Item 04: Memoirs of a Colonial Boy by Robert Joseph Stewart, ca. 1971 - Page 197
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[Page 197]
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appeared to be covered with ships. It was perhaps the largest fleet of transports ever to move on the face of the waters, and a stupendous spectacle. All vessels steamed at about ten knots, the best speed of the "Hymettus" an old Currie Line ship: Diesel-engined ships did not appear until after the war.
Throughout the convoy, the main aims during the long voyage were to keep the soldiers fit, fully occupied, and to continue their training as much as was feasible. Drill, musketry instruction, physical "jerks" and boxing tournaments filled in the whole of every day except Sundays, when there were church services only. The officers had to attend lectures on military subjects, and every officer in turn had to deliver a carefully prepared one, sometimes on a topic of his choosing. These lectures took up most of nearly every night.
After morning parades most of the soldiers lined up, with their mess-tins, for the daily issue of a pint of beer; this was very welcome, even by rather abstemious men, as the ship's water became very repellant after a time, in the tropics.
The German raider, the light cruiser "Emden", had already taken heavy toll of Allied shipping, and was known to be somewhere in the Indian Ocean. So all precautions were taken to avoid detection and attack. Lights were blacked out at night except for shaded navigation lights; strict wireless silence was enforced and the throwing overboard of flotsam was banned.
On the morning of Melbourne Cup day, we were nearly half-way to Colombo, when an urgent wireless-telegraphy message was received from the Cable Station on Cocos Island that the "Emden" had arrived in the offing. The Japanese "Abouki" eager to fight, broke out a rash of battle ensigns and turned off to engage the enemy, but was promptly ordered back to her station by the flagship "Minotaur", which then signalled to the "Sydney" to go to the attack at full speed. Next morning we were told of the destruction of the "Emden" by the "Sydney", and the tension of being so much on the alert was considerably relaxed.
The ships of the convoy anchored in the Colombo roadstead ten days after we had left Albany, having enjoyed ideal weather