ANZUK FORCE

Tags

28th ANZUK Brigade, 8th Division 2nd AIF, ANZUK Force, Australian bush poetry, Australian poet, Fall of Singapore, poem, poetry, Singapore

𝐀𝐍𝐙𝐔𝐊 𝐅𝐎𝐑𝐂𝐄

They come once more to Singapore,
To deter those who would wage war.
The locals see their garb and guns
Have little changed — these are the sons
Perhaps of those who were brought low;
But that was thirty years ago.

The Aussies, Kiwis, British boys,
Their distant Queen once more deploys,
As she plans to give up her best —
Retreat in order to the West.

Now fifty years have passed and most
Have left — have given up the ghost.
Their shoulder flashes slowly fade —
Like memories of their brigade.

— D.N. O’Brien

Carrier

Tags

ANZUK Force, HMS Terror Singapore, limerick, Limerick poem, Limerick poetry, poem, poetry, Sembawang shipyards, Sembawang Strip, Singapore, USS Enterprise

I drank beer with some of the guys
Who crewed her, but now her demise
Is near – she can rest;
She was one of the best.
Vale USS Enterprise.

USS Enterprise Decommissioned

HMS Terror

Tags

HMS Terror, HMS Terror naval base, Lion of Singapore, poem, poetry, Sembawang docks, Singapore, Traditional Australian poetry, Woodlands

Since 1696 nine ships of the Royal Navy have had the name
“HMS Terror”. The sixth HMS Terror explored the Antarctic and Arctic before being lost in the ice. She is mentioned in Joseph Conrad’s “Heart of Darkness”. The last HMS Terror was the naval base at Sembawang in Singapore ( a so called stone frigate) from 1945 to 1975.

By “Terror” known – the name they proudly bore;
At Sembawang the last was built.
She languished there beside this foreign shore;
Her namesakes sinking in the silt.

For centuries they sailed for England’s pride;
By wind and screw they sallied forth.
Nine ships, and then this last she died,
And none will bear the name henceforth.

Three hundred years of “Terror”, proudly shown
Upon the prows of England’s ships.
As changing times throughout the East dethrone,
From Empire’s grasp a jewel slips.

A symbol of how transient the gains
Of crumbling queens and navies too.
This isle no more will hear foreign refrains
As sailors march in proud review.

For all must leave – to home and kin they must
Return, on ships of other names.
HMS Terror crumbles into dust;
The Lion at last, its prey it claims.

Kranji

Tags

121 Signal Squadron, ANZUK Force, Australian traditional poetry, Kranji, poem, poetry, Singapore, Somerset Maugham, Straits of Johore

Those long remembered scented nights
Beneath the glow of Kranji’s lights,
Beside the pool, where once had danced
The girls the boys had once romanced.

The place still had the magic then,
And I’d imagine Maugham with pen
In that white house across the straits
As he wrote tales of men – their fates,

As sun, slow sinking, set the scene
On old Malaya warm and green,
And vanished slow, the grand old ways
As Empire lived its twilight days.

The Globtik Tokyo

Tags

Australian bush poetry, Australian traditional poetry, Bush Poetry, dry dock, globtik tokyo, poem, poetry, Sembawang, ship, Singapore

 

Great oil companies they paid;
Ishi-kawa-jima laid
For a mighty ship a keel;
Built her out of solid steel.

Big as supertankers go
was the Globtik Tokyo.
Length twelve hundred feet or so,
was the Globtik Tokyo.

Fifty thousand horse power geared;
Swiftly through the seas she sheared.
Sixteen knots her speed at top;
Took three miles for her to stop.

Half a million tons displaced;
Engineers a problem faced:
This the largest ship on Earth,
For repairs where would she berth?

On the globe no dock or slip
That could take this super-ship;
On a coast of mud and rock
Men must build a great dry dock.

Who would have the expertise?
Who would this great challenge seize?
Men who’d built the Snowy Scheme;
Men who weren’t afraid to dream.

At the Sembawang shipyard,
Thousands neath the sun toiled hard,
Sweating as the concrete poured;
Up, the mighty walls they soared.

Steel to reinforce its core;
Six feet thick the dry dock floor.
On a thousand piles it sits,
Driven deep by mighty hits.

Built by Theiss and Petrosea;
Filled with water from the sea.
In sails the great ship in turn;
Fits so neat from stem to stern.

Thirty feet she takes of draught;
Open up the culvert shaft!
Drain the water level low;
Behold the Globtik Tokyo!

 

Copyright © Dennis N. O’Brien, 2011