AFVOA Newletter August 2020

Section 5 - Memoirs CV 2 No. 02 / 2020 Page 69 of 237 ‘Beach Sword’ . She was the lead destroyer for the lead flotilla of minesweepers that morning, which was symbolic because the invasion of Poland by German forces had initiated the Second WW. As a convoy escort her crew shot down five enemy aircraft (and possibly three more). In 1946 she was transferred back to RN and then to Indian Navy. She had a Polish history when she arrived in India in 1953. She must have had descendants of rats from Poland, Britain, the ports she touched on her passage to India, indeed a veritable rat cocktail. There may have been a few purebreds too. These Rats must have got used to the tropical conditions and Indian cuisine soon. Soon they must have been absolutely Indianised. May be in 1976 there were still a few descendants with Polish DNA. INS Godavari was on passage from Cochin to rendezvous with IN Ships returning from cruise. On her passage she ran aground on one of the atolls of the Male group. The IN promptly dispatched other naval ships, tugs etc. to pull her out of another nation’s reef. Old INS Delhi (C 74) the Cadet’s Training Cruiser was coordinating the salvage efforts. Going anywhere close to Godavari was a navigational night mare because of the reefs. Boats were sent to lighten the ship by de-storing, defueling, de-ammunitioning, evacuation of personnel etc. It was a herculean task. Fortunately, the weather held. Repeated attempts to pull her out even with powerful tugs did not succeed for a number of days. The bows were badly embedded in the corals and the forward portion was flooded due to numerous punctures in the hull. Also number of equipment, machinery etc. on the forward portion were too heavy to be lifted by hand and shifted. The ship was thus trimmed by the bows, complicating the pulling out. A way had to be found to lift the heavy load from the forecastle to lighten the bows to ease the pull out. Some bright sparks thought of sending an LST with its flat bottom alongside Godavari on the reef and transfer the load. Alas, all the LSTs were based on the East Coast at Vizag. I was at this time a Sub-Lieutenant, serving on IN Ship Kesari, a Landing Ship Tank (LST) based at Vizag. She was built at Gdansk Shipyard in Poland and Commissioned on 15 Aug 1975. She arrived at Vizag in Oct 1975 from Poland and I joined the ship in Early Apr 1976. Like Godavari 22 years ago, she too brought a sizeable complement of Polish and other nationality