A fast boat to Italy, freezing nights and RAF bases
My Chief Yeoman was very friendly with the drafting people attached to Camarata Barracks in Valetta and did the arranging as he always said he owed me a favour for all my mast monkey business retrieving halyards. Although he was disappointed at my leaving, he was good about it and kept his word. I went over to Frenchman’s Creek on the other side of Grand Harbour to pick up the Vetch but missed her by half-an-hour due to being literally sent up the wrong creek. Not wanting to stay in Malta I decided to join a party of matelots going on board the Italian light cruiser Duca d'Aosta that was used to ferry personnel from Malta to Taranto on the south-eastern heel of the Italian mainland. (I was surprised to find how easy it was to take passage on this ship and thought that if any one wanted to desert this would have been relatively easy). The ship went like the wind and I arrived in Taranto the next morning having passed a convoy and umpteen other ships on the way.
I knew the Vetch was heading for the Adriatic ports of Bari and Ancona on the Italian east coast and I arranged a lift on an RAF lorry that was going to a base 12 miles north of Bari. We travelled through the first night and it was so bitterly cold, a terrible night. I undid my hammock and laid it on the lorry bed to try and sleep but to little avail, frozen to the marrow all bloody night.
We arrived at an RAF transport base at about 0700 and I had a good breakfast and slept in an armchair for about six hours and started off again. That night I stopped at an RAF base at around 2000, had a another good meal of ham and peas pudding by yet another Geordie cook, who wanted somebody to appreciate his culinary skills. The cook came from Ashington and we had a few beers in the canteen with two RAF lads from the lorry. We played cards till around two in the morning and I had a bed for the night. Up early on the third day and I arrived at the RAF airfield about 1800. They phoned the harbour master and I learned the Vetch was due to arrive in port on the evening of the next day, so I stayed there the night.
It was an operational base with fighters taking off on a regular routine throughout the day. Hurricanes and some other planes with chopped off wings, squared on the ends – my aircraft recognition was never up to much…
What amazed me about the RAF lads was the money being flashed about; they always appeared loaded. This whole trip never cost me a cent, apart from gambling at cards, as I was given the right royal treatment. I actually think they changed their routine because I was so frozen stiff the first night. In Malta we were always skint, and as we were paid fortnightly, the second week was always a dead week, unless a ten bob note was in a letter sent by my mother at home.
As regards Italy, it appeared to be knocked about rather severely and everybody was on the make and very industrious indeed. The Italians would take a holey vest, exchanging something for it and store it until another turned up and they would them make a virtually new vest out of the two good halves. A complete pair of worn out navy boots would be taken apart meticulously and rebuilt in a magnificent way to appear next to new - really wonderful craftsman. I witnessed both these occurrences when at a rest camp outside Bari where 20 sailors spent four days with a village close by where these craftsmen lived.
I knew the Vetch was heading for the Adriatic ports of Bari and Ancona on the Italian east coast and I arranged a lift on an RAF lorry that was going to a base 12 miles north of Bari. We travelled through the first night and it was so bitterly cold, a terrible night. I undid my hammock and laid it on the lorry bed to try and sleep but to little avail, frozen to the marrow all bloody night.
We arrived at an RAF transport base at about 0700 and I had a good breakfast and slept in an armchair for about six hours and started off again. That night I stopped at an RAF base at around 2000, had a another good meal of ham and peas pudding by yet another Geordie cook, who wanted somebody to appreciate his culinary skills. The cook came from Ashington and we had a few beers in the canteen with two RAF lads from the lorry. We played cards till around two in the morning and I had a bed for the night. Up early on the third day and I arrived at the RAF airfield about 1800. They phoned the harbour master and I learned the Vetch was due to arrive in port on the evening of the next day, so I stayed there the night.
It was an operational base with fighters taking off on a regular routine throughout the day. Hurricanes and some other planes with chopped off wings, squared on the ends – my aircraft recognition was never up to much…
What amazed me about the RAF lads was the money being flashed about; they always appeared loaded. This whole trip never cost me a cent, apart from gambling at cards, as I was given the right royal treatment. I actually think they changed their routine because I was so frozen stiff the first night. In Malta we were always skint, and as we were paid fortnightly, the second week was always a dead week, unless a ten bob note was in a letter sent by my mother at home.
As regards Italy, it appeared to be knocked about rather severely and everybody was on the make and very industrious indeed. The Italians would take a holey vest, exchanging something for it and store it until another turned up and they would them make a virtually new vest out of the two good halves. A complete pair of worn out navy boots would be taken apart meticulously and rebuilt in a magnificent way to appear next to new - really wonderful craftsman. I witnessed both these occurrences when at a rest camp outside Bari where 20 sailors spent four days with a village close by where these craftsmen lived.