Australians at War Film Archive

Where I was born? 52, I was born in South Yarra in 52. I lived in Alexander Street, South Yarra. I was always, I lived in a diary,

I was born in a dairy actually, my mother and father had Roseland Diary, 52 Alexander Street, South Yarra. I had a brother, three sisters and we lived a pretty happy life, things were pretty tough in those days, depression days. And coming out of Depression and I was always very keen on the navy. As a young fella I did a bit of sport.

And I rather liked boxing which I took on as lightweight and I did that for a couple of years before I joined the navy. I will mention about joining up?

Oh yes yes, so I joined up in it would have been 1940 when I became 18,

approximately July 1940 and from there went to being a stoker went to Williamstown depot, which is a stokers depot. Met up with a group of chaps there, 25 in all, had quite a lot of fun the first night trying to erect our hammocks. From there, after a week there we went down to Flinders naval base, which was

at Crib Point. I went through our actual official training there for approximately three months. It was actually 12 months, it was broken down from 12 months to 3 and a half being war time. And the first drafts came out and there were eight of us sent across to South Australia to pick up mine sweepers. But I was sent on loan to a ship

called HMAS Wongala which was actually the Antarctic ship the Wyatt Earp and I was on that for, oh only a month or so and then I was brought back with the rest of my mates and went aboard HMAS Coolabah, which was a coal burning mine sweeper. I spent sometime on her and

did a lot of mine sweeping along the coast of South Australia where we found quite a lot of mines which had been laid by German ships leaving Australia just before the war started and from there towards the end of that year, it would be, it was 41 we were sent across to Western Australia to start sweeping there. And we had only just arrived, just before we arrived there,

HMAS Sydney had been sunk. So we called up, and every ship, every available ship was sent out to search for survivors, which we found none and came back to port, we did a boiler clean immediately after that and if I could just mention something which would make a lot of people think today. I was duty stoker on that night

which meant that first night in everyone was going ashore so there was one seaman and one duty stoker left onboard. My job was we were doing a boiler clean the next day so I had worked, I started work at say 7.30 that morning, worked all through the day, everyone went to shore and this was just normal practice. And I was on until 7.30 the following morning. It was a 24 hour stint. My job was to get the

boiler ready for boiler cleaning and have everything set up you see, so that was done. We did the boiler, I was off duty of course the next day. And I was able to go ashore and we came back and did normal duties aboard ship, had Christmas onboard, had photos taken of that and then after Christmas there was about four of us transferred from Coolabah to HMAS

Gunbah which was another small trawler type minesweeper with a crew of 36 and we headed for Darwin. I suppose about two or three nights before we reached Darwin I was on the, we had come off the evening watch which was 8 to 12 and we would come off at midnight and this stoker mate of mine, I was a stoker and he was a trimmer

were sitting on the stern having a cup of coffee or whatever and we looked back and we could see this submarine trailing behind us, so we got quite a shock and rushed up and told the bridge but they already knew it was there and they said it was a Japanese submarine so they, we thought this was great you know but anyway nothing happened and in the morning it had, it was gone. And the following night the same thing happened and

this was a little interesting piece here I might add. Someone said “Why don’t we turn round and drop some depth charges on it?”. Which you have got to realise that a minesweeper in those days was only about, our top speed would have been about 10 or 12 knots which is not very fast and if we had of dropped depth charges it probably would have blown the stern off our ship, done more damage to us than the submarine so we arrived in Darwin and the beating would be that the old Gunbah wouldn’t

reach on account of the submarines. So we did normal work around the harbour and we were classified as the only magnetic minesweeper in the navy. Being a magnetic minesweeper, which meant that they had brought up this float, we carried this float on our stern and on the quarterdeck and that was lowered into the water and we had installed a massive great diesel and that used to pump the power out to this magnetic float

which we would tow and sending the electrical wave down through and explode magnetic mines, that was the theory, so we were going to go up to Sunda Strait to use this but we were partly, we were thinking about going up there and we were going there and they decided that the Japanese were already in Sunda Strait up our end, so that was given away and unfortunately the magnetic float was never ever used in actual you know

purpose.

Oh too much yes, alright ok.

Yes anyway so from the air raids of course 19th of February,

we went through the air raids there and 18 ships in the harbour, 9 sunk, 9 major ships sunk out of the 18. Our ship got quite a pasting. Out of a crew of 34, 36 so we lost 9 or 10 straight off, one dead I think it was 9 wounded and one of those chaps died later on who I met on another ship. After the

raid as I say these ships were sunk it was our job to go round and quickly clean up the harbour, pick up the bodies and so forth. I was made a boat driver at the time. And our next job was, we made salvage ship and our job was to salvage what ships had been sunk which we could salvage, which we salvaged two of. One was the Portma and one was the Barossa.

And general duties then through out and a bit of patrol work and air raids were coming over all the time, each day and night time. From there on I suppose it must have been about 18 months, 20 months in Darwin and we left there and came back to Sydney under convoy.

I rejoined, we left that ship, we all, they actually paid her off I think at that time, the whole crew were sent to other ships. I came back to Melbourne on leave, from there I was on, went down to Swan Island on guard duty for a couple of weeks. Came back to Williamstown depot. Was drafted to HMAS Orara, which was the biggest minesweeper of the lot and the hardest coal burner of the lot.

About six or seven months eight months on her. After three years on coal I decided it was time to try and get off them. Which I had tried several times and I thought I came up with a wonderful idea. I put in for experience on oil. And I was given a draft

to HMAS Adelaide, a six inch cruiser, which was wonderful because they didn’t have shovels onboard that ship or did they have slices you know? So that was quite a change to go to sea on her and you only cleaned your sprays approximately every hour on your four hour watch below in the boiler rooms. So from Adelaide I was on her for approximately 12 months or a little more. She paid off in Sydney, became a submarine,

a mother submarine ship for the British submarines and then I was given a draft to Darwin as a crane driver and from there I went to the boom ships and mainly Karangi, Kangaroo, Koala [HMAS Karangi, HMAS Kangaroo, HMAS Koala] and we went up through the islands of New Guinea and so forth. By this time the

Japanese had surrendered. I did quite a bit of work around those areas, you know the islands and came back to Darwin, went overland to Melbourne and left the navy in must have 46 or 47 I think and came back to civil life.

After the war I went into construction work, I wanted to, I was operating tip trucks and from tip trucks I went to earth movers from different construction companies, operated heavy earth movers like D8s D7s power shift dozers, cat 12 graders and smaller graders.

I did that for about 22 years. I went to another construction company and of course you operated these machines with all different companies sort of thing you know. I went from there to another crowd, a big construction company and I became a foreman with them, a road foreman. From there we went into the multi story buildings in town and I was

on the multi stories for about 15 years and I was a construction supervisor on them. And from there to Sugar Loaf dam, construction supervisor there as well and that just about finished me off I think. Oh no I went to another company and built a bridge, helped build a bridge and mainly more construction work around Melbourne

itself you know and up the bush and then retirement around about 65. Since then I have kept myself pretty fit you know with dancing, plenty of activity, plenty of work in my own home. And enjoyed life to the full or I am enjoying life to the full now apart from a few ailments like we all cop when we get

older.

Well as I said it was a wonderful family life by far. I was born in the dairy, Roseland Dairy in 52 Alexander Street, South Yarra, want to go in a bit more detail?

This is where you want the

detail right. I was born in the dairy, Roseland Dairy. And I spent my life in the dairy, I didn’t work in the dairy, although I did help out in the dairy, but always said I didn’t want to be in the dairy business. And I went to St Joseph’s School in South Yarra. From there I went to Bruce Smalls, which was Malvern Star

bikes my first job at the age of about 14 and then in 39 war broke out. I wanted to join the navy badly, I was always mad on going to the navy and then I joined the navy in 1940 and

my mate and I went down to join up. Tell that story?

No yet, right alright. Yes yes Catholic yes.

No no no all different religions, the people next door were the Barrys. The people the other side were Protestant I think. There was no such thing

as worrying about what you were in those days and yet the kids, I used to remember we used to go past the state school and they used to call us the what was the, we used to call them ‘Protty Dikes’ and they used to say “Catholic dogs, walked like frogs” you know. There was a little bit I suppose when you think about that kids saying that but it didn’t worry anybody like you know and there were never any segregated

areas as far as religions went, it never every bothered me because I always took a person on the way I found them themselves, it never worried me religion.

No, no I never did, although I never had to look for a job, I always had a job. I was never out of a job all my life, the whole of my life. I never ever

found that a problem because when I, what I didn’t mention when I first came out of the navy I see a big company here you would know them, they wanted a crane driver, so I had driven cranes in the navy and driven motor boats. So I went out there with my navy papers one Saturday morning, right out the other side of, which was a long way in those days, didn’t have a car and have to travel by train and bus, right out to Ivanhoe.

Where this company was doing no names, where this company was doing a big homing estate and they wanted a crane driver and there were about eight of us turn up for the job. And there had been about five or six blokes went in before me and I went in for my interview and I produced my navy papers, he said, “You got the job”. He looked at the papers and said “You are the bloke”, navy training, they reckoned that was it. So

I drove cranes for them for a while out there and then it was a bit of drag to get back and forwards from there right out to Ivanhoe, I was living in South Yarra up very early in the morning. So I decided to look for jobs closer and I finished up with a construction company on road works and operating machineries and driving tip trucks. Then I broke away from it and went into partnership with another chap with our own little concrete business.

He was an air force fella. We did it for a couple of years but it didn’t work out. Too big a difference in our age, I was, I would only be about 25, 26, or 26 27 and he was about 40 odd and it just didn’t work out. So I went back to construction work again and got on the earthmovers and I was on them for about 24 years I suppose on earth movers, all over, up the bush and all over the

countryside you know.

Dad came from Queensland, and came to Melbourne, met my mother and she lived in Richmond at the time, all of her family lived in Richmond. They married and Dad had the idea of becoming a dairyman, so he

Well he worked a lot in the wool scour and tannery up in Queensland which was pretty tough old work you know and he come off the land sort of thing, and it is all a bit vague you know it was so long ago but he started up Roseland Dairy in Alexander Street and kept that going for many years, I think he was there for about 35 years Dad in the

dairy. I was born in the dairy and did a bit of, you always had to help in the dairy, I was going to St Joseph’s school. I remember coming home from school in the summer time, there was no such thing as going to the park to kick a football like you know or play cricket. I used to do an ice round after I did my schooling and then at 5 o’clock I used to have to go over to the stables, there was five horses and I would have to muck out their stores

and bed them down for the night and feed them you see. And take them down to the horse trots down the corner and water them down there and that was life in those days, you had to, you just had to help out.

Oh an ice round was a push bike, a wicker basket with a block of ice in it, wrapped in a hessian bag and you delivered that one block of ice to your customer about a mile or two away and race back and grab another

block and away you’d go again, that was the ice round. You would do several runs of that, like you know that had to be done in the summer time because there was only the ice chest, no refrigerators or very few people had refrigerators, I think it was nearly all ice chests you know. And then there was the milk round, had to be done at different times, I used to have to hand can milk or two hand cans of milk on the handlebars of the

pushbike. And I would ride from Alexander Street, South Yarra right up to just about the Toorak station, with this blasted can of milk, a big four gallon can of milk swinging on the handlebars. Which was a job, which I really disliked having to do, especially on a Sunday because this lady who had this milk bar would never ever get the right amount of milk in the morning, which we used to deliver milk to. In those days there was no such thing as zoning on

milk, on milk dairies. We used to go from South Yarra right down to St Kilda, Albert Park, Toorak, it was spread so far apart it was unreal you know. And later on when the zoning came in you just did a zoned area, which made it a lot easier all around. But this lady never every get enough milk and you could bet your life at about 5 o’clock every night she would

ring up, “This is Mrs so and so, I would like some more milk”. And of course Dad would say, “Right Mick get on your bike Mrs Rose wants milk”. It used to bug me you know. And especially on a Sunday I would be all dressed up with my mates to go over to Botanical Gardens. We used to go over there to land a few girls I think you know, which was the normal thing for young blokes, you know 15, 16, and I couldn’t get out of that yard quick enough and the next thing the phone would

ring and my Dad, I would be all dressed up in a suit, collar and tie all done up the lot of us and Dad would scream out “Mick Miss Rose” I would have to take off the gear, my mates would wait and I would grab the can full of milk and ride up to Toorak and come back again, it was a very sore point. When I got to 16 or 17 another friend of mine who lived a few houses away, he later joined the navy as well,

I got him to do the job. And of night time there was a coffee bar, they would always ring up about 6 o’clock, they wanted milk that was straight down Toorak road in all the traffic with this can swinging on the side of my bike, I didn’t have a car in those days, but those were jobs that I used to hate having to do, but you did them. There was no such thing as saying “I am not going to do it”, you did it. That was discipline.

And that is what I was taught. But it was a wonderful life though.

We didn’t have any cattle. It was suburban, the dairies from Kooweerup and all the other dairies would send the cans of milk down to us, they would go over a brian cooler, they would be bottled, icy cold bottled there and then, put into crates and put back in the big freezing chamber and

the chaps would start, the drivers, I think Dad had three or four carts and they would load up at midnight with the crates of milk and cans and away you would go and deliver milk. All over the different areas. There was some funny little things happened with that of course. People would be aghast now if they could hear it but they would leave the billycan out and invariably people would have a lid on their

billy. But they would invariably leave the money in the billycan and lots of time you would be hurrying in the dark you had a hand can and the scoop which was half a pint or a pint, I think it was half a pint scoop and if she wanted a pint you would put two of them in see. But all of a sudden you would put the milk in and oh my god where is the money. So the money had to be got

out Colin [interviewer]. It was unreal you know some of the things when you think about it going back to those days too often it is today, but we often had many a laugh about that.

No no, it was amazing some of the places you took milk into. There was a place in St Kilda, I could never ever work it out. You went in through the front door, front gate, front door and the billycan was always

left in the kitchen and you had to walk down the hallway and there was rooms off this place and about in the main room down the bottom where the can was there would be people sleeping there as well, and you would just walk into the kitchen and it would be 3 or 4 o’clock in the morning because you left the yard at about 12.30 and partly in the dark and you would have a torch stuffed under your arm and it would either be bottles or cream or billycan and leave what ever milk they wanted.

And that was actual life in those days you know, wonderful.

No no they never, it always had to be a can with a lid on, I can never, we often delivered milk, bottled milk, just left so many bottles of milk like you know. But the birds had a bit of a bad habit of that, they used to try and peck the cardboard cap, which in those days there wasn’t a plastic cap like

they have today. You know, but it was mainly, yes bottled milk cold but mainly billycans were always the in thing you know.

In a cart with a horse, so many cans of milk. The cans would be, there would be two cans in the back and the tap of a can would poke out a specially made hole in the tailboard and you would fill from a can. You would also fill the

carry can that we used to carry which was so many gallons and you would fill that as well you see. Because you were gone from the yard about say 12 or 1 o’clock in the morning and you wouldn’t get back to the yard until about 8 o’clock that morning and you would travel quite a long distance and of course the horses just walk along they don’t gallop you know but there was quite a few accidents at different times. I remember my brother he had a very bad accident, Punt Road, South Yarra. Some drunk

in a car slammed into him and killed the horse and threw him up through the roof of the cart, but that was life in those days you know.

I did for a while yes yes, that was a job that I never ever wanted to do and I told my parents that I didn’t want to be in the dairy game, my brother was, that was his full time job in the dairy with my father. But I always said

I wouldn’t be in it. So at the age of 14 or 15 when I left, because I was doing, you pull out you know if there were accidents and you’d have to go out and help them on the carts as before I was still going to school. But at 14 I went to Malvern Star bikes and in those days you had to be, you couldn’t just walk in and get a job you had to have someone give you the ok to get in to Bruce Small’s

Malvern Star bikes. So I was there until war broke out until I was 18. Which was very good, good crowd to work for. Met all the famous bike riders you know.

Oh yes yes.

Yes many a time there was a break down. I would get dragged out of bed

and it would be 1 or 2 in the morning and I’d have to go and help on the cart, and providing you were back earlier enough you went to school, if you got back at 8 or 9 o’clock in the morning you were expected to get cleaned up and go to school. Finish your day off there. It was just a way of life. Today you would be bucking a bit wouldn’t you, you know. But that was just the way it was.

Oh I was average I suppose average, I got my merit and all that sort of thing. Left school in the 8th grade. I finished up at the Christian Brothers, I left St Joseph’s in the 6th grade and I did 7th and 8th grade at St Marys up Dandenong Road, East St Kilda. I left there when I was 14 in the 8th grade and

I wanted to get out to work, I wasn’t a great one for school, didn’t like school. And I joined, but I got a job with Malvern Star that was my first job and I stayed with them right up until war broke out. They put all the young blokes off when war broke out, they couldn’t get tubing steel for their pushbikes so they sort of put the young ones off. I went from there to Heckner Electrics and I was on the buffing machines and grinding machines there

for another 12 months until my call came from the navy to go in. And that was when I went into the navy.

No no Dad, no he wasn’t in World War I no.

Oh well they were pretty strict Catholics of course.

My brother was very strict. My mother I suppose it came a bit from me, my mother wasn’t a catholic, she changed her religion for Dad and I always went to church, went to mass on a Sunday until I was about 14 and when I tried to break away from it, which I did.

But anyway, I still had a go, I still went and I am still Catholic I suppose. I joined the navy and that gave me an entirely different slant on religion because onboard a cruiser there is no such thing as carrying a pastor on a minesweeper but on a decent size ship where you have got say 5 or 600 men which the Adelaide did have we

carried a pastor. You would either carry one or one only, he would either be a minister or a priest and every Sunday whether you were in port or in sea they would have a religious service. Everyone would like up on the upper deck at sea and what he, what he spoke about sufficed for every religion and to me I thought that was wonderful, just the one religion, just the one

church service, which covered each and every one of us and even when a man was killed and buried at sea in wartime the same service sufficed for him for Protestants, Catholics, Methodists, didn’t matter who you were and I thought that was for me. That was the way I looked at life from there on. And I suppose my brother, he was very strict and he didn’t like that at all,

but he had to get used to it because I was a grown up man by then. And I was able to please myself. But I thought that was wonderful you know, it cut out all this religious caper one against the other which I was dead against, I didn’t like that.

Well it didn’t bother me. I was a Catholic and that was all there was to it. I did what I had to do and I had Catholic mates, I had Protestant mates, I had Methodist mates in fact when I left school and started to knock about we used to go away camping a lot, there was four of us. Two of them were Protestants, one was Methodist and I was Catholic and we were the best of mates.

Right up till we joined, until war broke out. Religion didn’t come into it at all as far as we were concerned. You know that is the way we looked upon it. I know my brother used to give me a hard time because I wouldn’t go to mass on a Sunday. But I didn’t see, but I didn’t see it was right you’d been out boozing and drunk and you are drinking like you know, on a Saturday night and you come home with a big head Sunday

morning. How do you expect to get up and go to church? But I always looked at it this way, I wasn’t a hypocrite either well you know if you want to go go, if you don’t want to go, don’t go. It is up to you.

Oh well, she coped very well Mum. She was a wonderful woman. As I say we had the dairy and she would do all our house duties and the cooking and serve

at the servery when the bell rang for people to come up the driveway to her little servery, we had a little servery in the yard like you know beside the house and all the dairy part was there for the bottling and washing cans and bottles and that sort of thing, it was all set up very well. And she had a pretty hard life. When I would come home from school, we always had our roster, the boys and the girls had to

dig in and wash dishes and dry up and also you had certain nights on in the servery, when the bell rang you went out and served the meal. You know you all had your certain nights to do and you know you just did it. That was life. Of course the navy changed all that, I wasn’t home much like you know, six or seven years in the navy, I wasn’t home at all much.

Yes. Yes both from Australia. My grandparents, my grandmother was Irish and my grandfather was English and they migrated out here to Australia and that is how it all started.

Not a great deal really, there was a bit of Italian, but mainly

Australians. We didn’t much, we had a lot of Greeks here. I can never remember anything on the racial side of it in those days. It wasn’t until war broke out that a lot of the louts around gave a lot of the Greeks a hard time. They threw bricks through fish and chip shops you know when war broke out and Britain

was, Britain and Australia and all the other countries were there and you had Germany and Italians all on the one side, so forth, they gave them a hard time, we gave them a hard time here in Australia, they threw bricks through the windows of the fish and chip shops, a lot of the poor devils were Greeks, they weren’t Italians so when they put up a sign I’m a Greek not Italian on the window to save the windows. But that was only at the very start, I think people

realised and woke up to themselves.

No not in those days I didn’t, we had a lot of English people but we had Jewish people here, which we knew, used to serve but I never actually knew any German people in those days. But no

great deal of them.

Oh yes I always had plenty of mates you know good mates. Yes.

Oh we always played cricket and football and the games kids play, you know the cops and the robbers and all these sorts of things, few little punch ups at school.

You always got plenty of the cane of course. I always got plenty of that, the nuns used to have a great big cane oh 18, 2 foot long and they could certainly use it. But it never bothered me greatly you know. Got the cane oh you got the cane and went along with it. Other kids would bawl their eyes out. Not that I was any great hero in those

days either or never was but it didn’t bother me greatly, you sort of used to run, ride with the cane you see, as it came down you sort of ride with it and that would take a bit of sting out of it. Then we got the bright idea if you rub rosen on your hands you know when you knew you were going to get the cuts, put it on first and you knew you were going to get it sometime that day. They reckoned that used to stop it, just to make it a damn sight hurt, harder. Christian brothers didn’t have the cane,

they had a short strap about that long, about that thick and about that long. A rather stiff piece of heavy leather and on a cold morning in winter they would make us all run around the oval there like you know around the park area of St Marys outside the school area, last one in would get the cuts, so you had to run like hell to make sure you weren’t last. These were the days of

discipline in school, which I reckon, should be there today. And on a cold morning the teacher would say “We will have a little game this morning” and they say, “Put your hands on the table, if you are quick enough to beat me well and good” if you weren’t you got the strap across the end of your cold fingers and damn that used to knock them off you know. So he would come along and there would be two at each desk and there were rows of them and it was 7th and 8th

grade, that was an interesting point. We had 7th and 8th grade which would be about 60 odd kids in the one room and he ran it like a discipline area, you didn’t speak out of turn.

Good.

In my family or friends?

Yes a chap next door he was involved. He joined the navy after a couple of

years he joined up.

Second World War.

Oh sorry the First World War not really no no not a great deal on that. I didn’t know very many people in the 1st World War really I knew of

them but didn’t hear terribly many stories but I read a lot out of books on the war you know the First World War. I have got heaps of books up there on war. But no not a great deal of that.

Oh yes we were taught all that in school yes.

Mainly of the British and the Australians in the trenches in Gallipoli and so forth

you know. The landing of Gallipoli and of course I was speaking of not so much back when I was a kid then but what I have learnt since of the, it was rather a botched landing wasn’t it? Gallipoli and so forth and a lot of good Australians and British and so forth and other countries were killed there which possibly may not have happened if it had of been planned a lot better.

No they didn’t mention mistakes in those days, they just mentioned we knew the glory of war, what it was to, what it was to go and serve for your country, what a great thing it was to do, because, oh there were stories Colin

but it goes back so long, so long ago you know. Yes so long ago it is very very hard to bring it all back. But there wasn’t many stories about the First World War that I can remember, from people, from people I knew.

Yes we used to go sometimes to see the march yes as kids yes.

Well well we thought they were wonderful like you know they were heroes. We thought they were doing the right thing by going away and fighting for their country, which I still think that way today. If we didn’t do this well where would we be today? There were very few conscientious objectors.

Put it that way in Second World War, there probably weren’t any at all in the 1st, there might have been a couple but there were very few in the Second World War. I think that you have got to do your duty for your country myself, even today, there is not much else we can do is there?

Well they were the people we sort of looked up to the King or the Queen whoever it might have been in charge. We thought they were just it I suppose we did look up to them. We thought they were the right people in

charge I suppose. It is hard to think back when you were a kid. I am trying to think back as a kid you see but I know that when the Second World War broke out we were very willing to join up. I think mainly a lot of that was caused through the Depression days and it was going to be a big adventure. I always loved the navy as a young bloke of

12, 14, 15, 16. I was always mad to join the navy but my parents didn’t want me to join the cadets or anything like that which I would have loved to have done. But it always seemed to be part of my life to want to go to sea. And it was just something you wanted to do and of course when war broke out it gave us the opportunity. Right this is a big adventure for us you know, coming through the Depression days and so forth. Jobs were hard to get, wages were very

low. Not that it was any better in the navy service it was pretty low pay, four or five bob [slang for money] a day you know. Four or five shillings I should say a day, people would wonder what I was talking about if I said bob wouldn’t they? But no it was I found life pretty right, pretty good in those days.

There is a photo on the wall out there of the Lungarda in I think I was only about 10 or 11 and my mother and a friend like a lady she used to do the housework at the dairy for us. Mother and we used to call her Aunt,

and they were real good mates so the three of us went over to see my sister in Devonport. My older sister was running, managing a shoe shop over there and we went across by ship on the old Lungarda and I thought that this was terrific and they could never find me I was all over the ship like you know. Stood up near the bridge behind the canvas and the waves were coming over the top and I thought it was wonderful

and that was the early stage, I always had a love for the sea after that you know. And I think that was the kick off for me. And then of course when war broke out well that was right up my alley like you know. I went and joined up.

No no there wasn’t a bottle of beer allowed into the house, no smoking.

I started smoking behind their back of course at the age of 14 having a smoke up the alley way but not, not out in the open. But 16 I suppose we went to the pictures we all had a gasper light you know, a smoke and then by you know, you sort of went, you came on and off with smoking, sometimes you smoked sometimes you wouldn’t. I don’t think I was smoking in the navy when I first went in the navy I didn’t smoke. But it wasn’t

long before you soon started to smoke with some of the things you had to do onboard ship you know in war time.

He just didn’t believe in drink, they were very, I don’t know, a bottle of beer never came into our house, up until my eldest, my

second eldest sister Bernie. She brought her future husband actually to the house and he used to be a barman and he was also a welterweight boxer, he used to box for the police force, can I mention his name? Jack Walsh was his name and my sister Bernie. And she was an exhibition ballroom dancer

and they took quite a lot of prizes round you know the old Trocadero in town and the Green Mill and Leggetts down in Prahran and as a kid we used to all drag around to see her, my sister dance you know professionally and of course she met Jack and he was the first one to bring a bottle of beer to the house. Which was very much looked down on but he asked permission could he do it, it must have been some

special night we were having at home and then after that things started to relax a little bit. And towards the war we would have different turns birthdays and so forth and there was a bit more beer brought in, not so much at our house but at my brothers house next door, he used to live next door and we always used to have little parties in there you see. But Dad was never one for it, he was never a drinker, I don’t think he ever had a glass of beer

Dad. Just that way of life, he didn’t believe it you know. Mum she might like a shandy now and again but that was all. A lot of homes were like that in those days you know. And yet there was plenty of beer drank around that area around Alexander Street, South Yarra. Because you had the Morrison Family Hotel down on the corner of Pal Street. There would always be a blue [fight] outside that pub every night,

there would be a fight you know. It was a real working area really Alexander Street, South Yarra it was on the lower side of Toorak Road. It seemed to be the high side was the bigger homes and everything and the money and the lower side of Toorak Road was more the working people you see from there right through to South Yarra Prahran.

Well luckily as I said Dad had the dairy and we were bringing in money. Not a great deal, it was a battle and struggle and they had the sustenance was one of the people were fed with the sustenance, we used to supply them with milk and cream and eggs and you had to fill in these sustenance

tickets. And as a young bloke, when I say young I was only 12, 14 year old I used to have to take this bundle of tickets round to the employment office for the sustenance crowd and there would be hundreds lined up to get their sustenance tickets, they were given so much money to last them week and so many dockets to buy food with. And that was the way we. And then the government used to pay us, pay

my father for what he had laid out for the people like you know these sustenance tickets. And one of the problems with that was, the drinkers amongst the people who were on the sustenance like the husbands, they would get their sustenance money and they would go straight to the pub with it, instead of that money going home to the wife, to feed the kids and help them they would drink half of it before they got home. That caused a lot

problems. It was pretty tough days you know. It was very very tough. When I think back it didn’t seem tough to us we were doing it, we were living amongst it so it didn’t seem to matter. But when I look back now a lot of those families, they couldn’t pay their bills, a lot of people couldn’t pay their bills. And I at lots of times had the job of going round to try and collect the bills on the weekends, as I got older. But

every Monday Dad would go round and he’d have to, you used to have to go door to door and collect your money from all your customers, the weekly milk bill and all that sort of thing. People didn’t have the money to do it. You know.

No no there was no room for veggies, you weren’t allowed to have a, you weren’t allowed to have a dog either on the dairy yet you were allowed to have a cat.

No dogs on the dairy. Oh I was just playing with that.

I went to scratch my chest and I grabbed that. Yes but.

Yes oh yes yes I loved it. I used to go camping a lot with these three mates of mine and as a matter of fact one of our greatest camping spots was just

down here on Burwood Highway. At the bridge down at Wantirna. And we used to go to the bridge and cut in there and it is still exactly the same today as it was then do you know that? It is still the same, the creek where the creek bed is, it comes under the bridge, there was only a little bridge there of course in those days not like what they have got now, and you went down past there and you’d go in through the fence and we used to park our bikes with the kerosene lamps and the tent and the fly. You know

what a fly is of course? That is the fly that goes over the tent, water proof. And we would make up our bunk in there and we’d cut a couple of long saplings, straight long saplings, we’d cut four prongs, knock them into the ground put the saplings over and run a couple of chaff bags which we specially made cut the ends out and sewn them over and slide them over and that was the sort of a

mattress type of thing which made the part where you laid. And of course you would have your blankets, you would have your pots and pans and we’d have a great time. And I suppose we used to go every long weekend we would always go away camping. Up to Bacchus Marsh around the gorge, where we used to do a lot of shooting round there, when we got older we got the rifles, 22 rifles and went shooting rabbits round the gorge at Bacchus Marsh.

And every chance we got, long weekends we’d always go camping. These other three mates of mine and myself. One of them joined the navy, he was the other chap that came with me actually and he came down to join up and he said, “No I’ll wait and see if I can join the Perth later on”. It just goes to show how fate goes. I went to minesweepers shovelling coal for three years, he went to

the Perth and he went down on the Perth, just the luck isn’t it? Just the luck of the game. Yes so I am a great believer of that myself. When your time is up it is there, there is not much you can do about it.

The first job I got was rubbing down the back stays of a push bike, the back stays is where they hook onto the wheels before they are welded you see and they come in packages and it was an oily rust they were covered in. And you would have to rub them all down and get the rust off them and of course you would get it all over you. You would have an apron on which was made out of a chaff

bag, you’d wrap that round with a nail just holding at the back, very flash like you know. And of course I’d get all this rust over my face and they used to call me Rusty. I will never forget that. I must have done that for two or three months you know this rusty business four months. That was my first job. Then they taught me brazing, were you braze

the little lugging between the two blades, the back spokes, the back stays and then you went from onto forge brazing, they took you, put you through the whole trade there at Malvern Star it was terrific. The assembly, the enamelling into the dip bars and put them up on the trays and let them drain. Assembly, cuing up the wheels where you sat in a dark, in a dark sort of a canopy place and you spun the wheel and had to

line up exactly on a light. It was very interesting at Malvern Star. So I had quite a few jobs there and I went through the grinding, the grinding and buffing, went into bonderising which was to stop the rust in frames of bikes it was a bonderise type of thing to stop rust supposedly. And then I went into nickel and chrome plating, copper plating, nickel plating, chrome

plating and assembly, it was a good trade, it was a good job down there. But as I say I was still only about 17 or 17 and a half when war broke out and they put a lot of us young blokes off so I finished up at Heck Electrics see.

Oh yes yes yes Hubert Opperman he used to work there

at, he was one of the big knobs actually at Malvern Star bikes. Yeah Hubert Opperman, Bernie Devers, Jack Walsh, there was another Jack Walsh to who I spoke about before. The Guy brothers, they used to work there. A lot of these chaps bike riders, famous bike riders used to work at Malvern Star. A chap who was he, he was the fella that

did the 12 months bike ride, dear oh dear. This is where the memory gets a bit, he lived over in Richmond. He did a 12 months bike ride and I had given the honour, seeing as though I lived at South Yarra. I used to ride through Richmond to go into town, his name will come to me in a minute, and it was my job to go to his place when he did his 12 months bike ride to pick his bike up in the morning

and I would ride my bike and trail his beside me, you have seen that done haven’t you? Right through town into Malvern Star and I was then working at, I had left the main factory of Malvern Star which was in Little Lonsdale Street and I had gone down to the new factory in Spencer Street on the bridge there and oh no I am sorry. I went from town to the city depot, that is right.

What they call ‘renew’ opposite St Frances church, there used to be old motorbike shops there and we were up on top. And we used to do all the insurance bikes, all the ones that were smashed up, we used to renew the bikes and rebuild them. And it was my job to take his bike into there and it was my job to completely renew that bike which meant putting out the spindles, regreasing it, putting in a new, all new ball bearings, that was done every

day and polished up at the end of the day. I would then ride the bike beside me again and deliver it back to his house that night while he was out riding another bike, he had two or three bikes you see. And then one day I got there and he was riding through Frankston, see what mileage he could get up for Malvern Star bikes in the 12 months. Someone opened their car door and he slammed into it. So that morning I went to work with a frame wrapped round me

and two bike wheels strapped to me back. So that all had to be rebuilt that one you know. Ossie Nicholson, Ossie Nicholson was the fellow and he did this 12 months bike ride in that time.

He was leaving Richmond and went right down through Frankston and out through, other beach areas down that way you know I think he went down to Rosebud a few times you know that

area.

He’d leave from Richmond and be back at Richmond every night yes and he had to build up this mileage over 12 months and he did that every day, unreal you know when you think about it. I am not too sure if he did Saturdays and Sundays I am not sure. But it was a mighty effort you know, Aussie Nickelson yeah. They were all famous bike riders.

Yes yes they had the board track, the board track bike ride, they had road races, there were a lot of road races. I know when us young blokes, we would be riding around the river the Yarra, because I lived at South Yarra and I’d ride round that way. Then all of a sudden

this group of our blokes from work, they were all professional bike riders and they’d get amongst us and they grab you by the spindle of your saddle and they would take you them with you and oh god it was unreal the speed they could get up to you know and your feet would be nearly falling off the pedals, you went that fast, it was terrific, you know they were really famous bike riders, the whole lot of them unreal. Of course they had the best of bikes too they had all these racing bikes like

and we only had the old bikes. But even working at Malvern Star you didn’t have enough money to buy a decent bike out of the place you know in those days. They were wonderful days you know, they were great days.

Yes there were yes yes yes. I can name them can I?

There was one very particular mob in Richmond called the Bulleti Mob, you daren’t go over to Richmond if you wanted to come back in one piece. Prahran, I lived in South Yarra, Prahran you had the Skeeter Fleet. And they weren’t so bad the Skeeter Fleet I didn’t think, well they got into blues, I know

they played up a bit. I know one big blue between them and another gang from Windsor and they pulled pickets off a fence and got stuck into each other. That’s the way of life. But we’d walk up there on a Friday night, it was late shopping night you know and you’d see all the gangs and they sort of knew you, they knew us, how are you going, you are always very polite to them, especially the Skeeter Fleet. But I see them, they were pretty fair in this respect

though I thought apart from the gang war far where everybody was into each other. I see there one night we are walking up Chappell Street, Prahran and the Skeeter Fleet pulled us up and they said, “Where are you going?” I said, “We are just going for a stroll up there you know”, “Not looking for trouble are you?” “Oh no thanks no” and another crowd came down from the other end and because we were in between the two gangs you see and because we knew

quite a few of them that is why they went light on us and there was quite a few words said between the two gangs and they said “Alright lets form a circle, you put your best man in against our best man”. And I thought that was pretty good that was fair fighting I thought, because it wasn’t gang amongst gang it was one good man out of each gang to fight each other to see who was the best. And that is all there was to it and who ever lost that was

bad luck all to it they didn’t get stuck into them or anything like that, they just parted and went their way, and that happened many a time you know but there was plenty other times where it didn’t happen, where there would be gang fights, but there wasn’t that many I didn’t think. But Bulleti’s mob were a bit harder. I felt from what we had heard of them and what they had told us. There was some big policeman from the other side of town I wouldn’t know his name now.

He came through and he cleaned all the gangs out, one out, great big fella. I think he had a lump of chain in each hand. And if you congregated on a corner, this is something which people couldn’t do which you would find hard now. The law was that we used to often stand under a lamp post, only three or four of you maybe or even more you know 10. We would stand there yakking like, we would stand there for a few hours each night having a bit of a yoe with our mates

and then go home. The law was that you did not stand in a group under a lamp post. You had police patrolling the streets all the time and if you were stupid enough to stand there, the big copper would along with a big, remember the big old shiny helmet. The next thing a size 10 boot would go up your backside if you were stupid enough to stand there, he would lift you right off the ground you knew next time not to stand there if you saw the coppa coming.

So we would see him coming, we would all disappear and after he had gone we would all come back again. Hopefully he didn’t know we were back, and that is the way it was and there was no word said. No mothers went up and said oh the policeman kicked my son in the backside that was it, you were doing the wrong thing. You rode a bike, I got caught riding a bike without a light one night, the police put the boot, bike in the boot and took me home to my father.

He said “I just caught your son up the road no light” Dad said, “Right” wack, “Get your bike inside”, “Good on ya mate” he said “See ya later” and away he went.

Oh yes we never got over that way but they were pretty hard, they were pretty rough weren’t they the Fitzroy gangs. Who was the bloke that used to be over

there he was an old pug, oh dear I should have another mate of mine here he could tell you a lot of these fellas he lived over that way, oh it is gone I think you know. There was a gang over in South Melbourne that was pretty tough to. There was a pug over there that used to run the gangs over there,

I can’t think of his name, it is going back a few years Colin. I am only a young fella myself.

I remember reading about John Wren yeah I didn’t know a great deal about Wren I didn’t go into politics, politics didn’t worry me as a young bloke you know.

Oh didn’t he, oh John Wren, yeah. No I know who you mean now yeah, no I didn’t know a lot about that.

Oh yes we always had food on the table

but what my Dad did, he looked after many people you know. I have got a tape in there somewhere which was interesting, it was very interesting it told of people in life of those days, of what people had, they had nothing, and what you had you shared, and there was a fellow I won’t mention his name he was a very hard working type of person, just a labourer, pick and shovel

man you know worked hard. He was out of work, could not get a job. And it was of course it was those days. So Dad knew he was out of work, I remember he used to go down to the local grocer just down the corner near the pub, so he would go down and pick up the box of groceries and take them round to me so and so’s house. And I would take this box on my handlebars and round to the next

street and knock on the door and take it in and this fella would cry to think my father was helping like, you know helping him like this which was wonderful, it was great and Dad did that for a lot of families, he was well known for doing that Dad, what he had, he shared. He wasn’t one of these blokes that stashed a fortune away because he was a businessman. He spent it all on his friends and helped a hell of a lot of people. And that little tape I have got there

sort of told you the whole story.

I learnt about them later on actually. A fellow I lived practically opposite when I lived in Box Hill south in the first home I built there,

he was a tramp and he used to ride the rattlers [trains] for jobs you know. He was a hard tough man too. I believe he was on of the, wouldn’t do any harm to tell you, one of the best fist fighters, street fighters in Port Melbourne. And he travelled all over Australia looking for work, looking for jobs. He and I didn’t seem too bright on politics but you didn’t argue with

Les. He used to get very wild.

Yeah yeah that is right yeah.

Oh yes,

you didn’t really hear that much really here, as youngsters we didn’t hear that terribly much. You see it is a bit hard to delete that from your mind when we have seen so many films on it now and since the Second World War of how Hitler rose you like you know with his parties and the youth movement and so forth. We didn’t know a great deal about it then

here in this country. I didn’t think, we didn’t know that much about it, but then as it got towards the start of the Second World War well then we learnt more and more about Hitler and what he was doing and how he invaded Poland and so forth. But before that we didn’t know a great deal about it. It was overseas, thousands of miles away from us which we thought would never affect us you know.

Yes yes

I used to go to the pictures quite a lot. I used to go every Saturday afternoon was the big, it was a cheap day for the kids you know.

Yes before the war yes. Yeah we knew, we knew all about that at the time I was practically

just in the navy in those days wasn’t I really? Yeah.

That is a good question. I suppose I think I was working at Malvern Star bikes

at the time. Yeah I think I might have been working at Malvern Star bikes. Yeah it would have been yeah that is right. What time, can you remember the exact time that started, it was declared?

39

September.

I should know, dates, dates are getting a bit hard to remember at my age you know.

We better delete that bit, I will come back, I will look at my book in a minute.

Oh yes that I think we were all a bit stupid in those days we thought oh well war started lets join up. As I say it was a

big adventure. This is where all the young blokes said well being and living and being brought up in the Depression days like you know, there was no, there was nothing much to look forward to, although there was a future, we had jobs and there was that to look forward to, wages were very light on but as I said before, it was looked upon as an adventure and right we will be in this

like you know, and that is how most young blokes looked upon it and they joined up immediately regardless. Of course they soon changed their mind when they got into the action, they realised what they had signed up for but that didn’t matter we were in it and we were there to do a job. And this is where the discipline I would say came back into it then, the strictness of the navy is what held blokes together. You know held them at their,

at their post onboard a ship.

Malvern Star laid us off yes. It was about 12 months after it started, no it wouldn’t be 12 months no it would be less than 12 months because in 12 months I was in the navy, it must have been well before, it might have been

oh no war had started I suppose and we couldn’t get the tubing metal from England so they laid off the young blokes and I was lucky enough to get a job at Heckner Electrics.

I worked there as a grinder and polisher, that was, they used to make electric toasters and that sort of thing, it was chrome plated. But it all comes in the bare basic metal piece and that had to be ground clean with the grinders

and then that would go away and it would be washed in a cyanide wash and copper plated, nickel, chrome plated because you always nickelled first and then chrome plate after and each of that, each of that section that has to be rebuffed with a buffer on each of these machines and that was mainly what I did at Heckner Electrics until they called me up then, until I got my,

which I was waiting on the call you see to go in. So I was there approximately I suppose I don’t know, six or eight months at Heckner Electrics, which was a good job. The job was there when I came back if I wanted it.

Oh yes joining up yes. Well as I say this mate of mine, we hopped on our pushbikes as soon as we, when it broke out, it had only been broke out a couple of days.

And we went down to Port Melbourne and we struck this petty officer he said “What can I do for you fellas?” and we said “We want to join the navy” “Oh yeah, what do you want to be” “We want to be gunners” he said “We don’t want any gunners, we want stokers” I said “What is that, shovelling coal?” he said “Yes” I said “No no” he said “No there is no coal burners in the navy today in this modern navy my boy, it is all oil burners” I said “Oh oh”

I sort of sucked right in I said “Ok I’ll be a stoker” my mate said “Alright I’ll be a stoker, but we want to join the permanent navy” which was 12 years he said “We don’t want any perms, we are only taking reserves at the moment” I said “Oh ok” I said ‘You can put my name down I came this far” I turned to Keith and he said “I’ll wait and see if I can get in later in the permanent navy”

and I said “These coal burners” I said “You reckon they’re not coal burners” he said “No coal burners” I said the funny part of it is the first three years I spent on coal burners, I couldn’t get off them.

Good.

So after joining up down at Port Melbourne we went into, we actually went into Melbourne and had to be processed there and went through and then they told us we would have to go to Williamstown depot to sit for examinations. I think there was approximately 45 of us went down for the exams and there was only 25, 20 or 25 of us who

passed the exam. From there we were told we would be going to Williamstown naval depot, which was a stokers depot. We met up with some other fellows there which made us up to 25 30 and these are all the chaps that I actually joined up with. After about approximately a week at Williamstown doing

gunnery drill and marching and so forth we were sent to Flinders naval base, which it was known as then. And we went over to BG1, which is a new block area that they had built down there. There, as I say there finished up there 25 of us in all, oh sorry it wasn’t BG1 it was F block the new block BG1

was the old section opposite the parade ground. So we went into F block, when we went into F block that night, that afternoon there was 25 Victorians they mixed 25 New South Wales with us, a few Queenslanders and Tasmanians and so forth, and of course the jealousy between the states was unreal that night because there was a hell of a blue on, they started slinging off

about Sydney Harbour which was the New South Welshmen. And there was quite a blue between Victorians and New South Wales and I think the idea of this was that they were going to break us up into classes. It didn’t matter where you came from, you were mixed in, you weren’t kept as groups. So we got over the first night ok, there were quite a few black eyes the next morning

and we had all made up by then. And then they broke the 50 of us into mixed us with another group which made us up to 100 and they made us into engineering schools for lectures. And there was approximately 25 in each squad. And all the different states were mixed together which was good, great idea. We went through engineering school down there and we were taught about boilers and so forth.

We’d start off the morning on the parade ground with exercises and so forth. They checked out your teeth, anyone who had crook teeth they were pulled out whether you liked it or not and that was quite a funny thing you know they would have physical, physical education on the parade ground. They’d be quite a lot, all over the depot there would be suddenly 100 people doing exercises. And I had to have some

teeth out. And I was in the dentist’s room this morning and all of a sudden there was about 10 or 12 fellas came in and the dentist must have been awake-up and he locked the back door that they had come in and they couldn’t get out. And they were in sculking physical education, physical training so he took them in and gave them a needle or two, which they didn’t want and that stopped the capers from

dodging physical training from there on in. The message got right round Flinders of course and no one tried it again, but it was funny what blokes would do to get out of physical education. Anyway we went through the training, and they had physical training as I say and marching and rifle drill and boat drill, went over the rifle range and was taught how to shoot and so forth, marching and all that. After approximately three and a half

months, four months, which had been broken, down from a 12 18 month stint in peace time it was brought down to three and a half months training. We were then given our ships to go to our drafts to different ships. And myself and seven other fellows we were sent off to South Australia to pick up mine sweepers. I was taken out to

an investigation vessel, which was called HMAS Wongala. Which was the old Antarctic ship the Wyatt Earp. She was an investigation vessel which was there to stop ships coming in, put a crew aboard and check it out and if she was ok they would let her go into Port Adelaide you see. But I was only on there for approximately one month I think or something like that.

No that was only an investigation vessel. It was the old Wyatt Earp

which was the old Antarctic ship which a lot of people would know a real historical old ship you know and they renamed her HMAS Wongala and what she would do, she would lay a couple of miles out from the harbour on a anchor and when a ship would come in she would up anchor, go out and meet the ship, put a boarding party aboard it and the would investigate this vessel what the cargo was you see. Because what was happening we were still,

just before the war started we had a lot of ships come in transport ships and they were German ships and as they went out they were laying mines in the passage of South Australia and this happened quite a lot around the Australian coast. Actually right before the war started and of course then we had the job of cleaning all these mines up to make the passenger’s safe. So

as I say I was only on the Wongala for a month or so. And then I was sent ashore and picked up HMAS Coolabah which a few of my mates were on that I had joined up with, she was a minesweeper coal burner. So I was soon taught how to use a shovel and I was a trimmer for a while, that is trimming the coal out onto these steel plates of the stoke hole and you have to keep it up to the fireman, there are only two of you there

a trimmer and a fireman in those boiler rooms only one boiler. And then after about four months at sea I was able to, I was allowed to sit for first class stoker, which was more money and then I became a fireman and then I would have a trimmer trimming the coal out onto the plates for me. Right so that was the way that worked. The first hour of any watch, sorry the first half hour of any watch you had

three fires in each boiler front and one fire would have to be drawn in that first half hour. In other words the coal builds up a lot of clinker and it gets a layer on top of the fire bars and unless you can break that up and get the air come through it you are losing power and strength and you are not getting the right amount of steam through so you lose power through this so that one fire, that one fire

must be drawn that is a law you must do that. And as each watch goes on each one fire is being pulled so you finish up after three watches you have got two clean fires and one getting dirty all the time so you keep doing it. To do this, when you are actually firing you fire, you shovel so many shovels of coal down each side of the furnace and a couple down the centre. And then after

a while you are keeping an eye on your steam gauges you grab a slice which is a big steel bar with a chisel head on it, that weighs 90 pound. You open your furnace door you put, you throw that in slide along the plates and you break all the clinker up all the fire and that lets air get through and they do that for all the boilers and then you are ready for another pitch, which they call another throw on of coal and that goes on for four hours and you keep your eye on the gauge all that time.

Yes four hours of shovelling yeah. Four hours of shovelling. When you use your slice that breaks up any clinker in the bottom on top of your fire bars and then you’ve got what they call a rake it is a great long steel bar with a ring on the end of it and it has two it is like a fork, how could I explain it, it is like a rake with two ends on it and you put that in and you pull all the clinker out with that and of course you are adding more coal all the time and of course that gives you a clean fire

and you do that for four hours and then you have eight hours off. But in that four hours you have already pulled a fire in the first half hour, those ashes have got to be got rid of out of the stoke hole and the ladders are straight up against the wall so your trimmer he goes up on what they call the fiddley which is up on level practically with the upper deck and he lowers the steel buckets out of a hand winch, hand driven winch and I fill the buckets

with the ashes and he winds them up, takes them off and if it is a very rough day at sea or night you have got to be very careful, you pick up the steel bucket which is very heavy and you dump your ashes over the side until you get rid of all your ashes off that first watch. And each watch that comes on does exactly the same thing. So that gives you a bit of an idea of what happens in the coal burner.

No no no no, this is the Coolabah the HMAS

Coolabah.

The Wyatt Earp was an investigation vessel and she had a diesel motor on her.

It was renamed Wongala. Wongala but a lot of people, elderly or people in that sort of liked that sort of thing would remember the old Wyatt Earp. Very well known distinguished icebreaker you could call

It, made practically all wood heavy wood. Very very thick about 18 inch timbers in the actual building of the ship, wonderful. Right so then we would go out and sweep for mines you see.

Yes I can even give you a photo of it.

No smaller than a corvette.

The bar boats, that is Coolabah and Gunbah they were old river boats off the Brisbane river that used to cart timber down the Brisbane river and they were many many years old then. So what happened was when war broke out they reacquired all these old boats all fishing trawlers and bar boats and all that sort of thing, they put a gun on the front of it, they put a couple of guns on the

bridge like machine guns, they put a few depth charges on the stern of it and they also added the sweep gear which is all the sweeping gear which all the sweeping gear to sweep mines with. And that made up a minesweeper, very very old ships, their top speed would be no more than 10 or 12 knots.

A corvette was I think it was about 15 knots on a corvette 15 or 16 knots on a corvette, they were the new ones that

were built after the Second World War started. I think they built about 60 of them wasn’t it, 50 or 60.

For Australia yes yes, terrific little boats, terrific ships. I think they carried, oh I have to be careful what I say here because crew wise, I think they must have had around about 100 of crew there, 80 or 90. A lot of my mates

served on the corvettes. Yeah so that was the, that was the corvettes.

Yes only for a week.

Well there wasn’t. You had drill hall where you trained, you did athletics like you know you

had to be physically fit and you did marching outside and gunnery practice and so forth like with the rifles and that virtually took in the whole of the day you know the eight or nine hours you were there. And at night time you would sling your hammocks, they were only in sheds of course, but it was a very old depot there, but quite good for the purpose quite good.

Yes there was a dockyard yes there was a naval dockyard there where they used to do refits and so forth and build ships. And that I think is partially all still there but I think it is under where they still build ships.

When

it first began. Well, as I said

Well the war had already stared see before that when I went to Flinders, war had already started and our reaction was after living in the Depression days and coming out of that it was more a big adventure. It was looked upon as quite a big adventure by most of us young blokes you know.

And we thought it was great a great idea you know to see a few other countries and travel the world.

Let that go we won’t answer that.

So where are we up to?

I told you about the coal.

Oh yes well our action onboard the ship.

Yes enjoying yes. Well you soon changed your ideas when the air raids started you know because that would give you a different aspect again on what it was all about.

But that was the way we joined up in the first place we thought it was a great chance to see the world and also do something for our country but it was more a great adventure out of depression days you know.

Yes I suppose so yes yes.

We

realised the likes of Britain winning the war and we felt that we should try and do the same in the Second World War if we possibly could. We didn’t want to be trampled under Hitler and his regime and that was what it was all about, we were fighting for our country and fighting

for democracy, which we all loved. I mean to say it would have been a wonderful old place if the Germans or the Japanese had taken this over wouldn’t we? None of us would be here today would we?

Well it was your own country, it is hard to explain it really.

Oh yes it did, it did

a lot yeah. We thought, I think most of us thought it was great to have a King and a Queen you know or a Monarchy. It was something to look up to, you have to be ruled by someone. Someone has to take the reins and lead and we thought it was much better to have a King and Queen than have a, what can we call Hitler, a ruler.

A dictator and I think it has panned out pretty well for us all. I mean to say we live in a reasonably free country don’t we when you think about it we can do and please practically say whatever we want to say. I think you have to be a bit more careful now what you say today. But it is so terribly free, I mean in some countries you can’t even open your mouth, you would be a political prisoner straight away. And that was proved in Germany.

The amount of political prisoners they had, before they even went to war. Because you didn’t believe, you didn’t believe in what they were trying to tell you.

Yeah yeah yes I did yes the newspapers.

Mainly,

mainly what was happening over there with the war really. I can remember at the factory you would always buy the Sun and the pages were filled with what was happening over there. There were lots of stories I remember reading concerning our Australian ships that were over there. You know the sloops. They went over there in the very very start of the war you see. And we sent a terrible lot of sailors

over here in the early part of war. A lot of fellows I knew that served on the Dunbar and Orara and different other ships who had been in the reserve navy before the war went over to England and picked up destroyers which were being built for us and mainly manned by Australian sailors and that was the N class destroyers, there was five of them

and they did some wonderful work you know over there. There were in on Crete and all these other parts they went to over there and brought back all these survivors and so forth.

Can we hold for a minute on that Birkenhead, Birkenhead was the naval base that is right. Yeah Birken it was. When we got there we were taken ashore into the, we were taken ashore before we actually joined the ships

and we were educated on what a mine was and how it worked and the amount of explosives it carried and so forth. And how a sweeper would sweep, would deal with the mine and by cutting the, cutting the cable that the mine was anchored to the bottom on the mine would float to the top and then it would be our job to explode it with guns.

And you had to try and hit the horn of the mine to make it explode. I remember one time we had a mine come up and it was a floater actually it was one that had broken loose, it had been floating around for some time. And we had about four blokes with 303 rifles pumping bullets into it, couldn’t hit the horns but they were hitting the casing and they were piercing the casing, but the mine wouldn’t explode. But she eventually filled up with water, that many holes in it, it eventually filled up with water and sunk.

And it went to the bottom and that would probably just lay there and rust away and rot you see. But you actually had to hit the mine, I think there was mercury in the mine and that would immediately go to the detonation point and explode about a ton of explosives.

Oh yeah, rip the bottom of a ship right out you know, terrific explosions, they sunk a lot of ships these mines you know. They would always lay these mine fields

you see to trap ships in.

They were laid by a mine layer, that is a ship, a ship that has an opening in the stern of it and it is very well organised the way it is, they have got all these mines on rails and they are just like a big ball with horns and they have got this big steel box underneath them. And when they are

laying the mine they can lay them quite fast, they are progressing, speeding along, and they are dropping the mines off the rollers that goes along the rails that goes along like a train line. And they drop the whole thing over the stern, and they drop so many in a line and they make a pattern of a minefield for a minefield. And what happens when the mine rolls off the box on the bottom sinks

and that hits the bottom with the cable on it and the mine stays at a certain depth below the service and that is held there. When we come along with the sweeps, our sweep cable will hit that cable that is standing upright and it will drag it to the jaws of a cutter and the cutter cuts that cable and allows the mine to come to the service. And then we have to deal with it then, we have to explode it.

And that is the way it actually works, so you are generally out at first daylight. You anchor at night time because you can’t see a mine if you cut it in the dark and you have got mines floating everywhere so we stop as soon as we possibly can when it starts to get too dark to sweep any more and we go into a little inlet and some little spot there where we can anchor for the night. And at first light you are out again and start sweeping different channels again you see.

It is like a chessboard you have got to work in a pattern the whole time and clean that area out.

Well the same thing, you have got a watertight door at the stern or they can drop them off the side no doubt. As long as they clear the ship, you have got to make sure you can clear the ship that is why they mainly drop them from the

stern same thing they open the door, the watertight door and they roll them off. Set up the same as a minelayer, the same as our own mine layers laid them you know. And they just laid them in a line as they leave a port and they are sitting there for anything to hit them.

Actually I think around the Australian coast, I have a little map over there I can show you later, you can take with you. I think there were 70 odd ships lost around the Australian coast through mines being dropped by mines, by Japanese submarines, by German submarines, by German raiders. I think it was 75 or told that either sunk or hit by gun fire or harassed

in a hostile state around the coast of Australia which is quite a few ships isn’t it 75, which a lot of people didn’t know about. I don’t know how true this story would be but we were told that one German raider used to put part of its crew ashore on different parts of Australia on around the Victorian coast to give them a break off ship

and we didn’t even know they were there.

Well you never know do you? Oh no it, it wasn’t allowed there of course they weren’t they come ashore they don’t come ashore and stay on the land for a while for a bit of a break off the ships, so we were told.

Oh that was common knowledge. In different, I’ve a book there inside somewhere on the coast of Australia

how this happened like you know on raiders and mines that were dropped around the coast. Quite an interesting book to read.

Well it just depended, sometimes you would sweep for two weeks, three weeks. We used to go out for in Adelaide we would leave Port Adelaide and go out for two weeks at a time or sometimes three weeks

at a time. And all your fresh milk and fresh veg would be gone within three or four days and then you would go onto tin stuff. And we would bank, of a night time we would anchor off Penneshaw or American River and on the first weekend out, on the weekend we would go into Kingscote and we would stay there the weekend and make sure resupplied with ship and so forth and then go out and sweep for

the next week again. After two weeks or maybe three weeks depending on how busy we were we would go back to Port Adelaide. You get there on Friday, in the morning you would coal ship all Friday, reprovision and so forth and be ready to out Monday morning, early Monday morning again. Out for another fortnight or three weeks. Coaling ship was quite a job,

being coal burners. On the Coolabah, it is a bit hard to describe it, you have got to imagine a bunker, you wouldn’t know I suppose what a coal bunker was. Coal bunker would be, take these two rooms in size I suppose or even bigger and deeper, and they poured the coal in with baskets in the old days, they didn’t have

running belts like to run them on which would have been great. And that that coal would form up into a heap like a pyramid inside the. Can we just stop I have got to get some notes actually. Can we just hold for a minute? We start to coal ship and they are brought over generally by coal baskets by the wharfies, as it starts to fill the bunker, we have got men inside the

bunker trimming the coal back, packing it tight because we have got to put a certain tonnage into the ship. As the coal, the wharfies want to knock off so they finish up instead of waiting to eat and completely clear the hatchway and get the stuff thrown back they tip the whole lot on top of the hatchway and you’re completely locked inside. So you wouldn’t want to worry about claustrophobia would you? But being young blokes it generally didn’t seem to bother us. And there was generally three of us that always did this job

so we got used to it. We would pack that back, you finished up with about 2 foot of headroom, laying on your stomach shovelling coal backwards and pushing it back with your feet because to pack it in. And we would gradually work our way out. And we are locked in of course this time because there would be a heap of coal on the hatchway and we would dig that out, and gradually the light and air would come in which was terrific and that was the way you coaled ship. And was just one of those jobs that you

did and it had to be done and you did it. That was quite interesting and people have said to me “Oh god fancy having to do that?” but that was the way it was. So being young and silly you did it. You didn’t mind it. So that is all I can say on coaling ship. Oh and incidentally too on coaling ship there was only one bloke that was not allowed to coal ship and that was the cook. Everybody was

included in coaling ship. There were all different jobs of coaling ship around the ship you know cleaning up and bunkers and so forth and you have got side bunkers as well to fill so there was quite a lot of coal and quite a lot of shovelling to be done. Some other ships, even coal ships with bags, they had to carry the bags of coal along the wharf and brought on board the ship and they would be emptied into the bunkers. So that is all I can tell you on the that one, on the

bunkers, on the coaling.

Yes well there was the stoking, fireman, firing I mentioned that, you might be, you might be lucky enough to get into the engine room for your watches when you help the, there is an ERA [Engine Room Artificer] in charge of each

engine room, there is only one ERA and one stoker and he has jobs, down there to do cleaning up and so forth and there is plenty of work to be done. After so many hours of this they do what is called a refit or a boiler, sorry not a refit, a boiler clean. And that means blowing down your boilers, pump out all of the water of your boiler, go inside your boiler, very tight

section to work in with a shipping hammer and a wire brush and you lay on your stomach and your knees and everything else and you scrub the steel and get all of the muck off inside the boiler. That takes quite a few days to do. And also you get in top of the boiler and do the same in there. You can’t get down, you can only get about half way down the side of a boiler because the tubes are too close, you can’t get a mans body down between to get underneath so you have got to crawl in from the bottom,

do the bottom section up to half way and then you crawl into the top of the boiler and come down the sides to approximately half way again and everything has got to be scrubbed, and get all the rubbish off the tubes which gives you a better steaming power you see, and you hose the whole lot out put back the two main manholes in the bottom which are watertight, screw them in tight, fill her up to a certain height,

about a third from top if I remember rightly or a quarter from the top and that quarter from the top above the water and the top of your boiler, your boiler was shaped like so that is steam space, and your water is boiling naturally from your fires and the steam is coming off the water and that is giving you steam to drive your ship. That is the best way I can explain that.

Well you are all one big family onboard a ship you see and you are all pretty good mates you all get along together. All young blokes, although we had a lot of elderly fellas with us. And we mixed in very well, it worked out very well indeed.

One or two times there would be a blue or two that would happen onboard the ship you know but most of the times on these ships it worked really well, we never had much problem. Of course you know what sailors are like when they go ashore and get a few beers, they tend to finish up in strife for sure, or they fight amongst their mates. But normally onboard ship it very very very well indeed.

Oh yes yeah yeah yeah, we didn’t see much of them

only when we came in to coal ship or repairs had to be done. Oh they did their job, we did ours, we kept out of their way and it always, there never seemed to be much trouble with them. I must admit they were all pretty slow on the job, the amount of times you’d be there for a refit and you’d be walking around the ship and they are all supposed to be working and you would find three or four of them stop in a cabin and playing cards. This was typical of the wharfies in wartime.

But I suppose that happens everywhere. But that was out of our jurisdiction you know. But going ashore was always pleasant to look forward to with a few bob in your pocket. And if you spent a fortnight at sea it was good because you came in with two weeks wages in your pocket.

Which was a couple of pound you know to spend in four days, so we used to make sure we spent it and go back to sea and look forward to the next pay day.

Australian. An Australian captain.

Well most of them were, although we had some English captains amongst them you know. But most of ours on the sweepers were Australians.

Beg your pardon?

No oh no no no no, he was a skipper in charge and the only time we would see him was if we had to go up to the bridge and there was oh god here we go. We had a

steering engine, which had to be greased and oiled. And the only time we would see him we would go up there and do our job and go back down again, you wouldn’t speak to him. Unless you were spoken to, you wouldn’t say “Hey how are ya going mate”. You would get a stoppage of leave and pay. But they were pretty close knit on the sweepers but also

discipline was a little bit easier too, although you always seemed to get into a little bit of strife at times. On the bigger ships discipline was very very strong and that is where I got into a bit of trouble each time on the bigger ships, but everyone got caught out, stop your leave and pay for different things you did wrong.

Well the funny thing if I could just jump from minesweepers, you mentioned Catholics. No religion as I said was never ever mentioned onboard ship, it never came into your life, it never come into anything, religion it wasn’t spoken about you know what I mean. On HMAS Adelaide we had been out on control working

escort work. We are jumping the gun a bit here, I am jumping ahead is that alright? And we came into Fremantle, we went ashore on the Friday and had quite a good time and the Saturday we were ashore and had to be back onboard Sunday for divisions, which was church service. So we all came back and of course we were all feeling pretty crook [sick] because we had a pretty hectic week Saturday night

ashore you see. We got onboard and all dressed up in your uniform your tiddly uniform number 1 and the pipe went out church parties form in, we all went up on top on the upper deck they said “Right RCs” [Roman Catholics] this is a crew of about 550 600 men “RCs fall in on the wharf” of course only about 85 of us fell in on the wharf RCs, there is Roman Catholics.

So we had an officer in front of us and he marched us ashore. Of course we are all feeling a bit crook of course from the grog from Saturday night and we went to church, to mass, ¾ of an hour. They took us into the hall next door, we had hot coffee and tea and beautiful cakes and food to eat you know it was lovely, something you don’t get onboard ship, we thought this was wonderful. So we were there for another

half hour or so we were up in Perth. And all the other crew were still on ship waiting to have their church service onboard. But they don’t leave the ship till about 12.00. We had already been ashore for about 2 hours you see. When we get back the story is told what a great time we had while we were at sea for the next two or three weeks. We came back into the same port again, they said “Right RCs fall on the wharf” this is Sunday morning “RCs fall in on the wharf” there is about 200

RCs fell in on the wharf compared to about 80 in the 1st trip in you see, and the rumour had spread around. So they weren’t worried too much about religion, they were worried about getting to shore earlier or getting a feed at the hall. And this is one thing I always laughed at you know. When anyone is bereavement or anybody is killed onboard a ship at sea he is generally buried at sea

and the one, the one service suffices for everybody for all religions. There is no special service, there is one service that suffices for you to be buried and I thought that was a great idea. It stopped all this bickering about religions and everything else. So that was it.

No there didn’t seem to be any problem at all, I just sort of dropped right into the position you just followed your mates and did what they did sort of thing, you just followed each other, none of us knew what was what, we had never been on a hard earner ship before you know. And

you just found that it just became natural. By the time you had done your four hours down below in a stoke hole you would come up, if it was day time you would write letters or have a bit of a natter [conversation] or lay flat on a stool and have a bit of a sleep. In the sweepers we had bunks so that made it quite easy you know because we are right up in the fo’c’s’le in these sweepers, in the roughest part of the ship of course.

But as far as sea wise goes and we found that was quite ok, no problem, you’d have a yarn [chat] to your mates and then they’d go and have a doze and then next thing you would go and have a meal and the next thing you were back on watch again you know, the eight hours used to go that fast. But what I didn’t find on the Coolabah nor the Gunbah when you are off watch you are mainly able to do what you wanted to do.

On the bigger ships you couldn’t. On the Orara, which was another ship, another mine ship that I went to you weren’t allowed to sling a hammock in any of them anyway through daylight hours, we often used to get into the hammock bin and bury ourselves underneath the hammocks, make a hole and four of us used to sleep under there when four of us were in the stoke hole you see on the big boilers, the two boilers. And then the chief stoke would come and find us, he would hear someone snoring

and we would get out, you weren’t allowed to do that. So to keep warm in the winter we used to go up and crouch around the funnel with a few old coal bags around us to keep warm up on the upper deck and the heat of the funnel used to keep us warm and we would have a sleep there until it was time to go on watch again. But that was taboo you were not allowed to sling a hammock. You weren’t allowed to sleep in the mess deck but you could sit there writing a letter but that was it you know.

I only every

got seasick once. I was good as gold when I joined the navy and I did my back in the navy, ruptured it and was in plaster from my waist to my shoulder blades and I couldn’t even scrub a mess deck table, they put me on light duties I did it in the stoke hole actually, one rough night at sea and heavy water, heavy seas coming over and the water got on the steel decks, my feet went up from under me and my back was arched and I ruptured the whole back so I went on three weeks leave and eating good food at home.

I came back onboard ship and we are heading for out of Adelaide and we are heading to Fremantle and we were going out in very heavy weather, they were tying everything down and I was sick the whole damn way and you still had to do your duty whether you were sick or not you see.

Oh all they did was put a Elastoplast strap from my waist to my shoulders all over my back to hold it all tight and

a couple of number 9s you have heard about the number 9s have you? A number 9 cured all ills, it didn’t matter what you had wrong with you, you could have a broken arm and they’d still give you number 9.

It is only a tablet, it is only a tablet and it cures everything they reckon, there wasn’t much treatment onboard ship I can tell you. You had a sick bay like sick berth Tiffy but he was very

poorly trained, he was trained in a cut hand and that sort of thing and put a plaster on but I don’t think they could diagnose much, if it got very serious they would drop you off at shore. But luckily all being young we didn’t have many problems you see which was good. And one thing we found out since those days, if you had a serious accident, which I did,

luckily it was marked down by the sick bay tiffy. I had been sent on leave for three weeks so that would have been in my history sheets, which I have got there, back injuries, I had treatment at different depots and onboard different ships throughout my service in the navy and after the navy when I was discharged I came home I was putting up I was paying for, there was no such thing as physiotherapists in those days in 1947, 46,

47, 48 so I was going to a masseur and he put it back into shape for me. But I was paying for that until one fella said to me one day “Why don’t you go to repat and see them” so I did and sure enough I was granted a pension, a disability pension for my back and even to this day I am still having physio now on this knee. That is all covered by Veterans Affairs [The Department of Veterans Affairs].

So it does do some good things you know.

Oh yes they have been wonderful actually the Veterans Affairs to me you know I have had the what do you call the card we have got, the gold card. I came out with a gold card because I had eyesight problems from looking at the furnaces and also the back.

And there were no problems with a gold card. I just go to the Doctors for a cold or anything and it is all covered which is marvellous. So even the physio on this knee is covered by, so it is great you know. But a lot of poor devils didn’t have it so serious and they didn’t do much about it. A mate of mine had at action stations, a fellow jumped down a man hole and he was standing at the bottom of that he landed on this fellas shoulders

and crushed his shoulder. He still has trouble with his shoulder but it wasn’t, he didn’t complain or didn’t go and see the bloke, the sick bay tiffy [artificer – skilled person] about it and he gets nothing for it. It is stupid, very foolish but he has finished up ok, he has had other complaints related to navy and he is getting a proper pension now but if these things aren’t reported you are in trouble Colin.

That was no problem, you just fell into the slot, it was a matter of have to. One thing with the navy, you can’t beat them, which at times I thought I could but found out I couldn’t.

And all they would say to you was “Alright stoppage of leave and pay” and when you have been at sea for two or three weeks and you can’t go ashore you think who are you fooling, who are you trying to fool mate, you are only fooling yourself you know you can’t do this. So you have to abide by the laws or else cop the consequences. And they don’t care how many times they say to you “Stoppage of leave and pay”. I ran

into quite a few little problems on different ships and one was onboard the Gunbah, I won’t go into the full story of that because, a stoker had a go at me one morning and what he said wasn’t very nice and he used some pretty filthy language and when you call a man that you are looking for a fight and it finished up that way and anyway I was marched ashore under armed guard for

that one. And I got 30 days sals for that which was commuted to by a good word from engineer and they commuted that to 30 days stoppage of leave and pay. But that is a long time, 30 days stoppage of leave and pay. So this is what I mean by saying you can’t beat them. They just say “Oh well stoppage of leave and pay”. I

was onboard the Adelaide I was walking along the upper deck there. And when you go onboard on the upper deck of a cruiser or even at sea you must wear your hat, which I had a hat on, my overalls, I had an oil can and a rag, I was going to down to do a job on the quarter deck or something or other and a midshipmen came past me and I hadn’t seen him before, it was the first time I had seen a midshipman onboard you know. So I saluted and I sort of glanced like that to say “Oh I wonder who that was?”.

I got about another 10 paces along this upper deck and this voice screamed out, “That stoker halt”. So I stopped went back, “What is wrong sir?” he said “I am putting you on a charge” I said “What for?” he said “Silent contempt” two days stoppage of leave and pay. I went before the green table two days stoppage of leave and pay, this is where they can get a bit rough like you know.

I saluted but I shouldn’t have had the second glance. I saluted as I went passed and thought “Oh who was that?” and just looked to see who it was and he thought I was giving him contempt with a second look. That is the way he looked at it, but these little things you know but that is the way it goes isn’t it?

The green table is where you go for punishment each morning, that is off caps, what they call green table, you go for the green table to see what is going to be said about what they are charging you with and it is off caps as soon as you walk up the jaunty or whoever there is in charge of it or the chief stoker or whoever he might be coxswain off caps you stand there while you get charged to see what you are going to cop [what punishment you are going to get].

You say thank you very much, three bags full and march off.

Oh it did yeah, different little things, it was ridiculous really, absolutely ridiculous. I was onboard the Adelaide and I had to stand watch this night on bathrooms. And I was told

by the chap I had taken over for I was on duty this night. You are red white and blue watches you see and red was probably on duty that night. The other two watches had gone ashore. And he said “Will you stand the bathroom watch for me?” I said “Righto” so the idea is that you would go into the bathroom it is a great big room with washrooms all around it and all showers the whole ceiling is full of showers you see, we had about 130 stokers onboard you see so you

would all just plough in together and you finish up washing the other blokes arm while he is washing your leg sort of thing you know. I made sure everything was nice and clean and I was standing there and along came the bugle and the pipe and they are blowing the bugle for round you see this is 7 o’clock 8 o’clock at night. And officer of the watch was there stoker PO [Petty Officer], stoker petty officer, quartermaster

and a few of the hangers on come through all in a group. And they came to me and I said “Number 1 and number 2 bathromm is ready for inspection sir” which is what I was told to say so I saluted “Number 1 and number 2 for inspection sir” “Right” had a look, checked it “Carry on” away they went so I went back to the mess deck. About half an hour later this stoker PO came in who had been on rounds

he came at me and he said “Stoker Hough” “Yes chief” called him chief you see “Yes chief” “What you said was entirely wrong” I said “How do you mean?” he said “You don’t say number 1 and number 2 bathroom is ready for inspection you say so and so and so and so” of course I said “Bullshit”, it doesn’t matter if I say, it doesn’t matter if I say it Colin.

Well he was correcting what I said, he said “You said that wrong it is not number 1 and number 2 bathroom is ready sir it is so and so and so” I said “That is not what I was told” and he went on and I said “Bullshit” he said “Right caps on in the morning for you, green table”. Four days stoppage

of leave and pay and we are in harbour. So you have got to wait up to yourself, there is no way you can beat the rule and this is great in one respect. If you can deprive someone of doing something it will pull them into line and sooner or later they are going to wake up aren’t they? Now I had been in the navy three and a half years then so I should have known better, but then I realised I thought I could speak up to this bloke because I had a badge on my arm. I was a

first class stoker with a three year good conduct badge on and the four war shivernce on here as well you see and you know it was just the way he went about it and of course where I said the wrong thing was, I probably could have got away with it quite easily but there was at least a dozen stokers on the mess deck who heard it probably and that is why he charged me. If they hadn’t of been there, there would have been nothing more said.

So there you go, but that is only paltry charges compared to what some of the blokes got and did like you know.

No, a new fella would come onboard and he would be accepted practically straight away there was never ever any rough stuff done on them. I never ever saw

it all the years I was in the navy. One thing they would give a bloke a hard time about would be if he was unclean, if he didn’t keep himself clean. I have seen that happen before I have seen it happen on one ship. This bloke would never scrub himself, wash himself properly and he had been handling coal on coal burners you get filthy black like you have to go and have a shower and he hadn’t done this. He just washed his hands up to here

hands up to there, face and neck up to there and put his clean uniform on. Imagine the rest, he as been in the hot stoker all sweating and god knows what. So when he went up to go ashore, you have to be inspected before you go ashore liberty men to clean and liberty men line up. They said, “Undo your dicky front”, which is only tied on and you lift it he said, “You go back and get yourself bathed properly and report back

to me before you attempt to go ashore”. By the officer of the watch you see. So things like that they were very strict on and that was the only time you would get a hard time if anyone was that way inclined they were made. In fact on one ship, I think it was on the Orara, one ship bloke wouldn’t bath at all so they just laid him down and they got the brushes and scrubbed him with soft soap and the scrubbing brush and turned the hot shower on. He washed

himself from then on. There were all these littlie things like you know.

Oh yes yes that was the old King Neptune thing like you know dumped you in a bucket of water all that sort of thing or a tub of water that was the normal thing. Just what you see on the picture is the same they all dress up as you go over the

equator. Over the line as they call it.

They call it the line, you know the equator line.

No, oh burials at sea was always done under the Australian flag, the bodies always weighted of course and it is put on a plank

and it is covered by the Aussie flag and the Australian flag, and they just let the body go and hang onto the flag, it is weighted and it just goes down you know. It was all done to certain regulations and all that sort of thing, prayers are said and so forth. It is all done very properly you know where it can be done of course, where it can be done, there are incidences where it can’t be done.

Yes no problem yeah,

I had a lot of good mates onboard. That was one thing you always had to watch a bit on a big ship you, if you went onboard a ship. I struck this once when I first went on a cruiser. This bloke wanted to be very friendly and make mates you know straight away. I had been a bit weary of this sort of thing because I had been in the navy for a while and sort of a wake up to this. And I found out later he was always broke this bloke and he was looking for a mate.

But he didn’t ring my chimes and on the mess deck I was on I had several mates on that and the other mess deck table you know, there was eight or ten of us used to all go to shore together. But we couldn’t all go to shore together at the same time because we were on different watches you see red, white and blue but at times as we could. There was no worries having good mates. And you do sort of get with your own type of fellow, you know that thinks along the same lines as you, that does happen.

But that is the only difference in that section of it. You pal up with someone who you like, someone who thinks along your lines. You don’t pal up with a complete opposite who you can’t converse with can you. But that is up to you the way you do that of course.

Not so much in my time. I had my suspects on one bloke onboard the Gunbah but every time he came up on the fauxal and we were sunbathing I would always disappear. He was the only one that I struck, but there were a couple not that many not that many, struck a couple but you just keep away from them,

let them know how you feel that is it, they don’t bother you.

I did after yes later I did yes when it got into action and all that sort of thing you felt a bit better if you could smoke and then of course there is the passive smoking item on a mess deck

you can smoke and you’re actually sleeping and sitting in a area where everybody is smoking so you naturally just breathe it in don’t you? You don’t need to smoke, you are copping plenty off them.

Yeah that was a bit of a problem for a young bloke, we all went to shore, that was good, that was the best part of it I think. That was the first thing we did,

it used to be funny, there used to be as I said about eight of us go ashore together. The first thing would be, we would go to the milk bar and have a malted milk. Put a lining on our stomach then we would go up the pub. And we would have a few beers together you know, quite a few beers.

Oh no, no you couldn’t. There was no grog issue for a start.

Although we got grog issue when we were up in the islands you see. Two bottles of beer a week. That was alright, that was good, there were plenty of young fellas that didn’t drink so you bought theirs for yourself, you bought that off them. But no it wasn’t a big deal, grog. When you were onboard ship it didn’t worry you, you didn’t have it, so you didn’t drink it. You could always buy lolly water, what we call lolly water lemonade, soft drink and all that sort of

thing. On most ships you could buy that in their little canteen. But oh no to bring beer onboard a ship you are really looking for strife you know, you have got to make sure you can bring it onboard without being caught otherwise you are gone. Jail term on that, that is sals for that. Of course not every ship caries sals so they send you to a bigger ship to do that’s sals you

see.

Yes but you had to buy tobacco rations from WD&HO Wills [cigarette company], they would put it in your ration every month and that would be sent, I am just trying to think if we got it up in the islands, probably did you know at times, and you’d put your order in and your order would be placed on your bunk or your hammock, whatever you had on that ship and

tobacco and cigarettes you know. But there was always plenty of Yank [American] ships around where you could bargain, barter stuff you know, they might not have much of this so we’d barter this for that. We would barter our cigarettes for some of their beautiful tinned turkey and all that sort of thing you know. They feed really well, really well the yanks. They had it down to a fine art, you could get nice hot coffee onboard their ships any time of the day,

you could get ice cream you know, it was a thing of the past on our ships.

Very poor up north, very poor. They’d used to give us Queensland tinned butter, it wasn’t refrigerated and of course when you opened it, it was like oil so and it smelt rank and it really stunk rank so we just threw it over the side. We lived on rice. I remember there for three months straight we couldn’t get any decent food

at all and we lived on rice for three meals a day you know. They’d put a bit of curry in it of a night time and that was alright and you’d have it with a bit of tin milk for breakfast and to make it worse though it was mildewy rice like you know it was all you used to eat so you ate it. But later on which was quite annoying we thought towards the end of our stint up there before we came home after 18 months up there or 20 months

the canteen ships funnily enough were getting through and you could go ashore apparently to the canteen and buy this stuff, buy they couldn’t serve, they couldn’t get the supplies through for the ships onboard ship to feed the crews. So little things like that you know it just makes you wonder at times.

Oh yes yeah oh that was no big deal.

Only for about a month. I could give you the details there in my service record.

Approximately four or five weeks on the Wongala.

Coolabah yes Coolabah.

Coolabah I must have been on her for I’d reckon nine months, it must have been nine months, 10 months onboard the Coolabah.

10 months on her and then I went onto the Gunbah and I had approximately 18 months on her 18, 20 months on her.

Where the ship was?

That was mostly on the South Australian coast sweeping mines. We got a terrible lot of mines around the South Australian coast.

The ships laying the mines used to come through the passage early in the war and they’d lay all these mine fields right through the passage of South Australia and they sunk quite a lot of ships through these mines being in the passage so it was our job to sweep them all you see. There were two of us, there was another sweeper the Nambucca and the Coolabah. And I was quite surprised later on after the war.

We used to go out and sweep for approximately two weeks, sometimes three weeks at a time we wouldn’t be back in the harbour until two or three weeks after, we’d stay out and we’d anchor off in a cove somewhere each night and away we would go again next morning. Where other ships like in Western Australia in Fremantle they would go out in the morning and come back at night, and they’d be ashore that night, they’d be in harbour every night. I couldn’t work that out. So that just showed you how many mines we had to try and find around the

South Australian coast. It was quite a few mines around the Victorian coast as well. You had the Orara and the Dunbar, they were two large sweepers and also the, that was later on, two of the sloops, the Swan and the Warrego they used to do sweeping as well between here and Sydney.

Between Melbourne and Sydney.

Only once. It was a very risky day I thought. We were off the South Australian coast somewhere. Of course you never knew where you were at sea, you couldn’t see all around you, you couldn’t see any land. And they sighted this mine floating. So imagine the miners over there to the ronders, the right on the starboard side right over there,

so they opened up with the gunnery you see, with their rifles 303 and about six blokes with rifles trying to hit this mine. We have come to a dead holt, but the tide is running towards us you see so the mine is floating along just bouncing along, it is coming towards us, I am down the stoke hole, I went up the deck and had a quick look, oh the mine is down below and the next thing this mine is coming towards us getting closer and closer, so the skipper decides to reverse, go astern.

So as he goes to go astern this thing follows us, because we are making a way going back and this is starting to follow us. The further we go back the further it comes towards us, so I thought god this is lovely. And I am down the stoke hole and he has rung for more steam and I have got to make sure I put coal on the fires to keep it up you know and the only way he got out of it was, the tide was running this way which he worked out and it was coming towards us and following our stream

and he called for full astern and spun around like that and went back up that way and then stopped and slowed right down and the mine came down and went to follow and then sort of stopped there and came back this way and went the way, it was running. So you know it was very, it got a little bit too close altogether for comfort that time. And that was what I said before they pumped so many bullets into it they couldn’t hit the horn,

so it just sunk with all the massive holes in the shell, filled up with water and sunk and I thought oh god that was close.

Yes the damn thing followed us, we laughed after you know because I kept running up to have a look and I could see this damn thing following us.

Oh god I will never forget that.

On the mine explosions there was another mine that was found. It had washed ashore off one of the beaches of South Australia. I can remember a fellow by the name of Tommy Darnswane [?]

and his mate which I can’t recall his name now and an officer, they were put ashore to explode this mine. And they were mine experts these blokes, they were only seamen but they were mine experts, they had done a lot of work and training in this. And they went down to fit a charge to it and the officer was up giving instructions on this and

taking down all the data they were giving back to him and the damn thing exploded and killed Tommy Darnswane and his mate. Killed the two of them, I have got a report on that in one of albums actually a newspaper report. So that was it you know. So that was about it. Oh the people of Kingscote were wonderful to us they were absolutely marvellous. We’d do a weeks sweeping

and then we’d go to Kingscote on either Friday night Saturday morning and as soon as Kingscote saw the smoke coming up and knew it was us all the women would start cooking and they’d put all this wonderful food on for us. And they’d always put a dance on the night we came on and on the Sunday night we work Saturday morning and go ashore at lunchtime bar a skeleton that is left onboard, duty watch and

we’d go to the dance Saturday night and there were all these goodies and wonderful food and they were absolutely wonderful and then we would be in all day Sunday and we’d play the local cricket and they even set up a little hall there and they set that up, there was a billiard table in it, there was tea and coffee and biscuits and cake always left for us you know. And this is the way they looked after us. And on a Sunday night the publican always took one dozen of us and

sat us down in the dining room at this great big table and fed us with grog and beautifully cooked meals, wonderful terrific I could never say enough about the people of Kingscote you know. The way they really looked after us. So we were sorry to leave the South Australian coast as you could imagine, to go to Fremantle.

No no it is only a little small port, just a small jetty there you know, mainly fishing vessels.

I think the Nambucca used to come in, I think the Nambucca used to come in a different weekend to us, but it was a wonderful spot you know. I always thought about going back there to see the locals, I suppose they would all be gone probably now, oh god I was only, I was only, 19 20 I think 19, yeah I would only be 19, 18 or 19 then

and they were all grown up people like you know married, they’d all be gone now I suppose when you think about it. Seeing I am a very young 81 they would all be 90 and 100 by now. So there you are.

Yes to Fremantle.

No we hardly did much mine sweeping there at all. When we did the boiler clean and got all that done it was Christmas time and I remember we had a Christmas lunch there, we got photos taken with the captain and all the crew like you know and then the Gunbah was going up north so myself and another three or four fellows we were transferred to the Gunbah and went on

the Gunbah up north. That is when I became motorboat driver up there and they were also short of. Oh six of us stokers became gunnery crew on the gun, on the bows like you know. That was our position. And this was the funny part of it you know. We trained so hard and so well, we had it down to a T and how to operate this gun

and slam the shell in and knocked off fire because it was only a dummy shell anyway. And we said to the, we said to the bloke one day we said “When are we going to fire the gun chief?” he said “You will never fire this gun” we said “Why?” he said “It has got a split preach, if you fire this it will blow the whole guns crew to pieces”. This was the sad part,

that I thought that I could never get over. They sent us up north to fight. We had a gun that wouldn’t work, we had a pre war, well it was a First World War Lewis gun mounted in the wing of the bridge that was the only machine gun we had, it used to jam every fifth round. One of our mates Charlie Foster [Charles Foster] who was a leading seaman, he could not get that gun to go past five rounds, and of course

six 303 rifles. So you can imagine what 303 rifles did against the zero fighters coming at us with armour piercing bullets. So there you are. And I think there were guns onboard the Neptuna when she blew up from most of the ships and of course they went up with the ship you see.

I was number 5 and that used to be quite a joke because I had my teeth out the front here you see. And they’d say, “Number off” and I’d go “1, 2, 3, 4, 5” and of course they’d all break up. And this went on several times and the petty office said, “For gods sake change his number will ya?” I had no choppers in.

I will never forget that. So another one of the crew another stoker and myself we became, we worked on the, we had this big new diesel and we used to do watch keeping on this diesel, 12 hours on 12 hours off. That was stuck down a hole, one of the holes. And you’d go down there and you know how a diesel hammers bum bum bum bum

and I used to finish up with a massive headache and the fumes of course. And that wasn’t thought about in those days, you didn’t worry about fumes you just got them down. And that you would start to doze off in a beat like you know and as soon as that beat would change every now and again you would be awake in a flash. But that was for this magnetic

floater that we were going to pull along you see. That was for that to send the electrical charges out and to electrically charge the magnetic lines, blow them up. And then they we got we were given a water cool Lewis gun. And they wanted volunteer gunners for that so I volunteered to be number 1 on that gun. And this other mate of mine who was on the diesel, Charlie he was my

second on the, he used to feed the belt through on the machine gun so we became not only stokers but we finished up gunners as well. I reckon I should have another badge for that gunnery and stoking you know. So that was very interesting, that was good.

Only went on it when action stations went. When the alarm bells go off that was our action station and we had to be there and standby that gun, you might stand by that gun

two hours you might stand by that gun six hours but you must stand by that gun until the all clear is given you see.

Talking of discipline, I will never forget when we first joined up Flinders in the navy. This gunnery chief said to us “Well fellas you have joined the navy, you are under our control” now he said “We can do anything with you, make you do anything at all” we are thinking oh god what is this you know, a row of young green fellas you know. You know he said

“We can make you do anything, we can even make you have a baby” we looked he said “There is only thing we can’t make you do, only one thing we can’t make you and that is can’t make you love the bastard”. I will never forget that, we were thinking god what have we joined here? He was a British gunnery officer, laugh oh god. He was explaining the point, you were wholly and solely owned to the navy

once you joined.

We’ve got to go back on it again have we? Oh quite alright, we never had a great deal to do with them. We had more to do with our leading stokers, our leading rates,

they mainly looked after us. And the man above him would be the stoker PO or the ERA Enter Room Artifisist. The coxswain was the head man, the coxswain was the man headman of the ship below the officers, whatever he said, went. But he was always a good bloke, we always found him good on the minesweeper the coxswain no problem. See what we used to do of a night time the camaraderie was this.

That when we’d, when we’d anchor of night time all the seamen and all the stokers, they’d all be be up in the fauxal or stokers were always in the fauxal. They’d all come up into the fauxal with us, the chief stoker, the stoker PO the coxswain, the ERAs they’d all come in and oh we’d tell tales and tell stories and we’d have a real good night you know. And at about 9 o’clock the chief stoker would say, “Alright two of you blokes go and make the coffee”.

So we’d go and brew the coffee, and we all had different ideas of making the coffee as the boys, as my mates if they’d ever see us would say the same, I used to put a dash of pepper in mine and it used to make it beautiful you know. Someone else would put nutmeg in theirs and it was brewed coffee, someone would actually go and brew it. And it was terrific and we would all sit there like a great big happy family all of us and have our coffee, 10 o’clock lights out. So they’d go down to their bunks in the, they were in the main hole the seaman.

And we’d jump into our bunks, the stokers you see but they were great, they were great nights we always had together when we were anchored at a night time and it was a great feeling of friendship amongst everybody. But see on bigger ships, very rarely do the seamen mix with stokers, you were kept apart, they are on a different deck anyway normally. So it does make a difference, you don’t come in contact

with the seamen hardly at all, because we are down in the engine rooms and boiler rooms mainly you know and all that sort of thing.

No we didn’t because we were below decks, on the sweepers no no. There was one thing they would always come through lunchtime,

meal time and they’d say they’d just through with the quartermaster and say “Any complaints?” and the idea was you never complained “No complaints sir” it wouldn’t matter if there was maggots on the food, which there wasn’t, you never complained you never mentioned it because you would be the one to cop it “No complaints, no sir, no complaints” and that was it yeah.

Well as I say we were going up there to do this magnetic sweeping which didn’t eventuate and we were out testing it out this day on the 19th of February. And myself and another fella we saw this wiraway, this wiraway one our fighter planes, they

were supposed to be fighter planes but they were only trainer planes as you know the wiraway and that crashed into the sea off the port bow of ours, midships of our ship and we thought oh god there has been an accident that poor devil has crashed into the sea. But it wasn’t that, he had been shot down, by a zero. No alarms had gone off there was no warning of an air raid. And the next the thing the zeros are on us and one went that close along the

side of our ship with a great big smile on his Japanese face hello you know. From then on there just seemed to be 9 zeros gave us quite a punishing, now this is a mine sweeper, you’d would have thought we were a Q ship or some ship that really needed blowing up, a 4 or 5 ton minesweeper with 36 crew onboard and for approximately ¾ of an hour on and

off they strafed us, two coming at midships, two astern, two at midships two astern that is all they done. As I said we had one Lewis gun and that kept jamming and he finished up Charlie Foster the leading seaman, he got wounded, copped it in the shoulder in the arm. The captain himself he had two bullets in each leg in each knee cap, he stuck in his post until the whole thing was over which was

approximately ¾ of an hour. There were six blokes up on the upper deck with 303 rifles. A young fella by the name of Shepherd he coped two bullets in the chest, he died later and the bullets were just coming through the sides of the ship like wasps and buzzing around inside because they had armour piercing steel in them in the bullet.

So alls you could do, all the rest of the fellas could do was crouch down on deck and try and get under cover. I had a reasonably good job at that time. I was classified as a runner, we had no intercom or communications onboard and the only way you could communicate was for someone to be a runner, run from the forehead deck along the sides of the ship in between the strafing, down to the stoke hole, into the engine room which joined up, up there onto the bridge and pass on what was happening, who had been shot

and so forth you know. And that kept me busy for a while which was good. And then in the break there was nothing more I could do, I had been into the ward room where we put young Shepard and I gave him a drink of water, he was laying there with a rug over him and two bullets in the chest which he later died of, a matter of few hours that he died of that when we put him onboard the Manunda the hospital ship. So out of that rate we lost, there was 18 major ships in the

harbour. We lost 9. We lost, everything seemed to be in 9s, there was 9 zeros attacked us, it was the 19th of February and we lost 9 wounded and one dead. Everything was 9s. I have even got my diary in there to prove it, so yeah that was it. We had to get, we sent those 10 off, the skipper had to go, he had to be replaced and we had a replacement of

10 new blokes come onboard, a new captain and 9 other blokes.

Yeah first air raid, oh alright I suppose didn’t seem to you know, we thought this was lovely we thought it was, we didn’t know what it was at the start like you know if it was an accident. And of course what started it off there was no alarm bells that went and then the next thing the Neptuna

which was full of ammunition and mines and guns, she was tied up along side the wharf. The wharfies were still down the main hole loading cargo into the nets and a stick of bombs, one bomb went down the hole amongst the whole lot of them. Of corse she completely blew up and that was just one massive explosion, blew the ship to pieces and everybody around it and near it. Blew the wharf to pieces, just a complete mess.

The period, a US [United States] destroyer she put up a good fight and she copped a stick of bombs on the stern in the end and I must say it was wonderful. I have got the photos there and as she sunk that forehead gun was still firing. There was another American destroyer, the Preston, she got a few

near misses and so forth and a bit of damage but she got out of the harbour and got out into open space because the more space you have got the better chance you have got of getting away from the planes, when you are restricted in a harbour you have got problems. The night before the Houston had come in or the two days before the Houston had come in. Could I go back a bit further than this, a little bit earlier, firstly lets go back to, there is a

convoy going to New Guinea and the Houston, Warrego and Swan, they were two Australian sloops. The Houston as you know was an American cruiser, 8 inch cruiser I think, very fast ship, couple of corvettes. They were taking I think one of the first convoys to New Guinea and they were hit that hard with the defence of the Japanese planes that they just absolutely ran out of ammunition.

And they were forced back and came back and brought the whole lot back into Darwin. So the two sloops, the two destroyers and the Houston came in, she had dead all over her upper deck, a few others had dead, unloaded all the dead ashore and the Houston went out next morning. And luckily she was out of the harbour when the raid came over. We thought that maybe through them that they had brought the raid into

Darwin. But no it was a Japanese plan to come in and raid Darwin. That was just the way it happened to work out at the time. So that was it, the Houston got out luckily and the Preston the destroyer she got out. And they did service for quite a while after that, then the Houston copped it late on of course up in the Philippines. So another chap by the name of Burns

another stoker by the name of Burns, he had a bullet in his liver. And in those days they couldn’t operate on the liver. So after all this was over and we left 12 months 18 months after I went to the Adelaide, who should come on board but Burnsy. An old mate of mine, so we made up straight away, and he was only onboard three months and then he died from the poison of this bullet in his liver. So of

course after the first air raid it was our job to get the motorboat out and go round the harbour picking up the dead and it was pretty horrible of course. And it is funny thing you know we are only youngsters and we’d never seen dead before. It’s the way, I think it is the training or the discipline, I don’t know but we were pulling bodies out of the water and it was a bit of a problem because most of them were burnt

and the flesh was coming off in our hands as we touched them. So what we had to do was make up lassoes and put them around their arm or leg or head or whatever and get half a dozen in the motor boat and just slowly go into the beach where the army blokes were digging graves, put them into the wet graves you see, so the disease couldn’t spread and the water was on fire of course so those that didn’t drown to death were burnt anyway.

And when they are drowned they are bloated up to a hell of a size you know. Anyway that was alright we gave them to the army blokes and they were burying there and we brought them all in. This went on for a quite a few hours. It is a big high tide up there you know it is about 20, 30 knot tide, 30 foot drop in tide, so they covered them over the tide came in, next morning

the tide went out. All the bodies were out of their graves again, all washed out. Had to go and do the same process again, go and pick them up again, this went on for days. This went on for days, we spent a week picking up bodies and most of them we had picked up three or four times. Everything was trying to be done in a hurry to try and get them buried, out of the way. So there was no actual permanent burial being done you know. So there you are. They lost a quite a few on the other ships too and the

Manunda took a lot of them, actually the Manunda took all those injured and wounded. The dead were left there, no no I’m sorry, the dead were placed up under the port war office but when the Manunda left they were loaded onboard her, they got outside and then they dumped all of the bodies which was natural, normal to do. The only trouble is that when the tide came back in it washed half of them back into the harbour

again. So out we went again, we spent the next week or two picking up bodies again. And this is in between air raids they were copping, we were copping quite a few air raids then two or three times a day and of a night time. So when things settled down we became a salvage ship. The port was near an American transport with troops onboard and all their gear, field pieces like

howitzers and all that sort of thing and guns and trucks and jeeps. And when she went down, she was hit and she ran herself aground and she was like that in the water with the water up to about here, bow just passed the bridge right up half way to the bow. So we went alongside her and got a bit of gear off her and they made us salvage ship and the idea was that we had to refloat her. And you have heard of Williams and his mate Johnson they

were the blokes who died on the Niagara for that gold that was sunk on the ship the Niagara two Australian divers, two talented men, very very good divers. They were the cream of Australian divers those two. So they came onboard our ship and they used our ship as the ship to do the salvage off. We supplied the air, the winches and the steam. The water was thick with oil, black as pitch.

And those two blokes used to go down in that holes of that port, hook onto the guns and the transports in the trucks and we would lift them out and put them onto barges and they would take them ashore. Clean them up and they were able to reuse them again. But they did all of this in the dark. So we did that for about four or five days, six days. And the next thing the Japs came over and started to bomb us. They realised what we were doing, we were salvaging ships. So they gave us a hard time

so we couldn’t do it of the day time. We had to call that off. And so we said right we will do it of a nighttime. So we’d cover the ship over with trees and shrubs so they couldn’t see us. And we would go from there, we would all have a sleep onboard or on the sand, we were going to work all night. So we would get up steam and go and anchor beside the, tie up along side the Port Mare and we’d start the nights, so we worked all night through the whole thing.

We went three or four nights and they woke up, the Japs, and they started to drop bombs on us at night time. They could see the fire, the heat and the glow from our funnel, so they stopped operations for two nights, sent ashore and had a chainman’s hat, you know the chainman’s hat that goes on top of the chimney, had a big steel chainman’s hat made to fit our funnel and they fitted that. They couldn’t see the glow so we went back and we worked every night for the next month or so

and completely cleared the ship, excuse me, sorry about that, and refloated it, cleaned her all up below, got everything working on her, ready to go to Sydney. Put a navy crew on it. They got her to Sydney. They refitted it, loaded it up with cargo, she was on her way to New Guinea and a Japanese

submarine give her two torpedos and sunk her in deep water. All our effort for nothing. The Barossa was another one that was partially sunk so we moved to her then and cleaned, got her cleaned up and refloat. Put a navy crew on her, she caught on fire on the way down to Sydney, put the fire out, got her down there and I never ever heard what finished her, what happened to her, they got her to Sydney

and she was going to be refitted. But never ever heard anything more about the Barossa. So there you are, there is a little bit of history.

Oh well I don’t know. We had a job to do and I don’t think it, you know thinking back we were running around like a mad hare I suppose for a start. But after the first raid was over the initial fright was over I suppose. And when you see a few of your mates dead and wounded and they were mainly stokers that were wounded.

The safest place was down in the boiler rooms and engine rooms of course. But no I think everyone just took it in as granted, what are you to do? No good worrying about it, you couldn’t get off your ship, you were there. The point that worried us most was that we didn’t have any gunnery at all to use. This was absolutely bad news.

I’ve always said this. We still had the old Lewis gun. And apparently I don’t know whether it was rumour or not but they said there was a couple of warligans [?] onboard the Neptuna when she blew up for us. But whether there was or not we never ever found out. But we were never ever found out. But we were never ever given any more guns. Oh I’m sorry I am telling a lie there. Later on they gave us the water cool Vickers gun, which I became gunner on that and Charlie was on that

with me. No they were the only two guns we had. We still had the old Lewis gun, which used to jam every fifth round. But the water cool Vickers was alright, it was a good gun. It was only a single gun, a single machine gun you know. Not much use against a fighter plane that has possibly four machine guns, so you know. But it was always the same, I don’t think, I don’t think any of our ships

had near enough weaponry on them compared to the Yankee ships. The Yankee ships were just absolutely loaded with them. But no as you say, you know, I suppose you have got to be, you look at it this way, well what can you do? They said after the first air raid that the Japanese, they said the Japanese fleet, there was an aircraft carrier and god knows what else outside. It was the same aircraft carriers

that bombed Pearl Harbour [American Naval Base in Hawaii], you knew that didn’t you?

You didn’t know that. Well that is true. There were three aircraft carriers I believe and their whole fleet, which combined so many ships. It was the same one that came down from Pearl Harbour and attacked Darwin. And they said, a couple of days after the first air raid they said that they were outside the harbour and were going to invade. So immediately we said “Oh

well we are not going to get caught here”. That was when everyone started to leave Darwin. All the civvies [civilians] you see, a few of the soldiers shot through too. So the skipper of our ship said “Well, we don’t want the old ship to fall into their hands”, so they went up into one of the arms right up into the top end of the harbour and we got right amongst the trees there and camouflaged it over and we stayed there for a couple of days. And everybody

was on aircraft watch lookout like with binoculars and so forth and then they had talk about walking overland, leaving the ship and walking overland. So they handed out guns and weaponry or whatever we could handle. And I was given a bayonet and whatever I was supposed to do with that I don’t know what. And the idea was we were going to walk over and after that and after a few hours of waiting there and so forth and not knowing what was going to happen because no

one wanted to get caught by them. It was better to leave the place and be able to get to a certain point and fight back there. Apparently the signal came through, that the Japanese fleet wasn’t outside and they weren’t going to invade. So that saved us having leaving our ship. So we took all the stuff off, all the camouflage off the ship and went back into the harbour and started on operations of salvage work again you see.

Yes that was where they were going to head for apparently.

Well that was it, that is what they were going to do. That was it you see you have got your officer in charge and you do as you are told. And you know what the penalty in wartime is don’t you, for disobeying an order in wartime. The penalty is death. When you join the navy they redate

the KRAI [King’s Regulations Admiralty Instructions] as the instructions, and they tell you there and then that if you realise that you have joined the navy and you realise you are under KRAI and if in wartime that you disobey an order that is given to you that you won’t do, it you can be shot, you can face a firing squad. That was read out to us very very early in the peace.

King’s Rules Admiralty Regulations, KRAI. That is what the whole navy runs on. Very very strict admiralty orders. But you have got to look at it this way too. People say “Oh god this must be terrible”. You take any cruiser, take the Australia, take the Shropshire, where you have got 12 or1300 men onboard. You can’t have wakers running around doing what they want to do.

So everybody has got to do as they are told. If you don’t they are in strife. So this is why I say discipline is a wonderful thing, discipline helps you get through these hard times. You have got to have your faith in somebody. You have got to have your faith in the skipper of your ship and he is the godfather sort of thing you know. What he says goes. Even if you finish up dead out of it. That is what you have got to do.

The same as in those bunkers. In these days they say you won’t get me in a bunker, fancy locking me in a bunker with coal and dig your way out. That is the way it is. You are told to do a thing and you do it. That is all there is to it.

That is how it was in our day anyway.

Well it was, it was a hell of a shock. But of course we were kept that busy out in the motorboat picking up bodies and doing all that we could for those that were wounded. You were kept that busy all the time you didn’t have time to think about it you know. You just went and did it. That is what I say, for an 18, 19 year old kid.

Leaning out of a motorboat picking up and grabbing bodies like god, you know. But after a while you just did it, you got used to it. You had to do it and you just done it. And I think everyone will tell you the same tale, you don’t know how, you don’t know why, you don’t, you just did it because that is what you had to do.

No they were off merchant ships.

Because they hit, most of the ships they hit were merchant ships you see. Bar the destroyer the Pirie and most of her crew went down with her anyway. The Pirie. Oh well that is war isn’t it? You know a lot of people have been through a lot worse.

So after did you want to ask anything else on that?

Dramatic. I suppose it did, I suppose it did.

But you were always kept that busy onboard you see. Another one, another one of our crew and myself and a few others, there was about half a dozen of us. There was a ship still smouldering on fire, which eventually sank, and on her upper deck she had all these 44 gallon drums of high octane fuel for the air force for the planes. So we pulled alongside it and we put as many of our blokes on board

at least they gave us gloves to put on this time, leather gloves. And of course the heat up there is very very hot you know in the tropics. And these 44 gallon drums were that hot, they were that hot from the sun. So what we were doing we were rolling to the edge of the ship and dropping them over into the water. Others we put into grappling nets and landed them onboard our ship and taken them ashore you see so they didn’t lose them. The ones that were dropped into the water were herded together and herded to

the beaches and they retrieved all these drums of high octane fuel. And I never forget the bloke Jackie Fraser who was one of the stokers with me, and I worked together on these 44s. And I think back later, here is this damn thing on fire and we are unloading 44 gallon drums of high octane petrol. But it wasn’t flames but it was burning down stern and she was gradually sinking very very slowly but we got all the fuel off anyway.

We got back onboard our ship and she eventually sunk. But you know. So yeah you were kept that busy you did as you were told and did your work and kept your mind on what you were doing.

No I don’t think so, I don’t think so, I don’t know, I don’t think it made a great difference to us.

Oh I suppose

we were frightened at times. I think the worst, the worst part was when the zeros screamed down you would think oh you know the scream and of course when they dropped the bombs, that was not so good either if you hear the scream of them. That puts the fear of god into you, but you think I am still here and you are right again. But no we would all definitely get frightened at times, no doubt about that.

I don’t think, when I think back I don’t think we had much time to think about anything we just kept that busy, you had to do it. And that was the best part of it. While you were busy it was great. There is always some comical things happening out of it too you know. In the first air raid one of our officers I couldn’t tell you his name now, I think it was only a subby, sub lieutenant or something

and he, when the raid came of course, armour piercing bullets, he had no station to go to, no gun to fire, so he just took cover and he jumped into the galley and closed the doors. Of course the armour piercing bullets were coming inside you see so he must have been bent down under and his backside was up in the air and a bullet scarved him across the cheeks of his bottom, across his backside. Well that was ok, what he did, he put in for, he reckoned

he should be a distinguished cross or something for being wounded. We said “You could hardly say that mate you had your head buried under a cupboard”. And it wounded him across the backside. You know just funny little things like that happened.

No no no. It was so long ago Colin it is terribly hard to remember if we were frightened

or terrified or what. You were kept terribly busy and that was the main point. And that is why I thought to myself my job as runner was terrific because it kept my mind focused on what I had to do. All the steam lines had been blown away, nothing would work up top, all the water tanks were holed, toilets wouldn’t work, just everything was blown apart, we had that many holes we were like a sieve. We could never make out why these 9 zeros pounded hell out of us with these

machine guns you know. We always thought they must have thought we were a special type of vessel carrying an atomic bomb or something. Yeah strange isn’t it the way things happen?

Yes young Shepherd he was only a 17 year old. He was only a young lad, a young seaman.

He was out on the upper deck, given a 303 rifle to try to shoot down a zero plane. So you can imagine what, single shot, single shot 303. That was the part that annoyed me more than anything I suppose. That in my mind I suppose that was fully lodged in my mind that we had nothing to fight back with. Terrible. That is bad news. They should never send a ship to sea that can’t put up a bit of

defence for itself you know. But that is the way it was in those days. We weren’t the only ship like it. There were plenty of other ships the same way, went through the whole war like that some of them you know. You know it is just not a fair go is it really?

Oh yes. I always thought if you were going to cop it, you were going to cop it and there was nothing much you could do about it. That is what I always thought you know.

I suppose I still thought that you know that still went.

No no. I thought when. There was Gerry [Gerald] Cuthbert, the mate I joined up with,

he’d taken. He had to take cover in the fauxal and Gerry said to me he said, “I will swap you places” when I had finished doing my run about he said, “I will swap you places”. I came in there to take cover in the fauxal as well like the rest of them. And these bullets were coming through and buzzing around like hornets. And he said, “I will swap you places,” I said “Alright”.

And he went over and laid beside the steel decking of the side ship and no sooner lobbed there and an armour piercing bullet came through and hit him right in the leg and shattered the whole bone opened the leg right up, damn nearly blew the leg off. Now how do you go on that, I swapped places with him, a matter of minutes, seconds before. He copped it and all the rest of the boys copped it and I didn’t. So it just makes you wonder you know, when your time is up it is

up isn’t it? Not much you can do about it.

I suppose we all did and said a few prayers yes oh yes. I think we had a service after later you know, think how lucky we were. But all the other ships were the same the Swan and the Warrego they had been badly hit. Not so much the Warrego, the Swan had copped it pretty heavily. She lost, I think

she lost about eight or ten men on the Warrego oh the Swan the Swan I’m sorry. Warrego had a few injured I think, that was all but not dead.

Oh only a matter of hours actually, say half a day, half a day. They did have

ideas of evacuating the whole place, there was no two ways about that. And then the signal came through and they said the fleet wasn’t there at all, wasn’t out there and not to evacuate. See you don’t do it off your own bat, you do it by instructions. Even the skipper was being told what to do. And we thought the more he could save over to go down to the next to fight back all the better. If you can be saved

being taken prisoner you know, well it is a good thing I think myself. If they said we had to stay there and be taken prisoner, well they do. They did the same in Singapore didn’t they? They were told to surrender and all those thousands surrendered. Bad news, very bad news. Because that is another story.

It just makes you wonder doesn’t it?

Superior officers?

Oh no he was a pretty good skipper actually. Moselle he was a real good skipper, good captain you know and he was the one that copped the bullets in the knee caps so he was taken away and another chap took his place.

He was a merchant seaman captain joined the navy. And he was good and of course me being a motor boat driver I got to know him different times for the simple reason that I would have to run him ashore to different sections of the coast line of Darwin you know. When he wanted to go ashore I would take him ashore. And I was quite happy with him he was a good bloke, a good bloke.

I was practically doing it right from when we got up there, right from the start. I went on motorboats, I was just given that job and you know. And it was later on that it would have been six months eight months later when we went on the gunnery you see. But that was only at your action stations.

We did quite a lot of different jobs there. We did watch keeping on the dry dock. We seemed to be, Charlie and I seemed to cop jobs together, we did the diesel together, we did the gunnery together. They wanted two watch keepers for the floating dock and Charlie and I copped that.

And to do that you have got a very very fast tide and you leave our ship with a rowing boat. And you’d have to row down and spin around behind the floating dock and tie up and you would climb up the ladders onto the floating dock. And it was our job to keep the diesels going that keeps the whole thing afloat, keeps it pumped out and we would do a 12 hour watch. And Charlie would come and pick me up and he’d come out

and I’d go back to our ship and have 12 hours off you see. So we worked in 12 hour watches. So you are having a spell of everything, motorboat driving, watch keeping, so forth you know, gunnery. Quite interesting you know.

Oh yes it was.

We are ready are we?

I thought we had done that hadn’t I?

Yeah we have done that and I was just telling you of how Charlie and I did the diesels on the dry dock.

In the air raid there was a corvette already in

that dry dock and very luckily they didn’t hit her nor the dry dock and you know how high that would be out of the water and they completely missed it.

Oh right a dry dock is, well it is longer than a corvette. Right imagine a dry dock it

is lifted out of the water by the ballast tanks of the dry dock. It is an elongated type of thing similar to that only much longer and wider, it takes the whole length of a ship, this used to take the size of a corvette, possibly it could have taken something a little bit bigger. When you deflate the tanks the dry dock descends into the water to a certain height. The ship

is just pushed in or driven in or whatever and then secured. And they pump her and she just rises up out of the water, pumps all the water out, and comes up to her, and the whole ship is just standing, sitting on top of the water virtually only sitting on steel there is no water around it at all. It is ready to be have the plates scrapped or whatever needs, what repairs need doing to it you see.

And one of the corvettes was in this dry dock, waiting, doing repairs when the first raid came over. But I am not quite sure of the name of that so I won’t mention the name because I might get the wrong name. I think I know which one but I wouldn’t like to say unless I know for sure. But that, that is what a dry dock is about, completely all steel work as you can imagine and it is quite a big piece of

floating material. Is that enough explanation?

Yes, that was yes yes. But the corvette that was in the dry dock had her guns going and that sort of helped her to get away from it a bit. I think they copped a bit of damage but not much. I have got the name on the tip of my tongue now, I won’t mention the name in case I, you can bet your life some corvettor

will say he has got the name wrong. So no I won’t mention that but that is what actually happened to the dry dock. So from there we had a couple of tankers which had capsized and they were laying on their side. And the Manunda the hospital ship, she was attacked several times. And the Manunda

was just a white big white vessel with Red Cross all over it and the Japs still attacked it. They weren’t too worried about Red Cross. So alls fair in love and war as far as they go I think you know. There was a lot of other smaller, launches were sunk and the Kelat which was a coal hog that was sunk, and I think there was another coal hog as well.

So it meant this that so had no coal, so when we wanted coal we would tie up alongside the wreck, which was only the mast stick out through the water. And we would drop the grabs down through the water into the bunkers of the Kelat, and lift the coal out and that coal was terrific because all the dust was washed of it in the water and it was good coal, good coal to use. And that is how we used to coal up ship

Out of this wreck that was sunk in the harbour. So we were pretty lucky to get coal other wise we might have had to leave the old girl up there you see without any coal. Yes so where can I move on from there? Was that enough on that?

The other raids?

Yes quite a lot of raids came over.

Yes well, I think there was more than that actually, really and truly. I know they say that. Lots of things have been stated about Darwin and they have been way off the mark. They understated the dead for a start, so there was only supposed to be 100 or so dead, but it was more like 1000 or more

up there you know but still. Yes so. A lot of the raids were on the airfield. We weren’t to know that like you know whenever a raid would start we would all go to our action stations and ship would be up anchor and start circling rushing around the harbour because when you are on the move there, you are not such a target as a standing target you know.

There was a lot of raids then went onto the airfield and they just seemed to be nuisance raised lots of times, high level bombers would come over and drop their bombs. The AA [Anti Aircraft] guns would open up and hit them. We also were given another job, I was given another job after all that of how can I put it?

They called, they got this Japanese lugger that captured a Japanese lugger and it was absolutely filthy and they asked for an ERA and a stoker and a seaman off the Gunbah to go and work on it, to get it prepared ready. Because they were going to do these raids into Singapore Harbour with it you see, thinking it was a Japanese lugger. So this ERA and myself and this seaman it was his job to clean the ship up as best as he possibly could

inside and out. It was our job the ERA and my job to help him, he was the mechanic so I was only the helper to pull the motor out and get that all fixed up and cleaned up and get everything going. And we got all this going in the end and got it all ok. And we must have spent, I don’t know what it was, a week or so on it and the next thing we saw it sailing out of the harbour some weeks later with the crew onboard it.

So she was going up to see what damage she could cause in Singapore Harbour by placing limpid mines on the sides of the ships in the harbour. They had a risky job, they were all done up like, like chinamen or aboriginals whatever you like, they were all bare, painted skins up and all this sort of thing you know to try and get away with the raids. And I think you have heard the stories of

Singapore Harbour which they did a great job on really. But then I went back to my ship and then we copped, I think we went then as boom ship, they were short of a boom so we went out on the gate boom you know what I mean they anchor your ship with two heavy anchors on the bows and two heavy anchors on the stern. And

you are actually tied down there. And they swing the boom gates off either you or the other ship. So that if the gate is on the other vessel, she has to start up her winches to open the steel gates the wire gates to let ships through, through the boom gate and then we start up our winches when she is through and we pull the gate back. See what I mean and that is what the boom ships are all about. So while I was

there I was sent ashore then. I was sent ashore to do some job or other at the boom barracks and the raids were coming over of at a night time mainly then and we were in the I think I have even got the photos of this. We were in the, we were in built in huts then houses. And there were four of stokers in there and I remember one fellow off the same ship as me Irish, I could never ever think of his other name.

Irish and myself we were sleeping opposite each other and we could hear the air raids coming over and at night time we never used to be bothered getting out of our beds you know because they seemed to be miles away. But this night, they were coming in a straight line and you could hear the crump crump coming closer and closer straight in a line. I said, “Hey that doesn’t sound so hot” and under my bed I had a pair of rubber soled sandals and also a pair of my work boots, which were nail studded

you see. So we thought this was getting a bit too close, coming in a line, so I jumped out of bed and I grabbed my sandals and we both raced out just with a pair of shorts on, grabbed our tin hat, run out the back of our house and the other bloke came out as well. There were three of us, and we had a split trench there were electrical posts lines you know down past our house, we ran under them, and jumped in our split trench, the next thing you know another bloke jumped in with us, an officer, the next thing the next bomb hit our house

that we had been sleeping in, the whole roof collapsed on our beds. So we thought oh god, so anyway. And we, dirt and everything came in out of the bomb blast into the trench with us like the split trench and we dug ourselves out and walked back across. And the reason I mentioned about the rubber sandals, not thinking the overhead wires were down, the poles had collapsed and they were lying on the ground with dirt all round like

you couldn’t actually see them properly and of course it was night time too and as I walked across them the damn things started to flash. And I was touching electrical wires together. So I was pretty lucky because I had the rubber sandals on. If I had the boots on it might have been a different story with the stud nails in them you see. So I warned the blokes that the lines were down. So we put a couple of planks across them and we walked across them that way and in the morning they came to have a look at the damage and they

cut the power off and rewired that up and fixed that up and got everything going again. But that was a bit lucky that night you know we could have, we could have been under the roof of the house if we hadn’t of got out of that bunk, out of our bed. Yes so what happened after that? That is right I went out winch driving on the. They wanted, see stokers used to draw all these, anything to do with

mechanical like you know, truck driving and all that sort of thing and winches and motorboat driving and cranes. I went onboard the, they used to go out everyday the boom ships and work on the work on the boom itself and they’d lift these massive great buoys up and they had electric winches. And I had been trained in these electric winches how to operate them. So you stand by that winch all day and watch

the bloke, the dogman, who was giving you signals and do whatever he wanted, you see. It was a good job, you just had to stay alert and watch what was happening. They were all good sort of jobs that, you know.

No, not up there we didn’t see any aborigines at all. They were out of Darwin a bit and we never go to shore

that terribly much either you know. We didn’t get ashore at all in the first couple of months. When we first arrived there we got ashore practically every second day you know like for the air raids, it was terrific.

Similar thing. There wasn’t many of their ships in, they went out into the scrub somewhere, wherever they took them up there I don’t know, they went off, we better not take that up with the camera had we.

Yeah so yeah.

Well they were soldiers, they went out to the camps in the scrub.

Yes they had army camps out in the scrub.

Yes just out of Darwin a bit yeah. They had a recuperation area down at Daly Waters I think it was, they thought that was a good idea.

Any ships that had been at sea for any length of time or hadn’t had much shore time to send them down there for a bit of R&R as they call it now you know. That was quite good I went down there for a weekend with a crowd off our ship. They took us down by truck and brought us back to our ships. But it was quite good. Adelaide River, I think Adelaide River or Daly Water something like that. Yeah so that was that. So and then after all that I went back

to my ship and we left Darwin under a convoy. And I got back motorboat driving again then. And we came to, oh god top of Australia what is the name of that, we went to action stations a couple of times, we saw a couple of float planes, Japanese float planes hanging around. And then we heard this

massive roar one day, getting close to Thursday Island and of course action stations went on all the ships, we thought it was you know a big heap of planes coming over, but it wasn’t it was two or three American torpedo boats coming out to greet us to meet us and the roar of their motors they were beautiful, beautiful ships those torpedo boats the yanks had, power, power plus and gunnery god, torpedos on the side

you know and they came out to meet us that day and escort us in. So the last I remember of that is at, away motorboat and the coxswain and I got the motorboat out and dropped it and ran a couple of officers ashore, so they wanted us to wait for them so we sat there for about the next three hours waiting for the officers to come back. I don’t know what they were doing you know, probably having a little sip or two. And that was it, and then

we left there, Thursday Island the next morning. Coming down through the inside of the barrier reef and we came to a shuddering holt, we had run aground on a sand bar so the tide went out and here we are sitting up on a sand bar, we got out. I often wonder if anyone had of got a photo of that because here was our ship sitting here high and dry on a sandbar and we were walking around the bottom of

it on the sand, in about that much water, about a foot of water around it. So we had to wait, a corvette was due, she wasn’t far from us so we got her out and we had to pump all the fresh water off the ship off the Gunbah and dump as much stuff as we possibly could, and she was able to pull us off at high tide. So then we went from there to,

not to Cairns, oh god I should have got all this ready you know. We headed from there anyway to Brisbane, Townsville, headed off for Townsville and of course we had to pump salt water into our boiler water and imagine what that does, it sets like cement in the tubes you see, bad news. So we got to Townsville and we hammer a hell of a lot of it

out. And then we got to Brisbane and we had to do a proper boiler clean then, it was like using jackhammers on the damn stuff you know. With crowbars and sledgehammers, trying to belt the salt that had turned hard. So then we got all that done, had a bit of leave there, a couple of days off. And travelled from there down to Sydney, to go down to Sydney. And I think we tied her up under the

Sydney Harbour bridge and left her that night and went to Balmoral depot, which was the naval depot on Sydney.

No Balmoral depot, is it, I don’t think so is it no I don’t think so.

Oh Swan Island, that was in the early piece yes.

Oh hang on we were coming to that,

that is correct. We went on leave when we went to Sydney. Went home on leave. And I don’t know I think we had about a weeks leave or something. Then after that we were going, we were sent back to Sydney to pick up ships as we thought. No sooner got there and they sent us back again to Melbourne and that is when I went to Swan Island. So I went down there for about 10 days.

Which Swan Island was down at Queenscliff as you know. And it is full of mines, it was a big mine depot there and we went on guard duty and you would only do five hours of a night time guard duty. It was a bit of a trap because you had too much leave time on your own you know. I was forever sending home for money all the time. Because we were spending too much money, too much

time in Queenscliff. And you can imagine what else we were spending the money on. I only worked five hours out of 24. So we had 19 hours to kill and it had to be killed somewhere. So then I was down there for about 10 days I think or two weeks. And then I got a recall back to draft back to Williamstown depot. And from

Williamstown depot I was sent on draft to HMAS Orara. She was the biggest coal burner of the lot. So I still couldn’t get away from those coal burners. So I went onboard her and I think I was on her for about six months or something like that. And it might have been longer and she came in for a refit, they were going to refit her, they altered her all around a lot, and put a bit of gunnery on it. And they were going to send her up to

Milne Bay. And I though oh god I’m not going back to the tropics after three years, shovelling coal again.

I had had enough of coal by that time, three years of it yeah. So all the crew were going on leave and I was kept back with a few other stokers and men and we were skeleton crew until they came back and then we would go on our leave you see.

So I forwent my leave, while the chief stoker was away and all the rest I put in for a draft to another ship. And I put in for oil burning experience, instead of putting in for a draft a few times before and it got me nowhere. They said oh no we want experienced coal burning men that know coal burners like you know. That was their excuse, they didn’t want me to go.

I often wondered about that, I often thought that maybe my record went against me a little bit too at times, but anyway. So I put in for a request for oil burning experience. I went before the green table the next morning. And this officer was there and he said “How long have you been on coal burners?” I said “Three years sir” of course you take your hat off. “Three years sir” “Oh yes, have you been in action” I said “Yes sir” I said

“About 2 and a half years of that three years had been in action” “Oh I see right” he said “Request granted” I said “Oh thank you” and while I am standing there listening to all this I can hear something pulling on the other wharf beside us, it sounds pretty big. There are bugles going which means it is a large ship. There are bugles and pipes going and they are pulling them in. And he says “Well there is your k\new ship” and I looked across and here is this great big six inch cruiser camouflaged

pulling into the other wharf, he said “That is your new ship”. Within five minutes I was paced and gone before he changed his mind.

Oh mate was I glad to get away from that shovel. The shovel didn’t worry me but you are on a ship that had no speed, it had no armourment, it had no gunnery god almighty you know you were getting nowhere. So I boarded the Adelaide, the HMAS Adelaide six inch cruiser

and within, she was fuelled up and supplied up and within two or three days she went to sea again. And my first watch was in B boiler room, she had three boiler rooms. Two boilers in A, four boilers in B, four boilers in C, three engine rooms, oh sorry, three boilers and two engine rooms, fore and aft engine rooms, so a fair size ship, six inch guns you know.

So my first watch, my first watch was in B boiler room where there were four boilers. So you have got a stoker on each boiler front that is four, you got a stoker PO on the pumps and the oil fuel and you have got a leading stoker down there with you, so there is six of you in the boiler room. And for the first hour you have got a wheel spanner which is a round piece of steel about six inches, seven inches long, it has a head on it

which comes around with a curl and the other end is a slotted piece so that fits the hot valves and you have got to turn the valves, you hook that on and get used to using them to spin your valves over you see. So when you go to sea, when she pulls out and you are down the boiler for the first four hours, for the first hour you hook your spanner into the valve above your head and you hang there and you just move with the roll of the ship for one hour, forward and back

you know. Then after one hour you then have to clean, pull out so many sprayers that are burning, shut them off, relight new sprayers and clean those sprayers, that takes about 10, 15 minutes then you hook onto the valve again for another hour. A lot different from shovelling coal my friend.

A lot easier.

Oh yeah a lot easier yeah well I wasn’t using the coal, on the coal burners you are shovelling all the time you see. You are

shovelling and slicing and racking the whole time. Whereas on this you are hanging from a valve for ¾ of an hour each hour, it only takes you 15 minutes to clean the sprayers and away you go again you know. Much easier.

Oh massive, massive massive.

Well she was, she carried 550 to 600 men so it was a fair size ship.

Horsepower I couldn’t tell you off hand now unless I looked it up in my books.

It is quite big horsepower on them you know. Twin shafts, twin shafts. The shafts, the driving shafts are about that big, there are two of them spinning quite vastly. Because you used to have to go down there and oil those shafts you see in the oil

boxes to keep them cool. So it was very good very good. Turbines of course instead of the old reciprocated engines you had turbines. With super heated steam, which gave her just on 29, 30 knots you see.

Oh yes they were fast. The likes of the Sydney and the Perth and the Hobart,

they could do about 32 possibly 34 knots. The Aussie, Shroppy and Canberra I suppose they could do their 32 knots too, 32, 34, they were the big ones they were the 8 inch cruisers.

Six inch cruiser, light cruiser.

Yeah, when I say six inch, we are referring to the diameter.

Yeah, yeah that is the diameter when I say 6 inch we are referring to the diameter,

there is a shell there, see it above my head, can you see it? I will show it to you later.

Camouflaged the outside of the ship was camouflaged in paint. They camouflaged it in different stripes and designs so it matches in with backgrounds or the sea or the sky. You know you will see, there you are oh no she is not camouflaged. That is her there.

before she was done up.

Yeah yeah. I have got a photo out in the kitchen you can have a look at.

That was before she had her last refit, they altered the guns on her and they put extra gunnery on her and they put more anti aircraft stuff on her you see.

She was a great old ship.

Oh yeah yeah, you always felt safe on your ship, it was your home you know, it was your home and that is all there was to it, you didn’t worry, you didn’t think of safe or not safe really.

No weaponry on them at all, well as I say, six 303 rifles, what can you hit with that, seagulls, and one machine gun that doesn’t work and one four inch gun that you can’t use. Whereas this had, she had seven six inch on her, she had 10 or 12

20 millimetre oligans, she had three 4 inch AA high angle aircraft guns and she had a couple of nests of machine guns, so she wasn’t badly armoured. The cruisers weren’t too bad for armoury you know. You can’t see all that on that one, on the other photo you will see how she was remodernised you see.

That wasn’t too bad you know.

I was wrapped, I was wrapped, happy as a sand boy to get on a ship like that.

The Orara.

That is ok, That is O R A R A You got that O R A R A. Oh she was mainly

only sweeping between Melbourne and Sydney when I went on her. And they did the refit on her you see and sent her up where did I say before, up in the islands, left her up there.

Oh I can’t remember where I said.

Oh no not that far up, not that far up. Milne Bay. So I don’t know what she did up there, I don’t think she did very much. I don’t know what she did actually. She was supposed to go up there, I certainly wasn’t interested all I wanted to

do was get off, and get onto oil, so I was lucky then from there on in I stayed on oil. Every ship I went to was oil, which was great, which was very good.

With this one. Yes convoy and escort work, when we were running, when I first went to her she was going from, she was going from Fremantle to Colombo

escorting and the funny thing I was looking through a video and there she was in Colombo tied up with the other ships. Isn’t that amazing?

Were you? Yeah, yeah. At other times then I only ever went into Colombo about once I think and then all the other trips we would take the escort the ships up and then we would turn around and come

straight back, pick up another crowd and come straight back, we never went in again. That must have been one of our last trips I would say, when we went ashore there you know. I think she did, there was a big raid of the, oh she had the distinction of sinking a

German prisoner of war ship actually the Rameses and she sunk that and rescued all the, a lot of survivors on it a lot of chaps who had been picked up by the raiders. The raiders had sunk ships and they put the crews of these ships, all different ships they were from different countries, onboard the Rameses and when we sunk her they were all

rescued off the Rameses and put onboard us. Which I have photos to prove of all these chaps being rescued. I had a lot of Germans, of course the Rameses was a German ship and the Rameses was not so much a raider but she was taking all the prisoners that the raiders had picked up on ships that had sunk off these ships and she was taking them back to Germany, and we were lucky enough to intercept her. That was great.

No to be quite truthful, I wasn’t onboard her when this happened. I was still on the Orara at the time, or it could have been a bit earlier than that. I joined her after all this happened unfortunately. But I got all the photos which is great. Any of these actions, they carry photographers lots of these ships you know. We are

not allowed on smaller ships to have cameras. We are not supposed to keep a diary either, not supposed to.

Great, great.

Oh I couldn’t do that Sergei [interviewer].

I just had a few beers that is all.

Now Sergei behave yourself.

I only had a few beers there mate.

I don’t know that place where is that, the Peta.

The Mt Divinia yes.

A large British presence

yeah yeah, mainly off the ships I’d say you know there was a heap of ships there was Aussie ships and British ships and cargo vessels you know of all nationalities. Oh no wonderful, a wonderful experience you know when you think back. Yes so then we went from there and we joined Louis Mountbatten fleet, the eastern fleet. And

we used to tie up with the Cumberland [HMS Cumberland] which is 8 and 6 inch cruises in Fremantle we went out on exercises with them. And then we were all on leave one night, I think it was a Saturday night and I was at the pictures with my girlfriend and there was a hell of a lot of sailors in there and our signal.

I think it was our call number was D24. All crew of D24 report, recall report back to your ship by midnight so luckily I saw the recall come up on the screen and there was quite a few dozen sailors walked out of the place to get back in time because if you weren’t back there by midnight you were put on a charge and being late meant quite a heavy penalty,

On a recall. So I got back there, I took her home to North Perth and go on the train I got back there by 11.45 I suppose which was good. And they kept dribbling back onboard until about 4.30 5.00 in the morning and we left about 5.30 5.45. And all the ones that were late, they copped very very heavy penalties. A months stoppage of leave and pay,

six weeks stoppage of leave and pay, boy scouts leave. Boy scouts leave is you are allowed to go to shore until 7pm at night and then you have got to be back onboard. If you go ashore at 4 and back onboard by 7 that is boy scouts leave, so they treat you like a kid you see. So some of those blokes that missed the recall, they were penalised in this respect, but if you got a stoppage of

leave and pay that went into two and three months because it was only to be used when the ship was in port. Your stoppage of leave, not while you were at sea. So some of them blokes copped about three months stoppage of leave and pay, so you can see how serious the matter was. Don’t miss a recall on your ship.

Oh yeah yeah yeah oh my word,

much more.

I think it is because you have got a group of men at sea, you have got a cruiser with 600 or an 8 inch cruiser with 10, 1100 men onboard, a lot of men onboard, and you can’t have anyone get out of control. On the bigger ships you have got cells. You have got police officers to control anything that happens, and that is why it has to be strictly adhered to.

And that is a bad penalty, miss a recall and you really cop the raft. The only point that struck me as being unfair was a stoker PO ran down the wharf just as we were about pulling out and he jumped onboard, grabbed the rail and pulled himself onboard and he didn’t get charged. And that in my books stunk. In my book he was just as guilty as everybody else that missed the

recall. And he should have been charged. But because he was a petty officer he wasn’t charged. That is the way it goes.

No no I never ever struck anyone that jumped ship. We had that happen going back, we had that happen on the Coolabah. One morning going out to do sweeps, it was one cold morning too and what had ever happened ashore

whether he had a blue with his girl or his wife or whatever it was we were halfway down the river going out to out of harbour in Adelaide, and this bloke jumped over the side and swam for the shore. So we stopped and the petty officer jumped over the side and swam after him and caught him. We had to stop, lower a boat, bring him onboard. I never ever heard what happened to that fella, never ever heard. That was the only time I ever saw anyone jump ship.

It was very rarely done that anyone left their ship. I think we sort of looked at it as that was our home, our ship was our home and you wouldn’t ever dare rubbish a bloke’s ship, that was the quickest way to have a fight. If someone walked into a pub and said “Oh, you’re off the.. oh that so and so” there would be a blue straight away, just like a girlfriend you know. You couldn’t rubbish a ship oh god no, that meant action

stations straight away. The amount of fights you get into in pubs over ships you know oh, unreal.

Small ships are I suppose a bit more lax [relaxed] and

possibly friendlier in one respect, not so much the friendly but they are a bit more lax, that is they’re not so disciplined. You can get away with a bit more on a small ship that is more lackadaisical sort of thing but the discipline is still there and when it comes to the crunch they expect you to be right on the ball as far as watches go, they are very strict, you must not miss your watches, whatever is entailed when you are

below down in a boiler room or engine room your watch has got to be adhered to strictly. A big ship you got more to control there and discipline is a lot stronger because of the crowd of people ’d say onboard and it is a more serious type of ship it is a bigger ship, it is a gun ship and discipline has got to be very strict I find you know

that is what I found, that is the way I looked at it. Always seemed to be very strict, you’ve got to be careful what you said and what you did you know. But as I say, as I said before it is only because you are on a big ship with so many men onboard it. And they have just got to keep the discipline pretty strict, keep everything in order. Otherwise it could cause a havoc onboard ship you know, any

slackness. And if you are slack in normal times you are probably slack doing your job down below as well. At different sections of the ship where I worked in, I think I worked in practically every part of the ship that there was. There was one job that was very very strict that you had to be very very careful of was when you watch kept on evaporators, very very touchy little machine to operate.

That reduces saltwater into fresh boiler water and you’d stand in front of that and you couldn’t take your eyes practically, you couldn’t take your eyes off the gauge because you had a little controlling lever here and as soon as you see that needle flick the wrong way you practically be right ready for it to counteract. Because once she started to get that swing you just couldn’t seem to stop her. And if you blew, if it blows the valve, which means blows the evaporator

there would be a hell of a blew about that. Down races the engineer officer and you could even be on a charge for doing it on the cruises you know. Whereas a smaller ship you might get off you see, got let off, but not on a cruiser they are very strict. But you got used to them. And you just, you just kept your mind on what you had to do you know when it came to

that sort of thing.

Oh no not on the ship no Sergei they weren’t allowed on ship.

Like all sailors, we had girlfriends ashore.

In the west in Fremantle, actually she lived in Perth, nothing serious. But of course every port you went to you had a

girlfriend you know.

No I never had one in Darwin I missed out. I was a bit slack wasn’t I there. Hey don’t you reckon. Geez I missed out.

No there wasn’t any females.

Can I tell you something funny?

Talking about Darwin and females the navy said “Oh we are going to have a dance ashore and we want all you fellows to come off the ships and come to the dance” “Oh yes ok” “And we will have, the wafs will be there and the wafs and you know the wrens and all that, they will be all there we will have a dance” and we said “Oh that’s great” we all went ashore and of course there is no grog, no grog allowed in.

Anyway we went in and were dancing with the girls and all and we went to go outside and they have got an armed guard on the door “Where do you think you’re going sailor?” “I was just going out for a bit of fresh air” “Oh no your not back inside you go” and you were with a girl like you know so you both had to go back inside. You weren’t going outside mate. Once you were in, you stayed in.

No it’s not, you can see how well they trusted us can’t you?

Well it was just to make sure that sailors didn’t take ladies outside, just to make sure.

Well it didn’t say much for either did it really? But oh no you weren’t allowed to go outside with a female.

In fact they had it that way that you didn’t even go out on your own outside

the hall, because what would stop you from going outside hanging around out there and having a smoke and a girl would come out and do the same thing. And you could meet up with her outside in the dark couldn’t you. Oh no, no that was barred.

Isn’t it amazing and I suppose I would have been I suppose I would have been 21 22 then. Yeah they just did not trust you and they didn’t make any bones about it.

I suppose it was the army, army or navy both of them I suppose had a hand in the pie.

They were just making sure that the ranks didn’t have a good time. I suppose the officers did alright but not the ordinary ranks.

Oh quite nice yeah.

They were just ordinary working class like

ourselves just ordinary girls like our fellas were you know. We were just ordinary working class people.

They didn’t like it, they were rather insulted about it all you know. They never ever came to another dance, they only had the one dance and that was the finish. They said “If we can’t be trusted to go outside the hall with a sailor or a man, we don’t want to come”. So they didn’t, they didn’t come again,

which I don’t blame them, it was rather an insult to them I thought you know really. And to us poor old sailors too. Not that we would have done anything.

With the local women?

You just coped, you didn’t worry about it, that was all there was to it mate. You just went without that is what it amounted to, and that is all there was to it. There was none there. Oh I think they used to give us, that is right, they used to give us, what was the name of the drink, oh I nearly forgot that, limers,

limers I think they called it limers I think and that was a sort of depressant for that sort of thing.

Yes that is right, they used to always make up these buckets of limers and you’d go and have a drink of that, it was good, it was a good drink.

I think they called it limers if I remember, like a lime, limers, we used to call it limers, it probably wasn’t the name. The same as we used to call soft drinks lolly water. They used to call it lolly water you see

but it was actually lemonade or soft drink you know. And the same as this lime it was limers and they used to give you that. And I just can’t remember if it was tablets or not, I don’t think so it was mainly the lime that they fed you on that you drank. And you didn’t seem to worry about women, not even men.

I can honestly say I never saw it. As I say there was only one bloke that I thought may be that way inclined and I just kept out of his way, he was a nice sort of bloke, wasn’t a bad sort of bloke. He was a steward.

Just the way he went on, he would when we would have shower and you’d come off watch and I’d go up on the upper deck

on the fauxal probably another couple stokers would sit there for fresh air because it was cooler than down the fauxal and I was up there one night on my own and he come up and he had this sarong on like just a sarong wrapped round him and I presumed that was all he had on. I talked to him for a while and I said “I’m off see you later” and went down below. So I wasn’t inclined to go for him

and I didn’t give him the chance to go for me. But I do know of it happening, a very good mate of mine, I know that he was on other ships I know that is what happened with him anyway, he didn’t mind.

A bloke I knew, no I mainly met him practically after the war. And I know by what he has told me and what others told me that he was that way inclined

you know, he wasn’t one of them but he was quite willing to be in it. But there wasn’t that much of that happened to my knowledge anyway.

It could have been hushed up I suppose on the big ships. I know it happened on one ship the Aussie that was out in the open. A couple of blokes were caught in the gun tarots by a fellow and if they probably shut their

mouths and said nothing, this bloke probably would have walked away and said nothing anyway. And they saw that they had been caught out and the story goes that they grabbed him and threw him over the side. And he hung onto the, there is a wire cable three rows, 1, 2, 3 rows of wire cable that goes round the outside of the cruiser and he grabbed onto that and apparently they grabbed a knife to try and hack his fingers off to make him fall into the sea. But

his screams were heard and they hurled him back on and grabbed the two blokes and they were charged over it. I think they were charged, jailed and discharged.

Oh yeah it is classified as sodomy isn’t it?

Well the sailors didn’t see it so harshly but the rules and regulations did you see.

Why they saw it so harshly was they tried to murder a bloke, they tried to cut his fingers off to make him let go, tried to stab him and make him drop into the water and drown you see. So that was attempted murder for a start.

The bloke who caught them, they threw him over the side.

They threw him over the ship but he grabbed the railings the wire cables that you hang on to. And to make him let go they tried to kick him

and cut his fingers and hands with a knife, they wanted to get rid of him. In case he, instead of saying anything, if that had of been me I would have walked away and said nothing. I wouldn’t worry, nothing to do with me, if they want to do that good luck to them.

Well you do on a small ship like that you know what, well I know what is going on in the fauxal amongst the stokers.

I wouldn’t know what is going on in the seaman’s mess you see what I mean. There are just as many seamen as there are stokers and were not in the seaman’s mess. So what they do we don’t know about, the same as what we do, they don’t know about. But I never ever saw it happen on the sweepers, never. You just expect blokes and you meet blokes that have done this sort of thing but well you know

you don’t ostracise, it doesn’t worry me I don’t give a damn what he does, that is the way I look at life, if he wants to do that good luck to him, it doesn’t bother me, as long as he leaves me alone and that is the way you have got to be, you don’t stick your nose in other people’s business onboard ship because then you are looking for trouble.

Mateship, wonderful. You would do anything for your mate onboard ship you know. That is really something

that you don’t actually see in civil life, because you are thrown together and you live as a group, a family, onboard a ship and you are practically living in each others pockets you know what I mean and you get to know each other so very well and it just becomes like a brother, like a brotherhood. I’ve got mates even today and I love them like a brother you know.

Funny isn’t it? Blokes I went away with this weekend. I have known them for years and that is the way we look at it you know.

No no I didn’t serve with these two but I have known them ever since war, we were on different ships. We have been close knit and they are on the committee with me

and we have been on the committee for many years. We work together we do everything together as far as navy goes and the reunions, and anything to do with our ship association. And you look upon them as brothers you know. We still talk, when we are with each other, strangers would wonder what we are talking about. We sort of speak a language of our own you know, sailors when we are all together. People say “What the hell are they talking about?” they can’t work it

out. And we use a lot of the language that they used to talk onboard ship and the navy talk you know and that is a little bit different to what it is in civil life. See I will put it this way, on one ship I was on and it happens on every ship as I said I had 8 or 10 good mates onboard the Adelaide. When it is red, green and white watches,

I am sorry, what am I talking about, red, white and blue watches and you can’t always go ashore together. So you might be off duty and I’m off duty and Colin is off duty and there are a few others are off duty. So there is about five of us going ashore. And I say to you “Are you coming ashore?” “No can’t go ashore” “Why not?” “I’ve got no money” “Don’t worry about the money come on I’ve got a few bob. I’ve got a quid here

in me pocket” “No no” “Come on, you are coming with us” so away we go. The next time we are in harbour it might be me who is short of a few bob and you help each other out, you spend that money on each other and you go ashore, they must think sailors are wild and drunk and stupid but you have got to look at it this way in wartime, we have got a few quid in our pocket, we go ashore and spend it and enjoy ourselves. The next time you go out how do you know you are going to come back? How do you know your ship is not going to be the next one?

So you enjoy yourself and you enjoy life, and that is the way you look at life and you are thrown amongst a group of men and you feel this way between each other. There is no sex or feelings as far as that goes. You are just top mates together you know and that is mateship. Which I say I don’t think you can ever find in civil life because you are thrown together in different circumstances. That is I suppose one way I can explain it or that might

explain it quite differently, but that is the way I saw it. Next question Sergei.

Oh letters you can write as many letters as you like. But they are all censored so you have got to watch what you say in them, because they are completely censored. They will just tear

them up and they will call you up and say “Now that letter you sent we are destroying that, you should know better than that you shouldn’t have mentioned what port you are in or what area you are in, you are getting close to so and so” not allowed to do that so they give you a wrap over the knuckles for that.

No no no I just, I didn’t have any problems that way I only had my mother and father to write to and my brothers like you know. I just told them what I was doing up

to a point. You can’t mention where you are and you can’t mention what is happening much you know so it is a pretty easy letter to write. You can’t say I am in Colombo now and we have just come in from bringing a convoy in of so many ships or so, right away you are giving the enemy information. If anyone else read that letter.

About 44,43, 44

43 43 44 roughly.

Oh the whole time in the navy, throughout the whole navy, throughout the whole war.

Oh yeah you still couldn’t talk about it, that was the law, that was the rule.

No no see this is rules and regulations, which we are used to doing. We know the penalties and that is the rules and you do it. If there is a way of getting over it yeah we will. We can, but there is no way around it and if you want to be silly enough to put something incriminating into a letter, well you

are getting yourself into trouble. You know, the same as me trying to buck the system a few times you see, I soon learnt that I was the only one getting hurt over it. I was hurting myself so you know, oh sorry I was leaning forward then, it is a bit hard to sit straight all the time isn’t it? I should have a safety belt on, stop me from moving.

Yeah put a strap around me, the belt.

Yes it is just one of those things Sergei. Don’t think I am saying that we are all goodie goodies and we do what we are told. We don’t do that at all but we know the rules and regulations and we know damn well that if we step outside and we are going to cop the punishment. And as I said I realised that every time you bucked the system you are only bucking yourself as well

and sooner or later you have got to learn don’t you? And we still got away with a lot of things mind you there was plenty of things we got away with.

Well for instance, I will give you a little instance. We were on the Adelaide and we pulled into Sydney Harbour on the Friday night. Saturday morning one of my mates Cooper and myself we got the job of pulling out the firebricks in one of

the boilers, boiler furnaces like you know. We have got to repair it, so we pull all the rubbish out and I get on top of the and Cooper is down below filling all the buckets with the old bricks that have come out of the furnace see, we have got to get it ready for the brickie to brick up. The firebricks. So I pull the buckets up the top you see and put them on the upper deck and we get them all up there and I said, “Righto Coop come on we will get rid of these” so he comes up and of course were

Saturday morning we have only come in on the Friday night late, Saturday morning we are going ashore lunchtime hopefully for the weekend. And Cooper comes up and of course a great bloke, he lived in Bondi and we started yapping to each other you know about something or other and I looked up and I said “God here comes the regulating chief stoker” I said “Come on don’t move here he comes” because I was a bit of an old hand at this time Cooper had only been in

about two years I think. I said “God we are gone if he catches us talking and wants to be nasty enough he can stop our leave going ashore” that is all, you had to be caught standing on the upper deck talking you were gone. I knew this bloke was a Sydneyite and I always said, I always said in the navy, one of my little things that I always said was “I reckon bullshit baffles brains”

You see so I thought here it goes, so he come up and I said “Oh g’day chief” I said “We are just looking at admiring the Sydney Harbour Bridge” I said “What a beautiful bridge it is” and I lay it on about Sydney and how wonderful this bridge is and he come right in he said “Yes that was built so and so” and he stood there and talked about 10 minutes telling us all about this bridge. If I hadn’t have had a story to tell him, we were gone, we wouldn’t have got ashore

that day, we would have had stoppage of leave that day because we were caught standing talking when we should have been working. So we were yapping about this bridge and oh god we couldn’t get a word in, he kept on and on so I said “Come on we better finish this job hadn’t we chief?” “Oh yeah get going”. Now we were gone that day and Cooper said, “Oh god that was close, that was close”. And this is what it was all about, so you got away with somethings and

other things you didn’t get away with. Yeah so that was that.

Oh not terribly much. There was one night at sea which I thought was terrific. It was quite a cold night too and they said we are going to have community singing under the bridge. So they had all the awnings up, they had smoking lamps

out which is the lump up hemp smouldering when you lit your cigarette off that you see. You weren’t allowed to strike a match and all the awnings around the side so no light could be seen outside and we all got down oh 2 or 3 or 400 of all crouched down under there and they started community singing. Someone had a mouth organ or something or other and we had a terrific time for a couple hours and then the bugle would go at 10 o’clock “Alright lights out into to your bunks, into your hammocks”.

Away you go, that was terrific that night you know I will never forget that, one night at sea all crouched around all cuddled into each other all nice and warm it was nice and warm it was that damn cold and singing our heads off. Community singing. Little things like that you used to make it.

Oh you know just the normal songs of the day, the community singing type songs you know that everybody knew. But other times you would be in the mess deck and you’d be off watch, you would write letters, you would

have a yarn for someone or you’d be pressing your uniform ready for next time you go ashore, the next port you get into, there was always, there was always something to do. Down washing your clothes and so forth, there was always seemed to plenty to do onboard or read, we had a good library onboard that ship. And here is discipline again. I hired a book from the library and I put it down and someone

knocked it off [stole it], so I went back and told them and I had to pay the full price of the book. There was a bit of thieving that went on the ship sometimes you know. If you washed your dicky front and collar out they were worth a few bob. You’d wash them out and go and hang them on the over the tops of the engine rooms like where it was nice and warm, but you would sit there with a book while they dried.

If you didn’t someone would knock them off. Things like that. If you left clothing lying around, say I left a mouth organ or a jumper laying around on the mess deck, it would be picked up, it would disappear. And it would go to what they call it would go into the scran bag and if you wanted, if you went to the scran bag when it was open, they would open it and say

“Right scran bag is open”, you’d go down there, “Oh there is my jumper” “Right that will cost you so and so to get that out”. So it was made to make you tidy to make you realise you didn’t leave stuff lying around the mess deck, if you did it cost you. If you lost any tools it cost you, if you lost a library book it cost you. That was it, that was discipline, you did as you were told or else pay the penalty.

Just as simple as that. That is putting it plainly the way it was.

Well depending on the size of the ship cruises no. Seaman and stokers don’t mix onboard ship. Other branches don’t mix, very rarely.

If you are not a seaman you’re above me, you’re on the next deck up a seaman, we are the next deck below stokers. And we are close to the boiler and engine rooms you see down lower. And if you are a seaman, you wouldn’t dare come down and step into the stokers mess deck unless you were invited or you asked if you could come in and vice versa. I wouldn’t dare go up those stairs and just walk into the seaman’s mess deck. They’d say, “What the bloody hell do you want in here?

We don’t want stokers in here get out”. If you didn’t get out they’d throw you out.

Cooks are the same they had their own section of ship.

On the smaller ships yes, on the larger ships no. Oh on the smaller ships yes yes. Going back to the small sweepers, I tell you what we used to do. The stokers had the

right idea in that. We taught the seaman how to do it. When we would come off watch, the morning watch, the morning watch scrubs out the mess deck that is from 4 o’clock in the morning till 8 o’clock in the morning that is the morning watch. The middle watch and the morning watch that is correct and then there is the forenoon watch you see. You’d come off the morning watch at 8 o’clock, you would draw your breakfast and you would have it and then you and the rest of that watch would scrub down the tables, scrub down the

stools, scrub down the mess deck floor and clean the place up, then you can sit down. Then they come in and they run an inspection on it and they make sure it is all clean. They put a white glove on, go underneath the stools, white glove any dirt on that you do the whole lot again, do the whole lot again. Re clean the whole thing again so you make sure that you do it right the first time. Then after that, most of us, most

stokers didn’t have much to do there would be two or three of us, we’d go down the galley, on a small ship you’d only need one or two of us, we’d go down there with cookie and we’d peel the potatoes for him, scrape the carrots, get things ready for him and help him, and what would he do for us, he’d make us a lovely jam tart or an apple pie and we would take it back to our mess deck at lunchtime. And the seaman saw this happening and they were getting nasty about it. So they decided that if they finished up there would be one stoker and

one seaman in the galley every morning to help the cook. That is they way you got little bit extras which was good. We started it off and of course the seaman got their noses out of joint, they weren’t getting any apple pie or jam tart. So they decided to do the same thing. But on small ships they mingle altogether much better. And on a big ship you don’t go on the other mess decks unless you are invited or you ask can

you come and see someone.

Yeah, just the rules and regulations of shipboard life you know, that is the way you do it.

A little over 12 months, 12, 14 months and then she went, she was paid off and became submarine mother ships to British submarines. So what, while we were still onboard her

and she became that quite a few of us copped the job of working on British submarines while they were in port you see. They were very small and cramped, you know very small. But a lot, I don’t think I would like a submarine, not now anyway, you have got to be a special person I think to suffer a submarine. Very claustrophobic, locked in all the time, nowhere to move,

turn side on to pass each other in the passage ways, smell of toilets and diesel throughout the whole ship the whole time, very cramped conditions. You practically get out of your bunk and I jump in it. That is how cramped it is you know as you come off watches.

Oh well

we didn’t actually I suppose. I don’t, suppose I don’t know. We knew things were going alright. But I think we knew when they said about the atomic bomb being dropped. It was practically over you know, and then of course it came over the wireless that it was over.

Oh I don’t know I have just got to think. Off Finch Haven I think.

Onboard, onboard, I don’t know Karangi, it could have been Karangi I was on then at that time. But anyway, that was, we heard it on the wireless, they put it over the wireless for us you see. Over communication they said the atom bomb has been dropped and Japan has capitulated.

Mmmm.

No no didn’t know a thing about it, nobody knew about the atom bomb until it was done you know. I have read stories about it since then you know, but you have to be careful you don’t sort of get mixed up with what actually happened and what did happen you know.

Oh terrific you know.

Oh they were all happy as Larry to think that the war was over. It was over but it wasn’t over actually because a lot of the submarines didn’t want it to be over they were still on guard because with submarines they were still likely to sink yet you know. And as they said I read in books later, they spoke of Japanese on the islands

who they wouldn’t believe it and they still went on fighting or tried to fight. They wouldn’t believe the war was over you know. Oh no it was a great feeling to think it was over yes yes. It meant starting a new life again didn’t it, back in civvies life.

Yes, yes.

This was

when I left the Adelaide I, I got a bit of a punishment draft up to Darwin again and I was sent up there to drive cranes and another mate of mine, I met him later, first time I met Jack. He was also sent up as a crane driver, and they had a big, it was a big air force mobile crane, about a

10,15 tonner and we worked 24 hours about on it, 24 on, 24 off. It was good. Sometimes you might have a heavy day, you might work 12, 14, 15 hours unloading and loading ships. Another day you might only work your normal 8 in the yard shifting buoys and all this sort of thing you know. That is the least you could work was 8. Submarines used to come in then, submarines would come in, they’d come in about,

you’d work all day and submarines used to come in about 5 or 6 o’clock at night, Dutch submarines. Well then you, they’d have to leave by daylight so you’d work all through the night loading them with ammunition and stores and so forth you know get them ready for sea again. That was a good job on the cranes, I enjoyed that. So we, there was two or three cranes, different types we used to operate there, the big mobile and a small lever

driven one. The lever driven one was very handy on the wharf for loading submarines because it could turn in its own length like you know. It would be about, about from here to the wall away and you could spin it round. I could practically turn it round like that where it stood you know. You’d pick the stuff up and turn straight round, just bring it round or lever driven which was more positive than a steering wheel. It was quite good. That was a good job.

And if you worked, if you looked like having to work all the night through after working all day well then your mate Jack would come down and he would give me a three or four hour break while I went up to have a sleep and he’d come back, I’d come back and take over and finish off the day. And then I would do the same for him if he was called out on having to work nearly 24 hours straight you see. You had 24 off anyhow you see so it worked out really good. And that stood me in good stead

for a job when I came back. As I said earlier you know. Went out to the housing commission, one of the big builders had taken over and was given the job straight away because it was on me papers, mobile crane operator. Or mobile crane driver they used to call it in those days.

Oh well I thought it was the best thing that could have happened really. After what they did to our blokes and so forth, prisoner of war camps, we had no sympathy for them. I think that it was the best thing that could have happened. It shortened the war, saved thousands and thousands upon lives. They were so fanatical, they didn’t want to give up.

But Hiroshima and Nagasaki, after Hiroshima they still weren’t giving up. Nagasaki finished them off. Unfortunately it is a terrible thing like to see all those people dead. But it was one way to finish the war, shortened the war and I think it saved thousands upon thousands of lives, I really do.

I am not quite with you on that one Sergei, what was that?

The bombings and like the strafing yes.

No not really, not really. I don’t

think anybody liked them, they were the enemy, it would have been the same if they were the Germans you know. They were the enemy and that is all that mattered and we were fighting the enemy and we had to be the ones to win it sort of thing. The way they would have thought of us, they didn’t like us. They had to be try to be the ones to win it too, we were lucky enough to beat them all you see which was good. Looking back on it now I don’t feel any hatred for them,

it was just at that time we thought it was the best thing that could have happened really. And then after you saw all the films after the war, the Germans, the concentration camps, the Japanese the same, well I think they got off very lightly in the islands, I think if I had of been a prisoner I would have shot the bloody lot of them myself. What they did, the deprivation, to the Australians.

Yeah I did.

I had a few mates on the Perth who were captured and I saw them when they come back and they were just skin and bone, nothing of them you know. And you can imagine how it has affected them for the rest of their life. There was no need for them to do the things they did, they are very sadistic, very sadistic people. And I think when people are like that I think it is the best way to get rid of them myself.

You ask the questions, start me off.

Well I came back and I boarded the train, we went down by, they sent us all, I went to what they call a bouls [?]

house which is a stokers section of the barracks up there and we went down, they sorted us all out and we went down on the old goods trains, remember the old cattle trucks, well they loaded us all onto them and went down to Alice Springs on that. And then we came down by train from there, oh no actually we copped the

the transports, the semis and all the dust and everything like that you know. And came down with army and air force fellas, a mixture of us and all. Then got down to Adelaide by train and from there to Melbourne. Reported in at port Melbourne naval depot. And which was the HMAS Lonsdale, that was about it, they

said “What do you want to do, do you want to stay in occupational forces or give it away?” I said, “I might as well get back to work” so I did.

No I didn’t go, I often think I’m sorry I didn’t go now, I should have gone, that was an easy time wasn’t it? Missed out on all the good times. I found out later, a friend of mine,

a very good navy mate of mine, he passed away and he had a very very bad cancer. And the surgeon said “I can’t make out why his cancer is so bad”, he said it was, he stayed on, he joined the navy, was only in the navy for a couple of years actually Don, but he went to N class destroyers and then he went to Japan after the war and he died of this cancer. And the Doctor said “I couldn’t work out” he said

“Why was the cancer was so black, so fierce?” and his brother said “Oh I don’t know either”, he said “Where did he serve in the war?” he said “He finished up in Japan after the atomic blast” and the Doctor said “Why didn’t I think of that?” he said “That is what it is, that is what it was”. They reckon that cancer was caused by that, all those years before. They said it was such a fierce black cancer,

caused from possibly radiation of some description. Because he was always weak in the chest, he never ever felt that terribly well you know Don. So there you are, I presume that is right I don’t know, that is what his Doctor said at the time, his brother was telling me. So I thought to myself, maybe I did the right thing by coming home and getting on with life.

Oh only, nothing really, just to get on with life I suppose, parents as well, parents and look around for a job, start work. I thought it is over now so you know why waste time. I

didn’t have any thoughts of marriage at that time. It was a couple of years after that before I got married anyway.

No I didn’t have a steady girlfriend to come back to no. No, the one I had earlier in the peace, she had remarried we sort of moved apart anyway you know. When I left I had a girlfriend but I was too young to think about marriage then, 18 you know.

So you know move around and you don’t bother greatly about it. Yeah that was the way that finished. So then as I say I went out and picked up those jobs and kicked off that way.

No no. I finished up going into a concrete business as I told you with another chap so that was interesting and kept us flat out [busy], you know going.

I don’t know I think it was a, when you say do I find it difficult to adjust, no I don’t think I did. I just got on with life you know, I thought that is it, it is over, so let’s forge ahead and get a decent job.

Oh yes that was true, no it didn’t affect me that way. I made up my mind what I was going to do, and that was all there was to it. And I had a few regrets that I didn’t go into the BCOF so I said look it is too late now get on with life so I said right, just put it aside. And then

I met my wife. And that made a difference when you meet someone and we started planning our life ahead and we went along with it you know. And got on with life, so I had no regrets. I was quite happy to get out and earn a decent living. And then I went onto, got onto earth moving. And I loved that sort of work, I did love that

and it just went along you know it was life, we had built the house at Box Hill. It was great to be able to get a house built through Veterans Affairs wonderful you know and so easy to pay off the repayments were that damn cheap you know it was unreal.

I think I was paying 22 shillings a week, so I thought this is too easy, so I bumped it up to 25 shillings, and then I bumped it up to 30 shillings a week and I was a mile in front you know. I had that much on advance, I kept that going until I was 55 and I thought it was about time I paid it off. People said I was

foolish to let it go but I was only, what was it 2.5 3 percent or something like that. I just wanted to think, I wanted that idea that I owned it, I wanted those papers in my hand that I owned it and that was it. So we stayed there for quite a while. We were at Box Hill for about 30 odd years and then we moved out of there out to here. And moving out this far this only cost about another couple of thousand dollars on the house compared to that you see, which was a bigger home

and terracotta tiles and aluminium windows and the whole works you know, exactly what I wanted.

Well I didn’t think it did but I think back now, I think I was pretty aggressive really when I think about it. I could blow up very quickly and lose my temper very quickly you know.

It made me very much that way. I was pretty bad tempered like you know. I wasn’t so bad tempered it was just that I would blow up so quickly. I think really, what I do think now I think all of us should have, when you came out they said, “How are you?” “Oh good as gold good as gold”. Right there is all your gear, see you later and I was off. I think we all should have had a bit of

what is the word. I think we were all psychotic or something, I think we were all a bit off our heads. I think we should have had a little bit of treatment or something after it, just to slow us down a little bit. Because I remember I was with this construction mob and I was driving the trucks and

this bloke come along down St Kilda we were doing this relaying of new tar on the road and putting a cover of screenings over it and this bloke pulled up and said something and I abused the hell out of him. Just over nothing you know, just blow up, I was bloody wild, stupid. And I think we all needed a little bit of treatment really when we came home. Because you lead that sort of life and it is built into you

over those years and you come back to peace and harmony and it is pretty damn hard to settle down. That is the way I looked at it really. That is the way I think about it now. And I could blow up so easily at home you know when I was married. I could blow up so quickly and I suppose that is not normal is it?

We took it as normal you see

we didn’t know any different but I think we should have had a little bit of treatment or a bit of counselling would be the word I’m looking for, bit of counselling might have done us all the world of good. Might have helped our wives a bit more.

Well a mate of mine, he was worse than me actually, well he

used to hit the grog more than I did, I still used to like my drink but I cut it right back to normal because I could see my marriage slipping unless I did something about it you know. And I barred that and I remember one night he came home, no names mentioned. I know he come home and his wife started nagging I suppose, he did his block, he started up the washing machine and he was going to shove her in the washing machine,

he was trying to put her in. We often laugh about it now you know. Oh god. I never went that far. But he had had a pretty hard time, he had been over there in England in the bombings and all that sort of thing and Dunkirk and all that sort of thing and taking survivors off N class destroyers. But there are a lot of people like that or were like that. And I think it takes quite a few years to get it

out of your system really to settle down. Yes so there you are. But we are alright now I presume I think.

Oh yes yes yes I do. I think he had to be stopped Hitler, oh yes I’d do it all over again, if I was younger of course.

Oh yes I believed what we was doing was right, I really do. Yep.

I thought it was still great. I was all still for King and country like you know. I am still a bit like that now you know I am a real monarchist,

I am not a republican. That is the beauty of this country, we can please ourselves what we are, we are not forced to do anything or not forced to think the way we have got to think. I still think it is, I think it is something to look up to, that is all we need we need something to look up to and there are not too many politicians we can look up to. And whether they are right or wrong or what they are doing now whether it is right or wrong, I couldn’t care less, I am too old to worry about it now. I just think it is.

I was only saying to a lot of English people that I know on the weekend, they have always had something in England, you see any parades that they put on, they are absolutely marvellous. I have got videos there of marches they have had in England and victory marches and the queens coronation and all that. It is unreal to see all the troops of the world that stuck behind Britain just how they march and go on about it all, it must mean something to them to

do this don’t you think to bring that spirit out in them. What else can you bring, what else can you think about that would bring it out in people like that, unless they thought this way. That is just the way I feel about it. I don’t believe in knocking other people they have all got their own ideas if they want to do that ok. I got pretty strong thoughts about political wise on certain little things,

but otherwise I like the democracy of our country and all that sort of thing. It suits me.

Yes it is different, it certainly is different. Lots of things I don’t like about it are the drugs for a start, the way kids are getting into drugs. And I suppose they go on like yahoos up in Queensland with the grog when they leave school and all this caper, I suppose we carried on a bit, but never to that extent. Just hold myself back.

But as I say well who am I to criticise them, I was probably bad enough when I was a young bloke myself.

No no the only thing that has made us conservative is old age. I was as bad as any other one. But drugs I would never take on,

smoking yes, drink yes. Women now and then. But drugs no, no I think it is bad news the drugs, I think it definitely, I think they definitely go off their heads with drugs.

No, never ever tried it.

No not in those days, no there was no marijuana in those days, there was no drugs or anything in those days,

only cigarettes, cigarettes were the main thing. Both my sons have tried it, they don’t like it, they said no. You are living in an unreal life aren’t you, you are not looking at things they way you should be. And it is a pretty damn crook to think you have got to take this stuff to get you through a day, you know don’t you reckon?

You know

why do you need drugs to get you through the day, I mean to say you should be able to do this yourself.

Oh no no, I was pretty heavy on drink, if it was Saturday night I was pretty heavy on drink.

After the war.

Oh yes yes.

Only when we come into port, you know with your mates. We would get pretty drunk most of the time and enjoy it. But it was a different time altogether you see we were going back to see again the next day or a couple of days time. We used to think well damn it why not enjoy ourselves? But yes we all made fools of ourselves you now, even after the war but I wouldn’t class myself as a drunk. I

would go out Saturday night and do a job on myself yes. But it would never interfere with my work, I would never let it interfere with my work, no way. If ever my sons see this they would be laughing their heads off you know. “Bloody liar” they will say. But no that is a fact.

Now and again it comes up, see we go to all these reunions and naval association and it is always there and I generally talk a bit at different places on it. Naval association down in subsection there is always different things come up all the time and it is good to talk about them,

it gets all the blokes talking and thinking back. And they all start pitching in and telling all the tales. It is something something that I would hate to have missed. I am so glad I have been through it and seen it. And it is something I feel I would have missed in my life you know. And I am so happy that I went through it, that might sound strange and funny to you.

The type of men that you met and the type of friends

you got to meet and the way you lived. If you didn’t have a quid, I had a quid it was yours, you know we’d share it, up the pub let’s booze it. Lets go and have a feed, next time in port I might be broke you can do the same for me. And that was the way it was.

Yes the mates, yes they were strong memories.

Oh mates yeah mates yeah

definitely.

The mates and I just think it is the point of having been through it all. Which made better people of us I suppose in one respect. It is a hard thing to, it is a hard thing to work out, talk about you know. We often say when we get together, you know we talk about different things

and they say “Oh god I would hate to have missed this” because it has brought us all so close together, all the navy blokes you know. See we’re I think we are lot tighter than a lot the others. We are associated with living in each others pockets onboard ship, so closely moulded in together you know. And it brings you closeness to a friend, you get to know them so

terribly well you know and that seemed to make that bit of a difference I think. I don’t know it is hard, it is hard to work it out really.

No no oh no.

No I never dream or think about the bad times, about the bombings or the strafing or anything like that. I never think about them.

It is only when we go to meetings and we bring up all the funny tings that have happened you know. There is lots of funny things I could tell you but a lot of it you couldn’t put on TV, there is a lot of things but a bit rude so we won’t mention them. It was funny, I will tell you one funny thing that happened really.

We were onboard ship the Adelaide and it was pretty quiet one day, we were at sea, and it was a Sunday, and port holes were open, lovely weather and all of a sudden one of the boys said “Hey come on lets do something, lets have gunnery practice” I said “Ok will have gunnery practice”. You can imagine they have got one of the portholes open, they pick up one of the stools and they put that up to the porthole.

One of the blokes goes and grabs a great arm full of plates. Fire number 1 gun, so he shoots the plate straight up the, this is how stupid they get, straight up the plank, the stool and out the porthole it goes you see. So we end up firing all the plates up there you see, this is all just to break monotony and everyone is around laughing, everyone has come into the mess deck, there is about 90 of us there, all killing ourselves laughing, so stupid you know but we got a bit of fun. So we

thought “Oh that’s great, terrific we must do that another time”. So we put the stool back and everything else. We didn’t think it was so funny on payday. There wasn’t a word said, nothing said to us about it. But when we got our pay we were all short of so much to pay for the crockery, it was done so nicely you know. We should have all been on a charge, but it was done so nicely. We lost so many shillings out of our pay that week.

I thought that was great. Monotony can be a bit crook but you have got to be a reader, you have got to be able to read and if you sat down with a good book, you know it gets away quite a lot of hours you know of time. Yes so that is about all I can say on that really.

Yeah Korea, yes I suppose Korea and Vietnam, I don’t suppose I don’t know whether it was necessary. What I get crooked on is, what I get crooked is our troops went away to Vietnam and some wanted to go and some didn’t but they went over there and did their duty for their country. Yet when you bring them back here everyone is crooked on them, well that is wrong. A lot of them didn’t want to go, they were sent.

And they’ve gone away and did what they had to do for their country and it shouldn’t be taken out on the soldiers. That is what I think is wrong.

No I think it was the right thing to do. I am dead against communism myself. Always was.

I just had this snout on communism; I just felt that democracy was the best way to go. But you know

I still feel a bit way myself, but it depends, we have all got our own thoughts haven’t we on these sort of things you know.

Yes I did yeah. Yeah I knew quite a few of them, especially on the building sites.

Oh no, not before the war, not

during the war. I had a terrific friend who was a red hot Commo [communist] and he was a good bloke, we respected each other’s thoughts on it and didn’t speak about it, he had his thoughts on it and I had mine. We had an argument on it at the very start and we said if we want to keep this friendship lets not talk political, so we didn’t. So I think it is a good way to go really. Leave politics to the politicians.

And you asked the other question about this Iraq business. Yes I think they did the right thing, I think they did the right thing by going and getting this bloke who was running the show. He certainly wasn’t helping his people was he? When you read about the murders he created and committed and so forth. But there again we come to the politics.

Yes yes yes over the years we have talked about it and they have asked about it and I have told them different little things you know. And they know quite a bit about it really.

Oh just “What it

was like in bombing raids” and what war was like and what it was like onboard ship and this and that you know. Just normal natural questions, I never ever flogged them and sat them there and flogged them with it. You know like what we did and didn’t do you know. Different things would come up on TV and they would say so and so and so and so, and we would just naturally talk about it, they were very interested, still are interested.

Oh yeah the fair dinkum stuff yeah oh yeah. Not just the nice side of it, the grim side of it yeah.

Yeah she knew about it, when she asked questions, she was told.

Throughout the life, you know different things would crop up, she didn’t ask that terribly much, she would be there and the boys would ask

questions and I would say, and she would say “No go on tell them what is what”. She felt that they should know. A lot of chaps never ever talked about it. One of mates never ever told much about it. I told his own family about it more than he did. And I think he realised later on that he should of told them, he just didn’t want to talk about it, couldn’t be bothered. Or whether it brought it back to close to him I don’t know, it might have brought it home

too much.

I am damned if I know really.

Oh yes I did yeah I suppose I did yeah. I just took it for granted I think I felt that way,

I think I felt that way. I had a bloke on one of the building sites he was crushed by a truck and he went right under the truck, he was backing down and it hit him and rolled him, he went up over the double diffs and came over the front like you know, he was pretty mangled up and I immediately rushed to the phone and got an ambulance and so forth and got him in. I felt very very sorry for him and I went and saw him many times after that.

And he was a, I had him made a leading hand with me, you know one of my best leading hands. And it was an accident that happened on the job, and the job had to be done just the same, so we got over that and got on with the job. I went and saw him many times you know. But I don’t know how you work these things out at times.

Yeah well put it this way, I won’t mention any names this time. I was ashore and I met up with two fellas who lived in South Yarra with me as kids and one bloke was with me he just took it for granted, an air raid so what you know, the

other bloke was shaking in his boots, he was a big strong fella and he was shaking in his boots, it really got to him. I said “What are you worried about you know they are a mile up there they won’t drop them near us” but they did drop near us that time and he went to water that poor devil. And my mate and that we just laughed, you know we are still here and that was the way you looked at it. So I don’t know,

it is the way you looked at it and the way you can handle it. And then he went to a ship later on and got in quite a bit of action. I believe he went to the pack on that, I think it has got a lot to do with your make up really don’t you.

We all feel, I am sure we all feel fear at sometime, the fear of god, puts the fear of god into actually. One of the worst things I think is when you hear a bomb

screaming down that really puts the fear of god into you. It is hard, it is really hard to explain the feeling really it is so long ago and I don’t know how to explain it really I really don’t.

Oh yes there were some lovely places.

Well the islands were very very pretty weren’t they, I mean to say you see some beautiful sunsets up there in the tropics you know absolutely beautiful the sun going down, the

sun rising is worth sitting back and watching that come up of the morning you know it is absolutely delightful, beautiful. Yeah it all looks very nice.

I can remember one ship, a few of us used to lay right up on the bow of the ship looking over the edge and watch the dolphins diving

between the waves of the bows of the ships. That was terrific to see them, they come so close to it you know. You could lay there for hours, then you see whale, and we’d catch sharks when we were anchored. We would catch a shark or two, we had a shark fisherman onboard and he was very good at it. That was good you know. But the islands as you say are lovely yeah.

I have heard of lack of moral fibre yes. Where a bloke is lacking, lacking in something, lacking moral fibre.

Oh no I think they all had to do their job, they did their job alright there. As I say it is I suppose it is a pretty frightening experience, but when it’s over you get on with the next lot don’t you ?

Not really no no not really. No I can’t tell you that, I didn’t see any great bravery.

Oh yes yes yes, I feel very proud that I was one of them like you know.

That had been through it.

Oh I wouldn’t have thought so, just take it for granted in those days, you were there doing a job and that is all there was to it.

Well it is still a wonderful day Anzac Day I feel. It still means the same thing as it meant years ago to me. It is a tradition that we have to keep going keep up.

And it is a matter of doing something for your country isn’t it? And I feel if war broke out tomorrow I am pretty sure that the youth of our country would come to the fall. I am quite sure they would. So we can’t just lie down and let someone walk all over us and take it over can we, you know lets fact it.

I didn’t have any.

No.

Well I walked under a ladder one day and I said “Oh god I shouldn’t have done that”. I thought oh what the hell. So

I walked under it again. Nothing happened so I thought ok it worked. But normally you wouldn’t walk under a ladder not because of superstitions just something that a might be up there and drop a tin of paint on you or something you know. That is not superstitions, that is an accident isn’t it?

No I don’t think so, I don’t think we ever thought about it, was talked about you know. I think people today look for more

of these sort of things, and they look for things are not there you know, they try to work out things and they worry and think about things I think you are better to just go on with life and enjoy life and if something crops up handle it the best way you can. It doesn’t pay to worry about it though, that is the worst thing you can do.

Oh good.

I think I have touched on every subject haven’t I really.

I think we have done a pretty good job, you know I related all I could, I may not have gone fully into lots of things, I think I have touched on what was necessary you know. Yeah I think it has worked out pretty well. I am quite happy actually with

the interview and you chaps, you have done a damn good job. Right on the ball and I just hope it is helpful to somebody. I hope someone enjoys it.

No not that I know of. I didn’t do anything spectacular god I was

just another one of the sailors that went to sea and did their bit for their country that is all, nothing particular, I am just an ordinary person and I love life, I love to get on with life, I don’t like dilly dally around you know, if you are going to do something, do it. As long as you got good friends what more would you want you know, good friends

you can’t beat that. Friendship is, friendship I feel is a wonderful thing to have, without that you are lost I think.

I would just like to thank you two blokes Colin and you.

Sergei and me for the wonderful job we have done today.