15.  The Regi­ment sailed on the 13 Novem­ber in a con­voy of 9 trans­ports with an all Amer­ican es­cort of 3 cruis­ers and 7 des­troy­ers.  Except for being cold and rough the cros­sing was une­vent­ful.  The food and feed­ing ar­range­ments were poor and com­bined with the high seas made the trip far from plea­sure cruise.  Movies were avail­able on board but enter­tain­ment of the men was very dif­fi­cult owing to the cramped quar­ters and lack of space.  On the 18 Novem­ber a Bri­tish es­cort of 6 des­troy­ers took over and the con­voy docked on the 22nd and the Regi­ment dis­em­barked on the 23rd at LIVER­POOL.  A “tiny” Eng­lish train took the unit to ALDER­SHOT and from a coal yard si­ding the ad­vance party took them to their first Eng­lish “home”, which they were long to remember, WATER­LOO WEST BAR­RACKS.

16.  There the Regi­ment was ini­tia­ted to hi­ther­to unknown phases of Bri­tish Army life; spring beds that left 6 inch bruises on gun­ners hides for weeks, nail holes at a shil­ling each for bar­rack dama­ges, Brus­sels sprouts and NAAFI sau­sage ten times a week, heat­ing (?) by means of fire places and that won­der of won­ders the Eng­lish plum­bing.  How­ever there was a brigh­ter side to life.  Pubs were some­thing new and won­der­ful even if the beer was not.  The vari­ety thea­tres enter­tained all for as long as the Regi­ment was in Alder­shot and few will forget Phyl­lis Dixie in her “art” num­bers.  One of the most popu­lar in ova­tions was the NAAFI Can­teen.  It was soon dis­cov­ered that for the price of tea and cakes twice a day it was pos­sible to get out of prac­ti­cally a whole day's work.