We left the Clyde at dusk, it was obvious to everyone on board by now that we were heading to America, we were escorted out by a destroyer, but the Queen Mary's main defence was her speed, after the first day the destroyer fell back and we proceeded alone. We could see by the wake of the ship that we were following a zig-zag course, this was, along with our speed- our only protection now against U-boats which were still active in the Atlantic.
It was now early August and the weather was warm, the sea blue and calm, I was enjoying the best food I'd had for years, there was a great feeling of comradeship on the Queen Mary and what a mixed lot we were. The main passengers were American soldiers but there were also Canadian, Free French, Poles and British, also a number of German prisoners- these surprised me by their youth, although I was only eighteen myself some of these looked barely sixteen. I had a laugh when some American soldiers were talking to us and asked us what we thought of their wonderful ship, they really though that the Queen Mary was an American ship, they also thought my friend who was Scottish, why he hadn't joined the "Scotch" navy - it was surprising how little they knew about us. The arrangements for coping with 19,000 passengers was first-class, after all, we were really a small town on the move, the toilet facilities were of course rather primitive, the whole outboard sides of the promenade deck were curtained off and a six inch pipe ran the length of the deck, both sides, in this pipe were stuck hundreds of toilet pedestals and the troops sat in a long line doing what comes naturally.
On about the fourth day at sea we were met by an American destroyer and we knew we were nearing the USA. On the fifth day we sighted land and sailed up the coast of Nova Scotia Canada, we arrived in Halifax about mid-day, all the town seemed to turn out to welcome us with the Mounties prominent in their scarlet tunics. A huge cheer went up when Churchill and his party went down the gangway. He turned to us still on the ship and gave his V-sign and then to the Canadians on shore, the crowds went wild and the bands were playing, it was a wonderful sight. After it had quietened down, the prisoners went ashore- it was back to reality. We cast off and set sail straight away, there were no secrets now- we were heading for New York.
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