Re: Crete 1941 - SS City of Canterbury
My father LAC Leslie Douglas (1129122) was a ground-station Wireless Operator (wop d/f) in the RAF VR.
He was posted overseas and kept a diary of the journey for 1942, in which he notes that they left Colaba Reinforcement Camp near Bombay on 18th May 1942 and boarded "City of Canterbury", which sailed the following day but remained anchored midstream until the 24th May, when it set sail for Colombo in Ceylon, arriving on 28th May.
In his associated memoirs, he describes the ship in various ways, none of them complimentary, and they clearly indicate that he considered it to be a "floating hell".
He makes no mention of any names, other than those RAF pals who were close to him on the journey, but from a historical point of view we at least know where the ship was on those dates.
On that deployment journey he also travelled on the Arundel Castle, and the Mauretania, so the location of those is also known from his entries,
The transcription of his diary involving the outward journey to Ceylon is here; https://stevecattos.world/non-fictio...22-diary-1942/ which is a work-in-progress as I will add more diary notes as time permits.
Re: Crete 1941 - SS City of Canterbury
[QUOTE=Stephen Douglas;436018]
In his associated memoirs, he describes the ship in various ways, none of them complimentary, and they clearly indicate that he considered it to be a "floating hell".
/QUOTE]
Nice for you to have that diary, Merchant seaman had six years of that 'floating hell' alas 35,000 plus didn't complete the voyage
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Re: Crete 1941 - SS City of Canterbury
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Stephen Douglas
My father LAC Leslie Douglas (1129122) was a ground-station Wireless Operator (wop d/f) in the RAF VR.
He was posted overseas and kept a diary of the journey for 1942, in which he notes that they left Colaba Reinforcement Camp near Bombay on 18th May 1942 and boarded "City of Canterbury", which sailed the following day but remained anchored midstream until the 24th May, when it set sail for Colombo in Ceylon, arriving on 28th May.
In his associated memoirs, he describes the ship in various ways, none of them complimentary, and they clearly indicate that he considered it to be a "floating hell".
He makes no mention of any names, other than those RAF pals who were close to him on the journey, but from a historical point of view we at least know where the ship was on those dates.
On that deployment journey he also travelled on the Arundel Castle, and the Mauretania, so the location of those is also known from his entries,
The transcription of his diary involving the outward journey to Ceylon is here;
https://stevecattos.world/non-fictio...22-diary-1942/ which is a work-in-progress as I will add more diary notes as time permits.
Might be interested in seeing this ??
Cheers
Attachment 37530
