Cruiser (96 page)
Authors: Mike Carlton
3
Collins, quoted in Gee, p. 214.
4
Alan âJock' McDonough, transcribed recording, Australian War Memorial MSS1676.
5
Gavin Campbell, interview with the author, 2008.
6
Ibid.
7
Ibid.
8
Quoted in Gee, p. 215.
9
It didn't. Like the Australians, the American survivors were on their own.
10
Ronald McKie records that the children's family name was Bull. He says they were eventually captured by the Japanese and were reunited with their mother after the war. Sadly, I have been unable to uncover any more details.
11
Parkin,
Out of the Smoke
, p. 210.
12
Jibe: to turn stern-first through the wind, which can be dangerous.
13
Wallace, p. 39.
14
Ibid., p. 44.
15
Ibid., p. 50.
Chapter 20: In Enemy Hands
1
Joan Gandy (née Flynn), interview with the author, 2007.
2
The Canberra Times
, 14 March 1942.
3
John Parkin (Ray Parkin's son), interview with the author, 2009.
4
Gee, p. 173.
5
Bee, p. 34.
6
Fred Lasslett, p. 33, and interview with the author, 2008.
7
Skeels, p. 60.
8
Rivett, p. 122.
9
Skeels, p. 67.
10
Bancroft and Roberts, p. 47. Roberts was the signalman whose diary figures in
Perth
's Mediterranean period.
11
Quoted in Gee, p. 176.
12
Quoted in Forbes, p. 241.
13
There are several versions of this story in various prisoner memoirs, and it has attained almost legendary status among the
Perth
survivors. The best account is in Ray Parkin's trilogy. Galleghan was not a popular figure with the sailors, nor others. The author remembers meeting him when he inspected a school cadet parade in 1962. He was, even then, an imposing figure.
14
Quoted in Ebury, p. 369.
15
Several versions of these instructions, with only minor differences, appear in POW memoirs and accounts, both British and Australian. My source was
www.cofepow.org.uk
, a British website dedicated to the families of Far East prisoners of war. Australian ex-prisoners have confirmed the accuracy.
16
Skeels, p. 73.
Chapter 21: The Railway of Death
1
This speech is reported in a variety of POW memoirs. The source here is the Lost Battalion Association of the Texas Military Forces Museum. The lost battalion was the 2nd Battalion of the US Army's 131st Field Artillery, the Americans who had met the
Perth
survivors on Java and who, too, worked on the railway.
2
Bee, p. 55.
3
After the war, they were re-buried in the Commonwealth War Cemetery at Thanbyuzayat.
4
It is difficult to quantify, but ten cents were roughly equivalent to two modern Australian cents.
5
There are several POW accounts of the bashing of Mills. Captain Rowley Richards confirms the story in his memoirs,
A Doctor's War
. Richards was one of many doctors who performed heroic service on the railway.
6
Skeels, p. 91.
7
Weary Dunlop, âMedical Experiences in Japanese Captivity',
British Medical Journal
, 5 October 1946.
8
Long,
The Japanese Thrust
, p. 550.
9
Skeels, p. 95.
10
Gavin Campbell, interview with the author, 2009.
11
Parkin,
Into the Smother
, p. 542.
12
Mathieson.
13
Doneley family private papers.
14
Gee, p. 187.
15
Parkin,
Into the Smother
, p. 556.
16
Ibid., p. 421.
17
Ibid., p. 493.
18
McQuade, quoted in Gee, p. 250.
19
Skeels, p. 101.
20
Quoted in Rivett, p. 299.
Chapter 22: Miracle in the South China Sea
1
Government newspaper advertisement, 1943.
2
Mirla Bancroft, interview with the author, 2008.
3
Skeels, p. 104.
4
Gee, p. 189.
5
Parkin,
The Sword and the Blossom
, p. 786.
6
Ibid., p. 814.
7
My account of the sinking of the
Rakuyo Maru
, and its aftermath, is compiled from multiple sources, including: interviews with survivors, principally Frank McGovern and Arthur âBlood' Bancroft; the deck logs and war-patrol reports of the American submarines involved, available at The Historic Naval Ships Association,
www.hnsa.org
;
Heroes at Sea
, by Don Wall;
A Doctor's War
, by Rowley Richards; and
Return from the River Kwai
, by Joan and Clay Blair Junior.
8
Frank McGovern, interview with the author, 2008.
9
Blood Bancroft, interview with the author, 2008.
10
Frank McGovern, interview with the author, 2008.
11
Ibid.
12
Landon L. Davis, Oral History: World War Two Rescue of Prison Ship Survivors, US Navy Historical Center:
www.history.navy.mil/library/online/oral_history_davis.htm
.
13
Collins, quoted in Gee, p. 225.
14
Log of the USS
Barb
, US Navy Historical Center. Also Historic Navy Ships Association.
15
Figures are from the Australian War Memorial and Wall, p. 167.
16
Log of the USS
Barb
, US Navy Historical Center.
Chapter 23: Slaves of Nippon
1
Blood Bancroft, interview with the author, 2009.
2
Later Dame Dorothy Tangney. She was the first woman elected to the Senate, serving from 1943 until 1968.
3
Commonwealth Parliamentary Hansard, 17 November 1944.
4
The Argus
, Melbourne, 20 November 1944.
5
Lasslett, p. 81.
6
Surgeon Lieutenant Sam Stening, quoted by Lieutenant-Colonel Peter Winstanley on his website
www.pows-of-japan.net/index.html
.
7
Parkin,
The Sword and the Blossom
, p. 855.
8
Skeels, p. 124.
9
Little is known of Little. The Australian War Memorial holds a photograph of him under arrest âfor informing on his fellow prisoners. He was later court-martialled.' (AWM P01662.015.)
Time
magazine of 6 June 1947 carries a brief report of the court martial, including an allegation that âas a result of his reports to his captor-bosses, an Army enlisted man was beaten to death and a Marine Corps Corporal was starved to death by the Japs; others were brutally treated'. The court martial ran for 97 days, was held in secret and resulted in Little's acquittal.
10
See the USAAF 20th Air Force Association,
www.20thaf.org/missions/267.htm
.
11
Frank McGovern, interview with the author, 2008.
12
See the USAAF 20th Air Force Association,
www.20thaf.org/missions/295.htm
.
13
Bee, p. 113.
14
Toland,
Rising Sun
, p. 847.
15
Bee, p. 114.
16
Frank McGovern, interview with the author, 2008.
Chapter 24: The Day of Liberation
1
Wallace, p. 74.
2
Ibid., p. 75.
3
Gavin Campbell, interview with the author, 2008.
4
Wallace, p. 77.
5
Bee, p. 116.
6
Frank McGovern, interview with the author, 2008.
7
Bee, p. 116.
8
Ibid., p. 119.
9
Wallace, p. 75.
10
âA History of HMS
Speaker
', anon.,
www.navsource.org
.
11
The grandfather of the cricketing Chappell brothers.
12
Skeels, p. 138.
13
Frank McGovern, interview with the author, 2008.
14
McKernan,
This War Never Ends
, p. 93.
15
Cited in Forbes, p. 491.
16
The AWM records that fellow cadets at Duntroon nicknamed him âGaffer' because of his serious demeanour.
17
Skeels, p. 141.
18
John Parkin, interview with the author, 2008.
19
Gavin Campbell, interview with the author, 2008.
20
The Sydney Morning Herald
, 12 October 1945.
21
Frank McGovern, interview with the author, 2008.
22
Skeels, p. 143.
23
Ibid., p. 144.
24
Gee, p. 254.
25
Wallace, p. 79.
26
Brendan Whiting, interview with the author, 2007.
27
Owen,
Naval Historical Review
, Naval Historical Society, August 1972.
28
Lewis and Waller, p. 58.
29
Ibid., p. 163.
30
Joan Gandy (née Flynn), interview with the author, 2006.
Epilogue
1
Cunningham, p. 308.
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