Bondi Stories, vol.1.
Bondi Stories is a literary journal publishing diverse genres, including poetry, fiction, reflective and scholarly essays, memoirs, review essays and interviews; covering the history, culture and people of Bondi Beach, Australia. Emerging writers are encouraged to submit their work.
Bondi Stories is a literary journal publishing diverse genres, including poetry, fiction, reflective and scholarly essays, memoirs, review essays and interviews; covering the history, culture and people of Bondi Beach, Australia. Emerging writers are encouraged to submit their work.
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<strong>Bondi</strong> <strong>Stories</strong><br />
continued through to the 70s and 80s, with his son, Brad,<br />
coming onto the scene in the latter part of the 60s.<br />
I remember one day, Jack stopped me to ask about<br />
pensions. I was working for Social Security at the time. He<br />
said that during the war, he was in the US Navy and thought<br />
he could get a pension. I remember my father telling me that<br />
he had seen Jack in a US Navy officer’s uniform one time<br />
when he was on leave. Dad wondered where Jack had stolen<br />
the uniform. As such, I said something like “when were you in<br />
the war?” and Jack proceeded to show me a bunch of US navy<br />
stuff including service records, commission, a letter from the<br />
US President and other stuff including discharge papers.<br />
He then told me his war story. He was in the Australian<br />
Merchant Navy and had taken some shore leave in London.<br />
When he went back to the ship, he and other sailors were told<br />
they had to take the ship to Murmansk in Russia. They did not<br />
quite mutiny but said that they had signed on to get back to<br />
Australia, not to Russia in winter and not past the North<br />
Atlantic U-Boat fleet. As a result, he transferred to the US<br />
merchant navy to head back to the west coast USA via the<br />
Panama Canal.<br />
Clearly, he did not get sunk by a submarine.<br />
When back in San Diego, the US Navy was looking for<br />
some deckhands to work on the US Navy small ships heading<br />
to the western Pacific. Jack, thinking of a way to get back to<br />
Australia, signed on. He was made a Petty Officer in the USN.<br />
He got on well with the Captain of the ship, who happened to<br />
be an LA Lifeguard in normal life and also surfed.<br />
They did a few supply trips around what is now New<br />
Caledonia, Vanuatu and other islands much like McHale’s<br />
island. At one of them, there were some great right handers<br />
breaking off a point. Jack went out for a body surf by himself.<br />
When he got back to the beach, some MPs or Shore Patrol<br />
wanted to arrest him for attempting to commit suicide.<br />
Unbeknown to Jack or the MPs, Jack’s skipper and his mate,<br />
who was the Executive Officer for the base on the island and<br />
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