Australians at War Film Archive

That’s right, yeah.

It was very happy. It was very cold in the winter but I've got fond memories of it, very fond memories of it. Lots of fine friends. I wish I could go back. A wonderful place, Golden Point. I came from Golden Point

where Sovereign Hill is. That's where I went to school and we played around those mullock heaps, the residue of the old Landbearers’ Mine, which my grandfather at one stage was the manager of, that's a long time ago. It was a lovely city. I had a great friend; I always remember he used to say

“Ah it's a terrible place to live but it's the greatest place in the world to come back to.” He didn't come back. He was a POW [prisoner of war]. It's the way it goes, isn't it?

Well he,

he went into war. He was in an infantry battalion, he was at Villers-Bretonneux, I remember, but he reckoned France was a terrible place. He used to say to me sometimes, so he'd say when he met some of his friends and had a few drinks, he said “Sadly you're just at the right age, you'll just grow up in time, but keep out of it if you can, it's a dreadful place war.”

and I did to a certain extent. I never rushed in to join the militia or anything like that until the war came. But I firmly believed, with our circle of friends, that we had to fight Japan, I firmly believed that. Most of the chaps were a bit indifferent, they didn't think so, didn't take it seriously. I had a lot of arguments about that.

I belonged to the Mechanics Institute in Dyer, they had an extensive library, in particular they had a wonderful reading room where they had the foreign newspapers, the English language versions, and I've got a vivid, I can see it now, digging up that paper and the headline was, 'Japan must fight England'. That was long before Pearl Harbor

and that was firmly in, in my mind. So I said, “I'm not going over to fight in Europe.” as much as we were against youth, I think all the youth were against Hitler in those days. But I felt, I always believed that we had to keep some home for what I knew was coming. Sadly, I was right. It was a prophecy and I finished up there myself.

I didn't object to that. The 39th [Battalion] boys were mostly volunteers you know, mostly in the RAF [Royal Air Force] in the end. I joined the RAF I think the day after Pearl Harbor. I was still, although I was in the army then on full time duty with the 39th Battalion, we were in existence then, we were in training then, in an infantry training brigade.

They were very difficult. We didn't have a Jack Lang [premier of New South Wales] to put a, no,

whatever it was he did, it was naughty anyway, wasn't it? He wouldn't pay the banks the same, we heard of all those rumours. But it was difficult alright, it was almost impossible although a kid could get a job, I was never out of work. ‘Cause kids could get a job, you’d do a man, a man’s work for very little pay, so a lot of people had a very good time, business wise, but it didn't make them any happy.

I had ideas of education. I was going to night college too, I won a scholarship to go there. We couldn't keep it up. One day we had money, next day I was pickin’ peas. I didn't like that much either, I wasn't very good at it. But…

I was working this, I was only a kid, a gang of fellows pickin’ peas, you know I was that slow and hopeless they made me the cook and they all kicked a bit extra to kick in my pay and I had a ... my greatest success was I copied a, a recipe on the side of a packet of flour, how to make scones. When I

got them made I didn't know what to do with them, ‘cause all we had was a sheet of tin over a ... so I fried them in butter, then I rolled them in sugar and poked my finger in them, made a hole and filled it up with raspberry jam. That was a great success. I made them every night for a month, but it was all a bit of fun. But it wasn't, it wasn’t a nice way

to live. People were getting emptied out of their house, poor beggars and they weren't getting as much for houses as their deposit, you see there was nothing to save them. There was a banks’, there was a great idea in New South Wales, when the banks suspended the program that protected their balance sheets.

Oh very loyal to the Empire, it was all Rule Britannia. In fact it amazed me that I knew so little about the Eureka Stockade and I was practically living in the, in the area where it happened. I knew very little about the miners or why they had the insurrection. It wasn't, I belonged to a Presbyterian family that were

pretty strict on the church bit. We were always there you know three times on Sunday, it was a bit heavy but we grew out of it. But it wasn't good to mention the Eureka Stockade ‘cause those men were rebels. They were a big [UNCLEAR] It wasn't until I encountered a schoolmaster called, the writings of a schoolmaster, called Nathan S Speilbagel[?], he was headmaster of

primary school, I think it was Daner Street. And this was his hobby, used to be in the Eureka Stockade, but I was never encouraged to read that, they discouraged it if anything but I read it and there were some other things we found out about our own history. And the same sort of men that business that were on the Kokoda Track, believe me. The difference between

Rule Britannia and the Kokoda Track it was, it was tribal. It was our joint and we loved it and they were going to take it off us, so we said, “You’re not going to get it.” and they didn't. But it was a bit close.

Oh we were all pretty proud, especially if your old man was in the returned soldiers and all that, like mine was.

I had a relation that was, took the first submarine through the Dardanelles, Captain Charles Stan Sim. He got the George Cross, that's part of our family legend. He was quite a boy because he also took the, his sub, into a, an occupied

port in the channel in France and they dropped to the bottom, it was the only way he could escape. They just sat in the bottom and played bridge while the Germans hunted for them and never found them, fortunately. So they lived to tell the tale.

Well I was a very orthodox kind of bloke ‘cause I came from very orthodox kind of family and I was Scotch Presbyterian family. And I was very interested in Jesus, I'll say bluntly. And very sold on the principles of Christianity, I still am, but I don't like the practitioners of it. In fact at one stage it was suggested

the ministry was for me. And in fact I had a very good proposition from the moderator and the secretary of the Presbyterian Church to, after winning some com... public speaking competitions. I had a scholarship which would, but having thought it over I decided not for me because I’d already seen the light in the bottom of the valley, if I can paraphrase a famous statement,

and I was rather interested in exploring it. So in other words, I was a bit of a wild bugger. But I had plenty of mates, plenty of mates. That's the, that's when I became a bit left wing, I suppose I still am, always will be, especially when I see some of the things that go on in the world today, too idealistic really.

I worked in a garage for a while, just as a boy you know. And I spent most of me time in a menswear shop. They were very happy days there because they were a great crew to work with.

The boss was president of the football team, his partner was one of the best cricketers in Ballarat and I loved cricket, I was completely besotted with it. Not much good but… I became secretary of the club, the district club, very proud of that. I had a very happy life, football and all that stuff. But I was never any good at football. I had polio and that rather

stopped my gallop.

Well I never thought, I don't think it ever had the, you know they, well we didn't hold the horses all the time. It was more egalitarian than that and we're rather proud of our egalit... the fact that we were so democratic. The unions were strong

and active. This was proven when the war came. See [Prime Minister] Robert Menzies was a consummate politician; he always could drag a rabbit out of the hat, when it came to an election, or find ten bob [shillings] to pat the hip pocket nerve. But he couldn't handle the public; they wouldn't go with him, that's why there was a national government

that was formed, they took Australia to war because they were all in together. Everybody, everyone that could work, did work. They didn't have to chase them much.

I think, as I recall, it was a Sunday night… that's right, I was at my sister’s and we sat up late to watch, my brother in law and myself and a couple of our friends, sat up late talking and I was late into work… ‘cause we'd had a

heavy night. And the boss said something and I said, “Oh, things have changed now.” Not really meaning it, but… I remember that very well. I think we were watching the Lux Theatre or one of those things, or listening rather, you didn't watch in those days, did you? We were listening to the Deluxe Theatre or some such thing.

‘Fellow Australians…’ and we were at war, but it’d been coming for a long time you know. It was obvious it was coming. And as I was, as I pointed out, I went to that library and read those English language foreign newspapers, especially from Tokyo and it was obvious to me that they wanted our joint, it was obvious why, too. But,

that became a real, it was like footy wasn't it? You were going to go and beat our mob, it was our patch and we were keeping it and we did. Well [Prime Minister John] Curtin was after taken along that path with he and [UNCLEAR]

Well I think Bob summed it up in his own phrase, ‘he was British to the boot straps’, and he was you know… very, very British. See, people that I, I was involved with at Church and Sunday school; always spoke about the old country. My Grandmother was Scotch, came of

Scotch parents and the old country was much spoken about with love and affection. Always going to go back one day, although they were happy enough where they were but that, oh we were British and we were proud of it, very much so. We were all happy to trot off and fight for Australia, although I was a radical and didn't want to go overseas.

I joined the AIF...

Because I didn't want to go overseas. Oh I did have a go at the air force, I missed out on that. I had a bit of trouble actually. I couldn't get in the AIF in the early stages, I told you I had polio, and it left me with one leg shorter than the other and for instance

playing football, I could only turn one way, but I got over the Owen Stanleys [ranges], they started to use their blind eye telescope when the Japs came into the war, after Pearl Harbor. And I was A2 [health classification] and, so I got in and trotted over the Owen Stanleys. Sometimes I was sorry, but now I'm proud. It was a lovely place to live, we had

long summers but longer winters. And I remember riding out on my bike to school, hands would be frozen, we used to wear gloves, at a beautiful autumn, autumn was wonderful. It’s a very colourful city. I remember when I joined the 2/2nd Battalion…

I marched in, I'd been away at a school… and it broke my heart, I didn't know the battalion had been broken up because [commander] Ralph Honner said to the adjutant, as the acting senior officer I knew everything, and he said, “Oh Keith, the rumours aren't right, they would never break up this battalion.” and I mean it's like a record, but he was wrong, they

did. And I marched in and reported and the adjutant says, “Where do you come from, Ballarat?” he said, "Now what is it about you Ballarat people, you sound like a special clan, every time I meet someone from Ballarat, they stand up and look up, put their head up in the air and say Ballarat.” Well I said, “I don't know Sir.” I said, “I s’pose it's, well

the atmosphere of the place, that's what they're like.” and that's where Eureka was you know. That's just incidentally a story, sorry if I'm boring you...

In 1940, early 1940.

Well we were going to be, I went onto full time duty, I joined the militia, well I was beating the gun I s’pose. We knew that conscription was coming in… and I thought it would be a good idea to be in there, and it wasn't a bad idea anyway. You were able to choose your own unit. I went into the Ballarat Regiment of the 8th Battalion.

Then I went on full time duty, then the opportunity came to be in the 39th so I volunteered for that, not a lot of other blokes did. I thought if I was going to defend Australia the best place from Japan, would be in New Guinea, rather than on our own patch.

To garrison

Port Moresby. They were to become the garrison battalion in Port Moresby. The 49th were already there and they had to be relieved, they never were, we went up and joined them.

We were to garrison Port Moresby, we were the garrison battalion. I suppose what does one do to protect it,

shall we say.

Oh by the time we got there, before we left even, Japan were in the war so after that it was, and of course Singapore fell, and we had a pretty good idea that we'd then be involved in something more than just marching up and down, which we were,

but you see… there was a thought abroad, in Port Moresby, that they were invulnerable, that no one could get over the mountains, to get at them they'd have to come in from the Coral Sea. Well we proved that wrongly and we marched over the verge to meet them, well some of us did. But that's what they really thought.

there wasn't much there to stop them

I don't think they were. I think I was in rather a, I was a bit of a rebel and I was expected to have opposite thoughts, opposite

to authority. I was but I was really a minority there. They didn't believe they'd ever attack us, you know we were invulnerable. They'd send a couple of warships and they'd all run back home. But the, it was a funny atmosphere those early days of the war. We…

sort of accepted the spirit of not much responsibility, we [UNCLEAR] Comfort Funds and all the Red Cross and all that stuff, it seemed to be a long way away. And gradually we got absorbed in it, then when we came back from Port Moresby for a short rest,

after the trial. We walked, we walked into, Australian into blackouts were stricter, much stricter than they were in Port Moresby, where things just worked around the clock, they had to. And here we were in Ballarat for instance, a very strict blackout, strict rationing, they, they knew about the war

Then… They knew about the war then.

Oh of course...

Well it didn't bother me very much. We didn't like being called ‘Choccos’, especially those that sort of volunteered

to go to the island and defend Australia, but it was inevitable. I think we proved ourselves.

Chocolate soldiers, we weren't fair dinkum soldiers. We hadn't volunteered to go

overseas, we were only there because, there were some blokes that liked the militia men, the ones that we didn't have any respect for, were the blokes that were so busy being in the militia, yet didn't volunteer for the AIF. See most of our fellows joined the AIF, I did. I think if I remember rightly I joined the AIF

the same week that they bombed Pearl Harbor. And our numbers have actually reverted to the AIF and then we joined AR... we joined an AIF battalion, the 2/2nd, and another AIF battalion when we got split up. But it wasn't a complimentary term, the term ‘chocolate soldiers’.

We were like conscripts in a way, because then became the guys on full time duty, the call up chaps.

Early in the new year of '41, '42 rather. Early in '42, just after Christmas. We, we left our camp at Darley on Boxing Day, in ’40, '41, arrived in, we, just after Singapore fell, '42.

We went on the, the Aquitania in Sydney Harbour; we went by rail to Sydney from Darley, Bacchus Marsh. There was a great hullabaloo, we had a great hullabaloo that night, there was some fellows there, they were 53rd Battalion,

and they'd been dragged in from their homes in... you see they didn't get enough volunteers, had to fill up the ranks. I remember that our, we had about thirty chaps in our platoon, we wanted thirty even though we had about twenty, twenty odd and we wanted thirty odd. And in arrived these, well we

didn't call them ‘choccos’, they were called up, I don't think they were asked if they wanted to go, they were just sent. The old idea of three volunteers, you, you and you. And they couldn't, they didn't know what end of the rifle or the gun that a bullet came out. In our platoon we were rather proud of ourselves, we were number one. We got these mugs that didn't know how to stand to attention. There was an antipathy there right within

our own platoon, that soon vanished. And they were wonderful kids, they were only babies. Nineteen’d be the oldest, some of them were even only sixteen and I was a real old bloke, twenty four! I pulled a trick that the old sergeant that was in charge of us, was a First World War veteran, and I remember on Christmas night

we all sat out in the... it had been a beautiful day and he yarned to us and he taught me a lesson that I used later on at Gona and other places, when I was in charge. You'd talk to a gang of fellows like, especially Australians you could talk football, cricket, races; you would always find an audience and somebody to have a yak with. ‘I come from Sydney, I come from Melbourne’, there was

one subject you got the lot every time and that was sex. You started talking about sheilas and there they were. Well I bet that they came, and it worked, this would take the kids, when the kids were going into battle tomorrow at dawn you had to think of something to talk about, talk about and we sat down then and I, I'd read that Decameron and I remembered

this, some of stories and thousands, of course I recast them, made the scenario a bit different, I was always the hero and the famous story was the Nightingale… oh the boys loved that one. We had a couple of boys there that always used to go and sit away from us and as the tales went on they'd come in closer. One became a big shot in the Salvation Army, a wonderful man. They'd sneak in a bit closer as they

got interested and that way it'd take their minds off things and you needed to you know, you didn't need to dwell on what was coming. I remember the night before the Gona Battle, the last Gona West Battle, I was detailing the duties, I was the acting signal officer and a boy called Kevin Sullivan, he had played as a junior

for Collingwood and a likely footballer, and I told him what you had to do, I said, “Now don't forget, make sure your safety pin’s alright.” Now the [UNCLEAR] is the trick, having a little short piece of copper wire and we'd solder a safety pin on the end of it, when you'd go out wandering about the jungle, when they'd cut the line it was always a risk because they'd ambush you there you see

and there were no beg your pardons. We had this little safety pin instead of having to scrape the insulation off the wire, you'd pin this safety pin so it would make contact with the copper wire inside. And I was telling him all about this, and I said to Sully, “Now son you've got to stay at Bitsuv's [?] side, right alongside him, you don't stop unless he stops,

when he goes to ground, you go to ground and get right through the battalion headquarters at once.” I was telling him all this…

I get a bit emotional.

Well that they were little fellas who weren't good fighters and if you said, “boo.” they'd bugger off! Pardon the expression. But that was a, fairly well accepted that one Australian was as good as three of them, so we got a hell of a shock, didn't we? When

these big cows came marching along from Buna toward Kokoda and we saw them. I remember once, Jack Knowle[?] had a prisoner, there weren't many prisoners, weren't many prisoners at all, and this chap spoke beautiful English, he said he'd lived and worked in Sydney for three

years. He was in the wool business. And he, he was very unhappy, he was an officer and he said, he said to Mo, that's what we called, that was Jack Knowles nickname, “Just leave your gun there, I can't go back home, I can't go back home and leave my men all behind.” This is at the end in

[UNCLEAR] near Gona. He said, “We made a big mistake.” He said, “We were told the Australians wouldn't fight.” He said, “I believed that.” he said, “I lived there, oh.” he said, “I mixed with the people, drank with them, so I didn't think they were interested in fighting, I didn't think they cared about England.” He said, “What a mistake we made.”

He got killed trying to escape. We handed him over to the Yankee invasion and MPs, the next signal we got that he was killed trying to escape. So he got his way but not from us.

Not very well. We didn't have much training in, for instance

we never had any modern weapons. We had Lewis guns on the Kokoda Track that had been used in the First World War. We never had any Bren guns till late in the stage, we never had them all in the second part of it. We had no artillery support. We didn't have air support.

It wasn't until we got that that the tide turned, when we got the air support they could come and go as they pleased. They used to bring reinforcements in at night at Tadbruna[?], that's when the tide... we were fit, I felt we were fit. See the training men, at the train... infantry training brigade, at Darley, were training our F troops. They

trained the 8th Division, the 7th Division, the 6th Division. They were tough old blokes, roosters. And we got plenty of work, we'd play football and cricket and especially football, but we were pretty fit, I thought. I thought we were pretty fit anyway.

Nothing.

Nothing. The vague stories we heard about it was that it was impassable.

This was the general attitude at Murray Barracks, that's where headquarters were, that it was impassable. They couldn't attack us. Of course when they did move, well our battalion was chosen to lead the vanguard to rush over and meet them and stop them of course, which we couldn't do. There were not enough of us. So we found, we, we had khaki,

khaki shorts, steel helmets, gas masks, we were in the jungle, that's how well prepared we were, ridiculous! Though these soldiers came with jungle greens, camouflage uniform, all the modern stuff, we got green uniforms by making a dye out of vegetation, boiling it up and, and ducking it in of course and letting them dry, it’s as close

as we got to jungle greens. We soon learnt.

Oh it was murderous, it was that hard. You see that was our worst enemy, the terrain. It rained everyday, we were always wet. We

couldn't get enough tucker [food]. Poor old boongs [indigenous peoples] did their best. They got belted, really belted severely if they succumbed to the temptation and nicked a tin of bully [beef]. We never had enough; we had to make do on short rations but that climbing and the mud…

unbelievable. It was unbelievable, the mud and the climbing, so steep. You never marched, that was impossible, you climbed. And going down was worse than coming up sometimes. See the track was just that, a track. But it had been there for years, been made by the natives.

It wandered along the ridges. The ridges between the valleys, went around trees, up cliffs, over streams, by makeshift bridges and it was cold at night. It was so cold at night and boiling hot in the day time. I sat through, interviewed a psychiatrist

later on, when I came out in a general sort of medical, and he said to me, “Now just say, when I ask you this next question, just say the first thing that comes to your mind.” I said, “It was cold.” that was the first thing that came to me, it was so cold. Always hated the cold.

I suppose I could have said mozzies too [mosquitoes], got malaria like they all did. Gee I was lucky to be alive. First time I got malaria, I got taken into hospital at Murray Barracks, that was the permanent barracks of the army in Port Moresby. And I was put in the hospital section, of all the places to have the hospital, straight across the road from the qck ack [anti aircraft]

gun. Well over came the Japs on their regular, they'd started regular bombing. We used to get a show, strafing raid in the morning for breakfast and a bombing in the evening, especially if it was moonlight. And I was there and I, I only vaguely remember it and they all rushed in and evacuated. Had to get

us out of just these simple huts with a big red cross bunged on the roof and a chap picked me up, ‘cause I was gone, and I remember waking up in a slit trench, wrapped up in a blanket, right alongside the hut that we were in and the hut was gone. One end of it was still there,

not the end I would have been, the end I always start came out of was gone. And the light, I saw it a bit and I thought, ‘Oh, I was in there.’ And back in Sydney, I was working in Sydney, I used to work Saturday morning, my boss and I used to go for a drink in a hotel next door to Farmers [department] store, and a chap came up and

shook me by the hand and said, “How ya going?” He said, “Do you remember me?” and I said, “I've got some vague recollection.” and he said, “I picked you up at the hospital.” he said, “In Murray Barracks and stuck ya in the ground and then picked ya up afterwards and put you back.” He said and that, “You got a direct hit there.” so that's how lucky you can be. And mosquitoes put me in there, I'd had that damn malaria, got a lot of it,

but I've survived.

Well my first encounter with the Japanese was at Isurava, an encounter I’ll say, though we also encountered them at Doneki. There was a lot of shot and shell, well not much shell, plenty of shot.

I never actually confronted a Jap like I'm talking to you now. In other words we weren't introduced but I fired at plenty, I don't know if I hit any, and they fired plenty at us and they didn't get me, they went pretty close. But they used to scream out… and they had these

tricks. One of my boys got shot fair between the eyes right alongside me. It was a perfect shot… buggers. They were good soldiers. They were mad. They used to attack us by screaming out, you know in a war cry

caper and they learnt our, they learnt the names of our officers and NCOs [non commissioned officers]. We soon woke up to that trick. We took all badges of rank off, everybody called everyone like Jack and Bill and, no captain or lieutenant or anything, we dropped all that. They were that, they used to get that close to us they could identify us you see and they always went to

this, the marksmen went to the men of rank see. They were strange people. We had a soldier, probably the best soldier in the battalion, and that's saying a lot, really lot. I can't remember his name, the best soldier in the battalion and I can't remember his name, the sergeant major…

and he'd served in Spain, he was a socialist, a real socialist, a dedicated socialist with a lot experience. He'd been commissioned in the First, in the field in the First World War but the second, the second time he was, papers were marked ‘never to be commissioned’, be probably his politics. I can't think, you couldn't take any of this, couldn't trust any people could you

when a thing like that was on. Well I was there one day, Jack Bowlen and his platoon were marching along and there they were hiding amongst the roots of these big trees… anyway

they come up with this gun and had to get rid of the gun so this sergeant major shot the first one, up jumped another one, got up behind the gun, so he shot him and up jumped a third one and got up behind the gun. They did funny things like that, they didn't have any initiative. I was probably wrong but that's what we saw. They'd do these sort of things, they'd keep on coming, keep on coming,

‘cause there were plenty of them. You'd do that in Australia and they'd find a way around it.

Oh fear, we all had fear. To me, it might be a vulgar thing to say, but we also had dysentery and one was synonymous with the other. I think we were always a bit frightened, you were frightened, you had to be frightened.

Some prayed, some swore… with fear but you couldn't show it in front of your mates, could ya? You couldn't show it. Well I guess Kevin said to me, “God you get killed doing silly things like that Simmy.”

But it put a twist to things. Colonel Honner played football, played Aussie Rules football when he was studying at the university in Perth, we used to talk at night sometimes. He was a strange man. He was a Classics scholar. You see that great address he gave at Isurava, after Isurava, at Menari that was straight out of Henry V, Saint

Crispin’s Day, if you remember your Shakespeare and we were his minuets in Crispin’s… highly choreographed, he was a great soldier. I said to him when

we were protecting the Track, watching the back, this was after we’d come, come back from Isurava, there was a skirmish… I think I said to him, “We've got nothing to worry about Sir, we've

got a lot of Aussie Rules footballers out there.” He laughed and admitted he'd played with Claremont in the West Australian league when he was a student and I knew that, I said that because I knew it’d please him too. But that's the way they were, it was a like a game to them, the stakes were high. They were so young, they were so young.

I remember talking about them when I was telling them the story about the Nightingale that they loved. Two of the kids said to one another, I heard them say, “I know that old bugger’s been around.” haven’t they? I was twenty four, just turned. They always find a laugh and they kept going. It's surprising what men will do.

I loved them. I loved them all.

How could you help but, babies, babies… Leavening of old buggers like me in our twenties. Shouldn't ever have to send men into war, boys like that… should you?

And the world goes on and they still keep doing it. Other way, others suffer for the ambitions of a few, I'm still a socialist. Jesus come back and they can follow what he taught and be a better place. We wouldn't have

wars but how do you get rid of them? You've got to protect your own patch, haven't you? You've got to protect your own little spot.

Well they were coming here, there's no doubt about that. They'd pockets full of Australian money, they were being paid with this money guaranteed by one Australian pound, guaranteed with the Japanese money, by the Japanese Government. They had that in their pockets, in their wallets. That was their pay to spend when they landed in

Australia. Oh it was real, it wasn't any joke. It was very real. And they nearly got here, we stopped them in Milne Bay, we stopped them on the Kokoda Track and we stopped them in the Battle of the Coral Sea and that cost us plenty and that became

a war of attrition then. We wore them down. In the end, they had the problem on the Kokoda Track that we had from the start, supplies. We, we never had blankets, we'd had half a blanket when we'd started off but soon got thrown away. We carried, never had many rations. We filled our pouches up with ammo as if you had to have ammo, so we took all we could manage and my God it took

some carrying, and ourselves. But no, it was no joke, they were coming. There was nothing at Isurava, there was nothing between us and Moresby. If we'd have buckled there, but we held on long enough and the important thing was…

Yes.

It was a retreat, it was a

strategic withdrawal or whatever you call it, the semantics. We attacked backwards, call it what you like, but it won the battle for us in the end because the line of communications, the mountains beat you, getting there and staying there, you know can you imagine all those wounding men getting back? They crawled. If

you could walk, you'd have to stick one on your back, they'd pick out a little one that they thought you could carry. See blokes had dysentery so bad, well one of my particular boys, they stood him up, put a little fellow, that's what he said he was a little jockey, just as well he wasn't a steeplechaser I’d a... they had to carry him because he couldn't walk, he'd been shot

and those boongs, God bless 'em, ‘Fuzzy Wuzzy Angels’ that's what they were. They were strangely gentle, they had that touch. We had one bloke, we had to carry one, and I had seven men including myself which was bad because you couldn't carry them with less than eight, you couldn't carry them very far, it took four for a

stretcher. So when you are unbalanced with seven, you had four and then your relief was three, so I had bailed up one of these fellows that was running away, stuck him on the end of the stretcher. He says, “I gotta get back, we've got orders.” I said, “You've got orders right here mate, you're stopping here with us.” He belonged to

one of the battalions, the battalion that broke and then what happened? He took it, then I took over and relieved him and when we come to turn over again he was gone and so was me rifle, that didn't make ya too happy. That's the only way you could advance and they'd got caught in that situation evacuating the sick and wounded, getting tucker up and…

then they were scarecrows in the end like we were. Those blokes at Gona, whole lot of them were half starved. They resorted to eating their own flesh, I think in lot of cases, but they certainly ate some of our flesh, the choicest cuts, not very

nice but it's true. Nothing nice about war is there? Maybe the band and the flag waving, they would have been it.

Wouldn't like to put a figure on it. I think it was contagious. The night before the Isurava battle

the adjutant said to me, “You want to go down there and get that mob down there, do you know where to take them?.” I said yes. So the colonel says bring them up and get them in position cause things were desperate, very desperate. So I went down, we were at... I'll explain it to you, we were deep in a gully with a higher [UNCLEAR] alongside us

and the shot was going on or flying over the top, so I went to the captain who was in charge of these guys, the colonel had been shot on the first day of the action and so was ours, and I told him who I was etcetera, etcetera, “So I've got to move you up into position now Sir or it'll be nightfall then and we can't move a yard.” course he gets up in position, he says, “Up there, we're not going up there!”

and they were hugging the ground, I can tell you. I said, “But you've got to Sir, we can't see the night out if you don't go up.” and he said, “Oh.” so I waited a while and argued with him and then I said, “Look.” I said, “You, just the same as if you're walking down Pitt Street down here, nothing can get at ya, you're in dead ground.” He wouldn't move, though the men

wouldn't move anyway, they weren’t gonna move. So I went back and Lovett said, “Where are they Sim?” I said, “They won't move Sir, they won't move.” and he’s clipped and laconic manner and one of them said, “We'd better go and feed them.” so away they went. And I stayed where I was in the battalion headquarters,

at the phone base, and they came back, I saw a chance and said, “What happened Keith?” he said, “He sent, told them to go bloody home.” he said, “We'll be better off without them.” And I saw them two days later and they were carrying the rations, with native guards, but we got a couple of hundred of those but, so I think the whole battalion were

more or less evacuated. They didn't evacuate, they just panicked and went, they chucked their guns away. As we toured along we'd pick up rifles, take the bolts out of them and throw ‘em down into the rivers but that's what happened to those poor beggars. Some of them came to us as reinforcements and they were as good as anybody. I

knew a lot of them, though years in Sydney, they mostly came from Sydney and that was the crux of the… addressed by Honner at Menari...

… but they were just the same as us, given similar circumstances and they were, they were just like our boys.

They all entered into the battalion well when they reinforced us for the second part of the show. But oh it was dreadful on the track. I don't know how we did it. It was so tough. Marvellous what man can stand when he's got to, when he's got a purpose driving him.

That’s alright.

…like Errol Flynn, you don’t look like him though.

Oh yeah.

Yeah.

Well I thought we, well I personally always felt physically fitter than I had for

years. Those old training sergeants and men, they're veterans of the First World War, see we never had the weaponry, we didn't have Thompson sub machine guns, we didn't have Bren guns, we had Lewis guns from the relics from the First World War. Every rifle we had had been in service in the First World War, that's all that was available to us.

And what we had, we knew how to use, and as I said we were fit, we could march for a long time and over long distances, we proved that. And on that track I often thought, ‘Well just as well those old cows gave us it as hard as they did or we would never have had stood up to it.’ But it was all done in a great hurry, a very great hurry.

We weren’t in a very good condition at all, we were very hungry… I think I'll tell the story,

if I may, a quote more or less, not verbatim but as I recollect it. In a book written by the medical officer in the 2/16th Battalion who belonged to the 21st Brigade, they came and joined us you know and they got as tough a time as we had, the 2/14th, after the 2/16th this doctor, and he said, in his opinion nothing brave

had ever been done or seen” and I was telling you the story of the 53rd Battalion wouldn't come up when we wanted them to, at Isurava the night before the battle… it was at that stage that a couple of platoons come in that had been on patrol and they'd got, how should we say, mislaid.

And they were, they'd had it. And we had orders from the brigadier, the 39th to be taken out of battle at any cost, he said, “Those men can't take anymore.” Well he was wrong, we took more, we took it at Isurava but there was looked on very desperate for that night. Colonel [UNCLEAR] Colonel Honner knew. So the colonel

of the 2/16th, to plug a hole he suggested that these men that had just come in, been out for ten days in the bush and to a man they said, "We'll be in it, see the night out.” and those just said, medical officers said, “Some walked, some ran, some crawled.” It was unbelievable

to see these men, most of them didn't have boots but back they went for more, to stand up for more and as one bloke in the second scene said, he said, “They told me these buggers’d be choccos but whatever they are, they can bite.”

I think that sums them up, they were they as, they bound a little more. I saw some champs at the Olympic Games I suppose, that's what makes champs, they were all champs. You gotta be proud of being an Aussie. Yes it was very tough…

very proud of being part of it.

Well…

they took us to a camp by the river, just told us to take off our clothes and have a swim, gave us a cake of soap and a towel, and we just took all our clothes off and fell in a heap and they put some kero [kerosene] on them and burnt them, and in the river we went and it was beautiful. Had a bit of a dip and a soap up and they gave us our mail and we were all violently

ill because we ate all the Christmas cakes, put cream out of tins on 'em, but oh we were sick boys and we had a good night’s sleep and a hot meal. We could hardly just stagger in to camp and that's all. Then they put us in a convalescent bivouac and we just stayed there and done

nothing for a week except play cards and that sort of thing, had a picture show. No one had much strength left, all been spent.

I think we took in some

twelve hundred all up, with some reinforcements, and the first parade we had when we came back, I think the count was twenty nine. It was worse at Gona when we had a battalion parade, this was a fetish of the colonel’s I think, a compliment to us, I thought, I thought, ‘That's the silliest thing I'd ever heard of,

having a battalion parade when we haven't got a company of men.’ but we did. I stood out in front of headquarter company with one boy. C Company had to, one too, a batman and that... but all up we added up to twenty five. Oh they weren't all dead you know, malaria got everybody I think and dysentery,

dysentery was bad

Oh they looked like gods from the heavens. It was so good to see them. They were fit, they'd been in training in Queensland, they'd come from the Middle East, they were brown and

they had a spring in their step and they were going to show those little yellow bastards. We got ‘em in, they went up the hill at Isurava, “We'll clear the ridge.” they said. I don't know if the, what appears comes staggering back as a double fingers, double figures, it wouldn't have been many more, that one company that went up and it went in with bayonet.

They knew it was on then, they knew what it was all about, ‘cause they thought they'd show us how, oh boy but weren't we glad to see them, weren't we glad to see them. I guess I knew what that expression 'brothers in arms' meant then. It was wonderful to see them.

Very important too because we would, couldn't survive without them. From that day on they took over the running of the war, the 16th Brigade came up from 6th Div [division], they were great soldiers and we went back in for the coup de grace at Gona and Sanananda. Everyone done their part

and I've never been so pleased in my life when I saw them coming in, saw them coming in that evening just in time and it was just in time.

Well it is hard to imagine, it's hard to put into words. You couldn't let the side down. I don't know whether the, the wars of Britain were won on the playing fields of Eton or what it was, but you couldn't let, you couldn't, couldn’t let ya, you were frightened of course, you were frightened all the time but you couldn't let anyone see it. Had

a joke and… make up little jokes about, just drive in a young steer and we'll cut the hooves off and the horns and that'll do but we were, we were hungry, we'd sit there and fantasise about meals.

Well I know I've described a minestrone soup, I don't even know the vaguest idea what it was. I was corrected by a gourmet later. I had envisaged it as a dish to end all dishes, had everything in it, it was a meal you know, a three course meal in one plate, in the one soup plate.

I learnt later that it was a clear soup, Italian clear soup, but that was years later.

It was a rattle…

a rattle and a crackle but you knew it was deadly, then you'd get the mountain gun that they had at Isurava, which we never had. If it was unlucky enough to get you, that was it. So they'd pulled up this mountain gun, that was the nearest thing

and later we had artillery twenty five pounders on the track itself which made a big difference to us but there never seemed to be a shortage of ammunition.

Well the only word I can see to describe it is eerie.

It was never silent, the jungle, it seemed to be silent but there was always a murmur, murmurs of crickets or birds making little noise here or there, but eerie. They were waiting for it to burst of thunder.

Wasn't hard to understand blokes turn it up and going through, although very few of them did. It got very tense and the silence seemed to accentuate the tenseness of it. Silence sometimes can be very threatening, you don't know what's going to come out of it or when

or, or from whence. In that silence I think a lot of blokes prayed that hadn't prayed for year, for years. Something to relieve the fear and that fear was ever present. Nobody went to that war, or any other I suppose, that didn't get wounded mentally if not physically.

It wasn't possible. I've got dreadful recollections, I would lay there so afraid sometimes and in the end nature gave you the variety, you slept. You got that tired you could sleep anywhere. You'd get dropped down to

the end of that day’s march, put your head on your boots, you'd take ‘em off if you weren't in direct contact with the enemy, use them for a pillow and sleep. Sleep became so precious… and we all dreamt of being at home and when we'd be home and talked about home, when we talked about

anything. We all wished to be there and I'm there and I've been lucky. There was a lot of lucky ones, some of them lucky enough to be still alive, they'll never forget it. It's terrible to be afraid…

you had the brave ones that were afraid and still keep going. That's what they did you know, scared bloody stiff and still kept going. And I say guess it's a ‘you or me’ caper. Oh they were splendid men, splendid boys…

Children… just children. No wonder mothers are against war, who’d rear children to send them into that? Man's inhumanity…

When we were in Darley, Colonel Conlon was the first colonel of the battalion, First World War digger [soldier], he had a battalion parade and here were these men, that I was telling you came from so many, a few from each

militia unit in Victoria and border. And they were all wearing their own colour patches, their identification from the unit they came from, the Royal Scottish, the 5th and the 6th from Melbourne, the 7th from Mildura, the 8th from Ballarat, all this and colonel, I remember Colonel Conlon, he was an impressive

man, said “Your colour patches have gotta come down, so I know you are all proud of your unit but now that's gotta end, you are now the 39th.” and he said, “I want it to be the best.” That was a prophecy that came through. He didn't realise, I don't think then, sure he couldn't have

realised what a part of history he was in, Colonel Conlon, they were all First World Diggers all the early officers. Later we got a leavening of fresh young officers who'd been in the Middle East and was well we did because their physical fitness and their enthusiasm put an edge onto our perseverance and ability but they were

making history that day, I can see it now. Well as I was standing there, didn't like the idea of taking our colour patches down, it was happened again when we were broken up and sent off to the various AIF units up on the tablelands, the Atherton Tablelands at Bandera. A very sad moment when they broke up

the 39th. They can't break it up now, be dead forever.

Well they're stubborn beggars you know.

They don't like to be beaten and they don't like to be wrong, they're often wrong, s’pose you can call that big headedness. But they are stubborn… and they stick to their mates, an incredible mateship. I guess it was there, in the Dardanelles, they'll stick with their mates through thick

and thin and that's loyalty. I s’pose it's clannish, maybe call it clannish, tribal, but it's a wonderful thing, it is a wonderful thing. If you were in the 39th you'd know about it, you can't be there and not know about it. Very, very proud men and well entitled to be,

well entitled to be. Politicians don't deserve to have men like that, to push around. That's being a little bit over the top I s’pose but it's the way I feel.

Yes.

I boiled…

I couldn't believe my own ears. I couldn't believe a man could be that dumb and in the British, or any man could be in his position and be that dumb, to talk to those men like that after what they'd been through. My first impulse was to walk off and had I done so

I s’pose a lot of others would have done the same but they were boiling. They were, after the first shock got over and they finished their streams of curses, I think they just dropped it and determined, they wanted to forget it and forget him. He's not cherished in our memory. That was the most incredibly stupid thing, the way to talk to those men.

Unbelievable. There they were standing around just out of all those battles and those wars, 'the rabbit that gets shot is the rabbit that runs'… unbelievable. I could quote a famous figure, but I'm not going to, what he said about him. He was a very senior

officer. He called him a fat clerk, he said he would say that, unbelievable. That was a very sad thing.

Standing in the crowd. It was a parade… we were being addressed. Oh he told us we were good fellows and how well we’d performed and all that…

you see, it ??? all, if you look back in some of the literature, especially the stuff that came out of America from [General] MacArthur's command and [General] Lennon’s or whatever it was how, and all the bad results the Australian troops,

the Americans troop with our allies had all the successes, talk about bias reporting. I suppose you could offer the excuse it was done for a reason, to persuade the politicians to put more money our way, more troops, more, more arms, more commission.

I remember [author] Tom Keneally wrote a book in the form of a newspaper articles, which he took extracts from the various battle, and that they were most notable there… and I think that

Blamey's insinuation that the Australian troops were cowards was insupportable and quite wrong of course.

I,

remember writing about trying to sleep afterwards and calling him all the names that I could think of. Absolutely disgusted… disgusted! I've been with politicians ever since.

Oh yes look I know that. All that battalion we were talking about did that.

53rd Battalion, sorry to mention their names for years. Oh they've told us at Manali, we were never to mention their name. We

must forget them because they proved they were just the same as us and he was right. But that was a sad business.

They just turned it up, I think it's infectious, it's an infection…

‘cause they were supposed to be the best battalion in Port Moresby too, in the brigadier’s judgement, but they ran into an ambush. It was the first day of action, so do we… Our colonel got killed throwing grenades at them. Their

colonel was killed by a sniper and they didn't seem to have any leadership after that. For instance, the story I just told about them going down to lead them into the positions we wanted them in, that was their 2IC [second in command], well that's what they had left. Well when the men haven't got leadership and one runs, they all run…

it's the only way I can see of it, what else was there to do? The leaders have got to stand by, it's a strange thing but that's the way it is. They just turned it up.

No, we didn't hear any more. The,

I suppose it might have erupted sometime in the city pubs occasionally, we never heard any more of it anyway. We all got assimilated in the other, other battalions and seemed to get on alright. They were all good blokes, they were all Aussies you know, good blokes indeed… served each other well.

Never heard much of it at all, I never… after we came, after the war was, the war went on you know, they all, they assimilated pretty well. No, we'd go to the reunions and all that

sort of thing together.

That’s right.

Oh there was a lot of interstate rivalry; you know there was no doubt

but, see our mob went into the 2/2nd and they were a great battalion, New South Wales battalion centred on Newcastle and mostly the northern part of New South Wales. Some went into the 2/3rd or most of them didn't, some went into 2/8th, but we were still, we were soon assimilated. For instance,

I'm an avid Aussie Rules follower but I soon learnt and knew about rugby league and rugby union too, for that matter, and we soon, and of course we had a common interest in racehorses and girls! So life went on just the, just the same. We'd argue about New South Wales and Victoria.

I spent some time in hospital and when the lights went out the, the talk that went on then was mostly about New South Wales and Victoria and Queensland. I s’pose to a certain extent there were jealousies. The Queenslanders

were quite sure the south got everything and they were denied. I blotted my copy book, I was at an occasion in Cairns and I made a speech and quoted, from the statistics, how in every quid that was collected in tax, Queensland got twenty seven bob

and New South Wales and Victoria only got twelve and six. That didn't endear me to anybody, I remember that because of an icy silence and I didn't get a very good round of applause. But just wondering you know, had you come together in the end as Australians or was this state, was Australia still

very much a country of different states, even though it still is today, but was there a sense of national unity?

Oh well there was a resentment. We, we’d just come back from New Guinea, we had a…

We had, we had plenty of money ‘cause we hadn’t cleared any pay for ages. We went into town, we got into a pub, we had a few beers, two or three, but we had to get and they were locking the joint up. We had a look at a crack in the window afterwards and the pub was still full and they were all Yanks, but we'd been turfed out!

So we said, “Oh well we'll have to go, we'll get a taxi and go somewhere to some suburb.” where we'd been told of the places that’d be open. We stood on the cab rank and they just ignored us. All the cabs were pulling up the Yanks, the joint was full of Yanks, and the resentments that grew, started to grow, finally in desperation, there was a copper on point

duty and he said, “What are you doing out here son?” I said, “We’re trying to get a cab, I was gonna ask you how we do it.” “So are you that mob that just come home?” I went, “That's alright.” “So I'll get you one.” So the next cab that came along, or near the rank, he was right near the cab rank, he stopped him

and he went over and spoke to him and he says, “These are your passengers.” and there were four of us. He said, “Oh no.” he said, “I'm booked.” he said, “That bloke over there.” and there was some Yanks standing there waving at him, “He's booked me.” he said, “So I told you these are your passengers.” so in we got, we didn't let him go for two days and we started to run out of money but, so that sort of thing upset the apple cart.

You'd go to a restaurant and you wouldn't get served, oh no you couldn't get served. See the Yanks had all the dough and all the customers, they'd walk in, they'd have the best seats, get served straight away, the best tucker. Things were terribly scarce, so this gave rise to a resentment. I had in the main street, I don't know what street it was, we started yakking,

with these blokes in the pub, but it was only opened for about half an hour and we went outside and they were throwing rude remarks, so we say to each other, and one bloke hit one another and then all of a sudden it was on for young and old. I got donged [hit] and fell off the tram so they had to take me to hospital for a while, so I was alright though I didn't get hurt, just

got a bit of concussion. But some of them really got developed into pitched battles. But I guess that happens you know, just the same as our Aussies were resented in England in the First World War. I don't know how you can stop those sort of things. Here we were out fighting battles against the blokes we were supposed to be fighting with. I s’pose the chocco

business could have come to that if they let it get out of hand. They kept us pretty well camped apart you know, not very strategic.

Oh I think I swung a few, I don't know if I connected. I think we'd had a long day.

We were more like Mack Sennett [silent film comedian] than Cecil B DeMille [director of Hollywood epics].

Well I did, I got absolutely fed up with it all.

I got, I got unfit for active service, although I had been all along with the polio. And then the doctor, I, I got a desk job in Cairns to the end of the war, but I was just filling in time, it was boring. All we wanted to do was go home; at least you could go to the pictures [movies] up there…

but it was going too long you know. Started to be a long time, by the time five years came and went. I guess that wouldn't be if you were a career soldier.

Oh it wasn't good.

They were very down in the mouth. They tried desperately, I think to improve the morale, having sports meetings and events and concerts and all that sort of thing, but it was pretty hard. Blokes started to nick off, you know go AWL [absent without leave]…

I had to take a train load from Brisbane to Cairns, I was in charge of the contingents from a school, and the brightest bloke in the school… he disappeared one night, a little Scotch bloke he was, he was the greatest Morse code reader I'd ever struck, he had tunnel vision but couldn't he read that Morse code and send it?

So I said to one of the boys, “Where's Scotty?” he said, “Oh Sarge he's gone bad, he just had word, word from home, his wife's shacked up with a Yank.” so he said, “I don't think you'll find him.” I said, “Alright, I'll say he's in lost [UNCLEAR], now you just back me up, if anyone asks any questions.” so I took them all the way through, everyday we had roll call and I kept

marking him present, poor old Scotty, I never knew what happened to him. But all those sorts of things have to happen. Now Scotty would be the straightest bloke in the world, he wouldn't go AWL for quids unless it was something very serious, and it was very serious to him. Some of them just got bored rotten, bored out of their minds… and they went AWL.

Oh we had some of those.

That was a very nasty business, when a bloke gets to that. They'd usually shoot themselves in the foot, of all the places you can't ever, I understand

it’s one of the most painful places to shoot yourself. I had one of my boys did it. He had a reason, he had women trouble too, with the Yanks, and… he was the colonel's batman for a while and I hear this shot and I go around and shot him, shot himself in

the foot. I reported it as an accident and got away with it. I think the 2IC knew very well it wasn't an accident, he just couldn't stand it any longer… poor beggar. But he could have shot himself, he could have taken his own life but

he didn't, shot himself in the foot, right through the foot, right on top, across the instep, others did it too. Some shot themselves in the hand, that's worse than the foot I think. A messing about, a bit about, I don't think it happened to many.

Someone got drawn into the routine, if you liked the army life it's not bad, you'd get x amount of money and it's all bound, they feed ya, dress ya, nurse you when you’re sick and wounded. I got involved in a, an experiment. We got put into a hospital,

I went into this hospital and I was sick with malaria, take off the train, and I said to this nursing sister, “That’s all I want, quinine, I've gotta have some quinine, that's all I want and I'll be right.” and no she said, “The colonel wants to see you, he's coming at three o'clock.” I said, “Oh what for, have I got something bad?” she said “No, no it's nothing bad.” she said, “He’ll tell you.”

So he came at three o'clock and he said, “We want you to volunteer.” he said, “I'm asking you to volunteer to go into an experiment, it's very vital, it's about a cure for malaria.” he said, “And you happen to have the germs in sufficient quantity and at a

stage where we need them.” and he said, “And what we're doing, we going to take them from you and then pick blokes that have never been exposed to malaria, to carry out the experiment.” so I went off, he said, “And the ambulance will be here at three o'clock, we know you'd volunteer.” “Oh no.” he said “Four o'clock.” So the ambulance came at four o'clock and the next thing I knew I was in this hospital, well this was

marvellous except that I was sick all the time, I couldn't take any different cures, couldn't be taking any drugs. And I'd go out and come ‘round and sweat and all that, but I had a nurse sat along side me every minute of the day, twenty four hours a day, anything I asked for I got it; if I said chocolate, I got chocolate and I love chocolate, which you couldn't buy you know, cigarette,

and I to feed three thousand mosquitoes twice a day. I think that was worse than being on the track. They bred these, the path [pathology] blokes, bred these mozzies and they were clean, they hadn't been exposed to anything like malaria, they were at night of course, and you'd put your arm, I used to put it in up to the elbow where they tied the tape around it and there'd be

three thousand mozzies in this cage and the path bloke‘d have a bucket of boiling water, he'd put the towel in the boiling water, screw it out and wrap it around the cage and all the mozzies would be gathered on the muslin, or whatever the cage was made out of, and that would stir ‘em up see and the only place to go was on your arm,

so they'd give your arm a good walloping and your arm would be red and sore and itchy, they used to paint it up with stuff and I think give you some dope [painkillers] and, so I stood that for ten days and got a commendation for it and a fourteen day special leave that didn't come up in my leave credits. Oh I wasn't the only one, there was plenty of others.

Use your imagination, you could say, wasn't much else you could do. Or get sarges who could tell you the story about the Light Nightingale…

most of the blokes that went AWL, went off because they missed their partners too much, couldn't cop it. Some blokes choose that sort of life, yes, but they're fitted for it.

Oh I'd left them behind about the best part of nearly a year before I left the army because I got, I got into a bit of a, bits and pieces of the unit,

sittin’ in an office organising discharges and that sort of thing, working out their points for discharge and built up a new circle of friends and I missed them then when I didn't have them, the old unit you know. They've always remained my mates.

Well I went to a high school

and gave the Anzac Day address… and I said… “We were marching

in on Anzac Day and those that went over and didn't come back they'll be marching too”… that's true.

“Those that marched away with us and didn't come back, they'll be marching too”… and I told the kids the story of the [UNCLEAR] how they helped us on the track,

the kids, the kids, the real Britannia's still alive and the principal pushed me off the stage and said, “Never send that bastard here again, he's a Commo [Communist].” You can get accused of funny things can't ya?. That's what I did think of that; I think they’d applaud now as they did then,

only the teachers applaud too. Still a leftie you see, I'm not a leftie because, well, was to see how Jesus Christ’d come back, he'd straighten them all up.

Oh, oh well I was lucky. She gave me a ready made family, her brothers and sisters and her mum and dad took me in and all their circle of friends and away we went and I was alright. I’d never

had a family, I had a wonderful friend and neighbour when I lived with grandma, not having any siblings you miss them you know. I used to see them, two sisters and a brother, from time to time but I never lived in the same town with them.

Yeah, yeah, well we were engaged when I got discharged and got married shortly afterwards.

I was a bit hard to reach to get back to civvy [civilian] life; I was a bit of a... like most of us, a bit messed up mentally. I had a shocking temper. Nell's sister went into a furniture shop and came astruck a sales lady and she

said, “Is poor Nelly still married to that strange fellow that used to get into trouble on the buses and things?” she said, “I always felt sorry for her, if that was my Nelly you know.” one of her old school friends. I said, “What did I do to get a reputation like that, I thought I was a fairly placid bloke?” “Oh,” she said,

“You’ve got a terrible temper when you get roused.” she said, “They were on the bus and I just threw a bloke off, on his head.” I said, “Well.” I said in general, “That was one incident where I just exploded.” you know sometimes you found things... but I got over that and settled down. You've got to haven't you, you've got to get on with it?

Get on with it… living… what you worry about is it stopping, got to get on with it.

Not much.

About what I said to you I think.

Occasionally something‘d crop up, sometimes some of the boys would visit, we'd have lunch and we'd have a natter. Her own brother was in the army and sometimes we'd have a bit of a talk.

Well I believed that we'd make it worth it and we started I think. Now my sons went to the university, Sydney University, that probably never would have happened if we hadn't made things better. That's an example. The sick people, a lot of criticism

about it, but look at the medical business, look at how I'm looked after, we haven't any want or fears, the repatriation's good to me. We've got a son with a disability, they're good to him. I think we made it a bit better. But not, I'm afraid at the moment,

now the accountants are taking over, the bottom line I don't like that. I think that patriotism was better than that, patriotism to the bottom line. Now I had a professor here, who's a great friend to me, yesterday for a yarn and he's vice chancellor of the university and history is his, I think

the doctorate but he said, “They're worried, very worried in the university.” he said, “We've got to run the universities like a business, like a shop.” He said, “And then they claim we're not doing it.” he said, “It's frustrating” and he quoted figures at me that astounded me, about the cuts in research money that have been made and they've got to find ways of making the students pay.

Australia. We weren't gonna give them our joint, they wanted it. I didn't go to work for... fight for banks or huge corporations, I know they wanted our place, I knew they wanted our place.

They said, “What have they done to deserve all that vacant land, we're going to have it.” It's a very simplistic point of view but it was true. They wanted ‘our patch’, as they call in the movies, police movies and they weren't going to get our patch without a fight. We looked after our patch, we clung onto it and we will, don't worry about

that. There's an old saying in Melbourne, this is a real old saying when I was a boy, 'You never lend, trusted a bloke or lent money to a bloke that changed his team', like you didn't like a bloke that kept barracking for this one this year and another one the next year, you didn't

trust him and I think that was sort of a lot to do with it. We're stubborn people, a bit bloody mad sometimes, I'm proud to be one of them, happy they let me join… I s’pose this’ll start a riot in

the home where my sister lives, in a beautiful aged persons’ home, and she'll have them all lined up to watch it, they won't be able to pick their program the night that this comes on…

This coming on the pictures.