Australians at War Film Archive

Well, starting from when I went to school?

I was born in West Point Park here in Adelaide 1932, 14th of May.

I was there for about five years and we moved down to Henley Beach. I was five years and started school down there. That was probably 1937, just before the war started, and I went through school down there through the war years, which was quite an experience I can still remember a lot about that because the kids were involved in the war,

mainly making camouflage nets and the dads used to go down and dig trenches. Used to carry little bags over our shoulder with all first aid equipment and we had a siren on the chimney of the school and that used to go off twice a day and we used to all rush off to the trenches. I can still remember this, this was the time when the Japs [Japanese] were getting to Sydney Harbour and Darwin was being bombed and we were getting worried. And went right through

school there until I started working with the chemist shop delivering medicine, because I left school when I was fifteen, first year of high because things were tight during those years, and I started delivering medicine for thirty bob [shillings] a week for two years. Then I went to Bickfords Manufacturing Chemists in Adelaide and worked two years there. By the time I was seventeen and a half I wanted to join the navy, Dad said, “No,

you can’t join because it is twelve years and it is too long.” And it was just my luck they changed it to six and Dad said, “Yeah, you can join.” And I joined March the 6th, 1950, and probably the best thing I ever done. Because my life since then has all revolved around my navy service. I got active service, I got a chance to get a war service home [home loan program], when I came out of the navy I was given a reconstructing scheme course and I leant painting,

decorating and sign writing. And I worked for the government for thirty-three years. And while I worked for the government I was down in Lucindale in South Australia, I met my wife and got married, had a couple of good kids and they have had a couple of good kids and it has all revolved around my navy service. If I didn’t have the navy service I wouldn’t have got my job, I wouldn’t have been down there and I wouldn’t have married my wife, I wouldn’t have got a war service home. It all revolves around that.

So I have got no regrets and no hang-ups so to speak, even thought I could have if I probably worked on it I am not going to work on it.

Perhaps because I was young, I was only nineteen when I was in Korea and everything was a big adventure, nothing ever worries nineteen year olds.

And now I am seventy I think back and after talking to a few blokes on that ship which I will go into later on, we are lucky to be here so I have got no grizzles. When I talk to my wife about it she says, “You’re lucky to be here.” Because in our family, there are four in our family, older brother two sisters and me and

I was nine years between me and my sister and myself and in those nine years Mum had five miscarriages before I came along. So Kaye said, “You’re lucky to be here period.” So I am thankful for that.

Meant to be here for some reason or other you know? I am pleased with that.

Well we had all been, Dad was a cabinet maker, he used to make things like that and that and he worked for Islington Railways for twenty odd years during the war. My brother was a French polisher. We were all in the trade sort of businesses you know? My two sisters they all had jobs in Myers [department store] back in the old days and all lived at Henley Beach for

twenty odd years and all grew up on the beach so to speak, that was our playground. Mighty times as kids.

I can remember playing down the beach, I can remember Henley Beach, and I can remember the viaduct, I remember the old tram going

under the viaduct. I remember how it used to get flooded. And we used to go out there and look for licky roots. I don’t know whether you know licky roots? It is a root that grows underground and it tastes like licorice and kids used to go after it. Used to cut it up into little sections and put it in our pens at school so we could chew on it. And we used to sell it at the canteen for about a half penny a bunch. Things like that, muck around.

There was nothing between Tapleys Hill Road and Henley Beach in those days, just bare cow paddocks. Used to go bird nesting, things kids don’t do these days. My brother had a big showcase full of birds eggs, all kinds of eggs you know and I was just starting to walk and I walked into them and my hands went into them and I crushed a couple, still got a hiding. Still remember that.

Yeah, I was the last one to come along.

Yeah, I have lost them all now. Because, Shirley just died recently a couple of years ago, she was the last one. I am the last, so to speak. Mum and Dad, they have been gone probably for about twenty-five years now.

Both from Myelin, Underdale area, all local, brought up there you know? We originated from Moseley Square, Moseley Street. I will be the fourth generation from Henry Moseley he came over here about 1845, he was a mason by trade. He built the Pier Hotel and they named Moseley Square after him.

So I am the fourth generation, my grandsons would be the sixth generation. Big family, I think Henry had about eight kids scattered all over the place. Fair few of us around.

No, English.

No, I don’t know whether we were ever told or not.

Loved fishing, we had a shack at Swan Port where the bridge is over the Murray, and we used to go up there every weekend and fish, doing that for thirty odd years. And

not long after, before they built the bridge they wanted a depot to put all of their equipment, this is the government so they come down where the shacks were and told them they had to get out they were going to bulldoze them all down. Dad got pretty broke up about that losing his shack. A lot of them did, and also all of the houseboats and that had to move out. And the worst part about it, when they kicked us all out and we had to

sell the shack and they were bulldozed and everything they didn’t want the land, they said, “It is no good being here because this is below the flood level of 1956. If we build here we are going to get flooded out.” The never thought of this before they could have stopped all of that. And they moved up higher ground so it was all a waste of time. And that hurt Dad a lot and it wasn’t long after that he started to get crook. Fretted a bit, lost his lifestyle.

It was, he lived for his fishing. My brother did, he was at Renmark and he used to do his fishing up there. And I used to go with Dad up to Swan Port.

Yeah. We had a couple of little boats up there and there was about four or five little shacks you know. Four or five room shack you know, under the willows, beautiful little spot.

Yeah, we used to go up the jetty, back in those days you would get salmon

and barracuda and mullet and tommies. Not now, they were good fishing days.

Yes.

Well yes we were lucky to have put it this way Dad had a job through the Depression, a government job and that’s a big different to have work you know?

And that’s how we got through. Things during the war were rationed and but we got on all right.

Yeah, stay-at-home-mum because we lived right opposite the swimming pool at Henley Beach and she was the secretary over there. Just had to go across the road you know?

She worked there for years checking passes and giving kids stamps on their arms when they get in and out. I used to get in there with my mates, Mum used to let them in for nix [nothing].

Yeah, that’s why I wanted to join the navy, because I had the feeling that I was tied to Mum’s apron strings a bit. And I said, “Well I am getting out of here.”

And Dad said, “You can join the navy but you won’t be in there for long.” You know. I had six years and I enjoyed it.

Bit spoiled and I realised that and I think I was because Mum had five miscarriages before I came along so I could see why you know. Just as well she never gave up.

I always got what I wanted.

We didn’t have much money but Mum always made sure that I had something. Dad didn’t like Mum giving too much money away to kids but she always slipped me a couple of bob to go to the pictures or, Dad used to say, “Can’t afford for the kids to go to the pictures all of the time and what have you!” and Mum would say, “Here is two bob, it is Saturday afternoon go down and see the flick [film].” You know, Flash Gordon or Buck Rogers

whatever was on. In those days you get cartoons and then two main features, that’s was the Henley Town Hall which is still there it is a war memorial now.

Two bob I think it was. I think you used to get in for a shilling and by the time I had bought a bottle of lemonade and a bag of lollies or a packet of Jaffas or something, it was a two bob outing.

I think it was in those days.

Two bob was two bob. When I started working I was only getting thirty bob a week, one pound ten. Give Mum a pound for my board and I would keep ten bob.

Yeah, well it wasn’t the four kids all going at the same time because there was a big gap between us. By the time I went to the pictures, Shirley, nine years older and then Rhodette [?] and Colin, so they had other things to do.

They grew out of that. I was doing it with my mates.

Yeah, Henley School there then went up to Thebarton Boys Technical School.

Yeah, especially primary school yeah.

Well school in those days, the discipline was good. They wouldn’t take nothing from no one in those days, you put your hands out and got the cuts you know. These days you’re not allowed to talk to kids not allowed to hit them not allowed to do nothing you know. When I worked for the Public Works Department for thirty-three years, we used to paint schools and do them up you know repair them? And I got involved with

the children a lot and when I left I knew the difference because the kids could talk to teachers how they like and teachers couldn’t do a thing about it. And I used to say to teachers, “You are not going to let them get away with that are you?” and they would say, “Well there is nothing I can do. If I go crook on them they are going to go home and complain to their parents they are under stress and I am going to cop it.” I said, “It is no wonder they can get away with what they do.” And that’s the way it is that’s the system.

Yeah, teachers all had collars and ties and suits,

and you know you respected them. No nonsense. You would never call them by their first names, it was always Mister or Mrs or Miss.

Well just the normal, arithmetic, spelling and dictation, all of that sort of thing, nature studies.

Probably have a garden used to go out and roam around the paddocks, because as I said there was plenty of paddocks around in those days and there used to be a dairy at the back of the school and we used to go down there and see the cows getting milked and what have you. Good memories school days. We just had our seventy-fifth or fiftieth anniversary I think primary school, not long ago.

Went down there and saw some of the kids I was in school with.

Yeah, a couple I hadn’t seen since I had left school, you wouldn’t know then only go by names.

Not really, no, but it is nice to go back, you know.

Yeah, Thebarton Boys Tech in those days.

Oh only done the first year, and I wanted to leave school, Dad said, “Okay, we could do with the extra money in the household.”

Probably still during the war, and then Chivers Chemist [?] in Henley Beach offered me a job just working in the shop delivering medicine. Which I done for eighteen months two years. Then I went up to Bickfords in Currie Street [Adelaide], they were manufacturing chemists and I worked there for two years as a salesman, storeman come warehouseman.

You know they used to get all of the stuff ready for the chemist shops and that was interesting because I worked in paint and medicine and proprietary drugs and perfumery but I could see the writing on he wall that I wouldn’t be there forever. And I remember old Francis Bickford, he was my boss at the time, and he said, “Why do want to leave for?” and I said, “I want to see a bit of the world.” And he said, “Why?”

I said, “Well I do I want to join the navy.” Because the bloke that was there before me had joined the navy and he came back on leave and told me how good it was and I said, “I had better do that too.”

That was the first yeah.

I loved the sea and my life by the sea living right on the sea. Swimming clubs, life saving

club, sailing clubs and then I bought a catamaran after I came out of the navy. We were involved a lot with the water and I still love it.

Yeah.

Well I can remember the submarines getting into Sydney Harbour. I can remember Darwin and those people being bombed. I can remember the home guard down on the sand hills, most of them with broomsticks over their shoulders, they never had rifles. And I can remember the end of the war because I had a bike and I went around the block dragging tin cans because

it was the end of the war. Things like that you know.

Yeah, well all radio people in those days, Mum listened to her show and Dad listened to the news and I would be on the radio plays, Search for the Golden Boomerang. And Sunday night they used to have Palmolive Hour

or like a you know stories, different, Gregory King: Secret Agent, good kid stuff. All glued to the wireless.

Yeah. I can remember news coming across, this happening and that happening, documentaries, on the films, news you know, Movietone News and all of that and they would tell you what was happening in the war.

Oh it was broadcast, that’s the end of it. Once the atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima, August 45 I think, then Nagasaki copped a bomb and the Jap’s unconditionally surrendered.

Oh yeah I can remember all of them dancing and shouting and everything and carrying on in the town, everyone went silly actually all over the world.

Oh yeah. Dad was too old I think or too young for the First World War because they didn’t take married men and he missed out and he was too old for the Second World War.

So he missed out on both of them.

No, Col was too young, well not really, he had a health problem he did a lot of sailing like I did, he owned a boat and that and he got a touch of pleurisy on the lung being wet all of the time and he had lung problems most of his life. He died at sixty-five.

But he had to move to Renmark from Henley Beach because of his lung problem, they said, “Move to Renmark because it is warmer up there and it will probably be better for you.”

No, we never lost anyone during the war, lucky that way.

Not during the Second World War, no.

Yeah, well I joined the navy in 1950 and I didn’t expect to be in a war in 1951. But as soon as I joined the navy in March the war broke out in June just the way it goes.

Well they thought that I wouldn’t stick it

probably because I was the last in the family and spoilt a bit. It was a big change of life. But the challenge was there and I enjoyed it. I stuck six years out and that was enough.

Yeah, and I was lucky I did we got some good trips out of it.

March the 6th 1950 and I still talk to a bloke I joined up with from Queensland, a bloke by the name of Harry Keen. Lives at Mount Gravatt, we speak over the phone once every couple of weeks. We went away together as seventeen year olds, there was six of us in that little group left Adelaide by train, Flinders Naval Depot, did our training and went right through together.

That’s the first day we met yes.

Go down to Burkitt Head, HMAS Torrens in those days, and you do an exam, dictation, spelling all of that stuff, and fitness, health, make sure you’re are all right.

That’s it away you went. They just notify you that you have been accepted and please report down to the depot or the railway station, you are going to Melbourne. Just go over in what you have got, and go over there and get your uniform and that, you are kitted up and then away you go.

First time I had ever left the state.

Well it was yeah. It’s

school of hard knocks compared to what I was going through, but I took it, all of it. I don’t think anyone took off it was just a part of what we joined for.

Yep, six months training.

Then they allocate you to a ship, you do another six months at sea and then you come back and do a specialist course,

by then it is about eighteen months two years and they slapped me straight onto the HMAS Sydney and away I went to Korea. I was only nineteen when I was up there.

Well everything, as I was seaman, it is all anchors and cables and parts of the ship, know the ship, discipline. Anything

you know. Drilling and marching and PT [physical training] to get you fit, it all come into it.

Yeah. Well you just had your classes, you joined a class and then each day you do

a bit of PT, do a bit of drill and then you go to lectures and learn about this, that and everything, parts of the ship. Anchors and cables and all of the riggings and damage control.

Yeah, you got to know seamanship.

I liked the sea and I liked the navy, you know I liked it

before I joined the navy.

Yeah, all of the boat drills and all of that all came into it, sailing and rowing, that all came into it.

Yep.

Yeah, you have got to start from the bottom.

No, never. You only got two leaves a year,

June and Christmas time you could come home if you were around the place and that was it.

That was Flinders Naval Depot

Western Port Bay. Crib Point they call it.

Well just take it. It was all fair, there was no nastiness in it. And if you done as you were told you had no problems,

if you wanted to dig your toes in and be a bit of a nuisance you come up losing.

Well Her Majesty’s Australian Gunnery School, I was a gunner. You have got to be pretty disciplined to be a gunner and you have got to go through the gunnery school and you learnt the hard way.

Well it has got to have a lot of discipline to be on the guns crew because if someone gets hurt you have got to take their place and you have got to know all of the workings of everybody’s job, and you have got to rely on each other one hundred and ten percent. Can’t have any weak links, and they push that through the gunnery school. Misbehave you will be jumping around the parade gun with a rifle over your head

or a big six inch shell. Exercise. You know, we called it the school of hard knocks, that was the worst part of the navy that was the toughest part the gunnery school because you have got to have the discipline. No, good without discipline.

Just with the training.

The drummed it into you.

Until you know it off by heart and if you made a mistake they will let you know.

Well I was a gun layer so you work on forty millimetre guns, that’s Bofors, you go right up to four inch, six inch and eight inch. When I was on the HMAS Australia that’s an eight inch cruiser, they had eight inch guns on there. The biggest the Australian navy ever had we never went any further than heavy cruisers and aircraft carriers. Light cruiser is a six inch guns. Mainly they were loaded with big trays and that, came on a hoist. Four inch guns you

shove them into the breeches. The Bofors are all put into the magazines. I learnt a lot.

Bofors only had about three or four. Aimer, trainer and a couple of loaders. As the guns got bigger you had more men attached to it.

Aim the gun.

In those days we had the old cartwheel sights, and they switched over to what they called Mark 6 gyroscopic sight. Which worked like a gyroscopic compass you know. And you just trained up and down, and it all comes up on a screen, actually what come up on the screen which represented your gun barrel and a dot

which represented your target and you had to keep the dot on your target because the dot always went behind and the gun barrel came forward, that was your deflection, like you aim off? So we fire up there, you’re aiming there and they fly into it you know what I mean? That’s your deflection.

Well you just had to let the gyroscopic sight do it for you. If you got it wrong it was the sight’s fault not yours. And you had ordnance blokes to reset them again make sure they were working properly.

Yeah.

Those sort of friendships with the whole lot of you in the mess deck. You’re living in a room twice the size of here and you could have fifty-six people living in there in hammocks. And you’re all mates, you all living together all rely on each other. And you never fight or argue the point, very seldom. It is hard for civilians to understand

the comradeship that army, navy, air force servicemen have. We still meet every month and we have all welded together and as we have got older I think we lean on each other a little bit more because we have all got problems with our health and we are not getting any younger and it is good for us. And civilians we talk to civilians and they don’t understand what we are talking about.

Know what I mean, to have that mateship? I don’t think they would ever get it unless they had the same experience in the service. And it is good to have that, I think the kids are lacking that these days and that’s why I believe national service should never have been abolished there should be some from of it. It is good to learn you know.

Yeah.

Three of them were and the other three went different ways as far as I know out of the six there is only three of us left. Three others are deceased now, because I made a point of looking them up and I found out they have died while I have been away or something like that.

That’s fifty years ago you know.

It is yeah, it doesn’t seem like fifty years ago but it is.

The HMAS Australia and quite a war record on the Aussie. It was engaged with the kamikaze during the Second World War, six planes hit that and it was damaged twice.

Lost some of the guys and then it was turned into a training ship back in my day, 1950. So I done training on it, and I am a member of that club. We have still got the HMAS Australia club going. You know we used to go to reunions, I have got one coming up in Mildura next month.

Yeah, and every year they say, “Oh this is the last time we will have a reunion, we’re all getting too old.” But those guys are their eighties.

The Second World War guys, but they still have their reunions, they still get together.

She would be one of the proudest ships we ever had as far as her war record goes. Yep. In service for about twenty-three twenty-four years.

Yeah, everyone served on her just about because it was for training. We have all got fond memoires of her. It’s a mighty ship.

As I said before sailors lived in mess decks and you have got fifty or sixty living on a mess deck and you live out of a locker and that’s it.

we all managed, got your hammock and your sea bag and away you go. That’s your sole belongings, you go from one ship to another, hammock bag over one shoulder, sea bag over the other.

Do as you’re told and you won’t have any problems. Want to be a Jack McHardy well you will get in trouble. And

you didn’t want to end up in military prison or anything like that because some of the penalties were pretty severe. Back in those days, I don’t know what they are like now.

You could end up in Holsworthy Military Prison [NSW] especially for deserters. Or insubordination, defying officer or something like that. No, beg your pardons.

Yeah,

what I heard, stories about blokes going in there and coming out. Didn’t want to go back there.

Very tough in there just like a prison and I wouldn’t like to go into it too much, I don’t know what it is like now. Probably improved a lot.

But that was there, “Behave yourself or end up there!”

So you behaved yourself.

Yeah, if I was around the area I would come back in June or Christmas time. If you were away somewhere you get your leave when you come back to make up for it. Yeah, we had quite a few good trips.

Yeah. They were glad if I had done six years no more I might have done more if I was on a happier ship. But I was on one ship I was bored it was the HMAS Barcoo, a frigate and it was surveying always up and down, terrible boring job. Another ship I was on, HMAS Condamine, another frigate, was in Japan

and we were doing a capital city tour all through the inland sea. Not boring, so it all depends what ship you were on when your time expired. If you were having a good time you would probably say, “I will sign on again.” But if you’re bored like I was on the Barcoo I said, “I am getting out.”

Yeah, you have got to make your mind up then and there. It was very hard to get out of the navy those days. Now it seems to be easy, I think you even to a bit of a

boys’ time [?UNCLEAR], if you don’t like it, you can leave it.

You joined up in those days and singed on the dotted line you had to do your time. You could get honourable discharges, only through family died or something like that, and they had to rely on you to be looking after the rest of the family, something like that.

Compassionate grounds.

Well those sort of guys either desert and they get caught and end up in Holsworthy for six months and then they might get dishonourable discharge. They have got to carry that for the rest of their lives. Nobody wants to do that.

Yes.

Well that’s when I went to the HMAS Sydney.

I had just done my gunnery course and the Sydney was sailing for Korea. This is August 1951 and I joined the Sydney in Sydney Harbour and away we went and I was up there for six months.

I would get leave and that. You never get much time off in the navy, seamen have got to keep watches and all of that, in depots it is better but at sea you have always got to keep a watch. And that means broken sleep, if I have got any grizzles about the navy I reckon that’s the only thing could say, I never had a good nights sleep, never.

Because you have got to keep the first watch or the middle watch or morning watch, eight o’clock at night until twelve, that’s the first watch

and then you have got the middle watch from twelve o’clock until four o’clock in the morning. And then from four to eight, and you got one of those so you got broken sleep. You just seem to get your head down and you have got someone tapping you on the shoulder to get up again. And that went through you know. Sometimes I used to go ashore and book into a hotel and sleep for two days,

Yeah, just to catch up. Because you never had a proper sleep. And I said to my wife, “You can never pick up sleep that you have lost.”

I mean I can sleep a week, but you never pick up what you lost over the six years, broken, that’s the hard part of it.

We played cricket and footy and played tennis or anything like that individually. Especially in the depots.

You couldn’t do it at sea.

Yes, you train the whole time at sea, having shoots, practice shots at targets, planes would carry the drogues you know they carry them along and you have got to try to shoot them out.

Yeah, safer on the target than the plane I think. Some of our shots.

They would be game I tell you.

Well the distance didn’t seem to be that much. You were firing there the plane was there, you only had to move the barrel that far and you would be on the plane. But we didn’t have any accidents that way.

Yeah, there was one bad one at Flinders when we had a crew with what they call a two inch mortar. When you’re on the ship

we carried little mortars in case you were a shore party and we used to practice with them and one of the shells exploded prematurely and cleaned them up. Three of them got killed. That was at training at Flinders and after that they abolished that kind of training because the shell was a bit dicky you know. Same with the ammunition we were using in Korea at particular times too.

Yeah. And when we used ammunition in Korea, especially the Bofors ammunition that was dated 1940. And this is 1951, eleven years old. And when we fired the ammunition some of it exploded prematurely, as soon as it left the gun barrel she would blow up and we got a little bit worried and the Yanks [Americans] on board, we had an American helicopter crew those days, we didn’t have choppers in those days.

And the Yanks said, “Toss all of that over the side before it kills you. We will give you some decent stuff,” which they did. We never had any more problems, so we should be thankful to the Americans for quite a few things, that was one of them, giving us some decent ammunition.

We never knew. See that was Second World War stuff, they didn’t get to use it.

They had no idea. They sent us up there and they had no idea what the weather was going to be like and we went up in summer clothes, so did the army. We went up there at thirty-five degrees below zero, we had never stuck anything like that in our life. Everything was frozen, rivers were frozen, sea was frozen, and then they started to give us some warm clothing. I have got a picture in there of the HMAS Sydney I think it was, or the HMAS Australia

back in the First World War back in 1916 on the Arctic convoys and those guys had better clothing, warmer clothing than we had in 1951.

No, and I think Betty Lawrence will tell you the same thing. When she went up there she had to scrounge around for clothes, warm clothes. She had nothing. Had to get it off the Yanks, a duffle coat here or a pair of pants

or, yeah. Thiry-five below zero that’s cold.

What the Korea part of it?

Oh yeah no we enjoyed it because mainly it was all new to us.

Only on the Sydney then I lost track of them we all went different ways. That was probably, I come off the Sydney in 1952 so from 1952 to 56 I lost track of them.

Yes.

Eighteen months two years.

Yeah, first real posting straight to the war zone.

Yep. Big ship, eleven hundred men on board, that’s a lot of bodies, when you come to think of it eleven hundred men

there to keep thirty-five planes in the air. About thirty-five pilots, but that takes a lot of support to keep anything going, same as the army, you have got front line troops but you have got a hell of a lot of people behind them to keep them supplied, same as in the ship. Right down to cooks and stewards, sick bays attendants and writers, everybody plays an important part.

They have got a specific job to do but when they go to action stations they have got another job to do. They might be down in the magazines feeding the shells up or, things like that, you know.

No, Sydney only had forty millimetre Bofors.

That was my action station yeah.

Yeah, we would have shots and that.

We never got a chance to shoot them at any planes up there, mainly because they never came around in the day time, and we had pretty good support from our own planes to keep the North Koreans away from us. Main problem up there was mines. And the weather, that’s was our biggest enemies.

Well when we left Australia, July 195,1 we went to Manus Island then we went straight through from Manus right through to a place called Yokosuku in Japan, there we tool over different things and refuelled and got different things, then we went to a place called Kure on the Inland Sea,

that was the British port and there we relieved the HMS Glory which was an aircraft carrier, English. And we relieved that ship and we took over from them and then we went to Korea.

Byes first trip overseas.

In those days we would get up to twelve o’clock at night. Which we called the ‘boy scout leave’.

You had to be back on board by twenty three fifty nine hours, one minute before twelve. That was the leave, that’s all the leave they would give you in those days.

Probably three or four, maybe a week at the most and then away you go again, do another patrol. And you would be away for another three or four weeks.

Yeah, it was for sure.

Well on an aircraft carrier there is never a dull moment. Especially when you’re flying. In those days it was all experimental flying, because this was our first aircraft carrier, operational one, first time we had ever been into war in one, aircraft carrier. We had Sea Furys and Firefly aircraft, the pilots were all nineteen, twenty, young. Trained in a hurry.

We fly from dawn to dusk in those days, now they fly all of the time night time and all you know. We had no angled flight decks, straight though if you missed it you were into the barriers. And I think you had nine [?UNCLEAR] you had to pick one up on your way otherwise you’re in trouble. And those guys were pretty good, mad as snakes had to be. If you made a mistake you’re dead, and being on the gun sponsons [platforms], you’re ready to duck at any time

because the flight deck was only sixty feet wide. And about six hundred foot long and half of that was taken up with barriers, so you had three hundred and fifty foot by sixty feet to land in, the ship rolled with the sea and you had to come down and land in that little space and do it first time. If you didn’t do it first time you got waved off.

In those days you had a batman, and he would direct you in, you know what I mean, now days they have got all mirrors and technical stuff, a hundred percent different.

The plane could end up in your gun sponson and they did.

Oh yeah it happened often. Had to get a big crane and just lift them out and put them on the flight deck. Take them down to the hangers and work on them all night and have them ready again in the morning.

That was the routine. We had planes getting damaged all of the time. We lost thirteen planes up there. Three pilots and had seventy damaged by anti-aircraft fire. North Korean were no mugs, they’re pretty good shots and those planes had to come back full of holes, rush them down the hanger and then you had the ordnance, maintenance, guys working on them all night,

to get them going again the next day. And that went on for weeks and weeks. So there was no rest.

Yeah, patch up.

Japan was beautiful in those days, it was quaint, like Japan should be not like it is now. All too westernised.

Back in those days the girls used to get around in the kimonos, all dressed up in their tradition, cherry blossom times. Everything was good, you know what I mean? We were accepted. We never had any problems with the Japanese people, we mixed with them pretty well. Most of the guys had Japanese girlfriends.

Yeah.

Well we didn’t have much leave before we got to Kure. Kure and Sasebo were our two main ports. I never saw much of Japan until 1955 when I went back a second time and we did a capital city tour. Up the Inland Sea and we done Osaka, Kobe, Nagoya, places we never went to before. In fact when we went to Tokyo we were the first Australian ship to be open

to public inspection, the Japanese come on board and have a look at the ship, that was 1955, first ship to be open to public reception. But in those days in 1955 we had weekend leave, and that means you go ashore Friday night, and didn’t have to come back until Monday morning and you get out and see the country and it was all different. The war wasn’t in 55, finished in 53.

Just enough time to pick up ammunition plane parts supplies any down pilots and go again and do another three weeks operational tour.

East and west coast of Korea.

Yep as soon as we ran out of ammunition and supply back there again that was the routine for six months.

Yeah, we I think we got eighty-seven sorties in one day, we only had thirty odd planes. So that meant that we flew eighty-seven sorties from dawn to dusk and beat the Glory’s record at the time. Later on a ship called the HMS Ocean which

is another light fleet aircraft carrier beat us. But we held the record there for a while. Now that’s pushing a lot of planes off the flight deck, the pilot has got to come back and have a bit of a break, the plane has got to be restocked with ammunition, refuelled and away they go again.

Yep. On the gun.

Well while the plane is flying we had to man the guns all of the time and we had guns all around the upper deck, the flight deck

what they call gun sponsons and every one is manned, just in case they come back with a few unfriendly planes do you know what I mean? But we never had any trouble with the MIGs [Russian-built jet fighter planes] up there because they flew in a certain, what they called MIG Alley and that was their range and they flew there and the Yanks was their main worry. The Yanks

were flying [F86] Sabres and they were fighting in that area. They never buzzed the ships much, out of range we were.

Well we only had Seafurys and Fireflys on board the HMAS Sydney, all piston driven aircraft, no match for the MIG 15. Even though one Seafury shot down a MIG from the Glory .

that was a rare feat because they were pretty fast.

We lost three pilots, we brought one bloke back I think his name was Sinclair and we buried him at sea. We had a bit of a service and we buried him then. The other two, one of them bailed out of the plane

and hit the tail, killed himself. The other guy by the name of Coleman, he just disappeared, went off the radar screen, no one knew what happened to him. Plane lost, never found any wreckage. That was it. So we didn’t do too bad really in six months.

Upsetting.

Because there were rumours going around that his body was mutilated. Whether there was any truth in it or not I don’t know, but to this day I still think there was some truth in it because the buzz went around the ship and when they got him back it looked like the North Koreans got stuck into him with pitchforks. And when they guys sewed him up in canvas the buzz went out that he was you know,

and that upset us a bit. Knowing that he would get treated that way but we knew that was going on for sure because that was the war and the North Koreans weren’t holding any punches, killing willy-nilly by the millions, not by the hundreds by the millions that was the state of the war.

It was hard to hear, yeah.

Yeah, that’s the routine.

Well all bodies are sewn up in canvas and weighted down, they throw in a couple of old produce, you know weighted shells or something like that, so when they go over the side they sink. That’s the routine.

Just to keep everything intact. It’s the sail-makers job to do the job. There is a sail-maker on board he does the stitching. I was speaking to a bloke who was a sail-makers on the Sydney not long ago and I was tempted to ask him was there nay truth when he sewed up this guy, was there any truth in him being mutilated?

But I never got around to doing it, I didn’t want to ask him do you know what I mean because I was frightened he would say, “Yeah, it is true.”

I was still tempted to ask him.

Well we had a helicopter on board which was American because we never had one of our own.

Most of the small ships had launches, if a pilot went down he would probably radio that he had been shot down in a certain area. Then it was up to the ships around the place to get in and get him out. And even though he was dead they would still retrieve the body. Now one pilot was a local bloke, Noel Knapstein his name is, I was only speaking to him the other day, still going,

he got shot down and landed in a mud flat and he had to ward of North Koreans, but the funny part about it, after he got rescued, they took away the important parts of the plane the secret parts and he sold the wreck to the North Koreans.

Money.

He wouldn’t leave for nothing he was an enterprising young fellow he said, “You can have the wreck but it is going to cost you so much

wan.” And they paid him. And when he got back on board the skipper said to him, ”You are a very enterprising young man Lieutenant Knapstein, but I want the money please, you can hold onto that.” Sell the debris rather than leave it behind.

Well it depends on what they wanted it for. They might have had some use for it.

The ship never come under attack at any stage even though we had a lot of scares with mines then again the Americans done a very good job with mine sweeping. There is one ship that got up

there an American destroyer by the name of USS Ernest G Small she got blew up she hit a mine. Killed about ten, blew the bows off her. That’s the only one we heard but there was quite a few ships ran into mines. What we were afraid of was sampans and junks coming out and they would say they were fishing but not all of them were fishing, they were laying mines.

Yeah, drop them off in the sea and we could just run into it of course. So we got a little bit jack of this and we opened up fire on them not to sink them but to give them a scare which we did. And we had no more problems, they got out of our way. But I did hear stories that the Americans weren’t that lenient with them. Just blew them out of the water.

Well its funny they come out fishing and they have got a full load and the junks are all down in the water and when they come back up the harbour they are out of the water just the opposite. Know what I mean? Should be out of the water when they go out and down when they come in. But they were definitely laying mines. As soon as you slip a mine over the side at night, and you’re in an operational

zone and you know ships are around.

Yeah. All North Koreans because we were above the 38th parallel [the dividing line, agreed after World War II, to separate North and South Korea].

Yeah.

No, we don’t lay mines no.

Well they used their mine sweepers there. Wonsan was the worst, they had about three thousand mines laid in that harbour. And they had to clear it. And what we heard later was that the Japanese came over as civilians and done a lot of mine sweeping. Now the Japanese wasn’t involved in the Korean War officially, because their constitution states that they are not to get involved in any wars since 1945 you know?

But they come over with ships, mine sweepers as civilians and done a lot of mine sweeping for us and they cleared about two thousand mines. In that harbour alone.

Well they wanted to help us, I just hear here recently the Japanese want to go to Iraq and be involved and the Japanese have kicked up a stink about it and said, “That is unconstitutional,

we’re not to get involved.” And the prime minister said, “Well we should be involved, because everyone else is and we should do our bit.” Which is fair enough, isn’t it? You know it’s touchy.

As I said it was quaint. Japan, not like it is now. I haven’t been back to Japan but I can imagine now it is all westernised.

You could be anywhere you know. Japan in those days it was cute.

Oh, there was plenty of signs there. They were still clearing a lot of things, still a lot of damage. I went to Hiroshima in 1951 and again in 1955 and that place was a mess.

Well nothing was growing. Everything was, the radiation had killed all vegetation. Trees were all wrapped up trying to get them to grow. Of course we didn’t know what radiation, how bad it was then. We know now.

We could have been because we didn’t know it was hanging around, but it does hang around. Hangs around for years.

Once it’s contaminated. So far, so good.

Oh yeah there was a lot of physical sings they copped a lot. I don’t know how many was killed there two or three hundred thousand in one hit.

I think to go by history and going by what [General Douglas] MacArthur did up there it was pretty good he took over as chief of staff, he controlled the whole occupation and the Jap looked up to him because he gave them a fair go, gave everyone a fair go. And rehabilitation came to the country pretty quick.

And it was well policed by us until 1952 and that’s when the occupation finished and the Japanese took control.

Yeah, I am a member of BCOF, we were all BCOF up there.

Yeah, any ship that pulled into port up there come under British Commonwealth Occupation Forces.

As I said, 1951, you only got up to twelve o’clock.

Get on the train and look around the town go up in the hills and have a few beers. Normal things you do when you’re ashore.

Yeah. The people were very friendly to us. Striving to make a dollar. And everything was cheap. I could send a complete coffee set home to Mum done up in a case for about a thousand yen, a thousand yen was worth two pound ten. It was incredible what you could buy up there.

For the amount of money. And everybody sent stuff home.

Anything. Kimono,

tablecloths, albums, jugs, things like that there, cups, jugs, pewter glasses, anything. They made everything they’re good copiers.

Yeah, we didn’t make that much money but what we did have we spent to send stuff home. Mum and my sisters all got teas sets and coffee sets and kids all got toys. All my young nephews, sent toys home to them.

It just so happens that one of the nephews I saw maybe six months ago, he came here and he said, “Come and have a look in my boot I have got something to show you.” And he pulled out a motor car, old tin one all rusted and he said, “Do you know where I got that from?” I said, “No, wouldn’t have a clue.” He said, “You brought that back from Japan in 1951.”

I said, “Yeah, I think I did.” And he still had it, he had kept it all of that time. Makes you wonder doesn’t it?

As I said it was under occupation, MacArthur and all of his helpers were trying to do their best to get the country back on its feet and they done a pretty good job. I mean 1945, and by 1952, seven years everything

was running. You have a go at the history of places like Korea, Germany, Japan, all defeated countries, all thrived because they had to rebuild them they had to give them new machinery, everything was new, so they got to start of fresh. And I think that’s why they are successes. You get old

places like London England, they have got to close down things because the machinery is all broken up and not working properly. And it costs them millions of dollars to renew it, and they have got problems haven’t they. Where as a country like Germany they had to rebuild it and when you see the devastation in Japan, Korea,

Seoul, look at Seoul, brand new city, the country went ahead in leaps and bounds after the war, it was flattened. Germany was the same completely flattened. And you have got to think to yourself we have got to rebuild all of this, what are we going to do with all of the rubble that’s got to be taken away and everything has got to be rebuilt.

Our quarters were right opposite our guns on what was called the gallery deck.

Gallery deck is below the flight deck and the gallery deck works under the gun sponsons so you live on the gallery deck and you work on your gun sponsons you know. You can rush to your guns and get there quick because you live right next to them. And that’s under the flight deck.

You have got the flight deck, gallery deck, hanger deck, main deck, lower deck and bottom deck it goes right down to the bilges.

Yeah, but you sleep just the same, that’s why my hearing is bad.

Yeah, revving up. Arresting wires screeching, catapults, in those days steam catapults, very noisy had no ear muffs no ear plugs nothing. All of us have got hearing problems.

Well in those days all of the orders on guns, not all orders but most of them were verbal, yelled out and you had to hear what they had to say. If you had ear plugs on or muffs you can’t hear them. Now I think they have all got inbuilt, they can hear them and hey have got ear muffs on.

Even when they fire on a pistol range now they have got ear muffs on. We had nothing like that.

Yeah. Because there is always someone on the ear, you know, and they relay the order to you. Cease fire or whatever it may be.

Well while we’re on the guns we have got one eye cocked for the planes coming in all of the time, and one get a little bit off course we are ready to jump in a hurry. You only had two places to jump in those days. Back under the gallery deck or over the side. And we weren’t going to jump over the side in freezing water, in there five minutes and you would be dead.

That’s all they give you, five minutes.

Yep they had to get a pilot out of that water in five minutes otherwise it was a waste of time, that’s how cold it was.

Yeah, well we used to wear, they gave us long john earls, do you know what they are? Fleecy underwear what the bocks used to wear, you know, waist and ankle? Fleecy lined.

We could wear them.

Itch, scratch. That’s why you got rid of them, would rather go cold. Then we had new duffle coats and balaclavas and scarves all issued to us at a later date.

Well we had to wait months before we got them, because they sent us up there without them. They didn’t know what the weather was going to be like. Queer place.

No one had been up there before, Korea was a new experience for them. You get thirty degree summers and thirty degree minus winters. When that wind comes down from Manchuria and Siberia it is freezing, you get blizzards. Typhoons, the weather was terrible.

Yeah, we had one there that nearly cleaned us up.

Well we were at Sasebo [Japan] October 1951 and the news came down we had to get out of harbour quick smart because the typhoon Ruth was coming through. Well the British Admiral there at the time said, “Well you had better get out there and ride it.” And we said, “Well we haven’t got no fuel, only half fuel, our balance is not going to be right.” They said, “Don’t matter get going.” Which was a bad blue at the time.

We realised later we didn’t have to get out of the harbour, the Japanese built it for anti-typhoons, it was well sheltered by mountains and they had deep moorage, solid concrete mooring you know. We didn’t have to go but we did and that’s when we got into trouble. We lost planes, we lost equipment, we had forty-five foot waves breaking over the flight deck in that typhoon. Fires breaking out everywhere because the water got into the exhaust system,

and the fires were breaking out in the bomb room., we had fuel escaping. And, I didn’t know this at the time because they don’t tell you nothing, I learnt all of this after.

No, they didn’t tell you.

Not at the time because we didn’t know what was going on.

Oh the typhoon, we could see it all right, ship had about a forty-degree roll

and it was going over and was not getting back quick enough and people were panicking that meant we could have went over and capsized and we would have lost eleven hundred men. One hit. No one would have survived art sea, too cold, no one could have survived the typhoon. In fact I had a phone call the other day from a stoker who was on the Sydney and I said what was it like down in the boiler rooms and he

said, “We were down on our hands and knees praying.” Because the water got into the bilges and it was lifting steel plates off the deck and the water was six inches from the fire boxes and if the water got into those fire boxes boom the whole ship would blow up.

Because you don’t want water in with the fire, that’s the boiler, steam. If water gets in there it would explode.

That’s what the flames are, know what I mean they heat the water up.

In my hammock, asleep, because that’s where they told me to go. “If you’re not on duty and you haven’t got a second job to do get in your hammock and stop there, because you will rock and roll with the ship. And if you’re going to be walking around you will get injured.” Which a lot of men broke their arms and legs and that the ship was rocking and rolling that much.

Yeah, my oath. You wouldn’t have to tell me to get into my hammock twice I tell you, we had a lack of sleep and they told me to get into the hammock and go to sleep boom I was out in a flash.

Yeah, most of it.

No, but the next day we could see what damage was done. There was a book written about it not long ago and it stated that it was dire straits. In fact

one bloke told me that all of the wives of the airmen on board who lived at Nowra, that’s HMAS Albatross , at Jervis Bay, they lived down there in houses. Their wives were told they had lost contact with the Sydney and expect the worst. That’s how close it got.

End of tape

We lost a couple of planes over the side, machinery on the flight deck,

upper deck, little tractors for carting the planes around. Mainly all of the exhaust fans on the starboard side got water in them, that’s why the fires broke out. Water in the boiler room. That was the main damage. And also on the starboard side up the bow where we were going into the wind was all damaged plates and we had to go back to Sasebo to have them all

straightened out and we were there a couple of weeks. But we were very lucky because we could have went over. And fifty years after they are telling me this now, at the time I never thought it was that much hassle. But we were on the port side of the ship and there is a difference, being on the starboard side where the windward side is you are copping the full force of the typhoon. Whereas on the other side, the

leeward side, it wasn’t too bad.

Going by the story that I got from the bloke that wrote about it, Captain Harris was temporarily relieved of his duties by the senior navigator because he wasn’t doing the right thing with the ship. Now this guy wrote that down in black and

white and it has never been denied. But knowing what the navy is like they can hide things and they would never tell you that but that is the story. And if that is the case we were in dire straits if the captain is relieved from his duties.

Yeah, by the British Admiral, I forget his name now. Moncreep or Monchew, something like that [Moncrief].

Didn’t have to go out we had to go out on half fuel, the balance wasn’t right, no wonder we were rolling.

Yeah, and when I say eleven hundred I mean eleven hundred because you couldn’t have survived in that water.

No one could have rescued us because all of the supporting ships were out there having the same problem. And going by the HMAS Warramunga [Australian destroyer] and the two other Aussie ships there was nothing left on the upper decks.

Anything lose was gone, swept off.

It was when you get forty-five foot waves breaking over the flight deck of an aircraft carrier you have got some big waves.

As I said, when you are nineteen and not fully informed of what is going on it is a big adventure,

and that’s what we thought at the time. The next day we started to wonder when we saw the damage that was done. And even though the typhoon subsided the ship still had a thirty degree roll, it was just shook up took some time to settle down.

The repairs and to get all of the replacements.

I think it was one or two were swept over the side.

Plus boat damage. The captains barge was wrecked, all of the lifeboats slashed, you know pretty heavy sea.

I think it might have been a week by the time they straightened out the plates and that.

Well to be frank, you got to have a girlfriend because if you don’t have a girlfriend then they call you ‘butterfly boy’, and that means you are going from one girl to another and then you’re getting problems with different things. So the best thing to do is to get a good girlfriend. And I used to have a good one in Kure,

I wonder what she is doing now, Samari, her name was, and we had a vegetable garden growing in the back yard and all. We would talk over the back fence to neighbours, Japanese, talking about the price of beer, just normal people.

No, everyone seemed to have a girlfriend.

Probably I don’t know if I have got any relations up there or not. It was before I was married and Kaye accepts that.

Yeah, well it

was hard to explain what it was like, it was dangerous to go ashore, had all of these girls waiting for you outside the dockyard. You had to manoeuvre to get away from them.

Well they were girls looking for a fast buck. In those days money was very short, no one had jobs. A cake of soap or a box of chocolate would get you around.

That’s the way it was you find out most occupied countries are the same. Probably happened in Germany, Korea. But you had to make do. If you wanted to go ashore you had to get a girlfriend, do the right thing, otherwise you are going to get in trouble.

That was the best way out. The SBA on board Sydney – that’s the sick bay attendant – told me by the time we got back to Fremantle in February 1962 there was five hundred cases of VD [venereal disease] and we only had eleven hundred men on board,

half of the ships company went down with VD. Now they tried their hardest to overcome this by showing you movies before you went ashore to try to deter you, it put you off for five minutes. Men, especially boys, and you have got half a dozen sheilas outside that dockyard ready to grab you as soon as you go ashore, it’s rough.

But that was a sign of the times.

Well the one I had was in 1955, probably about five six months and I had to leave her, come home. We never contacted each other after that, we just accepted it for what it was, as a relationship while I was up there.

Well I could make myself understood and get myself into trouble.

Put it that way. Ichi, ni, san, chi [one, two, three, four], and all of those, sayonara and goodbyes and okay and money and things that would get you through.

No, she had a house of her own. She lived at Hiro, just out of Kure, I think it was about twenty-five yen on the tram. I used to get off the ship, get on a tram go and see her ,

stop there do my gardening, have a few beers, talk to the neighbours, the Japanese accepted all of that. As I said you would talk over the back fence about the price of beer. It seems queer.

Yeah, but there was no animosity, as I said I think MacArthur and all of that I think they realised he was there to

take the place of the emperor to help them and he did and he got respect. He treated them like his own mob. If you had done anything against the Japanese you would have been in trouble, you know what I mean? As far as law goes. And Japanese people adapted to that very quick.

Never noticed it. On board we had Japanese ex-servicemen, still dressed in their uniforms with all of their insignias taken off, doing work, bringing on stores for Christmas, taking off stores. There was never any fighting amongst the crew, our ships company or them. They were handled pretty well. They done their jobs and we did our jobs.

I have never known anyone to fight.

Drink beer, every place was a beer hall or bar, there is always half a dozen sheilas in each bar to keep

you company. That was it. That’s how they made their money. That and gifts and buying presents, as I said that was really cheap. A thousand yen goes a long way.

Just the country, the look of it, different. To go through the Inland Sea you have to come around Sasebo way and go through Shimonoseki Straits now they call it.

Then you narrow down to the Inland sea, it is magnificent to see all of the mountains to come down to the sea and how they have been all graded for rice growing. And we went out to Kure and we went out to a little island out of Kure which they called Etajima I think it was with all of the Japanese shrines. And that island was used during the war for a navy academy and training kamikaze pilots, quite a history to it.

It is a beautiful country.

Well I was thinking about it but I was told not to. They said, “You will never find it like you did. All of the places you knew are gone, it has all been rebuilt.” Not the little Japanese houses where you sit on the floor take your shoes off at the door sort of thing, you know what I mean? That was the quaintness of it, something different.

Yeah. I wouldn’t knock back a free trip. Plenty of ships going back to Korea but that’s not the same because we were never ashore in Korea, the army guys were ,we went ashore in Pusan for one day, and being on the Sydney you are behind enemy lines, you can’t go ashore. I wouldn’t miss anything. A lot of the army guys have gone back and said it is lovely.

Country has all been rebuilt and everything. We wouldn’t know though the navy guys, but Japan we would because we went there.

Oh yeah.

Great as I said if it wasn’t for the Yanks we wouldn’t be here today. They gave us good ammunition helicopter aboard, we didn’t have nothing. They picked up our downed pilots and mine sweeping, they done a lot of good jobs for us.

And we have got to be thankful for that and I am all for the Yanks I always have been. And you will find most guys are, even the Second World War blokes and we have got to be very thankful in this country for Americans otherwise it would have been a different story.

Never short of supplies. The ones that are crooked on the Yanks I think are a little bit jealous of them because the Yanks had everything and the other guys had nothing, a little bit of jealousy there.

But with Americans, if they had a dollar they would give you fifty cents. Just to impress you, that’s the way they are they liked giving you things you know, and we never knocked them back.

Well, it was. I think all war is the same you have got to make the best of it.

No, we went back on operations again. We never went back until six months were done and then we came back.

We were either east or west coast of Korea, all depends where they wanted us.

Yes, planes up every day.

We saw, we had ships with us, we had the USS Missouri, had the USS New Jersey, big American battleships and they were bombarding shores and what have you. But we had no threat of submarines or aircraft.

No, because the Russians wouldn’t give the North Koreans any subs, thank goodness.

And as I said the MIG 15s were concentrated in MIG Alley because that was their range from their base and that’s where the Americans had a go at them, and they wouldn’t budge, and we had pretty good protection from our own planes.

Only small ship, auxiliary ships, only trouble we had was with sampans and junks laying mines.

Visually.

Yeah.

Where our operational zone was we worked in the area during the day and then as soon as you finished flying at dusk the ship left that area, darkened the ship and got out of it and came back in the next day.

And that area was pretty well kept swept by American ships for us to work in. That’s why we were grateful for that.

USS Ernest G Small blew up. That’s the only one I know about. Going by reports there was about sixty or seventy ships damaged.

By different mines and what have you.

Well we had a lot of scares, what they call damage control stage one when they know there are mines around and you have got to close all of the hatches and doors in case you get hit. Had a few of them.

Well yeah, you don’t know if you are going to slam into one or not do you.

All depends if you were on that spot. If you were right on that spot and the mine hits there. Could be down aft or something like that. And damage control if you got an explosion you are going to only have that section isolated because you have got doors to strop in from flooding do you know what I mean?

No, the only people we had on board was civilians.

And they run the canteen. Funny isn’t it in a war zone but you have got civilians., and we had a bloke by the name of, we called him Jesus Christ. He run the canteen and every time thee was a danger of a mine he strapped all of his money bags on him in case the ship went down he had his money bags. We said, “You’re wasting your time mate with all of that money around you, you will sink anyhow.”

Just making sure if he was going to go he was taking something with him.

No.

And then another ship would relieve you and you go back to Australia, and might come back for a second tour.

Yeah, went back to Australia

February 1952 and then I got drafted to the HMAS Vengeance which was in England, Plymouth, and they sent me over there for six months to pick the ship up.

Yeah, pick it up at Devonport Plymouth. Left Australia in July 1952 on the Astoria, a passenger ship, about five hundred of us went over, that’s about half a ship’s company.

Picked the Vengeance up and had a good look, six months in England. Went to Edinburgh, Paris, Ireland, done the rounds. Had two weeks leave, full pay and then we came back with the Vengeance. It was on loan to us for two years while the HMAS Melbourne was getting built and then later on the Vengeance went over and picked the Melbourne up.

Then I come back from there and then I went back to Japan again on the HMAS Condamine, another frigate in 1955. Another trip.

Yeah, two weeks leave, a lot of blokes said at the time, “I am not taking my leave I want it when I get home.” But I said, “Well you can do things over here you can’t do at home, you are never going to have the opportunity to go to Paris and to Scotland and those places if you don’t go now.” They said, “No, not going.”

I said, “Well I am going.” When I got home I got two weeks anyway on top of it, so those blokes missed out.

Well went over by boat train, just for the night, spent the day and then come back. That’s all we could afford. We went to Scotland because one of my mates name Orr, O-R-R and his great grandfather was still alive in Scotland.

Lived in a place called Cowdenbeath in the bight over the Firth of Forth bridge. And we went up there on a Flying Scotsman, three of us, Bobby and myself and Ron, and we stopped at these people’s place. And they were brought up in the Scottish Highlands and they were that broad we couldn’t understand what they were talking about, and they couldn’t understand what we were talking about. But I tell you, what what they had, we were welcome to.

They talk about the Scots are really tight, it think they are only tight when they are over here.

Yeah, the old train, quite an experience in those days. All jumped on the train and away we went in uniform. Because we didn’t have any civilian clothes those days, these days they all go ashore in civvies.

We had a marvellous time, done all of the rounds, underground, we travelled on the underground for two days, it was that

different for us it was a terrific system. We went to New Scotland Yard and had a look at all of the police part there. Just walked in and said, “We’re from Australia we would like to look around.” And they said, “Well make you a cup of tea and show you around.” Went to Buckingham Palace and had a look at the gates there, couldn’t get in, just show around. Tower of London. Madame Tussaud’s Waxworks.

All of the dodge.

All on leave.

Back to Australia from Plymouth.

Come through the Suez Canal, same way we went, Fremantle, Sydney.

Yes.

Come on leave, had two weeks, two weeks over there and two weeks back home.

Yeah, Mum come over and seen me when I left on the Astoria to go across, we left fro Melbourne. She came across, she said, “I wish I was coming with you.”

Yeah, I think I done the right thing there.

I went back to the HMAS Vengeance after for a little while, and then I went to the naval depot and spent about twelve months down there.

Flinders, I fractured a leg when I was on leave, broke a bone, fell over. I couldn’t understand that, I went to Korea, went to England and all of the places I could have got cleaned up I came home and fell over in my own backyard and fractured it. My own backyard.

No, so I spent three months in Dawes Road, I was on leave and they sent me back to Flinders, and spent six months there and my leg came good. And they classified me Category C, back to sea. Put me on the HMAS Condamine and back to Japan for another six months and that was a shopping trip, terrific didn’t want to come home.

None of us, married men and all, “No, I don’t want to go home having too good of a time up here.” Guests of these people, guests of them, the Yanks looked after you, three days out, capital city tour. Marvellous time.

Guard duty. Which was a good thing in a way because I was on my feet a lot walking a lot and that done my leg good.

Yeah, they put me on guard duty to see how I would go.

And the leg come good.

No, as soon as I came Category C, they put me on the Condamine.

Yeah. Mainly I love Sydney because it got us all through hell. And we look back and say if it wasn’t for that ship we would all be gone. Sailors think that way about their ships and they really get upset when they lose them. Don’t want to see them scrapped or broken up or not.

Condamine was a good ship, a happy ship. And when you’re on a happy ship everyone is happy, everyone does the right thing, And I would have resigned if my time expired on the Condamine. It didn’t it come up when I was on the HMAS Barcoo and I got bored with surveying.

Good skipper, good executive officer, good everyone.

Good crew.

We’re peacekeeping, the war was over by then, even though that time is classified as operational service now, it was classified as peacekeeping in those days. We spent maybe a week in Korea just doing the rounds and then we go back to Japan for a month

doing a capital city tour. Peacekeeping, good will, getting to know people. That was the sweet part about it. See we had never went to Nagoya, never went to Kobe, or Osaka, we never went to all of those places first time.

Well what I meant peacekeeping was good will, good will in Japan, peacekeeping in Korea.

Yeah, just go to some spot and drop pick. Stop the night put a report in, send a signal over there say, it is all quiet, no disturbance the natives are happy. Up pick go somewhere else and do the same again.

Well they wouldn’t have had the breaks we had in Japan for a start.

But then again while the war was on we only got twelve o’clock leave as I said. But they got leave they got R and R [rest and recuperation]. Every now and again, they would send the troops back to Japan for rest and recreation.

Well as I said, we wasn’t used to the cold. We had to put up with it, men were keeping watch on the bridges of a night and that and it was like a blizzard, like arctic weather you know. Being young you overcome it pretty well. But we were always cold.

Not until we got our duffle coats and balaclavas

and long johns. Which we couldn’t wear.

Had to run it every twenty minutes, otherwise it would freeze up.

Guns and that hydraulics, they would all freeze up everything would freeze up. Had to keep moving.

Two pair, your woollen gloves and your gauntlets. Otherwise your fingers, you would get frost bitten, know what I mean. All we had that stuck out was

our nose. And mine doesn’t come out that big so I wasn’t too bad.

Yeah, still had to keep ships up there all of the time, there wasn’t much to do in Korea so we spent more time in Japan kept the goodwill going.

Yeah, mainly 55, because I had more time off.

Oh we all were, all of the married men and all didn’t want to come home.

Living so cheap and everybody is looking after us. Being spoilt. You know when we pulled up at Yokosuku, just outside Tokyo, we went alongside the wharf, that’s the first time and Aussie ship had been alongside the wharf in an American depot.

Yanks couldn’t do enough for us. They had a big EM club [enlisted men’s club] there that went twenty-four hours a day and they had three bands going and I can still remember their names, one was called Bills Boys, Cupid Cats and Hot Peppers. And they were going twenty-four hours a day and we went in there and we went for our pockets and, “Oh no, on us.” The Yanks would buy you beer and give you food and look after you, who wanted to come home?

This went on for months you know, go to another place same thing. Because they didn’t have an Aussie ship there, first time an Australian ship in there, something new to them.

Oh, they always have been.

Oh, yeah. The Yanks are funny that way they have still got fight amongst themselves. Still don’t like the southerners, the southerners don’t like

like the northerners, they are still fighting the war. Funny you know, that’s the only thing I can pick them on.

Yeah, we had a black American on HMAS Sydney he was a member of the chopper crew. He got along well with us but he didn’t get on too well with his mob. He was segregated from his mob but not from us. That’s they way they were thinking in those days,

it is a lot better now of course but he would come down with us chat to us and what have you.

Well he was separate from them as far as I know, I am not sure but I think he was separate from, them.

No. Never met one, might have been, might be some now. Of course there would be a lot of nationalities now because of the immigration coming in.

You can tell by their names.

In 1955 straight home. We come home on the Sydney in 1952 and we were going to pick up the Gothic and escort it into Fremantle,

but that’s when the King died and the Queen, or the princess then, and the duke were coming over to Australia for a tour but when the King died they had to go back so they cancelled that tour and the Gothic turned around and went home. So we came home earlier than anticipated. So we were pleased with that in a way because we got home earlier, but we were unhappy with the King.

It took a while, come back to Australian you know and we all adapted pretty well. They were good times because of the occupation in Japan that was an interesting part of it, different country.

The second time? Oh weekend leave. Go ashore Friday night and come back Monday morning, whereas before we had to go ashore four o’clock in the afternoon back by twelve o’clock that night, that was as long as you could stay ashore.

In Australia?

I just went to the HMAS Barcoo, done a bit of surveying and paid off that was 1956 then I done my time.

Yeah, because of the ship I was in mainly. If I was still in Japan I might have signed on again.

A lot of blokes didn’t. Married Japanese girls and got interested in business up there, baths and what have you and some are still up there.

Mainly because of surveying I think.

Yeah.

No, I was glad to get out. Because of that. I thought I had seen enough and done enough, six years is enough, there might have been other things for me to do.

No, I didn’t meet Kaye until I got my job with the government and I was down

Lucindale painting and repairing the police station and the school. She worked in the delicatessen opposite with her mother. So I used to take her out from that.

No, she will back that up.

I didn’t know what I was going to do until I approached the proper authorities and

they said, “Well you’re entitled to this. And we will give you a reconstruction scheme course. Because you joined the navy before you were twenty-one and you had active service you’re entitled to it.” And I said, “Well I wanted to be a plumber.” And they said, “No vacancies. You can either be a plasterer or a painter sign writer decorator.” And I said, “I will take sign writing, painting and decorating.”

And they put me with the government which they called [?UNCLEAR] those days and I was thirty-three years with them. Ended up supervisor when I retired, leading hand there for donkeys years. And I got to travel all around the country, done all of the schools, police stations, anything that belonged to the government we used to maintain. It was a good job, still travelling mind you, still living out of a suitcase.

1968 come and I got married, I bought this home before I got married. Mum and Dad was living down Henley and they were renting that place and people bought it and they gave us six months to get out, and I said to Mum and Dad, “Look I am entitled to a war service home and you’re depending on me to set something up for you.” So I had a brother-in-law in the real estate business,

and he picked this place up. He said, “There is a good place up here, Lockleys, you can have a look at.” So I came up here and had a look at it and said, “Yeah. Get a war service loan.” Which I did, put Mum and Dad in it and they were in here ten years, living before I got married and came back.

Well it worked out well, because they had to go somewhere and I had to have an investment for the money I was earning, because I wanted to put it into something.

So when I got married I would have it all set up and that was the way it all worked out.

It was. Even when I paid it off, I was paying five dollars a week, incredible isn’t it? Used to laugh about it when I paid it off.

Oh yeah, of course.

Yeah, it was great because as I said I am only a stones-throw from the beach, stone throw from town, Glenelg one way, West Lakes the other, we are right in the middle .Wherever you go it is only going to take you ten minutes.

As soon as I finished work because I had a bad bowel had to get out of it. The RSL [Returned and Services League], I was still involved with the RSL then, they said, “Would you like to take over secretary manger?” and I said “What do I know about that?” and they said, “Well you can learn.” And I wasn’t going to well health wise and I said, “I will take it on for a while.” And I ran the club down there for eleven years and that was good, something for me to do,

keep the old brain ticking over and I knew a bit about bar work but not managing really, so I learnt a lot there, I had to be the treasurer as well. So I picked up a bit of information and that’s when I handed over to the wife, she wanted something to do and no one else wanted the job. And I said to Kaye, “Look if I can do it you can do it. If you don’t like it you can just sign off.”

Can’t keep her away from the place, because she meets everybody, people come to see her every day, talking, she is a welfare officer for the ex-service people, she sees to their entitlements, pensions, makes sure they’re well looked after. Widows, she is right in with the war widows. She did a good job I am proud of her. It’s a good job and she feels like she is doing something, getting results, you know what I mean?

Yeah, and she has been just got the Centennial Medal for doing the job up there certificate of appreciation from the council for all of her work it is good.

Only that when we went up to Scotland, the hospitality was terrific amongst the Scottish people and we enjoyed it up there

and we came back on the train again. Looked around London, just seen the sights normally everyone else sees, we enjoyed it all. The weather wasn’t too crash hot, it was the winter time, well just finished you know. cold miserable place compared to Australia. But we were used to that after being in Korea, they had the worst there so anything else was better after that.

I was only there for one night ,had a good time had a look at the shows and caught the train back the next day, stopped one night.

Well as I said we left Melbourne July 1952, there was five hundred of us and they put us on the passenger ship Astoria. And it was a

trip of course we never done anything, all we done was relax have a few beers, a few lectures a bit of exercise. Keeping us fit until we got to Plymouth about a month later and we took over this ship and we worked hard, the ship was in a hell of a state, dirty, run down. It was used for a troop carrier prior to that and we had to get it back to an aircraft carrier, operational. We did that and then we took off

to Glasgow and picked up our planes and brought them back again and went home. Back through the same way we came again, through the Suez Canal. Stopped of in Malta and Gibraltar, Aden, Port Said, had a good look around.

Yeah. We liked London, always something happening there. A couple of nice little hotels where the Aussie kid could get a drink.

We looked them up. Good joint.

I said it was about sixty feet wide and about six hundred foot long but that was not

all landing space, probably four hundred feet. And I think there was nine wires, arresting wires across the deck. And as there plane come in the arresting hook had to pick on of those wires up and as it picked it up it pulled them up. And a couple of blokes would run out, unhook the plane it would taxi off the flight deck, the barriers would lower, and it would go over the barriers and stop up there and then the next one would come in. They go around in circles until they get permission to land.

And then it is up to the batman then, the man with the bat to direct them on, if you’re too high he will tell you., if you’re too low he will tell you. And he will wipe you off if you come on too fast and you have to go around again. Different story these days because it is all electronic, you don’t have to come in slow, you can come in full belt.

Because if you do miss the arresting wires with the angled deck you shoot off again because you have got the power. They don’t cut their engines at all before they get picked up. Before they just cut their engines you have got no hope of going around again.

Of stopping. If you didn’t you have got two barriers and then the plane was wrecked. That’s just the way it was.

It happened all of the time, blokes hitting the barriers, missing the lines. But they take them below and fix them up and out they go again. Not many pilots were injured that way. But it is not very nice to have a barrier whiz around your head. Barrier is like a big fence do you know what I mean and it stops the plane dead.

Catapult, one sing catapult.

Hooked onto the plane underneath, catapult was released with a wire strop, plane takes off and the stop would fall into the sea and the plane would keep going.

We never had it happen to us but it has happened planes that have lost power. Or got too low and couldn’t gain altitude and crashed into the sea. As a rule we had a helicopter

down the aft, ready its flying to pick up any crew that ends up in the water you have got to be quick about it.

Well in the cold water yeah. In the warmer sea you have got more of a chance of getting out of it if the plane doesn’t come down too quick.

Politically?

Well each night after the completion of lying it would come over our PA [public address] system what damage we done. Our planes that had flown seventy sorties a day, we had cleaned up two bridges, two railway yard, military camp, six sidings and the most popular of all they used to say, “We cleaned up forty-two ox carts.”

Or whatever, now is an ox-cart is what the commos [Communists] used to carry their ammunition in to the front line. Our boys liked to shoot them up because when they hit them they went up with a big bang and they loved that. But the commos woke up to the fact they were losing all of their ammunition and their ox carts so they moved them all at night time and spoiled our fun, we had nothing to shoot at. Nothing that would give a big bang like that.

Hooray, everyone was happy about it. Didn’t like to lose our pilots of course didn’t like to hear our planes got shot down or damaged but it always had damage done. Going by statistics, I think we were credited with about three thousand troops killed, our ship. Plus all of those bridges and railway sidings that was our damage to them. Their damage to us as I said was about thirteen planes, three pilots

and about seventy damaged.

Yeah. It was a nasty war. Yanks lost about fifty thousand I think, quite a lot of men. We lost three hundred and ninety-three I think.

All they could do was dig a hole in the ground and stop in it and hope for the best. Had to put up with the weather as well. The rats and snakes and whatever as well.

They kept us informed. They had the 3rd Battalion Royal Australian Regiment up there by the time we were there and they fought some big battles. Kapyong, Maryang San, the Battle of the Hook, three major battles they fought.

Yeah, they told us all about that.

We believed in the war because we thought it had to happen and we didn’t like the idea of North

Korea invading South Korea, they had to be stopped. A lot of people didn’t agree with us but I don’t think any of us regretted us going up there and doing out bit. Because later on the Australian public probably thought what has it got to do with us? But we were part of United Nations and it was United Nations first war, conflict, where they were all together. And even today we

are still receiving letters from the grandchildren of the Korean people thanking us for what we done up there. So they have never forgotten. You go up there now and if they know you are Australian and you fought in the Korean War they can’t do enough for you, they still remember. The way they live would never have been like that if it wasn’t for that war. Even though it wasn’t won by us, it wasn’t lost,

at least the South Korean people are living the way they want to live which is a lot better than what the North is doing. North is always thinking about having another blue, building up their forces and their people are starving. No cop living there.

Well we kept away from them, never seen them probably a good thing I suppose, coming face to face with them might have been a different story mightn’t it?

What the army guys did. But being out to sea you don’t come in contact with them that much everything is from a distance.

Yeah, wasn’t that bad until China come into it and when they came into it well a quarter of a million came into it overnight. So they ran over everything you know.

That was it. MacArthur said, “China will never come into it they are joking.” It was no joke when they crossed the river [Chongchon River]. Two hundred and fifty thousand of them all at once and pushed everybody back. On again. At Inchon they had the invasion behind the enemy lines, but they broke all of that up. That was late 1951 and that was the turning point of the war. But as you

know it all went on as a stalemate for years until truce was signed on the 27th of July, 1953, and they are still on.

Well they are big trouble makers. They have been brewing up something, they’re not happy, they never will be happy. And heaven knows what they have been making behind the scenes.

They have been accused of making atomic weapons and all. You work it out.

Well put it this way they haven’t got the support of Russia, Russia has got enough problems of their own. They haven’t got the support of China which they did have in the Korean War they had the support of both countries.

And they haven’t got those supports. China is doing all right on their own economically, they don’t want war. They don’t want to get involved in North Korea, as you know everything you buy now is made in China, they must be making a buck, who wants a war? North Korea wants one because they still want that peninsula to be untied their way not the southern way. South Korea feels the same way, they think the peninsula should be all

South Korean way you know what I mean. It has been on since 1949, since they split it up after the Second World War, just haven’t been happy.

That’s the only think in our favour they haven’t got the support, and we’re better prepared. When the war broke out in June 1950 we weren’t prepared.

The Americans weren’t prepared. They had a small army in Korea, not many. Most of them were national servicemen on leave in Japan, and as soon as the war broke out they sent all of those servicemen from Japan over to Korea. None of them were trained, half trained, got cleaned up in no time at all until they got re-enforcements in there. And those re-enforcements came straight from America, Australia, all United Nations countries, and mainly those blokes were all Second

World War veterans with plenty of experience and things started to go our way a bit better.

Oh yeah the training was but the equipment wasn’t. As I said we never had proper clothing, proper ammunition, thrown into it a bit there but the training was good.

Mainly I think because the Korean War only happened four and a half five years after the Second World War and no one was prepared for it. That’s why the public never came into it. Just felt well I don’t want another war we just had one a while ago and here we are blueing [disagreeing] in Korea. But that wasn’t the end of it, happened in Malaya, happened in Indonesia, happened in Vietnam, went on and on.

Still going on.

Terrible, half of them didn’t even know we were home where we had been what we had been doing, where the war was on. Some didn’t even know where Korea was. There was very little publicity, no TV in those days. Vietnam War got big coverage on TV all of the time, every night on the news what is happening in Vietnam.

Korea never got that a few documentary films probably shown in the newsreels, that’s about all. Headlines in the paper? I wouldn’t know.

Not as bad as it was for the Vietnam boys coming back. We never had paint thrown over us, never was abused, never called baby killers, Vietnam boys copped all of this when they came back. It’s bad enough, I mean irrespective of how you feel about the war,

if you have got troops over there the public must support troops, our troops, our boys over there. And they didn’t, they were too busy having moratoriums, running around with placards saying do this and that, bring them home again. War is wrong. Of course war is wrong but what can you do? We don’t pick them. We don’t start them. Same as the First and Second

World War we didn’t start them. But you have got to do something about I when they start knocking on your door, otherwise you ware going to end up like them, they are going to start dictating to you how you want to live, how they want you to live. What would it be like if the Japanese took this country over in the 1940’s? Like the rest of the world. Like Burma and Philippines all of those people lived terrible under Japanese rule.

Prisoner of War camps were full of civilians and what have you, Australia would have been the same. Just as well they didn’t get here. But Australian people are that casual, ain’t going to happen to me, ain’t going to happen to this country. All of a sudden bombs started falling on Darwin, Broome, Derby, Japanese subs started to get into Sydney Harbour and they started to worry. And then the Japanese subs started to shell Manly and those places, people just sold their houses and went inland,

panicked the war is here. Good thing in away because it woke them up, other wise they wouldn’t have. “We’re safe here we’re miles away. Who would want to come down here? No one will come here.” That’s the attitude they took and I felt that even though I was only eleven or twelve year old. Casual. Wake up Australia. And it still needs a bit of waking up occasionally.

Me? No, hate it. Only part I like about the war is the comradeship, amongst your mates and all of that. And you feel like you have done something for your country, that’s how I felt, it has been worthwhile.

I wouldn’t change it, I would

do the same thing all over again. Most of the blokes in my association feel the same way, they wouldn’t change it.

I was home before the war finished I was home by 1952 and it finished July 53. Everybody was just glad because that was the truce and it has been aiming for a truce for a long while, having negotiations in

Korea and Paris and no one wanted to seem to want to do anything to finalise anything until it happened and that was the end of it. They stopped on the other side of the 38th parallel and we stopped this side, that was the way it started, but at least the people in South Korea is living the way they want to live even though they lost a lot of people.

Talking about millions of civilians, homes villages, cities all gone. Completely demolished. It is still heartbreaking up there now because the North people are separated from the South, South can’t go into North, North can’t go into South. And you have got to look across the river and see your relatives there and you can’t do a thing about it, and that’s what bugs them, they can’t get together. And that’s the sad part about it. And it is only politics

that is doing it, keeping them apart, the North.

Yeah. I think MacArthur should have left it where it was when they went over the 38th parallel, it would have been all South Korea but as I said before he didn’t think that China would

come into it. He said, “China is only bluffing, they won’t come into the war.” But when they got close to the Manchurian border, China border, Chinese said, “Well this is enough. We’re going to get into it.” And they just flew over the river and it was on again only worse and we were pushed south.

Good.

I had had enough, six years was enough. If I was in happier circumstances on a happier ship I might have went on again. But six years was enough, I saw what I wanted to see. I could have done with a trip to the United States, the only place I wanted to see was America, the only place I never saw.

But if I stopped on the HMAS Sydney and not went off it the Sydney went over to the Coronation [Queen Elizabeth II] and I would have got a trip on that one. But then again I went on the HMAS Vengeance anyway so I got over there that way. They came back through the Panama Canal and they stopped off in American, Hawaii, Honolulu or whatever. And they had a round trip and going by reports the boys had a good time on that one.

He was working at Bickfords those two or three years before I was and he said, “It is not a bad job here but don’t get stuck here all of your life. I have just joined the navy I am having a marvellous time, I like it think about it.” Which I did.

Same thing I enjoyed, travel, in amongst mates and seeing a different life all together.

Hmm. Yeah. Only an advancement from boy scouts, sea scouts you know what I mean .You learn the discipline from when you’re a scout and it carries on through your life. A good thing, everyone should have a bit of it.

No, not really I have got nothing to hide. There might have been a story if I was in the blood and guts part of it I might have had a lot more hangovers than what I have got. I have got none. I would have some. I can understand the Vietnam boys how they can walk through the jungle and don’t know what they’re going to step on next. To get that feeling, that would be a bad feeling not knowing what's going to happen to you.

But you get that feeling sometimes when you go through a minefield because you don’t know whether you’re going to slap into on or not. Fate. Just hope that the guys that swept here before you did a good job and got rid of them all. But if you’ve got a bad navigator you might be straying a bit close to it too. There is only certain areas they sweep and you have got to stay in those areas you venture out and

that’s it. You’re going to cop it anyway, Mum used to say. I can’t understand because we go to war and it is a big hassle about things, sending our boys over here there and everywhere but you hear every day about people being killed on the roads every day and each year it is eighty or ninety and people forget just take it for granted that you drive a car you get

killed that’s it? You know what I am saying, no one ever plays up about it do they? Saying this has got to stop, we lost eighty people last year on the roads killed, look at all of the misery, the families and children and what have you. But you go to war and two blokes get killed and it’s on. What are our troops doing in Iraq?

What are our troops doing in Timor? What are our troops going up to the Solomon Islands for? Not too many getting killed up there, none of them as far as I know, only a civilian casualty in Iraq that was a reporter. And we have still got troops over there, five hundred and they are doing some good. Those people are now free from that guy and they can live their lives a little bit better. Still got the ratbags running around and we have got to sort them out that will take a while. But Timor is a lot better off aren’t they?

Solomon’s are a lot better off, we did some good. And if you’re going to join the services you have got to expect to serve your country and go away to war. That’s what you joined for. That’s what you’re there for. And about ninety percent of those people that went away never regretted it, always come out with something in return.

That’s the way I look at it.

Sasebo was wiped out completely. Not completely. Mainly houses in Japan in those days were all made of sticks,

prefabricated sort of things, not solid buildings, so if you get a typhoon there, boom. There was two hundred-odd boats washed ashore, fishing boats, quite a few deaths. Sasebo copped it even though it was pretty protected there they still copped it and a lot of ships did too. All come back with problems.

Yeah. Going by what the Japanese said during the Second World War they had all of their big ships there anchored. Because it was made as a typhoon-proof harbour, the prevailing winds come in on an angle, which is a typhoon and it is mountain enclosed. And the deep sea moorings, solid concrete on the bottom of the ocean.

And you don’t need to go to sea because you’re safe. But the English admiral said, “You go out.” So we went out on half fuel tanks, and when we got back we were nearly empty.

All fishing boast and small auxiliary, Japanese and American as well. But big ships as a rule over certain tonnage

you have got to get out and ride them its safer otherwise you might drag your anchor. Get washed ashore. Anything can happen. No room to manoeuvre, but Sasebo was different we would have been all right. If something had happened to us that Pommy Admiral would have copped it for sending us out there.

Probably. Yeah.

No, but we weren’t there long we were only there week, fixed up repairs and got going again. But those people up there they cop it left right and centre, away they go again, rebuild away they go again until the next typhoon comes along, knocks them over again. Rebuild again. Happens all through the islands. All through the Pacific. Earthquakes in different countries, terrible. Up they go again start rebuilding, same spot.

that’s their way of life.

Not really I think I covered pretty well all of them. I never regretted any of it and most of my association and the guys in it never regretted any of it. Oh they had a few grizzles about something but they would grizzle about anything anyway.

Got to have something to grizzle about. But they have never regretted it. Otherwise there wouldn’t be an association they wouldn’t be with us now where they can talk about it. RSL are all right, I am a life member of the RSL but the RSL is not all military now, a lot of social members, affiliated member, associated member. And you talk to the people but they don’t want to hear what you went through.

Because they are not interested, they haven’t done it. It might be a bit cruel saying that but it is more or less true you know. Ex-service people more or less mingle together and they have always got something to talk about you know.

Not so much of the war. Times we had in Japan and different places, the Pacific where we are going next week, what bus trip we have got, when we’re going to have the next beer. Things like that.

But you are together, you’re talking together and you have got something to think about and you hear Joe Blow had a heart attack and some other bloke has got this wrong with him and you think, “Well I am not too bad off I haven’t had that.” You hear different stories do you know what I mean? So it is nice to keep in touch. A lot of guys are not in touch and this is not right because they could be wanting something. See they could be wanting entitlements,

upgrades in their disability pensions, things like that. Some guys have never applied for a gold card. Health card, some were never on the pension because they don’t know, they live in the bush, nobody tells them, the government doesn’t tell them. It’s up to them to come and say, “Well I am an ex-servicemen, I served so and so am I entitled to a gold card.” And they look it up and say, “Yeah, you are you could have had one twenty-five years ago.” It is our job when we are all together

to let these people know what they are entitled to. If there are any changes made let them know straight away. And we have got a welfare officer, our president Jerry he travels all over the state free of charge he is granted by the DVA [Department of Veterans’ Affairs] he gets a grant every year, a couple of thousand dollars to pay for his phone, his car his computer to run this show. Because the DVA has been run down that bad,

they haven’t got the personnel to cover all of this. So they said, “Well instead of employing people we will train ex-servicemen to look out for themselves.” And this is what they have done and it has been a success, because since Jerry has been doing it he has made out six hundred applications for veterans for disability, pensions what have you , gold cards.

He has done some good anyhow. They would never have gone in, they hate going into where any government office is and hanging around and telling them about what's wrong with them. Ex-servicemen to come out to where they live and pay them a visit, have a cup of tea or coffee or a beer, and they can talk about their problems and the other bloke will just write out an application from and it is lodged and it goes

through the system and they get a pension and they are happy as Larry, because they don’t have to go in to the government office. And that bugs a lot of them, they don’t like it. Ands you say to them, “Why didn’t you apply for this back after the Second World War?” And they say, “Oh no I don’t want to be a burden on the government.” It’s not fair. They are thinking about themselves if something happens to them it all goes back on the wife, now if they don’t

own up to their disabilities and get it in writing and have it lodged on their history documents whatever, and he dies of that cause the wife won’t be on a pension . The wife could be a war widow on a good pension if he dies of war related causes do you know what I mean? Due to his disability. But if he hasn’t applied they don’t know. The wife dips out, so you have got to think what is going to happen to you after you go, got to look after your wife.

That’s the main thing. That’s what we work on.

Yeah. Feeling is good but as I said you don’t get that feeling in the sub-branches of the RSL like you did back in the Second World War because you’re introduced to other types of membership and you have got to mix with everybody.

You can walk into the RSL and could be forty people in there and two ex-servicemen, all of the rest are civilians you can’t tell them your story, so to speak. Say you walk in and see Joe and you know he is an ex-serviceman, you say, “How you going Joe?” “Oh all right.” “I here you got your gold card.” “Oh yeah.” “What about so and so? “”I haven’t got that.” “Haven’t you?

I will send Joe around to talk to you, you should be getting, and they learn from each other.

Well you can’t tell them any stories because they haven’t been involved have they?

Service life. What you do when you’re all together when you go ashore, how you did your training and who was the boss, who was your colonel.

“Remember that – oh, he was the captain or the sergeant or whatever,” just make conversation. And you know the experiences they have been through are the same as you have been through. So you can imagine talking to a civilian like that I don’t think they would take it all in. Some would, quite a few wouldn’t. There is a couple of blokes down the RSL now,

never been to any kind of war, involved in war, but they’re all interested in what you have done, memorabilia and they’re great helps. If you want them to open up the war memorial they will do it and they will show people through the war memorial and they know every photograph in there where the guys served they haven’t been in the service themselves but they take an interest in it. That type, there is not many of them.

But we have got a few down there and they are really good and they really know the memorabilia, what's its all about. Where it originated from it’s good.

None of us ever forget it. None of the servicemen I know ever forgotten their service life.

You go ashore with your mates, when you join up your with your mates and you get to like each other and you seem to hang around together and go ashore together,

know what I mean? Like Garden Island in Sydney you go ashore there, you’re probably the first off the ship, naturally you’re the first in the pub, Woolloomooloo, Bells Hotel somewhere like that, have your first beer there. After you have a few beers you hit Sydney town and do the same thing over and over gain. Have a marvellous time, back on board ship.

Same thing happens again.

Sailors don’t go ashore to go to the museum or the art gallery I can tell you that.

Love their beer, can’t get any grog at sea, you can now. And you can in the tropics, you get a bottle of beer a night or something like that. We never had a rum issue like the Royal Navy did. They love their beer and their good times and that breaks up your service life a bit.

The discipline you know, lack of sleep, hard yakka, you go ashore and you come back feeling a lot better.

Oh yeah. I don’t think I would have had the discipline like I had in the navy in civilian life. Done me the world of good because ever since I have just taken it for granted to do what I have been told to do.

Even though sometimes I don’t think it is right, when you work for a boss you have got to do what you’re told. And I don’t believe, if you have got a good cause by all means go through the proper channels for it. I have been the boss at work and I have had blokes under me and you just can’t get nay work out of some of them and if you go crook on they sulk on you. Things like that. You have got to

weld a team together and do the right thing., you know, you will probably get returns, that’s leading hands supervisor whatever you may be, that’s the best way to work. Get the job done, get it done well and get it done on time. Then you’re boss is happy and his boss is happy and it goes up the line. But if it is not done on time you’re wasting time

and comes down again doesn’t it?

Oh yeah. And it carried through to civilian life. Do the best you can, do it all of the time the best you can. And you’ll get through and you’ll get the promotion and be happy for it. If you’re going to want to bludge on your mates and not do the right thing sand let other people do it and grizzle and groan all of the time I don’t think you are going to get anywhere.

Those people generally don’t go anywhere just go through life being miserable.