MV Dromus
British oil tanker
MV Dromus was a 1930s British oil tanker owned by Anglo-Saxon Petroleum, a British subsidiary of Royal Dutch Shell. She was launched in September 1938 by Harland and Wolff at Belfast in Northern Ireland. She was one of a class of 20 similar tankers built for Anglo-Saxon.
In 1951 Dromus suffered an explosion and fire that killed 22 of her crew and five oil terminal staff, after which she was extensively repaired. In 1958 she rescued 24 members of the crew of a British tanker that had been sunk by the CIA. Shell retired Dromus from service in 1962 and she was scrapped that year.
1951 explosion in Singapore
In August 1951 Dromus was in Singapore, and on 18 August she took on a new crew for a voyage to the Philippines. On the night of 19–20 August Dromus was loading at Wharf Number 6 of the oil terminal on the island of Pulau Bukom off Singapore. During the process of topping up one of her forward tanks there was an overflow of oil from her foredeck and at about 0050 hrs she suffered an explosion and fire that took hold from her forecastle as far aft as her central superstructure.
Dromus' crew and Pulau Bukom's fire-fighting squad fought the fire. Dromus' Master, Henry Watkins had her stern mooring cables cut to help get her away from the wharf and for more than an hour, efforts were made to distance Dromus from the oil terminal to prevent the fire from spreading.
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