[John Rogers]

Depending on exactly where the collision took place, the Straights of Malacca are like driving ships in a river or small stream. Having been through there on the CVA(N)65, CGN25, CGN 35 and CGN 39 at all times we had special watches manned and also guns locked and loaded because of pirates! There are bouys that tell you where to go or there were? If a super tanker or super sized container ship is transiting at 5 to 7 knots then there is very little room for any thing else to get by as you can see land on both sides.

How rough this can be is illustrated by the war India and Pakistan had back in 1972 or so and I was on the Big E. We were on Yankee station and were ordered to get into the Indian Ocean at MAX KNOTS to provide air cover for the evacuation of civilians. We went past Singapore at 32 knots and entered the Straights at full bore! The ship broadcast on all their marine channels to move out of the way, now! We saw what looked like a huge tanker moving across our path about 5 or 6 miles ahead. When we got close to it the ship turned out to be the stern of a monster sized oil tanker that had moved over for us! In looking aft of the ship you could see small fishing boats getting swamped by our wake! Oh yeah, we made it on time!