The Stanhope Steamship Company was founded and managed by shipbroker Jack Billmeir in 1934. This opportunistic tramp shipping firm soon became well established by making huge profits running Franco’s blockade into Republican ports during the Spanish Civil War.

By 1939 with the purchase of old tonnage, the number of ship’s under Stanhope’s blue and white ’JAB’ house flag, sporting a blue B on a white band across the black funnel, had grown to eighteen. Then during the ensuing 2nd World War, Stanhope lost twenty of its own ships and another twelve Ministry of War Transport (MoWT) ships manned and managed by the company, these mostly torpedoed, mined or attacked by aircraft, with a heavy overall loss of 233 lives.

Using replacement tonnage for ships lost, conversions and newbuildings able to take advantage of a post-war boom in cargo rates, Billmeir had by 1948 acquired a comparatively modern fleet of 19 cargo ships and tankers with a total deadweight of 192,500 tons.

Some new tonnage was acquired during the 1950s but as freight rates declined towards the end of the decade several ships were sold off and old tonnage was scrapped.

In 1957 Billmeir set up an Award Scheme Trust, for education in boatbuilding and naval architecture, which was later to be amalgamated into the Shipwrights‘ Company Educational Trust. Jack Billmeir was awarded the CBE, and in 1962 became Prime Warden of the Worshipful Company of Shipwrights.

In 1963, when Jack Billmeir died, the company had only three ships left. The following year the Stanhope Steamship Co. was sold to George Nott Industries of Coventry and the title of this remaining shell company was passed on to Townsend Thorensen Ferries.

Fleet History

Jack Billmeir originally purchased two old coastal cargo ships, namely the 627 ton SS Sandhill and 700 ton SS Wooler in 1934, from the Tyne-Tees SS Co. These were renamed Stanhope and Stanmore respectively. By 1936 two more very old coasters had been acquired, one the 516 grt Skinningrove built at Middlesbrough in 1895 to carry pig iron, the other the 798 grt Alburn, built in Middlesbrough in 1904, these being renamed Stangrove and Stancor respectively. They were followed by several more ships, some up to 30 years old by 1937, as Billmeir ventured into carrying grain and fuel to Spanish Republican ports. Ships were also involved in carrying refugees fleeing from Spain and there were some shipmasters in the company, such as the notorious ‘Potato Jones’, who were reported to have concealed arms in their cargoes of foodstuffs for Spain. It has been claimed that Billlmeir’s ships could be sold at a profit after making just one voyage to Spanish Republican ports. But when that war ended Stanhope SS ships were banned form Spanish ports by the Nationalist Government.

Four Stanhope ships had been lost during the Spanish Civil War including the Stangrove, attacked and captured by nationalist forces but wrecked at Palma with the mysterious death of Captain William Richards, found alone on board after he had refused to leave the ship with the crew.

One 4,155 grt cargo ship Itajahy, built at Hamburg in 1915, had been taken under the British flag as a war reparation and renamed Hesione. Bought by Billmeir in 1937 from Houston Line she was renamed Stanwood. In 1939 her cargo of coal caught fire off the Cornish coast. She was deliberately grounded off Carrick Roads and sea cocks opened to extinguish the fire but the Stanwood capsized and sank. The wreck has since become a popular diving site off Falmouth.

WW2 Casualties

The heroic wartime endeavours of the crews of Stanhope’s ships, against overwhelming odds, while sailing in old and vulnerable ships, exemplified the contribution and sacrifices of the merchant seamen serving under the Red Ensign during the 2nd World War. The fleet’s own achievements and losses were recorded in a brochure that I was given upon joining the company as an apprentice in 1950.

During the war years Stanhope ships provided early shipping aid to France and Belgium, participated in the perilous Narvik trade, sailed to Singapore and Batavia, and took their place in convoys and on lone voyages with volunteer crews to the relief of Malta. They were involved in the Battle of the Atlantic and made unescorted winter passages to Archangel and Murmansk. They supplied the fighting forces in India and the Mediterranean, and carried some of the first troops and equipment to the Normandy beaches, some ending up as blockships. Many of Stanhope’s officers and crew were decorated including two masters who received the DSO. Many other of the company’s captains, officers and crew received DSC, DSM, OBE, MBE, BEM decorations or Mention in Dispatches.

Stanhope’s first casualty occurred very early in the War, on 19th November 1939. The 1,383grt coaster Stanbrook was mined when sailing between Antwerp and the Tyne with the loss of all hands. Originally built in 1909 by the Tyne Iron Shipbuilding Co and acquired by Billmeir in 1937, the Stanbrook had a triple expansion steam engine capable of making 11 knots. It is a sad fact that that the first 25 ships built by Tyne Iron Shipbuilding were all lost at sea or wrecked, not one of them making it to the breaker’s yard.

By June 1940 the tally of company ships lost had risen to seven with the sinking of the old Stancor sunk by U-48 off the Hebrides, while bringing wet fish from Iceland. The crew took to the boats and landed safely on the islands.

Another notable loss in January 1941 was the 5,103 grt cargo vessel Stanpark, overtaken and captured by the German battleship Admiral Scheer, which took the crew on board, then sank the ship by gunfire. The crew were transferred to the German prison ship Porland which they, with other prisoners, made a gallant attempt to seize. When this failed they attempted to set fire to the Porland, but the men were overpowered, tied to stanchions in the hold and flogged. Two were murdered and three later sentenced by the Germans to terms of imprisonment of up to 20 years.

By 1941 the Admiralty was desperate to get supplies through to Malta and decided that individual ships might have a better chance of sneaking through if suitably disguised. So Billmeir, as a veteran of the Spanish blockade-running days, was invited to attempt the run from Gibraltar to Malta with some of his ships. Consequently Stanhope’s Parracombe sailed from the UK in April 1941 attempting the first unescorted passage to Valletta with a cargo of Government stores which included crated Beaufighter aircraft and ammunition. She was a 4,698 grt cargo ship built in 1928 of unusual appearance with an old-fashioned clipper bow, only recently bought from Pyman Bros of West Hartlepool. Disguised as a Spanish merchantman at the beginning of May 1941, the ship skirted the North African coast, where she was reported to have suffered both damage from mines and to have been bombed and sunk by aircraft from Italian bases with the loss of 30 of her 47 crew. Survivors were picked up by a French (Vichy) seaplane and landed in French North Africa, where they spent many months incarcerated in very poor conditions. Eventually they were released, and repatriated along with the crews of other of Billmeir’s ships which had also made unsuccessful Mediterranean voyages. The Parracombe’s Captain D L Hook, was awarded the DSC.

Eventually the 5,641grt MoWT Empire Guillemot, also managed by Stanhope, had the distinction of being the first merchant ship actually to reach Malta unescorted later in that year. She docked at Valletta with relief supplies in September 1941, after employing various ruses to counter the unwelcome attention of enemy planes and ships. The Governor of the Island, Sir William Dobbie, thanked the master and crew personally on arrival. But, two days after leaving Malta she was machine gunned and bombed by three Italian planes. A bomb went clean through No.5 hatch and she began to sink immediately. The Captain and crew took to the boats hoping to make it to Gibraltar about six hundred miles away, but were forced to land in Algeria where they were interned until liberated by the Allied armies two years later.

Two other MoWT cargo ships managed by the company, Empire Defender and Empire Pelican were also lost in devious solo attempts to reach Malta in 1941. In her chequered history the Empire Defender had, as the 1910-built Freienfels, been seized from Germany at Calcutta by the Royal Navy in 1914, passed to India, later Greece and then sailed under the Italian flag before again being seized by the British in 1940. The 5,649 grt Empire Defender was, however, torpedoed in November 1941 after leaving Gibraltar for Malta when running under false colours.

Meanwhile the Empire Pelican, an unarmed 6,463 grt ex-American cargo ship built in 1919, sailed from Barry under the command of Captain Michael Proctor in late October 1941, joining a convoy bound for South Africa. But on 9th November, when off southern Spain, Captain Proctor opened sealed orders from the Admiralty directing the ship to proceed to Malta. The ship’s appearance, name and flag were changed overnight as she apparently became the Marie Therese of Barcelona. But the ruse was detected and she was attacked and sunk by Italian torpedobombers off the coast of Tunisia on the 14th November, the crew being taken prisoner, with the loss of one life. On his repatriation in 1942 Captain Proctor was awarded the DSC.

By late 1941 the Admiralty concluded that the odds were too heavily against making successful unescorted voyages to Malta. My uncle Lieutenat-Commander James Burnett sailed later in November 1941 as a naval liaison officer aboard another Stanhope-managed cargo ship intended for Malta. He told me that his duties included decoding messages from the Admiralty, to see that camouflage procedures were implemented. This was intended to include flying foreign flags and painting a series of false nations’ flags on the hulls, when in the Mediterranean, and to take command and responsibility for the gun defence system. Only the naval officer could give orders to open fire using the sole armament on board, in this case just twin Oerlikons on each bridge wing. However, due to the success of the enemy in sinking ships between Gibraltar and Malta, the plan was thankfully abandoned at Gibraltar and my uncle was able to return to regular naval duties in the Western Approaches. Decorated with DSC and Bar, he survived the war.

Two 5,966 grt cargo ships newly built for the company by William Pickersgill at Sunderland in 1942, Stangarth and Stanbank, suffered almost identical fates when on their maiden voyages in March and May 1942 respectively, out from New York heading to round the Cape for the East. They were torpedoed by submarines between New York and Bermuda. All 46 were lost from the Stangarth while the Stanbank’s crew took to three boats. Survivors from two boats were picked up. A fine example of the tenacity shown by the Stanhope crews was apparent when a small cargo ship Stanlake was torpedoed by E-boats five miles south of the Lizard in April 1943. The crew were picked up by a minesweeper and landed at Falmouth Bay. Yet, within 48 hours the Master and several crew were back at sea in another Stanhope vessel, the old collier Stanforth. This was typical of the courageous attitude of British merchant seamen throughout the war.

In July 1943, the MoWT Empire Lake, a 2,852 grt collier on voyage from Durban to Aden was torpedoed by U-181. Unable to launch the boats the 38 crew took rafts. According to Stanhope’s company records three weeks later one raft with five survivors arrived at Madagascar.

Among other casualties, the 9,350 grt Stanmore was torpedoed by a German submarine while on passage to Italy in October 1943. Temporarily abandoned, she was later found to be still afloat but sinking. She was towed to North Africa, beached and the entire cargo salved.

A sister ship, Stanwell almost survived the war. After making many hazardous journeys across the Atlantic, she was sent with a cargo of Government stores to Port Tewfik in 1942 at the time Rommel was threatening Alexandria. Mines exploded around her and she was badly damaged but the crew managed to get the Stanwell out of port and bring her home. Hers was an inglorious but useful end. She was sunk as a blockship off the Normandy beaches in 1944. Meanwhile one of the first ships to proceed to the Normandy beachhead to be used as a blockship was the Stanhopemanaged Empire Tamar which had started life as the Shaw Savill liner Kia Ora in 1907.

Another Stanhope-crewed ship, the 2,824 grt cargo ship Empire Lough was shelled off Dover in 1944 when taking her third cargo of high explosives to the Normandy beachhead. The ship was set on fire but the master, Captain Robinson MBE remained on board until all his crew were safely in the boats, then jumped overboard into the blazing sea but died soon after being picked up.

The Post-War Fleet

Ship casualties were replaced during and after the war with a mix of converted, requisitioned and new tonnage. One new cargo ship was the 10,286 dwt cargo ship Stanrealm built in 1944 by William Pickersgill. In July 1950 she lost her propeller in the Indian Ocean and drifted for ten days before being taken in tow to Mauritius by the Liberty ship Cape York. She was eventually sold in 1960 to the Liberty Shipping Co. of Hong Kong and renamed Fortune Lory, but was wrecked in 1962.

Among the ship conversions were the SS Stanfirth, formerly the Beauly Firth, built as an Admiralty aircraft engine repair ship in 1945 and converted by the Tyneside yard of Palmers Hebburn Co. Ltd. for Stanhope in 1948. Also there was the Stanroyal, formerly a 12,300 tons deadweight German merchant vessel Isar, built in Hamburg in 1929. The Isar had been a German PoW transport during the war, then commandered in reparation. While the Stanroyal was being converted at the Tyneside yard of Palmers Hebburn Co. Ltd., a scribbled note was found on a storeroom bulkhead indicating that ‘14 men, 5 NCOs and one officer of the 2nd Battallion Queens Royal Regiment’ had been imprisoned there in July 1942. Post-war the converted and refurbished Stanfirth and Stanroyal now boasted limited passenger accommodation, an attempted step up the social ladder for this tramp shipping company.

Two Empire tankers of about 14,800 tons deadweight, built in 1943/45 by Sir James Laing & Sons, Empire Beresford and Empire Chancellor, were transferred to Stanhope as the SS Stanbell and MV Stanglen and another two tankers of 16,584 deadweight, the Fort Cheswell and Fort Jupiter, both ‘T2’ turbo-electric tankers (TET) built by the Sun Shipbuilding Corporation in 1945, were acquired by the company from the US Maritime Commission in 1947. In honour of their wartime predecessors they were named Stanwell and Stanmore respectiveIy and it was to the new TET Stanwell that I was first appointed when I joined the company as an apprentice in 1950.

The T2 fleet of standard design tankers, some 536 in number worldwide, had been mass produced in various US shipyards to carry oil to Europe for the Allies in the latter half of the War as part of the Maritime Commission’s emergency programme. They had turbo-electric propulsion because this gave a good speed of up to 15 knots but at the same time obviated the need for the more complicated construction of mechanical reduction gearing.

By 1948, during a post-war freight shipping boom, Stanhope was well placed with a relatively modern fleet of 19 cargo vessels and tankers. These included several cargo ships acquired during the war years and since converted from coal burners to oil fuel, as well as the four tankers. The ships were chartered out worldwide, some by the voyage, some on time charter. Company records show that in the year of 1948 the fleet steamed 733,893 miles, and carried 878,819 tons of cargo of which 270,688 tons were liquids, mainly crude, fuel and diesel oil, 208,878 tons were coal and 206,905 tons were cereals, mainly grain from Australia and Canada. There were also 85,607 tons of ores and phosphates, 56,448 tons of timber, as well as 38,000 tons of general cargo comprising mainly manufactured and consumer goods.

During the 1950s Billmeir both bought and sold ships at a remarkable rate. In 1951-2 the Stanhope fleet was joined by two newbuilding cargo ships from Burntisland, Sunderland, Stanhope and Stanburn in both of which I was later to serve as a cadet.

But in 1954 the two sisters Stanhope and Stanburn were sold to the USSR. More ships were subsequently added to the fleet, including two 1940‘s cargo ships bought in 1955, Stanland (scrapped in 1963) and Stanloch (scrapped in 1959). Then in 1957 a 19,342 dwt tanker newly built by Uddevalla in Sweden was immediately sold on to Danish owners and towards the end of the decade, as the freight market declined, Billmeir sold off more ships including the tankers Stanwell to Norwegian owner Bendizen and the Stanmore which was scrapped in 1960. Yet in December 1958 Billmeir had taken delivery of a new 18,750dwt tanker Stancloud from Swan Hunter’s Wallsend yard.

By 1963 the remaining Stanhope fleet comprised the 8,002 grt cargo ship Stancrown built in 1956 at Sunderland, which ran aground and was abandoned on 25th December 1963, the 8,108 grt cargo ship Stanwear built by William Pickersgill in 1956 and the 12,700 grt Stancloud. The following year, the Stanwear and the Stancloud were transferred to George Nott Industries.

At Sea With Stanhope

I was ignorant of the Stanhope Steamship Company’s volatile and turbulent past under the management of Jack Billmeir when, in August 1950, I signed four-year indentures as an apprentice at Stanhope’s head office in Bishopsgate, London. I was immediately appointed to the Americanbuilt TET Stanwell. Our 16,584 dwt tanker made regular trips to Abadan and other ports in the Persian Gulf to load crude or fuel oil, frequently returning to our home port of Swansea to discharge, also taking oil cargoes to the River Plate and Mediterranean ports.

After discharging each cargo, we would clean tanks when out at sea and then ventilate to ‘gas free’ them before visiting our next port. In those days we would pump the oily mixture overboard from each tank when out of territorial waters, a procedure now of course strictly forbidden, special tanks being fitted in the cargo spaces to take the slops for later discharge ashore. My enduring memories are of getting my sea legs the hard way on my first voyage by coiling 8in mooring ropes in the forepeak under the supervision of a sadistic bosun as the ship pitched heavily during stormy weather in the Bay of Biscay, also chipping and scraping the decks in the searing heat of the Red Sea and Persian Gulf and the sickly stench of crude oil while loading. We were very grateful for the iced water drinking fountains installed in this American-built ship.

There was a moment of alarm that first voyage when the ship completely blacked out. All the ship’s machinery being turbo-electric powered, the engines, steering gear, auxiliary machinery and lighting were all taken out together as we steamed up the Shatt al-Arab river towards Abadan under pilot. We could but drop the anchor in the busy waterway and as the ship swung round to face the current, so close did we come to collision that our stern ensign staff actually swept away a line of washing hanging out over the deck of an Iranian gunboat moored in the river.

When homeward bound, loaded to our maximum draught, the ship often took green water over the decks, but otherwise this ship took the seas well. Stays in port to load and discharge were very brief, usually about 48 hours but, already five years old, the all-welded and hastily built Stanwell was in need of repairs to the interior pipework and bulkheads due to leaks between the compartments. Two longitudinal and nine transverse bulkheads divided the cargo spaces into 27 separate tanks and these were all interlaced with steam heating coils. Hence a welcome three-week stay in Palermo for drydocking and internal pipe welding after the lengthy process of tank cleaning and gas freeing. Following another trip with fuel oil from Philadelphia to the naval port of Invergordon, I paid off the Stanwell after 14 months aboard.

It was a pleasure to be next appointed to the new cargo ship MV Stanhope. She left London on her maiden voyage for the longest single period that I ever spent at sea, a 42-day non-stop voyage round the Cape of Good Hope to Sydney with a full cargo of 1,000 crated Morris Minor cars stowed in the five holds and three high on deck. It was a monotonous and uneventful voyage until we broke down in the exposed ‘roaring forties’ south-west of the Australian coast approaching a landfall at Cape Leeuwin. MV Stanhope had an economical 4-cylinder North East Marine diesel engine able to give about 12 knots but, as was not unusual with new diesel-engined ships, she had teething troubles. It was at about 0900 on a grey stormy day with a force 6-7 following wind and swell that the ship lost way and inevitably broached to. As the ship rolled helplessly up to 25 deg each way the strain on the wires securing the deck cargo caused them to dig into the crates on deck so that they slackened and the three tiers lurched and slid sickeningly from side to side, gradually giving way and eventually being crushed down so that the bottom tier of new cars were flattened to the level of the chassis and wheels. All day we wallowed until at 1630 the chief engineer called up the voicepipe to our worried Captain Williams on the bridge that the engine was fixed and we were able to resume our voyage. Some 250 new cars were written off when we discharged them in Sydney. We then crossed the Pacific, another 28 days, to Vancouver where we loaded speedily from silos followed by yet another long trans-Pacific voyage through the Malacca Straits to Bombay, where it took ten days to discharge, the grain being sown manually by gangs of stevedores into sacks in the holds before being slung ashore by ship’s derricks.

After that we headed back through the Malacca Straits to Dairen in Manchuria, at the time firmly in Mao’s communist grip, where again we loaded grain, the gangway meanwhile being permanently manned by armed guards and our trips ashore restricted to visiting a seamans’ club. Thence homeward past Singapore through Suez to discharge at Hamburg. During nine months at sea we had called at only five ports, but then we made the short hop across the North Sea to pay off in Middlesbrough.

After a short leave I signed on the Stanburn, new from Burntisland, an identical sistership to the Stanhope, on a voyage that was to last more than a year. After loading general cargo in London’s Royal Victoria Docks for Singapore, Malaya and Bangkok, the Stanburn carried a series of grain cargoes from Western Australia to India and Pakistan, finally loading at Geraldton for a homeward trip to Glasgow. We fed well in Western Australia, particularly off the local fresh crayfish and enjoyed the hospitality of the local residents in both Geraldton and Bunbury. However, the morning after leaving Geraldton for the last time homeward bound, our burly South African bosun succumbed to ‘delirium tremens’ as a result of too much local ‘plonk‘. He thought that ‘they‘ were after him and that the ship was doomed. So he donned a lifejacket, climbed over the bulwark and jumped into the sea. With the added fear of the waters being shark infested, we turned about and promptly mustered the accident boat’s crew. His ducking had partly brought the bosun to his senses as he incongruously attempted to give orders to the sailors for launching the boat while he floated in the water. He was, however, successfully recovered and spent the voyage home, at first locked up and then under supervision in the sick bay, while, of all things, delicately embroidering a linen cloth with anchors, the name of our ship and that of our adopted school in Elstead, Surrey, an amazing gift for the school.

After Christmas leave from the Stanburn I was promoted to 3rd Mate (uncertificated) and signed on the tanker Stanmore, sistership to the Stanwell. However, after two short voyages between the Gulf and Swansea as the 8-12 watchkeeper, I found myself on what turned out to be a full two-year voyage since our charterer, Esso, chose not to send the ship back to the UK throughout that time. It was a long, sometimes tedious but eventful voyage.

We witnessed history when anchored with several other ships in the River Plate awaiting the outcome of the revolution by Admiral Rochas’ naval forces to oust President Peron who was supported by the army. The Navy triumphed by blockading Buenos Aires and Peron fled to Paraguay while most of his government fled to Uruguay in a Royal Mail passenger ship. One morning three Paraguayan patrol frigates steamed past us at speed heading out to sea. We were told later that Peron had been aboard one of these destined for Spain. Although landlocked, Paraguay operated a Navy and Marine Corps with several frigates and patrol craft which were able to reach open sea through Argentine waters from the Parana River.

Under the ship’s charter to Esso we endured a hard-working six-month stint, during which Stanmore was employed as a shuttle tanker transporting crude oil from the rigs in Venezuela’s Maracaibo Lake on short voyages to the Esso refinery on the island of Aruba in the Dutch West Indies. The Maracaibo Lake was scattered with oil rigs, pumps and moorings from which the condensate could be pumped into lighters and ships. We would moor there at pontoons for about eight hours at a time, our cargo manifold being connected to pipelines lifted from the lake under the pontoons. We could only load a part cargo of about 8,000 tons because there was a draught restriction at the bar. Having made passage through the narrow channel out to sea, we would, some ten hours later, dock at the smoke-belching Esso refinery in Aruba, discharge our cargo and return immediately to the Lake. This cycle would be repeated about every 48 hours. The 2nd Mate and I were obliged to work watch about, whether at sea or working cargo in port, while we both had to turn out to assist with mooring each time we docked or cast off, so we found ourselves working about 14 hours a day in the tropical heat without ever a day off. The drudgery was, however, suddenly and dramatically relieved when on crossing the bar with our maximum load one day, we struck bottom for a moment due to an unusually high swell. The ship shuddered briefly under the impact before we carried on our way. However, the Lloyds Surveyor, who called in to inspect the hull at Aruba, detected a cracked keelplate right aft and prescribed drydocking for repairs. After discharging our cargo at Aruba we made our hull temporarily watertight in the traditional manner taught in seamanship manuals by building a cement box over the damaged plate. To do this one simply knocks together a rough wooden box around the damaged area, the box being shored from the nearest frames and beams, and then fills the box space with cement. To the delight of the crew the nearest suitable drydock for repairing the keelplate was considered to be New York, so there we made our way shortly before Christmas.

The ship was docked at a repair yard in Brooklyn for three weeks over Christmas. In stark contrast to the tropical heat of Venezuela, this was during a spell of bitterly cold weather and we had only inadequate temporary heating arrangements for, without available cooling water, the ship’s generators were shut down.

With Stanmore back in service, one of our most interesting passages during that two-year voyage took us to a small oil loading berth at Carapito a day and a night’s journey up the winding Orinoco River in Venezuela. With dense jungle on either side the Stanmore was guided up the narrow upper reaches by a local pilot with intimate knowledge of the river. Navigation marks were few and far between so at night he directed the darkened ship by moonlight. When it came time to turn the ship round, because there was not the width to turn a ship of more than 400ft length conventionally in the river, the pilot drove the ship’s bow into the soft mud of the bank and used the engine with helm hard over to swing the stern round.

The most dramatic incident aboard the Stanmore was the day we were overtaken by Typhoon Marie while moored in the Japanese harbour of Osaka waiting to discharge cargo. The harbour has a huge basin generally well protected by breakwaters. Within this haven ocean going ships lay at mooring buoys and there were a great many smaller ships and boats alongside as well. Shortly after 0600hrs, when I was on deck to relieve the Second Mate who’d kept the night watch, a harbour launch sped alongside. An official shouted up to warn us that a typhoon was approaching from the south and would probably be with us by mid-day. The launch then hurried on to pass its message to the next ship. By 0700 when The Chief Officer turned out with the bosun, carpenter and dayworkers, the barometer was already dropping fast and the wind increasing. They set about putting out extra mooring wires over the bow to the huge mooring buoy at which the ship swung. Meanwhile there was a bustle of activity on other ships around. Some carried anchor cables out to their buoys while others, including the Blue Funnel cargo liner next to us, steamed out to sea in order to ride out the coming storm more safely in open water. All this time under a grey sky of scudding clouds, the wind began to howl and the rain to drive across the sea surface, but we were protected from the worst of the heavy seas by the rocky breakwater piles over which the waves were now breaking in a continuous barrage.

We were prepared just in time, for Typhoon Marie struck us with its full force by 0930 hrs, three hours earlier than originally forecast. Accompanied by an almighty roar of wind, the rain, blown spume, sky and sea formed one indistinguishable grey blanket of wet noise. We could no longer venture on deck but in a single blast, the Red Ensign flying from the mainmast was shredded to bits, halliards blowing out horizontally. Meanwhile the engine-room was manned and on stand-by to give manoeuvring power when necessary as the Captain anxiously watched our wire moorings surging between the bow hawse pipes and the mooring buoy while the ship yawed about as though demented. We were lucky that we held. Others were not so lucky. One smaller ship, flying the flag of Nationalist China and the code flag X for ‘I require assistance’ drifted past us within a few metres as she dragged her anchors shorewards. The local newspaper reported afterwards that altogether 200 ships, small craft and boats had been wrecked or damaged. Two hours after striking us, Typhoon Marie had sped on northwards, but was tragically to sink a ferry with one thousand people on board after passing to the north side of the island.

As the months passed and we crossed the oceans with one cargo after another it became obvious that the charterers had no intention of bringing our ship back to the UK and morale was consequently low on board. The entire crew were eventually paid off in New York in March 1956, after two years away with never a day’s leave, and we were flown home. That was my last voyage with the Stanhope Steamship Co. and I resolved that after I had sat for my 2nd Mate’s ticket I would never go to sea in a tanker again. The Stanmore was broken up four years later.