Armidale podcast

EPISODE 1:  Sitting Ducks.

It is Tuesday the First of December … 1942 … at the height of the Second World War. The Australian Naval ship, HMAS Armidale, led by Lieutenant Commander David Richards with his brave young crew (average age 21), has been dispatched on an overnight mission to relieve wounded, ill and battle-weary Australian troops … and evacuate Portuguese civilians. And there’s another key objective, to land 63 Dutch East Indies (Javanese) fighters at Betano Bay, Timor. The mission does not go to plan. Having been spotted by the Japanese Air Force, Armidale is attacked on three separate occasions. Forced to hide in rain squalls to evade the attacks, Armidale misses the planned rendezvous at Betano Bay.

“At that time I think it would be pretty general to say that we were well aware of the fact that it would only be an act of God if we got out of this scrap that we were in. So at any rate, we two, the Armidale and Kuru were sent back … but we had to come back on different courses so that we wouldn’t be sailing together and give them more of a target.” Ordinary Seaman, Rex Pullen.

EPISODE 2:  Air attack is to be considered ordinary, routine, secondary warfare.

Notifying Darwin of their situation, Armidale is ordered back in to complete the mission. The ship is attacked and sunk in a 3-minute hellfire by 9 bombers and 3 zeros. Armidale is in pieces. The front of the ship is heeling sharply to port and going down. It is here we learn the detail of Teddy Sheens brave action that saw him posthumously, awarded the Victoria Cross. After Armidale is gone Darwin sends the message ‘air attack is to be considered secondary ordinary warfare.’ There over 100 survivors in the water - and dead bodies everywhere.

"Sheean had no chance of escape. Strapped to his anti-aircraft gun, he blazed away till the last.”  Leading Seaman, Leigh Bool.

This was not an empty heroic gesture which achieved nothing. His action ensured that there was just enough time before the ship sank for many of those on board to abandon ship, for rafts and floats to be launched and for the depth charges, which might otherwise have killed the survivors, to be disarmed. That time, which undoubtedly saved many lives, was purchased at the cost of Teddy Sheean’s own life.  Sir Guy Green.

“I stopped, and I turned around and I tread water and I watched the ship sink, and it was going down very quickly and then when it was almost disappeared, it was almost as if it paused and stopped for a second. Might be in my imagination, I don't know, but that's how it seemed to me. Almost as if it were reluctant to disappear and then it did and having paused it just slid under and that was probably, apart from the deaths of my parents, the saddest moment in my life.”  Ordinary Seaman, Ray Leonard.

“The motor boat, badly holed during the machine gunning, was our only refuge where it was possible to keep dry, and so all the wounded were lifted inside.” Ordinary Seaman Russ Caro.

EPISODE 3:  Agony, thirst, hunger ... hope.

After a rough night, the survivors, numbering around 100 men, have the makeshift raft, Carley raft, and motor boat which is being used as a refuge for the seriously wounded. Sharks are circling and another threat appears in the form of deadly sea snakes.

“… although you weren’t completely out of the water it made you feel a little bit safer because sharks and things were sort of hanging around and you didn’t know just when you were going to be pruned off round about the knees, you know.”. Ordinary Seaman, Rex Pullen

“Joe Currie floated near us for days. Sometimes the sharks would nudge him from underneath and take a bit out of him, but he stuck around just the same … I knew it was Joe because of the ring on his finger. When we found we had to go back into Betano, Joe said to me: ‘If anything happens to me, send this ring back to my mother’. I told him I would ...”. Stoker, Ray Raymond.

“On the thwart opposite me was a Javanese bloke with his entrails hanging out of his stomach. Beside him was Ordinary Seaman Fred Smith. His nose was gone, and he had bullets in his stomach and his entrails were hanging out too, so my only view was these two sets of entrails. Smith died that night … but the native bloke lived another couple of days, so I still had entrails to look at. But I wasn’t much to look at myself with my jaw shot away.”  Ordinary Seaman, Ted Morley.

EPISODE 4:  Bravery, ingenuity, survival.

In the motor boat, the rowers have been doggedly pushing on all night, heading for the reconnaissance area. At the scene of the sinking, the men, with amazing effort, have been able to re-float the whaler by managing to get the stern out of the water and onto the raft. It is riddled with bullets and a gaping hole near the stern They are now faced with the seemingly impossible task of trying to patch it up.

“We were hardly in a fit state to tackle a job like this. We were weak and our hands and feet were so shrivelled they were like tripe.” Ordinary Seaman, Ray Raymond.

EPISODE 5: A difficult decision.

Picking the crew to row the whaler, who will stay with the rafts and who will go?  The motor boat makes good headway until the engine gives out. Catalinas, together with Hudsons and Beaufighters, are combing the Timor Sea.

“I remember one bloke ... He said, ‘I’m off to the canteen’. He just jumped off the bloody raft and went. That’s the last we saw of him. Going for the canteen.”  . . . .

“Of course, we were quickly using up our energy and our sores were getting worse. Even to hold the oar was an effort with our cracked, swollen, and festering hands. How long could we last?”  Ordinary Seaman, Rex Pullen.

EPISODE 6:  Rescue for some.

The men from the motor boat are rescued and arrive in back Darwin and immediately are required to appear before a Board of Inquiry. On the whaler, this debilitated but determined crew has rowed the disintegrating whaler more than one hundred and thirty nautical miles. Can those who were left at the scene of the sinking survive?

“... in the daytime the sun up there would burn hell out of you. Once that sun went over the edge of the bloody horizon it would freeze you to death. Nights were hellish and it was terrible. Ordinary Seaman, Rex Pullen.

“We were all very quiet by now ... no doubt thinking like myself of home and long, cold drinks of water. We were all too tired and thirsty to talk.” Ordinary Seaman Russ Caro

EPISODE 7:  Rescue for the Whaler and sworn to secrecy and a complete publicity ban.

The inquiry continues with the sailors, injured as they are, giving evidence.  Rescue comes for the men on the whaler. They are under strict orders to say nothing of their mission. It has been 9 days since the sinking and 5 days since the whaler set off.

“They were a pitiful sight. Their condition was appalling, with sunburnt, blistered, ulcerated skin covered in caked fuel oil and salt. They were wrinkled up like prunes. Their rib cages stuck out. Some were bleeding from the backside. Their eyes were glazed.”  Fred Still (HMAS Kalgoorlie).

EPISODE 8:  The behaviour and conduct of the Ship’s Company was at all times of the

highest order.

Some of the rescued get to go home. How will the survivors cope with the ordeal of the sinking, emotionally and physically? What impact will the secrecy placed on the Timor mission have on their Navy careers ... and their lives? And what of the men on the raft?

“... the thought still strikes me, comes to me at times, did the blokes on the raft think I walked out on them. And it’s a very hard question to get an answer to that. ... Although going in the whaler there was no certainty you were going to be picked up. There was no certainty that anybody was going to be picked up. Ordinary Seaman, Rex Pullen.

“One of the blokes on the raft, Stoker Jim MacVicar, had been married for less than one day. He was married in Sydney on Saturday afternoon, and we sailed early next morning. They never saw each other again.” Ordinary Seaman Russ Caro.

“... and the grandfather looked at us and apparently, we must have been a shocking sight because, you know, we were still caked in oil and … we had tattered clothes. I remember I had a slipper on one foot and a shoe on the other because I'd had ulcers and I couldn't fit a shoe on. Anyhow he looked at Russell, his grandson, and didn't recognise him at all.”  Ordinary Seaman, Ray Leonard.

EPISODE 9. Who we are and the best we can be.

Thanks to a monumental effort and commitment, Teddy Sheean’s heroism is finally acknowledged when he is posthumously honoured with The Victoria Cross for Australia.  Many of the survivors endure nightmares, emotional pain, mental anguish yet... despite their ordeal ... quite a few like Ted Morley lived to old age. The last of them, Ray Leonard, passed away in July 2021. He was ninety-eight years old.

“Every year, on the day Armidale was sunk, I take the day off. I go to Young and Jackson’s hotel and buy two glasses of beer. I drink my own and leave the other one. Sometimes when I’m leaving, the barmaid will ask me about the other glass, and I tell her: ‘My mates will be along to take care of that’.” Able Seaman Roy Cleland.