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Description
Mr. Wight talks about transferring from his first corvette, to an old US First World War four-stacker destroyer that was given to the British Navy from the Americans.
Transcription
So, I went back to the Alisma again, and then I was on . . . They went to Bermuda, and I was transferred of her, because then I was a full fledged seaman, able seaman. So, the other ship was short, so they took three from us and put ‘em on the other one. Just to go across the Atlantic. I don't know. I don't remember now what, oh yeah, it was one of the American's old four stackers.
Interviewer: Oh, yeah. Destroyer?
Yeah, they were in World War I.
Interviewer: My father was on one of those.
Oh, was he? Fifty-five, there was. Americans give them fifty and there was only five I think it was, made England. What a bunch of crap.
Interviewer: Why?
We didn't . . . the one I . . . we . . . she, she broke up and sunk before we got across. We went in to Londonderry on a freighter. They picked us up and took us in. We didn't, she didn't sink on a . . . We weren't in the water, we just . . . they come alongside, the engines was gone and everything, so they just took us off and put us on a freighter and went to Londonderry. I don't know what happened to her, if she ever made it, but she wasn't a very good ship. And, boy the bugs on that, oh, I don't know if you ever seen a bed bug, your red bug, something like a beetle. There were millions. They were all from World War I see, they were all tied up and there she was moving in the mattresses, you know the seams. You lift up like that and there would probably three or four under the . . . You would have to clean that before you get in it. The biggest thing that they give to you . . . I don't know why the British ever accepted it. Bought them down to Halifax and half of ‘em never get out of the harbour. They took ‘em out and sunk ‘em ‘cause they were so bad. I think there was four or five out of fifty made England.