Sailing across the pacific

MEMORIES FROM THE HIGH MARITIME UNIVERSITY 1969-1973

We invite you to read a series of articles that will take us back to the harsh reality of the 70's and 80's, known to most of us only from stories told by our parents or grandparents. Their author is Mr. Andrzej Buszke, a graduate of the Naval Academy in Gdynia, a sailor who worked 28 years of his life at sea. The stories are accounts and descriptions of subjective feelings of the author. The stories describe the reality of communist Poland, as well as the world, which no longer exists, seen through the eyes of an adept and then ETO (Electro-technical Officer).

We received such passes on Fridays. They allowed us to go outside the campus on Saturday and Sunday weekends. But that was only after we had completed our candidature and had been sworn in at Kosciuszko Square in 1969. Before that we were only 'candidates' for WSM students. I know that year 1971 is confusing, probably there were other passes before that, I don't remember...

Well, slowly, step by step. After graduation from the State Technical School (Public Television) in Bydgoszcz in 1969 I faced a dilemma: 3-year military service or further studies.

I found out that PSM in Gdynia had been transformed into WSM with five faculties (Navigation, Mechanical, Electrical and Electronic - later changed to Radiocommunication at Sea - and Administrative). For me, the choice was obvious. It must be remembered that during the communist era, work at sea enjoyed a high reputation. The Sailing Pass was a passport covering a wide area of the world and seafarer families usually enjoyed a higher standard of living than the average family.

The WSM was cut to size and the teaching staff was supplemented in subsequent years by borrowings e.g. from the WSMW. The only professor (of mathematics) at that time was the first rector, Bohdan Kowalczyk, Ph. They didn't know how to treat us whether as students or listeners. We were treated in the same way as before: in the barracks, having our hair cut, being issued clothes, i.e. working dreadlocks, khaki

uniforms and old, thick-shod shoes. 'Candidature' plus, introduced after 1967 along the lines of China's Cultural Revolution, a month's work experience was mandatory for all college applicants (even future violinists, pianists, etc.).

The day would begin with a 5 a.m. wake-up call, breakfast, and then march out of the newly built dormitories by the sea - the famous ‘triangles’ on Sedzickiego Street - to the Paris Commune Shipyard, later Gdynia Shipyard, about 3 kilometers away. The road along the tracks was paved with cobblestones. It was our most modern shipyard at the time, with, among other things, a new dry dock adapted to the construction of 50,000-ton ships. It was liquidated in 2009 and broken up into separate business entities. The rest of the day went routinely: on our return, roll call and change of duty, drill on the pier and long political and didactic talks, from which I remembered ‘that we are the lucky chosen ones of fate and future owners of villas and cars’.

I recall with fondness my later two-week stay on the instrumental school ship ‘Horyzont’ (‘Horizon’): good food (very important!), jumping in lifebelts from the lifeboat deck on the Bay and that short cruise in a 6-ft Bf... Out of 25 candidates I was among five who felt well.

The school ships ‘Horyzont’ (‘Horizon’), ‘Zenit’ (‘Zenith’) and their counterparts in Szczecin – ‘Azymut’ (‘Azimuth’), ‘Navigator’ - were built on the hulls of ‘birds’ - lugrotrawlers withdrawn from service after a series of tragic disasters. Those instrumental ships, ballasted with 30 tons of ballast cubes, were called ‘pukers’ by the students.

The academic year 1969 began along with the move to Czerwonych Kosynierow Street, where the Faculty of Mechanical Engineering and Electrical Engineering were located. After passing by the duty station, at the side entrance in the hall, we were greeted by a three-meter-high plaster statue of Lenin. He always had a cigarette stuck in his mouth. Stubbornly removed, it appeared again.

The bedrooms were 12-person dormitories with bunk beds and personal padlocked lockers. Evening assemblies led by 'maritime education instructors' - combined with reading out the punished. Additional work was punished 'in the regions' mostly for having civilian clothes in the lockers. More serious offences were punished with the so-called 'BW', i.e. withholding of Saturday-Sunday passes. The obligatory canteen (we will return to the subject of the canteen), Saturday collective shower in the basement of the right wing, for 150 men, with HOT water running once a week. Morning classes at the pool with broken glass in the windows, especially pleasant in winter... The pool water was rarely, if ever, changed, and heavily chlorinated. After class we had eyes as red as rabbits. 'And now we are jumping into the water and doing two bashes with a clap and a squeeze,' said the leader of the class, L. The activities in the pool were also more varied. Diving after objects, playing water ball. We studied on our own in the lecture halls of the main building, separated from the living quarters by a lattice that closed at 10 p.m. In the main building, in his duty station, there was the school janitor, Nowak, who was an institution in himself. The appointed minister of the Ministry of Navigation, Szopa, a former graduate visiting the school, used to greet him first. Sometimes, he would help 'friendly' students pass their exams. I remember how he once told me, surrounded by a garland of listening cleaning ladies: 'It was at midnight. I was sitting and looking out into the hall and I heard footsteps. He was coming down the stairs. He was wearing an SS man's uniform. He came down slowly and I said to him: 'What are you looking for here, Hitler? Go back where you came from. He looked at me with empty eyes and left...'. A legend circulated among us that after the liberation of Gdynia, an SS man was found hanged in the attic. No wonder that under the influence of this and other stories ladies were afraid

Polishing the ship's bell on the training ship "Horyzont".

Now, a little bit more about the servants and duty. There were three men on duty: the older one from the last year of the PSM, the two younger - from the WSM. All of them, according to the regulations of the services and duties, watched over safety and order. They woke us up for morning classes. ‘Maritime education instructors’ - that is a separate topic. They were with us non-stop 24 hours a day on their duty, they had their own rooms. Now, years later, I think that their job was not only to watch over discipline and order, but also to observe behavior and political surveillance. The seaman's pass was a passport covering all the countries of the world, and an ordinary eater of Polish bread could only dream of going abroad to the countries of 'rotten capitalism'. There were escapes from ships, too. The educators, later called instructors, kept journals containing personal files on each of us. Some journal entries were bizarre and circulated as humorous stories. For example, 'Student X in the toilet in my presence provocatively growled with his anus' or: 'Student X steals shoes' (this referred to the case when someone from the educator's room 'picked up' his/her exit shoes, requisitioned to prevent going to town while serving the 'BW' punishment).

We also made unkind jokes to the aforementioned educators, which I do not want to write about here. For the first, as I remember, 1,5 years the areas were cleaned by students. The corridors, toilets. Toilet paper, that sort of thing... For the first few months, a team was assigned to peel potatoes. As usual among young people, we were playing jokes on each other. Sometimes they were stupid... For instance, Jacek, a football fan, was going to the washroom in his pyjamas, with a towel over his shoulder and there was a cardboard box lying in the corridor! His eyes sparked, he took the momentum and kicked! And there was a big stone hidden in the box. And for two weeks Jacek had his foot in a plaster cast. Once a week, dressed in working uniforms, we had classes in the school workshops.

I remember the machine tools department, the forge. The instructor would show us how to harden steel; the master blacksmith's signature trick was to lick a red-hot rod. He encouraged us to repeat his stunt but there were no takers. The canteen was compulsory. The daily food rate was low, but this was not the only reason for its miserliness. The manager of the canteen was the daughter-in-law of the director of housekeeping, Mr. H. It is known that young people usually have a voracious appetite. The basic menu was soup, potatoes with gravy and bread. More refined additions were served in microscopic quantities. Tea, coffee, cereal of course, in jugs. There was a rumor among us that bromine was added to tea to lower libido. The most desired supper dish was black pudding with onion. My colleague Tadek's unholy deed sticks in my memory. After eating pasta in which I found three pieces of ham, I left myself one piece for dessert. My colleague distracted me by asking: 'What did Mary come here for?' ('Bloody Mary' was our nurse in the Infirmary). I looked toward the door, Mary was gone. Nor was that piece of ham on my plate. I couldn't forgive him for that for a long time. One day, an item called 'roast duck' appeared on a menu prepared well in advance. Duck! I waited impatiently for this day. Finally, walking down the aisle to the cafeteria, I could sense the unpleasant smell intensifying. No! At the door, I turned around and walked back. Supposedly, the canteen food supplies were replenished with food taken off the ships, which was left in refrigerators after long voyages.

We spontaneously formed a ‘canteen committee’. The first action was a search of bags of ladies working in the kitchen on their way home. The stuffed bags contained cubes of butter, margarine, and meat. The initially noisy affair was hushed up without further consequences. Another story involved weighing a portion of yellow cheese served for breakfast. It was a spontaneous, one-off action that caused a great deal of concern among the kitchen staff. The weight of each portion was recorded. The portions prepared earlier were significantly different in weight from the later portions, which increased with each successive plate, so that the final total agreed with the weight of the product dispensed from the store. It ended with this one action. Many, from the Tri-City area, were fed at home. The rest, often from distant regions of Poland, were saved by parcels from home. Families sent cakes, lard, and sausages. Michael, whose mother traded at the Rozycki Market in Prague, received the largest parcels.

The hatch covered with short wideners.

There was solidarity, the parcels were divided among all the inhabitants of the dormitory

In the middle of winter 1969/1970 we did our training on s/s 'Jan Turlejski'. It was the biggest ship of the Maritime School at that time, a steam (mazout-fired boilers) supertrawler.

The captain was the legendary Wiktor Gorzadek. Candidate training, seamanship, fishing, navigation and machineries were carried out on board at various times. 'Jan Turlejski' made a number of pioneer voyages for our fishery. We unfortunately stopped 2 weeks at Kosciuszko Square.

There was a wonderful cook on ‘Turlej’. I remember the first dinner after boarding, which after the poor school canteen seemed like a great feast. There was a delicious oxtail soup with floating pieces of oxtail, a pork chop for the whole plate. We spent the time between watches, repair work and housekeeping on excursions to the city. I remember, as it was a snowy winter, we put a huge snowman (over 4 meters high) on the quay. We slept in a cubby under the tank. It was a cold winter, the room with bunk beds, poorly isolated from the steel sides, was heated by steam pipes. During the night we were woken up by the ‘shooting’ of steam pipes and in a few moments the terrifying cold turned into hellish heat. In the next MAEM Magazine, we continue our maritime education at WSM with our character. We invite you to join us!

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