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I signed on the Merchant Ship, the s/s ADOLF-S-OCHS Articals which was a liberty ship called after the Editor of the New York Times who launched the ship, which was ready for sea in the port of Middlesbrough. I was to take the position as a Water-Tender on the ship which was loaded with ammo. Water Tender by the way was an American way of describing a Ship’s Donkey-Man, in the Ship’s Engine Room.

My duties were to check the instruments, attend to the main engines and the telegraph re the speed of our ship, then 20 minutes down from the engines through a watertight door, down a tunnel of the propeller shaft checking the bearings of the shaft, which were underneath thousands of tons of ammo plus other cargo and deck cargo knowing well if a torpedo hit us I would not get blown up but down.

Once the full crew were aboard, steam was ordered for midday sailing and we flashed the boilers up at 400 hrs. We were on our way in a convoy up the North Sea around to Liverpool, where we loaded boxed planes, tanks, guns, trucks, food for a big army and different war supplies. And then set out in another convoy for Glasgow. Whilst there, we loaded steam rail loco on deck which were shackled down on deck.

At this stage we hadn’t received our orders from our Captain but we knew that the trip was an important job. Whilst waiting for the orders we sailed from Glasgow to Loch Ewe and anchored there along with destroyers, submarines and other escort ships of various sizes. Whilst the ship was anchored I spent time on the deck fly line, catching fresh Herring and thought about my past easier life when I fished for the Silver Darlings.

Eventually our sealed orders were read to us by our ships officers and then we were addressed by our captain. Our port of destination was Archangels up through the Barant Sea, through the ‘Gates of Hell’ with the purpose of helping our Russian allies.

We were then placed in position, in line following an escort Destroyer out of Loch Ewe with RAF planes flying around our ships, the whole convoy heading out to the Atlantic sea. Our ship travelled at the speed of 7 knots, whilst other ships could travel at 45. The only defence the merchant ships had was a kite, flying from the mask to prevent us from dive bombers who would be brought down if they hit the wire.

We headed on a zig zag course in a northerly direction to Iceland, where the largest air base in the world was located and based UK, Canadian and the USA air force. Even though we were told we were in good hands as planes were plentiful around our ships, we knew that we were sitting ducks all the way to Archangels for any U-Boat.

Our convoy was detected by a long range German Planes before we had sights on Iceland and at this time I was off watch on my donkey’s breakfast and dreaming of the time I had rescued a galley boy and deck boy who had been thrown off our ship when it was hit by a mine on 27th February 1940.

Putting the though out of my head I carried out my duties whilst we sailed in single file to avoid the mine fields around the coast of Iceland. We were told the Germans were watching us all the time behind the clouds as we now had daylight 24 hours each day.

As we continued towards our destination we would see homeward bound convoys passing us, and they always signalled wishing us an eventful trip.

When we left Iceland we had to go through what is called the Gates of Hell, which is an expanse of water near Bear Island. We were constantly dive bombed here. We then continued up to Archangels and loaded the cargo there, but in the meantime, half of our convoy was lost. They were dive bombed. When a ship got hit there wasn’t anything left — everything blown to smitherines. Even if the men managed to jump ship, they were killed by the frozen waters.

We lost 2,773 men from Middlesbrough and the surrounding area who were all civilians and the Russians lost 27 million plus.

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