“We were packed together as tightly as sardines and a jolly sight more uncomfortable. The smell of sweating bodies, the intense heat – the Awatea was paradise in comparison. She (the Kosciuszko) was manned by Polish officers and an Indian crew, Cascans. The sight of them eating and the stench of their foods and their ways of cooking and eating, oogh! Less said the better.

The quality of the food we got until our own cooks took over was extremely bad. I could hardly eat, most certainly could not sleep well. I never dared to eat wearing my specs; the intense heat clouded them up. All of us sat down to meals wearing only P.T. shorts and the perspiration ran off us in rivulets.

After a couple of days out we sighted Madagascar off the port beam, then it was gone and nothing but the sea again. It began to get hotter again as we approached the equator, until it was impossible at any hour of the day or night to be cool or to drink cool water. I count the twenty odd days aboard her amongst the most unpleasant ever spent. I wrote two letters, but by the time they were finished they were merely rags, sodden through.

In our convoy were a dozen or so equally small craft, though descriptions and names I honestly can’t remember. We were led by our escort, a solitary cruiser. There had been a sub scare whilst were in Durban, so we were on the “qui vive” and carried our life belts everywhere.

Our convoy split up in the Indian Ocean, some bearing towards the east, one or two more beside ourselves carrying on north, the cruiser left us, we sighted land next day, sailed between two points of land so close together I thought I should have been able to touch them, then we were in a harbour again – Aden, the Red Sea. It was hot but the air was remarkably clear, there was little to see from the decks, the town itself lay over a ridge and only a few scattered wooden huts, looking remarkably new, stood on the seashore.

We were watched by grinning, dusky Arab boys, who cussed us English, we returned the compliment. Being all too new to the wily apes, we readily tossed them odd coppers and cigarettes, in exchange for which we only got abuse. Several of the blokes bought sandals quite cheaply and daggers, wallets, purses etc. – all shoddy looking things and, I expect, all made in England.

I wasn’t sorry when we pushed off again next day. Apparently, we were quite safe now because we went alone and unattended. There was nothing very remarkable about the Red Sea, it was like everything else I’ve wanted, as soon as I saw it I accepted it, saw nothing unusual in it and soon lost interest. We passed several small islands, which conveyed nothing. I thought I should have seen Mecca but didn’t. I did however see Sinai and the sight impressed me. The whole of the Persian coastline is hilly but Sinai towered well above the rest and was quite beautiful in the morning sunlight. At the end of about three days the sea began to narrow and in the distance we could see a town built on each side of the sea and beyond a silver streak running through desert waste – Suez. The wailing of “wogo”, the friendly jibes of ack ack gunners as we steamed in the harbour to dock. The shouts of the stevedores I can hear them all yet.

We were all packed on deck, loaded up to the eyes with kit, only too anxious to get off this “hell ship”. We had to wait what seemed an eternity, but what in reality must have been two hours, whilst we decked and then waited for our train to come in. It came at last and we were shepherded down the gangplank, across the ten yards of dock and onto it.”

Diary entry for August 1942 from Sgt Observer Frederick Sidney Williams, 212 Bty, 111 Fd Regt in his family’s memoirs “Our Fred’s War”.