Additional Information on the Ill-fated
Victory Ship SS Indian Navigator

After reading the third part of Chuck Betsworth’s “Voyage of a Merchant Sailor”, Bob Shields kindly sent the following information about the doomed Victory ship:

December 30, 2001 My name is Bob Shields and I live in Liverpool U.K. I visited Chuck Betsworth's site for the first time today, and when I was reading the end piece about the Temple Glory I also noticed that one of the ships sold to the Indians was renamed the Indian Navigator, and I thought you might like to know what became of her. On New Years Eve 1960 I was an A.B. on board the Blue Funnel ship M.V. Menestheus homeward bound from the far east. We were about 18 miles off the Bishops Rock lighthouse, at around 11am, when the lookout reported an explosion on the horizon off to port. It turned out to be the Indian Navigator -- she had left Birkenhead the day before on her way home. Part of her cargo was sulphur and due to the atrocious weather it had shifted and exploded. By the time we got to the scene she was well alight with no hope of saving her. Luckily we saved 39 of her crew that had got into 3 boats and a Dutch ship had saved more of her crew -- unfortunately several of her crew never survived. We took them back to Liverpool with us, arriving on 1st Jan 1961. A sad postscript to this incident happened a couple of days later. Another ship of the company the Indian Success went and put a salvage crew on board the drifting wreck as they thought the fire had burnt itself out. They had only been on board a short while when it exploded killing the 13 salvage crew. I was told this by an Indian seaman whom I met some years later, and when I told him about the incident he told me he was a crewmember on the Indian Success at the time. So it was a sad end to a fine Victory ship. Regards Bob