My Story Part II

Campbell River Elder College Fall 2021 My StoryCREC 6065Tues Nov 23 to Tues Dec 2rdnd10:00 11:30–A brief rundown on some of my travels and exploits 1944 2021.–Part II New Zealand–Bob Hillier ©

M.V. Waitaki Far Eastern tradeCapt Andy Keyworth Capt Tony DoddsDwt 10,370 Doxford Main EnginesJune ‘68 to Feb ‘69Whangerai-Auckland-Singapore-Port Swettemham-Penang-Rangoon-Calcutta-TrincomaleeJoined Whangerei June 68 Paid off Dunedin Feb 69Cargo fm NZ Butter, Beef, Military Stores, Tallow, Baled Wool, Carpet, HidesCargo to NZ Railway Lines, Rubber Billets, Tea, Tin ingots, Jute

TrincomaleeBangkokRangoonCalcuttaSunda StraitMV WaitakiMV Union AotearoaPort SwettamhamPenangMV Waitaki 12 pax 17 kts.Seas transited- Tasman Sea- Great Barrier Reef- Coral Sea- Arafura Sea (top of the Gulf of Carpentaria)- Banda Sea- Java Sea- South China Sea- Malacca Straits- Andaman Sea- Bay of Bengal- Sandheads (Mouth of the Hooghly river a distributary river of the Ganges)Thursday Island Paquebot mail–Thursday Island

The twelve passengersWaitaki carried 12 passengers, a preferred way to travel cost about the same As first class airfare and a per diem charge for every day in port.Prior to sailing from Auckland to the Far East the passenger complement consisted of Edmund Hilary types heading for the Himalayas and parents going to Singapore to visit their sons and daughters with the NZ armed forces based at Changi (Before it became the main airport), Terendak the jungle warfare training centre in Malaysia as well as a NZ Royal Engineers unit in Thailand building a road to the Laos border. And a Mrs. Stuart going to Port Jesselton in Borneo to look for her daughter who was a commercial pilot working for one of the local Sultans (She found her and they both rejoined on the voyage south but that’s another story)Capt.Tony Dodds

Port of Singapore in 1968The federation of Malaysia had just split into Malaysia and Singapore–leader in Spore Lee Kwan Yew. This was a period inMalaysia called‘confrontation’with Indonesia who claimed that part of Malaysia on the island of Borneo, thus we weresailing into a war zone. The Vietnam type situation in Malaysia referred to as‘The troubles’had just come to a successfulconclusion. Singapore was still like a garrison city with shoulder flashes from every unit in the Commonwealth (exceptCanada), the RN was still ensconced in Sembawang, the RAF, RNZAF etc at Changi and the RAAF in Canadian built OrendaSabres at Butterworth in Malaysia.Lee Kwan YewBugis Street

https://www.myshiptracking.com/ports/port-of-singapore-in-sg-singapore-id-386https://www.myshiptracking.com/ports/port-of-vancouver-in-ca-canada-id-6436Compare Port of Singapore with Port of VancouverComparison Singapore vs. VancouverVancouver is the third biggest port in North America (By tonnage) 145 Million tons, includes 3.5 million containers, 2019 handles over 1 million cruise pax.- It is headquarters of the biggest Tanker fleet in the world also a major owner of container ships. (TeKay and SeaSpan)- At one point proposals were made to move the Baltic exchange from London and make Vancouver a world maritime centre of excellence for North America. (along with Singapore, Amsterdam and London) I think the North Queen debacle put paid to that.Singapore The Maritime and Port Authority of Singapore (MPA)The port handled 37.2 million twenty-foot equivalent units (TEUs) of containers and 626.2 million tonnesof cargo in 2019.

Burma (Myanmar) Rangoon (now called Yangon)Nevil Shute - The Chequerboardhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nevil_ShuteShwedagonDowntown RangoonThe strand Hotel RangoonOther famous hotels in the far east Raffles Singapore–Eastern & Oriental Penang–The Great Eastern Calcutta–The Peninsula Hong Kong–Irrawaddy River FleetPolitics of the day. Burma was a centrally controlled economy, the idea was that they would be closed off from the world for a specific period then open up to the world as a utopia (never happened). People travelling to Malaysia from Europe could drive to the Burma border but would have to sail around the country.Our cargo - Tallow carried in our deep tanks for the People’s soap factory #5.

Calcutta(now called Kolkata) at that time was the most populous city in the world also it was the largest port on the Indian subcontinent. The overt evidence of poverty was overwhelming, if you stood on a street corner you could see 10 thousand people in any direction. In the same city we would see some of the most extravagant visual signs of extreme wealth.The week before we had sailed some 100 miles up the Hooghly river, a branch of the Ganges and locked into the K.G. Dock. The dock held up to 70 large cargo ships of various nationalities. Entering the dock with us was our cargo on approx. sixty manned Hooghly freight boats, similar to Chinese sampans and just as old. Each barge was manned by families, predominately muslim, who slept, cooked and ate onboard. A good portion of these people displayed the white blotches on their skin indicating leprosy. The cargo we were uplifting from these barges was jute from the mills further up the Hooghly for the carpet factories of New Zealand.The large docks of Calcutta were required because of the notorious tidal bore which swept up the river twice daily.The water in the dock had not been changed since before the war and a notice was received by the Captain from the dockmaster stating “Please do not allow your junior officers to swim in the dock, as they may be eaten by alligators.” Of course there were no alligators, but a water buffalo wallow was just off the stern of our berth. Standing instructions were if a crew member fell into the dock they were to proceed by ambulance to the nearest hospital to have their stomach pumped. Of course the residents of the barges used the dock water for cooking and of course was their the recipient of all ablutions etc.

The dock was organized chaos, just ahead of us was a Bank line steamer loading coal manually, with hundreds of sari clad –women carrying wicker baskets on their head, running up a long ramp and tipping coal into the hold. Coal at that time was a major export of India. I was amazed how the women, who wore all their jewelry with their bright coloured saris managed to stay clean throughout the process.Going ashore was done by rickshaw, I engaged a retired Gurkha rickshaw driver as my private transport and he would wait by the main gate 24/7, and would use him on my sojourns ashore. Such as visiting the grand offices of McKinnon McKenzie our agents, lunch with the superintendent of the Calcutta marine radio station VKN, or to quaff an occasional libation at the famous Great Eastern HotelHooghli river feightboat

Calcutta slums

Tollygunge Golf ClubCalcutta Cricket ClubCalcutta Turf Club

•Hindustan Ambassador car based on the 1956 Morris Oxford was produced from 1957 to 2014 with little change perhaps over 20 million sold.

Trincomaleein CeylonMost recently Trincomalee was in the news as the centre of the Tamil insurrection in what is now Sri Lanka. We will visit this issue next week. In the early sixties Trinco was a tea shipping port, we anchored in the bay and loaded tea chests from barges. A bit of history, this is the port that the Royal Navy evacuated to after the fall of Singapore. One of the Officers temporarily based in Trinco was Prince Phillip, hence every rickshaw driver etc. claimed they worked for Prince Phillip in some capacity.Discuss The Valiant in drydockThe eastern HQ of the RCN (wardroom)Trip to Kandy, Taking on fuel (monkeys)Some drama http://online.pubhtml5.com/hhtj/vmbo/

A round trip Auckland Lautoka Suva- Pago Pago –––Apia Nukualofa Vavau,––TaraweraCastaway Island

the Tarawerawas a small refrigerated ship sailing around the South Pacific islands mainly Fiji, Samoa and Tonga. Our voyages would take approximately 3 weeks and we would spend lots of time “alongside”. The Captain Alex was renowned throughout the islands and in fact was referred to as “Uncle Alex” by the hoi polloi of the islands, as soon as we berthed the local chiefs and dignitaries would board for an audience with Alex, we met many of the regions more famous people in the company of Alex, including “Aggie Grey” the famous hotelier in Apia Samoa as mentioned by James Michener in “South Pacific”, the Queen of Tonga “Queen Salote” and later her son “King Tupou “. There was nothing Alex liked better than a party or in Samoan terms a “Fiea Fiea”, he would have the local villagers decorate the ship during the day and in the evening we would entertain, usually with lots of Kava and the mighty pork feasts the islanders are famous for.

During a call in Apia Samoa we hiked to the top of mount Va’fa to the grave of “TusiTala”, Robert Louis Stevenson. We also visited the island of Va Vauin Tonga where the local pilot boarded from a dugout canoe “him big rock over there”. Alex knew everybody, we were introduced to the owners of the Dateline Hotel in Nukualofa, the King , Aggie and many more. We played golf in Lautoka Fiji then onto a sailing ketch to Castaway Island in Bligh water on the Coral Coast. Suva and Pago Pago were also stops. The weather was usually perfect although we did have a rough time in a cyclone just north of Viti Levu the main island of Fiji (tropical cyclones in the southern hemisphere are referred to as typhoons off the Asian coast. http://online.pubhtml5.com/hhtj/oktv/Captain Alex story

The Offshore Industry 1979 - 81DiscussNZ Self sufficiency (LNG/CNG) Condensate. Refinery @ Marsden PointSaturation and Bounce diving.Dynamic Positioning systemsDirectional drillingANZ Mount Erebus Antarcticahttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mount_Erebus_disasterPacific InstallerSedco 445Alongside Maui A platformLink to my CREC Offshore coursehttp://online.pubhtml5.com/hhtj/oxgb/

Anchor handling supply boatCrew transferSupply boat to bargeHNZ (Helicopters NZ)A subsidiary of Okanagan Helicopters At that time the biggest Helicopter Co in the world. Remember at beginning of winter most of the Canadian based units would park @ YVR.https://verticalmag.com/features/the-little-company-that-could-html/M.V. Hamilton

Building the ”Union Aotearoa” In the DDR Dec 72 –March 74

WarnemundeDubaiSydneyRotterdamGlasgowLiverpoolLisbonCapetownTo Europe by Air- Christchurch NZ- Sydney - Singapore- Dubai- Amsterdam- Berlin- Train to WarnemundeReturn by Sea- Warnemunde- Keil Canal- Rotterdam- Glasgow- Liverpool- Lisbon- Capetown- Fremantle- Melbourne- Sydney- Brisbane(Suez closed 67-75)

Warnowerft DDR (Deutsch Democratic Republic)On the occasion of building the “Union Aotearoa” at VEB Warnowerft, Warnemunde, East Germany Jan 1972It was mid January 1972 and a cold wind was blowing in off the Baltic onto the shipbuilding concern of VEB Warnowerft in Warnemunde, East Germany.We were there to supervise the completion of a cargo ship (the first one ever to be built in East Germany on account of a western shipowner). The ship’s name was “Union Aotearoa”, Aotearoa is the Maori name for New Zealand, and it means “the land of the long white cloud”.The six of us had spent a week in Amsterdam, after leaving New Zealand Boxing Day 1971; we arrived in “Schonefeld”, the airport in East Berlin on the 2ndof January. We were “detained” for six hours on account of one of our parties imprudent use of a camera. After a slow 400 km journey on a packed train (steam) we arrived in Warnomunde. Meeting us was our stoical Norwegian building superintendent who took us to our hotel, the “Neptun”, by horse and sleigh.Communist Philosophy. We arrived in the middle of winter at this beach resort. It was full of East Germans on holiday. The state of course decided where and when you went on holidays. When we arrived it was all families, the next cohort was all females (to cut down on the hanky-panky), then all males. The hotel was built by Sweden and was of good standardDiscuss reason for packed train–

The Warnowerft facility was the ex Heinkel bomber factory and some signs of this were still evident even twenty something years after the war. As the shipyard was a communal venture, as all enterprises in the Democratic Republic of Germany (DRG, East Germany a member of the Warsaw Pact) as opposed to the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG, –West Germany – a member of NATO) were , we had to deal with the “Commisars” who managed the yard.In keeping with true communist philosophy, egalitarianism reigned, even to the extent that everyone has a hard hat that was painted a dirty brown colour, in a western shipyard hard hats colours indicate different trades, ie. Welders red, –Painters blue, Inspectors white, etc., the dirty brown colour was an amalgam of all these. The only exception was my ––helmet, which was a brilliant white, the only explanation we could conceive was that as I was the only North American in the team, the others were from New Zealand, Australia and the the UK, I was assumed to be working for the CIA, so consequently was given a wide berth by all and sundry.The ship was being built for a Belgium Jewish shipowner Tsari Rozensweig, his family apparently owned factories in German that had been expropriated by the Nazis, West Germany settled their part of the claim in US dollars East Germany offered to build this –ship for him which he then bare boat chartered to Union Steam (my company)

Of course this egalitarian philosophy did not extend to the “Party” members or the commisars which in any event were obviously party members. These people had separate offices, dining facilities and changing areas. They were also squired around in big ZIL limousines with quaint curtains, so that the “peasants” could not see in. We, as normal workers could not even get a taxi, as taxis were “verboten”, it was considered undignified for one worker to drive another worker around. Because of this we had to walk the six or seven blocks, through the snow, to the shipyard. In this exercise we were often held up by the transit of a Company or so of Motorised Russian Infantry. This we assumed was a Russian ploy to remind the locals (ie. the East Germans), who was the boss.Russian Army truckZIL Limosine

The Guarantee EngineerWe first met the yard Guarantee Engineer a few days before we sailed from Warnomunde. The Guarantee Engineer is traditionally supplied by the builder to sail on the ship for 3 to 4 months to attend to any items arising due to faulty workmanship etc of the yard, the yard was also responsible for the first annual drydocking. Hitler would have been proud of Helmut Stiener, as he was the ideal “Aryan”, tall, fit, blonde hair and blue eyes etc. He of course was a true party member and would engage us as typical western decadents, so when he asked what our hobbies were we all replied golfing or horse racing, both sports that were banned in East German society as being bourgeois and not suitable for the common man. More seriously we realized that as these were the days when all East Germans would like to escape to West Germany if they could. No working age adults could emigrate, this of course was not applicable once you retired as then you could emigrate and the state would no longer be responsible for your pension, health care etc.. This was a problem for the East German merchant marine, as by reason of their employment had ample opportunity to defect, to prevent this seamen could only be appointed to foreign going ships if they were married and preferably had children. The family were in effect “hostages”. Helmut dutifully showed us pictures of his wife and two kids. Another aspect of his “political correctness” was when we caught him surreptitiously reading a copy of “Time” magazine he threw it under his bunk and alleged that he had just found it on his table. We of course would give him a good ribbing and kept telling him of all the advantages of living in the “land of the Free” etc. We were somewhat chagrined when we arrived in Glasgow and the first person up the gangway was an extremely officious officer of the Home Office who wanted to keep Helmut in jail until such time as we sailed. We prevailed on this individual to let Helmut remain of board as he was needed for the efficient operation of the ship. After much haggling he allowed Helmut to remain on board but was not allowed ashore. Of course Helmut wasted no time in reminding us that seamen in his country could come and go as they pleased.

Taking the “Athol Viscount” to scrap in Hong Kong June/July 1978DiscussWhy transit thru PhillipinesDangerous goods anchorageC.Y TungKai Tak airportI Meet my old principal in MalaysiaViet Nam War

https://online.pubhtml5.com/hhtj/vfvwI go ashore and form my own organisation 1989 1999 Levin NZ–Branches Waikanae, Paraparaumu and WellingtonServicesDesign software for shipboard management and storesDesign and build networks for small businessTraining (over 600)County Geo plotting system (explain)Represent Microsoft and hardware companiesSupply paper and other consumablesI Take my leave of New Zealand after 35 years and return to Canada

Next week- I return to Canada- Attend Royal Roads University- Work for a year in the BC Ministry of Health- Join Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade- Building a new Embassy in Warsaw Poland- We visit Auschwitz and Birkenau in Cracow- We are posted to Israel - the ongoing situation- The Mossad and Shin Beit- Working in Cairo, Ramallah and Amman crossing the Jordan river- The Americans Invade Iraq- Looking after our legations in United States- I am posted to Canberra Australia and look after New Zealand as wellWork sets you freeCanadian High Commission CanberraRamleh Cemetery Tel AvivRoyal Roads UniversityFort Pearson OttawaCairoCanadian Embassy Tel Aviv