JAMES SHRAPNEL
Warrant Officer, R.A.N., OAM. R66048
16 September 1934 – 26 December 2001 
   

Doing what he loved best            

Jim was my mate.   He was the nicest bloke I have ever known.   We served together on HMAS Hobart during her third deployment to Vietnam (1970).   As chiefs, we lived together in the aft chiefs mess where he was known as “Rags Old” (being the senior in years) and I was just plain “Rags”.   The name is taken from that Naval Stores item “rags, old, cleaning, for the use of – consumable” and one of the most useless items on the ship.

Jim always looked on the brighter side of everything that was going on around him. He saw humour in everything and put his skills to good use with the pen. Together we wrote a daily “paper” for the mess that was full of nonsense relating to events going on around us. Jim was the author and my job was to type his sheet up each forenoon so it could be presented to the mess members at lunchtime. Our objective was to get a laugh out of someone though we would settle for a smile. He never failed.

Jim always wanted to get into writing scripts for plays and comedy sketches. He did so on many occasions during his service in the R.A.N. At short notice, he wrote and coordinated the entire program for a concert on our way back to Subic Bay from the gun line. Such light relief was priceless for a bunch of guys who had just spent weeks of four on and four off.

Born in the U.K., Jim entered the R.N. as a “greenie” apprentice and served his twenty years before immigrating to Australia and joining the R.A.N. as a C.S.A.P. His first draft was to the Supply from which he was transferred to Hobart as part of a compassionate arrangement for another CSAP. He served in a couple of other vessels before drafting to Cerberus “greenie” school where he was divisional officer and “father confessor” to those on course. He did this job with a great deal of compassion for nearly seven years for which he was awarded the O.A.M.

Jims father was a senior officer in the U.K. army. His grandfather, General Shrapnel, invented the shrapnel bomb/grenade.

For a man with such an acute sense of wit, Jim was often in trouble with his health. He overcame a bout of cancer followed by a heart attack but he couldn’t overcome a stomach disease from which he had suffered much of his life. He entered hospital on 27 January 2001 and weighed 45 kilos when I saw him in late March.   Several operations and a myriad of medical “trials” only added to his suffering. They couldn’t get his stomach to work properly. He had five “incoming” lines and three “outgoing” into three bags. His top-of-the-range diet consisted of clear soup, black tea and choice of red or orange jelly. This went on for nearly eleven months. On the Thursday before Xmas he asked the hospital to telephone me so he could say his last goodbyes. He had had enough. He died on Boxing Day.

Jim leaves a wife Sandra, two beautiful daughters and two sons. He also leaves a legacy of having brought a smile to the face of nearly everybody he has touched. I’ll miss him. Rest easy Rags Old. The world is a better place for your having passed by.     

R²

  LEST WE FORGET 

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