Cruise of the Ada Rehan

In life, tall, soft-voiced Victorian Actress Ada Rehan had been a discreet lady.

A biographer said that Ada Rehan's sense of comedy shielded "her love life* from vulgar comment." Her seagoing namesake in World War II never learned the trick. Rusty and listing noticeably, the S.S. Ada Rehan hung on her chains in Shanghai Harbor last week while drunken voices rose from her decks. In sea men's bars along Blood Alley, comment was vulgar.

Eight long months ago the Ada Rehan, her reputation spotless, had sailed out of San Francisco on a two weeks' voyage to New Orleans. A wireless message from the War Shipping Administration changed her course for Chile. Over vodka and rum in Shanghai a sailor recalled that first leg of a voyage that was to last eight hectic months: "It was like a bunch of amateurs was running things."

With a load of nitrate, the Ada Rehan turned into the Atlantic, circled around blindly for a while until Captain Harold B. Ellis discovered which sailor was carrying the magnet around in his pocket and throwing the compass off. Just outside of Tripoli they steamed through a floating minefield under the impression that it was a gathering of turtles. Captain Ellis went ashore with a nervous breakdown, refused to come back.

Under First Mate F. Henry Haas, the Ada Rehan staggered on. At an Arabian port the crew refused to serve further under Haas, but were at last won over. In Khorramshahr, Haas went ashore, came back with a beer-drinking baboon. When the crew tried to cut down the baboon's beer ration, he broke from his cage, bit Haas and splashed ashore. The men organized a safari, chased the baboon and killed it.

By now there were three pretty blowzy Persian women aboard. "Invitational passengers," the sailors explained. At sea, trouble arose over who had invited whom. The Ada Rehan lurched on around the world.

Into Colombo, Hongkong, Shanghai, the ship nosed her way. Port officials went aboard, came off marveling. By now only a small group of men were trying to maintain discipline. One worried boy moaned:

"Gee, I hope none of this gets back to the States. I'm going home to get married to a nice girl." But the story, floating out in the ship's wake, was already around the world. The original Ada Rehan would have been horrified to learn how her name was being bandied about.

* With the late, great Producer Augustin Daly.

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