大象传媒

This story was submitted to the People鈥檚 War site by (Helen Smith) on behalf of (H. Bernard Spencer) and has been added to the site with his/her permission. The author fully understands the site鈥檚 terms and conditions.

I volunteered for the Royal Navy towards the end of 1943 and on 12 April 1944 at the age of 17 years and 8 months I was posted to HMS Royal Arthur, a transit camp in Skegness, and thence on to HMS Valkyrie 2, a shore base in the Isle of Man, for a course in wireless telegraphy. Following a spell in barracks at Devonport and the Glenholt Camp signal school on the outskirts of Plymouth, I was finally shipped out to the Far East on the Reina del Pacifico in convoy from Liverpool, on 15th April 1945. We arrived at Colombo harbour in Ceylon (now Sri Lanka) on 8th May 1945 (VE Day). I was then sent to HMS Mayina, a transit camp some miles inland and later I was drafted to HMS Valluru, a Royal Naval Air Station at Tambaram, about 19 miles from Madras, India. My duties there were to control by R/T Chance Vought F4U Corsair and Grumman F6F Hellcat fighters making sorties across the Bay of Bengal against Japanese targets.

After some months, I suffered perforations to my right outer and middle ear drums caused by an underwater blow from a colleague's knee whilst swimming. I was informed at the time that there was little hope the ear would heal in the tropical climate and I would most likely be sent back to the UK, but first I would be sent to St. Peter's Hospital in Colombo for treatment. However, the ear did heal, as the weather in Colombo was appreciably cooler, so I was sent to Singapore on the cruiser HMS Jamaica and arrived shortly after the Japanese surrender.

After a spell at HMS Sultan 2, a shore base on nearby Blakang Mati Island, where I was in charge of Jap prisoners in road building, and a short period aboard LST 163 anchored in the Straights of Johore, I was drafted to LST 3010 (Landing Ship, Tank) which was being re-victualled for a major operation after having just returned from a single trip to Batavia, Java. It is here that my main story unfolds:-

As a Telegraphist (Wireless Operator) it was the responsibility of my colleague, Stan Jones and myself to keep in touch by W/T with our base at Singapore and SEAC Headquarters in Ceylon but I seem to recall that our next sailing instructions were not sent through us but direct to the new Captain (Lt. Commander Joyce) who had only taken over command of the ship on 10 January 1946. The ship's company was assembled and we were told nothing more than that our first port of call would be Surabaya in east Java. We left Singapore on 21 February 1946.

Upon arrival at the Surabaya anchorage on 25 February 1946 (I am using the modern English place names throughout rather than the old Netherlands East Indies spellings) we were joined by two more LSTs (3020 & 3502), two LSIs (landing ship infantry); a hospital ship and various landing craft. In the late afternoon I went ashore with some shipmates but got no further than the dock gates as we were machine gunned, apparently by nationalists armed with ex-Japanese weapons. We literally crawled back to the ship on all fours. It was many years later that I learned our 5th Cruiser Squadron had shelled Surabaya a few months earlier, presumably because of the murder in that town of the British Brigadier Mallaby and his party by the nationalists, but no-one had told us about it !! We departed Surabaya on 28 February 1946, having taken ample supplies on board, including a light aeroplane and troops of the 5th Indian Division. Dutch troops had already embarked on other vessels in the mini armada.

We were then officially informed that we would be sailing to Bali to land Dutch troops to take over from the Japanese garrison. Upon arrival at Bali on 2 March 1946, we were told that under no circumstances whatsoever were any British personnel to leave the beachhead, but no reason for this was given. We assumed it was for safety reasons because the island had been infiltrated by Indonesian nationalists who had already attacked the Japs and stolen many weapons, although they had later been repulsed. Not entirely true, as I was to discover many years later. At the time, most of us had no idea where in Bali we had landed nor do I think we particularly cared. All I remembered of the scene was a large volcano inland and to the right of the beachhead.

Upon completion of the landings on 4 March 1946, we sailed for Balikpapan, the capital of Dutch Borneo to land more troops and arrived there on 7 March. Whilst en-route across the Java Sea, we hit the edge of a typhoon which was centred over the island of Palawan in the Philippines. We later learned that a US LST had "turned turtle" in this storm and all 110 crew had been lost. During this time I received a poor reception news flash from Radio SEAC concerning the landings and heavy fighting which had taken place. I could not make out whether it was between the Dutch and the Japs or the Dutch and the nationalists and it was to take me another 51 years to find the answer. The report stated that there were many dead on both sides. From all accounts, this news never reached the UK but would surely have reached Holland. We left Balikpapan on the 12 March en-route to Java.
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We arrived at Tanjungpriok, the port of Batavia (now Jakarta) on 16 March 1946. The atmosphere in the city was very tense as Indonesian nationalists had been spreading their "hate the Dutch" and "Merdeka" anti-white doctrine and many of the POW's and civilian detainees recently released from the Jap prison camps following the surrender had been murdered. In view of this the Japs were allowed to keep their arms. We departed for our base at Singapore on 18 March and arrived on 21 March 1946. We entered the floating dock at the Naval Base on 27 March.

This completes the first part of my story.

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