Australians at War Film Archive

I was born in Hyde Park, South Australia, spent most of my time in Glenelg, went to Glenelg Public School and then after I qualified I went to the Goodwood Technical School

Before my school ended I got infantile paralysis. I got over that and after that I joined the navy. I joined the navy in 1943, spent my time in Flinders Naval Base, got pneumonia. I could have spent the rest of my time at Inverell in Victoria but I wanted to go to sea, so I went back and

did my training. I could have got to officers training school but I decided to do a gunnery course. I joined HMAS Australia and I served there for three years until I was demobbed [demobilised].

Served all in the Pacific.

Well, all of the major ones were

in New Britain, New Guinea, Hollandia, Morotai, Leyte and the battle in Gona and the Philippines.

I came back here very disappointed, we were going to England and America, and I was drafted off two days before she sailed. I was very disappointed about that.

I had all of my English gear ready to go. After that I was more or less demobbed, went back to South Australia.

I joined General Motors Holden, worked there, had a chance to build my home here

which I did, I built it myself, my wife came from New South Wales. It took me three and a half years to build this house and so I joined the HMAS Australia veterans association, which I am still actively involved. Joined the RSL [Returned and Services League] of which I am still actively involved. And also the club movement.

No what brought me back to Sydney was getting a house. As a matter of fact I put in for a Housing Trust house in South Australia and I am still waiting for it. You might think it’s funny but I didn’t get any reply!

That’s right – everything was difficult. Even building this house was difficult; you couldn’t get material. And it was lucky that I worked for Frank G O’Brien’s,

where I worked for thirty-eight years. They helped me get material I wanted to build this house.

I got married in 1947.

Yes I had two children. I went back to South Australia after the war for three years and then I came back here, my daughter was

born in South Australia and my son was born here.

No, no. I went very early down to Glenelg when I was about four years old and I more or less grew up in Glenelg.

Unfortunately I had no father. My father deserted us and when we went out to Glenelg my brother, he was born after my father left, my mother had to bring up the two children, that was a pretty hard affair, but I always had an inkling

to go to sea. Do you want to know about that now?

It was terrific. I used to go for a swim every day after school, only lived a few seconds form the sea, and I used to fish as a boy off the jetty. And there used to be a boat

called the Caratta used to go from Port Adelaide to Glenelg then over to Kangaroo Island and I used to see it come in and see it on the horizon and think, “One day I will do that trip,” but I never did. But my grandfather, he was in the Royal Navy for thirty odd years and he was the reason that I wanted to join the navy

and wanted to go to sea. He told me some fantastic stories one way or the other.

Not a great deal. I used to go there in school holidays, he was only in Hilton which is just out of town. He had a history of his own. He was in the First World War and they had a raiding party

in Germany somewhere, and he was captured. And when he was a prisoner of war he did a play and they put a Union Jack around him and he was belted around a bit. And when he came out he was told that he had to go to a warmer climate, so that’s why he picked South Australia. But when he came out he had eighteen years on the Royal Yacht,

Victoria and Albert, that was King George and Queen Mary’s last name. He told me once he was on that ship and couldn’t get off it because you’re trustworthy and all of the rest of it. He told me some wonderful stories at sea and I suppose that was my inspiration to join up.

Nothing much., I was only a young boy, he would sit around the fire at night and smoke his pipe and tell me his yarns of the sea. He seen some fantastic things in China when he was at the Chinese war, I forget the name of it., wonderful life at sea, the

calmness and the coming around the Cape of Good Hope and the rest of it. So it was quite interesting and it inspired me really to join the navy.

He was my father’s father.

Not too much, her father was a carpenter,

pianist, came from a very big family in Goodwood in South Australia, she had about four sisters I think, and three brothers. They were of German descent. I can’t tell you too much on her side. Not

too much on my father’s side either. My father, he was a motor mechanic and he became a wrestler. And that’s the reason he left. Believe it or not he used to go on a wrestling circuit and have two girls on each arm. You can imagine two girls on each arm, he was a pretty strong sort of a fellow, I don’t take after him.

I only saw him once after, at my grandfather’s funeral. And my grandmother had to keep the peace at that particular time. I was going to knock his head off.

Only once yeah.

My grandmother said, “I would have knocked his block [head] off,” for what he did, but that was after the war. But she told me to keep the peace which was hard to do. We went into the room where my grandfather was in an open casket and he came in and said he was sorry for what he did and all of the rest of it, cried like a baby and he said

that he would leave two thousand pounds to each of us when he died. He didn’t do that. So I kept the peace for that reason. That’s how it was.

Oh she worked in the woollen mills and

she had a help from the government for a while. It was very degrading for me really because I had to go with chits into the grocery store and all of those sorts of things. It wasn’t real nice.

She got money anyway, allotment, I gave her an allotment, which I didn’t get very much when I was in the navy.

They were very tough, people would be afraid to see what happened

back then. I used to love fried bread. Bread and dripping with plenty of salt was beautiful. Didn’t hurt me. I don’t know why it hurts people now, but there was a depression on and that’s what happened; you bought your jam in big tins which lasted a long time. And you had corn flakes or

weeties or something which were the cheapest thing you could have. And saveloys were the cheapest thing you could buy. I had them fried, stewed, every way possible, but that was what the depression was like.

Didn’t worry too much about clothes, didn’t need them too much, especially at summer time on the beach.

And winter time as I say, if you’re young people you don’t feel that cold, especially living near the sea it is warmer. We didn’t worry about clothes too much.

Shoes? Not all of the time no, they would wear out pretty well.

I was a paperboy and sold papers and gave all of it to my mother. Being on the beach I collected bottles and if you collected a quart or something it was worth a bit more money which I used to give to her.

No just on the streets outside the Glenelg shopping centre, onto the beach in the summer months, sell plenty of papers on the beach.

Well it was terrific.

The beaches were very sandy and everyone had a sense of being, there was no gangs. We had a sergeant of police used to keep all of the boys in check, give you a kick in the backside every now and then if someone went wrong or rode their bike on the footpath or something like that, and he used to keep them in check,

and everyone respected him. When he died he got one of the biggest funerals ever. He was a pretty fat sort of a guy. We had our swimming carnivals and everything like that. I enjoyed sport, I played cricket before the war, Australian Rules [football], was in the Glenelg Colts for a while.

Before I joined up. everything was in an area, fish off the sea. I used to have a good mate then, we used to spend our time fixing up old boats, old dinghies and things. We used to bend the ribs and everything like that and fix them up during the winter and we used to sail them half way

through the summer and spring, and then we used to sell them and get another old one to do up. So that’s what we used to spend our time.

We would sell them.

Just sell them on the market, plenty of people looking to buy boats. We used to go out in them and make sure they were

weather proof and all of the rest of it. They were pretty good.

I didn’t have any, I was a goodie goodie [a well behaved person] in them days.

No.

Yes. She was pretty strict, we

had to go to Sunday School. My brother, he ended up a minister, but they thought I was going to be one at one stage, I decided not to I wanted to see the world.

It was pretty good as far as my mother was concerned. I remember when I used to come home on leave she was pretty proud to see

me standing in naval uniform, standing in church. But oh no it was a good upbringing.

I used to lived in a flat, it only had three rooms and a back veranda all closed

in and the two of us used to sleep out on the veranda.

Kitchen, mother’s bedroom and lounge room.

Nothing much, I used to read.

we never did too much., in the summer time we would be down at the beach. But we never had a radio or anything those days. Never did much at all.

I forget now. I think my mother got a radio during the war.

No.

Well you didn’t get too much celebrations in those days because there wasn’t any money around you see. Being born on the 23rd of December I used to get birthdays and Christmas all in one. Which was a book as a rule. Not very much.

But they had some good celebrations in Glenelg itself, there was always running races and life saving turnouts every year which affected a lot of people.

Stopped at home.

Not very much no. My aunties did. They always used to come down.

A big family, the three aunties all lived

locally in South Australia. They used to come down every now and again. Had a lot of help from my uncle who used to have a big property, that’s my mother’s brother, had a big property in Goodwood. And used to have a lot of trees and he used to bring us down a lot of fruit and that

sort of stuff.. My Aunty Ella, she had two children and we spent a bit of time together.

Not often. I used to go to Wellington, which is north of Adelaide, on my uncle’s farm. Spent a few holidays up there, and of course the last one just before the war. I went to Frankston with my cousin and that’s where I got infantile paralysis

or polio, they called it.

No not much.

I went to school at Glenelg Public School, which was a great time really because I played cricket on a Friday afternoon, enjoyed that. Every Friday afternoon we played cricket. Headmaster was great, he

used to play cricket at lunch time. The wicket was a big bay tree, and you wouldn’t, come one o’clock to go in you wouldn’t get him out and so you just waited until he got him out before you went in and the teachers used to know that. Great time there, I got my QC [Qualifying Certificate] there which they don’t have any more. Then I just went to a

technical college then and learned woodwork which helped here, and sheet metal work, and everything like that. And towards the end of term I topped my class in maths and it was just that particular time that I got this paralysis. That upset me a little bit.

Just enjoyed it, that’s all.

Yes you followed it, I went to other people’s places where they had these little radios with the Edison tubes, used to follow the cricket like that.

Oh Bradman [Sir Donald Bradman] was. He was my main cricketing hero. Most of them, Keith Miller and a few others who were in that era.

Yes I went there once or twice, used to get free tickets

and go in there and watch the cricket.

Well now I am in a position I can go any time I want. Then it was quite an experience.

Yeah books were a relaxation. I used to go to the library and get books and mainly sea faring books I used to read. Not a great deal.

No I don’t remember.

Fair. I wasn’t brilliant but I was fair enough.

I enjoyed maths, was one of my good subjects. Geography. I suppose I had that seventy-five to eighty per cent of most of my things.

I did top the class in maths in my technical school. Just an average scholar.

That was the finish of your primary school I think it is year six.

Because I wanted to learn woodwork and stuff. I don’t think I had the top marks to go to high school, and to go and get my Intermediate, which I didn’t get because just that

last month I was ill.

My uncle over there, had a property in Frankston and there was a creek beside it, I used to row my cousin up and down every day, it used to be terrific to row up and back every day. And somewhere there was this germ was up the river there, somewhere and I caught it mainly through exercise.

Well I just came home and I had a glass of water and I just fell over. I had no movement in any part of my body. And that was pretty bad really because I was put straight in an iron lung [respirator] and they didn’t think I would get out of it. But I really prayed that day that I would and

I don’t know how or when, but I did get out of it. When I was recovering I think that the doctors, I told them that I always loved swimming and I think it’s through getting into the water and using my limbs under the water without putting pressure on them, that it helped in future years of

medical history. That was my assumption. It mightn’t be true but that’s what I think and I think it did happen. I moved my limbs in water and that was it.

It was, I haven’t felt the same feeling since.

To be paralysed and I saw other people there, and there was another girl right next to me and she had been in for quite a while. and later on I told them they should exercise, give them exercise, and she was in the end able to get out of the iron lung.

And I suppose about twelve months later she did die of pneumonia, it was the exercise I thought that helped people. I think things happen for a reason and I think that’s what it was. Luckily I came out a hundred per cent and I haven’t had anything wrong with me.

Procedure was to keep you in the iron lung for a while and give you oxygen and gradually as you come out they give you exercises and they had a swimming pool there and I said, “Can I got for a swim?” and they said, “No you’re not allowed to.” But I did, and I think it is the exercising I did, I had a determination to get better.

There were other people in there that couldn’t move, their limbs couldn’t move and I suddenly had the idea that I didn’t want to be like that most of my life, and so it happened.

It breathes for you, you’re put in there and it goes around you’re neck and it breathes for you.

See when you have got no energy, you can’t use any energy to breathe even, and it breathes for you. It helps you. You can’t move even to go to the toilet, they had to press it out of you. Very hard, they didn’t know a great deal about it in those days either. But you were quarantined for three weeks

I don’t know I don’t remember.

Well you had a lot to think about. When you think you’re going to die you do a lot of things.

I have had a few experiences that way, but this is the first one. The only thing I could do I just prayed that I could get better. And I still believed that it was the faith that did it. I am not a religious man, but I think something happened there, that I got back to life.

They couldn’t do much at all, they weren’t allowed to visit me. And they did afterwards. My grandfather and grandmother did come to see me, on my father’s side. They did come to see me at McGill, that’s where the hospital was, and they did come out to see me a few times.

Probably bound that association together and that bond of friendship was sealed then I think.

I don’t think you had any dreams, mate,

you just wanted to get out. You know I had another girl in an iron lung not far away, could talk to her a little bit, but not very much. Even when you went in you couldn’t talk, there was no power to talk or anything. It was a terrible thing. I don’t remember what I was thinking about then really.

Didn’t change me at all.

I don’t think so. I was young full of lifer and just wanted to forget it and get on with my life.

Yeah.

I don’t think so, I just put it down to things that happened. When you’re young you don’t worry about those things. I was keen to get back on the beach. See you didn’t worry about

skin cancers then. Every year you used to get sunburnt first, then you go brown and didn’t worry about it. So I was lucky in that way I suppose I don’t know.

Oh terrific mate, terrific.

I don’t remember the day actually, but I was glad to get back into it.

No.

Well you don’t body surf much at Glenelg, mate it is flat. I used to just dive off the jetty and swim to the shore things like that.

Fourteen I think.

About twelve months.

No when I got going I don’t think my mother could afford me to go back to school, so I started work in a brass foundry., you wouldn’t live in the place now, it was only about the size of this house and

it was a brass foundry and when they used to smelt, you couldn’t see for about a quarter of an hour, but it didn’t hurt me.

Taps mainly taps. They got a bigger place later on which was a lot better.

I was a fitter and turner. As a matter of fact when the

war started I was making juice caps for twenty-five pounders [field guns] and torpedoes. I could have stopped there all during the war, and I had a hell of a time getting out of it, but I did.

Yes.

Gave it straight to my mother.

Yeah she used to give me threepence to go to the pictures [cinema].

No just thought it was a matter of protocol.

Saturday afternoon.

I liked Flash Gordon which has come good now. All of that type of thing now. Going to Mars and going to all of those planets, that’s what they did in those days. It was a terrific serial and although it was far fetched in those days it all came true.

Oh yes everyone shouted a fair bit during the serials and everything and you had different pictures and stars, like Diana Durban and Hopalong Cassidy and all of those sorts of films that were enjoyed by the youth of that day.

End of tape

Well I suppose I lived near the sea and I enjoyed it. Mainly I think it was my grandfather who gave me inspiration to go to sea. I thought I wanted to go to sea more than anything else and I had to fight to go to sea, I don’t know if you want to hear about that?

No. Never.

I didn’t think anything about the navy as a career, I think I was young and silly. The sailor’s uniform was terrific, you could get girls. I was just a

normal young person who thought the navy uniform was terrific.

Oh I took some girls, but nothing special.

Yeah they were terrific, they should have them now.

It was all part of the thing, you always had a newsreel and after interval you always had a cartoon, they were part of, you had two films. And the newsreels were terrific. They had a fellow called Jack Davey and he used to always do the commentary and I know he was a comedian,

and similar, you get a compère on different series, like you do now on TV.

He was the host, but every now and again he would do a comical thing on the news of today, newsreels were terrific.

Yes I knew the war was on. As I said I was young and adventurous. If I wanted to go to war, the thing I wanted to do was go to sea. It was the only thing I could think of.

I didn’t want to go to the army or anything like that, only wanted to go to sea.

Well you had to be seventeen or eighteen to go and as soon I was of age I went to enquire about getting into the navy.

I went down and passed all of my medicals and everything. And I found out I was in a protected industry [staff barred from recruitment]. Luckily I had a friend who was in the Manpower [department] and he gave me a letter to write and so I got my release from the Manpower to join the navy,

and just before I got called up my boss, he told them about my polio. And the commander, where I joined up in Adelaide, said to me, “You have had a terrible thing. I don’t think we can pass you. But if you can get a letter form your local doctor…” Which I did, I got a letter from my local doctor, and he said, “Seeing you had such ambitions to join the navy I will put you in.” And he did.

Nothing. I was perfect. I passed my medical A1 so I was all right, nothing was wrong with me. But you know the firm tried to keep me because I was doing war work see?

They were pretty bad as far as I was concerned. There were people joining up all around me, and some of the people I knew and were mates they all joined up, so naturally I wanted to do the same.

Not to the start of it, no. didn’t get the rationing until later on.

I thought it was terrible when they bombarded Hawaii, I thought, “Well it is coming down and as soon as I can get in the navy, the better.”

No they didn’t interest me.

A couple joined the air force, a couple joined the army, none of my mates joined the navy. I didn’t have a lot of mates though. Just acquaintances.

Only through newsreels. It was mainly around England because the navy was serving there and the Middle East.

Yes.

It was terrible, I didn’t think how it could happen, especially in that ocean. Of course consequently now I know but it was a shocking thing at that

particular stage. I think it affected my mother knowing that I wanted to join up.

I just told her I wanted to go to sea. She wasn’t too happy. Naturally if you bring two sons up on your own you don’t want them to leave. She didn’t resent it but she didn’t like it.

I just told her I wanted to go to sea and she found out that my aspirations were that way, that she decided she would let me go. Once I was eighteen it didn’t matter, you didn’t have to have your parents’ permission.

Very close. I thought she did a marvellous job under the circumstances. She got through things. I think now perhaps I shouldn’t have went, should have stopped home and looked after her. What you think now, in respect,

when I could have done a lot for her, she passed on. So you know you have your thoughts.

Five years.

Still at school yes.

Yeah.

We swam, played cricket. We did a lot of things together on the beach, which was the only thing we could do really. He had his aspirations in the church and eventually he made a career out of it.

I think so. But I say five years younger, he more or less escaped the war, see?

Well they got the government contracts to make twenty-five pounder fuses and parts of torpedoes. And the more you turned out the more money you made, anything over a thousand a time you got extra money.

We were pretty busy. But you know, its just my ambition to join the navy and that was it.

Well for the twenty-five pounders they were moulded, then you just put in a lathe and tuned them up, put a thread over it. All different things you just did with a lathe to make them. And torpedo bits, you had to turn up and all of those sorts of thing you had to do.

Once you got shown what to do, you just did it.

Just had a lathe in front of me and did it that way. No production line, just throw them in a bin when you’re finished with them. Do as many as you could. It was all right to start off with but like anything else it gets

monotonous. Repetition makes monotonous.

I don’t know whether the government got hold of them, or someone got hold of them, and someone got crook [sick] or something, and they made enough money to build, went out a bit further and made a big place.

Of course the foundry was more or less separate to the other part.

The other part had all lathes in it. We only had a few lathes in the old one, but this one we had three six, about fifteen lathes.

Oh yes a hundred per cent.

Yes they had about thirty people there. Had their own football team.

Yes a few of them.

Mainly cleaned the taps and so on as we were finished. Packing.

I don’t know.

And I supposed it was shipped out, taken by trucks.

No.

I had to go from Glenelg to Port Adelaide, I went down to the office and signed papers and had medicals and stuff like that. Passed okay and they said, “We’ll let you know.”

I think I was about eighteen.

Seventeen to eighteen.

No you join when you are seventeen, but I was eighteen I think when I joined.

Oh I told him I was interested and when I did he was elated. Gave him a new lease of life.

When I went up to him and told him I had joined the navy and he thought it was great.

Not particularly no. He just followed, well once I joined the ship he followed the ships all of the way through, and when I came on leave he wanted me to come and see him. And when you see your grandfather you say right oh, once was enough and he wanted me to come back before I left and everything else, that’s how it goes.

Didn’t see much at all, but you saw it on newsreels, saw the navy uniform. I thought it was terrific – I couldn’t wait to get myself into it.

My uncle on my grandfather’s side he was in the navy too, British navy. I didn’t see him much.

No.

Once I got my own doctor’s certificate to say I was A1 they accepted it. And it was only the commander, he said he realised how my ambition was to join then navy that he passed it.

Well they just let me know when it was time to enlist

and I went from there to Flinders Naval Base in Victoria.

Everything was all right. I was only there a week and I got pneumonia. I had to do PT [physical training] in singlet and shorts and there was a frost on the ground. After that you

spent three weeks on the parade ground in heavy uniform, marching up and down and trotting around and everything like that. It was just a disciplinary course and I just got pneumonia, just collapsed and that’s another time I thought I was going to go. I had a very high temperature, but I pulled through. They sent me out to a place called

Inverell and it was an old place, had tennis courts there, everything there, billiard tables, and when I got there the fellow I was with he was there too, and he said I was there for the rest of the war. And I said, “I am sure I am not.” I went and saw the doctor and the doctor said, “I don’t think you’re well enough to go back.” And I said, “I am fine.”

So he let me go back, I was just wanted to go to sea, but then I had to do all of my training again.

It was a recreation place where you just did nothing but played sport, tennis or whatever you wanted to do.

It was a mansion I think it was, home from home.

Oh there was only one other navy fellow I knew there at that time, never heard from him again. He said, “You’ll be here for the rest of the war.” I said, “I won’t be here for the rest of the war, I want to go to sea.” So that was it.

Only this one fellow that I said.

I don’t know mate he was quite content to stop there.

I don’t know what happened to him. He used to beat me at tennis.

I had cough, cold, and that. As a matter of fact I had it all throughout my navy life. I still had a bit of a cough, cold, I did go back too quick, but that was a part of history I suppose.

I don’t think so, I think it was the coldness and the exercise. I just collapsed, I had to do the whole thing again.

It was all right, I just did

everything that had to be done, it was just that towards the finish of the three weeks I just collapsed on the parade ground and they put me in hospital. I don’t know how things happen.

I thought it was all right.

I think the discipline you got in the navy for that first part of it lasted your whole life. You had to take orders, do what you’re told and I think that’s the background for anything. I think it should be done now. You wouldn’t have all of these kids playing around now, what they do, if they had that discipline. And you only have to have a month or so of it

to teach kids a bit about discipline, and as I say, it lasted all of my life so that was good.

Well you had to do what you’re were told, you marched further, about turn, halt and stop. Did a bit more work,, do a bit of running, quick step.

You have got to do it whether you like it or not, otherwise you were victimised. But it had its fun parts, they had church parades there every Sunday, and the first time I was there all of the recruits had a fall out [parade dismiss] and they went to the wet [alcoholic]canteen and they didn’t have to go to church. Next week most of them they

changed their religion. So you have your funny parts.

Well you had to run around the flag pole. Someone might take you out and say, “Right oh, you run around the flag pole and come back again.” I had a trip like that because

we were taught to climb a rope and you had to go this way, that way, that way, to clamber up. And I just scaled it up, so he said to me, “You do it my way. Now run away to the flag pole,” which was far away. “Now do it!” and of course you’re buggered before you start, so you learn things.

I don’t think there was much in those days, more punishment at sea than anything.

Well if it told you what to do for three weeks how would you feel? You were commanded

to do something and you had to do it. Otherwise, if you didn’t do it you didn’t get on. So I feel, as I say the discipline I got there, it’s background for the rest of your life.

You have got to have the discipline in the navy especially on a ship.

Everyone on a ship has got a part to play and if one person doesn’t play that part you suffer, so you have got to be a team, and I think discipline is the thing to do.

Sir.

Mainly chief petty officers to start off with. As I said they were mainly to get you in line, to get you disciplined.

Yes.

Not really. Some were better than others.

Some of them just thought, they enjoyed what they were doing, others were more human.

Yeah.

Just different attitudes.

See as you will probably find out in life yourself, some people are smarter than others. You can get results, with a body of people by having the discipline but being nice as well. And some of these were nice. They had to get the discipline, I don’t suppose it was part of their being I don’t know.

Not down there no.

Oh a lot of blokes had the same idea as I did, wanted to go to sea, young and silly. But I have one fellow who joined up with me, quite a story with him, I don’t know if you want that now.

Fellow called Levy. His father was a shipping tycoon in Melbourne and wanted to take over his business and he didn’t want it. He wanted to do music, he loved music, but he joined the navy to prove to his father that he could do something on his own.

And we spoke at length of these different things. And when we finished that course both he and I were selected to go to Officers Training School. I thought well if I got to officers training school I won’t get to sea for a while, so I said, “No.” and he did the officers training school and I did a gunnery course and I was drafted to the Australia

and he went later on.

Yes very good.

Well we just did things together and talked about each other. He came from Victoria and he said, “I want you to come home, come to my place.” And I said, “I am from Adelaide, I can’t do that.”

Anyway he came on board ship about two years after as an officer and saw him and we were going to have a beer afterwards but unfortunately he died on ship before anything could happen. But it is a marvellous story that. I am not going to tell you until later. His father was devastated

that his son should die. I am not going any more with that story, but you can write a book about it.

Yeah.

Pretty good.

We had hammocks, we were taught how to lash your hammock, and it was inspected how you lashed it every day, lashed it up and put it in the bin. And just normal things you have got to learn. You learn how to sleep in a hammock. These days they have got all cabins at sea, we had all hammocks.

You tied it up on all of the asbestos railings. Different things.

Just getting used to it mate. First time is a bit, didn’t know if you were going to fall out if it, but you get used to it and then there is nothing to it.

Oh yes you have got the movement of the ship going everywhere. As a matter of fact, one of my mates got asbestosis [asbestos-caused lung disease] afterwards and I had to write to the courts and tell them every time we did a

bombardment the flakes used to come down on top of him and that’s how he got asbestosis. The navy wouldn’t give in, he ended up getting a hundred thousand [dollars] from the court. The last court was in his house in Newcastle, and he died a week after. They wouldn’t recognise asbestosis then.

Yes there probably was, not too much. Most of, all eighteen-year-olds and they had the same sort of problems. I don’t think there was any pranks when we were there.

Well drinking problems I suppose, you can go to the canteen and have too many, I suppose you could have trouble. If you didn’t wash properly you got herpes, they were different problems you could have. The soap wasn’t the best. Soap was the worst you can get, it was terrible.

Well I think people used to write home all of the time, I used to. When you first start off you haven’t got much homesickness when you’re young and silly, you don’t. But there are times you have. I know a fellow who was dying and all he wanted was his mother.

They’re the sort of things that happen when you under pressure.

No not all of them. Some of them fainted at just having their needles [inoculations]. Used to line up and have your needles and some fainted before they got there.

I don’t understand why. The first vaccination you got, people didn’t like it very much, some it affected more than others, didn’t affect me much but some had terrible sores and things. Some didn’t finish the course mainly through health or whether they didn’t like it,

one way or the other.

Went back where?

All right I just wanted to go to sea. I had ambitions to join the navy and I didn’t look like going. I still had a bit of a cough, as I say I had it right through my navy life,

but it didn’t affect me and hasn’t affected me now. Pneumonia has never affected my body. Other things have but that hasn’t.

Oh it didn’t worry you, I passed my medicals all right.

Six o’clock in the morning you went out and did PT for an hour and during that time you had to lash up your hammock and everything like that. You had your breakfast and then you had to go and do your dress up in your long johns and things like that and go up and down and do a

lot of that [exercising] until lunch time. For about three weeks, all of the time, that’s all you did. Other times you had to go a dark room and they tested whether you could be all right for lookouts, you had to see lights and everything and they tested you for that. And then you had to swim in the swimming pool in asbestos suits.

Make sure you can swim and then you pass out for that. Other times you went to torpedo school and learnt a bit about torpedoes and things like that. A little bit of gunnery, not very much. And seamanship. You had to learn how to splice wire and things like that. So you did a little bit of everything you had to do at sea.

They would just tell you knots and the way you secured a ship. Tell you what it was like, life on board ship, what you had to do and things like that. Other times things that you never used. They had an old World War I

Vickers gun and they pointed it out to sea and you had to strip it, put it together and fire it at a target in the water. But you never used those sorts of things again. But they were the things they taught you.

End of tape

Well it was a QR3, they call it QR3, they had an eight inch gun and they just showed you what you did. You just opened the breech and put the shell in, and the cordite and shut it, and the fuses, and everything like that. They got onto hydraulics because all of their eight inch guns were oil

and hydraulics. They gave you a little bit about that. And a bit of the speed and velocity and where it goes through a table, it was a bit complicated but I got through it all right.

Instead of operating on your own in a gun house,

you had a place up on the bridge where they got onto the target and all of the information got onto your own gun. I was a layer and I was instrumental in the elevation of this one gun.

We had a clock that had two centre points going around and around, up on the bridge there where they got onto it, they had the pointers and I had to follow them. And when I got on there I was exactly the same as what they did. But all of the stuff went through a box, like a table, that calculated the speed and the velocity of the shell.

It was all involved, so once I got my part back, right, the trainer who was in the gun itself, once he got his pointers right, in the right direction, then they just brought up the shell and loaded into the gun, cordite went behind it. they shut the gun, shut

the breech and we’re ready to go.

It was a drill yes. But the drill law’s totally different to what actually happened on ship.

The drill laws mainly to give you an idea of hydraulics

and an idea of how it worked, but the actual pointers and things were never taught. So I think during war time they had to condense it a fair bit and they gave us the fundamental principles of it and you just had to work it out. And when you got experience on ship, you knew all about it.

Well when you have a gun on a parade gun it is a little bit different, you’re doing it by hand you know? These shells were two hundred and fifty six pounds and you didn’t have that on the parade ground.

You just had a dummy one you put in, and the cordite behind it. And they would just give you an idea of how it is. They would explain the elevation, the training and everything like that. But they didn’t tell you that the cordite came from the magazine and the shell came from the shell handler, they didn’t tell you those sort of things, you had to get these from experience later on.

That’s right, in their section of the parade ground.

Yes. I think they were I am not sure but I think they were.

You went into the classroom to learn about hydraulics and anything like that and

they did teach you a little bit about the size of the shells and a few other different things. It is a bit vague now, I forget how many weeks I spent there but once I finished training I got drafted onto a ship.

No.

You didn’t hit the target with them, you would go through the actions that’s all, you wouldn’t fire the gun at Flinders.

No I think overall marks were just given.

I don’t know. I don’t think anyone failed it. Most people passed it. There wasn’t a great deal, but there was a few.

They were strictly ‘pusser’, what they call pusser, issue uniform.

Pusser means regulation. Later on you changed a little bit, you had a shirt that you would tie it on like a bra, just had that little bit there, and you tied it around the back. And you would buy a tailor-

made suit. Well pusser meant everything that was regulation. They were the main things different.

Well I don’t think the shoes changed out of what shoes you were issued with. You had to upkeep them, you had to

have them pretty well clean all of the time.

Black boots. Everything was correct. Especially when you had a locker and you had to put everything neat and tidy. If you didn’t, well you went before the

commander and so forth, you had to keep the thing tidy and every night you had to have it open so it could be inspected by the captain.

Oh we only had one uniform at Flinders but on ship you’d get your battle dress, khaki battle dress and all different things like that.

You had a couple of shirts, I think you had two pairs of trousers, I am not sure. Those uniforms, I don’t think you washed them at all. Washed them at sea but didn’t wash them there. See mostly in the tropics you’re all khaki.

Oh you had khaki shorts when you did PT and a skivvy, singlet.

Blue.

A dark blue, yeah.

All ODs [Ordinary Seamen].

Not really I don’t think so. You didn’t qualify to be an AB [Able Seaman] until you were on board for twelve months I think.

Yes.

Mainly church parades, passing out parade. After three week of training you would have passing out parade and the commanding officer would take salute and everything.

Well they got a shock of

their life. And there was a regulation, you were told you can’t change your religion and the next week there was a few more come back. They were all right, there was nothing wrong with those church services, they were pretty good.

Religion played no part in the navy, all religions were the same. I was, and some of my best mates were Catholics so, it didn’t make any difference. Didn’t after the war either. All of my mates at the RSL,

religion didn’t come into it.

They just had the normal church parade.

Protestant yes.

No not very much. Got to know a couple on board ship but not at Flinders.

I think they were just rushing people through. Officers training school there was a lot more done,

but they had to get people onto ships. They were losing a few here and there, and they had to get people out in a hurry I think. The traditions were always there, they didn’t talk about Nelson, but they were more or less traditions of the Australian navy.

I don’t know. Whether they just thought my mate and I , there were only two of us, whether they thought we had the aspirations to become an officer. And I thought if I was going to be there for another few months I won’t

get to sea, so it was no good to me. I thought, “I will just do the gunnery course,” which when I finished it was worth an extra threepence a day or something like that. I suppose if I thought about spending the rest of my life in the navy I would have become an officer.

No

my mate did.

Only in an old cutter, rowed, rowed around the sea just to teach you rowing.

No.

I just got drafted there.

I had to go on a bigger ship because I had the QR3 like an eight inch gun rating see? I had to go to the Australia or later on the [cruiser] Shropshire or ones that had the eight inch guns on them.

It was at Palm Island, about half a day’s journey from Townsville.

No I went straight up by cattle truck from Cerberus up to Townsville.

Navy stuff yeah.

Not really no. All of your letters were censored anyway and you were told not to tell them where you were going.

Well you weren’t told anyone to say where you were going or what you were doing. I didn’t know where the ship was when I got on the train. I knew we had to go to Townsville so I thought it was there, but it wasn’t it was at Palm Island. I had a terrible trip out there too.

Well we got to Townsville and I suppose we were there for over a week. Suddenly they said, “Quick, you have got to go get your ship.” So I went on a Yankee patrol boat, skippered by a Yankee captain and a very rough sea,

took about half a day. And he asked us to have lunch with him which we did and he had coffee that percolated about twenty-five hours a day. Black, I have never seen so black coffee in all my life and he said, “Get it into you, son.” And I got it in but I didn’t have it down long before it came up.

So that wasn’t a very nice jolly time. I got to Palm Island to see the Australia and it was the biggest ship I had ever seen in my life. And I had a kitbag and a hammock which I strolled up, it was about thirty foot to get up on the ship and I put it down on the quarterdeck and the officer of the watch said, “Salute the quarterdeck.” So I saluted

the quarterdeck but dropped my bundle. So he told me to take it off, “Get down below.!” And I was wondering what I had gotten myself into. I went below deck and I wasn’t feeling so good, and I put my gear away. And a fellow called Monte came up to me and he said, “Welcome aboard son, welcome aboard.” And he was in the same mess as what I was. And I felt a bit better after that. As a matter of fact

about ten years ago he died and I did the service at his funeral. I thanked him, more or less thanked him for what he did for me when I went aboard ship. Things work out differently don’t they?

No.

I think we got to Townsville they told us we were going on HMAS Australia.

A few fellows, we did the same course you know. They were assigned to the Australia as a matter of fact one fellow from Queensland I still contact him. When the train got to Brisbane we went out to his mother’s place and we had lunch. Before we went on

that night to Townsville. So we had a few young fellows with us on that train. A lot of companionship. As I say I still contact him in Queensland.

No you were only taken charge of when you got to Sydney and told where to go and all of the rest of it.

Only your hammock and your bag that you had all of your uniforms and your bits and pieces.

You were issued with your

boots, sandshoes that you swam in. your asbestos suits, you had your brushes you cleaned your shoes with. Toilet things. And

other clothing that you had just in your kitbag.

Yes you would have had civilian clothing. Because you came in civilians and you weren’t issued, it wasn’t until you got to Victoria. You had your civilian trousers

and shirt, never used them again.

No. You weren’t allowed to put the tag on, all you had was ‘HMAS’ [Her Majesty’s Australian Ship] across your hatband, no tags were worn through the war, weren’t supposed to anyway, to allow you what ship you had.

Only the one I think, the one I was issued with.

Just sat on your head with a thin strap underneath.

No. You have seen them haven’t you?

I suppose it is a round white hat with HMAS on it and that’s all. You had to put it on the front of you, as soon as you got ashore you put it back. I don’t know, I suppose it was something that everybody did.

You get a new one, charged for it.

Oh no they would ask you what happened to it, but you could get a new one and you had to pay for it. I think you got three pence a day , they issued you with all of your uniform to start off with and then they gave you an extra three pence a week or something clothing allowance so if you lost

anything you had to pay for it. As a matter of fact you had to pay for all of your uniforms except when they issued you with anti-flash [protective gear for gunners] gear and all of that sort of stuff.

He was the head of twenty-four mess in the quarterdeck, he told me what

was going on. That you got the meals from the servery and you were told to everyone had to take their turn to get the food from the servery and bring it down and dish it up. And clean the dishes and fix it up, everyone took their turn on that mess at one stage. He just told me what they did and when it was

your turn, you had to make sure that everything was spick-and -pan and the captain’s rounds would come around at seven o’clock at night and you had to stand there and the captain would check if everything was clean and proper.

I thought it was terrible. Wondered what I got into, I wasn’t happy.

It wasn’t my expectations of going in the navy.

I don’t know I think I expected more, I didn’t expect to be treated in a way that, I don’t know. I was disappointed, when I was putting my gear away in my locker, if it wasn’t for this Monte I think I would have been very disappointed.

But he put me at ease. I suppose he had seen a lot of younger fellows come aboard and were in the same way I think. He was pretty rough necked but became a good mate of mine throughout the years. He was injured by the pom-poms, [rapid fire antiaircraft guns] got his leg shot away. But over a period of time he got to

still march in the Anzac Day marches. He was a good mate of mine. The experience gradually came. You got to know people, people in your same walk of life and that, came from different states and started to get the companionship that you really wanted and it was terrific.

The companionship I have had on board ship has lasted all of my life. I have got people now that were on board with me and we have known each other’s families and we have been together all of these years. The navy has been part of my life ever since. One way or the other.

Through the HMAS Australia Association I have met navy personnel from every walk of life, it has been a marvellous experience.

No.

Well I discovered it because some of the other fellows had been there.

I know all about Dakar 1 and Dakar 2 with the Vichy French; one of my mates he told me about it. There was three killed on an aircraft that was hit over there. How they stopped a big French battleship from leaving. As a matter of fact it was recommissioned

in America and eventually it fired against the French, Vichy French. You learn a bit from talking to people.

Yes of course I was. But you learn navy life

from the start. You get up in the morning at six o’clock, and had a cup of kai, which is like cocoa. You scrubbed the quarterdeck at six o’clock to seven o’clock. The quarterdeck you had water and a big hard brush and you scrubbed it. It doesn’t matter that was part of discipline, your

scrubbing. Then you had your breakfast, and it depends what you had to do. You had to do seamanship and things like that. Different when you’re in action. You were taught different things. A thousand people on a ship they had to give you something to do. I

first started chipping bulkheads of bathrooms. You chip back the red lead and it is all ready and in six months time you chip them again. It was just giving people something to do during that time you’re on board ship. When you were in action it was a different kettle of fish [situation].

Wood. Tar in the centre. And you scrubbed them, just a routine that you did.

One purpose is to keep it clean, the other to give you a bit of discipline to do what you were told to do.

The decks were perfectly clean in any case. They were white. I suppose it came in handy later on when we were in action, but they were just duties that had to be done and to get your day started. You would get other things. This is when you were in

safe waters. You were taught differently, what you had to do, we went through gunnery drill. I will never forget my first action.

Grey,

battleship grey. Before I got on it they had camouflage, but we always had plenty of painting to do in the place, they painted all of the time. Battleship grey.

I just think to give you something to do.

If there was a major overhaul you went in dry dock and they did it there.

Well depends what part of ship you were. You had to haul your anchor up by hand and that took a lot of men to do that. They do those sorts of things.

I can go on later on with damage control, that was a fantastic thing aboard ship that saved lives.

Well I suppose fifty or sixty men to pull an anchor up, pretty heavy,

it was just a case if the mechanism went wrong and they had to pull the anchor up by hand, they had to do it. So everyone more or less had a chance to do that.

Chain.

Chief petty officers and lieutenant like that would take charge of it.

They would just do the drill and tell them, “Right, heave!” and away you went. Of course you had drill, as far as, I had drill on where I was my action stations, went through training processes for all of those sorts of things.

Well they’re all steel bulkheads and you just had a chippers and you just chip, chip, chip all of the paint off it and when all of the paint was off, you had to red lead it to make sure

it wouldn’t rust.

Just paint red lead on it. All over it. Next day you would come and paint it. Give it two or three coats of flat and then enamel. You know with a thousand people on board they had to keep you active doing things. It wasn’t necessary to do that

but they had to keep them occupied when they weren’t in the war zone.

You’re working every day. When you’re ashore you work on one day on and three days off, something like that.

That only happens when you’re at home.

I was quarterdeck so I had a special space to sling my hammock all of the time.

They had a bin down in the kitchen where we got to stack every day. It was inspected during the day sometimes by the petty officer or something to make sure everything was done correctly. And you put it up every night. The mess deck was where you talked and got to know people. From all walks of life, all different states.

There was always some interesting things happened.

Oh I don’t know, what boys talk about.

Well everyone talked about going on leave, the girls they were going to meet and all of the rest of it. Blonde or brunette,

lots of things that normal kids did talk about. What they were going to do when they went ashore .whether they had enough money for enough beers, something like that. Just normal talking people. Wouldn’t talk about war too much.

There was all different pranks that used to go on. Someone would tie your hammock to the bin and you would try and get it out, all pranks that kids get up to.

Oh I was lucky I think. No one put any pranks on me.

I was lucky, I just worked in with people, kept very calm until I got to know people, once I got to know people it was terrific, just like talking to you or me. I think on a ship you have got to, you rely on everyone else. Everyone has got a part to play and if one person doesn’t play that part well it upsets it, especially in action, it makes a difference.

No I don’t think so mate, but people complained about the damage control we had and that saved a hell of a lot of lives later on.

End of tape

Well you’re looking at a

ships that’s about thirty foot out of water, I know its thirty foot because I have dived off it. The ship’s interior it has a series of mess decks where you have got to keep people. They have a series of

where the eight inch guns go down. They have a hydraulic system that fits two forwards and two aft. Cookery room, a recreation room. All of the mess decks, some for seamen and some for stokers. The magazines are underneath close to

the water. That’s mainly what it consists of. The ships today are fitted differently. They have got cabins and these new submarines

there is not very much room in those.

About a thousand, we had twelve hundred at one stage. It takes a lot of men to run a big cruiser.

No it wasn’t that cramped, not when you look at destroyers, they’re pretty cramped. The cruisers are a pretty big ship, they’re all right. They have got their gangways and archways and

everything like that. Gangplanks. It is pretty easy.

There was always a difference of opinion between the two of them/ always criticising, seamen and stokers always did criticise but

overall they were pretty right, almost the same.

Stokers should be where they are, down the bottom of the ship, seamen were the elite. But it was the same sort of thing that happened between Melbourne and Sydney anyway, those sorts of comparisons.

When you’re ashore it makes no difference what you were and even since then some of the stokers have been some of my best mates.

Oh yeah it was the same thing.

I think there was but I can’t remember them now.

You wouldn’t come in contact with them too much, seamen had their jobs to do and stokers had theirs.

What would I change? I don’t think I would change anything I was quite happy on board ship.

Well you know when you’re closed up in action station I slept on a pipe like that. I had a hammock cover I put on top of it and it got that dirty and greasy, I left it there and I had to pay for it when I came home. They said,

“You’re one hammock cover short.” And I said, “Oh yeah, it got pretty dirty and I left it there.” And they said, “Well you have got to pay for it.” so many shillings.

We didn’t have much time to gripe. We went through quite a few actions

in a very short time and you didn’t have much time to gripe. We griped about when we wanted to go back to Sydney when we got hit the first time. And they wouldn’t allow us. That was a gripe. We griped when the [staff of] Women’s Weekly [magazine] came aboard once

and the men weren’t allowed to talk to them. The officers did. There was a gripe about that.

The Women’s Weekly came aboard and we had a Commodore Collins on board at the time. He just put his

telescope under his arm, walked up and down the quarterdeck and no one could come near him and they only interviewed him and nobody else, only the officers, and we thought that was pretty crook.

Both I think, I think they were female.

Well the thing was going to

go in the Women’s Weekly we thought we should go in there as well. It wasn’t but we couldn’t complain too much.

It was then yeah. Had two magazines then. The Pix, which everyone thought was a pretty good magazine at that time, and the Women’s Weekly and when they came on board we all

thought we would get our photos put in there and our parents would see it but it wasn’t to be. Had a bit of a gripe about that.

Came back to Espiritu Santo and the officers had a ball, on the quarterdeck with the American nurses and we weren’t allowed to have nay part of it, weren’t allowed near it. We weren’t very happy about that either.

No not at the time. I just thought like any other sailor would, “What’s good for them is good for me.”

Oh there was yeah. They had the wardroom, they had their bits and pieces, they had hot and cold

fresh water showers. We had saltwater showers. We only had to wash our faces with fresh water. You talk about the water situation here now, we distilled salt water

and a certain amount, if we could do it on a ship why can’t they do it here?

Yes.

Captain [Emile] Dechaineaux, I thought he was a very great man.

HE was a

commander that commissioned HMAS Warramunga which is a destroyer and when he became captain he came on board ship. All of the people on the Warramunga the sailors, they were very unhappy to see him go. He was, but their loss was our gain. When he came aboard ship he communicated with

the whole ship. When we were going into action he would bring everyone to the quarterdeck, he put a map up on the quarterdeck and says, “Now this is where we’re going, we are going here to do this.” And so everyone knew where we were going, and no other captain would do that. And we had a lot admiration for him. Not only did he do that

but he made us do damage control. Everyone on board ship knew if a fire started how to put it out. Everybody and every part of the ship we were drilled in to know where the water would come from and how to put it out. And it was through that that saved a lot of lives when we got hit later on. So I did admire

him. he was a great fellow. Unfortunately he got killed.

Not personally no, I wasn’t on the bridge, but as I say I got to know his son and followed his career in the navy later on. That’s another story.

He would come around at times and say hello to you when you were on different things. I admired him. The gunnery officer too, I admired him too. He got killed too.

Raymond, didn’t see very much of him but he had orders what to do

and how to do them and I admired him for what he did. I think he saved a few lives when he got it, but unfortunately he went too.

Yes. We had a Commander Harrington who was a nasty man.

He would have commander’s reports, he would put you on a report and say that you shouldn’t have done that sort of thing, “I will give you a sentence,” and then he would ask why. And if he thought you were in the right he would say, “Well I have given you a sentence now, that’s it.” He wasn’t a very nice man.

No really, because I have known his family since and I don’t want things going down in archives. But he didn’t have too many good points, although he got the greatest rise in the navy than any other, he was a very

strong character but no one liked him. Hated him for what he was. He threw his telescope at a midshipman once and smashed it all over the deck. He wasn’t a very nice man.

No you had to keep things to yourself.

But his son is just the opposite – marvellous person, his son. I went to England with him not so long ago.

No not on board ship. When I got drafted off the ship I went to HMAS Penguin and they gave me a job

guarding oil tanks at Chowder Bay, and I put my rifle down once and a petty officer came and took the magazine out of it and he said, “You’re not guarding it properly.” So I had to go on commander’s report and he was there. He said,

“You were sent here for a rest, what did it?” I said, “The sun just came down off me and I just put my rifle down and I said, “It was on my boot.” “Oh well,” he said, “You shouldn’t have done that.”

He gave me three days’ stoppage of leave that’s all. Which is pretty good for him.

He said, “You were sent here for a rest.”

So he knew me on board but I didn’t come before him on board. He knew I was drafted off two days before she sailed so he gave me three days stoppage of leave which wasn’t much at all. And I didn’t do that job any more.,

He was the commander and he had commander’s reports every day.

I didn’t like him very much. He is the only one I didn’t like. I think [Commodore] Farncomb who is the greatest sailor I think I have ever seen. He was terrific, ended up being a Rear Admiral,

but he had more sea time than any naval officer in the history of the Australian navy. And he was brilliant. I wasn’t in the Battle of the Coral Sea but he saved the ship in the battle. Torpedoes were coming at him, three of them, and he zigzagged and missed the three of them. And

that was pretty good. I joined the ship just after that. He was one of the greatest seamen I think I have ever known. He had a brilliant brain.

I don’t think they liked him too much but they thought what he was was terrific. They didn’t like Collins too much. Collins, I had better not say,

but Collins was a different sort of man.

He liked the limelight. He more liked the limelight, although he sunk an Italian ship in the Mediterranean, when he got hurt I had better not say much. Any rate the boys didn’t respect him for it.

I don’t like to degrade people.

Well he got hurt on the bridge, Collins did, hurt his eye and

he cried like a baby. He got hauled down over to go get fixed up, and he went crook [abused] at one of the sailors, I don’t want to say too much about it. He didn’t have the respect. Although

later on in life I invited him to be a guest at our HMAS Australia reunion dinner and he was a different man altogether, him and his wife. Things weren’t too good on board when he did that sort of thing. Of course the episode with

the Women’s Weekly didn’t help him either.

I don’t want to tell you. I will leave that alone.

No I wasn’t there and there was two conflicting stories so

one might be true and one mightn’t be. Well one story was that he went crook because the knot wasn’t right or something, I don’t know whether that was true or not, but I know he went crook at the men and he was crying like a baby where other people were dying. And it wasn’t

respect of what we thought officers should be.

That was the story. I don’t know if it is true or not. I wasn’t there.

By his actions. As I say everyone liked Captain Dechaineaux and they admired him.

I think he was only a commodore at the time, Farncomb. And Collins they weren’t happy about. We had quite a lot of respect for Commander Wright, who took over after Dechaineaux got killed.

He was a terrific man, I had a lot of admiration for him. He had quite a story after the war too, I won’t go into that. But, people since then, his daughter has a great admiration for our association.

So it goes on. From that life in the navy it is still going on you know. Different people you come in contact with. I was only an ordinary seaman, became an AB, yet I know more admirals since then than anywhere else. Governors, I have had a lot to do with governors.

Well Captain Dechaineaux had an impact on the men for the simple reason that he brought all of the crew into his confidence. Told us what we were doing, and showing exactly where we were doing, and what we were doing.

It was something that was unheard of. The skippers kept all of those things with their officers and this man shared everything. And we had respect for him in that regard. When we were going to Leyte he said, “Now our job is to bombard this railway going to

their land guns. There is a railway there where the ammunition goes to it, our job is to bombard that.” And we did it. And we bombarded an ammunition train to it. So we knew exactly what we were going to do and we did exactly what he said.

When you become an officer you first become a midshipman; and the midshipmen gets a much from the officers above him and when those midshipmen become officers, higher, they do exactly the

same thing. And it goes down the history and it is a terrible thing, but that’s how it happens. Some officers are better than others as it goes through all walks of life, it doesn’t matter what industry you have, you have all different people that will run down a person under him to gain his own prestige. And midshipmen copped

the lot. I don’t know why, but they did. Because they copped it when they were a midshipman. And you see that. But with Dechaineaux there wasn’t that and I think the officers respected him for it.

I don’t think so, I think they had to do as they were told.

In any case, you didn’t come in contact with a lot of them anyhow.

Some were, Scrambag Bob was a person people didn’t like very much. If you left your any gear around and he copped [found] it, you had to go to Scrambag Bob to get it,

you had to pay a certain amount of money or were disciplined or something.

Petty officers? I admired the Petty Officer Prittle that was in charge of the gun we had. He was a very understanding man. Strict, but you respected what he was. And everything ran like clockwork.

You have got a gun crew and you have got to work everything right, so your gun is in perfect position to fire.

Well every section had a part to do, they had to know where the hoses were and if you had to get hoses connected to the sea to suck it up, you had to know where everything is. You had to know how to put the fire out and everyone had to go through that drill.

Every part of the ship. And it was vital when we did get hit, there were fires everywhere that were put out gradually, I think because of the drills we went through.

No just a certain section.

Everyone in the ship had the certain section, where to go to and what to do.

Our section was just on the quarterdeck where our gun was. Get out of the gun house and go straight to it. We had a big pump that could suck the seawater out, and a big hose that wired straight onto it.

Yes.

Well mainly the there wasn’t too many, there was electrical fires but mainly the water was the main thing, I don’t know what it was like below ship, we only had to do the upper part.

Didn’t seem to think that way. As a matter of fact it was just put the fire out before it went any further. If the fire got down to the [ammunition] magazines the thing would blow up.

Well you had a wash every morning, optional salt water showers and that’s about all. Cleaned your teeth. Had a shave. Another thing, Harrington gave one fellow permission to grow a beard and he would grow a little bit here and a little bit there and he came before him

and said, “You have the audacity to come before me to grow a beard? Go down and shave it off!” I will never forget that. Like all young people, they think they’re in the navy they can grow a beard, I couldn’t grow one in those days. I can grow one now but I couldn’t then.

Everyone. They had people to clean it. Clean them up.

Oh well there were certain sections where you sat down and used the toilet. Same as what you do today, it just went straight out to sea.

I forget now what it was. I know a fellow was caught with his pants down, went into action.

Oh he was caught with his pants down or something when a bomb came through it.

This fellow was in the toilet and we had a bomb come through the bulkhead and he had to get out pretty quick or washed out or something or another, so he got out.

We only had one fellow that was homosexual and he got drafted off, dishonourable discharge. In the tropics we used to sleep on the

upper deck. Only put our hammocks flat and just sleep there, nothing on us or things like that. And he used to do some things to us and he got caught and was court martialled and he got out through it. That was the only one that I know of. We had a

bit of everything.

Well you have all of those things, there was a murder on board ship and I wasn’t on it at the time but I know about it. That was through homosexual…

Nothing. It was kept pretty quiet.

Yeah, the homosexual, he was knifed and he died. And there was a court martial and captain or Commodore Farncomb, he was lawyer beforehand and he was the prosecuting attorney. And he was found guilty and sentenced to

hang and brought in and put in Long Bay [jail] somewhere and eventually he was pardoned by the Queen, but spent a few years in gaol.

Yes that’s the story.

Yeah, someone caught him doing it.

No I think he just by himself just did it, someone woke up and found him on top of him.

Made me think about whether to sleep on the upper deck again. I didn’t want to get caught that way. I don’t know how they get away with it, mate. I have got piles and I don’t know how they bloody do it. That’s a matter of opinion.

Oh, kill them.

Throw him overboard, that was the idea. Young fellows like we were, I suppose it has changed these days, I don’t know what you think about it but I don’t think it is very good. You can please yourself what you think, I think it is an unnatural act. When you see them all on parade here, I don’t know.

I am glad I didn’t have attributes that way anyway.

Yes there was.

There was a couple of chaplains on board. Craven Sands his name was. He was all right,

you could go to him any time you wanted to. I used to correspond with him quite a bit from England because he was a member of our association. After the war he was in a mission here in Sydney and then he went to England. Married again and had about a dozen kids or something like that. He did all right, he is dead now.

Must have worn him out I think. He did a good job on board ship. And there was another one. When we did have a lot of admiration for Father Roach, he was on the [cruiser] Shropshire

and when we got a lot of casualties he came over and did a marvellous job. Had a lot to do with him after the war. he was a guest at some of our reunions. And I remember when I was putting a stained glass window over at Garden Island and I was asking for funds and he gave me forty dollars and I suppose that’s all of the money he ever had

and I said, “No I don’t want it.” and he gave it to me. He always enjoyed my newsletters when he was even on his deathbed, he just wanted his newsletters from the HMAS Australia, so had an impact on quite a few people.

Just to do the service at sea, burials at sea,

and if you had any ideas they did a pretty good job when we had injuries and dying, things like that. They all had different things. They were men on their own, had different ideas they wouldn’t try to change you,

some were better than others. Craven Sands was quite a good man, I forget the other one that came after him. He was quite good.

End of tape

I suppose when I first went aboard. My first action station was Cape Gloucester,

we bombarded, we had more eight inch shells target that position than any other place. It was in New Britain and my action stations was the cordite room.

The cordite room was a magazine right down the bottom of the ship, you had to get to it

down a hatch, the hatch was bolted from the top outside, so you could get out. If you were in action the air was cut off because if a flash got down through the air conditioning system, the ship would have blown up. Now after about an hour [without fresh air] you were just about wafted off. It was a terrible experience.

I will never forget, I was glad to get out of it. The next action I was in the shell handling room. The shell handling room you had the smell of oil. You have got these shells going around which were hydraulically brought up and you had to make sure everything was all right and things like that. From there on I went in the gun house and that’s where I stopped for the rest of the years.

Its about six or seven in a room about the size of the kitchen in here.

Yeah about that.

Oh terrible.

I don’t know what you can smell cordite, it is a funny sort of a smell. It is all right when the air is coming down but as I say they have got to cut it off and you get the fumes from the cordite, it is a terrible smell.

Its packaged in

a round cylinder about a three feet around and about four foot long, might be a little bit longer, and it just shoots up to the gun house. The shells are shipped up there as well. The shells come up and the shell goes in, the cordite goes behind it, the breech is shut. The fuse is set and when everything is

right, the petty officer in charge just presses his button and away it goes.

They’re getting the cordite from one place and putting it in the chute, and it goes up.

In a chain, just handling one to the other.

It is all packed in a certain place.

I think so yeah. Glad to get out of it, mate.

The chute? Oh just a round hole, you just put that in. I don’t know exactly how it went, I was particularly pleased

to be going in there. I did a gunnery course and had to be shot [posted to] in the magazine, I wasn’t happy about it. I didn’t complain, but I was glad to get out of it.

I don’t know. I think they did the training, you went there, there and then up the top. That was a QR3 rating and I think they give you a bit of

experience, what it was before you get to the top ones.

Oh yeah. But I didn’t think about that at the time.

Terrible mate, terrible.

Well you just feel like you’re passing out. Feel dizzy,

and you have got phobia too, because you know you’re locked in and can’t get out. I don’t know what they do now mate, but it was pretty crook back then.

You can hear noises, you can hear them because every time they turn broadside you shift back, so you’re moving around a bit as well.

The whole ship moves when they [fire a] broadside, yeah.

Oh not so bad, but you’re going backwards.

Oh it is through a system you can talk, they don’t tell you what’s going on, mate, you just follow orders.

I don’t know. Well if they want a certain amount of cordite, away you go.

Headphones. A phone, more or less.

There would be a chief petty officer or something like that.

Oh I forget now mate. I know there was a record number of rounds went through that particular. See there was eight eight-inch

twin guns and each fire individually, they wouldn’t broadside altogether, because you would go back quite a way.

You didn’t work that fast.

Yeah you would have your breaks.

Nothing. You just had to keep your wits about you or try to. The longer you were there the worse it was, as I say it’s a safety valve if they put more air in there.

But as soon as the action was over they opened the hatch and you went up. Not a pleasant experience at all.

I got the shock of my life.

It was because you’re nearly passed out, that’s what was shocking.

About an hour.

Well I didn’t know what was going on. They didn’t tell you in Flinders what you had to do in a cordite room but you soon learnt and that was it. As I say I was glad I worked my way up.

Well I didn’t know what I was going to do, I wasn’t very happy about it.

Not much, everyone felt the same way.

Yeah I think there was fear. Fear of being locked in and can’t get out that’s a fear on

its own.

No that didn’t come into it. I don’t think anyone had fear of getting killed, it was just fear of being locked in, can’t get out. Well that’s what I felt.

I saw a lot of smoke and burnt things like that. Reaction of what happened. A lot of ships going around here and there. Didn’t have much, there wasn’t much opposition, it was a bombardment, but there wasn’t

much opposition at all.

Yeah they had an invasion there, most of our operations were all invasions. We would do all of the bombardments and the troops would go in afterwards.

I just went up on the upper deck and had a look . You were that dazed and confused you didn’t care much. You just saw smoke and things rising from the things they hit. Oh no it was an action I didn’t like very much.

Glad to get out of it, pleased as punch to be on the upper deck, smell the air.

I don’t think so.

You don’t. Very seldom did they tell you. Sometimes they would tell you

over the microphone, very seldom. And that’s why we I liked Dechaineaux because he told us all.

I forget what happened now. But it soon goes off.

Oh you go to the recreation room there, play cards and there was crown and anchor [gambling game] there all of the time. Talked. Might discuss the action.

Talk about the next leave you were going to have. The recreation room was pretty good. When we did get hit that time, they put all of the wounded in it. That was a depressing thing.

No I played cards. When I was a mess man for a while I was, I can’t think of it, I used to play bridge there and a fellow and I used to win all the time and so they tossed me out of it. I ended up being a PO’s [Petty Officer’s] mess man and that was quite a few different people.

I was, the fellow who was with me I still talk to. I used to play tombola now and again, that’s bingo. In the starboard waist used to do that pretty often. Used to watch the boxing on board, they had good boxing on board. We challenged the

Americans and one of our fellows he beat the champion from the US Navy who became World Champion later on. Gus Retravich I think his name was, pretty good. And another mate of mine, Don Cameron, came home and he won quite a few boxing titles

when he came back off the Australia. Plenty to do.

When we were in port, safe havens. And there were American ships in the area, they used to do that.

Well they had a full boxing ring.

Dechaineaux, he was a man that watched the people, he liked the boxing. And they had rugby union teams and quite a bit, different things. I never engaged in anything like that but I used to watch the boxing; it was pretty good.

On the deck, yes.

Yeah we had some good boxing matches on board ship there.

Well we didn’t have enough money to bet on them I don’t think. Might be a few goffers. A goffer was, we had a canteen on board run by private enterprise and they used to sell goffers and a goffer was a bit of water,

aerated thing like a lemonade. Use to get them cheap and we used to buy them and we used to have them pretty often.

Terrible, still it was the best you could get for those particular times. Old Zamut, he was the canteen manager, I got to know his sons pretty well, and the

fellows who worked there, his son who is dead now, one of his sons was a great known historian and I had a bit to do with him. On that very table, when they wanted a design of HMAS Australia for the maritime museum in Sydney, we designed the whole thing on that kitchen table.

Zamut, he had a lot of papers and books on the Australia and made a big impression, he was pretty good.

A mate and I used to go halves in a tin of peaches, something you wouldn’t get often.

Only a small tin of peaches but you could go halves in it. And you could get your cigarettes and tobacco and that sort of thing.

No we didn’t have Coke. Had American cigarettes.

Camels and Chesterfields, they were the main two I think.

Oh I don’t know, you just smoked what you wanted, mate. We also smoked ‘roll your own’ mainly. I used to roll my own.

When those sorts of things came in you just bought them, you know they were cheap and nasty.

Not very much. Used to trade with the natives, used to give them pusser soap and get different articles of whatever they had. They used to come in the boats around different places.

Oh carvings and all of that sort of thing, but they stopped that afterwards because some of them got hit in the head with cakes of soap, so they stopped it.

They would come around the side of the ship and we would throw the soap over and tie a thing on the side and just haul it up.

Just, “Cake of soap?” “Yep.” And up it comes, that’s all you would do.

Yes.

Oh the pusser soap mate you couldn’t get a lather on it. Especially in salt water, bloody terrible. You know what ordinary

soap is like, your washing soap, well this was rock hard and you couldn’t get a lather out of it.

Not bad. You would get provisions when you came to port. Luckily on a big ship it lasts a lot

longer. But we had our share of dehydrated stuff, which was terrible.

Worked all right when you were ashore, pretty crook when you were sealed up.

Oh they would just give you bully beef or now and again they would just give you bully

beef stew or something like that. Didn’t have much when you were locked up, but the other meals were pretty good.

Everyone was detailed every now and again to the mess deck, you would go up to the servery and get enough for say twenty people who were on your mess deck.

Then you have to share it all out and give it to people, then washing up and clearing it all up. Everyone had their share of that. So with twenty people, every twenty you would do that ,except the captain of the mess deck who organised it.

Yes. Some

would differ if they had been doing shifts, but the majority would sit down together.

Trays. Carry a big tray and just carry it down.

Depends where you were mate, all different types.

Sometimes you would have a roast, not very often. Casseroles, some were more inviting than others. Eggs for breakfast. Until you run out.

I don’t know. dehydrated stuff you couldn’t eat very much. You know if you felt like something, well you just headed down the canteen, just had your bit of fruit or something like that.

The meals weren’t too bad on ship. It would be worse on a destroyer or something like that where they couldn’t carry as much fresh food as anyone else.

They just had lime juice, you get

an issue of a glass of lime juice every lunch hour, that was in between decks.

Go and get a mug full and drink it. See life on board ship is pretty good you see, you get no mosquitoes at sea. Fresh air all of the time on the upper deck. You might get all different

kinds of seas but you have got no things like you get in the army or something like that. It is a pretty good life.

No very seldom were you allowed ashore. Some places you were, we got ashore at Hollandia a couple of times. But you’re on islands that were isolated.

That was like a cup of cocoa, hot cup of cocoa at six o’clock in the morning. Just go to the servery and get it.

They just called it kai, I don’t know. I know it was all right.

Only when you’re locked up in your actions stations, that was the most uncomfortable. As I say I had to sleep on a rug.

You got used to it.

Some people used to get tropical ears and tropical things but I never used to.

Well you had your special jobs to do, I was a mess man most of the time.

You had to get the meals from the servery, serve it to the POs and then wash up, two of us used to do that.

That was just part of routine.

Every time you did a bombardment. On the way to it, if you were in enemy waters you were called to action stations.

Yes you had to go there straight away.

Well there was always something on.

Unless you were in a port that we had already captured and everything was all right.

Just a blast on the bosun’s pipe, “Beep, beep, action stations!” and away you went. Everyone had an action station where to go to. You just left your normal job and went there.

Yeah most of them were just working the day watch, only the people on what they used to call a dog watch, that’s between four and eight, that’s the only other shift for night work., they used to do a shift of looking out to sea

on the bridge, but most of them were officers anyway.

Yes.

Depends how long the action was. Sometimes it was days.

Nothing, well that was organised for us. One would go and another would come back. Depends what we had to do.

No he came on afterwards.

That was with [Commodore] Farncomb I think.

Oh the captain would say that the mission was completed successfully and that’s about all, he wouldn’t give you any details or one thing or another. You know

sometimes they would say, “Right oh, we’re going to do a bombardment on such and such.” Most of the bombardments we did were normal bombardments. We didn’t have a great deal of enemy resistance until we got to the Philippines. We had to chase some destroyers

in Biak. The Japs were making a counterattack. They had three destroyers with three pontoons of men and we chased them, our ship did thirty knots, shook and groaned and everything but we couldn’t catch them. The

Warramunga and the Arunta were doing thirty-five knots and were just about to catch them and the Yankee destroyers were the same just about to catch them. They let their troops barges go and the destroyers got away but they got the barges.

Yeah we did a bombardments of Biak and they did a landing there,

they were going to counterattack the Japs and these destroyers, these three, they chased them, they never got the destroyers but they got the barges.

They were going to land yes, and make a counterattack.

The three destroyers got away but they cut the barges and that’s it, we didn’t pursue them any further. I think they were afraid the Japanese fleet would be somewhere around .

I am not sure, mate.

I am not going to say, no.

Well I presume that they were destroyed.

Yeah.

No I was told they were destroyed.

In the gun house.

We went out of the gun house and had a look every now and again.

Oh you felt it. Our ship was getting fairly old mate, and thirty knots is a lot,

not only shook one way and up and down, just about shook it to pieces. But old Farncomb wanted to catch them. He didn’t get there.

Nothing, just chased them that’s all. But they would have done if they caught up with them. Our destroyers would have

eventually caught them I think if they had the time and the Yankee destroyers as well, they were chasing them. See we couldn’t do thirty-five knots and these Jap destroyers were doing thirty-five, well they were doing less because they had these barges, so they just cut the barges off and the destroyers went.

Yes we worked with the Warramunga and the Arunta all of the time.

We would refuel them. The Australia had a great capacity of fuel and we would refuel both of those destroyers at sea.

Protecting

us and they would do their bombardments as well.

They only had a four inch [guns] I think. They were great help when we were in the Philippines.

The Arunta was hurt to and she came back to Espiritu Santo with us.

Well if there was a submarine attack or something like that they would put their depth charges

down . They would use their radar and everything like that, they were a great help to have. I remember in the Philippines they gave us a Yankee destroyer and I never saw so much flak in all of my life. If they were going to get something they would open up every gun they had. And it was a great feeling to have them

around, I don’t know if they hit anything but at least it gave you the great protection that they fired everything.

We never had too many submarine attacks. We had paravanes which cut the mines away; I don’t think we ever had a submarine attack that I know of. You would be surprised the

number of shipping that went down on the east coast of Australia during the war from submarines, but we didn’t. They wouldn’t go through, because we used to go through the coral islands and they wouldn’t go through that. So we were protected right up until the top of Australia,

and we never had much submarine attack.

If there was, the destroyers would fix that up, they protected us from all of those sorts of things, they had the radar to do it all.

End of tape

Well it was catapulted off and

used for surveillance. When we were close to shore it was used to get our mail from Townsville. Used to get fresh vegetables off the Admiral. It could land in the sea and get hoisted on board.

Crane.

It just went fairly close to the ship and the crane went over and hoisted it up.

No different people. One of my mates used to fly it, Commander Dick Bourke, he still comes to all of our meetings and so forth.

Shell handling room.

Not a real big room. The shells were in a big circle. We were put in there and the shells went hydraulically up to the gun house. They were two hundred and fifty six pounds, heavy. I have seen the natives handle them very easily. We had an ammunition ship at Milne Bay once and we were ashore there with the ammunition people, and the natives, two of them, just used to pick them up and

just throw them in the truck. They were very strong those natives, as far as lifting goes. It was, had plenty of oil, always the smell of oil. Ex-turret the one next to us, that sprung a leak of oil once. They had to evacuate in a hurry.

They eventually took that turret away before the war finished? I am not sure now.

It was hydraulic to bring the all of the stuff up. The smell was around all of the time you know.

Eventually they came up into the turret and they were just loaded into the breech and the cordite went afterwards.

Not particularly. We didn’t even bring anti-flash gear into that.

Just ordinary working clothes.

I think we went to or Wewak, something like that. Only the one action

there, the rest were in the gun house.

Landings. We did landings at all of those along the coast of New Guinea, then we did landings at Biak which is Dutch New Guinea, Hollandia. That

was Dutch New Guinea as well. Next was Morotai and then the Philippines after that.

We were associated with 76 Task Force I think, with the Americans, and we just followed them. I think the Americans liked

us because we had British radar. The British radar was far superior to the Americans. Even when we were going to the Philippines, we could pick up about ninety kamikaze planes coming from Formosa on our radar. The Yanks used to go up in sets [of fighters] and about ten of them would get through and they would attack their target, so it was the British radar that picked them all up.

I am not a technical but I know that the Japs used to be able to beat the Yankee radar, where they couldn’t do it the same as the British. See the British invented the radar and they were far superior, far ahead at that time.

And all of the British ships and Australian ships had it.

I forget now. We came back to Sydney for a refit or something a couple of times and I went home on leave yeah.

Plays up mate. I was only too happy to get home. We usually got, after a period of about six months I suppose we got two or three weeks leave. Just went home.

Homecoming was pretty good.

No some did, some bragged about it, but I don’t know. I had a few drinks, I was always a drinking man. I enjoyed a few drinks

in the pub when I was on leave. Sometimes when I came back you had plenty of drinking turnouts in Sydney. As far as girls go it didn’t matter. There was one time, the day before pay day that I went to Hyde Park in

Sydney. There was a centre for service personnel where you can go and get a free feed and afterwards dance with the girls to Jim Davidson’s Band, who was a big band at that particular time. And it cost you nothing. That’s where I met my future wife. She was there for four years.

She paid twenty cents a night to help pay for the feeds, washed up and danced with the servicemen and she did that for four years. And I tried to get her a civilian medal and they knocked her back. And that was the most disappointing thing I have done. She really deserved it. I fought people in high places, if she had been to camp or something she would have got it.

And other people who didn’t deserve it have got it. Very disappointing. But I suppose I gained a wife. It was the time when I got drafted off the ship, so although I didn’t go to England that time at least I got a wife.

Some people did, but that’s what used to cause ‘60 mess’. People had that there and there was always a few aboard that had 60 mess. Oh no, you lock

yourself up for six months without going ashore, without seeing a woman, I suppose if you’re young and virile, you felt like having sex, don’t you? Well I think it is normal for people to do that which most people, most sailors did have a good time and that was it.

No there was plenty of places in Sydney where you could get it.

A place I used to stop at Central there, it was an army place and they gave it out all of the time, French letters and the rest of it.

No.

Not really I wasn’t inclined to be that way you know. Plenty did. There was a famous deaf person called Nuff Nuff, a lot of the sailors knew them.

I am not going to explain the funny things about her, but she was notified pretty well. Even in Tasmania they have got a Nuff Nuff corner on one of the memorials down there, she was a famous prostitute.

She had a lot of sailors.

Well she was a famous one and they all knew about her, all talked about her and all of the rest of it.

Oh well, good night out.

Well a mate of mine from Victoria he was walking down one side [of the street] with his wife and Nuff Nuff was on the other and she

called out his name, and his wife said, “Who was that?” and he said, “I don’t know, I don’t think they know anything.” But evidently there was a past association and that was it.

Lots of things mate, but I don’t think I want to put those sorts of things on archives anyway.

A mate of mine I still know he had a pimple on his privates and he put raw Dettol [disinfectant] on it and it swelled up, I don’t know what. And he had a terrible time with that. There are funny things that happened but you keep them to yourself.

Oh yeah he went to sick bay, had a week or so there trying to get it down. Some antibiotics or something into him to get it down.

He didn’t put any raw Dettol on it any more.

Oh there is thousands of mate but I am not going to record them, they’re private things.

I don’t think so. I think every era has its day.

Our era was of songs everyone knew. Every song would come out was a hit and everyone sang them. I think that you hear them today and you wouldn’t think anything of them, but we did. We thought they were terrific, everyone sung them. That was one part of the war that brought out some wonderful songs.

Well any of the songs from that era were all pretty good, all war songs.

Oh well I am trying to think of the band now, all mainly bands that played those songs. Vera Lynne’s songs were very good.

There were lots of things. When we were in harbour we used to have films, they would show them time and time again but everyone used to enjoy them because the audience participation was fantastic. It made every film a classic, a comedy. Australians

have a knack of taking the mickey [making fun] out of actors and it was well worthwhile going, although you might have seen it half a dozen times.

Well I have got to think now. “Begin the beguine.”

No.

Yeah I refuse to mate. But all of the songs that came out during the war were inspirational. They were written, something like,

Wish me Luck as You Wave Me Goodbye. They were songs that inspired people. I am just trying to think of them now, there are that many.

The White Cliffs of Dover. That was another. But I am no singer.

I don’t think I want to sing it anyway.

Oh well when the lights come on again all over the world, that was one of them. There was that many,

Ride up the Bow, all of those sorts of things.

Nothing much, we had the inspirational songs of England mainly.

The Yanks too as far as that goes. We used to listen to Yankee broadcasts. And they used to sing patriotic songs, inspirational I suppose. There Will Always be an England. Typical English songs for that particular era.

No. We’ll Hang Out our Washing on the Sigfried Line I suppose is about the only thing, hanging out the washing and all of those sorts of things. I started a day care club at Bankstown RSL they used to sing all of the old songs and I used to lead the singing and we used to do exercises and everything like that. So we used to sing, to get the older people in we used to sing the Sigfried Line and do the actions with it.

Yeah you’re hanging out the washing on the Sigfried Line, is there any dirty washing mother dear? And you scrub and scrub. It was giving people exercises as well as getting them into the tune of the song.

Not, not unless I have got a song book I can’t do that.

Sixty mess, yeah that’s right.

That’s a room that’s isolated, they weren’t allowed to mix with anyone else.

Until the doctor said they wouldn’t be able to transmit it to anyone else.

That’s right. They just stopped there, food was brought to them.

Yes you were charged.

Jenkers or something like that. Jenkers was favourite misdemeanour. Jenkers is you stand up and

hold a rifle like that, you hold it for a quarter of an hour, above your head for a quarter of an hour, or twenty minutes, whatever it was, until your arms nearly broke off. That was jenkers, the punishment for crimes on board ship.

Well they told you to get it back up again.

No thank goodness.

I think so, yes.

No I think that was the main one, you got stoppage of leave and all of that sort of thing.

Syphilis maybe.

I don’t know mate, the doctors treated you. I think you would get your discharge out of the navy for it too, dishonourable discharge.

Yes they were in certain establishments.

They were at Flinders, people got crabs down there. Used to put a purple dye on it, the purple dye was good for everything. Colds, didn’t matter what it was they would give you purple dyes that was the magic potion.

Anything mate. Soap.

You can get a rash with soap and it was terrible soap we used anyway. If you could you got your own soap which was better in the long run.

We had a doctor on board, Doctor Flaherty, used to play Rugby Union for

Australia. He was a fantastic fellow. He was a bit on the stout side, he used to get half way down a hatch and have to wriggle down. But in the Philippines he was absolutely fantastic. He gave a lot of help to different people.

Even after the war he wrote a book in a Naval Journal which I picked out. I was able to give a lot of sailors TPI [Totally and Partially Incapacitated Pension] through it, because he explained that when you were under stress, sometimes your

tensions were that bad that sometimes morphine had to be administered to you, and all that. And through that it was mainly while the doctors were ex-service people after the war, that they realised he was right. And a lot of people got TPI. I got lots of people TPIs but I didn’t worry about mine

because I was working. Once I finished work I tried to get mine but of course I was too old. Once you’re sixty-five you can’t get a TPI.

Medical orderlies yeah. But he was the main one and he always used to march Anzac Days after the war, until he died. Marvellous person. Good fellow to talk to.

Oh well if there was a love scene they would play it up. And if they said some words they would make jokes of it that wasn’t the context of it. There was you know Australians have a wit all of their own.

It was terrific to listen too.

I don’t know mate, too long now. But they made fun of love scenes and all of the rest of it. You can only remember so much.

Yes I only went to one of them, they weren’t on all of the time. They had singers, actors, but they all came. Even then you had your wit from the audience to play it up. And the officers and everyone used to be there, they used to encourage it.

But if you said too much against them, you have got to be careful.

Well if you played them up, played against Harrington, you would get a commander’s report the next day. All of the others took it as fun.

Yeah.

I don’t know who it was now mate, I am not going to worry about that.

I don’t know I think he was only warned that time that you cannot make fun of your officers in front of an audience like that. I don’t think he got much. But all of the others took it as real fun you know, even the chaplain.

Oh you can do lots of things mate. As I say, Australian wit is marvellous.

Oh I can’t think now mate but I know it happened.

The chaplains were very marvellous. They did their job when they had to.

No I think they were all pretty good mate. Especially burials at sea, they were pretty good.

In the gun house.

I was a layer, I was getting the elevation of the eight inch guns. Just following pointers more or less.

Form the petty officer in charge of the gun house. He was in the centre, he would throw the switch that everything was right ready to fire.

There were two layers, there was a trainer down below and they had two leading seamen who would shut the breech and that sort of thing. They were QR2s and I could have gone for QR2 had I stayed in longer.

Just follow your pointers, they didn’t tell us all about that, follow pointers, in Victoria. When I first come up there the petty officer said, “Follow your pointer. Didn’t you learn anything about that down at Flinders?” And I said, “No they didn’t say a word about that.” But I soon learnt, and once you started, well we all worked in together.

Well you have a white pointer, as I said before up on the bridge. They have a gunnery officer who points the direction where it is and everything. And that’s a white pointer and mine was a blue pointer I think and I had to follow it. And once I followed it I was on a direct line of what he wanted. Plus they calculated all of the rest,

the velocity and speed and distance and all of that.

Yeah like a little just like what you have got now, pointers in front of me, you just followed them. And the trainer he had the same thing, you would train one way around that he would just follow the pointers as well.

No. When they came in line I just pushed my button, it was right. And I think before that the breech was loaded, and when everything was right, he just pushed the button, and away she went.

They created it from that position up near the bridge.

Yeah more or less electronic. I suppose it is the first part of electronics I suppose.

Anti-flash gear ,everyone had to put on.

After you did a bit of firing you usually went up on deck to have a look what’s going on. And you usually had anti-flash gear all of the time. That would protect you from flashes and all of that sort of stuff.

Just like another protective clothing on here with protective around your head.

It’s to save you, I suppose they wear it now don’t they? Fire-fighters, protective gear. Much the same as that sort of stuff.

Only light stuff, but they called it anti-flash gear.

I think it was cotton treated, something like that.

I am not sure mate.

Firing on the Japanese installations, once you got the flattened so the troops went ahead, all to do with Yanks, some of them were Australian turn outs, but most of them were combination with the Yanks mainly.

Oh I think it was mate, at least I was finally up doing something. It was an experience. I enjoyed it right up to the Philippines. I thought it was great. We didn’t get a lot of flak. It was pretty good. Once we got to the Philippines mate, it changed tremendously.

No. Sometimes we went out to the Oerlikon outside and fired a few rounds, but apart from that we didn’t.

Oerlikon [rapid fire antiaircraft gun] is just like, they changed more to Bofors [similar antiaircraft gun] later. Just an

Oerlikon gun, you can fire at a plane and try and cut its wing away to divert an attack. When a bombardment finished we were allowed to take spells [on the gun]. We weren’t supposed to do it, but we were allowed to do it.

No we weren’t supposed to go near it, we were supposed to stay in there, but we did.

No I don’t think the powers that be knew about it. But we lost that many gunnery crews there was no one there to fire it, so we just took our turn.

Oh it’s pretty easy mate.

Just got to put the ammunition in it and keep on firing, we all did it.

I only fired it a couple of times mate, they just said, “Just keep on what you’re doing.” “Yeah all right.” But we didn’t do it that often, it was there. But when we had closed up, we finished our firing, well it was only protection you know.

Some at Hollandia I didn’t like it much, there was an island there where a lot of Americans were up to their necks and they were getting mowed

down a hell of a lot, until the planes came over and bombed them . That was really nice to see.

We saw some. This one island, evidently a couple of machine guns on it and when they landed they were up to here in water and they just couldn’t get ashore because the water was too high. They lost a lot of men until the bombers came over and bombed so they could go in there.

That was the only part I saw during Hollandia.

We were further inland we were going at.

Over the top of them yes.

What planes?

No no. That was the only part that, we didn’t have much opposition at Hollandia at all, apart from that section that I saw.

Eventually yes. They must have lost a few though.

The American aircraft

just bombed them and they were able to go ashore then.

I saw them coming in yeah.

I don’t know. I also saw them coming in at Leyte too. Nice to see them coming there because we had bombs all around us.

End of tape

I think we might have went back to

Biak or somewhere like that, there was a lot of Japs coming down from the hills and they were starving and they were raiding the Australians and we just fired at them to stop them doing that. I had an army mate of mine he said

he wasn’t afraid of the Japs so much as, “Those jolly shells you put over us.” He reckoned they were pretty close. But we killed the uprising there and then we went back to Morotai. Morotai was a pretty big landing. Didn’t have much opposition there either. Our ship didn’t anyway.

I don’t know now. There wasn’t very far away but it wasn’t far from the sixteen inch guns the Americans had on their battle ships, they were a little bit behind us, not much,

We could see in the distance most things.

Couldn’t see the railway lines, but we saw what we hit. And at Leyte there where the shore batteries were nearly hitting their mark with us and we didn’t knock the shore battery out, but the American planes did eventually.

No. We were a fair way away. Just saw the Yanks go down that’s all.

Through reports, come over the mike [radio microphone] that it was a successful landing that’s all.

The captain or the senior officer.

I have got no idea mate I wasn’t in that department.

She was taken off before we went

to the Philippines she was still there most of the landings, New Guinea and things like that, she would take off and do the reconnaissance and come back.

Yeah.

No I don’t think so.

Yes. We had a certain amount of opposition. Sometimes there were a few planes around, but not many.

Yes.

At Leyte.

No.

We were just told there was a big action going, and as I said the skipper told us what we were going to do. There was about seven hundred and thirty odd ships, massive fleet in the harbour

of Hollandia before we left.

Hollandia I think. Built up, we were the attacking party, we were in front and we had to keep the speed on the lowest in the convoy but we were the attacking thing and we weren’t far away from [US] General [Douglas] MacArthur [Pacific Supreme Commander] who was in one of the

Yankee battleships. And also had Admiral Fraser from the British, in one of his battle ships with us as well.

We were just told it

would take a few days to get there and our main thing was to knock this railway line out of business, hoping there would be an ammunition train and do the bombardments of it.

Yeah. Mainly the railway line, the supplies all of the ammunition to the shore batteries.

We were part of the front, the convoy would be coming along after. We had to do all of the hard work, all of the invasion. The Yanks had all of their battle ships and they did all of that work as well. And they did their bombardments and we did ours. Of course they

went ashore and MacArthur went with them.

I thought it was fantastic, I never seen so many ships in all my life. I thought it was terrific.

Well you were frightened of

subs [submarines] I suppose, but we didn’t seem to think there were any there. I believe there were subs there and they fixed them up [sank them]. But we weren’t to know.

Oh not that far away mate., across the street .We were fairly close together.

Might be a bit further. We were travelling with a Yankee battleship. I don’t know if MacArthur was on that one but one of them he was.

Oh they have got navigation mate, if you ever go to Greenwich in England go there and just see how one of the fellows

invented navigation. It is an eye opener. The whole world has got a lot to thank that one fellow for navigation. If you ever got to England go to Greenwich. It will explain how this fellow, he was the one that found about navigation. But they have all got set courses to go and they have all get together before a thing like that

and set their courses.

On the way up? Well we were right to start off with and then we went to action stations and stayed there all of the time.

My job was just to be in the gun house and be ready for the bombardments.

‘Y’ turret on the quarterdeck.

When we arrived we went straight into bombardment., We did broadsides onto this railway line and

we did our job, what we had to do. That was it more or less

No just one twin gun fires at a time. They don’t do a full broadside because you’d go back [be pushed back by the blast] too far..

They would just come up and fire. They nearly stop when they come to fire. It all depends if they have nothing coming at them they would just stop there and do it. We had shells that came off the battery all around us.

I think so mate. When we finished I went out and had a look. We were more or less still, just going gradual.

Nothing mate.

You’re enclosed you don’t know what’s going on. It gives you all sort of anxieties.

Well it wasn’t too bad then, but when you get planes hitting you it gives you anxieties all right.

We didn’t. The one that hit us was the first one that hit any ship.

Luckily we didn’t know anything about them, we only knew what they did, we knew what they were like and what they did to prisoners of war, and all of the rest of it.

Yeah they told us.

Oh you had papers at home, when you went home they told you about what happened. The prisoners were taken. I had a hatred of Japanese, I still have. Some people can forgive but I can’t. I lost so many mates.

Just told they were ruthless, we didn’t know too much until we got hit ourselves.

In the morning, I think.

It was pretty hazy mate, all smoke and that. Wasn’t a very good impression I don’t think, I didn’t know what was happening. One thing of the navy, you kill a lot of people but there is no combat like there is in the army and you don’t feel that personally. Until something happens to you.

This was the most resistance we had.

Only the shore batteries.

No.

No.

I think we just had our meal

The 24th no, it was the 21st.

Well the 21st that was when the plane hit us.

There was a lot of planes came over, I think we shot three of them down or someone did, and this one I am jolly sure they tell me it was riddled, but when you have a plane coming down at you at x amount of miles per hour it is very hard to cut them down. The best thing you

can do is try and cut one wing off, so it goes away. But this first one hit the bridge and killed about thirty-six or so and wounded a lot of others. And my mate was killed there on the bridge. I went to the rec [recreation] room where they were all ,and he was gone. Terrible scenes.

We were the first to have one hit us. I don’t know why, there was battle ships and everything, I think our three funnels made the difference. It hit the bridge, knocks the funnels out. We had a Yankee destroyer given to us and

they just shot everything up. We ended up ordered out and we went to sea back to Espiritu Santo. In the meantime we had burials at sea which were terrible things really. They just put you in a bit of canvas, put a four inch dummy shell between you, and

just put you on a slab with your flag, and just let you drop. It is a thing that you never forget. Because there are people you were talking to twenty-four hours beforehand. It is not a thing you want to talk about. But we wanted to go back to Sydney and they wouldn’t let us.

They said the ship had to be ready to go back to the Philippines. Anyway we went to Espiritu Santo which is… What is it called now, the island…?

Yes that’s what it is now. There the ship went into a Yankee dry dock

they fixed us all up, the SeaBees [US Naval Construction Force] did, fixed us all up. We went ashore, had American ice cream, their beer, which is terrible stuff. And we just had a bit of recreation until they fixed us up. Then we went back to Hollandia I think and we went back to Luzon.

I was in the gun house and we just heard the whack, terrible whack. We didn’t know what happened until they told us we had been hit.

And we got permission to go up to the rec room and see if you knew anybody. A couple of fellows as I say my mate, he died, and another couple of fellows that I used to know. One of the fellows in that boxing thing, he died. There was a lot of wounded. That’s where the

ministers [padres] did a marvellous job there. I heard this boy say he just wanted his mother. And he didn’t live long. I forget who it was now. Terrible thing. And the medical officer he did a marvellous job. He tried to help people who were in agony, they were burnt and he gave them morphine.

And he even gave morphine to other people who suffered mentally through it. It is a terrible thing to happen, you try and erase it from your memory but it is never done. I had nightmares for a long time after I came home. It was only through my wife that I survived really.

Not so much that day, it was Luzon that made it worse than anything.

It was and they tried to help you a bit by giving

you tickets to have ice cream and American beer. But it wasn’t that much. They had a big Yankee store there at Espiritu [Santo] and I bought my first shaving brush there and I had it for donkeys years [a long time] after that, real beautiful brush. And I bought some sheets for my mother. Beautiful cotton sheets. She said it was the best cotton that she had

seen. That was about the only off cut while I was there. People tried to save up all of their beer tickets and exchange for ice cream tickets to get a kick out of the beer, but you couldn’t. Yankee beer was that really low alcohol thing so you just couldn’t do it.

But it wasn’t much of a recreation, and if you knew people that died you just couldn’t get into it.

No they just did the best they could. All of the people that were shot at it, it is just one of

them things, that it is just very hard to shoot them down. Not only us, but others lost a lot of lives too with them.

We knew about it, we didn’t think it would happen to us.

We knew it was, on but we didn’t expect it would happen to us, but it did.

No. Everything was thrown at it, according to the Warramunga, everything was thrown at it as well.

Well it was up the forward part of the ship and I didn’t have much to do with that. Not that first time.

It was terrible. It was, not a thing you want to remember really.

We got finished, the more that, the worse was to happen afterwards.

We assembled and

I said we were going to Lingayen Gulf, we did bombardments of that and landings there. On the way up we were thought we were in safe anchorage and there was an aircraft carrier

right next to us and a plane came out of the blue and just went straight into it. Hardly a shot fired, just come out of the blue and blew it up. I have never seen such a fire at sea in all my life. It just blazed. In the end they took as many [crew] off as they could and put a torpedo into it and sunk it, so it wouldn’t

give our position away. But I actually witnessed it and it was terrible. I wasn’t even at action stations then. I was on the upper deck going to my action station when it happened. And they didn’t expect it because it was a fair way away. But I will never forget that because it was just a raging

fire and hit fair in the heart of the aircraft carrier. So that was that part of it. We got to Lingayen and we did our bombardment. And then for the next five days we got hit with five of them. Lost a lot of life, a

lot of guns crews, the four inch, they were lost. But the worst part of it, was when we finished our bombardment we had to clean up. And I have never known anything like it in my life. We talked about scrubbing the deck, I talked about scrubbing the quarterdeck. Well scrubbing the deck with blood and everything it was terrible.

There was parts of your mates everywhere. Jammed up again superstructure who had to be forcibly removed and that affected me more than anything, still does. And it just wasn’t one, it was quite a few attacks we had to do it. being on the upper deck and being not engaged in bombardments, we were the ones that had to do it.

That’s one of the worst things that I went through, never forget it, never will. But we did all of our bombardments, we got a lot of complimentary signals from

all of the ships in the area and eventually we made our way back to Hollandia, I think. Got patched up, we had a hole, we had a big list [lean], we had to pump water in the other side so we could right it a bit.

But we made our way back and eventually made our way back to Sydney. Then we went on leave. As you say you go through all of that and then when they were going to America and England and get knocked off two days before they sailed, it hurt a bit.

But last year I got my trip to England, so there you are.

Well you thought the next one is going to be you.

I was glad to be getting my gun out and stop there. See it only happened at dawn and dusk. They attacked. And this one just came out of the blue, not even the Yanks knew about it. So there was no time to open up or anything. We were in territory that we had been in before and nothing had happened,

terrible thing.

Well we had a lot of thick steel behind us mate, you felt that you were safe. If it happened at you

I suppose you would have been fried, but you felt more safe that way.

Five times yeah.

Bang! It rocked the ship a bit. And you thought that every plane coming over was going to hit you.

It is a terrible feeling, and you had to go and clean up afterwards, and seeing your mates you were talking to, it was a pretty hard thing to do. But someone had to do it and when we did it. People don’t realise I don’t think, you don’t know what happens to you when you are forced to be in these

situations. Your nerves are shattered mate, there is no doubt about it. Very hard to concentrate on anything. But we were never sunk. And we eventually got back to Australia. To see those, the Heads [of Sydney Harbour] was the greatest thing

that ever happened, and going down Sydney Harbour mate it is a great thing, you feel safe when you got between those Heads. It is something that only a sailor would think of or remember. It’s experience and they say that

time heals. I can tell you that there are times when those things just vividly come into your mind. You hear things on TV and it just brings it all back to you. You learn to cope and that’s what it is.

I remember going for an interview for a pension after I retired, I didn’t bother beforehand. And I had a Filipino lady doctor, and the doctor said, “You’re only trying to get something out of the government.” And I said to her, “If it wasn’t for me, you wouldn’t be here.” I didn’t get a very good report. But they’re the sort of things that you

can’t help but say. But I have had great dealings with unions with Philippines since then, presented with their Liberation Medal and all of the rest of it. It is an experience and it had happened and has gone.

That’s what I say, the majority of children today know more about American history than they do about Australian history and I have been trying to get that through the RSL for years and years and eventually it is

starting to come back a bit now. I have done many a turn out at schools and I have told them Australian history is something they should be proud of.

Yes it did.

No, I saw other people go to pieces but I didn’t. But I had a petty officer that made me very strong, I think he got a medal for it. He was very hard and he made me,

go hard and clean it up, those sorts of things. That helped. But, I don’t know it is just an experience in life and I can’t see any benefit from it. Although if it wasn’t for us and the radar, I think it helped save Australia. And that why I had so much admiration for the ship and that’s why I joined the HMAS Australia

Association and spent so much time on it. I have been secretary for the last thirty years and held different positions before that. It is still going strong. The companionship you get on board ship you can’t get from anywhere else. Everyone on board ship

sticks together because they have got something to do. If one person doesn’t, well the whole ship suffers. Everyone has got a job to do, although our ship had a thousand people on it and other ships don’t have many, but it is a combination of that and the great spirit of companionship that gets you through.

Everyone is spellbound I think .The funeral part of it is the worst thing of the lot. We have funerals at sea and as those names are called out, you think, they upset you. And

it’s one thing about losing a person but actual to see and hear them drop into the sea, it does something to you. I can’t explain what it is but it doesn’t leave you. I think I am very fortunate that I didn’t have to do any combat fighting and stick

bayonets in people. I was very fortunate that way. But you have the other thing, mental things, I don’t say they’re worse, but they’re not the best.

I think the captains and the bosuns, the ministers, they had a lot to do with it. They express their sympathy. And all of the ships in the area they sent all their bits and pieces, you have seen them have you? They sent all of

their messages that were given to everybody to try and inspire everybody to carry on; and I think they helped a bit. But we didn’t talk.

We were just spellbound I think. Everyone lost a mate and they were just spellbound. And it took a long time to get over. We don’t talk about it any more. But I suppose we’re gradually dying off now. I have still got about ten people who were on board with me. We correspond all of the time and we get together,

we have known each other’s families over the period of years. And we have helped each other out in times of stress and things. So I lost my wife in March and a lot of my ship’s company came to the funeral, it was terrific.

So you have that companionship even after the war. And so I have done what I can after the war. For the ships association I put stained glass windows, I put memorials over on Garden Island, memorials in Canberra. And Cronulla recently. Memorials down at Kiama.

End of tape

The bridge.

About thirty-six officers and men including the captain.

Commander Wright, he was commander at the aft and he took command. He did a marvellous job.

He just took over,

told the ships company that the skipper was killed and we were going to leave the area, and that he was in command, and hope we got back to safety. He gave a good talk to everybody. He had a more

pleasant way, he was very pleasant and we went back to Espiritu Santo.

Yeah PA.

If anything happened to the front, to the

bridge, there was always the back of the ship that could take over, that was like a secondary thing and he was there and took over.

Yes that’s right, if anything happened to the front bridge he could automatically take over so if anything happened to the captain he could manually take over from there. That’s how it worked. I don’t know how it worked, but that’s how it did work.

I have got no idea mate. I just know that it could take over, which he did and he did it very well.

Get out as quick as we could, happy to get out mate.

Yeah on different days.

They mainly hit the four inch guns crews, some four inch guns crews were wiped clean right out, no one survived it. In the end

they were training cooks and everything to try and operate those guns. One of them had a bomb and it just blew a hole in the side of the ship. Had to be pretty good because the British ships were all riveted, the Yankee ships were all only welded together and she would have gone down.

But the British ships were all riveted together and they had bulkheads, where one bulkhead would break another one was waterproof, and what they would do was fill the water on the other side of the bulkhead to stable it up. Although she had a lean like that, she was able to go out on

its own steam, we were only doing about fifteen knots an hour, but we went out on our own steam.

On the port side I think. Next time was the starboard side. Mainly those four inch guns crews,

that’s where they hit.

I think there was four days and five hits. As I say I was aft [at the rear] and we just hear it and afterwards that we have to clean it up. I saw one coming down and I saw one screw away;

but our guns crew couldn’t do anything with eight inch see? They were only for bombardment. We had a look at times, we were allowed to go out and have a look at times and see what was happening. The fellow on the pompoms [rapid fire anti-aircraft guns], sometimes he was on his own. The others shot through when the planes were coming down. He saved a lot of lives, he got an award.

He should have got the VC [Victoria Cross], there was a lot of awards that should have been given to ordinary people and they didn’t get them. The officers got them but the men didn’t. And there were lots of people who deserve medals and didn’t get them.

I don’t know. The officers automatically got them in any case.

They got American Legions of Honour and all of that sort of stuff. They were given to them because they were officers on the ship, I suppose they deserved them, I don’t know.

I don’t want to say any more mate. They’re too gruesome to explain and I am not going to explain them.

Memories, yes mate. I don’t think the archive wants to know about those sorts of things.

They’re gruesome things that happen in war and someone had to do them and they did them. And some people that did them cracked up afterwards. You see if you can express your thoughts at the time, express them it is better,

and if you keep them inwards, it is bad and later on that inwards affects people, they go off their heads. It happened to a few of them. If you have got fear, if you can express it to somebody it is best to get it out of your system. Some people did some marvellous things there and didn’t express it. You

thought they were marvellous. But when they came back to civilian life they just collapsed and that was it. People don’t know these sorts of things. It is medical history but no one wants to know about it. Human things that should be reported but never were. And no one can explain it.

And the doctors now are all dead and they can’t explain it, except in books. That’s how it is.

Well I have done the best I can.

Well if you cant get it out of what I have told you know, you never will.

Well I have done, explained it as I seen it.

And there are certain stories you can never relate.

Never tell or never relate. No. You see they’re pretty hard when you lose mates and things that human nature do, you can’t express them any more. I think what I have given you, I have given you a pretty good idea of what happened.

And you have got to respect the dead.

Yes well that’s it. I think I have given you as fair an effort as I can give you any rate. You can read the rest in books.

It has a lot. Because you get nightmares, people don’t understand that. Doctors don’t understand it. Nightmares just linger, time and time again. You lay in bed and think about things and it all

comes back. And it came back for years and years. Doesn’t come back so much now, but there are times that things happen, that it does come back. And I have got a lot more time now to myself, since a lost my wife. Time to think in bed, think of the times that you went through and I will have a terrible time tonight, although I have got to go to a meeting. I don’t know how I will go, but

you can bet your life I won’t sleep well tonight.

Yes I can still see that plane coming down and hitting that carrier. I can still see the greatest fire I have ever seen flare up. I have seen people jumping off ship into the water

and I see the cleaning up. I was lucky I was in the gun house and I didn’t witness a lot of these planes. I saw one but I didn’t witness a lot of them but I had to clean up and that was worse than what the plane hitting was. It is your friends that are there, and it is pretty hard to think.

Terrible stench yes.

Blood. There was blood all over the deck and you had to scrub it off. Salt water.

You see she had a cousin that was killed on it too.

I knew the cousin and he always used to write, write all of the time. And the cousin I think thought more of my wife, he used to stop there coming home on leave, and I didn’t know until after I married her that it was her cousin that

was killed on it. And she went to the service we had in the Sydney Town Hall. And she got invited to that and she knew the trauma that she went through losing a cousin, and that was sympathetic to me. I think she helped me through those years.

Just through understanding, talking yeah.

A few beers I think. It’s a funny thing,

have a few beers to try and get it our of your mind. A lot of people don’t understand that, but sometimes you have got to go to something. I think smoking helped a lot too, see we didn’t know anything about smoking not helping you in those days, you were given smokes, even the doctor would give you a smoke to calm your nerves down.

So it was something that we never knew, but it did help, I have a smoke, one after the other and have a few beers and that used to dull your mind I suppose to get it out of your system. And I suppose that’s why the wife helped a bit. But it gradually went better, got better and that’s how it goes.

I don’t think so no, I think the nerves went afterwards. Some of them

just had to have morphine and all of that to calm them down. It affects people in different ways.

Well they just said what right have they even to go? It was in my own mind, my mate, what right did he have to die? And you couldn’t answer that.

I mean one of the Jap pilots was lying on the deck and the skipper said, “Just leave him there.” And they kicked him overboard. And it was something you see a lot of people there, a lot of your mates dying, you wouldn’t think about anything else. Emotions.

Some would think they couldn’t carry on and after they talked it over with people and had a few shots of morphine and the doctors did a marvellous job with some of those people. Of course they were helped when they came back. Oh no, most of the Vet Affairs [Department of Veterans’ Affairs] people didn’t understand

anyway, they still don’t.

Yep. I would have kicked him overboard too mate if I was there. I heard [Colonel] ‘Weary’ Dunlop [legendary Australian doctor in Changi prison] say he forgave them, after what he went through and he went through a lot more than what I did

I still can’t forgive them. Maybe some people are different to me.

I don’t think so. I don’t know whether he was or not. I don’t think anyone could survive that. But knowing

they would have given him a burial at sea like the others, and I don’t think we would have put up with that.

There was two each side I think. I know one gun’s crew was wiped out twice, I think it was S1, I am not sure.

They all hit up the front.

Yep all there and the midships.

Nothing much, just a bit of deck I think caught alight. Damaged the funnels and the framework there.

I just forget now mate. I know the four inch gun crew copped it all of the time. They were the ones that were firing at them see? They were red hot, the paint was just peeling off them.

They weren’t too good until we got in those Heads. Once we got in the Heads we knew we were home, it was a terrific feeling.

Got drunk. Close to it. I think it was the Ship Inn, one of those there and we just drank and drank and drank. Bedded down at Johnny’s which was a place

off George Street there where the sailors used to go. Used to be a bar in there they used to call the Snake Pit. Used to drink there and get there and come back to the ship the next day, or you might have had weekend leave.

No. When I came back from Lingayen, the first three weeks we were in Sydney, the next three weeks we went home. When we came back we were getting ready to go to England, repairs

and that and I got drafted off. Went to Balmoral and did a couple of things there and I was eventually demobbed.

Well I think that I earned a trip to America and England .A lot of people who had have been in the drafts

on bases all of the year got them and a lot of new recruits. They were given great receptions in New York and big receptions and a march through the streets of England and I think I deserved it. But I think a

lot of others did too, and we didn’t think it was right that those people should go on a trip like that and the war just finished while they were going over there.

A bit of both.

I didn’t think I deserved to be drafted off it after what we went through., it would have been like a pleasure trip to go to Durban and to England. Go through the Panama Canal and all of that. I was very fortunate I got on that trip to England last year.

I was in Sydney. Amongst the mob, wasn’t far away from that fellow throwing his hat up [famous press photo].

No not much. I didn’t feel like celebrating very much.

I don’t know mate. Beer was my best mate at that particular time. Strange isn’t it?

Best thing that ever happened, They should have done it before they started mate.

Anything to stop the war mate. Terrific thing, saved a lot of lives.

After I came back.

Well she had a comrade out there who said, “You’re not to go home with the boys.” And we were just behind the bushes and came out and I said, “I’ll take you home.” And I took her home to Belfield and I ended up sleeping the night on the couch. And her mother says, “That’s the last person you’re

going to bring home.” For servicemen it was open house there evidently. So we just get going and when I went back home I was still in the navy then and I got a job from where I could start off with, just to see if I could get a bit of money

and I proposed when she was over there. We got married in Sydney and went back to Adelaide for three years and then I had the opportunity to get a house here and bought a block of land for forty pounds. That’s what this land was worth then, forty pound, that was 1949 I think.

And it took me three and a half years. Her brother was apprenticed as a carpenter and he helped me with the fundamental principles of it, but we did the lot. Foundations, the whole lot. We stopped in a garage at his mothers place, we lived in the garage for three and a half years. And I used to come

home at night and put all of the frame together and then we got a truck and brought it all over and put it up in one day and fitted it out bit by bit. When it was reasonable enough I got in here and I used to do all of the architraves and all of that work afterwards. Twelve o’clock at night I would be working here after working.

When I came back here I had a job to go to General Motors Holden. I had someone tell me Frank G O’Brien’s here was after people and I had experience in the first Holden [sedan car] that came out. And I went down and asked for a job and he said, “Start today if you like.” And I said, “Right oh, I will do that.” And I stayed there

thirty-eight years. Just the way things go. I worked in the automotive part of it.

Yes it was yes.

Well I think, there

was an outlet there, mate. I worked hard I saved all of the money I could but I did have a drink with the boys afterwards, and that was an outlet. Perhaps on second thoughts I might have done something different. But you don’t know the things at the time, and it helped you forget. I had an understanding wife who got me through it.,

you witness things and you can’t express them to your wife, but you have got to go through it yourself. I know my wife said I used to wake up in the middle of the night yelling and screaming and all of these sorts of thing, and she helped me. Those sorts of things I suppose medical people can describe

it, but unless you see it you don’t know.

Well it is an adventure. I loved to go to sea. I thought it was a great adventure,

but I didn’t expect it to become what it did. I saw some beautiful calm seas and flying fish going past and I thought it was great. And I have been through tornadoes and cyclones, the Warramunga was only a way across the street from us and you only see it every ten minutes because the waves are that high. All different aspects of life at sea.

I am glad I witnessed it. And I tell all my grandsons I wet all of their fins in water to join the navy, I thought it is a great experience and it is. They can get so much now, but I don’t think I will get any of them.

No I don’t.

I regret what I went through but I don’t regret joining the navy, it has been my life. The HMAS Australia veterans association, I have done so much for it and helped people, even their next of kin on different things. I think that

I put a naval sword down at Creswell in honour of Captain Dechaineaux who was killed and just before I did that, Rear Admiral David Martin was the flag officer

of Sydney and he invited our association down to Trescoe, which is where they stopped when they were flag officer, and I was talking to him about the naval sword and they had a marble staircase there of about a hundred stairs up, he walked straight up there and got his sword and bought it down and showed me and he showed me the midshipman who had it before him.

I thought it was a great thing that he did that, and he wasn’t well at the time. So I had a great admiration for him. I have met him when we did the stained glass windows. Contacted him quite a bit. When he died I wanted to go to his funeral but I couldn’t, there was no way there, but luckily I knew the state

president of the RSL he was a great friend of mine and he said, “I’ll get you there Davey, come with me.” So I went with him and I went to his funeral. And the woman next to me was the wife of a politician and she didn’t know who he was. I thought that was rather terrible. But I did go to his funeral and it was quite terrific.

Those sorts of fellows. I have met governors, I have had governors go to my church services and come to my things, I have put plaques up and the respect I have got from them has been terrific.

Captain Harrington ended up being a rear admiral. He did come to one of our reunions and he was all lovey-dovey then. When he died he wanted to be buried at sea, he wanted to be buried in a coffin. Unfortunately they didn’t put a hole in the coffin and it floated. They had to have different

means I am not sure, they said they had to go and put a hole in it or shot a hole in it to sink. And they thought that was his just end. There is others. His son, he became a flag officer, he became a rear admiral and I invited him to

be a guest and undo our memorial at Garden Island. Which he did. He then went to be attaché in America for three years. He is now the repat [repatriation] officer and I did meet him again when we went to England,

and he is just a docile man, just the opposite to his father. Peter Dechaineaux, the son, we followed his career. He was only about eight years old when his father died. We followed his career and he ended up being a great mate of mine. He ended up being a commodore, he went to England to sign up

HMS Invincible and the Falkland War came and we lost that. That would have been another HMAS Australia.

It’s terrific. I always march every Anzac Day if I can. I have only missed one Anzac Day since I got back and that was when my wife wanted Anzac Day in Canberra, that was a few years ago. I gave her that Anzac Day and I was pleased I did it then, but all of the other times I have marched.

Anzac Day is terrific because although I meet quite a few people at our meetings, at Anzac Day you see more people come down from the country to go in Anzac Day, that you only see once a year.

I don’t know really. I am glad I had the experience. I always wanted to go to sea and I did. It made my grandfather very proud. I used to bring a bit of pipe tobacco home to him when I was on leave he was very proud.

And I was very pleased I went, I went to Portsmouth and did the naval service there for half of that contingent and that’s the place that he left many times and I was pleased I had the opportunity to do it.

Not really. I think the navy is a great life for a single man, I think it teaches you values, teaches you discipline and I think it is great life for any young man to join the navy and experience not war, but experience the life at sea.

I don’t think there is anything better.