Portolani for Our Times Patricia Lança's Web Site MEMOIR |
CROSSING THE ATLANTIC IN WARTIME November-December 1941 MY MOTHER AND I spent a couple of weeks shopping in Manhattan before we sailed. We knew that clothes were now rationed in Britain so we wanted to buy enough garments to last us a number of years. My mother thoroughly enjoyed those last days in America. She had been very troubled at first when my father’ permission had finally come and I had to confess I had been taking things into my own hands. But my arguments had prevailed. Only Victor was disappointed at the idea of leaving his American school and his girlfriends. But he too had cheered up at the thought of once again being at sea. We told very few people we were leaving so there were few farewells to make. had signed the Lend-Lease Agreement with Britain the previous March and now cooperation between the two countries was much closer, especially on security and shipping matters. Nobody was allowed to be seen off by friends or family. Journalists were no longer allowed on board ships and these sailed in secrecy to avoid news of their departure being leaked to the enemy. We were instructed by the authorities in charge of our passage to leave our apartment for a hotel indicated by them where they would get in touch with us within two or three days with further instructions. We stayed at a hotel in Brooklyn Heights for three days. Then one evening a message arrived telling us we would be embarking the following day. Our heavy luggage had already been sent on ahead according to the instructions we had been given. We were taken to a quay where there was someone to meet us. We were then taken by lighter to Staten Island where a very grim-looking vessel was moored. Had I known then how bad our voyage was going to be I would certainly have given up there and then and insisted on going back to Brooklyn. Our accommodation was nothing like anything we had known before. The Myrmidon, a Blue Funnel vessel had been converted to serve as a freighter and there was room for only a few dozen civilian passengers. These had to share cabins for six or more and my mother and I were put in with an elderly Englishwoman and three American nurses while Victor shared with a group of boys and men. There was hardly anywhere for passengers to exercise as most of the deck space was occupied by crates covered with tarpaulins bound with tight ropes. We were told that these and the contents of the holds were American supplies under lend-lease aid. Although we did not know at first who they were, there were also sixty US marines on board who were destined for London to guard the American Embassy in the event of a German invasion. We were to sail up to a Canadian port where we would join the convoy in which we would sail across the Atlantic. Nobody could tell us how long the voyage would take. My brother and I spent the rest of that first day exploring all that we were allowed to see. Everything about the Myrmidon breathed austerity and there was none of that joyful atmosphere we had known on our other sea voyages, even when we travelled out on the Scythia. We started with life-boat drill right away and were lectured by the captain about the measures to be taken in case of attack. We were to have our life-jackets with us at all times and we were told that it was our duty to spend as much time as possible at the ship’s rail on the look-out for tell-tale periscopes: the most dangerous days were the fine ones, so we should pray for fog and rain. both fore and aft manned by Royal Navy sailors. How much use would they have been, I wonder, if the worst happened? Or were they there just for their psychological effect? It was several years before I learned that the year of 1941 was probably the most serious in the entire Battle of the Atlantic. Enemy U-boats accounted for a quarter of the total of 1,299 British, Allied and neutral ships that were sunk that year: aircraft, mines, raiders and torpedo boats were responsible for the rest. But we knew none of this. Censorship prevented the publication of losses and very little appeared in the Press about the terrible battlefield the Atlantic had become. My ignorance of the real dangers facing us was almost total. It was not courage that inspired me but the sheer foolhardiness of the very young, a characteristic I continued to possess even when I was old enough to know better. Soon we were in Halifax, Nova Scotia, where we anchored in a wide bay. There were ships and naval destroyers all around us and people said that the convoy was assembling and when every vessel was present we would be sailing. We spent some two days there. One of them was taken up with life-boat drill of a new and fearful kind. The sky was leaden and snow had fallen on land. Our life-boats were lowered into water that was dark and turbulent and everybody, passengers and crew as well as the US marines all had to climb down the side of the ship on rope-ladders. Some people had to get on rafts. The Lascar oarsmen rowed us around the Myrmidon two or three times and now we had our first full view of its ugliness. War planes circled continually above and we were thrilled and comforted to recognize the familiar emblems of the RAF, though these were, of course, Canadian planes because Canada had been in the war from the start and played an important part in protecting the convoys. Then one morning we woke up to find we were out at sea. It was a truly impressive and consoling sight to make out ships of all shapes and sizes around us as far as the eye could see. Aircraft circled overhead too and every now and then a destroyer or a corvette went whooping by with the peculiar sound we had hitherto only heard at the cinema. I almost wept with relief: in company like this, I thought, there was nothing to fear from the enemy and we settled down to enjoy the voyage. Passengers were not divided into classes and everyone ate in the same rather crowded saloon so we soon got to know one another. There were a few English children and one or two girls my own age with their mothers. They too had been evacuated and were now returning home like us. But most of the passengers were adults on the way back from work of some kind in the States. Everybody was acutely conscious of security and people did not ask questions about each other’s past activities or future intentions. It was even quite a few days before we learned that all those burly young Americans were in fact US marines. There was a small lounge and an attempt was made to organize table games and provide books from the ship’s meagre library. THE STORM We had been at sea for two or three days and were, we were told later, somewhere south of Greenland when a storm blew up. It turned into a storm more terrible than anybody could have imagined, the worst many of the crew had ever known. And it went on for days on end. The Myrmidon pitched and tossed and was buffeted about helplessly like a rowing boat. Nobody went up on deck for fear of being swept overboard. Even moving around below deck was difficult. Through the portholes we could see what happened when the ship rolled. At some awful moments she seemed to be turning over into the sea. The captain told us later he had feared at times that we might capsize. the wind and the creaking of the ship’s boards. There was also the dreadful thudding of crates that had come loose from their moorings and were now careering about the decks and the holds. We became even more alarmed when the rumour spread that there were armoured tanks down below that had come loose and were now threatening to break through the bulk-head. At meal-times, before the storm got too bad, some of us would entertain the rest by placing peas at one end of the table and watching them run down the table as the ship rolled. But this diversion did not last. For two or three days things were so bad that the cooks in the galley could not stand up steadily enough to handle their pots and pans to prrpare cooked meals and we were reduced to biscuits, cheese and fruit. On the last and most violent night of the storm my mother had her accident. The ship was pitching even more than usual and some of our luggage was banging and slithering about the floor. I was on a top bunk and could not get out because the ladder had been moved. My mother and one of the American nurses got out of their lower bunks to try and secure some runaway baggage. The ship gave a particularly violent roll and my mother who was beside the door was thrown violently the length of the cabin and hit her nose sharply on the edge of one of the two wash-basins at the other end. She shrieked in pain and the American nurse rushed to assist her while another got out of her bunk to go for help. In a few moments our cabin was crowded with people, far more than were needed, and they were all lurching and falling about one another. But in spite of the jostling bodies I could see my mother being carried away, blood streaming down her face as she was taken off to the makeshift infirmary. I don't remember how we got through the rest of the night. I must have slept because when I awoke in the morning the ship seemed to be standing quite still. Everything was strangely calm and silent and we could not see any waves through the porthole or anything at all but a clear sky. When I had pulled on my clothes I went to see what had happened to my mother and was told that she was all right but that her nose might be broken. She had been given a sedative and was sleeping. So I decided to collect my brother and go up on deck. A pale sun was shining and the sea was almost as smooth as glass. Like other passengers who were gazing out over the ship’s rail I stared around me in stunned terror. Not a single one of our companion ships from the convoy was to be seen. They had all vanished and we were utterly alone on this calm wide ocean. We spoke to some of the crew and they told us we had been swept miles off our course and had lost the convoy which had probably been scattered far and wide. Now we could only pray and hope for the best. PEARL HARBOUR We were able to have proper meals again now but nobody rejoiced. Everybody was very quiet and each one knew what the other was thinking. My mother emerged quite soon from the infirmary, her face badly bruised. Her nose was covered with a dressing stuck on her cheeks with adhesive tape and she complained of pain and headache but we were assured nothing had been broken. Within a day or two something happened to make us forget our troubles for a while. It was the evening of December 6 or 7 and we were all sitting in the lounge playing cards or chess when someone came rushing in to summon the US marines outside. Then a murmur rose that soon becme a roar and everybody was talking at once. Our radio operator had intercepted an American broadcast announcing the great news: America was in the war at last. Pearl Harbour had been attacked a few hours earlier by the Japanese. Roosevelt had declared war on Japan and Hitler on the United States. A little later when some of the US marines came back into the lounge they had changed into uniform and we greeted them with cheers. From now on they were combatants and took it in turns with the Royal Navy to man the Myrmidon’s guns. despite our constant dread of enemy attack, this part of our journey began to seem more like a normal sea voyage. The inevitable romances started between the younger females, a tiny minority, and the American marines, a huge majority. There were not enough books to go round and there was little else to do except play cards and board games. So talk and flirtations flourished. I had three attentive young Americans competing for my company and one Britisher—a Liverpool Irish boy called Kevin who worked as a writer, as the purser’s clerk was called. The rivalry between them was very gratifying and I was able from time to time to forget the danger we were in. My mother no longer felt much pain but she seemed to be in a state of shock. AIR ATTACK At last we were told that we were sailing just north of Ireland and that soon we would be heading south between the coasts of Ireland and Scotland. We were to call at Greenock before we finally disembarked in Glasgow. Just as we were entering the North Channel and land was coming into sight on either side, an incident occurred to shake us out of our new-found peace of mind. An aircraft appeared overhead and the marines on the ship’s guns opened fire on it at once. I was up on deck and heard the bursts of cannon. I saw the plane rise rapidly and soon I could see it signalling frantically. It was an RAF plane, which had come along to inspect us. But the Americans, eager for action, had not waited to find out whether it was an enemy or not. For the next few hours there were a great many uncomplimentary remarks about the competence of our new allies. A little later we sailed into Greenock and then on for Glasgow. Everything was now happening so quickly and we were all so excited that I have difficulty in remembering the exact sequence of events. The second incident, which led my brother to become a hero, must have taken place just before we put into Greenock. I was on deck some distance from where Victor was playing with a four-year-old boy and could not see exactly what happened. But I did see the German plane flying low over us and heard the bursts of gun-fire. It was machine-gunning us. The little boy’s mother had been nearby and told us afterwards that Victor, with enormous presence of mind, had quickly thrown himself on top of the child and remained there while the plane came over a second time and opened fire again. The enemy aircraft was very quickly followed by RAF fighters who chased it off out of sight. We found bullet-holes very near where my brother and the little boy had been lying so Victor really had risked his life.The child’s mother was beside herself with gratitude and to my brother’s embarrassment she told everybody about it. After we landed the story got into the newspapers and reporters went to see my father from whom they obtained our photographs. Again the American marines did not come well out of the encounter because this time, just when there was a real enemy, they failed to react and like the rest of us simply looked on. Those young men looked very sheepish afterwards but they were, after all, novices and untried in battle. The Myrmidon’s troubles were, however, not over. Very shortly before we docked in Glasgow I was down in our cabin with my mother putting the last touches to our packing when we heard an enormous crash and the ship shuddered as though it had been struck by something. Shouting to my mother that it must be a mine and we should get up on deck at once I rushed out of the cabin. People were running in all directions and it was difficult to get on deck. I found myself in the dining-saloon along with a few others. To our astonishment there was a huge hole in one side of it and what looked like part of the prow of a ship poking through. What had happened had been a collision with another vessel, which was being launched, and it had rammed into us amidships. HOME AT LAST After that there was so much confusion with everything happening at once that I have difficulty sorting out my memories. We got ashore somehow and I seem to remember there was somebody from the Portuguese consulate to meet us. My only clear recollection is of being in a Glasgow hotel where we phoned my father and told him we were getting a night train down to Liverpool. I find it strange now, as I look back over all these years, that I can remember so little of how we left the Myrmidon or whether we even looked back at her. Poor ugly ill-fated old ship! Her adventures were soon to be over. Kevin, who signed off in Glasgow, told me months later that he had heard she had been repaired and had put to sea one last time only to be sunk in the Atlantic like so many others. I can remember nothing at all about our journey from Glasgow except that the train seemed very tiny. My father met us a few hours later and also looked smaller than I remembered. So did all the buildings we passed on our drive home. The car seemed not only diminutive. It was also a different one. My father had gone into Liverpool one morning during the blitz leaving our green Austin in the car-park in Birkenhead as usual to take the ferry across the Mersey. When he got back that evening he found the car park had received a direct hit and the Austin was no more. It was replaced by a dark blue Morris. My father pointed out the bomb-sites but it was not until several days later that I was able to see what a terrible beating Liverpool had taken. Now all we wanted was to get home. But there was one bomb site we had not at all expected. In our lane, directly opposite our own house there was only a ruin where once a large modern house had stood with what my mother had always said was a pretentious thatched roof. Fortunately nobody was at home when it received a direct hit, I believe the only one in Heswall. Our own house was unscathed but slightly the worse for wear. Another of the many things my father had not written to us about was about the family that had been staying with him. They were wealthy friends of an acquaintance and they had been bombed out. My father told us he had had a bad time with them and great difficulty in getting them to leave when he knew we would soon be home. My father had taken up quarters in the downstairs suite and the family had taken over the rest of the house where they gave a lot of what my father said were ‘wild parties.’ There were certainly very many bottles lying around outside and my mother wept when she found all the cigarette burns on the furniture and carpets and, worst crime of all, on my piano. I chided her for fussing and said she should be thankful that the house was there at all. After what we had been through and our miraculous escape from danger at sea I could not understand so much grieving over a few cigarette burns. My father too had had a narrow escape. His office building in South John Street was now no more. My father had been fire-watching on the roof the night before it had been hit. If his roster had been different he might well have been the one to die instead of another tenant of the building who was on duty the night of the hit. I wept when I saw what was left of that street I had known so well from early childhood. One of my greatest joys had been when my father had occasionally taken me to spend a day with him at his office. But all around were the signs of destruction. Acres and acres of the central shopping area were razed to the ground and because the bombing had only ceased a few months earlier the signs of devastation were still fresh. My father said that in one night forty thousand houses had been destroyed. The records tell us that 120,000 houses altogether were damaged in Liverpool and that in just one week in the previous May nearly fifteen hundred people were killed. It had been nothing like the blitz on London, but still Liverpool had been a chosen target for German bombers because it was perhaps the most important British port during the war and over four million North American troops had disembarked there. We had arrived five days before Christmas. I felt bitterly ashamed to have missed being with everybody during the terrible times of the blitz and I thought people would resent our having been safely away in America. But Victor’s new-found celebrity soon prevented all that. Not only did he have a photo in the Liverpool papers; there was a picture of all three of us with references to our Atlantic adventure. After Christmas I went back to school to catch up with the lessons I had missed. ~~~~«»~~~~ HOME |
brother, Victor, and my mother to the USA. Our outward journey in June-July 1940 was uneventful but the voyage home eighteen months later was another matter. It is described here in an adaptation of Chapter VI of my as yet unpublished autobiography. |
back to England in 1941, looked nothing like this but seemed just as frail in those stormy and submarine-infested seas. |
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