Peter Baines

They Called Me Bondi Peter Baines

The blustery south-easterly flung the salty spray over the starboard bow as the Daring Class destroyer, DO4 pitched headlong into the five metre swell, dousing the crew members scurrying to secure the foredeck. The Tasman Sea was living up to her reputation. Down below, off-duty sailors were either busying themselves with ablutions, losing their pays at poker or flopped on their bunks (or the deck) reading unmentionable titles. But most were in the mid-ships mess trusting their luck and hoping the numbers would fall their way in the twice-weekly ritual of Tombola. At this very moment it was hard to imagine that within a week, the lives of all 330 men aboard would be changed forever. This is a story based on real life naval experiences during the 1960s. It takes you on the journey of a young sailor's often chaotic life, punctuated by misadventure and unpredictable, sometimes tragic circumstance. You will share the woes of his excessive drinking, his romances and missed opportunities in the aftermath of Australia's worst naval peacetime tragedy and his transfer into the submarine squadron. This is an insiders frank account of life in the Senior Service during the Cold War period. The names of naval characters other than the author and details of some events have been fictionalised to protect the innocent, the not-so innocent and those who are totally oblivious to their inclusion in this story. This is a 'first-person' rewrite of the author's 2018 book, Deep Down Under.