CHAPTER THREE

SAILING FOR OVERSEAS

 

I finished my New Zealand flying training in July, 1941 with the rank of Sergeant Pilot. After embarkation leave at my home in Cambridge, I sailed for overseas service in the liner Awatea from Auckland on August 12, 1941. My mother and father were staying with my auntie, Elsie Brett, in Takapuna. As the Awatea sailed out along the Rangitoto Channel I saw the large white sheet they were fluttering from their upstairs window as a farewell message to me.

We had two days ashore at Suva, Fiji, before sailing on to Vancouver, Canada. We were escorted by the cruiser, H.M.A.S. Sydney until crossing the equator. Then we were picked up by a Canadian armed merchant ship, the Prince Rupert. But this escort was too slow for the pretentious Captain Davey of the Awatea which could cruise at 23 knots with the certainty of being able to outrun a German raider believed to be in the area. So we shot ahead unescorted. We disembarked at Vancouver sixteen days after leaving Auckland and immediately boarded a Canadian National Railways troop train for a journey of five days and six nights to Halifax, Nova Scotia . At several cities on the journey the train stopped for six hours while local residents took groups of us sightseeing. The journey across Canada was picturesque, particularly going through the Rockies .

At Halifax our contingent of New Zealand and Australian airmen were in a transit depot for 10 days awaiting the assembly of an Atlantic convoy which our troopship, the Empress of Russia, was to join to take us to England. Again there was much local hospitality. A Halifax bank manager twice invited us to his home for a meal. The circumstance of the second invitation was that he asked me while we were having dinner the first time whether the meal of roast beef was the same as we had in New Zealand. I said similar, but the difference was that our butchers did not bleed the meat white and at home I always had Yorkshire Pudding with roast beef. (not so common nowadays in New Zealand). Our host, who had been born in Scotland, migrated to Canada as a young fellow and married a Canadian, realised there and then that he had not had Yorkshire Pudding since his boyhood. He rather abused his wife for not having given him Yorkshire Pudding. She asked me how to make it. Having done some cooking as a boy, I knew. She insisted we should go to dinner again the next night when we again had roast beef but this time with Yorkshire Pudding. Her husband was then delighted. Subsequently, in England, I received one or two food parcels from this family.

Our contingent in due course assembled on the wharf at Halifax to board the troopship Empress of Russia. It had berthed at Halifax with Italian prisoners of war brought from the Middle East . The POWs had left the ship in an unhygienically filthy state, having fouled the mess decks into which the ship's holds had been converted. It was on these decks that we had to swing our hammocks to sleep as well as to eat our meals there. The first of our contingent aboard immediately walked off in protest at the condition of the ship. They persuaded the rest of us not to board. The authorities declared this a mutiny, threatening dire consequences. Technically they were correct. It was in a military context a mutiny. But as we were all volunteers from the independent nations of New Zealand and Australia the Brits treaded cautiously.

After a whole day in fruitless attempts of persuasion, both parties agreed that Billy Bishop, the World War I ace, credited with shooting down 72 enemy planes who then headed the Royal Canadian Air Force, would fly from Ottawa to inspect the ship. We agreed that if he considered it fit for us we would sail. It was suggested all of the contingent would need to be aboard for Bishop to appreciate the situation. Our spokesmen agreed. But it was a ruse. Immediately the last man was aboard, the ship cast off. There was no sign of Billy Bishop. A few of our boys jumped overboard and swam back to the wharf. There they were arrested but instead of being sentenced to the “glasshouse” (a military prison), they were put aboard a fast ship to England and were assigned cabins. What luxury! They were already at the reception centre in England when the rest of us arrived. But they had their pay docked until they were posted to a Royal Air Force unit. So I suppose those of us who had to travel in the Empress of Russia had the last laugh because we did have pay to spend on arrival in Britain.

When the Empress of Russia sailed from Halifax our first task was to scrub the mess decks with disinfectant. It made conditions bearable but nevertheless it was an uncomfortable journey. Outside Halifax Harbour our ship joined a convoy of about 100 other vessels for the Atlantic voyage to Britain, which was to take 16 days such was the slow speed of the convoy which was set by the speed of the slowest vessel. The route was not a direct one. As was usual with convoys, we zigzagged from time to time either to avoid an area where U-Boats were suspected of being or to try to confuse the hunting U-Boat packs.

For the first part of the journey the convoy was escorted by almost obsolete United States naval destroyers which had been seconded to the Royal Navy under American lend-lease which was a way of helping Britain short of declaring war against Germany. The American people were not ready for that although their president, Franklin Roosevelt, was gradually steering them in that direction. Later, Americans became instantly ready to go to war when, on December 7, 1941, without warning and with no declaration of war, Japan launched a devastating air attack on the American Naval Base at Pearl Harbor in Hawaii. Roosevelt won Congressional approval for a declaration of war on Japan. Germany immediately declared war on America to which America responded by giving priority to helping Britain against Germany.

Our Atlantic crossing was uneventful until about midway when we entered the zone of German U Boat operations against the convoys. The U Boats were the major element of the enemy's blockade to try to prevent vital food and war materiel from the British Dominions and America reaching the British Isles which was isolated as the last bastion of freedom in Europe. The U Boats hunted in packs, the advance guard locating and shadowing a convoy until the main pack congregated for the attack, usually at night. For security, troopships were always in the centre of a convoy where it was more difficult for U Boats to penetrate. Often at night we would see a ship on the convoy fringe blow up. Other vessels were forbidden to stop to search for survivors for fear that they would become sitting ducks for renewed torpedo attack. The fast Royal Navy escorts risked being attacked when they slowed to search for survivors. Other escorts went on the hunt to attack U Boats with depth charges. In the dim light of night we could watch this action from the deck of our troopship.

Throughout the voyage we had to wear life-jackets because we would have had no warning if an enemy torpedo had struck our ship. Later as the convoy got closer to the British Isles long-range aeroplanes of the R.A.F. Coastal Command gave the convoy air cover in readiness to attack with depth charges any U Boat detected on the surface. Little did I realise that I was destined to be posted to Coastal Command and that I would eventually be engaged in anti-submarine operations in the Atlantic .

Allied shipping losses were, at this period of the war, increasing to crisis proportions.Indeed, the Battle of the Atlantic was at a critical stage for the next two years. But gradually Britain's combined naval and air defences prevailed. U-Boat losses began to mount but even though their numbers were dwindling they persisted to war's end to harass the convoys, albeit with diminishing effectiveness. By the end of the war the Royal Navy and Coastal Command in combined operations had destroyed 181 U Boats. A total of 30,000 German submariners were lost at sea.

Go To Chapter Four