Australians at War Film Archive

Oh yes, I was born on the first of December 1923, I don't know where I was born really, but I know

me brother, I know he was born with a midwife but I might have been born in the hospital, I’m not quite sure of that no. And well I don’t remember much about early days, I think I was three at the time. Well this house had just been built, it was about 1926 I suppose and I think me father paid about a thousand pound for it. So before that we’d been living

up next to my grandma’s house in Lennox Street. Lennox Street, that be alright? Lennox Street just off Mitchell Street down the other side of High Street and you look on to the Dandenongs from there. It’s a pretty steep hill, but I don’t remember much about that at all, you know. Then I came down here and, well, next I know I suppose I started school at Helen Street State School about four and a half.

And went on from there till sixth grade and after sixth grade I went to the Northcote High School. And I was there for four years I think, went in, think there was A, B, C and D, yeah, I finished up, I got me Intermediate [certificate] and I was fifteen at the time and then I started work at my father’s shop in St. Kilda. And

I worked there for three years just, oh, fifteen, seventeen probably, seventeen and a half and then I, me father had a shop up here in High Street, Northcote and I used to, worked up there for the last six months and then I got the call into the army as soon as I turned eighteen which was on the first of December. And I was called up on the twenty-second of January down Simpson Street off

Westgarth Street and from there we went straight to Seymour, straight on the train up to Seymour. But Northcote High I can remember quite well. I played, it was a big park outside the school, Mary Park School, and used to play football and cricket there. And met one of me mates that was at Helen Street with

me and he came at the same time and we grew up, we were mates right up till the time he died about three years ago. We wrote to each other during the, he was in the army and I was in the army and we wrote to each other each, you know, month or something like that. So that was about my school history I think.

Oh no, it was a pretty busy street, High

Street, Northcote. Actually the shopping centre went from Westburn Road where the Town Hall is down, well that part of the High Street now is, you know, it’s still got the shops there but it’s not much business done there now. Really it comes from the other side of Mitchell Street where there’s quite a few shops right down to Separation Street. And then of course they built the Plaza in the last five years, oh, might have been

ten years and that was on the old tip. Well that’s now, you know, where the main shopping centre is done, they’ve got Bi-Lo and Coles and, oh, about twenty other shops there you know, so that’s where the main business and High Street Northcote is, well, a lot of restaurants.

Yeah, my father started a, he came down from the country, Rushworth and he got a, he had been

working in Waldren’s store in Rushworth. And his father died, he was a gold miner, and he died when he was fifty, what gold miner’s, in the lungs and that. And my grandma, his mother, decided to bring all the boys, there was three, ah, one, two, three, four boys and two

girls, and she brought them down to Melbourne and they built this house in Lennox Street and my father bought a block of land there and next door to that house. I don't know how they, what money they, I suppose but it wasn’t money, I suppose, it was from the bank. And he got a job at Williams’ store in High Street, just past the Town Hall.

so he worked for Williams, Williams was the grocer up there, he was the main, the boss. And he said to my father, he wanted to retire and get out and he said, “What about...” birthday, he used to call my father; his name was Herbert, “What about taking over the shop?” And he, Dad said, “What with?” He said, “I’ve got no money.” He said, “Well that block of land you’ve got down there, why don’t you see the bank and try and get a mortgage on it?” Which he did and so my Dad became the owner of that shop.

Well they were only, Dad and Mum had only been married, I think they were married in about 1916 so I don't know, that must have been about 1918 or ’19 I suppose, ’20 could have been. And so he took over the shop and they were young and the people around all knew, you know, they were well known. And they had quite a good business there and he made a good living out of it. And then he decided

that the grocery game was getting a bit, you know, with the chain stores, Crookes, Crofts and Ratcliffes and so forth, Moran and Kay-toes[?], was getting a bit, you know. So he heard that the profit margin in licensed grocers was better than in the ordinary grocers. So he decided to go into a licensed grocer’s business when one was bankrupt I think down in

North Melbourne so he bought that shop. And it was only into the short, well probably six months or so and he got out of it and got this, he heard about this shop down in St. Kilda, in High Street, St. Kilda which is St. Kilda Road now, they’ve widened it. And that was quite a busy shop down there and they had the main shopping centre was there at that time. And it was a bankrupt business and he was able to get that, he was there from about

1936 right up till he sold out about 1980. So he made quite a good living out of it and I worked there when I first, knock, when I first knocked off school, I worked there until, when the, just before, well the war had started in Europe, but not in, not Japan. And then staff

became hard to get up in Northcote and I was transferred up there for the last six months before I went into the army.

Well I don’t remember that much about it but it must have been you know, cause we, I suppose, you know he had to be careful of credit and all that, the people out of work

and wanting money and all that type of thing, but he was able to get through the Depression. But I was a bit young to really appreciate it, well, I do remember, you know, we had to be careful and that. The kids, some kids at school you know, had no shoes or only running shoes and all that type of thing, yeah. But my brother he was four years older than me and

he done more or less the same as what I did, he was, went to Helen Street and then went to Northcote High. But he went on to a year longer than what I did, he done his Leaving [certificate] and then got a shop, a job in an insurance company in town. My sister, she went to the Catholic School up here on the hill, St. Joseph’s and then went to CLC in the city and became a

stenographer or a typist, done a business course at Stotts’ Business School and became a typist.

Oh, played cricket and football and played in the kids, you know, neighbours over the road and that. Used to be in Bridge Street here, there was trees on the road, when we used to

use it as wickets and played football even though you weren’t supposed to play football, because of the electricity wires. I remember one time we were pulled up by the, someone up there in the Town Hall and told what we had to do. But it was no, we were just told not to do it again so that went on and yeah. Can’t remember much else about me

childhood there. Yeah.

Whereabouts?

Oh, the Mary Creek, yeah, we used to go down there catch yabbies, with safety pins I think it was but not very often but sometimes. And then

there was a park, Northcote Park down Westgarth Street where we’d go, get on the swings and see saws and what not, yeah. Had the two boys next door, they came into the house, two houses were built at the same time and they occupied that house all his, their father worked as a pattern cutter in Clifton Hill. And we

were quite friendly with the boys next door and mum was pretty friendly with the woman too. They used to sing out over the fence and borrow some sugar or flour or something like that, they had a certain call what they knew each other. So we had a car, we had a Hudson I think it was, a Hudson. And

that was a very heavy car and they had a Graham Page[?] I think it was. And used to go, sometimes we’d go out on a Sunday, we’d both go and have a bit of a picnic somewhere along the line, up, well those places now, they’re all houses now, of course they were only paddocks. But Northcote, no Northcote was pretty busy, you know a Friday night, oh you’d walk up the street on a Friday night, it was

packed, Friday night shopping, you know, the shops didn’t close till nine o'clock. Westgarth down here, the Westgarth Shopping Centre was a very good shopping centre. We were quite handy; we could walk down there and get vegetables. It was about two or three vegetable shops, about three grocer’s shops and three butcher’s shops so it was a very handy area you know and we were quite close of course. And of course it was, had the cable

trams for the start and then after, the cable trams they converted to double decker buses, they used to run into the city and then after the double decker buses they electrified the line. And that was after the war when they had a lot of Italians came out here and they had the Italians working on the tracks and cementing the tracks and the lines in. And of course they still got,

and they had to lower the road at Clifton Hill where the railway went over, that was for the double decker buses so it had, lower the road there so the double decker buses could go underneath it. They were very rough and they, cause heavy, and they made big dints in the road and everything like that and I think they were glad to get rid of them. And of course there was a lot of public transport in those days and people under public transports.

And buses only had one entrance and people getting on and off, it was always a bit of a mix up. And I used to ride the bike to work too; I used to ride from here down to St. Kilda. And I was only, as I say I was only fifteen and I had a push, a fixed bike and had no brakes on it and used, to stop and used to put your foot on the

back wheel, stop. And used to go down Hoddle Street, was no traffic lights at Johnson Street or any of those streets then and good job they weren’t I suppose. And anyway it was hard to get, not much, not many cars on the road and I was able to get by and was able to get down to St. Kilda. Had to dodge the Punt Road Hill and used to go round the Yarra [River], follow the Yarra

down and come up Darling Street and then go along all those side streets so I missed Chapel Street. And, well, I don't know how I got on when the rain, I probably, sometimes I’d go down by bus I think or tram. Fourpence it used to be, fourpence into the city and fourpence from the city out to St. Kilda. And there was

no, there was no something there, what was I gonna say? Oh, there was no Punt Road bus in those days where the bus runs down Punt Road, well, there was no bus in those days so that’s why I used to go through the city. Dad used to go down, he used to go down by the tram, get on the tram here and go down into the city and then get the tram from the city

to St. Kilda. The, later on, that was after the war, the buses, we used to catch the bus down and that only used to take about half an hour from St. Kilda so I didn’t ride the bike after the war ended, I used to go down by the bus.

Yes,

that’s probably why the buses weren’t running the Punt Road Bridge, we used to go over the Anderson Street Bridge. On Saturday mornings Dad’d take the car to work and go over the Anderson Street Bridge and up past the Botanical Gardens and come up onto St. Kilda Road there.

Yeah. Yeah I don't know when the Punt Road Bridge must have been built, just before the war I suppose. I don't

know, I’m not quite sure now when the Punt Road Bridge was built anyway.

No, I don't think so, not as far as I know, no, I don’t remember any punts going across. They had, of course they had Princes Bridge in town and there was no Swan Street Bridge. There was only the Spencer Street and the Princes Bridge as far as I can, and Anderson Street of course yeah.

Punt Road Hill yes, yeah there weren’t many steep hills then, no. Of course this steep hill here and all the workers, mainly worked in the shoe factories down Clifton Hill and at five o'clock at night time here you’d see all on push bikes you know, coming up, when people lived up,

towards up Preston and that to go up that hill and when you had the north wind it wasn’t too good. Well I remember meself you’d have a south wind going down and north wind going, you always seemed to strike the north wind when you were coming home and the south wind going down, of course it was little bit against you too. But it was funny to see all the, well it wasn’t funny I

don’t suppose but you couldn’t cross the road hardly for push bikes on about five o'clock at night, yeah.

No, only on Saturdays, yeah, only drove it to work on Saturdays, yes. I don't know why but it I suppose might have been something to do with petrol. And during the war of course there was petrol rationing and Dad, we had, delivery you know, and groceries the old delivery

business and I’d push around on a push bike, collect the orders, come back to the shop, get them up and then deliver them. Deliver them by, oh we had an old T-Model Ford to deliver the car, the things. And then later on when the petrol rationing was on, Dad, during the war, he bought this horse and cart, an old milkman’s horse and cart.

And we used that right up till, I didn’t have a car license when I come back from the war, I didn’t get my license till I was probably twenty-two or twenty-three, twenty-four it might have been. And I used to harness up the horse and deliver the groceries down St. Kilda. But we were very busy, it was all orders. We used to deliver orders Monday,

Tuesday, every day in the week and probably had, we packed the boxes, had wooden boxes with the order in, we had one on the top and one on the bottom and probably had about thirty or forty orders every day in the week. And we’d go down as far as Brighton and deliver down as far as Brighton with the horse and cart,

come back. And then we got the, when the petrol become a bit more freer we bought a Dodge van to deliver the orders.

Oh, it was good, oh weren’t many cars you know and coming along Inkerman Street you’d come under the Railway Bridge, this is coming home and the horse’d gallop, he knew he was getting close to home. He’d gallop when you come to

Chapel Street you had to pull the reins pretty tight to try and stop him. Yeah, he was a great old horse and we went right up, well Dad had bought another shop, he bought a shop in Balaclava Road. And it was the shortage of staff during the war, he bought all the orders from the Balaclava shop up to St. Kilda and closed the Balaclava shop. And course we had a lot of orders

up towards the Caulfield, right up to Hotham Street and Kooyong Road even. So there was, they were all good customers, it was a good area up there and they spent you know, good money. Used to be funny going around collecting the orders, you know some, they were elderly women, they’d be in bed. And you’d go into the house and they’d give you the order, then you’d

go home. Oh, they all knew me of course, yeah. But it was, you know, great to know people and of course there weren’t many telephones either. We had a telephone at the shop and when, of course then people become more familiar with the, well were able to get the telephone and you’d ring the customer up then. Whereas before they didn’t have telephones so you had to go round and collect their order. We didn’t have a telephone here until

well after the war either.

Mmm?

Oh they had a stable at the back. And you’d have to come home and you’d unharness the horse and give him a hose and curry comb him and get all the water off and everything and then throw the hay down on the ground for his bed at night time. And, oh, he was

quite tame you know that way, you know, good old horse, Darkie was his name. So, Dad as I said done quite well though they used to, at his house, they used to sell the eggs, him and mum put in fowls and they’d have a, what do you call

them, those one things that hatch the eggs and they’d sell the eggs to the grocer’s shop. So that was when Mr Williams had the shop when they first started off. So Dad was what, then he became mayor of course so cause someone asked him, one of the other grocers said, “What about going into the Northcote Council.” Councillor Ulver, he had grocer’s shops too down on, he had about

four grocer’s shops, not licensed, down, there was one down here in the you know, just over the Railway Bridge there in Charles Street. And he got Dad to go into the council and then became, then he became mayor in 1944 I think, mayor for a year. You know, they were pretty busy times of course, because Dad was associated with group buying where group

grocers would get together and then buy in quantities to come back the chain stores, get the better price and get five, ten percent discount off the certain prices, goods. They were able to compete with chain stores right up until the supermarkets came in and Coles and Woolworth’s and so forth, they were able to compete with them.

Well I didn’t know much about it of course but you had to collect the coupons of course, even after the war, we had to go round and there was butter coupons, sugar coupons, tea coupons and I think in clothing, there was clothing coupons too. But, well after the war of course we used to, I remember having to collect the coupons when we went around. And then you had to, the weekend you had to

count them all up or something and I don't know just how we got the supplies. I know we used to go in to town and go to butter factories and pick up eggs and butter and then with this fruit buying they had the grocers bought this store in Latrobe Street and then we used to go in there and pick up

the goods. But later on they got group buying and they had a buyer down St. Kilda, a buyer in Brighton, a buyer in different suburbs. And the buyer had a store and he’d get, you’d have a meeting on Monday night and then we’d order what we wanted and then he’d order it from the manufacturer. It cut out all the merchants like Harpers and all that,

cut them out of business. And the buyer, they used to, he’d buy and get the price and then he’d charge us one and three quarter percent, so and a group buyer done very well out of it, he made good money and it was better for the grocer, local grocer.

Yeah they had, they tried to stable the prices

and if any chap started to cut they’d more or less tell him, you know, not to do it or restricted in some way unless he had to meet competition of course. If you had to meet the competition, you’d come down in price to meet the competition.

Oh yes because he used to go to these grocers’

meetings on Monday night and he became a good speaker, you know, good speaker and that. And think he might have gone to school or something and learned something about th, being able to speak in front of people, but he was quite good at that. And he became President of the Grocers’ Association, he was President about three times I think. He had, you know, they, but it was a very busy life, you know, we’d

actually, when we were boy, kids, we didn’t see that much of him because he had these meetings on Monday night, one with council, one with someone else you know, so you know, he was a very busy man.

Well, Pres...

Well as mayor, well I was not here, we were away, cause we were in the war, see when he was mayor.

But they did, Northcote Council did send us, I forget what it was now, sent us something anyway when we were overseas. Might have been money or something or chocolate or something like that, anyway, we got that from the Northcote Council.

I didn’t, not when I was at school though my brother used to go down on Saturday mornings to help in the shop but I didn’t go on Saturday mornings. Oh, I might have gone once or twice but not regular or anything anyway. So I only went there after I’d finished school.

What was the what?

Oh, it was pretty good education, yeah, we had all the subjects, English and we’d have a different teacher for each subject and they’d come and you’d algebra, arithmetic, geography, history, drawing and it was a good school the Northcote High. And I don't know how many pupils they would have had; of course it’s much bigger

now, it’s much bigger and they’ve got girls there now too. Well, it was just a boys’ school when I went and that was on first form and then the second, you went up the next year to the next form the third year and then Intermediate. You didn’t have to, where a lot of the other schools had to go to the exhibition to do the exam, we had an internal exam and we didn’t have to go out and that was

passed by the teachers at the school. So that was for Intermediate and Leaving, I think they had to go to the exhibition [Exhibition Building] to go for an examination.

Yes when I, Intermediate. My mate, he left at the same time and went into

the Post Office and he used to have to, you know, telegram boy and all that type of thing and then he enlisted, he wasn’t called up, we were all called up when we turned eighteen. He enlisted before the Japanese come into the war and he was able to get a dispensation whereas they were not supposed to be able to enlist but he got in. And he went to Western Australia in the army

but he never went overseas, oh he went to Thursday Island and then over to the south coast of, but he never saw any action, fighting action. And then he came back and he did night school and he became a buyer, was a pretty high up job in the Commonwealth Government and used to buy for the army.

So he done pretty well too, so you know, it was one of me mates. And I think most of the boys, I never went to any after school exhibitions you know, when they have the years after, never had any of those, I think they had one or two at the high school but I never ever went over to those.

Well, we were called up, as soon as we turned eighteen. We were in, , because the Japanese had come in in December ’42 and we were, no, December ’41 we were called up in January ’42. And straight

up to Seymour. So it was...

Oh no, I had no, not much interest in joining up, I don't think I would have joined up, only called in. My brother joined up, he joined up in, straight, in September 1939, the war started, I think he enlisted in about October and he went over to the Middle East,

he was in artillery, in the 6th Division. His number was a low number, in fact VX609 so it was a pretty low number and he became a prisoner of war. He was caught in Crete and they had a bad time for a little while but then they were put out onto farms and that wasn’t a bad life.

Oh still, I suppose you know, it wasn’t good but it was much better than being in a prison camp. In fact his mate went back and married one of the girls on the farm, so, you know, they were quite good.

Oh yes, we used to write letters, like, write letters and mum, I think we did have a telegram you know, when mum

got the telegram saying he’d, missing believed killed or missing believed prisoner of war something like that. I think they got two telegrams, one to say he was missing and then next one to say he was alright, yeah.

Yeah, yeah, wouldn’t be yeah. Still, it was a lot better than getting the one to say he’d been killed wasn’t it?

But anyway he came back, he was, like I say, he was in insurance company. But when he came back he went into the grocery too and we were both in the grocery down St. Kilda. It was hard to get labour still and that’s why we, I didn’t have much leave, well we had a lot of leave when we come back, a month or something but I only took two or three weeks and then went straight into the business.

That was straight after the war, oh you know I came back in, he came home in about, the war ended in August, in May didn’t it and then I think they went to England and travelled around England then came home. So he probably came when the European War ended, oh he probably came home in about August or September of ’45, I didn’t get home till March ’46,

I think March or April ’46 so he was already working in the shop when I came home.

I had no idea no, of course Japan had only just come in more or less so you didn’t know how serious it was, you know, when Japan you know, just said they’d come in or they’d bombed Pearl Harbor. We didn’t know they were gonna come down

this far, next thing they knew they’re right on our door steps. So we weren’t really adjusted to that in January, would have been later on I suppose, I might have been interested later on but I wasn’t interested at the time. I just got the call up and so had to go.

Oh no, no, didn’t know if we would

go or what we’d do or anything like that. So we spent a few years, a few, only about a month I think at Seymour and then went to Albury and then from Albury to Casino. Casino to Caboolture, Caboolture to Coo, and then I think it was, we had a bit of leave and then when we come back we were stopped, Pomona that’s not far from

Cooroy and then we were told we were going overseas.

Well, we didn’t think we’d go to Seymour, in fact a lot of the ones that, they spent some time on the showgrounds or at Caulfield Race Course but we were put straight on the train, straight up to Seymour the same day. And

it was a funny old life, I didn’t know much about army life and we were thrown a big bag and a lot of hay on the ground and told to fill up the bag and that’s your bed. Put your bed into a tent with five others I think, there was six in a tent and then of course you got to know them and by name anyway and

that. And then we had to go out in the day, get up at six o'clock or five o'clock whenever reveille was and then have breakfast and then out on the fields with lessons or how to clean a rifle and how to shoot a rifle or how to bayonet, use a bayonet. And then of course it was in the summer time, you’d be out in the field and

I used to get very sleepy, so I would go to sleep or doze off you know, how you would in the sunshine, and not being interested in sitting down. And of course the grocery game was a very active game; you never sat down for one minute. If you weren’t getting up orders or serving customers you were weighing up sugar, weighing up salt, weighing up currants, sultanas or rice, barley, there was no packages, you had to do all that,

weigh it all up. So you never had a spare moment from the time you got there at twenty to nine till you left at, closed the shop at six o'clock. So anyway army life, oh it was quite, I quite liked the army life in Australia, you know, it was quite a restful life compared with the grocery.

No, she did, I think when they were up at Northcote after the first took it over, she used to go back at night time and help with the weighing up and they’d weigh up the sugar and all that at night a couple of hours I suppose they might have done. But she never served in the shop no.

Yeah, well down St. Kilda we had about when I come back I think there was about four of them down there, four or five of them you know in the shop. Northcote was, well, when I was up there, there was only the manager and myself.

No, I didn’t know a soul down there when I went in. No, I found out later that there was, well there was a big batch of us, you know, only one or two when we went down there, big batch of us and you’d called up. And I think they said, “What do you wanna do, you wanna be a cook or infantry?” I don't think anyone picked infantry anyway.

They’d say, “Air gunner” or something like that, I don't know but you never got what you wanted anyway. In fact, I didn't know anything about army so I didn’t know what to say or anything. I think I said I probably wanted to be a cook; I was a bit interested in cooking but never done anything you know, afterwards.

Went

in the infantry. Yes, the infantry, yeah so didn’t know much about that either you know, we didn’t know what, oh you learned the, you know, they had sections and companies. And then you had so many guns, rifles and you had an Owen gun [submachine gun] or a Bren [light machine gun]

to a platoon. You’d have three sections in the platoon. So you’d have three Bren guns and about three Owen guns I suppose and the rest rifles.

Oh yes, yeah, you had to learn, you learned that

in there from C you know, when we went out into the, I forget what they used to call them now, we went out into the field anyway and learned all about the Bren gun and Owen gun and how to take it apart, and put it together again and you learned all that.

Never fired a gun in me life, no, before that, no.

Yeah, used to go rabbiting but not with guns. We used to have ferrets

and we’d ride out from here and I was friendly with a chap over the road, another boy about me own age. And we’d ride our bikes and he had the ferret, one ferret I think, or might have had two. And we’d take, you know, a box and you put the ferret in a box and put it on your back and ride up to Thomas Town or away up that way or Reservoir I suppose, round about that way was a lot of rabbits.

Put the ferret down into the hole and he’d bung, and you’d put a net over the hole and catch the rabbit. So ...

Oh, you’d eat them. Bring them home, kill them and bring them home and eat them, yeah. He had pigeons too, and he had pigeons over there and they, we used to take, put them in a box,

and take them out a couple of miles and they’d be homing pigeons and they’d find their way home. So that was an interesting life when you’re a kid, boy.

Oh yeah, yeah, cook them yeah, I used to like rabbit. Boil them up and put a bit of bacon with them, and it was quite good.

Oh we never used to, you have bullets and you went to the firing range, they used to have a range, well only went there about once I think and I was only had the rifle in those days and, you know, shoot at a target.

But that was the only time we fired them until later on. But just learned all the parts and then you had reveille, well after reveille I suppose it must have been that thing they’d come in and examine your rifle and you had to have the rifle clean, you had a pull through, you used to pull it through, put a bit of oil on it. And after you been firing of course there’s a lot of carbon

in the barrel and you’d have to clean that out and they’d have a gun inspection and they’d look down the barrel to see how cold, had cleaned it. So that was the idea of it.

Oh we, when we were at the cadre, I think they called that in the early days there used to be a cadre and they were

very, you had the sergeant-major and he had a roaring voice and everything like that. And it was very, more or less just means you wouldn’t want to do a thing out of step anyway you know. You had to put your left foot forward and march and be in step all the time. Other than that they’d come up behind you, left right, left right and go on like that. Oh we marched from

Seymour to Albury when we were shifting camp, we went up the Nepean Highway I suppose it would have been, oh not the Nepean Highway, the Hume Highway. And we took about a week, nine or ten days to get there. We’d do about probably eighteen k’s [kilometres] a day or eighteen miles a day, do three miles an hour was the idea. Then you’d have ten minutes rest and then start off again. And we walk you know,

walking or marching, mainly walking I think, never had a band or anything, you just walk. And well a lot of them suffered with you know, blisters on their feet and all that because we had those big army boots. But I was alright I never had any blisters or anything like that. And we’d camp at night time and of course they had all the field rations, the cooks cooking and you’d get your free meals alright.

And then we came to Wangaratta just before we got, it was Easter time just before we got into Wangaratta, it came down in buckets. And we had to camp in one of the scout halls I think or a band stand or something like that anyway, it was all flooded anyway, it was a very heavy rain and it was Easter time, Good Friday I think when we woke up, it was Good Friday. But anyway then we kept on

marching and then we went through Beechworth and then we came on to the Hume camp and we were camped at Hume for, oh, must have been a couple of months anyway before we went up to Casino

Oh yes, they were out there cheering us on. Yes and

get a bit, sometimes they’d throw you apples or something like that, you know, something to eat. Yes, it was an interesting trip walking all that way; you wouldn’t have thought when you walk, walk from Seymour to Albury.

Mmm?

Oh yes we were altogether yeah,

yes there was, I suppose we’d bark in, you’d still have your sergeant and your corporal to keep you in order. And you’d march in platoons, three sections to a platoon, so it was supposed to be about three to a, be about in a platoon I suppose’d be forty or fifty anyway

because it was about twelve to a section, so three twelve’s are thirty-six so somewhere round about that, forty and that’d be a platoon and then there was three platoons to a company so we were in C Company. So you’d, C Company’d be about a hundred I suppose, taking in the company clerk and all that. But we got down to, after we’d been in action for a while, we got down

to, I think there was only about three or four of us you know, in a section anyway you know. A lot got sick and some got killed and some got wounded so we were down to bed rocks until we got the reinforcements.

Oh I suppose to keep us fit you know,

well we had to do a lot of walking in the army so that was a good idea I suppose. Yes, it was three battalions to the brigade and we all marched, it was the 58th [Battalion], oh we were the 58th then and we hadn’t joined with the 59th. It was the 58th and the 57th, 60th and the 59th, that was the three

companies ah the three battalions to the brigade, so we all marched to Albury, the whole brigade. And then later on, when we got up to Casino the 59th was camped at Grafton and then that’s when we amalgamated and we become the 58/59th and then they brought in another battalion the 24th Battalion to make up the brigade.

So we had the 24th , 58/59thand 57/60th, we comprised the brigade. Actually a lot of ones were at school with me were the 57/60th. I don't know how I come to be in the 58th because around this area at Preston and Northcote area they mainly went to the 57/60th.

Not long, no, I think we might have been there about a month or so before we went to Casino yeah. Oh we used to go out on stunts around the weir, Hume Weir and you know, learn a bit more about soldiering, how to look after ourselves.

Oh you’d go out at

night time sometimes and you know, fighting, pretend to be fighting the enemy. You know, had to do all, say the enemy was over there or something and you’d have to be careful and pretend to shoot him. Like Cowboys and Indians, when you were a kid.

Oh it was quite interesting,

you know, after not having anything to do, I never used to go camping or anything down here so it was quite interesting for me. And you had to learn, you know, you had to learn how to put up a tent or how to make something out of bark of trees or something like that, bit of shelter. So it was all you know, something new to what I had been used to.

Yeah we, and we had, I think there was eight in a tent, we had big Yankee tents there and they were a bit bigger than the ordinary Australian tents, and I think we had a couple of extra in it. But we only slept on, we didn’t have palliasses or anything for a bed or anything, we used to sleep on the boards so you had to have a good hip.

And cause we found the nights pretty cold up there too, cause it was getting on to autumn or getting on to winter I suppose, we were camped at Casino for quite some time. But it was quite a fair size, you know, it wasn’t a big town but it was a good town and a good you know, cattle area I think it was around that area.

But I never got used to, you had to get leave to go in to town but I think they might have had, you had one or two nights. But I never used to go in much, might have gone in one or twice, I didn’t bother about going in at night time. But they’d, boys’d only go to the pictures or go to the milk bar or something, get an ice cream.

Oh no not

many, oh some did of course but the ones in our tent, they weren’t drinkers or they were only, well of course we were only eighteen you know, so we hadn’t even tasted liquor hardly. I don't think I had, I had a drink I think when I, it was way up in Cooroy when they got a company canteen, they used to get a nine gallon

and had two boys to set it up and they’d sell the beer. And I don't know, threepence or something like that for a, fill up a tin mug, you had a tin mug that was in your, you know, your cooking, or not your cooking, your eating utensils. You had a tin mug, two army plates two tin plates and I think that

was all, a knife and fork, yeah, spoon. Then later on they brought in the dixies. Dixies, you had two handles on, two things and you could join them together and just carry her up like that, you’d have the plates. But you still had the, I think we got an enamel mug then, an enamel mug instead of a tin mug, that was more, quite handy, the dixies they used to call them.

They’d go up, you’d line up in a queue for food and you’d just have the handle and you’d just put your dixie, one dixie out and you’d get something in that and the other dixie you’d get a sweet or something like that in it. And course when we got over to New Guinea and food become lot more scarce as you know, we had a lot of tinned bully beef and all that and you got, of course baked beans, bully beef,

had a lot of herrings, cold fish they used to call it. And I don't think we got much bread either, I don't know what we used to have, we didn’t get much bread anyway. When we got up to, we went from Moresby to Bulolo, that’s over the Owen Stanleys and then the food was

worse there. You had to supplement it with, we used to call ’em sweet potato in the native gardens, but I think it was taro. We used to supplement our food with taro, with this; we used to call it sweet potato.

Oh yeah, down here we seemed to get enough but when we got up

to New Guinea we didn’t get much, but yeah you seemed to get enough food in the camps, early camps. No when I went, first went in, I only weighed eight stone eight, and that was a hundred and twenty pound, that’s all I weighed, and after being in a couple of months you put on a bit of weight so it was a good life, yeah.

As I said, well, the grocery game wasn’t easy, you know, you were on the go all the time so you never ever put on much weight. But after you know, being in the army you started, with the food and that you know, started to put on a bit of weight.

Oh yes, you know, the ones in your tent you knew and quite you know would, good mates, yeah. I still see some of the two boys that I was

in the army with. We were more or less in the same tent or the same company and used to see them every Friday, go down to the Ayrfield RSL [Returned and Services League] and have lunch down there and they might play the pokies or for half an hour or for something like that. And oh it’s good to meet them you know, and then we ring each other up each time so it’s quite good.

Yeah. One chap, he was a bit older than me,

he’d been in early camps, they were, well he’s, he’d be about five years older than me, because he’s eighty-four now yeah and he was in the camps, early camps at Seymour before I went. They were called up when they, I think they were twenty-one, they weren’t called up when they were eighteen, I think they were called up when they were twenty-one.

Oh then we went to Caboolture, that’s just up in the Queensland border into Queensland and then we came into contact with pineapples. I think in the next camp there was pineapple fields and we were able to you know, help ourselves to the pineapples, the farmers didn’t mind it you know. And then one stage we got,

we got eaten out by fleas, there must have been sandy soil or something like that, anyway we had to shift camp. They fumigated all our blankets, had to put the blankets into fumigation and we had to shift camp, shift to another part of the, or shift camp altogether, I don't know how far away we went. But the railway trips when you went from well

from Albury right up, you know, we were on the train for probably three or four nights you know. Because you wouldn’t go straight through, you had to shunt off and let the other trains go through all the time. You might be you know, shunted off for an hour or two hours or something like that. And then when we went through the, going up from Caboolture afterwards, we were going up through Rockhampton and all those towns you know, but the train was

going through the main street. You know and the people, you’d have your food on the railway stations and go through the town, and people were outside you know, singing out to you. And we played cards mainly on the trip, used to play Five Hundred or some card game anyway. You know, you had four or five of you, four of you probably playing cards and sleep on the train.

That wasn’t very comfortable of course. But I think of course the climate was quite different to Melbourne so you know, you get nice sunny days and cool nights. And you never, in Casino and that it seemed to be beautiful, never got seemed to get much rain or anything like that.

And nights were a bit nippy you know, I think we had a couple of, two blankets I think but, and then as we went further north of course you didn’t need the blankets. In the finish, when we got up to Cooroy and that, further north and wasn’t so cold. Used to got for swims at Caboolture, there was a big

natural like a dam I suppose it would have been down in the bushes, and we used to go down there and have a swim and dive. Oh the mosquitoes, oh they were terrible there, in the day time, great big things, you know, great big ones too and they’d get into you, we were slapping at them all the time. Course in the bush I suppose, but in the day time you know, they didn’t seem to worry you much at night time.

Oh we didn’t have mosquito nets then, got, course when we got to [Port] Moresby we got mosquito nets. And course they started to get worried about the malaria then cause we had to, they make sure you had to put your mosquito net up. We had to wear long trousers have the sleeves rolled down so the mosquitoes wouldn’t get at us. Whereas I think over here

we were wearing shorts.

Yes we used to still have the training, it’d be more personalised you know, because you’d only go out in groups, small groups and you’d just have a sergeant in charge and he’d just tell you what to do and you know,

teach you something about one of the guns or go through the lessons and know about that. Course we’re getting more or less starting to know things in those days you know. Once you’re going from Seymour up there, we knew guns; we knew what the rifles were supposed to do and how many yards they sighting and all that. And the Bren gun that had automatic weapons

and the Bren gun was automatic or single shot and machine gun. Then we started to learn about camouflage and so it’s all those things coming out.

Oh well I don't think we had much idea, that we, but we knew that there was fighting going on in

New Guinea so I suppose we more or less thought we’d probably go to New Guinea. Moresby was a, we just got there, I think we were there for two air raids and so we didn’t get there, oh they were start, the Japanese were then were starting to be pulled back a bit from the Owen Stanleys when they came over so close to Moresby.

Well we just got there at the end of that so they were starting to retreat so we only got a couple of air raids before we were shifted up to Bulolo. Bulolo was quite a nice place, it was high up and there was a lot of paw-paws and taro and nights were cooler.

Wau, it wasn’t far from Wau, Wau was a bit of a township there, they used to dredge gold during the war, ah, before the war. So there was a swimming pool and everything there, they were, it was, when they got out they thought the Japs were coming in to Wau. In fact they were right on the air, practically on the airport when they were knocked back. And people had destroyed most of the houses and

the swimming pools and all that before they’d left.

Oh they thought the Japanese were coming in, see they were practically in to Wau, before, they destroyed those things and then got out.

Then we went from Caboolture up to Cooroy and I think that, well we didn’t know that much about it there, there’s no pineapple farm or anything like that then, no ginger factory, but it was quite pleasant. We went out on to the coast too and done stunts out there. That

would be where, what’s the name of the place up there now where they, it’s a very frequented place, very well known town, it’s very expensive too.

No not that, not up that far, no, Bruce Ruxton’s gone up there now to live. Oh, I can’t think of the name of it now. Anyway it’s right on the coast and there was nothing

there in those days and but the, we went in for a swim and I mean the undertow was terrific there and so we didn’t go out too far. Just up past, it’s in the Sunshine Coast area, just past Caboolture.

Past the Gold Coast up to Sunshine Coast, you know, that’s north of Brisbane.

Past Maroochydore yes, not far past, going up all that area up there, it’s gone ahead like Billy-oh now. And then you come to this place where you know, it’s...

Noosa yeah, that’s it yeah. Noosa, yeah.

Yeah fancy forgetting that yeah.

So we were probably camped then at Cooroy I suppose yeah. And well we done stunts around Murwillumbah and Yukan, there was a little township Yukan, where we went out. Then I think one of the boys, one of our blokes married a girl from Yukan, it was only a little, small town and of course they went to the local dance at night.

time and they met this couple of the ladies. And one of them got married, or one at least got married and then, at Casino, one of our mates went back after the war I think and married the girl. And he, they came down to Victoria but she didn’t like it much in Victoria so they went up and they lived at Casino afterwards. I went up and visited him a couple of times and had quite a big

family too in the finish, I think he had about five or six in the family. And he went up as far as, this is after the war of course, up as far as, one of those mining, Mount Isa to make, you know to make some money. All cost, when you have four or five kiddies I suppose, cost a few bob wouldn’t it.

No I never used to

dance much no. I don't think I, oh, I did, when I come down to Melbourne, I expect it was on leave I used to go to learn to dance classes you know. But I, I was never much of a dancer anyway.

Then we went to

Pomona, that’s only a few miles on from Cooroy and that’s, they still got a picture theatre there it shows there. So I’ve never been and I think they’ve gone through it but you can’t recognise it to what it was in those war years, you know. You can’t even recognise, you can’t recognise Caboolture, you know, they’ve gone ahead so much you know, it’s impossible to be in them, course you’re camped out you know, fair way from the main centre of the town

anyway. So you know, you know how the things change and the new roads put in and all that so you can’t even recognise the place these days. But I remember just before we left Cooroy or Pomona, oh, there was must have been right in the summer time or in the thunder, rainy season up there I suppose the, we would have had,

the creek, there was a camp right near a creek and oh it became a river practically you know and we had to get out, it was you know, rain, I never seen anything like it. Course we saw plenty like it when we got to New Guinea. Yes, the climate changes but I really can’t remember that much about you know, up in that area.

Oh yes outback, yeah only little small town you know. One of our chaps, he was a lot older than me and he was, he was the quartermaster, he was in the quartermaster, he was a sergeant. And they used to hop on the train to go to Gympie, and Gympie was a town, that must have been when we were at Cooroy I suppose. And he got killed, they you know, they used to hop on the goods train while it was going

and he must have missed his footing and he fell under the train and was killed, that was our first casualty.

No, I don’t remember any others, that was the one that we remembered most anyway.

Course he was a sergeant and he was well known and he was a little dumpy bloke too you know and fairly stout so I suppose that’s why he missed his footing.

No, never seen any aboriginals, no, never, no

weren’t camped near them or never saw any of them, no. No, I think we had a, I don't know if he was an Aboriginal or a Maori. He was older than me, probably would have been four or five years older at least, and he was dark in complexion and everything like that, quite a nice bloke and he spoke good English like that so he didn’t look like an Aboriginal. But he could have been

and he could have been a Maori, I’m not sure. But he became a sergeant and he was a good sergeant too, he lived up in Alexander around Alexander. Some of the boys that I learned afterwards, they came from Northcote and they lived up in Thornbury but lost touch with them. I don't know what

happened after the war, they might have shifted away or something like that. But we often speak of them you know, “Wonder what happened to so-and-so?” but never came to reunions or anything like that so really don’t know what happened to them.

Then we went to, oh that’s when we embarked on the,

on one of those boats, the Katoomba or the, can’t think of their names now, one of those boats anyway and we went to New Guinea, went to Moresby.

Townsville.

Yeah we were told we were going to Moresby and didn’t know how long we’d

be there or anything, they didn’t know much about it really. Well of course we saw the New Guinea Fuzzy Wuzzy Angels there. Oh they weren’t Fuzzy Wuzzies but they were just natives as far as we were concerned there in Moresby. But the, Moresby was a different climate altogether too, that was quite, wasn’t, it was humid but it was a dry

in some senses, it was, you didn’t get the rain like you done, did in other parts of New Guinea. But we weren’t there in Moresby that long anyway, I think we left, probably only there about a month, and then we went up to Wau.

Oh it was a good ship yeah. Although we were camped down in the hull you know, it was pretty hot but it was calm, I never got sick or anything like that, so it was pretty calm. So I don't know how long it took, didn’t take that long, probably about three days I think, three or four days, weren’t on the ship that long.

No, it wasn’t rough no.

It would have been in January or February I suppose, it would have been in the hot season you know, we could have got pretty rough weather but didn’t notice it anyway. Yeah we, and it was the water, water

wasn’t too plentiful in Moresby either, no hot showers or anything like that, had to be pretty careful. But they used to have a water cart and they used to come around to the different companies and battalions and put the water in for the cookhouse and so forth. But when we got there of course we had to dig slit trenches for the air raids,

outside our tent. You’d put up your tent and it was all on the side of a hill or something then you’d dig a slit trench in case the air raids come over while you were there.

They call it Shrapnel Valley and it was, they had hills between it and the coast. They weren’t big hills but they were hills.

And they come to the hills and then we were camped down in the valley, Shrapnel Valley they called it; I suppose that was because of the air raids.

Oh wasn’t far from the coast but it was, we didn’t go to the coast at all anyway we had these hills in between us. And

so we didn’t go to the, I don't know if you could have swum in Moresby anyway because some of the huts that the natives built were right in the water, they had huts built in the water.

When we first went over that was probably March I suppose, must have been somewhere about March. And we were there for oh must have been there for a month or so I suppose. Because we didn’t do Wau till about May, so must have been there

April, five or six weeks anyway I suppose at Shrapnel Valley. Well we didn’t seem to do a great deal there, we just camped there and well we used to go up to these mountains. They weren’t mountains just hills before the coast and that, we’d go up there for a trip you know, for training. And when we were gonna go up north

they, they used to draw a plane on the ground and you’d go in and they’d say, “Embark and disembark.” And you’d know when the aeroplane come down you’d, where you’d go. So we done, practised that two or three times and then when we had to go we knew what we were supposed to do. The first time we went over, we were going through the gap

in the plane. And the first time probably it was very rough and clouded over and they couldn’t get through. I remember I was sick, air sick and we had to come back to Moresby again. So we come back to Moresby and camped that night or might have been two nights and then they thought the gap would be alright we headed off again.

It was very rough and you couldn’t get through the gap. You know

with the plane they, well, I suppose it was cloudy and they weren’t, thought it was safe, and it was very rough anyway, the plane was going up and down like this, that’s how I got air sick so they came back. So the next time we got through alright and we landed at Wau and we marched, must have landed at Wau I suppose and then came down and we

went to Bulwa, ah, Bulolo first and then onto Bulwa. And that’s where we camped, we put the camp up there and that was our Company, C Company. The other companies might have camped a bit further back at Bulolo and oh we camped there for oh probably about a month and then we set off to go over Double Mountain.

No, we knew we were going up somewhere near it but well you didn’t, I suppose we got some, we had that New Guinea paper, they used to call Salt I think it was. And that gave us a bit of news, I don't know, I think it came out once a week or something like that. But the 6th Divvy [Division],

they were up at Mubo well that was down a bit south, and we were gonna come in, we didn’t know this of course not until we were set off, they told us we were gonna go over this mountain and gonna come in a different way, to come in at the side of the, where the Japanese were. We had to go up a big, they called it the Power House, it was all steps and we had to go up

these steps for a start, I don't know, a couple of hundred steps or more anyway, it was quite a few steps. Then we head, it was just a jungle track over the mountain, two mountains. I think they were about nine thousand feet, something like that, anyway. Pretty high and oh, talk about, we were carrying our ten, ordinary pack and had a ten pound mortar bomb in it. And then we had our

grenades on the thing and bullets, ammunition, so we were pretty loaded up. And oh the, terrible track, it was just mud and slide, you slid up and down. You’d walk and then you’d slide and that and then you got to the top of one mountain and then you had to go down and that was just as bad going down as going up. And then you come to the bottom of that and then you had to go up again, this is why

they call it Double Mountain. Oh I think that took about four days, three or four days anyway and head off, no formation or anything. They just said, “Off you go, take your time and don’t keep together, make your own time, if you feel like going on, go, if you feel like having a rest, have a rest.” So that’s what we did and some, course some, wouldn’t get in till dark, some’d get in a bit earlier

and it was all, we all arrived at all different times. Anyway I managed to get to the camping place at night time, managed to get there and of course you’d get a hot feed. And you’d more or less fall into bed, fall into what you had for a bed until you woke up next morning, you just die really you know, because it was so tiring, oh, terrible.

Well we went to all different camps see, every night until we got to the last camp which we went, oh there was one camp Missim and one camp Pillabong another camp, oh can’t think of them now. But they had, I think it was Missim or Pillabong where they had the air drops, they dropped the food down into the gullies. And we didn’t have to pick them up or anything like that, they had,

foremen ah, chaps to do that, pick up the supplies.

Biscuit bombers, yeah. Yeah, well that was so hard to get, the only way they could get food to us was that yeah. So it was a very rough track. You had to be pretty fit to get over it. Well at, they singled, before we left Bulwa, they singled out, they took you know, the ones that didn’t think they’d make it,

they put them out and we never saw them again. So they knew it was gonna be pretty tough and you had to be tough to get through it.

I don't know, they were probably sent back to another unit I’d say, yeah, we never saw them anyway.

Yeah, yes I managed to get there, you know, carrying this big pack and the ten pound mortar bomb and

all the parts of your gun and everything. Oh they split the Bren up into about three parts, one carried the barrel, one carried something else and one the other part of it. So and then you had your rifle as well and rifles, so you, I don't know what we, I think when we got to the last place they said, “Empty, take what you want out of your pack.” And you never saw the rest, you left, I don't know what we took, we didn’t take a blanket.

I don't think. Just took a gas cape, no, not a gas cape, a ground sheet, and that’s all we would have needed, you wouldn’t need a blanket because it rained. It rained all the time you know and the trenches was filled, your trench which you dug was full of water half the time, so you didn’t need a blanket or anything like that.

Yeah, not at the, not going over the Double Mountain but when we got to

the end yeah. And then when we got to well I suppose it was about a day’s march from where the action was going on, we had to move in the dark so they wouldn’t see us coming. And it was so dark you had to you know, you had to hang on to the bloke’s bayonet, the scabbard, his, with his bayonet was in the scabbard, and you hold on to that, otherwise you couldn’t see in front of you.

And you’d just go, move along in the middle of the night. Oh, yeah, and then we come to this river, the Frisceo River and they had a big bamboo bridge over it. And in the middle of the night and as we got half way over it, one chap fell off. Well, he must have been nearly three parts of the way over anyway because he fell off and all, and with all this gear on, you can imagine what would happened to him.

But he, I think he did come back to us afterwards, I don't know if he broke his hand or something like that but anyway we got over it alright. Then we were camped and then dawn came and then we all woke up and that and one chap happened to be, was cleaning his rifle and he let off a shot. But anyway we moved forward and that was

our first action.

Oh well I suppose it was, might have taken a bit of surprise out of it, supposed to be a surprise we were coming in on the back way and they didn’t, we weren’t supposed to expect, be met us. But they told us the 3rd Independent Company had been over beforehand and harassed ’em a bit and well, they said there weren’t that many there but there was a lot more there than what

they thought they were anyway.

Mmm?

Oh we were prepared but we were didn’t expect that much opposition. Cause the first casualty we had was one of our corporals and he got shot just in the mouth there. Course we saw him coming back we knew we were right in, that we had to keep our heads down

or do something from then on. And then we moved forward again and then we come to a big bamboo top on top of a hill and then the ridge was, Vickers Ridge was just behind that. They had all that pin pointed and we were halted by the gun fire and everything like that there. And then the lieutenant said, “Oh, just to stop here for a while.” And then

he said to me, “Do you see that?” I was there, sitting next to him and I had the Bren gun and he said, “Do you see that movement over there?” And I said, “No I couldn’t see it.” So he took the Bren gun and fired two shots, fired it, burst, automatic. And then next thing, bullets came and hit him in the chest and he was killed straight away and the chap behind him was killed too, so I was a bit lucky.

See they had all that pinpointed and we didn’t, weren’t expecting it. So we had to retreat, we retreated down to the little part and they put up booby traps and then we camped there the night. Put up booby traps and all that there in case they attacked us during the night which they didn’t. And then a week later we had another attack on it, like the

planes come in and dropped bombs and everything like that. But they were so well entrenched that the bombs didn’t make any difference. So...

Oh yeah, straight into it, straight into it.

This was only our company and then the other companies were

all spread out, they were, met opposition too of course. But we were attacking this Vickers Ridge they called it and we were attacking that and that was our objective was to get that. And our company was, our platoon was to go up this, in the middle and another platoon was to go round to the left and another one around to the right and that was the three attacks. Well the one to the left, they struck opposition,

and they had one casualty, I’m not quite sure if they had one or two, they had at least one anyway. But they struck, they killed quite a number of Nips [Japanese] there but we only killed one on our first attack and then we struck this opposition on the top of the ridge there so we retreated and a week later we attacked again. And one platoon

went around, one section went around to the left and one to the right and one up the middle. And the one around to the left struck opposition and there was three killed and two wounded I think. The mortar bombs were coming over on us, we were around to the right and they were dropping down into the gully. But they were, most of them were duds thank goodness, they were all duds and you could hear the flop, hear them

with the flop and no explosion afterwards. So we had to retreat again when that happened, with the ones around to the right, having the casualty and we retreated back into this little valley more or less down there. And then the next week the section, the platoon around to the right they were attacked, they had

a go at it. Well they got repulsed too and they suffered quite a few casualties, so that was the third attack we’d had on it, you know. We had no, you know we had the air force dropping bombs before and all that type of thing but making no difference, we were still struck quite a lot of opposition.

Oh, well I could hear me heart beating

so, you know, oh, you know, it was an awful feeling really. Well, you know, especially when you see them, your mates getting wounded and that so it’s not a very nice experience no.

Well you had a job to do, you gotta do it haven’t you? Yeah, you feel like running away but of course cause you got all your mates around

you, and I suppose they’re relying on you and you’re relying on them so you know, you keep going more or less.

He was behind him, so it must have gone, they had it pin pointed, it must have on him and I suppose they spray a bit and the chap behind him. We’d only had this lieutenant a short time

and he had a New Guinea number, so he must have been in the PMG or something, PNG [perhaps PIB, Papuan Infantry Battalion] or whatever they call it, he had a New Guinea number and his name was Pemberton, and we only got him just before we left Bulwa. And he seemed quite a nice bloke though we hadn’t got to know him that well but he seemed quite good and interested and everything like that. And the chap that came with him was actually he was his runner, but he was a corporal

and we had too many corporals so we, they made him a runner for him, a runner for Pemberton. But yeah it was bad luck losing the lieutenant on the first day, more or less, yeah.

Well they didn’t, they didn’t have any replacements so the sergeant had to take over, he took over and then he more or less, his mate was killed, one of his, on the second attack, and he more or less got

a bit bomb happy or something like that and he had to go back. So another sergeant had to take over then, and then the other platoon on that side, their lieutenant was alright but he was sent to another company so their sergeant had to take over. And then the other platoon, their lieutenant had to, was sent to another platoon so the sergeant had to, so we had three sergeants in charge of three

platoons, so no lieutenants at all. Still had the captain in charge of the company but he was well back of course we didn’t see much of him, he only got his orders from... Well just before we left Moresby we had a major in charge of the whole battalion and we got a lieutenant ah, a colonel, a lieutenant-colonel from

6th Divvy I think he came from, and he was sent in charge of us to go over and to be in charge of the battalion.

Mmm?

Yeah he was colonel, what was his name, Colonel Starr I think it was yeah, think it was Starr. Yeah, Danny Starr, that’s right, yeah, Danny Starr I think yeah, he came from the Middle East anyway.

And then they had changed the brigadier too in charge of the whole brigade and that was Brigadier Hammer and he came from the Middle East too.

That’s it, Tack Hammer, yeah he had a store up in Porpunko that was after the war of course. Yeah, so that was our first,

first experience. Of course we didn’t take that ridge until we got the artillery. They got the artillery in and they bombarded it for a couple of hour or an hour or something like that, and then we crept up behind the bombardment. Well at that time I was in the reserve section so I got off, we didn’t get up there till later, oh, not that much later ’bout ten minutes, first two sections got up there first.

And then they were able to take the Japanese nips by surprise, you know, they were still in their trenches more or less, or underground, you know, they were all very low down, underground, you know digging, dug well in really. So that, we were able to take that ridge and that was a main ridge from the Komantium Track and the Bench Cut. And that

was from, that was supplying the ones down in Mubo, where the 6th Divvy were, that was supplying them with the Nips down that way with their food and all that type of thing. So it was a very important ridge and they didn’t want to lose that. In fact after we took it, we only stopped there that night and then we were moved on and the 7th Divvy, no the 7th,

Battalion, 7th Battalion took it over and we were sent down to the Bench Cut on an ambush position. And that was, our platoon was sent down there to take the ambush position, which we did.

Well I don't think they could get the guns up. See the, well they would have had to come over the Double Mountain, so I suppose, you know, artillery’s pretty heavy isn’t it, so I don’t suppose they could get the guns up. I don't know how they got them up in the finish either but anyway we got the artillery and that was able to root them out yeah.

Well that was the artillery and then we took

the ridge with the artillery.

Yeah as I said we was in the reserve section and we got up there and well the ridge had been, well we were on top and more or less the ridge had been practically taken. We had, the lieutenant was Proby, Proby had had a,

he was, our company went up and a platoon of A Company what Proby was in charge of and he led the ones up there. And they were able to get up there just as the artillery finished and take them by surprise, they were able to get into them. And we got up there, we mopped up, we could see by grenades and that. And then

well our section continued on after the ridge and we went down, it was getting late at night time and we didn’t get the next (UNCLEAR), we camped down there and we were recalled next morning. And we come back to the ridge and the 7th Battalion came in and then we were moved on. And they had quite a number of counter attacks the 7th Battalion afterwards but they were able to hold on to that ridge, but they

did have quite a number of counter attacks.

Well we encountered a little bit but I wouldn’t say we were in the thick of it, because you know, it was more or less just the edge of it when we got, by the time I got up there anyway.

Yeah well, see, was a bit hazy, you didn’t know what was going on more or less, you didn’t know who were the enemy and who were

the other. Because the Australians had surrounded the whole place so you had to be careful where you shot or anything like that otherwise you might wound one of your own men. So we mainly used grenades and threw them into the trenches and everything like that.

Mmm?

I don't think there was any, I don't believe there was, I never heard of any getting that. But there,

in the ones that were in, there was at least two or three killed anyway in the forward. But in my section we, as I say, we got up there later, we weren’t, had no injuries or anything, no.

We were caught, they caught up to ones a little bit behind us to carry the lieutenant and his mate out. So they had to get them down and then we retreated after them down to the village. And set there, more or less dug slit trenches and not, we’d passed through a village, little village before that

and we’d come up just before we went up in the hills. So we dug our slit trenches down there and put the booby traps in and set up for the night.

Oh, grenades and putty, they’d had a bit of a school for two or three blokes and they told them how to set the grenades, this is when we were in Moresby. And they told them how to set the grenades up and these booby traps, putting them across the

track and how they, I didn’t have anything to do with that so I don't know much about how they did it but that was the idea of it anyway. And well there was a little creek down there and you had to you know, be very careful where you went down to get any water or anything like that, cause you didn’t know where they were coming down. Anyway we didn’t get any attacks during the night, thank goodness.

Oh yeah they were. They were a lot bigger than what we thought they would be, and I think they said they might have been marines or something like, anyway they were real soldiers the Nips yeah. And they, as I said, well was a main point for them, they wanted to hold that in you know, because of the ones

coming out of the track holding the, was pin pointed, protected, coming out of the track on the Bench Cut, yeah.

Oh I think we were all a bit devastated, yeah devastated you know, because well and then we lost a lieutenant and then we lost a sergeant. And

the sergeant wasn’t killed but he had to go back and then another sergeant had to take over so it wasn’t a very good thought so we didn’t think we’d ever take the place, you know, after three attacks and we hadn’t taken it, you know. Thought it was impossible to take you know, that’s what the aero, the plane attacks. Well I don't think even the captain

in charge of the company was very happy, well they said he wasn’t you know, when he got the orders to have another attack. And I think he was sent over, sent off and then another bloke come in charge of us. So you know, but we had to attack and they knew what was going to happen. They knew, you know, that we were gonna lose men again

Not very inspiring is it, no, no. Yeah, it was not a good feeling you know, you thought oh, what was gonna happen to us. But we had a good padre, Father English, he used to come up and you know, give us mass for the ones that wanted prayers or something like

that said for them. But we had to leave the chaps that were killed there, we had to leave them, couldn’t take them out, couldn’t get them out because they were too far forward. And then afterwards, about a week afterwards I suppose, we were, another chap and meself I was sent to get their meat tickets [identity tags] off them. Well I was only giving him protective fire, so he done all the work.

He crept up and was able to get their meat tickets and that off them and we retreated.

Those things you put around your neck and they tell you what your religion is and all that type of thing yeah. And oh they got the identification, you know, got your number on it and all that too. Then we, as I say, when we were sent down to put this ambush

position on the Bench Cut and then we got ambushed, we got ambushed on the Bench Cut. We was in an ambush position, well, I was right at the back, I was guarding the back and the ones up the front, that was two shots, two shots they were sent out. One chap that was, the one that I was protecting when he went to get the meat, he was normally with me

but he was sent up, this time he was separated from me and he was sent up to the front as a forward with another chap and they were both killed that night. And then first dawn they attacked us again and they didn’t attack me because I was right at the back. And the whole lot, forward, the middle lot we were and the Bren gun wouldn’t fire, the chap that had the Bren gun wouldn’t fire, course they all had to get out.

And cause they, the rest of the company was up the top of the hill and they retreated up the top of the hill. But there was two or three killed and there was about three or four wounded then. And then I wondered what was all happening, I mean I see them all retreating and the chap that was with me, he retreated and I was left behind on my own and I thought, “Oh what’s gonna happen now?” Anyway, they didn’t come forward, they must have retreated

themselves then, the Nips. And then I had to get out and went up the top and when I got there was all of was left of the platoon was about half a dozen of us, that was all that was left of us. And the ones that hadn’t been wounded were on the, sent as, what would they call them, anyway they can’t, no, with the Fuzzy Wuzzies

telling him what to do, they were escorts to the, bringing up food and ammunition.

There was three sections of about twenty, fifteen I suppose, no, there was six in the, and then there was about ten, about thirty I suppose in a platoon.

Yeah.

Yeah, yeah.

Oh they weren’t all killed, no. As I said they were, there was wounded and they had to help the wounded back and the ones that were killed were left, they couldn’t get them out of course, until about a couple of days later when they went down and got them out then.

This was after Vickers, yeah, only straight, more or less the day after, August the first. We attacked

Vickers on the first of June, no thirtieth of June, so that was a month in July and then the first of August was when we were ambushed on the Bench Cut.

Oh that’s when we had the three attacks or four attacks on Vickers and that was in that period of June, oh of July.

Oh well the 7th Division ah, the 7th Battalion they would probably pick up the bodies then. But we couldn’t because we left that the first thing the next morning, unless they might have, but I didn’t see them anyway.

No, I wasn’t involved in the booby traps no. As I said, I didn’t know how they would set them up, but they had done a school when we were at Moresby, knowing how to mix them up. There was three of them I think yeah, from the platoon to find out how to do those things yeah.

Oh we just more or less guarding, what we were seeing that they didn’t come down and attack us. And the food was, I think we used to get biscuit porridge. We was camped away from the headquarters, the company headquarters, the cookhouse was and everything like that, we were camped a fair way away from them so they had to bring the porridge up to us. Biscuit porridge that was for, I don't know

if we got it for breakfast or, I think in the rest of the day we lived on emergency rations. Our rations were dried meat and dried vegetables I think and you had a little pot of Vegemite or something in it and then like a block of dried apricots or something like that.

And that was all we had, yeah, cause you know, we couldn’t get food up to us, no hot food anyway. And bully beef of course, yeah, bully beef and the biscuits, those hard biscuits.

Well I know they’d bring up a bit of tobacco or chocolate at one stage,

the ones that didn’t smoke they’d give their tobacco, which wasn’t much of course, and the ones that got the chocolate, they’d give the chocolate to the ones that didn’t smoke, yeah. But, well, I suppose we weren’t feeling very happy I don't think but you just had to more or less sit there and have your slit trench and

just sit by it. And of course we didn’t change clothes, you had your same clothes on as what you had when you went in, and your boots and socks, you wouldn’t take them off so they were just the same too.

I don't know if anyone went back sick, I can’t remember them; it didn’t seem to worry your health much. You would have thought it would have been cause

you were sleeping in water and you never took your clothes off, no. But as I say, it was warm, you know, you don’t feel cold or anything, no. You’re warm all the time even thought you’re wet. Yes, so that was a bad experience and when we got on the Bench Cut, it decimated us cause

saying about three or four of us left as I said. Well then I got, I did get sick, I got a bit of a skin business and I was sent back to, down towards where the 6th Divvy were, we didn’t go back over Double Mountain. And I come to a Nassau Bay it might have been, somewhere down that, Mount Tambu I think it was. Come there and

then it was a bit of a hospital there. Went in there and anyway I was only there for about a day or something and everything had cleared up. And of course I could have a shower and all that type of thing there and you were able to clean your skin up. So then I went back then, well that was...

Yeah.

Oh I was only there for two nights I think and had a shower and everything like that and then be seen by the doctor and he said, “Oh, you’re okay to go back now.”

So I went back and they were moved on from where they were, they were on the forward advance then, the Nips had retreated, you know, going back towards Salamaua. And when I got back there the, just had moved camp, we were going forward so I didn’t see much action there at all. But some of the other companies did of course, you know, they were still having you know, their casualties.

Ah no we never got reinforcements until we got to, just before we got in to Salamaua, and then they sent a batch of reinforcements up then. Oh they were, one of the chaps, one of the sergeants said, “What have we got, what are they sending us, school boys?” They looked so young and everything like that, I suppose they might have been only about a year or so younger than us though, just the same.

So that was at Sandy Bay I think it was, before we got in to Salamaua anyway and that was when the reinforcements came.

They asked for volunteers you know go for a bit of a school and you learned to be, they’d give you a bit of a, tell you how to treat simple things like skin, put stuff on skin, tinea and all that type of thing and they tell you what, they give you a bit of morphia in a tube, needle, like when you

went into action and anyone wounded you’d be able to give ’em a shot of morphia yeah.

Yeah I was on the Bren gun all the time. Oh, that was when the lieutenant how he got killed, he said, “Give me the Bren gun,” and shot at them there. But I didn’t, I couldn’t see anything but he said, “There’s movement up there.” And when I said I couldn’t see them he said, “Oh give, let me have a go.”

Yeah, yeah.

I thought I was lucky. One of the chaps that was down the Bench Cut, he got a bullet right down his

head, and he was alright you know afterwards, well he went back to Moresby, good enough to go back to Moresby. But they had to go back over Double Mountain so be pretty hard track going back wouldn’t they? Because some of them were, the ones that were badly wounded were stretcher bearer-ed back by the Fuzzy Wuzzy Angels you know. They had them in the stretchers.

Oh yes, the Bren gun, yeah, well you’d fire single shots or you could fire the automatic and it wasn’t, you had to keep, course it was raining all the time, it was pretty hard to keep the thing in operational order you know, because you more or less had to keep your barrel clean and keep it oiled and all that type of thing.

So you know, bit hard, make sure you did. Well I could understand why that one didn’t fire, chap that had that, when they tried the thing wouldn’t fire properly and yet they’d cleaned it and everything like that. But it was rain, it was pouring with rain, you know, poured all the night when we were down the Bench Cut, it poured all night.

Oh we had, they had, we had enough ammunition and we had grenades of course, well that was all we needed. And so I think we had enough ammunition and that yeah.

No, I don’t remember them coming over, there could have been one you know,

but I don’t remember getting bombed or anything like that, no, but we had our own planes of course coming over.

Mmm?

No, well I, I think they said, I don’t remember it really but they said we had one bad raid, but wasn’t, the bombs weren’t near us anyway, they weren’t you know, close handy.

You could hear them of course but they weren’t close to where we were in Shrapnel Valley. Moresby was fairly big you know, they had Ward’s drome [aerodrome] and they had the hospital and all that and we were well, two or three miles from them I think.

Not that much, no

, well, you knew who were, coming over the Double Mountain you’d say, “How far?” or something like that and they’d say, “Oh, not, lik lik way, lik lik way.” They meant little way, little, little way. They didn’t talk in miles; they talked in hours, half hour, one hour. So, “Lik lik way” alright, it might have been lik lik way to them.

But I didn’t have much thing with them anyway. Well the ones that went back on the Boong Train they called it I think, well they would’ve got a little bit used to the language and be able to talk a bit of pidgin, pidgin English to them or know what they meant anyway. But I didn’t have any, much association with that, no.

Mmm?

I think it was the stretcher bearers

you know and the stretcher bearers and the chaps’d go alongside them or, and with the food, bringing up food and that too, food from the Missum and Pilabung and that.

Yeah, well it was, except I

wasn’t really in it you know, because I was at the rear. And it didn’t affect me, I didn’t see anything or hear any, oh I could have heard it, have heard the guns going off. And the chap that was my Number Two, he more or less fled as soon as he heard the shots coming. You know, he probably saw the others getting out I suppose and he hopped in after them. But yeah it was, well the night before

we heard the, I don't know if it was the grenade or shots or something, well the two of them forward scouts, that’s when they must have been killed that night, so we didn’t know for sure cause it was in the night time. And of course they attacked first thing in the morning; this is when the jigger went off.

Well they just said we set off an ambush, but we didn’t think we were gonna be attacked though. And I don't think we took enough precautions really, because well we just had that victory more or less on Vickers Ridge and I don’t suppose we were, mightn’t have been as quiet as we might have been. So I was away from the main

one being at the back, well I only had that chap near me, he was the only one I was in contact with, didn’t see the sergeant or anything like that, didn’t know what was going on.

Oh, Vic, Sergeant Hammond, Vic Hammond, he was in charge of the platoon that was down there, yeah.

Mmm?

Yeah, well, no, actually he didn’t, when they put the position in, this corporal came up to me, Corporal Winell and he said, “Well you can go” and put me in the position at the. And he more or less put the others in position where they were supposed to be for the ambush. So I don't know where Hammond, where Vic Hammond was at the time but he might have been up forward, doing a certain thing up the front there. So I didn't know, and so

I just went where I was told to and that was it. But we didn’t, I didn’t expect to be ambushed just the same, especially after the, you know, after we, and we had to, from the time we left Vickers Ridge of course, another couple of hours I think before we got to the ambush position so we weren’t feeling really fresh or anything.

Oh, that was not bad at all you know, after having a win anyway, after attacking the ridge, or knowing the ridge was taken. Oh yeah, that was, we weren’t too happy you know attacking it because we didn’t think we had a hope, until they got the artillery yeah. That, there’s a photo up in Canberra, in the War Memorial, I think it was,

what was his name, some chap had got a photo of Vickers Ridge or what he imagines it would be like, yeah. I think it’s Hele or some name like that, he was a painter anyway, and he painted it, up, and it’s in the War Museum in Canberra.

Yeah, I think it was yeah.

Oh, I’ve got a photo in there of him.

Of the thing, actually a chap from, he’s up in Queensland, he was down here and he’s gone, he lives in Brisbane now and I, went to, we had a reunion up in Brisbane for the ones up there and I went up there and he sent me down this photo of the one he’s got in the Canberra Museum.

Nothing like it I didn’t think.

I couldn’t see any similarity to it.

Well they have these bamboos, and when we got, we come up, it was a little village was there and that’s where they, one of us forward ones shot the Jap. We went past this dead Japanese and then we slowly went up

a bit of a ridge and we’re going up the hill and then we come to where the bamboo was. And that’s where we halted, by the lieutenant, bit of a survey and that’s where he said that he saw movement, so that was right behind these bamboos. But I, you know, and there was a track up to it of course, what they’d been using because they were using this village down below which they’d deserted when they heard us coming.

And that was all I can remember of it. But oh when we had to retreat of course, we weren’t very happy about that and then of course we were down there for another week or something before the next attack. Down in this little valley more or less, there was a creek running through it and we had

dug slit trenches there. And of course one of the chaps, me first, original Number Two, he was cleaning his rifle or something and a shot went off and hit him in the finger and he was gone, he went back. So and then we got this other chap to

come, he was Number Two, so I wasn’t feeling too happy. I remember him saying to me, he said, “What’s that noise?” I said, “That’s my heart, can’t you hear it?” Thump, thump, thump, thump. So you can imagine how I was. Yeah, not a good experience this warfare I don't think. I don’t think I was made out to be a soldier.

Yeah, yeah. And funny, well wasn’t funny but I don't think the one that went past him, he’d come from Scotland, he was a Scot, he was talked a bit, what do you call it, like a bit of a accent, Scottish

accent anyway. And he was a lot older than what we were, he put a bullet into the dead Jap, he was already dead though of course. And the chap that got first wounded, you know got in the mouth, he had a big scar there for years you know. But anyway they, you can hardly notice it now, he’s had skin grafts

on it and everything and you can hardly notice it now, he’s still alive too.

Well if they were coming that way, I would be in front there, that was the rear of the ambush position. I suppose we must have had,

ah, ten or twelve of us I suppose would have been that time, cause we had two and then there was two was shot forward. And they had, some of the blokes I never seen, never, the wounded or went back, I never ever saw them again; I don't know what happened to them. So there would have been, I think, about twelve, twelve of us in that position, ambush position.

Oh good men, most of them, I’d known them from the early days, from Casino and Caboolture anyway. Mightn’t have been so much for Albury, oh little bit from Albury but none from Seymour to date. You know, when you’re living in the same tent well you do get to know them pretty well then.

And then we used to play cards together and before we went up, before we left Bulwa we used to play, what did they call it, Pontoon, used to play Pontoon with them. And we’d have a bit of a limit on it you know, we wouldn’t go the whole hog, we had a limit on how much you could bet. And I think I might have only won

about once, we’re only betting shillings I suppose. But it was interesting you know, four of us used to play and might have been five, four or five of us and you know, we’d fill in the time quite good.

Yeah, yeah I knew them pretty well yeah. And one had the Owen gun and one was just a rifleman and the other was a, I think he was a lance corporal, well he might have been, he’d only had a rifle too, yeah. There was one, two, and the other bloke, he was

more or less, he was the one that put me in the back, , he was corporal, yeah he was in charge of a section yeah. They were three inseparables really, I know I wasn’t quite in with them but they were older than me, little bit older, not much but they seemed to click together, the three of them, they were matey,

right through from Australia onwards yeah.

One of them got wounded, actually he missed most of it, he, I saw him, he came back towards me first thing in the morning, I don't know if he got wounded in the arm anyway and his muscle. He came back, he never came back to us, he went back to

civilian life and was working down in a place down in St. Kilda. When I came back from the war and we was working down St. Kilda he came in the shop a couple of times because he was handy. He reckoned it was a bad wound in the muscle but he came good afterwards yeah. And the other chap, he got wounded at the same time and he came back and he got into diplomatic

service. And only worked at the Post Office beforehand and he must have studied and got, done a few trips overseas up to Brazil I think and a couple of places like that. When, the other bloke, he went back to, lived at Tallarook and he built his, he was married before the war, used to write to his wife every night when he could, and he went back and worked in the Broadford

Paper Mills. And then his wife got left some money and they had trips overseas, they went to Japan. He said the Japanese didn’t believe they’d been defeated, according to what he said. He said, you know, talking to the average Japanese, he said, they didn’t believe they’d been defeated. You would have thought they would’ve when the bomb, you know, Hiroshima and that wouldn’t you, but that’s what he said anyway.

Oh yeah I’d write home yeah, and you used to get the letters censored so you know, you couldn’t tell ’em where you were, I suppose they might have known but. One chap he knew because his mother owned a block of flats in St. Kilda and it was called Bougainville, so, Bougainvillea I think it was called, Bougainvillea the flats were called, so he was able to tell her where he went (UNCLEAR).

Oh not much I don't think, I think you just wrote and said you played cards or done something like that. You had to, you weren’t able to put anything, how many of you or where you had your battalion of course. And you had your battalions, C Company, and your number I suppose, they must have written

to me I think when I got the letters. And of course when you were in action it was pretty hard to get mail up to you, I don't know how he got the mail up, might have only got one letter every now and again or something like that.

Oh I suppose it was just average news, something like that. Might have told you about different relations I suppose, your cousins.

Cause they used to see, they used to go up to Fern Tree Gully a bit and that was where my father’s sister was and they had a shop up there and a couple of cousins there, they’d probably tell me about them. Another one lived up here in Northcote and tell you something about them. And they probably mentioned me brother over at Germany. And me sister was in, she went to the

New Guinea too, she was in the AWAS [Australian Women’s Army Service], joined the AWAS more or less around Melbourne. And then they asked for volunteers or she got into being a volunteer and they got to Lae. Not, late 1945 I suppose, yeah, they, probably January ’45 so they were over there for a couple of months over in Lae. It was only one, about three or four hundred of them ever went away, AWAS ever went away, and

they were, she happened to be in that lot.

Oh just stenographer, secretary I think she was to one of the blokes. So she was only doing typing work and that type of thing.

Yeah, don’t remember much about that you know, well

I was probably, as I say, I’d be pretty tired. Well, I remember the first time, I think I slept, they reckon I slept for eighteen hours you know. By the time you got, well, you didn’t get much really good sleep you know, when you’re in action. And then by the time you walked back that far you just, you know, glad to have a shower and hop into to bed.

Well it didn’t seem to worry you, I suppose everyone needs you all the time more or less and you know, didn’t seem to affect your health, or didn’t affect my health anyway.

But Bougainville was different altogether, different warfare altogether, in there. Well your food was miles better, everything was miles better and you know, you didn’t suffer many privations or anything like that because they were able to get a hot meal up to you every day, good meal. And

the terrain was quite different too, you know, you weren’t in real mountainous country or anything like that, few swamps and, still had the rain you know, terrific rain, start to rain about three o'clock in the afternoon and rain practically all night but it was you know, you knew what to expect more or less.

What was that?

Oh no it was before the yeah, before we got into Salamaua. Sandy Creek, well that was when the reinforcements come, bit before that when I got there, back, and

course they’d gone ahead a long way from when I’d left them anyway and well I don’t, never come in to any, more or less, good action then. I just went along with them, I never had the Bren gun, I just had the rifle then too, so I just went along with what was happening.

Well that took me right into Salamaua then. Then

we went along to Salamaua before we were picked up and taken back to Moresby. We went back through Nassau Bay and Milne Bay and we were at Milne Bay for a couple of nights I think and then back to Moresby.

What was that?

Oh well see

the thing was, we weren’t mean to take Salamaua too quickly. See the 9th Divvy were gonna land at Lae, the 7th was gonna land, come in by air, parachutes and they were supposed to catch the Nips as they were retreating. So we weren’t to, supposed to take them before the 9th and 7th had come in. Oh well that’s what we learned afterwards, but we didn’t know that at the time of course, we learned that afterwards. But yeah

but well I think they, we came in to Salamaua, it must have been some time early September, I think when we got into Salamaua, so we’d been in action nearly a record I think they said, continuous days. Well we went in at thirtieth of June, so we saw July and August and all September ah, all August, all July and all August, that’s

eight weeks or nine weeks and a couple of weeks in, I think it was eleven weeks we’d been in there, direct action, yeah.

Well when I got back I think you know, it was, I forgot how I, cause there wouldn’t have been, I was in 15 Platoon and I don't think

there was a 15 Platoon. I remember when because they, the ones went back on the Boong line, the ones that weren’t wounded or killed, they went back on the Boong line, and there was only four of us that I can remember being left in the section I was in, ah, in the platoon I was in. Yeah and so when I got back I must have, I just hopped on with the, more or less, could have been the company or something,

the company not in the platoon, I can’t remember now.

Yeah, they, as I said, some went on the Boong Line, and I don’t remember the others when I got back, if they were there or not now.

Yeah, went by raft, one of those standing crafts for a while and then we went by Liberty ship back to Moresby. I remember I was sick on the landing craft too, cause that can be pretty rough.

I remember one of the chaps, well he couldn’t have been, he shouldn’t have come over Double Mountain, I think he wouldn’t have been, wouldn’t have been A1 anyway, would have been B I think, because he had thick glasses and he was older, he’d be about five years older than me. And when we were, he was in company headquarters

around the cook house there and they were cleaning and course they used to get bombed by Kilo Kitty, you know it was a big artillery gun what the Japanese had, they fired from a long way away. And you’d hear this thing coming over your head and he was cleaning a grenade and he’d lost his glasses, that’s right, he’d lost his glasses. And apparently he must have put the thing down and taken the pin

out and forgotten where he’d, anyway he blew himself up. Yeah, so, that was a bit of a shock too, you know, when we heard that, but you know, you wouldn’t have thought they’d have taken him. Though I think they did ask his mate did they think he should go and he said, “Well it’s hard to know isn’t it?” And he didn’t know how his eye sight was too bad or anything like that. And course I think they put him in company headquarters where he wouldn’t be right in the middle

of the action.

Mmm?

No I don't think, we never struck it because as I say well, our lieutenant was killed and the only one was the sergeant when his best mate and he was supposed to take over from the lieutenant which he did, until his best, the week after when his mate was killed, well, then he seemed to

lose his, well must have affected him and he had to go back to Moresby yeah. That was the only one I can remember yeah.

Well I don't think he just had the capacity to lead, you know, the leader’s supposed to tell you what to do, well he was more or less asking for volunteers you know, “Will you go,

will you do that, will you?” Whereas you know, leader’s supposed to tell you, you’ve gotta do it, isn’t it? You don’t ask for a volunteer, no.

No, I never questioned, no you just had to go. Well I think I did volunteer once, that was in the

in the, what do they call it, not in the Salamaua Campaign, in the campaign afterwards, where we went to the, what do they call ’em, Shaggy Ridge yeah. Yeah, that was only just a patrol anyway, they were asking for volunteers to go out and patrol to see what happened to someone, that,

where the other section had been.

That was up past Lae, going up towards Bogajim, Madang and Bogajim. We only had a reserve role in that, the battalion only had a reserve role and we only struck action once. A few of the, had to do a lot of patrolling, few patrols you know, might have got a

few shots fired at them. I think there was only one chap killed and a couple wounded in that campaign.

Yeah that was after Salamaua, that was in, well we left, when we come back to Moresby, we were camped, we went up towards the mountains and camped up place called Dobadura. And then on New Year’s Day I think they had races and we were told, we all thought we were going

back on leave to Melbourne and then we were told we were going up to Shaggy Ridge up to the Finisterre, Finisterre Ranges. And that was up there so we went in a plane up to Dumpu and we landed at Dumpu. And that was, had kunai grass up about this high you know and then we had to march up Shaggy Ridge and until our position in the reserve up there.

And then down the valley, struck these rivers I suppose or creeks, they were all, you know, out in the open. It was quite good, you know, they were fast flowing but they were fairly shallow but they were very fast flowing. Sent between the Markham and the Ramu, I think Ramu Valley and the Markham Valley. And there’s two rivers, one was the Markham one was the other, one flowed that way and the other flowed that way. Two big

rivers they were too. And then we, when that, oh we there for about a month I suppose, and then we come back into Bogajim and then we made camp at Madang, we were at Madang until we came home on leave.

What was what?

Well

the 57/60th were, that was their sister battalion, they had the main part there and they were to get the Nips from going towards Bogajim. They were retreating and they were supposed to harass them I think, on their way retreating. I think the 7th Divvy might have been up there too, at Shaggy Ridge. And that was

going Bogajim, Madang and then of course up Nassau Bay, not Nassau Bay, some other bay where the 9th were I think. Oh that might have been, oh anyway it was on the way anyway, going north from New Guinea. But Madang was quite a nice camp, in amongst the coconuts we were, all the coconut trees and oh it was very pleasant there you know. We were,

more or less there wasn’t anything to do and it was more or less just like a rest camp.

Only on the patrol yeah.

Well the night before the chap that won the, they were out a bit further than us, and they were attacked by the Japanese during the night. A chap won the MM [Military Medal] there,

he was able to stop one of the Nips from coming right forward and I think he hit him with the rifle butt or something. Anyway he won the MM and was a pretty brave action and one of the chaps was killed. And he was a brother, they had four brothers in the same

platoon, was pretty silly. Started off with two of them and then they were able to get another brother in and then they got the younger brother in. And there was four of them and of course the youngest bloke, he was the bloke that was killed. And we were going, the patrol that I was on was sent out to find out if any of the Nips were left in that position, and there was none when we got there. And that was the only time I ever did any volunteering,

and I was only just a rifleman then, anyway I was just a rifleman.

I don't know. Yeah, bit silly but still, you do silly things in your life I suppose don’t you? Anyway, all worked out alright,

still in the one piece. Yeah, I was very lucky, you know, when you come to think of it, right there at the thing, and you know, anything could have happened couldn’t it, when you’re that close.

I didn’t believe that until I got home and I believe it now though. When you think about it, oh yeah, I must have

been charmed. Well I used to pray every night of course and God, I was never that religious, but God, when you’re up there you pray every night.

Yeah, this Catholic one was, well I suppose the Protestant one, but I don’t remember the Protestant one.

And I mean the Catholic one was mighty, he was, in fact he was in the Mordialloc Church and he died down there and they had the police escort from Mordialloc right to Melbourne Cemetery, right through town, yeah. It was really, someone must have thought a lot of him. Well we all thought a lot of him, you know, the boys in the battalion all thought a lot of him and he must have been very well liked. We put a window in down,

when the church was built, they put a window in depicting Double Mountain, down in that church. Like we all threw a few bob in, you know, so we could get the window done. We asked for it and we gave it to him yeah, he was very well liked.

Well not any particular one, no, just more or less I wasn’t one of his chaps what he knew, you know,

very well. I just more or less, well I wasn’t even brought up as a Catholic anyway, but I, when you go in the army they say what religion you are. Well I was christened a Catholic but I was never brought up a Catholic, so I just said R.C. [Roman Catholic].

Oh, I’ll sleep anywhere, even in front of the TV. Yes, well we had to get up every three hours I think to do guard duty, it was either three or four hours. So we’d get up, you know, two or three times during the night to take our turn and that’d be over an hour, guard duty was over an hour you know, where you supposed to keep watch and everything, you know. So well sleep was

interrupted all the time and you’d probably before you were due to go on, you know, subconscious mind that you were gonna come on, so I don’t suppose we did get a real good sleep but that’s the best you could expect.

We never struck them no but other companies did I think when night time raids, but we were lucky, we didn’t get a night time,

no.

No I didn’t but some chaps did you know, where they thought they heard a sound or something like that, but I don’t remember anything specific where we had to get up or anything. But I remember in, when we were camped in Bulwa you know, that was before we got in

to Vickers, where one of the chaps woke up and he saw movement and it was clothes on the line and he had a shot at clothes on the line. Someone left clothes on a bit of a clothes line, pair of pants there or something and that was the only fright I had, really had. But it was, you didn’t really expect it down there because there was no Japanese within coo-ee then, no. But

no, I don’t remember anything where we were attacked at night.

No, no, but of course we weren’t expecting, well up there around Vickers, you wouldn’t have any

clothes on the line there anyway, so you wouldn’t expect anything like that there. No, I can’t recall anything there happening like that. But no, can’t think of anything at all.

Yeah,

well...

Who was that?

Oh yeah they were mighty, they were, you know, well they were older but well we were lucky, we had two sergeants you know, that took over the different platoons, it might have been three in the other 14 Platoon I’m not quite sure who took over, but there must have been a sergeant there that took over too. Well our sergeant

you know, you had confidence in him too, you know, because well he was married and had about four or five kids before, in the army you know, so he must have been about ten years older that what we were. He would have been close to thirty I suppose, twenty-eight to thirty, and we had great confidence in him. Even though he’d gone, he’d gone out ack willy [AWL] or something when back in Australia and he’d lost his, he was a sergeant then he lost it and

went back to a private. And then he regained a corporal and then become a sergeant again about the time we went into action. Actually he wasn’t due to lead to take over from the lieutenant because the other sergeant was more senior, not in age but he was the one that was supposed to take over but then his mate got killed and he went a bit haywire, you know, and had to go back. So the

other sergeant, the one that was reduced to the ranks had to take over from him.

Well he was, when the lieutenant got killed, he took over for about a week but then, oh, might have been longer, yeah, would have been about three weeks he took over and then his mater, and he was a corporal, Jack Evans,

was killed in the next attack on Vickers and then he seemed to go all haywire after that and then he had to go back to Moresby.

Yeah distressed I think, yeah. He just couldn’t do the job anyway and so the other chap had to take, you know, took his place and we were quite pleased because we’d rather the other chap than this chap, than the chap that did take over, we’d rather the older chap,

he was older and more experienced.

That’s right yeah, we never got the artillery till we, oh, till we took Vickers. That was the only, that when they put the bombardment on Vickers that was when we took it, well that was the first time we had the artillery yes.

I don't know

much about it because well they weren’t in our, well they were, see they’re a separate unit, the artillery, and they’ve gotta have O-Pips [observer officers] and everything like that. Where, what, see what, where the thing is and away and all that type of thing. So we never come in contact with them really because they were you know, miles behind when they fire the guns a long way away, and they’ve gotta get the exact distance and all

that. We just heard about, oh we heard the bombs of course and we heard about that they were going to attack with the artillery. Cause we were always given, you know, that we were going to attack and that the air force would be bombing or the artillery and all that, we were always given that beforehand. But because the air force, they didn’t make an impression, any impression on the, they were so well dug in, they didn’t make any impressions that they hoped that they would have.

Oh they just said well you gonna attack in a certain number of hours and the air force would be in beforehand and would be on, you know, dropping their cargo for so long and all that type. We could feel the shells coming down on top of us like the empty shells, when the

air force attacked, you could feel the empty shells sometimes quite close to you.

From the guns from the, yeah. See they would bomb and also shell, ah fire, I suppose by their guns yeah, going over the ridge. The air force guns, you’d feel, anyway the shells come down, small shells, they weren’t big ones no.

And of course they had to rely on weather conditions too, you know, cause the, well they hoped the weather would be, you know, no good attacking I suppose in the clouds and rain and all that type of thing, so they had to rely on weather conditions as well, the air force.

Oh they were pretty awful all the time what I can remember of, you know, oh I suppose

there were fine periods but we, a lot of rain, rain and, and see it’s high up, fairly high there and I think it was clouds, didn’t seem to be much sunshine or anything. I suppose there was sunshine but I can’t remember much about it.

No, I don’t remember it being foggy, wasn’t foggy, like that no.

Yeah, yes. Yes, it, well we must have shifted a little bit each time because I, you know, I remember being in different positions but they weren’t far from the original, we must have gone around in a bit of a circle I suppose. And I remember them bringing up the biscuit porridge,

that was very welcome. And I can remember them being, what would you call it, eating the rations, the chocolate and that, not that we got a lot of it but when it did come up, there was you know, tobacco was in tins, sealed tins you know, because of the wet weather and everything. And smelled, did smell lovely though I didn’t smoke in those days.

No, didn’t worry me much but chaps were heavy smokers, well they missed their cigarettes. I think I did try a couple of cigarettes but didn’t interest me much no. I smoked a little bit afterwards but you know, only about ten a day or something like that. So even though when I come home, it was hard to smoke in the grocer’s shop too because

you’d be, you know, customer come in and you’d put your cigarette down and all that business, so it was hard to smoke then too.

Yeah, yeah. Yes it was, well after the Double Mountain, though you did come down to the river, that was the Frisceo River and of course the Frisceo River

flowed, went into where Salamaua was. Well Salamaua was only just an isthmus, there wasn’t much on Salamaua, you know, it’d been bombed and bombed and bombed I think and it was just this isthmus jutting out into the sea. So we were going, even though the Vickers Ridge and that was high, fairly high up, we were gradually going down to sea level all the time, and that was

after Vickers Ridge when we were going down. It was hard to get a feel of the, of what was around. See you didn’t know where the other companies were, because you couldn’t see them. They said, “A Company’s over there and B Company’s there.” But we didn’t know and we just knew our little bit and it was hard to know where the Japs were.

We knew they were in front of us but they were that side, you didn’t know where, so it was hard to get much of a, so the chaps that went on the Boong Line afterwards they had a fair idea then because they were you know, going backwards and forwards with food and ammunition and so forth. And they got a fair idea of the, idea of the, where different companies were and where the chaps were and all that.

Yeah. Yeah...

No

I haven’t no. Just, we were the ones that were supposed to take Vickers, they tried to explain I suppose, you know, when we first went in and what each company was supposed to do. But, well when you’re only young and everything, it’s hard to realise the, you didn’t have maps, we didn’t have maps so, you know, it was hard to know the area if you don’t,

don’t know if you haven’t got a map isn’t it. Yet the other companies see, they suffered casualties too and they were just as bad off as what we were. We thought we were the worst naturally but see they had bad, lot of casualties in the other companies too.

Oh well we didn’t, we hoped we were going home on leave, when we were camped up in Dobadura. Had, you know, they had sports and it was, they had Christmas Day up there and we were well fed and then we had New Year’s Day where they had the sports going on. And then the next thing we hear, we’re going up to the

Finisterres and we were very disappointed of course, but didn’t, it didn’t turn out too bad up there of course, but we had to be there, yeah.

Yeah, well, we’d been in action eleven weeks or something like that you know, so we thought oh, and we’d been, well we’d been up in New Guinea six months or more and hoped we were going home.

We didn’t get a lot of leave before we left Australia, some did, but then it, leave was broken, we were due for so much, but we didn’t get it all cause we were due to go to New Guinea and the time just didn’t permit. But anyway a lot of the chaps got dengue fever

at the Finisterres, or down in Dumpu, just before we went up to the mountains where we landed. And they, a lot, and they reckoned it was very severe, very severe that dengue fever, worse than malaria some of the chaps said, it affected them so badly. It, I was lucky, I didn’t get dengue, no.

Oh that was at Salamaua, yeah. Yeah, well some went back over Double Mountain and then later on see they went the other way down through Mount Tambu and down to Nassau Bay yeah. Well that was a bit of a hospital, they were, as I said I was only

there a couple of nights I think and went back again, so I didn’t see a great deal of it.

No, Field Ambulance, what do you mean by Field Ambulance?

Oh we had our RAP [Regimental Aid Post], yeah, but I never went there. The chap, one of the stretcher bearers come around and he said, “Oh” he said, “We’ll look at your skin, you gotta go back.” So he just told me and I went back

I don’t remember the RAP but I remember them telling me I gotta go down past Mount Tambu and that’s all. And that was a fair march I think too, you know, might have taken me a day to get there even, or might have been a lot longer.

Yeah, walked there.

No-one I don't think. I can’t remember anyone. I suppose there was different ones going back all the

time, so I probably passed someone on the track or something like that, yeah. See the war was altering in the, which way we’d go and which way we couldn’t do. I suppose where I went back to it’d been fighting about three, a couple of weeks before hand. I think they might have been Americans down towards that way too.

Not much no, I know they met, they had one patrol went out but I wasn’t on it of course and they

met up with the Americans, that was down towards, must have been down towards Bogajim or past Bogajim. And they met up with the Americans anyway, that was a patrol. And I think the officer might have got an MC [Military Cross] for you know that, they didn’t strike a lot of opposition or they might have struck a little bit but not a great deal of opposition anyway.

Where we were camped, well it was just, patrols went out to different villages, you know, just a day patrol or might have been two day patrol and then they’d come back, probably only have seven or eight men on the patrol. But they’d go out to different village, different tracks and go through different villages. And they struck, some villagers weren’t

very friendly, they were friendly with the Japs you know, so you had to be careful, you know, which was friendly and which weren’t.

Well you normally just had to say, if you met any opposition or, anything or sometimes you wouldn’t see a thing, you’d just come back and report, was all,

no, never struck anything and everything was more or less going on like that. One officer, oh he’d only just come to us I think, I don’t hardly remember him and one of the chaps was cleaning the Bren gun and shot him. I don't know if it was on purpose or not because he was quite a friendly lieutenant, in fact when we come back from the war he used to come to a lot of our meetings you know and he was very well liked. So I don't know what this

chap, how he come to shoot him anyway. He only shot him in the arm but...

Mmm?

He shot one of our lieutenants, his own men. Yeah. Mad Barker, the officer in charge of, our company commander, he called him, he said, “Mad Barker.” He said, “It takes so many months to train an officer, years to train an officer and then he goes and

shoots him.” But I don't know what happened to him because if he was put on a charge sheet or not because he disappeared after that anyway and we never saw him again.

Well they were all tracks,

you know, just jungle tracks and just in a certain direction, they’d say go out that way and see what you strike. Well see there wasn’t much known about the different villages, you know, you might come across the villages pretty sudden. Didn’t see that many natives around, not around where we were anyway, but course they would be in the villages yeah. There was a bit of a native garden

and you’d see the, men didn’t seem to do much, used to be all the women, they’d have a bag around their head like carting water or carting babies, the men were just strolling out in front with nothing. Different today isn’t it.

Well of course it was pidgin English, yeah they did have people, I couldn’t, well, more or less I suppose you could understand what they were saying you know, in a round about way but I never spoke pidgin, you just, well you’d understand it but you couldn’t speak it really.

No, not that I can remember, I suppose the one in charge of the patrol would have a bit of a smattering of pidgin English, be able to correspond with the natives anyway.

Not, I didn’t no, I never went out on one of those, but I just heard the other chaps that

were assigned to that job yeah, talking about it.

I think it’d be nerve wracking cause you’d be, you know, you’d have to have a forward scout, and second, and scout and then the one’s behind. So you wouldn’t like to be forward scout, I wouldn’t like that job.

Yeah, I’d be mainly back in the, you know with the, the centre part of the patrol. Oh they’d have a forward scout, and then a second forward scout, and then they’d have a main patrol and then they’d have a rear scout at the rear.

Oh you’d have your Bren gun and your Owen gun and rifles yeah.

You’d have to go for good fire power. But the as I say, well I didn’t have to do much there except when we, we’re at one village they called Nangapo I think and the other one where

bit further on was where the attack took place, where the chap won the MM cause the Nips attacked during the night there, and that was called Boram. That was where Martin, one of the Martin boys was killed.

No, those photos where I don’t think it was our battalion though, I think it was 2/3rd where a padre was conducting a burial service but I never went to any one, any burial service no.

Yeah, the Catholic padre yeah.

Father English, Jim English. He was Irish, he had a real Irish twang. You’d understand him plain enough though.

Yeah. He’d come and conduct a mass or anything or just to talk to them, you

know, ask anyone who wanted anything special done.

Oh well I suppose it was hard to give advice under the circumstances but well I think it

was just to give you a bit of you know, more something like, ordinary life, bring you back to the field a bit. But of course he had to travel a lot, well he come to A Company and C Company and then he’d have to go to all the companies, visit all the companies. Probably,

you know, company headquarters, so there was a lot to do, a lot of travelling to do, round the tracks, the bush tracks or the jungle tracks.

Oh no he’d have someone with him yes. Well, you probably, even to know the way, you know, you’d have

to have a bit of a knowledge. Wouldn’t want to walk into the Japanese, would you? Though they reckon one of our officers did, they told him not to go any further forward than, wasn’t in our, my company, but it was in one of the other companies, not to go any further forward and he went forward and he was shot and killed too. He was told not to go any further forward.

See you didn’t know where the front line started more or less you know because, and if you got too close you’d get a few bullets coming around you, so you’d know alright then.

Oh we just find out by, while these patrols were sent out, to find out when, you know,

when the firing would start and you’d know then that they weren’t far ahead. And that was mainly the patrols why they were sent out to find out how, like what the opposition were doing.

Yeah well that’s right yeah. It was no easy job you know, if you struck a bit of opposition. You know they were wide awake

too and probably the forward scout or he might get shot or grenade thrown at him and then the rest would come under fire. So the patrolling wasn’t easy either.

Yeah we came back to, or we camped for about a month I think at Madang, amongst the coconuts, some, I forget the name of it now, they called it something anyway and quite neat, well we had a good relaxing sort of a time. But we had to take Atebrin and we had to line up on parade for that,

line up on parade and the officer’d come down and give you an Atebrin tablet and made sure you swallowed it. I think you had to take two a day, one in the night and one in the morning. And then they’d come around, we’re in two man tents then, and we made a bit of a bed. Got a couple of saplings and put a blanket, sewn up a blanket and put that between the two, the two saplings there and you had your blanket there and that made a bed and then

we were in a two man tent, so that was quite good. But they’d come around at night time and make sure you had your mosquito net up, so look in the tent and see you’re, you know, otherwise you’d be on a charge sheet. You know, because they wanted to stop the malaria, and you had to make sure you took the Atebrin, make sure you had your mosquito net on. Well I didn’t get malaria until I come back home on leave you know, we all got, most of us did get malaria when we came back home, I suppose

a different climate. And we mightn’t been taking, we mightn’t have had to take Atebrin then either. See Atebrin was only a suppresser, it suppressed the malaria from coming out. Sent you a bit yellow, they were yellow tablets and they’d send you, you know, you had a yellow complexion more or less. But I didn’t get malaria on leave, I didn’t get it until after the war, after the war had finished, is when I come home and got malaria

Oh some of them might have, some chaps might have you know but be sent back, you couldn’t discount that, no.

No I didn’t, no.

Malaria wasn’t too friendly anyway, you felt pretty awful having malaria.

Did I have what?

Yeah, I think I got it twice yeah, I remember I was working, I had to come home in a tram and I don't know how I got home, got home alright and I think I,

mum must have got the local doctor and went over to Heidelberg. And the second time they had this new drug out, Paladrin or some name like that, and that seemed, I never got it after that anyway. I was over in Heidelberg for a week or so then after that, it was alright. I never had a thing, complaints about it afterwards either.

But we, when, one of our chaps, oh that was when we were in Bougainville, we, they gave us a tablet, oh, not a tablet a drink I think it was, to stop the hookworm, we all got hookworm, all had it apparently, didn’t know, I didn’t feel any effects of it. But some of the chaps got it after they come home and had to go to Heidelberg for hookworm.

Supposed to go up through your feet, dunno how but. When we were at Dobadura, before we went up to the Finisterres, there was a river there, a swimming pool but they had to have guards on it with rifles, chaps with rifles, in case of the crocodiles. But I never knew, I never knew anything about it, I remember

going in for a swim there but I never thought of crocodiles. Going in, I don’t suppose.

No, too stupid I suppose.

Oh yeah, Madang was nice yeah.

No, oh yeah, I got one ulcer on me foot, that was before we went up to the Finisterres, right on the ankle bone down there it was, and oh took a fair while, it was painful too, took a fair while to heal, you know, they get deeper and deeper, and very painful it was. Some of them were a lot worse than that though; mine was only mild compared to what some of them were, the ulcers yeah.

After Madang, I forget how we come, got the boat, anyway must have got a boat, come in there I suppose. Anyway we were on the boat and we landed in

Brisbane. And then we came down by, or some of them, chaps from Queensland of course well they, New South Wales and we were Victorians, well we all came down to Melbourne, some to Melbourne, some to their home town I suppose. And we were on leave, oh we must have had a fair bit of leave but you were supposed to get two days a month I think, and we hadn’t had any

for about six months so we must have had a fortnight or more. And then we went out to Watsonia, camp there, we were camped at Watsonia and we had a bit of home leave and then we were camped in Watsonia and then we marched through the city, they put us through the city on a march. So we all had to practise keeping in step at, while we were at Watsonia.

Oh just a Victory March you know, they used to have a few of them in those times you know, when the chaps come home from the Middle East and when we come back, they tried to educate, tell the public what we’d done and all that yeah, and we marched through the city yeah.

Mmm?

Oh yes, the first time, yeah. You know cause I’d never been, marched and through

the city or anything, you felt like heroes.

Yeah, well I suppose they were glad to see us home, I don't know if being proud of us, they were glad to see us home in one piece.

What, no, not until when I came home that final leave, he wasn’t back then no. Well see the War didn’t end till 1945 in Europe either, only ended about six months before the Japanese War.

Back to the Atherton Tablelands, we went up to the Atherton Tablelands there and...

Oh I think we got reinforcements there and I think a lot of the troops had to go up there, I don't know why. Of course it wasn’t very, like jungle or anything like that, it was different type of country, you know, the Atherton Tablelands. But anyway that’s where we were sent and done a bit of training there and then came, I don't know, I think I might have been,

some left from, I think mainly from Townsville, but some might have gone to Brisbane and a couple of them might have even gone picked up in Cairns. Anyway we were there and then we went to Bougainville. That was, I think we spent Christmas on the boat, Christmas on the boat, that would have been ’44 yeah.

Mmm, going to

Bougainville yes. So we were only in Bougainville about six months I suppose. And we got there in oh, must have been January and when the war ended, that would be August, yeah. But we weren’t fighting all the time, there was a lot of other battalions and brigades up there, so that we were only came in towards April I think. And we, and then we were

took it in turns to go to the front line with the 57/60th and the 24th Battalion. We’d go in for a couple of weeks and then they’d take over, that sort of thing like that. Bit of a, even though the attacks were on the Buin Road but some went out to the left and some to the right, some battalions to the left and some to the right.

Yes.

Yeah, yes we all, there was a battle going up north, we were on the Buin Road yeah. And we were going down to, forget the name of the town, Buin I suppose it was yeah, called Buin Road yeah. Very boggy road, had to put down wooden,

cut trees down, put down wood all over the road to make it, so the jeeps could run along it, run jeeps and bulldozers and tanks.

Yeah, yes, a couple, yes, well they were coming up

behind us and they were attacking, that’s even battalion headquarters I think got attacked a couple of times, yeah. And see they were, we were going forward and they were coming in behind the lines, some how or other. But the main track, the main battle was along the Buin Road and had all these rivers we had to cross. Oh there was Mobowai and oh there was about four rivers, all different names, they were quite swift running because there was a lot

of rain in Bougainville too. Swift running and wide and flat ground and very marshy, with all the rain. And there was a big, before we went in, there was a big battle at one of the other battalions, Slater’s Knoll, where the Japanese attacked in the middle of the night. It was more or less like

a suicide attack, you know, oh it was about a hundred, I think they killed a couple of hundred or more, might have been more, you know, where they, just more or less Banzai attack, and that was before we went in. Of course the Yanks had been there for some time you know, and they were happy to stop at Torokina and the Japanese were happy to stop behind, there was no fighting

going on. It was only when they got the Australians to go over and keep on attacking. And of course they didn’t expect, they only expected about four or five thousand to be there and it finished up, there was over twenty thousand. So, and they thought as you know, we got closer to Buin that they would you know, attack, they still seemed to have enough arms, even though they were cut off, they seemed to have enough arms, down there to

make a surprise attack. So we were happy when the bomb was dropped and the war ended, cause we would have suffered a lot more casualties as we got closer to Buin.

No.

Yeah.

Well it was, apparently, what you read afterwards, it was Blamey had, and MacArthur had decided that, that Blamey wanted the Australians to be in it I suppose. And the main theatre of war of course had gone right up past the Philippines by that stage,

and we were well behind the main theatre yet they had to send Australians in. Well, we didn’t own the land or anything, I don't know who owned it, but anyway that’s what happened and so it was a bit unnecessary I think. New Guinea was a bit the same, after Salamaua that, when the 9th Division went in and that was still a bit of a battle zone then.

But as they went down, when we went to Bougainville the 6th Division went down towards Wewak, well that was the same thing there, because the war had gone right up the other end, so that was a bit unnecessary too.

Not really, I don’t suppose you did until, well I suppose you didn’t away, but when you come back and you read all about it afterwards, you knew it was, well they had a book out they called it, The Unnecessary War, and all that business. And

you know, you did read about it then. We, still, we had casualties went on see and chaps were killed for probably no reason at all, you know, when you come to think of it afterwards, but I don’t suppose we actually didn’t really realise it at the time.

But I was in the RAP, or the CAP [Company Aid Post] then. And we used to, although you had to go round and have a look at the blokes who’d come up and might have a skin rash or tinea or something like that, and you’d paint this paint on for them and try to keep them in order. And well if you had

casualties in the battle, I think I only had to attend one chap I think, that was wounded, that was all. But I think it was probably a better job than being a Bren gunner.

Well they asked for volunteers when we got to Empress Augusta Bay or Torokina. And they said, you know, we were not doing anything for a while, just training, and they asked, would someone like to do, go in to the RAP or CAP yeah. And so me and another chap

volunteered and done a bit of a school you know, and then we were put in. I think I went to another company for a little while and then just for a bit of experience and then come back to me own company.

Before the Buin Road battles.

Yeah.

Yeah.

No. No, it was permanent, you know, after I done the school, we were at Torokina, done the school at Torokina then you were put out to, in to the company. Well each platoon had a, you know, had three to a company, three oh each, yeah, three to a company, each platoon had one.

Well yes that was as, well, not long after we arrived there I suppose, a couple of weeks, and then they asked for volunteers and then you went and done a bit of a school and you went back to the company and we were

put out to the platoons, the, one to each platoon and you became the CAP, Company Aid Post. And of course in the battalion headquarters they had the RAP which was the main medical centre, that was the Regimental Aid Post.

Yeah,

that was full time.

Well I suppose you stopped in there, you had Aspros and stuff to paint on and all that. You had all those things at your disposal, scissors and temperature chart and all that, temperature. If a bloke feeling off you take his temperature and send him, if, you know, if it was a bit high, you’d send him on to the RAP, Regimental

Aid Post. And they were the main ones of course, they had the doctor and they had about three orderlies there at the... And then when you go into action see, they, the ones in the, they become stretcher bearers then, when they go, when you go into the action, the, they, you become stretcher bearer.

Yeah, stretcher bearer. We went, though I never had to do much in the stretcher

bearing, no, but that’s what you were there for.

Stretcher bearer

Ah, no, not a lot, but not as many as Salamaua but still casualties yeah. But I didn’t come in contact with a

Lot, no, only I can remember two or three really.

Well I never had to do that, no, never had to do that really. The ones that were wounded that I attended to they were more or less, they’d come from the Regimental Post and take them back. So I never went back further than the company.

Oh no I used to be with the company, with the platoon sergeant, we used to camp together at night time, still had to get up and do your guard duty and we were in a two man tent. Oh where, I think it was a tent, anyway we had slit trenches in front of us in case we were attacked.

Had to, you know, dig your slit trench at night because they were still artillery coming over from the Japanese, different parts. And then we were attacked, company headquart, no, battalion headquarters we were attacked by the New Zealand planes. And they did cause some,

I think the, our adjutant got wounded in the leg, and course they’re big bullets what the planes, you know, point five’s and in the leg. And I don't know if he lost his leg, I think he was still limping anyway, when the last, last that we heard of him. So that was, yeah that was just a mistake you know, mistakes happened, I suppose they thought it was a Japanese camp.

Oh I didn’t enjoy it but I didn’t mind it just the same, you know, it was something different. You know you felt you were learning something anyway. Even though you might never use it again, it was some, bit of an, oh, you know, like an ambulance course or something like that. Something you know you felt you’d learned a little bit

about.

Yeah, I don’t think I was Doctor Shewan. But you come in, you know, contact with a lot of the ones which you didn’t know so well. You know, might have been reinforcements, it takes a while to get to know people you know, and you’d come in more contact with all the different ones.

Yes, yes, I was never short, no. Bandages and all that, just had those and there was a little bit of knowledge, you learn how to bandage, put bandages on, learn how.

No, no, don’t, not that I recall, no. We always carried a field dressing, that was when you were in action you had a field dressing. And that was, you know, I think everyone, every man carried one of them. And in the camps and that they were, you, just had the ordinary things which you’d get.

Yeah.

Well actually I’d gone back to the rest camp and they used to come and, the doctor had come around and he’d sent so many back to the rest camp. Every, oh, I don't know,

but anyway it was my turn to go back to the rest camp and I was back in Torokina I think when the war, when they announced the war was ended. So it was pretty quiet back there because you know, there weren’t, most of the company was down further you know, down towards Buin. But I think, I don't think they were in, I think they were in rest about that time when the war did end. There were still patrols going about even though you weren’t in the front line,

still had to send patrols out. But I don't think any of our blokes were killed after the war but they still had to send patrols out. Because it took a while for the Japanese to surrender even though the, American planes went over and they were dropping pamphlets on them, telling them the war had ended, it still took a while to reach them all anyway.

Oh then they broke up the battalion, oh we were there for a while before they broke it up, and then they broke the battalion up and I went to the OR’s [Other Ranks’], they had an OR’s Club. Cause we didn’t have enough points to go home, you had to rely on these points. And course the one’s that’d been in the army the

longest and were older, they got certain, more points than what you did. The ones that come in after and didn’t have as much service they got less points. So I didn’t come home until March ’46, March or April ’46 but after the war ended in August or September whenever it was. And between that time, two or three weeks after or might have been a month after the war, the battalion was broken up.

Some went home, some went down to Faeroe Island , that’s way down south of Buin where they had to guard the Japanese, prisoners of war. And some went on the river boats, like, what do they call that, anyway they were sailing around in boats to Rabaul and all that, river transport or something and I went to the OR’s Club. And that was quite interesting too, and of course that was like,

well like an RSL more or less. They had put on food for the troops that’d come in, you know, when they got leave and they’d come in and they’d get a feed and they had a snooker table and all that type of thing there. And I used to have to go round and pick up goods from these, pick up. Oh it was good food, poultry and all that, and you’d bring that back into the thing and give it to the

cook and they’d cook it. It was like a store man job I had, a store man.

Yeah. And see some went, even went to Rabaul and they, well you could volunteer for anywhere. Some went to transport, some went to Rabaul on these boats sailing around. I was just lucky and the rest that were left had to go down to Faeroe Island

which was pretty awful, not that they had to do much because the Japanese couldn’t escape to anywhere, if they’d escape, where were they gonna go? So they didn’t have to do much but the rest that didn’t volunteer for something, that’s where they finished up.

I was just a volunteer. I don't know how I come to get it but about three of us went there, went there and

it was quite an interesting... cause they’d been, they hadn’t seen any action those chaps, they’d just run that club long before we got in, well they got in there anyway. They’d been there all the war, you know, more or less, not all the war but a certain number.

That was Torokina. Yeah we went back to Torokina and that’s where we... and then we got, we

got our beer ration. And all the time we’d been in action, we hadn’t got any, we supposed to get two bottles a week I think, two big bottles and of course we hadn’t got any while we were in action and it all mounted up. I don't know how many we had, I think we might have had a dozen bottles or something like that. And then they said you can draw as much as you like, so there was a few wild nights.

So that, and then of course then when all that was gone, the battalion was broken up. Some went to the wharf to get, unloading the ships and everything like that. It’s just bad luck that the battalion was broken up like that. But they had made arrangements beforehand to continue with the 58/59th Battalion Association you know, and made

things what would they do when they got back after the war and all that. And this is how we come to have the Battalion Association, which has been marvellous really. Because they brought out this little booklet we used to get once a year, and put all shots of, doings of what different chaps have been up to you know. And some in Queensland and some in New South Wales and country areas. So you know, you might see where one of your mates had, you know, was still going strong and all

that type of thing. Because there was no telephones or anything much in those days, you couldn’t ring up or anything. And the only means of keeping in touch with them was to take their address before you broke up and know where they lived and that. So, and then of course afterwards when you got the telephone and then we met, when we met in the battalion unit or when we got the ‘nullere cedere’ they called the booklet, you know, you’d hear what they’re doing.

And we had a marvellous secretary and that, and I think we only had, we’ve only had about three secretaries in all those sixty years and they’ve you know, really done a marvellous job.

No, it was just broken up. You know, the whole battalion was broken up and as I say I went to the OR’s Club, someone went, and then they were all scattered. Some went home, of course if they had enough points they’d be, go on leave, go home for good yeah.

Well we thought it was you know, been together,

we would have rather been all come back to Australia as a battalion and then disbanded at the Royal Park or something like that, and disbanded then. Well we were disbanded over in Bougainville, you know, didn’t feel, seem right. You know, well, before you had a chance to keep in touch with anyone, you know, you lost touch pretty

quickly, you haven’t got their addresses and everything. But it has kept us together that ‘nullere cedere’ and that, the Battalion Association. Yeah we used to meet in the Brunswick, oh we had quite a few up there in, up towards Moorlin Road over to Coburg Football ground. We had

different places where we’d go on Anzac Eve. You know, we were all working in those days so it wasn’t till after tea you’d go, get there, now they have it at lunch time of course.

Oh must have there a month or, a month or a couple of, six weeks I’d say, six or seven weeks, might have been

a couple of months. See I was, War ended in August and I was there until I came home which was March so it must have been there two, couple of months alright. Say the war, say the battalion wasn’t broken up until November, August, October or November, then I’d be there till January February,

yeah so a couple of months I suppose I was there, at the OR’s Club.

Ordinary chap, Ordinary, Ordinary something anyway. Well there’s no officers see, it was all, Other Ranks, that’s what it’d be, OR, Other Ranks. Course you were more or less your own boss, well, you know, had to go out and get the supplies, but you

didn’t have to do much, just supervise the unloading or loading of the truck and then that was my job anyway. Some were in the office doing the office work.

No, not the wharf, no, it was just in warehouses more or less, where I had to go, yeah.

I didn't know it existed, I don't know how I come to go there, someone must have told me I suppose, that’s where I volunteered.

Not quite as good but pretty good just the same, yeah, good food. No, course they used to have the pictures, the open air picture shows and all that type of thing there too.

Can’t remember. I was never much of a picture fan, I used to go but I was never, even in civilian life I’ve never been much of a picture fan. Even though I got the Westgarth here, right down here, the Northcote Theatre up there.

Mmm?

They had concert parties, you know, and they had a pretty good concert party there. They trained and, oh they dressed up as women and, oh yeah they were pretty good too, you’d hardly recognise them,

no. And then they had boxing matches, boxing and football matches against each other, against the other battalions or against the other company, yeah. Yeah they was good sports, you know, more, this is after the war had ended or course you know, but it was all relaxing, yeah.

Yeah, well they had all these things to amuse you yeah.

And the beach wasn’t bad either, at Torokina, you had to be careful you know, because the undertow was, bit of surf it was, it was a surf beach, you had to be pretty careful. But it was nice to have a swim. And then they had lot of things where the chaps used to

make different things, like that coconut and bullet things, like things like that you know, rings and all that type of thing they, some of them made and you’d buy them and send them home. Marvellous what they could do you know, with the lack of tools and what not.

Oh the boys themselves,

you know, if they had the facilities to get these things, or air force had a lot, you know, you’d be able to buy them off the air force because they had perspex and everything at hand from the air force.

Yeah they said that, we didn’t know much about it, we never dumped anything. Though they, the band did say they dumped their

instruments into the sea I think. You know, they were a bit sorry afterwards but that was what I heard. But there was a lot of dumping material of course, well all that heavy material I don't think they ever brought it back to Australia. You know, well we had, see in Bougainville, we had tanks to support us, we had bulldozers, you know, go through the scrub like that, which made it much easier.

But that was very heavy equipment and I don't think they ever brought it back to Australia, be probably dumped and rusted and all that. So Bougainville was a different war altogether you know, with all that help that you never had in New Guinea.

Yeah that was funny, I don't know, I only heard that later, you know, when some of the chaps that were in the band

said they’d dumped it. They were sorry afterwards because they would have liked to have those, their instruments back yeah. We used to go up to the Watsonia Band, this is in later years of course you know. Oh not, only about seven or eight years ago, and they, one of the chaps that was in the battalion band arranged this, we’d go to this band concert at Watsonia, about once

every fortnight. And we’d meet in the Watsonia RSL, have lunch and then go down to Watsonia camp and watch this band concert. And they’d bring all the bands from, they were still in the army and they’d play in front of us, you know, only for about an hour, but they played good tunes, they didn’t play only marches. They played, you know, from the film,

ah, the plays on at the theatre and all that, all those songs you know, ‘Get Me To The Church On Time’ and all that type of thing, you know, yeah. So they, in that, well we had about twelve or so of us, so it was good to meet the chaps again, you know, we’d lost a bit of touch with the band. You know you only knew the ones in your own company more or less, and so we got in touch, notice to them and it was quite good.

Yeah it was interesting to learn you know, what they do and they come down and they have like a school, Watsonia, a school. And they pass their exams and then they might be sent up to Wagga or up to Brisbane and all that type of thing yeah. Very interesting life these days being in the army. And they have the,

lady, girls, girls in the army and they’re in the band too, they were girls in the band, yeah. And they’d, some of them’d even sing, you know, put on a couple of sing songs.

That photo of, you know, it was often played on the TV of a chap helping another chap, that was in our battalion, they often put it on as the 9th Divvy, that, but it was our battalion. That was taken in New Guinea where the chap was, you know, stunned by a bomb, and he was alright afterwards,

but he was blinded at the time and this sergeant was helping him out. And, the sergeant was, he looked, he must have had Chinese blood in him and he looked a bit Chinese and he came from Shepparton. And he was a fair bit older because he’s been, he died a long time ago, must have been dead twenty years ago now I’d say. But anyway he won the

MM for that and then the other chap only died last year, he was living in Gippsland. We went up, the whole platoon, you know, we were invited up anyway, went up by bus, a bus load of us, up, when they had, they called a soldiers’ mess up in Shepparton after this sergeant and we all went up there. Oh it was a terrible day, it was a north wind blowing and the maximum temperature was six.

So you can imagine how cold it was.

Yeah, that’s right it was a militia battalion, so we weren’t volunteers and we had a ‘V’ number, ‘V‘ number

and then we weren’t forced to join the AIF [Australian Imperial Force] or anything like that, but they said they’d like to anyone, but of course we were under twenty-one we had to get our parent’s commission, ah, permission to join the AIF. Well I wrote down, I don't think I had any trouble, I think I joined in Cooroy I think. I think I just wrote down, I just, Mum and Dad just said, oh yeah join the, so I got a ‘VX’ number

then. Well a lot of chaps signed their own form I think, if they couldn’t get their parents commission, permission. Anyway so in that, well you didn’t have to join but I think seventy-five or eighty-five per cent of us joined and we had ‘VX’ numbers. Well the other chaps still had the ‘V’ number, well they were, even though they had the ‘V’ number they still had, gave us, Papua New Guinea still belonged to Australia. And

even the other part of New Guinea belonged, not the northern, not the west part, that still belonged, was given to Australia after the First World War. So even though they only had a ‘V’ number they still had to go out to, were able to go over to New Guinea. They wouldn’t have been able to go to the Philippines or anything like that, unless they had a ‘VX’ number. You had to have a ‘VX’ number to go outside Australian territory. So that’s how that happened, so

I knew, I can remember me ‘V’ number even, I can remember that and I can remember me ‘VX’ number, yeah, no trouble. Wonderful isn’t it, think it stops in your memory all that time.

Well it’s only in the 58/59th

well it was 58th in the start and then when the 58th and 59th amalgamated, it was the 58/59th, so that was the only battalion I was in. Oh, except for the training, I forget what they called that, when we first went in to Seymour, we weren’t in battalions then, we were only in a cadre and then we were put into battalions afterwards after we done a couple of week’s training.

No, it wasn’t, it was a

cadre then, when we left, when we were in Seymour, it was just a cadre, wasn’t a battalion then, it was only after the initial training that we were put into different battalions. Some went to the 24th and some to the 59th and some to, though mainly the 59th were from the Golden Valley. They were all up north in Echuca and Shepparton and all around that area. And the

58th were Coburg and Brunswick and Northcote, Essendon.

C Company. They had A, B, A Company, B Company, C Company, D Company and they used to have an E Company too. That was, I think it was the machine gunners there. Anyway that was

finished up when we were at Casino or Caboolture, that E Company out and there was just the four companies in battalion headquarters. No I think that amounted to over a thousand or between seven and eight hundred and a thousand. Because we were never full strength though, I don't think. And then of course we got down to two or three hundred I think at one stage, the battalion got that low, you know, with the casualties.

After New Guinea we got down to two or three hundred. So, just supposed to be over a hundred in a company, that’s four hundred, A, B, C, D. And then you got battalion headquarters which consisted of Mortar Bomb, Mortar Platoon, Machine Gun Platoon, and a Signal Platoon, so that’s another

three more or less companies so, you know, be close to a thousand. Then we got down that low you know, that’s with casualties and wounded and killed, yeah. And then they’d bring in reinforcements and build it up each time, then gradually goes down and then they gotta get more. I think we must have had three or four lots of reinforcements. Had

Queenslanders and New South Welsh, Wales in the first lot of reinforcements. Well they’d been to Canungra, they done a jungle school at Canungra, we didn’t do any, we didn’t have to go to Canungra, we were just trained like at those different places, Casino, Caboolture and Cooroy.

From Queensland.

No, they were only just trained, a lot of eighteen year olds and what, you know, like they were conscripted more or less too. And that’s what a lot, we got at, towards the end of Salamaua Campaign, when we

got them from, at Sandy Bay, Sandy Creek.

No.

Oh well as one sergeant said, “Well they’re sending us school boys.” Yeah.

Oh yes you soon got

used to them, no doesn’t take long. You know, takes a little bit of a while before you, you know, (break in picture and audio) ...get a certain few and you soon get to know them and become friends with them too yeah, even though they’re a different state and they don’t have the same football and all that type of thing.

We came home on leave then, yeah, that was after the Bougainville campaign and we came, oh the war ended I suppose, yeah, the war ended and we came home, yeah.

Yeah, that was all. Yeah, well, see the battalion had been broken up and I was at the OR’s club and the war had definitely ended, yeah, that’s when we went to the OR’s Club. The battalion broken up and some went to the wharf and some went to the water transport and all that.

No, don’t, you know,

well I was glad the war had finished definitely. But and I thought well, we didn’t think at the time I suppose but we didn’t know what an atom bomb was really, you know, we didn’t know anything about atoms and breaking the atom and all that type of thing. So we learned that afterwards but it was glad to know that they Japanese had surrendered, and after the bomb, and the war had ended and that we’d be going home.

That’s the main thing, sort of thing.

Well I think we might have been more, you know, we would have had a lot more casualties cause there’s twenty thousand of them still left. And you know, when you’re advancing down, it’s like a rat you’re gonna fight aren’t you, when you’re getting right down towards the end? No we were, well, that’s what we thought anyway, they didn’t feel,

weren’t too many surrendered before that anyway, you know, you get the odd one might have, odd Japanese might have surrendered but not many of them. So they were gonna fight and they still had equipment, so we would have suffered, you know, casualties.

Yeah, yeah.

Yeah well see we’re getting down close to Buin, we weren’t that far from Buin when war ended. We had

to cross these rivers, I think there might have been, well I think we crossed three, three or four already, so I think there was only another couple to cross before we got to Buin.

Oh yes we, I can’t remember much about ’em, I don't...

Must have had bridges, they must have put a bridge across because we didn’t have to swim or anything like that anyway. So must have put the bridges across.

you know, so we could get across them.

Only on Vickers Ridge yeah.

No I was CAP all the time in Bougainville yeah.

Oh definitely unnecessary yeah, I think it was unnecessary. You know, because war was right up to Iwo Jima or somewhere like that, you know, not far from Japan. The Yanks had gone right up that far and so all these ones down in New Guinea and they all got cut off, they were cut off,

they couldn’t get supplies. So and the Yanks were there beforehand and they were happy to just hold the stronghold of it or the airport I suppose, that was all they were interested in having. So they were there before us and then that, you know, they just didn’t worry about each other.

No, not much no,

you know, I suppose we wondered why the Yanks, they didn’t worry about it in what way. I suppose we thought that, but we didn’t, you know, didn’t go bad about it. Didn’t say it was unnecessary, I didn't think it was unnecessary at the time. We used to think about those things afterwards I suppose, you, when you’re in the army, we just do what you’re told more or less.

But at the time, well, we didn’t think that, well there was a big Banzai attack as I said, mentioned on that Slater’s Knoll, we weren’t in it then, we’d only just landed in Torokina then or just afterward anyway, and we heard about that, you know, big attack.

Were they?

No, no I didn’t know much about them or anything. I was glad to have them of course.

I never had much to do with them, they were still there I think, some of them were still there when we were there anyway in Torokina. And I think we, you know, some of the chaps might have visited them and I know they had ice cream and all that side of things that we never had.

I was trying to recall things but just didn’t, there’s not much else I reckon I could tell now you know.

Oh we, bit excited I suppose, but we had to rely on the points, points system, and I knew, I think I only had about a hundred and twenty points and I knew I was getting close you know, would be called up, called to go home pretty soon. A couple of chaps that were in the OR’s Club with me, they didn’t have quite enough points, I think they stowed away. They got

down to the wharf and got on one of the ships and stowed away, they got home before me, I think they landed in Sydney. They didn’t get, oh I suppose they might have lost a few days pay or something like that but didn’t worry them too much.

Oh well they were

well they didn’t seem to have any fear, they didn’t suffer fear like we did, like I did anyway. But they didn’t sort of suffer, they, you know, they were happy to expose themselves more or less and you know, not worry about it, that was their mentality.

No, in Australia, yeah. That happened before they went overseas,

yeah, well, they might have been away from the battalion for a couple of months or a month or something like that, and then they’d come back you know. I don't think they gave themselves up, they might have, you know, military police might have found them and brought them back and then they were sent back to the battalion. But they were, you know, they were definitely fearsome yeah. Fearsome or whatever you call it. They, well what I saw of most of those type of chaps were good soldiers, yeah.

Though they mightn’t have got any promotion, they might have been still privates. But I, probably they would get to be a corporal you know, a leader of ten men or something like that.

Well I suppose the record might have gone against them yeah.

Yeah. Well some of our chaps, well I didn’t know them personally, but they were sent to an officers’ school, they were sergeants or warrant officers and then sent to a officers’ school and came back to the battalion, and they were killed, three of them were killed, you know, when they came back. They were leaders, you know, officers and they were put in charge of a company and, or platoon and that, then they were, so it must have been bravery,

you know, they were. Well, often, you know, they were trained as from a sergeant or a warrant officer to an officer, they went, they weren’t sent back to the same battalion, they were sent you know, to a different battalion, and but these ones came back to our battalion. And of course they probably knew the chaps that, they came back, that were under them.

Well there was some, well as I said, that sergeant were in getting on thirty I reckon because he’d been married and had four or five kiddies, so I reckon he would have been getting on to thirty. Well a couple of them were in their twenties, twenty-four to oh, bit younger I suppose. And then we were the eighteen year

olds, so it was a bit of a mixture, but I suppose the average age was twenty-two or twenty-three.

Oh yeah, definitely, yeah, younger ones.

Mmm?

Oh yeah, we, this chap that I said took over the, when the lieutenant was killed and the other sergeant went back, he took over, well his, he was, he came

from Murchison. And you know, he’d lost his stripes and went back to a private because he went, well he then come back to be a sergeant afterwards. I think he was only a corporal when the other sergeant was killed, and then he was promoted to a sergeant when they heard about taking over. But he was you know, a real leader, yeah we looked up to him, yeah, course we did yeah. Thought he was good really, you know.

Victor

Hammond, from up Murchison and I think they owned a fair bit of land up there too the Hammonds, they were well known anyway in the district.

Oh, well, he seemed to be you know, didn’t have any qualms about telling you what to do or anything like that, you know, seemed to know the army. Well he’d probably

been in the army a while anyway I think, we were novices as far as he was concerned. He proved to be a good leader, yeah. He became a warrant officer towards the end there as well. And we had a good warrant officer too, that was Noel Piggott , he was a good warrant officer and he became a

regimental warrant officer in the finish, yeah he went on to battalion RSM [Regimental Sergeant Major].

No, I can’t remember anything much there. I remember when we got up the top of Vickers and he told me to get down there and throw a grenade in one of the trenches. And I think he

got a few souvenirs, I didn’t bother about any souvenirs but he got a few souvenirs as well.

Yeah, well I’m a bit that way anyway, I remember going up,

as I said we were reserve company, ah, reserve section going up. And Proby was the officer that had that, who’s in A Company at the time but he had been in C Company and he, we knew him quite well cause he was in charge of our platoon. And he was coming back wounded and he said to me when we were coming up, just on top of the ridge, “Go on, get in to them Jack, go on Jack, get in to them.” He was, you know very, I think he was instrumental

in leading the first attack onto the ridge. When we got up there all, as I said we were last up there and you know, well a lot of things had been going on. But of course it was confusion, of course it was all over the ridge you know, on a small ridge and you weren’t able to shoot, well you wouldn’t shoot in case

you might hit someone else, one of your own men, all round.

Was quite different, yes, , course with the tanks and the bulldozers and that made it, and there was flat country, marshy country too. And it was quite, and, well, we were equipped, better food and everything,

you know, it was a different type of war altogether. Weren’t you know, New Guinea, Salamaua and that, we were more or less on our own, whereas in Bougainville you had everyone more or less around you too.

Yeah well we were in, you knew where the company was and who was around you and all that and where the different platoons were, you knew, seemed to know all that. And we were more or less when we went forward we were all together and three, three lots weren’t far. Well they’d have one platoon in the lead and one on the side and one on the

other side you know, as we went forward.

I thought the chap that I was protecting, when we went back and got the dead meat, dead meat tickets off the chaps, I thought that was a very brave act. Cause he had to creep, creep forward,

and go up right into their, you know, well if they’d come out they could have shot him you know. He had to make himself unheard and creep up there and cut their tickets off and of course there was three of them I think, three he had to do, yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah. And I think it was nearly, I think he volunteered for it myself, too.

I was just covering him yeah, covering fire in case they did open up.

Mmm?

Oh, but I was behind him. Yeah, I wasn’t very brave I don't think. Yeah.

It was only because he was the Number Two more or less on the Bren gun that I was more or less covering him.

Well creeping, we were all on our hands and knees, creeping up you know, or keeping their heads down anyway, you know. Oh, well I

relied on everything what he did more or less you know, because well he was a resourceful sort of a soldier, you know, he’d been in a lot longer than what I had anyway. Like as I say he was about three years older than what I was so he’d been in you know, when the 58th, three or four years before I was in it really. Oh I went out to see his parents

as I said, when I come home and course he’d been an only child and I think they were pretty good Christians too you know, they were a good sort of family and they were very cut up about it. Course I couldn’t tell them that much anyway, because they were shot, or done during the night time when they were up the other end of the positions that we were in. So I could only say that, oh, he was just in the

position when they were attacked and he was, they were the first two chaps to be killed. Whereas I said, well, normally he would have been with me but they were, for some reason or other, they were separated this time, well we were separated this time. Yeah, just bit of bad luck I suppose you’d call it wouldn’t you?

Oh wasn’t very nice, ah, happy, no.

Well they did, as I said, they did write to me and I felt obliged to go out there when I come home.

Dunno if I, oh I suppose I,

you know, you would feel sad at losing your lieutenant the first day but and then the other chaps getting killed and so forth. Yeah, thought, course they, you know, you’re such mates you know, everyone seems to be, know each other and you know, you treat each other extra well and everything like that, so it’s very sad, you know, when they get killed, yeah.

I’m not, I’m no hero, no. No fear. Oh no.

No, I wasn’t brave,

no. Well I was just an ordinary chap that more or less done what I was told. Except that one time I did volunteer to go out on a patrol, on that patrol, when we were in the Shaggy Ridge area. But that was, it was only a short patrol anyway, and it was just going out to see if the Nips had gone and that, and they had gone so there was no fighting in that no. But I had, I did volunteer.

I don't know why but they tell, never volunteer in the army, it’s you, you and you. But there was one chap, our, this lieutenant that I told you, one of the chaps happened to fire on him, killing the Bren gun. He said after the war that there was another lieutenant killed up there in, on the

Finisterres. What he’d done, he said he’d done something in the mess, back in Australia or back in Moresby or something like that. And his punishment was to be put into an infantry battalion and no infantry training, and he was killed on a patrol. Well that’s what he said yeah, he said that was punishment and he had no infantry training he said.

And of course I don't know if that was true or not, it was only what he said. But he was a pretty brilliant man too because he’d been in the Middle East and then he was in the League of Nations after the war and all that business and over there in Palestine and that. So he knew all the, you know, and I think he had been, I think he joined the army when he was fifteen or sixteen or so he said, he put his age up and

signed the papers and said he was a certain age and got in.

Well, I think MacArthur was great but oh, I suppose because he helped us and everything like that, but, oh he helped

to win the war didn’t he? Blamey I suppose, well, the history of him was not too good you know. Well we did hear about him, you know, coming up the front or something like that and getting lifts up and then you, just more or less briefly appearing and then disappearing. And course when he blew up the 39th Battalion, he didn’t give them

much praise, when they went out on the Kokoda, he didn’t give them much praise and I think he more or less abused them sometimes, oh this is what you hear. So you couldn’t give Blamey much, you know, thing that way, yeah. But, you know, I never remember seeing Blamey at all or else I could have been there I suppose, but I don’t remember

seeing him. We had great regard for Tack Hammer and [General] Savage of course, yeah. And of course they used to praise us up like Billy-oh you know, they’d get up on the parade and say, “Oh you’ve been Number One soldiers, and you’re being this” and everything. Course that was their job I suppose but they did praise us up.

Oh we had them at, where was it, oh

we had a lot in Torokina, we had a lot of parades in Torokina and must have been after we come back from New Guinea I suppose, Watsonia and so forth. And then when we marched through the city, you know, I suppose we had, chaps must have, and you know, had a brigade parade and had to march from and be with him.

Can’t remember that much about it but I remember it was pretty hot sometimes march, standing there you know, you’d be standing to attention, might have to stand there for half an hour or in the pretty hot heat or something like that, blokes used to faint.

Oh that was after the war, yeah after the war. Oh yes, as I say we must have had a fair bit of leave. And I just come home and we’re at Royal Park and I was discharged and then I suppose I met a couple of blokes in the city at different times and then I started work at the shop. You know because see they were short of staff and were pretty busy down the

shop and you know, the, they wanted a bit of a hand, so I more or less started down there.

But I didn’t, hey?

Yeah. I didn't think I’d go back to grocery really but I, you know, when they were so short handed and everything so I went back to grocery. Stopped there for the rest of me life, rest of me working life anyway.

I don't think I had that much trouble, some of the chaps did but I didn’t have much trouble. I suppose I had no time to think about it even. Come back and then you know, you knew you had a job to go to, which was a big difference too, doesn’t it? You know, when you think of it, some chaps’d come back and

you know, they didn’t have a job to go to or they might have thought well they’d go and do some study and be a solicitor or something like that. So’s a bit, and then you had your deferred pay, which you know, seemed quite a sum of money. I didn’t spend mine, I think I put it into the War Loan or I think Dad, some bills or something you could buy, got a bit of interest on it,

I think I put mine into that. Didn’t go bad or spending the whole lot in one go or bet it on the horses or some thing.

Oh it was pretty good because me brother was home, he’d been home and me sister was home before me, I was the last home and I was expected to bring a lot of tobacco home, which I didn’t, so I wasn’t very

popular. I did bring a, you know, a few tins of tobacco or something like that because I didn’t smoke much. They both smoked and so they were hoping to get a bit of tobacco, cigarettes, cause they were hard to get then at that time. You had to have a quota, down the shop they had a quota, and they could only, you know, you just couldn’t go in and ask for a packet of cigarettes, you had to have your monthly quota I think. I think we got a monthly quota too when

we got out, they gave us a monthly quota. And I put that, mine into the shop and just helped meself if I wanted a cigarette and I think me sister did the same too. Well she reckoned she never got a fair go because she smoked more that the quota was. But that was all and as I say we were pretty busy so never had much time to think.

We didn’t talk much, he never said much about being a prisoner of war. He did say he was on, you know, in the farms. And what they had to do in the winter time, they used to bring the cattle

or the sheep or the pigs or something into the farm houses, practically they lived with them, in the winter time over there is pretty severe apparently. And they used to bring the cattle in and that. He didn’t look too bad, you know, I think when he first was a prisoner of war in the prison camps, I think he got beri beri and a few diseases like that. But then he was out on the farm, suppose they were more rest, a bit more well fed anyway.

And then he, oh he went back after he was discharged, after, you know, I don't know if they were discharged or still in the army, they went back to England and then travelled over England and Scotland for a little while before they came home. But that was, didn’t seem to talk much about the war really.

Suppose you had to live in the present

and not the past. Well the time, I think we used to get down to the shop about half past eight, and you supposed to knock off at six. Well you wouldn’t leave the shop, I wouldn’t get home till about half past seven I don’t suppose. And then by the time you had tea and

come in, there was nearly time to go to bed.

Yeah, that was after I was discharged from the army yeah. I got malaria twice. Yeah, it was, I think I came home on a tram, you know, I felt pretty awful,

just went straight to bed and mum got the local doctor to come down and straight over to Heidelberg then yeah. But then I can’t remember much about the second time but I remember I went to Heidelberg again anyway.

Yeah, well

I think they had something after the war where you could do some sort of training you know, a month or something like that, they had something going anyway and I thought about oh you know, it wouldn’t be bad going into something like that. Well one of me mates come over from Sydney and he finished up he stopped in the army and he finished up he went to Korea. But he came over here and I remember I met him and everything like that. And he couldn’t settle down at all, and finished

up stopping in the army. And I don't know if I would have liked to have gone to Korea, didn’t sound too hot to me, bit cold over there, bit hard to do. But I think he spent most of his life in the army because he was in Malaya and in the paratroops or something like that too. But I just had an idea you know, if I’d had anyone that I knew

particularly well that would’ve gone in, I probably would have joined with them you know, a mate or a couple of mates or something, wanted to do the same thing. I didn’t volunteer for to go to Japan or anything, like the army of occupation. Well I don't know anyone that did really but I, there was a chap I think he said he was going. But I didn’t, must have lost touch with him and I didn’t, wouldn’t have gone, no. Well I suppose it was hard

to come home and feel wanted you know, because they were, it was busy down that shop and you didn’t feel like leaving them in the lurch more or less. And they probably, well, dad, I think he got a couple of retired, I don't know, he had one retired grocer that came in and wanted, you know, said he’d help Bert, and he was quite good, too. He had a shop down Brighton Road and retired and given it to his sons and he said he wouldn’t mind coming up and helping

Dad.

Oh no. Probably I didn’t have a bad life afterwards so I shouldn’t complain no. Yeah, oh, I enjoyed

me army life, you know, you forget all that bad bits and you think of the, you know, the good companionship and all that. So they were, you forget about the awful times sometimes.

What’s what?

I remember the companionship more or less, you know, the, your mates in the tent and that you know, it was companionship. I suppose I didn’t have much after school days, I went down to work, I never associated with blokes much after that you know. Didn’t seem to have the time or anything like that. And,

well I did join the social golf club, that was about 1950 I think by the time I joined that yeah and had a bit of social contact there, something like that. Yeah it was good, you know, when you think of all that travel that we did, it was, I’d never been out of

Victoria before so it was quite an interesting experience.

No. I have no inclination to go overseas, no. Done my overseas trips to Bougainville and New Guinea.

One of our chaps he went back on one of those trips, you know, they had on, oh four or five, about five or six years ago, went over to. But you couldn’t, you know, he wouldn’t recognise anything, it was all altered you know, the roads have been built and the jungle’s gone or the jungle’s, and you wouldn’t recognise anything. In fact you can’t even recognise, I can’t even recognise the camps up in Queensland where we were, you know, out from Caboolture, out from Casino, I don’t

recognise any of that, things have altered so much, you know, roads have been built.

Oh yes I had Peter Winell and Dave Taylor, Alby Spinner, Curly Davis, Les Collins, oh they were just a few of them.

I see Les Collins and Curly Davis pretty regularly because I meet them every Friday now. One lives in Heidelberg and one lives in Brunswick so they’re not that far away. And well we meet on Anzac Day, or we meet at the reunion on Anzac Eve and then we go to the march and see each other at the march and that. And anything happens during the year, well, we might

both go to it. So we have kept in touch pretty well and then I write to a couple of, in, one chap in Queensland he’s still alive, he’s up in, north of Mackay anyway, fair way up, he’s way up there. Well he came down to two of our reunions I think and then another chap from Sydney he comes down every second year to

our reunion. And then we meet every second year up in the Queensland reunion. And it’s a couple of trips with the battalion to, we had one to Sydney, we had one to Brisbane and this is going back quite a few years, I was still working in those days. So I kept in touch with the battalion pretty regularly. And then I generally write a letter,

yearly letter or something like that and say what I’ve been done, doing, not a few lines or something like that you know, just to let ’em know I’m still alive. That’s what I said with that ‘nullere cedere’ booklet, you know, keeps us fairly in touch with everything, though we’re gradually all dying out now. Well the battalion, you know, because it’s hard to get, the secretary wants to give it up, it’s hard to get anyone to take it over.

‘nullere cedere’.

Give, Yield to No-one I think it is, Yield to No-one, something like that anyway. Oh it was quite, you know, well about ten, twelve pages I suppose, something like that. Not a lot but just three or four lines from letters, chaps’d just write in something interesting. And then of course they had the yearly picnic,

they started off in different localities and finished up going up to Donnybrook, Donnybrook and they’d have a picnic up there every February. Well, I didn’t go to the early ones but I went to later ones. Cause the early ones were mainly them taking their children, you know, young kids and they’d do races and all that type of thing, but they were fairly popular too.

Frankie Quinn was the pianist anyway, he was oh, a fair bit older than me. And well he did go to Moresby but he never went any further than Moresby so he didn’t finish up, well he was getting a bit long in the tooth I think and they decided he wouldn’t be suitable. But he was really good when we were in Australia and he used to play any tune you liked and he was really marvellous. Then we had Noel Reeves, well he was in the concert party and was, he dressed up

well he was fair, had very fair skin and fair hair, dressed up well as a girl. Then we had Boxer, we used to call him the last of the Straight Backs, he’d line up like this as Pat Egan, and anyway couple of fights, they had a couple of fights, boxes, and boxing gloves and he came out alright. And then we had two little blokes and they fought for the bantamweights. And oh, they were good entertainment

, they’d put on these entertainments at night time and keep you amused and we all enjoyed it, really enjoyed it, watching them. But I can’t think of the, much other entertainment, that was, I know they had, over Dobadura, I think it was Dobadura, was up from Moresby. This is where we went when we come back from the Vickers Ridge episode.

And we camped up there till and we went up to the Finisterres and they had races, races and had a garden in the battalion grounds. And then they, we had Christmas and the officers come around and they served us you know, at Christmas time, that was the tradition, the officers come around and serve you. I think we had eggs, which we hadn’t seen for years I don’t suppose.

And we had a pretty good cook and some of them, boys experimented with the Jungle Juice and kerosene tins and took the inside out of a kerosene tins, that was very powerful stuff. And they used to put rice and sultanas and currants and put it into bottles and it’d blow the cork during the middle of the night. But I don't think it was very good drink.

No, I wouldn’t touch

Jungle Juice. I don’t think I even drank much then, well we didn’t get beer ration then. When we went to Bougainville that we got the beer ration, we didn’t get a beer ration before that.

Yeah.

Yeah, it was a big deal, they never seemed to get eggs in the army. I suppose they were hard to transport and all that type of thing. But we got eggs and I think,

well we had a pretty good cook was Jimmy Sullivan, he was a pretty good cook. And, when he come back from the war he lived in Murchison too and it was a hot day or something, he dived into a channel and he cut his arm some how or other. Anyway he nearly cut his arm off but he was never much good, they didn’t, they saved his arm but it was never much good afterwards you know, it was just more hanging, he never had much trouble with it

ah, had any use for it., I think it was on a saw, he must have been working on saw mills how it happened anyway, you know, nearly cut his arm off. Oh, they was all the chaps I remember and they used to, as I said we used to play Pontoon and Five Hundred and Poker. But they used to play high stakes, they’d play really good Bluff

Poker and they’d play so much for cards and all this, and it was a lot of money, well it seemed a lot of money in those days anyway. So they had a bit of a school, used to play the Bluff Poker. This Vic Hammond, you know, as I said we thought the world of him, and he was one of the ones in the Poker School too. And one of the cooks they, we had, he used to

drink the essence of lemon, that was pretty powerful. But I don’t think they had a great deal of it anyway.

Oh, I never had one I don't think. I used to go to sleep as I said before, you know, when we were out in the, and they reckoned poor old Jack, there he is, snoozing off again. It was pretty hard to keep awake after you, you know, working

in the grocer’s shop and going out in the open air and sitting in the sunshine, pretty hard to keep awake.

No I don’t remember much about that, doing anything exciting anyway. Didn’t

jump in the lake or go mad or run around the block or something, no.

Yeah. No I never fell into a grease trap or anything like that, some of them used to, steal the officers drinks or something and then fall into a grease trap on the way home.

That was pretty deep and covered in you know, what would be all the remains of food and all that type of thing. And we had another bloke that used to be able to mimic, he’d mimic the sergeant and he used to have a bit of a voice that you could mimic the sergeant. And one time the sergeant caught him come to, and he was going on, blah, blah, blah,

just the same as what he was, so, I think he took it as a joke anyway. He lost his hand in the finish, I think it was a booby trap or something; anyway he had to have a claw on. Anyway he came back and he lived down in Portland and he worked in the dairy factory you know, right up till he had to retire and all that type of thing so, you know, didn’t affect him a great deal.

But he was a wonderful mimic yeah.

Well I can remember them, some at Madang for sure, and well they had, it had to be, as you said, a big arrangement, I suppose they must have had a committee or something like that. And I don't know if the chaps volunteered,

but anyway they were all pretty good. You know, they had some, as I say, some actors, and some were funny you know, they’d be able to tell jokes and oh, and that type of thing. It was all you know, great talent, you’d call it, talent. And it was hard to tell you know, they’d put a few false breasts on and all this type of thing, you know, made it look real anyway.

No, none, no. Well we didn’t know the army or navy or well you might, if you went to hospital you’d meet a couple of nurses or something, that’s. But my sister said when they were up there, they were all camped in the hut together and they had to have protection, and they had protection, someone outside guarding them all the time you know, yeah.

So she had more fun that I did cause she tipped over, they stole a jeep and tipped it over, tipped it over running around the airport, so she was more adventurous than I was.

No, no, as I said never went to dances or anything like that, no. So,

I never had anyone, I never wrote home to, oh I wrote to me cousins and me family here but I never, other than that I didn’t have anyone. Some of our chaps they used to, I don’t remember getting any, you know, parcels or something like that from some of these volunteer things. And they put, the girls’d put their names in and they’d write to them and one of them, one at least I know, he came home and married her yeah. And they were you know,

happy together, they had families and still together yeah.

No. No I didn’t meet anyone no. That’s why I didn’t marry I suppose. No, me sister didn’t marry either and me brother had four kids so he made up for us.

Yeah. Well we, this Scots bloke, , he was married, didn’t make any difference to him. He used to go to all the dances in the different country towns we went to and, so he had no loyalty I don't think.

But anyway he came home and went back to his wife and so that was happy ever after. And, well, there was two that I know of that married girls from Casino. And one married a girl from up near Murwillumbah, we went out on a stunt and you know, very small country

towns and they’d go to the country dances and one of them married one of the girls up there too. I think one time I went to one of those Landing Craft Schools, I think that must have been, I can’t remember much about it.

It was, I think it must have been on Bribie Island. I remember we, they picked out about half a dozen of us I think and we went and did those landing craft, but never had to use it anyway, in my experience during the war. The only time I was on a landing craft was when we were coming home from around Milne Bay, around to Milne Bay I think we were on the landing craft. Come to Milne Bay and when we got the, those, what do they call them, ships back to

Moresby. What do they call them, they were built in a hurry and they were only, they were rusty small little things and they were built very quickly by the Americans I think and they had some name for them anyway. Anyway come back to Moresby on it.

I think I told you about at Caboolture we used to go down to this pool right in the middle of the bush and there was, we used to, there was a big tree overhanging the dam and we were able to dive into it.

And there was a lot of mosquitoes about of course but we had quite a good bit of fun on that. But no, there was nothing else there.

Oh that was when I was on the landing craft.

I think it was Bribie, it was either Bribie or, what’s the one further up, big island...?

Fraser Island. It was either Fraser or Bribie, I think we were camped at Caboolture so I think it would have been

Bribie, that’d be the closest to Caboolture. Where Fraser’s you know, up near Hervey Bay and that.

Well we never struck it, no, not in our company at all, no, I’ve never ever hint of it. In fact I didn't know much about it anyway. My sister said she didn’t know anything about until she went in the army. She said, “I didn’t know what they were talking about.”

There wasn’t much anything like that in you know, in school days, I don’t remember anything about it. And certainly none in the army, no. I’ve never heard of it and not in our army anyway, not where I was associated with.

Yeah well her girlfriends see told her about it when she got into the army. Yeah, the girlfriends

she associated with. She said, “Oh I was amazed” you know, “I didn’t know anything about it.” And of course at school, you know, you might have heard of poofs or something like that but, that was all. You said, “Oh, they must be, must talk like girls” or something like that, that’s what you thought of.

No, don’t think anything happened to me no. Well most of us, there’s only one chap in our tent, he was married of course. Well he’d talk about his experiences with girlfriends and

then he got married. But it was a very loving companionship with his wife cause he used to write home every night, every night he’d write a letter. You wonder what he’d be able to tell her, I wouldn’t know.

Yeah. Then one chap, he got compassionate leave, he said he was home on leave and he got his girlfriend

into the family way and he got compassionate leave, and I think it was only a joke, she wasn’t in the family way at all. But they believed him and gave him compassionate leave.

Ah no, not that I can think of at the moment anyway.

How’s what?

Oh it, I think no, I think it changed me a lot really. Well I suppose, I mean I worked in, like from the time you’re fifteen to the time you were eighteen and not seen much of life outside the work and everything, I don't know what it, what I would have been like,

what would I have been like if I hadn’t gone in the army. It’s pretty hard to know. I know I did do a, I done a course in typewriting once and shorthand I think, shorthand and typing. I must have thought I’d do something and I just done that, I don’t think I finished it, I went on probably five or six months, done that. You

had to go to night school after I come home from work. And I went to one bloke, he was teaching music that wasn’t conventional music, it was jazz music I suppose. You know, you’d use chords instead of reading, you read the music but you’d make it up into chords somehow or other, I done that for a little while too.

But I could always play a tune by ear; I could always play a tune by ear, even before I went to, done anything like that. But my sister, she didn’t have music by ear but she could play, definitely play good music. And course they use it as a subject at school, music as a subject. So she was able to get her Intermediate at school and so forth like that.

Not really, I used to amuse meself playing by ear, I’d hear a song, popular song or something like that and pick up. But I never used it to play outside there, I don't think no.

Don’t think I was good enough for that. Yeah, it was, I was interested in music but I never done anything about it I suppose. Well you know, you read they make a good career out of it, yeah.

Oh I still hate ’em, even though I didn’t suffer, you know, didn’t, wasn’t like being a prisoner of war or anything like that. I hate seeing them on the golf links too. But they come down, there’s plenty of them now come down to play golf and

especially at Yarrabin and that. Oh well you put up with them I suppose, you got to anyway these days, but I never liked them. But they reckon, I don't think I could, but they reckon you could smell ’em. I don't think I could ever but anyway some of the blokes reckon you could smell them you know, smell if they were handy and that. Course they used to eat the rice and all that, funny food and that.

Yeah, well that’s right, yeah. Well we weren’t very happy at the start, you know, when this, started to get Japanese cars and all that type of thing but if you say they’re good buyers aren’t they and they buy all our goods and everything like that. And you’ve got to recognise that you’ve gotta live and they gotta live. And of course you can’t blame them,

their father’s and that were the ones that were in the war, under Tojo and. Yeah I didn’t feel like these ones that went to Japan and then come back with Japanese brides, I wasn’t too happy with them. But of course as time goes on you get more mellow and you think different.

Yeah, well course the Yanks, well I suppose the way they went was to make a friend of Japan wasn’t it against Russia, that was the idea. And so you had to support them, well, I think a lot of blokes don’t think much of them but I always reckon that the Yanks have been good. You know, we couldn’t rely

on Britain to fight Japan could we during the Japanese War? Well the Yanks only came into it cause of Pearl Harbor but so we were lucky to have them. Well you don’t know if they would have been down here or not but they seem to think now that they weren’t gonna come to Australia, they were only gonna go down like to the east, to the, Jakarta, Indonesia and those places up there. Well of course

they couldn’t get petrol and the Yanks cut ’em off in petrol and that and they were gonna take that. But they were aggressive you know, when they’d gone in to China before the, before our war they were right over in China and pretty awful soldiers, you know, pretty cruel, very cruel.

Yeah it’s hard to know isn’t it?

Well the Nips would have been in the East Indies of course wouldn’t they, Indonesia, they would have been there for sure or perhaps if we’d lost the war or the Dutch, England. Course they won the war in Europe though just the same, Australia

won the war in Europe you know, with Germany, ah, with England and the help of America. If we’d lost that as well, things could have been quite different couldn’t they? I think Japan would have been ruling, Japan and Germany would have been ruling the roost. So, world things are hard to fathom aren’t they, you know, at one time they’re fighting each other, and then they’ve gotta be friends to each other.

Right from British history isn’t it, you know we’re fighting France one minute and France is your enemy, then friend the next, and all the alliances. But I do think that even though we thought our war was pretty awful, well the First World War was a lot worse. You know, all those ones that were killed you know, just sent over the top and butchered more or less you know, they were going to certain death. When you read

about it, you know, three or four thousand casualties at a time, oh. Yeah and because we’re a pretty small country but they, we sent a good lot of our troops to outside didn’t we, even though they were very small. Every country town you go to they got their war memorials up and oh, you know, and they only small towns but most of the young blokes went to the war. Never came home.

Yeah, yeah. One of the, he was a nephew of one of the chaps that was killed in, on Vickers Ridge and he only rang the battalion secretary a couple of years ago. And he rang me and said, “So and so, would you like to

talk to him?” Cause I knew him pretty well this chap that got killed, he was in the tent when we were in Australia and everything like that and I knew him pretty well. And he was country, I said, “Oh I don’t mind talking to him.” And he came, I rang him up, he lived at Cranbourne. And anyway he was quite interested and we kept talking and everything like that. And he came from a Rainbow, and he came

down here, this is the nephew, and he got a job, he was only doing roustabout in like plumbing and plumbing’s assistant and everything like that, pretty hard work, he had to dig trenches and all this type of thing. Anyway he applied for this job in the police force and got it and but they dress in army uniform in the Shrine [of Remembrance] at Parliament House. And he’s come to a couple of our do’s up at Watsonia.

And he gave a good speech on, they have two meetings there, they have one, Christmas in July and one about [Melbourne] Cup time. And he came up to this last one and told us all about what they’ve been doing to the Shrine, all the improvements. He said when they open it up, you don’t have to walk up the steps, it’s all underneath, he said, “It’s as big as the MCG [Melbourne Cricket Ground]” underneath there. And I haven’t been in to see it yet but I believe it was only opened a couple of weeks ago wasn’t it, they had something in the paper about it, be well worthwhile going to

see it, yeah. But his nephew was one of the ones that were killed on the second attack. His name was Bluey Roberts and he had red hair and you know, he was a country boy, come from Rainbow and he happened to be in our tent and everything like that, so I, you know, knew him quite well. And he had,

his mother was, it’s funny but they both had the same name, but he, Roberts and he’s still Roberts. And yet his sister was Bluey’s mother, that’s right. That’d be his, his, his mother was

Bluey’s sister, that’s right. And she’s kept all the letters that he wrote to her during the war and everything like that. And I went to Cranbourne to see him oh, about six months ago and there he’s showing us all these letters you know, what his mother had kept.

Typical

Aussie soldier, oh. Oh, I think they’re a pretty good soldier, especially the ones that volunteered. You know they were, might have been a couple of, what would you call them, near enough to being criminals I suppose. But they enlisted and went over to the Middle East and everything like that. And well they, they’d go ack willy [AWL], well they were older

than what I was, well I wasn’t a typical soldier, and they were, go into Alexandria and all that type of thing. And oh they’d do anything I think. And course they, it was pretty good in the Middle East, they were good at Alamein and all that, they were pretty, very good soldiers. Oh well even Montgomery and that said that didn’t they, the Aussies were great soldiers. And they proved themselves in the First World War too at Gallipoli

and what not, yeah. So I think he, the soldier, well he’d be more undisciplined, but he, once he got into fighting, he’d be very good. That’s my idea of one, as I say I’m not a typical soldier.

Oh well it’s mateship, a lot of mateship of course and well I think that’s, it’s just the mateship that you cultivate and never forget you know, seems to be, when you’re in danger, the closer you get together. And you know, you never seem to, you remember their names,

you can remember as if it was yesterday still, I can anyway you know. I suppose I haven’t had worries of family life or anything like that but still the mateship, well, and the ones that come to reunion. I’ve got a chap next door that was in the same unit, and he didn’t want to know anything about, do anything about the battalion after the war. In fact when he shifted in, I didn’t know him much and I knew he was,

I didn’t know him when he first shifted in but I remember him afterwards, he was in the mortars. And me nephew’s father-in-law happened to be out here, come out for tea one night and he happened to be in the garden and said to him, “Oh what unit were you in?” He said, “Oh, 58/59th.” He said, “The same as Jack.” So he came in and told me and then I remembered him, I had met him two or three times after the war. And his wife said to my sister,

“Oh, we’ll have to shift, he doesn’t want to know anything about the war.” Moira said, “Oh,” my sister’s name was Moira. She said, “Oh don’t worry,” she said, “Jack won’t, you know, harm him or anything like that.” So I never worried about him you know, well, I talk to him and everything like that but I never talk about the war, he doesn’t want to know anything about it. But he’s, you know, one of the few really, because the ones that come over there are very interested. He just didn’t seem to want to know anything about it.

Well I think it was the danger we were in. Danger together, you know, you, you know, just had the feeling that anything could happen and it seemed to make great

mateship then, you know. Even blokes that you mightn’t have liked ordinarily, well we seemed to, even them, you seemed to, you know, like too. I never struck anyone that I didn’t like, you know, seemed to always be friendly you know. Suppose we all had some sort of faults, no-one’s perfect are they?

Ah what, the, oh...

Oh, yeah I think I only had one really friend, was that one I went to state school with. Oh he

just lived up the road, or up the top of the hill there and he, because he was in the war but he was in a different, he went to Western Australia and then up to Thursday Island. And anyway we kept in touch and then he got married and we were apart for a while and then all of a sudden when we retired we come back together again. And then he went, shifted to Queensland and I used to go up and see him every year.

And I did right up till the time he died yeah. And well you know, we, all those years it’s a lot of years isn’t if from the state school to the high school and then after the war, ah, during the war and then after the war and then civilian life yeah. But of course I know the chaps down the golf, social golf there.

Friendly with them but no, couldn’t say that real matey. Course quite a lot from the school days were in the war and like, you know, got killed or got shifted away or something like that, you know. Well you’d read about them being killed and

oh, you’d probably, someone’d tell you, “Oh so-and-so’s been killed,” or something like that.

Well we don’t seem to live in the bad land do we, everyone seems to be pretty well off, and you know, got a bed and three meals a day and people going overseas so they must be all getting good wages.

Yeah I think Australia's pretty well off really. Well we know we are when people come over from the rest of the world and say, you don’t know what, how good you are, how good you’re living in it. Well I’ve got no complaints really, no. But I, you know, you feel sorry for the, when you read about the, when the young chaps can’t get jobs it’s not so good is it. You know, well, see a lot of young chaps around

Northcote streets anyway, you know, up there round the plaza, you think, wonder why they’re not working. And then you hear in the paper well you know, they’ve applied for jobs but people want to know if they’ve had experience and all this thing, it’s hard.

Mmm. Yeah, I suppose it’s greed isn’t it? It’s trade I think isn’t it, trade where

some countries put you know, tariffs on and can’t get this and you can’t get that. Can’t export, your stuff’s too good, too expensive to export, to import. Their stuff, our stuff, our exports you know, got a high thing into America and that yeah, can’t sell your stuff.

Yeah, the farmers, the

farmers, well they had a bad time in the drought but they seem to make it good, you know. Before the drought and that. Dairy farmers were, you know, making a good living. Couple of my cousins had a dairy farm up at Dongayla and they seemed to, you know, get on pretty well together. Like, work hard you know, got to get up early in the morning and milk the cows but then they got the milking machines in and you know,

then they could put on share farmers and all this, course they got the irrigation.

No, I haven’t got anything, no I think I’ve told you everything I, what I know about the war, what I

remember about it anyway, so I can’t help you there.

Oh it’s good to talk about, talk to someone I suppose. I live a pretty lonely sort of a life, you know, with living by yourself. Well I do see the chaps on Friday but that’s the only one I generally see during the, except for Saturday when I play golf yeah. And otherwise the rest of the week, you’re in the house; put the wireless on for a bit of company.

No I don’t spend much time in the house really. Like I go up and go for a walk up to the plaza, well that takes me an hour, half an hour to get there and a half an hour back and about an hour up there so spends a lot of time up there. Well I, being in the grocery trade, you’re interested in supermarket prices and all that type of thing you know, you’ve got that interest. I can read all the ads and everything, like that and

know the specials, I know what the prices were beforehand. I used to know every price in the shop, we didn’t have, they weren’t marked. I knew every price, course you didn’t have much stuff in those days. You had sugar, butter, tea and eggs and then few washing powders and nothing much, none of those cleaners, whereas they got whole shelves now, whole shelves of them. And course there was no frozen food or anything like that. Oh, you know, they ask me to say,

“How much is that Jack?” I say, “Oh one and seven-pence ha’penny, sugar fourpence a pound” No troubles. And we were pretty good at adding up too. You know, get a long list of figures about this and that and you’d go, add it all up in your head and write down the answer. Now it’s all done by the cash registers. I can still add up, you know, marvellous how that keeps in your mind. I can add up a long

list of figures yeah. I can go through their dockets that come out of the cash registers and see, but they never make a mistake though.

Have you caught them?

I remember one time when we were buying stuff off the group buyer and I added up, oh a long, a terrible long list of figures and I said, “I can’t get the answer you’ve got. “ And I went back and said impossible, and they worked it through and they said that the tape had run out or something, they put

down one figure twice, that was how it happened.