大象传媒

In order for ships to be repaired during the war, a floating dock was built on the River Clyde. There ships could be pumped and undergo necessary repairs. In 1943, I joined the HMS Exe, named after the River Exe and it was my job, as part of a two tug crew, to escort one such dock from Scotland to West Africa.
Luckily, though our journey was perilous, due to the threats posed by enemy attack, we arrived safe and sound, and the dock was installed just beyond Free Town; Sierra Leone. I had been there for a few days, when we received an SOS: a British, armed Merchant Cruiser was experiencing difficulties. We travelled to the ship and upon arriving, the realisation was that, after an explosion in the engine room, the ship had no workable engines and no water. Its sails were rigged up with a tarpaulin cover. Having provided the crew with buckets of fresh water, we had to transport this ship back to Free Town. A grueling job at two nautical miles per hour.
I was then placed on the North Atlantic Convoy One of my first missions was to aid the Canadian Corvette in collecting a member of the crew who had developed acute appendicitis. This mission has lingered with me for my whole life, I can remember it as if it was yesterday. A storm gathered momentum and as it got stronger, the waves grew in altitude. We were flung around, climbing steep, mountainous waves and shooting down them like ski slopes. Its a miracle anybody survived. Unfortunatley, this wasn't the last time, my crewmates and I would have to suffer such trauma. Indeed, upon escorting a damaged ship back to the dock, the very same thing happened.
Even the drills we would practise often posed danger. Such was the case when practising a boat haul up operation, during which the bowman hadn't hooked up our boat fully meaning it was unevenly suspended. Upon grabbing the life-lines, the boat plummeted , smashing beneath us.
Danger was something I became fairly well acquainted with. Indeed, later, I went onto also serve on the HMS Marigold off Ireland, one tragic day our ship was torpedoed. Sadly only three crew survived.

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