Australians at War Film Archive

I was born in Brisbane, in a place called Clayfield which is just on the left hand side of the Brisbane River. I was second in my family and

my sister who came three years earlier than I, was also born in Brisbane at the West End. Later on I had a brother, and he was born in Hamilton Reach and his name was Jack Hamilton Riley, my mother and father christened him the suburb in which he was born. We all grew up as a family, we all grew up in Clayfield when the

first aeroplanes used to fly round, and I recall going up with my grandmother, being flown up in a Qantas plane at a cost of ten pounds in those days. The papers were full of it the next day, the young and I, grandma and I, we went up and Leicester Bray was the pilot, just a nice little memory. And then I was brought up in a Catholic school at Ascot, which is close to Clayfield and showed a little bit of

aptitude towards sport, especially cricket. I used to play cricket with the children. My sister was in the same school as I, and she sat next to a boy she later married. Harry Cleaver, and they had 5 children, but that’s another story. Then after that, in a sort of kindergarten area, I showed a little aptitude

towards of playing cricket and Dad got me into a state school, the Windsor State School, and as I grew up I played a lot of cricket, so I got wrapped up in cricket. After I passed a scholarship exam, my father was very, very happy, because I could go to a secondary school because I passed the scholarship exam in Australia. But, at the same time we had a lot of religious trouble in Brisbane, or can I say Queensland, or say Brisbane.

Catholics were different from Protestants and Protestants were different from Baptists and so forth and forth, in so far as when they came to pick the school boys cricket team, I was picked as a slow bowler, and I then went to Gregory Terrace, because I had been entering the Catholic reign, the brothers said you either come here or go back and play cricket and don’t come here. So I didn’t get picked for the Queensland School Boys team. But it went on. That’s how.

Later on I passed my exam from Gregory Terrace and I went to the same school as Dr Windsor. Dr Windsor lived 3 doors from where I was educated at, and he was also in the classiest school, but much higher than I. Dr Windsor being the first one to do a heart transplant. And then, after I passed this exam, that was around about 1936, 1937 then, then I worked for at

Lustre Hosiery for a job, there weren’t many jobs round then, and we all had a little girlfriend and so forth, entirely innocent, I used to go to the pictures up at Windsor, I used to get 6 pence, and if you had 9 pence you would go into the ‘Camber’ seats, the Camber seats were much easier to sit in and also have a bit of a cuddle in. Innocent cuddle of course. So I played a lot of cricket

and I used to play on the other side of Brisbane, of a Saturday, so it was a bit of trouble racing home from the other side of Brisbane to get back to Windsor and get showered and take my girl out. I used to shave that side of my face because that’s the side of the Camber chairs. So one day we went there and saw this picture, ‘The Mortal Storm,” and Arthur Lansby

saw it, and Arthur Lansby was a friend of mine, and he was a, used to life save with the Kirra Life Savers and also he was a pretty good athlete, a much better athlete than I. And we saw how the Germans were treating all the people they just took over, and we didn’t know about this, and we decided to do something about it. So we joined the navy, this was 1939 or something like that.

We used to go down, I used to get 5 shillings every 3 months or something to be there, semaphore and Morse code and we learnt how to tie knots and so forth. Resulting in 1939 when I was playing cricket, I was playing cricket with Northern Suburbs A Grade, that was the side that played against Don Bradman when he got his 452. And I left out of my little talk that I loved my mother in the sense

because she took me to see Don Bradman play his first test and that was at the exhibition ground in Queensland. But back onto my little do, I was in this reserve and I was playing cricket and a policeman strode on to the field and said to the batsman, I didn’t know what he said and the batsman pointed to me and this policeman came down and he said, “Is your name Brierley” and I said, “Yes.” “Yes who?” “Yes sir.” “Are you in the Navy

Reserves?” “Yes.” “I want you down at the navy depot immediately.” “I said I would go there.” “I said immediately.” Which meant I had to drop me bat. I found out that night that we were at war and we reservists had to do something, so they smartened us all up, later on they called us all in. We all went into one room, the eyesight

test was, “Can you all see at 6/6?” “Yes 6/6 sir.” “Yes, right pass.” They wanted people. They wanted people. So get from here to and divide yourself. I had just been to the toilet and I came back and I got on to a different line from what I was on. So they went “Right, from here to here you are going to join HMS Kanimbla, from here you go elsewhere, come back and report tomorrow morning, but before you go.”

They had put me on a little launch in the Brisbane River called the Mirramar, and I was supposed to get the code words of the ships as they come in. I had never been so long at sea in all my life. I was on there for 7 days and when I got off I couldn’t walk because I was swaying with the ship. Then we went down to Sydney, the crowd we were on and I had to carry our gear across Victoria Bridge and I

can recall a dear old lady coming up to me and saying, “Excuse mister, where are you going with all that gear?” “We are going to war, we are going to Sydney.” That’s how it was in Brisbane, not many people knew. So we came down here and we joined Kanimbla. We were called HMS, His Majesty’s Ship, not His Majesty’s Australian Ship. And so we were all known as HMS

Kanimbla. We went on board and all, and our captain was a marvellous man, his name was Frank Von Getty [Captain Frank E Getting], he was of German descent but apparently he held the order in Australia for the deepest dive in a submarine. And he was a captain to his toe nails and he taught us how to be sailors, I ended up as his signalman, but that’s a different story. So this Kanimbla

used to run from Sydney to Fremantle, on the honeymoon runs they used to call them, the honeymoon runs in those days. It was made originally so it could be turned into a war ship. The only thing about it we didn’t have any guns. We had 2 times 6 inch guns which were used in the war in 1914-18, up in Rabaul when HMAS Brisbane, so we all got kitted out, but the one that struck me most, was our first day on board the Kanimbla, and

I recall a fellow by the name of Ernie Hollywood. Used to teach Sunday school, he was also in the navy, all standing there and the petty officers came along, and said, “Righto, prayers. Roman Catholics fall out.” So all the Roman Catholics had to fall out and we went down the back and we all made our own little Sunday up. The next nice little pleasantry, “Do you drink rum, because this is the Royal Navy now and

you get an allowance for rum.” If you didn’t get, didn’t drink rum you got 3 pence a day extra. The annual papers had to be marked, you either got a G or a T, Grog [alcohol] or Temperance so if you went along to another ship you showed that to the naval officers who welcomed you on board and he would have to fix your pay, you would get 3 pence extra, your pay that used to come to us every now and again. So we left Sydney on 13 December

1939, a day that my eldest brother died Jackie, what am I talking about my youngest brother. He died on that day, so I sailed on the day that he left. And on the way out we were spoken to by a Mr Schicklgruber [alleged original name of Hitler], Mr Hitler, and he was he was going to sink us. So don’t worry about, you’ll get sunk. Just the same as he sunk another ship the Jervis Bay over near South Africa. So on the way up to Rabaul,

I just heard about, New Guinea rather, there was an earthquake up there or something like that, we knew it was up there somewhere. We called into all the different places that Von Luckner [Nazi apologist Count Felix von Luckner] had his hide out in the First World War, they were little islands, and birds, and we used to have to go to all these little islands, run ashore at all these islands just to see there was no Germans

there and the sharks was long as this room and just about as fat, and lots of pigeons around and galahs around, and the room was full of manure now which was very precious. So one morning, 4 o’clock I was on the morning watch then, the sea changed in colour, we had come to China, and all the dirt from China had washed out to sea.

Us innocent young blokes we went to Hong Kong. First time we heard about, we might have read about it on our map and so forth. The ship had to victual there, and our job was to go out and find ships that were coming up from South America up from Vladivostok and Russia was still at peace with Germany then. So Germany was getting supplies from South America then, and America wasn’t in the war then,

and the ships were coming up there was Finnish ships, there was Norwegian Ships, there was Russian Ships. And taking them up to Vladivostok and putting the supplies on that across to Germany. Well, in 3 months there was 17 ships there’s about that, and I was on the boarding party of one of them, because I was a signalman. Sometimes we were going across and the waves were as smooth as the floor of this room and otherwise

other times they were 20 foot tall. Then again were had a bit of naval experience and when you get lowered in the boat, and that’s not being wrong talk, it was a boat, the difference between a boat and a ship is that a ship can carry a boat, but a boat cannot carry a ship. And we used to get, the petty officers was at either end of the boat, either the sharp end or the blunt end, and when the petty officers on the deck and saw a wave coming and you was just hanging by ropes over the deck, he used to go,

let go. And incidentally I will go back, if ever you are on one of those where clear lower deck for hauling the boat up, the PO [Petty Officers] used to stand out there and he was holding the rope tight and he used to count, 1, 2, 6 and you all pulled it up, 1, 2, 6. The boat would come up. But then I went across, and examined their papers and examined their cargo. And some

were captured, we had to send back, I don’t know how many but not many. But one particular time the sea was as rough as anything, I have never seen anything like it, this was up near the North Pole, getting on the way up to the North Pole, to the sea up there. It was so bad that they wouldn’t put us landing, or us boarding party down, the captain wouldn’t let it go down because the seas were too rough. So

you had the Kanimbla, Fremantle and laid all oil in a circle, that oil stopped the seas from breaking but it didn’t stop the seas from going up, and down and the name of that ship was the Vladimir Mayacovski. Apparently he was an author in Russian times. So we got on board this ship, and many prayers and rosaries are said. I can tell you going across. We didn’t know what was happening, they were very friendly towards us, but the ship was so

heavy, it was carrying 2,000 tonnes of gold and that was the prize run. So we had to stop on board that ship instead of coming back. They didn’t have too much food on board. And roll, they tried to bring it down the coast but the waves were going that way and so, then you used to come back and as for meals you had to hang on to a plate, and hang on to this and hang on to your meals and it just

completely rocked you and up on the bridge you used to go right over and put your hand in the water and come back up there. So a signal come through, it wasn’t to be berthed at Hong Kong because somebody found out that in British law we had to prove the Russians guilty, in French law they had, the ship had to prove themselves innocent of carrying this gold. So they decided to transfer it to

Saigon instead of transferring it to Hong Kong. Saigon was just a few miles down the road, in French territory. And by the way, when we got to Hong Kong in the very beginning, because the dollar was worth the pound was worth one third, so we had more money than the inhabitants of Hong Kong, later on when we got to Saigon it was tuppence a’ penny, so you can imagine money in your pocket which was worth nothing. So when we got back to Hong Kong,

of course we had been in and out of there a few times. Everybody got to know us, where we went was secret. Now when we did get to Hong Kong they had some girls come out in sampans and we used to call them ‘a Jenny side party’ they used to paint the side of the ship. And incidentally, when the ship coming in, it was all secret we were, what buoy we were going to tie up, they knew what buoy we were going to tie up and instead of us doing this exercise of

dropping the anchor and unscrewing this and putting a boat there, we used to drop it down to this Jenny side party. We used to call them the 'gash party', and they used to get this huge anchor and tie us on. So for doing that we gave them the scraps of our food. And they used to come, “Any gash, any gash, any gash?” And so we gave it to them. They used to iron our clothes, and they used to iron our clothes in a very

good hygienic way, the person ironing the clothes used to take a mouth full of water and ssssssh all over the clothes and iron it up. You could get a suit made in Hong Kong in 2 days, a suit for 3 pounds then. 3 pound suit. So after that, when France fell, we were moved from Hong Kong down to Saigon, and nobody knew which

side France was coming on. By the way, I must tell you this, the ship was a happy ship, we were all raw boned sailors but Von Getting taught us how to come sailors. I had the pleasurable job of being his signalman, and wherever he went when action was on, I had to follow him so forth. And he was coming, I didn’t see him,

I was going down the gangway and he was coming up, and I bumped into him and I was come back, and I said, “Sorry sir, sorry sir.” And he said, “Brierley, see that cap of mine, why have I got a big wide band on it?” “I don’t know sir.” “To put more loreleis [a siren of Germanic legend whose singing lures sailors to shipwreck] on it, gold loreleis on it and that’s what you have got to do.” “Yes sir.” But, he came down he was a wonderful man.

We played cricket ashore in Hong Kong where the races are there now. We played football. We had our ship’s jersey on Kanimbla, and the inscription on it was ‘Cry Havoc’ which was a phrase used by them in the, not the heathens, were thrown to the lions in the days. But when we were down in Saigon, we didn’t know

whether France was going to come, there was two ships there, there was the La Mont Bacay it was a big ship, a battle ship but bigger than a cruiser and the Aramis, the Aramis was a merchant ship. And we didn’t know if they were going to go with us or against us. So we sailed up the Saigon River, and I can tell you there was a lot of prayers being said that night, that bloke upstairs, he was very busy up there that night. And we were all action stations, and we

poked our nose around the river and they were playing the Marseilles. And then, it was the first time that any ship had been in like this, because they were all friends, and I must say this, I know it’s going to be written down but there were certain ladies of low repute had a beautiful home there. The name just escapes me at the

present time and they invited the ship over there for lunch and dinner one time when we were ashore. So HMS Kanimbla went ashore and we had a nice lunch at this bordello. Madam Ramong, Madam Ramong’s dinner. And the old man was aside, the captain was there and he was a fine looking man, and as we were going out the radios were on in Saigon and the girls were saying “We say goodbye to that fine looking man in charge of you don’t

forget to tell him to come back.” And so we were going down to Singapore, we went down to Singapore then, France was on our side. And just before we got to Singapore we got an urgent signal “Strange ship found in the area so go and look for it,” and so for half a day we were looking for this ship, until somebody found it was us we were looking for. Singapore was a complete mess. So we got ashore at Singapore, and

remember I told you about you had a little card, G or T [Grog or Temperance]. I went ashore with this Ernie Hollywood, who used to teach Sunday school of an afternoon, and the fellow in charge there, he was stopping there for a couple of days, and he wanted to know all about it. And so Ernie went ahead of me and he said to Ernie, “G or T?” And Ernie forgot all about it and he said, “Church of England.” No you

Aussie Australian grog or temperance. They had to alter our pay so we got 3 pence a day. So then I got called back to Australia to do a course, a sort of officers course and so forth. So I left this ship and I came back from there and I went back on a blue funnel line called the Gorman, and I went down to West Australia and that’s where all the tides

for the whole world come from. And when you are tied up at a wharf you put a rope around your ship, you didn’t put it on, because the ship would fall over. And that tide used to run out at a rate of knots you just, plenty of water, and the next half hour there would be none. Because it’s the middle of the world there and all the tides go round. Then they used to come in and you couldn’t leave the wharf until you untied your ship because its around the side and so off and away you went. We went down to Perth and we had to come across to

Melbourne by train. And there were 3 other sailors and up to about 60 or 70 ‘swatties’, or soldiers then, and a few WAAAFS [Women’s Auxiliary Australian Air Force] and the navy was placed in charge of the girls, and we thought that was very, very nice. They think much. And I came across and I did this course down in Melbourne. And then when it was finished, I can’t recall I think I might have

failed in it, they cut it short, and I was sent up to Moresby. And, from there, only there for a few days, used to get these ships coming in, and get the signal, and make sure they belong to us, and the word of the day and that sort of thing. And all of a sudden we packed up and this was around about 1941, the middle of

1941, we went up to Rabaul, people call it ‘Raborl’ but it’s [pronounced] ‘Rabowl’. And the only time I read about Rabaul was back in 1936 when they had a volcano came out in the harbour there and created a tidal wave and went right over the town and brought ships, threw ships over there and brought ships back. One of which I later was in, Donnerstar [?], which I will tell you later on. And, we set up a officers there and we had no codes

or anything at all, we were given a pistol with 2 bullets in, so we could guard ourselves, if anything happened, 2 bullets you know. But in those particular days, Bob Menzies didn’t have a very good name in Australia, we used to call him Pig Iron Bob. Cos they maintained that all the iron was sent over to Japan and that’s why they called him Pig Iron. Then we had to go out,

other people had to go out to different parts of the island to see if the Japanese were coming around, the Australian government had some idea that Japan might have been naughty. And any movement on the different islands up there with the Japanese coming back, were relayed back to us. We had an ordinary code called the Gregory’s Code, everybody in the world had the code. It was a book and we would take a word like

Rabaul, that could be R-A-B-A-U-L, R might have been 7, A might have been 6, so you put 7 6 8 3 and so forth and you put extra ones and so on. I think they called it the government code. And we used to send signals back to Australia of any movements or anything like that. Somehow or other they didn’t believe us, around

about December 7, at the beginning of December they decided, they being the government decided to move all the women, all the white women, non native women out of Rabaul, there was a ship in there, a Norwegian ship, it was at the wharf there was, brought some

gasoline to Rabaul and I think there was the Midewie [?], and all the women on board, were put on board that and sent away. Leaving Rabaul with no ladies in it, the only people stopped behind were the Chinese, or there were a few more that stopped behind but those who wanted to go went. So off they went. The town was deserted that night there was no

women down at the club, the Rabaul Club and everybody was saying, “Ooooh,” drinking away. That is very important to have that in mind for when I come back to the end of the arm, because they played an important part those women. So we were left, oh yes, yes, yes. We used to get raided. The Jap planes used to come across, they were coming all right. And anything up to 100 planes, 70 planes and

so forth, and our defence at Rabaul were Wirraways, and Wirraways were trainee flyers. They only had a ceiling of 200 to 250 foot and they couldn’t go up any further, they used to drop back and that’s as high as they could go. So this one particular time it was round about the middle of January, we had a 100 raid planes of Japanese, 100 Japanese come over

and some gentleman in Australia sent a signal to Rabaul that the Australian air force were to go up and fight them. And in charge of the air force up there was a gentleman, and I use the word gentleman very honourably, a gentleman by the name of Wing Commander La Rue, who around about 6 months ago I see where he died in America.

When he got that signal he sent back to Australia, in Latin, because he knew about Latin, what the natives in Rome did when they were fed to the lions. He said, “We who are about to die salute you.” And he coded that but that was well known all over the world. Anyhow, all the six Wirraways were shot down. I don’t think anyone was killed,

but I am not too sure of that. It was a deserted town. The Japs never bombed Rabaul, because they wanted to land there, they knew they were going to land there, they bombed the outskirts but not the town. And it was on January 16th, that’s right, let me see, January 16th that they landed,

no, no must have been the 15th, because we are having a do on 15th February that’s when the first landing, I am just a little bit wary about the dates then. They come over one morning and we were just told to go, we had nothing, I left Rabaul in a pair of running shorts, a jock strap and a shirt. With a

revolver with two bullets in it which I had thrown away. And we didn’t know where we were, just didn’t know. So we went to the other side of Rabaul and we just went to sleep. And we were looking around and we had a couple more navy blokes up from Sydney that particular time and one was a friend of mine from Brisbane. Lieutenant Gill, he was a paymaster what was the good of a paymaster in the army, don’t know bullets nothing at all, he was just an accountant, but he was up there. We had a lovely man

George Knight who was always worried about his mother, how his mother was going to get on whether she had enough money to get on, he was the chief petty officers, sorry, he was a petty officers and he was in charge of us signalman, and he was worried about his mother all the time. Then we had another fella, names come to mine, John Francis. John Francis had a cut in his foot. I have just go to break off and tell you this. And he used to

put Dettol [disinfectant] in the cup and bathe it. When he carried that cup and he used to drink out of it. Finally, in the end he died of self poisoning, not because Dettol is poisonous, but inside it wasn’t supposed to go inside, but he died up there. I happened to bury him, I said a prayer for him. George Knight the Yeoman, he died along the way,

and then there was another one. But that was very early in the peace. And we just didn’t know what to do until finally McCarthy caught up with us, McCarthy was a patrol officers up there it’s in this book down there. And he knew about the island and where to go and so forth, and so we went down to a place called Wide Bay which is on the bottom side, that’s the best way to describe,

end of Rabaul. And was there that the army had retreated to, the 2/22nd of the people in the army had wandered down there. And we were behind them and we were up in the hills and they were down in Wide Bay, Jacquinot, Jacquinot Bay, when Japanese cruisers

came ashore and butchered them all. Killed them all. Can I say 100s. We saw them. The reason we didn’t go down with them that particular time was we caught a little pig and we decided to have something to eat, so we stuck a stick in its mouth and out through its bottom and we roasted it and we were waiting to eat this pig otherwise we would have been down with the army fellas. We saw these little Japs come in, with bayonets all over,

little fella down there and he used to drive the car back and forwards, ‘Magsie’ was his name. He was just about to be bayoneted when he said, “You wait until our mates see you bastards.” And those were the last words he used. But and then we went on further and we got over that, and one of the fellas that was in that massacre he was also a patrol officers, Robinson

and he had blood on his cheek and so forth and we picked him up and bandaged him up, and we didn’t know where they were at all, McCarthy, thank heavens for McCarthy, we decided to keep on walking down the bottom side of Rabaul and all of a sudden he got a message, and by the way, when I first left Rabaul I didn’t have anything to shave with, and the mosquitoes and the flies used to be around you all the time, but when the

beard grew longer they dropped out because they had no sweat only looking for salt from perspiration. We never used to worry about flies because no flies used to worry about us. But you should see me eat salt now, but that’s another story. And one particular time I remember very well, we came to about the middle of the island. But by the way, if you saw a native you said to him, “Out of the next village, lic lic me,”

maybe on only two days walking. If you said to him, “Where’s the next race?” “Oh, not too much master, that’s a awful long way,” you might wait for 3 or 4 days. We came to a German, this is a bit of a poignant thing I might tell you about this. We came to a mission, run by a German, Father Mayerhoffer, and he was on top of the hill. We walked up but he had no food, but he shared his food with us.

We were then reduced to 3 died 4 died all buried, we had no way to mark their grave and so forth. There was about 12 of us. Not very good looking people at that particular time. But he shared his last loaf of bread. He was a German because all the priests up there were German. When New Guinea was first found out,

New Guinea, not Papua, the different religions went up there, there was Church of England, there was Baptist, Evangelist Field Mission, and all of this kind of stuff, so they all got settled, they got land, so if you were you were that religion, or you were Church of England religion. The Catholic religion tried to get in there and those people wanted some of the land that was given to the other

churches, the other churches were against it so it went to court. And the other churches won, the Catholic ones had to get out. So the expression up there when they come off, ‘they kicked off on the wrong foot’. Kicking off on the wrong foot in pigeon is left foot. And all Catholics are known as ‘left footers’ up there. That’s the reason, how a Catholic became a left footer. So we stopped the night there this was

and we had to go in the morning because the natives had come and said the Japs were, big lot of Japs coming down. So our plans were a little bit unstuck, but what I wanted to tell you again in the Catholic religion at that particular time, at 12 o’clock they had what they called the Angelists, all taught in the school, the Angel the Lord according to Mary, and she conceived the Holy Ghost. They were up on the hill, and when we went down this priest got all the native

girls to say the Angelist. Anyhow the we went walking and we heard about this Lakatoi [Mechant Navy ship MV Lakatoi], the ship the Lakatoi, which was a steamer and the crew were over there, but they wouldn’t bring the ship down, they didn’t want to be bombed by the Japanese, but all of a sudden we’ve got them, we went on board, there must have been about 130,

150 of us. There we picked up a lady called Gladys Baker, she was in charge of a plantation. And here name was all revered all over New Britain, you must see, over there is New Britain and over there is New Guinea. New Britain talked pigeon and New Guinea talked in their own language, they were a richer country but I am getting away from it a little bit. So

we came on board this Lakatoi, said a few prayers, I missed out, and we set sail, we went passed down through the islands somewhere passed Samurai [Island], somewhere along the line we hid from some Jap ships, but we got out of Samurai we

sailed right down, we didn’t have any maps, we didn’t have anything we had nothing. Except a bit of a will to live. And I tell you what, if I can use the expression, I was bloody hungry I could eat an animal without any salt. We all were. So in the old boy scouts, when we learnt there, the Southern Cross, God put it there especially, the Southern Cross is our,

the Southern Cross, 1, 2, 3, 4 and at the top are two points alpha and beta and they point at the top of the cross and if you draw a line from those two stars, and draw a line from north and south of the Southern Cross you are due south. That’s how we found where due south was and so we said, “Let’s turn right,” so we turned right and hit Cairns and

we were met, before we got into Cairns, I what day it was in the morning anyhow we got fired upon by the battery because we didn’t have the signal to say we were Aussies. And Eric Felt came out to meet us, cos there were other soldiers on board, the exact number I don’t know, nobody knew anything at all, we were glad to get out of it, we weren’t cowards, we just wanted to get out of it, my jock strap was worn out by then and so were my trousers,

we just had a bit of fabric around us, we were all like this, we had beards down to here. Stinking breath, stinking everything, hair all over the place. We wouldn’t have passed any test for Hollywood I can assure you of that, but we were just glad to get home. And some ladies met us at the wharf as the ship came along, and the first thing I said, “Anybody got a smoke?” I hauled that cigarette down in one breath

without letting a breath go. It was lovely, like winning lottery without buying a ticket, and I am only a kid then.

End of tape

We got shipped down to – we came back to Brisbane. I was in hospital for about 4 months and then sent up to Port Warsing for a bit of rehabilitation and I was brought and went to a ship called the Bowen. HMAS Bowen. Being at Maryborough, and I was on

that and I came down to Sydney loaded up there and we went and did convoy duties, all up and down the coast and so forth. Then after that I got called back to do an officers course in Melbourne, and became an officers sub-lieutenant. I went back and joined up with the HMAS Glenelg and I was on it completely

right through until the war ended. And I was up in Borneo, and when peace was declared, which we didn’t know about by any means at all, I went down to Kuching. No, sorry, I am stopping there, I was transferred from the Glenelg on to another ship, American ship, communications, I was with communications we do all the landings, and the worst

thing about landings was the Yanks fly them awful bloody shells above you. And we went on until peace come and I went down to Borneo and had to go across to the Kapunda. We went down to Kuching, that’s the Rajah of Sarawak’s place, and I know quite a few stories about that one. And then the Japanese give in, surrender a few other things

then I come back to Sydney. Nothing much happened. Yeah. I got out of the navy, but I still stopped in with the navy, even though I was in a civilian job, I was a reservist for the navy. I was working with the Customs Department, and I went for two

trips, just as a shake down but you learn something, but we couldn’t tell the oncoming people anything about it because we were so old fashioned. Compared with the new things, like dropping depth charges with a watch in your hand, and the little hole – so the water come and fill it up and fly over the top of you like this. We were completely lost so we just got out.

2 years.

Then I came down here to Sydney and a little while down here, and I worked for the glass works for 20 odd years. One of the happiest places in my life. Married, 4 children and that’s it. Getting on, all alive, all married off, everything’s right.

During the Depression, I see. I was lucky. My father was a meat inspector. He was originally from Sydney, and – married –

and he came to Brisbane to open up – Mum and Dad were married in Brisbane, because Lillian was born at West End. She was 3 years older than I, Lillian she was the brainy kid, she got all the brains in the family. And, not much money, as I said before, it was so much different religions up there,

the feelings were so strong. When I applied for – I am at school, and I used to stutter by the way, but my mother made me join the choir, I used to want to go out and play, but the choir taught me to sing and I got rid of the stuttering business. But everyone was poor.

We sat for this scholarship – oh yes please – I went to Windsor School and as I said before, I loved cricket and I sat next to a girl in school, called Barbara. She was from a different suburb than I, her father was a headmaster from

a different school, but he couldn’t sent his children the other state school which was at Wilston, we were at Windsor and so she came to Windsor and she came to the same class and that was 1935/6, and we had a master there who used to teach us cricket, I loved him, everybody loved him. I was very proud because I had gone to see Don Bradman’s first match, and I was very, very proud of him. And I wasn’t a bad cricketer,

I have got to say that. I think I told you before where I couldn’t play cricket for Queensland because…well the fella who introduced – who was our cricket master was a fella by the name of Jack Cootes. And all the time I knew him, he never touched me in any way at all, Jackie Cruikshank was my old mate, Bert Hackie was my old mate. He used to teach us football, but his main thing was cricket, and in the time at Windsor school, there

he brought a fellow up from Sydney by the name of Frank Ward, now that name is very important, not many people know it. He was a good cricketer, and he used to – now I am only a school kid, he had to play cricket and nobody had any money to get is white trousers to play cricket for northern suburbs. My father gave me, me first pair of long trousers. We used to play Australian Rules Football and back on to

cricket. We had another fellow there by the name of Vay Wilson , a lovely man, good looking man, beautiful man, and a good footballer, he used to play Union. I can go on from there. Vay became, – I said to him one day he always used to play with his sleeves up, he used to play in the forwards, “Excuse me sir, why do you play with your sleeves up?” “To be noticed.” Well, well he got captain of

Australia in Union, he went over to England in 1939. When they got over there the war started, so he never played again. He stayed over there, became a lieutenant commander, got two ‘gongs’ [medals], I understand he – I rung the Herald, I understand he has passed away now, Vay Wilson. But that’s beside the point. Jack Cootes never touched us in anyway whatsoever. Matter of fact he took us to the

Exhibition Ground one time, and I bowled against the NSW side, one was Don Bradman, the other one was Bill Brown. Now that particular time Holden’s were coming up, Holden the car maker were coming up in Queensland. They used to have a funny Huptmobile and the Automobile a big long car and they tried to – they brought in the new ones, the Buicks and that sort of business, and this

Bill Brown, which I just mentioned, he was a NSW bloke, and he was well known, he was a cricketer and this sort of business. So this girl’s father, Barbara’s father, took her down and he bought a car, and she married him, that’s his photo up there. She married him.

All we knew was there was a good batsman in Sydney and he was coming up and he played cricket. And at that particular time England was there, and England was the tops in cricket. He made 12 in his first innings, and 18 in his second, got dropped from the next match, then got picked for the third and then never had any (UNCLEAR).

He died of tetanus. We went from Clayfield to Windsor, which was a nice posh suburb then, and the house was being built, and Dad took Jackie and I and Lillian over to see how it was progressing, and also we went moved into it before it was

actually finished, and Jackie stood on a nail in is foot as it turned out to be in his foot, and he got tetanus, and nobody knew anything about it, and they used to call it lockjaw in those days. And he died. Died on 13th December 1930.

Nine. Felt the loss, especially when the doctor said he didn’t know that Jack had this lockjaw. Because he said he didn’t examine him properly. Of course Dad could have killed him at that time. Always thought of him, 13th December, the day I sailed from Australia, amazing eh.

But talking about this and we still correspond Barbara and I, matter of fact I talked to her on the phone Wednesday, there was a – on the ABC [Australian Broadcasting Corporation], there was a story about how Bradman was very pally with Kamahl [Sri Lankan-Australian entertainer]. It was a lovely story, and she’s up in Brisbane, so I rang her. I said, “Get George Negus up there” and she said, “No,” but Bill’s going to be on the program tonight, he’s going to be asked about

what’s his names retirement, Steve Waugh’s retirement. So I put it down and Bill Brown come on. We correspond regularly. I hadn’t met Barbara until a year ago, after all that time at school. And the German airlines down here, they decided to name all their airplanes after Australian

sportsmen, so the first sportsman that come to mind was Don Bradman. Down here at the aerodrome, so she come down with him, and invited me along, that was the first time I met her since 1935. We corresponded since, we correspond all the time.

Oh, yes, yes, jobs were difficult I got a job with Lustre Hosiery, my father got a job with that, because he got me the job. Mr McLachlan who was our boss he was the one when I went away during the war, he used to write to us, he – I was in the warehouse – he was just an ordinary sort of a bloke, like Finney Iles, or TC Byrnes, just a traveller, like how many stockings they wanted or how

many. What’s that people buy on their wedding, what’s this that women want on their wedding and all this kind of stuff. I didn’t know anything about that sort of business and I was a Warehouseman in Lustre Hosiery in Brisbane. And it was just getting up and making signals and the travellers getting so many orders from Townsville and so many orders from Cairns, cos Lustre Hosiery’s main officers was here near Trumper Park, and we used to have to bring up stuff and

unload it and put it on shelves and people used to come round and get an order from somebody, they could buy their stuff from Lustre Hosiery instead of going to Finney Iles or TC Byrne or something like that, and I used to have to go and sell them stuff like that, and I couldn’t understand with these girls getting’ married and getting all these frilly things, I hadn’t heard anything about that, I didn’t know what was going on. But I remember for my little girl Joycie, I brought her a dressing gown one time, it was her first thing I think it cost me 15 shillings

and Lillian had to give me 2/6 towards it but I never had enough. But the same with Lillian she was very clever girl, she took all the brains. Dad sent her to a Catholic school. I first went to the Catholic school first, but when they knew I was a bit of a sportsman – Dad got into a bit of trouble about this,

but that was all right. She went to All Hallows and she passed the scholarship exam and she became top in Queensland. But she was only 15, nobody – she couldn’t go into the work force until she was 16, so she sat again for this junior exam and she came top again, very brilliant. She went to the taxation offices. First of all she was offered a job with Paul’s Ice Cream. But Dad said no

get with the government, with the way things are so she went with the tax offices. Then she had this boyfriend at school Harry Cluver, she taught him accountancy and he passed and he used to work with her and then they got married, they got married when I came down from Rabaul in the first year I came down here, when was that, memories, memories,

January 1941. They were married in March 1941. They had 4 children. I shouldn’t tell you a naughty story but I will, both good Catholics, and at that particular time they had the rhythm method, I don’t know if you have heard of the rhythm method. Well using the rhythm method they had 4 children. So would introduce the

kids, meet the choir, meet the 4 rhythms. I got into trouble one time because I took me shoes and socks off when I went to school, and Dad belted me with the strap. “You’ve got shoes and socks because I bought them, and I bought them because I work.” There was no

animosity, because we didn’t know about it, but we learnt about it when we went into secondary time and so forth. It was very, very bad. And when I got this job with Lustre Hosiery, they first brought in the clippers for a hair cut, and I paid 3 pence for a hair cut. But it wasn’t very good because the bloke was only learning. Dad said, “That’s a bloody awful haircut go home and get it done,” so Mum had to shave the back of it.

Then he got a job of opening up all meat works in Queensland, he was away from home a lot, so Mum really brought us up, but Dad was the overriding influence of us all. Plus the fact that Mum had fingers, I forget what they called it now, she could hardly move her arms, but she was a good cook, she made Lillian a good cook. She taught her how to make cakes,

we used to sit on the back steps, she had a mandolin, she used to play the mandolin. The hymns of the old church choir, and then she got this, I forget what it is, she couldn’t use her hands or anything like that. She died 1948. About that. She was just immobile, Dad brought her down here to Sydney when he

retired. When he retired at that particular time he was just on superannuation payments and so forth. He worked it, a cluey bloke he was. If he got money each week which was what they were supposed to get he would never exist after that because – he resigned the day before he retired and got his money in one lump sum. Bought a little car, an Austin car, AUF-876 was its

number plate. And came down to Sydney. His sisters had bought a place at Coogee, at Garnet Street, Coogee a beautiful place, you pay thousands of dollars so he helped them out on that unit. When Dad died, he left part of his, he had part of it, he gave it to Lillian because she was battling. She sold it for quite a good amount of

money. And I have got to say this, Legacy [an organisation which cares for widows and dependants of deceased servicemen] brought up all of her children. They all got good education – then after the war it all got better, just as I said in the navy, they were doing things we’d never heard of and so forth. Never heard of it. Semaphore has gone now, and all those things had gone and yet you had to know. Pre war was very, very tough, very, very

tough. For instance down the grocery shop for instance, only certain persons were allowed to run up a bill. They would only run up a bill if their father was working. And Dad built us a cart with a handle and I used to go down every Saturday morning and Mum used to make a list out and we used to get credit, and we used to bring it back and Mum used to go down and pay them on Monday. Tough times, really tough times. I got

roused on because as I told you, because I didn’t want to wear any shoes, and Mum and Dad said you got shoes and socks you wear them, I didn’t realize it. And there’s Frank Ward, good cricketer, he come up, he played for Australia later on by the way. He didn’t have any trousers. Used to take a girl to the pictures – 1/-. We used to have a cuddle, and her father was always waiting for us to get home, because he didn’t trust me.

My uncle, my uncle tells a lovely story about him. He was in – he went to join up and somebody said go over there you are in the cavalry, and when he got up before this bloke, this fellow said to Norman, “Why don’t you want to

join the cavalry?” Norm said, “When the sound for retreat comes I don’t want to be hampered by a bloody horse.” That’s his story. Then after the war Norm became a drunk. And he went round with Father, he was the Catholic Priest at Hurstville, fancy forgetting him. Father Suctiv and

he was a drunk too. And they made Boys Town, they got all the money for Boys Town. I have been with Norman when they have been down there, and he got over the shakes, go into a café, at Muswellbrook or something like that and ask for a pot of tea, he was dying for a drink. And drink it from the pot. He was a drunk and so was the Father, they even had a mass for his dog. That’s how drunk they were.

Had a mass for a dog. And he was a Bishop. But that was after the war, prior to the war was – the little thing we played Australian Rules because Queensland or Brisbane was divided off from here to here, you play Rules and here to here you play League and the boundary went right through our place, my neighbour

he played League. Brisbane League and I am playing Australian Rules and we are living next door to one another. They tried to bring it in. But even after the war you couldn’t buy clothes, because there was none being made. When the war ended all you had was your uniform and you had to take the things off your uniform and so forth and trousers and wear them out, and tailors made a fortune, but people

didn’t have any money. So even the officers – they didn’t have the high officers that were there. ACI – Australian Consolidated Industries, they started up making axes, and making forks and tools because we had none, and when anybody just after the war wanted to get a lawn mower, you had to make an application to the Customs Department to get one.

Because they only let the warehouses bring in so many, because that’s all the money we had, that’s when Curtin [John Curtin Prime Minister of Australia] was getting rid of our debt. He decided to get rid of the debt with America and everywhere. It was a wonderful he did – he was a drunk, but he was all right, but we had no money. Wireless, we used to listen to the wireless for the cricket. My sister won a loudspeaker, and the

Taxation Department and everybody used to come around to our place and listen to the loudspeaker. I am talking 1942 now. 1942/43 just wasn’t there. I used to stutter and Mum and Dad used to take me on the tram, and Mum used to make me go up and ask for the time,

because I couldn’t go to a speech therapist because Dad couldn’t afford it. And even though he was working. Where we living they were good houses and again, they just got over the business with all this religion and the Catholic church once again you gave a certain amount, and your name was read out at Mass just before Easter, how much Mr Brierley gave and Mr Brierley gave 5/-.

But Mr Denton next door gave a pound. Big shame. That’s how good they were. But, you learn to make sure you kept things. I still keep things, don’t throw it away, it is born in to you.

I used to take my girl out and sing her a song on the way home, “Gee it’s great after bein’ out late.” Because I couldn’t go anywhere else. Get a cart load of manure and go down the creek and get a cart full of manure and go and sell it to next door Mr McNally, who is a school teacher, he give me 2/- for it, and instead of goin’ to the bum breakers for 6 pence each, we can sit in the canvas chairs for 2/-, and clothes you

learn to be good to your clothes and your shoes you always polish your shoes. I still do I still polish my shoes every morning. The same with my grandchildren, I give them little outfits for cleaning their shoes, they don’t use them, they might when granddad is there, but not after, Mum will buy another pair. It was very, very different times back then.

You made your own fun. But then again the religion was there also, people forget that, religion was all over Australia, for instance, Bill O’Reilly, the cricketer, you have heard of Bill O’Reilly? He was a school teacher, in New South Wales, he was a Catholic, I know Bill O’Reilly, I have been to his place. Just prior when he was getting up top, and

he was a Catholic, the Education Department sent him out to the country, he was good, he was the one that got Bradman out, O'Reilly bowled when they were kids, the first ball that Bradman ever hit was caught, as O’Reilly said the slip was lighting his pipe and he dropped the catch and Bradman went on to make his runs, that’s how Bradman made his name. But I am goin’ back to Bill O’Reilly, he had to resign from the Department of Education and come back here to get known so he could play cricket.

Very strong. And I didn’t hate, if you were rude to me I didn’t hate you, I just ignored you, I thought it was funny, funny set up, and you got dressed up for mass then. This going there, no sir, I had to wear a hat, a little thing in me pocket, and I wore a tie and I wore a shirt and I wore a coat and when I came back home I put them back in the wardrobe, that was for Sunday.

And when you went to school, you wore a uniform. People couldn’t afford you, two of the greatest jockeys in the world, their fathers couldn’t afford their clothes Neville Selwyn and George Moore, you’ve heard of them? They used to go to State High because their mothers and fathers couldn’t afford them. But you were not alone. When I used to take this Joycie Russell out, she was my girl,

I got roused on by Dad because she wasn’t a Catholic. But I had to sneak – Mum had to talk Dad around, and then when Harry, who was also a Catholic, he was courting Lillian, they went to school together, and I used to throw off at them, when Harry used to sail up the Brisbane River and he was

supposed to take Lillian to the pictures that night, he got up there and I used to… It was always the same. Mum wasn’t a Catholic. But even Densley’s next to us wasn’t a Catholic, the one on the right hand side, they were all right. There was a Chisholm. I will tell you a little story, it’s all right. This Cecil Denlsey

he was a little swine of a kid, and one time we had a milkman used to come round and he knew what you wanted and so did the horse, the horse knew not to stop at Densley’s place but to stop at my place. So this little swine of a kid Densley, turned the tap on, the milk that was on the back of the horse cart came running out. And he came out, he screaming and

screaming, and Mrs Densley was up in the – and when she saw this bloke rousing on Cecil, the son who turned the tap on, after it was all over she said to him in front of me, “What did he say to you first time?” He said he talked to God. He talked to God, that’s how innocent we were.

16. That’s when I went to secondary school and I passed junior and I left school, sorry when I was 18. That’s right, 1937,

I got me blazer from ‘Groovy Tourists’ all red and black, when I represented them in cricket and football, I was 19 foot tall then. And I was with Lustre Hosiery for a year and that’s when the war broke out, that’s right yeah. I had good times.

He wasn’t allowed because he was a meat inspector. Even in those days – he was with the Department of Commerce, he was in a certain job. It was the same with the Second World War, if you were in a certain job you couldn’t go. That carried right through. Norman, he was just an ordinary bloke, my mother’s father, used to drive a dray, when we went down to Sydney we used to love getting in the back of it and riding around with his horses. And

again, when I come down here to Sydney in 1939, when war broke out, September, I had to go and see Mum’s brother at Cabramatta, so I went and enquired and oh yes, we’ve got one train a day that goes there, and that’s on the way out to Liverpool, funny enough I lived near Cabramatta later on when I got married.

People weren’t happy, there was a different sort of happiness altogether, now they try to out do one another, even if I have got a new suit I will try and I might go and I am 19 foot tall, you have got a new dress on you feel good inside? And then that’s why Curtin and he was an alcoholic, ex alcoholic, at the end of the war he said, “I don’t care

what we do, we’ll get out of America’s and he paid the debt back to America otherwise we would be still paying the debt back, just like the Harbour Bridge, but Australia was poor. They were still in the Depression years, even after the war we were still in the Depression years. To get the stuff in you had to get a special pass from the government, to bring in anything, because we had no money.

And then to bring – the government had to give money towards the people, for instance tea when you wanted to bring it in the government put a bounty on it, so instead of us paying the bounty the government paid the bounty. Which brought the price of tea down. I use a fictitious price now, the price of tea used to be 20 pound it was only 8 pound because the government paid the difference, but if you sent tea away you had to pay the difference. But at the end of the war

we had no tea we had no nothing, as the saying was, we sent sugar in tins, over to England so the water evaporated and England could get some sugar. Even in the farms, all gone, nothing. You missed it but you didn’t miss it. I couldn’t dress better than – because if you had a pair of trousers

you wore a pair of trousers. For instance when I came here, the first thing I got was a cotton, and needles. I have still got a cotton reel with needles I bought a long time ago. Funny how it stick with you.

Did a bit of life saving and played sport. The pictures were of a Wednesday afternoon and a Saturday afternoon, and they were good pictures. You had to work to go to the

pictures. When I first started work at Lustre Hosiery, pre war now. I got 15/6 a week paid out by Mr McLachlan, up there 15/6 of which I gave 13/- to Mum. So I had 2/6, if I wanted to take Joycie to the pictures, which I do often, I

used to go and ask Mr McNally next door if he wanted any manure for his garden so I used to go down to the creek and get a cart load of manure and he give me 2/-. I used to take me little girlfriend. Nobody had any money. Walk of a Sunday if you had a girl. You’d be surprised at the number of couples out walking. I used to go the zoo of an afternoon. Do you see that now, families at the Zoo.

I don’t think so. Or go to the Botanic Gardens Mum would cut a lunch. In Brisbane the tram was set up, smokers were always down the back. But then when the tram went that way, smokers were down the back, but when you come this way, the women used to go and sit up among the smokers and so forth they objected to it so you couldn’t smoke on a tram.

But you were taught manners. I will give you another story, a true story. Ian Chappell, you’ve heard of Ian Chappell, he’s one of the best cricketers to ever put a pair of socks on. He went to St Peter’s School in Adelaide, he tells a story he got in a tram in Adelaide one time, and he got down the back. Cos all the ladies up the front, so when he got down the back, he didn’t know anything about it, he was called up before the

Headmaster. The day we went back to school. The Headmaster said, “Chappell you got on a tram yesterday at 3.30?” “Yes.” “And you went and sat down the back, did you see any ladies standing.” “I didn’t look up the front sir.” “Well next time Chappell, you get in a tram, you look up the front and see if there’s a lady standing, and if there’s a seat there, you bring the lady down to you, all right, otherwise you don’t play cricket.” That’s the way it was.

Oh yes, I used to smoke tobacco. I could smoke a packet a day, rolled my own. My father taught me he said don’t ever bother to buy proper cigarettes they got silver nitrate in them. I smoked tobacco all the time. I smoked a packet of Craven “As” once, I bought a packet of Craven As, this is during war time now, I opened up the packet and there’s the little note inside.

‘If you ever come to Melbourne come and see me, Bertha’. I went out to Melbourne to do a course so I got in touch with her, and she was as wide as Bertha too. And I used to play poker for cigarettes. When I became an officer I knew all the tricks of the trade. I would go around, “How many cigarettes everyone?” “No cigarettes sir.” “Haven’t you got any cigarettes?” “Don’t – next time you tell me the truth.”

Before, Dad used to smoke I used to pinch his tobacco. I used to undo the butts and we , Cecil Densley and I he was introducing pineapples in those days. In the tins and Dad made up the – so they’d

the syrup wouldn’t go into the pineapple, it kept them all different, the syrup was the main thing and so we had tins of pineapple in the back that Dad used to bring home, he would cut from the farm and we used to go down the back and have a little bit of a smoke with these pineapple tins, we had in the bathroom, cos he made up this syrup away from the syrup.

I was lucky because Dad was working. Cecil Densely next to me his father was an insurance inspector, but he bought a car, no sooner he got the sack from the insurance company and he had to sell the car. Dad had a car only when he was retired. Like I said before he put all his money because he couldn’t live on the … He was a union man, I never knew which way Dad voted.

Wouldn’t tell me. He tell me that never tell anyone which way you vote son and I never tell anyone the way I vote.

We used to read about it in our papers, have in mind we had no radio, we had the loudspeaker and didn’t come in until the war started. Then everyone had a crystal set, for example, when we were living at

Clayfield and I was only a kit, Dad knew about this Sydney Harbour Bridge being built, and he was from Sydney. I will just break there, he was a meat inspector and his girlfriend, who he later married, was a butcher’s daughter, so you wouldn’t have to write a book about how they met. He said, “It only cost me money to go and see your mother, it cost me tuppence on the ferry.” When the Harbour Bridge was being built, Dad was shaving

up in Clayfield, and all of a sudden I heard, “Dad there’s something funny going on somebody gone and cut that bridge,” well he was out of that bath quicker than Betty Cuthbert, he was listening, that was how we were, and he was from Sydney of course, we were lucky to hear about that. To get news up there, Dad had to buy the Sydney Bulletin, not the Bulletin, cos the Sydney Bulletin

did all of Australia. When you went to Sydney – if I could just say so, just prior to the war, my grandmother, that’s my mother’s mother, came up to Brisbane from Sydney, she come up when she was 85 when she come up. And at that time Leicester Brayne was just starting off Qantas. Qantas

is a word that I will never forget because when I went to school, Qantas was the only word in the English language without a ‘u’ it. Queensland And Northern Territory Air Service. My grandmother went up with Leicester Brayne and she took me, and she paid 10/- for herself, and 3/- for me and in the paper the next day they had the young and the old and we flew around Brisbane. But again for the sake of repetition,

we had no money.

I got to read the newspaper because it was the only thing I could read. And Dad got the newspaper delivered to us so we could read, we thought it was funny until I got in trouble one time he said, “Did you read about that football match in Adelaide?” “What football match?” “Come here young fella,

come here, why, now you know what people talk about, you can’t go in the outside world and not know son, you gotta read the papers.” I read the papers now. I get the papers delivered, I don’t mind tell you, it costs me $22 a fortnight, there’s only 2 of us get papers delivered here. I always read it. We were taught to read it, it’s all we had to do. We could afford to buy books. A fella used to come around with the library and

he used to charge a penny, he made a little bit of money out of that because the library used to get – he got a farthing and the library got ¾ of a farthing, that’s true.

Only what we saw in the pictures, not in the newspapers because we got nothing in the newspapers, only what we saw in the pictures. We heard that – at that particular time, the talk was about the Duke of Windsor marrying

this American divorcee, that was more important. But when we were brought up we were taught love and country, it’s funny to say that, not because I am old now. This national anthem I learnt that when I was 8 years old. The words of Bob Hawke [Prime Minister of Australia], I will tell you something about that one too, Bob Hawke changed the words of

Australian sons let us rejoice, the words are Australians all let us rejoice. Bob Hawke changed that. Again, I can tell you about that, I was at the Sydney Cricket Ground, when he decided to change the national anthem, not him Whitlam before him tried to change the national anthem and failed, nobody in Australia could write a national anthem, but when Hawke decided to have Australian sons let us rejoice

it was played at the Sydney Cricket Ground, my wife and I were there, and not one member stood up. And I was, I told my wife sit down, we were against it then.

Oh, yes. But still in here, you never move what’s in here.

The Mortal Storm. Was a story MGM [Metro Goldwyn Mayer] made that film I think, I could be wrong. It was a story mainly about how Hitler was treating the Jews, although they didn’t mention the Jews.

It got so bad they showed you – there had been a war on this – I have got to say something about this, there was a pre war to the war the Haile Selassie war, where Italy come into it, and Haile Selassie [Emperor of Ethiopia] has a little bit of country at the top of Africa, and when he captured Italians,

he used to castrate them. That was – and we had a fellow in Brisbane called ‘Sunrise Sam’ on the radio, he used to tell us all about the war – there was a joke – that’s when we first knew about the war coming to us. I didn’t know much about the 1914-18 war because I only had an uncle in it I didn’t have Dad. I only learnt a little bit about it, you learnt about it as you grew up, because I wasn’t taught much about it, we were taught about love of country.

I can quote you, “There was movement at the station the word had got around I had written him a letter for the sake of something better, send it to where I met him on the Lachlan years ago. He was shearing when I knew him so I sent the letter to him, just sent the address Clancy of the Overflow, and an answer came directed and the writing unexpected I think the same was written by a thumbnail dipped in tar. T’was it was his shearing

mate who wrote it and verbatim I will quote it, Clancy’s gone to Queensland and we don’t know where he are.” You learn those things.

Could not realise that human beings could treat human beings, of course we learnt about how the slaves were treated in Italy and Rome and so forth and we were taught that anybody – we were taught about being a Catholic, you leant all about the

wars, and you learnt about it in school. The schools I went to in Queensland schools, they taught you what was happening over there, but because there was a lot of Jews mixed up in Hitler’s advance, it wasn’t greatly talked about. Again, I can only talk Brisbane because you never played sport on Sundays. Sundays was a time when you

sat down, the only person that did any work was Mum, you sat round. It finally came to our eyes, it was something we heard a buzz about. Just after that, to get people up to fight for Australia, they used to walk a horse up and down Queen Street, that’s the main street up here, and anybody who wanted to join up could grab the reign of the horse and go down and join up.

There was a murmur there of something happened, of course we had the First World War, you know there. But it wasn’t pushed into us, because we were growing up and so forth, we didn’t know what we were fighting about.

It was a friend of mine, who I will tell you about later on, he used to do a lot of surfing. Arthur Lander who was a friend of mine, I will tell you about that later on, he used to do a lot of surfing. Then I used to do

cricket and running, and he suggested we join the navy and only because I used to go down to Coolangatta and do a bit of surfing. One of my best friends at school, Jack Benning, whose mother and father owned the baths, we just – we were interested in being a soldier. The navy used to visit us in Brisbane and so forth, and they used to come to all the sporting

grounds, that’s how we got the navy, but it never grabbed me to join the army, it never grabbed me to join the navy but I just did that. It never grabbed me to join the air farce as we called it up there.

We went down and said, “Scuse me sir” just like the little boy with the thingo, “Can I join the navy?” “Yes, sign here mate.” “What do you want to be?” “I don’t know.” “Well you’ll be a signalman,”

so that’s how I became a signalman. We didn’t have any uniforms because they couldn’t afford it. So we used to go down there once a week and learn Morse code. I still know Morse code and I still know semaphore. We used to call it semi six. You never forget it. Radio was the hardest one, up to about 32 words a minute that’s pretty fast,

after that you are no good. But that was about the only way of getting messages through, because war was not fought overseas, we were taught all about how the fellas on the hill did the ABCDEFGHIJK, for instance there was a ship called the Shropshire, and we used to – that’s ABCDEFG and over there that’s stopped there all the time,

when you are doing your semaphore, up and down over there.

Once a week. I think we got paid 6/- every month I think it was. It wasn’t money that got us there, it was love of country, I am not skiting [bragging] when I say that. I am not glad I went, but I am glad I went.

I didn’t go because I wanted to go, I went because I love country. My main ambition was to have a blazer, a green and gold for Australia, I still have got it my kids haven’t got it in them, I don’t know whether you have go it in you, that’s up to you. But, Australia is the best place in the world.

That’s what we got taught.

Jack Campbell was a fellow I didn’t know anything about, he used to be able to sing. A fellow in front of us, he was a leading signalman, I knew more about it than he did, another fella I knew was a bloke by the name of Albert Corsair,

he was taught, he came from Sandgate in Brisbane, never to put his cigarette on the table because it would burn it, so he used to put his cigarette up like that. Ernie Hollywood, was a Sunday school, we admired him for that because he was teaching religion and there was no hate in that, great mates. My girl was a non Catholic, the fella next door to me, was a non Catholic,

but when it came to sit down and talk there was a chasm amongst us, but that’s all. I was brought up to be a good Catholic, not a Catholic, you had to go – you didn’t – my mother who wasn’t a Catholic made me go to Sunday school.

Not very much, not very much. The only thing that happened when I first came down here and they said fall out Roman Catholics. But that was because the navy was Royal Navy and was the boss of the church was the Church of England. But when the Australian navy, everybody, you didn’t have it. For instance

if you were temperance, not grog, temperance, you got lemon juice in the tropics, you know why, save you from any sexual urges. The reason why – everybody got one – everybody got lemon juice, so there would be no hanky panky. Which I know about by the way.

Yes.

I was, crooked on God for making two things, night and day, I wanted it to be day. I thought it was bloody marvellous, I thought I had won the lottery without buying a ticket when I stood on that bridge going out through Sydney Harbour.

On the day when war broke out?

On the Kanimbla yeah.

Yes, I was 2.5 months training there and even then when we got our tallies, we used to have to tie little bows and make a 3 pence in it, have you ever seen a threepence, that’s a little coin? We used to have to put it in the middle and tie a little bow around the outside and so forth, for the tally. HMS on that, other ships had HMAS – Australia. But we were HMS, Her Majesty’s

Ship. We used to wear it with pride. What’s that – Her Majesty’s Submarine, he used to tell lies.

My uniform given to me was made by the prisoners, Boggo Road [Brisbane gaol] here in Sydney was a different place wherever it was, you

had trousers with long wide legs and they were delivered, they were put in seven creases because of the seven seas. That’s the reason why there are seven creases there, and if you didn’t iron those things your trousers would slip out. That’s your trousers. And then you got a singlet, not an under singlet, a

singlet that just was a bit of material with blue across there, that was just normal business. Then you had your cap with your tally with your name on it, and you had your collar, a collar with three white stripes on it, that was for sea and land. I will stop there – when I went away when the war started my mother said make sure the blue doesn’t run onto the white in the collar, and she gave me a pound of

salt. I had enough for the next 13 bloody years, this pound of salt. And the way we used to wash those things was to tie them up with a bit of rope and throw them over the side and drag them along and they would be all nice and clean when they come up. And the blouse was just a shirt, but the seven creases were for the seven seas, but, your underwear had to be

clean. On board the ship we used to be examined for our underwear. I always wore under pants and singlet. I was told that, lots of people didn’t because they had no money to buy the darn things. But with a uniform you were very, very proud, you had number ones. That was your good suit the blue suit with the creases down here. Number 2’s that was without the jacket. Number 3’s was

white trousers and the white jacket and Number 4 and Number 5 and Number 6 and Number 7. That used to be blown by the Bosun’s coll not call, coll. Dress today Number 5’s. On Sunday it was Number 7.

HMS Kanimbla was a ship built by McIllwraith McGeckin, a shipyard in Scotland and it was built as a lattery runner, but at the same time it could be changed into a battle ship. I have got a photograph, I think I have got a photograph there,

10,000 tonne. Speed of 23 knots. A knot is 1 mile per hour by the way, you don’t say 20 miles per hour, its 20 knots, built for the run around Australia, especially built so it would go between Perth, sorry, what’s the

port over there?

Fremantle, and Perth and Brisbane, used to run up and down – and that was only 2 years old when war broke out and so brought it to Sydney and got completely changed over just inside in 3 months. The same with the Manoora, HMAS Manoora, another one HMAS Perth.

When I come down from Brisbane and they said, “See that big boat over there, that’s it.” I had to go to Garden Island, GI used to call it. Can I tell you naughty things about Garden Island, not on record, but naughty things.

I was in a different war, I was proud, again what was taught you, you were playing for Australia.

I use that word playing for Australia because I remember Dad said something to me after, I might tell you after.

When we were listening in to the cricket over in England on the radio, and I used to listen in, I have got records of it here, I used to tap a signal, tap a pencil on the – and when it was all over one night, I said to Dad, “Dad

when I am picked for Australia to play cricket for Australia and go over to England, can I take Mum with me.” And he said, “Oh I don’t know there might,” now come back to the end of the war, when Dad come down to see me on the ship. And he come up the gangplank and I give him a salute he said, “Well son you are playing for Australia.”

From here, Sydney to one of the islands in the Pacific, previously frequented by Von Luckner, the German who was here before the war, but the first port of call was Hong Kong.

Leaving Sydney. Was around about 3 o’clock in the afternoon, all secret, nobody was told we were going.

There had been a ship sunk over in South Africa by the Germans who learned something about it, so everything was secret. I couldn’t tell my two aunts where I was going, they lived out at Coogee. We were told all leave is cancelled and next minute we were going. We had very strict censorship about letters written, they used to read your letters in those days. And all of a sudden about 3 o’clock in the afternoon, all hands fall in.

Just prior to that, getting our captain, who was then, used to be the captain of the Canberra decided to give us sailors what they called a ‘dummy run’ [trial run] on the Canberra, we went up and down the coast, you might have heard just prior to 1939 some bullets were fired over Sydney and so forth, that wasn’t on my trip, but what happened

they were practising, and the order came to cease fire and they pulled their guns down and they still had their fingers on the trigger and so that’s how the bullets come over Sydney. We were on the ship for 3 days and that’s how we were taught seamanship. We had one record on a gramophone, that’s all we had, none of this bloody, sorry, none of this coming in, one record. Action stations, and I got out my hammock and I couldn’t

open up the wing things on the hole for me to get out, and I had to stop there for about an hour while the action was going on – God got a hammering that morning’ he must have told me to shut up cos I am here now. So we were taught on the dummy run going down there and then we used to go out, before it was getting ready and had gunnery exercise

and so forth and you learnt something before – you didn’t learn much, but you learnt something.

Your life was the navy. How can I say something without being brave, we didn’t care if we got killed, we were doing something, we were young, we didn’t have any responsibilities.

Altogether different like going to a different class of school. First of all you learnt the language, and then you learnt about revolutions of speed, your temperature, your coding and how your life was in the hands of people on shore just because of a wireless message or something like that.

But you were completely removed civilians, they were completely out of your mind, forgotten. Mum and Dad, you never think of them. Oh, now and then. We used to sleep in hammocks. Used to put them on the deck head, not the roof, the deck head that’s naval language, had a hook up there and a hook over there and put your hammock up. And the master would come in the morning and you’d get a wack on the backside with a stick “Come on

come on, the sun will burn a hole in your eyes.” Wack, wack, wack. Then you had to stow it properly. Your meals, were looked after by persons on board the ship. Every once a week, every Saturday morning your mess was inspected by the captain. When I say inspected, inspected. I’ll tell you a story. My little girlfriend,

just when I found out I was going to the war, bought me a special singlet. It was a – I forget what it is, red and white something nice to wear outside. I was very proud of it, very proud of this thing. So as we were going up the coast of Queensland, up the coast a bit, it was an afternoon. I had this polo shirt on that Joycie gave me. And my position at that particular time was after that particular time I had to

pass the shells. Because that was our drill see. And getting put the dummy run for all action stations, we all had to beat the drum see, so just prior to this position ending, putting the megaphone right up for it, and I am back down after, “Send that

Chelsea fullback up to me.” That’s you, that’s Chelsea’s colours, the red and white. Up I go “What’s your name?” “Brierley sir.” “Brierley, where did you get that.” I said, “My girlfriend gave it to me sir” . “You are at war now Brierley, when I do inspections of your mess on Saturday, I want to see that polo sweater in the swab bucket.”

In the swab bucket for the floor, I don’t ever want to see it, and you’re going to throw it over the side.” “Yes sir.” So Saturday morning come round, “Brierley, where’s that sweater?” “Get the bucket and follow me” but instead of going up to the rail and throw it overboard, he made me walk all round that bloody ship for about an hour carrying this blooming’ swab bucket.

Then he said, “Righto throw it over.” You’re in the navy now.

No. Never feel lonely, we were frightened at times. I was frightened when – I have never climbed a mast. God got a belting up there if he was listening. It’s a long way up there I can tell you. He made me get up there just prior to coming into Hong

Kong. But you were learning about ropes and so forth. When I got onto – I could make you a pair of shoes out of rope now, I have made me self a pair of shoes out of it. My captain told me.

Didn’t affect us much, we all got a bit squirmy. We used to make our own drinking water too on the Kanimbla. It was a 10,000 ton,

red and black, didn’t get sick much at all.

That was – you didn’t carry on water you got it from the sea. All ships have got it. They don’t take on water, they make it from the sea, they take the salt out of it and that’s it. They use it for the engines all the way through. They were the first ones to get it, the old Moreton Bay,

the large bay and so forth, they had to take water on. All our water was taken from the sea.

She was a good sea ship, none of us were sea sick when I go back, might have felt a bit groggy. But I have been on typhoon in Hong Kong, whenever

The typhoon was coming in the harbour you up anchor, and sail out. I am not being funny, or telling lies and that, a 15 foot wall coming at you. You go up and you go down. The other thing when you are doing convoy work, you go up and it’s raining, and when you come back it’s not raining. You look after yourself,

I couldn’t look after you, hard luck digger and somebody couldn’t look after me, you learn to look after yourself. And friendship, cos all those blokes on the Kanimbla at that particular time, were in the same boat as I, we learnt about it through Hitler, what he did, we didn’t know whether they were Jews or not because we weren’t told. What we knew was when Neville Chamberlain came across, it was a Sunday afternoon,

I have to tell you we are at war, because Hitler told England what he wanted him to do, which they did and they didn’t and he wanted the war. But, we were never told a true story of the war, not until we go out and learnt about it after. All we knew was that we were at war with Germany.

A replica of the First World War. Didn’t know anything, we didn’t know anything about this – we didn’t know anything about that torture went on until we saw that picture. We thought it – but it wasn’t.

Nothing.

We weren’t told until we got out to sea.

Clear lower deck. The old man – the old man is referred to by sailors – I am sorry – being an officer you called him father, but I will refer to him as the old man. So I let you know – the old man told us the secret of what we were going to do and why we were going there. But to us it was still a joke. Can I use the word joke.

It wasn’t serious. What we read about – you were fighting – that’s where your love of Australia come into it, I was fighting for Australia. On Britain’s side, same as the First World War, Australians didn’t get into the war, and then again as it turned out, when Australia got into the war Britain didn’t help us out much. Had 3 ships sunk before …

Clear lower deck, that’s everybody goes up, “this is your captain speaking” and he told us where to go, I was a little bit close to him. I may have known more about it than lots of other people. But we just went with the ship went. For instance at night time when I was a signalman, we used to have to keep watch, the WT [Wireless Telegraph] room, that’s the wireless room, we used to have to decode the

signals. And that was when the secret service in Britain gave us the movements of the different ships in the Pacific. And it was in code and we used to have to decode it and that one we used to have to give to the paymaster, because the captain didn’t want to be woken up on silly little darn things – we had to go and decode that, and give it to the paymaster. And the paymaster would make his mind up whether he would go and wake the captain.

Because the captain got woken up always, just prior to sunset to be nice and technical, he gets woken up when the sun is 6o below the horizon. That’s a bit of navy talk. Then he gets 6 o and then you get 3o and then 1o. Then you get day. Your height goes into that. If you want to know how far you can see, again that’s the navy, the

square of your height multiplied by 2.5 and 3 miles. So we’ll say, you are 16 foot high, square 16 is 4, multiplied by 2.5 is 10 that’s 10 miles you can see, when you get up high you can see 11 miles.

We were only

told before we left harbour. We knew we were fighting for England and we were up there doing something that was going to Germany. The captain was not supposed to know where he was going prior to the morning or just prior to his going. And the orders used to come across from the navy officers in Singapore. And tell us what to do.

And everybody knew where we were going got out, and when I was up with Frank Brongetti when I was up there on watch, he used to come up, “Where are we goin’ Syd?” “We’ll see if you are right,” he used to open up and – he used to have them opened up before, he just wanted to get a bit of news about. “Where are we goin’ Syd?” The girls knew when we were coming back into the harbour,

and tie us up at a buoy, to tie up to a buoy was a hell of an exercise, you had to drop the chain down and put a boat round there and the buoy was goin’ up and down and you had to grab this thing and lock it on. These girls used to just put it on it was no trouble at all. But they knew when we were coming back. They knew, there were 13 buoys in Hong Kong harbour and they knew which one the Kanimbla was going to. So don’t talk about secrets, the girls knew, it was out.

They were, they knew the Kanimbla was going to tie up at 13 buoy, the secret was out.

At Hong Kong we used to have 6 days in. Red white and blue, 8 days sorry, and each part of the ship was red white or blue. Sorry that’s 3 watches, what am I talking about. You went ashore for 2 days

and then you came back. Not 4 hours leave. Again I must tell you, if anybody had been in the slammer for more than 2 months and that happened a couple of times. A person of his higher rank took him ashore for a nature run. You know what a nature run is. Red watch come ashore and they come back. Then the white watch went ashore and came back and the blue watch went ashore and come back. And they knew –

I had a lady – Andy Gershong, no hanky panky, she was given to me by the navy, Hong Kong Shipyard, she knew when I was coming back, she used to book a room for me at the Repulse Bay Hotel. And – where are we going. I used to give her a couple of quid. That’s how I spent me leave in HK [Hong Kong]. They knew.

We had to catch this Norwegian coming across, what was in the message the captain received, it could be a bit antagonistic. So we put the Swastika up, when we approached this ship.

Out at sea.

When we had to capture these ships going up to

Russia. And the little bit of information we got from England was – the information we were there so we sailed under the German flag so we put the Swastika up.

We were told about it. Only for about 6 hours, but we sailed under – a bloody big thing it was. Everybody got up and had a look at it.

No, no. that’s quite true.

Hong Kong was full of disease, venereal disease, syphilis everything, a myriad of races. Japanese and so forth. They had the fleet base at

HK and actually HK was a naval port, but there were a lot of people there who had never met Australians. For instance, we got a request when we came in the harbour through the navy board of HK that some Russian people would like to see some Australians. And we had a number and they would give us a dance at their

hall, and I am number 42, so look around for 42 and she wanted to see what Australians were like. They were the high class – I will stop here, there’s a girl here, Gala, she’s one of the high class Russians, she is not a Russian, she was that sort of which I knew about, not many people here have because they been there, it’s as simple as that, she’s got education, she’s got poise, but she’s just Russian,

there are 3 other Russians here but they are different class of Russian. They’re a peasant class, but in HK they are top class, they escaped from Russia, beautiful. Beautiful people and they lived on what is called the Hill, or the Peak, that’s where the tram goes up, you’ve heard about the Peak on HK. Well they live up there, and we used to go down we went down for Mass, and we knew what the Priest was talking about because he said it in Latin.

But now, that’s a different story. Then the English girls YMCA [Young Men’s Christian Association], they wanted to see what an Australian was like. And we come over, they had never seen an Australian before, they heard about it. They played us football and they played us cricket, and where the HK racecourse, the Happy Valley Racecourse I played cricket on there and I was captain of the Kanimbla’s

team, same as football, they played Union, they didn’t know anything about League. Union was the only football, never heard of Australian Rules, so we played football. Then we had a special guernsey, and we had the ship’s motto on it, ‘Cry Havoc’, that’s what the slaves used to say. And we were – the ship used to come for Australia with meat for HK and then

sail back to Australia where Dad was still an inspectors on the wharves for the meat. And I used to put my cigarettes in with the purser of the ship and I can tell him send him back some cigarettes. I used to buy tobacco in tins that high, English tobacco, for 3/-. They used to call it, I forgotten the name now, Whispers or something like that, and that would last 2 months or so with papers and so on. But ashore we were strangers,

but the women sat in different places on trams and rickshaws, the rickshaw boy he would run anywhere with you, we were told not to mix with them, we did mix with them when we went to Repulse Bay, we used to have a beer and a couple of days there, there were girls there, they lived on – there was plenty of syphilis, they were riddled

with syphilis. You could stop at Repulse Bay and have a swim at Repulse Bay and then they used to have platforms and the launches would come out and give you afternoon tea, and there was nothing much to do. We would play sport and everybody would come down and watch us play sport. Where the races are now at Happy Valley, we played sport and everybody played sport.

None. Wouldn’t know war was on. Would not know a war was on. We weren’t allowed to go up any further than HK because just prior to that there had been the Sino/Japanese war. When we come into it, we just filth and bodies coming out from the Yangtse Kiang River.

Even after the First World War had finished, they were still warring up in them places. Never touched HK. No worry about that. No Japanese. You could go to Japanese night clubs, all sorts of sexual things that we had never heard of. Went on. Just normal. They had a fleet club there we had a drink there.

We used to go to the Fleet Club. But we never drank in any of the cafés because we were told not to. There was something if I hadn’t been there I wouldn’t have believed it.

At a time – about 5 days. Then we go to sea again for 6 weeks.

In HK, victualling up.

We knew where to go because we had all these signals from all these different ships coming across from there, we knew we had to go across and get this ship and this ship, and this ship. And we knew we were going but after a while that ceased when they knew they weren’t getting supplies up there, the Vladimir Mayacovski [was one of the last ships that got up, that one was carrying gold. As I said before, to Hitler, it was going to Vladivostok and run all the gold across there.

But with this was the trouble we were going back to HK and British law said we had to prove them guilty and that’s when we handed them over to France and so went down to Saigon.

You boarded it, and find out what was going, have a look at its cargo. Order it back to HK. Nobody stopped on board. They were ordered to go back.

We had the guns there and we used to herd them down there. I think it was 27 ships in 6 months or something, I forget the exact figure, make it 19, 19 ships. Excluding the Vladimir Mayovkovski.

I was a signalman. At sea at night time down in the WT we used to decode.

All the ships on board the navy weren’t made just made like this, they were made with a special ink and a special paper so in action, when you were in action you threw your books overboard. There was the signal in, so all would be wiped away, so there would be no books on board should you be captured.

Ordinary wireless, something like that, I have got a wireless over there.

Long with the aerial was up there, I will tell you something about the aerial, I will stop there and tell you something about the aerial. When we were at sea a lot electricity used to get (UNCLEAR) and the lightning used to strike the radio mast, and there used to be fire that ran

up and down that and it used to be called ‘St Elmo’s fire’. So if you ever know about St Elmo’s fire – because we weren’t insulated, it was still up there it wasn’t taken away by any of the wires going into the earth. It used to go into the sea and the sea used to carry the current. So that used to – the ship used to light up, light and darkness and ran backwards and forwards, St Elmo’s fire. We played hockey on board, we played basketball

the captain, none of this mucking around. The only time we were excused from any of those things when you did the afternoon watch. Your day was put in 3 watches, morning, mid and night time. Your morning one 8-12, afternoon, 12-4, and then you had what were called the dog watches, each was two hours. Now they call them the dog watches because instead of 4 hours they were 2 hours, they were curtailed

that’s how the word dog watch came about. So you had 8-12, 12-4, 4-6, 6-8, 8-12 and you have to keep them going around the clock, when I was an officer I did the 12-4 one. The junior one. 12-4 in the morning and in the afternoon, that was the horrible one. You want to know why they call them the dogwatch because they are curtailed.

Make things.

As a signalman, you look see all around to see what went on and you did decoding, you always up on the Bridge. I was the captain’s signalman later on and wherever he went I went. I will give you an instance, one time in HK we went to see for a while, prior to that

we had to presume we were being attacked by an aeroplane. And I was his signalman and as this plane was coming up, he said to me “Send the signal, plan range too short.” I don’t know whether you have seen an Aldis lamp, your trigger goes up and down, dot, dot, dash, dash. Then plane come down

and he went back again and he said, “Send that signal again Brierley.” And the plane answered me and then he went away and came round. So he did over there. “Brierley I will give you a bit of information, never send a signal with a black light.” I had a little battery and the wire had come out of the back of it. He said, the gentleman, I call him a gentleman, never send the signal with a black light. And the

plane knew he was in the wrong and he went out.

An Aldis lamp, just imagine a lamp and on the back of the thing went up and down and when you put a dot like that people would get a black spot and that was what people used to read. And when you put a dot it’s very quickly, and a dash you hang on for a long while.

Aldis lamp, run by a battery.

You hit him with flags. You ran up whatever the signal was, – you see each flag had a different meaning. For instance, the blue peter, that’s a

blue flag with a – that’s flag everybody puts up when they are going to go. The design of it is, ‘all crew repair on board’ that’s the old language and so forth. And then when you came into harbour the Kanimbla’s coding, I forget what it was, we call it HYMS, you put up H, you put up Y, you put up M from the forearm and then at sea, you

really only use it to give a message. One particular time, this is after the Kanimbla business, the aeroplanes the American airplanes used to come out of Townsville and hover over us and when we were doing convoy duty, but it was all dark then, they couldn’t tell where anybody was, but we could tell

them. And one particular time, oh, it was a rough sea and I was on the morning watch and the old man come down to me, and a plane sent down a signal, and it was I have been over you all night darling. What did he say. I have been over you all night darling. Well send back “I have been under you all night sweetheart.” That’s a little bit of a.

They were purely for telling people the name of your ship, especially coming into harbour or wanting to draw the attention of something. Again, when you wanted to send a message ashore, you did it by what we used semi six instead of semaphore. To Garden Island and GI [Garden Island], they used to put up the flag G and I for Garden Island. They used to put an answering

flag, and when they received a message from you they used to dip their flag and then you knew the message got across.

On the Kanimbla, when it was out, the ships that were coming across from South America and the west coast of North America to Vladivostok to the intelligence over there gave it to Britain and Britain sent us

the signals and they used to send them every 4 different hours. Mostly at midday and that’s why everything goes on midday, midday was the most important day on the ship, because it’s from midday you set your sights on your sexton for when it’s going to come, and if it comes at 1 minute past 12 you have to be, no matter where you are there in the world you have to be there at 1 minute past

12, GMT [Greenwich Mean Time].

The ones I received from the message there on the Kanimbla was the position of ships, and where they were coming from and what they were supposed to be carrying and what time they were expected to arrive in your place, you call your ETA [Estimated Time of Arrival] and they gave all the names of the ships and what we had to do. We never

gave anything to the land because you break WT silence and somebody could know where you were. We always answering, the same as navigation, when you are 12 o’clock you couldn’t say I think you are wrong, you had to answer you couldn’t break WT silence.

The Mayacovski I will leave

off there, the Danish ships, we could know what they were reading on the bills of lading they had, so you had – they never much about them at all, just cargo, might have been sausages, but they were gong to Germany, so they were supposed to be quite correct, so when they showed their bill of lading it was

supposed to be correct, so we might have to correct the bill of lading said they were, like customs might do and see if they had sausages in this darn thing.

I didn’t know that this Vladimir Mayacovski was carrying gold. The

sighting was made by the Kanimbla, but we knew which route he was taking because Britain had told us. And the waves were as big as that door shall we say, and we had to go over and instead of taking 3 or 4 over to these ships as we used to, there was quite a crowd of us about 5 or 6, that might mean you would fill a lifeboat. And the waves were just terrifically high and I was told that it was

carrying gold and I was – don’t do anything else when that ship comes on you are to take it to HK. They didn’t have an officers with me, I was only put there because I was the oldest signalman and we went round that ship and we finally caught it must have been for an hour and the waves were getting so high we refused to put the life boat down in the water. Till he finally went round and laid

oil. It didn’t stop the waves from breaking it didn’t stop the waves from going up, so we rode across, in this thing and you see nothing but water and wondering what am I doin’ here. The rower – when we finally come to this Mayacovski you couldn’t tie the boat up, you let it go, you grabbed the rope ladder and climbed up until the

last one there and you let it go. Nobody could take it back. We were on our own, I had a pistol with 3 or 4 bullets in it – a pistol to fire, praying I didn’t have to fire, but if they had got at us, there would have been somebody else come across and go them again, they would have probably sunk the bloody thing, they were all action stations they had shells in the muzzle all ready to go. That was for

Russia, sorry Germany.

They were very friendly, very friendly Russians, they could talk, a little English, but they had a different method of eating to us and so forth. On board the ship that was – you put your plate between two pieces of timber so it wouldn’t go away and so forth, when you went to the toilet there was no

hole like that it was just straight down through the ship, you just sat there and squatted, there was nothing like that. And the steering wheel was a thing like that, it wasn’t a steering wheel like that, it used to lay right over and shudder, I have seen a keel of the bloody things, so far over. The bottom of the keel so far over, it wasn’t a very good trip. There was 8 days of that one.

Made shore, it came back to HK. Made sure. I had to read the course, made sure which course we was on. I had a signalman with me and made sure that course was 20 degrees sou-west or whatever it was. We still had our guns with us. But they didn’t want to fight. Thank heavens for that. We would have been history. But, England would have told us. If they knew

something was wrong England would have told us. But when they finally had it turned round and had to go down the side of Asia, it was just like a garden party, it was rocky road, it wasn’t coming straight at you like it was up in Arctic Circle there. I had seen the Pole Star, been dead for millions of years, the light still come over and used to take the Pole Star goes

over the North Pole like that at about 9 o’clock at night. They take a sight, that’s the proper North Pole.

We got of it there, because it was then taken over by the navy in HK and sailed down to Saigon, we didn’t sail it down to Saigon. The crowd of navy at the HK base sailed it down to

Saigon. We went down after to Saigon when France come into the war. In the noddies they had two war ships then and they wanted to know which they were they were going to turn, so that’s why we went down to Saigon. It’s Ho Chi Minh City now I think they call it. But it was a lovely city. Beautiful City. We said amongst ourselves when we get this war over and we get married we will come back here for our honeymoon. But we never did.

Von Getty [Captain Frank E Getting], Von Getty’s of German descent, whilst he was out here in Australia, and I can only tell you what has been told to me because I don’t know anything about him. He was a wonderful man. He held the record for being in the deepest dive of any submarine in Australian waters. And another little thing, when he said something, he said something. He didn’t mean it. For instance

to try me out, right Brierley up that mast. What am I doing here, the boss said so. Come down again, what did you think of it. All right. As I said before, “Brierley why have I got a cap with no band on it.” “So I can put some more oak leaves on it.” Coming into harbour one day. I was his signalman, the Peninsula Hotel is on our starboard side, our right hand side

and he said to me, “There’s a window at the top of there, third one along, second row you’ll see a little bit of white come out and wave, bring out your Aldis lamp out like that” which I did, it was his wife he had brought his wife out here. Big bloody thing and his little wife. Let her know he was there, he was loved. When the war goes on he finally come back to Australia and he took charge of the Canberra again and he was killed on the Canberra at Tulagi

when, the American navy sent the Australian ships in for a trap. I wish you weren’t here and I could really tell you what I really think of the navy. He was still giving orders on that ship when he had his arm and leg off and his face half blown away. A friend of mine was there he finally got a job on the Kanimbla as a signalman, he was with him, he said, “He was mad that bloke, he was patriarchally mad.” He was revered

and loved. He taught us to become sailors.

To the lower deck he was always Von Getty. But his proper name is Getting, but he was from German stock. He held the record for the lowest dive in a submarine. He was a loved man.

He kept his distance from me, but I was his signalman, wherever he went in action stations or anything at all I was with him. Whenever we come into port and if there was any signal or anything like that or exercises I was

with him. In action stations which we always went to when they captured a ship, I was always with him, any messages to do, I did it. Not for any particular reason, he might have known me because I had the red and white shirt on, Chelsea fullbacks shirt. I didn’t like him when I had to dip it in the bucket.

No, no not for any particular reason at all.

Entirely on watch. Looking for ships, entirely looking for ships, just on watch, we weren’t decoding any signals at all that was being done by the wireless fellas, we only

decoded when we were in port so they could have a bit of a rest. Nothing, waiting for something to happen, that’s all there was.

A lot of us, 3 out of 5 of us said we would be back in

Saigon because it impressed us so much. One particular fella he said, “I am getting married after the war and I want to come her for my honeymoon.” It was something altogether different, it was mostly French there and it is a quieter than Hong Kong. The natives were nice to you but not exuberant over you at all, you were something knew but they – but altogether different than HK, HK was a seething mass of bodies

Saigon was just nice. We went to this Madam Ramon’s brothel, and all of a sudden someone well known came in there and they welcomed him and so forth, it was a very flash house of favours. It was recommended to us to go there as a matter of fact.

I think it was somebody who was from HK who had been down in Saigon, we’d never heard of it. All we knew it was under

French power and these two French ships were there, the Montpicay [?] and the Aramis. The Aramis was a merchant ship and it used to be in HK and China for the French. And when the Vietnam came along that was altogether different. But one particular fella wanted to go back there on his honeymoon when he married his girl.

A high class brothel. When I say that, a high class brothel. None of these places stinking places like in Kings Cross and things like that, it was a business. I know when we were down there and the ships company come ashore all the officers was there, I don’t know if there was any hanky panky that was their worry, but they treated us, it was spotless, it was a palace.

I am looking for a word. Fantastic, good stuff 100% furniture, lay backs and the tables this sort of thing. We never got into the boudoirs or anything like that, because you go in there it cost you money. I understand if there was any hanky panky went on it was pretty cheap,

even in our language, but it wasn’t – it was very high class.

Maybe because we were good Catholic boys, may be, but there was a couple of naughty fellas I understand had a look see. I didn’t have a look see.

But we had to go to this famous brothel.

We were only there for a couple of days only there for about 3 or 4 days, nothing much at all. I don’t even know what happened to the Aramis and the Montpicay, if I do I forget it. All I knew is they swung over to us, where they went from there I forget, I

think they went back to Hong Kong but I don’t know what happened to them from there on but a little while after that the Japs come in and so forth. And that became a battlefield.

Nothing at all, nobody knew nothing at all. Didn’t know anything at all. Even I think when we finally went down to

Singapore Harbour, they didn’t know about what was going on. I had a game of cricket, in the middle of Singapore on the Kanimbla, the cricket pitch in the middle of the ground. Nobody knew about it, nobody knew a thing about it.

That’s when we came into Saigon.

We had to go down there because France had come on our side, if I can use that expression, in the war against Germany, and they had these two French ships down there in a French

colony. And HK had no ships, they had us and they also had motored torpedo boats. They had submarines, incidentally I had rides on those submarines in those, mine laying submarines in torpedo boats. We went down there just to see what was going on. If they had been with Germany they would have open fire on us. We didn’t stop in

Saigon very long, 3 days and then we shoved off to Singapore. We were then on the way to the Persian Gulf. That was the Kanimbla was – because the Germans had stopped getting their supplies across South America and Vladivostok, and getting supplies down through the Persian Gulf. The Kanimbla came down and I left the Kanimbla in Singapore, but I when finally got to the

Persian Gulf it was the only ship in the world that had captured a railway train. Because the Germans were there and a railway train had come in alongside the Persian Gulf and the Kanimbla fired on it and “Camray, Camray.” So they – only ship in the world to capture a railway train. But I didn’t get that far.

Most uninteresting. Nothing, all I know is when we got to Singapore was that

we were sent out to look for a ship. It was us. That’s the way communication was in Singapore, higgledy piggledy, nobody worried about it. They had no idea the Japs were going to come, no idea at all. We had a 1st on board Lieutenant Commander Branson, I saw him later in Milne Bay, he was the officer in charge at Milne Bay had a pair of shorts and a big

skiveter down the side. He was the naval officer in charge in Milne Bay. He would take the Germans on, on his own. But, nothing much at all.

Nice holiday, we had a nice holiday there. They were still going to Raffles, I went to Raffles there. The thing I noticed in Singapore was the great big wide drains they had for when it rains

you had to swim across it. One of our fellows got drowned there. He wasn’t on a mess on the warship. But even so on the Kanimbla I cannot tell you when I met a stoker, I said I was on the Kanimbla and HK, he’d say, “I don’t remember you.”

I was waiting to come back to Australia because I was coming back to this course I was supposed to do. So I had to wait for a ship to come round there. That was the Gorgan, it was a Blue Funnel Line, there was a saying in Australia pre war if you wanted rain ‘get the Gorgan to call in at your port’. Whenever it called in at Western Australia it rained, the blue funnel line.

They kill their own tucker on that Gorgan that came down to that part of Western Australia, they had cattle on board and they used to string it up and cut its neck you had steaks later on. And that’s when I learnt about the tied that come down from WA [Western Australia] in Sharks Bay, and just on that thing, when I went ashore in Broome there,

I wanted to read a paper and a fella wanted to charge me 2/6 for a Sydney Morning Herald, but half of it was missing, but I wanted to read a paper. He was the barber, he was also the chemist, he was also grocer, he was also the milkman, he was everything.

Nothing. We came down, we just had an ordinary day, it was a holiday for us as a matter of fact.

Because they sent us down to Fremantle to send us across to come back to do this course at the Flinders Naval Depot. It was a nice trip for me, I will always remember coming into Fremantle there was wharf at the end of Fremantle and there was a shop on the wharf, and it has got the first and last store in Australia, the first when you come in and the last when you go out. The first and last store in Australia. Fremantle we had a walk around the grounds there it was absolutely wonderful.

Lord Forest Parkes. I seen the cricket over there. The Swan River. It was a nice holiday, nice holiday. Somebody thought there might be a war later on with Japan, that’s how we got sent there as a matter of fact.

Sad, very sad. Even now when I always march for the Kanimbla, on Anzac Day, I am sad.

But a funny thing I didn’t know there, a very great friend of mind came on the Kanimbla when it became a troop carrier, Eric Cox, he was on the Kanimbla in the end, great friend of mine, he used to be in charge of all the referees for the Rugby League. I had lunch with him the other day. He has his card up there, a director.

He was the one sent round by the Rugby League hierarchy to all the different places in the South Pacific to see if they would play football, he and his wife two years travelling and nothing, it was their 4th honeymoon. He had a wonderful time. Eric Cox come on the Kanimbla when she was a troop ship. He only had about a year and a half on it. Not because of his age, he was much younger.

No. None at all. The instructors

down there were all Australian navy – no old people at all. They had nobody there, for instance we all had to have an eyesight test and somebody said, “What’s that up there, is that IS up there? “Yes.” “You’re all right, that’s 6/6 for your eyes.” There was nothing, there was no person there at all.

Arthur – prior to – Arthur Lansbury.

A signalman by the name of Dominic Fee, he has passed away. We were down in Brisbane Depot and we learnt the semi six we used to call it, semaphore and Morse code and a little bit about navy business, Dominic Fee. And there was also another bloke there, he was a little older than us, Jack Mander, to use an expression, they have ‘shoved off’.

We were friends, they didn’t pull rank or anything at all, we were friends. I had no bars at all, they had one bar across and an anchor, they were Leading Hands. And so they were our ‘daddies’. I didn’t get anything on my arms until I passed an exam and I got a pair of flags.

Maybe I wanted to. I am not going to skite now, but I though, I loved Australia. That’s the only reason I went down there, I used to see the navy blokes at the football, my father used to take me to the football.

They were always 9/10ths full, which every nice girl loves a sailor. Little realising – a matter of fact my girlfriend Joycie then, her brother was a petty officers in the Naval Reserve. And I never met him, because he was away at sea at all the time. Only went with her for about 2 or 3 years before the war started, she my girlfriend. No,

didn’t worry about it at all.

All depends what we wanted to have a look see at. Do you want me secrets love.

Yes, this girl I talked about this Andy Gershon, she was my girl.

But she was looked after by the navy blokes in Hong Kong. When I became her boy they had to report to the navy depot every day and they used to get examined and so forth, so when I come back in – she was nice and clean. And that’s the only place we struck it. In Sydney, down here in Sydney, we didn’t know what to do.

Innocent, we were innocent, I never thought I was innocent, but in them particular days – we had – I had two aunts down here I used to go and see them. But girls, no we didn’t used to chase girls. There was a couple around and so forth, but never worried about it. It never entered our good Catholic boys heads. Don’t put that one down.

You might put Catholic boys heads but not good Catholic boys heads.

Oh, in Sydney there were and so forth, there

was an old story about where a sailor met a girl and after the action was completed one particular time, I am sorry to say this but I just come out of the pox hospital yesterday. She said what’s the tucker like I’m going in tomorrow. Don’t know whether that –

but we struck girls, but we weren’t in a position to strike girls, up in New Guinea, anything at all like that. They used to come on to the roads swinging their breasts singing “God bless America” and they used to be swinging from side to side. But we weren’t greatly interested we were only kids. Well in my experience when you are a kid you are really interested in

sex.

I had a girl I knew, she lived next door to me, not next door, in Queensland. She joined the AWAS [Australian Women’s Army Service] – we used to call them ‘always willing after sunset’. That was the AWAS, and she wrote me a letter when she was away and she signed it, what was her name now, Jean MC.

I forget her name, 2 doors up from me. So later on when I met up with her, I said, “What’s this Military Cross you’ve got?” She said that’s Major Catcher, always willing after sunset the AWAS. And West Australian Anchor Force, they were the WAAAFS. What would you rather have, a blanket and 2 WAAAFS or 2 WAAAFS and a blanket.

It’s up to you. When the war was over or nearly over, I went to Sydney to the CUSA – the Catholic United Services Association dance, and there was a lass there, first of all you asked where they lived. If they lived at Liverpool you scrubbed em. Or I could just go back – this is true, I went to the

Trocadero here in Sydney when I first come down and I am doing a line for this young lady, and I said to her – the idea was you always got on the last dances, you don’t want to get in the first – where do you live, “Leichhardt.” So I said to this lass, “Can I have the last dance with you,” she said, “Yes, you are having it.” That was the finish of my love making for the night.

Then on another occasion at the CUSA, Catholic United Services Association dance in Sydney Harbour here. I came on strong with this girl, I knew I was strong, I said to her, “Have you got a husband down here?” She said, “Yes, he’s in the navy.” “Yes, he was on the Sydney.” Well that punctured the balloons. All m y good work went for nothing.

Oh, yes, one of our friends died in Singapore, he fell down the wide gutter in Singapore, the gutters are so wide because it rains so hard and they have long gutters. He drowned in Singapore. On the ship the HMS Kanimbla we had mess 66, this friend of mine, this Sunday School teacher, to use an expression in the navy, he got a

clap. And he was in mess 66. See when you went ashore you had to be – if you felt you had a disease you had to go to a doctor. And if you didn’t you were imprisoned. A lot of people got the VD or syphilis and so forth and they were all put in this mess 66, to use an expression, in the arse of the ship. And they were all put in this mess 66. They used to be put together.

Different in the American navy, if they got any VDs at all and they tell about it they got sacked from the navy, so that’s why they kept it to themselves. Then when you get over to when the Americans come, we would say “Here come the VDs,” that was a common expression. But in the Australian navy, they were very clean in the Australian navy, but when we went ashore in Hong Kong, we were issued with ‘French letters’ [condoms].

Because those senior people knew about it at all. In all my experience, I only struck it in the Kanimbla, that’s when we went ashore and got it, venereal disease, although there is, one particular – didn’t affect me, but towards the end of the war, when 2 sailors were caught having shall I say hanky panky

and they were still under British rule then. Even though we were HMAS Australia they were still under British rule, and they were sentenced to be hung, from the yard arm, outside Sydney Harbour here. And it was Dr Evatt [Attorney General and Minister for External Affairs, Curtin Government] he was in charge then, he wrote over and got the Australian navy removed from the British ties, so we didn’t have to hang these people, the ship was starting from Garden Island, to hang

them when the order came through that they can spend their life in jail, which they did. Both of them died there. But American navy, was just chockablock.

That’s right they were stokers, and one bloke come in and tried to steal somebody’s other friend and they tried to throw him overboard and they were accused of murder,

but they did the thing out at Long Bay, but they were to be hung.

Never struck it at all. There was people that went to the Mess 66, but not from my division, from the – I don’t know why, it just didn’t happen. All the fellas that went ashore, they had their girls there, but they used these contraceptives. But even so, it was rife over there. Rife.

No. Even though somebody on board the ship who hasn’t been ashore for 3 months, under British navy rules, he has to be taken ashore for a ‘nature run’ I think I told you about that, but it has to be – a senior officers has to be in charge of it, he hasn’t got to go with the same level he has to go higher up. But it never occurred to us at all. It never entered our

heads. Funny. Funny.

That’s right yes. That’s right I come back on the Gorgan, To do the course. And came across – and all of a sudden, either I failed and I still don’t know what the course was, I was sent up to Moresby

as a signalman, was there for a little while I was sent to Rabaul. And that was when somebody got the whisper that Japan was being naughty. We were sent up there to record anything that the Japanese – we, we in Australia here had nothing, as I said before they gave us a pistol and 2 bullets. And there was a lot of very high men in Rabaul at that particular time,

and they were just going to move the capitol of New Guinea, not Papua now, to Saigon – Lae. Lae is on the main land of New Guinea, where it’s New Guinea anything down that is Papua, New Guinea is the place that gives copra, it’s a rich country, Papua has got nothing. Papuans

thought they had oil, they have been digging for oil since about 1900. Sometime. And they still haven’t found oil. There’s a big firm here in Australia that went broke. I forget the name of it now. But it was told by people that the strain of oil doesn’t go up there at all, it goes to Indonesia. Which people are finding oil over there now. That’s why Papua only got its money from copra,

from coconuts and even their rubber was no good. Inferior rubber. When they cut the trees it was inferior. But they got some money out of it after the war was finished they went up there, what’s the name of the people, they looked after the people for the damage that was done, War Damage Commission, for instance if you were a

settler at Milne Bay and your coconut trees which was worth $350, because coconut trees worth a lot of money, inside at the top of the bough is this beautiful thing that you eat and they call it ‘millionaire’s breakfast’, because when you take it out of the coconut tree, the tree dies. And the coconut tree is worth £5 – £10. And when the trees were put that way, it meant the Australians were coming against Japan. So the bloke who owns as

much if the trees were going the other way when Japan was coming to Australia. But it had nothing, they only lived on this copra that came down there, and rubber, the rubber wasn’t first – it was just something, but New Guinea had the money. But they were only going to move over to Lae, prior to the war starting, because of the earthquakes in Rabaul. I have been to a dance in

Rabaul and dancing with a girl and ripped her frock off, salt was in the air. Just ripped your clothes. Bad. In the middle of Rabaul Harbour, there was a mountain come out of the sea, just spurted off sulphur. You get into bed and you got toe nails on you got ripped sheets in the morning. There was a volcano up there called [Mount] Tavurvur, that was a native name.

We used to call it, ‘Oh dear what can the matter be’, It used to be called ‘Matterbe’, so we called it Oh dear what can the matter be when it blew off. That was the reason they were getting out of Rabaul because of these earthquakes.

Decoding signals and also, going down and making sure that the ships that come into Moresby,

had the proper signal for the day. Each particular merchant ship, through radio, through code was given what flags to fly, like D L P X Y, when they come in with the proper one, if they didn’t have the correct one we just stopped them, we didn’t have no guns, but we just stopped them. Or send a signal down to get stopped. They were a very poor country Papua, very poor.

Yes, I think it was about 2 months before we were sent up to Rabaul. And when we landed there, there was nobody there. They had their administration. One fellow who was there, it was Captain Roy, he later became a senator, I will think of his name in a minute. He had one – he had a

launch called the Lunar Star. I used to go out and get copra and rubber from the different islands round there. When this volcano came in 36 from up the middle of the harbour, it lifted a ship, it was a boat actually, over all the stores in Rabaul, Burns Philp steamship, and put the water in the middle of the street and when the water come back and put they picked it up and put it back again. There were people on that boat when it happened, 1936.

The Vulcan was the one that came out of the harbour, and Rabaul had just had, they had plenty of copra there, it was good land, and the Germans knew that, see most of all the lands up round there they have got an A in it, you will always find, they have got an A in it, like Samurai, Lae, all got the German in it, not the Malay.

With the army, with the army, we used to work in the middle of the town and our sleeping quarters were with the 2/22nd AIF [Australian Imperial Force]. You’ve had a yarn with them. They were up there, from Victoria.

That’s the only sleeping place they could give us. We had nothing else, there was Lieutenant McKenzie, he was a person from Rabaul who joined the navy, and they gave him a lieutenant and later lieutenant commander, he was our boss, I worked for him with central administration. And they used to come and give us the signals and they used the old code, simple, a 9 year old boy could work out. The government telegraph code, they had a square and they put a letter up

there, a letter up there, and a letter up there. And they – of this was C between 10 o’clock and 11 o’clock on the 11th February, that letter was A, B, C, D and come round then and in 3 hours time they might have put a F up there and G, H, I, J and so on, a 9 year old boy could work it out. But at least it was coded and unless you knew what to do you couldn’t work it out. And then send them back to Melbourne. Melbourne didn’t

take much notice of them.

Wherever the navy sent me. My friend Arthur Lansbury, they sent him to Port Moresby, they put him on the island on the top of New York looking for strange ships there.

I would rather be here than nowhere else. I haven’t been to Moresby before, lot of people up there, doing a lot of training. Even when the Japs come down they – I sailed through a fleet of Jap ships when I got out of Rabaul, at night time.

They weren‘t destroyers or anything like that, but they were Jap ships and we went past them on the – when I was on the Lakatoi.

They went

out from Rabaul, and the people, there was hardly any soldiers and so forth, in Rabaul. Except the air force and they had to go to planes, miles away. And there was only a handful of army in Rabaul itself. When the Japs bombed us they didn’t bomb the town, that’s the reason why the soldiers weren’t there because the Japs wanted the town, but they bombed all the army huts, that was

outside of Rabaul and so forth. We were all right in the town, all we did was lay in the slip trench, you dug a trench and got in. And the bombs used to drop, but none in Rabaul. I was only once – I was on an aerodrome when the come down and they give you a fright when the come down. Boom bang. With your fingers in your ears. If they hit the trench I wouldn’t be here, but they hit along side the slit trench

well I am here.

Cos we didn’t know they were not paying attention to us. We just kept sending – they sent a fellow up from Navy Board to interview a Lieutenant Commander McKenzie, and he asked McKenzie,

“How many miles does your telephone line stretch?” And McKenzie said, “Oh, about 3 miles” and this bloke said, “Is that all.” Well there is nowhere else to go, it was all jungle, they thought we had a telephone express 3 miles away from the heart of Rabaul. It was just nothing. But when the Commonwealth Government says look after yourself we can’t help you, what do you do.

Nowhere to go. I can sort of tell you, I suppose it’s quite all right and so forth. The funniest thing I heard up in Rabaul, was a fellow there by the name of Bates, B-A-T-E-S. The same as a friend of mine down here.

The natives always called the whites ‘Master’, so what was his nick name, Master Bates. That’s about the funniest thing that happened in Rabaul as far as I can remember. So that was the enjoyment. So I got up there and there was still some ladies, and I use the word quite respectfully, who had been embraced by Errol Flynn.

The story about Errol Flynn, they put him in charge of a plantation and he put the word round the natives, come and work for me and I will pay you good money. Every week I pay you good money. Money up there was 1/- with a hole in the middle so they could put the string through it and carry it round their neck. And when the natives got a 1/-, for about a fortnights work, they complained and he said, “that’s good money,” not good in value but good money.

Then when he finally left Rabaul, and he got in that picture, what was the name of that picture he got into, I forgot what it was, Captain Blood. Burns Philp sent him a bill for his clothes, and he said, “See me in Captain Blood.” But there was quite a few ladies up there who had felt his embrace. How’s that. No contraceptives allowed.

I am not telling secrets now. But ladies used to use sponges instead, so everything was quite all right, very strict, very Methodist. Very strict up there, regards whites with native girls. I was there one day and I had a boy, used to look after me when I come in the officers and so forth and he used to go home.

And he said to me one afternoon, “You give me a past master, you give me a pass.” They had to have a pass when they out, had to be on the streets. I said, “You had two today, you had two this week, that’s all.” “No master no. One, this number one you give me a pass.” So I said his name was ‘Eno’. I put Eno was allowed to stop out till 9 o’clock at night, but he come back at about 6.30

I said, “What are you doin’ back here?” He said, “Oh master me got him something put him nowhere.” “Oh, all right.” So there’s a girl she’s the wife of one of the blokes in the officers and I told her about the thing, and she nearly wet herself laughing. What it was, he had an erection but his girl was in the wrong time of the month, so he got him something and put it nowhere. That’s Pigeon English.

So it’s quite – about …

It was a beautiful town, Casuarina Avenue all Casuarinas out, we used to play baseball there, cricket, but Chinatown that was kept aside, they didn’t

mix with the whites, but when they used to put on the changing of the guards of a night time, when they pulled the flag down, that would stir your blood. Very good.

Pearl Harbour. The – we used to get messages from the fellows that went out on boats, and I use that word, it was a boat not a ship. All round the islands and they would come back and report to us if there were any natives on board and when the Japanese would come down, or any other people coming on to the islands, and we used to get reports like that.

We used to have to sort it out so then we had to give Australia what to do and all that. And something which I have rung the Herald about this a long while ago. The very first bomb dropped in the Japanese war was by an Australian; done by an Australian Catalina. Flew over to Lake Catabanawirracanna [?].

It’s an island and dropped a bomb on the Japanese fishing fleet. And came away. So it was the first shot fired in the Japanese war was by an Australian in a Catalina. Lake Catabanawirracanna it’s on the north-east coast of Rabaul and you will see a little dot. They didn’t send many people down there to find out about it, they came down by the

air force, 32 ships sailed into Rabaul Harbour when they took Rabaul on 16th January. All the women were all out of the town, only the men were left. Later I went in to the various plantations and they got all the crowd up to Rabaul and they got them on to a ship called the Montevideo Maru and sailed to Japan and never got to

Japan there wasn’t one person rescued off that. Maybe 300 people there nobody knows. And that was fired by an American submarine the torpedo. Very sad. I used to go to a little do once a year out at the Methodist crowd at Parramatta, there are a lot of Methodist Ministries out there and so forth, and they used to have a séance and we used to talk about Rabaul, and

lots of people had lots of friends they never heard of, it’s just being raised now where are they, what happened, is it the truth. Not a white person got off Rabaul, the only ones that got off Rabaul were the ones sent prior to the Japanese coming in and that was only by 2 days.

In Rabaul? 7th December. They came and bombed us when they bombed Pearl Harbour. We had nothing, what were we going to do. The Commonwealth Bank told us no more money can be given to you, they just had sufficient money to give when they land. Because they knew when they were going to land. We actually left

before the Japanese fleet hit Rabaul, we were taken away by the army. In Rabaul on the left hand side going out to sea, there is a place called Parade Point, now in Australia at that particular time, you could go and join the Militia, but when you became 19, you could then join the army, and they used to call those blokes the chocos, the Chocolate

Soldiers. Well they were put up in Parade Point by the Australian Government and so forth. Right with the Harbour looking out there and the army was put back here. And they copped it all those kids. They copped all the bombing, for days. I don’t know how many were killed. I happened to help write a book about that where the judge called it hell and high fever,

only a little bit, he was a judge, judge, he’s one of the judges in divorce and I went up to see him to see how he was, and he said, “I am glad to see you I just want a few points.” He died a little whole ago. He was a Chief Justice in divorce before Davey. Little before that, he used to go funny, on his holidays he used to go to Bengal and go up in the mountains

and sit there doing nothing, but he wasn’t a religious man. I’ll think of his name in a minute. They copped a lot those poor kids. The AIF [Australian Imperial Force] didn’t, the AIF retreated, that’s nothing against them, I don’t know what they told you when you went and seen them. Harry would tell you. Was Harry there when you went and saw them? Bill Harry. Brave man that bloke.

He was secretary of the association for years, so he can tell you more about it than I can.

No we didn’t meet up with the army until after Tol [Tol Plantation Massacre]. We were on our own a little navy group.

And then we just joined up and one bloke escaped from that and there was a few army stragglers, we all got one together, the army, navy and air force, I think it’s in that book here. But the only bloke alive today, Roy Chessel, he went down to the Wide Bay, we went across up there.

Because we were told to one of the blokes who was a field officer and used to run up and down, the natives knew him, and they told him about this ship being on the other side of the island. McCarthy was his name, we would still be up there as the saying goes, we didn’t know what to do. And when

after the Tol massacre, when some went down to the south of New Britain and we went north of New Britain. Not many people went down to the south of New Britain, quite a few. Roy, he got out on the Lorabarda and I got out on the Lakatoi and as far as I know we are the only ones in Sydney still alive, there could

be some in Queensland, I don’t want to know.

We got out of the village before they came because we knew they were coming. We went around to the other side of the

harbour, me McKenzie and all us navy crowd, I think there was 9 of us by then. Because, I had 2 bullets I had already thrown the first 2 bullets I got away, and I got two more and I got a revolver and I threw that bloody thing away too. I even carried a suitcase with all my photographs of being in Hong Kong, it is mentioned in one of the books there. And one particular navy bloke had a suitcase full of photographs of where he had been during

the war. Had to throw that away. And we were then going – because we were on the south side of the harbour of Rabaul, and we wanted to get away. And that’s why we went down there, where the army was going but we had lagged behind a bit because the army had gone down and the Japanese had gone into this Tol and

massacred all blokes that were there. As I said before we witnessed it, but we didn’t actually see the shootings going on, we heard it. And we were behind because we caught a pig and decided to eat a pig otherwise we would have been there.

Yes, the shirt with a bit of blue bit of collar up here, shorts and a jock strap.

No. Oh, yes, but they wore out. So we threw them away, that’s all I had 2 handkerchiefs. And even in that suitcase, I wanted to bring all me photos back. So emptied the suitcase and put all me photographs in the darn thing.

And I intended, to – because I didn’t know. Nobody knew we were going. There might have been a ship there we just told to go.

No, not a thing. I can remember going to sleep in a place I wouldn’t have a clue where it was.

When I woke up “Come on we walking.” “Where?” “Oh, buggered if I know but we’re walking.” We weren’t afraid. Oh, no. we weren’t afraid.

Yes,

Lieutenant Commander McKenzie, he was with us at Rabaul, because he used to be in Rabaul – he used to be a field officer once upon a time. And he knew where we were going and he was going to lead us down Gasmata, he was going to lead us down which is on the south coast of that one. But we only got as far as Tol, then McKenzie, he got

shoved away from us. I never saw McKenzie until after the war. And then we were on our own, and all of a sudden Peter Figgis, Peter Figgis did I mention – Peter Figgis came across he was another officers. And said there’s a ship over near the Witu [Island] Group, and there’s a woman there Gladys – I will think of it –

so we cut across the island like that. And he actually led us, otherwise – if you had’ve told me to go north I would have gone north, I didn’t know where we were. No good, praying, but that’s all right. I said prayers, over 3.

They took the women out.

Australian Government, they ordered the McDooghey, which was a Burns Philp Steamer, used to

trade between Sydney and Rabaul Harbour, with supplies, that and the McDooghey, that was another Burns Philp ship. And they sent it up there and the women were all taken away from Rabaul, on the 13th, 14th, or 15th of January, the day before they landed.

At that particular time?

A cemetery was a brighter place. The men got in the Rabaul Club and said nothing. They didn’t want to say anything. They were losing their wives, mostly all wives. Quite a few of them.

They all left. The only people that didn’t go were people on plantations, who –

and some of the missionaries, who were out of Rabaul itself. Lived down here, not up here, and they didn’t go because they wanted … I met them, I have got it in my diary somewhere. One of the ladies of the Methodist Missionary, she wrote a book about it and she used to go to one of those do’s I would go to once a year at Parramatta. And we corresponded with each for quite a while. Again, it’s gone right out of my head, but she’s still alive.

But she only wrote – she was away from Rabaul, she was in New Britain, but she was away from Rabaul and she was on this Methodist Mission and so forth. The priests that were up there, they escaped, I think also on the McDooey, but then some of the people that walked out, and I don’t know how many women there were, but mostly men, they got lost in the bush captured and came

back, they were put on the Montevideo Maru. And they finally just come up. But the women were forced to leave Rabaul. Whether you wanted to stay or not, they were forced, that’s about the only good thing that came about it.

2 days.

Clean out the officers, put pepper in the officers safe so when the Japs opened the officers safe they get pepper in their eyes. That’s about all. We started to walk away then. We couldn’t do anything. We weren’t cowards. We didn’t know what was going on. We didn’t want to be Japanese POWs [Prisoner of War]. We didn’t know anything about the Japs, but we

weren’t going to become a POW. We had already made a Will out. McKenzie, the Commonwealth Bank bloke, he wouldn’t go until all his staff had gone. I didn’t know much about the staff, but – they went on the McDooghey – the idea was – that came from Australia.

Get the women out. On this McDooghey. The Herstion was the ship that came in from some place overseas carrying oil just prior to the Japanese landing, never left the wharf, it’s still there. Got bombed. That was the Herstion H-E-R-S-T-I-O-N.

Wasn’t greatly worried about it. How I feel now.

No. Can I sound brave and not be brave. I was fighting for Australia. I didn’t want to get killed for Australia. We all thought that. I could use a word with 4 letters but what we said about the Japs, it was the naughty word too,

but we intended to use it, but we weren’t going to be captured, we weren’t going to give in. Like when Colonel Scanlon came, did I tell you about Colonel Scanlon. Colonel Scanlon was a fellow he was the Governor of Hobart Gaol, maybe I shouldn’t tell you, but I’ll tell you. When we were getting away, he and his two people were coming back, his two aid-de-camps. Staff that look after the

Colonel. Bill Parker was my friend, who later I had a fight with by the way. In the jungle in the dark in the night, about how many pies I could eat. And we went past them going that way and we were going this way. And Scanlon told Bill Parker, I nearly said me and Bill Parker because he told me first and then he told Bill Parker – “To go and give yourself up because you’ll never get out.” To which Bill Parker said, “Bullshit.” At that particular time, one of his

men with him, went and waved at the Japanese flag coming over, to let them know they were there, and Bill went out and crash tackled this bloke like a rugby league player and he called him some naughty words and kicked him in the arse and Scanlon told him “That bloke went over to Japan – went back to Rabaul he went to Japan, flown over to Japan and when the war was finished he was given a Hobart – he was given a ‘trail’ through the Hobart goal and he was

given a parade by the Tasmanians. Good luck to him. Maybe there’s a different story, but that’s just my story. Bill Parker and I, great friends from Brisbane. One time we were going, through, it was as black as the inside of a cow this day, a little bit darker and I said to Bill, “Gee, I wish I was down in Brisbane now Christies,” Christies used to be a café, beautiful cream buns, I used to go up there when I worked for Lustre Hosiery. And you get two cream buns for a break, 11 o’clock.

And Bill said, “We’ll have some buns” and I said, “Yeah, we’ll have some buns.” And he said, “Then we’ll go and sit down and have a nice roast meal.” And I said, “Yeah, but I have got to finish the cream buns first.” “How many cream buns?” I said, “Oh, I reckon I could eat 4-5-6 cream buns,” and then Bill said to me, “And you then you are goin’ to have some meat.” “Yeah.” You couldn’t do it. I said, “You couldn’t.” We were fighting in the middle of the bloody jungle in the dark. When it was over I said,

“We are a pair of stupid bastards aren’ we.”

In the jungle, with my suitcase. We had to do a watch on the other side of Rabaul Harbour, the Japs on this side on the northern side and we went over the southern side. There were some funny bloody noises coming from the jungle that night

I can tell you. Noises I have never heard before, but every one of them was a bloody Jap coming towards me and so forth. And I didn’t feel like being the galah to wake the mob up because the Jap here when there wasn’t a Jap here, so I used to have a look first. There was nothing there, the noises that would come there. When I got relieved of it I got very happy. What would I do, I had nothing I threw the pistol away with our 2 bullets

in we weren’t going to carry them, but lose two bullets. And the rest of the people slept on. But I still carried me suitcase.

For about 3 days of walking. Then I threw it away.

In the morning when I woke up and I knew I had to drag this bloody suitcase, I said, I’ll use another couple of words, “Bugger it, I’ll come back and get them when I get out, I’ll come back later on.” Wouldn’t know where it was. I had all the

photographs of being in Hong Kong. All the family photographs, ships photographs, everything like that. Very sad throwing that away.

Nothing, we had no food. We did – we were still smoking. We had no matches, so what some bright bloke did, we got a husk of a coconut, plenty lying around, dried it out, and then

put it on fire. It went out, and still kept on going. So we had a match with us all the time so we used to carry this husk with a handkerchief around it, and when we wanted to light a cigarette we’d wave it round it and the flame would come up out of the husk and put it to your cigarette and we found some tobacco plants. Tobacco grows on the ground. Tobacco grows on the ground. So we grabbed all the tobacco. That was our smoking. But we still carried a lighted coconut. You wouldn’t see it but when you up and

down like that the flames would come up. It was part of millionaire’s breakfast, did they tell you about millionaire’s breakfast? Coconut tree and right in the middle of it it’s got a hole, and in the hole is a lot of sago, and that’s what the tree lives on. They send the natives up to get all this beautiful sago out, and you come down and you eat it, but the tree would die. The tree would be worth about £2-300. So that’s why they called it millionaire’s breakfast.

Nothing. Leaves. Nothing at all, we didn’t have any provisions at all. We thought we would go to a camp and get some, but when we got there, we might have got a little bit at the camp, just the same as when we were in the mission in New Britain, Father Mayerhoffer, he didn’t have much food there but he gave us a little bit of bread that he had made and so forth. Or some of them had got a rabbit and killed and that sort of stuff,

but we didn’t have much at all.

Just prior to our getting on the Lakatoi at Witu Island, about a week, a week before that.

Well we were still down the bottom of New Britain and we decided to go across the top. That was the hardest place, that was the hardest crossing the middle of New Britain to get up over on the north coast, it must have taken us 5, 6, 7 days. Just going a 9 year old boy – you went that way, you went sideways until you smelt the water,

and we had no water but then the natives were with us and they dug in the sand off where there’s water, the sea, the beach and you get water from there because it’s sieved through, it’s sieved by the sand and that’s how they get the water to drink. That was the only water we had.

Jungle,

straight out jungle. I seen snakes around trees, the snake would be about 100 foot long, I am not exaggerating. Wrapped around it. See we had this field officers with us, McCarthy, who knew all about it. Without him we would have been buggered well and truly. He had been there before so he knew what it was. And, we put ourselves entirely in his

hands. If he had told us to go the other way, we would have gone the other way. What does it matter, if we are going to die. If somebody said we are going to live we’ll go down there. Roy Chessell, he’s the fella alive now out at Strathfield. He’s gone deaf. He was – he broke away, he was put in charge of 3 or 4 people to go down to the south – on the south coat of New Britain where we went to the north coast.

He knew, he knew that island like the back of his hand, if it hadn’t been for McCarthy, I wouldn’t be sitting here talking to you.

Sorry!

The natives knew him. When they heard about Master McCarthy he’s in. Everybody knew him. Of course, when you go up there and if you want to go from A to B,

if you say lic lic, that’s a little bit, maybe 1 or 2 days walk. You say to the native, how far next village, “Oh long way too much master.” That might be a week, that’s a bloody long way, you don’t talk in miles, you talk in lic lic’s or bloody long way master. And the natives knew him and the whisper got round that McCarthy was there. And the whisper got round that there was Gladlys Baker, did I mention Gladys Baker, she was the lady in charge of a

plantation?

They got her – Mrs Baker – Missus Baker, she belong, she want to go. And that’s how McCarthy knew that the Burns Philp, the Lakatoi steamer, was over there. The crew including the master, the captain, refused to take the Lakatoi out of the V2 group because of the Japs coming into the war. I am not going to say he was scared,

but he said he couldn’t do it. When we got on – and we didn’t know who they were. I only found out the other day what the name of the secretary is now, was on the Lakatoi. We didn’t know each other. We would go on board, and take it down – they didn’t want to, but they were forced to go, not with bayonets or any of that, but

talking was forced to go. So we left. We only had enough juice, we couldn’t, excuse the expression, bugger around with looking – we had to go the shortest way to get to Australia.

Yes, yes, yes, that’s at Wide Bay,

come back up the coast just below Rabaul. The massacre at Wide Bay. That was just down from Rabaul, you could throw a stone, from Wide Bay was down the bottom of the island Rabaul was up the north, but that’s a saying, you could throw a stone from Wide Bay to Rabaul. Cos that’s where the 2/22nd went, they walked down there.

After the Japs landed? Or do you want it before the Japs landed?

Yes, yes, yes.

Yes, it was a little piglet.

Here.

Just outside Wide Bay.

Down from Rabaul and this was a mountain, and we looked down on Wide Bay,

and that’s when we saw the Jap come in, because it was close to shore, not right out, close to shore. They had no maps, they were close to shore, this is what I am presuming, but they new the Australian Army was there, because the natives had told them up there, because it travels quicker than a telephone news the way the natives go about it. But we were up in the middle of the island, we go to the middle of the island, I don’t know, I think it was somebody says we were going to go across all of a sudden we changed our

mind. Anyhow, so we were in the middle looking down looking down on Wide Bay, whereas the other poor buggers that got massacred were down here.

There was a lot of trees, and saw the shadows and we saw the two cruisers. Two cruisers. We saw the cruisers anchored and then we heard the massacre, with the shots

ringing out, we didn’t know what was going on, and then we saw the two Japanese ships go back. We were told by one of the blokes we rescued and so forth, that he was line up and handcuffed and tied with rope and they bayoneted everybody. They bayoneted him but it went through his mouth and his neck but it didn’t go through his heart. That was the massacre.

That the army had come down and were resting at Wide Bay. But we didn’t hear that until after the massacre because we didn’t know what the army had gone before us at all. We were just blindly walking, knowing that somewhere, we’d get somewhere. I think one of the natives said you go over there and get some water. So we turned around I can’t recall, and go over towards the coast. The natives had caught a

pig and invited us to sit down, otherwise we would have been down there.

Just rifle shots. That’s all. Didn’t hear the ships move or anything at all. When I got down and told Eric Felt, he

didn’t believe it, Eric Felt was the lieutenant commander in charge of the navy officers up in Cairns. Can I use a rude word here.

“Don’t be such an effing liar, you’ve had a tough time don’t make it any effing worse.” Because he didn’t believe us, and I can understand him. Any nation would go like that

especially the Japanese, he didn’t believe us. Eric Felt’s a great friend of mine. He pitied me, because he thought I was going bonkers in the head. “Don’t tell lies Arthur.” Because no human being would believe that somebody would do such a thing to another human being.

About 2 days after it happened, maybe a day and a half after it happened. When we rescued this, Hunter I think his name was, he was a patrol officers in New Guinea during the war, and they bayoneted him put it through his mouth here and his shoulder there, and we carried him

down. Later on after the war he went back up to the same country and in New Britain and got eaten by the natives, in the Kol Kol country.

We only came across him, he was wandering inland and wounded and we were walking quite close to the coast and all of a sudden we came across him. Just bumped into him sort of thing, in the jungle.

He was lying down somewhere, we went past him into some clearing when we were going by. I didn’t pick him up, but 3 or 4 officers in the party picked him up. And that’s where – somebody had a rifle with some cleaning rag called 4x4, that’s the cloth you put up the centre of your rifle and pull it through with a plug, clean your rifle with this. They put that in his

wounds up her in his cheek. We didn’t take much notice of him funnily enough. Poor bastard we used to call him. We weren’t greatly shocked. It was war, we weren’t greatly shocked.

I think we were, I talk for myself, I would have rather been shot and killed, than starved. If I was going to die, I am not brave, I am the weakest bugger who ever put a pair of socks on. I wanted to be – if I was to die like that, I didn’t like it.

Same as in the navy get sunk. Same with Arthur Lansbury later and so forth. If you have got to die, die peacefully. Most of all religion came along and I knew I was in the state of grace. Meaning, if I die I go to heaven. That was my main worry. I wasn’t worrying about Mum or Dad or anybody else. I don’t’ think we ever wondered. We wondered about them, but not so much.

A steamer at the Witu group. That’s when we came across this Father Mayerhoffer, that was the German Priest I said when we left he had all the girls say prayers when we were leaving, going down the hill.

We got to this Father Mayerhoffers

Mission place, late at night, 4, 5, 6 o’clock in the afternoon. He was a German, he was a German Catholic Priest, which is O.K. but he was a German. He was in charge of the missionary, he had a lot of little missionary girls there, but he didn’t have any great number of food, so he could only give us a little sustenance, but I think he gave us more. Like bread and some biscuits, and some cake he had there. He didn’t have any

meat, I think he was waiting for supplies to come in. He didn’t have any birds there, they didn’t roast any birds there, he had two records that night. Then along came the news by some runner, news is funny in the jungle, it carries I don’t know how it carries, but the Japs were just a little bit behind. And he told us, so we said we would get out, in the morning he said, the morning will do. And we never finally

left until about 10 or 11 o’clock in the morning, that’s when we went down the hill and he put all the little mission girls down the side to say the prayers at 12 o’clock that Catholics used to say.

Well, it’s a prayer, I don’t know if it is said now, I don’t know think it is. At 12 o’clock every day, when I went to school, you got up and said the

Angel of the Lord declared unto Mary and she is conceived by the Holy Ghost then you said your Hail Mary, and you said about 3 or 4 officers. We didn’t know, there was only 2 of us that were Catholics in the party. And as we went down the hill, all the girls were on one side, the Kekennys were on one side and the boys were on the other. They both said the Angel of the Lord declared unto Mary and she was conceived by the Holy Ghost and this was said all the way down. And I am crying like a baby,

walked down the middle of it. The other ones didn’t know – 2 of us were Catholics, didn’t know what was on except that it was nice. But it affected me very much.

After that we went – it took us about 2 to 3 days by the coast, by the coast that time, not in the jungle, to get up to Witu, where the ship was.

And at that time there were also some officers from the 2/22nd, they had also come up, but they had come from inland and we went down the coast. And we met there. There must have been 150, 200 men, I don’t know. Could have been 80. Then there was the crew of the ship that was there, there were 5 of them including the master. And then none of us were engineers, but

I think some of the blokes in the army, they knew how to run an engine. And they ran it down and in the afternoon we sailed, we sailed down right at night time right past Samurai. The whisper went round that there were Jap ships there, but whether that’s true or not I don’t know. But the whisper went round, I don’t want to be quote, that there were some Jap ships, but I don’t believe it, but the whisper went round. At that time I did

because you believe anything about the Japs. But now I don’t believe it.

Down the coast we had to get across to Australia. We come down and went to Samurai. We went to Samurai Island, that was the end of Papua, then you got the Samurai Straits. So you got Papua, the Samurai Straits and Samurai.

It was every man for himself before we got on. We were pretty weak. I am not trying to heavy it up by any means at all, we were pretty weak. And we were in the hands of a couple of blokes we didn’t know anything about, and we took a punt saying we didn’t know if we were being attached, or getting drowned or anything at all,

but the fact was that we were getting away. We did nothing, because we couldn’t do anything, we were on board ship thank heavens. But there was somebody there including the field officers who had brought us down there, plus the crew on board the ship. If they would have said no, we would have been in trouble. But they did go down to the engine room, and they showed the other soldiers on

board how it was done, how to work it. They could have said well go and get. I – we’re goin’ to give into the Japs because we don’t want to fight the Japs. But the – some of the soldiers and mechanics and so forth, we got the ship, we didn’t know if there was any petrol or not. Somebody said there was some juice in it. Then we sailed right up and then we came back down into Samurai and then we went through the Samurai

Straits. The whisper went out that we sailed right past the Japanese fleet, but I think that was just a furphy, I don’t believe it, I could be wrong, I could be wrong. Japanese fleet, I don’t think they got down that far, that was just a story. And then we poked our nose out and went for 3 days and found out we turned right, so we turned right and hit Cairns, and got fired on.

There was our crowd, which was about 6, 2 of the navy blokes at Vitu and I think about 50-60 bodies. With the army, I think I am not to sure of it, could have been more.

But there was more than – say 50-60. They were in the same position we were. Had no food, had no nothing as people say, which is bad English of course. So then we sailed – don’t think we had proper meals. The crew on board the ship when we got away decided to steer the ship and helped a lot. And then we went down and turned right and hit

Cairns. Just prior to getting into Cairns we got fired on.

Oh, cramped and so forth, this is plenty of room in here, could have had a game of cricket in here compared to the conditions on board. You slept in somebody else’s arms and so forth. You laid down, first down on the deck, first down on the deck. Everywhere, we were just buggered if I can use the expression.

If I am going to die of hunger, I am going to die of hunger. I am not brave, I am the weakest bloke in the world. I jump at the sight of a cockroach, I am not brave by any means at all. But I don’t think we ever thought of – I didn’t think I was ever going to die. I didn’t think – I am not going to do bugger this for a lark. Same with Bill Parker, what’s the good of dying. I said prayers, my

word I talked to the boss upstairs I can give you the inside drum, I could write a book, he could have written a book what I said to him. We didn’t talk much.

Our fathers, Hail Mary’s anything at all, look after me boss, look after me. I have been good, I have been naughty sometimes, I have been good. I never left God behind.

Well when we turned left and hit the Grafton Passage, that’s the hole in the roof outside Cairns. And according to rules and regulations of which we didn’t know, we were supposed to have a password or a word of the day. We had been dealing with up in Moresby, flashing to the ships “What’s the password for the day,” it used to change every 4 hours see. If they didn’t have the write code you were supposed to shoot them

or capture them when they came in, because it was a secret. But we didn’t know anything at all about the secret word that the land base army were asking us for. We didn’t say anything at all so they fired on us. And Eric Felt, he was behind one of the shells that landed and he put his arms up and so forth and told them to stop firing and he came on board. And that’s when he finally got on board and told us

not to – don’t tell lies, you have had a bit of a hard trip but don’t exaggerate. He didn’t believe us.

It didn’t hit us, it went in the water, warning shot the warning shot was fired across the boughs, you have heard that expression.

Came to the wharf and the Ladies Comforts Funds were there. They gave me a cigarette which I sucked in in one fell suck in, and they were the cheapest cigarettes ever bought in Australia those, 3 pence a packet or something bloody things. And that was about all I was dying for, I didn’t grow much of a beard. It – I didn’t want to sit down and gobble straight into something, they decided to give us food.

And all we wanted was to clothes ourselves up, I think I got a pair of shorts from some lady who gave us and so forth. But we went to Woolworth’s and I could taste the salt in the bread. Woolworth’s had a cafeteria they opened for us. A lot of people getting away from Cairns that particular time, because at that particular time if you earned any money you could buy any house in the north of

Australia. Any agent would sell it to you, you could get one for 9 and tuppence as the sayin’ 9 and tuppence up there. That’s the food we – decent food we had for about 3 months. So then we slept there that night in some hotel, that was open, because it was deserted, people had gone. And so then they decided to – we could let our parents know

but I couldn’t remember my parents address in Brisbane. I knew of a lady by the name of Mrs Knox who lived near me, and she lived at Dutton Park, and so I knew her address, so I sent her address and said tell Mum I am O.K. and she went back and told my mother I am O.K. Then they put us on a train to come down to Roma Street in Brisbane, that was the station in Brisbane and all the names were taken down from the station,

in case the Japs could read the station and find out where they were. And we didn’t know where they were. And when we come down out of the train Mum came running towards me and I said what are you worrying about Mum, I knew where you were. What are you worrying about. Then she took me home and I collapsed and I went to hospital and they looked after me there. I was there for about 4 months I suppose. They had never

heard of – but they had heard of malaria but never seen a malaria – they had to find out how to fix this up this malaria and I think I was 7 stone 2 or some darn thing. I was fly weight. I was in Rosemount Hospital. A little bit of a story. There was a lovely nurse there and I got put in there with a ward with about 7 or 8 sailors, they were all crook. And she was a good sort, but she was just come, and that particular there was a song goin’ around, “On

Top of Old Smokey All Covered With Snow,” So we used to call her Smokey. She finally said, “Why do we all” – told ‘em, her name was Smokey. So we all sang, 'On top of old smokey' and she off down out of that ward and to think we would have a thing goin’ on. Gee she was a good sort too.

Tattered shorts, that showed everything, the elastic was just about gone and a ragged singlet. No shoes or socks. They had gone off because they were busted. That’s about all.

None, didn’t have any injuries at all. I had malaria, but no injuries, injuries is like broken fingers or anything like that. No. Might have had a few scars on me feet, but no injuries at all. Had a few ribs showing, lost a lot of weight, I weighed about 7 stone But no injuries because I wasn’t in a line of fire, I might have scratched meself or something like that, but I had no injuries.

None at all. We were

wandering. Just wandering. All we were wanted to do was get home to mummy, as the saying is. We were all in the same boat, nobody was superior to us whatsoever. We were all friends, but we didn’t have any altercations, we didn’t say, “What’s the matter with you?” or some bloody thing, or, “That bloody thing.” “What’s the matter?”

We were going across a river one time, known to carry alligators and at that particular time we had some army with us, and the bloke in charge of the army was a Lieutenant Colonel Carr, a number one bloke and we were going across this river, and he was up there and were down here, and we were hanging on to some trees. And the stream was blowing, full of alligators by the way and he

lost his grip and come past me and I put my hand out and I grabbed him by the collar. He was going towards the sea. I wasn’t brave, the bloke coming towards me, I didn’t know who he was, I put my hand out and grabbed him by the collar. That wasn’t a brave act that was just a thingo. But that was Lieutenant Colonel Carr. I see he was mentioned in the paper the other day. I don’t want

went through our minds, all we wanted to do was get out of the bloody place. I can recall going to sleep one time under a tree and waking up and seeing a snake around the tree. Hooley dooley, I said my prayers that day I tell you. Wrapped around the tree, I could have been eaten.

The natives used to give us some when we stopped there. We used to eat leaves, I have climbed trees and of a morning and licked the leaves for water. Same with tobacco, it grows in the ground. We got some of that we had a smoke, ‘bruss’ they used to call it. And we carried this coconut already lit it a few days ago,

and wave it in the breeze and it come up light and light our cigarettes, we always had a bit of newspaper because we had no cigarette papers and we had this bruss because we wanted something to do. We were pretty fit we were, you know we weren’t starved or anything like that, you know the officers certainly fed you, we were pretty fit, we ate 3 meals a day when we were there.

Wasn’t worried about a beer, didn’t care less really. You had a beer because somebody had a beer. Food wasn’t so much worried about, you were losing so much sweat and so forth, you were hungry, but when I got down to Cairns I remember eating bread and butter, so I could taste the – but we never gobbled our food down. I can’t tell you if I was

ever ravenously hungry. Possibly may have, but I can’t recall it.

No, nothing. All my photographs, my camera.

Everything. I don’t know why I sent them up there, I think my mother sent them up to me because she wanted – Jack Benning was a friend of mine, we went to school together, his uncle was up there and I wanted to show him these photographs of where we had been. That’s when they finally come up. At that particular time I might also – have you heard a record called,‘Begin the Beguine’? Joe Loss sang it, a Col Porter

song, one of the best songs he has ever written. Well Mum sent me up the record of that, but when I got it in Rabaul it was in pieces because she had just wrapped it in paper. But that was the greatest record ever. But I kept those pieces in the suitcase I had just in case somebody – Joe Loss in 'Begin the Beguine'.

No. We had a couple of blokes that never said a word. We were tired. We were just buggered. We didn’t’ sing or anything like that. All we knew we weren’t going to die. I don’t know how, but none of this layin’ down to die racket. We’re not brave we’re just ordinary blokes.

As I said to Mum, ‘what are you worrying about Mum I knew where you were.” Then immediately cried.

They were – a lot – they were skin and bone, they didn’t play cricket, they didn’t play football or anything like that at all.

And that particular time I was pretty fit, I was playing ‘A’ grade cricket in Brisbane when the war started out. I think it was only because I was – and then I was playing Australian Rules football, up there.

At the very beginning they died, but not when we got – there was Yeoman Knight, Arthur Francis,

and two more I can’t recall their names, out of about 12.

At the very beginning of it all. Not when we were going through the jungle, none at all. We still had the same amount who kicked off, except for these 4 people who died.

Fright I think. One fellow, we said, because of poisoning, we used to have Reckitt & Coleman stuff for sore throats and was poisoned and drank his tea and water out it, and that’s how I know he did it accidentally. I can’t recall anybody. We were pretty fit, we were only kids you know.

Still playing cricket and still playing Australian Rules football and still goin’ round.

We got the natives to dig a grave and put them in a grave. Yeoman Knight especially, he was the boss, he come up to be over us signalmen there and so forth, he was the worse one.

He died because he was worrying about his mother. Yeoman Knight, always meticulously dressed, prior to this happening of course. You could shave with the crease in his trousers as the saying was. The only thing with the Japanese when we had to leave Rabaul, in the officers, we kept the safe open and

put pepper inside there, so when the Japs come and opened the safe they got pepper in their eyes. I don’t know whether we won the war because of that, but at least we put something there.

Number one.

We weren’t going to die. I don’t know how – but we weren’t going to die. I would have swum across Samurai Straits to get to Papua, but we weren’t going to die, bugger that for a lark. Had no intention of dyin’.

As long as you didn’t interfere with any native’s wife, he would look after you, because he heard about the number one white man. And the way he give him food and the way he looked after him. But without those natives would be completely buggered. They did a – we would go past them and ask how much – “Oh long too much master

long way too far.” That was a long way, that was 3 or 4 days work. Lic lic, that a little way, couple of hours. But they looked after us. And they looked after us because they knew we wouldn’t touch their women, when we come, and that’s where the Japs failed, they looked after their women and we didn’t. Plus the fact that McKenzie gave us instructions we weren’t to touch any native women but that

was unnecessary, because we were young blokes, we were young blokes, we had enough Christian bringing up and so forth to look at it all. Oh yeah.

McKenzie was the manager of the bank at Rabaul, he was the boss there, he was the one you used to be able to ring up on the phone, “Throw your pen away Arthur, you are overdrawn,” and all that kind of bloody business. But then he – later on the Commonwealth bank – he put in for us that all those people who were alive should get back the money that were in the Commonwealth bank and the Commonwealth Government agreed to it.

That’s how I got the money back. But he was pretty latitude on what you had in the bank, he knew because he used to look after your account. Because people up there didn’t carry money with them, they booked everything up and they got paid at the end of the month and just wrote a cheque, they never carried money around in their pockets, one thing so the natives wouldn’t ask them for any money. But he went round from

Rabaul who had accounts at his bank, and he gave us our money back. Plus the fact the little bit extra, we’d say £35, £35 was it £135, oh yes £135, I shouldn’t be saying that but that’s what happened. Little bit extra, maybe 50 or 60 bucks extra.

They were pretty good, pretty good. I have got calluses and I took it off and I became flat footed, that’s why I have got to wear that. But I never had – I was all right I was passed O.K. for the navy afterwards, and I never got

these knees until I was – until 12 years ago. I am 84 now, so I was about 72, 73 and I was only 27, 28 in the war, so time just get on. I think it was only the fact that we were pretty healthy.

Didn’t worry about it. There was a fella who was in the army, let me think of his name, I might think of his name when I am going through,

but it’s quite true. He used to play for Turnbull Cricket Club, which is right next door to the Northern Suburbs Cricket Club for which I played for. And I was playing ‘A’ grade cricket then, and so was he. He was in the army up in Rabaul, and I happened, with another crowd coming across, happened to bury him. Not me – but the crowd, he was a in the army. When we got down to Brisbane

and somebody found – it got back to him that I was alive because his wife used to know me. From playing cricket. She immediately got in touch with me and asked my mother and myself to go to lunch at her place. We went to lunch at her place, and here was a table set for him to come home. I had the knowledge that I had buried him. That’s not a story to put in the pictures and all that,

that’s true. It was the worst meal I have ever had in my life, sitting there with the knowledge that I knew he was dead and so forth. And I didn’t say anything and I purposely – she wrote to me afterwards and I purposely didn’t write back. Purposely. He was mentioned a little while ago in one of the magazines.

I only used to tell it when somebody asked me. I have never spoken like this to anybody like this in my life. I might have told my mother a little – my wife a few things, but that particular time it was all over and done with.

I look upon that as just a phase in your life. I didn’t go – I am going to save Australia, I had patriotism in me for sure, just I said I tell you with the Queen, I am 27 foot tall, I was the tallest bloke in the world, when I was given that job. But I wasn’t proud or anything it at all, but it’s amazing how your story gets round, when I

became an officer I was appointed to HMAS Glenelg, but before I got on board there, the petty officers driving the launch taking me from Cairns wharf out to the stream to get out to the there, said, “Did you get out of Rabaul sir.” I said, “Who told you?” He said, “We all heard, you had it pretty rough.” I said, “Oh no, I was pretty O.K..” But when I got on board that ship

I was sort of revered a little bit because I had been into something, but I didn’t want it, I didn’t want that. I used to be on watch and I would find somebody asleep, I said, “Hey Snodgrass, I am going to put,” – he said, “No I will do your washing sir.” He used to do my washing instead of being put in to the old man.

I never washed for all the time I was on the ship, they used to do it for me.

They might have been in some – I had a mate who was an alcoholic, he got

sunk on board a ship, he was an ordinary signalman. He was a Tasmanian, his great act was when he went down on the ship the Vampire, near Trincomalee, he was in the water and an officer’s coat went by and he grabbed the coat and put the officer’s coat on. When the British navy come along and pulled him out of the water, up come a lieutenant commander, two stripes with Ernie inside, the greatest drunk in the world. Come down the ward room he thought he was in heaven.

He said, all of a sudden somebody found out I was just an ordinary bloody signalman and they kicked me out of the ward room aboard the ship. He wasn’t going to say no to a couple of good beers and so forth. No you didn’t think of those things.

At Caloundra at the Port War Signal Station, to us a navy expression ‘the piss whiss’. It’s the Port War Signal Station. But that stands for PISWIS but that was the signal station where you had to give the code for the day and the signal of the day and you had all their information of who they were and this kind of stuff. That was a very tragic event. I wasn’t near us, I couldn’t have seen, it was down on the

NSW coast, we are talking about the Brisbane River which is quite close to Sydney coast, but I remember that day, I remember when that went on. And then I was there for a while and I was sent to the Bowen.

The Bowen was what they called a Minesweeper, we used to call it corvette, as a matter of fact each corvette

had a number, my number of 245, the Bowen was 245. I later went to the Glenelg which was 285. In our corvette meeting they realised that and they said all the Australian cricketers have got numbers, so we’ll get a list of all the numbers of the Australian cricketers and if you are 245, you write the number 245, and I write to a bloke in W.A. who is an ex Australian cricketer and so forth,

and that’s the only thing I used the navy for, when I got out. Just talking about this bloke from – he went on the ship after the war. He was tired when the ship come back to berth, he said, “I wish I could have gone on another one to recover.”

Not leading signalman, the one before leading signalman. I only had two badges, leading signalman had 3, they called it the ‘hook’. I was due for it next year. That come down

The Bowen come down from Maryborough, because Maryborough is on the river, come down to

Sydney is was what they called ‘imballast’, it wasn’t a weight on it, it rolled and rolled all the way down because it had nothing on it at all. It came down here to Garden Island and got fitted up that way, and we finally got out and we went – we used to do convoys of American ships taking the troops all up and down the eastern coast. The song ‘We are goin’ on the Bowen back to

Sydney Town. Soon we’ll be ashore and all our shares we’ll drown’. Goin on the Bowen. And then later one for some unknown reason the called me back to do an officers Course. And I went to the HMAS Glenelg, the happiest ship I have ever been on. The captain of the ship was an atheist, the loveliest man

I have ever met. He used to say to me, “I don’t know why you ever believe in all that bullshit Brierley, Beethoven was the only God. He come on earth.” He made me listen to Beethoven when we come into port on his gramophone. He taught me navigation. He taught me how to do it, not Flinders Naval Depot, he did, he was a wonderful man.

On Sunday in the navy, we always had prayers, and the captain of the ship always said the prayers, and I was his understudy being one sub-, and he used to get up there when we were at sea, and he would get the prayer book out and read it, here was this ashiest reading – he turned round and say to me, “Don’t forget to put that in the log book Brierley, that’s worth 10/6 to me.” 10/6 the money those days

worth about $1. The captain said prayers he got paid 10/6 for that. He taught me navigation. When we would do convoys as he was the senior officers, he was in charge and I did the 12 o’clock Watch I had to position up and every ship had to put their position up in the convoy and that’s all the

escorts so everything was all right and knew where they were going. He said to me “Brierley, I want the position of the ship up before any ship at all,” you couldn’t put it up after 12 o’clock. “You put it up there, and don’t get it wrong.” That’s how he taught me navigation. And I used to give the blokes the flag signals for 12o or 13o and so forth. That’s right Brierley, always be first.

Wonderful man. He believed in Beethoven. He was a funny man too. Sometimes we’d be behind there – I will tell you another one. One time we were going in convoy and it was rough, I think God sent it down because we done something wrong. It was – this thing could not get any rougher that particular time. We were in charge of the convoy , the bloody thing, and we were just about opposite Townsville

and they had the American air force there and they used to send the Catalinas out for us at night and it was all dark there, and the Catalinas would all hang there just hover round, and they signal down to find any submarines, and this particular time, he come on board up there and he “All’s right sir.” It had just become first light, and a signal come down from the plane. And I read it, and it said, and he was asking for his

position, “I have been over you all night sweetheart.” And the old man replied, send him back “I have been under you all night darling.” He was a good man.

Oh, dear oh dear.

Oh, in a flash.

Fancy me forgetting that. We used to call him father, it was Norwegian.

War ended ’45.

I went on there, November ’44. October 44 when I got my commission, and that was my first ship, I had to go to Townsville and get it, I had to fly. When I was flying up to Townsville, I got out and went to the Officers Club, for a beer, and one of the army blokes was from Rabaul and he got out of Rabaul and he was

in the Club. I found that because somebody talked to me and said you were in Rabaul, we went over and shook – I couldn’t remember him and he couldn’t remember me, but he was there. And I was a year and half on it. And one of the Aztec gentlemen, he looked after me, he taught me what to do as an officers and so forth, Pilkington, not Pilkington.

I will tell you a little story about that one, he used to tell a lovely story, when he was in ordinary civvy life he was a solicitor in Martin Place, in a building. At night time one particular time, they could see down in the one of the officers down below and there was a boss and his wife having hanky panky. So he got on the phone, and he saw this bloke going round, and the bloke picked up the phone, what name sir,

“naughty, naughty God’s is watching.” The bloke put the phone down. Looked around, what’s goin’ round here. That was his favourite story. His wife – still correspond with his wife. Fancy forgetting the old man’s name.

Yep.

The corvette is a misnomer, the word corvette came from England, and they were small destroyers, fast enough to go and lay mines. Well when they made the corvette out here, we only had a certain amount of material, so they made it smaller. And it was smaller and not as fast as the proper corvette. Actually it should be a mine chaser.

But people called them corvette and it got on to the Corvette Association, but we weren’t corvette, we were Australian corvette a little bit different from the English corvette. It was a sort of a light ship, matter of fact we were so badly off that whenever we got into a – firing or anything at all against the Japanese we couldn’t throw the copper tube that held the shell that got fired

out that come out the gun. We used to have to send that back to the Navy Board, they were do short of everything. Fancy me forgetting me old man’s name, I’ll think of him, I’ll think of him in a minute. He taught me navigation. Bob Millin he was a first [first lieutenant], he looked after me, there was Curlco. Bloke come on – we were up

Mia Swendy [?] one day were due to take some troops and do some landings on the way up to Japan. And an American PT [patrol torpedo] boat, American torpedo boat come alongside. I was on watch but there was a bloke at the gangway, and up come a bloke all immaculately dressed this American, and he talked to the bloke on the gangway,

the gangway ran down to the captain “Wants to come aboard.” “What is he.” “He’s an American” “O.K. send him down.” So this sailor sent – took him down and he only come on board to get a beer, because they didn’t have any grog, whiskey and so forth. So when the old man come up and saw him off, his little PT boat was alongside our ship all the time. And I said, “Who’s that sir.” “Oh, some bloke reckons he’s well known

in America, his name is Kennedy.” It was John Kennedy, we didn’t know then, he was just another American. Didn’t know him.

Purely as escort. And then at a particular time when the landings were done, for instance we went to land at Beeac, which was an island on the way up to Borneo there. And nobody had any

maps and the HMAS Glenelg was sent in to see how the troops could land there. And when it came down, and all the Japs were ashore and we were sayin’ our prayers, this is it and it rained, I have never seen rain like it, so we were able to go outside in our asdic, found a reef, so we put the asdic along, and it stopped and then it started again, so we were able to tell the Americans they could land there, because there was a hole

you can go through there, and there’s no hole, then there’s a hole where you can go ashore and land at Beeac. We used to do all that pre-looking at landing parties. Then I was then put in charge of the communication party to go ashore on all these landings. And I went ashore on the landing and the worst thing in the world that ever happened, was those darn rockets the American ships used to fly, all they frighten, they

frighten hell out of you. One after the other, one after the other, they used to frighten us they were worse than the Japs ashore. But we had to go and make sure where the landing was, that was mainly the ship. And, from the Glenelg and then I transferred to the Kapunda, because the Glenelg was sent somewhere else, because I was mixed up with

wireless and they needed somebody who could work one of these wireless’ to go ashore send a message back to where we were landing. Then the war ended, no sorry, then we were up in Borneo at the landing of Beeac and all around there, and we did the landing and then we were going to go down to a certain place that had a POW camp and the name was Sandakan and

they were on the eastern side of Borneo, whereas they sent us down the western side of Borneo. And we come to Sarawak, and as it turned out Sandakan was on the other side of the island so we went down to Kuching, because we knew the war was going to end but we didn’t know when. So the – we didn’t sleep on board ship, so we went ashore,

and I was in charge of a lakatoi that went ashore. With strict instructions that none of the lakatoi was to touch women, because of the disease that the Japs had given them when they were there. And I slept in the Rajah of Sarawak’s bed. The Rajah of Sarawak is the richest man in the world. And I was – he had a throne, and on the throne was a lion’s head with enough where you put your fingers through, gold,

so we slept there. Then peace came – just before that, we used to have to go down to Kuching and we didn’t know whether the Japs were and whether they were armed or not, but there were no Japs around, but there were a lot of POW camps around there, where the Japs had put the Australian prisoners in and so forth. Kuching was a part – very churchie, a lot of

Catholics down there in those days, and the nuns used to wear a little white thing put out over their forehead and so forth. When the nuns used to put food under there, and when they went in to see the POWs, they Japs allowed them to be kissed and they used to open up their thing and let a b it of meat drop out for the POWs. Them – it was a funny place that Kuching. It used to have high tides, and you tie up

alongside the wharf and you didn’t know the tide had come in and you would hear this noise, and it was the tide coming up the river, so you had to untie the ship and go out in the middle and go up, then it used to come back again, so you turn your ship around and come back again. Richest place in the world. Also a lot of oil wells that the Japs had lit

and we had to go and take some Americans up and put them out. But that was the end of the war. And oh yeah, the Dutch people there, the Japs, I have gotta tell you this.

We used to have to carry Dutch troops from A to B and so forth, “Got three Dutch troops to carry for 3 days Brierley, I don’t want a mess bill.” “O.K.” I was a sub-lieutenant I got all the dirt. So all the drinks had to put down like the first lieutenant had drinks, but when the old man he had 3 Dutch people on board, whatever he drank I had to put down I had to charge it to them. They didn’t know. “All right Brierley,”

Yes sir. Interesting point I’ll bring that up in a moment.

Aah.

Everybody was wonderful, the boys were wonderful – the Kanimbla was happy but this newcomer – and the crew was so good. I can’t tell you, “Hello sir.” “Hello Snodgrass how are you?” and all that kind of business

and it was just a happy ship.

The Kanimbla was – I will use the double superlative, more better. It was first ship, you never forget your first love do you. Never forget her.

Different thing altogether and so forth, on the ship’s like the Bowen and the Glenelg, you lived in each other’s pocket. When we – I can tell you now, when we went down to Kuching, the Dutch people there – the Dutch wives and husbands were caught, and they were at Kuching, and those Japanese blokes that were

down there used to make the Dutch wives parade in the morning in the nude on one side of the wire, and then they put the husbands down on the other side of the wire.

Sarawak, Dutch in Borneo. It’s a very strange country up there, when you come – you come to what they call the Mindanao Deeps, that is

just about straight up from Darwin, but it is in the water up there. Nobody knows the depth of the water up there. To get the depth of the water you have an echo sounder, and when it comes back it will show you how long, a 9 year old boy can work it. But when you go up there it just keeps going and it doesn’t come back, so you can’t anchor there.

the Mindanao Deeps, so you can’t anchor there. So you don’t anchor there, you just go in and come on out. Again in Kuching, those savages in Borneo, the natives, oh they were beautiful men those. When the army landed there, because the Japs were up there, and there were quite a few bodies of Japs lying

around. Well in the native language, if I wanted to marry a girl, they didn’t know whether it was 1, 2, 3, 4, they went on the size of the breasts when the breasts were up there, she was much more value than a girl with sagging breasts. So if I wanted to marry somebody’s daughter, he would say “Yes, 27 coconuts, 2 fish, 3 turtle and two

heads of another tribe” before you could marry her. Well with the Japanese there and when they captured them they cut their bloody heads off, oh you little beauty they had all these – so the Australian Army told these Dyaks not to chop the head off because we had to give them back. So we gave them back, but the Dyaks used to wait outside where the courthouse, was to catch the bloke when he came out. But we were very unhappy because the Dyaks

had the heads, because they wanted the heads. Their women, I didn’t see much of their women there, but their men oh they were beautiful men.

It was a sort of a – it was at the end of the war, it was a peacemaking thing, getting everything in order, getting the POWs back, for instance at the beginning

of the Japanese war, the three Australian – English war ships were sunk, I’ve sailed over them. In the Sundra Straits, but they wanted to take over all that, but New Guinea mucked them up because they were too far away from their supplies, that was one of the reasons the Japs lost the war, because they couldn’t keep their supplies up. When England sent the Royal Navy, they

sunk them, I sailed over the ships that were there. But the Japanese themselves had a lot of suitcases, and the suitcases were full of pills, or bottles, or something they used to have to take, they would rather do that than clean their teeth, they put this stuff in their mouth and – they used to eat fish, dried fish, we used to have to feed. Give to them on a plate “Yes sir,” they didn’t used to

throw it down, “Oh on a plate sir, sorry sir.” Used to make them lick it off the deck, “Next time on the….” “Yes sir.”

Kuching first of all was a city with no oil, the only oil they had during the war was from the coconuts, the copra, the coconut juice used to smell, plus the fact

that the Japanese didn’t worry about the natives, there were plenty of lepers there. I have been in Kuching, come from the Rajah of Sarawak’s Palace down on there to go across, and meet anything from 20-30 people with no noses, because their health was down – it was our job to try and do everything for them. Until we cold get supplies. Little do we know, that up on the

eastern side of Borneo, was Sandakan where they had the worst POW camp that has ever been in the world, we didn’t know it was there. Didn’t know it was there. We tried – the girls used to copy of the wooden aeroplanes, Australia made wooden aeroplanes where they used to go over and bomb over there, and they used to tell us all about it and we’d say what are you talking about, we found

out it was Sandakan. As a matter of fact, I haven’t got much money, but I give some money each year to the memorial for Sandakan. And if ever you out on the North Shore up where they have a hospital for soldiers, when – I am just trying to think of the bloody place, there is a special memorial

for Sandakan up there, it is wonderful. I’ll think of it in a minute. It’s a hospital.

A lot of British people there. I went ashore there when – at Kuching, had to go along and meet some ex

POWs and they were British people right down to their boot straps. I met one and I said, “Hello mate how are you.” “My good man, tell me, before we get into conversation, how did the territorials get along with the regulars during the war.” The regulars were the permanent army in Britain, and the territorials were blokes just like us. “Extremely well sir.” “Well I am glad to hear it,” and shook me by the hand and went away.

They made a picture down at Kuching, ‘Three Came Home’, with Claudette Colbert and the other fella, I forget his name, but I can remember it every now and then. It’s a story about how they were Dutch and parted, and the Japs – he went and hid in the jungle and she was in the POW camp. It was a lovely story.

Claudette Colbert was there. When these Dutch came along and had their families with them, the kids had been born, 2-3 kids born in the camp, when the Japs took over. The old man, the captain, this is the Kapunda now, his name was Ford, his father was Mayor of Melbourne, he decided to give these kids a

ride on the ship and give them some food. So we got the cook. The kids went on like this, and the food and their bellies were out like that. They had no food at all. They used to have some beautiful songs. When we sail down the river by the sea, and this jail is just another memory, you can have the Dyaks…I forget, they used to

make up songs, I was there for about a month. Then I came home.

As we sailed down the river by the sea, and this jail is just another memory, all the Dyak … I knew it, I knew it, no. Maybe you’ll

remember that later on. It’s a jingle, As we sailed down the river by the sea. I had proper birds nests down there by the way, birds nests and you go to a place now a nice little place with a flower and all this type of business, but these were the actual nests and the droppings of the bird, and that’s what you ate. Not what you eat here, but the original ones birds nests, that’s what you eat, the natives used to eat them

up there. Eat the straw with the bird’s droppings on it. You’ll think of that, when you go to a Chinese place and order Birds Nest Soup. They won’t give you – but they’ll give you…

Mostly Dutch were there and mostly Dutch are fat and chubby,

but no, they were thin and emaciated I think the word is, the kids especially, they had bones sticking out, and there were a lot of other people there. You don’t touch the women, that’s the first thing, you don’t touch the natives there and you don’t touch the POW women there, that was from the Australian Army, under threat of

everything. All the places we went to, you don’t touch the women. It was a written law – unwritten – the 10 commandments as it was, well this was the 11th one.

I don’t know I can only speak for my part. Australians are funny blokes, they

love anything like that, being told not to do when it’s just natural to do, don’t touch. Not bad blokes Australians.

Go ashore, the women – same in Hong Kong, the women are all over you. All over you. But not in the POW camps, it was taboo.

I went across to the Natuna Islands and some Japs weren’t POWs they had, just given in. That particular time, we didn’t want to take them, but they had given in. There was 5 of them we brought back on a

little launch. And when I got there, I only had one stripe, and my rank was sub , it’s the lowest officers rank, underneath it is not an officers, it’s a midshipman, he’s not an officer yet. Then you go , commander and so forth. And I had an American with me who was an interpreter for Japanese. When we got there and these Japs were

lined up, the interpreter said something, and this Jap with a lot of gold on shoulders, he was equal to a lieutenant commander, about 3 more above me, 2 more above me. And the American come back and said to me “He wants to know what rank you are.” And I said, “Tell him I am a 1 stripe vice admiral.” He bowed to me.

They had big disgrace. Nearly all of those officers – and, this is going down on tape, they had women, rubber women, the blow up, constantly, nearly all officers that was captured they had rubber women. Even when you go to New Guinea and Madang and so forth, they left behind their women behind, but they were rubber women. They were given to them

in their rank, in their gear so they could have a woman with them all the time. Blow them up and breasts come out and uterus and, oh yes. They were in Madang, we found them in Madang, it was a long while ago, but we found them on the shore all these dolls.

Oh yes.

To their officers yes. They had them down in Kuching, that’s for their company. But they used to carry portamentos [?], and as I said lots of stuff for their teeth and mouth, they used to look after their teeth a lot and their mouth. When this bloke come up to me and kowtowed to me and so forth, the interpreter said, “Now make sure you are the boss,

let him know you are the boss.” “O.K..” So we had to give them some tucker and some dried fish. And this American said, “Don’t give it to them, throw it on the deck and let them pick it up.” “Able Seaman Snodgrass, throw them on the deck for ’em.” “Huh.” “Throw them on the bloody deck, didn’t you hear me.” And they ate out of that. I didn’t want to do it. But the Jap interpreter said you do that, to show that you have got

strength, don’t kowtow to them. And that’s about the only bad thing I have done I suppose. But, he instructed me that was the only way to go.

I don’t know, I am looking for another word for hate, I don’t hate anybody, I don’t hate the devil. Dislike, but they

were – the German as far as I was concerned – the Dutch was an arrogant person. Very arrogant. The German is not as arrogant as a Dutchman, I would say a German is more popular as what a Dutchman is. It’s funny, as regards the Japanese, I don’t think I ever formed an opinion about it.

Their women never occurred to me. The men, I never, they didn’t strike us at all, I didn’t have no feeling about the Japanese, did a little bit of hate. But I knew what they did. I can recall when they got the Japanese who weren’t

prisoners, in charge of the British people down in Borneo, and line up all the Japs, all the Japs had to line up and put all their gear like that. And the only thing was the Australians used to do, or the British Army that was down there, was to make them about turn and then kick their gear over and make them pick it up again.

That was about the only thing I saw them do wrong to the Japanese POWs. We were instructed from Navy Board that we weren’t to be strict with them, but we were to let them know that the war had ended, not that we were boss. Wasn’t so hard to do, but it was a bit hard. Especially when they came through

I shouldn’t do that.

I never worked with Americans, personally, as regards all our navy,

I didn’t have much at all to do with them, on the Glenelg or the Bowen or the Kapunda. The scene I can always remember was when we did a landing at – I where it was but it’s not important.

During the Borneo campaign. I was on shore and they played a picture called, what was the most favour picture made during the war, Humphrey Bogart was in it, what was the name? Casablanca, and I saw that Casablanca before I did that landing, and,

“You must remember this, a kiss is…” and we were all singing that as we went ashore, to land on the bloody island, it such a wonderful picture, and ask me how many times, I can’t remember I am going to guess, 35 could be 47. Every time that picture comes on I go and see it. Just the same as the first picture Frank Sinatra was in, he was a naughty boy.

We had to land at 05:00 on Tuesday morning, so we were ready on Monday afternoon, to go ashore, and the ship we were on, it was an American ship by the way, had this film, so before we went ashore, at about 8 o’clock at night, they put this film on. And we were

transfixed. Then I was on another American ship later on, where put that picture on but they had no sound. They saw the picture. I must have seen that Casablanca – you put it on and I’ll go and see it again.

Not bad.

Not bad. Not bad blokes, they were all right. I wouldn’t trust them. I wouldn’t – I knew quite a few girls that married Americans, but they married Americans because they were only kids. Before they take a girl out in Brisbane they had to go and get their hair done. All this kind of business, but they had money.

Well, they had the battle of Brisbane against Americans – the Australian canteen couldn’t get any beer and the Yanks could, so the Australians raided the – in Adelaide Street it was and the Yanks lost out because the Australians hung a few over the Victoria Bridge by their boot laces. The battle of Brisbane.

I was only there when the Americans came at the end, when I got back home. I got back home about a month after war was finished. I remember the Atom [Atom Bomb] being dropped. We were up ready to go ashore, just before I tell you that, going up

when I was with the Glenelg, the Americans used to go ashore and somewhere there – oh, one particular island the Americans went ashore and took it, and the Australians followed. The Australians were just taking over getting more men, they brought some nurses with them. So when they went ashore they had some nurses with them. And they had them in the camp.

The Australian soldier lined up their and a certain message was given to the American command, any of you, he used a naughty name used for American, comes anywhere near this hospital, we will kill them. That’s how they were, and there weren’t many landings with the Australian nurses, oh the Australian nurses – nobody touched them.

Cock suckers.

Yep. That was – you are talking about that one, everybody knew who you were talking about.

I was doing a – I was on the Bowen, we were doing a landing and we had some American launches with us and so forth. They were in – and they cut across our bough, and the old man got up and “go back to your effing farm.”

Yes. But it didn’t show.

When I was on the Glenelg, the arrangements were made through father that we would give the American ship beer, and they gave us a gun. They took a gun off their ship and gave it to us, we gave them a case of beer. Just when the war was ending too, I was given the job of victualling the ship, I went ashore and we had to get some

cigarettes, “How many packets of cigarettes you want, 40, what about Camel, 40.” “I don’t want” “You got 40.” So then it was all over and the little row boat was sinking lower and lower and lower, he said, “Who’s goin’ to pay for this,” I said, “Sign it,” so I signed it. Lend lease is on now you can have them. I went back on board ship and I was the most best looking’ bloke in the world.

With cigarettes and grog. When they used to leave the islands, they just used to leave everything there, sheets, blankets and pillows and go to another one and get another one.

Mainly, was to find out what was the front line there, because if we were attacked the Americans would know what sort it was. And secondly to find out whether the ships could come ashore, find out what depth there was down there. The Japanese never fought against a

landing on the islands. That was MacArthur wanting to go over there. But they never fought against a landing, because I don’t think they wanted a fight. They knew we were superior, we had about a half dozen American ships, and a few officers, bombing like buggery and so forth, and they just gave in. But we had to go and – another thing with the Americans, one of our jobs was, to find a safe place where MacArthur could go ashore without getting his trousers wet.

And we had to find out the depth and tell the American navy, so when they put all their cameras ashore, that’s where MacArthur could jump out because that’s where the water only come up to their on his trousers. This is about a week after the landing was there – but that’s good it got over here quite all right.

When a boat went ashore with a lead line. Like Mark Twain, how Mark Twain got his name, you know the American author. He used to get the depth of the ship as he went up the rivers in America, and Twain was two, two feet. And they used to call it, “by the Mark Twain,” two, “by the Mark Twain.” And he used to write a book, his name wasn’t Mark Twain, he called himself Mark Twain. That’s true.

I tell you what there were quite a few prayers said. Because we didn’t know we were going into blankness. If there was fire return we never went ashore. If there was no fire return after bombarding we went ashore. Ah yes.

No. Every landing we did was O.K. Don’t think we struck any resistance. We had the poops, if I can use the word. Goin’ ashore. No I can’t say anything. No, No.

That

an enemy might be there. Again I tell this, I am glad I am here with people that are a little bit wide about life, we had a signal, the batteries that ran the wireless and we had the radio here, so we had to join the both, so we had to wade ashore, so the stuff that was on the prongs, that we used to put

in the other end, we used to cover with a French letter. So we were issued with condoms when we went ashore, but not many people would believe that, you give them a condom in the middle of a war. That was the reason why, and they used to be counted to by the way.

You give what happened back to the ship and the Americans would up their range, if their range was 400 and nothing here at all, then they used to send the troops ashore. We always seemed to land – see MacArthur hopped, he couldn’t – all he wanted to do was

get back up to America, so he hopped. They just left people there, then they send them home. More Americans, then they sent them home. But the Australians had to come – but we were with them all the time, I must have done about what, 8-10 landings.

No, Australia asked can we be with the Americans during the landings. For a little bit, what’s the word, for a little bit of, no I don’t know what the word is. The officers that be didn’t want the news getting back to Australia that the Americans did it. But with Americans and Australians there, again I use an expression, ‘it was more better’.

A bastard. Wasn’t a popular boy at all. Because life was nothing to him. Even though we weren’t affected by it. But to MacArthur all he wanted – ‘I shall return job’. All he wanted to get back there, but, and here’s the but, it should never have happened in the first place,

and that’s what people forget, you have a look at the pictures that go on now, look at Pearl Harbour, I gotta tell another naughty story here, but its, – can I tell it now,

It’s one naughty word,

In Brisbane after the war was declared when Pearl Harbour got bombed and the rest of it, American ship of

sailors and tied up at the wharf, and when the blokes – and it was a merchant ship tied up at the wharf, and this is well and truly after Pearl Harbour. One of the blokes leaned over the ship and said to the bloke, “Where can I get a naughty?” and the bloke said, “Pearl Harbour.”

Life to him was nothing, he was out here in Brisbane for a while MacArthur, he used to have his offices near the big hotel in Brisbane, he had his wife out here, but when it all come out, it should never have happened that the Japanese get into Pearl Harbour

and MacArthur, he wasn’t worried about it, he trod on a lot of people’s toes, but what MacArthur wanted to do, after the war, this is getting a little bit away from your question, Truman sacked him because MacArthur wanted to go to Korea, he knew that the Koreans were the ones; have a look at the Koreans now. They’re the ones that are going to start the next excitement, this is a bit of history. So, MacArthur

knew what he was doing but life to him was nothing. Even when he worked in Brisbane, I met Roy Kendall, he was the fellow I talked about in Rabaul, and he was a commander in the navy then, and MacArthur was entirely haughty. He didn’t seem to show much love to his children, when he walked in he was God.

Maybe this is a good thing, but even to the troops, they looked upon him as a name not as a man. And as you have a look at it, it should never have happened what America had at the beginning of the war. It should never have happened, they knew about the Japanese fleet coming down, they knew about it but oh it’s phooey, this ‘I will return business’, that and so forth, that was just a phrase caught on by the newspapers.

But basically, at least it’s happened, thank heavens it didn’t happen now, it wouldn’t last 5 minutes into the war. Gone, history.

There were so many little islands up round there, I

know we got an issue from the Australian Army that was the best one that ever put out in the war. We got a kerosene tin full of food, and that kerosene contained 6 rations, no sorry, enough – let me get it – enough rations for one man to last 6 days, or enough rations to feed 6 men. And the Americans even liked, there was chocolates inside it, there was

biscuits inside, there was pork, there was tongue and butter and bread and so forth, so it was last one man 6 days.

I was with the landings quite a bit and when the troops went ashore I went back on board ship. We were only put there as a little pat on the head that Australia was going something.

It was an American landing. Out here I don’t know, but you never got reports – there were some Australians there. We were only there – ‘O.K. we better put these poor bloody Aussies in there somewhere’. But we went ashore when we had the knowledge that there was nobody ashore. We could take them, MacArthur was leapfrogging. And whoever was there, they gave up. At the time of doing it, it was

dangerous, but it wasn’t dangerous. The only part as I said a little while ago when I was on the Glenelg and we went and found out how the landing parties would get to an island because there was a reef there outside but there was no hole there so went through there and that was about the only bloody dangerous thing that went on. But all the same it was in the back of your mind that you didn’t know what was there. Same as up in Borneo, the Japs gave in up there, they gave up there. They’d had it. The Yanks had it.

Towards the end of the war, a long while ago, back in 1900 sometime, where Virgin Mary appeared at 3 children, in Portugal and she predicted 3 things, this is Fatima, have you heard of Fatima?

One, that a Pope will be assassinated, no, – I forget the first one. The second one was, there will be a Second World War, and the war will end on one of my feast days. And the third one was, something else which I forget, now that

Feast Day August 15th, is the Feast Day of Mary, the Feast Day of Mary was made long before she said it. So on August 15th, and having in mind August 15th was on the left of the inter date line, so in America, when the war ended it was actually 14th, sorry, the last thing she

gave, the war would end, when all Catholic churches in Australia were dedicated to her sacred heart. And that’s the sculpture of Mary going round, and the war ended on August 15th, I can’t do any more than that. Amazing. Then on August 15th, August 15th was a little bit before the rest of it – when it come up

the other side, so when the Americans woke up there was peace, peace. It was finished, all gone.

I was in just off Borneo, when we were preparing for landings. I am going to say I can’t recall.

We all heard about this little ball being dropped from the plane on Hiroshima, but we didn’t know, we heard all about it, we heard all the stories about it, it exploded, it’s in Japan, where was I. It was on touch territory somewhere, I know we were all prepared to go ashore

We were landing on this place, but I can’t recall, it was somewhere up there near Borneo but I can’t remember the name.

As a matter of fact I was with the commandos then, I was with the army, we were going to go ashore at some island, that’s why I can’t remember where it was,

and we didn’t have to go, you beauty, that’s when I got transferred to the ship Kapunda. To go to Kuching, because the other ship had to come home. They wanted somebody else down there, so I got swung over from there to the Kapunda.

Bumping into a fellow with his nose off. He had, what’s this disease?

Leprosy, which was rife down there. I remember that, that stuck in my mind. The other thing was when we went across to Tuna Island and fed the

Japanese and made them grovel in the dirt to get some food. We had no pictures at night, or it might be the other one that I slept in the Rajah of Sarawak’s gold bed. And the other one was when the British came and they went home “We sailed down the river by the sea jail was just another memory.” No it was quite quiet. For the war effort I needn’t have been there.

I was just another number that was doing something. But I always remember it, especially with the Dutch prisoners and so forth. At that particular time Australia was building aeroplanes made of timber. That’s how bad we got. And they used to fly over Kuching and they didn’t drop any bombs because the Japanese

had surrendered. But the people of Kuching showed me photographs taken of this wooden Beaufort used to fly over Kuching. We just didn’t know, we didn’t care. What’s to good of worrying. When we come home, I ended up by coming home in a Fairmont. Fairmont is a little – I don’t know whether you know the Fairmont

ship and so forth, and the ordinary thing had broken down and I was with the Kapunda and I was a junior officers, on that – the Kapunda toed down from wherever it was just outside Kuching, to Australia, bumping up and down behind a toe on a ship. That was at the end of the war, I never thought much about it really, but I know at Kuching and so forth, I went

I am glad I went to Kuching, but it was entirely unnecessary, there was a lot of people up there and they said what are we going to do with all these ships. And they decided to give us something to do, so we went to Kuching, we went there with a purpose but it wasn’t, the war was finished, we were just like a peace keeping peace I guess, the bomb had been dropped, then the paper was signed on the deck of the Missouri and that was it, just go

home. I remember being worried about a valve on one of the radios I took ashore, I had lost the valve, and I didn’t tell anybody about it, and I had that there, and an American came in there to give the stuff back, this was just after the war finished and so forth – no, no it wasn’t finished, just after that’s right. He said, “No don’t worry about that, it’s finished, that’s O.K. don’t worry about it.”

I was worrying about being charged for a valve and a radio. And then when we got back to Cairns, went ashore at Cairns, got a little bit drunk, but not too drunk and got back on board. I did a good turn for a fellow, one of the blokes Signalman McKenzie or some name like that.

He won about £1,000 at two-up, so he had this money and he gave it to me to look after it. I said, “No, no, no, come with me.” We put it in the safe on board ship. I said, “You are not getting any of that money until you are discharged from the ship.” So we called in at

a place on the way down, I think it was Yepoon or something like that. He asked me for the money and I said, “No, no, no.” I wouldn’t give it to him. I was a bastard, I wouldn’t give it to him. He left the ship at Sydney when I left the ship, and he was quite happy that I was able to give him the money. But that particular time the ship called in to Brisbane, did I tell you, when Dad come on board. “Well son

you played for Australia.”

Yeah, only about a year I stopped in, that’s the reason why I got that extra medal, because I stopped in after peace was declared. I was in Brisbane then with the Customs Department, and they used to have a trip every now and

again, they used to go across to the islands, they had a training ship, nothing much there. Lord Howe Island we used to go across to, but it got so far ahead with things that I couldn’t think about, like depth charges not being dumped off the side of the ship, but thrown over the top of the ship. And different, well your

computer was coming in, we didn’t know it then, but all the electrical – and we were being left for dead even though we signed up to help the navy out. And they were glad to get rid of us, or as the say is ‘put you on the beach’. See were useless because our brain couldn’t understand all these new things. We were a bit useless, they just wanted bodies. They were quite happy when we got out. Only about a little

while.

Finally got to go home. No worry about it at all. Clothes was the most important thing, didn’t have any clothes because we didn’t have the cloth. We didn’t have any cloth coming in, nothing was being done about growing cloth or anything like that. And we were pretty bad, remember you can go back to the time

when Menzies was in, if you wanted to buy anything from overseas, you had to go to the Customs Department and apply for it. And that’s when ACI started up Australian Consolidated Industries, and that’s when they started to make knives and hammers and machetes and axes, but they were making it out of inferior material, you could get an axe and go like that, and the bloody axe would break. If you wanted a good axe from America, you had to go down the

Customs Department and get a thing across to us. That was the hardest part. Clothes, you had to wait months for clothes. You had plenty of money they used to say go to the races, but you couldn’t get in because there were so many people there but had money but nothing. Food was O.K.

You won’t get me talking about experiences here to anybody. I never,

you are the only people I have spoken to like this. I only rang you up because I have got a little bit of a story about Rabaul, not me, but how a crowd did it and so forth. They down here they don’t know anything about it all. That was even though it was on land. But, Arthur, he won’t answer letters, he won’t answer anything.

I can break away from there, there’s another one – this is in a bit of humour, again I will think of his name. He wrote a book. I have got it in there, and it’s all about a fellow who went through Europe

as a spy for the Australian government, and it’s quite thick, and he has got 3 sons with the Sydney Morning Herald. And so he gave the book to all his sons and he asked them to read it before it got published. This happened when he launched it over at Kirribilli. They all returned it to him and said, “Dad, it’s nice, but there’s no sex in it. You’ve got to put sex in a book to sell it these days.” You don’t do anything at all

about just – we couldn’t care less. So he took the book back and re-wrote and put one fella in whose only contact in Germany was the madam of a brothel. And right through the book he would go right back 6 or 7 incidences like that. Well when he was launching the book, and his wife was there, and he said, “By the way,” and he was telling this story about how he had to put sex in it. But he said the trouble is when she read the book, she didn’t know what her sons had said, she said to me

“How did you know anything about sex, you told me you were faithful to me during the war. How did you know.” You can’t beat women can you. He had a lady of ill fame inside the brothel who used to give him all the messages, but how do you describe inside a brothel, how do you know.

Fair point.

Not a hero, just somebody who’d seen action.

The Rabaul experience. I know Mum was most distraught.

My father was rather proud. My sister had married her boyfriend, sweetheart, I don’t know. I think Dad knew, but Mum didn’t because she was very proud, I had a brother who died prior to the war, and when the war come on the Australian gave everybody, every mother a clasp with stars,

depending on how many people you had fighting, and she only had one, where she should have got two. That was the main thing, but she wanted two on it. And she went through the First World War, but it wasn’t anything like the Second World War. I don’t talk about, it is just something. I don’t know why I ever got out of it. We all got out of it.

I wasn’t like that poor bloke Sheen, only 19 years of age and he only – the first ship he ever been on he got sunk and killed. There was a lady who lived next door to me when I was growing and when the war started in ’39, I was 20 then, and Nellie, used to look upon me

as a bloody nuisance because me ball was always going over the fence when I played cricket with me brother and so forth. “And I am sick and tired of getting that ball for you. That you Arthur Brierley, you’re no good you bowl too hard to him. Blah Blah.” And when I used to go and ask Mr McNally if he wanted manure for his roses, “What do you want now?” When I got to war and got home, “Hello Arthur, how are you.”

In an officers uniform. Hello Arthur. Didn’t worry.

Number one on a selfish point I am glad I was in it. Number two I met different forms of life, human life, I met Chinese, I met Americans, I met Dutch, I met Japanese, I met Germans, I met Russians, there’s a girl here, a nice girl I spoke to her first,

Gala. When I came here first and so forth, and she said, do you come from Hong Kong. How do you know. That’s how I knew she was an upper class Russian. She said that’s just between you and I. That’s all right. But outside that I don’t talk about her. Even in an RSL [Returned and Services League] Club nobody talks about it.

I think it made me wiser, but I think, can I use a wrong word, cleverer, is there such a word as cleverer, I should say more clever. But let’s use the word cleverer. I know a bit about life. How different persons.

I went away from the Catholic church for a little while, worst thing I ever did. But I came back. After the war I went away, I came back, 5 years away I wish I hadn’t done it, but I came back. I was told to do something I was told not to do. All what Mum and Dad had bringing me up I had thrown away in a little while. That’s how it affected me. But, that doesn’t make me

gooder, is there such a word as gooder? That’s how it is, let’s make it up, I don’t look upon somebody who hasn’t been to the war as nothing. But when you get amongst the RSL Clubs and so forth, we don’t talk about experiences. We used to say “Hello here comes the waves, here comes the waves.” Sit down there. But you struck a different type of

person. You struck a person who was wiser with the dealings with human beings. That’s why that fellow who wrote the book “For hell and high water” I was telling you about, he was a judge in divorce, he very seldom agreed to a divorce, because he could see something there, and he was in the war and he was with people. Just because I have got the

poops with you, I won’t divorce because I found another sheila down the road and so forth. He never used to take that into account even though I was found en flagrant delicto in this other person’s bed and so forth. He used to try and bring them back together. And he went a little bit funny, in his holidays he used to go to India and go up amongst all the

monks up there and sit there and do nothing, and come back. He was married, but he went a little bit funny on the top side. Just at that particular time we had Justice Dovey, that was Margaret Whitlam’s father. He was never there he was always at the races. I was in the navy with Justice Dovey’s son, he is the brother of Margaret Whitlam, but he died, I used to do training with him, but he

died.

Yes, oh yes. I get a full pension because I did something to save my life, I didn’t do something to save the navy or Australia’s life because I got injured. But I didn’t do it, I did it for me. I know

I shouldn’t say that. But I didn’t do anything brave or anything like shooting 27 Japs or anything at all like that or Roden Cutler or John Evanson VC from Liverpool. Liverpool, first boy in the Club to get a VC. The Club was named after him, John Evans VC. His mother, I might cry here, his mother once said to me, he went away to the war, he had never

held a woman in his arms, he had never cradled a baby. So you get people like that you know. And it’s a big Club out at Liverpool now, I am still a member of it. When I go to Bondi Junction I am Associate Member, but Liverpool’s my Club. I was on the board over there of the John Evanson VC Memorial Club, not the RSL

Club, and proud of it.

Well, number one that I volunteered to help Australia. I didn’t do anything brave. I didn’t do anything brave.

I don’t know that I could do anything brave. No I was just – I am very patriotic, as I told you a little while ago, when I looked after the Queen, I was 47 foot tall and still growing for the next 6 months. The Queen was closer than you are to me. How I happened to be like

that, when I was down at Randwick on Anzac Day we were allowed to wear medals. It was the committee said so, and I worked on the committee door, and the Queen come up here to open up the new stand at Randwick, that’s only been up since 1903 or 4 or something like that. I will give you the situation at Randwick, if you came in to – if you were going into the

committee room, you came into a big room, where you sat down at tables and the girl had the book there and all this kind of stuff and the lift going up, and you only allowed to go up, if you were invited, unless you were a committee person and you had to go and show your pass and the girl would say well you are sitting with mister so and so and mister so and so. Then you were met by another girl who would take you round and so on. It was really lovely done. So, when the Queen come out here, the

lift that was going out there, played out. And when the people come round to fix it up, this was around about 7 o’clock in the morning and she was due to arrive at 11, and they decided that nobody would go up that lift except the Queen, her lady in waiting, Phil and his aid de camp, Arthur you are in charge. You little beauty I said to meself, this’ll do me. So I was placed in charge of the lift. And nobody had to go up

there. Frank Sartor, I remember Frank Sartor, “I am sorry sir you’ll have to walk up.” “Do you know who I am?” I said, “Yes you’re the Lord Mayor of Brisbane, but you still have to walk up the side.” “Why?” “Well I said there’s instructions, when you get to the top you can tell them.” “Don’t you be cheeky. What’s your name?” I said, “My name is Brierley. Here we are, I have a badge. I am not being cheeky, sir. The lift is broken down.” “When are they going to fix it?” “I don’t know, but I don’t think they will fix it in time for the Queen.” “That means to say…” “Yes, you’ll have to walk up there, everybody’s up

there.” That was the only bloke that ever played up. So when the Queen came, she came down the straight, and into the weighing room, that’s what I used to be in charge of the weighing room, on just ordinary days, I met some lovely people there. And so she had to go to the committee room. And, incidentally, about 6 months prior to her coming out here, they sent a message to Buckingham Palace, to the Queen, what meat would she like when she

comes out here. And she said, “Veal.” And the cook said, “Veal, I wouldn’t give that to a bloody dog. And we gotta cook veal. How do you cook veal?” He said. So she got veal. So when the Queen come in, she came in from the room there, up to here and then turned left and there’s the lift there. And I stood there, and the first thing she looked, not at me, the medals. She had her lady in waiting,

Phil he couldn’t care less, he was just filling his time and his aide de camp. And I – even when she come here when she was a blushing bride, remember what a beautiful day that was? I was up with the Government air – and I said, “God’s made that day.” Wonderful. Here I am, she’s passing me all the time, as she come up to sash the horses,

that’s the thing, and I am 27 foot tall and still growing.

No, I think I gave my best to the navy.

I don’t think what I could I could improve. I did my best. Sometimes I failed, but I am happy with what I done. I am not happy to just say I joined the navy, I am happy to know that I did what I was supposed to do. I didn’t kill any people or anything at all or shoot down flames or anything at all and yet I am jealous I wish I could have done a thing like that,

be in a cockpit or anything like that. Wing commander La Rue, we who are about to die salute you. I wish I had have said it, that sort of thing. But I can’t talk about it at all. Some of the people here – I went to lunch today, and somebody wanted to know all about it. I said, “Oh, I got a couple of people who want to see me, going to talk about old days,” but that was all. But I don’t tell them. I gave a note the secretary, up there that Russian woman Gala and said what was happening, and said, “I don’t want

to be, I don’t want it known.” She said, “That will be all right.” No I don’t know – I could have done better in lots of things. I could’ve done better, I hope I couldn’t have done worse. I got 4 children now and 13 grandchildren and 2 great grandchildren, so I wasn’t doing too bad and I was only coasting.

Just imagine if I was fair dinkum.

During the war? My greatest moment is the Queen.

No. I didn’t have any of that. Except that I am a mad Australian. Nobody ever told me that there’s a better country in the world than this one. I am afraid I get a little bit short tempered with foreigners.

That’s a fault I have which I keep inside me. Politics I have my own politics. Nobody knows how I vote, but I vote. I don’t give a ‘continental’ [expression, a ‘continental dollar’, being worthless] who you vote for, but you vote. Scream out. I have my own politics.

I am glad I was born. I am glad Mum met Dad. I am glad I was born in the same time. Whilst I did nothing to get the war, I helped, in a small way, and that’s not being – I am looking for a word, that’s not being, something or rather.

Again, for the sake of repetition, I was helping Australia. Even when I went to school, when I first went to State School in Brisbane, we were taught about it by our teachers, the guy in my class at school, we used to go out on Anzac Day. He wasn’t in the First World War but he taught about us. He taught us about poems, Australian poems, the anthem we sung, I knew that when I was 9 years

old, because he taught us Australian, Mr Ambrose. I was just lucky. Had a good mother and father, had a sister that was a beauty, she had the rhythm for children.

No, except cryin’ a bit. No I got that up there was brought in by Mr Keating, anybody who served in the war and I am very proud of that.

Those palm leaves up there they are from Palm Sunday, I have two up there every year I change them every year when Palm Sunday comes around. I have a certificate up there where I passed the AJC for manners of how to behave to people. I am very proud of that one. That’s why I got the job for the Queen. I was taught, I didn’t – I was taught by somebody who looked after me. That’s about it.

Well thank you very much for sharing your story today … I don’t know how to say thank you because I have enjoyed it, I didn’t skite I don’t think, but to think that somebody had an interest in an Australian to ask him for that story, and I happened to be him. You have plenty more outside me, you watch they’re all the same.

All I am happy that Dad met Mum.

Yeah, yeah yes. I am not glad there was a war, but I am glad to do something about it. My little piece. If I

hadn’t been in it we would still have won. I was 12th man.

I don’t know how to say thank you. Even words, I mean.