大象传媒

A personal record of two voyages made in 1941, to South Africa.

Voyage I

My husband and I newly married in December 1940, set sail in the city of Nag pun of the Ellenmon and Bucknall line. We left from Greenock on the Clyde in the April. We sailed in a N.W. direction to avoid submarines but three days out we received a direct hit to the Engine room, it was midnight. No lights, scrambling into clothes and grabbing life jackets etc. Stopping on the way to the muster station to find the lifeboats had been lowered by panicking Lascar seamen.

鈥淲omen and children first鈥� I hung back and managed to jump into the last lifeboat, with my husband. U boat surfaced and the Captain was questioning our own ships Captain on the bridge and told deal with total evacuation of his own ship before he commenced shelling. Our Captain and the army officer manning the Beau forts gun had to jump for it and we subsequently picked them up from the sea in the rafts before drawing away from the shipside.

We heard and saw the ship sink down under the water - a fearful sight. There were nine lifeboats and ours was out of sight of the others most of the time because of the delay. We were also over crowded owing to one of the lifeboats having been smashed in the initial assault.

We were 21hours in the boats the only radio had not been charged and was dead. Much later a Cataliner Flying boat from the USA happened to spot us and sent a signal to the Admiralty in London, giving our position we felt a lot better then however it was still some hours before we were finally picked up by the frigate HMS Gloucester. After 3 more days we were thankfully put ashore off Greenock once more.

Voyage II

June 1941. Having secured another passage to South Africa we joined the SS Gloucester Castle on the Clyde. We had a delay of seven days while a convoy was assembling. We finally sailed, going at the pace of the slowest ships and escorted by two frigates. We ran into dense fog two days out which was very frightening. Next we heard that one of our own ships had been bombed from the air. We had repeated air raid warnings and assembled on deck expecting the worst.

After the first few days we were told that our ship would be leaving the convoy to travel alone at our greater speed. I was so sad to see them disappearing into the distance.

Then commenced a gruelling trip lasting 7 陆 weeks, when any thing that could go wrong, did. Our course was set to sail far out into the west to avoid the submarines. One of our own ship鈥檚 silos broke down reducing our speed considerably. Two of the ship鈥檚 stokers rioted, acquiring guns from RAF personnel on board. They had to be locked up. Some of the men passengers were asked to volunteer to do some stoking (my husband was one); we were burning coal at an alarming rate.

We finally turned and headed back along the equator to land at Ascension Island. The heat was unbearable and water was now strictly rationed. Some of the families on board reported an outbreak of measles. The only liquid freely available was gin of which many drank liberal quantities and inebriation was the story of the day.

After Ascension Island, to exchange radio personnel, we called at St. Helena to replenish our water supply. This took 3 days, as the water lighter had been destroyed, by a mine. However we were allowed the freedom of going ashore and purchase fresh fruit, which was a great treat.

We reached the coast of Namibia, famed for its wrecks at sea. It was then decided that we must put into Walvis Bay to take on more coal and to put ashore the two rioting seamen. Visibility was poor and our own ship nearly got beached. However my husband and I decided that, having touched African soil at last, we would leave this hell-ship and continue by train to Cape Town. So ended an eventful voyage!

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