Voyage Two
SS Edwin W. Moore - Page 2
They brought new food stuffs on board. What I remember well is sides of mutton and Brussels sprouts and barley. We could hardly eat the mutton, tasted horrible to us. I suppose the British were used to it or that was all that they had. We wanted beef and pork not mutton. I think Walker had us throw most of it over the side - we just couldn't stomach the stuff and before that trip was over I had my fill of Brussels sprouts - never cared if I saw one again.
I think Scotland was the prettiest place that I ever saw. It was so green and mountainous. Scotland was picturesque. When we were riding along the roads we would be winding high up on the hillsides and could look down on these beautiful lochs. I never was very observant, but I was in Scotland because everything was so beautiful. The people weren't as outgoing as the English. They were clannish - kind of standoffish. I really did like the countryside of Scotland and on a later voyage I went to Glasgow. ( The Official Log-Book lists the Edwin W. Moore sailing from Faslane, Scotland on November 4, 1943. She sailed South through the Irish Sea and out the South Channel leaving the United Kingdom on November 5th in British Admiralty Convoy KMS 32 bound for Gibraltar. )
I was one of the smallest of the crew so they had me go down this little ladder into the hold that had the whiskey. Then somebody would lower a bucket on a rope down to me. I would take four or five bottles from a case and empty them into the bucket and put the bottles back into the case. I'd give a tug on the rope and they'd pull the bucket up. I did that quite a few times before we got to Sicily. When the British unloaded the cargo they eventually discovered a lot of empty bottles mixed in different crates.
There was always lots of rumors going around and before we got to the Mediterranean
I think we figured out where they were sending us. We got to Gibraltar during
the day ( Nov. 19, 1943 ) and it was impressive. It looked huge to me. I could
see mountains on both sides, in Spain and in North Africa. There were ships
everywhere of all types, but we didn't even slow down. We just kept on going. We stayed close to the African coast. During daylight you could usually see
the coast. Ships detached or joined the convoy along the way. Some came out
to join us at Gibraltar, others from North African ports.
One night I was up on deck and suddenly off in the distance there was an explosion and then a big fire. A bunch of us were watching this blaze off in the darkness. The next day one of the mates said that it was a tanker coming out of North Africa, ( I think it was at Oran. ), to meet our convoy that had exploded. I never knew why, whether it was a mine, a sub or just an accident. I have always assumed that she sunk. With so much fire - flames so high, and we watched her burn for a good while, I just figured, how could she not sink and survive that kind of explosion and fire. I never shipped out on a tanker because I didn't want to be burned. I figured high explosives would be better because you'd never know what hit you. We had some alerts but nothing came of them and we got to Sicily OK. We went into Augusta, Sicily. ( A couple of days after the Edwin W. Moore had sailed the same route along the North African coast, a British convoy of transports bound for Suez was attacked by German bombers using a new weapon- a remote controlled rocket bomb. One transport, the HMS Rohna was sunk. More than 1100 aboard the Rohna died, mostly U. S. Army soldiers bound for the China-Burma campaign. )
We were among several ships anchored at Augusta when the tide changed and ran us close astern of another ship. This guy shouts out, "Is there a fellow on there named Danny Traverso?" I was really surprised. Who would know that I was there on this Liberty ship? We started shouting back and forth. It was Larry Gallagher. He was a bit older and originally from New York - New York Irish - but he'd been living in Galveston for some time. Larry had dated the older sister of a girl that I had dated. He married her. We had a conversation that we shouted back and forth for a while. I hadn't seen Larry for quite a while before that and never saw him ashore in Sicily or at any other time during the rest of the war. I didn't even know that he knew I was shipping and still don't know how he knew I was on that ship.