L A U R I E
C A R R
A sailor for war, a cadet for life Laurie Carr, 97, has had a lifelong connection to Christchurch’s Sea Cadet Units, a dedication briefly interrupted by World War 2. He talks to Navy Today and Major Wayne Henderson, NZCF historian, about his long connection to the Navy.
Another lad talked him into coming along to TS STEADFAST, a local cadet unit. By 1942, Mr Carr was 18 and was called up on the wartime ballot to join the Army. He had applied for the Navy, but it took time to effect a change. “Thirteen months later, I got this callup for the Navy. The Army doctor said, you want to join the Navy? I said, of course I do. The doc said to me, oh well, if you’re going that way, I will post you as Grade One.” This was a notch up in his medical status.
TS STEADFAST Cadet Laurie Carr in 1939.
Laurie Carr says his father, a Navy man, got to see him in his cadet uniform as a teenager, but never saw him in his wartime rig. “I’m sure he would have been proud,” he says. Mr Carr was living in North Beach, Christchurch, before the war, and a lot of the local boys joined Sea Cadets. In 1939, he was 16 and working at a jeweller’s shop as a messenger boy.
26 | Navy Today #252
Mr Carr found the rigours of training at HMNZS TAMAKI in Auckland fairly straightforward after Army basic training. “We already knew our stuff, we knew what to do. We were going to be signallers anyway so gunnery, combat, marching – we weren’t really interested. I remember the Lieutenant in charge throwing his hands up in disgust as he gave up on us. ‘If you want me, I’ll be in the wardroom,’ he said.” After three months’ training at a Signals School in Dunedin, Mr Carr embarked on a merchant ship on December 23, 1943 for the United Kingdom. It was the start of a convoluted two-month passage around the world, taking 32 days to get to Aden and then being put ashore to await another transport.