Joining the navy
Well, I grew up in the Hunter Valley, and my father had a vineyard, and of course, vineyards and the pressing process and sort for grapes and making wine, a kid leans a little bit towards engineering with tractors and things going on, and steam engines et cetera.
I had a leaning towards perhaps wanting to be an engineer and, of course, in the '30s, late '20s and '30s, life wasn't terribly rich, so to speak, and how to do that. Somebody suggested to my mother to, get the boy to apply to get into the Navy, and I was terribly lucky and made it. But having, we were required at the end of our second year in college to make a decision on whether we wanted to be an executive officer or an engineer officer.
I went through an old destroyer, I think it was the Vampire at the trading depot, the Flinders Naval Depot. I went through the engine room and boiler room on one of those Bass Strait days, you know, it was a bit sort of like this, with the cold wind et cetera. Everything was a bit sort of, as the old engine boiler rooms were, a bit unpleasant I suppose. There was nothing comfortable about them.
So, I waited on the quarter deck for a while and I thought, "I think I'd rather like to be up the top and drive it as opposed to being down below where the propulsion is" So I changed my mind, never regretted it, and so I didn't become an engineer.
Joining HMS Repulse
Well firstly, just a background, there were five Australian midshipmen who were posted to HMAS Australia, a cruiser, an eight inch cruiser, which at that time around about the end of '40, and we were still in North Atlantic waters.
By the time we arrived over in a merchant ship in about mid-February of '41, Australia was well on her way back to Australia, and so they looked around and found five spots for midshipmen and we slung our hammocks on Repulse on the 18th of March '41.
So, our life went through '41, what Repulse was doing, but eventually we chased the Bismarck in the end of May of '41. Didn't come into action, which is probably our good luck, because she was a formidable battleship.
Singapore December 1941
We arrived together with Prince of Wales in Singapore on the 2nd of December, I think it was. Together with four destroyers, we formed what was titled Force Z and we stayed there. In fact, on the 5th, Repulse and two destroyers were deployed to go to Darwin, but on that day, early on the 6th, they found, reconnaissance identified the Japanese moving down the South China Sea and so on. We were recalled back to Singapore.
So, we were in Singapore at the naval base, not actually, we were anchored in the Johor Strait, off the Naval Base. Then, of course, the Japanese entered the war on midnight of the 7th, 8th in our time and the Japanese bombed Singapore about four o'clock in the morning.
They had no difficulty in finding the target because the city was a blaze of lights. There was no sort of, any warning that danger was so close. And of course, we endeavoured to fire at the aircraft from where we were when they came overhead.
Sinking of HMS Repulse
We were sighted on the 9th. It was an overcast day, rather like the one out there at the moment. Nevertheless, we were sighted by a submarine, and later in the afternoon, sighted by aircraft from a cruiser force on the north.
The admiral decided, because we didn't have air protection, that we would retire back to Singapore. But, en route, we went in to investigate, there had been a report that there was Japanese activity on Kuantan, off Kuantan, on the east coast of Malaya, as it was then. So, we went in to investigate and there was nothing there. But, we didn't sort of put on full power and head back to Singapore. We tended to stay in the area for a while.
I have no idea what thoughts went on in those days. Nevertheless, at about 10:30, we were sighted by the enemy aircraft. Eleven o'clock was the first bombing attack. We were hit by a bomb. It was a first class, high level bombing, but it didn't interrupt our tactical manoeuvring, still full power and so on. But, then the attacks occurred again and so on.
It wasn't long before the Prince of Wales was hit by a torpedo, which put her out of action. Then, we were attacked. Our captain avoided many torpedoes, in fact, some 19. He was a great fellow and he maneuvered Repulse like a destroyer. So, it wasn't long until after that, around about after twelve o'clock, we were hit by a torpedo on the starboard side, which once again, didn't affect our manoeuvrability. It didn't damage the ship except open up the starboard side a little bit.
Then, followed by intense, there were some 85 aircraft altogether, and the Japanese attacking in force, torpedo bombers, which were based near Saigon. So, they concentrated their attacks, and eventually we were hit by another four torpedoes and I think it was about 12:23 or something like that. Four torpedoes in fairly quick succession. Abandon ship was ordered at about 12:25, 26 something. Then, the dear old ship, you could feel her going down like standing in the bath with the plug out as the water came in. So, abandon ship was given.
People got off, those who could, and destroyers picked up the people swimming, those who could. That was sort of the end. The ship sank at 12:33, virtually within 10 minutes of the beginning of the attack. It was a sad, sad day because we lost over 500 officers and sailors from a ship's company of about 1300.
A total of 39 per cent of them went down. That was sort of the end of the action for us. Prince of Wales sank a little while later. Picked up the survivors and we were taken back to Singapore.
One of the lucky ones
We only stayed there overnight on the 10th. We got in just after midnight and of course a bit grubby from oil and what we stood up in and so on. Anyway, after clean up, we put our heads down and had some sleep. We were woken in the morning and re-kitted with what we could get out of a local store, which was a fairly complete tropical kit, shorts and shoes and shirts and stocking and all that stuff, and a green suitcase, which stayed with us for quite some time.
Of course, it's then that you realize that you have nothing except your green suitcase and the uniform that you've just received, and that's all you have. I actually had a wallet at one stage, but I don't know where it went. Probably when I was changing, it fell out.
So, during the morning of the 11th, Captain Tennant, Captain William Tennant, later Vice Admiral Sir William Tennant, he said to the midshipmen training officer that he wanted all midshipmen out of Singapore, because we were all sort of in the age group of about 18 and he wanted us out of Singapore.
I think somehow or other, his expression was that we were not going to make a contribution then because it was so early in our training we weren't sort of established. Well, of course the fellows in the Army were about 18 or 19 in those days. So, we then were sent down to the Naval Base again and taken aboard the cruiser, Exeter.
Exeter sailed late in the afternoon and took us to Colombo. In a way, I often feel that, first of all, of the 10th, I was one of the lucky ones that won the lotto prize that day and survived. I think the second survival really was initiated by Captain Tennant sending us out of Singapore. Otherwise, if we'd hung around and done nothing except get in the way perhaps, we could have ended up in a Japanese prisoner of war camp.
Leyte Gulf
Well, firstly in October '44, our cruiser, the Shropshire. We formed a, we had a task force. Two Australian cruisers, Australia and Shropshire and two Australia destroyers, Warramunga and Arunta. We joined with three American cruisers and their destroyers and formed Task Force 74. That was formed towards the end of '43 and we covered all the MacArthur landings, all the way along the New Guinea coast and offshore islands, such as the Admiralty Islands.
All the way through until October '44, we got to Leyte Gulf. It was a huge landing, enormous force. That was when Australia was damaged by a Japanese aircraft. One never knows at that stage whether it was a pure kamikaze or that he was damaged and he slid into the Australia. It killed a lot of people, over thirty, including the captain and the navigator and Commodore Collins was wounded and so on. It was not good.
We went in on the 20th, 21st of October and supported the landings and so on and then on the 24th of October, the warning had come out that the Japanese were moving two forces, one to come through the southern end of Leyte Gulf and another to come through the middle of the Philippines and San Bernardino channel, to get rid of the landing force. It's all a very complicated matter, but for the 25th, we were all positioned across the entrance to Leyte Gulf from the south.
We had a night surface action, firing at the Japanese force coming up. We participated certainly in the sinking of the Japanese battleship. But, there were ships as far as you could see across the horizon because they're all in formation and we were there guarding them en route to Leyte Gulf, certainly against air attack, which didn't eventuate on the approach, only when we were in the Gulf.
How to spot a submarine
Radar only came in later on. That's when the tide turned in late '42, '43 in the North Atlantic and they could detect the periscopes or by radar but we still had to spot visually.
If the weather was good, you could spot them if they were close, which wasn't a good thing. It was a form of warfare which very nearly brought Britain to her knees, but they sailed through it. They had some tremendous captains in their escort forces in the Atlantic.
That's an ocean up there which is different to anywhere else in the world. Sort of rougher weather, cold, miserable. Real sailors up there.
Japan surrenders
We had finished an operation supporting the Australian group going in to, Australian forces going in to Balikpapan. We came out of that and I think we headed north back to Subic Bay, which had become an American base, clear of Manila, but in Subic Bay, and of course, I was operating out of Subic Bay later in Vietnam.
So, the Shropshire went back with its group in Subic Bay, and we were waiting for notice of the, we learned the bomb had dropped, bomb one and then, there was bomb two and then the surrender.
I must say it was the most incredible feeling of relief. Incredible feeling. "Really? We're not going to have to shoot anymore? Really, tomorrow is an ordinary day? What's it going to be like?" So, a little adjustment.
I mean, everybody probably had more complicated thoughts than I did. That was the way it was. Tonight, they had surrendered, so tomorrow, we're not going to sea and we're not going to do this.
End of the war
The first reaction was one of relief and joy. There's no doubt about it. "Thank God it's over". We threw a party on board because American ships were dry, of course. But, we had a beer and gave a beer issue when we could, so we decided to have a party and invite officers from the various destroyers and cruisers. We must have had about 400, I think, on our quarterdeck, kegs of this and ice, so on. It was like an extended party, I must say. Everybody drank until their heart's content and I don't think anybody was absolutely under control.
But, it was interesting. One observation of that party was one of our engineer officers spied or observed two other new engineering lieutenants on board, wearing shoulder straps, ours. He wondered who they were, so he went over to talk to them and found out that they were two of his stokers in his division on board, had gone down to his cabin and taken a couple of shirts and the shoulder boards and dressed up and had a great party.
Needless to say, they were disciplined and came up before the Commander. Great fellow, Copper Morrow. The fault was tabled, you know, a day or two later. Copper said to them, "Did you enjoy the party?" "Oh, yes sir. It was a great party." It really was. So, Copper, he said, "Right. That cost each ward room officer 35 shillings. Fined 35 shillings each." On caps and away they went. I reckon it was good justice that time.
Typhoon Ruth in the Korean War
Well, that was quite an experience. It's not a recommended pastime to try and ride out a typhoon, not in the worst part of the eye, in the centre of the storm. You evade, you get away from typhoons.
I had to do it later in '62. It was a rough night, but we got through it. We lost some aircraft on board. I think about five or seven or something, because they start to slide around the flight deck. A very uncomfortable night altogether, because there was the smell of Avgas, oil fuel. So, of course, I have no idea.
This probably came from the aircraft which collapsed on the flight deck and was sliding around. It had some sort of dilution with water that nevertheless, the aroma of Avgas is fairly dominant. Anyway, nothing untoward happened. We lost some boats and some damage. Yes, we had damage, but it was better to leave harbour although we should have left harbour a little earlier, we might have got ourselves more sea room, but huge, huge seas.
There's times you would have thought "I wonder if we're going to get through the next one?" Because from the bridge, I had the first watch from 8:00 to 12:00 and you would see the next, when you were in trough, you would see the height of the next one and it appeared, always appeared to be at your eye level, which of course is some distance from the water.
But, she would gently go up and then go down and the navigator and the captain of course were totally handling the ship at the time, and did it superbly.
Captain of HMAS Hobart in the Vietnam War
We were the first naval ship to be deployed to Vietnam. We arrived up there in March for a six month deployment having commissioned in Boston, Massachusetts, done our trials in America, came back to Australia and arrived in Hobart City 1 September '66.
Then, we did an exercise with a Royal Navy team off the east coast here and showed them what we could do.
Then, of course, in January and February we were going through trials again, sharpening everything up, the weapons systems, et cetera. Then, we deployed to Vietnam, got up there in March.
We immediately, two things we did. We supported the ground troops ashore when they were operating within range, and then we also did the, covered the coastal traffic on the north side and that was known as Operation Sea Dragon. Initially on our first op, we did the ground support role, firing, interdiction firing, and then we also escorted a carrier, the Kitty Hawk.
Then, after that, I think the second time out, we went on to Sea Dragon and we basically carried out Sea Dragon operations each time we went out, which was out for about three to four weeks. It was fairly intense. We didn't suffer air attack. That was one thing, but nevertheless, you had to be alert for anti-submarine and air attack. But basically, it was a surface action with our guns and not with the missiles.
A great team of fellows
The specialist officers on board were also very good. Of course, then you come to your senior sailors, the Chief Petty Officers, Petty Officers. A great, great team of fellows.
When you're building a ship in America in those days, and probably now if we were to, you go through their pre-commissioning training routine, and all my technical fellows, the propulsion system and all the electrical and the radar and the weapons systems, they all had to go through the American system. Invariably, they all passed out top of their courses at the examinations. So, they knew, the officers, they grasped.
It was a quantum jump in a way from where we had been in our weapons systems and our state of technology up to another level. They walked up that staircase very well, much to the way it was commented upon by the United States Navy fellas here and there.
When we came to doing things off the coast, lots of replenishments from the replenishment ships because we were using a fair amount of ammunition in these firings. I don't know that there was any particular event. The shore batteries fired at us. They didn't like what we were doing. So, we responded. I remember it was great to have a spotting aircraft from one of the carriers in the gulf. Some of them were absolutely expert spotters. One stage, there were five, I think five shore batteries along the coast.
Normally, the edict was that you don't go back and have a battle with shore batteries. But, with the spotting aircraft, I thought "We need to do something about this". So, we went back and we destroyed all five. That's a good effort. But, that means that your team, the whole weapons system group are really 100 per cent.
"Like driving a sports car"
Our ship was very manoeuvrable. I always refer to it as rather like driving a sports car. It was great fun. It really was.
She would do over 30 knots, you see, and with her control and combustion system, you could be doing full speed ahead, you could rebound forward stern, and in just over a ship's length, she would stop doing her 30 knots ahead and go to stop and go to stern, the length of the ship. Terrific. Fantastic.
