Mixed Cargoes

This story was submitted to the People's War site by Jane Otto of East Berkshire College on behalf of Bill Davis and has been added to the site with his permission. The author fully understands the site's terms and conditions.

I was on eleven ships in five years and the whole thing was very dangerous. When we joined a ship we had no idea where she was going. We had no idea of what cargo we would be carrying. Most of our time was in the convoy, looked after by the Royal Navy.
We were the sheep to the Royal Navy's sheepdogs. They were protecting us.
Some of the cargoes we carried including an oil tanker from America with aircraft fuel. With a tanker you are very low in the water. In most convoys there would be attacks by the enemy, even if only submarines looking for us. I only ever sailed on one tanker.
One of the cargoes we carried was to be transported to the port of Antwerp. This took us from Southampton to Belgium. It took us over six weeks because we had to wait for Antwerp to be liberated and the port to be opened up.
The cargo was full of Jerry cans of petrol and we were an ordinary cargo ship. The whole of the ship was loaded to the gunnels. We were virtually sitting on a bomb. We weren't allowed to use a lighter or anything else for the length of the voyage.
Any theatre of war, the Merchant Navy were there transporting supplies.

© Copyright of content contributed to this Archive rests with the author. Find out how you can use this.