Australians at War Film Archive

Thank you very much.

Yes, I was born in Adelaide, South Australia. And I was very lucky. My parents were reasonably well off and we had a lovely home. I went to school at St Peter’s College. My father didn’t allow me an easy life. I had to work

at the weekends, whether I liked it or not, on the property. I can remember nearly crying at the age of five or six because I was wheeling a barrow around picking up cow manure which had to go into the garden. And all my mates were out playing somewhere. But, nevertheless, as I grew up I went to St Peter’s College and that was, before that I was at a kindergarten close

by in Glen Osmond. And at St Peter’s College I started riding a bicycle which was seven miles there and seven miles back. Coming back it was difficult because it was up hill. But we used to, a friend and I used to ride, in those days the trucks didn’t go very fast, and grab hold of a back of a truck and get dragged up. And the truckies didn’t seem to mind. I don’t suppose it hurt anything.

After that I didn’t do very well educationally. I enjoyed sport and played Australian Rules. I threw the discus and won a prize for that. And I played in the first eighteen but not at the intercollegiate match against Prince Alfred which was the thing, the game. I mean Prince Alfred were the college that we opposed most. In a sporting fashion of course.

Then, of course, the war broke out in 1939. And we were still kids. I was sixteen, seventeen. And we all thought that we’d better try and join the army or whatever. And most of the boys joined the air force because they thought it would be fun to learn to fly. But I and several of the others wanted to

join units that our fathers had been involved in. My father had been a 3rd Light Horse. Well, he had already been deceased for some years but, nevertheless, I went down to Keswick Barracks in Wayville in South Australia and signed up and did what I was told. I got sent up to a place to called Woodside for a few weeks and trained in the

basics of army life. I think thought that I had an advantage because I was a sergeant major in the cadets at St Peter’s College and that gave me a good training. I mean I could slope arms and present arms and do all that stuff that the army go on with. I then, with a friend, got transferred to Victoria. And I’d argued

about where I was going to be sent. Well, you didn’t argue in the army anyway. And I found myself in the armoured division at Puckapunyal. From there it was in the 9th Armoured Regiment, which I think had been formed in South Australia, and they called the 2/9th, I think. I was going to say the 2/7th. But I think it was the 2/9th. And whilst we were there the Malayan thing happened.

And so they had some light vehicles, tanks, and they asked for volunteers to go to Malaya with these tanks. And I volunteered and I think a couple of hundred of us did. In front of the division we marched down and got applauded. Then they said you can do some training in the tanks or have embarkation leave. I think all of us took embarkation leave. We

thought we’d learn about the tanks later. But, by the time we got back from embarkation leave and got our kit together, which included what they used to call in those days, Bombay bloomers. They were shorts but very wide at the leg. And they called them Bombay bloomers. And by the time we got all ready to go and had embarkation leave, Malaya and Singapore had fallen anyway. So they turned us into the 2/2nd

Independent Light Tank Squadron. A reconnaissance squadron. And we served there. Incidentally, when we volunteered for Malaya, the division lined up and we marched down, 200 of us, they all applauded us. We thought we were heroes. But after all that I got sent to, I

think, divisional headquarters in the armoured division. And I became a sergeant. I was a corporal in the reconnaissance squadron. And I was sent to Duntroon [Royal Military College] to train as an officer and then my friend, a man named Shannon, he had red hair therefore he was Blue Shannon. He joined up; his number was six after mine so we were pretty

close and we got sent to Western Australia to join the 11th Armoured Cars, which were based at Northam. Anyway, we went to Port Pirie and we had some friends training in the air force and they invited us to a mess and we missed the train and the officer in charge at Port Augusta wasn’t very happy, or Port Pirie wasn’t very

happy with us and put us on to a flat top and we had our swags and we slept on the flat tops underneath the Bren gun carrier or next to a Bren gun carrier. But we had bought some beer and my friend Shannon put it in his bag, in his sleeping bag because obviously we weren’t allowed to take it. And unfortunately I’d chucked the thing on to

the flat top and then, when the beer ran out, turned it up, so he had a beery sleep all the way across the desert. We arrived at Kalgoorlie and were thirsty, of course. We were only kids. And they said, “Oh, you’ll never get any beer in Kalgoorlie. It’s drunk out.” And I said, “I’ll get some beer.” Had a very handsome cousin, Jack Lewis. He’d worked in Great Boulder Mines. So I went to the nearest pub and I said, “I’m a cousin of

Jack’s,” to the nicest looking barmaid. “Oh, dear Jack,” she said. And I said, “Yes, and he said you’d like to give us some beer.” “Of course.” So that’s we got on to Northam. And then at Northam, whatever happened? Oh, I think by the time we got to Northam pips had come through and so we joined the officers’ mess. But while I was

there, there was a Colonel Riley, I think, in charge of there, 11th Armoured Cars. And he called me up one day and he said, “Have you got an uncle called Major Lewis?” So I said, “Yes, sir.” And my uncle Gilbert had served in the Boer War but they also had a property and Jack Lewis, his son, had gone away and so he was short handed. And he said, “He wants you to take a week’s leave and I do hope you enjoy yourself.” And

I thought with some trepidation but I went and I enjoyed myself. It was shearing time and all I did was get up and press wool all day in these old fashioned wool presses. And I can remember very well, he had been in the (UNCLEAR) rifles. No, Skinner’s Horse, India, and he was a bit of a martinet. And I can remember, even the army didn’t get you up till six o’clock, but he woke me up at five and said, “Don’t bother getting up.

Lay in for ten minutes.” And so I felt that it wasn’t a holiday at all by the time I got back. And the whole of the armoured cars moved up to a place called Ningaloo, well north of Perth. I was going to say near Geraldton but I’m not sure. Bu the only good thing happened there; I got the job of trying to find, for General Robertson, a recreation area along the coast. And so I

took the scout car and I spent far longer than I should have but took a couple of fellows from the unit and we went and found a place which was never used of course. So that was Western Australia.

I’ve no idea. But the armoured division was probably one of the best divisions that Australia had formed but that never went and saw action. And it was

apparently, and this is only hearsay, meant to have gone to be the expeditionary force into France, and invasion. But they had a Canadian Armoured Division and, of course, that was far closer to Europe than we were. And so we got busted up. And we, my friend and I, Shannon, went to join the parachutists. And they said, “You’re too

big.” And I said, “Well, give us a bigger parachute.” And they said, “No, we build the bodies for the parachutes. We don’t build the chutes for the bodies.” So the army had standard parachutes, which was sensible. And so we didn’t know what to do and so we finished up in the commandos.

What happened then? I came back east and was sent to Morotai hills, which,

I don’t know if you know Morotai , north of the Macassar Sea and northeast of Borneo. And it’s a hell of a joint, Morotai. We trained there. We were reinforcements. But I got my sections of 19 men; I think it is in the commandos. You had a captain in charge of a troop of three sections. And three lieutenants, each with a section.

And each lieutenant had a sergeant so you had yourself and a sergeant and sixteen or seventeen men. I forget the exact number. And it was a pretty tough training. And then, of course, the invasion of Balikpapan took place. And they loaded us up with steel helmets and goodness knows what. And we had a sea kit bag and a pack,

rifles and ammunition. And what they hadn’t trained us for was to go down these wretched nets on the side of the ship. And so most of us fell arse over head into the landing craft. Which wasn’t the right way to arrive in an invasion force. Anyway, we got there and we’d only taken about a hundred yards into the bush and Sergeant Neilson, Garth Neilson, who’s still alive and in Brisbane,

he said, “Well, I think this is the place.” I said, “What are you talking about?” He said, “We can dump our helmets here.” They made you take the helmets but the reason that we didn’t wear them was the noise. Because they hit any branches or your rifle hit it or somebody else’s rifle hit it, it made a din. And so slouch hats didn’t. So we dumped all the helmets, I suppose they’re still there somewhere, probably being used as wash basins or something at the moment.

And then, you know, we went from there to, oh, my section didn’t. The commandos were a little bit different. We operated often as sections. We didn’t operate as battalions or companies so that I had these nineteen men, I think it was, and I had a job to go up to a place called Sepinjang, which was then just a dirt strip. Which was

used by the Japanese and then started to be used by ourselves and the Dutch. And we drove the Japs [Japanese] out of Sepinjang. General [Ken] Eather, who was in charge, I think, said, “Now we want you fellows to go up to the Milford Highway.” And I thought we walked twenty miles during the night through the scrub to get on to the Milford Highway. Do you want me to keep going?

Well, just to watch the Japs coming down and prevent, or try to prevent them coming down. And the difficulty was the Japanese often used to disguise themselves often as Indonesians or Burmese, or whatever you’d like to call them, or women. And it was very hard for a naive Australian to

recognise them. And I remember lying alongside a young, young, I was nineteen I think and he was only seventeen or something from Western Australia. And some of these Indonesian women came down and he said, “Gee, boss, I wouldn’t touch one with a forty-foot pole.” And I thought all my lectures on saving yourself for your future wife must have paid off. Turned out later on the beach he got paraded in front of me for trying to have

carnal knowledge. And I said, “But you only told me a couple of months ago, you wouldn’t touch them.” He said, “Yes, they began to look all right through sunglasses.” So I had to dismiss the case, didn’t I? It was a pretty good excuse I thought. Then what happened? Oh, one of the, I’m only telling you the things you remember which are rather funny. We used to go as sections.

I’d have a scout and then another scout and then myself and immediately behind me a fellow carrying a Bren gun which used to be a chap named Matey Crosby. I don’t know where he is. I think he died some years ago. He came from Armidale or somewhere. And anyway as we were going, trying to fight our way or work our way up the Milford Highway, we used to stop every hour for five minutes for a smoko [a break]. That’s if

nobody could see the smoke. You had to make sure that the smoke didn’t go up through the vegetation and so forth. Anyway, this one stop, I turn around and there was a Japanese with my Bren gun. And I said, “Jeez, what happened?” And he said, “No, worries boss,” he said. “I found him lying in the scrub and I kicked him in the arse.” He said, “But I’m carrying the ammunition.”

So, to say that some of these guys were casual, sort of overdoing it.

Well, they, I’ve got that photograph somewhere. And I sent them down to the war museum or archives, whatever it is. We took the surrender on the Milford Highway.

And then we came back and, this is a terribly sad story this part. But when we got to Sepinjang earlier, the boys came back and said, “We’ve found a mint.” I said, “Don’t be silly.” Leaving the expletives out. “How can you find a mint?” And what the Japanese had done was change Dutch guilders to Japanese guilders and there was stacks of it and I thought we ought to burn it

and then I thought, “I hate burning money.” So they got some suitcases and remembered where they buried it. And when the war was over and we were back on the beach, I was bored and you had to wait for your number to come up before you went back to Australia. And I went down to the Dutch, and with a bottle of Scotch. I think I flew an (UNCLEAR) across to Indonesia. Batavia, now Jakarta. And my mother had said

if I ever got there always stay at the Hotel Day Inn because they had the best rice. Because she’d travelled in the east well before the war. So I stayed at the Hotel Day Inn. I signed myself as Lieutenant Ned Kelly and I haven’t got the bills yet. And I found that they were using these Dutch guilders. I thought, “God.” So I rushed back and we sat around, what was left of my section and said,

“I’ve got to find an honest man.” That was pretty difficult right from the start. Anyway, we picked some fellow out. And then I sent the boys up to dig up these suitcases and then I went down to the Dutch again and said, “This chap’s sister’s been incarcerated. There’s a lot of women there, in Java. And he’d like to take some gear over and everything else.” And explained the suitcases. “Do you mind?” And they said, “Well, probably three or four bottles of scotch would help.” So three or four bottles of scotch

I found. And he loaded himself on with all this money. And I explained to him, buy diamonds. Because you can swallow them and put them in your ear hole and everywhere else. And these he traded. And the diamonds came from a place called Banjarmasin, which was south of Borneo. So he said, “Okay boss.” And we thought he was the most honest man. We gave him all this stuff and we thought we’d be living in Bellevue Hill, driving Mercedes and, you know, having

steaks and blonde girlfriends. And we haven’t seen that bastard to this day. He shot through with the bloody lot. And I tell you want, if any of us ever find him, we’ll shoot the bugger. So that was the saddest story I had, I think.

Yeah, I’d married an American during the war. From the

American Red Cross. And she was a bit frightened, coming from New York City, to come to Australia. And I can understand that. She came from the Bronx. And we kept corresponding and everything. In the meanwhile I went shark fishing out at St Juna, which was a tremendous. Do you want me to tell you about shark fishing?

Anyway

so at the end of 1946, because I’d been discharged, I think, in February, March of ’46, I flew across to America. And then what happened was that the government of the day decided that you couldn’t transfer sterling into dollars. And so I couldn’t take any money and I was short of money. And she didn’t make enough. She was a writer

for the Columbia Broadcasting System and a very good one. So we went down to Washington where she also got a job and I went to see the embassy there. And Norman Maken, a very nice old Methodist, lay preacher chap, was the ambassador. And he gave me a job. And when I say a job, I was a clerk, locally engaged and did mimeographing and ran messages. Which didn’t worry me. And we rented a nice home at Rockville

in Maryland which is only half an hour’s drive from where I worked. And then we went for a trip, because I was able to get sterling in the end, Australian money, pounds. And so the only place you could spend it was in Bermuda. So my wife and I went to Bermuda which was rather funny because you didn’t have any money in America but you could spend a holiday

in Bermuda. And you wouldn’t remember him but there was, one of the first chaps on TV [television], that had programs. Not John Laws as much, played music. I’ll remember his name. And so he said to me, we became friends down there, “You pay my bill in sterling and I’ll give you the equivalent when you get back to New

York.” Now, that was a big help. So after that, what did we do? We decided that we’d come back to Australia. In the meantime a chap named Paul McGee, and he and I, and he was in the trade section of the embassy, we got interested in meat chickens. Which in those days you might have had a chicken for Sunday lunch or something or turkey or something but they

weren’t popular like they are now. You didn’t just go out and buy chickens. And so I went out to Castlereagh, north of Penrith. About seven miles north. And built a couple of big sheds. And I used to turn over three thousand cockerels. Because they were the off shoot of the layers, day old cockerels. And I used to get them from the Ingham brothers. We buried

poor old Jack the other day. And I said to him once when I was Premier [of NSW] and allowed to present the cup at Randwick and he was a director of the AJC [Australian Jockey Club], “When did you last deliver chickens?” He said, “When you took them.” That was in the fifties, ’51, ’52, ’52 or something. And so, anyway, we were arguing or discussing one night over bridge and someone said, “You ought to get into politics.” And I said, “I don’t know about that.”

And it so happened a few weeks later there was a vacancy and I ran. I was very proud. Twenty one people ran and I won. And so after all the rigmarole of electioneering and mucking about, I became the Member for Wollondilly. And that’s how my political career started.

After being selected, you mean?

Well, first of all, being an Adelaidian, I didn’t know where Parliament House was. And that was slightly embarrassing. So I had to ask a copper in Macquarie Street where Parliament House was and eventually I found it. And the clerk of the house, a chap named Doug Wheeler, I think he was head clerk or something. I think he still lives in Bowral or somewhere. Anyway, he showed me around. It was like a bloody

rabbit warren in the old days. And showed me around and Bob Cotton, who, I might add, was chairman of the selectors, and when it was all over and I won, I said to him, “That’s a St Peter’s College tie.” And he said, “I thought you’d be the only one to recognise it.” It was nice of him, wasn’t it? He was President of the Liberal party but he wore this Saint’s tie. And so I saw it. Anyway, he said to

me, “Don’t think they’re all mates up here. Everybody’s against everybody.” In those days, of course, it was Old Parliament House and we had pretty rough quarters. I think we had four or five to a room. And to get any typing done you had to walk up three or four flights of stairs to a person who used to allocate, and I still haven’t looked it up in the dictionary, called an amanuensis [a secretary]. And you gave the amanuensis what you wanted

typed and she’d type it. And then address the envelope and then she sent it down for you to sign and put a stamp on and all that kind of stuff. So it wasn’t much help. Later, when I became Premier, I gave every member an office in his electorate. Because all this kind of stuff, it took a lot of time away from doing anything, what you should be doing. So in 19 something, ’56 was it.

we won government. And I remember Milton Morrison, Wal Fyffe and I were in a room just wondering whether we’d get a portfolio. And I got called up and I came back and I said, “I’ve got something.” And they said, “What?” I said, “Lands and mines.” I was a bit surprised getting both. And then they both got called up and Milton Morris got transport and Wal Fyffe got assistant education

to Charlie Cutler. Milton always reckoned he ran the transport department on an eight-letter word beginning with B and finishing with T. He, you know, the transport department was worse then than it is now. If that was possible. So people, some people thought it was a conflict of interest to have mines and lands in the one portfolio. But I didn’t because if you had a conflict between the two,

I made a decision. I didn’t have to go to committees and argue. And then, of course, Bob resigned and I got elected as Premier.

Not long enough. I don’t know. But it was a year or so. And

then I realised I didn’t have Bob’s ability. What I should have done was to say to everyone I didn’t make a cabinet minister, I should have said, “Listen Don, Harry, Jack.” One at a time to come into the room. And I said, “Look, I can’t appoint you now but you’ll probably be next.” You see. That’s what Bob used to do. I didn’t bother. I just appointed the thing and away we went. And all the others had a shitty that didn’t get a job. And so, having

a shitty, they all, Willis was able to get them and that’s how I got beaten.

Well, Willis made me Minister for Local Government. I took over from Harry Jensen, strangely enough. Is Harry still alive? I suppose he is. And then what happened? Oh I got a bit fed up of parliament generally and I resigned.

And by this time I’d bought this place here. I’d bought this earlier mainly because I had to, well, I didn’t have to but I wanted to live at the electorate. And I had a farm down here and so I just gave it away.

Yes, and I didn’t take that much running. It was only 150 acres or something. I just ran cattle and a few sheep.

But I had directorships and, you know, consultancies. Some of the consultancies were Corn Ferry, the head-hunters, I don’t know if you know them. Bectel, an engineering group. Well, my first wife, Stephanie, the American, she pulled, well, first of all I divorced, but she then died of cancer. And then I married Uta, and I think

I’m still married to her.

With my first wife, yes, I had John and Mark. They’re, John is out at Wombeyan Caves. He’s got a place and he takes photographs. Apparently a pretty good photographer. And Mark makes films, as you know.

Yes. Uta has

five, I think, grandchildren and they’re my step-grandchildren. I adopted my stepdaughter and son. And then Mark has got two. Two? Yeah, two. So I’ve got about seven, oh, and Philip has got three or four, something like that. So I’ve got seven or eight grandchildren.

Yes, unfortunately he died at an early age, 52. And he’d been badly wounded in the Battle of Raffa in the Middle East and served in Gallipoli and then went back.

He was, well my grandfather had with two friends started a firm called Baggott, Shakes and Lewis. And then Baggott, Shakes and Lewis, after the war when dad came back, managed that. Then Goldsboro Mort bought them out and he managed Goldsboro Mort.

Yes, I tried to. But I think even now, even the Second World War, everybody’s a bit reluctant to talk. And so I never learnt anything from him. The only thing I did learn was that his sister was in Cairo in the military

hospital as a kind of a VAD [Voluntary Aid Detachment]. And, of course, they weren’t allowed in the officers’ rooms. And when the matron caught his sister and started ticking her off. And she said, “But I’m related to the major.” And he said, “I’ve never seen the woman before in my life.” She was furious with him. He gave

in later and told the truth. But he used to cough because the bullet entered just below where the nose joins the eye, just in here, and went through the neck and cut a nerve in his head and

came out his shoulder. And so he was never able to lift his hand more than about that high. And my sister and I used to hear him coughing uncontrollably some nights.

Well, I don’t know. He was

a good member of the RSL [Returned and Services League] and the South Australian Government had an inquiry into land settlement for the soldier settlers and I always remember this Minister for Lands, he found that split up blocks, in particularly the Mallee, down the southeast of South Australia and said, “Here you are. Aren’t you lucky. Five hundred acres.” And didn’t even give them an axe. And they had no fence and no money

and nothing to build a house with. And so he got that all changed so that they went on to the land. They had to borrow money, admittedly, but he had fences put up between the blocks and that kind of thing. And I found the same thing in closer settlement here, that the blocks were too small. We had a closer settlement advisory board and I can remember telling

the chap, the chairman, that I didn’t want any more subdivision. I wanted him to go out to the North Coast, where dairy farming was in trouble and do some amalgamation. I’d read up the act and the act said the board could do that. And so where you had two unsuccessful dairy farms, you had one successful one. Or sheep farms or whatever.

Just the marching. That’s all. We went in as kids and waved flags. Just as they do today.

I think Rundle Street and King William Street. Certainly King William Street but I’m not sure about Rundle Street.

About six or seven miles towards the hills.

Towards Mount Lofty at Glen Osmond. On the Glen Osmond Road.

Oh, I just think we were so lucky. We had, I was going to say ten acres, but we had quite a big acreage that my grandfather left and my father bought from his siblings. And one extraordinary things was that my grandfather had

got a, what do you call these rain people that find rain? Diviner. And struck a bore on the northern boundary. And as far as I know that bore is still flowing. Incredible. So we had plenty of water and we had a nice garden. And we had a man to milk the cows and stoke the

boilers. In those days we had coke and Mallee roots to have a fire. And they had to be cut up. So I lived a very comfortable life.

Well, a lot of the boys at school left.

And my father was always terribly worried because he couldn’t do very much to help the clients of Goldsboro Mort because Goldsboro didn’t have that much money to advance to anybody else, he was a worried man most of the time during the ’30s.

I wasn’t conscious of it. No. And we were lucky family but I suppose we thought everybody else was too. We never sort of, I don’t, there used to be more people knocking at the door wanted a hand out,

which we used to try and help them as much as possible. But a lot of them, unfortunately, were bludgers [layabouts] too.

Well, I suppose in those days, he was comparatively strict. But very comforting if you went, had any problems. And one extraordinary thing was, my sister and I, who was two years younger, every

Sunday had to go to his room. And in those rooms we had maids and things and they used to bring up slithers of butter and bread, fingers of bread. And we’d have a cup of tea and sugar. And we had to go on Sunday mornings always. And, for some reason, we had a theory that you should have castor oil for cleaning out once a week or something. So we’d have a tablespoon of castor oil and then he’d

butter a finger of bread. Not butter, sugar a finger of bread and give it to us. We didn’t like castor oil. I still don’t.

No. He was always getting annoyed because my mother was so slow at getting dressed. But that still happens, doesn’t it? He loved

the races. Used to have a horse or two I think. In fact his father had the honourable John Lewis’ Memorial Stakes named after him. But I think they were at Port Adelaide and they cancelled them ten years ago. He liked a game of football. But as a small boy, I used to like to sit down. He’d stand up the whole match. And he was a good footballer

himself. Played for Norwood and with Essington Lewis, his brother, and then he got selected for Norwood when they won the championship of Australia. They beat Carlton or something. I don’t know whether, do they still go on? Do they still have championship teams for Australia from each state?

Yeah, but that’s picked.

That’s not, no, this was the best team in South Australia would play the best team in Melbourne. And he was picked for that. I’ve still got a lot of scrapbooks of, his sister was, acted as his mother because his mother died very early and she used to look after him and kept all the scrapbooks with stories about him.

Don’t know where they are now. But I suppose they’re here somewhere. Other than that he and my mother used to go to the races which he used to enjoy. He couldn’t play sport because of his wound. Mother used to play golf. He’d play a little bit of tennis but he couldn’t bring his arm up very high so his arm only

came up as high as his waist, pretty well. He couldn’t, if he wanted to play cricket, he couldn’t bowl. He couldn’t lift his arm up and over. We had a property, it was about sixty six thousand acres, I think, down at Tintinara in the southeast and I used to drive down with him in those days.

And whilst it was the Adelaide/Melbourne road, it was sand hills and we used to get bogged and we used to carry rolls of matting and if we got bogged, we’d have to roll the car back and roll out the matting, get the car over the sand hill and then roll up the matting again. You can’t believe it now. I mean you can do eighty miles an hour, a hundred miles an hour through there. And it was about 130 miles, I can remember from

Adelaide to Tintinara, where the place was. I’ve only been back there once. But I spent a lot of holidays there. And he had an interest, which I think I inherited, I’m not sure, in a place called Bonbon Parcel Company. It was up the other side of Kingoonya. You don’t know where Kingoonya is? You might have heard of Tarcoola? No, you haven’t heard of Tarcoola. It’s west of Port Augusta,

south of the Simpson Desert I suppose. And we had, I think, thirty thousand acres up there, I think.

Yes, I got a bit upset, but it was no good telling my father I was upset. Because every holiday I got sent up to a property to work as a jackaroo [general hand on a property] kind of thing. So I was at Bonbon or Calgara or Tintinara or somewhere

like that every holiday. And all the other kids were down in the harbour swimming. And I complained to him, or I didn’t complain, I mentioned it to him one day and he said, “Son, when I was your age, my father used to send me from the borough with a mob of sheep to the market. When I got down there I’d bring a mob of cattle back and that was my holiday.” So, I didn’t have much argument, did I?

I wasn’t actually a jackaroo but I worked with the jackaroos. I quite enjoyed it because there were a lot of young men there and I learned how to pull up bores and clean out windmills and all that kind of stuff. Take out rams. In those days if you had to join your sheep, the rams had to be put out with the ewes; we didn’t have motorbikes and utilities. Now, I think they run them in the back of a truck or utility. We didn’t have all that.

We had to get up at three in the morning to catch the horses. And walk the rams to avoid the heat of the day. Because if you left it to ten o’clock, the rams would knock off. They’d just lie down and you couldn’t get them to move. So if you started at half past three in the morning, you normally made it.

Like it is now, I think.

Well, all of Australia did because people don’t seem to realise that sheep and cattle have got hard hooves. And the kangaroos and the emus didn’t. And so it did knock the country around. But with proper management and subdivision and rotational grazing, I think it’s come back a bit.

I don’t think there was many. There wasn’t any soldier settlers as far as I’m aware in the bush.

I’m talking about above Goyder Road. Do you know the Goyder Road? That’s the nineteen-inch rail foot line that goes; I don’t think there was any soldier settler north of that. There may have been. There may have been up on the Broken Hill line. I’m not sure.

Well, he was on this commission to look into the subdivision of land settlement.

And, as far as I know, he was, I don’t know there was a photograph or something there, I got it in the drawing there, of him for his contribution to the RSL.

Well, I suppose as much as anybody knows now. It’s not a celebration but a memorial

for those that really gave their lives and fought mainly in Gallipoli. But I don’t really know why Gallipoli got the, sort of thing. I suppose it was more dramatic. But I think it was for everybody. We think so here anyway.

No, very, I don’t think, I think

its very rare I’ve been to a dawn service anywhere at any time. But we did celebrate Armistice Day which we don’t seem to do now. You know, eleventh of the eleventh of the eleventh, whatever it is. The eleventh of November at eleven o’clock. And at class we had to stand up for two minutes silence. And I don’t think they’re doing that now. And here, I’m president of the RSL at Moss Vale and we

every year pick out what we’re going to celebrate because it never stops. There’s Korea and Vietnam and boom, boom, boom. So what we normally do is pick out a Victory in Japan day which the federal government keep calling Victory Pacific. And David Griffiths said, “I hate the bastards, it’s Victory Japan.” So he comes across here as a Changi veteran from Mittagong. And

so at Anzac Day, that’s pretty well it. Oh, Vietnam celebration too. And I forget which day.

Yeah, well I wasn’t conscious that there was a society but obviously there was. I don’t think it was conscious at St Peter’s College or Prince Alfred, for example. Pultney Grammar, those schools. But, no I don’t know that, I supposed the Adelaide Club represented, you know,

the doyens. No, I don’t know there’s anything much on that.

No. I don’t think we were allowed. I became a member during the war, Second World War, that is. And I got in early because I was

a son of a member, a former member. And that helped. And I didn’t use it often. Although there was a very, I think, funny occasion. We were all young after the war, we thought we were young and we used to drink too much of course. And we were in there with a chap named Ken Braum, who had been shark fishing with me too. Anyway we’re sitting there and drinking and

somebody said, “Ken, I haven’t seen you about in the club lately.” He said, “No.” He said, “They’ve asked me to stand down for three months.” And they said, “Why?” And he said, “Because I did this.” And he picked up his glass of vino and threw it at a painting. He said, “I didn’t know who that old bastard was.” So they put him out for another three months. But it had a funny tradition. First of all

my father was on the committee and they never had women in the club at all. I’m talking about maids, cooks, servants all men, stewards. And then my father came back furious one day and he said, “We lost that battle.” And my mother said, “What darling?” And he said that they’re allowing maids to serve in the dining room now. Don’t know what the place is coming to, you know.

Gee they were certainly old-fashioned. That was another funny story I think. When Dad came in, in the old house, there was a big key in the door and he’d turn the key and my mother would be sitting in a, what we called the smoke room, about the size of this. And she’d hear him come in and not say anything. First thing he’d do is go straight into the dining room and pour himself a scotch.

And she told me years after, she’d just listen and if it was a long squirt she’d know he’d had a reasonably good day. And if it was a short squirt he’d had a hell of a day. So she judged her behaviour or conversation depending on the squirt.

Did you ever hear Aunt Mame? She was a famous character, French character, that used to get involved in everything and had a joie de vivre, you know, and she was like that. She was always cheerful and she was involved in every damn thing you could find. She started the Adelaide Flower Festival. She was a great one

for displaying flowers. We had a two acre garden and she used to have big vases and big flowers everywhere always in the house. And I’m always telling my wife about some flowers, we never seem to have flowers here. Well, in the house. And she always had them. And she used to enjoy bridge, going to the races, sleeping in. You know,

she had a very easy life. She was a, I was going to say a, not a contemporary, but that type of period of Malcolm Fraser [former Prime Minister of Australia]. She came from Hamilton in Victoria. And the Laidlows had a stock and station agency and a lot of properties there. My grandfather was Tom. I think that’s why I was named. And he had a stock and station agent in Hamilton.

But she was a character. She used to like driving. And she and Edna Ayres, who is a niece of Sir Sidney Kidman, I think they were the first women to drive a car from Adelaide to Darwin. They stopped at all the schools and both boasted about their connections with everybody in the [Northern] Territory. Yes, she was a bird, really was.

We were allowed then to listen to the radio. My father used to, of course we didn’t have radios and when we first got one he had it right next to his chair. And the only thing he listened to was the news. Although it was rather funny, I made, in my youth, a crystal set [a form of radio]. You ever know a crystal set? And you made them out of a cigar box. And he got caught

out one night because he was listening to the test match. He snuck up into the nursery and the maids found him at midnight fast asleep with a headset on. So after that, I think we got a radio. Or wireless as we used to call them. But we weren’t allowed to turn it on except for the news. And the telephone he didn’t like. He called that an invention of the devil. He kept it way out in the hall so if you wanted to talk you had to walk

out in the hall and it was up on the wall and you had to shout and stand. So that shortened your conversation a bit. They were old fashioned. I can remember once, I must have been misbehaving, and my father came in. It must have been seven o’clock in the morning or something. And he said, “Is Master Tom misbehaving?” And the nurse or whoever it was said, “Yes,

Major” or “Yes, Sir. He won’t eat his breakfast.” He said, “Don’t worry. Give it to him for lunch. If he doesn’t eat it then, give it to him for dinner. And give him nothing else. He’ll get hungry.” And so that’s what happened. I had to eat it for lunch. Bacon and eggs for lunch or dinner. I forget which. So he was very strict. And they never worried about not spanking. They spanked all right. Except when, I must have been thirteen or fourteen, my mother was going to spank me

and I grabbed her hand and said, “It used to be all right, Mum, but not now.” Because I was stronger than she was. We had some funny times. She used to lay awake at night if I had gone out. Upstairs in her bedroom and keep her sidelight on. And her, you know, you want to go out with your girlfriend or something, so I used to park the car at the top of the driveway,

which, we had a sloping driveway, and give her a kiss goodnight, turn out the light, then sneak the car out in neutral, put it in gear by the time I got to the gate. They were great days. But we never had things like tennis courts and swimming pools which everybody seems

to have now or you can get to. The only place we used to be able to swim in Adelaide was at the baths, Adelaide Baths. Or drive to Henley or Glenelg. Although we did have holidays often, not often, at least once at year at Victor Harbour, which was a marvellous spot. Still is I think.

Goodness me. What day?

No, I do remember the opening of the Sydney Harbour Bridge, though. Listening to that

when [Captain Francis] De Groot came forward and cut the ribbon. And I met, strangely enough, with the Packer that died, what’s his name? Clyde. We were out at the golf club or something and we met this fellow who was in the New Guard movement. I forget his name. Terrible.

And, anyway, we started talking to him and he told us about it. And he said what people don’t know is that we had an ambulance standing by and if De Groot hadn’t got through we were going to grab Jack Lang [Premier of New South Wales] and chuck him in the back of the ambulance and tear off. So Clyde immediately went to the Telegraph and rang up and they said, “Oh, we’ve

already got the story, Sir.” So I can remember the opening of the Bridge. When was that? ’32?

Not at all. He wasn’t involved in politics. His father was. The Honourable John Lewis. He was

Chairman of the Legislative Council in Adelaide. And an uncle who married my aunt, he was a chap named Alec Melrose, he was a member of parliament. But Dad never was. And Walter Duncan, Dad’s great friend. And also, I think he was on the board of BHP [Broken Hill Proprietary] as well as, so he was a friend of Essington Lewis as well as Dad.

He was there. Walter Duncan. He told that marvellous story about the definition of a speech. It should be like a woman’s skirt. Have you ever heard that one?

‘Short enough to be interesting but long enough to cover the subject.’ Which I think is a pretty good definition. So if everybody stuck to that, we’d have good speeches.

He used to take a tram to work. Wealthy guy, a director of Goldsboro Mort and BHP, wouldn’t be poor. And a tram used to pass his place so he said, you know, “Why do I have a chauffeur?” So he used to take the tram into William Street and then come back by tram.

I don’t recall very much. I think we were at school and we got told. I don’t recall Menzies [Australian Prime Minister] saying, you know, “As a consequence, Australia too is at war.”

But I might have heard it. I don’t recall though. Of course great excitement because all of the fellows thought they were going to take the place of the old men and join up. So the big thing was to get out of school and get into the army, navy or air force. Most of them tried to get into the air force.

Oh I suppose that I, and I would have except that I was a junior when my father died and my mother was furious, but the trustees, and I think it’s still true today, they just want to

tidy up everything and so they don’t have to be trustees any more. And so they sold a lot of the stuff. Properties and everything else. And I was still at school and I didn’t realise what was going on and I don’t know that I could have done anything anyway. My mother was absolutely furious. So, really, I was left with very little in respect of properties.

’36.

So it was three years before the blow up came. He thought it would. Of course Hitler was on the move by then. And Essington Lewis had told Menzies and people that he thought it was inevitable. He travelled the world looking at steel works and things. And he could see the preparation

that Japan was making and Germany was making. Because he had an excuse, being head of BHP, going to see all these places and he would see that they were not only making vehicles. You know, they were into everything else. And he came back and gave a pretty good warning. Then, of course, they made him Director General of Munitions and Director General of Shipping and then Director General of Aircraft. And he and his colleagues,

including Harold Darling, who was chairman of BHP, they really started the aircraft industry. Built the Wirraway and all that kind of thing. Strangely enough Harold Darling’s son, John Darling, lives about ten miles away. Considering they’re both South Australian families.

He thought he did, yes. And he was right, of course. What mainly, he used to keep, unfortunately I don’t, but he used to keep meticulous notes of everything in notebooks. I think they’re at the BHP archives now. Just tiny handwriting and if he’d leave a factory he’d put everything down about steel production and

the number of people working. And he had a memory that, he used to be able to go into Whyalla and say, “Has your wife got over the rheumatism?” you know. Over a thousand people working for BHP but he knew a lot of them.

Essington Lewis became the

surrogate father and he looked after us very well. And, of course, I suppose we, the war was on and we all grew up and, except for my young brother who still hasn’t grown up. He’s nine years younger. No, he’s fine. He went to Saints too. Dad was

a governor of the school council too in St Peter’s.

Well, school was very good and

the house master made me a school prefect and gave me some responsibility and I was captain of the boarding house and all that sort of stuff. Which drew my mind away from it a bit. I don’t know that there was any great influence after Dad died. Certainly Essie and as soon as the war

started and I’d left school he, I wanted to join up, even though I was too young to join up. And he said, “The war’s going to go on for a good number of years, so don’t worry about it.” Everybody thought it was all going to be over in about six months, you know. And so he got me and took me to his property in Tallarook, Victoria. Beautiful property called Landscape and I managed that

for three or four months. And that was an experience. He used to only come up every few weekends because he was pretty busy. But I always remember riding in the paddock with him. And he said, “What are you doing here?” And I said, “Oh, I’m experimenting with this.” And he said, “Never experiment.” It was the last thing I ever thought he’d say. And I said, “Why, sir?” And he said, “Let

somebody else do it and you learn from it.” Which makes sense, doesn’t it? Why go to the expense of doing an experiment. Get the other guy to do it. Anyway I managed that property for four months or something while the manager had a holiday and then the manager came back. And then I was allowed to join up. I don’t know whether I was allowed to but I got my mother to sign a form which, I don’t know whether she knew what it was but it got me in the army.

I only wanted to run a property, which we owned. Which was dispersed by the bloody trustees. That’s where I thought I’d finish up. Hopefully.

A lot. A lot. I don’t know whether you can play this but did you hear the story about the two, an elderly men and an elderly woman in the respite care centre? And they fell in love and they thought they’d get married. But then they thought they ought to ask questions. And he said to the lady, he said, “And what about sex?”

And she said, “Infrequently.” He said, “Is that one word or two?”

All of them. No, the only embarrassing time and I’ll probably see her when I go to Adelaide next week was,

or this week, I was bringing the girl I was taking out home and we ran out of petrol. And we had to ring her father. And that wasn’t the most pleasant evening I had. He had to bring a can of petrol and find us. I didn’t take her out for six months. No, we all had good fun. We used

to, there used to be a famous dance called the Blue and White every year. And you used to take your girlfriends there. It was all very innocent in those days.

It was a St Peter’s College dance. Annual dance. And you’d all look forward to the Blue and White. That was the famous dance. I think Prince

Albert had the Blue and Red and White. They were our great rivals, of course. But there were characters there like Tim Waugh, the famous bowler and a few others.

Yes, well, he said here, he and Jessie [Bradman’s wife],

years ago. Talking about ’75 or something. What happened was, they asked him to open the Bradman Oval. This was before they built the museum and everything else. And so I said, “Would you like to stay here?” He said yes they would. So he and Jessie stayed here. And I had a bit of a dinner party. It was only about half a dozen. He said, “What have I got to do tomorrow?” And I said, “I’m not sure.” And the

town clerk said, “Oh well, you’ll know when you get there.” You know, a bit casual. And he said, “What have they done to the oval?” And somebody said, “They’ve put a fence around it and re-levelled it.” He said, “But it never was level.” He told us that he remembers every oval. Where the wind came from. Where the run off was for a ball grading. You know, all this kind of

stuff. His memory was phenomenal. A great, great man.

No, I saw the test matches and everything else. But I never knew Bradman. The only chap I knew was Tim Waugh who taught at St Peter’s for a while. But we used to go and watch as kids, the test matches and things at the Adelaide Oval.

Yeah, there’s two people that I admire, not only as sportsmen, as gentlemen. And that’s Don Bradman and Charles Lindbergh [aviator]. And I looked after Lindbergh when he came out once. Well, the only time I think. Took him up to Broken Hill. He wanted to live with the Aborigines and I said that I didn’t think that was a very good idea at the time. So.

Not when I was growing up. But we used to, yeah, well, that was (UNCLEAR). When I was Minister for Mines I regularly visited Broken Hill. One of the advantages was the director’s cottages were available to the minister. So I came out

one day and the district surveyor from the lands department had to pick me up and we had to go and look at some land problems. And, as I came out, we got in the car and I said, “Pretty rough lodging.” And this fellow, he lives in Darwin now. “Yes, boss.” he said, “But the price is right.” They were, I think it was a good idea. They had North Broken Hill and South Broken Hill. Each had a lodge. One of them had a

butler even. I mean for the directors or VIPs [Very Important Persons] could go up there and use them. A minister was a VIP at the time. In fact that painting, I think, came from Broken Hill. And that one certainly did. Jack Absalom.

Me to do otherwise? Oh, I think I told you. Because my father was in the army, in the Light Horse. So most of us tried to follow, you know, where our fathers had been. Just sort of tradition I suppose. But my best mate got, joined the Empire [Air] Training Scheme in the air force and got killed over Scotland.

Well, I wasn’t, I was too young obviously, but there’s still a Light Horse, there still is I think, I wouldn’t say squadrons, but groups in various places. I think there was one in Goulburn, I’m not sure. But other than that they were a fighting force mobile, that’s all. Before the tanks.

In the army? I just think it’s something that had to be done. We were all in it and we all had to make a contribution. One way or the other. My mother started a thing called the Thrift Campaign which was, she

raised, I think, thirty six thousand quid [pounds]. By saving tin cans and converting them into something or other. And getting clothing and she had about ten or fifteen staff. She got Tom Blother to give her free travel so they’d bring in newspapers. Sold those as whatever they do with newspapers. It was a

contribution to the war. Wouldn’t you join up if a war started now?

Yeah, but if your country was at war, and one thing we were all proud of, that we were all volunteers. There was nobody conscripted. All the AIF [Australian Imperial Force] were volunteers.

No, it was everybody wanting to make a contribution. Like our parents had done. Or our fathers had done. And I suppose that was a great motivation, that your father had been involved. Could say, OK, it was your turn.

I think we were loyal to the old country and I don’t know how we could protect it.

That didn’t occur to us that we could protect it necessarily. But we were loyal to it and I think, you know, in those days when you looked at a map of the world there was red everywhere. So you tried to protect what you had.

Well, we didn’t know it for the Empire for long. It sort of became the Commonwealth. I just think we were looking out for ourselves as well as everything else.

We always looked up to it. And, in fact, my mother and others of her ilk, would all, if they were travelling to England, would all say they were travelling home. That was an expression that everybody used because that was the mother country. And they used to say, “We’re going home.” Of course in those days they all went by ship. The

Orcades or the Orontes or something.

Well, they were mainly held by the schools. And it was just to celebrate that we had an empire. I don’t recall it in my school. But I think even in my time in politics they had Empire Days.

I didn’t discuss it with anyone I think. I told my mother I was going to do it and she said, “You can’t.” I was young, you see. And anyway I persuaded her that I could and she signed the right forms.

Well, I just think that everybody else was

there and the fact that I was a few months younger, you had to be eighteen. And of course, as you probably know, some even as young as fifteen managed to get away with it. And if your parent or guardian signed a form saying you were that, and I think there was an awful lot of forgery too. People were very keen to join up.

I think I did. I persuaded her that all my mates were. And I’m not too sure; I was probably about eighteen anyway. So she didn’t, I don’t think we were cheating, I think she just agreed.

Well, when we were at school we all discussed where we

should go and what unit we should join up and what service we should join up. Other than that, there wasn’t too much. A lifetime friend of mine who I was close with mainly in the five years I served, joined up, co-incidentally and his number was six after mine. So he just happened to come down and then we met. But it was an eye opener, coming from a place like St Peter’s College where,

you know, I was President of the Royal Flying Doctors Service in New South Wales, and then later for Australia. And the mayor of Broken Hill was introducing me round to the council in Broken Hill one day at the services club and he said, “Have you met Tommy Lewis?” I don’t why not Tom, but I like Tom, I don’t like Tommy much. But anyway he said Tommy Lewis. And he introduced

me to some of the councillors and one of them said, “I know Tom. He was corps of our bloody tent.” And since I’d been a sergeant major in the cadets I got made lance corporal and it was my luck of the draw that I had six Broken Hill miners in my tent. And it was grand because where would I

go and live with six miners. You know, it was a real leveller, so to speak.

You just got into line and you had to have a medical inspection, I think. And the sergeant would say, “Are you 18 son?” and you’d say, “Yes, Sir.” And you got, you didn’t get too much of an inspection. I

don’t think they gave a damn, frankly. Colour blindness was a thing and deafness was definitely something. But I never had any trouble. I was in and out in ten minutes.

Before that I must tell you, I wrote to the Department of Veterans’ Affairs or your mob, I forget who it was, to get my war record. And they came back the other day and the only thing they gave to me was

my first pay was five dollars a day. But my mate said, “Yeah, but you get three square meals,” he said, “And a bloody uniform and a haircut.” But five bob wasn’t much, was it? But it went up to seven and six because I became a corporal later.

Go along and collect your gear. The first thing. Your uniform and

everything else. Of course, chances are half the stuff didn’t fit so you used to have to argue with the quartermaster. And the fellows handing it out didn’t seem to give a damn. And then I think I went to a camp called Woodside up in the hills before I was sent to Puckapunyal. I think it was Puckapunyal. You know, it’s a long time ago.

Absolutely none. We all worked well together. As far as I know. I don’t know what they thought of me but I had no trouble with them.

Well, I suppose having a strict father

I was used to a certain amount of discipline and being in the cadets at school had taught me, you know, to.. it was a bit advantage, the cadets, because, I think they’ve changed now but I found out here a couple of years ago, we have chevalier cadets, and they come to Anzac parades and everything else. And they went, the cadets weren’t allowed to have rifles recently. And I think they’ve got them back now. But we were all

issued with .303s [rifles], I think they were and we learnt how to parade and, you know, so that there’s a big advantage when you came into the AIF to be able to do all the drill.

Pretty well the same. Same as the cadets. Might have been longer marches and all that sort of stuff.

Well, the biggest thing is, I’m sure, they wanted to keep you busy. Because if you weren’t busy you would cause trouble. So, route marches were the kind of thing. So if they didn’t know what to do, they sent you on a route march. But what we used to like and got too little of, I suppose, because they were short of ammunition, was firing practice.

You went to a firing range and, you know, you had an instructor. Not necessarily lying alongside you but you might have four fellows and the instructor standing behind you and telling you, you know, put your arms there and your legs there. Make sure you close the left eye and all that sort of stuff

Well, only using a .22 in the bush and in the cadets. And in the cadets we used to, I think once a year or something, we used to shoot .303s. Antiquated bloody things they are too. And heavy.

We didn’t think so. We didn’t know anything else.

I never got rid of a .303 until I got to Borneo. And swapped it for a Japanese flag with a merchant marine. I found the American carbine one of the best things. I think it’s still about. One of my friends, Shannon, seems to think it’s in Kapunda. I brought it back. I nearly brought a speedboat back but I

couldn’t get the fellow to put it on the boat. We, when we arrived at the place called Macassar, am I going ahead?

Well, I didn’t have enough points to immediately go back, come back to Australia. And after the disastrous episode of the fellow shooting through with the money, I was paraded down to the brigadier

and he said, “Lewis, there’s a 900 ton chap’s ship you’ve got to take charge of.” And I said, “I can’t paddle a bloody canoe.” And he said, “You commandos are meant to be versatile. Get going.” So three of us got going. And I went down and I took six or seven of my fellows. There were, I think, ten, eleven Japanese crew. It was all merchant. And it happened to be a

Dutch vessel, 900 ton, 600 ton something like that. And the Japanese had captured it and it wasn’t a warship or anything else. So, anyway, I didn’t know what to do. I know what I have to do and that is cart coal from just up above Samarinda across the Macassar Straits to Macassar. What do they call it?

Macassar? Yeah, Macassar. And so I thought, “Can I trust these Japanese?” I mean they outnumbered us and everything else. And I had a little guy called Patrick. I wonder whatever happened to him? He was an interpreter. Nice little chap, as they go. And so I had two of my fellows hold the captain and we, the commandos had stabbing knives so I drew my knife out,

drew it across his throat and said to the interpreter, “Ask him if we’re going to have any trouble?” And the captain thought we weren’t going to have any trouble and we didn’t have any trouble. Although not of his making. Since I knew nothing about sailing or charts or any other bloody thing, when we picked up the coal up at Loekula, Samarinda and went across, we went into Ujung Pandang or

Macassar and I think we must have had more bloody nerve than sense. Commandos wore berets and I thought it would be very nice if I had a new uniform since I was captain of this vessel. So I sent the boys down to raid a go-down. A go-down is a warehouse on the wharf and get some linen.

So they got some linen and I got a Chinese to make me shorts and shirt out of this white thing. And I used to wear my beret with that. I was walking down the street one day, a lieutenant commander saluted me and I should be saluting him. Anyway, it was a chap named George Sanks[?] that used to work with Goldsboros with my father. He said, “Good God, it’s bloody Lewis.” So he said, “What are you doing?” I said, “I’m captain of Her Majesty’s Ship, the Kita Maru.” And I said,

“What do you do?” And he said, “I’m the port director.” I said, “What does a port director do?” He said, “I control all the shipping coming into port.” I said, “Well, you never controlled us.” So he said, “You’d better come up to the director’s office.” So we climbed up these steps and you could see the whole of the harbour. And he had a chart there and he said, “Which way did you come in?” And I, because I’d watched the captain come in and I knew which way. And he said, “How often have you done that?” And I said, “Three or four times.” I said, “Why?” He said, “You’ve been right through

an Australian minefield.” I said, “You bastards never told us.” He said, “Well you never asked.” So you can be arsey can’t you. Just shows you how lousy the bloody navy were. They couldn’t even lay the minefield correctly. So that was a funny incident. Well, what happened was that Nips [Japanese] had a, you know the kamikaze [suicide] aeroplanes?

Well, they had a speedboat of, I don’t know, ten feet I suppose. And it had kind of a Jap-made Chev [Chevrolet] engine in it. And the whole idea was you put explosives in the front and the kamikaze driver drove straight into ships and blew the ships out. Well, these were on the wharf at Macassar. And so I looked over them and I couldn’t see any explosives or

anything. So I got the boys, or the Japanese, to load this thing on. And do up the engine and everything and I used to go aquaplaning. Water skiing hadn’t been invented then. I used to go aquaplaning around. And I tried to get some bugger to bring it back. But they wouldn’t. So we had a lot of fun.

I don’t know that I got into any trouble. Tried to avoid it. What kind of trouble would you expect me to get into?

Oh, absence without leave. Drinking too much. That was the main things I think. I can’t remember. Yeah, I don’t think there was anything else.

I had the powers of a corporal without the money. Lance

corporal, I didn’t, I got made corporal which made me an extra one an six a day. You know, after two months according to the DVA [Department of Veterans’ Affairs] stuff. But you didn’t have very much except that the sergeant used to blame everything on you and if the latrines had to be cleaned out, you had to pick the men to do it and the men told you what to do. That was

one thing that they couldn’t understand. When we were at Duntroon becoming officers for three months, whatever it was, two months, the Duntroon cadets were all, treated each other very smartly because, you know, saluted and stood to attention and everything else. And, gee, they were in for a shock when they joined AIF, you know, and nobody took much notice of them.

In what way?

I don’t think they were rough. The esprit de corps was absolutely tremendous. There was no doubt about it. And you stuck by your mates. I don’t think it was apocryphal but when

I was up the Exhibition Centre in Brisbane, waiting for embarkation, I think. I forget what I was doing there. One of the fellows got caught stealing from his mate’s pack. And it so happened that afternoon he was walked up the back of the stand and happened to fall off. Well that gave him a bit of a lesson, didn’t it? So you stuck by your mates. You didn’t

steal or anything.

Chap named Keith Shannon. Blue Shannon from Baggott. Well in South Australia, nearly Kapunda. Tim Dunstan, I suppose. He got killed in Balikpapan. Max Monfries, who’s still alive. I hope to see him but he tells me he’s gone blind. Murray Birch,

I don’t know what ever happened to him. I suppose they were my best mates. Only Blue Shannon was in the commandos with me. And the trouble with the commandos was that you never, as I think I mentioned before, or rarely, acted as a complete unit. You split off to do certain jobs. For example, if the

battalion commander or whoever, brigadier, felt that the troops weren’t showing enough aggression or anything, they send a section of commandos up to, you know, lead the way sort of business. Maybe I’m praising up a bit but I think that’s what used to happen.

Oh, dependence one on the other. In fact, somebody said, when we were government, the Askin government, “Why was the Askin government so good?” And somebody said,

“Because ten out of the twelve were ex-service.” We were all loyal to each other. We stuck up for each other.

In training times? Oh well, you took the blame for things. You helped, you know, if a fellow broke his leg, or something, you cooperated in every way. If he was AWL [Absent Without Leave], you covered for him and all

that kind of stuff. If he was drunk, you’d help him home.

Oh, yes, of course. I don’t know that I can recall them. Some of the toughest things were at Canungra, which was a, I don’t know what they call it, an army training centre south of Brisbane, in the jungle there. And

I think my mate got court martialled or I got court martialled once and they were very, very strict. You had to crawl under machine gun fire and all that sort of stuff. So you’d crawl there and the machine gun bullets began over the top of your head and all this kind of stuff. I don’t know why I got into trouble. But, anyway, it’s one of those things. Oh, you had things like

crossing rivers on ropes and rolling off the back of moving trucks on to the ground to take cover, and all this kind of stuff. So it, but we were fit, you know.

Oh yes.

Well, at Puckapunyal we were, I was in the armoured division and it was mainly in tanks and Bren gun

carriers and, actually I did a couple of courses there. One which stood me in good stead was the driving and maintenance school. I mean others asked what drove an engine? And I said, and I thought, “Petrol.” And he said, “What happens to the petrol?” And I had no bloody idea. Well, by the time I’d had a month D&M [Driver and Maintenance School], I knew what petrol did and where it went and what drove things. I think it was good education.

We went to gas schools. I’ve still got, I think I’ve got a scar on my wrist where they dropped a tiny speck of mustard gas on you just to show you what damage it could do. But I’m still waiting for DVA to send me where I went or what I did. We used to, we learnt at Puckapunyal too to drive Bren gun carriers and things, tanks and all that kind of stuff.

I went back on a reunion a few months back. It was rather interesting. And at Puckapunyal, you know, shooting two miles and all this kind of stuff. Although I never finished up in a tank, thank heaven.

I think at Puckapunyal.

One of things when I was an instructor was, only thank heaven for a short time, was some fellows used to freeze. I don’t know if you’ve ever struck it but, you know, you’re going down hill in a Bren gun carrier and the fellow would say, you know, put the brakes on or turn left, or something, and he wouldn’t. He was just like this. So you had to knock his arm or twist the wheel or

do something. Armoured cars I used to like. We used to have a general called General HCH Robertson who used to be called Red Robby. When I took this Jap ship over, after the war, my mate Shannon, he got loaded with being ADC [Aide de Camp] to Robertson, which he didn’t want to do.

But I got the job of taking over the ship. Anyway, I kicked the Jap captain out of his cabin, which was aft of the bridge. And it was quite nice and it had a little sort of balcony place and I set myself up and, because we called at different ports, I used to draw liquor for myself and for the boys at different ports because I knew they wouldn’t be checking. And I was sitting there having an

aperitif one evening and away came the general’s car. And Shannon was in it with Red Robby and Red Robby said to Shannon, he said, “Shannon. That bastard Lewis, has got a better life than I’ve got!” And I think I did have. We used to take coal and one time we took some Indonesian nurses and other things like

birds nest soup which I’d never, birds nests, not the soup. I’d never, because it was close to the Dyak country. Do you know birds’ nest? They, it was made out of the saliva of the bird and it stuck to, under waterfalls as a rule, and they cut them off and make them. So we used to transship a lot of stuff. Coolies [labourers] used to work. They used to work.

I went to, at one time I got a message that the, he wasn’t a Rajah, he was a something or other. Would I like to come and visit him? What was he? Anyway, I said yes and I went up to this palace and met him and then he asked me to come to a concert. And they had a mimic there

at the concert and it was terrific. And then, suddenly, this guy next to me, what do I call him, a Rajah? I forget his title. He got up and he went to play in the orchestra. And I went back years and years later and they’d turned his palace into a museum. But they said his son is still alive and so we walked down

and here were these natives, all coming and kissing his foot and offering him things. Even though he was living in a comparatively, you know, humble thing compared to his palace. Anyway I was telling this chap with me who could speak the language. And he said, he remembers your visit when we were in the army. So that was interesting.

Because he had, I think, seven wives and I think there were ten, fifteen children or something. So it was an interesting time.

At a place called Loakulu. It’s, well, you look at a map of Borneo. Do you know where Balikpapan is? Okay, we go north of Balikpapan and the next place is a town called Samarinda and you

go inland from Samarinda and this place, I don’t know even how you spell it but it’s called Loakulu. And that’s where we used to get the gold and that’s where this Rajah fellow used to have his palace.

Well, we were comparatively lucky because my Uncle Essington had a property only about

twenty miles away, and so, with a swimming pool and everything else. And after the war, when my brother and I were called there, he said to my brother Sandy, “And they thought they were heroes but I know very well they were beeros.” Because we used to drink him under. Pinch all his grog [alcohol], of course. But he noticed. But he had a swimming pool there so we spent quite a, much of our spare time there.

But we used to do trips in the countryside with these vehicles and learnt how to handle them and so forth. Do a bit of firing sometimes.

Well, there is a book and I don’t know where it is, called Waltzing Matilda. And, of course, eventually they made a Matilda tank. It was the first tank made in Australia. And

I think it was the first tank that was completely cast. Do you understand what I mean? All the other tanks were put together with rivets and things. Which, if something hit it the rivets used to bounce around and that didn’t cheer you up. Apparently, although I never went into action in an armoured car or anything, but if you look up a book called Waltzing Matilda. I’m just trying to think if I’ve got a copy here somewhere, it explains it.

In effect.

Very little. The war had just started and they were just trying to get volunteers and then of course the 9th Division and the 6th Division went away and the 7th Division got caught. And I suppose I was

lucky that I didn’t get into one of those divisions rather than the armoured division. It was just so, I mean I wouldn’t have objected, it was just coincidental that at the time we joined up they were looking for people for the armoured division. And even then we were reinforcements. So we didn’t really join until we got to Morotai in the Halmaheras, which is a place you never want to go to, go to Morotai.

Arse end of the world.

I could be quite wrong in a number of things.

About what everyone else knew. Nothing.

I suppose nobody did much.

Except from what you heard or read. We thought that Singapore was impregnable. Which everybody claimed it was. Of course it didn’t turn out one way or the other. The Middle East was a little bit different. Didn’t know too much about that either. Just a lot of dirt.

I think the armoured division was as good as any other division in Australia. It had great morale. And I think it had a better selection of men.

I shouldn’t say that, I suppose, because it’s very hard to judge. I think that a lot of the people were, well, for example, in those days not everybody could drive, for example. And I think they had the pick of them. Maybe I’m wrong, I don’t know.

Discharge, I think. I quite enjoyed that.

Other than leave and that kind of thing, I don’t think I enjoyed it much at all.

One of the things that I’m still getting a pension, strangely enough, for, was them urging cigarettes on you. Everywhere we had the Salvation Army or the Red Cross or somebody gave you cigarettes. And then I got emphysema, eventually. What do you think I liked about it? Camaraderie.

I think there was a tremendous amount of camaraderie and I had four or five very close friends and we used to stick together. Go on leave together and everything else. No, I can’t think of any particular area or unit where I liked better than the other.

I didn’t get much of a kick out of that. I mean it’s not much different from driving a car. The Bren gun kind of things you had levers and all that sort of stuff. But so what? And the trouble is with tanks and everything, they used to throw tracks. And they were an awful bloody nuisance, putting a track back on. No, I didn’t

enjoy all that at all. And I quite enjoyed armoured cars to the extent that, at least they were on rubber and they had tyres and that kind of thing. And I enjoyed Western Australia, being in an armoured car and being asked by headquarters to go on reconnaissance for a rest area up and down the coast.

Which we spent longer than we probably should of. But then they never used the area.

No, I can remember my mother coming to see me off after embarkation leave.

And being a bit tearful. But she had friends in high places and she knew more about where we were going than I did. And, of course, I suppose, I was the eldest son and she was probably sorry to see me go. But, you know, there was nothing much you could do.

Well, I think everybody instinctively felt we were more involved and that was true. And felt more threatened. And then, of course, the raid on Darwin and Broome and places like that didn’t cheer anybody up. Then, of course, the, what line did they call it? The Brisbane Line.

That was a bit of a fuss. I don’t, I suppose it’s like any news now. How do you feel about this, that and the other? You accept it. It’s not; you don’t go on about it much.

Of course you felt concern. But there’s nothing you can do about it is there? We were lucky in as much as, that after the embarkation leave that they’d fallen before we got there. All my mates said, “Jesus, we’re lucky.” Because we would have been there. We’d have been in the box. I’ve got no friends now that didn’t like the box much.

I don’t know. I have an opinion that nothing changed much at all. You’re in the war; the only thing is you had another enemy. Which, I think, a lot of people expected. Didn’t necessarily predict.

Well, some did, I suppose. But, no I don’t know that, it’s just another enemy we had to put up with.

The biggest nuisance, I think everybody found, was petrol rationing.

I thought there were some questions that I didn’t have to answer. No, I suppose we just saw our mates and, you know, said goodbye and everything. Of course you’re not meant to have told them it was embarkation leave. But

there were a lot of people that weren’t there. Because there was only, you don’t want to see the people that you had embarkation leave with because you saw them, you know, before and after. But, no, I think you visited old friends and relatives. That type of stuff. It wasn’t that long. It was ten days so that didn’t take long.

Yeah, the 2nd Armoured Reconnaissance.

No. Since we had been selected from the whole of the division, volunteers, I might add, and been selected from the whole division, it was a pretty, what might I say, principled, pretty, a good unit.

When we became the 11th Armoured Cars, General Robertson said, “You are my eyes. Without you, I cannot see.” So that’s what reconnaissance is all about. I mean

finding people and not letting them know. I must tell you a story, off the record, of my friend, Garlan, Colonel Garlan. He’s not a big man, well he’s dead now, but he’s not a big man. But he had a DCM [DCM Distinguished Conduct Medal], MC [Military Cross] and bar. And one of the stories was that he was pinned down by a group of Japanese but

he didn’t know where the fire was coming from. And he noticed then that a wisp of steam was coming up and he realised that, like the Australian or English Vickers gun, machine gun, they’re water cooled and they gave off steam. I don’t know how you can lie in the jungle being pinned down by fire and start thinking of that. So he lobbed a

grenade in that direction and pissed off. But you’d have to think, wouldn’t you?

Yeah, I’ll say. That’s why he won all the decorations, I suppose.

Yeah, I was a sergeant when I went to Duntroon to become an officer for, you know,

it was far better than spending three years like those cadets. I think I spent about three, I don’t know, two or three months. And we had some funny occasions then. My friend, Shannon, was there too. And my cousin was a flight lieutenant in the air force. And it was New Year’s Eve, I think, and we all got loaded [drunk] in Sydney and I said, “Oh, God, we’re going to be absent without leave.” And

Bluey Truscott and Dick Lewis, my cousin, said, “Don’t worry; we’ll fly you down in the morning.” So we went out to Bankstown and Killer Caldwell was the squadron leader. And they said, “Oh Christ, he won’t let us take the plane.” So we had to sneak the plane out and fly off. And when we landed – what do they call them in the air force? – an aircraftsman came out and said,

I don’t know, “Air Commodore So-and-so’s landing here in a few minutes. You’d better clear away.” So my friend Shannon and I shot across the tarmac and up the hill to Duntroon. And my cousin and his mate got really pissed off and they got arrested for something or other. Hardly arrested but they had duty officer for two weeks. And, of course, by the time we got up the hill we were

absent without leave. And then we got paraded, very nice captain fellow. He’d just come back from New Guinea or somewhere. And I went in and I said, “Oh, look, the reason is we had bad weather and the planes couldn’t take off,” or something. Some pretty weak excuse. And he said, “Very well.” And then Shannon went in and he said, “Oh, Shannon, what was the weather like?” And he said, “Oh, terrific.” So that buggered

our story up a bit. So we had duty sergeants for a week or two. And, actually, that was, they put me under arrest again. Not arrest. I suppose it was arrest. Because I was duty sergeant and I hadn’t been there. So I was absent without leave and duty sergeant. So I suppose I was lucky to make officer. They were short of officers at the time, I think.

Yes. Well, so is Killer Caldwell. In fact there’s a lady in Canberra who wrote to me about three or four months ago and said, “I understand you knew Clive Caldwell.” We should call him Clive. We shouldn’t call him Killer, I suppose. And I said, “Yes.” She said, “Do you know any stories?” I said, “Well, I can remember one.” John Waddy, who was also an air ace,

but he was in parliament with me, he died and I was asked to be a pallbearer and so was Caldwell. And I said to my wife, when we got to the cathedral, “You better move inside. I’ll stay on the aisle.” And Killer walked in. He’d been asked to be a pallbearer too. As he passed, I said, “G’day.” And he nudged me. He said, “You take the starboard.” Never heard a coffin being called starboard and port before.

Oh dear.

Well, Duntroon wasn’t recruits. We had to be sergeants to be there. I don’t know, a month or two. I suppose two months. In those days

we used to sneak across and cross the creek and go to the swimming pool. You know, I can’t tell you all the places we used to go now. But it was good training. The only thing is that we thought the cadets were, they became officers. We’d been sergeants and therefore had the year

or so in the business. And I think probably to this day, it’s a pity that, what are they? Eighteen year old, nineteen year old men, boys, get three years training and never had to handle troops. And this is not for the record, I hope, but, you know, they don’t realise if they say, “Trooper, don’t do that.” The trooper’s liable to tell him to get f…….

And we were used to all that and the only reason we got promoted was because we were big and we could fight, I suppose. But they seemed to think that they were going to, because every cadet told every other cadet and they said, “Yes sir, no sir,” because they’d never handled troops. And we, I still think they ought to give at least six months in the regular army to learn what men are all about. And not just be the elite mob and then

get sent to the army.

Oh, good looks I suppose. Buggered if I know how we got selected.

Well, I was corporal, I suppose. I apparently evidenced some leadership qualities that they thought were worthwhile. I thought the best thing that stood me in good stead; I was big and could fight. So nobody

took me on much.

What do you mean? By being a Lewis or Essington Lewis’ nephew or something?

Well, I don’t know that I had any, except for my mate; I don’t, well, a couple of mates. I don’t think that there was any officer I knew that went to St Peter’s or even came from Adelaide.

I don’t know. As far as I know there wasn’t any, what would I say, prejudice. For or against. I don’t know. I think people sort of, I shouldn’t say this, stand out as being leadership material, don’t you? Otherwise we wouldn’t have bosses.

I suppose we all wanted more money. Was the main thing. And you didn’t get paid much as a private. You didn’t get paid much as a sergeant but it was better than a private. And also you had the privileges of sergeants’ mess and when you, you had an officers’ mess later and so forth which was a bit better tucker [food] and you got waited on and all that sort of stuff.

Through my cousin, Dick Lewis. He saved Paddy Finnegan’s life in the English Channel a couple of times and got a DFC [Distinguished Flying Cross] or something. And he used to drink too much. Killed himself in Western Australia. So he asked us up to New Year’s Eve, or whatever the occasion was, I don’t know.

And I didn’t know Bluey Truscott was going to be there.

Well, Bluey Truscott was petty well known. Mainly because of his activities in the Middle East. Killer Caldwell, I think, was better known for smuggling grog from Darwin. He apparently used to buy it from the Yanks and had some excuse to fly it down to Sydney.

But I don’t know where he got arrested. But he certainly got into trouble. He was a big drinker. So much so that he and his wife, he used to drink a bottle of scotch by midday, as a rule. They were sitting there one evening and somebody came into the house, went upstairs, took all the jewellery and pissed off. They didn’t even know anybody had been there

Another occasion which I relayed to this lady who was writing the story, I haven’t, I don’t know whether she’s written the story yet, or book. When I was President of the Flying Doctor’s Service, we were having a meeting at the Army and Navy Club and as he came in, I think it was ten o’clock or something or nine o’clock, some time, Killer was at the bar, which is pretty early to start drinking. Even for me.

And I said, “G’day Clive.” And he said, “G’day mate.” So we went into have a meeting and we came out at about twelve o’clock to have lunch. And I said, “Clive, would you like to join us for lunch?” He said, “Oh, no, mate, thanks. I thought I’d have a few drinks before.” Been drinking for two and half hours then. So, I mean, he knocked it about.

No, I can’t recall it. I don’t know whether they had a special thing. The cadets did. As far as I know we just said, you passed, you didn’t and so forth. I think most of them passed. It was rather interesting when we first arrived, they still had horses. I went down to have a look at them but they never trained any of the cadets

riding or anything but they still had stables and things there. I quite enjoyed that. There was a very nice fellow who, what was his name? Anyway, he married the daughter of a newsagent in Canberra. Walkam[?], I think his name was. He shared a room with Shannon and I. It was very strict. We had a chap named [RSM] Fango Watson.

And he came from the Scots Guards, I think, an Englishman. And he came out to help with training and everything else. And gawd, he had us stepping the exact thirty inches, whatever it is. And swinging the arms. Still today I notice, I go for a walk in the morning, I’ve got my arm like this. Because he said, “Put your thumb there and curl your forefinger around it.”

No, and put the thumb inside.

Like that, and you swing your arm like that.

Still doing it. So he had a lot of influence. He used to send us on route marches. You know, four or five miles and you had to do it in certain times and all that. You were fit and young.

Didn’t do you any harm, I suppose. We all resented it, mind you. Do you fellows like fish?

No. I mean

two months, and you’re working pretty hard. I don’t recall anything. We used to go to the swimming pool and walk. No, I don’t, I didn’t have much time.

Oh, no.

But there were more courses. Oh, one thing I should, the Governor-General, Lord Gowrie, was, Sir Alexander Hall Given, and he was Governor of South Australia, and his wife, Zara, was a friend of my mother’s. And, apparently, when he became Governor-General, as Lord Gowrie then,

she told Lady Gowrie – and Lady Gowrie used to ask me to Sunday lunch while I was at Duntroon, which was rather interesting. Sometimes they’d send a car to a Canberra hotel. Sometimes even to Duntroon. But to have a huge, great limousine come and pick up Sergeant Lewis who was wearing gaiters and an AIF uniform and then go to lunch

with admirals and general and politicians and everything else. I must have looked completely out of it. But she was sweet. And one time I can recall I arrived and Lord Gowrie met me in the hall. And he said, “Oh, Tom, would you go up and see Zara?” Well, he never referred to his wife as Zara before. It had always been Lady Gowrie, or Lady whoever. And I said, “Yes, Sir.”

“She’s up in her sitting room.” Which I knew was the first floor in Yarralumla. And I said, “Is there any trouble?” And he said, “Well, Patrick…” – their one son, or second son. No, they had two sons. Patrick and Grey – “is missing in action and she’s upset.” Well, I imagine most mothers would be. So I went up and I said, “Don’t worry about the army. They get things mixed up and

I’m sure he’ll be all right.” As it turned out, he led the raid on [Field Marshall] Rommel’s headquarters in the desert force and got killed. And he, what, no, what was the story? He had a son. I’m sorry but his

brother, Grey, was chairman of Sothebys, who I met in London and, oh, I know. What happened is that Patrick, his wife came out to Cairo. Wives were allowed to in those days. And then when Rommel started his advance, she got sent back. Anyway, when

she came back, she got sent to her grandparents in Ireland, or something, and the son was born there and Grey had also impregnated her again, if that’s the word, she was pregnant again to him. And he got killed. And the sad thing is that he

had two children, neither of whom he ever saw. Pretty terrible, isn’t it? And I’ve still got letters that, Patrick was a poet too. Patrick’s poems and letter to his son by Lord Gowrie, I’ve got books up there somewhere. So they were nice people and they looked after me well, although I felt a little bit out of it with prime ministers and

ambassadors and people. And you know what the AIF uniform looked like with gaiters. Anyway, it was kind of them. And I picked up the limousine once at the hotel in Canberra and that was rather funny because I sat there and the maitre d’ came and said, “What do you want?” I said, “I’m just waiting for a car.” “Well.” he said,

“I think you ought to wait outside.” Because, you know, I was only a sergeant or something. And the next thing the Governor-General’s car arrived. He never worried about me in future.

No, I don’t think so. I don’t know that they were even conscious

that I went to Government House. Never worried.

We were all hoping that we were going to see some action. And expecting to

and we never did until the armoured division broke up. Which was a pity. I don’t think you’d find a general or brigadier or anybody around even now that didn’t say the armoured division was one of the best divisions. But it wasn’t necessary. Wasn’t needed.

Oh God, I don’t know.

I would think six months probably. Went up to a place called Mingenew and there was another place, is it south or north of Geraldton, where the crayfish are terrific. They export them to the United States. God, we used to love the crayfish. And they had a beer called Globe Beer. The beer wasn’t too good but the crayfish was terrific.

Beer and crayfish.

What do you think I was looking for? What?

Just training. Driving. I mean we were all pretty bored because we thought we’d been trained enough. And I think we probably had. But there was nothing for us to do. So we just did more training. Drove around in the countryside. Saw a lot of Western Australia.

Zilch. I don’t think anybody thought that the Japanese would come there. I mean, if they were going to come, they’d come, sort of, in the Northern Territory, I would have thought. Which they did, of course.

It was always very good. And then, of course, we got upset when it was broken up. But then we realised why and we got on with it. I didn’t waste much time. I told you about the parachutes. They wouldn’t build the bloody things big enough. And so the, what’s her name, was next. Strangely enough, the chap

I was fag to at school was a chap named John White. Blanc, they used to call him. And he was head of the parachute regiment. And later on, of course, between [General] Blamey and somebody else. [General] MacArthur. Not MacArthur, somebody. They never sent that parachute regiment. Never got into action. And they should have sent

some to Sandakan. They could have saved hundreds and hundreds of lives. That’s the saddest story of the war, I reckon, at Sandakan. There’s a fellow here who was on the War Graves Commission and he can’t even talk about it. Having to dig out and recognise all these bodies and everything, wasn’t so funny.

We were asked what we wanted to do and, since the parachutes weren’t big enough, the commandos were next. And then we were, I don’t think we had any extra training. Except fighting the Americans in Brisbane. Oh, we went to Canungra. Which is a jungle

training school which I think we talked, did we talk about Canungra? Well I think it was a great training thing. I mean, you know, you had fellows firing machine guns and you had to crawl under the bullets and all that kind of stuff. And then roll off of moving trucks and all that garbage. And then we got sent to Morotai as reinforcements.

I wasn’t, I’m not going to say anything about that at all.

A big brawl there. They still talk about it in Brisbane.

I might have. So what?

What do they say, ‘they’re oversexed

and over here’. The Yanks. No, I think it was just unfortunately. It was one of those things. I think the real reason is we didn’t have enough to do. And the troops were stationed, both Americans and Australians, in Queensland waiting to make the next move. Wherever the chiefs were going to send us. Like Borneo or the Philippines or Tarakan or somewhere. And

there’s nothing worse than bored troops. They just try and find trouble. And that’s pretty easy. Drink too much and away you go.

I think jealousy because girls like chocolates and flowers and they were used to giving girls chocolates and

flowers and they were sort of gallant, as my American wife used to say. And the Australians weren’t. And I think, you know, opposites attract anyway. And the Australians got uptight about this.

Well, if you get flowers and a box of chocolates, every

time you had a date, you’d go out with that guy, wouldn’t you?

Well, that had nothing to do with it. The Yanks were on our side. We never had any trouble with them. We drank with them and I don’t think I ever had a brawl with one. It just all blew up which was easy enough

to do. I wasn’t there, so. I was at Surfer’s Paradise, at Canungra. Surfer’s Paradise used to be a quiet little place with one pub. Then my American wife and I, I think, yes, I had a weekend off or something and I went down from Canungra

and went down and joined her. And it was the day that [President] Roosevelt, or the week that Roosevelt died. I don’t know when that was.

Hoped you weren’t going to ask me that question.

Oh, no, we were in Adelaide. We married in Adelaide. And I completely forget the date. But I do remember the chap named

Hudson, I think he was, who was the Consul-General in Adelaide. And him handing me a certificate after the marriage ceremony and I said, “Oh, thank you very much.” or something. It had been witnessed by the American representative or something. “Oh.” he said, “this is maybe help if you want to get a divorce in America.” I thought to say that on your wedding day wasn’t what you’d call diplomatic. I’ve still got it somewhere.

In Sydney. She was in the American Red Cross.

I’m not too sure. I think we were out at, west of Sydney, what’s the name of the place? Anyway, I forget. I was staying, or sharing, it was his flat, Alec Murray, the well known photographer at the time, and a good thing about him, he had an MG [Morris Garages – sports car]. So that was handy.

We used to get black market petrol from the fellow in William Street. I still grin as I pass that garage. It’s on the corner there.

Well, my wife was moving around too. She was with the Red Cross

and she got sent to different places. It wasn’t easy. I’ve a whole box in there of letters she’s written. She was a writer for the Colombia Broadcasting System in American. And, I forget, she also wrote scripts for a famous broadcaster. I forget his name now. And I’ve kept all of her letters because she was terrific and she

wrote for the ABC [Australian Broadcasting Corporation] here for a couple of weeks and made a few hundred. And she said it was easy money because she was prolific.

I don’t know. I was just an officer and

in the army. You did whatever you were told, or tried to do. And, after Canungra, well, you got trained as to what the commandos were meant to do, you know. All the silly, bloody things. Never used them once. They never even taught us, I told you, how to go down the bloody rope side without falling arse over head. But still.

Yes, I think I explained earlier that we mainly operated as sections. Nineteen men. And did special jobs. If an army was, if the regular troops were held up, we’d often get sent behind the Japs and start shooting them and then they’d, and start advancing and the

rest of the mob could come in. Fact, there’s a famous soldier called George Warfe. I don’t know why he wasn’t killed. I met his sons here, not so long ago. Well, two years ago. He used to, you wouldn’t know where the Japs were, you see. And he used to take his batman and he’d sneak off into the jungle, mad as a bloody hatter and a

major, I might add. And the next thing you’d hear, “Get out of there.” And then he’d start kicking up a fuss and shouting everywhere. The Japs said, “Shit, the bastards are behind us.” And they used to run towards them. And the Australians would just shoot them. He was absolutely nuts. He used to go out on patrols. We had another fellow, Scott Young. God, he used to get me annoyed. He was the doctor.

I think he was a relation to the Urens in Penrith. But anyway, I had a, of course it always happened, as we travelled to Balikpapan, Bowser, I think. No, it wasn’t Bowser. Oh, I forget his name. And he said, he brought out photographs of his family and all that stuff, as one does. And he said, “I’m lucky this time. I’m only

the signals officer. You’re a section leader, you’re up the front and I’m just running the telephone lines.” And I said, “Oh, yeah. Thanks.” And who do you think got killed first? Mortar came and knocked his bloody head off. He was the first casualty in Balikpapan, I think. But this doctor, was it Scott Young? Anyway, I had somebody wounded.

The Japs, you know, you had to learn all these things, used to get up the trees and tie themselves in and snipe. And not make a move. Just a bullet would come and go straight through your mate’s head and you’d think, “Christ. Where’d that come from?” You’d look around and they’d be so well camouflaged up there. And they wouldn’t keep shooting all the time. They’d just do it and, of course, that’s one of the reasons we didn’t wear badges of rank in the commandos anyway.

And we didn’t allow our boys to salute us or to call us sir. Mate. Or chief, they used to say. But this silly bugger, I had a man wounded and I said, “Go and get the doc.” And they can’t find him. So after an hour and a half he turns up and I said, “Where the…?” Even though he was a major, “Where the shit have you been?” “Oh,” he said, “I heard MacArthur was landing on the beach

and I wanted to get into the newsreel so Mum would know where I was.” What do you do with a fellow like that? And every time he went out on a patrol, you’d have to go out and see where Japs were or weren’t or whatever, you’d go out a hundred yards from where you were and Scott Young would come out from behind a post. Behind a tree and say, “Oh, I thought I’d join you.” He had no bloody right. He was doing more bloody fighting that he was,

he wasn’t meant to be carrying rifles or anything.

No. I wouldn’t train with him. I think he became a politician up in Cairns or Townsville. I think also he was a pug [boxer]. I’m not sure about that.

Oh, I think they, you learnt certain things to do and what not to do. For example, watches. We all had to have covered in those days, leather watches, because they glinted. And we got to the stage, which I suppose I shouldn’t even talk to you about, but where if the Japs captured

one of our fellows, we shot our fellow. Because they’d torture him so much and you’d hear him screaming and there was goodness knows what going on. But we all agreed amongst ourselves that was going to happen. That’s what you didn’t like to talk about. Anyway.

Yes. I think he was really the kind of [Field Marshall] Montgomery of the Australian Army. He’s a showman. But I think most people

liked him and respected him. And I think, forgive me if my history’s incorrect, I think he went into Bardia before anybody else. And said, you know, I’m the king and everything. But I knew him, you know, reasonably well personally and I think we need, if you’re in the army, personalities. And, of course

[General] Eisenhower was one and [General] Patton was one and Montgomery was another. And I think Blamey was one. But Blamey got blamed for a lot of things which I think was unjust. And, of course, Red Robby. And I don’t know any other general, I’m not saying they were the best generals, but I’m saying they had the personalities.

With Red Robby? Very little. I knew him and met him. I can remember an occasion in the Weld Club, Weld Club in Perth, which is sort of the Australian club of Perth. I was dining one night with my Uncle Essington and Harold Darling and a few others. And

Red Robby came in. So I stood up immediately and stood to attention and said, “Good evening, General.” And then I kept standing and Harold Darling tugged my coat. He said, “I think you can sit down now.” I think he’s something we needed. We needed a figurehead. Probably still in business and certainly in the armed forces.

And he was a figurehead.

Well, not for him. But for recreation facilities for the troops.

Well, there wasn’t much detail. I think I was on headquarters of the division of the time, and I and somebody else, I forget whom,

was told to go up and down and find some recreation area which, the troops could be rested at. We all had, I mean in the middle of Western Australia there’s not many sort of facilities. And they wanted some place on the beach where they could send people to have recreation. And so I had the job, and it was a magnificent job, and we found one or two sites, but unfortunately they were never taken up. Mainly because,

I think, the division was broken up.

I can’t tell you exactly where but they were on the beach.

Well, were people like Sandilands who were friends of my father. And I got to know them.

And then, of course, I had cousins and uncles and people in southwestern Western Australia.

Mainly on their own. I can always remember though, I think I told the story of going down to help my uncle.

Or having a holiday, as he called it, and pressing wool. But, as I told you, he was in Skinners Light Horse or somewhere, in India and a great polo player. In fact he was a member of the winners of the Cawnpore Cup which apparently, I don’t remember much about it, is the greatest polo competition in India. And I came out one morning and I saw my uncle on a horse that was rearing right up

and he was digging his heels in and said, “Down, down, down!” I said, “What are you riding?” And he said, “Some half broken bloody thing that Dick,”– that’s his son – “Left before he went away to the air force.” And the old fellow was seventy four or something and he was riding this horse. And Dick Lewis, when he had to inspect the lambing ewes and everything else, he, instead of opening gates which you had to bend down and

turn around and shut and blah, blah, blah. Mind you, you didn’t get off your horse to do it in those days. He put rails next to every gate and he used to jump. So he used to jump the gate or jump the fence next to the gate. So he used to break in horses quite a lot. And a good polo player.

Working hard pressing wool. Getting up early in the morning. Getting not a penny or thanks but being sent back to camp.

Who was shearing?

Well, you’d engage contract just to come in.

I can’t recall that. No. I don’t know.

Yes. And again Gilbert, Major Gilbert Lewis’ son, Dick was involved. And there were a couple of pubs in Perth. We had some wild times there and I forget the name of the pubs now. So, yeah, we enjoyed our leave.

I don’t think so, anywhere near.

Pretty calm, I thought. This is recollection sixty years later, you know.

Depends on when.

If there are ship in or some troops arrived. When we got back, for example, we got off and I can always remember, we were coming from Borneo I suppose, and we got off in Perth and my uncle picked me up. And he was this Major Gilbert Lewis, and anyway, we sat in the back of the, no, this was coming back from America with my wife. We sat in the back

of the car and he started to drive, rather erratically I thought and every time he turned he lent in. And I said, “Uncle Gilbert, you are driving this car like you’re riding a horse.” He said, “Funny you should mention that.” He said, “When I started driving, if I saw a bit of paper on the road, I used to change gears down in case the thing shied.”

I think it was hard training, that’s about all. I mean we crossed streams on ropes and all that kind of stuff. I can’t think of anything special though.

With what?

No, because no landing boats in Canungra and we didn’t go down that path at all. Which was a pity really.

After Canungra we got sent to the Tablelands, then to Morotai.

None that I can recall. I was married and had a weekend down at Southport which consisted, I think, in those days of one hotel. And, as I think I said earlier, I think it was the time of Roosevelt’s death.

Zilch. You know, you got on a boat

and, although I have an idea that we didn’t have any bunks. We slept on the deck. But things were normal.

Well, it might have been ideal for somebody but it certainly wasn’t for us. It was rough, dirty, disease ridden and when you went swimming

you had to wear sandshoes because the coral would cut your feet and you’d get, I don’t know, whatever you got. So that even swimming wasn’t easy.

As little as possible. I was there for reinforcements. The only enjoyment I got, I met a Squadron Leader

Entwhistle, who I went to school with. And he said, “Why don’t we got and beat up the Japanese?” I got into this, gosh, I should remember the aeroplane. It was a twin engine something or other. It was a single engine or a twin engine. Anyway, and I said, “Where are we going to sit?” And he said, “You’re not. You’re going to stand behind me and hang on to my seat.” And so we went around the islands and shot up whatever we could see that needed shooting up

and came back. But I quite enjoyed that trip.

Just before we landed on Balikpapan.

No, I don’t think so. I was going to say six months but I’m guessing. Only guessing.

In tents.

Existing, I’d put.

No. None.

What we did everywhere during the war was watch movies, I guess

Or played sport. During the evening we watched movies. There was no, of course, television and radio was pretty well non-existent. Or if it was, it was full of static. So there wasn’t much entertainment at all. Sport was the best thing.

Well, we had a bit of a problem because we were Australian Rules and rugby

and so what we decided to do is that one night we’d play rugby and one night we’d play Australian rules. Which was a bit of a mix up. Anyway, we enjoyed it. It was just entertainment and sport.

I don’t think any.

Nothing. Except the coral which cut our feet and we had to wear sandshoes to go swimming and all that kind of stuff. No, I didn’t have a, I mean, really, I don’t remember but I don’t think I had much impression of it at all. There was just a staging camp. And that indeed is what it was.

I don’t think we

had any idea. The thing I think that the command lacked was, and I suppose with good reason, they didn’t let us know what was next. And I think I’ve mentioned to you before, for example, going down rope netting and all that kind of stuff was, didn’t know about it.

Nothing. We were camped and other than going flying with Squadron Leader Entwhistle, we didn’t do very much. My friend Shannon and I. And then we were just told to embark. I don’t think we even know where the hell we’re going. But we were told on the way. That’s when I met

this chap whose sad story about, who got his head blown off, that showed me all the pictures of his family on the boat and so forth.

I don’t know about more detail but it was a sad occasion. I was sitting on the deck of this, I don’t what craft they called it, on the

way and I sat next to this chap. I wish I could remember his name but that doesn’t matter, I suppose. We started talking and he pulled out a wallet, which most men had, if they were married particularly, of his wife and children. And he showed me and said how proud he was of his wife with his kids. And I said, you know, how lucky you were to have them and everything. And he said, “Well, I’m also lucky because we’re going in this action.” and

he said, “I’m a signals officer and therefore I won’t be up the front.” And he said, “You’re a section leader and you will be.” Didn’t cheer me up but cheered him up apparently. And, of course, his job mainly was to keep communication from the front to the headquarters, whichever they were, battalion or what do you call it, I suppose,

brigade. And he said, “I’ve been into so many actions before.” And he had. He had a good war history. And he said, “You know, you’ve just got bad luck and you’re a section leader and you’ll be in it.” And, of course, when landed I didn’t see him because he didn’t get off with us. And after falling into the landing craft and getting ashore I didn’t see him

again until I heard that he went ashore and was laying telephone lines or something and this mortar came over and blew his head off. And I’ve been in touch subsequently with his son. And it was rather a sad story. And I don’t think I’ve mentioned his name and I don’t think I will. The son, I saw his name in a newsletter from

the armoured division and I wrote and said, “Your name is familiar to me. Did you have a father?” He said, “That was my father.” Boom, boom, boom. And then he said, “My mother remarried and he was a terrible man and he beat her and she became vicious.” And he had a terrible upbringing. And the children were beaten and it was such a sad story.

Didn’t think much about it, I suppose. Just did what I was told. You’ve got to remember; even just as a whatever I was then, what was I? Sergeant or a corporal or something? No, I think I was a lieutenant. You worried more about your men. And the only thing I

was crooked [angry] about was that we never had any training in going down these rope doodads, what do you call them? Netting. And so we all fell arse over head. Not all but a lot including myself. And I applied for an increase in my disability pension and the tribunal was run by a woman. She said, “But surely you must have had enough sense to get down a rope

thing?” I said, “Madam, you wouldn’t have gone down forty foot of rope with a rocking ship into another rocking boat.” You know, it wasn’t easy. And a lot of the fellows did fall. I don’t know whether it buggered my hips or not. But it certainly had to help.

Yes, they were, it wasn’t a ladder necessarily. It was a

rope netting, shall I say, with I’ll guess nine inches, ten inches, a foot apart, interlaced. And it was thrown over the side and you hopped on the top and scrambled down and got into the landing craft below.

Well, both vessels were moving. You had a sea pack, I think they call it.

A sea something or other. And you had your own pack. You had a helmet, steel helmet. You had a rifle or a machine gun. You had bandoliers or grenades on your chest. And a pack on your back. So, I mean, you were like a bloody camel crawling down the thing. So it wasn’t easy. But since we didn’t have any training or told how one should do it.

Maybe you don’t ever learn. I don’t know.

Not at first. But as soon as we hit the beach I had to, if I remember rightly, go to the north and establish with my opposite numbers on either

side and then go forward towards the north east, I think it was, to Sepinjang, where we had to secure the airfield.

Oh yes, of course.

Well, you know, I forget who it was, the captain or the colonel, whoever it was, called us in and told us what we had to do. You have to remember that even they

didn’t know too much about what was there. I mean you didn’t say, “Okay, well the Japs are here and the Japs are here,” boom, boom, boom. All you knew, that was Borneo and this is where you had to go to take over the airfield. The airfield was the main thing, of course, because we wanted to put our aeroplanes in and get the Japs out of it.

My section?

No. Because we acted, as I think I told you earlier, per section. And I had a marvellous section sergeant, Garth Nielsen. I think he was a baker by trade. And I still keep, oh, keep in touch, Christmas time, I suppose. And why he, he was a corporal I think. Why he never became sergeant is that every time he went on

leave he got drunk or did something disorderly and he got busted. So he was a sergeant by the time he came back, after leaving as a corporal. But he was a very loyal and still a good friend.

Well, the youngster who I talked to you about earlier from Western Australia, I suppose. And, oh there’s three or four others. I don’t,

much to my regret, know where they are. And after the war I wrote army headquarters and I had a lot of difficulty trying to get any addresses from anybody. They said that they’d send the letter on to the nearest known address. But they wouldn’t look anything up for me. Which upset me a bit but there’s nothing much I could do about it. And since the independent companies, which are the commandos,

I suppose, sometimes we’re known as commandos and sometimes independents. They came from all different states. So, as I told you earlier, on the Milford Highway, I had a Western Australian boy. And then, you know, I had a Queensland sergeant. So it’s not as though you all came from Moss Vale and knew each other or knew each other’s family before you left. You didn’t.

These were individuals that you got to know.

Well, I suppose I was trained to do it and it didn’t worry me much. When you say ‘battle’ it sounds as though, you know, it’s something archaic. But it wasn’t because it was, you know, in the jungle.

It was certainly, I suppose in a way a battle. But I don’t know. The only trouble I did have is there are three sections to a troop and we used to go to the troop leader each night or every morning, I forget which and draw cards. And the highest card came last and the second card came second and then the third,

there was only three sections, led the thing up the road. Of course the last thing you wanted to do was to be the leader. And three times in a row I drew the lowest card. So I went back and said, “We’re leading again.” And the boys said, “If it’s tomorrow, we’re shooting you.” I mean really, it was a bit rough. I suppose we should have taken turns but, you know, we didn’t. We just cut cards. In fact

one of the interesting things was that, particularly my friend Shannon and I, we used to love bridge. We used to play bridge and we nearly got court martialled because we were in the middle of a hand and, I forget exactly where, but we hadn’t finished and the troop commander came along and said, “Pack up and start moving.” And Shannon put up his hand and said,

“But we haven’t finished the bloody hand.” You can imagine what he said. But it was relief. And you can carry a pack of cards easy and, you know, play patience and we used to like bridge.

No, oh, well, they were kidding. But they

got arse up. If you’re on the losing end three times in a row, people are not happy. And, you know, I just picked the wrong card every God damn time. And so, you know, they got jack of it. Why should we be leading up the road and get shot first instead of some other bugger? There were two or three other sections. They could have been doing it. Instead of taking turns we cut cards. We all agreed.

Yeah, well, once we hit the beach, first of all they put us on the wrong beach. That didn’t help. And then the air force came over and started shooting the wrong people. That didn’t help. Including the Australian Air Force.

We had to go, if I remember, northwest, and we headed up and I told you the story about throwing the helmets into the bush.

It’s just that Garth said, “I think this’ll do.” And I hadn’t been in New Guinea with them or anywhere else and I said, “What’ll do?” And he said, “We can dump our helmets.” So higher command, or whatever you’d like to call it, the battalion commander of the,

battalion or whatever, we had to wear helmets. They were a bloody nuisance in the jungle. And so Garth said, “This’ll do.” And I said, “What’ll do?” And he said, “We can dump our helmets here.” Throw them into the scrub and just wore our slouch hats.

We didn’t until, we got it and found out our

neighbours weren’t the neighbours we should have had.

Oh, we were south to where we should be. Strangely enough, I’ve been back to Balikpapan since the war and, rather interesting, I don’t want to knock the Indonesians particularly, but there’s a great troop holding the whole of Balikpapan beach, obviously Indonesian with Indonesian features

and they did sweet Fanny Adams [nothing at all]. You couldn’t get them out of the bloody bush. Am I moving too much again? I just suddenly remembered I moved.

It was the biggest landing Australians ever had.

As far as, I’ve read that. I don’t know if it’s true or not.

Well, it was pretty chaotic, as you can imagine. But on the ship coming over there was a Dutchman and he said, “This is terrible.” I said, “What’s terrible?” He said, “They’re blasting all the oil tanks and everything else.” And I said, “Well, so they

should.” We didn’t want, because the Japs used to let the oil run out and then light them so we would walk into burning oil. Us, you know, collectively. And I said, “And where are you going to be during the landing?” And he said, “Oh, I’ve got to watch from here.” So what I said to him wasn’t polite. But there was a good friend who died two years ago

called Graham Thorpe. Of Peddle Thorpe and Walker, architects. And Thorpe got his MC [Military Cross] by climbing a tower and radioing the ships at sea as to where to bomb, where to shell. And that was a great help because then, we didn’t have artillery obviously on the

beach but we have warship offshore doing it. And there’s another chap, named George Goss, who won the George Cross, strangely enough, who was a distant relative of mine in Adelaide. And they removed all the missiles in the water. Because they had, gee, what did they used to call it? Anyway, had to go around and, is it de-detonate?

Delouse all these damn things that

would have hit the landing craft or individuals as they came on the thing. It was pretty sophisticated work to do.

I never thought they were.

Well, I think the landing ships stopped, because they could only go to a certain depth. And the landing

craft came along side and you fell or climbed down into them. And then they shot through. And you had been briefed as to where you had to go and where you had to meet. And so I know I had to go north west and then meet up with them, then work up, as I told you, to Sepinjang.

I don’t remember looking at it.

If it’s anything normal. It was warm and one of the problems we had generally was that it was hot and steamy until three in the afternoon and then it poured down with rain. And I can remember that we very rarely had a dry sleep and our clothes were soaked through.

And I didn’t take my boots of, I think, for a month. And the socks just, you know, fell apart. Thank heaven we got new socks. But it wasn’t easy to get supplies up, or even food in. So we didn’t complain much but we were pretty wet. Three o’clock, well, we’ll name it three to four, it would pour down. Heavy rain.

Good question. I don’t know. I think between about eleven and twelve. And I’m guessing. I’m guessing.

Morning.

Went to where the right place was. I went north. I realised we were on the wrong beach and I went north towards Sepinjang.

Which was my job.

By guess and by golly. We had compasses and everything but we didn’t, don’t know. The other thing was, we had Dutch maps and in those days nobody knew what kilometres were. Well, I didn’t and none of the troops did.

A few bullets. Didn’t see much

of the Japs. In fact I don’t, oh, saw a few dead ones and a few captured ones. But, no, don’t know that I saw much.

I think that’s after we got to Sepinjang and we were told by a Brigadier Eather that we had to go

this twenty miles that night across country and join the Milford Highway. If you can imagine, that’s the beach and Milford Highway came from Balikpapan up like this. And we were at Sepinjang here. And we had to go cross-country twenty miles during the night. And that’s about the first time that we struck too much resistance.

People shooting at us.

They didn’t have stop signs or anything.

No, mainly you didn’t and we tried to not let them see us. I mean, what’s the use of showing yourself to your enemy? And that’s, as I think I said to you earlier, why they didn’t salute or call me anything but boss. They didn’t call me

lieutenant or sir. But it was boss. And I think that was the general thing at that time. Because my mother would have been terribly upset if I’d been shot. I would have been too I think.

What was it? Name, rank and serial number.

But if they’re grabbing you by your testicles and squeezing a bit, you might have let a bit more out. You know, I can understand readily how if you were being tortured, how you’d say more. Although what more they can ask, I don’t know.

Oh, that was well before that. That was sort of in the Philippines and elsewhere. We knew they were a brutal, sadistic race.

Well, the Japanese I suppose. Or, I think everybody feared

torture. I mean I don’t know. I can’t recall what I feared. But I think that the last thing I wasn’t to be was tortured.

Well, we moved the Japs off it by, I hope, shooting at them and killing a few. And then, for some reason, they had,

the air force had a group that were meant to safe guard aerodromes. I forget what they were called. They were special air force people. Absolutely hopeless as soldiers and that’s what we were worried about. So we stayed a bit longer than perhaps we should have to make sure the air field was secure. Now, it’s the second busiest airport in Indonesia. I told you. Getting

boring, aren’t I? Okay. Don’t nod all the time.

No, really all I knew was all hell was breaking loose. But I was mainly worried about me. And the more the merrier as far as the bombardment was concerned. I told you, I think, about the Dutch officer.

Did I? On the ship. He said, “What are they doing?” And I said, “Bombing all the oil wells.” And he said, “Good God, they can’t do that. We’ll be out of oil.” And I said, “Where are you going to be during the landing?” He said, “Here.” On the ship. The Dutch colonials were equal, if not worse than, the English colonials. Do you know what I’m trying to say?

They were up themselves [had a high opinion of themselves]. Is that an expression that you understand? Okay.

Not long. No, we came pretty well straight in. As far as I can recall. This, you know, I can’t remember. But I don’t think we stayed there long.

We weren’t. Because nobody thought about it.

No,

and it didn’t affect me or, as far as I know, any of the troops. They allegedly did this and let it go. But I don’t think anybody got caught. I may be wrong.

Rifles and a Bren gun. The biggest arm we had was a Bren gun.

We didn’t have Owen guns then. We got them later. But I always liked the American carbine. So, instead of taking an Owen gun, I took a carbine.

What do you mean allowed? Do you think anyone came and questioned me? We weren’t paraded much, you know, once you got on the beach.

How deep the water is when you got off. And that was a problem because you had to jump into three or four foot of water sometimes. And then wade and hold your arms above and wade ashore. And then collecting your troops when you got there because there might be arse end of breakfast time.

That’s what worried me most. Then getting rid of the bloody helmets.

No, I just, it hadn’t occurred to me. But Garth Nielsen, who had

been in more action than I had, said, you know, “This is the spot.” And I agreed with him. Because they made an awful lot of noise and they tip easily if they hit a stick or if you put a rifle on the thing and banged and so forth. We didn’t think they were any good at all. All right for washing.

I just said, “Come on you bloody mob. This is the way we go.” And the mob said, “Okay, boss.” And away we went.

Not at all. It’s by guess or by God. Particularly with the Australian Air Force shooting at us.

Well, apparently,

I don’t know, we thought they were Japanese but they weren’t. They air force made a mistake about where they were meant to be shooting, apparently. Anyway, they were so lousy, they missed us. Menzies’s Blue Orchids, they used to call them. But they had beds at night and all that kind of stuff, you know.

Well, quite honestly, we weren’t looking above. We saw the results on the ground. But when we heard the noise above it really, well, as a leader anyway, or as a lieutenant or whatever I was, I was trying to work out where to go. And particularly since they landed us on the wrong beach, it took a bit of working out. And I knew we had to go north and get to Sepinjang. But if

you get on the wrong beach and get shot up by your own aircraft, things get confusing. Do you understand? I should interview him.

What could you do? You couldn’t ring up the bloody air force. All you had to do was to do what you knew.

And the briefing, I think, was pretty good. And, I don’t want to be silly, but brief too. And you briefed your men but simply. You didn’t try to overdo them with statistics or how many machine guns were doing anything. You just said, “Mate, this is where we’ve got to go.”

To go north to get to Sepinjang.

I must have told you that five times.

Is he like this all the time?

To take the bloody airfield. The Japs are using. You know, those dirty little yellow bastards? Yeah, well the high command didn’t think they ought to be using it. And I agreed with them. Otherwise I would go the other way. No, some of us went,

one group, my mate, Blue Shannon, he went from Balikpapan, across the harbour as a section. And he had some sad occasion. The Japs were really, you know, you might love them now but they were brutal bastards. They hamstrung the natives so they couldn’t carry for us. If you have your hamstring cut, you can’t lug stuff.

And they had twenty or thirty carriers hamstrung. And that was pretty cruel. I don’t know whether you ever recover from that, do you? Probably not. So he went that way as a section. And as I said to you, we operated, I was going to say, sometimes I think to build up the morale of the infantry. Now, I don’t know whether that’s right. I suppose we were silly bastards but

in one stage after Sepinjang, Eather said, “I want your section.” this is, general, brigadier he was. He was a chicken farmer years afterwards. Nice fellow. “I want you to go because these guys are stymied.” Well, I suppose you would think and I would think sitting here, “Why the shit didn’t they go?” But

we were stirrers, I suppose. Colonel Edwards was the 2/14th and he said, “You caused all the trouble. We wouldn’t have had any trouble at all except for you fellows.” And I said, “Well, some bastard had to do something.” And we were stirrers. That’s our job.

Two, I think. One

wounded, one dead, I think. Look, you know, nineteen people or eighteen people and sixty years. It’s a bit hard. And you don’t remember. Whether you like it or not, and I know you should, and I can’t even repeat four or five names of my section now.

Small

pockets of Japanese. And they weren’t any trouble, except they shot once or twice at the right direction. I’m not sure that I even lost somebody. I certainly got somebody wounded but I’m not sure whether I lost a casualty or not. And that was one of the hardest things of the war. Writing back to the next of kin.

Terrible. What do you say? Come on.

Well, your mate had just been shot. You say, “Thank heaven.” No, but seriously, it’s not easy. You’ve worked

with these guys and fought with them and everything else and to go arse over head. And I’ve got a book here somewhere now, with their boot size, their shirt size, what they were carrying, who they were and their next of kin. I think it’s in my drawer there, somewhere. And you have to write back and say, you know, boom, boom, boom. But the reason that we had all this other stuff was that we pinched everything

we could. So if you saw a bloody mob of shirts, or anything else lying around, you pinched them. Or we did. A gentleman didn’t, I suppose. And then you’d look at the shoes and say, “Okay, that fits Joe and that fits so and so.” And you’d give them out. Didn’t matter a bugger whose they were. I mean it was, you know, winner take all. You looked surprised at me all the time and I get worried.

Well, what would you do?

Yes, it is. And sometimes you had to lie a bit too.

Well, because you don’t want Mama to think that Bobby didn’t do the right thing. Or put his foot in the bloody trap when he shouldn’t have.

I mean we had booby traps all the time too and they weren’t funny. And we used to try and walk ahead with sticks and send dogs in and everything else. Because we set them up ourselves. We thought they were pretty good too. If the Japs walked in and hit a trip, they pulled a pin that was like in a grenade and the grenade went off and luckily killed half a dozen Japs. And they were doing the same. Wasn’t pleasant.

I didn’t walk through any of them. We dismantled them as much as possible.

They were pretty well what I’ve said. They were, if possible, sort of fishing lines across the track. And one of the things you learnt to do when you were walking, of course, was to not

forget to look up because of snipers and you had to look ahead. And then, of course, some of the bastards came in from behind you. So you’re looking everywhere. And, meanwhile, you’re forgetting where your feet were. And if you hit one of those and if you pulled the pin in the grenade, it was yesterday’s news. We did the same.

No, but I can tell you about an occasion where we missed one. We were

on the Milford Highway again and there was a big cut in the road, in the highway. And the leading scout put up his hand, because we didn’t talk. We tried not to talk. Just like that or down or that way or this

way, you know. You soon learnt signals. And we came across this big cutting in the Milford Highway. It was apparently, we found out later, a tank trap. And the front scout put up his hand and stopped. And the second scout called back and he said, “Boss, there’s a couple of cables leading back into this hole in the road.

What will I do?” Well, I don’t know what you would do. So I said, “Well, I don’t know what to do.” Because sometimes if you cut them you got blown up. And sometimes if you didn’t cut them you got blown up. So I said, “Okay, well let’s cut them.” Thank heaven I did because there was a five hundred pound aerial bomb buried there to blow up tanks. So we missed that one. But when I was doing it, it was a five minute spell and I was

in the tank thing, having a smoke. So, just as well they hadn’t blown it up when I was there. But the worst part of it, I told you about the orang-utans?

Oh, Jesus, well, they have a foundation for protection of them now. But we’d put somebody on guard duty every night as leading section, anyway, we would.

And if we were the leading section and we’d take turns and you’d never talk. Just shake the fellow. He’d wake up and then hopefully keep awake until he woke the next fellow up. In case, because the Japs used to like to attack at night. And we were all sleeping with our rifles and Bren guns and whatever we had. And then all hell would break loose and so we’d wake everybody up and it would be the f…….. orang-utans through the trees. And now they’re protecting the bastards.

They would come screaming through the trees and make a hell of a noise.

We’d all wake up; grabbing our rifles thinking it was the Japanese. What would you do?

No, no, no. We had enough sense. We had to see somebody to shoot at. And it turned out these buggers in the trees. So that was another hazard, so to speak.

I don’t think we ever got anything. But we set them. Well the other good thing, if you could crawl out twenty, thirty feet, perhaps thirty yards, and put a thin line across it, like a fishing line, and on a lightly pinned grenade and they walked into it, they’d pull the pin and blow the grenade.

Now, it mightn’t kill the Jap, but it’d wake you up. And that’s what we used to do. And they used to do it with us. But, even worse, they used to send dogs in. They trained dogs who would smell us out and bark. So you had a few things to worry about. But we were all young. We didn’t worry too much.

No. They’d bark when they saw us.

Well, because the Japanese came after them. The dogs would start barking then you knew bloody well the Japs were there. The only advantage of the dogs, if you shot them and you had a few, I told you, flags, you could dip them in the blood, put a few bayonet holes

and the price of the flag would double. What are you laughing about? We were practical. You’ve interviewed people before. Haven’t they told you all this?

I must be the only bullshit artist you’ve seen. Who have you interviewed? Have you interviewed anyone in the independent company?

Not going to hunt for them but if I find them I’ll let you have a copy. Or send them to you and you can send them back. But they had tunnels everywhere. And they were a bloody nuisance because you would think, okay, we’ll throw a grenade in this tunnel and you killed everybody but they had an outlet the other side or something like that. And that was a

bit of a nuisance. And we found that, whilst we didn’t have them, command headquarters or somebody had flame throwers. And that smartened them up. If you had a dug out and you didn’t know whether Japanese were there, if you put a flame down you soon found out. They were a terrible instrument of death I thought but the tanks had them too.

Well, chuck a grenade in and see what happened. What could we do?

Not if we could avoid it. And the biggest trouble, they came out the other side somewhere and so you didn’t, you know, I don’t know. I didn’t have to do much with tunnels, thank heaven. They were right in Balikpapan itself. And we were north of Balikpapan.

Don’t think I worried about it. It was just, you know, I mean I don’t think I was frightened but I, no, I don’t think there was any fear.

I didn’t. No, if you started worrying about what’s going to happen to you, you

wouldn’t be there. Well, I wouldn’t. Would have shot through years ago. No, never worried about it. I don’t think most fellows did.

Gee, you guys are persistent. Most what?

I think probably up the Milford Highway where they were lobbing grenades. And we didn’t know where they were coming from and that wasn’t cheerful.

No. I can just remember

it happening. Very hard, you know. The worst thing we feared was not getting any sleep and being as wet as buggery for a month. Socks rotting in the shoes and everything else, or boots.

Only when this poor bugger got hit

soon after we landed and the doc wasn’t there.

Oh, well, I thought I’d told you. I won’t mention his name, but even though he was a major, I sent somebody back for him and he took an hour or so to get there. And I said, you know, in polite language which I always used, “Where the f…. have you been?” And he said, “I went down on the beach to get a photograph because MacArthur was there

and I thought Mum would see me in the newsreels.” I thought that wasn’t the way a doctor should behave in Balikpapan.

Oh, he only got hit in the shoulder or, you know, something. Wasn’t, just enough to get home, I think. I mean he didn’t do it. He got shot by a Japanese but it was just here or something.

You didn’t worry too much about the other fellow. But he was all right, as far as I know.

Yes. I can’t tell you his name.

Yes, he was on patrol and he

was leading and he got shot. And then we recovered his body later. But it was all pretty macabre, if that’s the word. If my pronunciation is arse up. I found the boys setting some of the dead Japanese in oil and setting them alight because the doctors were paying a lot of money for skeletons. Can you believe it? I

stopped that. Then we shot a zebu or some bloody thing. That was only bit of fresh meat we had for years. But water was the biggest problem. Getting fresh water. And we had this, two pills I think we put into the water to purify it. I forget what it was called. Hard, hard, hard to remember.

Yes, through the jungle up to the Milford Highway. That was north-east, I think.

I’d like to. You’d drop out over the first ten. No, I don’t know that even, whoever he was

who was leading us, knew where he was going. We were very lucky but we knew if we kept going in that direction, we’d find the Milford Highway. And that’s what happened. And I thought it was only ten miles and I met Brigadier Eather after the war, who’s a nice fellow, and I said, “You’re the bastard who sent us.” and I said, “We walked ten miles.” He said, “No, it was twenty actually.” Didn’t cheer me up any more.

To get up there. To help the people there. I’m boasting now. But often, as I think I said, we were used as, what do they call it? Stimuli for the other troops. For example, I won’t mention the battalion in South Australia that wasn’t doing so well and their morale had dropped. And so silly bloody Lewis and his mob got sent up there to

stimulate them, if that’s the word. And so we sort of went ahead of them and started doing things. And then they gained confidence and they were okay. It was just nerves and new boys, I guess. Maybe I’m boasting but that’s what we thought we were doing. And you could understand that. Fresh troops.

But we’d been pretty toughly trained. I mean we’d crawled under machine gun bullets, fallen off bloody trucks. Jumped bloody rivers. Smacked on the arse by people. You know, we were..

It wasn’t meant for that. It was meant to toughen us up

and give us confidence and it did. I think. I mean I’m only talking from my perspective and some others might feel differently.

Well, they were a bit tentative about going forward.

Okay? And so, and the same thing happened, I think, as what’s his name would tell you. Oh God, if I could get his name up the road. We acted as a stimulus to start them. And this was the 2/10th Battalion, if you really want to know, in South Australia, led by a chap named Jack Lee, I think, because he owned the Apollo Hotel, which I used to frequent.

And they were a bit, you know, if a couple of shots rang out, they stopped. And, of course, George Warfe, who’s a tough bastard, he wouldn’t let anybody stop. I told you the story about he and his batman going behind them and shouting, didn’t I? Well, that’s what we were meant to do too. Act

as stimulus for the infantry if it was necessary. Otherwise we acted on our own and did specific jobs. I mean, nineteen men can’t do too much on their own. But they can act as a stimuli and come in among troops that are a bit nervous or new or anything else. Cheer them up a bit.

I don’t think I ever saw evidence of cowardice. All I’m talking about is reluctance. Even I was reluctant. We all were reluctant. But then, you know, if, for example, if Jack Lamb, who you should see at Wodonga, said to me, “Listen mate.” he said.

“The 2/10th have got a bloody company up there and they’re pissing about something. Would you go up and stir them up?” Okay, you went up and stirred them up.

By setting an example.

I don’t know that that was a particular case, if he’d given that then, I would have gone up and saw what the problem was and say, “Okay, let’s do something.” Not sit on your arse and wait.

I mean George Warfe used to do it on his own.

No. We didn’t even know each other. My mate went the other side of the harbour at Balikpapan and I don’t know what the hell, to this day, what happened. And he’s dead now.

He didn’t know what I did. So we acted very independently.

Often we didn’t have to. We had a situation; we cleared the situation up and then got on to the next thing. But, you know, I think we’re making too much of it. We didn’t do that, we didn’t win the war. Just occasionally did things and

one of the nicer things, we found a bloody buffalo and had fresh meat. That was the best thing we ever had. And I did get upset with the boys putting Japanese carcasses in and selling the skeletons. I thought that was a bit rough. I mean, there’s a book here, I think called Hell in the Pacific. And there’s a lot of stories

that the Japanese were all pricks and we were, you know, JCs [Jesus Christ]. And it’s not true. There was an awful lot of times when we were pricks and they were JCs. Well, I wouldn’t say that they were JCs, but, you know, we made mistakes and we did things that we shouldn’t have done.

Only specifically when I sent those couple of Japs back.

I thought,

have I done this once?

Well, we had these two Japanese prisoners. And I thought command, I don’t know which was the command. I don’t know if we were or the battalion or whatever, would get some intelligence. I think they had some maps or something on them. So I got two of my guys and I said,

“Take these fellows back to command headquarters. Get them interrogated.” But they came back a lot quicker than they should have. And I must admit, the track was bloody rough and, you know, you didn’t want to spend an afternoon with the girlfriend walking down it. And so they came back a bit quicker and I said, “Gee, you were bloody quick. You couldn’t have got back.” And he said, “Well, as a matter of fact, boss,” – as we were called boss – “they tried to escape.”

I haven’t any question in my mind that they shot the bastards. I don’t know. I can’t prove it. What do you do? Say, “You naughty chaps?”

Somewhere in Borneo. I don’t know where I was.

Infrequently. I told you that story, did I? About the two aged couple. I told you did I? Well, anyway, infrequently. I only had this occasion where

I found this Jap carrying the machine gun, which got me a little bit upset. But Crossley told me he had the ammunition, so don’t worry boss. And somebody else once grabbed one out of the scrub somewhere and got him to carry his pack. And I got him, he just kicked me on the arse or slapped me over the head or something, you know. So, rough game. It wasn’t frequent.

I don’t imagine, until the surrender, that we saw many Japanese as troops.

Crawling I would think.

It really wasn’t. It wasn’t a battle at all. There was sniping occasionally and pushing ahead and then somebody shooting at you and you’d shoot them back. Then move forwards. That kind of thing. We never had, what you’d call, pitched battle. In fact, I don’t think in the Second World War, certainly with the Japanese, we ever had something like France in the First World War or anything. There was no

face-to-face stuff. Well, there was face-to-face stuff but not en masse.

No, I don’t think I can. Because if you came face to face with a Japanese, he was normally surrendering and

his credo or creed or whatever you’d like to call it, forbade him to do that. He should have committed hari-kiri. They should never give in. I mean, it’s a cruel creed but it’s been going for years, I suppose.

Well, you never surrender. You commit hari-kiri, which means you do it one way or another. Normally they sat and drew a cross across their stomachs that way and this way and died. They didn’t, it was against their creed to surrender at all. It was an insult to the empire

to be a prisoner. Didn’t you know that?

What, that I should commit suicide?

No. No, I never saw them do it. But I have no doubt they did it. But

we’re dealing with two different, I was going to say civilisations. What do I mean? For example, when I had the ship, boat, whatever you call it, not too sure, I wanted a cook. A Japanese cook for the crew and everything else. And I sent the interpreter and one of my people down to the prisoner of war camp that we had at Balikpapan.

And a sergeant went along and he lined everybody up in the Japanese camp. And my fellow told me, he said, “Somebody said something and this guy just went up and cracked him and knocked him to the ground.” They were ruthless with their own people. Absolutely.

Yes, within the unit if I had a list and I’ve still got it somewhere I think, of next of kin, neck size and boot size, particularly boots, and if you came across some boots which somebody wasn’t watching, you went through them to see if any of your mates had that size and you pinched them. So you

looked after each other.

Don’t know that we had a law. Well, we were within the law, I suppose, sometimes. I don’t think any of my mob ever got court martialled or anything. I think to a certain extent, the rest of the army were in awe

a bit of us. And secondly, I don’t think anybody was thinking of being court-martialled or anything like that. I mean the amount of grog I stole on behalf of the troops and the bills I rang up in Jakarta and the diamonds we pinched and everything else. And carbines I traded for flags. I suppose I could have been still court-martialled, I don’t know.

No, it was this.

Oh, we wore berets. That was the only difference I think.

Writing letters?

Yes.

Well, there’s, no, you can say, well, you didn’t always tell the exact truth: “He,” you know, “died bravely for his country or in action or he was unlucky to have received a stray bullet from a Japanese rifle.” You know, whatever. And you just sympathised and: “The

the whole section would like to join me saying sorry Mrs Gahoops for the sad news.”

Oh, I don’t know but, of course, the army notified the next of kin before we did. Well, I presume they did. I don’t know. You don’t check up do you? And I would only think two or three.

Dogs.

Yes. I mean it’s like ducks isn’t it? You send them ahead and they start barking or point. They used to do the same thing. I don’t

know that there was anything else much. No, I don’t think so. I suppose they took aerial photographs and all that kind of stuff but I don’t know. We never had much air traffic on the Milford Highway that I recall. And, of course, I think they used to have

a person or soldier hiding and then observing us and then going back and reporting. I don’t know that for sure. Because anybody we saw doing that, we shot. We didn’t know what he was doing, but he shouldn’t be there.

Rifles and sometimes machine guns. Same as we had. I’m not too sure but mainly rifles I think. Oh, they did have machine guns, yes.

I can’t remember. I don’t think so.

No. How? We hoped they’d never get close enough. Spears? No.

I don’t think we had to deal with it.

Well, the whole thing was, we were pretty naive. Let’s face it. And for us to recognise the difference between a Japanese and an Indonesian wasn’t easy. And particularly since some of the Japanese, apparently used Indonesian dress and even women’s dress

to infiltrate. Now, we could have shot the bloody lot but we weren’t going to win any friends with the Indonesians.

We found them pretty hopeless. And I don’t think they gave a damn who won. I don’t know. And I went back

subsequently to Balikpapan and all I saw was a statue on the beach where we landed and it was an Indonesian soldier protecting the foreshores. We never saw them. They didn’t do much fighting, I can tell you.

Very little. Maybe bartering food, that kind of stuff.

Guiding sometimes.

Most unusual. I mean he was a fellow who told me he wouldn’t touch them with a forty-foot pole. He was

brought before me because he was trying to have carnal knowledge. And then he said they looked white through sunglasses. So I thought it was so amusing, I dismissed the case. I don’t think there was too much fraternisation. I think everybody was hoping to get home and get to mum or their lover or whatever.

And I don’t mean to be rude, but I don’t think they local ladies were terribly attractive.

I don’t think it’s any of your business. What do you mean? The troops or me or what?

No. Wishful thinking. But I suppose we all have that.

No, I don’t think it was ever a problem. You’ve got to remember we were pretty young and very few married. I think it was only two out of my nineteen or something.

That’s right.

I wasn’t happy and nor

was she. How would you deal with it? Had no option.

No. I was worried that she was well and we wrote letters regularly. What are the, I think the Salvation Army used to put a heading on their paper, ‘Write Home First’ and that’s what we

used to do.

Oh, God, how would I know? I don’t know. Once or twice a week, I suppose. But it depends. If you’re up the front, you’re not going to stop and start writing letters to your wife or somebody. Well at least I wasn’t and I don’t know anybody else who was. First of all you didn’t have the pen or the ink or anything else.

I’d say twenty hours out of the twenty-four. I mean, most of the time it was boring.

Mainly my fellows were causing trouble for me. But I would say, trying to get some sleep or doing some laundry or the one thing that we did have a lot of

was, what are those things that bite into you? Into your feet and everything else.

Leeches. And that’s one of the reasons I think I kept smoking was because the best way of removing leeches was a cigarette butt. We, at one stage, I hadn’t taken my boots off for four weeks. So the socks weren’t much good either.

So, some people, in fact I have a mate who died a couple of years ago, he was in the 2/1st Commandos and till the day he died he never wore socks.

Well, we had a, God what did they call it?

There’s a name. It’s a waterproof cape thing. They’ve got an army name for it. You just slept on that. It was a cape that came around you. You that off and you lay it down and you slept on that. You didn’t have any blankets or anything. Well, certainly didn’t up the front line. Just getting enough tucker was trouble. They used to send up jeeps up the Milford Highway and occasionally you’d get a good

meal. Otherwise you had these, what do you call it? Not freezing, it’s, you get food and you …

Something like that. And, in fact, you had a, about the size of a cigarette tin and that.

had three meals for the day. About the only thing that was worth eating, and that was the chocolate. But you’re meant to soak it in water and it’s meant to last you for a day. But I wouldn’t like too many days on it.

It was a bloody nuisance because at three o’clock, pretty well on the dot. I’m saying three; it may have been three thirty or something. It’d piss down. And have

maybe two inches of rain. That’s before you went to bed. So you didn’t have a cheerful night. That was part of the action.

No, everybody sort of went to the toilet

wherever, whenever. We didn’t have pits as a rule because we weren’t in the same place for long enough. But we had trenching tools and you tried to dig a bit of a thing and cover it up. But no, there wasn’t that much trouble.

Well, I thought we were pretty cheerful in the surrender. I’ve got photographs somewhere. If I find all these things that I keep promising you, I’ve got some marvellous photos of the surrender on the Milford Highway. Colonel Flay[?] was the head of the commando company and he refused to accept the

sword of the Japanese when he came and made him lay it at his feet. So, I mean, there was a lot of sort of drama from stuff. And I’m in the background with my carbine on the ready. And then the boys went through them and pinched all the watches they could and did everything else, you know. But there wasn’t any problem with them. They all came in with a white flag and no

there was, they got marched off to prisoner of war camp. They never caused any trouble once, they were very, I suppose, automated soldiers. If their commanders told them to do something, they did it. And it didn’t matter, you could commit hari-kiri or run against a machine gun or jump off a cliff, that sort of thing. Whereas the Australians would say, well, get stuffed.

The Japanese wouldn’t.

Gee, that’s a question I didn’t start thinking much at all. We thought they were cruel. As I told you, we had a rule that we’d shoot our own fellows if they were being tortured. We didn’t understand the mentality and I’m not too sure that I still do

of the machismo and the love of the empire and all that kind of stuff. You know, it’s a, it’s very hard to put yourself in somebody else’s place. And they’ve been brought up with that temperament and that background.

Oh yes, we hated the bastards, yeah. But I mean we hated them in

general because we didn’t have anything specific to hate.

Don’t I ever.

Yeah, we, again we were on the Milford Highway. And somebody came along and said, “They’ve dropped a big bloody great super bomb on Japan.” And everybody said, “Oh, bullshit.” And

they said they war will be over in a couple of weeks. And everybody said, bullshit several times. We just didn’t believe it. And it was two or three weeks later that we found it was factual and the war was over. I think August 15th or something, was it? I forget. But we were lying there and we just said, oh, you hear so many bloody rumours, you know. You’re going to get pancakes for breakfast or something.

No. There was argument afterwards, of course, and I suppose there still is, as to whether they should have dropped the bomb. And I’ve never meant an ex-serviceman who said they shouldn’t have. I think it shortened the war and saved an awful lot of lives. Because the Yanks were going to invade and I suppose we would have been involved too. I’m not denying the suffering

of Hiroshima and people. But if it shortened the war, I was happy.

Yes, I’ve heard that too but how did you know?

No. No.

They’ve only been in the last ten years. The only thing that I think should have happened was that other parachutists should have gone into Sandakan. But, you know, I wasn’t the boss.

But did anybody dream that it had the power that it did? I

think it was beyond people’s imagination, if you don’t mind me saying so.

Pretty well nothing. But subsequently I’ve always felt that he could have.

I think we didn’t know any more than the civilian population. We got news on the radio or through army radio and stuff. No, we knew nothing more than anybody else.

Which actions?

Well, I’ve read subsequently but everything is great in hindsight. And I don’t know whether it would have made any difference or not. I don’t know. And I don’t think anybody else does.

Maybe we should have just got stuck into the Philippines or stuck straight into Japan and by-passed these places. But who can tell? I mean, should we have gone back into New Guinea? I don’t know. And you don’t either. You might.

Well,

it was great excitement. And I should have dug the photographs up before. They came in a truck with a white flag and Colonel Flay, who was in command, wouldn’t accept the sword and he told them to lay it at his feet. Which was a kind of demeaning thing to do. I don’t mind that he did it or not. Then,

of course, we were standing, or I was standing with my mob on the bank overlooking the highway so that we could shoot if necessary. And they came in a great bloody long stream. And the boys went through them pinching watches and everything else they could get. And one of my fellows wrote and said, “As I took the watch

and locket off this Japanese, he started to cry. You can imagine how sorry I was for him.” And there was no sympathy. The boys, I think it was only watches they took but that was it. Then they got put into trucks and were sent down to Balikpapan into a prisoner of war camp. And we, only one

trouble I had was, I don’t know whether it was one of my fellows or somebody else, but I gave him hell. Because his brother or cousin or something had been killed in the Japanese war camp, he and his mate went in and started beating up the Japanese. So I got him hauled out of it and they gave him hell. I said, “If you behave like that, you’re behaving at the same standards as they are. So, we think we’re

a bit above that and you shouldn’t do it.” So he got the message and stopped it. That was a rare incident I think.

By whom? The Japs?

Swords and flags. What else was there?

I’ve still got a

Japanese flag. And we, as I think I told you earlier, we were discussing in the RSL whether we should try and trace them back and give them to their family. And I think most of the fellows think, “Oh bugger it. It’s a lot of trouble.” But it’s, you know, dicey, isn’t it? Do you think the family would be appreciative of getting a flag back? I don’t know. And you don’t know whether they came from families or the rotary club. Well, you can

read Japanese, I can’t.

Well, in the Milford Highway, they were all in there within the day. We didn’t realise we were fighting so many, though. I must say, when they came in we said, “Gawd.”

Well, the boss man came in by vehicle and all the rest marched in. They were very disciplined. And the boys went in to search them to see that there were no grenades and everything else. Because occasionally the Japanese used to blow themselves up to blow somebody else up, if you understand what I mean. And so they went through and pinched watches and everything else. But that only took half an hour, an hour.

And then the surrender took place through an interpreter and then they got loaded into trucks and sent into Balikpapan, put into a prisoner of war camp. But they were pretty cruel because when I wanted a cook, and I don’t know if I’ve told you this, on Kita Maru, this boat I had, or was given for the Japanese. So I sent Patrick with an interpreter and one of my fellows

down to the prisoner of war camp to pick out a cook. And the fellow came back and he said, “You wouldn’t believe it, boss.” And I said, “What do you mean?” And he said, “The sergeant major of the Japanese, somebody answered back and he just got up his fist and knocked him arse over head in the ranks.” So they were cruel to their own mob too, you know. You shouldn’t answer back the sergeant major. But still, that’s there credo, whatever.

From Australians to the Japanese? Only had these two fellows that lost brothers or something and they went in and started playing, beating them up and everything else. And I stopped that. Got them hauled to. I think, on board ship, when I had half a dozen fellows, they pulled out a few Japanese and

slapped them over the head and took their bunks. But that was nothing. The Japanese were used to that kind of treatment I believe. Maybe I’m wrong.

Well, some went home and some stayed with me on the boat.

Well, Balikpapan was a harbour

and I was told to take over. And I told you, I think, I went down and took over it. Got the Japanese, well our interpreter and the Japanese interpreter and told the captain what he had to do. And I put my half a dozen fellows on and I went on. And away we sailed. I just told him where we wanted to go. I had, we could be back in Japan as far as I knew. I didn’t read charts or know anything about it.

But I always knew that they were very strong disciplinarians and if you told them something, you know, they did it. And he did it. I had a marvellous month or two. Wouldn’t mind going out there now. Had a fellow out the back doing all the fishing and a Chinese and a Japanese cook. And nice cabin. And plenty of grog.

No, I don’t think so.

I don’t think any. Just say, okay, the bloody thing’s over. We had a job which was a bit dicey in Macassar because some of the Indonesians had joined the Japanese. And I was asked to take

these Indonesians and dump them on an island about forty miles off the coast of the Celebes. And I only had, as I said, six Australians. So I sent four of them down and they searched these guys before they went on. And then all the wives and lovers and everybody else started beating their breasts and crying. Anyway, I got off quick and dumped them on the island. I don’t know whatever happened to them. But they were

Japanese trained Indonesians. I had a marvellous time because nobody’s in charge of me sort of business and I went up the coast to a nice little place and got them to lower the boat. And it went ashore. And the village chief came out and gave me a horse to ride. And they started kissing my feet and leading me into the village. And I don’t know why

but nobody sort of supervised what I was doing. Which I thoroughly enjoyed.

Not that I was aware of or obeyed.

What?

I don’t think so. My main job was to supply

coal to the power house in Macassar. And so that’s what I mainly did. But, as I think I told you, I took sometimes Indonesian nurses and I took, what do you call it? Birds’ nests themselves and anything that I could over to these levies that they needed. No, it was a pretty good time and I lived well. I don’t want

to do it again.

Well, yes, during that time on the beach.

I went down and bribed the Dutch. How would you do it?

Well, my mother said,

you know, darling you ought to see Vantung, or something. What’s the name of it? Jakarta. And so I thought it was a good opportunity and I was bored. And I’d sent this other fellow with all the money had pissed off. But anyone I went down and I gave the Dutch a couple of bottles of scotch. And I sat in the front end of a Liberator or whatever it was. In amongst all this cargo and then some

Pommy [English] bloody major said, “What are you doing in there, Aussie?” And I said, “Sir, I’m on secret service business.” And then I drove in, the Japanese were still in charge because we couldn’t send any Australian troops and the Poms didn’t have anybody. So the whole of Java was run by the Japanese still. This was a month after the war. So they drove me in and I stayed at the Hotel Danes and I think I ran up a

nice bill for Ned Kelly. And the only disconcerting thing was that people used to get murdered outside on the canal and they just chucked the people in the canal. It was pretty rough going. But I had what my mother said I should have had, good rijstaffel. Do you know rijstaffel? It’s a series of Javanese dishes. You might have twenty or thirty and the boy comes

and you take a little bit of this and then a little bit of the next one and so forth. But that’s when I found out, of course, that you could buy diamonds and they were still using these Dutch guilders. So I went back and started that racket.

You waited until your number came up. Which depended on your service.

And then you got on whatever they put you on. And I got on to a British aircraft carrier. I think. I forget but all I remember, the Poms gave up their beds to us. Which was very nice of them. So for the first time for about two years we had a sleep in a bed. I don’t think I could sleep. Then we came back to Australia. To Brisbane.

I thought I told you all this. Well, I got off in Brisbane and I went to the, because it was in the afternoon, I went to the Brisbane Club. Didn’t I tell you this?

Well, I don’t know if there’s any more detail. I tried to check in and I was in my army uniform and a lieutenant. And I rang the bell and the fellow came out and I said, “I’m a member of…”

No I didn’t say. I said, “I want to come in,” or something. And he said, “Nobody under the rank of colonel comes into the Brisbane Club, sir.” And I said, “Well, I want to see the secretary.” So I saw the secretary. I said, “I’m a member of the Adelaide Club and we have reciprocity with you. And he said, “Of course.” But I must admit in the morning there was nobody under the rank of colonel at breakfast. And I was in my fatigues and, anyway, I got some laundry done and I think

I got on a train and went to Adelaide and got discharged.

Bloody happy.

Well, my wife unfortunately was in the States. I suppose getting back to Adelaide. Seeing my mother and friends and that kind of thing.

No, I wanted to go and run one of the properties which the trustees had sold under our chin. In retrospect I’ve always been sorry that I didn’t go in the occupation forces to Japan. From what I heard, that was a marvellous experience. And I, we all had the opportunity of going. And a lot

didn’t go, including myself.

Damned if I know. They just, they said, “Okay, here’s your discharge papers.” A nice letter from Her Majesty saying thank you for all the things you’ve done, signed by somebody. The governor-general or somebody. I mean the Vietnam boys are kicking up a fuss

because they didn’t march down the road or something. We didn’t march down anything either.

Well, I’d been back in between. Not very much, I don’t think.

Well, I suppose I’d matured. I was a seventeen or eighteen year old and now I was twenty-four or something. Or I wasn’t that old. About five and a half years, I think.

The only thing that I think stuck then and now is comradeship with ex-service people.

Well, I think I said to you, in, when

Askin formed his cabinet, most of us were service people and we learnt to be loyal to each other and stick by each other. And I think that was a big lesson we learnt. Never let your mates down.

Yes, and I’m sorry my memory’s not better.

Well, my wife and my daughter keep telling me, if I go to the doctor next, ask him about your memory. And I keep forgetting I’m

absent minded.

The army?

No, I don’t think so. I’ve had funny experiences of a friend here who

helped me fill in my application for a disability pension. Because I had pneumonia and one thing and another. And he said to me, because the form was that complicated he came up and filled it in for me. And he said, “Don’t you get flashbacks?” I said, “What are flashbacks?” He said, “Don’t you wake up seeing the Japs coming over the hills?” I said, “Not regularly.” But, no, I don’t. It doesn’t, the army sort of doesn’t come back to me at all.

Friendships I think. Mateships.

Both. Both. Some are still with me. Some are gone. I don’t think there’s anything else. I’d like to go back, I’ve been back to the Celebes and Borneo once. And I wouldn’t mind, sort of revisiting.

But, no, something concerns me.

Just to reminisce I suppose.

Well, one of the things, I’d like to see if I could find my boat, the Kita Maru. Which I didn’t do. And then just see what it looked like in civilian life. I mean going up the Milford Highway and going to Sepinjang and places and it had changed so enormously. And then having a look more

closely at all the dugouts the Japanese had built under the hills in Balikpapan.

Well, it was interesting, let’s put it that way.

None. Didn’t worry me one way or the other.

I don’t visit the old primary school. Bugger the primary school.

Yes, of course, everything’s changed. But everything everywhere has changed, I imagine. No, that didn’t worry me. The only thing that did concern me was the statue of this soldier guarding the beaches where we landed being an Indonesian. The bastards never did a thing. They were hopeless.

Well, I don‘t suppose we worried about it then. And I’ve often wondered myself, I think to a great extent leaders, whether

it be Churchill or Montgomery, have to be showmen to a great extent. And I think he was a pretty good showman and he had a good publicity team. But as to whether his strategies and everything else were the best thing, I don’t, that I don’t think is correct. I don’t think he was. And I don’t think that we can ever forgive him for not sending the paratroops into

Sandakan as I mentioned before. But maybe that wasn’t his decision. Maybe it was Blamey’s or someone. Very hard to judge somebody like MacArthur. But he was a great showman. He should have been in Barnham and Baileys or somewhere.

Only when I found the bloody doctor who’d gone down to get in the movies. Bastard.

Well, I think that was all publicity too. I don’t think he did anything but step ashore and walk a few yards and then piss off. I don’t know what he did. What could he do?

No, I don’t think so. The only thing I was uptight about was I’d lost the opportunity of running one of the stations. Which is where I wanted to live. The trustees had sold it from us. Then I had to hunt around to find something else to do.

Well, its uncertainty was because I didn’t know what circumstances were going to throw up. I didn’t know until I got back that the trustees had sold the property. And then I didn’t know how my wife was going to feel about coming to Australia. And I’m more sympathetic now than I was then to think that some girl who’d spent her life in New York City would go

to a farm in New South Wales. I mean it’s a pretty dramatic change, isn’t it? I mean she used to go into Penrith from Castlereagh, in a pair of slacks and shirt and everything. My mother said, “My dear, you can’t do it. You must have shirt gloves and carry a purse.” You know. Of course that was my mother’s standard but not

New York standard. So there was an awful lot which men I don’t suppose matter to them, but it was upsetting and she was pregnant with our second child and all this kind of stuff. So it was a tough life for her.

Well, with great respect, I don’t think that I’ve asked support from my wives at all.

I must say I’m probably, my present wife will tell you, I make my own mind up and do it. And what do you do? This is for the tape? Does she tell you what to do?

Did it resolve or didn’t resolve?

Well, I think it resolved an allegiance between Australia and America, for a start. Where we had looked traditionally to the UK [United Kingdom] for help and assistance. My uncle Essington used to call the Americans the Salvation Army because they really saved us. They came over and so our allegiance is a little bit, whilst I don’t think it’s upset,

at least, we depend on American more than any other country, I suppose, for help and assistance and advice. What was the rest of the question?

Peace. And I

don’t know how that ever does get resolved. I mean I’m one of those who thinks that Bush made a mistake getting involved in Iraq. I mean it’s all right in hindsight too, I suppose. But I would have let them do what they bloody well like. I mean it’s their country. If they want to get rid of [Saddam] Hussein, let them get rid of him. Now, we’re involved,

three or four other countries. And it doesn’t look as though it’s going to be terminated lately anyway. It’s a, the world’s in a turmoil. I don’t know the answer. You don’t neither.

Well, I’ve always felt that if my government calls on me to do something, I will do it.

Now, I’m not always saying it’s right. And I think the Vietnam boys or the Vietnam people that objected, I think they were disloyal.

No, I didn’t say that. You should follow your government which is not the politicians. It’s those that govern you. What would you have thought in a Second World

War if we said, objected and wouldn’t go and fight the Japanese? Would you have been happy about that? We did it, not because we hated the Japanese or the Germans or anybody else. We did it because Menzies called on us to help the mother country and to protect our own backsides.

Of what?

I’m very confident. I think we’ve

got an extraordinarily strong economy. And I think we’re very lucky being a food basket. No, I’m terribly, terribly confident. The only thing I’m not confident in is our birth rate. And I don’t want to see a great influx of migrants, even though eventually they’ll become Australians, hopefully,

without having the Australians having an input or output, I suppose. At the moment our birth rate per woman is very low. And I think that’s a pity.

I didn’t know that. I would have thought if you had affluence you could afford children. But perhaps

it’s the very reverse.

Well, I’m not in favour of it. Unless I’m fighting my wife and I’m on the winning side, which is very rare. No, does anybody like war? I don’t, I’ve never met

anybody in the army wanted war. I can get along with you two without any trouble. Should be able to get along with most. Why, I don’t understand the question really.

I didn’t like that either. I don’t know anybody

who went to the war that likes it. Perhaps some people got promoted or something. But I still don’t know anybody who said, you know, it was great. I must say, as my friend, Donnelly, said, “I wouldn’t have missed it for quids.” Because it was a leveller, if that’s a word. It made us all conscious of other people. Of our colleagues. Of our

fellow Australians. Which in perhaps my upbringing I wouldn’t have normally met. The miners in the tent, so to speak. How often have you looked after five Broken Hill miners? And I think that was a great experience.

Thank heaven.

To whom?

No, just good luck. I’m not trying to teach anybody or reach anybody.

And you or I don’t know what’s going to be about in fifty or a hundreds years’ time. Hopefully it will be more peaceful. That’s your last question.

I’m so happy.