'Empire Windrush', 1952

Postcard, Forces Air Mail, 1952. Datelined, 'Royal Signals HMS Empire Windrush, Aden', to Great Britain, franked 2 1/2d cancelled m/c 'London Maritime Mail'; postmarked 12 August 1952.

The postcard is inscribed with a message from Lance Corporal Charlie Williams, Royal Signals, to Mr L J Currie in Glasgow. It records a likely delay in arrival in Southampton due to 'terrible weather in Indian Ocean'. Williams writes 'The old boat fairly misbehaved and gave us a real rough time. However all is now calm so I am enjoying myself sunbathing on the decks'. He writes that he preferred the HMT Dilwara to the Empire Windrush 'but that it is going in the right direction so who cares'.

HMT Empire Windrush was launched in Germany in 1930, under the name 'Monte Rosa', as a passenger liner and cruise ship. During World War Two (1939-1945) the ship was used by the German Navy as a troopship, before being seized as a prize of war and renamed by the British in 1945.

The British Nationality Act 1948 gave British citizenship to all British subjects connected with the United Kingdom or a British colony. In 1948 Empire Windrush brought the first of several groups of post-war West Indian immigrants to England, now referred to as the 'Windrush generation'. The British continued to use the Empire Windrush as a troopship until March 1954 when she caught fire and sank in the Mediterranean Sea.