Isolation Hospital I was placed in a private room (it was isolation, after all) and inspected by a string of civvy doctors. All of them without hesitation decided that I did not have scarlet fever but simple German Measles (Unpatriotic Measles as the specialist proclaimed). Several other members of the ships company later joined me with the same syumptoms and we caused quite a stir. The buildings were, as I recall, rather like single story barrack buildings and we kept contacting one another through the open windows (like prisoners in a war film) until it was eventually decided that we should be moved into a ward together. This was done without notice, and in true hospital fashion we were not allowed to walk but had to be wheeled in our beds. I had a slight panic when they pushed me in through the doors of what seemed to be a nissen hut and I was faced with a row of iron lungs (polio was still rife in those days). However, half of the building was just an ordinary ward so I joined my shipmates and we skylarked until they got fed up and sent us back to the RN Hospital. There I learned a significant lesson - the Navy is always right. Despite the official diagnosis by a specialist at a civilian hospital, the Pusser doctor struck out "German Measles" and replaced it with "Scarlet Fever" That was the Navy diagnosis, and that was what I had. I didn't object - it meant that I was entitled to two weeks sick leave (which I was sent on in borrowed clothes since I had no kit).

I eventually rejoined the ship in Plymouth, to find that I had not been forgotten by my messmates but had definitely been forgotten by my Divisional Officer - he gave me a "welcome aboard" speech and asked what my last ship had been, etc.

Malcolm Clarke, 1956-57