Anecdote

I joined the Hemiglypta in the spring of 1956. I was a gangly 16yr old fresh from
the M.N. training school in Sharpness, Gloucestershire. I had never been very far from home other than a trip from my home in Liverpool to the Isle Of Man. Apart from this my 'seagoing experience' consisted of crossing the river Mersey on a ferry boat!
Nevertheless, I enjoyed my time on the Hemiglypta as she was a good ship with single cabins and even a swimming pool on the aft upper deck! Happy days.
I would be pleased to hear from any other ex-crew members who may have been on board around this time.

Although I only spent 5 months in 1992 on the Lampas as a Deck Cadet, fond memories remain. With the aid of hindsight I also class myself as fairly lucky to have completed that one trip! From the time I joined (off Fujairah U.A.E.) with no air con. for the first 2 weeks, to paying off (off Durban S.A.) due to a serious boiler fire, the trip was a litany of problems. Endless pipe repairs (condensation intake fairly worrying) and endless mopping of crude. I believe the Barbadian crew were ready to mutiny but so were us cadets. When not working, our time was generally spent on the x alleyway musterpoint due to another false fire alarm in the (rarely) unmanned engine room or the pump room. Sleep deprivation was affecting sanity and with an Old Man who was a Savage (Vince I believe), tensions were running high.We were all failing the white cotton glove on cabin inspection, and I had numerous visits to the Old Mans office for warnings about my alcohol consumption, but after 5 months on the Eburna I was struggling! It all came to a head when the C/E and the Old Man persisted in using the main boiler despite a faulty 'uptake valve'. After the fire and a metre sq. hole in the boiler void casing (off the coast of Somalia of all places), we set off on the aux. boiler for Rotterdam at about 2 knots. The other Cadets and I payed off in Durban, eventually, to see the bonfire night fireworks from the pilot boat just before midnight. As I said, fond memories remain! I understand she was scrapped 1998, I'm amazed she lasted that long to be honest.......Hope there wasn't anybody stuck in the lift!?

the old man was an ignorant pig while tying up at pulo bukom he and i had a tremendous fall-out. after that he left me severely alone. he was a dour scot from somewhere west of aberdeen & was tighter than a frogs primary orfice. his nickname on the hemiplecta was fenderbelly and he smoked in his toilet. not a nice man. in fifteen years i only sailed with one worse, but thats another story.

I have read that in the 1950's the ship was reputed to be haunted. God knows, there was reason. My father told me how he and others stood to their gun for more than a day because the Kamikaze kept coming. Their drinking water was brought in a bucket, their toilet was a bucket. Towards the end, H**** B***** cracked and ran. After it was over, they searched and they found him crouched in the foetal position right up in the point of the bow, the top part of the stem. The Americans took him away and they never saw him again. He had a wife and child in London.

Lord, forgive us our trespasses.

My father told me other stories, slightly less black.

There was the afternoon when the ship developed a small engine problem, nothing serious, but she had to stand aside and fall back. The ship which took her place (no 3 in the column) was torpedoed during the night.

There was the memorable day when the ship shot down a Kamikaze aircraft which was attacking it. They had anchored off an island recently captured by the Americans and, because Diloma was a tanker, she anchored some distance from the rest of the convoy. The local US authority sent a message that a wounded American aircraft was trying to make the island. It would appear overhead shortly, and on no account should anyone fire on it.

An aircraft duly appeared but, once within visual range, immediately altered course to head straight for Diloma. The Old Man decided to shoot first and ask questions afterwards. The aircraft was mortally hit and fell into the sea so close that some fragments rebounded from the plating before falling into the water, and one wingtip scraped paint from the ship's side. The captain (very wisely) ordered a floating wheel to be salvaged. The Americans were furious because they thought the goddam Limeys had shot down one of theirs but, on being presented with a wheel bearing Japanese characters, they decided to award medals instead. Apparently this fell through when they discovered the Diloma was RFA and not RN.

During the night, my father crept into the space where the wheel was stored and with a screwdriver removed a rim piece which he subsequently used as a picture frame. I still have that piece, and the picture.

Subsequently the aircraft wheel, the ensign the ship wore during the engagement, and a silver commemorative cup were gifted to the girls' school in Bristol which had sponsored the ship's crew under the 'comforts from home' scheme. If anyone knows the current whereabouts of these artefacts, I would be grateful to hear from them.

What else? Once when they were in harbour, I don't know where, they were standing to the gun during an air raid when a bomb fell into the water about fifteen feet away. They all watched it fall, dumbstruck, and when it evidently wasn't exploding, looked at each other like idiots, and burst out laughing! Navy divers subsequently defused it.

These anecdotes pp Stanley Thomas Masterman, 11.11.1923-30.03.2008

picture by ?

"Dione"
This ship is known to me for suffering many fires in the main-engine exhaust system.
On a tanker this gives some cause to alarm.
On "Dione" this was dealed with effectivly and in a routine manner.
Didn't know this before but, even water can burn.
On "Dione" it did regularly.

I knew of this little problem before i joined her.
Ships in the Dutch Shell fleet did have radio contact within a daily schedule.
Once every few weeks "Dione" reported on figthing yet another fire.
Some blamed the engine builder, Stork.
"Dione" was the only Shell tanker with a Stork main engine.

i was thirteen when i signed on the naranio as a cabin boy september 1943.my dad leo brown was ships cook.on september 27 1943 we went in convoy to new york,from there to curaceu dutch west indies,we took on board a cargo of aviation spirit.from there we sailed in convoy to bathurst and port marshal west africa.our cargo was used to fuel flyingboats who were based there.from there we saild for dublin and home to liverpool.as well as the normal crew we army and naval gunners on board.i was 14 on the 24 of october.

in vietnam werd er een mijn aan de anker ketting van de "KENIA" gehangen en door de viet kong gedetoneerd. als er ex-collega`s zijn die van die aanslag nog fotos hebben zou ik die graag in mijn bezit krijgen.

1944 Ulithi Island and port (half way from States to PI)a suberged mine rubbed the port side while underway. Divereted my attention from fighting with a gull, about to crap on my flag bag!
Gene Dempsey

With regard to seafaring life one story I have never forgotten concerns the ruined lunch.
Seafarers, like other men, need and enjoy good food. Whether it be steamed puddings in the Panama or a forced salad in the North Sea we all needed our "scram" and enjoyed it properly when we could.
Steaming in the direction of Singapore from Vietnam we were, one morning, in a brisk following sea. The ship was on tank clean operations and I was on deck work. I took a short break on the bridge.
The sound powered telephone wailed as the engine room notified that soot was about to be blown. These deposiits would have made a mess of the deck so, according to procedure, there was a course alteration.
On the bridge that day was a young deck apprentice who by this time was very experienced. He took the call and notified the Third Mate. Sweeping aside the chart room curtain he promptly told the apprentice "starboard ten".
The apprentice told him of his concerns regarding the following sea which was on the starboard quarter but was with madrigalean directness dismissed the while being reminded that his job was to follow orders and not to think.
The apprentice disengaged the autopilot, put the helm over, re-engaged the pilot and calmly stated "ten starboard on."
As the ship came about the outcome was quite clear. The ship rolled to starboard, stopping for a lingering moment before rolling to port into the trough that followed the aforesaid wave. Secure in the clasp of the bridge wing taffrail I watched the sea roll up to meet me. The angular momentum of the roll, typical in these vessels because of their tendency to be over stable, had dreaful consequences for the anticipated luncheon.
From aft came a shout, followed by a crash which disturbed the calm of that eastern sea. This was followed by a stream of skillfully voiced invective as impressive as much for its content as for the uninterrupted delivery which ran for twenty seconds. Silence followed. It was during this period that the Third Mate, Stottie as he was known to us, realised that he should have warned the galley to rig the fiddley bars on the range whose intended function was to prevent the premature destruction of any meal during foul weather.
Stottie was not his usual bouncey self that lunchtime. Walking into the saloon he was subdued if not crestfallen. He was rather like a deflated Bagpuss whose nap in the washing machine had been catastrophically interrupted by the insult of the rotating drum followed by the injury of inrushing water. Stottie resembled this Bagpuss in that both had injured pride to repair.
The lunch had been hastily re-constructed but the pudding or "duff" was intact since it had been steaming in the citadel of a galley steamer all morning. It was served with little ceremony along with a hastily made sauce, the intended one having been discarded along with soup, entree, main course, vegetables and gravy that had been the originally intended fare.
Stottie ate in silence. There may have been commiserations offered but dark things were no doubt expressed in other places. The vindicated apprentice sat with me at our table. Stottie had the company of a Fourth Engineer possessed of a dry quick wit.
Stottie was very popular and I remember him with great fondness. He told us one evening how, during one trip, his parents told him by letter that they had moved house. Directions were, for some reason, not conveyed.
Stottie arrived at Heathrow and, knowing a watering hole roughly equidistant from the two dwellings, parked the hired vehicle and wandered in.
He was welcomed as usual and then he made to ask directions to the new abode. Asked casually who he was visiting he replied that he lived there. There was a brief silence after which directions were forthcoming followed by enquiries after his well-being.
Such stories as these form the stock-in-trade of American comediennes who use similar material to describe the dubious methods by which they discard their offspring.
Stottie had that wonderful and disarming ability to "take the mickey" out of himself. I came to learn that this is the most effective defense against anyone who would target others with ridicule.
I flew home from Singapore with the young apprentice who was as funny as he was engaging. We arrived in the middle of the three day week that some view as the worst legacy of the Heath government.
So many other things happened on that trip. Some of us encountered the Naked Pilot but that, as they used to say in never-never land, is another story.