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to Story Index Page| Just before Christmas in 1943, the 150th (c) Engr Bn went aboard
the Queen Mary in New York and set out for England. We were given a
special assignment doing a lot of services on the boat and so
received our own rooms and beds. Of course the rooms were changed to
include two hang-up cots on the walls and the beds were end to end
and the rooms were crowded. Still we had a room for twenty four
hours a day. Other outfits on board for the trip were allowed only
eight hours a day in a room with a bed and had to spend the other
sixteen hours as best they could on deck or elsewhere, their clothes
on or with them in barracks bags. The weather was bad with wind and
cold and our trip was classified as the roughest the Mary had. Many of the troops and even the regulars on board got sea sick, some for a little while and others for the entire trip. We ate only twice a day, first breakfast and later on dinner. I remember one morning, walking up the stairs, after eating kidney and eggs. A soldier who was sick, vomited. He turned to me and said "God damn. I haven't eaten in two days. I'm going back and eat again." He wiped himself as clean as he could, turned around, went down the stairs to try again. The slop was left on the stairs with some already there and it made it a little more difficult to keep your balance on the rocking boat. On Christmas eve, on the radio, we all listened to a radio broadcast by President Roosevelt saying, "I want to assure you mothers that none of your sons will be on the sea at Christmas." Of course we all laughed and thought that he was trying to confuse the Germans so they wouldn't try to catch us. Soon in Scotland, we guarded the exits for unloading. I was
assigned one of the exits that was being used by ships crew and
civilian workers to unload the ship. A small man about five feet
tall and about 120 lbs came up with a front two wheel lift that
was heavily loaded with boxes. There were other people coming
aboard so he had to stop. He tipped the loaded carrier upright and
waited until the workers came on board. Then he tried to tip the
carrier back on the wheels but he was so small, that he couldn't
bring the heavy load back. I went up to him and reached over one
of his arms to help. He got peeved, said something in his Scottish
accent and took off. He never came back during my time on guard.
The lift was loaded with the good things that we were supposed to
be eating, turkey and candy etc. I wondered afterward whether he
was perhaps taking something to serve off the boat. At any rate,
he was a little short of a welcome we might have inspected. |