Open Writing

It was May 1945. The war in the West was almost over. Consequently I was resting on my laurels, leaving the mopping up to auxiliary troops and NAAFI personnel. The ship on which I had served my country with total devotion -- almost -- was destined to fulfil its final purpose, namely conversion into razor blades. ‘How the mighty are fallen!’

Thus it was that their Lordships in the Admiralty, full of that munificence for which they have ever been renowned, had bestowed upon me the privilege of a respite in the tranquillity of that Eden in the Garden of England, Kent, namely St. Mary’s, the Royal Naval gunnery school Chatham Barracks.

That such a redoubtable institution was still in existence served as proof that not all prayers are answered, since thousands of British naval ratings had fervently prayed for Heaven to rain down upon that cursed pile countless bombs, doodlebugs and V2 rockets, but alas it was not to be.

There was I then, ensconced in a regulating office occupying what, in the current vernacular, was a soft and comfortable number, a description which ideally portrayed the ATS member whose company I kept some miles up the line at Dartford. Our brief liaison began in that Mecca of delight, the local Services Club, where we each found joint pleasure across a table-tennis table. Alas however, all too soon it was that we were to be parted by the nation’s call for me to take up arms once more, this time against the savage far-eastern foe -- little yellow men with horse-like teeth and a strange habit of bending forward from the hips whilst saying “Ah so!” in a rather annoying manner, easily misinterpreted, earning them the rejoinder, “And you, Jack!”

Tidings foretelling such events reached me via a chit of paper measuring 2” x 1” and bearing but two words that read ‘Golden Hind’, but they were sufficient to send me journeying around the world on a trip entailing some 90,000 sea miles -- for free! Well almost. It cost a year and a half of my life’s span, but when in one’s early years, who cares?

HMS Golden Hind was a Royal Naval shore base, in actual fact a racecourse, Warwick Farm, Sydney, New South Wales. Every Royal Naval rating knew of it and what was entailed, a three-year foreign commission, if we survived. Those little yellow ‘Ah So’s’ mentioned earlier were out there determined to prevent us coming home. Yet we all bore such intelligence in similar fashion, by cursing our luck and reluctantly packing bag and hammock, which were marked ‘not wanted on voyage’.

By way of a sweetener the Admiralty had, in its ever-caring fashion, decided that we should enjoy a ‘duty-free’ journey into the Antipodes, cruising in gentle fashion amidst an aura of blissful tranquillity, and if anyone believed that, then they could believe in being able to plait fog. Actuality was different. We were to be squelched together on board a troop ship for a period of four weeks. So, as a sugaring to this bitter pill, all naval ratings were granted 14 days foreign draft leave.

For me then, rather than being in the arms of bliss as hoped and arranged, I was on my way home to the bosom of my family. I don’t suppose my date still waits for me. I sometimes think I ought to go and look but never do -- callous perhaps!

As with any wartime troop movement, the War Office liked to turn it into a mystery trip. We knew where we were going, eventually, but not the point of departure, after clearing the barracks that is. We presumed a train journey was involved since we were deposited at a railway station, but until the train arrived and we were actually ordered to board, there was no certainty. And again, as our final destination was Australia, we felt fairly confident that a ship would be employed. Even so, no bets were laid on it.

With the sun well over the proverbial yardarm by the time we entrained, it was fairly obvious that a night journey was in the offing. Consequently there was the customary scramble for the luggage racks, since they bore some resemblance to the hammocks to which we were accustomed and were above the compressed mass of bodies on the seats beneath. For added interest, the train had no corridors, not that any necessary ‘movements’ were prevented by that. We were an ingenious lot. Yet it still behove one to take precautionary measures prior to sticking one’s head out of the compartment window. Hold some other’s cap out. If it came back in clean and dry, then the coast was probably clear.

Day dawned and we found ourselves in Liverpool. Had it been John O’ Groats it would have been no surprise, since it seemed we had travelled the length of the land over a period of 12 to 14 hours. As it was, we were arranged on Princess Landing Stage prior to boarding Shaw and Saville’s 20,000 ton one-time luxury passenger liner, the Dominion Monarch. I was to see her again some time later, steaming into Port Said when on my way home. She was then again outward bound for Australia, that time with a contingent of emigrants, which included war brides destined for a new life down under. I doubt if any of them were quartered in the part of the ship we had occupied.

We weren’t passengers. We were personnel, a vastly different strata of society in the eyes of the powers that then were. I knew from the number of accommodation ladders I descended that the waterline was rising higher and higher above me and that if my forward travel did not end soon, then I was going to get more than my feet wet. Arriving finally in what was to be my abode for the next month I found double bunks had been installed for the six or eight of us who were thus entombed. For this I was grateful, since previous experience had proved to me how steel decking was most unyielding to one’s hipbones. Besides, here the deck had a permanent tilt, being only just inboard of the sharp end. Below us were the bilges, and above us were the waves. Any attempt to escape in an emergency would have been futile. The ship would probably have hit bottom long before we had reached upper air, but then, there were plenty more where we came from!

However, nothing of that nature did occur, with only boredom proving to be our greatest enemy -- nothing to do and all day to do it in. That went for night time, although not everyone on board was afflicted in that manner. We carried a contingent of WRNS who, as it may be surmised, proved quite an attraction. But as they were billeted above deck in the vicinity of the out-of-bounds officers quarters, we of the lower orders were never in the running, although some diehards never lost hope, pitting their masculine charms against gold braid and authority.

Also on board was a company of Australian army personnel, POWs repatriated after four years in captivity. Many of these men amused themselves in ‘two-up’ schools, tossing rings. Obviously not all were lucky. There were those toward whom Dame Fortune turned a blind eye, so much so that eight days out from Liverpool and their four years’ back pay was in the hands of others. The C.O., upon hearing their bewailings, banned all future two-up schools, not a popular order as it proved. Several of his men made this clear to him by recommending he rescind the command or he would be encouraged to take a midnight swim -- over the side! The tossing-rings resumed, although I never ventured into them, preferring to keep my £12A tucked into my belt.

Otherwise the Atlantic crossing was incident-free over the ten days taken. The weather became warmer. We sweated more in our tin tomb. Fresh water was limited in its availability, sea water being used for bathing which, despite so-called salt water soap, proved far from satisfactory. The briny also attacked cutlery which quickly became pitted with rust. What quality the food was I have forgotten. Presumably it was what we had become accustomed to elsewhere. No one died anyway. The loaf of white bread containing many black ticks when cut open was exchanged for a loaf which was bug-less, and no questions were asked. We didn’t ask any either.

One of our number did develop appendicitis and was operated on -- successfully. It was the general opinion by those of us who knew him that this was caused by his constant feeding on Nestle’s sweetened tinned milk, which, it was asserted, coagulated in his appendix.

We docked at Colon, the eastern end of the Panama Canal and were allowed ashore in the dockyard there. Any further would have been the point of no return for many. They would have made for the U.S. border. I had underestimated the sun’s strength and, because topless dressing was in vogue -- for male personnel it should be stated -- I received an angry set of shoulder ‘pips’, water blisters, three of which I removed unintentionally by not ducking low enough when passing under a deck winch one morning whilst still semi-comatose. The episode taught me to respect tropical sunshine from then on.

From the eastern locks we traversed the Gatun Lake in the centre of the isthmus of Panama and, without knowing it at the time, witnessed a man-made set of Pacific islands dotted all around, each one covered by a verdant growth. These were the summits of hills whose lower slopes were traversed many years before by Francis Drake and his loot-hungry bunch of cut-throats from the Golden Hind, who had hacked their way en route, albeit unknown at the time, to the water beyond, that which they named the Peaceful Ocean -- the Pacific.

Once clear of the set of locks at Panama, it was out into that water, the wide blue, sometimes not-so-blue and at others even violent green expanse. I was to see it in all of its many moods over the coming months.

Meanwhile, we watched fascinated as by day porpoises leapt high, their gleaming shapes inching around the vessel’s bow waves, whilst shoals of flying fish skimmed the water’s surface -- water which by night shimmered with phosphorescent twinklings mirroring the myriads of heavenly stars, amongst which hung the Southern Cross, prominent against a raven-hued backdrop. Nature’s panoply of wonders through which we steamed, voyaging to a theatre of man’s creation, one of misery, mutilation, destruction, despair and death. The Pacific Theatre of War.