On our first visit to Java, we'd gone to remove some unwelcome temporary tenants from Nippon who had overstayed their welcome. Now we had a further task delivering troops to help put down the Indonesian rebellion in co- operation with the Dutch Forces, and being rather ignorant of international politics, this was just an extension of our other war. Early morning we arrived in Surabaja, and started to transfer the troops over the side into our landing craft. As the lads went over the side they were issued with a bag containing new jungle kit, i.e. Trousers, Shorts, Shirts, and Underclothes. Most of the troops however felt they were carrying too much gear as it was and slung the bags back onto the deck. So there we were with a situation resembling the Slop Chest (Clothing Store) in Chatham Barracks. The following morning we were still pondering over what we were going to do with all this gear. None of the officers seemed interested, in fact they were ignoring it in the hope that the stuff would just disappear. The answer came in the shape of a native canoe pulling alongside. One of the little Javanese shouted up to us to ask if we had any old clothing for sale. Here it was! The answer to our problem. Holding some of the jungle greens we asked "What you pay Johny?", thus bringing a look of sheer ecstasy to his face. In fact he nearly fell out of his canoe in his eagerness to buy. And so we became the `Moss Bross.' of Surabaja. It did our hearts good to think that we were helping to clothe these poor people who had gone without for so long, AND make quite a bit of the folding stuff at the same time. A couple of weeks later we held another sale further along the Island. Two of our junior engineering officers had now joined our sales team, and as they were always skint, this gave them a bob or two to spare, as by now we were all `Rajah Sahibs' rolling in Dutch Guilders, and these clever officers found out that when we got back to Singapore we could convert the Guilders to Malayan Dollars and bank them. Unfortunately the bank cottoned on to us and that was that. Some weeks later an Admiralty signal went out that someone was supplying jungle kit to the Indonesian Rebel Forces, and so the Java Branch of the `Army and Navy Stores' went quickly and quietly into liquidation.
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