Memoirs of Gordie Bannerman

It seemed that the train travelled the most miles at night. After, I think, two nights on the train we arrived at Halifax, Nova Scotia. We knew we were going overseas, but where still was the question. We detrained and were given documents stating where we were to be on the ship. The ship was Oronsay. I shared a cabin with Sgt Vern Lovely, who was Sgt in the same troop as I. This is war I thought, sharing a cabin on the outside porthole and all.

We were separated from our gunners and all below. We found our chaps down in the bowels of the ship. No port holes and hammocks to sleep in that were slung above their mess tables. Before we left port the grumbling started. The conditions that our chaps had. What an ungodly mess they were placed in. It was a disaster waiting to happen. All the tremendous thousands of pounds of good food that we saw being loaded on board. Sides of beef and all the great Canadian fare. Were we to get any? Seeing this was a British ship and under their command, we had to put up with it. No we did not see any beef and not much of anything else worth eating.

The sergeants and above did pretty well, but the men were really crapped on. To show the difference Vern and I were awakened by a cabin steward at about 5 or 6 a.m. and had a glass of scalding tea put at our bunk side. The men had to go to a common kitchen and pick up their large containers and carry this across a wave and wind swept deck then down into the bowels of the boat to the rest of the fellows. Sometimes they would spill the contents, but most of the time it would be cold. Can you imagine waking up and getting out of your hammock and finding almost everyone had been sea sick and had thrown up all over the tables? If that was not bad enough, the poor ventilation, stench of those being sick and here would arrive a group of your fellow gunners carrying in breakfast. They looked and here were kippered herring with the eyes staring at them. So up it would come again. No one should have been treated that way.

The first day that we were aboard the Oronsay, we heard on the ship's radio a news report saying Ottawa was talking to Washington regarding whether we would allow USA boats and personnel into our waters. Just after this announcement, we looked over the side of the boat and here was a ship's lighter. The lighter had aboard about thirty high ranking American Naval Officers. They did not just drop from the sky, so they must have boats outside the harbour. The next day we weighed anchor and outside the harbour was an armada of American naval vessels. This impressive fleet was made up of at least three battleships and about 12 destroyers. What a terrific show of force! One of the battleships had a plane that they would catapult into the air then retrieve it by a hook and winch. The crossing was u-boat free although there was one alarm, but we did not get attacked as our convoy had almost all the division aboard. There were about twenty ships in the convoy. Of course the progress was to the speed of the slowest ship. One fell out of line and disappeared for it seemed some time, but on the following morning it was back with the flock.

At last we were on the Atlantic Ocean. For days all we could see were the American Naval escort and the grey hissing ocean. At night this great ocean sparkled by sea life in the bow wave of the Oronsay. This in itself was quite a show! It was a thrill for us as gunners to see the royal marine gun crews fire all the guns that were there for our protection. In a sense I enjoyed the voyage and was not sea sick, but the gunners lot was pretty grim, and the crossing was not any pleasure for them. You were not allowed to throw anything overboard as u-boats might pick up the items and follow the convoy. You did not smoke on deck at night and all the ships were blacked out.

In the main lounge someone pulled back the cushion and here there was a great amount of machine gun bullet holes. On questioning the crew about this they said, “about fifteen Australians on the previous trip of the Oronsay, while being transported from Tobruk, came under attack by enemy aircraft. The soldiers had gone to this large window to look out. One of the attacking aircraft sprayed the Oronsay with cannon and machine gun fire killing a large number of the troops at the window.” We were told to stay well away from windows if we were attacked. The evidence of splintered wood behind the cushions was enough for us to remember the warning. The stains of blood were still evident.

This massive armada of American war ships was soon to leave us. About a day out of Britain, the fleet swung away from us and only three Allied destroyers shepherded us the rest of the crossing, which was another day. Soon we sailed up the Mersey River to Liverpool. All along the sail into Liverpool the masts of sunken ships marked the channel. These sunken ships were the result of enemy action. We knew we were in a war zone. Soon we were tied to the dock. Here all the dockworkers were out in force welcoming us to Liverpool. We were told there was a shortage of a lot of things in Britain and cigarettes were in short supply. Our fellows having a few cigarettes started to throw them over to these chaps who of course seeing they had a good thing encouraged our chaps to throw more. Now it was not too long when our fellows wished they had not been as generous as it was quite some time before they were to get cigarettes from home.

I happened to be duty Sergeant that day and along with the RSM who was duty officer, we were standing watching the throwing of cigarettes and the banter between dock worker and our chaps. Bill Briant was a very vocal fellow and talked a mile a minute. A seagull flew over and shit right in Bill’s mouth. Well Bill spit and swore for the longest time and did not repeat a single cuss word for it seemed moments. The RSM Murray was quite serious, but he really cracked up with laughter.