大象传媒

I was on three ships during one voyage; The Louis Pasteur, Black Eagle and Eelbeck. I had to go to Scotland to join the Louis Pasteur, on which we were paid only 1 shilling a month. It was only half built when we got there. The Pasture was supposed to take us to Halifax, Canada where we would join the Black Eagle, but she sunk coming round the coast from Galverston to Halifax. This was because the Black Eagle was one of the ships that the American government sold to the British government - built during the 18th century. It was floated up from the base of the sea in the 1940s, given a lick of paint and sold. But the Black Eagle was so rusted it could not survive its first voyage. We had to take a train from Halifax, Canada to Montreal because the St Lawrence River freezes up in the winter and that was the only way to get there. We were in Montreal for about two months, we were first British seaman as a ships crew EVER to be in Montreal for a Christmas and New Year! Then we went to Galveston by train again. We went to pick up the third ship the Eelback, which wasn鈥檛 ready, so we stayed in Galveston for a month waiting for its completion. We were situated on one side of the dock, whilst the German merchant Navy were on the other side! We finally left Galveston and sailed to Halifax where we joined a convoy of 26 other ships, including AMC, an Army Merchant Cruiser. One night, whilst we were at sea in convoy, a 'Wolf Pack' - a convoy of German U boats - attacked us and managed to sink twenty ships in one night. Hundreds were killed, and nobody was picked up. In such circumstances, if an oil tanker is hit, the oil would land on top of the sea and start burning up. The lads would jump over the side of the boat and then would be hit by the fires. It was very seldom that any crew men could save such conditions and we would just have to carry on and leave them there. The next day another ship was hit and we reformed convoy with the remaining five ships. Our skipper decided we were to go through the port on our own without the convoy. A Royal Navy Destroyer appeared on the horizon and ordered us to rejoin convoy, our skipper refused and the naval ship turned the guns on us, and said that they would sink us. We rejoined convoy!

Eventually I arrived home, just before the May Blitz, which started on the 1st May 1941. I lived in Carrisbrook Road, Walton, Liverpool. On the 3rd May our house was hit by a landmine and we were buried alive in the cellar underneath the rubble, losing everything. The British government had decided to build some shelters in the cellars, when the war started you see. But what they forgot about was that we had windows in the front of the cellar, and they never covered those up. My father brought home a big 3 foot by 2 foot water tank, filled it with rubble and placed it in front of the window, that took the blast of the bomb and we were saved. But the neighbours on either side were killed because they did not take the same precautions. We had nothing left, the government had an office in Bootle where people could go to obtain some money. They gave my father 拢6 and 7 shillings to keep a family of roughly ten of us. My dad said to make our way to our grandmothers, some other members of the family had lost their homes also, some went to stay with family in Huyton, and we went to stay with family in Birkenhead.

25% of all Merchant Seamen were killed during the war, as estimated by the government.

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