大象传媒

I joined SS Glaucus in Birkenhead doks and after some delay owing to the vessels stability we sailed on 13thFeb.,1944 for Bombay.Whilst unloading there smoke started to pour out of No.4 tweendecks.The 3rd,mate told us to lower the metal tray that was being used for discharge,down the hatch and he and the 4th.,mate went down to invetigate the smoke.Meantime all the stevedores had abbandoned ship and were seen running away from the pier.It turned out that an atempt had been made to blow us up but the saboteurs put the detonator in the wrong hatch.No.4 tweendeck was full of army smoke generators and we dumpted them overboard into the dock.About a month later we were in Cape Town and heard about the Bombay Disaster when the Fort Stikine blew up and flattened half the dock area.We were luky as most of our cargo was explosives about 4,000 tons.Nearing the end of the trip in convoy from Freetown to Liverpool I was on the Mates watch as signal man,messenger when Mr,Widdows said to me"Take a good look at that,you may never see it again".He was pointing at 5 Battleships steaming in line Astern on the eastern horizon.They were the home fleet on their way to bombard the Normandy beaces, and when we arrived a coulpe of days later we were asked to volunteer for the invasion which had just started.On the train home large numbers of German POWs were being sent to Caralile,but we missed out as they had enough ships and I heard all about it from another apprentice a few trips later who was involved for several months,Yours aye,Bill Sturrock

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