KONINKLIJK INSTITUUT
voor de
MARINE


ROYAL NETHERLANDS
NAVAL ACADEMY

K I M


[Ben Oostdam's
Autobiography
Years 1950-1952]


1952 Training Cruise on the "van Kinsbergen", to New Guinea, part 3

February 18, 1952, 06:00: After yesterday's views of the snow-topped Sierra Nevada and beautiful weather,
we passed this morning by Gibraltar and are back in the Mediterranean Sea.
Tonight joint exercises with French Navy headquartered in Oran, and the British.
Sergeant-major in engineroom explained to me the entire steam circulation.

February 19/20, 1952: Lousy weather, seasick again.
Joke: the lookout reported sighting a torpedo during the joint Anglo-French_Dutch exercises,
which in fact were two dolphins chasing each other!
February 21/22, 1952: Hurrah, back in Malta - earlier than expected!
We only put in overnight into Marsaxlokk Bay after a day of sextant practices on shooting the sun and calculating positions.

(left): Poor sketch of the
"Van Kinsbergen"
(Inset above) shows the
cramped quarters,
consisting of a dayroom (top)
and nightquarters (dimes?) (bottom).
The numbers designate bunks,
12 and 18 , respectively.
There must have been some hotbunking and certainly also slinging of hammocks anywhere the air was fresh ...

We then ventured out further than we had been before (as a group, that is) taking some pains to get accustomed to the long and sluggish swells. As a Grammarian, I would have loved to put into the Peleponesos and Crete with their ancient civilizations, but instead I just looked at the chart and found, on our starboard side...guess what?
Apollonia,(Latitude: 32 degrees 56 minutes N., Longitude: 21 degrees 58 minutes East).
So what? Well, that was the official name of my girlfriend Lony to whom I wrote so much everyday that my journal did not get enough attention...
On to the Suez Canal, Red Sea and Indian Ocean! More heat to follow.
BLO fecit 19 VII 1998 to continue to next page:
1952 Training Cruise on the "van Kinsbergen"
to New Guinea, part 4