In quite rightly , much was made of the 60th Anniversary of the sinking of the Hood and the Bismarck. Britannia, on which I was a passenger. I spent the first years of the war working for London company, Electrical Installations. The plan was for me to travel to Bombay and make my way to Basra. How I was never to find out. My wife saw me off from Euston. As there was a war on, I did not say I was embarking for Liverpool but she told me later that she saw it on the side of the train as it left!
The Britannia was used as a troop ship and there were a lot of navy, army and R. I was a first-class passenger. We had an anti-submarine escort consisting of three destroyers and an armed merchant cruiser A. The destroyers were stationed one ahead and one each to port and starboard of the convoy.
The A. I jotted down details of my journey including my expenses in a small diary that I still have. The ship rolled quite a lot to start with and I was seasick for a few days and then was OK. One day we separated but we thought we were safe as it was thought that we travelled too fast for U-boats. On the fateful morning of Tuesday 25 March , I was laying on my bunk cooling down after a morning bath.
I looked out my port-hole and saw shrapnel falling into the sea. I put some clothes on quickly and made my way over to the starboard side. There was a tannoy announcement when we came under attack and we were told to keep under cover. We had a small gun at the rear of the ship. I know that the gun was knocked out and the gun crew injured. I can remember the officer Rowlandson was going to and fro taking the wounded to the first aid post.
I thought highly of him. There was another announcement when we were to take to the lifeboats, some of which were damaged. Our lifeboat was the last one on the starboard side. I inflated my lifejacket threw my overcoat into the lifeboat, climbed down and got in. In theory it was supposed to be women first, then first class then crew.
