It was on December 8th 1941 on a bright summers morning when as a 10 year old I walked with my Mother to have Breakfast in the restaurant of Coronado, a very posh Condominium situated on the St Kilda Road in Melbourne in lovely large gardens. The warm morning air was scented with the strong aromatic scent of eucalyptus trees that grew all around amongst the ornamental Canary palms. As we settled into our seats I could hear everyone talking of “Pearl Harbour” and the Japanese attack. As a young ten year old who had spent the last couple of years closely following the war and was very good at Geography, I was quite blank. It was a name quite new to me, but over the following minutes I heard that the Japanese Fleet Air arm had made a surprise attack on the American Naval Base in Hawaii sinking most of their fleet with thousands of casualties. Somehow the news sounded ominous as all the grown ups had long faces and were shaking their heads and had mumbled worriedly to each other. All news was bad in those days, we seemed to be losing every battle, and the other side seemed to be making all the gains. Nevertheless everyone had a feeling of foreboding as Australia seemed so huge and vulnerable with most of its small army in the Middle East defending the Suez Canal. Over the next few weeks the Japanese made a lightning attack through Malaya followed by the surrender of Britain’s Great Far Eastern Naval Base of Singapore. The Dutch East Indies were quickly overrun and shortly after that Darwin was savagely bombed and everyone expected the Japanese to land in Australia at any moment. During January and February Coronado started to fill up with smart smoothly dressed American Officers who had been rushed out to support Australia but with no forces at that moment. Mother quickly became very friendly with them and was also friendly with other Officers in the Royal Australian Navy. The reports she heard were grim from both quarters. There was no defence and the Japanese could take Australia at will, and so she felt it imperative to get out whilst the going was good, and return to our home in Ceylon where my Father was a Tea planter. In this she was helped by a friend Commodore Yates who at that time was at Flinders Naval College, which was the Australian equivalent of Dartmouth. His brother, who was also a Ceylon Tea Planter, with his wife and 16 year old daughter, were also wanting to return and had booked a passage on the Eastern and Australian Co. SS“Nankin” sailing to Colombo in April. Yates told Mother that through his contacts in the Royal Australian Navy, he had studied the proposed course that the ship would take, .which was to sail west towards Mauritius before heading north to Colombo in a gigantic triangular diversion from the normal direct route. The big worry was, he said, Japanese submarines operating out from Sumatra. It would certainly be very dangerous about the last day before we reached Colombo our destination, although by then we should be near to help and surveillance from our forces in Ceylon. There was also the possibility of danger of attack by a German surface Raider, although at that time there were no reports of any operating in the Indian Ocean since HMAS Sydney had destroyed Kormoran in 19th November 1941 and had in turn been sunk by her. 315 of the Kormoran’s crew including her captain Detmers made it safely to Western Australia; but from the Sydney however, tragically there were no survivors, a loss which all in Australia grieved.
About 10 days before we were to depart I was with my Mother having lunch in a restaurant. It was a rather dark poorly lit and gloomy place and on the next table to us sat a solitary middle aged lady. After part way through our meal mother struck up a conversation with her, and she turned out to be English having come out to stay with

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