Australians at War Film Archive

Yeah, certainly, I was born in 1918, on a place called Bankstown Soldier Settlement, which is now the area of Milperra. The original five streets that were laid

down for the Soldier Settlement are still there. And I was born on a poultry farm in Ashwood Avenue. The purpose of the Soldier Settlement out there, was established by the government solely for returned men who were unfit for further service. Some of them limped, some of them had embedded shrapnel. My

Dad lost an arm at Gallipoli, and some of the later arrivals had been gassed in France, but every soldier, and family, and there were 54 of them put out there, were unfit for further service. So they were put onto poultry farms, because it was felt that that would contribute to the national welfare. And I was there for 20 years, and we grew up

together and went to a little two room school, the Milperra Public School, and from there, after I got what was called a QC [Qualifying Certificate] in those days, at the end of sixth class, I went to Belmore Tech, where I fell in love with a girl in a brown and yellow uniform from Sydney Girls High School, and she’s still here today. Having been

born in 1918, I was consequently 21 in 1939 when war broke out. And war broke out on the 3rd of September 1939, and the day after, on the 4th of September, the Menzies Government called up all 21 year-olds of that time, and I was in straight away, no question about,

“Will I join, what will I join, what will I do?” And from there, we, well, in the January 1940, I was taken off, and we did a three months’ camp at Georges Heights, and we were then inducted into what was called the 1 Australian Heavy Ack Ack [Anti Aircraft Artillery] Cadre, C-A-D-R-E - cadre, of course, is a holding group -

and for all that 18 months or more, they assembled trained men on anti-aircraft guns, we were the ack ack cadre. And we were warned very severely not to try and join any other unit “Because we’ll come and get you’s, we’ll come and get you’s.” We were warned. See they didn’t want, having trained them, and had cadre been trained, they wanted us, and the wisdom of that was shown when Japan bombed Pearl Harbour

and they had several hundred trained anti-craft men ready. And we were promptly dispersed to Newcastle, around Sydney, Port Kembla, and also to Lithgow. People don’t know that there was a small arms factory at Lithgow, so they were also protected. And during that time, between January 1940, and that December ’41, I was in

and out of the army, more or less, because we were part-time in those days, we weren’t full-, we were called “universal trainees,” it’s a modern name for conscripts. I was a conscript, I was called up so I was a conscript, but we were “universal trainees”. At one stage there, when we were training on the old three-inch mobile guns, there were the UTs, the universal trainees, there was the militia,

and there were the permanent soldiers. And the three of us were all involved in common training, operating the guns and instruments and so on, on three separate rates of pay, at one stage, until that anomaly was fixed too. And then when I got called up for the full time, in December ’41, as soon as Japan came in it, as soon as Japan bombed Pearl Harbour,

I was posted to a new heavy gun site, the three point sevens, the big ones. They were deployed on a fairway of the Royal Sydney Golf Links at Rose Bay, and wasn’t long after that, as you know, first of all Darwin was bombed and, end of February, a plane flew over Sydney one night,

a Japanese plane, and then, later still, a Japanese submarine stood out off Bondi and lobbed shells into the area of Rose Bay, Woollahra, and one of the shells landed on Bronte Road. We were on the guns that night, and the shells went over our heads. I was under a tin hat, of course, and when I said that to Elizabeth

Richards she said, “Oh,” she said, “My mother lived at Bellevue Hill and she was under a table.” But they, it was pretty tense at that time, and then, it was necessary, and what Sydney didn’t know was that we manned the guns at dawn and dusk, right throughout the early part of 1942 because news filtered down from the north that the Japanese planes were coming in early of a

morning with the rising sun behind them, and coming in again at night with the setting sun behind them, and couldn’t be seen. So we instituted dawn manning at daybreak, and dusk manning, and although Sydney didn’t know it, all the guns were manned and ammunition was out, and the guns were ready, day after day, dawn and dusk. And of course, as I said in that article, Sydney people got up and went to work and had breakfast, and

came home and watched their favourite – didn’t watch, they listened to their favourite radio program, no TV [television] of course - and they didn’t know that the guns were manned around them. Because in Sydney, I was on Rose Bay, there was one, there was another site of four guns at Iron Cove, another one further along at Concord, which took care of all the western industrial area, North House, North Head, South Head, of course,

Georges Heights, there was one at Kyeemagh, on Georges, on Botany Bay, because of the site of the aerodrome, and there was one at Bankstown, because of the aerodrome that was there, or airstrip, at Bankstown, which has since developed somewhat. In fact, that is on the site of what we had for our night cart disposal when we were kids at Milperra. Because, as you know,

in those days in the 1920’s, we, at Milperra as kids, we had no electricity, no gas, no heating in any way. Everything was done by fuel; consequently, my love of a fire, open fire. And the Bankstown people, the air force people at Bankstown, they were in

the dug-out down underground at Black Charlie’s, in a quite cavernous thing, where they operated everything. And the air force had a say, and consequently, when the ack ack people called us onto the guns when there were alarms - and many false alarms, of course - they were in those disused tunnels of St James Station, you may have heard of that. That underground there, that was the ack ack depot,

underground command, and the Air force had the one at Bankstown. But Air force had first say, and many times, when we were called out by the ack ack people down in the St James tunnel, we were took, supposed to lay out the ammunition and all the rest of it, got ready. Immediately, an order would come from the Bankstown, the Air force, and it was very urgent “Do not engage, do not engage,” and, “A Wirraway or

a Airacobra [P-39Q Bell fighter aircraft] is taking off from Bankstown to investigate,” and consequently we never fired a shot in anger, because the Air force didn’t want our shells bursting in their air space, for which I don’t blame them. However, we did do a lot of shooting, of course, that’s part of the reason the DVA [Department of Veterans’ Affairs] had me investigated and pinched part of my pension because of my deafness. And they couldn’t fire a lot of the

guns around Sydney, because the flak would’ve fallen on suburbs. But ours, at Rose Bay, we could, we fired straight out over Bondi, and anything fell in the water. So they used to bring people in from outlying gun sites to us at Rose Bay, and we’d give them practice shoots and so on. And the biggest one was when we put up what they called a “box shoot”, and four gun sites were involved, each had four guns, that’s 16

guns, we each fired four rounds in unison, and that meant 64 bursts in the sky, and I saw that, of course, the outer one of the four gun sites, they had to fire before us, because their time of flight of the shell was longer, naturally. And when it was all over, I said in my diary

“We fired one and then the other three, bang, bang, bang, and then there was silence, and nothing but a ringing in the ears.” And my GP [general practitioner, doctor] said to me many years later, “Didn’t you fellows have ear muffs?” and we didn’t have anything like that. And it was, DVA’s aware of that now, and that’s why they’re looking at artillery men for deafness, you see. And these four went off one after the other, and they just left a ringing in the ears, you know. But up in the sky over Bondi,

there was 64 bursts, and it was a terrific sight, all boxed into the one group, and would have been a very formidable defence against any flight of aeroplanes coming in from the sea. And they were expected, in those days, because there was talk of Japanese aircraft carriers coming down the Queensland coast, as you know. But that was stopped at the Coral Sea, and the Midway Battle,

fortunately - well, we didn’t know that at the time. And then, oh, they promoted me, and I got moved away and cadre went back. And then I went to the LHQ [land headquarters] school of artillery, which is the big Australian school, there were 140 there at that school, at Randwick, took six weeks. Put us right through the lot. And then as they moved fit

men north into Darwin and into Port Moresby, and the further up as the, as MacArthur moved closer to Japan, all fit men and A1 [standard of fitness] men, by this time, I was B2 [second class health] medically. Then the AWAS [Australian Women’s Army Service] came in, the girls came in, and then after that, the VDC, that’s the Volunteer Defence Corps. The VDC were men in reserved occupations, who

lived close to gun sites, and the arrangement was that we trained them, the government gave them an army uniform and they were under uniform discipline, and if any alarms should come up at that time, they were to leave their home or their place of work and just man the nearest guns, you see. So in 1944, all of 1944, I was down at Nowra, as an instructor with the, training the VDC. My forte, I

was gun drill, of course, breech mechanisms and the, at night, the theory, the gunnery and ballistics, which was very necessary. A funny story about that, because we were bursting shells in space, it required three-dimensional measurements to get it there, and therefore, trigonometry was involved,

and the, you’d be surprised how many soldiers passed through our hands and, you know, didn’t have a clue on trigonometry. So it was agreed that one of us would give a half hour talk before the theory lecture actually started about what trigonometry was all about. And I had this fellow in my, well, I was instructing the officers, actually, with - I only had sergeant’s rank, but they were officers, from VDC. And this fellow had a

big grin on his face, and so I tried him a couple of times, I’d make an emphasis point, and I’d say, “Have you got that?,” and he said, “Yeah, I understand.” And again, later on, “Have you got that?” “Yeah, I understand.” So at the end of the fortnight, when he marched out on the Sunday - we used to get a new class in on Monday, see - he said, “You do a good job around here.” I said, “Thanks very much, sir.” He said, “I’ve left a note for you in the orderly room.” So when he went, I went and got

the note, he was maths master at one of the Newcastle high schools. But he was an officer and a gentleman, and he just sat through my class and didn’t bat an eyelid, and I give him full marks for that. That’s a little personal story. And then, of course, being B2, when I was discharged through - you understand B2 medical? They took

me in A1 but I was discharged B2, with an old Repatriation Department, in those days, letter, accepting the downturn in my medical status as due to army service. They accepted that. And I sat on that letter for, oh, 45, 48 years, until about three or four years ago, I was at the Hurstville ex-servicemen’s legion,

and we got invited over to Riverwood to hear an advocate speak, and he told us what entitlements - well, and did we have this and that, and I told him about this letter and straight away, he said, “They owe you, they owe you, if you’ve got that letter.” So I took it up with the RSL [Returned and Services League], I’m in RSL down there at Kingsgrove, I took it up with their welfare officer, and he put me onto the right people, and the right people to see. Then I went through a long

series of questions and examinations and assessments, far more depressing than this present one I’m having with you, and they eventually gave me a disability pension. I got a walking stick to walk with because I’d fallen over a couple of times. They gave me, oh, light shoes, or hand made shoes, because the army at the time, my pay book was endorsed

“Permission to wear light shoes and no prolonged standing.” But I did plenty of prolonged standing, in spite of the waiver about it, but the - and I came out then. And from 1947, a couple of years after the war was over, they advertised specifically for any trained anti-aircraft men to go back into the militia unit at Haberfield

that was, because ack ack was still in vogue in those days. Now they call them “surface-to-air missiles”, but that was all too modern for me. But in those days, 1944, 1947, I went back in and, with a sergeant’s rank, but they didn’t have a warrant officer on strength and they needed one, so a couple of the officers asked me would I care to go for the peacetime warrant

officer’s exam, and they would coach me for it, which was pretty decent of them. But I know what they were after, they wanted a warrant officer, see. So one of them was pretty good - he since died - he took me away down south coast, to Woolloomooloo one Sunday, and he said, “Now, if you’re laying out an anti-aircraft battery with four guns, you’d put four guns there, there, there and there, you’d put your mess there, you’d put your office there, you’d put your latrines along there.” All the things that you’d

need to know with it. And they were very good, the officers, they all helped me. And the main bloke said, “Of course, with warrant rank, you’re expected to know everything that the troops ask you and most of what we officers ask you as well.” And that was a bit exciting, to think of it. But anyway, I sat for the exams. I did a theory exam and I did a practical exam. They, out at

the Haberfield one, had to go two nights and the entire place was in darkness, and all of a sudden they said, “Are you ready, sergeant?” “Yeah, I’m ready.” So on went the lights, and there were 30 men lined up in rows of three. And they thrust - this is an old trick of army schools - they thrust you a fistful of papers and you draw one of them. And you read what’s on it out loud, and you detail what you’ve just read, and that’s the system of examination. So

I drew my piece of paper and I had to march in there and march in there and about turn and do right wheels and left. Anyway, we got over all that in the drill. And then they put that main light out and they put a big floodlight over the gun, one of the guns, and I had to draw bits of paper again. On one of them was the action of one of the pieces in the breech mechanism.

And fortunately, I drew the bit that I’d been lecturing on down at Nowra a couple of years ago, so I rattled all that off, and the fellow said, “Righto, righto, ten out of ten, next please,” and I got a note later that I’d passed the exams and they awarded me the, I’ve still got the warrant up here, the army warrant. And I stayed there until 1950, as a... But then my firm,

Kodak, sent me back up to New Guinea to win back all the - complete peacetime now - win back all the accounts they’d lost while Japanese were in possession up there, and, you know, people like Burns Philp and Island Trading, and all the big companies are up there, all been closed up, we had to win their business back, and I was to pioneer this. In 1950 I went up there. In fact, I went up to Port Moresby in a DC3 [transport aircraft], we stayed overnight at Townsville and went on the next day onto Port

Moresby. Now they do the whole thing from Sydney in about three hours. But there were also missions, all sorts of missions, and they all had big photographic capabilities. I sold projectors to missions and film, of course, and the hospitals, I had to be briefed in the x-ray

in the hospitals. And anyway, and then they sent me back in 1951. And I continued on from there, up till, well, I switched, I switched trades, I went from photographics, into, of all things, paint through experience in a hardware store, and I did 30 years in paint. I was top student of Sydney Ultimo

Tech [Technical College] in, I was top student in colour planning for industry and home that year. And consequently that helped me a lot in selling paint, because the people I was with, I was able to go into the home and do a colour scheme, and if it was accepted write an order for paint, take it back to the shop, and the other bloke would deliver the paint, and it was a good set up. And then one of the companies got hold of me,

and I worked for them for many years until this current Wattyl paint company took them over. And I probably finally retired in 1984, on the 29th of February, because it was a leap year in ’84 and that inscription is on the Parker pen they kindly gave me. And I’ve been retired ever since, in which time, I’ve been

more busy than ever. I wrote a full history of the foundation, origins of the Bankstown Soldier Settlement, where I was born. I had to pay a fee and become a member of the State Archives readers, I was a reader of the State Archives, which enabled me to get access to all these old papers. And, in fact, some of them I found had my Dad’s signature on them,

because he was the president of the Progress Association they had there at one stage. And the Mitchell Library got it there, because I presented the first two of the story of Milperra to the public school at the, the school I went to, Milperra. Of course, it’s a much bigger school now. And they’ve got those two volumes to this day, but the Mitchell Library got them to them and

did a photo or micro, I don’t know what they did, they put it on microfile, yeah, microfile. And I said, “Why would you want this?” and they said, “There’s nowhere else we can get this sort of information that’s been well researched and is truthful,” see. Because I was a member of Bankstown Historical Society and I learned there very quickly that accuracy and truthfulness

were the only two things that you needed in anything you said. And everything I’ve just been saying is true and accurate. Now I’m going to have a rest.

Sure. I’ve got a long article written about that that was published by the Bankstown

Historical Society. One of the things that come to me very early in the piece as kids was that we were all children of victorious soldiers who’d just won the war. And this was drummed into us. You know, every Monday morning, “Rule Britannia, God Save the King,” - king in those days, George the Fifth. The flag went

up, and we all said, “I honour my God, I serve my King, I salute my flag,” and we salute. Kids of ten, or younger than that, six to ten, see. And we’d won the war, we were kids, we, this was ingrained into us. It was a good thing, really, because the regimentation

from that and the harsh discipline under the circumstances that we were living, with parents who were both English, in most cases, we grew up well-disciplined and able to settle to that sort of thing. We didn’t go anywhere. If anyone

wanted to go to Bankstown, you walked to Bankstown, there was no public transport. As I said before, we had no electricity. Mum used to come in last thing at night, say our prayers, blow the candle out, and that was it until the rooster woke us up the next morning. And we found out the difference between a rooster and a WAS DOUBLE QUOTE CHOOK . In fact, when things got crook and there was nothing to eat, as often happened, because, as you know, the

Soldier Settlement move failed, but things were crook. All the farmers were setting rabbit traps down in their paddocks, and my Mum, who of course was an English girl, originally, she had to learn how to skin rabbits and cook. And getting back to the rooster, it was always a rooster whose head you chopped off because he didn’t lay eggs. You didn’t chop

the head off hens who laid eggs, naturally, see. And so there was always a rooster being fattened up, because he was earmarked for next time we needed something. And scraps were passed to him. My mother was good, well-disciplined, because she had to be the right hand, right arm of my Dad. She, in fact, when I wrote about that - sorry to keep emphasising the fact that I write, but I did, I’ve been writing for 18 years.

The Jessie Street Women’s Memorial Library has published something of mine and put it on the internet, because they wanted stories about women who grew up in the early part of the last century, and they reckoned my mother would be a mark for that. So I wrote her up, and as a kid, in Milperra, what I experienced with her. And I said, “My mother was one

of those band of women who welcomed their husbands back from World War I, established their home, had their children, endured The Depression, and then sent their sons off to World War II.” Now, there were a big band of women that that happened to in the early part of, and in consequence, my elder sister, she was older than me, she had to do all the housework and so, of course, Mum

was out on the farm. She led the horse along straight rows while Dad manhandled the plough, she turned the chaff cutter, she went - before I was old enough to do it - she carted the coke up to the brooder where the hot pipes ran through the day old chicks, and she watched day old chicks gradually mature into pullets before they were put out into the... She turned the chaff

cutter, she did all of these things. My impression, still my view of my mother, was that she had a yoke across her shoulders with two chains hanging down and she always carried two buckets on this, across her shoulders, as many women did on the farms. And no trip was ever wasted. If she took two buckets of feed down to the bottom laying pens, she brought back buckets of eggs or buckets of firewood which we had collected.

So if it went down empty we brought back something. No one ever, if it was empty, to come back we put something in it. Every trip was used. In fact, from a matter of humour, and I’ll tell you this, it would be, because we had a fuel stove and a fuel copper which was lit every Friday night for hot water for baths, and I was always warned, “Now, don’t make that

water too dirty, because your young sister’s got to get in there after you.” This is the way we lived. You asked me about the kids. So, strategically, the heap of firewood was placed outside the door of the dunny. Everyone who went down the to dunny had to bring back an armful of firewood, and so the wood was, up in the back of the house, was replenished, you see. And, remarking about the dunny, it’s obvious that you will realise we didn’t have sewers.

Never, I didn’t see a sewer or a roll of toilet paper till I was about 14 or 16 years old. Didn’t know anything about it. It seemed wonderful to think that people could use these things, I didn’t know. We had old newspapers cut into four and a nail punched through them and hung up on the back of the toilet, dunny door to use as necessary.

And of course, every year, the Progress Association, at their annual meeting, decided that, to save money, we’d continue to bury our own [waste]. And my Saturday morning job for nearly 20 years, well, until I went to work, it was Saturday morning disposing of the dunny pan and give it a bit of a wash out with warm water and

put a bit of black tar around it and shove it back in for next week. And that was part of my life, because this is what everyone did. That was how we grew up in those days. At school, well, the girls did skipping, they had a maypole, they danced around the maypole with their ribbons. We played marbles, the boys, played marbles. Big ring and little ring.

The big ring, you stood outside and you fired the (UNCLEAR) that were outside the ring. And the little ring, you just followed it along. All sorts of things. We played hideys, we played cricket, we played football. Well, cricket was French cricket so the girls could play. At school, it was only a two-roomed school. First, second and third class was under the care of a woman

teacher, and the headmaster, he ran fourth, fifth and sixth class in the other room. And the big thing was to go through first, second and third class. I remember I went through folding yellow papers and red papers in first class, then we graduated to little stories about Henny Penny and how the sky fell in and went rickety tickety down her neck. And from third class, everyone looked forward after the

Christmas holidays from third class, because you went up to fourth class, you went up into the second room where the headmaster took charge of third, or fourth, fifth and sixth class. And graduating to fourth class from third, you got pen and ink for the first time, you didn’t use pencil any more. Biros were unheard of. So we used to write with ink, learn to write with ink. And of course the old desks we had had the little hole in the middle with the

pewter inkwell in it, and the aim, the game of everyone was any girl who had long hair - and most of them did - see if it would reach down the ink well. You got caned if you got caught doing that. I remember my sister, who was a year ahead of me, when I was in fourth, she was in fifth class. And on one occasion, the teacher said - an open class, he used to take them open, or he’d give

fourth class and fifth class separate exercises and teach sixths, and then go, move around that way; he earned his money - he said to the open class once, “What’s the highest mountain in Australia?” and I said, “Kosciusko,” and they all turned and looked at me and my elder sister turned and looked at me,

and I thought I was wrong. And they looked at me as if to say, “How does he know that?” and I looked at them as if, “Well, if that was right, you should have known it as well.” Well, I heard about it when my mother was reading me a book a little while before that and I happened to know it. He could have asked me a thousand quiz questions, and I wouldn’t have known. But he asks the class “What’s the highest mountain in Australia?” and I said, “Kosciusko,” and that shocked everybody.

Shocked me too. Kids, yeah, well, we went to Bankstown, as I say, we went to Bankstown, to get there we walked. If it was a, if it fined up and it had been raining, you’d hang your raincoat on a gum tree on the, between Milperra and Bankstown, a distance of five miles, and it was always

there hanging on the tree when you came back, you just picked it up and went home with it. But it was a tough life although it was a good, disciplined life, and that was a good thing. And when I got in the army I understood what discipline was all about. I understood what discipline was about at work when I first went there as a messenger boy for a pound a week and included, that’s two dollars. A pound a week, five days and Saturday mornings, and when I was 16, because

we were two years looking for a job, I was two years looking for a job. And my Dad used to mark off juniors and messenger boys from “boy wanted” on the, and out I’d go, not to school, but to this job that was advertised, and find a great heap of other kids there, applying for the same job. Mostly kids from my class, or kids from other schools - Sydney Boys’ High, Cleveland Street,

they were all out looking for jobs. And on one occasion, down near the Capitol Theatre, down towards Belmore Park, I remember, the fellow suddenly threw the door, open, and he said - there were a big group of people, including me, a whole heap of kids - he called in the first eight, he said, “You eight come in,” and he said to us, “I’ll pick a boy out of these, now don’t you wait,” and off we went back to school. And school, when we were studying for the Leaving Certificate in fourth and fifth class, year, often school didn’t,

classes didn’t start till 10 o’clock, because everyone was out trying to get a job. But fortunately I got a job. A friend of the family, who was very sympathetic towards the family, not against me or for me, but they knew that they had an eldest son – me - who was looking for a job. And she put me on, and I got this job. And when I turned 17 they said, “You want to ask for a rise because you’re 17, now,” see, so I raised the matter about this,

a pound a week I was on, and they said, “Oh, you’ve got to be here 12 months before you get a rise.” (UNCLEAR) So I worked through from 17 till 18 on a pound a week, and then I got called up to the office one day, to the accountant, and there was a stranger there I’d never seen before, and he said, “Now, detail to me, what you do at this place. You go messages, you work in the warehouse, you do this, you do that,” and I said, “Yes, all this.”

And he turned to the accountant and he said, “This young man is not a messenger boy any more, he’s a warehouse assistant. He’s not a messenger, he’s been a messenger, but you’re giving him other jobs in the warehouse. He’s a warehouse assistant.” So I got my first rise, eight and threepence, I went from a pound to twenty-eight and threepence a week. Plus the fact that I got called down to the manager, who looked at me very sternly over the top of his glasses and said

“Now that we’re paying you more money, we expect better work from you, Beckett.” So, yes, I grew up with discipline in the home and in the work, and it didn’t come as any surprise to find what discipline was like in the army. I soon learnt to be one, just a face in the crowd and not get noticed, and things drifted along very well.

Louder.

Yes.

Yes, there were

54 farms, all five acres, and they were all laid out under the Hadlington Method. Hadlington was a, the chief poultry man in Hawkesbury Agricultural College and probably the chief man in the state on poultry, and he laid out the form of the farm. And all

54 farms were copied exactly the same way. Weatherboard cottages, of course. And there was the brooder, well, first of all there was the incubator. Well, even before the incubator, there were the breeding pens, and five WAS DOUBLE QUOTE CHOOK s to a rooster in about rows of four, and eggs were brought up daily. And I remember my Dad had a hole about an inch, put a hole in the wall, and he

used to, with his left hand put each egg up to the hole and so the light shone through it and he could see whether it had been fertilised or not. And the fertilised eggs were all put in the incubators. And one of my jobs as a kid was to, twice a day, half turn each egg, so they got, maintained warmth throughout the, see, and when they hatched they got put, they became day-

old chicks or a little more, they were put in the brooder and they had a run there as pullets, and then they got moved down when they were big enough to lay eggs, which was their purpose anyway. They were put down in the laying pens. There was also a shed which contained the chaff cutter and the store of chaff and wheat and of corn, and of course, shellgrit, and you had to

have a standard shellgrit diet for the eggs, otherwise you got soft-shelled eggs. They put up a what they called the feed shed, and that was the wholesale area where farmers drew their requirements and they were charged accordingly. And then there was a small store

with a concrete floor and weatherboard, and in about 1922 that caught fire and burned down, much to the relief of everybody, because everybody’s bills and accounts and money owed went up in the flames. And obviously someone lit it, but I notice in what I read I’m not to incriminate

anybody, so delete that. But obviously it was got to, lit up. So they didn’t rebuild the store, so an old lady named Mrs Spink started a small store, she put wooden boxes with some stocks in it and served people in her bedroom, and served out through the bedroom window. And then my Dad had his accident. Being one-armed, he had a bit of trouble

with the plough, handling the plough, and on one occasion, he’d struck a stump that hadn’t been ground out. And pulled it up with a jerk and threw him over the handlebars, not only onto the blade of the plough, but under the back legs of the horse that was pulling the plough. It gave Dad a headache. And they said to him, “Oh, well, you’d better get off the farm,” see. And they moved him up into Mrs Spink’s little

store – who, she quit - and put the Post Office in there too, and the Commonwealth Bank opened a branch, and he became Milperra Post Office Store, and promptly went broke during The Depression because my Mum had to switch quickly from a poultry farm to a general store. Dad did the groceries

and the Post Office, and Mum did the fancy goods and dressed the windows for Christmas and fireworks and that sort of thing. And she soon learned, or she didn’t soon learn, she learnt too late where to give credit and who to trust and who not to trust and, yeah, they had a bad time while The Depression was on. And I did, I served

my later years at school in the Post Office store. Which involved getting home from school, when I was still at primary school, at half past three of an afternoon, to take out deliveries for groceries, take out any telegrams that Dad, knowing the contents, knew whether they were valuable to the people or not. One funny story, if you want to hear another funny story, is that someone used to

ring each Friday night, a message, just a cryptic message, and someone, one of the men there used to call up and, “Did you get a message for me today?,” “Yes, it was XYZ.” And we soon woke up it was the name of a horse that was running at Canterbury on the Saturday, see. And Dad was a bit jack (tired) of that because he was a church man, and we went to church, it was next to the shop. I’ll tell you another story about that too.

We just went through the fence, and we were in the church grounds. Anyway, one night, it was raining, and Mum said, “Oh, races at Canterbury tomorrow,” - always rained when there were races at Canterbury somehow - and then the ’phone rang and Dad said, “Oh, I’m sick of this.” So it was Liverpool Exchange who had a single line, wire across Georges River between us and Milperra and the exchange at Liverpool, and they said, “There is a call for

Milperra Post Office, is there an opening fee?” And you could charge an opening fee if you had to open outside hours, see. So Dad said, “Yes, five shillings,” “Oh, just a moment.” So he said to us - we were all gathered in the hall because a telephone call was an event in those days - and Dad said, “That’ll stop him, it’s a - because he only had a two-shilling bet.” And a voice came, “All right, the five shillings opening fee has been

paid in your favour, I’ll put you through.” And to Dad’s mortification it was someone from Concord saying that a member of the family had died, and could they get one of the settlers up to the ’phone. Well, it was dark by then, I was the only fit member of the whole family, and my brother had infantile paralysis, well, polio in these days, but he had (UNCLEAR). So I had to get into my

chaff bag, which has got a corner cut out, and you put it over your head, across your shoulders and you went out in the rain with your chaff bag, all the way down Bullycourt Avenue and along Flamboy Avenue. And Dad said, “It’s the eighth farm down, you count the houses as you go.” And I knocked on the front door, and this fellow poked his head out the front window, I said I was from the Post Office and there was a ’phone call, if he could come up. He said, “Look, lend me your lamp,” because we carried a storm lamp,

kerosene lamp, he took that. Back we went, he got the message, found out one of his relatives had died, and Dad lent him the storm lamp to get home again. And he brought it back the next day, and he said, “Thank the boy for coming,” and what started all that off?

We did at one stage, on the farm,

have a horse and sulky and you had access to Bankstown, if you could catch the horse, you see, if you could catch the horse, you went to Bankstown. And Milperra Road, which is now a six-lane highway, Milperra Road, was a red gravel track with trees meeting overhead on either side of the road. And at one stage, I know on one trip, Mum drove the horse and sulky along the footpath because it was

in better shape than the road was. That’s a fact. And we gradually got going, but...

A clothing shop, a shoe shop, a newsagent, a ham and beef shop, you know, things that you couldn’t get at Milperra. In fact, talking of

that, there was a, I had a photograph of it, it’s in my diary or in the one at Milperra School, it was a box cart, and he used to come around at least three or four times a week, with the one man driving. One time, he’d have a blue apron on, and it was meat, and he sold it straight out off the slabs of ice in the back of the trucks, back of the box, see.

And our mums could buy either tripe or sausages, you could, that was the only choice, tripe or sausages. So you picked what you wanted but quickly got it on the stove and cooked it before it went off during the day, which it would do. And then he’d be around with a white coat in a couple of days’ time, and that would be a milkman, and he served milk out of the tap at the end of the, everyone rushed with tins and things, billy cans to fill up with

milk, until they got their own cows. And then he used to come to the shop, when we had the shop, he used to come weekly with butter and cheese, which we used to store in the shop ice chest, you know, no refrigerators. And if you wanted to keep everything cool, you had to Coolgardie safe - you’ve heard of a Coolgardie? - hung on a, yeah, with perforated

sides and the air flowed through it. That was the way we kept things cool. Oh, the shop was a great, I mean, we learned all sorts of things. Smiths potato chips came on the market, and we learned that you tore the corner off and you extracted the little piece of blue bag, paper that had a twist of salt in it, and you untwisted it and put the salt into the packet and shook it, and you had salted chip, Smiths

potato chips. All sorts of things. They were good times, yeah.

Messenger boy, mainly, but I could wait on, what we called wait on the shop while Mum was outside or Mum and Dad used to get some relief in the back of the house and I just sat in the shop and sung out if

anyone came in and Dad came. And I also used to weigh up all the two pounds and four pounds of sugar, in brown paper bags. I used to weigh up tapioca, rice, all sorts of things. We used to sell whiting [pure white chalk] by the half pound, and people used whiting and mixed it with water to keep their sandshoes clean. That was the way you kept your sandshoes, for

tennis or cricket, whiting, I had to weigh that up. And of course I had to put stock away. I thought I’d help Dad once when I said, because there was a drunk out there and he used to come in every now and again and want to buy methylated spirits, he could put in with his liquor to make it go further. And Dad was a wake-up to him, so he said, “No, I’m sorry, I’m out of methylated spirits,” and I knew I’d

put it away a few hours earlier. I said, “Oh, yes, sir - Dad, it’s up here,” and Dad looked daggers at me because I’d blown his gaff, so he got up and got the fellow the... But he explained to me, because I was all innocent, he was saying no, he didn’t have any, because the man would injure himself if he sold him methylated spirits, and that was way he told him that. Of course, having been bought up to tell nothing but the truth, I thought Dad made the mistake and said he was out of stock, so I promptly

told him where it was. Yeah, that’s what happened. We had a little box with the silver in it for change, and we had a separate box for pennies. And then when the New South Wales, the Bank of New South Wales, closed up during The Depression, Dad used to do a trip at least once a week into Bankstown by bus, we

had a bus by then, and he put in enough money to cover cheques he’d written through the week, just enough. And he had this arrangement with the bank manager, and then the bank manager called him in once and said, “I can’t do that any more,” for reasons from head office, because of The Depression and so on. And Dad said, “Well, what am I going to do?” and he said, “Well, you’ll have to have money in the bank before you write

your cheques. I’ve been helping you so far and accepting your money, the amount that you write the cheques for, so I clear them. But now the money’s got to be there before you write cheques against it.” So Dad said, “All right,” so he came home and said to Mum, “There’s no more going up the shop and, going up the ladder and taking a tin of sardines, or no more this and that. Anything you get for use in the kitchen, you pay for it.” And Mum said

“Well, suppose that I don’t have the money?” and Dad said, “Well, you don’t get it.” And that was imposed, that was enforced because we’d have gone broke otherwise, she couldn’t just go and get stuff out of the shop and not pay for it. And that was in The Depression, yeah, that was a bit serious. And of course, I was a chronic stutterer,

I went right through primary school without saying a word. The folks around, they always jollied me along, they always used to say, “Sing it, Lenny, sing it,” because there was a feeling or a knowledge or rumour that you didn’t stutter when you sang, but I couldn’t sing. So when I got into Belmore School and went into seventh class, after primary - I was in secondary school - we got our first school

report home, in the main, the very first report in first term, and the headmaster had written along the bottom, “This boy will never make his way in the world until he can speak,” so they had to do something about it. So they put me up for speech therapy and, a long story short, Elinor Wray... Her name is enshrined now, she’s out at Westmead, there’s the Elinor Wray Speech Therapy College

and it’s named after her. So I had the top teacher. But from secondary school, I had to go down to her studio in Macquarie Street and she just used to pull down the blind and put a pillow up and say, “Now, just lie down there for a while, Len,” and I’d hop up and lay down and she’d put the light out and close the door, and just leave me there, and after about 20 minutes she’d come in and pull the blind up. And I woke up to her after a while, four or five trips, she’d pull the blind

up and she’d say, “What time does your train go?,” and I’d say, “Oh, twenty to five.” And she taught me, without telling me, she taught me that when I was relaxed and peaceful and she asked me a question, I used to say, “Twenty to five” and I could speak. That’s the truth, that’s the way, the psychology of it. So she got me onto little bits and pieces and

then I recited a concert for her once, and then she put me into eisteddfods. I’ve got a few certificates there to show some success. And finally, with two of her girl pupils and I, we did a scene from Shakespeare in costume in the City of Sydney Eisteddfod and won second prize out of a great heap of groups, yeah. So my stuttering just,

my stammering disappeared, finally. It happened once in the army. Once only. I called a lot of parades and I did this and I did that, and on one occasion, for no reason at all, the officer said to me one morning when we put on a fairly big parade, he said, “I’ll inspect the ranks this morning, sarge [sergeant],” and I said, “All right, sir.” So I said, “Lead in slowly,” and, “About turn” and faced them off, and I said

“For inspection, open order,” and I couldn’t say, “March.” And they sort of faltered and staggered and they giggled, and they got back into line again and so I tried a second time, “For inspection, open order, march” and out they came, see. But that was just the once, for no reason at all, I just couldn’t say march. But that’s about the last time I ever stammered.

How what?

It didn’t worry me at all because that’s the way it was. See, my brother, with infantile paralysis, he had his legs in callipers, big iron callipers. And when he got through primary school, where does he go now? He goes to high school, so he went to Canterbury Boys’ High School. And I used to go to Belmore Tech. It was bus

from Milperra to Bankstown station, and Dad used to say, “Now, you watch him down those stairs.” He wouldn’t know I was looking at him because he’d be embarrassed. But my brother, watched him down the stairs and on the train, and I’d sit in a different carriage and get off at Belmore. But his classmates at Canterbury soon got to know him and used to help him off, and he just went through. Just as I did, no speech - no, in fact, at Belmore,

on one occasion, in seventh class, our English teacher was doing this and questions about the Shakespeare book we’d studied, and then he pointed at me and then he said, “No, not you, you can’t speak.” And if he’d have hit me hard in the belly, it wouldn’t have hurt me more, it was dreadful. I thought that was a dreadful thing, it was a dreadful thing he did to me. He apologised later, but I went home bawling and

so they... And then the headmaster’s remark about not getting on at school when I couldn’t speak came, and they did something about it, took me up for this speech therapy. But it was carefully planned at all times, I was not learning elocution. And at a Sunday School concert once I did a humorous

item before interval, and after interval I recited one of the ballads (UNCLEAR) party, you know, “Play up! Play up! And play the game” [a poem by Sir Henry Newbolt]- oh, very dramatic. And the pastor was there, and he said to my parents “If that boy can speak like that, he should be able to read a good lesson,” and from 16 years of age on I used to read the lessons at the church in a beautiful, modulated, trained

voice, you know. And when the archbishop went out one day, Archbishop Cormack, who was appointed to read the lesson? Me. And down here at Kingsgrove more recently, Marcus Lome, the archbishop, came out before his farewell service, I read the lesson down there. Yeah. Of course, my wife reckons now I talk too much. I hope I’m answering your questions.

Yes, oh, yes, I’m sorry if I...

Nothing. Because of Dad, Dad had lost his arm, he was given a short three months’ husbandry course at the Hawkesbury Agricultural College, so he had a few clues about what was going on. But this was the fault of the whole thing, and this is why it failed,

Isabel [interviewer], it failed because - well Mr Justice Pike, made head of the Royal Commission on the Failure of Soldier Settlements, and he said truthfully - and it was the truth he said - “At the end of the war there was a feeling that nothing was too good for our boys. Our boys were victorious,” and this flows through to what I told you we learnt earlier about we were the - we won, see.

Nothing was too good for them, so let’s make some money available, we’ll put them on poultry farms and they can produce eggs and poultry and it will help the war effort, see. This was 1916, of course, with Gallipoli, they were out of Gallipoli into 1915, as you know. And, where was I?

Oh yeah, that’s right. And this is why it failed, they didn’t know anything about it. They were given a manager, and he was appointed to oversee everything, but when the first payment was due and he went around to collect payments from some of the farmers, he found the bird had flown, everything was piled on a cart and the old horse set off,

no petrol needed, he could just eat grass along the way. And they just vacated their farms. And Justice Pike made this enquiry under a Royal Commission, and he said that the men were physically incapable and not trained or suitable for it anyway. And in 1925 the government renounced everything, sold everything that the government owned on the farms, auctioned it all off and the remaining men there

formed themselves into the Milperra Rural Co-op Society, for mutual financial strength, see. And then, having been required to pay off 625 pound - that was the fee, 625 pound, to pay off as their farms got productive and they started bringing in income, see - but they didn’t bring in enough income to keep their families, let alone

pay any of it back. And no one ever paid back the 625 in full. They all just folded up. Now, this is quite different to some Soldier Settlements, where out in the country a returned man was put on a farm, or a grazier or something, but these were just 54 poultry farms. There was Ashwood Avenue and Bullycourt Avenue, and Flamboy Avenue

down to the river, that’s now Henry Lawson Drive. And down towards the end where there were, in those days, floods every time there was heavy rain like we’ve had, those two farms way down the end were made into, not poultry farms, but vegetable gardens, produce, market gardens. But everyone else had a poultry farm, and everyone was equal.

And there was a camaraderie about it in the early days. We were, you know, we’re all in this together, so let’s help each other. A man might get held up or couldn’t - was walking home from Bankstown, for instance, and it got to four, half past four, and his old cow was mooing because she was in pain, so another farmer would send his wife across to milk the cow. Talking of milking the cow, with my younger sister, little sister,

if we were required or other kids were required to milk the cow, the elder brother took the little sister along and she carried with her a big bit of gum tree, just break a sort of piece of gum tree, see. Now, hers was a very important function, see, because I used to tie up the back leg of the cow so he couldn’t kick and turn the bucket over, and

tie her tail so that she couldn’t swish and knock me out or put it in the milk. Consequently, she couldn’t flick the flies off her, because her tail was tied up. Now, the purpose of the little sister with these gum leaves was to go along one side of the cow and brush off the flies, and then go round and brush the other side. Now, if you were a little sister, that would be your job in those days, when your brother went to milk the cow. Is that interesting?

That was common, that was common. Yeah, it’s all in two big volumes down at Milperra Public School.

Well, like I said, some of them limped, some of them had embedded shrapnel still in their bodies

and the late arrivals had been gassed in France. None of them were 100 per cent fit, because if they were, they’d be back in the army, back in the services, see. They were all unfit, should never have been put on a poultry farm, never. But nothing was too good for our victorious boys, in those days. That’s a fact. Billy Hughes and all that.

Well, I’ve never been without it in all my 85 years, because for the first 21 years I was living with my Dad, and soon after my 21st birthday I was called up, straight away, bang, and it just flowed on. We had, at school,

a very wise older wife of one of the servicemen in the - Pete Dillon, in fact, they put up a bell in her name afterwards, it’s still out there at the school. She saw to it that we were all members of the Guild League of Bird Lovers, and that we had a service at the school every Armistice Day,

11th of November, Empire Day, Queen’s Birthday, Anzac Day, all these things, and one of the men was asked to speak to the children. Dad would never talk about his arm, why he lost his arm. I’ve only heard two rumours. My sister believes that he picked up a bomb that was thrown over by the Turks and went to throw it back and it exploded in his hand. But I’ve never verified that. I’ve seen his medical report, and it simply says, all it says is, “Arm removed above elbow,” and he just had that stump at the shoulder, that’s all he had. He never talked about it. But they were all

incapacitated. Well, I know, I’m fortunate, I’ve got a walking stick and I’ve got a hearing aid and this and that, and shoes they’ve given me, and I’m on a 60 per cent disability pension, but I’m fit and well compared to those fellows.

No, no. They don’t these days. Down the RSL, the last thing they talk about is where they went and what they did. I haven’t told them this

is on, I’m not going to. They might find out, but I’m not going to tell them. You don’t talk about it, truly. Can you understand that?

Yeah. Now, I’ll expect we’ll be onto, about these Japanese planes and submarines and so on shortly.

Well, of course, once we left primary school and went to secondary school, we did the War of the Spanish Succession, and the War of the Austrian Succession and the Crimean War, and I even heard about the French Revolution. And I read in the Old Testament that there was all sorts of things back in, that far ago. There were always wars or rumours of war.

And at one Anzac service I’ve heard a speaker say once, and it’s stuck with me, I’ve used it a couple of times, “War is about making peace, that’s what wars are for.” And there’s a lot of thought in that, isn’t there? But no, war was always a part of life. Dad went to war and later I, there was a war on

in my early days and I was involved. Yeah, it was a part of life. Not like the people today. Gee, I see some young folks who strum their guitars and they do this and that, and I think, “I’d like to have him in a squad for a fortnight, I’d straighten him up.” Present company excepted. Yeah, they don’t have the discipline

that we had. It was instilled in us, ingrained in us. I got it from my family, I got it from the place I worked at and I got it in the army. And I’ve never lost it. And it stood me in good stead all my life. And talking of that too, at school, we sang our times tables, started at twice two, down in first and

second class, we used to sing, “Twice two are four, twice three are six, twice blah, blah, blah.” Right up in fifth and sixth class we used to sing, and draw a deep breath and say, “Twelve elevens are 132 and twelve twelves are 144.” And we used to sing that, and the teacher had a tuning fork, he used to ding it on the table, and we’d listen, play it again, and of course, no-one’s voice had broken then, we’d reach that pitch and then we’d sing.

And right through my life I’ve known all along that, you know, seven sevens are 49, I’ve never used a calculator or anything like that, never. And in shops, as a salesman, I used to have to reckon up the cash sale. Nowadays, there’s girls on checkout counters, and their machine even tells them how much change to give. It’s shocking, that’s not the way to bring up a young person. They don’t get

this instilled, see. And I’m 85, and when I’m gone that’ll be gone from here too. And it’s happening all over, the old order changing, it’s not there any more like it used to be. Have you done any other men of my age? They’ll tell you. I hope I’m saying what they say.

A bit louder.

No. No, I think the Turks were respected. Because my Dad taught me very early that all men are equal, irrespective of colour, and that served me well, because when the

people sent me to the islands and then I did seven trips through the Pacific islands and I was dealing mostly with Chinese merchants and with Indian merchants in Fiji, and the colour of our skin, I didn’t notice, it didn’t, you know, didn’t matter. No, I wasn’t aware of any - well, I didn’t know Germans much, but I did see the Italian prisoners of war, and I saw the Japanese. In fact, I

was in Manus, up in Manus Island for Kodak in 1951 when they hanged the last of the Japanese war criminals. He was a naval man or vice-admiral or something. And they showed him to me the day before, he was sitting weeding a garden with two black Papuan police constabulary, and that was loss of face to a Japanese, of course, to have a black man on your guard.

And that night at the dinner table or wherever they fed him, they told him he was booked for the next morning, and they hanged him the next morning. And the day after I went out in the plane to Kavieng, on the next trip around to Rabaul and it came in, I was met by newspapermen who wanted my story. I said, “What story?” and he said, “You’re the hangman aren’t you?” See, I’d gone in two days before

this fellow was hanged and the next day I left. They thought I was the hangman. Soon put them straight to that one.

I had no animosity towards the enemy. Now, when we knew or when we realised that there were possibly, and on one occasion there was, a Japanese plane up, well, from my

point of view it was us or him. That’s all. That’s all it is. I was so thankful, and I shouldn’t say this, but I was so thankful when I learned early in the piece we were going to be gunners at Georges Heights, we weren’t infantrymen, because I didn’t, and that suited me fine. So I was there. I did, of course, I did unarmed training and all that sort of thing, but I didn’t do the violent bayonet work that a lot

of people had to use. Some of the RSL blokes who don’t talk about it, they were on Kokoda, where they, where the Japs were coming down towards Port Moresby on the Kokoda Trail, and that was pretty tough, apparently. But you read about it, you don’t hear word for word by the men about it. No, I don’t think there’s any, I was never aware about any hatred. Elizabeth Richards asked me about the

American servicemen, when they came out here. Well, you probably know what happened out there, when they got here they had silk stockings, plenty of money, plenty of grog, plenty of cigarettes and a twinkle in their eye. They couldn’t miss, could they? In fact we said, very quickly the word went around that they were, the Americans were, “overpaid, over-

sexed and over here.” And they made a beeline. The only trouble that they had I feel was there was animosity between, and I saw some of it, there was animosity between the white American soldier and the black American soldier. In fact, in some instances, the Americans had to have black battalions where they were all black. And it was very

difficult to put a black man in charge of white men. Stupid, that is, but this is human nature, but it doesn’t worry me.

On the 3rd of September 1939. Well, I don’t think anyone was really surprised. Menzies announced it on the Sunday night of the 3rd

and by ten o’clock that night there were newspaper boys in the street selling newspapers. And of course we heard it on the radio, there was no - Menzies made a statement on the radio, because there were no TV. And people were not surprised; in fact there was a feeling of, “Well, it’s happened at last,” because it looked as though it was going to happen for some time with

the rising of the Hitler era, and the way he marched into, finally marched into Poland and precipitated the war. But prior to that he took over part of Austria and then he took over the Ruhr and, well, that’s all in the history books now. And everyone was sort of... But my mother, I remember my mother that night, she looked at me

and she looked at Dad and she said, “Oh no, not again,” and that was her reaction. See, this is why I prompted, in that letter, that fabric thing of letters that I sent to the Jessie Street [Women’s Memorial] Library, some women in that era grew up that way, they brought their husbands back from World War I and sent their sons off to World War II, and that was their life. And that happened in our family,

see, because I got called up on the Monday when I met Joan to go to work, Menzies called us up that day, and I was in, no question. I had a feeling of relief, “Well, let’s get it over,” you know, “let’s get it over.” I was directed to Kogarah Drill Hall and later on directed to Arncliffe Drill Hall. Because we were living at Brighton-Le-Sands at the time, we’d left the Post

Office in 1938, left Milperra in 1938. And then we, oh, throughout the area there was a, of course all the men of military age were jabbering to each other about what everyone was going to do and what everyone was not going to do. We were all picking out our spots we’d have before they were selected for us, you know. And yet

some of the fellows who went straight into militia, joined up immediately into the militia, not into the AIF [Australian Imperial Forces] for overseas service, but joined up for service, they had one or two stripes up before we got in because they got in early, see. That was an advantage for them, some of them did that. But there was an air of, I don’t know, remoteness,

because it was all overseas in Europe, see. It didn’t really register with anybody until Japan came in, in the end of 1941, except that a lot of people had, as my folks did, they had friends, they had relatives over there, and word started filtering through about, “Mary’s house was bombed and they’d do this and they’d do that, and we’d have to get under the stairway every night for shelter.”

It was certainly a topic of conversation. But life went on. It didn’t really get serious until after the 7th of December 1941. And then it descended on us very quickly. Fortunately, I’d been on these lighter three-inch guns at Georges Heights on and off for nearly two years. As I say, that cadre of men were well

trained by that time. We did this three months’ camp, we did weekend bivouacs, we did Friday night, we had to take our uniform to work and just change and go down to Georges Heights for lectures that evening. As they said to us, “Just to keep yous from going rusty, just to keep yous from going rusty,” they used to go over, see, theory movements so that everyone was

kept up to scratch. And when they were needed, they were there, because they’d been held and that was good thinking on the part of the army. It never entered my head to join the AIF, because I couldn’t. You know, it just wasn’t available. They had said straight away, “Don’t try and join anywhere else, because we’ll come and get yous,” and then by the time I was B2 they didn’t want me anyway.

But that didn’t worry me. I don’t think that, and my Dad, of course, he joined up, but I didn’t get a chance to otherwise, because the day after it broke out I was called up and I was in, I had no alternative.

Letter. Letter. Within a few days.

No, but I’ve got a copy of it somewhere. I’ve also got a copy of the one that

called me up, I’ll show it to you later, that called me in for the 18th of December when it really started, when Japan got in. Yeah, they said, “You are required to attend,” and, “Bring in with you this and that.” I’ve got seven or eight pages of it written in the diary. You can have a look at that if you want to, on a separate bit of paper, because that’s been published, it was published in the

Australian Artillery Association, in their magazine, they published that a couple of years ago. My venture into the army. That was funny. They were sort of, we were all from the St George district, up round Kogarah and Arncliffe and we were all the same age, 21 that year, see, and

all sorts of funny incidents. You had to state your religion. Of course one clever bloke pipes up and says, “What do they want to know your religion for?” and he was told, “So we’ll know where to bury you, son.” That quietened him. Yeah, all sorts of things. There were people who had nothing, just with a pair of grey slacks and a shirt, and with a view to let them look after them.

I did pack a pair of pyjamas and an extra pair of socks, just in case. And I was issued with the old militia uniform that had brass buttons and red piping on the shoulders and around the sleeves. And I retained that right through that first two years. And when I got called up full-time on December 31, September ’41 and paraded at Georges Heights in at

Rose Bay, I was the only one of 70 men in this old colourful uniform so they did something about that right away, yeah. I got a tram out to Mosman once to go to Georges Heights, and the tram conductor, they used to come along the side of trams, asked me was I a soldier or a school cadet. He couldn’t tell the difference from the jazzed up uniform. So they soon got me out of that, but I’d had that

since the 3rd, you know, the 3rd of January 1940.

Some were resentable [resentful], some were able to tell us all the things they were going to do and couldn’t, you know. Of course, I was singled minded, I’d just got engaged, as you know,

just the week before. I’d just got engaged to the girl I love, and here I am torn away from her. But, oh, we got on. Other fellows accepted it, there was no... I know a couple of them, because the people who disliked the war said, “Declare yourselves a non-combatant,” you know, which could

entail a jail term if you wanted. I know one bloke said, I heard him say, “I prefer not to carry a rifle,” he made a straight-out statement, “I prefer not to carry a rifle,” and the hard-bitten old full-timer who was signing him up said, “Will you carry a stretcher?” “Oh yes,” he said, “Right, sign here.” And once his signature was on the paper, he was in. So it was no good arguing with them,

you just went. And as I said earlier I soon learned from discipline previous which had been in my life, I could cope, I had to cope. Just become a face in the crowd, and no one notices you there. Do what you’re told, minimum, don’t do too much. Never volunteer for anything. So they called for four volunteers, four musicians were wanted. And we thought, “This is a good job, we’ll get in the band,” see, artillery band,

big job, see. So the four men stood out, as volunteers, “Right, go and move the piano from the main room to the officers’ mess.” Never volunteer for anything. Do you think that’s funny? It happened.

That happened too. That’s a sideline, yeah.

He said, “Oh, well,

son, I suppose you’ll have to go.” I said, “Yeah, I suppose I will, there’s no option. I’m not protesting against them, I’ll just see what they do and do as I’m told.” But this business of not, “Don’t try and go anywhere else” solved everything for me, I just stayed where I was, went to the, stayed a member of the cadre, as everyone else did,

and then when the time came for them to release the men we were there to be released. But Mum was, I know it affected Mum, because she just lost her - she hadn’t lost him, but he just lost his arm, he lost his profession as a master builder, master carpenter. And now here was her 21 year-old Len was trotting off too, see. It was hard on the women. If you can imagine that

with husband and then your son, 25 years apart or what, 20 years apart, the two wars, yeah.

We were tested, we took the oath to the king,

and they gave us a notice that we’d be going back and being taken by bus and to come not to, this happened at Kogarah, but we were to report to Arncliffe, which is a couple of suburbs away. And we duly reported out there at Arncliffe. I wore a white sports shirt and grey

slacks and I took with me the minimum of what they asked us to take, and threw in a pair of pyjamas just in case, and a pair of socks. And finally we boarded the buses, destination unknown. I’d said to Joan goodbye a second time in a couple of weeks. Always saying goodbye to her during the war. Never knew where I was going, never knew. So we set off

in the bus, and the people down the front quickly got to hear the driver speaking to the NCO [non-commissioned officer] IC [in charge of] bus, there was an NCO in charge of the bus, he was from the place we were going to and he was in charge of the bus and the driver. It was their bus, they were taking the recruits, see, and word filtered through that we were going to North Head Barracks. We were going to artillery and we were going to be gunners.

And then we learned that gunners are on guns, artillery, be it coastal or ack ack or whatever. I didn’t know I was ack ack, I didn’t know. But we were going to be gunners and engineers were sappers and footsloggers, for which I was very grateful I wasn’t, were privates. And I was a gunner. So we turned up at North Head, and we did a fortnight’s

hell, you know, oh, God, it was awful. We were four to a room and one particular officer, he was notorious for opening the door and saying, “Stand to,” and put his hand up and rub his fingers along the top of the door, and if it was dusty, the whole room was (UNCLEAR) no inspection. He had an NCO with him and they just tipped the gear of the four men out

into the middle of the floor and threw the empty packs away and said, “Now, sort it out.” That sort of discipline. They called it “discipline”, we called it “bastardry”, and it was - excuse the word, it was. They really treated us tough, you know, to see what we were made of I imagine, had to do that I think. But they were old-time soldiers, they knew what it was about, and we were rookies [recruits]. Well, we did foot drill and we did this and we did that.

And we went to night lectures and we learned who to salute to and who not to, and that was important to them. Then for the second week we got rifles and we marched. The artillery band took us over the macadamised roads on North Head, we marched behind them. Learned how to march properly, and we got pretty good, effective at it. And at the

end of the fortnight they said, “Right. you’re moving out,” which we did. And we were loaded into buses, and as we went out there was two buses of recruits coming in, so we were able to lean out and call out to them “You’ll be sorry, you’ll be sorry.” And they told us we were going to Georges Heights, and some would be

ack ack gunners and some would be coastal gunners. And just by the, I don’t know how they did it, but I was amongst the ack ack lot. And I stayed there, and still am, it never changed. So I started from scratch and I became a fairly proficient gunner, gunnery instructor, and I could lecture on gunnery and ballistics to officers

and know more about it than they did, eventually.

Yes, we were in barrack rooms, very old barrack rooms. They were World War I barrack rooms, because that’s always been a military area in Middle Head and Georges Heights, over towards Mosman. The zoo wasn’t far from us and

I thought I’d learned everything in that fortnight at North Head, but I’d learned nothing. I had just had the man in charge of our squad giving me orders, but then I found that I had an orderly officer for the day, an orderly NCO for the day, we had a regimental sergeant major,

and we had an adjutant, and until we worked out who was who and what did what it was a mystery. But you soon found out and then you didn’t stumble any more, you didn’t do the wrong thing. I got rostered on guards, I got rostered on mess duties, I got rostered for emu parades - you’ve heard the expression “emu parades”?

Everyone lines up

and you just walk forward and you pick up anything that’ll move, like an emu. And the place is spotless. Papers mainly looking for, even along a fence where papers have blown, and everything. That’s an emu parade. And I also did my trot at officer’s batman [servant] which I hated. I felt the first touch of class distinction.

I was aware of it. I had to leave my bunk early, go into the kitchen where the cook had boiling water, and if he didn’t I had to make some, make this bloke a cup of tea, and take it into him and give him a bit of a nudge and say, “Tea, sir.” And sir would sit up and blink and shake himself and say, “Oh, thanks, gunner, tell so-and-so that so-and-so and so-and-so,” see. Which was a second duty which

I was supposed to make him a cup of tea, but I had to do other things, and I’d get out of the room quick before he could tell me anything else. Then I had to go back and do my own preparation and still be on the nine o’clock parade, see. So you learned to do things properly, but quickly and what shortcuts could be taken. Very necessary for the life of a good soldier.

Because it’d become, it could become dreadful if you didn’t.

And if your kit bag, if your kit wasn’t laid out properly, see, we were on palliasses, you’ve heard of a palliasse? Just a, like a big chaff bag stuffed with straw. And you soon learned how much to put in it to be comfortable. And that was folded. Two blankets, three blankets in the winter, two in the summer. You laid on one and put one over you. And what could be shown and what couldn’t be shown. What had to be hidden and what had to be on show. Your pair of boots polished and beside your second pair of boots there, because everyone had

two pairs of boots. Wear one and...And you had two of everything, you wore one and you washed one, see. And all that was, everything had to be precise to an eighth of an inch, because you’d come back after your morning parade sometimes for lunch and tired out and think, “Oh, I’ll have a lay down for 20 minutes,” and your whole bed’s upside down and all your gear’s been tipped out because when they did the inspection they found something they disagreed with. So they just pull everything up. But as I

became a sergeant and I used to go through inspections, and even inspection of AWAS [Australian Women’s Army Service] caught us with a senior with a two-striper over, I soon found out what it was all about and what was needed. But I was on the receiving end in those days, early. But things settled down and you learned what they wanted and gave it to them, and nothing more. Keep your face out of the crowd

and just be a number, don’t be seen. Don’t volunteer for anything, and you get by, just.

It was usually surreptitious stuff. There were a lot of shortcuts, if you were careful.

The bloke next to me, we took it in turns to polish stuff and have it appear, nicely appeared, see. And on the first day, my polished one would be on my bed, and on the second day he wouldn’t polish his because mine would be showing on his bed, see, and we halved our duties that way. All that sort of, they didn’t know, the inspector didn’t know who’s

gear he was looking at, mine or his, see. All that sort of thing. It was possible to find shortcuts. In fact, they became so obvious and necessary at times otherwise you’d have never got through, never got through.

Part of your training, yeah. If you were rostered for guard on the same night there was a lecture, you didn’t hear the lecture,

but you had to turn up with the notes for next time. So someone would have to do it for you. You’ve heard the old story, and this might be, I don’t know, but it happened in America where, and I had a Catholic boy in a patch next to me once, who used to kneel on his palliasse just to say prayers every morning. And I stood facing the crowd and

sort of stood him behind me so that he wasn’t seen so much. But in America this happened and some big lad used to chuck a boot at the fellow, hit him on the head while he was praying, had his head bowed. And one night, after they’d come in wet and it was raining, he, the fellow was saying his evening prayer quietly, and this fellow threw a wet boot at him and hit him on the head.

And the next morning when this fellow, the tough, woke up his pair of boots were dried and polished alongside him. Because the kid had got up through the night, gone down to the kitchen where there was a fire, dried the boots and polished them for him. He never touched him again. Never touched him again. There were all sorts of things.

We, at Georges Heights, although we had a leave pass till, you’ve probably heard the expression “23:59”, that’s a minute to midnight. We were allowed a leave pass 23:59. And we were permitted to go down to the pictures at Cremorne Junction or somewhere down there. But most of us wanted to, we’d been on guard the previous night, or where we’d been marching all the next day we used to go to bed at night time. But sometimes, on one occasion I came back

with a couple of other blokes, we’d been to the pictures, and my bed wasn’t there. My palliasse [sleeping pallet] wasn’t there, my gear wasn’t there, nothing. Couldn’t find it, no, it was lights out, no lights and much questioning around. So I started the row where the blokes were asleep, and I woke the first one and asked him where my gear was. He didn’t know, ask the next bloke. After I’ve asked about four of them,

and my mate, who was missing his gear, he asked up the other way, and finally they, so were all going to be roused, so they told us where they were, they were up in the rafters. And we had to get up and get them down, just done for a joke, funny sort of joke. But it was a joke. All sorts of things. What men do to each other, as you might imagine.

No, each understood each other. We were there because we were called in, and we weren’t allowed to move. So we were there, we were accepted. In fact, we were making up numbers,

and that meant that the young blokes didn’t have to work as hard because we were there to do part of it. Now, the night I moved into Rose Bay, there were 15 of us, only 15 men went from corps, from cadre to Rose Bay, only 15 of us. And the blokes in, and we got there at night, and the pleasure on the face of the men that were there, “Oh, thank God, you’ve come,” you know. “We’ve been short

for a couple of weeks now.” It was a brand new gun site just opened up, and they didn’t have their full complement. And 15 more trained men arrived, see, and they were very pleased to receive us, it had made all the difference. You know, welcomed with open arms. Of course, later on, when I had some stripes and three stripes and the fellows started going up north to Darwin and Port Moresby and so on, and I remained behind to train the next lot

coming in, the fellows coming in didn’t know which end of the gun was what. And we had to start them from nothing. They’d done footslogging and they’d done basic training, “rookie drill”, we called it, rookie drill. That was all. But they didn’t know anything about, and as to put them on the instruments, see, there was a predictor and there was a height finder and, attached to every gun sight. A predictor was called a predictor because if you haven’t spoken to an ack ack man

before you don’t aim at the plane, you aim ahead of him so that the time of flight of your shell is the same as the speed he’s going so you both arrive in the same spot together, see. Not to hit him because that’s practically impossible, but you used fused shells which exploded at a certain fuse and it was supposed to explode at the same spot as he got there at the same time, that sort of thing,

yeah.

I can’t hear.

Oh yes. On the three, well, we trained on guns and we trained on instruments and in fact I was put on the predictor fairly early, because, in answer to a general question,

once, soon after we got there, I stood up and, having been pointed out, I didn’t volunteer, “Do you know them?,” and I stood up and said what a sine and a cosine and a tangent was, see, from trigonometry, and this was noted. “Oh, here’s a bloke, he knows cosines and tangents, get onto him,” see. So I was put on the predictor. And all that sort of thing went on.

Once a man showed his mark for something, he was always in, because they were always, because riflemen were always looking for good riflemen and crack shots and that sort of thing. You would take advantage of any innate benefit of a bloke for the benefit of everybody. So as well as the predictor I was on the three-inch guns, because they were mobile, the three-inch, and we learned to pull the canvas off it, hoist the jacks to hold them,

take the four wheels off, lower it down, and settle it on its foundations, see. Put the gun carriages aside. And then we’d do some drill and then we’d up the gun, lift it, put up the, put on the jacks, so that it was still off the ground, put the wheels down, lower it down, put the canvas back on and connect it to the Mack truck that used to pull it around, see. And we’d do all that sort of gun drill, quickest, and

we were always given so many seconds and we were always told, once we could do it in 13 seconds, he used to have a man that did it, he used to have a team that could do it in 11 seconds, and that was impossible, but anyway. But they always knew they had a better batch than we were, but we tried hard and we got the timing down. And then of course gun drill was the same, there was, on the three point seven, where I was primarily, there were 11 men to a gun.

That was 44 men required just for the guns, for four guns, 11 men on each, 44 men. Five men on the predictor, that’s 49, and one on the height finder, three on the height finder, one on the Toc I, have you heard Toc I? Toc I is TI, telescope identification. For identifying objects in the sky, see. And you don’t say, “telescope identification” or

“identification telescope” every time you want to say it, you just say, “Toc I”, and everyone knows what you’re talking about. So there was 50-odd people required basically just for manning these guns. Then you wanted a man on guard, you wanted men in the orderly room, you wanted a man in the hospital or the little ambulance room, which basically was used for people come to pick up their condoms when they went on leave,

if you know what I’m talking about. And so basic men on gun site was about 70, and you didn’t get leave unless they had more than 70 because they had to have a manning every night for everybody, for every position. Four guns, 11 on each, instruments and so on, and guards and telephone, man always manning the telephone because if messages came through, and they were

relayed down on another line... In fact, when we hit Rose Bay, there was a dying patch of beautiful grass on Rose Bay Golf Links running from down near the street up to our guns, because that was where the cable, the underground cable had been laid. And the grass had been settled back and they hadn’t grown green yet when we were there, (UNCLEAR) see. And all this sort of thing went on, so it was necessary, rather necessary then. And unless you had more than 70, well, no-

one could go on leave. So sometimes we got good leave and sometimes we got, I went through a long period where I got one day a month. And later the army instituted a rest day, and two days’ leave if you did 30 days, you got two days’ leave. Well, they found that necessary, because now you’ll hear American troops have R and R, Rest and Resuscitation [actually Recuperation] or something,

and you have to let men have these breaks, this is why we only worked 50 minutes an hour, then you had a 10 minute smoko [rest break]. Then you worked for another 50 minutes, and compulsory, you had a 10 minute smoko. So this was built into army routine for the gun site. And all that was to make better gunners of us, see, there was no hostile movement about the...

Yes, 11 men, number one in charge, two was lay of the line, that’s the bearing of the gun that way, number three was lay for elevation, that’s raising and lowering the thing, number four was the fuse dial operator, number six was the

fuse setter. The ammo [ammunition] man came up and shoved the nose of the round into the, laid it, see, he shoved it in, and the fuse setter just pulled a lever that set the fuse to the point where the dial operated, that was six wasn’t it. Number seven pulled on the - no, number seven was on the tray, you pulled it backwards and forwards. The tray, the gun,

the round was put in the tray and it was pushed forward behind the open breech, and number nine, number eight, heaved on the cable which pulled the, which forced the round up into the breech, and when it hit the breech the breech automatically closed. And number nine was in charge of ammunition, and he had two ammunition numbers, 10 and 11.

Well, that’s gone and taken me back 60 years, but that’s somewhere near it.

If you’ve got any left, send them off on leave.

Three point sevens.

That was me on the three point sevens.

Oh, I couldn’t tell you about the three-inch. It wasn’t the same, because it was all

loaded by hand, you just got in behind the breech and shoved the shell into it, sort of.

Well, we’d do practice shoots. On the three-inch, we never fired the three-inch gun, but we fired the three point sevens quite a bit at Rose Bay. Well, it was necessary because diverting,

the first raids on Darwin, some of the ack ack had been up there on the three point seven, heard the gun go off for the first time, you heard that?

The first time the gun was fired at a Japanese plane over Darwin, some of those gunners heard the gun going for the first time. But this quickly rectified at Rose Bay, because we fired ours and they used to bring men in to hear it. Oh yes. Well, that’s why my ears are as though they are, because

I was able to show in my assessment, in fact, when I went back to work, my boss, who wasn’t in the army himself, he said to me, “Look, cut out this ‘say again’ on the telephone,” he said, “you’re not in the army now,” because I, people on the house phone would give me instructions. I’d say, “Say again?” because I wasn’t hearing it the first time. I put this in my assessment and they accepted it

as truthful, which it was, truthful. And then I told him about the various shoots we had and after the four rounds went off, there was nothing but a ringing in the ears, and that was true, too. So they accepted all that was truthful, gave me a hearing aid, after 50 years, 52 years. But the gun drill consisted of changing around, each man of the gun crew was

trained, one bloke had a go at laying for line, traversing the gun around and the other one, next one next to him, raised an lowered the barrel for elevation, then you went to train the fuse layer, because he was connected to the predictor by, well, it was all connected to the predictor, because the predictor put the four guns on target. The

fellow following the, targeting the telescope on the predictor, as he turned... Are you with a, getting a signal?

Keep going?

Well, laying the line with his eye to the target in the predictor, he was slowly winding his handle and staying in touch, see, now that impulse was going electrically through to the

layer for line on the gun, who wasn’t looking at the plane, he was just watching his dial, and wherever that white spot went he followed it with his, and that moved the gun around. The same with the bloke on the elevation, he wasn’t looking at the gun, at the target, he was just following the dial, and the fuse setter was also following. Because the predictor was sending all these simultaneously, sending all this information through.

The predictor was most valuable, because we didn’t have radar, see. No other way of doing it.

When I what?

Well, see, I thought I was in a strange

position. First of all, from the year dot, from the first day, I was a conscript. I was called in, I was there, taking orders. I wasn’t given the opportunity to volunteer. I felt I didn’t need to volunteer because they grabbed me instead. But as soon as we got training at cadre and we were told not to

try and transfer out to any other unit, “Well, that’s not me,” (UNCLEAR) and I didn’t want to and I didn’t feel the necessity for it. I was in doing my bit that I was called in for, and I was getting on with it, learning what I could, expecting promotion one day. But seeing the type of opposition I’d have if I wanted to get to the top, and some of that looked promising, I’m not

smiling. No, I was happy, I was there, and I was doing what I was told and I’d been called up. And I couldn’t volunteer for overseas, because, well, first of all, I was limited to stay a member of the cadre, and then they made me B2 medically so I couldn’t go.

Fear of invasion?

Only by submarine, there were ships being sunk in the Indian Ocean and in the Pacific. And between Sydney and New Zealand a couple were sunk in the Tasman Sea, before Japan was in the - German subs, yes. Oh yes, there were, and of course, the German missions were in Rabaul, and they were in Lae in New Guinea, and they were all

taken over. In fact, when I went up there after the war, Finschhafen still retains its German name, Finschhafen, nice quiet spot. No, I didn’t see much of the Germans or the Italians. I saw Italian prisoners of war, but I wouldn’t know a German if I fell over him. Never ever saw one.

Yes, it was a shock, really, it was quite a surprise, big surprise. And also this immediate feeling that the war had suddenly become a lot closer, because within a few days they were coming down the Malayan Peninsula, you know, and Hong Kong fell on Christmas Eve and Singapore fell. Because, this is true, I hope I’m not

giving the wrong information away on the film, all the Singapore heavy artillery and coastal guns were pointing out to sea, and the Japs came down from behind. That’s a fact. And this is why we had to do the dawn and dusk manning, because they were past masters of surprise. And so we, Sydney was

immediately put on alert, you know, and particularly after those three incidents: (a) Darwin was bombed, (b) there were submarines in the harbour, there was a Japanese aeroplane overhead and four, the shells came over from out to sea and landed on Woollahra and Bronte Road and that area in Rose Bay there, where we were. And literally hundreds,

dozens anyway, of people in the eastern suburbs sold up and got out, moved out to the other side of the Great Dividing Range, this is true. There was great panic, not great panic, but there was a sudden realisation. And that manifested itself on our gun site because you didn’t know when it was coming, if it was coming. There’d already been subs [submarines] in the harbour, there’d already been shells overhead from a submarine out to sea.

There was talk of aircraft carriers coming down the Queensland coast, and they were at the time. And consequently we were doing this dawn manning and dusk manning right throughout 1942. Sydney didn’t know we were doing it. The ordinary people didn’t know, but it was going on, we were there. And it was very tense, and leave was the last thing you wanted, you know, well, you were glad to get leave, but there was a fear that you might miss something if

you were on leave when it happened, you know what I mean? You could’ve, could’ve. But, oh, the actual night the subs were in the harbour, we weren’t turned out. Now, you could raise the camp, you could turn out the people, just. The order’s given “Turn out,” you bang on the side of the hut and “Turn out,” and everyone put their boots on because you sleep with your

feet out of your boots, but you get out and we were all grouped there, and there was lights on and flashes and “What’s going on?” “Oh, there’s, they think there’s subs in the harbour,” but it was north-east from us at Rose Bay, it was a bit further along, nearer Woolloomooloo. If you could - you know Sydney harbour? Although the boom was nearly where we were, but they got through that because they used to open the boom to let the ferries

out, and one of the subs followed the ferry through when it came through the boom. That’s why it got around the, fired the, they aimed at the Chicago, the big American warship that was there, but it missed that and it hit the ferry [actually HMAS Kuttabul] that killed 20 men asleep that night. We heard a bit of the, what turned out to be the Chicago, it was a quick, rapid

fire. Well, I’ll tell you, five at a time, “pom, pom, pom, pom, pom,” and they called it, they said the Chicago had a “pom pom” gun, it was a quick-firing gun. I suppose they were two-pounders like a, and they were firing, so they suspected something. Well, we could hear that. But we didn’t know really, we couldn’t see anything. And even though I say we were there, I was there the night the subs were in the harbour, and everyone’s saying “Oh, were you?”,

you know, I didn’t actually see it and we weren’t really aware of it until the next morning, except that, after we’d been assembled some time, too late to do anything, the alarm went and off we went to the guns. But it was all over by then. So we were stood down soon after midnight and went back to bed for a few hours. But the next morning the papers were full of it. That was the subs in the harbour.

But prior to that, in February, on the 19th of February, I’d gone in on the 18th of December to Rose Bay, and in the February I was in a work party down filling sandbags outside the barbed wire along Bronte Beach and Bondi Beach. Nothing between me and New Zealand. Filling sandbags.

And word came through that, on the 19th - that was the 19th of February - Darwin had been bombed, but, boy, did we fill more sandbags. Because when we go there, in end of December, the four guns were just standing stark in four places on the fairway. They were static guns laid into concrete, heavy concrete, they weren’t mobile, they were static, but nothing around them, so we were building

sandbagging placements right around them, see. And they were later, they brought in some civilian workers and they put up concrete walls around them. Then we had to camouflage them so that we, and further down towards O’Sullivan Road, the other end of the golf links, they put up a dummy gun site just made out of canvas and poles, to make it look like four guns. And they took

over Woollahra oval, which was a cricket and football oval, they put a dummy gun site in there, all camouflaged. It was very serious, really was, and we felt it at the time, we felt it. Particularly when the great distress when it was known that the 8th Division had been lost, had to surrender to the Japs. That was, because the 6th and 7th and 9th Divisions came back,

they were all brought back, but the 8th Divvy [Division] didn’t get back, as you know. That was great distress, particularly when we knew a couple of fellows in there. Joan and I had a friend, see, he came in to say goodbye to me when he went, and to this day he’s MIA, missing in action. Never found him, never did. I think he got washed away in one of the rivers in New Guinea, probably. I don’t know. Never

found, never. There was a certain amount of tension. The story of the Japanese plane over Sydney, after the war, you know, the pilot of that plane was still going, and he spoke to the Allies. His story’s been published, he’s named, and he said in one, at one stage, that after - and I know that he noted the Chicago in the harbour, that was one of the reasons the subs came

in, it was a small plane released from a submarine, only a little single engine plane he flew over - and he said later that he decided then that, you can read that in that document, he decided to fly back east, because he was afraid the ack ack guns would open up on him. But nothing happened, at which point I took that up. That was published in our RSL magazine, “But nothing

happened,” according to this, so I took up the story. And I wrote, I said, “Nothing happened because none of the guns had any visual sighting of him.” There were no search lights up. We were aware of, practically every night just before that there were, we were out for, when the alarm was sounded, but we didn’t hear a plane, and one of those nights there was certainly one up there because this fellow proved it. He flew back because he was afraid

of the ack ack. But we had no way of getting on the target then. And of course we didn’t have radar in those days. Later on we had radar and that took over quite a bit of the predictor work.

Well, whenever the alarm went and we took post and the ammunition was uncurled and everything was made ready for

immediate, and the predictor crew was standing by to get, once they were given a bearing and an angle they could get on whatever was up there, visually, you see... What was your question?

Intelligence, yes. Right, got you. The ack ack command down in the St James tunnels would order

all gun sites to take post, that was the word, take post. The alarm was sounded, we all took post on our respective areas. 11 men to a gun, predictors and so on, we were all there ready waiting. What’s the next thing that happened? Immediately every time, “Do not engage, do not engage,” see. “A plane is taking off from Bankstown, a Wirraway, or a (UNCLEAR) or an Airacobra, taking off to investigate. So we weren’t allowed to fire, if we could have,

but we could have, see. So we never ever fired a shot in anger. But we were there ready, but it didn’t happen. See, air control had seniority and tactics over the ack ack guns. Well, London found that too, because when the blitz was on they couldn’t have anti-aircraft guns firing, barrages up while our own Spitfires were up,

could they, see. There had to be two commands, we learned that very quickly. Although the dawn and dusk manning were, and they were pretty tense for some time, too, you never knew which morning they’d come, or which evening they’d come. But you more or less expected it. But they didn’t.

Yes, we,

because it varied in the time and either summer or winter, daylight and dark, varied quite a lot, but it was designated in routine orders everyday. The roster’s dawn-dusk manning because the roster went up for the day and dusk manning was first on it because it was that night.

The only blokes it upset were the cooks, because they couldn’t put on morning meals or evening meals in good order, see, in good time, because the troops were all out at the time the meals should be set. And that was a disruption, in a small way. So everyone knew and the whistle blew at quarter to four or quarter past four or half past five, whatever, the whistle blew, and “Dusk manning!” was

called loudly to everybody, and we just went down and took our rostered place on the guns, instruments, wherever, and waited for something to happen. We always rang through on the telephone to the tunnel in St James station, we always rang through and said, we were Harry Three. Each gun site was an H,

Harry One, Harry Two, Harry Three. “Harry One, ready for action,” and then they knew that we were all, and no doubt Iron Cove or South Head or Kyeemagh, they all rang through in due course, until finally they knew that all the guns were manned and ready and waiting, and then they would advise the people at Bankstown, the Air force people, see.

So that was the big connection, and this went on every morning and every night, until we were stood down. The order finally came through “Stand down,” and you’d troop back to cold dinners at night.

Well, you weren’t allowed to go to sleep. But I learned a

great old maxim about the army, “Never sit down when you can lie down, never stand up when you can sit down,” you know, and there was always an alternative. And everyone got in the most comfortable position. The breech operator and, the man who pulled the lever, firing lever, he had

to stand on a platform, and he was on his feet the whole time. The layer for line and the layer for elevation and the fuse setter, they had seats in front of their dials and they were able to sit. The three ammunition men, the man in charge of ammunition and the two runners, they could lay on the grass, you know. But everybody had their post, used to find somewhere to lean on. And you just

waited, just waited. There’d be an, occasionally the phone would ring, you know. Quick, attention, everyone waiting for the, it was always some nonsensical message about something or other but it was never, you know “Air craft approaching 15 miles out to sea.” Never got it, but we could have, and we were ready if it did. And Sydney didn’t know

that, the people in Sydney. That is the point I made in that article that was, you knew it, my article that was presented to the Clarke Enquiry, because they were investigating how men worked and acted and served and yet didn’t meet minimum criteria. Well, I didn’t meet minimum criteria for overseas service because I didn’t go.

But I served, three bags full. But that didn’t worry me until these last four or five years when it’s dawned on people that there was something going on here. See, if you’ll excuse the expression, for 40-odd years I regarded myself as a chocker - you’ve heard the expression? I was only a ‘choco’ [chocolate soldier - militia], a chocolate soldier, because I did nothing. But actually I

did do something. And now at last it’s been recognised and people want to hear about it, because I’ve got something to tell them, see, which they weren’t aware of before. Oh yes, we fought our part in the war, as a, you know, with our limited capabilities. But when I was at Iron Cove, I moved for a while from St James,

from Rose Bay to Iron Cove, there was a vacancy there for a sergeant, and they, the major in charge of 15 Battery said, “You go.” Much to the distress of a two-striper at Rose Bay, at Iron Cove, who thought he was going to be promoted into the sergeant’s position because he was eligible for promotion to sergeant, he’d been a two-striper for some time. But instead of him getting his third stripe, I turned up.

Didn’t please him very much for a while, but we won him over. One of the sergeants there with me was named Win Frecker, Winston Frecker. Now, we talked about what we’d do after the war. Winston Frecker said he was going to America straight away, and television was coming on and he was going to get stuck right into the middle of it, first thing. You know, years later, he came back as the

television manager for the Bob Dyer Show. You’ve heard of the Bob Dyer show? Yeah, he came back as Bob Dyer’s television manager. So he got on. Second sergeant to me, he went, we were given post-war education, you could do anything you wanted, so he took a course in Japanese language and he became a wool buyer and did very

well. Of course, I went back to Kodak. But that didn’t worry me a great deal, because in 1950 and 51 they sent me up to New Guinea for sort of sales trips up there. That was interesting too, where I was showing samples to a Chinese merchant and he only spoke pidgin English. And I showed him something and then he’d say, “How much that fellow?”

and I’d say, “Oh, something,” pounds and shillings and pence, see, and he’d slide three beads along his abacus and work out something, and then he’d pick up this one and say, “Tessy 24 fellow that one” and I had booked an order for two dozen of that. That was interesting, all this sort of thing, yeah. Later on, in the paint game, am I diverting too much?

Later on in the paint game,

the sales manager used to lay down what I was to do in the islands and I used to say, “Yes, righto,” and go away and forget what he told me and do it my way, because I was getting, see, results. But the Managing Director said to me one day, “Go into Pago [Pago Pago] in American Samoa, see what’s there, come back and tell me.”

Now that’s the sort of briefing I like. I understand that one, I can do that. So I went in and went over and looked around and found the biggest hardware store and had a look in their paint department and walked around, and they were selling American gallon cans of paint, just five eighths the size of our imperial gallon. So I talked to the

management, introduced myself and talked about the Imperial gallon, and when we compared prices I could land our paint from Sydney, nearly twice the size of what he was buying his paint for. He was coming down from the west coast of America, down through Hawaii, into Pago, and I was in business. So I came back and reported all this, and the managing director

got the accountant to draw me up an export price list, and I went back and was several years after that, I went once a year, because there was only a couple of ships a year between, so they had to buy big quantities. And each year the first three items on my, the order he gave me, this store gave me, 100 gallons of white undercoat, 100 gallons of white enamel and 100 gallons of flat white paint. You know, it was beautiful.

Until of course, other major Sydney paint companies come to the fact that our paint was going in there, so they went over and undercut us. But that’s business. Where was I?

Yes.

Why what?

Because, as I say, they didn’t know. Well, they didn’t know because the presence of the gun sites were kept secret for a very necessary reason. You couldn’t, in fact, Elizabeth Richards knew pretty well the point where I was and I said

“Newcastle Street, with the church on the corner,” she said yeah, she goes there. Well, the first time we fired our gun, it went over the roof of that church at their morning service. Everyone got up off their knees and the roof was still there. True. Scared, if there was any hell in anybody, it got scared out of them. So they knew we were there. People who lived around the eastern suburbs, they

knew we were there because they’d hear us firing, see? But there was no, it was impossible, for safety reasons, you know. “Even the walls have ears,” they used to say. You didn’t disclosed your presence ad lib because you laid yourself open to sabotage if there were any Japanese “friendlies” in Sydney.

You find it difficult to believe that Sydney didn’t know. How could they know?

Well, they soon knew. If fact that church used to take us over there on Friday nights and we used to play ping-pong and so on in their church hall. They befriended us

and took us under their wing for a while, in that church. Oh, they knew we were there. But, well, I’m sure people at Rose, at Iron Cove would know, too, because they took over a row of four cottages in a street, and the four guns were in a placement between there and Rodd Point which is down on the harbour. The guns were on there. And it was obvious in Moore Park, because I was in the party that put in

the guns at Moore Park after we were settled in Rose Bay. And from that night, they suddenly stopped people walking across Moore Park who had got off the tram who had always went home that way across the park, to their home over there, and all of a sudden there’s a bloke with a rifle saying “No, this is army territory. This is restricted, you’ve got to go round the road.” And that happened, too, and then they knew there were guns on Moore Park, didn’t they, they’d know.

But up at Bankstown, where the guns were up there, a young fellow wrote to, this is an interesting one, wrote to Bankstown Historical Society about his years as a boy when he was a runner for his father who was in the National Emergency Service, and the night the subs were in the harbour he wrote and they published “And the guns at Rose,

anti-aircraft guns at Bankstown were blazing away,” and I said, “Hey, wait a minute.” So I wrote to them, I said, “What were they blazing at, who gave the order to fire, and where did all the flak fall from? All the flak that fell down, where did that land in Bankstown?” And he didn’t reply, and the editor of the journal at the time

reserved the right to publish whatever contributions they get. But that was false, there were no guns blazing ever, anywhere. This kid’s imagination got away from him. And he couldn’t answer my questions, because there were none firing. But to say they were blazing away, that wouldn’t (UNCLEAR), that would create a false impression, and it did, if anyone believed it.

We fired a lot of rounds from Rose Bay, but it was all trials or demonstrations or this barrage thing I told you we put up with the 64 shells. That was most spectacular to see those 64 burst immediately, all at the one time. Done by the theory of ballistics. Time of flight of the shell, height of which to burst, what fuse to set, all the rest of it, all mathematics

worked out. And you would have various scales, depending on what height the incoming planes were coming in at, see. Because it’s no good bursting your 64 shots there, if the planes are coming this way. You understand that? You’d have to traverse around. So in at headquarters, down in the St George, in the St James Tunnel, they had all those things worked out and just give you the orders of

angle - well, as they did that particular day we fired - the angles and the fuse to set, and the bearing to set. And although there were four guns all pointing in different directions, the shells all burst in the one spot.

Of what?

Well, Sydney quickly got under way.

I used to see it occasionally when I went to town on leave, or I met Joan a couple of times. Fortunately all the shops were boarded up, the windows were boarded up and there were little trapdoors they let down so passers-by in the night time could look through the little doorway and see the dressed window, but all the glass, that was all covered up. All glass had, anywhere, windows had

strips of sticky tape on them so the glass didn’t break, they could crack through. And of course, as you know, all the railway stations, Post Offices and main streets had the names taken off so that low flying aircraft couldn’t identify what part of Sydney they were in. That happened. Men who were on reserved occupations and weren’t in the services, they were all recruited as air

raid wardens, and National Emergency Service people. They used to go round each night and tell everyone that had a light showing to put the light out. You’ve heard of that? Every house had to have an air raid shelter. Oh, there were all sorts of emergencies imposed, and Sydney lived that way. A lot of

ration tickets were in, of which I’ve got mine, some of mine, in my diary. Things like petrol, clothing and meat were all rationed. And at one stage, when our blokes were sent on leave, they were given one and a half tickets, ration tickets because there wouldn’t be meat at home for them, so they were given a meat [ration], and just enough to get meat for one meal

at a butcher on their way home. I always bought sausages when I came home, because sausages were not rationed. I don’t know what were in the sausages. And clothing was rationed, petrol was rationed. Because a lot of cars toured Sydney with a big canvas bag full of gas in them, because they didn’t run on petrol; they ran on, well, it’s coming in again now, you know,

gas, yeah.

Get home to my wife. Leave was a funny thing at various times, according mainly to the feelings of the lieutenant in charge of the battery of the gun site, where there would be, as I say, about 70 men in all, or a bit more.

Leave was from nine a.m. one day to nine a.m. the next, which meant you had all that day and that night. But you had to be back at 9 o’clock the next morning, see. And then there was a time when we stood down for lunch and leave personnel went then, and they came back at lunchtime the next day. But mostly, unfortunately, it was leave till 23 59.

Didn’t even have time to go to bed. True. Very agonising.

Joan worked at the Commonwealth Aircraft Corporation as a - in fact, you probably don’t know about these. Did I pull anything out then?

I’m sorry, yeah, but she got one of those because of her wartime service.

I didn’t like it, because my parents were at Brighton-Le-Sands, and whenever I got leave, now, do I go home to Joan, or do I go home to Mum? We used to get, in the army, in, our meals, we used to get a lot of prunes. They used come from rations in 56-pound tins

that big square, 56 pound of prunes. And it was served fairly regularly, (a) because it was cheap, and (b) because it kept the troops healthy. And I went down to Brighton one day, I rang my Mum and said I was coming home for lunch, and she, “Oh good,” she said, “I’ve got something special for you. I’ve been keeping it for a couple of weeks.” And I went down for lunch and then went home and, to Joan for tea,

and had to get back to work by, back to camp by 23 59 unfortunately. And what Mum had to give me, was a plate of prunes. She said, “The grocer had a few and he let me have some.” I didn’t break her heart and say, but that’s what happened in rationing, that’s what went on, yeah, it was that, yeah. Leave was difficult,

it was welcome, but you never knew when you were getting it. And if you tried to arrange it for something and make it certain on one day, there’d be an alarm on that time and you wouldn’t be able to go. It was catch-as-catch-can. One Christmas at Rose Bay we were allowed to bring our relatives over, and at Iron Cove one Christmas we were allowed to bring our relatives over,

who just sat in the grass and said, “Hello, how are you? Is this where you are? Is this what you do? Where are the guns?” And back home again. But that was a visit from the family, see, but only the once, Christmas. I don’t think it was very welcome, but it was catch-as-catch-can. You didn’t know what you were doing. And I always had to go into town to try to buy a razor blade or two,

would you believe? The men in the arcade used to have, occasionally, they’d sell you a new, one only, single razor blade for threepence. Of course, they’d buy a packet of about two dozen for six pence and they’d sell you, profitably, they’d sell you a razor blade. They were scarce because it was metal, see, everything was short. But you had to be shaven every day,

because the old thing in morning parade was to be told to stand closer to the razor next morning. You’ve heard that expression? Yeah, stand closer to the razor. And I had to do that occasionally, get a tram out from Rose Bay to Sydney to buy myself a couple of razor blades if I - when I say, “a couple”, one from one man in one arcade, and one from another man in another arcade, because they wouldn’t sell you two.

So that was rationed. That’s how tight things were, it’s true, a lot of shortages. Shops wouldn’t wrap up parcels. The plastic bag was only, was not invented, and looks like going out again soon, I hope. And everything was wrapped in newspaper, it wasn’t wrapped in brown paper, so I’m told.

But I didn’t do any shopping in those years, never. So it was tough for the people at home too.

Sleeping, cleaning material, polishing boots, airing blankets,

washing underwear, washing the giggle suit - you’ve heard of a giggle suit? - the fatigues that... Dreadful things. I never got a pair that fitted. I don’t think anybody did. What’s the signal?

No, oh, there was plenty to do. Catch up on sleep, mainly, or learn something, you always had exams coming on. Or

training or, in my case, I had to get lectures ready for that night and that sort of thing, because, of the 15 men that I went in with, the other 14, within 12 months, we were all sergeants or officers in 12 months. But they went north, most of them went north in charge of different detachments. And being B2, I didn’t go, but the blokes they brought

in were green, green as far as ack ack gunners are concerned, you know. We had to quickly train them up into proficiency just in case, just in case.

Well, I came across them several times and

also heard a couple of stories told of happenings with them, because they were involved fairly deeply up at Bankstown, the Americans. They had aircraft, as you know, and in fact there’s a memorial to a dead American up near Holsworthy, just outside Liverpool from Bankstown. He took off on one of these Airacobras

that would investigate things that we got, and crashed the plane. Killed himself. You didn’t know that, there’s a monument out at Holsworthy area to him. Yeah, but the friend of mine that was born at the same time as me, and I still know him, also at 85 as I am, the one that got, I think I told you, he was put in a reserved occupation,

because he was still on the farm; he didn’t get taken into services as I did, although we were the same age, born the same year. But he had a fair experience with them, and he tells me that they always had money and they always had plenty of rations to give around, and liquor, of course.

And it’s a known fact that, apparently through their own stores or little shops, they had canteens, they had access to silk stockings, which made them very attractive to the Australian girls. I don’t think I saw many of the fighting

members of the Americans. They were always immaculately dressed, you know. They had different uniforms to us, far and away different to us. Ours were functional but theirs were decorative, if you can understand the difference. And they loved it, they loved it. The only real trouble, I think, was occasionally the drink

caused a bit of trouble between our troops and their troops. It happened in Brisbane, this one particular incident, and the only one that remains historically, they got into a bit of a stoush, and the military police had to break that up. But the real only trouble we had ever was the white American versus the black American. And we didn’t

mind black Americans; it’s, you know, all the same to us no matter what colour their skin is. But there seemed to be a bit of friction, both in Sydney and further north, between black and white American. That’s probably recorded somewhere, but I’m only repeating hearsay, but I do think it happened. And I can understand it happened.

Well, the Americans would only fight over two things, beer and women. They couldn’t think of anything else to fight over, they were on the same side. And they did, in fact they were, I think that the American servicemen were much more volatile than our blokes, because don’t forget the Americans were a long way from home when they were out here.

They were a long way from home. As some of our blokes were, but they knew what to do when they were over there. My other good friend, who I’m still in touch with, he was in Tobruk and didn’t know much about the Japanese side of things, because Tobruk’s quite remote from New Guinea, you see. They only heard stories about each other, until they brought the

7th Division particularly home and they put the 7th Division up into Burma and those areas and they went further north. So some of our blokes had two lots, they had the Germans in Africa and then they had the Japs [Japanese] in South East Asia. They had a gutful of them, as you might imagine. The American serviceman appeared to

know what he was there for and do it, what he was told. They were certainly successful because they won, didn’t they. Of course, the Australian servicemen didn’t have a great deal of time for them. Our big boss, General Blamey, you’ve heard of Tom Blamey,

you laugh behind your hand at him, but MacArthur seemed to be all right. MacArthur held the respect of a lot of people, including the Australians. And when he started to move north and headed towards Japan, right into Okinawa and all those other places,

and then they started sending planes over and bombed Japan and land in China by arrangement because they couldn’t do a return trip, all that sort of thing was organised and applauded, because you could see the end of the war coming. But the big news, of course, was when they dropped the atomic bomb on Nagasaki. That horrified people, about the civilians being bombed, but then of course they talked about the Germans bombed

a couple of English cities, and then we bombed Stuttgart, which had all the historical, and art, but concentration of Germans, and that was a pity all that got destroyed. But you just shrugged your shoulders and said, “Well, that’s war. It’s been going on, and will still go on.” And it is, there’s no answer to it,

I don’t think.

Oh, I’d rather not put that on record, if you don’t mind.

I’ve sidestepped the question, but I’ll tell you in part.

He was never respected like

MacArthur was. MacArthur was a direct man, obviously, and he, when he left the first time, he said to them up there “I will return,” and that became a saying all around the place, “I will return.” When one of our blokes went on leave and we didn’t know if he was coming back, he used to say, “I’ll do a MacArthur,” meant he’ll

return. And he was as good as his word, MacArthur. But I could tell you one thing about Blamey, which might indicate the whole thing. When there was heavy fighting on the Kokoda Trail when the Japs were coming down to Lae towards Port Moresby, and it would certainly threaten Australia if the

Port Moresby fell - the notorious Brisbane Line might have come into more prominence - but they blocked the Japanese in the Kokoda Trail, as you know, and they brought the Australian commander of that group back to Port

Moresby to meet Blamey and report on it. And when Blamey met him, he shook him by the hand and said, “Oh, just come up from south, have you?” Didn’t even know the name of the man who was commanding his troops on Kokoda. Now you can verify that or not, but that was the feeling about that difference between the two men. Because in civilian life Tom Blamey was

a public, he was Police Commissioner in Melbourne. Something like that.

Hey?

I’m afraid so. Well, that filtered through everybody in the Australian forces when they knew Blamey was in charge. It was a government appointment, obviously, it wasn’t a military appointment, I would think. Same things are happening today, without

siding on Howard or Crean. The same things happening, very much so. And you get jack of it, you can see so many things that could happen, but don’t. And that happened in the army.

No, no examples, not on record. Anyway, you understand what I mean about Blamey?

Well that’s, that answers your

question.

Oh, it was told to all of us, the troops all knew about it. They were prepared to give up Cairns and Darwin and Townsville if there was a mass invasion of the north, which was on at one stage, but they wouldn’t go, wouldn’t be permitted

to go south of the Brisbane Line, line parallel with the Tropic of Capricorn. It was that was ruled off as the line. That would protect New South Wales and all the industries. The tourist area of the North and the Queensland coast were prepared to be sacrificed if necessary, but not the main, no. And on that, as a sideline, I told you I was a member of the

Legion of Ex-servicemen. That was full on because at the time, just prior to the Brisbane Line, the armoured division, the Australian Armoured Division, big tanks and all the full gear, roamed the north of Australia, Cape York, Darwin, round to West Australia back round, they had all that area, and they were there in strength if that

invasion came. That’s understandable. The war finished, so one of the high ranking officers in charge of that military campaign, the armoured, said he’d join the RSL, and they said, “Oh no, you didn’t go overseas,” and he wouldn’t be accepted into the RSL. So he and his mates started this Legion of Ex-servicemen

for men who didn’t go overseas, through no fault of their own. I was available if I was to be sent, because I saw many drafts go up north, but I was held back to train the next lot that came in and then send them off. But I didn’t go. I’d have gone if I was sent, naturally, if I was told; it never happened to me. It wasn’t my fault I didn’t get overseas service. So, getting back to the Brisbane Line, yeah, it was very real and it was

known of in the army, throughout the army, oh yes.

There was disappointment to think that we were satisfied to give up that northern part, if necessary. But what would you do if Japan invaded us in force,

see, what would we do? The civilian population, of course, thought in terms of hundreds of square miles of nothing up there, and how would the Japs maintain their lines of communication? But they managed pretty well in their first assaults down south, didn’t they? It could have happened, but it didn’t. But, once again, like we were prepared at dawn and dusk every day,

there was preparations to, not to allow them past the Brisbane Line if they did invade the north in force. Yes, oh, yes, everyone was aware of it.

Yes. We

got early warning that time and the alarm went, so we rushed out and manned the guns. And I don’t know if one or two shells had already gone, but we definitely heard - well, I personally heard, I suppose, three or four, you know, whistle overhead. They were yawing, do you know that expression, Y-A-W?

Yawing?

In other words, I think those projectiles were very much, speaking as an artillery man now and a gunner, those shells were just about at the end of their trajectory. And their speed was slowing considerably compared with the muzzle velocity with which they had left the submarine, the gun on the submarine. And consequently, their

rifling, which gives them the revolutions of the shell, that was also slowing up. And the heavy end versus, as the novice would understand, the pointed end, the heavy end was revolving in a different circuit to the light nose end, and consequently, the shells were yawing. And you could distinctly hear that, instead of a clean whistle, they were

“shhh, shhh, shhh,” you know, and then “plop” wherever they hit, and none of them exploded. I’ve seen that newspaper report that I read again, that I just showed Isabelle, said they were duds. But I think being from a submarine they were probably armour-piercing shells with solid noses, and when they hit the mud or hit the street, they just flopped, they didn’t have any,

possibly no explosive. They certainly didn’t have percussion caps on them, because they would have exploded on landing, wouldn’t they, with a percussion cap, so I think they might have been... But that’s only Len Beckett’s theory. But I do think, and it’s reasonable to think, that submarine would have armour-piercing projectiles because they’d be firing on warships. Put that in your pipe and smoke it.

Oh, no, just some bugger was out there firing shells on Sydney. See, during my peacetime, later when I went around the Pacific Islands, the same thing I heard, only heard it when I was over there. But it happened to American Samoa, Pago, they were shelled by a submarine and it happened in several spots around the... It was just

the Japanese letting us know they were there and keeping forces on the alert, and possibly thinking that the Allies, or the Australians and Americans, would be withholding forces from the front in case something happened further back. It was all tactics.

Yeah, could’ve.

Look, we used to do gun drill on, there was a gun drill laid down for tanks, if they landed on Bondi and come up through Rose Bay. And we, nobody in the bus used to know, but those green buses used to often be the target for gun drill for tank attacks, oh yeah. But with a short distance, and a very rapid muzzle velocity,

we didn’t have to allow much lead way for the speed of the target, like you do with an aeroplane. And if you aim it straight at the front of the bus you could be sure with your rapid muzzle velocity of the projectile and the short distance it would travel, if you aimed at the front, it would certainly land in the middle, it wouldn’t miss. But, yeah, we did tank attack run. Because we could

down the guns to horizontal, to zero, yeah - depress them, that’s the word I want: the guns were either elevated or depressed. But they could be depressed. And if tanks had have arrived on Bondi Beach and come through, we had a gun drill ready for them. And all ack ack batteries at that time did.

Now, this is why I said before, in that article, Sydney didn’t know about the manning; well, they wouldn’t know unless they were told because they were home having tea and listening to their radio programme while we were on the guns every dusk. They wouldn’t know we were there. They wouldn’t see us, and unless anyone told them

they wouldn’t know. This is why I said that it was my statement, in that Sydney didn’t know. Anyone I spoke to through the years about dawn and dusk manning said, “What’s that?” That’s why I thought it was necessary to put it in that article, because I felt that I’d been witness to something and took part in something that the general public didn’t know. So when they wanted a report in 2002, on the 60th anniversary of the

submarines in the harbour, and asked for articles about it, I wrote that one. And look what happened to that, it’s still going now today, yeah, that’s right.

That’s right.

But to make sure that the

extremes of range on each gun overlapped the gun site next to it, otherwise there was a vacant space where planes could get through, see. So they all overlapped. I’ve forgot the name of the fellow that did that, he’s dead now, but I saw his death in the Royal Artillery magazine that comes out called Gunfire. He passed away, you know, in his 80’s, as we all are. And

prior to Japan coming into the war, but not long before, when it looked threatening because the crash came the day that they bombed Pearl Harbour - but you couldn’t, there were signs before that - and this fellow with his crew took a map of Sydney and laid out spots where gun sites could be placed. And Rose Bay was one of the ones that the -

well, I was one of the early ones to, and I, that was there. As I say, after we were at Rose Bay, we did working parties through the day over at Moore Park to put the Moore Park guns in. And others were built. But, yeah, they sprang up very quickly because at the time, one of the latter times we were at Georges Heights in the cadre, we were told that our old three-inch guns we’d been working on for two years were obsolete

because there was a new three-point-seven being made at Maribyrnong in Melbourne. But total production was being shipped over to England because of the blitz on London, see, but they would be used in Australia if and when necessary. So all the gun sites were planned and laid out, and one by one they were constructed, as Rose Bay was, and then when they were manned

we had to fill sandbags and put all the placements around them, build the gun pits for them and all the rest of it and build slick trenches and so on. And talking of slick trenches, there were slick trenches between the height finder and the gun and the height finder and Toc I, and the command post and Toc I. And I spotted where it was called for practice, we knew it was practice, we were warned, but

I could see it, it was 30 thousand feet up but I could see the aluminium, the silver underneath of this plane, and all were looking and I said, “There it is.” And they called the Toc I bloke over and he took me by the arm and I was told to keep my eye on it, and he was told to lead me over to the telescope identification so that I could put the whole team on the target, see. And the silly kid

got a bit interested and he tried to find it too, and he walked us both into the slick trench. That was the end of that little episode. That actually happened. We tumbled into this four foot trench. Because he wasn’t doing what he was told.

I never spoke to anybody. I don’t think so. No, I suppose the Sydney Morning Herald and the Telegraph of that date would tell a few reactions but I didn’t hear anything. Except that, as you know, as I said earlier, dozens of people moved out of the eastern suburbs and got out to the other side of the Blue

Mountains because the invasion was expected at one stage. Could easily happen, could easily happen. This is why that box barrage was put up, because not a single plane, but flights of bombers, you know, in V formation coming in from aircraft carriers out to sea, would have made a mess of Sydney. And you have to put up something formidable to get them through, unless of course, the... We were,

once again, “Do not engage, do not engage,” you know, “Flight of aircraft taking off from Bankstown” instead of a single one. I wouldn’t know what they would have done, actually; fortunately, it didn’t happen. But I suppose they were prepared just the same as we were in our way. It could have happened. At one stage, it might have happened. Oh yeah, there was a bit of tension all through, yeah.

On leave?

The first thing about leave, let me tell you this, we had to compulsorily take tin hat, respirator and

haversack with us, had to go on leave with them. So there were no loose soldiers walking around anywhere, everyone had his equipment with him, just in case. So that was a sign immediately that there was an emergency, or an emergency could occur. But my view of civilians were that they were busy taking care of their

side of life, because we had different colour patches, you know, we had colour patches on our shoulders. Artillery was red and blue but in different shapes, like the boy I told you from Tobruk, they put up a colour patch shaped like a T for “Tobruk” to identify them. But we had artillery patches and some of the younger members

of the public, I presume, had competitions to see how many different colour patches they could find and what they stood for, and what units they’d indicate. A bit of interest, more interested in us than we in them, I think. I was anxious to get home on my way to leave, and reluctant to go back when I was going back. I didn’t worry about the civilians, I was thinking of the bride

I’d just left behind. Unsatisfied. Terrible feeling, don’t laugh now, it was bad at the time.

Where she’d

been and what she’d done and what her mother had done. On one occasion, when the siren went for the all clear, they heard it and thought, “There’s an air raid” and got up and went down into their air raid shelter. And waited for the all clear, which they had already heard, they thought it was the alarm, a couple of hours too late. So someone else come and pulled them out eventually. The neighbour said, “No, it’s all over, that was the all clear.”

They had to have somewhere - well, it would be laid down in orders somewhere for National Emergency Services - but every household had to have an area where it was safe to get from falling debris. In fact, I know people who had big open fires like these big ones, and going in there was what was their safety.

Elizabeth Richards told me that, when I told her “I was under my tin hat when that shell went over,” she said her mother lived at Woollahra and she was under the table. Yeah, everyone had somewhere to go.

I don’t know, I wasn’t a civilian at the time and I wasn’t, I didn’t know. I just made sure that, see, Joan was there with her widowed mother and younger sister. There were three women in that house without a man so I

was concerned for them, but the neighbours looked after them. But, no, I don’t know a great deal on that one.

Petrol, yeah.

No, they were the three prominent ones that come to mind, because I never dealt with it. Although I was given - I’ve got them, I’ll show you later - I was given some clothing rations to revert back to civilian life. They used to be given a small token, bit of meat rationing to take meat home if a fellow went on leave because there wouldn’t be any meat home, not for me.

That was usually given out when you were on like a two-day leave, once a month you got two days, they gave you rations to get yourself a bit of meat at home because there wouldn’t be any meat at home. And clothing was funny, of course, they weren’t allowed to buy pockets, you weren’t allowed to have turned up bottoms of your trousers. You were only limited to two pockets instead of four, all sorts of what today is

crazy, but all sorts of regulations to save material. And tailors had to abide by these things. You’ve never heard of that?

Yeah, that sort of thing very much went on, oh, yeah.

That what?

Yes, that’s right, of course, and record.

That’s right. Nearly everyone put their car up on chocks and didn’t drive them throughout the four years at all, because it was useless trying to, as far as I know, because petrol was very

scarce.

Yes, of course.

Yeah.

No, no. No. They were gone before us, they just packed up and went after those shells came over. Because prior to that,

of course, Darwin had been bombed, and there’d been subs in the harbour, and shells fell on Sydney, some people felt it was time to go and they went. Too right. They got serious about it, didn’t they. Some more than others.

Oh no, I had my photograph on the front page of the Telegraph with a pair of coins in my kit playing two-up [game of chance], because we were doing a lot of digging

for different things around the Rose Bay Golf Links which, incidentally, before it was a golf links was Chinaman’s gardens, in the early days, Chinese gardens. And we dug up a tin of sovereigns with about 30 in it, an old tin. And somebody got air of this and the Telegraph sent a reporter out with a camera.

He wasn’t allowed in, but he stood at the gate in Old South Head Road and talked to the guard there, and he called a couple of fellows up. They showed him the, and I came across from church - I’d been at the church service that morning - and there they were around the gate, and they quickly told me what was on. He said, “Well, I’ll get a photograph” because they were all in their giggle suits and I was in my uniform. So I undone my button, broke the belt, bent down with a couple of

sovereigns on my fingers as though we were playing two-up, and [they] took a photograph. I’ve got a copy of that from the, I’ve got that up there, I’ll show you. Yeah, that was a bit of fun. But as for what the newspaper published as far as the war was concerned, I don’t know. We had wireless sets, everyone smuggled in a - every, when I say, “everyone”, every barrack room had at least one smuggled

wireless set in. Not batteries, no batteries, but plugged into a power point, which was not supposed to do, and we used to listen to news bulletins. That was always interesting, hearing about what was happening and how close the Japs were coming, how much further they were the next day, yeah, that was quite interesting. What was going on over in Europe, yeah, everyone followed that.

No, not really. Some stories have come out after the war, but nothing was heard during the war, I don’t think. No, didn’t really.

Perhaps boys who were up there might know, but I didn’t hear anything. When I was in Lae I was shown a big hill that had this Japanese stuff in it, long after the war. I was up there in 1950, and the war finished in ’45. But because ANGAU [Australian and New Guinea Administration Unit] took over the running of the civilian

New Guinea after the military left, but then, by 1950, they were all allowed back in and normal life resumed. This is when I was sent up. But there was this hill in Lae that had had a lot of alleged Japanese inside it who wouldn’t come out, and they used flamethrowers to try and get them out. So finally they

ordered two men with an NCO in, into the darkness, into the place to see what was there, and they never came out, you know. So they sent a bigger contingent in, seven or eight, they didn’t come out. So the whole entrance was just bulldozed in and locked up, and to this day, or to that day, whoever was in there was still in there. Now, that was

pretty gruesome. In Rabaul, I used to walk around the big concrete fuel boxes which were built by the Japanese as lookout posts. They’d be about five or six feet diameter, just room enough for one man in it with a tile cover on it, with spy

holes in it, and he’d be connected by wireless or something. But they were still going, and of course, when the volcano went up in Moresby in the second, in Rabaul, the second time I was there, there was a big notice up in a prominent position, “Assembly point in case of volcano”, and everyone

in Rabaul had to have a suitcase packed. And if ever another volcano went off you grabbed your bag and went to the assembly point. That was pretty drastic too, you know, life wasn’t easy in many ways for a lot of people and that was after the war, so you can imagine how it was during the war with all the threatening going on. I don’t make light of it, I think that it was serious enough, as no doubt other blokes are telling you. I hope they are.

Very much so. Yes, eventually all available men had gone north and there was nothing left on the gun sites, so the AWAS, the Australian Women’s Army Service, came in

mainly for the predictor and the height finder, not on the guns. And radar was coming in and they were on the radar. One of their problems was to start the big heavy transistor, not transistor, the motor that created

the power. Anyway, it was started on petrol and they had to crank it to start it. Well, one of the men had to go and do that, but, yes, I did run into quite a few AWAS in different times and different places, both at Iron Cove and then when I went back to Rose Bay. I was sent back to Rose Bay to discipline Rose Bay because I was there from the start and I knew what it was like and how

disciplined and well-organised it was, and then had suffered. And the major told me this, and he said, “Now, I want to go back, straighten them out.” So I observed the first day, and at half past four at stand down, I saw blokes and girls walking back and other people walking back and so I announced the next day that anyone leaving the gun site and returning to barracks, or to their

bed sides, would march. And if there was three or more, one person would give the orders and march the others. And if there were only two, they would walk in step but in any case, no more loitering about across fairways in the golf links back to your units. It just put a bit of

spit and polish in it, see. And one of the AWAS - well, they didn’t have sergeants, but they had a bombardier or senior bombardier - she said to me later “These girls are afraid you’re going to be tough.” I said, “I’m not going to be tough,” I said, “this is the standard, I was here before Christmas in 1941,” you know. “Three years ago I was here, as a gunner, and it was run very well, like a good gun site,

and everyone was on their toes, and I’ve been asked to put it back into that order.” “Oh,” she said. Anyway, she told the girls that I wasn’t a new upstart come to upset them all, but I was one of the originals and I knew Rose Bay inside out, blah, blah, blah, see. So I’ve got a bit more respect then. And they had an AWAS officer,

but no senior in charge. There was lance bombardiers, and bombardiers, that’s one-striper and two-stripers and an officer who ate at the officer’s mess with the men, but had her own room down in the women’s quarters, see. But, oh, there were a few troubles, I think, I can only tell you what I saw,

truthfully. One instance was the bombardier said to me late one night, “I want you to come for a walk with me after lights out.” Now, I knew she was a serious girl, there was no problem about that, I said, “Yeah, I’ll come with you.” So off she went and she led up to a, oh, several hundred yards

to a group of trees and she said, “Have a look in there.” And do you know, under about five of the trees, there was a couple, one of hers and one of mine, laying in the grass having a cuddle. And we walked on and came back, we didn’t take any notice, didn’t say anything. What could you do from army discipline? Except that they knew that we knew, see, and that made a difference,

that made a difference, yeah. There were some good friendships I know of, I know two instances where two of the couples got married, and they met on the gun site, one at Iron Cove and one at Rose Bay. We had, at the big LHQ [land headquarters] school of artillery I did, they had some cadet officers,

females, and they were training so that they were up to the standard, as far as gunnery and ballistics was concerned, they were up to the standard that the men were. But they were capable of taking charge of a gun site that had women on it, see, AWAS, that was necessary for discipline. Oh, they did the instruments, and

then of course they introduced plotting. Now, plotting was quite a new thing for us, it didn’t come in until fairly late. It came direct from the telephone of the tunnels at St James station, from the ack ack people. You had a full map of Sydney, with the circle of your gun with its extremities marked out, in thousands of feet, covered

with perspex. And to the headphones they would send us a bearing and an angle. So you’d swing your thing around, send it at the centre of your gun sight, swing it around and they’d say so many feet, a thousand, hundred feet, whatever it was, and you’d run your... And every ten seconds, she’d say, “Mark,” and you’d put a cross. And the next bearing “Mark,” put a cross again, “Mark,” put a cross, and very quickly you

saw a line coming, see, this was an aircraft approaching Sydney. And the girls got very good at that. They were, they did the plotting. Men didn’t do the plotting, we deliberately used the AWAS, except, when they came through at night, the plotting, the men stayed up in the barracks and the plotting crews were called out and they were all girls, and they didn’t like that very much, but tough. Yeah, they did a good job, and

they certainly relieved a lot of men for northern service. Yeah, sometimes we went to manning without a full 11 on each gun, even. But the girls were on the predictors and on the height find and on the Toc I they were, and on the radar. Yeah, they did a good job. I don’t

think I ever saw any real hanky panky, no. I’m sure it went on, but it was kept discreet, human nature being what it is. But I was surprised, really, she knew, she knew what was going up in these trees. She just wanted me to see, and I saw it, some of my blokes and some of her girls. That’s human nature. But anyway, they knew that we knew then, see, so that was

enough.

No. No. Oh, no, I didn’t, no. The general feeling was they were releasing the fighting men to go further north, which was the theory. Oh, and a lot of the girls enjoyed it, in fact [a lot] of them were clothed and fed

better than they were in civilian life, see, except that they had to put up with army discipline. Oh, no, there was no resentment of them at all. We were glad to have them. From a manning point of view, I don’t mean from a social point of view. But no, they drink their beer in the canteen and do all the rest of it like a bloke, oh yes.

Not in those days, because everyone really felt we were doing something necessary and important, particularly on the manning, the dawn and dusk, and when we got turned out for alarms and false alarms we didn’t know whether it was an alarm or a false alarm when the

siren, when the bell rang and we got, when the alarm rang and we had to take post on the guns. We didn’t know what we were going down there for, but we went down there and manned the guns and waited to see what would happen. And then some sort of a message would arrive eventually. And always, when there was any doubt, it was always “Do not engage, do not engage,” very vigorous, “Do not engage.” The Air force was taking over, they didn’t want us up in their area, and I can understand that.

Frustration?

Sense of relief. Sense of relief, oh, yeah. Not tonight, see. The famous old saying, you know that one? “Not tonight, Josephine,” yeah, not tonight. We were glad that it didn’t

happen. When we finally got the stand down, well, you know, “Thank goodness,” we were, “Put the ammunition away, you don’t need it,” that sort of thing. But until we got the stand down it was on, you know, the ammunition numbers had to get the shell out and they, the projectile weighed 28 pound and it had a cartridge full of cordite behind it. The whole thing weighed 40, 50 pound. And a man had to handle that, run with that and handle it, time

and time again, so you made sure your ammo numbers were big fellows, unfortunately for them. Oh, yes, I had to do a few manning lists and I could pick the men for the job. I didn’t, it was never a matter of first 11 men, put them on, that 11, you didn’t do it that way. Each man was to fit his job, particularly when you were number one, because then you knew you had your best

man in every position. And that was important too. Sometimes when they weren’t I’d change them around, exercising the authority, change them around to get what I want. And that went on too.

With what?

Well, the layer for line and the layer for elevation had to have strong arms because he was winding the weight of a gun, virtually, traversing it or elevating it, so he had to have good arms. The fuse dial operator had to be a brainy bloke. He had to have it up here because you set the wrong fuse and you’ve wasted everything. I tell you, wasting everything, we had a shoot, a quite an early

shoot, one of the first shoots I took part in, a Tiger Moth [aircraft] had a drogue, a drogue, do you know a drogue? A big flannelette cylinder on the end of a big cable towing it several hundred yards behind him. And our four guns went off and three guns, the explosions were right on the drogue and the fourth one was away over nearer the plane than the drogue.

And he dropped, the pilot promptly dropped the drogue and went back to his depot at Mascot and said, “Bugger that, I’m not going up there again.” Yeah, so you needed accuracy amongst all your men and all your guns. That was used as an expression many years, well, not many years, but many times later when you were training gun crews or when there was a shoot on, that was drawing attention to what could happen if one man was wrong with a fuse

or something. Or the layer for line was too far forward or the layer for elevation was too high or too low, see, there were so many things. Because we were firing in three dimensions all the time.

Not bad. Sometimes, you put two mates together,

but the 11 on one gun would be scattered amongst the other three guns the next day, and that sort of thing. You didn’t have permanent mannings, because every man had to be able to do every 11, all 11 jobs. Consequently, you changed them around quite frequently, and that was important. And when sergeants or bombardiers were number one on the gun, I wasn’t always number one gunner, I two gun or three gun

or four gun on occasions. And then I was, sergeants were - you’ve heard the expression GPO ack? New to you. GPO is not the General Post Office, GPO is the gun position officer who stands at the command post and he’s got the predictor with him, he’s got the height finder just to his right, he’s got Toc I over there, and he’s got the four guns around there in his vision, and he’s the gun position officer, and he makes the decisions

and gives the orders. But the GPOA, the gun position officer’s assistant, is his ears and eyes, see, you know what I’m talking about? And we, and I was frequently GPO ack, and I used to see things that I didn’t tell him about sometimes.

I’m not going to tell you. On one occasion,

he said sotto voce, “Live ammunition, live ammunition,” and I didn’t order that, I didn’t order that. Definitely not, I’m not a fool, call out “Live ammunition.” But one of the bombardiers in charge of number two gun, which was over there, because one was there and number two was round here, he heard it. And it was a practice shoot, only a practice run, and the GPO,

when everyone reported on target, and the guns were moving, and the predictor was moving, and he ordered “Load,” and I saw this brass flash up into the breech of the gun, see. And he raised his hand, and the drill was he dropped his hand and called “Fire!”, see. So he raised his hand, and I said to him “Number two gun loaded live

ammunition.” Oh, panic, see, “Stop, cease, cease loading, stop, don’t fire,” you know, he got into a hell of a mess. Anyway, the bombardier just ejected the shell he loaded and put it back and put the fuse back and put them back. But that was close. So the GPO ack was necessary. Another story about that, one of our lance sergeants,

he had the three stripes, but he didn’t have the gun between the shimmerance [?], he was a lance sergeant. His commission came through, because he was a bright boy, I’ll give him his turn, he was a bright boy, and he was to go to headquarters as one of the brains of the unit, one of the brains in headquarters, see. So on the first night as a officer, he’s in the officer’s mess, of course, and having a drink after dinner or before dinner and blowing his mouth off and

saying how difficult it was when he was GPO ack down in the gun pit at night - see, a GPO ack, you had to be there at night in case the alarm went, and the boss would come down from his quarters but the GPO ack was always there - how difficult it was to get into his pyjamas when there was a AWAS on the telephone. “Aha,” says the big boss, the colonel, “my GPO acks sleep in pyjamas, do they?” So he reached for his stick

and his cap and his driver and out they went, and they came to three or four different gun sites and walked straight down past the guard and down in the gun site, and he came to Iron Cove, where I was, and I was asleep in the bottom bunk. And I got a hell of a whack on the back. Crack. “On your feet, sergeant.” So I got up and a startled AWAS is looking at me, and she doesn’t know what to say, you know. And my pillow was

the edge of my palliasse with my tin hat behind it to give it a bit of height above the shoulders, and my shoes, my boots were at the foot, and I had my socks on and I had my shorts and my shirt on with my rank up. And he said straight away, “All right, get back in,” it was like that, see, so I got back into bed. And then the boss arrived, because the guard had let the boss know that there was a colonel in the gun site, whacking [the] sergeant with a stick.

We didn’t know what it was all about, see. And all because this silly fellow bragged about wearing pyjamas in the... Yeah, anyway, he didn’t remain the bright boy at the headquarters; in the next draft he was up north straight away, served him right. We weren’t sorry to see him go. And the poor little bombardier, the poor little telephonist, I don’t know what she would’ve done if it had been a real alarm.

It was bad enough to see her, because she’d only seen a colonel when they marched out of their AWAS school when she graduated. She didn’t, you know, red tabs and gold braid didn’t enter into her life at all. And here’s one marching down in the middle of the night, saying “On your feet, sergeant” with a stick, yeah. That was a little incident that amused everybody afterwards, but not at the time.

All sorts of things happened on gun sites. Life’s full of them, you could write a book about them.

Yes, I was sent down there in 1944. It was midway through December ’43 and our major sent for me

and a very brief conversation ensued: “You a married man, sergeant?” “Yes, sir.” “Oh, going home for Christmas, I expect.” “I hope so sir.” “Well don’t dally too long there, sergeant, because Group Headquarters are posting you away as an instructor. That’s all.” “All right, sir, thank you.” And I was left with that half

information, didn’t know what it meant, didn’t know what it entailed, except that. Anyway, I went home for Christmas ’43. We lived at Bankstown, or Joan lived in with her mother at Bankstown. And that same afternoon, an army utility truck from the Bankstown gun site came to our address and asked was it the home of Sergeant Beckett, and it was, and they said, “Oh, you’ve got

to report back to your unit by 0600 tomorrow morning. Headquarters rang through to Bankstown to get the address to you, to get the message to you, because we can’t contact you by ’phone.” So I didn’t spend Christmas; I went back and got changed, then a truck arrived from headquarters on Boxing Day and I was handed papers, and I was told I

was going to Nowra and to take these papers to the railway despatch office, where I would be given a ticket. And the battery captain said, “And we’ll take your tin hat, respirator, rifle, bayonet; you won’t need them where you’re going.” Oh, what a relief, “You won’t need them where you’re going.” So, and then, “Get on the truck, off you go,” - no “Goodbye, thanks

for everything,” just off to the railway. I went to the dispatch office and reported with my papers. He said, “Oh yes, we’ve got a ticket for you, there are five others going with you,” he said, “Meet them all on number 11 platform.” So I found my way to number 11 platform and there were three or four more there, everybody looking at each other. No one knew anybody, no one knew anybody. There was an officer, there were two other sergeants and there

were two bombardiers. And the officer was very officious, he insisted that you salute him and all this sort of nonsense. Not one of my mob. He said, “Oh, we’re getting to Nowra, you probably know that. We’re going down to the VDC school.” Volunteer Defence Corp, VDC, you understand who they were? They were, yeah. They were releasing men and women on the

gun sites now, it got to that stage. And they lived in the vicinity of each gun site, and if ever would be trained to do so. So he explained all this to us, and the train didn’t leave till 11, and we obviously weren’t going to get any lunch, so we agreed we’d all go and buy ourselves a bit of lunch, and we did. And we went down to Nowra by train,

well, Bomaderry, actually, the railway station, Bomaderry. A truck picked us up and took us across, where we were inducted into this school. I and another sergeant were both for the guns, and some theory at night, lectures. Two of the others, one sergeant and one bombardier, was on the Bofors, the light guns, the Bofor guns. And between us, the five of us,

three on the heavy guns and two on the Bofors and the boss, that comprised the six. And we sort of got to know each other from there. Well, we had to, because we were going to live and work together. And on the Monday, well, on the Sunday, they marched in a group, and this happened once a fortnight from all over New South Wales, wherever there were gun sites, not towns where they didn’t need VDC on because

there were no guns, but in areas that did have them. Newcastle and South Coast particularly. All sorts of troops, all sorts of ranks, some officers. But a bit like Dad’s Army [a post-war television comedy series named for an English expression describing the ‘Home Guard’, a form of voluntary military service for non-combatant men], officers because they were bank managers or teachers, you know. Some of them didn’t have a clue until we got hold of them. And we were very patient, we used to take them by the ear and say, “Now, look, sir,

it’s this and this and this, and I’m not telling you in front of the men, but so that you’ll know it’s this and this.” “Oh, thanks, sergeant.” You know, you had to use your common sense with them, didn’t you, well, we did. We thought that was the right thing to do. And we got them trained, and at the end of the fortnight they knew more than they did when they came here. And we used to give them theory at night, in the lecture room, and drill through during the day on the gun sites. But change them around, all 11 places.

There was a drill, they used to line up. On the order, “Fall in,” the 11 men fell in, formed up behind the gun, six behind, five in front. And then you’d say, “Tell off,” and they’d say, “One,” “Two,” right down to “Eleven,” see. Change round, everyone took a step left or right or back as the case may be, and you’d tell them off again and they’d give a different number, see. And then you’d find some silly bloke would

forget what number he was. But it was fun. Yeah, I was there, in fact I was there in the middle, in the June when the D-Day [June 6, 1944] started, we got the news that the British and Americans had gone across the Channel on the coast of France, see, and D-Day started, the fall of Europe was on the way. And when I came back from there Germany had surrendered, and the Japs were on, and the British

navy was released from Europe, the European war, and they came out here, and they wanted Sydney as a base, of course. And the port of Sydney was open to several British warships who demanded ack ack cover while they were in harbour. Demanded, and of course, got. So Rose Bay was folding up and I’d gone back there from Nowra, and I got called in one

day to say I was being transferred back to Georges Heights, there was going to be a full gun manning there for the British navy while they had warships in the harbour. Which sounded rational, sounded rational. So I went over there, or was driven over in a truck, as per usual, as arranged, and I found the two officers. Gee, I was lucky. One of the officers was a man who’d come in with me when we were both gunners into Rose Bay

and we’d both become sergeants and he had already become an officer, and he was a mate of mine, sort of. He was on; and the second relief we got was the officer at Nowra. He was a lieut [lieutenant], and these two lieuts were in charge of the gun site. And they said to me, straight away, knowing me, “Oh, you’ll be troop sergeant, you’ll be troop sergeant,” so that made my life easier, as the senior NCO of the thing. And we stayed there until... We didn’t have any real alarms, although

we were ordered to sound the alarm on one occasion. We sounded the alarm, and all the troops raced out from their barracks and manned guns and so on and predictor crews and everyone took positions and we were all ready, and everyone reported ready for action, number one, number two, number three, number four gun ready for action. And we found that the people - and there were a group of people with the boss down at the command post - were British navy

personnel, and they’d come to see what sort of a show they would get if they needed us, see. And they were impressed, fortunately. Yeah, and that was right near the end of the war. So I went through the [Sydney] Showground for discharge, and they put us through like sausages. There were a row of tables and this man did that much, and this, all that. And then I was given a leave pass and said, “Be back on the

13th of October” whenever it was, “ready for this and this and this and this.” And on one occasion, we got to a stage where a fellow at a table was going through papers and I was answering his questions, and he asked and he said, casually, he said, “And you’re not applying for pension?” and I said, “Yes,” and he said, “What?” and I said, “Yes.” He said, “Why, were you injured, where did you serve?” I said, “Don’t shuffle through those

papers, corporal, just write ‘yes’ in the column.” So he broke his eye contact with him and he wrote “yes” in the column. And I got held back that night for [Medical] Board, and three medicos did the necessary, and, you know, “Take your boots off, walk up there,” and “Walk back,” and “Put one boot on and walk here, and walk here.” And they said, “No, your feet are not falling in the right position. Your feet are definitely not falling,”

because I’d been made B2, they knew that, and having been taken in A1 and being discharged B2, why shouldn’t I apply for a pension? I didn’t expect a pension. But why not? Now, I saw some people who had that opportunity, but they were so anxious to get out they “No, let’s get out tonight, we won’t wait till tomorrow, we’ll go tonight.” And I only lost one day that way by staying back that night and I got a letter about three days later accepting the

downturn in my medical classification as due to army service. And about 48 years later a bloke said to me at DVA’s two or three years ago, he said, “I suppose you think you’ve downturned further in the last 48 years,” and I said, “What do you think?” Yeah, and that was the history of why I’m on a pension now, after all that.

The what?

Oh yes, I came into town, I came into town, I was a fairly free agent by then. Got off at Wynyard over the Bridge and as soon as I got into George Street and Hunter Street I had to sort of back off again. Anyone in uniform, anyone in uniform, flags, flowers, you know.

I didn’t win the war, but oh, yeah, there was great excitement. And of course, you’ve seen in the paper about that fellow that did the dance down the street. Yeah, everyone went mad. Everyone went mad. So I got the hell out of it and went back to camp. But then of course, the fold up of the gun site was done very quickly. So long as you took something

out to salvage depot which was at Roseberry Racecourse - that was the salvage depot - if you had any army equipment on charge on your papers, you could take it out to salvage and they’d give you a receipt for it. Well, a couple of old armchairs went out and we got a receipt for two armchairs, you see, of which the AWAS officer got one and the boss got

the other. Et cetera, et cetera, and I won’t tell you any more. Yeah, that went on, of course, naturally.

Yes, indeed. And of course, the ration store was raided and people went home that night with packets of porridge and tins of fruit and cans of prunes, of course. Yeah.

It folded up very quickly. They gradually released people away, and it folded up. So I got discharged and here I am to tell the story. You’ve run out of questions.

Go on.

No, once you were in, you had no choice, did you, you’d have to declare yourself a conscientious objector. You’ve heard that term? You’d have to declare yourself a conscientious objector, otherwise you just submitted

to the routine, as I did. And as I told you, one bloke said he didn’t want to carry a rifle, and as soon as they asked him would he carry a stretcher, he said, “Yes.” He was in, “Sign here,” and after his signature went on the paper, that was it, he was there, wasn’t he, couldn’t, no escape. Oh yes, no, there was no resentment. Well, everyone of army age expected to be in, didn’t they. Of course some of them had the

choice of, as I didn’t, but some of them could opt for the Air force and the navy if they wanted to. But this ack ack cadre that was being formed immediately, we were stuck with it, and “Don’t try and go anywhere else or we’ll come and get yous,” and they would’ve too. I know several men who, one went and joined his brother, his brother’s unit, they hauled him back. Wasn’t allowed, just wasn’t allowed, they wanted a cadre of... And the wisdom of

all that was proven when Japan bombed Pearl Harbour, because they had several hundred men over there they could assemble and distribute to the various gun sites. And that’s what happened and how I got to Rose Bay. Well, imagine the mess if there wasn’t any of that preparation ready. And I give the army full marks for some things. I give it full marks for letting ack ack gunners hear the guns go off, because it’s a dreadful shock, the first one. And of course,

the fact that there were people up north that, as you know, the first time they fired in anger at a Jap was the first time they heard the gun go off. They all knew what it sounded like after that.

What was the what?

The impact on the ears, the flash of flame through the barrel, at the mouth of the barrel, and then of course the fact that you had to clean out the guns afterwards.

Yeah, you closed it off at the breech end and poured boiling water down it, and then with a great big broom and on a long handle, you pushed it in and out, up and down the barrel to clean it. And then got that cleaned, a clean rag up and down to clear it, then an oily rag down to oil it. And we knew all this was on any time we did a practice shoot, you had to

clean the guns afterwards. Because constant firing wore down the rifling and then that would minimise your muzzle velocity, as the gun wore, you wouldn’t get the same speed out of the muzzle. So they had to do a calibration shoot to work back the extra timing and so on. All that went on. Oh, it wasn’t fun, there was a lot more to it than just bang, bang, bang, really.

I felt that I saw a lot more in artillery than I would’ve seen in footslogging.

Oh, yes, well, it was just you couldn’t hear anything except a ringing in the ears. And I told the DVA bloke when I was examined that I was subject,

during 1942, ’43, to at least, oh, 10, 12, 15, shoots of this type, where I just stood in the gun site surrounded by the wall or the sandbags and the guns went off. And we didn’t wear any protection, weren’t given any. In fact, in the recent news you saw on the TV of the guns in Iraq, even the Americans. When those big guns went off, what were the American troops doing? They had their hand down like that,

weren’t they? Even then. But we had nothing. No wonder it deafened us, finally.

Not long, not long. You’d soon work your jaws together and shake your head. But you had to wait till the, no good doing it between shots, you had to wait till they’d were all gone. I know I

did hear, although I can’t vouch for this, but I did hear that on some occasions when they let the girls close, when the AWAS were in, they thought they better let them hear it, some of the girls’ ears bled from the first impact. That’s quite possible. But, yeah, DVA, the DVA bloke was aware of all this. I didn’t have any trouble. He gave me the correct assessment because I told him the truth.

Time.

Oh, look at the list of questions. Are we going to do all those?

Shoot. I don’t mind.

You’ve got to go home, I haven’t.

About the what?

Yes.

Well, the difference between gunnery and ballistics is that the study of gunnery is the study of what happens

to the gun, you point it, you elevate it, you raise it, you lower it. Because of the pull of gravity on the projectile, you have to lift your gun a little bit higher than you normally would, because the projectile doesn’t go in a straight line, it goes in a curve. And so to adjust it, that slight difference to make up for gravity, you raise through what’s called “tangent elevation”. That’s the practical explanation, the extra angle you put on it.

And of course you have 360 degrees in a circle for bearing, see, there’s elevation and there’s bearings on an anti-aircraft gun. And gunnery, the theory of gunnery lies in what you do with the gun. And ballistics is what happens to the projectile once it leaves the muzzle of the gun. There’s all sorts of, the wind direction could affect it, the angle of

ascent could affect it, the pull of gravity is greater if you make it a sharper rise, see, all that sort of thing. And that’s the difference between gunnery and ballistics. And people say, “Oh,” but they haven’t heard about that before. And this is the sort of thing I had to teach these, why I had to give theory lectures as well as well as daytime gun drill on the actual guns. Particularly the officers had to receive this

theory at night, otherwise they wouldn’t understand why they were doing it.

What’s the word?

Breeching?

I don’t know breeching.

No, I think that it was best to stick strictly to the book, as

laid down. There was a drill laid down in three point seven anti-aircraft gun. There’s a drill laid down and you don’t vary from it. You learn it and you teach it. You can vary it for fun with someone that you trust, but it’s got to be strict. And as I told you about pulling out these bits of paper though, they can be very tricky. I’ve seen,

at schools, after six weeks, I’ve seen a fellow handed a fistful of papers and he draws one out and he looks at it and “Oh,” he shakes his head and says “Sorry,” and he hands it back. Nil. After six weeks. Got asked something he didn’t know. Like I was lucky I’d got one that I’d been instructing on and I rattled it off as though I knew it, which I did. But the drill was, and the drill is,

don’t just tell the instructor what you read on the paper and go through that, dictate it as though that you’re saying it, instructing a squad, in that tone of voice, so that’s what gets you the marks, see.

Well, I went through to one stripe and then two

stripes. And they told me later that the day my second stripe came through, they put me in for sergeant. They told me that afterwards. But there were differences. My, I was on ten-and-six a day as a bombardier, and as a sergeant went to eleven-and-six, which is only a shilling a day, seven shillings a week, but I got sergeants’ mess, all the facilities, you know, seniority, respect,

certain amount. My poor old Mum, when I first went in, when I got called up to Kogarah in January 1940, the dear old soul bought me an aluminium plate and an aluminium bowl and a knife and fork combination, which had a thumb screw through to keep them together, because you had to supply your

own eating utensils. And I took that through all nearly three years through all the camps that I went. Until I became a sergeant, when I just walked into a sergeants’ mess, sat down at the designated seat, and an orderly bought me a dinner on a china plate, see, this is, how long’s this been going on? Yeah, it was a big, a big impact to suddenly, to finally become a sergeant, and you’re far better off as a sergeant,

as a top dog as a sergeant, than being a new lieutenant because you were the bottom rank in all the officers, see, and that was cruel, whereas if you emerge from top sergeant to bottom lieut, that was crook, I didn’t fancy that, and it didn’t happen, thank you. Well, look at the mess I, that fellow that did go, and started bragging about changing into pyjamas as GPO ack, he

made a mess of himself. He was soon on the next draft north, and he could have had a good job as the brains at headquarters, because they need brains in gunnery, as you can see. Not that I’ve got any, but what I’ve tried to imply to you is that it’s far different to ordinary footslogging, which has its faults, too, its hazards, problems, particularly bayonet work and all that sort of thing. Unarmed combat, well, we did a bit of unarmed combat.

But, oh, no, I was happy with the, particularly when I became a sergeant. And then in the big schools, in the bigger, particularly the one at Nowra, they had a sergeant major who was a warrant officer, and we did the lot. Every Sunday at the dinner, evening dinner, you had to wear dress with a belt broken in, you never sat down to a meal with a belt

fastened up, you always broke your belt. Allegedly to make more room, but as a respect, I think that was behind it. And you toasted the king. And all sorts of things, very formal. I didn’t go and carry on with that in gun sites I was at, not to that extent, except - and it was very good - an officer wouldn’t come into the sergeants’ mess unless he was

invited. You know, oh no, we had respect. And when we happened to know some, one of the officers that we knew fairly well and got them to like and he gave us a bit of leeway, if he was there alone one night we’d say, “Don’t eat up there alone, come down eat with us.” And he would, but only because he was invited. He would never say to us, “I’m alone tonight, can I come and eat with you?” he would never do that. But if he got invited, he was glad to come. And

our mess steward would steam in as usual, you know, a couple of plates, and “Pull up, son, the officer’s sitting there.” Reverse back out, change the plates around, put a bit more on, yeah, all sorts of things. Yeah, these things went on, but there was perks in being a sergeant. But you had to know your work, too, of course, you had to know what you were about, too right.

Well, you were on call at all times. You took your time as orderly sergeant when you were the kingpin for the day, but on some gun sites mostly there was only two or three, so every second or third day you were orderly sergeant. You’re always at the beck and call of the officer, who depended on his sergeant. When I, later

on, when I went through my warrant officer’s exam and became a warrant officer, one of the majors who helped me and gave me a lot of help in qualifying for that exam, he said to me “You’ve got to know everything to answer every question you get from the gunners, and you’ve also got to be able to answer a lot of questions that we ask you, the officers ask you. You’re the

pea amongst the...”, you know, you’ve got to know the lot. But they were very good with their coaching, he did very well for me, got me through the exam, I’m sure.

I said I was glad to be a gunner and not an infantryman, yes. Glad to be a gunner.

On gun sites, we slept in barracks. I very rarely slept in a tent, and that was a big relief as you might add. Yeah, artillery I think was, of course the infantry wouldn’t agree because we were always “gentlemen of the artillery”, whereas the infantrymen called us “drop shorts”. Have you heard that term?

Well, that’s the field gunners. Their

exercise and project is to fire over the heads of their advancing troops onto the ranks and the enemy that they were advancing onto. And after they’ve got a couple of yards, you raise your sights and fire further because the infantry are getting closer to the point of impact of the shells, you see. But one or two would fall short amongst their own men. And they called them “drop shorts”.

But that’s field artillery, that’s not an ack acker, see. I was ack ack artillery, there was also coastal artillery, the big guns on the coast, and there’s also field artillery like the 25 pounders and so on, and there were tank attack guns, gunners. But ack ack was the plum, I think, and of course, it was the most difficult to pinpoint the position of the target. Because, you know, a Zero

fighter [Japanese aircraft] was moving at 400 miles an hour, and you’ve got to get a shell from here up to where he will be, not where he is now, but where he will be, because he’ll move while your flight of, time of flight of the shell. You had to understand all this, and try to tell other people, which I did with some success. Yeah, there was more to it, in my estimation. Probably

I’m biased because I went through that, you see, and I understand what was required. But I saw other people that didn’t have a clue. Good soldiers, but they wouldn’t have any clue about the... We used to get them. In fact, we converted one unit, they were on the two-pounder anti-tank guns and tanks got far too big and heavy to have two-pounders and they were

transferred into ack ack, and [we] converted them to our training. A lot they knew, and a lot they had to forget, but a lot they had to learn, because for the first time they were learning to fire at a moving target in the sky, and not at a tank doing 10 or 12 miles an hour on the ground. Quite different, the field gunners will say, although they wouldn’t admit to it, they’ve got a different story yet.

Yeah, I liked ack ack, I’m glad I was in it. For me, that was the pick of them.

But of course, there aren’t any now, you just fire surface-to-air missiles.

Indeed.

Some of what?

I heard of it, but I never experienced it. I never experienced it.

No.

Well, most of my associates who knew that I was, you know, B2 medically and that’s why I didn’t go overseas, it wasn’t my fault, I was available when people were going, I was available. If they’d have sent me, I would have had to go, just as the troops did, but they sent the troops off and gave me a fresh lot to train up, and they went and I stayed, still stayed behind. So good luck to me,

it wasn’t my fault, wasn’t my fault.

About what?

Oh yes.

Yes, that happened at Iron Cove when a decree went out about sending men north from ack ack gun sites and all A1 men were to go, finally, they needed them up north, and A men, A class medical

classification were required. And I was A1. So I was examined for fitness to go north, and I went along, expecting to be sent eventually, and the medico did exactly the same, said exactly the same thing that the medical team who examined me at the Showground when I was, he said

“Your foot’s not falling in the right position.” “Isn’t it?” says I, I didn’t know. So, you know, “Take your boots off and walk here and walk here, and put your feet up and let me look here and look there and let me look underneath.” It wasn’t flat feet, it was just probably a congenital

malfunction or something, particularly the left foot. So he marked me down to B temporarily, marked my papers B, and I wasn’t in the A1 draft to go up north, so I carried on. And it wasn’t much time later, all B men were to be examined and see if we could lift it back up into A1 to go up north, see, because there was a big drive on

to get men up north, as you can imagine. And that’s where the VDC and the AWAS relieved so many men, for very necessary... So I went to a different, in fact I went to a hospital, it’s up at Baulkham Hills, it’s the Frank Whitten Homes now, is it, or something? Anyway, it was quite a big hospital, and they put me through all these examinations. And instead of lifting me from

B back to A, they downgraded me to B2. Endorsed my papers and my pay book “Permission to wear light shoes, light boots to be issued, no prolonged walking, no walking or prolonged standing.” All endorsed in my book. They certainly gave me boots, and they allowed me to wear tan shoes, but no one ever tried to

stop me, or warned me not to walk, so I just carried on and I walked. But I think that further deteriorated it. But that’s how I became B2 permanently and, of course, it was picked up in the medical examination when I was discharged and they confirmed it. All because this, I insisted the Corporal write “Yes” in the column and not worry about whether I was entitled to it or not. It was none of his business, all he had to do was write “Yes” in the column, so I demanded that he

did. So he did, finally, he wrote “Yes,” but shook his head, he didn’t believe it. But I knew what I was doing, of course, I knew. I went in A1, out B2, someone’s got to take the blame for the downturn, haven’t they? That was my reasoning. And then of course, years, 40-odd years later when I told them, when that councillor spoke across at Riverwood Ex-Servicemen’s

League that day, “Oh,” he said, “They owe you, they owe you, if you’ve got that.” So I was in the RSL down here, and I saw the welfare officer and he put me through, and, oh, there was all sorts of things after that. But I finally got it, finally got it. I didn’t know what I was going to get until someone wrote a, well, it was a printed form, he said, “I am required to

assess” and I forget the term, and there’s a big book about that thick, it’s called Regulations for Approval of Size of Pensions, or rate, not size, Rate of Pensions. Approvals to be met for assessing

rate of pension. And they ticked off all these, everything that was on this form, very carefully, all done by the book, nothing underhand or slip him a few quid or anything, nothing. And they rated me 60% and they paid me some back pay, not 48 years, unfortunately, they paid me some back pay and they put

three or four thousand dollars in my bank account. Is this going on air?

Oh, sorry, you can amend mine, I’ll finish the story.

So I, they didn’t give it to me, they put it in the bank straight into my account. And Centrelink [welfare agency] got hold of this and said, “Oh, no, that’s not right, you’re on an old age pension.” So they recalled 13 hundred dollars. Now, two

government departments, see, without a policy between them. The left hand hands it out and the right hand takes it away. That hand, that’s truthful, so I don’t mind that going on record because

that’s the Howard government for you, if you know what I mean. Well, I’m allowed to say that.

As for, well,

sometimes I run into this sort of thing and people are complaining and I say to them “Well, you voted for him.” “No I didn’t, I’ve always been Labor.”

Yeah, somebody.

Oh, I think those shells going overhead, real shells that we knew, you know, were enemy shells, that raised a bit of apprehension, and that’s what that Clarke Enquiry was all about, because even though I was out there under my tin hat and shells went over my head, I didn’t qualify for, I didn’t meet the criteria

that was laid down for people because I had no overseas service. And, as someone pointed out, I probably saw and heard as much as some blokes who did go overseas, particularly towards the end of the war, because they only went over as cooks or orderly clerks or something, you know, but because they went overseas, they qualified and I didn’t. I didn’t care, but the Clarke Enquiry has taking up this matter, and it’s still not resolved. We’ll see what happens, but

a bit late to give me another medal now. I got the Rose Bay star.

Good. I wanted to go back. I wanted to go, I went back in the October, they told me about the 2nd or 3rd of the month “Come back on the 13th,” I told you that.

I went to Kodak and told them, they said, “Well, come in next week. Come in,” and I went in civilian clothes, and I worked for that week at Kodak because it was late October, early November, they had to get their rations again, their quotas on roll of film out to all their stockists, and I spent the week doing that for them. And the girl who was doing it was relieved to go somewhere else while I did that for the week. And then when I got the discharge, I went back to Kodak and she

moved on somewhere else. And then as the blokes started to come back, well, things got organised again. But, oh yes, I was glad to go back. I had a job, you see, I had a job to go to. The VDC, when that folded, they said to me “Why don’t you get your discharge, the war’s over, why don’t you get your discharge?” But once I made enquiries and I had a job to go to

and so on. “We’ll find, we’ll fit you in.” In fact, after I left in that position of troop sergeant I told you about at Georges Heights, when I was designated troop sergeant, I was out at Liverpool at a holding camp for a couple of days when they tried to sort people out. And they sent me to one bloke who was an officer, and he said, “I got just the job for you, just the job,” he said. “There’s a transport group out at” oh, somewhere “with about six trucks and they need a transport

sergeant.” I said, “I’m not a Transport sergeant,” “Don’t fool me,” he said, “Look, TP sergeant.” I said to him in a withering voice as though he, I was artillery and he wasn’t, you know, “That’s not transport, they taught me at rookie drill that transport abbreviation’s TPT [transport]. That’s transport. That TP for me, I was a troop sergeant.” “Oh,” he said, you know, he learned something,

a captain, about to send me out. He was anxious to find a job for everybody, see, that was his employment in the army, to farm people out and get them jobs, but I was nowhere near, a troop sergeant, a transport sergeant, thank you very much, so I skipped that one.

I didn’t, I didn’t, no. No, honestly, I didn’t. I know now there is, there’s a big difference, there’s a much - well, the onset of

greed and everyone’s got to have a car and everyone, you know... A boy of 18 turns 18, he gets a car, these days. At 18, I was saving up for a pushbike and that was normal, see. They are big changes to me, but I’m old-fashioned, I was brought up the right way, what I consider the right way, but it doesn’t suit people today. There are big changes now, but it took a while,

it took quite a while. Yes.

Well, no, no-one ever talked about their experiences. I, in 1950, when we moved here, and I’ll tell you about building this, too, because I was discharged in

1947, finally, when I left the, Haberfield. And the same year, we gave the builder the job, well gave the builder the job as soon as we could, but he started it in 1950, ’47, it took him three years to build this. Isabelle will be interested in this. The walls went up, and we couldn’t get tiles for the roof. And Canterbury Council knocked back my application for concrete tiles,

metal tiles, unglazed tiles, cement tiles that a fellow imported from India in their millions and all finished up on garages because no council would allow them on houses. I had to have glazed tiles, and I had to wait for them. And where the bathroom is out this way, a little tree came out and put a branch out the window while we waited for the tiles.

And then a firm called, never mind about the firm, because this is on scheme, sold us, said yeah, they’d do my bathroom and kitchen tiles for me. But they wouldn’t sell me the tiles, I had to contract for them to put the tiles up, see, two men’s wages, putting up the tiles. And they came to put up the tiles, and who came, two men? No, a man and a young apprentice. To whom I paid full man’s wages for. This sort of

thing went on all the time, see. See the flooring, we couldn’t get floorboards, so I found a place across at Dulwich Hill and it had this five-by-two Oregon [timber] and I had to pay for it to be cut down to five-by-one, then I had to pay to have it tongue-and-grooved, to get them into flooring boards, these things, and a bloke drove up with them on a truck down the side here, offloaded them behind the truck, put his truck into reverse and went back over them, cracked half of them and drove off.

Nobody gave a damn about anything. And we struggled to build this, and three years later we moved in. That’s what happened. Oh, yes. Nothing was easy. Nothing was easy. Settling back into business life was as tough as being in the army, only more. Particularly for a young couple trying to build a house.

But that’s true, that’s the way we got this spot, place built. The brickies, brickies wouldn’t put the walls up before they had the steel lintels to put over the doorways and the windows to put the bricks on top. And we couldn’t get them anywhere and the builder couldn’t get them. So we went down to where they were widening the railway lines at outside Redfern, and we bought, at full retail price, we bought 100 year-

old, second-hand, but still good steel lintels. Got them brought home and gave them to the builder and he approved them and up they went, and so then the builders went, brickies went. And the neighbour next door, he’s dead now, he was struggling, he dug his own foundations and poured the, had the foundations poured and the cement, and couldn’t get a brickie, and they were building houses all around here, so he went down and said to a team of brickies “I’ll give you

three shillings a day more than you’re getting now.” And they were up there at lunchtime. And they worked for a week and put his up, and then they went back to finish that one. All this went on. 1947, 1950. You think it’s hard, you should have tried it then.

Yes, the shortages after the war, there was nothing available. No metal, no building materials, no wood, no timber, nothing.

No steel. In fact, going back to the old place at Milperra, where that Soldier Settlement went down, they used wood stave, S-T-A-V-E, wood stave pipes. They didn’t have any metal, no galvanised iron piping, wood stave pipes, about that round, to carry the main things along the street and

they dug them up when the street was widened and taken over for Henry Lawson Drive. When you drive through now, you drive through what was Flamboy Avenue, Milperra, between East Hills and up the other end. But they were wooden pipes then for the water.

Not a few years, it was fairly quickly, when they advertised.

Money, truthfully. We were battling, we were a young couple, just married - well, not just married, but just going to start married life together. We hadn’t had any married life much before. An occasional night, but not many, with her mother in

the next room. Very little. So we were just starting off and, yeah, I went there for the money, because I was qualified, why not? And they accepted me very gladly and then, as I say, they coached me and I got my warrant officer’s establishment.

Only because Kodak sent me to New Guinea and that was the end of that. 1950 they sent me up there, and ’51.

Yeah.

Yes I do. And I always attend. I

wear the ribbons I’ve got and my daughter wears my father’s ribbons. And I notice now that there are a lot of people these days are wearing their own, and they’re wearing relatives’ on the right breast, so I’m going to put my Dad’s up on the right side next year. My daughter wears it and we go down every day, every Anzac Day, and on one occasion recently, some years ago, two people with a video camera suddenly presented to us and said, “Excuse me, sir, would you

mind telling me what Anzac means to you?” So I told them, see, and I finished up saying “And therefore we are the peaceful means now, where people like you can walk around the street and ask us questions about it. Which you wouldn’t do if Japanese were in charge.” “Oh, thank you, sir,” and turned to my daughter and said, “And, what about you, madam?” Now, my daughter teaches English at Bankstown TAFE [Technical and Further Education], and the pupils

she’s teaching are adult immigrants who want to learn English, not like high school kids who don’t care whether they do it. And she’s happy in her job because she’s got people who want to learn and she’s happy to teach them. And she’d just been through Anzac Day that week with her foreign immigrants see, so she gave the woman a great earful too about that, and the woman was finally a bit staggered, was glad to get away from us, see. And we said, “Where are you from?” and she said,

SKEFS, what’s the name of that big school? Sydney Church of England Grammar? SKEFS?

SCEGGS, yes, G-S, girls’ school, yes, from SCEGGS. And they got an earful of what Anzac meant from people in the street.

Anzac means to me? Yes, I’ll tell you

what Anzac means, because of my father, he was an Anzac, an original ANZAC. He fought at Gallipoli where the main arose, and I’ve been conscious of it all my life, my 85 years, and the first 20 of them with Dad, with his disability without the arm. And then on my 21st birthday being called up by Menzies into the present, the war. There wasn’t a day in my life from “go” to “whoa” that I wasn’t

aware of service and what it has meant. And the various speeches I’ve heard about Anzac, and I told you one that I’ve endorsed now, that wars are made for peace. And that means a lot to me, that’s what wars are fought for, for peace, and when you think about it, that’s true. But apart from that, before I heard that one, Anzac always meant something to me because of,

well, I was brought up as a son of an Anzac and we were children, as I said before, out in the Soldier Settlement, we were children of victorious soldiers, and they taught us to sing God Save the King, and salute the flag, and Rule Britannia, it all went on and it was ingrained in us, and I’ve never lost it, it never left me. And I go down to Anzac, and up here, now I march with the RSL, we go up through

that shopping centre you went through. But the last two years, I ducked down a side street and meet them coming back and march on to the finish with them, I don’t go right around. And they excuse me, well, there were several of us. In fact, next year, they’ve promised us there’ll be chairs for us and we won’t have to stand for 40 minutes after the march for the service. That gets a bit hard. And they realise that. Everyone’s kind to each other. We have a compatibly

that’s there of ex-servicemen that you don’t get amongst anybody else because no one else has done it except you and those fellows. You know, and that’s what Anzac means, I think. Off the top of my head for you.

Ever get what?

No, he never went, he never went. Well, he couldn’t, he was in the Post

Office store, see, and he didn’t want to go, didn’t want to go.

No. I never asked him. He was very reticent about the whole thing, strange enough. I know I’m a bit voluble, but I’ve got things to talk about. I have experiences he didn’t have. And I realise what he went through, I’ve seen, even though I

didn’t experience it. Yeah. But that’s, you know, it’s been with me 85 years, and will remain.

Louder.

Oh, it’s true, but it never comes to pass. Wars are fought for peace. I mean, we were committed to Iraq recently to find weapons of mass destruction and to eliminate terrorism. That was what we went to war for. We were told.

Now, terrorism is worse than ever now and they didn’t find anything of weapons of mass destruction, yet. And I leave that floating in the air, but that’s what we were told and that’s what’s happened. I think all wars are wrong. But I do think that, you know, if you like to quote the New Testament, as I will,

“There will be wars and rumours of war, and then the end will come.” “And then the end will come.” And look at the battles that were fought in the Old Testament times, when the Israelites had to move into the Promised Land and fight their way for it and so on. And the murderous battles of the, one bloke killed 600 Philistines with a ox goad,

you know, all that sort of, and that’s quoted in the Old Testament. So there’s, and there always has been wars and rumours of war, there’s no mistaking it, and it’s still going on. But everyone, like over in Israel and the Palestinians now, are seeking for peace, but on different terms. They can’t get together on it. I don’t know what the answer is. I don’t think we ever will,

because before peace is established the end will come, then there’ll be peace. Too late for this world, but we’ll have peace in the world, in the life to come, according to some doctorates.

I don’t think so. I don’t think. It’s something I believe, yeah.

It’s something I believe. And that’s what keeps me going. I suppose you call it faith, do you, I don’t know. Because my parents, my younger brother, my elder sister, were all dead at 68 or less, and here’s me going at 85. Why? Why? Why didn’t I go? I told people I wouldn’t reach 70, and they laughed when I turned 80,

and I’m laughing now I’m 85. And the end’s not in sight for me, it might happen tomorrow or tonight, after all this. Who knows? It’s just as well we don’t know. But, no, as for peace and wars, yeah, well, they’re always with us, as I said to you before. When I got to secondary school, and I heard all those, you know, War of the

Spanish Succession, War of the Austrian Succession, the Crimean War, the French Revolution, War of the Roses, Englishmen fought Englishmen, see. All this caper went on, has been going on throughout history, and still goes on today. We’re fighting the Irish now in Northern Ireland, and the trouble is it’s most of the ructions these days are caused by religion.

Instead of looking for the peace that we want, where we should find it, it’s not there because they’re fighting. I don’t know what the answer is, but I’ve got my thoughts about it, and my opinions, I don’t mind expressing them for you.

Inevitable. Yes, sure, I’m looking forward to that day. It won’t be in this world.

No, permanently, permanently.

Such as they are.

No, it was mostly positive. Before I was promoted, I was looking for a promotion and working towards it. And when I got a promotion I enjoyed it more. And when I got made sergeant that was, you know,

that was good, it had all sorts of benefits which I didn’t appreciate as a gunner. The pay was only a bob a day difference, but the other influences were fine.

Well, I found myself

coping with people, and with difficulties which I had experienced as a rookie, and I saw the way they were dealt with and given to, whether they, I thought they were right or wrong, I righted the difficulties that I had the authority to right when I had the opportunity. And I feel I did fairly well, no-one wanted to shoot me.

Like one bloke I could tell you about, when he was shipped off for overseas, going over to Port Moresby by steamer, the troops said to him “Can you swim?” That’s all they needed to tell him. That’s true. I know who that happened to and why. Yeah, they said to him “Can you swim?” How about that? Well, no one hated me that much.

Fortunately. I did get court-martialled for ill-treating a soldier, but it was, I was, the count, the charge was dismissed, of course, and he was given a penalty for bringing a false charge. But no, that’s something that, again, I didn’t mistreat him, he tried to pull a trick on me

and I stood my ground. An alarm went just as he was coming off gaurd, and I said to him as he came off, “Quick, whip off to your position.” He said, “I’m not going on guard, I’ve just come off leave.” I said, “Never mind you just coming off leave, go and take your place on your guard, there’s an alarm.” “No,” he said, “I won’t do that. I’m entitled to time off now I’ve come off gaurd.” So I had to pull rank and order him, the gunner. He complained later that

I had created some form of mental problem for him because I wouldn’t give him time to rest or relieve himself or settle down after coming off gaurd before ordering him onto the guns. And the point was, of course, there was an alarm on and he had to go. So I took him to our CO [commanding officer], and our CO said, “Son,” he said to the bloke, “don’t press this,” he said, “you won’t get anywhere with this.”

He said, “No, I want to go up to the next rank if you won’t do it.” So they did. And he was advised to drop the charge, let the sergeant go, no, he went right up to court martial. And when the court martial threw it out, they charged him with bringing a infamous charge against a sergeant and they punished him instead. So we shipped him north.

Oh, I saw both sides of it, as you might realise. Life wasn’t roses the whole time.

You got me gossiping now.

You and Isabelle are instruments of Veteran Affairs

as far as I’m concerned, gathering together a great deal of war time, on the home front, in Sydney, and I believe there are things that I’ve said and can say that should be recorded for history, because no one will ever know, otherwise. Is that the answer you want?

Yeah, I think that’s right.

Because I don’t talk about these things, well, not the things you ask me. I tell a few stories about what happened to this bloke or that bloke but, as everyone does.

Something that I what?

Now I’ll give you a big shock, now I’ll give you a big shock. I was a licensed lay reader in the Church of England. I’ve preached sermons for 30 years to congregations because of my voice training I told you about. I’ve made Bible readings by invitation throughout a lot of churches.

And that’s something I “wear close to my chest”, to use your expression. I don’t talk about that. In fact, it’s never been revealed to you until just now. That surprises you, doesn’t it.

I had a licence from, oh, I don’t talk about it, that’s all, I don’t talk about it. I had a licence from Archbishop Gough, 1941, and then

Marcus Loane, when he revised the whole concept of lay reading as archbishop, he wanted everyone renewed and I got a renewed licence after being questioned by our, or the then, what to they call them? Each area of the

Sydney Diocese has a group or has several groups and the fellow in charge of each one is, he questioned me about, oh, my beliefs and so on, and I answered him. And he approved for the continuation of my licence and it was granted. One of my fellows who’s a very vigorous active Christian man and lives

by it, all they did, because they knew him, they just said, “Well, stand over there and read the fifth chapter of St Mathew, verses so-and-so and so-and-so,” and he stood over and read it in a good voice and they said, “Right, pass,” and approved him immediately because they knew what he was about. But they had to ask me, but I told them. See, I learned all this on my mother’s knee. You may have picked it up a bit

when I said on the poultry farm every night she’d come and blow out the candle after we’d said our prayers every night. And I was brought up that way by my mother, and it has stuck with me. But it can be less obvious now, or it can be, I don’t make it loud, I don’t tell people.

And I certainly don’t hammer anybody about it. They are the “happy clappy” type of Christians, I’m not a “happy clappy” type.

Here we go. Bet it’s a good ’un [good one].

Go. Go. But don’t let the rookie drill wear you down, because it will if you let it. I went through it all, all this nonsense, I had to. And it’s pure bastardry they do to you, sometimes. Oh, you know, they can’t make you love the child but they’ll do everything else,

if you understand what I mean. You heard that expression? That’s old army talk too. Do you like that? It’s true. Yeah, it’s tough, it’s tough. It’s made to either make you or break you and only those who, they don’t, who don’t break, survive. And then you’re a good soldier. Oh, no, I’d advise him, if he wanted to, I’d say, “Yes, go for your life. But look for a promotion, get on in the army, don’t,

you know, the higher you get, the more money’s in it for you and the more all sorts of things, perks and things that happen with rising promotions. Yeah, go for it, if you want to make a life of it. Yeah, I’d advise you to go -

- but not to stumble at the first fortnight’s

rookie training.” And we know that goes on, because you hear news now of some of these units that are, they’ve, it’s been hushed up, but there’s been trouble, hasn’t there. Do you know what I’m talking about? There’s cruelty, but it’s not that bad. It could if you let it. If you

showed that you resented it, you’d get it worse. Really.

Pardon?

Yes, that’s right. Yeah, yeah. If you show you’re going to take it, well they’ll give it to you, they’ll dish it out and see how far you can. Every old soldier, many old soldiers has that streak in him, see, I ran across a few of them, but I promptly

sidestepped them when I, as soon as I could. There are a few about, but you soon learn who they are.

That streak was never in me, fortunately for some people.

You going to take a copy of a few of my photographs?

Yeah.

No, thanks very

much for all that. I hope I haven’t said anything that’s going to upset anybody, but still, I’ve told a few truths.