Running time
1 min 8 sec
Copyright
Department of Veterans' Affairs
Transcript
Tarakan was very manual. Everybody shifted things manually. There might have been jeeps and trailers and they came ashore through the water too but Balikpapan was a different organisation.
It was highly mechanised and all the stores, supplies and ammunition and stuff was already pre-packed. It was loaded on to 64 trucks and 64 trucks crowded ashore all loaded up. They were dispersed very, very quickly.
The biggest difference apart from the devastation was the invasion bombing caused. It was a very heavy bombardment and we were sitting under the muzzles of a lot of American ships, the ships’ guns which came through the ears and pumped the chest.
