Recollections of Service in the Bureau and RAAF
Foreword
Recollections—Mascot and Rose Bay—the Early Years
Sojourn in the Far East 1942
References
Endnotes
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We continued to zig-zag out of Sunda Strait and into the Indian Ocean. On 27 February Deucalion started leaking and developed a list to port. Water got into the fuel tanks, so we proceeded at reduced speed. I do not know why this happened. Each morning there was a 'clean quarters' order by the OC troops; so we saw that our small piece of deck was tidied up smartly. Those of us who had Dutch guilders, in which we were last paid, were able to change them into Australian pounds. On 1 March there was a loud report abeam of the ship; we never found out what this was either, but the theory was that it was a torpedo which had run its course and self-destructed. Later on 2 March the ship tied up at Fremantle.
We went ashore to Western Command general details camp (Army), and remained there for a day, after which we were transferred to No 5 Embarkation Depot RAAF. George Mackey, who was back in his home city of Perth, took us on a formal visit to the Divisional Meteorologist, in a horse-drawn four wheel cab. A few days later, after we had been re-kitted, I was posted to Broome which in RAAF terms was an 'advanced operational base'; and went to the RAAF Station, Pearce to await suitable transport north.
I finally left for Broome on 10 March, seven days after the major Japanese raid there in which 27 flying boats and other aircraft from Tjilatjap and other places in Java were destroyed and fifty people killed.
We got to Broome on an overnight trip in a RAAF DH84. We had another raid on Broome on 20 March by seven bombers and two Navy O fighters; but as the saying goes—that is another story.
People in Bright Sparcs - Hannay, Alexander Keith (Keith); Mackey, George William
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Bureau of Meteorology |  |
© Online Edition Australian Science and Technology Heritage Centre and Bureau of Meteorology 2001
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