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Tom got his ticket, was promoted to Fourth Mate, and then to Third Mate in the United States. His ship had
crossed the Pacific and then joined a convoy across the Atlantic. The ship returned to Melbourne in June 1942 and
there was a letter from Helen Mary Phillipps to say that she had completed her medical examinations. As Tom put
it, ‘he had a sort of loose arrangement with her that if she got through her exams they might consider matrimony’.
He managed to get a message through to her hospital in Sydney that he was in Melbourne (but didn’t actually
speak to her) and as soon as she heard he was in Melbourne Helen got on a train. They were married the next day,
29 June 1942. After only a few more weeks in Australian waters, Tom’s ship headed back to Europe via Panama.
Merchant ships continued to cross and recross the Atlantic, despite horrendous losses, and in 1944, Tom’s ship took
the first fresh meat seen in Malta in 18 months.
On VE Day, 6 June 1945, he was in Wellington, New Zealand. By then, he was Mate and serving with Burns
Philp in the Christmas Island phosphate trade. He sat for his foreign going master’s certificate (now called class 1)
in 1946. In 1947, he took a tug and barge on a delivery voyage to Singapore. On his return to Australia, he landed
at Darwin and overnighted at the Qantas rest home at Berrimah.
In 1947, he sailed as navigator aboard Mistral in the first official Sydney to Hobart yacht race and sailed in the
race again the following year.
Between 1949 and 1954, in what would have been an unusual situation at the time, the Gilbert and Ellice
Islands Administration employed both Tom and his doctor wife in their respective professions. He was master of
HMCS Neinimanoa, which serviced all the islands of the group.
They returned to Australia in 1954 and he joined the Australian Shipping Board, the predecessor of the
Australian National Line. He was appointed to Wongara as Second Mate as it ran to Darwin and both he and Helen
liked hot climates. Helen was appointed to establish a school medical service and she came to Darwin in October- Tom remained at sea, Darwin now being his home port. Darwin was then, according to him, ‘A proper
scruffy town... not a lot of females around’. There was only one berth in the port, a timber wharf built during the
war, the new Stokes Hill wharf not being completed until 1956. On one occasion, a ship waited 32 days for a berth
though regular traders had priority.
In 1957 while on a period of leave, due to a damaged knee, and with the Harbourmaster ‘screaming to be
relieved’ he took on the relief role. At the time, Helen was living in a flat at the Sister’s quarters at the old hospital
(later part of the University student residences) and Tom was the ‘only male legally permitted to sleep there’.
The acting appointment continued for some years, Tom was the first master mariner in the position since the days
of Henry Rolfe Marsh. Among a myriad of tasks that falls to the Harbourmaster in Darwin, pilotage is one of
the most important. It is generally accepted that Darwin is a difficult pilotage port. Not only is there a large rise
and fall of tide but also the currents are unusual and very variable. Tom found that his predecessor’s methods of
pilotage did not suit him so he set about to learn about the tidal conditions by means of little bits of bamboo floating
in the water and developed manoeuvres to suit. He was not the first, nor the last, Harbourmaster to learn to pilot
in Darwin by this means. In addition, there is the diversity of ships. As he put it, ‘Each ship is different, some just
don’t behave, and you always have to be wide awake’.
The Northern Territory Port Authority was established in 1963 and Tom was appointed the first Chairman.
He was very critical of the enabling legislation that had been written by Crown Law Officers without reference to
expert maritime advice. The Darwin waterfront had never had a particularly good reputation. The wharfies were on
a go-slow between 1967–1970, one gang managing to break all previous records for dilatoriness by only shifting
‘one ton per gang hour’. It was the role of the Port Authority to promote the port but as Tom put it, ‘Darwin wharf
labourers were always a law unto themselves and the answer always was “not with that shower of bastards on your
waterfront”’. He was Chairman until 1975 and a member until 1980; he was the last master mariner to serve on
the Board. Subsequently in order to satisfy the Transport and Works bureaucrats the Port Authority was renamed
the Darwin Port Authority, a new Act was put in place, and what had been a statutory authority effectively became
just another arm of government.
In 1960, Tom had been appointed a Lloyds Surveyor and he began the first marine surveying firm in the Northern
Territory. He employed Knut Melbye in 1970 and took him into partnership in 1973. About 1982 Ron Halstead
joined the firm as a partner.
Tom was acting Harbourmaster when the Fujita Salvage team arrived in 1959. He always had an excellent
relationship with the Japanese and in 1977 was appointed Japanese Consul for a term of five years. At the time,
there were about 25 Japanese families in Darwin. Other names were put forward but Tom Milner was the choice of
the Japanese authorities. In 1983, he became a Member of the Order of the British Empire (MBE) for his services
to shipping and to the community. He was Chairman of the Automobile Association of the Northern Territory
between 1970 and 1984 and he was an active member of the Returned Services League. He had a long association
with the Darwin Sailing Club, for the last decade of his life he was Vice Patron, and he was a life member of the
Darwin Club.
After Helen’s death on 14 May 1973, Tom continued to live alone in their home on the Esplanade at the
corner of McLachlan Street, his companion his dog ‘Roly’. The marriage had been very happy. He was not above
describing himself as ‘Mr Phillipps’ on medical occasions and he was to comment often how much he missed
‘the old turkey’. During Cyclone Tracy, the house was damaged but rebuilt in its original style. When the area was
resumed so that the Beaufort Hotel could be built Tom, after putting up a valiant fight, had the house moved to the
end of Stirling Place, Larrakeyah.
He knew he had cancer for about two years but met his end with dignity and courage. ‘The termites are at me
again’, he would say. He died on 5 January 1985 at the age of 68 and was buried in the McMillans Road cemetery.
At the next sittings of the Legislative Assembly on 27 February 1985 the Minister for Ports and Fisheries, Steve