Australians at War Film Archive

Well I grew up, I’ve never lived more than a mile away from the water, the ocean and whatnot and my early life

was mostly spent down around Kirribilli in the yacht squadron down there and I was the kid that used to row the people out to their boats. I was about 10 and I went, had my sailing dinghy and I used to help sail a boat from Drummoyne and whatnot and collect dinghies and in there. In the [19]30’s, the North Shore Dinghy Company I was one of the foundation members of it. In those days there were no, very few trailers or anything around and

young people like myself used to have boats stuck in sheds all over the place. We used to sail all over the harbour. For instance in school holidays we used to take the dinghies from, little 12 foot dinghies from Kirribilli, sail round to Manly and park over there on the beach and go surfing, and sail back. Well people don’t do that today. They just muck around.

I went to school at Mosman,

Maris Brothers and also at North Shore, Maris Brothers and my mother, I was always with my mother and my sister, who’ve both passed away of course but my father just wasn’t around and it was Depression years and it was very difficult but, we used to get by and then later on I sailed 16 footers on Sydney Harbour and then the war broke out

and I was in the Port Jackson Skiff Club then and we, war broke out and of course I joined the navy and that’s, I put my skiff in the shed over at Queen and Co, which is Kirribilli there and I went, I joined the navy and went to Rushcutters Bay, Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve. Then after a while I went down to Flinders

Naval Depot in Victoria, do my training and then Christmas 1940 I was drafted to [HMS] Kanimbla which was overseas. That was HMS Kanimbla cause she was an Australian ship that was a passenger ship in the coast here and the bombers gave us, gave the Australian Government money to put guns on her. Anyway she was then overseas so what we did

a few of us who were drafted to her went on the Mauritania and went to Ceylon and India where we got off, which is not Ceylon today of course [Sri Lanka] but then we went on the train across to India to join the ship in Bombay, cause it was in the northern Indian Ocean and we travelled from, see between the end of India and

Ceylon, a ship that draws a lot of water can’t get through it so went across in a little, to a place called Tulamalar [?] which was north west of Ceylon, across to southern India, a place called Tulamalar and, it was other way around, Tulamalar’s on down in Scodia[?] in India and we went there by train right up to India and waited a few days there at Bombay. While we were waiting at Bombay for the Kanimbla to come into Bombay

we were invited up to a Raj’s house and we went up there, this Raj’s house and he had all these beautiful girls looking after, all his harem and we just looked and went back and joined the Kanimbla when she came in and then I was in Indian Ocean and we were doing patrols and stopping ships and whatnot and incidentally one thing that’s not known, I’ve got a photo of it there, but we saw a ship, we flew a Dutch flag which was neutral

cause we didn’t want, we were looking at that time, like the radars were out and if they had another flag and opened fire, we’d have had all our guns loaded and ready to go but anyway what had happened, Russia hadn’t come into the war, neither had Japan and what we did, course all the ships were in neutral waters, like the Indian Ocean, couldn’t get through the Suez Canal cause the Brits had blocked it off

so they went into the neutral Port which was Banda Shapoor which was in Iran and there were nine ships in there, German and Italian and whatnot so we had to go and get them, cause they were loading their guns, or intended to load their guns from across the bottom end of Russia and down through into Iran and out the Indian Ocean so that’s, we were the ships to stop that or one of the ships. Then we, so we had to get in cause they had all the lights out

in the Channel and just couldn’t see Kanimbla in, so I was assigned to an Arab dowel. We all got dressed up as Arabs and went in to light the Channel up but the Brits had already put them on. We got in there and we captured all their ships and it was, few of them, Armfield, she sank and we got her up and was real, real drama, and anyway the, quite a feat. As a matter of fact Kanimbla

has stopped or sunk most ships of any navy in the war, 22 ships but I wasn’t on her all that time. I was on her for 10 or 11 of them, and anyway we eventually were coming back to Australia and I had a pain in my right side and when we went into Melbourne. I had appendicitis so I went to hospital in Flinders Naval Depot and

cause by then my mother had moved to Mosman. I came back there on leave and I went into Balmoral Naval Depot for a few weeks to recuperate and while I was there I saw the signal come through “sailor with experience wanted to help sail a ketch from Hobart to Tasmania” so I volunteered and one thing you say “never volunteer” cause I didn’t end up in Hobart. I ended up in Townsville. Anyway that’s where I met Ray Penny and we sailed the Fauro

Chief. What we were doing, we were working, our first job we got was a bomber crashed on the tip of Cape York, didn’t have its wing. We put this wing on the deck of the Fauro Chief. It was just about 15 feet longer or 20 feet longer each end, stuck over the side, was a real, we took it to Portland Roads in top end of Australia and as we unloaded it and everything, an air force turned up in a truck. They all helped with a heap of troops they all helped us with it sort of character but it was a real feat

and we were going out there on our way to New Guinea in Fauro and we saw the truck going up in the hills with the wing, wing was falling off, so we just cleared off and we eventually went up right through the Torres Strait and we were on there. We were chased by sharks having a swim and one way or another we ended up in Port Moresby and then around to Milne Bay the night after the Japanese had been killed in the airstrip there and what we were doing all sorts of

jobs. We were on an old ocean ship and we were getting army Torres Strait Signal Corps with their radio or not and landing them on the islands inside Japanese territory and we had one trip down to Misima which is right on the, between the Solomon Islands and New Guinea and we got these three army spotters and their radio and while we were going down the coast of Misima, I could hear

hear this din, din, din. Well I’d been a bit anti submarine trained and I said to Ray, I said “you hear that?” and it was in the dark. We had our sails up and everything so we were right so we went into Bwagoia Harbour which is right on the tip of the island and it was real dark and we parked her and course then we were standing there with the army spotters all cleared up into the scrub with their radio, where they could see

and this sub opened fire on us and a shell went through my boat but fortunately I was on the wharf and what had happened, we’d, when we were in Milne Bay, the Yanks had dropped her. We pinched her. Of course we were that secretive in the Fauro Chief nobody knew anything about us and that way we used to always pinch things off the wharf and food and we got a lot of ammo. Well a lot of it started to explode and tracer bullets and everything went everywhere, and the sub must have thought he’d hit a battleship cause,

and Arty Brown and I were saying, there was only five of us on it and we went up into the scrub, or on the headland, to see if we could see anything. We couldn’t and eventually a skiff came out from Milne Bay and we all went back to Milne Bay and I was there a while and then I came back to Sydney. I was rotten with malaria fever then. They couldn’t fix, those days they couldn’t fix it and I went into Canterbury

Naval Hospital in Point Piper and they wouldn’t let me go to sea again. That was the couple, last year of the war or so and so December ’45 came and I was demobilised which was good. Then I went back to my sailing again, got married, waited a while for lady. She had the first, all girl 16 footer crew on Sydney. Course I was 16 footer skipper and

she gave me two wonderful sons who are still around and I’ve got five grandkids now and I’ve been sailing. Incidentally too, after the war I got really involved in yachting and sailing again and I did three trips to the United States on the jury for the yachting world. I did one in New York, one in Boston and one in San Francisco and so that’s what I was doing then and I was doing a lot of yachting, sailing, solings[?] and actuals

and I’m on the life member of the Actuals Association and my sons have got an actuals now. They sail it. I’ve got a few mobile things. I just watch them much of these days from the yacht sheds and then other things I was doing was, Middle Harbour yacht club, I trained weekends and school holidays, taught kids to sail. I think I’ve taught over a thousand kids over the years and those days

we weren’t paid for it, didn’t attempt to. It was all voluntarily and one of my best pupils, of course is Ian Murray. He comes here a lot and they’re all, there’s three Olympians amongst them and that’s and I walk along the street now and one of their own kids will say “gidday Buss”. I’ll say “who the hell was that?” I don’t know the face but that’s what you really want. I’m still involved in yachting and by the way too, in that time too, for the Middle Harbour Yacht Club, I helped sail a yacht around Hawaii. We sailed all around the Hawaiian Islands and

went very well and with a couple of my mates and right round the top and probably not many people have done that and that’s one of the other things, I’ve kept moving.

I can remember I was a young kid, before we went to Mosman, Neutral Bay, was I used to live at Collaroy for a while and at a short age and I went to Narrabeen School for a while. Then we moved to Mosman before we went to Kirribilli and that was great. We lived just above the Musgrave Street Wharf and that’s, I’ve always been near the water, like I am now and

as a matter of fact, my doctor, when he took my blood pressure he said “you’ve got a problem”. I said “what’s the problem doc?” He said “it’s salt water there”.

In those days I would have only been eight or nine or something, not even that age and, you know it was trams and I used to go there and

I used to walk school, didn’t live very far away. It was only a short period but Mosman was good, you know living above the wharf there and used to catch the bus and of course the Depression was on. I had to leave school at 13 and I worked for the Red Cross Society for a while. I used to just catch the ferry in from Kirribilli to the Quay and the Red Cross were at the end of Pitt Street there and I was there, young bloke that did everything.

Office boy, posted letters and did everything and then I got an offer of a job with a firm called Jacobi Mitchell and I used to travel around town and then I went to the, then the war broke out when I was working there and I came back and then I worked for the Red Cross Society for a while and then I

got a job with Commonwealth Mulling which was Marquis plastics, you know in an office as sales manager there for about years and years and eventually I got retired.

Just how to try and read and write I think, that was about it. It was pretty primitive.

I went to Mosman Maris Brothers too for a while, while I was in Mosman. They were good and they were just near the Spit Junction there and then it was North Sydney Maris Brothers for a while, used to get round, cause my mother was battling along and my father wasn’t around and my sister was barely working and I had another sister

who died in 1931. I hardly knew her cause we were all young, you know but my older sister never got married and she only passed away about 10 years ago. My mother’s been passed away about 15, 20 years now, cause I lost my wonderful wife. She was only 51 when she passed away. I miss her and she give me two great sons as I said who, one’s a

lawyer, the other one works for the Dutch Bank. They’re both doing very well and I’ve got five grandkids.

She was Irish, a wonderful lady. My father, I met him a few times, he was in the Kings Hussars. He was one of the Regiment, the Kings Czars in England but she came here in nineteen hundred and twelve from Ireland. She came from County Roscommon so

I’ve still got a bit of Irish in me I reckon, you know but she was a good lady but being from Ireland, they never knew much about the world. Like, you know it was a whole new place but she was a wonderful lady and so that’s about it, you know but I’ve done everything. Our life, we’ve sailed boats everywhere and matter of fact in my book there, I’ll show you, I’ve got a photo of when I was about 10, you know floating on

a 12 footer which was quite unique and all through the years I’ve carried on my yachting and sailing and I was skipper of the eight metre yacht Saskia for three or four years too and, you know I’d see, being a, keeping a dinghy in the Royal Sydney Yacht Squadron, in those days, Count Von Luck. He used to row passed and he used to wave to me. He was in the [UNCLEAR “sea …..”], later on. That was about 1937 or something like that and course he was,

they reckoned he was a German spy during the war. Also I used to run around and say gidday with Errol Flynn and I, both my sons are members here. One’s on the committee there now. They’ve all carried it on and I see people today, you know all famous people and that was a wonderful way of life.

When I was about six or seven I think

yeh, just get a dinghy and row it.

A little six foot dinghy, those days little timber dinghies you know and I might have a few blokes and skull a dinghy over stern see and I taught all the kids in Middle Harbour how to do it and there’s some terrific young ones around it now and I don’t teach anymore cause I have trouble getting in and out of a boat now and it’s all become professional. Things

have changed now and as I say later on we saw the best of it and that’s pretty true.

Well I sailed all over, my own dinghy I sailed all over. The timber one I just rode around Greening Cove and Neutral Bay and Shell Cove yeh.

Sometimes if I was taking somebody somewhere or whatever, you know but I used to do a lot of it on my own.

You know it was good stuff.

It was very good. Things were different. A heap of merchant ships used to anchor in the centre of the harbour of Cremorne Point, off Neutral Bay, you know and sometimes there, there was some of their crew trying to, standing in Kirribilli Wharf, wanting to go back because their boat which was just off Neutral Bay and I used to

row them out. “Thanks young bloke” they’d say. That was good stuff.

Yeh, sometimes they’d leave a shilling or something.

They were all, a lot of them were all Shanghaied into their boats. They’d walk onto the wharf in London or somewhere and next thing they’d be on a boat going somewhere

but no, they were all pretty good people, you know. We had a fellow called, I’ve lost track just now. There was a fellow called Clarrie Potts who used to professionally row them out in his long boat, you know but he was renowned for, we reckon, “Anything with anything amphibious with any missing around the joint, Clarrie’s been here”, cause he used to pinch things and one day the coppers, the Water Police got him and he had this big iron

stone in the stern of the boat and they said “Clarrie, where’d you get that?” and he said “he found it floating”. He was funny. That was in court and we laughed and there was old Ed Ofay. He was a good bloke, old bloke. He was an old sailing ship man and he used to look after the shed down at Sanderman’s and but they were all good people to me,

I was the young kid around the place and through that, even today I meet odd people who know me.

It was good. As a matter of fact I had a canvas canoe too which I went to school with some of the caretaker’s sons from Admiralty House and I used to keep it in the shed down there and I’ll tell you what I used to do. I used to,

I had a cocky and it was a rosella and I used to let him fly around. He’d hop into his cage and I used to ride up in a canoe across to Clarke Island, let him out. He’d fly around the trees, I’d whistle him and he’d hop back in his cage and we‘d go back again.

I didn’t see many of them, only the caretaker and his son, you know so there weren’t many people there in those days.

All the old yachts were beautiful. You know there was the old biggy you know, they were all woody and they and they were real big yachts and things were different, you know. They didn’t ocean race much in those days, you know or practically at all, only down to Mergan Bay and there was some remarkable people, was, as a matter of fact I just did an article the other week for one of the, Royal Sydney, for what was happening around there in those days, you know. I used to, matter of fact

Judge Betts used to have a boat called the Wimble and I used to go out with him and all the people, you know and I’d go out on any yacht I was asked but eventually, way back in, after the end of war, my family were growing up. The Wimble came up for sale and I bought it and I had it for quite a few years. Eventually the chap that bought it sunk it off Curl Curl and it’s still down there. If you want to go and have a look now, you know where it is still in there somewhere.

Go to the movies. We used to go the Temora Orphean or the one up at Neutral Bay there and go to the movies and mainly sail, you know. There was plenty to do.

What did we see? A lot of the old movies like Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers. They were great dancing and

I’ve got a tape there I think and, you know all the old, by the way, Charlie Chaplin, my father briefly used to go to school with him in London. He lived, not as a friend but they all went to the same school together apparently.

He came from London.

I don’t know but he married her here

in 1912. I’ve still got the marriage certificate there, you know but the Depression years were on and he used to do all sorts of jobs and things but he, you know I can hardly ever remember him doing anything for me, you know, anything like that but my mother battled on and she worked at David Jones and places like that cleaning the toilets and things up and she was a good lady but she didn’t have a great education and

but I’ve read the history of Ireland and her maiden name was Brudell, which is French and if you read the history of Ireland, the French invaded Roscommon at one stage, all around Ireland and there so I must have some French connection there somewhere. I don’t know.

He was a good chap but

matter of fact I’ve got a photo of him there somewhere but I never knew him very well myself but he battled. He did all sorts of things. It was a very good family because he had two brothers and one brother was Captain of the Tan McArthur, a big merchant ship and, you know they were a good family but why he wanted out here in Australia, wouldn’t know. Mum came out in an immigration scheme, you know way back

well got help I think and she was a wonderful lady and, you know so I look back on the way I’ve had life and I look at all these millionaires and I reckon I’ve gone better than them.

He had a taxi for a while I think and I can’t remember what else he did. He was always on a roundabout.

It was a real battle. I used to go to school sometimes without having any breakfast or anything. Used to eat porridge a lot and that’s about it but food was a real problem in those days. Of course the population of Sydney was only about seven million people, not Sydney but Australia. They were really hard years you know and used to have a sandwich somewhere at school

or my poor old mother, she used to find money for us to buy something at the tuckshop, but I look back at that now and I don’t regret it, I’ve had a good life and people have been good. I’ve made lots of friends.

Yes.

My youngest sister was about five or six years older. My older sister was probably 10, 15 years something like that. We were sort of close family but I never saw anybody. We always lived in rented places and moved around, which was good cause, you know Mosman and Kirribilli and that, I reckon people now, they go out to Blacktown or something just stay there for bloody ever.

I’ve had four hip operations, you know, those type of things. I had those after the war.

Good, well when we were at Collaroy, my youngest sister, Madge, she was only about 12 or 13 and she saved a bloke from drowning, like she swam out and rescued him and

she was in one of the first Collaroy Surf Club. She was only about 12 when she did that or something, you know and my oldest sister, the one that died, Connie, can’t remember a lot about here. She was, died way back in 1931 I think, something like that

but what else haven’t I told you about? All sorts of things happened.

No.

Yeh she was a great lady. She had a

few boyfriends but never got married and, you know I think she was a bit like my father, you know very aristocratic I think and nothing was good enough but she was a good lady but I never had a lot to do with her or anything. I took her sailing a few times and that’s about it.

I had to go and get a job, keep, like keep eating and things like that, you know. That would have been in 1933 and swung a job at the Red Cross Society and that was good.

I was the office boy, you know and I used to do the things around the, just the city for them and answer the phone and do everything

and there were, I can remember there was a couple of great ladies there. They used to look after me a bit, you know, give me a sandwich now and again and I don’t know where they are. Mustn’t have seen them for 50 years or something, 60 years.

I think 15 shillings a week first and then about, you know went to, a quid a week I think. That was about it

but that went a fair way, you know the ferry was pretty cheap and everything.

For sailing. I bought a boat, you know a dinghy and matter of fact right there is my champion dinghy. That’s it there, see? The one with the sail on it. That’s my wife there.

I think I bought it for 10 pounds or something. It was way back, cause I did it up a bit and put good sails on. We won the championship with it and everything and the North Shore Dinghy Club, it was great, met some wonderful people in that and us young blokes used to run it, you know and we used to have an old commodore that used to keep an eye on us and we had a young bloke that

had a dinghy too and he wanted to join the club and we were all there that night and the old chairman said to him “you want to join the club. Well” he said “we can’t let you join”. He said “why’s that sir?” He said “you won five shillings in an 18 footer race. You’re a professional”. That was in those years. That’s about

1932, ’33, something like that. I always think about it these days, but eventually he joined it. Five shillings then was like winning the lottery.

I went to a firm of manufactures agents up in Gowings Building there and they were good people too, you know.

Just showing

around the town. They were good salesmen and they used to go and see all the stores, David Jones, all the Myers and things and we had electronics and things like that we used to sell and I learnt a lot that way.

Early radios and things like that, you know. They had the agency for it and I didn’t actually sell the stuff. I went

round and the firms would just ring and make the contact.

It was the first of the Sonic, was it Sonic? No not certain. I’m just trying to think of it. I’ve got the name in a photo there I’ll show you. I used to, they gave me a panel van and the name was on the side and you used to take it over and everything

so I look back now and gees, you know it was a matter of survival.

No just wages, you know. You knew what you were getting then. That was it but.

What, in the firm? Only about six, six or seven of us, you know

doing all sorts of things. They were good years. Then after the war, when I went to Commonwealth Marquis was an old, B50 people, you know manufactured machines, injection, professional moulding and things like that, you know. They were the first of the plastics people in Australia.

Yes, a good job that was. See a lot of the university people, well there were but they weren’t around like they are now, you know and it was, but, you know it was hard to find a job.

Just by knowing somebody, seeing an ad in the paper or that and went alright. I got it and

see the Red Cross Society, when I started, they were great people there. You know branches all over Australia but I didn’t, I just used to look after the city for them, just delivering things. You know, taking the minutes of the meetings and all things like that.

They were doing wonderful work, all the, in nearly every country town they had a branch and they were, you know

helping people and whatnot. They were, I still think they’re good today but it was a lot different I think then, you know, just the old general manager bloke. He was a great bloke. He lived at Mosman too and he used to run all that and it was good, not run it but see it was run properly, you know.

Personal assistance I think. People that wanted, you know, their home

wasn’t their own and troubles and things. They used to find somebody to help them and, you know people falling over sick and that, get them to hospital and they were real good people. They still are.

Well I just, when war broke out, you know because I used to sail.

Sometimes you’d get some of the navy blokes over at Rushcutters Bay there. We knew some of them. It was just a natural for me to go in the war. There was no way I’m going in the army, you know and I wasn’t conscripted. I just joined.

Yeh I was in Sydney. I was working for the manufactures agents at the time and a few of my mates were joining the army

and air force and everything and I really wanted to join the Fleet Air Arm but I couldn’t do that because I didn’t have my Intermediate Certificate, like I never sat for it, you know I was too young, or had to leave school so I just went into the seaman side of it, yeh.

Was just the fact that I used to see what seaplanes, when they first come and landed in Rose Bay,

we sailed the dinghy near them and I was fascinated by them, you know and that’s, I always wanted to fly a seaplane and I still reckon I could. If I could get in I could fly one as good as they could. That wouldn’t be true but, you know that’s what I used to think.

No not a lot. There was a little bit

on the radio, early radio and because there wasn’t TV around or anything like that. We used radio and that’s about it, but I knew vaguely all about the ships getting sunk and all the, that was, always kept high on that.

To Rushcutters Bay. That’s where I was for a month or so. Then I went to Flinders for training then. Flinders, that’s down in Victoria.

We just did a little bit training, marching around the streets and things and marching, you doing the march and that was about it, march and they didn’t have much, it was only an entry depot, didn’t have much

facilities there or anything, you know. Learnt a little bit about flags and how to handle a boat, how to, cause when I got, eventually came back a few years later and got malaria fever, I used to be in charge of the tender there to run people, porting people out to the ships in the harbour and whatnot and cause they wouldn’t let me go fully to sea again.

All good people.

Not all of them, some did. They had a yachtsman scheme. That’s on now. They write to me occasionally. They had a real good yachtsman scheme, about second in the war. There’s some terrific people come out of that. I wasn’t in that. I was just in ordinary navy, you know. I could have joined the yachtsman scheme but I’d already, you know didn’t want to change over.

For people who’d yachted at all in a yacht club. Most of them went overseas first up, over to England. The war was on and they flew planes and ships I’ve got an item on them there. They’re very, very good. They were real background of the military navy.

That’s a good question.

We just signed up that we’d serve overseas and do things like that and that we’d get some training at Flinders, which we eventually did, but it’s a long while ago now but we used to march around all Rushcutters Bay and whatnot and then we eventually, about 10 of us I think. We went to Flinders, yeh.

Beach Road. Right near the baths, next to the baths, the old baths. They’re still there.

No they were next door, they were virtually next door. It was a well known place, Rushcutters, you know, like it’s still a depot of the navy, for voluntary things and things like that, but that was good stuff.

Yes eventually we got some, just the ordinary bell bottoms and whatnot. There was a little thing you used to have inside it. It’s called a Dickie front and naval cap. There’s photos around here somewhere. I’ll show you.

It was just a navy, those days you had bell bottom trousers, you know, not straight like most of them are now and just a navy pull on jacket and a little thing we stuck in front was called a Dickie front. That was it and you got a watch coat, you know for rain and things like that. They were called Burbury’s.

Black or blue, dark blue

They were blue too, you know, not black, blue.

I went in the train and went out to Crib Point, wherever it was and just put through a thing but I can always remember we used to have these tummy missiles which, wasn’t a live missile for a gun.

They were made out of heavy lead and if you did anything wrong, you had to put that in your arms, double round a big parade ground with it to stop you from, that was called “Jackers”. Jackers was what, if you did anything wrong in the navy they made you do Jackers and they, it varied as to what it was, you know.

I’ve got a photo of the class there, ‘43 was the class. How many was in that class? I’ve got it somewhere. You can see it out there, about 20 I think, all went different places when we got drafted, you know but I don’t see any of them these days, you know. They’re,

I’ve got all the photos there when you want to have a look at them.

Yeh, you got up and you did your physical jerks and everything first up and then you soon got, you ran around the parade ground and we used to have a PT [physical training] instructor and also, that was on all the time and then you’d go to the classroom and do stuff there, you know. It was real good training, never regret doing that

cause I reckoned it, in later life when you get little problems, you know, you can solve them much easier.

Petty Officers, they were the training staff. They were good, depending on, see there was a Gunnery Petty Officer. There was a Torpedo Petty Officer. There was a Seaman Petty Officer that used to head various branches of what you did so you, in the navy, unlike a lot of the other navy’s now including American

Navy, you’re trained to everything now. That’s why on the Kanimbla, like if you were hit by a warship and the guns got, you had to be able to, how to fire the gun, how to do the depth chargers, how to do the telescopes. You were trained in everything and that’s still a tradition of the navy. I think it is and it was very good cause like some of the other navy’s, if the ship got hit it’d be bedlam, you know but we were all trained to do each other’s

jobs which was good. You mightn’t be expert at it but you at least knew what you were doing, you know.

Just everything on, they wanted to put on paper. You know like you do this, you do that and watch keeping and things like that. Course you’re working watches in the navy, you know, depending on what your ships on etcetera, three or four

hours or two hours or whatever and they were good years, yeh.

Yeh I liked being on deck. I wanted to be a seaman, which I was. I didn’t want to just be, you know just be a gun crew, which you do one, or the other. I was a Seaman Branch, like handing out mooring lines and ships alongside and do all the

things that kept the ship running, you know.

Yes and in Sydney too we had a minesweeper outside. We used to go out in it, at Rushcutters that was. Then we went to Melbourne. We used to go down to, just thinking of the name of the place, Port Phillip, no not Port Phillip, the Bay, right down at the tip of Crib Point. We used to

they took us out in little ships each day and we used to do the helm and do a lot of those sorts of things, yeh. That was good training too.

They were just little coastal ships, little, probably 150 feet long and just old, what shall I say, old coastal steamers, used to run coal and stuff up and down the coast and all that sort of stuff, you know just odd ships around. They were good.

In the depot, in hammocks in the Naval Depot, yeh.

Pretty primitive.

We were all in hammocks, you know, or most did. Some of the officers had a stray cabin but, you know strung the hammock up, you know and had, of a morning you had to retie it and do things like that, you know. Then we used to have a bloke called the hammock stower, take it down

and put them all in a big bin.

It was done by the navy. That was good. It was rough food but it was good, stuff I used to get at home anyway.

Just ordinary, you know, can’t remember but it was stews and things like that, you know.

Yeh.

I came back once to see my mother and then I went to sea, yeh, went to India and we got redrafted, you know. The Mauritania left for Melbourne.

I just went out, took my mother out a couple of, I was only here a week or something, soon went up, you know. I went for a sail with a mate of mine.

Yes.

Yeh, pretty rough, all seats and it took us what, about 24 hours I think by the time we kicked off and went there cause the navy had taken us there in a bus or something to the depot, to the Centre railway or whatever and same thing to Flinders Street in Melbourne

and that was it.

We were all looking forward to it, you know. The war was on, yeh. That’s why we joined the navy, not to sit on our bum somewhere and do nothing.

Not really I don’t think. We were fairly well trained but see Kanimbla had seven six inch guns and we did a little bit of training but not on big guns, you know but she was a good ship.

Yeh, that was in the Mauritania. It took us to Ceylon. Then while we waited for a few days we went up to, right up the hills, a place called, I’ll think of it in a minute, but it was a Royal Navy camp for, you know for people serving in, to give them a break for a while. We were up there in DD Lower. I’ve got some photos of that in Ceylon too

so that was good and we came back on a train again and then got the train up to north west Ceylon and across in a little steamer to India and jumped in a train to Bombay.

Well it was all, excited I s’pose.

It was very ordinary. She was just alongside the wharf and away we went. We were only

on there a few hours before she sailed.

Not really. See it was the Mauritania. It was taking people everywhere. It wasn’t just taking us. We were just a few bob aboard the boat, you know but there were other people there saying goodbye. There was nobody for us that I can remember.

We didn’t go to Bombay. She went to

Ceylon on the ship.

I can’t remember now, just can’t remember the time. I think it’d be about six days or something, seven days or something, don’t take that for granted. I just can’t remember. It’s too far away. I can if I look at my diary. I’ve got a diary there.

No, not everybody. It was just a few. We were just

supplementary to the already crew on there, you know. Probably some of them had gone somewhere or done, some had been redrafted or they needed extra people but they were just a scheme of blokes.

That time? I’d been round Australia, but not outside, yeh. That was 1940.

A wonderful place. It still is. Even playing cricket there today I see that Sri Lanka, you know but of course the British had, like all other countries I’ve been in, they’ve done a terrific job in getting people organised and this little place way up in the hills was in amongst all the tea plantations and everything. It was good

and just service personnel having a break from what they were doing, a week or a fortnight or something.

We stayed at this camp up in, was organised, you know, wooden buildings and whatnot.

Good, all tea plantations all over the place.

Warm.

Yeh they were just, they all wore sarongs and things like that, you know and they were good people. They, a few of them sort of employed at the place, bringing stuff in and that. No, they were good.

Not a lot, no we were stuck there. We just went for walks around, you know and we went down to

Trincomalee and places like that for a couple of days or a day or something and that was about it, you know.

In a train. As I told you in the train to north west Ceylon, then we caught that little ship that went between Ceylon and India cause the big ships couldn’t get through cause there wasn’t enough water you see and went across and that was only a journey for a day or something like that from memory.

That was wonderful. That was right through southern India and a place called Rasama Phanta[?] and down the coast but you could buy a beer on the train, which was good but you’d go through one state down south and they had a prohibition on it. You couldn’t buy it till it went to the next state on the train.

Good, yeh but I’ll tell you one thing. When

we went up to Bombay, there was a crowd there called the Parsees I think they were called and when somebody died, you know what they did with the body? Threw it to the vultures. We went down to have a quick look at it but it was too much for us. We didn’t, you know couldn’t handle it. That’s what they reckon they did. We didn’t actually see it but it was hard to believe.

It was good to be aboard, we were a bit sort of apprehensive, how we were going to handle it. It was a well run ship.

Out there I’ve got a thing on her.

She was a 10,000 tonne liner, you know, built of steel and she was about five deck, different decks, all sorts but it’d all been converted see. Down below in one of the decks she had, I don’t know, I forget how many, but a whole heap of 40 gallon oil drums, all stacked in racks and things.

If we ever got into a fight, she wouldn’t sink. All the drums would keep her afloat and a lot of the guns were seven six inch, four each side see because if you got attacked by the port side, you could only fire four guns. If you’re attacked on the starboard side, you’d fire four, although she had seven guns see. She was a good ship.

In, down below one of the decks in hammocks,

always in hammocks.

No it was a closed in area but there wasn’t much room I can tell you now cause we had to take, the hammocks couldn’t be left up through the daytime or so they were taken down and the hammock stower would come along so you’d get a job as a hammock stower. Every now and then I got a job as one

for a while. Everybody got it. That was the thing about the navy. Everybody did everybody else’s job for a while.

On watch. You had to, on the ship, on watch. I was on the depth chargers for a while. I had to do the four hourly watch up there, you know and things like that and you’d get various jobs on the ship like on the bridge or as a matter of fact I’ll tell you a little story

about that. We’d been patrolling the Indian Ocean for a long time. It gets pretty monotonous when it gets sight ships and that, find out whether they’re one of ours or another ship wandering around trying to sink somebody, you know. We had a big chap, his name was Lofty, a big tall sailor, a real character and I was on the bridge, used to do the bridge and Lofty used to read westerns, you know the old western stories. He was a bit of

a bloke and he was always saying, of course to us “we’ll shoot the coyote and we’ll get this and we’ll get the old horse”, you know all the old American terms like that and the Officer of the Watch used to listen to him and one night he came up to relieve me and I said “what are you doing Lofty?” He said “I’m tying the old horse up”, you know the old horse “I’m putting the nosebag on him”, you know like that

and the Officer of the Watch heard this and he says “he really hasn’t got a horse has he?” That was at sea. I can always remember that but it broke the monotony a bit.

Well I’ll tell you what, good thing you asked me that. See when she was taken over she was a merchant ship. Some of the merchant seamen stayed on, like the engineer. He was on her for, Engineer Commander. He was

good then there was the Royal Navy personnel that knew all about guns and everything and had done it all, then the Volunteer Reserve, the yachties knew all about that see and so that’s why I got the job on the.

Sometimes there were but it was, I’ll tell you what they used to do. If there was a real difference

like two sailors weren’t getting on, what our physical instructor, he was a real character, used to do, say “right I’ll sort it out” and we’d go up on the poop deck and they’d fight it out. They’d punch one another for a few minutes till they settled down. “Now you’re clean now, cut it out”. That fixed that.

One about Lofty I think, that’s, funny things went on, you know.

Gees let me think about that. We always used to get duty drivers in the tender, tender motor boat. I knew the, see with the, changing each, we had the big sea boats on them, the merchant ship. The propeller was run by the hand thing of the thing. We used to get that over the side and run that,

but that was good stuff and it was the sailing cutter. I had the job of teaching the blokes on the sailing cutter. We had one of those. This is when we were in port somewhere and in Karachi or Bombay or somewhere or so that was good stuff and up in the Persian Gulf and down to Shapoor.

Well it involved the ships. Well I was put on, got the job on the Dow. There were a few of us on that. We had to sail her in and

light the channel up, put the channel in light. The Pom’s had lit some of it but we did the port side of the channel and launch 20, which was an air force launch and the other mates were on that, you know. That’s when we, cause see what had happened the German and the Italian ships in there, if they saw us coming, they’d scuttle them which wasn’t allowed to happen because it meant the place was innavigable and

that’s when the Hienfels got sunk. They actually scuttled it but we got it up, you know, got it up. That tells you the story there.

From Bombay, only a couple of days.

We were, like seeing any ships that were unidentified, you know. They had to prove who they were. Then we anchored in the, then we had the instructions to go and get these ships. We anchored out in a stream and then what we did, we trained, like rudders up over the side of the vessel and climbing ladders and tying ropes and doing all sorts of things like, and demolition work, you know, just in case they tried to scuttle their ships

and that went on for a couple of weeks or more. Can’t remember the time but that was done, you know was professionally done. We were all good at it and that was one of the jobs I had to do, was climb up the side of the ship and things like that, do that and know what to do with the chargers when you got them, you know. As a matter of fact, here in Sydney now there’s, see all the merchant seamen on the Italian and

German ships, they weren’t Nazi’s or anything. They were just in the wrong place at the wrong time, you know. They were just, couldn’t get through so they went into Banda Shapoor, you know and they were taken prisoner. As a matter of fact they claimed shot the train off the line too and they were all, what was I was trying to say? They were taken prisoner of war. They went over to Syria or somewhere during the, and a few of them came here

to Australia as prisoner of war. Well two of them, after the war, I got married, I think went to Germany and I came back here and I see them occasionally, you know Christmas time and as a matter of fact one of them, I don’t think I’ll mention his name. He was in the Wesenfels, one of the other Germans when the Australians, see each ship had a boarding party from the ….. I was in the navy boarding party and Des, my mate, he’s now dead.

He was a big, tall, lanky sailor, a real good seaman. Anyway he went aboard the Wesenfels and rushed down into the engine room and there was a German sailor there, said “give me that charger or I’ll shoot you” so he had to give him the charge and that chap happens to be one of the blokes that came here and that’s how I know and I said to him, I’ll show you some photos I’ve got there. He said “I gave him the charger alright”. I said

“you know what? You did well mate cause he was a shot. You don’t muck around with him”. He said, “yeh”.

They were, they’d have them on the radio and we knew them as soon as we got, you know they were flying whatever flag they were. That’s what it was done by then, intelligence like.

No, I wasn’t told. I just did it.

No not really. As a matter of fact, I’ll tell you what happened. When we were in, coming back from up there, we were going down the Straits of Penang to Singapore and our Captain, Captain Adams at the time,

“clear lower deck, clear lower deck” and everybody stopped the ship and they….. He said “the Japanese will be in the war in the next few days” and they were and we reckoned that the bombers knew but nobody told the Americans, you know that Japan would attack America, you know but we knew cause we were, from then we went to action stations. When you’re at sea you’re

either in cruising mode or action station. Well action stations, everybody out. Well we were at action stations for just on three days and they came in on the third day after he told us, the Captain, so he knew, didn’t know the exact date but he was dead right so we reckoned that the Americans weren’t told or something happened, you know or they were told, they didn’t take any notice or whatever.

From British intelligence.

No.

Yes, at action stations you had a full gun crew on every crew. See at sea like when you’re at sea and you’re just cruising mode you had, everybody’s

not sitting around a gun, you know or anything like that and action stations, everybody to his job, you know. Like gun crew’s there, depth charge crew’s there and all the other things that ran the ship, you know. They’re all right on station. Normally they’d be doing other things off watch probably, you know, having a sleep or something like that.

Yeh.

Yes.

Action stations you were, you had to be very much aware of things, you know. Action stations, you’re ready to go, bang.

Yeh, they’re all water people. We haven’t got water. We’ve got salt water.

No.

My father, he was sort of on ocean shipping for a while and things like that. No, but my mother couldn’t even swim.

Yes.

Yes.

Well I was down at the Royal Sydney Boat Shed as a kid and I was sailing a dinghy and I was, I think about 10 or 11 and we used to sail up to Watson’s Bay and around Shark Island and home. Well I’ve always been weather conscious as a kid, like predicting the immediate weather and we were coming home around Shark Island and I could see this sou-wester building up, so what I did, well Garden Island wasn’t joined to Elizabeth Bay in those

days. So what I did, I took the southerly course and went in between, as I got in between Elizabeth, in it came. I’d lower the way and I blew home under bare poles, across the finishing line down at the squadron, you know cause the wind took me there and most of the other dinghies didn’t finish or capsized and all sorts of things and old Charlie, who ran the boat shed, he was an old sailing ship man. He said “gees you go well in a buster, don’t you?” and he christened me

that and used to call me that and it stuck. Well incidentally in years later I found that all, my name’s Brown, in the Royal Navy, are called Busters so there you go. It stuck. All my mates call me Buster. Hardly anybody calls me John.

No, but my wonderful wife, we sailed a 14 footer together for a while and we’re trying to win a club championship down at Middle Harbour and she was in the

bow of the boat. There was only two of us in the boat. All of a sudden she said to me “John”, usually she called me Buster. “What’s wrong Di?” “What are we doing here when they’re all over there?” and she was dead right so there you are. There she is there.

Yeh, she sailed the first all girl cruise, that’s her there see. She sailed the first all girl 16 footer

in Sydney and she was always water orientated like I am, you know so it was good, you know. I think you’ve got to save your interests, you know we never had an unhappy day except sometimes when we sailed the boat. We wanted to do different things.

Yes, not many but a lot. There was a girl called Sheila Patrick. She was like a

Kirribilli girl and she and I knew, I used to sail with her uncle sometimes in the Bayonet, in the old big yacht and I’d go up but she was, she had a male crew, you know she was a wonderful lady, real good, well known in the sailing world, you know but she was great. I remember one day at the start of a club championship, a dinghy she used to sail. She was one of the first girls and anyway she

tried to push me over the starting line, one of these things, you know and I went crook at her but anyway we, once again up at Port Watson’s Bay, we were both doing the same thing, having a go at one another and we’d say “come on, cut it out Sheila. It’s Buster”. She said “you can still go to buggery”. She was a good lady.

She had two big tough blokes who used to sail with her on the boat, you know

but she had my admiration and she was a good sailing lady, despite our argument on the water now and again but that was nothing.

I used to take them out in the boat a bit, you know, quite a few, you know, take them sailing and they were, if they didn’t like a boat, well I’d forget about it.

Well there were a few rich people but none of us had much money anyway but it’s always been people, but look it’s a leveller. I know lots of wealthy yacht owners and they’re all good people, you know. I don’t know of anyone that’s sort of, you know wants to use his money to sort of do things, except buy good boats.

I’ve just started to watch a little bit of it but yeh it probably does, a little bit. I haven’t given it much thought but as a matter of fact I saw the Competti, that’s the place there that the cricketers were going for a swim at.

I think I saw a photo of that somewhere in the paper, remembering I’d been there, you know.

No it was just, you know didn’t know whether we were going to go to, be drafted to England or anywhere. See we were Volunteer Reserve people and we could have ended up, some of our class I was in did,

as a matter of fact one, Les Bland, he was still in Kanimbla when the Japanese submarines come in. She was in the harbour that night and he was on the Kuttabul when, he missed the ferry back to the ship, he missed the Liberty boat and he was on it and he got killed when the Japs sunk it. He used to be in our class ’43 in Melbourne and I remember

Kuttabul was, Les Bland his name was and all things like that, you know. Another one went to the Hotspur. We used to call him, when he came back, that was a British destroyer and after the war he used to have a boat too he sailed and he used to say, “When I was in the Hotspur”. We christened him Count Hotspur “here comes Count Hotspur”, bit of fun.

Well aware that, you know we had to be careful. The like in the navy ketch, we had to know what we were doing on the Fauro Chief cause, you know we had to be competent that’s for sure. We were all hand picked crew on it,

and we were all lucky to get out of it at Misima.

Yeh matter of fact when I went down to her, it was in Cairns and I looked at the decks and wasn’t anybody around, only a few of them

and the decks were all like they’re all tarred and things, you know and I thought “God what a horrible looking thing”. Anyway then I met Ray Penny, he was, all about him there and good bloke and he said to me “well it used to just carry”, it was Australian built. It served up in the Solomon Islands for a long time and it was just carrying Lugarno[?] and stuff around the islands and that, you know and he said “we’ve got to fix this thing up” and she still leaked a bit

and everything but we went to sea in it. He knew what he was doing because he had a yacht. He used to cruise the Pacific all before, pre war and the other two men, the engineer was a good bloke and Arty Brown and Barlow the leading seaman he was good. We all knew what we were doing, you know. We had it.

Wonderful bloke, it’s over there, all that. He’d

been a flyer. His brother Warren Penny, he and Warren flew planes from England to Australia and whatnot and he was, his wife is Mary Penny. She’s there. She’s an OAM [Medal of the Order of Australia], wonderful people. Ray knew what he was doing too, you know, good seaman, knew about yachts. He was transcribed out of the army. He was in the army and the navy wanted him so they got him out of the army into the navy for the Fauro Chief

and they got hold of me when I knew about him getting off the Kanimbla.

Yes it’s a real leveller, you know like going through things like that, you handle life so much better. You know if you get little problems or people bashing one another, get divorced about, just not on.

Yeh Fred Job. Yeh well Fred and I sailed together, sailed against one another during the war at dinghies and when, he was in our ’43 class so we got, became real mates, you know and his family, as a matter of fact his son

was here a couple of months ago. He comes up to Sydney a bit and he’s a yachtie too, you know. They’re all like my family, you know but Fred was a terrific bloke but, you know real sailor, real yachtie and his sons built yachts and everything later on and like my sons, they’re all capable, you know and their wives have been wonderful people too.

Through the pre war sailing days, when we, cause he came from Tasmania see and when we were in the Cooma draft, there he was. I thought “what the hell”.

Yeh, not friends, acquaintances

you know we just met one another. He was a watchmaker by trade. His son’s still got his business down here but he does other things too but, you know.

No, it was always good to have a friend there, you know. He was in a different part of the ship. He was in the port side. I was in the starboard side, you know but he was a real character

Fred.

I’m just trying to think but he, you know. Yeh I remember one day somebody came up to the ship and he said, Fred was standing there, he said he wanted to see the Captain. He said “I’m the Captain”. He said “you don’t look like the Captain”. He said “I’m not, but I’ll do”.

Yeh

he was good to have around.

A real man, could handle anything, you know, good sailor, good seaman and he just had a way about him that nothing was a problem.

He was a seaman like me.

Going on watch, seeing how the ship was running and, you know all the seamen there and things, looking at the ocean and doing all the seaman like jobs around the, not like going to a gun crew and doing everything like that. We did everything else, you know.

Well they were parts of the ship

because the crew is divided into four parts. They are stern, port and starboard, like you had so many in each thing. If they, if it’s alright the starboard party’s got to go and fit that all at once, the starboard have to go and fix it, you know so the port and we were all in messes, different sort of messes, like for eating, you went to a mess. You didn’t just sort of go like, see I was 19 mess so 19 mess, your meal was ready or whatever.

Yeh there was three parts of the ship. I said there was the merchant seaman. There was the navy trained people and myself like a reservist.

Yeh we all got on well together, you know. Each one respected the other’s job, you know. They were good. Like the merchant seamen knew

nothing about guns and the gun crews knew nothing about the, that’s how they worked. They all eventually got, when you’re together as a ship you’re a crew and it’s good and Kanimbla was good. The odd bloke or two wanted to act up but they soon got cut down to size, you know. That’s life.

We

did patrols down the South African coast and all around till we got the job up in the Persian Gulf.

Well I’ve got it in that diary there but I’d have to look at that but we went in there and Agart[?] and they were waiting for all the instructions to come through, you know and then what we did, we

then we got all our drills together, all for a couple of weeks, you were going up and down ladders and boarding parties and whatnot, you know. That was on for a long time.

No when we went to, got drafted to Kanimbla we realised that’s what our job was, stopping ships and looking at ships, you know. We realised that would be on

something like that.

No we didn’t know that at the time, you know, that, didn’t even know when we were, after even all the training, what was going to actually, where we were actually going to go to, you know.

Well I used to sail, when I was sailing a dinghy in the harbour of a Saturday

afternoon she was always in our bloody way, going to sea, with passengers, knew it well, from a distance.

Yeh or only a year or so later yeh, a couple of years later.

She used to go out of Sydney into Queensland, Western Australia and she was a passenger ship, you know a holiday ship.

Well that’s what happened see. When the war broke out they had to get armed merchant ships cause they had guns on them, put guns on them and the Royal Navy gave the money to the Australian Navy to put the guns on her and it came under British control then for a while, till 1943 when she came back, came back to the Royal Australian Navy. They took the guns off her and

made her a troop ship.

It was as hot as hell there, you know a hundred a ten. On the steel decks and that it was something a hundred and ten, a hundred and fifteen degrees. You couldn’t pick the steel ropes up or anything, or you could with much difficulty, it was that hot, yeh.

Yeh we had shorts and things like that on, yeh we had summer uniforms and winter uniform.

Like in winter you wore imitation wool or something and they were just a linen type, you know.

We weren’t prepared but we had to do it. We got used to it after a while, stinking hot, you know.

Yeh the water was very green at times and all sorts of odd things, fish around, you know but it was very hot.

At times we could yeh.

A few trees and things like that, only a few and not much.

Only Karachi.

That’s out in the Indian Ocean again. It’s near the top end of India. We used to go in and out of there a lot and the only other port we were in there was Bandar Sharpur, which is right up the end of the Gulf, on the Cooshma[?] River yeh.

It’s a little shipping port, you know, a few wharves and things and there was a train used to come down there and when we went in and got all the ships, a lot of

civilians and a few of the German sailors were maintenance parties on the ships, all got on this train and course I wasn’t on it then. I was in the boarding parties. They came in and opened fire and stopped the train. She actually hit the train I think.

Yeh, well not, well see it’s the nearest port to Russia.

Yeh, after, we knew we were going to board some ships somewhere or other because we were doing all this training and then it was on. We didn’t actually find out till we were aboard the Dow doing some training that

we were going in to stop them yeh, didn’t want them scuttling, cause scuttling, that’d have been bad news. One of them got scuttled in the harbour, fellers, we got her up there, the Wiesen fellers. That was hard work.

Scuttling? Well they stick a hole in the ship and it sinks or damages it in some way so it’ll take water in.

Yes we knew, we didn’t know what the actual mission was going to be. We knew there were ships involved cause we were doing all that.

Yeh for a week or so yeh we knew something was on. We were all tense.

Not really. The intelligence aboard the ship, the officers knew but we only had a rough idea. That was all.

Yes we were actually under way when

we were going to board these ships and they’re all in there and we had, each boarding party had a ship to go to. We were going to go to the Australian tank called the Barbara after we’d lit the channel but we didn’t have to light the channel, only one light cause the Pom’s had stuck them on while we were off. It was pretty good intelligence, you know.

No.

He told us after what we’d done though.

From the Officer of the Watch on the ship or whatever, whoever was the, they were all getting, going up to light the channel, you know. See they didn’t want too, because naval intelligence is very tight and very good, that’s it.

Yeh, but we did it all well.

Yeh, well we went inside. It started in the night and an Iranian gunboat, had a couple of gunboats in there,

came passed us and just waved to us so we passed the thing on alright, you know. Tells you that in the book but eventually the Kanimbla got the Uranian gunboat, see had another boarding party and it was very well organised.

Yes, have to be cause all the ships were put into action

bar one and they all went down to India, you know. Other crews, we got other crews up from India to take them down and whatnot and we had with us on Kanimbla we had the Balukie Regiment[?]. We picked them up in Karachi and they looked after, when all this was going on, Kanimbla landed them ashore to look after the town and the docks and everything like that, did the army sort of work for it, you know. They were good, Balukie’s they were called. They’re Gurkhas.

Changed a lot. They were, what originally, they had to bring their own sheep and kill them. I’ve got photos in there, I’ll show you. They had to do the actual killing of their sheep before they cooked them and ate them. They were doing all their cooking on the open decks and everything. It was bedlam.

Yeh it stunk.

Yeh they were there these Balukie’s, you know. They were alright but gee, having all these army amongst all the navy crew. We had them for about a month I think all told.

Good question. They had food for them on there, yeh. I can show you some photos of it after.

No,

I wasn’t but some of the others might have been.

No there wasn’t a lot, no. Everybody sort of did their own thing. It was a little bit toey at top level.

Well they had to go ashore and Kanimbla put them ashore and they had to look after the town, you know make sure that, capture the wharf and did all those sort of things,

all the army sort of stuff, you know.

Well our job was to get the ships intact. We didn’t have much to do with the shore type of thing, on the wharves or anything like that. That’s what the Balukie’s were doing.

Yeh we had to

stay onboard for a while and then we got other parties, they got them up from India to take the ships and get them working, go down to, take them down to India and then the other one was getting the holes filled up, which we all got a job of pumping and shovelling. She had a puck side, you know which salt water comes from salt water and we were shovelling that out of her so she’d float, you know. That was hard work, 120, 130 degrees shovelling the bloody puck side.

We got our awards out of that.

That’s a good question, probably 20 or 30 or something. I’ll show you in the photos.

That somebody doesn’t shoot us. We took

a lot that off, you know, once we were on the ship but there you are. That was, then there was a floating dock. The Kanimbla crewed on her too. They had a floating dock. There was one of the little patrol vessels inside it. They got it too. It was in the dock, you know. It was all happening. It was a big operation, a good one.

Just our rifles, plus a few sub machine guns and a few little Stens amongst them, you know.

We didn’t fire at it. We went straight aboard it, the Barbara.

It was, they were trying to sink it, you know. Got the crew and

anyway on the Barbara there was an officer, was one of the maintenance blokes. He rushed away with, that was on Fred’s ship. He marched away and he fired at him, missed him and shot the guard rail off and the bloke put his hands up.

Well they were just merchant seamen, and they were, we weren’t out to kill one another either. They were

just in the wrong place, same as we were, seamen and there was no animosity or anything like that, not that I can remember anyway. We just treated them as humans and they treated us as humans, you know that was it but they still wanted to scuttle their ships.

As I said, they all got taken prisoner of war and

went over to Syria and places like that. A few came down to Australia and two of them are still here, or they’ve been back and forwards.

Yeh, we went back down to Bombay and then back to Ceylon again, back to Colombo.

I think months later.

We didn’t know actually the full details of what went on. The officers might have known but we didn’t.

We had a few days leave then we went down to DD Lower. We went down to Colombo and had a few days down there, too. That was good. Then down to Penang and then to Singapore.

We weren’t impressed. It was a pretty dirty sort of a place and from memory we were glad to be out of it I think.

Yeh that was, we all went up there and the Raj’s sitting here with all his harem and everything. The harem are all down in a

like down below in a courtyard, you know. Sailors hadn’t seen a good looking lady for years and there was nothing else though, but well that was it.

Beautiful. There were servants rushing everywhere and a great meal, best meal we’d had since we left Australia I think.

I forget now but it was good

can’t remember. They had a lot of fish stuff and it was good. Matter of fact one of my mates said “I won’t go back at all. I’ll stay here”.

No it was Indian type food I think yeh, as far as I can remember. That’s a long while ago now, it’s nearly 60 years.

Yeh all their long sarongs and things on from what I remember, but that’s life.

We didn’t know. We were all hoping to come home cause we’d been away a fair while and all waiting to come back to Oz and eventually when we left

Bombay, Colombo we heard we were going back, you know and we were in the Indian Ocean for a while. Then the Sydney was sunk. We were looking for her, you know, looking for the Cormorant, not looking but we were on the way, we were able to keep an eye out for her, you know. She was the ship that sank the Sydney, the Cormorant. She was an armoured cruiser like us. As a matter of fact

if you get that book there, I’ll show you in a minute, whether we could have outgunned her or not with our guns. That was our problem like what their armour was and what our armour was. We had seven six inch and there’s a story in there about it.

We didn’t know at the time but their range was further than ours with their guns.

We were always sort of aware of our problems, not problems, aware that things might happen to us, you know.

Well we didn’t have any knowledge but the Captain did, as I told you, and you heard what I said, in that three days,

he said “clear lower decks” and he said “the Japs will be in the war in the next two or three days” and they were.

Yeh, Penang and Singapore.

No Penang before, Singapore after.

Yeh they’d bombed Singapore and everything before but when we left Singapore they advanced further down, I think.

It was pretty apprehensive I think, you know. I think,

I don’t know cause when you’re on a ship you don’t know what’s going on outside very much.

No not a lot. Of course our Captain might have known, that’s why he was in touch with, but we didn’t know what the hell was going on, no. We knew the

Sydney had been sunk and we knew or rather the Cormorant, we knew there was a rotor in the area and we had a look. We were very careful on our way back to Australia, you know.

Yeh we

were probably a bit apprehensive, cause we’d seen the Prince of Wales and Repulse go out and they were, some hours later they were both sunk. They went further north. I think that’s the last two photos that I took, so there you are.

Only a couple of hundred yards,

cause it was in a narrow channel.

No, had no idea. Didn’t even know they were sunk for a few days after it I think.

Yeh I think we were.

No I can’t but

information those days was pretty evasive so there you are, you know. We went back to Fremantle then see.

No. It’s a long while ago now.

Yeh I think there were. We didn’t know much about it though, you know, ship’s company doing their own thing and not getting involved.

Yeh they might have known. Some of the others might have known. They were in contact, you know but if it was anything evasive they would have told the troops not to create pandemonium or anything like that.

No. We knew when we were out in the Indian Ocean like.

When we knew the Sydney, when we knew the Cormorant was there and the Sydney had been sunk see so that’s when we knew. It tells you there, yeh.

Yeh that was, went in there and Fluckinger I think his name was. I think he was a financial secretary of Ceylon. They had these 14 foot sailing dinghies down there and I became friends with him. He had a yacht. He owned an Australian

yacht. He was a hell of a nice bloke and I, he said “will you come and sail with me?” I said “yeh” and I didn’t know where I was going and like it was in amongst all the ships and everything like but he was good. He helped and I think we won both races, back at the yacht club that night and he said “this is my Australian sailor mate” and I grabbed Freddie. I think Freddie came with us in the boat too so he was hanging around so it was pretty easy because if you could sail a dinghy you’re dinky sailors

but we didn’t know quite where to stop a couple of times “where do we go next?”. It was a fun race.

Nice, yeh, from memory a nice place, you know but all of Sri Lanka’s or Colombo is, Ceylon’s, it’s a beaut island. I think it’s good, you know. Of course tea’s got a big

grip on the country there. You see plantations up in the hills. They all drink tea.

No, haven’t been back for 60 years, 55 years or something, so there you are, you know and India’s the same.

The climate and the people

and the, you know, the way of life. It was good, nice atmosphere, yeh.

Good. I remember they had some sort of a fete one day, one of these hoopla stalls, you know like you throw rings onto the thing. A friend was there with me, we started to hold them there and put them on. They said “no you can’t do that”.

Yeh a bit different. I liked Ceylon better than India I think cause India’s still, you know, the Brits have done a good job there organising them, you know but going through the State when prohibition was on, you’d have a beer and they’d say “you can’t have that till you get through the other side of”.

Yeh we were big beer drinkers. I haven’t had a beer now for about nine or 10 months but when you’re in the navy, you’ve got to drink beer mate, when you’re ashore of course, you know.

Yeh we were short of jam tins and everything we used to drink out of, you know like on Kanimbla we had glasses alright but

when you were ashore like you’d get a tin of soft drink and drink that, chuck it out, take the lid off and use it to drink beer. That happened too up in north Queensland here when I was going, when I came back and I was going to join the Fauro Chief, you know and going up in the train, we had to use jam tins because there were no glasses around then even in Oz in those days.

I can’t remember anybody that wasn’t.

Where at Oz? From Queensland breweries, you know, XXXX [brand of beer] and things like that were drunk.

That was difficult but.

Gee, that’s a good story. We’ve searched the ocean a bit there and it tells you there, that, probably be about 10 days I think or something like that. My memory’s a bit dim there on those things and when we left Fremantle we came back to Melbourne and that’s when I got off the ship. I got appendicitis and went into hospital but the Kanimbla then came on to Sydney

and she was in harbour the night the Japanese submarines landed, you know but then she was still HMS [ie: British Navy] see but during that period after that she got demobilised as an armed merchant cruiser. They took the guns off her and she became a troop ship. You know took seven six inch, she had other guns on her and then she went back to the Pacific and new crew.

Yes well I got off in different circumstances. I had, taken to hospital, you know and operated on otherwise my appendix would have bust, you know, went down to Flinders and I didn’t have any time to say goodbye to my mates or anything cause I was taken in an ambulance I think.

Yeh you get attached to them. She was, you know,

it was a good ship to be on, a lot of goings on. I’ve got the diary there I wrote all the time I was on her and I’ve had it typed out. It was a really rough hand thing. When I did my book somebody typed it out. It’s in decent type now.

Every couple of

days I think, just little rough hand notes, you know. It was illegal in those days to keep a diary but…

Well in case anything happened, you fell in enemy hands. They’d know what was going on, you know so there you are. That’s, so I did it illegally but it’s OK now after all those years.

I don’t know, probably shove you in the clink or something like that.

Well I sort of liked to just, I don’t know why. I’ve always had an idea of writing things down and doing things. You can see, there’s a lot of junk around the house here, like to keep memories of things, you know.

Yeh sort of yeh. I just sort of

it’s easier, didn’t have much time in those days. As you get older you get, like family history, I wasn’t even interested in it probably till I retired and, you know “who did that, who did this?” you know. I didn’t keep a diary as a kid. I wish I have of. I wish I’d found out more from my mother what her side of the family was and although I’ve got some Irish cousins come here, occasionally come out to Australia.

No but I’ve got a cousin, a Catholic Priest out at Rosebery. I see him occasionally, you know. He’s retired, you know so there you are. There’s nothing religious about me so.

Yes occasionally.

They used to, now and again they’d have ships joining and the letters, I probably got two or there letters only when I was away, over a few years, you know.

Letting me know how everything was here in Oz. She wasn’t a very good writer anyway but that’s life.

Yes but every letter that came aboard the ship was censored, like the officer doing that would open the letter and look at it, was all censored which is a good thing.

Somebody who might be aboard, you know doing something silly or something like that but it was a good idea.

Yeh it was all censored.

Some blokes say “you’ve got a German sailor somewhere” or something. It was just, everybody

knew, you know it was just voluntary but I think a good thing in case somebody said “look there’s a”, somebody wrote and said “We’re leaving. We’ll be going there. We’ll be there at and so and so” and the ship got sunk and another ship picked up the letter and boom.

Not much

only my gear and that’s about it.

Only some going ashore clothes and something like that, you know. We always were in uniform in those years. A bit of my sailing news and things like that I used to get, see I was still a competitive sailor in my mind.

Well we were in our

navy uniform, that was all, went to the Bombay Club too but we didn’t do much there.

Terrific to be back in Oz,

everybody wanted it.

Yeh I think we all went ashore and had a bit, cause still on duty watch. If you were off duty you went ashore and had a beer, good Oz beer which was fair enough.

You weren’t allowed to talk to them much about that but we kept most of it to

ourselves you know, just say we’d been up in the Persian Gulf or somewhere, but the war was on and that was it.

Yes, you know people were, good to see us home and know what was going on about the war.

Yeh there probably was, the whole place was sort of hyped up, talking about wars and things, what’s going to happen and whatnot, but they didn’t have much to do with us, the civilian public when we came back, in case you want to get adjusted.

Get adjusted to being back home and see what was going on. You’re still in the navy, you know. You’re doing things but, you know you weren’t able to do the old things like you used to do. Time wasn’t available, you know but I was at Rushcutters Bay then. That was a good depot. I was in charge of the tender

and the tennis and whatnot and they wouldn’t send me to sea again. I wanted to go but because of malaria fever, I had that for 18 months. I got treated for it but the treatment wasn’t, so the Yankee doctor come along at Canterbury and he said “son, you’ve got wogs in your blood” and we got treated with this new drug. Plasma quin it was called in those days and it gradually fixed it, you know. I still used to get it even after getting out of the navy for a while, you know.

Occasionally at sea and, you know I’d get a pain in the right hand side but when I was, when we were up in Colombo I got it bad. Then when we were between Fremantle and Melbourne we got a doctor and he looked at me and he said “I think you’d better get to hospital”, back and I was going to bust so that’s where I got, you know probably in the last couple of weeks.

We had a good doctor and everything and sick bay attendants and whatnot. That was good but I don’t think they would have wanted to operate on an appendix.

Yeh that was in Melbourne, just as we got into Melbourne, was all timely and another doctor had a look

and he said “alright, off to Flinders Naval Depot to the hospital”, which is where I got operated on. I was there for about a month then I came back to Sydney to rehab, cause Balmoral hadn’t been opened and I was probably the first patient in the Balmoral Naval Depot cause I was close to home and I had somebody to come and see me.

Yeh the hospital part of it was, yeh, brand new. It wasn’t even open.

Yeh I think I can cause I was on a bit of leave then. They let me come home for a few days, to Mosman.

Yeh it was wonderful seeing her, you know, wonderful seeing her.

I think that’s about it, I think.

I said “hello Mum I love you”, probably said the same “hello John I love you”.

No he wasn’t around.

Then I had a bit of sick leave and I was drafted to Rushcutters again. That’s where I spent the rest of the war until I was demobbed, the last year or so, yeh.

Between the Kanimbla

and the Fauro Chief, yeh I was at Balmoral in the Naval Depot and that’s where I saw the signal and from Balmoral I went to Cairns and Townsville to join the Fauro yeh.

It was for a yacht. That was a Navy Signal

came through and I happened to see it, you know was a couple of other sailors in with me then and were showing Signals and this one said, you know, and I volunteered cause they had my records and before I knew it I was on the way to, I think I went to Rushcutters for the business for a day or so, then up on the train to Brisbane and

then up to Cairns, up to Townville, Cairns and then that’s when I met Ray, he’s there.

Yeh that’s right. I’m glad you mentioned that. That was when Eddie Ward, I don’t know whether you’ve heard about the Brisbane line but during the war, the end of it, he drew a line across

northern New South Wales and Queensland. “This is where we’ve got to defend Australia and Queensland” because of the Japs, you know. That was called Eddie Ward’s Brisbane Line.

About probably a couple of weeks I think by the time I mucked around with trains but no, that was

interesting, you know. What was I thinking about the train trip? There was something funny happened there. I forget what it was. Yeh, when they used to stop at a railway station that had beer on them, there’d be all the sailors and army blokes, would rush out with their jam tins for a beer. They had tins.

At least 10. They just ran out. I was one of them, keep your jam tin.

Only one or two that’s all, not a lot, drink one and then take one back onboard, board the train with it.

Yeh

that was good stuff. I can remember those years now.

Just read or talk to blokes or whatever, you know, look at what was going on.

Newspapers, that was about all, odd books somebody left lying around. Look out the window at all the,

cause the trains were pretty slow. You could nearly get out and run faster than them.

Yes there was nothing much about it. It was all pretty secretive. They didn’t know what the hell was going on.

Gee we knew it was on, you know. They could have come further south but the Americans helped stop it. That’s Coral Sea Battle and things like that. Without them we’d probably be Japanese occupied today.

Yes I can remember it cause I’d been in hospital

see and my story’s there about it.

Well there’s lots of stories about it. That one there written by Maxi was on the, first of all a lot of planes went over Sydney, you know and they were casing the place and then after that my friend Maxi, he was in the army and he was on leave and he was going home on the ferry and all this commotion started and

if I get that, I can tell you about it. Give him a ring, you know.

Mary Penny, she’s up the north coast. She’d love to hear from you, you know cause she was a Fauro Chief and in my book a great sailor, real good citizen.

Well it means that, you know you’re good at domestic life and also sailing boats, you know, knew the Pacific very well and good man.

I remember going down to look at the Fauro Chief and there she was alongside the wharf. She looked pretty crapped out to me, you know looked like a bloody wreck and we fixed her up a bit before we got going and her sails were, her rigging was a bit, it tells you in the book, her rigging was all a bit crappy till Ray come along and we finished it and he said “G’day Buster”, “G’day Ray” and

course the next few days we’re on our way with the bomber wing.

No.

The design of the boat was, and it was a bit clapped out, you know but I think she was built here by Fisher Brothers, well built but, you know she’d been neglected and she’d been trading in New Guinea waters there, not with Ray or anything but had been trading and they hadn’t looked after her properly, you know.

In Lugarno trading of Lugarno, supplies, food supplies and things like that. There’s a name for one of them in the book there. I’ll tell you in a minute.

Yes very, cause there was a lot of army people there and all sorts of things were happening, you know, was all wartime stuff, you know.

As a matter of fact we were walking. We went ashore to have a beer while we were amongst, a bit of break time and we didn’t have any, you know real navy gear on cause on this old ketch and one of the Commanding Officers from Townsville walked near us. He said to Ray “Sub Lieutenant, you haven’t got any socks on” and with that Ray said “we haven’t got anything on the bloody ship to wash them with”

so that was right. We had nothing like that.

Yes it’s a two masted vessel yeh and she’s got the two masts in front of the rudder posts, you know and it’s good vessels too, two masts, two sets of sails, yeh.

Does a lot of cruising sailing, you know. They don’t go race them much these days but they do round the world sailing and all sorts of things around the world and, you know all sorts of navigational, they’re a good vessel.

Ray Penny? Yeh he was, he’d had this boat called the Moon built before the war and cruised the Pacific and cause he was opted out of the army.

He was in the army and they wanted him for the Fauro Chief job and cause he knew all about the island. He knew boats and the island. He more than proved that. When I was with him he was fine. He knew navigation. It was good and that’s why they got him out. They couldn’t have got a better bloke.

Didn’t, just that I

volunteered. “Here I am”. I’ve been in Sydney. I wasn’t going back to Sydney that’s for sure but we didn’t know much, even I’ll tell you in, even when we got to Port Moresby, Ray went ashore to get our sail, going into Port Moresby we were on top of a minefield. I could see them down below and we only drew five foot six and the mines were about six feet under the water. We were just over the top of them. We were dead lucky.

We could see it.

We didn’t know about it so that’s why Ray went ashore to find out and go crook. He says “we were that secretive nobody knows anything about us” that’s, he told them that, into Moresby yeh. We should have known. We weren’t told cause the minefield was there. See because we were that secretive with the boat, nobody knew anything about us. We went our instructions for Port Moresby and that was it.

Well the Fauro we were going to land. I don’t suppose they wanted anybody to know there was a navy ketch wandering around, landing people on islands with radios. Until we got to Milne Bay even we were an examination ship and all sorts of things and these army spotters we took down to Misima, so there you are.

On Fauro? There was Ray Penny, myself, a Leading Seaman Barlow, another and a mechanic. I forget his name. He was very good. Then we also had a cook that, he was an Englishman and his whole family had been killed in a bombing raid in London so he went back and we cooked for ourselves till

we got to Moresby. Then we got Itop, this native cook the one that was hit by the subbies, the one that vanished and that’s the last I saw of him, bang, gone.

I can’t think of it at the moment. I’ll recall it. He was only with us for a little while but poor bloke, his family had, or some of them had been killed in an air raid in London, and he went, he got leave

to go home, you know which is fair enough.

I don’t know. He must have got the news from somewhere, yeh. Even when he joined, before he joined the Fauro he might have got it. He probably did.

They were good. They were just regular yachting meals, bit of fried stuff and sausages and stuff like that, tinned stuff and I survived though.

Good story. Well you eat a lot of tinned food and a bit of cereal and stuff, you know, plenty of fruit and they’ve changed today though, you know the meals.

Very little,

three foot by about three foot, you know and there was a kerosene stove, you know. We took lighting up there and carried stock for that and fuel for our engines. There’d be drums on deck of fuel, you know cause everything was ready to go.

Whatever port we were in, we bought all those in Townsville, you know.

The cook did all that. That was his job.

Yeh Itop. He was a Solomon Islander, a beaut bloke, you know, full of fun but, you know he was always and he was actually on the boat when the shell hit I think.

We were all on the wharf, you know and you should have seen him, a flash and gone. He didn’t turn up. I don’t know whether he’s still running.

It was at evening in the dark. Yeh we’d been alongside the wharf for a few hours and we had a light in the binnacle and we had all the

lights out. We were aware of, could be troubles and all standing, talking about what we were going to do and the shell went off, yeh.

We were, we’d been in touch with the, by radio with Port Moresby and going to find out what our next instructions were, you know but then we got, after that was all over we got, that was before

that we’d been running people around the islands in examination and whatnot, you know. That’s what happened.

Well anything going out from Milne Bay, any ships come out to check it see if its credentials were right, see who it was and what it was and where he was going and that was it. It was to check, there were two or three of us. We were one of them,

not little boats but bigger boats, you know and we went out to Quir and [?]Sareba there down in the channel there and that’s where we got all the, we went down. We got a refrigerator, cause all, everybody cleared off from the houses and everything so we went to knock all the things around, put them on the Fauro, took them back to the mob in Milne Bay who needed them.

Very little, like Milne Bay, you know the army was there and we had little supplies. What we used to, cause we weren’t on the list when we first got in. Nobody knew anything about us and we didn’t have any supplies so the Yanks used to leave stuff on the wharf, loading up and we’d pinch that, to eat.

Yeh well

the was in there. She was sunk by the Japs and the army, the Australian Army had to stop the Japs coming across the airstrip. That’s where the invasion south stopped right there in Milne Bay. We were alongside the wharf there, in and out for a while there, you know but

the Fauro, that was only all our experience we were able to do the things we did.

Apart from the storm, I hadn’t been there. It was still reasonable, you know but back in Gili Gili, that’s where the wharf was, it was a bit destructive, you know, the real wartime things and that all over the place and trucks and things and God knows what else.

Weren’t many of them, but they were there.

Yeh it’s jungle.

No we only heard about the airstrip later on when we, a day or so after, you know. The 2/10th, 2/12th cut the

Japs down. They got across, and the Yanks were trying to build an airstrip, you know without them hearing and they just bulldozed all the dead bodies into the, and stuck the air force tracks on top of them, you know, so as they could get the planes in, you know. Yeh that was pretty dramatic

and they were picking up the dead, just burying them in the airstrip.

Well we went to Cairns to pick up the bomber wing. Then we dropped off at Portland Roads which is on the top of Cape York. The air force picked it up, you know. Then we went through the Torres Strait, did all sorts of things in the islands there

like I showed you in the photographs and ended up in Port Moresby.

Well the bomber wing, there was a plane crashed on the tip of Cape York. It lost its wing and we got the job of taking the spare wing up, so we put it on the Fauro Chief which is, I’ll tell you it was a real job cause way up in the rigging we couldn’t tack or anything cause

that would mean putting the boat about. We had to stay in the one thing. We eventually got it to Portland Roads and the air force truck come down out of the scrub and a mob of air force blokes and we lifted it off.

I forget now. I think it was a, I’ve got it in the book, DC3 [type of aircraft]? No it was a big bomber. I’ll think of it in a minute.

I don’t know. We just got it from Cairns that, you know how to get there, you know so we took it. It’s in the photographs there on the thing. That was quite a wonderful effort.

We tied it up with ropes and things, put ropes over it and jammed it in against the side of the cabin and it was huge. If you speak to Ray Penny, I’ve got his things there, if someone rings him, he can tell you more about it.

Very hazardous, like we couldn’t get hit with a gale or anything cause it was like an extra sail

and stuff like that, you know but we got her there alright but I don’t know how long it took. I forget now.

It was about 20 feet longer each end to the boat. The boat was 55 I think and it was probably nearly 80 feet long, the wing I think, from memory and it went way up in the rigging, you know about 30 feet up in the rigging I think, 20 feet, 30 feet

something like that. They’re questions I can’t answer.

We were always in sight of land. We had a stay about 10 miles.

Very tropical, like it always changed, you know, very tropical and we got there alright. Portland Roads is a little port, you know, little shipping port. Nobody goes there

much. I don’t think anybody’s even heard of it these days but it’s there.

It’s just short of Cape York, the tip of it. The atlas is there somewhere. I can show you but Portland Roads is, it’s well north of Cairns, you know so we got it off alright but then when we were leaving

on our way to Port Moresby, the truck was sort of going a bit slow and we saw it sliding off and all the air force blokes were jumping, we didn’t go back. We kept going. We don’t know what happened to it after that.

The plane was, yeh it was somewhere. I don’t know exactly where but they reckon I think it was about 50 kilometres or something from memory, 50 miles. I don’t know whether or it was on the beach or where it was. We didn’t even see the plane, you know.

We just got to the, where we could unload it, where they could drive, you know pick it up.

Well it was blowing a gale, you know. We had to watch what we were doing but when we got further north, like in the Torres Strait we were on a little island, around an island sort of thing

and we were in this lagoon and we got chased by sharks. We swam out of it.

We were on one side of the island. Our dinghy we left was on the other side. We had to get back and we sort of swam around all the rocks and had to get to the dinghy to get back to the boat which was anchored offshore.

We just thought we’d like a break, and have a look

at the island and have a swim and cause Ray knew the area pretty well see. He’d travelled through there a lot.

I don’t know but Arty said “watch out there’s those bloody sharks”. We all scrambled out. He was my mate. His name was Brown too, no relation.

No we never had any guns with us. We had them back on shore.

Couldn’t take them out in the water and swim as well.

Yeh well we knew. They just said “go to” and we had all the navigation things. The skipper knew all about that, no worries.

Yes going ashore,

think it was about, it was nearly within sighting distance of Moresby, probably about 60 mile out. It was very shallow waters and I looked down and I saw them. I’d been up on the mast, looked down and there they were. They were Australian made mines I think, but we weren’t told it was a minefield.

Big round, like a pear shaped.

That’s what they were, you know and we only drew five foot six and we think the mines were down about six foot six, about a foot away and when Ray went ashore at Port Moresby to go crook at them for not letting us know the minefield was there, nobody knew anything about us, didn’t even know we were in the waters.

Yeh, that’s for sure.

I don’t know. I could see about three I reckon. That’s all I could see and we cleared off.

Well you’ve only got to hit them and they’ll explode. They were the type.

We just kept on going the direction

we were in and we didn’t see any more after that. We must have seen the outer edge of them or something. We were lucky. Whether we come over the top of them or not, I don’t know, cause the further we went, after that last one that I saw, didn’t see any more.

Well there was troops there, and trucks and all sorts of things, and the whole place was alive, cause the Japs were in the war and Ray, the skipper, he went up to navy office to find out what was going on, cause we were bound for Milne Bay you see. That was our next, we had to report in see that and he just said “they didn’t know anything about us in the Moresby office”

apparently for a while so he was real upset about that lot and I don’t blame him. So was I.

Australian.

Not really, no. We were only there for couple of nights, looking after the boat and we had to get down to Milne Bay. On the way down to Milne Bay we went to Quato and

down in the China Straits there and we did all that sort of stuff.

To have a look. Everybody cleared off.

Cause the Japs came see. They’d been, the battle had just been on at Milne Bay at Gili Gili before the, when the Americans were building the airstrip and the Australian 2/12th and the, I think the 2/10th, 2/12th, cut the Japs down, went across in the airstrip.

That was in Gili Gili. That’s in Milne Bay.

Yeh, two days.

Yeh the Anchung and was in there. She’d been hit with aircraft and she was half sunk alongside the wharf down there. We were lucky we just weren’t there. That’s why we went into the wharf at Milne Bay and we were short of food and tucker and God knows what else and the Yanks had been loading up and unloading so we pinched,

so we took bit of something to eat.

I’m not dead certain. She was a British ship, not sure where she was registered cause you couldn’t see the name. It was, I’ve probably got it somewhere, cause it was submerged you see and

she had something to do with Chinese trade, you know in the islands. I think they eventually got her up and moved her, though it’d be a long time, may have even been after the war cause she was pretty much in shallow water there you see.

What in Milne Bay? Well there were plenty of signs. There were, I said

like, when all the Japs got cut down, the Americans just bulldozed them into the, so as they could lay their strip, just bulldozed them arms and legs and heads, things sticking out everywhere. They just ran the bulldozer over them, laid the strip and got their planes in, didn’t muck about.

Yes, nearly made me sick. It wasn’t way off the wharf, it wasn’t far.

A bit of it, yeh a bit of it was still there. They were still working on it, you know.

Shocking so I didn’t stay long, just had a quick look and went, you know. It’s so long ago now.

Not, no. They were sort of doing their own thing, you know but the ones on the wharf were, the ones that came in were loading and unloading, we just said “gidday” to a few of them, you know. That was it.

We didn’t know till we were told. Some Australian troop leader or somebody told us what had happened.

No, except what I just told you

there was arms and legs sticking out and everything everywhere.

Well when we were at sea we were but not so much in Milne Bay because there were air strikes still going on. Every now and then there’d be, everybody would run for cover and whatnot so we were glad to get out of the place, you know and we continued on to Milne Bay.

A couple of air strikes happened while we were there, like the planes come over and they dropped a bomb and, not near us though, further up in the Kokoda Trail or something they were doing something.

Yes quite frequently. A lot of them were ours, a few Jap planes.

Yeh but they were up high and they weren’t worrying us

so we didn’t worry them.

By their shape and size, and insignia on the wings.

Which subs, the ones in Sydney Harbour?

Yeh well when we were going down the coast to Milne Bay it was night time and, you know we were very sort of incognito. See I was submarine trained. I had an anti sub certificate and I could hear this “din, din, din, din, din” at night when we were sailing and we had the motor running and I said to Ray “hear that?” He cut the motor off, you know and he said “what do you reckon?” and we both reckoned

it was a sub charging a battery so we never saw it and went on for a while and we just sailed on till we got further down the coast towards Gili Gili and I put the motor on and went into the little entrance to the harbour and the Gowa Harbour it’s called and we were there a couple of hours and we didn’t have any lights on. The only light we had on was the binnacle for seeing

our compass and we were on the wharf discussing what we should do cause we thought, the next minute this sub opened fire, came out on the anchor. You couldn’t get in see cause he was too deep, sub was too deep and the entrance was too deep and soon as it went through, it was only a light weight calibre shell went through the wheelhouse one end, went through my boat which was in the wheelhouse and right the other side and exploded. We were on the wharf and I fell over. Ray and I both got

with the bang, we just collapsed on the wharf and we reckoned “what was that?” and he said “it’s got to be a sub” so we drew lots then. The headland was there, the two of us were going onto the headland and see if we could see anything cause you see right down and anyway I was one of the ones that draw a card and Arty Brown, my big mate, he was the other one, up we went and we grabbed a couple of American machine guns to take with us, a couple each

and we’re going up through the scrub and we could see all these red lights coming towards us so I said to Arty “look at these”. “God” he said “look at those”. Anyway we didn’t know what to do, whether to open fire and we opened fire and what do you know what they were? They were bloody fireflies. We thought they were blokes landed us and when we got on the top of the headland, we stayed there for a couple of hours and couldn’t see a thing and then about two nights later we got help from Milne Bay. One of the corvettes came and got us.

Gili Gili yeh.

That was the official, I’m just trying to think what the navy name of it was. I’ve got it in the book too. It had a code name and that was the headquarters for the navy, you know in New Guinea, in that end of New Guinea

anyway.

It’s in Milne Bay, right at the end of it.

We had to report in see cause had to report in cause that’s where our station was going to be for examination shipment

taking all the spotters out on the islands. That’s what we were there for and they knew all about it in there. That’s the only place they did.

Yeh land them on island with a radio then we’d clear off. Actually the ones we landed on Milne Bay, rather in Gili Gili, rather in Bagwao Harbour in Misima, the natives

attacked them and one of them got killed. Lester he got killed. That book called Signals, have I got it there? It’s got it all in there.

No we didn’t know till much later. I didn’t know until I came back to Australia that he got attacked.

Pretty good. Now and again you got, you know an obnoxious crowd in like all,

I don’t blame them in their own country, you know but generally speaking they were pretty good.

They weren’t welcoming the Japanese, that’s for sure, you know. They welcomed the Australian way of life.

No most of them had gone I think. There might have been one or two left but as far as or down the channel, anything like that, all the houses were deserted. There was nobody there. They’d all, after what was going on, the Kokoda Trail and everywhere, they all gave up. We didn’t strike any. We went in at a couple and found nobody. There could have been somebody there but we didn’t see any.

He was, at that stage, you know it was pretty rough. He came down. He said “I’ve got a proposition to make to you” and Ray said “what’s that?” He said “all that gold mine, it’s up there in the vault and all the gold, and everybody’s cleared off and left it. Why don’t we get it and put it

on your boat and go to South America?” That was his suggestion. Well it wasn’t a bad idea. That was Lee Batillia.

I’m just trying to think which island that was. I’ll have to read the book again to tell you exactly where. Was it Quatro Sareba or, no I think that might have been at Gili Gili, yeh.

Real, he’d been to the war like and he was a real rough character and a real, what shall I say, mountaineer sort of guy and yeh, I can remember him quite well. He died a few years ago. I saw where he came down to live in Townsville or somewhere and he died. I’ve got that somewhere in amongst all the junk there. I’ve got to find it.

Yes they were all, a lot of Australians but they weren’t there when we were there, you know cause they’d all cleared off somewhere, except Lee Batillia with all the gold and that. Yeh I remember that now. That was up there on the hill.

Alright like we didn’t see many but in, mostly troops and that. There weren’t many locals around but on one of the islands we got a refrigerator and all the kitchen, cause everybody had gone and the mob in Milne Bay didn’t have any, on one of our trips, so we took it back to them and they were real welcome to get it, better than it just sitting on an island doing nothing.

They were reasonable, you know for, you know mostly timber built and whatnot, you know and fibro and stuff like that but they were, you know generally speaking with the area, you know but just trying to think, cause they all, they didn’t have many modern stuff at all in those years.

The fridge was on the island yeh.

We lifted it aboard, got some natives to help us lift it aboard and took it back to Milne Bay and the mob there were delighted cause they didn’t have a fridge. It was an old fridge and it wouldn’t go so switched it on and one of the locals said “well, way to go” he said “turn it upside down” so we turned it upside down, let it like that for about half a day, turned it back and sure enough it went.

I don’t know but the fluid in it I guess. It’s in the book that, in my first book I think.

That was about all. There was plenty of, there’s a stick there I brought back. Just have a look around the corner there you’ll see it, on the thing, a New Guinea stick and that’s about it. That’s all I brought back

I think.

Sarongs and things like that, you know and beat up Australian gear, yeh.

Well you had to find one. Mostly the,

like the radio came from like we had one aboard but it was very limited in its range etcetera and most of them, the radios came through the headquarters there at Gili Gili, you know. They had a central station that they’d get into and they’d all talk about it, you know and I don’t know whether they were receiving cause we had nobody there to talk to on the islands but I don’t know. Their reception was very, very poor

You couldn’t get much information out of it. If you could, you couldn’t hear anyway, you know.

Yes, the radio for the, sorry I misunderstood. The radios were for the coast watchers we called them but they were powerful. We never heard one going cause they took them with them but they were getting good reception. They were,

that lot was good.

Their job was to sight anything off, coming down like Japanese planes or troops or anything like that, hiding up in the hills and they reported it back to their headquarters, you know. We had three and a manager bloke, four of them at one stage and he was the bloke that got killed, you know. We dropped him on Bagwao Bay on Misima. That was the nearest

island to the Solomon’s, you know.

No they didn’t know themselves I don’t think.

Well only vaguely. We knew they were coast watchers so they went up in the scrub. That’s right it was in Bagwao that,

I’ve just got it back now, where Lee Batillia came down after they’d gone, that’s right and he come down. He said “everyone let’s get the gold up in the goldmine” was a big vault up there.

Yeh the same trip.

Yeh.

They had

an international radio, you know they could talk back to Milne Bay and whatnot and that’s it so that’s when we got shelled see, shortly after, only half a, they’d just gone thank goodness, up with all their radio stuff and we were discussing what we were going to do and that’s when the sub by then was about 10 or 11 o’clock at night, you know and the only

light they could have seen was our light in our binnacle, in the navigating cabin. I reckon that’s what they saw and they fired at that, you know.

Yes. When we were doing the other jobs we didn’t, like we were in our own little ketch wandering around, nobody took too much notice of you I don’t think.

That was, we weren’t game to show lights, and we just, we found good eye sight and good vision. We had a spotlight we could put on or anything but we didn’t do that neither, cause you would have been seen. This is after we heard the sub.

Yes plenty of reefs. They’re everywhere but it’s not too bad on the entrance to Bagwao there. It’s not too bad but there’s fairly deep water there but being a good sailor and good helmsman and what I could see, you know could just see the water. You know what you’re doing, you know and some of the other crew members they were good. We all knew, Ray knew what he was doing. He was a good navigator. If you speak to Mary Penny

she can tell you a little bit about it. That’s his widow. She’s an OAM by the way.

By just looking at it, you know looking at it you could, I mean they had land, was hanging around all the time, take a good look at them, a map, you know and knew what was there and identify them and that.

That wasn’t really hard that bit in that area. It was fairly good so, cause your helmsmen knew, we’d give a compass course, you know and just say “you’ve got to steer north 20 east” or something and the helmsmen would do that. We’d say “well you’ve got to do that for the next two miles or four miles” or something before you have another look, you know just straight, plain, good, old style navigation.

Yes sometimes. Some were very clear and other times dark, and at night it’s a bit harder to see, cause we had a depth sounder on the boat too, we could switch that on and see what depth the water was under us.

It worked by a thing under the bottom of the boat and it sent a signal and the signal came back and recorded

it on a thingo.

Not much but just had the norm navigation things and you have a good look at a photo. There’s not much there. Port and starboard lights, a mast headlight and the radio of course and that was about it.

Very little, you had bunks. We didn’t have hammocks. We had bunks and you had to sort of clamber in them and, you know nothing was extra clean or anything, you know and washing, you waited till it rained. It was pretty, what shall I say, survival conditions.

We had a little tub of water and we did a lot of it in salt water, a little tub of water and

we’d rinse it out and we were a pretty crappy lot but we got there alright.

Itop. We got that back in the mainland of Australia, you know, was pretty primitive and Moresby. We got a lot from Moresby, Port Moresby. That’s where we restocked it.

Yes a little bit of stuff, tinned stuff and whatnot. We got the knock on that and wasn’t too much, no fresh stuff.

Yeh we had fresh water. We had a couple of big tanks and fuel for the engines. See we had a big, if you have a look at a photo, you’ll see the big drums on deck, you know one was full of water as well as water tanks and the other was full of fuel for the engine.

We never saw it.

No.

No I didn’t think till after, till it was quite a few minutes after, what had happened, cause Ray said “it’s that bloody sub”, we both fell over, we were on the wharf and the explosion on the cabin, going through the cabin,

I fell over and Ray fell over and hurt his foot and Arty was standing further away. He didn’t fall over or anything and the engineer bloke said “they’ve buggered my engine up” but it was alright.

Make it seaworthy again, probably two or three weeks. I’d

left at the end of that cause I had malaria that bad they wouldn’t take me back aboard, you know and I got up and one of the destroyers had come in, into Gili Gili. I went back to Moresby and that and I flew home from Moresby or they had me flown home.

Yes Ray stayed for a while but not for long, till it got seaworthy again and

as a matter of fact he didn’t see it again. I don’t know what happened to it. I’ve got a little article in the book there you’ll see.

Yeh in the Fauro Chief, wandering around all the islands everywhere, were lousy with it and when I came back to Sydney they stuck me into Rushcutters Bay and out at Canterbury Hospital and

treatment in those days wasn’t real good about malaria, you know they didn’t know much about it till an American doctor he said to me “son, you’ve got wogs in your blood” and he treated me with this new drug called Atebrin and that gradually fixed it but I had it for a couple of years after on again, you know.

Sweating and shivering and eyes going blink, you know. It can be a fatal disease. You shiver like hell

and you can’t keep your fingers still, you know and you can’t sleep or anything, you know.

Yeh I was having slight attacks yeh.

Yeh we used to have some tablets but we never had them all the time like, you know used to, now and again you had an ordinary Atebrin and

some days you’d have it cause we were nowhere near where you could get any you see and the nearest doctor was back in Milne Bay, you know so like with Ray, he hurt his foot. He said “the nearest doctor to see was back in Milne Bay” so we were alone so.

You didn’t get sick.

Just a little bit but not

good enough to fix anybody up so that was one of the risks we had to take. Either you were there or you weren’t, you know but I think after that fall it had later repercussions. I’ve had four hip operations over the years and I think it had a bit to do with that.

Bruised and sort of hobbling around.

Eventually I got a bit better and I went and saw the doctor in Milne Bay and he said “you’ve got malaria, you’re going back”. Saw them at Canterbury. They didn’t do much about it. They said, “probably got a little bit” but then gradually the years went on I had to, complain a little bit. That’s what they put a lot of them down to.

I think it was the Yarra, a skiff called the Yarra I think. I’m not dead certain. I got back to Milne Bay in that and the mob stayed on in the ketch or Arty came back. Was it Arty came back with me I think yeh and that’s how we got home. I was eventually, you know cause I had to stay in Milne Bay for

probably a month or six weeks and I got double malaria then see.

Nothing much, just trying to recuperate, you know.

It was a field hospital but it was mostly army and I don’t think I even went up there. I just waited till I got back to the navy hospital here in Sydney.

From there, flew home, yeh I flew home from Moresby, got to Moresby and a plane came eventually to Brisbane and by truck to the unit and flew back to Sydney.

It was an army plane.

Can’t remember but

it was about half full, you know there’s blokes going everywhere doing everything, you know.

Well virtually none. They said “you’re going” and that’s, from memory, that’s a long time ago, but could have got a couple of hours. That was about it I think. You just had to take your pick, you know. There wasn’t much organisation there, not like it is today,

just said “come on Buss are you ready to go”, drive you, throw your odd pair of shoes in the bag and away.

Never, except I saw Ray Penny a couple of times before he died and I went up when they were living up the north coast, well his wife’s still there, Port Stephens there. I’ve seen them a bit but that’s the only, I haven’t seen the others at all. Itop’s still in the bush.

Arty Brown I think he’s dead and mechanic I haven’t seen him and I don’t know what happened to the other bloke. I don’t know where he went. Well one of them went back to England, as you know cause his parents got killed in the bombing raid there.

Probably, I saw him a couple of times here cause when he got demobbed out of the navy,

he owned Glen Eagles at the Cross for a while. He was in the restaurant game, you know. I can tell you.

Our missions, like landing spotters, it was pretty dangerous. The Japs

only had to come on us with an aeroplane or something like that and from the natives too. They were a bit of a worry sometimes, you know, they’d like leave a, not leave a two, but the army bloke we had with them in charge of them, he got murdered after we left so I think they took to him with his radio and everything, up in the hills.

Just reckoned that nobody should

be in their country I reckon, you know but his name was Lieutenant Maynard that’s right, yeh.

Not really we were right in outlandish places, you know. The natives I came across personally were alright, no worries, you know. That was more

of that happening in the Kokoda Trail and people like that. We were down in the ocean, you know.

Only vaguely, we just heard, you know there was a battle going on up there, they were fighting.

Didn’t really hear about it till it was all over, probably a few months. I was back in Sydney then see and

the communication, there wasn’t a lot of it.

Yeh.

Yes well everyone comes back to size, you know. If you’ve got a millionaire in a boat or a bloke with a garbage boat, they can all talk to one another, handle a boat well, you know and it’s a real compromise. It’s a wonderful thing sailing cause,

you know when the boat’s in trouble, you all give a hand, you know and it teaches you to be, to get, matter of fact, all the kids I’ve taught over life, they all go well after they, they can handle problems a hell of a lot better and I suggest everybody should have a go at it.

“Hello Ray”. We hardly knew one another. As a matter of fact the time I fully remember was after a few years I’m coming down the stairs in the Middle Harbour Yacht Club and he was coming up and I said “hello Ray”. We knew each other then, but I’d been up to their place a few times. We were going passed, called in. My sons, Tony’s met them both.

Mary Penny, she’s still up there, Fingal Haven, you know so Ray he had restaurants in Sydney later on. He had, part owned Glen Eagles, another one at the Cross. I forget the name of that and of course, that’s what 40 years ago or something.

Yeh we

all got on very well, did what we were told to you. We’d do something, I’d do it. I’d say something to Ray and he’d say “yeh fair enough” or “no we can’t do it that way” or whatever, you know, was really good crew and no boss man. Everybody had their opinion and it was sort of taken or not, you know.

Yes

definitely, definitely cause, you know none of them were sort of, you know wanted to do mad things or anything, you know, were very capable, could do their job well and they, you know like Barlow. He was going back off the Fauro in the plane somewhere and he shot a Jap plane down with his rifle.

He hit it I think. That was some months later.

Yeh well apparently it got close and he took a pot shot and the thing fell out of the sky, you know, so I didn’t see it. I believe it. Somebody told me about it and it’s in the book I think.

Yeh.

Yes see, it was all on between that malaria fever and all the rest of the things were going on and no food and I don’t know any, apart, well Ray’s dead. He’s been dead for a few years now and I don’t know where Arty ended up or Barlow or the other cook bloke. Oh no cook bloke, he blew through that night, engineer, I don’t know where they’ve all gone

but it’s many years ago, you know.

Not really. I just took what came really you know cause it was just as bad taking Abadan, in the Persian Gulf

so yeh that was pretty dangerous cause we had that corvette, Uranian corvette floating around looking at us and.

Yeh we were all dressed up as Arabs going in to light the channel and he came past and waved to us, that’s all. So we waved like that too. That was extraordinary, you know.

Well so we just,

he probably would have shot at us wouldn’t he?

I’ve got photos. The photos are there.

Not much like an Arab.

Yeh, anyway weren’t a lot of them but there was some there, you know so there you are.

Just old gear we had aboard, you know. We had, on the Kanimbla we had a theatrical society like, you know for making fun out of life and a lot of, most of that we went the knock on and stuck it on.

Yeh at nights we’d have a bit of a concert or something, make up things from our own crew while we were on our way and everything. It was

a bit relaxing.

No, none, just watched. By the way the Kanimbla I talk about is not the one now. That’s a newer boat. This is the first one, 1940 till ’43, HMS or HMAS [His Majesty’s Australian Ship].

Well she was with, after the war she went

up to Japan. I think she’s been broken up now or gone to some European country. The last I heard of her she was up in Thailand or somewhere and they were going to break her up, you know but haven’t heard anything more since.

Yeh well it makes you think “gee what was it all about?” Like the crew of the Kanimbla, there’s only one I see is that Simon

who wrote that. He was a subbie on a boat, Derek Simon. He just lives up at Urunga. I see him occasionally and he’s about the only bloke I ever see now. Freddie’s dead and all my other mates, you know. I get that Canberra News, you know, but copies from it there but most of it’s all about the new crew, about the HMAS mob, you know. There’s very little about the HMS crowd in it.

Yeh it would be very similar. Well I don’t even, whether it got broken up. It was going to be broken up so I haven’t heard since, you know. I haven’t had many, over the years I’ve sort of, doing other things. You get a bit lost along the line so there you are.

Yeh well its not so much pain. It was distress, you know and I couldn’t drive my car because I’d be shaking and same getting on a bus or anything, have the shakes and you’d sweat like hell, and you’d get pains down low down and

but that’s, that got cleaned up eventually thank goodness.

No we were only taking tablets occasionally cause we couldn’t get any, but lots of people who died of malaria. I had the bad type, MT I think they called it but the Yankee doctor, I always remember he got this, on that plasma quin and cause

I could get it when I was it gradually improved me but it took a couple of years, two or three years before it all just vanished.

Yeh more distressing, you know but anyway I got through it all. I’m still about.

Mucking around for about two months I think. I was in Canterbury for about a month I think, then recuperating at Balmoral for about another month or so, you know before I could go back onto navy work.

I probably did cause by the time I got back we were starting to get them knocked back, and still hoping

cause there was, in Sydney here, there was still plane alerts. I remember even hearing them. They thought it was a Jap plane around. They just happened, not frequently but it happened a few times and used to worry about that, you know. I couldn’t do anything about it.

Very, very serious. Like if they’d have come and bombed the harbour bridge or something it would have been a real worry. I know the Japanese well but they’re not bad people but it’s just the mobs running the joint, but you always get somebody that doesn’t agree with their next door neighbour or something. There’s always something going on,

but that’s life.

Well I, after there I went home for about a month, you know. Stayed home leave and got myself well. Then I went back to duty in Rushcutter and I used to just do little coastal trips in Fair Miles and things but they wouldn’t allow me for seagoing

anymore and I was in charge of the tender down in Rushcutters Bay, used to drive the sailors out to their various boats and things and then the war finished.

Well because of the malaria, I could get it and put me in the society, where they wouldn’t know what was going

on and that’d be right. I regretted that a bit but had to put up with it, you know.

Yes but the war came and ended and end of ’45 that when I got discharged and I had to stay on a while cause all the married men got discharged first see, all the family men. I’d been still single, I wasn’t married then.

I had to stay on an extra few months, do all sorts of things. We got all sorts of jobs, sentry duty and doing this and doing that.

Yeh missing out. I missed going to sea. I’m a seagoing person, but I just put up with it and that was it.

Not now I don’t but, those days are gone but I’ve done a lot of sea time, sailed yachts and everything else. I’ve sailed around the Hawaiian Islands and been to America and. I had a little boat up until 12 months ago and I sold it cause I couldn’t look after it properly and I’m always getting asked out and my sons have got boats. I can go out with them any time and there’s plenty of it around.

Probably only a few months. Then I started racing boats again and doing all sorts of things. I went down to Melbourne and sailed in a crew of a six metre boat. He only died a couple of weeks ago too, sailed in the Avenger and did a ppeal for the Northcote Cup, went very well and I did

all my larger yachting, like Saskia I sailed there for three or four years too. She’s on the harbour and very famous boat and there’s always something to go out in. Then I bought the Wimberal for my family. I had kids by then and a 28 footer I used to sail in, in 1931 so and I’ve had what, in my lifetime I’ve had, skiffs, dinghies, yachts, 19 boats, haven’t got one. For the first time ever, I haven’t got a boat.

You were thinking of that all the time, but when the Americans come in you could see we were getting on top.

I doubt it cause the people didn’t, most of their teenage blokes were fighting the war or away or something, you know and in all sorts of places in the world, and the air force,

a family of Britain blokes, you know and yeh one of my old mates in the dinghy, the North Shore Dinghy Club, was in it pre war, Sid Marshall. He went to England, joined the RAF [Royal Air Force] and he got shot down over France and died so there you are.

I don’t know but he was recorded as being, not surviving the crash of the plane.

Most of them are dead now, you know, not through the war but through natural causes but matter of fact I used to have a mate of mine called Alan Kemis. He used to sail with me. I used to sail a lot of boats see and he used to be one of my crew and he was a real stirrer, you know always egging you and everything and he died about

seven or eight years ago and we only heard the other day he’s kicked St Peter out and he’s now running heaven. We reckon he’ll do a good job.

He was a real good man, a real good bloke but a real character. As a matter of fact he went to, he was in the 6th Division during the war in Egypt and whatnot and he was a bombardier in the army, which is a minor rank and they put him

down as a brigadier. See, you know they wrote him, so he was wandering around with his strip as a Brigadier. He never told anybody so, that’s good hey? I like that one so no wonder he’s kicked St Peter out we reckon.

Yes

a hell of a lot, you know like in my early dinghy club days, a mate of mine, Johnny Rosenthal, he only died a couple of months ago. He was my friend since about, I’ve got him in one of my books here, since about 1930, you know, 1931. He did very well in life but he had a bit of a collision. He fell between two boats and killed him eventually. That’s only a couple of months ago, but he was in the army during the war,

a lot of them joined the air force.

I don’t know. They, well I wanted to join the Fleet Air Arm. Because I left school and didn’t have my Intermediate Certificate I couldn’t qualify. I didn’t sit for it but I didn’t pass it. I would have liked to have joined because when I was a kid sailing on the harbour, I used to sail around Rose Bay and the early flying boats used to come in and I used to be in love with them and I thought “I’d like to fly one of them”.

A flying boat?

One with little floats on the wing, on the little, you know the little two crew boat or one crew boat and these little surveillance planes, you know. They’re real good. I would have loved one of them. I thought “I’d love to fly in one of those”. I reckon I could still but I never made it.

Yeh well, no the Fleet

Air Arm, it was the navy yes, the navy section of it. That’s what I would have liked to have done but I didn’t qualify see.

Well I didn’t have my Intermediate Certificate to do the examinations and that was the Leaving Certificate in those years and that was one of the things they asked me and I said “well I didn’t sit for it” and they said “well” so I had to go on my way.

No it was Depression years and we were really battling, our family. There was only my Mum around and elder sister and, you know I was pleased to get a job and get some money in, you know. See I used to go lots of times to school without food or didn’t have breakfast and things like that, you know. That’s in the Depression years, you know. That was tough going.

Yeh.

I wasn’t the only one, like there was quite a few, you know, didn’t do me any harm. Looking back on the years, you know it’s, so, you know and we didn’t have any spare money in our pockets or anything. We used to take whatever we could in the empty bottles or whatever.

Yes she was a little Irish lady, you know

that come from north west of Ireland that didn’t have, although her father was Clerk of the Petty Sessions up there in Ireland but there wasn’t any money around or anything, you know, was Depression years and she wasn’t very well educated, you know and but she was a wonderful mother.

Well yes, used to worry over her kids and be able to buy this and that and work her heart out

to, used to even go into town and clean the toilets in David Jones I think it was, you know, things like that to make a few bob, you know.

I don’t know. I’d like to have, I find when you’re young, I wish I’d found out more about my family, you know but as you get older you think about it and “who was that” and “who was that”, you know. She and her two, her sister came out.

They both got married and I don’t know where she met my Dad, whether she met him on the ship coming out or what. I never found that out, you know and that’s the stuff I would have liked to have known now, you know.

Yeh I’ve known quite a few. They’re good, mad as a hatter, but good.

Yes.

They’re real workers and they’re, you know they’re family people.

No, very soft hearted person.

Yeh very good.

See from, she got married in 1912 here. I’ve got their marriage certificate there, you know. It’s the only thing I ever got roughly, you know.

No, she didn’t talk much about it. That’s what I miss. I wish I had. She probably did start a couple of times

and I was too young to listen or something like that so there you are.

Can’t answer that question. No I don’t think she did. They were in county Roscommon which is a pretty primitive sort of place. That’s up in the north west of Ireland. Longford was the name of the town I think. I was just telling Cathy

her maiden name was Brudell which is French and I’ve read the history of Ireland. I’ve got the book over there as a matter of fact and gee, the French when they invaded Ireland, they did, up the north west coast there, the whole lot of it, you know so must be a bit of a throwback there somewhere.

Her sister was alive. I knew her.

No, that’s about it I think. Over the years I’ve met a lot of people around, Irish but there’s some good people around, you know. As a matter of fact I have lunch with a mate of mine. He’s an Australian. He’s married to an Irish girl, is out here and about 10 or 15 years younger than me and she comes from Dublin. I talk to her

a little bit when I’m having lunch with them and whatnot.

No I think I just said “I’m joining it” and that’s it. I was 19 see and that was it.

She knew I was, she always

helped me with anything but she used to go crook about when I brought the sails home and hung them on the clothes line when she wanted to hang the washing out. That’s happened.

See in those days they were and you need to wash the salt out of them, a bit different to the nylon sails today and, though you still have to do it but not in a vast way and when I’d bring them home after racing of a sail

day in the dinghy club, I’d give them a hose out and hang them on the line and she’d have the washing on so, got the sails.

Yeh, well that’s growing up, you know.

During and more after the end of the war it came on, nylon synthetics, you know cause they

they were all canvas, cotton sails and Europe roping. That’s all got nylon and everything in now. The whole thing’s changed, you know so you can put a wet sail away down in a bag. It doesn’t hurt it.

In those days, I was telling Cathy a while ago, there were hardly any trailers around. We kept them in sheds around the harbour. I keep that dinghy there. See that’s a Royal Sydney Yacht Squadron. She was a champion dinghy. We won everything in that.

That’s only a 12 footer.

No they had a caretaker there and a lot of the sheds around the harbour they lock them up like little sheds and boatsheds and leave their dinghies in there but the harbour, you never kept them on trailers or anything around then. Talking about 1935, ’34, ’35, ’36. See that boat there?

That’s not mine but that’s an 18 footer. That would have been kept in the boatshed down at Green Cove.

Yeh I go down a lot. The Sydney Flying Squadron’s down there. I still go down. It’s all changed though. The old buildings have gone and they’re all, you know putting modern building on it and slipways and all sorts of things. See my wife, she’s a boatshed girl. Like they were Mulganna’s boatshed in Mosman Bay

and her father had the moorings of the shed there and he used to work his heart out and her mother like I’m talking about, he started a shed there about in 1908 and in the late 1920’s there was 03 phase on which worked a winch and he used to, her father used to run the boats in the thing and she’d handline the boat up on the winch. They were hard years.

That’s her mother there. See that’s my younger son. See that little photo, next to Father Christmas there.

It was a lot different, the boats were different, there was those sort of boats there but now they’re all fast and there’s that many powerboats on the harbour now, it’d give you the pip. See in my day there weren’t many powerboats around. There were some but not as many as there is now and they’d come through your racing fleet and they’re all lot of money people and they all,

they’ve got big powerboats and they go, their day out, they’ll come through the Spit Bridge and go around to Taylor Bay for the day on a big hundred thousand boat. A lot of them don’t go far and then dinghies, what we used to do, that dinghy and the other one, I had a few of them, a smaller boat than that, school holidays like we used to sail from there up to Manly, from the harbour right up to Manly, moor the boat over

at Manly or pull up on the beach and go for a surf or a swim and then sail back to Sydney. They don’t do that anymore.

Yeh, a full day, school holidays, used to take a couple of mates with them. They all did that, all the North Shore dinghies and now the kids just go back and forwards in them.

Depending in the wind, probably a couple of hours but, you know we enjoyed it, you know and if the wind died out, we’d have to

paddle the boat home.

Yeh, they had canoes mainly, big canoes. They were good but, you know when I look at the kids today. I go up to the

have lunch up there, you know cause there’s a club up there I like there and it’s good and they’ve got a video room there, and you look in and it’s in the dark and all the kids are pushing things and you think “gees when I was doing this, what a lot different”, you know, might be 20 or 30 kids in here just pushing buttons looking at the screen and I think, but fortunately my kids don’t do that. They sail and do all sorts of things. All my granddaughters sail and swim and do all that sort of thing which is good.

I don’t know what would have happened to me, just thinking of it now. I don’t know. I wouldn’t have gone into the army that’s for sure. I don’t know.

I’m not an army type. I’m a seafaring type, you know. I haven’t given that any thought to tell you the truth but I knew I’d get in the navy alright,

and I look back at my life now and we, my people never owned their own place cause my father wasn’t around. My Mum didn’t, always lived in rented places and when I look at that now, look back now and I think “gee that’s good” cause I lived in lots of places, over at Musgrave Street Wharf and up in the thing and back in Mosman and down at Greening Cove then Kirribilli, had a good look around all the places, you know. I think that’s made my mind, you know, better than saying, going out to Castle Hill and staying there for 20 years

while you grow up, a whole lot better.

Yes as I think I told Cathy, as my doc said “you’ve got a problem”. I said “what?” He said, when he took my blood test he said “you’ve got salt water in your blood” so he reckoned I had a problem, no he was joking.

Yes way back I was sailing and I was in the North Shore Dinghy Club and she used to sail a bit and I used to see her a bit and but towards the end of the war I used to start to take her out a bit and that’s how it all evolved.

I thought she was a beautiful lady, which proved itself. She had the first all girl crew in a 16 footer in Sydney

and sailed out of Port Jackson Club. All her sisters sailed. She had three sisters. They all sailed in the boat with her, or two sisters rather. They all sailed in the boat with her.

I just used to write her an occasional card and that was about it, cause, you know the war was a busy time for me.

All the time, only look at them.

None, girls were in the distant past with us. They’ve got them in the navy now and I don’t know how they handle it, honestly I don’t. You know we were just talking about them, my mate and I and I said “what do you think?” He said “I don’t know how they handle it”, with hammocks and things.

They’ve got to sleep in cabins and we had hammocks, had to strip them up and how they get in and out of them and just not on.

No not for a few years. Last, some odd sails I see about it and they’re all non committal.

Yeh I always look at them,

always interested in the ones that come into the harbour. I drive up the top of Dobery there, when I hear some are coming and have a look at them coming in. That’s not far, something to do, you know, so there you are.

Not really now. It’s a little bit different to what I was in, you know. I’d rather go back to my little boat.

We didn’t go directly to the Persian that time, went down off the coast off Africa, then back to Bombay later but

we didn’t go to Bombay. We went to Karachi.

It was just patrol work, just looking for ships that didn’t have the right flag on and all that sort of thing. That was about it.

Watch keeping and keeping an eye out all over the ocean and looking for ships and till we went to the Gulf.

Onboard the boat, onboard the ship, so your, watch keeping means not leaving watches, it means your job on a ship. If you’re in a gun crew or whatever, up on the bridge or up in the signal station or doing things, you were on watch. We had port and starboard watches too and, you know, you were on one of those and

if they said “the starboard watch fall in” all the people on the starboard fell in and did the work, got the lifeboat in the water or did something, you know.

Yeh all shifts, most ships it was. I think it still is.

The watches would, they’d vary a bit, depending what you were doing, how long you were at sea. They could be two hourly, one hour, two hourly or four hour watches, you know, on Kanimbla they were.

Had to do your job, you know, like keep an eye on the ocean or whatever or if you’re in the gun crew, clean the gun and do all those various jobs, you know.

Yeh sometimes we did. Yeh you often do what, the other person’s job, you know they rotated a bit.

Used to, in your mess, you all had a mess area in the area down below deck and you either did, played cards or slept or did something, wrote letters or talked to mates and things like that, you know.

No, on the Kanimbla see we had all those 40 gallon oil drums below the decks that kept her afloat if we went into battle. I think

I told you about that, didn’t I? Big 44 gallon oil drums, empty, stacks and stacks of them, matter of fact we had one bloke, talking about that. He was an old First World War sailor and he joined the navy again. He was about retiring age and cause we were with the Royal Navy when HMS and we used to get a rum tot allocated and he used to say, if a young sailor come aboard, “you don’t need your rum tot”, you know you’re too young

give it to me and he used to hide it amongst the oil drums. Well we’d be at sea for about a month and you’d see him going along, shaping up to people and he’d get on the booze, so he used to keep his rum down in the oil drums and the other kids rum too and he’d drink that.

In a little bottle, you know a little flask type of thing, a bottle. He used to have a spare bottle and tip it all in there see.

Well the Master at Arms. You know the master of the ship would provide it and they’d say “up spirits, down rum, down rum, up spirits”. That was the piping when they blew the whistle, you know.

I think every, about every three days I think it was for a while, from memory. I didn’t drink it so.

I didn’t like rum. I’m not a rum addict, you know. I drank beer.

Just food and that was about it, you know, weren’t given much at all really

only a rum tot. That was, they don’t have that in the Australian Navy. That was in the Royal Navy you see we were attached to.

From memory, a bit of porridge I think, that was about it.

Yeh just about.

There was all sorts for lunch. We used to have a bit of Irish stew and

depending on how long we’d been at sea, provisions, a bit of ham and stuff like that. That was about it.

We virtually starved to death, always had a meal but a lot of it was tinned stuff, canned stuff, later on at sea.

Dinner at night? Probably a bit of canned Irish stew or something like that, you know.

Not much, only stuff they kept in the fridge, not much fruit or anything. There was a little bit but not much.

Yeh.

They used to bake a little bit aboard, a little bit of that now and again but it was pretty rough stuff.

We had cooks, navy cooks,

properly qualified cooks.

I’ve tried to count the crew. The ship’s crew’s there on the screen. The whole company, ship’s company, about, I think about 180, 190 people. It’s a lot to feed, you know.

We eat in shifts yeh sometimes, you know. Sometimes in, altogether

but mostly, you know if you were on watch you couldn’t eat. You’d have to come off watch and eat later or something like that.

Not really. Once I think I might have. Where were we? Down off the bottom end of India, real rough sea. I’ll show you those photos, but we never got it badly, only a bit crook for half an hour or something, not very often.

They were huge. They, one of them, we used to take convoys like up and down the coast like just we were convoying ships mainly. I meant to tell you that and they had some tanks on the deck of an Indian liner and a big sea washed two of the tanks off the deck in the ocean as it rolled, just snapped the chains and they lost the tanks. That’s pretty big seas cause a tank weighs

a fair bit.

Just be careful, slow down and just hang on and make sure you’re hooked on and don’t be stupid about anything and fall overboard, cause we won’t pick you up.

Yeh.

I don’t know but that’s what our duty officer said. The Captain didn’t say that but in that article

in the things out there, I’ve got a good article on the Kanimbla there of what the Captain said. I wonder if I could get it? It’d be worth reading.

Yeh some of us did yes, there’s always a harness around.

To your body yeh.

Attached to a fixed base on the ship, you know.

Not all the time but most of the time, you know like if it was rough sea and things like that.

Yes

on a big ship but I’ve been in a Hobart race. I did one of those in 1956. I was with Jack Earle in a boat called the Kallara in Storm Bay and it was 83 mile an hour and the wind in a small boat. We really copped a hiding.

It was more noticeable.

See a ship was bigger and faster, you know and in the yacht we could ride them easier, all depends if they were

breaking or not.

It rolled and boom, boom and bounced around. You thought the bottom was going to fall out of it.

A lot of noise, you know beeng, beeng.

Occasionally we used to get a sailor had to leave the ship because they got seasick. We had one or two like that over the years.

Most of them were pretty good.

While looking after a convoy? You know looking after a convoy and going around it and staying alongside just to make sure there weren’t any subs or anything around. See we had anti submariner onboard the Kanimbla, like depth charge throwers and whatnot, over the stern throwers and if we got identification, which we didn’t get many of them, of enemy submarines,

just carried out a submarine attack, you know.

All merchant ships like with cargoes and food and everything aboard. We had three or four in a convoy. We used to convoy say from Bombay back to Durban or Fremantle or somewhere or other, but we came out a good record. Before I joined her she was up in, when the war broke, just after the war broke out, a Russian ship called the Markosky

had these Germans on her going back to Japan. She captured it. That’s one of them she’s in the program there.

Very important, you know sometimes they didn’t have any destroyers. Sometimes there’d be some destroyers or corvettes with you, you know but we did a few convoys. We did the last one out of Singapore.

Yeh supplies for the war or the country, whatever they were going to. We brought, I think it was the last or the second last convoy out of Singapore and dispersed it into the Indian Ocean cause we could see that some of them were too slow. We were all going about six knots and some of them wanted to go a in different way. They all just, we just dispersed them so rather than leave them behind we

we’ll go, you do your own thing.

No last couple of weeks, oh some of them had troops aboard. Some of them, I can’t remember. There was, I’d have it in my records somewhere. Be about 80 of them I think, from memory.

No we just joined up when they were ready to go out, you know but they were all good people.

What did we do? We used to play a lot of draughts and dominos and cards and all those sort of things.

They were good. They were just sailors from the ship, you know. I’ve got it in there. I’ll show you those little magazines. I’ll show you later what we did. I didn’t act. I just watched them.

Good question. Just ordinary sailors from

the ship’s company, you know.

Just aboard the ship they got it all together, you know. They were just, you know some were good, some were bad, you know they were just good entertainment.

They put on all sorts of musicals and acted up and, you know I’m just trying to think. Played a

Charlie Chaplin thing, you know acting up and dancing and all dressed up. Some got dressed up as ladies and put boobs on and all that sort of thing.

They got little life jacket things and stuck them in and dancing around. There’s a photo of them in that, one of those Ship Ahoy things, you know.

No, just Kanimbla, just something to

do, you know but I didn’t do it.

Sometimes, yeh. I used to say “what the hell am I doing here? I could be home sailing a boat” you know.

No, we just used to get little briefs now and again.

That was about it.

Just haphazard, you know like all the starboard watch or they’d tell the watch on at the time and things like that, you know.

Well it was very hot and, you know the wires on the deck and everything, you could hardly pick them up if you had bare hands. You had to have gloves cause they were too hot and we were wondering what we were going to do. We knew there was something on but we weren’t dead set till we got our instructions, and that was go up to the coast of Aden and places like that can be pretty demanding

and the heat on the deck of a ship is something tremendous, especially when you’re out in the open.

It was all the same really, you know. We, yeh I think I can remember going through the Straits of Oman but, you know we were concentrating on what we were doing and we were still

climbing ladders and tying ropes and things and doing all our training, you know. There’s a big article of it there in my book thing there.

No it was cause we were getting ready for this “evolution” as they put it in Banda Shapoor. That wasn’t a part of our training, regular training, climbing up ropes and doing things like that. We used to climb ropes but we didn’t throw ladders and all that sort of stuff. That was part of the Persian Gulf

training, you know.

Actually when the Dow, even then we were just training the Dow crew up and we were told we were going to go in because they didn’t want any info to get out in any way. It wasn’t till about a week before that we knew that we were going to try and go in, or a few days before, going to go in and try and light the channel and keep the ships intact.

Yes when we got on the Dow we were. The Commanding Officer he put us through right who was going to do what, you know. We had a trained crew to do what, throw the ladders, do this, do that but first of all we had to go and see about the ship we were trained to do like each, that’s each person had a ship

to go to and we had an Italian tanker called and we had to go and do that and we got aboard it. I threw a ladder over and climbed up the thing with all the mob.

Yeh.

About getting the ships intact, that’s what it was about, making sure if there was any trouble, you had your gun

on your shoulder, you know.

Well it was, see at that stage Russia wasn’t in the war. It was where Germany was getting the guns across Russia down into the Persian Gulf and fitting the ships out cause they were scared to fit the ships out and up in the Indian Ocean and sent all the island ships. That’s why they had to do it.

Yeh “you had to get into your Arab gear” and we did and away we went, that night we went away overnight.

Yeh well, you know the Leading Seaman come down and slapped your hammock “you ready to go?” That afternoon, was in the afternoon, we sail till night, you know, in the darkness so we could get in and we were just told do our job on the Dow and this is, we weren’t dead certain where the ships were, almost certain and we knew where the,

when we went in, it was daylight then and they saw us coming. Some of them started to blow the ships up. That’s those photos there you see so we just went to go to our designated ship the Barbara.

Yeh, “get ready to go”.

From the theatrical society in the ship, all sorts of gear there you see.

We did it ourselves mainly, then the bloke next would say “you don’t look like an Arab. Put this on and put that on, so our blokes doing that.

Apprehensive, thinking “what the hell?”

We were

getting ready to get on the Dow, you know getting dressed up in the Arab gear and whatnot and go over the side down a rope ladder and we with us and everything in the Dow you know and then a fair run of about nine miles up to where we started into the, went in through the channel and saw some of the lights were on and some were off and by the time daybreak come we were in there.

No, we had lights but we didn’t use them.

Hazardous, you had to watch what you were doing, you know.

Not that I know of. Good question. We didn’t see any, you know. There were no enemy mines in the area that I know of anyway.

Just ocean and water and all the other convoys getting ready, you know like you saw in that photo, all the ships there. This came with all little, there were two tugs. We had two tugs with us. They came out from India to tow any of the ships, which they had to do once they were captured, and there was a launch 20 on the other side and

there was a couple of other vessels there, forget the names of them. They were there, all with the ship to, certain ship, that’s the ship you’ve got to watch for, you know.

Yes, what ship we were looking for, yeh. We knew cause we were the first one in and the Barbara was to be ours, the first ship. It was the second one in line I think.

Ahead of us? No only launch 20 on the other channel. We were the first.

Yeh. Not the convoy, all the assault boats.

They came after us. As soon as we took, they followed us in see cause

they were in radio contact with each other and they followed us in.

Nearly immediately, only half an hour or something like that. We could still see some of them behind us.

Well they went to the ships they were supposed to put

the party aboard, the attacking party aboard. They all had their ships, so and so, and so and so, and so and so.

There was plenty of action going on cause ashore they call, cause the Kanimbla had to get the

Balukie’s Regiment ashore to look after all the, what’s going to happen there and there was a hell of a lot going on, you know gun fire and some planes came overhead. We thought we’d been spotted, I remember that, but we hadn’t. I don’t know what had happened but we just had the thing, to get the ship that we were detailed off for.

It was just one, she was a tanker, an Italian tanker and wasn’t any important than the rest of them. It was just the one we were detailed off with.

On the Koboda we got aboard her and had to get the merchant seamen or the care party aboard. They were alright, make sure they were all safe and not, you know, all under command and ship them back to Kanimbla, and it all happened. There was a big patrol force and everything there,

or mob from the Kanimbla, the rest of the sailors and then took them over to, they stayed aboard for a while and then the meantime, all the other seamen that had got off the ships, who were alongside the wharf and that, all ran for the train and that’s when the Kanimbla opened fire on it.

About half a mile.

No but she got some of the troops ashore in a powerboat, you know all that.

It was called the Barbara, not the attacker. It was called

the Barbara. We went to the other one first then Barbara was the name of the boat. Sorry I’ve got myself.

No it was the one we were detailed with.

Just told them, you know. We just took them all prisoner then another like powerboat come over and they got them back to Kanimbla, you know.

Some did, yeh.

No, just get to it until it.

They were just ordinary buildings. There wasn’t much gunfire, a bit of gunfire going on, you know and they were just ordinary buildings, you know

lot squatter than ours are, but apart from that there was just little port for ships coming in and out, you know.

No not much style or anything.

Brick I think. Good question. I’ve never checked it but I think they were brick.

Yes it’s just right up the end of a river and it’s like a little port and a few wharves and things and that was it, a few jetties, you know. There wasn’t much room. There was a ship in there. I meant to mention this. An American ship called Anderson City and she was American, course the Yanks weren’t in the war then and they wanted her to move, you know but she wouldn’t move so the Kanimbla opened fire

on her above her funnel and she soon moved, when we went in port, you know cause she wanted to get alongside, here’s her spot see. I’d forgotten about that one.

No I didn’t see them even, see they were aboard the ship and they went. I think they got down to India alright. They cleared off but she wouldn’t move, you know alongside the wharf, cause the Yanks weren’t in the war and Kanimbla opened fire and fired a shot over her funnel and she soon moved off.

That was called Anderson City that vessel.

Yeh was, there was a lot going on, a hell of a lot going on, probably a bit of chaos amongst it.

Vaguely. There’s that much going on, cause you didn’t know what was going on with the rest of the ships, whether they got off or captured or we were doing our jobs there

and as long as we did what we, you know we were told to do, we were happy with that, cause you didn’t know what was happening on other ships.

Yeh afterwards all down a bit, but there was nothing much there, couldn’t get a beer or anything, pretty dry old city, Banda Shapoor.

Probably a couple of months.

Well it’s different. You walk different. You think “gee I’m on dry land again”.

You know it’s, you soon get used to it, glad to be there. Yeh we had some, did we have some canned beer or bottled beer we got? Freddie

I found him after he came off too and I can remember we, no that was in Karachi. I’m just trying to think. We found something to drink, not very much.

We were there about six weeks I think.

[UNCLEAR …. ……] at the time.

The ship had to be looked after, Kanimbla had to be looked after, you know kept clean and, you know we were and all the other ships were working on the Hoenfels getting all the buck side out of it to float her, refloat her. That’s what we did, was plenty to do. That’s the ship you saw sunk. We got her up. All the crew did that, spent time shovelling buck side and whatnot and was a real good feat, you know.

Well they got some pumps to pump some air under her and got some bubble things to put under her. I don’t know where they got that from and got all the cargo out, like it was like blue metal, you know or a bit smaller than that, shovelling the stuff out and she came up eventually, you know. As the tide came up, she came up and they mended the holes in her. We had a fellow called Humphries. He was a navy diver. He got the DSM [Distinguished Service Medal] out of this. He went down in his diving gear and patched the hole up.

He was a Kanimbla bloke.

Yeh we had some but it was pretty primitive.

Well he had a diving suit and a bit of air, you know and he worked very hard.

I don’t think he did have. I’m not certain. I know he did a terrific job.

Just a big heavy thing, you know

and he went down and fixed, patched the boat up so the water wasn’t coming in there and did it.

I’m not certain of that either but the ship like Kanimbla for sure but you’d find I think in most navy ships there’d be a diver or two aboard, just anyway, you know. Though even though they’re not even sort of conversed

with the ship, there’d be one there in the modern world.

Yeh, he got the DSM out of it, Jack Humphries. It’s in the book.

Well when the Hoenfels got floated and all the ships had gone and we,

most of them had gone, we went down to Karachi, top end of India, you know.

Yes.

I’ll show you a photo in there of what it’s like.

A pretty primitive town. It was pretty beat up. There was a dentist there and a shopfront and very hot and very dilapidated and beat up place, from memory, that’s what

50 years ago now.

I don’t know, couldn’t answer that one.

I went and looked for somewhere to have a beer, couldn’t find one. We finished we got a drink somewhere or other at, and that’s about all we did, you know but

we were glad to get out of the place.

About a week I think, from memory, not very long. Then we went back to Bombay and then down to Ceylon.

Yeh.

Yes we weren’t there, only a few days, you know

cause some of the sailors had to leave the ship and go places and other drafts came in and all sorts of things happened.

Not much different. People were used to it I think. I’ve got that all written down in my diary there. If I could get that I could just read it out to you.

Had a beer. That’s where, then we went down to Colombo and then down to what’s a name near Sanpora.

I just said it, what’s the other one there? Then to Singapore, then home.

I think we were only told when we were going back to Australia I think via whatever happened, you know cause the war broke out meantime with Japan and that all the war and things see so, you know we were just told

what we were going to do day by day I think.

Yes, after our Captain declared lower deck, sure enough, two or three days later it happened and we found that he was right.

Apprehensive I s’pose, don’t know what the hell’s going to happen, you know

cause Singapore was bombed and all sorts of things were happening around us. We weren’t a merchant cruiser, you know we weren’t a fighting one. We were just a, you know we were very vulnerable, you know particularly when we brought that convoy out and dispersed them in the Indian Ocean, you know gee, we had ships all around us going in different directions, make a good shot for a sub.

None of us ever panicked, not that I know of anyway.

They’d have to I’d say. I don’t know about the merchant ships but certainly the navy ships would, you know. They were very well run, organised.

I can’t remember that either, a couple of weeks I think from memory. We just mucked around doing things.

Yeh probably was, wondering what was happening, you know what was happening in the world, you know. We just kept doing our job. I can answer all that when I get my diary there see.

No, we were just sailors doing our job, you know told what to do. “You go jump over the side”, you jump over the side. “You go climb the mast”, you climb the mast. “You go on duty watch”, you go to duty watch, yeh.

No not very much.

There was, you only heard vague stuff, you know it wasn’t at that time like most of that was barred on the open press things, you know. We just got rumours and then we didn’t know whether to believe it or not, you know but we just kept doing our job.

Yeh.

Them come from India up there. They’re real good little soldiers. There were the Gurkhas and the Balukies aboard the Kanimbla, you know but the Gurkhas were real, like one of them

would make 50 of other people, you know. They’re British trained you know they’re one of the original British army people, you know and they’re a real good soldier and real good disciplined people, you know, came up on the north west, nearly up on the Russian border there, you know.

We were putting them ashore with the Balukies for, you know looking after the city there, you know.

Because of their religion they had to kill them. That was the Balukies, you know and yeh, gee for all us sailors there on the mess deck and cleaning the ship, and cutting their throats and blood everywhere and oh God, real.

Yes we, you know but we didn’t talk to them much. They did their own thing, you know but no, they were

very disciplined soldiers, you know. It was their way of life that we couldn’t get used to.

Killing sheep and their religion and all that sort of stuff, there was nothing wrong with them, just strange. Never thought on Kanimbla we’d have a lot of sheep aboard getting killed on the quarter deck. We’re used to coiled ropes and things.

Yeh they squealed and whatnot. I don’t even know what sort of sheep they were.

No, mainly the Balukies, only a few Balukies amongst them, you know.

They trained them way back for the wars in India and when you look at what the British have done, gee they’ve trained, they’ve been a terrific nation. That’s why I’m against

them changing the flag. I’ll tell you why because if you have a look, they’ve trained the African Army. They’ve trained the Japanese Navy, the original American Navy, all India and Africa and you can see their early discipline has been tremendous and I think that we ought to just keep our heritage, like link to it a little bit, you know without running away and leaving and becoming like a lot of Yanks down the track, going in attacking

the Gurkhas and the Iraqi’s and whatnot. I think it’s the wrong way to go.

I was against it because I think we should do our own thing, cause we’ve been alongside Iraq. That’s where Iran is, and Kanimbla was in there, and there’s no way you’ll get them all to agree with one another. There’ll always be somebody jumping up and down

wanting to kill somebody and my attitude would be “you do your own thing and forget them” but the reason why the Yanks have done it is because of the oil. That’s what it’s all about. If there was no oil, there’d be no argument.

Going on now with trade and things like that, good in some ways, bad in others. Like the Yanks will look after themselves, no risk but I think our dollar going up’s

going to stop our exports a bit cause things would be a bit dearer but some of it will be good and some of it will be bad but just to take it in our stride I think, like sugar for instance. Well all those farmers up north are probably going to go broke.

Well way back in all the years we needed them and they saved us. Otherwise the Japs would be here

so we’ve got to have mixed feelings about that too, but that’s life but right now with the things around in the Middle East and that, they’ll never agree. You’ll always get someone wanting to do this and some of them wanting to do that. I’d say “OK fellers you’re on your own, do your own thing, we’ll help if we can but only with medical supplies or something but don’t go killing one another”. That Iraqi business is mad, you know cause you know they won’t agree with their next door neighbours

there. There’s different religions, you know and just bad news.

Beer? We didn’t have it, you see we weren’t allowed and if anybody, now and again we used to have a special day where the prize was a few bottles of beer and things like that, very important, if anybody came along it’d go in about 10 seconds.

Comforts? I don’t know. We used to sleep in hammocks. They were quite comfortable but, you know just being under regimentation all day, you know. You weren’t able to do your own thing and, you know just stuck at sea and you’re told “you do this, you do that” and that’s hard to take. It means discipline, you know.

I reckon my sailing years, you know growing up on boats and things helped me a hell of a lot, you know. What was a problem to a lot of people didn’t seem a problem to me. It soon got fixed, you know.

Yes some did, not many but there were one or two, you know went a bit troppo as we called it.

It means going mad, you know and doing odd things like killing people and doing, you know emptying things all over the place and walking around mad. That’s troppo, just not being, you know just being mad.

Was very difficult, they were generally, like there was two sailors like getting on, they’d put them on another watch like, you know

if they were sent down on the port watch or do something like that and if it got to things, I think I told you, we had a PT officer aboard called Gerald Smart and what he used to do if two sailors didn’t get on “right up onto the poop deck, ship’s company attend” and the two would knock themselves out till they’d had enough. Then he’d say “right, you’ve had enough, now be friends” and they’d have to shake hands. They’d punch it out, how about that?

Yes then we had like, what’d we call it? Jankers, jankers was if you were a naughty boy you had to do jankers like you had to do things like run around the ship a hundred times or something like that, you know or stand on your head or do all sorts of things, you know or shells. I’ve done my ransom, done my projectile shells. They weren’t full then. They’re all full of lead. You had to

bounce it up and down and

Like be late for watch or not doing the right thing, you know being late coming back onboard the ship when you’re on leave or all sorts of things or going crook on an officer or something like that, was all jankers.

I think there was one occasion but he was mentally sick I think, from what I can remember. He went ashore at Bombay and they drafted him somewhere or other, but that was about the only thing I can remember there but most of the sailors were pretty good. They had their little problems like, you know you didn’t like a bloke, you told him to “go jump in the lake” but that’d be all and they’d punch themselves. That was the way to fix things.

The duty watch wasn’t there. They’d be still doing their, looking after the ship but the rest of the ship were invited, the ones that weren’t on duty watch or doing something, you know.

I can remember seeing a couple of them. There’s no mucking around, but after that you’d be surprised after they beat themselves into hell, they’d shake hands and that ended it. They got it off their chest.

I was just thinking, it should be a modern war thing today.

Don’t know, like eating the other blokes scran. That’s what we called it. Food was called scran in those days. You’d have your scran. That’s your food, like pinching the other blokes’ scran or, you know being stupid about something or not doing his watch when you were told or something like that,

or doing un-navy like gear, you were given jankers.

Scran, yeh, scran type.

Pommy term, British Navy term and what’d we call Pommy sailors?

Kippers. You know what a kipper is? It’s those little flat fish. That’s what we call Pommy sailors. They’re all kippers. That meant they were flat stomachs, had no guts. It wasn’t right.

Yeh and what other terms did we have, navy terms around? Like tiddly winks and all that sort of stuff.

Tiddly winks was going slow at anything, you’re tiddly winks.

Joined the, yeh well I think like the British tradition in the ship carries on a bit, most of them come from Pommy land, excuse me calling it that.

We had a few, not many, probably a dozen. They were alright though.

Yeh

we called them Pom’s, kippers or whatever.

Their name was, kippers they were.

I don’t think they liked it, that’s for sure, was only a few of them but we’d call them kippers out of their, not to their face but, you know they’d hear it.

No, only accent that’s all.

The British navy men were all trained too, very well trained and what else was there? That was about it I think, just thinking of the funny navy terms, you know, yeh.

A few songs we sang like Waltzing Matilda and a few things but there wasn’t much singing on the ship. We had a choir but you hardly ever heard them. See we were a pretty fighting ship, pretty active in what we were doing.

Oh yeh, being late was being adrift. Like if you did anything you were supposed to do and you weren’t there, they would always say you were adrift.

You’d get jankers. It’s a navy term

that’s gone out these days.

No I just remembered them.

I don’t see many these days. Like the modern navy men wouldn’t know anything about those names I don’t think.

I watch it on TV there. I don’t

march or anything cause I’m not too good walking around and I just watch the navy in the march and I used to see a couple of blokes I knew but last one I didn’t see anybody in the parade hardly. Anzac Day’s good. See my age group, 83, 84, not many around. They’re all going places, you know going up to my old mate Kemis up there, that’s got St Peter up there, you know, kicked him out.

Alan Kemis.

Yeh the bombardier, brigadier, yeh was a real character, real terrific bloke, good soldier but what a lot of fun.

About in the ‘50’s roughly, you know, ‘60’s. I haven’t

marched much. I’m not much of a marching man. I’m a sailor.

No, not in marching or anything like that. I like watching the marches and the bands. I like bands. They’re good, like the Edinburgh festival, I love that but just marching around for, that’s not my kettle of fish. I like it. I watch it but not be in it.

Not a lot. I haven’t seen, I’m in the Navy Sailing Association. I’m a life member there but few of my old navy mates, you know there but that’s about it. They’re all modern people now, you know.

They’re all for, they sail on the harbour. They’ve got the place at Rushcutters Bay where the navy depot was and they sail their boats, you know. They’ve got

all sorts of classes of boats that they sail and they used to have a yacht called Samuel Peeps. My mate was the skipper of it, you know the navy and they used to race it in the ocean racing and Hobart and places like that and they, there’s a lot of late, us navy blokes but not too many modern navy blokes in it, you know.

Good, all trained for the navy now. Like they

don’t sleep in hammocks anymore and they’ve got women running round their boats and the God, the whole things changed but they handle it alright.

I think it’s gone with the times. It has to, you know.

No, don’t see them

that much in that sort of talking period. They’re all doing sailing and doing things and, you know swimming and netball and all that sort of stuff. They’re all busy, you know and even Madeleine, my youngest granddaughter, she’s got a good voice. She sings and next Friday week up to thing, she goes to Monte. They, all the girls do and they’ve got a singing thing on. She’s really good and I reckon she’ll be on

public affair shortly if she keeps going. She’s got a real good voice.

No I’ve always meant to. They’ve got my book over there. I don’t think they’ve even read it.

You’ve read the first one have you, “The Penniless Millionaire”.

Yeh well I just wanted to do it, you know

my whole life’s in that, or early life. It was good.

Yes I think my life’s been good. You know I don’t look back and say “that was a bugger”. Some of it was but it wasn’t for long.

They were all sort of hard to do but

probably New Guinea, with malaria fever and things like that. That was, you know when we didn’t have, we had to pinch stuff to eat and things like that stuff.

Not really, we always got hold of something, you know but you just wake up and not eat

and not having a hot shower or anything like that. That was hard, being clean and cause water was restricted and we waited till it rained till we could have a shower or something. That wasn’t easy but I enjoyed the sailing part of it, sailing a boat and, you know that was good. That’s why I was picked for it, you know because I knew how to do it, better than training somebody how to do it,

like, you know if we ever had a, well Ray Penny was good, the skipper, but if we had a skipper who came aboard who didn’t know anything about the boat, he’d be a bit of a pain in the poofy valve, you know.

Yeh well they’d got him out of the army for it, you know. He was in the army and they knew of his escorts before the war, the things he’d done and got him in and I’d heard about him. He’d heard about me and we shook hands at Townsville.

Only my sailing experience and what I’d done before the war, I’d sailed since a kid and done lots of things in yachts and things and the dinghy club sailing and knew how to handle people. I think it’s one of the main things is if you get a job like that, know how to handle people and know what to do and it’s

easy after a while. The navy taught me that.

Well you know if you get somebody that disagrees with something, you don’t agree with them well, you know how to make some other comment or do something that doesn’t worry them, get a life.

What are you talking about, the Fauro?

That was all about it, cause I knew Ray and I knew, he knew Barlow and I knew them and even if they were doing something I didn’t agree with, I didn’t even tell them, just let it go on and no good upsetting the ship, but that used to happen a little bit, but Ray used to always say to me, if he was doing something or that, used to call me

Buster too, nickname. So “what about it Buster?” “Yeh, good Ray but wouldn’t it be better this way?” or something like that and used to sometimes come to me for some sort of an opinion, you know. I got on well with him. I got on well with the others too but Ray was extra special. He knew what he was doing. He seldom made a mistake, whereas I made a lot.

Yes

we, all did their job, you know so that was about it. What else have you got there?

Yeh.

Well everybody was happy but one thing that

they did, they brought in that all married people got out first and blokes like myself were still single had to battle on, you know for a few months and everybody was glad I think to go into civilian life again, you know. Some of the navy people had to stay on cause their contracts like 12 years and things and six years.

Yeh I’d done my time. I was a Reserve, a Volunteer Reserve see which was three

years and I’d done nearly six, so.

Vaguely I can now. I did for a while but vaguely I can yeh.

Everybody was jumping up and down and bands were playing and people were, in the city were all

dancing and shaking hands and things and and patting one another on the back and all that sort of stuff, which was good.

Yeh they were worrying about what they’re going to do in life further on. Gee, that’s many years ago now.

Yeh,

could go back to what they did before the war or got on with life or things had changed. They’d got married during the war and all that sort of stuff. Life had changed and it was a whole new concept, you know and it was all handled pretty well I thought in the long run, you know.

You just took it like, you know remembering what you did before the war and then what you were going to do now. See

six years on, your age group made a big difference.

Yeh that’s right.

I didn’t know. Yeh I got a job with some yachting people I knew for about six months or something, FR Strange. They were auctioneers.

I got a job helping with the auction, not auctioning stuff but sorting the stuff out and did that. Then I got this offer from Jacobi Mitchell and I went selling stuff around town and then eventually to Marquis which was, I handled all, in the selling game, did the city.

Well I got a job straight after the war down at Halverson’s,

like cleaning yachts and things and doing that, only for a couple of months and then I got the job with FR Strange. They offered me a job and I went and helped them and we used to do auctions all over the joint and I didn’t do any auctioning. I just helped them with the gear and stuff or showed them the sign or did something like that, you know and that was good and then Jacobi Mitchell come along. That was good. I was there for a few years and they were up in Kent Street and I got a job selling with them and then

Marquis come along and I was sales manager of that place and used to look after all the country towns, like just the agent of Western Australia and Queensland and all just sort of doing the right thing. I enjoyed that. That was good. I was with them, what, 26 years I think, something like that and I was my own boss and the boss used to say to me, like who used to run the place. He said “I want your job”. I said “why, you’ve got one?” He said “you go sailing on bloody Wednesday”

so I used to be able to go and do a bit of sailing and do some inter state sailing which I did a lot and go to Victoria, like sail the yacht in Victoria, not sail her down there, went down on the ship and go over to America and do a bit of jury work and do all that sort of stuff, you know but I did my job well too. I knew everybody. I knew all the buyers in town and see Marquis I’ll tell you a story on that. We used to make the first plastic

toilet seat in Australia and in the early days with the compression, the mould went down like that, there were only about six colours. You could have black, white, pink, yellow and there was one other colour but that was about it but then compression moulding came along and they had all these colours, like all the tangerines and greens and all sorts of, about six extra colours so what I did, I got pretty smart about this and

so I’d go to Knox and Kirby, he was a mate of mine, the Managing Director, still is and he’s sold out now but I used to, I’d say to Graham “what colours do you want, you have those three new colours?” and I’d give three to them, three to Grace Bros and fashion the colours out so they didn’t compete with one another and it really worked, like if you want a perpendicular know, go down to Knox. If you want a yellow one, go up to Grace Bros you see and gee it worked.

They said they sold something like a hundred thousand seats. That worked but if I’d had them all in one shop, all the colours, no way see.

Well the colours. Well what happened was the old colours, it was, the powder was in big things, and the dye that made them went like that, compressed it down and that was slow. Then they got this jet which was

polypropylene and it spat it out.. It was much quicker and then this thing going into the seat and that was it.

Yeh I did what I wanted to do and was happy doing it. If I wanted a day off, I took it and that didn’t happen very often but, you know a lot of my figures were coming in. When the boss man says “I wish I had your job” and I’m only the sales manager.

He said “I can’t go sailing on a Wednesday like you do”.

13.

Yeh a few of them that couldn’t keep going, you know, very hard. Like you’d have money for lunch and for trams and things for trams were around much in those days and things like that, you know, it’d all trip to

family budget to the T.

They ran from Mosman, down to Mosman Bay. I used to catch the ferry in sometimes and they ran from there down to, the trams ran over the bridge to Wynyard for a while and that was about it, you know and they ran to Chatswood, built tram lines and they ran to Coogee or Bondi Junction anyway,

so there you are, you know. Then there was the double decker busses used to be around, you know the London busses. There were quite a few of them cause there weren’t a heap of cars around in those days like there is now.

Not too many, probably two or three. That’s about all, Short Street there.

They were alright. There was generally only one working in the house. There wasn’t two jobs like of there was a lady and man, the man worked and the women stayed at home and did the cleaning. It’s a change today.

There could have been. I don’t know. There could have been. I haven’t been very successful. I’ve just had a meagre wage but I’ve always had a job, you know so there you are.

It helped but my sailing experience was the most thing that changed, helped my life and showing kids to sail and things like that, you know. That’s had a big

stabiliser in my life.

He’s the seaman around the ship. Like there’s the Ordinary Seaman and after a while he becomes an Able Seaman, then a Leading Seaman and a Petty Officer but the Able Seaman does all the hard jobs, or lowering all the ropes and things like that and painting that side of the

ship and all the ones that people would rather do something else, you know.

Well he leads up to that. It’s the Able Seaman that’s got a job for the Ordinary Seaman and he tells him to do it. Then along comes the Petty Officer and tells them both to do it and then along comes the [UNCLEAR] “get lost, get off the ship”.

That’s right yeh.

Yes well see it was, originally when she was taken over by the navy, she was in her merchant colours and that was a black and cream and gold around her and we painted her grey like so it’s harder to see her, you know.

Yeh just after it started, just after she went in, just after she was commissioned in, a month after.

Yeh it would have cause, you know they like to see them, a merchant ship like they’re all painted in colours, you know but like the Kanimbla there, you know like an AMC [armed merchant cruiser], you know,

just sitting down. It’s like shooting [UNCLEAR] down [UNCLEAR “sink”].

Well no, went back to the ship and then eventually down to India, to Ceylon and home to Australia

or months after. We did patrol work and everything, you know but back at sea in the Kanimbla.

Only local leave, didn’t have any leave home, was only a night ashore or something like that. That would be about it.

Yeh always had a night off, you know and things were very dear and but

a bit of leave off the ship was good, gave you a break, you know.

Getting drunk.

I never got drunk. I used to drink a bit of beer. That was all, don’t think I’ve ever been drunk in my life. I s’pose I drank a lot of beer but you knew when you’d had enough, and I’ve never drunk spirits like whiskey or

wine or anything like that, not my kettle of fish, you know.

Then went ashore and got drunk, a lot of them and went for a trip down the coast and whatnot and a daily trip in the bus or something, you know. Went down to Trincomalee and places like that

but see the Kanimbla had a good track record. Her record for the war years was 22 ships, that Kanimbla but I wasn’t on. I was only ever in her when we got about 10 I think.

Well she captured or sunk 22 ships, mostly captured. It’s in the book.

About 10, nine or 10.

Just half or just under, you know. There was all those ships in the Persian Gulf see was nine of them there.

Well they’ve been rating her up recently. There’s an article in the, matter of fact. I was going to get

something else to show you.

Yeh, very remarkable. It’s just written up in the Float as a matter of fact. It came out a couple of days ago and it tells you, that article “From the Mountains to the Sea”. You saw that didn’t you, the thing I had “Mountains to the Sea”? That’s about her record and all those ships. I showed you

that big double page of all the ships and were three Captains in that time, different Captains, you know. We had Fanny Adams and Geoffrey Charles, Fremantle Branch an RN and Geddings, Von Geddings we called him, Captain Geddings. He was the first one. He went away with her originally, you know, all good Captains, you know. Hard men though. The best of them was that Pom. He was a Pom, Fanny Adams.

His name was Adams, yeh. It was, what was his Christian name? But we used to call him Fanny cause he had these long socks. He had these little big tags on them. They used to call him Fanny “here comes Fanny”.

Girlish I s’pose, you know but he was a good Captain.

Well if they said anything, it had to be done, no mucking around, you know and

“I might do it later on or it some other time”. “No” done, got to be done. The ship’s got to be run properly and no arguing and fighting aboard the ship and things like that, you know which is good stuff.

Well when the saw the Prince of Wales and Repulse go out, you know we were thinking “it was on” you know “on for young and old” and we were only in there a couple of nights, you know and our commander had to go back. He caught a plane back to Sydney and whatnot then we got the job of coming back to Australia and bringing the convoy out of the Straits of Singapore, which we did do.

He got drafted to another ship.

No, it wasn’t him. It was his bags and everything got sent back sorry, had to send some bags and things back and gear he’d had.

Yeh we went ashore but just briefly, one or two nights I think from memory.

I think they were all worried about what was happening around the place, you know.

Yeh we did, that’s right, yeh cause the Captain, I remember he, I’ve got it in the, I meant to read that too, the Captain cleared lower deck and said “they’d be in the war in the next few days” and they were. We were in the Straits of Singapore. The Bay of

Bengal.

He cleared lower deck like they did and said, “Hear ye hear ye all you people on deck and those that are on watch”. I remember it clearly.

He just said “the war was getting serious and

the Japanese would be in the war the next two or three days” and then they attacked Pearl Harbour.

He didn’t say anything after that. We were too busy ourselves, not that I can remember. He might have but I can’t remember him.

Probably within the day I’d say

that they attacked.

Somebody had heard it on the radio, the radio reported and that’s how they found that out, and they came over the ship’s speaker system, that

Pearl Harbour had been attacked by the Japanese.

No but we knew the Brits trained them way back, the Pom’s, not all of them. They trained the navy for sure.

Yeh probably a little bit, you know, didn’t give it much thought but, you know we, was surprised but the Captain, I thought then “well the Yanks should have known”.

It was still in its infancy, you know but as time went on we certainly owe America to our, to a lot of our defence that’s for sure like the Battle of the Coral Sea and places like that. If we lost that, that would have been history.

Yes.

We disbursed them in the Indian Ocean. I forget how many ships there were but some were too slow and some were too fast, you know so they couldn’t retain the speed of them all so we disbursed them all and they all went their own way, to Africa and India and wherever they went. I wouldn’t know where they went but they went and we came back to Sydney, you know, back to Fremantle.

Then what we were also,

we knew the Sydney had been sunk and it was missing and we were looking for the Cormorant, not looking for her, but just keeping an eye out cause, as my book will tell you, we couldn’t have outgunned her. She had longer range guns than we had.

Didn’t, didn’t know. We didn’t, we just knew she was missing, you know and we got back to Fremantle.

As a matter of fact on leave was, a mate of mine lives down here, he’s still alive, Jack Berry. I joined the navy the same day as him. He was on leave from Sydney the day she was sunk. He was in Fremantle on leave.

No but back here I did. He’s still around. He’s a Curl Curl bloke, you know. Know him very well. I haven’t seen him for a while but he’s around.

Not much now for a few years but

he was lucky cause he was on her when she, assumingly she was in the and he just happened to be on leave, on a nights leave in Fremantle when she was sunk, went to sea.

Action stations. You’ve got to just be very alert, and

you know your job and go and stand by and do it. That’s very important.

No. We came to Melbourne and that’s when I went to hospital

with appendicitis.

Couple of days I think, two or there days.

Yeh a little bit. I’ve been there since of course.

No that was still a navy port, you know the ships used to go in and out of there and mostly navy.

Not overnight, yeh I think one night leave we might have had. That’s about all. We went on leave and went ashore and had to be back onboard the ship.

Had a beer. I went down to the sailing club and talked to the blokes down there and that’s what I used to do in navy ports, if they had one.

Yeh I did. If there was a yacht club or a sailing club or whatever.

Well I was a yachtie way back and I was brought up on that and I missed my yachting, still do.

No, by the ship.

Yeh.

I think everybody was apprehensive, wondering what was going to happen, that’s for sure but, and the planes used to fly over Sydney and whatnot and everybody would be very much alert, even if they were our planes, but there were a couple of Japanese reconnaissance planes hanging around.

We’d have a look.

I think they were all apprehensive. My mother she was, she didn’t know much about it, but all, most of the young blokes were away in the army and all sorts of things. There weren’t too many, except

service blokes, around, and she got on a bus or anything, they’d be full of soldiers or sailors going somewhere, you know and trams. They were around still.

No she was pretty primitive Irish lady and she didn’t know much about what was going on.

Yeh sometimes asked me and say, “what’s happening with the war” and cause she, I think she only had her little radio. That’s all she had in those days.

Yeh occasionally you said “well what’s happening?” You’d get on the bus and the bus driver would see your navy uniform and ask you what was going on. Say “fighting a war, or trying to”.

Yes you just briefed it off, just said “well it’s war and that’s it” you know cause you weren’t too certain yourself if the Japs are going to come south or…

Yeh, they’d say “where are you going to on the ship?” and we’d say “I don’t know”. You weren’t allowed to say

where you were headed for next, certainly not in civilian life. We didn’t know anyway till we got on the ship and got back aboard.

Yes I’d, that’s right. I’d been, had my op and got

out of the Balmoral, no was I still in Balmoral then? I think I was home. I’d was home yeh. I’d come back home for recuperating.

Yeh.

I was devastated, particularly when I knew the Kanimbla was in harbour, and all my mates were still aboard it, and they hadn’t changed over, hadn’t changed to HMAS then see and I was apprehensive,

and the whole of Sydney was blacked out at times. Like Bondi and Coogee were all blacked out and Sydney was blacked out and even before the, even when a plane came over, the place got blacked out, and Mosman was blacked out. The lights would come on, not the full lights, they’d come on. Restricted lighting would come on later, so there you are.

No I couldn’t cause I was recuperating

I think at the time. I couldn’t catch a bus or anything down and I wasn’t allowed to go anywhere or do something for, not that night. I went a week later and I couldn’t see much, the Kuttabul or anything like that and I knew her well.

Well it was a passenger ship on the harbour before the war you see, took people here and there and then on excursions and all that sort of stuff, and she was alongside Garden Island as a

place for sailors to sleep and go when they, that’s why it was there. My mate, Les Van, got killed on it. He was a Kanimbla sailor and he missed the duty boat back to the ship and they stuck him on there for a few hours and that’s when she got hit.

Yeh, he was a Kanimbla sailor. He was in my class in Flinders Naval Depot in Victoria.

Didn’t know till months after. He would have been 20 or 21, so there you are.

Can’t really cause there weren’t many newspapers around then I don’t think. I can’t remember reading about it,

wished I had have.

Yeh, that was on. I don’t think I even had a radio to listen to, but the Kuttabul that was a real worry, cause it tells you there in that thing there, what happened, in the article. Max Martin has written that in. He knows more about it.

It was all a bit confusing at times, what had happened, whether they’d seen the subs or whatever but that article there is the first one that tells you the truth about what happened, hasn’t been anything else. I’ve got a big article on it there. I’ll show you in a minute.

Sick, or recuperating.

Yes.

Well she was pretty primitive. She just took it in her stride, you know, didn’t, just, she hardy even know what a submarine was, so there you are.

No, not really. I probably did but I can’t remember now, probably knew some sailing mates were away and doing things but can’t remember anybody there, at the moment.

Gee, it made them very worried and realised a real war was going on, cause out of the Middle East, right on our own doorstep, it really made people concerned.

Yeh I think it had something to do with it, some people anyway, yeh for sure.

Probably did some of them a couple of times but I can’t remember what they were. It’s a long while ago.

Yes you had to sort of find where you bought your, you had coupons, you know and you had

go where you bought butter and stuff like that and Mum used to have to do that. You had coupons to get a lot of stuff. I remember that but a coupon thing came out and if you wanted butter or bread or something you had to have a coupon. It was all restricted, just suddenly remember that now.

No not really. They all went along with it, do whatever we had

to do.

I can’t remember now but I know you got them from somewhere or other or you had, was only on for a year or so I think, or it might have been longer but the coupon business, I don’t know how it all collapsed or what happened, but I can remember the coupons. I don’t know whether it was for bread or butter but it was for some things.

Yeh, General McArthur.

He was a good leader, Guadalcanal, yeh he was a good leader and he did the right thing, McArthur or that’s what I think anyway.

Yeh.

Well I didn’t have a lot to do with them but, I found they were alright. We used to call them “septics”. Haven’t you heard that term before?

Septic tanks, Americans. They came from Yanks and they called them tanks, then they called them septic tank.

Yeh, some of them did.

Much better than ours

yeh, the septics.

It was very concerned about the war, being so close and Eddie Ward’s Brisbane line cause they were above it, you see. It was all concerned greatly, and you couldn’t buy

a beer or anything sometimes, because they were closed and they were very apprehensive.

No, we didn’t have a lot to do with them. The little bit we had, we had a couple of mortars at one stage, had to dump them somewhere or other, but they were alright, full of bullshit and -

You know “the Yanks wouldn’t do this, they wouldn’t do that” but I like the Americans

but typical.

No, met a couple but just said “gidday” you know. They weren’t around, or they were around, but not for me. I couldn’t see them.

Yes we were living all the time. If you didn’t sleep on the Fauro Chief you had to sleep on the wharf.

We didn’t sleep on the wharf but we always improvised. She was a good little ship, was very confined, very primitive and you had to battle along.

I think they compared it with the Second World War and thought sort of “well we had to be in it”, but wasn’t happy about it.

Yeh and they, was a lot different and they worried about our troops overseas and whatnot, and how all the men, with everybody from the age of 18 on. There weren’t any civilian young blokes around. They

were all in the armed forces.

Well the Pom’s were in it and the Japs they come in now, I think we had to be in it then but our original entry into the war, just don’t know, didn’t think about it much, just joined and away we thought, I thought “well

they’re in it, my mates are in it. I’ve got to be in it”.

Well all the young blokes were in it. I reckoned if I hadn’t joined up, I’d be a coward or something like that. That didn’t worry me but I joined the navy.

Hopeless. My

thoughts are there shouldn’t be one. People should get on without it and there are other ways of doing it. As I said, next war’s going to be different, all this violent stuff they’re doing and dropping, flying over and women blowing themselves up and all sorts of things. The whole thing’s going to be different. The next war there won’t be any like troops just going in over the border to somewhere or other. That shouldn’t be on.

Yeh we heard about it. We thought “well this is strange”, didn’t know anything about atomics at that time and it was a revelation for us, you think “gees if they start dropping them all over the joint, there’s going to be real trouble” and next thing they dropped one on Hiroshima and that’s when the war ended.

Let me think about it. It was very dramatic. I thought “well gee, what’s going to happen if it goes on for a while there’ll be millions of people killed everywhere”, but atomics were not the way to go but they were here and we had to wear it.

Yeh I don’t think they should, well looking back at it that ended the war and saved a lot of people’s lives but by the same token I feel sorry for all the people that died there with it. You couldn’t think “gee it’s a good thing” but it was a must that happened to end the war anyway.

No, not if they were merchant seamen. They were the same as we were. We treated them well.

The Germans? Yes sort of “what the hell are they doing?” but sort of didn’t hate them, thought there should be a better way to do than fight it out like that, cause Hitler we didn’t like. We thought he was a bum.

Well they didn’t know much about, but a lot more about Japan because I know some Japanese girls that come down, been coming down for 18 years occasionally. No relationship, just stay a few days and go on their way. They’re good people, majority of them but like every other country, like Australia, sometimes you can’t get on with your next door neighbour. That’s humans. They’re the trouble in the world. It’s like, look at all the things going on in Iraq and Iran and whatever else these days and India. It’s not just

next door. It’s people next door to you and, just humans. Religion has got a hell of a lot to do with it, religion and oil. If everybody was the same religion and there was tonnes of oil, there’d be no wars.

Well there’s not another one. There shouldn’t be another Second World War

no way. There shouldn’t be any more wars, period. They should be able to solve it now with all the modern things they’ve got, provide people with food and oil and money and whatnot and not go kill one another, cause when you, why hell’s down there, don’t you, heaven’s up there and hell’s down there, why? Well the

days when Jesus was alive in Jerusalem, the world was flat and that’s where he went to hell down there when he fell off you see. He just walked off. That’s how much they knew about society and life and things and they just haven’t got enough, now I reckon what happens now is they’ve got a lot of trouble working out how many pips he put in oranges. That’d take him a while, all day, a couple of weeks and religion to me, I was brought up in the Catholic

religion and while I respect all religions, I just think it’s, another hundred years there’ll be something else. Well see now there’s these like same type marriages. They’ve got to be mad, things like that going on and when I was brought up, religion, I remember meat on Friday, you had a mortal sin, you went to hell. That’s all gone and everything you see. It’s all going as the years go on and it’s just people. You’ve got to fix all that up before they get the religious things out. Like the

Muslims have got to wear bloody gear over their face and all that crap and people have just got to get along. I respect what they’re doing, as long as they keep it to themselves, they don’t push it onto us. Same thing, I don’t push my beliefs onto somebody else, same thing. That’s what it’s all about, people.

I think they know more because of modern gear, television and stuff like that.

They’re starting to learn a bit about it, but the trouble is here, we’ve got a lot of the immigrants see. Look at what’s happened to all the Muslims out there and they’re all, God blimey. Look at what’s happened to the league players, all that mass Christ knows what else. Gee, that’s wrong, and the world’s the same. It’s not just happening here. It happens everywhere. I just like being myself and getting on with people and

I agree with everything they say. If they think the moon’s red, I say “yeh it’s blue too and you’re right”.

I’m glad I was at it. I took a lot of my friendships away and they was good and people I met during the war and the days

in the Kanimbla and the Fauro Chief and all the things I’d done. I didn’t think it was like world wise, it was right thing but I still, still was happy like that.

No not in my day.

I don’t know of anybody. There’s a lot of people who thought the Germans shouldn’t have done it but that was the start of the war and I agree with that. I think wars aren’t a good thing. They’re just not on. There’s way of helping in life without the war and killing people, isn’t there, and TV’s got a lot to do with it at the moment. You look at the programs. There’s murders and things on it. You can’t, occasionally you get a good TV program, even young kids looking at the bloody thing. I’ve got grandkids

and they say, you have a look at the program and say “this blokes murdered that bloke” and there’s trials of this and judges and it’s just wrong to me. It shouldn’t be allowed for the kids to look at. I don’t know what you think but it’d be the same.

No that was it. I’d had that. I wanted to still go sail boats and do all that sort of thing and do all the things I was doing.

I don’t know, so much regimentation and discipline and all that sort of stuff and being told what you were going to do. I’d prefer to do my own thing.

Since the war, I’ve just been a salesman, you know all that sort of thing and sail thing and after I retired, 15 years ago I retired and 16, and I used to go to the mariner down in Middle Harbour, of a Sunday there was just there. The bloke that was in charge “go here, go there, do that, do that to the boat”, nothing physical just director of operations. That was about every second Sunday

for about 10 years. It was good.

Very, if I didn’t live near, couldn’t live near the water I’d have to go and buy a tent and stay on the beach. I’ve got to be able to see it. See you can see out to the ocean there.

No not really, apart from some of the capital cities like Perth and Fremantle, I’ve been back there and Melbourne, Brisbane, places like that but not overseas, no.

No not really cause I’ve even had trouble answering some of your questions,

but the places, I’ve been to America a bit and I’ve been to Hawaii and sailed round Hawaiian Islands and that’s a beautiful place, cause it’s the only place I could live in. I wouldn’t have to be, I think Kowhai which is just north of Honolulu, beaut place, beaut weather, beaut everything.

That’s right.

Yes like being in India and Ceylon and places like that, it was a whole new world.

Good, some of it you think they were bad, silly doing it but you enjoyed

being able to see what was going on.

Not really I don’t think, just glad to be out of the navy and wartime stuff you see and cause you’re, when you’re at sea it was always apprehension, but the little time I spent back at Rushcutters in the Naval Depot recuperating, I was glad to be out of that.

Occasionally I did, used to yeh, just an occasional one, wake up and think the ship’s sinking or something and gunfire going on. That was occasionally after the end of the war but don’t get them these days.

Didn’t have nightmares, well sometimes like at sea you’d hear a sound and you’re asleep in your hammock and you’d think “gees we’re being fired at”

and you’d wake up and things like that. That was just natural if any sort of an unusual noise went off, if you were in your hammock or something, so blokes used to jump out of their hammocks and all sorts of thing but, get back in as soon as they saw everything was alright, particularly when the duty watch was called. You woke up and you said “that’s not my watch, it’s the other one”.

There weren’t many. There were only

one or two, after I came out, but I got married and that was good. That took me a new way of life.

By boating, by boats, cause I used to go, they had their boat shed and I used to go in there and keep my dinghy in there and had another dinghy in there sometimes and she used to be out sailing and I’d see her

and wave to her and things like that and I’d be out. It was a wonderful marriage, wonderful lady.

Yes a lot of people got married I think.

I was 26 when I got married.

Yes very important but

I look back at it now and she gave me two wonderful sons and five beautiful grandkids, why wouldn’t I?

Gee I hope I haven’t bored you stiff?