Photograph of merchant seamen on a mountain summit near Iskenerdun, Turkey

Silver gelatin print by W. E. Williams, 1943. Typed caption on verso reads: "S/S Recorder [Harrison Line] loaded 3,000 tons of high explosives and 350 tons of TNT for Iskenderun (Alexandretta) 1943 at Liverpool. At Iskenderun there was a skeliton [sic] staff of Army officers. The major claimed that the explosives were to be used to demolish bridges and other vital structures if the Russians had failed to hold the German army at Stalingrad and that the Allies would have landed at Iskenderun had that happened. "The Consul General Mr King and his wife were keen mountaineers and every Sunday whilst the Recorder was at Iskenderun sent an army lorry to collect 23 men from the merchant ships in port and took them up to Zogoluk, a little village 2500 feet up in the mountains, from there the party would start climbing the mountains. During the French occupation of the country Armenians farmed small holdings on the mountains, but as soon as the Turks were given the country back after the First World War, the Armenians abandoned the farms. There were peaches, graped black and green to be had for the picking and any amount og tomatoes. Here I saw the storks returning from Europe on their way to the Syrian Plains and the River Nile. These photos are self explanatory".