"SAVED OUR SHIP"

Auckland Star, Volume LXXVI, Issue 39, 15 February 1945, Page 8

"SAVED OUR SHIP"

POM-POM GUNNER PRAISED

H.M.A.S. AUSTRALIA ATTACKED O.C. SYDNEY, Feb. 7. A.B. Raymond Horace Hughes, aged 23, of Tasmania, pom-pom gunner, is described by his shipmates as having "kept H.M.A.S. Australia afloat." Hilghes distinguished him--self during the American landings on Luzon (Philippines), when Japanese planes repeatedly attacked the Australia.

In the attacks two officers and 26 ratings were killed or died of wounds and one officer and 68 ratings were wounded. Sixteen of the crew are missing, presumably killed. The attacks, which began on January 5, lasted for five days. The Australia received five direct hits:

When war correspondents visited the damaged vessel, members of the crew invariably said: "Get hold of 'Matey' Hughes. If it had not been for him we would not be afloat." Hughes said: "I did not do anything; I just kept firing the gun. I was rolling a cigarette beside the pom-pom gun on the port deck when a Jap twin-engined plane was spotted 2000 yds off, making a direct low-level torpedo attack on- us. We opened up on him at 2000 yds. He flew nose on into my fire and crashed into the sea. Three minutes later another plane attacked from the same direction. He didn't get so close. I managed to drop him, too. He bounced as he hit the water and blew up."

In the first attack Hughes' gun crew lost one killed and six wounded —mostly from shrapnel. Two signalmen, two stokers and a steward, who knew little about gunnery, took their places on the pom-pom. "Our gun is credited 1 with six planes shot down and three turned away, but I couldn't claim them. There were other guns firing as well as mine," Hughes said.

The captain of Hughes' gun crew, ; A.G. John Morgan, 24, of Gunning, New South Wales, said: "In addition to 'Matey,' who was wonderful, A.B. .Colin Lawrence did a great job on the gun. He was hit in the face by shrapnel and on the body by blast on the first day. Every man in the gun crew was blown away from the gun when we were hit. The blast was terrific. Lawrence was blown on to the upper deck. Although wounded, he returned to the gun two days later and stayed with us right through."