0800 Hours, 17 October 1942, Darwin, Australia – The merchant ships SS Torrens and SS El Marquis were done unloading and were preparing to depart Fremantle escorted by the corvettes HMAS Cairns, HMAS Mildura, and HMCS Dawson. As the merchant ships departed, three of the coastal freighters that had arrived with them took their places at the piers and the tireless stevedores and dockworkers once again began the backbreaking work of unloading ships. Through it all, fighters orbited overhead while others sat on strip alert, ready to launch due to heightened fears of air attack with loaded freighters sitting in port.
April 1942 Alternate Indian Ocean
- Thread starter Zheng He
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1000 Hours, 17 October 1942, Headquarters First Southern Area Expeditionary Fleet, Batavia, Java – Escorted by the second line destroyer Wakatake, four supply barges getting pushed by tug boats cleared Batavia and headed for the Sunda Strait. The barges were loaded with nothing special, mostly left-over construction materials and rusted out empty fuel barrels. Their destination was the now mostly unused forward base at Pulau Island. Their role was simple, give Allied reconnaissance aircraft something to look at in a place they frequently visited. Vice Admiral Ozawa was working on a deception plan to distract the Allies’ attention so they would not pick up on the contingency plan he was putting into motion in the event the Eastern Fleet’s latest operation was aimed at him.
1200 Hours, 17 October 1942, Port C, Indian Ocean – The first phase of OPERATION PAPERBACK ended with welcome success with the safe arrival of HMS Carthage, SS Hawaiian Merchant, USS Childs, USS Alden, and USS King at Port C. USS Childs was resuming here role as one of Port C’s seaplane tenders while the destroyers took on fuel from RFA Pearleaf. A Colombo bound convoy was assembling at Port C and Alden and King along with HMS Carthage were scheduled to be part of the escort group and once they were back at Ceylon, both destroyers would receive much needed maintenance.
The despot's heel is on thy shore,
Maryland, my Maryland!
You might be surprised who the "despot" is.
Get your priorities in order, there's only one race that matters, and that's at 20 minutes to 3, on the 1st Tuesday in November, at Flemington. (Some people refer to it as the Melbourne Cup, but whatever, it stops the Nation.)
When Robert Heinlein visited Australia some 65 years ago, he identified the four chief interests of Australians as (in order): beer, the races, women, and work. I guess things haven't changed much in the interim.
Was going to say: "any excuse for a day off work", but I think Mr Heinlein was pretty close to the mark.
Far closer that Ava Gardener, during the shooting of "On The Beach," when she suggested that she couldn't think of a better place than Melbourne to make a film about the end of the earth.
Name another country where you have a public holiday, for a horse race, the race that stops a nation!
Well if I ever visit Melbourne I will make sure I do it in early November.
On this side of the Pacific, we now have the possibility of a Triple Crown winner. We were sitting just short of the finish line, the place went crazy when Justified came down the stretch:
https://www.nbcsports.com/video/justify-wins-143rd-preakness
Yes well the only reason Maryland didn't secede was because Lincoln was willing to commit civil liberties violations that make the activities of more recent US presidents look like child's play.
1300 Hours, 17 October 1942, Christmas Island, Indian Ocean – It had taken considerable effort but the light cruiser USS Richmond was able to drag the remains of the merchant ship Halls Creek away from the piers at Flying Fish Cove where she had sunk during OPERATION MONITOR almost five weeks earlier. During the interim engineers at the garrison had patched the wreck up enough, pumped some of the water out and freed the hull from the seabed with explosives enough to for the wreck to be moved a very short distance. The exercise was rough on the cruiser’s engines but with a large convoy inbound, the area needed to be clear of obstacles and Richmond did not need to pull the hulk very far, just a little less than half a mile to the west to a small peninsula where she could then help act as a natural breakwater. Once Richmond got underway it took about 15 minutes to get Halls Creek to where they wanted her and she was just about full of water when Captain Waldschmidt ordered the tow lines cut, much to the relief of his chief engineer.
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