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Refueling in Aden
1956 Mediterranean Cruse |
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| USS Haynsworth DD700 |
| * Scuttlebut & Memories * |
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Refueling in Aden
1956 Mediterranean Cruse |
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During the 1956 Med Cruse Haynsworth transited the Suez Canal. Our next stop was the strategically located Port of Aden, on the southern tip of Saudi Arabia (see below image).
As Engineering Officer, I'll never forget the refueling in Aden. They floated an underwater flexible hose out to us and we hooked it up. An Arab boarded us and squatted on deck by the end of the hose. He was wearing sound-powered phones and spoke no English. On the top of a nearby hill was a signal tower with a yardarm. The deal was that when we were ready to receive fuel we were to raise a signal flag on our yardarm, and then they would raise their flag and start pumping fuel oil. Things were going along very well as we did the routine of measuring the depth of fuel, called sounding, of all tanks. I then started to get worried about the communications system because the Arab was continually gibbering into the phones and I couldn't see anyone up on the signal tower. So when we got to 98% capacity, I ordered our signal flag down and, using sign language, told the Arab to stop. He gibbered into the phone, but the flag on the tower continued waving gently in the hot breeze. The next five or ten minutes, which seemed like eternity to me, became absolutely frantic, becoming humorous only later. Our signal flag was going up and down like a yo-yo trying to get the attention of the signal tower. I'm yelling at the Arab using every possible gesture I could think off to indicate STOP. The Arab gibbered loudly into the phone, but to no avail. Any minute I expected to see fuel oil gushing out of the vents. Finally, when the engineering yeomen told me that we were at 102%, I yelled, “STOP!” at the Arab. He then spoke his first word of English and calmly said, “stop” into the sound powered phone. To my great relief, with that marvelous four-letter word, the flag on the signal tower came down and the pumping stopped. Destroyers always like to stay “topped off” or nearly so. I don’t know if 102% is a record but to use a British phrase, we were "bloody-well topped off" when we left Aden and headed to the Persian Gulf -- into a monsoon. |
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