大象传媒

A JOURNEY ACROSS THE ATLANTIC IN WARTIME

In 1941 my husband was sent to Canada to help in the manufacture of naval guns which were to be produced at the Canadian Pacific Railway works in Calgary and in other factories in Vancouver, Hamilton etc. I stayed at home with my baby daughter aged 14 months hoping one day to join him. After writing many letters to his Department I.N.O and other authorities, I was at last given permission to go to Canada provided by paid my own fare-which was 拢80.

In October 1942 I obtained a berth on S. S. Bayano, a banana boat to belonging to the Elders Fiffe Line. My sister-in-law travelled with me to Liverpool where I joined the convoy, which gathered at the mouth of the river. It was quite a large convoy accompanied by destroyers and corvettes, the latter were painted white to camouflage them against the snows of Iceland and Greenland. Only three of the ships had passengers and all were in ballast.

We were issued with life jackets which had a small red light on the shoulder, and were told to wear them all the time. A sailor told me that if you were thrown into the sea that light was a life saver as it could be seen for miles on a dark night. Another precaution was that we were not allowed to close our cabin doors but had to leave them partly open secured by a hook.

We zigzagged up and down the ocean for nearly two weeks to avoid U-boats which were hunting in packs at that time (called wolf packs). For the first seven or eight days all was well that then at about seven o'clock one evening the alarm bells sounded and a steward rushed into my cabin, seized my baby from her cot and said "follow me". (A steward had been assigned to cabins where there was a child and was there to help). We were rushed to the top deck and then the action started. Depth charges were dropped and star shells exploded everywhere, and so the ocean was lit up and the gun on the rear of our ship prepared for action. The noise was terrific and I wondered how anything could survive in the sea if a depth charge exploded near it. The women and children were kept well away from the sides of the ship so we couldn't see what was happening to the rest of the convoy, but we learned afterwards that two ships had been torpedoed. Happily the ships were in ballast and riding high in the water so no passengers were lost, although they did lose all their luggage. The spare cabins in our ship were prepared to receive the rescued people but the sea was too rough for them to be transferred so they had to remain on the destroyers until they reached Canada. The damaged ships were sunk by our destroyers to prevent them falling into enemy hands.

I am a very bad sailor was very sick until the attack, but I suppose fright cured me for I was quite well from then on. The Captain hoped we ladies would keep well dressed at night and needless to say I quite literally slept from then onwards with my boots on,until we reached Halifax, Nova Scotia.

This is the last convoy that took women and children until the next year because the captains complained from it was too much responsibility. October 1942 was known as the worst month of the war for the sinking of vessels in the North Atlantic.

Bertha Hodgson

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