In memory of darling big brother

Ordinary Seaman Albert Turner was on board HMAS Armidale with Teddy Sheean when it went down. Albert was the dear brother of Kathleen Hyland

DECEMBER 1, 1942, changed the lives of my family, because my lovely brother Ordinary Seaman Albert Turner was a crew member on the HMAS Armidale on that ill-fated day.

He was only 20 years old and sadly, like Teddy Sheean, he did not survive.

Even though I was only nine years old I can still remember the telegraph boy on his bicycle delivering the telegram to my parents informing them that their young son was missing at sea and believed killed.

Albert was the youngest of four sons, then my sister and I came along. I was the baby of the family, a spoilt one at that.

My other three brothers were also away at the war front, together with my father who was posted on the guns at South Arm in case we were invaded. My dad put his age back in order to be able to serve.

That left my mother, sister and myself at home praying our family would return home safely.

I was very close to my brother. Being his baby sister, he was always spoiling me — putting me in his billy cart that he had made, racing up and down the garden, taking me for rides on the double decker trams on Sunday afternoons.

The last Christmas he was home on leave he took me to

Bridges Bros toy shop, and bought me a beautiful sleeping doll and a baby’s stroller to put it in.

I felt very proud wheeling it home with my handsome brother in his naval uniform.

Before Albert joined the navy he was a pastry chef at Arnolds Cake Shop in Liverpool St. Their cakes were just beautiful, and I still use his recipe for my Christmas cake.

He was also in the Hobart Boys Band. He loved his music, and so did his three brothers they were also in bands.

I am in my late 80s now, and have been married for 66 years to a wonderful man.

I have three wonderful adult children and four healthy grandchildren, and I am the last surviving member of my family.

To this day, I still don’t know what happened to my brother and his shipmates.

They were last seen on a raft by a Catalina flying boat.

They took a photo of the raft and the next day the plane went back to pick them up, but sadly they were nowhere to be seen again.

What all of these young men must have gone through at the hands of the Japanese.

They were machine gunned, torpedoed, shot at, blown up. The Armidale was a small corvette with no big guns and no cover.

There is a book called

Armidale ‘42, which my family will not let me read. Perhaps if our Prime Minister Mr Morrison read it, he might give Teddy Sheean the medal he deserves.