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Description
Mr. Vant Haaf describes the early weeks of training, and the first terrible ship he was assigned to.
Transcription
First of all they issue you with a kit and it's all stamped and marked. And then you start in your, your training, you're up about 4:30 every morning. They really didn't have to call us because the railway went right past the Bayden Barracks and they would be ringing the bell and tooting the whistles so we were awake. So you'd be up. They had us divided into three groups. One group did a five mile run before breakfast. Another group did forty-five minutes of PT and then the other group would get in a couple of big whalers and row around the harbour. I didn't mind the run and the PT but that rowing around the harbour in the rain with a 27 foot whaler with a great big oar that you could hardly get your hands around. By the time you got back somebody had to pry your hands off, it was so cold.
Oh about six or seven months after I joined the navy they put me on the old, one of the oldest ship in existence, never mind in the navy, the old Armentieres.
Interviewer: What are those?
It was an old mine sweeper, an old First World War mine sweeper. And the living conditions on there were absolutely primitive.
Interviewer: Describe them to me.
Well I was telling the girl, to have a wash you went into the galley and you opened up a valve and you ran a semi-rotary pump. Now you, you got to know from experience how long it took you to pump a bucket of water. Then you closed the valve, otherwise by the time you got back to the quarterdeck to collect your water, it was back in the tank. Then you would drain that water, it was in a little tank up here, you would drain that water into another little receptacle with a steam coil in it. And you turned the steam on and heat it to whatever degree of heat you want it, for shaving or washing. And then you ran it into a galvanized bucket and you carried it all the way to the focsle and had your wash.
Interviewer: Geez.
Well yeah it was real cozy because all you had to do was pull the plug and then the water ran down and scuppered and out over the side. That was the good part.