Correspondence: "My Grandad Served on the Reina Del Pacifico" (2)

"I Was Involved in Four Invasions; Norway, North Africa, Sicily and Italy."

A very healthy-sized tot of rum (excellent idea, in my opinion. Be right back)!

Photo with permission of Mark Pountney, with his Grandad. Cheers!

Introduction:

A number of years ago (I'm embarrassed to say how many) I was informed via email from Mark Pountney of England that his Grandad Herbert Jones ("a bosun and quartermaster" during WWII) had been on the liner Reina Del Pacifico off the shores of North Africa, at the very same time my father Doug Harrison was in the very same area. 

Even better. Reina Del ('Queen of the Pacific', converted from ocean-going liner to troopship) was carrying U.S. soldiers for the first time, and my father (RCNVR/Combined Operations) was charged with carrying those troops to shore, with many of their supplies, on board Landing Craft, Assault (LCAs) and Landing Craft, Mechanised (LCMs) morning, noon and night for several days on end without a break.

American troops manning their landing craft assault (LCA) from a doorway

in the side of the liner Reina Del Pacifico. (D. Harrison, second from left).

 Photo Credit - RN Lt. F. A. Hudson. Imperial War Museum (A12647, IWM)

Would the two men have met?*

As I said in an earlier post re our correspondence, the odds "are not impossibly thin" because my father was able to go aboard the Reina Del for rest, recuperation and "a big tot of rum" after four days of work aboard landing crafts during Operation TORCH, November 1942. The odds get thicker when I consider that Mr. Jones and Mr. Harrison served in Sicily and Italy at the same time as well - for lengthy durations - from July - September (Operations HUSKY, BAYTOWN, and AVALANCHE), the year after the invasion of North Africa by Allied forces. 

Mark Pountney reinvigorated our correspondence on Remembrance Day, 2022: 

From: Mark
Sent: 11 November 2022
To: Gord
Subject: RE: Reina Del Pacifico

Hi Gord,

How are you? It’s been a long time. I was just checking your site again, I’m so glad you’ve kept it up to date with more articles. 

There are some more images of the Reina Del  although I’m sure you have seen them.

HMS Reina Del Pacifico ("Underway"), w landing crafts hanging from davits.

Photo by J. Hall, Gourock, Scotland. Imperial War Museum (IWM) FL18191

I’ve been listening to the audio clips, lots of references to my local area, Liverpool, Birkenhead, Wallasey.

I’ll see if I can find any more info relating to my Grandad’s service.

Best wishes

Had I seen the photo Mark was referring to? I checked the link to IWM, found I had not seen the photo (!), saw an opportunity to also use a link to its photographer... and more. Good score, in my opinion!

According to my records, I wrote back in under six years:

Hi Mark, I am glad you got back in touch. Your email, linked to our first notes from several years ago, is an example of 'great timing!'

For Remembrance Day, I just happened to be putting two short entries together re Operation Torch, invasion of N. Africa, in which a few ships are mentioned - including the Reina Del, Derwentdale and a sister ship. Your email included good photos of Reina Del, so I was able to quickly add one to the second entry. I then remembered that the photographer's name acts as a live link to his collection of photos at IWM, so I clicked on his name - J. Hall - and it quickly led me to his photo of RFA Derwentdale, my father's ride to N. Africa... so I added it as well.

RFA Derwentdale, "At Anchor", by J. Hall, Gourock. IWM, FL11110

I wish you 'happy hunting' as you listen to audio clips. If you hear something re sailors visiting The Crown Pub in Wallasey, let me know. If The Crown still stands, I'd be tempted to get in touch with the owners! Even pop over for a pint.

I've had some good luck re audio files in the past. I'll keep digging too. My best luck of the past year or two (though I found several relevant WWII stories on decades-old microfilm) was the time a collector of militaria (from many miles away) googled the name and service number on a dusty duffle bag he'd purchased w a pile of 'other stuff' 30+ years ago... and the name/number led to my site. It was my father's duffle bag from 1944-45, his second during WWII. Long story short, I now have it back. So, I wish you that kind of luck as you continue your searches!!

Keep well.

My father's name and number are still visible on the duffel bag.

Returned to me before Fathers' Day 2021

A painted picture of (possibly) Betty Hutton, 1940s-style

Click here to read a post re the return of the duffel bag

And related to the above emails, when following the link to J. Hall of Gourock I found excellent photos of about a dozen other ships used during WWII as well as the aforementioned rides to N. Africa.

As well, the Imperial War Museum provides helpful links under many photographs to 'related subjects'. One subject caught my eye in particular re artwork produced during WWII under the heading 'What Life Was Like In Britain During The Second World War':

'Incendiaries in a Suburb, 1941' by Henry Carr, Great Britain

Photo Credit - Imperial War Museum, IWM Art LD 1518

Notes shared with Carr's painting:

This painting depicts an incendiary air raids, with explosions in the sky and fires raging in the distance. Civilians are putting out two incendiaries in their front garden. This is a jarring image of the war's effect on suburban Britain, with street lighting replaced by fires and normal life threatened and disturbed.

But for the next five years the British had to endure the bombing of their towns and cities in the Blitz, as well as attacks from flying bombs and rockets. In all 60,595 civilians were killed and 86,182 seriously injured. Rationing of food began in January 1940 and clothes in June 1941. By 1943, virtually every household item was either in short supply and had to be queued for, or was unobtainable.

The British were the most totally mobilised of all the major belligerents and there was a great and genuine community of spirit in wartime Britain which often transcended class and other barriers. But there was also an almost universal feeling, exemplified by the popularity of the 1942 Beveridge Report, that after victory the country could not go back to pre-war social conditions.

VE Day found Britain exhausted, drab and in poor shape, but justly proud of its unique role in gaining the Allied victory.

As some readers are well aware, resources housed at the Imperial War Museum are quite possible bottomless. Photographs alone reach into the millions upon millions. Then there are the resources related to other topics that catch my interest at times, e.g., the pubs my father visited with mates during his time in Great Britain and Scotland. I have been to a few but not all, and Mark subsequently provided information and links to one I mentioned above earlier, i.e., "The Crown Pub in Wallasey".

More correspondence to follow in the somewhat near future, less than six years time.

Please link to Correspondence: "My Grandad Served on the Reina Del Pacifico" (1)

*Would the two men have met: Final thought. In my experience, people who enjoy a tot of rum, a pint or two in a cozy pub, possibly a single malt - "whisky is but beer distilled" - now and again, tend to find others who feel the same. Well, that's how it works in my neighbourhood at any rate ; )

Questions or comments re the blog/website can be addressed to gordh7700@gmail.com

Unattributed Photos GH