Rescue On The High Seas
My, and my family’s, greatest adventure in our lives began on May 1st 1952, in Munich southern Germany. We boarded a train and headed north to Bremer Hafen on the North Sea for our trip to America. This was the first ship I had ever seen, and it was big – The SS General Hershey. As we started to board, my emotions took over, and I believe from there on I operated on automatic pilot for some time.
As we proceeded to get settled in our quarters deep in the belly of this vessel, I didn’t even notice that we were moving until we heard the commotion. So up I go on deck, leaning on the railing we all watched our ship leaving the harbor. I stayed there until land was beyond the horizon, and now only water glistened all around.
For the next 11 days that’s all we could see… water.
For the first two days our spirit grew, we where singing, and dancing having fun. Sailing on the North Sea through the English Channel, past the White Cliffs of Dover, out into the Atlantic Ocean.
On the third day Disaster, as if on command, and many of us got gravely ill. For two days I could not eat, much less keep it down. I laid on my back, could not even lift my head. (Seasick?)
On the fifth day, as if by magic, I was fine again. After that there where two more days of misery. Two days before we where scheduled to arrive in New York, sometime during the night, our ship received a distress call (SOS). A sailor on a freighter heading east needed urgent medical attention. According to maritime law the closest ship has to respond and that was us. We also had medical facilities and doctors on board.
At daylight the news spread, we are going the wrong way, we should be going west not east. I guess the news also reached the powers that be, and over the PA system they explained why. Soon we rendezvous with the freighter and watched a rescue transfer on the high seas.
That my friends was a once in a lifetime experience. The next time I came to watch a rescue on high sea was on TV when the Andrea Doira sank.
On day 11 at sunrise we arrived in New York, the sight of the Statue of Liberty was the height of our journey which is forever embedded in my memory drenched with tears of joy.
We were welcomed to America with great gratitude and full of anticipation. This is not the end of our travel story, it had just barely began, stay tuned.
Joe Eisenbeil
Please learn how you too can travel the globe in style for pennies on the dollar. Adventures are for everyone!
