Australians at War Film Archive

That’s right.

Well 2 and a half or 3 I’m not quite sure but around about 2 and a half or 3.

Well I think at that stage there was a lot of people migrating from England that was in the early 1920s and I think they just decided to move to try and get a better life style and so forth.

Well

my father he had been a miner in England and he when he got here he became a road worker working in the roads. Lots of roads were being built and so forth and he became a road worker.

Four.

Yeah 2 sisters and a brother I’ve got.

Can you hear me alright?

I’m the first child.

Oldest yes.

Here in WA [Western Australia]?

Yes in Kojonup.

Well after I’d started school playing sport mainly either in the summertime

cricket and in the wintertime football.

Yes I was at the time.

Yes I was better than quite a few of them.

Geography and English my

favourites.

At that stage it wasn’t very big. I think there was only about 60 children altogether going to the school.

Yes it was then yes.

No

No there was quite a big community in the town but there was a lot of farmers of course out of town yeah.

Quite badly I’d say from what I can remember. A lot of people became unemployed and that sort of thing.

Not no not really no. I think the unemployed were being paid a small sort of wage that allowed them to buy sufficient food.

Not really no. No my father was employed all the time.

Yes.

Yes. Yes he was I can remember his fortnightly pay was

7-pounds-14 and tuppence 2-pence. Which was a fairly reasonable sort of wage in those days.

Yes. Yes.

Well all sorts of food. Porridge in the winter

for breakfast and lunch and then a big cooked tea at night as we used to call. Tea time not dinner time. That was meat and vegetables and all that sort of thing.

When I was able to use an axe chopping the firewood was one of my duties. Feeding the WAS DOUBLE QUOTE CHOOK s. We used to keep a few fowls and everybody had a few fowls and that sort of thing. Weeding the garden.

Yes they would’ve had a few yes but can’t remember it now what their duties were really.

No, no just a primary school up to in those days

called Standard 8 yes.

Quite good yes. And that was in the days when if you did the wrong thing the teacher could send you to the Headmaster and depending on what you’d done it would the

Headmaster would decide. You’d have to hold you hand out and he’d give you the cane. So many the maximum was 6-cuts three on each hand or and the minimum was 2 one on each hand.

Quite a few times.

Well sometimes if

you didn’t do your homework or you didn’t get your arithmetic right and all that sort of thing yes.

Yes, yes that’s you could do yes.

Or if

you didn’t do what the teacher told you to do or you weren’t paying attention and that sort of thing. Excuse me.

Righto.

No. I never went to High School.

No.

8-years and then.

Carol’ll answer it.

I would’ve been 14.

Yes.

Well I went to work with a builder who was operating in Kojonup at that time and also they used to make a lot of galvanised iron corrugated iron tanks and we did that

making tanks. Bit of building. Making they were also the undertakers at the time making coffins for people. That was the main thing.

Yes. Yes.

I think

well I enjoyed it all really at the time yeah.

Yes, yes it was all very interesting and I was quite good use enjoyed using all the various tools and that sort of thing.

Yes I think

I was.

Well two of them were the bosses. There was two bosses or two of the people that were running the business and two workers or labourers as they were called then and no it was everybody was quite happy.

Yes I was the youngest.

Not really no. No.

Very friendly really. You couldn’t I didn’t have any complaints at all. We called each other by. The two bosses we had to

call them by their names and the other two of us we like they were Mr Smith and Mr Brown sort of thing and the other chap and I just called each other by our first names.

‘Bout 8 to 9-hours depending on what was happening at the

time.

Yes.

Well it was virtually the normal thing. It was just a standard practice in those days yes.

I would’ve been 18.

No after a while they the two owners of the place they were fairly elderly and they retired and I ended up going and working on a farm just out of town.

All sorts. Driving horse teams mainly.

Teams of horses. Ploughing and harvesting in the summer. Ploughing in the winter. Feeding and looking after the horses.

Yes yes.

It was a smallish farm for those times. Although about average size

for those about 12,000-acres as it was then. Approximately 600 hectares now.

Just mainly crops to feed the horses. Oats to feed the horses and also the sheep in the

summertime when there was no not much grass about in the paddocks.

Yes I enjoyed it. Yes there was quite a lot of riding the horse around rounding up the sheep and that sort of thing.

Only - I

was the only worker there. The other man was the owner of the farm and he used to work about 10-hours a day.

It was yes. And I used to get up at 6-o’clock in the morning when the horses had to be fed ready to start the days work. Feed

the horses get them harnessed up and all that sort of thing. Then have breakfast and off we go.

Well knock off tea time was about 6 o’clock as a rule.

Yes yes.

That’s right

yes.

Yes. Yes still in touch with a couple of the who were children at the time.

Yes.

That’s right. One of the family lives in Albany here and the other one lives over in Busselton.

Yes. Yes.

It did yes. Very well.

Well it was at the time some of my friends were going into the militia and when I got to the age of 18 I decided

I’d give it a go too. Well it was a 3-monthy camp at that stage. You had to go there was a Militia unit in Kojonup which they had to parade once per week every I can’t remember what day of the week it was but

one night per week had to go and on this parade and then once per year you were called up to go to a weekly a month 3-monthy camp at Melville. They had a big Militia Camp in Melville which is not there anymore

but it was just south of what is now. Well virtually East of Fremantle. Bout 3-miles east of Fremantle but a little bit south. Just but it was in the Melville Shire Council area.

Well they had huts and so forth there. We had there was a few huts and mainly tents and 6 would sleep in a tent. 6 of the blokes. And then they had big huts where we had our meals.

Quite good meals really yes. Yes porridge and stuff in the morning and bacon and eggs or fried sausages and then a sort of a brief sort of a lunch and then another big meal again at night. Excuse me.

All sorts of military exercises. Rifle drill. Route marching and all that sort of thing. On the parade ground learning all the different movements on had to be done on parades. Rifle drill. How to dismantle rifles and

target shooting. All that sort of thing.

Well it was Lee Enfield Rifles in those days. They were just it was just a infantry unit.

They were

well they had what we used to call a kick or recoil most. When you fired the shot the butt would bang back and give your shoulder just as if somebody had hit your shoulder with a hammer and that sort of thing.

Occasionally you could yes.

Yes yes. First of all it would be a parade early in the morning before breakfast a parade and everybody would have to be they’d count the blokes and make sure everybody was there that sort of thing. And that they were

properly dressed and so forth. Then we’d go and have breakfast. And then after breakfast the bugle would go again and everybody then would have to go on the daily parade. And then it varied then from day to day.

No

there wasn’t no. It was all physical stuff.

Yes a few yes.

Used to enjoy quite a bit really. And we were being paid getting a pay of 5-shillings a day

which was quite reasonable. We had good canteens on the grounds there where you could go and buy ice creams or whatever stuff you wanted. Lot of em used to go and buy cigarettes or you could go and buy beer too if you wanted to and all that sort

of thing.

Yes you could at the weekends you could get leave to go into the city.

Yes we used to.

Well us country ones we used to just go round inspecting the different things around the city.

Riding on the trams I think and just going around and visiting Fremantle. Going to have a look at the harbour and all those various things. Perhaps go to a football match or go and watch a cricket match at Subiaco and that.

That’s right yes.

Well we had two uniforms. One for normal everyday use and another one for parade special parade occasions. Dress uniform. Long

trousers and proper army uniform coat and so forth.

Yes yes hats slouch hats turned up at the left side and all that sort of thing.

They were quite good yes. I had no problems with the boots. Well I

always used to wear boots anyway so.

Not really no. It was a change.

No well there was nothing at that stage employees

sort of had the right of doing it because by then the war was on and we were just training as military personnel sort of and the farmer or the employers there was nothing they could do about it.

If their employees were called up to the camp well that was their bad luck.

Well quite surprised in a way yeah. But on the I was doing my second

annual camp and we’d just finished that at Melville just a day or two before the camp finished and that’s when they we were on parade this day and an army officer came along and said, “I’m an officer in the AIF [Australian Imperial Forces] and we’re calling

we’re calling for volunteers for people from the Militia to join the AIF. If anybody will be interested in joining the AIF as infantry men will they step forward.” And a few started stepping forward so I stepped forward as a volunteer then.

So then we had to our names were taken and so forth and after a day or two we were called up by this army officer again and were conveyed to the big AIF camp at the Clermont which was at the Clermont Showgrounds. Clermont Showgrounds had been

taken over as a military camp because of all the buildings and that there. This was in the very early stages and then we had to pass medical examinations before we’d be accepted into the AIF.

Well

they checked everything yes. Proper physical examination and eyesight and hearing and everything that was required.

Yes yes.

Yes. I had to get permission from my father. He had to sign a document because I think at that stage I was a bit younger than the age for the AIF to be able to say that I’m joining the

AIF. I had to say I’m joining the AIF with my father’s commission. Permission rather and that was it.

He did yes. Yes he’d been a soldier in the First World War and he just.

Well he said, “well you’re very sure you want to join the AIF?” And he said, “you could be called overseas which everybody was do you realise that?” I said, “oh yes.” And anyway he I think a little bit reluctantly signed the permit form for

me to join the AIF. But then if I hadn’t everybody was unless they were farmers or in some other special industry they were called up anyway after the Japanese came into the war.

In France.

Not a lot no but I used to hear him talking to one or two other people that had been France and heard a bit about what had been going on.

Well it did. In a way it did but in other ways it didn’t.

Yes I did.

Well I think it probably did. But also I wanted to sort of be a soldier and stay with some of my friends who I’d grown up with and gone to school with and

all that sort of thing.

Not all no not all of them but several did.

Well then we were accepted in and so forth and

were sent up to the big army camp up in Northam it was up there at the time. That was the main AIF camp and we weren’t in any particular unit. We were just members of the AIF at that stage and then

after about I think it was 3 weeks we were sent we were told that we were going to be sent overseas as reinforcements to the AIF overseas and we were given 2 weeks leave

before we were to be shipped out and so we had the 2 weeks leave. Went back to Northam camp and within a few days we were put on a train or we had to walk down. Northam camp was up on a big high hill just west of Northam on the main road into

Northam from Perth and we had to march down there to the station. On the railway put on the train. Down we went to Fremantle. And when we got to Fremantle we were put on a little small boat. Well carried

probably one or two hundred soldiers and a way out about half way out to Rottnest Island we could see these two big ships moored out there and we were put on the one closest to Fremantle. But it was still a long way out.

Almost out to Rottnest and it turned out to be the ex. Well it still was the Queen Elizabeth a big passenger liner that had been running between England and America. And the other ship sitting further out was the Queen Mary and it was completely full of

troops from the eastern states. The Queen Elizabeth hadn’t got a full load and it’s load was completed by our group going on at Fremantle.

Not really no. No it was practical well

identical I’d say yes. Had to do a few route marches and that sort of thing but it was well completely the same as the military training in Melville.

They were yes. Yes we had huts to sleep in in Northam.

Whereas in Melville camp we were sleeping in tents 6 to a tent just down on the floor.

Quite alright. Parades and that sort of thing but

well we were quite used to it. It was not a problem at all really.

On sickness?

Fitness?

Sorry.

Well we had to be very fit. Yes there was a lot of emphasis on yes.

Well we were sort of exercising virtually all day. Between breakfast time and lunchtime. Lunchtime and finish time at around 5 o’clock.

I don’t

I think I was pretty fit. All the marching and exercises were no problem to me at all.

Yes very well.

Well same food as we were having at Melville really.

I wouldn’t really know.

It would’ve been several hundred yes. Yes quite several hundred.

Well we were on several different parade grounds and that sort of thing.

Yes plenty of shower rooms and things. Yes there was huge huts full of showers yeah.

No no you could just go and have a shower whenever you wanted one. No the

facilities were very good.

Not really no.

Yes, yes we were.

Well it was the same I’d say as the militia. We had

no I can’t remember any difference between the two of them.

Only about I’d say about 3-weeks.

It certainly was yes. Yes we thought we’d be there for

some months but seeing as how we’d done all this preliminary training in the Militia I think that stood us in good stead and.

Well that was quite possible I’d say. They were wanting reinforcements because when we got over.

We went over to on the Queen Elizabeth and Queen Mary they went from Fremantle up to Ceylon to the port in the North of Ceylon called Trincomalee stayed there for a about a day and a half. They refuelled there and then off we

went over into.

Is all this being filmed now is it?

No Queen Elizabeth.

We had to get off this boat that we were taken out on and just go up the

go up the ladder.

Yes yes it was nearly full loaded. They’re loaded both loaded up in Sydney and Melbourne and then over here to Fremantle.

Yes they were.

I think they were all some of them were shouting out, “you’ll be sorry. You’ll be sorry.”

No.

Well we went as I say from Fremantle up to Trincomalee

in Ceylon North of Ceylon and then across to the Red Sea.

Yes stopped there about I think may have been 2-days refuelling and replenishing the food supplies I suppose.

No no we’re confined to the ship.

It was in a way.

It was very good yes. Quite good. Some of the blokes who’d never been on a ship before got seas sick but there was no

reason why they should’ve it was fairly calm sailing. And another thing was the two ships there was no escort for these two troop carriers other smaller troop ships had

escorts but the Queen Mary and the Queen Elizabeth travelled together on all their runs apparently and they did what they called the zigzag course and they could outrun any sub or so we were told outrun any submarine that they became aware of they could outrun

them speed wise and they just kept on this zigzag course right across the Indian Ocean until we got up into the Red Sea.

Well they were very crowded. Very crowded and it was that crowded that a lot of us

slept used to sleep up on the deck because it was so hot and over and there was no air conditioning on the ship and it was much cooler to sleep up on the deck. And that’s what we did. Nobody was allowed to strike a match or smoke a cigarette up on the deck

because the ship was in total darkness from the outside wasn’t visible from the outside and it had to be kept that way and it was quite pleasant just sleeping up on the deck. Lying on the deck with a great coat on

and that was it.

Yes.

Lot of em were playing cards and Two up was going. Games of Two up were going everywhere which was pretty standard practice in those days.

They didn’t mind

some of them joined in.

No I didn’t toss coins. I had a few games but after I’d lost a few shillings I decided to keep the money in me pocket.

No no.

Yes there was plenty of that yes.

Yes they had several canteens various spots on the ship that you could go into and get a drink.

Very moderately. Only when I was thirsty and wanted something cold.

Not that I can remember.

I think we did do a bit of what they called PT. Physical Training or whatever. Yes they yeah we had to do a few exercises.

Just normal drill sort of stuff. Arms up and down and sideways and all that and running on the spot and just all those sort of usual physical exercises.

It was quite good really yes. I couldn’t complain about it.

We had cooked breakfast and cooked lunches and that sort of thing.

Cooked food in all the meals.

I’d say only about 4 to 6 hours a day.

Just well as I was saying playing cards. Playing Two up

and leaning over the side looking at watching the flying fish and all that sort of thing.

In a big ship it was yes.

I had been out in little fishing boats and that just dinghy’s previously.

Well we when we got up into the through the Red Sea into the Gulf of Suez and on each side we could just see

all this barren desert country we and barren hills and so forth we thought and it was quite hot too and we thought we were going to be in for some pretty rough times.

No not really no.

Very good very high. Very good.

We disembarked in the Guild of Suez just south of the main port of Suez. Just south there’s another little port called Port Tewfik T-E-W-F-I-K. Port Tewfik

we disembarked there.

Well it was just a normal looking little bit of a port. Lot of army vehicles and things around and there was a camp only a mile or so from the actual waters edge military camp. Australian

army camp there.

We stayed there for I think one night and then we were put on a yes we went on a train from there then

up to about half way up the Canal. I’ve forgotten the name of the port there and we were put on another train and went up to Gaza in Palestine.

It was alright. We were quite intrigued to see

all it was just all desert country all around. Everywhere we looked it was all desert and that.

No no we hadn’t no.

We saw one or two Arab people that was all but weren’t conversant with them or anything like that.

Yes it was where we were we were put into this camp about 5-miles south of Gaza at a camp called Benghazi M-U-G-H-A-Z-I Benghazi and o

on the we could see the from it we could see the railway line that was heading further south down towards the Canal from Gaza and on the other side of the railway line and the roadway was another army Camp

called Nusserat. Nuisserat N-U-I. I think it was N-U-I-S-S-E-R-A-T [Nusserat]or something to that affect. But it was pronounced

Noo Serat and near there was an Australian Army cemetery from the First World War.

Yeah we did on one occasion.

No we could go across from our camp if we got

leave to just go across and have a look around at the tombstones there.

Several of us did a group of us.

Only the tombstones that was all and no names of anyone or where they were from

that any of us knew.

Well we just thought well we hope we don’t join em that’s all.

Well it was to inspiring to see how well they’d been recognised for what they’d done.

Yeah. Well while we were in this camp at Benghazi we went on various route marches and things and low and behold we came upon dozens of old trenches picking up bits of shrapnel

old bullet cases and all the remnants of what had been fired around during the First World War. Still exactly as it had been left in the trenches and things. Apart from sand that had blown over in the big sand storms and that. But trenches were still quite

obvious and in some cases even remains of sandbags.

That’s right.

Mainly still route marches and military drill and

using the weapons and so forth.

How to use Bren guns and 3-inch mortars. All that sort of stuff. All with live ammunition.

We didn’t think much of it because

it was so hot all the time we’re covered in dust and sand in our eyes and that sort of thing.

That was pretty limited. Down to one water bottle a day that we had to survive on. Getting

us trained to do without too much water.

They adjusted quite well I think yes.

No no. None at all. I just

was content to sort of put up with it. Did a bit of moaning and whinging at times. But

About the dust mainly and the scarcity of water. Well the water was withheld from us for that reason you know. But then when we got back to the

camp there was plenty of water in the camp but when we went out on the exercises we got pretty thirsty. Once you emptied your water bottle that was your bad luck til you got back to the camp.

Well we couldn’t we just had to put up with it.

That’s right yes.

Not really. There was a few huts there. But the troops were all in the tents of course but they had the big tents there and they were

square tents. There was let’s see. There was 6 to a tent 6-persons to a tent. It would’ve been a bout 4-metres square and they were. The had two poles going up in the centre

and they were called EPIP tents which was which meant English Patent Indian Production. They were patented English Tent but the tents were actually produced for the British Army by the Indians country of India.

That was the EPIP for that. But they were quite roomy enough and also while we were there we had to we’d been issued with our rifles and bayonets and so forth and the when anyone

went from the tent or weren’t needing to carry their rifles around. This was in Palestine where there was no war activity at that time we had to chain our rifles to the two vertical poles. There’d be 3 rifles there was a chain and a padlock and the

one chap in the tent was responsible for 3 on one post and locking 3 on the other. Chain was put through the trigger guard of the rifle and when you wanted when we had to get our rifles out this bloke had to unlock them. And that was it and they were locked

because previously some of the Arabs that were even then fighting with the Palestinians murdering Palestinians and that had been stealing rifles from the camp tents. I don’t know if you’d heard of that before. But the

some of the Arabs had been doing that. And that’s why these rifles had to be locked up when they weren’t being used.

No they weren’t. They used to apparently too they’d if well they were living all around the camp these people and if

especially at night time some of them would come try to creep in and get into tents and steal items of clothing or anything that was lying around. Blankets they’d even get away with blankets too.

Only shaving gear and that was about it.

We were issued with our towels and that’s about it I’d say.

Yes yes. We had

Just items of clothing. Underclothes

and one or two sort of singles and that. Spare socks and maybe a second army shirt and not very much at all.

Well we had shirts and shorts. That was the main

main dress there. Shirts and shorts. And boots and socks of course. Gaters little short gaters up ankle length gaters.

That was to keep the sand if you’re going through a lot of loose sand to sort of keep the sand from getting down into your boots.

They did to a degree. But when the strong winds were blowing they didn’t’ make any difference.

Well our main equipment I was in the infantry just rifles and bayonets. Tin helmets

and the just the ordinary felt hat.

Yes we had the webbing.

Two pouches. One each side in the front.

Well that’s where you kept all your bullets. That’s when we down in the in Libya.

and Egypt.

Yeah. But in while we were in Palestine any odds and ends you wanted to stick into them.

Just tins of bully beef and army biscuits.

Well.

Well if you were hungry enough it was OK. If you weren’t hungry it was pretty awful.

Well it just well the bully beef we had just tasted like corned beef you buy in the shops now.

It was virtually corned beef.

No it was alright.

No no it was I’ll tell you something later about it.

Yes they were quite reasonable.

Well they weren’t sweet biscuits but they were

alright.

They were hard yes. You had to break them a bit and hit them on a rock if there was a rock or hit the handle of your bayonet on em and that sort a thing.

Very nutritional yes very.

Well let’s see. November I think we would’ve been there about 2-months

in this camp at Palestine. Then we were notified that well this was my particular group that went over. We were notified

That was on the Queen Elizabeth.

Well just reinforcements then.

But then after about 2-months.

Pardon?

No no we were just reinforcements but then just after in January it was still freezing cold. It was pretty cold very cold in Palestine too. Freezing cold there in the open desert but would’ve been in January.

January ’42 1942 we were notified that we were going up to join the 2/32nd Battalion which had just come back from Tobruk. They’d been they’d come out of Tobruk. They’d held off the Germans for some months from getting into Tobruk. The battalion had been

brought back to Syria and we were going up as reinforcements to the 2/32nd Battalion and then that became my AIF proper unit then. The 2/32nd Battalion.

Very pleased to be in with a proper designated unit and…

We’d heard from blokes in Palestine in the camp who were sort of there in the base camp at

Palestine that what they’d all what the unit had been up to in Tobruk.

Yes we had the opportunity of going a couple of times on 2 or 3-days leave up to Tel Aviv or

Jerusalem and some went to Jerusalem and me and two of my mates we went up to Tel Aviv. Which is on the coast near the big port of Jaffa there.

We went up by

by let’s see. No we were taken up on army truck to Tel Aviv.

Nothing only desert country and a few orange groves and olive groves and that sort of thing. Nothing very

startling.

Yeah we were quite impressed with it. It very nice town yeah. Well it’s a city and yes it was quite good.

Well it was a

it had some lovely buildings in it and people were very friendly and so forth.

We stayed in a hotel there where other soldiers stayed when they. Well there was other blokes there from other parts

of Palestine on leave and it was just virtually like staying in a hotel say in Perth or big country town it was. And we could wander round and look at the sights. It was mainly the people that we were interested in and.

Yes it was. Yes it was.

Quite very good facilities. Very good.

No I can’t remember now. I just remember being there sleeping on a decent bed

and having access to really good food again and that sort of thing.

Try the local food?

No I didn’t no.

They did yes. Yes.

We went on a run on a little tiny passenger ship on the Yarkon River and went up and just saw a few villages on either side and that sort of thing. But there really wasn’t much to do there. I only ever went

there the once.

There would’ve been probably about 40. 40 or 50 of us.

Up in Syria just

North. North East of the port of Tripoli. There’s a port called Tripoli in Syria as well as in Tripolotania in North Africa there’s a port of Tripoli there in both places.

It’s quarter.

Very well yes. And the unit the 2/32nd Battalion and the 2/28th Battalions were up there because at that stage

the Allies were expecting the Germans to make an attack on they were being held up in Libya and hadn’t got into Egypt yet apparently they were tyring to get their way to the oil fields of the Middle East

Iraq and Iran there and they thought that the Germans might make an attack on Turkey come through Turkey which joins on to Syria and then they’ve got an open go at the oil fields. And the Australian battalions were put there in case

of the German attack through that way. So we were then we were stationed there from bout January well after January. The 2/32nd Battalion had come from Tobruk. 2/28th had gone there up into Syria and us reinforcements

had joined the 2/32nd there.

Well it was just an ordinary tent camp. Tent camps. Sleeping on the ground and just virtually typical military

battlefield camping.

Yes we were well supplied yes.

Well it was there all the time yes. All the time it was available.

Well we’d become part of the battalion and the

they went on little sort of well they’d just come out of Tobruk they didn’t need. They were having a rest and it was virtually nothing much doing at all just filing in time in case the Germans came down through Turkey. That was the object of it. So we were told

Well very little really. Occasionally we went on a bit of a well you wouldn’t call it a march but wandering round in the hills and out of Tripoli east of Tripoli there’s quite a big mountain range there and

we were up there and then we went on some more manoeuvre’s by trucks out towards a place called Baalbeck B-A-A-L-B-E-C-K Baalbeck. And but that’s nothing very exciting was going on there.

Well it was another ancient city and lot of old very ancient ruins and that there.

Yes. It was quite interesting.

Mainly only walking around and doing a few little

very minor shooting and that sort of thing. Using weapons and people getting fully acquainted with various sorts of weapons.

Well rifles and bayonets. 2-inch mortars. 3-inch mortars. Sten

guns they were little a small machine guns. Vickers machine guns that sort of thing. Only infantry stuff. Not big cannons and things.

Yes yes. But there was still quite a lot of beer drinking going on and Two up playing and all that sort of thing.

Well that was it yeah.

Lot of it was Australian beer. Some was English beer and some was even local beer.

Pardon?

No Syrian stuff.

Yes.

Well I wouldn’t know. See Syria the Vichy French had been in and it had been a French sort of colony at one stage and then they the Vichy French took over and they had to be done away with which was done by the we were in the 9th Division it was the

7th Division that knocked out the Vichy French and then that was before we got there. Then the 7th Division was shipped back and came over and ended up in the Islands against the Japanese.

There was and we were on full alert because some of them were still

hiding around in the hills and so on and had weapons and occasionally we were sent out on patrols to check areas to see if there was any sign of these Vichy French hangers on.

No didn’t come across any at all. But we went through some very mountainous country and that and on one occasion

we ended up way out in the desert where there was no water available to us. I can tell ya a funny story about that too.

I’ll tell ya the funny story first.

We ended up way out in this desert south of Damascus and we’d run out of water

and in our travels we’d seen a little bit of a waterhole which we thought was. Well here you’d call it a soak more than a oasis. There was no vegetation round it and we as we were travelling along in these trucks we saw it and about half an hour later the

group pulled up to camp the night and we had no water or practically no water and the corporal with us said to the officer, “Could you give us permission to go back several of us to go back in a truck to that where that water was.” We saw a waterhole only

within a half an hour of here. Could we go back and fill our water containers up with water?” “Yes,” he said, “By all means.” He said, “You’ve got my permission.” So this corporal said to one or two of us you come you come you come you come get on the truck and put all these empty water buckets on and

metal buckets. So away we went and eventually found our way back to this so-called oasis but it wasn’t very big. It wouldn’t have been. It’d only be about twice as bit as this house area the floor area and anyway we were that thirsty we all got down on our hands and knees and started scooping up the water

and anyway one chap said, “Geez,” he said, “I dunno,” he said, “Have you blokes got any chaff?” He said, “Where I am there’s all chaff. Somebody’s been throwing chaff on the surface.” We said, “No there’s no sign of anything here.” And we kept on drinking and then we did poked our buckets in and let them

fill up and we were all just ready to take off and along came two Arabs with four camels and the camels went had their drink and filled up their filled themselves up. Then they turned round and defecated into this water. And that’s

what the chaff was. Been there the previous day.

So we it was that scarce we said when we got back we told the officer what had happened. Then he gave an order that all the water no water was to be taken used from those

containers unless it was boiled and.

We were yeah.

And the bloke who’d been scooping the chaff away he didn’t get sick either.

Well we

we were there up in Syria til about May then we were told that we were going to be moved from there. Next thing we knew we were being put onto motor trucks and. No no first of all we were yeah we’re put on trucks taken too the

right down through Syria back into Palestine to the port of Haifa and put on motor on a train there. Taken off the trucks put on a train which went straight down back down through Gaza to the Suez Canal.

We were taken off there put on another train went off and we thought when we were going south we thought we must be on our way back to Australia because we got to the Canal and we thought now wonder if the train turns left we’re down to Suez. If the train turns right we’re going to Cairo

through Cairo which we knew was on the way to Libya and El Alamein. Anyway everybody was hanging out the train windows see which way the train turned. She didn’t turn left towards the South. Turned right and away we went and then.

Very

not very pleased. We thought we’d be going back to Australia and then probably up to the Islands. But anyway we ended up going down right down past we’d past all the pyramids and things in the distance and we ended up getting to El Alamein. And

Well I don’t think they did. I think they preferred the desert to the jungles.

Well we did think that that we’d do a

lot better by being in Australia trying to keep the Japs out than fiddling around there in North Africa.

Well we didn’t really know then.

We on our way to Alamein the British 8th Army there was hordes of we were taken to El Alamein exactly after we got off this train and we were taken by motor vehicles to the spot where we had to

be and on our way by truck there was hundreds and hundreds of British Army trucks coming towards us. We were going west they were rushing east towards Cairo. They were all shouting out to us, “the Jerries [Germans] are coming. The Jerries are coming. Go like buggery.”

Waving back see. “Jerries are coming.” Anyway our vehicle our convoy kept going until we got to where our position was going to be and that was that. but the 8th Army was completely knocked out of El Alamein at that stage.

Oh yes well I was involved in some of it from June until the middle of July we were there on the receiving end of the attack.

No no we didn’t. No only what the blokes were shouting to us from the

retreating 8th Army.

Yeah.

Well we’d just you know we’ve got to do what we’re ordered to do and stay where we’re told to say so that was it.

Well soon as we got there we

had to dig our little slit trenches to get in one man trenches. We were issued with shovels and picks and things to dig and digging virtually through stone. It was very, very hard and well you could only dig down about this deep if you

just so you could get in and you know lie below the surface of the ground. And we ended up just digging the they were called slit trenches and you had to be able to just kneel in there and use your weapons if necessary and lie in them if you were being attacked.

Well we could see plenty of tanks. There was a lot of our army so called tanks but they were only little. They were called tanks but they were only Bren gun carriers just built to so they could use.

Bren gun machine guns from them. They weren’t didn’t have big artillery guns on them at all. And the German tanks they could one shot and blow these little Bren gun carriers apart in one with one shot. And that was that.

Well when they made an attack we could yes. But they made a few attacks but they were waiting for more supplies to come in to make a full scale attack and it’d only be an odd tank 2 or 3 would come around and some of our aircraft

were able to drop a bomb or two on them and keep them under control.

Well there was quite a bit and the British Army bombers were operating and

there was one or two Australian bombers but not a huge amount. It was mainly army there then.

But anyway we ended up we were being bombed by the German aircraft bombed and machine gunned and so forth and we had we’d go out on night patrols and

attack a few positions of the Italians and Germans. The Italians were nearer us than the German soldiers at that stage.

Only about a kilometre.

They were close enough. Yes. And but we’d go out on night patrols and

get a few that way and

Yes to knock off positions in a certain spot and that sort of thing.

‘Bout Platoon about 30. 30 blokes go out.

It wasn’t easy yes it was and especially on the stony ground where you’re clomping along with heavy leather soled boots on too. But it was possible.

Well

they’re positions had been observed and we were given compass bearings and the officer with us would be reading the compass and know where to go and how far we had to count our paces too and all that sort of thing.

Well it to a very small degree that’s all yeah. It’d get rid of a machine gun or two that was causing a problem.

Well different ones would go out on different nights.

No it was fairly constant but not a lot at a time. We’d get a few artillery attacks and then maybe a bomber or two would come over the next

day and a little bit intermittent it was. But what was happening the Germans were waiting on more supplies to come in. They’d become pretty short on supplies of munitions and fuel and food and all that sort of thing. Because they’d come so far to the East and the troops had

come faster than the supplies could be kept up to them which was lucky for us.

They were pretty good.

Mainly bully beef and biscuits.

They were kept up quite well.

Probably not every day but every few days we’d get quite a good supply in you know. But we’d have to go a bit easy on water and that sort of thing.

It was coming through at night on water carrying vehicles and we’d line up and fill our water bottles up.

Very hot at that time of the year yes. It was mid summer there. And it was very hot

and sandstorms coming in to and all that sort of thing.

Well just like a constant have you ever been in a big willy willy? No. Oh well. Just constant just sand blowing incessantly all the time

for all day at a time it could come in even at night too.

It was very difficult yeah very difficult.

Well there would be yes because the enemy were copping it the same as we were yes.

No everybody’d be sheltering from the sand.

Yes quite a few. We used to get the scorpions. Scorpions

at night under our ground sheets. Get up in the morning to roll your groundsheet up get off your back and that’s if you were sleeping and get off roll your groundsheet up and there’d be 10 or 20 scorpions quite big long ones under the groundsheet after

trying to keep warm. But if they’d got in on the top of the groundsheet they could’ve bitten you and they were pretty awful bites to get too scorpions. Well they were stings they had sting on their tail that they could inflict you with.

Not that I was aware of no. But that was always on your mind hope a

scorpion or two don’t get in under on top of the groundsheet.

Well you’d be taken back to the first aid tents and that if you were injured and then

you’d soon be transported further back in the lines if necessary.

Quite a few yes. Quite a few and sometimes the German tanks would come along and they would put one track. If blokes were lying in their slit trenches they’d drop one track

into the trench and give it a spin and churn the bloke up if there was a bloke lying down in the trench.

Yes. Yeah mince them up. Yeah that was done quite a bit. But

They would be yes yes. But they’d try and get one track in the trench and give it a twirl. But

Yes. Yes they used to come around every night and dish out drinks hot drinks. That’s did you have you

have heard of them being around did you?

Yes well now you mention it yes they did well and truly. Every night about 9-o’clock a Salvo’s vehicle would turn up with hot drinks. Tea or coffee you could have and they used to dish out a few sweet

biscuits and that sort of thing too.

Well and truly. Well and truly yes. They could’ve copped it quite easy. No they were to be admired.

Well you’d just sit there or lie there in your little slit trench and

wait for orders. That’s all you could do.

Yes yes. You could do that.

Not very far. Probably only wouldn’t be about the length of this room perhaps.

Well there was

nothing you could do really. It was you just had to put up with the circumstances. Well that’s the way I found it anyway.

Yes it got stressful I s’pose and.

Well you just had

to. You said well it’s my fault. I offered to be here and that’s it.

That’s it.

Yes we got an odd bit of mail issued.

It must’ve

come by truck and then it was dished out then to the various units to the blokes in the different units whose name it was addressed to. Not a lot though. A lot never ever got delivered.

No no didn’t. Not from there no.

Too difficult yes.

Well it was quite interesting to get mail to know that everybody at home was OK and that sort of thing.

Not really no. No there was. No you could go

well at one stage our unit was moved nearer the coast and we were able to nip down and we were quite close to the Mediterranean Coast only within a half a mile of it at one stage and we could get authority to

go and have a swim. And that was the only but otherwise if you where we ended up a long way inland you couldn’t have a wash or you just got enough water to drink and that was it.

Not very only once to my in my case.

We moved from our original position to a position on the coast and then because of the way the Germans were approaching towards Alamein we were moved away again from the coast back to the Northern end of what was called the Katara Depression. That was a great big Depression

and the Germans had they couldn’t go through the depression they had to bring all their vehicles and thing between the sea and the northern end of the depression which was only a distance of about 20-miles I think. So all the activity was taking place on this very narrow piece of ground between the

depression and the coastline.

Well eventually on the we were there from the beginning of June and on

the 17th of July this is where things really started we were notified that we our. I wondered what that movement was. It’s Julian [interviewer] there. On the 16th of July we were told

of just before that a few days before that some other companies of our unit made a few attacks on the enemy lines and they got quite a few prisoners mainly Italians they were. They got a few prisoners

and then we were informed that the Germans it had been observed by the observation aircraft that the Germans were concentrating and massing a lot of arms and tanks and weapons looking ready for a big attack and anyway then the next thing we knew

our company was ordered by Mr Auchinleck General Auchinleck that our battalion would have to make an attack on the German lines and anyway as a result our company

was ordered to make an attack on a section of the front line of the Italians and the Germans on the night of the 16th of July 1942 which we did. We made an attack. We got quite a few prisoners. We lost quite a

few of our blokes were killed with machine gun fire and the survivors of the attack well then instead of stopping at the position that we were originally instructed to stop at if we took

that position to remain there in that position until further notice. Our company commander then after we’d done so well getting all these prisoners and sending them back to our lines. He said, “We’ve got the enemy on the run. We’ll keep going.” So this still in the middle of the night

and we kept going as ordered by him and when it got daylight we found that we were well and truly away from the position we’d been instructed to stop on a very high rise in the ground where you could see for miles and we then the next thing we saw was a great long

Yes well then we were told we were supposed to stay there and anyway as a result of the how well we’d done our commanding officer said well, “We’ve got them on the run now. We’ll keep on going.”

So as a result of that we went down from this elevated position down onto the flat country again and sort of kept moving in a Westerly direction and then when it got daylight we saw this great crowd of German tanks all

coming towards us with great big 88mm cannons on the front. Machine guns each side and they just encircled us and we were just there with rifles and bayonets few shots were fired at em. They fired their machine guns back. And then

apparently the German commander of the group of tanks went straight up to where our battalion commander was and told him that they had got us surrounded and if he didn’t

surrender we’d all be his troops would be blown to pieces. So in English so anyway he surrendered and then issued the order that the surrender had been agreed to everybody was to leave their rifles and get out of their little slit trenches that had been scooped

out and surrender. Put their hands up and surrender. So that was that. We just had to throw all our rifles down in a heap and that was that and the officer then our officer

he was taken off in a German vehicle we didn’t see any more of him and then the German officer he then instructed his blokes to bring in their medical fellas and

attend to all our wounded. Which they did. They brought in medical blokes picked up some of our wounded on stretchers. Took them back to their medical tents and looked after them and this officer then made us all line up and he told

us then that we had to follow this other group of soldiers German and Italian soldiers a small group and away they took us too we had to walk for a couple of hours and we ended up at a little place called El Daba which was like another little railway

siding east of El Alamein and it turns out it was only about they were only about 5-miles apart the two little railway sidings as they call them in the country areas. Just little virtually little sheds and there at that El Daba they had a barbed wire pen all

rigged up all ready to receive prisoners. So we were put in there and then they had armed guards around. And then we were kept there that day and the next day we were then taken by put on trucks and taken to another place

Yeah that was days later Julian. But anyway we got.

Well it was pretty heavy

going yes the night during the night yes. Yes it was.

Well we were under machine gun fire. They were all entrenched and everything and we were all just flocking across the open ground and we were getting the full blast of their machine guns until they were knocked out. Overrun

overrun by us and knocked out or if they surrendered and then they were taken off there.

I’d say about 50. 50-blokes killed and wounded.

Pretty close. I could hear bullets whistling past me in

all directions and yes.

Lot of shouting. Yelling. Blokes calling out for help and shouting out with pain and all that sort of thing.

Yeah it would be.

Well our orders were

that we were to take this position where the machine guns were and then remain put. But of course we kept after we’d wiped that lot out we kept going and then we ended up being wiped out ourselves.

Well we had to do what our commanding

officer told us and he virtually disobeyed orders. He went too far you see.

Well they were spread out quite a bit yes. There were several positions but they ended up well some of them were all killed but others of the different

positions where they were embedded they surrendered too.

Not initially they didn’t. No they had to get frightened into submission.

Some of their particular groups were killed as well. There might’ve only been 1 or 2 remaining

that hadn’t been killed that surrendered.

Well not very well. All we had was rifles and bayonets against these machine guns you see and some of the bigger guns.

Well you just

had to keep going you see and that was it. You had to keep going until you dropped or the other side dropped or bailed out.

Well there was a group of us and they were firing at us but we were ducking and diving and falling down flat and all that and soon as the

machine gun stopped we then got up and they were firing tracer bullets at us too so they could see where they were heading and that and…

No these were Italians. These were Italians.

Well some were killed yes some

quite a few were killed and I s’pose when they ran out of ammunition or they threw in the towel so to speak they surrendered.

Well in some instances there was bayonets. Some of them were bayoneted.

Well they were just little holes in the ground same as our positions Julian.

Well they had stones up around the top edges of their holes. Their you couldn’t call em trenches. Weapon pits I s’pose they had a little

stone walls. They’d got some stones form nearby and built up to give em a bit of extra cover. That sort of thing.

Well only a matter of probably less than an hour I’d say. Virtually

just gave the order keep going.

Just going forward. Just down onto the flat ground again and moving forward a bit. Until the tanks came at daylight around us.

Not

just an odd little bit an odd machine gun or so but nothing on a big scale.

Well I thought, “Oh hell we’ve had it. We’re all gonna be wiped out now.”

There was quite a bit of shouting and that sort of thing going on between blokes.

Oh well. “Keep going” and “Drop flat” and all this sort of thing.

What happened? Well you mean between us people? Well we just were sort of saying to each other we’ve had it now. They’ll probably wipe us out. You know being Germans with all these tanks and all their heavy machine guns and 88mm

guns onboard.

No we just stayed where we were. Our officer had told us to remain put when and we did until he surrendered.

Well it was the last thing we’d

ever thought of. Absolutely the last thing that we’d thought of that we’d have to surrender.

We did absolutely. Felt very defeated and despondent and couldn’t believe. We thought we’d either be killed or we’d not be killed you know. Last thing we

never thought of becoming a prisoner.

Well there was in a. Well at that particular point there was but after we’d gathered our wits again and all that it was a different story yeah. We’d go did get very despondent.

We had to walk. It would’ve been about 5-miles. Took us couple of hours I s’pose. The other place then we were taken too was. Doesn’t matter. Go on.

Just in a group. Just

not in a military line or that just in a group of us.

No no they had us covered. We had no weapons or anything. We’d all been searched and that previously when after we’d dropped our weapons we were searched from

anymore that we might’ve had and that was it.

No just armed men. I think there might’ve been an armed motor vehicle just creeping along behind us.

Yeah a little bit but everybody was so depressed and so forth that wasn’t much said at all. We’re at our wits end sort of.

After a few days I’d say we came back

to our senses a bit.

Well there we were put in this tent in this compound and some of us were pulled out to be in what’s? Not interviewed.

Interrogated. Yes several of us were pointed at to be interrogated. I was one and they took us into this German bloke. Well he was an officer. There was a couple of em in this tent and there was a barbed wire encirclement right round the compound where there was all these prisoners were in and

armed guards around the outside and then they in my case they were trying to find out where how we’d where we’d come from and they knew we’d come. They already knew we’d come from Syria down to

Egypt wanted to know how we’d which way we’d come. They knew we’d come down by train and they wanted to know which way we’d came. Which railway line we’d I just said I didn’t have a clue you know. All I knew was we’d come on the train whichever way the train line goes

that was it. First of all he informed me that we in perfect English all this perfect English. But when I was taken in and stood in front of him first thing he pointed at me and he said, “For you the

war is over. If you do not act silly or do something rash.” And then he started firing these questions at me and so I just said, “Well I don’t know which way the train went or anything. All I know we were on a train and

that’s how we came to get here into Egypt.”

Well I don’t know whether he did or not. But that was the main question that he wanted to know and where, “Was I Australian?” “Oh yes Australian Army.” And various minor

things like that and then that was it. He told the bloke to take me out again and take the next fella in.

Not really no he wasn’t. He was exerting his authority but he wasn’t sort of hostile.

Well

not really. I just thought well probably part of their routine and that’s it because there’d been other blokes gone in and out before me and that sort of thing.

They just said that

he’s not a bad sort of a bloke. The interviewer bloke the interpreter. Not interpreter an interrogator is not a bad sort of a bloke and he doesn’t want to know too much so you’ll be OK.

Nothing. Blokes were just sitting down and

talking and wondering what the hell was going to happen next. Anyway they kept us in there over night.

No not yes in that compound it was at El Daba another German officer informed us as a

group that the war another one speaking perfect English that the war in Africa is the Italian war and we are here to help our good friends the Italians and the arrangement between

our countries is that all prisoners taken in North Africa will be the Italian government will be responsible for them and we will be handing you over to the Italians tomorrow and

we will wish you good luck. And by gee we needed it too. They while the Germans had us they were giving us the same food as their blokes got and then when the Italians got us it was totally different.

They

were on cooked meal and we got the same dished up to us.

Just sort of stewy stuff and vegetables and all just done up altogether like in a soupy sort of stuff. But it was good.

No no we just had to sleep on the open ground.

No they we never saw them again but they were looked after alright. Saw some of them afterwards and they’d been looked after. The minor wounded ones they eventually caught

us up in Italy in those places.

No not no it’d been useless.

Well we thought it would be good to escape but it was impossible. We were so

I think despondent and all that sort of thing.

That’s right yes.

Yeah we tried to

support each other a bit but we were all at that stage very despondent.

Just saying to them well look on the bright side of things and we’ll be right and all this that and the other.

Well then they

started moving us. They handed us over to the Italians. We were put on trucks. Standing room only on the backs of these trucks. Two armed guards on the back of each truck sitting down on a nice little seat each. And we headed off them along this

coastal road heading the first place we stopped was at Mersa Matruh . Mersa Matruh then that was an over night stay then we went on and passed Tobruk which was just off the main road. We were heading for Benghazi.

Then we went through Derna had another night on the ground there. Then back onto the trucks next day all off and each morning we’d be given a little tin of meat of only about that high and about that round between two of us and two square Italian

biscuits which were about that thick and you needed to jump on them with your heel to break them and we got those in the morning and we didn’t get anymore food til that was today’s rations. Tomorrow morning we got the same again. And then anyway then

we ended up going past Tobruk and then one more night at Derna before we got to Benghazi. The same rations and then we got to this Palms camp on the east side of Benghazi.

Yeah. What are you referring to there?

I see. I thought you might’ve been referring to someone else’s.

No. Well

nothing very exciting happened on the convoy. We were just standing up all day and lying on the bare ground all night and guards all around us in the compounds at night.

Yeah.

I think it took us I think it was 3-days. 3-days and 3-nights from El Daba.

Yes standing room only.

Well we were all the same. We were sort of propping each other up at times to cope with it.

No we certainly didn’t fall asleep no. But it was a terrible thing. So

Yes as much as we could.

Not really no no we were still suffering quite a lot I think.

Just wished we hadn’t been caught I think and you know weren’t being put through all that.

They weren’t very pleasant blokes at all and they

They treated us alright. Well they couldn’t do much. They just had to sit there and they were talking to each other then they excuse me they had their cigarettes and that sort of thing and that was it.

When we got there

we.

Oh no there was what it was it was a big sort of a depression in the ground and had been a water way at some time by the looks of it. There was high stone granite stone on either side of this depression but there was date palms growing all round the edges of it

and we this compound took in this great big hollow. It would’ve covered several acres of ground and we were surprised that there was so many other prisoners there. There was New Zealanders and South Africans. Did I say New Zealanders? Yes Australian

English and a few Indians all in there.

We were greeted quite well with them and they…

Yes. Yes as best they could. They were pretty hungry

and only getting one sort of a meal a day. Some boiled rice or boiled turnip tops or carrot tops or something like that and a little round one little

round piece of bread a day or if there was no bread two of these Italian biscuits. And you might you’d get today’s rations say today at 7 or 8-o’clock in the morning then tomorrows. You’d eat that immediately eat it in 5-minutes the day’s rations

cause you’re so hungry. Then tomorrow’s rations you might get at 7 or 8-o’clock tomorrow night. So you’d be going 36-hours between anything to eat.

Yes it was terrible. Incidentally there was everybody that was there and then we got the same.

We got covered in lice. Body lice all over us all through out clothes. Bugs and things on the ground. Fleas billions of fleas and all that to put up with as well. And then we got covered in rashes from all these bugs and fleas

and lice.

It was.

Well we just had to yes. And that went on. Well we were in the Palms camp from say June/July August. All

of August September October. No we were in the Palms camp about a month. Then we were taken to another camp nearer Benghazi which was a much huger camp. The Palms camp was just a small sort of a transference sort of a camp and then we went to the main

big main camp at Benghazi which is out in the open desert. No palms or shade or anything there. Still millions of ticks and fleas and lice all over us. Just lying out on the bare ground. Some of the people that had been in there earlier had been given little 2-man tents to sleep on the ground in at night.

But everybody else had to sleep just on the bare ground in the dust. And there was South Africans again New Zealanders English. There was hundreds of prisoners in there that had been caught in all the campaigns in North Africa and the South Africans they were the ones that had surrendered in

Tobruk. There was about I think there was nearly 10,000 Africans South Africans were caught in Tobruk. They just threw in the towel. But one Australian battalion had held the Germans off for 6-months and the South Africans had given up in a few weeks.

Yes.

It wasn’t very good either because as I said previously that today’s rations would turn up in the morning. Tomorrow’s rations’d turn up tomorrow night. And so it’d go backwards and forwards all the time. But this tinned meat turned out to be one little

tin for two blokes. One tin was served between two men and we had to get it open somehow. And you had to either crush the tin. There was no tin openers or anything to open them. Like little tins of Nestles cream or something they were. Just little things.

No no. You had to just force em open. And anyway one or two blokes had pocket knives which they were allowed to keep and they were letting people use those. And anyway it turned out that this so called corned beef was just tinned horse meat.

Horseflesh that’d come over from Italy.

It wasn’t very appetising either.

Well they weren’t really very pleasant fellas and on one occasion. They had big

latrine trenches there which when they filled up they had to be covered over and it all done by prisoners had to do it and on one occasion one day a trench was covered over and the new trench was dug a few metres away

from it but the ground was so hard the blokes filling in the trench could only put a very thin layer of soil over the top and then low and behold a new batch of prisoners came in one day and one chap not realising where the latrine trenches were

he… End of tape.

Yes.

Anyway he was helped to get out but the Italians the guards and the commandant would not permit any water for him to there was nothing

like showers or anything there. It was just bare ground barbed wire fence around and that was it. And this bloke was there running around day after day with he was fairly cool and he couldn’t take his clothes off and he

as soon as he approached any group of people they’d all scatter because of the terrific smell that he was exuding and anyway this and one or two of the corporals and sergeants pleaded with the guards and the commandant to please let him have water.

No no anti. Anyway, this went on for 9-days day and night and in the and this chap was getting more and more all worked up and disturbed and distressed and everything and nothing was done so he got woke up one morning and he went straight over to the barbed wire fence

and was trying to scramble his way through and the guard on the outside just shot him. Killed him stone dead. And that was it.

It is but it’s absolutely true.

That’s it and

also the fellow in the camp the commandant no I’m mixed up with the two. It was in the previous Palms camp. This is ruining the.

Well the Palms camp.

I see. Well the commandant in the Palms

camp every late afternoon about 5-o’clock just before dark he would walk up to the fence with a container and he would shout out, “Inglise Inglise Inglise.” Which is, “English English” and that was when we got there it was happening

but we were amazed at it and he’d call out and then he’d start when we first saw it his arms were going out. All these blokes were going in and what he was doing was throwing out cigarette butts which they’d saved from all the guards during that day put them in a container flicked them out to the smokers soldiers who

were Prisoners who were smokers and they would all scramble in like WAS DOUBLE QUOTE CHOOK s chasing wheat and that used to go on afternoon. And by the time they’d all scrambled around trampled none of em would’ve got a butt that they could’ve used. And then all the guards would all stand there clapping their hands, “Bravo bravo

Inglise.”

That’s right yeah. But that was part of their entertainment for the day the guards?

Approximately a month.

They were well they slightly worse I’d say.

Yes but not it wouldn’t be much difference between the two.

Just on the ground bare ground and at night the moisture from this sort of watercourse or oasis or whatever it was or soak would ooze up and you’d

get wet. Only seemed to happen at night. It’d dry out during the day then at night it would become all damp.

Nothing just sit. You didn’t have enough strength to do anything.

Yes would’ve been. Yes we were there what there in

at the Palms in August yeah August bout towards the end of August.

They took us on motor vehicles trucks.

Not very long no. Probably only a couple of hours I’d say.

Not very marvellous at all.

Pardon?

Not for the prisoners. No just there was one or two buildings for the guards and the commandant and that sort of thing.

That was Benghazi.

Still sort of Benghazi. B-E-N-G-H-A-Z-I.

There was hundreds there in this big camp

yes hundreds. Yes there was all the South Africans umpteen thousand that were taken from Tobruk and lot of Indians and so forth and us English that’d been caught from the 8th Army and us and New Zealanders and then they were just shipping them over by degrees to Italy.

As I think I said earlier some of the earlier ones that were there were given little two man tents but could only be two in them and the rest were just all out on the open ground.

It was you wouldn’t believe what it was like. It was

No not at all no.

No. Not at that stage.

Well jus our what had been our summer

dress shirts. Short sleeved shirts and shorts.

Well by the time we left Benghazi it was getting pretty cold. It was November and it was getting cold because of the northern winter you see setting in.

Yes.

Well from July till

early November yeah.

Yes well then we by what they did then they issued different coloured bits of paper for

to prisoners just dished them out gave them to the corporals who were in charge of our groups. Like there’s a corporal responsible for about looking after the interests of 20 blokes and they would be given so many coloured bits of paper. Red and blue was the two main colours and they would be dished out

and then when you got a red card or a blue card then we were informed that we would be whichever one it was would be going over on the next ship to Italy and they were bringing over supplies of armourments and things from

Italy for the Germans and the Italians and then back loading with prisoners down in the holds where all this stuff had been.

I got a blue one and then I was advised to be ready to go on such and such a day so many days ahead and away went this blue group. See

we all went off and we had to walk into the port probably about 3-miles. We were out near the airport the military airport of Benghazi and we had to walk from this airport area into the main port of the town had the port and the harbour and all that

and

Pardon?

Weak? We were very weak. We were luck we could walk the distance really and anyway we got there and we had to get onto this particular boat and previously we’d heard how one of the ships taking prisoners over had been torpedoed

by a British submarine and several hundred were killed either by the torpedo or by the ship when it sank. They just went straight down with the ship and there was no markings to indicate that they were carrying prisoners and course the crew of the submarines their duty was to torpedo all enemy shipping. And

they weren’t aware that they were carting prisoners back across to Italy.

Very concerned indeed. But anyway it didn’t eventuate in our case. But afterwards there was at least two others that were torpedoed. So we were lucky. And also some were bombed. The Americans by that time were coming over

and bombing Benghazi. They were ferrying planes and munitions and so forth to the 8th Army who were still down in Egypt and on their way. They would come over from America refuel at Gibraltar load up with bombs as well and on their way they would be bombing the ports in North Africa where the Germans were still

existing in Tunisia and Libya and they were bombing the ports.

Absolutely atrocious.

There was no toilets. People were getting seasick and there was no food dished out all the way across

the it was absolutely putrid. You couldn’t stand up without treading in vomit or excreta on the floor of the hold and then to cap it off several blokes or quite a few a couple to start with found they could find their way into an adjoining hold and they thought

they’d get in there away from all the rest of the mob but when they got into the hold they found this hold was full of beans and rice and peas Italian ration stuff you see. Anyway then they called in their friends and quite a few of them went in there and they gorged themselves on all these

dried beans. That was alright and then several hours later one bloke was, “oh oh” and then someone said, “what’s wrong with you?” “Oh got a stomach ache,” He didn’t’ say stomach though. Anyway then it went on another one and another one and then were all their stomachs bloated up and they’d eaten all these

dry beans and the beans had

Expanded in their stomachs it gave them terrible pain. There was no water and they were vomiting. The noise and everything was absolutely awful. Anyway we had 3-days and 3-nights of that and we got

eventually came ashore in the southern port on the nearly on the heel of Italy a port called Brindisi right on the southern part of Italy. That was the port of Brindisi. B-R-I-N-D-I-S-I. And then we taken off this boat walked got away from the port

area they were taking us to a camp and as we walked down the streets of Brindisi. It was a very ancient sort of a town. Cobblestone road quite narrow footpaths either side buildings.

Have you got time?

Anyway all the street both sides of the road was lined with

civilians all shouting out abuse. I can remember one quite well, “bastardo Inglise barstardos.” And they were throwing garbage and everything and some of them were rushing out and punching blokes and really carrying on.

These were the local just the civilian population doing all this.

Then just while we’re on that subject a friend of mine who went over the boarder with me into Switzerland his brother was also in the New Zealand Army and they in the 8th Army attached to the 8th Army 12-months later after the 8th Army had invaded Sicily and southern Italy and was making their way up they went

through the town port town of Brindisi again all the population were out, “Bravo Inglise bravo bravo.” And they were rushing out with bowls of fruit for them. Great wreaths of flowers and all sorts of things and clapping them. That was

12-months after they abused us.

I’ll say because the opposite army was coming up through em so they wanted to keep sweet with them. That’s it.

Well I well for the Northerners I have but the southerners they were atrocious.

Forgot to tell ya. On the way over I got carried away.

When as I was saying all this terrible mess and fumes and vomit and everything down below they decided to change move a few out into that hold into another hold and we had to

go up it was only just a little single iron ladder to go up and obviously they were counting and as we went up the guard there was counting away he was up on the top and anyway when my turn came to go up the ladder I got about half way up it’d only be not much higher than this ceiling

to go up to get up onto the deck and he was up on the deck just counting and when I got half way up all of a sudden he started shouting out looking down at me and shouting out, “basta basta.” And I though he’s a abusing me you see. I thought he’s calling me a bastard and so I just

kept on going. I could only go very slowly up these steps and he still kept shouting, “basta, basta.” Then I though he trying to mean fast in English he’s getting thinks it means faster in English or something or means faster. So I just kept going and soon as I got to the top got my head and shoulders up above the top

of the deck there bang with his rifle butt. Hit me fair bang in the chest I thought he’d broken all my chest bone and down I went backwards. Straight down backwards. And would’ve been about 12-feet I’d say down and then bang and terrible pain in the back and after that I could barely

walk through the streets of Brindisi. I had to have a bloke on each side helping me along the cobblestone street. And

No but eventually I did get back trouble I had back trouble. But apparently nothing was broken.

I certainly was.

Yes I was. But subsequently I nearly missed out again. Anyway subsequently when we got up to the North of Italy and we ended up going out putting being put into working camps and I asked one. We were working with a lot of civilians there and I asked this bloke, “What is

basta comme. What is comme. Comme basta in Italiana?” It means presto presto. No no. Sorry.

It doesn’t mean presto. It means enough. Basta means enough. I’m getting mixed up

with what the foreman in charge of us used to shout out at us.

He used to shout out, “Yarmo, yarmo.” Which meant faster.

Yeah get going or ‘Presto or yarmo.’ But he used to shout ‘Yarmo’ at us.

Yes.

Right up north right up we were north of Venice near the Yugoslav boarder.

By train and that took it was near enough 3 days and we were poked into sealed up what they used to use for transporting horses and there was a little window about that bit that

square at each corner of the van it was a van with little iron bars but only about 12 inches square and that was the ventilation and on the outside it had there was enough 40 men. That was printed on the outside.

40-oms and yes 40-men and 8-horses. That was the load for the van. And we were poked into that van we could hardly you couldn’t barely lie down. Some blokes’d have to stand up to let others lie down on the floor.

Yeah It sure was.

It was awful absolutely.

Well we did but it was how we didn’t die of suffocation I don’t know with all the terrible.

No no they were vans.

No

we were put on them we were taken up to another port just a bit further north after a few days in Brindisi taken up on a train to port called Bari B-A-R-I and that’s where we.

We were issued there with a bit of clothing and we were given one Red Cross food parcel between 10 blokes and that lasted us about half an hour.

There was biscuits and tins of stuff. But all the tins had keys on so you could so they could be opened. There was tinned meat and tinned fruit and all that sort of stuff. But then we had to divide it between 10 blokes and every sultana or if they were a little packets of currents in there they’d

all be counted out so that everybody got an even number.

I’ll say.

Yes. That eventually they turned out that they became available at one parcel per person per week. And that’s what

helped that helped to keep us alive. If it hadn’t been for the Red Cross parcels there would’ve been quite a lot that died of malnutrition and so forth.

Yes.

Pretty very primitive.

Pardon?

Not at Brindisi. We had some shelter at Bari. Yes we were out in the open again in Brindisi but it was only just a sort of a brief camp place but there again the military blokes

they all had shelter and everything but for the prisoners that were put in there temporary there was nothing there for them.

I’d say about a month.

Yes it was.

Not really there now.

I see what you mean. Yes no it had toilets and that sort of thing. Military type toilets.

Yeah that’s right.

Actually it was yes it was.

I’ll say it was yes. And also yes I think that’s where we had our first hot wash too at Bari. We were able to have a hot shower there and get some other clothes on.

It had improved but there was still plenty of fleas around. Like we were getting plenty of fleas and a few lice but it had improved a lot.

It can get yes it can. Yes some people did get infections yeah.

Yes they were.

Various things. I can’t think. It was mainly sort of internal. A friend of mine he died in Benghazi prison because he had appendicitis and nothing was done about him. He was just

screaming in pain and that and nothing just.

Just his bad luck.

No.

Terrible.

Well

I think you get down very low. You came become like a vegetable almost.

Yes you make a few friends and sort of all help each other and that sort of thing.

Well that’s right yes.

Only those two only on the boat going across.

Yes they did as much as possible.

They

weren’t too bad. I don’t think they caused us any problems from memory. No they behaved themselves I’d say quite reasonably.

Well we got in the morning

we got a little round bread roll of bread and a drink of they called it coffee but it was imitation coffee. Burnt somebody reckoned it was burnt acorns being you know crushed up and made into fine burnt first

and then crushed up and made into a drink. Put into hot water and

It wasn’t very appetising no.

And then at about let’s see round 10:30 11-o’clock we got a little bit of boiled rice

which we had to queue up for and get ladled out into any container that we had and one day it would be the rice then the next day it would be macaroni. This was the main meal of the day and then bout 4:30 in the

afternoon we’d get another little the same container it was ladled out to us and this was green sort of turnip tops and all that sort of stuff. No cabbage leaves or anything. It was all small leafed stuff just been boiled up and boiled and ladled out while

it was warm and that was the ration for the day.

Yes yes we had to be counted twice a day. 8-o’clock in the morning and 4 o’clock in the afternoon.

Well we’d all we’d have to be well

a whistle would blow and then we’d all have to go out onto this parade ground. Line up in rows of 5 and march well not we weren’t marching we were just paddling along in rows of 5 in front of the bloke that was counting us five ten fifteen make sure that everybody was there.

No. Then when that was in Bari then we went up North up into the right up near the Yugoslav boarder similar process morning and afternoon counting.

No no no. you just get moved here or moved there. You dunno where you’re going or anything. But after we left Bari we were as I said about 3-days and nights on this train going up there and all locked in and the we got to this big place. There’s a big

city up in the north of Venice called Udine and then we went through Udine to a place called Cividale. Udine is spelt U-D-I-N-E and then the place on the outskirts of that where this camp was called Cividale that’s spelt

C-I-V-I-D-A-L-E. And that was a big concentration camp there. It had all huts in it. I think there was about 50 blokes to a hut and we had double decker bunks and a blanket

We used to have to sleep in our clothes in the winter cause it was that cold and have a blanket as well on.

Certainly was yes. It was a proper big concentration camp for prisoners.

I think there was about well there was I think about 5,000.

Yes. Yeah I think it was 5,000 and there was 8 different compounds all different nationalities mainly in each compound. They had a compound for each different nationalities.

Yeah well and truly. Yes they highest rank in the all

these camps was only up as high as a sergeant.

And all the officers they were put in officers camps which were much much better apparently.

Well once we got started getting

the Red Cross parcels which saved our lives. In my opinion anyway and

Yes they came from Australia. Some came from England. Some came from Canada. And I think a few also used to come from New Zealand.

It was on the outside.

It was yeah where they’d come from yes.

Yes everyone was getting one once a week. When they came used to come in they came into Italy apparently by ship and then they were

Transported around to the various camps by train and motor transport I think.

Virtually yes yes.

Yes they were really. I think there was a special not a

That was well I’ll tell it to you in English Prisoner of War Camp or Prigioniero di Guerra campo concentramento cinquantasette That’s 57. But Prisoner of War Camp

57. You writing it down?

Do you want me to spell it out to you?

It’ll be on the thing anyway won’t it?

Well I can spell the name of the camp was Gruppinano [Gruppignano]

G-R-U-P-P-I-N-I-A-N-O Gruppiniana no A-N-A Gruppiniana.

Cinquantasette or 57. Prisoner of War Camp Gruppignana Number 57.

They were quite good as far as prison camps go. But we had good huts to sleep in and our own blokes were able to cook the rations. We had our own cooks who were cooking the rations that were supplied and that sort of thing.

Well the same thing. Rice or macaroni in the

morning at 10:30 and then boiled up green vegetables at 4:30 in the afternoon. And also in the morning a little round loaf of bread brown coloured bread in the morning and this so called cup of coffee which was burnt

acorns crushed up.

But then again we were still getting the Red Cross parcels. One Red Cross parcel per person per week and they came in very regularly.

There through the Red Cross blokes who wanted to were able to

do some study. They could get books sent in and so forth and study. And some used to do various things like making little things by hand. There was one or two tools they could get the use of and

hand make little items. And then also there was tennis no there was no tennis courts. There was hockey and hockey sticks and hockey balls available. Cricket bats and cricket bats and cricket balls

and tennis rackets. And they could play tennis or that sort of thing. That’s if they thought they had enough energy. A lot a blokes used to do a lot of walking round to get fit again instead of just lying on the back all the time. And that’s how that went.

Pardon?

Yes the different compounds used to excuse me have little competitions occasionally on say a bit of excuse me football or tennis or something like that. It wasn’t a lot of it done but it was carried out yeah.

Just well you could get books. There was a bit of a library there you could get books from and that sort of thing.

Yes you could write one letter I think a card. A card once a month and then

a little sort of postcard and then you’d also get a letter which I think you could put 40 words on and I think the post card was 25 words that you could send information back home on. But it used to take months and months to get there. And we could also

get the same thing back from home too.

It wasn’t too bad but the thing that you had to be very careful was that you didn’t upset the camp

commandant who was a very, very strict army officer and when if you saw him walking along with a couple of a man each side of him with a rifle as his guards. If you saw him approaching and if you were sitting down or lying down or whatever you immediately had to stand on

your feet. Stand to attention and show that he was to be acknowledged and on one occasion one chap he was walking along with his friend along the boundary

fence one day or near the boundary fence of the compound and he saw coming towards him two Carabiniere officers. They were sort of like military police. They were walking around in their uniforms and their weapons and anyway as

they approached each other one chap whose name was Symonds his nickname was Sox S-O-X Sox Symonds he said to his mate, “Here comes another couple of those dago bastards.” And this bloke

understood a bit of English. Apparently he’d worked on one of the gold mines up here in Kalgoorlie before the war and he heard this fella say that here comes a couple more of the dago [sl. Italian] bastards. He pulled his rifle up and shot him immediately on the spot. And then

there was a bit of an enquiry into it all and he convinced em that he was abusing the Italians and Signor Mussolini and all that and that’s what he got for it. He got away with it.

That’s right yes. And then I got put into

8-days solitary confinement. One day we were being counted and it was in the winter time there in 19. Let me see it was in the winter of 19 yes 42 and would’ve been in January. January or February ’42.

Sorry ’43. January or February ’43. We were still weren’t prisoners in ’42. ’43 and we had to stand out waiting to be counted on ground in the winter time all this mud would freeze turn to ice and freeze and then

during the day it would sort of just start to turn itself into mud sloppy mud and then by as night time came on it would freeze again. So it was either sloppy mud in the daytime or frozen mud you see. Anyway it was mighty cold and we had to stand sometimes we’d

have to stand out in this freezing cold waiting for the officer in charge of the camp to come and do the count. Make sure that the count was correct and as a result a lot of us used to get chilblains and things on our ears and noses and on our fingers and anyway I ended up

I got chill blains on my ears and they were absolutely atrocious the pain and all blistered and I couldn’t really cope with it. Anyway on this particular and I was wearing a bits and pieces of uniform that we’d been issued

by the Red Cross. A bit of this uniform and a little bit of that and I was given a cap or a hat rather that had been a Yugoslav blokes thing and it used to have a flap up the front and another flap up the back and then just short sides and I’d be standing there with the

short sides and the cold on these ears was terrible. And all of a sudden I thought why don’t I turn the hat round and pull the flaps over me ears to keep them war? Which I did. This particular day it was freezing cold wind blowing and anyway as it came our turn to walk past the old commandant who always had a

bloke with him an interpreter with him to interpret our language I unfortunately I was in the row of five and I was on the end of the row nearest to him as he was counting them. And as I got level with him he pointed straight at me and then I see him talking to his interpreter and the interpreter

then he walked across stood alongside me walked along with me until this group I was in had got to the end of the count. And he said then to me he said, “I want your hut number and your name.” And as soon as that was said I knew because as soon as they took your name you knew you were in big trouble and your hut number. So I said

“But what have I done? I haven’t done anything wrong. Why do you want my name?” He said you have insulted our commandante.” I said, “How did I insult your commandant?” He said, “Your hat it is not correct. Correct it immediately.” He said, “You have insulted the

commandante.” So I turned the hat round and once they’d taken your name you knew that you were going to go into the prison. There was a big concrete prison within the prison and you didn’t know when you’re going to go in day or night when they’d come and get you. They’d come along to your hut in the middle of the night some of them and grab you and

drag you out and put you in and then course it was freezing cold. There was no heating in this concrete prison and it was all solitary confinement and anyway the next thing was you didn’t know how long you were going to be in for when you’re put in.

So anyway blokes who had one or two spare items of clothes or one spare item several of them would say go to the bloke whose name was taken say, “here you are put this on put that on and here’s some more socks put them on. Another pair of trousers put them.” And you’d be walking round for days in two sets of

clothes and all that so that when you got into this place cause they’d come and get you in the night time. We slept in our clothes in the winter anyway and so they lent me a few items different ones and eventually my turn came but I was taken in in the daytime fortunately and put in. Then they would put in

the at night time at 10-o’clock at night the guards would come to the door of the cells there was quite a few cells there and they would put open the door throw in two blankets very thin blankets throw them in and all you had to sleep on was a

wooden bench it had a slope the head end was near the wall of the cell the foot end away and you’d lie put one blanket on that on the wood cold wood the other blanket over you and no pillows or anything and that was a bed. And at 6 o’clock by 6 o’clock in the morning you had to have those two blankets folded up and

ready as soon as they opened the door at 6-o’clock you had to be ready to give em the blankets. Otherwise you could’ve got an extra day or two and that was. Anyway.

Anyway.

One hour per day they would take the prisoners out. The prisoners within the prison

take them out and let them stand outside and get some fresh air in a little enclosure and you could talk to each other for a little while and then back you went in again for another 23 hours. Anyway, I ended up doing 8-days and that was enough. But the minimum was 7-days and the maximum was 90 days and they

never told they would never tell you until you were let out you never knew how long you were in for could be 7-days could be 90-days.

Terrible. Terrible. Yeah it was awful and so cold. I’d have to keep flapping me arms and all that sort of thing. But it was just

looking at a blank wall 23 hours a day. Well not while you were asleep but while you were awake.

All sorts of things. How good it would be when we if we ever got out and how precious life was and all that a decent life and so forth.

Used

to think about all the lovely times we used to have at home. Yes. Well and truly. And wished we were back there.

Well not it was all maybe, maybe not sort of thing…

Well not really doing

our best to keep alive I think.

Yes that’s right. Yes.

Well it wasn’t too bad really. As long as the Red Cross food parcels kept coming in which they did it was

OK.

No. No none at all none. No we didn’t know what was happening.

Well we were very anxious to get news and our relatives weren’t. If a letter was all the letters were looked at. What’s the word? They were

opened and looked at to see that there wasn’t any skull doggery being suggested to us and that sort of thing. There’s a word. Not yes investigated. No censored. Yeah incoming and

outgoing mail was censored yes.

Only my parents cause we’re only we only got one letter a month I think allowed one letter a month.

Gruppiniano.

The G is a silent G as in sign.

Grrrruppiniana. Grrruppi Gruppiniano

Well from about December until May. Incidentally I had my 21st birthday in solitary confinement.

Well I worked it out afterwards

actually cause we weren’t couldn’t keep up with the dates very easily but some of the other blokes were keeping records of the dates each day they’d be writing down the day and that sort of keeping a record of every day.

Well it was for them but it was an interest

too I think as much as anything something to think about.

Yes yes.

Well we left there just after my 21st birthday we went we were sent out in a lot of us were put out into working camps where we were sent over to work in the rice

fields where I showed you in the map in that place Verchelli. Somewhere I’ve got a little photo that friend of mine went over there last year. A daughter of a friend of ours went over she’s studying rice growing and she went to the very area and I told her which village to go to in the rice growing areas and she went and saw

some people that I knew the parents of when I was a Prisoner of War.

And she gave me a blown up photo of this rice paddy where the rice is still growing all round that village.

No we

were shipped right across the north of Italy well trained across from the eastern side of practically to the Western side of Northern Italy which is up near Milan. Between Milan and Turin and all that rice growing country is irrigated from the River Po and

that’s we were there having to make embankments for the water for the irrigation to be channelled from one paddy field to the next one through the they’d cut a hole through the little channels and through the little mounds rather and make a little channel through to the next

rice paddy when they were irrigating it and there was a lot of Italian a lot of young Italian ladies there they were called the ‘Mondinies’. They had to go all over the rice growing areas planting the rice plants by hand. They’d be in lines of probably 50 women all lined up with a

big bag hanging down in front of them with little rice seedlings about that long and they’d be up almost to their knees in the water and they’d have to bend down and plant a rice plant. And they’d be singing all the time then one in charge of them would call out when they’d finished they’d stand

up straight then the woman in charge of them would call out they’d take half a step forward pick out and down they’d go again all in a straight line as if you’d put a string line across it.

Well it was in a way but they were singing all the time beautiful songs and

that. They were so happy but it kept them thinking of other things other than this terrible job they had of planting all these and they’d have when they ran out of rice in their bag there they’d have to all line up in single file go up to a great big horse and cart that was full of these bunches of seedlings and they’d all be given

another one. One after the other. Another big bunch of them they’d put them in their bag then they’d go back to were they were working in that paddy and when the last one had got hers then they’d all line up in the line again and get ready to go and just all day 8 or 10-hours a day they’d be going.

No wasn’t

too bad. We used to take our time and the old man in charge of the. The foreman bloke he was called the Padroni he was in charge of us all and he used to call out to us prisoners we’d just be taking it all very, very easy what we were doing and he’d shout out to us and wave his arms

around, “presto presto” and we used to say, “no piano piano.” Which means slowly slowly. And he’d say, “presto” again and we’d say, “poco mangiare poco lavoro” which meant little food little work. Cause one of our fellow workers we asked them in pidgin

Italian what a certain word was in Italian what it would mean and he’d tell us.

We weren’t supposed to but we did. We did.

Well the guards who were guarding us they

all they used to do was sit under a tree or sit around on the edge of the rice fields keeping an eye on us but well right away from where the work was going on and play cards and that sort of thing all day. And that was it.

Yes. There was

quite a few civilians there and some of the ladies’d say you know a few words to us.

They were very friendly.

Well we were in a pidgin Italian sort of. When we’d

learnt a few words by this time and we’d ask a sort of a question and then they told us too that the Inglise was coming up from the South. We weren’t aware of that either that the Allies had landed in the south of Italy and they told us the

Americano’s and the Inglise’s were coming up. Lot of sign language. And

We were very pleased to hear that and we thought that we thought we would soon be rescued. But then the next thing we knew was that the Germans the

Italians that Mussolini or they told us that Mussolini was fininto [finished] and that Tedesci or the Germans are Tedesci’s in Italians. That the Tedesci’s are coming down. Plenty of Tedesci coming. So that’s when we started to think it was about time to start

well that was we got there in May. We were in the rice fields from May until September and we were still getting the Red Cross parcels and also because we were in working camp we got double the amount of food each day too. Two little round loaves of bread

and two ladle fulls of rice and macaroni and that sort of thing.

Yes it was well it was only a small place. I think there was about 50 of us in this camp and it had a little

officer chap was in charge of the guards there. A barbed wire fence around it of course and fairly basic toilets. We only had one shower that we all had to take turns in using.

and the toilet was rigged up over a water drain that was on it’s way to the rice paddocks.

I’d say well we had to walk about probably round about 3-kilometres

from this camp we were in to the rice paddy that we were working in. It would’ve taken us best part of an hour to walk each way. I’d say we’d be leaving at about 8-o’clock and getting back round six at night. So 10-hours about 8-hours work.

Very well. Yes. No problems at all.

Not really. There was four blokes around the perimeter in the daytime when we were in there. There was four going one

on each side of the square of the fence. And then at night time after they locked the door. We were sleeping in a great big old brick barn sort of building or stable rather and at night time they would take three of the blokes off duty and just leave one to walk around the whole square.

Our normal issue clothing.

Yes yes. We used to take our coats off of course and just work in our just roll up our sleeves it was in the hot weather and work in our shirt and trousers.

No we weren’t in the water Julian.

No no we weren’t in the water. We were just shovelling and wheelbarrowing soil dry soil.

Yes we were much better. For one thing we had a full stomach and

we were sort of doing something and seeing a bit of outside life.

No not at all. No no they weren’t up

well you couldn’t anyway. You can’t the guards would well you could just talk one or two words as you were sort of passing each other and that sort of thing but you couldn’t go and stand and talk to them or that sort of business.

No no no.

Yes yes.

But many years later I went back and looked up one of the families whose parents were well whose parents had been working in the rice field business to and they were the people I saw after

18-years they were only little children then but they remembered us being there. They were only sort of school children and they remembered the prisonero’s being there. And

Well it was going all the time until

the Italians were out of the war and we took off to go to Switzerland in September.

Well the workers were telling us that the Germans were all coming in and that already I don’t know they must’ve got it from newspapers or the radio or somehow that the Germans were taking

had already been taking prisoners that were soldiers who were prisoners in Italy already taking them to Germany. And anyway that’s when we started deciding that we didn’t want to be one of those. And then anyway we were tyring to organise getting making up

an escape route.

They the northerners had no time for the Germans at all. Although the fascist Italians did. But the ordinary people they had no time for the Germans at all.

They were yes and furthermore they suffered a lot under the Germans too. Yes.

And a lot of their relatives had suffered at the hands of the Germans.

Yes earlier in the war.

Well they were sympathising with us yes. Apart from the as I say the fascist ones. But there was no fascist ones. They were merely all

Italian soldiers and that that had been mixed up in the fascist groups.

No we didn’t. No not those workers we didn’t. But when we got out we did get quite a bit of help from some of them. Especially when

we got up into the mountains where the which is more isolated areas away from where the Germans were.

Well because we didn’t want to be transferred to Germany from the Prison camp in Italy to another prison camp in Germany which could’ve been a lot worse.

No well we didn’t want to we thought well the war might be going on much longer if the Germans don’t give up than with the Italians might be giving up soon because of the fact that the Allies were making progress up from the South up to the North

of Italy.

Yes I’d say so well and truly.

Well we’d noticed that at night time sometimes the chap in charge of the work camp the Italian

officer that they’d have a few boozing sessions in the evening and then at 9-o’clock when they were supposed to come and count us and lock the doors so that we couldn’t get out into the yard that sometimes he’d be late in coming in and

that the guards that were spread all round the circumference of the yard were still going in and only leaving one chap to go around the whole area and we thought well if the door’s not locked and there’s only one guard on all we’ve got to go is get down into the little water channel

we’ll get wet have wet clothes on but go under the. It just went under the came in one side of the premises and excuse me under the barbed wire fence and through under the toilets and out through the other side of the property.

Dear.

Sorry. No I’m right.

And we said all we’ve got to do is wait for a time when this happens again and we can dive out under the. Get into the channel go under the barbed wire. Don’t even have to go through the toilets just go under the barbed wire and

out away. So we were sort of arranging all that and then

No there was three of us. My friend who used to live in Mount Hawthorn a chap named Tom Bullock and another chap who they’re both deceased now anyway. Another chap called Bill. Bill

Tom Bullock and Bill Morgan.

Yes. Anyway before we got the opportunity to do that which we could’ve easily done. We’d got it all arranged that one would go down under the fence into the drain under the

fence and out and go quickly while the guard was going round the other three sides of the yard quickly across into a bunch of trees. There were some oak trees and different sort of trees in a clump across a field there and we’d each take our turn and meet up there and then take off for the mountains.

Cause we knew the Swiss Frontier was to the north of us and the mountains were to the north the Alps. And anyway we’d got it all arranged and then low and behold the next thing we discovered was they were going to move us from that camp. The Germans had been fiddling around taking other and they were going to move us to another

camp to another area of work and anyway low and behold we were suddenly told righto pack up. We’re moving camp. You’re moving to another camp a few kilometres

away another working camp area but and another different camp as well. So anyway we then started moving all on foot to this other camp and work area and

some of the we said to the rest of our blokes if we get the chance we’re going to make a break for it and get up into the Alps and hopefully get away from the Germans. There won’t be too many up there. They’re too busy heading South and all that sort of thing. And they said, “If you make a break for it now you’ll be shot for sure.” So

anyway on the way to this other camp we had to stop and we were having a bit of a rest and a bit of food at the time

On foot yes and the guards they were pretty slack. They weren’t

carrying out their duties as well as they could’ve been or should’ve been. Anyway us three then said righto well this is a good opportunity. We’ve got our frugal possessions with us and that and while the guards aren’t watching us and not paying attention we’ll sneak off. We’re gonna sneak off. And the corporal who was in charge

of us, “Oh well” he said, “You’ll be shot for sure.” He said, “They’ll see you and you’ll be shot.” They’ve got no excuse for shooting you if you take off. So anyway we said, “Well we’ll risk it. Now don’t want to end up in another concentration camp in Germany.” So we took off into the bush and along the banks of a stream that was flowing down towards the Po

River there.

Well we just all spread about around on the ground you know and they were all busy talking and not concentrating on what they were doing and we said well this is the best chance to do it. Best time.

We walked off and they said, “Oh well we’ll hear a

few rifles shots shortly and we’ll know you blokes have gone.” So we said, “Oh well here’s luck.” So anyway we went and you wouldn’t credit it but the very next day. They got to that camp that night. The very next day the Germans came grabbed them as well as the few that had been left in the camp we’d been vacated from

and away they went to Germany. And they were in Germany we were writing letters. I was still writing letters to them from Australia they were still in prison camps after I’d spent 12-months in Switzerland as a internee. So called internee and we got away.

And then when we heard they were coming back after about 15-months coming back to Perth the three of us went down and met the train. We knew exactly where the train was. We’d been in touch with some friends who knew they were coming back across over the Nullabor and found out when

the train was due and everything and went and met them and said, “Now who was right now?” You know that’s how we greeted them. And God was they ropable.

That’s right.

Well it was a shaving kit and haversack an army haversack with the I’d been issued through the Red Cross and various little things. A few letters and just trivial odds and ends.

A few handkerchiefs I think. Nothing special. No big bags of money or anything.

Well I ended up doing so because the bag that I was carrying was a dead give away if a German had spotted us. It was just an obvious

army haversack.

Only it was sort of a fawny khaki coloured one and well it stood out like a

That’s right.

At that time just ordinary British Army uniforms but we

had on the left knee there was a big red diamond that was sewn into the clothing just about the knee and another big red diamond on the back between the shoulders and on the jacket this was. But anyway when we

we knew that we were if the Germans had seen us we’d have been gone so as soon as we got up into the lower foothills of the Alps we contacted some people who were living up in the foothills there and told them who we were and that we were

escaping from the Tedesci’s and could we take clothes off give them to them and get some different clothes. Oh, “Si si,” they said, “si si.” So we got into civilian clothes little knowing then that if we’d been caught by the Germans then we would’ve been could’ve been shot on the spot as

spies.

Well that’s part of the Geneva Convention. Any enemy apparently whose dressed up in civilian any troops or naval personnel air like you know proper troops dressed up as civilians they can be treated as

spies and immediately dispensed with. But if they’re still in their military dressings they must be regarded as Prisoners of War and comply with the Geneva Convention. So

No we didn’t know that either. There was so many traps yeah.

Well that’s it. It’s very difficult isn’t it.

Well we didn’t’ really but we took a just took a very big chance on it. Because most of the Northerners were apart from the military blokes they were all anti German.

All anti German. All the one’s we’d ever we’d been in contact with.

Si si Signora.

Not really no. A lot of it can be sign language too. Like this one here you do that walk up to someone and go like that that’s telling them

that you’re hungry. You’re drawing the belt in.

And this one. What do you reckon that one is?

That’s right yeah. But you must have your little finger and thumb in the correct place.

Yes. That’s another one.

You can go to hell.

But we did learn pick up quite a bit from the local people that we’d been involved with in the working field.

Not I did most of the talking to the civilians. They

knew a few words but I could put it over better. I did most of the talking

We still had our working our boots on ex-army boots. They’d done a very good job. Cause they’d been on our feet sometimes 24-hours a day from when we were caught you know and yes

mine made their way right through.

Well the soles were getting a bit thin. I could feel if I trod on a pointy sort of stone I could feel it making an impression inside.

Well we knew we had to keep heading north and we just keep taking

the easy hills to go over. Incidentally at that time of the year which was in the autumn over there all the fields and even small properties all they had orchards. Orchards and

vineyards and that sort of thing. All the grapes were ripe. The apples pears were ripe so we’d only walk at night follow roadways so that we could quickly get into the scrub on the side if we heard vehicles coming and that and we would gorge ourselves on this any fruit that was going

until we got right into the mountains above where the fruit would grow and where people were making up orchards and things and then we if we then when we got up where there was no more roads we started going over ordinary hilltops and that soon as we saw a house

there was quite a lot of isolated people living in such isolated conditions. Married people with children and that and it’d take them all day to walk down the mountain to go to a village and all the next day to go back up it and all that with their food supplies that they needed. And we’d see a house and go and knock on

the door and first of all we’d make sure there was no troops around especially any sign of Germans around.

No we didn’t.

We were. Anyway we’d knock on the door and just tell these people who we were and we were escaping from the Tedesci. That’s, “multo

buono” they’d say very good. And then we’d say, “we avero fame” which is I’m hungry. “He’s fame and he’s fame,” And then they’d say, “come in come in” sign language in we’d go and in quite a lot of instances they already had

a lot of polenta cooked up. They used cook it up in big like great big those steal big dishes with a lid on and it was called polenta. It was maize meal just boiled up like porridge and then let set after it had cooked let it set and they’d cut out great big

lumps of this and give that to us to eat. On a plate of course. But it was just like cutting huge thick sponge cakes and

And they’d give us fruit and drink of coffee or hot water or offer us some vino if we wanted it and that sort of thing.

No

we didn’t no.

We wanted keep our wits about us.

Yeah and we had a lot of boiled rice too. Cause they were living up above all the rice fields there. And anyway eventually we got to one of these places a house. Very, very isolated place but a huge place and we thought gee that

must’ve must be a hotel or must’ve been a hotel or something and we stopped in among some trees. By this time also we were up in the country where the walnut trees grew and all the ground under the walnuts were just covered in walnuts so we gorged ourselves on walnuts too.

Yeah we could do that with our boots. Also the little round hazelnuts they grow wild up there in the Alps and we filled our pockets up with those for spare rations and so on. But we got to this big place so we thought we’ll keep an eye on that for a while. Which we did and all we saw was a man and a woman coming out

and going back in again. By this time we were travelling in the daytime because couldn’t travel otherwise. Anyway then we said right, “No soldiers Germans or Italians around there.” And they said, “Well you go and knock on the door. You know what to say.” So I went and knocked on the door and out came this chap

and I said to him he opened the door and I said, “Bonjourno signor.” And he looked at me. Looked a bit stunned. And then he looked at the other two and then he shouted at me. And he pointed at the other two and, “You guys ain’t

Italians,” he said, “You guys ain’t Italians.” So I said, “You’re not Italian either. I said, “You sound like a Yank to me.” And he said, “No” he said, “I’m Italian,” he said, “But I’ve been in the states for 35-years.” And he said, “What are you doin’ here?” And so I said, “Well.” And one of my friends Bill Morgan he was a blond

headed bloke too. At first he immediately thought of Germans. See when he got so excited.

So I told him what we were up to and we were trying to get to Switzerland.

“Oh well,” he said, “You’ve got a long way to go yet,” he said. I said, “We know it’s a lot of mountains to go. But which is the easiest way to get there? There must be an

easy way over the frontier.” And so he said to me, “You see that mountain there with all the snow on it and the ice?” And said, “Yes.” He said, “Well that’s Monte Rosa.” He said but he said, “There’s another mountain that you can’t see from here,” he said, “It’s behind the next lot of hills you’ve got to go over,” he said, “And that is Monte Moro,” he said, “And there is a

pass a frontier pass there over Monte Moro.” He said, “But you’ll have to keep going it’ll take you one or two more days until you can really see Monte Moro properly and then you head for that.” So then he took us in and gave us a huge meal. Introduced us to his wife

of course who was there.

Anyway did I tell you that he told us he’d come back to his parents had lived there for many years and that had been his parents home and he’d come back there. No we didn’t get any polenta. We had some really good stuff.

Yes.

Yeah bit of meat and

properly cooked vegies and that sort of stuff.

Yeah it was.

No no we didn’t. No we kept going. This was fairly before the middle of the day and we were in a hurry to keep going.

Well anywhere we could. One night we slept in a cemetery before we got up into the higher mountains there slept in

a cemetery. And that sort of thing just anywhere that was convenient and under bridges and that sort of thing. Under the trees and just anywhere lie down on the ground. See it was quite good weather and we didn’t I don’t think we ran into any rain at all. But we were 15 days on the road

on the walk altogether.

It certainly was. God when we got up to the top of Monte Moro my friend Tom Bullock who used to live in Mount Hawthorn he had a recurrence of malaria fever and we thought we’d have to desert him cause we were getting right up towards the snowline at this stage and

he kept huffing and puffing and blowing and having to stop and in a lot of pain and every time we stopped we’d have to be flapping our arms and all that sort of thing and we were tossing up whether we’d have to say goodbye to him or not. But anyway we managed to coax him along and eventually we

came to this Monte the sight of Monte Moro which we then headed for. Kept that straight in front of us and Monte Rosa on the left just kept going straight for Monte Moro and then we had to go down before we could go up Monte Moro. Got down into another valley

Well we tried to but you couldn’t always to keep going North. Sometimes you had to go over mountains to go in a northerly direction.

Not at that stage no. Anyway we got into the valley and low and behold there was a little village there. So on the outskirts of this we knocked on the door. We got we made our way to another

isolated place. There was no sign of any German around anywhere round in the village or anything. Knocked on the door. Told this chap who we were and he took us in and gave us a feed. He told us, “You can sleep in my barn tonight.” There showed us where. Beautiful big barn full of straw. He said, “Domarni matina.”

I will send by boy and he called his boy told him, “Domarni fortiri soldarti Inglise soldarti Monte Moro.” So anyway we agreed to that. He we knew he was going to guide us up to Monte Moro to the top to where the pass was.

So

It was. So anyway they woke us up at 4-o’clock in the morning. Gave us a big feed before we set off and off we went up to the head of this small valley then Monte Moro started going up from that and up we went and up we went till round about

midday and the boy then pointed out to us there was an old abandoned stone building right near the top of the mountain and freezing cold too and that had been the frontier post a guard post and he pointed that out to us then said he was going to go back home. Take him a long time to go home

again. So he went home. We went up into this building which was completely abandoned. Went inside it inside it was all bits and pieces of Italian uniforms. Italian odds and ends. Dishes and bits of blankets and all sorts of things and that had been abandoned.

It had been a frontier post of course. So then we said oh well we must be right. So we went about another less than a kilometre I’d say and we suddenly found that we could look down into another valley which was still North and we got there but we had to go over a glacier and there was crevasses and if we’d of slipped we’d

of gone down a crevasse.

Well it was but we had to get into this valley which obviously went right down into Switzerland otherwise we’d a couldn’t have got anywhere else. See we had to get into that valley.

That’s right.

Yes. So anyway we got across.

Slithered across we

sat down dug our heels in as much as we could. Our hands down backsides down and ripped our trousers about quite a bit and went down. Got across.

No we didn’t slide down. No we had to get across to get down into the valley you see. And anyway this was going into another bit of the valley this

glacier. It wasn’t going into the valley that we wanted to get into.

That’s right yes.

That was safe. To get across safely yes. So anyway we made it then we went down to probably another mile or two or kilometre or three and following by

this time there was a little watercourse had come out of the hillside was going down we followed that. It was all down hill. Went round the big curve in the stream huge boulders everywhere went round the curve there’s four blokes sanding in front of us. Typical German rifles helmets uniform everything. We said damn

and blast. We Germans wouldn’t be here. We can’t be in Switzerland yet. Anyway and then and at the same time they yelled out, “halt halt. Hande hock hande hock.” Which is means hands up and it was German. And anyway we were just I was saying to him the other two blokes

were leaving me to do the talking and I said, “English English English,” and they couldn’t understand. Just threw their hands up in the air. So after a few minutes one bloke was told to go he was something was said to him and away he went and disappeared out of sight a bit further down the valley. Back he came

about half an hour later with another bloke. An officer. An army officer and the first thing he said, “Do you speak English?” So we said, “We are English. Who you? Are you Germans?” “No no” he said, “We are Swiss. We are Swiss

Frontier Guards.” I said, “But you’re men are all speaking German.” He said, “German is our language.” He said, “We live in the north of Switzerland where German is our language.” And it turns out we didn’t know at the time but Switzerland they speak three languages. They speak German French and Italian.

And they had to learn the other three languages at school when they go to school. And anyway then we told him what we were doing and he said. Gee that was funny.

Funny little itch I got then. Anyway he said, “You must come with us.” So

down we went and after about another half an hour or so we came to an old stone building where that dam is now that I showed you on that big photo and there was this old building and it turns out it had been mountaineers holiday resort place where they could stay overnight or one or two nights

when they were doing their mountaineering stunts and that and anyway as soon as he. He went inside and I could hear him calling out to someone inside and the other three blokes stayed outside with us. Then the next thing we knew out came another soldier with a tray and three great big steaming

hot cups of cocoa on the tray. So we thanked them very much for that and then after a bit longer the next thing that happened out came a man carrying a great or a big container with firewood in it. So he put all that down made a big

heap lit the fire poured some fuel it must’ve been petrol or kerosene poured something on it. Struck a match lit it. It all went up in flame and the officer came out and said now you can stand here and get warm. So we thanked him again very much and said we’d do that alright. That’d be lovely. And then shortly after that out came

another man bearing some huge onions raw onions and big potatoes and by this time the fire had got heated and these things were freezing cold. They’d come out of the cellar or somewhere and we thought god we can’t eat them so cold after the cocoa and. So we decided

we would put them down in the fire the coals part of it and cook em or warm em up a bit first. So we did that immediately. Put them down and then all the next thing was the man that was outside with us supposed to be guarding us. All the others were inside by then this man started to shout and yell shout and yell and then whistled started to blow and then out they all rushed

including the officer they all rushed out and this officer was waving his arms around and saying, “what you doing? We give you food you burn our food. Why you burn our food?” “Not no no we’re cooking it. You watch and see.” Anyway he told his blokes to buzz off and he waited for a while anyway when we showed him

how well onions and potatoes cooked in the coals he was amazed he’d never seen that happen before.

Hey?

Yeah. Anyway but it used to be a standard practice here in Australia didn’t it?

Yeah roasting potatoes in the coals.

Alfoil but we put em in just as they

were.

Well then they decided that they would escort us further down the valley and we ended up going down we had to walk down escorted down by a couple of blokes bout another 3 or 4 miles

down the valley to the first little village there which was called Almagell A-L-M-A-G-E-L-L Almagell and by this time it was getting well into the afternoon and they told us that we would

have to sleep there the night and they took us to the village school which was not being used at that stage. It must’ve been holidays I think and they put us into a room that was obviously a little sort of a gymnastics room or

something similar and along came a man with a horse and cart with a few straw bales on it bundles and they spread that around on the floor for us to spend the night on. We were give an another meal there by they

organised a bit of a meal from someone in the village to be brought in to us and we spent the night there then the next morning we were put on little sort of a mountain train that runs up the valleys and we were taken down into the main valley below the valley we were in

we came from that valley the Sastarl Valley down to the Rhone Valley and at the Rhone valley there is a town called hell. Visp

V-I-S-P a town called Visp and we were taken off the little train put on a larger train when it came along taken to the big town of Brig which is also in the Rhone valley. We were taken there put into another school there were also

a few other blokes who’d come over from Italy in this school. We were billeted there and we were put down once again to sleep on straw on the floors of a big gymnasium room. Where we spent about 2-weeks in virtually quarantine

but also in that time all our paperwork was done and we ended up getting all the documents that enabled us to stay in Switzerland. And then at the end of the 2-weeks we were transported from there to another

a larger town up in the German speaking area of Switzerland not far from Zurich. That’s the big city there Zurich and the town there dear me I can’t think of it.

If I could look at the map I could tell ya but I can’t.

Brig. No not Brig.

Yes yes I know it well enough. Anyway we were there we were in this town for several more weeks.

Virtually nothing. The name of the town was Vil V-I-L that was the town and that’s probably 60 or 70-kilometres from Zurich which is the big city there.

Nothing really. We were just walking around filling in time. We had our paperwork

and we could walk within 5-kilometres of the village and we had to be back in the building that we were in by 8-o’clock at night be counted checked in and just stay in there til the next morning. Then after. There also we were issued with more

British military clothing because the winter was coming right on then and after about 3-weeks there we were then sent to another village in the Canton of Zurich by the name of

Wald W-A-L-D which means wood. It’s wood very woody sort of place around there. Lot of hilly country not mountainous but hilly country and we were then put in a disused factory there and when we got there we found that there was already a few

internees there also. There were a few South Africans a few New Zealanders. A few New Zealanders and also a few more Australians that had managed to escape from Germany into Switzerland. Switzerland was the main place to head for because it was the

neutral country. So anyway we got there to Wald. We call it Wald but the Swiss call it Vald. Pronounce W as V.

Well after we’d been there for a short time my two friends and I. We were tired of just walking round the village all the time and

sitting around doing nothing so we offered to do some voluntary work. If there was any voluntary work we could do to help the local community we’d be happy to do it. So then we were asked the officer in charge of the Swiss Soldiers that were billeted

in this village of Wald he spoke good English too and he became a good friend of ours and anyway he told us that the old people’s home in the village they needed

some help in the laundry. Would we like to go and work in the laundry for 3 times a week. So we said yes we would go and work in this laundry. And as a result of that we got approval to. We had to get approval from the British Council in

Bern first to do it but we would before we could go in there. So eventually we got the approval and in we went and it was quite good working there. When we the days we were there we were given our

morning tea. Beautiful lunch. Afternoon tea and if we wanted to we couldn’t stayed there for an evening meal but we preferred not to do that. We wanted to get back to the others for the evening and so the rest of the group. One or two others were doing other voluntary work in the village

and the ones that weren’t doing the voluntary work they well even we had to when we weren’t the days we weren’t working. In the morning we would go up to a disused hotel where the Swiss soldiers were billeted. They were on their annual 3-weeks military service

and they were billeted in this old hotel and we got the same food dished up to us as the Swiss Military Soldiers got. So we could have breakfast lunch and evening meal there with them. And then we had to be back in our billet in the disused factory by 8-o’clock

at night. So that anyway that went on for some let’s see. September went through to about March. March of the following year. That would’ve been March ’44 I think. Anyway one day

I was or me and my friends were walking along the street in the village of Wald and all of a sudden there was a man and a lady coming towards us on the footpath and as we got closer the lady said she said, “Goodness me,” she said, “What are you English soldiers doing here?”

Like this and we said, “No we’re not English soldiers. We’re Australians and we’re interned here.” But she said, “How do you have English uniforms on?” So I told her that we were internees and we were escaped prisoners of war and we had

to be have to wear military uniform and British Army was the stuff that was assigned to us. She’d never heard. She was so surprised they both were and I said, “Well what are you people doing here?” and she said, “We’re just up here having a little holiday.” And I said, “But you can’t come over

surely from England to Switzerland for a little holiday.” “Oh no,” she said, “We live here.” She said, “We live in Switzerland but we don’t live in Wald,” she said, “We live down on the lake of Geneva at a place called Montreux.” And she said, “have you ever heard of Montreux?” And I said, “No I haven’t but we’ve heard of we know all about Geneva and where Geneva is.”

And I said, “Well how did you get here?” She said, “When the war started,” she said, “We were became stranded here. We were here” she said, “We run a girls finishing school in a village called Glion which is just up on the mountain a bit above Montreux. But Montreux is our main shopping centre

and all that.” And the she said, “And by the way,” she said to me she said, “Can you cook at all Ted?” I said, “Oh,” and I immediately thought dear me cook. That you’ve got straight access to food and having had an empty belly

for so long food was the as soon as the word food was mentioned well practically everybody they though food’s what you fill your stomach with. So, “Oh yes,” I said, “I can cook.” So she said, “Oh well,” she said, “Would you like to.” She said, “Unfortunately for us,” she said, “We’ve lost our chef lady,”

she said, “She has become very ill and we won’t be able to have her back and we haven’t been able to get onto anyone else at the moment and,” she said, “Would you like to come down and cook for us?” And I said, “Oh but” I said, “I can’t leave here.” I said, “I’ve got to report in be counted every night I’m an internee and I can’t go anywhere further

than 5-kilometres away from the village town hall without permission.” She said, “We’ll soon get you permission,” she said. “I’ll just if you want to come down and be with us and be our cook,” she said, “I’ll get straight in touch with the British Consul in Bern” which is the capital city, “And make arrangements for you.”

And I’ve still got the letter of approval. Anyway low and behold along came the approval for me to go be moved out on a certain date. So down I went and it was just up on a hill above the lake of Geneva. It was a very, very zigzaggy road goes up to it but the road would be

about 10 or 15-kilometers long but there was a little train used to go a cog-wheel railway used to go up I presume it probably still does and the cog-wheel railway virtually goes straight up on a fairly steep angle and they’ve got a big steel. Have you seen those cog wheel

railways? Well between the two wheel tracks there’s another big steal beam with teeth marks scooped out of it and on the train on the locomotive of the train there’s a big cog-wheel that fits into these big teeth grips and the train drags itself up on this. That’s why it’s called a cog-

wheel railway. And that goes up pretty steep slopes whereas an ordinary train the wheels’d just be spinning. Anyway I eventually got down there and I was given the job of cooking. Well it was pretty awful really. All I’d been able to do before the war was cook bacon and eggs and fry steak and sausages

and make porridge in the morning. Very basic sort of cooking you see. And I thought all that would be similar at the girls school. But anyway I kept it going and there was nothing said. And anyway about 3-weeks later Mrs Roberts came to me and she said, “Oh Ted,” she said, “I’m very sorry to tell you this,” she said, “But

you’re cooking.” Excuse me these shingles are gettin’ me a bit. She said, “You’re cooking isn’t exactly what we require or what we expected,” she said, “And I’m afraid as a result of that,” she said, “We’ve managed to get hold of another lady who’ll come and take your place in the next week or so.”

And I thought oh hell. Well I’ve got to go back to the old routine. Cause it was quite interesting where I was there and I got a day off a week and could go and do a bit of sightseeing around on the lake of Geneva and that. And anyway I’d also go to know one or two people that lived in the town of

Montreux. But anyway she said, “But don’t get disappointed,” she said, “If you’re prepared to do all the washing up of the dishes after the meals and set the tables for each meal. Set the table early in the morning for breakfast and do all that sort of work,” she said, “You’re very welcome to stay with us. We’re quite prepared to have you.”

So I said, “Righto well I’ll stay. If that’s alright with you I’ll stay.” So I did and then.

There was about 50 of them. Yes aged from about 12 up to about 18. They were all very nice young girls and all well behaved and that.

Yeah very extremely well behaved yes. Didn’t mingle with the girls.

Not really no. No they all had their orders from home I think and they were from

all over Switzerland too. It was quite a big college. Anyway but I got to know a few people in Montreux so I used to go and visit them and they’d entertain me and their parents were very good.

I used to go on from there also just across the lake about less than 4-miles across the lake from where we were in Montreux the French Swiss frontier was and there was a village right on the Swiss French Frontier and then several

other villages along the lake which is in the French part of Switzerland and then from across on the Swiss side you could see the Germans they came and completely virtually demolished burnt to the ground the three and a half French villages that were opposite Montreux on the opposite side. Just like looking across the water say from Perth across

the Canning Bridge away.

Sure was yes.

Well then when my wife and I went back to visit Switzerland and then we went and saw Mrs Roberts. Their name was Roberts and I’m still in touch with their two daughters who were little babies when I was there.

And Carol when we saw Mrs Roberts in England she was a widow then by then Carol said to her, “How on earth did you come to employ Ted as your cook Mrs Roberts at the college?” “Oh my dear,” she said, “We were absolutely”

God what’s the word

No.

Desperate. “Absolutely desperate.” And Carol said, “Well you really must’ve been.” Yes.

Not much. I can still cook porridge in the morning. I cook breakfast.

Cook porridge and two slices of bread to follow.

Anyway then I was there then until the eventually we heard that the Americans were coming across. They’d made the landings on the French coast.

Over the radio. Yes it was all

through the Swiss papers and everything. And anyway as a result of that when the Americans then got to the Swiss Frontier through France. They came up from the south of France from the Mediterranean they came across from North Africa. The other Americans and British came across the Channel from England to France and then across to the

Swiss and Germany boarders that way. And then as soon as they got to the Frontier at Geneva we within about a week we were told that we were going to be shipped out which we were. Excuse me. And then we.

Well it was all done through the Swiss authorities and

all organised by them through the officers at our Military officers who were in charge of each group of internees as well and that was all done. And then after.

Well we went then well we were quite close to Geneva. We were at

the opposite end of the lake to what Geneva is and we just had to catch a train that was coming from other parts of Switzerland that particular day with internees on. We had to get on it at Montreux and just go for an hours ride to Geneva and then go on

buses to the part of the Frontier where the Americans were waiting to take us onboard. And that’s where we got changed over.

Then we were put on the train that the Americans had brought up from

Marseilles. Or Marseilles as the French call it and took us 2-days because it was very slow trip because the railway line during the American progress up from the Mediterranean the line had all been bombed to deter the Germans getting away and that sort of thing. That all had to be repaired. It’d been repaired but not for

fast traffic. And it took us 2-days to go to Marseilles. And we were shipped across from there on a tank landing craft to Naples. Then from Naples after about a week in Naples where we were able to do a bit of sightseeing. That was all under the American and British control by then and

Well we

went the Americans took us to see the big volcano there Vesuvius and the other place where the volcano had flattened the town down 2,000-years ago. What’s the name.

Pompeii. That’s it.

Yeah that’s it Pompeii. It’s not easy to remember these names when you don’t hear them very much. Yes. But Pompeii was very very interesting.

Just all the ruins of what the volcano had done and how they’ve excavated it all out again and what the buildings looked like in those. All the basic lot a the walls

are still standing and streets and all that are still as they were 2,000-years ago.

Well 79AD it was bowled over. And then we were shipped then from Naples on a troop ship over back to the Middle East to Port Said

on a troop carrier. And then we had to get off there at Port Said travel down by truck to Suez on the Gulf of Suez there. Get on another what had been a passenger liner the Arantes [?] the old

passenger liner the Arantes.

British sailers was using that as a troop ship.

Just a few British blokes who were going to India and

us. Then when we got to Bombay then in northern India. We were taken off there then and had to wait a day or two for the next ship and it turned out to be the SS General Anderson an American troop ship and

we got on that and it set sail and it’s next port of call was Melbourne.

Very good.

There was a lot of Indian troops and Gurkhas [Regiment of Nepalese fighting under British Army]. And I think they were going they were probably going to be

shipped up making their way up to some of the Pacific Islands up in that area at the time.

A few of them yes. But one of the worst things that happened we. Just a few hours after we left the port the American speaker system came on the air and

the captain wanted to warn all people onboard including the crew that the ship was going through dangerous waters and under no circumstances

would it stop or slow down and if anybody went overboard fell overboard the ship would not stop to pick them up or help them. Anyway low and behold about 2-days later we’re heading south and these what did I say they were the

chaps that were.

The Gurkhas were doing their physical acrobatics on the stern of the ship this day and. Well it was their morning turned out to be their morning exercises compulsory morning drill stuff and anyway they were doing cartwheels and all sorts of things handsprings and

going like mad then all of a sudden we heard a shout come over the loudspeaker system. The Yanks had these loudspeaker systems on board, “Man overboard. Man overboard. Throw out the life raft. Throw out the life raft.” Anyway low and behold we all the ones of us that could made our way over to the side rails

near the stern of the boat. Looked back and there was a lot of froth and foam in the water at that stage but just to the side of it all we could see this bloke with is two hands up in the air waving his two hands then over the side went a life buoy just thrown over. The ship as they said didn’t reduce speed. Didn’t make a turn or anything. Just

kept sailing hell for leather straight on. And the last we saw this life buoy would’ve been half a kilometre away from the poor bloke. He would never. I doubt if he would’ve even got his way too it. But we’re 2-days out to sea and no land in sight and that was that.

And eventually we got to

Melbourne. But on the way.

Well we couldn’t believe it you know. We thought God the least they could’ve done was gone round in a big circle or something and done something kept up full speed and thrown out some ropes or a net and pulled him up like that but no. Just straight ahead.

I’ll say. I don’t know whether he could swim or not. Well he obviously could keep a float so must’ve been able to swim a bit. Anyway then the next thing we knew the Americans yelled out again over the speakers, “Now hear this now hear this. We’re within radio range of Western Australia and we will

we will broadcast for those who are interested the running of the Melbourne Cup the horse race in Melbourne.” And low and behold the next thing we knew the Melbourne Cup was being broadcast over the speakers.

No oh no. There was no betting. When we thought, “God we’re just about

home when we heard that after all these years.” And then.

It certainly was. Well and truly and then when we then we went down we were keeping a track of our movements a bit and we knew were heading South then all of a sudden we realised we were heading

east so that was interesting and we didn’t know if we were half way between Africa and Fremantle when the Melbourne Cup went or where we were but then we started going east and we thought must be heading for Fremantle now. And then the next thing we knew we were heading due North again and we were heading due North for 3 days and then all of a sudden

a man yelled out, “I can smell gum tree burning gum tree leaves.” And everybody said, “No no you’re imagining that.” “No, “he said “I know I haven’t forgotten what a gum leaf smells like when it burns. Anyway after about another hour another one or two blokes start, “He’s right he’s right. There is gum leaves burning.” Anyway

low and behold it was a when this happened we were still travelling two days North and all of a sudden we came to the entrance of Port Phillip Harbour and low and behold and in the Dandenong Ranges the Dandenong Ranges were on fire. There was big bushfires in the Dandenong’s and that’s what the gum leaves were and we could smell them

2-days out from Melbourne.

Tis amazing. So when soon as we smelt them then we knew. But we didn’t know where we were until we the Melbournites that were on board recognised the entrance into Melbourne Harbour and we’d been sailing 4 days due north to it so we were it was pretty cold where we’d gone down to too.

Would’ve been yeah.

Well that’s right.

Well the next thing really was that they went through a bit of paperwork with us and

then told us we’d be put on the train and heading for Perth. So

At a I can’t remember the name. It was a main military camp just on the outskirts of Melbourne. Can’t remember the name of that.

Can remember all sorts of places in Europe but not

in Melbourne.

Yes, the war was still on.

Well the Japs were still going and the let’s see. Yes the Germans were still going too yes.

Not really. I think one or two did but did end up in the Pacific but they volunteered to go. But not too many that I’m aware of did.

Yes yes.

Yes we had the choice. And then as a result of that I was what they called manpowered out then after a few weeks people could apply for discharge and if

they had employment to go to and I’d gone back to Kojonup and I’d been approached by the well it was called a Road Board then the Road Board Secretary which would now be the called the Town Clerk they were short of labour on the

roads board working on the roads and that and I was approached by him would I like to accept a job with them if they could obtain my discharge? And I said yes give it a go. And anyway they did and as a result I was what they call manpowered out and started working for the Road Board.

Driving a truck around.

They went back to their original employments too. Their bosses gave them their jobs back and so they were quite happy to get their jobs back and they were discharged too.

Mainly carting gravel to put on the roads and building new roads and that sort of thing. Driving a grader machine for a while and.

Well in a the

main thing was that I missed all my mates that I’d been with for so many years. I’d missed the mateship more than the anything else I think.

Yes. And there was so many of my friends that I’d gone to school with they were away up in the Island or

in Militia camps in Australia and all that. They weren’t around anymore. But gradually some of them started coming back and it felt more like old times again then.

It was yes. It was very. Very hard.

Yes.

Yes I did yes. Yes and when eventually the war was over and we knew we’d heard via relatives that they were on their way home again some of us made our way to the Perth Railway station to meet the train when she pulled in.

Let’s see. Yes they would’ve been oh yes well and truly.

They did. As it turned out they did yes.

Not as bad as we

thought it might’ve been.

I’d say. Well I had 12 months more freedom yes.

It was quite good yes it was quite good. Some people said to me, “You don’t look as if you were nearly dying of starvation” and this and that. And I said, “Well I might’ve been

died of starvation if I hadn’t got into Switzerland when I did,” and that sort of thing.

The hardest part?

Well it was really coping with the cold

up in the high mountains and also having a sick mate to cope with as well.

He got it in the rice paddy’s. I got it too. I told you about.

Didn’t I?

God. Yes oh well quite a few got malaria and because of all the mosquitoes and there was malaria types of anofolies mosquitoes there in the north of Italy all around the rice growing areas. It was noted for it.

Gee that was a shame to not tell you.

Anyway and I got it as well

and they actually physically put us in transferred us to a hospital in Verchelli where we got first class treatment for malaria. And I think some of it might’ve been to do with the fact that they didn’t want us to spread it around or to help spread it round anymore. But anyway

they really looked after us quite well and one of the all the nurses or not all of them but some of the nurses in this Verchelli hospital it was a military hospital they were nuns and when I went back there 18-years later to revisit the site the

places around Verchelli and I went to the hospital to see if any of the people that had been involved with me were there and low and behold and I still recognised her was an elderly nun lady. And when I told her who I was she burst into tears and said, “I remember you. I remember you.”

And anyway as a result of that she took me by the arm she beckoned me and she dragged me round through the four the hospital was in the shape of a cross and she dragged me round huge wards. She took me round each arm of the ward calling out at the top of her voice in Italiano

“This man here he was a prisoner of war.” He Prigioniero di Guerra qui and the name and the year and that and he’s come back to see me.” And they were all clapping and laughing and bravo they were going and all shouting out, “Bravo Inglise again” and all that. It was

real lovely to go.

It was and then I went I stayed overnight in the hotel in Verchelli and the man who owned the hotel he couldn’t speak English and anyway so I spoke to him in the little bit of pidgin Italian that I could

and he wanted to know how I understood this. How I could knew this and could see that say that. I said so many years ago I was Prigioniero di Guerra here. Sacramiento he’s throwing his arms up and he called out shouting out all the people in the hotel bar all gathered round and he’s

pointing at me this bloke he was a prigioniero here. And then when I walked along the street the next day people were pointing and , “Prigioniero di Guerra” and god it was absolutely funny. Very

Yes it was. Well funny in a way and very sort of not depressing but don’t know the word but.

Well made me feel very happy anyway.

Well then I was promoted to a job then as the Vermin Inspector which meant going around seeing that the

farmers were coping and destroying poisoning their rabbits. Keeping all the rabbits under control. They were a rest pest in those days and became an office job and then as a result of that I started doing some studying to become a Health Inspector and then

but before I became a health inspector the council said as well as you being the Vermin Inspector we want you to be a traffic inspector which will mean checking up on unlicensed vehicles that are being driven around and parking. People don’t park where they shouldn’t park in front of the shops and all that sort of thing. So I said, “Well if

it means staying on the job as a Vermin Inspector I’ll do it.” So anyway I did my various studies by correspondence by that and had to go to Perth for examinations and eventually got a certificate of being a Health Inspector and then from then on I gravitated up

into a Meat Inspector and then finally as a Building Inspector. I ended up with the Public Health Department in Perth as the one of the Public Building Inspectors. Going around buildings or checking plans for buildings that were going to be built in the various suburbs. We each three of us had our own areas

to keep under control and the plans had to be submitted for any public buildings which included halls churches hotels any places of entertainment. All that sort of thing to see that they had the proper means of exit. Exit signs

all in working order and proper locks on the exit locks on the doors so they could be opened from inside without the use of keys. Non flammable materials used in the walls and ceilings. All that’s correct fire appliances and all that sort of thing.

Yes.

and also then in the summer had to go and do checks on public swimming pools. My area of control was all the land south of Great Eastern Highway between Perth and Kalgoorlie down to Esperance and then back to Albany and across to Busselton and Margaret River. All that

area South of there where there was public swimming pools.

Sure was. Had to drive round in the summer to and

Had air conditioning in the car. In later years I did.

Well from about 19

bout 15-years.

Retire as?

Yeah from the Public Health Department.

Yes.

What made that? Where did you hear that?

You assumed that.

I did yes.

I did yes. Yes and they were a nice group of people to work with and some of them one or two of them were returned servicemen.

Well it was very restricting in a way because there was food rationing still going on. Petrol rationing was on. All sorts of things were rationing. You had to have coupons for which you had to have when we were in Switzerland. They were all on food rationing

too there. Coupons for this and coupons for that.

It was yes.

Well at it just came over the news. In the newspapers. Mainly on the radio to start with. Everybody was

listening to the news every night and seeing what was going on.

I was very pleased to hear it.

Not nothing very notable that I can think of. No

no I don’t recall any special celebration. It was mainly people were more interested in greeting people when they came home again.

No when groups came back we’d go and visit be with a crowd when they welcomed people back into the city.

That was very interesting indeed.

Yes there would be parades yes. Actually when we came back that reminds me now. When we came back we were paraded through the streets by the city council as

it was called Perth City Council. The Mayor put on this organised this parade and also put on a free lunch for us. Yes.

That’s right.

Gee. God it’d

probably be about 6-months I’d say.

Oh yes.

There were yes.

Yes I did.

In what way?

Got a house loan. Yes got a house loan.

Well we ended up getting the loan some years after the war we moved we went from Kojonup and lived in Busselton

for 10-years and then moved up to Perth. And oh well I was also the health. I didn’t put that in. After being in Kojonup for several years went to Busselton where Carol’s parents had gone to live and I transferred to Busselton and worked with the council there

on the same job as I was doing in Kojonup from 1952 to 1963 health inspecting and vermin inspecting and so forth and then went up to Perth.

I think there would be yes. Oh yes there would be yes. Well as far as I’m concerned there is.

Well I think you just got some part of your life in common with the other person and you like to compare notes a bit on.

Yes a bit yes.

No mix. Carol’s father he was a Prisoner of War with the Japanese yes.

Yes Returned Services League.

Mainly a bit of just being a bit of satisfaction of being a member and intermixing with other people who’ve been involved in the war and that sort of thing.

Yes.

Where?

At Lake Towerining.

Well that you’d better find out.

Have you ever heard of Moodiarrup?

Gosh, you better start living

in the bush.

It’s practically. You know where Arthur. Have you heard of Arthur River?

You couldn’t? You drove through it the other day.

Between Williams and Kojonup.

Where the road turns off to Wagin.

Did you see that?

Did you?

You got lost on the Albany Highway?

Oh dear.

Let me see. Have

to work this out. About 2-months I’d say.

Yeah.

No I wasn’t. But everywhere I went Carol seemed to be already there.

Just kept bumping into each other.

Yes.

Very important. Very important indeed.

Well there was so many of our soldiers paid the full price of it all with their lives and it did help to

prevent the Turks carrying out more skullduggery.

I go to the parades as a rule.

Yes I’ve marched in the past and I’m hoping to march in the future. I was in the other

local paper the other day.

Pardon?

Just marching and they just took photos and I happened to be in a line that was photographed.

Yes.

Just to recall pay respect

departed comrades as much as anything.

I march at the present time I march we don’t have many units here it’s like individual army units as such. I was marching with the RSL

group some years and now I march with the RAAF [Royal Australian Air Force]. I’m a social member of the RAAF unit because there’s so few of them I march in with them to sort of put an extra one in there.

Yes.

Yes I’d say not to be selfish for one thing and think of other people and treat other people as you prefer to be treated yourself. That sort of thing.

Well

I wouldn’t know how good I’d be if I hadn’t gone to the war. Or how bad I was before the war. I don’t think I was too bad.

I think it does yes. Yes it’s not a very nice way of

being able to do it but I think it does affect your conscience a bit.

It took me a long time to get to the top of that Monte Moro though didn’t it?

I mean

in talk.

You’ll get a lot more interesting ones than mine I think.