The story of Doug’s war

It's the bugle call that ends the day. It's also the final salute to the fallen, to those killed in war.

Haunting and moving. And on April 25, ANZAC Day, ‘The Last Post' will sound out across the land as the country stops and remembers. 'Lest we forget.”

One of those memorial services will happen around the flag pole at the Carmel Country Estate Retirement Village mid-morning on April 25. More than 100 residents, family and friends will gather.

Today The Weekend Sun tells part one of the personal war story of Carmel Estate resident, returned serviceman Doug Attrill.

STORY:

'I have told you before – when the good Lord tells you it's time, you're on a fast camel. You're outta here.”

Doug Attrill, a good Catholic with a personal message from the Holy Father Francis on his wall, must be on a slow camel. He's 93, actually he's 94 on Anzac day, April 25.

And although the Lord has yet to call time on him, he's had a share of scrapes.

Doug's a vet, a returned naval serviceman. He's been bombed, shot at, abandoned a sinking ship under attack – and, in an unwitting and indirect way, helped send the evil architect of the attack on Pearl Harbour to a fiery grave in the jungles of Bougainville.

'He was a nasty piece of work,” says Doug.

And even after the guns fell silent, Doug's Waitara house got burned down. He's probably used up as many lives as the old moggy that's just wandered past the Carmel Country Estate unit he shares with wife Audrey.

And that brings to mind another of Doug's wartime escapades – one that might have made Audrey think twice about marrying Doug. But we will get to that.

And as another Anzac Day commemoration draws close, 72 years after the world's deadliest war, 72 years after an estimated 50 million people died, Doug's sharing his exploits with The Weekend Sun.

'You didn't think about dying,” says Doug. 'You just understood things weren't right overseas and you joined up to put them right.” He's a wisp of a man now but as sharp as that bayonet on the 'eyetie” rifle he brought back from the war.

He recalls the big blue poster in the New Plymouth Post office screaming: 'Join the Navy” every time he went in. 'It worked its way into my system. And it was exciting,” says Doug. So one lunchtime in January 1941 the 18-year-old Bank of Australasia employee joined up. 'And I would take what comes.”

After just six weeks' training he was shipped straight to Britain on loan to the Royal Navy. 'What would be would be,” says Doug. Que sera sera. And what would be, first up for Doug, was chasing down deserters; dragging them back to do their duty to King and country. 'There were lots of them. That was a good little lark for a few months. Got to see a lot of England.”

Then he did the delivery run to Turkey on a brand new destroyer called the Sultan Hisar. But Doug didn't like the idea of serving on the big warships. 'They got pelted. Everyone was after them.”

'I picked up a corvette and ran protection for the convoys delivering supplies to Tobruk,” says Doug. And to the 7th Armoured Division, which became famously named the Desert Rats. 'We would go into the harbour for 15 minutes and then scram. Because ‘Jerry' would come over the sand hills and attack us.”

When the Australian N-class destroyer Nestor was attacked, abandoned and scuttled off Crete, Doug thought: 'Here's a perk”. They were sending the survivors home for leave and Doug went into the drafting officer and managed to get himself sent home with them. He was a canny operator.

But the world still hadn't been put right and so the sailor went back to sea. The serviceman went back to war.

'You know about the Moa?,” asks Doug, referring to the HMNZS Moa. The Bird Class minesweeper, another corvette. His next assignment. 'Well, you should know about the Moa.”

He's prickly, funny and informative all at the same time.

'We were up in the Solomons, Guadalcanal.” He tells a good story. 'We ran into four Japanese supply barges one night. Bullets, bangs, shots and roars – all hell!”

And one story leads to another.

'A week later we were patrolling with HMNZS Kiwi, another corvette, when they latched onto a Jap submarine. We [the Moa] got the hell out of it while the Kiwi rammed it twice – bent its bows. Then we went in and drove the sub ashore.”

There's a picture of the mangled Japanese sub on Doug's living room wall. He is justifiably very proud of it.

Now here's the intrigue. Doug says the Americans picked over that wreck and recovered sensitive encrypted intelligence – information about a scheduled inspection tour of the Solomons and New Guinea by Admiral Isoroku Yamamoko, who was commander of the Imperial Japanese fleet and mastermind of the attack on Pearl Harbour.

'Nasty piece of work,” says Doug. The admiral was certainly a despised man. And it was US President Franklin D. Roosevelt himself who ordered the Navy 'to get Yamamoto”. And they did.

The intelligence from the scuttled submarine would create Operation Vengeance and help the Americans find, intercept and shoot down the hated admiral's transport bomber in the jungles of Bougainville.

But with victory in war, there is always a cost. And that's when the old naval rating falters – chokes up. 'He lost friends,” Audrey explains. 'He still finds it hard to talk about it.” But he gathers himself and does talk about it. Tune in next week for the rest of Doug's incredible story.

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