We're inside the superstructure.
We're just pulling on our head gear,
You could hear it in two phases.
You could hear it thump as it hit the ship
and a slight delay
And then it actually exploded.
The whole ship just went...
just shook.
Up and down, up and down.
And the old brain said 'this is serious'.
We set back into the middle of the fleet
And I can remember John Kennedy,
it looks like they've hit a carrier.
They could see it burning.
And then things got serious.
And, you know, everyone
I was amazed, to be honest,
There was everybody was there
It just
There was a lot of smoke coming over
and the left side of the ship
was all covered in smoke from the fires
People were fighting the fire.
We were
dedicated first aid team.
So our position in there, during code
in the officer's dining room.
The floor was getting hot, getting warmer.
There's obviously something happening
I heard explosions of gas canisters
being blown up
And they were then like missiles
shooting through the side of the ship.
And as we went over the side,
And if I recall,
and I say, well, come on, keep moving.
You go into the water.
And he says, There's no more ladder.
The ladder had been blown off.
I sort of looked and thought, nah.There's
Just getting dark there. There's nothing.
There's no ships.
There's no land. There's no nothing.
I'm not a very strong swimmer.
I don't want to go in that.
So when we got to the bottom of the ladder
and I kept freezing every time
We sort of flew back to the
to the conveyor and
I could
see all the little lights
which I realized was
I was lucky for some
And then some incredibly brave
incredibly brave,
Fortunately, the actual current
carried me right to where the rafts,
the air load masters -
they stood in the door
I just looked at hime - big lad -
I got to the stage
I'm so cold now I'm just ready to give up.
And I remember
as I've always heard, drownings
All you got to do is open your hand
And I honestly did get to that stage.
And one of the Navy officers who was
He grabbed me said 'Don't worry'.
Unfortunately though,
and a couple of people were killed
the ship,
which just broke the neck
One poor person got trapped to the back
where you've got the ship's hull,
they got kept there
by the suction effect
And we just couldn't get away from
Your heart goes out to
