大象传媒

This story has been written onto the 大象传媒 People鈥檚 War site by Storygatherer Lucy Thomas of Callington U3A on behalf of Douglas Mahoney. They fully understand the terms and conditions of the site.

Extracts from DOUGLAS MANHONEY鈥橲 W.W.2 MEMORIES

Beer and beach parties

After all the excitement came the boring aftermath. Our engines started giving trouble and we got stuck in Suez Bay for three weeks while waiting for spare burners to be flown from America; this at the height of the summer. Our all metal ship heated up like an oven roasting us all, even at night. We spent as much time as possible at the French Club pool trying unsuccessfully to chat up the girls as they would have nothing to do with foreigners!

Being quite near to Cyprus, the odd enemy plane would visit, dropping a few bombs or perhaps a mine or two, but this caused little damage. It did bring us one benefit though, to protect us from torpedo bombers, barges were placed alongside us. One of them contained a load of beer destined for the NAAFI so, one night as soon as it was dark, raiding parties were organised, crates hoisted on board and hidden all over the ship. These kept us going for some weeks and were especially welcome during our trip up the Gulf.

With our new burners fitted, the old Bulkoil was full of beans and would, quite happily, romp along at a speedy18 knots when the norm was 10 to 12 knots. The snag was we had nowhere to romp to. We dithered up to the Gulf, where no-one knew anything about us, but filled us with fuel oil anyway, then down to East Africa to the Mombasa area. Here we remained until mid September, fuelling naval vessels as required.

Monza Bay, with mile after mile excellent beaches, to the south of Mombasa, was our regular anchorage. Here we met up with other Fleet Auxiliaries beautifully fitted out unlike our Spartan ships. It was a sociable time, with visits to each other for meals and drinks and even the occasional movie on board a larger warship. Boat parties to the beaches were common with swimming, walking and inter-ship games.

I started jogging here for the first time, running along the jungle trails, pretending I was a modern day Tarzan. I didn鈥檛 see much wildlife but I did find small villages tucked away in the jungle each inhabited by very shy people, especially the women. They would run and hide in their huts at the sight of me.

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