HOLIDAY-MAKERS’ EXPLOIT

Greymouth Evening Star, 20 November 1939, Page 5

HOLIDAY-MAKERS’ EXPLOIT

TANKER BROUGHT TO ENGLAND

How 5,000 tons of oil’destined for Germany was brought safely to an English port by 11 English holidaymakers and business men, who had to contend against a mutinous crew was told by Mr. J. R. Slater, a Harrogate business man. With the others he had been stranded at Bergen, Norway. “The British consul at Bergen told me that most of the crew of the 3,741ton Helka, a British ship then on foreign charter, were mutinous and wanted to stay in a safe neutral port. He asked me to raise a party of 11 men to take the ship to a British- port. There were many Englishmen waiting for a ship home, and the 10 I picked included a medical student, a golf pro., a surveyor and a shipping agent. “We signed on as members of the crew and introduced ourselves to the master of the ship, a Latvian. The only Englishman in the original crew was the radio operator. He was not one of the mutineers. He had received a message diverting the ship from Memel, a German port, to Stavanger, in Norway.

“Soon after sailing, six of the crew came aft. They had knives and started shouting, demanding that we should put back into port. “When they became threatening we showed them our three revolvers and grasped our lengths of gas-piping. They became quiet when they saw we were determined and went to their quarters. “We had to work in shifts in the stokehold to keep steam up. Some of us acted as firemen, others as trimmers, as we steamed across the North sea to Methil, the Fifeshire coal port.”