大象传媒

This story was submitted to the People鈥檚 War website by Peter Quinn of Lancs Home Guard on behalf of Bill Dixon, and was added to the site with his permission by the staff of Blackpool Central Library.

I sailed on my second Tanker the Athel Chief, to New York, where we were ordered to Brooklyn Docks to be fitted up for carrying fighter planes on top of the oil tanks. This took the form of skeletal steelwork, to which the fighters would be secured, to withstand the heavy Atlantic weather.

Why the electric power to run the fridges went off I鈥檒l never know. The result was the lamb, beef and pork loins we had in store began to smell and grow fungus; and I was adamant that I wouldn鈥檛 serve the crew bad meat. But the old cook was a Company man and anxious not to endanger his pension by complaining loudly about the lack of electricity.

Half an hour from the midday meal, as I was cutting some meat, an official looking guy in overalls appeared on board with a suspicious looking 鈥減uffer鈥� bag, and he began to use it! 鈥淪teamies鈥�, a member of the cockroach family, are on every ship and once he started 鈥減uffing 鈥� in our galley cupboards and drawers, they started coming out in hundreds! All over the deck head, falling from the deck head light and even on to me and the meat I was carving. I started to curse roundly but the old Cook didn鈥檛 say a word!

I rushed out of the galley and refused to go back 鈥� I was logged 拢5 by the Captain for refusing to follow orders. My straight talking and further refusal to return cost me another 拢5 logging.

That night I went ashore, with a few belongings and 鈥渏umped ship鈥�! What had I done? I had very little money, no ship and nowhere to go! Even today, I can still feel those cold stanchions, which you see on films about New York holding up the elevated railway, in the middle of my back. I sat on the cold concrete 鈥� I really had hit rock bottom!

I lived rough for a couple of months in dubious company, with no contact with or money for my mother. I decided enough was enough and looking and feeling like a hobo, reported to the British Consulate and explained. They were sympathetic and arranged for me to stay at the Southferry Mission for Seamen, while I waited for a ship.

It was a huge place, full of hundreds of guys of every nationality 鈥� from ships that had been torpedoed, shelled, sunk - whatever; even drunks who had 鈥渕issed鈥� their ships! Food tickets were the currency. Nobody had any money, except when we sold our blood at an uptown hospital for $5 a time and a whisky and then got back in the queue to sell another $5 worth!

It was now 1943 and eventually my name was called to fill a vacancy on the Ocean Volga, which was delivering stores to the Russian front, via the Persian Gulf and Iraq (destinations we, of course, were unaware of at the time).

And so we set off again on convoy duty 鈥� warning bells and some action and explosions on the port side of the convoy. We passed Gibraltar and into the warmer waters of the Med, with dolphins helping with the escort duties. We never saw Malta, but re-provisioned at Port Said; then on through the Suez Canal, Bitter Lakes and the Red Sea to anchor in Aden, where we waited for more ships to join us. Our next run was around the Arabian Peninsula to the top of the Persian Gulf and up the River Tigris to Basra. Our cargo, we were informed, was loaded onto fleets of Russian lorries, which made the long journey to Kursk, where bitter fighting was continuing between hundreds of Russian and German tanks.

Basra was a horrible place - hot, poor and with a broken sewerage system. The women, although fully covered and veiled, were openly harassed by the men and very downtrodden. The kids in the street, however, were full of fun - like kids everywhere. We played Rag Football with the young boys and a ball made from a bundle of rags tied with a string 鈥� not too painful on tender, young bare feet. They beat us at every game, with screams of delight and we awarded chocolate bars to the winners!

The Russian military had overseen the cargo unloading and we gave them some good meals - supplemented by their bottles of vodka 鈥擶hoopee!!

When it was time to go, the remaining bottles of vodka didn鈥檛 help our steerage back down the Tigris!

[The author of this piece has written a number of other contributions to the People鈥檚 War website. They are:

My last day ashore
My first ship 鈥� M. V. Wim
Jumping ship then the Ocean Volga
Convoy preparations
A Lancastrian in New York
Thanks Yanks!
Voyage around the world
I meet the "SS Grodno" and the cook!

He has also contributed two poems:

The SS Grodno 鈥� one more trip 1939
The last day of SS Kingswood]

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