World War II Pilot: Chapter 22 – Assignment: Northern Ireland

After a week of getting to know each other’s families and getting to know each other better, it was time for me to get on a train back to camp. I sure hated to leave my family and my fiancé. When we got to Jacksonville, FL I had to change trains to get to the base. I had a couple hours to walk around Jacksonville and I was looking for a phone to call Lorraine. Back then almost every newspaper had what they called a “Man on the Street.” He was a photographer who went around taking pictures of people all day and asking them a question. They picked a few to print in the next day’s newspaper. They would take your name and address and mail you a copy of the picture they took even if they didn’t use yours. Sure enough the Jacksonville Man on the Street snapped one of me. I gave him my address at Avon Park because I had no idea where I’d be the next week.

On August 25, 1943 we received our orders to proceed to Camp Kilmer, New Jersey for embarkation. We were put on a troop transport train that took a couple days to get to Brooklyn, New York. We were transferred to Camp Kilmer where, surprise!, we were to prepare to “set sail” for England. We’d trained for almost a year as pilots, engineers, navigators and bombardiers. We thought we would be flying to Europe! We were going to be the first group that wasn’t flying their own planes over. Apparently they had more planes than crews overseas. It would be another great experience: crossing the Atlantic by ship. Instead of getting into action in a couple days it was going to be a long trip.

Camp Kilmer seemed to be in mass confusion. Instead of leaving the next day, it was four days of waiting before we left. Luckily one night the officers got passes to go into New York City. Three of us headed for The Hurricane Club in Times Square (49^th & Broadway). The Hurricane was known for jazz and was the home of Duke Ellington at the time. This farm boy was living the high life. Once again, a photographer came along and took our pictures – for the princely sum of $1! This time I told the guy to send it to Lorraine.

After four days of hanging around Kilmer we were finally put on a train for a short trip to the Harbor where we boarded our ship – which turned out to be a converted cattle boat! We were part of a huge convoy of ships and escorts. About one day out of port our “ship” had trouble with one of its boilers. We had to leave the convoy and return to Brooklyn for repairs. For two or three days they worked on the old tub and we had to stay on board the whole time. There were over 2,000 people on board. Once the trouble was repaired we joined another convoy heading to England. That was a relief. Our imaginations were running wild thinking we would be going it alone across the Atlantic, a sitting duck for German U-boats. Altogether we spent twenty-three days on the ship before we docked in Liverpool, England. From Liverpool we took a train to Prestwick AB, Scotland, then another boat to Belfast, Ireland. In Belfast our group boarded another train going to a base near the tip of Lock Ney (Lough Neagh), Langford Lodge.