When South Australian Premier Mike Rann attended the ANZAC Light on the Water Tribute to the lost crew of HMAS Sydney on ANZAC Eve, Tony Iles met him on arrival.
Tony was one of 70,000 fifteen to seventeen year old boys who passed through the merchant navy training vessel Vindicatrix at Sharpness in the UK between 1939 and 1966.
There on the picturesque Sharpness to Gloucester canal they did their basic training before going to sea.
Sadly, in World War Two many of the boys were on vessels torpedoed by German submarines and sent to a watery grave not long after finishing their training.
Tony is “Skipper” of the South Australian branch of the Vindicatrix Association.
About 2700 former “Vindiboys” belong to Vindicatrix Association branches in the UK, Australia, Canada and New Zealand.
The South Australian branch has regular meetings at the Seafarers Centre in Port Adelaide and is the only one where wives have equal status with the former merchant seamen.
Activities of the Australian branches include volunteer work, participation in a range of ANZAC commemorations, reunions, social functions, Sea Sunday and soon the newly recognised Australian Merchant Navy Day on September 3.
The Vindicatrix was formerly the SS Arranmore, a graceful three masted sailing vessel built in 1893, that first sailed to Port Adelaide in 1904.
The skipper of Arranmore would have set the vessel’s chronometer by the dropping of the 1 pm ball on the Semaphore Timeball Tower.
Photo of Tony and Premier Rann by Mick Surfield
