Brian Winspear - Darwin evacuation

Running time
1 min 34 sec
Date made
Copyright
Department of Veterans' Affairs

Transcript

Everybody had to get used to getting bombed very quickly and the interesting by-product of that was that all the residents of Darwin decided it was too hot, they were going to go south and so did a lot of the ground staff in the aerodrome.

There were odd orders floating around that they should go south and go to such and such a point where they would set up camp to get away from the bombs, future bombings. Beside the aerodrome was the main rail line from Darwin... At any rate, the train was going south as far as it could go and it was absolutely loaded and loaded with people.

It was so heavily loaded that, there was a bit of a rise near the aerodrome, it couldn't go up there, the wheels just slipped. A lot of the blokes got off and, you know, pushed it. Took a bit of effort to get up there.

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