Dad In The Navy - The Memoirs Of John Francis Connor

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