大象传媒

July we were near Glasgow on the boat Windsor Castle, 700 of us RAF, and 400 Army, on board waiting for more boats to arrive to make a convoy. After a week we were on the move, sailing to somewhere abroad! Altogether there were 12 boats, 2 Battleships, 6 or 7 destroyers.

First day, boat drill. In case of any mishaps, like submarines, a loud bell sounds and wherever you are on the ship, you run to the allotted part of the ship given to you earlier, with maybe 50 of us in each group.

The second day, same again and the weather is colder.

No drill the third day. The four of us in our cabin were enjoying a tin of fruit in our pyjamas, ready for bed. All of a sudden there was a very loud bang, the boat shuddered, and the loud bell sounded. Torpedo we thought! I grabbed my great coat (RAF for overcoat) and a pair of socks, thinking it would be cold in the lifeboat. The boat was listing to one side, but we made it to the place for us at the rear of the boat.

Forty of us were huddled together near the lights when a young RAF lad lit a cigarette and the young army officer in charge drew a handgun and pointed it at the lad and said put the bloody fag out, put the bloody fag out! I suppose he thought the Germans might see the fag in front of those lights and the fog, and we thought that ridiculous, especially with a gun pointing around!

We were left in a cold fog for one and half hours and then allowed to go to bed. In the morning it was explained to us what happened. Convoys zigzag in the sea to try and fool the submarines. The Warwick Castle noticed in the fog that a destroyer was heading towards it, and turned quickly away, and doing that, did not see us and crashed into our boat, right into our amidships and creating a 20 foot gap in our side and 10 feet inwards as well! At just below the waterline was a3 feet wide.

If that wasn鈥檛 enough for us, the Warwick Castle must have slid right down the side of our boat, because three lifeboats had gone and their metal supports, holding them up on the boat, were severely bent over. The water running in was causing the boat to lean over to one side. I must say that if all of the lifeboats were intact, they could not have held the 1100 people, so with three lifeboats missing, a few hundred would have been clinging to lumps of wood with no rope to hold onto, being stored on the boat.

On the second, third and fourth day it was still very foggy and at night the lights at the rear were still very bright. During the daytime a loud buzzer was going at intervals. Some of us were having a laugh at the situation, saying the lights were a good guide for a submarine, if it was on top of the sea. It would also hear the buzzer as well. If it was underneath it could detect the engine anyway.

We agreed that if anyone else hit us it must be a very small boat and it must just bounce off. We weren鈥檛 very keen on submarines finding us.

The fifth day was sunny and the damage below the waterline, just above us, was patched up with wood and concrete, but the larger opening had to be left as it was. At 3pm a small plane, maybe from a battleship, flew around us and then disappeared.

The sixth day, on our own until mid afternoon, a battleship found us, but just went past us at speed and we wondered why, but soon found out! A half mile behind us seven depth charges were dropped in a large circle, and that meant that a submarine should now be at the bottom of the sea. We had escaped once, and if the battleship had arrived three minutes later we could all been blown away by a submarine! We were a lucky bunch!

We were informed afterwards, that when we were in the thick fog, that just after the submarine bombing that we were next to Iceland trying to fool the submarines that we were going north, but we would turn around and go all around Africa, to the Middle East, were I spent four years, two in Iraq (deadly climate), one in Palestine and one in Egypt, maintaining and repairing bombers.

Before going to the Middle East we took the Windsor Castle to Bombay, in India, for repairs, and five days after that, we were taken to the Middle East, one hundred of us to Basra, in Iraq, on another ship, and the others to various camps around the gulf.

By Jim Grigor
Boston
Lincs

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