HMS Centaur R06
British Royal Navy |
Mediterranean Cruise
~ Christmas 1961 Mombasa, Kenya. ~ New Years Eve - Aden |
USS Haynsworth DD700
USA Navy |
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| USS Haynsworth DD700 |
| * Scuttlebut & Memories * |
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HMS Centaur R06
British Royal Navy |
Mediterranean Cruise
~ Christmas 1961 Mombasa, Kenya. ~ New Years Eve - Aden |
USS Haynsworth DD700
USA Navy |
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An American Destroyer, the USS Haynsworth, had been acting as our chaser and escort, and whilst in Mombassa we challenged members of her crew to a game of baseball, of course none of us knew how to play the game it just seemed a good way of getting off the ship for a afternoon, much better than working! We waited on the jetty for their team to arrive, we only wore shorts and T shirts, suddenly a launch drew alongside out jumped a Baseball Team dressed in all the gear! We all just stood there, they did not speak to us because in no way could we be a baseball team but after a long pause one of them said your not the baseball team from Centaur, I said we are and we are not! We have never played the game before, he looked bemused, I said you could teach us, so off we all went to a clearing in the bush, we play for a while then we decided to all put our money together and buy some beer, you would never believe it in the middle of the bush was a shed and we managed to purchase three crates of beer! We became great mates, so much so we invited them to Centaur for Christmas lunch and they invited us to Haynsworth for Tea, each mess onboard Centaur had been given a Christmas cake so in 42c mess we decided to give ours to our new found mates, of course American warships are dry ships! We had rum plus our two cans of beer each person each night, and unbeknown to the powers to be in 42c mess some of us use to save our beer! so our guest were onboard for up spirits we each put half of our glass of rum back in the fanny to share with our guest! what a day we had by the time we went onboard Haynsworth for tea we were well under the weather, I could not believe the choice of food they had on a destroyer, really spotless ship but I was shocked to see the heads I thought ours were bad enough with head and feet showing, there’s just a cistern in the middle of the deck everyone exposed no privacy whatsoever and even segregation took place between the Black and White crew members! In the mess Blacks slept on one side Whites the other, and we spoke to the Black crew members as we would to whites but this seem to embarrass everyone. For some reason they gave us cartons of American cigarettes in exchange for White fronts and hat tally’s we had a great Christmas. Unfortunately, two days later, the celebrations were well and truly interrupted when General Kassim directed more threats against Kuwait and early on the morning of Wednesday 27 December the HMS Centaur R06 was ordered to put to sea and set course for the Persian Gulf. Initially it seemed that the Centaur might spend New Year at sea on her way to the Gulf but, fortunately, the crisis went off the boil, and on Saturday 30 December all the serviceable aircraft were launched to RAF Khormaksar in Aden, and on the following morning the carrier herself tied up in the harbour off Steamer Point. Most members of the ship’s company did not relish the thought of ushering in the New Year in Aden but, in fact, the first day of January 1962 was marked by an afternoon departure from Aden as the Centaur left the port bound for the more exotic Far East with the prospect of a much more pleasant visit to Hong Kong. During the voyage east the Centaur was accompanied by the frigates Eastbourne and Plymouth, and on 14 January she rendezvoused with HMS Alert, flying the flag of the C-in-C Far East Station, and after firing a 17-gun salute, the Centaur continued her voyage beyond Singapore, into the South China Sea. During the afternoon of Tuesday 16 January she ran into severe storms which necessitated the weather decks being put out of bounds, but the following afternoon she secured alongside the North Arm of Hong Kong Dockyard. |