Our last night on board, Rudy and I went exploring to see various parts of the ship. An older fellow, a member of the British crew took us under his wing and showed us a lot of the areas that otherwise would have been "Off limits". The next day we docked at Glascow, Scotland and in the late evening hours trooped down the gang plank with our gear and loaded onto a little train that had a whistle unlike those locomotives in the states that has a sound like "Oowie, Oowie. Bra-a-a-a-cht". That British engine called "Tweet, Tweet" One of the most memorable things that I saw out the window as we passed through the countryside was the abundance of chimneys that seemed to dominate the architecture of the homes. There were three or four pots topping each chimney as I recall. We rode all night and the next morning we arrived at Stone, England, a replacement center. Stone and Stafford were in the area well known as the home of the Sheriff of Nottingham, Robin hood, Friar Tuck and the Sherwood Forest.

While we were there at Stone, we didn't have many work details. One day several of us were loaded into trucks and taken over to Coventry to pick up something. We went into a factory that seemed to only have women workers. The thing that I recall most was the bomb damage. One evening Rudy and I went into Stone to see the sights to discover that there were not many sights to see. Strict blackout was the order of the day. There were no cafes, no restaurants, and only a few bars. There were some street vendors selling "fish and chips". We knew about that and bought an order. It was wrapped up in a newspaper to absorb the grease I suppose. We later went into one of the bars. Rudy asked the bartender if he served mixed drinks. He said yes, and proceeded to serve up a mix of two kinds of beer. That wasn't what Rudy had in mind.

At dusk, every place had blackout curtains that were drawn. In addition there was a system of baffles to prevent any light from escaping the building. All vehicles at least the military vehicles had low wattage headlights, if you could call it a headlight. It was a small slot of light that was only a fraction of what we might call a parking light. We started back to the base in an army bus. The biggest surprise of the evening was that after we were about half way there, the bus stopped, the driver turned around and announced "Piss call"

WW-27-29, P.29