Australians at War Film Archive

All right well my name is Geoffrey James Maule. But that seems to be a little bit of a misnomer because I’m known as Thomas. I come from a family with strange habits. Of five boys in my

family only one retains his right name. That was the eldest. The second one was called Arthur Colin and he was known as Tim. The third was Robert Joseph and he was known as Pip. The fourth one was Henry William and he was known as Cook. So it was inevitable that I would get some form of name and I wound up with the name Tom which has pursued me all my life. And it’s caused me endless trouble I s’pose. So

that in the end in desperation I once went to one of my solicitor friends and said what will I do? He said nothing. You can call yourself anything so long as you don’t break the law. So he said register your firm in the name TGJ Maule which I did. So I always now sign as TGJ Maule. Of course I was born in Redcliffe and in those days.

Good.

I was born in Redcliffe in 1924. 7th of April 1924.

In actual fact that’s not true. I was born on the 8th of April in 1924 but it was registered on the as the 7th of April. I was born at Doctor Brockway’s place at Margate Beach. And it was only some 60 or 70 years later when I was taking my aged mother who was 92 to the General Hospital in Brisbane because the nuns

where she was staying had suspected she had cancer of the oesophagus. And as we drove into the hospital grounds my mother said to me, “You know, son. This is the first time I’ve ever been in hospital as a patient.” She was 92 and she’d had five sons and suffered the rigours of the outback and lived a hard life. So she was quite a remarkable woman. Anyway I was born at Doctor Brockway’s at Margate and I had a very wonderful period of growing up. Redcliffe was an idyllic

seaside resort it only had 2 or 3,000 people in it in those days. It’s a city now 50-odd thousand. And our life was I thought one big game. I had my education with the good Sisters of St Joseph at St Joseph’s Convent at Redcliffe. A small school of about 40 pupils. As a consequence, although I played every sport known to man in a haphazard way, I had never played

any team sport till I went to secondary school. In those days of course we to go to secondary school. They were they were the days of the Depression and times were hard. But everybody had their duties. I think growing up I had plenty. My usual day I s’pose my chores were I got up very early in the morning. We had some cows well I rounded up the cows. I milked the

cows. I fed the WAS DOUBLE QUOTE CHOOK s and whatever other chores had to be done. Got the wood in. Everythin’ was wood in those days. Then I went to schools. Cows were allowed to graze on the town common. But they had to be in by 5 o’clock. So when I came home from school of course it was Shanks’ pony around the district to round up all the cows and bring them home and milk them again and do any other chores. When we weren’t doing that we were playing cricket of course. In the backyard it was it was

the national pastime and those were the days of Bradman and McCabe and Larwood and of course we’re all fascinated by their deeds. So one could say that I did have a pretty idyllic childhood. Although it wasn’t an easy one, it was a very hard one. Because of the Depression people were pretty poverty stricken. There was no social security as there is today. People who were out of work went up to the police

station and they got a bag of rations. Which of course was probably more sensible than sometimes loading people down with money which they would waste. However we were fortunate. My father who was a station manager early. When that went broke he had to come down at Redcliffe and he had a job as an owner driver on the council. So we really my father was always employed and

although times were hard nevertheless we had a very good life. As I remember it anyway. We had to go we had to do an exam in those days called a Scholarship Exam. When you got to grade 8 you did this exam and the idea of that was that the government would then pay you a fee to go to secondary school. I think it was 7 pound 10 [shillings] if you’re a day pupil and 36 pound if you were a boarder. Anyway

my parents made the rather rash decision. Or the… I don’t suppose it was a rash decision it was a great decision to send me to a secondary school and because of some of my exploits I’d had a number of offers to go to secondary school. But my parents didn’t want to send me to some of the more well known one’s because coming from a poorer background they thought that being a boarder I might feel a bit uncomfortable being

amongst the sons of the well-to-do. So I went to a school which operated in a very working class area out at called the Marist Brother’s College at Rosalea. It was a small school boarding school and it was smack bang in the middle of the most depressed area I think in Queensland. It was Petrie Terrace. Redhill. Barden. Paddington. Rainworth. Hawkenflower. In those areas unemployment was as high as 50% and

it was a tough area and it was a tough school. But it was a wonderful school. And of course I had my first experience with team sport there. I’d had I’d had experience in team sport with cricket. At the age of 13 I had been asked to represent Redcliffe in their Senior Men’s cricket side. Which I did while I was still at primary school until I went to secondary school. That was an experience of team sport but then my only other experience was when I got to the Marist

Brother’s College. And as I said it operated in a very poor area. So the kids that went to school were poor. And of course it operated in conditions which are unimaginable today. It would it stretched the imagination of people today to perhaps realise what went on. The kids couldn’t pay their school money and the Principal a great man named Brother Cyprian.

He had a philosophy I s’pose one would call it. He had the idea that if you came from the wrong side of the tracks, as we all did, to succeed in life you didn’t necessarily need all the accruements of algebra and geometry and all these other things. You needed confidence. And the two things that would give you confidence

were boxing and English. So the school had 2 compulsory subjects boxing and English. Could you imagine today if the some parents went to a school and they were told that that the compulsory subjects were boxing and English? They’d have a writ on their doorstep in five minutes flat. But however that was part of the deal and of course a lot of the boys. in those days the boxing was at the

Brisbane Stadium. And you could get 10 bob for a 2 rounder and you know a pound for a 3 rounder and say 2 pounds for a 4 rounder many of the boys because the school had the biggest boxing tournament in in Queensland I think. Bigger than the Queensland Amateur Boxing and Wrestling Association tournaments. The boys would fight down there in the prelims. to get enough money to pay their school fees. Quite unimaginable isn’t it. In today’s scenario where you know the country, the nation is virtually a (UNCLEAR) nation living off handouts but in those days the kids went and fought at the stadium to get their money to go to school. It was quite remarkable. And of course it was very interesting to me some of the situations that arose out of that were most bizarre. You know they, as I said the only two compulsory subjects were boxing and English and the only well most of the teachers were religious in those days. These days they’re all lay teachers but in those days they were all religious.

But we did have two lay teachers and one was the boxing instructor who was an old professional fighter and the other was the elocutionist. And of course she came in and it was to me extremely funny. You’d see all these embryonic pugs. You know they’d clear as we said in the navy clear lower deck everybody would come up for the elocution sessions and you’d see all these embryonic pugs. Some of them might have fought down the stadium and they might have

sticking plaster on their eye or a black eye or a thick lip or something else. And they’d be sitting around of course mouthing all these platitudes that the that the elocutionist gave us. I can always remember she had a little poem which was called the Bells. It’s not a real long one I’ll say it to you if you. It was The Bells. ‘And I hear the tinkling of the bells. The silver bells. How they tinkle

tinkle tinkle in the icy air of night. While the stars that over sprinkle seem to twinkle with crystal lined delight. Singing time time time in a sort of runic rhyme. To the tintinnabulation that so musically swells from the bells.’ You see. Well you can imagine a whole lot of pugs sitting around the room saying all these things you know. It used to be most humorous. But nevertheless that was our life. It was a wonderful school

and the it was at Fernberg Road at Rosalea and of course Government Houses in Fernberg Road and the then governor’s house. And the then Governor was a man named Sir Lesley Woolm Wilson. And he was a great boxing fan and we were always under strict instructions at school when the Vice-Regal car went by we had to stand to attention you know and sort of salute

you see. And it impressed the Governor no doubt and he got to know the school and of course we. In those days we had a big march on St Patrick’s Day and all the schools would march through the city and you could get prizes for them you know. It was a great honour to win the march and when we’re preparing for St Patrick’s Day the whole school 400 of us would march with drums and bangs up to Government House and stand there and duly salute the Governor and march back to the school.

So he became a very great friend and he would pop in. He would ring up and say, “I’m going to a function this morning Brother somewhere. I’m due at eleven. Can I pop in and see the boys at 10:30?” He’d come in and talk to the boys. We’d all muster in the school. And one of the points he made was that he’d been to and seen schools in all parts of the world. Schools that had hundreds of years of tradition and he said a school is never

made out of bricks and mortar. He said you know. “Your school hasn’t got much bricks and mortar.” We operated in an old broken down church building. He said, “Your school hasn’t got bricks and mortar,” but he said, “What you’re getting here he said will stead you in good life. You are at a wonderful school. Be proud of it you know.” That was that was his message all the time. And we were too. We were. And I would say that most of the blokes in my time were fairly successful in life. I think Brother Cyprian’s,

you know, idea of confidence in the world was very successful. A couple of them were too confident I think and they finished up in jail. But, by and large, I think as a message for life it worked very well. Anyway I went to school and I did all the things that boys do at school. As I’d come from Redcliffe of course I can’t remember when I couldn’t swim. I think when I was aged 7

I joined my first gang as they were called. And the initiation was to swim from Margate to Scotts Point. That’s about one and a half mile and you were allowed to tread water but you weren’t allowed to get out of the water. So that, you know, we couldn’t remember when we couldn’t swim. So when I got to the college it was an interesting exercise. The,

as I said not having played any team sports, the Principal was interviewing my mother. I was sitting there sort of not saying anything and he said, “Can Tom play any sport?” And my mother said, “Yes. He’s a very good cricketer.” So anyway the Principal gave a fairly sarcastic chuckle. He said, “Oh I think he might find it a little different here than playing at the nuns you see.”

So my mother when I came outside my mother was furious. And she said, “Did you hear what he said?” And I said, “Well what’d he say?” She said, “About the nuns?” I said, “Well no, no what’d he?” She said, “He said that you know cricket’d be a lot better here than the were at the nuns.” She said, “If you do anything.” She said, “I want you to make him eat those words,” you see. So anyway as it turned out I did and

and won’t go into the details of how it happened. And of course I wrote home to my mother and I said, “Well I’ve made them change the rules here and I’m sure now everybody’s convinced that the cricket at the nuns is as good at nuns as it is at the brothers’ you see. I was sure the sisters had been vindicated. Of course what I didn’t know was that the Principal read all the mail. So he’d have read it. But he had a great sense of humour

and he and I became great friends in later life and he was a wonderful man and I’m sure he enjoyed the joke. So it was the normal school boyish things at Rosalea. We played cricket in the summer of course and the swimming carnivals and football in the winter. Athletics of course. And as I said although I’d had no formal athletic

training or any formal training in anything really I had a reasonable success for a period. I think I was the swimming champion and I’d won the Queensland Junior High Jump Championship and I finished up captain of the cricket and football teams and so on and so it was a normal you know progression from being nothing to try and, you know, climb to the top of the tree. Anyway it was a wonderful experience and I was very,

very grateful that my mother and father chose to send me to Rosalea. When in I think it was 1940 probably. Forty? 1940, yeah, 19… yeah, it was 1940 the Marist Brother’s opened a second school at Ashgrove and of course that’s quite a famous college now. That’s the college that John Eales and all those fellas went to and

the boarders who were at Rosalea then transferred to Ashgrove which had become the boarding college. And of course my parents couldn’t afford to send me there. But anyway Brother was very keen to retain my services in the sporting field so he said to my parents, “Look, Tom can be a sole boarder here for nothing you know and just stay here until he gets a job,” you see. So that’s what I did. I lived with the Brothers and I was a sole boarder there and

we had a very successful year and I had numerous offers of jobs which Brother Cyprian… from which he discouraged me, you know, to take. But and I wondered if he had an ulterior motive. But I’m sure he didn’t. And anyway towards the end of the year I was offered a job at a placed called the Government Statisticians Office. And in those days of course it’s difficult for young people such as yourselves

to understand the conditions that existed in the community. I suppose there’s been a change for the better in the ecumenical sense in Australia since the ’60s probably. But when we were at school in the ’30s it was virtually impossible for Catholics to get a job in the in general world. You couldn’t get a job in the oil

companies. You couldn’t get a job in insurance companies. You couldn’t get a job, virtually impossible to get a job in banks. And of course many business houses you in the professions you see. And it was extremely difficult. So that what we did at the Catholic colleges it was that we entered for every known examination that you could get. We went into the public service exam. I remember sitting for the railways exam and you know all of these

exams so that we could get a job by virtue of the examination result. And as a consequence of course the Queensland Public Service was overloaded from people from Catholic Schools. And anyway I finished up going too in the public service to a place Government Statistician’s Office and at that time it was under the control of the a very great

gentleman by the name of the late Doctor Colin Clarke. Perhaps you’ve heard of him. He was a world famous economist and statistician and not that he had a great in… He did have a big influence on my life as a matter of fact. But he was a strange man and very idiosyncratic I suppose one would say. He was totally immersed in his work. He was there was no doubt about it. He was an eccentric gentleman.

But it didn’t matter whether he was talking to you as a 17 year old or to you know one of the senior men he talked to you as if you were an intelligent human being. And because the war had been going for some time over 12 months when I went to work there many of the staff had gone to the war and consequently they were sort staffed and it was a great opportunity for me. I’d been there for a little while and

and by normal standards I s’pose I would a still been doing the mail or something in ordinary times but I was put in charge of road accident statistics and it was a wonderful experience because I handled the whole thing from go to whoa. And one had to collect the primary records from Police Accident Statistics. These were numbered and then you corrected them and you sent them off to what they called a coding room. Where the girls punched

a card with all the holes for respective accidents. And then we used to put them what we called sorters. And then once they’d been put through the sorters then you’d put them through a thing called a tabulator. Which simply printed out the respective table. All of which could be done on a computer today but automatically. But in those days of course you had a series of processes to wind up with a statistical table. It was a wonderful experience for one so young. And

it was there that I really was asked to go on and do a degree in economics or commerce which I ultimately did. It was really Dr Clarke’s influence that that persuaded me to do that. I can’t say that I’ve used my statistics in the sense that he did or the as. And of course what we used to do was publish the Queensland year book and they also gave

advice to the to the government. Just as a little aside one as one goes through life I s’pose and runs into situations you learn to put things in their correct priorities. And one day Dr Clarke said to me “Oh,” he said, “I’d like you to come with me. I’m going up to see the Premier.” And

he said, “I’ve been working on a new C Series index and he said I have completed my work on it and I’m taking it up.” He said, “And I want you to come with me.” All I was doing was going to carry the bag but still I was going you see. I s’pose so whether it was an honour to be selected I didn’t know. But anyway we went up to the Premier’s office and the Premier was not there. He was away so we had to see the acting Premier. A man named William Matthew Moore.

Billy Moore. Later became a very good friend of mine in the political arena. And we went in and he welcomed us of course and asked us to sit down. And he said, “Now Mr Clarke have you got something for me?” Colin said, “Yes I have Mr Acting Premier.” He said, “You’ve got the new C Series index?” And Colin says “Yes.” He said, “Does it put the cost of living up or down?” And Colin said, “Oh

Mr Acting Premier it’s going to put it up.” He said, “Well I don’t want that one.” End of the interview. That’s and I thought to myself here’s one of the greatest economists and statisticians in the world. He’s worked for months. He comes up to this guy here. Now I didn’t know of Bill’s qualifications then but he had been a school teacher. He comes up to this bloke and months of work are dismissed out of hand because it didn’t suit the political arena. So I realised then that you know the politicians ultimately

hold all the power and it was a great lesson in life to me. But anyway I had progressed in the Government Statistician’s Office and I did learn a lot and I knew then of course that that statistical data and statistical analysis of course were the basis of most you know I suppose study or whatever you’d like to call it a conscious thought and that’s remained with me. And of course

as I said I don’t think I’ve used the statistics extremely well in the world at large. The only thing I’ve used them in has been coaching football. But nevertheless we did use them in that very, very successfully. Anyway coming from Redcliffe of course we all wanted to join the navy and I was no exception. And so I had been down to the naval recruiting office when I was still at school. No I wasn’t. I’d left school that’s right. I was playing. And the fellow said, well I told him how old I was. He said… yeah I did. I was still at school that’s right. He said to me come back when you’re seventeen you see. So I said, “Righto.” But anyway of course I had been seconded from school in the last period of my period at school I had been seconded to play rugby

league for the Past Brother’s Club which was then one of the leading clubs in the Brisbane BO and Premiership and I of course got for the bug playing football so I then waited until I turned seventeen. But I went back to the recruiting office told him I didn’t you know I was gonna wait till the football season was over. Which of course surprised him a bit. But I did that. I played football in ’40 and ’41 for Brothers

and then I persuaded my parents to allow me to join the navy. And it’s interesting I have four brothers and they were all in the services. Three brothers alive and they were all in the services. My eldest brother was in the air force. My second eldest brother was in the navy and my third eldest brother was in the army. And of course when my turn came I said to my mother I want to join the navy. But she didn’t accept that and she

sort of did a mail check around with the others and she spoke to my brother in the air force. And he said look Tom’s had a reasonably good education. If he comes in the air force it’s almost certain he’ll be air crew and he’s got a life expectation of about 6 months. So I would recommend against it see. I wouldn’t have liked the air force anyway. I had no interest in the air force aeroplanes. I hate riding in them and avoid it if possible. And

my brother in the army said, “No it’s too tough a life for the young fella here.” You know he said. “It’s no good for him. No don’t let him join the army. ” So my second eldest brother in the navy he said, “Well the navy’s been going a long time,” he said. And he said, “No matter where you are you always get three meals a day and a bed and a wash.” He said, “You know if he wants to join the navy let him,” you see. So I remember

writing about this I was going to say I didn’t know whether the Lords of the Admiralty would be too impressed with that CV [Curriculum Vitae]. But nevertheless that was the one that got me into the navy and persuaded my mother to let me into it. So I joined the navy. So that was the start of my service career anyway. And of course we went to Flinders Naval Depot in Victoria for our basic training and of course I’d never been anywhere. I don’t think I’d… the only time I’ve been out of Redcliffe was when I

went to Hospital in Brisbane with a gunshot wound. I’d shot myself with a 22 out chasing wallabies and kangaroos out the back of Redcliffe here. In those days the sanitary depot was just quite more or less almost in the centre of the town now and the boys would go up there and they’d bag a wallaby to get the skin and you know they’d take the meat for their dog you know and

this day I was carrying the rifles. My brother had a nice new Savage .22. I don’t know whether they have them these days and I was carrying them and anyway as we were walking through the bush you know how you get washed out car tracks. Or they wouldn’t have been car tracks. They’d have been old dray cart tracks and of course I stumbled on this. Dropped the rifle and ‘bang!’ straight through the wrist. So I went to Brisbane to hospital for about a month.

I think that was the only time I’d travelled much outside Redcliffe. So of course going a couple of thousand miles to Flinders was quite an experience. And I well I quite enjoyed the basic training. It was all a new world to me. All the pomp and ceremony that they carried on with we just you know quite eye opening for somebody that. All the formal protocol and you know all the stuff that goes on in service circles. No doubt

you’ve seen it hundreds of times when you’ve been doing television work. And of course coming from this little hamlet here as it was then it was all a strange experience but most wonderful experience of course. And of course that led to I suppose all the strange experiences I’ve had. I then put in for leave and I was told I couldn’t go on leave cause I wasn’t eighteen. I had to get somebody

to look after me and I thought, “Oh that’s pretty poor show,” and I. Among the other things of course I’d been doing I’d been boxing at the college. I was the senior boxing champion of the college so I could handle myself and I fought for Redcliffe and I’d fought for a place called Red Kedrin and you know I felt quite able to take care of myself. I felt this was a great injustice. But however I couldn’t go ashore.

But anyway one weekend I of course I was a real country bumpkin. I was quite and you know the city wise blokes they were making jokes at our expense. We’d cop it of course because you know we that’s just the way we were. But anyway one day a fella ‘opted me out’ as we say in the navy and I gave him a thrashing. He was a fella that did a lot a fighting and bullying about the place. And of course this story spread around

and I put in another request for leave thinking this reputation will ensure me the right to go ashore. But the commander left me in no doubt. He said no. He said, “The law is not for your physical protection. It’s for your moral welfare,” you see. That was the first time I knew the navy cared about anybody’s moral welfare. But nevertheless that was the story. So I didn’t go ashore for a long time. Well then I came home on leave

just weaving this into I s’pose my service life. I came home on leave and I got to Sydney and we got out. It was overnight and we got to Sydney and we stayed there and we came back to Brisbane the next day. And the RPO, that’s the regulating petty officer who sort of handled these things, he turned up at the station and he had an offsider and the offsider was a mate of mine from Redcliffe who’d been in the navy before me and strangely enough. Amazing isn’t it how these things turn out?

He’s my wife’s cousin. In that remarkable? And of course I didn’t know my wife at that time. But he was my wife’s cousin. I didn’t know that until I’d met her and found out that that was the case. And he asked me to, he said, “I’ve got a great thing going here.” He’d been on the Swan and he’d came off to a place called Rushcutter. That’s a naval depot in Sydney and he had a job on the old ferry. The Kuttabul and he said oh this is terrific.

He said you know come down here and we’ll have a run ashore. He said don’t worry about staying at Johnny’s. Johnny’s was a place in Sydney where it was the naval establishment and it had hundreds of beds so that when Sailors from ships went ashore in Sydney they could get a bed at Johnny’s you see. If you wanted to stay overnight you could you could go to Johnny’s and get a bed. “Don’t stay at Johnny’s,” he said. “You can stay here on the Kuttabul with me.” “Well,” I said,

“Okay.” So I came home and I had my leave and I went back a few days early to Moreton Naval Depot and the master-at-arms. I went back early because I wanted had to get a rail warrant you know to go to Sydney you had to get a rail warrant to present to the rail station. They were at South Brisbane and I the master-at-arms said to me “Are you all right son?” I said, “Yeah I’m all right. Why?” He said, “Well you don’t look all right.” And he said, “I think you better go and see the doctor.”

So I went in to see the doctor and he said, “Oh you’ve got the mumps son. You’ll have to go into Wattlebrae Infectious Diseases Hospital.” And I thought, “Oh hell,” you know. “How am I going to let my mate know in Sydney?” You see, “He’ll think I’m pretty lousy not turning up.” Anyway I went into hospital and as I say I can’t remember when. But say I went in on the Monday, I bought the paper on Wednesday morning and my mate was dead. The Kuttabul

had been torpedoed and he was killed. So presumably if I’d have been on the Kuttabul well I’d have been killed too. So that was one first one of the escapes I made. But I came out and went back to Moreton and the master-at-arms said. I went to see the doctor and he said, “Oh well you can have a week’s leave.” So he gave me another week’s leave and the master-at-arms said, “Oh gee,” he said, “I haven’t let Flinders Naval Depot know that you’ve been in hospital.” He said

“I’d better do that. I’ll send them a signal.” So anyway I had my weeks leave. I came back and he said to me, “Oh dear. I forgot to send that signal to Flinders.” He said you know, “I’ll do it right away.” So I caught the train back to Flinders and when I got there of course I was promptly arrested and they brought out the guard and you know there I was sitting like a

dill under arrest. So I sat there for ages the petty and then I finally persuaded the killick. That’s a leading seaman is called a killick in sort of colloquial terms. The killick being an anchor of course you probably know that. And they have a leading seaman has an anchor on his arm. So we always called them killicks. I said to the killick or the guard you know. I said look I’ve been in hospital what’s all this about see? So he went away and told the petty officer and came back and said all right.

He apparently might have got the signal from Brisbane I don’t know but anyway they said to me, “Oh you’re in the clear.” “You can go back to your mess deck.” And I went back of course and I didn’t realise that I was up on a charge of desertion at that stage. But when I got back to the mess deck of course they told me you see. And they used to read all the... The deserters’ names were read out by the commander who used to say he promulgated their names and so mine was read out as a deserter and all my classmates just couldn’t believe that

I would be a deserter. So anyway that was another hurdle that I got over. But I missed a few classes of course. So that meant that I missed the opportunity for taking on a specialised course. When you went through your various classes you could opt to take gunnery or torp... To be what we called a torpedo man. They were the electricians of course. They were obviously to handle the torpedoes they had to

be. You could you could opt and you could do radar you know or you could do signals all the different arms of the service. But because I’d been away apparently I missed the time where you made the selections I was sort of a nothing you see. Which was probably fortunate for me. Anyway I finished my basic training at Flinders and didn’t set the world on fire I don’t think.

And came back I was sent back to Moreton Depot where I then went onto a ship called the Kianga. HMAS Kianga. K-I-A-N-G

And the Kianga was no great shakes as a warship. It had been an old timber barge on the operating on the Northern Rivers you see of NSW. And but nevertheless I thought it was marvellous and we were minesweeping from Caloundra to Cape Moreton and then out to sea. So that we were

sweeping that channel. It was a very busy shipping channel and I don’t know whether you’re familiar with the way ships come into the port of Brisbane. What they had to do they came in direct from sea to Cape Moreton and then when they get to Cape Moreton they have to go back right back like that to Caloundra. And then they turn around the buoy and back this way and out up the channel into Brisbane. They can’t just come in and up go that way it’s too many sandbanks. So we had to sweep the channel out and

at night we’d anchor it the lea of Moreton and you did everything. You know if you were on watch in the night you had to stoke up the boiler fires and you know tamp them I think was the expression. It was great fun and I thought it was marvellous. You know I was an 18 year old. I it was a wonderful experience. But at the end of that of course or just after that I got I got notice that I was being transferred to HMAS

Melville. Now HMAS Melville isn’t a ship. It’s a town, it’s a town of Darwin and so I went up there. Troop train to Mt Isa I think. Yeah troop train to Mt Isa and then trucks via the inland road right up to Darwin and I thought the whole of course once again you see somebody that never travelled more than a few miles to Brisbane this was all great eye opener

for me and of course I enjoyed every minute of it. All the others were complaining but I thought it was marvellous and we got to Darwin and to my surprise of course we were just told to go and live in a house and you know because there was no naval Depot in the ordinary sense of the word. You just lived in somebody’s house. All the people had fled Darwin and all the houses were vacant. So the navy took them over or took most of them over and we just

lived in them. Say half a dozen sailors to each house you see. And the same routine in the navy. If somebody was cook of the mess you went and got the tucker and you know came back and you had your meals and you did your own washing or dhobying as it was called and then you just turned up for duty. So anyway that’s to my surprise I wound up in this house. And I can’t remember what I was actually doing in

Darwin the first few days I was there. Probably went on work parties somewhere I don’t know. But anyway I succeeded in Darwin. I…

Well yes, well I was in Melville and yes I first got into trouble there. Is that right?

Yes well I’d been there a little... I couldn’t remember what jobs I’d had but I wasn’t there very long and I got into trouble. I’d been posted to go on guard duty and guard duty at night up there was

not an expiring experience. And I don’t know if you’ve been to Darwin but if you as you go into Darwin along the front of the town the cliffs were about 50, 60, 70 feet, even 100 feet high from the beach and my job was to patrol a hundred yard section of this cliff. And the road was de-grassed gravel and I had my big navy heavy boots on and they were making all sorts of

noises and I thought it was a terrible place to be on guard. You were exposed to anybody on the beach could see you walking along the top of the cliff and it seemed to me to be the essence of stupidity to have me walking up and down there. So I decided I wouldn’t do it. So I went and found a bit of a hedge that I could sit behind and I covered my beak with my rifle so that if any Japs came up over the cliff I could pop

them you see. But anyway the Japs didn’t come but the petty officer came around on his rounds and of course I was very thrilled about how I’d set myself up in this impregnable position. But and of course I didn’t follow the usual routine of saying, “Halt, who goes there?” So he’s standing just in front of me looking for me of course and I was nowhere to be seen. I

stood up behind him and I said, “You know sir if you were a Jap you’d be dead now,” you see. And of course he took off. And when he landed of course he was, you know, he covered everything. My disobedience. My insolence. My stupidity. My family tree and. So of course he gave me a dressing down and told me to get out on the track and keep up and down and if I, you know, if I

stepped off it I’d be in jail for so long the war’d be over when I got out. So I did that. But anyway to my surprise the next morning I was up on a charge and dereliction of duty. Disobedience. Insolence you know. And acting of course in a manner prejudicial to good order and naval discipline. They always throw that one in you know and it covers a multitude of sins. So anyway I was asked by the officer of the Watch

did I have anything to say. And of course I said, “Yes.” Well I couldn’t think of anything to say and then I said, “Well yes. I was doing what I was taught to do in Flinders Naval Depot,” and of course I think this probably surprised him. And he said, “All right well what was that?,” So I said, “Well you know I was told that if you’re in a situation where the odds are stacked dramatically against you and you sort of don’t do anything rash and go out and get yourself killed you you’ve

got to address the odds and try and bring them back a little bit more to be in some equilibrium. So I decided to do that you see and I only wanted to please my petty officer. I didn’t want to disobey orders or do anything else. I thought I’d actually achieved quite a significant feat to be able to protect the cliff from anybody that came over it instead of walking up and down like a duck in a shooting gallery. So

anyway he gave me a long lecture about the fact that you know the navy’s been going for a thousand of years and you know they’ve got certain rules and we all do them and you know everybody’s not an admiral – you can’t make up your own rules. You’ve got to do what everybody else says. But anyway to my surprise he dismissed me. So I didn’t wind up in jail. But anyway the next day I got transferred and… So I was transferred to a place called the harbour master’s office and that’s at the other end of

the Darwin Peninsula. And that was the best, one of the best things that ever happened to me in the navy. I think it was the best thing that ever happened to me in the navy. The Harbour Masters were what we call master mariners. And master mariners are people who can take a ship into any harbour in the world. And Darwin was a particularly difficult harbour to navigate ships in. Because the tides ran at about 8 or 9 knots. It was quite a it was a very big harbour

and it was something similar to Port Phillip. You know you’re aware of the rip that they the famous rip in Port Phillip Bay? Well the this mass of water of course came out and it used to come out at about 8 or 9 knots and it the tides there rise 18 to 20 feet. They’re quite remarkable the rise and fall of the tide up in the tropics. And in Darwin it used to rise about 18 feet. Well of course that’s lot of water and it’s a lot a water to go out in 6 hours. So the tides

were quite strong and it wasn’t easy to navigate ships particularly with the sunken ships in the harbour. And the Master Mariners as they were they were Harbour Masters they used to go out in a speed boat and pick. They’d be put on board the same as they do here with the pilot boats and bring the ships in and out of harbour. And they were all ex Merchant Marine. There were no naval officers in that category. These

people were of course a Merchant Marine as you’d expect to be able to go into all the harbours around the world. And anyway I got down there and there was I got down there in the middle of a cyclone and the… it’s funny how fate of course I s’pose intervenes. When I got down there, there was a whole crowd of blokes standing along the wharf. The I have a photo of the

of the harbour master’s place there I can show you later. It was a sort of a three storey tower building sitting on a sort of a roadway or whatever you’d call it out into the water. Then there were jetties at the end of it. But when I came around from the when they deposited me down there with my hammock and my bag I could see a whole lot of people standing out on the sea wall there.

And when I went over of course there were three boats being bashed against the piles by the waves. It was a dog leg jetty. That was the road and the dog leg jetty went like that. So and then there was another wharf out here so that was a sort of a semi-enclosed area. And there was a beautiful speed boat. The Swiftsure it was called. And there was another boat like the Brisbane River ferry’s a slow heavy moving boat. And then there was another one. A Whaler all being bashed against the piles. And

I said to a bloke, “Why those boats would be damaged. Nobody going out to get them. What’s wrong?” And he said, “No, no” he said. He was a smart… Excuse the expression a smart arse bloke he was. He said, “Oh maybe they can’t swim like, are you a good swimmer?” I said, “Yeah.” He said well, “Why don’t you go you know?” So anyway I was still I was only still 18 and stupid I said, “Yes I’ll go.” So I stripped off and dived in and I swam out and

got the three painters. The ships were all pretty much together and I just got the painters. The painter is the rope that goes from the front of the boat. I got the three painters and I tied them together and called for a line and they threw me a heaving line. That’s a heaving line you know just an ordinary rope with a heavy ball on the end of it and they can swing it around and throw it from one ship to another or from the ship to the wharf. They threw me a heaving line and I tied it on and they pulled the boats in and I swam in and got on the steps and

and anyway I was met by one of the harbour masters. I was in the nude you see. And he said, “Who are you?” And I said, “Oh I’m Ordinary Seaman Maule sir. I’ve just been transferred to here to the Harbour Master’s Depot.” He said, “Oh well,” you know he said. The expression was, “Go and cover your John Thomas,” he said, “and then come and see me,” he said. So, and having just been to see

one officer on a charge I wasn’t wildly enthusiastic about going to see this bloke. But anyway I sprinted up the three flights of stairs and I went into his office and he was the most affable gentleman. A very kindly man. He of course he didn’t have any of the, you know the naval disciplinary attitude about him and. He sort of said, “Would you like a cup of tea?” And I said, “Oh

yes,” you know. And sent his sent his what we call his runner. His offsider we used to call them runners. He sent his runner away to get me some tea and then we sat down and had a long talk and. Of course what I didn’t realise was while he was being very fatherly to me and talking to me he was really quizzing me to see whether I was just a nut or what I was. Anyway in the end of the thing he said to me, “Well I want you to report to leading seaman so and so. And you can tell him that you are the new

coxswain on the Whaler,” see. So I was just going back to the mess and I ran into leading seaman so and so and he said, “Are you Ordinary Seaman Maule?” I said, “Yes.” “Oh welcome,” he said you know. A hearty shake of the hand and so on. And I said, “Oh the Harbour master said to tell you that I’m the new motorboat coxswain. Coxswain of the whale boat.” Oh you know and he said, “Like hell you are.” He said, “You know that’s an able seaman’s job.”

“You’re an OD.” An OD is an ordinary seaman. “You’re an OD,” he said. “You can’t have that job. That’s an able seaman’s job. I’ll bloody well see about this,” he said. So he storms off you see to see the harbour master. And anyway he came back half an hour later quite chastened about the whole thing and accepted the fact that I was to be the new motorboat coxswain. I knew nothing about being a motorboat coxswain at all you know. So anyway that was that.

I took over the job of motorboat coxswain. And it was the boat that I took over was a motor whaler and it was a relic of the US destroyer the USS Peary. The USS Peary was sunk in Darwin harbour in the first raid and this was a life boat from it and so the Harbour Mast. They had it there and we used it. It was a very, very fast manoeuvrable

little boat. Very, very good. Anyway I had a crew. There was a boat, there was a bowman and then a stoker who was the driver. He operated the engines. And of course I was in the stern sheets on the tiller. And we used to we used to do a trip out into the bay on the hour or the half hour. There were two boats. The Swiftsure which was the pilot’s boat didn’t go out. But the

other boat which was called the Picton and the whaler we did half hourly trips. And what would happen is that the ships out in the harbour would put up a flag you see if there was anybody to come ashore. And then as they were going out doing the rounds they’d pull alongside that ship. The chap’d get in and away you’d go all around the fleet and come back in. And then the same thing applied of course when you when you were taking them out of course they’d say, “Well look I want to go to this ship,” or, “I want to go to that ship,” and away you’d go.

And that was how we sort of operated this ferry service. When air raids were on of course we always had a warning that air raids were on and. But when the first air raid warning went of course everybody had. Wherever they where they had to race down to the wharf and just clamber into the boats and then we would take them out and then the ships in the harbour would get underway. They’d up anchor and start to move about and

we would have to take the sailors and put them on their respective ships. Go back and take some more out. And this I after I’d done it a few times of course after I’d been in a few air raids I thought that was a bit stupid. So I used to go out into the middle of the harbour and I’d just… The tide you know as I said used to run at about 8 knots. If it was on the ebb tide well then I’d

I’d turn into the ebb tide and you’d just have the engine ticking over and you’d be stationary and as the ship’s running around you’d see a ship and you could run a say a hundred yards and put somebody on it and come back to position. Where as the other way you were chasing them all around the harbour. So it was much more much quicker and much more effective to do it this way. We used to do that and we could sometimes do two trips to the Picton’s one. Anyway that’s how we used to discharge out duties

when the air raids were on. And I had a good boat’s crew. I had a fellow who was a bowman. He was his name was Joe Winter and Joe went to I think it was Prince Alfred College in Adelaide. One of the two. There’s two big ag [agricultural] colleges in Adelaide I think whichever one it was. I think it was Prince Alfred. Anyway Joe later on became an

accountant and he became a director of some of Australia’s biggest companies. I think David Jones and you know some of those larger companies. He was a very bright young man. He was he had a very deep voice and he used to sing hymns. I don’t know that he was terribly religious but he used to sing hymns. And it used to be a contest he’d stand up in the bows singing these hymns in this stentorian voice that he had you know. So anyway the stoker-driver’s name was Hogan you see.

And we’d never heard of these hymns so we decided they must be Protestant one’s. So we decided to start singing Catholic one’s in Latin you see in the stern sheets. So when Joe started to sing we’d start to sing you see. So and we used to have a great time at the at the Joe’d be singing Land of Hope and Glory or whatever you know. So one of these other things and we’d be singing Oh Salutaris Hostia or one of these other Latin hymns you know and we always used. The joke was

of course we always reckoned Joe knew what he was singing about and we didn’t. but it was great fun and we’d go around the harbour. We thoroughly, you know, thoroughly enjoyed ourself. I suppose it was idyllic really. The harbour’s a beautiful harbour. And you know if it was a day like today you can imagine the water’s shimmering and the sunlight and here we were just tripping around. People’d pay quids to do it and we enjoyed it. It was marvellous. But of course it

had it’s rough side and it had it’s it had a sad side I suppose really. One of the duties was to take aircraft. They used to have smashed up Mitchell Bombers on a wharf in the harbour and we had to tow a punt around up to this wharf. I think it was in a place called Fanny Bay but I’d stand corrected on that.

And then we would load these bombers on board this big punt or barge and we’d tow it out to a ship in the harbour and they would hoist them on board by ships crane and they would take them to Adelaide where they were refurbished and repaired and all the rest of it and they’d presumably fly them back to the aerodrome up at Batchelor or wherever they were. But the sad thing about this of course was that

they were supposed to hose them out but of course they didn’t and there were bits of blood there was always blood and muck on them but bits of tissue. You could just imagine a rear gunner you know the fighter aircraft all their guns in the wings were slanted in. So that if you got the apex if you got the apex of the firing you’re getting

six four machine guns all concentrated in the one spot and it would just chop them to pieces you see. And all there’d be would be just blood and guts and tissue and everything everywhere. And oh they’d stink too, you know. Stink of the smell of death is awful and terribly sad towing them about out to the ship. We’d do this I used to say one of my exercises was to try and put faces to them. I s’pose that some of my

statistics. I used to sort of think we might take out about a say a dozen carcasses or on the barge you know and you’d think ‘How many dead airmen is that,’ you know? And you’d think of the poor fellows that had been shot to pieces and that sort of thing. It was always a very, very sobering experience the. But anyway of course it’s you’re young you’re silly and you accept it as part of

the deal and it used to affect us momentarily but we’d forget about it very quickly. The and of course it was a great lesson in life you see. You everybody had to go in your boat. So whether you had a four ring captain or whether you had an ordinary Seaman or whatever it might be they all took passage in your boat. And gradually you sometimes you got to know them. sometimes you didn’t. So that was a great lesson in life because

all people are different. Be they naval officers or naval ratings or anybody else. And some of them were courteous some of them were you know quite priggish and autocratic and others were extremely nice and courteous. You know and I’ve always appreciated like somebody getting out of the boat. Doesn’t matter who he was say thank you coxswain. Or thank you boat crew thank you coxswain.

It was always nice for them to say that and I still do it. When I travel on a council bus or anything else I always thank the driver. You know I say thank you drive you know just to give courtesy because I remember how we appreciated it when we were boat’s crews. So anyway that was my story of Darwin in the… I had a number of experiences in Darwin. I think that probably I don’t know how many

times I escaped death there but some of them are pretty ordinary. Others are a little bit scary. I… my first escape I s’pose from death in Darwin was I’d taken a working party the dry dock. We had a floating dock in Darwin and

it was about 5 mile I’d say from the harbour master’s wharf and I had to take a work a working party of sailors up there. So I took them up and it was against the tide I think and took us a long time to get there and sailors all the young blokes skylarking in the boat you know by the time they got there. Anyway one bloke got tipped overboard just as we entered the dock you know. There was plenty of water in the dock and we just simply drove into the dock. But anyway this young fella got tipped overboard and

I let the other fellas off and everybody said, “Oh you can swim the rest of the way.” You know what young blokes are like. “Oh you can swim the rest of the way,” you know and this sort of thing. We’re all laughing about it. Anyway I realised when I let the other fellas off the bloke couldn’t swim. So I dived in and pulled him out and took him over to the apron, what we call the apron of the dock. That’s the sort of the ledge were you know the side. And they hauled him in board and then I started to swim back to the boat and everybody shouted and screamed and somebody started firing a rifle

and I thought, “Oh my God, crocodiles,” you know. So I swam like hell and they hauled me out of the water and just in time there’s a sea snake going for me and only a small one about that long but apparently very poisonous. The fellas in the dock told me it was anyway. And they said if it had bitten you wouldn’t have made the shore you know. You’d have been dead before you got back to Darwin. Or if you did survive that, you know, it’s doubtful if they’d have any antivenin for you. So I thought that was a fairly lucky escape. Then I my next I s’pose my next escape was there was another air raid on a morning air raid and it was a big one too. And I’d always sort of worked on the principle from my observations of course. When you’re out in the harbour you see when they’re attacking the shore installations you could watch the fall of bombs and

it always seemed to me that that you know everybody has to have a data point if you’re going to do something you see. And it seemed to me the Japanese bomb aimers used the what we called the Boom Wharf which is more or less in the centre of the Darwin peninsular like that it was in the centre. And of course they could use that you know a stick of bombs would run say a half a mile and they would sort of use that and their bombs would sort of run from that. And of course I never felt

we were in any danger out in the middle of the harbour at all. We could you know. But this particular day air raid was on. I’d taken a load of sailors out whipped back into what we called man-o-war steps. And man-o-war steps are simply the steps at the landing stage. And I was loaded up with oh about 15 blokes I think and we just pushed off and

we’re just going around the dog leg that. You can imagine the man-o-war steps is there and there’s a dog leg wharf like this so you had to go out and around to get out into the harbour and we’d just started off when a lascar seaman. I dunno whether you’re familiar with the term lascars the Asian seamen we call em lascars. And he was running along the wharf to a ship which was tied up on the outside of the dog leg. And why it was still there I don’t know because

normally when. Probably they didn’t have their boilers fired up or they didn’t have their engines going I don’t know the reason. But it didn’t get underway anyway and they were just starting to get underway right at that time. And the normal way to leave a wharf like that where you’ve got a cramped space is that you hold on to what we call the breast line or the bough line. Whichever one serves the purpose. And if the ship has two propellers

you have slower stern on one and half slow ahead on the other. And the slower stern thing swings and the other one pushes you see. And whether they had two propellers or one I don’t know. But anyway they had a bow line on and they were the ship was going slow ahead and the stern of the ship was swinging out like that. But he bow line was probably from here to that wall away from the wharf. A big

rope it was about that thick. And this lascar seaman was running down the wharf and I yelled out to him, “Jump! Jump!” you see. “Jump! We’ll pick you up.” But he didn’t take any notice of me. And he ran straight down the wharf and his mates on the ship were calling out to him and to our surprise he tried to join the ship by climbing over the bow line. He got hold of the bow line and he just went hand over hand. He was very strong fellow and he was just

going like that just as just as you see them doing you know the exercises in the army doing these exercises going over a rope. He was making pretty good progress too. And anyway just at that particular moment cause everybody’s going crook at me and saying let’s get out a here. Let’s get out a here. Cause they all knew that also that they usually bombed from the boom wharf and we were about a half a mile from the boom wharf. We were actually right in the line of fire I suppose

and I said, “No no no, we’re not going anywhere. We’re gonna wait for this bloke to see if he makes it.” And anyway at that time a stick a bombs came straight across from the boom wharf and the last bomb fell right under the poor lascar. And you can imagine he’s halfway across this rope and the rope was sagging and

he was about I s’pose about 20 feet 25 or 30 feet from us. We were inside. The wharf was probably about 12 or 15 foot wide we were inside that. Probably 30 feet away I s’pose. But fortunately for us on the outside of the wharf there was large concrete planks they were about that wide and they were reinforced and they were about that thick so they were you know. That lined the outside

of the wall of the wharf but with spaces about that far between them. So we were protected from the blast of the bomb. All the others were laying down in the boat. I was the only bloke standing and it knocked me over. The little bit of blast that came through the spaces between the palings knocked me over and in actual fact I had a grandstand view then of the whole incident because I was flat on my back and my back was hurting and I sort of couldn’t get up and

I then saw the whole sort of situation. The bomb exploded under the lascar and that the blast of that of course wrenched the ship sideways which tightened the rope he was on. That sort of sprung him but the blast of the bomb also he went up about a hundred feet. This body just went slowly up like that. We could watch it go up and up and you know and then it sort a hung there and then it started to come down you see and

crashed into the water. And I so I said to the stoker-driver, “Full ahead.” So we raced around and they said, “Let’s get out a here. Let’s get out a here,” you know. So I said, “Well we’ll…” I wanted to go and to where he landed to see if we could pick him up. And talking about the inconsequential things that go through your mind. As I was going around the end of the dogleg wharf of

all things I was trying to calculate his speed when he hit the water. And working on the assumption that the acceleration due to gravity would be 20 feet per second per second. I reckoned it took him 3 seconds from when he started to fall to when he hit the water. And I thought 3 seconds you know that’s 60 feet a second. 60 feet a second and you know. That 36 hundred feet a

minute. That’s three fifths of a mile. So that’s 36 miles 36 mile an hour I reckon he was doing when he hit the water. And I’m calculating this bloody nonsense. You know I why you do it I don’t know as I was going around the end of the wharf. So I reckoned that he hit the water at 36 mile an hour. Which would be what? 50 kilometers I suppose. But anyway some of the older blokes said to me, “Listen

Tommy. He’ll be dead. You know he’ll be gutted and he’ll be dead. You know and he’ll sink. He won’t stay up he’ll sink. So leave him.” So anyway we left him. So some they were some of the sort of sad things that happened you know. But the saddest day I suppose I had as a coxswain was the day it was another big air raid and I can remember it very well because

we were on our second trip and we were out in the middle of the harbour and two terrible things happened. We were right in the middle of the harbour and coming up the planes were coming up right up over the mouth of the harbour. These beautiful silver birds you know. You see these glinting in the morning sun all they all shining and silver. They looked lovely of

course. But anyway there was a four ring captain, a merchant seaman, a merchant captain, and to use a nautical expression he started to pack them. And he said to me, “Coxswain, I think you should tie up to the wreck over there.” Which was either the Meigs or the Mauna Loa. There were I think the Meigs was an American ammunition ship that blew up in the first raid. The Mauna Loa was another ship that sunk there

and I didn’t. Here’s me, an 18-year-old ordinary seaman and here’s a four ring captain saying to me go over there and tie up you see. And I what did I do I said, “Well sir I’ve got to put everybody on board their ship,” see. So anyway a little time went and we were right in the flight path of the planes but we’re not really in any danger. I didn’t think anyway. And but a whole host of old

blokes in the ship. A whole lot a naval officers on board. He said, “Son, I think you ought to go over and tie up to that wreck. We’re right in the flight path of the planes.” I said, “Sir I’m supposed to put everybody on board their ship you see.” I didn’t know what I was gonna do next if he’d a said to me, “I’m ordering you to go over there.” I’d had to go I s’pose. But anyway just at that time his ship came around and

I said, “Excuse me sir. There’s your ship.” He said “Oh,” he sort of blinked and you know a funny expression came over his face and he sort of looked around himself and he was sort of as if he was terribly embarrassed. Which he was I s’pose. And he sort of head rocked and he… Anyway we ran along side and the gangway was down. He got on the gangway and went up like a broken man up the ladder and.

Anyway one of the naval officers beside me said, “Don’t worry about it coxswain. He’s a fine man. He’s had a hard war.” And I found out later he’d been sunk 2 or 3 times in the Atlantic. And he’d… one of the things he’d done. What they used to do, one of the great dangers when they were sunk in the Atlantic was burning fuel. And they used to go went overboard with blankets over their heads

and they’d swim underwater and tow the blanket. And then they would come up and they’d push the blanket up in the burning oil and try and get air then they’d go down again and swim. You know he’d been through this sort of thing 2 or 3 times he was probably I think that the thought of the planes must have sent him round the twist. It was a terrible experience. It’s haunted me ever since. But that that was the same day that they

tried to they tried out the Spitfires in Darwin. The Australian air force flew the American Kittyhawk fighter. It was a very heavy fighter and very powerful and had quite a long range. And you might remember the name of a man called ‘Killer’ Caldwell, the great Australian fighter pilot ace, or I think they called him an ace, he was a very successful fighter pilot.

Group Captain Caldwell. And I think he was there then but they argued long and hard that they should not bring the Spitfires here. That they should stick with the American fighters. But anyway of course they bought the Spitfires and the fellows had to fly them. A lot of English pilots flying them not. I dunno just how many Australian Pilots were actually flying them. They had a lot of English pilots flying them and this day

this day was their first really trial in combat in Darwin. Do you want to stop. Right. And of course things were a little different you see. In England when the Germans were taking off from France they’d pick them up on radar so they would let the fighter bases know. So that the fighters would take off but they’d fly up at 30,000 feet they’d just sit there and then when the Germans came over they’d simply dive down through them see and try to shoot them

down. And then they would go and go back to their base you see. And they did that with relative immunity. That’s why they had such a big kill count and such small losses relatively to the Germans. But of course in Darwin that they couldn’t do that you see and they took off and of course the Zeros had plenty of range and the Spitfires had hardly any range and of course the Zeros chased em all around the sky or the Spitfire chased the Zeros. The Zeros were terribly manoeuvrable planes and they just led them all around the place.

Then of course the Spitfires were starting to run out fuel. They’d turn around and head for home and the Zeros’d just zero in on them you know. To use the expression. But we lost 16 Spitfires in the first day. Sixteen. No Zeros. 16 Spitfires. And they were crashing al around the place and of course we were we were racing over. A plane’d come down. We’d race over and you know they’d come down in parachutes or we’d have to go to where the plane hit the water. Probably no hope of picking them up. We picked up some of the blokes

that parachuted down. They ejected from the planes. Some of them were terribly cut you know. Some of them were you know shocked and burnt with. But it was a disastrous day and that was the you know that was my observation of the first time that Spitfires were used in the air war in Darwin. It was an absolute disaster. So those are the sort of things that happened around you which made the

job both interesting and you know sometimes a little scary. But I always felt more interesting than scary because as I said we were out in the harbour. The only time it would have been scary is if the Zeros would’ve wanted to have you know a bit of sport or something. Come down and had a go at us but they didn’t seem to be interested in that. They the funny thing about the Japanese the Japanese submarines for instance they didn’t go after the merchant shipping a lot. They went after warships which was very contrast to the Germans

who went and the Americans. The Americans went aft. They did they did go after warships but you know they were primary after merchantmen that were carrying supplies to the troops or away. The Japanese didn’t do that but anyway we were just terribly lucky that no pilot thought he was wanted to come down. I s’pose they avoided coming down low because they would a run into the concentrated fire of the ships.

What were some of the other things that happened to me? Oh another escape I suppose I had was this was a serious escape. Not only was it a serious escape it was a tremendous lesson to me. And I it made me believe that the leading seaman who sort of objected to my being appointed coxswain was correct. That I didn’t have the experience that I would’ve had if I’d have been an able seaman and I

had a boat full of officers too. We left man-o-war steps about dusk and we went out into the harbour and the whaler was an old boat and it anyway the engine broke down and nobody did anything. I said to the stoker asked him could he fix it? “Oh it’ll be right,” he said you know. But he couldn’t get it started. And we started of course to drift down the harbour at quite a rate of knots and of course in the tropics it’s

daylight one minute and 10 minutes later it’s pitch black see. And it’s daylight you know about half past five or whatever time it was and then the next minute it’s dark. And here we are drifting down the harbour you see. So we didn’t have a signal lamp on board the boat. And so what to do you see. We’re trying to attract attention. So I got the hair brain scheme. I that if we could somebody

could give us their socks we could soak the socks in petrol put them on the end of a boat hook and wave them about you see. Well that might attract somebody attention. But of course the obvious thing to have to done would have been to get somebody’s sock all right. Dip them in petrol and burn them and then make an SOS [Distress signal] and put them up you know and get somebody to block them out and make SOS to shore. And somebody might have seen it. But of course with the ships out in the harbour you know and the fluorescent on the water and

all this sort of thing nobody took any notice of somebody doing this you see. So anyway none of the officers objected. Nobody offered any other suggestions which rather surprised me in hindsight. I’d a thought that some of the officers would’ve said to me, “Well look coxswain, let’s do some signalling or something,” see. But nobody did. So anyway we drifted down the harbour I s’pose about 2 or 3 mile and we went past we went past the

boom depot and then we went past Miley Point and then we’re out into the harbour heading towards the boom. And of course the mouth of the harbour at Darwin are a number of what we call boom ships and these are ships with a you might have seen them with a couple of huge arms that go out in front. They’re quite enormous things and of course those arms are there to lift the buoys the huge steel buoys that are attached to the boom nets you see. The nets go right across the mouth of the harbour and

they’re attached to buoys and piles of course and the boom ships then will go. If a ship wants to come in the harbour well then they will go over and pick up some of the buoys. Lift them up on these arms and then they open the gate you see and the ships can go through the boom. We’re heading down of course towards he boom nets and I said, “Well look you know we’re in trouble because if we hit this net at 8 or 9 knots.

If the tide’s down we hit the net you know we’re gonna be thrown into the ocean. You’d better be careful.” I said, “For God’s sake somebody make a noise and see if we can wake up the people on the boom ships. What about singing?” Well of course to my surprise they all sang. Everybody. You know singing at the top of our voices and one of my mates in the Brisbane subject of the Naval Association was on one of those boom ships and I never let him forget that. They’re all heavy sleepers. They didn’t hear us

singing. But anyway we went down

Oh yes. Well anyway we were singing our heads of but nothing happened you see. They the lookouts on the boom vessels didn’t spot us. So I said, “We’re, we must be getting very near the near boom.” We could see the boom vessels. You’ll have to be careful if we hit the wire. Because if the ship if the boat rolls over try and grab the boom net and hang on. So anyway as luck would

have it just after I’d finished speaking and I was if you could imagine if a ship’s got no weigh on it you’re drifting well you know you’ll swing or a ship will just sort of drift. So I was in the stern sheets with the tiller all the way down the harbour working the tiller back and forth to try and get some purchase to try and keep the ship bow on. You see the cut at bow on you see and it was hard work and

and I said, “You know you’ll have to be careful.” Anyway just at that moment there was a very gentle bump and the Whaler went up and down. And it to our good fortune you’d see we’d hit the boom net. We must have been the boom net must have been probably six inches under water or something like that or a foot under water or something and the

momentum of the of the and the weight of the whaler with all those men in it, it hit the net and it just slipped up and carried us over the net into the Timor Sea. So that how fortunate can you be? I mean the tide was dropping at 18 feet in 6 hours, so you know it drops in in say 1 hour, it’s dropping 3 feet. So it’s dropping almost a foot every quarter of an hour or more you see. If we’d have been a quarter of an hour later

or something else we would’ve hit the boom net and perhaps all finished up in the water. So that was a you know that was a very very lucky escape. Anyway I suppose I could talk about Darwin all day because Darwin was a very personal war. In that you were you were very personally involved in the things that happened you know. You pull pilots out of the water. You taking those aeroplanes you know taking

and we used to go also we would often go on relief crews on a couple of the ships there which would run to Timor for the Australian commandos or run up the coast up and down the coast. It was a very personal war because you know there weren’t very many people. You were either personally involved yourself. There was a different kind of war to the war that I subsequently fought in the fleet situation. And I

I must tell you this story because it involved a person who had a great influence I s’pose in my life. He was a man who he was the captain of the ship called the Vigilant. And he his name was Thomas Ferris Roberts. And he was a surveyor but he was also a naval Lieutenant. He was captain of this ship the Vigilant. And I’d served on the Vigilant for some short runs

you know as relief crew and I used to take him ashore and anyway I got to know him. And one of the things that used to amuse us was that there was a naval tug up there called the Forceful it’s now in the Maritime Museum here at South Brisbane. They do day trips on it but in those days it was a naval tug in Darwin see. And they had a cook on board and he had a terrible name. The

blokes would come ashore and they’d be talking about this dirty rotten cook and they’d say oh bloody awful you know. And so anyway I was taking him I used to take them ashore of course and I asked him about the Forceful and he told me all they were all a lot of lazy so and sos. They wouldn’t do anything. They wouldn’t’ give him a hand. They never cleaned up after them you know. And so consequently he wasn’t gonna exert himself for them either you see. But he was a very good cook. He won all the prizes in the navy. So anyway one day I’d

been plaguing Lieutenant Roberts about you know hydrography and all that sort of thing and he must of asked to have me transferred to the Vigilant permanently. And he said to me one day, “What do you think of your transfer to the Vigilant?” I didn’t know about it but I said, “Oh, I’m delighted.” So I said to him, “We got a full crew?” He said, “No we haven’t.” He said, “We need a cook.” So I nominated the cook of course from the Forceful. Anyway we finally got

him on board the Vigilant as the cook see. And sure enough he was true to his word he was a great cook. There was magnificent meals. And of course when he came on board we said to all the sailors, “Now listen you’ve got to give him a hand you know like ask him can you help him. Do this and do that.” So of course everybody did you see and cook he was very appreciative. He was a wonderful cook. Had marvellous meals on the best. You know it was al la carte meals three times a day it was wonderful. So

that was… anyway I think I finished up really my time in Darwin. I had there were a lot of other things that you could talk about but you’d talk about them all day at the exclusion of everything else I think but. Then we went to Meruake when I joined the Vigilant as a hydrographic ship we then went across to Dutch New Guinea and we went to a river port called Meruake. Our job was to chart the coast continuous to the port of Meruake up the underbelly of Dutch New Guinea

and we got to Meruake and it was a strange place and once again it was a wonderfully interesting place for somebody you know of our age. We were all only 18 or 19 20 the kids in the navy and it was a it was what I would call a Dutch Devil’s Island. The Dutch sort of exported all their political dissidents to Meruake and if you were a if you were you know

creating a bit of trouble in Indonesia or Java or you know in Java or Sumatra or something they just picked you up and shipped you to Meruake and just left you there. So that consequently there were you know hundreds of Indonesian families living at Meruake in quite comfortable conditions. Very nice people and. But they couldn’t go anywhere because they couldn’t go to sea and they couldn’t go ashore inland because the river.

The inland the river was teeming with crocodiles. The place was rife with disease. The natives were you know you wouldn’t know what they would do so they were just sort a stuck there. But it was obviously a great Fifth Column area because every night almost every night without exception Tokyo Rose. Do you remember do you know of Tokyo Rose? Well Tokyo Rose would call us up see. “Hello Vigilant.” You know “How are you tonight Vigilant?” You know “What you did today?”

you know. And “Don’t worry we’ll get you,” you know, “Let us know,” and that sort of thing. So obviously they operated a fairly good Fifth Column. No doubt the Japanese were well informed about. And that was the scary part of that job. It was terribly interesting. As far as I was concerned it was wonderfully interesting because you know to see how charts are made. You know we often read about Captain Cook and Flinders and these people

going around and mapping the coastline and that sort of thing you wonder how they did it. But we did it you know the mechanics of it were fairly simple. We used to go ashore and we’d put a cut out a big palm tree and paint it white. Stick it there and then we’d tape a measured mile along the shore with a surveyors tape and we’d cut out another palm tree. Paint it white and put it up and then we would go to sea and I was a helmsman.

I’d be in the wheelhouse there and we’d steam up and down you see. We’d steam a line that way and say we were a mile offshore and then the whole team there were there we had an echo sounder. So the person on the echo sounder would say you know, “By the mark 6.” Which meant 6 fathoms and another bloke would say, “7L5,” see.

And then the captain and the surveyor both standing there with sextons and the captain would the captain would say you know 22 degrees 60 minutes. And the other fella would say, “Thirty-five degrees 20 minutes,” something like that whatever it was and then the scribes would write them down you see. And then we’d sort a go up. And what they were doing the captain would sight one white tree and the surveyor would sign the other white tree so then where when they drew those lines where they intersected

was where we were at sea you see. That’s the spot. So that’s the spot of the sounding, so that was the spot that was put on the chart. It was terribly interesting. And we’d go up one way. Then we’d come down again. Then we’d go up again and come down again and we’d do that up the coast you see. Well the further we got away from Meruake of course we were told there were no Japanese there but the scary part was of course that the jungle came right down to the water and when you went ashore of course

the enormous rains up there and the rivers are just muddy you know. They’re a sort of they’re almost you could when the heavy you can almost see them they’re almost viscous they’re so muddy the damn things and of course the rise and fall of the tide being what it was they’d go out and the mud would come back in and of course you’d have a bit of beach and then you might have 2 or 300 yards of mud you see. Well if you went in at anything but full tide

you might have to jump out a hundred yards from the shore and wade through this mud to get ashore you see. And here’s this all this bush impenetrable bush down to the water’s edge you see. And you’d be working there and the natives’d just all of a sudden you’d look up and see there’d be some natives beside you you know. So you’re always scared that they might have bought the Japs along to it. That was really the suspenseful part that that going from the you know wherever you landed in until

you got to shore. And even then of course you were it was suspenseful because you didn’t know. Anybody could be in the jungle. They could have a whole damn army there and you wouldn’t’ see it. But it was terribly interesting. Terribly interesting. And we mapped the coastline there and I remember we had one break. One break only when the cook informed the captain we’d run out of steak. And all of a suddenly magically the ERAs – that’s the engine room artificers – found something

wrong with the engines. So we had to race down to Thursday Island to get the engines fixed. But of course we also got a couple of cases of large heavy crates of boneless steaks. So those were some of the humorous and interesting side lines that happen in those places. But it was terribly interesting. We lost a man overboard there. That was a terrible thing terrible thing. We

we used to have men ashore reading the tide poles because when I was saying we’d go into harbour at night and then the soundings we’d take at sea would have to be adjusted for the rise and fall of the tide. So we had two sailors always ashore reading a tide pole. So that if it was 7:10 or 7:15 you’d have the reading of the tide pole and then they could adjust the reading the sounding out at sea for the rise and fall of the

tide you see. And then they’d put the minimum depth on the chart. So this was always going on. We’d go in at night and we might stay at sea for a couple of days or we’d come back but we’d if we were there overnight. They we used to get a bottle of beer a day. Each man got a bottle of beer and I didn’t drink you see so I used to give my beer away and I gave it away to this bloke this night and he was a sort of a loner. You know and

he used to go up on the fo’c’sle to drink his bottles of beer or his bottle of beer. Bottles of beer in this case he had two bottles of beer. He went up this night and never came back and we don’t know why. He hadn’t come down later in the night and I went up looking for him and he wasn’t there and I reported the leading seaman who reported to the captain and we searched for him couldn’t find him so it was dark we couldn’t do much about it. So the next day and the next few days we searched up and down the river. Out to sea you know had shore

parties looking along the shores. And then there used to be a row boat ferry that the natives used to use came across the river and one bloke came over one day and indicated that there was a body in the reeds down towards the mouth of the river. So anyway another bloke and I were sent over in the boat to pick up the body. But we and of course the place is we didn’t know whether the crocodiles

had put it there you know to rot in the mud. They’d put it there to rot and they’d come back and get them and we couldn’t get the boat in through the reeds. We only got so far. We had to get out of the damn boat and go over to where the body was you see and of course we didn’t know. You can’t see in the water. It’s not as if you’re looking in the ocean where you can see things. You can’t see anything cause the reeds were there the water’s that muddy and you wouldn’t know if there’s a crocodile there or not. All we could do was look

to see if the reeds moved and they used to move in the breeze anyway. And of course if you’d see the reeds movin’ because the next thing you’d be waiting you know to see if a crocodile came. It’s a terrible feeling and you hate to think of dying that way. You know you don’t mind getting shot I s’pose. It’s nice and clean and quick. You’d hate to think you’re gonna die that way. But anyway we went over to pick him up and I said, “Righto Steve.” Steve Cosotine the other bloke’s name was. You

you know you get his head and I’ll get his feet right? Righto so we get underneath him and we lift him and he just disintegrates you see. In the tropics everything goes bad quickly and he’d been in the water 3 be 3 or 4 days he just disintegrated you know and so we thought oh God we can’t. So we then decided we had to go back and we went back to ship and they said, “Well wrap him in this.” They gave us a ensign. A flag. We went back and they said, “Righto,” you know we put the

flag under him and you get that end and I’ll get this end and we’re right you see. Well of course the flag was a bit longer than from here to there ad he just sort of went in. By the time we lifted it up he of course everything floated over the side. So we doubled over the ensign and then we sort of made a little carry all of it. We were both holding it. He was… Steve was holding one end and I’m holding the other and we’re shovelling the bits. You know the skull and the bones and all the muck into the

carry all you see. And by this time of course we’re covered with all this stuff you know. So we put him in the boat and took him over to the ship and they everybody said don’t bring that on board whatever you do you know. So we said no we won’t do that. so they sent up the army base and they came down with a truck and a big box and we then sort of unloaded him out of the boat and just dropped it into the in the thing. Of course we were covered with

this all this mucous and muck and it permeates the skin and it took us nearly a fortnight to get the smell the stench of it you know. You can just imagine everybody ribbing us every time we came near them you know. But we gave him a we gave him a he had a formal naval funeral in so we don’t know whether it was an accident or whether he committed suicide or what. You wouldn’t know what happened. But I’m just assuming that he must have had the two bottles of

beer and he might have been a bit light headed or unsteady and he slipped on the wet deck or something and hit his head and gone over the side. I’d hate to think that anything else happened to him. I’ve got a couple of photos of the funeral there. So that was a sad end but it was a it was very productive. We produced all the charts that were required and it and also I think we proved that an invasion of that area of Dutch New Guinea would have been out of the question. Because

they’d of had to wade hundreds of feet. They couldn’t of got the barges and the landing craft in to the shore. It’d been worse than Gallipoli. They’d of had to wade through you know a whole area of mud and it they’d a just been slaughtered. So that ruled out any possibility of you know staging any operations on the underside of Dutch New Guinea. It was just almost impossible. Anyway we finished the assignment there.

We paid off. Went back we went back to Townsville to Townsville Naval Depot was called Magnetic and the Vigilant paid off there and it became a tender for Magnetic and I came I came on transfer to what was called the N class pool. If you wanted to get on the N class destroyers and my brother had been on the Nepal. That was

an N class destroyer he went to England Commissioned in 1940 and he said to me, “Tommy, if you want to, you know, put your name down for the N class pool.” They’re lovely ships and you know it’d be better than mucking around the way you’re doing out there. So I put my name down for the N class pool and eventually I got called up and I left the Vigilant in Magnetic and then I went back

to Moreton Depot to sort of wait for chance to join one of the N ships and I was there for a while. While I was there a number of things happened I s’pose. One of the more humorous I think. Humorous and also fulfilling. Fulfilling incident happened. I did, as I told you, I did a lot of boxing

in my younger days and when I got to Moreton Depot there was a bloke there called Bill Potter. Now Bill I was a former I think Australian Amateur champion boxer. He was in the navy and he was apparently trying to start a boxing troop in the Moreton Depot to compete in the inter-service tournaments. And Bill was a very fine man. He ran the Spring Hill

Baths after the war until he died probably for 20 or 30 years. I dunno whether you’re familiar with the Spring Hill Baths. They were up near the Main Roads Depot up there near Gregory Terrace. And when he heard that I was in the depot he asked me if I would fight for the navy. And I said, “Look I will but I’m on transfer you know. I don’t think you’d better rely on me being available but I’ll help you out.” Which I did do. Anyway some time later I got a call from

the master-at-arms and I went up and he said, “Oh look I want you to report to leading seaman so and so and petty officer so and so.” He said, “You’re going on escort duty.” So and escort duty means that you’re a policeman. Like they don’t have service police in the navy. For the obvious reason that if they went to sea they mightn’t come back see. So you don’t have service police in the same way that the army have service police or the air force have service police. The

sailors are the police you just get picked for the night. You’re a policeman for the night see. So and everybody has his turn so you know that’s just the way it is you see. And he said you’re going on an escort job with a prisoner. So go and talk to these fellows. So I went and talked to them and they said, “Yes we’re you know we’ve picked you because you can look after yourself. You’re a big bloke you can look after yourself. You’ve got to be handcuffed to this bloke all the way to

Townsville.” I said, “Oh come off it.” You know, “What about eating and going to the toilet? What about sleeping at night? How the hell are we gonna get on?” “Oh well they said you’ve just gotta stay handcuffed to him. This bloke has escaped from custody oh so many times you know. He’s a bit of a Houdini and he’s not gonna escape from us you see.” So anyway the humorous side of it of course is I didn’t think there was much fun in that. I thought, “How the hell am I gonna get to Townsville for 3 days on a troop train handcuffed to a

bloke?” you see. So in my athletic days when I was doing high jumping and I one of my fellow cohorts was a bloke named Paddy McNamara and Paddy was a policeman but Paddy was Paddy was the Queensland hammer throw and discuss… Hammer throw and shot putt champion see. But and of course he was a policeman. But one of the things that Paddy used to do in between events and that sort of

thing if he had you were his captive audience or something he always tried to persuade me to join the Queensland Police Force see. That was Paddy’s dream to get me into the Queensland Police Force. When you leave school he’s say you know go and join the Queensland Police Force. So I thought, “Oh well I’ll ring Paddy,” see. So I rang Paddy. I said, “Paddy,” you know, “Tom Maule here.” You know, “I’ve got a job as a policeman. I’m going on an escort duty and I’ve got to be handcuffed to a bloke you know. What do I do you see?” So I said, “I

don’t want to be handcuffed to a bloke for 3 days.” So Paddy gave me a whole lot of instructions and he said, “Well he said you’ve got to persuade this bloke that you’re his friend.” He said, “That’s the technique.” He said, “Don’t…” He said, “When you get there,” he said, “tell him you’re a friend,” he said, “and take your overcoat so that you put it over the handcuffs and tell him, you know, that you just want to save him from embarrassment and you can say, “Those other fellas’ll shoot ya, but not me,’ you know. ‘I’m your friend, you see,’ and all this sort of thing.” He said, “Get his confidence and try and,

you know, find things out.” So I said, “All right. So anyway I get on the train, we get on the train and I’m rehearsing my spiel you see. I didn’t start till we got to Nambour. That Nambour’s about an hour or more away from Brisbane and I couldn’t sort of get into the mood to tell this bloke all this spiel that I was gonna give him. But in the end I said, “You know… Look, you know my name’s Tom Maule,” you know. I said, “My job’s…”

He said, “Well we’re handcuffed.” I said, “Well look, I know.” I just start to tell him I’d brought the overcoat and all the rest of it and he said to me, “Tom Maule?” He said, “You any relation to a fellow named Tim Maule?” I said, “Yes, he’s my brother. Why?” Oh he said, “He’s the whitest man I’ve ever met. He said he’s a terrific man.” He said, “You know,” he said, “I’ve been in a lot a trouble in the navy,” he said I was on the Nepal with him that’s the N class destroyer he was on.

He was a cook this bloke. He said, “I was on the Nepal with him and I made a couple of attempts to desert and he said they had me in cells and. He said I was in a lot of trouble he said and he did some wonderful things for me. He gave me some great… but nobody’d have anything to do with me.” He said, “Tim would,” and he said, “He tried to help me all he could.” He said, “He’s a white man.” And he said, “Look he said I’ll tell ya this. He said you fellas think you can hold me. But he said you can’t hold me. He

said if I want to escape from you fellas I’ll escape see.” But he said, “I’ll tell ya this there is no way in the world that I will attempt to escape from this escort when Tim Maule’s brother is one of my escorts.” He said, “I’ll tell ya that here and now. But he said, “When we get to Townsville he said I’m leaving you guys. You’ve got another escort to Mt Isa.” He said, “I’ll be gone before we get to Mt Isa.” He said, “You mark my words you see.” So anyway and of course

one of the things that Paddy had told me was that he said, “Look you know you don’t have to stay handcuffed all the time in the toilet.” He said, “Why don’t you talk to those blokes.” He said, “When he’s in the toilet get him to pass out his trousers.” He said, “You can’t run very far. He said even if he gets out the train window you’re not gonna run very far in that spinifex country without your pants you see.” So of course the idea was when he went to the toilet he had to give me his trousers you see. But when he told me this about

not escaping from Tim Maule’s brother you see I let him keep his trousers. Anyway course he didn’t make an attempt to escape at all. We got on quite well. Then we got to Ayre and Home Hill and Ayre ad that’s right on the Burdekin River if you as you know and it was in flood see and so they side tracked our train away just down the line a bit and there 2 or 3 troop trains at Ayre and another couple a troop trains came in behind us at I think

Bowen it was. Anyway when we got there they said, “Well we...” I said, “What are we gonna do with the Prisoner?” They said, “We’re gonna put him in the local lock up,” see. So I had to take him down to the local lock up. So I said to the sergeant down there like, “This bloke’s not a crim.” I said you know I said, “He enjoyed the navy like the rest of us but it’s not his cup a tea. He just wants to get out. They won’t let him get out.” I said, “He’s a you know…” The sergeant’s, “Look, I know. Don’t worry

about it,” he said. “My wife cooks all the meals for prisoners. She said she’ll look after him as if he’s you know her own.” He said, “You needed worry about that.” He said, “He’ll be all right here.” He said, “We’ll look after him.” But anyway I wasn’t happy about it and I went back and I said to the POs [Petty Officers] “Can I go and take the bloke out of jail tomorrow if I’m handcuffed to him?” They said, “Yeah all right if you’re handcuffed to him you can.” So anyway

that later on that day another troop train pulls in on the siding next to us and it’s got a whole lot of AWAS [Australian Women’s Army Service] on it. That’s the army girls you know and one of them was a school friend of mine from Redcliffe you see. So our families had been quite friendly so anyway when she saw me she sort of left her mates and we decided that we would spend the day together.

And I said, “Well look there’s only one complication you know I’ve got a problem. I’ve got a prisoner.” So I said, “Will you like would you mind if we bought him along?” So she said, “No I don’t mind,” see. There’s nothing romantic about it. We’re just we’d been, you know, and our families had mixed when we were young and that sort of thing. So we went down the jail the next day and we got him and he didn’t want to come along see. He thought

that he was interfering with whether there was some sort of romantic interlude. But we assured him that that wasn’t the case. And so in the end we handcuffed his right hand to my left hand and then she put her arm through his left arm her right arm. So she was technically his companion you see and I was well they I was a crim I could be anything you see. But so we… and that’s the day. we spent a day and a half in

Bowen you know. And took him back to the jail. We went to the pictures I think and we went to the café and had a meal. We went down had a look at the harbour we sort of had a roamed around and I s’pose we spent a very nice day and we I took him back to the jail at night he was a changed man you know. And she’d been gone out of her way to make a bit of a fuss of him and that sort of thing. So that was all right. Anyway the next day we went and picked him up again see. And we only

spent about a half a day. The river was falling. We went back to the train. I thought he was gonna break down. She kissed him goodbye I thought he was gonna break down you know. But it just goes to show you doesn’t it. And anyway we went a couple of hours I think we were up I can’t remember we were up in Darwin up in Townsville it wasn’t very long. So we duly handed him over and I wished him luck. And we then caught the train back to Brisbane and we something happened. I can’t remember

what it was. The train had to stop at Gympie. So the petty officer in charge of the escort went over to the local post office to ring Moreton and to probably to tell them that. They’d be sending a vehicle to pick us up you see well we’d have to tell them our changed ETA [Estimated Time of Arrival]. So when he came back to the train he said, “Guess what?” I said, “What?” He said, “That bloke’s gone.” He said, “He was gone before they got to Charters Towers.” Never mind about Mt Isa. So he was as good as his

word he you know. So anyway course that the punch line in this story that I’ve written for the grand kids about this was that the petty officer leading seaman bloke said to me, “Now there you are son,” you see and talking. “There you are son you see there’s only one way to handle these blokes. You’ve got to be tough see. You’ve got to be tough.” And I made a footnote to say, “Yes, and you’ve got to be lucky enough to have a kind big brother.”

But that’s. Anyway that’s one of the things that happened when I was in Moreton Depot waiting to go to the Norman. But I eventually joined the Norman when she came to Sydney for a refit and I joined her down there and of course I ran into a lot of my brother’s friends there too. He was always a great help to me. His reputation he was a very kind man and very friendly fellow and you

know wherever I went I received the benefits of his you know his sort of magnificent character I s’pose is the way you could put it. But then I joined the Norman in Sydney. She’d finished a refit. Had new radar and upgraded gunnery controls and all sorts of other things. I think probably improved asdic

equipment. And then we went back to we went back to Trincomalee in in Salon. But we got to Perth and I was a non drinker of course. I didn’t drink and anyway I don’t know how but somehow some of the people on board must have when the Queenslanders were aboard must have told them that I could play football.

And I got in vehicled into having a game of rugby league mind you. In a in a park in Perth. So anyway they went ashore and all got you know they’d had some drinks and somebody persuaded me to have a drink of. They said, “Have you ever had any alcohol?” And I said, “Yes.” They said, “What did you have?” And I said, “Well I used to have sherry and a glass of sherry and raw egg.”

When I was boxing when we’d finished training we always had to have a glass of sherry and raw egg as a sort of a wind cleansing you know drink you see. So they said all right how bout having some sherry? So I had some sherry. I don’t know what they did with it but anyway then I went and played this game of football and this stuff you know in my stomach I finished up vomiting blood and everything else. I dunno

I dunno what I did. So that turned me off alcohol again for another 2 years. I don’t think I touched any more alcohol for ages. But we then went over to Trincomalee which was a great eye opener. Trincomalee was a big naval base and it was a if you can envisage a volcano a high mountain where there was an explosion in it like Krakatoa

is reputed to be and blew the whole side out of you know the volcano. And then you had this enormous expanse of water inside the whole cone of the volcano. That’s how Trincomalee Naval Base was. They were all obviously very secure. They had boom nets across the front and inside was the whole of the British Eastern fleet you know. Hundreds of ships.

Battleships. Carriers and destroys and cruisers and depot ships you know all sorts of things. So that was of course coming from what was something of a personal war in Darwin and Dutch New Guinea I was transported to a very impersonal war which is the fleet situation. And that’s how it transpired to be you know while I was on the Norman it was a different situation

totally see. So we spent some time in Trincomalee. I can’t remember the chronology of things really. The we did convoys. The most dreaded thing I suppose for us was to be asked to go to the aid of a ship. And it’s amazing isn’t it how

they can conjure up convenient expressions to evidence a tragedy. And one of the things that of course used to annoy us in Australia was the attitude of the water side workers and the dock workers. They would be always on strike or they’d be arguing and ships’d be set to sail and they’d be on strike and the ship couldn’t sail and

then if they missed the convoy we had a situation called SS so and so is sailing independently. Now that means you’re on your Pat Malone [on your own] see. No escort no anything. And of course sure enough they’d get picked off you see and we’d be asked to go to you know so many degrees south and so many degrees west where it was to the aid of such and such a ship sailing independently. Well you’d

get there of course and all you’d see is a bit of flotsam and jetsam on the ocean. Sometimes we could pick up some bodies you know in life jackets or otherwise. They’d some of them would be half eaten and you know like it was always sad. You knew when you got a call to go to a ship sailing independently that you were heading for a tragedy you know. It was awful. I can remember one story that

they picked up some sailor and when they hauled them in board you see they had bullet holes in their head. And everybody was very you know when they saw them they thought, “Oh the rotten bastards,” you know and that sort of thing. But then the doctor said no that that’s an act of mercy. He said, “Have a look at their legs.” Well they must have been standing above the

torpedo strike and when the torpedo hit you see the enormous and quick shot their hips were dislodged and they came up here so that their legs were about that long. And their hips were up in their lungs and you can imagine the enormous agony that they were suffering from. They weren’t dead you see they just sort of dislodged their hips up here and they’re probably bleeding and this enormous pain you see. And obviously there was no way of them ever getting better so

somebody just shot them. It was an act of mercy as the doctor said you see. How the terrible situations. I can remember the commander in charge of naval intelligence was a man I’m pretty sure now I hope I’m not using the wrong name Commander Evans. But anyway you could easily confirm that name and he was once asked by some well meaning politician how did he evaluate the effort of the water side

workers and the dock workers during the war. And he said, “I equate it… It’s equivalent to one Nazi submarine wolfpack.” That’s a terrible indictment isn’t it? Terrible indictment. The wolf packs sunk hundreds and hundreds of ships in the Atlantic. And he said, “I equate their performance with you know one Nazi submarine wolf pack.” And he’s got that in his

history. So it’s a terrible indictment but and of course it was all right for them to go on strike you see. But we saw the end product and the worst end product that we saw was this euphemism that they used you know ship’s sailing independently. It was a terrible thing. A terrible thing. Well we did a lot of convoy work.

Yeah.

Will I start? The fleet situation was a totally different situation to the one that I’d experienced previously. A ship the destroyer that I was on is probably like this village. There’s 273 units in this village and probably 500 people. In a destroyer there’s 270 was the ships company and you have your own doctor.

We didn’t have a dentist. We didn’t have a chaplain or anything like that. But we had a pharmacist or sick bay attendant but the ship was self contained. And when you are one of the things about the N class destroyers they were what were called fleet destroyers. They were they weren’t the same type of destroyer that the Australian navy used out here. We had got the those ships on loan from the Royal Navy. That’s another story. And

they were fleet destroyers but they were meant to sail in company with bigger ships. They didn’t have a long range and they didn’t have all sorts of facilities and we were attached to a depot ship in much the same way as a submarine are attached to depot ships. But each ship is more or less a self contained unit. Battleships aircraft carriers of course are cities. They’ve got a couple of thousand people and they’ve got all sorts of facilities. We’d have

our depot ship I’ll stand corrected but I think it was called the Woolich. W-O-O-L-I-C-H. and it was a work it was a floating workshop and hospital and dental surgeries hospitals wards. You name it, it was on board this ship see. And the fleet itself was quite awesome. I describe Trincomalee as is magnificent harbour cut out of the side of a mountain. And waters were very deep of course and

I suppose for somebody like myself who coming from what I describe I suppose the best way I can describe it as a personal war into this situation where you were just one soul on among tens of thousands of souls amongst this great armada. And it was always a continuing learning exercise for me. The particularly for instance

and it was awful awe inspiring to me. When the ship when the fleet went to sea what would happen. The ships would all be lined up as a series of buoys which we called trots and we would be tied up in the destroyer trot where we’d be tied to a buoy in the front and tied to a buoy at the rear. And as the ship prepared to go to sea the first ships out through the boom would be the submarines.

They’d go out. And then the minesweepers would go out. And then perhaps some other ships might go and then the destroyers would go. And then when the destroyers got out and they provided a screen and their asdic were going and so on then the cruisers would come and then the heavy cruisers and then the aircraft carriers and then the battleships you see and this whole menagerie would come out. It was just awe inspiring sort of thing and

I can remember the first time we put to sea for an operation a fleet operation. We were going down through Sumatra and Sabang and those places. We were trying to distract the Japanese from the Americans and we sent down a carrier force and cruisers battleships cruisers and destroyers and so on and as we went out there’s all sorts of little things that bring you back to earth.

As we went past the depot ship on the wing of the bridge of the depot ship are all the chaplains of the various denominations and as you go by they give you absolution see. Now if you have the bad luck to be in the butchers bill from that well then hopefully you know you’ve sort of confessed your sins and go to heaven. It it’s a sort of conditional absolution

you and of course if you don’t get killed you’re supposed to you’re supposed to do the right thing when you come back. But those the sort of things that were quite you know bought you back to earth and it it’s amazing the traditions I s’pose they have about it. I can remember a very humorous incident once when we came back from that operation and there’s some funny incidents happened in that too I perhaps could talk about but. We came back I’ll tell ya this one. We came back and

I had the impression that I’d been given conditional absolution. So I decided that I would go to confession. So I called away the ships boat and I went over to the depot ship and I went to confession. So I got into the confessional and a priest who was an ex AB [Able Seaman]. He apparently had been an able seaman and he then went to the seminary and became a priest. He said to me now he said,

“I want you,” he said, “to confess your sins as the Lord sees you guilty. I don’t want you to confess your sins as you see you’re guilty. He said because the Lord’s got a very soft spot for sailors.” I said, “Is that right Father?” He said, “Yes it is.” He said, “Do you know,” he said. “they’re the only people he’s ever calmed the waters for.” I thought, “Now that’s terrific,” see. So anyway on my way back to the

Norman you see I’m in the ships boat and I’m thinkin’, “What a bloody dill I am. They’d be the only people that’d want him to wouldn’t they?” You know. And anyway that’s the sort of thing that happened. But the on this particular operation that we did go on this time we had to go down and we launched aircraft against Sabang and the destroyers went in to try to block off the harbour and we

thought the Japanese fleet would come up and the carriers and the battleships were there but the Japanese didn’t come. And so we they pounded the shore installations and then the Norman and I think it was a Dutch destroyer called the Tjerk Hiddes, T-J-E-R-K T-J, yeah T-J-I-D-D-S I think. Anyway of the Tjerk Hiddes. That’s interesting because the when they built the N-class destroyers they built 8 of them and they gave 5 to the Australians. I’ll tell ya that story in a minute. And they gave 2 to the Dutch. They were named the Vangarlen and the Tjerk Hiddes and they gave one to the Poles. It was called the Piorun. So of the 8 destroyers they were given to Australia and the Netherlands and Poland. And I think we went with the Tjerk Hiddes and our job was to bombard an island called Car Nicobar

which is in the middle of the Indian Ocean. And anyway we proceeded to Car Nicobar and proceeded to blast away and it’s an interesting exercise actually the British of course have totally different methods to the Americans. The Americans of course spare no expense. Like its just they go somewhere and everybody opens up and they let fly and you know. The British are far more parsimonious. They

they get off the Island and then the ships fire star shell or and then when the star shell explodes over the beach they will have a look and adjust the range you know. And then they will settle it down until they feel they’ve got the right range. Then they’ll say, “Righto barrage barrage barrage,” you see and away they go. And they pump out a round every 10 seconds on the 4.7’s. And we blasted away there

anyway and my action station was at a place called the TS [Transmitting Station]. Now the TS I’ll also give you a picture or a graphic illustration of an N class destroyer later on and you might be able to take a photo of it and the TS is called the transmitting station and it’s not a radio station as you’d imagine. It is where the information from all different sources is collated converted

and then transmitted to the guns you see. So it comes down from the radar. It comes down from the range finders all this information is coming down and there’s a whole team of guys working around what we call the tables. And they would pump in this information into the tables and then that would be converted to a range or whatever it might be depending on whether it was an aircraft or what. And my

action station was down in the TS and. I told you before that I’d finished my basic training and I’d missed all the specific ratings. So that when I went to the Norman I the first thing they made me was a quartermaster. Which made me a coxswain of a different kind. I was steering the ship you see. And then probably I’d say probably because of our elocution lessons

at school we used to have contests among. They’d get a half a dozen sailors and they’d have a contest and they would relay messages from one station to another and then it’d go back to the original place and they’d then see how garbled it was you see. Still some of the final results bore absolutely no resemblance to the initial message. But anyway I when I came through these they said we

want you to be the in the transmitting station we want you to man the speakers to the guns see. So I’d have to run from the wheelhouse which was 4 storeys up every time action stations sounded I’d have to slide down the banisters and sometimes in wet weather you’d miss the step and land on your bottom you know all this sort of thing. But anyway I’d be down in the transmitting station but. And of course

I had direct contact with the guns. Well this day at Car Nicobar we were blasting away and I heard the gun layer and the gun trainer on B gun. Now the gun layer of course they he they lay it up and town the trainer does that and one bloke’s name was Chats Butler and the other was Billy Fitz I think and

they I heard this voice say, “Hey Chat’s look at that bloke going up the hill with a cow.” There was a fellow chasing a cow up the hill from the beach you see. So they said, “Let’s see if we can knock him off” you see. So B gun switches it’s range chased the bloke up the hill you see. But of course the gunnery officer was a fella that didn’t have a sense of humour and he got onto me TS, “TS, what’s wrong with B gun? TS,

TS, bring B gun into line,” you see. And of course here they are chasing this blasted cow and here I am killing myself laughing and trying to speak. In the end I said, “Listen you blokes. You’re getting me bloody well hung here.” The gunnery officer said, “Back for God’s sake get back on the beach,” you see. So those were the sort of things that used to happen you know. But anyway we plastered Car Nicobar that and went back and. That and of course when we got back there you see it was when I made that rather

humorous confession. But it was always a terribly interesting sight to see the fleet go to sea and a very inspiring sight really to see the fleet go to sea. Because I suppose when we came out of the Pacific when VE [Victory in Europe] Day was we could see that you know the Germans had bled to death in Russia and the end was obviously near even before they landed in Normandy the

end was near we could see that. And we were getting ready of course obviously to come out to the Pacific and the British came out fairly early in 1945 I think. I think Peggy then was out of the Land army and she worked for them for a little while and they were getting ready to do it. But we had a multitude of jobs but the fleet when it came

out here it consisted of 264 ships you know. It’s quite a sight to see. But yet when we went to join the Americans their fleet consisted of over a thousand ships so quite extraordinary. So you know it was a very big exercising. Well alternating between strikes of the fleet. They’d go out and do these strikes which was an enormous undertaking and they would only do it. For instance we did one when the Americans were going into the Philippines and they

wanted to try and draw off some of the Japanese capital units that were down at Singapore so that they’d have a better chance with the Japs at the Philippines. Well again we did one of these sorties. But that’s the sort of things that they used the fleet for. It was it was as I said a different kind of war. Alternating between those of course we would do convoys and convoys and we were escorting ships from Suez

down to Calcutta and General or he wasn’t Mountbatten then. I think he took over later but they were building up the Burma army. The British were building up the Burma army and the all the troop ships were coming down from Suez. We used to bring thousands and thousands of troops down in what they call the clan ships. They had a line of ships called clan ships. Clan McDonald you know all sort of Scottish names they were and they were coming down laden with troops. We’d bring

them down from Suez and we’d take them around to Calcutta where they where they would unload there and get ready for the Burma push. And that was a it was a pretty tame exercise. But there was always something you know terribly interesting happening there. I can remember just these are perhaps some of the lighter incidence to tell you that we also did have a little bit of fun. The Norman was a great sporting ship.

We had a very good cricket team. Had a very good football team. Whenever we went into harbour the first thing that went away from the Norman was how bout a game of football? They had a lot of football fanatics on board and we had a very good cricket team. And we pulled into Aden this day and we had to go in and get some fuel and do something else and of course the first signal went off for a game of cricket and we thought we’d get a game with an English ship but then they said no they couldn’t play. They were going to

sea or something. So some of us went ashore. And anyway we were walking along the road and a couple of Maori soldiers New Zealanders were walking up the footpath and a couple of South Africans were walking the other way and the South Africans bumped them off the footpath you see. So anyway we were standing there so we had a go at these blokes and it ended up in a bit of some fisticuffs and in the

end I could see we were gonna get a hiding. I said, “Listen hang on hang on. This is bloody stupid you know this is stupid,” see. And they said, “Well why did you fellas interfere?” I said, “Because you pushed those blokes off the footpath,” see. Have you ever heard of the word Anzac? Yes they’d heard of the word Anzac. “Well” I said, “That’s what it means. Australia and New Zealand. Now,” I said, “you know you were… I reckon you blokes ought to apologise to these fellas.” Well they did see. “ Oh,” they said, “well.” I said, “Well now that we’ve got that

off our chest let’s go and see if we can get a drink.” Well of course Arab countries are dry you see you can’t get a drink and I wasn’t a drinker anyway. So but by strange coincidence one of the things that I had done when I was in the fleet on one of our convoy trips away we’d taken a battle cruiser called the Renown. It’s a sister ship to the Hood. The HMS Hood that was sunk by the Bismarck. That was a big battle cruiser and she was in

need of dry docking and we’d escorted her down to Durban. While I was there I’d gone ashore with a torpedo man who was an electrician. And we’d bought a washing machine see. And then I was this’ll be the proprietors of the washing machine so. And of course in the navy in those days everybody had a different firm you know. If you wanted to be the barber you had to put in a request to the captain and so the captain says, “Okay, you’re the barber.” Now nobody else can cut hair you see. Or you were the ship’s tailor. Nobody

else could put set up an opposition to you. You had the monopoly. And the same thing applied if you wanted to run the fan tan game or anything else you see. Well I put in a request to run the ship’s dhobying firm. That’s what it’s called D-H-O-B-Y-I-N-G. Dhobying. Which was washing you see. I put into run the ship’s dhobi. You had to submit a price list and all the rest of it and it’s a great rigmarole. So I had I bought the washing machine in Durban and I was the ships dhobying man.

And of course one of the sides of being the ships dhobi wallah was that you would up with all the money because there was nowhere for the sailors to spend it. They’d just either spend it in the ship’s canteen or they’d finish up you know paying it to me. The bloke that run the fan tan game had money. I had money. And you know that’s it. So of course when we got ashore in Aden I’m the only bloke that’s got the money you see. So somebody said, “Well surely we can get a beer somewhere?” I said, “Well the only thing you can ever

get around here’s a soft drink that’s the only thing you’re…” Weren’t supposed to ever drink the water. You had to drink soft drinks. So anyway we were walking up the centre of Aden and I saw some kids just playing around there. Some Arab kids and they could speak English and of course Aden’s a British port. And I said, “Hey kids do you know where we can get some beer?” “Oh yeah, mister, we get you some beer. Oh yes, we’ll get you some beer.” And I said

they said, “How much is it?” “Oh,” they said, “I dunno.” So they said you say it was 30 rupees all was billed in rupees. Say it was 30 rupees see for a dozen of beer. So I said, “All right well here y’are. I’ll give you 20 rupees.” That wasn’t any good because they couldn’t buy the beer without the 30 rupees you see. “So all right we’ll give ya 30 rupees. Can you get any ice?” And the kid said, “Oh yeah. We’ll get you

some ice, mister,” see. So I gave em a couple of other rupees. So then I said, “How long will it take?” “It’ll take half an hour,” see. So I said, “Righto.” So we were there and everybody sayin’ to me like, “You’re a dill.” Like, “You’ve done 32 rupees. They… Those… You’ll never see those kids again. They’re gone,” you know. Anyway the kids came back with the beer see. Amazing isn’t it. So I had some soft drink the other fellas had their beer and they had the ice. They smashed up the ice and they had as cool as you get it at a place like

Aden. We had a nice day with the South Africans and the New Zealanders and it all started out in a fight. And of course we trusted the kids and they came good. So that’s a sort of you know the incongruous things that can happen to you in you know a situation that you often get into. But anyway that was just one of the things that would happen on a convoy and we would take the convoys to Calcutta. Well on the way we had to go past Bombay.

And Bombay was a was a big place and one of the things that Colin Clarke said to me just as I was joining the navy he said, “If you ever get a chance to go to India,” he said, “try and see some Indian statisticians. In my opinion they’re among the best statisticians in the world.” So I said I would. So anyway we got into Bombay and we were in dry dock there and we put in for a game of cricket and we got a game of cricket. That’s

another story most amazing situation. And so I got some leave and I went ashore and I went to one of the government departments and I asked them where would one find the government statisticians of India and they told me and they gave me directions. So I went around to this building and I went up to the enquiry counter and told them that I wanted to see they gave me some names I wanted to see these people. And of course India’s a very

class conscious country and for you know an obviously young sailor. I think I might have been 20 by then come in wanting to see some of these people who are in the God class. Was you know… I wasn’t making any progress whatsoever. So I said, “Well look would you please get in touch with this gentleman and tell them that I’m here at the request of Dr Colin Clarke.” So they sent the message. Well the doors opened immediately you see. Such was his name and fame that

in the world of statisticians and economists that the door opened straight away see. I went in to see these guys. Well then they were a little bit sort of puzzled at my youth and so on. So I immediately explained to them I thought I’d put them on side right away. I explained to them that the reason that I was there to see them and talk to them was that I worked with Dr Clarke and when I left to join the navy he told me that if I had an opportunity I must

go and talk to some Indian statisticians whom he regarded as the best in the world you see. Well of course I was a friend for life you see. So I spent some interesting couple of sessions with them. Wonderful people and their great problem that they had was they had a grow a food growing campaign in India and of course the problem is sort of putting it very distinctly do you feed them first or do you educate them first you know. This they were getting ready for independence.

They knew it was coming and they were getting ready for all that. But I remember one of the statisticians there told me that Bombay by the turn of the century would have a population of 15 million you see. I think it was 15. 15 or 13 million. I think it was 15. It might be 13 million now I can’t remember. Anyway Australia’s population at that time was 7 million. So can you imagine the sort of mental transition you know of our total population of 7 million and he’s

talking about the city having a population twice ours and they dealt in enormous numbers of course as we know they are. But they’re like all people who are interested in their work you know. And if they find somebody else whose interested in their work they’ll talk about it uninhibitedly you see. And I fortunately because I’d done those road accident statistics you see I understood our mechanical processes. The punch hole, the punching, the sorting machines the tabulating machines and so on so

I could talk to them about the processing of all the information you see and that sort of thing was on their level. I spent some wonderful times there with them. They were very, very good but I remember that that remark that the population of Bombay would be either13 or 15 million by the you know turn. Strangely enough only a short time ago I saw in a paper where it’s the population of Mumbai as it’s now called was either 13 or 15 million. So that bloke was spot on see but. Anyway another thing about Bombay

two things happened there. We put in a for a game of cricket. Well we got our game of cricket. And we went ashore and we went to a place in the middle of Bombay. It’s a block of land about a mile and a half I s’pose long or it was then and it would be about quarter of a mile wide. And it was pretty much in the centre of Bombay. And

as far as the eye could see. It sort of stretched right up into the distance but there were say across the quarter of a mile width there would be say three cricket fields. Three turf wickets see and then there would be a turf wicket every say 200 yards. And that was the situation on that mile and a half strip. There would have been say, I dunno, might be 50. 50 or more.

Probably a hundred wick. 50 or a hundred wick. I don’t know how many. But you could imagine putting every couple a hundred yards three turf wickets for a mile and a half. Every one of those wickets was occupied every day of the week that we could see, see. That’s how popular cricket was in 1944 and I you could see then that India one day would be a cricketing colossus. Quite remarkable isn’t it. Quite remarkable. And I don’t even I can’t remember

who won the game. But I remember then going to a match where the Hindus played the Parsees in Bombay and another mate a mine in Adelaide my going ashore I’m a good cricketer and we went to see the Hindu’s play the Parsees and of course we saw a miraculous catch in this match. You know so that was our yardstick then you see. Whenever we saw a great catch we’d always say was it as good as the day we saw the one that the Hindu’s played the Parsees in Bombay

in ’44. So we had plenty of lighter moments. But what happened then? Well I s’pose we took the convoys round to Burma. Round to Calcutta and inevitably of course the shoot out had to start. The Japs had to be pushed out of Burma. It’s interesting to note isn’t it the way the British and the Americans operate. You know we get an interminable number of films and victories and all this sort of thing

from the Americans about all their campaigns. Do you know that the British killed in Burma more Japanese than were killed in every other theatre of the war combined? You never hear a word about it. Never hear a word about it. They just never… Yes. They killed more Japanese there than the whole all the other theatres of the war combined. Anyway of course the day the great push came. And we went up from memory

I think to a place called Ramree, a series of islands. Up in the in the coast of Burma there are hundreds and hundreds of islands and rivers coming out you see. We had to bombard these and people had to go ashore and you know try and establish landings and so on. It was a fairly protracted business. Not terribly dangerous because I think the Japs were pretty much on their last legs and ready to go anyway. But we had

to take part in that campaign. We got we got sent away in the middle of it to do an escort job somewhere and then we went back and that was really our last campaign over there. As far as we were concerned the war was over. The war was over virtually in Europe. I think that would have been about April of 1945 the war was virtually over in Europe. I think that that I can’t remember when the Germans

surrendered but you know they’d been on their last legs for a long time and the British had come out here to Australia and they’d they’d started to get ready for the British Pacific Fleet. And I think we left in about April April of 1944–45 and we came back to Sydney and we had a quick refit and then we went up to join the British Pacific Fleet. Which was

operating off I’m pretty sure Okinawa. Anyway those islands up there and that was post disappointing. I think probably some of the more disappointing aspects of the war. Our fleet was 264 ships. It was quite a good fleet. The Americans had a fleet of well over a thousand ships. But when we got there they didn’t want to know us. You see they didn’t want to know us and

the Americans like their fleet I don’t see why they should have this attitude. Their fleets are very efficient. They’re very good sailors. Their aircraft maintenance operation of their carriers was absolutely outstanding. They could land and take off three airplanes aircraft to our two. They were they were the Japanese were the best carrier people. The Americans were the second best and we came a long way

behind. And Japan and America of course had been you know seriously operating with carriers for many many years and the Americans were much more efficient than us. In the anti-aircraft gunnery you see we had in the Mediterranean and in our other convoy work we operated under the principal of what we called the umbrella barrage. Now that meant that the ships on the left hand

side of the convoy protected the or attacked the planes on the right side. The ships on this side attacked the planes on that side. And as a consequence British destroyers were built so that their guns couldn’t elevate above you know only get up about 80 degrees 75 or 80 degrees and they were useless in the Pacific you see. Particularly with kamikaze or the other planes whereas the Americans they their guns could elevate to 95 degrees

you know and all of these thing were and they had no right to be jealous of us. But they are terribly jealous of their reputation. They love to be the winners and they’re terribly jealous and. For instance in the First World War you see even though they came into the war in 1917 because they were arguing about who the generals would be they wouldn’t fight under another general they wanted to fight under American generals. By the time they solved that problem and did

their training it was August of 1918. So in actual fact they didn’t fire a shot in anger in the First World War until 1918 August ’18 which was 2 months before the thing finished. So they had virtually no experience. They were always sort of jealous of that and we’d been in the thing for two and a half years before they came into it. And the British navy of course the sea war the bulk of the sea war was over when they were really got involved in it and consequently they had this sort of jealous streak about the Royal Navy.

Not about the Australian navy. When they sailed with the Australian navy in the Pacific and you know that was great. But of course we although we had HMAS on our cap tally we were no different to the Royal Navy men with HMS they wouldn’t understand the difference. And the first contact we had with them they greeted us by saying, “Go home you limey bastards. We don’t need you.” That was the way they greeted us. You know amazing isn’t it. And then and it

we when we got there the Yanks made it obvious that they didn’t want the British fleet to sail with them. So that the British Pacific Fleet had to operate some miles away over the horizon from the American fleet. And our ship the Norman was a magnificent ship. We had a buffer on board who was a fanatic about cleanliness and neatness. The buffer being the man, the chief petty officer in charge of the day to day workings of the ship, and he was a fanatic about

cleanliness and what we called tiddly. You know painting different colours of all the ropes and things about the place. We had it done up like a prize garden you know. And when we got there of course they had to take dispatches from one fleet to another because of the kamikaze’s rather than radio contact all this sort of thing. So we were the Norman was detailed to take patches despatches across from the King George V where the British Admiral had his flag and we

had to take it across to Admiral Halsey who had his flag off a carrier again I’ll stand corrected but I’m sure it was called the Shangrila. A name we’d never heard of. Anyway we left the British fleet and then we sailed a little bit over economical cruising speed about 20 knots and we sailed for over an hour and I was in the wheel house which is four storeys up and from four storeys up you could probably see you can normally see about

11 mile to the horizon or the curvature of the earth. But if the higher you get of course the further you can see and I could see say probably 13 to 15 mile to the horizon. Well we steamed for an hour and I’m up there in the wheel house and as far as the eye can see in every direction. That’s a radius of 30 mile were ships see. Ships ships ships ships. And that was only the start of it you know. The war hadn’t finished in Europe and they were gonna ship all that stuff out to the Pacific

and they were building up for the invasion of Japan on the first of November. All Saints day the first of November was to be the invasion day on Kyushu. And of course people often argue about the atomic bomb dropping that that’s another story. But anyway this enormous armada of American ships we sailed across and we finally came to the carrier Shangri La. So we go along side. You know we’re probably say a hundred feet away and we

fire a line across and get all the lines rigged up and we’re sending the despatches across and Halsey comes down on the bridge of the carrier and he says “Hello there.” You know, “Do you know Commander so and so on the King George V?” And our captain says, “We don’t know anybody on the King George V. We’re Australians,” see. And as quick as a flash Halsey says, “Well in that case you may come a little closer.”

That’s how much they hated them. Isn’t it amazing? Hey. That’s how much they hated them you see. In that case he said you may come a little closer. So that was disappointing you know. Here we were fighting the same war and you know all we wanted to do was chip in and help. We’d sort of fought our war in Europe come out here and you know they just wanted all the glory. They didn’t want to have anything to do with us. Quite, quite disappointing. Quite disappointing but anyway that’s that

was the start of our war up off Japan. We had a number of big carriers. The Illustrious. The Indomitable. The Indefatigable. They were all 25 30,000 ton carriers. The Americans had some bigger carriers they were bigger than ours and then we had a lot of what they called smaller carriers. The Americans even had converted Liberty ships with decks on them to fly planes off and so on. But the Americans had this enormous fleet. And one incident

that I remember I always put it down to showing the Americans how well we build ships. It was a very, very foggy morning and we were launching aircraft. And I think it was the Indefatigable but I’ll again I’ll stand corrected on that. It was either the Indefatigable or the Indomitable and of course to launch aircraft in those days there was no catapult shoot. The carrier had to turn

into the wind and get up steam and then the planes would take off into the wind you see. And often times they wouldn’t get enough and they’d go you know and just creep up. Sometimes they didn’t make it you see. So just like you have with the radio’s rodeo’s you know how you have pick up men at the rodeo’s. We always had pick up destroyers you see. One forward and one aft you see. If a plane sort of curved and then went into the ditch well we’d slip up and we’d throw them lines or somebody’d go overboard and try and haul them in if there was anybody to haul in and this particular

day there was a very very heavy fog. It was a real pea souper and they were operating by orders and I don’t know what happened but we were the stern pick up destroyer and there was an English destroyer called the Quilliam Q-U-I-L-L-I-A-M I think. The Quilliam it was the forward pick up destroyer. And the Indomitable had was turned on it’s course and the order to execute was given to the destroyers. Well we turned and we were right

and the next thing there was a hell of a bang you know. This terrific bang. Well of course what had happened the Quilliam had come too far down and when it executed it swung around and it was it was probably doing 15 or 20 knots and it just come up and of course it was too late to avoid anything it’s bang straight in the back of the carrier you see. Well the destroyers like that a ship’s like that and it’s about probably

nearly a hundred feet or I s’pose 60 or 70 feet from the bow back to A-gun. Well it just opened the ship up like that and the bow the sharp bow was pointing back to the rear and the bulkheads were opened up there you see. Fortunately it was action stations and they were all watertight doors were closed and the bulkheads were shorn up. But anyway there it was opened up like a can of sardines and of course this is typical of the British isn’t it you see.

The captain of the carrier came down to the stern guard rail of the carrier and he’s looking over there and the captain of the Quilliam said to him, “I say I’m terribly sorry. I appear to have run up your arse.” And the captain of the carrier said I didn’t feel a thing. “Are you all right?” In the middle of the war. The marvellous people the British you know. Just

incomparable. Just incomparable. We anyway the captain of the Norman then sent a signal to the captain of the Quilliam you see and as much to say ‘Do you want a tow?’ ‘Can we come alongside?’ ‘What’ll we do?’ you see. And he sent the signal that said ‘What are your plans?’ So immediately a signal came back, ‘I’m going to buy a farm.’ So there was always this interplay in the middle of the whole thing. Well of course

anyway we aborted the run and the we sent a signal to Halsey to say they’d had this accident you see. And Halsey said sink it. And Admiral… I forget who the admiral… Fraser I think was on the King George V, he said, “Oh that’s not our style. We don’t waste ships.” You know and Halsey said, “We can’t afford to the time or

the ships to take it somewhere even if you can get it there which is doubtful,” you see so anyway Fraser wasn’t prepared to sink it you see. So they spent the rest of the day arguing and then anyway just on dusk that day Halsey agreed, well said, “All right, if you want to try and tow it somewhere you can but I can only allocate one ship as tow and one ship as the escort.”

So the New Zealand crews of the Black Prince were…

Well the New Zealand cruiser of the Black Prince was designated to be the towing vehicle and Norman was elected to be the escort. And this was a pretty difficult job because we had to get out on the wings of the of the tow and go right around really looking with our asdic sounding gear to see if we could pick

up any submarines you see. We weren’t afraid of surface ships cause the Japs wouldn’t have any out there. But anyway the Black Prince would’ve been able to deal with any surface vessels it was just the submarines. And of course one of the difficulties was the N class destroyers being fleet destroyers they didn’t have a very long range. They were made so that they could refuel alongside the cruisers and aircraft carriers and tankers anything that was in the fleet see. For instance we could only

steam 30 hours at 30 knots. That wouldn’t get you from Sydney to Townsville. We could do 2,500 mile I think at economical cruising speed was about 16 knots. So you know we didn’t want to be steaming around and around in circles we’re gonna run out a fuel. Or going alongside a Black Prince which a made it worse. We’d a both been sittin’ there ducks. So that was not an easy task. But to make it worse just as we got about a day into the tow

one of the worst typhoons to hit the Pacific occurred. This terrible typhoon. It lasted 2 days. And at the end of it and my memory plays tricks here. I’ve said to some of the fellas on the Norman we went into Guam. And they said no we didn’t go into Guam. Well I’m sure we went into Guam. But wherever we went into we got through this typhoon we went into this harbour with all the American ships there and there was one big American battleship there and it

had no it’s whole forward peak was missing from B gun. It had gone into one of these huge you know troughs in the ocean in the typhoon and there’d been such a weight of water on the fo’c’sle that when it came up the whole bow broke away. They’re welded ships of course it broke away from that and just disappeared see. And it limped in and there it was see. And here we were tied this

we towed this destroyer with the front flapping like a sardine can through it see. and the Yanks wouldn’t believe us. They refused to believe that we could have towed that ship through that typhoon see. And we said, “Oh well that’s what happens when you rivet ships and you don’t weld ‘em you know.” But that didn’t make any difference they still didn’t believe us. I think they thought we were pulling their leg. But anyway we delivered the Quilliam to dry dock. I think that was probably in Leyte. We took a yes no not yes Leyte. Leyte that’s a group of Islands North of New Guinea isn’t it? We no no Leyte’s in the Philippines. Not Leyte. Manus, Manus Island there just north of New Guinea. I think we delivered it to there’s a floating dock in Manus we delivered her there and then we got a job to escort a submarine. Now this was amazing. You know how your memory plays tricks with you? After we left Manus we were going back to join the fleet we got a signal to go and pick up a

submarine which was damaged and had to travel on the surface. And we had to escort it to Darwin. And we did that. And do you know I don’t remember going to Darwin? Fellas were telling me about the time we went to Darwin. I said we never went to Darwin in the Norman. They said yes we did. And they and they all had to tell me that and then I remembered picking up the submarines but do you know I can’t remember going to Darwin. Isn’t that incredible. We didn’t stay there I didn’t go obviously didn’t go ashore. We just delivered the submarine and away we

went you know. But then we went to from Darwin we were going back to join the fleet and this is a this is a sad story a sad story. And I hope it doesn’t offend you. But we into Leyte Bay. We were really out of ammunition and we were out of tucker and we were out of oil we were just about out of everything. And Lend Lease was on you see so we could go alongside an American ship and victualled oil or whatever. We went into Leyte and we were we’d victualled and oiled and we had to pick up so ammunition. So we went along the ammunition lighters and we’re loading 4.7 shells on you see. An American sailor there said to me, “Say buddy,” he said, “Where do you come from?” You see. I said, “I come from Brisbane, mate. Why?”

“Brisbaine hey?” “My oh my,” he said, “that’s a mighty town that Brisbaine.” You see. and I said, “What? What’s so mighty about it?” He said, “Do you know in Brisbaine,” he said, “the gals beat ya to the ground,” he said. “Beat ya to the ground.” He thought he was giving me some great information. If I’d a got close enough to him I would a dropped a bloody 4.7 on his foot. But you know that I thought that was sad. But anyway we left Leyte and we

went back and joined the fleet then. And we mucked around I s’pose till we heard that they’d dropped the Atomic Bomb and you know we got the news that they’d dropped the Atomic bomb see. Well of course that was the end of it as we knew. We and of course the question arises you see for the people that really don’t know and

the question arises as to the ethics of dropping the Atomic Bomb see. Now two things were happening in Japan at that time. One was that there was a man called General Curtis LeMay and General Curtis LeMay was the commander of the American Pacific Bomber Command. And he’s a man who

has led me to believe there is no such thing as a war criminal there are only winners and losers see. There never any war criminals in the winners. Now Curtis LeMay was sort of an embarrassment to the US Military Command. His theory was that you won the war by killing civilians. So he had a hit list of 60 Japanese cities

and he would send over the super fortresses to drop bombs on these cities and they used to drop what they called mother bombs. Now the bomb that they’d drop was a 500 pound bomb and in that bomb there were 50 napalm incendiaries. So that when the mother bomb exploded of course it blew these incendiaries out over hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of square yards and of course as soon as they hit the ground they just burst into flame and you couldn’t put it out you see. And most of the Japanese cities

were made of wood and they just burnt them to the ground. And in two nights in Tokyo in March of 1945 he sent over the super fortresses and they burnt out 16 square miles of the southern part of the city in two nights. And they dropped a greater weight of bombs on Tokyo in those two nights than the

Luftwaffe had dropped on London during the whole of the war. Hard to imagine isn’t it? But these enormous big planes see and he killed 200,000 Japanese in the two nights. The greatest fire storm in history. And when he was asked the result of the raid he said I cooked. I baked. I roasted and I boiled 197,000 of the little bastards see. That was his

summation of the raids. That just goes to show you doesn’t it? And he was doing that he had this hit list of 60 cities. Now he a few sometime later he did the same thing to the north side of Tokyo and he burnt out another 16 square miles you see. So that the whole country was being ravaged and up he was responsible for killing over 2 million civilians in Japan. Now the Japanese of course were not going to surrender and from the way they

operated in Okinawa where they you know they just wouldn’t surrender they just got killed it was obvious to the Americans that they would resist the invasion you know to the very bitter end. And they had nothing to resist it with. See the kamikaze planes were the reason they had kamikaze planes was simply that it’s easy to teach somebody to take a plane off the ground than it is to teach them to put it back on the

ground. They didn’t bother. They taught them how to take it off. Fill em full of rice wine and sent them out to dive on the ships you see. They just didn’t have the pilots. They couldn’t have mounted a campaign and yet here was this armada of thousand ships getting bigger every day with all the stuff that was gonna come from Europe and they would’ve just devastated Kyushu and. But obviously the price would’ve been high for the Americans. It was estimated that they would lose at least

300,000. So that was the problem that faced President Truman see. Now in his case what was he to say to the American you know wives and mothers and fathers and so on. “Well look your son is dead. But you know he could’ve been here if I had not if I’d have dropped the Atomic bomb but we

decided that that wasn’t cricket so we played it the other way and we’ve lost 300,000 Americans.” So he and he was a (UNCLEAR) of the Japanese. 2 million had already been killed the bombing raids by Curtis LeMay so he decided to use the bomb. Now they killed 200,000 people in the two cities in the two bomb blasts. That was less than they’d killed in Tokyo in two nights by the ordinary you know accepted

methods see. So by dropping the bombs it ended the war and it saved probably 10 million Japanese lives and it probably saved 300,000 American lives. But of course people still rant today and say they shouldn’t have been dropped and of course you know there were a lot of terrible consequences but if you were the President what choice would you make? You’d simply say “Well drop the bomb,” wouldn’t you? So that’s why I say Truman was a great statesman you know. He had courage. Courage of his convictions. He

never regretted it or anything else. He just did it you see. But of course the people who rant about dropping those bombs really don’t know if the war had gone on for another six months there might have been another 2 million or 3 million Japanese civilians killed. And probably 10 million killed in the invasion. You know all for no purpose. They were they were the Japanese economy was devastated. After we got there we were in harbour in Tokyo. We were we our destroyer flotilla took

the surrender of the Yokasuka Naval Base. And that was somewhat a sweet thing for me because the Yokasuka naval base was the place where the midget submarines came from and it was the midget submarines that killed my mate in Sydney harbour. So I you know it was it was nice to be able to get to be part of that surrender of the Yokasuka Naval Base. After we’d been in Tokyo for a while

they decided that they would reopen the British Embassy. Now the British Embassy was opposite the Imperial Palace. The Imperial Palace is a grand place. And it’s quite a big area in the middle of Tokyo and I dunno if you’ve been there but around the palace then there’s a big moat and then from the moat there was a green nature strip probably about a hundred yards wide and then there’s a bitumen road and then there’s the British embassy.

Now when the Americans of course were there and they were putting on a bit of pomp and ceremony and so on and but and it was decided that well they thought that they would put on a great display for the Yanks you see. Show them what they could do. The admiral said, “Not on your life.” “Not on your life,” he said. “The people that will do that are the people that have been with us the longest. They’re the Australians.” see.

He said, “They’re 10,000 mile from home.” He said, “They’ve done every job.” He said, “They’ve never whinged.” He said, “They’ve always been enthusiastic,” and he said, “You know they’ve been with us longer. They’ve travelled farther and they’ve done more things of all the other ships in the fleet. They’ll have the honour,” see. So it was quite interesting wasn’t? So we did. We went ashore and of course an interesting arose there you see. It’s funny isn’t it how the little things that

happen in a war. We all wore khaki see. Of course the naval rig as you know is white and if you have long whites they’re called Number Sixes or if you have the white shorts and socks and so on. And of course when we went out of whites we went into khaki a lot of people threw them away or somebody said they didn’t want them you know and all this sort of thing. So we had a captain called

Arnold Green who was sort of an ogre of a fellow. He was sort of quite universally hated. He succeeded a wonderful captain called Plunket Cole and because of course the contrast was there poor old Arnold was pretty unpopular. But and he was a standover man you know and a and a brutish course man you know course man. He’s quartermaster. I when you’re a quartermaster at sea well you’re on the gangplank you know. “Quartermaster,

my slat and brats will be on board this afternoon. Show them to my cabin,” you know. Imagine a naval officer saying that to a sailor to his wife. Can’t imagine it can you? You know that’s the sort of guy he was. You know he was despicable fellow I thought. Anyway Arnold was a bit of a standover man see so he called up the first lieutenant, Lieutenant Richardson, and Lieutenant Richardson was a very nervous fellow and he had a habit of scratching his backside when he got nervous you know.

I can remember one day we were doing something and poor old Richo was standing down on the torpedo tubes. We had the aft of the torpedo tubes and we’re trying to organise something on what we call the iron deck which was the low deck down the back you know and poor old Richo was on the torpedo tube you see he’s scratching his backside like this and the next minute Arnold calls up from the bridge you know. “Mr Richardson,” he said.

“Will you get your finger out of your arse and get cracking.” You know. Poor old Richo. So he said to Richardson he said, “We got to provide this guard of honour.” Now he said, “Now they’ll all be in whites of course,” you see. And Richardson said to him, “Well sir I think we better we better go and ask Mr Maule whether we can do that.” Or not Able Seaman Maule. Mr Able Seaman Maule we

will go. “What the bloody hell you gonna ask him for? What’s he gotta do with it?” you see? “Well,” he said, “He runs the dhobying firm. He’ll be the only person on board that’s got white,” you know a white outfit see. So anyway I was duly called up and I said, well I didn’t know. I said, “I certainly have a lot of white shorts and shirts there but whether we could outfit you know.” So they said, “Oh well we’ll have some people from the other N class boats we want to.” So anyway I went out and I got

all my shirts and the shorts and tipped them out on the deck and wasn’t a matter of picking the biggest and the best to go in the guard of honour it was whoever could fit into the shorts see. That’s how we got our guard of honour together it’s quite amazing isn’t it? Anyway we went ashore and we did form the guard of honour. And that day there was a when we got ashore they were hanging three Negroes for rape in Japan. They just the Americans just hung ’em summarily you know. Quite different to

my mate. The fella that shot my mate at the Bellevue Hotel when I left the Norman. I don’t I didn’t tell you that did I? We came to Brisbane and we were having a day out and we’re walking past the Bellevue hotel. Neither of us drank so we’d gone to the pictures. We’re coming back and there was a session on at the Bellevue Hotel. You’re familiar with sessions I take it. And there were some Americans on the footpath and they said something to us and we couldn’t understand them and we said, “Oh yes mate,” you know sort of just walked on. This bloke

pulls out a revolver and goes ‘bang’ shoots my mate dead. Dead bloody awful. Anyway the Americans of course they were you know they ran the country they were virtually an occupation army. They were just the same as the Germans in France. They just took charge of it. The our police couldn’t do anything. Our army couldn’t to anything. The bloke got 6 years you know. And of course I s’pose he could plead that he was drunk or something I don’t know. But anyway my mate was dead. But

you know they didn’t do that with the Negroes. They just hung em straight away and three hung on that day in Tokyo the day we landed ashore. So we went and opened the British embassy anyway. And I had a I had the distinction I got the I got caught short. We went down to have a look at the moat you see. Just to have a look at it. It was quite a big moat probably about 50 yards wide. Quite a big patch of water. We went down there and it was

a hundred yards away from the British Embassy and it’s about a hundred yards away from a drawbridge type of guardhouse over the moat up there and I couldn’t see anybody and I got caught short so I decided to urinate in the moat. Well the Japanese guards on the tower bridge they were waving their rifles and shouting and screaming somebody said, “You better get out of there or you’ll get shot.” You’ll get shot you see. So but anyway I had the I had the distinction of peeing in the Emperor’s moat. But we went back and

had a lunch there at the embassy. But the thing about it talking about these earlier raids. It’s amazing thing that and this is why they probably dropped the incendiary bombs on Tokyo. There was as I said the moat a nature strip the road the British Embassy. Now at the back of the British Embassy from here to that roadway was burnt out. And it was burnt out as far as the eye could see. You couldn’t

there was nothing but ash. Level ground and ash. That was Tokyo south of the British embassy for as far as one could see. There was not a mark on the British embassy. Not even a shrapnel chip. It hadn’t been touched. It hadn’t been touched. They walked in and it was probably the way they left it. It was quite incredible. Anyway I had lunch with I got sat next to a diplomatic chap.

And he was a great student of Japanese history and so on. And there was a notice there on the on the wall and I said to him, “Do you know what that means?” He said, “Yes. Yes I do.” I said, “What does it mean?” He said, “Well,” he said, “I’ll tell you the story about that before I tell you what it means.” He said they put up a few million of those for you know

the surrender. He said they were getting ready for the invasion and they put a couple of million of those up all round Tokyo and Japan and he said almost magically in the night before MacArthur the days before MacArthur landed for the surrender they came down see just like that. Well I said, “What does it mean?” He said, “Well it means this.” And it said Japan

has not been beaten in a thousand years see. The present situation is merely a cessation of hostilities see. And it made a reference to the bamboo. I’d and it said be proud of your history and like the bamboo prepare yourself

for you know for the revitalisation of Japan and remember this is a 100 years war see. So and I said, “Now what does that all mean?” I said, “They’d have to be kidding themselves wouldn’t they?” And he said, “Well you’ve got to understand that Japan has never been beaten. In a thousand years of history it’s never suffered a military defeat. And

they don’t think that the war’s ended. It’s a cessation of hostilities as far as they’re concerned. The reference to the bamboo is a sort of a mythical reference in Japanese. The bamboo you can you can knock a bamboo tree over and you can walk on it and trample it in the mud you know but then it’ll rise up again you see and it it’ll revert back to what it was

you see.” That was a reference to the bamboo and of course be proud and you know do it well that was just exhorting them to be proud of their country and do everything they could to help the revival and then reference to the hundred year war was just that of course. Their campaign after the Americans and Perry and those left in the 1800’s and Japan suddenly realised that civilisation had passed it by you know. They then put on this great modernisation

program and this was part of their hundred years war to make Japan the dominant nation. Of course he also said that Japan went to war with 10 aims. And he said, “It’ll be interesting to see how comes out of the war,” you know whose gonna win the war. He said, “You people haven’t won the war.” He said, “You’ve won the battles. But,” he said, “History will determine who wins the war. Not your guns,” he said.

So he said, “I’ll be interested to see what comes out of the war.” Well the 10 Japanese aims were firstly that they were to protect and improve their sources of supply and quite obviously you have to remember that for every ton Japan is the worlds greatest exporter. And for every ton she exports she has to import seven. And all of those imports have to come through

three straits: Malacca, Sunda, and I’ve forgotten the other one now but three straits. And so their first their first requirement was to protect their sources and ensure their sources of supply. The second requirement was to see that all foreigners were kicked out of China. Now of course the reason for that was that they thought they were going to own China you see and they had they had an ongoing war with China. And I’ll mention that in a

minute because that’s interesting to note this. The third one was to see that the French got kicked out of Indo-China. The fourth was to see that the Americans got kicked out of the Philippines. The fifth was to see that the Dutch got kicked out of Indonesia. And the next one was to break the Singapore-Delhi axis. The other one was to break the Canberra-London axis. Another one was to destroy the White Australia policy.

And the last one was to protect it’s backside against Russians see. They’ve achieved every one. Every one of those 10 things have happened and yet Japan was a disastrous loser of the war. We got nothing out of the war. America got nothing out of the war. But the 10 things that Japan desired most were all achieved by the war and yet they lost it. It’s amazing isn’t it? Now how we going for time.

Yeah.

Yeah.

All set?

Yeah. Well they t achieved the 10 points. It took them some… I think when the British went from Hong Kong that was the last of the things that they wanted to achieve. Otherwise they achieved all the things they went to war for. Which is rather strange.

In Europe of course we’d fought for 6 years over there. We’d left 50 million dead. We got rid of one dictator in the west. That was Adolf Hitler but what we had done was installed another in the east. Joseph Stalin and it took 50 years to get rid of him see before that was gone. So I always say that in relation to the war that was fought in Europe that the last date was as bad as the first. We’d

we’d cured one complaint in getting rid of Hitler and we’d installed another complaint by allowing power allowing the Russians to take over Europe as they did. But anyway that was the outcome of the war in Japan. There were many other interesting things that happened there. This diplomat said to me the Americans’d find it hard to control the Japanese. And I said, “Oh cut it out,” you know like

they’ve got them in the palm of their hands. He said, “No,” he said, “you know the Japanese have already had one significant victory,” and I said, “What was that?” He said, “Well he said they’ve kept control of the money supply.” He said, “When the Americans occupied Japan they had occupation currency printed. And they were going to use that. But he said the Japanese put on a display for MacArthur.” He said, “Of course they know MacArthur they know what an egotist he

is. When MacArthur’s plane landed in Japan,” he said, “he got out of the plane and all the Japanese guards and policemen along the way were all facing away from the roadway and the Americans were quite insulted about this.” They thought that it was sort of a gesture of contempt for MacArthur. But MacArthur knew what it was. When they when they had a

setting up where the Emperor was going they weren’t allowed to look on him. They were they turned away you see. So they did the same for MacArthur. They set him up as the Emperor. MacArthur of course knew it you see. And they gave him this triumphant entry into Tokyo. And a couple of days later they had a debate on keeping the money supply and they persuaded MacArthur that it was in the interest of the Americans for the Japanese to keep control of the money supply which they did.

So he said, “You know that’s the sort of things that’ll happen.” The occupation’s only a few days old. This was in early in September. The surrender was on the 15th of August. So it was interesting to see that the Japanese were working at it from day one see. Now, okay, what… I was going to tell you something else then and it slipped my mind. Well from

my discussion with that gentleman I became interested in the Japanese revival of course. The Japanese economic revival. And of course there are great lessons in it for Australia see. And pity we can’t follow suit. But at that time Japan had nothing. They had no wharves. No railway lines. The roads were blocked up. The cities were bombed out. They were destitute. They were starving. They had

absolutely hardly any of the means of life. And yet you know from that they recovered to be the dominant nation they are today which was a tremendous insight into their character. Well that was the that was the opening of the British Embassy. After that we went back on board. We had a mutiny on the Norman. Our good friend Arnold Green had reneged on a promise

and the whole crew went on strike. How but however we overcame that and we had had a substantial change in crew. It’s quite amazing. They had a sort of a list in the navy if at the end of hostilities they didn’t wait for the ships to come back. Married men with families were the first men off. So that even before even a few days after we were in Tokyo the first

married men with families left the ship. They… If there was a ship going back to Australia one of the destroyers or other ships bring POWs [Prisoners of War] something else those men were taken off and took passage so that the men with families you know got out of the navy as quickly as possible. Then the next one was married men of course and then the next one was the single men with long service and so on. And of course we were the youngest and although I’d had 4-odd years service by that time. We

were sort of the last to go. We were the youngest and we had no responsibilities so they we were the people that stayed on and bought the ships back to Australia. Well we left Japan sometime in September and we were just about out of fuel we were out of tucker and we didn’t need ammunition any more and we pulled into Okinawa and we tied up alongside a big American hospital ship

and we took the usual request across to get fuel and vittles. Americans said, “No we can’t give you any.” Our captain said, “Why not?” They said, “Lend Lease is over. The war’s over. You’re on your own,” see. “Can’t give you any.” So there we were we no oil, fuel. No anything. So anyway old Arnold is wasn’t without mental resources and of course all American ships

are dry and British ships are not you see. There’s always plenty of grog on British ships. Rum and not so much rum in Australian ships there’d be but there was always plenty of spirits in the ward room. They’d have gin, whisky, all those things there. So Arnold traded the ward room supply of hard liquor to the captain of the hospital ship or the supply officer whoever he might’ve been we finished up

with enough fuel to get us back to Australia. Enough vittles to bring the ship back to Australia. And the captain got a jeep thrown in. All for the price of some grog. That was that was one of the first post-war disposals. So we came back to Australia and then of course one of the funny parts of the war happed to us. One of the things

I didn’t tell you was that the N class destroyers were loan ships. And that’s a saga in itself. In the Mediterranean in 1940 and ’41 particularly 1940 there was a flotilla of Australian destroyers of which you’ve no doubt heard called the Scrap Iron Flotilla. And the Scrap Iron Flotilla was made up of the Vampire. The Voyager. The Waterhen and the Stewart. And these four destroyers were World War I

destroyers and they went over to the Med in the beginning of the war and Admiral Tovey or Rear Admiral Tovey was in charge of the fleet or that group in the fleet you see. And he was always skiting about the Australian sailors that he had on these destroyers. So anyway I think it was Admiral Somerville he sent a signal to the Lords of the

Admiralty and he said I have in my command he said the sailors on four Australian destroyers he said. They are magnificent men. He said they are the most enthusiastic and undefeated men I’ve ever met and they’re totally wasted in these old destroyers. Surely the Lords of the Admiralty can see their way clear to give five new destroyers for the crews of

these ships. Well the Lords of the Admiralty agreed. It wasn’t such a generous gift as I’ll explain later. But that’s how we came to get the N class destroyers. And of course ultimately they had to go back to England at the end of the war. And that itself too is another story that concerns me. The medical officer on board the ship was a man named Brian Oxman and while he was at University in Sydney he played

he played rugby union for NSW and he was selected in the 1939 I think they were called Waratahs. The Australian team that went to England in ’39 that didn’t play a game. The war broke out and they had to come home. But he was he was an Australian player anyway and he was very interested in football. Very much so but he couldn’t play on board the ship cause he couldn’t run the risk of hurting his hands. But anyway of course I was gonna say a

great favourite of his. I don’t know if that’s the right word but certainly he was… I had a lot to do with him and he was he was very interested in particularly in football. And I was captain of the ships football team and Norman was the best football team in the fleet. Sorry it wasn’t. It was the second best football team in the fleet. It was the best rugby league team in the fleet and it was the second best rugby union. The only ship that could beat the Norman was a New Zealand cruiser called the Ajax.

And of course one would expect the New Zealanders to be better than us at rugby union. We didn’t play it that much. But he’d had the idea of sending when the N class destroyers went back to England to pay off well we were going to take over a naval football team. And we were going to play rugby league and rugby union in various parts of England in exactly the same way as the services cricket team played. You remember the services cricket team with Don Bradman. Lindsay Hassett.

Keith Miller and all those people. Well we were going to do the same in a lesser category of course. But we’re going to try and return some normalcy to England by sending this football team. When we paid off the Norman we would do that and then we would take passage back to Australia on some of the merchant ships. Well of course and from my personal point of view I was to be captain of the side so it was going to be quite a trip for me. But anyway when we were coming down the east coast they told us that

the Lords of the Admiralty and the Australian Naval Board had come to a to a bargain. And the bargain was that instead of shipping a few thousand sailors to England in the ends and then having to pay their passage back that the Royal Navy would give the Australian navy their old Q class destroyers and we had a couple of them in the Australian navy so and they were long range destroyers so they were just suited to the Pacific. They would give us

some of their Q class destroyers and they would take the N’s back and we would swap the crews. So that when we got to Sydney you see the crew of the Norman was to swap with the crew of the Queenborough. That was our opposite number. Well of course like Admiral Halsey you see we thought the British were the most wonderful people and we thought the Royal Navy sailors were the most wonderful people But they were very dirty

and they like I’ve seen a Royal Naval petty officer when we tied up alongside some English destroyers berating his crew. Saying, “Look at those Australians they’re washed. You know clean ironed clothes. You see they’re bright. Their hair’s combed look at them look at them. Have a look at them,” he said. “Now look at you mob you know still getting the sleep out of your eyes. You’re a dirty chatty mob,” you know, going crook. He’s going crook and berating them in front of us you know. Quite extraordinary. But that’s what they were. Their

ships were dirty and they were dirty. I s’pose they didn’t like baths I don’t know but that was the truth of the matter. But they were good sailors. But anyway they as we were coming down the coast of Queensland you see Arnold Green he’d get on the loud speaker ship and speak to the ships company you see. Now he said we’re going to Sydney and we’re going to take over the Queenborough. Now he said, “I don’t want any remarks about the

Poms,” the ‘Kippers’ we called them. We didn’t call them Poms. They’re always called ‘Kippers’ because of their habit of eating these kippers for breakfast. And so we know what the ‘Kippers’ are like you know. We know how chatty they are but I do not any man that’s I catch you know making unkind remarks and all the rest of it will be up on a charge. Well of course we couldn’t have cared less. The war was nearly over we didn’t care if they you know what they gave us you see. But so we

sail in through the Sydney heads. We go over to the oil wharfs I think they’re just across from Farm Cove on the other side of the harbour I’ve just forgotten the name of it now. And then we could see the Queenborough tied up at Farm Cove see. We had a good look at it. Well. Let me know when you want me to stop. And it was in a hell of a mess. It’s sides were black from the slush and

muck were they’d been tipping stuff over the side. There was a pile of gash as we called it rubbish in the iron deck. You know how destroyers British destroyers go like that and along like that well the pile of stuff in the iron deck was up above the level of the fo’c’sle. It hadn’t been you know and it looked an eyesore. Oh God it did look awful. And anyway we cast off from the oil wharf and we came across Sydney harbour

heading for farm cove you see. Well after enduring us all the way down the Queensland NSW coast to say nothing about the Queenborough the next minute there’s a bull like roar you see from the bridge. “Look at it. Look at it. Look at the bastard. Look at it,” he said. “If they think I’m gonna take over that shithouse.” He said, “I’ll see Navy Board first. There’s no way we’ll take over that bloody…” and this went on all the way across the harbour. Here’s Arnold

sailing off on the bridge you see. “Look at it. Look at it,” he said. So

Yes so. You right?

Anyway of course as we neared the Norm… as we neared the Queenborough you see, “Look at it,” he said. “Look at it,” he said. “They think I’m gonna take over that bloody shithouse.” He said. “I’ll see Navy Board first,” he said. “There’s no way I’ll take that over.” So of course we pull alongside the Queenborough and of course all the Englishmen are standing there with like stunned mullets with their mouths open. They’d never heard or seen

anything like this before so he come bounding down off the bridge and he gets onto the iron deck he says to some poor startled young fella, “Get your captain,” he said. “Get your captain,” see. So the captain… So of course they bring the poor old Royal Naval captain up you see and he’s standing there well Arnold in to him you know. And the same the same tirade you see. ”If you think I’m gonna take this bloody ship over.” He said, “I’ll see Navy Board first.” He said, “You know I’m not gonna do this you know.” So of course we’re all killing ourselves laughing. So anyway sure enough

old Arnold said, “Do nothing,” he said you know. “Do nothing,” you see he said. So he went away to see navy board and he came back a couple of days later of course quite chastened. The Navy Board just told him he had to take the ship over and that’s all there was to it. So he cleared lower deck you see. But normally we’d clear lower deck on what is called the iron deck and the waste down by the torpedoes tubes. We cleared lower deck up in the fo’c’sle so it was an enclosed are and the Queenborough’s ships

company couldn’t hear what was going on you see. “So well I’ve been to navy board.” He said, “They’ve told me we’ve got to take it over. So he said I s’pose we have to.” He said you know he said, “It’s a great pity you people are leaving this ship that’s you know the pride of the fleet,” he said, “and so clean we can eat our meals off the decks. And he said we’ve got to take this on.” But he said, “All I can ask you is to do it see.” So which was a big come down for old Arnold

you know. He was quite of course individual fella. So we did. And we so we went onto the Queenborough and the Queenborough crew came onto the Norman and it was an absolute eye opener. The ship was so dirty one could not imagine. There was dirt the ships had cork on the floor. You know cork and some kind of linoleum covering over the top of it you know. And the floors hadn’t

been scrubbed or washed or anything you know there was just ingrained dirt on the floor. Had to scrape it before we could actually wash the floors you know. And it took us weeks to weeks to you know to clean it up. Clean it out. Wash it and then paint it and. Anyway before the Norman left with it’s English crew on it they saw the transformation of their ship. You know with the Australian crew on it getting it clean and restoring it to some

semblance or order and normalcy. So we stayed on the Queenborough for some time and then of course gradually we were all sent to our home depots. I came back to Moreton where again I was a motorboat coxswain for some time before I was finally you know I was demobilised. I was never discharged from the navy. They just simply said, “You’re demobilised and if we need you we’ll give you a call.” And I never got a discharge

certificate. I never got anything. They just I just walked out the door and that was the end of it but. So that was really the end of my naval career. I must say 4 extraordinarily interesting years. 4 extraordinarily interesting years yeah.

Well you remember earlier I told you earlier about that sea captain that is that thing going or…?

Oh

I’m sorry. About the sea captain who you know in Darwin Harbour who had a sort of an attack and he was in our boat and wanted us to tie up during an air raid. One of the most embarrassing moments I s’pose that we met was it was one of the sequels to our captains histrionics when he had to take over the Queenborough. After he’d been to see Navy Board and of course they simply told him that he had to take it over. He came back and we

cleared lower deck as I told you and we had the rather embarrassing spectacle of the Royal Navy captain accepting the handover of the two ships you see. He took over the Norman and we took over the Queenborough. And the Royal Navy captain had of course been on board the Norman he’d seen it was like a new pin you know. Absolutely the decks were painted. We

beautiful Chicago blue it was the paint we got from the Americans and the Carley rafts were done in different colours and all the paint work and everything else was beautiful. The floors and the mess decks and everything was spotless. And he’d been over the Norman of course. And then came the moment of handover. And he had to hand over this great pile of rubbish. He was so embarrassed he broke down and you know

you don’t expect four ring captains to break down. But he was so ashamed of this ship he couldn’t say anything. He just choked up and couldn’t say anything. It was a very sad you know embarrassing moment. So that was just something that I forgot to tell you. I did think of a few other things having lunch and of course now I’ve forgotten them. I might remember them later. But

Anyway that was the end of my naval career I think. I came to I came to… funny incident… I came to Moreton Depot and I always seemed fated to be coxswain of something one way and another. So when I came to Moreton they said, “Oh well you can be motorboat coxswain.” So they gave me a job taking one of the big work boats up and down the river because there was a naval depot down at Litton and we were going

up and down the river and taking work parties hither and yon. And we didn’t tie up at the naval Depot but in those days the Moreton Depot was where the QUT [Queensland University of Technology] is now down at the bottom of Alice Street and beside at the corner of right at the end of Alice street was the morgue. The government morgue and then the naval depot abutted that and went further right down the river to the end

the bend in the river. So during the war of course as I told you I had been involved in athletics and I was walking down Queens Street one day and I ran into a man called Hugh Moriarty. And Hughie was the athletics reporter for the Brisbane Telegraph which was a newspaper that you probably can’t remember. Do you remember the Telegraph? Well the Telegraph was an afternoon paper in Brisbane and they published a whole series of say a

11 o’clock I think 1 o’clock 3 o’clock 5 o’clock edition and he was the athletics writer for the courier mail but he’d also been my high jump coach. And he said oh you know you’re back. You know Queensland Amateur Athletic Association are waiting to have their first state championships. Can you can you jump you see? And I said oh cut it out. I was about 15 stone and you know a I

couldn’t I would a had trouble getting over a 3 foot 6 fence let alone a high jump. And I said no I’m too heavy to jump. And I had been also a pole-vaulter. So he said to me what about pole-vaulting? I said, “Oh, if I can take off some weight, I’ll vault.” So I said, “How do I do that?” He said, “Well he said there is a box,” when they refer to a box in pole-vaulting it’s the little box in the ground that the stick is put into. When you run along with the pole

you put it you know as they put it into the box. That’s call the box. He says there is a box up in Victoria Park up near the General Hospital. He said, “So he said if you wanted to go and have a bit of practice and do a bit of running he said I can arrange for you to get a pole and go down to the box.” “Well I said I’d have to get leave from the navy to go there you see.” So anyway I said to the

chief petty officer who was in charge of all us fellows, I said, “Chief, I’ve been asked to compete in the in the first post-war State Athletics Championships. Could you give me time off to train?” He said, “No I can’t,” you see. He said, “You finished your runs at what time?” I said, “Oh about 5 o’clock.” I said, “Depends on you know what run I do see.” So he said, “Well look

you won’t be wanted after that. So he said if you want to,” he said, “You can go and do your training and whatever else you want to do he said. But I don’t want to know about it he said. You can easily get over the fence at the morgue and get on your way see.” So of course I used to jump the fence of the… I’d there was several jetties. Of course they’ve got a jetty at the morgue to bring the bodies in from the river you see. The police boats would come and tie up there and bring the bodies in from the river. So we used to

deliberately tie up at the morgues jetty you see. Which was right butting the naval jetty and of course I could slip off down the morgue landing and get over the morgue fence. Which was an iron galvanised iron fence high or as nearly as high as that window and away I’d go you see. With my with my Gladstone bag I’d go off. I had to go to Gregory Terrace school and they would give me the pole and then I would have to go down to Victoria Park

and walk about another half a mile right up to the very end of it near the Grammar school and that’s where I used to train. But anyway coming back from training one day of course it was after dark and I was climbing the fence to get into the morgue so that I could get back on board and of course I jumped the fence and. Funny thing we’d been watching them do a post mortem that day in the morgue there. The window was open you could see

in there. They used to do the post mortems on the tables inside and we’d been watching them doing the post mortem and I jumped the fence this day and of course landed on the ground and just as I landed on the ground you see there was a hell of a shout and this dark shadow jumped up in the air. I nearly died a fright and so did the other bloke. Some old drunk had wandered in there an old metho [methylated spirits] drinking his bottle of metho he’d he’d been sitting beside

the fence and. I dunno what’d happen if I’d a dropped on top of him. He’d a probably had a heart attack but I dropped beside him. He went up in the air. I went up in the air before we sorted ourselves out. But those were the sort of situations you used to get yourself into yeah. But anyway that was I participated in the in the athletics and I’d been I’d been a good junior vaulter and

I thought the only the blokes that seemed to be in it were fellas that were in the services and I knew they wouldn’t have had any practice and so and of course we used to use a sand pit a little bit of a sandpit. And it was very dangerous you see to. Once you got over 9 foot 6 you ran a grave risk of you know hurting your ankles and that sort of thing so I’d made up my mind that I wouldn’t go any more than 9 foot 6.

But anyway I spent a few weeks training and I’d taken off about a stone and a half or two stone I s’pose and I was vaulting reasonably well and I was clearing 9 foot 6 with ease and I felt that I could do 10 foot 6 no trouble you know. But anyway when the championships came on I one of I knew the other blokes. One had been a fighter pilot in England and you know a couple of the other fellows had been in athletics in Brisbane and they hadn’t been doing much

training and they were all pretty raw and stiff and they used to start the jump of at 7 foot 6 you see. Well they all did 7 foot 6 but then they began to struggle a bit and struggle a bit. So and I thought well I’ll I’ll set the pattern and I won’t start jumping till it’s 8 foot 6 you see. So anyway 8 foot 6 came and by this time they’re missing a jump and then they’re getting over on their second jump or getting over on their third jump.

To 8 foot 6 and anyway just cleared 8 foot 6 and then it went to 8 foot 9 and some of them had a couple of jumps and I cleared 8 foot 9 and 9 foot. 9 foot 3 and 9 foot 6 but of course by this time they were all having three tries you see. And I it was sometimes 15 or 20 minutes in between my when I’d have a jump. Might be half an hour see. It was a very time consuming sort of thing and anyway I

got to 9 foot 6 and I cleared 9 foot 6 easily and it got to 9 foot 9 and I’d been sitting down for about 20 minutes I s’pose. I got up and I went to vault and I couldn’t clear 9 foot 9 and I should’ve. And I realised later on of course I was I was just stone cold. These fellas were running and having two and three attempts. They were warm and warmer up and loose and so on. And anyway somebody funny strike at 9 foot 9 or 10 foot I think so instead of winning the thing as I thought I would do

you know I got beaten. But you know that’s the story of that. But the most intriguing thing about it was when I jumped the fence at the morgue and nearly scared the nearly scared the drunk to death and myself as well.

Beg pardon?

Oh Queensland Amateur Athletics union. What was called the QAA yeah. They and it’s a pity to because I thought

I wanted to win the last thing because it was the last thing I’d compete as an amateur because I was going to play rugby league and that was regarded as a professional game. Although we got nothing out of it and they banned me from amateur sport you see. So it was a disappointment in two ways I s’pose.

Beg pardon?

Well I went into. I went back to

work at the Government statisticians office of course that was important to me. And I resumed study at the university. I tried football I trialled for football with the Brothers Club and I then went into the Brothers first grade side. Football was a sort of paradoxical sport in my life.

It’s foot a thing I was never interested in and yet it’s taken over my whole life. I had never played football at all until I was 14 and when I went to secondary school and I was only interested solely in cricket. All the other things like swimming and athletics I did but they were just sort of secondary side issues. Cricket was

the number one go and I had some ability. But somehow cricket’s just hijacked my life and I came out in 1940 when I was a 16 year old schoolboy I was seconded into the Brothers A-grade side. I think I’m probably still the youngest player in Brisbane ever to play first grade football at about 16 years and 3 months I think. I often

smile when I see them talking about 17 and 18 year olds and I can remember that I was the first I was a first grade player at the age of 16 years and bout 3 months. But and I played for brothers in ’40 and ’41 until I went into the navy and so I carried on with them when I came out. And it’s funny how how you know you make a decision about life and your life takes a turn

which may be for the better or the worse. We had a lot of Sydney people on board the Norman and when I got back to Sydney after the war obviously they’d been talking about my football and I was approached by the St George club in Sydney and asked me whether I’d try out with them. I said, “No no I didn’t want to play football. I wasn’t that interested in football. I wanted to get back to

Queensland to play cricket.” And they said, “Well if you play football with us you can play cricket with us. Because the St George club you know they got Bill O’Reilly and they got Ray Lindwell..” and you know a whole host of names that they rattled off. They said if you want to play cricket we can arrange for you to play cricket no doubt about it. But I sort of had my mind on coming back to Brisbane. I came back to Brisbane and I played with Brothers in 1946 and

just towards the end of the season and played very well but I had my shoulder smashed and my left shoulder and that ended the season for me. But of course it also I had intended then to play cricket for the university in the next summer. But of course that was gone you see. So my time to start in the cricket world was postponed and then in the

that was in 1946 then in 1947 I played football again and I was asked by people at Redcliffe I was by then a representative player and they approached me to play if I would help them start a football club at Redcliffe. And I said, “Yes I would love to start a football club at Redcliffe.” So and of course

they wanted me to see if I could bring some players from Brisbane to see if they could help them out and all that sort of thing and get the thing going which we did do. And that’s how the Dolphins at Redcliffe Dolphins that you hear today. That’s how it started in 1947. So I used to play football in the Brisbane Rugby League on Saturday for Brothers. Then I would come down here and I would play for Redcliffe on the Sunday in what was called the Sandgate League. I was Redcliffe’s first club captain.

And we got the club going very well in 1947. But of course in the process of playing in Brisbane on Saturday and Redcliffe on Sunday I did my other shoulder in. so I finished up at the end of 1947 with two crook shoulders. So that meant I couldn’t play cricket again in the summer of 1947-48 you see. So I my cricket career sort of got postponed and postponed

so it was quite a sad. Then I did start playing cricket in 1948 with University and about the only distinction I can say I think my cricket career was you know was an average career. By that time it was a bit too late. I s’pose the only distinction I have in my cricket career is that I got in touch with University and they said yes come out and have a trial game.

So I went out and I got picked in the C-grade side. So I played the first game in C-grade and they said well yes all right next week you can play in the B-grade side. So the next week I played in the B-grade side. Well they said next week you can play in the reserve grade side. So I played or next match. A match took two weekends. So the next match I played in the reserve grade side. So then they said well the next match you can play in the A-grade side. So actually

I s’pose I had the distinction of going through the four grades in four successive weeks you know. They had a lot of good players and I had to come back and restart my career and by this time you know my shoulders weren’t right and it took me a good year I s’pose to get my bowling technique back in order. And anyway time was moving

on and by that time I’d finished my accounting studies. I hadn’t finished my Bachelor of Commerce degree but I’d finished my accounting part of it and I thought I’d be time to go out and get some experience. So I decided that I was a bit too old you know to try and pursue a cricket career so I went out football coaching to get some money to hang up my shingle. So and from that day on football has dominated my life. So I started out not the slightest bit

interested in football and just didn’t mean anything to me at all. Matter of fact I can’t I don’t go and watch it now. But it’s been a … And of course having started Redcliffe I’ve been associated with it ever since it started and of course it’s the dominant club rugby league club in Queensland now. As is it’s leagues club. And I’m a life member of both the football club and the leagues club both. So that has been a consuming and a continuing interest you see.

So but had I’d stayed in Sydney and said I’d play with St George well then you see I mightn’t have broken my shoulders up here I might have who knows what would have happened you see. So you make a decision in life and you never know what’s going to what’s going to happen with it. Anyway that’s that I s’pose was a. I continued with my work at the Government Statisticians office and then eventually I think Colin Clarke took a job in Cambridge University

he went and I then took a job in the Commonwealth Bank. And I worked in the bank for several years. I dunno how long but that was that was a stultifying job. I could never muster any enthusiasm you know for the job. It was pretty high bowed in those days of course. They had all sorts of rules and regulations. If you went to work in this shirt you

see you’d they’d have a go at you. you weren’t allowed to do that. You had to wear a white shirt. And they hauled me up on the coals. The manger hauled me up but I was working at Woolloongabba. And he hauled me up he said, “Maule,” he said, “I understand that your wife works.” I said, “Yes she does as a matter of fact.” She was in the theatre then. And she was very good she was a ballet mistress and a (UNCLEAR) in those days and a very good one too. And he said, “You know the bank frowns on that you know.” He said

“Your wife shouldn’t be working.” I said, “Well look I agree sir but I said would you do me a favour?” He said, “What is it?” I said, “If I bring her in will you tell her?” He wasn’t up to that one see. So that was it. It was a high bound place and so I used to get sick of saying you know, “Yes madam. Now how would you like it yes.” They’d want it 20 quid or something you know. Oh just any way.

All right so you’d give them two 10 pound notes or something. “Oh I think could you could you change this one for me you know.” This’d go on all day. I was a great drinker of a thing called Buckley’s Canadiol. Have you ever heard of that? Have you ever heard of that Peter [interviewer]? Well Buckley’s Canadiol was a ammonia drink. It’s it’s a cough mixture and you can get it at a chemist still get it there. When I go to get some if I get a cold I get some and

when I go to the chemist they generally got to brush the dust of the bottle to give me one you know but they still keep it. And I used to get head colds I very easily I still have to wear a beanie when I go to bed at night. And when I went training or anything else if I went out in the night air without a and I’d have a cold the next day see. So I’d always during the football season I’d always have a head cold of some kind and so I’d always have a bottle of Buckley’s.

And I used to take it to work with me you see and we’d try and enliven the day. We knew all the people that’d come into the bank you know when they were on pension day or some other day they they’d come in and my mate and I used to have battles on the on the counter to see who could do the most transactions you see. And he’d say oh look there’s Mrs Smith down there. Yeah she’s an old battle axe. So we’d wait till Mrs Smith got up near me and then I’d get under the counter

and I’d get the old Buckley’s out and have a swig. I’d look around and I’d slip it under the counter again you know. The next thing Mrs Smith’d be up up to tell the head teller that there’s a teller down there drinking on the job see. And of course they they knew he’d come back and say “For God’s sake. Put that bloody Buckley’s Canadiol away.” But we used to do all those things to try and liven it up you know. But it wasn’t my game being in the bank. So anyway sooner or later I

I had an argument with the with the accountant. I came from Woolloongabba over to to King George Square. Incidentally a very interesting thing that we did at Woolloongabba. At that time there were great restrictions on what could what Queensland footballers could do. You weren’t allowed to go to NSW except under certain conditions. You couldn’t go to England. You know

now if I a footballer’s on contract full contract he can go anywhere. Those days you couldn’t. There were all sorts of rules and regulations. And anyway another player called Bill Callanan. Bill was a very famous headmaster down at Palm Beach Currumbin. Bill played for East’s and Bill and I approached the Queensland Rugby League and we said that they should

once a player was off contract he should be a free agent. And if we wanted to go to NSW we could go and if wanted to go to England we could go. But in doing that would they please insert a clause in the contract which said that if a player transferred to NSW that he must be eligible to play football for Queensland. He couldn’t play for NSW you see. So that we could send players to Sydney and they could get the benefit

of the stronger competition but they must come back to Queensland. So our champion a fellow who took it to the QRL [Queensland Rugby League] was a man named Cyril Connell. Now there’s a currently a man called Cyril Connell who’s a talent scout for the Bronco’s. But the Cyril Connell I’m about whom I’m speaking was his father and he was one of my lecturers at the University you see but he was also treasurer of the QRL and. So he took our case to the QRL and

they sent us back a reply. The said no they couldn’t possibly agree to that for three reasons you see. One was that the players that went to Sydney wouldn’t be interested in coming back to Brisbane and playing against their Sydney mates. Two the people of Queensland wouldn’t want them back cause they deserted Queensland and gone to NSW. And three if we wanted proof that that was the correct line of thinking

all we had to do was look at the other nationalities match in England. In England at the end there was a lot of overseas players. There always been a lot of overseas players in England and at the end of the season they had a match called Other Nationalities versus England. And they’d have the Australian players. The South African players you know the French players. New Zealand whoever was playing in England in the club’s they’d pick an Other Nationalities team and it would play England.

And it was a bit of a fizzer because the blokes that were playing for other nationalities were all on a hiding to nothing if they got hurt. Nobody looked after them you see. The English Rugby League wouldn’t pick up the tab. So it was a bit of a fizzer. And they said the Other Nationalities game didn’t work in England and this sort of thing wouldn’t work in Australia. So our first Bill Callanan and I we believe were the first two people to approach the Queensland Rugby League to put on a State of Origin game see.

Now that was in 1947. Now it’s interesting to note that one of the reporters that writes in in the Australian I don’t know there’s two of them there one fellow wrote a book you know what was it? Jim getting you know fellow that. The school boy that went to the nuns in Adelaide. He was a he was a norther. Jim isn’t it Jim something? My brother Jim or something like that. It’s been a serial on the ABC [Australian Broadcasting Corporation].

It was a great success as a book.

I think it was him. Either him or one of the other fellas that wrote for the Australian they were travelling to Canberra in 1980. Now 1980 is what it’s 23 years after 1947 and this reporter said to Ron Macauliffe who was then the secretary of the Rugby League and was also a Senator for Queensland he said why didn’t they put on a State of Origin game see?

And Ron Macauliffe gave him two reasons and they were the same two reason that they gave us in 1947. But anyway he did get a a commitment from Macauliffe that if Queensland and Queensland in those days used to get beaten in virtually every game. If Queensland didn’t win either of the first two games he would then put up this proposition for a trial game

in State of Origin. Well of course Queensland didn’t win the first two games. So Macauliffe put up the idea for the State of Origin. They played it in Queensland in 1980 that was the first game State of Origin. It was such a raging success it’s been going ever since. So I often smile when they call Ron Macauliffe the father of the State of Origin and he was even he was opposed to it. I just can’t think of the names of those two fellows. But anyway

that was something that happened when I was at the Gabba. I came to King George Square and I ran foul of the accountant there. I was always asking for time off to go and train with the representative sides you see. And he wasn’t a footballer. He wasn’t anything he was sort of a I dunno what he was. But anyway he didn’t seem to take to kindly to this. And of course by

another strange coincidence the manager at King George Square was a man named Mick O’Donnell. And as you can imagine Mick O’Donnell would’ve been a great supporter of Brothers see. And he was too and he had an office up on the. Have you been in the King George Square Commonwealth bank there was a big mezzanine floor and his office was up in the mezzanine floor and he could walk out and have a look all round the place you see. And anyway of course this

fellow’d keep me. We worked Saturday mornings of course and we played football on Saturday and in those days the BRL used to play two games at Woolloongabba. They’d play a 12:30 game and a 3 o’clock game and the other game was either played at Nundah Oval or south at Davies Park one a those places. And if you were drawn to play the early game you had to start playing at half past 12 you see. Well of course if we were playing the early game I had to get time off. This bloke’d keep me on the counter and keep

me on the counter and anyway invariably old Mick’d have to stick his head over the balcony and say get that man off the counter you see. He’s due out at the Gabba at such and such a time. And of course this used to nettle this bloke so of course he had it in for me and on this particular day it was a week day and Brisbane were playing England and the game was due to start at 3 o’clock I think. And of course you know we had to be out there early

and the difference between football then and now you know we had to play England at 3 o’clock and I’m still working you know in the bank at and I’m still on the counter at 2 o’clock see. And anyway and I’d promised to get out there and I’d promised to take one of the other footballers cousins who worked in the bank out with me. And I was still on the counter and Mick puts his head over the balcony

and he said, “Get that man off the counter.” “Send me the accountant. Head teller get somebody to count his cash. Get him out of that bank. He supposed to be at the Gabba at 3 o’clock.” So he called off the accountant and he must have torn a strip off the accountant. Well that made it even worse you see so I had a pretty tough time in the bank after that. This bloke wouldn’t and I went to. I had the flu and I went to work and I had a jumper on you see.

It wasn’t a jumper it was a cardigan I think. So this bloke into me see. He said, “You’re not regimentally dressed you know. You’re you’re not allowed to wear that in the bank see.” I said, “Well look I’ve got the flu you know.” So he more or less told me to take it off. “Well I said I’ve got news for you I’m not gonna to take it off you know. I’ve got the flu .” So anyway one of the Queensland selectors worked in the bank a fellow named Jim Bennett who you wouldn’t remember but Peter

might know. He was all time great Toowoomba player. Played for Australia he was then a Queensland selector. So he said to me Tommy I think you’d better get a coaching job somewhere he said. So again I had make a decision as to whether I would stay on or play and one will never know you know whether you’ve made the right decision. I think I made the wrong decision as regards my football and cricket.

But I made a right decision as regards my future I’m sure of that. I said, “Okay.” I said, “I’ll tell ya what.” I said, “You ask the Queensland selectors if they can get me a job coaching. I’ll go coaching if they can get me a job with an accountancy firm so I can get some practical experience,” you see. I didn’t think they’d find a get me a job in a fit, you know. I thought, “Oh,” you know. So he comes back a week later and said, “We got you a job,” he said.

“I got you a job in Maryborough.” So I went to Maryborough and worked for a firm called Casey and Smelt. They were a very large firm of chartered accountants in Maryborough and I coach Maryborough Brothers so. That was in 1951 so I don’t know whether I ended my banking career rather ingloriously or not but at least I got out on my terms though. I… but the manager was quite sympathetic. I think he knew why I was going. That was, you

know, Mick O’Donnell I think he quite knew why I was going. But I to this day I sometimes regret it and because I still had a lot to do in both football and cricket. But other times when I consider the benefits I’ve got out of the subsequent things that I did I think that perhaps you know it might have been fortuitously not a bad decision after all. So I left the bank

and I wasn’t sorry because I didn’t like it. I thought it was a stultifying job. I think you’ve got to be born to be a banker and you know most of the blokes that worked there hated it and you know and I’ve spoke to heaps of blokes since who they all felt like me. But we used to do all sorts of things to to liven up the day. I remember a fellow named Eric Shaw he was in the navy and he was a head teller at the

Gabba and nothing pains us more than these people that come you know you say 50 pound. Yes all right and how would you like it. Oh I think I’ll have it this way. Oh could you do that. You know you’d finish up making six changes when initially they said just give me the 50 pound. And Eric had been out the night before. He was a bachelor and he used to get on the grog and he’d been out the night before and he had a hangover. And we used to collect 2 bobs it’s 20 cent pieces

now that same size and we used to put them in a wooden tray. We’d they’d be wound up in 2 pounds these things. I think it was 2 pounds bound 10. 10 to a pile. Probably a pound I s’pose. A pound in a pile and they used to be put in wooden trays. I’ve still got a couple of wooden trays somewhere about that long. You’d have 50 pound in a tray you see. So this poor

old lady come in one day and Eric we’d all been getting into Eric because he had a hangover so we were needling him all the time see. “How ya going mate? What are you doing? About 50 I mean.” And this poor old lady comes in and she said to Eric “I’d like 50 pound please.” “All right how would you like it?” “Any way at all. Righto madam there you are.” “Now where’s your horse and dray there you go.” These trays weighed a ton. You can imagine

50 cents of of 2 bob bits you know they weighed a ton you know. “So there you are, madam. Now where’s your horse and dray?” Anyway he got it off his chest. And he said I didn’t mean that he said. But that’s how frustrating it was in the bank so I was never made, never cut out to be a banker. But.

I don’t know. I just put it down to luck I s’pose you know. Or as I say my guardian angel or whoever it was it just weren’t it just wasn’t meant to happen and since I’ve been out of the navy.

(INTERRUPTION)

path one day and I was looking left and looking right and I sort of looked that way and looked that way and looked that way again and I stepped of the footpath and I stepped into the side of a cab doing about 50 or 60 mile an hour. And it just took the front of my shirt you know and he must have been coming fairly fast and he must have been a fair way away. It was in front of the Railway Hotel. You know the Railway Hotel at Woolloongabba? Well I had a client just around the corner and

I walked out there and I and I was parked on the other side of the road and I stepped off the footpath. That was as near to death I’ve ever been since I came out of the navy but I’ve had a number of those you know close shaves I s’pose. I mean if you’re not fated to go you’re not fated to go. It’s you see people get killed in bizarre circumstances. One of the footballers I coached in Chinchilla he was driving his car and

he was on the left hand side of the road coming into the general hospital and a council rubbish truck or one a those big rubbish trucks was coming along the wet road and went to change lanes and it started to slide out of control and it came across the road like that and hit him and pushed him sideways. But it not only pushed him sideways which may have been all right but it pushed him sideways and there was a telephone pole there.

So you can imagine you know the distance between telephone poles and yet he pushed him into this there crushed the car and killed him. Now you know how many what would be the chances of doing that? One in a million or something like that. Like lot’s of people win those raffles don’t they? But apparently it’s not my time yet. And

yeah

Yes well not those sort of circumstances. Yes you do yes you do. You have you know the most inconsequential thoughts in perhaps it’s a mental reaction to the danger I don’t know, you know. You do you have all sorts I think have inconsequential thoughts so yeah. I’d never thought about it much but

but I s’pose yes you do.

Oh yes we did. I do have them there it’s in one of those arch lever folders over there. I’ll give you some. Yes we

attended the funeral the army it was a naval Depot in Meruake and an army Depot and he was buried in the Meruake cemetery with full military honours and we provided the guard of honour and then the navy the army provided the firing party. And he we he came in. Peter over there there’s a book there’s a couple of books. One is called the Queensland Sports Museum and the other is called

My Naval Career. I’ve got some photo’s in that although you’re all hooked up to sound to.

Hey?

Oh you can take the sheet. There’s they’re only just a reproduction yeah. Yes that that of course we would attend it naturally yeah because he was a member of the ship’s company. We were all there.

Two weeks at least two weeks. At least two weeks yeah. It’s an awful smell in it. I once played cricket with a bloke who used to work on what we called the dunny cart. In those days they had these sanitary carts going around. You know the old outhouse out the back and they used to take the pans out. And he

was a pretty good cricketer and a nice guy. You know he’d work during the week and of course he’d it’d get splashed on his skin and you know like he couldn’t he couldn’t no matter how he scrubbed himself. He was a very clean guy but no matter how he scrubbed himself you could still smell the, you know the night cart almost or whenever he came around. Its that sort of cloying sort… I dunno what it does. It must permeate your skin in some way.

I at least a fortnight before we got rid of the smell out of our bodies. And similarly I had a an escape from death in Darwin when I dived into a trench. They I there was an air raid on and I dived into a slit trench and just as I dived into this slit trench which was about

from here to the other side of the road I suppose away from an oil tank. And just as I went to dive into the trench a bomb hit the oil tank and of course the oil tank went up and there was a tremendous blast of course and the oil went everywhere and I just went into the trench and the blast must have concussed me because I don’t remember going diving into the trench. The

first thing I remember was this smell you know and it was the oil fuel. The oil had sort of come out in huge dollops on the ground and it was running into this trench and it was fortunately it’s very viscous stuff and. But it had got up to my face and I just sort of got my nostrils and acted like spirits of salts I think and sort of bought me to. I couldn’t have been badly concussed. But I was

concussed and it bought me to you see. And I sort of didn’t’ know where I was for a minute. Then I realised the trench was filling with oil and the oil tank was burning and you know and oil everywhere. So I got up and beat a hasty retreat back to the navy mess. It was just a little bit further over and when I got there I went to walk in the door

and one of the blokes there who obviously had some experience in that he said to me don’t you know don’t come in. Stay there and I’ll you know. And he came over and cloth and he wiped my face and eyes. He said, “Close you eyes,” and he wiped my face. And he sent somebody away for some kerosene and cotton wool and tape and he put cotton wool in my eyes and then he bound my head with tape. Like you see them in the football games with the tape around their head and I always sort

of say it was like a spray painter masking tape you know. And then having done that and blocked my eyes off he just go the kerosene and he just sponged me down. And kerosene obviously dissolves through oil and the you know the fuel oil just disappeared. And but it it didn’t disappear totally it left me brown see. It’d gone through my clothes and into my skin and it it they just sponged

it off and got rid of it and then I they put me in a bath and they soaped me up with what they call soft soap. That’s a very strong alkaline soap they use in the navy for swabbing the decks and there’s got a lot of soda in it and they washed me down with that and then I washed me down with toilet soap to give me a decent smell. But it took me over two weeks to get that oil I was …you know blackish brown for

oh the best part of two weeks I s’pose. You know so these things must have a quality to get into the pigmentation of the skin in some way and stay there. Quite strange but. But that smell of the death yes that did stay with us for a long time.

Tiddly? Yeah. Well yes well the ships

the ship’s outer hull was dark grey and light grey and then the superstructure of the ship was grey see. The iron decks were painted in what we called Chicago blue. We got that from the American ships. The American ships were very clean too. Very very clean and they when we first sort of met them. We didn’t meet them out

the first time we met them was they came to Trincomalee. They sent a carrier and some ships over there to go on one of the sorties against the Japanese. I think it was the Saratoga. I’m not sure about that. And you know their ships were very clean and we were very taken with this beautiful blue paint that they had on the decks you see. So anyway we started painting our decks with this Chicago blue paint. And then you know

the torpedo tube perhaps would be painted grey you see and then there’d be turn wheels little turning wheels and all that sort of thing other things to move and they might be painted some of them would be red. Some of them might have you know a different colour white paint on them or something. The Carley rafts. I don’t you ever seen a Carley raft? Well Carley rafts are just sort of cork rather drums it’s about that round and it goes around like that in

a long oval and it’s covered with some material and it’s got a canvas bottom and but they have all sorts of knotting and you know inside there all sorts of little pieces of cord knotted around and the paddles would have some of this very decorative knotting on them you know. And they’d be painted white but the paddle might

be painted blue you see. Or they might be painted green or so. And you know this had a great variety of colours to highlight all the little things on the ship. It was quite a work of art you know this the buffer as we called him. He’s the chief petty officer in charge of work he was a very he was a much hated man and kept to himself because he was what we called a screw.

A screw is a prison guard and if you don’t know what that is. And he was a screw at the naval prison on Garden Island in Sydney harbour. They had a naval prison there and he was a screw there. And he was very hard man. Had the reputation of being a very, very hard man. He came on board the Norman and he was quite firm but he never tried to exercise a great deal of authority.

I think he realised probably that that his reputation had proceeded him. But he was a stickler for neatness and the sailors didn’t mind that. They’d do any work. You give them the work and they would do it you know. They the ships company would turn too at say 8 o’clock in the morning and you’d work till even at sea you still had to work. And you’d they’d work… they’d do anything it didn’t matter you know what. So that

when I say it was tiddly that’s what it was. And even down to different colours on the paddles and you know different colours on the ropes that were binding the Carley rafts or the wheels where for turning on water say the fire hydrants well they’d be red. The fire hydrant might be there but you know. And things that would flash the brass would’ve been painted over. But everything sort of had a, you know,

everything had a different colour. It was quite striking. I’m no decorative artist but I think put it this way the sailors they didn’t like this fellow and they would do this work because he was the Buffer and he asked them. But when it was done they were tremendously proud of it.

I think it’s our way of life. You see like Australians wouldn’t think of going a couple of days without having a bath would they? I mean it’s our climate I s’pose but we just do that. We’re just that’s the way we are and but the British is a cold country and you know they say they keep their coal in their baths if they have a bath but that might be rash judging them. Although that’s a joke that’s often made you’ve probably heard it.

But it’s in a cold country and you know they obviously just don’t bathe. It’s a and I’ve British seamen have taken passage on the Norman and we’ve had to say to the petty officer in charge of the fo’c’sle which is where we all lived. Listen we’ve got a passenger up there now if you don’t get him to the bathroom we’ll take him see.

Cause they’d go for a week and not change their socks see. And of course you know feet stink you know. You’d smell them on the mess deck you know. And we’d give them all sorts of hints see but they wouldn’t take them no they. It didn’t seem to make any difference. But I dunno they just it that’s just the way they were. Quite disappointing from our point of view but I’d just put it down to

their cold climate and they just got out of the habit that’s all. I can’t account for the dirtiness of their ships. But again you see the British navy was structured quite differently to the Australian navy. Now the Australian navy all the blokes on board the ship with me some of them were University students like some of them had all sorts of different

jobs. There were some rough and tumble and so on but they’d all had an education to about 7th or 8th grade at least. Probably sub-Junior or whatever they might intermediate for NSW. And they had a different attitude to life and a much more confident attitude. The British on the other hand there are two or three different strata’s. You see the educated Englishmen who are the officers and

they were what we used to call the terribly terribly class you see and then the sailors were the Cockney class if you like. But and not only was there a difference in the way they spoke and their approach to life there was a difference in their size see. The officer class were always bigger than the many of the sailors you see. We always

like in looking at it put it down to their diet you see. The sailors came from poorer working class. And you’ve got to remember you see it’s very hard for people of your age group to understand that the war started at the end of the Depression and those people had probably been out of work many of them their parents and others for years. They probably grew up in very difficult circumstances and probably grew up on poor diets. And there was actually a difference in the

physical appearance of the officer class and the what we called the lower deck ratings. So it was the British navy was a totally different world. Whereas as far as we were concerned I mean you know we had even though we were hungry or we might have been out of work but we had a different approach. We were better educated for a start. And we’re better fed see and a different styles lifestyle and with out hot country we’re used to having washes. And you know

we couldn’t think of going two days without having a wash. But they did. So that mightn’t be the answer but you that’s how it always struck me.

On ships? Well pretty good food. Pretty good food. For breakfast well it depends but you’d have bacon. You’d have eggs. You’d have you know porridge.

Bread there was always bread and all those sort of things. The way we fed each other in the mess deck in the ship the fo’c’sle area would be divided into say four messes. And then the next deck down there would be another four messes. And you’d you know we were in what we called I was on the port side so we were in 8 Mess you see and

there might be 20 blokes in 8 Mess. 8 Mess would be about as big as that that pillar there across there to here. That’d be 8 Mess and 20 men would live in that. And there would be the lockers along the ships side and that’s you sat on those. There would be a folding down table that would go

down. You didn’t all eat at the same time because someone was on watch you see. There would be four it depends upon how you operated at sea but in the easiest of circumstances there could be four watches and then it could be three watches and then it could be two watches. If it was action stations well everybody was on watch see. So invariably you never had 20 guys in the mess so there was always somebody away. And you went down to the galley

and you took a big dixie down and then whatever was going you got that. If it was porridge and so on well that’d go in and then you’d have the bread up in the mess. You’d get bread and bring it up in the mess. Butter and all those things and then they might do eggs. So you’d go down and get a bunch of eggs and bring them back something like that. Eggs and bacon or whatever they might cook for. The cooking was very good in the navy. The same thing applied to each meal and the people on watch well they’d come down and

they’d go to the galley and they’d take their tucker up to the mess deck. So that that’s the way we operated and we had very normal food. I’d say that you know we might have stew. We might have some kind of fricassee. We might have as I say we might have bacon and eggs or chops or whatever it might be. Good puddings they always had good puddings. The food in the navy was called Scran S-C-R-A-N and

we sort of you know had to go and get the scran but.

I don’t know, it’s a Royal… Most of the terms in the Australian navy come from the Royal Navy because the Australian navy is just simply a foster child of the Royal Navy you see. The Royal Navy we say that the navy discovered founded and protected Australia. And it was the Royal Navy that did that and of course

they gave us our early ships. They were manned by Royal Naval people then gradually we got Australian Sailors onto the ships and they manned the ships. But of course we didn’t have the requisite number of trained staff. For instance when the N class destroyer flotilla was started there was nobody in the Australian navy that could be spared as what they call at Captain D. That’s the captain in

charge of the flotilla. Plenty of people in charge of their ships but nobody in the Australian navy could act as Captain D. So we had a Captain D from the Royal Navy. A Captain Arnott. He was he was the Captain D of the he was on board the Napier and the Royal Navy and Australian navy were totally interchangeable. When the Australian navy when they did advance the gunnery courses we did them at a place called Whale Island at Portsmouth see.

That’s where we went and then if they wanted to give some of their staff training they sent them to Australia and they had experience out here. So the Australian navy is and it’s a strange phenomenon but if you’d have asked I don’t know if they do it now but they did it in our time because we were totally involved with Royal Navy. These days they’re involved with Americans. But if you asked somebody how long the Australian navy has been going they’d say a thousand years.

They wouldn’t say we’d been going since 1917 or 1913. And it’s a strange thing in India the thing that used to surprise us is that the messes in the Indian army and the Regiments in the Indian army they don’t start when India got independence they go right back to the days of the British you know. The Raj or whatever they called it. And that was sort of the mind set in the Australian navy it was just a sort of a continuation.

It was all traditions and everything else of the Royal Navy so that we to a large extent regarded ourselves as the best in the world. The British were the best. The Dutch were the second best see. And until the Americans came along and of course they in effect they’re the best in the world now. You heard the story didn’t you the American carrier task force that went into the Mediterranean and the Admiral in charge of it sent a message

to the Admiral in charge of the British Mediterranean fleet. He said, “How are things today with the second biggest navy in the world?” And the Admiral in charge of the British fleet said, “Very well thank you. How are things in the second best?” So there’s always been a bit of rivalry there of course. But the British won’t give in but the British have got the runs on the board. Although the Americans have now too. They’ve you know they’ve fought some of the biggest naval battles in

history in the Pacific and of course air power was their overwhelming you know their overwhelming aid that they had to win their battles here. But they have a great navy and they probably are the best in the world now yeah. So how did that all start? I don’t know.

No no to tell you the truth I was. I don’t think I’ve ever been on an American ship. I’ve been I’ve been beside them that sort of thing. But you see I think that probably the Americans are criticised unjustly in that regard and there probably a little bit of

jealousy comes into it. I mean one thing about the Americans they looked after their troops you see they really did. Like it was an absolute eye opener to us to go into a place like Manus. Now Manus was a big American base and the place was dotted with football fields and baseball courts and you know every conceivable form of entertainment and recreation that they could have and huge canteens

and you could buy almost anything in the blessed canteens and their meals were very good and they prepared to pay for them of course. Their money was more valuable than ours. They were prepared to pay for them. But getting back to the ice. They had ice cream machines on their ships and sailors could go I think you can get I’d stand corrected on this but I think they could go and get ice cream any time they wanted it. I don’t know about the Coca Cola but that’s sort of part of their existence. I mean we’d have a cup

of tea wouldn’t we? I mean if I can’t think of if I’ve got nothing to do I’ll go and have a cup of tea I mean. And probably that’s what they do they have Coca Cola I don’t know. But all I can say about them is they look after their men very well and their ships were very well equipped with amenities. For instance on our ships I was proprietor of the dhobying firm see. But on their ships they had laundries see. The sailors

didn’t have to sit down at a bucket and wash their gear or give it to me to put it in my washing machine. My washing machine used to make me money at the rate of .001 of a penny every time it went ‘zunk’ see. I’d worked that out you see. I’d I compounded this theory see and everybody’d come along and say how many ‘zunks’ has it down now today Tommy you know? But

it was quite remarkable but that would be foreign on American warships. They would have a laundry see. They had laundrymen so actually blokes joined the navy as a laundrymen see. So it was a different world so you know I wouldn’t criticise them. but… and I’ve never been on their ships. I know that from talking to them and seeing the things they do. But if they had the amenities good luck to them. That was my attitude.

Well I don’t’ know about different positions. The oh well people were called Guns you know if they the gunner was called guns you know. And sometimes the torpedo men were taffers or. But mostly they had specific names. I think that for instance if you were dark skinned you were called Whitey.

If you were red head of course you were called Blue. If you were if your name was Young you were called Brigham. And if you were you know all the different names I s’pose historical or otherwise. Whites were always called Knocker see. Every time if you name was White you were Knocker White don’t ask me why see. If you were Young you were Brigham Young well of course Brigham Young we know is the great Mormon leader of way back.

So that you automatically became Brigham Young. But all of those things happened I s’pose were sort of groups of names you see. But where some of them originated I don’t know. And of course in the navy Sunday lunch Sunday lunch was pork. Did you know that? We always had the navy always had roast pork on a Sunday see. So that

and of course the standard joke if we had any Jews on board they couldn’t eat Sunday lunch you see. And you couldn’t eat it if you were seasick either. But yes it was a just a tradition we have roast pork on Sunday. Incidentally talking about seasickness. Both my brother who was on the Nepal he was in the navy for 12 years. He finished up a chief petty officer and myself used to get seasick

in a head sea. Now by head sea I mean when you’re going into you know big waves and you’re ships going ‘boonck’ see. ‘Boonck’ see and I used to get sick. But I didn’t always get sick I got sick when we left harbour. If we left harbour and we ran into a head sea well then the mess deck would run a book on me you see see. And a fella named

Jake Fodrana was the bookmaker and he’d run a book you see. And he’d have odd you know 5-to-1 Tommy’ll be down in half an hour. You know or 10, 10-to-1 he’d be down in three quarters of an hour you know. The blokes would bet on it when I when I’d go down but that was only if I came out of calm water into a rough head sea. And

if I did and of course I was again I was Quarter Master and that meant that I was up in the wheel house. Now if the ship rolls 10 degrees there if you’re four storeys up it rolls to there and then when it goes back 10 degrees here you roll to there you see and then you’re rolling like this and you’re going up and down you see. So of course I would get seasick and I’d be up in the wheelhouse and

usually Quarter Master is an able seaman and he generally has two younger Seamen with him which they call Boson’s mates and the idea of the bosun’s mates is they go round and pipe you see. You’re in control the quartermaster. When you’re in harbour the quartermaster’s on the gangway and he’s in control of the ships routine so you pipe hands to work or hands to lunch you see. Or Liberty men to clean you see. Whatever the pipe is it’s all under the control

of the quartermaster and of course at sea it’s no different. You’ve got your routine and you’re up in the wheelhouse and you say to the bosun’s mate you know, “Go and pipe next watch to muster,” see. So he’d take his little sailors pipe and go round the ship peep-peep you know next watch blue watch to muster or red watch to muster. And that was going on the whole time. Well of course if you’re unlucky enough as I was to get seasick and then you had two bosun’s

mates who’d just come to sea and they got seasick too. You’re only supposed to do a short a half an hour trick on the wheel and then you’d get the young fellas to do it and you’d watch them you see and they’d have to learn to steer the ship. We steered under what was called a gyrocompass. Not the you know the ordinary compass with the what we called a binnacle up in a big stand and you’ve got the compass with the magnetic needle that’s always to north. That’s an ordinary magnetic compass. Well a gyrocompass is on a

tape see and it runs across a screen in front of you. I dunno what they do now but they’re and the captain would say you know or the officer on watch would say steer 260 well if if you’re on 220 you see you’d swing the wheel and the tape’d move across and you’d sit the needle on 260 you see. And they’d be under your tutelage while you were there. Well of course if they were flaked out on the deck sick you see you I’d have to do 4 hours straight see

and when I’d go on watch the cooks in the galley I’d if you look at that picture you’d come out of the fo’c’sle and as you come out of that break in the fo’c’sle there that’s where the galley was. But there was an alleyway just inside that. You didn’t have to go out into the weather to go up to the wheelhouse you could come along from the fo’c’sle go in front of the galley and go up several ladders up to the wheelhouse. Well when I was on watch the cooks used to say that I spoilt

less food than the other quartermasters you see. So they always looked after me. And I when I’d go on watch in the very rough seas I’d go down past the galley and they’d give me a bucket. They’d give me a loaf of bread. One of those square loaves that you know have got crusts on the four sides. I forgot is it a tank loaf? I think anyway whatever it is. They’ve got the crusts on the four sides and they’d cut the end off you see

and then they would give me a bottle of water and they’d give me an apple. And that’s how I’d go on watch. With a bucket. A tank loaf of bread with the end cut off. A bottle of water and an apple. I’d go up into the wheelhouse and I’d stick the loaf of bread on the binnacle and I’d have my bucket there and I’d have the bottle of water and that stuck in the compass and then if

things got too bad I’d vomit into the bucket an then I’d rinse my mouth out with water and so I wouldn’t vomit blood. Cause if you don’t eat you vomit blood you see. I’d put my hand in the end of the loaf of bread and pull out a fist full of dough and I’d just chew the dough you see. Just keep chewing the dough and gradually swallow it to get something in my stomach. I’d bring it up the next few minutes but then I’d rinse my mouth out with the water then have a bite of apple. And in the very rough weather

that’s how I’d do 4 hours on the job you know. And you do it and you do it without you know thinking about it. So it’s interesting isn’t it what you never wouldn’t think there was that was an imposition. You’d just go to the cookhouse or the galley as we called it and they’d be waiting, “Righto Tommy there’s your bucket. Here’s your bread.” And if we didn’t have apples of course I couldn’t have one. If we’d been at sea for a while without apples. But apples were the things that kept a long time and we could get them

and keep them. So in rough weather that’s how I went to work.

No no we were poor letter writers. Poor letter writers. We grew up in the Depression and they were everywhere. You couldn’t get work you see. My brothers couldn’t get work. They left school at the end of the Depression and one fellow finally got a job as a

motor mechanic but he had a chip on his shoulder all his life. They it’s a terrible time to grow up. The fellow that was in the navy he got a job in the forestry up near Gympie there. Pretty hard work. And the other fella I think he went and worked on a farm somewhere but they just went away to get work left home and we never corresponded and that was sort of our way of life. We never, we never ever corresponded to each other. No

no. Sad isn’t it because when I talk to my wife you know they were a close family a big family and a close family and you know they kept in touch with each other and that sort of thing. But whether it was 5 boys. Whether the boys are different to the girls I don’t know but no we didn’t correspond. But I that didn’t break the bonds of brotherhood I suppose. And as I say I

was always the recipient of many kindnesses from sailors in the navy on account of my brother. I’ll tell you this incident and it was another occasion where I can say thank God for a kind big brother. We had a crim on board the Norman. Nice fellow but a Woolloomooloo crim you know he was he was a standover man and

I think he finished up on a murder charge. I’d stand corrected on that. But he was a rough diamond and he was a one of the Sydney underworld. But anyway he was he and he ran one of the games. The Crown and Anchor or the Fan Tan. I don’t know which but I think it was the Crown and Anchor he ran and we came into Sydney we came back just before we went up to Japan to join the British Pacific Fleet.

We came into Sydney and we had to have a few things done and he was under arrest I think and he put in a request to go ashore and get some gear. When he was ashore in Sydney he lived at a hotel at Circular Quay. I just can’t think of the name of it now. Something Arms I think. There was the Port of

War hotel down at Circular Quay and there was a couple of hotels but this one wasn’t at the end. You know how you come into Circular Quay you come in the Quay and the wharfs the ferries come in and dock that way. But then over here is the overseas shipping terminal and there was a pub over there just can’t think of its name now. That’s where he lived you know when he was ashore. Or he had a room there all the time while he was away in the navy they kept his had his room there and he put in a request to go

ashore and get some gear he said he had to do something so anyway of course he got permission and they said well you can only go ashore if you’re prepared to go ashore with an escort with side arms. And he said, “Whose the escort?” And they said, “Well, Able Seaman Maule,” see. Once again my you know boxing

career and all those sort of things put me in those positions. So he said, “Yeah that’s all right if Tommy’s my escort I’m happy to go ashore,” you know. So but he’d been on the Nepal with my brother Tim see. And he knew Tim well and he had the same opinion of Tim as this other escapologist that we’d taken you see. So he said to me and by this time I had started to have a drink you see. and of course

but I was a very sparse drinker and a very new drinker and it wouldn’t take much to sort of upset me I s’pose. So we went ashore. “Now listen,” he said, “Tommy I don’t want to get anything from the pub at all. I just want to have a run ashore.” He said, “Do you want to have a day out?” I said, “Yeah why Jack?” He said, “Well” he said, “Look” he said, “Let’s go up to my room and you put your side arms.” When you when ashore as an escort you had gaiters on white gaiters and you had a white

arm band and you had a belt with a bayonet in it you see. They were your side arms. He said, “We’ll go up to my room over at the Fortunes of War,” or whatever this pub was. “We’ll leave your gear there and we’d go and have a run ashore,” you see. And he said, “Then we’ll go back,” see. I said, “All right. You’re fair dinkum?” He said, “Yes I’m fair dinkum. I’m fair dinkum.” He said, “Look, I was a mate of your brothers. I wouldn’t…” you know. He said,

“I just want a run ashore. I don’t want to do anything. I just I’m sick of being cooped up there, see.”

So he said, “No” you know he said, “I want a run ashore.” So I said, “Righto.” So anyway we went and we had a few drinks and just walked about the place. Went to one pub had a couple of beers and went to another pub and that sort of thing and I could feel that I was getting a bit tipsy. And I said to him “I dunno whether I should drink any more.” I said, “You know after all I’m supposed to be your escort you know. It’d be silly.” “Don’t worry about it,” he said. “ Look,” he said, “Don’t worry about it,” he said.

He said, “There’s no way in the world I’ll do the wrong thing by you or Tim you know. You’re all right.” So I must have got pretty drunk I would say. Anyway we went back to the Fortunes of War. I don’t remember going back to the Fortunes of War or whatever it was to pick up my side arms and bayonet and gaiters and everything else and then he went back he took me back to Woolloomooloo, which was of course the entrance to Garden Island.

It was an island then it’s not an island now. They filled in between the two but and we went we got onto Garden Island and he sort of left me and went around and it was quite late at night and everybody was on board was asleep except the quartermaster was on the gangway you know. So he went up to the gangway and he said, “I want to bring Tommy on board.” “You know he’s in no condition to come on board he’s…” So

he said, “You haven’t seen me.” That was that was like sort of you know that was an argument or an offer you can’t refuse you know. The old saying with the Mafia you. He made the bloke an offer he couldn’t refuse because he was a fellow that you know you wouldn’t know what he’d do. He was just that sort a bloke. But I haven’t seen you Jack. So he went down he got me from the wharf took me up and put me in

my hammock and I woke up the next morning you know. But that’s another case of the reputation of my brother you see but. Yeah so but I think subsequently I think I’m sure that somebody told me that he finished up murdering a guy and went to jail for life something.

The?

Well I can’t describe it cause I was never in it. It was on Garden Island just a whole series of cells. On the Garden Island naval it was a dry dock there and you know wharves and repair facilities and all that sort of thing and there was a big building there and in that building were the naval cells. It was a naval prison and I don’t know. I think I couldn’t even tell you I went on there.

I think that one of the prime occupations was picking oakum but. Do you know what that means? Well it’s pulling rope to pieces and making it teasing it out and of course it cuts your fingers to pieces after a while you see. But that’s what they used to do pick oakum and I s’pose do other things as well. But no I don’t know anything about it. All I know it was there and had a fearsome reputation.

And one of the blokes that had one of the worst reputation. This fellow subsequently became buffer. I saw a naval prison. Not a naval prison. I saw an army prison in Meruake. Now in Meruake the township of Meruake was a huge wide open street about 2 or 300 yards wide and sort of a few houses along each side. But the naval the naval depot was I

s’pose a few hundred yards from the river and at the back of the naval depot was an army detention barracks and that was a fiendish place. You could see the punishments from the naval depot. You go out you know when we were reading the tide pole you see it would be up or down from the naval depot we had nothing to do. We’d go down and read the tide pole and come and then you could watch these blokes being punished next door. It was

fearsome and like they talk about the Gestapo and you know but they’d have nothing on these fellows. And it was so bad the treatment of the people was so bad and so brutal that I cannot to this day I cannot to this day look at a military policeman without a feeling of revulsion. I could either understand easily understand how the migrants coming from

those countries could you know feel horror or the police or things they come out here. Even today when I look at them. I know that it’s the wrong attitude but you know I not that I would do anything. But I sort of I can’t describe the right word. They don’t repel me or repulse me that’s not it. But I sort of see them and I sort of shrink back from them. And they might be the nicest guys in the world you wouldn’t know.

But it stems from watching those military police operate in the army detention barracks at Meruake. But whether that went on in the naval prisons I don’t know.

Beg pardon?

Oh no no. No no. The people in the prison were Australian soldiers. In the army prison they were Australian

soldiers. Just as the only people in the naval prison would be Australian sailors. Oh yeah. They weren’t enemy they were their own troops. Yeah oh yes that’s why it made it you know so bad. They just treated them as subhuman beings and people you know they just treated them like dogs and we couldn’t believe it. And I fell foul of the commanding officer of the Port Moresby not Port Moresby.

The Meruake Naval Depot. He’d been in the tropics too long and he was a bit troppo and he sort of would fly off the handle at anything and he’d sort of needled us because we were going down to read the tide pole and we’d come back to the depot and he’d want us to do some work and we’d say, “Well we can do the work, sir, but we’ll have to go back and read the tide pole you see,” and he sort of was getting a bit needled about this. We were having tucker at the naval Depot and you know I s’pose he thought, “It’s good enough for

them to eat and sleep here, it’s good enough for them to do some work.” But of course we used to say we always had to go and read the tide pole see. But anyway he kept having a go at me and one day I was walking away from the dormitory area out of the depot. And he said, “Hey you,” see. I knew he was talking to me. He wouldn’t have been talking to anybody else. And I wasn’t gonna cop that so I kept on walking. “Hey you,” he said, “I want you come back here,” you see.

So I kept on walking. So anyway, “Stop that man! Stop that man!” see. So the bloke said, “Hey, he wants you. You better go back.” So I went back. So he had me up on a charge and he said I’ll… he sent a message down to Captain Roberts to come up from the Vigilant you see and hear this charge. So anyway he went on with all this nonsense and our captain

listened to him for a while and he gave me a dressing down in front of him. He said, “I’ll handle this,” you see. So we’re walking back to the depot he said, “Look forget it.” He said he’s just been up in the tropics too long that fellow. He’s you know he should be on leave. He should be out of here,” he said. He said the bloke handed him all the paperwork. He said, “Look, tear it up.” He said, “Forget it.” He said, “Listen, I know it’s not your fault.” And I he so

that’s you know just one of the incidents but he was a guy who’d been up in the tropics too long. I he said to me during when he was having a go at me he said you know if I had my way he said I’d put you in that prison next door. But he said I couldn’t bring myself

to put any human being in that position. He said so count yourself lucky see. That was that was how irate he was and. But anyway my captain said forget it and just tore it up and threw it away. He said he’s been up in the tropics too long. But that was his opinion of the of the military prison at Meruake.

Oh yeah all the time. I dunno about oh well they used to do strange things you know. And mumble to themselves and you know you’d find them I s’pose just the same as you get psychiatric cases here. It’s not different. It’s a psychiatric case and I had a had a psychiatrist client once. We used to joke with each other. Whenever we’d when I’d meet her I’d say you know,

“Good morning Janice. How am I today you see?” This sort of thing but you know they’d have the same sort of cases. People that continually wash their hands or can’t stop washing their hands or people that are mumbling or people that are you know got all sorts of. They’d have all the same up there. They’d have you know they wouldn’t want to go somewhere. They wouldn’t want to go on watch or they wouldn’t want to go on watch

in the dark or you know and some of them wouldn’t want to have a bath. I s’pose you’d but it evidenced itself in all sorts of guises and phases I s’pose. I just assumed it was a psychiatric problem and you know they would. And of course they would be mentally short tempered. Like you couldn’t discuss anything with them objectively. If they decided they wanted to do something you couldn’t

discuss it objectively and say well look this is what I think. What about we do this? You know they just they just couldn’t you know the whole conditions here. The strain they were just I s’pose having a nervous breakdown of some kind. That that’s what I called going troppo anyway.

None. For me none. For me none no. It

like you might think it was boring just sailing through water day after day, day after day. But the sea changes. You know you’d wake up in the morning and it’s like a sheet of glass and then it would change you know. And then you’re going on watch and you’re coming off. You got your mates there and of course when I came off watch I had to go and do the dhobying so and I didn’t you know I didn’t I didn’t have time to be bored.

And of an afternoon I always used to train down at the after torpedo tubes. I’d go down there with a skipping rope and two or three mates of mine always interested in boxing we’d go down and skip and box and things down in the after torpedo space. You know we’d go on watch we’d come into harbour we’d depending on where we were and the type of place it was if we. They might have a game of water polo or you’d post sentries for the sharks

you know up on the bridge and the fo’c’sle you know all those sort of places they could actually go over the side and play water polo and. You know I don’t think I was ever bored in the navy. I other blokes might have been but I wasn’t. There was just so much to do. So much and it was. And for young people you’re learning all the time about life and you know and seeing new things happen. Like we came out here you

see for us to go up and see the Americans or to go into Manus you see and see the way they went to war you know. Every comfort every mod-con and every comfort. That’s the way they went to war see. It was an eye opener. It was a whole totally new world you see of you go to India. Look that story I was telling you about the cricket. You know you go to South Africa

see the big Zulu’s. You know these magnificent fellows big six feet odd pulling rickshaws you know and had all their the flowers feathers and things on their legs and their head bands and all terribly proud big blokes you know. And they would say even then you know one day we’ll run the country. White people (sound effect) you know. But so

that what’s happening in. I often think that although the white people are getting out of South Africa but I always think they’ve been lucky enough to delay the you know the what the storm as long as they have. But wherever you went there was something happening. Something to see. I can’t ever remember being bored see in the navy.

Well I s’pose during the day if you were off watch you know you could sit up in the Mess Deck and read. Some of them played patience. We had a game of patience where you paid 5 bob for a pack of cards. And then you would put the patience up and you could go through the pack three times and then you got paid. You got paid then so much for each card on the

top you see. But if you made a mistake then you forfeited the pack you see. And I remember I had I had all the money or when I say I myself and the proprietors of the other games and that sort of thing we generally finished up with all the money. In the navy the money lender always lends money at a pound to twenty-five. So that if you borrow

a pound of me and you pay it back tomorrow you pay back 25 shillings you see. Or if you get a dollar you pay back you know twelve fifty or whatever the equivalent is. So I was the ship’s moneylender. The money the blokes that ran the gambling games were never the ships money lenders. The fellow that run the dhobi room was the ship’s moneylender and I was the ship’s moneylender but I lent money a pound for a pound.

I never charged anybody a cent of interest and I can remember when I came back from Tokyo I came back on board after going ashore in Tokyo and I bought back a whole lot of artefacts and I put them in my locker and they were stolen. And Dryden and you know that’s the bloke I was telling you about the fellow that I took ashore, the crim bloke and few of the others

we knew, that we thought we knew who it was you see. So they made a statement in the mess deck, you know, “If the bloke that took the stuff from Tommy Maule’s locker doesn’t put it back, well then we’ll take it back, see.” Magically it came back, you see; it came back. So from that point of view you know I suppose I enjoyed the trust and

you know the patronage of all the people. But the ward room the officers even owed me money. They that’s you might think that’s a bad state of affairs. But they all owed me money and it didn’t effect the discipline in anyway because it was just the way the ship was run. The most of the officers weren’t very well paid. The sub-lieutenants the lieutenants and those they weren’t real well paid

and they had to pay the wine bills and all the other thing associated with the mess you see. The officers’ mess were all wet and while we got issued with a bottle of beer we got it for nothing. But they didn’t they had to pay for it. And they had to pay their wine bill and all these other things and many times they couldn’t afford it see. And so if they paid their wine bill they couldn’t pay for their laundry. Quite amazing. And they’d run up big bills big bills with me and you know

they’d pay up eventually. I don’t know I don’t think any of them ever left owed me money but they used to owe me quite substantial sums of money you know. But that’s the way the ship operated.

Yeah. Well what she’d say was factual you know. She’d say you know hello Vigilant you know. They’d say hello Vigilant. And how are you tonight you know.

We’ll be seeing you tomorrow. We saw you today out sounding you know. And we didn’t come over today but we’ll be there tomorrow. We won’t forget you know. Something like that. Something just to let you know they knew you were there. That’s the sort of. Every night it would be the same old dialogue you know. And we took no notice of her but I as far was I was concerned

they didn’t have much chance of hitting it. They only planes that the only way they could’ve got us was to send over a probably some Zero or fighters or some Betty Bombers from up at Ambon or one a those places to come down. It was a bit far. The float planes were down there all the time but they wouldn’t come down low. We had fairly good armament on the Vigilant and they wouldn’t come down low.

If they came down low they were pretty slow planes and they would come down low for Merchant men. They could come down low and drop a bomb on the Merchant. They’re only carrying a couple of bombs they could drop one on the. They’d have to come down low to hit them which they did fairly effectively. They the area from Cape Horn across to the other side of Arnhem Land that’s where the float planes operated you see. It was a sort of the ships were sailing up there fairly independently. They were generally single ships going

across there because it was an area where there weren’t a lot of submarines because there were warships passing all the time there. And quite a lot of ships were attacked not sunk by float planes but attacked and bombed and damaged in that area but they wouldn’t come down against a warship that had any decent sort of armament they were just too slow and you know we would’ve picked them off quite easily. I think that was probably the only danger that we faced. So we knew that sort of

old Tokyo Rose was just trying to frighten us. But anyway that and we used to tune in because it was very entertaining but that’s all it was. “Hello Vigilant,” or, “Goodnight Vigilant,” you know. And “How are you all tonight?” you know. “Things won’t be so good for you tomorrow you know. We’re coming over tomorrow,” and like this you know and same old thing just to just to more or less I s’pose try and upset you but if you could if you understood the reality of the situation then we weren’t

in very much danger.

I don’t know. Certainly not on the Vigilant. There were on the Norman yes there were. Yes there were on the Norman. On the Norman we had a we had a lot of things going. For instance it had it’s own radio station. And they’d

we had the own ship’s DJ [disc jockey] or whatever you… I think that’s what they call them now, the DJ. He’d play music you know it’d come over the over the ships wireless loud hailer system and he’d put talk over that and we would have musical contents. I remember playing Brahms Lullaby as my entrant into a mouth on the mouth organ in a musical competition we had. And we had a fellow there a

something Johnson. What was his name? From Tasmania he had a guitar and he played he used to make songs you know. Make up lyrics and songs. And we’d have these sort of concerts on the fo’c’sle and yes there was I’d say there was a fair bit of talent on board the Norman and I suppose that would apply to most ships. You can’t get a group of human beings together you get a group of anything you know 8 or 10

plus human beings together you’re going to find you know it’s amazing isn’t it the talent that you get in a group of human beings and the navy would be no different. And the sailors were pretty outgoing so yes there would’ve been on board.

The Vigilant. Well I’ve got a photo of the crew of the Vigilant. I think we had 17 on the Vigilant we had 270 on the Norman.

But you’ve got to remember that on warships you see you’ve got to cater for at least 3 watches if not four. But certainly three. So that if it requires say 70 men to operate a watch then you’ve got to have 3 times 70. You’ve got to have 210 men just for that for the 3 watches.

So that’s why the ship’s company’s seem so large in proportion to the size of the ship you see. And the Norman well I think there was 300-odd feet long that’s about a sailor for every foot.

Dutch New Guinea yeah

Several months. Several months.

The usual talk after air raids. Sadness. Acts of heroism. For instance one Spitfire pilot he was an Englishman. His plane was shot down and he was heading for the hospital and he was half out of his cockpit and he got back in again and he steered the plane away from the hospital. Killed himself.

You know they’d be talking about that. They’d be talking about the guys we picked up out of the water. They might be cut or bruised or hysterical or burnt you know. And we’d pick them up put them in there. We wouldn’t know anything about first aid we’d sort of. Sometimes there were blokes who got out of the water laughing. But you know and the next day they’d be talking about and

of course the main topic was how bloody useless were the Spitfires. That was the main topic obviously. But then it was the heroism of blokes like this fellow that that deliberately crashed his plane so that it wouldn’t hit the hospital. Other things like that that would be the talk. But you know we’d be going on I’d say the damage. On that particular raid they got the oil tanks.

They bombed the wharves they didn’t bomb any of the town but the number of bombs that come over it was quite a huge force of bombs. They didn’t do a lot of damage but. That’d be the whole you know the whole gamut of I s’pose discussions would go on. On the planes Zeros and you know what we’ve got to do about the Spitfires. What are they gotta do with the Kittyhawks?

You know how we gotta fix up the oil tanks and you know that that would be the discussion we’d. I’d say there’d be no sort of one single theme that would go on.

Yes they did. I can’t remember now what they did but they did something to them. They might’ve put belly tanks on them. They did something to them

and of course they improved the radar too but. And then gradually of course you see the raids then decreased in intensity and. But I read an article here they were booming up the Spitfires but by the time I left Darwin anyway they had not been a success. What they did after I left I don’t know but I’d they certainly couldn’t for instance fly over to Timor and come back see. They couldn’t

do that. They were short range aircraft that were used to operating as I said in Britain. Take off. Climb up there. Hang around. Come down. Dive through the German planes. Perhaps shoot one down and back to their aerodrome. But they got involved in some dog fights in England but that was the modus operandi. They couldn’t do that in Darwin. Just wasn’t on. But I don’t really know the fate of the Spitfires. I heard that they were kept in

in service. But and I just don’t know whether they some of the Australians reverted to the Kittyhawks I don’t know. I left Darwin and you know that was the end of it for me.

Well I can show it to you if.

It’s yes well it was a typical Queenslander and again you probably wouldn’t know what that means your age. The house that were built in those days a working class house was a long house with a small front veranda. A set of steps in the front. Small front veranda. The house would be a bit wider than these two rooms and there would be

two rooms on that side and two rooms on that side and probably a kitchen at the back and backs steps and that was the house. Didn’t have a bathroom. We bathed in tubs. The good the rich people had bathrooms but we bathed in tubs big washing tubs you know and they were all built that way. You can see hundreds of them around Redcliffe still today and you can in Brisbane too. And if you see a house with you know

just sort of two rooms wide and the front veranda and sort of a peak roof that would be the old type of house that was built in the early ’30s see. If you see our house now it’s in McCullough Avenue down here at Margate it has a has a side room on it. When we got the family got bigger we put another rooms right along the side. The whole side of the house and I think it was probably about

40 or 50 foot long. I think it must a cost us 300 quid or something I think you know. Imagine what it cost today. But they were very, very simple constructions. No mod-cons.

I was at I was at school yeah.

Well we had a German brother Brother Paul and he used to teach us German. I learnt German at school

and he was a lovely fellow jolly sort of a bloke. And one day somebody came down and said you know Germany’s of course it was in the news about Poland you see. We were expecting this and we would discuss it with Brother Paul you see. Brother we’d say to Brother Paul you know now how do they cop this bloke Hitler? Like he’d say he’s making the trains run on time. And he’s

building the autobahns and everybody’s got a job in Germany. Nobody’s got a job in America and nobody’s got a job in England. They’re all on the dole out here but everybody in Germany’s working. Which was true you see. One of the reasons Germany lost the war. The trouble was that when the war broke out they had no reserve of labour because you know everybody had a job building the autobahns and doing all that preparing getting ready preparing for the war. Whereas America and Britain had huge reserves of unemployed to go into the armed

services and still go into the factories. And you know he would tell us all these stories about Germany. When Hitler marched into Austria we said well you know, “Hey, what about this?” You know, “This is this is a bit tough.” And you know, “How can you explain this, Brother?” And he’d say, “Look, the Austrians are Germans,” he said. “It’s just like the Australian Army taking over Queensland.” He said, “It’s not a foreign country.” He said, you know, “They speak German in Austria,” he said.

“It’s just like another German state.” He said that, “Germany are just taking back as if Queensland had been cut out of Australia and the Australians had tried to take it back.” He said, you know, “It’s not even anything to get excited about, you see.” We’d been discussing the pre-war situation with him. Well then of course when war was declared of course we the argument was what’s gonna happen to poor old Brother? Will he go will he get interned or you know what will happen to him? But nothing happened to him. He still stayed here and he taught all the way through the war

he was all right. But so it was a surprise to us. And Brother Cyprian who was a was a man who believed in politics and you know he’d try to discuss these things sensibly in the class with the with the pupils the senior pupils. So I it was at school and it was no great surprise. It had been a matter for discussion for us for some time.

In the navy?

Yes yes I suppose it did and it didn’t. It’s like everything else, you see. You go to the university for years to learn a job but you don’t know what it’s about. You’ve got to get on job you see. These days they make you do in most things you’ve got to do a years you know public practice as they call it or something else. You really learn it on the job. You know theory and you know a lot about it and I s’pose the same thing applied in the navy. You went down there and you did

Seaman’s you did a bit of drill training and then you did Seamanship. You had to learn what port and starboard meant you know and the rules of the road you know you which it’s what is it what’s the…. If on starboard red appear you see. Back off starboard you keep clear and all these you learn all the rules of the road if you like that. And you did a bit you

went out on the boats and you did a bit of rowing. You’d try to sail a boat but you got in the tank with your Mae Wests on and you did all these sort of tests swimming tests with Mae West’s on. You went to a gunnery class and learnt about guns. You learnt about torpedoes. Just sort of a rudimentary knowledge what they did and all the rest of them. Yes it was

a very basic elementary introduction into what went on in a ship. And that was the seamen’s course. The stokers of course would learn about boilers and engine rooms and so on and then the signallers of course have a specialised course. That’s the way it went. But yes it was I would think very basic. Very basic and you know I learnt a little bit from it but not much.

No I don’t. Or I don’t. I think I must have been at Flinders and I s’pose that’s where we heard it. I’d have been doing my basic training then.

You see you’ve got to remember that that youth is

pretty hair brained. I mean it was a bit adventure you sort of thought about the adventure you didn’t think about the danger and. No I the only reason the only feeling I had about being drafted to Darwin was disappointment that I was coming off a ship to go to a land depot. That was bout the only and I was keen as mustard on going

up to Mount Isa and then through the Northern Territory and seeing all that country and having a look at Darwin which of course was as far as we were concerned almost a foreign country. It’s what 3,000 mile away or some damn thing you know and. No it was a great adventure. I didn’t have any thoughts about it at all.

Yeah.

Yes. I was always there was always a

very big risk in a personal war. There’s very little risk in a fleet war. Very little risk you know. That’s how I felt it. The only the fleet was so strong you know that planes they weren’t really effective. The kamikaze weren’t effective. They’d come down and you know they’d just get blasted out of the sky before. The sort of armament that ships had towards the end of the war we could pick these black

planes up on radar you know and the even our gunnery equipment was very sophisticated. And the different types of fuses we had on the guns were very very good you know. And the kamikazes didn’t have a lot of chance they could get through them. But very difficult to attack a fleet. Very difficult.

I don’t

recall them very much. The Catalina base was virtually destroyed I think in the first raid. It was somewhere across the water. But I was talking to a mate of mine the other day funny isn’t it. He’s he’s in the Brisbane subsection of the Naval Association and when he joined Brisbane subsection from another subsection a few months back I said g’day Allan. And he said g’day Tom. He actually joined Brisbane subsection because I was in it. He was

dissatisfied with his own subsection and he read in an article that I was in it and he came over to be with me. And I said you know I haven’t seen you since you were my Bowman. He said I was never your Bowman. I said of course you were my Bowman. I said you were my Bowman for a time when Joe Wheeler wasn’t that the regular Bowman. He said I don’t remember that. And I said you were see there you are. But

he speaks of the Catalinas. He subsequently became a motorboat coxswain after I left and speaks all the time about the Catalinas but I don’t have a clear memory of them strangely enough yeah. But they were wonderful planes and they could fly for 30 hours or something some enormous amount of time. Fly right out over the East Indies and everywhere else you know and they did some magnificent magnificent work, the Catalinas. They were those pilots were wonderful men. Wonderful men. And they weren’t very fast you know.

They were very brave I think to go out in them. Incidentally I’ll tell you a little interesting thing. I was on a ship called the Kuru. It was a sister ship or more or less to the Vigilant although not the same kind and one of the things we used to do was take petrol up to the fighter strips along the coast you know and we’d supply them by rolling

44 drums gallon drums of petrol over the side into the ocean and they’d drift in on the tide. Tide’d go out and the RAF would pick them up you know. Crazy isn’t it you know you think of how we’d get the things in that way. But I dunno what I was talking about when I thought of that. But.

Yes well what actually happened was that they well there were two things. Sometimes you could throw one on a heaving line if it was close. The other way they fired it out of a gun. And with a steel you know projectile they’d just fire it across and

and the line was attached to a very thin line a very light cord was attached to the end of it so they fired this out and of course it went across the gap to the other ship and they picked it up and then they just kept pulling it in and that very small light cord was then attached to a heavier line or and then perhaps a steel cable or whatever it was and they were pulled across and rigged up and you might if it was just something light such as mail or there was a

small line. If you had to send somebody across in a bosun’s what we called a bosun’s chair. That’s a canvas chair with leg holes and they bucked them in well that would be a steel cable you see and but that’s the way they did it. And you know always it was always it was a very light line first and then you hauled in the heavy equipment and rigged it up you see.

Oh I sometimes it’s as much as I s’pose half an hour it depending on where the planes came from where they were picked up on radar or whatever. Sometimes if you know if they were fly if they flew across from Timor we might have got a call from somewhere we might a got a call there we. One of the things we didn’t have in Darwin were what were called coast watchers.

Coast watchers were the great heros of the war who operated in the Pacific. You know all about the coast watchers, I’m assuming. Or something about them they were planters or naval or army men who were manning radio’s out in the jungle up in New Guinea and the islands and they would constantly feed information back about what the Japanese were doing. A lot of them were beheaded and caught. Some of them got out of it. I’ll break my sequence to tell you a very interesting story

about one coast watcher. He was a Catholic priest and he had a coast watching place I think on New Britain or New Britain. It must have been on Guadalcanal or one of those places. Anyway irrespective of where he was it doesn’t matter. He was his position had been he’d been warning them that his position was becoming more and more untenable. And he was a big fat fellow and he said he’d have to get out you know

he couldn’t last any longer. They’d be on to him in a day or so and he had to leave and he’d be coming down out of the jungle with his boys as he called them and would they pick him up at such and such a spot. Apparently he came out on some sort of a road. So the Americans said yes all right they’d pick him up. So he said and you know he said, “Make it quick he said because I’m knocked up,” you see.

Well of course we know that knocked up in our language means that you’re a bit tired of it. But of course in the American language it means being pregnant see. So anyway he came down and he came to the rendezvous point and he was resting. He was laying down on the side of the road on his back you see and of course the Americans came up in their jeeps to pick him up and here he was and of course all they could see was this huge stomach protruding.

So one American’s is reported to have said to the other. This was a story told by General Likelberger. He said, “My God and he is too.” Anyway that was one of the coast watchers but we didn’t have any of that in Darwin and sometimes we got a bit of warning. Sometimes we got half an hour. Sometimes we got a quarter of an hour. Whatever it was and then we had a series of warnings that would come see. air raid pending you know. Air raid imminent. Air raid. And

of course air raid was air raid red you see and they hoisted the red flag and it was you know was on you see. And when you got air raid was imminent well then the ships in the harbour would up anchor and they’d you know they’d keep up steam usually and then they would get underway so that they’d be moving targets not stationary targets for the bombers. And course everybody was ashore they’d race down by they’d get in first trucks or cars

or whatever it was and they’d race down to the harbour master’s what we called man-o-war steps. That was the landing where you got onto the boats and then we would come in. Wherever we were we’d come in race in to man-o-war steps and then we would simply in there and they’d pile into the boat. In the whaler you might get 20 guys in well when you had the full complement you’d just pull of pull out you see. And where do you want to go? I want to go there’s my ship you know. I’m on this ship. I’m on that ship and away you’d

go and well then I used to as I said I used to go out when I got rid of some of them and wait for them to come. But you know it wasn’t very long warning but at least it was a warning and they could make some preparations for the air raid.

Drifted. When we went over the boom net I said to everybody well look we’re out over the boom net we’re quite safe. I suggest that you get your heads down and have some sleep see. So I said to the I can’t remember now I think I probably took the first watch. I might a said to the you know to the Bowman well look I’ll take the first watch and

I might’ve gone from we’d had the dog it would’ve been in the dog watches. What we called the dog watches. You usually have 4 hours in a watch. They’d be eight to midnight. Midnight to four. Four to eight. Eight till twelve. Twelve to four. They were the four hour periods. But then from four to six you break it up then from four to six. Then six to eight. Only a 2 hour watch and it’s called having the dog watch see. Well when we drifted we were in the dog watches.

So I can’t remember whether I took I think I took the first watch and then I got the Bowman to take the watch and then he’d he’d get the stoker-driver he’d take a watch and I think I must have taken the first watch because I woke up in the morning and the sun was shining and I looked over and there was Miley Point see. So we’d drifted out to sea on the

tide presumably for 3 or 4 hours we might a gone out 15 or 20 mile I don’t know. It might have been further but then we drifted back in again with the tide you see. I didn’t think we would. I thought once we got outside the confines of the harbour that the ocean we’d just keep drifting. I expected that that they’d have planes out for us in the morning and they’d pick us up and they’d have a ship out to tow us back but there we were looking at Miley Point first thing in the morning.

So of course we were spotted and they sent a boat back to tow us back. They realised what happened and that was it. But there was never any investigation. I made a report about it. I said we should have signal lamps on board the boats you know. We had not signalling equipment we had nothing. Quite crazy isn’t it? It’s almost primitive in this day and age you know to be going out. We didn’t even have a torch. You know

we just we just assumed nothing would happen I think. And they used to make all these crazy provisions about putting provisions actually I say all these precautions putting provisions in the ships you know in the boats just in case anything went wrong but they didn’t put any signalling equipment in. It’s just so crazy you see so crazy but there we were. Next we drifted back in that’s the answer to the question.

To be quite truthful to allow the I s’pose and this is only my assumption to allow the sailors to eat. You see you come off at twelve. Well when you go from eight to twelve well the say we’re on three watches sorry. We’re on three watches you see and we’d say the blue watch was the afternoon watch you see. Well then blue watch would go down to the galley at say half past eleven and get their dinner their

lunch. Or it might be eleven o’clock they’d go down. They’d get their lunch and they’d have their lunch. Well then at a quarter to twelve or you know the quartermast… the bosun’s mate would come around and say pipe that you know blue watch to get ready and then at say five to twelve he’d come around and pipe the blue watch to muster. Well then they’d go on watch at twelve well then the meals would be there so that the watch that was coming

off. If it was the red watch they’d come off and they’d immediately go and get all their scran as we called it to the galley and they’d go and have their lunch so that it was just there was no problem. But at six o’clock at night if you went on watch at four o’clock well you wouldn’t come off till eight and the galley would be closed down you see so I’m assuming this is why it happened. I never really asked but I’m assuming this is why it happened and so that

dinner at night was about six o’clock or whatever time it was so that the first dog watch from four to six would come off at six. Just the same as they did at lunchtime. They would have their watch and the second dog watch would have their dinner at half past five and then they’d go on watch till eight o’clock and then we’d resume the normal 4-hourly spell. So that was I would say that was the reason for it but to be quite truthful I’ve never asked.

Murphy hey. Well Murphy was a great guy. I’m here today because of Murphy. Oh no I’m not here today because of Murphy. Murphy no my Guardian Murphy is a great guy. Murphy has pursued me rentlessly or relentlessly all my life. The things that have happened to me have been quite dramatic and I always put them down to Murphy.

And I’m waiting to get a trip I’m waiting for the Queensland team to be picked to go to Sydney. I’m playing for Queensland. I’m the outstanding player in the Queensland team no doubt about it. They all the scribes say I’m the outstanding player. But football is controlled virtually from Toowoomba

and I come from Brisbane see. Football politics very heavy in football and in those days Ipswich and Toowoomba controlled the football and controlled the selection of the players. So there was only a couple of players could get in from Brisbane. Myself and another guy. This guy had been unheard of 6 months before nobody had heard of him. He’s he greatest player ever produced in Queensland in a hundred years. And he just happens to come up at that time

and see. So he got picked for that trip to Sydney instead of me and that was the time they were picking the Kangaroos to go in ’48. So I sort of thought that that was the sort of things that used to happened to me you know. It wasn’t just that another player got in. He had to be the best player that’s ever he’s one of the best players pound for pound ever born. That was a fellow named Duncan Hall you might’ve heard the name Duncan Hall he’s a great player. I looked like going into the senate.

I’m going to go into the senate and there was an argument in Parliament about who should go into the Senate and take this vacant position and the Liberal Party said that they thought that the candidate the next Liberal candidate who got the next highest votes should get the job you see and Joe said there’s no way in the world that he’ll get the job. The job will

go to Mr Maule because there’s a DLP [Democratic Labor Party] Senator retiring and he’s a DLP Senate candidate. So the job is Mr Maule’s you can forget all the other votes you see. So what happened? The second time in the history of the Australian parliament Gough Whitlam puts on a double dissolution see. All the Senate seats are vacant see. So I’m going into the Senate and I didn’t go in. So that

that you know the most extraordinary things happen to me where they’re a one off you know. Things have happened which have sort of interfered with the progress that I thought I was making in a one off situation. They may never happened before and since you know. That sort of thing’s occurred to me often and all over. Quite remarkable. And I always put it down to Murphy.

Murphy so I always say that Murphy has some inconsequential wins you see. In he sort of retards my he’s retarded my progress if you like. But my Guardian Angel he looks after my physical well being I think and he seems to be the victor yeah. But those are the sort of things that you know that that

happen to me and Peggy always says I’m the unluckiest guy in the world you see and she’s never had any good luck since she met me and so that’s Murphy yeah.

Yeah well I think I’ve had more than 9 really but the 9 were worth telling I think. They sort of well I what did I tell you? I the first one of course was I always regard that as escape. That’s the Kuttabul incident. That was the first one. I think if I had gone to the Kuttabul I would be dead. The second one was again my diving into the water to get those

three boats. I didn’t understand the seriousness of that but the wharf was there. The Neptuna was there and I was here and that Neptuna was full of crocodiles. They’d gone in to get the dead bodies you see and they’d taken up residence there and there was no protection under the wharf only the piles you know they could swim under there and I didn’t know and I swam there and I swam back to Man-o-War steps and I would have been 10 15 20 feet away

you know. It was it was so I can only thank my lucky stars that and there was a cyclone on and perhaps they were in the hull and didn’t come out you know. I’ve always classed that as a lucky escape. The third one was the sea snake incident. The fourth one was the what I call the lascar incident. That’s the one that I told you about. The oil fuel incident was I reckon that in that oil fuel incident

I was half a half a minute off death. I think that if I’d hadn’t come too with the aromatic scent of the oil I’d have either been blind with the oil fuel in my eyes or I’d have drowned you know or I’d of just suffocated. The if the oil fuel’d come up that far I if I’d a still been concussed I’d of just drowned or suffocated in the oil. So I reckon I was 30 seconds to a minute off

death then off that. I think the boom incident was a escape from death because that could’ve been quite fatal. And not only for me but for all the people on board the boat so. That was a serious a very serious matter. The next escape I had from death I had of course I think was the Bellevue incident. That’s the one where the American soldier shot my friend dead. And

again you see my Guardian angel. You’re familiar with the Bellevue? Do you know where the Bellevue Hotel is? Do you know Peter? Well the Bellevue Hotel was on the corner of Alice and George Streets. You know where Parliament House is? Well that’s at the corner of Alice and George Streets on the south west corner. South east corner. On the south west corner was the Bellevue Hotel and so I came down George

Street and I was on the inside my friend was on the outside and that’s how we came down. When we got into the crowd at the pub we got mixed up and I finished up on the outside and he was on the inside so he got the bullet see. Now if we’d a just walked around the corner and I’d stayed on the inside that happened I’d a got the bullet see. How lucky can you be? How lucky can you be? So well that’s another one. The Anchun

incident was one. The Anchun if you look at the cover of that N class destroyer book there you’ll see it was given to me by my one of my mates called Gavin. And he was what we called in the navy a DEMS-rating. And the word DEMS D-E-M-S means Defensively Equipped Merchant Ship and most of the merchant ships had a gun stuck up on the stern. Usually a First World War

gun that didn’t work but it I think it gave the seamen a bit of confidence that they had something there. half the time they weren’t any damn good. And they usually put one Sailor on board a Gunnery Rating on board to service the gun and teach the ships company how to use it and all that sort of thing. Well he was on the Anchun he was a mate a mine. He was on the Anchun and we were great mates because I’d fought his brother at the old Brisbane Stadium before the war mid 1940

I ’41 I think. Just ’41 I fought his brother. His brother was the Queensland Light Heavyweight Champion and I fought him. I was only 17 then I fought him at the old stadium and then when we met in the navy you know he told me his name and I said have you got a brother. I think I’ve forgotten what his name was now. Geoff or something. Or do you know anybody named Geoff who did a bit of fighting? He said yeah he said that’s my brother. So

we became great mates. So we were mates. He died only a few months ago and we’ve been great mates all those years you know. And he’s written an autobiography which he’s given to me down there and he sent me that book. It’s got his writing on the front of it. He was on the Anchun and the it had a Chinese crew as you’d gather from the name and they went on strike and I was in Moreton Depot for something. I don’t know what it was.

And anyway they wanted a navy crew. The ship had to sail on the convoy. They were I think they and we went down got on board took our hammocks and you know slung them on board. Got the ship ready for sea. We’re ready to go. And there’s a hell of a commotion on board the wharf and anyway it turned the Chinese Seamen decided to come back on board. So they came back and of course we very happily left you see. But the Anchun got to Milne Bay and a force of Japanese cruisers came up into Milne Bay and blasted

it to hell you see. So there you are. And Gavin was lucky to get out alive. He got out of it. Came back to Australia but. So I count that as you know as a possible miss. It it there’s nothing to say we’d of been killed but they… She was sunk at the wharf, the Anchun, and we’d have been the ships company we’d have been. There’s nowhere to go at Milne Bay probably stayed on board the ship

and you know so anything could’ve happened. So I’ve always classed that as one of the narrow… you know one of the escapes you know I s’pose you call it.

On the minesweeper. Pretty unromantic. Chipping. Scraping. Painting. You’ve ever have you ever seen a

chipping hammer? It’s got a hammer with a like a thick iron chisel cold top on it. Well that chips away the rust see. And then you’ve got a scraper bar which looks like a sort of a tyre tyre lever with a sharp end on it and that scrapes it off to try and get down to the clean metal. And then you have a tin of red lead you put that you put

that on before you put the other paint over it. So that you know when you’re a when you’re an OD 2 or an ordinary seaman. Ordinary seaman second class means you’re under 18 see. You become an ordinary seaman first class when you turn 18. So you get those sort a jobs and then you go for a trick on the wheel and you as a bosun’s mate you try and learn how to steer the ship and then when you go into harbour you know they say righto you’ve got the watch

from midnight to four come and we’ll show you how to tamp the boilers you see. and you go down and they show you they get very long steel rods with a bar on the end and you put that inside the actual fire the grate of the of the boilers. It was a coal burner the Kianga was a coal burner. You they the fire the coals were in there of course and

it’s like all those fires. If you bank them up like you burn rubbish in the yard and you bank it up it’ll when you go back next morning it’s still burning you know. You can just let the air to it and it’ll flare up you see. Well that’s what we did with the coal you see. We’d they’d put the coal in the in the fire box and then you’d have to go down and sort of stir it up and put a bit of coal in and tamper it up you see and then when they got

the ships company going in the morning the stokers’d go down you see and the base of the fire would be there they’d sort of open it up turn the fans on throw in more coal and away they go you see. You did those sort of things. It was a million sort of duties that you did. It was there was a very small crew on board and it was a wooden ship there wasn’t a lot of. Well wasn’t a wooden ship it was a steel ship with a lot of wood on it. It was a timber carrier and it used to operate I think in the Northern

Rivers – Grafton River and those places. That’s what you did. It was pretty unromantic wasn’t it.

Well I as I said they were on things called paravanes. Peter, can you give me that book? That N class book on the end of the table there. Now here you see that the back of the ship

here there’s of there’s a couple of things there.

Yeah. Well you see there’s something like two small cranes at the back there and that’s where they lower these paravanes, which are the floats with the cutters and things on them, and that’s called streaming. When you put them into the water you stream the paravanes you see. And the float and the cutter bars and things go

out and then they’re attached to the ship by the a big wire cable you see and that’s called streaming the paravanes. Well then a ship gets underway and these big wires are out at the side you see and then if there’s any big mines been laid. If you happen to hit one well bad luck. But if there’s any out they hit the wire and they drift back like that until they come to the cutters and then the cutters are underneath

and they probably sever the wire cable that’s anchored to the to the mine and then it floats to the surface you know. It’s and you they just on board the ship they stream the paravanes by lowering them down into the water from these davits that are on the back of the ship. And then when they hit the water they start to run the ships moving and the float is stationary. Which is the same thing as letting it run away and then

they just play out the wire rope and until it’s got splayed out as far as it can and then the paravane is streamed and then the ship keeps going on and does a sweep see. That’s what we called doing a sweep.

No we didn’t. No and I don’t know that any had been laid there. There was there was some minefields laid

out there but you know they were our minefields but and we were only sweeping the channel you see. And of course if the enemy if any submarines or any of those things were going to lay mines out there was some big you know the Germans had some big carrying submarines but they didn’t come out here to the Pacific. But if any mines were dropped there they’d be dropped in the shipping lane. They wouldn’t drop

them just drop them haphazardly. They’d know the shipping lanes because they’d have all the charts you see. And they’d have all the charts for every port that they wanted so. But no I don’t remember sweeping up any. Thank God.

Yeah well they were very good artists and

I’ve never been I never gave it any thought at the time. I don’t know whether they were there by design or accident. But they did some wonderful work. Black and white you know work with pencil. Black and white pencil sketches and those sort of things. And they did flora and fauna and you know the people and. But we were all interested because I did a little bit a mucking around drawing but I wasn’t

much of an artist. But these fellas were very, very good but whether it was for their own amusement or you know whether they’d were asked to do it I couldn’t say. But I think it must have been for their own amusement because I don’t know that the navy was in to collecting flora and fauna. I don’t know. One of my ancestors might’ve been. But that was Joseph Banks. I’m trying to find out if he’s one of my

ancestors. One of… My great great grandfather’s name was Joseph Banks Wilkinson so we we’ve only two generations off getting reaching Joseph Banks but we’ve got to get the information from England. The girl that works for me in Brisbane is very keen on genealogy and she discovered this point you see and so she said now you know that era the and so you never know. I might have a might have a what do you call them?

I don’t know what they. What was he a anyway. But I don’t know that the navy was into that. I don’t I’d say that they were probably just three happy choices I think.

Yeah.

The wheel house.

Yeah.

No no. You see what well the axis point as far as I was concerned. No the see the ship would roll. The ships could roll to 70 degrees and not turn over. And the Nizam one of our N class boats lost I think

it was oh quite a lot of guys in the Great Australian Bight. The seas are very rough there and it did some big rolls and were hit by big seas and lost all the blokes on the port side watch. They were swept off the bridge and the bridge look outs and the Signalmen they all went overboard. Never found them. But no I don’t think so. If you could imagine I was at the wheel it’s the wheel was about that size. The wheels on the big ships now are just

little you know they not even a wheel. But they were in those days and we swung them around you know and I’d be holding onto that with two hands you see so that if the ship rolled right over like that. If it rolled you could imagine there if the ship was at that angle we were the wheel house was rolling 50 60 feet you see up top. That’s quite an extensive roll. So you hang onto the steering

wheel or the helm it was called and you just put your foot out like you do when you go around the corner in a car. You know and you’d keep yourself upright there like that. The ship’d be right over but you’d be still holding onto the wheel and you’d be watching the gyrocompass all the time you see. And I don’t think it excited us. The thing that always worried me about being a helmsman quartermaster

was I used to laugh about it of course. Here’s me 18 and 19 year old bloke and I’m driving you know in those days 250,000 or half a million half a million pounds worth of machinery around the ocean. I couldn’t couldn’t even have a licence to drive a car. And here I here I am floating this stuff all around the ocean. But the times that I was worried about

steering a ship at sea was when we had what we called a beam or a quarter sea or a following sea. I think probably the beam sea you know it was very difficult because the big huge waves’d come up and they could be higher than the ship. You’d be down here and then the ship’d sort of go up the bank you know but if the if the wave broke you were

in trouble. They’d go up of course they were very buoyant they’d go up and you know the wave’d go under you and you’d slide down the other side. And they were dangerous and usually you’d try and avoid those. The captain would steer another course. The beam the stern sea was the one that used to worry me because when you’d get these big waves and what would happen the wave would come

along and it would hit the stern of the ship. Now and you’d be down here and then it would lift the ship and the screws and the rudder are out of the water see. The wave might be 50 foot high and the draft of the ship’s only 13 feet so the rudder and the propellers are out of the water so the ship is helpless see totally helpless.

And as the ship as the wave went past the ship of course when it got to a certain height the ship started to plane down the wave you know just as if you were surfing you see. Know you surf down a wave well that’s what the ship did. When the wave got there the ship then started to slide down the wave. Well what you’d have to do immediately you see depending upon the way the ship was going. If you if you if you were say heading that

way and a big wave came behind you and then all of a sudden the ship started to plane down the wave it would head one way or the other. It’d head that way or it’d head that way you see. Well if it started to head that way you see well then you’d have to whip the wheel like mad to if it was say heading there to starboard you’d have to whip the wheel like mad to give it hard port rudder see. And then as soon as the wave got

far enough ahead the propellers and the rudder would go back in the water and the propellers would be spinning all the time. Well as soon as they hit the water they’d bite and of course the rudder would bite and it would halt the swing of the ship. But if you couldn’t do that if you got if you got one wave or perhaps two waves together if you got down to the bottom of the trough and you and the rudders or the propellers weren’t able to bite the water well then the ship would what they call broach you

see. And then that’s the time they roll over you see. Well here’s a you know say you’re a 19 year old kid driving you know 2,000 ton of steel around the ocean with 270 guys in it and you’re and you’re in this situation and you’re planing down these waves you know. And you’re thinking if I take the wrong here we can kiss 270 fellows good night you see. That was a worry. That was the biggest worry I think I ever had in the navy.

When being a Helmsman with a like a huge down in the Southern Ocean and those places the seas there are just enormous are just gigantic. And that was a worry that that was probably the most worrying situation that I ever had. Not in fear of my own life. I didn’t you weren’t worrying about that. That didn’t even occur to you’re just thinking you know I’ve gotta stop this ship from broaching

and that was happening you know. Is it then the rudder’d bit the screw’d bite and gradually you know the ship’d sort of steady itself and it’d hit the trough and plough in and then gradually the rudder’d take hold and the ship would come back on course you know. Then the next wave would come and up you’d go again you see. Down you’d go and you were doing this. It was a very exhausting job because it was the physical turning of the wheel you see and if

if old Sandy’s might if the bosun’s mates were both crook I’m crook you know but I’m doing it for 4 hours you see. And you’d leave the wheelhouse you know absolutely totally exhausted you know. You’d go down go down in the mess deck and in that sort of weather you didn’t work of course. You got off duty and you slept and you’d come off watch and you’d just go down and climb into your hammock and just die you know and then 8 hours later or whatever it was

somebody’d come and wake you up. And you’d get up I’d go down to the Galley and get me loaf a bread and bucket and bottle a water and away I’d go again, you see. But that was one frightening situation that I was not terrified of, but scared of for the ship’s company. Not so for myself.