大象传媒

WHAT A COINCIDENCE

At the age of nearly 86 I still find it hard to believe that the following really took place, but happily it did.

On the 23rd January 1940 I became 20 and was required to register for military service, which I duly did, opting for the Royal Navy.

I was a grammar school boy, who had my secondary education at Chatham House Grammar School, where my house prefect was none other than Edward Heath (Sir Edward eventually). On leaving school I elected to work for the local government Health Department.

On 17th July 1940 I joined HMS ROYAL ARTHUR, a naval training establishment in Lincolnshire, for training as a signalman. I qualified and was duly sent to HMS PEMBROKE, Chatham for drafting to active service. I was promptly sent out to the Mediterranean where I joined HMS CARLISLE, an anti-aircraft cruiser. Business was brisk in those early days in the Med., what with Tobruk, Malta and Greece all requiring our services. First taking Anzac troops in, then a few weeks later having to rescue them.

This story really starts with the evacuation of Anzac troops from a small fishing village, Porto Rafto in Raftis Bay, southern Greece. The night was pitch dark and we, with a small convoy of vessels crept into this bay, and after making contact with the shore we were able to uplift about 5000 troops before daylight approached. With our little convoy we were heading for Alexandria, Egypt when our course was suddenly changed to Suda Bay in Crete, where we duly disembarked our load of troops, standing by to return the next night.

For the next six weeks life continued at a hectic pace ending up with the battle for Crete, and it was there that I met my Waterloo as it were and ended up in the 64th General Hospital in Alexandria, and here this part of the tale ends.

We now move to Auckland, New Zealand in 1950. In 1956 I was helping out at the Auckland Hospital Board鈥檚 nurses graduation ball, in my capacity as Personal Assistant to the Medical Superintendent-in-Chief, entertaining the VIP guests with liquid refreshment, etc., when my Chief, Dr Wilton Henley called me and said 鈥淚 want you to meet the Medical Superintendent of Middlemore Hospital, our large orthopaedic hospital鈥�..I duly fronted up, ready to shake hands with a rather austere looking doctor. He took one look at me and said 鈥渨e need no introduction, I know this fellow, and I鈥檝e been waiting fifteen years to meet him.鈥� Taken aback, I replied 鈥淚 don鈥檛 think so, Dr Moody, I am an Englishman come out to take up an appointment with the Auckland Hospital Board.鈥�

鈥淚 don鈥檛 care, we鈥檝e met before, I know. You were in the Royal Navy, and served in the Med.鈥�

I acknowledged that was true.

鈥淵es, he continued, and you served on HMS CARLISLE and evacuated me from Porto Rafto, and on-passage back to Alex. You handed a signal to your Captain, which re-routed us all to Suda Bay, where six weeks later I was taken prisoner-of-war, and because of that signal I spent 3 陆 years in Colditz prisoner of war camp, and if only you had lost that signal, none of this would have happened.鈥�

With tongue-in-cheek, he blamed me for his internment with other recalcitrant prisoners like Douglas Bader, Charles Upham etc. Three years later my chief, Dr W. Henley retired, and the new Medical Superintendent-in-Chief appointed was none other than Dr R.F. Moody, and the first thing he asked for, was that I be retained as his Personal Assistant, and as such we enjoyed many successful years of service to the medical services in the Auckland province, and we both retired in 1980. He is unfortunately dead now.

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