Chapter 3 "Gimme the Boats"; Old White Lady; The Three Funnelled..; Will to Win

OLD WHITE LADY

THERE was a time when she was not painted white, and there came a time when no longer was she resplendent in white, with buff funnel and decorative band of maroon along her slim straight sides; but to those that know and love her she is always the "Old White Lady of the North".

She is not particularly beautiful as ships go, but a certain charm exists in her wide flared bow and the cocked-up perkiness of her unusual. pointed stem. She is a brave ship and a staunch ship, and we that love her know that somewhere deep down beats a strong heart that has carried her through twenty-seven years of active service. She has a soul too, a courageous soul that we can feel, and that feels for us, as well we know who have been with her in the perils of storm and war. She has a zest for living, and a vast liking for the tropic waters of the north.

Many times she has fought against the wheel when her reluctant head has been forced to take a southward course; she shudders and baulks and throws the white spray back over her bridge; rolling and staggering, wilfully and wickedly she indicates her objection. A different talc, however, is the story of her northern voyages. Here she is the perfect lady. Her pistons beat with a measured rhythm, the screw bites smoothly, powerfully, and the long hull, swaying slowly and easily, caresses the blues and greens of the seas of her choice.

The "Old White Lady" is old as steel ships measure their working lives. Laid down in an English dockyard in 1917, she was designed as a unit of the anti-submarine fleet in that life-and-death struggle then waging against German U-boats. One of the famous "Q" ships, she was hastily put together, reputedly by women, as her small rivets and the large number of them show. We know that despite the haste they built truly and well, and it is fitting that this 1,600-ton midget in the fleets of the Mistress of the Seas should have been fashioned by women. Who better could give life to this staunch veteran, which is now capping off long and honourable service in this latest and greatest of wars?

At the end of the First World War, she, with some others of her class, was converted to the Surveying Service, entering what perhaps may be described as the most important of the peace-time activities of the Royal Navy-the efficient charting of the manifold invisible perils of the oceans of the world. Those that go down to the sea in ships, and those that consign their goods from the four comers of the earth, owe to the surveying ships the safeguarding of their lives and their trade. The findings of this service are available, through the Hydrographer to the Navy, to all that use the seas.

In 1925, on loan from the Royal Navy, she came to Australia, and has operated ever since under the aegis of the Royal Australian Navy, to the orders of the Hydrographic Branch of that Service. Australia's contribution to the charts of the world has been very great, and of the total the "Old Lady" has, with her highly trained personnel of officers and men, performed the greater task. Other ships there have been, and other ships there are today, but none has laboured so long, and to such good purpose, as the veteran of them all.

On the outbreak of World War II, the need for anti-submarine vessels on the Australian seas soon became apparent. Hastily reconverted to her original purpose, and painted grey from funnel to waterline, the old ship began an almost unceasing vigil along the east coast, until in December 194o a greater need arose for the services of a surveying vessel to chart the locations of the extensive minefields that were to be laid as protective measures in various parts of the Australian, Papuan, and New Guinea coasts.

For twelve months she worked her lonely way through and around the mysterious passes of the Barnet Reef, Torres Strait, Port Moresby and Rabaul. Poorly armed -she had no room for really offensive weapons- she ignored the sudden annihilation that would have come to her from armed raiders and submarines. Several times she was lucky to be not quite within an area of menace. This work was continued until the entry of Japan into the war forced her to flee at top speed to the comparative safety of Sydney Harbour. She had just left Rabaul at the time. We knew not what perils awaited us as we made our way south. That was one occasion in which no tantrums marred a southern course. The ship arrived back in record time.

Another conversion to A/S duties was the next move, and for four months South Australian waters were her venue, whilst the Australian Sixth and Seventh Divisions, and the first of the American troops, were safely convoyed into Adelaide. Still clothed in battleship grey, the old ship lay in Antechamber Bay near Backstairs Passage, venturing forth every time a convoy approached. These were met many miles out at sea after the approaches had been thoroughly investigated for hidden submarines. No ship was lost during this period.

Then commenced a long, weary, heartbreaking vigil along the cast coast of the continent, and extending down Bass Strait to the vicinity of Cape Liptrap. Those were days of endless watchfulness, endless listening for the submarines of the Son of Heaven; endless strain, and when one allowed oneself to think, cold awareness of the sudden end of all things that would come at the warhead of a racing, lightning-fast torpedo. It is the unknown and the unseen that jag men's nerves.

Day after day -sometimes seventy to eighty days passed without a break in harbour of more than a few hours each week for fuel and stores-the work went on for sixteen months. Five times the "Old Lady" participated in attacks on the enemy, or was attacked by them. One ship, in convoy, was lost, with the sudden death of most of her crew-we picked up ten survivors out of forty-four men on board. Another ship was torpedoed, but was fortunately beached and eventually salvaged. We claim we put "'paid" to the account of two of Tojo's slinking undersea craft.

Two great storms, that forced bigger craft to flee for shelter, were safely weathered in that period. The stout-hearted ship, despite her age, survived an easterly cyclone that put two freighters on the beach. She was hove to for thirty-six hours, struggling gamely that her men might live, for in those seas none would have survived her sinking. That was the occasion when all men not necessarily required below were ordered to don "Mae Wests" and keep to the upper deck whilst a perilous change of course was made to gather together the scattered remnants of the convoy. Well may you who read this know how we respected the old ship's guts, and loved her for the lady she is.

With the decline of the submarine menace, late in 1943, "Old White Lady", now painted Chicago blue, but with her small boats painted bright green, again returned to surveying. Fighting in New Guinea had made it necessary that many uncharted and poorly charted waters should be surveyed so that troops and stores could be landed where they were needed. This oftentimes was dangerous work, but the luck of the old ship held. An augmented fleet of surveying vessels undertook the task, and we assumed command of them all.

The waters of Papua and New Guinea, all the way from Milne Bay to Hollandia and the Admiralty Islands, were charted. The work still goes on and will continue until Japan is forced to her knees. Without the surveying vessels and their highly trained personnel that task would be much harder than It is. Lives and valuable equipment would be lost in treacherous waters before they could be landed. Battles would be lost for lack of essential reinforcements, ammunition and stores. The Surveying Service has played a big part in the war of the Pacific.

This has been a brief sketching of the story of a "Q" ship; a mystery ship of World War I. Today, in a silent Navy, the work of this ship has been carried out in a silence even more pronounced than that generally accepted as the silence of the Silent Service. She has been a mystery to the men of even many of her sisters-in-arms. How many times have we heard the remark: "That old tub is still here! What the hell does she do? "

She is unique in her appearance, and seen swinging around the buoy on an occasion, and again months later, the idea is held that she has been there all the time. The fact is that since the outbreak of the war the "Old White Lady of the North", one time H.M.S. Silvio, and since 1925 H.M.A.S. Moresby, has probably spent more time at sea, away from the amenities of civilization, than any other ship in the R.A.N.

LEADING WRITER E. W. N.

"THAT THREE-FUNNELLED...."

In the three years of Pacific warfare many ships have played their parts, but it may well be doubted whether any ship has a record quite equal to that of our H.M.A.S. Australia

Her affairs may have been unspectacular, but for long-enduring service she surely holds pride of place. Hardly an action has taken place in the South-west Pacific in which the three-funnelled flagship has not played a prominent part.

An ageing cruiser when the war broke out, she is old now. When she meets the youngsters straight from the navy yards of the United States her age is only too apparent. She is rather a motley old ship with so many new devices and pieces of modem equipment welded on to her frame; yet she appears as it were lean and gaunt for want of the gadgets which make newer ships far more comfortable to live in. Still she is a fighting ship, equipped to fight with the best.

Sometimes her engineers will shake their heads as over an old skeleton, but they know their skill has kept her fully alive; they know at any time they can call for speed and her old engines will still drive her at thirty knots and more. Old she may be but long in the tooth, tired she may be but not lacking in fighting spirit or stamina.

When war broke out in 1939 Australia went to the Atlantic. She fought twice at Dakar, closing right in under the guns of the fortress and later sinking a French destroyer. She was in dock in Liverpool when that city endured its severest blitz-many months later a half-ton granite rock was found in one of the funnels, apparently hurled there during the bombing. She was with the Home Fleet at Scapa Flow. She was convoying in the Atlantic.

She came home and then set out again, this time to the Indian Ocean where for months she escorted the convoys which were supplying the means of victory in Africa. She hunted for raiders and went on an exciting mystery cruise almost to the Antarctic to a favourite haunt of raiders, laying bait for them should they come another time.

Then came war with Japan. Immediately Australia was racing eastward across the Indian Ocean and on to Sydney. On the last 12P Of 2300 miles she steamed continuously at high speed, arriving in port almost drained of all her fuel. And so she commenced her part in the war with Japan.

In December 1941 Australia became the flagship of Rear-Admiral Crace, R.A.C.A.S., as he was called-Rear-Admiral Commanding Australia Squadron. Titles have changed. The force was soon after known as the Anzac Squadron, containing Australian, New Zealand and American ships. Later it became a task force of Australian and United States ships. Ships came and went; the force in time became large enough to be divided in two. Admirals came and went. Admiral Crace was relieved by Admiral Crutchley and he in turn by Commodore Collins. In all these changes with the briefest intervals Australia was in advanced operational areas facing Japan.

Although Port Moresby has played so big a part in the war, Australia has been there only once. In the first month of the war with Japan she helped escort Aquitania to Port Moresby, bringing the force which later became famous as the garrison of Port Moresby and Milne Bay. In January 1942 she helped escort the convoy which brought the first American troops to Australia (and indeed the first to any part of the South and Southwest Pacific).

The war was already going disastrously for us and in the Pacific Rabaul was under attack when, at the end of January, after eight hours in Sydney, Australia set out for Wellington and Suva as the nucleus of a force which was being concentrated for the defence of Australia, New Zealand, New Caledonia and Fiji. In February 1942 the Anzac Squadron was the sole naval force in the area from Australia to a point far beyond Samoa.

Of the ships which sailed that month only two have survived unscathed and only Australia has remained continuously in the Southwest and South Pacific. In the middle of the night two days out from Sydney, in a heavy Tasman storm, Perth turned about, left Australia and set out on her way to the Java sea. Chicago, an old friend from visits in the time before the Japanese war, and which proved more than a friend in perilous times, a boon companion and sharer in all fortunes, was hit at Guadalcanal and later sunk while defending the same island - a bitter loss indeed. The destroyer Perkins, which with Lamson for so many months provided the whole destroyer screen, was sunk off New Guinea. The New Zealand ships Leander and Achilles (one the hero of the River Plate) have suffered variously in Pacific actions.

Four cruisers and two destroyers were charged with the defence of the South and South-west Pacific. When a carrier appeared in the area for a time and later the squadron joined a force of two carriers and several cruisers it seemed that phenomenal naval strength had been established. Still the seas were very wide and very lonely in those days of brilliant and unbroken Japanese success. After so many disasters and defeats it seemed impossible that so puny a force could hold the enemy. It was with a good deal of courage that it was decided to patrol a line between Suva and Noumea with the proviso to withdraw in face of superior numbers.

Yet there were straws in the wind. There was the day the task force rejoined Lexington and learnt that sixteen of seventeen bombers had been shot down. There was the carrier raid across the mountains of New Guinea on Japanese shipping at Lae and Salamaua. New Caledonia and the New Hebrides were occupied with that astonishing efficiency for which the Americans are now famous in the Pacific.

And then came the Battle of the Coral Sea.

The task force was detached to cover the passages through the Louisiades through which the Japanese convoys were to pass. Its share of the battle was fought in - half an hour. The famed Betty torpedo and high-level bomber was met there f or the first time and got its deserts. The attack failed, though f or many a day Australia was known as the "ghost ship"-the ship that was surrounded by the entire pattern of nineteen high-level bombers and disappeared for a whole minute in a
mighty cloud of spray, the ship which for a minute was given up for lost by every ship in company. For many it had been the first occasion of being in action; for all it was the first meeting with the Japs.

Not one had faced the action without some trepidation. Not one emerged without the exhilaration of
victory and the conviction that the Japs could and would be licked. And the Japs knew they were licked. They turned back, never to pass from the Islands into the Coral Sea.

So the Coral Sea became the home of Australia and the ever changing group of ships with her. For a time the force still could not operate safely from a base further north than Brisbane. In July 1942 came the glorious day when it was known that the attack was at last to be taken against Japan. No one who took part will ever forget how the armada of transports and escorts sailed from Wellington and then, on a brilliant Pacific afternoon, met up with an even more spectacular armada of carriers and other warships. After that the carriers were rarely seen but their proximity was never forgotten.

On 7th August the attack was launched on Guadalcanal. First in the line went Australia, flagship of the escorting force. In the darkness men ate hurriedly, put on helmets and anti-flash gear and waited like actors in the wings for the curtain to rise. Barely distinguishable, Australia led the line past Savo Island, grim sentinel of a dozen battles, through now famed Iron-bottom Sound, past the western mountains where unsuspecting Japanese patrols were lighting their morning fires, until at dawn the entire fleet lay ready off the beaches of Tulagi and Guadalcanal. The Japanese ashore have suffered many a naval bombardment since and many a beach they have abandoned undefended but it was at Guadalcanal all that began.

The success of the first two days, Friday and Saturday, when the landing was accomplished and great forces of attacking aircraft repelled, seemed to augur easy victory. The price paid on Saturday night was a warning of the intense struggle that was needed to set the seal on Guadalcanal. Never has there been so dark a night or such unbroken floods of driving rain. Somewhere in that darkness and rain the alarm was given. In the pitchy blackness, a stream of flashes marked the passage of shells in the air-whose shells no one could tell, but all prayed they were ours.

Then the glow of fires appeared. Ships were on fire, whose ships no one could tell, but all prayed they were the Japs. And Australia could do nothing. Ordered out of the line by the Landing Force Commander towards midnight, she was just returning to her station when twenty miles away the action commenced. She could do nothing but watch and strengthen the inner defences. If the enemy broke through she would be more than ever needed there.

The night wore on and the enemy did not break through. The rain continued. Then the signals came flooding in. One after the other they told of disaster. By morning scraps of information could be pieced together and our losses could be counted. Chicago came in with flags flying and a great bite taken out of her bows. Destroyers came in crowded with men rescued from the sea. But Canberra, Astoria, Quincy and Vincennes did not come back.

And all that Sunday morning a dry thunder rolled in the distance. It was rumoured the Japs had been caught by the guns of the new battleship Washington - but the defeat had no such palliation. All that day unloading was pressed on and the lately elated forces continued their patrol, now plunged in the deepest gloom. At sunset the ships departed from Guadalcanal and everyone in Australia wondered by what miracle they were still in that company.

In the Coral Sea a new method of warfare never before experienced was established. Never before had naval forces fought each other hundreds of miles apart, their blows launched through the air by bombers. It was a type of warfare which before long was familiar to everyone in the Pacific-too familiar for the Japs. Australia was with American carriers when the Japanese got their second costly lesson in such warfare north of Santa Cruz. Seventy planes were shot down within sight of the fleet, and a carrier was sunk 200 miles away.

At Guadalcanal the Japanese introduced night warfare for fleet surface actions. Night actions had been fought before, but never on such a scale or with such skill. Naval doctrine was opposed to risking major warships in night encounters and at any rate the Japanese were supposed to be inept at such affairs. The lesson, however, was learnt, learnt in such a way that many a Jap must rue it. The night of 8th August was the tragic prelude to as yet unbroken American success at night.

So Australia and the remnants of the task force returned to the Coral Sea and the support of Milne Bay, all eager to avenge the losses at Guadalcanal. When Milne Bay was beleaguered the task force remained in the offing vainly hoping the Jap would show his head again. But the attacking warships did not come again. So for many a month the Coral Sea was patrolled. "The paddock" it was called, without affection, or "the cabbage patch".

The troops who went to New Guinea and eventually took Buna did not see the task force, but for five months without intermission every ship that passed north was covered by the force. Sadly the warships heard of battles off Guadalcanal in which they could take no part; their job lay in "the cabbage patch", till the Admiral swore a furrow had been worn in the sea and the navigator claimed he could recognize every wave. ,

After that came lazy days. The patrols almost ceased and the task force lay at anchor or schooled itself in night combat in the hope that its turn for action would come. Ships came and went, the force was always changing in composition, but the old three-funnelled ship was always there. At many an island of the Barrier Reef her bulky outline was a familiar sight. Most sailors rarely see their own ship except when alongside a wharf, but many and many a time the men of Australia saw her lying at anchor silhouetted at sunset, as they returned from leave ashore. Very many perhaps remember her most vividly in the setting of Palm Island, with the drone of Wilbur, the wonderful Duck, overhead, as it returned from Townsville with mail and steak, and then alighted with a roar.

Good days they were, when afternoons could be spent playing football or swimming and men picnicked with billies on the beach; when there were coconuts to eat and villages and mountains to explore. Friends were made with the inhabitants. There were even white women to speak to. The aboriginal children came to recognize each person and in the evenings under the palm trees they sometimes danced.

There were also afternoons sailing and fishing, there was frequent visiting between ships when Americans and Australians made many enduring friendships. There was fishing from the side of the ship (an occupation which usually produced much more laughter than fish). And there was oystering: oysters three inches across with shells twice that width, oysters in unlimited profusion and a high premium on chipping hammers with which to prise them up.

A happy, lazy time, yet it was one of intense boredom, broken only once by a memorable trip to the New Hebrides-memorable not for action but for games of softball at Espiritu Santo and for the hospitality of American ships and a never completed boat-pulling regatta in Havannah Harbour. It was memorable also for a lucky escape for Australia when a submarine missed her target, Australia, and hit another ship.

In October 1943 a concert was held on Australia's quarter deck. According to tradition the last item needed to be spectacular and serious. So it was, when a sailor in his neatest rig bore on to the stage a placard with the words "H.M.A.S. Sydney, Mediterranean", and another brought a placard "H.M.A.S. Perth, Java Sea". Then came the climax, the most tiddly sailor of them all, with his placard "H.M.A.S. Australia, Palm Island". The men of Australia laughed at themselves, the best joke of the evening, for fully two minutes.

But the lazy days had ended. China Strait, for so long the goal of ambition, was passed. The war was carried forward. The time of waiting was at an end. Action was nearly met in the Solomons, but hopes were dashed again. Our land forces with destroyers took Lae and Finschhafen. When Finschhafen fell the cupboard was unlocked. The Bismarck Sea was opened and with it a rich store of prizes for the task force and the amphibious forces. Cape Gloucester, the Admiralties, Hollandia, Wakde, Biak, Noemfoer, Aitape-the list will go on.

At Cape Gloucester the teamwork of warships and landing ships was established which before long became almost a routine. Guns long silent were habitually barking and the three-funnelled station-ship of Palm Island became a familiar and ill-omened sight off Japanese-held coastlines. The results of bombardments are rarely seen, but twice they were vividly demonstrated: once when with a first salvo a house disappeared in dust and once (when the firing had appeared most ineffective) our troops near Aitape reported immense havoc among the Japanese.

Nearly three years of war in the Pacific have gone. Few who sailed from Sydney three years ago are in Australia now. Few who sailed in her in the Coral Sea and at Guadalcanal would have predicted that the old Australia would still be afloat in 1944- Yet the flagship is still afloat and helping to carry the war for-ward. Many thousands have been added to her immense score of miles. Australia which saw the first landing at Guadalcanal also sailed with the vaster armada which went to Hollandia and could measure the amazing advance made not only in distance but in technique and equipment.

It is a far cry from the Suva-Noumea patrol to the Equator and Western New Guinea - not such a far cry perhaps from Tokyo. Maybe "Australia will be there". "The Three-funnelled --" her men call her, but all who have served in her have an intense affection for her clumsy bulk -and when she sails to Tokyo or Davy Jones' locker there are very many whose hearts will sail with her.

"JUNIOR."