The untold story of the collision. Apart from this, a couple of points. The radio operator on duty on Voyager at the time was made a scapegoat by the enquiry when they said he took down the wrong course transmitted by Melbourne , something he took with him all his life. No proof was provided by the board, and it has always been seen as an attempt to take blame away from the Officers, especially " drunken Duncan ". A mate of mine was in the stokers mess when the ship rolled over, his locker opened, throwing out all his kit. He tells me he stood there folding his kit up, putting it back in the locker, when another mate came up and told him to get out, as they were sinking. When I joined Vampire in 1968, a PO stoker who taught me how to steam the boiler, told me he had just come off watch in A boiler, and was having a smoke on X deck, starbord, abaft the aft funnel, when all of a sudden he was under water. The guard rails stopped him going over the side. He tried to make his way For'd , to check on his mates in A boiler, but there was no ship forward. He and a couple of others then went to each mess deck aft, from memory 3Mike seamans mess , the tiffies mess [ 3Papa2?], and 3Quebec stokers mess. He was the man who spoke to my other mate.
Another aside, was when on Perth off the gunline, Vietnam, while doing a RAS with an American oiler, someone on the flying bridge accidently set off the collision alarm , as we casually made our way to collision stations, a sailor pushed past, and in a panic, made his way to the upper deck. He was on Melbourne during the collision. Can't blame him.
The Melbourne/Voyager Collision - Untold Story | NHSA
I’m pretty sure the dinosaurs died out when they stopped gathering food and started having meetings to discuss gathering food
A bookshop is one of the only pieces of evidence we have that people are still thinking
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