- Author
- Crew, J.D.V.
- Subjects
- Ship histories and stories, History - Between the wars
- Tags
-
- RAN Ships
- None noted.
- Publication
- March 1981 edition of the Naval Historical Review (all rights reserved)
Of course it was entirely the Aussie’s fault that while every man had now somewhere to sit, no-one had anywhere to walk, that though no-one was without a billet wherein to sling, we emulated that line of a comic song which says, ‘When father turns we all turn’.
No, the mess deck was alright, it did us until they started complaining, and now look at the mess we were in.
When the coal carrying question was again to the fore, we were very pleased that the Local Authority viewed the Australian argument in a different light.
He agreed that they were here for instruction, and as such, coaling couldn’t be classed. But he imagined they preferred their food cooked, hot water for shaving, not cold, and he couldn’t conceive the Commonwealth Government would like its people so waited on. So they coaled ship and we were more glad than somewhat.
Borne as ‘additional for training’ in the submarines in the flotilla, we had no chance to forget. We wouldn’t have minded much if they’d only cleared up after themselves, but the popular rejoinder was ‘I’m here for training, not cleaning’.
They had some system peculiar and foreign to us, whereby they accumulated long leave to be taken at their own convenience. With the advent of the seasonal War Patrol, as one man they requested to proceed on long leave. That was not really surprising, since a ten-to-fourteen day patrol strictly under war conditions in an ‘H’ class submarine, even in peacetime, had considerably less attraction than a similar period in the Union Jack Club.
The ruling authority recalled to the minds of these long leave request-men, the occasions on which they had, with great pains, drawn attention to the fact that they had been sent across half the world for training in submarines, and not for anything else. With Solomon-like wisdom and lemonlike acidity, he commented, ‘An agreement exists between your Government and mine to give you a submarine education. Your Government is paying for that education. The finest form of education, the best type of experience we can offer you, is about to take place. I refer to the War Patrol. To permit you to miss this Patrol, the best training we can offer, would be an injustice to your Government, which I am not prepared to enact. Requests not granted.’
In justice to all concerned, it must be explained that they could have had their leave before the Patrol, but deliberately conserved it with the object of avoiding that unpleasantness.
The night before the flotilla sailed for this much discussed Patrol, this exercise under war conditions, all the Aussies went ashore, as many of the watch aboard obtaining subs as could. Leave expired at midnight because the submarines were proceeding to sea at hourly intervals from 0200.
Not a single Aussie returned on board until the next morning, after all the submarines had sailed.
We were again not amused. We didn’t think it clever. Such obviously organised disloyalty we considered wasn’t cricket. We rejoiced to think that they would be put in their place, that such flagrant disobedience and disloyalty would result in at least 14 days, maybe 28, or even 56 days detention.
It subsequently transpired that no major disciplinary action was permissible without the connivance of the Commonwealth Naval Board via Australia House. And when during ensuing months we learned that no action was taken, that the blighters ‘got away with it’, well, we were no fonder of them.
In 1942 I learned that I was to serve in an Australian destroyer. RN personnel serving in the RAN are practically all volunteers, and now I was turfed out of a job wherein I was very happy and comfortable to be pitched into a crowd of Australians without any questions as to whether I was agreeable or otherwise. The intervening years between my first encounter and the present time had done nothing to remove or lessen the unfavourable impression I had received. Thus, it was with a certain amount of misgiving that I received the news concerning my being loaned to the RAN. Initially it was sufficient to cause me to consider complaining, even refusal to comply.
But I remembered that since the commencement of the war, Australians had been good enough to serve in RN ships in any part of the world, and that we’d been grateful for their services. No-one then, I decided, should be able to say that I was too good to serve with Australians. I would join them with an open unbiased mind; maybe this crowd would be very different from the first bunch.