The return trip

How important these little event seemed at how little I remember of the actual passage. Suffice it to say it came to an end at last and we crawled thankfully into Newport news, desperately short of food and bunkers and were at last given a square meal of beautiful fresh American food after weeks of scraps and snacks that seemed to consist of little but bread and potatoes. I found I had a craving for fresh vegetables. After taking coal bunkers at Newport News we proceeded up the lovely Chesapeake bay to Baltimore berthing at the Lackawanna Railroad wharf. Here the balance of the slag was discharged and a full cargo of wheat loaded.
It was bitterly cold and I realized how ill equipped I was. Someone gave me a thick shirt but I was really unable To work out of doors. After three years of war it was quite extraordinary to be in the State's where there seemed to be no shortage of anything, especially luxuries like sweets and cigarettes. Mind you we had no money. I think the captain gave us five dollars each and we went to a strip tease, which was interspersed with ancient films and seem to go on for ever. It was a pretty grim bunch of bored women who from time to time paraded across the stage and took off their clothes. The first couple of times it was quite exciting but after that it just became boring as it was obvious that the women were more bored than I was.
The other apprentice, named Leithhead, had been at sea for a year or two and I was relying on his experience to help me find out how to survive in a foreign country. When we had first come ashore and were looking for a way to get in to town Leithead told me that Americans were very generous and all we had to do was thumb a lift. So we found a road and started thumbing. To my surprise the first car that appeared stopped and it was only then that we discovered it was a taxi! Anyway Leithhead seemed to be very taken with the strippers and as people left moved closer to the stage so that I lost touch with him and in the end it was three hours before he eventually left. I sent my mother a cable to let her know I was safe and it would also have shown her that I was in the USA.
We were in Baltimore about a week and left to make our way to Halifax to join a convoy back to the UK with a full cargo of grain which we had loaded.
It was about the end of February 1942 and the weather was bitterly cold as it had been since our arrival. We anchored in a bay from which a canal ran, joining the Chesapeake with the Delaware river which avoided us having to negotiate a section of the coast, which I've since learned was being targeted by U-boats.
View Larger MapThere was ice on the water when we anchored and, during my watch, I was required to run the windlass every 30 minutes to avoid any risk of the steam lines freezing up. In the morning the ship was surrounded with ice and it took some time to break free. Along with some other ships we met we made our way to Halifax Nova Scotia. Halifax was an assembly point for a Atlantic convoys and, while there was only a narrow entrance, this lead to an extensive and deep fjord providing plenty of room and shelter to assemble a convoy and it's escorts, even including battleships. I was aware my brother Geoffrey had been there on the Royal sovereign on which he was an engineer officer, and had contacted our uncle Douglas, who lived in Montréal and had driven down to see him. So as soon as we arrived I wrote to this uncle and expected a fairly prompt response but inevitably there was none and after a day or two we sailed for home.
Once again we enjoyed a trouble free passage although the weather throughout that winter continue to be appalling. With hindsight I can scarcely believe how lucky I was. Records of the battle of the Atlantic clearly show that very few convoys made a crossing in either direction unscathed particularly during 1942 and 1943.
We took the car go to Millwall docks in London, which was still undergoing nightly bombing, but once again the ship was unscathed. As soon as we had completed discharge the ship headed to the Tyne to take on bug has and ballast and within a day or two was on it's way to loch ewe again. This was an interesting passage because on the run up from London most of the ships had been flying barrage balloons, a weird sight.
This trip we were heading for Sydney [ Cape Breton ] to load coal for Montréal where we to discharge and then load grain. This was pretty good news as shortly before we sailed from the UK I received a letter from my uncle Douglas pointing out that Montréal was too far from Halifax for him to have made that journey but enclosing a 5 pound note! So my letterhead not been in vain and I would get to meet the man on this trip. During the passage from the UK the visit to Sydney was canceled and we went directly to Montréal.