An early news article of the sinking of H.M.A.S. Armidale, just weeks after the event but short on detail, which was to be expected in wartime, stated that 27 of the survivors, thought to have been those in the whaling boat after it was patched up and made roughly seaworthy, “were on a raft for four days floating in shark-infested waters when a storm broke. They licked the rain off each other’s arms, and thus saved their lives” … even then, it wasn’t looking good for the remaining survivors on the far-from- substantial raft which had been separated from the whaler.
The father of a seaman known to have been aboard the missing raft wrote of his distress in March, 1946, after the end of the war and when information about the sinking of the Armidale more than two years previously was beginning to trickle out:
“The men on the raft survived nearly a week without food and water. Yet the Navy Board decided they all perished on the day supplies were dropped from the air. That the supplies were taken aboard I have learnt from a survivor from the accompanying raft [he must have meant prior to the whaler and raft separating?]. Evidently the Navy Board knows nothing of the fate of the missing men and my wife and I are with Captain and Mrs. Patterson [the former had written to the same newspaper, The West Australian recently about their son who had also been aboard the missing raft] in feeling we cannot be certain these men have perished until we are assured a thorough search by land of all the islands in the area in which they disappeared has been made.
To my lay mind, the sending of a small, almost defenceless ship right into enemy waters without strong escort or air cover showed a lack of judgement almost unbelievable. Ordering this ship to reach her objective after she had been attacked from the air eight times, and advised by our own men on Timor that landing was impossible, displayed a stupidity or callousness unforgivable by the relatives of those whose lives were thrown away, and of those whose fate is even now uncertain.
I have been urged to write this because sailors I have met who were in the Darwin area at the time the Armidale was lost consider dispatching her on her last mission was an act of madness, and also because so many returned men insist that far too many Navy officers were ill trained and unfit to lead them. Commander Richards of the Armidale I have spoken of highly.
Yours etc., P. Gay.”
Mr. P. Gay’s son was Ordinary Seaman Bernard Alford Gay, and the Paterson’s son Ordinary Seaman Donald Howie Paterson.
The doomed raft was first sighted by a Catalina aircraft – unable to land on the heavy swell but managing to take that one haunting photograph – on the afternoon of the 7th.
Two days later, on the late afternoon of the 9th of December, H.M.A.S. Kalgoorlie sighted the Armidale’s whaler, “partly submerged, carrying 27 men alive and a few deceased.”
According to the book “Armidale ’42: A Survivor’s Account” by Madigan (the survivor), Senbergs and Watson, “After the war, Lt. Palmer, who was in charge of the whaler, tracked back through Timor and all prisoner of war camps he could find, right up to Japan, hoping to find a trace. Not a sign.”
[References available on request].
