Listen to Les Williams discussing supplies. [No: S00959, Murdoch Sound Archive, AWM]
Transcript
Question: Could you describe the whole process of airdrops?
Yes, we were supplied by air and we would prepare a dropping zone, or we prepared a dropping zone about 4 miles from where our camp was. The supplies was brought in, in the early stages, the first stages by Catalina flying boats out of Cairns. And they give us a day It was always a date that they, or of the full moon or one or two days either side of the full moon. And there was an arrangement where we would marked the area, the dropping area with a diamond shape, spots of fire, 4 fires in the shape of a diamond.
We gave coordinates of the spot and the Catalina would come in and they have about have half a dozen passes and they drop 3 or 4 supply chutes each time and they kepted up with all of our requirements and more. After, this is a bit of a joke but after about 8 months or 12 months of receiving supplies we worked it out that we had enough Ideal milk, concentrated ideal milk and dried onions to feed a regiment for 6 months. Because the people who were putting the supplies together attended to our expressed needs if we wanted anything in particular, we got it. And then to make the trip worthwhile, they filled up with anything else they could put their hands on. It was nearly always Ideal, evaporated milk, unsweetened evaportaed milk or dehydrated onions.
What about reading matter, did they send things like that?
Yes, we use to get out of date Women's weekly.