Letters from James Lawrence Perry to Gwen Haylor, 1945

A/B J. L. Perry. S.8317
33 MESS
A.X. Division 

H.MA.S. SHROPSHIRE
c/o G.P.0.

Friday 31st August. 45 

Tokyo Bay. Japan

Dear Gwen,
Well here I am again Gwen and it

is about time I wrote to you. They have told us
the censorship regulations have been relaxed
and letters are not going to cencored and we
can tell you just about everything.
As you can see from the top of the letter
we are in Tokyo Bay Japan. We arrived in here
at 8 o'clock this morning to help represent
Australia at the signing of the surrender
Sunday. Its great news to think the war in over,
I would hate to think of what would happen

to us if we had sailed in here a couple
months ago.
Nothing much happened on the way up
here, except that we sighted a floating mine
yesterday afternoon and one of our destroyers
sunk it. It was very calm coming up, quite
different to what I expected it to be because

2

this place is well known for typhoons.
On entering the bay we passed a lot of
sunken Japanese  ships as well as a Japanese
battleship about the only one they have left
undamaged. Tokyo Bay itself is about sixty
miles long and we are not right up at end
although we are going to shift up soon so we
can not see the city of Tokyo from here. We are
anchored off some big Naval docks which are
pretty big. You can imagine the size of the
allied fleet what is in here. It has been misty
and rainy all day, but as soon as that clears
we will be able to see that sacred Mountain of
theirs. I just found out that Yokohama is the
name of the place where we are anchored now.
We were at Manila, capitol of the
Philippines before we came up here. We have all
had a few runs ashore while we were there.
It is pretty badly smashed up now but I
can see it has been a very nice city before
the war. There dosn't seem to be a shortage
of anything much there but the prices are
very high. There money system isn't very
hard to work out. On Peso in our money

3

is roughly 3/1 and for one of our one pound
notes you get 6 peso 50 centarvos, there is 2
pesos to an American dollar.
Manila. Bay is a very big bay and right
now there is a good few sunken japanese
ships, a lot with their superstructure showing
out of the water. The city of Manila is divided
by the Pasig River, on one side the modern
city with the old Spanish walled city on the
other side. I went over to the walled city but
that is damaged more than any other part, that is
where the japs held out at the last. There are a
couple of lovely big churches one of them that is
undamaged is built of all steel, it was bought out
from Spain in pieces and erected there. I went
out to the Chinese section of the city and through
the markets, well I didn't stay long there the
smell was terrific. There is a big university called
Santo Thomas which the japs used as a concentration camp while they were there.
We haven't had any pictures for a while
now the last one we saw was Costal Command
and we also had a band over from an
American cruiser which was with us in the

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harbour.
How did V.J. celebrations go Gwen? As far
as celebrations go we havn't had ours yet, but
I expect there will be big things, doing the
first night ashore when we get back, I don't
suppose anyone will recover for days after. I
cant see myself going home sober first night,
I will have to visit the old State milk bar.
I have received a lot of fixes  and the
tin of sweets arrived safely the other day. The

toffee was good oh. Gwen, it didn't even yor
look like melting. Thanks a lot for both Gwen.
Well I think I have said enough for
now, hoping it wont be long before I see you

again.
Love and Kisses
Jim

xxxxx

xxxxx

AIR MAIL

H.M.A.S "SHROPSHIRE"

Official Sign Of

Japanese Surrender

SYDNEY

4 ^{15 AM}

10 18 SEP 

1945

N.S.W. AUST

TOKYO

2^nd SEP

1945

JAPAN

STAMP (SEE ORIGINAL DOCUMENT)

 

Miss G. Haylor

24 Boundary St.

Parramatta

N.S.W.

Australia

H.M.A.

SHIPS

TOKYO BAY. JAPAN.

A/B J.L. PERRY. S8317
33 MESS

A.X. DIVISION

H.M.A.S. SHROPSHIRE

c/o G.P.O.

Tokyo Bay Japan
Wed. 12^th Sep. 45.
Dear Gwen,
I think it is about time I wrote to
you again. As you can see we are still in Tokyo
Bay, we shifted berth yesterday and are closer
inshore near Yokohama Naval Base. We havn't
had any mail now for a few weeks, in fact we
havn't had any now since the last time we were
in Manila. I think they have sent one of our
destroyers down to get it for us and I think it
should be back any day now.
The last week here we have had lovely
weather, just like any Sydney day in Spring,
but it gets very cold here at nights. So far, we
havn't  had a run ashore here yet, but shore
leave is starting to morrow so I belive. Some of
the luckey, ones who have been ashore already
suck as boats crews and a sand party that
went off the other day, bought back souveniers
worth a good bit of money, others have got.
 

2

Jap flags, and silken articles. There is a party
off this ship going into Tokyo to - omorrow to
represent Shropshire at the hoisting of the colours
at the British embassy. They had to borrow
some white tropical suits from a British
Battleship as our tropical rig is kaki. Just
like Manila they are short of cigarettes ashore
of you can get almost anything for a packet
of cigarettes. One party that went ashore the
other day in the cutter went over to the naval
base and the ar air strip, they said there was
plenty of Japanese planes about in the hangars
and on the strip it's a wonder the flat that
was bombarding the coast just before they
surrendered didn't meet more opposition.
Almost every day aircraft carriers,
hospital ships and transports pass us taking
released prisoners of war home. Most of the
ship have a lot of A^ussies on them. Whenever
they pass us lower deck is cleared and hands
muster on the upper deck to cheer them as they
pass. you can tell if there are any assies onboard 

by loud coo-ee's. I am glad it is all over
for them, as they have had a pretty rough
 

3
time in Japanese hands for the last 3 years. We
had a couple of ex prisoners on board the other
day that was on the Perth when she was sunk.
Now the war is over and we are
gradually working into peace time routine, the
ship looks a lot different. She has just been
painted and the paint is being scraped off the
decks and bought up nice and white and all
brasswork that had been painted over before has
been chipped and polished up, and you don't know
Gwen how match brass there can be on a warship.
There is a buzz going around on board
that we are taking some ex prisoners of war
somewhere but I don't know how true that is.
As for Sydney I don't know how long it will
be before we get there but I hope its not too long.
A lot of blokes went off a few days ago to go
south for demobilization, they were all either
married men or permant service men whose
time has expired.
I will send you a copy of the ships paper
that was printed on board on the day of the
signing of the Japanese surrender in another
envelope.
 

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Well I think that is just about all for the time
being so I will close now Gwen hoping it wont be
long before I see you again.
Love & Kisses

Jim. xxxx
         xxxx

Air Mail

SYDNEY

1 12 M

  28 SEP

  1945

N.S.W.AUST.

H.M.A.SHIPS

STAMP (SEE ORIGINAL DOCUMENT)

Miss G. Haylor

24 Boundary St.

Parramatta

New South Wales

Australia.