大象传媒

Although I was an Air Gunner on Liberator aircraft flying over Burma, I must say that the most interesting part of my career was the journey to India in convoy. Hence,

A BRIEF PASSAGE TO INDIA

At the end of June 1944, on completion of our OTU course we, the Collier Crew, subsequently found ourselves on the SS Alcantara a single stacked ship of about 26,000 tons, in the mouth of the River Clyde preparing to set sail for India. The Clyde in wartime was something to behold with numerous merchant ships and warships of all sizes, aircraft carriers, destroyers and submarines forming up for departure, or arriving back from duties unknown, and our own ship filling up with contingents of all three members of His Majesty鈥檚 forces. This hustle and bustle served to allay the boredom that would normally have prevailed during the two or three days of inactivity before our departure.

Eventually the engines commenced to vibrate throughout the ship as we in the company of a large convoy, slowly departed down river, into the open sea, accompanied by ships of all classes and size, in four lines abreast, and longer than we could make out. We left with heavy hearts knowing that we were leaving our loved ones in a country severely rationed, racked by gales and being subjected to the start of a final onslaught by Hitler鈥檚 secret weapon, Flying Bombs. Unfortunately we couldn鈥檛 go any faster because we had to sail at the speed of the slowest ship in the convoy. I recall watching a liberty ship (a small cargo vessel leased by the Americans for the duration of the war) wallowing in the brine, being severely buffeted by the waves and I deciding that this was the ship whose speed was governing that of our convoy.

There was some deliberation as to how far we were sailing out into the Atlantic before sailing south, but after a few days, as the sun began to break cloud, we began to find our bearings and either surmised, or were informed, that we were in the Bay of Biscay heading south towards the African Coast. It was night when we sailed through the Straights of Gibraltar and I was in the aft lookout hatch having been selected because of the expertise at Aircraft Recognition that an Air Gunner was supposed to have. I don鈥檛 know about aircraft but I can recall the grey outline of corvettes whizzing in and out to protect us from possible attack as we entered the hitherto war torn Mediterranean Sea.

In those days before the jet age, most young people had not travelled as much as their counterparts of today, and television had not arrived to show us in beautiful colour, the life-like images of all aspects of our world. We had however heard much of the places in our geography lessons and seen monochrome images on film and photographs, so when I was informed that Morocco lay to the south and the Rock of Gibraltar to the north, I remember being full of youthful wonderment that these places were so near, even though we could only see the lights of the Moroccan towns. Gibraltar was of course blacked out.

At the time I believed that ours was one of the first convoys to sail through into the Mediterranean since its closure, but I have since learned from the various accounts I have read, that there had been several before us, and it spoke well of the progress of the war that throughout the passage we were never aware of any danger from enemy shipping or aircraft. D-day in Europe had recently passed and we were part of the next phase of the war that was anticipated in the East, when Europe had been liberated
In the morning we were well into the Med. and the water was calm under a deep blue sky in sharp contrast to the relative turmoil of the Bay of Biscay! It rather reminded me of the time in the film Lost Horizon when Robert Conway, alias Ronald Colman, and his party, were force-marched out of the raging Himalayan storms, through the gap in the mountain into the peaceful serenity of Shangri-La.

We sailed on, passing islands whose names I did not then know, and were given a running commentary as we sailed near to the of the North Africa, pointing out places where famous battles had recently taken place and been won by the Allies, until one day we thinned out from four boats to three, then two, then in single file as we entered the Suez canal. It was a very interesting experience to be on one of the ships of that very large convoy which passed through into the canal and docked at Port Said. I marvelled at the organisation that must have been required for such activity.

For one or two days we stopped there watching the Egyptian boys diving for buckshee coins, and many African soldiers coming aboard, presumably to fight in Burma, and for whom several carpenters had stopped on board from Glasgow in order to make the type of toilets used by these chaps which consisted of wooden boards upon which they place their feet and squatted. ( I always wondered at this. Fancy being a shipbuilder in Glasgow and told you had to stop on the boat and go to Port Said in wartime!! I hope the men had remembered to tell their wives not to wait up!).

On waking up one morning the engines were rumbling, and when I looked through the portholes, it was most strange to see the sand going past in the canal, after 2 weeks of seeing nothing but sea. The journey took all day. I remember someone pointing out a statue of De La Seppes who had designed the canal, standing proud above the rather flat landscape. (Or was it Tyrone Power??)

Then we were in the Red Sea, and I must stop hear to describe the extreme combination of heat and humidity that prevailed at that time. We queued up time and time again to fill our mugs with tea, which poured out in sweat as we squatted on the deck. I always maintain that I never experienced such conditions in India, though I cannot deny that it was pretty hot at times.

Then followed Aden where we anchored to form up with another convoy and where I saw sharks for the first time, and the Indian Ocean, until one day, a month after we had left Glasgow, we arrived in Bombay with a view of the Gateway to India, a large arch towering above the Docks. The weather had been going somewhat gloomy and dark clouds were forming up over the land.

The monsoons had arrived from the east to meet us who, like young Lochinva, had come out of the west.

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