大象传媒

Let me tell you a story that happened to me
in New Guinea. Well it鈥檚 funny now but it
wasn鈥檛 then. I was in the Royal Marines attached to the American Seventh Fleet. It was from them that we received our orders.
We left the Solomon Islands and headed towards New Guinea where we were going to help the Yanks drive the 鈥楯aps鈥� out. First it was Oro Bay then onto Hollandia, Finchaven, Game a Do Do, then down to Milne Bay where we dropped anchor a few miles out to sea; about twenty miles from Port Moresby. We were told to wait for further orders.
There was a bad sea running and morale was getting low. We had not received any mail for a month or two as we were always on the move. A signal arrived from Port Moresby saying that there was a few sacks of mail for our ship awaiting collection. I was asked by Lt. Bray if I would Coxswain a craft to go for it if we could get four volunteers. I looked at the sea which was very choppy, especially for a nine ton craft. I then went below to the messdeck and asked for four volunteers to come with me. You know what Marines are, not knowing the meaning of fear they all volunteered. As I only needed four I picked them myself. There was Danny from Somerset, Upshall, (sparks), a young lad called Pimm (stoker), and one other I picked to act as 鈥榮tern man鈥�, I forget his name.
I went amidships, picked a craft, told the stoker to check the fuel, (not forgetting to get extra Jerry cans for our journey), told the sparks to get his flags and lamp and Danny to check the pumps, compass and ramp. After donning our Mae West, we looked at the stormy sea and one of the lads said.
鈥淛ust look at that bloody sea; and there鈥檚 sharks as well.鈥� As we were being lowered into the water, we were getting bashed about by the waves. I took ages to unhook but we managed to get away without mishap. Twenty miles to go with the pump running all the time and we were bobbing about like a cork.
As we neared the bay, the sea was a little kinder to us. Half a mile to go and I noticed a big shark. I told the lads to keep working on the pumps. At that moment we all wished we were back on board ship. The journey back was to be as bad.
We pulled up alongside the ship, there was no way that we could attach ourselves to the hooks. I decided to go around again before we smashed against it. We were half full of water by this time so we had to get it right on the second attempt or else we were going under. We made it. All hooked up, two Marines pulled out the bungs and we were lifted up to the safety of the ship.
We went down to our messdeck and changed into some dry clothing. One hour later, they piped all hands on deck for mail. The duty N.C.O. called out names until all the mail had gone. There wasn鈥檛 one for me after all I鈥檇 been through. I told them that if I鈥檇 known that that was the case, they would have all gone for their own. I can laugh about it now, but it certainly wasn鈥檛 funny at the time. Mind you. I did get a tot of rum.

Fred Payne.
Worsley, Lancashire.

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