General Mann (TAP 112) - Naval Cruise Book

Page 37 text:

fk

Page 36 text:

¥ t!U . '

Page 38 text:

-A f PART III BREMERHAVEN TO FRENCH INDOCHINA In mid-Atlantic the radio dit-dahhed a message directing lis to proceed from Bremerhavcn to Oran. Algeria, to pick up French colonial troops. The message advised that the troops were chiefly Moslems to whom pork is taboo, and stressed the importance of rice and bread in their diet. .At Bremerhaven we loaded twelve tons of rice while parr ' ing questions of the curious on the beach. It later developed our estimates were long — that we could have fed our passengers nothing but bread, jam .ind meat and kept them happy. Leaving Bremerhaven for the second time on .Xugust 8th we retraced our course through the North Sea and the English Channel to a point opposite France ' s Cherbourg Peninsula. Here we turned to the soiuh- v ' est and passed close by the Channel Islands, Guernsey and Jersey, ' e skirted Brittany, crossed the Ba of Biscay, and paralleled the shoreline of Portugal. Portugal was only a dim outline in the haze. Those who looked intently saw the mountain that rises at the mouth of the Tagus River, marking the entrance to the waterway that forms the port of Lisbon. But Spain was another matter. .At 1045 on August 1 2th Cape Trafalgar was sighted, and as the ship headed east toward the Straits of Gibraltar we ran close inshore to the arid, brushy coast of southern Spain. The terrain looked like the coastline of southern and Baja California. The white buildings of Tarifa glared in the brilliant morning sunlight, their red tile roofs distinct against the background of the brown hills. Close ahead lay Gibraltar. Then suddenly off the starboard bow loomed the mountains of Spanish Morocco, huge and heavy and forbidding. Facing the Straits was a single sheer peak, rocky and jagged, its face slashed with deep clefts. And all the awe of Gibralt.ir was gone, banished by this single monstrous mountain that dwarfed the scarred fortress on the north side of the passage. Gibraltar looked like a small rocky island as we passed. The narrow spit linking it to Spain was barely visible. Leaving Gibraltar, and the more rugged southern Hanks of the Straits to the stern, we passed Ceuta, one of Spanish Morocco ' s principal cities. Like those of Tarifa, the buildings of Ceuta were almost uniformly white with red tile roofs. The central section of the city contained man - multi-storied structures, and a huge marine crane marked the dock area. Our introduction to the Mediterranean was pleasant. The skies were bright and clear and the weather mild. A spectacular sunset on the evening of August 1 2th tinted the ship green and spread a coppery sheen over the blue sea. Early the following morning we clipped past Oran and made for Mers-el-Kebir, a small battered town lying a few miles west of the big Algerian citv. Here splmdid concrete moles extend far out in the bay, providing excellent mooring facilities.