VOYAGE TO WAR

Auckland Star, Volume LXXIII, Issue 127, 1 June 1942, Page 4

VOYAGE TO WAR

MATTRESS OF BOMBS

COMPANY AND COLOUR

(By JOHN GARDNER) SOUTH-WEST PACIFIC. One night not long since I pitched my cot amidships in the hold of a tough old freighter with a hatchful of demolition bombs due north of my head and a tower of gasoline drums due south of my feet, and began a voyage as steadily engrossing and intensely interesting as anyone can make at sea to-day—a voyage on a humble ship with a straightforward mission, namely, to deliver to one of the Allies' most forward Pacific bases the goods to smash at their foes. Those of us who travelled as supercargo and hung our clothes on red drums of high-octane gas and slept on hot nights on a hatch cover with sleeping bombs beneath us, are permitted only now too tell certain aspects of the story. It is a story which illustrates how all manner of men are combining to serve the Jap. his own medicine in the South Pacific. Our captain was a slow-spoken Scandinavian veteran of the American coasting trade who had nothing to say about the award of the D.S.O. he got for his last perilous voyage and cared more for his Chow dog Ching than for the menace of Tojo. The crew was the ordinary merchant freighter crew, tattooed with the standard artwork in the standard places. A Mortal Burst to Zero Sharing our own sleeping quarters below were the army kids who manned the freighters's new guns. They held slightly apart from the routine of ship life, nursing their weapons fondly by day, keeping watch in shifts, having their own arguments and discussions, and plastering the walls of our hold with maps and coloured posters of pretty Eurasian girls. In the days after we reached our destination we had the chance to see our lethal cargo translated into terms of action—the juice we bought feeding the planes that carried our bombs over Japanese bases and blasted Japanese ships and aircraft. From time to time as we ploughed steadily through green tropic waters, the gunners dropped empty boxes and cartons overboard and winged away at these targets for practice. Their aim was sharp and reached its consummation one morning later on as the freighter lay in port unloading. A Japanese Zero came over low with his«peashooter talking. One of our young gunners put a mortal burst into him and saw the Zero fall among the trees against the horizon at a point to which our boys sallied forth that afternoon and brought home a piece of the Zero. Me ana the Mate and All Hands While we sailed the captain held as sternly aloof from the gunners and their target work as the gunners did from his operation of the- ship. The captain, cool, neat, ascetic, stood at the top of the sartorial ladder aboard his vessel, with his palm beach jacket, green pullover, green tie and stiff white collar. At the opposite end of the ladder was the boatswain.

Our harbour pilot at the port from which we sailed was the son of a .harbour pilot in the same port,, and told your correspondent the first night at supper that he left the high seas for a pilot's job because he

wanted family life. The chief officer, Mr. Wilke, was also strong for family life, but couldn't bring himself to leave the sea. One morning he and the captain observed their fifth anniversary on the ship together. "Five years and never had an accident, hey cap?" said the chief. "Ay guess that's right," said the captain, slowly stroking his dog. The chief officer used to watch our private card games in the dining saloon, and once commented sternly that he had never had a card in his hand in his life, which created a slight lull in the conversation. The second officer, Mr. Hanson, and the third officer, Mister Moats, played backgammon and acey deucy together. Mr. Hanson was a reading man who kept his books in a desk drawer. They included popular editions of the works of E. M. Forster, Susan Ertz and Evelyn Waugh. Joe, the messboy, read Western stories. Joe was once a hitchhiker. The deck engineer had the best tattooing aboard tne ship. He wore pictures of every girl he d ever seen and admired, including a Red Cross nurse. But on this trip his picture gallery was just a collection of faded memories, for he had been married in the port before sailing. He loved his new wife, and said so loudly whenever the spirit moved him. "My, how I love that woman," he would sometimes yell in the midst of his work.

The Goods Delivered The chief engineer was George Smithers, who is a mechanical genius, a saloon keeper and a lover of the sea for its own sake. "I'm in for the duration now." he said; which is a good thing for his shipmates, for George with his tools and lathe can fix or make anything from a wristwatch to new brass eye rims for the captain's binoculars. George also currycombed the ship's rabbit every day—a 'trge, fat, pink-eyed, slothful rabbit who has been promised a mate as a bonus for this voyage. The ship's menagerie was rounded out by a pair of monkeys, who climbed the rigging fearlessly and chattered abuse at the crew below. Hancock, a former navy man. had a mission of his own, which was to catch fish. He planted big hooks astern and one day landed two vast fish resembling Spanish mackerel. To his bitter chagrin the coloured chef greeted the appearance of these specimens with apathy and refused to cook them. We had to forgive the chef, however, for his cuisine was masterly and he ladled out huge portions of the stuff that sticks to the ribs.

Blacked out at night, sitting on a hatchful of bombs, one of which rolled playfully from side to side beneath us, we could sometimes catch radio news broadcasts, including the Japanese. The Tokyo lady commentator, whom we christened Madame Butterfly, spoke three nights running of air raids on Tokyo, giving a completely different version each time. At the conclusion of each broadcast there was music by a German composer—Schubert, Mozart, Beethoven or Wagner.

At the bottom of each mind on board, 1 suppose, was the thought of the red-hot cargo we were freighting into a hostile zone, but the crew seldom spoke of it, and when they did they took a friendly attitude. You got the idea that they liked their cargo.

One day tne mountains surrounding our destination rose dark and grey green on the port quarter and a few hours later we dropped the hook. The goods had been delivered as advertised. —Auckland Star and N.A.N.A.