大象传媒

My parents gave me a trip to the USA as my 21st birthday in 1939; I鈥檇 had an American pen friend since I was 15 her name was Arlene Sparrow, she lived with her parents in Bowling Green, Ohio. Arlene had visited me at my home in Kettering, and had invited me to visit the World鈥檚 Fair in the USA.

I set sail for America on the SS Acquitania from Southampton heading for New York. During the 7 days we were at sea I made lots of friends and had a good social time, eating, drinking and playing games. One friend, Edith, who was a bit older than me took me under her wing, her home was in South Africa and she became a life long friend.

My pen friend Arlene and four of her friends were in New York to meet me when we docked. We headed up through North America and they showed me all the sites. We stayed overnight at Niagara Falls, which was wonderful, and then made our way to Arlene鈥檚 home in Ohio.

When time came to return to England we decided to combine the trip to New York with a visit Virginia. When we arrived at the docks in New York we found that war had broken out and all boats had been cancelled. This came as a real shock as we didn鈥檛 know of anything about the build up to war and war being declared as we鈥檇 been travelling and we鈥檇 been out of touch. There was nothing else to do but to return to Bowling Green, Ohio and wait for the war to finish, which we thought would be over within a month. When it was obvious that it would last longer my father came to my rescue, he had a business colleague in New York and they cabled each other arrange to for a sailing for me to return on the liner SS Manhattan.

On my return I told my story to our local paper 鈥� The Kettering Evening Telegraph:

Liner Passengers Injured

Kettering Girl in Adventurous Atlantic Journey
Miss Meg Joyce, second daughter of Ald. and Mrs A Joyce of Kettering who arrived back at Southampton on Wednesday after a holiday in the United States, gave an interesting account of her wartime journey across the Atlantic to a reporter.
Miss Joyce travelled from New York on the U.S. liner Manhattan. In order to make it clear to German submarines or airplanes that it was American the vessel had giant outlines of the American flag painted on its sides and decks, and in addition, care was taken to have it brightly illuminated at night.
The customary emergency drills were organised for the passengers, who were also instructed to sleep with their cabin doors open so that they should hear the emergency whistle if it was sounded.
鈥淣one of us was at all afraid,鈥� said Miss Joyce, 鈥渁nd we wondered if we should see anything exciting, such as the rescue of the crews of other ships. Nothing happened, however, in that respect.鈥�

Rough Journey
Owing to the war, the Manhattan did not carry any cargo, and this gave the voyage its most striking characteristic. The sea was rough, and being unusually light, the ship had one of the worst journeys ever remembered by the crew. Ropes had to be stretched across the lounge for people to hold while walking about, and on one occasion in a particularly bad roll a rope broke and a group of people, including Miss Joyce, was flung across the room. Many were injured, and Miss Joyce herself sustained bruises. On the whole voyage 12 people had to be admitted to the ship鈥檚 hospital 鈥� mostly with broken limbs. Miss Joyce described how even at meals passengers had to hold on to the table with one hand and eat with the other.
As already reported, Miss Joyce was to have sailed to England from New York on the Normandie on Aug. 30th, but cancelled her booking owing to the international situation. Later, the sailing of the Normandie was itself cancelled, and this liner and Queen Mary are both still in New York harbour.

Heavy Bookings
Passenger traffic on the Atlantic is very heavy, Miss Joyce says, on the services still maintained, and there was a large complement of passengers coming to Ireland, England, France and other European countries. Traffic is even heavier on the journey back to America, and Miss Joyce was told that on its return the Manhattan would be taking 1,800 back to America instead of the 1,200 maximum for which it was equipped. Miss Joyce says that American opinion is in the main favourable to Britain and France, but there are divisions on the question whether the USA should join in the war.
She said that in America people were carefree and without class distinctions, and the war seemed far away. Back in the war atmosphere of Britain she found things 鈥減retty depressing for a bit.鈥�

This story was submitted to the People鈥檚 War website by Diana Wilkinson of the CSV Action Desk at 大象传媒 Hereford and Worcester and has been added to the site with Mrs Hakewill鈥檚 permission. The author fully understands the site鈥檚 terms and conditions

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