"Oh well you know, I'd run out of money and I'd enjoyed a good holiday ashore and I thought oh well yes go back across the Burma Road, which was the wall where the dock yard dock is right, give meself up. I walked into the police office on Garden Island and I said 'Leading Stoker Williams reporting for duty sir' he said 'ah' he said 'we've been waiting for you' I said 'oh, thanks very much'. He said 'your bag and hammock's on the Kuttabul' he said, 'go down and see you in the morning.'

"... So, I went down and had a shore boiler see the Kuttabul it was called HMAS Kuttabul at the time, it was one of the old Manly, Sydney ferries that used to be a depot ship alongside Garden Island, and tied up alongside was the K9, the Dutch submarine you know, so I went about and dragged me grabbed me bag and hammock out of the storage thing, slung me hammock in the place provided, went over to the shore boiler had a cup of tea and a piece of toast, come back into bed got in me hammock got me pyjamas out of me kit bag, which I don't think I'd seen a pair of pyjamas for a month, I'd been sleeping in me underwear you know and that was that, next thing I knew I was in Sydney Hospital.

"I never heard any explosion or anything. All I know is me mate, who was coxswain of the motor boat that was going around picking up bodies around in the oil slick, picked me up and I believe they got me to Manowar steps and there was a doctor there and they put me out on the step apparently, and he's going around with a stethoscope and he said 'oh this blokes heart's still beating, get him to hospital quick see' so that's where they sent me, to Sydney Hospital."

LEADING STOKER BILL WILLIAMS