大象传媒

VOYAGERS

The day of embarkation at last arrived. We took the train to the dockside at Liverpool on a windy Sunday morning with all our personal kit, as we stood waiting our turn to go on board, a loose barrage balloon went drifting overhead, trailing its cable. Once on board the troop ship, Ormonde, 22,000 tons, I believe, it felt very claustrophobic and crowded down below the waterline in 鈥楩鈥� deck. So most of us made for the open decks up above and watched the loading of water and other stores, the dockers managed to drop and burst an open crate of oranges; some of us decided we would have one but they were quickly retrieved by the powers that be and never seen again!
I left it rather late in the evening to go below to sling my hammock, unfortunately for me the only hooks now available were too close together with the result that it had a bad droop and I had a sore back in the morning. We were allowed to write a last letter home, I learned the date was cut out by the censor.
The ship now stood out in the Mersey for a day or so giving us a fine view of the famous Liverpool buildings: also looking over the other side we could watch the pollution flowing down the river.
For some reason I along with Lofty Strudwick volunteered to act as mess orderlies for our table, which seated about twelve, this was probably because we were sat at the outside end. Orderly duties involved going to the galley, collecting the food and drink, and dividing it out as fairly as possible. The worst item being the butter, which I had to pat as near as possible into a rectangle before cutting it into equal portions to keep every one happy.
Then one morning we weighed anchor and set sail down the Mersey and out into the Irish Sea where we turned north up the coast. One of our cooks, Montgomerie by name, but of course 鈥楳onty鈥� to all and sundry, was quite excited as we sailed past the Cloch lighthouse on the Ayrshire coast, pointing it out to those present. It would be the last time that he would see it.
We now arrived in the Clyde, and anchored off Gourock together with many ships, one of which I recall had a railway engine as deck cargo.
Having now been organised into a convoy, we left the Clyde and sailed north and west with the coast of Ireland on our left, and out into the Atlantic, to the accompaniment of blasts of the ships sirens and the 鈥榳hoop whoop鈥� of the destroyer escorts as we pursued a zig zag course. We had no idea of our ultimate destination. We did try to keep track of our main heading by sticking a match in a hole in the ship鈥檚 deck rail and observing the shadow cast around midday. We must have gone a good way out into the Atlantic as we had several time changes. Proceeded by the Lili Bolero signature tune we had occasional snatches of news relayed over the ships broadcast system from the Overseas Service of the B.B.C.
We began to settle down to a ship board routine. The serving mess orderlies including Lofty Strudwick and I, missed the morning deck parades as we carried out our not too arduous duties of cleaning the containers and mess deck generally.
I had now got my hammock hooks the proper distance apart and found it quite comfortable. At night, when they were in use, there was a continuous layer of hammocks across the mess deck and it was nice to lie there in the subdued light and watch them all swaying together with the motion of the ship, of course, if you wanted to go to the 鈥榟eads鈥� as the navy called the toilets one had to travel in a very low stoop underneath. One or two even slept on the mess tables. The dodgy time was in the mornings when the occasional early riser would untie the wrong rope, and one end of someone else鈥檚 hammock and the occupant would slither to the deck giving voice to some very rude words! The drill in the morning was to roll them up, tie them with their ropes and stack them against the bulkhead with the lifejackets. This was known as 鈥楲ash and Stow鈥�.
The food aboard was very good; white bread and butter, the white flour it seems kept better. We also had tinned fruit which was quite a luxury and the best cigarettes such as Capstan and Players. These were all available from the canteen, of course the health risks were pretty well unknown in those days, and we were buying them in round sealed tins which contained fifty for one shilling and eight pence.
We spent a lot of time playing 鈥楬ousey Housey鈥� now known as Bingo, it being the one legal gambling game allowed on board a troop ship. We naturally also spent a lot of time observing the other ships in the convoy and the occasional depth charging by the destroyers: it was also very relaxing to just look over the ships side and watch the water rolling back from the bows as we ploughed on.
Another diversion was when boat drill was carried out at night. For this we had to wear our greatcoats, and lifebelts to which a red light was attached to the shoulder strap; to hopefully enable us to be picked up from the sea. The idea being that the boats would be lowered into water - they were always out on their davits in wartime. During the drill we queued up in the pitch dark stairways, with a hand on the shoulder of the man in front, and at last reached our boat deck, from 鈥楩鈥� deck in our case. In a real emergency we would be given the order and jump overboard into the water and the boats would then pick us up, our greatcoats in the meantime would help us to retain as much heat as possible. Funnily enough we did not think or worry much about it at the time.
The rubbish was always thrown overboard at night, so that should a 鈥楿鈥� Boat spot it, by daylight we would be well out of the area.
We gradually made our way south and west, passing through The Straits of Gibraltar late at night. One of the crew told me where we were as we were not supposed to be on deck during the passage.
The next day around noon the ships in the convoy carried out some anti-aircraft gunnery. We now knew for sure that we were in the Mediterranean Sea and at night the ship left beautiful trails of phosphorescence in the water. We had some lovely weather with balmy evenings. On one such night a boxing match was held on deck. The highlight of which was one of the contestants who had an unusual style in that he boxed with both hands at once, causing howls of laughter from the spectators. On another evening a concert was held on the deck of the ship, singing all the old favourites to the accompaniment of an accordionist - that was very moving in the setting as the singing appeared to drift away over the calm sea.
As it was now so hot some of the lads slept on deck in the spaces between the rail and deckhouse, slinging their hammocks on the hooks provided underneath the deck above. I still preferred to sleep down below practically in the nude. At tea times the hot tea made our backs run with sweat, our mess was next to the galley which did not help. We could have sea water showers but they tended to leave one sticky all over.
We entered The Grand Harbour in Malta after a slight hitch. A cable fouled either the propeller or the rudder. We dropped anchor for a few days and it was interesting to watch the colourful Maltese boatmen standing up in their boats rowing. They eagerly picked the half loaves of bread from the water. These had been thrown overboard with galley rubbish, no doubt highly regarded by a people who had been so near starvation for so long.
At nights there were a number of small explosions which made one wonder as to the cause. On enquiring from one of the crew, he put it down to cleaning out the boilers, but I have wondered since if it could have been to deter Italian frogmen.
We seemed to have lost track of days and dates, but one morning we sailed, and on going up on deck found we had joined a fantastic armada of ships of every description stretching as far as the eye could see. The weather had now turned dull and quite stormy. Later in the morning we were issued with a letter from General Montgomery telling us that we were destined for the invasion of Sicily and what was expected of us; as was his method, taking the common soldier into his confidence as much as possible. We were also given a phrase book, with a picture of the temple of Paestum on the front cover, and a foreword telling us how to behave, and what to expect from the Italian people.
During the forenoon we were sailing along the east coast of Sicily; and by midday the enemy shore and the misty hills began to take an ominous shape, which tended to give one rather mixed feelings.
We were below decks getting our belongings together as we entered the Gulf of Augusta, when there were some loud explosions as the ship was bombed, fortunately near misses.
The ship stood off shore whilst we disembarked over the side into infantry landing craft. Not before we had been issued with sheets of toilet paper, but I can not remember any food. Although, we must have been given food too, probably: 鈥楾he unexpired portion of the day鈥檚 ration鈥�, to quote a favourite service phrase.
Once ashore at the former Italian seaplane base, although it was now a boiling hot day, we were ordered to wear our greatcoats, with full kit, blanket roll, weapons and kit bag. We made our way a mile or so inland to a farm with vineyards and some olive trees. We certainly missed our trucks which were still aboard another boat of course, apparently out in the bay.
We were to stay there for several days, drawing our water from the farm well which soon ran dry. That night there was an air raid on the ships out in the bay, it was very noisy but colourful, with flares and tracer anti-aircraft fire and explosions generally. It distracted our attention from the ground we were sleeping on which was crawling with ants, as the shrapnel came whizzing down.
The next afternoon we were given some food from eight man compo packs and managed to brew up in small groups and heat some of the tinned stuff. It had originally been planned that we would be landed at Catania to service fighters on the former German landing strips at Lentini, but they had still not been captured so we were in a state of limbo. It seemed we were without communication as C.O. Flt. Lt. Fairburn set out on foot to try and make contact with higher authority. I do not know what the result was or how far he went, but I did see him bathing his feet on return.
We sampled some of the grapes, but we were soon returning to the vineyards answering the rather urgent call of nature. The grapes had been sprayed; and as we had no tools to dig latrines, it was all very unhygienic, for about one hundred and fifty men.
At nights we were told to expect German paratroops to drop, in a counter attack. However, none materialised in our area. During the day some of us made our way to the beach and went for a swim in our birthday suits. The bay was littered with exploded jerry-cans that had contained petrol, and other debris from ammunition and fuel ships, which had received direct hits the night before and had blown up.
The ship with our trucks and mechanics had been there at the time. I learned later, from our Australian mechanic, Lofty Martin, he told of jacking a shell out of one of the anti-aircraft guns that had jammed.
We made to swim out to the boom in the bay which was some good distance from the shore, but the very scary air raid sirens sounded on the ships when we were about halfway, so we did an about turn and headed for the shore. It is surprising how slow progress is in such a situation. On the way back we found some lemon trees and it was quite a novelty to pick one or two lemons.
Our camp being near a railway line we saw some wagon loads of German prisoners going south.
At last our trucks arrived having been craned off the ship down at Syracuse. We had certainly missed them and all our equipment. Now that we were fully mobile we set off south to base ourselves in an almond orchard near Cassibile. There, helping out with refuelling and servicing of Beaufighters of 600 Squadron, who were on night-fighter duties, at which they were successful; and we witnessed at least one German plane going down in flames.
One of my tasks was loading and delivering 40 gallon drums of one hundred octane petrol to the airstrip from the storage dump. I also did a water and ration run for our own use. For the water we used galvanised containers approximately 3ft. long x 2 ft. high x 6in. wide, holding roughly 8 gallons. They were known as Camel Tanks. We filled them from a canvas reservoir at an artesian well situated at the huge storage dump where we drew the rations. The water was heavily chlorinated to taste.
Our cooks were now fully operational as well. There was now porridge for breakfast and sometimes bacon; tea and biscuits at Tiffin time; Bully beef in various disguises and biscuits, for the evening meal.
We went swimming again from our new base at a rocky spot on the coast. It served partly to get relief from the heat and partly to get a wash. The wings of some gliders that had crashed landed there made excellent springy diving boards. I got into some trouble that evening, the magazines of my Sten gun had not been holding the rounds properly as related earlier; and I thought this was an opportunity to try them out by firing a round or two out to sea, but Tank Trap Taylor took a dim view of it and had us all lined up whilst he carried out a weapons inspection as he did not see me in the act. Of course, then he found out who the culprit was. I was lucky to get off with a lecture after I had explained my reason for doing same. One got the feeling that he was more worried about a bullet in the back, from unauthorised shooting.
It was at Cassibile that two captured German trailer refuelling pumps appeared on the scene. They were marvellously engineered. They had large filters and all kinds of couplings and hoses, stack pipes and valves; which allowed fuel to be pumped out of forty gallon barrels and enabled switching from an empty barrel to a full one without stopping or drawing air. The whole pump was powered by a petrol engine. The glaring contrast that spoilt the unit was the fact that it ran on iron wheels, no doubt due to the rubber shortages in Germany. Our fitters M.T. managed to exchange these with tyred wheels from off our 鈥楾rolley Accs.鈥�, (these were hand drawn batteries with a petrol driven charging set, mounted on top, and a lead for plugging into the aircraft to start their engines).
Some of the Sicilian peasants called in at our camp and they were quite friendly. I tried to converse with them, using the phrase book and sign language; asking them when it would rain, they said: 鈥淥ttobre poggo, Novembre molti鈥�. They also got in: 鈥淭edesci neinti bouno鈥�. (This meant Germans no good - nasty).
Some of the lads had got hold of Italian rifles which they had found on one of their foraging expeditions and fired off a few rounds. The rifles had not much look to them compared with our much bigger Lee Enfields. Obviously being spread out in the almond orchard Tank Trap Taylor did not hear the firing!

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