Jack Calder - Call up

Transcript

Of course the militia was just part-time and I'd become involved in an apprenticeship as a boilermaker welder, that was all accomplished through Melbourne Legacy. I'd done two years of my apprenticeship when war broke out. And because I was a member of the militia, we were automatically called up to do full time duties, the day after the war broke out.

Our duties were guard duties on all the oil wells and things of that nature down around Melbourne until civilian authorities trained other people to take our place. We then went into a three months’ camp, training camp. And the idea of that was to train universal trainees. Back in those days, they called up all the 18-year overs and how our job was to train them. I got sick of that in the finish. So that's why I joined the AIF.