In the 60s I was stationed at the RAAF's No 1 Central Ammunition Depot approximately thirty miles west of Sydney. I was Corporal in charge of bombs. I was responsible for the storage, receipt and despatch of torpedoes, depth charges and assorted types of bombs to our active Bases around Australia. This essay concerns eight of our 25,000 Second World War, 500 pound bombs.
I was summoned by the Equipment Officer. “Corporal, you have been selected to take six of your men and report to the Air Sea Rescue Base at Neutral Bay, North Sydney, AM hours tomorrow.”
“Yessir.” I said thinking that this sounded like a fun junket.
“You will supervise the delivery of eight suspect bombs and one container of V & A (valuable and attractive items such as watches, compasses etc) to the Air Sea Rescue Base. You will supervise the loading of the aforementiond items onto a boat. You will then sail to the Continental Shelf, which I believe is fourteen nautical miles east of the mainland and supervise the jettisoning of the items into the deep water.”
“Sir, with respect, I can't. I get helplessly seasick. Which is why I joined the Air Force and not the Navy.”
“Not an option Corporal, you're going, there's nobody else.” I was told.
“Sir, previously this duty has been carried out by a senior NCO.”
“Two things, there's no one else available.” My swine of an officer told me. “Everybody else has contracted the flu and is on sick-parade.”
Of course they were. I would have been on sick parade too if I'd known. “Sir, a job with this responsibility merits a senior NCO, not a Corporal.”
“Corporal, didn't I approve you for Higher Duty Allowance a while back?”
“Yessir.” The swine's got me dead to rights.
“And that means you're paid as a sergeant because you have sergeant's duties and responsibilities. Carry on!”
The same afternoon, I supervised the loading of the suspect eight bombs onto a small truck. They were cushioned on matresses with matresses jammed between them. The bombs weren't armed and are normally safe, stable lumps. The armament officer deemed this lot to be potentially dangerous because the explosive filling was crystalising and was very unstable.
The next morning I was given the locked metal V&A container I had it loaded into the boot of a Holden staff car. When we were off the Continental Shelf it was to be emptied into the depth and witnessed and signed off by the ship's captain. After the peak-hour traffic, we drove off. The driver, three of my men and me in the staff car. I placed one man in the truck with the truck driver and the eight suspect bombs.
I can't recall the route now but I remember asking theTransport Officer, “The driver knows the way,” he said quite brusquely and disappeared. Did he know we were transporting four thousand pounds of faulty, high explosive bombs? I suspected he chose not to know. No doubt he would blame me for blowing a bloody big hole in Sydney. if anything went wrong. Good call if I were floating through the cosmos in a million little bits. We drove through western Sydney, headed for North Sydney and into Neutral Bay.
We should have headed to a relatively nearby Naval base at Silverwater and had the bombs floated by a barge down the Parramatta River and on to Neutral Bay. I found out later that when our officer rang up and booked a barge, he was asked for what purpose: to transport bombs. He was reminded that the last time this occurred the unionised civilian staff went on strike for a couple of days, insisting on penalty rates, The union decreed it was only safe to handle bombs at night time. They required safety certificates and overtime. Safety certificates for faulty bombs? What idiot would sign off on that?
So it was to be Plan B! Me, Corporal-Last-Resort, going through the middle of suburbia. I instructed the truck driver not to hit any pot holes and told my staff car driver to stay well back from the truck.
2
We arrived at the Air Sea Rescue Base in time for lunch. I reported to the Commanding Officer and asked him about disposal procedures.
“Well, we'll despatch two boats, an old wooden pigboat to carry the load and a big, fast patrol boat as backup,” The CO told me.
“We going to need backup?” I asked.
“Well, I'm hoping the blasted pigboat will sink of its own accord or the officer in charge will scuttle it.”
“Sir,” I said. “I'm required to take one of my men on the patrol boat with me to help itemise and witness the disposal of the V and A items.”
“Good call, Corporal.” The CO said.
I sorted my blokes onto the two boats. I kept my mate with me. “You owe me a beer or three, Eddy,” I told him. We patrol boat personnel watched the old pigboat chug towards the Heads.
“We can give it a good start, it cruises at 8 knots,” my skipper-to-be said. “We cruise at 30 knots. Wanna go back to the mess for another cuppa?”
We watched the pigboat for a while. It had a good wallow going as it approached the Heads. I was feeling a little squeamish just watching it. I asked the CO how it handled the open water?
“I expect most of your men will try to swim back to shore.”
We gave the pigboat about thirty minutes headstart. Our Skipper and his mate watched as the third crewman cast off. Our beaut big patrol boat puttered quietly down the Harbour. The third crewman, it turned out, was the mechanic. He was looking over our skipper's shoulder at the instrument panel. The two powerful petrol engines reached operating temperature as we approached the Heads,
“Off you go, Skip.” The mechanic said and the skipper gunned it. The brute lifted out of the water and planed. We were surfing the wave crests! I turned to the skipper and said, “Wow.”
“Wow indeed, Wanna take the helm? My 2 i/c is down below, sleeping off something he ingested last night. The mechanic probably is, too.”
I was like a kid in a toyshop!
“Keep her dead on East,” he said pointing at the compass. “If you see New Zealand turn around. There be cannibals!”
“Aye aye, my Captain.”
I remembered when I was a kid on the Port Hacking ferry, south of Sydney. We were going from Gunnamatta to Bundeena. The skipper of that little ferry let all the kids on board take turns standing on an upturned fruit case and steering. Magic memories!
It only stook a few minutes to catch up with the pigboat.
“Give the Pig a wide berth. We don't want to swamp it,” I was told. I noticed most sailors refer to boats as 'She' or 'Her'. The Skipper called the pigboat 'It'. No love lost there!
The pigboat frequently disappeared completely into a trough and then it crested. I could see most of my blokes were hanging over the sides heaving into the heaving sea. Being a compassionate man, I hoped they weren't suffering too much.
“Not very good sailors,” My skipper noted.
I agreed. “If the Continental Shelf is fourteen nautical mile off shore, how long will it take us to get there?” I asked.
“Maybe two hours with a tailwind and a following sea. But I know a shortcut.” The skipper told me. “Don't tell anyone, this is a sailor's secret.”
“Okay Skipper, mum's the word.”
We ripped around in big circles, showing off in front of my pigboat men. Mind you, I don't think they were well enough to notice us.
“I nearly forgot, the Melbourne Cup starts shortly,” the Skipper said.
I'd completely forgotten, in the excitement of not wanting to be here and now showboating across the ocean blue.
“Hold her steady, Sailor,” my Skipper said. “I'll get the radio station on my tranny.”
We got nothing but static.
3
“Damn, that happens sometimes. Interference from the engines. We'll have to shut 'em down.”
“Aye aye,” I said, not thinking. Instant wallowing, tossing and bouncing! Within a few minutes Eddy and I were hanging over the railing, throwing up. I was cursing the swine of an officer who bullied me into this nonsense.
“Good news, lads! The pre-race info is coming through loud and clear,” Our skipper informed us.
Between my retching, I could hear my skipper on his two way. “Skip One to Skip Two. We're there, start procedures.”
I believed that he was being circumspect in case anyone was listening. Oz was still visible on the horizon. Continental Shelf? I doubted it.
“Skipper, Do you think we could move further away from the pigboat. I think I can hear the faulty bombs clunking against each other?”
“We'll be right, we're drifting apart.”
These bombs could blow up at some stage, if not now. maybe if they were stirred up by a cruise liner sailing over them in these shallow waters. Hence the required deep water. Here's me, NCO in charge of potentially sinking a huge cruise liner.
In between throwing up, I could see someone on the pigboat had put out a sea anchor. “That'll steady the pig a little,” My skipper told me. “Corporal, the way your useless landlubbers are hanging over the gunnels, they're never going to jettison the bombs. They're going to have to scuttle the pig and go down with them.”
“Whatever it takes, My Captain. They're dedicated men.”
One of my men in the pigpoat was vertical and functional. He was using a little crane to winch up one bomb at a time and swing it over the side, then he released it. The pig boat leaned frighteningly with a single bomb suspended out-board. I didn't care about the pigboat or the Melbourne Cup. I was too busy spreading burley upon the restless sea. I thought the two skippers were the only ones listening to the race.
The bombs were eventually dumped and we headed for home. We were planing again and I was feeling so much better. “Hey Skipper, I feel well enough to dump the V and A items now. You wanna check 'em off?”
“Nah, fling 'em overboard. I'll watch and sign off on 'em.”
My mate, Eddy, had recovered and helped me slide the locked metal container to the side. We unlocked it, flung the contents overboard and stowed the empty container. “Mission accomplished, my Captain.
“By the way, do you have a bar back at your Base?” I asked.
“Aye aye, laddy. Fancy a bit of Nelson's Blood, do ye?”
----
Sixty odd years later, the faulty bombs haven't seemed to have exploded yet. But just you wait ---
The bomb casings will corrode and the high-explosive filling will decide to go bang in the relatively shallow water. Possibly triggered by the vibration from a huge cruise liner or even a male crab doing a courting dance on one of these soupy bombs. But now, sixty years on, the participants will all be deceased or demented except me. And I'll deny, deny, deny!
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