大象传媒

British Latin American Volunteer

I was a British subject from birth, having moved to Brazil when I was 5 years old, and was 17 when war was declared. I lived in the Brazilian highlands, 350 miles north of Rio, twelve miles from Belo Horizonte, where I grew up.

My father, whom I was named after, served with the Durham Light Infantry during WW1; he lost two brothers and my mother lost a brother during that war, so they were reluctant to allow me to join up. You were under your parents鈥� jurisdiction until you were 21. I asked them again for their consent to join up when I was 18 years old, but they only agreed during 1941 by which time I was 19, so they then agreed for me to come over to Britain. If you had a British passport but living abroad you weren鈥檛 subject to military service and to enlist you had to be in Britain or a Commonwealth country.

During this period of time I worked for a British gold mining company - the St. John Delray Mining Company, and was passed fit to enlist by their medical officer.

Passages were difficult to obtain and I was eventually allocated one in July 1941. I left by night train from Belo Horizonte on 27th July to Rio only to be told on arrival that I had to sail from the river port of Santos which entailed another overnight journey so after spending the day with friends in Rio I took a train to Sao Paulo and then another one to Santos arriving there on 29th July.

Brazil was a dictatorship and every citizen carried an ID card, so the first thing that I had to do on arrival in Santos was to report to the police station to show this ID and my passport which they stamped. I then reported to the Royal Mail Lines, this was the shipping company that brought the chilled beef over from Argentina, I found that the ship hadn鈥檛 arrived yet but was expected anytime.

To pass the time I went to see if I could find two friends of mine called Lister who had gone to Buenos Aires on their honeymoon and were on their way back to Rio when their ship 鈥楾he Uruguay鈥� docked in Santos that morning, but they had already gone ashore so I never found them. While I was standing on the promenade deck of the Uruguay, I happened to look downstream and saw a small grey battle ship, flying the red ensign indicating that it was British, sailing into port. It was listing heavily to the port (left side) due to the cargo shifting. This was the 4,760 tonne 鈥楤rittany鈥�, she looked so tiny I hoped that this wasn鈥檛 my transport to Britain鈥� but it was!

The Brittany was a motor vessel, not a steam ship. We shared accommodation 鈥� eight passengers in four cabins. Once on board I met my fellow passengers, there were three free French, a Czech, an Englishman and myself, six in total. I shared a cabin with the Englishman; he was a reservist in the Royal Engineers. The cabins had curtains as the doors were never shut in case the ship was torpedoed and you became trapped inside.

The first thing that I did was contact the boatswain who made me up a kitbag that I called my 鈥楶anic bag鈥� as it held my passport, ID card and money, this was American dollars as we were not allowed to bring sterling into the country because German counterfeiters were trying to flood the market to destabilise the economy.

The ship carried a 4鈥� naval gun on the stern manned by a naval gunner and members of the ships crew, a Bofors anti-aircraft gun on the deck manned by a DEMS (members of the Royal Artillery who had volunteered for this duty). In addition they had Oerlikon machine guns. The bridge was a three decker with guns in each corner, and two hand-held Vickers machine guns. All of the ordnance on the ship was under the care of a marine corporal. Around the ship there was some de-gauzing equipment which was to provide immunity from magnetic mines.

The lifeboats were always swung out on the davits so that they could be rapidly lowered if required, the lifejackets had old Hessian harnesses with cork supports which you fastened around the waist, if anything happened you were advised not to wear the jackets as it could rise up and throttle you 鈥� you were asked to carry it as a buoyancy aid. My life jacket, panic bag and hat were always ready.

Loading and all formalities were all completed by the 3rd August. We sailed out of port and turned north, sailing up the coast of Brazil. It was really hot on board as the ship was blacked-out. Once we went out into the Atlantic I realized that we were on a British ship.

The distance from Natal (N.E Brazil) to Monrovia, Liberia was about 1,000 miles and as it would only take a U-boat 3 days to cover that distance we were constantly on the look out as lots of ships had been lost in this area. We had three incidents on the journey. Back then Brazilian fishermen used to go out up to 100 miles from the coast on balsawood rafts with triangular sails attached; when they were fishing they lowered the sails so the masts were the only things visible. One morning the alarm bells went and the ship veered away in the opposite direction. It transpired that the look-out in the crows nest had seen what he thought was a periscope 鈥� but it was actually one of these masts. The ship went on a zigzag route rather than a direct course to confuse the enemy.

Every morning I鈥檇 look at the state of the sea, not just for the weather conditions but to see what manner of horrible beasties had been washed out to sea from the Brazilian rivers particularly the Amazon, I did not fancy jumping into the water at all!

The steering on the ship was electro-hydraulic and at lunchtime one day the captain was called away as we were going around in a circle because one of the motors had burnt out, fortunately the ship was equipped with hand steering gear and it took two quarter-masters to bring the ship under control. Once a new electric motor had been fitted we carried on towards Trinidad in the West Indies arriving on 14th August. We sailed along the north coast of Trinidad, with Tobago on the right. The sea was a beautiful green and a school of porpoises suddenly appeared in front of the bows and escorted us into the Port of Spain, the crew took this as a good omen as porpoises and dolphins are considered to be mans鈥� best friends.

We went ashore with strict instructions to meet the captain at a certain time. When the launch boat reached the quayside we saw a number of Trinidadian women waiting to return clothes to the sailors that they had washed for them. We refuelled and sailed through to the North Atlantic to Halifax, Nova Scotia.

Another incident occurred shortly after we left Trinidad. Maintenance wasn鈥檛 done as regularly as in peacetime, the chief engineer was concerned about the ship and we stopped for a repair to be carried out 鈥� it was a frightening experience to be on-board a stationary, drifting, blacked-out ship with no engines running 鈥� a glow in the sky to the left hand side, was rather eerie especially as we had to be silent.

Although America wasn鈥檛 in the war at the time, the Catalan aircraft of the American coastguard would fly over a ship and ask it to identify itself. We arrived in Halifax on 2nd Sept and as passengers were allowed ashore for a few hours. On the 4th we sailed out of Halifax and formed up with a convoy of 45 ships 鈥� 5 columns of 9 ships 鈥� our escort comprised of one armed merchant cruiser (converted passenger ships), six Canadian navy corvettes and one cam ship (freighters fitted with a steam catapult on the bow, this carried a mark 1 Sea Hurricane). The pilots were from the RAF and Fleet Air Arm, the planes couldn鈥檛 land again so the pilots had to ditch into the sea and hope that they would be picked up. We sailed towards Iceland.

The first week out of Halifax the weather was too rough to go out on deck but the second week it calmed down. One night I volunteered to do a gun watch and at about 3 am, I saw all of these flashing lights like a battle at sea. The radio cabin was always manned but the radio was silent, when I dashed into the radio cabin the operator told me that the flashing lights were the natural phenomenon 鈥� the Aurora Borealis. We then ran into fog and in order for the ships to keep stationary a large barrel was towed a set distance off the stern. As we emerged from the fog an RAF plane flew close, not knowing if we were enemy or not, he signalled to acknowledge us and flew off.

We sailed between the Isle of Lewis and the mainland through 鈥楾he Minch鈥� and docked at Liverpool. We were ordered to wear life jackets before entering the river Mersey as the Germans had mined it. We went to Manchester via the Manchester shipping canal to discharge and the masts were lowered for this procedure.

The immigration procedure took between one to one and a half hours as my only identification was a British passport. I convinced them that I was a genuine British nineteen year old who wanted to join the RAF, and I made my way to Newcastle to 鈥榡oin up鈥� and went firstly to Warrington and then onto Blackpool for basic training.

I was on active service until October 1946. The ship that I was repatriated to Brazil on was commanded by the same captain that brought me over in 1941! He told me that the Brittany had been torpedoed in 1942.

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