Youth of the crew
Well there weren’t that many old ones in the ship that I was on, Westralia, because they’d just got a crew together. It was an armed merchant cruiser early in the war and they converted it to a LSI to take troops to landings and it was a completely new crew because it had been reconstructed and things like that.
There were, I suppose, there were probably only about ten who were old hands on it. I mean, when I, toward the finish I was above the average age at 21, no 20, I was above the average age of those on the ship. There was lots of 17s and 18s and 19s or 18s and 19s anyway. So it was a very young crew.
Armament on HMAS Westralia
We had a 3.7-inch anti-aircraft gun we had, through the Americans, we had two Bofors which are four-inch high explosive shells, anti-aircraft shells, they gave us two of those when we were attached to them. We had them installed, we had two, that's it, plus about eight to 10 twin Oerlikons which every fifth shell was a tracer and you could actually see them going through the air and they could see if they're missing the planes or not.
And you could see them, at times, going through the enemy aircraft, they hit the plane and go straight through them. So, you know, our wireless room was on the top deck, so we could just look out on the bigger deck below it, where I used to parade around. You can see all that, you know, just by watching. That's young, young adventures sort of thing, that you don't realize, you know, you get so used to being on the ship that you think you're safe as Billio but you don't realize that you’re not really sometimes.
Kamikaze attacks
Well, the Westralia was the first non US ship to carry, to take US troops in to a landing and that was on New Britain and the Americans wanted to recognise that fact and suggested to the government here that they’d give some recommendation to the crew and the Australian government said no.
The next landing was also Americans in Hollandia which is in Dutch New Guinea but the name’s changed, it’s not Hollandia now because it was Dutch in those pre-war days. It’s some other local name now. They were still American troops and then we went up to, still with American troops, up to Leyte in the Philippines and later Lingayen and that’s where we started to run into the Kamikazes, that’s the aircraft that come down and don’t drop bombs, they just drop themselves on you and we were fortunate that we only had one near miss but ships alongside of us, the Australia, that’s the Australian cruiser, at Leyte it had four landed on it and at Lingayen it had two.
So it had six all told that landed on the ship but I had a couple of friends that were down below decks on the Australia and they said they didn’t realise it, that because of the thick armour they had on the decks, when the plane hit the decks it just slides straight along. And I can remember looking over, they were pretty close to us, and I can remember them throwing the Japanese pilots over the sides on two of them.
That was the ones at Lingayen. They were very close to us then. But they did make a bit of a mess of some others. The adjoining aircraft carrier to us which would have been, say from here to the bridge away from us and one landed in the armaments section and it sort of blew the ship apart and it sunk actually, the aircraft carrier. So they were a pretty determined enemy at that time with the Kamikaze.
Unpopularity of General Blamey
Blamey came on when they were going to Tarakan. He came aboard and wished the crew, he was the 7th Division commander I think and he came on board and wished them farewell but evidently he wasn’t very popular with them because when he was leaving the ship they pelted him with all sorts of rubbish, apple pieces and things like that.
They pelted him but they had so much that they must have decided beforehand that they were going to arm themselves with this because they didn’t certainly get them on ours ship. I don’t think he was a very popular general because they did have some sort of nickname for him but I can’t recall what it was now which wasn’t a very, what should I say, favourable.
[Q: Did anyone get punished? Were there any consequences?] No, not what I was aware of because he went off unless he took action but he wouldn’t have known who they were really. He couldn’t hit the lot with a punishment so I doubt if he knew which members were on the Westralia.
I don’t think he would have said “Right. You go on the Westralia and you go on the Westralia.” And someone go somewhere else. I don’t think there was any blame placed on anyone for it. I think it was just the natural digger instinct to have a go if they can.
Army & Navy fears
Just for the navy crew no troubles at all except that they didn’t like to go ashore. When we went ashore at Bougainville we used to be scared to be shot but the troops that were on there, they would not stay below decks because they were fearful of a torpedo hitting the boat and they would drown in the boat because we used to have doors that used to be closed, keeping each section.
So if a torpedo hit it the damage could be isolated to that section and if they were in a section like that they wouldn’t get out because the doors would be closed if a torpedo hit them see so they would be all up on deck and seeing we had to work at night we had to go up on deck too because you couldn’t walk through them at night because you had no light, you just walked in the dark.
I know my bed then was under the stairway from B deck up to A deck so that no-one would walk on me either. I used to sleep under the step like that. I had a bit of canvas that was lying on the floor or the timber deck and that was my bunk when there were troops on but they were scared of the fact of the submarines the same as we were probably scared when we were ashore. When we were at Bougainville one time they did come in and charge at the Australians.
Telegraphist
I was a telegraphist, which is receiving messages, and in addition to that I had a, there were two of us to my recollection, and I had a submachine gun and I was, my responsibility was to stop anyone coming out near the ship, so that I had to keep people away from the ship that come out by boat or anything like that. So that was the dual job that I had.
It was an assault sailor, which enabled you to go ashore if you wished, and landings or if you stayed and made secure about the ship. Unless I was receiving messages, like on the Morse code messages, and unless I was doing that, which you used to do 10 hours a day, 24 hour day and unless I was doing that, then I would be patrolling around with the submachine gun. We were in harbours where the Japanese had been before and you’d do that the rest of your time.
I became a Telegraphist, which is similar, equivalent to say an Able Seaman except that we were not required to do any physical work on the ship in case we had to send messages, so, and it was all new in those days, you know, because telegraphy had only come in probably about 10 years before the war. And they thought that we should make sure we didn't injure our hands or anything like that in case we had to send an emergency message. So, the sailors had to do all the physical work and we just watched them do it.
But we did it through Her harbour and things like that, whereas the sailors didn't do lookout when they're in harbour but we had the privilege of going along and having breakfast whenever we wanted to, like we would go at seven o'clock if you wanted to or eight o'clock whatever, provided you weren't on watch so you could have it at eight o'clock if you wanted to.
And then you'd have meals, like two mealtimes in the middle of the day and then two meal times at night because of people that were doing duty. So, we were pretty privileged in that respect where you could decide when you want to go for your meals.
Landing craft
We did have we did carry some equipment, we had, I think it was 20 Light personnel carriers, and we had two larger that would take a tank or a couple of utilities or a couple of, like a big truck and things like that, we had two of those as well.
So, we had about 26 all up, all told I suppose, and they used to be lowered into the water and then the troops had to go over the side and climbed down nets to get into them. So that's the way that they actually got onto their boats.
Landing at Tarakan
Well at Tarakan we were quite close, in that instance, we waited to see, to take wounded on board because we had a sort of sick bay on our ship where you could take about twenty people who were hospitalised and walking along. When the troops, Australian troops were advancing along the beach which they did, going along the beach at Tarakan and the Japanese planes came in behind them and strafed them and killed quite a lot of them and that was the instance where there was a VC winner killed and I think that is why now VC winners can’t go back to war because of that instance. I assume it is. They did mention what it was. It alludes me now but I think that’s what it actually was. That they’re not allowed to go anymore.
Naval support fire
Well, the first one was dark. It was three o'clock in the morning so you wouldn't see anything except in the distance you could see is some firing but in subsequent ones, the cruisers used to open fire and battleships used open fire and sort of make it impossible for the defenders to stay there but in the first one.
It was in darkness and they went ashore at about 3.30 in the morning, so there was actually, it was supposed to be a bit of secretive but the others like at Leyte and Lingayen well we had a battleship that was firing over us and you could see the shells going over at the landings, and they sort of tried to pepper everything there, made it impossible for anyone to survive, and the same again at Leyte, the battleships and cruisers and aircraft carriers they used to pound this area where the troops were going to land, made a lot easier for them if they'd landed in daylight which they were, daylight landings, those. And two of the three in Borneo were daylight too but Labuan was in darkness.
Casualties at Tarakan
Tarakan is the one that does stand out because of the casualties to the troops going along the beach, yes, that’s the one that does. It was daylight whereas a Brunei one was in the darkness, it was still dark. And there had to be a special way to decide how the transport ships were going to approach Labuan because they thought that the Japanese could have explosives in the water, you know, so.
But that wasn't the case with Tarakan but they did think so with Labuan and because it's sort of in a bay, but Tarakan was the worst one because in daylight and the troops having to come, the injuries coming back onto the ship, makes you really recognize the fact that they get injured. Well, we'd take them back to either Morotai where they could fly them out from there and be taken there, and then they'd get on an aircraft and fly them probably to Darwin and places such as that.
Casualties on a lucky ship
There was only two casualties on our ship. One was hit with a piece of aeroplane, that kamikaze aircraft and he was hit across the forehead there like that and with a piece of aircraft and the only other one was when a bomb was dropped, he was sitting in the, we had twin Oerlikons right in the bow and had a compartment that was supposedly protecting him and he was hit in the shoulder with a piece of bomb fragment.
Only two casualties. It was a lucky ship, yes, I’ll say it was, not when you saw some of the others copping Hell, it was certainly. At Leyte we did actually have to finish up dropping our anchor. We went to pull it up and there were aircraft coming in to have a go at us and the anchor was stuck on the bottom of the sea and they couldn't get it free. So they diced it so we could leave.
They kept coming in round, circling and the American destroyer that was right next to us, it had radar-controlled shooting device. And they’d come in each time and they'd circle and they'd head away again and then they'd come in again. And each time when it was coming in straight they’d actually be able to line them up but when it was going around in a circle to come around again, you could see them, the shells exploding behind them. So, the radar wasn't particularly effective in that respect, you know, when the plane was moving across the horizon.
War as an adventure
Well, it was an adventure because I was a bit, I suppose a bit young in those days and you sort of think it’s an adventure and you get together and you have concert parties and play deck hockey and things like that, you know, so you’re just a group together and it's not always, you know, when we say, “Oh, such and such landings”, but there's a lot of it where you're not in the landing, you get the troops and take them there but in between times, you got to gather the troops.
We went down to Gladstone to pick up some troops and take them north and things like that. So, you went, I suppose to every port along the coast. Went to Gladstone and Brisbane, Townsville and Cairns and Milne Bay. Went everywhere, Oro Bay and Lae and you call in like that, then you don't have troops with you then because you're not taking them to landings, but you do transfer troops sometimes from one place to another. So, you know, it's quite an adventure really.
