Motivation for enlistment
Things were no good, you know what I mean. The years were bad and the rabbits were eating everything and so forth. Went into town one day and I went to see the local doctor and I said to him, I said, "Give me a physical for the army." And he gave me a physical and I said to him, I said, "Don't tell me people, parents", I said, "that I live with. Don't say anything." He said, "No, I won't."
So, anyway, a week or two after that, there was a brown envelope, about that long, come with His Majesty's Service on the top of it and it was addressed to me." And they said, "What's all this about?" I said, "I don't know." I said, "Why don't we open it and read it."
So, I opened it and read it and they, "What's in the letter?" I said, "I've joined the army." I said, "I've got to report to the Caulfield Racecourse on the 6th of August." "Oh, that's only a few days away." I said, "Yeah, I've got to go down to Melbourne to Caulfield Racecourse." "You don't have to do that. You're in an essential industry." I said, "I've joined the army."
Arrival in Tobruk
10 o'clock at night we got into Tobruk. All we did was just, the trucks pulled up and we jumped off and all we did was just sought of dug a little depression in the ground and laid a groundsheet on the ground and laid on that until the morning and woke up in the morning and we were half buried in sand.
There'd been a storm through the night and the way the sand drifts over there, it just travels. We were just pushing the sand up like that to get up in the morning.
Phosphorous bullets
There was a bit of action down on that road there, I said, on that map that I've got. The Germans were, there was a caravan there and we saw that and there were a few trucks and they were running backwards and forwards to this caravan. So anyway, I don't know who give the order but somebody gave the orders that 'Open fire.'
So anyway we started shooting off in there and everything and these Germans were still running backwards and forwards. So anyway, I was posted with another chap behind a bit of a brick wall. We found a box of ammunition, I don't know, this ammunition, I don't know who left it there or what but anyway I had a look at it and so forth and he had a look. We said 'These bullets look like ours.' Our size, you know, on the gun. So anyway we loaded them up in the gun and we fired them back at them, at the Germans. We didn't know on the end of the bullet was a little ring of holes and inside that there was phosphorus. That phosphorus when the bullet split it burnt. It burnt your hand or anything or wherever the bullet went. So at any rate, it was a few days later on there was orders came back down from, I don't know, Geneva or somewhere, came back to the Battalion. We were ordered not to use those bullets. We didn't give a bugger because we were short of ammunition ourselves.
Artillery under fire
Any rate, that afternoon, we were posted, a section of us fellows were posted up in front of the 25 pounders, our artillery, we were posted there for protection for them, see, in case anything should happen. So, anyway, that afternoon, about mid-afternoon, the German started firing, "Oh shit," I said, "let's get the hell out of here."
We got we couldn't dig any deeper than so forth in the ground and he was firing at the Artillery. The shells weren't close enough, but they're close enough to frighten the hell out of you. Any rate, we told the artillery to get the hell out. "Get going."
Hard yakka
Any rate, we were ordered to go to the Bardia front, it was a bit quieter than anywhere until they then got organised, and that was when we had to use a, I was always given a job to do a bit of hard yakka because I was a farmer, see, used to hard yakka, so I used to work on a sledgehammer with a big long rod with a star drill on the bottom getting through, to make holes to put gelignite in to blow up the ground, the rocks, to make the headquarters of where we were a bit bigger, a longer trench, because the front line had concrete bunkers they had there, so it'd be slits, then an air raid shelter down one end, and so anyway, so somebody [said to do it], I don't know who it was, whether it was the captain or whether it was the sergeant-major but anyway.
Job as a runner
They asked me would I take on a runner's job and I said 'What's that?' you know. 'Oh a runner does messages, takes messages to wherever they want to.' I said 'Oh yeah. Yeah.' But they said 'You'll be posted to Brigade headquarters.' I said 'What, do I have leave the company?' 'Yeah because your messages will come from Brigade.' I said 'Okay.' So anyway, I took that job on.
I used to have to bring out the messages every afternoon around about 4 o'clock or something to the Battalion. I'd give them a map reference of the night patrol. They used to send out a section of men to see what the Germans were doing outside the perimeter and they'd also shift their mines and the Germans would be shifting our mines and this is what goes on. So they tried to find out where this big gun was that used to shoot into the harbour at night time sometimes and in the afternoon.
Bardia Bill
Bardia Bill. So what the Germans did, they had Alsation dogs on top of this big tunnel where the gun was and these dogs would give you a signal that there was people around and that's how we couldn't get it.
The Navy couldn't get it because it ran out on rails, out from the side of the cliff. He was a bloody nuisance this gun, anyway, but they couldn't get it. It might still be there today, I wouldn't know.
Churchill cigar anecdote
Mr. Churchill came out and he visited the blokes along the road. We were all lined up on the road and he visited us, so forth and etcetera. One of the blokes in the Battalion said 'I'm gonna ask him for a cigar.' We said 'Oh he won't bloody give you a cigar.'
So anyway he walked over to him and he said "Ah, Mr Churchill, would you give me a cigar?' He put his hand in his pocket and he said 'Here you are me boy, there's a cigar.' He gave him a cigar and that went off very well. Very well.
Air attacks
Well the most aeroplanes that I saw in Tobruk was about 105 Stukas. We never had a plane and the Germans just belted Hell out of us every day practically. They used to shoot quite a few down, the aircraft and everything but they mainly used to try and bomb the harbour all the time. We had one bloke who tried to bomb the front line and his plane went straight into the ground.
He came down too fast and couldn't pull out. So anyway, we said 'Hooray. That's one less.' They'd come straight down like that and when they let the bomb go it used to roar. The bomb used to scream just to frighten the Hell out of you.
Hard conditions in Tobruk
So, any rate, oh, things were pretty hard in Tobruk. We didn't have any equipment, we more or less had to use the Italian stuff, like the Italians, all their guns and everything, whatever they left behind we used it.
Well, the water used to be brought up in petrol drums that were emptied that day or whatever, and the water used to taste like bloody petrol, that's all we used to have to drink and do a bit over wash and a shave and that. Oh, it was shocking. No wonder a man's belly was upset.
Opening barrage at El Alamein
The orders come that the big front was on, on the 23rd of October and that was gonna start at 10 o'clock at night. So, it started, bloody ground just lifted. The sky was just like lightning from all these guns. Along the sector where I was there was about 800 guns firing and we were just in front of them and you could nearly feel the blast from them, and then we started moving up towards the front towards the Germans and so forth, and that was about one o'clock in the morning.
I was walking up there towards where the tanks were and so forth and I come across a tank, they had a little thing built on the side of the tank with a motor in it, and a man in it to keep the big chain going to have to go through the minefield to set the mines off. And this poor fella, he was dead inside the tank, there, near the tank and I climbed up on the tank and I tapped on the top of the tank and this bloody pommy officer come sticking his head out, and I said, "Your bloke's dead." I said, "He can't work the motor", I said. He looked at me and he said, "Alright, alright, you know."
A German prisoner
On the way, I had to walk back towards the, towards where I was posted and there was a German prisoners come out and they were inside a bit of a wire cage they had there to put them in and I walked past and this German officer said to me, he said, "You bloody Australians", he said, "You're stupid." He said, "Why don't you fight on our side, we'd take the world." I said, "Yeah, you'd take the world alright", I said. I just ignored the bugger.
Knocked unconscious for three days
That was alright and the next day I was in about the same position again but walking back a bit further and this bloody shell came over and burst and I dived into a slip trench or a hole or something. It was a pit where the wireless was, you know, there was the receiver and I don't know whether I knocked myself out or what but I didn't wake up for about three days and I never tell anybody about it much.
I don't know who fed me or what. This was a bit of a shock to me after three days but I've never ever felt anything since. I never ever thought to ask anybody about it or even see a psychiatrist or what. It just, everything was gone, black. I don't remember anything.
Proud of being a 'Rat'
All jokes aside, the siege of Tobruk was the longest siege that any British company or any British army had ever experienced and I feel real privileged to be a Rat of Tobruk and I've always said that and always feel that way and until my dying days actually.
