WE MISSED THE BOAT!
David Rey ex: Signals “X” Branch, HQ BTE
My return journey from the Canal Zone prior to de-mob is, I should think, the only time a body of men have missed a troop ship and a large one at that!
Those of us due to return home went by train from such places as Fayid and Moascar to Port Said where the good ship “Dunera” was waiting to bring us all home to the UK. To this day I can’t explain why she sailed away leaving a handful of us on the quayside in a state of dazed shock and horror at having somehow managed to get all our kit onto the ship but not ourselves! Unbelievable!
To cut a long story short
we milled around for a while as the “Dunera” disappeared over the
horizon. We were eventually rounded up and put on the next plane from Fayid
which duly landed in Malta to re-fuel but was promptly declared un-airworthy.
So we had an unexpected three day stay on Malta before arriving back finally
at Lyneham in Wiltshire in the middle of a freezing March in 1955.