Service aboard a British Destroyer

Then we, we got shipped to Halifax to be posted on a ship. And one day, I was in the barracks and I got a call the office, and they told me I had a half of an hour to get my gear and get it aboard this HMS Caldwell, that's a British ship. And sure enough, the truck brought me down, and I threw the thing aboard and jumped aboard. And the destroyer gave three toots and backed up, and we rushed out of the harbour. I was wondering why such a hurry, and . . . So, they said, "Well, it's, we're escorting a convoy from New York and we're, we're, we don't wanna leave it too long." So, sure enough, we caught up with the convoy and took our positions. And the convoy was about 42 ships, and it was a slow one, it was about six knots. And our destroyer, it was one of them lend-lease from the states, four-stackers we'd call them. So, we could do 38 knots so we were in front of it, zigzagging in front, the ASDIC pinging away trying to . . . So, anyway, then we got to Newfoundland and we topped up the fuel, and we took off across the Atlantic. And sure enough, we were going along, and we heard the darnedest bang. And we looked back, and there was this big oil tanker all on fire. So, we made a u-turn there and rushed through the convoy, and the ping was, was, you know when you get a, when you, your, your electronic ping hits a vessel or something, it comes back. "Ping! Ping! Ping! Ping!" And when it got close, we dropped a pattern of depth charges and kept on going because you have to go full speed, it'll blow your, your rear-end off, you know. So, made a big u-turn out and come back and dropped another pattern, you know, the same thing.