A pirate story

Today's story came to me in a round-about way.

Twenty five years ago today, Leon Klinghoffer was murdered by Palestinian pirates.
For those of you who are fuzzy on the details, as am I, let me re-cap.

Klinghoffer, a retired Jewish businessman, was confined to a wheelchair because of the effects of two strokes. He had no interest in a Mediterranean cruise, but went because he loved his wife, Marilyn. It was their 36th wedding anniversary. A few days into the cruise, four members of the PLO boarded the Achille Lauro, an Italian cruise ship, and made outrageous demands of Israel while the world watched helplessly. The pirates singled Klinghoffer out for execution, shot him in the head and chest and forced the ship's barber and a waiter to throw his body overboard. Marilyn didn't find out that he was dead until the pirates left the ship in Port Said, having being told that he was in the infirmary. She died of colon cancer a few months later and the couple's two daughters now work against terrorism in their names.

The fate of the pirates was rather a mixed bag and involved a little spat between our beloved Ronald Reagan and the Italians. The PLO did end up having to pay a sizable amount of money to the Klinghoffer daughters, which is now used to fund their foundation against terrorism. Delicious irony, don't you think?

Lisa and Ilsa Klinghoffer in 2003, holding a photo of Leon and Marilyn.
Photo from NYDailyNews.



Segue with me back to 1967.
This is the year that I sailed with my family on a 5-week voyage from England to New Zealand.
On the Angelina Lauro.
Sister ship to the Achille.
Which got me to thinking about that ship, wondering what happened to it, so I did a little Google.
It's amazing what you can find on the internet.

The Angelina started life as the MS Oranje, built in 1938 for a Netherlands shipping company. She spent most of World War II as a hospital ship for the Australian Navy. The Dutch government bore the full cost of the conversion to a hospital ship and the crew remained Dutch, even though the Captain was Australian. The Oranje served in multiple theatres during the war, made 41 voyages, and was a welcome sight in Australian and New Zealand ports.

After the War, the Oranje spent the next couple of decades as a cruise ship, sailing around the world. With passenger numbers dropping, she and her sister ship were sold to the Flotta Lauro Lines, an Italian company. She was extensively rebuilt, with one of the outstanding features being her tall, louvered funnel which was topped by a large smoke deflector wing. The newly outfitted Angelina Lauro took her maiden voyage in March 1966.

This photo is from Reuben Goossen's comprehensive maritime website. Isn't she a beauty?

One year later, my family boarded the boat in Southampton.

My Dad had bought himself a new-fangled Super-8 movie camera, with which he proceeded to make a menace of himself. In later years, we all laughed whenever we watched those family movies, because Dad would inevitably pan up to that awesome funnel whenever he filmed anything on board the ship. I guess I was under-impressed, being only eleven at the time and not understanding anything about engineering or design!

For more of my Dad's story, go here, in case you missed it the first time.

Well, we had an interesting voyage, because it was right after the Suez Canal closed and so they took the stabilizers off the ship in order to make up time. We had to go into the Mediterranean to Italy, then back out again to travel all the way around Africa. I have fond memories of the five weeks we spent mostly playing Monopoly with our little gang of like-minded kids. Mum would tell you several horror stories, but again, I guess I was oblivious.

What happened to the Angelina, you ask?

Well, she got another retrofit in 1972. In 1979, she burned and sank while in the U.S.Virgin Islands. 

I hope I haven't bored you with my little trip down memory lane. I found it fascinating to fill in the gaps for my own satisfaction. We experience so many things in life and we view them from our narrow field of vision, never seeing the bigger picture.

It's fun, sometimes, to enlarge that perspective, don't you think?