大象传媒

Part Two of an oral history interview with Mr. Anthony Alistair Brown conducted by Jenny Ford on behalf of Bedford Museum.

鈥淚 stayed at the Grammar School until I was just sixteen and I wasn鈥檛 staying! 鈥楢nd what shall we do with him?鈥� said mother. So apart from a short period of time when I too was old enough to help knock down buildings and my parents said, 鈥楬ow would you like to go to sea as a Cadet?鈥� Another of father鈥檚 friends was with the Pacific Steam Navigation Company and arranged for me to become a Cadet in the Merchant Navy, this was in 1943. I did two trips with them altogether.

I had to train - Cadets were trained in Seamanship 鈥� at sea! We were really cheap labour and if we weren鈥檛 doing anything more exciting we would be chipping rust off and painting! But it was exciting, obviously. Well I was the lowest but I was only second lowest the second trip because somebody junior to me had come in as well.

My first voyage was undertaken on the MV Loretto. She was diesel engined, built in 1921, the first of diesel engines. Quite a big ship - about 23,000 ton I think displacement. She had a Bridge amidships, two sets of storage for鈥檃rd and two aft and they were three deep as well. We knew the route because she was a regular ship. There were places we went to that would vary. We carried a lot of material, bathroom fittings which were very, very much needed in South America. We sailed from Liverpool and went up passed the Isle of Man, round Northern Ireland and then we sailed to Canada the first time, United States the second. We were in a convoy going, we were above Iceland and came round by Greenland. Iceland was quite green but Greenland was quite icy! Then we pulled in at Boston, Massachusetts and the second voyage we also called in but we didn鈥檛 go right into the harbour, lighters came out and took material off.

They unloaded at sea, they did that quite a lot. Then on both occasions we went to New York through Long Island and came round into the Port of New York the back way round and the first time I was ashore and the second time we were anchored off the Statue of Liberty. It was the second trip when the war actually was over in Europe. We went to Guant谩namo Bay, Cuba to get directions and on both occasions we did that because the first one the Americans were running convoys down, there were quite a few. They wouldn鈥檛 switch their lights off, the Americans, which wasn鈥檛 terribly sensible because the silhouettes of our ships were showing up against the lights. They had no lights on the Pacific side but they didn鈥檛 think there was a problem on the Atlantic, the Eastern side, and they lost an enormous number of ships because the Germans would surface and then fire on them.

Being wartime we were a defensively equipped Merchant Ship (DEMS) which were fired by the civilian crew but we had a 4.5鈥� gun on the Poop which was fired by a Royal Artillery Sergeant and a Naval Warrant Officer and they maintained that. We just had the one Royal Navy man. The Sergeant was Royal Artillery and the Naval chap was a Petty Officer and they were both gunnery experts. Now they were 鈥� the machine guns we had were lightweight Lewis machine guns and we also had Orlikon guns, Swedish design. We also had machine guns which the cooks fired - you know anybody could fire them really. But I was given the job, under the Third Officer - I was given the job of directing the fire. I had a steel helmet of course and a duffle coat. And then after we鈥檇 been in the Caribbean we went through then to the Pacific. We weren鈥檛 in a convoy once in the Pacific. Going through the Panama Canal was the first time I鈥檇 seen negroes and these chaps must have been six and a half feet tall, they were enormous chaps and they took charge of the ship and took it through the series of locks. It was the first time that I had seen alligators and I remember the First Mate saying to me on my first trip, he said, 鈥楴ow you are going to have your breakfast al fresco, when you write home tell them you鈥檝e had your breakfast al fresco.鈥� Cornflakes, milk and prickly pears 鈥� avocados. My first experience of avocados and bananas, well I remember bananas from before the war. The Caribbean was very hot and sticky. Well it was intriguing! We sailed right down the Pacific coast, it鈥檚 a very long coast actually and right down really pretty well to Patagonia. The inlets there were like Scottish lochs.

I was rapidly gaining experience really. Because the more senior ones were down below organising the loading of the cargo into the three deck levels and I was as we came in I was on a Foreign Party that was slinging ropes ashore and getting anchors up and that sort of thing.

I borrowed a hammock and they were rather good because it got very sweaty. I was doing watches, it was important to do that as well. But the worst of the war was over really by the middle of 1943 when I first sailed. There were no longer the huge problems because the Germans were losing an enormous number of submarines.

It took a long time because I would reckon it took three or four weeks to cross the Atlantic because we were in convoy and although our own ship was capable of doing 13 or 14 knots there were some in the convoy that could do four and half or five if you got the wind behind them! You had to go at their speed. But on the return on my last trip we weren鈥檛 in convoy at all then of course and we crossed very much quicker.

We were bringing back what could best be described politely as bird droppings because they were our cargo coming back. It was dumped in the holds. They made explosives from them. And also of course there was a demand for the food for the farmers you see as fertilizer. We also, of course not in the same hold, we also brought back quite a lot of sugar, molasses etc. It was in containers, like 40 gallon drums.

On the second voyage of course by the time we got down to the Caribbean the war in Europe was over but one of our regular places to go to Colombia - now Colombia has two coast lines, one of them on the Caribbean and the other one on the Pacific Ocean. So we used to call to both of those. On our way back we were going through into the Atlantic when the Second World War in Japan was over so I saw none of those celebrations at all.

The first voyage was longer. It was, oh it must have been a lot longer - I would have thought about ten or eleven months the first one. Well, that鈥檚 partially because of the convoys you see but coming back the second time we were about 鈥� yes we were over a year on the first one and ten or eleven months on the second. I think it would have been about the beginning of December 1944 that we set off on the second voyage. When we came back home on leave because we 鈥� being Merchant Navy 鈥� we wore uniforms, the Cadets and we also had a very similar arrangement to the ones that the Royal Navy had for their Midshipmen. We wore battle dress tops and because we hoped we鈥檇 be mistaken for submariners we wore the white tops even though we were told it was not proper garb for the Pacific Steam Navigation Company - we nevertheless would wear them. I don鈥檛 think we fooled anyone. We got danger money which stopped afterwards but there was danger money to begin with!鈥�

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