How do warships refuel while at sea?

Many years ago I did what the ads called for. I joined the Royal Canadian Navy to see the world. I loved it. Since the world was almost at peace our task was to sail the oceans of the world in company with navies from other countries, carrying out training exercises, and calling at many ports as roving ambassadors.

What an exciting life it was. We visited countries such as the beauties lying in the Caribbean, The Virgin Islands, Trinidad, Puerto Rico, Cuba, and many others. We also visited Norway, England, Ireland, Holland. We paused at Gibraltar on our way to France, Italy and Spain in the Mediterranean sea. Nothing could parallel the feeling of entering a port of call we had only read about in our history books.

During these visits we saw the crown jewels in London, the pope in Rome, the diamond cutters in Amsterdam, Havana before Castro took over, the Empire State Building, as well as the fiords of Norway and many other wonderful and exciting places.

Our basic training culminated with a trip to Bermuda from our base in Halifax, Nova Scotia on an old minesweeping vessel. Shortly after our return I joined what was to be my new home for the next year and a half as a crew member on board HMCS Haida, a destroyer that made its mark in both World War 11 and that earned a designation as a train buster while carrying out raids during the Korean War. It’s now set up as a national park in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada.

Haida had to take on fuel every four days or three if high speed runs were carried out. Her engines were not the fuel efficient, engineering marvels of today. They burned fuel as if it was going out of style. So it became necessary for us to refuel very often and it had to be done no matter if the sea was calm or we were in the midst of a roaring gale.

So how did we do it?

First, a large ship such as an oil tanker, supply ship, or an aircraft carrier would be selected to feed our fuel tanks. Those ships carried enough fuel to allow them to steam for long extended trips without running short.

The mother ship would steam along at a speed that would allow for reasonably quick course corrections, approximately twelve knots. Our ship would then approach from astern and to one side of the mother ship. We would come up along side, closing the gap until the distance between us was less than one hundred feet. A specially fitted rifle would be used to fire a thin brass rod with a light nylon cord attached across our bow. Once we retrieved this line other heavier lines would be pulled across until we were finally set up with six or more lines. One line needed to be very strong as it would be used to pull the fueling hose.

Now the hard work began. The lines would be used to haul over fresh baked goods, vegetables, perhaps a few movies. Mail would be one of the most welcome commodities. A strong steel wire cable would be fixed on our ship and connected to a winch on the mother. On that cable the fueling hose would be run across the gap and the hose connected to our filler pipe and pumping began.

While we are along side a couple of the lines would be designated as distance lines. Small colored flags would be fixed to the line every ten feet. These were important as they told the captain the exact distance between ships.

All of this took from an hour to three hours depending upon the weather. Soon we would part company and we were good for another few days.

Some of the mother ships had their own band aboard and they would serenade us with incredible music. And that’s the way we refueled at sea many years ago.