I can't say it was a luxury cruiser, because it wasn't. But it was one hell of a bigger ship than the old J.W. McAndrews, and it lay longside to the dock at Bremerhaven to take us on board and bring us back to the good old US of A. I don't remember the boarding much - in fact, hardly at all. Presumably we staggered up the gangway with our heavy packs and disappeared into the bowels of the ship. It was larger and better appointed than the McAndrews, and times were changing, too. The trip back across the Atlantic was much faster; the obligatory anti-sub zig-zagging and all that had now been dispensed with...

We hit a big storm I remember out off the Bay of Biscay. Seasickness was rampant. I was at pains to tell all my fellows that the best defense was to eat regularly and not skip meals (as many took to doing) and to go topside for a view of the horizon frequently, and to stay near the ship's centerline and low in the hold, too - all to cut down the real and apparent "motion." Not seasick myself, I boasted of my years sailing and all and time spent 'on the water" as though I were somehow proof against all such ills. (And of course my recent experiences as "Sailing Master" of my Infantry Platoon...).

"Whether that gale where Biscay jammed in the corner
Herds and heads her seas at the Landes, but defeated
Bellowing smokes along Spain, till the uttermost headlands
Make themselves dance in the mist."

The next morning I woke with an empty stomach but no other sign of distress. I had an orange left over from the day before, so I went up onto the fantail to greet the day. It was wet and wild and we were running almost stern-to to mountainous waves. I contemplated the scene for a bit, then idly bit into the orange. Just then we seemed to settle downward with a sickening dive into a bottomless canyon between the giant waves - while a huge grey-green wave rose straight up in the other direction - up, up, seemingly much higher than the ship's stern. And that's not all that rose... the sickening downward descent coupled with the aromatic bite into the orange was all it took, and I joined my seasick buddies on the spot. Big time! So much for "sea legs", "an old salt" and all that jazz!

But eventually we crossed the "Stream" - the Gulf Stream - whose cobalt clear waters cut through old grey Atlantic so sharply that the boundary looks like a great transparent canyon wall vanishing downwards beneath you...

The first thing we saw that hinted of home was the Nantucket Lightship, which in those days was still "on station." I think she has maybe now been retired in deference to this electronic and satellite age. Next to hove into view was the low, all-white glistening message "Welcome Home" spelled out in large white stones or something like that, on some nameless low rise of land first seen when approaching from the European shipping lanes. (Ironically many of us had also seen this same message when we were outbound many months before - said message having just gone up at that time...). This might have been on the Staten Island shore, I am not sure. Anyway we docked soon thereafter and disembarked on our native soil once again.

"At the careless end of night
I thrill to the nearing screw;
I turn in the clearing light
And I call to the drowsy crew;
And the mud boils foul and blue
As the blind bow backs away.
Will they give me their thanks if they clear the banks?
(Shoal! 'Ware shoal!) Not they!

Without much ceremony (no band!) we were entrained for Fort Dix, NJ where we were to be "processed" and finally discharged (all as was offically recorded in those days: "...at the convenience of the government" which was the way the release of draftees was entered in their records...).

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