Sights of the Oil Fires in the Distance
Heroes Remember - Gulf War
Sights of the Oil Fires in the Distance
Transcript
The only thing I witnessed was I went up and
it was much the same as a real
extremely foggy day here in the harbour.
You couldn’t see anything out,
visibility was down to probably fifty yards and
that was it and it really had that real bad smell.
So whenever we went up on the upper decks
we wore surgical masks because we were
breathing that stuff in so we wore masks.
But there wasn’t really anything to see,
it was just grey. It was like a cloudy,
foggy day except really hot.
I remember running my finger down the side,
on the side of the ship and it was
charcoal black from the soot.
You didn’t feel clean.
It was, your skin was oily.
It was very disgusting.
Now granted when we were over there
you went to bed wet, you woke up wet,
your clothes were always wet,
you showered, you sweat, after your
done showering so we couldn’t stay dry.
We had de-humidifiers in the mess and
they were emptied two or three times a day.
There was that much humidity in the air so
with this smoke and this stuff in the air
it was just really uncomfortable and
you couldn’t get the smell off you.
The sweaty smell or the burning oil smell,
it was really disgusting but I’ll never forget it.
I will definitely never forget it.
Interviewer: And everyone was the same?
Yes. I mean some guys didn’t like going out,
they didn’t go on top because of that but
I said I got to go out,
I got to see this, right?
So we couldn’t see land but we
were within two miles of it.
The helicopter did go in and do a sortie and
they actually did shot a video tape that
once they brought the video tape back
all the messes watched it.
Right along the coast and you could see
see the mines on the beaches,
all the damage from the missiles and
the combats along the coast and
smoke because everything was on fire.
It was really, it was weird to see.
That I am actually watching this on a
video when I’m there but I can’t see it.
Like if there wasn’t smoke,
we could see the coast but
we couldn’t even see the coast.
It was kind of weird.
It was like a foggy day except hot, really.
Description
Realizing the burning oil fires were close, Mr. Mellor describes the sights from on board the ship with the smell and foggy surroundings.
Meta Data
- Medium:
- Video
- Owner:
- Veterans Affairs Canada
- Recorded:
- February 27, 2016
- Duration:
- 2:39
- Person Interviewed:
- Bruce Mellor
- War, Conflict or Mission:
- Canadian Armed Forces
- Battle/Campaign:
- Gulf War
- Branch:
- Navy
- Units/Ship:
- HMCS Athabascan
- Occupation:
- Stoker
- Date modified: