Harrowing tale

He’s helped in recovery of bodies of Englishmen after an airstrike decimated a part of their town.

And they are just some of the heartbreaking stories that continue to haunt the now 97 year-old to this day.

Mr Brown has lived in the local area for more than 20 years — 22 years in Barooga before relocating to Berrigan 18 months ago.

Tomorrow, he will join the commemorative Anzac Day procession and service hosted by the Berrigan RSL Sub-branch.

He says his bad knees will prevent him from marching as he has in the past, so instead will take a seat in an Army jeep.

The Amaroo Aged Care resident might need a walker to help him move around, but his mind is quick and honest, and he can recall precise dates of his service as if it was yesterday.

His ability to recall his experiences made for an emotional interview with the Southern Riverina News, with the former seaman sometimes battling through tears to ensure his story — and the story of those who lost their lives in the war — is understood and remembered this Anzac Day.

Mr Brown spent a little over 35 years in the Australian Navy, and has an impressive collection of military medals lining his jacket.

He first joined the Navy as a 16 year-old ordinary seaman second class on March 22 1938, and was stationed on Sydney II — which eventually sunk in 1941, but luckily without Mr Brown on board.

He was then sent to England to commission HMAS Perth. He was on board the light cruiser at the outbreak of World War II, when the ship was travelling between New York and Jamaica.

He stayed on HMAS Perth until it arrived in Australia in May 1940, and Mr Brown then became one of the first to join the RSL in Frankston.

It was not long before he was posted back to England to help his fellow Allied seamen, on the HMAS Nestor.

He arrived in the south England coastal town of Portsmouth on January 10, 1941.

Tears welled in Mr Brown’s eyes as he painfully opened up about the first of two significant traumatic experiences.

‘‘There was a big air raid out there, and this is one date I’ll never forget,’’ he said.

‘‘They wiped out the entire main street of Portsmouth and half the naval barracks.

‘‘Being seamen we had to clean up the mess, including the bodies of young children.’’

It is at this point that Mr Brown broke down in tears, recalling the awful memory of seeing the dead bodies.

But determined to share his story, he pushed on and it brought him to the second traumatic war experience.

On June 16, 1942 the HMAS Nestor sunk in the Mediterranean Sea.

It was hit by three Italian bomber planes while travelling between Alexandria and Malta. The ship eventually sank near Crete, Greece.

Mr Brown was onboard as an anti-aircraft gunner.

‘‘The Nestor was on a convoy to Malta,’’ he said.

‘‘It was the only Australian ship to serve in the Bismarck campaign, the only Australian ship to never come back to Australia and the first Australian ship to sink a German submarine during the second World War.

‘‘I was on it from the day it was commissioned until the day it went down.

‘‘It was about five o’clock in the afternoon; it was just getting dark. We’d been under attack for five days.

‘‘The planes would always attack by coming out of the sun because it was harder to see them.

‘‘As anti-air craft gunner you had to keep your eyes on the sun all the time.

‘‘You had to plan well. The first thing was identifying if it was one of your planes or theirs, then estimate where the plane was going to be when your shots reach.

‘‘We were straddled by the three bombs that were well out of range from our fire.

‘‘They hit the boiler room, broke the back of the ship and the admiral in charge of that fleet sent HMAS Javelin to assist.

‘‘They attempted to tow us during the night but the tow kept breaking.’’

When the ‘abandon ship’ order was given Mr Brown tried to escape, but not as quickly as he would have hoped.

At the time the Nestor was carrying a special 20mm Oerlikon gun and he was asked by a gunner on the Javelin to remove it and bring it with him, making his escape more difficult.

Despite the difficulties, Mr Brown survived the ordeal and was offered a month’s respite leave but this proved to be short-lived.

He was recalled almost immediately to coxswain of the HMAS Lolita.

He was then appointed to the heavy cruiser Shropshire when it was stationed in the Philippines in 1943.

‘‘I took passage on HMS Howell, a British battleship, which took us to join Shropshire. It was given to the Australians in replacement of HMAS Canberra.

‘‘When we arrived to board the Shropshire at Leyte, it didn’t turn up because it was having a battle with the Japanese in the Surigao Strait.

‘‘We went ashore because the Americans had taken back Leyte.

‘‘This was one of my other traumatic days. There a was hut behind us with about 25 American Marines, and during the night the Japanese came through from the hills, cut the throats of the Marines and stole their uniforms.

‘‘The next morning we were told about it and if the Americans hadn’t been disturbed they would have gone through us.

‘‘The Americans lined up the captured Japanese soldiers wearing the stolen uniforms and shot them all, right next to where I was standing.’’

Mr Brown said he found the inspiration to join the Navy while working with a real estate agent in Frankston.

He left school at the age of 13. He originally started working at the age of nine, selling newspapers, with his father having died when Mr Brown was just five.

‘‘When I was with the estate agent, of all the people coming in, the only ones who could pay any decent rent were from the Navy,’’ he said.

‘‘I was made a licensed sub-estate agent at the age of 14. I had to go before the court because they didn’t usually give a licence out to people at that age.

‘‘I thought maybe the only way I would ‘make it’ was by joining the Navy.’’

Mr Brown remained in the Navy until 1981 and reached the rank of Lieutenant Commander.

World War II was his only wartime posting, as he said he was not sent overseas for the conflicts in Korea and Vietnam.

He says he would have been posted to Korea ‘‘if it wasn’t for a Russian doctor.’’

‘‘I was on HMAS Australia ready to go to Korea in 1950, but we were called down to rescue a Russian doctor on Heard Island — I had already been to the Arctic and now I was going to the Antarctic.

‘‘He was going to operate on himself and take his own appendix out. A few other ships tried to get down there but they couldn’t because it was the middle of winter.

‘‘The Navy thought in their wisdom they would risk the lives of 600 men to save one Russian doctor; I could never work it out.

‘‘We got him out of his predicament and back to Western Australia. When he walked down the ship’s gangway you should have heard the ‘boos’ from the ship’s company.’’

During the Vietnam War, Mr Brown was a representative in Sydney for the US Navy.

Any US Navy personnel who entered Australia on leave from Vietnam were under Mr Brown’s control.

For this he received recognition from US Admiral John Hyland in 1970. He was also made a life member of HMAS Sydney several years ago.

Mr Brown also spent 40 years as a Justice of the Peace for Victoria and NSW.