Chapter 11 Catalina Mission; Retort; Journey to Alexandria; Enemy Raiders; ....

CATALINA ON A MISSION

THE truck to the jetty bumped over the same bumps that it had felt on so many previous occasions, but as it jolted to a stop the fresh and salty atmosphere of the sea, and the sight of the line of "Cats"-like so many gracious old ladies who appeared engrossed in deep conversation, nodding wisely to each other as they rolled on the swell-raised my hopes and spirit as it always had done and always will do.

Although it would be the same job at the same place, for the same length of time, I realized that it was simply a small part in a huge plan. I was eager to be away, as were all the crew I am sure, when the curt announcement of our allotted operation reverberated throughout the camp area from the public address system.

The sky looked so clean and peaceful in the late afternoon, with a promise of twilight in the, as yet, barely perceptible traces of slate which lined the silvery sheets of wispy cloud. The sea swirled and rolled away from the boat as it cut its wav across the bay. our crew clinging happily to any protuberance of the luggage piled underneath us.

So that, all too soon, we clambered awkwardly into the rolling "Cat" which was to be our constant companion and protector for the next sixteen to twenty hours. There followed quite a lot of bustling about as we prepared for the mission. There was no time to think of anything in particular.

At a later stage of the proceedings the humming clatter of the auxiliary-power unit drowned out everything and the ship trembled slightly with the starting of each motor which, after kicking over, roared its dirge of power across the still water. Gradually, as we circled around warming up, things settled down. We all waited patiently for the captain to toot the horn which is the warning before take-off. As it blared lustily we all crowded forward, clinging to something substantial.

The motors roared into full life and all was a prolonged and intense singing noise as the boat surged forward. Ever so slowly the old girl waddled ahead, taking her time as the water swirled over her whole fuselage, seeming to engulf her. Only at the last minute did she really get going. With a last mighty effort, she shook herself free of the clinging sea and we were borne smoothly and effortlessly on air.

We then retreated to different parts of the boat, according to our particular job. I clambered back over the bulkheads to my blister where I seated myself and gazed out into the extended and now flattened world.

It was a magnificent view. Above was the deep blue sky dressed in silvery cloud, while below was the glittering bay on which numerous "Cats", like tiny toys, were buoyed, with numerous craft plying between them, trailing long, white, and ever widening wakes. The thickly timbered shoreline, appearing to resent the encroaching sea, jutted out defiantly at a number of points and on one of them was our rambling, neatly planned camp and the jetty reaching far out over the bay.

Slowly they passed underneath with all the remaining wild and broken shoreline until we were over the sea, like a vast blue expanse of shimmering light, reflecting the rays of the waning sun.

As we climbed I glanced forward to the front of the plane, to where I could see our pilot's legs. Then the navigator and wireless operator, both busily engaged, one plotting, the other eternally twiddling and twisting the vast conglomeration which comprised our only contact with the world we had recently left behind. The engineer's legs dangled from

his perch in the high superstructure. He was always happy and a wonderful tonic when we were tired. I have often wondered why he never seemed to grow weary.

The sun by now was hanging just above the straight and broad horizon. At any moment it would drop from sight. Its orange tone reflected across the rippling water and the clouds, diffused with light, presented a breath-taking picture.

Night fell ever so slowly, and I saw a small island approaching out of the darkening sea far below. There were a few scattered lights over its perimeter, but they receded slowly. The stars came into view in shy little groups and they twinkled comfortingly' as their light grew stronger in the increasing darkness.

The droning of our engines never ceased. A pleasant aroma of cooking food being prepared on our stove was very welcome, and the opportunity to while away more time at this never-tiring occupation was seldom refused.

Supper concluded, I returned once again to my blister and the surrounding stars, now present in their teeming thousands. The steady droning of the motors, and surrounding starlit black abyss, induced my thoughts to wander homeward, digging up many pleasant memories of the past. How long I was thus absorbed there is no telling, but I know that it must have been well into the night when the navigator's voice startled me back to life. Terse, yet cheerful, he exclaimed, "Five minutes to go, skipper."

At long last we had arrived at our destination. Many hundreds of miles of ocean now lay between us and base. If anything should go wrong the situation would be desperate indeed, but we had implicit faith in the old girl and we knew that she wouldn't fail us. It really is remarkable how fond a person can become of an inanimate thing. For my part, there existed a very strong affection for my boat. It was always my boat; no matter how many others flew in her.

A searchlight flashed into life below and ahead. Apparently they had heard our approach-everyone was tense and alert as we covered the area in tightening circles. The beams were plying the sky in a frantic endeavour to seek us out against the dark sky. As yet they had been unsuccessful.

I found myself wondering if they had installed any fighters. It was a wonder they hadn't so far, because our squadron had been sending over planes each night for a week. Although fighters can be extremely uncomfortable, it would relieve the tension to be able to have a smack at something.

We were heading directly toward the target now, and there was a group of tiny red flashes below. Suddenly angry white streaks flashed by on our port side as tracers guided their aim. Still, the lights had not found us yet; but I was becoming annoyed because the bombs had not been dropped. A searchlight could spoil our chances, and at any moment I was expecting them to outline us. We droned onward, monotonously level. I could see the dim figure of the bomb-aimer crouched over his sight up front. Was he never going to drop them?

A white beam flashed by to starboard, missing us narrowly. Our luck couldn't hold very much longer. Abruptly the boat jerked upward, and I heaved a sigh of relief, for I knew then that the bombs were on their way.

We were turning slowly and climbing for height when one of the beams caught us squarely. The other two immediately focused upon us and we were encompassed in blinding light. It was a helpless feeling to know that we were caught but I had faith in the ability of our pilot. Then the ack-ack came into action and there were red-centred, angry shells bursting all around, rocking us in the blast.

It was hard to remain calm as all hell broke loose around us and I don't mind admitting that I hung on to a bulwark with no less enthusiasm than any of the others. The old girl was taking it well. She seemed to be sailing through clouds of whining and deadly shrapnel. I fully expected to see the whole ship disintegrate from about us, as the skipper turned and twisted her in a futile effort to disengage the clinging beams.

After an agonizing eternity, I was brought to my senses by the curt voice of the captain, as he snapped, "Bill, Joe, Gunner, I'm going in at them. Stand by, here we go!"

I felt the ship's nose drop suddenly, and my stomach made an earnest endeavour to push its way through the top of my skull, as we dropped swiftly toward the source of light. Abruptly, a new sound swelled above the bedlam of sound. It was the stuttering of the forward guns as they began firing on the target.

Gripping my gun tightly, I glued my eye to the sight waiting for the bottom of the dive, when we would get our chance to have a crack at them. At last the heavy drag of gravity began to push me hard on to the floor, as the ship began to pull herself out.

With leaden limbs, I managed to drag the gun back on to the light. Gunner hadn't put it out, so we must. Joe's gun began to chatter even as I lined up the target, and depressed the trigger. Fascinated, I watched the tracers as they tore their way downward, and was vaguely aware that the tracers were twin. Our combined efforts finally did the trick. Although we had little time for more than a couple of bursts, the light was no longer a menace to us. It blinked out, just as I was beginning to give up hope of ever hitting it.

The remaining lights had lost us in our dive so that we wheeled about and headed off to a safe distance. Out of range of the searchlights, we climbed slowly until plenty of height had been gained.

For the next hour, we circled widely around them, to keep them alert. To finish off, we flew directly across the target as high as possible, dropping beer bottles. Satisfied that they were sufficiently stirred up we immediately headed away from the locality, into the star studded blackness. Thank goodness for that much! Everybody bore a huge grin and we relaxed once more. As we continued up the coast I clambered forward to make some tea.

Sometime later, much further on our course, the navigator announced that we were over another enemy concentration. This time, we were as high as we could go, and our missiles were ordinary, everyday beer bottles -minus the tops- into which were inserted razor blades. But we had a stray bomb or two for conviction. The bottles made a tremendous bloodcurdling wall as they hurtled toward the far distant earth. Our j ob was to keep the Jap awake and alert all night. He was also bombed during the hours of light so there would be very little rest for him. We were to harass -not necessarily to destroy.

Over this target we unloaded the bottles and our stray bomb, but there was no sign of activity down below, so, after circling for awhile, we headed off again into the night. Many times I wondered how our enemies must have felt when we were "stooging" about overhead.

We resumed our course up to the top perimeter of the island. That is, according to the navigator and his radar equipment. I personally couldn't see a thing. There, the greatest number of yellow men were entrenched, so it was decided that there we should make the most noise.

Circling widely for the next hour, out of range of their searchlights, we kept them guessing until we were prepared for our first run. First we dropped some bottles from the ceiling, then circled in a shallow dive back on to the target. Going in relatively low, we had not fully straightened out at the bottom of our glide, when we were picked up by their beams. Turning would be useless, so, flying dead ahead, we dropped our bombs. The aim couldn't have been much good, for our boat was cavorting all over the sky as shells burst around us. The din was terrific.

Crouching tensely over the gun, I waited for release from the blinding glare. It was as bright as day inside the plane, and every detail stood out clearly.

It was comforting to receive a wide grin from the navigator, and to see the engineer's legs dangling to and fro from his perch. I couldn't see him, but I knew that he was either whistling or singing at the top of his voice; he always did. Somehow, the mood was infectious, and I found that I was grinning too. I began to fire furiously at anything that even slightly resembled a target, but I don't think that I could have hit much. The tracers made a grand sight as they whizzed down, though.

The action was fierce and noisy, for we unloaded more bottles, a couple at a time, while the ack-ack was bursting around us. Again I found myself hanging expectantly and not a little anxiously, to my gun, thinking that at any moment we would have to repeat our previous performance.

The skipper had his hands completely full, flinging the heavy boat all over the sky, after the manner of a fighter, and it was all we could do to prevent ourselves from becoming part of the surrounding panorama. All the while, their shells came whizzing up, to burst angrily around us.

Abruptly, we slipped to port in a breathtaking descent, and seemed to have been falling an age through the dazzling light and bursting shells, when at once the light was gone, as were the angry red flashes, and we were tearing back into the firmament, mercifully unaccompanied. I relaxed in my seat, thankful that we had at last escaped their beams and were high up, heading back down the island.

We still had some bottles to drop over the targets previously visited, and did so as happily as school kids throwing stones at light bulbs. Before the darkness began to pale we circled widely around known enemy quarters, just being pure nuisances; quite content with the damage we had inflicted. I felt extremely glad that several thousand feet separated me from Japs, who I was sure were cursing us furiously and perhaps firing wildly in our general direction.

As the first traces of light began to appear, our boat headed with the darkness away from the island. I am quite certain that not one of the Japs on it slept much that night and morning. We could go home, assured of a sound undisturbed sleep, but the Jap-well, our bombers were over every day too! So, he either went to bed in the hope that we wouldn't come over, or stayed up and alert ready to welcome us.

Our base was a welcome sight as we passed over it. I could see many signs of activity as our ground crews prepared other gracious old ladies for further missions far into enemy occupied territory. As the keel of our boat touched lightly on the water trailing a white streamer of foam, we could afford to relax for ahead was a rest. We knew that although we did not do much more than keep the enemy on his toes, it was a job well done, and we were all more than ever proud of our boat, for only a gracious old "Cat" could have gone the distance.

W. P. POVEY, R.A.A.F.

JOURNEY TO ALEXANDRIA

THIRTY-THREE years ago, in December 1914, the Aberdeen liner Themistocles lay alongside at Williamstown. She was one of a number of ships fitting out for the carriage of troops and horses in the Second Convoy of the First A.I.F. to the Middle East.

Six weeks in Melbourne had its advantages. It had its disadvantages also. The Fourth Mate (which the writer then was) signed on for seven pounds ten a month in those days, and the six weeks in Melbourne were responsible for his paying off on the wrong side of the ledger when the ship eventually reached England in February of the following year.

The ship was what is often described as "a hive of industry". Cargo was loading, shipwrights and carpenters were busy fitting out the 'tween decks with mess tables and slinging arrangements for the troops' hammocks and building wash-houses and shower rooms on the well decks. The mate's life was unduly harassed by frequent conferences with naval transport and military authorities. The Powers That Be were more publicity-minded regarding troopships than their successors in the late war and although our Grecian identity was concealed under the prosaic number A32, our point of departure and of the troops we carried was proudly flaunted in the word AUSTRALIA painted right across the forepart of our sixty-foot bridge.

In time we moved across to Port Melbourne and the day of embarkation arrived. The excitement attendant on that event subsided as we put to sea towards the end of the month, bound for Albany, the convoy assembly port.

Captain C. R. Brekvis, R.N.. principal naval transport officer, was in charge of the convoy sailing in the Blue Funnel liner Ulysses which, when the convoy eventually took-up its cruising disposition, led the centre of the three columns, Themistocles heading the starboard column, and the White Star Ceramic the port. The Grecian touch in the names of the three leading ships was an unconscious suggestion of the Aegean adventure to follow for the troops in the convoy.

There were other old-timers in the fleet. The White Star's Persic and Suevic, the P. and 0 Branch ships Berrima and Borda, the Port Line's Port Macquarie and, among others, three ships forcibly requisitioned from the German Mercantile Marine, Melbourne, Hobart and Pfalz. Pfalz had already made history. On the morning of 5 August 194, just about the time news of Britain's declaration of war on Germany was received, she was passing through Port Phillip Heads outward bound from Melbourne. She was stopped by a shot from one of the Fort Nepean guns -one of the first, if not the first, of the shots fired in the war - and was returned to Melbourne under an armed guard.

Ayrshire was with us, but the pace to Colombo was too hot and she dropped back over the horizon, to reach Colombo some days after the arrival of the main convoy.

We had no surface escort, as the First Convoy had. H.M.A.S. Sydney had destroyed Emden at Cocos Island on 9 November, and when we of the Second Convoy steamed in line ahead from King George's Sound on the last day of the year and rounded Bald Head before forming up into cruising order, the Indian Ocean was clear of enemy raiders. We had one warship with us, under the command of Commander H. H. G. Stoker, R.N., the Australian submarine AE2, which was towed by Berrima. Themistocles, also, was a potential defender of the rest of the flock. Some months previous to the outbreak of war, two 4.7-inch guns had been mounted on her poop. They were rather show pieces, complete with heavy shields, and the whole painted a dazzling white. We were more than a little proud of them. They gave us a cachet that our sisters, at that stage, lacked.

The run across to Colombo was uneventful. The ship settled down to the usual routine. Those on the bridge accustomed themselves to station keeping, and there was rivalry in being the first to hoist the noon position. Down on the decks "housie-housie" was played innocently and overtly, and crown and anchor boards flourished in the lee of deckhouses well provided with reconnaissance cover.

It was on the leg from Colombo towards Aden that we visualized our guns fighting a rearguard action in defence of our fellows.

One forenoon, in the neighbourhood of Socotra, an unknown cruiser climbed up over he horizon on the starboard beam of the convoy, steering a converging course, and Themistocles was singled out for a post of honour in a signal from Ulysses. The flag and the intentions - of the stranger were not clear, although there was no doubt that the hostility of the one depended on the other, and as the masts and funnels gradually lifted over the sea's rim, instructions to cope with a ship of possible enemy nationality were issued by the convoy commander.

Berrima would slip AE2, who would submerge and take up a position to deliver a torpedo attack. In the meantime Themistocles - happily placed on the side from which the stranger was approaching - would, in the event of her being an enemy, engage her with her two 4.7-inch guns, while the convoy scattered. To our relief it was not necessary to carry this plan into operation. As the newcomer approached she was seen to be flying the White Ensign. She turned out to be the Royal Indian Marine Dufferin, and our guns remained silent.

Came Suez. And the smell of fuel oil drifting across the still water from the tanks ashore as we lay at anchor and the khaki hills to the south-west tinged pink to the rising sun. Here we felt that we were entering the war area. The Turks, under Djemal Pasha, were staging their abortive attack on the Canal, approaching from the east across the Sinai Desert, and at Suez our bridge was built up with sandbag protections.

But they were not needed. We made the passage of the Canal before the Turkish columns reached the bank. The only fire we experienced was that of backchat and persiflage exchanged between our own troops and those of the defence posts on the Canal banks. The Canal offered great opportunities for that. It was a little over twelve months later, after the evacuation, that-in the Aberdeen Line's Marathon this time-we were bound south from Port Said where we had embarked South Staffordshires and Worcestershires for the Persian Gulf. Our Tommies in their solar topees were lining the ship's rail watching the Canal banks sliding past, when a voice hailed us. "Where are you going? "

"Mesopotamia," the cry went back from our decks.

"You'll be b-- sorry," came the prophetic and encouraging reply.

The Canal. Entrenchments and strongpoints. The flicker of camp fires by night. Khaki sand, khaki troops by day. H.M.S. Swiftsure with her large crane, khaki also. Port Said and heavy, ungainly looking French cruisers, and the warning pamphlets issued to our troops on the subject of Egypt's dubious attractions.

Journey's end - the first stage of the great adventure for our boys from Australia's cities and bush - was at hand. We did not delay at Port Said, but steamed on past de Lesseps on his breakwater pedestal, into the Mediterranean, westward along the Egyptian coast, past Damietta and Rosetta, to where the lighthouse of Ras-el-Tin showed us the way into Alexandria, and our troops disembarked. They were to get to know Egypt well. They - and their sons.

HERMON GILL, RAN.

ENEMY RAIDERS ON THE AUSTRALIAN STATION

No anthology of the Royal Australian Navy's activities in the Second World War would be complete without something about the enemy's surface commerce raiders. They played an important part in the lives of British naval men from the first Admiralty warning in March 1940 up to the end of 1943

We developed quite a fondness for the raiders and loved to chase them. They always put me in mind of the notorious Mexican bandit who, when captured by the police after eluding them for years, said, "You shouldn't keep me here in gaol. Why you'll be lost without me to chase out there."

There were many raiders and Germany began to use them very early. This is the story of an extremely troublesome trio.

The Admiralty's warning was correct, for the raider known as Narvik actually left Germany in March 1940. She entered the Pacific on ig May around the Horn, accompanied by a tanker. On 12 June she laid mines off Auckland, New Zealand. which seven days later were to cause the sinking of the liner Niagara. On 28 June she captured Tropic Sea, and on 16 August sank the French ship Notou. On 20 August she sank Turakina, after the New 7ealand Shipping Company's fifteen year-old ship had put up a gallant fight. The world acknowledged her crew's gallantry.

About the middle of October Narvik joined up with Manyo Maru and Tokyo Maru. These last-named ships were both German raiders converted cargo ships of 5,000 and 7,000 gross tons respectively. The latter was of the Kulmerland class. They were all cleverly camouflaged to look like peaceful merchantmen, and of course if challenged by a British ship would pretend to be a neutral.

With these three ships operating together in the South-west Pacific one can imagine the worried state of mind of the Australian Naval Board.

Cruisers and armed merchant cruisers searched unsuccessfully for them, giving chase if there was the least evidence of their presence. Every strange ship off the Australian coast, particularly on the eastern seaboard, was viewed with the greatest suspicion. The Royal New Zealand Navy was also very much awake and anxious to bag one of these nuisances.

Then came the bombshell. On 8 November 1940 the British Federal Line's Cambridge struck a mine off Wilson's Promontory and sank. She was the first British ship to be mined on the Australian naval station during the Second World War.

Ironically, Cambridge was once the German ship Vogtland built by J. C. Tecklenberg in 1916. The day after she disappeared below the waters of Bass Strait, the American freighter City of Rayville was sunk by a mine off Cape Otway.

Sweepers were rushed to the scenes of the sinkings and began what was called the golden age of Australian minesweeping. The 2oth Minesweeping Flotilla, in which I was serving at the time, ultimately found five minefields; laid by the raiders. Our senior officer, Commander R. V. Wheatley, R.A.N., tackled the onerous task of clearing the shipping lanes with great vigour and determination.

Early in 1941, whilst walking along the beach at Oberon Bay on the western side of Wilson's Promontory, one of our petty officers found a lifebuoy with the words s.s. Cambridge on it. I was barely fifty yards away from him at the time, both of us having come ashore with a picnic party from Doomba anchored in the bay. To our amazement, later the same afternoon we picked up a buoy from City of Rayville. Sceptical people have since passed all manner of remarks about these amazing coincidences, but it was all true. The buoys were much sought-after souvenirs. During sweeping operations off the promontory at this time we frequently saw oil rising at the spot where Cambridge had sunk.

On 5 December the Australian ship Nimbin struck a mine off Newcastle and two days later the Federal Line's Hertford ran into a mine near Neptune Island off the coast of South Australia. Hertford managed to limp into Port Lincoln. She also was an ex-German ship, Friesland, built by Bremer Vulkan in 1917- It was a remarkable coincidence that the only two British ships to strike German mines off the Australian coast in 1940 were both of the Federal Line and both built in Germany.

After sowing their widely separated minefields, the trio proceeded to New Zealand waters and on 25 November attacked and sank the British Holmwood, twenty-seven miles from Chatham Island. The next day they sank the New Zealand Shipping Company's fine 17,000-ton motor-ship Rangitane. After this they apparently proceeded to Nauru and on 6 and 7 December sank Triona, Vinni, Triadic, Triaster and Komata off the island.

They stopped at nothing, even to using distress signals to lure their victims within easy gun range. By this time every ship in the R.A.N. yearned to "have a crack" at one of these raiders. They were too clever and received too much assistance from the Japanese in the Marshall Islands.

Every Australian naval unit, from the 8-inch cruisers to the minesweeping trawlers, worked out plans for action in the event of meeting a raider.

In Doomba, then classed as a sloop, I remember as gunnery officer working out our plan of operation with our captain, Lieutenant Commander N. R. Read, R.A.N. "We shall attack, closing the enemy at maximum speed," Lieutenant-Commander Read said simply. "In this way I think there is a fighting chance of us crippling the raider before she deals us a fatal blow." I nodded my head. Both of us knew that it would be rather like a man with a pea-shooter attacking another with a double barrelled shotgun with the object of hitting him in the eye. However, we did not meet a raider face to face; our plan was never put into action.

About 22 December the troublesome trio arrived at Emirau, sometimes called Squally Island, two hundred and thirty-one miles north-west of Rabaul. Five hundred prisoners were landed here, and later were rescued by a British ship. On 27 December Manyo Maru shelled Nauru, causing much damage. Some months later the populations of Nauru and Ocean Islands were evacuated in H.M.A.S. Westralia, s.s. Evi Livanos and other ships to the mainland. These grateful people later presented Westralia with a fine silver trophy, which stood in a glass case on the ship's quarter deck for the remainder of the war.

After 1940 the three raiders were not heard of again on the Australian station. They had succeeded in doing considerable damage. They captured or sank at least sixteen ships, laid half a dozen minefields and generally kept the R.A.N. on its toes. With a great deal of skill and luck they had succeeded in avoiding our fighting ships. Yet their sojourn in our waters would not have been half so successful had they not received the help they did from the Japanese in their mandated islands in the Pacific.

Although the trio did not trouble us again -after 1940, we were to come upon more evidence of their work. On 4 January 1941 we were minesweeping in the approaches to Hobart. It was a fine day with a very slight sea running. We had come down to make certain there was nothing to prevent valuable transports and cargo ships from visiting the Tasmanian capital. After lunch I began to walk up and down the upper deck. I felt like a cigarette and finding that I had no matches I went below to my cabin to get some. Whilst there I heard and felt a violent explosion which I surmised to have taken place a short distance away.

Rushing up on deck, I scanned the sweeps of all ships and saw what had been a high column of water subsiding just astern of the senior ship.

"Great Scott, Warrego's dropped a depth charge," one officer exclaimed.

"Depth charge be hanged," cried the first lieutenant. "That was a mine exploding in her sweep, or I don't know my minesweeping."

There was great excitement in the 20th Minesweeping Flotilla that afternoon. Commander Wheatley had done it again, this time finding the first mine himself. I looked across at the land and saw we were not much more than a mile off Cape Raoul - right in the track of shipping.

Everyone stood around the decks of the ships that afternoon and discussed the mine. Nobody, not even watch-keepers who had intended to have a quiet afternoon's sleep, showed the slightest inclination to go below. We were carrying out a double Oropesa searching sweep in "H" formation, which meant that there was nothing to prevent the sweepers hitting mines laid shallow enough. However, we soon ceased "searching", and commenced "clearing" a channel for shipping entering and leaving the port. A message flashed to Melbourne caused the port of Hobart to be closed until our channel was completed. The R.A.A.F. was warned to redouble their vigilance.

The fact that a mine had been found off Hobart was kept a close secret. It was learnt in the last war that it does not pay to let the enemy know you have discovered his minefields. The war had kept well clear of Hobart up to this time, except for routine matters such as convoys and the examination service.

Thus ended our association with the troublesome trio; but others of their kidney were soon to pester us. Most of the raiders, however, found it more profitable to operate in the Indian and Atlantic Oceans. Kormoran had only just entered the Australian naval station after a reasonably successful period in the Atlantic and the Indian Oceans when she was sunk by Sydney on the night of 19 November 1941

When H.M.I.S. Bengal sighted two Japanese raiders, one of the Aikoku class and one of the Kiyosumi class, on 11 November 1942 north-west of Australia, they were steering roughly north-east. Bengal and the tanker Ondina sank the Aikoku-class raider and her companion escaped.

This was the last occasion on which Japanese surface raiders were sighted near Australia.

During 1941 German raiders caused us many a hunt in the Pacific. None that followed, however, did nearly as much damage to Australia's war effort as did Manyo Mam, Narvik or the Black Raider, and Tokyo Maru during their eight months' activities in this part of the world.

We often wondered why Japan did not send an occasional surface commerce raider down our way. They would certainly have had some success as there was plenty of shipping about. Whether they would have returned to Japan is another matter. I think that the converted-merchantman raiders were peculiarly suited to the German temperament. They offered danger, action, the power of sinking helpless merchantmen and the fame, when returning home, of having outwitted the British Navy.

W. N. SWAN, R.A.N.

LOST BY ENEMY ACTION

THE rating from the Rendering Mines Safe Unit was feeling - rather fed-up. In six months never
a mine had turned up to be rendered safe, despite the fact that this command covered a Queensland coastline of some six hundred miles.

For the last three months he had been filling in time as a sort of glorified messenger in the small staff office and felt that he was in danger of forgetting all that he had ever learned about the delicate task of rendering safe.

"In any case," he thought, "what's the use of spending months on a highly specialized course and then never getting a chance to make use of your training? Might as well get a transfer back to the seaman branch and get to sea again. Not much use waiting for mines that never get here."

Determined now to do something about it, he went on sorting the mail he had just collected from the post office, feeling a little happier than he had been for some time. He rose to take the official correspondence to the secretary of the Naval Officer in Charge, when that worthy himself suddenly rocketed in through the door.

"Ah! There you are," he exclaimed, "the captain wants you right away, Thomson."

"Aye, aye, Sir," said Thomson, feverishly trying to recollect any possible peccadilloes, "Any idea what it's about, Sir?"

"A mine, I think," replied the secretary.

Thomson's face lit up.

"A mine! Whacko!" He positively bolted down the corridor to the N.O.I.C.'s office.

"You sent for me, Sir?"

"Yes, Thomson." The N.O.I.C. reached for a telegram form on his desk and read, "Object reported by fisherman on Roundstone Beach resembling mine. Please investigate. Postmaster, Combe Hill."

The officer rose and went to his chart table.

"Here, Thomson, is Roundstone Beach, one hundred and thirty miles from here. We cannot send you there by sea, so you will have to go by train to Combe Hill, which is fifteen miles southwest of Roundstone Beach. The train leaves in three hours' time. Report to me again half an hour before the train is due to leave.'

"Aye, aye, Sir," and Thomson departed to get his kit together. "Wonder how I'm to get to the beach from Combe Hill? Suppose the Old Man will fix something. Hope the old blighter doesn't expect me to walk there."

Thomson soon had his gear ready and returned to the staff office. All thoughts of returning to sea had vanished and his mind busied itself with speculation as to what he would have to deal with. By the time he was to report to the N.O.I.C., he had decided it was probably a mine laid by the German commerce raiders who had been around nearly two years before and he recalled that it would probably be one of two types, faithfully described by official sources from R.M.S. reports. Several of these mines had been washed up and dealt with some months previously in another command.

However, and the thought rather appalled him, the fisherman might have seen anything - an empty petrol drum, for instance - and, because it was a bit weed and barnacle encrusted, thought it was a mine. He hastily put the idea away and, when he reported to the N.O.I.C., mentioned his earlier deductions.

"I think that would be about it-if it is a mine, Thomson," replied the N.O.I.C. "However, I have advised the postmaster that I am sending you to Combe Hill and have requested him to give you every assistance.

The secretary has your rail warrant. Good luck and don't blow yourself up. If it is a mine, we want to know what sort it is."

When Thomson alighted from the train seven hours later it was pitch dark and raining hard. Nevertheless, he found quite a deputation waiting for him.

"I'm Bill Smith, the postmaster," one of them said. He introduced in turn the local policeman, the Clerk of Petty Sessions, the Shire Clerk and a number of other functionaries. Thomson realized that the suspected mine was proving to be a big thing in the civic and social life of Combe Hill. He found he was to be put up by the postmaster, but, before he could retire for the night, he had to attend a meeting and hear what the fisherman who had made the original report had to say. The latter gave a faithful description of what he had seen and Thomson found he had enough particulars to assure all present that it was a mine.

It was arranged that the policeman. the fisherman and Thomson should go to Roundstone Beach the following morning - on horseback. Thomson quailed a little when he heard this. He was quite a devotee of the sport of kings, but there his knowledge of horseflesh ended. He cracked a joke about their making a "horse marine" out of him, but inwardly did not feel quite so happy about it as he pretended to be.

Thomson was roused by the postmaster at crack of dawn, fed and hurried down to the police station where the whole town appeared to be gathered to see them off. His horse seemed docile enough and fortunately this was proved to be correct. He packed his R.M.S. gear into his saddle bags and, amidst cheers, the three of them rode off.

The trail to the beach was easier than Thomson anticipated and he found he could give some attention to his horse and carry on a conversation with the others at the same time. He noticed the policeman was carrying a rifle and asked what it was for.

"Lot of wild pig around here," said the limb of the law. "Very ugly customers some of them, especially one old boar. People have been trying to kill him for years, but no one has had any luck. They call him 'Bloody Bill' on account of all the dogs he has killed. No dog that has had a go at him once and survived will go near him again."

The time passed pleasantly and at length the sea could be seen through the trees. The fisherman led the way down to the beach and there, right in front of them, was the mine encrusted with weed and barnacles. There was no doubt about its having been laid some time ago. They dismounted and tethered their horses to some saplings.

Thomson got his gear out and they advanced on the mine. It was, as Thomson had previously deduced, a German contact type and he commenced to note down particulars. This done, he handed his notes to the policeman and told his companions to stand clear.

As they walked down the beach Thomson, who saw some hot work ahead, took his shirt off and, for want of a better place, hung it over one of the horns of the mine. He unrolled his tool kit, selected the spanner he required and turned to the mine. But before he could fit the spanner, a wild commotion at the edge of the bush drew his attention. He looked up to see the last of the three horses break loose and dash madly down the beach after the other two. A large pig appeared-out of thin air, it seemed-where the horses had been and stood there grunting angrily.

"Hi, it's Bloody Bill," yelled the policeman from a hundred yards down the beach. He dropped down on to one knee, levelled his rifle and took a shot at the boar.

Bill gave a squeal - of anger, it happened to be - and a red weal appeared across his snout. The policeman had only grazed him.

Bill was now mad with anger. The policeman aimed carefully and squeezed the trigger - but nothing happened, his rifle had jammed.

Thomson realized they were in trouble; he also realized that he was in worse trouble than the others because he was nearest to Bill and the bloody one had sighted him.

Screaming and grunting, the boar dashed down the beach and Thomson, noting out of the corner of his eye that the other two were doing, the same, dashed into the sea and commenced to swim strongly for the horizon. He had covered a good fifty yards in championship style when the sky suddenly seemed to split and the din of an explosion seemed to press him down under the water. Gasping and spluttering, he turned his dazed eyes towards the beach.

The mine was gone, Bloody Bill was gone and a large hole in the sand and a dwindling cloud of smoke were all that remained to mark their passing.

As Thomson staggered ashore, he remembered his shirt and the solution of the puzzle occurred to him. When he had dashed out of the field of the boar's vision, his shirt, flapping on one of the horns of the mine, had claimed the excited animal's attention and Bloody Bill had charged it.

This particular mine was quite evidently a product of Teutonic thoroughness. Despite its long immersion it had plenty of kick left in it and, when several hundred pounds of pig scored a bull's-eye on the horn on which the shirr hung-well, it just went up. Out goes the mine and Bloody Bill, with Thomson's shirt and tool kit.

The policeman and fisherman, both looking rather awestruck, rejoined Thomson.

"Well, that's the end of Bloody Bill," said the former, "but what with Bill and the mine our horses will be half-way home by now. Boy, was that an explosion!"

When they finally accomplished their weary trek back to Combe Hill and the policeman and the fisherman told the townspeople of the events of the day, Thomson found himself being given the Combe Hill equivalent of the freedom of the city. The whole town turned out to see him off when he left by the next morning's train and he carried with him vivid, if patchy, recollections of Combe Hill hospitality.

On his return to the staff office, Thomson made his report to the N.O.I.C. Any misgivings he had had regarding the loss of his R.M.S. kit were dispelled when the N.O.I.C. lay back in his chair and laughed till the tears rolled down his face. He ordered a survey note to be prepared in respect of the loss of the R.M.S. kit and to show it as "Lost by enemy action at Roundstone Beach".

To this day, certain naval storekeeping and accounting circles in Melbourne and Sydney are completely mystified as to how the enemy made away with one R.M.S. tool kit on the Queensland coast.

J. C. H. GILL, R.A.N.

I MEET THE SULTAN

IT is a far cry from Woolloomooloo to an igloo in Greenland or from Marble Bar to Buckingham Palace. But war has played these tricks on Tom, Dick and Harry. And no matter how hard-boiled or how globe-tossed a man might become through the vagaries of war he never quite achieves that aloofness towards fate where he ceases to ask himself, "Can this be happening to me?"

My thoughts were running along these lines one morning late in July 1945 when I found myself on board a motor launch at Tarakan bound on a visit to Maulana Sultan Mohamad Djalaloedin, Sultan of Boeloengan, whose palace at Tg Pelas on the River Boeloengan is some twenty miles or so inland from the northeast coast of northern Dutch Borneo and a couple of hours' run by launch from the island of Tarakan.

The Sultan, nominal ruler of this division of Borneo, (the N.E.I. government exercising indirect rule) was one of those unfortunates caught up in the Japanese invasion of this area and who, faced with flight into the interior or co-operation with the enemy, chose neither course but moved to a strategic point farther down the river with a bodyguard of Dyaks prepared, if necessary to fight it out. The Sultan was never required to do this, but he had, nevertheless, established himself as a gallant figure and an uncompromising friend of the Allies.

Three months had passed since the Australians had landed at Tarakan and the Sultan's long wait of nearly three years for the liberation of his subjects had ended. Except for a few scattered bands of disorganized troops, the Japanese were either dead, captured or in flight.

And so it was to a gratified Sultan that the launch sped southwards from the wharf towards the immense delta where the many mouths and water arms of the Boeloengan join the sea.

A wrinkled, shrewd-looking Malayan of unguessable age, who answered to the name of Joe, guided us through the channels where shoals and mud banks and the tides acted as effective sentries to the only highway into the domain of the Sultan, making navigation an impossible undertaking except to the initiated.

Joe was dressed in khaki shirt, drab trousers, and slouch hat and managed to achieve the ultimate of disreputableness with these items of dress. He smoked innumerable American cigarettes with an expression of ineffable bliss and, when not acting as pilot, pattered around the launch with such a savouring of luxury that without any doubt he also was saying to himself. "Can this be happening to me?"

As the voyage progressed I learned that Joe was something in the nature of confidential secretary or chamberlain to the Sultan. I confess that my heart sank at this news, for with it went my vision of a turbaned, be-jewelled Sultan, clad in exotic-coloured silks of the Orient.

Joe was to exhibit all the necessary qualifications attaching to his office, later in the day. In the meantime he guided us safely through the meanderings; of the Boeloengan River until it straightened out into an imposing stream and the jungle that had stopped only at the verge of the river gave way to river flats and swamps.

We now began to pass small native villages, but for all the signs of human habitation we might have been passing the villages of the dead. The region seemed to have been given over to monkeys which swung excitedly through the trees as we approached.

Somebody produced a pair of binoculars and with the aid of these an occasional brown face, well within the interior dimness of a hut, could be seen staring at us through a window or doorway. Were they wondering whether we were friend or foe or were they resentful or distrustful of any stranger who broke into their sequestered lives with the chug of motor engines? Perhaps we too, like the Japanese before us, would use their river to transport food crops from the interior to a garrison at Tarakan. Merely a change of masters.

From here, perhaps, they had stood and gazed three months ago at the flames and smoke rising from burning oil tanks on Tarakan, listened to the howl of howitzers and the blast of falling bombs, saw later the flocks of Lightnings swoop and rise while their napalm bombs sent out a shuddering rush of red flame through the forests in the hills held by the enemy. This launch, the outward and visible sign of victory, did it have any meaning, for them? Perhaps none at all. Joe could not tell me.

The river turned in a leisurely curve and straight ahead, a long distance away, a tall mountain shaped to a graceful cone, the colour of a milky-blue opal, straddled the river. From here onwards the country assumed a greater expansiveness in all its aspects. The river broadened still further and seemed now to have reached its full strength, running deeply and surely so that it seemed almost to breathe like a contented beast. The river banks rose higher into gently sloping terraces and on them thick girthed trees, densely foliaged, displaced the steaming swamps.

On both the eastern and western banks of the river, perhaps a mile away, the outlines of large villages broke through the trees. A calm like an enchantment spread from the mountain top to trees and earth and water. This was the entrance to the town of Tg Pelas and the palace of the Sultan of Boeloengan. It was a scene from the Arabian Nights and only prahus should have sailed into that ancient calm, but I'm sure Joe, who had probably ached at the oars many a time, would not have agreed with me!

We landed at the eastern bank of the river at the town of Tg Selor, where the Dutch assistant resident administering the division of Boeloengan had his seat till 1941 when he moved to Tarakan. Tg Pelas lay directly opposite, across the river.

Almost the entire population of Tg Selor had turned out to meet us. They crowded on to the wharf, a hotchpotch of Eastern races Malayans all shades of brown, from burnt umber to raw sienna, with a corresponding inconsequence of facial characteristics, except a general ruggedness and an expression of cheerful laziness. They were dressed in any old clothes, as were most of the inhabitants, khaki shirts and drab trousers being remarkably in evidence. There were Indians, black-fezzed, more dress-conscious in white, pink, black, touches of colour-soft-eyed, small boned, somewhat too over-ripe and saccharine, like fallen tropical fruits, to suit the Western European palate; and Chinese, clean and jovial, although one sensed something private and impenetrable even in their jocularity; their young women demurely observant, their smiling lips sharp-pointed at the comers.

A Malayan policeman, armed with a rifle and with a bicycle and possessing a humorous, mobile countenance extraordinarily like Wallace Beery's, bellowed at the multitude of heedless urchins scrambling for vantage points at the wharf's edge. The resident Dutch official, a tall young man in immaculate white duck, appeared through the crowd and took charge.

He spoke excellent English. The Sultan, it appeared, was still at his country residence down the river. He was expecting us that afternoon after lunch. Would we care first to inspect the town and then lunch with him before proceeding on our journey? An excellent arrangement, we agreed, and mentally hurled our tins of bully beef into the Boeloengan. And the Sultan's palace? The Dutchman pointed across the river. There facing us on the opposite bank was a large structure standing out from others and which, from this distance, appeared to be something between a highly coloured warehouse and an emporium. If time permitted we might care to visit it? Of course.

We moved forward to inspect the town, accompanied by the concourse of excited, speculative urchins. The main street or bazaar, broad and tree shaded, ran parallel with the wharf. Outside the thatch-roofed shops the merchandise of Tg Selor was spread for our inspection. Prawns. surely, on this tray, and balls of cooked beans mixed with other vegetables and perhaps meat. The flies loved them. Marshmallowy sweets, sugar coated. Jewellery. Souvenirs, These require closer inspection. In the window, sapphires, diamonds, rubles, opals - or cut glass? Filigreed brooches and bracelets shining almost like gold.

Inside the shop. imperturbable Chinese working at their trade. How much for this? Eh! For this', Adults crowd in with the children.

The Australian, he is going to buy . . . . He is not going to buy. Suspense! All hold their breath.

Twenty guilders! Ah, too late, the Americans have already been here!

An Oriental, non-committal shrug .... He is not going to buy.

We all troop out and so down the length of the street to the barber's shop that was once, of all things, a dentist's. The dentist's chairs now serve admirably their new purpose, enormous diagrams of teeth still ornamenting the walls; then to a Chinese tea merchant who has no tea to sell; to a quaint little shop that seems to have had nothing in particular to sell at any time but whose hanging curtain over the back door is partly drawn to disclose a porch on which two giggling native girls, clad in brightly patterned kimonos, dart an unmistakable glance. Again, the Australian he does not buy. And at last to a shop that sells everything from toothbrushes to hand-beaten brass plaques. At last he buys. Excitement, laughter, congratulations, on all sides.

And then, on coming out of the shop, I see my first Dyak. He is naked, except for a loin cloth. He walks down the centre of the road with a swaggering, rolling gait, something like that of a sailor of
the old breed. He rolls with the springy, cushioned tread of a superb athlete. There is strength, arrogance and freedom in that square, fleshy frame. He has a Mongolian cast of face, his straight black hair is worn long and hangs to his shoulder blades in greasy, matted curls. He is nothing like
a Malayan, nothing like any native I have seen; he is a type all his own. He has given up head-hunting and has been assimilated with the Malayans, adopting their religion which, like that of all the Sultan's subjects, is Mohammedan. He is joined by a woman of his tribe.

She is dressed in a nondescript coloured robe which falls about her in folds as simple as the robe worn by a woman of ancient Greece. I watch the pair swagger out of sight. I have seen a most unusual specimen of homo sapiens and wonder whether meeting even a Sultan on the same day will be an anti-climax.

Lunch in the Dutchman's cool stone house had made us late. We had dallied over the four varieties of fish and the dozen varieties of sauces, the venison (a local product), the vegetables and coconut cooked three different ways, the pineapple souffl6 and the cakes. When we arrived at the wharf Joe was in a ferment of deferential impatience. To visit the palace was now out of the question. We could not eat the lunch provided by the Dutchman and visit the palace as well, but we were satisfied.

We departed in haste from the crowded wharf for the Sultan's country estate. Our course took us to a sluggish tributary of the Boeloengan River. We threaded our way gingerly between banks thick with reeds growing out of the steamy ooze of tropical swamps and after many bends and turns we sailed towards a dilapidated jetty which, in its present condition, would undoubtedly vanish in the next flood.

Several thatched huts of considerable size opened on to the jetty and even at a distance it was obvious that they shared the jetty's impending doom. As we approached, the faces of several women were discerned peering at us through a window of the nearest hut.

A man seated beneath the window rose to his feet. He was dark skinned, even for a Malayan, of most sombre expression and swathed from neck to bare feet in a magenta-coloured robe which he wore blanket-wise like a Red Indian. He was not quite my idea of a Sultan, but his vivid robe was at least a step in the right direction. He could be seen muttering something and shutters closed with a bang over the window. The magenta-robed figure then resumed a squatting position beneath it.

Joe disembarked first officially to herald our arrival, and as I stepped on to the rickety plankway and climbed to the top of the jetty much squawking of red fowls and grunting of black pigs arose from the malodorous depths beneath, reminders that we were indeed at a country estate where the farmyard noises, sights an~ smells are the traditional accompaniment to the exquisite simplicity of rural life.

When all our party, with varying degrees of hazard, had ascended that tottering plankway and had assembled in a group on top, Joe appeared from a hut at the far end of the platform preceded by an old man dressed in a light grey flannel lounge suit. As he wore a fez I at once dismissed the magenta-robed individual as being the Sultan and felt that I was about to meet Maulana Sultan Mohamad Djalaloedin himself. This intuition proved to be correct. Our interpreter presented us each in turn and the Sultan shook us by the hand in welcome.

The Sultan was reported to be in his sixties.

He was very thin and frail with a complexion that ill health had reduced to the pallor of an anaemic mango. His black eyes were faintly filmed with the grey of premature old age. Nevertheless, he stood very erect in his black patent leather shoes with pointed toes and although a vague, far-away look was never absent from his expression for very long there was also that unmistakable air of self-possession and ease of one accustomed to exercising authority and the courtliness of one to whom gracious manners were part of the requirements of authority, expressed even in the bend of his scrawny neck above the impeccable cream silk shirt buttoned to the top.

We moved forward in our heavy service boots over the swaying platform of slit bamboos to the reception room: a simple structure of thatched sago-palm leaves with a commanding view down to the farmyard and furnished with a deal table, chairs, a calendar, a hurricane lamp and the photograph of Queen Wilhelmina, very much the worse for wear.

Joe accompanied us and squatted in a comer within speaking distance of the Sultan and during the entire course of our reception watched proceedings with one ear cocked like a faithful hound ready to bark if danger threatened. Moreover, the Sultan did not speak English, while Joe spoke English and Dutch with fluency.

The misfortunes of the Sultan at the hands of the Japanese were touched upon. Money and jewels he had been able to send from the country when invasion threatened. But nothing else. It was unthinkable that he should remain at his palace to enter into co-operation with the enemy in order to save his skin and perhaps his possessions. Others had done this. . . . And, then, there were his wives and children to consider. With them, a few servants and a small band of Dyaks he had moved to these quarters, prepared, if necessary, to resist the Japanese with his life. The Dyaks were great warriors and did not like the Japanese, the Sultan said, and his faded eyes kindled momentarily. He pointed to the adjacent hut where a score of Dyaks, within call, sprawled in the shade.

He had not seen his palace since the Japanese had fled. It was said that much damage had been done to it. Officers had been quartered there and tales of debaucheries and wrecking of valuable rugs, tapestries, even of marble steps and pillars, had been reported to him. His two Packard cars and motor launch had been lost, one of the cars and the launch wrecked in an air raid and the remaining car taken av.-ay by the Japanese. His children had driven to school in one of the cars and although the school was only a few hundred yards from the palace they had delighted to ride in the car every day.

More than the damage to his palace the Sultan seemed to regret the loss of his cars and the motor launch. To the wear-v resignation ,of one used to bodily sickness a deeper quietening of the spirit which was neither patience nor any form of courage showed itself upon the ageing Sultan. War had reached his remote and sheltered domain and simple way of life, destroying his household gods and to Sultan was not really interested in what remained. Something within him had died and disappeared with his last Packard car.

He asked for news of the war in Europe. So, the war had ended there. And Mussolini? Dead. The news appeared to gratify the Sultan very much. Horribly, disgracefully dead. ne Sultan nodded his head as one agreeing with the inexorable Justice of fate. He had visited Europe before the war and had not liked Mussolini. And Hitler? - Suicided. Again that nodding of the head.

The conversation so far. through the medium of an interpreter had taken a considerable time and at this stage someone ventured to ask whether it were permissible to smoke. Of course, yes, replied the Sultan. He regretted that he was unable to offer us cigarettes as he had been without tobacco of any sort for a long time....
The poor old man had been waiting for us to suggest smoking an hour ago! He accepted a cigarette with positive joy and when a neat pile of packets of cigarettes was arrayed before him on the table at least ten years seemed to have slipped from his shoulders. He became almost animated. I looked balefully at Joe squatting in the corner with his face like a mask, remembering his orgy of smoking on the launch. He had behaved like a disgusting schoolboy who stuffs himself with chocolate before lie reaches home and the inevitable confiscation of his ill-gotten hoard.

Tea, very sweet, very black, was served in tiny porcelain cups and in obedience to an order from the Sultan a basket of eggs and a basket of bananas were brought in and presented to us with the gracious nonchalance of royalty bestowing priceless jewels upon us (as indeed the eggs were). We left tins of condensed milk and bully beef upon the Sultan's table ere we departed, the time for which had now drawn very near.

Some matters of moment having been discussed we looked in on the bodyguard of Dyaks and I felt glad that they were on our side. Envious eyes were cast upon their razor edged hunting knives, the hilt of carved ivory or bone and tasselled with black, white and orange hair. Perhaps human hair! The scabbard resembled teak wood and was also richly carved with perfect craftsmanship. The Dyaks might have been willing to part with these-at a price, but Rasputin Joe appeared to exercise a sinister influence, and as the Sultan himself was forced charmingly to explain, the knives were required to slit the throats of the Japanese. He made an appropriate gesture.

The Sultan walked with us to the jetty and bade us farewell. He was still standing there, erect and gracious and solitary, when we had reached midstream. He raised an arm in~ farewell. W e waved back and I noticed then that the shutter had been removed from the window of the near hut and that female faces were again peering at us from this safe distance.

Where his harem is concerned a wise Sultan takes no risks.

C. E. TOBIN, R.A.A.F.

AMONG MY SOUVENIRS

I AM a moderately worthy citizen. None of the Lugers or Birettas which were pressed on me after the first Libyan campaign are lying around my home. I suspect they are carefully tucked away in the baggage of the various reputable types to whom I surrendered them when the novelty of owning a private arsenal had worn off or when my sense of self-preservation got the better of my hoarding instinct. Away, too, went the beautiful sporting rifle with delicately chased barrels. Some corseted Italian officer had valiantly hunted desert birds and beasts with it - until some Desert Rats came after him with unchased steel and colourful oaths.

Many treasured souvenirs have passed from me; burnt, lost, "cliftied" or given away in a surge of warm generosity, to be bitterly regretted later when the wave of enthusiasm had passed. But I'm still cluttered with strange oddments which look out of place in a civilian home. I expect that most servicemen suffer in the same way. Their wives have all my sympathy.

Often I trip over the large brass door-stop. Once this Fascist emblem was nailed proudly to a door-]Intel in Libya and doubtless the polishing of the intricate bundle of rods brought despair to many a Latin heart. Now it has found its own level.

A jagged lump of rusty metal lies on my writing-table. It's a useful paper-weight but visitors stare at it and think I'm peculiar. Probably I am but I cherish it because it's a bit of ack-ack that came whizzing through my sixth-floor window one night in Alexandria. I slept through all the fun and found it under my bed next morning.

If I push a pile of papers aside there's likely to be a crashing tinkle as a camel-bell bites the dust. (Yes, dust. I'm no housewife.) I chipped it off the proprietor of a camel train in Gaza one hot June morning in 1940. Remember those caravans? The distant music of dozens of bells wafting romantically on air heavy with the scent of orange-blossom? The scent gave way to a less pleasing aroma as one neared the caravan and saw the camels looking exactly as they smelt. But it was fascinating to watch them tinkle by, the long necks weaving and each huge foot pacing deliberately through the dusty sand.

I've still got my Mohammedan beads to remind me of the bargaining Arabs who worked through their prayers-click, click, click-while they swore there was no profit in the transaction under discussion but that their goodness of heart, their love for the Australians, impelled them to oblige us.

I use my beads as a deterrent to chain-smoking. Up in the Territory I suspected that they were regarded as an affectation but found an ally one night as I sat in the open-air cinema, clicking away madly for the sake of my tonsils. Presently a nostalgic Middle East veteran behind me said huskily, I can't bear it. Let me have a go at them! " I passed the beads back to him and I doubt if he noticed the rest of the picture; he was too busy clicking his way back to Latrun, Isdud, Nablis and Amaryiah.

Sometimes I stub my toe on the domed Italian tin hat hidden away in a corner. It has been on its way out several times but I've always weakened. Men of the first company into Bardia sent it back in triumph, the first souvenir of battle. After that, strange oddments rained in on me. A Senussi warrior's identity card, complete with dusky portrait, luggage stickers from the palatial Albergo

Tobruk, Italian paper money, gold fountain pens, shoulder badges in excelsis, delicate wine-glasses from a richly-equipped mess on a captured aerodrome, a rather pathetic pillow-case heavily embroidered, with Luigi's name and rank festooned in garlands. Bottles of scent, opened and unopened, a natty suit of gent's underwear, also embroidered, a pocket-calendar with a sweet thought for each day and illustrated with pictures of a pair of Latin gentlemen in pretty silk suits weeping on each other's shoulders; and later weeping again at the death-bed of a highly coloured and robust-looking lady. I even had a lock of hair from somebody's first prisoner. Ugh!

I have made a scrapbook of the smaller souvenirs. There's a tender note from "Sidi Ahmed Abassi, conjuror. With my best, hoping to be a very happy new year." And a heart-warming round-robin from the staff we left behind in Tel Aviv: "In our work it is all right. We do the best we can, following the duty upon your desire. Often we say one to the other; how nice it was, if you come here for short or long time." I couldn't agree with them more! This entry is followed by a rather undignified photograph of two of us on a cardboard motor-bike in Jaffa. Those were the days! And a rather terse communication from the Indian tailor at Mustapha barracks. "By no means be late. Come prompt eating-time to assume your tunic."

Various Security passes have remained to me, mostly for the sake of the attached libelous portraits of myself. (Permission to enter Kom el Dik Fortress; frowsy. Permission to enter Dock Area and to "proceed afloat under sail"; long nose and cast in eye. B.T.E. card giving immunity to trial by Egyptian courts; Shanghai Lil.)

A flash of festive green streamer is a portion of the Christmas garland I sent up in December to be hung in Bardia when it should fall. On 5 January 1941 it spanned two buildings in the town and beneath it the Sixth Division passed to and fro before going on to further conquests.

Invitations take various forms, some of them formal, many richly informal. The best of them all, as regards illustration and wording, is unfortunately lost to me. It was from a dysentery ward and very topical. But I have managed to preserve the glorious racing guide issued by the Sixth Division Cavalry picnic races in the Territory in 1943 - "Nudist: by Civvy out of Coupons" is about the only entry I can repeat here. Competitors were limited to the use of "batteries of no more than sixty volts". Incidentally, all tote profits (about £5,000) went to the prisoners-of-war fund.

Movement orders, leave passes, odd warrants somehow not handed in, stray through the pages. The Snake-Pit Review Company near Darwin lured us to see the "greatest flesh and blood artists of all time. Magnificent band, beautiful women". As I remember the company, "voluptuous and repellent" would have better described the gorgeously caparisoned and well-padded creatures who leapt about in Army boots and gave us stitches. Then follows a Bulletin drawing of a rough, tough, hulking Digger bending an imperturbable eye on a small and dapper M.P., anxiously conciliatory: "Great day, Dig! How about a little ole peep at the ole leave pass?"

I've kept a copy of the E.F.M. cable groups. What pleasure the choice of phrases always gave us especially No. 174: "Business very bad. Please send financial assistance." When numbers got mixed in transit, Joy was unconfined. Once I found an hysterical mob in a ward at Kantara. One man waved a cable at me. I read: "Many happy returns. Daughter born. Love." It seemed normal to me. The happy recipient put me right between howls. "It's from mum. She's seventy-six! "

There's a photograph of one of the famous lions on the Gizerah Bridge-the lions which are said to roar when a reputable person goes by. Unhappily, none of my friends have heard the beasts. Photographing the bridge ,vas forbidden so I had to take it crouching on the floor of a car as I sped by. The lion looks pretty snooty.

I seem to have a lot of newspaper clippings about stolen jeeps. Some anonymous person who cannot let sleeping dogs lie (I suspect the Eighth Division) bombards me every time a vehicle goes missing. I state here and now that I have not laid a dishonest finger on a jeep since I returned to the mainland and respectability. Formerly I did so only in the prosecution of my duty-no transport, no one to car-bash and there you were. And the fact that I could fit sixteen bodies into and on to a jeep should call forth respect rather than petty recriminations!

The only Line Crossing ceremony I saw during the war was in Duntroon en route to Singapore towards the end of the war. I was by then quite dizzy with crossing rapidly from one hemisphere to another, so was not a candidate for soapsuds, but I've kept one of Neptune's certificates. The wording does honour to the Eighth Division . ... . . Sunday 9 September 1945, whilst on a voyage to Singapore to commence the return to their waiting homeland of the prisoners of war, members of the Eighth Division A.I.F., gallant defenders of Malaya." On the next page is a photograph of a group of men just as we found them a few days later, naked to the waist, ulcered limbs roughly bound, stomachs distended by bad diet; but every friendly face grinning and animated.

Those who flew down later from Bangkok gave me one of the stout paper bags issued on the plane. Printed on it in two languages (English and Thai) is the rather pettish instruction: "If you must be sick, do so in this bag."

I have been able to preserve a few army newspapers, beginning with the Tobruk Truth, July 1941: "An agency message states that Japan has presented demands on Thailand for naval and air bases. These would be for -attacks against Singapore or Burma." A.I.F. News-, December 1941: "Boy, bomb-spotters will be stationed at spotting places on Sydney Harbour foreshores. and will advise the naval authorities of the location of bombs dropped." Army News, February 1943: "Rabaul 'in flames after great raid." Table Tops, May 1943: Pictures of the tallest W.A.A.A.F.- 6 foot 1 inch-and the smallest - 4 foot 8 inches. Tripoli Times, March 1944: "No reply yet from Jap prison camps."

I know that I am biased about the A.I.F.. but there are many outside the Commonwealth who share my regard for them. Towards the end of my book is a letter signed "Edwina Mountbatten". Referring to the Australian fighting men she says: "I think you know how much I admired their courage and spirit both in the prisoner-of-war camps and in the grand work they are doing."

And now, looking through my book full of queer bits and pieces my thoughts go back to comrades in strange places. With all my heart I wish them well.

BIDDY MORIARTY, Australian Red Cross Field Force