- Author
- Clark, Bryan
- Subjects
- History - WW2
- Tags
-
- RAN Ships
- HMAS Sydney II
- Publication
- December 1989 edition of the Naval Historical Review (all rights reserved)
Eighty-two-year-old Mrs Jay Smith, of Dalkeith, W.A., commented (in 1989): “My husband J. R. (Reg) Smith was the Harbour Master at Christmas Island in 1941, managing all shipping. The Carley Float was sighted on February 6, 1942. My husband recovered the raft and the burial was arranged soon afterwards. It was a sad memory for him, as he always said, It was some Mother’s son”.
Mrs Jay Smith is described by C.I. historian, Marg. Neale, as “Mrs Christmas Island… A matriarchal figure, a forthright woman who called a ‘spade a spade’ and around whom newcomers trod carefully…” Mrs Smith resided on the island between the years 1935-42 and 1945-59. Mrs Smith continued: “I left Christmas Island with my small son and arrived at Fremantle in early February, so I was not on the island when the body was found. On February 28 (Saturday) the Islander arrived and I received a phone call from my husband asking me to meet him at the dock gates at Fremantle. My husband met me there and he told me he had just left part of the float in the Naval Office. The Naval Authority agreed it was from an Australian ship. My husband had already worked out that the raft could have come from HMAS Sydney, taking into consideration the date of the sinking, the tides, etc. Nothing more was heard about the raft, and no papers changed hands.”
‘The C.I. radio operator, Mr. J. C. Brown, in his report, mentions going out to the raft, and its condition, also the funeral. We were friends. He and his wife lived nearby. I visited the Bakers in the UK in 1988. Only his wife was still alive. He had died in 1987. His wife could only vaguely remember the events of 1942. She was on her way back to C.I. from Singapore when it happened. I am sure my husband would have attended the funeral. I am also sure my husband would have taken the piece of bullet found in the Carley Float. To him, that would have been evidence.”
“The old cemetery on the island was behind our house on the top of a cliff. Over the years it has been washed away with rain and the weather. I have been told that there was never a headstone after the war. There have been various people who have been reported as saying that the body had been removed by the Navy. A friend of mine (Bob Forrester) who was on the island between 1952-1973 said he never knew of a body being removed. He lived in a house adjoining the old cemetery for years and he knew exactly the condition of the graves. He agrees with me, there was never a headstone after the war. Before the war, the existing graves had headstones brought down from Singapore… there was no stone on the island to make a headstone.”
“My husband did not make enquiries as to what happened to the raft (sections) that he brought back to Fremantle on his own initiative. He was not under orders to do so. To my knowledge, no correspondence arrived from Fremantle or Australia concerning the raft. The topic was never mentioned again. I understood that all office records were destroyed before the Japanese arrived…’
Former Christmas Island resident, Bob Forrester, of Kalamunda, W.A., wrote: “…My first knowledge of an unknown grave came in rather unusual circumstances. My house became subject to severe wash-aways. Drainage from a new installation was channelled into one storm-water drain and allowed to discharge over the cliff face, about 700 feet up, and find its own way down the cliff. Hence, the washaway. I saw my dog with rather a large bone, which I recognised as possibly human, and immediately put two and two together, went up the slope to the cemetery, which had been badly eroded and covered in silt. The Malay gardeners were called in to clean up the mess. To my knowledge, no gravestones were removed, only replaced, if necessary. In fact, the ‘unknown grave’ was so called because it was unmarked -just a mound overgrown with weeds like the rest.”
“No mention is made of marking the grave. In the circumstances, this is not surprising. During this time Norwegian sailors (from the torpedoed Eidsvold) and a number of the Island’s Europeans, including women, were evacuated by various ships. In these circumstances, I don’t think there would have been any effort made to mark the grave.”