大象传媒

Flower class Corvette K19, HMS Nigella, visits Cocos Islands, 1944
Transcribed from a video recording

Oh yes. Mid 1944 We were in dry dock. I was posted again, this time to a corvette, K19, HMS Nigella, - Nigella Lawson, you thought of that 鈥� Nigella is a flower, Flower class corvette. Love-in-a-mist 鈥� HMS Love-in-a-mist, what a name. It was decided, this was towards the end of 1944, and Australian troops were being flown back to their own country, across a flight path over the equator, so it was thought a good idea to have a communication vessel on the equator in case any aircraft came down. So here we are, on the Equator, tootling backwards and forwards, just looking at the sea, slightly boring, as you can imagine. The captain, a lieutenant RN, he said , what we鈥檝e got to do鈥�. 鈥� and I鈥檓 sure he fiddled this, I still don鈥檛 know, but I believe he pulled a fast one 鈥� we鈥檒l go to the Cocos Keeling Islands. Now the Cocos Keeling islands, if you look at your map, you鈥檝e got a job to see it, it looks like a pin head, to the South of Ceylon, it was our nearest landfall anyway, to get fresh water. Now it鈥檚 only an atoll, and we discovered they were desparately short of fresh water themselves. It was only afterwards we discovered that. Anyway, were going to pick up fresh water, he said, I don鈥檛 find the evaporators are working too well, we might get a bit short. So off we tootled to the Cocos Keeling islands, which were British owned, but they鈥檇 put a military governor in charge, during the war. Funny thing, a Cable and Wireless station was there, the first time I鈥檇 heard of Cable and Wireless. Communications place, to Australia and the Antipodes. And when we got there, this brown job, as we called them, Army fellow, said 鈥渨e won鈥檛 allow you to land your boys, Captain鈥� Of course he went straight up in the air, didn鈥檛 he, not having that. 鈥淢y chaps are landing,鈥� We were anchored, there was no harbour, we were anchored in the lagoon, you see,. Well, he says, all I can suggest is that you come ashore and be escorted in small parties. Not the officers, of course, not us, the men. So that took place, but I鈥檒l tell you, it was beautiful.
Most of you will have heard of the Maldives, well, this is the Maldives, but plus. Delightful people. Mixture of Malay, Chinese, and Indian, mixed blood. The Chinese were there because they鈥檇 been imported before the war. The only export was Copra, that鈥檚 the dried husk of the coconut. It was an atoll, only a couple of islands inhabited, but they used to ship these folk to the different islands to do the coconut crop, and then come back to the main island, that was the Chinese labour.
But the thing was, I think it was in the 1920s, someone had taken the flu virus in there, and it nearly wiped them out, they had no resistance to European diseases, so that was the worry, the reason we weren鈥檛 allowed to go wandering around.
Typical British, beautiful palm frond houses, all nicely fenced off, no roads, just tracks, but the roads were Shaftsbury Avenue, Piccadilly, all the London鈥�.typical, you know, I thought that was hilarious, but everything was so neat, spotlessly clean, beautiful, I鈥檇 love to go back there again, but you wouldn鈥檛, its not a resort, not even now, and to make it even worse, after the war, guess what, the British Government gave it to Australia, absolute lunacy, but there you are.
We didn鈥檛 get our fresh water, of course, as far as I am aware, I don鈥檛 remember coupling up to any barge or anything else, and anyway he must have made some excuse, we went back on station, and there we are.

Gordon Richmond

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