1945 IMPRESSED? IT KNOCKED MY SOCKS OFF!



H.M.S. ILLUSTRIOUS 23,500 tons WW II Aircraft Carrier.



The great Graving Dock at Sydney's Garden Island Dockyard - largest in the Southern Hemisphere.

In mid -1945, H.M.S.ILLUSTRIOUS was in Sydney's Garden Island Graving Dock for repairs after being hit by two Kamikaze suicide bombers off Okinawa.(Thank you internet.) The planes had caused damage deep below the waterline after penetrating her armoured flight deck with their bomb loads. The damage must have been severe, because she had initial repairs in the Phillipines , these repairs in Sydney and then again more repairs at Rosyth when she got home to England.

My Dad  worked at the Dockyard during the War, being unfit for military service due to an eye injury sustained in Newlands Iron Foundry near Central Station where he had commenced work when he was 11 years old (those were the days!). Now, in the declining days of the War, Dad was able to take me into the Dockyard on one of his days off. I have never forgotten the sight of the biggest hole I had EVER seen with a vast Aircraft Carrier sitting high and dry within it!

There are not too many details you recall from age 5, but the name "ILLUSTRIOUS"was seared on my memory by that truly awesome sight for this little blond haired boy. It is probably there and then that the seeds of my love of ships and the sea were planted.