After my embarkation leave I had to report to Portsmouth for drafting to a ship - the master-at-arms office which is in charge of drafting told me that I was awaiting transport, but naturally never told me what ship I was going to or any details whatsoever.
I spent a week in Pompey Barracks (H.M.S Victory) and had a good look around. The old "Victory", Nelsons flagship was in the dock as it had been for over a hundred years, also the "Foudrayant", which was the last wooden ship-of-the-time to serve in the Royal Navy, these were of great interest to me as I had always been fascinated by that period of our history.
Whilst in Pompey, I saw a few doodle-bugs or flying bombs going over on their way to London and beach clearing parties were still being sent over to France but I was never "piped" for over the tannoy system to report to the M.A.A's office. I was beginning to think the war was passing me by as the invasion of Europe was now well underway and most of my mates that I have trained with had been drafted to different ships or beach-clearing parties. I had my eighteenth birthday at Portsmouth, my first birthday away from home and it was a lovely time.
The routine of barracks was beginning to come natural to me and I was getting to know some of the "Barrack Stanchions"- this was a name given to the men who never left the barracks and were permanently based on shore. I hoped and prayed that I would not end up like that - what a dull life!
It came out of the blue, I was set in the messdeck when I heard about half-a-dozen names piped over the tannoy, I was only half-listening, but I thought I heard "Connor" mentioned. I listened carefully to the repeat and sure enough there it was the one I was waiting to hear - "O.S J F Connor RP3 report to the M.A.A's office immediately. I was down there as soon as I could make it, I had to wait a while and I got chatting to a few more lads who were waiting too. We were called in as groups, my group consisted of five Ordinary Seamen and two leading seamen. We listened to our orders, we were to prepare our kitbags for 7.a.m next morning and we were taken by lorry to the station. One of the leading seamen was placed in charge and he had to pick up our travel warrants next morning. It was all very hush-hush- we never had any idea were we were going.
Next morning we set off knowing at least that we were in for a long journey, the travel warrants we were given were for Gourock near Glasgow, in Scotland, we travelled to Waterloo station then by bus through to London Kings Cross, on the way I was able to see the damage caused by the doodle bugs in a recent raid on London. We had our dinner in the Capital and then settled down for the long haul north.
We passed through Darlington about tea-time and I thought about my home, a few miles away, but I was on my way now- but where?
We arrived in Gourock on a fine summers evening and were taken by bus to the docks. The leading seaman in charge gave us our embarkation tickets- a little green card with M.18 C.Deck on it. We put our kit bags on a lighter and we set off towards the ships anchored in the Clyde. The lighterman wouldn't tell us which ship we were going on. "Youll find out", he smiled. We chugged around the biggest ship of them all and looked up at the stern, painted over but still visible was the name- "Thats it!", shouted the lighterman. The name was "Queen Mary"
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