My Dad at the 1948 London Olympics - Blog Day 8

Despite the Canadian Olympic Team spending seven days on the R.M.S. Aquitania to cross the Atlantic together, bound for the 1948 London Olympics, today is the final blog dedicated to the photos taken during the Trans-Atlantic journey.  

As their ship, the R.M.S. Aquitania came closer to land, the photos illustrate the excitement of the Canadian Olympic team athletes; pointing to landmarks in the Southampton Sea Port.  There are several photos in Dad's collection of individual ships that they see in the Port.  Here are a couple of such photos.

This photo is captioned, "Queen Elizabeth at Southampton Dock" (referring to the ship).

This would be another view, and showing the athletes taking in all the sights of Southampton.  Dad's caption reads, "Southampton Docks - Queen Elizabeth in background".

This photo is captioned, "Ferry from Southampton to Liverpool".

These are three of the Canadian Basketball players (two are named on the back:   Reid Mitchell and Ole Bakken).  The Canadian team is on shore and about to embark on the train which will take them into London.   Rolled up shirt sleeves and sunglasses is evident of nice weather for their arrival into England.

For many of the Canadian Olympic Team, their "home-away-from-home" was what the team mates referred to as the Uxbridge Dormitory.  They were billeted in the R.A.F. Camp in Uxbridge.

Dad's caption on the back of this above photo reads, "Uxbridge Dormitory, All Nations flags and Olympian flag".

Another view of Uxbridge Dormitory.

The caption for this photo is "Ken. Goff. Faul's Trainer.   Gord Grayson.   Adam Faul.  at Uxbridge"

While the athletes arrive into their Dorms in London, preparations are under way to convert existing buildings into Olympic-related services. 

Wembley Stadium can be seen in the background.