Torrey Canyon - 40 years on

[scudpilot]

Just read on the BBC website that the Torrey Canyon sunk 40 years ago today, was also reading that the RAF and Royal Navy "appeared" to have failed spectactulary in sinking it afterwards, am I assuming that there was a lot more to it than poor bombing techniques?

[Groundloop]

Bit difficult to sink it afterwards as it was already sitting on the bottom!!

Wasn't the bombing an attempt to set the oil on fire and burn it off?

[Jet Dragon]

Never mind all that - 40 Years ago ' feckin 'ell:{

[Archimedes]

Groundloop - AIUI, it was an attempt to burn the oil rather than to sink the ship. As far as I recall, napalm and the fuel from drop tanks has never been regarded as being particularly effective as an ASuW tactic... (the S-3 that sank an Iraqi patrol boat thanks to a switch foul up that led to the release of the buddy refuelling store rather than the intended Mk 82s notwithstanding).

[TMJ]

I listened to a programme on this on Radio 4 t'other day in which some of the crews were interviewed. They didn't want to sink the thing before burning off the remaining oil, so the aim was to put bombs through the upper deck that would detonate before the putting a hole in the bottom that'd let more oil out. As such, failing to sink her was a spectacular success...

[Solid Rust Twotter]

Similar incident in SA in the '70s with the Wafra. Buccs and Shacks were used to dispatch her.

http://www.fortunecity.com/silverstone/paddock/1496/history.htm :(

[TMJ]

I think this is the show I listened to:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/factual/pip/pckmz/

[Impiger]

As I recall (I was only a nipper so didn't understand) there was a bit of a hullabaloo because at this time the good old Ministry were denying we had napalm in the inventory - it had received a bit of a bad press in SE Asia IIRC. The PC solution was to rename the weapons 'fire bombs' ! Don't think it fooled anyone tho'.

Overall a job well done. :ok:

[Union Jack]

Groundloop and Archimedes are indeed correct - the aim of the exercise was to try to diminish the prospect of ecological damage by setting the fuel on fire, coupled of course with the opportunity to conduct unusually realistic bombing practice.

Curiously enough, and without wishing to incur the wrath of the Mods for threadcreep, I recall that one of the Observers in the Buccaneer NAS involved with bombing the TORREY CANYON, and gained much newspaper publicity at the time, was one Bodger Reardon, who had a rather unusual claim to fame. In 1963, he was the first, and I suspect only, "Looker" to convert from Sea Vixens to Buccaneers by means of an onboard conversion course, whilst serving in HMS VICTORIOUS's Air Group.

Almost by chance, it had been discovered that Bodger had such a long torso that he could not sit fully upright in his "dustbin" seat in the Sea Vixen, and therefore would virtually certainly have broken his back if he had had to bang out. VICTORIOUS was at the time half way to Singapore so the solution was an immediate transfer from 893 NAS to 801 NAS and a very intensive and successful conversion from Vixens to Buccs - a considerable achievement for all concerned (since 801 squadron had embarked just days previously to take the Bucc to sea for the first time in an operational squadron), not least for Bodger who was very young and junior at the time - weren't we all!

Jack

For much more detailed info from participants and - interservice banter! - See Torrey Canyon - 18 March, 38 years ago (http://www.pprune.org/forums/showthread.php?t=167499)

[ducksoup]

I know Bodger quite well. He currently lives in sunny Spain and is well versed in the local arts of having a few and skinny dipping. Having observed him in both of these dubious practices, I cannot say that he appears to have a particularly long torso - or anything else for that matter!

Small world, innit?

By the way, the Bodger reckons he missed!

[Union Jack]

Many thanks and nice to hear that Bodger is both in good form and good shape - although perhaps he's shrunk a bit over the years ....

So he missed, did he - clearly a budding ecologist!

Jack

[threeputt]

Is that the same Bodger as sung about in the B*****eer song about the Blue Parrot?
Being ex-Vulcans and also 6'4'' tall I was never to taste the pleasures of the Banana bomber. However, I have many happy memories of having it sung to me by an inebriated "Foldingwings" person, who used to post here, in various bars around the bazaars.:ok:

3P

[Flugzeug A]

On 19 February 1967, Torrey Canyon left the Kuwait National Petroleum (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kuwait_National_Petroleum) Company refinery, at Mina, Kuwait (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al_Ahmadi,_Kuwait) (later Al Ahmadi) on her final voyage with a full cargo of crude oil. The ship reached the Canary Islands (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canary_Islands) on 14 March. From there the planned route was to Milford Haven (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milford_Haven_Waterway) in Wales.[citation needed (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Citation_needed)]

Torrey Canyon struck Pollard's Rock on Seven Stones reef (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seven_Stones_reef), between the Cornish mainland and the Isles of Scilly (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isles_of_Scilly), on 18 March. It became grounded (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ship_grounding) and, several days later, began to break up.

In an effort to reduce the size of the oil spill, the British government decided to set the wreck on fire, by means of air strikes (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_strike) from the Fleet Air Arm (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fleet_Air_Arm) (FAA) and Royal Air Force (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Royal_Air_Force) (RAF). On 28 March 1967, FAA Blackburn Buccaneers (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blackburn_Buccaneer) from RNAS Lossiemouth (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/RNAS_Lossiemouth) dropped 1,000-pound bombs on the ship. Afterwards RAF Hawker Hunter (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hawker_Hunter) from RAF Chivenor (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Royal_Marines_Base_Chivenor)dropped cans of jet fuel (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jet_fuel) (kerosene), to fuel the blaze.[3] (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/SS_Torrey_Canyon#cite_note-3) However, the fire was put out by high tides,[clarification needed (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Please_clarify)] and further strikes were needed to re-ignite the oil, by FAA de Havilland Sea Vixens (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/De_Havilland_Sea_Vixen) from RNAS Yeovilton (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/RNAS_Yeovilton_(HMS_Heron)) and Buccaneers from the RNAS Brawdy (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cawdor_Barracks), as well as Hunters of No 1(F) Squadron RAF from RAF West Raynham (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/RAF_West_Raynham) with napalm (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Napalm). Bombing continued into the next day, until Torrey Canyon finally sank.[4] (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/SS_Torrey_Canyon#cite_note-4) A total of 161 bombs, 16 rockets, 1,500 long tons (1,500 t) of napalm and 44,500 litres (9,800 imp gal) of kerosene were used.[5 (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/SS_Torrey_Canyon#cite_note-ll-5)



We were on holiday in Cornwall when this happened.
Is there anyone out there from the FAA/RAF who dropped stuff on it who can tell us what it was like to be involved?
Did it sink through Mother Nature or are you the one who DEFINITELY hit it??!!

[Asturias56]

Tankers can be tough to sink - lots of subdivided spaces - think of the "Ohio" in Operation Pedestal

[2Planks]

I remember reading somewhere that it took so long to make the decision that all the light fractions had gassed off before the bombing started which made it an almost impossible task to set fire to the remaining oil.

[_Agrajag_]

One of the Buccaneer pilots either involved in the bombing, or close to those that were (Dougie Hamilton) told me years ago that the thing was extremely difficult to set fire to. They kept bombing it, small fires would start, only for the waves to put those fires out. The media made it sound as if it should have been easy, but according to him it was nowhere near as easy a job as at first thought. I'm pretty sure the small amount of oil that burned off from the bombing made little difference to the eventual outcome, which is probably why other ways of dealing with oil tanker accidents have evolved since then.

[Lima Juliet]

I believe that attempts to burn off the oil through bombing were largely unsuccessful and made things worse - as was the Unilever and BP detergent that dispersed and broke up the oil in the water and on the shore, as it turned out to be more toxic than crude oil alone. The estimation in the aftermath was that man’s efforts to chemically disperse and burn the oil made the recovery five times as long as doing nothing and letting the wind and waves do their job!

Here is a video of just how hard it was to burn off the oil - petrol, kerosene, sodium chlorite we were all tried - even flame throwers on the beaches. You could get it lit, but after a short while it would just burn out (and the smoke would have given Greta a duck-fit!). This classified (at the time) film from the Royal Armament Research and Development Establishment (RARDE) shows the difficulties of burning:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aZLbif9KnM0

What the Torrey Canyon disaster did do was enable future ways of dealing with such a disaster for the many oil spills after. However, it still remains a really hard problem to sort, but the main methods are containment and then pumping it off (arguably in hindsight that should have been used on Torrey Canyon to pump off the remaining oil rather than trying to blow the crap out of the ship!), absorbents, dispersants, elastomasizers, burning (as long as this doesn’t make the spread worse) and finally good old fashioned elbow grease and manual clean up. Finally assisting bioremediation and natural recovery in the aftermath of the clean up.

[treadigraph]

Living in Penzance as I was then (aged 3) I think we went to watch some of the bombing from up on the cliffs near Sennen or somewhere though I don't recall it other than in the vaguest haziest way which may be false memory. However my elder brother who must have been 9 or 10 seems to recalls it in something I saw he'd written on a Web page. Must ask him...

[Nigerian Expat Outlaw]

I was aged 9 when it happened. My Dad and I used to fish off the beach at Pagham, near Bognor Regis. We couldn't fail. Plaice, sole, etc in abundance. The local professional boat fishermen used to sell crab and whelks as they landed. We used to go cockling at Dell Quay near Chichester Marina and cook bucketfuls of them at home.

Within a month everything changed. Big black globules of oil washed up on the beach. No fish or shellfish. The approach to Dell Quay was closed for years due to pollution. To this day cockling is prohibited due to contamination. The sand along the coast has a top layer of brown with a black seam about a foot underneath.

Total destruction.

NEO

[Mogwi]

I was there! At the time of the wreck, I was on the Dartmouth Training Squadron minesweeper, HMS Brierley, in the Channel Islands. We received a signal to proceed with all dispatch to Falmouth, where we loaded spraying booms and a large number of 50-gall drums of detergent. The next 10 days were spent in very rough seas spraying Fairy Liquid onto rafts of brown, foul-smelling oil and throwing up over the stern.

We were replaced by the other half of the course two days before the Buc attacks! Damn!

Mog

[TimL]

My logbook records that on 21 March 1967 I flew a sortie as Nav Rad in a Victor B(SR)2 of 543 Sqn where we did a sidescan radar sweep of the Channel to find out how far the oil from the Torrey Canyon had spread. From what I remember- it was nearly 56 years ago - it was reasonably successful, as the oil slick didn't show the usual returns that a rough sea did. When I joined the Buccaneer force a few years later, there were still people around who had taken part in the bombing of the Torrey Canyon.

-- Tim L

[Flugzeug A]

Sorry all , I didn’t realise there’s an existing thread.

[megan]

I remember reading somewhere that it took so long to make the decision that all the light fractions had gassed off before the bombing started which made it an almost impossible task to set fire to the remaining oilA liquid in and of itself does not burn, it has to be heated to the point where it vapourises and it is that which burns. That's why you can stand in a pool of Jet A and drop lit matches to your hearts content.

[pulse1]

NEO, I wonder if he oil pollution you witnessed in Pagham was more likely from another tanker disaster, the Pacific Glory which sank off the Isle of Wight in 1970. I was an active sailor in Poole around the time of the Torry Canyon and I don't remember any oil pollution that far east.

[Nigerian Expat Outlaw]

NEO, I wonder if he oil pollution you witnessed in Pagham was more likely from another tanker disaster, the Pacific Glory which sank off the Isle of Wight in 1970. I was an active sailor in Poole around the time of the Torry Canyon and I don't remember any oil pollution that far east.

To be honest I was at the age of going out with my mates on my bike, helping my Dad with the gardening, playing conkers etc. So you may well be right. Whichever spill caused the damage, that stretch of coast has never recovered.

NEO

[MPN11]

I was there! At the time of the wreck, I was on the Dartmouth Training Squadron minesweeper, HMS Brierley, in the Channel Islands. We received a signal to proceed with all dispatch to Falmouth, where we loaded spraying booms and a large number of 50-gall drums of detergent. The next 10 days were spent in very rough seas spraying Fairy Liquid onto rafts of brown, foul-smelling oil and throwing up over the stern.

We were replaced by the other half of the course two days before the Buc attacks! Damn!

MogAh, a lovely little ship in rough seas! That's why she was an INSHORE Minesweeper!


https://cimg9.ibsrv.net/gimg/pprune.org-vbulletin/600x302/hms_brierley_01e892592e55a01504613c755b21b85cc03b1bdc.jpg

[dixi188]

Saw an after dinner talk by Blaster Bates many moons ago. His take on the disaster was that you had to vapourize the oil first. "Just use a couple of tons of Thermite and Magnesium". "Touch that off and you will get rid of the oil, the ship and the bloody rock it hit in the first place".

[Jump Complete]

About 12 years ago, I was surprised to come across, on a walk on the west coast of Guernsey, a small quarry, surrounded by fences and warming signs, still with the oil from the Torrey Canyon in it.
I believe that, since then, they have successfully got rid of a lot of that remaining oil by using a bacteria that eats it.

[treadigraph]

Living in Penzance as I was then (aged 3) I think we went to watch some of the bombing from up on the cliffs near Sennen or somewhere though I don't recall it other than in the vaguest haziest way which may be false memory. However my elder brother who must have been 9 or 10 seems to recalls it in something I saw he'd written on a Web page. Must ask him...

My brother says we didn't see Torrey Canyon itself as it was out of sight but he does mention smoke. My eldest sister (then about 14) is quite definite that we went up to the cliffs to view and saw smoke though she doesn't recall which of we five kids were there - I think my recollection is accurate though presumably we may have seen the aftermath rather than any bomb dropping. My dad would have been quite keen to witness anything to do with flying though!

[malcolm380]

I was at school at Bearsden Academy, Glasgow, the Buccaneer flight from Lossiemouth coincided with a break, and we were in the playground when they went over, in a clear blue sky... they were high, with long contrails.

[uxb99]

As I recall (I was only a nipper so didn't understand) there was a bit of a hullabaloo because at this time the good old Ministry were denying we had napalm in the inventory - it had received a bit of a bad press in SE Asia IIRC. The PC solution was to rename the weapons 'fire bombs' ! Don't think it fooled anyone tho'.

Overall a job well done. :ok:

Reading The Bomber Command War Diaries and surprised to find Mosquitos dropping napalm in 44/45.

[megan]

denying we had napalm in the inventory - it had received a bit of a bad press in SE AsiaReverted to using SAS's mates and their Chinooks dropping nets full of 44 gallon drums full of POL which were then lit up by adroit use of weapons.

[Slow Biker]

I was at West Raynham at the time and remember mixing napalm in drums. Burning the unused mixture was much more fun.

[pmills575]

I was at St. Mawgan heading down the hill and wondered why a Hunter kept doing circuits, it turned out to be several aircraft arriving. The next day, alongside a line of Hunters parked on the end of the old 26/08 runway, I saw 45 gallon drums being stirred and was told it was Napalm being made.
From the radar section it was possible to see aircraft running in to drop ordnance, they showed up clearly on the bays ASV21.

[SASless]

Reverted to using SAS's mates and their Chinooks dropping nets full of 44 gallon drums full of POL which were then lit up by adroit use of weapons.


Megan....please do not remind me of that bit of Command silliness from back in those days of fun and games.

A group of us were ordered to attend a Classified Briefing at our Battalion HQ to discover the "Secret Mission" was to burn down War Zone C using the method you allude to in your post.

My unit was to provide Ten Chinooks all equipped with Drum Rails that normally were used for dropping Drums of Tear Gas but this time it would be mixed drums of Napalm and others with standard POL (diesel and petrol).

Method would be the Chinooks making like Circus Elephants on parade at 300 feet AGL with sufficient spacing that each could come to a hover and roll its load of drums onto a single spot and thus build a pile of about two hundred barrels which would then be ignited by Huey gunships.

Of course the Colonel in the C&C helicopter would garner his Legion of Merit or some other array of Gongs following the destruction of War Zone C.

His Nibbs ignored the fact that a Vietnam Jungle area was not the same as tinder dry forest areas in the Pacific Northwest and there was no chance in hell that we could start such a fire as envisioned.

When we mere Chinook Pilots suggested the last aircraft in line use a free hand M-60 machine-gun shooting all tracer and the door gunners lobbing several White Phosphorus Hand Grenades onto the pile....we were rudely informed that shooting up things was the Gunships meat and taters.

Mind you 300 feet and 60 knots in a long line of Chinooks over some very unfriendly folks is not a way to grow old not make this a very desirable task.

We did the our job...dropped the barrels of petroleum...and the gun ships despite the half dozen smoke grenades we did throw naturally failed to hit the new cache of fuel we nicely airdropped for the NVA/VC despite expending all of their Rockets and 7.62 Ammo..

The Colonel did not allow a Debrief and failed to gather a row of Gongs for his wearing thereof.

Fortunately, the bad guys were probably so in disbelief at what they saw passing over them never fired a shot and missed a wonderful opportunity.

Sadly, about six months later....with a new Battalion Commander we were invited to carry out "How Not To Set Fire To War Zone C 2.0"....which resulted in a near mutiny before the new Colonel elected to save face and called it off.