John F. Moyes

John F. Moyes’s telling of the early history of the “Scrap Iron Flotilla”. When five old destroyers of the Royal Australian Navy arrived in the Mediterranean in December 1939 Goebbels called them “Australia’s scrap iron flotilla”. Of course the sailors took that name as a source of pride. The ships worked through the Greek and Crete campaigns and made many trips on the Tobruk Ferry Service where one was lost. After Japan joined the war they remaining four were sent to serve in the Far East campaign. This book is a series of stories about the events that happened to the ships. My edition of the book was published in 1944. By the end of the war only two of the five ships were still afloat however the casualties aboard the ships were very light. My copy has a photograph of seaman W.H.F. Burley from HMAS Voyager stuck to the first page. The author had been a reporter before joining up and being assigned to one of the ships had collected these stories from the participants. An enjoyable read for a WW2 history.… (mais)