LUCKY THIRTEEN?

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 3, Issue 263, 27 January 1941, Page 5

LUCKY THIRTEEN?

SUPERSTITION DEFIED GISBORNE MAN'S STORY Sailors are superstitious, by repute, but the experience of a ship's company of the Royal Australian' Navy, as outlined by one of its number to relatives in New Zealand,, seem to set at naught one of the most potent superstitions of all— the belief that the No. 13 exercises a nialign influence. The writer of the letter is Lieutenant Tullock, son of Mr and Mrs L. B. Tullock, Te Karaka, and his communication was addressed to an uncle living at Tauranga, himself a veteran of blue-water service. The date of the letter was December 13 which also happened to be a Friday. "Do you observe the date? Now listen, and I'll tell you a story that 1 and 140 others can vouch for ; as fact," the young Gisborne man writes. "It ought to do away with those last traces of superstition left in you as one of the old salts of sail. "Our captain first jgntered the Royal Australian Navy College on February 13, first went to sea o/n February 13, married on Friday tlie 13th of the month, and became captain of this ship—whose number includes the numerals 1 and 3—on

October 13. Intensive Bombing. "On June 13, 1940, we got our first submarine. On July 13, we went through our first intensive bombing, in which 1800 bombs of 2501bs and upward were estimated to have been dropped without a scratch. On August 13, we had a finger in the matter of three more subs. On September 13, we were in dry dock, and a bomb missed the caisson of the dock by feet, and so we were not reduced to matchwood by the inrush of water. "On November 13„ we were to moor to a certain buoy in a certain harbour. A few minutes before doing so we exchanged berths, wU{tli another ship, and she lost eight killed in a bomb raid later that day. 'This morning, December 13, a man was washed overboard in foul weather —a man who officially could not swim and who was all togged up in sea boots, duffel coat, oilskin and all the clothes a sailor lias to keep him warm and dry in this weather. After a long and not in the least hopeful search, we picked him up. He had in the water for three-quarters of an hour in vicious seas, and was swimming. When- he came inboard, he was able to make the crack: 'Well, I should be able to get my swimming certificate now!'

"Is this all coincidence, «r is the superstition reversed?" the letter concludes.