Dad In The Navy - The Memoirs Of John Francis Connor

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

After the end of the war in Europe there were plenty of ships to spare and some of the big ones started to come out to the Pacific. Among them were the Victorious an aircraft carrier and it sister ship Illustrious, the battleship Howe and although I didn't  know it then - my next ship the HMS Belfast- the biggest battle cruiser in the navy. On the Lothian we were working our way back to Australia as we were due a refit. One incident that happened in this period was due to a stupid act by a couple of drunken seamen. We had had shore leave in New Caledonia and when we returned to the ship which was at anchor in the bay, some fool set one of the smoke floats off. These smoke floats were stood on the after deck near the stokers accommodation. When the smoke float was activated the smoke poured down the ventilators into the stokers messdeck. Many of the stokers were overcome by smoke and we dragged dozens of semi-conscious men onto the upper deck. However the next day one of the

From the Phillipines we worked our way south through various groups of islands. It was April 1945 by now and we picked up news of Roosevelts death in the U.S. with Truman taking over as president. Then the big news was Victory in Europe , the news of the end of the war in Europe was greeted with loud cheers. We were around the Solomon Islands at the time and of course we spliced the mainbrace and had a ships concert, this concert was strange for me as the star of the show was a prisoner in the cells at the time. What happened was this,  I was guarding the prisoner called McGee who was half Irish and half Italian and he had been allowed to take his mandolin in the cells with him, he used to drive me up the wall half the time while I was on watch, strumming away and singing. Anyway a P.O. came around to the cells one night and asked me if he could give McGee a tot of rum- it wasn't really allowed but I let him, and the P.O. asked McGee if he would give a turn on the concert. Of

Whilst at anchor in Leyte we repainted the ship and it was during this operation that the incident occurred.  A seaman named Westwood was painting over the side in a bosuns chair, a petty officer shouted down to him that he had missed some paintwork round the side of the gash chute. Westwood shouted back that he couldn't reach so the P.O. lowered down a "Long Tom" - which was a long handled paint brush. Westwood tried and said he still couldn't reach, whereupon the P.O. called him a useless so and so, at this Westwood threw the Long Tom into the sea. The P.O. ordered the men on deck to pull Westwood inboard and he was marched to the officer of the watch. After hearing  the charge the O.O.W. ordered Westwood to be put in the cells awaiting the next captains report. My job at this time happened to be Cell Sentry and I guarded Westwood for about a fortnight while he was waiting to be sentenced. It was no fun being in a cell below decks in the tropics and Westwood wen

From New Guinea we went to Manus in the Admiralty Islands. This island was almost clear of Japanese troops and we had a game of football on the beach - there was a small garrison of troops on the island and we were able to buy some Aussie beer. My mates and I bought four bottles each and we swam in a lagoon and put the bottles at the bottom until we had finished playing football. After the game we swam and sat on the beach drinking our cool beer - it was great. Our next stop was the Solomon Islands, we landed some troops in Bougainsville island where there were still some Japs and Christmas 1944 found us at Tulagi in the Solomons, it was a quiet Christmas, there was a US canteen ashore where you could buy American beer, these cans were opened by pushing them on nails which were hammered into the palm trees. On board the Lothian  we had rigged a canvas swimming pool in the quarter deck and as we worked to a tropical routine which was six in the morning to twelve thirty we had p

The Lothian,  as I have said was a converted merchant ship and our mess deck was in a converted hold, the ship was just finishing a refit at Brisbane which leads me up to the reason we kept missing the Lothian on our way over from the UK. Apparently the Lothian had started off from the UK about a week from when we left on the Queen Mary, it had gone to New York and then down to Charleston in Virginia. From there it went to Panama and should have called to San Francisco. However at Panama with the steamy heat of the tropics, the crew of the Lothian had protested at the lack of ventilation in the converted holds, they went ashore at Panama and refused to come back on board until something was done about the conditions. The captain read the riot act and said it was mutiny, he sent armed marines ashore and made the men go back on board. The whole ships company was under close arrest (barring officers and marines). The Lothian then passed through the Panama Canal and head straight

We fully expected to find the "Lothian" in Townsville, but no, we were told we could go ashore that evening and sleep on board the "Clan McGregor" which was tied alongside. My first impressions of Townsville was good, everyone seemed so relaxed and young and old seemed to ride bicycles. All bikes were ridden the same way- with the handle-bars reversed. This seemed to be so that a passenger could just jump up and sit comfortably on the handle-bars. This was done frequently and seemed to add to the relaxed atmosphere.  The town itself was sub tropical and hotter than New Guinea though not as humid. We had a good night out there with plenty of Aussie beer which was quite strong (as we found out later). There were quite a lot of townsfolk of Chinese descent and most of the Aussies themselves had skins like walnuts, but they gave us a great welcome and I enjoyed the only night out we had there, though I was to revisit it later on the Lothian. Back on the Clan McGre

Milne Bay, was in 1944 an Australian naval base, nothing like Portsmouth or Plymouth, it was in fact a clearing in the jungle with huts for accommodation and stores around a square with a flagstaff flying the Australian flag. When we five "Lothians" left the General Hugh L Scott we went to the base and we were allotted to a hut half occupied by Aussie sailors, we were told to stow our kit, get washed and changed into uniform and report to the MAA (master at arms) office. My problem was that I had no tropical kit (still in the missing kit bag) so I finished up standing in the steaming heat in blue serge uniform with the sweat soaking me. The MAA asked me why I was dressed in blues and I told him about the missing kit bag, he gave me a chit straight away for a set of Australian navy khakis which were very smart and light, I felt more comfortable after that. We had a look around our part of New Guinea that evening, I gave a native 20 cents (Yankee money) and he climbed a

The great event for me on the Hugh L Scott was the crossing the line ceremony. The Americans went for it in a big way.  The ships hooter sounded off as we crossed the equator and it was announced that we were crossing the line, at this hundreds of troops rushed to look over the side, this was the funniest reaction of all as there was nothing to see but the sea. Neptune came aboard and held court on a platform on the quarterdeck above a canvas swimming pool. We rookies had to sit in front of him and swear to owe allegiance to him as a "shellback". Then we were shaved with a big wooden razor and the chair we sat on tilted backwards and we landed in the pool. When we were dragged from the pool we were blobbed on the head with some purple dye then chased off the quarter deck. We finally had to queue up for our "Crossing the Line" certificates, before we could mix with the other "shellbacks". To mark the crossing the line ceremonies, the ship give a party

After about a month or so in San Francisco we were ready to move on, we had quite a bit of money and our wages were mounting up all the time as we were only getting subsistence or living ashore allowance. One morning at the Navy office we were told to have our gear outside the lodge at ten o'clock the next morning as we were going to take passage on an American ship as the "Lothian" was no longer calling at San Francisco. The next morning a jeep called for us and we were taken down to the docks , we boarded a ship called the "General Hugh L Scott". This was a brand new liberty ship built to carry troops, but able to convert back to a cargo ship after the war,. We were shown our berths, we were to sleep in three tier bunks in large mess decks, the five of us were the only British navy men on board, the rest of the passengers were American soldiers and the biggest surprise I had was meeting a group of U.S soldiers that I had met on the Queen Mary coming f

There was only one incident during my whole stay in the USA that upset me and it was so unexpected that it didn't sink in for a while what it was about.  I was walking down Market Street in San Francisco, with Ken Wallace, in uniform of course, when a middle aged man stopped us - "Ah British Navy lads", he said "Here's something for you"- he thrust an envelope in my hand and walked away. I didn't open the envelope straight away but I must confess I was thinking about the ten dollars the lady on the trolley bus had given me in a similar manner. When I eventually opened it, I was puzzled at first - in it was a white feather. Back in the lodge we asked our friend- an American sailor, what he thought about it, we knew of course the white feather was a sign of cowardice but we didn't understand why we should have been given it. The sailor told us that at the time of Dunkirk, the feelings of some Americans was that we had deserted the French and s

After our breakfast of coffee and waffles we set out on our second day in Frisco.  My first stop was at the Southern Pacific Railway offices where I filed a complaint for my lost kit bag, I had to estimate the cost of each article and altogether it came to about 90 dollars. They said they would put a tracer on the bag and if it didn't turn up they would forward the money to me, in the meantime however I was left in practically all I was stood in, apart from a small case with socks and underclothes. One of our friends from the previous night out- a Mr Gilbert Ball - had given us a card introducing us to the Olympic Club, we went along there and we were told we were honorary members while we were in San Francisco and could use all their facilities for free, these included a swimming pool, tennis courts, a golf course and of course licences bars and a restaurant  - it came in very handy for the rest of our stay. We then went along to the G.I job bureau where we were o