A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to Burma

This story is taken from an interview with George and Peggy Lapsley, and has been added to the site with their permission. The author fully understands the site's terms and conditions. The interviewer was David Reid, and the transcription was by Bruce Logan.
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The story that always comes to my mind is, in the Navy there were very superstitious people. I was in a convoy, I was on a Smilax, which was escorting 13 minesweepers to Burma.
Suddenly I looked on deck and there was this fellow I knew, he was from Cork, and he was on his knees praying. We were sailing on the open sea, and I didn’t know what it was. I went over and said to him, all Irishmen were Paddy, I said “Are you all right, Paddy?” And he said “Look over there”.

I looked over there, and I don’t know if you know what a waterspout is. Not a whale, it’s by natural sources. The water is churned because it’s hot and cold, in a spiral. So to describe it best, it’s a whirlpool in reverse. This thing was way up in the air, hundreds of feet. Don’t forget, we had 13 minesweepers, all little small fishing boats, and I was on a frigate, and he said “If that gets near us, we’re all dead. Because it’ll throw us up in the air hundreds of feet, turn us about, because they can even do it to big ships”.

So we watched in fascination, I watched, he prayed. This thing came towards us and then it was half, quarter of a mile away, it turned slightly, shot up even further, and then disappeared. Maybe I was too stupid to be frightened. I didn’t know what a waterspout was. But he did. He’d been on a ship once, which was 20,000 tons and it just turned the thing around and wrecked the steering and so on. But anyway, we got there.

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