Week IV
After the war Commander Bill King and his wife Anita tried to settle into some kind of normal life, in a rather draughty and damp 15th century Norman castle at Oranmore. After their extraordinary experiences during the war, life in Galway was, to say the least, a disappointing end to the previous six years of dangerous living and fearful events. Life was lived on the edge.
At the end of the war, in the 1940s, there were no offers of how to deal with post-traumatic stress. You simply waited to be released from the forces you served, you were paid any outstanding salary, and offered a good suit of clothes in exchange for your uniform. You were expected to just walk away, back into civilian life.
However Bill and Anita each found their own way to cope. As their two children, Tarka Dick and Leonie, grew up Anita wrote her books; while the Commander wrestled with his land, clearing it of rocks and brush, growing organic vegetables, breeding cattle and sheep, and hunting with the Galway Blazers.
But he was not happy. The days of intensive strain as a submarine captain and commander during six years of war, the loss of so many friends, the command and responsibility of three submarines in difficult waters where supplies were short, all took its grinding toll. He needed to exorcise the memories, to rid himself of what he described as the ‘shadow that lurked’ around him.
He conceived a grand scheme: He would design his own boat, sail around the world alone, but this time on top of the waves, not underneath; and look to the sea for its healing and regeneration.
St Brendan’s Well
Sitting by the fire at Christmas 1967 he announced his plans. He unveiled the blueprint for Galway Blazer II, a two-masted cold-moulded plywood schooner, with its distinctive Chinese rigging, specially designed in partnership with Angus Primrose, and his old naval pal ‘Blondie’ Hasler.*
Anita was unenthusiastic and worried. His children asked what would he eat all those months alone at sea. But food was the least of the commander’s worries. He never recovered from the smells of cooking in a submarine where some unfortunate, untrained seaman had to be pressed to heat up the greasy tinned meat over an electric stove in an icy corridor.
This time King decided to cook absolutely nothing. Instead he packed sacks of raisins, wholemeal biscuits, almond nut paste for protein, and for vitamin C, cress grown in jars. This was supplemented by the occasional flying fish which landed onboard. For drinking he had water, and jars of instant coffee for when he had to keep awake in busy shipping lanes.
He also brought a bottle of water from St Brendan’s Well at Annaghdown. Known as Brendan the Navigator** the 5th century saint died at Annaghdown when at the age of 92 years he sought his sister Briga who lived a religious life there.
The original plan was to enter the the Sunday Times Non-stop-round-the-world race, but the commander’s extraordinary odyssey was to take three years bringing him as close to death and danger than in any of his submarine missions. Yet the near-death experiences that he was to endure left him exhausted but free.
A ‘Third Eye’
Early one morning in August 1968 he gently guided Galway Blazer II out of Plymouth harbour, passed the outline of the familiar steel-structure of a submarine, where a line of blue and white-clad sailors gave him three cheers, which must have gladdened his heart. Then it was out towards the Western Approaches, down past the Azores, and into the South Atlantic.
Once again he faced a series of demanding challenges. On October 30, in one of the worst storms he had ever witnessed, his boat totally capsized breaking her masts. Miraculously his boat righted itself, but without masts. He had to wait for rescue and was towed into Cape Town.
With Galway Blazer II repaired, King set out again only this time he was struck with sudden illness, making sailing virtually impossible. He managed to limp into Western Australia to rest until he recovered.
Undaunted he set again from Fremantle at the end of 1971, when in the middle of the night there was an enormous crash on the side of his boat. He had been rammed, possibly by a whale, which left a gaping hole through which water was pouring in.
Luckily, in an extraordinary sequence of events, just moments before the animal smashed in his boat, he had a vision of disaster. He had rushed out of his cabin when the collision happened. The hole in his boat was where he was sleeping.
King believed that he was blessed with a ‘Third Eye’, a sort of extra sensory perception which had warned him in the past of imminent danger.
Above the waterline
Despite his miraculous escape from the collision, King knew he was in serious trouble. His radio had broken down. No one knew where he was. He had to stop water flooding his cabin as soon as possible. At least 400 miles from Fremantle, this was a disaster.
Yet almost incredibly, by leaning over the side of the boat, and adjusting the sails, the boat heeled over at a sufficient angle that the hole was above the waterline. Hanging over the edge, King managed to patch the hole with spare sail and rope sufficiently to keep Galway Blazer II afloat.
For 11 days, using all his strength and stamina, King sailed as well as he could back to Australia. Some how he managed to keep the patched hole above the waterline as far as possible.
Suddenly his radio burst into life. Everyone was looking for him. He told them what had happened, but declined help. In what must have been the most difficult of circumstances, he skilfully guided Galway Blazer II back into Fremantle, arriving December 27 1970.
He phoned his family at Oranmore, and reassured them that despite the whale attack, the perilous journey back to Australia, the long silence due to radio failure, all was well. Poor Leonie cried. She turned to her mother saying, “I wish Daddy wouldn’t keep doing such things.”
Waving and cheering
Commander Bill King finally returned to Plymouth in early June 1973, three years after he had left. His return was well signposted days in advance. He was met off shore by dozens of all kinds of craft, waving and cheering him on. As great horns and whoops sounded from naval ships, his old commanding officer Admiral Ruck-Keene drew alongside waving and smiling. His wife Anita and children were waiting among the crowds cheering on shore.
During his successful circumnavigation, proudly flying the Irish tricolour, King had rounded the Cape of Good Hope, Cape Leeuwin, Western Australia, South-East Cape in Tasmania, the South-West Cape, Stewart Island, New Zealand and the unpredictable Cape Horn.
Grandmother Mackenzie
Commander Bill King, whose wife predeceased him, died at Oranmore Castle surrounded by his children and grandchildren on September 21 2012 aged 102 years. He had found peace within himself; and his natural kindness came to the fore when, in May 2004, he met Akira Tsurukame at his home, who sought closure from the man who torpedoed and sunk the Japanese submarine I-166 on which his father was killed. The two men embraced. The following day to mark their meeting, they planted a tree ‘of peace’ a flowering crab-apple which blooms every Spring (Galway Diary April 20 2023 ).
It is doubtful if Patrick O’Brien, or any other great writer of maritime fiction, could invent such as man as Bill King. His passion for the sea was sparked by his Scottish Grandmother Mackenzie, an indomitable old lady who horrified her family by her sporting widowhood. She learned to ski in her seventies, and skippered her own yacht, Imatra, a 50-ton yawl with a paid crew of five, around the stormy coast of western Scotland. She was never sea-sick, and delighted when the wind got up during a smart ‘yachting party’. The ladies who had retired below, pleaded pathetically to make for a safe harbour.
But Granny Mackenzie, who enjoyed taking the tiller herself, kept right on sailing against the wind. As ghastly sounds emanated from the deck below, Granny Mackenzie would shout: “Hark! at the wonderful gurgle of water on the bow!”
Wedged beside her was a small boy, wide-eyed with excitement.
NOTES: *During the war Hasler led a small flotilla of canoes up the river Gironde to attach explosives to German ships. The raid was a success, but only two of the raiding party survived. The others were either shot, or executed on capture.
**ST Brendan is primarily renowned for his legendary journey to the Isle of the Blessed (some say it was Newfoundland ) as described in the Navigatio Sancti Brendani Abbatis (Voyage of Saint Brendan the Abbot ) of the ninth century. Many versions exist that narrate how he set out on the Atlantic Ocean with sixteen monks to search for the Garden of Eden . One of these companions is said to have been Malo . The voyage is dated to AD 512–530. On his trip, Brendan is supposed to have seen Saint Brendan's Island , a blessed island covered with vegetation. He also encountered a sea monster , an adventure he shared with his contemporary Columcille. The most commonly illustrated adventure is his landing on an island which turned out to be a giant sea monster named " Jasconius ”.
Bill was not the first member of the King family to live in Galway. His grandfather William King, was the first professor of natural history, and geology at Queens College Galway, and founder of the James Mitchell Museum there.
Descriptions above from KIng’s book Adventure in Depth, published by Putnam 1975.
