Name/Title
1942/McAllen: The Windsor CastleDescription
RMS Windsor Castle was part of the Union-Castle Line, on their Cape Mail service between Britain and South Africa. Like several of the other liners which the Mack family and the Andrew Chalmers staff knew from 1890 onwards, she was requisitioned for the transport of troops immediately prior to the Second World War.
One of those who travelled on her in her trooping duties capacity in late 1942 was Michael McAllen, Monica Mack's new husband, who was going to North Africa with the Royal Army Medical Corps. From "Michael's Military Memoirs":
"I shared a 4 bed cabin with three other lieutenants but all non-medical. The weather at sea was bad. I was so sea-sick that I could not leave my cabin until the fourth day at sea. I crept down to the large ship's saloon where we were waited on by the same civilian staff as if we were on a peacetime voyage. After another day or two I had got my sea legs and enjoyed the food which was much better than the rationed food in England. I cannot recall how many days we were at sea, probably between one and two weeks.
As is usual in the Army, we were not told where we were each day, nor even where we were finally going to land. We guessed that we had made a big sweep first to the north and then down to the south near the Caribbean Sea as the weather improved and got warmer. This would have been done to avoid U-boats and to get into massed formation with other ships. As officers we were able to walk on the deck and see the mixed type of ships in the large convoy. Royal Navy destroyers flanked the Windsor Castle and quite often dropped depth charges. Actually these were lobbed upwards from their deck to land well away from the ship.
As a medical officer I was called on to visit the Other Ranks being carried in the ship and these were living crowded in wretched conditions in the ship's empty holds. Hammocks were slung from various points and the only light was artificial light as it was all below the waterline. I do not think they had any easy access to the decks as we officers rarely saw them at those levels. If we had been hit by a torpedo, all these crowded soldiers would not have had a hope of surviving."
The Windsor Castle arrived in Algiers in November 1942.
Michael's voyage took place some months after the second photograph, which was taken on 31 March 1942, the three ships being identified as follows: HMS Shropshire, Orion, and Windsor Castle. (British and Commonwealth Shipping Company Register, https://www.bandcstaffregister.com/index.html, last accessed 26 April 2026).
On 23rd March 1943, while in a Mediterranean convoy, the Windsor Castle was attacked and sunk 110 miles north-west of Algiers. Fortunately,, only one life was lost.
The second photograph
The first photograph, taken in 1937, shows the ship at Cape Town on what would have been one of her last civilian voyages.
