Ahoy - Mac's Web Log

Hello Mac,
 
Just a note of sincere appreciation for your wonderful website. I was very touched to see that you have a list of all those killed in HMAS Canberra - my late father would have been deeply pleased to know that his brother's name is honoured on the web in this way - so thank you very much for listing all the names and honouring them. My uncle was a Stoker 2nd Class, John Gaston. I don't have any idea of the duties such a position would have entailed, I'm afraid. Though I never knew him, I sensed the deep loss suffered in the family, the huge hole left behind. My grandmother kept his letters, sent from Canberra. Unfortunately I do not have these letters, they were lent to me for a brief time and I had to return them, after that I wasn't told where they ended up, as is the way sometimes with families, I'm sorry about that. I do remember particularly the parts where John wrote trying to reassure his mother, and particularly a comment he made in the very last letter she had from him, that 'this', meaning the war, would all be over very soon, no doubt trying to keep her spirits up. She kept his letters together with some photographs of him, all so terribly sad. I hope he had a swift death, I've always wondered and hoped he didn't suffer, but there's no way of knowing I suppose.

It was very interesting to read your account of that night, I'm sure it was extremely traumatic. It is thanks to wonderfully brave and honourable people such as yourself that Australia was saved from Japanese invasion, and none of the rest of us should ever forget that. My father Brian Gaston served in the AIF in New Guinea, Moratai mostly, he was a combat engineer.

Thanks again for your excellent contribution to history - I'm sure you put a lot of work into this website, along with your US offsider.

Kindest regards
Jane

Hello Jane,
 
How nice of you to write, and thank you for your kind words about AHOY. It is certainly a combined effort with my friend Terry Kearns in Atlanta Georgia doing all the hard work of getting my writing and research into a fit format  
to be on the web, for anyone who may chance to find us, or be seeking something through a search engine that leads them to us. We are both delighted when some one such as yourself takes time out to comment.

Now, a stoker's action station would be below decks, perhaps in a Damage Control party, one of a number with shipwrights, Engineers etc spread out within the ship to seek out and repair damage from enemy action. He might be in the engine rooms attending to the engines and associated machinery needed to drive the ship, or in the boiler rooms that produced the superheated steam made to drive the turbines that in turn made the propellors go round. The boilers were fed oil that was burnt through sprayers to heat the water in the boilers.

All the stokers jobs were important, as was every single person in the ship which carried just the right number of Officers, Seaman sailors, stokers etc to fight the ship.

On that fateful night of the 9th. of August 1942, all the Japanese Cruisers attack came from out port or left side, and we were hit by perhaps 28 by 8 inch high explosive shells in about 2 minutes, devastating our ship. At the same time, whilst we were dodging many Japanese torpedoes, and none of those did strike home, we picked up a torpedo on our starbord or right side that emanated from our starboard US Escort Destroyer USS Bagley.

This hit us between both our boiler rooms, and no one escaped out of them.

This had the effect of cutting the steam to the turbines and we quickly slowed to a stop, and as water rushed into the hole blasted by Bagley's torpedo we listed to starboard. We also lost all lighting in the ship, at that time of WW2, we were still not fitted with separate diesel generators to independently generate power.

So, there we were on fire in any number of places, Officers and sailors dead on the bridge, mortally wounded like Captain Frank Getting, or wounded, the same situation replicated in any number of places around the ship. The ship in darkness, and a nasty list making it hard to get about.

Just wallowing in the water, helpless, and now it was raining. All the ship's boats were full of holes from bursting shell splinters. I had been very lucky, I was on the bridge as the Officer of the Watch when the battle started at 1.43 AM, after the Navigator took over from me, I went to the forecontrol above the bridge, and literally rushed amongst several incoming shells to be untouched.

The fires amid ships were so fierce one could not get from the fore part of Canberra to the stern, I helped get wounded into the boats but when we lowered them, they simply filled with sea water through the shell holes, and it was some task to get the wounded bak on deck, all in darkness.

A very nasty night indeed.

I will mail you separately John's Certificate of Service from the Australian Government's WW2 Roll of Honour, in case you do not have it.

Jane, my apologies for being so verbose.

Best regards from both Terry in the US and myself.
 
Mac.

Hello Mac,

Thank you SO much for sending me all that information and the pictures! I am really touched, and thank you also for writing more about the night of August 9th, and about John's duties as Stoker. What a narrow escape you had, it must have been utter chaos, especially without any light to see by, and not knowing what was going to happen next.  How utterly ghastly, getting the wounded into the boats only to find the boats were filling with water, and how very difficult it must have been to get the wounded men back on deck. I'm sure through your heroic efforts that night you saved lives and alleviated suffering. 

You weren't verbose at all, I'm very glad to hear from you, all you have written is so interesting. I think it's so important to keep the history of the war alive, and you are contributing so much to this, through the website which you and Terry have created and maintain.

In my ignorance, I didn't know there was a memorial plaque at Plymouth, it is nice (for want of a better word) to know John's name is listed there, along with the names of others who didn't survive. Thank you, I did know about the honour role at Mosman - I'm assuming you are referring to the one in the Anglican church there? I was told that  after the war, my grandparents were very distressed to find that the Anglican vicar of that church wasn't very keen to have John's name on the role, as John hadn't been a churchgoer, but apparently family pressure prevailed and his name was allowed to be put up. I find the attitude of the vicar extraordinarily cruel and un-generous, if the story is accurate. Oh well, that is in the past, to me it seems a very strange story now, and a sad one of course.

Mac, it means a lot to me that you wrote back and have been so generous with your time and information gathering about John. The painting of Canberra is magnificent.  Though I was born at the end of the '50s, it is always a matter of some sadness to me, about my uncle John, probably because I picked up on my father's grief about it, and of course my grandparents', and my other relations.  So I thank you very much again, on behalf of my late father and his family.

Keep up the marvellous work - and my warmest regards to you and to Terry.

Jane

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