Department of Veterans' Affairs
Transcript
Enlistment
Stanley Starcevich: A bit similar to Wally there. We had drought after the war or just toward the end of the war there'd been a drought over in the Mallee in Western Australia from where I come from and most of the sheep had died off and stuff like that. There wasn't much work around and a group came around looking for volunteers, see if you join the army and this was in 1950 and they wanted somebody to join the K-Force, I think we were K-Force.
Anyway, I signed up and went down to Karrakatta and they told me there that I couldn't join K Force because I was underage. I was nineteen at the time and I had to be at least twenty or an ex, like a returned servicemen. So they said you 'll have to sign on for the regular army, so I signed up for six years and like Wally I went across to Puckapunyal and up to Korea in May 51.
Propaganda leaflet drop
Stanley Starcevich: There was a lot of good memories from mates of mine and there's some of the funny things that happened, some really funny things. Some of the scariest things that happened to me, like one night this plane was coming over and it dropped something and all the boys were singing out 'What was that? What was that?' and I said 'I don't know but keep your head down 'because it came fluttering down, this thing, and I thought 'Oh geez it might be a delayed action bomb or something'.
Anyway next morning I sneaked down the hill to check it out and there was a bundle of these dodgers that they used to drop to tell the Chinese to surrender, like surrender leaflets. Our blokes had dropped it on us instead of the Chinese. That was pretty funny. To go back again and see how well it is. I went back there last year, to see how well the South has gone compared to the North, it's just, like it makes it all worthwhile. It makes you feel better.
Effectiveness of enemy artillery
Stanley Starcevich: The artillery, like, it was pretty hard to dodge it. You'd dig a hole as quick as you could but when we took a lot of those hills the Chinese already had good bunkers and core trenches and stuff like that, communication trenches.
Some were covered bunkers and all that but they mostly on the south side because they were facing us there and when we got around the forward slopes they had core trenches and little pits around there.
They weren't quite as good but, yeah, they organised their artillery quite well. It was all set up by then because it was getting pretty static so they had all the artillery and mortars.
John Hickman: The mortars were worst.
Stanley Starcevich: Well they had a better chance of dropping into your trench because they came virtually straight down. The artillery wasn't a lot of fun either.
Assisting with the birth of a baby
Walter Perkins: The Battalion had been in action intensively and we were moved to a rear area to get reinforcements for the men to have a little bit of a rest, you know, because some of them were a bit knocked about and hadn't had anything much to eat and drink and a few wounds to be fixed.
My boss said to me 'Perkins' he said 'Unload that vehicle' and he says 'You are going down south to a British engineer unit' which was probably a hundred miles south and I says 'Oh you beaut. I'll have a bath when I get down there. A shower, something to eat, maybe get some new clothes if I can talk my way into it. Well this is alright.' The roads there are very narrow and they're dirt roads and I suppose I got down there, oh it might have been ten miles, and the roads blocked because there was American tanks had come in from out of the side and one of them had turned over and blocked the road and they were waiting for a recovery vehicle to come.
So there was a whole line of vehicles there stopped and I was sitting in this jeep, nothing to do, and all of a sudden, over on the side there was the remains of a bombed out house, mud brick house, and this woman there leaning up against it. She was screaming and yelling but we were used to that sort of thing because it was very tough on the civilians and I tried to ignore it and all of a sudden a little kiddie came along, I suppose, I don't know, might have been three or four years of age screaming at me.
Come over to me and pulled at my sleeve. 'Come' I couldn't understand what she was saying, the woman there was beckoning for me to come so I thought 'This could be a trap, be careful.' So any rate, curiosity got the better of me so I went over to see what it was, I was very cautious and this woman I noticed she was trying to give birth to a baby. Of course she was screaming and the young kid was pulling at me so I went right over to her and looked and everything looked safe and this woman there was, couldn't understand her, she was beckoning to me, what I interpreted as to pull the baby because it was there, the head was half out and of course she was screaming, she was in real trouble and there was blood, she had torn herself a bit.
So, any rate, I looked at my hands and they weren't too clean because we didn't have any bathing facilities there so I thought 'The woman's gonna die at any rate and the baby will die under these circumstances.' So I opened this old lady's legs and I reached down and I had to move a little bit of the head which was coming out and eventually I worked my fingers down inside there and I had a grip on the head so she was screaming and I'll never forget the screams so I pulled and twisted a bit and gradually got my fingers down under what was, apparently the baby's chin, and I pulled it and I thought 'Here goes' because they were honking me over on the side to get moving.
So I pulled and the baby came and I got covered in all sorts of things and I thought 'Oh the baby's out. What do I do? Do I just throw it down and run?' But no, I held the baby up, I didn't know much about, previously in civilian life I'd been up a farm and I'd helped a farmer pull lambs from ewes, you know, that were in trouble.
Any rate, I had a little bit of an idea so I hung the baby up by its legs. 'What do I do?' I didn't know you smacked them on the bottom so I shook it and the baby screamed and yelled so I thought, I was pretty proud of that, so I thought 'What do I do?' and I knew the cord had to be cut so I laid the baby down on the woman's body and I ran over to the jeep, I pulled a bootlace out of my spare shoes, our spare boots and I got my knife, I always carried a knife, it was actually a bayonet knife and I raced over and I tied the cord and I slashed through the cord and I got from my bag in the jeep, I got my towel, my one and only towel and that wasn't too clean, I wrapped the baby in that and gave it to the mother and she was very soiled and dirty so I had a singlet there so I wiped her and cleaned her a bit and threw the singlet down.
I had nothing to give her so I went over to the jeep and I had a packet of these hard biscuits, we used to call them dog biscuits and I had in my water bottle about an inch of water. So I took them over, gave her the biscuits, she had a little bowl there, I emptied my water bottle and gave her what I could. I was getting shouted at 'Come on and move this vehicle.' The military police were there saying 'Move this vehicle.'
And I did. Anyway we got, oh a couple of miles down the road and there was a stoppage again and the drivers had seen what I had done all gathered round and congratulated me. I got all the pats on the back but I was very proud of hopefully the saving the lady's life and the baby too and throughout the years, it's very vivid to me and I'll never forget those screams, you know, but this was just a little bit, things that happen on the side. It wasn't planned.
It was just something that, and I was worried and I just prayed that the baby survived and the mother too because they had nothing, you know, absolutely nothing. No food, no clothing, no shelter because they'd been shot to pieces. Any rate that's a little bit of a story of the side issues that happen
