Australians at War Film Archive

To the best of my knowledge I was born in Richmond in 1922 and I never ever knew my mother because she died before I was 2 years old, and in between time, after she died, rather, her sister was looking after us, one of the sisters, at this particular time

she was looking after the two kids. And then my grandfather, he was living in Scotland, he was a Scotsman, he and my Aunt Agnes came out from Scotland. Well, he didn’t stay particularly long but my Aunt Agnes stayed some time and she finally married my Dad and they had two other children by that marriage, two sisters I had,

Sylvia and Beverley.

No, I had a sister, an elder sister. And we were living in Richmond at that particular time, apparently, because I was born in Richmond. And then the first recollection of anything much was that we’d shifted to Tottenham and

my aunt, Aunt Mary, was looking after us at this particular time. And then when Aunt Agnes and my grandfather came out from Scotland, well, Aunty Mary moved somewhere else, I don’t know as to where she moved. And then Aunt Agnes took over and then she married my Dad, which we ended up calling her, “Mum,” which was a bit strange because when Aunty Mary was there we naturally called her, “Mum,” and when she left it was a very traumatic feeling. I can remember that

vividly. She’d gone and we had no mother because I didn’t remember my first mother, I didn’t remember my mother at all, and when Mary went, well, that was the end of my mother, and I thought, “What’s going to happen to me now?” And my sister was 2 years older than me and I remember she bullied around, no, not bullied around, but got around, and she looked after me. She said, “No, nothing could touch me.” And then when Aunt Agnes married my father,

that was another mother. And she was very devoted to us kids and she looked after us and we loved her dearly. And we went on then from Tottenham, well, we shifted back to Richmond and that’s where I started primary school in Richmond. I went to Brighton Street Primary School which was down in Richmond, and I can remember the first day very vividly. I think my

mother took me there and I thought, “My God, you’re not going to leave me here, are you, amongst all these kids?” because I hadn’t been amongst many kids at all, really. But this particular teacher, I can’t remember her name, but she was an elderly woman and she just seemed to wrap her arms around the whole class, you know, and I thought, “This is not so bad after all, I get another mother that I need that’s going to look after me.” At any rate, we went on from there

and we passed primary school and primary year grades, up into 2nd, 3rd and 4th, and the 4th grade was a Mr McCarthy and he his ruler was a rod of iron and if anybody misbehaved he had a bad habit, he’d just pick up a chalk and throw it, right alongside you. Then you knew you were misbehaving, you see, and you just sat up straight again. That went all right,

and I went into the 5th grade and I was very keen on sport and wasn’t a bad cricketer for a kid, and I got selected in the school cricket team which meant practice after school, which I duly went to, and then that went some time after school time and when I got home I was in all sorts of bother because my Dad said to me, “You should have been home at

such and such a time and you weren’t,” and he said, “That’s it. You’re banned from all sport. You are not allowed to play sport of any description.” And at that particular time I thought, “I wish to God you’d have belted me then instead of putting a penalty like that on me.” That was the penalty and I never played sport again in my school days. And just after the end of the term in 5th grade we shifted back up to Broadford,

or Reedy Creek actually, which is about 10 miles out of Broadford. Dad had a property there and I think there was no school. There was a school which closed down and my mother said, “What are we going to do for schooling?” and she said, “Well, we can get correspondence school,” which she duly got and she became my teacher and she taught me until the 8th grade, which is virtually about the 1st year in high school. And by that time

I was 14 or 15 and started to feel my straps a bit and get out and run around, and there were a couple of kids about the same age there and we used to go rabbiting and fox hunting and all this sort of stuff and school work, that was just pushed aside. But she made me stay at it and stick at it until I’d finished the 8th grade, which at that particular time you went and got your Merit Certificate. Well I ended up with a Merit Certificate, which was her working

not mine, because she made me do all these things, which was good. And then after that, well, I just poked around a little bit, around the farm and did a little work, what have you. And at this particular stage my sister, she was working at the Reedy Creek Estate, that was a big farm there with a great big mansion of a house and she was the housemaid there, and there come a job then for

just a roustabout, milking cows and a bit of gardening, what have you, so she asked the boss whether they’d take me on, which they did. And [I was paid] a princely sum of 10 shillings a week which meant 6 days a week, and in that you got breakfast served to you and lunch, but you had to work from 7 o’clock in the morning till about 5.30, 6.30 at night. I stuck at that for some time. And then my Dad, he was working at the

kitchens of the Soap Perfect people and kept in touch with all the people that he used to work with, particularly two or three of them ,and there was a job that came up for a young fellow as long as he was about 17, 16 to 17. So he said, “Well, you can do that.” And in that era you had to obey your father, what he said was law. So I moved back to Melbourne and he moved up to Reedy Creek to the farm and I had to board, which cost me 2

pounds a week out of the wage of 2 pounds 9 [shillings]. Two pounds a week for a room, and I had a princely sum of 9 shillings to spend for the rest of the week. But fortunately I found a sort of boarding house type of thing it was, which served evening meals, which you could get a meal at 2/6d, so I got that of a night time and then I used to go home

to Broadford of a weekend. And I did that until I was 18 and that was about 4 years, 3 to 4 years I did that.

I was working at the soap factory. It was all night shift and it was a type of, you had to wrap up a sort of a, I don’t know what it was, a fatty substance and put it in a press and then all the oil came out which virtually ended up into soap.

Well, I was there for about 3 to 4 years and when I was 18, at that particular time you had to get permission from your parents to join the army so most of my friends had joined the army by this stage.

Yeah, well, this was 1940. So I said, “If I joined the Light Horse they can’t send you overseas or that,” because this was the greatest problem with parents, sending kids overseas. And

he said, “Yes, that will be fine.” He said, “You can join the Light Horse but nothing else,” so I said, “Righto.” So in 1940, I was 18 on 5th September and I think on the 6th I joined the Light Horse and I did one 3-month camp at Torquay and then I did another 3 months at a camp in Geelong and that brought me up into 1941, virtually. And I was halfway through that

camp and I confronted my father again, I was home on leave or something and I said to him, “What about letting me join the AIF [Australian Imperial Forces]?” and he said, “Oh, all right.” I must have caught him in a soft mood or something. I said, “Well, sign these papers for me and I’m off.” So he signed the papers and away I went and handed them in because there was a recruiting drive at that particular time down at Geelong. So another fellow from Pyalong, Cec Wayland, he and I joined together, and he was

V62813 and I was V62814. So we got up to Puckapunyal and....

Yeah.

Well, at that particular stage he’d only just bought this property and by working in Melbourne he was getting a bit of capital behind him to get onto the farm. And then, because I admitted that my mother and that, there was only two of us then, or was there three? No, I think there were only two of us at that particular time. Well, we moved up to Broadford and we lived with his people, his

grandfather or grandmother had died some time before and we stayed there for some time whilst we were getting a house built on Dad’s property, which finally came about. And we shifted into that house and I was the general rouseabout at that house for some time. I used to get a garden going and things like that and get around doing rabbiting and fencing and blocking up rabbit holes and going ferreting and things like that. At that particular stage,

the Lands Department was in control of all the properties and what have you, and you had to poison rabbits every year, poison and dig out warrens and what have you. Well, that was my job. So we had to run a furrow all around the property and we devised the idea that we had to cut a tree down with a fork. (telephone rings) There’s a phone up in the bungalow, that would be right,

we’re not getting it.

We devised the idea that if we cut a tree down with a fork and then leave quite a bit on the end of it and then put an old axe head or something down through that and then hook that onto or put a spindle to thread things on, and then that can be dragged around a tree to create a furrow, which rabbits always follow, a furrow. Then you had to have three feeds and you had to go and buy

heaps and heaps of apples and cut them up into little wee dices and then you give them the three feeds, and then the last feed, well, you have to mix the strychnine with it and we had to mix the strychnine. That was quite a job at that particular stage, I would only be about 15 or 16, round about that age, because I thought it was great then. But to get that much stuff onto you…. Anyway, we mixed that up

and then you spread that all around your furrows again, and then the next morning you had to go around and pick up all the dead rabbits because the strychnine goes into bones and everything, and if you left that around then any other animal that got that and ate the rabbit, well, they’d get the strychnine too. Then to find a place to put all the dead rabbits, that was the biggest problem, and being an old mining town there were lots of mines around the place so we thought,

“Well, that’s the safest place for poisoned rabbits, down this mine.” This mine, you might go down 100, 200 feet before you’d hear this, you’d drop a stone and you’d hear it hit water and that’s where we disposed of the dead rabbits. No, that type of thing, that was what we did. And then I couldn’t do fencing, not to the standard that they wanted. When the fences were up you had to have netting wire around your

boundaries and it had to be rabbit-proof, so you had to be around all the time just checking on no holes through there. And the wombats were a big problem because they’d burrow under the fence and they’d lift up about 10 or 12 feet of it and then you had to try and set up a snare to catch a wombat, which I didn’t have any luck at. They were fairly, oh, they weren’t a big animal but they were as tough as old nails and if

they hit anything they’d just go straight through it, no problems at all. I did all that and took me right up until I joined the army, just general farm work, which I enjoyed.

Oh, yeah.

Well, that’s right. He was

fair, but he was a hard man. He was fair in most things except for this one. I didn’t think he was very fair with that because that was my life. Once I got into the cricket team I thought, “Oh, this is great! I’m here now,” but he was very hard, but in most things he was very, very fair. If he thought you’d done something wrong, well, you got punished; but if it was only just a minor thing you got a reprimand or a cut across the backside or something like that. But this cricket

thing, well, that really hurt and I never played cricket again then till I was about 24, I suppose. When I came back from the army I played cricket.

He liked cricket, he liked football and he used to play football. I suppose he had a bee in his bonnet [was fixated on an idea] that night in particular, I don’t know why, but I thought it was a bit harsh. But never mind, that was his punishment and that’s what I had to take.

Whatever he said was law, as it was in that era. Your mother and father, well, they were the two that brought you up and showed you and pointed you in the right direction and just hoped that you took notice of that.

No, not really. We had to go to Sunday School, which we went to, and I can’t ever remember going to church. I suppose we did at some particular stage. But we never missed Sunday School,

never. Of course with Sunday School you always had some little youth group or something after that, which we always attended. We had to attend that and that was no problem really, because it was quite good.

We were in Richmond during the Depression and no, that was fairly hard really. But in our case it wasn’t as hard as

some people because Dad was working at that particular time and he was working 2 days a week which was more than most men had at that particular time. And I can always remember my mother had a – we lived in a little place, I don’t think it would have been wider than this room, and it had a big passage down one side and two bedrooms. And Dad, he filled in the front verandah.

To get into that, he failed to put a door on it, we had to climb in through the window. Well, that was my room. So I had to climb in through the main bedroom window to get to bed of a night time, whereas my sister, she had the other bedroom down the thing. It had a great big long passage, quite a long block, a narrow house on a narrow block. It had the front bedroom then the next bedroom, then there was a door on the passage, then there was the kitchen.

From the kitchen you went out through another little passage into the laundry and toilet and then it had quite a long backyard, and then there was the timber yard right behind that and then just a little alleyway out the back, which was access out the back. Then I can always remember my mother, she had a wood stove, I don’t know how they ever got wood as they couldn’t afford much, but they must have had wood of some description, and she

always had a big pot. And I can always remember this great big pot and it was always boiling with something in it, and if I happened to bring anybody home from school he was always welcome to a meal of some description. You always had a meal there and we never ever went hungry. I think she used to buy mutton flaps and things like that and she’d boil it up or stew it up, and we’d drink the soup and eat the stew, whatever. And then weekends, well, we’d all have to go up the street. There’d be a mob of us

kids, we’d all go up the street and we’d haunt all the fruit shops asking for specks, you know, partly rotten fruit or vegetable or something like that which sometimes you had to buy for a penny or halfpenny or something like that, but most of the times they’d be glad to get rid of all the specks. And we’d take those home and the mothers, there’d be two or three of us boys, and the mothers would just cut off the dead, the rotten parts and then they’d have half a peach or half an apple or something like that.

We managed like that. At school, I always remember this one, we went to school and either the Salvos [Salvation Army] or one of these people, like they do now, they’d drop in a lot of used clothes. And the teacher said, “Is anybody’s father not working?” and up goes my hand so I get a cardigan or a jumper. The jumper was wonderful. So I took this home and I was as proud as punch, and I took it home, and the roasting I got

then. She said, “You have no right to take that.” She said, “Your father’s working, you take that back tomorrow.” I had to take that jumper back in the morning. She said, “There’s more kids wanting things than you.” She said, “Take that jumper back to school,” so I crawled back to school, you see, with this jumper and that stuck in my mind then. I thought, “Well there’s always a lot of people worse off than you are,” and it still happens. Even when I go to hospital now I see people there and I think, “There’s nothing wrong with me, look at that

poor fellow.” And that was school days or school times. I still used to play a little bit of cricket unbeknownst to my Dad, but I was never home late from school. But I never got back into the school team again, never, never.

We lived in Balmain Street. Do you know Melbourne at all?

Do you know the Bryant and May, the old Bryant and May factory?

Well, we lived straight opposite the clock, they had the big clock right in the middle of Bryant and May

and you come down Church Street from Bridge Road, down Church Street and you get to Bryant and May and ours was the next street. Well, I took Wynn down there a few years back just to show her the little place. It’s still there just exactly as we lived in it. Just a little wee place, still there. We used to run up and down it, we never got into bother. I can’t remember ever getting into bother, not like some of the kids do nowadays. We always found something to do.

A lot of the kids nowadays you have to have things organised for them, but we seemed to manage and make up our own games and what have you and played them. But it was a great time. We didn’t have it that particularly hard, I don’t think, because my Dad was working and he managed to bring home a little bit of money and he didn’t gamble, he wasn’t a gambler and he wasn’t a drinker. So what money he brought home, that went into the household. Because

lots of times, you know, you’d walk up the street and you’d see all these blokes hanging around the pubs and things like that and not that it ever entered our mind what they were doing, but later on in years you think, “in that Depression, where did they get the money to buy grog?” My Dad never drank and he never gambled so that was one good thing in his favour.

There was lots of it, see,

kids were hungry. Particularly you’d go to school and you always had special mates when you’re at school, you know school kids, and one kid would say, “Oh God, I’m hungry, I didn’t have any breakfast this morning.” And I said, “Well, you come home with me, my Mum’s got a big pot of stew or something on.” No matter who I brought home, I remember two or three kids I’d bring home sometimes and she always dished up something for them. And there were lots of hardships that other people put up with and kids getting around in raggy

clothes, no shoes on at all, nothing at all. We were fortunate, we always had shoes of some description, whether they were good shoes or not, we always had something on. And clothes, we always had clothes on, and we were always clean. We all made sure we had a bath at night, every night you had to have your bath. As my mother used to say, “Water’s cheap, soap’s cheap, get in there.” So you’d have your bath every night and you had clean

clothes and clean bedding to sleep in and everything like that. So we had it reasonable, I’d say, compared to a lot of other people.

Not really, no, no. She was flat out looking after us, I think, trying to.… Well, she died early. She died when she was 54. She had cancer and she died at 54, and that was a traumatic day too.

At that particular time I’d go and see her in hospital, I’d see her every day. I used to make it my point to go and see her, I had to go and see her. She’d been there.... And I’m getting far ahead of myself there. We were still back in the Depression days. But it was hard on her, though, I feel, making ends meet; even though she was getting a little bit of money in every week, it was still pretty hard on

her to make ends meet and she still had bills and things to pay, light bills and what have you, or gas bills is what they were at that particular time, which were gas meters and you put the money in the meter, otherwise you didn’t have lights. This was probably – oh no, it wasn’t, she didn’t have a gas stove, she had a wood stove, but where she got the wood I don’t know, no idea.

I can’t remember ever having a radio. We used to play games at night, the whole family, you know. I can’t remember what sort of games we used to play but it used to be something we played and the whole family would get into it and just make your own entertainment. We never had enough money to go to the pictures or anything like that. And then not long after that, sje

became a Richmond supporter. She used to take me to every football match when they played at Prahran and she’d get there early so I could get right down on the fence. That was in Jack Dyer’s era. And she said, “Well, you got to get there early, come on, we’ve got to get going then,” and we’d walk because we wouldn’t have tram fare or anything like that and it would be about a mile, a good mile and a half I suppose. You cut through

streets and what have you, and then how much she paid to get us in I have no idea, but she used to get there every day. Every day there was no playing at home. Oh, she was very vocal, too. Dad wouldn’t go with her in the finish. She used to get him in a fight every time there.

Oh, I can’t remember. But I always remember Dad saying, “I’m not going to go with you any more.” She’d get abusive. I don’t think she used to use bad language.

I don’t think I ever heard her swear against the opposition supporters. They’d be barracking for somebody else and that wouldn’t go down too well with her and she’d have to have her threepenny worth and that, but she was great, she looked after me fantastic.

Oh, sort of. I don’t follow the football like I used to, there’s too much money in it now and, as I always say,

they’re all professionals, they’ve got to go for money. But I still have a soft spot for Richmond and if they win, well, this is good.

They were always North Melbourne, they always seemed to be, because they were the Shinboners then; you see, Richmond have always been the Tigers and North Melbourne were the Shinboners. They seem to, a bit like Collingwood supporters, I suppose, they were all

very one-eyed, the North Melbourne supporters, and I think these must have been the ones that my mother used to tackle. I feel sure it must have been. I can hear, I can see her getting stirred up over something but what she said I have no idea because you wouldn’t take much notice, because you’d be hanging onto the pickets. Because they’re used to be a picket fence around the ground and you’d be hanging onto the pickets, watching every

move the footballers made, particularly Jack Dyer. Jack Dyer and another one, O’Neill, he used to play in the back pocket, and Maurie Sheehan, and there’s still a few of them I remember. And it was good times, good times amongst all the bad times.

That’s right, yeah, it used to be all that. Collingwood lived in Collingwood, North Melbourne in North Melbourne, Richmond in Richmond and Carlton in Carlton and all that sort of thing. Well, that doesn’t work like that now, they’re all over the place.

There could have been but I never came in contact with any of

those because we never poked around at night. We weren’t allowed out at night. Once it got dark you were supposed to be home, and that was it. What went on after that I don’t know. As I said, my father was very strict, he was, and if you weren’t in at night time he’d want to know the reason why and to where you’ve been and why, what have you been doing? We had never any trouble, we had a little milk bar up at the corner and we were always welcome in there whenever we went in to buy

a bottle of milk or something like that. They always treated us right, and had we played up, they would have been the first to know, I should imagine, being little milk bars and what have you. But we got on all right, I think.

In the latter part, when the Depression became to ease off a bit and work became a bit more available, we used to go to the matinee. We’d get

threepence to get in, tuppence to get in and a penny to spend, and that was it. And you’d go up, every Saturday afternoon you’d go to the matinee and that was a real treat. There’d be 5 or 6 of the kids and away you’d go, up you’d go, and you’d probably pool your penny each because they all had the same amount of money, an extra penny, and you might buy an extra couple of lollies or something like that but that was all. And then

Tom Mix was the favourite then, he was the cowboy boy and never beaten, and these were all on serials. You’d get part of it this week and then you’d have to go next week to see what happened. That was a good part of it. That was towards the end of the Depression part with a little bit more money around. And at that particular stage, oh, Dimmy’s are still poking around: well, Dimmy’s used to have a big store in Richmond and

I can remember my mother used to do a bit of shopping down there when she had a bit of money, she’d go down and buy us kids a shirt or something like that. And, well, Dimmy’s is still kicking on. It’s been there for a long, long while. Yes.

Yeah.

At Reedy Creek.

That’s at Broadford, about 10 miles out of Broadford.

We’d been there, I suppose I’d been there for 3 or 4 years before I shifted back to Melbourne to work at Kitchen’s and....

To a country boy and then back to the city again? Yeah,

it took a little bit of getting used to, I think. Particularly when you’re just a country bumpkin and then you’re thrown in amongst all these city slickers. There was one particular fellow I worked with when I first came down, he was quite good, he and I used to get on particularly well, but I can’t remember his name now. On weekends if I didn’t go back to Broadford or Reedy Creek I’d go out to his place and stay out at his place. He lived out at Prahran and

I would go out there. And I remember his sister, they used to have a kiosk at Lilydale Railway Station, and she worked there. I don’t know where she was living, whether she was living at home or not, but he and I used to go out to, he’d say, “I’ve got to go out and see my sister, do you want to come?” I said, “Oh yeah, I’ll come out with you,” and we’d go out there and have lunch or something out there and we’d come home, and I’d stay with him the weekend, then come back to work on the Sunday night

again and away we’d go.

Well, I worked in Port Melbourne and I boarded in West Melbourne and every night I used to get on this tram to go into Flinders Street to catch a bus to go down to Port Melbourne, and there was always a policeman on this tram and I got to know him pretty well. And it ended up, when I joined the army he was the first fellow I met in the army, this

policeman, Cyril Hodgkin. I always remember him. Then we’d go in on the tram and I’d have my meal before and nothing else to eat in the night. You’d get a three course meal for 2 and 6 which was good value, and then I’d catch the tram around about half past 9, 10 o’clock. At 11 o’clock, I’d start at 11 [and work] to 7. I’d catch at tram to Flinders Street, then catch a bus down to

Port Melbourne and walk down then to Kitchen’s, clock on and go in and start to toil. I used to buy soap and whatever because you’d get soap very cheaply there and I used to buy soap, all the washing soap and detergent and things that my mother used, I’d buy them and take them home, and on 2 pound 9 a week, I might add. Those 9 shillings went a long way, though. In those particular times, things were relatively cheap.

2 and 6 for a three course meal – that’s what? about 25 cents purchase price – so your 9 shillings went quite a long way and you could virtually get up to Broadford for a couple of shillings or something like that, cost nothing at all to go by train, which was good.

Yeah.

It was just a

lodging house. What hurt there, though, I don’t know how it came about, you had to pay 2 pounds a week for your bed, that’s all, your room. That was all, nothing else. No food, nothing else. And I must have gone away for something, I was away for a week, and anyhow I came back and I still had to pay the 2 pounds and I thought, “God, on my wages, I don’t have to pay that, surely?” But I had to front up with that 2 pounds as soon as

I got back, just to hold the room. There was that many people after rooms at that particular time so you had to pay just to keep your room. Anyway, it was quite good. It was clean. They did all your laundry and everything like that. You had a clean bed every week. Your sheets were changed weekly and there was no problem there with them being cleaned and tidy. And then you got to know the other people that were boarding there and there was nice people there and you’d go and sit down in their room sometimes

of a night till it was time to go to work, because you could tend to get very lonely if you’re on your own, just a kid on his own. There was one particular family there, a fellow and his wife and another young son who was a bit younger than me, and I used to go down and talk to them quite regularly of a night and they were quite good, you know. It made the time go a bit faster.

11 till 7 in the morning. They were quite long hours, yeah.

No, five days, five days. And then there was some time, I can’t remember what time you had off. There were supposed to be meal times but I never had money to buy any more meals at any rate. That 2 and 6 which you paid for your three course meal, that was a big meal, and you got a roast meal for that, so

soup and sweets, like that. Being a young fellow, I wolfed into all of that and that was enough to keep me going.

Oh that’s true, yeah.

I think it did. I said to myself, “You’re out on your own now, what are you going to do?” Well, there’s lots of things you could do. But,

strangely enough – it wasn’t strangely enough; it was the way I was brought up, I think – “Well, you can’t go doing this, you can’t go drinking beer or anything like that.” Even though you’re still a bit underage, you could still get it if you wanted it. And “You can’t go gambling,” I said, “Your Dad never drank nor did he gamble.” I said, “You follow him,” which I did, and I took my model off him, and that’s the way I went then, and I found it wasn’t a great deal of trouble just

swapping over, really, as long as you were sensible in your approach.

Oh, there were lots and lots of temptations. There was one fellow, he wasn’t actually working with me at Kitchen’s but I got to know him pretty well, and he said, “What about coming up the pub for a beer?” and I said, “No, I’m not old enough for a start, and if I was I wouldn’t want to go.” He said, “Come on, you’re a weakie,” and I said, “No, I’m not,” and that was a temptation and I just pushed it aside and

it didn’t worry me one little bit. He was quite sincere in what he wanted to do, I think. He wanted mateship I think, but I didn’t want to do that. That wasn’t in my makeup, so we didn’t do it, as simple as that.

Most weekends I did, yes, most weekends I did. But some weekends, like I said, I went out with this fellow when he lived in Prahran

and if I had the weekend off, well, that’s where I spent the weekend, with him and his family, which was a better idea than trying to just feel on your own. Well, you couldn’t; you’d be tempted into something that you didn’t want to do.

Well, I preferred the city because there was more activity there, and a country place you’re miles away from anywhere. The closest neighbour was a mile away, I suppose,

and it gets a bit lonely. I don’t know how my mother stuck it for [so long], although she was a mile or so away, but they used to visit each other quite regularly, but it must have been lonely for her, though, no female companions at all of any description, yet she stuck it out.

He was running sheep mainly.

I’ve been trying to write up my memoirs or what have you.

Yeah, and I took a rough draft and I read through that and I thought, “God, that shouldn’t have been in there, that should have been back further,” and then I had to start it again and I’ve done it again and I’ve done it again and I’m still doing it. As I said before, you think of something and that sparks something else and away it goes. Well, this is what’s happened then.

Yeah, well, this happened in the primary school, you right?

Well we shifted from Richmond to Burnley, and we lived at Cutter Street in Burnley, 144 Cutter Street, Burnley, and that meant a lot further out to go to school. We still went to the same primary school, Brighton Street Primary School, and it would be a good mile and a half, I suppose, that we had to walk to school,

and we did that for a number of years. For 4 or 5 years I suppose we did that. I was only a little tacker when we moved over there, only the second or third grade I should imagine. And then we moved to Cutter Street in Burnley, and then I joined a youth club there which was run by the, I think the

Presbyterian Church. I’m not sure because there were no Sunday Schools or anything like that. And my Dad said, “There’s a youth group, I think it’s on at the Salvation Army or the Presbyterian, someone’s running it up the end of Cutter Street, we’ll go up there.” He said, “You and I will go up and we’ll just check it out and see if it’s all right. If I think it’s all right, you can join up there.” “All right.” So we went up there and it must have been satisfactory for him because in those times I was

going up quite regularly, two times a week and all you’d do was play games and things like that up there, and about twice a year there used to be a party. You’d have a party, all bread and butter, hundreds and thousands, you know. Anybody’s birthday and they’d put on a bit of a spread for your birthday and things like that, which was quite good. And we stayed there for,

it’d be about 3 years, I suppose. That’s when we moved from there to Broadford, oh, to Reedy Creek, from there. That’s the little bit that I missed out on. It just twigged my mind there as we were going. I said, “Well, that should have been in prior, before I started work.”

Then Burnley.

Yeah, yeah. And then after the work, I was 18 then when I finished down there and I joined the Light Horse,

and it was the 20th Light Horse. I think headquarters were based at Shepparton at the time, I think that’s where they were. They used to have troops all around the place at Bendigo and Heathcote Junction and all around the place. And they had one at Broadford at that particular stage and you had to supply your own horses when you went to camp, so I said, “God, I haven’t got a horse, what am I going to do?” If you didn’t have a horse,

they supplied remounts. So I knew a fellow who had a horse so I said, “Would you loan me your horse for 3 months?” He looked and said, “What do you want a horse for 3 months for?” I said, “I’m going to camp.” He hesitated for a while. I said, “They look after them, they’re fed and watered and really looked after,” and he said, “Oh, all right,” and I got this horse. And I fed the oats and everything into it and it got that frisky, because we had to

tie them up in a part away from the camp of a night time and you had to go and get your horse of a morning, first thing, and then you’d come down, water it and feed it before you had water or fed yourself. So this particular day I thought, “I can ride this horse down there bareback.” All you got was a halter and no reins or anything on so I fly on its back and then it takes off, doesn’t it? Gets down to where the water is and stops but I kept going, over its

head onto the ground on the other side. Fortunately, I didn’t even hurt myself. And you watered them and fed them and made sure they were groomed, you had to groom them all before you went up to your own mess and what have you. Then you went out on training and they always reckon the horse is easier to train than a man because that horse knew more about what it was supposed to do than I did after a week, and because they used to be all charges and things like that, “The Charge of the Light Brigade” type of

thing, you’re issued with sabres and they were always out the front, and they loved that, the horses, they absolutely loved it. Once you pull the sabre out of the scabbard they seemed to know it was on and they started jumping around and flipping around, carrying on because all this was going on, down along the beach. And by the way, we were the extras in [the feature film] Forty Thousand Horsemen.

Yeah, and we did, all around

St Leonard’s and all down along there at the beach, all these charges and what have you and, oh, the horses lapped it up. Now, when you went out on manoeuvres or anything like that there were four, in a section there are four horses and four troopers: well, three of them would dismount and the fourth one would look after the horses. He’d take the other three horses and they’d have to come back to a safe area, type of thing,

and these other three, they’d have a mock war or something like that out on the ground. And when that was over, the one who was looking after the horses had to bring them back for them to mount to come home, and that’s virtually what the training was all the time. We were there for 3 months. We did a little bit of foot training but not much, most of it was mounted, and there were all different types of jobs and ceremonial jobs and that type of thing. You’d come out in one big line and you’d just have to keep all your

horses in line and everything like that. As they said, “Horses are easier to train than men,” which they were, too. They knew exactly what to do all the time, no problems. Then we had a big march through Geelong, a big parade through Geelong because there were a lot of Light Horse down there at that particular time, and they all paraded through Geelong which was quite good.

It was, yes. We were just the extras, see, because that was all supposedly filmed or supposed to have happened in the Western Desert and they had to find suitable areas. I’m not sure whether it was Clifton Hills or Torquay where they, Torquay I think it might have been, because they had more sand dunes there than around Clifton Hills. That was quite good. You come up over the top of that and slide down the next side, and it was quite good. Of course, we reckoned it was good because we were film

stars. We reckoned it was all right.

Oh, it wasn’t long. It was only just, oh, it might have been an hour or so at the most, it wasn’t very long. It was interesting, though, quite interesting.

Yeah, the ‘big charge’ of the Light Brigade and all that, it was great, yeah. The horses loved it. They didn’t mind the sand either, but they liked the water because we used to have to take them into the, when we got down to the

beach you’d have to take them into the water. But no, they loved the water for some reason or other, I don’t know why, and they used to slop around in that.

Full-time, yes.

Well, most of the people that

were in port at that particular time, they were all 18, 19 year-olds by then and they’d all joined up and they got their permission to go, and they’d joined the AIF [Australian Imperial Forces] and they were overseas by the time I was in the Light Horse and things like that. And I thought, “Oh, I’m left behind here,” because at that particular stage, it looked as though it was going to be a bit of a picnic, you know. You get a bit of a uniform on and away you’d go, you’d get all this free travel and what have you, and there was nothing else involved in it. No-one else is going to shoot at you or anything

like that, but that was the main reason. And you just filled in that 3 months down there and you thought, “Something’s got to happen, surely.” And then we started again and you were home not very long, maybe a month you were home, and you had to go back for another 3 months in Geelong, that was at the Geelong Racecourse. And after a month or so there I thought, “This is enough, I’ll go front my father again and see what

happens.” As it happened, he signed the papers and I joined up then, and away we went from there.

Oh, they may have, but he never mentioned it, never mentioned it at all. Because I thought, after we joined the AIF and we were sent to Puckapunyal they straight away put me in the 60th

Reinforcements, and I thought, “There’s something a bit fishy here, to go straight into the first division that was formed, las though there’s got to be something fishy.” But I don’t know. I never ever heard.

Well, I was 18 when I joined the Light Horse and that was in 1940.

No, no, no. No, that was in the First

World War. They went over there and I don’t think they came back. If they came back they would have been quarantined for x amount of time, but I don’t think the horses came back. What did go over stayed there, I think, and what horses they didn’t have they must have got over there, I think, as remounts and what have you. But the remounts they had down here, they were a pretty wild mob of horses. Lots of them were just broken, and that was all.

That’s when I thought, “I’ve got to get one that’s broken.”

Yes. That was another 3-month camp. But whilst we were there they had the recruitment drive and they were going around all the militia camps and what have you to get what they could, get

as many as they could, and that was that. We decided, “Well, this is it, we’ve got to do something about it,” which we did, Cecil and I. They got a few there, not very many but they got a few. Most of the Light Horse people, particularly around our area, they were farmers and they still had their commitments and they just couldn’t walk away from their farms and what have you, so I know most of the elderly ones, I’d say they were

elderly then, they owned farms and they couldn’t be away for any length of time really, so they had to make sure they could get back all right, no problems.

Why, why, why? I suppose

it was just the, not the thrill of it, just another.... I don’t know. Everybody else joined and said, “Why not you?” I think that was the general opinion, because most of the fellows that I knocked about with, they joined, and I said, “They’re away, why can’t I? Come on, get into it, get with it.” I suppose it was just some sort of fantasy or something like that.

Adventure, that would probably be what it would be, an adventure, yeah. Anyway, it was no adventure in the finish.

No, no no.

They were far off, yeah, that’s right. They were far off, yeah. It was only the Germans in the war then and at that particular time they were getting pushed back up through the Western Desert or what have you. And this particular fellow, this George Thomas, he was a particular

mate of mine, he used to write regularly to me and he told me what was going on. “They pushed the Germans out of there, pushed them out of Benghazi, pushed them out of Alexandria and way up the road there,” and I thought, “I’m missing it here, what am I missing out on, missing all the fun,” type of thing. So....

No, I don’t think it was patriotism at all really. It may have been a little bit, but I don’t really think so. I think it was more of an adventure. As you said, get out and see the world.

No, no, it never entered my head, never. I just always used to say that every

time I’d been overseas, King George paid for it. No, but it was I think just an adventure really. That’s what you were thinking, yeah. I think mainly because, too, you’d been in the Light Horse and you gauged that what you’d done there and what it would be like if you went overseas or something like that, it would just be fun and games, because it’s organised fun and games when you’re training.

You’ve got to knuckle down, but that’s all it is, really, fun and games when nobody’s shooting at you. Every time they shot you, it was only dummies, only blanks they use.

Were they?

Some of them were but not very many, not really. No, not really. There might have been, oh, just a sprinkling of them, not very many really.

They tried to get into the Second World War, most of them, because a lot of them were still young enough to go and a lot of them did. No, there weren’t many really, not very many.

Well, when we first joined we signed the papers in Geelong and then we were sent to Royal

Park. We spent a couple of nights there and they then just sent us all to Puckapunyal then. And as soon as you arrived at Puckapunyal you’d go on a general parade, all the newcomers and what have you, and then you’re allocated to certain units. Well, Cec and I, we were allocated to the 60th Cavalry Reinforcements and the first

thing they ask you: “Can you drive?” “Yes, I’ve got a license.” “Well, that’s your Bren gun carrier there, and you’ve got to go out on a course,” and you might have to drive up around Puckapunyal or something like that just as a test case. “Well, you’re all right. You can drive, then you’re right.” You get some intensive training then and you might have 6 or 7 fellows in your Bren gun carrier and you go out, and it was as much the same

as when you had the horses. One looks after the carrier board and the other 4 or 5 get out into position and they’d play soldiers again. That game went on for a little while and then the Armoured Division was being formed and they said, “Well you’ve been in carriers so long, you can go ahead to Headquarter Squad 1st Armoured Division,” and I said, “Oh, thank you very

much. What are they going to do?” And they said, “They’re training to go to the Middle East.” “Oh, that will do, that will do.” So Cec and I went to the Headquarters Squadron and we were under Major Cecil Ives. He was an English major and a real disciplinarian, and his idea of marching was a slow march. So we slow marched around Puckapunyal I think till we wore our boots out. And he said, “If you can slow march, you can do

anything,” so that was all right, which we did. We marched and we marched and we marched and then we marched again. And that was just as the Japanese came into the war then, or it wasn’t long after that, and they were forming another unit and they wanted volunteers for it. It was to be the 2/1st Reconnaissance Squadron with light tanks and to go to

Singapore. I thought, “Oh, that sounds all right,” so away we go to Singapore. So we get on that and we start to train a little bit for that and then we were sent down to Wilson’s Promontory. That was the “hush hush” camp at that particular time, that’s where they trained all the commandoes and everything like that. And we were down at Wilson’s Promontory and we trained in all the rugged coastline and everything there and how you could train and jump in the water and all that sort of

stuff. And then we come up to Pucka[punyal], back up to Pucka. We were down there for about a month or so, training amongst all this.

No, no, no. We were just on foot all this time, just to toughen us up, that was all it was for. And we come back to Puckapunyal, got our final leave, four days’ final leave, and back to Pucka on the fourth day. That’s when

Singapore fell. So they said, “Your trip to Singapore’s cancelled, you’re not going,” and I said, “That’s good, we’d probably be prisoners of war.” So they changed our name then from the 2/2nd Independent Tank Squadron to the 2/2nd Independent Reconnaissance Squadron. I said, “What happens to us now?” So with that they sent us up to northern

New South Wales up around Narrabri, and that’s when heaps of other armoured units congregated there because “Red Robbie” was up around there, Major [H.C.H.]Robinson, and he was organising the 1ST Armoured Division to go to Western Desert to combat [German Field Marshal Erwin] Rommel, so we trained and trained and trained and trained and trained till we were sick of training. We ended up the

most trained regiment in the Australian Army. And in October 1942 it would be, about mid-October, Red Robbie had the big meeting and he said, “The 1st Australian Armoured Division has been scrapped.” He said Rommel was finished, and he said, “There’s no place over in the Western Desert for us.”

So he said, “All will be sorted into different units. The 2/4th,” he said, “Oh, the 2/2nd will be B Squadron, the 2/4th, the 2/1st” – they were from New South Wales – “Independent Squadron, they’ll be C Squadron, D Squadron from the motor regiment, they’ll be A Squadron,” and I don’t know who, there was another

motor regiment or something, they went in for the 4th Squadron, for the 2/4th Armoured Regiment. From there we went up the back of Narrabri to Murgon and did more training up at Murgon, and we went from Murgon to Southport. From Southport, we did jungle training in Southport, and unarmed combat we did on the Southport Beach which drew a great crowd. They reckoned that was great to see us getting

thrown around all over the sand. And more jungle training and jungle training, and went up to Caboolture, no, not Caboolture, I just can’t think of the place where we did the training, the jungle training.

Canungra. We did all the jungle training there and you went through swamps and tanks went over the top of you and through all these barbed wires and things like that. It’s just

another real hazardous training factor. And then we stayed around Southport for a while, a little while, not long, and that’s when we embarked for New Guinea from there. Can we have a bit of a spell for a minute?

While I was at Southport, they used to run different

courses down in Puckapunyal and I was fortunate enough at one stage there, because Puckapunyal was only one hop, skip and a jump and I was home, and I did a diesel course there first up, that was a month’s course, and then I did another gunnery course, which was another month’s course, later on; and those courses were great, you know. You learnt all about the different weapons and what have you. And then when you came back, well,

you had to impart your knowledge on to the other fellows, which was good. No, I really enjoyed those.

What, the....?

Well, first of all, when I did the diesel course, they were Leyland

diesels would have been on the Tillys [Matilda tanks] and it was all on Leyland diesels. You know, the operation of how diesel works compared to petrol motors and all that sort of thing, and what was the maintenance on them and how you maintained those, and all that sort of stuff on those. And then you had to draw up, oh, for argument’s sake, you might have to draw up a differential with all the bearings, what have you, to make sure you that you were listening to all the

things that were being taught to you. And then you had to have an exam at the end of the month’s course and they’d set an exam paper and everything to that as to how diesel worked and the injectors and things like that, what an injector, how much power was in an injector and that type of stuff, and what revolutions you were supposed

to use a motor at and all that sort of stuff with the motors. And with the guns, well, they’d start off with a .303 and the velocity of a .303, then you’d go up to the 2-pounder and the effective range of the 2-pounder and what sort of shells you might use for different things like that. The same with your bezel, which was your other machine gun, the

velocity of that, the calibres of those.You had to know all these things if you were going to go and do the course, and what maintenance you had to do on guns; and particularly your stoppages, how you cleared the stoppage, and which was the safest procedure to go about clearing stoppages and things like that.

And armour-piercing bullets, what range they had and what was the velocity of them. How you could increase the velocity of a gun or decrease the velocity of a gun and what sort of grease you’d use and everything like this.

To increase the velocity,

see, you’ve got the recoil coming back and if you put a little metal thing in behind the recoil, it doesn’t come back as far when you’re boosting the velocity of it immediately. See, instead of shooting 500 rounds a minute, you might get up to 800 rounds a minute and I can’t remember now whether you could increase the velocity on your 2-pounders or not, but on your machine guns it was easy,

quite easy providing you had a good workshop who could make up a nice metal thing. You only wanted something about that size by about that, stuck in behind the recoil, and that stopped the recoil going back that far and [would] increase your velocity.

Well, apparently not. We’ve never ever done it, but

apparently it could be done. With our bezels in their tanks I think the velocity in that was about 600 a minute or something like that; well, you don’t want any more than that, that’s fast enough. 5 to 600 a minute – well, that’s belting it out, because you don’t belt that many out, that’s just the speed of one or two going out through there and they just work it out, “Well, if one comes out that fast then 500 come out in a minute.”

But it was all very interesting, really.

Well, they were the main ones. There was nothing on the pistols, on the velocity of pistols and Tommy guns and automatics. Well, there were Tommy guns, were Sten guns and Bren guns. And the Bren gun, well, that,

oh, I don’t know what the velocity of that was. That would be somewhere around 4 to 500 a minute, and they were a good gun. And the Owen gun, well, that was a little beauty, that was a ripper that one, the Owen gun, and we were all issued with .45’s, .38’s, a .38 Smith & Wesson, and never fired a shot in anger with them but they were all issued there ’cause there was no room in the tank, or

they reckoned they couldn’t handle anything bigger than that and to get into a tank as well. I liked those courses, they were interesting, they really were.

Where did I first? That would be up in Narrabri probably. We were on Grants [US tanks] then and

they were quite a bigger tank than the Tillys and they were quite faster too and they had a .75 millimetre, a .37 millimetre and a sub-machine gun… I can’t think of what size that was now. That had a crew of about 5, I think it was. With the Tilly, it had a 4 and they were quite good, but

they wouldn’t have been suited where we were, no way in the world. They were suited more in the flat country and the open country. They used a lot of them in Europe and those places which were lots more suitable, yeah.

Mm.

No. Well, I started off as a gunner

As soon as we went into the Armed Division I was then allocated to gunner, I don’t know why, but I did have a good reputation as a rifle shot, but that came out of the Light Horse, but whether that had anything to do with it, I don’t know. Being an old bushie, you shoot a rabbit on the run and all that sort of stuff and that may have held some weight, I don’t know.

I was always gunner.

Well, I didn’t know how I’d go. I thought, “You could be a bit claustrophobic there,” and once the door slammed behind you, you were limited in a little wee space about this size and you’re sitting in there. Particularly in the Grants, there’s 4 or 5 of you in there,

and when that big door slams behind you, you say, “Whoo, what have I got into here?” But after you’ve been around for a little while, it doesn’t seem to worry you in the claustrophobic part. It didn’t seem to worry me a great deal at all because you’re there, your mate’s right alongside you, you can touch him if you want to. You’re not there on your own!

I think it was a 5 man, I’m not

exactly sure on that, but what did we have? The turret gunner, there may have only been 4, 5, yeah, there’d have to be 5 ,and the driver. I can hardly remember, I haven’t been on them that long that I can’t remember what sort of a motor they had in them now either, to be honest. They had diesel motors.

And then they had another tank, a light tank which had a radial motor in it, and that only had a crew of 4. It’s gone now, it’s gone.

Yeah, it was Narrabri I feel, yeah.

It was Narrabri, it was in the Narrabri Town Hall where General Robinson had the meeting with all the OCs [officers commanding]of all the different units, what have you, and that was somewhere about the 18th or 20th or something like that. And then in another couple of days all the OCs of all the

units had their meeting and they decided what they were going to do with all their units and what have you, how they were going to allocate different units and what have you. That was round about October, about mid-October, I’d say, ’42, when all that happened. And then after that we went, where did we go after that? That many places I’ve been to. I’m trying to get them in their order. I think it might have been Murgon

after that, we still had droughts at Murgon.

B Squadron of the 2/4th. See, the 2/2nd Independent Squadron, that was the Victorian Squadron; well, they were B Squadron. And the 2/1st Independent, they were New South, they were C squadron. And then some motor regiment, they were made a

D Squadron. And then there had to be another one come in, probably another motor regiment came in to form the Headquarters Squadron.

The 2/4th Armoured Regiment.

That was A Squadron, B Squadron, C Squadron and Headquarters Squadron. They were the four squadrons

in the unit.

In the squadron? Ah, there’d be Headquarters Squadron, B Squadron, there’d be 16. 16, I think.

Yeah, roughly 16.

In B Squadron you had 6, 7, 8, 9, 10. That’s 20 in B Squadron, 20, 20 tanks and then that would be the same A, B and Headquarters. No, there was 6, I think it was 24, 24

tanks in a squadron, and then you had 4 crew per tank plus the spare crew.

No, just one for the squadron, yeah.

That would be whilst we were at Southport before we went away. Our family concreted in then and that was it.

There were no changes or anything apart from anybody falling sick or falling overboard or something like that. At one stage we changed drivers, I don’t know what happened, but we changed drivers, but I couldn’t find out. I even asked the troop commander at the last reunion. I said, “What happened to our driver?” He said, “We had another driver?” He was very vague. I said,

“Well, you should know, you were our troop leader.”

Yeah, our driver was Cass Pearson, our wireless operator was Doug Hopkins, the gunner was me and the crew commander was Middy Midson, Clive I think his name was,

Clive, we all called him ‘Middy’. Clive Midson. And we all had to be able to take each other’s spot at different times, you might have to change over. And a gunner had to do I think it was 10 words a minute in Morse, and the operator, well, he was the gunner loader and he had to load the guns and clear any stoppages or anything like that. That was his job.

And the driver, well, he was way down in the bowels. He was on his own, way down the bottom. And you all had intercom, you all had intercom with each other, you all had your headphones on and the mike [microphone] and you could speak to anybody you want, and we also had a mike out on the back of the tank for the infantry. They could contact anybody in the tank that they wanted, anybody at all. That was just

something that we came up with when we came to Bougainville. That was how we could get the infantry to be in contact with us. It was a simple reason, really. It was just a little wee box on the end of the thing with a mike in it and that was it. All you had to do was pick it up, push a button and you were in; and there were quite numerous times where the infantry would put you onto a target because you’ve got no hope of seeing what’s going on. You’ve got a little wee thing like that, a periscope to look out of,

you haven’t got much hope of picking up anything yourself. They used to put us on the target numerous times, which was quite good.

No, no, no. Oh, we trained once we got to Bougainville. We trained a bit there because we had all the infantry there. We had three battalions there, four battalions there, I think there were.

Four, three or four. The 57th, 58th and 25th. No, there were three there, three battalions, which all had to go through the procedures and what have you, and brighten up because they’d never been in tanks before and we had to brighten them and show them the procedures and what have you, which went off quite easily, no problems at all. They liked us, they loved us because they were getting a bit of a belting at times, as we did too at times.

Yeah, quite a lot.

Well, for instance you might be running a trench say along a track or something and you’ve got infantry either side of you and they’re sort of a spearhead, and they might see something

up there and they’d just pass the word back, “Warning, attack. We’ve got a land mine or something up there!” Well, BANG! They’d just punch on the back of the mike and say, “Land mine ahead. Just take care. We’ll check it out first,” and they’d move down a little bit and check it out and we could move in and they’d pinpoint where it was and you could open up and fire on that and explode that and away you’d go. The different things you know they

might say, “Well hang 5 till we clear....”

For jungle training we used to just meander down through jungle where infantry surrounded us or up at Canungra they had a course going through, and you’re on foot this time, most of the time we were while jungle training anyway. And you’d be armed with a sub-machine gun and there’d be an instructor behind you and all of a sudden thumping, this thing would jump up

in front of you and he’d be pulling levers and things behind you and you had to get off ‘X’ amount of rounds into this spot where this thing jumped up. It might have been a figure of a head or half a body or something like that, and they counted how many times you hit that body, or how many rounds you had to fire or what have you. And then other times you had to crawl through, under barbed wire through the jungle and things like that, and

through swampy sort of stuff. And they had tyres, you had to crawl through tyres, down through mud and slush and all that sort of stuff and down over logs and under logs and up over Scarborough buildings, you know, timber frames. You’d go up over the top of those and climb up landing nets, down on landing nets. And you’d cross over rivers on just

ordinary fencing wire, you’d walk on that with another one above you to hold onto. And then you’d be on a tower, fully clothed, tin hat, rifle, pack and everything on your back and jump into the river. You might go down about 10 feet or something, hit the bottom and then you’d come up and then you had to struggle out the best way you could onto the bank, and all those types of things where it was all, it all came.... And

group marches up some great hills, you’d walk up that side of them, but fully laden with packs and what have you. And you’d have an instructor alongside of you, urging you on, “Get into it, get in, come on. Get into it, move, move.” “Yeah, all right, all right,” and all those types of things, you know.

Oh yes, it was up in North Queensland, up in Canungra, Northern Queensland, and

they were just harassing you to get your blood to boil to see what you’re, what sort of a mood might come, whether you do your lolly with them or if you just take it in your stride and move on. But there was all this harassment all the time and half the time you’d be crossing over these logs over muddy streams or things like that and they’d throw half a stick of geli[gnite] alongside of you so that would explode and blow all over you and

all that sort of stuff, just as much to harass you as much as they could, just to see what your temperament was like, I think.

A bit short at times. There was only one time there I could have hit the instructor with a rifle. I was going to bash him over the head with that. I said, “One more time, pal, that’s all you need.” But by and all, if you stop to realise what they were doing, it was part of their

job and they had to get the best out of you or make you, train you to do the best you could under those circumstances just to see how you go, see how far they could push you. That’s what it would have been like.

No, those sort of things.... Well, the engineers

might build a pillbox or something like that and then we come along and there’s this pillbox and you’d have to destroy that by fire and just as firepower and things like that, things would pop up that they’d built and you’d have to destroy them.

Yeah, yeah. Just to show the firepower and how good you were, whether you were good enough to do it.

Well, they had been used in New Guinea, that’s the light tanks, and that was the 2/6th did that early in the piece and they up to a point were successful, but then they didn’t carry enough ammunition, they had to pull out to reload with ammunition and what have you. And this was the first time that a medium tank had been used in the jungle, which was quite an eye-opener, too.

Some of the bomb positions we got were unbelievable, it was unreal.

No. I’ve got a photo there of a land mine, when a tank ran over a land mine, which at one stage I think they were using 500lb bombs as land mines, and then they were using the 75mm cannons, and in the end they were using

150mm cannons at point blank range. Fortunately we got most of those before they could be fired, but the 150 would have made quite a mess. I’ve got one there, a photo of one where the 150 hit a tank and it makes quite a mess because the armour was quite thick on them.

They were in Southport, then in Port Glenn. We boarded the ship in Brisbane and we sailed to Madang. Well, that was a safe area at that particular time and we just made a camp there and we just

trained a bit more, and training and training, that’s all we knew.

I knew you were going to ask that. No, I can’t think of it offhand, but I’ll get it for you before you go.

Yeah, quite well because there were lots of things that we had to do to try, because sailing on a ship with a whole lot of fellows is monotony, that’s the biggest problem, the monotony, and we

had to try and do something. Well, we played cards quite a little bit and then anything which you’ve done prior to the war, well, I was in the stages of doing a bit of eucalyptus, how to void the gum from eucalyptus, and how to do that. Well that filled in an hour just to explain all about the eucalyptus and what have you, and another fellow did something else. There were

two fellows, one little fellow and a professional wrestler, the wrestler was about 6’ 3,” and this other fellow was about 5’ nothing, and they used to put on exhibition wrestles, these two. And of course, in the end, it’s all put on, even with the full-time wrestling, and it just looked as though this little fellow had picked the other bloke up and threw him over the top of the ropes, and then he’d be in the corner and,

“Don’t touch me, don’t touch me, don’t touch me,” and all this sort of stuff. That went down beautifully, you know, because they were on quite a lot and all that sort of stuff, that broke the monotony quite a lot.

Well, we had a little boiler, only a small boiler type of thing with a solidifier under that and it had the gum leaves in that, and then out

the top it had where the steam come, you had to start to boil it till it steamed, and you come down into another little thing with pipes all around. And as the steam come down it ran around all these pipes and what have you, and it had another tap on the bottom and it ran out there, pure eucalyptus, which is very, very strong, and we only did it as a hobby type of thing. And of course....

It was

the oil, the eucalyptus oil, yeah.

Oh, mucked around with it because I felt it smelt of eucalyptus but I felt there had to be something else mixed with it to get the proper eucalyptus smell. But it was quite oily and eucalyptus come out of the gum leaves just the same as they normally do, and just out of steam, and that condensed into liquid once the steam went through and that was it.

No, no, no. I couldn’t carry it because it was pretty – oh, what could you say? – put together haphazardly, type of thing. It was a drum about that size about that and I had a cooler one down the other side. And I just explained what it was like and everything like that, and that filled in another hour because once you started saying something you get questions thrown at you, “Why didn’t you use this,

why couldn’t we have done something else with it?” you know, it all adds to the cause and the purpose.

Yes, all Australian troops. Some went to Nauru, which is a little island right on the, what do you call the, it’s on the tip of

my tongue. It doesn’t matter. Right on the edge of the equator, that’s what I’m after, the equator. Right on the equator, it was, and the Australian troops had taken over from the Americans there, and we had, I don’t know what battalion they were but they were to go in there to relieve the troops that were on the island. And then they’d go off for maybe a month

or 6 weeks or something like that, or they might even go home forever. And we landed there. Some of them went ashore because there was a shortage of barges and that sort of thing and not everybody could go ashore. We were there for 6 days all up and we had Christmas on board, Christmas dinner on board which was nice. And then the storm came up and we had to go out to sea, and then the fellows on shore saw the ship going and they thought, “God, they’ve left us.” But we came back after a couple of days. Because they reckon it’s easier

to handle a ship at sea where a storm is than one that’s in port, they’ve got more room to manoeuvre around. So that was all interesting. And then from there we went to Bougainville and we had to clamber down over, this was where our training came to the fore because we had to go down over the cargo nets to get off the ship and you’d look down there, “Don’t look down,”

as you just climb down those cargo nets. There’s no problem really. And then we went ashore, and where we took over from the Americans there, the Americans were taking over, well, we took over from them.

No, that was at Bougainville. At Madang, well, it was all right there. It was a funny thing, when we got to Madang the first thing I saw, because there was a wharf

there, you know the old Women’s Weekly with pages this wide, double pages, there was a native on the wharf rolling a cigarette out of this Women’s Weekly and he got a cigarette this long and I thought, “God, how’s he going to put that in?” Well, he put that in his mouth and lit it and that was the first thing I could see, I remember about Madang. From there we were transported to a coconut plantation,

which we made camp in there for quite a while and did more training with the infantry there and all around the place and in and out. And, as I said, we used to build all the pillboxes and destroy them just to show our firepower and what have you.

No, that was all unloaded by I don’t know who really, but that was all unloaded. And then,

not long after that, C Squadron went to Aitape and they got a tank loaded onto a boat to go to Aitape and they loaded from Madang and went to Aitape, and it wasn’t long after that that we went to Bougainville.

Just about, yeah. They were.

Well, the Americans under [General Douglas] McArthur, he wasn’t held in very high regard at the best of times, he used to give the Australians all the dirty work and they used to just leapfrog. They’d take one island, just a little headland of it, that’s all they’d take, and then they’d hop onto the next one and take something, a little one there, and then they’d move onto the next one and then the Australians are supposed to come in behind them and clean them

all up. So this is what they quite often said, that that war at Bougainville was unnecessary, but I really don’t think it was. No, because all the native gardens were all taken over by the Japs and I don’t know how the natives lived because they were very good gardeners, although some of their places looked a bit ratto but they grew a lot of their

food. And when the Japs took all that over, well, I don’t know how they survived, really. Whether the Japs gave them any food or not I don’t know. Then one little fellow, I don’t know whether this was on Rabaul, it may have been on Rabaul I think later on, a little tike only that high and he’d been hit with a Japanese sword and he was cut from his shoulder blade to his waist, the whole cut mark, and I thought, “You rotten sods, you!”

But no, lots of things you saw that they’d done. Sorry, I’m a bit throaty.

No, not a great deal.

Not really, no. All that we were really told, I think – from memory, because it’s a long while ago now, it gets a bit hard to recall it all – but there were lots of rivers and they weren’t particularly deep but they were very fast-flowing, which we found, too. I’ll show you after where we had to waterproof the tents to get down through rivers about 4 feet deep, everything’s underwater bar

the turret of the tank. The driver’s under water and you had to waterproof all those so as no water could get in around them and what have you. And all the engine had to be waterproofed, which was quite an effort you know, before you could get across the river.

Well, do you want me to go now or later on?

Well, we always had, for some reason or another, we accumulated quite a lot of

canvas, and the motors were at the back of the tent with louvres, and we’d lift the louvre up, put the tarp over there, close the louvres and put grease, just ordinary axle grease, all the way around the edges of that, around the edge of the turret, around where the driver’s hood came down, all around that, under the exhaust pipes and turn them up in the air so that they weren’t under the water, and then hit the water

and hopefully we got it all sealed up and then you just drive under with normal power. The tank would be underwater but it would still be able to drive once your exhaust pipes are above the water, they can still go. And you drive up the other side and then you have to take all that tarp and grease and everything off and turn your exhaust pipe down again and away you’d go from there, yeah.

Only the driver.

I’ll show you, I’ve got them all on tape, I didn’t tape them, in the photo there. The driver would be inside the tank and the rest of the crew would be on the back because we put concrete mesh, you know that steel mesh that they use in concreting? We had that cut to measure for all the louvres and we put that on there over the top of the louvres so that any magnetic mines or anything like that that might be thrown will not be attached to the motor. If they did, they weren’t going to hurt

anything, they just hurt this mesh that was there. And then the infantry woke up to that in the finish, they said, “Oh, you’ve got plenty of room over there, we’ll put all our gear on there,” so in the end we were carrying heaps of gear on the back, stacks of it, you know. And then we put the tarp over, the tarp we had we threw over the top of their gear to save them carrying it.

Anywhere, anywhere at all. You see,

whenever we moved down, we took a position or something like that, well, you’d camp there that night and the infantry were the same. The gear would be with us so they’d get it when they pulled up for the night. We worked well together, we worked as a team. We got on well with the infantry and they did with us too.

Well, first of all, and in my case at any rate, there was 3 or 4 Americans on the beach where we landed and they said, “Where did you come from?” We said, “Oh, we come from New Guinea.” “Don’t give me that load of crap. There were no Australians ever in New Guinea.” I said, “Yeah, well, that’s where we came from, pal.” And then they had everything that opened and shut in there, the Yanks. It was unbelievable! They had picture theatres, they had ice cream

machines, they had brothels, you name it they had it. And we just moved through and we threw up a couple of tents or something and that’s where we camped. We weren’t interested in their brothels or anything like that. And ice creams, that went down all right. Then there was an air force base about from here to the corner away from us and they were New Zealanders and they’d have picture shows there every

night, so we’d wander over there and have a look at their pictures. This went on for about a month, I suppose, until we got acclimatised to that area and did more training with the infantry and what have you. And then the infantry were going up and down from Torokina [Bougainville], where we landed, and they were going up and down from Torokina, that was their rest area there, then a different lot of infantry to come back for

a rest area. We get them interested in detention, show them what could be done, what couldn’t be done and how they were to keep out of the way and how they could help us and we could help them, and then after about a month we were loaded on tank transport barges. They carry about, I think, 3 or 4 tanks and then of course we had to do more

waterproofing again. To get on them was all right, there was no problem because they’d come right up to the beach and there’s only about so much water and you just drove straight on. But getting off was a different story altogether, you had to go through about 5 feet of water, so they all had to be waterproofed again to drop them off, and got off the barge onto dry land and took all the waterproofing off again, and then we’d just get that off and we’d get down the road about a

mile or so and we’d strike our first river, didn’t we? So on again it went. And I think we lost 2 tanks in there. They were only just temporary. The water got in somewhere and they had to be pulled out with bulldozers and they were left behind, and 4 of us went on down the road further to the 25th Battalion, and they were in diabolical trouble, they were. A couple of sections of them had gone

out and they’d been cut off and hadn’t heard of and nobody heard of them, couldn’t find them by air or anything. So they decided to send 2 tanks down with infantry support to see if they could find them, which they did. They were down to their last ammo [ammunition], their last round of ammo, and I think from memory it was about the sixth attack they’d had that day when the tanks arrived. When the tanks arrived they didn’t know where

to shoot first because there was virtually nothing there, because the Japs were all hidden in the jungle. So the infantry put them onto approximately where the Japs were and they opened up and that cleared them off. Then, I believe – now, this is supposed to be gospel, that they were down to their last ammo and they only had about an ‘X’ amount of people left – and their lieutenant came out and he said, “Don’t move those tanks,” he said, “My teeth want to kiss them.”

Oh, I wasn’t in it. The two tanks that went, I wasn’t in that lot. They just went down to see if they could find these troops that had been cut off. They found them and they got them out. And prior to that there was a troop train coming down behind them which was ambushed, and one of our fellows, the

workshop fellow I think he was, he was severely wounded and he just hid in the bush and the Japs missed him for some reason or other. Well, when these fellows were coming back – the troops that had been rescued and a couple of tanks – this fellow could see what was going to happen so he jumped out and he said, “Don’t go! You’ll walk into an ambush!” And of course the Japs saw him and shot him, didn’t they? He was severely wounded. And at any rate,

they dispersed, the Japs that were there, and they camped there the night. It was a very traumatic night, I believe. And then the next day they came on back to headquarters and they had all the deceased soldiers with them, and I was one of the poor unlucky ones that was on the burial party. Of course I knew them all and that was hard.

Because we’d trained with them for

so long and as soon as you saw them you knew them again. And, well, that was traumatic. And we finally got them all buried and then we settled down and the next morning, it would be just before daylight, we were shelled and the next minute there were mortars going everywhere and then the noise started. The Japs started screaming and yelling and whistle blowing because they’d come to attack us

then at the headquarters. But we have all, once you’re in a position you get all barbed wire put all around you and they couldn’t get in unless they broke the wire, and they’d get right up to the wire three times and they were pushed back. And then the boss of the infantry had an idea: “We’ll send 2 tanks out there, out around that, you fellows can’t get hurt much, and I’ll send some infantry with you as a bodyguard type of thing.” And he said, “Just shoot up into the

jungle.” He said, “Try and clear some of the jungle away,” which we did, and you couldn’t see anything to fire at. All you had to do was just fire and blast all the jungle away and when that all got cleared away, well, they were all shown, you see, and they got up to run and the infantry were up on a bit of a rise and they saw them all there and they thought, “Oh, this is us. A rabbit shoot,” and they were just standing up just firing at them, you know, as they were trying to get away. Well, I think there

were over 300 or something that got killed in that day, just in that.… But the noise in the morning was frightening, I tell you. Anybody who says they weren’t frightened, they’re liars. Frightening!

Well, just the ones, we never lost anyone in that attack at all. That one on the headquarters? No, not a soul, but I’m not sure of the

exact number in that lot that were cut off, but there was a hell of a lot of them that were wounded. They were down to about 5 shots each or something left, that’s all they had left. But I just don’t know how many really were killed.

Oh, we got the wounded out when it was all done. All the wounded got out and everything like that, but

there were some traumatic parts, though.

No, no, never. That’s why they caught the Japs by surprise too, because they’d never seen them and never ever thought of them being there and they wondered what they’d struck when they first struck them. That was a godsend for us because I’ve got a

couple of fellows, there’s one from the 57th 60th just around here, one from the 58th 59th up around the corner a bit, and he says, “God, you fellows saved us thousands of men,” just when we come in. Sorry I broke up then.

I’d never talk

about it.

I’d never talk about it, it just blew out and bubbled over.

Yeah, I’m all right now, I’m all right.

No, no Japanese within 30 or 40 miles, I’d say.

First action.

Ever.

You got a bit frightened, I don’t care who they are, I don’t care, and if anybody said they’re not they’re telling fibs because you’re petrified. Absolutely. Well, you just imagine a thousand, they reckon there was 1000

Japs attacked our headquarters that morning, and imagine the noise they’d make. And of course they are all yelling and screaming and blowing whistles and blowing trumpets and God only knows what they’re not doing. And before all that you get shelled with anything up to 100 shells and mortar bombs going off all around you, and if anybody’s not frightened of that, well, I’d like to see them, I really would. They’re a lot braver than me.

That’s right.

Pretty good, I felt it was pretty good because they were pretty realistic in the training, you know, pretty realistic, and I think they shaped up pretty well. Once we got onto Madang and Bougainville, see, it was about a month before we went into action really, and we got all the things that could happen,

which did happen, and they painted a pretty true picture of it I felt, which was good, very good.

Yeah. Well, early in the piece we did. Going back there I can hardly remember. You have bayonet training and all that sort of stuff and you’re stuffing bayonets into straw bodies and things

like that, but I suppose you never think that could happen, but it could have, quite easily. We never got into any hand-to-hand or anything like that, although some of the infantry did, they did, yeah. Quite often they did.

That was when they attacked our headquarters. That was the first,

the first fair dinkum one. We’d been shelled a few times but you just take that as a matter of course now, or you did then, it was just a matter of course. But once all that noise and everything else started and bullets whistling over your head, well, you just don’t know.

Not at that time, no. We were on the ground then, yeah, we were on the ground. But when we went out later on to clear all the undergrowth,

I was in the tank then, so....

Yeah.

In anger, yeah, the first time.

Well, when we got the order to move out, you see, they said, “Well, you and you are going.” They pointed to 2 tanks. “You 2 tanks with an infantry escort.” “All right.” So off we’d go. And in the tanks the crew commander, he is in control of everything, and he puts you on the target. You’ve only got a little periscope like that which revolves around with your gun site mounted

up in it and they’re calibrated, your guns are calibrated before you go out to say 20, 30 or 40 yards, whichever you decide it’s going to be. Or the crew commander or whoever’s in charge who decides, “Well, your gun’s calibrated at 30 metres.” You do that before you go out and how you do that is on the front of your cannon, which is 2lb, about that size,

you’ve got 2 lines like that, which are 2 crosswires down like that. And then you take the bridge out, which is where the shell goes in down the other end, and you look through that onto what your target is, say 50 yards away, whatever you’ve nominated as a target. And you get that crosswire dead centre on that and that calibrates onto your periscope, and that’s right there, your guns are

all locked into position. They’re just stationary, they can’t be moved. You’ve got to wind them up or down to get your calibration properly and once you’ve got those calibrated you can put your bridge back and you know when you fire a shot the maximum range that will be is 50 metres or 30 metres or whatever. So that’s what you’ve done prior to going out. And then on this side you’ve got a pistol grip which goes

around like that, and you’ve got 2 toggle switches. One’s for your cannon and one’s for your machine gun. And if you turn it like that, around like that, well, that rotates the turret, that to the right, back that way, come back the other way. So before you get into action then you unlock your guns and you’ve got a bar that comes down and comes over your shoulder if you hold it up on that, and then you jiggle

that up and down, whichever you want. You rely on the crew commander because he puts you onto the target. He might say, “Traverse right,” and you’ll traverse right, and he’ll say, “Hold it,” and you hold it there. He’ll say, “Fire half a belt of machine gun,” or the bezel, as we called it, “the bezel,” or “Two rounds of 2-pounder,” or whatever, you see. And the wireless operator, he’s the loader.

He loads the guns which we’ve got to, we’re all on intercom, he hears the commands first up. Then he loads whatever the crew commander tells you to load and then you say, “Right?” and then you say, “Well, fire,” and you’d fire whatever he’s commanded. And then you’d wait for the next order, what to fire, or if he says, “Fire indiscriminately until you’ve finished a belt,” you just keep firing and wait for the next

order. But it all works to, it’s got to work like clockwork. See, there’s 4 of you in there and it’s just got to work like a well-oiled machine. If one doesn’t pull his weight or something like that, the whole kybosh is finished. You’ve got to work together which is where mateship comes into it, because you’re all, particularly your crew – you’re that close, you live together, you sleep together, you eat together, you fight together and

whatever you do together, you wash together if you wash and everything like that, so you’re just one little family. Does that answer your little question?

Yeah.

Well, normally in that

situation you’re not going to get a target 200 or 300 yards away, so if you calibrate it to say 30 to 40 metres you know that’s going to be well within your range, and that’s what you’d do in that situation. See, if you were in open country, you’d probably calibrate it to say 150 metres or something like that, which we did one day. We were camped at one spot and it was an old Japanese camp, and a good

200 metres away there was a pillbox and then that bugged me. I could see it sitting there and I said, “They could sneak up the other side of that and get in there,” so I said to our sergeant, “What’s say you go and see if you can get permission to blow that thing up?” And he said, “That’s a good idea,” he said, “I’ll go,” so away he went and he did. So we calibrated that at 150 metres, which was about 5 metres short, so we had to back off and

go up about another 10 metres, which was good, and a couple of shots, a couple of cannon shots and we blew it up, which I was a lot happier then because they could.... Once upon a time they did sneak in. This is going further on. You don’t want to hear it, you’ll want to get up to it first.

We’d been in a position and sometimes you’d get in a position and things will quieten off quite a lot and you just sit around,

relax or read or do anything. And when you do stop in a position, there’s always wire dropped from the aircraft, these coils of barbed wire which you run around you first, that’s the first job you do, run them right around the perimeter so as you more or less have got some protection before they get there. And when you get that around, you put out your booby traps, your tripwires about that far off the ground with grenades just on

them, you see. So we were sitting there, I was sitting there in the middle. I took the seat out of the tank to sit on because I didn’t want to sit on the ground and I had an injury fellow sitting on this side and one sitting here and I was reading Superman. They were waiting for the book to finish, you see. And a Jap snuck in the back of us and he got this fellow on the right of me, this fellow on the left of me and I got just a little bit of a nick down the finger and that was it, although we don’t know how many there were, but there was a burst

of machine gun fire and I suppose they thought, “Well, that’s the tank crew there, we’ll get them.” So they got 2 of them. They didn’t kill them, but one fellow got shot through the mouth, which was pretty nasty. Another fellow got one in the shoulder but they got one on either side of me and missed me.

No, inside it because we’re going down the Buin Road and that’s the only track. I’ll show you the Buin Road directly, if they can call it a road.

And so they had a gateway on the safe side where we came from and that side blocked off, but they came through the gateway, didn’t they, in through the wire, and they set up their gun just up the road a bit and let fire at us 3, and as soon as they’ve fired they must have cleared off again because no one ever saw them. Never saw them or got them. Got in and got out, got away.

No, no.

Just us 3, yeah. Just us 3.

Well, things were quiet, we’d probably got in that position the day before and seeing things weren’t moving, there was no activity anywhere. You’d strike that lots of times – oh, not lots of times, but quite often. No, the activity’s going on all the time but then it would just quieten off as though everybody

just said, “Oh, we’ll have the weekend off,” type of thing, you know, and nothing happens for maybe a day or maybe a day or two. This was one of the occasions, see, and nothing had happened for a while so we were just sitting there waiting for it to happen, no problem at all.

Well, I flew into the tank first up because we always had a bit of an escape hatch.

Lots of....

In a situation like that, where things are very quiet and what have you and you’ve been in position for a little while, we used to dig a hole almost the size of the tank, about that deep, and we’d back the tank over the top of that and then we’d sleep under there of a night when things were quiet. And this particular day…. Oh, getting away, underneath the driver’s seat

there’s an escape hatch about so big, so I’d taken the seat out and I’d dropped the escape hatch. So when this happened, that these fellows opened fire, so I shot in underneath, in through the escape hatch and up into the turret to the guns and then spun it around, and I couldn’t see a soul, couldn’t see a thing. I thought, “If I could see somebody, perhaps I can get somebody,” but not a soul to be seen anywhere. But that’s what we used to do when things were a bit quiet,

particularly of a night time, you got in early in the night or early afternoon or something like that. We’d dig a great hole under the tank and backed it over it and then the 4 of us would sleep in underneath that, and then the infantry would park in behind us. Occasionally you’d see one or two of them come in underneath to our little cubby hole. And one particular night, we’d been shelled. Normally you’d back it in, you’d get shelled every night, every night at tea time, round about 5 o’clock they’d open up on you,

and this shell hit the tank. We heard it hit and smelt all the smoke and everything of it but none of us were hurt so we never moved, never moved till daylight and then we got out, and it had hit right on the track and broken the track. It smashed it to smithereens, so all we had to do was repair that track in the morning and we were mobile again. But had we not been underneath and sleeping alongside there might have been casualties or something. But this is what we could

do periodically.

Oh well, they were escorted back. See, you’ve got a medical team with you all the time, an RAP which they call it (Regimental Aid Post), well they go there and then they’re sent back to the hospital and there’s a hospital back in Torokina, way back in Torokina. They get first aid first up, before they’re moved

anywhere, and then they’re taken into a safe posi[tion] first and then they’re checked for wounds and what have you, and then they’re sent back.

No, they were contacted immediately. I don’t know who did it but I was nowhere to be found, but that’s what happened then, they were contacted and their wounds are treated

there and then and if there’s no RAP there, you’ve all got a first aid kit. It’s got the bandage, the big bandage on it, the big.… I forget what they call it, in the first aid kit, I forget what it was. At any rate, it’s quite a big wadding. Then a bandage too, so they can get first aid treatment if there’s nobody there. Normally there’s somebody there pretty lively though, once anybody’s been hurt.

Buin, you passed that but I’ll show you the Buin Road, what you’re…. See, that was the only place we could really go with any safety without getting bogged. Once you left that, oh well, you might have seen a couple of those up like that,

once you get off that road that’s what it’s like, a quagmire. Although one particular day, we went about 5 or 6 mile inland off the Buin Road and come back up around and come back onto the Buin Road again and, just as an outflanking sort of a movement, and we got through without getting bogged that way, it was good solid ground. But the Japs had a lot of things hidden

over there, there were huts and goodness knows what, and all huts were all booby trapped and things like that. You weren’t even game to go in, not that I got out, we never got out because we didn’t reckon we should get out with the infantry there to do all the prodding and poking, and so we stayed put.

Yeah, every night. Every

night you could back it in. I saw one poor fellow, he went to pieces worse than I did there today. It was teatime. You could back it in every night at teatime and you’d be shelled. And this poor fellow, he was only a young fellow too because we were real old buggers, we were about 20 then, 21, and he really went to pieces because he reckoned they were after him, solely after him. “They’re going to get me, they’ve got me, they’ll get me,”

and no matter what we did we couldn’t just quieten him down at all. And finally a couple of his mates come around and they took him away somewhere where he could quieten down, I don’t know, but it was sad to see him really, because he reckoned they were after him. They were going to get him that night, whether he stayed there or didn’t stay there, he was gone.

Not like that,

because you couldn’t see much. I saw one infantry fellow, he was shot and I saw him through the little wee periscope. It was about that big by about that wide and I just happened to be around that side and I saw him go like that, and the next minute I saw a bit of his head go, he’d been shot in the head and he just collapsed in a heap. Well, that’s the only one that I’ve really seen get shot. Seen a few after they’ve been shot but this fellow had

just, it just happened as I was looking at him. Not a pretty sight, no, not pretty at all.

About 4 months, I suppose, a good 4 months.

Yeah, we were in action nearly all the time we were there. We pulled back once. I think it was,

I think we were supposed to be back for I don’t know how long, but it didn’t seem any time and we were back in action again. I thought we must have come back and gone straight back in again but it was more than that I’m sure. But one other time, though, I mean this must have been when we were out, when we pulled back, it must have been. Another friend of mine, Freddy Walker, he lives in Adelaide, I said to him one day, I said, “We’ll go fishing, us two.” And he said, “Fishing?” He said, “Where are you going fishing?” I said, “River down

there, a beautiful river,” and he said, “What are you going to use for bait?” I said, “We’ll get some hand grenades,” I said, “That’ll be good bait,” so we scrounged up a bit of a net of some description which we.… Most of the rivers we struck weren’t very wide, some of them were, some of them weren’t. This one was relatively narrow so we scrounged this net from somewhere and put that up and down the stream. So up we go, upstream we go blasting with these grenades, and we got one, beautiful

big, red, bright red fish. I said, “God, I don’t know if that will be poisonous.” And just then a native come along and he said to me, “What do you do?” I said, “Fish.” “That fellow no good for you fella, no good kai [food].” I said, “All right for you?” “Yeah, yeah.” I said, “You conned me. Here, have it.” But oh, we got some beautiful fish and fish about that size, a

bit like cod they were, and we took them back to camp to be cooked. We must have been pulled out for this reason, I think, and then we got the job as “fishermen,” but the next day we ere back in action. And we didn’t last long as fishermen, but then when we stopped to think of how stupid we were.... You know, you were wandering up this river, you don’t know who’s up there or what’s around. All you’ve got is a haversack full of grenades, all you’re looking for is fish.

It was, beautiful, and up there for tea for the lot of us we had fresh fish, it was beaut.

Oh, I don’t know, to be honest. It’s a bit hard to imagine. I can remember this night this young fellow went to pieces. We’d had our main meal and we’d had sweets this night, which was peaches, sliced peaches.

And we never had cream. I’ll tell you a story about cream after. We always had this, it wasn’t condensed milk, it was a type of condensed milk, it is, but it’s a bit runny. We had these peaches and this cream or milk, which was beautiful. I can always remember that. What else we had I don’t know. And as I said, I don’t know how we went to the toilet, no idea. But this fellow, I was going to tell you about the peaches and cream, we had a Chinese cook, Roy

Fong, and he came up to see us, we must have stopped somewhere I think, and he came up to see us and we just started to get shelled. So Roy took off, dived into the first hole he’d seen and next minute he come up straight up like that. He said, “I’m going to face the Japs, there’s a bloody snake down in the hole there,” so he took off. But that night he brought us jam, scones and cream, would you believe, real cream.

Where he got them I have no idea and he wouldn’t tell us, but he came up and he fed us with scones, jam and cream. Just marvellous! See, these are the ones you think of. You don’t think of these other things.

Oh he must have. Yeah, he was a great cook and he used to look after us, but I can’t remember what he gave us.

Probably stirred something up with bully beef or something like that.

Who, Roy?

He was employed as a cook and he, that was the only time I’d ever seen him up front. But he brought it up one day, it was all in hot boxes, he brought up our tea,

and then I can remember him saying, “I’ve got a special treat for you boys.” “What is it, Roy?” “Scones, jam and cream.” “Oh, beautiful,” and just as he dropped it they started to shell, didn’t they? That’s when he dived in the hole. I can’t for the life of me think what he fed us. I know he used to do all sorts of funny things with bully beef, he’d make lots of different sorts of stuff with that.

He’d be back, quite a way back behind, and he’d come up in the jeep train. You see, the jeeps used to always travel in trains, about 4 or 5 of them together, and they called them a jeep train, and he came up with them probably because all our supplies and everything were dropped by air and for a while there it was just a rush to see who would get them. “Here he is, he’s

back, you snuck in the back way, did you?” No?

They were all air dropped, yeah. They were dropped in cylinders. They’d be about 7 or 8 foot high and be about this round, all supplies were dropped and it was a race there for a while. It was either the Japs, the natives or us who got them.

But in the end we used to have guards down there when the drop was about due and we made sure we got all our supplies.

Yeah, the zone. They used to have all zones where they used to drop them and the same as barbed wire or things like that, they’d just drop them in a zone and you’d go out and pick them up later on.

Yeah – well, he did this night. It was the only night I can remember him coming up, he’d probably send up one of his orderlies, I suppose.

No.

That’s what I said, I can’t recall meals. I can’t recall getting meals at night

time nor can I recall going to the toilet. I can’t. It must have happened, though.

That’s true. It must have happened ’cause you couldn’t hang on all day. Not all day.

The Salvos were there after the first attack on our headquarters, the Salvos came down. They were there that night and when we came out,

hot tea and bickies, they were just lined up along the road there. I said, “You little beauties!” It was the greatest cup of tea I’ve ever had, I think.

They were fantastic, they always are, always were and always will be, I think.

Mm.

No, no. They were infantrymen. They seen me reading Superman I think, so they must have wanted one. There was something else I was going to tell you there but I can’t think of it.

Another funny one there – oh, not funny really – we were being shelled and we just got into position and we’d been shelled and the native carriers were there, and of course you go racing through a hole, you’ve got to go racing through a hole first up, and of course these native boys alongside me, “Japanese soldier, Japanese soldier.” And they’re very coy and very shy type of people, and he drops his lap-lap, you see, so he could go harder.

I just stopped and laughed at him and said, “God,” and the next minute a shell drops alongside him and I said, “You gotta move, pal,” and he gets in the same hole as me. “Japanese, Japanese, Japanese bunyooga.” He hated the Japs as they were shelling him. A lot of funny stories, though.

A lot of funny stories happened.

I just can’t think of any at the moment, but there are.

What was that, sorry?

Not a great deal. They were very stand-offish, the natives from Solomon Islands. At one stage there, they imported them from New Guinea. I don’t know why, they reckoned they were Jap lovers or something, but I couldn’t have that, I couldn’t have that at

all. They were a lot blacker than the native, New Guinean natives. They were more a coppery colour and they were all over for the stretcher bearers and what have you, the New Guinea natives, and as you know, they were fantastic at that. They’d carry you anywhere and they wouldn’t move you any more than that. They’d get a Japanese.… Everyone’s out of step, then you wouldn’t dare

give a Japanese to a native to go back, take him back to headquarters because he wouldn’t get there, he’d try to escape. “He run, I finish. He run, I finish.” He’d “finish,” all right.

The natives would finish him, oh yeah. They hated them, yeah.

Oh yeah. They wouldn’t hesitate, no. They wouldn’t hesitate.

Yeah, we had one lot because the infantry, at this particular time before we got there, they got knocked off. I’ve got a photo of one lot coming up through there and I was going to tell you something else then too, never mind. They were good, they were good

stretcher bearers. They were fantastic, really. It’s gone.

Yeah, yeah. Something to do with down the Buin Road but I can’t remember what it was now.

Different days it was a bit quiet. There was one day there, it might have been, did I tell you we did that bypass all the way

round? Told you a little while ago. And my crew sergeant, my crew commander, he said to the operator, “Load a belt of armour-piercing,” and I thought, “God, what’s he found, armour-piercing?” and I said, “What’s up?” and he said, “We’ve got a sniper up a tree.” And he said, “We can’t find him, can’t get at him,” and he said, “I want you to have a go at him.” I said, “Oh yeah?” I said, “Where’s the tree?” He said, “Dead in front of us,”

so I dropped the gun down as far as it would go but I couldn’t reach. I was getting just below the leaf line and he said, “Well, belt that armour-piercing just where you can see it,” and I said, “Righto,” so I did that and I cut the top right off the tree and it was a tree about that round, I suppose it was. A lot of it was soft wood up there and you’d cut the tree just as though you’d gone through with a saw. Down would come the tree with sniper and all. He said, “Good, finish sniper.”

That was it and we had to continue on, but I never seen….

Oh, the infantry fixed him up and sent him packing, if he survived the fall.

It’s a wonder they couldn’t get him though with their guns and what have you, but he said, “No, they couldn’t find him.” And another time we were going just off the Buin Road and this fellow held us up for the best part of half a day, and the infantry couldn’t find him,

he was sniping from somewhere, and in the end they found him, the infantry found him and got him. He was in a hole about that round, just off the road, and when they come along he just dropped down and he had leaves and stuff through his hat, in his tin hat, and you couldn’t see a thing. They reckoned it was only a hole about 3 foot deep and he was in there, but he held us up for just on half a day, we just couldn’t get through.

Yeah, a lone gunman, that’s all it was, because you’ve seen the width of the road. It didn’t take much to hold us.

What, the length of the road?

Oh, I suppose the length we travelled, I suppose 10 or 15 miles. It would be a bit hard to say because lots of days you’d only move a couple or 300 yards and that would be it. You wouldn’t move far at all because we were

limited to a certain extent because you couldn’t get off the road very much. Lots of time there’s trees about 3 or 4 foot diameter around the base of them and you can’t nudge them out of the road, whereas a little sapling or things like that, well, you can push them aside, no worries. You’d get the big trees and you.… And then the poor old infantry, well, they don’t know what’s hiding behind the trees and things like that. Because it’s a bit hard at times just to say how far you did

travel or would travel or could travel.

No, the most that would be out would be 4 tanks out and then you might have a company of infantrymen, about 100 infantry fellows with those 4 tanks, that would be about all that would go out in one issue, pardon me,

and if the infantry went out on their own, they’d probably only go out in platoons or sections which would be about 20 men or something like that. You could poke your way through that scrub with only just a few people, but get a couple of hundred people and you’d make a bit of noise, step on branches and it would crack under foot. But the only patrolling we did wasn’t very.… This was at night,

just before dark, and you had to always patrol your perimeter. You’d go out through the barbed wire and you had to go right around the perimeter, rain, hail or shine you had to do it, right around and come in the other end. And one night particularly, getting out there, raining like fury all the time, most of the time, and then a big plop and I thought, “What was that?” I looked down and there’s a centipede that long by about that wide.

I had to get him off quick. That was about the only thing I saw that could bite you.

Yeah, particularly that time of night. See, it was just on dusk and you couldn’t see anything. That rain, you couldn’t see through it. And then I said something to one fellow one time, one of the infantry blokes was an old-timer, been through New Guinea and

everything, he said, “Well, you never want to worry about that at night.” I said, “Why?” He said, “Full moon at night is the day you’ve got to worry.” He said, “That’s the night they’re out,” he said, “a full moon, and I’ll be patrolling right, left and centre and if you can’t see,” he said, “well, they can’t see, so don’t worry about them.” And there’s a bit of sense in that too, but it never eased the situation much, though, really. He didn’t fool me.

Yeah, there was four of us that used to go out. They wouldn’t take any four from one tank. They’d split up for four different people because they reckon if anybody knocks the four of you off, years of training have gone down the drain. So there’s one out of each went. Where are we going with that one?

I have one particular friend. He and I have been friends since 1941 and we’re just like brothers, we are. For 62 years we’ve been friends. It’s been great, really terrific. We ring each other up at least a couple of times a week.

He was in the admin[istration] part of the unit and he got shifted out of admin into transport, and he used to be driving one of the jeeps in the finish. You used to see him quite often, he’d come up and we’d see him if the jeep train was coming through or something like that, because the

jeep trains used to come through with mail occasionally. You’d get mail every so often. But it was good, yeah.

Mainly from my family, that was all, mother, father or sisters. I never had a girlfriend then. All set to go, are we?

Yeah, well, we’d head

off down the Buin Road, the infantry would be on either side of us and if they, say for argument’s sake they’ve got their points out in front, they might be 20 yards or something in front of you. And they might strike something and they’d call up the rest of their buddies or infantry, whatever, and if it’s something they can’t handle immediately, they’d call us up and we’d go up through them and either help them or assist them or blast them out of the place or

something like that. And then if you, lots of little creeks and waddies and things you’d come to, lots of times they’ve got great steep banks or something and you’d probably have to call in the bulldozer or something just to knock a bit off the bank so you can get up. See, the tank can climb up a fair sort of a bank, but not if it’s perpendicular or whatever you like, and then the infantry would stand guard while the

bulldozer was making a crossing for you. And then we’d cross over first to make sure it was all right for the infantry to get across, and if there was anything in the road we’d blast that out of the road and they’d follow up behind us. It was one protecting the other all the way. And once they had that microphone on the back of the tank, well, they could contact anybody. Say they might want a gunner or a driver or someone to go

further down the gully to get over, there might be a track down there: “If you go right down there for 20 feet or 20 yards or something, there is a good crossing there,” and just working in together all the time.

No, no, no.

The bulldozers, they came from the workshops. See, we had workshops attached with us all the time. They were back within say half to three-quarters of a mile

I suppose, back down the track, and they were fully-qualified electricians, mechanics, you name it they were there, and if you got into bother, well, lots of times there a bulldozer broke down and he’d put his blade up in front to protect the fellow that was working on the ’dozer as a protection for him. You see, all the shots were coming from the front, and he said, “While that’s up there,” he said, “they can hit the front and they’re not going to do any damage,” which helped the

fellow working on the motor. But it’s all together. It was the same as with any unit though, I think, they’ve all got to pull together, one looks after the other. It’s the same with your mates, one guards your back all the time.

I’d say roughly, yes, roughly it’s the same thing, yeah.

Of course the infantry looked after us. If they could see something that was going to endanger a tank or something like that they’d let us know and if we saw something that was going to endanger them then we’d let them know. “You watch my back, I’ll watch yours.”

Well, as I said there earlier, they were using 25mm cannons

on us point blank, 150mm point blank. Meanwhile an infantryman might spot that, whereas we wouldn’t till you were right on it. Lots of times you don’t spot them till they drop a bit of their camouflage away and you see this thumping great hole looking at you, so it’s either the quick or the dead then.

Well, they’d get back quick and lively by word of mouth. They’re not far apart, as you’ll see when you look through those photos there, they’re within touching distance most of them, and there was only a matter of seconds till we got a word back. Sometimes it got right up there in just a matter of seconds.

Yeah, right there.

There might be snipers or something that you’ve spotted and they haven’t, things like that, or something off the side there that could be a danger to them or any little thing like that, you’d give a big yell.

Dark.

Well, as I said, if it was a dark night you had no worries. You got a moonlight night, you didn’t sleep and, if you didn’t have your hole under the tank, you slept in mud if you were game, if you were game to go to sleep. There’s the air conditioner just cut in so it won’t be long and you’ll be a bit cooler. Does that alter your

thing, does it?

It rained a lot, yeah, rained a lot, and then it started to rain then. No, it did, there was quite a lot of rain. There were a few fine days, too, we had quite a few fine days, but quite a lot of rain.

Yeah, well, if you had time to dig your hole underneath there, you’d crawl in there, and instead of putting the ground sheet under you, you’d put it over you to keep the water off. But we weren’t game really to dig much of a hole in the wet weather there ’cause you’d find things might sink and you’d be under there. You’d be squashed in the morning, wouldn’t you? But it

was only when we struck decent soil and if it was dry and things like that, you could safely dig a hole underneath there and crawl in underneath. But we always took that driver’s seat out plus the escape hatch. You know, the little

escape route out the back or an inter-route whatever you like to call it, if you’ve got to get out in a hurry, you’ve got two ways you can go, in through the tank or out through the back. But it was quite a good idea, really, I don’t know who come up with it but it was a good idea really.

Well, you just slept behind it. Put that in front of you and hope that will be enough, enough to cover anything coming in.

The shelling was the most frightening part I think because the big 150’s, we always reckon they come in and instead of going like that, they come this way. You could hear them WHOO! WHOO! WHOO! WHOO! and then RUFFF! you could count them coming but the other ones, the 75’s, they were a “whizz-bang.” You’d hear them leave the gun and the next minute they’re alongside you. It was only a matter of seconds and they

seemed to get to you. That’s why we called them a “whizz-bang.”

No, you didn’t hear them at all, you didn’t hear them, but you heard the 150’s coming because they’re a big shell about that round, about that long and when they come, they come! At one stage, when we’d gone back for this fishing trip that I told you [about], while that was on we were into luxury, we were sleeping on

stretchers, and our own artillery pulled up alongside us and they had 150mm’s which they were firing at the Japs, and every time they fired, you’d come that far up off that bed. The noise they made when they went off was fantastic! Unbelievable! I don’t know how the poor gunners ever stood it really. There was a flash about 10 foot long when it come out the barrel.

Stretchers? That was

when they sent us back for a spell and I thought it was only a day but it must have been more than a day to give us stretchers and a tent.

I don’t know, to be honest. Back quite a long way, it must have been, because everything was nice and quiet and the tents and camps and things around you, so it must have been quiet because when you’re up a bit closer to them there’s no tents or anything like that. So

you just slept where you could.

You couldn’t do anything because you couldn’t have lights, you couldn’t have lights at night so you couldn’t do anything. You just hoped you could go to sleep. The slightest little noise woke you up and you were always thinking the worst. And then, when we were in camp and we were there for quite a while, we used to

get out and do guard duty with the infantry, see, because we didn’t reckon it was right that they should do all the guard duty. They had slit trenches all the way along the knoll and we had an extra Bren gun in the tank which was an extra, so we took that out at night with them, and they were pleased with that, and they could have that all the time that we were there. So we used to do our guard duty. Four on and two off, which didn’t hurt us.

But then you started to see things. You were on guard duty of a night time and you’re looking out there, everything’s nice and quiet, you’re looking out there and you’re looking at a stump, say a stump of a tree. You’re looking at it then you look away and you look back at it and it had moved. “It couldn’t have moved.” And then you look at it again and you see an arm come out of it. “Oh, come off it. Shut your eyes and move around.” It was nothing,

though. It’s only up here. You’re thinking you’re seeing things but you’re not. It’s just all in your mind because you must be that keyed up, I think, that you think, “Well, there’s got to be somebody out there, and that’s how it is and that’s who I’m looking at,” but it’s not. It’s only a stump of a tree or something like that.

Yeah.

Yeah, when we were at Torrid Creek, just after we got there, one of our fellows was killed with a stray shot at night and they don’t know where the shot came from. Somewhere within the camp area. And he got shot and the bullet him in the neck. He was in bed asleep and it hit him in the neck and that was it, but they don’t know where the shot came from. That was the only occasion that I know of that

anybody was killed with friendly fire. Another time, though, there was one, two of our fellows killed and they’d stopped the night and the Japs opened up with their shells and one was a phosphorus shell. It hit the tank and burst all over these two fellows, the phosphorus and what have you. They used the phosphorus to sight us. You

know, they fired it and they’d get the phosphorus fumes to come, smoke to come up and that’s a sighter for them to put their guns onto that spot. Well, they got these two fellows and killed them with this phosphorus. It went all over the tank and it took a hell of a lot of cleaning to get that off and what have you, but that was an accident really because that would never happen again in a million years, probably.

But most times, a couple of.... Oh, one fellow was shot and he was our intelligence captain or lieutenant or something. That was early in the piece. He was taken to hospital and he died in hospital of multiple wounds or something he got. Apparently he was somewhere where he shouldn’t have been, yeah, he got shot down by Japs

or something.

Well, somewhere he shouldn’t have been, and got shot. No, but he was apparently because these intelligence blokes that poke around all over the place, you don’t know where they’re going to pop up.

Yeah, fair enough.

Yeah.

The first part in the foreground, well, the camp was well set out. It had a lot of

buildings and what have you, and this is where they had the big Paddy’s market, you could buy or sell anything you like in there. And down one end of it was the big swy [two-up] game and the dice and any gambling you’d like to mention, like I told you with the big box with all the numbers on it, and then they’d let a rat out and they’d bet on which number he was going to go in, which hole, and all that sort of stuff. And then....

This was all the Yanks, the

Yanks had all this set up when we got there. The whole lot was, the whole box and dice was for the Yanks. Of course, that was their idea. They’d just take a little perimeter, I think it was only a matter of about 2 or 3 square miles, the Torokina area, and then down the other end of all these Paddy’s markets and what have you was the big ice cream factory and things like that, where they made buckets of ice cream. And after we were there, well, that sort of disappeared. I don’t know whether the Yanks took it home or what they did with it. And then

they had vast picture shows, big screens like the old screens we’d have, the outdoor ones, what have you. Then close by was the, I can’t think of the airport, it was an airport, the New Zealand airport, and they had pictures there nearly every night and we used to wander over there periodically too. And because the natives, I didn’t say this before, the natives weren’t allowed there, then every so often

the police boys, the native police boys would raid the place and pick up all the natives that were around the place. As soon as they heard them coming there’d be a scuffle and a ruckus and away they’d go, see. And all these outbuildings and then the main building was where all their admin was done, all the Yankee admin and things like that. Well, that all sort of disappeared, but I think our fellows took over virtually the admin part of it and the Paddy’s market kept going, and that was run by,

I have an idea that might have been run by the New Zealanders originally and then the Australians sort of got onto the gambling part of it because they love a gamble, and they ran all that part of it. And then further back, as you went further back up the hill a bit, there were rows of tanks and what have you where the Yanks all slept. Well, we took over the tents and put in bedding even and then we had stretchers. No, that was quite good.

Except one night we had a big earth tremor, I thought there was going to be an earthquake. You could hear, we put in a big kitchen there and they fed us remarkably well there, and all the pots and pans started to rattle in the kitchen as this earth tremor came through, but it didn’t eventuate to any more than that. Then we used to go a bit further out because early in the piece, I don’t know how true this is either, the infantry used to come back down there

for rest areas, and they had hoards of grog, sly grog, and which they used to hide out in the scrub and periodically they’d go out and get a great bundle of this booze, and then they’d carry on and carry on, you’d hear them coming from miles around. And I don’t know whether that fizzled out, whether the sly grog fizzled out, or whether the

powers to be got onto it and squashed it or what, but it quietened down there for a few weeks. And then we just started to move on then after that. The infantry was still coming backwards and forwards through there for rest periods, and we were loaded onto barges and shunted off down the coast to Toko and unloaded there and then started the Buin Trail, the Buin Road then from there on.

Yeah.

You name it, you could pick up anything. Watches or any electrical things – small things, not fridges or stereos or things like that – small wirelesses, although they were small in those times anyway, and watches by the bucketful and any small thing. Jewellery, heaps and heaps of

jewellery you could buy. Whether it was any good or not I don’t know, but I was never flash enough to buy any. And all that sort of stuff you know, all the little penny pinching stuff.

Hong Kong, I suppose, I don’t know. Probably the Yanks dropped it in there from somewhere although they’d have picked it up for nothing around their island, somewhere along the line, I don’t know where. It was fully laden when we got there so I suppose whoever took it over bought

the goods.

There was a brothel there yeah, that was stuck away in one corner, way down in one corner there and I don’t know what it was like. I never went anywhere near it.

Nothing really, nothing really. It was just an ordinary, plain-looking building and I think from memory it just had a sort of a

façade over the front with a little bit of painting and something in there. Nothing to advertise it. I don’t suppose it needed advertising. That was about all. There was nothing outstanding about it, really.

Yeah, well, when, I don’t know whether it was.... Yeah, it was our fellows: they picked up all the women and sent them back to Cairns immediately with a great hue and cry, I believe, they all got

shunted back to Australia. That was the end of the brothels, I should imagine.

No, no sign, nothing that I found or saw anywhere like that. But there was heaps of that around Korea and over there I believe, yeah. I never seen any sign of that, not around there, not of the Japanese, no,

not a thing.

The only place I saw them was when we first went to Royal Park, that was a national issue. Two, you were given two and that was it, no more, with the proviso “You go out tonight, wear two and don’t do it.”

So those were the strict instructions.

No, that was something we had to work out ourselves, we weren’t told. And when we went to Rabaul, there

were quite a lot of Chinese there and Koreans. They are very hard to tell when they’re side by side but I’ve forgotten now. One come down, the other went up. That was the easiest way. I forget which it was now because a lot of the Chinese were still living in the caves when we went to Rabaul. They were still there, they were frightened to come out with the Japs. It was a great stronghold for the Japanese there.

Well, the only place we really came in contact with a lot of them was at Slater’s Knoll. The other times there was only, oh,

there might have been 20, 30, 50, something like that, no more. But there were hordes of them there at Slater’s Knoll and they were there in great numbers, but they were the most ones. There were lots of little skirmishes we had but nothing big like that again. The other fellows may have, but in our particular area we never had any at all really, nothing to speak of, no.

They were caught by surprise plenty of times, but the only thing that I saw about them, they never felt for anybody else. If one got knocked down, they were straight over the top of him, they walked all over him to get somebody else up in the front line. And if he got knocked, well, someone else had to fill his place again. That seemed to

be their strategy all the way through. Keep up a solid attack all the way regardless of losses. It seemed to be their strategy, that’s what I felt, yeah. Even the little skirmishes, they’d be the same. They’d come up and keep coming and coming and coming, and you might think there’d be a couple of 100 there but in the end there’d be about 50. They seemed to be coming often. It was a bit hard to tell too in the thickness of the

scrub and what have you around there how many there really are, because one will bob up here and you just move another 20 yards away and they’d bob up again and you’d think, “God, there’s more of them over here,” because all the shrubbery was that thick, you couldn’t see your hand in front of you, half of it. It was pretty solid.

Pretty well all the way through unless we’d cleared it, which we did periodically. Cleared all the scrub, belt in a few rounds

around there and knocked the hills, particularly if it was low scrub you could do this. But then with these bigger trees, well, there was no hope of moving those at all because some of them were 3, 4 or 5 foot girths at the bottom of them and you’ve got no hope of moving them. They’ve got the great fins coming out like the big rubber trees and what have you.

Well, a lot of the crossings, the rivers were very narrow, lots of them and very fast-running, and then the others they were quite big like the Puriata River, that was quite wide and it wasn’t particularly deep. It was only about 4 feet deep at the outside. And the other ones, the fast-running ones,

well, with the rain they’d build up overnight. They’d be running at the bank at night and in the morning there’d be nothing left of them, they’d be gone, you know, they get away that quickly. And, well, that was our main areas of bathing was these little creeks and what have you, and it was the only time you could really have a good wash. If things were a bit quiet there then you could really strip off and get in one of these creeks and have a good wash, but apart from that, you had your bucketful, ah

your water bottle full of water per day for drinking and washing, what have you; otherwise, you manage to get a wash somewhere along the line.

I’d say about every 100 yards there’d be something like that, a creek of some description. And some of them, as I said there before at afternoon tea time, they had steep banks and

the bulldozer would have to come and knock a bit off the top for you to get through. But otherwise, you know, you could manage most of the banks, you’d get up about a 4 or 5 foot bank without a great deal of trouble. But once you go over that, well, you had to call in for reinforcements.

Mm.

Yeah, I’ll do that because I didn’t do that prior. On one side, I don’t know what river it was now, it might have been the Puriata, but there was almost a steep drop for maybe 40 or 50 feet, you know nobody’s going to get up there. And across the bottom side, well, we had plenty of barbed wire down on the left hand side, plenty of barbed wire and what have you. That was pretty well secure there. And then across the front, we had this

big knoll, a fairly big knoll it was, up about 10 or 15 feet I suppose, and went along about 30 or 40 yards either way. And across the front of that, well, from the river where we come across to the Buin Road and right across that, we filled in all that with barbed wire, right across the front of the whole knoll with barbed wire, and then out in front of that we put up our booby traps, which is wire, tripwire about

that high with grenades on those. Well, that gave us enough warning at any rate. Sometimes you had just a couple of tin cans or something like that, just enough to rattle it. And that particular night they came up through the tripwires, got through those. Whether they set them off or not I had no idea because there was that much noise. And they got up to the wires I think about 6 times before they were pushed back, and then that’s

when we went around the front and cleared all the undergrowth and what have you with the bezel fire, 2-pounder fire, and that left an open fire track then for the infantry up on the trenches and what have you, which [when] they stood up, as I said before, they just had a rabbit shoot. It was just open slather there for a while until it was all cleared up.

In most cases there, normally the crew commander, well, he has a bigger telescope than we

have which might be about so big, it was coming down that far and he can swivel his 360 degrees, all the way around, whereas on ours I’m limited to about 180 degrees and that’s it. He’d probably pick up anything like that, say, for argument’s sake, a sniper or enemy soldiers or something like that, where he might see skirmishing in the bush, and he’d lay me onto it. See, he normally finds the target

and he’ll say, “Traverse right 80 degrees, 90 degrees,” or something and you’d come around that far, and then I’d say, “20, 30 yards in front, dead ahead,” and then he’d say, “A burst of,” say, “20 rounds of automatic,” and that would be your machine gun. Well, around this side you had a pistol grip which you could traverse round,

that way traverse it right, that way traverse it left, and you had two toggle switches, either your 2-pounder or your machine gun, and he’d say, “Half a belt of the machine gun” or “your automatic.” You go down the bottom one and push that and say, “10 seconds,” and he’d say, “Hold,” and he’d have another look and then if there’s still more there, he’d put something else on and maybe the other half belt would go through or whatever

he thinks fit then. Then if the infantry picked it up too, well, they’d come through on the mike from the back of the tank and they’d be talking to him, talking to the whole crew, because once somebody gets on the mike the whole crew hears what’s going on. They might say, “You got them, move on to another mob 20 yards to the right,” or to the left or something like that and you’ll just wait for him to swivel around and pick them up and he’ll put you

onto the target again.

Yeah, on the intercom.

The whole crew, yeah, the whole crew plus, if the fellow picks up at the back, he also hears what’s going on and he can put his threepennyworth in too if he wants. If he thinks we’re not getting onto the right target he might say, “That’s not the one we want, there’s one further on,” or, “Further to the left,” or, “Further to the right,” which makes it a lot easier

all around then.

The crew commander, then, he lays you on the target. He puts you around because he’s listening to this fellow too, just the same, and as he’s speaking he’d be swinging his periscope around to where this fellow’s talking about and he should more or less immediately pick up what this fellow is talking about, which, if he does, he swings me onto it immediately.

And bang, that’s it. Because one fellow at one stage, one of the infantry fellows, he was trying to tell me what to do and I said, “Don’t tell me, tell my boss.” He said, “Turn it around the other way,” he said, “You’re going the wrong way,” and I go around to the right, “For Christ’s sake, do what I’m telling you.” I said, “Forget it, mate, talk to him.” I said, “I can’t take orders like that from you,” so he talks to my crew commander and he tells him what he wants. Well, I can’t do it because if you get haphazard shooting like

that you don’t know what you’re going to do. You could shoot innocent people or something like that.

He probably was but he barrelled me first up and I thought, “Well, I’m getting in to clear myself first, pal,” because I don’t want any repercussions over that.

Yeah, he’s getting a bit impatient. Well, you can imagine that too, he’s out in the open and probably his mate’s in danger or something. Well, you can imagine he’s getting a bit hot under the collar and he’s trying to do the right thing, but it gets bloody hot in there at times and you get a bit short too.

Oh, it’s all right because everybody realises and as soon as you’ve done it, you know you’ve done the wrong thing really and you should say, “Just ease up a minute, pal, and we’ll get that sorted out.” That would have been the right way to go about it. But if you’re a bit short, well, anything can come out first up and then you’re sorry for it afterwards. If I’d have known who it was I could have apologised to him later on but, as it turned out, I didn’t know who it was and I just was sorry within myself that I was a bit short with him, that was all.

Yeah, yeah.

No, we never struck that. He was pretty good and we worked together for a long while and were very closely-knit and things like that. Well, it never ever came up. It could possibly in some of them, some of them might be different. Because we were all pretty easy going in

our lot, the four of us. Well we were all fairly easygoing.

Oh you’ve got to be on your toes, you’ve got to be on your mettle all the time, that’s right, and that makes you a bit cross-eared at times too to be on your toes because the infantry fellows, they’ve got to be on their toes because their life depends on it. If they make a blue, it could be “goodnight Charlie”! That’s right.

It would be 8 hours, I suppose, yeah, round about that. It seemed about 16, 16 to 20, yeah.

Yeah.

Well, I don’t know. I can’t for the life of me

think how we did it, unless we had a bag with us. I don’t know, we might have had an extra water bottle, might have, I don’t know, could have. That would have been thought of, I should imagine, well before this time. Well, two or three people that I’ve asked, you know, the tank crews, “How did you go to the toilet?” “Got no idea, no idea.” So I feel there could have been a bottle of some description,

yeah, hopefully. It would have been swishing otherwise, wouldn’t it?

There would be, I should imagine. There would be a time where you could just open up and you might be able to get out one at a time. There could be a possibility of that. See, because you’re not in contact with the enemy all the time because there

are times through the day where you’re not in contact with them and there could possibly be the time when.... Because the only way to get out is through the top, through the turret, and the crew commander, he’d have to be out first, then the wireless operator, then me, then the poor old driver last. But I could imagine that, that would happen. I’ve never ever seen it because I can’t, not for the life of me,

[remember] how we ever went to the toilet.

Yeah.

Yes, if the country lent to it. See, if it was sloshy and muddy like that, you think, “Oh God, it might sink overnight,” but if the

ground was dry and no mud, not much water around the area, you’d dig it down about so deep till you had about that much clearance and you’d sleep under there. You’d take the driver’s seat out and the escape hatch was there, which was about that wide, and make a little tunnel at the back so you could get in or out and then you’ve got the two ways to escape, and you’re in, which was good.

It went down like a lead balloon for a start. Then they sort of snuck around there and they came in behind it, that gave them quite a lot of shelter, just in behind it. And then occasionally one would sneak down the little burrow behind us and we didn’t mind that one little bit. They took a dim view of it for a little while, which is understandable too, but we always tried to pull our weight by

at least one of us being out on sentry with them and that helped a lot too because they thought, “These blokes, they mean as though they’re going to try and help us a little bit, it’s not as though they want us to look after them.” But we were on strict instructions not to go out on patrol with them or anything like that because they reckoned we took too much training and they reckoned we couldn’t train another one in 5 minutes, type of thing. But, as I said, we had to do that

nightly patrol, round and round the perimeter. Every night that had to be done. Now, you’d get one night a week or something like that, that was still a bit hair-raising though because coming on dark you don’t know what’s around the corner. And, as that other fellow said, “Moonlight, that’s the night you’ve got to worry about. Not dark nights.”

Oh, moving stumps, I tell you. That’s true, that. Unbelievable! What you can get in your mind, if you look at that thing for long enough,

it will move.

Never shot at it, but the next relief to come on I said, “Watch that thing out there that it doesn’t move!” “I don’t think so, it doesn’t move.” They were right, they were keen, they were finished. That was frightening, I tell you.

I think when they shelled us at night,

particularly in the dark. I don’t know whether dark made any difference or not because you can’t see them coming, but it always seemed worse at night. And they’d shell you at tea time every night, say 5 o’clock or something like that. Well, we wouldn’t move. We’d just sit there and eat our meal and, whatever it was, if a shell lobbed near you, “What’s that?” “Nothing.” But night time, you’d jump immediately, particularly the big 150’s, you could hear them coming, and

you’d say, “Where’s this going to land? What’s it going to do now? Where is it?” and as it got closer the slower it seemed to get, WHOO! WHOO! WHOO! And, “Oh Jesus, it will drop any minute now.” Then it would drop and it wouldn’t explode. “Now, where did it drop?” They’re the frightening things, I think. That Slater’s and all, that was frightening because they were shelling and mortars and small arm fire all at the one time, that was frightening. As

I said before, if anyone wasn’t scared, they’re liars because I was petrified at times. You’ve got to be, I feel, I don’t feel I’m a sook, I’m not, but no, I was frightened at times. Not that I let anybody know, I don’t think, but if you let it.… As I said there before, there was one young fellow, he went to pieces one night just as we were being shelled, just at tea time, and he swore

black and blue that they were going to get him there and then that night, and nothing we could do to try and convince him, “He’s not going to get out, no one will get hurt around here,” you couldn’t convince him. And then a couple of his mates came and took him away somewhere. I don’t know what happened to the poor fellow but he was a cot case [insane], he really was.

Oh, that’s right,

you’ve got to.

No. No-one’s ever mentioned it, though I’m sure everybody was as frightened as I was at times, I’m sure of it. They weren’t human if they weren’t. But still, as long as you didn’t let anybody know you were, you were right.

Not a great deal because

we.... I’ve got to show you one that got blown up, the mine, I’ve got a little photo of it. Not much because, towards the end, before they started using land mines I think, I’m not exactly sure of this, they were 500 pound bombs which they used because they had the big artillery out there, the 75’s and 150mm. They had them at point blank range well, had they got them going properly. See, they were camouflaged, and then

by the time they took the camouflage off the barrel they were seen and everybody that had had a gun, well, they got in first and fixed them up. But if they’d have got onto them properly with the 150’s they would have made a mess of the tanks, there’s no two ways about it. But the land mines, we never thought of them really, not really, but they could have been a mess. But they didn’t use them because, as I said earlier, they

never thought of the tanks being in there. Because when they saw them first it was the biggest surprise they’d ever had, I think, because they had the little tanks in New Guinea early in the piece, the 2/6th, and – well, they were all right up to a point, but they never struck the boggy weather we had. And of course ours were a lot heavier, too, 30-odd tons, so a lot of weight on boggy ground.

I reckon they went very, very well. Very well indeed. We only, I think we might have lost two, that’s about all we lost all up, and we had tanks bogged quite a bit but we got them out of that, we either towed them out or the bulldozer towed them out or something. But no, they fared very well, very well indeed.

That might have been when Roy Fong came up with his scones and cream, you didn’t hear that one?

Just as he arrived they got shelled,

you got this? And of course Roy dived for the first hole he could see, straight in, you see, and the next minute, he’s straight up. He never touched the sides or anything. He said, “Bloody snake in there, you can have it. I’ll have the Japs, thanks!” And then that was it. The other one was when the native and I were running for the same hole and we’d

been shelled and we just got into this position, the native carriers had just come up and dropped their loads, and this bloke he started running off. And they were very shy and coy sort of people, and he’s halfway to this hole and he dropped his lap-lap, off it would come, and away he’d go. And then, “Japanese, Japanese soldiers, Japanese, Japanese, Japanese,” and then dived in a hole, and I was laughing my head off, you see, and I thought, “Oh God, get in before you get blasted in,” and that’s all you can think of when he got in there, the “Japanese soldier, Japanese

soldier,” oh, “Japan man,” that was it, “Japan man,” it wasn’t Japanese, “Japan man.” They were light, little light things that happened when you’re being shelled all the time. You’d have shells chasing you down the road and you don’t take much notice of them, really.

I don’t know, to be honest. I suppose you think to yourself, “Jesus, this can’t last much longer. I’ll have to get out soon.” I suppose those thoughts would be running through your mind. And I don’t think we had a little fan, a personal fan of

any description. Lots of times all you could smell was cordite from the exploding shells and what have you, and you just hope that you don’t get a blockage. “How the hell am I going to fix that? How’s he going to fix that?” Because just prior to one skirmish we had, when one of the fellows was clearing a stoppage, it exploded in his face. He had a great big bandage over his eye and I thought, “Jesus, that could happen to me too, no problem,” and then you think, “I wonder

if they’ve got any armour-piercing.” Oh, you shouldn’t think those stupid things. Because if an armour-piercing comes in, they go around and around inside until it runs out of steam. “Oh, don’t be stupid,” so there’s lots of these silly thoughts go through your mind, but I don’t know if there’s anything specific that you worry about.

Pardon?

No, no. The wireless operator

does that and in the case of this fellow that exploded, well, the wireless operator was busy and the crew commander did it and he copped the blast, he copped the blast in the eye. But the wireless operator, he’s the only one who hasn’t got a periscope, by the way, he’s the only one who can’t see what’s going on, and he’s got to load the guns and clear any stoppages.

Not in our crew but in Sergeant Royce Whatley’s there was. See, ’cause he lost his operator, I think it was, yeah, his operator because he had a stoppage and he pulled the gun out and a .75mm hit in the front of the tank and a piece of metal came through and hit Clarkey in the eye and he lost his eye. That’s when Royce had to change over and

do the loading job or something. I forget what he did now but he did do something, I know.

I don’t know what he did but he got Frank Clarke out and the tank behind him came up and gave him support whilst he got Frank Clarke out and then he took over a position, one of the positions in the tank, I think. It might have been

wireless operator, gunner or something like that, I forget now. But you hear these stories and know it doesn’t happen to you and they don’t sink in properly.

Oh, it’s a bit hard to say, you see so many things there, you can’t pinpoint one.

No, you’ve lost me for a minute.

Over and below the cause of….

Yeah. Well, I can’t think of anything, not

offhand. I’ll think of it going along, though.

There always was the sense that something was going to happen because there’d been a build-up of

something, and I don’t know what it was but there was that feeling that something big was going to happen and the war would be over in just a matter of days. That was the build-up, the build-up that we’d got and we thought, “That will be good, the war will be over and we’ll be home next week,” but

it just wasn’t to be and I don’t.… Because at that particular time, just as the bomb dropped, as I said there before, we were going down this way and the Japs were going back this way and we were a bit concerned that they might be in behind us before very long, and that was more worrying than if the war was going to be finished. Then, that particular time, they started dropping pamphlets down, the Japanese pamphlets,

you know, all the Japanese, to tell them to surrender, all in pidgin-English a lot of it, that if they see Australian troops they would be protected, they wouldn’t be hurt or anything like this. I thought, “Gee, I’d hate to be picked up by some of them because they wouldn’t take much notice of that,” but apart from that we were more worried about ourselves at the time than anything else, really.

Japanese and pidgin-English, yep.

That was mainly for the natives if they.... Of course, I haven’t got any left now, I’ve given them all away or I could have shown you some of them, ’cause if they’d have got any Japanese prisoners to bring them into the big white chief or what have you, like that, and they wouldn’t be hurt

or anything like this. And it just went on in pidgin-English, on and on and on, and it took about half a page to tell them in one line what they could have told them, but no, that was the gist of it, really.

The artillery or OP’s (Observation Posts), well, they were a breed unto themselves. You’d be right up through, you’d be getting plastered with something and then they’d come up, “What’s the worry?” “Well, we want an artillery barrage.” “Where do you want it?” “Say 50 yards up the….”

They’d get 45, 48 yards up the road, “Is this where you want it?” “Yeah, just in there,” and then they’d pull a barrage down and it would be exploding all around them and they’re sitting in this one spot all the time. And then our troop leader, he was the same because we always reckoned he was mad, and he ended up getting a military medal, that’s how mad he was, and he used to direct fire because he was on the ground all the time and

he reckons he was directing the tanks. And I don’t know what he was doing, but he’d get way out in front and he’d call up the artillery to put a barrage down and I guarantee it wouldn’t be any further than the end of that wall in front of him. He’d do that time and time and time again. I said, “My God, he’ll end up killing himself,” but you’d see him doing it nearly every day.

Oh, he’d be, might

be 200 yards in front. It could be that easily, yeah. I don’t know. He deserved more than the Military Cross I think. That was just his way, just his job. He reckoned it was his job, at any rate. He said, “I’m protecting you fellows doing that,” I thought, “Are you? I don’t know, mate.”

Not really. I suppose you get to know the outpost blokes a little bit but not greatly, not really, because you wouldn’t call them up that often. Because, you know, they’d put in their barrages and they know where the targets were, and if you got pinned down or something like that, well, you’d bring them in then just to try and ease the position a little bit, which

they did, too. And then the New Zealanders, they flew Corsairs. They had funny-looking shaped wings and they’d get down and they’d bomb parts and gun replacements or something like that and then they’d come back over, and they did a big roll to say they’d done it and away they’d go. And little Piper Cubs, they were out as observation planes, and they

were good, too. Of course you reckon you could shoot them down with a shanghai they were going that slow. The New Zealanders, they were good. They were terrific, they did a lot of bombing for us and made it a lot easier, too.

Well, the two

CO’s, there was Lieutenant Colonel Mills, who was the other one? He was from the 60th Cav I think it was, and the other one? He was from the 60th Cav too, I can’t think of his name now. And those two were. And there was one from Western Australia that I know of, a Western Australian. He’d been in the Middle East cause his brother was in our unit and his brother

claimed him. You could do that with brothers, you could claim one another. Yeah, that was all that I can remember. There’s three that had been in the Middle East.

No, no. They never

compared things, really. A bit like the rest of us, never talked about anything. That’s the most I’ve talked about it forever, I think. As I said there before, you try to forget the bad parts and you try to remember the good parts. Whether that happens or not, I don’t know, you try.

Pardon?

No, it doesn’t, but when I’m, as your friend will tell you, the day I went to pieces there for a little while just remembering things that have happened, you think, “It can still happen,” you know. You’re talking about it and it’s all just there, just coming out, coming out, coming out, and that’s why I think you try to push it right back all the time and you don’t try to talk about it.

Well, just as I said, because we felt that the Japs were coming in behind us and as we were going down we weren’t achieving anything at all. We were just pushing them out. They would go about 5 or 6 mile either side and then they’d come right back behind us and we’d be back to square one, what would we do then? They’d get all our admin places back there and workshops and things

like that, and we’d be left high and dry. That’s what we were thinking. Whether that was right or wrong I don’t know.

Well, I don’t think it could have gone on much longer, really, because we were getting to within, oh, what would I say? a stone’s throw, a bit further than that from Buin, which

was virtually the headquarters of the Japanese, and I think if we’d put on a decent sort of a push we could have got there in a couple of days and I think that would have finished them, I really do. I think it was getting horribly close. I didn’t know what the Japanese thought because I never heard any reports that a few prisoners had been taken or anything like that or what they thought about it, but

that’s what I really thought though, yeah. I thought it could have been finished early.

Well, it was sort of a funny feeling. You thought, “Is it over? Is this true or isn’t true? Is this more propaganda?” This is what went through your mind first, and I think it lingered there for a couple of

days until we more or less got a concrete report that it was for real. But early in the piece it just left a little bit of doubt there, yeah. You just started to wonder yourself how much longer you could put up with it because we’d been in constant touch with them for 4 to 5 months without a break. We had a little break, our tank, but not for long; and we were in contact with

them, within touching distance for the rest of the time that we were there, and we just didn’t know how long we could keep it up because you do get to a breaking point. All the shelling was the, that was the frightening part of it all, that shelling. It never used to worry me at times, but other times you’d think, “Jesus, here we go again,” and more and more, and then you start to shrink a bit lower and lower and lower, and then you’d think of that poor fellow who

cracked and you’d say, “I don’t want to be like him,” so you’d set it aside and put it behind you then. It is frightening, very frightening. Did Royce reckon it was frightening?

I reckon he would, because if I’d seen Royce take Frank Clarke out of that tank, well, he’d have been the one for the heroic deal,

indeed, but I didn’t see it, I only heard of it. That was pretty brave, really, because there was no guarantee that he wasn’t going to get knocked off when he poked his head out through the turret, and then he was sitting up there getting Frank out. He wouldn’t do it in 5 seconds. It was a brave effort.

Well, this is true, yeah, that’s right.

No, you don’t either, no, you don’t. You just think, “Can I help you? How am I going to help you?” Yeah, that’s right. And the old saying, “You watch my back and I’ll watch yours,” yeah, that’s what it all boils down to. That’s for sure.

I think so, I think it was there all the time, yeah. “We’ll watch out for you, Rob, we’ll watch out for you.” That’s right. Yeah.

Yeah, well, we were still shelled on the 15th, we were still shelled that day on the 15th, the day it was supposed to have finished, and that again bred a little bit of doubt: “Is it real or isn’t it?” And then you’d say, “They might not have heard yet, they mightn’t have heard. The lines of communication mightn’t be as good as what they should be.” But then it all just fizzled out. And then they started

pouring into Torokina, and that’s where the prisoner of war camp was, and they started to pour in there. Thousands of them came in.

That would take you the best part of 3 days, I’d say, because it was quite a way.

Toko. Yeah, well, Toko was quite a fair way down the coast and there was a sort of a, I don’t know whether they called it a road or not but it was sort of a track from Torokina to Toko but they didn’t think the track was good enough to put tanks on so that’s why we came down by barge and unloaded there in the sea, and that was it.

No, no. Well, that river, the Puriata River which we had to waterproof to get across on the way down with a flimsy-looking old bridge, when we got there and whilst we were away the engineers built a new bridge, it was a fantastic bridge, and we could drive across the bridge to come back. And I don’t know whether we must have, we didn’t go home by barge, we must have driven all the way to Torokina, we must have,

because we got up there and then another gap, I don’t know what happened.

Well, we saw a few when we got back to Torokina. There was a few of them that must have been around the areas before going into camp, but they, I don’t know how you could explain what they were,

they were a weatherbeaten lot, they looked to be, looked as though they’ve been through the mill, and their clothes weren’t.... Not that their clothes were any better than anybody else’s. They were in the jungle and they were ragged old things, lots of them, but their clothing didn’t seem particularly good. But no, they didn’t seem to be worried a great deal about it. I saw a bit of laughing and carrying-on going on. I think they were glad it was all over, too, really.

That’s what I thought, anyway.

Yeah, we got in and had a look at the camp. It was nothing startling. No, they were in camps with bedding and what have you and everybody seemed to be all right, and apparently they had their jobs and what to do. And they weren’t cowed, not by any means, and they were just wandering around all over the place and happy enough. I think they might have been happy to be out of all the skirmishing

and what have you, because they knew whilst they were there nothing was going to happen to them.

They were pretty well-treated. I never saw any that showed any signs of being skinny or anything like that. They all seemed to, all had plump faces and what have you, and they looked reasonably well. Yeah, we were there for just about half a day, I suppose, have a look around and what have you. Seemed all right.

No. You see, it was all on a points system there, the discharge, and I was single at the time and I never had many points up. And I forget what the points were, something around about 40 or 50 points or something you had to have to be discharged. So they said, “There’ll be a squadron going to

Rabaul for garrison duty,” and all the low-pointers would be heading the troops off, which we did. We headed off there and got to Rabaul, and the only thing that was standing when we got there, because that was bombed to pieces, the Yanks really bombed that, the only thing that was standing was the vault from the bank, that was the only thing that was standing. And

we went up, they had a camp set up because there’d been an advance guard gone in and set up a camp or tents and what have you set there, and that was the better part of the war there because we virtually did nothing at all and we just took over all their tanks, they had a lot of tanks there. We took over all their tanks and bedded down. And we had a house boy each who did our

washing for us and made our bed for us and did everything like this. And we were feeding more natives than we were troops early in the piece and they had to put a stop to that in the finish ’cause there were too many. We couldn’t keep up the supplies for them because they were all hungry, starving they were. They all used to flock in there, particularly breakfast time, meal time they’d flock there so they’d get a feed. Well, we’d get a feed for ourselves and one for them too, and they had to put a stop to that in the finish.

They were a bit thin, they were, because most of the places the Japs had taken over their gardens and things like that, which I think was their main source of food, the gardens, because they liked to have their big gardens. Then these house boys, they were good. I had to give them a cake of soap, 2 ounces of tobacco a week and they’d

wash my clothes, wash your shorts and your shirt and socks, what have you. Your bedding didn’t have sheets but your bed was made of a night and your clean clothes were laid out on a bed for you at night time. A mosquito net was put down and that was it. You paid your boy every week a cake of soup and 2 ounces of tobacco and he was happy, he was happy with that.

Japanese tanks, yeah. There was quite a few of them, there was quite a few, and it was interesting to see them too because they had amphibious tanks which they would drive through the water, what have you, and once they hit dry land they had jetters on the front and the back and away they went as a light tank, which was.... They looked good. I don’t know how they performed in the real thing but the medium tanks, we took them down to the sea and we tested their guns and what have you,

but they were quite good, their medium tanks. They had quite a lot of firepower.

We tried to grade them up with our Tillys to see how good they were, about the same as that. But I don’t think, oh, the maintenance might not have been as good, the maintenance didn’t seem to be quite as good as the Tillys, but that could have been maintenance, I don’t know. But the guns were quite good, they were

well-maintained and looked after and plenty of ammunition in the tanks. We tried them all out, yeah.

Yeah, the Chinese, a number of them were still in the caves. And they used to come out, “Me Chinese, me Chinese,” “Well, get over with that other fellow. You look like him, too.” No, you

could pick them quite easily in the finish, Chinese, Japanese or Koreans. They reckoned, I don’t know, we were never in the POW camps there, but they reckoned the Koreans were dynamite, they were cruel, they were real sadistic, the way they treated people and what have you. But we never ever got to them, we went past them a few times but we never got into them. Not that I wanted to, either. There were quite a lot of Japs on

Rabaul, around 30,000 around up there, and they had a lot of tunnels on all the hills around Rabaul, and all the artillery and searchlights and all that sort of stuff, they were out in daylight and they were pushed back.... The other way around: out in the dark, and pushed back in daylight out of sight, so no one knew they were

there. There was Tunnel Hill, there was one hill they called it. It was full of tunnels, yeah, unbelievable. They had a beautiful volcano there, too. We went up and had a look in it. That’s all under ash now, Rabaul, I believe.

All the Japanese, they’d

all surrendered by that time and they were all locked up virtually in POW camps. There were only these few Chinese that were still around the coastline, in caves and what have you, and they hadn’t known that the war was over, I don’t think. But everybody sorted themselves out in the finish. And we were there till just on Christmas time and we came home, and I think we had Christmas either in Cairns or Brisbane, I’m not sure

now, but one of the two.

Garrison duties, that’s what they termed it as, but I don’t know what we were garrisoning really because it was just a home away from home really. There was a little bit of work. Oh, we used to have working parties come in every day, Japanese working parties, and they’d line up in front of you and bow to you and all this garbage going on, you know. And

my job was to dig a well, my troop, my crew. So I got them down about 15 to 20 feet, I suppose. It would be about that round as you’re going down and they were breaking up stones and stuff too to put in the bottom as a filter, and in the end, I couldn’t get through to these Japanese down the bottom and I said, “For Christ’s sake, get out of my road, lower me down there.” I was halfway down and, “Jeez, they could drop me here couldn’t they?” But no, they lowered me down and pulled me back

up and everything was all right, I sorted out what I wanted. And we worked on that for about 3 weeks, I suppose, got it down to the depth we wanted and it started to fill with water. And one of our fellows he went back, oh, a few years back, it was 50 years since we left Rabaul, and he came up to me and he said, “Do you know your well’s still working?” I said, “No, is it?” He said, “Yes, the only difference is they’ve got an electric motor on it.” We just had one of those

windlass things on it, you know, originally. I thought, “That’s good to know, it still works after 50 years.”

Yeah, I think there were about 10 or 15 in there. They’d come in, there’d be about maybe 100 would come in every morning and their officers would line them up, just as though you were a major general or somebody or other, and you’d line them up for

inspection and you’d just look at them and say, “All right, never mind,” and then he’d come up and salute you and then he’d yell at some of them to get out. They were cruel on their troops, these officers; if they didn’t jump to it when he said, “Jump,” he’d give them a belt over their head with whatever he’s got in his hand. At any rate, you’d get your crew out and I’d set them to work and they’d be right. They reckon I must be a good boss because I didn’t work them very hard, but

they did their job, that was the main thing. Then they started to teach me Japanese at one stage and, “Oh, it’s too bloody hard for me, mate, too hard.”

Yeah. They had a battalion or more of marines and they were big fellows, you know, broad shoulders and big. God, I’d hate to tussle with them. They looked as though

they really would go, yeah. They reckoned their marines were pretty good. There was a few of them and they worked along with the rest of them, no problems. I don’t know whether they get marks for behaving themselves or not, but they were good.

Well, I started to do a correspondence course on diesels and

they built a recreation hut there and you could go over there and do your study and what have you. So they sent me these papers once a fortnight or once a week or something like that, and I’d go through all these papers and try and work things out properly, that filled in a lot of time. And then I played a bit of cards. We used to parade around the countryside a bit, because this Freddy Walker over in Adelaide,

he and I were out, he was the one that went fishing with me with a haversack full of grenades. We were walking around this day and we saw a great big bunch of bananas, almost ready they were, and I said to Freddy, “We’ll keep an eye on them, we’ll have them,” and about a week later we’d go over and they’re just ready, so we get a machete and chop the top off them and get these big bananas back to camp

as quick as we can in case somebody claims them. And when we got them back there, they said, “Gee, you’re game doing that. The natives will get you, they’d been watching that too, as long as you fellows.” I said, “Well, get into them, eat them up quick.” That was a big bunch of bananas. Then there was another fruit, I don’t know what it was, but you had to get in a bath to eat it, it was that juicy. It was about the size of a big pineapple and oh, about that round, but I can’t tell you what it tasted like. But, oh, it

was just that juicy. You’d cut a piece off the top and it would swim all down you. But all those little things, well.... A couple of the fellows bought a speedboat while they were in Torokina and they brought that over to Rabaul with them and they used to gallivant about with that down on the beach. We were right on the beach so that was good, and you had swimming down there every day if you wanted, and it was just a home away

from home for 3 months. Our leave and recreation. It was pretty good.

Oh yeah, we reckon we did, anyway.

Well, we often did. And there was only one other fellow, Cec Wayland, he was the only one that was with Cec Ives,

and we used to always reckon that he served us in good stead. He taught us discipline and how to behave and everything like this. We moaned about it while he was doing it but, when it was all said and done, we reckoned he’d done us a good turn, the pair of us. Because we never ever thought of getting into bother like a lot of them, they’d get away from a bit of discipline and that’s it, they’d just go berserk, but we never ever thought of

anything, doing anything apart from what we were supposed to do. We blamed all that on Cec Ives because he was a real disciplinarian, but he was good and he served us well, I feel.

We were in there from about the end of August till just before Christmas so that would be, what? August, September, October, November. About 4 months roughly, yeah.

You asked me the ship we come over on. The Kanimbla we went home on.

The Kanimbla, yeah, and I can’t think of the ship we went to Rabaul on nor the one we went to New Guinea on, but it was on, right there.

I beg your pardon?

Oh yeah, yeah.

Yeah, they knew, yeah.

Cairns was the first port of call, so whether we disembarked in Cairns or whether we came down to Brisbane, I’m not exactly sure. I know we either had Christmas Day in Cairns or Brisbane and then we were home a couple or 3 days later.

No, just glad to see me home, I think. No, there was nothing really. I don’t know why. A lot of people did, but I wasn’t that keen on it really. They had a big send-off when I went away, but I said, “That’ll do.” But it was good to be home. It took a long, long while to settle down, though, it did. A very long while. I don’t know [whether] it was because you were with

a mob of fellows all the time and you just missed that, or what it was. Very, very itchy feet for a long, long while; but I finally settled down.

I reckon it took the best part of 12 months to really settle because my father wanted me to go on the farm with him and I started off with that and, “I can’t stand this, I can’t stand the farm.” It was

too drab and nothing doing, just the same old mundane things all the time. And, “Oh no, enough of that.” And then a fellow rang me up one day and wanted to know if I wanted a job truck driving and I said, “That will be better than this, at least I’ll get out and see people.” I stayed with him for a couple or 3 years and then it ended up I bought him out, and he had two semi-trailers and

a little truck and a Shell petrol agency and I worked on that for quite a few years. And then I sold that and bought another truck and started carting interstate. Well, that was the worst thing I ever did because that was the black fellows’ game, that was, because you were away all the week, never home, never see your family. So I stuck at that for about 3 years and then I said, “This is no good to me,

no good at all.” So then I started just carting. Broadford had a big paper mill there and they used to make a lot of paper for cardboard boxes and things like that, and then I started carting from Broadford to Melbourne, Melbourne to Broadford. And then, when the kids got to school-leaving age, well, there was nothing in those small country towns for kids once they leave school so we decided to move

to Melbourne, which we did. And all the kids got good jobs, so we settled down and that’s how we ended up.

Mm.

No, I think it came really when I took that truck-driving job. I got out and I met people again. You saw people, not the same old people. Not that you’ve got anything

against your parents or anything like that, but you saw different people to talk different things, to discuss different things with them, and get about and see how the other half lived, and I think that was the turning point, really. I started to turn the corner and I thought, “Oh well, I’ve started to settle down now, get into business now,” which I think was the real turning point.

Oh, 6 months.

We were up in Bandiana, up in Belsen[a nickname for Bandiana Depot], and all you did up there was, that was a big army depot, sort of an ordinance depot, they had trucks and boxes and boxes and boxes of parts, spare parts and tools and things like that, and they were just stacked out in the open. You had to get a crane and load them on trucks

and bring them back into storage and itemise everything you’re bringing in, putting I.D. numbers on them and all this sort of stuff, you see, and that went on for 6 months. I got one lot of leave from there and then you couldn’t get any trains or anything out of there; so I hitchhiked back down to Broadford and got down there with one ride, which was good. And I was home for 4 weeks and

then went back to Bandiana again, more identifying and itemising tools and what have you. It was just a job, I suppose, but it was something to keep you out of mischief, that’s about all.

Not when I got up to Bandiana. That put the kybosh on everything. I think I could

have if I got over the initial thing of coming home and all that sort of insecurity, I suppose you’d put it. If I could have got over that quickly enough I might have given the army a lot of thought, I think, ’cause I could have made a career out of it quite easily, I’m sure, with the backing from Cec, because he gave you terrific backing if you liked to take notice of what he was saying all the time. And

he’d give you lectures and things like that on how to behave yourself, and all these lectures were really good. And I think I could have made a career out of the army quite easily if I’d only settled down a bit better, but never mind.

Well, he’d start off, he said, “Now, young fellows,” he said, “this is the first time you’ve been away from your parents,

isn’t it?” “Yes, sir.” “Well, what I want you to do is treat everybody as equals,” he said, “No-one’s any better than you are, but you treat them just as though they’re as good as you and you’ll find you’ll get a long way in life that way.” And he said, “Never ever ridicule anybody.” He said, “If they make a mistake, they’ll find out in the finish that they’ve made a mistake and they’ll mend their ways.

And always,” he said, “always, treat your parents as though they are your parents, not somebody else’s, just yours and nobody else’s, and treat them with respect all the time.” And that was sort of what he lectured all the way through. We were only young bucks when we went in there and, you know, if you like to take notice, because that was the basis of it and he went on and on and on

all through that, and if you liked to take notice of what he said, it was all just plain truth and nothing else and it was good. I used to sit up and lap it all up with good ol’ Cec. And then we connected with the 4th 19th Light Horse down here and he was something to do with them, and they had his statue when they had their thing down in North Fitzroy, they had the statue of Cec in there.

All in his full uniform and everything like this. “Oh Cec, Ives.” “Do you know him?” “Of course I know Cec Ives,” I said, “He was my mentor, he was good, he was terrific, one of the greater ones.”

Have we? All right.

Well, fire something at me, then.

No, that’s right. That forms your life, I feel. Because I took it on board because I was only a young buck back then, I’d be 19 I suppose at the most, and just to sit and listen to him, it was all good strong common sense he was trying to impart onto you. And if you took that on board, then you couldn’t go wrong.

That’s what I tried to live by and I’ve tried to teach my kids the same way, treat everybody as equal, there’s no one better than you, which is true, too, I think.

That’s right, yes.

I believe, and I firmly believe this, it was the comradeship, that was the number one thing. Now, they’d

stuck by me. And if I made any friends after the war, any good friends, well, they probably really were good friends. And, you know, you stuck by them through thick and thin and, as we said earlier, “I’ll watch your back, you watch mine;” and that carried right through and all the way through my civilian life. And that’s what I always think and always say, you’ve got to

have comradeship, you have to have it. You’ve got to have it. A bosom mate, well I’ve got one. I’ve known him for 61 years and we’re just like brothers, the pair of us. We treat each other the same as brothers and that’s the way he thinks, that’s the way I think. It’s been really good.

I feel so, yeah. I’m sure.

Yeah, because all the way through, it’s comradeship that’s all the way through, and it doesn’t matter where you go, you’ve struck it I bet in all the interviews you’ve done, it’s all been the same story, I bet, or 99% of it has: comradeship, you must have it. You’ve got to have it otherwise you’re down the gurgler.

I’d just like to thank the pair of you today for coming here because it’s opened up, opened me up a lot, because these things that I’ve said today, well, I’ve never said to anybody, even though I did blubber for you. But I’ve said lots of things today which I’ve recounted, all lots and lots of things which I never thought I’d ever remember again, and I thank you both.

It’s been great, it’s been really terrific for me, it really has. To tell you the truth, I wasn’t looking forward to it because I didn’t know what to expect, what it would be like. “What have I got to do, what have I got to answer?” When that lass rang me up the other week, she said, “It will be no more than 10 minutes,” and an hour later I get off the ’phone and, “Jeez, that’s a good 10 minutes!” Was it you that rang me up?

That’s all right, then.

No, she was nice. I forget her name but at any rate she was very nice, and she went through lots of things. Probably what you read today, she said she’d fax them all through and what have you, which was good. Well, I enjoyed it today, at any rate, you’ve opened up a new world for me.

Because I got up this morning and I wasn’t feeling particularly well, and I feel a million dollars tonight.