大象传媒

After leaving No 1 Amphibious Training Corps near Barmouth, Wales in 1945, we were sleeping in a church hall in Elland near Huddersfield.
One dark night we left there to go to Liverpool where we boarded a large troop ship called the Georgic.
Very soon we were going down stream, and as soon as we reached open sea someone started depth charging, then it went quiet.
When daylight came next day and all we could see was sea and seagulls, no escorts - 'What no Royal Navy'? was the saying all the way to the port of Malta. It stayed that way until we reached Port Said via Malta. All that was visible in Valetta harbour were the tops of ships masts and funnels. On the journey I went up to the Heads and there was a bloke sitting inside the main stairs blackout curtain.
I asked if he felt ill as I had some asprins. He said, "this is the third troopship I've been on, and the two before have sunk under me, and I have had 'survivors leave', and I am not expecting to get where we are going on this one". I said "I'll sit here with you if you don't mind mate"!
We did see some Spanish fishing boats before we reached Gibralta. I forgot it was said that the Spanish used to tell the Germans where our ships were.
A submarine came right up under the Georgic and ran on the surface away towards Sicily. We thought he was going to hit us with his stern tubes. We all breathed a sigh of relief when someone opened the hatch waving a white cap at the crew on the bridge of our boat.
I am happy to say not many weeks after the Americans dropped the atom bombs and the rest, as they say, is history.

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