|
Letters
Annotated copy of the Bruce Loxton's book, "The Shame of Savo" Hi, I came across some of your articles on Savo Island on the WWW and have a question for you. I purchased a partly annotated copy of the book "The Shame of Savo" by Bruce Loxton at a used book store in Tulsa OK USA today. It is a presentation copy "To Bruce from Ron" and I am trying to figure out who Bruce and Ron are from the annotations. Underneath the presentation is written in a second hand (Bruce's?): "Ron was flying out of Milne Bay - also called Falls Creek". On p. 36&37 several paragraphs about the recon flight of Hudsons from No. 32 squadron on August 6 (?), 1942 have "Ron" written next to them. So I assume Ron was one of the crew members of one of those 5 Hudsons. Do you know who Ron was? Further annotations in Bruce's (?) handwriting on p. 63 say: "My brother Bill was engineer on a flying boat was present at sinking of Bismark". On the next page are these annotatations about John Curtin (Australian Prime Minister at the time): "Curtin and Dad worked earlier on a steam engine in the Railway", and "Curtins daught[er] married my mother's brother". Plus more annotations (some of them somewhat scandelous). Any guesses who Bruce and Ron were? From the annotations I suspect they were both members of the Australian military during WW2 My copy of the book is the 1997 Bluejacket pb edition...so perhaps Bruce is Bruce Loxton? And Ron was sending him a copy of the pb edition of his book? Thanks, Paul Roales
Without any doubt I believe that Bruce would indeed be Bruce Loxton the author of "The Shame of Savo" At the time of Savo, Bruce was a Midshipman, on the bridge of Canberra, and was very badly wounded, I came across him on a stretcher carried by two sailors, they drained off the blood, I spoke to him, and mentally wrote him off, but he did recover, to go on and make Commodore and have a distinguished career in the RAN. For his book, as he lived in Sydney, and most of the archives were located in Melbourne ( 500 miles from Sydney ) where I live, I carried out some of the necessary research for Bruce. I would also think that Ron was a member of a Hudson crew , but I will E-Mail your message to Bruce, and ask him to comment thereon, and will get back to you Paul. Nice to hear from you. |
