大象传媒

This story was submitted to the People鈥檚 War site by Allan Price, of 大象传媒 Scotland, on behalf of John Morrison McLeod and has been added to the site with his permission. The author fully understands the site's terms and conditions.

In 1943 I was qualified from RAF Halton near London as a fully fledged AC2 Flight Mechanic, having done most of my training on a Rolls-Royce Merlin engine which was a masterpiece of engineering. After gaining some experience on various RAF stations in the UK I was posted overseas in September 1944. We sailed from Liverpool round the north of Ireland and formed a convoy led by our ship the 鈥淎lcantara鈥� of 22,000 tons and the Mauritania also a heavy weight and both were troopships. We lead the starboard column and the Mauritania led the port column. Behind us the broods of geese following their mother, came a gaggle of smaller ships stretching out as far as the eye could see. I thought of the Masefield poem 鈥淐argoes鈥�.

Dirty British coaster with a salt-caked smoke stack
Butting through the Channel in the mad March days

Not only did our brood of followers have salt caked smoke stacks, they had rust caked hulls!

One of the advantages of sailing in convoy was the ever watchful protection provided by the Royal Navy and at times the coastal command of the RAF. This disadvantage was that convoy had to travel at the speed of the slowest ship in it and some of them were very slow. Having joined the convoy we first sailed west and soon encountered rough weather. Aboard the Alcantara we had two meals per day 鈥� breakfast and an evening meal, if we had money we could buy a snack aboard but as I had spent a fortnight in Blackpool awaiting embarkation I had no money and there was therefore dependant on the meagre rations dished out on board. For the first time in my life I felt real pangs of hunger and as it weather got worse some of those sitting at my table began turning green and pushing their plates away. I had never been seasick in my life, nor ever was, I asked them if I could have them as otherwise the contents would end up in the swill bin. They were only too willing to oblige but I think their nausea increased when they saw me gobbling down mouthfuls of food. However I soothed my conscience by telling myself that I was saving food from being destroyed in days of shortage!

Having sailed west for a few days we then sailed south and finally east. When we were a couple of days west of Gibraltar the escort in front of the convoy began dropping depth charges. It was joined by a destroyer which came racing through the convoy, the Alcantara altered course slightly to starboard and the Mauritania slightly to port followed by their broods, leaving the escorts on open space to carry out their role of protection. The rest of the warships remained on station. This combined numbers of troops aboard the two troopships must have been thousands and would have been a valuable prize for the enemy were it not for the vigilance of the Royal Navy.

Twenty one days after leaving Liverpool the Alcantara thankfully docked safely in Alexandria, Egypt.

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