Short Story: "Details about the Silverwalnut"

Details - Small, but Mighty

Photo credit - N. Middlemiss, shippingtandy.com

A few Canadian members of Combined Operations would be familiar with the name Silverwalnut, the ship that was their home in May and June, 1943, while voyaging around Africa toward D - Day Sicily, and their part in Operation HUSKY, beginning July 10th of the same year. Some would remember how it sounded at night, how it stalled and started and stalled and started numerous times during the voyage, how the ship's troubles put them in danger of German submarine attack, and perhaps even how the Chinese crew treated the ship with much care. But outside a very small circle it is not very well known.

When my father was first introduced to Silverwalnut he didn't hold it in high estimation. Later in life he held it in very warm regard. Along with my father's record, a few more details about the WW2 troop transport are listed below:

Post-war - Silverwalnut in Vancouver, Canada. Photo credit - shipspotting.com

According to shipspotting.com and other sources, the Silverwalnut was built for Silver Line Ltd, London, by Harland & Wolff Ltd, Belfast, Yard # 883, and launched on April 04, 1930.

Just a few months before my father stepped aboard it in April or May, 1943, the ship was involved in a rescue of survivors of a U-boat attack. At an online website entitled 'Darlaston Remembers' one reads that S.S. Ocean Courage, a transport ship launched in 1942 and sailing unescorted to Trinidad on January 15, 1943, was struck by a torpedo from a German U-boat.

"Without time to launch the lifeboats the crew had little chance of survival, only six finding refuge on a raft. The remaining 42 members of the crew, including all eight DEMS Gunners and the Master, Thomas Harold Kemp perished. The six survivors were rescued six days later by the crew of the British Motor Merchant Vessel Silver Walnut."

Had my father known about the Walnut's role in rescuing the few survivors of the submarine attack, surely he would not have said it looked like "a real dud" when he went aboard it for the first time, along with landing craft - for what he supposed was for more assault training. 

That being said, over the course of the next two months, while travelling around Africa with other Canadian members of Combined Operations, he got to know the ship fairly well, and before making his final assessment he likely would have considered quite a few factors.

From a chapter in his memoirs I read about a few things he surely would have considered:

     The Silver Walnut left convoy at Cape Town, South Africa to coal up and for repairs. She was constantly breaking down and was a sitting duck for subs.

     While aboard the Silver Walnut I struck up an acquaintance with a Scottish engine room engineer named Hastings, age about 55 - 60, with lots of money. Every morning for awhile he would wake me up early and say, “Are you for a halfer, Douger?” I’d say yes and go up to his cabin for a big hooker of whiskey.

     Never, never have I had such a meal and never will I again. Eight courses beginning with pheasant and with each course a different drink. When we headed home I was full of drink and food. (Said after a trip to the Valley of 1000 Hills, while stalled in Durban, S. Africa)

     We spent eight or nine days in Cape Town, maybe longer, then started out with the old Silver Walnut again. Stop, stop, stop - and damn it was hot!

     Porridge and flap jacks every morning. I still have only eaten about six flap jacks since I came home in 1944. I weighed 192 pounds at the end of the trip on the Silver Walnut.

     The other boys who arrived in the desert (at HMS Saunders, in Egypt) long before us, because of our slow ship, were the unfortunate ones, and were found sleeping in tents - hot in the day and cold at night - and most had severe dysentery, some were just shells. I spent one night only in the desert so I was lucky. Thanks, old slow ship.

In a longer version of his story 'Aboard the SS Silver Walnut' (published first in St. Nazaire to Singapore, Vol. 1), he mentions other considerations:

     It was beastly hot and as we worked on our landing craft our white navy middies turned to a yellow colour.

     The Chinese crew went about their daily business thinly clad and with an old oily cloth sticking out of the back pocket of their slouchy pants. They had seen many ports and the Walnut was their home, and they showed it as they caressed here and there with their oily rags. What could shine, did shine.

     The ship stopped several times for short periods, which made us all sitting ducks. The Commodore in charge of the escort became exasperated and sent signal flags to the Halyards. “Look, the old man’s got his washing out again.” He told us we were placing everybody’s life in jeopardy. “Hurry up or we leave you to sink or swim.”

     In wartime all sailors feared a bright moon and coal-fired ships that gave off puffs of black smoke as the furnaces were fired. The smoke seemed to hang in the sky for an eternity for everybody to see. There were times when the nerves were rubbed raw. Since we still had a full complement of escort ships there must have been some danger about.

     We Canadian sailors became very attached to her as well; her engine room misfortunes became our good fortunes as we enjoyed many hours in Cape Town and Durban, while our comrades suffered dysentery in navy camps in the desert where temperatures dropped to near freezing each night.

This hammock changed hands aboard the Walnut in 1943.

Editor - When my father wrote his Navy memoirs many years after the conclusion of WW2, he was aware that a hammock from the Walnut's 1943 voyage had been returned to Canada, 43 years later, at a Navy reunion. He never was able to see it (though I did, in Esquimalt Navy Museum, 2012) but, in his later years, he likely had nothing but fond memories of the Walnut when all was said and done.

One line from 'Aboard the SS Silver Walnut' (Part 2) suggests as much. He says, "I feel certain that when the time comes for the great sail past of all ships, the Silver Walnut will stand tall, as well as the merchant crew who sailed her, for they were all part and parcel of an ailing ship which had a lot of heart." 

  

So, in his mind, the dud had grown in stature. 

One of the last lines he writes about the tall standing ship follows:

     I do not know the fate of the Silver Walnut but I do know for certain she was not sunk or in the words of my dad, “She did not go to Davy Jones’ locker.” And whenever I attend a naval reunion, talk usually turns to ‘those lucky guys’ who sailed aboard the Walnut and who called her home for three months.

Editor - And because my father did not know what happened to his home away from home after WW2, I have occasionally searched for details. And yesterday, lightning struck twice.

Firstly, I found the photo below, and the caption held information I wish I'd found when my father was alive. 

In 1954, Silverwalnut was sold to Cia de Navegacion del Plata S.A., Panama,

and renamed SAMUNDAR. Photo credit - Paul Wille, shipspotting 

Secondly, I found a paragraph or two by John Clark, a man who worked aboard the Silverwalnut after WW2, before it was sold and renamed. I think my father would have been pleased that the Walnut was not only a working ship but still had some life in it.

And Mr. Clark calls it good and sleek, and not a dud. He writes, "They placed me on the good ship “Silverwalnut”, a sleek twin screw diesel freighter of 7,900 gross tons, docked in San Pedro, and I spent the next 3 years compensating for my missing childhood." (Please link to Silver Line - Adventures abounded for more information).

Surely, my father would have been pleased.

"Sail on, Doug" (right)

More about the Silver Line shipping company can be found at Wikipedia but the Silverwalnut is not mentioned, except under one photograph, as the sister ship to the Silverpalm.

Please link to Short Story: "The Coaling Ship, Durban"