Some memories from Dave Rogers, one of my Naval contributors

Before we left Devonport to form the advance party of NP2512 we paid a visit to the Royal Marine camp at Bickleigh to be issued with Boots-Cold-Wet Weather (C.W.W), complete with special insoles. They were the biggest boots I'd seen and were quite heavy, and anchored your feet to the ground with no fear of falling over. They took quite an effort to get mobile but once in motion would swing happily along the highway giving you the feeling you could travel on for ever. We came to love those boots which we wore for most of the day. They were known as "Trog" boots in our part of the island and I am seen wearing mine in the welding photo. (see photo) 

We were taught the secrets of Cray fishing by the District Commissioner’s Fijian Engineer cum Handy man, Sureli ( not sure about the spelling) who would take us out at night onto the reef north of the village, when the tide and moon were right. (Sureli was also said to have got the DC's American jeep working after it was discovered in the lagoon). The fishing equipment needed consisted of, Tilley lamps, sacks, a bucket, strong gloves and stout boots, (on our first trip we wore gym shoes until someone read about the stone fish who's poisonous spines would easily penetrate gym shoe soles). We worked in pairs, one holding the lamp and sack and the other doing the catching. The Cray’s showed up a greyish blue in the lamplight and were approached from behind as once disturbed they would travel backwards at a rate of knots, hopefully into our gloved hands. We would catch about twenty per trip and always boiled up a couple on the beach before going back  (hence the bucket). We had prepared for our first return by cutting off the top of a 40 gallon drum, cleaned and filled with sea water, into which we deposited the Cray fish, the next day they were all dead having used up all the oxygen in the drum. In future we left them in the wet sacks and they survived ok. One of the Royal Marine Sgt's, nicknamed "Sticks", (ex drummer boy) had a very large cooked Cray fish which he placed under his easy chair in the beer tent leaving just the feelers and front legs showing.  The easy chairs lined the sides of the tent backing onto the tent walls. Anyway, someone from outside reached under the tent wall and removed the body and tail section of Stick's Cray fish, you can imagine his surprise when he came to take his prize away, I can't remember now whether the best part was ever returned to him.  

The Shipwright's department was enlarged with the addition of three Fijian RNVR chaps, two P.O.'s, John (son of a chieftain), and Hoppy (taught us the art of spear fishing), and a Leading rate, Harry (a 17 year old skinny beanpole),  Harry was very lonely being billeted in the junior rates area and spent most evenings sitting outside our beer tent where he could speak with his fellow Fijians and we could slip him some alcoholic beverage, there was a lot of friendly banter between us regarding skin colour and race with the Fijian's reminding us to be careful as their ancestors were very partial to the long pig.  Incidentally, Captain Bligh on his epic voyage in an open boat from the "Bounty" to Timor steered well clear of the Fijian Islands for this very reason. (“Chief, that missionary tasted funny, Oh! How did you cook him?  Boiled him in the pot as usual!  Ah that’s the trouble, he was a Friar,")     Many years later while serving on the survey ship "Hydra" around the Fiji Isles, I met up with Harry again through our rugby team, he had changed from the skinny youth into a six foot square rugby player, unfortunately we were leaving the area the next day for good so didn’t get much time together, but if anyone in Fiji reads this and knows the whereabouts of Harry Fong who was bos'un of the Cable and Wireless ship based at Suva in 1975 ( Hoppy was the Chippy) I would very much like to get in touch, he would be in his early sixties now. 

In the Port area on the Wharf was a large refrigeration building and adjoining it the bakery, here one could obtain a drink of cold water  from the fridge unit. The bakery was run by "Taff , the bread" who resided in our mess.  One day one of our lads noticed a number of wicker covered jars parked in the bakery and on enquiring what they were, was told they had been there for ages and contained vinegar, to which he replied, "They look like rum jars to me". A test proved this to be true and from then on a party from the mess would visit the Bakers Arm's on Sundays (luckily no Navy), this went on for some time until eventually disciplinary action descended on the regulars of the Bakers Arm's which we wont go into.   Speaking of "Taff the Bread", we also had a couple of civvies in the mess who operated the dredging barge used to keep the water deep enough for the LCM's to come alongside the jetty, they were known as "Fred the Dredge", and "Bill the Bucket".   There was also a mystery which we never solved when a very large American anchor was discovered in the entrance to the lagoon, whether it had been used as a kedging point to get craft into the lagoon we may never know, but it would be nice to know something about the American occupation of the Island during the war. 

The workshops in the port area consisted of the Shipwright's department and the Engineer's department. The Shipwright's who did most of the welding had a four wheeled Petbow single operator machine powered by a two cylinder Armstrong Sidley diesel engine which could be started  by one man using a length of string on the decompression lever while cranking the starting handle with the other.  The Engineers had the monster known as "Whispering Smith", a four wheeled, two operator machine with a four cylinder Ford diesel engine that took three men to start, two in relays on the starting handle while the other held a flaming wad over the air intake. It was a toss up when started as to whether it was running backwards or forwards, (I often wondered if you tried welding when it was running backwards if it would remove metal instead of depositing it, "ok, ok, I know I could do that with it running forward," its a joke ! ), it was quite dangerous stopping it as well because it meant getting close to the beast and covering the air intake with one's hat.  The Engineers were very keen to swap their machine for ours but our answer was that we couldn't spare the manpower to start it.

Motor Fishing Vessels have long been a part  of Naval life, the smaller wooden boats being used as tenders to Capital ships and the larger steel boats as Port Auxiliary vessels. The Christmas Island M.F.V. was a wooden vessel used mainly to catch fish to test for radio activity after a bomb drop, it was skippered by a Midshipman with a stoker as engineer and a couple of Gilbertese as crew, it fished with four long lines with spinners, two through fairleads each side at the stern, and two on booms port and starboard, we also fitted a universal joint on the stern bulwark to hold a big game fishing rod, I  think the advocator of this rod had visions of Marlin and Sailfish, Ernest Hemingway style, but as far as I know it caught nothing The main fish caught were Tuna which, after testing and passing the test, were served up for supper,  I was asked to fit a couple of bunk beds to the M.F.V. which I did, why? I don't know as it didn't do any night trips as far as I can remember, perhaps the Middy was planning an escape to Honolulu ??.

My memories of M.F.V.s are varied, on a Carrier as Liberty men one had to climb down a jumping ladder all eager to get ashore, and then returning at midnight tired and bleary eyed, a rough half hours trip back to the ship, hoping that your mate had slung your "mick", then to climb the ships side again on the jumping ladder to be greeted by the Regulating staff looking for booze and a goodnight shout of " Get turned in ", it all seems a nightmare now, but then we were young and hardy, nowadays its a major job getting in and out of bed,  " Oh my back" !! , now where did I put that Claims Direct phone number?  

The centre of activities for the S.N.C.O's at Port camp was the beer tent, a large khaki army job with a bar at one end and easy chairs around the sides and cocoanut matting covering the sand floor. Games, such as wrestling and other macho items took place on this matting with the resultant scrapes and cuts quickly turning septic unless protected from the coral sand. The tent was pitched close to the lagoon and had music laid on by American radio stations at Hawaii, half of the programs were advertising items such as,  Arthur Murray's school of dancing,   "Arthur Murray taught me dancing in a hurry", and our favourite, Playtex living bra,  "You will walk in beauty all day through, you'll look lovely in the evening too, playtex living bra", etc.  There was generally a cordial atmosphere in the bar, but anyone who became too argumentative or boring, was, by popular consent, seized, carried outside, and dumped in the lagoon. This only applied to mess members, but there were certainly some visitors who would have benefited from this treatment. I recall one PO. from the New Zealand Frigate H.M.N.Z.S. Pukaki, who, after a couple of pints ranted on about Gallipoli and us kippers, (two faced, no backbone etc) it later transpired that he was a Brit who had emigrated to New Zealand, his fare no doubt, having been paid for by his ex-neighbours.  As has been stated before, we were not evacuated from the island for the bomb tests, Grapple "X" and "Y", but mustered on the sand spit at the Port to witness the event. The Gilbertese were taken aboard HMS  Messina and billeted below decks.

The Junior Rates canteen and drinking area was known as,  "Amstel Cathedral", presumably as the main beer was Amstel lager and they worshipped there, it was also the most dangerous area for the duty S.N.C.O. who was supposed to clear it at night,!!!!  "some hopes". Elsewhere I mentioned that I went around the world via "Crabair",!!  The term Crab was applied to anything R.A.F. and the R.A.F. types were known as Crabfats by the Navy, it wasn't meant as a derogatory term but stems from the time when the Home fleet ships were painted a dark grey and the sailors who had to paint the ships side termed the paint used as crabfat. It was very similar in colour to the RAF uniform and so they became Crabfats, shortened to Crabs, whether it is still used by today's sailors I don't know as terminology tends to change over the years, I think if I said that I had served in the "Andrew" I would probably get a blank look today. (Especially from Chatty!!)