Six weeks on a troop ship: the good part

IWasFirstClarinet you say nothing about families on board the troopship. I know troops and families were kept apart to their own sections, but as a child I was aware that there were lots of troops on board.

It was only later that I realised the reason we were off to Hong Kong. I knew the Korean War was on and what was happening, but was not old enough to think through that a supply base/R&R (Rest and Refreshment) would be needed that might not be in Korea.

I was very excited when my parents told me we were going to Hong Kong and showed me where we were on a map. I was also even more excited when we went up to Oxford Street to try and buy some summer dresses in February - in 1952, long before the days of warm winter holidays happened. I had two new bought dresses. My mother had been told to just get enough summer clothes to get us to Hong Kong as the tailors there would make any more we needed for the fraction of the cost of a dress in the UK.

I loved it on board, no school, just playing all day. Sometimes they would put hoses on the deck and pump seawater up for us children to play in. Someone ran a children's chess club and I learned to play chess and was quite good at it, but once I left the ship, may parents did not play chess and meither did anyone I know, so I soon forgot how to play it., pity.

We stopped at Algiers, Cairo, Aden, Columbo and Singapore, so by the time we got to Hong Kong, in two months, I had gone from never having been further afield than Scotland and Ireland, I had visited 5 very different foreign countries

Alright, crazyH, you asked and you shall receive. Let's stick with the troopship stuff for the moment.

The departure.

After two and a half years defending the honour of the Queen by protecting one of her colonies, we embarked from Penang. Maybe it was two colonies, Singapore AND Malaya at that time? Anyway, the water off Penang Island was too shallow for the ship to get in close. Once again the Dunera had made her appearance. We, maybe a thousand or so of us, had to be boated out to the ship in groups, then climb up the rickety swaying ladder which was hanging down the side of the ship.

Now, that may be OK if one has just two hands and two feet. We had a lot more. I personally had a suitcase which largely contained tropical clothing, a saxophone it its case, a clarinet in its case, and both a large pack and a small pack on my back. Eventually I sorted myself out in order to carry all my luggage in both hands then started up the swaying ladder. Did I mention I suffer from vertigo? Probably not. Well I do. So here I am, climbing as well as I could, using only my feet and no hand support whatsoever. I was not a happy bunny. In fact, I was scared, very scared. I would have been scared stiff, but my knees had to keep bending as my feet tried to sort out the next step up. With the burden I was carrying I could not see what I was doing. Eventually I made it to the deck, despite the recurrent feeling that my small pack would roll off the large pack and disappear into the depths of the ocean. The small pack is only balanced on top of the large pack not fastened in any way. Such is the wisdom of the army high ups, or it was back then. Someone told me that Lady Astor had designed the back-pack system, but this may not be true. The army told me a lot of things some of which were believable.

Well, my musical instruments, my suitcase and packs made it along with me. It was not only the humid temperature of Malaysia that had me sweating, I can tell you.

Then we had to scramble down a series of stairs to the den in which they kept the sqaddies, It was all much as before. I even got a middle bunk again. This was not a choice. A sergeant lined us up and marched us down and pointed to the narrow bunk that would be our home for the next month. We were the victims of a large hairy finger and middle for diddle it was for me. Hobson's choice lives still it seems.

Immediately, the band had to go up on deck and play music as we departed the tropical island shore. It seemed to be a tradition. We had done that in Southampton before leaving England and off we went again as we started the journey back. We were entertaining the troops and any passing fish. And in the case of Penang, any passing sea-snakes.

Stopping there, Might pick up the voyage home at some later stage.

Interesting post - more stories please !

What a very interesting post the memories good and bad are obviously vivid. I worked as a clerk in the Merchant Navy Establishment on the docks in Liverpool when I young.
I did occasionally hear stories of the conditions on ships. Our best friends dad was a ships cook he often talked about his trips.
Its a great pity people serving our country had to endure such bad living conditions.

I agree on the smell below decks generated by the squashed together Other Ranks. It was pretty vile. When the weather got hot, in the Indian Ocean, many of us chose to sleep on deck, away from the fug below. I forget now what we laid on but do not recall it being particularly hard to sleep. Easier when one is 18 I guess!

My Dad, always a poor sailor, told us about his travels on a troop ship in WW2. It was a converted liner. He was an officer and had a cabin on the top deck and used the officers dining room and it was all very civilised. However, he wanted to go below decks to see how his men were. He was appalled. It was disgusting and he had to somehow control his seasickness while trying to get things a bit better organised or at least clean! The smell!

IWasFirstClarinet I share your memories of the troopship run to the Far East, but as a child not a serving soldier.

We travelled from Southampton to Hong Kong. It was 1952 and the Korean War had just started and Hong Kong was the supply base. My father was in the Ordnance Corps, now the Logistic Corps.

We sailed on the Empire Ken, a small slow boat that was usually on the Southampton-West Africa run. The journey took six weeks and I loved the journey, I was 8, my sisters 6 and 2.

Families were packed in 8 to a cabin. My mother and us girls, another mother with two children and a wife without children. The fathers were berthed in officers cabins with the troops.

On the Empire Ken families, all ranks, ate well with waiter service. She only did one journey. It was decided she was too small and slow for the long run.

But the Korean War came as the day of the troopship were coming to an end. When the Korean War ended, my father was reposted to Singapore - and we flew there, in an old RAF DC6 freight plane fitted with seats, facing backwards, no pressurisation and no sound proofing, When we came back to the UK, it was on a chartered passenger plane.