David Mattiske - Demobilisation

Transcript

David: And we got home in December, Christmas leave. We did a tour of flag showing to Melbourne, Hobart, and back to Sydney. The morning we sailed into Sydney, there was a-- the loudspeakers came on. "The following ratings report to draft." And I thought, "Well, that's not me." Because there was lots of blokes who were many years older than me, had lots more points. There was a point system that you got.

And then I thought, "Hello, there's blokes' names being called out, they haven't been as long as I have been here!" Sure enough, my name comes out. We were told to get off, pack immediately and get away. I never went and saw anybody to say goodbye except the blokes that came with me that I knew, and off we went down to Melbourne.

We're in Melbourne for a month or two, doing odd jobs, and finally up comes the story that you're now going to be demobilized. And there I was, out at Royal Park, if you know where Royal Park is there in Melbourne.

Speaker 2: Reasonably.

David: Near where the zoo is now, you know.

Speaker 2: Yes.

David: Used to be a big army depot there. And they gave me a suit and a shirt and some-- I don't know what else, a few things. And signed a lot of papers and off you go, out I went. I was gone.