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This story was submitted to the People’s War Website by Anne Wareing, of the Lancashire Home Guard on behalf of Jack Davies and has been added to the site with his permission…

February 1943, I was 20 years old and had been in the RAF for two years on different stations, when I found myself along with a lot more bemused characters on the dockside at Liverpool, gazing up at the largest ship I had ever been near too. I was told it was the P and O liner O’Tranto, our home for how long, we could only guess, as we had been issued with tropical kit.

When we were all settled on board, jobs were allocated to some of the chaps. I found myself with three others with a job in the ships galley, on the night shift. This wasn’t as bad as it seemed when I saw how cramped the conditions on the mess decks. My job in the galley was to cut the bread for the next day, this involved being issued with innumerable large loaves and the use of a hand operated bread slicer. It evolved that one turn of the handle produced one slice. My quota for the night was 2000 slices. It would have been more entertaining if it had been a barrel organ. To save time, large blocks of butter were put in a deep tray; then popped in the oven, two slices were dipped in the molten butter, rubbed together, job done in no time. For the benefit of those in the galley, ropes were tied along the passageways, so that when the seas became rough, one had something to hold on to instead of falling against the hot ovens.

By now it had become considerably warmer through the day and we guessed we were heading into the South Atlantic. The sunsets by now were quite spectacular; the sun so large and red seemed to race towards the horizon. I was on deck before starting the night shift, when I saw a destroyer traveling along the horizon underneath the setting sun. as the sun dipped below the horizon, a huge column of water shot into the air, as though the sun had actually touched the sea. The answer was, the destroyer had launched a depth charge and the resulting explosion made it appear very spectacular.

The evening of the tenth day at sea, the air had a distinct woody, earthy smell and though there was no land in sight we were told that was where it was coming from. True enough the next morning on the skyline was a line of green, which as we sailed nearer developed into a range of jungle- clad hills, which lay behind the West African port of Freetown, Sierra Leone. This was our first sight of land since we sailed past Northern Ireland.

The convoy sailed into the large natural harbour of Freetown and there did not appear to be any docking facilities. We disembarked by climbing down rope netting that had been lowered down the ships side, into barge type crafts, to be taken ashore. In lorries we were taken inland from Freetown, about ten miles to the site of the camp, which on appearance did not thrill the boys. The name of the camp was Jui, it was surrounded by swamp and called the swamp of death. We were to form the ground crew of 490 Squadron RNZAF, which would be equipped with Catalina and Sunderland flying boats, tasked with anti submarine patrols and shipping escort duties. Jui would be our home for 2 years, weather very humid and hot, that is another story.

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