Cid Hind

Question: Mr Hind, you came here on HMS Daring, when did you get here?

We got here not the day after, but the day after that, very early in the morning, about 3 o'clock in the morning, something like that.

Question: Where had you been before? Were you in the area?

We were exercising off Malta and we had a signal from Malta to return to harbour and then the Captain was told all about the earthquake. We had to load 200 tons of stores by hand and we did it in a hour. We were out in the middle of the harbour and we had to bring it out on lighters. Then we took on board jeeps, and then medical staff, doctors and medical assistants and we also brought a lieutenant commander who was a Greek, in the Greek Navy, and Lord Mountbatten sent him as Liaison Officer, to get over any language difficulty. He is now a Rear Admiral (Retired), and my Captain, he was a Rear Admiral, and he just died recently at the age of 86, Captain Gick.

When we arrived we came down past Lassi round the headland and all the waves, with the tremors underneath, they were hitting the bottom of the ship and it was just like depth charges. We came down towards the customs house and everything was lying shattered, burning, smoking, nothing standing hardly and the shore was black and as the ship came down it moved - and it was people and they'd been lying there for 2 days without food, water.

Of course, all the mains had gone, they couldn't drink the water. I was sent ashore with some of the other electricians and we had to get the emergency hospitals built, which were just tents, but we had to wire them up for the operating equipment, the sterilisers. We had portable generators that we brought with us and we just wired to the light posts in the street, that carried the bare wires, they put the tents beneath those and then we'd count so many posts and we'd snip the wire at either end, so there'd be a stretch of wire between so many posts, then we'd feed wires from there into the tents and that's how we fed all the tents.

Then we had to feed the people and rescue - some of the lads went out on rescues to find people. We commandeered what transport we could. It was very difficult to move around, it was mostly walking and pulling wheelbarrows and handcarts.

then, but we brought dustbins with us, brand new dustbins and right along the shore, from the customs house down past the Merchant Navy Training Centre, were all these dustbins on bricks and we'd fill them with potatoes, vegetables and meat and water, then we lit fires under them and we cooked the stew in dustbins and we called it 'Argostoli Stew'! , then we fed the people.

Then, the next thing was water. They had no water so we had to make fresh water through the 'evaps' on the ship and ferry that ashore.

Question: What were the people doing who had survived? Were they just living outdoors?

They were just lying there, outside. They were petrified, which is understandable. Then, when they saw our ship they got a bit of confidence, then the other ships started pouring in, Israeli, American, Greek, French, but the British sent ship, after ship, after ship. We were here for a week and as the other ships arrived we weren't needed so we left. Also, before they arrived we had the brunt of it as we were the only one available for speed as we had a very very fast ship and all the other ships, being in harbour, they couldn't get away as quickly as we did.

And then we had to demolish unsafe buildings so they wouldn't fall on people. And on the second day Lord Mountbatten and Edwina, his wife, came out and he went round. He was a nice man, to us he was brilliant. The thing was that during the war he was the Captain of the Daring before us and we were his favourite ship - he was always on board our ship. I think that's with him being Captain of the first one.

And then we had to demolish unsafe buildings so they wouldn't fall on people. And on the second day Lord Mountbatten and Edwina, his wife, came out and he went round. He was a nice man, to us he was brilliant. The thing was that during the war he was the Captain of the Daring before us and we were his favourite ship - he was always on board our ship. I think that's with him being Captain of the first one.

The Pathé News for 1953 shows actual photos of the earthquake and all the damage and the people and the ships. It's only about 2 - 3 minutes but it's well worth watching.

When we were here last May, we were going to visit a friend and we were walking past the Ionian Plaza and the waiter was putting the menus out. As we walked past he said 'Hello', so I said 'Hello'. Then he said, 'I've seen you before.' And I'd never seen him before so I said 'Have you?' and he said 'Yes, you've got a medal' and I said 'Yes, I come here twice a year, every year'. And he said, 'No, no, you've got a medal and I saw you in a newspaper'. He said 'When you came here, my mother was that big', and his mother must have shown him the newspaper when we were invited back by the government and he remembers, and I've never seen him in my life before! Incredible!

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So, we were here for a week and it was August, so it was very hot, not just the weather but with the buildings smouldering, and the people, they were more confused that anything. I mean, to lose all your possessions at once, like that. We brought blankets and medication, food, storm lanterns, candles, thousands and thousands of candles.

Our captain, Captain Gick, Mountbatten sent him to London and he made an appeal on the BBC Radio for funds. They flew him home and then they flew him back again.

We were digging the trenches to put the cable underground so the vehicles could pass over them, well, we're seamen, we don't do land work and all our hands were just a mass of blisters, from the pickaxes. This Greek nurse was there and she said 'Oh my goodness', she was terrified that we'd get an infection as there was all the sewage around - there was a danger of typhoid - and she bandaged all our hands up, then she put bandages round our heads to keep the sweat out of our eyes while we were working. And just about quarter of an hour after that Mountbatten came along and he thought we'd all been injured! 'Oh what's happened to you lot?' - it was dead funny. We said, 'nothing, it was the nurse who bandaged us'.

Where this nurse was there were two tents and they were full of ladies who had just had babies or were about to have babies. There was one lady, looking through the end of the end tent - there was four of us so we went over - the nurse said to come in, they couldn't speak English, but this lady, all she had in the world was a melon and she cut it up and shared it with us. Oh, we filled up - it was the only thing she had left and she'd seen us working.

When we came back in 1990, they took us to a wine factory and we were walking round and this lady came up and she shook one of the lad's hand and she said 'when you came here I was 3, you gave me blankets, they were very warm'. I'm one of the youngest at 73 and we were all near to tears.

It took me 2 years to find 26 colleagues from HMS Daring - how it started was we had one lad and he was here on holiday in the 80s and he was standing by the harbour and there was a Greek gentleman and he said to the Greek man 'Oh this is the most beautiful island', and the Greek man said 'yes, but in 1953 it was devastated' and he said' yes, I know, I was here on HMS Daring', and the chap he was talking to was the Minister of Defence from Athens; there and then he wrote out the invitations to bring the crew back. This lad he said to me, I've got this invitation, but I'm not well, would you organise it?' and he died 3 weeks later. So then I had to do it.

So I found 26, this was 37 years later, and I told the Greeks and they said then bring your wives with you. Well, when we got together we just took up where we'd left off all those years ago. I didn't want to make a speech so I detailed two others, one was the PO Medic and one was Captain Gick! When the speeches were made - in the Library - we all had translations. They had two Greek Warships in the harbour to meet us, we went over to the British Cemetery to lay wreathes and they had a Greek Guard of Honour and a band and there was the ambassadors of all the countries.

Question: When you came back in 1990, was that the first time you'd been back since 1953?

Yes, it was.

Question: How did you feel, coming back?

Well I was really surprised at the difference, even in 1990 we all stayed in a hotel at the square and there was nothing there then, we've seen all the development there since 1990 and every time we've come back it's something different, really nice.

Question: What did you expect the first time you came back?

We didn't know what to expect, 37 years is a long time.

One incident during the time we were here - a big private yacht came into the harbour, flying the Panamanian flag, it belonged to a millionaire who'd come sightseeing, and our skipper thought it would be a useful boat to get into some of the coves to pick up the injured, where we can't take our ship, and our boats were only big enough to carry 3 or 4 injured. So he went across and he said to the this chap 'we'd like to borrow your boat to use as a hospital ship'. 'Oh no, I don't want my boat covered in blood', or words to that effect so the skipper left the yacht and came back to our ship, issued rifles and bayonets and went back and just took it! - took down the Panamanian flag and put up the white ensign. The owner then consented so he was allowed back to see what was happening but the crew took the keys to the motor boats and threw them over the sides so we just ripped the wires and shorted them and started them that way.

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Appeal on behalf of the Greek Earthquake Appeal Fund by Captain P. D. Gick

Broadcast Wednesday 16th August 1953.
BBC Home Service
9.15 - 9.20 p.m.

"As this moment fourteen days ago, I was on the bridge of my ship steaming at full speed towards the Ionian Islands, to bring what help we could to the victims of the terrible earthquake there. Just as it got light next morning we anchored off the little town of Argostoli - there was not a building standing, and I could see thousands of people clustered in the open space by the jetty."

"I went ashore at once, and as my boat came alongside, none of them moved. They sat in little groups, with a few belongings salvaged from their homes. Then a few men came slowly towards me, they shook me by the hand and said nothing. The whole situation was quite uncanny, the people were alive but absolutely stunned. Gradually more people came forward and started to talk."

"For three days the earthquake had gone on, destroying their homes, killing their relations and friends and even as I stood there you could feel the tremors still shaking the ground. They felt no need for food or water, or anything else - all they really wanted was to get to a piece of land that stayed still. I had to explain to them that I couldn't take them away. My first job was to care for the wounded and to land all the supplies that I had. They turned sadly aside, and walked back to their family groups and sat down to go on waiting as they had done for days."

"During that morning sailors poured supplies ashore. They set up a hospital in tents, and rescue squads went into the town and worked furiously to drag anyone they could find alive, out of the wreckage of the buildings. All through the first day and those that followed, more and more ships arrived, Greek ships laden with supplies, Israeli, American, Italian, French and New Zealand ships - all offering everything they had to help; it became perhaps one of the most wonderful combined operations in history."

"The sailors and marines set up field kitchens to feed the townspeople and, on foot or in whatever transport they could find, battled and blasted their way along broken roads to bring help to isolated villagers."

"Whilst all this first-aid work was going on, the Greek Army was landing and setting up a more permanent organisation, and finally they were able to take over from the early relief parties. We, from the various Navies, had done all we could - no one way lying injured and unattended, no one was dying of thirst and starvation, but this was we could say."

"There were, and still are, tens of thousands of people without homes of any kind, and with all their possessions lost, they must have, and have as soon as possible, the tools and the materials with which to rebuild their houses, their farms, and their shops, and in doing so, their lives. And this help must come before the winter."

"The Greek nation alone, recovering as they are from the devastation of the last war, can't hope to provide everything that is needed. And that's why the National Greek Earthquake Appeal has been started in this country, to get money with which to buy supplies which these people need so urgently. The Navies have done all they can. And now it's up to you, every one of you, to give all you can to the Greek Earthquake Appeal."

"Most of you are sitting comfortably in you own homes, and soon you'll be going to bed - before you do, think of all the people in the Ionian Islands with no roof but the branches of an olive tree, and no bed but the hard earth - no light but the moon, or the stub of a candle left by a passing sailor - and please send every penny you can spare, and please send it now - they need it."