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George Robinson,Merchant Navy

This story is taken from an interview with George Robinson, and has been added to the site with their permission. The author fully understands the site's terms and conditions. The interview was by Deirdre Donnelly, and transcription was by Bruce Logan.
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I’m from Comber. I circumnavigated the world, but I was never in Derry.
Merchant Navy were on the go all the time. The navy got time off, but we were at it.
It was on convoy PT17 from Iceland to Russia. We lost 21 ships out of 34 in the first couple of days. We had to scatter the convoy because the Turpitz could have sunk us all. Only 11 of the 34 got there, and only 7 got back.
We got to the Med in early 1943. We were set afire by a German bomber that had itself been set afire by the escort.
That was a big 3-prop troopship. It only set the lifeboats on fire. The other ship went down, the crew drowned. It became a Kamikaze.

At Singapore a mine lifted this big troopship out of the water and damaged the engine. We were towed by wooden-bottomed tugs, we spent 10 wks in Singapore getting repairs.

2 yrs under Mountbatten in SEAC, but after the mine we had to come home after 11 months.

When Japan was liberated we were the 2nd troopship to go in. The Changi jail, we took the POWs from there. We did 2 trips to Australia, then to NZ and from there across the Pacific, through the Panama Canal, back home. We’d gone by the Suez canal, so we went right round.

The Japs overran Malaya. All these boys couldn’t escape. They were captured and treated very badly.

Smallpox aboard ship. We had to bury 3 soldiers at sea. From North Africa, they were New Zealanders. They’d let them loose in Cairo, they ran amok where they shouldn’t, and 3 got smallpox. It put the rest in danger, there was no way off the ship.

I was only 22yo on the Russian convoy in 1942. John was on PQ16, attacked by bombers on the way to Russia. We lost 21 ships in the first couple of days. When a convoy scatters it’s the worst thing. Grouped they’re 36 ships surrounded by warships with guns.
A sub’s faster in the water than you, 15 knotts to our 12.
Admiral Sir Dudley Pound — they found out he had a tumour in the brain - overruled the admiral in charge of the warships. They thought the Turpitz was coming out, and if the Turpitz was coming out, it was the same as the Bismark, it could sink a ship 12 miles away.

Going to Russia, to Archangelsk, you had to go up to the icepack, a big mass of ice. We got within 700 miles of the north pole. If you went into the water, 3 minutes before you froze up. We pulled men out who lost arms and legs. The German planes in Norway only had a short flight.

We never got the government to acknowledge us. When a ship was sunk with an ordinary seaman aboard, as soon as it sunk they didn’t get any pay. An officer’s pay continued. You went up the ranks, depending the length of service. I was an engineer in 5 different ships, all different engines. A young man of 22, you don’t think of the danger.
An engineer at sea, you hear the sound underwater. An explosion, the water contains it. A mine is worse than a torpedo. We were mined, I know what it’s like.

You’re isolated, especially if you are an officer. You’re on watch with 3 men — 4-8, 8-12, 12-8. you had to do any repairs. Plenty to do you busy. 5 years, I never missed a watch. You couldn’t afford to, there was nobody to take your place.

If we hadn’t got food to Britain and ammo to Russia, the war would have been over.
We were all volunteers from NI.
I would have been in the RAF if I could, but I was trained as an engineer. I had a friend in the RAF, a pilot. He crashed. You want to do things that are excitement.
I was freelance, a civilian.

Going up to Russia, the ice built up. One ship turned turtle and went down. It was the ice, made it top-heavy. In bad seas you had no chance.

The yanks had everything we didn’t have, and a lot of medals before they got here. The girls all liked them — big six footers coming over here.

In Russia you had to be careful — a mistake and you’d be sent to Siberia.
Young girls were the intelligentsia, brought up in universities. The Russians were all out doing something. The girls had rifles, the men were all away getting killed, millions of them.

It was a very intensive 5 yrs.
I was a draughtsman in Harland and Wolff in 1938. As soon as you completed apprenticeship you were a draughtsman.

The first raid did a lot of damage, second raised the roof, third flattened it. We were evacuated to Charlie’s Mill, Seymour hill in Dunmurry.
Ships came into the yard for repairs. I asked the chief to put a word in with the ships. He got me in with them. I was sent to London, Euston Station. There was an air-raid on. A policeman took me to the Salvation Army hostel, and next morning I got to my destination.
3 days later I was at sea.
In 1941 I crossed the Atlantic to Halifax, Nova Scotia, in a Hurricane. Bombers couldn’t go out, so we only lost 1 ship — broke in half! I was sick for a week.

Leave? When I got to NI and back you’d spent your leave travelling.

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