CITY OF EXETER

My family and myself, aged 4, arrived on this ship in England from Bombay 21st March 1945. I still cannot understand why we did not wait until the war officially ended , as we must have been in convoy and surely the U boats were still active on unrestricted torpedo activity. .No particular memories of the voyage (except the Gully Gully men going through the Suez Canal .This was my first time on British soil, we went to war-torn London where is was not easy to find a home to rent but ended up in Holland Park area . I believe V2s were still descending on London in those days .

In 1939, Lord Drax (look him up - has a fun name) and other British diplomats left England on this very ship for a trip to Moscow. Their purpose - to have talks with Stalin on a Russia-Britan pact to stop Germany from invading Poland. Unfortunately, Britain was not really serious about the pact since Poland would not accept Russian troops on the land (with good reason, of course). In order to slow this process as much as possible, the British diplomats decided to use this slow ship instead of flying. Took them an entire week to get from Britain to Leningrad and then a train to Moscow.

My Great Granduncle William Perry Graham embarked on this ship 6 October 1918 as part of Company “D” 152nd Infrantry 38th Division heading to Europe to fight in WWI. He died 10 December 1918.