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Location
At Sea - Montreal - Liverpool
Age
17 Years

14th December 1940

This is another of those days that will go down as being one of the most exciting of my whole life. At day break we had lost practically all of the 4 ships that were left yesterday. The “Llanwern” was still there, but a long way ahead; the “Jachee”, a tanker was on our beam away in the distance, but the commodore was out of sight. There was a high wind, and heavy seas, and periodically, squalls would come up, bringing with them huge waves and stinging frozen rain. We were skipping quite a few heavy seas on the quiet but the port side was worst, being the weather side. The sea was on our port quarter. The third mate and myself were just finishing our breakfast, when all of a sudden there was a tremendous crash and a rush of water, and we realised that the door opening on the alley way which leads to the saloon had been smashed in, and that water was cascading in through the 2nd and 3rd mates rooms, the stewards, and boys rooms, the pantry and the saloon. Fortunately we both had sea boots on so we were able to go into the rooms and rescue some of the clothes. What a mess!! The 2nd and 3rd mates rooms particularly. Besides knocking down the door, it had also knocked one of the bulkheads down. Soon Chippy, the old man and one or two A.B’s were on the spot. I was in my element and soon Chippy and I had started filling the space up with wood. The trouble was the old man kept giving instructions on how he wanted it done and kept getting in the way.

We had to take two electric light switches off that were above the door. There was no time to take them off, so we just pulled them off! Every time we touched the two live wires with anything wet, we got a shock. Just as we started putting the wood up, another terrific sea came up and lifted us both clean off our feet and covered us right over. I got a lovely mouthful then. However, after such trouble we eventually got it fixed. It took about two hours. I then went to try and find some dry clothes before being on watch on the bridge. There being a ¼ of an hour to spare, I decided to look out of my port. I’m glad I did. We suddenly sank into the trough of a tremendous wave which was looming up on our port quarter. I noticed that it was breaking rather early so I knew trouble was coming. It did! Starting from the poop (after end), it broke clean over the well deck, boat dec and midships ending up by smashing against my port hole and bulkhead on the lower bridge. I’ve never seen anything like it. It just filled the ship with raging white foam. It lifted the life boats right up and dropped them again. A few minutes later, the same thing happened again. This time one of the new boats on the port side broke loose. I knew this was serious, ‘cos our lives depended on those boats. The 3rd mate was looking for the mate and the bosun  but I told him we could do it ourselves and we managed to make it fast. That meant that my last lot of dry clothes were wet. However, things cooled down a bit after that and we got some dinner. Then at about 4pm, the steering gear broke. The old man and I were on the bridge, but we were soon rushing to the poop. He was nearly trance! He didn’t care about getting washed overboard; he just ran till he reached the poop. Soon there was quite a crowd of us there, as we balanced precariously while the ship floundered without any helm. Fortunately we got it fixed up, but did we work fast! We knew our lives depended on it. By now we had lost a lot of what we had gained, and so what had to try once again to get back into position. By 9pm we were back with the commodore – the “Dartford”; the “Jachee”, the “Llanwern” and the “Baron Fairn”/ Two of the Ford lorries have been bashed all over the place. They should never have even been put on deck. Sections of the lower bridge have been knocked in. We’ve had a great day. It has been great fun.

The old man said to me after “Well, you’ve got some guts Sparks and a bit of gumption which is more than most of them have”. Forgive me for putting that in, but its my only reward for a tiring day.