As the Second World War dragged on in 1945 after the United States dropped atomic bombs on Japan, the last thing on Royal Australian Navy stoker Bill McDonald’s mind was a party.
Aboard frigate HMAS Diamantina, they were still meeting resistance as they bombarded Japanese positions in Bougainville in what is now Papua New Guinea.
They had been at sea for seven months when word came through on 14 August 1945.
“It was a tremendous feeling that the war was over because it was getting real tense right up to the last bit,” he told SBS News from his retirement village on Queensland’s Sunshine Coast.
The 94-year-old is the last living veteran of the Diamantina and witness to the very last Japanese surrender ceremonies of the war on her quarterdeck.
Diamantina reputedly fired the last Royal Australian Navy shot in anger of the war and the crew were then finally allowed to party.
Bill McDonald, age 19 in 1945, about to embark on the HMAS Diamantina. Source: Supplied: Bill McDonald
"We were that blood happy, we had parties," he said. Some of his comrades got dressed up in homemade women's bathers.
"The skipper gave us an extra bottle of beer to have up on deck and then they got dressed up,” he said laughing. “Geez, it was funny."
In mid-September 1945, two weeks after the formal Japanese surrender on the USS Missouri in Tokyo Bay, overseen by General MacArthur, the Diamantina had her moment of glory, taking surrenders from Japanese commanders in Bougainville, Nauru, and the final one of the war on Ocean Island, now part of Kiribati.
Bill was on deck with the rest of the crew to witness the historic moment when the Japanese officers came on board.
“The head bloke and the mate handed their swords over, they didn’t smile much at all through that ceremony and geez, it went on for a long time, they weren’t happy. We were but we were on the winning edge,” he said.
Japanese officers prepare to sign surrender documents on the HMAS Diamantina at Nauru. Source: Australian War Memorial
“After they were finished, both sides got up off the table and then they had another room and we all had a drink with them.”
Every August, Bill retrieves his photo album and a souvenir he picked up in Rabaul when the Diamantina went to resupply.
“I got a Japanese sword, oh geez, it’s sharp," he said. "There were piles of them. We asked the officer, ‘could we have one?’"
And they are not the only mementos of that historic moment.
HMAS Diamantina now has pride of place in the Queensland Maritime Museum, exhibited in an old Southbank dry dock in the centre of Brisbane.
HMAS Diamantina in Nauru to accept Japanese surrender. Source: Australian War Memorial
Chair of the Queensland Maritime Museum captain Kasper Kuiper says it serves as a reminder of Australian and world history.
“It’s to educate people that freedom doesn’t come for nothing, freedom you have to fight for, and that freedom you have now, we fought a long war for and that we have fought long wars in the Pacific and five years in European war,” he said.
Every day, tens-of-thousands of people pass her by, some not knowing that on her quarterdeck the last Japanese surrender of the war took place.
“I don’t think so that they know much about it because Australia was reasonably sheltered from the heavy war we have seen in the Pacific and in Europe,” he said.
HMAS Diamantina in the Queensland Maritime Museum dry dock. Source: Stefan Armbruster/SBS News
“We’ve never been invaded, and people who have never been invaded in a country forget very quickly what it means if you have occupation."
Bill remembers going onshore in Nauru and the reaction of the liberated islanders.
"They looked happy, really, after what happened to them, they were glad to see us there,” he said.
“All the people were clapping when we left. They were happy to see the end, you could tell by the look on their faces. Wouldn’t you, if you think you’re going to get shoved off your homeland?"
The Japanese soldiers on Nauru and Ocean Island were rounded up and transferred to transport ships for repatriation.
Nauru islanders welcome Australian navy lieutenant G.A. Lording after the Japanese surrender. Source: Australian War Memorial
"I never had any bad feelings or anything about the Japanese,” Bill said.
“I knew their blokes were doing the same as we were doing for our country, and they’d have the same feeling we get.”
Seventy-five years on, his memories are still fresh of war and peace in the Pacific.
“It was tough times, we lost a lot of men, a lot more than I thought we did. You didn’t know if you would get hit by a torpedo or we'd get fired,” he said.
"I say, geez, don’t go to war. It’s just luck if you don’t get killed. It is.”
