Dad was born in Australia. Mum was born in Nottingham in England. She was just like any ordinary mother, I suppose. So she came out to Australia and that's when she met my father. Two brothers and two sisters. But they're all dead. I'm the last one of the family. Well, there was no other kids around where we lived. There were the tile works. There used to be a big clay hole where they used to get the clay for the tiles. My Dad, he worked at the tile works. He used to fire the kilns. Make glazed tiles. I left school the day I was 14 because I wasn't very keen on school much. And I got a job in Flinders Lane in a warehouse. Manchester. They used to sell sheets and Summer Breeze cotton dress material. And that was just a little bit up the hill from from Swanston Street. Cable trains... just jump on a tram anywhere on the road, on the track, because the cable cars were fairly slow. When the war broke out, I was just at the right age and I was conscripted and they sent me up to Seymour and I used to drive a truck from Seymour railhead to Puckapunyal, the army camp. I didn't like the army, I didn't like the camp life, it was so primitive. They'd give you a bundle of straw to sleep on and the cooks didn't know how to cook. The food was crook. Toilets were a 'no-no', just sit on a rail with a big hole. Thank goodness it only lasted for three months. The war lasted longer than they thought it was going to. They were starting to pick out certain people, a certain number, to go into the, be permanent in the army and I didn't like the army. I did everything I could to get out of it. So I decided I'd go and get a 'reserved occupation'. I got a job in the aircraft factory in the store. That was a reserved occupation then. We didn't have to join the army. They used to make Wirraways. It never went ahead, they weren't a match for the Zeros. And I was working on shifts. When I was on night shift I'd see everybody going to dances and things like that. Well, that used to upset me a bit when I couldn't go. One of the boys was dead set on joining the Navy. One day he said "I'm going to join up so are you coming?", and I said, "No, I'm not going to join up". Well anyway "Just come up while I go and sign up". Three of us went up there. When we went in, there was nobody in the office and when the fellow came and saw us there. "Oh" he said "three new recruits". I said, "No, only one recruit. We're only just onlookers". "Oh... all right", he says so he put his hand under the desk and pulled out a paper. He said, "Here's a form for you, one for you, you and you". Three of us. "So fill them in" he says "and I'll fix the rest up". The three of us went to Cerberus down at Flinders. I put my name down to be a cook. I had such a bad goings in Seymour that I decided at least I'm going to get where the food is. I hadn't been on it long then they called for 'officers' cooks'. So I volunteered for that. They sent me to the Kanimbla. All we were doing is ferrying troops from one place to another. Getting itchy feet we wanted a bit of action. Wanted to see some real action. Well, then the war started properly. General MacArthur made a speech and said he was going to come back, back to the Philippines. I said to the people of the Philippines whence I came, I shall return. And he was going to get the Philippines back and going to use us to help get it back, which turned out to be true. They transferred me to the Westralia. That's where I stayed for the rest of the War. It had been refitted out for landings. I did seven landings on Westralia. We used to carry the troops up there, the American soldiers. We carried a thousand, over a thousand troops, and the troops used to sleep in the hold with all their machinery - Jeeps and things. They had a big net. The soldiers climbed down the net over the side and they climbed down in and got into the little boats and they ferried them to shore 'til all the troops had been taken off. And all the trucks and things, ammunition; what they needed to carry on the war. That took all day. They were firing at us and we were firing at them. And so it was pretty scary the first few times but after a while, we got used to it. So they sent us up to Leyte, up to Manila. There was an action there that day. Landing operations in the Philippines. Striking first at Leyte Island have now been undertaken by the largest ocean-going amphibious force in history, led by Admiral Halsey. But after it was over we went back and got more troops, reinforcements, and then we went up and did the last one in the Philippines, and that was, the very top, Lingayen Gulf. I was right under the bridge. This is why I'm a little deaf these days because there was a 4 inch gun just above me there. Right there and I'm looking out the window at the front. Looking out over the bow. Half a dozen planes flying around and our blokes were chasing them. They were chasing our blokes and anyway there was one left, they were all shot down. He was picking out the ships that he was going to bomb. And so I knew that we were going to be one of them because we had troops, we had a thousand troops on board and all their equipment, trucks and ammunition, food, everything. So I could see what was going to happen there, and it did happen. They took on us and the plane, the Japanese plane wanted to stop us from landing the troops. I'm up in the galley, looking out, watching it all happen. And I was scared. I thought, well, this could be the last. I saw the bomb dropped out of the plane. It didn't hit the ship, but it was that close, only a few feet, and it hit the water and it lifted the back of the ship up, the stern, lifted it up and out of the water. And it damaged the rudder. And the plane hit the water. He was... that was his last ride. But it was nearly ours too. When we got to Lingayen Gulf, you arrived there in the dead of night, line up in the dark. As soon as the dawn's starting to break, that's when all hell breaks loose. The planes were chasing one another around the sky, our planes off an aircraft carrier that they had there, and then the Japanese... wanted to land at Manilla Airport. We nearly got hit a couple of times there. ...firing, they were firing back and one Japanese aircraft snuck in over the trees. Radar doesn't pick it up when it comes so close to the trees and that's how they missed it and dropped the bomb on the Australia. Knocked the funnel off the Australia and an American battleship and it blew a great big hole in the side of the ship That day, General MacArthur, he was on one of the warships and I saw him walk ashore with two of his generals and a couple of fellas and he made his speech about how he promised he'd be back and now he was back. People of the Philippines, I have returned. Once the Japs capitulated, they sent us, and loaded the ship up with troops and things for occupation. Japan. So they sent us up there to Japan. That was the last trip I ever made on the ship. And I walked all over the site where they dropped that bomb. You could see where the bomb dropped. I went and had a look all over it. And there was just nothing. Just a lot of rubble. The happiest day... the happiest moment was when I walked out of the Navy. And I didn't have to... yes, yes, yeah... you know what I mean.