Part of the family story
My maternal Grandfather was a merchant seaman.
He was at sea with the merchant navy during
the First World War, and family history has it that he was sunk at least twice.
This quote from my aunt (his daughter)
‘One
time the boat sank and they were adrift for about eight days. The minute the
captain was pulled into one of the lifeboats he said “Now men your pay stops”.
It does sound like he was a hardhearted
man, but it was only company policy he was stating
He was a stoker in the engine room of
the steam ship Port Kembla when it sailed from England on April 29 1917 bound
for the Pacific via Suez.
The Port Kembla called into Wellington
NZ at least twice, it’s last visit was in July 1917. It next appears in my
record in Brisbane, then on to Williamstown Victoria where it spent at least
ten days loading frozen meat jams and wool. When the Port Kembla left there on
September 12 1917 the 59-member crew thought they were headed home probably via
Durban. The Captain knew otherwise though as he had orders to sail to
Wellington and then head back to England.
It was as well that they did for just 5
days later in the last minutes of September 17th and only 11 miles
from Farewell spit there was an explosion and the Port Kembla sank in just
under half an hour. The radio mast was carried away and the compass was
smashed. The night was still and the fumes from the explosion were carried into
parts of the ship. Some of the crew described the smell as sulphurous and
others were ill for days afterwards. All
hands were ordered to the lifeboats and when all the crew were safely away and
the captain was sure that The Port Kembla was really going down he and the last
two officers with him jumped from the ship and swam to the waiting lifeboats.
There was great excitement in Nelson the
next morning when the steamer Reglus bound for Westport returned unexpectedly
with two boats in tow and sixty shipwrecked seamen. The Shipwreck Relief
Society sent 4 pounds per man to the crew, and later in Wellington The Sailors
Friendly Society arranged entertainment
for the crew in the form of a concert followed by supper, and intended to
provide for the men’s minor wants.
If she had gone directly back to England
they would have been in the open ocean when it happened, and with the radio
mast gone and no way to summons help the outcome might have been decidedly
different.
Well that is what I have believed until
a few years ago.
What actually happened was that the Kembla
hit a mine laid by the German mine layer The Wolfe. A few years ago I just happened
to walk in the door and heard the words Port Kembla. It was an item about a group
of divers who had actually dived on the Kembla. She was located by a chap who
was researching the German ship and had a set of German admiralty charts. And
there directly under the charted positions of one the mines positions was the ship. I got to
meet one of the organisers, and eventually held the ships bell and one of the
plates that they had brought up from the dive
http://www.petemesley.com/local%20trips%20port%20kembla.htm
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