Dear Mr Gregory,
Congratulations on your excellent website. I enjoy reading it very much. I was born in Melbourne but have lived in London for many years. I am currently researching a book on the Pacific War and was fascinated to read your first-person account of the Battle of Savo Island and the fatal attack on HMAS Canberra. Your vivid description of that action is the best I have ever read. I will be visiting Melbourne during the course of my researches and hopefully will be able to arrange a meeting with you to discuss your recollections of the Pacific War.
With best wishes,
Peter Thompson
Hello Peter,
Thank you for your generous comments about my account of the sinking of HMAS Canberra at Savo, and our site of AHOY. It is a joint effort with my friend and Web Master, Terry Kearns in Atlanta Georgia, who turns my research and writings into AHOY, out there on the internet
for anyone to find and log on.
We both get a lot of satisfaction when anyone such as yourself takes the time to write to us and comment.
In your planned book about the Pacific War, of course it has already spawned a spate of books, what is your intended focus?
I have covered a host of subjects albiet some what briefly on AHOY about facets of the war in the Pacific, only recently a new book At War in the Pacific carried a chapter by me on the sinking of Canberra, its at our URL: http://ahoy.tk-jk.net/macslog/IwriteachapterinanewbookW.html
Peter, I would be delighted to meet with you when you come to Melbourne.
I look forward to hearing from you.
Kind regards,
Mac. Gregory.
Dear Mac,
Many thanks for your reply and your phone number. Your webmaster certainly does a grand job on Ahoy. Thanks also for the link to your chapter in Bruce Petty's book. I thought it was excellent - unbeatable, really, as a personalised account.
My book on the Pacific War will cover many of the elements of the conflict from Pearl Harbor to Hiroshima, and I would like to talk to you about the Battle of Savo Island when I reach Melbourne. I stay with friends in Withers Street, Albert Park, and take a morning constitutional along St Kilda Road every day - possibly past your house. On my way to Australia I will be visiting the US, including Honolulu.
I have written several books on World War II, including The Battle for Singapore, published last year. By coincidence, my friend Robert Macklin is launching his new biography of Albert Jacka VC in St Kilda Town Hall tonight. Robert and I have written three war books together - Kill the Tiger (about the Jaywick and Rimau raids), The Battle of Brisbane and Keep off the Skyline (about Ron Cashman, an Albert Park boy from Kerford Road, and the diggers in Korea), as well as a biography of Morrison of Peking - a boy from your home town.
Many thanks, Mac, and best wishes,
Peter.
Peter,
I recently bought your The Battle of Singapore, which I both enjoyed and devoured quite quickly, congratulations!
I trust it is selling well.
At that dark time in our history I had not long joined Canberra, and late in January of 1942, we escorted the last Aussie troops in Acquitania to Ratai Bay at the Southern end of Sumatra, where they transhipped into smaller ships so that Acquitania was kept out of range of Japanese aircraft.
We left the troop convoy 100 miles south of Singapore, and of course before long they were all in the bag as POW"s.
We were lucky to get back out of the very narrow Banka Strait, to call in at Tanjong Prioc, I managed a visit to the then Batavia about 12 miles away, then we were off to clear Sunda Strait and make for Fremantle. Your book brought back a flood of memories of a very bad year for the RAN in 1942.
I will certainly enjoy meeting you Peter and having a good yak.
Best regards,
Mac.
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