By Doris Shord from Llanidloes
"I was born in India and did all my training in India. I went to a Lawrence Memorial school so I'm known as an old Lawrencian.
Before war broke out, I must have been 16 or 17 and I trained as a secretary. I then had a couple of jobs - I worked for the Gloucester regiment and closed their accounts before they left India. I worked then in the Officers' Mess doing all their accounts etc.
Then I met my husband who worked in the officers' training school, training young cadets for the Burma front. We didn't know it was for the Burma front but we knew there was trouble brewing and that's why these boys were being trained.
He came home one day to say they wanted him to be a glider pilot to take the boys to the front. I said no way, because we already had two babies. So he said if I cannot be a pilot, I have to go back to England. He hadn't been home for fifteen years. I said fair enough, I'll go back to England - a place I'd never seen before.
We were due to go on board ship in Bombay in 1944. When we arrived at Bombay from Bangalore, the ship that we should have got on board was blown up, along with all the other ships in the harbour. This was because there was an ammunition ship out at sea that had gone on fire. They thought that by bringing it into port, they could put it out easier but instead it blew up. The whole ship blew up and took the Bombay docks with it, so we could not get aboard until they got another ship for us.
When we arrived in Bombay I met one of my cousins who was in the army. He had a group of Italian prisoners that he was bringing back to England from Bangalore. They had a big camp of Italians in Bangalore. We lived in Bombay for a fortnight until a ship arrived to take us and the ship we got on was the S.S.Volendam. It was a Dutch liner I believe.
Now on the Volenam they were very, very short staffed. They hardly had any crew so our husbands and other boys who were there, were taken for duty to man the guns. My husband did his turn - three nights or four nights or whatever was required.
We weren't allowed to go down below to sleep. We only went down below to have a meal or to wash and change our clothes. Having two babies - one was only about 6-7 months old and my other daughter was just 13 months older - we had to sleep on deck fully dressed, with life jackets, we weren't allowed to undress at all.
This was very, very hard for me because when my husband was on duty I was alone with the two girls. I couldn't swim. If the boat had gone, that was us finished.
Anyway, we managed. When we got to Port Tufiq, where we were warned we may get torpedoed, we came through the Red Sea. On the one side of the Red Sea were all the lads in tents waiting to fight and they were all shouting that they wanted to come back home.
Then we got to Port Said and two torpedoes were fired at us but they missed. We went on and if they had said we had to be full steam ahead, I think we would have been the last ship in the convoy. It was a slow boat you know!
When we got to the Bay of Biscay, there were 60 ships in the convoy with destroyers rushing about in the front. Then we arrived at Liverpool.
Meanwhile, measles had broken out on board the ship. My youngest daughter broke up with measles and my other daughter was on the verge of it. By the time we got to Liverpool, I had to leave Georgina behind because she was full of measles but I thought, I can't leave the other one for though she was feverish, I thought I'd better get back home.
We went to my husband's father who lived in Shropshire. He worked in an ammunitions factory or something to do with the RAF. We stayed there and that was alright. I was given this ration book, a thing I'd never seen before. I'd never seen England before, had never seen shire horses and land army girls - all in the fields in the front of our house. I saw some sights!"
By Doris Shord from Llanidloes.
Georgina Abel now runs a craft shop in Hay-on-Wye where she holds classes for local children. More...
your comments
Diana Smith Weedon
Great to read about your voyage.My mother was made a widow in 1942,3 months after I was born in Quetta and we were sent to England in 1945. We were on a troop ship which my mother later told me was one of the Princesses from the Union Castle Line. We were torpedoed and I was thrown overboard by a sailor. I also had malaria and nearly died as there was no quinean. I was fed orange juice taken from the rations of eneryone aboard and survived to this day.
Mon Feb 25 11:24:13 2008
Katinka Tukker, The Netherlands
I was moved to read this because my grandfather (I never knew him) was a boatsman on this ship during WW II. His name was Jan Poortvliet. He was probably on the ship when Doris was on it.
Mon Apr 30 10:49:05 2007
Margriet Kitchen (Hofman) from Canada
I was very pleased to hear another first hand account of a voyage on the Volendam. My family came to Canada in February of 1951 from Rotterdam Holland, on the Volendam to Halifax, Nova Scotia Canada. My parents and older sister and brother have many memories, but I was too young. This article by Doris was also interesting, since her experience was even more dangerous than ours, as we crossed the North Atlantic in Ice flow season, with a ship full of Polish country people, who did a lot of cooking in their pots in the hold. There were no staterooms or anything, just a huge hold for the women and girl children, and another one for the husbands and the boys. My Mom and Dad hardly saw each other during the voyage, and Mom was stuck in the women's barracks area the whole time because I was quite sick. She often told of the bad smells, the cabbage, pork and so on cooking, and the bunks and hammocks for sleeping. My brother got to help the cook in the kitchen, and my sister at age 13 just did mostly what she wanted, and not being sea sick, she wandered all over the ship, including on deck in even the worst weather. I will be forever grateful for the hardships they were willing to endure to bring us to Canada.
Mon Apr 2 09:55:33 2007
Terry Reilly Shepparton Australia
Hi Doris,
Just curious if you ever visited the Warrant Officer's training school In bangalore. I have a class photograph of my Anglo Indian father at the school in 1946.
Fri Feb 10 21:00:04 2006
Kevin Phillips
Like Doris, I am an Old Lawrencian. When did she join Lovedale?
Thu Nov 3 13:13:10 2005
joe bright from chester
Delighted to read Item by Doris Shord of Llanidloes. I am researching the movements and experiences of my father, a merchant seaman who died in 1976.
Based on his Discharge Books, I know of the ships involved and dates but none of the voyage details, which is why the item on the jouney from India to Liverpool with its details and insights was a wonderful find for me.
My father started his career in 1928 on the Maiden voyage of "Duchess of York", and served all the way through pre war and many actions, up to 11.07.43 when she was bombed and sunk off the coast of Spain.
having survived, he then served on the "Empire Cutless" but then on the 18.02.1944 left Liverpool on SS "Volendam" and the desciption by Doris Shord fills in the all important details, for which I am very grateful.
Mon Jul 4 18:34:46 2005
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