Montebello Atom Bomb Testing

Not many people today believe me when I tell them that in the 50s I was required to walk around the ship I was serving on off the West Australian coast ,giga counter in hand to take radiation readings. Every four hours a crew member would set off in his typical tropical rig of tongs, shorts and sometime singlet to do the readings.The British Government carried out atomic testing on Montebello Island just off the Australian coast near Derby . Little or no concern what ever that such activity posed any form of health risk was considered.Our Federal government at the time assured the general population that all safety measures were in place. No white gloves, mask or safety helmet  nothing in fact was even considered necessary. I have no idea how many seaman if any ever suffered any side effects from this exposure as most would be dead  by now time heals everything. All this of course sounds like agent orange in Vietnam fiasco also claimed to be harmless. The important thing now for every Australian is to make sure such  political spin never see the light of day again.

Final Break with Seafaring

December 1958, I arrived at the Samarai Hospital in Papua as I had been diagnosed with an inflamed appendicitis by the Third Mate on the ship I was serving on. Such a diagnosis was quite common at the time as the general philosophy among the medical profession was to remove anything considered unnecessary. Whether our Third Mate had the required knowledge remains questionable.

My admission was rather bizarre, as apparently a tribal battle with stone axes had just taken place a few miles up the road over the ownership of some pigs.Wounded Papuans were all over the place awaiting treatment. This was quite a normal event the nurse assured me as she lead me to my room to be prepared for the operation. Readers must remember that the Cargo Cult was still very much in favour, tribes would build marking platforms in the jungle in the hope passing aircraft would drop cargo by parachute.This was a hang over from the second world war.All sorts of unlikely events could take place at any time.

After the operation and  a day or so in bed I resolved to leave the sea. Only three months early I had missed my 21st birthday , time doesn't seem to exist at sea all you are aware of is dawn and dusk and the vast ocean. The constant travel, the climbing in and out of my bunk at midnight to stand watch, staring into the distance in the pitch dark for hours on end had taking their toil. Many people view life at sea through romantic eyes, not with eyes watering from starring  for hours on end into a fierce wind at a distance horizon.

After flying back to Sydney I decided to undertake a aptitude test as I had no idea where my future lay. I was told that I had both a strong sense of social justice as well as an artistic disposition and most likely would make a good art teacher. This didn't sound too bad and I resolved enrol at The National Art School. Unfortunately my lack of secondary education raised its head again and I was denied entry unless I returned to school to complete my education. Such a course would take several years and I was still supporting my mother plus her mother, who was looking after her as old Jack had died, so I was going to have to work and could not afford such a course of action.,

A little lateral thinking was required and I decided to enrol at the Julian Ashton Art School and then complete my art education in Italy later on. I was aware that the Italian Government offered free university education to foreigners as part of their war apology to the world. This however is another story.

Shore Leave

Whenever a ship returned to it's home port the crew would sign off and new crews employed, sometimes the existing crew would be reengaged but not always. As a ordinary seaman  I often found myself out of work for several weeks, sometimes months. The marinetime employment centre was located in a shed under the Sydney  Harbour Bridge at the time and we would be required to attend each morning at 9am. We would line up for any job on offer for which we were qualified, while the first mate of what ever ship requiring men would walk up and down several times deciding on  who he liked the look of. The only thing we were not required to do was open our mouths so he could check our teeth! The whole process was very 19th cent. You might say seamen were not held in very high regard.

In the evening I would visit my mother, on some nights I would go out with old Jack to sell  his painted silk scarves. He would spend the day copying various flowers pictures out of the Women's Weekly  for this purpose, Jack was quited a talented painter and had been doing this type of work for many years at sea. In some way this first aroused my interest in art. On other evenings we would go to different migrant clubs and run a little tattoo business out of the men's toilets, another skill Jack possessed. The equipment was fairly primitive and frankly I never could warm to all the blood, but lonely single men seemed to gain some satisfaction from tattooing their loves name on their arms. We always used the toilets as this gave us access to a power point to run the machine. My main job was to keep a look out as this sort of activity was not encouraged by the authorities.

While ashore on these occasion I first became acquainted with the varied kitchens of Australia's new migrant class. A favorite of mine was a Greek club in George Street, Sydney were I was  introduced to eggplant and feta cheese, it was the only eatery that I can remember at that time were a big chunk of bread would arrive in a cane basket on the table free of charge. This was the start of my love affair with the Greek Islands not the bread but Greece in general. A country were I was to spend many wonder full months in the future. My readers must remember that Wiener Schnitzel was consider quite exotic at this time and sauerkraut only fit for Germans. There was no such thing as an express machine. I can still recall going into a shop to purchase sour cream only too be told that Australian shops only sold fresh cream and would never sell anything that was off! In many ways this was the twilight days of the old Australia, the new Australians as migrants were then called were  about to change everything.

Shipping News

Peter Kreet

"Into the swell"

                                         Acrylic on Board   $650.

During the six years I spent in the merchant navy I acquired a great affinity for the sea and ships. It is a subject matter that I have returned to on and off over the years. These are a few examples of various approaches

"Wreck of the Laura"

                                               Acrylic on board  $1500.  (sold)

"Laura II"

                                               Acrylic on Board.  $1500.

Over the years I have undertaken several painting based on ships, wrecks and the sensation of the sea.

"Wreck two"

                                                 Acrylic on Board.  $1800.


Much of this is based on my six years experience as a seaman and affinity with the sea.

Begetting of Sealegs

NFS

Peter Kreet

Not everyone goes to sea to see the sea, in my case it was more a case of extreme necessity, a dry and warm place to sleep and most importantly three meals a day. Mother had been discharged from Parramata Mental Hospital and was currently installed in a very damp, dingy bedsit in Roslyn Street, King Cross.The flat was a basement affair so you needed to leave the light on during the day, unless you  wished to carried a flash light in you back pocket. The apartment  had one room with an alcove off to cook and a bathroom off an open veranda. This unfortunately was open to a narrow alleyway where all the garbage was stored for the twenty odd flat resulting in a high rat population. When ever you wish to visit the bathroom particularly at night it was wise to carry a broom with you as you most likely needed to flatten a few rats on the way. Mother now was receiving a disabled pension bed ridden and only able to walk a few steps with the aid of a cane. Someone would visit each day to cook a meal give her a wash. Jack who had somehow against all the odds had obtain her release used to visit to keep her company. He suggested that as my grandfather had been a master mariner with Burns Philp that I should try to obtain a cadet ship with the company.

This seemed like a great solution to the problem as to where I could live . The only draw back being that I needed a uniform and as money was in short supply mother gave me her last valuable possession, a large aquamarine ring to sell. Even this proved to be a trial ,.as the pawn shop I found willing to buy the ring asked me to wait', after fifteen minutes or so two policemen arrived and took me into custody on the grounds that the ring must be stolen. After several hours and a police visit to mother's flat I was released and able to complete the sale.

A great sense of excitement griped me as it would any fifteen year old at the prospect of setting out on a new adventure. At the time the wage of six dollars a month did not bother me , only later did I realise that this was no where near enough to help mother pay her medical bills let alone live, still more of that later. My main job seemed to consist of cleaning the brass whistle on the funnel, then the ship's bell and all the other brass objects aboard from top plates on doorway to plates that seemed to be everywhere on the ship's rails. It seemed to take days .

 S.S.Burnside  belonged to a drying breed steam ships with all their accompanying soot and grit that I seemed to be forever getting in my eye. They were the day of trimmers who had to drag the coal forward towards the furnaces and boilers and stokers could shovel it in. It was very hot work particularly in the tropics and I was grateful that this was not my job. In those days crews where made up of different racial groups, in our case Malays on deck, Chinese cook and stewards and Indians in the engine room. This I was told was done to keep order as the various racial groups could be counted on to argue among themselves.

We sail on through Torres Strait to Surabaya in Java where I experienced my first fatality when a linesman on the wharf lost his leg when a wire broke and wiped back onto him. The harbour was  a mess, full of sunken war wrecks , broken cranes and railway tracks with no skilled workers able to repair the Dutch infrastructure. Sukarno had just obtain independence from the Netherland so the country was still in some termoil. Most of the roads were little more than dirt track and you had to pick you way through rubbish ,holes and large puddles of water.In those pre-container days ships would spend many days or weeks in port. There where many inter island ships with Dutch officers  left over from war, as well as tramp ship a breed of shipping that seems to have disappeared from world. Some of these vessels I learned from talking to crew members took two  to three or more years before returning home. They loaded a cargo for say South America ,unloaded , reloaded and then went  on to who knows where.

In port I had a new job drawing cargo plans. This required a detailed layout of where all incoming cargo was stored so that each batch was not stacked on top of goods due to be discharged at the next port .After a few days we sailed on to Jakarta and Singapore. In the 1950's Singapore looked nothing like the city we see today. The city was still to a great extent showing signs of the war, the Japanese occupition. Raffles Hotel was the largest building and many road where in a state of disrepair. Chang's Alley seemed to be the focal point of commercial activity, it was a whole new experience People cooking in doorways, eating in the street, while all around hawkers trying to sell everything that seemed available on the face of the earth. There was the strong aroma of spice mixing with the strains of "Rose of Malay" (a very popular song at the time) drifted across the heavy tropical night air. Another favorite haunt of mine used to be New World and Happy World. To-day I have no idea where they were as all has disappeared under the developers hammer. As I remember there were gift shops, fun parks, bars, dance halls ,cafes and everything in between.

After Singapore we sailed up the Malay Peninsular to Penang, loading rubber, coffee, tin,timber at various ports before returning to Singapore. After a stay of a few more days we set off for Sarawak and sailed up some river between tropical jungle on each bank. Eventually on rounding a bend in the river we were greeted by a fleet of log rafts, Each raft  was controlled by a single man armed only with a pole, they were very agile and would jump from log to log without losing their footing. The loading of this timber took several days and we had time to observe the activity on the river. Whole families liveing in small dug out type boats partly enclosed, cooking, sleeping their whole life took place within the confines of these vessels. The common name for these boats was " bum boats" I will leave it to your imagination as to the implication.

After loading the logs we returned to Sydney. I made several more voyages on this ship, sometimes to different ports and islands, but the routine was much  the same. In the end the pressure to earn a larger income to support mother forced me to abandon my cadet ship and I joined the Australian Seaman Union and spent the rest of my six seagoing years on Australia. This proved to a very different experience.

footnote ::Joined the Burnside in June 1953.

War Prize?

Peter Kreet  "Into the Swell"

At the end of wars comes the distribution of spoils. The Union Steamship Co. acquired a former German submarine supply ship that had spent her time rearming u -boats in the north Atlantic. Whether it was a satisfactory prize remained questionable as she would roll and pitch at the same time resulting in a high rate of sea sickness. This was caused by the down sizing of the propellers for economic reasons. In addition she was fitted with a strange steering system for her twin rudders. This consisted of two buttons instead of a normal ship's wheel, the helmsman would push down the right button (starboard) to go right and the left (port) to go left. This was all very well in calm weather but proved to be a nightmare in heavy seas.

The ship was fairly small, only 705 tons and when I joined her as an ordinary seaman in midwinter for a run down to Hobart it was only out of necessity, I need a job. The weather was foul and the down sizing of the propeller made her hard to hold a course even in good weather let alone in a storm. I was on the midnight watch and had to crawl up to the bridge hanging onto a rope as the vessel was so unstable. The storm was building up and already the seas where several metres high. As we slid down one side of of the swell the wall of water on the other side of the trough kept rising higher and higher until the swells' top was way above the ship's mast. We were ziz zazing down and holding our breath coming up, just praying we wouldn.t broadside to the on coming sea. The steering had to be corrected by pushing the opposite button to bring the rudders back to midships, unlike a normal ship's wheel that is self correcting. Trying to hold a course proved near impossible. The second mate had ordered the watch to put out a sea anchor ( a canvas parachute item that held the bow into the wind), but to no avail.

All ready the well deck was under a metre of water and the lashings on a number of drums  on deck were coming undone. Men had to lash them selves to the safety rail before venturing out to try to secure them. Even so two seamen finished up with broken. Bass Straight can be one of the roughest stretches of water in the world due to its shallow nature. All .we could hear was the piecing wail of the wind and crashing thunder of the sea hitting the ship.from every direction. Everyone was in some state of seasickness and no doubt wondered why they were here. I most certainly did and gave serious thought to call this career quits. Some how after twenty four hours of just hanging on we limped into Hobart and the friendly arms of the locals.