Australians at War Film Archive

Well my name’s Patrick Forbes. I was born in Sydney in 1930. In Paddington believe it or not before it became trendy. My father was a regular army officer and we were living in Victoria Barracks in Sydney, when I was born. Then we all moved up the north shore of Sydney and lived in Wahroonga and Turramurra and Warrawee and I went to Knox College. Knox Grammar School it was called then.

And then in the normal army fashion when the war broke out Dad started moving around. He was not fit for overseas service in Second World War because he’d been badly hurt in the First World War, due mainly to dysentery which he had for the rest of his life. And he - and so his postings were

in Australia.

Well it’s slightly more complicated than that. When I went to university - they started, they formed a CMF [Citizens Military Force] in 1948 and I joined the CMF

at that time. And then in 1951 much to my parent’s horror I said I was thinking of joining the army, after the university, at least as far as career was concerned. And my father, for probably the first time in his life gave me a bit of advice and suggested that I try for getting a regular army commission in case I wanted

to stay in the army. So I did that. So that was about September, October 1951. And from that I was offered a long service commission in the regular army. And so my joining up period was then. I was posted to Puckapunyal to the then depot battalion. And so that deals

with that side of it, that’s when I enlisted. I left the army in 1955 and went into business - private industry and stayed in private industry till 1969 when I joined the Australian Trade Commissional Service and lived overseas.

I rejoined the CMF when I left the regular army and stayed with that till we went to live overseas. And commanded a CMF regiment. And so that was 1969 that I left the CMF army. And when I came back to Adelaide and retired, when my wife got sick the first time, they very kindly asked me to be honorary colonel, the regiment I’d commanded which I did till 1989

I think. And now does that sort of cover what we need to know at this stage.

Yes four boys. All with children. One in Northern New South Wales at Byron Bay. One in Canberra, one here in Adelaide now and one in London.

So 7 grandchildren. Big boys they all got married late and so the children are all young. So yes that’s where they are now.

For 13 months because I was there right at the end of the Korean War. 12 months sorry and from there I went as an instructor at the Commonwealth Division Battle School in Japan. So my total time in there was 18 to 20 months, 20 months I think. Including one glorious

period at the end of my Japan when they made me a member of the Permanent Court Martial in Tokyo for about 4 weeks. Which gave me a holiday in Tokyo.

Dad was born in Melbourne, went to Melbourne Grammar School then went to the first class at Duntroon in 1911. And graduated at the beginning of the First World War. They were graduated a few months early when war broke out in August 1948 [1914] and he was their first sort of honour winner which I’ve always been proud of at Duntroon. And

there’s a bit of history. After Dad died - he died in 1961 and left his sword of honour to my elder brother Jim and Jim presented it back to Duntroon 50 years after the beginning of Duntroon in 1961. So the two came together. Dad served in Gallipoli and then in France. Won a Military Cross in France. And

was a major at the end of the war but that was as high as Duntroon’s graduates were allowed to go. And as a temporary major he got married in 1923. And had five children of which I’m number 4. He had a number of postings and finally after being made a major in 1916 became a lieutenant in I think in about

1936, twenty years later. And my mother always said she felt she was living in sin because she was married to a lieutenant colonel instead of a major. The - so that’s it. I think I told you that when the Second World War broke out we at that stage were living in Sydney, again. And my father then had a number of postings during the Second World War.

He - first in Perth then back in Sydney, then in Brisbane and then he was transferred commanding artillery - coastal artillery on the east coast of Australia from North Head in Sydney. And when he was transferred down there he said well I was going to stop changing schools. My two other elder brothers were at the war and so he said, ‘You can go back to Adelaide,’ where he spent a small time as a

boarder. And of course he never moved again from Sydney so I had to go backwards and forwards to Sydney. Dad retired from the army in the early ‘50s and died in 1961 as a brigadier. So that’s my father. He was very much a regular soldier, regular officer. My elder brother also went to Duntroon.

Never. Never. He never even - he used to get this terrible problem - this dysentery I found out later about once a month and all we knew was as a child was that he went silent for a while. He never complained, never talked about the war really, got on with his life. As

so many of them did, his contemporaries did. And many years later it was my second brother who was in the air force in the war - he was the one that forced him into applying to become a - you know for a disability pension about two years before he died. He wouldn’t do it. But that’s another story but it’s an interesting history.

We did - before the war we didn’t notice it much. He - I mean we were brought up in barracks for a short while but then we were living in houses on the north shore of Sydney. We were going to school, Dad was going off for work, living at home. And it was something you just accepted. It really only

came to really hit us when we had to start moving ‘cause we were in Sydney all that period from the time I was born to 1938 when we came to Adelaide for just a short while, just in time for that lovely heat wave in Adelaide. That period. And it’s really when we started moving around and of course we got used to Dad being in uniform and so on. I suppose really the biggest thing was, that in 1937

my father was selected to go to England to co-ordinate the whole performance - and it was a big performance of the opening of the Villers Brettonneux War Memorial which is the major War Memorial in France. And so he and Mum went off and my aunt who was a dragon looked after us for a year - she was good with a whip. And

Mum and Dad went off for 12 months in that period. And I think he worked on the opening of the Villers Brettonneux War Memorial for - and that was virtually the first thing the new King did, was open that War Memorial. And then he did courses over there after that and came back. So they were away for 12 months so that really was a big influence in our lives at that stage. He wasn’t there.

Yeah.

Oh he was only ever a disciplinarian in that you knew the rules and you were very careful about breaking them. But not to the extent - he was never a - you know - he wouldn’t walk in and say, ‘Stand

up,’ and say, ‘Yes Sir, No’. He wasn’t that sort of father at all. The only time he would get - I mean he’d get cross if you did something stupid but the only time he really got cross was if we were ever rude to my mother. And it’s as simple as that I guess. He was one of the old school and, no he was always

there but he was a typical father of his period I think. He got on with his life. He was there when we needed him but he wasn’t a major influence in our life. We accepted - I guess in those days you accepted his values, or their values and parents’ values and you rather tended to do it without querying it. That was - yeah different world.

Oh my - oh we were fine. There were only four of us then. I had a younger sister who was ten years - she’s dead now. She was ten years younger so she wasn’t born till 1940. That’s another story. Oh we got on fine. We were ruled with a rod of iron by my aunt.

And so - no that was no particular problem. We just went on with our lives I guess. Living in the north shore of Sydney - you know Sydney - in those days it was quiet. Different world and you just got on and lived your life within almost a village atmosphere. Fine.

Oh yes just about everything. I mean because - although I was a boarder at school from 1944 here in Adelaide - in the last two years. Oh I think so because I had - my brother Jim was in the army and my brother David was in the air force. And Dad of course was serving and whenever I went

home on holidays and war was part of your life. I mean you dug trenches out in the fields and did this. And you read newspapers if you had people that you knew about and - or relatives and so on. I find it very difficult to think of anybody of that era who was sort of 13, 14, 15 who didn’t have a fairly clear

idea - oh not a fairly clear idea but an interest in what was going on as far as the war was concerned. What you heard on the radio - when you were allowed to listen to it. Or the wireless. And yeah, very much so and it impinged on me, particularly in the last two years of war because I wasn’t allowed - you couldn’t get a seat on an aircraft to go home for holidays to Sydney. So - and you couldn’t go through more than one state to the other

so I had to go home to Sydney via Broken Hill by train, which was a pain. And that’s something people don’t talk about I’m sure. So that impinges - I was on holiday in Sydney when the - for some reason I’m not sure why I was there when the Japanese subs came into the harbour. And that’s a lovely story too because Dad was spending the night at home.

He - if I remember rightly he got on the phone and said, ‘What the hell was going on?’ to the duty officer at North Head and a chap said, I think he said - this is a story that was in the family. Anyway, ‘Going on Sir? Nothing’s going on’. There were bombs going off all over the Harbour as people dropped stuff there. And - I think he was most probably on a plane to New Guinea the next day. But the old man’s command of language was pretty good

and - so yeah you were involved. I mean everybody was involved in Australia as a child. And you were very delighted of course when the people you were very closely involved with got through safely.

I don’t think he did. Until he - he didn’t know what was going on until

there were bangers [explosions] in the harbour. And of course he was away from his headquarters - he couldn’t do anything because all his guns pointed out to sea. He could hardly start shelling - that was really - he just wanted to know what was going on - it was somebody else’s responsibility to look after the harbour. And so that was an interesting time. Yes so in trying to answer your question I think if you lived in a capital

city, in Australia during the war as a boy you were involved and you knew what was happening. Apart from the fact you - everything was rationed of course. And so you were part of that. You had clothes rationing and butter rationing and tea rationing and so on. No - did it influence you? No it was a drag. I mean

you got terribly patriotic of course. Everybody got terribly patriotic. And you had the nasty Japanese and the nasty Germans and nasty Italians and so on, and they were all crooks. And we were - our chaps were wonderful. I think that’s the thing that the people forget - that just how strong the national patriotic feeling was. You sensed that even as a child. Or as a boy.

Oh yeah everybody did that all over Australia. Everybody had air raid trenches. And after all they were blowing holes in the Vevon [Jervis?] Bay jetty, in case they landed on Kangaroo Island. And of course there was wire on the beaches and so on and everybody had air raid - when the war broke out - when the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbour we were living in Brisbane. And

I was going to the Church of England Grammar School and so that was, and of course immediately you started digging back yard air raid shelters as well as school air raid shelters. Everybody was digging furiously because the Japanese were going to bomb us to pieces in a short time. There is one other thing I do remember which may be of interest and that was when we went to Perth for a short while.

My father’s perambulation around Australia. And he came down to - he came to my sister and I one day - this was 1940, ’41 I think and he said, ‘cause he always made us go for a swim down the beach in the morning. And so he was a disciplinarian. And he said, ‘We’ll go down to the beaches

in the morning for a swim.’ And my sister protested volubly because the weather was lousy. And anyway he forced us down to the beach and when we got down there the sun had broken out and was shining and coming in of course he knew, and he couldn’t tell us, were the great ships that had come to pick up the 6th Division and take it - and there was the Aquitania, and the Ile De France. You know the great ships we always had read about, was going

backwards and forwards across the Atlantic, so that was a memory I remember very much from that period. And so you - and then the Americans coming to Brisbane of course. We were still there when the first Americans landed in Brisbane. I mean you got used to them later on but that was the - here they were the Americans and they threw chewing gum at kids and all those sort of things.

In Brisbane.

Yeah. That was the first time but then of course, when I was a boarder here, in Adelaide they were camped out at Sandy - what’s it called, Sandy something up near Gawler. There were a lot of Americans around. And wherever you went in Australia - when I went on holidays in Sydney they were all over the place. And so you saw them everywhere. So, I think I’ve answered your question.

Oh we knew. I mean we’d heard that they were arriving. So all the kids got on their bicycles and went down to see what these strange looking objects looked like. You know Americans. They were coming. So it was fascination

you know I was only 12 at the time. And - so we all got on our bikes and rode down and stood on the side of the road when they were marching up from the docks. So there they were. And they were the first ones who’d come to Australia, they came to Brisbane. And then of course they spread around all over the place as our sisters found out.

Oh I mean they always used to say.

I mean your elder sisters there was always a story about them having a lot of money and the poor old Australian soldiers were on five bob a day. And they had heaps you know and they could give them a good time. I’m sure you’ve heard that over and over again.

Yes indeed. And over something else. Yeah. So the war

the war for a child, Second World War, was I think, I think it was - I suppose if you looked back on it and I say a child, I don’t mean a young child, I mean somebody who was 15 at the end of the war - there was a sense of course always you know will the war last long enough for me to turn 18 or 17.

And that was particularly true of the people who were older than I was. And there was never a thought of perhaps this general thing had been going on for 6 years at that time. The - but it also I suppose if you look back on it, it created a time warp I think. I often thought about this in terms of

the ongoing development of you know people with new ideas. It rather you were fixated or the country was fixated on the fact that they were at war, there was no time for anything else. And so you didn’t get a normal development which you most probably would have got. Then you came out of it different. You came out of it with I suppose the same values and same ideas

as you had when it started. The big change of course was, the big change was - I mean up until 1939 we weren’t rich but we always had a maid but that was the end - the war was the end of sort of the domestic help period. The women completely changed so Australia changed in that view. It was much - to a degree as far as the way in which

women took their employment and so on because they’d been working so widely during that time. And that never came again, domestic service disappeared and that was a good thing.

Mum was as funny as a fit - when she got into the booze - she had

five children. She was devoted to my father. They met - my grandfather most probably put her in perspective - her father was the first, really the first ferroconcrete engineer in Australia. And he was also most probably the first alternative lifestyle person - drop out

in Australia too. But he went all over Australia with his 6 kids building things. He built the Gladell Breakwater which stopped halfway through due to a storm. They went to building concrete silos and he was down doing a job in Tasmania when my mother met my father.

And from then on it was an army wife’s life I guess. Except it was a bit more settled, they didn’t move around so much in between the wars. So - but my - and she had five sisters. Four sisters and they were all crazy. I mean they were all nice and delightful but together they were very funny and great fun. My

mother was a great piano player and she’d encourage - so we had that sort of traditional between the wars, family Sundays - we stood around the piano and we sang and she had a box with hats and we all hats on and she’d sing, ‘Where did you get that hat?’ And we played family games and you know she was very good at making us play family games. I guess in one way typical of a lot of women of that era.

Without ever having a lot of money. My other grandfather helped with our education so that’s how we were able to go to good schools. She - I guess, I guess she was in the mood, she was in that era of you do that again and you wait till your father gets home.

But she never meant it. She was always there when we needed her. But then came the war. You see the war disrupted families in that sense. So my sister went to boarding school. My elder sister and my two elder brothers and my young sister was only born in 1940. I think she was a result of the Second World War breaking out

as much as anything. So yeah she was - she was as I said very talented musician, the piano and a good family - good at putting a family together and seeing we were always there, looked after and so on except for the year she ran away to England.

Oh I can tell you about the Sunday roast because the Sunday roast lasted for the next five days. You know it started with - you had - everybody had a Sunday roast. Next day it’d cold meat and the next time it’ll be Shepherd’s Pie and the next thing it’d be

meat rissoles that sort of thing. I’m sure I’ve missed something along the line as you went through for dinner. What sort of food was on the table? Meat meat meat. The great and this went on for years of course - the great treat - ‘What do you want for your birthday?’ ‘Chicken.’ ‘Cause you never had chicken.

Never have chicken. Lot of rabbit between the wars. You know the Depression times and the continuation of the Depression. And I guess this is true - living up, certainly up in the north shore of Sydney. One of the great things they had was the railway line of course going down. But apart from that it was reasonably isolated but there were always people coming to the door. There was

the ice man coming to fill up the ice box, there was the greengrocer, there was the grocer, there was the milkman in the morning. We even had a tinker and we had a greengrocer who was Chinese from you know, old established family. We always asked him, ‘Where do you come from Jack?’ And he’d say, ‘Tullamulla, Wallawee, and Waloonga.’ So that was a standard remark, racist. And

all these people continuously coming into the house. The butcher came, everybody came. And so I think it was part of the social life of the time and the rabbito was one of them. And he was one of my favourite memories. You’d run out and jump up on his horse when he came - up on his cart with him when he came down the streets and ‘Rabbito, rabbito’. And all these long lines of

pairs of rabbits on a stick. Along the rows down both sides of his cart at the back. And the dunny man of course. And the dunny man came out the back. So it was a society of people coming who were friends. I mean they were friends of kids. Very much so. And

you know you knew them all by their name and, you know - you were asking about my father. Was he a disciplinarian? The time I saw him lose his temper most was when my next elder brother who’s a retired plastic surgeon, only one in the air force, got upset with some milkman. This was another place. Turned the taps on the back of his cart and gave it a belt on the backside. And the horse went

off with the taps going and the milk pouring out into the street. And my father’s crossness related to - more than anything to what an effect my brothers had had on this chap’s livelihood. And that was an interesting side of his life. They were all friends, part of our lives. So that was good.

Yeah cart and horse and rails down the back in the cart and the rabbits hang over in pairs. So you bought your rabbits in pairs ‘cause they had to be hung you see this way. Held together and held over the rail that way. And so the rabbits - a long line along the thing and he came down the road singing ‘Rabbito, rabbito.’

No. No they had to be skinned. Well as much as I can remember. I can’t remember. They’d be pretty nasty in the Sydney heat if they had’ve been, especially with the flies that were around. No they were all - and then they had to be skinned and prepared.

Ice. Sorry. Ice. Because you had an icebox not a refrigerator. And the early refrigerators were only just coming in then and you had to be rich to have a refrigerator. And so the ice man came up and - I’m sure you’ve seen the ice thing in the top. The water tray at the bottom and he brought the ice in with a pair of iron things that he gripped it with.

Or else a sack on his shoulder. And you got your firewood and your coal I forgot about that, they all came. And he’d run up and he’d go straight in and put the ice in the ice chest and off you’d go. The old man’d chip bits off it for his drinks. And in many places you also had a Coolgardie safe as well, on the verandah where the wind could get at it. And the water

could drip down the hessian around the sides to keep the thing going. That’s in the middle of Sydney in the 1930s. Yeah.

Yes but you didn’t know. It was just a fact of life, that’s how you lived. So everything’s relative, you don’t - I mean different eras different generations, they’re all

they’re all different. Life was secure. We never locked our doors, you’d never think of locking your doors. My parents I’d get on my bike at eight and go to sport. You know they wouldn’t think about the fact that I might be in trouble or there’d be a nasty man somewhere or get knocked over. It was a way of life. We’d go away

doing terrible things around building sites or something when we were 7 or 8, these sort of things. They wouldn’t worry. We’d come home in the end. And I think that’s one of the sad - I mean you’ve probably heard this over and over again it’s one of the sadnesses - that free and easy life of not having to worry about children’s safety.

Of course there weren’t as many cars on the road in those days either. Not having to worry about locking your doors. You could walk in and out and know that somebody wasn’t going to come in and if they did, you know it really would be unique I think if that happened. Not even during the war can I remember parents ever locking a door when they went out.

Well I’m a

rugby fanatic ‘cause I started playing rugby at six. And I stopped playing it at 36. But I played rugby in the winter, I played cricket and played tennis. And in later years of course I - later years when I was over here I rode as well. And coming from Sydney and having played

rugby up until then they had another funny football game over here I had to get used to. And I played that at school ‘cause you didn’t play anything else except cricket, tennis and Australian Rules football in those days, in the 1940s. There was none of the options that they get these days. It was the security I think that was such a different factor in

those days yep.

My brother Jim, my eldest brother - he was just 17 I think and went to Duntroon in the short course

that they had during the war. He’s 80 now so work that out. And it was a two year course. And he graduated, he was a gunner and then was in the Islands. That must have been - he graduated 1942 and he won a Military Cross in Korea, in the Islands. And he went a

little ahead - joined the CMF funnily enough I think for money more than anything else. He started when he was still at university - student after the war. But then he got a canteen scholarship to go to England to do his PhD [Doctor of Philosophy – degree] and he stopped there. But it may be of interest that he later became Minister for the Army. When he became a politician. So he fought in the Islands through the war. He was picked in the

Victory March contingent. He was in Japan just after the war. And went to England with the Victory March Contingent. And then stayed in England and Germany doing courses and then when he got back promptly got out of the army - the regular army and did his honours degree here in Adelaide. My brother David joined the air force on

13th June 1943 and I know that date ‘cause that was the day he turned 18 and that’s all he was waiting for. And he flew Kitty Hawks up in the islands during the war. And got shot down, at one stage. He survived some time in the water and - overnight in the water.

He got an MID [Mention in Despatches]. I’m saying these things because it’s - I don’t feel bashful saying what my brothers did. He got out of the air force - he finished in the early part of ’46 and went off doing other things and then in 19 - and then he decided he wanted to do medicine so he didn’t start medicine till 1949. And he went through medicine again

here in Adelaide ‘cause my parents were living here then and it was cheap boarding. And he came back from Sydney to do that and then he did his FRCS [Fellow of the Royal College of Surgeons] in England and was a plastic surgeon for the rest of his life. And kept on flying aeroplanes for quite a long while. So I think that’s probably a normal family type thing for boys of that era.

No. No funnily enough it wasn’t. Not at all. My mother concealed it very well. You know she was obviously worried. But no it wasn’t -

I guess if you were much younger it might be unsettling because the family was being broken up. But within the scope and maybe because we were an army family anyway, maybe I think I just accepted it. This is what you did. This is what your elder brothers did. You know everybody and all our friends had joined up and were in the - one of the services and every older

chap you knew was in the services. So it wasn’t - and you noticed - and the silly thing is and I guess this is true about war generations, the - you never - I’m not talking about my mother I’m talking about me. Your brothers they were

you know, nobody could touch them. They weren’t going to get killed. You didn’t think about them being killed. You know they were off there doing whatever they should be doing. And it didn’t occur to you as a 14, 15 year old. Other people got killed but not your brothers. Silly isn’t it? Very interesting. And of course major disasters were very - I mean

the Government was very good at concealing that from the public. The real nasty things which they had found out about in relation to what was happening to the prisoners of war. We never knew about that until after the war. But no I don’t think it impinged on my life. And it’s like driving a motor car, when other people smash into you it always happens to somebody else doesn’t it? Or yourself for that matter.

In a war it’s always going to be somebody else that gets hit not you.

No. No no. Our family wasn’t into that. That’s probably from my father. He’d got onto that.

I do remember - and I don’t know whether this fits this interview we’re having, but it’s part of the war. My father who at that - David joined the air force on his birthday in 1943 and went off to wherever it was, Deniliquin, or Unanderra or something for his first training. And at the end of his initial training I was over again in Sydney on holidays and he was coming down for his first leave. And

the old man was - said he’d go down and met him and so he came across from North Head and he and I went down to meet him and the train was late. And the old man had other things to do than wait on a train platform for an LAC [leading aircraftsman] when he came. And he was going - he had a cigarette holder and he was puffing up and down the station waiting for the train.

And when David finally arrived with his kitbag and his cap on, on the side like the air force did and threw him a salute the old man looked at him and he said, ‘You know I’ve been thinking. I never thought this’d happen. Do you realise, I’ve just realised that you’re the lowest form of service life, you’re the lowest rank in the junior service.’ Great way to greet your son wasn’t it. It had obviously been occupying his mind while he was walking up

and down the platform. And he was too. Junior service. Lowest rank. Hm. There you are.

Oh nothing, nothing he was just joking. It was a joke and David took it as such. I mean we were that sort of family, we didn’t worry about that. He - you know like service rivalry

you - I mean to Dad my elder brother had gone into the army and he was in the army and now he had a son who was in the wretched air force. But no it was a joke and we took it as a joke. Just became a family story.

He was a fanatic about

aeroplanes. That’s all he ever wanted to do. When he was younger he’d cut things out of the papers about bombing raids and about aeroplanes. And read the aeroplane magazines. Oh Dad accepted that, he would never have tried to influence him. He might have been disappointed if he hadn’t joined up. He never tried

to influence on those sort of things, he respected his sons’ views. Or his children’s views. No it wasn’t, wasn’t a factor.

I think most probably - I can well understand some families for example of who had fathers who fought in the First War. And their absolute horror of what they’d seen and what they’d endured that would - and in many cases

I know, I mean I know - I heard about - they actively tried to stop their children joining. And fair enough. But that was never a factor with our family. It was much - we were a service family and I guess - and of course you did things without - I’ve never really asked either of my brothers but you do things without thinking, it’s what’s expected

you know. That’s just what you did. There was a war on. They’d ask people to do it. They weren’t in reserved occupation. And after all my elder brother was a - had become a regular officer even though he was only 19 when he graduated. And so that’s part of the equation. I mean at that stage he most probably thought he was going to spend the rest of his life in the army.

And the war as much as anything changed that I think. No. I really don’t know what my father would’ve thought if my two elder brothers hadn’t joined. If they’d decided to do something else. And as it didn’t happen it wasn’t a factor was it?

‘Cause Dad said he didn’t want me to move again when we moved down to Sydney in ’43. And he said he wanted - we’d spent a little time in Adelaide.

And they did know people here in Adelaide - my mother knew a lot of people and my grandfather had been here. And Dad, I think the one rationale for him sending me here was that it was in the centre of Australia and wherever he got moved I’d be relatively the same difference. God help him how I would’ve got home if he’d gone back to Perth. But in fact

he stayed in Sydney for the rest of the war. It just happens. We only became South Australians because Dad’s last posting as Commander of South Australia and Northern Territory, was here and he decided to retire here. That’s the only reason we became South Australians much to my, all our surprise. I didn’t think my mother would ever put up with it because she was a Sydneysider, by thought. And, anyway we did, we became

South Australians. So anyway that was the rationale as I understood it at the time. And you said yes sir and off you went. And so I came over here to this place where they played funny football.

St. Peters. It was fine. I mean it was - again we lived in a non thinking era. We were being

sent to boarding school, you went to boarding school so you got on with your life and became part of the community. There were friends of my parents who lived around here who you went out to, now and again, for exits. And it was a - you know it was restrictive in terms of

the war going on. You wore brown khaki shorts you know and things because there was no other - school uniforms, during summertime anyway. And you had all the rationing of things that I was talking about so there wasn’t much of anything. And I guess the biggest effect was in those two years, three years I guess. ’44 ’45, ’46 was the

masters who - mad as hatters but very good at teaching you. Because they’d been kept - they’d come back because of the war or had been kept on during the war. But they were very good at getting you to pass exams. An extraordinary lot. But again, another effect of the war which people don’t think about. But they were good at getting you through your matriculation.

Not a lot. Because Dad was away most of the time and my mother was looking after my young sister who was only three or four. And my sister was at boarding school and my two brothers were away. So I mean we were a divided family then anyway. And I

was never a mother’s boy really, in that sense, none of us were. And so to a degree it was an adventure to start with. I guess if you think it was the lousy cooking more than anything else that was the effect of going to boarding school not the fact that you missed Mum’s cooking but not anything else. The family

was broken up by that stage. It was only after the war that we all got together again, because we were all doing - and then later me we were all doing university together.

Virtually none. You couldn’t ring up. Notes from my mother scribbled in pencil. You know now and again.

And no very little actually. The - you know all the arrangements to get back home which was very tenuous arrangement was done by my boarding house master. And I can’t - I suppose if I thought about it

there weren’t too many communications through during the two or three terms then. And you tried to get back home if you could. Certainly you always got back for the long.

Smaller than it is now. Very conservative.

But conservative in one sense in that, you know all schools were, all private schools were in that sense. Probably all schools were. All boys. Girls were something you saw now and again if you could find them. No dances ‘cause you couldn’t have dances. 15 - later on after the war yes. But

certainly my own school, or this school was a very thought provoking place in terms of societies that they ran, so that you were a member of the English Literary Society or the Historical Society and so on and so forth. And I was a member of a lot of those. Like all good boys you played sport to get tired and not think about girls and all those sort of things.

It was conventional but enough things to keep your mind working and enough things you could join and, be part of the debating society. As I said senior literary society or whatever it may be. And if - as a boarder if you had spare time you had the use of the carpentry shop and these sort of things and you could go and do

woodwork over the weekends. So there was plenty to do and plenty of sport. And you had the use of the sporting facilities over the weekend. And we went to church endlessly. Endlessly.

No I think it

for a long time it put me off as much as anything else. And I’m not a religious person. I like the quiet. I often, if I wander around the world I’ll often go into the churches and sit quietly. It’s a place for thinking as far as I’m concerned. I’m not deeply religious no so it never had that effect on me. Force feeding is the thing. Rather like

making pate. Foie gras.

My goodness. Oh. What was the thing. Well I mean basically - when I went back to Sydney and I mean really it start - you know you were 16 before you really started

taking any notice of - being able to - maybe the day boys could but we as boarders no. When I went into Sydney I remember we had girlfriends during the holidays. I mean we had groups. You tended to go - it was a groupie thing in those days. And I don’t mean groupie in a bad sense, it was you know you went around with three or four fellows and three or four girls, just grouped together. You’d go down to the beach together. You’d get on a tram and all these things.

You’d go to milk bars together. So that was about 16 and there was the big school dance once a year. You asked some poor unfortunate girl. We all had to go to Nora Stuart’s to learn to dance. And all the boarders until the boarders were banned from going to Nora Stuart’s for some reason or other, I’ve forgotten about now. And

it was - and it was a life of - oh those girls are fast, you know. There’s one girl or something she was known as a fast girl. Or something or he was one chap was a goer. But in the main they were all so innocent. And people shouldn’t - and the older made damned sure it

stayed that way. There was no sneaking out from dances and so on. Some dowager’d send you back very smartly. So you know it was slow, slow development. Now that’s us, that’s my generation. The people who went to war at 18 - very different thing I’m sure.

Oh. As a young teenager - you mean 14 or 15? Not later?

Later. How would I have described myself? Square but interested. Interested in a lot of things outside what a lot of my contemporaries - a number of things that my

contemporaries might not - although we were all avid readers in those days. Because that’s what you did, I mean you had nothing else to entertain you so you read a lot. And so you got ideas and thought aside the thing a lot. You didn’t get it forced fed to you - had to - you got your own ideas through your own reading, sure.

I don’t know how I describe myself. I would say following a pattern. In a school like I was at and it’s true I think of most of the boys’ schools, there was - the people following the conventional patterns, you were in reasonable high classes, intellectually - you played sport. You were interested in trying to talk about girls or whatever. And then there were swats.

I mean then there were the ones who didn’t play sport. And - not swats but they didn’t play sport, they were interested in other things. And they played violins and they did this and they did that. And you’ll find them and they’re all millionaires nowadays and they’re all brilliant and they’re all wonderful people. You know most of them are friends of mine but they weren’t in those days. They were - it was a different world - they were funny ‘cause they didn’t conform to that strange

cult mentality. This is looking back after 60 years mind you.

Oh a number of them, yeah, very definitely. You know they became thespians at the university. Yeah oh no quite a few. I play tennis with one of them still.

And the - well I’m not sure you can call it tennis but we play. Yeah and I mean that’s a growing up process and it comes I think when you leave school. You suddenly realise there’s different values.

I was in school and I was 15 - this is something I remember absolutely vividly. VP. [Victory in the Pacific] And we were in the boarding house and we had the day off and we all got on - we all put on our best jumper to look older. And went into town - that was the greatest excuse we’ve ever had to kiss girls. And in amongst this mob of real soldiers, there were these unruly school boys running around

in Rundel Street it was of course in those days. And you know the place was packed and this was the greatest - you could actually hold a girl. And get in amongst the thing and join and scream and thing. But yeah I remember it vividly and anyone from 15 upwards was you know allowed to go into town. And join the celebration. And the funny thing

was that having the day over nothing changed. Nothing changed at all for the rest of that year anyway. Slowly things got better but it didn’t change. But obviously for our parents and so on, who had children at war, it changed overnight, the kids were going to come home.

On holidays yes that year - well no - yeah my brother - yeah both of them - I can’t remember. That was the end of ’45. David came home from the Islands. I can’t remember - I think Jim was in Japan, I mean I think he went onto the Japan so I don’t think he was there.

No and then he went onto Victoria March so it must’ve been a year later before I saw him. Yeah. But it wasn’t a big deal, it was just a continuation of what had been going on for a long while. I hadn’t seen a lot of him anyway. But we’ve always been good friends. That was him who was the phone ringing up.

At the end of my schooling? I was good at maths and so on and there was no counselling, no nothing. I was in the cadets and I was 17. And Dad asked me whether I wanted to go into the army and I said no.

So I was good at maths and physics and things and so I said, ‘I’ll be an engineer.’ You know a lot of thinking went into that one. And that disappeared very quickly at the end of the first year and I switched to economics. But the hopes and aspirations I guess were just at that stage nothing more than, okay next step in your life

is you go to university and after that you work out what the hell you’re going to do. There was no I want to be this or I want to be that or I want to be the King or something. And I think that was so from the end of ’47. I think that was part of the life we’d led for the previous 7, 6 years of war and another year afterwards, another two years afterwards. It was all a matter

of getting on with life and you saw it that way. You didn’t see where you were going at that stage or I didn’t anyway. Yeah. I think that was it. I really haven’t thought other than that - I made an early decision that I was going to be an engineer because I was good at these subjects. And I remember many years later, when I was commanding Adelaide University Regiment.

I was talking to Bastion who was the Vice Chancellor. We were talking about what courses people were doing. And he said, ‘I wouldn’t be surprised’ - at that stage this’d be in the sixties. ‘50% of the people are doing courses in my university and doing courses they shouldn’t be doing.’ And we were talking about my experience and you know they got onto it for all the wrong reasons. But it’s probably

better now.

When did I? ’48.

Adelaide University. There was only one. Flinders hadn’t started. In the sixties that started, because I know when that started. So

there was just one university. But then of course there was the Adelaide Teacher’s College which was a big arrangement there in Kintore Avenue at that time. So they were the two tertiary institutions I guess you can say. Nurses didn’t get a run at tertiary institutions in those days. And it was very much a part - those two you saw a lot of people from teachers college because they were all doing degrees. And that came around

that came mainly because they started CMF and that’s where I met a lot of people when I joined that.

Oh don’t talk to me. Dad retired and bought a big house up in Mount Lofty in Stirling, up from the Mount Lofty Railway Station. Big house. That accommodated all of us, all five of us. Plus my brother-in-law later on who was doing law.

Also in the air force. But he - so Mount Lofty in those days was an absolute disaster for a young man. The transport was terrible. Can I stop … Yeah my brother Jim was doing his degree then having got out of the thing. My

brother David started in 1949 as I said doing medicine and my sister was there and my younger sister, who later went to boarding school as a weekly boarder. And there was no transport it was you know, terrible - one bus a day, two lane road. Petrol rationing, you couldn’t screw petrol coupons out of the old man so you could take the car and take a girl out. And it was

and if you had a late lecture. If you had a lecture, a five to six lecture, the twenty past six train, you had to get out of the back of the lecture room and run down North Terrace and catch the twenty past six and if you missed it the next train was at half past seven and took an hour and three quarters to get to Mount Lofty. So you had to go back into the varsity library and spend your time there. And you know organising your social life

and the area - I remember - it was a lovely area to live in in a strange sort of way, apart from being cold and coke fires and all sorts of things - but it was a village. Stirling was a village, literally a village environment. Everything revolved around the Mount Lofty Golf Course. Everybody, people went there for tea - like another world. And if you had a party at home, people

would want to go until four o’clock in the morning because they’d made a major trek to come up to Mount Lofty. No different world.

Well the - well I mean the world’s changed, totally.

Communications have done that. And so you know Adelaide which was an isolated sort of rather, strange scene - you had to book a time to ring Sydney on the phone. Here it was, it was very much always a poor relation and city of churches or as my friends used to call it the City of Couth Culture and churches. And

slow and sleepy. Conservative. No convicts. And after all where did you go to eat? You went to the South Australian Hotel or the pie cart. That was about it. The pie cart was very exclusive mind you, it had singlets at one end and black tie at the other. And

the - it was - but then to a degree it’s also true of the rest of Australia but Sydney in particular. It changed very quickly. The war changed it tremendously. It was you know, swinging Sydney where everybody went for leave. Adelaide, just developed slowly. When we got married Janet was living in Melbourne

and it was still very much a quiet, you got married, bred. Did all those established things. The (m… UNCLEAR) changed Adelaide no doubt about that. I mean it changed it about as far as restaurants. It changed them about values, it shook people partly out of their complacency here whereas the other cities had had that effect.

Perhaps not so much Melbourne but certainly it changed Adelaide.

That was fine. Because the house was big enough for us to keep out of each other’s way and we were all busy.

My brother bought a little Morris 840 which he used to run on kerosene to overcome the petrol rationing. But he’d never lend it to us. That was a point of dissention. That was my elder brother. And also the two boys were old enough so we didn’t really come together much. We played golf at Mount Lofty and we were in the University Rugby Team together because we’d all been brought up on rugby.

Apart from that they were in a different social, different age group. With the people who’d been to the war - they were both on CRTS [Commonwealth Reconstruction Training Scheme]. As far as their degrees were concerned.

Not at all. Not at all.

Yeah I mean - I’d sit and listen to them talking with friends. I’d be there - we’d have a party or something and you know they’d talk and laugh about something that happened during the air force. I guess more in the first few years after the war then they - then people got on with their lives. I mean I don’t want this to sound bad. There is a group of people

and it occurs from all wars and something to whom that is their defining experience in life. And it stays with them for the rest of their life. And they never lose it. I suspect that the majority of people tend to put it apart, put it away and get on with their life. And, it slowly goes away.

They don’t - they’re not strong members of this and that in relation to what they did during the war. They get on. So there is a difference. I mean they might be members or they might have been members of the RSL but not a part of a continuing talk fest if I can put it that way.

I hated the - I mean I realised this is wrong, totally wrong. Engineering, drawing and design and applied mathematics, oh my goodness. Not but it was wrong. I mean you get to know these things so there you are. I mean

I’m not the first and I’m not the last who’s done that. But the thing is to make the change you see. Of more interest was that in 1948 they started the CMF and I joined with a group of others with the first - I think the Adelaide University Regiment was the first CMF unit formed after the war so we all joined. Or a number of us did. And my brother become the 2IC

of the University Regiment.

Oh well I mean the CO [Commanding Officer] who started was a dentist who’s served during the war. Rex-Lipman who lives here in Adelaide. An amazing man. And he was doing dentistry at the time.

Not much. Not much no. No. No they didn’t. I mean there were quite a lot of ex-servicemen when the CMF started who for whatever reason, probably money I would think, even though they were on CRGS [CRTS]. But no really. As a

18 year old, 17 year, 18 year old, they tended to be people of experience. They didn’t talk about their experiences they were doing the instructing and you know teaching you what you should be learning and that sort of thing.

My elder brother

conned me into it. As much as anything. Said look we’re forming this thing, you should get into it, you were a cadet lieutenant, and so I joined. And for me it was you know a good way - I mean I liked the whole thing. The army was something I enjoyed. And as a cadet. And

if you’re talking about a service family, I don’t know whether I can interrupt here, but you may be interested in how my army career started. My distinguished army career. I tried to join the cadets during the war and I was too young and they said, ‘Well you can join the band.’ And so it was a bugle band and drums at St. Peters.

And so they very quickly realised that I was tone deaf and couldn’t blow a bugle. And the - so they said, ‘Well we can keep you in the band until you become - until you’re old enough to join the cadets.’ So I became the man who carried the bass drum. I walked forward, bent over, holding the bass drum behind me

while the fellow belted it because he was too small to carry the band - that’s the beginning of my army career. Anyway I went on from there. And so why did I join? Because I liked the army, I was quite good at what I’d done. And it was a way of - rather than picking fruit which I’d been doing during the holidays, it seemed a better way of occupying myself and it seemed to be a good idea.

I won’t in no way say that I was doing it out of patriotic feel because it wasn’t except that I felt it was necessary to have a citizen’s army at that stage, and it gave me the opportunity to do that. And the University Regiment was very carefully structured to fit the University program.

What did I like about it? I think most probably because I was reasonably good at doing things and I enjoyed - I’ve always enjoyed a reasonably disciplined approach to things and I like working with groups and with people. Just as good a way as any. I liked - it’s a silly word, no it’s not a silly word - but I liked

to be there, I you know use the word, I enjoyed being with groups of people, like minded people. Get on well together and the CMF at that stage was something. I enjoyed the outdoor activity. And of course it was another step in the - onwards from what my family had been doing.

Well they’d had a militia before

the war. We’d had six years of war. And the - and in terms of the what was then becoming you know the Big Reds under the bed era, the Communist era, it was becoming a big thing the Iron Curtain was coming down and a necessity for an army was perfectly evident

I mean of obtaining some form of trained people, was becoming more and more evident. And I guess that’s one part of it too and I felt the CMF was a necessary part of it.

Well I mean as I said the CMF started in 1948, after the war. Or was

re-jigged under the name of Citizens Military Forces. Now called the Reserve Army I think. And what sort of training did you do? Well we - the University Regiments were partly there to give training to university students in a way that would enable them to fit it between their courses, fit in with their course so we did a lot during the long summer break.

And it also was an officer producing unit. It was always their charter and if you look at the history of the Second World War you see how many of the leaders came out of the University Regiments. Senior Officers. The - and so we did normal infantry training and we did officer

training. So - and we all became multi skilled because this enabled us to do courses and fill up most of the university vacation. You know a three week transport course. I can drive three tonne trucks, I can drive all sorts of things. From that period or I used to be able to. And you did other courses and you did NCO [Non-Commissioned Officer] courses. And then you had the annual camp which went on - so we could occupy ourselves for about 7 weeks

during the period. I’ve got a runny nose I’ll have to stop for a second. And it was great fun. It was a good way to earn money, enjoy yourself, learn something and do something that all of us thought was worthwhile. And it was surprising how many of the people who - the professionals from then

went on and served in army and medical units and dental units and all sorts of things. You would just be private soldiers or corporals. And I became a corporal after the first camp and then was put in for officer training and so a group of us, I think three of us became the first, I’m not sure about this, but pretty close to being the first CMF officers commissioned in 1950.

The early part of 1950. Certainly we were in South Australia I don’t know about the rest of Australia. So that was pretty quick sort of we were pushed on. So we did officer training and we did infantry training as a unit during that time.

Depends which wider community you’re talking about. If you’re talking about the wider community in Adelaide I think they were all very much, great thing, you know this service, this is what we need. Good for the young chaps and all that sort of stuff you know. Within the university of course it was a totally different thing.

You know 6 years of war, why the hell do we need these baby beating you know, sort of things. Who were all these soldiers within the university. It was never a big do but it always managed to, it always managed to get furious letters to the Dean and people shouting at meetings and so on. But it was never a big deal no.

But there was enough. I mean that’s what universities are like aren’t they? That’s what they’re there for, for people to have views. So the formation regiment wasn’t universally accepted amongst the university community but it was amongst the Adelaide community very much so. And of course there were a lot of - in the other CMF regiments that formed later in that year, 27th and 10th and 48

43rd and all the other arms - I mean they were all commanded by Second World War people and their senior officers were Second World War officers wanting to keep serving on, so you got the value of their experience.

No my elder brother did. I was too busy. He -

no he did. He was very much a stirrer in university, during that period. And he could give as good as he got.

Oh I think - this is a terrible thing to say - I think he rather enjoyed just the cut and thrust and the baiting of the other side rather than anything else. And you know

he was famous for using words like ‘You great unwashed’ and so on. The argument - oh standard argument. Very simple one. The world is not safe. It does need, you do need, the army does need a defence force. I’m sorry Australia needs a defence force. And it should be with

an ever growing communist threat. Of course that doesn’t sit well with the quite strong leftist community that existed in the university then and I suppose still does. That you know the defence of Australia was just as important as it ever was and that the citizen, average citizen should play a part in that and the Citizen Army was part of the Defence - or the Citizen Air Force

‘cause there was a Citizen Air Force too then. And they played a part in that.

Who was the threat to Australia. From 1948 onwards, from the days of Berlin airlift, from the time of the famous

Iron Curtain speech we were - from then on, I mean from the time Menzies became Prime Minister I mean we were facing the communist threat and they were the threat to Australian democracy and so on. And there was going to be an insidious domino effect of countries to our north falling. And of course in 1949 the Communist took over China too.

And the Korean War started in 1950, so you know we’re talking about that period. And of course you had the war going on in Indochina - that was different from Vietnam. And so it was very much, for that period was a developing, growing sense of the Communist

octopus was the threat. And that was played on of course by politicians of all persuasions from then on, for a long while. I mean Menzies won an election with it.

Images used in the Cold War. Can you explain…

Well for a start I mean Menzies tried to win a referendum banning the Communist Party. We had the strike of 1948 you know on the waterfront - sorry in the coal fields which was a big thing then. And you know the defence forces

were used for that. And the images were - I mean the mental images were, and this was played on, that here was a group of people trying to destroy the life that Australians had been fighting for you know six long years and you know here was people trying to destroy everything that they’d been - you know and that imagery was very strongly

worked on by Western politicians. Not here, not only here but you’ve obviously heard of the McCarthy era in the United States and just about everything. And something’s got to be done about it. Churchill in England, same thing. So that was - that was the sort of imagery - you got cartoons in the papers.

You know about the nasty communist menace. Providing they were right winged newspapers. You wouldn’t have got it in the Tribute. And so on. And that in fact, that - I think that - right up I would think up until the end of the 1960s was part of people’s

thinking - that this was an insidious - rightly or wrongly - and you know the thinking behind the rationale of the Vietnam War that you had to be in it to stop the communists. And as part of protocol member of SEATO [South East Asian Treaty Organisation], that we had to be there. So

Communism ruled in whatever mental image you had of the Communist threat at that time. And for a long long while afterwards too.

No. No it was taken as fact I think. I think - because there was

enough, there was enough things happening. The Berlin airlift for example when the Communists shut all the corridors into Berlin was the beginning and here we go. And as I said the Iron Curtain speech. The Communists had taken over in China. The Communists in Indochina, it was all part of our life

and the - paranoia came later. Paranoia came later I think because later politicians used it as a such as a good way of - that mob over there are Communist lovers, we’re the people that are stopping you against the Reds Under the Beds. I think then there was a strong, this may be disputed, but I think there was a strong

feeling that the Communists really were, the Communist ideology was determined to change the world - that it was a continuing process and you don’t have to read very much to know that that was part of the process. And the - and from that came

the feeling that there was a military threat in some way or another and as such to cope with this you had to be strong from a defence point of view. And I don’t think that went away for a long while.

Isn’t it terrible to say this. But not un - I think reasonably understandable, as a 15 year old. Fascination, absolute

fascination. And then hearing people say, ‘This will end the war.’ Only later on and after all I visited - I wasn’t - I was working in Japan not far from Hiroshima and went there often in 1954. Only later on - but much earlier than that if you were a thinking person but at that time

the fact that a hundred and something, two hundred thousand people had been killed by this bomb didn’t impinge on you at all. I mean every paper at that time, and you were reading it through a child’s eyes or a boy’s eye were saying, ‘This will end the war.’ And so that was the impact that it had. I think those two points.

No fascination of an atomic bomb, a bomb that could destroy a city. Before we’d sat through thousand bomber raids, thousands of tonnes. I mean we didn’t even know that Dresden had been destroyed at that stage, quite wrongly. So fascination. We were products of war. We

read - I mean we read all the time about bombers bombing and things - our young lives had been brought up in that in some form or another. It didn’t impinge on us all the time but that’s what you read, I mean you read about it so you took it as being granted and suddenly here was the next step in the evolution. Somebody had dropped a bomb that could destroy a city. I mean I didn’t even know what the word nuclear was then. Oh I did because

it was in physics but not in the real sense. I mean we’d studied things about - early things that were done but we didn’t have an realisation that they would be used to destroy a bomb. Can I have a drink please. Make a bomb I mean.

Later on? The real - well I learnt about - later on we learnt about the tremendous casualties that had been caused. But even that was sold in a different way. The whole thing was sold as I remember it, now this is pretty grey you have to remember, I’m doing my best. It was sold as

this had saved the Allies from having to invade Japan and millions of casualties on both sides - oh this was what was going to save us and it’s that old, the end justifies the means argument. And that was what we were - and so people were I guess so relieved that the end of six years was finally finished. And

don’t worry about the two hundred thousand people that got killed, because the end justified the means. There was no other way. People accepted that. It was only later that you know the moral argument came into it more. And still I’m not sure the end didn’t justify the means after six years of war, and what had happened in between. Terrible

thing to say.

Well two of them were dropped and the Japanese caved in and that was it, there wasn’t a necessity. From then on we got used to the atomic era and the testing of atomic bombs at Bikini Atoll and

these various other places, ‘til finally they came home to roost over here. We got used to that and then, of course when the Russians got the technology - that man whose name escapes me, who helped them into speed up their development and suddenly both sides had nuclear weapons. I’m not sure whether I’m answering the question the way you wanted

it but I’ll do it anyway. After that I don’t think that I ever thought and that’s most probably because I didn’t know what had happened in Cuba, when that happened with [US President] Kennedy. As close as it did, only reading about it later. But I don’t think I ever thought that there would ever be a World War again in the real sense. The big, you know the big two, two cultures

attack. Two groups of people, world wide attacking each other and this was because of the atomic bomb. In other words that was the biggest deterrent to a World War that was around. So I was always a proponent of the deterrent of that time. Between Russia and the United States in the main but of course we all hung on their coat tails. I think

that’s all I can say on that.

Yeah later on there was. They - even - oh this comes back to the 1960s I think, ’50s. I was back in the CMF. Yeah. We had a pentomic battalion -

was designed in the Australian Army which later became the Pentropic battalion. The Pentomic. And it had all sorts of things. You did drills on what to do and you know, but there’s two types of atomic weapons as you most probably realise. One are battlefield weapons and the other is to drop major atomic bombs. So we’re talking about atomic weapons on the battlefield. And you know we used to have drills of what you had to do and you’d

be putting up things for people to go and have showers and radiation suits and all sorts of things. That luckily disappeared very quickly. But it was fun while it lasted. Another of Canberra’s mad ideas. What did Petronius say? Something about, we trained and trained and learnt and so on and as soon as we got organised, they changed everything and we had to start all over again. And that was the CMF they

did that fairly successfully.

Well from ’48 until the ’51 period I told you about in September.

No I still had a couple of subjects to go which I did later on but that was because I was in mid year because of my change thing - so that was

easily fixed, that wasn’t a problem. My father was a bit disgusted. When I decided to do this it didn’t seem to make any difference at that stage and in fact it didn’t. ‘Cause I was able to carry over subjects. The other engineering subjects into the other degree. So that was no problem.

I’d better explain here, and I can’t remember whether I mentioned it at the beginning, when I decided - there was a war that had been going on in Korea then since 1950 and this was mid 1951 - and when I decided, I was getting more and more a feeling for the regular army at that stage. And we now come to the critical question that you’re going to ask.

Why then? I was enjoying the CMF, I’d been commissioned early. And I guess I got the feeling that if I didn’t do something about it then, I’d never know whether or not I was meant to be

a soldier or not rather than plodding along going not quite sure where I was going to go. And I’m sure there’s been many people in this sort of situation before. And I’ll answer - I’ll try and answer the question you obviously will ask, what effect did my background have on this decision. I would think underlying but not consciously. Sure I mean I had a

father who’d served, I’d had two brothers that had served you know and they’d all served well and done well. But there was no - I can’t consciously say that I did the decision because I’ve got to be like my family. It really was as far as I was concerned, a feeling - that look

this is a worthwhile thing that’s going on. They had formed K Force and - or they were enlisting people under a K Force and that was two years. They - this is worthwhile, this is something that you know is a worthwhile cause to be in. And then the second question, is this something, this growing interest in the army and in serving in the army through the CMF

is this something that I’d like to do for the rest of my life? I mean would I like to do. And at that stage. So when I told my father and mother that this was what I was thinking of doing, of course I had absolutely no thought for my mother of course who’d had to sit through the war. And she never said to me, ‘Oh God not another one.’

You know another child going off to do this sort of thing. Dad just said to me, ‘Okay if that’s what you want to do. You’ve got everything as background there and you can fix that later on.’ And there won’t be a problem about that. He said, ‘If that’s what you want to do.’ And where he got it from I don’t know but he said, ‘I hear they’re running

something…’ what came to be known amongst my snobbish regular army friends, who went to Duntroon was the Knife and Fork Course. And it was a - the army was desperately short of officers. With the expansion of Korea and so and sending other battalions. And so they formed a - so they started what they called

Knife and Fork courses but in fact it was a 12 week course to pick people to go into the regular army from the background of the people who’d served in the Second World War. And they also took other people with other commissions. They’d take people from England for example, put them through the process and they - and he said, ‘Do you think it’d be a good idea if you applied and did this

before you went away. If the army will accept somebody as snotty nosed as you.’ Into you know the lead, real people. So I did that. And we did that at Seymour, what was then the school of tactics and administration. And I think there were two of us there who came from the CMF. One called Bill Harrington

who stayed on in the army and myself and we’d both been students. And we went through this thing and of course we were serving - we had in the course distinguished - old people who’d been company commanders during the war, people with gongs you know they were all distinguished leaders. But it was very interesting, we had to work at night and of course the two of us had never stopped.

Never stopped working at night you know, we’d never stopped studying. These fellows had families and so on and so forth. Came the end of the course, guess which two were offered long service commissions in the army? The two young snotty nosed university students and the others all got short service commissions, six years I think. Which was totally unfair. And later on they got an

extension and so on but that was how it was done. And so they offered us long service commissions, this was late 1951, on the basis that our seniority would date from the day after the graduation of the Duntroon class graduating that year, which probably was fair enough, after all they’d been there for four years. And these

were the people who became my friends in the army, we became contemporaries. But you know they were proper soldiers. I mean they’d done their four year hike. I never felt that - necessarily - I mean I never felt anything - that they were any better at what they did than I was but that was how it all happened.

Oh I most probably - maybe that was part of the thing that was behind my doing what I did but there was a war going on in Korea and you know that also was an influencing factor. I’d thought about it but I guess I - and rightly or wrongly, after

I had four great years in regular army if you call going north for a short period, a great time. But if you a regular soldier, I mean that - a regular officer I mean that’s what it’s all about. I mean that’s a part of - certainly not a lot of it’s all about but it’s part of it, getting some experience, to find out you’re going to be scared like everybody else. I guess

the - it certainly was a factor - after four years I had to make a decision. 1955, I was thinking I was about to be posted, I was at Ingleburn in Sydney and I was about to be posted. There was ADC [Aide de Camp] to a commander, Lieutenant General down in Victoria Barracks. And I had to make a decision and I said to myself, there were two factors

I guess. In a way that at that stage - it changed later on - but at that stage the chances of becoming, getting high up in the army if you weren’t at Duntroon was patently obvious, it was going to be very difficult. And secondly the army was - the army after Korea was winding down which was a great mistake but they did at that period. That’s the regular army. And hence they had to put it all together again for

Vietnam. And of course and National Service it had a big effect on the regular army too. That is the first National Service, if you’re aware of what I’m talking about. The 12-week and thing. And so the fact, so in the way that most probably did, but in effect I said to myself, no this is not what I want to do for the rest of my

life. I’d liked active soldiering but I really don’t want to be a desk bound - now that’s nothing against people who are regular officers - they - I had a different background to them. They’d been in Duntroon for four years, they’d gone on to make a life of it. But then many of them left and did other things too. So I didn’t regret it really.

Get to Korea.

Get to Korea. Which is another story.

I mean to learn a bit more about my craft which I knew I’d have to do, which I did for six months and another hard training, in Puckapunyal training troops to go to Korea. But my aspirations were to get there myself, simple as that.

To study? No just a normal university student, getting through as you can. No I was never studious. I was a good reader. Good talker. No. Yeah. No I wasn’t studious in the sense that you mean and I was never going to have a career in academic or anything like that.

I wasn’t. I wasn’t.

You - if you - you’d have to ask that of a young man coming out of Duntroon. He’d say I want to be a general. Simple as that. After all that’s the pinnacle. That’s where they want to go. In my case, I guess I thought that if I - I don’t know I can’t remember. You don’t think like that. You just accept that, if you were going to be

a regular officer that you’d do the hard yards and you’d do well and you’d get promoted and you’d pass your promotional exams and you’d go on and - obviously your aspirations are to get to the top. Simple as that. I mean you don’t go in to do anything else, not really. Not then. Might now. Not then.

I was posted to Puckapunyal and that was the depot battalion for training K Force. That is training all troops going to Korea. One thing that

you may be interested in is that we were so short of infantry officers then that the Duntroon, a lot of the Duntroon graduates who were going to become other arms, gunners, signallers all these sort of things, when they graduated at the end of 1951 they were told that they had to become infantry

officers until they’d served in Korea and come back. And that’s how they got their young platoon commanders ‘cause they didn’t have enough people who’d - had said they wanted to be infantry officers. And so all those chaps when they came back had to do this specialised arms training after they came back from Korea not before. And so they - a lot of them came to Puckapunyal in 1950.

I got there in the late part of 1951 and they were posted down there in 1952. And my relationship with them was very good and we were all young men mucking around together. A big group of us got a flat in Punt Road in Melbourne which those off duty could go down the weekend, wasn’t far from the hospital down the road where the nurses were. And it was, you know

we were just, I never had any feeling at all - I mean it might have been there but I never felt that I was something different because I wasn’t a Duntroon graduate. They seemed to accept me reasonably well. They might have said something behind my back but I never heard it if they did.

The

in preparation for Korea - now you’re getting in area - from here on in - I’ve been talking about just ways of life but facts become difficult. They had a progression up, they’d take people in for K Force and depending on whether they were ex-soldiers, if they were Second World War trained people then they’d go into another thing. But they’d put them into initial training and I think that was called

DP 4 and they moved up DP 3 - don’t ask me what DP [draft priority] stands for because I don’t know - something personnel. DP 2, DP 2 was their final training before they went to Korea and then they’d have their medicals, get their inoculations and they would be DP 1. In other words they had done everything and they were ready to go, and they’d go through as reinforcements to Korea. So we were training

these people in DP 2 which was their final - was their last period. We - they were - in all aspects of training. Those who went through as reinforcements would then go through the battle school in Japan where I later finished up and to get specific theatre indoctrination for four weeks.

But we taught them all - we walked them and we got them fit. We used to - I mean we spent a lot of time out on the ranges practising this and practising that and getting run over by tanks and all sorts of things. You got half an hour, there and there, two people. In half an hour’s time, your - the trench

you dug will be run over by a tank so you better get into it, you know. And you never see so much dirt shift so quickly. We’d teach them how to deal with wire obstacles, we’d teach them about problems of minefields. We’d teach them about tactics all those sort of things. And final advance shooting and the use of weapons. More advance weapon training and operating at night because Korea by then had become virtually a night

war which is what it was in the latter period - in the last two years. And so we did a lot of night training. A lot of fitness training up in the hills and I had a brute of a company commander who used to make them - he said, ‘If you want breakfast there it is down there.’ That was about 800 feet down, if they wanted breakfast you know so it got them

fit or they went hungry. But it was - So it was the final, it was a period to make them ready to go to war as much as you can and it was really pretty good if you compare it with some of the stories of the sort of preparation in the Second World War, you know the sort of training they got, particularly the 8th Division, like none.

And some of the units going up to Papua New - going up to Moresby. So that was the training we were doing continuously. And I expected then that I’d be going to Korea in about mid 1952.

Oh. Varied. They were an extraordinary lot. There were young men, there was people in the regular army who mixed in with this lot who’d been said, ‘Okay well you’ll go to Korea and you go here.’ There was people who’ve served in the Second World War and there were people

who said, ‘Oh whacko there’s a fight on.’ Good old Australian thing. ‘I’ll join up for this. And they’ve given me the means to do it.’ So you know that’s what they were. At one stage we used to say never be duty officer on a Saturday because that’s when all the ladies came up from Melbourne and Sydney to find out if their husbands were there. Some had run away from mum. They were bored.

Couldn’t ever settle down after the Second World War and there were a lot of them. People joining up under false names. So they wouldn’t be traced. All sorts. Extraordinary group of people. Great soldiers. They really were and they were such a mixture of young and old and experienced and non experienced.

And the - and fascinating backgrounds for a lot of them. I mean we had one chap who was a private soldier one day and they discovered him and he was a captain in one of the units the next ‘cause he’d joined up as a private soldier. Had a great company commander

in the early days who you would have heard of who was Reg Saunders, the only Aboriginal officer we ever had in the Australian army I think. He’d been in Korea and come back and he was a great man. So you had this extraordinary mix, you had the mix of the regular army soldiers who’d come in to make the regular army their profession. Or their job in Korea

for at least for a period. You had the people who joined K Force for whatever reason. I’ve got a friend down here in South Australia or just a chap I know and he’s a farmer and he said, ‘Dad I’m going to go to Korea.’ And you know from a good well, good family down there. So Dad said, ‘If that’s what you’re going to do you’re going to do it. See you later chum.’ And

he went off and I think he became a corporal. Served as a corporal for 12 months in Korea and did all his training and so on and so on. So they were a very mixed group, a very mixed group.

Perhaps there’s a

number of them I guess. Let’s deal with one which you were dealing with before. One would be of course people who didn’t get the opportunity to serve and had that strong feeling, I’ve missed out. Seems strange but you know, that was part of it without a doubt. And maybe that was a little bit of my - I don’t know. I never saw it that way but maybe that was it. But the - and so

here was an opportunity which they hadn’t had. They’d been 17 or something, they’d missed out and so on and now here was a chance. That lovely Australian thing, habit of, oh there’s a fight on let’s go and be part of it. I have doubts whether there was ever any great strong feeling of you know, the commos are coming and we’d better be in there and defend our good old homeland. I doubt if there was a lot

of that, if there was I never felt it. There was no doubt a large group of people who were restless, never recovered - I mean never really settled down after - so five years on here was a chance. Five or six years on. Maybe they were just twenty and at the end of the war served for a couple of years and there was a big group of them, settle down. Others whose

marriages weren’t happy and all sorts of things you know, this was the chance to get away. So it was right across that spectrum and the only thing - surprisingly and what I said before, because I think this was a growing feeling - I don’t think there was a strong feeling of, this is something I must

do in the national interest. Not like the Second World War.

By then and in fact the first stages - you realise in Korea there were two stages. I mean one was

a war of movement for one year. Just about. Well less than a year in fact and after that it was what can be regarded as a reasonably static war, I mean there was movements backwards and forwards but the… if you think that the last part of Australia’s involvement in army operations was learning how to fight in the

jungle and in the Pacific suddenly we were faced with the business of having to go back to our roots and change the concept. And the lessons, the main lesson that came from the Second World War into Korea

as far as the army was concerned, is that it’s good young leaders that win battles. I mean that win on the ground and it’s good officers that do. There’s no change, it doesn’t change. And so the fact that you’re fighting in the jungle or fighting it in

in the sort of, or in the conditions in which I encountered in Korea which was a night-time war. It’s the ability of people to plan, the ability of people to lead, I mean those came out so strongly and that was still very strong in the Australian army. So you then adopt the principles, you work hard on creating young junior leaders who you know, from corporals upwards. They’re the

and well trained soldiers. I mean the lessons that come out of the Second World War was that you don’t win with badly trained soldiers. And I think as far as Australia is concerned the other thing is the inculcation, terrible word isn’t it - the inculcation of the ability of the average soldier to be able to handle himself

and think for himself, not be an automaton. And that I think’s been a strong part of the Australian Army and it was demonstrated in the jungles of the Pacific, very strongly. And that kept going. It was very much proved in Korea and I’m sure it was proved in Vietnam which I mean I know quite a bit about it but I didn’t experience it.

Does that answer your question?

No no I never sensed that at all. Very keen to learn the majority. I mean they had all the bad habits that Australian soldiers have always had.

I mean some of them. You had your drugs, you know you had your fights and you had this and you had that. And you had the few baddies. But in the main they’re very good and no they didn’t, they didn’t - I never got the sense, the feeling that they weren’t there - they were there to do whatever job they’d decided they were going to do and for whatever reasons

they were doing and they weren’t there to not learn. They mightn’t like it mind you, you know going through the whole rigmarole of being toughened and thing again. But no I never had that feeling at all that they resented having to change or having to learn new techniques. After all if they’ve got any brains at all that’s what’s going to keep them alive.

Ahh. Ahh. When I - well we didn’t know about it in Australia. But certainly when we went to Korea if you want to pursue that because I mean that’s where the artillery I think in the last two years of war became a very very - remember in the Islands the problems

of artillery was the sort of thing my brother was in, the mountain batteries. Or you were supporting troops with guns but there was never the opportunity to be able to employ major artillery concentrations like we could in Korea. And the sophistication, the new sophistication - in other words we’d gone from Alamein in the desert and now we were you know we were into - but the intervening period

the Islands wasn’t so easy ‘cause they couldn’t get guns and ammunitions in the area, except for specialist units. And not in the concentrations that we could in Korea or they could in the desert. And so Korea became another sophisticated learning, yeah

learning experience to the stage by the end of the year war the ability to handle, to bring artillery concentrations into play where necessary was very very good indeed. Particularly as far as our Commonwealth Division was concerned. I had tremendous admiration for them. They were great.

Sure. If we ever

get there.

With great difficulty. There’s nothing there, nothing at all. Absolutely nothing. I was there when the first National Service started and this is the first National Service, the first intake of the 12 week and three years in the CMF

stuff that they had for every 18 year old had to go and do it. And they did up all these barracks on the other side and we had these terrible, awful barracks which every group going off on their next - as reinforcements to Korea would wreck their barracks on the day they left and we had people out in tents on the ranges in amongst the wind and the dust and so on. And here were these snotty nosed kids being given their lovely barracks.

It was - so I mean there literally was nothing and if you were a duty officer in Puckapunyal. We had the drunks patrol. And you’d take two three tonne trucks with you into Seymour and you’d load 40 or 50 or 60 drunks throw them in the back and hope they didn’t get into trouble. And that was it, there was nothing else for them to do. Or else they got down to Melbourne somehow if they had some sort of transport.

It was a terrible place in those times. I mean it was alright for training but it was - but the conditions were really terrible. I mean they weren’t caring too much because they had an objective in view and that was to get through their training and get out the other end. A lot of them didn’t go on leave of course because they didn’t want to be found. But the - so what was leave like? Pretty ordinary.

Pretty ordinary.

Oh if I wasn’t on duty or if I hadn’t done something bad and had to do an extra something, oh I’d go down to Melbourne. I had a Harley Davidson, Second World War Harley Davidson motorbike. And no helmets and things in those days. And this lovely machine, it took me down

to Melbourne and as I think I told you, a group of us had a - rented a flat and so those off duties maybe three, four five of you in Punt Road you could go down there. And so our meagre, what we earned and don’t ask me what we did earn because I can’t remember. It wasn’t much. But spread about 8 people, we’d go down there and use it as a base. And

you know from there you went chasing girls or drinking or doing whatever you did. One lovely memory of that time they used to have an army ball. And the young officers if you could get off were encouraged, regular officers, to go to the army ball in Melbourne. So my endearing memory was taking

my girlfriend of that time in her long frock tucked up around her waist sitting side saddle on my Harley Davidson and drawing up to the front door of the building, of the great big hall there with people with white gloves opening the doors. And she undid her frock and let it fall down and stepped out and I went off and parked the Harley Davidson, it was a lovely memory of that time on leave.

Yeah. And can you imagine sitting side saddle on a motorcycle nowadays without a helmet in a long frock.

Oh that was the day of balls. You know there wasn’t much else. You went to balls and a few nightclubs. But here in Adelaide for example when we were young, I mean you went to the Palais de Dance there in North

Terrace where the Palais Parking Station is or you went to the Town Hall and you went to the Red Cross Ball and you went to this ball and that ball. That’s what you went to. You went to debutante balls and those sort of things. So did you go that, oh it was another opportunity to dance and to take a girl out I guess. Never really thought about it much. Wasn’t a big deal.

No this was in Seymour I was talking about. No I mean they’d go in and they’d go to the hotels, simple as that. There was plenty of beer there. Money would obviously be a problem ‘cause they’d run out of money. They just drank too much.

You know and they’d fall about and lie about and couldn’t get home. So you’d pick them up and throw them in the back of the three tonner and take them back. And let them out the other end, push them out. ‘Cause they’d all be asleep in the back of the truck. Push them out and leave them to find their own way to bed and it saved them getting into trouble. It was a good way of doing it. They were all good people.

Oh I don’t know. Start fighting or do something like that. Whatever drunk

soldiers do. They wouldn’t break into houses or anything like that. Or they wouldn’t go raping girls. I mean that wasn’t in the equation at all. The moral standards, strange as it may seem were pretty high, from that sense. I mean if they could get a girl to go to bed they would but not in that sense.

Oh that’s the same all over the world. I mean but this is Saturday night. That’s when they got leave. Not Sunday night ‘cause the pubs weren’t open on Sunday. Goodness gracious no. No beer then and anyway they had to get ready for five, six so very often we trained on Saturdays too so they only had Saturday night off. And Sunday would be spent recovering and sort

of getting their gear into order and doing their washing and all those sort of things. Getting ready to be bastardised during the rest of the week.

Well that’s the story. As I think I said to you I was expecting to go to … expecting to go to Korea as reinforcement officer in about the middle of 1952 or so.

And that’s where my luck ran out in one way ‘cause that’s all I wanted to do. And just at that stage the 1st Battalion were already in Korea. The first formed unit. And 3 Battalion was always a reinforcement battalion. So it went there first as a battalion for Japan, after that it was a continual changeover of individual personnel. Right through the three years of the war.

And then they sent the 1st battalion to Korea in 19 - beginning of 1952. And so you would expect to go as a reinforcement officer to either 1 Battalion or to 2 Battalion, 3 Battalion. And the same with the soldiers who were going as reinforcements to replace illness and casualties and so on in either of the battalions. But it went up there as a formed battalion. And

just at that time they decided that 2 Battalion which is the depot battalion would become the next battalion to go to Korea to replace 1 Battalion. And the CO [Commanding Officer] came there, not the CO who took us to Korea but

who trained it, the CO who trained 2 Battalion at that time said, they’re wanting officers for 2 Battalion and they need specialist officers. Trained, like machine-gun officers, mortar platoon officers and so on and we don’t have anybody who’s trained there. And I’ve decided you’re going to be the assault pioneer platoon officer.

He looked up and found that I’d done a year of engineering. Or somebody had found out about it for goodness sake how much would you know about engineering. Doing Maths 2 and Physics 1 and so on at university. Anyway that’s what happened. I went very close I should think to being court martialled.

Or they call it sort of insubordination - like you can’t do this to me, I’m due to go. And Sir I know nothing about engineering and I know nothing about this or that. And of course you learn later in life that that’s the quickest way to get somebody to stick to their guns and, so I was

designated as the Assault Pioneer Platoon Officer of the 2nd Battalion to go to Korea in 1953 not in 1952. And like all these things you immediately say, ‘Well the flipping war’ll be over before I get there.’ And I wasn’t the only one there were a quite a few others who were put into this situation. So just at that time I was having strong doubts

about the army. And the people who ran it and various other things. Anyway a couple of kindly senior officers took me aside and patted me on the shoulder and said, ‘Look you can’t beat the system chum, no matter what you do. So don’t ride it.’ And that was good advice. ‘Cause I most probably would have been court martialled I think if I’d gone on with the exercise.

For being insubordinate.

No. Never. No, no. I was a professional soldier by then. And other people mightn’t have thought so but I was in name. So that was a big thing for me.

Oh lots. I mean we had people back there, I said I had Reg Silvers as a company

for a while. We had other people coming back who were in the Depot Battalion. After all we were training, we had a number of NCOs there who’d been to Korea. So yes I mean it’s something you followed. I mean it was something you were going to. There was a lot of stuff coming out in the army magazine, you know the army journal.

I think it was called. People writing stuff. There was a lot of papers coming through that you had to read and study about you know the way things were being done particular patrolling techniques which were becoming more and more a thing, you know it was patrolling war. And so yes, so you knew what was going on. What you didn’t know because of course it was in July, 1951

that they sat down and started talking about ending the war. And it didn’t finish ‘til July 1953. And that’s when it was agreed, that’s when the two sides were pretty much along the lines of where they finished the war give to take a few battles in between. And so yes you did you knew

quite a lot of, as it should’ve been done, you know it was a professional army. And we were trainers. And so we knew pretty well what was going on. What everybody didn’t know and particularly those of us who - and by that time you’re 22. You’re belting your head to go and save, win the war. And what we didn’t know was when it was going to end. And

so I go back - it’s like the kids who were going to turn 18 in 1945, will it be over before I get there?

A lot of newsreel stuff. We were a newsreel thing. The first

stuff was starting to get out about the - what happened to the prisoners of war and the interrogation techniques of the Chinese and so on. So we were getting - but that was coming through official channels not through the newspapers and so on. Most of the stuff you saw was newsreel. If you went into any theatre in those days or one of the news theatrettes like they used to have in Adelaide and Sydney and Melbourne and so on

I mean you’d - there’d always be something on Korea. You know our brave boys in the air force or our brave chaps in the navy or so on. Or here come the air force supporting the brave chaps on the ground. You know all that sort of stuff. So you’d see that and you’d see the conditions in the hills. You wouldn’t and this stayed right till the end of the Korean War.

Journalists never had access that they had in later wars. And so we saw very little, during the actual time when you were in the line you didn’t see journalists. They were pretty good at keeping them out of the way.

Oh I’m sure they got to

Battalion Headquarters but they didn’t get forward from there. They got told what people wanted to hear I guess. But we never saw them. Or I didn’t anyway. They may have there. But I mean they got fed stuff. I mean it was Second World War stuff still. The world changed for journalists after that. In Vietnam. It became a community war. But in those days it wasn’t. So for that reason I guess

it’s why they’ve dubbed it the Forgotten War. You know Australians really don’t know much until they started these 50 year performances which have been going on.

In Puckapunyal. We stayed in Puckapunyal. But

after I’d gone off and got drunk and settled myself and had my worldly advice from my well experienced Second World War friends, the senior chaps - so the first thing to do was that we had to form an Assault Pioneer Platoon. And

so they put together a group of - I mean who were going to form the beginnings. And they started moving recruits in and so on. No that wasn’t the first thing. The first thing was I had to find out what the hell it was all about. So we sent to the School of Military Engineering at Casula in New South Wales which is just near Ingleburn and did a course there, I can’t remember how long it was, four to six weeks, seemed to last forever.

And so I did Assault Pioneer Platoon Commanders Course along with a number of engineer officers who also went to Korea and did the same sort of job. It must have been six weeks, it was a long time. And we learnt all the things one is supposed to. You learnt how to use explosives and you learnt how to

deal with mines. And how to put up fortifications and all that sort of thing. And I came back to the battalion by which time - so where would we be now. I really don’t know what time we’re at. But we’re getting late into 1952 at this stage. It would be about September I guess, something like that by which time they were starting to bring reinforcements in to 2 Battalion who weren’t going to go overseas to

as reinforcements in Korea. They were going to stay with the battalion and go as the battalion. So they started to form up the battalion. So I had to form an Assault Pioneer Platoon from scratch. And so, so we called for volunteers, that’s how I got my platoon. And we did it all by selection, had more than we needed and I ended up with about the third youngest in this platoon.

Most of them were older than me. And then you picked the people who appeared to you to be common sense, hard working, good experienced, a lot of people who’d worked on the land. Quarryman, all sorts of funny people but you know there they were. And so I was 21 and there were a few people younger. One in particular who was under a false name and we only found out later that he was only 17

anyway. And - but - and so we - I had a great platoon sergeant called Chippy Carpenter who was an Englishman who’d served in the Marine Commando’s up the West Coast of France and Belgium and Holland.

And you know he’d pat me on the shoulder and say, ‘There there everything’ll be alright.’ Which is what good platoon sergeants do. And he was very good. He was really good during this period at helping pick these chaps and so we got a platoon of 30 something people. Out of the volunteers. And very varied group. Very good. Excellent.

It

wasn’t geared to Korea at all. Except in relation to the mines that you studied and worked on. They had all been, the various Chinese and Korean mines had been sent back to Australia so that they could be used as examples. But when you think about in our terms mines were the one

thing that you had to learn about, you know how the operated and what they did. But more than anything else you learnt about the mines the Americans were using because the Americans were the problem really later on in the static war because they’d been backwards and forwards and they’d laid mines indiscriminately so it were their own mines which were our problem not really the opposition ones, that you

needed to know about and what sort of patterns you might find in the minefields, how the Americans tended to if they tended to have a pattern to them. I’ve got to be very careful about what I say but the way in which they laid them at that time, in a hurry, because it was a war of movement when they did so when they settled down they would lay minefields indiscriminately you know. For a while and then of course they’d be moving on

going back, going forwards or something. And so the American mines were particular and to a lesser extent some of the British were things you learnt reasonably well. Everything that you could about them. How to work with them, how they tended to be laid particularly the anti-personnel mines. And then - so that was one side of it, mines were the thing. And the use of explosives in all its forms.

‘Cause you had to be able to use them because Korea’s a place where of course the ground gets frozen in winter and you really can’t dig, you’ve got to be able to blow holes if you can. And all the other forms of explosives that they used in the army. Bangalaw torpedoes for getting rid of live wire. Things for driving holes through concrete and there wasn’t much concrete to drive it through.

These things were very good for knocking down trees on Puckapunyal range. So explosives was a big thing. The various forms of boating equipment, was the responsibility of the Pioneers. You had to learn all the techniques of improvised river crossings - being able to get people across and things. As it was we never had to use it but you had to learn. It was very much a part

of the thing because the Pioneer Platoon was responsible for instructing all the rest of the battalion these techniques and so on. And of course carry them out including folding boats that they carried in the division, that was another part of it. The whole of the techniques of constructing bunkers and so on and so forth and wiring and the techniques of wiring, to be able

to stop it being blown apart when shells hit it. And so on. In other words everything related to the sort of things that a infantry battalion might meet in a minor engineer way. If you call mines minor engineering thing. And you also

learnt the sort of basic techniques of what I call minor engineering works which are things like I mean my blokes used to put culverts into tracks where jeeps went across and things like this. And all sorts of strange bits and pieces - repairing roads, helping people, instructing them how to dig bunkers and revet them.

Revetting up the sides of the trench, to be able to stop it falling in. All this sort of stuff and so that’s what the 6 weeks covered. So specifically to Korea concentrating on mines was the main thing and the types of defence systems, the bunker type systems that they were

using to stop them being crushed in.

Accidents? No never had an accident.

No. Never got anybody hurt through an explosive. See the working - either training with them or working with them. It’s all about - you know the old thing about familiarity breeds contempt. And I had a platoon sergeant and I was pretty strong in it myself here, but he was very particular. And they wouldn’t dare

and so they followed the procedures and that we were absolutely adamant about. And so if you do that the only thing that cause problems are if you get a false detonator or something like that that causes the problem.

Nothing. Oh I had an explosives licence. Use of Explosives. Which guaranteed me because we used to use it out on the Puckapunyal ranges. But that was it, no you don’t have a licence. It was a course. You did a course and passed a course and learnt what you had to learn and came out the other end.

Oh well the understanding of what I was saying, was practical. People who were practical with their hands. Common sense. And appeared to be solid in what they did.

And people who wouldn’t be - you don’t want people playing around with mines you know who were up boys and at them and let’s go and earn a VC [Victoria Cross] type thing. You want people who are solid and capable. Common sense. That’s what we worked on. And you get a lot of them out of the bush.

And doesn’t mean you don’t get them in the city mind you but you get a lot of them out the bush.

Well I think - well we had some NCOs, a couple of NCOs come in, a couple of corporals came in as well. I had to send. I really can’t remember how we did this now.

We sent some of the blokes off to courses in specific elements of what we did and I can’t even remember where it was done now. So that they’d come back and help with the training of the others. And what we did was - we lost - certainly lost one of my corporals - Portsea started up, you know the officer cadet school started up during

this time. And he got selected for that and went off to Portsea. But as far as on leaving and wanting to go somewhere else I don’t think we had anybody during that time. I might be wrong. I’d have to ring some of the people who seemed to get in touch more now. I think they’re discovering their mortality somehow.

So we pretty well stayed together right through and we were very lucky that way. And so it became then a matter of constant training. So we evolved the thing and we put them through the same sort of course which I had done. And so it was very continuous for me because I had to do most of the training. But I could call on engineers from

other units. From around Victoria. And I remember now. We got two warrant officers over from Casula. And they came over to do the explosives instruction. Which was great. And so they came - I’d forgotten about that. And so they helped in that.

And they may have done some mine work I can’t remember now. And the rest of the time we spent the time running around Puckapunyal blowing up trees and blowing up things and doing this and doing that. And finding - learning how to cross rivers and getting wet. Lucky it was summer time. With nothing, you know with a ground sheet and pack and so learning how to swim across and get things across.

Get soldiers across. And a lot of work on mines. On the types of mines they’d encounter. And endless hours practising with - what they called a prodder which you used to see whether there was a mine in front of you, in the dark or with blindfolds over their eyes. Giving them the thing, how do you do it. Mine!

Ohh! You know they stop dead. A lot of that sort of stuff out on the ranges. You silly coot - you’ve just blown yourself up. Feeling for wires. Slowly. See it takes a long time. But we had a very intensive training period during that time. Which went right through till February.

At the end of January anyway. And in between of course they have to go through all their normal infantry drills and be put through basic courses. I mean they’d already done it but a refresher and more advanced techniques and patrol techniques. ‘Cause you can’t send them out with patrols unless they’re part of the patrol. And advanced weapon training. Shooting and so on.

So that’s what we did.

Going to operations in Korea or when we were in Australia?

Oh I think they were just too damn busy to be quite honest. I don’t think they were bored at all. Because I can only remember that period as being - even I stopped hurting. Well you couldn’t, I mean you can’t let them know that you don’t want to be doing what you’re doing can you? But, I think we were just too damn busy. Perhaps at the end, perhaps at the end when

all this was finished and we were waiting around to get on a ship and go. Maybe they got bored witless then. They went on embarkation leave though and did whatever they did. But virtually up to that time you know, they didn’t stop. I don’t know what was happening at the rifle companies, I was too busy. ‘Cause they had a lot to learn in a comparatively short

space of time.

Oh I think that - I think I really did that very quickly. As I said my two mentors put me straight. And I guess I had enough sense to realise

that if by any chance I did make a career of this strange profession I’d better get on with it. I must have had enough sense to realise that and I wasn’t going to - anyway I wasn’t going to hurt my father and anybody else - no that happened pretty quickly. That was just aside. You’ve been at this too long. You catch up on these remarks very quickly.

What did I do? I can’t remember.

Oh I came back here. I came back here. I came back here for a few days. Then went to Melbourne. I had an interest in Melbourne. And then my mother came - jumped on the train and came over. I remember it vividly because she and I went to see South Pacific.

And I took her to dinner, oh I don’t know who took who to dinner. And she went back. Well I had aunts in Melbourne so she obviously stayed on with them but I went back to Puckapunyal. I think it was only 6 or 7 days in total.

I saw him when I came back here.

No no no. My brother was in England by then and got married in England. To the daughter of a reasonably well known soldier, Arthur Blackburn. But he was in England and he

and so I didn’t see him. But no we didn’t discuss it, shook me by the hand and said, ‘Good luck.’ He wasn’t a hugger. Different era.

Hoo bloody ray. Hoo bloody ray.

You know great. Think it’ll finish before we get there boss. That’s all. That’s the only thing I remember. At long last. But we’d known for a long while what the date was. Because of the changeover with 1 Battalion. Remember I’m right at the end, I’m only a short time.

Oh they were taking over as 1 Battalion as a name. We also took over, when we went to Korea, we took over a large number of soldiers and officers from 1 Battalion who hadn’t completed their 12 month tour. They’d gone in as reinforcements as they had casualties, as they had sickness, as they had this or people sent back

for various other reasons. So there was a couple of hundred of them. So we took over. So our battalion went there with a small - minus two hundred who had already been there. So for the rifle companies that was a terrific because they got a levelling of soldiers who knew the conditions very well indeed. Which 1 Battalion didn’t have when they went there. Although they might have got some people

across from 3 Battalion but I don’t think so. So we went away a couple of hundred short battalion strength to allow for these people. But the name changed. The question was?

As an infantry battalion in Korea, we were part of the 28th Brigade of the Commonwealth Division. And there were two Australian battalions and two

British battalions. We were a 4 battalion brigade which was different. The other battalions in the division was one English Brigade and one Canadian Brigade in the Commonwealth Division. And we had English gunners, New Zealand gunners, Indian Field Ambulance and so on. It was a United Nations action. But in the Commonwealth Division they were all countries of the commonwealth.

It was just a normal - it was as an infantry battalion in an infantry division in Korea, yeah.

Well we went off from Sydney - had to go down to Sydney.

And some of us went down early to Sydney to get the - were the advance party for getting the mob on the ship. And we went over on a ship called The Niuw Australia, Dutch ship spelled NIUW And it took about 10 days and we trained

every - we had training programs every day. A concert at the end for the talented people in the platoon. You know dressed up in tutus and things. And so I don’t - when you say what do you remember about it, it was just days at sea training and the sea going past, I guess that’s about as much you can say I remembered about it.

It seemed pretty boring to me at the time. As most ships are.

Oh anticipation. Oh yeah. All they wanted to do was get there, they were sick of all this training and everything else they’d be doing. And all they wanted to do was get there. And at last they got there.

April, May, June, July. After five months.

This is March, early March 1953.

Pusan, met by an American band. Yellow scarves and so on.

Polished instruments and so on. Playing for their arriving heroes and you know, the diggers said, ‘Get a look at this lot will you?’ American guards jumping up and down with chrome rifles and stuff. ‘Get a load of that lot.’ And we went to barracks very quickly in Pusan and

the - we got kitted out with winter gear ‘cause it was March, still damn cold in Korea. And by then they had very good winter gear developed unlike the poor cows of the first year in Korea who just had the old Australian service desk uniforms. But they were very good and very effective. So we got kitted out and then put on a train and sent up

north from there.

Well the whole bit. Clothing started with a string singlet and it traps the pockets of air and

holes that big. A string singlet and then a sort of rather ghastly flannel shirt. Which felt like sort of pressed mohair which was your next thing. And then one of those brown jumpers with patches on the sides and leather on the sides, everybody had one of those. You had - pants were

water proof type, water proof, wind proof type pants. And then you had a combat jacket in the same sort of material with brown here. And then on top of all that you had a parka which had a hood and - which also could be pulled up from the back. It had a tail like that and you could pull it up

this way. And put buttons there if you felt cold in the nether regions. Very good if you had to lie around on cold nights out in areas where you couldn’t move. But they really didn’t wear that because they got in the way. You know it was standing procedure in those days by then that on patrols that you had to wear a bullet proof

jacket. And if you wore that and you couldn’t wear a parka as well, standing patrols they could. So that was the gear. And then the gloves. You started with a mitten. There was all the things out. And then you had a glove and then you had an outer glove

which had enough - had a trigger finger and a thumb and that came back right over the thing and had two straps that came over. To keep your poor little fingers out of the cold. And so you didn’t want to be desperate to go to the loo with this stuff on.

Footwear. They had what they used to call CW boots. Cold wet weather boots which we used all the time. In summer and winter and they were very good. And then the typical army gaiter at that time. ‘Cause these things stopped, they were a normal boot you see. And the gaiter came under a middle strap, under the bottom here and then came up to here. And so when we came

to Korea 3 Battalion had the original green canvas one. And 1 Battalion when they’d come had bleached theirs so they had white ones. So our CO said we’ll boot polish ours. So we had black boot kind of things and that later on became the standard Australian Army gaiter, the black one. And so that also designated whether that idiot there was part of your

battalion or not. The green, white or black. That’s it. I mean that was the gear. And it was damn cold.

Very difficult if you wore a parka as well so that’s why people didn’t wear them. Not if you were moving

and so you didn’t wear them. But very good if you had to stand around being a sentry or something. And you didn’t have to move. The parka was the worse thing against movement and of course you’d didn’t wear that outer glove. I mean we had it but I don’t know I never saw anybody wear it. Oh maybe the standing patrols did. But it was very difficult this canvas thing which made it very difficult to use your - be able to get your finger on the trigger.

And change magazines and so on.

A woollen beret. A woollen - what do you call it. Not a balaclava - that comes over your face doesn’t it? Although we were issued with them if you needed them. But just that sort of woolly cap that sits on top. What do you call that?

A beanie, yeah. A brown woollen

beanie which sort of turned up like that. And that was very good. And the fellows wore in cold weather - wore them on patrols if it was cold. They had tin hats but they didn’t wear them. Too difficult at night. Make noises. Fellows that had to wear them

in the defensive positions a lot of them. If they were working in the open because there were things coming in all the time. So you never knew when they were going to come in and that was the sensible thing to do. But at night it was hopeless.

No. No family photos. I read War and Peace on the way up in the Niuw Australia. You might like this little story. And I lent it to the Signals Officer, David Butler who was a regular soldier and this was his second tour in Korea.

He’d been there. He was 3 Battalion in the first go. And we were friendly and I lent it to him. And forgot about it of course. And we were both asked very kindly by the Government to go on this commemorative mission to Korea in 1952. ’51 now. Nearly three years ago.

And he arrived clutching this book for me. He said, ‘It’s been a bit long getting back to you but here it is.’ It was nearly 50 years. And he said, ‘I’ve always had a conscience about this book so I bought you another one as well.’ So he’d bought me - as well as giving it to me back he gave me another book as well. He finished up as a major general. That’s what major generals

do you see. Nice story. No I didn’t take any mementoes with me.

Oh Pusan. For those of us who hadn’t been in Asia you know it was an absolute disaster area. Because when the Korean War started and of course they pushed them. The North Koreans pushed the whole

lot down right down to the Pusan Perimeter in the South. Of course all the refugees went with them. So Pusan was a shack refugee city. You know people living in appalling conditions. And then times the size of what it used to be. You know 20, 30, 40 whatever it was of what it had been. So it was absolute shambles and it was a place

you couldn’t have been happier to get out of. So it really was not a place to stay if you could avoid it.

Oh Asian smells. You know what I always call because I’ve spent a lot of time in Asia. And which I like which I might add. But this one was worse because there was no sanitation and so on and so forth.

So not even cooking smells overcame the smell of the place. So it was a whole new world. But we really - we had something to do. We got into barracks in a place in Pusan. We got kitted out and we got on the train and went north. It was as simple as that. We never left the barracks. All we saw of the city was getting in a truck and

going to the barracks.

And here I’m going to have difficulty ‘cause I can’t remember the names but we went into a - whatever the reserve area was for the Commonwealth Division, that’s where we went and it’s north of Wee Jong Bu [Wonju]. But I can’t, trouble is I was trying to think of

it the other day. Only yesterday I was thinking, ‘Oh my god what’s going to happen to me tomorrow?’ The thought police are coming. And I can’t remember what the name was. Anyway it was the reserve area for the Commonwealth Division. So we again started training again, again in

it was only a comparatively short period. Very short period. Again on picking up techniques for when we were first going to go over the line. And this area was also sort of the reserve line area from which you would withdraw if you had to. One was the Kansas Line and one was the Jamestown Line and I can’t remember which order they were. It’s terrible after this time but I just don’t.

it was south of the Imgin River. And so we spent our time working on specific techniques related to the theatre we were in and we did this for a short while. I remember we went in groups to watching a demonstration by the

Republic of Korea on a rock team as they called in techniques of fire and movement. Close range fire and movement. You know when you’re firing just in front of the people, which would have been the most useless thing that we ever did. Because we never had the opportunity to do that because we worked at night all the time. And

so that was one little incident I do remember of that time. And I do remember going through the Wee Bong Du on the way to this thing, which was a strange little town where people going through on the way back to Seoul could pick up souvenirs and things. And it was called - and there were about four shops down one side and one was Kim’s shop and one was Kim’s brother’s shop and the other was

Kim’s brother’s brother’s shop. Designated in English. And so - oh we also picked up our Kat Coms during this period. And I guess that’s a term you don’t know.

Thank you. Kat Coms are Koreans Attached Commonwealth Division. And

they put into process, in the training process of remembering that there was a big - I mean it was a South Korean army. There were more and more people coming through and they had put together a scheme of - by which right down to the lowest level they would have Korean soldiers in the

platoons of the Commonwealth Division. And I had three all called Kim. Again. There was Big Kim, Little Kim and Kim the Bastard. That’s what the diggers named him. And anyway so we got them, they were part of us from then on. And you had to deal with it because their English wasn’t good and you couldn’t use them in areas where, in other words

you couldn’t send them forward because they wouldn’t understand quickly enough what you were saying. But they were nice fellows. And so - that’s something very different that people forget about that period. That we had these chaps in our platoons. So we got them just before we went to the line. For the first time.

Kat Coms.

No. No. But they could understand. So they fitted my platoon okay because all they do was work with somebody else but we couldn’t use them outside the line. I mean forward of the front line because they couldn’t - we couldn’t whisper to them for example. So that wasn’t possible.

But they were very useful in other jobs and engineering jobs. The - when I went to Korea in - we had a very young sergeant called David Cando in the platoon in Korea and he was part of this commemorative mission to Korea. But later on in the CMF when I was CO of the battalion here he came to me as my adjutant. So I got to know him very very well. So when we went to Korea

he’d been so involved with one of his Kat Coms that all he wanted to do during this mission was to try and track this chap down. And he was on South Korean television you know. With photographs of the man and saying, where are you? And what did you do. He got very involved with wanting to know what had happened to his friend. It was interesting.

Ah I thought we’d gone past Pusan. I thought we’d got on the train and gone up to the reserve area where we were training. Our orders were to prepare to take over from one of the English battalions in the line and that was our orders. And so

we carried out some training before we took over from the Royal Fusiliers.

Oh this was as I said before was the - was particular theatre of operations training peculiarly to - you know techniques. Particularly about operating at night. So we did that for a very short period before

we got ready to relieve the Royal Fusiliers in the line.

Oh mainly operating - being able to co-ordinate patrol operations at night. In my own case as platoon officer, Pioneer Platoon Officer it was mainly working on the ability to you know - clearing and operating within mine

fields at night. In the pitch dark.

Well they didn’t prepare me. This was stuff I was doing myself with the troops. And we had an engineer officer there as well. But it was really techniques of how to be able to find mines in the dark using those prodding techniques I was talking. And

so that and also some patrol co-ordination techniques. Everybody had to know them because, I mean the pioneers although they were trained in other things, also had to go out with patrols so - particularly when they were acting as - when they were acting as guards for us when we were operating on the minefields at night. You know

you were going in with them and out with them so you had to know what to do if you were jumped. And so they worked on that for a short while and then they - then we got ready to go into the line and we sent advance parties up and I was one of the advance party. Mainly to talk to the battalion we were taking over from

on - you know what they knew about the minefields out front. And I think the answer is not much. So they weren’t as aggressive a patrol as we were. As the Australians were.

Not really because as I said

we’d worked on it in Australia. Because we knew the techniques. I mean we knew the way people were operating and there wasn’t going to be any change for us. We weren’t going to go into a war of movement again. Because of the situation and the discussions which had been taking place at that stage for 18 months. For 15 months. And so we practised working at night.

And now we just went in to more, brushing up on the techniques. Moving a group of people at night was no - in pitch black dark and trying to keep them together. And also particularly you trained in the techniques for what to do if you ran into an ambush for example. What your immediate reaction. And they used to call

it immediate reaction drill. And in the pitch darkness that’s very difficult. In other words if you were fired on from close range, if you were ambushed we had drills. Everybody knew that they had to turn right, turn left and it really was a run in to the - towards the people who were firing at you techniques. And start firing as you did that. Those sort of techniques that were important to understand. Otherwise if you turned your back

and ran away, you know you’d get hit. And so we practised that.

With great difficulty. But at one stage I think I’d forgotten now, but at one stage we all did a course in Stars of the North Sky which is something Australians don’t know anything about. And so we all - I knew anyway - all the stars of the North Sky.

And there was one other thing which is - I don’t know how much you know about what had been happening but when they started the truce discussions back in 1951, they were meeting at a point called Panmunjom which is in the middle of the thing. And while the war went on. I mean there were much more casualties caused in the two years of discussions

particularly civilian casualties in the North and South, particularly in the North. During those 2 years and a constant patrol casualties, constant attack casualties during those two wasted years. But down in Panmumjon to stop the aeroplanes bombing it they had a searchlight. And it was a long way away from where we were at that stage, a long way. But you could still see it. So if the

so the searchlight went straight up in the sky and that told everybody don’t go and bomb this light because that’s where Panmumjon was and it might upset the people who were talking about it. And even the air force managed to miss that. But if it was on your left you knew you were going towards the enemy if you could see the light 20 miles away. If it was on your left and if it was on your right you know you were coming back towards your own way. It was a great help to navigation

at night. That at least you were vaguely in the right direction. No you did it by compass, you did it by compass navigation. Which is very difficult at night. You kept together by tying things onto the back of your thing here so you could see the white strip that was on the back of the person in front of you. Things like that. But navigation itself was very difficult on very dark nights. And the

it’s an interesting thing that as Australians we don’t have an attitude towards long dark nights and periods and so on. And you slowly get into the pattern when you’ve got to operate in those things you begin to think that you never operated any other way. Except it’s much more difficult.

And it makes big restraints on what you can do and what you can’t do. But I think people have to remember and they do forget I think, that the years we’re talking about particularly in ’52 and ’53 was a night-time war, that’s what it was. I mean there were a couple of day time actions during that time.

Major ones. But not - but not many. Certainly not as far as the Commonwealth Division was concerned. And Korea during this period was a matter for survival - was a matter of aggressive patrolling at night to keep the enemy away from your own - any where getting close to your own area where they could prepare to attack you. And if you aggressively

patrolled then down in the valleys and kept them over their own side. And then you could - you didn’t run the risk of them being able to get up at night and getting in and digging into positions which - from which as I said they could harass you during the day because they were able to create the holes for themselves. And certainly a number of the

other people who were in Korea had this problem. The Americans had this problem. So did the South Koreans in different places that they allowed the enemy to get too close. I mean to get settled. What they call is called camping on your wire. So that you can never get out of your own position and go forward.

Oh I can’t remember. Seemed to be all day for these few days we were there, we were in it. You know constant, constant. And I suppose we had a few hours sleep and back at it again. And part of it I suppose was to get people used to night time work too. You know reversing your life. As much as you ever can in these conditions yes.

Oh the Commonwealth Division. Well the four I’ve mentioned, oh five was - the biggest number of troops there was British, Canadians were the next biggest then the Australians, the New Zealanders, the Indians. They were - the Indians they were field ambulance and hospital

type operations. They were the main ones. There must have been some others, I’ll have to look up the book. I mean a lot of other countries in Korea but the ones in the Commonwealth Division. And we only saw the other countries when you went further back. For example the Norwegians had a medical centre and this sort of thing. The Turkish - you had to be next to them. The Turks had a brigade

there. There were all sorts of people. The Thais had a unit there. The Filipinos had a group there. But they weren’t part of the Commonwealth Division. There must have been some others in small numbers there which I have temporarily forgotten and I didn’t see them really.

Well the New Zealanders and the Australians were alright - they kept

harassing each other all the time. I think the answer’s a pretty simple one. Also talking to people later. When you say other nationalities you know - within the Commonwealth countries it’s the old old thing. If they were good you found it easy, if they weren’t you didn’t. In other words

if they were a good unit then you respected them and if they weren’t you were glad when they went away. But the New Zealanders were always - they had an artillery regiment in Korea and they were very good. They also had a transport company. And they were in our sport all the time. And not only that they beat us at Rugby once. That’s not surprising.

But they were very good and they were very very professional. And they were there right from the beginning til the end you know on a turnover basis. So the answer is okay, no problem. And of course the British had the tanks which didn’t operate in a moving tank role they operated as a armoured gun post. So they

could roll up and fire flat projectory shells across the valleys. Pinpoint and stuff. And they were very good. And they were very good at acting as support when - I never did it but some of them did. When they went across the valley to try and snatch a prisoner or do something like this, then they could fire very close to where they were going in.

As far as I remember only about a week. No in - no we were in the reserve position for the Commonwealth Division - so that was sitting on the rear guard line. The withdrawal line. And if we’d had to withdraw at any time the next line of defence because one of the jobs was to keep preparing that line all the time. And I really only, it was

only a problem for me when we came out of the line. We had a long period in the line, the first time. And when we came out because there was a problem with minefields in that area too so we had to look after that. But it was only a short period before we went into the line there.

With great difficultly. But that’s sort of part of my life

in the whole thing, in the short period I was there. So resolving the question, the problem isn’t the problem. So if we’re now talking about when you’re in the line or behind the line? Behind the line is much easier because you can operate during the day but in front of the line’s another issue. Minefields

I think I said to you before, most of these minefields had been laid at different periods as the armies in the first year of war had been going up and down. Principally by the Americans. And they hadn’t been recorded properly and they hadn’t been marked properly. Most minefields are carefully marked with wire, a single strand of wire and with red triangles on them. Sounds silly.

You know the enemy knows where they are but we don’t care if the enemy knows where they are because they don’t know what’s inside the wire. All they know is that the wire’s there. But more particularly, with a - when you’re operating at night, your own troops. It is very easy for them to get off course. And you can’t just say to a patrol, ‘This is where you go out and you go down there and you go there.’

‘And then you come back this way and that.’ If something happens to them on the way then you get people scattered all over the place. They have to get together, they’re not quite sure where they are and they’re not quite sure about how they’re coming home. And they can walk - if the wire’s not there they can walk into a minefield. So looking after - trying to trace the wire, trying to trace where

the boundaries of these minefields were became a major, well it certainly became the major part of my war personally because that was what I did mainly. And it was difficult because these wires were supposed to be put onto iron pickets. But particularly in the area in which we were, whoever had laid the minefield

had wrapped the wire around trees and all sorts of things. So that when it got cut it was almost impossible to find where the other side of the cut was, if you can follow what I mean. If it was tied to a tree it’s very difficult and even more so if it’s pitch black. So when you find one end of it, and you’re walking along and I’m not going to make a big deal about this I’m just saying , trying -

for the benefits of this thing that we’re doing and trying to be - make people clear where the problems lay. Not so much my own part in it but the problem lay - and for the future if anybody ever gets into this sort of situation the necessity for good marking, good recording of where the minefields were is absolutely essential. And

so if you found one end and you found a break, the problem then was to find the other end without walking into the minefield. And you had to work on a guess. The minefields which were closer to the lines and that’s where there’d be some timber on the slopes that’s where most of these problems with timber occurred and it was easier, it wasn’t easier because it created another problem.

The one way of dealing with it was, just get out before first light and stay out there after first light just long enough to get enough light to see where the other ends of the wire may be. And be able to trace the wire around the boundaries of the minefields. If you do that you then expose yourself as you’re coming home and the people who are

acting as watch dogs for you while you’re doing this work get very irritable and toey about getting home again. Like ‘Hey boss have you seen what time it is.’ Or words to that effect you know. As it’s getting light because they had all our minefield gap areas registered and so as soon as you came home they’d start shooting at you. And a full moon helped to a degree because at least you could see the trees.

Further out, when you got down to the bottom of the slopes you’d get into the paddy fields and there it wasn’t a tree problem, it was just a constant problem of somebody would walk into a minefield and then you knew there was a minefield there and it was never registered before. And suddenly we had a minefield that you had to find the boundaries of somewhere. That didn’t happen very often. Usually you could find it once you knew it was there but of course

there were guns firing all over this area and they’d cut the wire. And the shrapnel had cut the wire and that was the problem. Or weather could cause problem. One example of that was - which was a sad occasion. There was a minefield which I hadn’t got to at that stage to check it. But the weather, a rain storm -

you’ve seen it on every farm you’ll see fence posts coming up the middle of a creek they lift up. And the post at the bottom had come loose in the bottom of a gully and the wire had gone up across and there was this patrol coming home after something had happened. Walked straight up the gully underneath the wire. It was up ten feet high and we had a sergeant and another person killed and so on in the minefield. We had to get them out.

But that’s the sort of thing that can happen if the wires aren’t maintained all the time. So.

They would - we had things called fire flying patrols which would go out see what had happened. And then we had to work out whether they needed help, how far they’d got in and whether they were getting out and then

whether they could get themselves out. How dark it was. Whether it was just that they’d hit the first mine. If they hadn’t and they weren’t sure well then - on many occasions it meant that somebody from the Pioneers or the engineers had to get out to them to get them out. Because one of the drills was that if the person up the front was

hit the others stood still until they’d worked out what the hell was going on. Because - as to whether they had by chance - most of these were trip wire mines. That high. Camera can’t see it. Not very high. And they were what they used to call Jumping Jack Mines. You’d trip the wire and the thing’d jump in the air and hit people across the body

not across the legs. And then it was a matter of seeing where the body was, seeing where the person was who’d been injured and then trying to work out whether or not you could go straight to him and pull him - get him along the track which you’d come in or whether you had to carry out a full process of trying to disarm whatever mines were close by and getting him out then.

That’s what you did. Every one was different. Not that I did that many but I did some.

Yes there’s nothing like being a practising coward. Yeah. I mean of course it was. But again it’s a matter of drills, it’s like everything in the army. And I’m certainly not going to make a big thing of this.

Doing things successfully in the army is a matter of practice and good drills and people knowing what they’re doing. And the Australian soldiers very good at that. Very good indeed. He doesn’t panic and he’s well trained and he uses his common sense. And you might get a feeling that I’ve got a great admiration for the Australian soldier.

I have.

My patrols? Mine were very different. Because mine were - I mean mine were minefield patrols. And depending on how close I was - what I was trying to do

was to - we had a certain amount of information on the minefields - we knew roughly where they were. And most of them but they weren’t very well recorded on aerial photographs which we used for briefing people even though they couldn’t see it but they were briefed in the day time on aerial photographs. And to a lesser degree on maps.

Now our objective was to record every minefield that was on our battalion front and also to constantly maintain and repair the wires on the minefields. And if you can imagine what we’re talking about is a battalion sitting up on a hill and off those hills and ridges, lead a series of spurs and sides - hills that go down towards

the valley and which used to be paddy fields. And the minefields were on the side of hills - had been laid there and they were also down in the valleys. The further out you went, the more protection you needed to be able to work properly so you had to have a protection patrol just between you and the other side of where the nasties were. So you didn’t get

disturbed while you were doing what you were trying to do. If you went out closer you may even take or three private soldiers who’d sort of be there with you while you were doing whatever work you were doing. They hated it because they had to keep going on other patrols themselves later but you know it added another burden to look after this idiot, who was working with the minefields. Now what

I - in the logging of the minefield I would - after I’d done what I set out to do as best I could and if it was a pre dawn job in the short time I had available but if it was longer in the dark of the night it was - when I came in I would go straight down to battalion headquarters

and while it was fresh in my mind - and the intelligence officer and I would pour over the magnified bit of the air photograph where I’d been working. And I say, ‘Yes now there was a Korean grave there.’ And so on and ‘There it is you can see the spot, now the wire runs through there.’ And we’d gradually develop where the wires went. And so we - as best we could.

I mean we didn’t get them all. And we most probably didn’t get them right either. But it wasn’t so much a matter as having it down to the last inch. It was a matter really of the people who had to carry out the big patrols or any of the patrols further out knowing if they came up that way there was a minefield there. That was the thing that mattered so they can be careful. And

if they in fact ran into it they’d say, ‘Oh God we’ve got into that minefield which we’ve been briefed on somehow.’ And you know they’d know roughly where they were and what they were doing. So that was basically what it was about. And as far as I know I did that every night.

Oh they were my own patrols. I mean they were my own things. I had a job

to do as far as minefields were concerned. And I might explain. My own people, my own platoon - we allocated a certain number of them to every company so they had their own little minefield group with them so if the company wanted them to go and have a look at the closed in minefield they could go in and have a look around the wires there. So they could do that.

They were also working - on all the other jobs they were basically under the supervision of the platoon sergeant who sent them off to do other things around the battalion. Doing this and doing that and so on and so forth. And the groups with the companies did jobs required by the company commander that he wanted. He’d forward the position and working on - a lot of work on the actual positions themselves as they helped with instructing

blokes on. Created machine-gun posts and so on. Again most of this work had to be done at night because people had a tendency to shoot at you from the other side. Now away from my patrols and ones my own people went on …excuse me a moment.

Of course the battalion as such as were both Australian battalions and I can’t talk for others but both of them, were very very active patrols. I think at the time when we went from that position to the Hook where we finished the war the - I think most of our young NCOs and officers must have done something like 30 patrols at that stage. And

you said what sort of patrols. There were fighting patrols, there were big groups, platoon size almost. Sweeping the valley to keep the mob away. Ambush patrols. Of course we had standing patrols in front of each company out forward. They were particularly a pain in the neck for the people who had to do them in the middle of winter because they had to lie there quiet most of the night. And they did

they had a number of other patrols which I think my colleagues used to regard as you know, senior officer, let’s see if we can go and snatch a prisoner from across the other side of the thing. And you know a mile away. And you know these became snatch patrols or prisoner collection patrols. But fighting patrols and ambush patrols were the two major ones that they

did. And that was constant. And as I said earlier on why did you do it? Well you did it because it was to win the patrol battle and win the valley battle. In other words so that you kept the Chinese ‘cause they were all Chinese on our side of the country, to keep the Chinese away from you know, back over their side. And so that they couldn’t

get close enough to become a nuisance or get it where they controlled the slopes coming up to your position and hence launch attacks from there. And so that’s what it was about. It was a patrol battle.

Oh no no advance party is just - when you take over from another unit, you send in key people. The company commander’s a part of that.

They take over from the relative company commander in the position. They find out all they can about the position they’re going into and then certain specialist areas like this - pioneers, the mortar platoon would take over the mortar platoon positions and discuss all where their mortars are ranged onto. And the ranging position the same as the machine-guns. So in those days - so the advance party and the CO of course.

And we had a position in those years in Korea called the patrol master. And the patrol master was the one who dreamed up the whole patrol program. So on any one night you might have five and six major patrols operating out of the battalion plus the standing patrols. And you know

for those people - ‘cause I didn’t have to do them. I had other things to do. They were tough hard things to do. A lot of chance of running into big numbers of the enemy. And they did it very very well. And they were just very very well trained and well disciplined in what they did.

Making a point.

Yes. Yeah. Well certainly as far as the weather was concerned. I certainly - certainly in the areas which we operated

I didn’t quite realise that there was only hills and a few valleys, that’s what it was. And I guess I didn’t quite have that but you get to terms with that very quickly. Trying to think now. Expectations? Certainly in both areas in the line that we were in and you’ve got to remember we were only there for five months before the war ended so I’m really

tail end Charlie of the Korean War.. Certainly I didn’t anticipate as big a problem as the minefield wires that we had. And that was due to carelessness in my opinion or lack of activity by the people, first of all who put them down and secondly the people who should have been looking after them to a degree.

But you know I guess - apart from that it’s exactly - oh I didn’t realise - no I never expected summer to be so hot. Hot and dusty. The other name for Korean is Cho Sen as you may know and that stands for the Land of the Morning Calm but that only lasts for a very little while and the wind gets up. And in winter it roars off the

from the north across the Manchurian Steps and in summer it blows dust all over you. So it’s not a you know, it’s a nice place but.

I really can’t remember. You know it’s - here it is, it’s happened. What do we do? So somebody took me out there and - with other - you know

to guide me out there to where it was. And we sort of went on from there. And I’m not quite sure what you mean, what you’re getting at. If you mean were you scared? Anybody who says they’re not scared is crazy except madmen who are in the VC [Victoria Cross]. And all that spur of the moment stuff.

Yeah of course you know. I think it’s true with most people in those conditions you’re more scared of being seen to be scared than you are of being scared. So you go on from there. No I’m being a bit frivolous there. But I can’t remember that it was anything more than, ‘God how are we going

to get it out.’ And ‘What’s the best way?’ and ‘Let’s get him out quickly.’ Because you know he’s in trouble and we’ve learnt how to do it so let’s get on with it. So you know you get the people from the patrol to help you and away you go from there.

How do you prepare them? Good training. I keep going back to that.

Good training. The whole fundamental of the Australian soldier is that he’s well trained, he’s got common sense, he’s taught how to act on his own initiative when it’s needed and that is the sort of very fundamental side of the Australian soldier. And so you don’t train him. The very fact

that you’ve carried out the sort of training that you’ve done, you’ve prepared him just for that. And so he is. He’s good. Whether it’s a violent thing or something he’s got to do violently or whether he’s got to be very very calm you know and does it. So it always comes back to training and giving him as much possible knowledge as you can.

I carried an Owen gun always. ‘Cause it was short, it was easy to put on one side and apart from that I didn’t like rifles and pistols ‘cause I couldn’t shoot a pistol to save myself. Not the 38 Smith & Wesson they used to issue us with.

I couldn’t hit a bull in the arse at five yards. And obviously it was the obvious weapon. It was the one Australians used as a short range weapon and it never, it was terribly, it was completely reliable in the mud and dirt and muck. It was the most reliable weapon you could find and you could fire lots of bullets very quickly. Which gave you enormous self-confidence even if it didn’t hit anyone.

So that was the personal weapon I always carried. When we were around the lines the officers had to carry a pistol, it was mandatory, standing orders. But you know I never drew it in anger. And as I said I wouldn’t know what to do with it if I did.

What against the enemy? Never. Never. Never. And

no never. I was too busy and thank god I didn’t have to because it would’ve interrupted what I was trying to do. And the work I was doing. On one occasion the escort patrol got into trouble but we were hustled off so it was not - I mean when I say trouble they got - they ran into some enemy going that way but they were far enough away from us.

And so they weren’t - it wasn’t a major problem. The Chinese went the other way.

Oh if we were doing the close in work they were right next to us. I mean they were just - while I was doing other things they were keeping their eyes and ears open so - in case something happened. Further out they could’ve been anywhere. I mean depending on where

they saw the main threat coming from or main likely line of approach to where we were working.

Oh about a section strength, about 10 I suppose, normally. About six to ten. Something like that. You’ve got to remember my experiences are in two totally utterly and completely different areas. And one is in the area which I’ve been talking to you about up to now which is the 159 area up near the hills

with the 3 Battalion on 355 on our right and 159, 121 I think they were the names we used, which was the area where we were for a long while. Then we - our brigade was moved across to what they call the Hook area next to the American Marines on

our left and we were the left hand boundary of the Commonwealth Division. In 2 Battalion. And the Hook where we were in the second run, was totally different, was a completely different problem. Because the Hook company was about a hundred metres away from where the Chinese were. Or a couple of hundred metres, very close, two or three hundred metres. It posed a totally different - and then it spread away to the sides, away from that

forward company. So then you move out to the areas on the flanks. But it was very close. The problem was totally different on the Hook because it had been very badly attacked only a few weeks before we got there. Where the Duke of Wellington had a major attack against their position by the Chinese. And they were taken out.

And I think it was King’s regiment - but they were only there for a week before we came and what we faced was like a World War I situation. Churned up, ruined trenches, everything had to be repaired before - in the two weeks before - two or three weeks before we had the next

major Hook attack right at the end of the Korean War. And so that - we’re talking about two very different things. The first one that I’ve been talking about to now there was far more distance between the two sides and

it was much easier to operate. Well if anything was easy. But it was a much easier problem. And over the side was something yet again. This was a very very difficult position because I had other responsibilities. There were some areas where I couldn’t even get near the minefields ‘cause I couldn’t get out there. Right in front of the Hook company I wouldn’t even try.

‘Cause we were too close. So we did that by maintaining - we knew we’d never have patrols out there except standing patrols and even they were to the sides. And then it was only when out further to the sides that you could operate where you might have people going out there but my main concentration was in the repair of the front Hook Company which was in a terrible state. And

made more difficult because they kept shooting at us and doing things like that. A friend of mine once said that the trouble with war was that there was never any accommodation between ourselves and the enemy. And it’s fairly true I guess. And so that - they were almost like different wars, it was a different time even in that

short distance. What my own personal problems were, what I had to do. At the same time we still had people went into a minefield during that time and had to be got out. And there I didn’t have a clue what was there. Yeah so I’m just making clear what we were talking about. Two different situations. So I think we should really

in our discussions split it into those two situations.

Walkie talkies. Oh sorry

I was scratching my neck. Walkies talkies. You had two types. One was a rather very bad American little hand held unit and the other was a back pack on here. I had a signaller with me all the time. One of my platoon was my signaller, my driver. And so Korea was a

lousy place for communications because of the hills and because of the sort of very early days of efficient equipment. But it seemed to work reasonably well. The standing patrols were connected by line. We used to run line out to them as a back up so they had instant communication if something went wrong with their wireless because they were relatively in the same spot. I mean the Chinese knew where they were, roughly.

And that’s why they had a habit of, they’d drop shells or mortars onto the tracks in and the way they’d come home, just at the time after first light when they thought they’d be coming home. They were on land line. Communications between company and battalion were okay providing

a lot of the land line got cut particularly in the Hook battle. But it was constant. As they shells came over they hit a land line. I mean compared with today they’re not even comparable, not even vaguely comparable. What were communications like? If you went down, totally unpredictable I think at the time.

Because you’d just go down a dip that you didn’t think would interfere with communications and it would interfere. And you suddenly weren’t in contact and you came up again and looked for a spot where you could talk. So.

Only my Owen gun, nothing else.

Nothing else. Ammunition. Grenades. Oh grenades but everyone carried grenades. Extra ammunitions for the Owen gun. We were wearing a flak jacket and armoured vest and nothing else. I mean you can hardly use a flashlight to write notes. And so everything had to be committed to memory. From land you had to get a feel for what, in other words

you had to - if you’d looked at the map, if you’d looked at the air photograph you knew where you were going. Though you had to measure it in terms of ridges you’d gone or distances you thought you’d travelled. And, oh you’d have a compass. Which I always found extraordinary difficult to operate. And that was it. I wouldn’t carry anything else. The signaller’d have a radio set of course.

And any other soldiers with you’d be - have whatever they - whatever they normally carried. Owen guns usually. Grenades. Lots of ammunition. You wouldn’t have a Bren gun because only the big patrols carried a Bren gun. And so as I said before, as far as the

logging of minefields, trying to get them in their right positions on the air photographs and so on, it was very much a matter of getting quickly from the time you got in down the poring over the map and over the air photo with the intelligence officer saying, ‘Oh yeah now we went along there and that’s where we went roughly and so I think it ran along there and yes I saw that grave.’ As I said. Or, ‘I saw

that so it must’ve run, that’s where it went.’ So that was the general line of the minefield, of the wire.

Sometimes it’s only field. I mean it’s only

- yes yes very. And I guess you can’t do too much. I mean it’s very slow work. You can’t do too much and also you get a feel - well you go past a standing patrol, you know where that is. It’s in between a gap in the minefield, so there it is in front of there somewhere. And then you head off around to the right and then you come to the end of the minefield. And you go to the next one where you’re working. And you’ve got a general

feel for as you’re going across and over ridges and so on, where you’re going and so you do it that way. I imagine it must’ve been much harder in the desert when all they had was sand - to look at, you know to find where the minefield wires were. But at least most of them were anti-tank mines so you couldn’t blow yourself up. We didn’t have anti-tank mines. They weren’t the problem. They were all

well there were a few anti-tank fields and areas near roads and so on. And particularly in the defensive, the reserve areas and there were some down where, it didn’t matter but they weren’t a worry because you weren’t going to trigger them off. A man could walk on them and not set them off. And there certainly weren’t any minefields where there were a combination of anti-personnel and anti-tank

that I knew of. Yes it was it was very difficult. But I think we got it pretty right and that’s why we tried to operate very close to - as often as we could to first light or last light. Get out as soon as the light got too difficult for anybody to see you from the other side and stay out as long as you can. And once you get onto a bearing for example, if you go out at last light, and these were the closer in - excuse me

Or go out at last light. You’ve still got light and they can’t see you from the other side of the valley and you’ve got a mental image in your mind of what you’re looking at and so that stays with you while you’re doing this work. And so you go on from there.

Dark and shadows? Not really. Not really. They don’t play tricks because it wasn’t a trick thing. I wasn’t trying to do a GPS [Global Positioning System]- we weren’t trying to GPS it within a foot. What we were trying to do was get the line of the wire which we - rough line of the wire which we could transpose onto an

air photograph so that people would know that when they went out that they weren’t to go into those areas. That they were to keep away from ridge A to ridge C. And the general run of the wire was across. I mean it wasn’t as though we were doing it to the last millimetre. If it was in ten metres it’d be alright or more. It was the general line of the wire and the extent of the field was very important. Where the thing, they were rectangles if you can imagine

that with a wire facing towards the enemy and then two wires. So you had to - if you could get the extremities of it was a great help too. So that - I mean I’ve concentrated on one - that was one part of it because this is the sort of film you’re talking about. I mean it’s there for a record and the message that comes out of this is that, if you’re going to lay minefields

you need to make good records so that people who come along afterwards know where the hell they are. Because if there’d be any good records we would’ve known where they were down to the last inch. ‘Cause the people had recorded them. And the Australians always did this when they laid minefields. So I mean that’s the message for prosperity I guess. The other thing was just doing maintenance of the fields, making sure you know and trying to find where the breaks were or making sure there weren’t breaks

if it was possible. And if there were where the hell the other side of the break was. And that’s why you don’t put minefield wires on trees. And anything other than pickets. I mean it wasn’t easy but I don’t think we should over magnify the problem as to getting the memory exactly right.

Yep. Close in. And if you were allowed it. Where I could go also depended on what other actions were on. And what other patrol programs were on and that was a matter of co-ordination.

I mean full moon’s great if there was a full moon. Which there was for a short while. I mean that was wonderful because it meant the work on close in lines was really comparatively easy. You know you got a line, you got fairly clear where it was going. And you didn’t have to worry about somebody being out there and somebody start shooting at you.

And your security people liked it to because they didn’t get shot at either.

Oh the worst one was

these Jumping Jack Mines were foul things because they jumped up in the air and exploded up to shoulder height you know or even head height. And they were very efficient killers. Other times, there was another type of mine where people had their legs blown off. Or partly damaged, they were smaller ones. So it was mainly leg injuries or chest injuries were the worse ones

that I saw. Or they were dead. ‘Cause they hit them in the head. Luckily we didn’t have as many you know. And once again I put that down to good training. We didn’t have as many casualties because people did it well. A number of these casualties occurred in minefields after a patrol had been split up by having an action and people -

are - some of them have got separated. And in trying to get home they’ve walked into a minefield. And that - but luckily I said, there weren’t nearly as many - don’t make it - I don’t think we should make it a big thing. They were a constant danger that was all and again if you can get it right, then

you won’t have that problem.

At my camp?

Well I think this is true of Korea anyway. It was jeep ambulance to battalion headquarters. Once you’d got them home - I mean you

had to get them up out of the valley. And then in jeep ambulance in the main very quickly. But Korea was the first - was the beginning of the rapid casualty evacuation because it was the first time helicopters were used. So you’ve all seen MASH [American television series based in a Mobile Army Surgical Hospital in Korea] and it’s all got helicopters with little pods on the sides. So casualty goes into each of those pods and so

- well let’s not even take somebody from outside. Somebody who’s been hit with a shell, you know a shell burst or a mortar burst. The medical staff are able to ring up. The helicopter arrives and the man in those days can be on the operating table down at the surgical hospital run by the Americans in an hour. Or three quarters of an hour, as quick as that. Because of the helicopter. And the helicopters could operate because of the

hilly country and they weren’t going to get shot at because they could get down low. And with hills in between them and the enemy. So I think most probably if you had to ask a medical person, somebody involved in the medical history of Australia - that the - Korea was the first time they used the helicopter in the rapid evacuation of casualties

saved an enormous amount of lives. And also we had more casualties from shell and mortar fire than we ever did from down in the valleys. And so it’s that rapid evacuation that makes all the difference. And very good medical staff was in the battalion as well. Again well trained.

What sort of health - well all the normal nasty things that people get from wearing shoes for too long and not washing their feet and again it’s a matter of training. One of the major ones in Korea was haemorrhagic fever.

Which you had to be - and this is a rat borne plague type virus. And so we had to coat the inside of our clothing, we had to rub it with this foul stuff which name I’ve forgotten now which is supposed to keep this nasty little rat mite out of your clothing and stop it biting you. Haemorrhagic fever is a blood type as the name implies.

And that was major but I don’t think any Australians - again it’s a matter of training and making sure they do it. They may have I don’t know but as far as I know they didn’t. And we had lectures on that. One night I remember when we first got there from a drunken English doctor who had to be pulled off the stage. Lovely, great fun. He came out. I must tell this story. He came out and he stood there swaying in front of all these Australian soldiers with

a happy smile on his face and he said, ‘There is a little mite, a little mite.’ And he never got past the little mite. And he got dragged off the stage. Absolutely marvellous. It can be fun you know. And I think his career was probably over at that point. So that. Of course frost bite in winter.

You had to be careful. And certainly - I mean you must have heard this a hundred times - personal cleanliness. Even though when you’re in the line - it’s an absolutely must to change your socks and do all those sort of things that are necessary. The other thing was of course the problem of all Australian soldiers was the nasty little beast ‘cause they were given leave after 8 months

you see and they used to go to Japan for leave. And they would come back with - some of them with some nasty diseases. Despite the warnings. So nothing unusual in that.

Well of course in Korea itself was endemic. So it wasn’t a Korean problem. I mean

I don’t think it ever happened there. Not amongst the Australians. It certainly happened in Japan.

No my people were totally moral and very well trained. That answer your question.

Called what?

Yeah but not in our time because we had these excellent boots. But they got that in the first period because they were wearing those old type boots that we had from Australia. And it was service dress as well. And of course

they wore the type of gaiters where the water could get into your feet and so you got that condition. But not when we were there. Not that I heard of. It might’ve. I mean you’ve got to remember I had something to do and a lot goes on in a battalion that you don’t know what goes on and they didn’t tell me. The doctors didn’t. Although they’d send out medical reports saying, be careful of this or don’t do that or something else. It was like getting warnings like, don’t congregate

in groups when you’re trying to get food because somebody did and I think we had seven casualties or something because a shell dropped in the middle of them. That sort of thing. Being constantly well trained, well informed.

Oh hell. I couldn’t.

I mean I could but during that time this is one thing I remember more than anything else was lack of sleep. Because by the time I got in, by the time I got released. I’d say, ‘Oh god we can’t go over this again, I’ve told you.’ This sort of thing. And I wanted to go to bed. And then I had to see the platoon sergeant to see what was going on with the mob, work out that and then sometime you’d get to bed and then you’d get shaken up and saying, ‘Come on it’s time

to get in, get out, get into - and then in the meantime you’ve got to work out where you’re going that next night and which platoon company and you’ve got to get around and see that your fellows are working. The ones who are attached to your company. So the one thing I remember more than anything else about my limited time in the line was the lack of sleep. Or I didn’t have enough sleep. Oh you know I mean

I did but - and I hope this goes down to prosperity [posterity] but I do remember at one stage - being shaken by my platoon sergeant because I was going out on an early one and I’d come in from an evening one. Being shaken ‘cause I was going out before first light or something and he was standing there shaking me saying, ‘Come on you old bastard, come on you old bastard.’ And he was ten years older than me. ‘Get up.’

And there you are. So I think that was probably a reasonably term of endearment.

Oh they did. I mean I don’t know what they called me. Everything I think. Boss mainly. They used to say, ‘Boss, what are we doing now boss.’ It was a common thing. They still do. 50 years later.

Now and again. The few, the ones who aren’t dead or who have contacted me. Oh yes they all had nicknames for each other. Different ones. I mean everybody in the army does. Terms of endearment or terms of something else, people they don’t like.

The 159 355 area. 159 was next to 355. Yes.

From the Hook?

The terrain was more -

355 was a big massive [hill] next to us. That’s where 3 Battalion was when we were on that side of the line, on the right hand side, of the divisional area. The brigade area. No divisional area. So that was a great big hill. And 159 121 was next to it and much lower running away from it so there were

two battalion positions. The Hook area which ran along overlooking on one side the Samichin [Imjin] River Valley and that was much more like the 159 121, it was lower. And it in fact was, as you looked backwards, because between where the Hook was. That was virtually the last of the hills before you ran across to the

Inchon River. To the - oh dear I’m having a senior’s moment - I’ll get it in a moment. To the main river there. And so why the Hook was very important was, that not only was it a divisional boundary but anybody who took it

would be back and camped on the river immediately. There was nothing really between there. And … so the area of the Hook was a

area of hills that ran across and between there and the river was virtually flat. I mean there were other small hills but - so that in front of us and the further out you got the hills got higher again and so in fact the Chinese could look down from a far distance if they could see that far. But they could look down - even from reasonably close they could look down into the Hook area and

it was - so it was different in that respect. Whereas in the other area you had this big area - I mean rolling areas in front of you and critical knobs down in the valley which you had to control and so on. But you never had the feeling that you were being overlooked as you were in the Hook area. So they were different in that respect.

Well my platoon was split up exactly as they had been previously. I really didn’t move out of the front Hook company, the two Hook companies area during the whole time I was there I think. I mean I’d come home down to see the battalion and I’d come back and then I’d go back there to operate and sleep and so on. I used a

company headquarter areas for sleeping in. I was there for three or however long it was I’ve forgotten now until the end of the war. So we had a little area back, but we were so spread out - oh the platoon - no that’s not quite correct. We had a little area close to battalion headquarters because one of our other

jobs for those people who were working away from the companies was the protection of the Italian headquarters if anything happened. And that was one of the jobs along with the signallers and everybody else who operated around there. We had originally an anti-tank platoon with the battalion. All battalions had an anti-tank platoon but in fact they were never needed

because by the time we got there there was no enemy tanks. We had tanks but they didn’t. Operating there. And so the anti-tank platoon became what was the equivalent of a rifle platoon. A big rifle platoon. So that gave us a CO, an extra thing for covering ground and they were also up next to the - in the actual front Hook areas. And so they had a position there so I was

sort of moving around in that area, the time we were there.

The battalion headquarters. Oh they had bunkers. In there was the commanding officer and patrol master. The adjutant. Intelligence officer. Chief signals officer, signals officer. The people who made

the key people to direct the battle. And that’s who were there. Then you had cooks and bottle washers and other people. Extra signals, transport people. The CO’d roar around in his jeep and see what was going on. And transport people. Sounds like a lot but it wasn’t a lot. The band - we had a band. But the band

didn’t play. The band operated as stretcher bearers and they were allocated to various companies. They were trained stretcher bearers and they could also do medical orderly work particularly as stretcher bearers, carrying people out. But as a battalion we had a marvellous song called ‘Oopsy Do’, which they used to play. So given any moment suddenly somebody’d find an instrument from

somewhere and off they’d go. Oopsy Do. They were great.

I can’t remember. No. I knew you’d say that. I’ve forgotten but it was a terrific - you know it was a rousing song and everybody in the battalion knew it and they were great. And they really were. At the slightest chance, if anybody got together you’d hear Oopsy Do being played and it was great. Wasn’t a dirty song, just a song, just a song. I mean

it was just a piece of music, Oopsy Do. And so they - there were groups of them around the battalion headquarters area. And so we had the four rifle companies. We had the anti-tank platoon which had been used as a rifle area unit. We had my people allocated out to the various companies as well as doing other jobs.

We had the machine-gunners who were always in the Hook in particular but also at 159 but mainly in Hook. They in fact had positions - over on the left with some American Marines firing across the front of the battalion with their machine-guns. And the other one was 3 Battalion firing across the front of our - the other group. And they played a big part in the Hook

battle. And then way back you had the administration people.

Leading up to it was us being transferred into the position. And I think I explained to you that a comparatively short time before

the Duke of Wellington’s regiment was on the Hook. And they took a terrible pounding. They really got attacked quite strongly. And the result of this was that the battalion that took over immediately, that let them get out was only there for a very short time before we arrived so the problem was that the whole area and the fortifications

and everything else were in a terrible mess. And we had about two and a half weeks I suppose to try and repair this, to try and get our people out particularly the standing patrols. To keep the Chinese away from us whilst we could get on with this job and get patrols out to do that. We could get patrols out to the right and left down into the valleys but we couldn’t get anything out close to the wire. But

we did in the end. But the main effort was to try and repair - I’m sure you’ve seen photographs of the World War I battles. With the enormous craters, and collapsed this and collapsed that and wire all over the place. Well that’s what this place looked like. The same. And you could only do the repair work at night. You couldn’t get out in front of your trenches during the day.

To repair the wire. So the main job really was then to do a bit of the minefield work but in the main the repair of these fortifications and this was where I and most of my people got involved. In helping and directing and planning and deciding what we could do. ‘Cause a lot of this stuff was, it was so close to

where the Chinese were that we in fact had - the walkway trenches under cover - we had cover on top because people could be seen. And so repairing this and getting it done, and getting it organised and getting the stores up to be able to do it. And it was a major activity during this time and I think it’s reasonable to say

that the battalion and everybody working together, ourselves and everybody else and engineers we called in, they did a marvellous job in those two weeks they really did. That and the work run by the patrols to force the enemy away from the close in areas as much as they could. In fact when the truce came we found one group had been dug in underneath a hill

just practically next door to us. And they were the ones who came out every night, every time you sent a standing patrol out they always had a clash on the way out with these people. And to be able to repair the place properly you had to keep people away from shooting at you, I mean shooting directly at you rather than with mortars and shells which they did all the time but you took that risk.

And so if you’re talking about the lead up to those last few days, the major thing was the reconstruction of the area to an area where anybody in there could fight a reasonable defensive battle. And the co-ordination with the Americans on our left. We had a thing there called contact bunker

which played a major role and so repairing the two forward companies anti-tank platoon area, getting out into the minefields where we could and patrolling vigorously. But they were very close in patrols because their men were so close and ensuring that our standing patrols were in place all the time. So that’s what we did during that time.

And there was no time for anything else. It was very, you know it was hectic right through.

Oh the same thing. I mean it wasn’t a matter really, it was a matter of trying to work out where the wires went and that was really on the two sides, not so much in the front. You couldn’t get out into the front area.

Right in front. You’ve got to remember the minefields weren’t - I mean that was the least of our problems because we weren’t patrolling in quite the same strengths. Over on our right 3 Battalion were able to look after a lot of that work. Down in the Samachon Valley. But on the left hand side between us and the Americans

there were minefields on the side and it was mainly a matter of checking to make sure the wires were in place, well the ones we knew about and we didn’t have time to worry about whether there was other ones around. That is the ones close enough in that we weren’t going to cause problems for our own people. You’ve got to remember that this - the sheer effort of taking a place that was in a terrible mess and turning it into

an area that could be fought from meant that people were out at night and they’re very vulnerable. And if you let people get too close they can disrupt that work, they can shoot at them and so on whether they can see them or not or if they - just movement will do. So it was very important that they weren’t allowed to do that. Anyway we were able to operate and we were able to get people out so we spent a lot of that time on the

front of the area getting wire back in place. That had all been shot to pieces. Both on top of the area and in front. Getting the trenches back in place, getting the overhead cover back in place, getting the machine-gun bunkers or the LMG [light machine-gun] bunkers capable of doing their job. And the soldiers worked very hard complaining all the way. They hate digging. Soldiers

hate digging.

I can show you a picture after this and I found one while I was looking for that photo.

Imagine a ridge with - going forward like that. This is the Hook company

itself and another around to your left here. And it had a trench line going forward parts of which were covered right around the sides of the ridge. And you had a platoon in the front and a platoon on each side that was Hook company and the other one so it tended to be spread more along a line. And if you can describe it as it was it was

nothing but craters when we took it over virtually. And the remains of trenches which had to be dug out. Because the problem was you couldn’t walk down some of the trenches during the day without somebody being able to see you. You know they were capable of firing machine-guns down that line. And so it was just shell holes and mud and muck and bodies.

You know bits of bodies. I mean that sounds a terrible thing to say but you know, they got most of them out - some of them they couldn’t. Where they’d been hit from previous - I mean there was a previous battle there in 1952 which was even worse in that same area. So you can imagine it had been churned up and then repaired and still very, still very churned up. Anyway the soldiers did a marvellous

job of it and they worked so hard and they got it all back in a reasonable sort of condition. I mean you mightn’t have thought so but from a fighting point of view it was good.

Same way except you had to carry them by hand, by stretcher further. You know over on hill 355 that I was talking about where 3 Battalion was

they had a flying fox down the hill. And they could send casualties down on that ‘cause it was so steep. So once you got over the ridge and down into the bottom at the back. So you’d stretcher them out from there and get them onto a jeep ambulance. Because it was close enough into the back of the ridge where it couldn’t be seen but most probably

I’m not sure, but most probably as the further back you went you could’ve been seen because shells did go down there. And then of course by helicopter immediately out.

No no it has to happen as soon as it happens. I mean that is the - sorry that

is the answer to keeping people alive. The quicker you can get them to good medical facilities particularly surgical facilities, the more chance you’ve got of keeping them alive. If I remember my history of war I mean the worse thing is the longer you’ve got to carry them. I mean you think of the Kokoda Trail - they had to carry them for days down and the bump and the thump and the so on. A badly injured man.

We had a lot of shrapnel. I mean our wounds tended to be shrapnel so the quicker you can get them there the better. So if it happened at night they had to go out at night.

Right next door. The American marines were on the left hand as we faced the enemy on the left hand side. And

if you’re talking about the lead up - the previous two - what they referred to as the Hook Battles - both involving British battalions, were direct assaults on the Hook. The Hook companies. The one that we had in the last days of the war they had changed their tactics for whatever reason ‘cause nobody’s ever been able to work out why they bothered to do it.

Why they bothered to carry out the attack at all and what advantage they were trying to get at that late stage with a truce imminent. They attacked down the line, which is a classic part of tactics, down the line of the junction between ourselves and the Americans. That was their main thrust of their attack. But it had to go across, a large part of it went across our front. And then their

diversionary attacks were under our own positions as well. But they also swung back when they got into trouble from the artillery and came back onto our own positions. But that was the difference between ourselves and the Americans. So if you can imagine the left hand ridge I was talking about and then there was a dip down the valley and up to the Americans on the other side. And the contact bunker I was talking about was in the middle, poor chaps. Yeah. And they were one of the ones that took

a few people getting close to them.

Certainly the right hand side did. The right hand side companies did yes. And the enemy got into those companies but they didn’t get into the 2nd Battalion.

Well I can tell you by then we’d repaired

I’ve often thought about this because it’s my personal - I’m talking my war story you see. And what an idiot you can be. I was walking down just as the light was going on that night, first night. We’d had a lot of shelling during the day and so on but nothing like this. And I was looking down the trench as I looked towards where the enemy was knowing

I couldn’t be seen. I was diving quickly down the thing and there was this enormous flash. And I thought to myself they didn’t say anything about rain. And being the idiot I am I thought what I was looking at was a flash of lightning you see. And it never ever occurred to me that what it was was a thousand guns firing at once. Or how many there were, a few hundred. No

hundreds of them. Hundreds of guns let’s put it that way, it wouldn’t be thousands. Firing at the same time and this great flash all went off at once and it did rain. But a different sort of rain. And that was the beginning of the thing. And so this bombardment came down and from then on it was pandemonium from the extent from this is where the

standing patrols we had out - why they were so valuable. They were able to pick the direction of the attack ‘cause people were putting flares up in the air and they were able to start the process of directing the guns onto the Chinese. I mean you can’t see very well with flares. And

the - I think at that time, you know I couldn’t even run away much as I would’ve liked to. Because there was too much stuff coming down on top of us. And the - so these patrols were able to co-ordinate and

get the direction of the attack. And the machine-guns that we had posted over on the far side were able to operate and they did a marvellous job - the man who - in the end they were actually fighting for their life while they were firing machine-guns. They were you know directly attacked and they were over with the Americans. And the young man who commanded that should have got a much better award than he got in my humble opinion.

And so the artillery came in and we were able to direct the artillery into the right places and in those days we had this air burst and so they could fire air bursts which fires above the people and so you’ve got a fair chance of hitting anybody who’s in large groups. And despite that you never kill everybody. And

with a mentality like that so they got up close to the wires and so on. I put it down to a number of factors. I mean people sometimes refer to it as the classic artillery battle and it was, it was a classic artillery battle. In that the way in which we were able to co-ordinate every gun of the Commonwealth Division into that one area. But

it goes back to again the fact that we were able to repair the place and keep it in order and keep it stable so that anybody who did get through couldn’t get through. I mean who got up close enough couldn’t get through. And our own people were there and capable of fighting all the time. So again it was a matter of training and good organisation I think. Magnificent effort by

lots of good young NCOs who were commanding all these standing patrols. The standing patrol on the thing called the Green Finger stayed there right through the two nights. With all this going on around them. And you know the chap got a OMM [Order of Military Medal] but maybe he should’ve got something better than that. And they - there was an awful lot of people dead. I mean it was

so useless, absolutely useless. I think they - after the armistice I think they calculated there was something like three thousand people dead you know in front of the positions there mainly from artillery fire of course but machine-gun fire and everything else that people were shooting at us. And if you have three thousand people killed there must’ve been al hell of

a lot of people wounded as well who got away. And this was right at the end of the war. There was no purpose behind it. So we only could imagine that they really thought that they could drive a wedge between ourselves and the Americans and get to the river and negotiate again from a position of strength. As to where the line was going to be when the truce came. It just made absolutely no sense. But from

a defensive battle point of view I think it was almost a classic. You know the line didn’t get penetrated. The artillery did very well. Soldiers did very well it was great.

Chinese. All Chinese. I think they said later on I read something that said we had 9 Chinese battalions on our front at one stage. The equivalent of it.

You know coming at one spot in one area. So if you keep doing that and you keep shooting at them it doesn’t take long if they’re out in the open. And they were stacked up. I mean look it was the most terrible sight when the truce came and we could stand up in front of the trenches and they spent about five days to get their dead out. It was terrible. And you know they talk about the futility of war. And I doubt

you’d ever find anything more futile and idiotic than whoever decided on that act by the Chinese side. Sorry something I feel strongly about. Such a waste.

The what?

No we never had a truce.

Never had a truce. Truce hadn’t been broken. We’d never had a truce up till the time that it was actually signed and happened. There’d never been a truce. They’d been close to it. On one occasion when they were getting very close which was months before Sigmund Reid decided to let the North Korean prisoners out and one of the big things with the North Koreans was to get their own people back because they didn’t want them

injected into South Korea and a thousand of them, he let them out and that stopped the truce negotiations immediately. But there’d never been an actual truce during that time. Not even a body truce. And I think - I mean during the two years that the truce was going on - this has got nothing to do really with what I’m doing it’s just a history lesson I guess. But they started

the Americans started bombing you know the North Koreans and interrupted their supply lines. And the number of civilians that was killed, I mean it was estimated at something like a million North Korean civilians were killed. It’s hardly a truce. During the time that’s an estimation. So I think if you had to go back to Hook and said it was a success

and our way. It was a very well run defensive battle and totally futile. How about that for a bit of drama.

As far as I was concerned I was just glad I was alive. As much as anything and I was glad it was over. Even though I’d only been there a short time. Over five months it was. I was just glad it was over particularly at the end of those two nights. And it - I mean you don’t think about it.

Appalled yes. But you don’t think about it until later on you really start thinking about it and deciding how idiotic it was. But maybe they thought differently. Three thousand mums and how many others.

Gooks was the word that was used for the Chinese. We had a pretty good idea then of what was happening to our prisoners of war and so on. We had a pretty good idea about the interrogation techniques that were being used and so on because there’d been an earlier release of very sick prisoners. And so

there was a dislike from that point of view. And again going back to where we started all this thing, they were communists and it was a communist thing and they’d come in - the United Nations had gone in to Korean to make the North Koreans go back to where they were and the Chinese had come in again. Come in and supported them and they were an enemy. At the same time they were a good enemy, they were though and they were

very self reliant and they moved well. I’m talking about - I was never face to face looking at one in the face. And I’m very pleased about that. In the same way as I can happily say I’ve never had to kill somebody in anger which isn’t always nice to say but I’m sure I did because I called in

artillery a couple of times and I’m sure I killed somebody then. But not that sort of thing. No the average soldier, I mean this is the sort of thing you think about fifty years later not when you’re 22. You couldn’t care less. They’re just the enemy. And a good enemy. I don’t think there was any great respect for them though at all. Maybe there was but I never got that clearly.

They were a pain in the butt. Something to be kept away and kept out of sight as much as you could. That’s the best answer I can give you I’m sorry.

Well certainly I didn’t go wandering around outside the fences that’s for sure.

I stayed up in the Hook company and I was mainly - oh I had a job with the fellow we got out of the minefield. Another one. And - oh no that was before those two nights. And so I was mainly to have a look and see what was happening to the defences

and whether we needed people to do something about collapsing trenches and bunkers and things like that. So that’s why I stayed there. I didn’t have really positive role except that I stayed up there on those two nights. I couldn’t think of a good excuse to leave which was a pity.

What it was like? Noisy.

Pandemonium in a way because nobody was quite sure and I think this is true of anything of that sort - was quite sure of what’s going on so you’re - and lack of information to start with was a concern. But then they got on top of that and then we

quite a lot of information through as to what we felt was going on, what they felt was going on. I spent quite a lot of time down in the bigger anti-tank platoon area or a bit of time there because they were a bigger platoon and that’s where I could be of help if anything happened. And you know it was a constant

noise of shells and guns and goodness knows what during that time. Flares going up. A lot of stuff coming in. All the time. I guess when you think about that and then think about what the First World War endured. Went on month after month and you get some idea of what our grandfather, my father endured.

I’m not sure you want that answer but you’re getting it. Yeah.

Oh I just meant there wasn’t enough coming forward as to what exactly was going on. In other words we didn’t know enough at that stage. We knew there was a hell of a lot of artillery going over the top, we knew that there were a lot of enemy out the front but we really didn’t know - nobody had an opinion as to exactly

what was happening. It was only as the battle down on the junction started to develop that we got more of an idea and the information came through and we started looking more left than to right and so on. And it was - I mean that’s the fog of war. And gradually it sorts itself out. What we didn’t expect after that first night was that they’d do it again.

And that was a surprise. And having failed the first time and so close to I suppose signing the truce which we didn’t know about, the senior officers did - that they would do the same thing again which they did on the second night. So that was a surprise.

Oh just in repairing the things that were going on. I mean we didn’t know what was going to happen but we didn’t expect them to do it. You’ve got to remember we weren’t getting out of the trenches to see what was sitting in front of them. In front of us. So we couldn’t see the effects that we saw one day later, when we could. We couldn’t see what had happened to them because you know there was no point in getting yourself killed by jumping up on top

of the trenches. So no - I mean we - we didn’t have any information that there was going to be another attack put it that way, on the second night when they repeated the performance.

Oh because we were told. They said the truce will take place at. And that was the next day. The 2nd after those two nights on the 27th July.

1953. And what a great day that was.

Oh great. Great. I think so. I think if you can hold your head up and say, ‘I know what it was like.’ I don’t really - one experience is plenty thank you very much. And I think our friend in the back there in the chair would have heard the story over and over again. You know

you don’t want to keep on doing it. Just for fun. Some people might. There were some madmen around. So there you go.

Yes I think we were. I think we were most probably the best trained, certainly the most prepared group - we went away mostly as a battalion. We took over people with

experience from 1 Battalion. We had a CO who knew what he was about. George Larkin who was a nice man. Perhaps too nice but he was a nice man and the troops respected him. We had well trained troops and I think we were prepared yeah. And they were good soldiers, very good soldiers.

No not necessarily. Not from what I’ve heard afterwards. I mean I never really saw the Americans during the time I was in Korea. I mean not during the war. I saw them afterwards. But no I don’t think so. I think some were obviously. But they had to call in an awful lot of reservists and things the Americans. I mean they had 60,000 killed in Korea. And you can translate that into people.

I think it was 60 it may have been 40 but whatever it was it was a hell of a lot. And I never felt that the Americans - this is different. The Marines were well trained and so on and so forth. But in the main I don’t ever think they - in those days they had the toughness and training that we did. ‘Cause they did call back a lot

of people. It must’ve been hell for the Americans. I mean a lot of their people who’d served in the Second World War were actually brought back. That’s how the system operated - particularly the officers. You know suddenly they’d made another life - there they were sitting in their lawyer’s office and they were told to jump into uniform and go back to war again. And they didn’t have an option. And that must’ve been hell for them to try and - two or three years of war, the Second World War and suddenly here they were

back again. And that must’ve been hell. But in the main I want to be careful what I say here because it’s so easy to make generalisations and generalisations are a very very bad idea. And I think I should adopt it - do it from a positive way. I don’t think, except for special units that the Americans’ training is necessarily

as good as our army. Maybe that’s a product of a smaller professional army, you can do it easy. I don’t know. But I didn’t see a lot of them so I don’t know. Silence in the ranks.

Weapons. We had an Owen gun they had a thing called a Burb gun and it was called a burb bang because it made a noise like a burb. Burrrrrb. When it was fired. You could never mistake it. And you knew immediately what was being fired immediately you heard it. And

they used a thing called a stun grenades which didn’t kill they stunned people. And they used these for getting prisoners and they also had ordinary grenades. Light machine-guns. As far as the artillery’s concerned I don’t know, it seemed to be pretty well directed from what I saw of it. But again I’ll turn that around to the positive. As far as the Commonwealth Division was concerned at the time when we were there, they

really had honed the use of artillery and their ability to co-ordinate it quickly into one target. I mean they could fire three air regiments of artillery very quickly on the one target. And they were firing six rounds a minute or four rounds a minute or whatever it was. So that’s a hell of a lot of shells going in the one area if they need to. And that’s not easy to

co-ordinate and do and that’s good training again. And these were English gunners and New Zealand gunners. And they were very good. Again that’s the advantage of working in an off static - we were relatively static. Much harder when you’re moving all the time and having to set up and so on. If that makes any sense.

We had to - oh I had a big job. I had a big job because the - and I’ll never forget this because when we had to withdraw - there was an agreement to withdraw and so in the period between the time we got out, by which time you had to get all your stuff out of these areas where people had been fighting. Get all

the ammunition out, get the weapons, everything else had to be loaded up and got out. To retire back behind this demarcation line, the demilitarised zone. The Chinese were going to do the same. The Chinese and North Koreans were going to do the same. And we had a time limit. My platoon was responsible

for putting up, directing the barbed wire which was going to define the Northern side of South Korea and that was going on all across the Korean peninsular. And one of my sections decided to go up the wrong valley, the wrong entrance. And it wasn’t long before we had to withdraw and it was only by chance I happened to find it. And there we were with having sliced

a section of South Korea out of it. And I had to run back to the CO and say, ‘Sorry Sir but we’ve stuffed up. You’ll have to hang on for a while longer, we’ve got to put the fence around in another area.’ That didn’t get me any friends down at battalion headquarters. But anyway we saved two hundred metres or four hundred metres of South Korea or whatever it was. And so

what we did was, we spent those days getting everything out and putting up the wire fence that designated the Southern side of the demilitarized zone and there it sits to this day. I mean it’s much more sophisticated of course with fences and big wire things but it’s my line. I would have in fact liked to have kept the line. I shouldn’t have had a conscience and left it where it was so I could say that part is the Forbes Line.

Oh dear.

That was putting in the wire for the South Korean boundary in place that was my big job. And I had a good platoon sergeant. He got

rid of everything else. He did all the hard work and I just made sure this was in place. Until one of my sections put it in the wrong place.

Oh we knew exactly then. I mean we knew very quickly within the next two days. I’ve talked to you about this defensive line behind the thing which I now I think it was called the Kansas Line in reflection.

And this was the other side of the river. And we knew that this is where we were going and we were going to go - I mean nobody trusted anybody. All it was was a truce. Still is by the way. They never signed a peace treaty. And all we knew was that there was a truce and that we were

withdrawing from this demilitarised zone. So we went into this area and we set up tented camps which was lovely. And then we worked on the defensive line. And we practised and we practised and we practised. And then I still went back to my old night job - my night job was then able to go onto day shift

and do it in the day time. So again in this area there were a lot of badly charted minefields and badly maintained wires. So I had a lot of help on that. My platoon was out working on the fortifications of the line. Because you remember that was where the Australians stayed for another two years after this

or more. Two and a half I think. And so living conditions were great in that we had tented camps and we had heaters and all sorts of things during the winter. But it was a hard slog of practise, practise, practise, work, work, work. It wasn’t as though we were going into a rest camp. And the

- but the preparation of these other - we used to have alert drills I’ve forgotten what they were called now. And they could happen at any time of the day or night and that meant you were out of your tents into vehicles and off you went up into the hills to all the defensive positions. And that went on all the time, for the rest of the time I was in Korea. And - because nobody, there was no real belief

the truce was necessarily going to stand. They didn’t - nobody trusted anybody very much. And so it was like getting ready for war without there being a war. And so we did that for the rest of the time we were there. But it was much more comfortable. We even played that rugby game against the New Zealanders. So does that answer the question?

Oh yes we had that of course. We even got to the mobile laundering bath unit you know, that sort of thing. But of course we did. I’m talking more forward than just the week after the Hook battle.

But of course we did. We were all allowed to take it easy to a degree. I mean to a degree. We maintained patrols and of course - have you interviewed anybody from Korea. I don’t know whether you have. Because you always had this problem of civilians. And the problem of we were always being warned

about you know the possibility of espionage and spies ‘cause you couldn’t tell one - a North Korean from a South Korean of course. And so you know you were always on watch against unknowns prowling around your defences and so on so you had to maintain guards and watch and sentries, all these things. Not down the valleys where we were sleeping so much as up in the thing. And also that people didn’t come into the area so you had to keep your sentries on

against strange people coming in. People had to be checked. But of course we had enough time to recover and rest and get some sleep, go to sleep for a week whatever it was. And then got back to what I was talking about. The business of training and preparing the defences line. And

making sure it was as strong as it could be. In case the same thing happened again. That they had another attack, which they didn’t.

Oh right across Korea. Right across Korea. I mean it was this new defensive line right across Korea. And still is to the best of my knowledge.

And they have observation posts the whole way along close to the defensive - the DMZ [Demilitarised Zone]. When we went on that trip, commemorative trip we were taken up to one of these OPs [Observation Post] looking over the river to our old battalion positions which we could see through binoculars.

Not the Hook you couldn’t see that but the other areas you could see quite clearly through binoculars. So they’ve got OPs up there watching all the time. There’s a total attitude of mistrust still and this is 50 years later. And so that new defensive line was the line, as far as I know that exists today right across Korea but in a much more sophisticated way and much better maintained

by the very big Korean Army. South Korean army and the Americans to a degree.

Oh no. I mean I

suspect from everything I’ve read later that there was most probably a lot because over on the east coast there were strong gangs of guerrillas operating in the Islands and so on. And I suspect that there were a lot of them in amongst the civilian population. And again when you work in amongst - we were close to

civilian populations you know you’ve got to be very careful. I mean this was the same thing while the war was going on but it’s very easy to relax. And the whole point was in fact not letting these people - if they were there and we never had any, not as far as we knew. If they were not letting them get close to the defensive positions that we were preparing so that they knew what was going on. I mean they didn’t have the air cover

that we did. Not in the latter stages of war. They had big air battles of course. Jet battles up towards the Korean Chinese border but not down where we were. We were never attacked by an aircraft where the Chinese were very much attacked by ours. ‘Cause that’s another thing I haven’t mentioned. We had air power, we could call in as well if they only didn’t drop their things in the wrong places.

So if you read a history of the Korean War you’ll find there was a lot of mention of possible infiltrators and spies and so on and so forth. But we didn’t see it. But it’s something you’ve got to guard against and not allow it to happen.

I was posted in the beginning of ’54 to the Commonwealth Division Battle School. And the Commonwealth Division Battle School was set up outside Kure at a place called Harimural which is an old Japanese training camp, army training camp. And this was set up to give the continuous reinforcements coming through

a four week course in Korean battle techniques. And it was an integrated battle school. It had an Australian company, a British training company and a Canadian training company. Had a British CO and an Australian 2IC[2nd In Command] and Canadian adjutant and all these sort of funny things. The CO

was as mad as a hatter, great delightful chap. And we worked very hard. It really was - we worked them six days a week for about 10 to 12 hours a day. And then they were packed off to Korea even though there wasn’t - I mean there was a constant stream of people going out and people going in. And this had been occurring

during the years that the war was on. And then the instructors - we also had mortars there, we had tanks and we had guns and we’d send them up hills with shots and shells flying around their ears. I always said it was more dangerous than being in Korea with people who were shooting us up the backside. There were those of us walking up the hills with these fellows.

Yeah they were going back to Australia. Sad. They’d been good. Very sad. I don’t know whether they felt sad. Never asked them. They just jumped on an aeroplane and said, ‘Thank God for that, I’m off.’ No as far as the platoon was concerned they were a great group but you’ve got to move on. And I was still

a career soldier and this was a good thing to do.

I didn’t - whether I had thought or not it wasn’t a factor. It was never offered. So off you go chum. And it was an interesting experience. And the instructors we worked very hard

for four weeks and then we got a week off and that was great fun. Off we went on the highways and byways in a very rural Japan. And saw a lot and stayed in Japanese Inns. It was great fun. And as I said, one experience I remember about the Divisional Battle School - we always finished it with an attack by the soldiers in training

up a hill. Get them used to the idea of moving you know. Daylight, even though they were never going to - just getting them used to the idea of a lot of fire power going around them while they were doing something. And we’d had the tanks bedded down in very firm positions so they could never move and their trajectory. So the two instructors used to be on either side of this thing with those fluorescent panels on.

And the tank troop commander who was a Brit spent his time seeing how close he could send his shells past my right shoulder. And it sounded like an express train going past you know. Twenty pound of tank shell going past over there. And this became almost a game until I objected in the end. But that’s why I said it was more dangerous - one thing which was interesting

if you’re talking and it’s not about war. We’d have this thing. The troops would go, the troops in training they’d go through formed up as a company almost. Small company and they’d be firing as they got close to the hill and up they’d go and there’d be shells coming down in front of them and there’d be tank shells going up, mortars firing. In front of them. And they’d go through and out of holes where they came from

were the local Japanese peasants who got out to pick up all the brass as quickly as they could. They knew when it was going to happen. And out - they’d actually been passing from sides, didn’t care about the shells and out they came and they picked up all the brass - all the bullet cartridge cases. It was an interesting place. All slightly made people. So it was

interesting too. It was good work but by the time I left I’d had enough of it.

Well I went down there a number of times. We were all young don’t forget. I mean we were 23 or 24. And I

went down there a number of times. And met a number of more mature university students and so on who could speak some English. And the amazing thing about Hiroshima at that time was the - was how quickly it had been built back not in the same way as it is now but - now it’s covered in housing so it was only that central area where the monument is

where you really got - but during those discussions you really did start to think for the first time about the appalling casualties that had been caused by that bomb. And for hearing in some cases from people who’d been kids at that time. And mainly they’d survived because they hadn’t been living close to the epicentre of the bomb. But not many of them, only a few.

The others had come in from outside and they all knew about it. And it wasn’t a big deal but you did begin to get some realisation of just how big. After all we’d had troops in the Kure right from the beginning of the - from straight after the war and so you know we had a lot of Australians there. Around that area. and they all knew Hiroshima. I’ve talked to people who

saw it afterwards. And I guess if I had any impression what I was building on was what people had told me and I’d heard about before.

Oh as I said it had been built up. But this was the first build if you can put it that way. The first rebuild. So driving along the streets you wouldn’t have known that basically - and this was 9 years later.

8 years later. You really wouldn’t have known that there’d been a bomb until you came into the centre and saw that church and the town hall and so on. It was covered with buildings. But since then all those buildings have been torn down and it’s all gone up again. But it really wasn’t a factor in my life. I mean I went down there out of interest and I got to like the people I was talking to.

So it wasn’t the young who caused the war was it?

Well that was all until I was sent up for the last month. I was there at the end ’54.

We had permanent court martial up there. Sitting board five members. And one of the members went sick so I was due to come home so they sent me up for to Ebasu[?] which was the leave centre where everybody went. The Australian Leave Centre. Where the court martials were conducted and I spent four happy weeks because we did about 3 court martials and I think every time

we couldn’t be in the same area as all the legal people and so on working on the prisoner’s defence. So we were marched out into the best hotel in Tokyo the Maranuishi so we had a lovely time. This was great for a young chap. And we still had access to the duty free gin and whisky in the camp. So that was a good four weeks except being the junior member of course you had to give your

verdict first. That was good fun. Good way to end what had been a pretty torrid time.

Nothing. Nothing at all. Oh I knew the procedures. I didn’t know anything. I just listened to it. I wouldn’t make a big thing about that in my life. It was really more just an interlude in the fact that that’s what the army did. They did strange things like that. I wouldn’t make a big

deal of it. I mean anybody with a reasonable brain can follow that sort of evidence that’s why they have juries. The army don’t have juries, they have court martial boards.

I think till November 1954. I came back to Australia so I’d been away about 20 months or something, bit less than two years.

Mm. And I think I got back in December. Flew back via Hong Kong, civilian aircraft. Went AWL [Absent Without Leave] in Hong Kong for a week, on the way home but nobody ever found about that. Just happened to miss the plane. And got back

yeah beginning of December.

No they never found out. Because nobody could have cared less to be quite honest. All I had to do - ‘cause I was going on leave you see when I got back to Australia so they didn’t mind. And I had about seven weeks leave before I had to report to the battalion, 4 Battalion

in Ingleburn. So I got back to Australia. You know you talk about Vietnam and here was, you know the hero returning after this time. Arrived on a Saturday night. No vehicles. And I mean I’d sent through the thing that I was arriving a week late. And so on. No vehicles. Nothing to meet me. Nobody to tell me where to go. No rail warrants. So

I rang up the South Head duty officer who was a rather drunken major and said, ‘I’m here. I need a bed for the night.’ And this was a transit camp in Sydney in those days. And he said, ‘Well that’s not my problem mate.’ Whacko. So I said, ‘I suggest that you get a vehicle.’ And he said, ‘Oh I can’t get one at this time of night.’

I said, ‘I’ll go to the RTO [Rail Transport Officer] and he’ll get me out and I’ll get out there.’ And I said, ‘You’d better have a bloody bed for me by the time I get out there chum.’ Another famous career might have been fixed at that stage. And so that was my welcome back. Hooray. I’ve been a psychological mess ever since.

Can that go down on the

record?

Good. Carry on.

When I was discharged. Well I went back to 4 Battalion and when I started this I told you when I left and I was never discharged I was transferred. I was transferred back from the regular army - when they agreed to accept my

resignation because there was a big thing about officers leaving then. And that was not easy to get out in 1955. I remember I was a regular army officer. Anyway they agreed and so I was transferred back to the Citizen Military Forces. And I reappeared back, and I was posted to the Adelaide University Regiment where I stayed until I commanded it.

During the early days of the Vietnam War. ’64 to ’66. ‘67.

Yes I did. Well you could put it another way. I mean I could have pursued a career in the public sector if I’d thought about it I guess. It was more a matter of not pursuing a career in the regular army. So - and it was a fraught decision you know

in making this thing and I’m surprised at myself in retrospect that I made the right decision. Or I think I did. My wife says I didn’t but I didn’t even know her then. But I’m sure I did. And I think I, in retrospect I most probably would have had a reasonable career in the army if I’d stayed in it. But I

- especially with what happened later. You know if you know from hindsight, but I’d had a wonderful four years in the army. I mean wonderful from the point of view of experiences I’d had and the people I’d met and I reckoned I’d worked hard during that time. But I felt really given the matter that existed in those days that really there wasn’t much of a career that could be seen if you weren’t a Duntroon

officer and also I felt my whole, not upbringing but my whole - what I’d done before I joined the army and where I wanted to go, I thought I was better in the civilian sector but at the same time I still wanted to keep going with the army and that’s why I went back to the CMF. Particularly at that time. And also as I said they were running down the army

at that stage. And it didn’t look - and also I didn’t want to spend my life sitting behind a staff officer’s desk to be quite honest. I thought there was more in life than that if I didn’t get to the top. So you make these decisions and you live with them.

Oh yeah I’ve been very lucky.

I’ve had four careers and I’ve loved every one of them. Now aren’t you lucky. That’s good. That’s nice. Haven’t made any money mind you but that doesn’t matter. Somebody I know keeps complaining about that. She doesn’t. You can be comfortable but you don’t have to be rich to get to the end of your life and say you are lucky.

Oh I think my proudest moment would have been being an integral member of a very very good battalion. Mm. Even if it was only there for a short time. Or comparatively short time.

Yeah I think that most probably would be the one. More than anything else.

War.

Ooh that is a difficult question. I think I’d like to have them remembered as a battalion that was part of a really, a very good part of a very good Australian effort by the Australian Defence

Forces. Navy, air force and army. That’s how I’d like to have them remembered. And a very good part of it. And one that stood up equally with all the others. Whether it was 3 Battalion at Kapyong or 1 Battalion at Marysang [Maryang San] or 2 Battalion at the Hook that’s how I’d like to see them because it was a continuing effort over three years. Is that alright.

Well for 50 years I didn’t think about it. I mean for forty something years I didn’t think about it much. In South Australia there’s virtually no, very few people from Korea. And also I lived overseas for 20 years and so you know you

tend to move away from your roots and what people think and so on. I’m a very active member of Legacy but I’ve never been an active member - and Legacy’s a different organisation of the RSL [Returned and Services League] or something. So I’ve not been involved. I’m not saying anything against them I’m just - I always felt I had a life outside the forces and my experiences outside. So

in the last eight years - oh we had a ridiculous thing one day. Suddenly out of the blue we had a call from a soldier who used to be in my platoon and he said, ‘Three of us are coming to South Australia, can we come and see you?’ And I said, ‘Yeah you can come and see me, you can come and have a bed. We’ve got the hutch out there if you need it.’ I hadn’t seen any of them at that stage. So this must’ve been

ten years ago now. Something like that. Eight or ten years. Anyway, these three idiots appeared. Old idiots appeared with that photo you’ve got on a made up thing. They found it, they gave it to me. The one in the slouch hat on a badge on the front. And

the pack reunion across the front of their chests. They arrived in a car here you see, stupid idiots. And they stayed here for three days you see and then they started getting in touch because they had been in touch rather than me. And it gradually developed. So now there’s about a network of, certainly as far as I’m concerned, of about ten of the old platoon and they keep ringing me and

I finally made contact with my favourite man, my old driver Pat Malone who owns half of North Queensland. Up at Julia Creek. So we keep in touch. But again I felt that this was, as far as they were concerned, rather than me, this is beginning to sort of feel their mortality and their wish to make contact again with people they’ve lost many

many years before. Lost touch with. And that’s nice. I’ve even been to a battalion reunion and that’s something for me. I’ve been to Tweed Heads because I’ve got a son up there, close by. And it’s a delight now, particularly with four or five of them that I keep on the phone and we chatter now and again. And they enjoy it

and I do. And so I come to the point of your question. This was the first time that I really began to realise that they feel quite strongly about the lack of recognition. Their part in Korea and they’ve talked a lot more with other people from other battalions than I have. And they’ve been to more reunions and so on. And I’m sure that that is the case.

And so I - my old friend in Brisbane, they had the Korean War last Anzac Day and I’m not a marcher. Because you know there’s nobody here for me to march with really, even if I wanted to. And so he got me, they had the Korean War reunion in Brisbane last Anzac Day. To celebrate the end of the Korean War.

And there was about fifteen hundred people there I think. And the chap who organised it, Digger Jones and my friend Bob Downey who’s the secretary - sorry I should say Major General Jones. They got me onto - being asked questions on a radio station which I did in a bus on a mobile.

And he asked the same question. ‘What do you think, they call this the forgotten war.’ So, ‘Did you feel that way?’ And I said, ‘No I didn’t until people kept telling me it was.’ So there you are. And it most probably is. And yet they had - and there were only 17,000 people served up there and a lot of them were navy. And of course they didn’t have a lot

of casualties. They had nasty conditions, cold winds and seas and so on. Not a lot of casualties. And we still have 350 people killed in Korea and 1,500 wounded I think, 1,200 wounded or something. So the answer’s I think the soldiers most probably have a pretty good case.

Oh I grew up. Everybody grows up. Yeah. I grew up. Yeah.

So you know you came back you were ready to do other things and even ready to get married. In those days you got married reasonably young 26 or something. And ready to have that sort of life and I think that’s true of most people in those sort of experiences. So of course you change because after all it’s four years.

But an interesting four years.

I’m not going to get involved in a philosophically moral discussion

about war in general because that’s not we’re on about, at all. If I have any lesson to say is the one I’ve been talking about all the time and that is, the Australian soldier is damn good. If he’s properly trained and properly led and he always is. And that will never change ‘cause he’s

the right sort of person to be a good soldier. If he’s properly trained. And I think that’s the only message really that I have. And that’ll go on, that’s been going on ever since. Still going on now. Look at the SAS [Special Air Services] operating in Iraq, which nobody hears about but obviously did a wonderful job. There we are.

Not at all.