The daily monitor leader. [volume] (Mount Clemens, Mich.) 1942-19??, 1942-04-16
Ancient Mariner Also
Aboard Mined Freighter
British SoiIor Visits Daughter
at Moeomb County Roodhouse

| ATTRACTIVE, TAR -lldllcu Oily
| Gauthier Wednesday afternoon
looked proudly out across the
polished mahogany over which
she presides at Johnsons Ranch
house near Mount Clemens.
well, look at what's coming
down the line"
1t was her dad; short, ham
mered down sort of looking
chap quite slender, ra I h e 7
broadshouldered and with a
mariners gait.
Aside from that he was wear
ing the uniform Of the British
merchant marine and he had
stopped for a minute to swap
yarns with a little girl who had
hailed him. The Clinton river
runs right in front of Johnson S
which is just step upstream
from the DenmarSh hotel and
probably her dad, N. Riker, his
name is, was telling the kid
how much the river reminoed
him Of the Mersey or the Clyde
because it's so different from
! them.
N. Riker is quite familiar
with both Of those f II ! / S h
streams, the one leading UP to
Liverpool after you've doubled
Holyhead and Birkenhead and
the other leading up to Glas-
Cow after you pass Greenock,
| which is where you may stop
due to an unfavorable set of
the tide or TO discharge cargo.
HIT AT SEA
He remembers both Of them
pretty we'll from the voyage he
made in this latest ship OF his
that was hit -- he doeSnt say
lust what by - .Somewhere be-
tween Cape Race and the
/ Firth of Clyde and damaged
badly enough so that, after dis
charging cargo at Greenock,
she shifted over TO Liverpool
for repairs just in time to set
N. Riker, fourth engineer in
her, ashore to be caught in that
all tired big blItz that the Nazls
gave Liverpool on that Friday
and Saturday night back there
in 1871.
That was bothersOme, that
Nazi air raid on Liverpool,
from n. Riker's personal stand
point and tragic from the stand
point Of the world at large. II
/ kept n. Riker getting eVaCuat-
ed from one place to another "a
keep out of bombed buildings
and it shocked the world be-
cause the Nazis bombed and
machine gunned maternity
hospital just around hte corner
from his quarters. He could see
people being carried out of II
/. in pieces although many escap-
ed alive, because it was b,s
/ building.
But 1t was mighty inconven,
lent TO be evacuated the way ne
was.
When he first landed in L,V
erpool he made his walk to the
Sailors Home, where many sea
faring men were quartered
within Is minutes walk from
the dock.
The same trip took him ar
hour and a half after the Nazls
got done laying their eggs
UTTER DEVASTATION
The street he normally would
have taken was so heaped ur
with smoking debris that ne
hesitated about trying TO climb
his way over and around the
heaps Of it and secuted another
street to use. He FOUND one tha'
looked likely, until about
minute later when he was JUS
starting down it. The walls o.
building about midway dowr
the block bulged out and fel
into the street filling it sole
from gutter to gutter as an ex
plosion shook the whole place
"Uh, huh n Riker murmur
er wisely. "A mot h er time
bomb"
So then he had TO be evacu
ated out Of the Sailors Home
on account of the Nazi bomb
hitting all around 1t and knock
ing the tar out of the Board o.
Trade building Just across the
street
His next lodgings looked al
right when he took EN- il thu
morning, but he had to be evac
uatedAgain, when he came bacl
home that night, on account o
a time bomb blowing the bach
out Of 'em while he was gone
Tell about the little girl wht
went back in the house