Cruiser

by Mike Carlton

  On Monday 14 July, they knew for sure they were homeward bound. Alongside in Haifa, Bowyer-Smyth invited his fellow captains of the 7th Cruiser Squadron to a farewell lunch. That afternoon, the crew manned ship, at attention on the upper deck, as the wires were cast off and Perth began slowly to gather way, in company with two other cruisers and six destroyers. They passed by HMS Ajax, their chummy ship, the other half of the famous Hair-Trigger Twins, and were deeply moved by a rousing British cheer of farewell that rang towards them across the water. The next morning, they were in Alexandria again, entering the boom past a sunken ship showing only her masts and funnels above water.

  Now came the moment of suspense. Draft notes had been coming on board, orders that might mean men transferring to other ships that were staying on in the Med. The thought of not going home now, of being left behind after all they had been through, was almost unbearable. And some men found their luck was out. To his great surprise, Brian Sheedy was packed off to Britain to serve in one of the Royal Navy’s famous Flower-class corvettes, HMS Kingcup, on convoy duty in the Battle of the Atlantic. Returning to Australia afterwards, he stayed in the navy until 1950, when he was discharged with symptoms of ‘mild anxiety’.

  Jock Lawrance had no luck either. Returning to the ship from a shopping trip ashore to buy a doll for his daughter Joan, he was met at the top of the gangway by the Master-at-Arms reading out a list of names. His was on it. The navy had posted him to Vendetta, one of the Scrap Iron destroyers assigned to the hazardous Tobruk ‘ferry’ run.

  And another to stay on in the Med was Norm King, the happy stirrer whose less than respectful view of naval discipline finally tripped him up. An officer with whom he’d been having a private running battle pushed him aside in the narrow passageway outside the engineer’s office, and King unwisely gave him a shove back. As chance would have it, the scuffle was seen by Commander Gray, who came around the corner at just the wrong moment, and Norm was put on captain’s report for striking an officer. That was serious stuff; it could mean jail. But Bowyer-Smyth took a lenient view. Leading Stoker King was busted back a rate to plain stoker, lost his long-service stripe and was posted forthwith to HMAS Stuart. This he took philosophically, for it put him under the command of the by now legendary Hec Waller:

  His ideas of good order and discipline bore little resemblance to that of a traditional naval captain, as I discovered when I was told to report to the bridge. We were at sea, with Stuart in its usual role of leading the destroyer screen. Captain Waller was dressed in shorts, sandals and an old floppy hat. He shook hands and welcomed me aboard. His conversation went as follows, interspersed with ‘yessirs’ from me:

  ‘The chief tells me you have just dipped your rate, he tells me you can run a boiler room or engine room, we are short of killicks.23 If you are prepared to behave yourself you can sew your badges back on.’

  As I was leaving the bridge, totally bemused, he called after me:

  ‘You try that caper on any of my officers and you will lose more than your rate.’24

  Basil Hayler, who remembered the scent of Princess Marina’s perfume at Portsmouth, was also sent to Stuart. And some officers left, too. Among them was the Navigator, Lieutenant Gerard Talbot-Smith, who was replaced by another Royal Navy officer, Lieutenant John Harper, who had a fiancée waiting for him in Australia.

  So the last few days ticked by. Dockyard hands removed the Italian Breda guns along with the multiple pom-pom. Someone had scribbled on the side of the pom-pom, ‘Treat her gently, she’s worth her weight in Stukas.’ On Thursday 17 July came the sight they had longed for. Hobart steamed through the swept channel and into the harbour. Each ship hoisted the Australian flag in greeting and an echoing cheer rang out from the men lining Perth’s sides and upperworks.

  The next day was their last in Alexandria. Bowyer-Smyth and his officers welcomed what seemed like half the fleet on board to say their goodbyes – a parade of gold braid that included Admiral Cunningham and that kept Roy Norris and his fellow cooks sweating in the galley. That afternoon, 70 men from the sunken Waterhen hurried on board to join them for the trip home, including Surgeon Lieutenant Sam Stening, a 31-year-old doctor from Bondi who had been a promising young Sydney paediatrician before he joined up at the outbreak of war. Finally, at five o’clock, came the order they had all been waiting for:

  ‘Hands to stations for leaving harbour. Special sea-duty men close up!’

  Voyager sent them a farewell signal as Perth wound her way down the channel. ‘Jerry and Wop will miss you sadly. Give our regards to Number One Buoy.’

  They passed the Ras el-Tin light for the last time, the sun setting astern as they headed nor’east around the curving coast of Egypt and then down to Port Said and the entrance to the Suez Canal. There, they picked up a spare Walrus aircraft, which was lashed down on the quarterdeck, and, as Nelson recorded, the Captain addressed the crew:

  Although the information is still secret and must not be discussed or stated directly in letters, I feel at liberty to say now that the ship is bound for Australia. I have received the following signal from the C-in-C Med:

  I am very sorry to lose Perth from the station. She has been with us during most stirring times and goes home with a proud record of good work well done. I wish you a safe passage and a very happy homecoming. A. B. Cunningham.

  I know from my conversation with him that it has been inspired by the excellent morale which the ship’s company has maintained throughout our time in the Mediterranean and particularly during the long periods of stress which taxed us all severely. I know the signal is meant to include those who have joined recently from other ships, some of whose experiences must have been more exacting than ours. I would like to add my own appreciation of the behaviour and good manners of the ship’s company and express confidence that it will be maintained to the same standard always.25

  Creeping slowly through the canal, Perth’s ship’s company had a brief scare when they passed a German acoustic mine, but, by four o’clock on the afternoon of 19 July, Port Suez was disappearing behind them and they were into the Red Sea. The heat there was a furnace blast that made it an effort to breathe, but at last – at long last – they were out of the reach of the Luftwaffe, and the ship settled into a normal cruising routine of three watches. Sleep, precious sleep. Undisturbed. No more the rattle of the alarms, no more tumbling out of hammocks for an Air Raid Red, no more weary nights closed up bleary and dirty and unshaven at action stations. It was almost unreal, but it was bliss, pure bliss.

  Their passage took them into Aden at the mouth of the Red Sea, where they encountered the heavy cruiser Australia and happily beat her crew at a bruising game of deck hockey. After that, it became almost a pleasure cruise, with long days spent sunbaking on deck until some heavy seas put paid to that for a while. Past Colombo and down into the Indian Ocean, where the weather grew cooler, they began to experience the first stirrings of good old Channel Fever. Why was the ship going so bloody slowly? How many more days? How much leave would they be granted when they got home?

  Bowyer-Smyth eventually answered that last question on 5 August, just one day out of Fremantle. There would be 28 days for each man. It was far more than they had expected, and the announcement was met with something close to delirium. ‘He is a great skipper – the best I have known and no mistake about it,’ wrote Roy Norris. ‘He also assured all hands that as far as he was concerned he would do his utmost to see every man stayed on the ship, which was very reassuring [to men] who have been under the sword of Damocles since Alex.’26

  Perth, their civic namesake, welcomed them on Wednesday 6 August. It was James Nelson’s 20th birthday:

  What a birthday present! What more could I wish for? Passing Rottnest Island, preparing ship for berthing in Fremantle.

  1400. Passed HMAS Canberra, with both ships saluting, all cheering and waving wildly. How did they know that it is my birthday?

  Today we were paid in Australian currency and I received
another great surprise. Bathurst27 was in from Singapore and ‘Uncle’ Wal Anderson came aboard to wish me a happy birthday and welcome home.

  It was Wal Anderson, the family friend who had taught Jim to play the cornet and talked him into joining the naval reserve. And, even better, there was a bundle of letters from home, most especially from Jean, beautiful Jean, the girl he had farewelled in Sydney as a teenager the previous year. Now he was returning to her as a man. He sent her a quick telegram: ‘Coming home, lots and lots of love, Jim.’

  The west held them long enough only for a load of fresh meat, fruit and vegetables to come on board – Aussie tucker at last! – and for a formal photograph to be taken of the entire crew on the upper deck. The Western Australians went ashore to begin their leave, and then it was off again, rolling through more cold weather in the Great Australian Bight. To the enormous disappointment of the South Australians and Victorians, they bypassed Adelaide and Melbourne, bound directly for Sydney.

  At dawn on 12 August, a Tuesday, Sydney Heads rose slowly out of the western horizon. Like a seasoned actress preparing for her grand entrance in Act Two, Perth had her make-up and costume to do. Bowyer-Smyth, ever the stickler for proper naval appearances, piped ‘All hands including stokers, cooks and miscellaneous sections to paint ship’. When her first commanding officer, Harold Farncomb, had given the same order in the Atlantic on the approach to New York back in 1939, there had been a sullen grumble of discontent. Not this time. The rust and salt stains and the wounds of war would disappear under a fresh coat of naval grey, done with a will. They owed it to the ship and the good Captain who had brought them safely home, and most of all they owed it to themselves. With the Heads in sight, Perth hove to. Jim Nelson recorded the scene:

  It was comical! All seamen went over the side along the hull suspended on planks, brushes and paint pots on ropes lifting our feet as Perth rolled. One hour saw the hull painted and topside, the miscellaneous had the superstructure well under control when we came up to help finish off.

  It was the quickest ‘paint ship’ on record! HMAS Perth then entered Sydney Harbour in all her glory, shining like a new pin with wet paint. The crew washed up, and in clean uniforms we lined the decks to ‘Dress Ship’.28

  As they rounded the colonial stone of Fort Denison and turned to port into Farm Cove below the Botanic Gardens, those above decks, from the fo’c’sle to the bridge, could make out a milling group of family and friends waiting for them at Man o’War steps just a stone’s throw across the harbour waters. They could see them waving, hear them calling, thought they could pick out faces in the crowd. But they remained ramrod stiff in their lines until the ship secured to the No. 1 Naval Buoy and Bowyer-Smyth rang, for the final time, ‘finished with engines’.

  The pipe ‘Liberty men ashore’ had them tumbling over themselves to get into the boats, when, to their puzzlement, the order was suddenly countermanded. After a confused delay of an hour or so, Prime Minister Menzies arrived by launch and came up over the side to deliver a speech of welcome. The crew, in divisions on the quarterdeck, viewed him with sullen fury. Some bastard politician was gasbagging away, keeping them from their loved ones. As Menzies’ oratory flowed on, discipline crumbled and there were catcalls of ‘What about liberty?’. Eventually, the Prime Minister took the hint and departed, freeing the men to go.

  The boats were away seconds later for that most joyous event in a sailor’s life: the homecoming reunion. Names spoken and savoured. Tears and laughter. Passionate embraces. A wife’s kiss. A sweetheart’s perfume. Dad beaming, lost for words. Good ol’ Mum flushed with happiness. Sister proud. Younger kids standing shyly by their mothers’ skirts, unsure who or what this sudden apparition might be. Older children hurling themselves into a father’s arms. A mate’s firm handshake. We’re back. Safe. For the men from other states, this would come later. But for all of them, in this delirious moment the war was far away.

  On her Mediterranean tour, Perth had steamed more than 80,000 kilometres. And someone had counted the number of air attacks she had survived in those distant waters: 257 of them. The cruiser was battle-worn, in urgent need of a refit. Of her ship’s company, it seemed a miracle that only five men had died. Those who had survived were now seasoned warriors, bound together in the unique mateship of dangers shared and surmounted. The last word can best be left to Roy Norris as he closed his diary:

  There are some things we can never eradicate. Our hit and my own particular luck – I can still see the flash of the bomb and now the smell of hot oil fuel will always carry to me the memory of mutilated flesh and violent death.

  And one wonders what is all the use of this useless slaughter of pain and horror. The bungling of the powers that be, the knowledge that so much is being hidden to cover up ‘big’ people in responsible places. The apathy of our own people in Australia about it all. I only hope to God war never does reach Australia’s shores, but unless it does they will never realise it and what is going on in Europe today.29

  PART 3

  To the Sunda Strait

  CHAPTER 14

  CHANGE OF COMMAND

  ‘Help win the war in your kitchen. Serve more lamb,’ urged a breezy newspaper advertisement put out by the Department of Commerce in 1941. ‘So that ships may be freed to send munitions and supplies to our troops abroad, lamb usually exported must be consumed in Australia. Serve it often to your family.’

  Perth’s returning sailors found the tempo of life in wartime quickening around the nation. In the cities, there were air-raid drills and lessons in how to use a gas mask, along with public appeals for scrap metal, waste paper and rags, which would somehow go to help the war effort. The authorities had dug bomb shelters in the Sydney Domain as a helpful guide to what you could do with a shovel and some corrugated iron in your own backyard. Building supplies and newsprint were rationed. Families and businesses with cars were limited to a petrol allowance of 20 gallons a month, prompting an advertisement for something called the Pederick Gas Producer, a charcoal-burning contraption that powered your engine by gas stored, perilously, in an enormous balloon-like bag on the vehicle’s roof or a steel tank attached to the boot.1

  Most startling of all, Australian women were lining up to do their patriotic bit. Unbidden, women’s organisations had sprouted like daffodils. The Red Cross set up Voluntary Aid Detachments to teach nursing. In Melbourne, the Australian Women’s Legion – officered by steely Toorak matrons sporting jodhpurs and mirror-polished jackboots – held target practice at the Hawthorn Rifle Range. Another outfit, calling itself the Militors, attired in crisply starched khaki shorts and berets, marched around to the bellowed commands of a retired army drill sergeant. Other women trained as volunteer motorcycle messengers, signallers and telegraphists, canteen cooks and ambulance drivers.

  Their menfolk met this female flurry of patriotism with a mixture of puzzled hilarity and outright condescension. They had to be kidding. Women doing men’s work? Girls in uniform? At first, even the War Cabinet thought they were more of a nuisance than anything, archly deciding that while they could parade about to their hearts’ content, no public money should be spent on them and that no men’s jobs should be displaced.

  Eventually, the weight of numbers prevailed. On 30 June 1941, there were officially 400,000 men in the army, navy and air force, or about a quarter of the male population between the ages of 18 and 40. These men had to be replaced in their civilian jobs. Women began to work in the munitions factories. And the service chiefs were cautiously coming to accept the radical notion that uniformed women might replace men in non-combat roles. In February 1941, Federal Cabinet had reluctantly rubber-stamped the formation of the Women’s Auxiliary Australian Air Force. The RAN had followed suit: two months later, the Navy Minister, Billy Hughes, had approved the employment of 14 women – 12 telegraphists and two stewards – on two-thirds of the pay for men, with the firm instruction that there must be no publicity. The Women’s Royal Australian Naval Service was born. By mid
1941, the army counted just over 1000 women in its ranks, most of them in the Australian Army Nursing Service.

  Emptied of her ammunition, Perth was despatched to the Cockatoo Island Dockyard west of the Harbour Bridge to have her war wounds bound up and made good. A searching inspection, from masthead to keel, found that her defects and damage were more extensive than anyone had realised.

  Commander Gray and the engineers had become accustomed to the vibration and heavy smoke she made at full speed and knew that major repairs were needed in her engine room. But all over the ship there was work that had to be done, and in a hurry. Both starboard propellor shafts were taken out and re-aligned, and A-boiler room, wrecked by the bomb off Crete, was virtually rebuilt. Buckled plates in her stern were removed, leaks were stopped and much of her electrical wiring was renewed. The rackety 4-inch Fire Control Table was replaced, along with her main gyro compass, and the primitive Type 286 radar was also taken out of her. There was talk of refitting her with a more modern radar set, but, despite a blizzard of paperwork, that never happened. She would go to war again without radar eyes. But at least her anti-aircraft armament was beefed up, with two sets of quadruple .5-inch machine-gun mounts bolted to the quarterdeck. And she was given a new coat of camouflage – a peculiar arrangement with the starboard side painted in two shades of grey zigzags and to port a pattern of grey and dark blue.

  None of this concerned her crew too much. All they wanted was to get out of uniform for a while and forget the war. The navy made good on Bowyer-Smyth’s promise of a long leave, and the ship’s company scattered to the winds, some of them never to return. It was good to be back in civvy clothes again, absorbed in family routines and pleasures. For a while, the war seemed far away.