Click here for diary entry for Saturday April 12th (cont.) – Thursday April 17th 1941
… sight with the lights and the War Memorial on top of hills. Hotels keep open until 9PM. Beer very light. “New Moon” was showing at Perth. Fremantle looks very dirty in most places.
Queen Elizabeth, Mary and Ile de France laid in the stream with Aust. troops.
Nieuw Amsterdam & Mauretania, & HMAS Canberra berthed. Harbour after style of Lyttelton. Came through ??? but has wharf ??? ??? right around the basin. Changed ??? Aust. with a ???.
Friday April 18th
13th Day
Slipped our cable at 9AM Australian band played us out. Laid in stream with outer boats all night.
Saturday April 19th
14th Day
Left Fremantle about 9.30AM and were last to leave. Most of the boys arms getting sore. Lovely day as we left on our longest stretch.
Sunday April 20th
15th Day
Did guard duty all day. Ships had manouvers in afternoon. Put clocks back one hour. Weather stating to get very warm. Arm very sore today, Properly out of sorts.
Monday April 21st
16th Day
Weather getting terribly hot. Heat terrific down below. Saw whole shoal of flying fish early morning. Some flew about 75 yards. Machine gunners had practice this afternoon. All night heat terrible. Well inside tropics. Arm much easier.
Tuesday April 22nd
17th Day
Sea very calm little wind at all.
Heat bad. Just one mass of sweat. Everybody same. Nieuw Amsterdam left convoy at 4PM. Destroyers came and escorted them. Think that she is off to Singapore.
Click here for diary entry for Saturday April 22nd (cont.) – Saturday April 26th 1941
14 Weeks Worth of Socks 
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Their arms are probably sore from vaccinations.
I would imagine that would be the case – I know when I have had vaccines in the past it can be extremely painful for a few days afterwards. I had a typhoid shot once where my whole arm swelled up and I got a fever – and things have come a long way since the 1940s…
This post has sent my searching for my great uncle’s records as it made me wonder if he was on the Nieuw Amsterdam which was possibly heading for Singapore. I think he may have been a little later as he wasn’t there very long when it fell and he was a POW in Changi and later on the Thai-Burma railway.
I am not sure of the history of the ships. I confess I knew little about WW2 other really than what happened in Europe with Hitler and the Holocaust. Its an era of history that I’m increasingly becoming interested in due to the diary.
Have you been to Singapore or Thai and visited the locations where he likely was? Both are fascinating but terribly tragic places to visit. The suffering that went on 😦