Eye-Witness and First-Hand Accounts
['The Sailor' represents valiant young Canadians. Sackville Landing, Halifax]
While reading articles found in the digitized Winnipeg Tribune (August 1943 issues), I came across two stories that touched on coal and cargo, two topics my father Doug Harrison also touched on in an unpublished article he wrote for his hometown paper, and navy memoirs.
His unpublished article is not dated but I feel it was written for The Norwich Gazette but never delivered to the editor, perhaps because he was living at Parkwood Hospital in London at the time, during the last two years of his life, 2002 - 2003. And his memoirs, written in the mid-1970s, contain a note about a significant discovery in some navy cargo (July 1943, in Sicily), and the disappearance of said cargo.
First, the article about coal from The Winnipeg Tribune:
"There was a shortage of manpower to unload the cars"
The Tribune reports a shortage of manpower to move tons of coal from railroad cars and a possible solution, i.e., "the temporary release of a number of men (already employed) to assist in the unloading..."
While reading the report, I recalled the short story entitled 'Coaling Ship' found among my father's collection of articles that he'd clipped from his local paper over the years. The scene he describes - the sharp crack of a whip, the loading of coal or else (!) - was witnessed while he stood aboard the Silver Walnut*, docked at Durban, South Africa, June 1943.
*The Silver Walnut was used to transport a number of Canadians in Combined Operations and their landing crafts (LCMs) around Africa during May and June, 1943 to Port Said, in preparation for Operation HUSKY, the Allied invasion of Sicily (D-Day, July 10).
Coaling Ship
The place was Durban, S. Africa harbour and the time was mid-June 1943. There were several old freighters resting on their spring lines, some of which were waiting for block steam coal to be loaded in the hold one way or another.
Iron stanchions run around all freighters and through the holes in these stanchions run two cables. The lower cable is to rest one boot on, and the top one is to rest your arms on lightly while you have a cigarette and flick the ashes in the ocean.
That is what I was doing on our ship one sizzling hot morning, when I was brought wide awake by a loud Crack. With eyes wide open this is what I saw. If you can't read about cruelty and man's inhumanity to man, stop reading now.
I can best explain by asking you to see this large dockyard as a large boxing ring. The four corner ring posts are big men dressed in white uniforms, white pith helmets and black shiny shoes and gaiters. The men also have a rifle firmly at their sides. The referee is on a raised platform dressed exactly the same, but instead of a rifle he has a large whip or black snake and it was the Crack of this whip that woke me up. They were coaling a ship from a large pile of coal near the referee.
There was probably a total of eight black men, with nothing on but loin clothes. Two were filling bags with coal which were placed on another black man's back and he ran across the dockyard over sharp cinders and coal, up the swaying gang plank, dropped the coal which was emptied by two more black men. He took an empty bag and ran back to the pile. The men carrying coal exchanged places with the men filling and emptying the bags. If the pace slowed the whip cracked, sometimes very close to the men.
I don't know how long I watched as the coal bags bumped up and down on the black men's back. As I said, it was terribly hot there and there were no breaks for water and the whip kept on Cracking. The pace had to be maintained and those ships probably took hundreds of tons of coal. I'm sure one shift of black men could not coal a ship.
I watched the referee, and his whip came very close to striking the workers but I didn't notice anyone hit. The scene was one of perpetual movement until I finally left unable to stand anymore. My comrades did not remain, the Crack of the whip was very scary, something out of the ages.
The discussion on the mess deck was that the black men had been convicted of some crime and this was their punishment. Maybe we had witnessed apartheid.
* * * * * *
The second article from The Tribune (from Aug. 26 1943) relates to cargoes of liquor in Halifax.
"You refuse to unload the liquor? Why not?" one might ask.
I'm only guessing, but I think the longshoremen went on strike because they were unable to stick as many bottles of booze into their pockets while being watched by armed guards.
During the invasion of Sicily, while a few hundred Canadians in Combined Ops loaded troops and materials of war onto their landing crafts and then deposited their cargo onto beaches near the towns of Noto, Avola and Syracuse, regular bombings and strafings occurred for the first several days. After a few days, however, the scene quieted down, and the work by Canadians aboard landing crafts continued without too much opposition.
One day, a cargo of Navy Rum was transferred from an Allied supply ship to a waiting LCM, i.e., Landing Craft Mechanized. My father hatched a plan. Armed guards? Not to worry.
He writes in his memoirs:
Our LCM was fortunate enough to pick up rum destined for the officers' mess; but it never arrived there - we stowed it in the engine room. From then on we went six or seven miles up the beach at night, had a swim, slung our hammocks and drank ourselves to sleep, to awake in the morning covered with shrapnel, but never heard a sound. (Page 33, "DAD, WELL DONE")
In a contribution to St. Nazaire to Singapore, Vol. 2 he writes:
One day when we were unloading a ship's cargo into our landing craft in Sicily, several large wooden crates of navy rum came over the side to my craft. Stencilled on each crate were the following words: "Consigned to the Officers' Mess."
Question: Did the rum reach the Officers' Mess?
P.S. I certainly did not help drink the Officers' rum and I never will again. (Page 377)
Later, in another contribution to the same book of veterans' stories, he adds:
I remember in Sicily being under fed, working long hours but we just kept plugging. Golly, some of us had lovely rib cages! I would forget we were scared... I stole a shipment of rum consigned for the officers' mess, (stored it ) in the stoke hole of our American LCM. Some can sleep on an empty stomach but sleep with rum was automatic. We would wake up in the morning with our blankets covered with shrapnel. But the Cave* was found and oh, the rum was gone. Next shipment please. (page 387)
In one of many newspaper columns he wrote during the 1990s, my father added a few more details about the cargo of rum. This from a column entitled "Cool, Damp, Safe Rooms at The Savoy* on Sicily":
One day... a large net full of wooden cases landed on my landing craft... destination Officers' Mess. I decided that the Mess was in the engine room of our LCM. I never worked so hard and enjoyed it so much in my life.
Late that same night, we were resting aboard ship, trying to round up some food...
Since we remained on good terms with our officers and never heard anything about the rum, I concluded they didn't know where it went and I didn't enlighten them. On the next invasion, I was hopeful they would send food. (Page 106, "DAD, WELL DONE")
*The Savoy was the name given to a large limestone cave in which some of the Canadian sailors lived, near Avola, Sicily.
Though my father never wrote about going on strike or having officers look over his shoulder while working, he did complain a bit about making more friends than he could handle once word about the rum spread among the close-knit members of Combined Ops.
"A man and his rum are soon parted," he said.
Convoy of Canadians on LCMs heading for Malta, August 1943
From the collection of Joe Spencer, RCNVR, Combined Ops
Please read more about Sicily at Articles: Sicily, August 20 - 26, 1943 - Pt 17
Unattributed Photos GH
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