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CHAPTER THREE — SEA VOYAGE

We sailed round the North of Ireland where we joined the rest of our convoy, 23 ships, 5 corvetts and two battle ships. We sailed away out into the Atlantic, changing direction every seven minutes during the hours of daylight and sailing in a straight line during the night. The crew told us the reason for this was to avoid a torpedo attack from any submarine. It took a submarine eight minutes to line up to a ship to fire and by that time the ship would have changed course, only the end of the ship would be seen, thus making it harder to hit.
We sailed very close to the Azores, most likely because of navel protection and air cover for the convoy. After many days at sea, our convoy sailed towards the African coast.
Back home, shortly after I sailed, Mary had a visit from a soldier seeking accommodation for his wife and child whilst he was billeted in St. Thomas’s Hall at Sutton with his unit. So Mary let the wife and daughter stay with her in the house for a short time until the soldier was moved and then they went back home.
Shortly after this, another man, Mr. Dunlop and his wife and child, called seeking a place to live for the duration of the war. He was a manager at the ammunition factory in Steeton called the ‘Dump’. So Mary let him have our house, fully furnished to rent and the family lived there for the duration. Mary and Barbara went to live with Mary’s mother and dad, at Sutton Mill and Mary went back to work as a weaver at T. & M Bairstow’s worsted manufacturers, and Barbara started nursery school.
The ship docked first of all in Freetown harbour and it was sure good to see land again. The young native boys were sailing round our ship’s sides in canoes and shouting for us to throw in ‘Glasgow tanners’. When the troops threw in the coppers, the lads would dive in the water and catch them before they reached the bottom. Because all the troops were watching this performance the ship listed to that side, by 45 degrees, because we were short of water ballast and I thought we were going to go over. The ship’s claxons went off and that meant we all had to go to boat stations. As soon as we were all in our places, the ship straightened up. Then the troops went to look over the other side of the ship and it rolled again and again the claxons went off and we had to go to boat stations. Eventually the ship had its water replenished and all was well.
We stayed in Freetown harbour for three days taking on food and water supplies and then set sail again out of sight of land heading for South Africa. We went past Cape Town and Port Elizabeth and dropped anchor outside the Port of Durban where we stayed all night. It was a terrible night. The ship again was short of water ballast and a very strong gale was blowing, causing the ship to lean over at a very bad angle. I was sure glad to see morning come and see us moving into Durban harbour We were told at this port that we could disembark but had to return to the ship by 10-30 p.m. I had made friends with a Scottish lad called George Allen, so he and I went on shore. We were walking along the pavement when a car pulled up and a man asked us if we were doing anything in particular and when we said ‘No’, he asked if we would like to go to his house and have a meal with him and his wife. So we agreed and he took us up the hillside to his very large home and introduced us to his wife, and twin daughters and their black servant. This man was called Mr. Gore and he asked where we were from and was very interested to hear that I was from Yorkshire, as he came from Sheffield and now had his own Estate Agents business.
He asked the two of us if we would like a run out to view the country whilst his wife was preparing the meal, so off we went to a place he called, the view of a thousand hills, including the table mountain.
Just outside his door at his home was a large tree with large green fruit as big as a coconut. I asked what they were and was told they were Pawpaw and Mrs. Gore said she would get one to finish off our meal. So after our run out we had a lovely meal and finished off with Pawpaw, which was skinned and peach coloured, and filled with cream, it was lovely, tasting between a banana and a peach. We stayed chatting at their home until about 10-00p.m., and then Mr. Gore ran us back to the ship.

The next day George and I had a look round the town of Durban and went to a café for a meal. It was a nice clean town and at night with all the lights lit, it looked good.
We sailed from Durban the next day and on through the Mozambique Channel between Madagascar and the main land. When we got out into the Indian Ocean our convoy was steaming along in three lines and the battle ship the Prince of Wales, came between our lines of ships. The ships band was playing military marches and it sounded lovely and looked beautiful. But about a week later while we were still sailing the news came through that the Japanese had sunk the Prince of Wales.

On our way north up the Indian Ocean, we were told that one of the ships in our convoy was leaving us. This was the Georgic and was a new ship on its maiden voyage, and it could go much faster than the rest of the convoy as we could only sail at the fastest speed of the slowest vessel. So Georgic waved us goodbye and on its way it went.
We sailed along at a steady speed and eventually arrived in the Port of Aden, South Yemen. We picked up more water and food and the next day sailed up the Red Sea. Our next stop was at Port Sudan and no one was allowed to go off the ship, and we were forbidden to bathe in the sea. We soon understood why! The sea was infested with big sharks. We only stopped in Port Sudan for one day, and then we were on our final sail to our destination, Port Suez.
As we came into the quayside the troops were all packed up with our kit and we ran off the ship very quickly. It was no wonder, because when we looked across the bay there was the ship the Georgic, beached on the sand burnt out and just a great big hulk of red rust — it had been bombed.
The troops were packed into 3-ton trucks and rushed off to Cairo, the capital of Egypt, where we occupied the Al marsen barracks. We were here for a few days and while I was there, I was asked, with some others, to go back to Port Suez to pick up trucks and guns. We were taken down in 3-ton trucks and given a truck or other vehicle to bring back to Cairo.
About a week later we had got all our equipment together and sorted out into our troops and batteries, three batteries to the regiment, and now we were ready to move up the desert to meet the enemy.

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