Australians at War Film Archive

Yeah.

Mmm. Well

I was born in Melbourne in North Carlton, Melbourne. And as far as I know I lived there for, til I was about three. And then my parents moved to Portland. And I commenced school here in Portland but unfortunately my mother passed away in 1926. And

family moved up to our grandparents in Warracknabeal. And I was up there for about five years. And I went to school up there. And then we came back to Portland and then I finished my schooling to eighth grade at the Portland High Elementary School, there was no high school at that time. When I

was fourteen I left school and eventually I was managed to get a job on a farm out at Gorae. It was a mixed farm, the apple orchard and small sawmill. And I worked there for two years, the wages those days was five shillings a week and your keep, seven days a week.

And it was every second Sunday off, Sunday evening off milking the cows. For the next few years I worked around on different farms in the area. And when I turned twenty-one I joined the army then. Cause but then didn’t have to have parents’

permission. So circumstances just worked out that way that I joined up when I was turned twenty-one. The, can I’ve a break?

Well do you wanna run down of when we joined up and the camps we went through, or

what do you want now?

Yeah.

Yes, yes.

No just go from, well it was from one camp and then to the next.

And do you want

me to go right through to the, till we were captured or do you want me to stop anywhere.

But what about the escape, anything...

Yeah.

Okay, yeah I get the idea of it, yep.

Yes well I enlisted in the army in June 1940. We went through Caulfield Race Course which was a staging camp. From there we went to Shepparton, a few weeks up there. From Shepparton we came down to Trawool, out

of Seymour, where the, our Battalion was formed, it was the Second Twenty-first Battalion AIF. We did our first training there for a few weeks and then we marched from Trawool to Bonegilla out of Albury. We, our training there continued until March

1941 when we were transferred then to Darwin. We went overland by train to Alice Springs and then by trucks to Darwin. We arrived in Darwin in March ‘41 and did a, our jungle training in that time.

When the Japanese came into the war in December ‘41 about a week or ten days later we were transferred then to Ambon, arriving there on the seventeenth of December ‘41. We were only on Ambon for about several weeks before the Japanese

came into it. And unfortunately we didn’t have enough support and we only survived for about three days up there and there was just too many Japanese, twenty thousand against about thirteen hundred of us. And we just had to surrender. And we surrendered on the

third of February ‘42. Now our camp site that the Dutch had prepared for us became our POW [prisoner of war] camp then. And I only stayed in the camp for seven weeks cause Ron and I we had decided on surrender that we weren’t going to stay,

we were going to escape somehow. And on the tenth of March Ron and I and two others escaped. And the Finley brothers, somehow or another they got lost on the track and we never joined up again. And they ended up going back to camp. And Ron and I we kept on going.

And eventually we made our way down through the islands, and with the aid of the Ambonese people and other native people and arrived back in Darwin in, on the fourth of May 1942. Now from there we were transferred then back to Melbourne and

I unfortunately ended up with a lot of malaria, a lot of hospitalisation. And but in 1943 we were all gathered up, all the ones that sort of made their way back to Australia, went into reinforcements to the Sixth Division. And we went back to Cairns

and Atherton Tablelands and did training up there. Once again unfortunately I got sick and I didn’t go any further than that. I ended up in a hospital train and came back to Melbourne. I was in Melbourne for about twelve months and then I was eventually discharged in May ‘44. So that was roughly

my experiences with the war.

Well can I go back a little bit into, like during the war Dot and I got married and that’ll concern Dot

too in the things, so could I mention that or skip that.

Okay.

Yes.

War, yes.

Yep. After I was discharged in

40, 1944 I came back to Portland with my wife Doris and we settled on a block of land at Gorae West. A block of land that I was involved with prior to the war. We eventually built a home there. And

reared our family, we had two daughters, Alanna and Lorraine. And we had mixed farming, we had dairy farming and we used to grow potatoes and vegetables. We continued on through that bit of developing the land. Eventually

we went out of dairying and we went into beef. At that time the price of beef just completely dropped. So I actually ended up then part time working on the wharf in Portland. And in 1980 we, it was a situation developed that way that

it was a case of get big or get out. So we were past that stage of getting bigger and the girls were married then and they were not in the area any more. So we sold the farm and bought this property here in Portland in 1980. And it was a home away from home essentially because we owned the block of land. We also

owned the block of land behind it and we have room to, elbow room as we call it. And we’ve enjoyed our life immensely in here. I think that’s it.

Well my mother and father they came from the, from the Mallee, Wimmera area, where from Warracknabeal and Saint Arnaud. And they came to Portland here. And of course unfortunately

Mum passed away in 1926 and I was only seven. And us elder sister she was three years older than me. And I had another brother two years younger and a younger brother again, he was only three months old when Mum passed away. So we, when, then my father he went, we

went back to Warracknabeal with my grandparents. And of course at that time it was the Depression days, there was no work. And he, like everybody else, they worked for the dole. And he did that and for a few years until things improved. And then the war broke out. And he,

he went to Geelong. And in 1941 unfortunately when we were in Darwin he passed away when I was in Darwin. So that’s the, and our family we were scattered around. My sister then she went to Nhill West and younger brother he went to Melbourne. And my other brother

he ended up in the air force. So we were rather scattered at the time.

No, no, he didn’t.

I don't know, well probably, no I don't know for sure.

They, he did have two other brothers I think that served but I don't know why he didn’t, whether it’s for what reason, I don't know at all.

What my father did.

Well, he

in Portland, he used to drive a horse and wagon for delivering goods to the shopkeepers and things like that. But that’s his, that’s all that he did. And he also worked,

worked part time on the wharf too, unloading the coastal boats and the other ones, came in for wool, wheat. But and yeah one time he used to grow tomatoes and he’d send them off to Melbourne. And that’s and of course when the war broke out that, and you know, he passed on.

That was the end of it.

Well yes, no I don’t remember very much about my mother because I was seven when she passed away. So and but I can remember here in Portland. And

I used to go to school and she’d be there and see me home sort of thing. But Dad of course we, with the Depression he was, you know we split up a certain amount because he had to go wherever he could find a job. So we only saw him for a few years. Came back to Portland and of course

after I left school I went out to work on the farms. And there wasn’t the, you know, there wasn’t a really family contact that other families had. But no but we did keep contact yeah.

Schooling. Well I started school in Portland here and

then eventually went to Warracknabeal School. And I quite enjoyed schooling, I think your woodwork and that type of, metal work and that type of thing I really enjoyed that. And but I only went

to eighth grade. And then because of the Depression you just couldn’t continue. You had to sort of try and find some way of making a living. But I think as I said I enjoyed woodwork and that sort of thing and then through farm experience and one thing and another was sort of Jack of all trades, master of none. Turn my hand to most things. Still

do.

Fourteen.

Enjoyed the afterwards and farm work. Yes I did, I really did enjoy it. Working mainly like with cattle and horses and in the orchard and one thing and another.

No it was a quite an interesting lifestyle. And I enjoyed that style of life right through. Yeah. All my farming days was all, the open, the wide open spaces you could say, enjoyed all that.

Yeah.

I was born in North Carlton.

I have no idea. But I would have been about three years of age when I came to Portland with the, I have no idea.

Well

the, it meant that nobody had a job, as far as my father was concerned. He didn’t have a job, for a long time. And then he eventually got a job on a baker’s cart delivering bread. But

that, it was just one of those things, it was very hard to get to have any money or anything like that. I don’t mind admitting it that I remember when we were children and we would be,

you’d go to the bakers and see if they had any stale bread or stale cakes. And you’d buy, if you had a penny or sell a few bottles or something like that, you’d get a penny or two, here or there, you could go and buy a penny’s worth of broken biscuits, a little bag of broken biscuits for a penny. So it’s hard to sort of realise today of course

that sort of, that that was the lifestyle of you know hundreds and hundreds of people.

Oh well I don’t really know how it affected him personally. He, you know he tried his best and to look

after us and that you know it’s pretty hard to trying to put into words what somebody else is really feeling, yeah. No he did his best for us that’s all I can say yeah.

Mmm?

Sustenance, yes, that’s right

yes, on the dole, yes.

Well in Warracknabeal he, they were working out on the road that went from Warracknabeal down towards Stawell. And they would grub the trees out and stumps and things like that and do all the hand work there.

Also they were going along all the old drains, the cutters out in the streets and they’d chip all the grass, that sort of work. I can remember in, when we moved back here to Portland I was only about eleven or twelve then. But they were issued with a card. And

you were able to buy or go to the grocer’s shop with it and purchase so much. And the people at the shop they had a little clip machine and whatever you purchased they’d clip the edge of the card. And then that was handed in later on, that was. I think that was about all I can sort of

remember you know how it all operated because I wasn’t very old and I didn’t have that much to do with it. Yeah.

Well at that particular time I was still going

to school. And all I can remember mainly about Portland is fishermen who were you know they were fishing. And you could see you know that was a coastal boat. She used to come in here once a week and other overseas shipping occasionally.

Quite a lot of their potatoes and tomatoes were grown around Portland. And apple orchards and apples were exported, sent away. But I think Portland was just sort of a normal sort of a town like anybody, anywhere else I think. Just surviving as best they could.

Well there was very little entertainment, cause as I say I was only a you know school boy then. I think the Scouts, I joined the Scouts

for a while until I left school. But apart from that there was very little you could do. Because you know just face it, you never had the money to do anything. And in the summertime we’d enjoy the beach. And that sort of thing. But no there was

very little at all I can remember.

Oh well bread and yeah well there was bread and jam, plum jam was cheap. And bread and jam and cereal, Weeties.

And just whatever you know, catch a fish and catch a rabbit, that sort of thing.

Yeah, you’d go hunting for rabbits. Dig them out, out of the sand burrows. And we used to go fishing along the rocks, fishing on the rocks.

Well yes there was extent that I, you probably only just knew what you were eating and just, you didn’t know what everybody else was eating. Some people had jobs and things like that, would be better off. The majority of people they

had it you know very hard.

Well I think I don't know we were all in the same situation I think you know, it, we

just continued on the life that you had and that’s about all you knew. There was no, there wasn’t very much to compare with really speaking, very little. No.

Fourteen.

After leaving school. Well I ended up, I managed to get the job with some people out at Gorae. And I went out there and worked with them for two years. And that was learning to milk a cow. I used to milk the cow, the house cow. And

the several had to milk, that was all hand turned separator. And worked around the orchard when the apples were in season, helped pick apples and box them up and all that sort of thing. Just gradually learn all the different jobs on the, on a farm.

Fencing and all that sort of work. Little bit of work on the saw mill, sorting timber and things like that. It was just a case of gradually learning and gaining experience. And when the opportunity came for, and

things started to improve, and wages went up a little bit, we, I went from one farm to another, from five shillings a week to ten shillings a week. And at the finish when I enlisted in the army I was earning a pound a week, and my keep. But at the time you, it was a learning curve, of going from hand milking

cows to machine milking and there was hay making, which was all hand done. There were, it was mown with a mower with two horses and a mower. But then it was all hand forked up into heaps and it was hand carted in and was hand stacked into

haystacks. And there was some fantastic stacks used to be made, so very clever people make all sorts of shape haystacks. It was a real work of art. And you, don’t know, something you never see these days of course. But no it was just a gradually learning process, all the way along.

Log hauling in the mills, it was early days when I started off. The kid, that was, it was all done by horses, loaded on to wagons and carted in. And just prior to the war we, they started to load logs onto trucks and bring the logs in on trucks. So, as I say

that learning curve was what was happening.

No.

Yes but in those days it was, communications they were just unknown to, to make contact with people. The,

I was twenty-one before I went to Melbourne. And my early days the only contact we, you could make in those days was by push bike. And I, one time I rode from here like to Warracknabeal and back on a pushbike to see my grand parents.

So communication was very, very hard for the average person I’d say to do.

What, telephones. Out in the bush they were mainly what they called party lines. They’re one,

one wire and an earth return and there might be a half a dozen people on that party line. And everybody could listen in to each other and talk to each other and that sort of thing. We, after the war when we built out at Gorae West we were on a party line out there for two or three years until they brought in the automatic phones.

So I think it was about 19, would have been about 1953 I think it was, before they brought the automatics in. We were on a party line up till then. Little switchboard at the country post office had a little switchboards. And you’d either ring up and a little

buzz would drop. And they’d come and answer it and had cords and plug the cords in and away you went.

Any?

Ah no, no. Nothing like that. No.

No we used to get around in groups admittedly. There’d be groups but that was, we’d go to dances, you’d ride a pushbike to dances and the dances were held in the school. You’d take all the desks outside and do up the floor and have a dance and then after the dance was over you’d take it all back

inside again. And but in the country, working in the country on the farms, you never had any sort of contact. In fact if anything that like that was going on, we used to make our own entertainment. In the summertime, we’d four or five of us or more of us,

you’d get together on the paddock and we’d have a game of cricket, also play table tennis. And then we’d go shooting, we all had rifles.

Twenty-two’s, pea rifles as we called them and little short bullets. And we used to go out shooting rabbits and have a box, match box up the post and target practise with the matchbox.

See if you could hit the crown. And but you, like you made your own entertainment like that. And as I say you’d go five or six miles to somebody’s place and have a bit of entertainment and then on the bike and go home and milk the cows.

And that was a form of entertainment we had. And eventually as we got older of course we got motorbikes and that was my big thing.

Before the war, yes and we’d get around on motorbikes and that sort of thing, have fun. Had more fun then

than they have today. But no it is the case of make your own entertainment. And you had your own friends and that’s how it went. And those friends, you know, they’re lifelong friends. Very much so.

No I really can’t. The

it was just a build up of Germany attacking other, seem to be wanting to attack other countries and take over. And when that went into Poland that started it all up and it just sort of like as far as we were concerned then, it just developed from

there. And then as I say communications were a lot slower then than what they are today. What happens right now in three seconds it’s round the world. And it was a long time between finding out what was going on and then you were, could only read it in the papers. And

we were down here, like all country people were in a different situation, it’s very few people had wireless. And you’ve only got mail once a week and you’d only get the paper probably once a week, so your communications in those days were totally different to what it is today.

Well I was working at Gorae West on a farm at Gorae West. And they had a wireless set. And we heard it on the wireless set and that was in ‘39.

But the, heard his speech but and, oh it was just hard to say what the feeling was really like because there was very little build up to it in the bush. You knew that they were having trouble and all that sort of thing but it was just a case of

oh well war’s broken out and then people started to join up and one thing and another. It all just sort of gradually developed in, out in the bush.

Well quite a lot of the boys in Portland

joined up. There was a small home Unit, they called militia. And people’d join up and they’d do their little bit of military training. And they, quite a lot of those boys, they went straight from the militia, straight into the AIF. And

so but as far as the country people were concerned, it was a little while before the country people they got involved because you just couldn’t walk off farm and go and, go serve your country like that. There was, it all took time and there was, I suppose

mainly our lot were, when things weren’t going quite so well in the middle east and England that more country people decided then to go and help. Cause like the ones in town, your mates in town were over there. The, you sort of too, oh well join up and go over and help them out. And

that’s how it was that quite a few of us joined up all about the same time, like in this area, there’s quite a lot. That’s why we had such a big percentage of prisoners of war in this area. The ones that joined up in ‘39 were in the Middle East

and a lot of them were brought back to Australia in 1942. And they, then they landed in the Dutch East Indies, which is now Indonesia and we lost quite a lot of them went POW. But then there’s all of us that joined up in 1940 that

we hadn’t, we went up to the islands when the Japanese came in. And of course this is where so many of us of our age group and joined up at the same time, we all ended up as prisoners of war. So it you know it was different situations for different country people or city people, things like that.

Well I don’t, at that time I never had any other reason to join up. There’s no, I was quite happy doing my job I was doing out in the bush.

But it just a case of I suppose of being sort of responsible and seeing what was going on and the sooner you went over there the sooner you would, you know get it over and done with and get it straightened all out again. And get everything back on an even keel.

Well no not...

Not, not, no not that much really. The, no, it was just a case of join up and be with your, you’re certainly with your mates and all that sort of thing, going up to join up and do a job and helping out.

Yes, definitely.

Both, because it was not only your mates, it was everybody was involved. You know, what was happening overseas was, well at that time when I joined up in 1940 it’d been going a few months. And then you, you know, it was just the injustice

that, of what was happening to the other countries, more or less it appeared to me, and quite a lot of us.

Well I, that I could,

I just can’t answer honestly because I sort of never had much, anything, you know we had nothing to do with the RSL [Returned and Services League] in those days, that was First World War. And although you had you know Anzac Day and all that sort of thing to Remembrance Day and that sort of thing, but as far as real, much contact with people you never sort of

had much contact with them.

Well Anzac Day in Portland since World War II but I can’t go back much beyond that but

the, we have a terrific, oh, I don't know, how can I say it, support, down here at the triangle. We have a big floral display. I don't know whether you’ve heard about it or seen it at all. But

down the triangle we...

Well down here at the, where they got the memorial, down the War Memorial and it’s in the form of a triangle. And the surrounds form a triangle. And the, they have a big floral display. There’s a cross and a wreath

for every returned, for every man, every service man that passed on. And they’re all displayed with a little cross and name. And we have a march from the Club Rooms down the street to the memorial. And we have guest

speakers. And the guest speaker is a serviceman, he might be army, navy, air force, and I’ll make the centrepiece of that display a theme on that service. And it’s sort of a, renowned sort of display they have down there, yeah.

Yes a big day for commemoration yeah and remembrance.

Oh yes a lot of people there, come down for that, yeah.

Well I just like it to remember your mates and march and listen to the guest speaker because they are very, very good to listen

to. And no it’s just remembrance that’s the main thing.

No well we only knew what we’d learned like at school. They come around Anzac time that sort of thing and Remembrance Day and learned a little

bit there. But apart from that it was only what you read or heard about that as I said we never had that much contact with Returned Servicemen really, yeah.

Oh no well I, the, a Robbie McPherson he was,

he did a lot for the Portland RSL. But there were other Returned Servicemen but they were, but as I said we never had anything much to do with the RSL. There were a few other people that were Returned Servicemen I knew but they were just like everybody

else, they were returned men and they were respected they were returned men and so I’m afraid that’s about it.

Oh it was just a, Empire

just a case of belonging and supporting and respecting. And I think that covers the main part of that.

Oh definitely, definitely was important yeah. Because, well our grandparents came from

overseas. And they came out here and they landed here and made their home here and our homes came from that foundation. So it’s all part of being together, support.

Well my grandparents and well they went to church, my

grandmother, that went to, always went to church on Sunday, whereas kids we always went to Sunday School, school on Sunday. But and my family were fairly religious in that respect. They,

my aunties all went to church.

Oh Methodist. Yeah, that’s about it as far as religion’s concerned.

That’s a, you know, people have different views on it all, one thing and another you know you, it’s just you know, it’s up to the individual.

Well we all, well it happened that they had a receiving depot here in Portland where you could go and enlist, so you went and put your name down and signed the forms and the doctor gave you a check over.

And then you had to wait until you received word from Melbourne and they would take you in batches and maybe ten, twenty servicemen joining up. And we were in a group that went to Melbourne and we went to Caulfield Racecourse, which was being used

as a staging camp I suppose you’d call it. At Caulfield you had a medical check and everything else and then you would go through in groups of half a dozen or so. And you’d swear on the Bible to serve your country and everything else. And

Clarrie Hyne and I we went through in the same group and as we went through Clarrie said to me, he said go on, you go first, he said, you’re younger than me. So I went in front of Clarrie and that’s how we got our numbers. I’m two-seven-three-one-nine and Clarrie was two-seven-three-two-oh. And we were, you know, ever

since we’ve been fairly close sort of mates, even today. So that’s, so that was one little part of it.

Oath.

Oh no,

well you just take an oath to serve your country and you just swear on the Bible that you’ll serve your country, that’s it as far as I can make of it. Yeah.

Oh look I, no I couldn’t,

I just couldn’t say what the actual wording was but it’s just you swore on the Bible like you’d take any oath that you’ll do this and do that and serve your country and to the best of your ability and that sort of thing and that’s what you observed then through your full service then.

Well what we went through from Caulfield, we were transferred to Shepparton and out the Shepparton, the showgrounds up there they used, they turned the showgrounds into a camp. And the first

six weeks we were up there and all we did was sort of we went out on route marches and that sort of thing. And then after that we went from Shepparton down to Trawool out of Seymour. And that’s where they formed us up into the Second Twenty-first Battalion

at Trawool. And our sister Battalion, Second Twenty-second they were down there too and they were formed up about the same time. And we did training there at Trawool, I was in, I was delegated to the

Don Company and that was the Infantry and I was in that for a few weeks. And then I decided I’d like to join the Signals. So I asked for a transfer from the Infantry part of the Unit to the Signals. And I went in there as a Sig.

And then after we’d been training for a short while I became the Battalion despatch rider, Don R. And didn’t have motorbikes at the time, so we had pushbikes. So all the rushing round we had to do delivering messages and learning this, we did that on a

pushbike. From there we marched from there up to Bonegilla. And we did that in different day stages from one township to the next and camped in halls and places like that. The people would give you a lot of support, food and all that sort of thing. And eventually we marched

into Bonegilla and camped up in there. And it was there that I got my first motorbike. And all our training then was concerned with Signals, Morse code by flag and heliograph, that was mirrors on the sun,

telephone. And so we did all that sort of training and then when the Infantry Companies went out on exercises we went with them and that was part of our learning to run telephone lines and communication systems. Excuse me. In March

‘41 they decided to move us to Darwin and our sister Battalion was with us, they sent them to Rabaul. And we would be learning in Bonegilla to

en-train and de-train. And they would be learning to go on board and come ashore, cause they were going by boat. And so from there we went to Adelaide and from Adelaide we went to, up

through Quorn, Marree, up to Alice Springs by train. From there we went by road up to Darwin and when we got to Darwin we just pulled, road and train, there was a small train line from Darwin south, about two hundred miles, so we went up on that. And at about four o'clock in

the morning the train went up and we all jumped off and they said well there’s your camp and our camp was just bush. So we eventually made our camp out of Darwin, about seven miles this side of Darwin. And that’s a place that now that you’ll hear of as a suburb of Darwin, Winnellie. And that was the area, that was the name of the area, when we

camped there.

Mmm. Second Twenty-first. And later on the two other Companies came in and made camp beside us. So we just continued on then, jungle training then. Had certain times of the year up there the grass, the Kunai grass grows about

six feet high.

Yeah. And that grows about six foot high, you can just see it growing in the after the west season. But they burn the Kunai grass every year but when it grows up well you’ve got Kunai grass about six foot high to battle through.

Probably not so much today as what it was in 1942, ‘41. But so we did a lot of training, training up there. And it was, then when the Japanese eventually came into the war that was the seventh of December, we embarked

on four Dutch vessels, they were just cattle transports. And WAS DOUBLE QUOTE CHOOK s and one thing another, cause they used to cart their, have their WAS DOUBLE QUOTE CHOOK s lay their eggs and that on the boats. That was the crew. And anyway we went from there to Ambon. We had

HMAS Australia and I think it was the Perth. No, not the Perth, the Swan as support ships for us and took us about four days to go from Darwin to Ambon. Of course we were zig zagging and one thing and another, making sure we didn’t run into subs or something. But anyway we landed in Ambon on the

seventeenth of December. And then we went directly from there into a camp that the Dutch had built especially for us.

No, the Atherton, this is not, no we’re just talking are we?

Or recording?

Yeah. Well the Atherton Tablelands came into it later, I was up there in ‘43. But no we were about the, more or less the first troops to go up there. There was a militia Unit up there in

Darwin, DIB, they were an Infantry Battalion. But we were the first AIF troops to go up there. And that was the commencement of jungle training. But up there it’s not jungle in the true sense of the word, it’s mainly Kunai grass and palms

and that sort of stuff up there.

Well like in my job it wasn’t. Like in Signals and that is totally different to Infantry training, cause you two different things. But no, we used to go out on exercises and all that sort of thing. And

we had the artillery, the Second Fourteenth Artillery were up there too and they were doing training. And no we, when you go out on exercises and things like that and then you go out on bivouac camps, you go and camp out in the jungle and the bush and that to learn to you know to handle it. We also

used to go out and camp on the beach too. So it was, also be, becoming acclimatised to the weather cause that was completely different to what we’d been used to. See if you go from here to Darwin today, and you get out of an aeroplane then you’re straight into the blazing hot sun and

you’d know all about it. But we were fortunate enough we had time, a little bit of time anyway to get a little bit used to the change of weather as we went up by road. But there’s a, as I say, a case of getting acclimatised for jungle if and where we had to go later on. It’s very, the changes

in the weather up there you know in the winter time, it’s Sergeant clearer heat. But then when you get the build up of the wet season it’s the humidity is so high. And you just perspiration running all the time.

No,

no, no, they were just our own militia. They weren’t troops that were going overseas, that, they were just being militia for home defence.

Oh well in those days Darwin was just a small town. And most of the houses were built off the ground on stilts, to get the ventilation underneath, cause they never had the air-conditioning, that was their air-conditioning underneath.

But the few months that we were in Darwin, the, we sort of, well I did, I used to get into Darwin quite a lot but otherwise you might only get a few hours here and there on, you’d get leave to go into Darwin. You were most of the time out in camps.

There were other camps further down than us too, down in Batchelor and down the line. And those boys and you know you wouldn’t get into Darwin that often. But no but it was just a quiet sort of a place.

Oh well it did have a little bit of a

reputation. It, well there was a Chinatown area there. But no, I never, I sort of never experienced any, you know any time I was in there was always pretty quiet.

There was one little episode up there, but apart from that, that’s all that I know of.

Oh well we just had a little bit of an indifference with the militia unit and one thing and another, developed into a bit of a box on. But they, that had to be sorted out but

no but apart from that sort of, that episode, I, no I ...

That’s how it started from a pub and went outside.

Yeah. But...

Oh just they had an air raid

sign, they had an air raid alarm, alert. And everybody of course was ordered out, I was in the theatre, that open air, type of open air. And quite a lot of us were in the theatre. And we came out and everybody else was out in the street and wondering what was going on. And then when the alert went off, they,

it was past ten o'clock, closing. And all the boys left their beer on the counter, on the bar when they went out, and after the alert they wanted it back, wanted to get back and get it. It just developed from there. Enough said.

No, no, no.

No the first air raid we were in Prin [?] Camp but we saw the planes, the planes when they raided Darwin, they used land based planes from Ambon. And the, we heard em all start up early in the morning. And we saw them take off.

And when they came back, two chaps just went mad, because they’d bombed Darwin, and it was all finished, all gone. And so and that’s how we knew Darwin had been bombed apart from the, we never heard any results because we never had any wireless, no

in the camp, no communication that way. But there’s just that they, they went berserk.

Singapore?

No, oh no, no. Who, us?

No, no. No, no, we landed in Darwin on the, in

December and if I remember rightly I think Singapore didn’t fall till the fifteenth of February. We surrendered on the third, I’m pretty sure that...

The third of February and Singapore fell on the fifteenth. It was after us anyway. Yeah.

Well we waited in the camp for probably two to three

weeks. And we, then the Japanese started air raids and bombing and that sort of thing. And eventually we moved out of the camp out into two separate areas. Well the three areas

really. They moved part of the Unit, that’s C Company and part of B Company, they moved over to the aerodrome side. And then we moved out into the jungle. We went out to what,

a place called Mount Nona, and what was called the Amahusu line. And that was from the beach up to the top of the mount, there was a line of defence, a few trenches and that sort of thing. And we remained out there and

there was also a camp site near the hospital at Kudamati. And we operated from there and the boys at the aerodrome operated their defensive area over there. And...

Mmm.

Well

the only thing we had any ideas from was what was printed in the newspapers and that sort of thing. Occasionally you’d see some film clip or something like that, on it, it was just the horse, the cavalry charges and the bayonet charges and

things like that. And it’s like everything else, people will ask you, you know what was it like and what it wasn’t like. And unless you’ve been there and seen it or done it, it’s very hard to sort of you know, relate to. And that’s what the First World War was sort of like you know. You read

all the episodes and all the actions and things like that. But unless you’re there or sort of know it, it’s pretty hard to put it together.

Details. No.

Well there was no heroics as far as I was concerned. I think it’s something that you’re trained to do

and you sort of do lots of things automatically, a situation arises, it’s done and afterwards, you’ll sort of feel...

No, no.

Oh well I don’t, like as a boy those sort of things I didn’t really sort of sink in as you’d say. They, you’d hear about them and you’d see the Returned blokes march down the street and all that sort of thing. But apart from that it really didn’t really create that much,

I don't think. It wasn’t till later that those sort of things sort of meant more.

Oh yes, yes you were taught quite a lot about Gallipoli. That was the main part you know, of it. That was the formation of ANZAC you know, Australia and New Zealand Army Corps. But

that was the, all the main part of it, the formation of that and the tradition and you know as you say the heroic things that were done and that sort of thing. But I suppose a lot of the young ones today have the same feeling about, they’ll see it on television and later on in life they’ll see it in

different lights.

Well the, I think the conditions, you know the trench warfare and living in trenches under, you just,

your mind just sort of goes to just trying to live under those conditions. Cause if you’re working out in the paddocks and you get wet through and cold and miserable you know. And then you stop and think what chaps went through day after day, week after week into you know, it’s just incredible. So and you know

bayonet charges and all that sort of thing. So but that’s I suppose where the heroics came into it, we realise they were heroic blokes.

Here, in Portland.

Oh well we would, they’d have a golf you know afternoon down, golf if you wanted to come out there. Or Max Hotel, Rossi would put on free beer...

Not a boy, no, no, no, no. But as a boy,

no, no, there was nothing very much about that I can remember. I can remember, you know they’d have a dawn service and then that was that. But as far as being involved in anything like that no, not at all.

Oh, no

not for us, they are, the adults would celebrate it. But as for us you know young kids that was just another day sort of thing, you’d know all about it but apart from that you’d...

Oh yes they’d have all that yeah.

Oh only, you had certain occasions, you know every, I don't know how far back you wanna go but at school on Monday morning everybody lined up and you’d have a little parade round the flag and sang a song and then you marched off into class.

Oh yes, yes, definitely. You only had to look at the World Map and all the red on the map, World Atlas that you realised you were all part of the British Empire.

Oh well, yes

you were Australian first and British after, because you were here. You were still all part and parcel of the, yeah, the Empire.

Well

it, well your mother wasn’t there, you missed her and you sort of grew up with it. It’s something I’ve missed all my life because I only knew my Mum for a short time. And

it’s something that you miss cause you never had.

Oh grandparents were very, very good but you know just the same. You know they did everything for us, everything they could, everything.

But it was, well it’s just something that you, if you’ve got your mother to go to, you go to her, but if you haven’t then you go to somebody else.

Oh well as a child like that you

I don't know, you went to school, you went to Sunday School and all that sort of thing. So it was just the contact, you know missing the contact mainly.

Excuse me. Oh you had to definitely a struggle because other children were better off than you, they had a little bit that you never had, and you would certainly see that and feel

it. But I think it was the beginning of learning to survive. And I think that carried on and I, you know, right through your life,

with me anyway. Because I had to you know as you got older you survived on your own.

Oh well going to school, they’d have a book, I’d have a piece of paper. That type of thing.

Well the same thing. You know I only had, when things were really tough I only had boots and that for went to Sunday School or something like that. Otherwise you’re just barefoot. And there wasn’t anyone.

Yeah I had a pair of boots, boots for Sunday School and that type of thing. But otherwise in the summertime and that you just went barefooted.

Well some did, some didn’t, you see it depended on whether your parents had a job or what their position in life, in their life was

compared to what ours was. And my grandmother, grandfather, they had themselves to look after too, as well as they had three of us for a while. So that put a big burden on them.

Dole, yeah..

Oh not in those days no. Cause well I didn’t notice anything against it really. There was nothing, you know you didn’t, there was nobody sort of give you any jibes or anything like that because people on the dole because it involved so many

people, it wasn’t just us, it was so many. And that might be hard to sort of relate today but that’s how it was. The, very, very hard, you, people carried their swag and all those stories you hear, you know. But...

Oh in the early, you know

well I don't know any but I’ve know quite, since, I’ve met quite a lot of blokes who did carry their swag. Yes.

Oh not many, you’d see just the odd one down here, but they were around. But I can relate to one chap he, he couldn’t afford

to give em a job, so he give em a feed, a meal and he’d say go and open and shut the gate. They’d go and open and shut the gate for a while and they’d get sick of that and they’d be off. But he’d give em a meal you know but he couldn’t give em work. You know just how tough things were.

Eighteen.

It was a little old two stroke. I think it cost me ten pound.

Second hand one, yeah.

No I can’t, I can’t remember really, but

I know one of my friends, two brothers, they had an old Douglas motorbike, it was a belt driven motorbike, push it to start it and jump on. But this one was a little, it was just more or less a made up bike. That was the first one and then I had a

BSA Sloper model. And up till after that I had a Harley Davidson, what they call a Harley Pup. I had that right up till I joined up, yeah.

No, no, he never, he only learned, he only

in the army cause he was only eighteen, he put his age up.

No I didn’t know Ron before the war.

It was only that we met in the camp and we both came from down this direction and I got to know him and we mated up and then he saw me riding a

motorbike and he decided he’d like to too. So eventually I got him a job with me and that’s how we became mates then.

Oh only sort of

others who were working like on the same farms or next door farms, things like that, that’s all yeah.

Oh well you, well you sort of just all friends sort of thing. We used to go to the dances and things like that. But you’d, it just sort of country family friends. There was nothing, I never had a

permanent girlfriend or anything like that?

Oh yes I did, I had one temporary girlfriend, yeah.

No well you, well situation,

the situation in those days you didn’t get around much. You, we, you went to, we used to go to a dance on Friday night and we’d play table tennis in the school of a Tuesday night. And that was more or less your, that was it. In those days or you might Sunday in the summertime you’d go to the beach and have a swim. Or play, as I say, we used to play

pally cricket and that sort of thing. But no there’s, no you sort of you just sort of kept your friendship like that.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. But as I say they were mainly families of farmers, you was always in the

same age group type of thing and you were just friends. That’s what it amount to.

No,

no, not really. There was, as I said, there was, well you’d only go to the pictures once every so many months and wireless sets were almost non-existent. And you only, you know you only heard about it when you’re talking between yourselves and that sort of thing.

Oh yes you used to see a few posters, or you’d see it in the paper, they’d have a poster in the paper, join up and one thing and another.

Oh I’ve forgotten now.

No I can’t.

I can’t, no, not even a slogan. I can, no that’s just something about Germans or something, or something about the Hun or something, that was about, about it.

I didn't know anything about em, really. Only that they were Germans and they were called Huns. And

he, oh I don't know the Germans were out here, to us they were Lutherans, that was their religion. And I had nothing, we had nothing against them. As a matter of fact some of my best friends are still Lutherans. It’s just what you grow up with

them and they’re just the same as you and me. And so it, it’s only you know what happened in, during the war that really set you up against that, what happened.

About Hitler, didn’t know anything about him, before the war. It’s only that he was, he sort of got himself into power and invaded Poland, that’s all. And was, and then went on from there, what happened during the war, all that came out. And so...

Well I, I adjusted fairly well, cause you,

you know, you were all knew for starters, you went out on route marches and it just became part and parcel of it. The getting up early in the morning meant nothing to us cause working on a farm you were up before the birds anyway. And but it’s just, oh just something that you all did together and sort of

all mellowed in and did that together. And I think I was lucky, I, being a despatch rider I was, most of the time I sort of felt as though I was my own boss cause I was only answerable to Lieutenant Jack, our platoon officer, senior officer.

And Colonel Roach, I worked a lot with him. And then I was sort of free to, you know do what I wanted to do sort of thing. I, you obeyed army rules and all that sort of thing, but and then I had to know you know, every officer and everything like that. And

but it was a much relaxed sort of life, being in Don R than what it was to be an Infantryman.

Not,

not really, I think a lot depends on the men in charge of you. We, I don't know, we seemed to be lucky enough to have good officers and good NCO’s [Non Commissioned Officers] and there was very, very little trouble. I think you’ll

find ninety percent of chaps that were like in a Unit like ours and that, got on well together and you just accepted it. And I don’t think there was any bullying and that, that you hear of sometimes. And never really come up against that. But you had your Regimental Sergeant Major and you respected him,

cause he had a big voice, sort of thing. But no I think in our situation you respected your officers and in lots of cases, in most cases I’d say that the officer’s respect you. If you did your job properly, you were respected .

Nope.

No.

Nope.

Yes, well it was a funny sort of

experience really to go down to the city. I know I walked, to get my bearings, I walked round the square in Melbourne, first, to line myself up. We worked out from there, but no it was to be landed in a situation that was just the bush, you know observations in the bush that was observations in the city.

You sort of took in places so you could see where you were. I recognised certain spots. And that’s how I learned my way around the city. Until I eventually you know got used to the idea, hopped on the train and went to, down to Bentley or went somewhere like that, got your way around the city. And

just the same as the people in the city come out in the bush, they got to learn their way round the bush.

The number of people?

Yeah oh I don't know you, well I think you gradually just sort of got used to that because you was a fairly big, well you get in a camp with a thousand troops, a thousand men.

But you get used to groups of people like that, big groups.

No because you know you weren’t in the camp very long before you were allocated to a company and then you were allocated to a platoon and then you were allocated to a Section.

And you just sort of got to know, gradually over time, just got work, got through it and got used to each other then, until you sort of all came into one big happy family sort of thing.

Oh yes, yes, but

I think circumstances made, you know made a difference. I, it’s funny how mateships are formed. I went in up at Shepparton, the camp at Shepparton. And I only knew Clarrie from here and a couple of others. But

I, I was put in a tent, there was eight of us in a tent. And I met this young fella and we were just sorta started to talk and friendly, ask where’d you come from, what do you do, it was talk. And when we got weekend leave, I, see we were a long way from home and trying to from Shepparton, you’d

war time, trying to get home from Shepparton by train and one thing and another and back again, impossible sort of thing. And so he invited me to go down to his place for the weekend with him. And I met his mother and his aunties and I got to know Ted. And that’s how things sorta friendships start and how it goes

on. And just, you’d just sort of learn, you know you’d meet people and you’d learn. I suppose some people, well he’s not my type so you don’t bother with them. But you sort yourself out.

Yep.

When did I start? Oh I suppose, I’d be about sixteen I suppose when I started.

I was in the finish, yeah. Yeah, you smoked pretty heavily, in the finish, yeah.

Mmm?

Oh no, once in a while you’d have a night out. But no just mainly social drinking you know.

Oh just a social drink yeah. You go to a dance and half a dozen of you’d buy a bottle of drink between you and that was it. Nothing

you know, nothing big about it. In those days, you couldn’t afford to anyway. But no, you used to have a little occasion at times. Somebody’s birthday or something like that. Yeah. But you see you weren’t in the town so you weren’t close to the pubs and hotels or that sort of thing to

go drinking.

I’m thinking hard but I can’t think

of, the only pranks, there wasn’t yeah, the only funny thing, funny prank that I know of remember happening, but no, I really didn’t get up to any pranks like that. In a hospital they short sheet your bed, you might do that to somebody else.

But apart from that no, but up in Darwin we, they had decided in the finish after a bit of arguments with us that we wanted to go to the middle east cause we’d joined up for. So eventually they decided to take a certain number. And

they called for volunteers and I think we all volunteered but then they put, took a certain number. And as the train used to go past our camp every time so you know they pulled the train up and the boys jumped on. And one of our boys, he used to work in the railways, so he uncoupled the last three carriages. And there

they were sitting left behind and the train choofed off down towards Katherine and eventually woke up down the tram, the track that they only had part of the train. Had to back her, back up. I think that was about one of the army pranks anyway.

Yeah.

Shepparton.

Yes.

No, no, that was mostly getting you fit, that was consisted just mainly of just going out on marches. And because we had never, see there was just a staging camp

until they decided where we were going, what we were doing. So it was just a case of go route marching and squad drill, you know, that sort of thing, there was no weapons or anything like that attached to that one.

Yes down at Trawool, got into Signals down there.

Trawool.

Well it no, it wasn’t that difficult, it was something different, and something interesting and it started off learning flags. So you went A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H, you know and then the second flag came into

it and went up this way and that. Learned the alphabet and learned Morse Code and that sort of thing. And then gradually you went on from that, brought Morse Code on a key, and then Morse Code on the wireless. And that was coding words,

coding messages, that, all that sort of thing to do with communications.

Oh well I considered myself fairly good. I got up to about twenty-two words a minute so I reckoned that wasn’t too bad.

Oh yes, oh definitely. Definitely. Definitely different styles. Some people were very stilted with the key and others just had a, some sort of a touch with them and just went sailing through.

Oh no, not really, we never had, I think probably you would if you were doing it all day long. But

we’d only do learning sessions and one thing another. We were doing it from one thing to another.

Trawool.

Oh dear, oh probably would have been about three or four months.

That part of, well you did, no, you did a certain amount of basic training, rifle training you know, well. You learned parade ground training, guard duty and rifle training. And then you go out and

on the range and do a little bit of rifle shooting that way and learned to use a rifle.

Oh yeah I was, yeah well I used to have a P-rifle and think I sort of, yeah, a little bit up your sleeve that way.

Yeah, shooting rabbits and foxes and so on. But the three-o-three was a lot, you know was different, course that was a big heavy rifle.

But once you got used to it there was no problem with it. It was just the same old routine, you know, you just had to line it up and steady, and steady pressure and not jerk your fingers sort of thing, pull the rifle, anything like that. So we learned all that sort of thing

right through. In the finish I, I never had a rifle in the finish, I just carried a revolver, Thirty-two.

Trawool to Bonegilla, that was just out of Albury up there. And

did more training up there but, few exercises out there and eventually went to Darwin then in March, ‘41.

Well that’s what we aimed for but no we had, well we just didn’t know where we were going to go. Because, you know, the jungle right across there through India right across anywhere through there. So you just didn’t know what, what we were

supposed to be doing was guarding the, what we called the back doors of Australia. That was our term for it. But no, oh well with the jungle training, we had a fair idea that we’d end up in the jungle somewhere but just where we had no idea. Well see, nobody, nobody knew

as far as the troops went anyway what was going on. Because now that it’s come out in the open, Colonel Roach knew all about the camp being made up there for us and all that sort of thing. That, he knew what was sort of going on, and so the intelligence

part of the Unit would know what was going on but we, certainly not us.

Oh well I was just, as far as I was concerned, I was just carrying on my job of Battalion Driver. Not, I wasn’t,

I wasn’t involved in anything more than Signals, we were still learning you know all the time. But that was the job.

Oh well I was, well any communication between like in the Battalion.

I was working on that right from Trawool days, on the push bike, yeah.

In Bonegilla.

That photo of me on the bike that’s taken in Bonegilla.

When did I meet up with

him? Oh well I knew him, like in the camp but he was in a different company to me. But we’d see each other when we were coming home on leave, week’s leave or whatever that they happened to give us so we could get home, we’d

all come down on the same train. So I got to know him fairly early in the piece.

That was in Darwin, he approached me and so I went had a talk to Lieutenant Jack and he took him in,

and then I trained him. That was, see I, I’d sort of worked my way up and eventually and did a, see I had seven other Don R’s as well as myself. We had company Don R’s and they would work between Companies. And Ron and I, I got Ron and he came up with me to the

Battalion. And we did all the work between in our own Unit and then if Colonel Roach had a message he wanted sent into Darwin or down the road or wherever, well we would do the delivery of those jobs you see.

Despatch Rider.

Oh it comes out of Morse Code, D for Don. Don R.

It’s Despatch Rider. Don R.

Yeah.

Oh no, no, it was just in Darwin, I wouldn’t, I can’t remember exactly where I was in Darwin at the time. Can’t remember.

Oh

the, well it’s just alerted you to you know, that they’d come in and bombed Pearl Harbour and made one bloody hell of a mess or it. And it just sort of, you just sort of made you wonder, what was going to happen

next. We were Darwin, you had no idea what might come out of it all. Because we knew the situation between China and Japan and how the war was going on up there. And but we didn’t think that much of it because we were sort of lead to believe that they, you know, all their motorbikes

were imitation Harley’s. And they didn’t have this, they didn’t have that you know, they were a walkover. You know, in those days. And until we got to Ambon of course we found out it was a totally different story. But...

Oh well we were just told that the

they didn’t have aeroplanes and as I say all their gear was just what they’d copied. They’d never, you know, never had anything like ours you know. It was, we were King Pin sort of thing. But that was all, we were told that, you know, that they had nothing and nothing to worry about.

Sort of I suppose you looked on them as a bit of a joke. But that was, that’s what we were lead to believe anyway. But you know because prior to that the Japs were everywhere round the country-

side. The joke was you know, they’d take one with a camera. Everywhere they went they were taking photos you know, and nobody you know, nobody took any notice of that. And that was a bit of a joke, you know they were forever taking cameras, photos. We never did silly things like that, sort of thing. But what they were doing of course, they were taking photos of all the installations and everything else, nobody worried about that.

Woke up to it (UNCLEAR), but yeah.

Not particularly, no. No. No we were there and we had the Pioneer Battalion there with us, we had the Second Fourteenth Artillery there.

And we thought we were fairly secure. We had a couple of Wirraways and a few bombers. But like to us you know, it looked pretty good. And they were a long way from home anyway. You know it’s a fair way from Darwin to Japan. And even though we

you know, we had navy and one thing and another, we thought, you know, we’d be pretty right. And it didn’t work out that way.

No.

Yes.

First impressions of Ambon. Oh well it was a nice little place to be, it was a small island, we had a nice camp to be in. And right beside the sea. And well there was no, you know, there was

no immediate action so whilst we were up there you were just in more or less enjoying the change. And lifestyle went on much the same as Darwin, you were in the tropical heat and everything. And it wasn’t until the first bombing raids that you know you,

then that made you wake up.

Oh yeah, yes it was exciting to go over there. And you were in a different country, different language. And you know walk down the street and the Ambonese people’d be,

have barrel loads of bananas and pineapples and all the fruits that you never had at home. And we had them but not that extent, we had apples and oranges and pears and that sort of thing. But up there you had all the tropical fruits and it was really good. And oh no it was totally you know just a different lifestyle like that.

And ...

Well the locals, they were very kind, very good. I’m afraid in six weeks we undone what the Dutch didn’t want us to do in a hundred and fifty years.

No we, well I don't know, we just made friends with them and we treated them as such and I think that was a bit of a, see they were, they, the Dutch, oh I don't know they, I think they sort of kept the Ambonese fairly well

down. They had a reasonable life up there but I think we fraternised with them more, and if, and we were more open with them I think and I think that opened up a good relationship and Aussies were Number One, bagus.

And so and I think personally, I think that six weeks there before the Japs came, it might have helped us all. Yeah. As far as our escapes, not only Ron and mine but all the others.

They’ll all tell you the same story, they were everywhere they went, except Muslims, Mohammedans, they were with the Japs. But the Christians, you know they were different altogether. So I think the, those few weeks helped a lot because the Christians they definitely

helped us all the way. And then they didn’t have to be on Ambon all the way down the islands. It was the same thing, the word sort of spread up there pretty quickly as how they worked it out. But they were really good.

Well I did, like with the,

like only with the army, there’s always contact with them all the time. And the soldiers, a lot of them too. And we, Ron and I, we got to know one Dutch Despatch Rider, his photo’s there, he escaped too, from the other prison camp. That was a separate party

of Dutch that got out. And no we got to know Don pretty well and some of the other boys. But I suppose like everybody else, there some are alright and others not so good. But they seemed to, oh well you heard them talk about the British in England, in India, well I think the Dutch were the same in

Indonesia, sit back in the armchair and have a beer.

I don't know what it was, I know I had a few beers with them. But oh no, they were...

Well the despatches were mainly between our Headquarters and the Headquarters in, down the Halong Naval Base plus

the Headquarters in town. And that was just a matter of any messages coming through and I’d, brought, Ron and I’d deliver them. Yeah.

Yeah. Oh occasionally you might have to walk a bit but mostly riding, yeah.

Oh no, no, once we got over there I was just wholly and solely despatch work, yeah.

Roads, oh yeah well they were pretty rough old tracks. They, no over there in the wet season, the amount of rain comes down and washes the road out. And in those days anyway they had em mending roadways,

mainly with baskets of stones. And there’d be, people’d be going along with a basket of stones and fill the hole, sort of thing. But no they were patchy sort of roads, you know, they couldn’t do much about it because of the weather, and they didn’t have road making equipment like we got today. So, but otherwise it was you know oh well I suppose you just (UNCLEAR) or scramble riding

in places, that’s, to get there, pretty rough in places.

Oh no it, oh there were a few places where it was pretty steep but the roads were mainly around the fore-

shore, around the coast, so there wasn’t much really high mountain climbing. If you couldn’t ride, you just walked then. They, the Dutch had outposts too then, you know, they had outposts all over the island.

Colonel Roach. Well,

well he was a good soldier. And he had, he always had his troops on his mind, looking after them. And he was very well respected, there’s no two ways about that.

But he, unfortunately in some ways, he, because of respect of his men, he got himself into a lot of trouble. Was, he, when we went up there, he realised that you know we were in a death trap up there.

And there’s no, the island was small, nowhere to go. We had no back up supports, you know we had no fighter planes, we had no navy. And we only had the Hudson bombers for reconnaissance and bombing. And he used to put the situation

back here in Australia and telling them the situation and eventually wanted us pulled back out. Because he said you know we could only hold on for two, three days, no hope in the world otherwise. And one occasion I was with him and we went down to

the end of the island. And there was he and two or three other officers, just inspecting the island. And then he said, well he said, it’s no good. He said there’s nowhere to go, there’s nothing behind us and so he, I heard him say it. And then the situation arose

that they wanted him back in Melbourne or wherever, Headquarters decided to pull him out. And they sent up another Colonel who actually I believe was sort of co-ordinating our, lot of our movements. And he said, oh he said, I can do a better job than he’s doing.

And eventually pulled Colonel Roach back and sent Scott up. And that was only about a fortnight before the Japs landed. And of course they’d brought him back to Australia and then they just bowler-hatted him out of the army.

Well it means take your hat off and walk.

I don't know what he got out of that lot but he was well, kicked out, different, whatever interpretation you like to put on bowler-

hatted.

Definitely, yeah definitely.

Because he could see the situation we were in and down there they couldn’t. And they just weren’t prepared to listen.

No. Well I don't know, personally I don't know what they were thinking of. You know like we had nothing, that was the silly point of it you know, you just can’t do these things without support, backups. You, no matter what you do in life you gotta have a back up. And never, one big back up they never had. So I

think you know that’s what it boiled down to. And of course he proved his point, you know his point was proven in the finish that we only did last three days. But the other bloke said oh look I’m not gonna give up without a fight. But I don't know how much fighting he did.

Oh at what point? Well it was before the Japs landed of course. Only about a fortnight before that.

Mmm. You’d have to look up the records for that one yeah.

Yeah, seventeenth, yeah.

Yeah oh I suppose, approximately, it could have been about a month I suppose. Not, oh might have been three weeks.

Oh well we were working practically you know a full day and the only time you had off like was the evening. And we

were right on the beach. So if you wanted to have a swim you know you could go and have a swim. And that was, or if you at times, they’d issue you with a leave pass, and you could go into town for two or three hours or something like that, leave pass, and night leave or day leave, just depended on the situation.

No there was, in those days there was like there was hardly any drink at all as far as civilian life went over there. It’s only recently that they’ve got more hotels and things over there than,

that I know of anyway. I don’t, to be honest with you, I don’t remember any hotels over there in the first place. There’s, we’d go down the shops and buy, well, what we were interested in. You know, they had

lovely clothing, material and one thing and another. And Dot and I we were pen friends then, and I bought some nice material and sent it home and of course it never got home. But apart from that it was just go into town and round the shops and buy a bit of fruit and that sort of thing and go home again. But

that was, with me, it was, I was through the town and round about all the time so it was different was my lifestyle was totally different to the boys. See once you moved out of the camp, you know the boys were out in the jungle then. And that’s where they were. So I can’t say how much,

what they got up to. You know they’d get a little bit of leave and that sort of thing but there wasn’t much there otherwise. And it just depended on the situation where you happened to be stationed, what you’d do.

Mmm?

Well that’s a, that’s

another story. This Teddy Walker, the boy that I met at Shepparton and he used to take me home, down to his place. And anyway when I referred to them, taking a draft out to Darwin, send over to the Middle East, Teddy he was

one of them, he got on the draft. So when he’d left, Ted’s mum thought, “There’s poor Ben up there and nobody to write to and nobody to...” So she organised this pen-friend business. So she gave my name to a friend

and she was already writing to somebody, so she gave my name and address to Dot. And we started up a pen friendship in Darwin. And that’s how we met. And of course after we were taken prisoner of war in Ambon, and no letters

you see. And so she didn’t get any letters and I think Dot’s mother must have said something to her and said oh keep writing to him, he might get them. So anyway she kept writing, course no letters came through. But after I got back

and I ended up in hospital in Melbourne, full of malaria and that and ended up in Caulfield Repatriation hospital. And Ted’s mum, I got in touch with her and she came out to see me. And anyway one night

Dot’s sister went home and she said you know that bloke you, that soldier you write to, she said I saw him on the pictures tonight. And then mother and father and them said to her, couldn’t be him. She said, it was.

And anyway, another thing next night or whenever it was, here was a photo, oh...

Oh I got the photo. ...there he is. And anyway there’s a photo of me in the paper. The paper, when we all got back to Darwin, somebody must have told the paper,

they came out to Larrakeyah Barracks and got us to line up and took a photo of us and then put it in the paper, oh, ‘Held in enemy prison camp’, or something or other. And there was Ron and I fair square in the middle of it. And she said there he is. So anyway to the, so anyway Dot rang Mrs Walker and she said yes that’s,

that’s him. And he’s in hospital so she arranged for Dot to come out and see me in Caulfield. That’s how it developed from there.

That’s sixty years ago. No sixty-one years ago more.

Chronology.

Like our own food, you mean before the surrender?

Yes, the, we had,

our own, we had our own food supplies, the same as we had in Darwin, the, they came over. So there was, the only change in diet was the availability of all the fruit, the pine, the coconuts and pineapple and

bananas and you know all the tropical fruits that were available at that time. Cause like everywhere else they have a season. So, but the tropical heat, I don’t, it was just a transfer really, only thing was that the wet season in Ambon is different to the wet season in

Darwin. But as far as humidity and rain and all that sort of thing, that’s the same. The ones that were up on Nona, there was the climate up there’d be a bit different because once you got up high from the sea, you got

into night air, you know much cooler air up the, up the hill, than what it was down sea level. But apart from that I think the much of a much-ness. And the other, another advantage was that having the camp right beside the sea, in the evening you could just race down and have a swim. Because the toilets were built out over the water. And they

were just a hole in the, they were just out, platform like that, T-shape thing, and holes in the decking, and that was your toilet, straight in the sea. And the beach was there and the, but you could go along the beach and have a swim in the water sort of thing. Ron and I we bought a

oh what we called a prow, or a lakatoi, whatever you like to call it, just a little fella with the outriggers on the side and we used to go paddling round the, in the evening, that sort of thing, never dreaming we’d going to end up in a similar type sort of thing to get away in. But yeah, but...

Mmm.

First

The, well, the preparation of Ambon, the, it was supposed to be prepared before we got there. It’s very hard to say the, when we first arrived there the Dutch were of course in force. And

they had a certain amount of trench work done on the Amahusu line. They had a couple of guns along the foreshore in a fixed position but actually turned out to be useless because they couldn’t range them onto anything. The air force had Number Thirteen Squadron

Hudson Bombers situated at Laha for reconnaissance work. And as far as our preparations concerned, the, we were just there as a Infantry Unit and just prepared to

sort of fight wherever the situation arose. We didn’t do any actual trench work or very little trench work there. And until such time as action came about, we were just sort of doing patrol work and that sort of thing.

As such?

Oh it, well, the, where we were situated around the coast environment there was quite okay. But inland they had some very, very steep ranges and gorges there, they just went up and down

real knife edge type areas where, behind where we were. So but it was sort of impossible to use Bren gun carriers and things like that to any great extent, because the, once you left the coast a little bit it just went straight up to the

mountains. And of course there was no you know, no roads or anything like that at all. It was all tracks and that were all walking tracks for the native people that were living in the villages. And some were, a lot of villages were on the coast and then they had a few villages inland. And that was more or less just walking tracks. And very little cleared country, small area, small

pockets and areas of cleared country. So it was more or less a, in an operation that just, certainly not in any way use-able for motorised transport and things like that. Only in limited areas, that’s all.

Well that was just patrolling the areas. Yes, where we were. When we left the camp we went out into certain areas and that’s where we remained. But well I was putting up like our own communications systems in and that type of thing. The

anti tank boys they sat up there, their guns along the foreshore there, guarding the entrance to the bay. And as I say we, unfortunately we had no fighter aircraft there, or anything defensive like that. And no navy to,

you only relying on ground troops, more or less. The, that would be about the limit of defence that we had.

Well, we

thought we could, but we had no idea that they were going to come down twenty thousand troops on a small island like that. So when that happened, well it was just completely over run then. As a, they seemed to know, to us anyway, they seemed to know a lot more than what we gave them credit for. They knew

where to land and how to come in through the Naval defences where they had the mines set (UNCLEAR). We used to suspect that somebody was working with the Japanese and went out and led them through the minefield. And shortly after that they were

mine sweeping. And that’s when one of their minesweepers blew up and which eventually was the, the result of that was that they, after the surrender they massacred all the boys on the aerodrome site. That was retaliation for losing the vessel because they had to come in that side over by the drome, and they cut back towards the,

the town of the bays.

Yes, yes I did.

Excuse me. Well for a few weeks before the Japanese landed they would come over and they’d have a flight of

Zeros with them and about twenty-seven bombers, they nearly always came in a twenty-seven bomber raid. And, what it was, for, but that’s, they came usual, come over like that. And of course the first raid the two Brewster Buffaloes went up and of course they never had a hope and they were just shot down out of the skies.

And then there was no, they had, nobody had, no opposition against the air force at all. And the only opposition that they really had was when the navy boats were in and only one of them at a time. And they put up a fair defence then with their anti aircraft

fire. But there was no other real anti aircraft fire.

Any?

No, not on our side, they most likely had it over the aerodrome. But I never saw any.

Oh well I just happened to be delivering a message down to Halong Naval Base when that happened. That was in broad daylight, yeah.

Oh well the, they had their usual range of planes with them. And they bombed a town, passed over the town itself and things like that. And

the airport of course they pounded the airport over there, that was the main, one of the main targets the airport.

Oh well let’s see, there wasn’t that much reaction in a way because you couldn’t do anything.

You know I wasn’t in a position to do anything and they were dropping bombs from upstairs. But they weren’t landing so much around where, like where we were. They were concentrating on shipping and the harbour and the airport, and the aerodrome. We had a few boys killed

in those air raids over on Laha.

I knew one, one of our Sigs [signallers]. He was killed over there. But the other boys I didn’t know.

Oh well no, well I was just, we just kept going because it was

down, it wasn’t anywhere near us, not over our side at the time. But only once or twice you know were the planes over above where we were. And, yeah.

Oh well we, well, you sort of felt flat really because we, we had no, no defences

against them, you know, to speak of. And every, nearly every time one of the Zeros as they left, they’d do a victory roll and you know, you know what that makes you feel like, when they just thumbed their nose at you like that. And we couldn’t do anything about it, we just had nothing to use against them. Your rifles and things are no good,

it was just a waste of ammunition. So, oh no we just weren’t very happy about it but there’s nothing you could do about it.

Oh well...

Well

I don’t know, the, it’s just that they, bombs drop near you and you just hope that it wasn’t one getting any closer. There was, you know, it’s a hard thing to, you see the bombs coming down but you know

there’s nothing you can do about it. They cause a lot of fires, we were a reasonable distance away from where they were bombing you know, we were out of town a few miles so there was only the odd bomb that dropped anywhere near where we were. So that was in the town, that where they caused a lot of damage in

town and that. And so, yeah the other troops from further down round the air, the Naval Base would probably you know, they’d have a lot more to worry about down there than what we had up the end where we were. We had more trouble from the, eventually when they came in towards the finish there, they,

the navy came in and they bombarded where we were then, and up and down the end of the island.

Yeah. They started a lot of fires and one thing and another and so on. But yes that was the heaviest fire that I, you know, that we experienced

when they bombarded. Yeah.

Yes, Colonel Roach, yeah. Len Roach yeah.

Well...

Yeah well I

think that he was a highly respected soldier. He, I don't think there’s very, very few people would say anything against him cause he had everybody’s welfare in mind. And that was, that was, I think,

that was one of his troubles when he got over there. He could see that things weren’t going to work out as expected and then he started to send letters home or explain the situation and then things to be done. And nothing was done and of course he, I think he got a bit stronger in his

communications. And eventually he was relieved of his position. And they, we had a new Colonel come and take over.

That was Colonel Scott, yes, yes.

Well nobody was very happy about it at all because

we thought that if any, if they were going to put somebody else in his place, they, it should have been Major Macrae, our 2IC. Because he was a very energetic, well respected man and he was like, he was a little, he wasn’t the same as

Colonel Roach but he’s, his attitude to the men was the same to look after them. But he’d also demand you do the right thing too. But he was a respected man. And Colonel Scott came up to us about a fortnight before the Japanese landed. And we never knew him and he didn’t know us. And that’s, you just can’t gain

the confidence of people, this, you know, that quickly. Cause he hadn’t proved himself, all we knew about him was what we’d call a baseballer in Melbourne. He was sitting on his tail down there and then he came over and took over from us and made out he’s a better man than Colonel Roach. And just didn’t work out.

But it’s not to say that the men didn’t behave properly but that was the feeling. He, I don't think, you couldn’t fault the men. And in what action’d we had in the finish. It’s about all I can say.

When?

Oh well I can’t give you the exact date but I’d say it was only about a fortnight to three weeks that he’s took over. So it, it just wasn’t enough time to, anybody come in like that and, after you been

as a well knit Unit like we were for that period of time, you just can’t change leadership. And knowing that in, like you know you’re in the middle of an action that the Japs are bombing and strafing and all that sort of thing. And somebody new to come in like that, that you don’t know, and they don’t know, he’d never been to the island, he would, he had no idea

what the island was like, what, he hadn’t seen the defences around or anything like that. Yet he was the one that was sitting in Melbourne and dictating the terms to us. I think that was a lot of the trouble, that’s why the dissent was.

Amongst the troops, yeah, well that was you know, blast him sort of thing.

That should have been Macrae. So that was what the dissent was about.

Before.

Oh no, no, this was after.

Oh yes, yes, yes.

No, no we...

We knew practically nothing. But of what was happening.

Well all that we knew was what we were getting from the reconnaissance from the planes. And what was coming in from,

if you’re in the know of course. But what was coming in through Ops room, and the, like the average soldier out in the field, he, we didn’t know very much at all what was happening. Cause no, nobody had wirelesses and things like that to catch up with that

sort of thing. And any new sessions of course you know that you might have heard anywhere well, you only, they weren’t letting out what was really happening. So we, all we could do was just sit there and wait and see what hap, what happened.

Yes, yeah.

Well some were verbal and the majority of them were sealed, sealed

letters. And any major operation was sealed. There was only a few verbal messages we went through. It was, but apart from that it, no official contact with troops like that. Unless they, your

unless your commanding officer wanted to explain something, some point or another. And it was all up in the main echelon of the force. And that was the Dutch, and that was the Dutch how much they wanted to let out.

Oh I just wouldn’t like to say how many.

Oh...

Yeah,

but well I wouldn’t know how many there were but they certainly plastered the area more than once. And they also hit the town area. Really hit it hard.

Oh I wouldn’t know just try and say how regular but there were quite a lot, quite a lot of air raids. I never counted them.

Well I wouldn’t know for sure because you’re, like in where

my situation was, I was only working between our Headquarters and Dutch Headquarters. And so I wasn’t involved with any great number of troops to be able to work that one out.

No, no it, after a while you sort of came to accept them because they were just free to come and go when they wanted to. So whenever an air raid was around, depended where you were, what you were doing, you just sort of looked after yourself then.

Well as I said we never had that much to do with the Dutch soldiers because we were all allocated areas to defend. Now we were

allocated the southern end of Ambon and the aerodrome side. The Dutch defended down at Halong and Paso and over the other side of the island, over at Hitu and Hila. And that was

their main area of defence. So that, the only time I, we had any contact with the Dutch soldiers were any at the Headquarters or wherever we happened to deliver messages to or something like that. So we never had that much contact with the Dutch.

Oh well never, much the same as anybody else, you know we, as far as we could see. There are reports that they, when they went into action that they didn’t come out of it very well but

I don't know cause I never had any experience with it.

Well they could have, I don't know, I have no experience of mine, I never experienced it,

no, I couldn’t quote.

No, not really, I didn’t know any Ambonese people. It’s only that if you met them, if you bought

if you wanted to go up to their stand and buy some bananas or something like that, you speak to them, and, or you tried to talk to them. Because they didn’t understand English much and we didn’t understand their language very much either. But the rapport between them you know you get friendliness, they were very friendly people.

And we treated them as such. And so but to get to know people or well you know, we weren’t in a position to do that sort of thing.

Yes, oh yes, very friendly people.

Well as far as our experience over there was concerned, mine anyway, I don't know how many ours it would be but the

Muslims were, tended to be with the Japanese. And they led the Japanese soldiers through the jungle positions. That’s a known factor. And but the, I believe

that they also led the navy boats through the mine field. That was, we were led to believe. The Christian people of course, they were Dutch or (UNCLEAR) sort of thing.

They took up the Catholic religion and they treated us very well, that was after the escape. But we weren’t there actually there long enough to get to know people to that great extent. And

your contacts weren’t there. It’s only if you’re doing a bit of shopping or something like that, that’s the main contact with them.

Oh well we were back down the southern end of the island

where we were, and just doing what you know, our daily jobs were. And we didn’t have any contact with the Japanese the first day. And we could only tell what was happening by anybody that

was having contact through the town, back down to the Halong Naval Base. And so that was the only way that we sort of made contact, had contact for a while. And on one occasion I had to send Ron down to Halong with a message

and he got down there, the Dutch had deserted the base. And then he had to find out where they’d gone to. And they had gone down to Paso, where the two islands, the island sort of was like two kidney’s joined together with a little part, narrow part, it’s called Paso. And he went down there and found the Dutch

had move their Head Quarters down to Paso and left the Halong Base. And he rode down there and he rode out into a fire fight.

With the Japanese and the Dutch. And he didn’t come back and he didn’t come back and so I went looking for him. But he got out of that lot alright. And he was on his way back when I caught up with

him. But so and it wasn’t that long, see they only lasted, I don't know, a day and half or something and then they surrendered.

Mmm.

We only lasted three days.

Truth is...

Go on.

No, we didn’t, not from down our end, no. They landed the north east and the sort of north west. And they pincer movement through that way. And ...

No, no not in the landing. They bombarded us at the finish. But not, after they were able to come in through the bay and they got, and they swept the mines, well then they bombarded us that way. But I did, I don't know whether the, any actual

bombardment at, when they landed, I don't know. I don’t think so. You know I think they landed in the dark and surprise movement.

Oh well we knew that the, we

knew the convoy was coming because the Hudson bombers on reconnaissance picked them up. And then they reported that the, this fleet was heading for Ambon. And then they got pulled out, they were pulled out then back to Darwin.

So that left us without you know any planes at all. So ...

Mmm?

Oh well you mean after the

landing?

Oh well it wasn’t till, see it only lasted, we only lasted about three days and it wasn’t to the last, oh last day and a half I suppose you realised that you know it just wasn’t going to happen you know. That they were just over running everywhere and it was just a matter of time when they gonna

catch up with us.

Yes, well as they came through that, down at Kudamati, before us and they resisted there until they got cut off. And then they surrendered. And then the next line of defence was Mount Nona. And Bill Jenkins’

groups, oh two three officers up there, mortars and one thing and another, they had a stoush up on top of Nona. And eventually they were overpowered, and they fell back to where we were. And then when, eventually we had to get away from

Nona and we went back to the position at Eerie. And that’s where we were when the navy came in and bombarded us. And then after that well the situation was just hopeless so they had to make contact with the Japs and surrender.

No. Wasn’t involved in that.

No,

well I wasn’t, as I said I wasn’t involved in it. And only, oh I was I suppose, but the only thing that I was involved, saw happen, is the last night. We were up on the side of the mountain and early next

morning one of the Ambonese natives were coming down to get some water or something down at the well down below us on the beach. And we didn’t know who it was. And this chappy came wandering down and of course the usual signal went out, halt who goes there, sort of thing. And no answer, so

the chap next to me he fired a shot off and he hit this Ambonese chappy in the thigh, and as it turned out to be, it was an Ambonese. And that actually, that was the extent of my actual, yeah.

Oh they, well they didn’t know where we were so you know like in the jungle you couldn’t see much. They had a float plane up top having a look. And that was directing fire I suppose, but they were firing up above us.

The, they only fired one shot on the, towards the beach and down the area where we were but they did, they kept their range up fairly high. They must have, well I suppose a few boys up there but that’s, they didn’t actually do any damage up there, apart from lighting fires with their bomb, with their

shells. And that was the day before we surrendered. So, you know, they just did a cruise around a few times. And every time they went past they had themselves a go and move. As I say we were in a situation where you just hope that they didn’t lower their sights and put one into us.

So lucky enough to get out of it that way without any damage.

No. No, not then. No, no, we were all pushed back to the last part of the island. And we were just up the side of Eri. And there was

nothing doing at all. They just, they decided to have a one more go at them and they decided to send a fighting patrol out. And they called for volunteers and Ron and I were up there, we were going to go. But anyway they, they

didn’t take us. And so they took about twenty odd and so they went out on this fighting patrol to see if they could make contact with the Japs then, the Japs who come in then from behind. And Colonel, not Colonel, Major Macrae he took them out, he led them out and

anyway he, sometime or another, during the eve, night, he got sick and he had to come back. So he told the Lieutenant Chapman in, he was there, and he said to Alec, he said we’re going to surrender at midnight. Oh he said after, be after midnight we’ve

surrendered. And he said if you boys want to, he said you can take off and try your, get home. So Ian Macrae and one other chappy looking after him brought him, take him back. So then the others decided to head off. So they headed off and they eventually

got a vessel and eventually made their way home across to New Guinea. And some ended up in Thursday Island and I think a few of them ended up down the Gulf. So and so did Macrae, he came back to us and then we surrendered, we surrendered that morning, that next morning.

It was all over.

Well as I said, they, contact was made by Lieutenant Bill Jenkins and I don't know who else. But he had co-ordinated himself, he had a big say in it. At,

they made contact with the Japs and eventually decided, came to a decision that they would surrender, I think it was nine o'clock the next morning. So at nine o'clock next morning we surrendered. I, and there were no Japs to my knowledge, there was no Japs there at nine

o'clock. But what happened was that we marched back from Eri to Amahusu line and we slept that night on the beach. And next morning we marched off then

into town. And in a certain spot where we were going up a hill, on the bend of a hill, and then that’s when the Japs came round the corner, you know all armed with machine guns and sitting up here and rifles and that. And they came down and they started ripping watches off people’s should, wrists.

And the word went down the line, watches off. And that was the first main, the first main contact with a big quantity of Japanese that we had. And from there they marched us into town

and marched us down to the wharf. And we thought that they were going to put us on a ship and do something with us. And Ron and I, previous to that, we decided we weren’t going to stay and we had buried our revolvers at Eri.

And so we got into the sheds down on the wharf and we were going to hide ourselves there. And if they took em on the ship, we’d stay and hide in the shed and then head off. Anyway they didn’t, they changed their minds or some arrangement made as, and they

took us back out to the camp the Dutch made for us. Previous to that the boys at Kudamati, when they surrendered, the Japanese had taken them out to a camp. So we, so when we found out that they were going out to the camp, we just joined in again and went out, marched out of the

camp with them. And then that became the POW Camp then. And then of course we just went back into the huts that we’d been in beforehand. And that became the POW Camp.

Well I think, well everybody was deflated, that’s for sure.

And oh well I don't know whether it was, I don’t suppose, a lot of blame was being thrown left, right and centre, who did the right thing, who did the wrong thing and all that sort of thing. But eventually it sort of calmed down and you just

just had to settle in and so, you know, we (UNCLEAR) us for that. And the old army took over and you know we’ll all be home for Christmas and all that sort of talk you know. We’d be out of it before long, they’d come and get us and we’d be home for Christmas, that sort of thing. And that was

just sort of a reaction I suppose to the system. But anyway as I said Ron and I, we decided we weren’t going to stay anyway. We were too buggered out there to try and escape. So we were gonna go, come back into camp and rest up in there and then we’d made an escape out of there, out of the camp. And that’s, that’s what we

eventually did.

Yes, once we got into the camp there, they weren’t too bad. They used us as going out on patrols with them because the Ambonese people had looted the shops and all that sort of stuff.

And so they’d take us out with them and search the people’s huts in the villages and things like that. So that, and then all our own, up behind the camp we had a dump up there, a food dump and ammunition dump, that sort of thing

at the camp there. And they made us take all the, carted all down, all the ammunition and stuff was taken down onto the road. And all the food was taken down to the camp and put in one of our, one of the big huts. And that became the ration hut as we called it.

And well things weren’t too bad there for a few weeks and then they, they moved quite a lot of the troops and that out. And they took them across around to the, I think it was the Coral Sea. And

so they only left a very small force there to look after us. And around the camp they’d just run a couple of barb wires, and four machine gun posts, one at each corner and they’d have guards walking up and down the line every now and again, they’d have a walk up and down. And the road is,

the road around through the camp, along the beach and they had the patrols on there. And the Ambonese people moving backwards and forwards they’d line, they’d hold them up and then they’d march them through and vice versa, that way or that way. And as I said, our latrines were built out over the water. So

every time we wanted to go to the latrines we had to cross the road and go to the latrines that way. And that was the extent of the Japanese guarding us and they weren’t too bad you know, although one or two of them got a bit nasty but

on the whole the treatment for the first short while was reasonable. We, they had church services there and eventually we were setting up lessons and you know some people were learning, trying to learn a language and others were, a motor mechanic or somebody there, he was trying to teach somebody a bit about motors

and that sort of thing. And ...

And, so...

One or two

did yes, yeah, yeah. Yeah, there were some, oh it was surprising I think how many Japanese knew more about Australia than I ever did. Yeah. And they’re coming here on ships and all that sort of thing, and I think they knew more about Australia because they’re going to different ports and one thing and another like that.

Oh yes there’s quite a few of them were quite up on things. But as I said I, on the whole they did treat us alright for a while. I was only there for seven weeks so it’s you know but it wasn’t long enough for them to...

They, yes, they yes the

were the marines that took over from the land, from the soldiers yeah.

Well as far as we knew they were yeah.

Well we,

first of all we had to work out what we were going to take and how we were going to get it. And it just led from one little thing to another. We decided that we,

wanted a pair, I decided I wanted a pair, I’d need a pair of boots extra if we gonna you know walk, carry on. So I got myself a job, they had a boot-maker with, in the camp, and he set up his boot-making repair work, looking after things. So I got a job in there and with him. And I got a pair of

boots, nice army officer’s boots and a pair of pliers. I think that gave us about, oh I pinched out of there. And then we exchanged our army packs for Dutch packs because they had a better system for the shoulder straps. And you could put a pair of, put a boot down on either side

on the outside. And so we got the pack and then we got out one night and decided where we were going to hide our stuff, that we, as we got it, to get it out. So up the end of the huts the, there was a hill.

And sort of a depression came down like that. And it was a drain along the bottom And we used to go up there in the hut, and only a few yards and into the little drain and under the wire and you were in the jungle. Well so that was our in and out. So we, anything we could scrounge and so on, water bottles,

we had two water bottles each, took them, scrounged them and got them out. And then we, I was looking through a magazine one day in the camp and blow me down in the centrefold there was a map and that was a map of northern Australia

and up where we were. So I traced that and that’s in that book on the table there. And so that gave us an idea of how, where to go. And we looked at it and we thought we’d get out and go along the top of Ceram and we reckoned there’s only about a hundred and fifty miles across,

to the last island across to New Guinea. And then all we’d have to do was follow the New Guinea coast down to Merauke and then down to Thursday Island or wherever down there. So we got the, got that organised, got that traced. And then the food, that was, oh then we’d swapped our packs, we had our haversacks,

we had two water bottles each. And then when I was out on this working with the Japs go round to see what the natives had pinched out of the shops, I came across a three cell torch. And I had a good look at it and I’ll have that. So I switched the switch off at the bottom and I showed it to the Jap,

no, no, wouldn’t work, and I say, me. He said yeah, right. So I got this torch. I thought now I could open up with the Morse Code and one thing and another if a plane fly’s over and let em know we’re here sort of thing. And anyway that didn’t eventuate but I got that torch. Then when we decided we wanted food, and the

food was in the ration hut and once a week they’d issue rations to each hut. So we, Ron was the lucky one, he managed to get onto this ration detail, went up into the hut and he just memorised where the tinned stuff was and some biscuits were and so on. So about oh about two o'clock the next morning we woke up and we said come on,

we better go and do it. So we went up to the hut and there was a Jap, Jap guard patrolling. And anyway I bumped Mac up the wall and there was about that much depth around each hut for ventilation and the Japs had put a couple of barbs around it. Anyway I bumped Mac up and he scrambled through and I was to keep

knick if a Jap came close, I’d knock on the wall. And he was in there and in those days the biscuits were all done up in this crinkley, silvery paper stuff and made a hell of a noise. And anyway, eventually, he got what he wanted and handed the pack out, down to me. And so and then he came

out and I eased him down. And so then he decided to, like there’s no point then two of us going so he said well I’ll take it up so he went up and put it with the other gear up the hill. Then he came back and so we got ourselves all organised. But

in the meantime there was a main escape party to get out and get back to Australia with information. And Lieutenant Gordon Jack, he was our platoon officer and he was one of the ones going. He knew that we were planning an escape and he invited us to

go on it with him, with them. And so we were on that for some time and then we were told we weren’t because they decided sixteen was too big a party to all get out at once and so on and they’d decided

to cut it down, so they cut it down to seven. So we said oh well doesn’t matter, we’ll just continue and we’ll be right. So anyway we had it organised and when we were ready to go we decided to go. The only thing was we went up to the last hut to get out. And one or two chaps knew we were going, Clarrie Hyne was one from here and another mate, came up to the last hut

to say goodbye to us. And anyway, somebody went and squealed on us. So they went, an officer and a Corporal and the bloke that squealed on us came up the end, up to the end hut and stopped us. So anyway next morning on parade, roll call parade, Scotty, he made a great big speech

and about escaping and all this sort of thing. And he said anybody escapes without my permission he said I’ll report to the Japs immediately. So anybody that’s got a plan that I’ll approve of, he said come and see me. So Ron and I stewed that one over and we fronted up, and

explained to him what it was all about and he said well, he said your plan’s alright, but there’s only two of you. And if one gets sick well there’s one on, you know just left on his own. So if you get a couple more he said I’ll, come back to me and I’ll, you know, think about it. So anyway we knew these two brothers were talking of escape. So we

got in touch with them and oh yes, they’d come. So anyway we went back and told him and he said oh, no he said, no he said, it’s okay but he said, things are not you know, just not right yet, wait a while. And in the meantime Lieutenant Jack had told

me that their party was about ready to go. And so I said, we said well okay, well that’s okay. So Ron and I decided then was the time to go, because if we didn’t go then they’d never let us go. They wouldn’t want us getting away and then another party, you know they wanted their party to get out without any Japs thinking

about anything. So we got the Finley boys and we told them what we were doing and oh yes we’ll come, we’ll still come. So they’d never been out of the camp so we said alright get your gear and what you want to take, we’ll take you out tonight. So we took them out and they hid their gear away from ours a bit. And so anyway the

couple of nights later we reckoned now this was it, time to go. So we went and said goodbye to Clarrie a second time. And he, we got out and then we said now you go and pick up your gear, we’ll go and pick ours up and we’ll meet you up the top of the hill where the dump was. So we get up the, get our gear and go up and sit there and sit there until one o'clock in the morning. And they didn’t turn up.

And anyway there was no point in waiting any longer, there’d been no noise in the camp so we hadn’t been discovered. So we said well they’re out somewhere, they probably, they know which way we’re heading so might catch up somewhere along the way. So we headed off and what had happened, we found out later, that they’d taken the wrong track and they ended up in

Ambon town itself and the next morning they walked back into the camp again and told the Japs they’d been out after cigarettes. And they got away with it. So anyway Ron and I kept on going from there, yeah.

Yes, yeah, we

did yeah, island hopped all the way home.

Yes well we were very fortunate to do that. We had to cross the islands, took us a couple of days cause these steep, the mountain ranges to climb up and down and these packs with rubbish, with stuff we had with us. And

then we came out on top of a big, high range and we were just half, about half way across it and a bloke walked out. He just, hadn’t seen us and when he saw us he propped and we propped because we didn’t know whether he was a Jap or who he was. But anyway it turned out he was an Ambonese and he took us down to his hut and gave us a feed. And then he took us down to

the main village further down and there we met some soldiers, Ambonese soldiers and other people there and they looked after us in their village. And then they organised a boat for us, it cost us twenty guilders to row us across to the next island.

And where we also collected, Dutch soldiers, we also collected the two rifles and a heap of ammo, cause we weren’t gonna be taken a second time. And so we had that and they rowed us across to Homa, another little island and time I’d got there I’d gone down with malaria so they

carried me ashore. And the chappy that they took us to was the head man of the village. So he and his wife and family, they looked after us. And but then the Japs sort of knew something was going on. And the head person of the island was a woman and she had

instructions that any soldiers escaping, anything like that, and she knew about it, she had to report it to the Japs. So she heard about it and she ordered the village, the Chief to go over and see her.

Prior to that, Bill Jenkins’ crowd, mob, they’d got out a week after us and they’d ended up in this village where this head lady was. And they sent the message over to, for Ron and I. And so Ron, I was sick with malaria, so Ron went over and Bill

Jenkins said to Ron, he said, well he said I’ll take you but I’m not going to take Amor if he’s sick, he’s only be a bloody hindrance. So and anyway but there wasn’t much good blood between us and Jenko anyway because he was the leader of the group that knocked us off. So anyway, so Ron told him where to go in no unpleasant way.

And so Ron came back to me and when the village, when the Chief, he’d been over to see the lady and he said oh yes they had been at my village, but he said they’ve gone, they’ve gone up to Ceram. And that

night, he organised a boat and couple of his sons and a couple of others and they rode us around the bay where the Japs landed and back and across to this little island, you couldn’t take those things out in the rough sea, only bout that much clearance. And so

anyway he organised money, and they said prayers for us and food, gave us food. And they took us across to the next island going in the opposite direction to what they told the Chief of the island where we’d gone and put us onto their friends on the next island. And

we, on that island there was a Dutch Controller on the island and he’d just received word from the Japanese to report to Ambon. So he asked us about it and we said well the situation is that you will end up in the prison camp with the Dutch soldiers that are already there.

And we said your wife and children will go into the camp in the town. And anyway we talked it out and decided that he’d organise a boat and he’d come with us. So he did that, he got a fishing boat and about eleven o'clock that night, grabbed what he wanted to take with him and his family, two kiddies and his wife and himself and we headed off

with him then. And then gradually met up with other Dutch Controllers and we island hopped through, one vessel to another vessel that was travelling just a trading vessel like a pearlshore, pearl lugger. And so we travelled in

those sort of vessels.

Oh well we travelled in two of those types, vessels. And two prows and two of those ones and then when we got down to the last island above Darwin the Tanimbar Group,

a place called Saint Lucky, the Jenkins’ mob, they were ahead of us, they’d got there before us, and they’d attempted to get away but they’d put their vessel up on a reef and they were still there. So anyway we arrived there and what Ron, only a couple of days after we got there, just a little Dutch

inter-island vessel, that the Dutch Controllers used to get between their main islands, between themselves, they all came down on this vessel. There was one from Amahai, one from Geser, one from Tual, one from Dobo and they came there. And eventually we

took that vessel, there were sixty us soldiers, and us Australians and we took that vessel to, got back to Darwin. And then the navy, we promised we’d get there and then we’d get the navy to come back and get them. And that’s what happened. And the navy picked them up and brought them back to Darwin.

Mmm?

No, we came round Melville, Bathurst Island, no but we didn’t land there.

No, but there’s a place called Saint Lucky.

And that was about another two hundred miles north of Bathurst and Melville. That’s...

navy picked them up from there, mmm.

No, no wildlife at all.

The only thing

they had over there was a few possums. They’re not allowed to have monkeys or anything like that because they would be an imported one. The only wildlife over there was thousands of fowls, cause they have, they eat a lot of chicken and eggs as part of their lean diet.

They have a certain number of cattle these days, I couldn’t tell you the name of the cattle but theirs were honey coloured, dark honey coloured cattle. And that’s, that’s about it. Oh course they got the mosquitoes, a few, but not as bad as I thought they might be. But apart from that I haven’t seen anything.

No, no.

Yes well it was a death trap in a sense that there was no way of escape because the island was too small, you couldn’t retreat anywhere, only the water. And well with the situation the way it was with the Japanese and what we had, it was only, you could only expect a hold out for two or three

days, you couldn’t expect to go any longer. Cause once they cut your water supply off, well that was it, for a start, you can’t have food or water. And so no it was a death trap, there was no two ways about it.

Well I don’t think

that many would have realised it in a sense. I, because I had sort of the contact I had with Colonel Roach, I sort of knew fair, reasonable amount of what was happening. But the average person, you know, unless you stopped to work it out yourself,

well you wouldn’t realise it. Because, you know, you go in these situations and you think you’re going to have your own country to you know support, and...

and the Dutch you see, you rely on the Dutch East Indies so you’re relying on them to take a fair amount of the force too. And I don't know it just didn’t, with me well

it was just one of those things. We knew once we got pushed back to the water that was the end and surrender. Like we knew that, but nobody knew that we were gonna be treated, the way that, like the boys ended up being treated like. You automatically thought well if you’ve gotta really, you’ve surrender you become prisoners of war and you’re looked after, you get your Red Cross

parcels and things like that and eventually you come home. But hadn’t had any experience of the Japanese before or what they did. Only experience we knew about the Japanese was what they did to the Chinese a few years earlier, or are still doing it, when the war, when they declared war on America.

Yes, it was, yes. But the, we, now that was only what you saw in the papers. But then again you sort of led to believe with the Geneva Convention and all that sort of thing you know, that once you become a prisoner of war, well you expect a better treatment.

Only at the finish, when we, you know when we, knew the writing was on the wall. But we would have gone anyway, taken the chances if we’d have been you know fit enough. But you know two or three nights out sleeping, one thing another, moved around and so on that you just never had the energy

for it. You weren’t prepared for it, we never had anything lined up. But when we heard you know they reckoned we’d go back into the camp again well, we thought well we’ll go back into camp and rest up and make a break for it then. That’s why we buried the revolvers. We thought we’d come back and pick up the revolvers and away we’d go. And we went the other way.

Unless somebody found them, I never bothered to go back and have a, try and have a look where they are. But oh somebody may have found them by now cause we only buried them about that deep, in their holsters. But oh they wouldn’t be any good.

Well the Dutch built the camp, the Dutch Government built the camp. And the camp was built on a coconut plantation and Tantouie was the name of the Chinese person that owned the plantation.

Oh, the?

Oh through just made, freshly made for us.

Well it was, up until we escaped life was going along you know fairly comfortably in a sense. You were POW’s but the food was shocking because the rice we were getting was, had to be washed and washed and washed, it was filthy dirty, filthy rice. And you get a certain amount of

our rations and they’d throw a tin or two of bully beef in with the rice and make a brew. And you and the food was sort of gradually getting worse because you couldn’t, you know we used to having a little bit of bread and one thing and another, well, and that and biscuits, they, see all those rations were cut out and then you were just down to basics. And the Japanese would allow

you to trade or bring in fruit or things like that very much, early. In the finish they got worse. But life wasn’t too bad in the sense that occasionally they’d take you out on a work party. You were allowed to have a church service every Sunday, and

they started doing making up little schools if you wanted to learn something. A lot of them were trying to learn the language the Dutch language or the Indonesian. And little things like that just sort of the few weeks that we were there, you know that made life that much easier. So it wasn’t too bad.

No, we had very little, the only time you had anything to do with the guards was if you’re, if they wanted to take you out on a

work party. But at that particular time, like they weren’t too bad and there was, it was a case of just moving ammunition around for them and those sort of things. And going out and looking at houses, one thing and another, to see whether they could catch up with all this stuff that was stolen out of the shops. And

but as I say, in seven weeks time you know for a long time you just left to your own devices a lot, unless they wanted a work party here and there. And it wasn’t till much later that they, when they wanted work parties to unload ships and load coal and do those, that sort of work and that and

their fortifications, that they went on with, hauling stone and sand from one beach around to make a fortification somewhere else that they wanted to do. And they used to carry bags of cement on their shoulders for miles, from one place to another.

No, no, no, this was at the finish. But say, but as I say in the first weeks that we were there, life wasn’t too, you know, too bad.

Well I only know of one in the seven weeks. One chap had a go at a Jap and they belted him for it. But apart from that no the treatment was alright that way.

Well the only thing worsening was the food. The food was getting poorer and poorer. And they just didn’t seem to want to, want you to trade with the natives. So it was alright for them because the natives’d go through with their

produce, and they’d just go and help themselves with what they wanted. But no we, what else was I gonna say, no I think it was just the first, the condition of the food was going down. And

otherwise, the time we were there we, it wasn’t too bad.

Well there was a little bit of dysentery and a little bit of malaria. But apart from that it wasn’t too bad.

Well once

they, once we settled in morale didn’t seem to be too bad. It was a case of you know you were a prisoner and you just had to make the best of it. And so had to think, there were no fights or anything like that. Course

cigarettes were, you know when you smoke and there’s no cigarettes, you know what it’s like. And that was pretty hard on a lot of blokes. They’d try tea leaves, they’d try anything to smoke, even tried to dry leaves of plants and things like that, to dry them out and have a go at smoking that but that was a failure

too.

No. No alcohol.

Well there was, well not in the time I was there but they wouldn’t have had anything to make it with I don’t think.

Well at six o'clock at night when they’d, when they had their ceremony sort of like when we have our ceremonies in the army, they made you stop and point to the sun with them.

Yeah, yeah, point, yeah, sun. Cause that was, the sun was their,

that’s the red dot, flag. But no, the only thing, other thing too, they’d make you bow, you had to bow, to, passed you, you had to bow, yeah.

No, not when I was there no. I don't know what, after that, what happened in the finish but.

No idea.

Yes well some of the mechanics would explain about motors and you know a general information like that.

Little, anything that was anybody wanted to be interested in just to keep their mind occupied, they, that was the general idea of it.

Oh well there was a lot of talk yeah, but no action. All talk of escape you know, we’ll do this, we’ll do that and go down and pinch

a boat. But it, no, it didn’t eventuate. And of course after the main party got out and they had to admit that that party had gone, then the Japanese tightened up more so. Cause when we got out they, I was told that the Japs said, oh poor,

poor men, they will die in the jungle. Meaning that we wouldn’t survive in the jungle. And but at the same time they put a hundred guilders on our heads. Because by the time we got out and away, that’s when we had to get out in a hurry on that little island, because the Japs had a hundred guilders on our head.

So and we knew that the Mohammedans were on the Japanese side and they would nab us and take us back. So that was one thing yeah.

Mmm.

Well it’s a case of self preservation I suppose. They, well I wouldn’t have liked to have seen it either but, they take, if you escape, that’s a slur on them that you had beaten their guards.

And they’ll take it out on their prisoners. Now it’s often the case if you escape, we’ll shoot ten of you for each one. And that sort of thing was a lot behind I think the,

when the minesweeper went up. They were going to execute the same number of the crew of that minesweeper. But for somehow or another the officer in Charge said no, do the lot. So they executed two hundred and thirty.

No, no that was on the aerodrome.

And that, people in you know prison camps, POW camps spread these stories in you know from other wars and one thing, and what’s happened in other camps, and they will take them out, if you escape. Keep escaping, in the finish they get sick of it and they say right that’s it, next person escapes, we’ll execute

the same number or whatever. And they actually did that after we escaped, I think there was one or two escaped but they executed them. And they executed them for just getting out, getting food. Just getting out the camp to get food, they executed them, that, two. So I think it’s a, it’s to put

fear into people that if you escape and this is why, I think, what happened to us. He was frightened that if they found out that we’d gone, that it might be him that would be in trouble, you wouldn’t know. But when the main party got out they swapped, there were a lot of officers in it, and one, three I think,

three or four officers. Anyway they put other chaps, volunteers, they became Lieutenant So-and-so and Lieutenant So-and-so and So-and-so. And their names were the ones that had escaped so that covered up with the officer you see. And then after

that they said well any more escape, that’s it. And that’s why there was no more escapes. There was, there were half a dozen Dutch soldiers escaped after the main party but there was no more after that either.

Oh well it was, well we’d made up our minds at the beginning that we were going to escape. And it and after the first episode I think it was just a case of bloody determination, we’re not gonna be beaten. We’re going to go, and that’s

all it was.

Why? Because I, we didn’t want to stay there. We were put in that position through mis-management and why shouldn’t we. And for another thing,

in the, as far as I remember, in the earlier days, in the First World War or beyond, I always thought it was the soldier’s duty to escape to get back to his lines. And that was also part of it. You know as far as we were concerned, it was our duty to get back and we wanted to get back. We didn’t want to be behind barbed wire for Lord knows

how long. So we were prepared to take that chance to get back. And when we got stopped well, and when we, because we were in with the officers so much, and we’d, we were told what was happening, and then that made us more determined also to go.

We should, why shouldn’t we go. If it’s good enough for you to go, sort of thing, it’s good enough for us too. So there was a lot of things built into these situations.

No I don't think, no,

no, that part, no, I don't think that part came into it, no. It was just, I think it was more of a survival type thing really, it was to get out and get back. Getting back home, get safe, that was our main thing.

Great detail.

Yes well the that part about the money part of it was that eventually

as we travelled away from the island, the Jap influence wasn’t there so that measure had only travelled so far. And then after that there were no Japanese, there was no contact with the Japanese.

Oh yes there was Muslims all through the islands, yes.

Well I don't know really because we, parts of wondered, parts of about two places, we didn’t stay on the islands long enough to get any feeling from the natives. So I don't know at all,

the only thing was that the further down the islands you got, there was less, there was no contact with the, cause we didn’t know where the Japs were. But as you got down through the islands and the natives would say, no Jap, no Japs. And it wasn’t til after we got home a few weeks later that the Japanese came down through those islands. Whether they came looking for the main party that got out or what I don't know. Or looking for the Controllers

that never reported back to them. See they just sent messages out for them to report to Ambon, and none of them did. So whether they could have been looking for them too. But there was a probe went back after they took the controls off at Saint Lucky, to, back to Darwin, they put a probe back in there

to see what was going on. Because they thought they might be able to sort of go back in and get the boys out of the camp. And that was one thing you know, we sort of thought before in the main party was to get back and organise a party to go back in. Well when they got back there the Japs were already there. So the blokes that went in there had to get out in a hell of a hurry.

See they were all, they were Japs there and not the other people. So and then some of those Dutch Controllers lost their lives, they ended up in some of those, like Z Force and those forces that went back in. And one or two of them lost their lives up in the islands going back in, got caught.

Yes, to take us across to row us across yeah.

Yeah.

Well it was just a, what they call a prau or lakatoi,

which ever. And they’re just big hollowed out logs and they have a cross bars and those outriggers down the side. And that’s what they take. They have little ones just to travel along the beach sort of thing and you know only sort of this wide and about so deep. But the bigger ones they have for carrying their produce from one

little island to the next or from one big village down to another big village, they’re the ones that carried more cargo. And then they also had the odd war, War canoe, the big fella, and they all row like mad, yeah. But they are, mainly just cut out of trees, soft trees.

In the boat? Yes, oh it was late afternoon really we started and I think it was about ten o'clock at night by the time we got over there. And the second one when we had to get out in a hurry, that was eleven o'clock at night, and it was six o'clock in the morning by the time we got over to the next island.

Haruku, H-A-R-U-K-U. And the village was Oma, O-M-A, the village of Oma.

No,

no, that’s where I, that’s where Same used to catch a fish for us.

And the family name was Natharia. And it was at Saparua, the next island where the Dutch, where we picked up the Dutch family, the Dutch Controller.

Mmm?

Oh

about ten days.

Oh I was too sick, I was down with malaria. And then I got, I was getting over it then Ron got it. But we had to get out in a hurry so he wasn’t too bad when we left and went across to the next island. And we were only on the next island for twenty-four hours, that,

that was Saparua.

Yes.

Oh no, no, no, they gave us money. They gave us money when we had to get out. They gave us money and food and said prayers for us and

everything, yeah. Even gave a little purse with the money in it. I brought it home, Dot had it for years.

Dutch Controller, yes that’s right.

Well he organised one, yeah.

He knew a fisherman, so he organised him to take him down to Geser, that was right at the other end of Ceram. That was two or three day’s trip to get down there.

Oh that was just like a small,

small fishing boat, oh probably twenty-five foot, something like that.

Oh well they, oh we had a little bit of rice with us. And but on the way down we, the chappy that owned the vessel, he lived on the

big island of Ceram. So we went, we called into his place and we had a meal there and had a shower, shower by half a coconut and throw water over yourself. But his family put on a meal and cause as I say they all have WAS DOUBLE QUOTE CHOOK s over there. There’s no shortage of eggs.

And they also make sago cakes out of sago palm, they get the sago out and dry it out and they make little square cake things out of it. Sago bread they call it. And then there’s always plenty of fruit, you know they always carry plenty of bananas and pineapples in season, that sort of thing.

He had two children, one boy and a girl, they were only little kids, probably six to eight.

They did, yeah, the family. Yes. They ended up back in Australia.

Oh just Ron and myself and the Dutch family and the owner of the boat.

Geser, yeah.

The same thing more or less happened again. The Dutch,

the Dutch Controller there, he looked after us and there was a trading boat, a two mast-er vessel, it was owned by a Chinese on Banda Island. And he traded through the islands and he was going down to Tual. So

they more or less put us, I suppose confiscated us in a way, the Dutch family and Ron and I, went on that. But he wouldn’t land at Tual because he was frightened that the Dutch Controller at Tual wouldn’t let him go further and he had to go back to his

boss at Banda, Banda Island. So he put us off, in a little boat, couple of little prows and he put us off on another little island and he headed back to Banda and he, the little boats took us into Tual. And that’s where we met up with two more Australians that had been working their way down. And they had an old,

leaky old tub lined up that was going to go down to the next island sort of thing. So we bought a pumpkin and a couple of other things and hopped on with them. And Dutch family they came too. So we ended up in that old tub all the way down to Saint Lucky. Then, and then

from then on we got Dutch boat and had to wait, never had enough fuel to get back to Darwin. So they bought in a lot of coconut oil, the native people bought in coconut oil and they had it in big bamboo pieces. They’d bring it in and strain it through some gauze at the

hospital. It was quite a reasonable place there at Saint Lucky. And ...

Mmm?

Oh yeah spent quite a few days there. We, actually there was a wireless station there, the Japs had bombed the wireless station but they hadn’t hit it. You wouldn’t believe it, there was a big square patch

and this wireless station was sitting square in the middle of it. And they’d dropped four bombs, on the corners. And all it was, was four big craters about as big as this room. And what they’d done, they’d upheaved it all and dragged it, carried it up into the jungle and re-set it up in the bush. And course Gordon Jackie,

as our SIG officer and Arthur Young, he was our Corporal, and there was Ron and I, and we got to work on it and called up Darwin and ...

Well where was I up to?

Well we were, yes he, we got to work on the wireless station and we called up Darwin, and cause

Lieutenant Jack he knew the code number for Darwin and, from Ambon. And anyway we called them up and we also had contact with Dobo and Dobo had contact with Merauke. So we set up a contact

through Dobo, Merauke to Darwin where we wanting, we couldn’t get through to Darwin but we wanted to have a chat. So they were going to set this up. And we, whilst we were, they were doing that we kept trying Darwin call sign. And

anyway nothing, nobody’d answer. So anyway the next thing we know there was a plane goes over and we weren’t sure what it was, whether it was one of ours, or one of ours the Japs had captured or what, it was a Hudson. And he went over and he had a look and

kept on going. And, oh well, somebody’s having a look or something. Anyway next morning, next day, back he comes and fly’s over, drops a bomb and machine gunned us. But we weren’t on it, we were down Saint Lucky tied up to a little wee jetty. And anyway that night we listened in to the

news, we could listen in to the Australian news then, we knew what was going on. And we hear this chap on the news saying how they’d bombed this ship that up in the islands and sunk it and all this sort of thing. And so we had a bit of a laugh be cause he didn’t sink it at all, he should have but,

bloody great big spray of water went up and our boat went up in the air, came down and he riddled the deck with bullets. And down in the cabin underneath where the crockery and everything else, there wasn’t one piece of crockery in one piece. He’d smash that, the bullets had hit the engine, went off it and never heard it. And anyway we

when he did that the natives carrying the coconut in for us, they went bush. So we had to get them to come back again, finish bringing enough coconut oil for us. So anyway to cut a long story short we decided that they wouldn’t, they could hardly, once they claimed they sunk it, they probably wouldn’t come back again.

But we got away from there as quickly as we could and eventually worked our way back into Darwin from there. But the surprising part of it was that when we got back to Darwin the, we were telling the boys a few of the stories, and one of the blokes said oh, he said, I’ll,

I’ll get the air force for you and find out about this. So next thing we know they’d brought up the pilot. And he said well you were just damn lucky he said, cause he said my bomb-aimer was, the one I usually have with me, he said he was sick, and he said I had a new chap on. And he said if I had my old mate on, I would have been fair square in the middle, not just underneath.

And I’ve often wondered since, when we left there to come home we ran into one hell of a storm, I’ve never been to sea on a storm as bad. But this vessel, I don't know how long it’d be, roughly fifty feet I suppose, had a diesel motor. And the sea was that rough

that you come up a wave like that and she’d actually sit on top of the wave and go like that then slide, slide down. And during the night we lost our lifeboat, and it was on davits that hang over the stern like that. And I often wonder whether that bomb going off underneath and blowing it up out of the water, whether that damaged the

supports. And when we got into this very high seas when you rode down it and come back out of it, whether that eventually, the weight of water pulled it off, broke it off. But the next morning we woke up we had no lifeboat. Yeah. And then when just the morning before we came in to Darwin, was about six o'clock in the morning, we heard a plane and it

was a patrol boat was going out around the headland of Darwin, and out in north east. He was down pretty low so I gave Gordon Jack my, the torch that I had. And he opened up with it and he gave an answer, ‘Kay’, flash. And Gordon Jack just kept on going till he was sort of too far away. And he didn’t budge, he just

kept going. But about eleven o'clock in the morning, three Hudsons went over and one bloke peeled off and come down and we all got on the tail end of it and looked and thought if he drops a bomb, we’re diving. But he didn’t, he just came down, gave us a look over and went back and headed on his way to catch up with the other two.

Signal it?

No, not in broad daylight, not like that, no. No, he just spotted us. No it’s alright in the dark if you got enough torch light to show but no.

It was too, it was about eleven o'clock in the day, too much sunlight, you wouldn’t see anything.

Oh no, no, no, no.

Oh, night, two nights, two and a half days. We left at night and then the next night we were at Bathurst Island, I think it was the

next night. And the next night we were in Darwin.

There were eleven Australians and six Dutch soldiers on that one, yeah.

No, no, he’d got over it by then yeah. And so had I. We didn’t have, after that episode, we never, we never

had any more troubles till we got back to Darwin. And I went down with, so did Ron, we both went down with malaria in Darwin. And then they treated us, they held us there and treated us in Darwin, oh down the road a bit and to a camp hospital down the track, and treated us there and then they sent us south

from there. But I headed off south before Ron, he came down after me. And then I’d no sooner got to Melbourne, two or three, couple of days and I went down again and that’s when I ended up in Caulfield Repat [hospital].

Yes, yes we had food. We, as a matter

of fact we brought home some of the stuff we pinched out of the prison camp.

Well it was last reserve you see, last resort. We did use a little bit of it but some of it we still had, yeah. But we, oh, down to the last island we ground up a lot of corn, they had a grinder there, grister there and gristed up a

lot of corn. And had plenty of fruit and one thing and another. And course the people, the Dutch people there you see they’d cook us meals and that there. So we were okay for food for a while yeah.

Oh God, well we didn’t stop talking

all night. I think we talked to four or five o'clock in the morning, we were absolutely exhausted. We just couldn’t stop. No. Unbelievable.

No. Oh yeah, we did get special treats. We got chips and bread and jam. Yeah, that was, that was beautiful.

Course there was pretty, you know about eight o'clock in the morning before we got there, and cooks had all packed up for the night. They went to the larder and got a few bits of chips and bread and jam and one thing and another. Yeah. So we reckoned that was good. But no, we just talked. Well you could imagine couldn’t you.

Physically, good, yeah apart from the effects of the malaria yeah. But in the meantime, in between bouts you were okay. You were, it was only when you had the malaria on you that you’d shiver like a (UNCLEAR). And then you break out in a perspiration and the blood vessels sort of burst and you perspire like mad.

And no, that knocks you about. But no, you know, I don't know what it was, I dropped down to about eight, about eight and a half stone I think by the time I got home. From, I was pretty, in those days I’d put on a lot of weight from soft life, good food. But no I was...

Oh well my normal weight

before the war was about nine three or something like that. But then I went up to nearly eleven, in Darwin, I was fat as a fool. And didn’t lose that much you know on Ambon, cause we had good food over there too. So actually speaking when we went into camp, you know, we were all pretty fit. And but certainly lost it, one thing another, coming home.

You know fit, there wasn’t that much food but we’d catch the odd fish and little bit of, pull into a little island and buy a pumpkin and get a little bit of something, keep going.

With Doris? Yes, we,

we were pen-friends for a fair while. I had a, in Darwin, Teddy Walker, a friend of mine, and he invited me down to his place, we went on leave, it was too far to come back here to Portland, cause that for two days. And so he invited me down to his place. And then eventually in

October I think it was in ‘41, the, they transferred quite a few of our blokes from Darwin to go to the middle east, cause we were sick and tired of sitting up there and we created a bit of strife. And anyway that boiled down to that they took so many and Teddy was one of them. So Teddy’s mum had the brainy idea, poor old Ben up in Darwin,

so and nobody to write to sort of thing, so she organised a pen-friend for me. So the lass that she organised had another pen-friend, so she gave my name to Miss over there in the corner. You listening? (Off camera: yes). And gave me Dot’s address so yeah

we started up corresponding. And of course then when we left Darwin went over there and used to go round the shops and buy some lovely lengths of cloth and one thing and another and send back to her. And everybody else did too. To their wives and friends. And course none of it ever left Ambon. So but anyway when we got, when I

got back to Melbourne and I ended up in Caulfield, Dot’s sister she must have seen a Newsreel. She came home and she said to Dot and her parents, she said I, you know that chap you write to, I saw him in the film tonight. And they said, no, couldn’t be him. Couldn’t be him.

And she said oh I was sure it was him. So anyway Dot’s father, he was, bought the night’s paper or something and he was, as he always did and there in the paper, that’s the photo in the book there. And she said there, I told you so. And so anyway Dot rang Mrs Walker and

she said yes he’s just been in hospital a couple of days. And anyway she arranged for Dot to come out and see me. And it went on from there.

No, no.

Yeah, oh yes, up at Larrakeyah Barracks. Yeah. Yeah.

Yes, yeah so that’s the, some of our crowd and some of the Dutch, soldiers, and the Dutch Don R, who was, we knew so well. He’s there, Bill. And a couple of the officers that, part of our party.

Yes, I just forgotten what they, I never saw the reel, but that’s all I saw was that on the paper there.

The paper there, it’s just the mentions that you know, cause they weren’t letting on, we weren’t allowed to write home there.

As soon as the, we landed, they told us no mail. And so but anyway we beat em. A bloke said, oh bugger them. So we wrote a letter and he put it in with his letter, how he got past the censors, he was just damn lucky. Because they,

up there, you had to have your company officer to read the letters and censor them before they did. And you never knew where they were gonna pick them up in the mail in Capital cities. I got caught once, in Melbourne, I caught it, got a letter of mine that had a lot of stuff you know that shouldn’t have it, criticising. Sick and tired of sitting up in Darwin doing nothing, as we called it.

So I got criticised for that, get hauled over the coals. But that got through and then of course there was no word you see after that. I ended up in hospital and then we still weren’t allowed, see there was no way of letting, people at home got this letter, oh yeah, they’re home, no more word. And what the hell’s going on. But yes

so, and we’ve been together, we’ve just had our sixtieth wedding anniversary couple of months back.

I was out on a farm, out here mmm.

Yes, yes, been discharged. I was discharged in May ‘44.

Oh just went whoopee. Terrific, yeah terrific. Oh no everybody just let their hair down I think.

Well we were out there in the bush,

we didn’t go to anything at all did we Dot. Seen the celebrations. No.

Yes well this is going back a few years now.

In, I think it was 1976 there was a Gull Force, through the [Commonwealth] War Graves Commission, a representative was able to go back and have a look at the cemetery in ‘76. And then later on we were, we managed to get invited onto a

mixed pilgrimage in ‘81. So Dot and I we were up in North Queensland when we found out that we’d been invited, we had been accepted to go on this pilgrimage. So we went over then and had a fantastic

time over there. And from then on I went back on Anzac Day we, our Association organised AnzacDay services to go back. And seeing that I hadn’t been back to an Anzac Day service over there I managed to get onto that. And from then on I’ve been going back

practically every year until 1996 I think it was, or ‘4, ‘4 or ‘6. Anyway we, through our group, we have a, built up a big aid program. And we

through the hospitals and schools, we managed to collect a lot of goods, hospital gear that’s gone out of date, one thing and another or hospital close down, we’ve been able to get a lot of hospital things. Croydon Rotary Club

gave us a lot of books and money for books for the schools. And we’ve also put running, they put running water onto the hospital, re-wired the hospital to take two-forty volt power.

And it’s quite a lot of, as I said, quite a lot of equipment, dental chairs and operating table and heart machine, steriliser, they’ve got a great big steriliser over there and all that sort of thing for that. And another main thing was the

water supply for children. The children are having a lot of tummy upsets, troubles. All the water that you know they were drinking over there, the contaminated. So it’s started off with plastic tanks, any village that had a hut with an iron roof, you run the water off that into a plastic tank, which had a foam rubber top, to float on the water, to keep the sunlight

and insects out. And that water was only supposed to be for children to drink. From there we graduated to putting in, making concrete tanks. And last few years just before all this struggle happened, we took back a hydraulic

pump and we would supply the water out of a spring. Wherever you get a continuous supply of water pumps and just pump the water up the hill to the village. And we put four of those in over there. And we were going to put more in but all this troubles happened

in Indonesia and that’s it. But I got a photo of the first pump we put in, the village people, it’s half way up a hill type thing, the water coming out of the hill. And they had bamboo pipes coming out and the water was running out and they’d stand under it and have a wash and a shower and wash their clothes and get a bucket of water and carry it home.

So we’ve got a big tank there and put a big pipe, made a catchment area and ran the water through a big pipe into the tank. That goes down to the pump and the pump uses that water, the pressure of that water to force the water up the hill. So that’s and it works forty, twenty-four hours a day. As long as there’s water there, it will

work, yeah.

Yes I have contacts. I still have contact in Ambon, I still got families that have got out of Ambon that can’t go back.

But and yeah well the situation is improving over there. And hopefully in the next couple of years they may be able to get back to Anzac Day services in a couple of years time. But in the meantime we can’t get any aid through at all.

The only thing, good thing we’ve been able to do is the caretaker at the cemetery, he was, his father helped Bill Jenkin’s party escape. And he was the Rajah of a village over there. And his son Johnny, he’s taken over from his father, his father has died, is dead now. And

he became the caretaker. But because he was a Christian and a leading fellow of a couple of villages, they killed his brother and he had to get out. And he came out here but he wasn’t allowed to stay. But we’ve eventually got round that one and

he’s allowed to stay here now. But he is employed by the War Graves Commission and the Ambon War Graves is run by English, England and Australia. And Australia does I think, England pays a lot of money towards it and Australia manages the money. And Johnny, he manages the money for the cemetery. He pays

the wages and all that sort of thing, but he’d doing all that from here. But he’s got somebody else over there who’s doing it for him as well. He’s got somebody working for him and all the gardeners and one thing and another. But unfortunately the Muslims don’t like the cross. And they knock the cross off the

pillar. And so the Government is they’re working on it to try and eventually get another cross back on it. But we were very, very worried because all the plaques have got a cross on them and we didn’t know what was going to happen. But it’s funny thing about people, that the

main caretaker over there now is a Muslim. And he’s gone round and he’s covered up this and that and one thing and another. And don’t know, they haven’t done anymore damage to it. I don't know. I don't know. But let’s hope that it all sorts itself out and all comes back again to reasonable conditions.

Beg your pardon?

Yes I do, I do. I’ve always said that if it hadn’t have been for the

Natharia family I wouldn’t have got home, I wouldn’t have got home. When I was sick I, my temperature at their place was a hundred and seven. And I, you know I didn’t, for two or three days I didn’t know a thing. And I don't know what they did to me. All I can remember is that they put a banana leaf

poultice on me, and what that was, I don't know what was in it. But it sort of brought the temperature and that down and one thing and another and I don't know what it was. But if left to me own devices I’d have, I wouldn’t have gone anywhere.

Oh

contact was patchy, that first, that letter there came in 1947, that’s right. 1947 Sam made contact with me. And we kept in touch until he became a teacher, he went through school and became a Phys Ed teacher. And he got married, married

an English teacher. She was from Saint Lucky. And then he was transferred into Java, somewhere in Indonesia and we lost contact. And then one day we were just happened to make contact again. And then lost it. And when Dot and I

went over in, Dot and I went over, we asked everybody, did anybody know Sam Lidday. And nobody knew Sam Lidday. And next year I went over, Anzac Day, and we were up at the Australian Memorial out at Kudamati and somebody yelled out Amor,

there’s a woman up here wants to speak to you. And of course and I wondered, course I got a lot of ribbing. And anyway it was a sailor, I don't know how it came about but he happened to speak to this lady and or she spoke to him, and he happened

to mention my name, and he said I came up with Ben Amor, and on the boat. And anyway that’s where it started from. And she was the baby, the baby of the family, she was only a baby when we were there in Oma in ‘42. And that made

the contact again. And then we were, I’ve been able to keep contact with her and Sam and his family, they were only a couple of hundred yards apart on Ambon. And then of course we got all the contacts with the Doctors from the hospital and Doctor Connie Joseph, she’s the anaesthetist up there. And

we keep in touch and so on. So no it was terrific cause can still get a fax, email through to the hospital. So that’s good.

Oh yes, no it is, it’s terrific, it’s really terrific. It is cause we do keep, over on that side of the island, the aerodrome side, where the massacres were

that there is a memorial, oh there were two memorials, but we only look after one now. But there’s a memorial there and we have a service there on Anzac Day the same as the cemetery, for the boys that were massacred there. But they’re all interned at the main cemetery because there’s no way known that you’d recognise any remains so they’ve got a memorial wall with all the names. And

in the cemetery they got the headstone, a plaque, and it’s just got, ‘A soldier known unto God’ on that. But underneath there are remains, each one.

Well I’ve always said and I can’t change me mind,

never forget and never forgive and never trust em. That’s how I feel, can’t help it. No,

there’s too many of your mates gone. And one of our good mates, his name is Ainger, and on the list, on the Memorial Wall, I looked up the first name I see, Al.

Oh yes in lots of ways it was hard. I,

I didn’t get treated very well when I got home and I suppose you shouldn’t but I just can’t, can’t forget it.

Oh well I, when I got back to Melbourne I had a pair of shorts, shirt, pair of boots. And they sent me south in the middle of winter. And it

in Alice Springs they gave us two blankets and an overcoat to keep us warm overnight, hand them back next morning. So I didn’t hand mine in, I stood at the back of the ranks and put the blankets round meself, put the overcoat on and held on to em. And when I got to Melbourne I went out,

back out to Caulfield Race Course and was the rest of the group that came down that time. And I didn’t have a pay book, didn’t have anything. And but I eventually found a Pay Officer and he was kind enough to listen to me and

he gave me a ...