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Description
Ms. Whittaker describes the safety measures taken aboard SS Santa Helena, because of the risk of torpedoing, once she reached the Mediterranean Sea. These included sleeping in full uniform and frequent lifeboat drills.
Transcription
We were much more alert about war on that ship. We had to dress in battle dress like the men wore. We even had to sleep in it, when we got there I don’t know, I imagine we were near the Mediterranean, near Gibraltar down that way. And we had to sleep in our clothes. We could take our boots off but they had to hang right beside our phases so we could get them on quick. And they were very strict there, our boat drills were very strict cuz that’s all we had to do. We only had, on that boat, we only had two meals a day but they were good meals. And, but there were so many to feed, I don’t know how many troops they had, probably two or three thousand anyway, and so they fed them twice a day, if you had early breakfast, you had early supper. I think there were one hundred nurses apart from all the cooks and the store keepers and everything else.