Dad In The Navy - The Memoirs Of John Francis Connor

  The Howe arrived in Portsmouth from its round Britain tour in September 1947. It was then end of the line for me. I said my goodbyes to the lads of 98 mess which included Bob Tilburn, the survivor of HMS Hood and emptied my locker and packed my kit-bags, although I had taken plenty of stuff home (including the accordion) on my last leave, I still had two kit-bags and two cases including a hammock and mattress so I was well loaded up as I left the jetty at Portsmouth and headed for Pompey barracks. At the barracks we put our gear on the parade ground and reported for demobilisation. The first thing to do was get rid of some excess baggage, there were several dealers there and I sold my hammock and mattress and my oilskins and tropical gear. I had already sold my best uniform to one of the lads on the Howe so although I didn't make much money on the deal I was a lot lighter and I still had to collect my civilian clothes.  After the parade ground we took the rest of our belongings i

  We dropped anchor in the Clyde near Gourock, this was the very spot from which I had set forth on my trip around the world over two years beforehand. The weather in late June 1947 was magnificent- it looked as if we were going to get a good summer following that terrible winter. I enjoyed my stay in Scotland and we had some great nights ashore in Glasgow. There was a big dance hall in Sauchiehall Street, I think it was called Barowlands or something and as always we ended up there on a night out. We stayed three or four days in the Clyde, then we headed over to Ireland. We dropped anchor at the bay off Bangor in Northern Ireland. Bangor was a smashing little port, it was strange to see a coal jetty in the middle of a holiday resort with an old fashioned crane off-loading a collier into horse-drawn carts - but this only seemed to add to the charm of the place.  There was a lovely park there-just near the sea front and I met a nice girl there while walking on a lovely sunny afternoon.

  Going back to Portland to join the Howe after my leave turned out to be quite a journey. I left home after tea to get the 10.30pm train from Darlington to Kings Cross. This would have got me back to the Howe easily for 9.am next morning when my leave ended. Unfortunately the trains were delayed by snow and blizzards were blowing across the country. It was after midnight when the train arrived and it was 6.30am next morning when we arrived in London, after more delays I finally arrived at the Howe at noon. I reported to the Office On Watch and was placed on commanders report for being absent without leave. The next morning I received my punishment from the commander. Altogether, I had to do 14 days number 11s which meant getting up early and scrubbing decks and also being called out in the middle of the night during a blizzard to watch the anchor and see it didn't slip. I couldn't go ashore for 14 days and what with the terrible weather I was really fed up. At last that long w

  My next leave became due about March and I lined up on deck in a snowstorm for inspection before taking the boat ashore. I had bought an accordion on the ship and I was taking it home with me, as it was snowing and it had no case I had wrapped it up in some cleaning cloth. As the Master of Arms came along inspecting the men going ashore he told me to fall out. The boat left for the shore with the liberty-men and I was taken to the Officer of the Watch. The MAA told the OOW  that I had been attempting to steal Pursers Cloth- namely the cloth wrapped around my accordion. I explained that the cloth was old and worn and would have been thrown out anyway. The OOW had to back up the MAA and said I was on Captains report when I came back off leave in a fortnights time. I had to telegram my mother to say I would be a day late and I left the next day for home, it wasn't very nice to think you would had to come back to Captains report. The journey home took longer than usual as trains were

  One of the nicest surprises of my leave was meeting an old friend from the Lothian. Bill Glenton had served on the Lothian with me and I had written a few letters to him, we had also met in Hong Kong when I was on the Belfast and he was on the destroyer Cossack. We had exchanged addresses and promised to call on each other if ever we were in the area. Anyway he happened to call at my mothers while I was on leave so we were able to have a good chin-wag. My leave was soon over and I headed back to Portsmouth, after a week or so I was sent for and told I was to be drafted to HMS Howe, a battelship. The Howe bay at anchor at Portland Bill which was near Weymouth, strange that my last ship had been named Portland Bill. The Howe was turned over to peacetime routine and was crewed by mainly National Servicemen, these were young lads that had been called up after the war to do two years in the forces. The total crew of the Howe was about 2,000 and it was like a small town on board. I was all

  The lighters I had confiscated by the customs were impounded in the Kings warehouse and I was given a receipt for six cigarette lighters to be redeemed at seven shillings and six pence each.  I had bought them in Tokyo for one yen or four pence each, it seemed to me that Japan were starting to recover from the war in 1946, needless to say I never recovered the lighters. My first leave in England in two years started from Portsmouth station. I took the train from Portsmouth to Waterloo. The first thing that struck me about England after being away for two years was the chimney pots on houses. I suppose there must have been some abroad but England somehow seemed to be covered with them and in 1946 they were all smoking. I arrived in London and hailed a taxi from Waterloo to Kings Cross. I was with a Geordie sailor who was travelling to Newcastle, a Greek couple shared our taxi and pointed out the damage the doodle bugs had done to the city, they got out before us and said goodbye, but

After leaving Gibraltar for the last leg of the journey home we began to feel the cold creeping in. After over two years away from England I had become used to tropical weather and I suppose my blood was so much thinner. I remember one night particularly when we were crossing the Bay of Biscay, this was notorious for its rough seas as the Atlantic rollers came up to the French coast. I was on watch in the Crows Nest from midnight to four in the morning, - the dreaded "middle watch", when I reported at midnight, the seaman I took over from looked decidedly green about the gills. I watched him climb down the mast about 100 feet to the deck and began to dread the next four hours. I cant imagine anywhere on Earth where a mans stomach could be less at home than at the top of a ships mast in the Bay of Biscay on such a stormy night as that was. The ship was rolling almost 180 degrees and I watched the sea rushing up towards me each time she rolled to port and starboard, it was also

We left Port Said for a leisurely cruise of the Mediterranean, at a speed of 8 knots it suited me fine.  I was really in no hurry to get back to England although I was looking forward to seeing my family again. It was as though I knew that at twenty years of age I had already lived the best part of my life and been right around the world, anything that followed could only be humdrum. It was now late August and the skipper decided to have a stop each night at 4pm and order "all hands overboard", this was a recreation period and although of course it wasn't compulsory, almost everyone went over the side for a swim, the weather was still hot and I enjoyed the daily dip. We bypassed Malta although everyone reckoned we were going to stop there and plodded on slowly to Gibraltar. I liked Gibraltar very much, I suppose it was the feeling that we were nearly home but it was remarkably like England, there were bars with English sounding names and adverts with Johnnie Walker whisky

My lasting impression of Bombay will always be going through busy streets and seeing people settling down for the night in shop doorways and odd corners we had to step over sleeping bodies as we made our way along, a sad place altogether India was, I only hope that forty years later today's India has settled some of its poverty problems. Our next port of call was to be Aden which was then a British protectorate in south west Arabia, it was a journey of about 1600 miles so it would take us about eight days. We sailed straight across the Arabian Sea and I began to get an idea of old fashioned sea-fairing as I took my turn in the crows nest. You had to keep a real good look out as there was no radar whatsoever on the Portland Bill. We were told to watch out for land on the eighth day and low and behold I was on watch in the crows nest when it suddenly loomed up about 3.am in the middle watch. It was a good job it was a clear night, I thought at first that what I could see was a low cl

The next morning the Portland Bill sailed from Columbo and headed north up the coast of India to Bombay. This was a journey of about 1,000 miles so it should take us about five days, apart from lookout duty and a spot of painting, it wasn't too long and I enjoyed the trip, the weather was beautiful and we sailed pretty near the coast and I watched India roll by. We anchored outside Bombay itself and started a ferry service ashore with the ships boats, we were picking some sailors up who were going home and dropping a few who had to pick other ships up, it was a couple of days before I got ashore. Bombay was a teeming city, it seemed more crowded even than Hong Kong, there were some beautiful buildings but a lot of squalor, beggars were everywhere and you hardly dare stop for more than a couple of minutes or you would be surrounded by natives either selling or begging. We stuck to the main thoroughfares  for safety's sake but the lads decided to see the sights and four of us hir

Ashore in Columbo I found it quite an attractive place, it was much more civilised than Trincomalee. I only spent an afternoon and evening ashore as we had to be back on board by 10pm that night. We had  a meal - the usual SEAC (Steak, Egg and Chips) and a look around the town, then finished up as usual in a bar. Whilst waiting for the boat to take us back to the ship we were all standing on the jetty when a police car drove up, a white inspector got out and a couple of native policemen, they were accompanied by a native rickshaw puller. These four looked around the sailors until the rickshaw man pointed out a couple of sailors- these men were bundled into the police car and driven away. Apparently they had been riding in the mans rickshaw (or more correctly, a bicycle garry) and instead of paying him they had thrown his garry into the harbour. This unfortunately happened a lot out east where drunken sailors were concerned, however Columbo was well policed and I for one was glad to see

The Portland Bill was technically HMS Portland Bill as it was on its last journey as a troop transport before returning to SS Portland Bill general cargo carrier. She was one of the fort ships which were the equivalent of the American Liberty ships but Canadian built and each ship took about a week to build and was all welded.  When I joined her in Singapore I was told although I was taken passage to England I would be joining the crew and have to do crew work. This suited me as I had a lazy time on the Belfast and was getting a bit flabby. There was no radar on Portland Bill so I was told I would have to stand watch as lookout in the crows nest. This was OK in the tropics but I dreaded being up there in the rough and cold northern seas. Our first port of call was Trincomalee in Ceylon which we reached in about four days. I had volunteered for boats crew and our first job after anchoring was lowering the pinnace and setting off for the shore to find the best landing place for shore lea

At this point I was called into the ships office and told my time was up as I had spent nearly two years abroad and was now entitled to go back to England, the officer told me there was no pressure on me to go home and I could sign on for another trip if I wanted to,  anyway I could think about it for a couple of days. I did think seriously about going back home as I had lost all homesickness ages ago. I knew the Belfast was to stay out east at least another year and there were plenty of places I would still love to see. However news from home wasn't so good, my mother had written to me to say brother Tom had contracted TB and was very ill (in 1946 TB was still the biggest scourge of the country). I felt I had a duty to go home and do anything I could for my family. Also my brother Joe had married a nice girl and I had missed their wedding. I wanted to meet Joe and Daisy as Joe and I hadn't seen much of each other since he joined up in 1942. Anyway, after thinking it over I wen

We boarded the landing craft at about 11pm to sail up the coast to Seramban, there were about two dozen of us, we were given a food parcel each containing sandwiches and a couple of sachets of instant tea. All the landing craft provided was hot water for the tea which turned out to be undrinkable, but the sandwiches were OK. After a sleepless humid night we arrived in Seremban where we were met by a bus to take us to Port Dickson. Port Dickson itself seemed to have been a quiet resort before the war with a small village and a country hotel, a nice beach and small islands offshore which were reachable by canoe. It had been converted to a rest centre for British troops and most of the lads with me had like myself been away from home for two years and therefore qualified for this leave. It was really a very relaxing time, most of our time we spent canoeing and rowing round the small uninhabited islands and at night we went into the hotel which was renamed the White Horse Cabaret, they pos

As we entered Singapore harbour the first thing I noticed was a couple of Japanese cruisers at anchor. These had been captured at the end of the war and we anchored quite nearby as we couldn't go alongside till we had de-ammunitioned the ship. A boat party went across to one of the cruisers and I was among them. We had a good look around and saw how the Jap sailors had lived.  Although the ship was modern in armament and design - they were as good as ours but the accommodation was really primitive. The crew slept on the deck in large mess-decks and they had communal baths in canvass troughs. There seemed to be very little comforts for the ships crew and perhaps the biggest shock were the toilets which consisted of canvassed off areas of the after deck where sailors squatted on planks overhanging the stern, not very comfortable I imagine at sea. After we had disposed of our ammunition and taken on lighter peace-time ammunition we went alongside the quay and waited our turn to go ins

I wasn't really sorry to leave Japan, it was a sad place to be at that time, you couldn't enjoy yourself when you knew people had suffered so much. We sailed out of Kobe after a couple of days and headed south for Hong Kong. I was looking forward to visiting Hong Kong and when we arrived the sheer bustle of the place excited you. The Chinese had adapted quickly after the war and even as the Belfast pulled into the harbour, our burn-boats tagged on alongside flying their homemade flags with HMS Belfast painted on them, about half a dozen of these boats had assigned themselves to the Belfast and all the time we were in Hong Kong they stayed tied up alongside us selling the crew everything under the sun, painting the ship and even setting up a laundry on the deck. I went ashore the following day at noon on a 24 hour pass. We had rick-shaw rides round the town and visited the monument on the top of a hill which the Japs had forced the British POWs to build in honour of the Jap conq

It was now April 1946 and Springtime in Japan is similar to England's spring with flowering cherries and other trees visible on the islands as we sailed through to the inland sea. We were however heading for a much grimmer sight - Nagasaki. We tied up the Belfast alongside the jetty at Kobe, the inland sea port and when we went ashore that same evening, buses were laid on to take us to Nagasaki which was nearby. The devastation was terrible, although not much worse than Yokohama, at first sight there was something more deep and total about this devastation that was hard to describe. For instance, the thing that struck me was that only a very few things were still standing and these were usually brick walls, most things seemed to have been flattened by huge winds. A pile of bottles and glass which must have once been a tip was pointed out to us. The bottles had melted and were twisted round each other in grotesque shapes , the heat must have been terrific to fuse glass together that

Fujiyama was a sight to behold - all I could see was the white cone above the clouds, snow capped against a blue sky, we were still many hours sailing away from Japan but the tannoy was blaring out telling us what to expect, the war had only been over a matter of months and the Japanese were having a hard time.  This was brought home to us when we dropped anchor in Tokyo bay just off Yokohama. The farm boats came alongside and there were whole families aboard them, they had long fishing nets with them and they fished out anything eatable out of the water, bread, fruit, potatoes, vegetables and anything else useful which had come down the gash chute - they were obviously near starvation. I went ashore that night to Yokohama, it was the main port for Tokyo and had a good fleet canteen, but that was about all, we had a good drink in the canteen drinking English brewed beer which was brewed on an amenities ship anchored in the bay, the Jap beer was good too though, it was bottle

The Belfast made its way North through the beautiful Pacific to Fiji, it was a pleasant trip and I felt almost as if I was a tourist, I had very little work to do on board and as we sailed in Suva, the capital of Fiji, I was all ready to go ashore and look around this tropical paradise. There was a band playing in the jetty as we came alongside and beautiful Polynesian girls dancing in sarongs and garlands and singing Loloma Mai Viti which means Welcome to Fiji in Polynesian. I went ashore with a couple of mates and had a swim first in the local pool (I didn't fancy swimming in the sea there as I had seen some of the biggest sharks in my life swimming near the ship). After our swim we had a good meal (steak eggs and chips) and then had a look around the town. The policeman were outstanding, they had fuzzy hair and policemens tunics worn with a white skirt and bare feet, they were all over six feet and although they were friendly I wouldn't pick an argument with them. 

The Sutherlands lived in May Avenue which was a posh part of Napier. They had one daughter Shirley who was eighteen years old. They owned three outfitting and haberdashery shops in Napier and were New Zealand born but of Scottish descent. We had a fine tea and a good chat afterwards, we found that there was to be a dance that night in the town hall in honour of the Belfast visit. I asked if Shirley would go with me to the dance and she said yes and she would ask her friend to go with Gypsy Lee my mate. The dance went down very well, it finished about midnight and I took Shirley home, I had a drink with her dad who had waited up and I said I would meet her the next night. I met her in town the next night and we walked along the cliffs, she told me the history of the town and how they used to go for holidays to Fiji before the war. They were hoping to go back to Fiji this year as the war was over and things were getting back to normal. I told her about my family and she promised to

I went ashore the next afternoon and had look around Dunedin, we were on the south island with the weather about the same as the south of England. The people were very friendly and were mainly of Scottish descent, there was a statue of Captain Scott of the Antarctic in the town square as this was his last contact with civilisation before his ill-fated expedition in 1912. The drinking laws were the same as Australia which meant that the pubs closed at 6pm, my mates and I overcame this by signing in at an hotel where we could drink as long as we liked, we had a good night but I got the last boat back at midnight as there was nothing to stay ashore for really. We sailed up the east coast of New Zealand stopping at Wellington but nobody was allowed ashore as we only stayed a few hours, then we sailed up to Napier on the north island where the skipper said we would stay for five days. Napier was a town which had almost been wrecked by an earthquake in 1934, as we tied up alongsid

The Belfast had had a good war record, she had a swastika on one of her torpedo tubes which was to signify that she had fired the torpedo that had finished off the "Sharnhorst", a German pocket battleship. She was also active on D Day firing at coastal defences in Normandy and had arrived in Sydney following a trip to Shanghai. She was a very happy ship and I was to get my first taste of the peacetime routine of the Royal Navy. We were divided into six watches, first and second parts of red, white and blue watches- in wartime it was four watches, first and second parts of port and starboard watches. This meant I was on duty six times instead of one in four - that meant more time off and more time ashore. I had a cushy job as an RP2. I was unique as I had a higher non-substansive rank than even the petty officers. I was put in charge of the radar sweepers which meant that I just had to report that the radar offices were kept clean. On duty and at action stations my job was

Harry Hatton told me a story about Balmoral at Sydney Heads where I had done my training, I asked him what was the reason for the amphitheatre which was built into the hillside overlooking the Pacific Ocean. He told me that in the 1930's an Archbishop (self styled) Leadbeater had come into prominence in Sydney and had forecast that Jesus Christ would walk through Sydney Heads on a specific date (on the water of course), incredibly thousands of people believed him and funds were raised to build the amphitheatre and seats booked for the big day. Of course the "Archbishop" disappeared jut before the date forecast and was later caught and tried for fraud. Whilst at Golden Hind I was roped in for a funeral firing party and by a strange co-incidence I had to fire a salute over the funeral of a man who had lived just around the corner from me at Middlesbrough. Bandy Wilson had been brought up with me on the Whinney Banks estate in Middlesbrough. He joined the navy about th

HMS Golden Hind was the main Australian base for the British Pacific Fleet, it was about 12 miles from the centre of Sydney at a place called Liverpool. The best part for me was that Hammondville was a short bus journey from Liverpool so I was able to spend more time at the Hattons house which was becoming my second home. Let me tell you something of Hammondville, it was a small community of buildings, almost all self-built which got its name from a Canon Hammond who had campaigned in the 1920s to get electricity and water laid on and established a small suburb of Liverpool. My Uncle Harry Hatton had settled there in the 30's after working on the railways and had a steady job as an ambulance driver. Most of the inhabitants worked in Liverpool or Sydney and the bus driver used to stop at each house every morning to pick us up (one morning I had to wake up on the verandah and I had to hurry and dress while the whole of the bus cheered). It was approaching Christmas 1945 and the

I was taken by jeep to HMAS Balmoral which was on the north side of Sydney harbour mouth, the entrance to Sydney harbour was known as Sydney Heads and I would be based on HMAS Balmoral and travel daily across the bay to HMAS Watsons Bay which was on the south side of Sydney Heads. Watsons Bay was a camp on a clifftop with radar ariels sticking up all over the place and huts converted into schoolrooms for lectures, I spent three months training there before passing out as a Radar Plotter second class or R.P.2. The next weekend I went up to Hammondville and told them the news, it was a surprise to them as they thought I would be sailing with the Lothian. I asked Aunt Flo if I could stay every weekend then I could get a living out allowance and native leave in Australia just as if I was in the Aussie navy, she said "Certainly", so on the Monday following I arranged it at the camp to leave Watsons Bay at 3.p.m each Friday and report back for 9.00 a.m each Monday- this I

After the hectic night on V.J  day I had to settle down to the routine of a ship changing from a wartime to a peacetime footing. I was under punishment for 14 days, so I couldn't go ashore on leave therefore I never saw the Hattons for a week, then one afternoon Flo and her friend called at the ship after work and I was able to go on the jetty and talk to them. I told them I was sorry I couldn't make it to their house but I would definitely be there on Saturday ( when my punishment would be over). The week passed slowly, almost everyone was ashore and I was pretty miserable- however on Saturday I was able to get a weekend pass from noon Saturday to Monday morning. I travelled up to Hammondville and we had the village dance on Saturday night and Sunday swimming in the creek. On Monday morning I was on board the ship by noon and I was told to report to the radar officer after dinner. The radar officer informed me that I had been selected to go on an R.P.2's course in Sy

Whilst the Lothian was preparing for sea, the news came that the Allies had dropped an atom bomb on Hiroshima and had petitioned Tokyo to surrender. This was not done immediately and another bomb was dropped on Nagasaki and after a few more days the Japanese surrendered , it was the most terrible end to a war that had ever been known. Being young (I was still only 19), I looked at the end of the war selfishly and thanked God that I didn't have to go back up to the war zone. The city of Sydney went wild on V-J night, the ship was left with the least possible crew on board and at noon we spliced the main-brace and set off ashore to paint the town red. The licensing laws in Sydney were that the pubs were open all day and closed at six o'clock at night., there was a hullabaloo in the papers that they should open till later on V-J day, but it was decided that they should close at the same time as usual. I went ashore with Scouse Sutton, Terry Cowley and a couple more mates from

When I got back on board the Lothian there was quite a lot of mail waiting for me, one was a telegram from my Mam which gave me a laugh, it said simply - "Come home as Joe is on Embarkation Leave", the telegram was about nine months old and addressed to HMS London, it was covered in postmarks all over the world and it was a wonder it reached me at all. Another letter from Mam informed me that I had an aunt in Sydney and enclosed her address. I made a note of it and promised to go and see her. The first weekend off I had, I travelled by train from Sydney Central station to Liverpool and then got a local bus to Hammondville where my Aunt Flo lived. I knocked on the door and my uncle Harry Hatton answered, I told him my Mam had asked me to look them up and he shouted "Flo!", I explained who I was to Aunt Flo who was a lovely motherly figure - she put her arms around me and welcomed me into their house. I was the first person she had seen from home in nearly twen

For the last evening at Narrabri the town held a dance for the sailors on leave there, there were about a dozen of us scattered on different farms, it was a big occasion for the small town. I remember we started getting ready in the mid-afternoon, there was a certain order to having a bath as water was precious being caught off the roof into a barrel. Mrs Burrell had the first bath with Mavis following in the same water, then the water was changed and Bill Glenton went in first and then me, with the Burrells eldest son last, the water was only about four inches deep. We set out after tea about six o'clock in two cars and drove through fields of grain and bush and arrived in Narrabri just after seven. We had a good evening and it was good to have a night out with the lads, I had a couple of dances with Mavis, the dancing wasn't very good as I was just learning and the local girls didn't get much practice, anyway there was plenty to eat and drink and we all enjoyed i

We called in at Cairns in Queensland Australia on our way back south and arrived in Sydney for our refit in July 1945. Sydney was full of sailors, American and British and I met an old workmate who had joined up with me, Frank Sherris had just come over with all the new ships and we had a good night out together. We had to wait about a fortnight for our turn to go into dry dock and we were thoroughly enjoying ourselves. During the first week we had visitors looking around the ship and some of them asked if we would like to spend a leave at their home. I put my name down for this and was given a fortnights leave- it turned out to be a wonderful experience of Australian Outback life. I went on leave with Terry Cowell and Bill Glenton and we went to a place called Narrabri in New South Wales. We went by train - it was quite a journey from Sydney. The people Bill Glenton and I stayed with were called Burrell and the farm was called Spring Creek Farm and was about ten miles away from N