Jason Rogalewski-Slade - An historic connection with World War Two

Running time
1 min 17 sec
Copyright
Department of Veterans' Affairs

Transcript

A lot of memories, too. From broken Translation, in talking to people and some of the people could speak English through their grandparents who were there and would talk to them. They would talk about the Japanese when they invaded the country and how they used to help the Australian commandos in World War Two that were situated in East Timor during World War Two.

My wife's grandfather flew a Beaufighter from Darwin and used to attack the same beach that I patrolled on Aidabeleten in World War Two to strafe Japanese barges and I remember him telling me that story in sort of 2000 about Aidabeleten, a lovely old guy. He had dementia, but he could remember exactly what he did on that flight.

He told me a story of flying Beaufighters so low that when he landed back in Darwin after striking the Japanese and going through the hills, there was a Japanese flag hanging on the underneath the plane because he'd hit a Japanese radar installation and hit the flag unbeknown to him and carried it back on the plane.

So stories like that that, you know, he used to do in what they call the whispering death, Beaufighters, it was great to hear his side of things and know that I was on the same beach that he was strafing, in World War Two.

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