大象传媒

My mother and I had to wait nearly a year before we could get a passage back to England, mainly due to the fact that all the big passenger ships had been taken over by the ministry for transporting the troops.

We left Christchurch in the South Island of New Zealand on ANZAC day 25 April 1942. We travelled on the overnight ferry from Lyttelton to Wellington, North Island.

Several days later we boarded the S.S. Waimarama 11,000 tons in Wellington docks. The Waimarama belonged to the Shaw Savill and Albion Co of London. It was a cargo ship with the usual passenger accommodation for 12 people, converted to carry 24 passengers for the duration of the war. On board were British and other nationalities. All hoping to get back to their various countries once we reached England.

For various reasons our departure from Wellington was delayed several times. We eventually left Wellington on 10 May 1942 and as far as I can remember headed for Sydney Australia. Not an easy passage because at that time the Japanese were lurking round the coasts of New Zealand and Australia.

We had to wait several days in Sydney until a convoy was formed of various ships. We then set sail for the Panama Canal, the convoy headed across the Caribean Sea, the edge of the Gulf of Mexico to Key West.

The nearer we got to the American coast line, ships in the convoy were attacked by either U-boats or depth charged. Sadly not all the ships got to Key West, one was an oil tanker and to this day I can see the tanker being set on fire, a huge orange ball with smoke billowing from it. Although the tanker was only in the next line of ships, we had to keep moving for fear of being attacked ourselves. The shipping channel approaching Key West was very narrow and windy in 1942 ( I don't know about present times). The ships had to move very slowly. Unfortunately 3 ships went aground but we just had to keep moving and leave them as a sitting target. Fortunately at high tide the ships were able to get off the sand banks and reached Key West USA safely. The strange thing was, as all the convoy made its way up the channel there were numerous fishermen about in their small boats quite unaware of the dangers below.

We were in Key West for several days, the ships took on stores while waiting for another convoy to travel up to New York. The day the convoy ws due to leave the Pilot was late boarding the Waimarama. All the other ships left on time, by the time we reached the end of the security area the American Coast Guards would not let us continue on our own because a number of ships had been attacked by the enemy and had sank. The Waimarama had to turn round and got back to Key West where we had to wait several more days, until another convoy was ready to sail. As the ship left the security zone and headed onto the channel, people on board could see the boats which had been attacke several days before, lying on their sides or upside down. As far as I can remember the ships all made a safe passage up the American coast to New York.

The Waimarama and all on board were in New York for at least a week waiting to join another convoy to carry onto England. In the end the Waimarama set sail and we crossed the Atlantic ocean on our own, zigzagging all the time. We had many more boat drill practices than in the Pacific Ocean.

Sadly we heard that a cargo ship had been attacked by a U-boat about 70 or 80 miles ahead of us.

We eventually arrived in Liverpool on
4 July 1942. The whole voyage had taken 8 weeks instead of the usual 4 weeks. As we approached the Liverpool docks we could see the results of the terrible bombing, the people in Liverpool had suffered and many many ship wrecks, due to the heavy bombing.

We had become a very close knit community on board and we were very sorry when the time came to leave and say 'Good Bye' to each other, especially to the Captain, Officers and crew who had all looked after us so well during the voyage.

Even though I was only a school girl of 8 years during the above voyage it is one I will never forget.

The next voyage the S.S. Waimarama went on, was the famous Malta convoy August 1942. During the voyage the Waimarama was attacked and sank. Very sadly very few of the ships company survived.

漏 Copyright of content contributed to this Archive rests with the author. Find out how you can use this.