When I first joined Harrison Line there was an engineer who 'worked by' when ships were in Liverpool, but who never went to sea anymore.
Only remember his first name, Paddy, and he was quite a small man with thick glasses and hearing aids in both ears.
He was deaf as a post and some of the junior engineers used to take the pish a bit, as he couldn't hear what they were saying. I saw him on many occasions before sailing but it was two or three years before I heard his story - from someone else, he never spoke about it.
He was torpedoed twice during the war. The first time he wasn't in the engine room and managed to get in a boat, suffering badly from exposure before being rescued. The second time he was in the engine room with no hope of getting out. An escaping air bubble carried him up a ventilation shaft and spat him out into the sea; his eardrums were burst by the pressure and that was why he had the hearing aids. A nearby vessel picked him up immediately as it was the north Atlantic and survival time in the water was literally minutes.
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The same juniors who'd taken the pish treated him with respect once they'd heard the story and became very protective of him. This was the early 70's and the guy is probably long dead by now.
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