- Author
- Gale, Lieutenant Commander M.B. , VRD, RANR (Retd.)
- Subjects
- Ship histories and stories, Naval history, History - WW2
- Tags
-
- RAN Ships
- HMAS Platypus
- Publication
- June 1987 edition of the Naval Historical Review (all rights reserved)
As previously mentioned, the aftermath of coaling ship was cleaning up the mess, and one of our problems was cleaning our large quarterdeck awning. One day however, I got a bright idea which involved our wardroom vacuum cleaner.
One evening during a lull, I called away our motor boat and went over to the Terka, an auxiliary minesweeper, the First Lieut. of which was Fred Allison, an old friend of mine from Port Melbourne. It was a balmy clear night, and he and I were sitting on their upper deck, sipping gin and bitters in small doses, the only grog we had. I had asked him how they received air raid warnings when they were at sea. He said that their wireless telegraphist kept a W/T watch on Darwin radio, and if an alert was broadcast, the ‘Tele’ would hop out of the W/T hut and yell ‘Air Raid, Air Raid’. Within seconds the lights went out in the ship and steel helmeted sailors appeared closing up at action stations. Then ship’s lights started going out one by one all over the harbour, and finally ‘Plats’ started sounding off the Air Raid alert on her siren. Fred and I froze with a realisation of what we apparently had initiated, when suddenly the Jap bombers came over. ‘Plats’ was subsequently congratulated for her alertness in detecting so early the approach of the Japs.
I was looked on as being a bit of a ‘Dead eye Dick’ in spotting enemy planes. I ate humble pie however, when one day I brought the whole of Darwin to an Air Raid alert by misjudging a flight of white cockatoos.
On another occasion I sounded the alarm when I saw a flight of fighters coming up South Arm, and I was still wrong, for this was the first Spitfire squadron to arrive in Darwin. I had not been advised of their expected arrival, and whilst they did not look like Japs, so far as I was concerned, at that time, we just never had that many planes.
In Darwin, as with all of the north Australian ports, the tide levels can vary from 10 to about 30 ft. and so one day the Captain of Terka decided to take advantage of this, and to sit his ship on the mud at low tide and clean and paint the sides of the hull below normal water level. This was done, and as the tide came in it was expected that Terka would rise with it, but she didn’t. It had been overlooked that the Darwin mud was like glue, and with her flat bottom, Terka was stuck. The water came higher and higher until her deck was awash, and then it started to creep up to the coamings of her engine room doors. Her crew in panic were rushing from one side to the other to try and free her, when suddenly there was a mighty roar and up she shot, like a great whale heaving herself out of the water, and all was well.
One of the Yank freighters which came in was loaded with grog, which she was ordered to discharge. The shore authorities didn’t want it ashore, and so it was unloaded into one of the lighters which we had in the harbour. The lighter was then moored to a buoy over towards Francis Bay and it transpired that at night, just about every boat under way found it necessary to visit Francis Bay. ‘Plats’ was then ordered to put sentries on the lighter. This duty became most popular, and on being relieved it was always a happy band of sentries who returned on board.
It was finally decided that ‘Plats’ should be sent south to Cairns to enable her engines to be repaired permanently, and my cup drained dry when a signal arrived to transfer me ashore to take up full time duties as Base Gunnery Officer, Darwin on the staff of the NOIC, now Commodore Pope, and so with very mixed feelings I watched ‘Plats’ sail to what was then looked on as the promised land.
With the expectation that the Japs would eventually endeavour to take Darwin, I was ordered to prepare all port installations, including wharves, cranes, slipways, oil and water tanks and railway yards, for demolition. I had about 200 depth charges in stock and decided to use these. Some authorities however, including the Army commander, had doubts as to the effectiveness of a depth charge on dry land, and so I offered to put on a demonstration. I took a party out to Night Cliffs, dug a tunnel in under a cliff, rolled in a depth charge with electric detonator, and filled the mouth of the tunnel. A bevy of brass stood by when we touched her off. After seeing that cliff disappear towards the heavens and brushing the dirt from their uniforms, there were no more doubts.