A Child in the Navy a Man Betrayed

By john atkins and Paul Evans

Johns story is filled with risky events, survival instinct, and perseverance. Service in the Royal Australian Navy has taken him around the world on great adventures and to about nineteen war zones or operational areas, but with the benefit of hindsight, none of you would have wanted to live his life.

Johns life as a child was destroyed by the navy. His career as a young adult was destroyed by the resulting psychological injuries. His twilight years were destroyed by the conflict with the Department of Veterans Affairs (DVA) and government investigation and review agencies. These are the two components of this story.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris AU
• Release date: Oct 28, 2015
• ISBN: 9781503505223

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Copyright © 2015 by John Atkins & Paul Evans.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

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Rev. date: 10/27/2015

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CONTENTS

Introduction

The Beginning

Early Navy Service

Abuse in the RAN College

A Tragic Meeting

2004 – Back in Coventry

The Lost Years

Interregnum

2010

Epilogue

INTRODUCTION

John’s story is filled with risky events, survival instinct, and perseverance. Service in the Royal Australian Navy has taken him around the world on great adventures and to about nineteen war zones or operational areas but, with the benefit of hindsight, none of you would have wanted to live his life.

John’s life as a child was destroyed by the navy. His career as a young adult was destroyed by the resulting psychological injuries. His twilight years were destroyed by conflict with the Department of Veterans’ Affairs (DVA) and government investigation and review agencies. These are the two components of this story.

John experienced a turbulent life. This life was full of great challenges, amazing events, spectacular successes, and disaster through which his family struggled. He has fought several irregular and unwarranted fraud investigations by DVA, all the time suffering from severe psychological damage resulting from his abuse as a child in the navy.

Excerpts from the DVA’s policy¹ states that mental health problems are common, particularly post-traumatic mental health problems (PTSD). DVA also states that for some veterans, many years may have elapsed between the time when mental health symptoms first appeared and when they were recognised and treated. This may have led to additional difficulties, as their relationships, their ability to participate in work and social activities, and their health may have been affected over long periods of time. Furthermore, it states that many veterans present with more generic, yet significant complaints, such as sleep disturbance, problematic anger, or vocational, parenting, or relationship problems.

However, as in John’s experiences during four decades, the entitlement claims system is complex and difficult for a man with these problems to negotiate. John is one of those veterans who seems to have ‘slipped through the cracks’ and, in response to his complaints, DVA went to extra-ordinary lengths to attack him and his reputation.

Despite John being a suicide risk for more than forty years he has survived to tell his story, along with the help of a former DVA Officer, Paul Evans, who co-authors this book. Paul’s strength and tenacity is a lesson for us all. Since asking to reopen John’s case in late 2010, he has withstood threats and serious health problems. In another incidence of help, the late eminent reformist lawyer and former NSW Attorney-General Mr Jeff Shaw QC helped John for some years until shortly before his untimely death, likely aided by difficulties he encountered in John’s case. These were particularly distressing to one of John’s long-term supporters, Marc Aussie-Stone, who had persuaded Mr Shaw to represent John.

This story can only now be told – after the Navy, Defence, and Department of Veterans’ Affairs (DVA) were each forced into making apologies and into accepting liability, after some sixty years of a tooth-and-nail, even toxic battle that should never have occurred.

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John Atkins

Introduction

Letter by John Atkins to a former naval officer of 24 June 2014

Vice Admiral xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx RAN (Ret’d)

cc Chairman Royal Commission into Child Abuse the Hon Justice Peter McClellan AM and Chairman DART the Hon. Len Roberts-Smith FRD; Ministers Defence and Veterans’ Affairs; xxxxxxxxxxxxxx Major Rtd; Messrs Paul Evans and Terry Fogarty; Senators Faulkner and Xenophon; selected media.

I’m Not the Problem (As now proven)

Dear xxxxxxxx

I have been proven right all along, in extraordinary battle for over six decades against abuses for which the Navy, Defence, and DVA accept liability and have made apologies, but although I qualify, I am denied TPI and full non-war-caused injury compensation – a summary is attached.

My Navy and Defence abuse

As a Navy child with abuse stories, there is unfinished business before changes can be wrought – today we are old men, and whilst I respect your elder years ****, it does not get you off the hook!

You visibly ‘turned a blind eye’ from a position of responsibility for a ‘fair workplace’, and you were in a position to even halt horrible extreme abuses DLA Piper and Defence Abuse Taskforce (DART) expose, including treatment of young children in training establishments. You clearly ‘turned a blind eye’ to HMAS Duchess mutiny and more.

I recall you questioning what I did about abuses as senior cadet captain, but my complaints are recorded. You also counselled me to desist in exposés. You were Year Officer to Flinders Year 1951, when within weeks of joining the Navy in February 1951, I was raped, several times tortured, and repeatedly bashed. Recurrent bashings and physical and mental assaults led to more abuses later in my Navy career. They were reported, but nothing was done, and I was even held against my will, due to abuses.

So bad was naval college that I decided to fail passing-out exams, but family pride saw me win prizes, and I went on to reinvent myself – often. At one stage I was dismissed duties, ordered to stand court martial and illegally jailed without enquiry, which is unheard of for any officer, and it turned out to be for sabotage by my Chief GI. Then, within weeks, the Chief ERA seriously sabotaged the same ship again, causing three months’ repair at Chatham. My three resignations were not considered.

As you know, in my next ship, I fell out with CO HMAS Duchess, but I was trained in anti-terrorist and infiltration by Royal Marine Commandos and had HMAS Diamond secret operational experience. In the event, the crew judged the visible risks leading to mutiny on passage to Hong Kong. You plainly ‘turned a blind eye’, just as you did leading to abhorrent disclosures about RANC and Navy abuses which seem to be a continuing culture. Resignation after summary dismissal 1 March 1966 was not considered, yet after recent scrutiny, my abuse complaints were accepted by Navy and DART for a partial outcome.

So, my life, and that of my family, was ruined by Navy abuses, yet with forgiveness and reinvention I have struggled on. The worst was failed DCNS. Admiral H. D. Stevenson arranged early release from long bonded indenture – for a new start in life – just three weeks after I was commended for notable contribution and early recommendation for early promotion to Commander, long before it was due in July 1968.

Remaining exposés

Very real problems in the Navy’s training of children have visibly emerged in newly released reports, but the worst are allegations about junior sailors from HMAS Leeuwin and others prostituting themselves as now to hand. OMGoodness, that’s horrible, and these events occurred during your watch and at one stage were mentioned in the hidden Rapke report to which access has been denied. Failures in workplace management and these abuses have apparently not been fully aired or investigated.

Also, yet to be highlighted, is the visible failures and abdication of responsibility by you and other officers in the hierarchal system shamed by abuses, including by children from 14 to 17 years of age handed care, control and training for 13-year-old children (15-year-olds in the case of Leeuwin). We were 13-year-old kids held ‘in trust’ for our parents, under a long-term bonded indenture contract – a follow-on to slavery banned by government under Pacific Islander Act 1901. Bonded from 1951 until 1972 includes extension for ‘return of service’ – for overseas training for Navy benefit – but my complaints are un-investigated.

As you know, under this system, senior cadets abused 13-year-old kids (15-year-olds at Leeuwin) in training college grounds by day, at the end of each day and particularly after lights-out at night. There was no apparent adult supervision and particularly no live-in dormitory ‘master’, or adult supervisor, or officer for, in the case of my entry, 28 children of around 13 years of age. This system bred sadists and, as in my case, many experienced further abuse during their later Navy service. My abuses are tabulated.

The key factor to me is proven extraordinary and shameful management failure by any measure of ‘workplace safety’; it needs to be exposed and addressed because it was condoned over decades.

The child cadet training system

Senior cadets were in charge and supervised each child entry, dormitory block, or wing; in our case, they ruled with gym-shoe beatings, physical and mental assaults, cold showers, timed ‘quick-shifts’, excessive exhausting gymnastics and abject fear in recreation, sleeping quarters, and college grounds. The HMAS Leeuwin report is typical of trainee child experiences we experienced. All cadets senior to we children were involved in abuses; I recall children beaten with a gym-shoe until they bled, with some hospitalised, or sent on leave with wounds and horror stories. Sadly, some of the abused became abusers.

In our case, abuses extended beyond those described in HMAS Leeuwin DART Report, for example, silence ban imposed throughout one term was re-imposed next term! David Holthouse wrote of abuses in a college magazine, and Marc Stone has more allegations he provided to DLA Piper; more are to hand.

Gravity of ‘turning a blind eye’ by responsible officers is shown where one member of my entry deserted – in collaboration with his brother. Early one morning, he jumped on his brother’s motorbike at the little-patrolled West gate to HMAS Cerberus; he’s an eminent Australian, who tells how his family was never told of his absence! My innumerable workplace abuses and failures to address illegal jailing and two mutinies also include complaints through four unaddressed and unacknowledged resignations.

These unacceptable abuses breach rules and regulations and those responsible need to be challenged.

Update on my case – This is included in an attachment, but be aware that, despite acceptance of liability and apologies, there is no closure as you will understand from this letter and the abuses summary.

Upfront, I am not and never have been ‘the problem’ and at last this is proven; however those responsible, who should have listened, believed, and ensured a ‘safe workplace’ have not been brought to account. To date it has all been about the abused, some abusers, but nothing on those who ‘turned a blind eye’; workplace ‘balance’ has also been ignored.

Way forward to a ‘safe workplace’ and ‘balance in the workplace’

Problems as now exposed are about not ensuring a ‘safe workplace’ and failures in workplace ‘balance’.

You are a responsible senior officer who held management positions of trust. May I suggest you come forward to tell your story, of your role and experiences, including as you admitted to me about your own hard times at the college, also your changes to initiation and awareness of HMAS Leeuwin abuses and the Rapke Inquiry findings. Your report could be ‘in camera’ to the Royal Commission into Child Abuse. I also suggest you write to DART for meeting with the DART Chairman, the Hon. Len Roberts-Smith FRD, to explain how all of this happened.

Conclusion

You said ‘it was hard in my time’; I accept that, but you were in a position to make a change and you apparently failed to do so, as is visible through acceptance of liability in my case and recorded apologies.

You counselled me to desist in my exposés and persistence, but had I done so, none of the acceptance of liability, apologies for abuses, or recognition that I was right all along would have occurred, enabling a safer and happier retirement after a very long struggle. It has been a long, hard, and lonely row for some correction of wrongs, but more work needs to be done and age is creeping up on both of us.

Unlike your stand, when I was in a position of responsibility, I acted as follows in examples :

• As a Cadet and Senior Cadet Captain, I complained as in partially obliterated medical records;

• My unconsidered resignations were for specific abuses from 1963 through 1966; as well as

• When Director at Navy Office, I prepared a paper on adverse findings by HR Consultants WD Scott and others after the Melbourne/Voyager debacle.

• I obtained help from HR consultant and Navy Minister Don Chipp, in alerting the Naval Board to most serious morale and HR administration problems between officer corps levels and officers and men – Navy Chief, Admiral Sir Victor Smith acted on recommendations.

• I pursued my complaints and legislated entitlements for some little positive government action.

In Navy life, I stood true to my family heritage in making a difference and in fairness, just as I did in ‘civvy street’ where Navy-caused disabilities led to repeated dismissals (just as in the Navy), but with re-invention, I made an extraordinary difference to Australia’s industry and economy.

• Navy and DVA problems are dealt with in the two websites referenced in the heading.

For consideration in these matters is how to ensure a ‘safe workplace’, also to bring about workplace ‘balance’ to overcome fear in reporting and prosecuting abuse when things go wrong. All workplaces have problems, yet in the early 1800s ‘balance’, not available in the ADF, began internationally.

Finally, David Martin and I served in HMAS Melbourne, and I always liked him and much respected him for ‘coming clean’ about his role in the two Melbourne–Voyager Royal Commissions. I have similar kind of feelings for you **** and now ask you to speak out for the future of the Navy and the ADF; I hope you will consider helping to make a better, ‘safe workplace’ with ‘balance’ for ADF members.

Very sincerely

John Atkins

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THE BEGINNING

John Atkins’ Story

Family background

I was born with a shroud on the 3 February 1937 and had an exciting farm life before my navy career began on 29 January 1951. I came from a family of high achievers in engineering, education, and the arts, with a heritage for making a difference. My parents were dairy farmers. They encouraged me to dream and expand my horizons way beyond life on a marginal farm dependent upon weather and climate change. As a young child I chose a path taking me to follow family leaders into civil engineering. Unfortunately, due to my parents’ experiences in the overwhelming struggles of the Depression, World War II, and the Korean War, they had other ideas.

At the age of thirteen I won both a prestigious scholarship as well as selection, out of around six hundred other entrants, into the Royal Australian Naval College. I had a choice, or more correctly my parents had a choice. Economic constraints and the uncertain world stability were uppermost in my parents’ minds, and they encouraged me to take the naval college option for a good education and assured long-term career. So it was a no-contest, and I entered a bonded long-term indenture with the navy (twenty-two years in my case). This should have consolidated my career until I was well into my thirties, but events and serious disabilities shortened and ended that career.

Still only thirteen, as were the other twenty-seven children who enlisted in my group, I joined the Royal Australian Navy (RAN) as a cadet midshipman. We became the ‘1951 Flinders Year’ at our new ‘home’, the RAN College at the HMAS Cerberus² naval base. The college was at Crib Point, Victoria, on Hanns Inlet, and so we joined a harsh ‘horse breaking’ style culture, which has since become synonymous with extreme sexual, physical, and mental abuse by staff and fellow cadets.

However, HMAS Cerberus is thankfully not my earliest memory. Up until my first day in the RAN I was a typical thirteen-year-old and lived my life to the full. I had a very happy childhood that was combined with a strong Christian upbringing. I was one of five children in a loving family, supported by pioneering grandparents and an array of well-established second-generation Australian uncles and aunts. They and my cousins all worked in a variety of different endeavours that included farmers, educators, musicians, industrialists, manufacturers, and writers.

When I was born we lived in the Talisker homestead on the Merino Downs estate at Merino, which was owned by the Henty family. I remember the wonderful circular driveway, tower, and grandfather clock in the entrance hall. On my second birthday I was given a horse, Tommy Tucker, and I had a cocker spaniel named Butch. Later, I happily participated in agricultural shows and loved to learn the piano. My memories are of a wonderfully full and happy childhood surrounded by a loving and extended family of cousins.

Dad was a jovial fellow, a humanitarian, and a man’s man who was able to turn his hand to almost anything. He was a horseman and something of a risk-taker in building successful farming enterprises. He played the violin and entertained us with impromptu concerts on his mouth organ. As children we just loved his skill in making adaptive toys, such as small animals which crawled along after being wound up with a rubber band. He also had we five kids very much into stilts, commencing with old jam tins, with Dad helping us until we found our feet, then moving to more advanced equipment.

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We all learnt to ride the ponies we had on the farm and, as a sports enthusiast, he encouraged me to do the same. Dad insisted I learnt the art of boxing, as well as participating in gym activities at the regional gym in Terang, our nearest town. Terang was also where I attended high school, albeit for a brief three years.

Dad worked very hard, whether it was working at the wonderful Talisker homestead or else making a go of marginal farms. He was a good dairy farmer, and usually engaged someone to work alongside him to machine-milk 100 or more cows twice a day, and as kids we all participated in our own way. Dad was a bit of a character, and I remember him bringing home a snake coiled around his arm and having Charlie Loader, who worked on the farm, cut off the snake’s head.

Dad caught, killed, and hung our own meat. I enjoyed what would sometimes turn into a chase around the yard to catch the selected sheep. He also had a large vegetable garden at the cowshed, which used the nutrients from cow dung to produce wonderful vegies. There is no doubt that he loved growing and producing things on the farm and also on Uncle Alex’s farm near the Ayrford Bridge. Much of his produce he gave to neighbours and friends, and he had many friends, from all walks of life. He eventually became a director of the local cooperative society in Terang. He was very devout and became an elder at the lovely stone Presbyterian Church the family attended.

I particularly remember Dad’s fun in life; for example, when taking we children around his vegie patch he would show them prized pumpkins, pointing to some which had not thrived alongside others. He had a name for describing this feature to kids, and it never ceased to amuse me. He would tell us about his own brand of vegetable disease which prevented growth; Lilliputian disease. In his telling of the story the children were always entranced.

Times haven’t changed much at Taroon, a district within Corangamite Shire and around 14 km from Terang and Cobden. I mention Cobden, because it is where Mother took us kids and our friends to swim in what was nothing more than a waterhole. Later, it was made into a proper swimming pool and another was built in Terang.

Dad’s side of the family traced its history back to the wild lands to the north of the Isle of Bute in the Clyde, not far across the water from Barrow in Furness, where I joined HMAS Melbourne for her maiden voyage home. I knew little of his lineage at that time, because I joined the RAN before I was old enough to appreciate or understand the tales of a foreign land. Yet, one day in England, I remember listening to and being moved by the skirl of bagpipes across the water as I walked the flight deck of HMAS Melbourne at dusk. The sound of bagpipes always stirred my Dad, and in thinking about it I still get tingles up my spine.

Mum was a true lady, very creative, a fine cook, and was once a cookery demonstrator. She had also worked as Secretary to the chairman of the Brighton Gas Company, with whom she remained good friends. She was artistic and a bit of an actor who enjoyed playing the piano and entertaining us kids. She was a born leader and had studied architecture at the Gordon Institute in Geelong. Above all, she was a great organiser and entertainer with a quick wit and musical skills.

Her family came from Ayrshire in Scotland. They were yeoman farmers, with another branch from Falkirk who stemmed from Lord Bruce. This led to many fine family fireside yarns about Bonny Prince Charlie and a French lady who entered the family after the battle of Culloden. There were even tales of one family member being beheaded at Tower Hill in Edinburgh, and later I traced this long family lineage and commenced communication with distant cousins.

Those were great days when Dad managed the seventeen dairy farms which could all be seen from the Talisker mansion’s tower. My mum sometimes related to us with some pride how Dad loved racing his beautiful horse Cal at great speed through the hills when visiting farmers. Dad, from my earliest days, encouraged me to expand my horizons. He taught me to enjoy animals and to ride, sometimes leading his horse with me on board, long before I was able to ride on my own. I particularly remember, as a very small child, being on a horse called Jock while crossing a stream not