Alone and Torpedoed

Three thousand merchant seamen and hundreds of ships were lost during WW2.
The following relates to a ship that was lost and the fact that contributed to it being in such a position to be torpedoed by an enemy submarine.
The ship was the Clan McTaggart, owned by Kaiser- Limited. Hope Street. Glasgow.
She had been fitted out to carry three hundred troops with landing craft to ferry the troops ashore on the North African landings in November 1942. The crew was the normal navigating and engineering officers. The deck hands and engine room firemen and greasers being East Indian seamen. Also three cooks and me (the writer) as bakers to cater for the troops and landing craft crews. The Indian seamen were put on the ship after having been shipwrecked on another ‘Clan’ ship — ‘ The Clan Skeme’
The contributing factor was that the owners, knowingly gave the Indian seamen false information that when the landings were over, they would being going back to their own home port of Chittagong in the Bay of Bengal — 3,000 miles east.
It should be noted that the owners had no control over their ships in wartime. The movement of ships being controlled by the Ministry for War or some such people.

When the landing were over, the ship was ordered to join a convoy to return to the UK.
The Indian seamen refused to work the ship because they had been told they were going home.

After a while things were eventually settled. By that time the convoy had sailed without us. We therefore sailed for the UK alone — without naval escort. Around 100 miles west of Gibraltar, we were torpedoed by an enemy submarine.

On Indian seaman and one Canadian seaman of the landing craft crew were lost. The rest were picked up some hours later by a Royal navy destroyer. However once a seaman's ship is lost so is his pay.

The convoy got home without any losses.

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