June 1962..... we woke up one Monday morning after a whole night of
battering by a super-typhoon, to a news report that the RPS Rajah
Soliman (D-66), the biggest ship in the fleet, sunk off the ship repair
facility in Mariveles, Bataan, at the height of the typhoon. I
recall that Dad, who was the skipper of that ship, had to hurry back
to Mariveles the day before via the hydrofoil service, to be with his
ship before the typhoon hit land.
There
was no mention of the crew's fate in the flash report. An eerie
silence pervaded the house that morning. Nobody was talking. You could
feel the tension as we sat silently everywhere, waiting for further
news, or a phone call from the naval operations center. All throughout
this, Mom was a picture of coolness and courage, probably silently
praying inside, and never went into any hysterics that would have
broken further our spirits. It was only, I think, about noon, that we
got news that Dad and the rest of the crew were all safe and alright,
relieving us all of the excruciating anxiety. I believe it was only
after a day or two that Dad finally got home, unshaven, to the waiting
arms of his loving family who had waited anxiously for his return.
Like the rest of the crew, he brought nothing home but the clothes he had on. All their personal belongings went down with the ship.
The good news, however, was that none perished in the incident.
Dad
was court martialed for possible culpable neglect, but was eventually
cleared of the charges. However, his career suffered as he was
bypassed in the promotions for the next higher rank of naval captain
while the court-martial proceedings were ongoing.
Years later, I
learned from some of Dad's former crewmen that there was nothing they
could have done to prevent the ship from being battered repeatedly
against the concrete sea wall and pier by the big waves. They fought
hard to keep the ship afloat and as close as possible to land by
pulling the towlines inland, but they were no match to the typhoon's
fury and strength. They said Dad didn't want to leave the ship after
giving the order to "abandon ship", but they pulled him out moments
after a big chunk of metal, which broke off from the mast, nearly hit
him as the ship started to list.
At the time of the typhoon,
the ship was undergoing repairs and had its engines taken out. I
overheard Dad say in one of his conversations with some officers years
later, that had the engines not been removed, he would have taken the
ship out to the open sea where, he said, they would have had better
chances of weathering the typhoon and saving the ship. On the other
hand, I surmised that it was a blessing in disguise that the engines
were removed, for if they had failed in the open sea, it was possible
that a lot of them would have perished. God is really good, for He did
not allow lives to be lost in that incident.
It was rather ironic
that the super-typhoon's codename was "Dading", incidentally the same
alias or nickname by which Dad was often dearly referred to by his
relatives in the province.
I had the opportunity to board that
ship one time when Dad, who was at home not feeling well, asked me to
go to the ship, which was anchored at Canacao Bay, to draw his salary
from his finance officer, then Lt. Danilo Pizarro. I took a smaller
boat from the pier, together with other passengers, which ferried us to
the ship and back later on.
{Please refer to blog post: RPS Rajah Soliman [D-66] - Conflicting Dates Of Sinking}
[Infant First Aid Saves Baby Sis]
