“My father Ahmed Hussain Mohamed ‘Omari’ was born in Yemen and served in the merchant navy. On June 29th, 1941 he was a fireman on the SS Rio Azul when they were torpedoed by an enemy submarine which resulted in the ship sinking very quickly as they were carrying iron ore. Although injured he managed to make it to a life raft along with seventeen crew members. There were forty-five crew members on board and the rest were killed when they were hit or went down with the ship.  
The Captain, thirty-one crew & one DEMS gunner were eventually lost, a number dying whilst adrift and just after rescue. Eighteen men had originally survived the sinking and finding two life rafts, which they lashed together found themselves adrift for fifteen days, surviving on their meager rations consisting of a one-gallon flask and one jar of fresh water. On the fifteenth day the ship’s bosun although exhausted asked one of his shipmates to lash a tobacco tin onto the end of a water scoop, which was used to form a crude heliograph. The flashes were seen from a passing ship and six crew & three gunners were picked up by HMS Esperance Bay. My father did not like talking about it too much but he did say that some of his friends died through drinking seawater and when they were rescued they were badly burned by the heat of the sun and their skin had peeled off in places”.