Mick Rudkins enlisted in the Royal Australian Navy (RAN) in Brisbane on 7 March 1941.
After initial training at Flinders Naval Depot in Victoria, Mick's first draft was to HMAS Bungadore in Sydney Harbour. It turned out the draft was just to paint the ship. Then he was sent to the corvette HMAS Colac, on which he served for 18 months.
Most of the corvette work entailed escorting convoys and occasionally minesweeping. During one convoy trip, a New Zealand ship, the Limerick, was sunk by a Japanese submarine. Colac picked up the survivors and ferried them to Brisbane.
Mick also visited ports in Papua and New Guinea. At Milne Bay one day, he was told to get ready because he was to be drafted to HMAS Bendigo and was being picked up the next morning. He spent 6 weeks in Milne Bay waiting for the ship to arrive. Later on, he served on HMAS Norman and visited Durban, Bombay, and Aden.
He discharged from the RAN on 11 December 1945.
