Captain Haddock Hergé thought this was a perfect name for Tintin’s new mariner friend, and so Captain Haddock was born. There was a real 20th-century ship's master bearing this unlikely but appropriate surname: Captain Herbert Haddock had been the skipper of the famous White Star Line's passenger vessel "Olympic". He had also been temporarily at the helm of Olympic's even more famous sister ship "Titanic" before "Titanic" was officially handed over to White Star for her doomed 1912 maiden voyage. Another famous namesake, and a possible inspiration for the Captain's ancestor Sir Francis, was the English admiral Richard Haddock, a veteran of
SS Belgian Captain The attack was carried out by the Decima Flottiglia MAS of the Regia Marina, using manned torpedoes despatched from the submarine "Ambra". "Empire Centaur" returned to the United Kingdom in Convoy MKS 7, which departed from Algiers on 5 February 1943 and arrived at Liverpool on 17 March. She was bound for Cardiff. "Empire Centaur" was allocated to the Belgian Government in 1943 and renamed "Belgian Captain". The Code Letters ONVS were allocated, and she was placed under the management of Agence Maritime Internationale SA. Her port of registry was Antwerp. "Belgian Captain" was a member of a number of