Department of Veterans' Affairs
Transcript
Enlistment
I did try to join the navy. My Dad…I even went so far as getting my application forms for the navy but anyhow Dad said he thought there was a war coming and I'd be out in the middle of the ocean, get sunk in the boat, so anyhow he wouldn't hear of it.
Anyhow, when things got bad in the Middle East, well, then I joined the AIF and that meant I could be sent overseas, and I actually joined for going over to the Middle East.
Mate injured through marching
I did have one particular mate and anyhow he had, his foot broke down with the marching, his foot broke down and the bones in his foot collapsed and he finished up out in Greenslopes Hospital.
That's the only hospital in those days and he finished up in there and then I went to say goodbye to him, and he was in a terrible state then because he wanted to come with us. He wanted to come with us because he'd been with me all through training but anyhow that wasn't to be. So I didn't see him again until years later.
Bombing the searchlight
One time, the nearest I got to any bombs was one time when they had a searchlight and it was enormous. A big searchlight, like that. I don't know how big it was but anyhow it was about 5 or 6 feet by the look of it, 5 or 6 feet across and they came in and they set up there and we could see them setting up there and it was a particularly big searchlight and we had the slit trenches there.
We were down in the slit trenches and these planes came over and we were watching them because they were in the searchlights, they had them up on the searchlights and you could see them coming in and they started their bombs just, it could have been one plane, I suppose, one plane with all the bombs and they started bombing there and came right over and stopped just after the searchlight. They stopped there and then started off the other side. What a wonderful, wonderful thing it was.
Port Moresby and militia
We used to go into Port Moresby and we were just curious I suppose and we used to go in there and before we got in there the militia, the militia were there and I don't know how long before that they were there but when we got there everything was a shambles.
The radio station was flattened. It was no more. They must have just picked on that and bombed it and then the store in there, the general store that had boots and socks and clothes and everything else.
The militia used to just go through that and if they found something to their size, they'd take it and if they didn't, they'd chuck it out like that and that was like a shambles there, but anyhow. The only thing they didn't bomb was a big, the big palatial…public house and that was the biggest one in Port Moresby and that wasn't touched so whether they were thinking about what they could, and I think they picked their targets for it because they used to think "Well, we'll have to make use of it later on". Anyhow, they used to pick and choose.
The Light Horse
I can't go by without mentioning the Light Horse, the Light Horse people. They were over at Milne Bay or Buna or Gona. I don't know which. I never asked them. I wasn't talking to them much.
They used to come and they'd come with the foodstuffs and that. They had sacks on the horses backs and they'd lead them along, lead them along and they used to have a bag full of chaff and that, just a few days, and they came over the top of the ridge, the Owen Stanleys.
Malaria
We used to sleep in the things there and at first before we had the tents, before we had the tents set up, we used to have just the nets set up, mosquito nets there and they were put up between one anyhow the mosquitoes were thick, they were as thick as anything…Atabrine. Atabrine was the order of the day. I don't know what they get now. Atabrine. A-T-A-B-R-I-N.
Some of the fellows they used to be a little bit cocksure, you know, "Oh, it wouldn't happen to me". Anyhow we used to get them issued every morning and we had our tablets, one tablet at a time. I was very very religious about taking mine. I took it every day and some of the others they used to, with the malaria, they used to be in the daytime, in the middle of the day with the hot sun and that, underneath the blanket jumping up and down, and all the rest of it. So anyhow, I don't know if they ever got rid of the malaria.
