Enlistment
In 1942 when I became 17, I raced down to the Moreton naval depot and they had two, what they called commissioned warrant officers, old fellows. One was Carter and one was Lever, one was robust and the other was a little thin fellow.
I saw the robust fellow on my 17th birthday when I went down to sign up for the second war and he asked me how old I was and I said "Seventeen" and he said "When?" and I said "Today" and made some remark about making sense and he didn't say much to me.
So I left and waited for a couple of months and when I went back the second time, I asked the fellow that I saw, "Could I see the little skinny bloke not the fat bloke?" and from that, I was in the navy.
A tonsils treat
After many months waiting to be called up, I then went to Flinders Naval Depot where I did my training and the first classes I went to, they were in special service and nobody could tell us what it was at that time and when I was due to go away to get medicals , I had tonsil troubles and had to be operated on to get the tonsils out.
So I missed going on that draft to school where they trained for the landing ships. I had my tonsils out and this old lady used to come over and visit us and when she found out I was a Queenslander and only young, she brought me over a piece of pineapple, and I didn't know much, and I bit into it and had awful trouble with my throat and the nurse who saw me have the pineapple said, "Good Heavens, you should never have had that". So she took it off me and tried to soothe it as much as possible. She apparently went up the line a couple of days, which was an expression used to say you went up to Melbourne, the city, and when she saw me the next day after she saw me after she came back, she said she had a little treat for me and I still think what a wonderful person she was.
She gave me a mashed banana and I thought, but her being an officer, which the nurses were, and me just being an ordinary seaman just passed out of ordinary seaman two to ordinary seaman one by turning eighteen, I thought she was a marvellous person and I still often think of her even at this late stage of my life.
Red measles
I came back into general service classes from which I got a draft to Brisbane for the corvette Ararat on that draft to Brisbane. That was early 1943. Went to Brisbane depot as it was then. They changed its name to Moreton.
In those days it was the end of Alice Street on the river somewhere about where the Goodwill Bridge goes across today and we spent our time in the depot waiting to be called over to Evans Deakin shipyards which we were after some weeks.
We went over there, I think they made a mistake giving us, that is myself and another fellow, a tin of red lead, a hammer, and a wire brush to get rid of some of the rust and we had very good eyes and could see little pinpoints and we made the ship look like it had measles, red measles.
Buoy jumping
We went back to sea eventually and we took part in a convoy going from Brisbane to Sydney. We went down and I did the commencement of the exercise so we got to know all parts of the ship and different things that could happen. Some of that was done in Sydney Harbour. I was the first buoy jumper and I wasn't too pleased. They took me in a motorboat and set me on the buoy with a hammer and a lead pellet and when, while I'm sitting on the buoy waiting for a ship to come up, they threw me a line and you pull the chain in. When you got the chain over, then you put the shackles, put the bit in, put the lead pellet in, called out that it was fixed and they then came in the motorboat and took you back to the ship. That was my first experience of buoy jumping and I wasn't too keen about it.
Convoy duty
From there we went up the Hawkesbury River and did exercises in different ways and after the Hawkesbury was completed, we re-joined in Brisbane, where we did convoy duty with the other ships and then instead of having a nice light grey, it was in camouflage colours and from there we just gradually moved our way convoying up to the north of Queensland across the Coral Sea to Port Moresby escorting merchant ships, of course, and from there we go through the China Straits to Milne Bay.
Gradually moved our way up the coast as different places were taken from the Japanese, like Finschhafen, and we operated from there our men were escorted to different areas, even over to the Admiralty Islands but we didn't touch New Britain or New Ireland that was Japanese territory but we did go around those places but we were always looking for Japanese submarines, Rabaul being a fairly big base for them and they used to service their people down in Guadalcanal and take them back but we did a fair bit of depth charge work there but nothing was ever confirmed.
Although we did see something queer in the water one day, like the top of a big container type thing and Bunny Williams, the gunner on the after Oerlikon, and I was the number one loader, and we were able to fire a few shots at it and eventually it went down in the water, at whatever it might have been, and the brass case of one of the Oerlikon shells, I've still got it at home.
Depth charges
Then we came back escorting across the Coral Sea and it was there that a depth charge got loose and trying to hold it but we couldn't. The fellow on the heavy charges, the heavy one had a weight on it, and we had two racks plus the four depth charge throwers.
I was on the light rack and he was on the heavy rack and why I don't know. He was only new and he took the key off the charge when he set it and he got hold of the arm to release it and I jumped to stop it rolling over the side and another fellow eventually came to try and give me a hand and we tried to hold it but it rolled eventually over the side and, of course, exploded at the depth set and later on it was found that some plates were loose letting water in the engine room and one of the leading stokers got knocked off his feet and broke a bone in his hand or lower arm and from there we went to Cairns to get that rectified in an American floating dock where they welded the plates.
They didn't do any of the riveting and when completed we went back to sea and the captain decided to drop a depth charge and we got some fish in all shapes and sizes and colours but we weren't game to take a lot of them that were stunned or killed but we picked out the good ones and kept it for our meals.
A shock for the Chief
Early in the times we used to get to Moresby and go down to Milne Bay through the China Straits. It was in the China Straits we were, thought we'll try the local tribe for some fresh fruit and the chief came on board, bargaining and he decided he wanted a glass of water and I fell for the job of taking him in to giving him a glass of water and I didn't think, so I got the cup and filled it out of the cooler.
He got a hold of it, drank it, and the next minute just threw the cup, went flying out through the passageway holding his mouth. He must have had an awful lot of holes in there when the cold water struck. They went mad at me for giving it to him but, unfortunately, I never gave that a thought.
Beaufighter swoop
Another time I was up in the crows-nest. It was when the Beaufighters first came in and a couple of them were up flying and they decided to use us as a target and I finished up and I can always remember shaking my fist at the fighter and him with a great big grin. You could see him.
A crash draft
That was the first commissioning and when we came back to Brisbane, I was drafted off and the ship went down to Melbourne for its refit, its first refit, and when we returned to the ship, we were all drafted off. The captain was a bit upset that he was getting a new crew. He just had to take it I suppose. I was returned to Moreton or Brisbane Depot as it was at that time.
Whilst there, I was there for about four weeks and then I got a crash draft to – a crash draft is when you're there and they just tell you to pack your bag and hammock, "You're going". You don't get any warning about it and a girl driver – at that time at the ...was a couple of the early girls came in as drivers, and she took me down to the Fairmile base where I joined the HDML 1329 and from there I went with that to Darwin where we operated and that's where I finished my time in the war.
Rescuing US aircrew
The captain, Jim Morrison, coming home decided to give us a trip and I always remember approaching Thursday Island on the way back. I'd turned 21 and he gave me a drink in the wardroom to celebrate my majority and when we got to Thursday Island, he arranged for a beer issue for the crew and he let us enjoy that, all in celebrating my birthday.
We had a wonderful trip home on that popping into little unknown places, I suppose, to see how life was. At one place we got a signal, an American plane had crash landed on the beach at Pipon Island, I think the name was and we got there and took them on board and whilst there the American small ship, they came and took the Americans from us and put them in.
I thought to myself, when the tide comes in, we had a swim in the aircraft. I often tell people I had a swim in an aeroplane and Bruce Little, one of my shipmates on the ML, at high tide, he rode the dinghy in and out of the aircraft, so he had something to skite about as well.
Gin and peppermint
The leading steward had to go ashore due to illness and I got the job of the steward at that time. I just had to learn all that type of thing. How to serve the captain's drink when he came for his dinner and he liked gin and peppermint. I thought that Gerry, the steward, told me a nip of gin and a nip of peppermint which I made it and I put it on the tray with a jug of water, take it over to the captain and go to put the water in.
Don't let too much out, just a few drops and he will say, "Thank you". He'll then take the glass and skol it down. I thought I'd nearly choked him, and I can still remember his words, he said "Good God steward, what have you done to my drink?"
When I told him, a nip of gin, a nip of peppermint, all I could hear him say was "Good God, no. Just a drop of peppermint' so I never ever put too much again.
Hot plate
Another time when I was steward, the gunnery officer was late for his meal and Gerry would get the food from the galley or the kitchen from the officer steward and bring it down and serve it out and the gunnery officer, he put it in the warming tray up until he came back.
He sent the meal down on the plate down on the lift to the outside of the wardroom, then I would take it out and serve it. When I took it out and put it on my hand, I threw it up in the air. It burnt me. He'd put it on hot instead of warm, very hot.
Unfortunately, that was all the meal there was, no more for the gunnery officer, so we spent time picking it up and putting it on another plate and I've never been so nervous in my life as to think that he was going to get a chip from the other plate but he didn't, thank heavens, so I was protected that day.
White canvas suit
I'm always fascinated by the issue received from the navy. They give you two white canvas suits and the only purpose I ever used it for, or one of them, was to pass my swimming test. They put you in the canvas suit and they had a small swimming pool there, I think it was 25 metres. You were supposed to swim halfway.
What do you call? ...This paddle and stop, wait for a minute or two until he told you to go and then go on and by that time my canvas suit had nearly filled with water and I just barely got to the other end and could hardly get out from the effort. Why they ever issue those I'll never know because that was the only purpose I ever used it for.
Later on one of the legs was handy to make into a meat bag when I was on the Fairmiles. I cut the leg off and patched it up to make it into a very nice meat bag. I've still got a jacket for that under the house in an old sea chest that mum and dad used to come to Australia.
Helmsman
I always remember coming back escorting a liberty ship produced by the Americans during World War Two. They produced quite a number of them and they were used for many purposes, troop carrying and cargo, etc and we were escorting one of them with troops on, coming back to Australia across the Coral Sea and we took them to Townsville and when we're having a drink with them, army fellows, and they were talking about coming back from New Guinea and saying that they thought that the ship had gone under on a number of occasions and it turned out it was our corvette that they were talking about.
That's how rough it used to get sometimes, and the corvette was a marvellous sea ship even though it wasn't very big. I enjoyed my time on that and also with the crew. I spent most of the time on the wheel as a helmsman and there were three of us eventually selected by the captain as his helmsmen to spend on the wheel.
He didn't like some of the others, the way they used to carry on or how they used the wheel itself...You could set it through the wheel, even though it was a bit rough and that, if you, instead of being amidships, if you put a little port wheel on it, you could get the ship going in a straight line and apparently a lot of them never used to do that.
They'd swing it and swing the wheel all the time and the ship would be doing a little waver and that's why I think he took the merchant seamen as well as the Royal Australian Naval officers and I think he relied a lot on his helmsmen and he wanted his special ones which he asked for.
Evasive action
I always remember one time there up in New Guinea. They used to get heavy rain and it would scour out the river and when it scoured out the river, this long ... with all the rubbish that came out used to be floating and I remember being on the wheel one time there was this great big tree dead ahead and I took it on my own initiative and nobody reported it, I took it on my own initiative to steer around it and made it which the captain noted. So, I got a pat on the head that day.
Troop train to Darwin
When I was in Darwin, they flew me down by Qantas aircraft on a fortnight's leave and that took all day from early in the morning until about after 7 o'clock at night to land at Archerfield. That was a Qantas aircraft at that time.
After my two weeks leave, I thought I'd be going back by aircraft and I had to report to the depot at Brisbane and they told me when I would be going back and I said, "Oh, how am I going back? By aircraft?" They said "No". I said, "Oh what, by train up through Mt. Isa?" They said "No". I said, "Well how am I going back?" "By train down through Melbourne, Adelaide". I can only look back now and say thanks to whoever organised that because it was a wonderful trip and a great sightseer.
Going through from Brisbane to change trains over at the border at Kyogle, down to Sydney. Change trains at Sydney down to the border at Albury, change trains to go to Melbourne. Spent the night in the depot there then the train over to Adelaide and from Adelaide we went up in the big wide gauge up to ...I'm not sure if it was Terowrie or some place from which the Ghan had operated with narrow gauge and we spent our time on that as a troop train. Your meals were taken to you , were generally, might have been a can of bully beef and so much bread and you split it up between two or three of you.
And you didn't have room on that train. The train would stop, and you'd all get off and have your meal. That took us through to Alice Springs from which the railway line and we then spent three days in trucks travelling up. The trucks would stop at mealtime. The truck kitchen or whatever you called him, that truck would come by with all the rations and issue them out which, once again, you used to open up a can and split it up between so many of you.
We used to boil a billy and the air force fellows got a bit jealous of us. You boiled a billy then race up to somewhere to get the water but when they did it, we used to do it by the edge of the road but when they did it, they, unfortunately, got too near the long grass, started a fire, and I often think, I hope it didn't do too much damage the way it went.
But it was frightening to see it shoot up when the breeze came through and it went right up the trees. But we got through from that up to Larrimah and once again we got on the train and this was particularly, must have been the oldest wagons, goods wagons. But there was only seven of us navy fellows so they put us in the old Red Cross wagon and it had bunks in it, tin bunks in it, they had put the fellows who were ill and they were transferring them down south.
We were also given the job of issuing out the food to the different other carriages and once again we used to give them tins of bully beef and a loaf of bread and that was it. That took us through to Darwin then back to the ship which was great to see.
A slithering sea snake
One of the worst things I ... we were working when I was on the ML in Darwin Harbour and one of the other crew, Bruce, I was painting and had my back towards him. He decided he'd like to see what a sea snake look like out of the water and he hooked it out and it landed on the deck just near me.
I've never jumped so quick in all my life out of the road and it went over the side and I was almost tempted to throw him over the side after it. Gosh it upset me but fortunately he apologised but it did give me a nasty fright.
Anzac Day
I did use to march with my dad on Anzac Day. I did it as a lad. Back in those times they used to form up in Roma Street and in front of the City Hall and earlier times in their religious groups and then they were marched to their different churches and the church used to put on a dinner for the ex-servicemen which most of them stayed for and then after the dinner and the speeches they went to form up in Roma Street in the different categories and, as a lad, I sometimes marched with my dad and then after the war we did a similar thing and I marched with him for a couple of years but then seemed to fade away. I think he was quite proud of the fact that we were both ex-Navy and could march together.
