TNA ADM 199 795

ESD
5.
454
424
sleep sometime during the 24 hours.
23/5
We discharged supplies from M.V.Sodality during the day and in her I sent back and urgent message to D.S.T.O Dover that ships must bring with themgear for discharging cargo and that there were still several cranes in action. Unloading continued hampered many times by air raids but considering these inconveniences the amount discharged was very satisfactory. The labour employed was largely men from No.
151 Railway Construction Company under Major Edwards and although an appreciation of their work will doubtless be forwarded from another source I must take this opportunity of expressing my praise at the way they not only carried out this - to them - strange work but also the manner in which they returned to it after every raid.
22/5
About 2115 one destroyer and two hospitals sailed and about 0400
M.V.Sodality sailed having been delayed by the tide. Although communications were extremely poor I managed to get a signal passedto D.S.T.O
Dover regarding the sailing of the four ships with & request that the information should be forwarded to the Ministry of Shipping and Mar
Office (Searail 3).
Difficulty was experienced in obtaining reliable information from the look-out station at the lighthouse 30 I asked that three saval
-81b signal ratings should be sent out and these duly arrived. 1 billetted them with the French in the lighthouse and having given them a list of ship's lettersof those requisitioned ships which were likely to be employed in such shallow wateri instructed them to report to the office the names of ships arriving or leaving. They proved of the greatest assistance to se and when the remainder of the Sea Transport Staff left that there were