Chapter 8 - Off to Europe

On June 30th we boarded a ferry and went down the Hudson River to New York Harbor, I remember having to stand for hours with our loaded duffel bag on our shoulders, and then standing on that slow ferry for the entire trip which seemed like a very long time. I believe that sometime late that afternoon we boarded His Royal Majesty's Mail Ship, the HMS Scythia, built in 1908. Very slow, 15 knots top speed, and could not maintain nearly that. Very dirty, manned by an all British crew. The ship was not only old but was dirty and ragged as were also the crew. They supposedly spoke English but it was a version that I had never heard and might just as well been Greek as far as I was concerned. No way that I could understand that British Brogue.

The 275th was the first outfit to board this old ship, which by the way was tied up beside the Queen Mary, which made the Scythia look like a rowboat by comparison. We were first on board and drew guard duty aboard ship. I was assigned the watch at the rear gun on the extreme rear end of the ship, I think there was about five in the crew. The British Sailors never did instruct us on how to fire this gun or even where the ammunition was located. I'm not sure why we had to be bothered for guard duty, since we were going in convoy and were surrounded by our own ships. We sailed out of New York Harbor about 4 A.M. on July 4th 1944.

My little gun crew was on duty and were the last of the men to wave at the Stature of Liberty, and we were all hoping that we would live to return and say "Hello" to her. we didn't get to do this because when we returned we landed in Boston Harbor, but this is another part of the story.

We had sat in harbor four days while other units and supplies were loaded. It was a pretty boring four days, and most of us were delighted to be underway. I'm not sure that I can describe the chow that the British Crew attempted to serve us, but to say "attempted to serve" us was enough said. It was unfit for human consumption. The potatoes were heated once but not cooked, the eggs were boiled until they turned green, the bread was not sliced, just thrown on the tables by the loaf. They would knock the end out of a box of corned beef hash and lay a knife down beside it, and place jars of orange marmalade around, and boil the coffee until it was almost stiff. The kitchen or galley was down in the hole as low as you could get down those greasy stairs and hand rails. Of course made even worse by so many men Up-chucking because of sea sickness. I never became sea sick on the trip over, probably because I did not eat enough to be sick. An awful lot of the boys did get sick. Our Motor Sgt., Leon Wilson, got seasick before we left port, and was really sick the entire trip. The poor fellow got so dehydrated he almost died.

It was not a particularly rough trip as far as the ocean was concerned, rather smooth, but the living and eating conditions were terrible, and we were on that stinking thing fifteen days and nights, eleven or twelve of them in motion. Along about mid-way of the trip they opened up a ship's PX and you could buy butter cookies, the round kind with the hole in the middle. Those things saved our lives and we consumed them like crazy.