>"On Fri, 27 Aug 2004 09:45:12 -0700, Gerry Armstrong
><gerry@gerryarmstrong.org> wrote in
><e3oui09svh6ntl2rfiprb9kp5ngog14ol0@4ax.com>:
>
>>>Ken Urquhart in 2001, on 'A Piece of Blue Sky' by Jon Atack:
>>>
>>>
>>>18. p.207. Jon raises the matter of the death of Susan Meister, and
>>>strongly suggests that foul play caused it. I never heard LRH mention foul
>>>play. By the time of this incident, we had GO people on the ship,
>>
>>This part is not exactly true as written here, although not really
>>important.
>
>But it is! Not important in the sense it would have changed a damn about
>the death of Susan but important history-wise.
>
>
>Btw, does his relaying how the chainlocker looked, sound okay to you?
>
>5 p.180. Jon shows his ignorance of ships more than once. He says here
>that the chain locker is in the 'bowels' of the ship, that it is cold,
>wet, and has rats, is unlit, and that access is by way of a tiny manhole.
>The chain in question is the chain attached to a ship's anchor; an anchor
>is always located at the bow and possibly also at the stern; the 'Royal
>Scotsman' had two bow anchors, as most large ships do, and a stern anchor.
>The locker that stores the anchor's chain is directly below the opening on
>the deck through which the chain runs to let the anchor out or bring it
>in. There is not very much ship below the bows and the chain locker is
>hardly anywhere near the ship's bowels. I once inspected one of the bow
>chain lockers; I looked in through a large opening and found it flooded
>with daylight, dry, and not a rat in sight.
>
>http://freezoneamerica.org/ivy/bluesky/part8.htm
>
>
>
>I wonder how dry it can be when the chain is roped in from the sea.. I
>guess after a couple of days the place would have dried when the chain was
>out but people (inc. little kids) were put in it when the chain was in the
>locker.
>
>http://members.chello.nl/mgormez/childabuse/lock-ups.html

Here's what Jon Atack says in A Piece of Blue Sky:

It's been twenty-nine years, of course, since I was on the Apollo, and there was only one chain locker assignment that I knew of while I was on board, a kid about twelve years old named Lonnie Gariepy (sp?). I was on the Deck Force for a short time, then moved to Boats and Transport I/C, and then on to the Port Captain's Office for the rest of my years on board, so had little to do with the ship's anchors, chains and chain lockers. With that understanding, and with the hope that someone will correct any misnomers or nautical or other errors I might be committing here, this is my best recollection of the conditions.

The wetness or dryness of the chain lockers and the chains in them, as you note, depended on when the chains had last been in the water. It also depended on the weather, since the cover did not seal the locker, and rain could get in, and it depended on the conditions when the ship had last been at sea, since spray, or even waves in really rough conditions, could come onto the forecastle deck and run into the lockers.

The chain lockers certainly could be cold, and they could also be fairly hot, depending on the weather. We were often in hot areas of the world -- North Africa, Portugal, Spain, the Caribbean -- so the chain lockers could conceivably cook.

In the above image of the Apollo, which we've webbed because it's a bit clearer than the images found on Scientology's web sites, the port anchor's flukes are visible near the bow. The anchor's shank, which I recall was about six feet in length, is drawn up inside the anchor hawse pipe.

The chain runs from the hawse pipe up to the forecastle deck to an electric windlass, which pulls the chain to lift the anchor. The chain falls by gravity into the locker abaft the windlass. The chain locker is a steel shaft several feet deep into which perhaps two hundred feet of chain made of big, maybe ten inch links, pile.

Once the anchor has been pulled up to the hawse pipe, a simple metal chock or claw holds the chain and prevents the anchor from suddenly dropping and the chain flying out of the locker, which is what happens when the ship does drop anchor. There was not much chance of this happening, but the physics of it must have weighed on the minds of the prisoners Hubbard ordered into the locker. If it did happen, I would think, the poor guy would be shredded, and probably not enough meat left to make a veggie burger.

The story that is told in Messiah or Madman of some guy being in the chain locker when the ship dropped that locker's anchor must be a munchausenism -- or maybe op-manufactured malarkey to birdlime Bent Corydon.

According to my Webster's Third International, bowels means: "the interior parts, esp: the deep or remote parts." There is plenty of ship under the forecastle deck where the chain enters the chain locker for the bottom of the locker to be described reasonably as "in the bowels of the ship." The prisoner had to sit on the top of the pile of chain, however, which was much nearer to the deck.

The chain locker had a cover, and a bit of light could get in because the cover did not seal around the chain, but it would still have been pretty dark for any prisoner.

No matter what the temperature was, or the humidity, or the lighting, Hubbard's ordering people into the chain locker was sadistic. It shows the failure of Scientology as a "mental technology," and it shows the failure of Hubbard as a leader and as a human being.

The Apollo photo is also useful to identify where Hubbard locked up Bruce Welch, the man who went psychotic on the ship in 1973 and became Hubbard's "research" subject for the "Introspection Rundown." The IRD is now globally infamous for being the "technology" the cult applied to Lisa McPherson when she had a psychotic break in Clearwater, Florida in 1995. http://www.lisamcpherson.org/

Just forward of the ship's bridge superstructure is a lower weather deck section called the well deck. At the forward end of the well deck is a door, visible in the photo, into the forecastle. Just inside the forecastle on the starboard side is a space, which on the Apollo was known as the Bosun's Cabin. Bruce Welch was locked up in the Bosun's Cabin while Hubbard did his IRD "research" on him.

I witnessed Welch, who was a big strong guy, an electronics technician in the Engine Room crew, fighting and held down on the deck in the Bosun's Cabin, by four other big strong crew members. During his incarceration, Welch trashed the cabin, even ripping metal fixtures off the bulkheads.

Monica Pignotti was on board during this period and writes about Welch here: http://www.lisamcpherson.org/pignotti.htm

Hubbard wrote in HCOB of January 23, 1974, revised April 25, 1991 entitled "The Technical Breakthrough of 1973! The Introspection Rundown:"

The person who "went into a full-blown psychotic break -- violence, destruction and all" was Bruce Welch. The location where Hubbard discovered, with this single "research" subject, the "cure for the psychotic break," where the "last reason to have psychiatry around" was eliminated, where he made the "technical breakthrough which possibly ranks with the major discoveries of the twentieth century" was there in the Apollo's Bosun's Cabin, just a few feet away from where Hubbard had for years previously been researching his Chain Locker Rundown.

And Hubbard's "cured" research subject Bruce Welch? Well he wasn't cured at all. He was off-loaded.

And Lisa McPherson? Well the Introspection Rundown didn't work on her as Hubbard said, so the Scientologists drugged her, dehydrated her, kept her from getting real medical care, and killed her. But her torture chamber, although it wasn't flooded with daylight, at least was dry, and, although it was infested with flesh-eating cockroaches, at least, as far as any of her Scientology torturers have confessed, there was not a rat in sight.