H-Bombs and Hula Girls: Operation Grapple 1957 and the last Royal Navy Gunroom at sea by Michael Johnston

Author:Michael Johnston [Michael Johnston]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781910500682
Publisher: Unicorn Publishing Group
Published: 2017-01-15T00:00:00+00:00

Cooper recalls ‘a pearl fishing excursion with John Marsters, a direct descendant of the original William Masters’, whose name has been corrupted over the years to Marsters since this was how [the original West Country] William pronounced it, and who had settled on Palmerston in 1863 with a harem of four Polynesian wives. His descendants still populate the island and, as recently as 1954, had been granted legal ownership.2 He also observed the curious Will o’ the Wisp effects of flickering flames in the middle of the lagoon which the islanders said were the souls of the departed, but are almost certainly due to marsh gas released by rotting seaweed.

As a youngster, Johnston had attended a Congregational Church Sunday School which collected ‘ship’ halfpennies in support of the London Missionary Society’s missionary sailing ship in the South Seas, the John Williams IV. Such a life seemed then very alluring. Now that he had actually reached the South Pacific, he had to admit he was rather glad not to have come as a missionary. He wrote to his parents that he had parted, reluctantly, with a tropical uniform shirt in exchange for a quite beautiful shell. ‘I argued with the vendor that the shirt was not really mine to trade but the vendor promised not to inform Her Majesty. Then I wandered up into the village and took photographs as I went.

Family group on Penrhyn (Riches)

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