Australians at War Film Archive

I was born in North Perth in a private house in Grosvenor Road in 1917, 19th of October.

We lived in North Perth till I was three and then moved to Queen’s Crescent Mount Lawley by the Perth College girl’s school, which incidentally during quite a lot of the war was the corps headquarters here for the army in Western Australia.

Nice street, Lawley Crescent is the one above. I lived there for 7 years after the war too.

My mother kept house and my father was an accountant for Penfold’s Wines. He was with them for 45 years.

Well, mostly

port and scotch whiskey in the house. A little later on, when we start talking about after the war I’ll tell you about it because I joined Penfold’s myself and I had 25 years with the company.

Yes, I had a sister. 15 1/2 years younger than myself.

That’s quite a big gap.

Rather interesting at the moment because she’s just got engaged to be married at the age of 71 to a retired gentleman of 76. To be married in April. I’m sure they’re going to be well suited.

Very pleasant. Nice suburb. I went to the little kindergarten they had at

Perth College, which was a big two storey building on the corner of Queen’s Crescent and Beauford Street there. I was only there for a very short time. Later I went to Inglewood primary school in Second Avenue there. Had three years there.

I enjoyed the three years that I was there. I got on well with the teachers and

I was doing quite well there. The family decided, probably an old English custom because my father was English too, I went to Christchurch as a boarder, which after a term I talked them out of taking me away. Made a day boy. I wasn’t very happy there for the first 12 months, but the last couple of months I seemed to settle down reasonably well.

Quite a few of my friends had gone to the Perth High School, which is now Hale School. I went to Hale in 1929.

Reasonably so. My first night at boarding school was very good. They were having, in the dormitory we had beds on either side of the dormitory and a

pillow fight started down behind me. I sat up in bed and turned around to have a look to see what was going on there just as the house master poked his head in the doorway. Of course he picked this one, that one and me. Into his office there and bend over and two of his best [cane strokes] on my tail in pyjamas. That wasn’t a very pleasant

introduction to the school I can assure you. We settled down.

Pretty primitive by today’s standards because the dormitory was really built on a large veranda on the side of the building and completely closed in. We had beds on either side running down the dormitory. The bottom

end of the dormitory went out to the showers and toilets and it was very good as a gauntlet there for the boys to run down and get whacked on the tail as they went down. Used to get up to all sorts of pranks really there. We went to play football and cricket and overall it wasn’t too bad.

Yes, particularly when I went to Hale.

I left school in the intermediate, at the age of 16. I played football with the second eighteen and rowed with the second crew at the head of the river. Joined the cadet corps and rose to the exalted rank of corporal with two stripes. I had a very pleasant time at Hale.

Probably reading, writing and arithmetic. Up to the equivalent of what we termed 6th standard then.

Probably equivalent to 5th standard when I left and went to Hale. They messed my education around a little there. They bumped me up a class, which meant that I covered two classes in the one year. That set me back a little bit.

No,

but it was a bit of a battle just the same. Overall I enjoyed my last four years at Hale.

Saturdays, go and watch the rowing or occasionally go to a football match or

go to the pictures sometimes on a Saturday afternoon, which was pretty popular in those days. We had a team of friends. Some of the boys that were at school with me and in the same class at Lawley Crescent. We used to get together up there and I suppose we’d say muck about.

What sort of chores? As I was getting a little bit older I used to do a lot of help in the garden, helped my father mow the lawn and that sort of thing. He was very keen on his garden and particularly the lawns we had in Lawley Crescent there, cause we had them from the curb in the roadway right up to the back fence,

trees and so forth. Kept the dog. I had an aviary there for many years full of canaries and what have you. My father had built it. It was quite popular as a matter of fact for the boys in those days. I built my pigeon loft there. Pretty rough, made up with old pickets and wire netting.

Used to let the pigeons out, fly around and come back. We never got round to raising them, but they got something wrong with them and they all died and that was the end of keeping pigeons.

Yes, a large block of land. The house is still there. It’s under the national trust. It’s owned I believe by

the Perth College. We had a visit there a few years ago with my son-in-law and daughter and youngest grand daughter. It’s now an office. If you want to find out all about it there’s an office there. All the other houses around there on that side of the road have gone and Perth College, oh, there’s two still there in Bathurst Street. It was a

very nice house built next-door to us on the corner of Beauford Street and Queen’s Crescent, and the house behind that. The other houses have all gone. Perth College have their kindergarten up on the top there. I don’t know who’s going to want to know all about Mount Lawley and the streets there when they check up on all this.

[…] I’m still a member of the Mount Lawley sub branch of the RSL [Returned & Services League], but we can come to that later in the conversation.

Perhaps more so.

Particularly in Lawley Crescent. Some lovely homes there and mostly very successful business men, professional men, engineers and so on. We were all very friendly area. We got along well together there. Regent Street, the next street down, too. I feel it’s been spoiled to a large extent by blocks of

units being built around the place.

Yes, to a degree. My father’s salary was reduced during the Depression. At least he still had quite a good job and managed to keep me at a private school. I think things got a little strained after my sister came along and there was another

one to feed. Overall they were very comfortable. They sold the house during the war years and moved into a unit in Perth.

Not really. I think we got on pretty well. Most of the boys went to primary school before they went

to secondary schools. Anybody from private school went on to the government schools would go to Perth Boys. It was about the only government school for them to go to. The girls to Perth Girls’ School. Then once they got their junior, or intermediate as they call it these days,

if they got a scholarship they could go to Perth Modern School. If they didn’t get a scholarship completing their junior, or intermediate, they’d qualify them to go to Perth Modern School, which was on a par with the private schools and competed with sports and that type of thing.

I think they valued it to a degree. Had I been a bit brighter scholastically they may have made an effort to push me on a bit further. Having reached intermediate standards I went jackarooing up in the Yarragadee Station.

Yes.

Right down in the Crawley Baths there and qualified for a bronze medallion. I hadn't mentioned that. I used to swim in the school sports. Don’t think I got more than third place in school sports. Generally speaking I was considered a fairly strong swimmer.

They were the best baths we had in Perth anyway. There were smaller ones down at Claremont and Netherlands, but they were pretty large baths down there at Crawley. In those days we had a lot of algae in the river and they managed to keep it out of the baths pretty well. There was quite a bit used to float down on the beaches all round those areas.

It was quite good for swimming in those days. We weren't so fussy about the things as we are today.

Yes. Sometimes it’d be barred. Sometimes it would be very heavy down there and you could smell it down there and passed the Swan Brewery there.

Before I took on the rowing, with the cadets in the Perth Yacht Club down there, we used to have quite a bit of fun there. Once I started rowing I didn’t have time to go sailing.

I had a very good friend, Lloyd Bateman, Bateman’s are known here in the wholesale

and retail business, Lloyd and I were in the same class. His two elder brothers and father were members of the Royal Perth Yacht Club, so to make the crew, he invited me along. So I’d sail with the dinghies for a couple of years.

The cadet things. They were 12 foot, a gaff rig, if you know what a gaff rig is.

When you hoist the sail the wooden gaff goes up and down. They were ideal little boats to learn to sail in. One or two of the boys there, who had parents who could afford it, had dinghies made for them. They were much lighter and sailed much better than the old club boats. Still, it was quite an experience.

I think I got a lot of confidence for later life. At least if you went sailing for pleasure on one of the bigger boats, you sort of knew what to do and could take over the hold or take over the main lines and so on.

Yes. I couldn’t be involved in those, I think I was only 13 or 14 years of age.

Yes, we had plenty of races every Saturday on the river there. Much the same as they do today but not so many boats.

I don’t know really.

Mainly that this position became available. The Pierce family owned Yarragadee Station and Marlborough Station further north. They had a habit of getting boys from Hale to jackeroo. The Alderman Coleman took over as manager

of the station just before I went up there. (saloUNCLEAR) Mick Webster, and old Hayley was there before I arrived. And our gardener, Kim Bolton was a very keen cricketer one time in a government position. I don’t know what happened. He went up there and he looked after the garden and the WAS DOUBLE QUOTE CHOOK s and so forth.

Old Mr Nelson Pierce was very keen on his Rhode Island Reds and they had a lot of them up there. I used to do all sorts of jobs. Boundary riding, poisoning rabbits, when the gardener went away at Christmas, Frank did the milking for the family. It was an all round experience.

That’s interesting, because

as a boy I used to go down to relatives down at Crookener. Had a property down there. That’s a little township south of Yarloop, which was a better known town. I used to go down there and stay for most of my holidays and that’s where I learned to ride. It used to be interesting. We’d go into the pictures in Yarloop. I remember when their first child

was only a baby there, going in the horse and sulky, clippety-clop all the way interesting Yarloop. Three of us in the front. They were interesting days, holidays. I had a .22 rifle and I did shooting down there. So when I went up on the station later on there was just

no trouble to go parrot shooting and rabbits in what spare time we had.

Yes.

School cadets. They don’t have a school cadet corps now. They were very keen there to do the master’s

X military training. X officers in the militia prior to coming to the school. They set up the cadet corps. We used to do our drill, elementary training. The first camp I attended was down in Karrakatta camp on the hardboards down there, which was interesting because that was the last camp I was in after the war too.

Just before I left we had an NCOs [Non Commissioned Officer] course down in the garrison artillery barracks in Fremantle, which is now where the army museum is. We camped in the barracks overnight down there. I remember when we first arrived there, two of us strolled across the parade ground and suddenly there’s a huge voice of the sergeant major behind the guard house there, popping us there and telling us that

you don’t walk on a parade ground, you march on a parade ground. So we immediately put out our chests and marched across the parade ground. This is how you learn things in the beginning. We went through there and had an NCO’s exam down there. I qualified for my two stripes so I went down there.

Probably 13.

Yeah, about 13.

Quite.

Probably a liking for the army

because I was rather keen to become a soldier.

We had very nice khaki uniforms which Mum and Dad had to buy of course. Collar tie. We originally had white shirts and we had separate collars, in those days it was a khaki collar. That didn’t last long. I think in the second year

we got our khaki shirts. It was very smart. We wore khaki forage caps and our leggings, plain leggings and army boots. The cadet corps turned out very well

actually. The drill was good.

Learned to present arms and normal drill that recruits learn. How to march properly. Then we’d go down to the rifle range and they put in a miniature range behind the gymnasium at Hale there. We’d insert a tube down the barrel of the .303 and so you fired

22 rounds at the targets there. Then we’d go down to Karrakatta camp and Karrakatta rifle range. With the cadets it was only rifle shooting, we didn’t have any machineguns or Bren guns [light machine guns] then. That used to take quite a bit of time. We’d have a parade once a week and the odd weekend of going down

to the range.

Fall in, march around the parade ground, possibly have a lecture by one of the officers there. From memory that’s about all it consisted of really.

That’s going back a long while now.

Probably a little about Anzac [Australian and New Zealand Army Corps] Days and what soldiers do. Perhaps a little bit about bayonet training. I can't remember any more detail. Elementary training, drill mainly.

Not a great deal, no. Brings me back though, when I first went to kindergarten after the war my parents had bought me a pair of very nice dark brown boots. The boys picked on very quickly at kindergarten. They wanted, 6 and 7 year olds, German boots. I’m sure there

had been tears over the German boots. Horrible to think that I would want to wear German boots. Unfortunately my father had not been able to enlist. He had rheumatic fever three times in his youth and that affected the heart. He joined the North Perth Rifle Club there during the war years. The rest of the family, had a brother had been in

the Royal Navy and the younger one, Cecil, he was in the army and was badly beaten up during the war. My father, when he first came out from England, he lived in New South Wales for about 7 years before he came to Western Australia. He came with an uncle there, Uncle Frank.

They had two boys too, about the same ages. They were very keen. One went home and was commissioned in the British army and the other one, younger one, enlisted from here. He was commissioned in the field. Their sister married a keen army man who ended up full colonel later on. So it was quite a bit of army

there. Father used to talk about the war. Not a lot of detail really.

He’d tell me about little bits and pieces. He had books here on the war. I think it was Rainmaker cartoons,

all the terrible atrocities that the Germans carried out. I don’t think they carried out half of them, I think they made them look very bad there to get support I suppose, and more volunteers from Australia to go overseas. I can't remember too many details about that. We used to dress up as soldiers there. Going back to early days in Mount Lawley I can remember

up around Perth College there was a lot of vacant ground there. We had trenches there and used to make sand bombs and fight the enemy in the other trenches.

Play soldiers, yes. It was quite a pastime as little fellows.

Because of the First World War of course, yes.

There was at that time. They were the enemy we were fighting. Same as it was in the Second World War. I think most of the Australian and diggers, we had a certain respect for the average German, really, as we did at Anzac with the Turks.

They’d call off the war at Anzac there to pick up and bury the corpses and so on and our boys would toss over tins of bully beef and bring to the Turks on the lines opposite. Then somebody would poke their head up a bit too high and the fighting would start again.

It does, but there you are. Things have changed a bit of course, with the war here today.

Mingenew as we pronounced it then, when the army got up there they pronounced the G as Mingenew. The right pronunciation is Menanoo. It’s a very hot little town because of all the iron stone around there. The Yarragadee is a few miles out from the main township. Quite

an impressive property. They had a very nice big bungalow brick home there. When I went there I didn’t live in the house. They had a galvanised iron cottage not far from the house there. Sid Preston and Kim Bolton and Frank Dotty made the three of us there. It was fairly rough.

We had these iron bedsteads with horse hair mattresses. Rugs, blankets or rugs. For extra warmth we got wheat sacks hemmed together and made what we called a wagga.

You had to go over in place of an eiderdown or a bedspread.

We had to look after that. There was a bathroom attached to it there. Toilet facilities were very primitive. I think we can leave it at that. Then we’d go up to the house for our meals. They had a separate dining section at the back where we dined. Occasionally Colin Pierce

would come out and join us there. The old cook used to look after us very well with beautiful mutton chops that you never see today. The food was very good. I remember Mr Pierce making a Coolgardie safe with all her Coolgardie safes I guess with a hessian side and the water on the top and dripping down. This one they made a very good job of. A

large wooden one with fine wire netting and filled with charcoal. So the couple of us that had to go out and burn mostly jam wood to get nice charcoal to fill up this cooler. It’s amazing how much charcoal it took to fill it all around. Again there was water on the top of that with little taps under the water dripping into the charcoal.

On the back veranda there, where the breeze would come through and it was very successful in keeping everything cool cos we couldn’t get any ice out there. The days before refrigeration.

Held in place with the wire netting on either side of the wood.

That’s right, you get the cooling effect. Same effect as a Coolgardie safe.

Very good indeed. Because it’d hold about 4 or 5 times as much as the average Coolgardie safe.

Yeah. I could ride before I went up there. I wasn’t a cowboy or a show rider.

My sister was later on. At 71 she’s still got two horses. She’s a very keen horse woman. She probably got the idea of staying in the country down south from the fact that I’d been up on the station riding horses. After 8 1/2 months up there I came down with the idea of going into the army. You probably want to get onto that in a few minutes.

up at about 6 o'clock in the morning. Probably have breakfast round about half past seven. In the meantime you bring the cows in and watch the bull, they got a little Jersey bull. He wasn’t very, had to watch him pretty carefully. He was a little

savage actually. I remember racing up on the fence one day with the bull on the other side there. I didn’t feel the fence was particularly safe for the bull. But after I left, Ron Pierce left school and took over from me actually. He got caught and was badly gored by the same bull. Fortunately he survived it. Then I’d go down and give a hand

with the milking in the morning. Summertime sometimes you had to go out and get up the big windmill there and cure it if it was jammed, all the little jobs you could do. Get the horses out. Old Colin Pierce would tell us what was required and go boundary riding and repairing any of the fences that were broken down.

They had some beautiful stud sheep on the property and cattle and very fine horses. Sometimes the chap in charge of the stables, which were 400 or 500 yards away from the house, would go over there and

help feeding the horses. When the sheering was on, working in the sheering shed. A bit of a what you call a rouseabout. Cleaning up, sweeping up the wool. There’d be other times when they’d be clipping the sheep. It was quite a good experience in handling sheep, horses.

We used to go out clearing thistles, quite a few thistles on the property, with a short handled how. Just go along and chop off the thistle. One day I got the thistle I lifted up a brown snake about 3 or 4 feet in length, which I might add I just kept back and one whack and took its head right off with

the, there. Another day I had a big scare I was out in one of the big paddocks there, in the middle of the summertime too, making a tailor made cigarette at 16 years of age. I dropped the cigarette. I was down off my horse immediately. By the time I got the fire out that had started it must have been an area of about 6 feet in circumference. How I

got it out I just don’t know. Had it gone it would have been thousands of acres had gone up there. I didn’t tell them in the house. I didn’t tell them about that one.

I think it probably was.

Parts of it were. Some parts were remarkable clear there. We used to go across to Homebush, it

was on the other side of the township there. They had a family living over there looking after the property. They used to grow a lot of crops over there chiefly for feed for the station up north, up to Neilborough Station and Murchison and Neilborough. That was Neilborough Station. Nando was owned by the Bogle family,

Mrs Pierce had been I think a Bogle. They worked together very happily the families. A lot of feed used to go up there too. They had a magnificent horse over there. The name of the horse was Yarragadee. A beautiful chestnut gelding and a great horse there. Apart from old Billy Peel who looked after he area there

and his daughter, Colin Pierce was the only one who ever rode Yarragadee. I did once. I might add I did have a lot of trouble in controlling it. He was too strong for me. The others were very accomplished horse people and they could handle that there. Colin Pierce and I think his younger brother Eric, were very keen

polo players. Very nice polo ponies there. Then the agricultural show was on in Mingenew there, quite a busy home for a couple of days there. Bringing in the sheep and horses and cattle from the stations for showing. General farm or station life.

A bit of a loaf on Sundays. Saturday night you could go into town with the boys. That’s where I learned to drink. At 16 or 17 years of age. I remember one very heavy night up there after the hotel had

closed. We had to wait for Colin. I don’t know where Colin was

I wasn’t very keen about coming back. I heard a whisper. Mr or Mrs Pierce had received a letter from my mother and I never found out whether she wrote a letter or not. It was shortly after that they could do without Frank

Doddy because the youngest son was coming back to the station and would take over. So I came back to Perth and I had an idea at that stage that I would like to joint he army. When I came back my father and I rang up and made an appointment to see Major Meredith who was in command of the garrison artillery

barracks in Fremantle. He wasn’t a complete stranger, because I was at school with his son, John. We had quite a long talk there and it was quite interesting because he had taken the guard of honour when the Duke of Gloucester came to Perth. Rather unusual for a major to command the guard, it’s normally done by the

captain. We had quite a conversation and he mentioned about his son getting into Duntroon. He [the duke] said, “Why don’t you send him to Sandhurst?” He said, “I’ll sponsor him.” So surely he went off to Sandhurst sponsored by the duke and he ended up a lieutenant colonel in the British army, same as Meredith. The major suggested

I should go for Duntroon. I had thought that I’d probably go into the garrison here. So I decided to become a Duntroon candidate, so I made an application for Duntroon, had some very nice references. Had an interview by the commandant here who’s

Brigadier Martin at the time, interviewed me. He suggested that while I was waiting for the examination to come up for Duntroon that I should join the 28th Battalion Militia. Am I going too fast for you?

I don’t really remember now. I probably had to contact

Francis Street, army headquarters in Perth, Western Command. I imagine there was a form to be filled in and signed and probably approved by my parents. Certain references would be required from various people.

Headmaster of the Hale school, Dr Arnold Bundeen, at that stage also a captain

in the Cameron Highlanders. Archbishop, at least not archbishop, was later Bishop Tom Riley. I think he was Archdeacon for Northam at that stage and had been padre for the 10th Light Horse in the Middle East in the First World War. And as I’d known the family from birth.

Had a very nice reference from him too. Had another very good one from Mr Bathgate who was manager at the Penfold’s wines in Perth. Three in particular.

Well and truly recommended. So the next thing I heard that the brigadier wanted to interview me. So we had quite a long chat.

Incidentally Meredith said, “For a start, you’d better come down to the garrison here and have a medical examination. See how we go.” Which I passed satisfactorily. When I had the interview with the brigadier, he suggested that to get me a bit of an army background that I should join the 28th Battalion Militia as a cadet.

Probably questions I’m being asked today about my schooling and what sports I did and the fact that I was in the cadet corps. What branch I’d like to go into the army. So I mentioned at that stage the artillery.

I don’t know that he particularly asked me, except that I had relatives in the army and the cadet training at the school and I thought it would be an occupation that I would be happy with. I think the

next step was to contact the 28th Battalion there. The first thing I had to report for a medical examination there, which was carried out by later Lieutenant Colonel Leslie le Souef. He was a stage captain medical officer of the 28th Battalion. So I sailed through that alright too.

Just normal medical examination.

Examine you all over and have a look down your throat and make sure everything was all right there. Check the heart was OK. Then they take your measurements and so forth. The brigadier had recommended me there because he said that Colonel Harry Wilson was commanding

officer and particularly Captain Boise, who was staff corps adjutant there. He was pretty sound too as I found out later on. So I duly enlisted with the cadet corps of the 28th battalion at Wright Street in East Perth. A big drill hall there in those days. Ran through from Smith Street through to Lord Street,

quite a big area. Attended camp and I continued there. Went along to drill a night a week. I got posted to the anti-aircraft section, which was attached to the transport platoon and consisted of one Bren gun, one tripod

and some magazines for ammunition. We had several days on the rifle range there. I remember up at Bush Meade rifle range one day we were up there, without ammunition of course. We were shooting down aircraft that were coming in and dropping flour bombs all around us there.

At Bush Meade rifle range, out form Midland Junction. I’ve got a lot of photographs taken there. They were compiling a recruiting magazine, which unfortunately I have mislaid somewhere or lent to somebody and it’s disappeared there. It was just at the time they were getting the promoting to the Cameron Highlanders, the battalion here in Perth.

One of the photographs, the section commander was Corporal Ron Armstrong. Second commander of the section was Lance Corporal Fley. It was rather interesting, because Lance Corporal Fley ended up a very well known lieutenant colonel during the war, with the commandoes I think in Timor, but I’m not sure. It was in the islands anyway.

He made quite a reputation for himself there. Norman Fley. Unfortunately he’s deceased now, though. We used to go down to the rifle range or made competitions. Was it Hobbes’ Competition? General Hobbes was very well known. He was the senior army officer from Western Australia in the First World War. They had

these competitions down there shooting with the Bren gun and rifle shooting on the range there. They had a camp in Northam Camp each year. Cadets didn’t go into the camp, but as a Duntroon candidate they nursed me into there and put me in the marquee with battalion headquarters under the protection of

Sergeant Major George Richardson. Ex First War NCO. I think he may have even been commissioned in the war, but he’d soldiered on afterwards in the non-commissioned rank. Then on exercise, I remember some exercises there the colonel came along, picked me up and took me out to watch the exercise and explaining what was going on. They nursed me through it very nicely. Then about

November, that would be in 1945, the medical examination.

Yeah.

I don’t think they worried about me. I don’t think anybody enquired. I remember the sergeant major went up one night, probably went down to the

sergeants’ mess, left me in charge of the orderly room. The chappie came in there in the blue uniform, and he’d said “Don’t let anybody in here.” I suppose he thought all the officers would be in the officers’ mess. This chappie came in and busking around. I said “Excuse me, I presume you’re an officer. Are you with the

Army Service Corps or something?” because he was in blue uniform, and I didn’t realise the officers would put their blues on out of the khaki and the blue. He said “It’s all right. I’m second in command of the battalion here.” It turned out he later took over command of the battalion. We became quite good friends.

Most of these exercises like infantry exercises. Infantry battalions or companies in attack. You’d have some of the soldiers there, or an area there where the enemy are situated and they’d have umpires out with white armbands on. You could distinguish them from the rest of the troops. They could wander around and observe and made sure we’d be

taken. Then after the exercise, or the attack on these positions, the officers and NCOs would get together and there’d be a criticism of the exercise. Quiet often they would have TEWTs, Tactical Exercises Without Troops. I can enlarge on that a little bit further on in the conversation.

Yes, I enjoyed going around with

the top brass and observe in these sort of shows. It was an education, I was only 17 years of age at the time, so I was only a boy. The idea of course of getting me into an infantry battalion was to get a bit of a grounding.

To a degree.

They were all cadets and mainly volunteers.

It was carrying on, yes. Admittedly yes. That’s really what exercise consists of today with infantry battalions.

We wore

our uniforms fulltime with our brass buttons. We had button sticks we had to polish the brass buttons up every day and get out on parade and carefully inspected and so forth. And putties. We wore putties. You have to wind them up around your legs. Hot, sticky things, especially if you get in sandy soil anywhere, not very comfortable. Especially if you’re on a

rifle range and you get a hot day and the sand in there. It was only a week’s camp. I was then back to high parades and then the medical examination for Duntroon.

In Swan Barracks in Francis Street, which was army headquarters here, by one Dr McKenzie. I caught

up with him later on. He failed me in the medical examination. Very granular pharynx and enlargement of glands in the throat. I went down with the flu the next day. So that’s why I had this trouble. But maybe he was right, cause I had trouble later on with throat and tonsils and so on.

Only two selected out of all the applicants from Western Australia that year.

I don’t know. But apparently there were quite a number and there were only 2 selected. One boy from Scotch College and I think the other one came from Christian Brothers’ College, which is now Aquinas College.

It was a great disappointment for us. Then I decided to get a job.

But when I turned 18 I had to re-enlist then as a private with the 28th Battalion, which I carried on after.

I got several

part time jobs actually. Over the Christmas period I got a job in Bauman’s in their dispatch department there. I think that was probably the second Christmas. The first Christmas, I’m just wondering. Yes, that would have been after I missed out on Duntroon. I got a job at

Falling Gibson’s, which was a big store in Perth, taken over by David Jones. Before it was a big store in Perth. They had me doing all sorts of things there. Working in dispatch, keeping and eye on the children if Father Christmas was around. Generally an odd boy you might say. It was

a period.

I don’t know. Wouldn’t have a clue now. I don’t know what the award was. Probably a pound a week or something like that. On the station I got 10 shillings a week and my keep up on the station. Then I got myself a job with the Irish Linen, spinning and weaving company, at their office

in Shoalhouse. Top quality Irish linen, direct sales. I became a salesman.

Than what?

They were only temporary jobs anyway, after the holiday period.

Yes. Jobs were pretty hard to get then. It was just the end of the Depression years. I did fairly well out of that. I started off I went out with another representative, another traveller, who incidentally had been an old school friend of mine too.

I had the Baby Austin there.

Dear oh dear. I haven’t got a clue. Probably round about

1936 or 1937.

My father helped me. It worked quite well in the metropolitan area in sales and quite a decent commission. So much so that I then traded in through Adam’s Motors and bought a 1934

Chev [Chevrolet] Commercial Roadster, which had the big boot. So I had room for sample cases. It had done about 30,000 when I bought it. It was a jolly good car. Then I went off to the country and covered the southwest and great southern there.

Quite a few. Not compared with today.

Yes, but I was working under commission, which paid for my car, paid for my hotel accommodation and so forth. It was not unusual in some occasions to earn 1,000 dollars in a week. 1,000 pounds in a week, which was pretty good salary.

100 pounds.

I don’t know. 150 or160 pounds probably. You could buy a new car for just over 300 pounds then.

Presumably not. I lived well and did all right for a few years until

I pulled out and joined John Lawley’s who were just starting up in Perth here.

Well, rather than canvas myself, would take a fairly mature woman away with us as guides. We called them

a guide. They would canvas an area and make appointments for the representative from the company to come out. We had some very good stock. We had to talk all about the warps and the wafts of the material, the linen, and little glasses to show the ladies the quality of it. Linen

sheeting and double damask table linen. They had a lot of Madeira work also, breakfast cloths, doilies, afternoon tea sets and so on.

We made a point of calling on people whom we thought could

afford these things. It’s quite a fact that some of the farmers we having a tough time. By that stage most of our linen was getting pretty well down. With a good presentation it’s amazing what you can do. So going to a town like Wagin and get somebody there, perhaps somebody in business, or an agent there, who would take me around and introduce me to all the farmers.

I had a letter of introduction to all the bank managers in NSW who would recommend someone to get in touch with, such as when I went to Katanning, it was retired sergeant of police, Sergeant Purkis. Funny now talking about these old chaps around the 70 mark. He was a delightful fellow. He’d been up there in the north too, with the mounted police up in the north.

Quite a background. He was highly respected by everybody in the Katanning district. I’d pay him 5% in any sales that I made. He’d take me round and introduce me to the various farmers. They’d have a look at my samples and there weren’t very many who didn’t buy. Towards the

latter stages there, on some of the other trips I went down there, I took a very nice lady down with me who canvassed the area of the town. It wasn’t so good then, because we’d covered most of the affluent ones then. We also had towelling and stuff like that, which wasn’t so expensive.

Medical profession, professional people, bank managers and most of the big farmers. Just canvassing the town, a lot of the sales might only be three or four pounds.

Whereas the more affluent ones might spend 40 to50 pounds. Stock up with all new Irish linen sheets and new table cloths and that sort of thing. I didn’t worry about the credit side. They had three months in which to pay.

No.

They’d be solicited orders. Couldn’t sell anything on the spot, we were hawking. We were permitted to hawk in these places. No, we'd just take the orders which they signed and then it would be sent down to them and they’d have 90 days in which to pay the account, which they’d receive in 90 days anyway.

I’ve still got one or two pieces here now. Willow patterned double damask table cloths. The napkins are all a bit worn out over the years. Most my friends, cause when I first joined with the representative that I was allotted to

we went around and saw all my friends and capitalised on old boys’ mothers and things like that. Can I move on now? I left the Irish Linen spinning and weaving company and went to John Lawley’s who were starting up with a few cases of stuff in Howard Street. That was a battle. We had to go

canvas then. They built up a fine business in Perth in the royal buildings up in Hayes Street on the opposite side of the road to His Majesty’s Theatre and right up towards Milligan Street. We had a two storey building there. They went into furniture and electrical goods and

later they went into frock shops there. It was all direct selling and we had women going around booking appointments there too, and men, for salesmen.

Yes, a friend of mine form the Irish Linen, the man I started with, we’d been at school together and he’d joined the company, Irish Linen, I joined the Irish Linen Company. He went to Lawley’s and

he persuaded me to join Lawley’s.

They continued on for many years afterwards there.

Possibly, eventually. On the early stages it was very hard going. But with a time payment company, Cox Brothers were a big time payment company here at that stage, we were on

those lines there. Then a lot of it was involved with South Australian cash orders. O’Grady Brothers started it. Malcolm O’Grady was in South Australia, bank manager. That’s not quite right. Pat O’Grady was from South Australia and Allan O’Grady started it here. Later his brother, who was a bank manager too I think,

Malcolm O’Grady came out as our accountant when we were up in Hayes Street.

Yes, I was back living at home then.

Yes, I think I was contributing something. Pretty cheap rental. It was pretty hard though, when I went and joined Lawley’s and I still had the car.

As things improved there I turned around and bought a very nice little standard motorcar, a new car. I had that for a while until it started burning up oil, I got rid of it and traded in a nice 39 Hillman Lynx just before the war broke out. By then I had taken over half of Fremantle area down there.

What we’d do, once the accounts were up, for instance the girls would go around with stockings. Three pairs of silk stockings for a pound. People would pay it off at a shilling a week. Representatives would go and collect it so I’d go and collect my shilling a week. This gave an entrance then to introduce

other products. We probably ended up selling the ladies some more towels for the house and then they’d need a new pair of sheets. Even it got to the stage where perhaps they needed a new lounge suite, sell the a lounge suite, and so on. After

the war I went back to them for a short time too. But I can enlarge on that later on. In the meantime I think you want to get back onto the army again.

I had lots of friends. There were some very nice parties that I’d go to, to the beaches and I joined the Perth Rugby

Union Club and I played rugby for two or three years with the club there. Again, I didn’t get to A grade, I was a B grade player. We had three teams, A, B and C teams there. We had our grounds at the base of the Grosvenor Hotel in Hayes Street. I’m not too sure, I think it was on the corner of Hayes and Bennett Streets there.

The hotel I think is still going. We had the grounds in the cellars underneath the club rooms. Old Mrs Pitt ran it and looked after us very well. Saturday after the match she’d always supply us with a couple of bottles of (darineseurUNCLEAR), sherry. I think she had interests in (darineseurUNCLEAR) vineyards at Armidale. They’ve all gone, it’s all housing now of course, where the vineyards were.

We had a very successful team. I don’t remember ever being beaten by any of the others. Our A grade team was very good and we always supplied quite a few members for the state team. So much for that. In the summertime it was mainly surfing down at the North Cottesloe was our favourite spot.

In my latter school days in the school holidays, go camping at Rottnest and carried that on for a while too.

Yes, there were several I think.

Possibly. Anyway, I wasn’t serious about getting married and I couldn’t afford to anyway. So I wasn’t giving any

serious thoughts to being married.

We had a very comfortable home in Mount Lawley. I had a very nice large bedroom all to myself up there.

You go back far enough I remember as a boy and my mother was out. It was not quite unusual to have fellows dropping in and telling them to go round to the back and knock on the back door and telling us stories of woe and their poor wife and how many children they had and they hadn't had a feed since yesterday and so forth. She would make them a few sandwiches. I was quite a young lad, getting

some sandwiches to one of these old fellows, picking out a few old things that I knew I had tucked away somewhere that I never wore, including a little sunhat as a little boy wore. He ate his sandwiches and “Thanks very much”. A couple of days after, walking down around Field Street, which is just around the corner from Queen’s Crescent, I saw the hat lying on the ground there full of ants. They were

crawling all over it. I wasn’t very impressed having given it to the poor man for his little boy. But it was not unusual having people coming around like that. Cause all the tradespeople used to come round to the door. The butcher, greengrocer, we had a very nice Chinaman. Most called him Charlie, but we called him John. John the Chinaman used to come around.

All types of vegetables. Very good range. Very good. Came direct from the Chinese market gardens.

Did I mention getting out of the army? Oh,

from the cadets. I just carried on really. It was an interest. I sat for a corporal’s exam and became a corporal.

Yeah, until my 18th birthday, which was,

I’d have been 18, October, November, I might have even turned 18 at that time when I had the medical exam. I enlisted in the machinegun company. I got my two stripes as a corporal and got posted as orderly room corporal to the machinegun company, which consisted of,

E company, two platoons of Vickers machineguns and one platoon of 3 inch mortars. That was in 1936 when I joined the cadets, cause I went into camp, the 1936 camp as orderly room corporal under the command

at that stage, Captain A.D. Lyeman who later commanded the 2/4th Machine Gun Battalion, but I can tell you about him later on in the story. I went through the camp as an orderly room corporal looking after the company records and nominal rolls and so forth.

After the camp we came back to normal parades. I got out of the orderly room, still as a corporal, into the mortar platoon. Made some good friends.

There was a vacancy. Apparently someone had dropped out and there was a vacancy in the mortar platoon for a corporal and I applied to transfer and

they got a new orderly room corporal. So I carried on the mortars for a very short time. At that stage, we’re going back now, I was still with the Irish Linen Company at that stage, travelling in the country.

I was missing on attending parades on the, I think it was the Tuesday night, Monday or Tuesday night. We received a new second in command, a transport officer came in, he got his captaincy. Captain Garner. He wrote to me saying that if I couldn’t attend

night parades that I could revert to the ranks and so long as I attended the camp once a year I could remain on strength with the battalion. So I resigned. I pulled out. Some time later on, in 1939,

I came out of the office of John Lawley’s in Hayes Street. As I stepped on the pavement one of my old friends, Alan Shaman was a sergeant when the 28th went bust, I said “Hello Alan.” “Hello Frank.” “Just a moment, Alan. Looks as though you’re going to be involved in the scrap shortly. What’s the chance of getting back into the 28th battalion?” He replied

“I don’t know, Frank. I think we’re up to full strength, but look, we’re

I was just stepping out of John Lawley’s onto the footpath and an old friend of mine from the 28th battalion, Alan Sharman, he was a sergeant in the battalion. I said, after saying “Hi” as he went passed I said “Just a moment, Alan. Looks as though we’re going to have a scrap shortly.

What are the chances of getting back into the 28th?” To which he replied “I think we’re up to full strength at the moment, but we’ve got a new CO [Commanding Officer] now, Mcankertell, who you may remember was 2IC [second in command] and had taken over command of the battalion from Harry Wilson. He is conducting a sand table exercise down at Wright Street this afternoon. What don’t you come down?” Well, I did.

I went to the sand table exercise.

It can be in sand or it can be with models laid out. It’s like playing with toy soldiers. You’ve got an enemy position and you’ve got your own troops. And because you’re conducting it explains

“The enemy’s situated at such a position, they have a machinegun set up here and so forth. They’ve got artillery at the back and we have to take that position from where we are here.” He may say “Corporal Jones, where do you think you’d form up your troops for an attack?” The corporal will say “I think that’s be a

good position over there, sir.” He may say “That’s very good” or he might say “Yes, but wouldn’t it be better if you went behind this knoll over here?” “Yes, sir. I think probably it would.” “If you stand in the other position you’d be covered by mortar fire from such and such a position of the enemy.”

So the whole thing takes place with a battalion in attack. Or you might deal with it as if you were in the defensive position. What would you do when the enemy attacks? This is all worked out on the sand. Everybody can see what’s happening. After they’d finished, I was enrolled, or re-enlisted, in

the 28th battalion by Lieutenant Philip Adams. That was on the 2nd of September. I was invited to attend a TEWT, which is a tactical exercise without troops, which was to be held on the Sunday morning out at the end of Beauford Street, I think it’s Bedford Park or Bayswater now. It’s all built on.

It was all bush and rolling hills at that stage. So on the Sunday morning I went out there with officers and NCOs, again being escorted as a private. On returning that afternoon we heard that war had been declared, so Australia was at war.

That’s right. Obviously. It looked like a scrap was coming and I wanted to be in it more or less.

Well, yes, because of the

Germany invading Poland and the fact that once England declared war on Germany Mr Menzies didn’t waste any time saying that Australia was at war. It happened pretty quickly. Of course, Mr Chamberlain had threatened Hitler that if they attacked

Poland, Britain would declare war. Of course, France did also.

That war had been declared? Not really, no. I don’t know that we thought it’d be quite as close as that. I remember several people saying, “Don’t worry Frank. Now England’s in the war it’ll be over in no time. Not with the

Royal Air Force.” How wrong could they be? Next, on the Monday or Tuesday night, I attended parade down in Wright Street drill hall. The colonel informed us then that nobody would be released until we had information as to what would occur. We didn’t know that they might have sent our battalion

11th, 16th and 28th battalion, sporting recruits and sent us overseas. We just didn’t know. Very shortly after that they formed the corps for volunteers for the AIF [Australian Imperial Force]. So they built up new battalions for overseas service and called them 2/11th, 2/28th and so on.

So we attended the parades on the Monday and Tuesday nights until September, October, November. In November we went into camp in Melville, Melville being the suburb south of Fremantle which was mostly all bush in those days. In fact, it was all bush.

Where we went to camp, parties had gone down there. One the south side of South Street in Melville the bush had been cleared off there, several huts had been erected for mess huts, and ablution toilet blocks had been built and the rest was black sand when we moved in down there. Moved in with

our tents, marked out the lines where the tents were to be erected and we erected our tents, 8 men to a tent. For the first night we camped on the black sand on our groundsheets, 8 to a tent. The following day we were supplied with palliasses, which are

hessian bags which we filled with straw. They could be laid on top of the groundsheet. Within a few days again the floorboards started arriving. I think it was two floorboards together would cover the ground under a tent. So we settled down there

reasonably well. We were still wearing our uniforms with our brass buttons and brass sticks and polishing the brass. We had our packs, which we carried everything in, apart from a little haversack, which you went out and had to take rations and things you could put in your haversack, out it in the pack. Everything went in there. Your shaving gear, your toilet

gear, and even your wet towel folded up inside the pack for a start, until they found out that wasn’t very satisfactory with wet towels. Eventually we got round to putting some lines in the tent so in the day time all the towels could be hung up inside neatly. Pretty strict inspections to make sure everybody had everything folded up in good military fashion and the packs at the end of the folded up palliasse, which was again

folded in the groundsheet, had to be rolled in a set manner, laid out on top. So as the show developed there of a night time at dusk the rose bowls would be places down at the centre of the lines and straight after

in the morning they would all be cleared out and empties. You can imagine the lines of tents with all these half 44 gallon drums down the lines.

Well, I think we can cover it here by saying, coming down to the cookhouse, because when we first went in all we had was the

old copper boilers, stack of wood and big coppers, and that’s how most of the cooking was done. Ideal for making porridge in bulk, stews and what have you. For the work for the cook house they called for fatigues every morning. So we had fatigues doing the rose bowls, it might have been done by some of the boys in the pioneer platoon. The pioneer platoon

is the people that do all the manual work. Building. Carpenters, bricklayers and so forth. They called for fatigues for the cook house. This would be done the night before normally. The fatigues would have to chop the wood, peel the potatoes, onions, everything else that was going to go into the

stew. So we had plenty of stews for the first month. They used to manage. I don’t know how they cooked it, but they used to get lamb and roast beef and potatoes and vegetables. They used to, it wasn’t bad. Of a night time sometimes, particularly in hot weather, in the

November camp anyway, cold meat and salad was very acceptable for the evening meal. In the meantime, on the north side of South Street, the 13th brigade headquarters were set up. Alongside them marquees were put up by the Salvation Army and YMCA [Young Men’s Christian Association] for entertaining of the troops.

Training continued while we were there. Mostly our boys were reasonably well trained. Our transport was horse transport at that stage, horse and limbers. For the machinegun company we would move out of camp and go round

to the hills behind Melville, overlooking South Fremantle down towards Hamilton Hill. It was all open country then. We’d have our imaginary enemy over the hills there and we’d set up our guns and imaginary warfare. Teach them how to do overhead firing with the guns

and set up for night training. At night times we’d have exercises out in the bush working with the compass and the stars and so on. One thing and another, keeping the camp going. And certain injections for the boys.

Not so much at this stage.

I can't remember, we probably had typhoid injections there. I remember a couple of the boys, when they got about 3 off the doctor or orderly who was doing the injecting, just passing out, amazing. We came out of camp at the end of November anyway. While we were in camp there, the 11th battalion had moved into an area

east of where we were camped, almost adjoining our area. Their training would carry on in a similar manner.

No, I went in the first camp in November as a private. I had re-enlisted as a private.

Just as a soldier in the machine gun company? Basically all the privates were on an equal basis really. We were trained as different positions on the guns, number 1, number 2. Number 1 gunner would fire the gun and number 2 would feed the ammunition belt through in the gun.

Number 3 would have the boxes of ammunition brought up by 3, 4 and 5 in the section to each section there. There was a corporal in charge of each team. Our corporal was Corporal Jack Tillers at that stage. Not a great deal I can enlarge on in that first camp.

We all had .303 rifles. I don’t think number 1 at that stage, later on used to have a pistol, but I don’t know that we did at that stage. Also, in Melville they set up, this is where the pioneer platoon

would come together, a bayonet assault course. We were all one company at a time would go up there and we were introduced to Captain McKissock, First World War man. McKissock had a gymnasium in William Street. A big man, very fit and an expert at handling a rifle and bayonet.

He demonstrated how to use the assault force. “En garde, in, out, en garde, kill or be killed” and very, how can I explain it, dramatically demonstrated the use of the bayonet. So we all learned how to use our bayonets properly. He had had bayonet training before,

but not on an assault course. That was what we had then.

We had figures, dummies stuffed with straw representing the enemy. In, out and so forth, and the various drill with the bayonet. That’s in with the bayonet, out, en garde, whack on the top, up with the but, down again, it, out and so

you press through. We did this very, very well. This is only the beginning of the show really. cause we came out of camp over the Christmas period. Then the 11th and I think the 16th battalion went in there. I know the 16th had a short camp over at Rot Nest. Eventually they moved down

to Melville. At one stage there, I think it was the second or third camp we went in for three months camp with the 2/28 battalion training alongside of us for a time. Coming back out of camp after the month’s camp we attended the night parades in Wright Street drill hall.

I think at that stage I don’t know whether I’d have to sit for it anyway. After three months we went back into camp again and I went back into camp with the rank of corporal and section commander.

Yes, they had. I don’t know very much about it. Some of our chaps did drop out at that stage. They had to get a release,

approval to join, as far as I know. Some of them just ignored it, I know. Some of them were sent back too. They wouldn’t take them in.

Not at that stage for private, family reasons. My father hadn't been very well at that stage and I had a very young sister. Plus I just bought a new car.

My father didn’t drive a car and what I did at that stage at the request of the manager of John Lawley’s, he suggested that I should let my car go to somebody else who’d joined the company and they would rent my car. That happened for the first three months. I didn’t get any money. So eventually I went down with another one of our corporals at that stage,

went down to his house, he was living in a house in South Perth, had about 3 kids and so on, and he wasn’t doing too good at all. He was really battling. He must have been on a commission basis. I reclaimed the car. I never received any money. It was no good, I had legal advise on it, but if he didn’t have any money, it was no good

following it. If I took any action it was only throwing good money after bad. I got the car back and I used to for a short time down the camp and then I got back to Skipper Valey’s and I sold it back to the company for what I could get for it. A beautiful new Hillman Minx. I soldiered on in

the 28th battalion at that stage. In the first three months back into camp.

Back into Melville camp. There were numerous Melville camps to follow. I was elected to attend and officers’ training school at Guilford. I was the only corporal in the school. All the rest were sergeant or above. That was only

as fortnight, something like that.

I don’t remember now whether we had to sit for an exam for that one or not or whether I was just appointed to that. Previously I had to sit for an examination. Looking back it was a pretty simple examination. I was a section commander, I went back into camp.

The first camp, incidentally, was still commanded by Captain Lyons, who at the end of the month’s camp was joined the 2/3 machinegun battalion, mostly South Australians, I think it was South Australians, yeah, as second in command of the

2/3 Machinegun Battalion. So his second in command was at that stage, Garner had gone over to take over the 44th battalion. It was 44th battalion and the 16th that went into camp when we were there. Garner went there as a lieutenant colonel. Promotions were pretty quick. Our second in command,

Charlie, had been Lieutenant Green, became captain, Captain Green was second in command, that was right. He took over as captain of the machinegun company. We’re in camp aren’t we? For three months. Yes, and I went to the officers’ training school.

Our section had a chap named Sergeant Major Lyons, L-Y-O-N-S, who went away later as RSM, Regimental Sergeant Major, for the 2/28 Battalion. He soldiered on after the war in the rank of lieutenant colonel. He was a marvellous instructor.

Apparently I passed the school because when I came back they told me I had been promoted to lance sergeant, which is you do a sergeant’s work on a corporal’s pay at that stage. After the camp there we had three

It was only about a fortnight at that stage. The officer training courses were

extended considerably in the eastern states later on. After all I did have just a little bit of a background in how things should go.

Not particularly, no. Although I do have, I’ve forgotten what it is now, I learned something the night before thinking we might be tested on this particular thing and

who should Corporal Lyons pick on but Corporal Doddemeade? I couldn’t think, I had nerves of course, and I just couldn’t answer him. I had rehearsed it with one of the boys. After we came out the fellow said to me, “What’s wrong with you, Frank? You knew it perfectly last night.” I said, “Yes, I know it now,” no trouble at all. But when I was asked, nerves, I

didn’t have the answer. My mind went blank. I came back and we did another 3 months at a camp then. Went back to work.

not to any great extent. We were supplied with what we called giggle suits, the first lot we had were blue dungaree type material.

I think we had that through the first 3 months after which we went into khaki work suits. Trousers and a jacket. The training was very much the same. I don't know that we got very many groups in for the first 3 months, but we came out of camp again

and maybe into the first 3 months they called for national trainees. I’m not too sure now whether it was the first or second 3 month’s camp that we went into. We got a lot of guys in from the gold fields came round and joined our battalion.

Good. We were told how tough they were going to be.

I have a very good

recollection of a whole lot of them coming in and being marched to a certain position. Nobody marched, they were all skylarking and so forth and the Captain Gary McQueen had command of that group. He sat them down and gave them a good talk. I don’t know what he talked about, but I know when they all got up they all fell in.

For untrained soldiers they marched particularly well. So we got a message across there. All these tough miners that we heard about settled in fairly well. They were some very tough ones amongst them, but they were all good fellows. I had a lot of them later on in the carrier platoon. They were very practical young men. I

can’t speak highly enough of the Kalgoorlie boys, despite the fact that if they got an opportunity they’d nick off and go AWL [Absent Without Leave] and hop on the train and go back to Kalgoorlie. I had a little bit of trouble there. But overall things went very well with our training.

Yes. You went in the sergeants’ mess. That only happened when I came back for a

few, only a couple of weeks before we went out of camp. After being out of camp for three months I went back into camp again as a full lance sergeant and platoon commander. I’m sorry, as platoon sergeant of 18 platoon. Our platoon commander, I’d been in that platoon since I went into the month’s camp

and lieutenant, I’ve forgotten his name now. Just in the first camp for a moment. Anyway, Jack Thomson took over the first 3 month camp as a lieutenant. He’d been our platoon sergeant before. I was platoon sergeant to Lieutenant Thomson. An extremely nice man.

We got along very smoothly. Everything went well in our training.

Virtually to take command of the platoon in the absence of the platoon commander, which consisted of seeing the syllabus sat down for the day was carried out by the platoon and that everybody

did their job, which should be done by good soldiers and go out on exercises and be back on the parade ground and dismiss for luncheon or for the evening meal. You’d be out there in the pouring rain just with a groundsheet to act as a cape as well as a groundsheet.

Crawling around in the bush on your tummy with machineguns and belts of ammunition and so forth. By the time you finished you were pretty hot and worn out and ready for a nice shower and clean up for the evening meal, unless we were out on some particular exercise, away from the camp, in which case we’d probably

take a few sandwiches or a tin of bully beef or something like that with us for lunch. Wherever possible we’d come back for the main meals there. As a sergeant you had the sergeants’ mess which is very comfortable. Run on similar lines as an officers’ mess really.

As I went back into the camp I was very smartly made secretary, so that was another job. You had to fit that in with the training and so on.

I was a sergeant by this stage anyway, so it didn’t make any difference. No problems at all. I had

no problems whatsoever. Problems don’t really start I don’t think until you get commissioned. Then you take responsibility for everything.

It was only a matter of keeping the books and buying the stock and

perhaps keeping in touch with the liquor companies to make sure that you were getting the right quantities of beer and so forth in. The men to the rank of corporal, the army had a canteen there for the troops. The sergeants’ mess was very good and you have a lot of fun at the dinners and play all

sorts of games and sing all sorts of songs. It was generally very congenial. Not many problems at all.

Yes. Very free, as long as you had enough money to pay for it.

Yes. No free grog.

We were all good friends there. We lost a few of our boys released to the AIF including that one Alan Sharman I was speaking of. I think he went to the 2/16 Battalion and went to the Middle East. Next thing we heard that Alan had been killed. We’d been good friends for quite a while actually.

I used to meet him too, he was travelling for Vaxadin radios before the war and we used to sometimes meet up in country areas.

Not a great deal at that stage. Not within the unit. We were kept pretty busy in camp.

Then what happened later on, we had a lot of, I can't remember now, I don’t think it was with the training battalion, we had three months there with a lot of recruits

coming in. It must have been the second three months in camp coming in. Mainly training these recruits. We went in and out of camp a couple of times. That’s right.

They formed the 2/18 Battalion and I heard they were going to form another machine gun battalion, the 2/4. I made up my mind that I’d apply for the 2/4 Machine Gun Company.

Actually I didn’t because the

first thing I heard about it was that I had been on leave over, I think it was the weekend, Saturday and Sunday and been home. When I arrived that the guard, coming through the guard on the main gate sergeant Don Lee was in charge of the guard. The first thing he said “Hello Frank. We’ve been selected for the 2/4 Machine Gun Battalion.” Mick,

the CO, has got command of the battalion. So that was very good. I was very happy about that. So we settled down for the night and the next morning we heard that Colonel McAnkertell was the new CO of the 2/4 Machine Gun Company and that he had selected our company commander Charlie Green as second

in command, or the rank of major. My platoon commander, Jack Thomson had also been selected. Several NCOs and some of our boys. Captain Adam sent for three of us, our company sergeant major, Joseph,

Mick Wedge, the platoon sergeant, and Frank Doddemeade. We were informed that we would not be released to go into the 2/4.

What had happened was McAnkertell had gone through the battalion and picked out the NCOs in the battalion and officers that he wanted. Quite a few of our officers went to the 2/4.

The battalion was temporarily taken over by our commands, Major James, First World War man. He had to maintain the strength of the battalion, the training battalion and also if anything were to eventuate here, he had to have officers and NCOs to command his battalion. That’s how we were pulled out.

It was just before we were to go out on camp again. In the meantime I had sold my car so I couldn’t be free to get away anyway. So I bought a motorbike so I could get in and out of camp or go home. In the meantime my parents had sold the house and moved into a unit in Perth.

That was very nice. I might just deviate a little bit there. A Harley Davidson with twin headlights on it. It wasn’t much of a bike when I bought it, but I had it all fixed up. It made a very nice bike. Unfortunately I didn't have it very long, because when I came out of

camp after this 3 months’ camp, the 2/4 Machine Gun was being formed, I put it in a bike shop in Hayes Street and left it to sell it there in the front window. Nobody wanted to buy motorcars or motorbikes at that stage in the war anyway.

No, a good soldier does as he’s told and I did as I was told. What happened was, I came out of camp and I didn’t want to particularly go back to John Lawley’s. I knew that Nu-Tread Tyres wanted somebody. The manager of their Fremantle branch was a captain in the 16th Battalion, Cameron Highlanders. So I saw the

man who owned the business, Richard Marham, and I agreed to stay with him for the three months. I took over the Fremantle branch while the other chap went into the 16th battalion.

Nu-Tread Tyres, I took over a little branch in Fremantle, which involves

going into town. I booked accommodation. I lived at the Cloisters for a month and then I moved up into a place up in Murray Street there. I joined Nu-Tread Tyres, which was owned at that stage by a Mr Richard, we called him Dick in those days, Murham. I agreed to stay with him for 3 months while the manager of his Fremantle branch went into camp with the 2/16

Battalion Cameron Highlanders. I don’t know if I was that rapt with the job because I have clear recollections of one day I made myself available to go down and interview the heads of the big transport companies in Fremantle in my nice best suit.

On returning to the office a pig man had just pulled in. The lad I had working there was involved in something else. Here was this pig man’s truck dripping everywhere with a bit 36 tyre dripping wet. So I had to rip my coat off and get down to work and get the wheel off and change his tyres for him. By then my suit was in a nice old mess. That put me off this

game a little bit. I became very close friends with Dick Murham and we found we had quite a lot in common later on and I saw quite a lot of him in later years in Perth. We became very, very good friends. Later on I wanted a reference applying for the managership of Penfold’s in Perth and he gave me a beautiful reference too.

Because they wanted NCOs and officers to carry on in the 28th Battalion. They weren’t going to release all their officers. They’d taken my company commander, my commanding officer and my platoon commander. I was next in line to take over the platoon.

That’s how the cookie crumbled. Because Mick Wedge told them he didn’t have a job to go to and blah, blah, blah, whatever his story was I don’t know. But he did go into the 2/4 and did survive. Quite a lot of our officers, including our CO, who was shot,

Jack Thomson, my platoon commander, was killed by the Japanese up there. I’m not too sure what the story was. I heard that he was decapitated. We soldiered on in the 28th. Then in 1941 the three sergeants were called up by,

Colonel A.J. Proud had taken over our battalion from Major James. Major James went as commanding officer of the 11th Battalion. Colonel Proud called us up for an interview and asked the three of us if we were prepared to go as reinforcements to the Middle East. We three agreed. That

was all. So we were for a week or two afterwards, we were quite prepared to go. One afternoon we were summoned to the CO and we were delighted. This is it. When we got there he said, “Gentlemen,

you will not be going to the Middle East. I’ve recommended the three of you for your commissions.” That was 1941. In 1941 we duly received our commissions as lieutenants after an interview of course, with the brigadier who approved of the appointment. We carried on in the camp then for a short time.

When the three months was up in 1941,

Well, whether it was just to find out whether we were prepared to go, as far as we were concerned we thought that would be it. We received our commissions on the 14th May 1941. At the end of the three months we came out of

the camp. I’ll just check this. We had been signed on, no, that’s right. In October ’41 we signed on for fulltime duty in the militia battalion, and signed on for fulltime duty. We moved into, actually our campsite was taken over by the 13th

Training Battalion by Lieutenant Colonel Harry Wilson, who had been my commanding officer when I first joined the 28th as a cadet. They were all recruits there. We had a number of officers from our battalion and the 11th Battalion. Colonel Harry Wilson said he would conduct a dry

mess. He was told, “It’ll never work,” but it did, very successfully. To give you an idea of how things were, equipment was very short. Clothing was very scarce and we managed to obtain, I just couldn’t tell you how many there were in the training battalion, but it was a pretty full strength training battalion

as far as I can remember. We had 40 rifles for a battalion, which went from platoon to platoon, there was 30 odd men in the platoon anyway, for training and showing them how to load and how to fire a .303 rifle. You can imagine when we had to go to the rifle range we had

to move rifles around the place. So what we did, we went into the bush and cut sticks the same length as a rifle and we taught men how to drill, how to slope arms with sticks of wood. I gather most of our equipment that was any good had been sent to the Middle East. So we were pretty short on here at the time. It was pretty serious too.

It was a friend set up during the training battalion. After the training battalion, after 3 months we went back to the camp with the 28th Battalion. Just after going back I was sent up to a driving and maintenance

course, not so much maintenance, but driving school for machinegun carriers at Guildford camp where we’d had the OTS [Officers’ Training School] earlier. We learned how to drive machinegun carriers, which at that stage were intended for the Vickers machinegun. It was quite a bit of handling a truck vehicle.

When we first went up there we had carriers there with two levers. They were followed up shortly and whether we had them up there I can't remember now. They brought them in with steering wheels after that. After a couple of weeks up there at school we went back to our battalions. We had officers who’d been

selected for the 11th Battalion, probably the 16th, yes the 16th, 28th. I don’t know about the 44th. I think at that stage the 44th Battalion had been changed under Brendan Garner who were the special mobile force. Machinegun companies had been taken off strength of our battalions. So there were no machinegun companies in the battalion. When I went back we had

the machinegun carriers had been introduced. I was given command of 10 machine gun carriers. One for the platoon commander and there were three sections of three carriers each with a corporal in charge of each section. Platoon sergeant, so I had three corporals there.

Then we had to get the men to make up the platoon. I put a lot of Kalgoorlie boys into there.

Reasonable. No trouble with them at all. The main trouble as time went on was going

AWL, Absent Without Leave. Onto the train down to Kalgoorlie for a while. I can tell you a bit about that too, when we get a bit further on. We had to have a platoon headquarters which we took an area of ground behind the brigade headquarters, that’s north of where the camp was. All companies had to put in dug outs,

Japan was truly in the war by then. Or were they? They mightn’t have been at that stage, but they were shortly afterwards anyway. Because I know I got a very good dug out put in there. It was built with heavy timber, which some of my boys had managed to scrounge from derelict houses and whole

plank roads and what have you, I don’t know. Having miners there, there was no trouble in excavating a huge area and putting in a very nice headquarters. The boys were camped under canvas with their carriers and their sections spread out a little bit and with their slit trenches alongside. cause everybody was

becoming very conscious of air raids occurring. Not having been there very long I was sent over to a school, it was LHQ [Land Headquarters], in Seymour camp in Victoria, which was a driving and maintenance course. That was for

a month or 6 weeks over there. That was a very, very good course and very good instruction. We drove many miles. We had one officer posted to us there, in our section, you couldn’t drive a carrier unless you had a truck driver’s licence, that was the first thing. You had to get a truck driver’s licence before you could drive

a carrier. This fellow very successfully managed to run his carrier over a cliff side. Luckily there was a ledge that he landed on and nobody was seriously injured. I went over there and passed through the course there. We used to get leave in Melbourne. I had some very good friends in Melbourne.

I’d stayed with them when I was 15 years of age over there. Don Nan. He was solicitor for the Bougainville Propriety in Sydney. So two or three weekends I stayed at their home, which was very comfortable. No problem to go on leave at weekends. We’d all be given leave at weekends.

Just go on a train and go down and stay with our friends or go and drink beer, you could do that too. I think it was only one weekend I stayed at the, no two weekends I stayed at hotels. One weekend I stayed at the Oriental Hotel and the next weekend I stayed at the Federal Hotel. I met a very nice young receptionist at the Orient

Hotel. The couple of times we were down there we managed to go down to St Kilda and visit Luna Park and enjoy ourselves, very pleasant. So, back to the battalion until such time as it was decided that the battalion would move.

By that time troops were coming back from the Middle East. Corps Headquarters had been established by, Singapore had been invaded and General Bennett escaped from Singapore and come back here and was given command of the Corps Headquarters in Western Australia. They set up the headquarters in what is now Perth

College, girls’ school up in Mount Lawley. We had several divisions or troops here. We brought a lot over from the eastern states too. Mostly militia battalions. Melbourne Island regiment came over here too. Then we moved from Melville

camp to Chidlow and went into camp there for a comparatively short time. Then it was decided to move us further north to Moira and we came under 4th division and

Major General Jack Stevens. A very well seasoned officer. Before we left Melville we had several divisional exercises down in the Rockingham area in the open ground down there. Then we moved to Chidlow

where we set up camp. It was only very little exercises, mostly route marches and that sort of thing and weapon training. Then it was decided we were going to move to Moira and have divisional exercises on route, which we did. Incidentally, I was very proud of my carrier platoon drivers just before we moved to

Chidlow because we had to load them onto little rail trucks. There were only a few inches either side of these trucks, so you had to drive the carrier straight onto the truck, lock one side and spin them around onboard the truck. While some of the carrier platoons were tipping them over the other side, every one of my boys got their carriers on, spot

on, first time, which wasn’t bad going for 10 carriers in our little platoon to get up there. Going up by train it was a pretty clippety-clop rough old rider, in our carriers on the rail trucks. From Chidlow we moved up towards the Calingiri area. It was decided that

our battalion was to attack a certain position. This was a divisional exercise, and what was done with the other battalions, attach units, artillery and so forth, I’ve got no idea. All I know was my little part to play. The 28th battalion was to attack this certain position. Orders were given to company commanders by our commanding officer, Colonel Proud, and the carrier platoon commander.

Didn't leave very much time from when the orders were given until the start time. however I got back to my carriers there, told our platoon sergeant what we were doing, and section commanders very briefly. I left it to them then to tell the troops what was happening. We were to give support to

the battalion attack by protecting the right flank of the battalion. Now, bearing in mind that all these exercises were carried out on farmland property, we had to be very considerate of the properties, and particularly the farmers’ fences. From where I was to move forward I had to lift a fence up

by men lifting the fence posts out of the ground, laying them down flat and carefully driving our carriers over the fence. The fences then had to be re-erected and we moved forward to start on time. We did. To go across on open

paddock we deployed the carriers in open formation, but we had to go through a gateway in the next fence. So of course we had to bring them in, this is leading up to something, through the gateway and then across another huge paddock and open ground towards bushland. So we opened and deployed the carriers again across this open ground.

You wouldn’t go up in file, or one behind the other in case, it would present a wonderful target to the enemy. Wouldn’t be much good these days either with modern aircraft. We moved forward. Couldn’t hear a thing. Couldn’t make contact with anybody. So I left the carriers on what we might term dead ground. Dead ground is a

term used for ground which is out of view from the enemy positions. We gathered the enemy positions were up on the hill forward of us. I hoped that they were spread out, well deployed, and I said to the sergeant “I’m going forward on a recognisance and make contact and find out what’s happened to our troops that don’t appear to be advancing.”

I went forward and had a look. I could see no sign of any troops moving at all. I returned to the carriers. When I got back there I found all the men out, very busily engaged picking mushrooms. There were mushrooms all over the place. So I ordered them back very, very quickly into the

carriers and moved forward. While all this was going on, General Stevens with his little group, were up on a hill behind observing what was happening. Apparently what had happened, and nobody, apparently they realised it was insufficient time for everything to be done and had apparently delayed the start time. Nobody had told me about it either,

but they certainly got a message through to the carrier platoon commander. We did start moving forward on the dot. From all the observers up there, afterwards I was told that the general passed a remarkable thing “God we’ve got a carrier platoon anyway.” A little afterwards he said “What were the carriers doing there? Opening and closing like a blinking concertina.” Eventually when the

boys had stopped and I’d gone forward, nobody worried about me going forward on the recognisance. But “What are the carriers doing?” looking through the binoculars, “They’re picking mushrooms.” Well, that was all right. Anyhow, the whole show, and eventually the attack took place. I don’t know what the final outcome of the attack was really.

We carried on afterwards, to the best of my memory anyway.

I meant to tell you, yes. I had some of the mushrooms too. I went to the brigadier later on, because I joined him later on. We set the carriers aside and left the boys with the carriers and had my mushrooms

and so forth. The brigadier arrived and I went to the brigadier and asked if I might be joining him. One of the things he said as some of our boys were advancing “A bit slow, I hope they’re not picking mushrooms.” My reply was “I had a good feed of them at lunchtime, sir.” We watched the rest of the exercise and rejoined the

carriers. The whole show moved further north. We arrived at a bivouac area a little distance out from Moira where we were to settle for the night. It was becoming dark at the time. As we were moving in in the dark our company 2IC

came over to me and said “Frank, put your lights on in your carriers and direct the traffic into the forming up position here,” which I did. We settled down for the night and managed to get a little bit to eat. Just as we were going to settle down the heavens opened up and down came the rain.

We had tarpaulins on the carriers and we managed to rig up a little bit of protection. We were just about to sleep when the orderly came up there. “Mr Doddemeade, Mr Doddemeade. You’re wanted with the carriers. All the truck are bogged.” What had happened, all our transport from the battalion and another battalion had settled with the rain, just settled down in the mud on their axels.

So we went out with our carriers and we managed to pull some of the trucks out with the carriers. But carriers happen to get bogged too. We found the best way to move any of these vehicles that were bogged was to put a good stout rope on them and about 30 or 40 men pull them out. We found manpower was much better than any of the carriers or trucks for getting bogged vehicles out. It was quite

a good exercise in that regard. By dawn we had just about got everything up onto higher ground and breakfast arrived. Around early afternoon we managed to arrive in our campsite at Moira, bearing in mind wherever you’re moving to you always had an advance party to prepare the camping sight.

Actually in Moira, just out of the town where our battalion set up the camp there. One of the nice things about it was that my batman had managed to excavate some of the muddy soil. It wasn’t muddy really. It was fairly fry up by afternoon or evening. So we had moved in and

laid a groundsheet in there and managed to get some hot water and I was able to enjoy a nice hot bath in a hole in the ground. Later on we had the use to the Moira Club where officers were made honorary members there and we could have hot showers there. That was quite good. had a nice shave and get cleaned up.

We formed quite a nice little mess there. The day after in the afternoon the general called a meeting. He had a nice area surrounded by hills for all the officers of the brigade, or division, I don’t know how many were there. There were a lot of them all formed up there and the general whom I was feeling a bit sorry

for at the time, because he spoke very well. He had a boil or an abscess on the back of his neck and he had his neck all wrapped up. He started on the exercise and what happened and what shouldn’t have happened and general criticised. Then he started criticising the anti-tank platoons, how they had situated their anti-tank guns and so forth. Having finished with the anti-tank guns he said

“And the carriers of the 28th battalion” I’m particularly mentioning this because there’ll be quite a few versions of this and I have seen one in print, “The carriers of the 28th battalion moving, firstly opening and closing their formations like a concertina, settle

down in the middle of a divisional exercise and the men getting out and picking mushrooms, then moving into a forward area at night with lights blazing” bear in mind I had been ordered to do that “And what’s more I had occasion to stop three of their carriers speeding on one of the roads.”

I don’t think I’ll mention any further about what he said about the carrier platoon. So after the conference I got back to our platoon area and the first thing was the battalion 2IC came up to me.

He said “I’m terribly sorry, Frank. Is there anything I can do to make it any easier for you?” because he was the one who told me to put my lights on in the forward area. I don’t know what they’re worrying about because the other unit on the hillside opposite us had campfires going all over the hillside. It was all lit up there. However I said “Yes, I’d like to see

Colonel Proud just as soon as possible.” It wasn’t very long before he came back and told me the colonel was free to see me. Not far from the colonel’s tent we sat on a log and talked about it and discussed it all. He was very understanding. He also said that General Stevens is a very difficult leader to get along with really.

He understood the situation quite well. So that blew over, but I was very upset. I’ve had to live with it, because at reunions and things there’ll always be people that come up to me and say “Hello Frank, how are you? How are the mechanised mushroom pickers going?” So the mushroom incident was not forgotten in a hurry.

I might mention at this stage, my very good friend, we became very close friends in later life, was Colonel Lyons. He gave me my first two stripes in the militia. He’d been our company commander in the 28th battalion before he went to the 2/3. He said “What you should have done, Frank, was ask to be paraded to General Stevens.

Had you explained it, he was a very understanding man really, I’ve worked with him, I knew him well, he would have understood the situation.” Frankly I was the member of the same club as he in Sydney, but I never caught up with him except that he did interview me and some of our officers before we were transferred to the AIF.

He said “I think we’ve met before, haven’t we?” We really hadn't met, but I said “Yes, sir.” You can imagine a lieutenant talking to a general. He asked me what I was doing at the time and I told him that I was with B company and the platoon of B company. He said “All right.” He took me into the AIF anyway,

what I wanted. He obviously hadn't forgotten the mushrooms, nor had our brigadier as transpired later on. So much for the mushrooms, so much for our camp in Moira where we ran a few exercises, but not very much. We moved to Dandaragan, which was about 12 miles west of

Moira, heading towards the coast. Julienne Bay, which had become an important point at that stage was northwest of Dandaragan, which we were patrolling very carefully because it was reported that lights had been seen of a night time. It was suspected and has since been confirmed, that

Japanese submarines were coming into Julienne Bay of a night time and recharging their batteries. We just didn’t catch up with them, but we were on the lookout there. Julienne Bay at that stage, there was one house at Julienne Bay. Now it’s a heavily settled area.

I wasn’t involved in any patrols at Julienne Bay, although we didn’t

go out there and we had a company camp out there for a short time and enjoyed the fishing out there. A few nights camped in the sands along the coast there. From Moira I did have a patrol. We’re just going a little bit too fast here. We went to Dandaragan and set up a very nice camp there.

It was just a camp out in the bush where we set up our ablutions. I think when we first moved there I think we had portable showers that you hang up on a tree type of thing. It wasn't long before our pioneers got to work and we had our showers set up there. Mobile laundries turned up there, which we really needed because blowflies were something terrific there and succeeded

in blowing nearly everybody’s blankets. So apart from hanging them out and trying to dry out the blowflies and the mess that they left on everything, that was the main thing there. We learned very carefully that we got out of camp of a morning that we shook our boots out very well, because there were quite a few scorpions in that area. It wasn’t very nice to get one in your boots. A lot of time was taken up in the camps there.

Laundry and so forth and sergeants’ and officers’ messes had to be looked after. I remember the Christmas there. Normally of a Christmas time the officers wait on the troops and act as stewards and serve the food up for the troops. We did that quite well there. We hadn't been there very long before, incidentally,

Colonel Proud left us and our 2IC carried on for a short time in Moira, in Dandaragan I should say. Much the same as most camps there. We hadn't been there long when we got a new commanding officer. Lieutenant Colonel Gerald Brennan. He was a

major when he came to us, but it wasn’t long before he got his promotion to lieutenant colonel. He came in from the 2/28 from the Middle East. Colonel Buntin came back around the same time and took command of the 11th Battalion. Also a Middle East man came back and took over from

Colonel Proud. Colonel Hubbard I think it was. No, that’s not quite right. Hubbard was the 11th battalion. I think the other battalions got new commanding officers too. The previous commanding officers we had had been First World War men. Men who’d come back from the First World War and had continued in the militia, got their promotions there.

Then we settled down under colonel Gerald Brennan, but just prior to him taking over the commander of the carrier platoon was to be captured. Captain Joseph, the other fellow that was stopped going in the 2/44, he took command of the carriers.

It was he, when I was in Seymour, he had taken over the carrier platoon in my absence. So he was a fit and proper person, and with the rank of captain, to take over the carrier platoon. I went to B company, rifle company. Bearing in mind there was no machinegun companies left and there were not machinegun carriers anymore, they were machinegun carriers, but not Vickers machinegun carriers. The Bren

guns had been introduced into the infantry battalions and into the carrier platoon. It was a very happy arrangement with C company. Now I’d like to mention Captain Douglas had taken over command of C company. I think we had Angus, I can't remember who was,

oh that…

That’s right. I moved into B company there with Captain Douglas. Stumpie. Both he and Ernie Butler were champion swimmers. I think they both won the swim through Perth some time ago. Poor old Stumpie, he dropped dead just after the war. He had a bad heart. We knew he had a bad heart, but they upgraded

him and just kept him going. Nice moving in there. He and a very well know identity in Perth, Harry Cohen, and Johnny Wood. That made up our company. The company commander and the three platoon commanders and myself.

Went quite well, yes. Including a route march. I’d had the flu too,

and I’d been in bed, if you can call it “In bed” lying on the ground in a tent for a day. Get up the next day and we went on a route march ending up in an exercise. It was pretty close to 40 miles we covered in the day. It started drizzling with rain towards the end of it. A lot of the boys were crying. I know I fell over about half a dozen times. Some of the fellows still talk about that march. Then ended up all

night under a little bit of, you’d hardly call it canvas, a little tent cover thing to cover one person. Then did quite a long run in a van the next day. Luckily I’d had a cover for my car, which the boys had camouflaged and made a good cover for our platoon utility. Couldn’t get covers or anything like that

for half the vehicles. They were commandeered vehicles that we had. Private vehicles that had been commandeered. The old tarpaulin came in quite handy there. I was full of the flu. I felt shocking. We had a brigade exercise there. Brigade attack and so forth. Men used to survive that. Then eventually back to camp again and so it went on.

Whilst there I took a platoon, my platoon, up to a place called Gunyiddy, just out of a siding past Moira. We took over from the company of the 16th battalion, but we weren’t very happy in the area they were in from a hygiene point of view. So we moved right out almost into no man’s land and set up a free

camp there. While we were doing it was helping the engineers.

I mentioned the battalion so I won’t go into the details. They will probably work it out if the hygiene wasn’t right, why we moved. Plus lots of flies. We all ended up with diarrhoea anyway. I lost a stone in about a week.

We camped right away from it all. We were working with some of the signallers. We put a telephone line through, we were putting the poles up and so forth, through to Julienne Bay because there was no connection to Julienne Bay and the town ship of Moira or anywhere else for that matter.

That was one little job. Those sorts of things cropped up from time to time. So time marched on until eventually, after almost about a year or so, we moved back to Chidlow. This was prior, did I mention our whole brigade went AIF? I

think I even mentioned the date. We had a final parade on the oval out there at Chidlow, say goodbye. Our families came up from Perth to say goodbye to everybody. After that I, with several other officers, was posted to Northam Camp, where they had another 13th Training Battalion in operation there. More recruits coming in and so forth for

training. While we were there the brigade moved to eastern states, South Australia first, on route to Darwin.

I was very pleased. Been waiting a long time for it.

We can go back. Where are we now? I’d gone to Northam camp.

Sometime previous to that, when we were in the Melville camp that I mentioned with Colonel Harry Wilson. He held a parade and called for volunteers for the AIF. They were trying to get the boys into the Middle East there. He called for all those willing to enlist in the AIF to step forward. Every officer and about 90%

or more of the NCOs and quite a lot of the boys took a pace forward. I don’t know whether any NCOs got in, but I don’t think any of the officers did. Might have been one or two afterwards, but not as a result of that. He got hauled over the coals by the brigade commander. He was called up to Swan Barracks there for coercing boys into joining the

AIF. Whilst I was there I made application to go into the armoured division, which was just being formed. One day when I was out on leave, I’ve forgotten the names now, one was a fellow who was schooled to a doctor, and the adjutant of the new 10th Armoured Regiment being formed under Major General Robertson,

Red Robby. I put in an application for it. Then I heard back through the medico that his friend, the adjutant, said that I’d been accepted for the armoured division, which was an AIF division. I heard nothing about it then until we finished there. I went back to the battalion and I saw Jack McMullen. I said “Jack,

tell me what happened to my application for the armoured division.” He leant over, he had it on the desk, he picked up a piece of paper and said “There it is, Frank. You see it now ‘Not approved, A.J. Proud, CO.’” That put a stop to it.

Yes, it was a bit. However, probably the best thing that happened, because the armoured division was broken up and not many of the boys ever got away from Australia.

Got up to Queensland, I don’t think too many of them even got to Darwin. Turned out for the best in the long run. Anyway, up to Northam camp there and there under the command of Major Arthur Christian, a very well known ex-Rhodes scholar from Perth. We had about 3 months up there.

No, only Australia’s on the lapel. Summer dress was summer khaki dress and shirts, We still had our dress uniforms.

Just a little strip with “Australia” on it.

AIF, Australian Imperial Forces.

It meant a lot.

I had tried quite a few times before and I wasn’t getting anywhere anyway.

I don’t know whether they treated you any differently at all, but you certainly felt much more comfortable, put it that way.

Just the fact that you probably had a guilty conscience because we hadn't enlisted earlier. If we’d been able to get in earlier.

Right in the very early stages I probably could have got away without any trouble at all. I think I’d been earmarked for promotion, cause when I was with the Nu-Tread Tyre Company my old company second in command, a fellow named Lance Quartermaine in private life was manager for Canada Motors here. They were the agency for Pontiacs. I don’t think they’d be selling any at that particular time.

The business was still there in Murray Street, just up there. He’d asked Marham what sort of a fellow I was. Marham apparently spoke very nicely because when he came back he said Quartermaine thought there were better things for me anyway. That’s right, they offered me a job as company sergeant major, but I declined it. They said afterwards “I think

you were wise.” It was well known this and Marham came back and said “I think you’re in line for a commission, Frank.” It wasn’t long after that I got the commission too. They probably had me earmarked for promotion with the battalion anyway. I’d probably have ended up with a commission in the 2/4 had I gone in there anyway. That’s the way the cookie crumbled. The 13/18

Battalion there, there were several officers from our battalion and others. I was rather fortunate. My old friend Bill Riley was posted as a padre up there for a short time while I was there. I was able to be his best man when he got married here in Perth. Shortly after, I’ll catch up with him later on anyway. It was just training. a lot of time spent on the rifle range there. We were teaching the boys how to

fire the rifle and so on. Come in of a night time and be as deaf as a post, which reminds me I must pick up my hearing aid in a moment too. I left it on the table behind me. I can hear you all right.

I’m in Northam camp in the conversation, back then and now.

I was only training, a lot of time on the rifle range and taking fellows out on short exercises. Night exercises in the bush and marching around under the stars. There was a big hill at the back of Northam camp known as Sweat Hill. We’d take the boys down there and across the river and they’d all be exhausted by the time they got to the top. It’s amazing

how soft young people are in civil life. It’s not until you get the training that you harden up and can cope with all these sorts of things. Many exercises anyway, we can get off the exercises for a moment. I think we can almost say “That’s Northam camp there.”

Yeah, quite a few.

They were being called up when they reached, I don’t know what the age was, probably 18 years of age. They’d come in there and go through the camp. While we were there we’d have boxing matches and wrestling matches. We had one fellow there, Lance Corporal Mavro Mathers his name was, but he was a professional wrestler, Spiro Colonicus. It was really nice, you get the different blokes who thought they were pretty fit and they’d get in wrestling with exhibition wrestling.

Old Spiro would end up winning. He’d go up and put his chest out and run around the ring there. We’d laugh our heads off there. He was a born actor. A nice little fellow. I think he joined the provos [military police] later on last I heard of him. That finished. In the meantime our battalion had gone to a place called Sandy Creek in South Australia. It was

there they sent up their advance parties and then they went up on the Manoora, MV [Motor Vessel] Manoora up around Queensland and I think that’s how most of them got on that trip. I’m not sure, cause from Darwin there were several leaves. Some travelled on ship and others would fly down.

No. We left Northam, we went by train to Port Augusta and from there on the old Ghan. You could almost walk nearly as fast. Then to Alice Springs.

We were in a big open carriage. I’m not too sure if the seats were on the sides of not now.

But it was plenty of room on the floor to sleep anyway and I fortunately had a box that the boys had made for me, which was metal lined and a section for food and another with a primus tin and methylated and kerosene. We were able to get that out and pump it up and make tea and coffee, which made it

much more pleasant travelling there. When they’d stop somewhere we’d get out and probably play two up or tossing coins and pass the time up.

I can't remember. We probably had bully beef and biscuits and something like that with us. I know once we got to Alice Springs we

moved into a staging camp there. There were quite a lot of people and troops in Alice Springs all the time. In the camp.

Tin huts. Ablution blocks with all the basins and showers. I know all about that. I’ll come to that in a minute, it was pretty hot when we got to Alice

Springs. We moved into the camp for the night. We had a meal there. Had a wash, probably had a shower and decided we’d go to the local picture show in open air gardens. So off we went in our shorts and shirts and found that nearly everybody else going along there were carrying their great coats, that’s the army overcoats, and blankets. We looked at the pictures and

by half time we were almost shivering, almost frozen. So I don’t think we lasted out the night. We went back to the camp and got a hot cup of coffee or something like that and went to bed for the night. Next morning, when we got up and went down to the showers, we couldn’t get a shower for the showers were all frozen up and any water that had been left out in the basin was frozen hard. So I think we skipped the showers that morning.

Then we had breakfast in the staging camp and then we went on to motor trucks. We went overland then.

Open trucks, yeah. Being an officer I used to get a seat in the front. The troops were on the back. Usually sat back to back and feet to the sides

rather than sitting with the back to the sides. That’s much safer the other way. Pretty hot travelling in those conditions. They were very dirty and dusty roads. So we went up through Tennant Creek and passed the Marbles on the right hand side with everybody I think’s heard of the Marbles, the rocks up there. We could see them in the distance on the right hand side going north to Birdum. Birdum

was the rail junction through to Darwin. At that stage the train wasn’t going through to Darwin, it was only going through to Adelaide River, which was about 100 miles south of Darwin. The interesting part about the train journey is that apparently the only brakes on the train are on the engine room. Every time it’s slow down or stop you’d get, all the way. So nobody got any sleep that night. We got to Alice Springs the next

morning. Wash up and somebody said there was an air raid red or something like that and the siren had gone. Nothing happened at Alice Springs, but it could have been the Japs going down to Nashfield airstrip, which is not very far north of there. We went by truck again up to our battalions. I think

we dropped the boys form the 11th Battalion at the 52 mile peg as they call it. We arrived at the 28th Battalion who were settling in there at the 50 mile peg. We were stationed 50 miles south of Darwin and that’s where we had our camp. By the time we got there, there had been one or two huts built. I went into Don company, 18 platoon and I shared

that with Lieutenant Jack MacGyver and a canvas for a time. But the pioneer platoon under Tom Wilding who was a pioneer officer, they were very good at building huts. They would go out on working parties and bring in the Pandanus palms, the long palm with bits coming out. There’s

a similar type of palm growing just in the corner here by my place here. They were about this size, 3 or 4 inches in diameter and they make all the frameworks and the sides of the huts that they built, which were only up to about 3 feet high, round, just open entrances. Then we built our

bunks or beds on the inside out of bamboo. We had working parties going out with trucks and collecting all that was necessary. They were all constructed underneath. We had galvanised iron. I don’t know where we got it from. It must have been from up around Darwin.

Yes, there were plenty of them all through lots of the area there. I don’t know how much the army cut out. They must have

cut them all out I think.

Around Darwin, yes, quite a bit. We set up a very good camp there. The cook houses were all in mobile cookers. All constructed of aluminium and meals generally were quite good.

The officers’ and sergeants’ mess we’d set up there, a very good camp. Further up towards Darwin they had a big canteen there. Open air picture shows with seats for the troops made of saplings, 10 bearer rails,

and timber off the ground. Sat on the round, hard seats. We didn’t mind, we’d sit out in the rain and enjoy some of the shows they sent up there. Very good pictures there. I think there were one or two concert parties while we were there. Then they built the racecourse, it might have even been the Darwin racecourse, but I remember Northern Territory force having race meetings up there.

A lot of old Brumbies with some pretty good jockeys on them too. Everything was set up very well there.

How was it?

I think it was important to keep the morale up with the troops. One of the main things we used to do to keep up the morale of the troops was to send them out on 20 mile route

marches and things like that. Which in the tropics was not particularly pleasant. We had one branch some distance out from Darwin, through the scrub, working with a team of engineers clearing the bush right through. Not heavy, fairly light timber. For the engineers to lay the roads through

at various points. There was various springs at points there, which became a rest camp where the different parties would go out there for a few days’ rest and swimming, which was very pleasant. I don’t think I stayed there, but I did go out to various springs and have a look at the set up there. We established, a whole force there were thousands

and thousands of troops up there from mostly militia battalions.

Berry Springs? I can't remember now. I think they had huts there for the boys to sleep in and

mess huts. It was a little bit like a rainforest. Nice and green and good fishing. Nice fresh water there. You had to be careful where you went swimming up there in the rivers and lakes, which brings back to mind one little incident there. We were out on a route march or some sort of an exercise.

It was Adelaide River or one of the rivers there. Just going along and suddenly the first thing I noticed about it was a rifle shot. What had happened, one or several of our boys had noticed this big crocodile in the river. A chap named Private Morri Crosier, an interesting cove, a couple of times he’d disappeared for a few days and

they wondered where he was. He’d ended up in a lakatoi or native canoe somewhere and he’d wander off. He was a good bushman. He’d shot the crocodile and got a got a rope from out of one of the trucks. While a couple of blokes stood there with their rifles cocked, just in case there were any more crocodiles in the place, Morri dived into the water to the crocodile, hitched the rope under him and the boys pulled him up.

He was promptly skinned and I acquired a nice piece of the crocodile skin out of the sides which I eventually had tanned. Had it for years. Ended up giving it to one of my grandsons. We’ve never forgotten Morri diving into that crocodile water there. If there was one crocodile there there’d be another one pretty close. Morri did fairly well afterwards. He was a bandsman.

Quite good. Actually, we had our band of the 28th Battalion was chosen best band in the Northern Territory under the baton of Sergeant Bob Whitehouse. Very, very good. I think we also had the top football team too, in Australian rules, up there. A lot of sport played up there. Mainly in the companies we played basketball with all the boys involved.

Crosier after the war, he went up to Julienne Bay area, somewhere up there, he might have even gone to Gonga, but he moved back to Julienne Bay Cray fishing. I understand he ended up quite a wealthy man. He still comes along to our battalion reunions and he usually plays the reveille on the trumpet.

What else happened up in Darwin?

Yes, the first night back with the battalion there was an air raid and a few bombs were dropped fairly close to our unit on the main road. I don't know whether they wanted to just give us a surprise, cause they mainly flew over the top, just to the,

I think they probably followed the road down to Bachelor airstrip, which was further south, and the bombers would bomb down there. The idea was to bomb the airstrips and our aircraft down there, cause they had heavy ack-ack guns, anti-aircraft guns there, as they did up at Berrinor, which is just out of Darwin. The first night at this air raid I walked down the platoon to make sure everybody was taking the necessary cover and

one of the big holes that had been dug there, call it a slit trench, right down the bottom was little Private Lyn Darsch. I said “hello Lyn, you look pretty safe down there.” He looked up to me and said “Yes, sir, if you’d have been in Winnellie with us last week you’d have been down here too.” I think it was good advice. I probably should have been down there, but even so.

What happened at Winnellie was that we had a company on

work party up there. The Japanese raid came and strafed the camp. I remember one of the fellows I believe, he was in his bunk and he was blown out. Most of them dived into slit trenches. I think one or two fellows might have been slightly wounded, but nothing serious. But the fact of just being there and strafed by Japanese fighter planes wasn’t very pleasant. It certainly made them

wary of what do to in the case of an air raid. So that was that little experience with Lyn Darsch. What else happened then in Darwin. I can't remember very much about it. Oh yes, of course. Then the CO sent for me and told me that he’d recommended that I should

go as an instructor at the Winnellie school of infantry. So I had to go and have an interview with the brigadier. Perhaps I shouldn’t mention this. I’m putting myself in a bit. The brigadier interviewed me and told me of the importance as we’d be training NCOs up there. He said “I don’t know that I’d have recommended you for the job. It’s a pretty responsible job.” I said “Sir,

why wouldn’t you recommend me, sir?” He said “Well, I haven’t forgotten the mushrooms.” I said “I thought that might have been forgotten by now.” He said “The army has a long memory, Mr Doddemeade. But seeing as your CO has recommended you for the job you can go to Winnellie.” “Yes, sir” and out I went. So I went to Winnellie then, had about 3 months up there.

We had two platoons up there. Fellow named Lieutenant Cameron had one, I had the other platoon. We used to operate exercises involving two platoons. Camps of a night time, patrols, lecturing on jungle warfare and how to operate in case of being

attacked and so forth. Then lectures to conduct lectures there. Lectures on appreciations of situations. I remember that very well. I remember while we were up there Brigadier Ferguson was known as a man of many battles. He’d been wounded on numerous occasions. He came to the camp and he camped with us for quite some time. There were other wings there. I was only

with the infantry wing. There were groups for engineers and anti-aircraft sections and what have you, all in the one camp.

It was. Under the command of a Major Mcleod, an ex government school headmaster he was. Very nice old chap. We got on well together. We had a very comfortable mess there.

We had an open air picture show adjoining us and it was only a short distance across the other side of the main road where the Americans came in while we were there and set up their camps over there. I can remember we got jazz music till all hours in the morning from them.

Infantry tactics. Basically that. Start off in the morning on the parade ground and not wink an eyelid, in shorts and little midgies as we called them, little firefly thing. They used to land all over them and bite like mosquitoes. You’d be looking out for a little while. You had to relax and never scratch yourself. So you’d order the platoon to stand easy and everybody’d be rubbing the

things there. We had stuff we used to put on to try and drive them away, but they were a menace. They were like mosquitoes, early in the morning and at dusk they’d be around. Then we’d march off to various areas and we’d have a syllabus to work on. Then perhaps go into one of the hut there and lecture. I remember lecturing on appreciation.

I don't know what sort of a job I was doing of it or what Cameron was doing, but the brigadier decided he’d have a special session for us all there on appreciation. He was very good. Now you’re going to say “What’s appreciation” is that right? Well, you have a certain situation and there were certain laws you operate on and make an appreciation of a situation.

You’ve got enemy in a certain place and you’d got to decided “Right, we’re going to attack the enemy. How are we going to attack?” One of the things is not to underestimate the strength of the enemy, which is a thing that can occur very easily. You follow army history and so on, you find occasions where the enemy is underestimated and that’s probably what occurred on the Charge

of the Light Brigade in the Crimean War. You think you can get away with things that you can’t do. There’s a whole list of rules and regulations to apply when appreciating any situation. You could apply it to civil life quite easily if you wanted to decide whether you were going to sell your home or buy a block of land or build a house.

You run through and appreciate all this in your own mind. A lot of sensible people probably sit down and follow a sequence right through and then come to a decision just what you’re going to do. I used to teach those sorts of things. Then we’d have examinations for the boys and examination papers that you check up of a night time. One very pleasant incident up there, dropping a few names. In our hut

where we were, it was a large hut with cubicles on either side. We all had our cubicle and a little desk and a bed there. Next door to me, one side I think was the entrance to the mess hut. I had a dental surgeon next-door to me, Dr Bernard

O’Keefe. Very well known dental surgeon from Australia. American doctorate degree. Very nice fiend to work with. One night he said, “Frank, I’m going up to see an old friend, Captain Baldwin,” Naval Officer in Command, NOIC as we call it, “in Darwin. Would you like to come up with me?” So we did. It was a most enjoyable evening. Captain

Balwin had been naval officer in command here in Fremantle before the war. He was posted after the war broke out, or about that time, as captain of the Manoora, which was a troop carrying ship, as was the Westralia. They were both troop carriers. Then he was posted as naval officer in command in

Darwin. We arrived there and he’d taken over the administration quarters, had been the civil administrator’s residence before the war. We arrived there and the captain was all dressed in his nice white uniform, all the chairs were upholstered with white coverings

and a nice steward in attendance with his white towel over the arm sort of business. Nice, good refrigeration, beautiful cold air. There was no air conditioning in those days, so we had the big fans going there. We talked all about old days when he’d been posted in Perth and he had been I think

a member for the Freshwater Bay Yacht Club and knew some of the boys I had been at school with at Hale. Bill Shipway, who was a lieutenant and got command of a Fairmile, a little boat of his own command. He thought that was very good. The war broke out and he joined up as a midshipman to have his own command,

Ron Philmer, also a school lad with me, and Ron joined with the Union Bank before the war. He’d gone in and received his commission in the navy and he was in the Manoora too, with Baldie. They all knew him as Captain Baldwin, his nickname was Baldie.

Came in very useful afterwards, because he and his brother Kevin owned the Adelphi Hotel in Perth, which is where the Parmelia was, but it’s the last big hotel to be built in Perth in those days and it was very comfortable. I decided to get married and couldn’t get any accommodation anywhere so I rang up and got on to, no, not Baldwin,

Bernie O’Keefe was the doctor, did I say Bernard O’Keefe in the first place? I think I did. Baldwin was his friend. I rang him up, because I think I’d contacted the hotel before and they were full up. So I got onto Bernard and he got me a very nice double room for our honeymoon. We had it for the first two days of our honeymoon. We were married on the Saturday, so Saturday and Sunday, which was very nice. All set up very nicely for us. I was very grateful to Bernard.

in latter years I got to know his brother Kevin very well. You make some good friends one way or another that you catch up with in life later on. Then after I’d been in the training battalion there I went back to the 28th. Another working party we had up in Darwin was when they decided to, oh, we had a concert party up there too. While we were there they brought the girls up for the and

I think it was the first time

No, no. Concert party girls. They were very nice girls. I’ve forgotten what the play was all about now. Afterwards we got to entertain them in our mess. They all came over to the mess. Rather interesting, they had a beautiful white cockatoo up there, a very friendly one. He’d get you finger on his beak and you could swing him around the head and away he’d fly.

You’d be in the pictures and he’d come along and sit on my shoulder on numerous occasions there. He had a great vocabulary. The boys had taught him properly. I won’t repeat what he said because it was all pretty blue. Before the party the CO

Mcleod said to me “Frank, will you get that cockatoo and get it right out of the way, right down the end,” which I did do. I took him right down the back of the men’s lines and deposited him. We didn’t want him there with the girls coming into the mess. After the concert all the girls came over and we had light refreshment there. I don’t remember any, I don’t know whether alcohol, we had

lolly water we used to drink there. All this stuff was made up on the Territory and we always used to refer to lemonade or anything like that as lolly water. Plenty of lolly water. We had a nice bar set up in there anyway. Then all the girls came over and who should come flying through the window but the cocky? Right onto the end of the bar counter. All the girls said “Hello cocky. Pretty Cocky. Don’t you talk cocky?”

He didn’t even open his beak. He just sat there. We had a nice supper and said goodbye to the girls, went out, waving goodbye, walked back into the mess. As soon as we walked back into the mess the cocky opened up in full strength. Rather remarkable. Not a word while the girls were there, as soon as the females disappeared

he was back onto his rotten language. All the little episodes make it interesting. After I left Winnellie and went back to the unit went out with a working party. We decided to bring AWAS back into the Territory. They were going to be housed in the old Larakia barracks, which had been built two storey brick barracks, good solid brick building, by the regular garrison

that was up there before the war. So with our working parties we went up there and cleaned the whole place up and dug slit trenches and made sure all the drainage was working nicely there. We were camped just at one end in there. About half a dozen officers there. There

had been fish traps in the harbour there and those that weren’t damaged, were fixed up. We used to get a good supply of fish up there. Barramundi and other types of fish there. We lived very well apart from our army supplies with our fresh fish. Very pleasant. In due course the

AWAS arrived. How I came to meet one, I was quite friendly. Used to often slip up at the weekend and we’d go swimming down there together. I well remember faux pas that you make. There was a chap down there, didn’t dawn on me, had one of the staff cars down on the

beach. He’d been swimming down there and went back up to the car. I said “Any chance for a ride back to the Larakia?” He said “Hop in.” So up we went back to there. I got out with the AWAS and said “Thanks very much, thanks for the ride, driver.” Never gave another thought to it.

We used to hitch a ride up, from the 50 mile peg you’d go down to road and there were plenty of vehicles coming through. You could hop in and get up and no trouble to get back to the camp in the night time. When I got back, the first thing the next morning, I’d been informed that I’d thanked the driver very much for the ride. It was lieutenant colonel commander of one of the

battalions up there. I didn’t know the difference in his bathers what he was. Probably was more interested in the young lady than I was in who was driving the vehicle at the time. So time went on. Just before Christmas it was decided that we were to move. As far as we knew we were going to New Guinea.

We didn’t know very much about it. Top secret if a troop moved. On the 24th December 1944 we all assembled and moved down to the wharf in the harbour and there was an old steam ship, the SS [Steamship]

Swartenhondt, a Dutch boat, or ship, which we duly boarded. At 0230 hours, half past two in the afternoon, that’s not right, is it? That’s right, 0200 hours. No, sorry.

It’s recorded somewhere as 0200 hours, but that’s not right. It was about 2:30 in the afternoon that we sailed. Lo and behold my little lady friend had arrived down to wave goodbye and brought a beautiful fruitcake that she’d made up in the barracks for me, which was much appreciated. Very nice gesture.

The old Swartenhondt, officers were lucky, they had cabins, but the troops were camped on the steel decks and some of our boys there were just about washed away with water being flushed out from the shower recess on the floor where they were supposed to sleep. It seemed to be continually wet most of the time on the trip. When we

first left Darwin we were accompanied by a Catalina flying boat, which was spotting for Jap submarines. Nothing eventuated there and after the first day out the Catalina departed and left us to watches on deck. Just make sure no Japs were coming along to bombard us. On the 6th day

we sailed into Rabaul. A harbour had been built with advance parties there and troops in Rabaul. Sorry, not Rabaul. I correct myself. Into Jacquinot Bay. That’s the correction. We unloaded our ships and moved into an area there, what was left of

a coconut plantation and set up our camp there, which was reasonably comfortable. We carried on with a few exercises while we were there.

Again patrols, ambushes. One platoon of the company would go out and set up an ambush and we’d wander out and get ambushed and be

wiped out and things like that. Never quite realistic because you knew you wasn’t getting shot. You knew it was only an exercise anyway. It was all good training. Probably stood us in some good stead later on. While we were there, we went further up in the area

of Wide Bay, which is the narrow neck much closer to Rabaul, which was the capital of New Britain. Rabaul was the capital of New Guinea prior to the First World War. It was after the First World War when it became a mandate of Australia that they moved the capital to Darwin. There was

estimated the time we went there that there was 30,000 Japanese troops in Rabaul. There was nothing between the Japs and ourselves there. We probably had a division of troops. Probably not a fully manned division either. We had engaging the Japanese up forward was the 19th

Battalion and the 14/32 Battalion under the command of Brigadier Ray Sandover. We were as we had been from just after the formation of the 2/16 Battalion, Brigadier Cox had got command of the 2/16 and brigadier McKenzie had been left in command of the 44th Battalion before the war, and the militia

took command of our brigade. He stuck with us right through and also up into New Britain. He was a First World War man who had soldiered on in the militia forces and in private life was manager for Cadbury’s Chocolate here. The 11th and the 16th Battalions sent observation

officers to go with the 18th and the 14/32 Battalion as observers. On the first day up there, I haven’t got it, I’ve got a few notes somewhere around the place.

Where am I now? We were at Jacquinot Bay. Sergeant Malacari was wounded in the shoulder and in the head with Japanese mortar shells, shrapnel.

That was up at Wide Bay, the

next big bay after Jacquinot Bay towards Rabaul. Alan Anderson, who had 17 platoon, I had 18 platoon, Alan Anderson was in command of 17 platoon at that stage. Incidentally, after I came back from Winnellie, I went to Darwin, that’s right, I left B company and went to Don company, D company.

I had 18 platoon in Don Company.

Yes. The battalion remained behind. We just sent these officers and NCOs up to observe and see what actually happened in action cause none of them had seen any action before. The next day Alan Anderson, 17 platoon commander, was killed. He had his batman [officer’s servant] alongside him.

Alan said “I can’t move. I can’t move my legs.” Then he was dead. A couple of days after that Ernie Butler went up from A company of the 28th. He was killed also up there. We had several other troops wounded while they were up observing there. One of our boys, Doug Davy, Lieutenant Davy, he was

attached to the 19th Battalion and they were ambushed by the Japanese and they had a number of casualties and Doug Davy took command of the platoon, or that section of it anyway, and was responsible for evacuating the wounded. For which he was

recommended for an award, and he was awarded an MBE [Member of the British Empire], which is quite common in the navy, but not very many in the army. Not that I knew of anyway.

This citation was that he was awarded for valour, which was quite an unusual citation. On an MBE it’s a sort of valour thing of Victoria Crosses. We were very proud of Doug Davy up there.

Yes. This was a little bit

later on. At one stage I used to cop quite a few little jobs up there. One of which was to go down to the medical centre there. We had troops going through and they always wanted somebody in command. There were a number of doctors

camped in the area too, and quite a few troops. I developed tonsillitis while I was there. When our battalion moved up to Wide Bay, we moved up by landing barges, quite a few of them I think were under American command. So the battalion moved onto Wide Bay and I had

this damned tonsillitis and so I was confined there for about a week after they’d gone. The morning of the day that I was to go up I was very pleased to receive a visitor who was my old and best friend, who was the padre, I mentioned in Northam camp that I had been his best man. When the 28th Battalion arrived he asked “Where’s Frank Doddemeade?” They said “He’s laid

up there with tonsillitis in the medical centre.” So Bill arrived there with mud all over him and he got back to Jacquinot Bay and came straight around to see how I was getting on, which was very pleasing cause we’d grown up from the cradle together. To see Bill was much appreciated. That night I moved up with all the troops onto the barge up to Wide Bay. It was a pretty

rough night. We had a 44 gallon drum in the middle of the barge there. I think I was about the only one that didn’t have to use the 44 gallon drum. Most of them were lining up there and being very seasick on the way. So it was a pretty sick crew that arrived up in Wide Bay where I was posted back to Don Company as second in command. In the meantime we’d had a new company commander appointed there.

He was as keen as mustard too. I think he wanted to be as successful as his brother who had just been awarded a Military Cross on the mainland of New Guinea.

No trouble at all. We had a good crowd there. Alan Anderson, Murray Sweetapple there from Perth. He had been with

New Guinea NGIB [New Guinea Infantry Battalion], New Guinea native units up there. He got posted to 28th and he took over 17 platoon after we lost Alan Anderson. Murray Sweetapple. He was fairly experienced with troops, native ones in particular. We all got along. Murray was pretty good. it was interesting because he,

later on I found out he used to live next-door to my wife when she was as girl. They knew one another quite well. His father had been the officer commanding the 10th Light Horse before the war here. We had a good little set-up. Jack MacGyver, whom I mentioned earlier because I shared my tent with him when I first went to Darwin, he had

16 or 17 platoon. We had the three platoons. We hadn't been there long, I’d only arrived a few days, and we moved and we took over a perimeter on the Bulus River. We had a company headquarters and two platoons on the far side. Why I say far side; it was on the far side of the river from where our company

and battalion headquarters were in the Tol Plantation at Wide Bay. We were over the Bulus River. Very fast flowing river. The way we used to get across there was with a barge with ropes tied on both sides of the river. If you wanted to go one way, you slackened off the rope on the rear

of the barge and the current carried you across one way. To come back you tightened up the rope on the other end and the current carried you backwards and forwards. While I’m talking about there, I remember very well one day going across there in the barge. There was full of older natives and halfway across they

all went over the side. I and the boy in charge of the barge were the only ones left on the barge. When we got to the other side I realised why. All the trees were rocking. It was the middle of a very severe earth tremor. When I got back to where our little camp was, one of the camp beds there, one of the batmen slept in, he’d

only vacated the bed a few minutes and a huge tree had gone right down through the middle of it there. We used to get a lot of earth tremors up there.

Volcanic activity, yes. Not very pleasant when you’re in a slit trench because you feel as though it’s all coming in on top of you. They were little things we had to contend with. We moved into the perimeter there and had one platoon situated, Jack MacGyver, on the headquarters side of the river.

It was only on the first or second night that we were there, word came through to us that one of the native patrols had observed Japanese patrols fairly close to us. As with there was an engineering company working out in the jungle there. These engineers, you’ve got to hand it out to them, they mightn’t have done very much fighting, but they were pretty game. They’d get out almost

in the middle of everything and they’d be cutting timber and sawing timber up, doing everything the engineers had to do. Such as building bridges and corduroy crossings and jetties and so forth. There was this company of engineers stuck out in the jungle there. The orders were to bring them into our perimeter for the night. I remember going out in a jeep with a driver and an orderly with a rifle sitting in the back. To pass

on the message to the boys that they were to come into our perimeter, which they certainly did. In the meantime our boys were busy digging more slit trenches to enlarge the perimeter to take this company of engineers in with us. They duly arrived and settled down for the night. In the very early hours in the morning, it used to get that dark that you put your hand in front of

your face and you couldn’t see your hand. It was just dead black. In the middle of the night suddenly a grenade went off. It was all quiet cause everybody would have stood to and crawled into their slit trenches as I did too. Then suddenly the most ghastly screams you could hear anywhere were heard several hundred yards away.

What had happened, one of our boys was asleep and was dreaming about Japs and one of his coppers shook him to wake him up, apparently he threw the grenade going off. He just thought it was a Jap over the top of him and he let out the same ghastly scream. You can imagine what it’s like when you can’t see anything, the grenade’s gone off, he screams and all silence again.

After a while one of the boys saw a bush moving. Bushes move in the dark, you know. As dark as it was there we saw a bush move and wouldn’t know. He fired his rifle at it. Silence again. I prayed to see a Jap. I’d love to see one. I was there with my bayonet there. It’s a very uncanny feeling. You couldn’t see a

damned thing anyway. We stood to until dawn. There were a lot of very weary soldiers the next morning there. The nerves were certainly shaken up considerably. What had occurred, one of the booby traps hadn't been set properly. Apparently they’d used a piece of string or cord or something like that, which

with the moisture and dampness had contracted and pulled the pin. That’s how that went off. We found out the boy had screamed was through being woken up and thinking there was a Jap over the top of him, the other one was someone who’d seen a bush moving. These are the sorts of things that are likely to happen. We were lucky there were no casualties as a result, because it could easily. It was very trying on the nerves

for the boys.

Not as such. Not that I was involved in anyway. We were there for a time. I was in this position. You’d be out there for some days and another company would take over and you’d move back into a reserve position. Then your turn would come around and you’d move out into another perimeter somewhere.

The next time we moved from there we went up onto, I’m not sure whether it was Cake Hill, but it was certainly right up on top of one of the hills there. I can tell you they were, I wouldn’t call them mountains, but they were very mountainous hills anyway, to climb up there with your gear.

You did. You had to take

your rifle and your haversack. You took everything up there. As you would take out on the patrol. You didn’t take your pack up. I think you took a groundsheet and our little one man tents that we had. I think at that stage we had them there with mosquito netting on the

sides. Covered on the top and then mosquito netting on the side, rolled up into a very small parcel. We were up there and sending out patrols. cause I was 2IC of the company you’re responsible for rations and cookhouses and staff generally. You’ve got to be prepared to take over the company, which I did do for a few days.

Our company commander was transferred.

Perhaps he’d like to tell the story one day if you ever catch up to it.

Well, I haven’t told you his name, have I? After the little scare we had down there, he didn’t eat for about three days and I had to report him and he was carted off to hospital and I never saw him again,

which was rather sad actually cause he was a very pleasant bloke and very keen too. We had several blokes, senior ones, came in and took over the company, cause I’d only just been appointed 2IC of the company there.

No.

We were in the perimeter up there and I don’t recall sending any patrols out. It was only a couple of days. We had no contact with the Japanese at all. We had our perimeter set up there, all the various section commanders and setting up booby traps. Talking about booby traps, one day I’d been down to company

headquarters and coming back, just as I came into the, incidentally, in the centre of our perimeter on this particular place we had what we termed a thunderbox. I don’t think I should need to explain what a thunderbox was. It was a toilet seat. They used to drill holes right into the ground of this thing there. As I arrived a grenade exploded and

I arrived almost immediately afterwards and the first thing I faced was the thunderbox with the lid up and a pair of boots stuck in the mud in front of it. What happened, one of the boys sitting up there with his boots on loose, he’d tied out of his boots into a slit trench and left the boots stuck in the mud. What had actually happened, one of our lance corporals was there

setting this grenade off. Somehow or other the pin came out and to save anybody else that was near him there, he dived for the grenade, but didn’t make it, and exploded and luckily he was only wounded in the back. Fortunately he’d gone flat on the ground. Lance Corporal Palmer it was. He got wounded there too.

Just that one little incident there. We were there for a little while. Later we went down onto one of the other rivers in the perimeter out there. Whilst we were out there one of the observation officers, O Pips we called them, out into the jungle sighted Japanese movements there

this evening. Word came back that the Japs were out there and called for artillery support. It was very comfortable sitting in a perimeter right out in the jungle having artillery firing over your heads. We didn’t think we’d be worried by any Japs that night, but you never know, because they had a reputation for sneaking in the night time in the perimeters and so on. You set booby traps all the way round

the perimeter there.

Grenades with a pin tied onto a pin-hair and onto a stay-hair and a wire onto the pin in the grenade. Stretching the cord out and making it secure at the other end.

had to be very careful that you didn’t release the pin. That’s how they were set up. Used to set them all up of a night time and in the morning they’d go down and release them and make them secure. It’s nerve wrecking stuck out in the jungle all night when you don’t know if there’s

anything there or not.

I don’t think you can. It depends on how various individuals react to them there. I think I handled that side of it fairly well, actually. My main concern was that I didn’t want to see

any of our men wounded or anything like that. I didn’t, as a 2IC, take any patrols out. I went out on a few and we found little huts and things which remained from where the Japanese had been there. A couple of times we found a couple of bodies. The platoon commander would report it and later on troops

would be sent out to dispose of them and bury them and so forth.

Mm, natives, yes. The Japs had cleaned up their wounded and their dead fairly well. As far as I was concerned I wasn’t with the 19th or the 14/32 Battalion to see any close action.

One of the patrols we went out on we found Alan Megleson where he had been buried. My friend, the padre Bill Riley, dug the hole and buried Alan and removed the bolt from his rifle and inserted it upside down where he was buried. Bill had to jump into the hole he had dug for protection for Japanese mortar fire. He didn’t tell me. One of the other boys told me about that.

The 16th Cameron Highlanders saw a lot of action up there. I’m not too sure whether, I don’t know what they really did, but some of their officers were attached to, I know two of them, Bob Boyd and Johnny Ambrose,

they were both lieutenants. They must have done a pretty good job up there as observers because Brigadier Sandover promoted them in the field and gave them their captaincies. Andrews might have got one, but Boyd didn’t get one while he was in the 16th Battalion. He didn’t get on particularly well with his commanding officer. I don’t think he would have recommended him for his captaincy. While we were in New Britain,

back in reserve position there, I was called up by the CO and the adjutant there at the time and he said “Frank, I’ve nominated you to attend LHQ school of hygiene in Sydney. It’s a 2IC’s course and you’re next in line for your captaincy. Go down there,”

I got that close to it he said to Greg who was the adjutant there, Greg Grove, he said “Get Mr Doddemeade to sign his papers, will you?” He said “No sir, he doesn’t have to sign them for a captaincy, only for a commission.” “Oh,” he said “that’s right.” I thought that sounds pretty good. I left for the school by small ship from Wide Bay down to Jacquinot Bay where I camped for a fortnight. Planes couldn’t get off the ground for

the rain. It just rained and rained and rained. No planes coming in, no planes going out. In the meantime they’d built pretty substantial airstrips down there too. It was too late to go to the school then, so I went back to the battalion again.

It was a bit of bad luck. There were a few others there that were either going to the school or going elsewhere for movement and they couldn’t go anyway.

I remember going to a picture show one night. It must have stopped raining that night. It was probably drizzling cause they had quite a good open air theatre down in Jacquinot Bay. General Robertson, Red Robby, had taken over command. We were the 5th Division when we went up there and the 5th Division headquarters were relieved by the 11th Division under Major General Robertson.

I came back from the school to the battalion. If I may drop back a little bit in my conversation here. They had been a call for recruits, officers, to join the British Army in India. The CO told me about it. I said “I’ll apply for it.”

I felt that I wanted to do a little bit more than I’d been doing. It had taken me a long while to get into the AIF in any case and we weren't doing very much, really, except holding troops. So I applied for that. It might have been the speed and accuracy test because by the time I got there I was pretty browned off anyway. I had this speed and accuracy test there. I thought “what a waste of this time.” I’ve never heard of speed and accuracy tests in those days. Then we had an interview

and there was a British lieutenant colonel there. We interviewed with him and I was feeling very happy. I thought, “That’s all right.” Then I was interviewed by an Australian lieutenant colonel. Obviously a Middle East man because one of the first things he said was “Mr Doddemeade, how is it you didn't join the AIF earlier?” I said “Well, chiefly, sir, because I couldn’t get a release from the 28th Battalion to join the AIF. I did make applications for it on several

occasions and it had not been approved.” He said, “I feel that’s very difficult to believe Mr Doddemeade, that’s all.” Because I remember going into the other fellows waiting and I said, “I’m not going. That’s for sure.” I didn’t get in. I mentioned the fact of the case of trying to do a little bit more.

I was getting pretty browned off really there. When I went back to the battalion, well that I’ve missed out on, and I don’t know whether Gary Brenner really wanted to get rid of me or not because I’d only been back a short time and he said, oh, incidentally,

there’d been quite a few changes in command there. Brigadier McKenzie had not been well and he was repatriated I think to hospital, nursing home or something for a short time. He ended up going back to Australia. I don’t know what happened with him eventually there until after the war was over. They appointed Brigadier Winning, AIF commander, and

he was pretty…

He made certain recommendations with the general. He wasn’t very popular with us. Not that we thought Joey Brennan was a particularly fine commanding officer, he was a very nice man and a very gentlemanly man. Sometimes you need pretty tough leaders I think.

From memory I think the Winning’s report, the CO showed it to us. About 26 very minor things that happened. Just one of them was he came up to our forward positions there, this is Brigadier Winning with Colonel Brennan. He noticed one of the men outside of the perimeter.

He looked at the colonel, he said “What’s that man doing outside the perimeter?” I don’t know what reply the colonel gave to, but he turned to the platoon commander, MacGyver and said “What’s the chap doing out there?” He said “Just a moment, sir” and he asked the sergeant, who told him why he was out there. Something to do with the booby traps or something like that.

The brigadier had put this down on the report as the colonel Brennan didn’t know what his troops were doing and used that as an excuse. As if a colonel of a battalion would know what a particular man was doing outside a perimeter at the time they just come up there. There were a lot of silly little point that were brought up, which generally felt was most unfair.

We lost Colonel Brennan. Colonel Harry Chilton was appointed. Commonly known as Chuck. A very good man too and proved very popular with the battalion. I didn’t see very much of him because

he’d only been there 4 or 5 weeks when I was notified I had to go to the school in Sydney. What had happened on that particular day, the day before I went; wanted to get some saplings for one reason or other and I went out in a jeep with a driver, our

company sergeant major and my platoon Sergeant Ryan, which I thought was rather interesting cause the major said to John Ryan, “Tell Mr Doddemeade about your dream last night.” Ryan said, “It wasn’t a dream. It’s a presentiment. The war will be over

today.” Fair enough. The day went passed quite nicely and that evening I went to a picture show with lieutenant Barker. On arriving back some of the boys in the companies were playing penny poker. The orderly came over and said, “The adjutant wants you on the phone, Mr Doddemeade.” So I

went over and said, “Hello Greg, what is it?” He said, “You’ll leave at 0800 hours tomorrow morning by small ship on route to Sydney to attend the LHQ School of Hygiene in Sydney.” This was the next course that started from when I previously had been sent there. By this time we had another company commander, Jack Matthews, who had been with our battalion. He’d gone in as sergeant, he went to the 28th battalion and come back and rejoined our battalion. Good

fellow, Jack. His nickname was the Bull. It was a good nickname for him too. We shared a tent. I said “Plenty of time. I’ll pack up in the morning.” I went to bed. Jack was asleep. He was snoring and I was still awake. The sergeant major came over, “Captain Matthews, Captain Matthews.” I said, “What is it, sergeant major?” He said “The war’s over, sir.” I said

“Jack, wake up.” “What is it, sergeant major?” “The war’s over, sir.” We said “Thank you, sergeant major” and we both turned over and went to sleep. The next morning, packed up, the CO came and farewelled me and wished me luck and off I went to the school.

Not very much except that there had been a massacre there. That’s all in history now, where a large body were taken by the Japanese there and virtually murdered. Tied up to trees, bayoneted and so forth. I’ve got a brief account of it here in a little book. We had

back at Rabaul, which gives you a few details of what transpired.

No. That was in the early stages when the Japanese first moved up there. There were a lot of civilians still on the island that had to be repatriated and the garrison troops from Rabaul. Those that didn’t get away were just slaughtered. There

was another ship got away with a whole lot of them taken prisoner of war. That was sunk by, I think it was an American submarine. Sunk the ship. All the prisoners of war went down with the ship. That was over 200 of our people went down on that ship. I personally didn’t come in contact.

We were in our own little corner of the world, I’d say, and did what was required of us. I come back to the battalion afterwards, at Lae, but I went down to Jacquinot Bay, which reminds me. Talking of Jacquinot Bay. The first time we were there, I don’t know how I came to miss this. We went to the pictures one night and

I remarked to one of the chaps I was with “Gees, there are a lot of provos around here.” He said, “You weren’t here the last time the show was on?” I said “No, why?” He said, “General Robertson when he arrives here will usually say, “Good evening, all. Be seated.” Last time, just as he arrived, some bright spark piped up with, “Good evening all, be seated.” And everybody

sat down. The general was still left standing.” He was a wonderful disciplinarian up there. When we first went up there we all just had little green rag berets. When Robby took over there and his battalion moved in, slouch hats came from nowhere. There weren’t any to be had, but they turned up when Robby took over there anyway. Anybody who went

passed Robby and didn’t salute him was looking for trouble. I was back in Jacquinot Bay and we duly got off there by a DC3 aircraft to Finschhafen. It was very nice arriving at Finschhafen. We were moved to quarters to spend the night. We went to the officers’ mess there which was a delightful setting.

Quite a large open air building, all run with palms and thatching and so forth. Nice clear dancing floor and we were able to sit down and the chap I was moving with, to a table with lovely feed. Nice bacon and eggs and watched some of the other officers dancing with the nurses on the floor. It was

most enjoyable after some of the heavy tack that we’d, bully beef and biscuits and all that sort of thing that we cooked up while we were in the forward areas.

They looked very nice anyway. We hadn’t seen a white female for a good many months anyway.

No. I was only there for the night. We left the next morning by

Douglas, DC3, they were flapping their wings very nicely as they went over the ranges down to Port Moresby. Arriving there, pal up with chaps when you’re travelling anyway, three of us went to the officers’ mess there.

That’s not a bad question. Something happened.

That must have been the trip. I’ll better deal with this one later on. I’m not sure whether it was that trip or when we were going down back in Australia. I think it might have even back in Australia. I’ll tell you about that in a moment, about the trip there. The DC3s used to flap around quite a lot and quite interesting going over the Kokoda Trail, all the mountains there, it’s

very mountainous. You don’t realise till you actually see it. We arrived in Moresby and that night went up to the mess there and just had a beer. I said to the boys “Excuse me, I mightn’t see you again tonight” because in walked a very smart looking air force officer with a nice little nurse on both his arms. He happened to be a chap that used to work for me when I was with the Irish Linen company in Wagin.

Arthur Nichols, whom I caught up with in later life quite often. He became a customer of mine when I was with Penfold’s. I said “Hello, Arthur.” He said “Hello, Frank. Fancy seeing you up here.” So we spent the evening together and we went out to the, he was in command of the airstrip at Port Moresby.

We went out there. I don’t know, we

must have had some sort of a supper out there and a few drinks. Then he took us up to the highest points in the staff car to have a look over a moonlight night over this township of Moresby. It was very pleasant pastime. He dropped me back at the staging camp there in the early hours of the morning. Just time to have a couple of hours sleep at the most. We had to be up early and had a bite to eat and then down to the

Sunderland flying boat station.

Yes, it took over a fortnight to get to Sydney, though. Then by Sunderland flying boat from Moresby to Cairns. I remember playing, we had small chessboards. Chess was very popular. Playing chess on the plane. As

we were coming into Cairns, over the Barrier Reef, it was one of the most magnificent sights I’ve ever had. The early morning sun shining through the water and the colouring in the Barrier Reef was fantastic. I’ve never forgotten it, it was really lovely. We landed at Cairns, we drove through Cairns, we went to a staging camp some distance out of town. We were out there for a couple of nights.

Time to wash out any dirty socks, undies and so forth, hang them out to dry. Then we moved out, picked up our trucks and taken to an airport there, back onto a DC2 or a DC3. It was an old one. I’ve never forgot because they were having trouble to get the door shut on the plane. They ended up getting a bit of fencing wire and wiring it up. We took off and we flapped our

way down to Townsville.

Yes, they just had bench seats on either side of the plane. I think it was there where we could have, no, I’m getting mixed up. No, the incident I was thinking of was on a trip. Anyway, we went down to Townsville, where

we boarded a train to Brisbane. So now we’re in Brisbane. Whilst in Darwin I did take a leave and I flew down and flew back on a DC3. It was after leaving Darwin just before we, when we go on a plane now

I’m going back. We’re talking about a plane when we were in New

Guinea and how there was the trip in the DC3. Well, this incident happened not up on New Guinea. It was when we were on leave to come back to Perth on leave. I came back for about three week’s leave. We left Darwin on this DC3 for Alice Springs. It was coming into Alice Springs. On board we had a

stretcher. You imagine the seats on either side of the plane, and if you wanted to look out the window you turned around to look out. We had a stretcher case forward on top of boxes of what I don’t know. The boys sitting there had to sit with their knees twisted in, which wasn’t very comfortable. We had a lovely padre there, fairly

big fellow. He was eating chocolate for most of the morning until just before we got to Alice Springs. The plane really dropped in altitude and really bounced around. The boys sitting opposite the padre were nicely sprayed with chocolate. These are some of the little things you remember about a bumpy air ride. Generally speaking I was a

pretty good on aircraft or on the water.

Only just sent down to a medical unit, yes. But what they had there I can’t recall really.

Might have been a medical clearing station there. We had quite a few medicos in the tents there. I remember one morning while I was there, suddenly a rifle fired off and the chap in the tent next to me said “Huh, someone shot himself.” It wasn’t funny. The boy had shot himself in one of the tents behind us there. A case of nerves cracking up and

fear of going forward I suppose, fighting Japanese or perhaps he didn’t want to kill anybody. I don’t know. The powers to be would have checked that out. It didn’t concern me, but those sorts of things did happen there. I don’t recall having to do any work of any description while I was there. I was only there a few days when all the move took place.

Yes. There must have been, but I didn’t see any.

It’s probably why everybody was so happy in the officers’ mess the night we got to Finschhafen. We were just really happy to have a nice meal and nice surroundings and put our heads down and get some sleep I think.

In some of the areas they celebrated quite well. I imagine the troops in Darwin would have celebrated pretty well in the canteen and so on. What they did in our battalion I never heard and I never asked. Having arrived in Townsville, no into Brisbane. Train from Townsville to Brisbane, I had a day to spare.

I had the address of an old friend of my mother’s from Perth who had married a doctor and had a home up there. So I went out and visited them for the day. Had a very nice luncheon and met her very nice daughter, who still corresponds with my sister now. Then back to the staging camp, back on the train the following day.

Documents all

sent through.

I think normally they expect you to arrive and you arrive and report when you get there because when I arrived in Sydney, I think it was on the Saturday afternoon, we were transported from the railway out to LHQ, this building where the

school was to be held. If I remember rightly it was a big two storey place. So probably we would have had accommodation there. Probably an old home there. I reported there. I was greeted with, “It’s very nice to see you. We’ve been waiting for you. The school was cancelled yesterday. You are not going back to New Britain now the war’s over. You are to proceed on leave to Perth and then report to

headquarters, first in command.”

Yes, why not? The war was over. I said, “May I borrow your phone?” “Certainly.” So I rang army headquarters and I asked for Colonel Darling. Colonel Darling married Esme Doddemeade,

my father’s first cousin whom I’d stayed with when I was 15 years of age. Darling was a First World War man. He was one of the senior engineers in the water supply in Sydney in private life. He had the rank of lieutenant colonel in the militia days. After Japan came into the war, while we were still in Perth, he was posted as

engineering command here in the west at headquarters here, which, yes, cause he was camped up in Mount Street at the time. Caught up with him on a few social occasions here while I was on leave from Melville camp. I’d stayed with him when I was 15 over in Sydney, and the family. Bruce had been posted as engineer in charge in Darwin while I was up there.

I met him while I was at the Winnellie school too. By this time he’d been promoted to full colonel in charge of the engineers in NSW. So within about 10 minutes of ringing up there was a staff car to pick me up there and taken to his home in Edgecliff in NSW, just near Double Bay there, which was very nice. I got quite a royal welcome there.

His son-in-law was staying there with his sister and Bruce. Bruce spent a lot of time in the mess rather than at home because he felt it was really his place was with the troops rather than being comfortable in his own house. They had two naval officers, lieutenants, staying with them in the house, which made it very pleasant.

It was a big two storey house. I landed there, all I had was a pair of khaki shorts and, no they wouldn’t have been shorts. Jungle greens, pants and the jacket. I developed a beautiful cold because it was snowing up in the Darling Range and I just came down from the tropics. You learn to survive with these things, which I did

do. With Brice I got a uniform and ordered my trunk to be delivered, which had been in store up in Queensland. They moved it from Darwin, my army trunk with my dress uniform and so forth. So the best I could get was big army boots and service dress and think I managed a

tie and Bruce probably lent me a tie or a shirt or something like that. I was able to put it on. I think I borrowed his old brown belt from the First World War. So I came around with the old colonel more or less as his ADC [Aide de Camp]. We went to some very nice functions at some very nice places including a couple of luncheons and a dinner on some of the British aircraft carriers that were there. I found that the colonel could manage

the gin squashes far better than Frank Doddemeade could too. Then Mary, his daughter, who’s five years younger than I was, was there. Mary. They had two girls. One had died as a little girl. Food poisoning. Mary was a lovely young lady. She had,

yes I think her boyfriend was stationed there. He was at the university. His father was a lieutenant colonel in South Africa, John Snapp. Guy had been in the British army, a captain in the British army in the First World War. It was a real service set-up there really. We went to the Romano’s

and Prince’s restaurant, which was at that stage the top place in Sydney. Overall, and the theatre and picture shows, I was there for a fortnight. Each day I had to report to the transport depot. Eventually they informed me one day that, I caught up with a little nurse who I managed to get hold of her. Meg, the

one who gave me the cake in Darwin. She was back in Sydney and we managed to meet and have a cup of coffee or tea at the Red Cross place in Sydney. I had to leave her and report to LPD at the time. So we only had time for a bit of a chat.

Red Cross canteens and mainly in the main

centres. They’d organise dances for the troops and troops wandering around the streets could drop in at their centres and get a cup of tea, biscuits, a cup of coffee and a biscuit. Very good. With us, our battalion, we had a fellow named Ridge Craynet, a Salvation Army officer with us. We had a Roman Catholic padre with us right through.

Once we left Melville we had Catholic padres.

I guess a lot depended on who their officers were. Ridge Craynet was a marvellous man and so was our Catholic padre for that matter They’d come out into the jungle with an orderly. We had to see how to stop them doing it. They’d wander round the jungle no problems

at all, but they were not to go out without a section of 7 men, 5 would suffice, with them for protection. They ran into trouble. When there were route marches, even in Australia here, they’d always be set up there with a route march as we were coming into the camp there, he’d be there with his stall there. Hot

coffee and biscuits of a night time. He was very good. He used to talk to a lot of the boys who had problems and that sort of thing. He helped them with their problems and probably some of their letters and things like that. The padre used to look after his flock and any other that required his assistance too.

Very important to troop, mail from home in particular. All the mail out was all censored by officers. Once we left Australia. Once we got to Darwin mail was all censored. The main thing was to avoid them telling of troop movements. You could easily say, there were always rumours around the place that we’ll be moving.

Some of the rumours were true too. Would come true. They’d be writing to their parents we were going up to New Guinea and the war…

Yes, Red Cross packages were always welcome. Bits of cake and chocolate. A couple of handkerchiefs with the red crosses on the corners. A pair of socks or something like that.

We got a few through to Darwin and I imagine we got a few up in New Britain too. I’m pretty sure we did. They all did very well. Our own battalion association was quite good we had in Perth here. My mother was secretary for quite some time. Our second in command later on, Freddy Armstrong, his wife was secretary of the association here. They used to

raise money for different things for the battalion. Comforts and so on. Everybody pulled their weight to look after the troops. People down here were very good. There were a lot of great shortages in the cities, Perth here, blackouts and what have you. Once the Japanese came into the war, all around.

it’s probably been reported to you before by others, when the General Post Office and the Commonwealth Bank there and Forrest Place and Morris Street all sandbagged up and little places for people to get behind for protection, sandbag protection. Places where they could go if there were air raids in the cellars. Fremantle Harbour was absolutely

choc a block with Dutch ships and submarines and troops. We used to supply working parties from Melville camp when the boys would go on strike and spike everything with their hooks. Army would go down and help load ships for the Middle East and

I had a few days a nice trip up to Geraldton from Melville camp with some troops.

The wharfies were upset about certain conditions and one thing and another. They’d go on strike and wouldn’t load ships and that sort of thing went on quite a bit early in the war.

Not particularly well. These things had to be settled. Apart from a trip down to the wharf one day, I went down and some of the troops were down there. A lot of movements.

Went down to Fremantle jail one day for somebody or something or other. Ended up having a nice beer with Captain McKissock who'd taken over for the time being down there. All these sorts of things. They’re only little fill-ins on the main. There was always something to do. Officers of the guard, sergeants of the guard and

so forth.

Fortnight.

That’s right. On that day, after having had a cup of coffee or tea with Meg, report to LTD and then moved by transport down to the Malaya was the name of the ship coming back from where we had a lot of

German prisoners of war onboard, most of whom were being repatriated to England and probably spoilt in England before they embarked to come back to Australia. On route they called in and picked up a lot of prisoners of war in Japan or Singapore, some of the islands there were being repatriated onboard. There were a few grizzles from some of the German POWs [Prisoners of War], but the Japanese POWs,

it was like heaven to be onboard. They were put up in hammocks.

They reckoned the food wasn’t good enough and the sleeping accommodation wasn’t good enough. I can't remember the details. They’d complain to whoever the commandant onboard the ship was. The only thing we’d hear would be rumours so it mightn’t be really fair to mention it.

I had to share a cabin with a bloke to my surprise was Captain Ben Hegney who had been the company commander of the headquarter company when I joined the 28th Battalion as a cadet. We became quite good friends. He’s gone with the 2/11 Battalion and had been taken prisoner of war and been a prisoner of war in Germany and

coming back. After the war I caught up with him again with the Repatriation Board in Sydney.

Don’t think he ever talked about it. Didn't talk about our conditions really. We just enjoyed being onboard the ship and then repatriation nurses coming back.

Luncheons and dinners onboard, bridge competitions for those that liked to play contract bridge. I got invited to play bridge one night there. All I played was Acton bridge, all they played there was contract bridge, so I got out very quickly.

You contract for, you’re bidding. You contract to take certain pieces, I don’t know

anything about it. I’d only just played bridge before and didn’t know anything about this contract bridge, which can be very complicated. I’ve never played contract bridge.

Quite. I didn’t get involved there. We had a very nice trip over. Then I came home and had two or three weeks off and reported to headquarters western command.

I think we can take it from there now, can’t we? At this stage it might be a good idea to mention the war finished on the 15th of August 1945. I left on the 16th of August for the school in Sydney and the following month, on the 15th of September the battalion moved from Tol Plantation to Rabaul.

Apparently there was some misunderstanding with the Japanese commanders in Rabaul as to whether Japan had capitulated or not. Things were a little bit, for want of better words, dicky at that time. Our battalion and

I suppose the other battalions did much the same, the were occupied up there supervising Japanese working parties and involved in the repatriation of Japanese and also our own troops because they discharged our troops on a point system, according to a number of points. If you

had a number of points for days of service you would be discharged earlier. Some of them were up there until I think it was about the 31st December when they finally rounded up the battalion and anybody who had not secured sufficient points were posted to other units there. So our battalion eventually, in

bits and pieces, came back and finally all discharged here in Perth with no special celebrations. Later we had a march through Perth. All the troops were in holding LTD Karrakatta, which I eventually moved into. I had a pleasant stay here back in Perth with my parents. Then I

reported to headquarters western command who was General Whitelaw was in command in Perth at the time. The DAAG, Deputy Assistant Adjutant General, in charge of administration would be Ken Paris who’d been in the militia days here. He’d been in the 2/28 and came back to the rank of major and he was posted to that position and he greeted me very

nicely. “Hello Frank. Delighted to have you here. We’ve been waiting for you. You’re just the man we want.” I was posted to PS section, which is Personnel, was it Supervision? Personnel, I’ve lost the word S. That was run by Captain Jack Smith who was a First World War man. A delightful

fellow. We got on marvellously well. I had a staff car put at my disposal. It was a big black car, the one the general had just disposed of to take over another new car. A very nice standard on the front. Actually I didn't fly a pennant on it like the general did. And a chauffeur sullied who used to pick me up of a morning. I usually had to leave fairly early in the morning. He’d call for me and pick me up to meet

other ships coming in or Catalinas. Catalinas were bringing in a lot of troops and people from Singapore, Java and so forth.

All prisoners of war. Quite a lot of prisoners of war coming back with them too. I’d got down there with nominal rolls and check them off when they’d come in.

Reasonably good. I wouldn’t know. They’d look all right. Some of them probably had quite a few nervous problems. But physically they were a bit light on. Most of them managed to get back on decent food and they weren’t looking too bad on the whole.

Then I’d go back

At Swan barracks there in the mess. They had a very nice mess there. Came back, had a couple of cold beers and had lunch up there. Then back to the office and perhaps do a little bit of clearing up and a bit of correspondence. Get fellows there, I remember one particular one had written in about her husband who was due to come

home and he hadn't turned up, and he hadn't turned up, and he hadn't turned up. We found that he was in hospital in Queensland. We weren’t in the position to tell her why he was in hospital. I’ll leave that to your imagination. They were the sorts of things, correspondence come in from different people wanting to know.

And satisfy them ever happened. But as time went by and I started becoming involved with courts of enquiry there, various things that had occurred, troops had done this or that or somebody had played up. You’d have an enquiry and you’d have to fill in forms and interview people.

During that period, as I say the POWs were just about all back by then. I had an invitation, as the general was losing his ADC if I would accept the job of ADC to the general. This I declined. The chap who took over from him ended up

as ADC and later lieutenant governor here and eventually went into farming and went into parliament and was very successful politician later on. I declined that and shortly after a chap, Lieutenant Frank Fazer, took over from me in PS [?] branch. He was a solicitor, which dealing with courts of enquiry would be far

better to have a legal man on the job than a novice like Frank Doddemeade. Very nice chap too he was. I got posted down to LDD [?] Karrakatta. I wasn’t anxious to take a discharge there because I had made application for training under the rural settlement here. Nothing had been

organised. Their office was down in government house and as regarding the training of prospective farmers who had not had perhaps sufficient experience to go on the land. As I say I was not anxious to get a discharge at that particular time. Ken Paris had left the position in Francis Street and

Norman N. G. Monroe, Major Monroe, ex artilleryman, Middle East co, had taken over as DAG [?] in Francis Street. He had me posted down to Karrakatta. We had a good night in the mess carrying the mail of as was going to this place,

it was a pretty rough game in the mess. I remember a lieutenant colonel falling over and breaking his arm. He cracked a rib I think it was at the time. I don’t know whether that had anything to do with it, but the next day after I arrived there we got a new camp commandant who was at that stage Lieutenant Colonel Lyeman, Ted Lyeman,

my old company commander who gave me my first two stripes from the 28th battalion. He had been in command of our company during our first November camp in Melville camp and who had gone to the 2/1 machinegun battalion and had come back, they’d been in Syria and they were on route to Australia but then they were diverted to Java. They landed in Java without

their guns. Most their equipment was on another ship. So that was no good to them. They were the few rifles with them and the Japanese came and they were all taken prisoner of war. Ted came back in command and received his repatriation leave and was then posted as commandant to Karrakatta. On the first

day after his arrival he called a meeting of the members of the mess and he nominated Major Alf Cluff as mess president and called for, of course his first job as mess president was to call for nominations for mess secretary and the colonel suggested

or proposed Lieutenant Doddemeade. No further nominations, so I became mess secretary of the camp down there. Then he said “Now we’re going to pack up out of this weatherboard building” where the mess was “And we’ll move back into the Hobbes Memorial Hall,” which at that time, a portion of it had been set aside for quite a number of us for accommodation. I had left home

and I moved into the accommodation in Hobbes Hall. We moved the mess up there too. We had a very nice area for our mess room and a nice anteroom or lounge there. Hobbes Hall was a memorial hall that they’d built pre-war and named after General Hobbes of the First World War. It’s still in use now

at Karrakatta. So we moved up there. It was a big mess. When I say a big mess I don’t mean it was an army mess. We had a lot of officers moving through the camp there. They’d all dine there. After a month or so there, again I was to report back up to headquarters

and Major Monroe said “I’ve got another job for you. We want a new camp commandant down at the Lady Mitchell Convalescent Home in Cottesloe. We’ve left the officer down there, he wasn’t very happy down there. The matron down there is a pre-World War 1 matron, Matron Coucher and she’s

very strict. I think you could get along pretty well with her, Frank. Will you take the job?” I said “Why not? It fills in time anyway.” So I went down to Lady Mitchell Convalescent Depot and looked headlong at the camp to someone else to be mess secretary. I had a few months down there. I got along particularly

well with the matron. I had a staff sergeant there. It was only mainly to look after nominal rolls and see that the boys went on leave as they did from the convalescent depot and they returned on time and that they behaved themselves from a disciplinary point of view. But there was really no trouble down there. We used to have morning and afternoon teas out on the

lawn under the umbrellas there. The matron was a delightful woman, but she was very efficient. She certainly made the girls work very hard and down on their hands and knees scrubbing the floors and polishing floors. You could see your face in the floors everywhere you looked down there. I remember one day when

one of the nurses there was moving a big, heavy chair. I said “I’ll move that” and I heard the matron say “Leave her alone. The girls are quite capable of doing that, Mr Doddemeade.” She ran a very efficient convalescent home. I’m sure they were all very pleased with her there. In the meantime I had met a radio announcer from 6PR in Perth, June Gardiner.

Normally I was free of a night time there, but a couple of nights a week the sergeant used to take off, he was a First World War man too. On those nights there were nice sandwiches and cakes set up in the lounge room down there. June would come down and join me down there. It was very pleasant. I don’t remember how she got down there because transport was pretty short. She’d have to come down by bus I imagine

to Cottesloe. I don’t think she travelled by train, I think she used to come down by bus. I probably walked her up to the bus afterwards and get her back to Mount Lawley, she lived in Mount Lawley. It was from there I took leave, we were married, had a first couple of nights in the

Adelphi Hotel and then we went for our honeymoon down to Jallajap House down in Jallajap. On returning we got accommodation in the Brighton Hotel in Cottesloe. We had 8 1/2 months living there. When I came back, I think it was on the 16th of December, that was 1946, we’d been married on the 12th of October,

and on the December the 16th. Cause I had some leave due too, I took my discharge from Karrakatta camp. So I became a civilian.

Well, we had, at that time, she was quite prepared to come onto the land with me. I had an idea of going farming out in the southwest. For preference

somewhere in the Rawlings area if we could get anything there, which is probably some of the best dairy country in Western Australia. But they had a training scheme going where you could go into the scheme and go onto a farm with a farmer and work as a farm hand there, as well as accommodation for your wife,

to get some more experience before taking up a property under the land settlement scheme that was operating for ex servicemen at the time. In the meantime, when I got my discharge, I had a job waiting with the company John Lawley Limited, which had developed and was developing into a pretty large company with branches throughout the metropolitan area.

My first job was to be posted to, they had a frock shop, with a couple of girls out there, in Victoria Park. The day I was to go, I think it was the first or second day there, what had happened, on the Sunday I’d been down for a swim at Cottesloe, which was a nice little stroll down from the Brighton Hotel.

When I came out of the water I said to my youngest brother-in-law “This right leg’s really giving me jip behind the knee.” Next morning he wasn’t too good at all and I went out to the frock shop. I think it must have been the second day I was at the shop. I got over the first day, but it was giving me a bit of jip. On the second

day it was very swollen. My wife rang me up at lunchtime, I managed to get across the road and had a few sandwiches over the road, a little shop over there. Just by the Broken Hill Hotel. I got back and she rang up and said “How are you?” “I can just about get my foot down to the ground. It’s pretty painful.” She said “Be careful anyway.”

In about a half hour’s time there was a taxi at the door with June in the taxi “You’re coming home with me”. So I went back to the hotel, rang up the office and told them what had transpired. They were very good to me, cause I went back on a salary of 5 pounds a week, which was quite normal for a job like that. I had a fortnight in bed in the hotel with two

doctors attending me and one of whom had been the medical officer from the 16th Battalion. I wasn’t getting anywhere, I was in a lot of pain. June, who was quite friendly with Dr Gordon Heslop, specialist in Perth, she rang him up on the Sunday morning and he came straight down from his home and had a look at me. He went out

to June and said “Frank’s in a lot of pain there.” I had met him previously. He said “If this just hasn’t come on in a couple of weeks, it’s taken quite a long while for this to develop. Where’s the phone?” He rang up Charlie Taylor who was the deputy commissioner of repatriation here, our man with Veterans’ Affairs. Within a half an hour I was in an ambulance and I was in Hollywood hospital and I had 8 weeks in hospital then.

It must have been pretty trying for a young bride to have her husband crack up after that. Acute arthritis in the right leg and polyarthritis, that’s arthritis in many parts, which was accepted under repatriation. I didn’t get a pension for it.

Yes. I’ve got an artificial hip.

On and off. When I came out I had

Legs wrapped up with hot water bottles and cottonwool and they eventually decided it was caused from a septic condition in my tonsils because over the years I had quite a history of tonsil problems. So they

whipped my tonsils out and thought that I would be all right. Before I got my discharge from the hospital I had to see Dr Call who was in charge down there and whom I knew. He said “Well, Frank. I see they’ve taken your tonsils out. You’re supposed to be here with arthritis. We can’t put the bloody things back again anyway.” So I

was clear of the hospital and I had my tonsils removed while I was down there too. I moved back to the hotel and didn’t have any further trouble for many years. I went back to John Lawley’s and he posted me to my very good friend who I started off with in the Irish Linen Company and whom I’d know as a prefect

at Hale School when I was there. He had the STC shop, cause they were agents for Bateman’s. L.J. Bateman’s were agents for STC here, Standard Telephone and Cables, vacuum cleaners, floor polishers, radio sets and so on. He had a very nice little business and I joined him there.

Whilst there one day he said “Business is pretty short, Frank. Why don’t you go out and see if you can rustle up some business?” It’s a long while since I’d done anything in the way of direct selling or anything like that, so I said “OK Ned” and off I went. The first thing I did was to go down to government house and see what was happening about the training for land settlement scheme. Nothing had transpired

down there anyway. So I gave it away there. I walked down the Terrace and I looked at the various buildings and looked into Newspaper House Arcade down there. I walked up there and there was a little florist shop up there. I said “They might like a small radio set, something for the shop.” I went in and talked to the girl there. I think they had a radio

and there was nothing else I had that she was interested in as a seller. So I walked down to the Lattice Tea Room, which is on the corner of St George’s Terrace and the Arcade there. Very nice little restaurant. I went in and had a talk to, I think it was the name of Mr Symond who had the business down there. I think I sold him an STC floor polisher.

Probably had to go demonstrate. That was all very nice. So I left him. By then I’d gained a lot more confidence. So I walked up to Milligan Street and I walked down to Hayes Street West End frock shop. I thought I’d see what I could do down there. So I walked in there, and a Mr Ferguson who had married into the Grant family who

owned the business. I sold him a nice little radio for his shop. That followed up shortly after that, in the meantime we had got accommodation, moved from the hotel into a unit up in Lawley Crescent, Mount Lawley, and it so happened that Mr Ferguson had a unit on the corner of Beauford Street and

Lawley Crescent opposite the Perth College, which was very handy. I don't know whether he rang me up at home or not, he knew where I was, we’d talked to one another. He said, oh, in the meantime he’d bought a little STC Bantam for the shop and he bought another reasonable size radio for his home. A few weeks after that he decided he’d like a nice radiogram.

I had the very thing for him. Bateman’s, they had two Monarch radiograms and there were only two in the state. It had two or three speakers and a big turntable for the records, it was quite a large affair. That was probably about 200 and something. Pretty close to 300 pounds. I managed to sell him one of those too. So you see how it all

snowballed in sales. Another day I went out with one of our representatives, a salesman. A bit later on I went back up to the head office there and they asked me if I’d take over as sales manager there, which I did do. I used to go out with a lot of these travellers who’d come on who were on

commission basis. I was on a salary at that time. I helped them with their selling. One example was one of the avenues in Mouth Lawley Ring as it was known as then. We went in there and he made an appointment to see a lady out there and I went out with him to demonstrate the STC vacuum cleaner. She brought her

next-door neighbour in to see, so we sold two STC vacuum cleaners there, which was very nice for him, because he got the commission on that. Another day I called him to the Queen’s Hotel, these little STC polishers, and probably a vacuum cleaner too, but I know I sold them an STC polisher. This worked out fairly well, because Queen’s Hotel was owned

by Westralian Hotels Limited. A Mr Strickland, I knew his son quite well, was manager for Westralian Hotels and he’d been rather interested in this little vacuum cleaner they’d bought. In the meantime I took over Vatric, which was a three, STC was only a two brush polisher, and they had to be three brush polishers, Vatric polishers there. he got in touch with me through

Queen's Hotel and I ended up selling him 14 Vatric polishers for all the hotels under their…So you see how things snowball. Eventually one of the other boys took over as sales manager supervisor and I

took over in the credit department there. I was there for a while. Eventually I suggested that they would supply me, because I didn’t have a vehicle of my own at that stage, and they had a very nice van with STC emblazoned on it, it was all nicely painted up, for my use a couple of times a week.

I took over an area as a sales rep. I very quickly doubled or trebled what I was getting as a salary in sales. That worked very nicely until I went in one morning to Alan O’Grady. In the meantime we had opened a big frock shop

in Caresa in Barrack Street opposite 6PR. Cause for the first couple of years my wife continued as a radio announcer with 6PR. Caresa under Marge Cares, it was a very successful and large frock shop. We had frock shops in Victoria Park, which was the first one I had gone out to, Mosman

Park, Fremantle, Midland Junction and built up into a very large time payment business. We had all types of merchandise, furniture and so on. Anything that you wanted. Men’s clothing, women’s clothing, lingerie, the whole works. But I went to Alan O’Grady one day

and I said “I’m sorry to tell you this, but I’m leaving you. I’m joining Penfold’s Wines.” He wouldn’t even speak to me. He was very black about it. I think he had me lined up for other things eventually. I know at one stage he was thinking of opening up at Manjimup and he wanted me to take over

at Manjimup, but at that stage I wasn’t particularly happy about going away to country areas or something like that and June was still in radio. So I eventually left him. I had to see Malcolm who gave me a very nice reference when I left there, not that I needed it, but it was handy to have and probably

stood me in good stead later on. I joined Penfold’s as a rep. My father was accountant at Penfold’s Wines and that helped considerably. They’d appointed another manager. A man from New Zealand came over and took over during the war years because the previous manager had died. They were quite happy with my father as accountant there because they knew he was reliable.

By the time he was forced retirement around the 70 mark, he retired to Earl Hill. He'd had 45 years with the company. I joined, another chap, Ralph Lucas, who had been travelling for Penfold’s before the war,

he went back as a rep. He was only there a month or two and was offered the job with the distiller’s company here in Perth. Mainly spirit, although they did have agency for Tolley’s Wines. We worked together very well. I joined the company as a representative. Had a couple of days in the office, my first

day in the office, I joined Penfold’s on the, what did I say, hope I’ve got the date right, on the 4th of January 1949 when I joined Penfold’s. That night my wife went to hospital and next morning I was told that I had a young son.

He just had his 55th birthday the other day. That was very nice. With Penfold’s it was, my father had come home and talked to us about it before I got the job, cause I had asked him if there was ever a vacancy if he’d let me know and give me an opportunity to apply for it. They didn’t want an application. Pat Hanlan, who was the manager, I knew him anyway, was quite

happy to take me on. My father came up and pointed out all the Penfold’s forms of all the booze and so forth that represents the consumed and talked to my wife about it and we both agreed that yes, I would take on the job, which I did do. In the meantime June had retired from 6PR,

become pregnant and we had this little boy and I set off with Penfold’s. Overall, I don’t know how much detail you want of my life with Penfold’s Wines.

I certainly did, very happy arrangement there. Later we employed

two other representatives and there were three of us there until Pat Hanlan was retired and they appointed a man from our Melbourne office who'd been with Sydney there, Percy Hayes, a lovely man, came to Perth as manager. Got along well with him.

It was he who appointed the first of the travellers, Ernie Halax, 2nd Battalion as a second representative. We had a very pleasant association there. He came from Melbourne and his wife’s family was in Melbourne and although the company had found a very nice home for them down in the Midlands, he wanted

to go back and he obtained a position out of the liquor industry as manager for some insulation company in Melbourne. He said to me, cause he advertised for a manager, and Hayes asked me if I’d like to apply for it, which I did do, and

he said “Frank, do you know anybody in Perth who might apply for the position?” I said “I don’t know. Perhaps Bob Robertson from Richard Holmes might apply. He’s a very fine Englishman and I think he’d be looking for a better position there. He has the title of sales manager, but he’s still travelling in the metropolitan area for Richard

Holmes.” He said “As a matter of fact he has applied.” In view of the experience that he had he got the job as manager. Well, several years after that Richard Hould, who was our general manager, had retired and they asked Bob Robertson if he would take on the job as general manager for the company.

So again applications for a manager was advertised, I again applied, but I still didn’t get the job. I think I was probably doing too good a job as a salesman. They appointed Burt Argent, who had been manager

of the wine and spirit department for Brown and Durow here who were agents for McWilliams wines here. A nice bloke, Burt. They appointed him manager and appointed me a sales manager to Burt Argent. We got along very well together. I knew Burt anyway as a representative there. I knew how that had come in through

Ernie Howell who had been travelling for Brown and Durow with Burt Argent. He was doing the country travelling for them. Burt Argent had been his best man. So he plugged for Burt Argent for the job. Many years later on he apologised to me for having done so because he found great difficulty in working with

Burt Argent and he left the company.

Yes, I joined with two of the boys from the Mount Lawley RSL. The secretary from the Mount Lawley sub branch was our storeman at John Lawley’s. Duckwood was his name. Three of us joined on the same night in 1948.

I’ve retained my membership of the RSL right through until the present day. Even when I was in Sydney I retained my membership of the Mount Lawley sub branch. But I wasn’t active in the early stages when I was living in Mount Lawley. I used to go along to their meetings.

After 7 years in Mount Lawley we got a house in Florida Park and we moved out there. I didn’t go along for anything there, but I used to go on Anzac Day to the parade in the memorial in Mount Lawley. I didn’t become active in the branch until after my wife died.

I thought “You’ve got to get active again, Frank in this and that” so I went along to one of their meetings there. That’s another story. We’re still on Penfold’s Wines because after 12 months as sales manager with Argent, he called me into his office one morning and said “Just had a ring from Bob Robertson in Sydney and he wants to know if you would be prepared to go over

as his assistant in Sydney. So I said to him “Do you mind if I use the phone?” I picked up the phone and I spoke to June, my wife, and I told her. She said “We’re going aren’t we?” I said “All right.” By that time we’d had 7 years in the house in Florida. I said to Burt Argent “Yes, I’ll accept the

job.” He rang back to Robbie and said “Frank will come over.” So then we made arrangements to sell the home. In the meantime my wife had been doing quite a lot of freelance radio work here and she’d been running fashion parades for John Lawley’s when I was with them, fashion parades from, she took over Bon Marche, fashion parades for Bon Marche and for Bones.

She was running their fashion parades for both the big stores. Did a lot of freelance work for an electrical company in Perth. We wound up the whole lot, packed up and I went on to Sydney. Actually the final sale of the house going through was made the day I left for Sydney. I

had to go to the Melbourne office and pick up a car the sales manager had there. It was quite a new car, but they got a new sales manager and (UNCLEAR) just at that stage. I took the car and drove to Sydney.

A Holden car, made very nicely. I had it for some time after I got to Sydney.

I spoke to Robby on the phone. “What time do you think you’ll make it to Sydney?” I said “I should be there by 3 o'clock tomorrow afternoon.” When I got out there Keith Spanswick, who was chief accountant for the, he was more than that, in the meantime he had been appointed joint general manager with Robertson.

Robertson was manager of sales and Spanswick administration. Keith Spanswick had known the Doddemeade family in Sydney, Chatswood. He just lived just down the corner from them as a matter of fact. He used to come over and inspect the Perth branch, everybody got over when Spanswick was coming over. He became joint general manager administration and Robby was

joint general manager sales. He was quite amusing, cause he was standing out the front of our head office, which had just moved into Tempe on the Prince’s Highway. You know that area, do you? They had a magnificent 10,000 gallon cask which had been in the old buildings in Queen Victoria Building because Penfold’s head office

was in half the cellars under the Queen Victoria Building and Lindeman’s Wines had the other half of the cellars. We were all good friends with one another. He was out there with Kimberly who was the accountant. They were talking out in the front when I drove into the entrance of the building. I parked the car, went over and said “Hello” to Keith and Kimberly, whom I had not

met previously. Keith said “I suppose you’d better go and make yourself, greet your general manager, Mr Robertson.” I looked at my watch and I said “I’ve got 5 minutes. I’m not due here till 3 o'clock in the afternoon.” I was able to walk into his office right on the dot of 3 o'clock in the afternoon. He kept me up to that in the future. I had to be on the dot. You probably don’t want to hear all the

history of Penfold’s Wines. I bought a very nice home up in…

They didn’t pay very high salaries, I’ll admit. I had a very pleasant stay in Sydney. Several general managers came and went and eventually Mr Geoffrey Penfold Highland, who was managing the company in Sydney took over as executive director there. After about

14 1/2 years in Sydney there they, during which time after Mr Highland took over I took over as public relations officer for New South Wales and I did a very nice course on wine production in South Australia, which came in very useful. It was just at the time we started with wine tastings

coming in there. I went to him one day and asked him if I could get assistance from the company if they’d guarantee me if I resigned and came back to Western Australia. I did. I came back after a little bit of investigation and took over the Park Hotel as it was then, now it’s called the Plantagenet, in Mount Parker here. We were there for nearly 3 years. We moved in

there in 1973 and I resigned from Penfold’s. They guaranteed me a loan with the bank, consequently they expected me to push Penfold’s Wines which I did and I started the first wine club in Mount Parker because they were just starting to produce wines down the Mount Parker area. I understand the wine club’s still going down there. It’s

Australian owned. I got in all the wine boys in, Smith and Max Coundry and different ones to come along, the bank manager and the local doctor and dentist to form the club and we limited it to 30 members. When we did with the other hotel, there were only 2 hotels in the town and a couple of other places. They seemed to like the Park Hotel because the catering was very good and

my wife and family, eldest son, had a lot of experience with the top hotels, including the Wentworth Hotel in Sydney. While he was there he did a three year hotel management course over there. We went out very well. We sold out here and intended going to the hotel, keep it going

here or a liquor store in Perth. Unfortunately I couldn’t get the financial backing and the policy of Penfold’s Wines was not to guarantee further. In the meantime Tooth’s Brewery took over Penfold’s South Australian wine company. Adelaide Steamship Company were involved with the takeover.

Tooth’s brewery closed down, Penfold’s was taken over by Southcorps who has since taken over Lindeman’s and McWilliams and a lot of other smaller wineries in Australia. Last I heard they were the third largest wine company in the world. I don’t know whether that is correct, but it is a huge organisation. I expect to go out to Bassendean and visit them tomorrow. I haven’t had any contact with them

since they took over the company. While I was in Sydney my wife, June, got a position with 2GB in Sydney. For 10 years she was a radio announcer with 2GB in Sydney. That was quite a move to pack up there too and all move back to Perth. We enjoyed our years in Sydney.

We came back here largely because my mother was still alive and my wife’s parents were still here and so forth. Then after she died I picked up with the RSL and became vice president of the sub branch retirement. I’m still very active on their committee. Organise quite a few things for them. I was asked if I’d take on as visit the Hollywood Hospital with others from the

battalion. I was asked if I’d take that on and living not far from Hollywood I accepted that. I’ve been visiting there every week for about over 9 years.

From the battalion association. I’m their Hollywood representative for anybody, I visit any of our people who go in there. They wrote to our RSL sub branch, well seeing I was doing it every week anyway, I said “I may as well do the RSL too.” So I still visit

every week. I go down there usually on a Tuesday and visit any of our members who might me in Hollywood Hospital. These things snowball. You meet a lot of other people.

You get a certain amount of satisfaction as you visit fellows there that you’ve known most of your life. You say farewell to them in palliative care and they turn around and shake your hand and thank

you very much for all your visiting down there. They probably die the next day or something like that. You get a lot of inward satisfaction and feel that what you’re doing is worthwhile.

The RSL work for the veteran community really. The sub branches

organise a lot of outings for not only their own members, but widows there. Course then they organise Anzac Day, which these days is picking up a little bit at that time he moment with a lot of the new boys here. Fellows from the Cockburn Sound there.

Naval boys are joining the RSL. Some of the sub branches are picking up quite well just over the last couple of years really. In the past memberships have been dropping off. A lot have been dropping out of it due to old age and not wanting to go out of a night time or leaving their wives at home. Many others.

After June died the priest down here at St Andrew’s church there, him and I have been going along with the grandchildren and carried on since down there. He suggested I might like to keep in touch with some of the oldies and the hospital visiting and so on, which I have managed to do fairly well too. So that all ties in too. They’ll probably class me

as one of those do-gooders as the term is.

No. All veterans are very welcome in the RSL. Now we are accepting servicemen, men who were on the army reserve for over 6 months. We have affiliate members too.

Sons and widows. A lot of them become affiliate members, $15 a year for an affiliate member. They’re welcome to come to any of our RSL meetings, not that many of them do, but they do like to come along to our social functions such as at the moment I’m organising on the 31st March we’re having a night down at the Fremantle Sailing Club down there.

Some of those they really enjoy coming to. We have bus trips. Usually over the last two or three years we have bus trips down to Albany and so forth, which are very good. These days I don’t go on the longer trips. It’s all right for a day trip, as our battalion association do the same sort of things. At the

moment they’re talking about doing a trip up to Darwin because we were stationed in Darwin. They were talking about organising to go up on the Ghan. I have certain disabilities. Whilst I was in the hotel I went the big one night and woke up in the morning and I couldn’t move. I had 4 weeks in the Mount Barker Hospital and then only by

pressure from my wife and the doctor down there, they all reckoned I’d had it and I was going to peg out then in the hospital there, with this acute arthritis in the spine. The doctor down there didn’t think they’d take me into Hollywood and my wife said “Well, ring up Hollywood Hospital and find out.” They did and they took me up and I had another 6 weeks in Hollywood Hospital up here. So I had 10 weeks laid up with acute arthritis.

Well, the Veteran’s Affairs accepted it as such later on. Then I later had the problem and the artificial hip due to arthritis in the hip.

That’s what they put it down to. They put it down to

having developed during my war service. Sleeping in wet clothes for weeks on end didn’t help any. Even in your training exercises in Darwin we’d go out for days at a time and sleeping through thunderstorms and getting soaked

to the skin and all those sorts of things. You’ve got to be tough. It takes its toll. So despite the fact that Frank Doddemeade didn’t see very much in any active service, it was classified active service anyway when you’re in a forward area and areas being bombed and so forth. The fact that we were holding back 80 odd thousand troops up

there in Rabaul was quite a good effort. The fact that they were so many troops up in the Darwin area there would deter the Japanese from trying to make a landing in the area. So they were all playing their part even through they mightn’t have been shooting the enemy.

No.

I can’t recall any contact with them really. Before we left Melville camp down here we had some of the American officers out to mess one night there. I’m only speaking as a member of one battalion of troops full strength round about 1,000 men. Probably would have been a bit less when we came onto jungle

establishments. I can only speak of my own experiences.

Brigade Officers’ Association. No. We formed an association after the war. Brigadier McKenzie was here and Colonel Armstrong, incidentally

he carried on the reserve and ended up a full colonel. They got together and formed the association, which only consisted of a dinner in the form of a formal mess once a year there. Over the years we’ve only, with people dropping off the perch we’ve gotten down to very small numbers and last year we had our final

mess. We had Colonel Keith Howard took the chair as president for the year. Our secretary had died previously and Bob Boyd took over from there. Bob had a hip replacement shortly after our last mess meeting and then he followed up with a severe stroke.

So he’s pretty much paid up these days too. So that was our brigade. I ended up taking over, some years back now, one of our majors, he died, and I took over as representative for the 28th battalion there. Just a case of contacting all the various mess members that are left to contact. I think at the last meeting we

managed about 8 officers from the 28th battalion there. In our own battalion association we had our last, only two officers attended. Tom Wiley, a pioneer officer who had several strokes and not very well at all, but he likes to come along, he was there, and I’m the only active one who

goes to these functions now. The few that are left are not able to do anything much or in nursing homes. I’m 86, I’m the most mobile one of the lot. I’ve got to wear heavy elastic stockings and troubles to my feet and.

I’m looking forward to march on Anzac Day again and this year I have to lead,

I’m down to lead the brigade. I’ll have all my feet wrapped up in plaster to enable me to do it. My podiatrist, he does a very good job to keep me marching. When I first retired here I used to go for half an hour’s walk every morning, but I don’t walk very far these days. Getting around to Hollywood Hospital and the little bit I do at home and pottering in the garden and so forth.

Get my own meals and walk up to my daughter’s a couple of times, she’s just around the corner in Lowell Street behind here. Lovely having her so close.

Normally I go into town and march. I have done for quite a few years now. I suppose the last 20-odd years I marched on Anzac Day with our battalion. Our

battalion association has only been going for the last 20 years when some of the boys got together and formed an association. It goes very well. We had a gathering there with wives and dependants and boys. We usually dig up round about 80, no round about 100 for our annual luncheon, which the last few years we’ve been holding down at the Collinground

Association grounds. They put on a very nice meal down there. About $30-35 a head. That’s quite good. The association was not official until last year. Due to insurance problems and one thing and another and gatherings and so forth we had to look into it and we had to register as an official association. So we have to have an

official president, secretary, minutes have got to be kept and so forth. Prior to that it was just the boys getting together and arranging a luncheon, which worked very nicely really. Now they have problems to get people to run it.

Brings back a lot of

memories. We march and after that we gather, used to be at the City Hotel, but that’s been taken over by different people and can’t think of the name of it now, just the hotel opposite there in Murray Street. For the last couple of years they’ve been very good to us and it’s been

arranged again by the committee for us to go there after the march. Hardest thing for me is to get from the Esplanade up to Murray Street for the function. Always somebody to run me back home.

Yes, they’re changing the route. I don’t know quite what they’re going to do this year. They’re talking about marching the other way. It might be further after the march to get back to where

we’re holding our gathering. It’s a pretty successful gathering there. 11th Battalion join us there. 16th Battalion have their own function elsewhere. I don't know how many we’re going to have from the 16th battalion. Some march with the 16th Brigade in AIF march with us. The others have gone in with the CMF [Citizens’ Military Force] reserve Cameron Highlanders

group, which is now I think the 11/16 Battalion. They combine the two battalions into one there. I think they have a gathering down at Lewin barracks in Karrakatta.

The term is not used very often these days. The members of the 2nd Battalion units, I know most of them would like us to combine with them, but we’ve got our own association, which is pretty

strong. We decided we’re going to go it alone. We are still part of the 13th Brigade AIF. They join their own shows, they have their own battalions. Frankly they weren’t interested in us just after the war. In fact, I don’t even think they wanted us in the RSL. As time passes on

they’re very pleased to have us in the RSL. This feeling was quite strong. I had a good friend of mine who was a major in the 3rd Field Artillery. He wanted a guernsey and they wouldn’t give him a guernsey as they say and so he resigned from the army. Re-enlisted

and was appointed to staff sergeant and he was posted to transports overseas and in the office as a staff sergeant. Eventually they were captured and he ended up a prisoner of war in Japan. He was in Nagasaki or Hiroshima, one or the other, when the bombs were dropped. It was just fortunate that he and a couple of the boys were

out in the outskirts and they went into a slit trench and the blast virtually went over their heads and they survived. They were still held as prisoners of war till after the war. I remember Colonel Ted Lyeman saying that if Eric had stayed on here with the militia he’d have been a lot more use to the country than reverting to the rank of sergeant and going away as

a sergeant. He’d probably taken over the 3rd field regiment here. No, he wanted to go overseas. That’s what happened to Eric. He was a delightful fellow. He’s dead and gone now too.

No. I think I possibly would have volunteered to go with the 2/28 Battalion. I think that’s possible. At that particular time of forming a 2/28 my father wasn’t particularly well. I knew

he had to have an internal operation, which he did have, and luckily it wasn’t malignant and he recovered. They removed whatever was there and he recovered fairly quickly. But by that time it was almost up to the 2/4 Machine Gun Battalion being formed. You’ve heard the history from there

on I think. As things were at the time with the family and with the car and with the enlistments generally, and the fact I was probably a bit anxious to get promoted anyhow.

No regrets, no. Sometimes, well, you never know. I said to Mick Wedge, who got in the 2/4 Machine Gun Company one Anzac Day

“I still feel I should have been in the 2/4 with you, you know.” He said “You’re bloody lucky, Frank.” cause most of them were taken prisoners of war and a lot of them just never returned. Some of them returned not particularly well. I caught up with quite a few of them after they returned to after having been prisoner of war in the posting I had in headquarters.

Probably. But sometimes, so many of my friends went there. There we are.

Had a bit of satisfaction. I got a bit involved while I was in the training battalion. The CO was a very keen Free Mason. He proposed me into the

Military Lodge, which I joined, and I retained my membership of that right through. Had a lot of satisfaction there. Then, after we came back to Western Australia, I visited quite a few Lodges while I was in Sydney, and I went through the chair of the Military Lodge here and I went through a second time

just before the Lodge we had our Centenary celebration. Two years after that, due to lack of numbers, we handed in our charter. In the meantime the Lodge had been formed, the Combined Services Lodge here, which include the Lodge of Remembrance here, which had been sponsored by the Military Lodge previously, we were very closely, we worked together quite a lot. And the

Naval Lodge had previously combined with the Lodge of Remembrance and then the Air Force Lodge, they combined with the Lodge of Remembrance. They’d been going for a year or two and quite a few of our guys had dropped out and joined the Combined Services Lodge. After we folded up I stuck with them because for one reason I was an honorary

member of the Military Lodge having been a member for over 50 years. Also, I was immediate past master of the Military Lodge, so I stuck with them until they handed in the charter. Then I joined the Combined Services Lodge. We supplied three masters for the Lodge in the time that they’ve been

going. We meet in Victoria Park. This December I’ll have been a Free Mason for 62 years. It’s quite a long while. I retain grand rank and am classified as a Very Worshipful Brother. A lot of satisfaction, made a lot of friends

there too. So when I visit Hollywood Hospital I run into fellows that I know. If you know somebody there you go and visit them too. I don’t know that there’s very much more that you can get to add unless you’ve got a few more questions.

Probably matured me a little bit more

than perhaps otherwise. Yes, I think it did. I've maintained an interest with our battalion. I’ve been involved with the Military Lodge. I was a fairly regular visitor to the Lodge, Army, Navy New South Wales while I was over there too. I’ve made a lot

of friends.

Thank you. I hope it’ll be of some interest to people in future years. I think some of them might find it a little bit boring actually. Overall I’ve had

a very interesting life. I might add that after we left he hotel we came to Perth and we didn’t stay in the liquor game, we took over the Dianella newsagency, not the round, but we took over the shop in the Dianella Arcade. We had that for just on three years before we sold out and retired.