Department of Veterans' Affairs
Transcript
Raising his age for enlistment
Unfortunately, or fortunately for myself, I joined up at Wagga. I'll tell you the truth anyway. There were a lot of us signed up there and as we got near the counter that was there, the chap said to the lad "Well when were you born?" you know. He said "Sorry, you'll have to go and get your parents' consent."
So, next thing I'm up there. "Murray Ridgway Willing?" "Yes" "When were you born?" "1918"
"How do you spell Ridgway?" I didn't know then. I spelt Ridgway with an ‘e' in it. So that meant I went straight through because I was born in 1919. So I wasn't 21 so I slipped over that.
Seasickness
We had to go down to the port and got on little thing called…a little troopship. Well, we'd only just got out of the port and turned around and came back, all innocent about what was going on, they probably got a warning about air strikes along the way.
Anyway next evening or next morning, I don't know what time it was, we're setting off and it wasn't very long after we'd been out to sea. It was like that and that was all right, there'd been a few who had been seasick on a few things and there was a lot of us who hadn't been on that sort of thing.
First of all we were going to the toilets. Then you couldn't get in the toilets and eventually everybody was lined up on the outboard leaning over losing their stomachs and everything else so you'd know what sort of feeling you'd be in and I felt very sorry for one of the young lads. He came from the West Coast, that's Port Lincoln, and he couldn't come from Port Lincoln to Port Adelaide about two or three hours before he was laying down. It really knocked him about. He was terrible.
Arriving in Tobruk
We got to Tobruk Harbour. We had to come in at night on account of being under the spotter plane coming around and bombing it and we'd come in just in the evening light sort of thing and all we could see was ships' tops and things and they pulled straight up, threw ropes over the side and said "Out".
And we were all out over the side, officers throwing stuff around and everything and we lined up and from there, that part of it was alright, nothing bad, Righto get in file and we had to march out to the Bardia Road perimeter and when you look at that you see the scene from the harbour, the green line was the first line, then the blue line, there's a special map of it somewhere, blue line was the second line and then the red line was the main line, see the three lines, the outside line and see that, the Bardia Road line, we had to march right out there with our haversacks and firearms after being seasick, all the way there and if they had have attacked then they would have just come straight over the top of us. So we recovered there and it was alright from there on.
On the Red Line
We were there for quite awhile before anything happened there, we went back to the blue line and got organised there because I think we had to go from the Poles or they came in afterwards or the Ghurkas. They either came in first or last, I don't know, but the Poles were there and they were good, the Ghurkas used to sneak up behind you, you didn't know where they were, they were really slippery.
Then we started with, we weren't as a battalion then, we were all split up into companies and sections like that sort of thing and we did our patrolling at night time out at the red line outside the wire and that was, you had to be pretty careful because they were on the other side against us and we were trying to find out their positions. With the shelling and that sort of thing if somebody made a mistake you were gone. So that was a bit of an experience but we got out of that because I'm still here aren't I.
Stopping the Germans
That's where the Hun came in. He ended up attacking us here, he got his tanks through and put some down the bottom. Well our light tanks, we had and carriers, they hit the front of them. At any rate it held up and the troops come in behind, the German troops came in from behind and that was where we were involved, the infantry people and everything, and we held them and then pushed them back and that was their first defeat in that area.
Leaving Tobruk
When we come out from there and we had to come out we had to come out in a hurry and we were on a minelayer and if you're sick you go out where they're laying on the deck tied like that with your feet across and you didn't have time to be seasick or anything.
There was only one raid on it because they watched it pretty closely and that's why they zig zagged and everything and being a minelayer she could move. So, we got back to Egypt and from there we went up to Syria.
Sports Day
So we were round for quite a while and there was a sports day, there's a photo of the sports day and B Company, that was the company I was in, we missed out by two points. Headquarters came in and that was the only time we got all together for a sports day because up in Tobruk we didn't have any sports up there but while we were in Syria we did and I was fortunate enough to win the 440.
Keeping warm in Syria
So we were there for, I don't know just how long or the time, but it was the coldest and that, we saw snow there and just for our normal stay we ended up in the Syrian Barracks, the Aleppo Barracks, we took charge of that, that's where we were housed and we went out along the border on patrols, that was our main base at the time and of course knowing how the toilets operated that was a thing.
That was a trench with a rail and you know how cold it could be and how inconvenient it would be with a greatcoat on and dropping your dacks and sitting on a pole outside, so it wasn't very comfortable but inside we ended up burning all, we had palliasses on the rail, we burnt them to keep warm.
Zigzagging down
We weren't there that long, next thing we got a call up and we loaded up into trucks and everything and from Aleppo down into Palestine the hills are like that, there should be some photos there, but anyway, Seven Sisters it's called, like that, and we went down in the Pommy trucks and the Pommy truck drivers they drove on their brakes, they didn't drive, and we're sliding round there and, of course, we're all hanging on like hell but fortunately only one went over the side, and, you know, we zig-zagged all the way down we got there.
Homeward bound
I don't know. When we got down there in Palestine and we only stayed there for a little while, that's when we had to catch a boat, we thought we might be coming back to Australia at that time because they'd been harping about taking the troops back then, so we didn't know, and apparently half way across the Indian Ocean that it was leaked, you know, what's funny about that is you can't go to Singapore because the guns are all pointing to sea and the Japs are coming down behind them, so fortunately if we'd have gone there we would have become prisoners of war there so we missed out on that. We didn't know about that until after we got back.
Battle of Milne Bay
Anyway we had to disperse in twos on either side of the road into the forest right to the edge of the sea, and that's where we settled down, you know, there was nothing doing and everything and we were sitting there then about midnight we hear some noises and everybody pricks up their ears and everything else, "What's happening?"
And we could see the lights of two tanks coming and these people were behind them and they were singing and carrying on because a couple of days before they'd been up and no worries, so they come up and didn't expect anything, so that was a bit of a shock anyway and we didn't have any anti-tank, we had sticky bombs but, of course, being up there a week or so they weren't worth anything so we were that close we couldn't shoot out the headlights on the tanks but that suited me because I was on the left side fortunately behind a palm, we were all behind palm trees, they didn't help you much but you couldn't dig in any holes or anything.
The sections that were either side of the road, about two or three sections, they were stuck right in the middle and it was all hand to hand fighting and the tanks kept coming on. A couple of chaps tried to throw a grenade but couldn't get into them. We had a few losses there but the rest of their troops come and kept going.
They were heading down and when it got hot, of course by that time we were told to withdraw and let them come. Well, of course, our brigade the 2/9th, the 2/10th, and the 2/12th, whether those three battalions. We went up there…Fortunately being on the top side it's pretty hard to see anything, in fact by the time they got word about it we'd started to disperse and the fighting had stopped at KB Mission that was the place, they'd stopped there and they'd gone right through with the tanks so done as much damage as they could and they couldn't do anymore so they let them in and they thought they were right then so they kept going and it wasn't very long after that, it wasn't far behind the strips, to the strips the 2/12th they were the Western Australian boys, they were the first to cop it because they were all sitting there on the hill. So they didn't get past that but it was on for a couple of days before they retreated.
Six Japs
And the Yanks that were there, they weren't in that part, they were in another part up in the forest up the other side of the hill really, of course they had refrigerators, kitchens, everything that you could want. Bob Rogers and me, at that time I was in charge and I didn't know that I'd been promoted to a full corporal which turned out when I was disembarked, I went down there and people were coming out without their stripes, they were acting sergeants, my stripes were confirmed and I come out with mine, my rank was confirmed in the front line, I wasn't acting, but anyway, that's how Bob ended up a corporal as well.
But anyway, we started moving back quietly and it was raining and there was nothing to eat but plenty of water around and the next thing I heard something and put a hand on Bob's shoulder, I could hear some noises, so got on the end from here to here you couldn't see much further and six Japs came along in line, they were all marching along in their uniforms apart and we were in our desert gear and they were in full uniform with rifles slung coming along and we only had our rifles.
I says to Bob "I'll take the front one and you take the back one. Keep quiet". At least we know we're going the right way if they're going the right way and our blokes were shelling and strafing that area so they were going into the area where they were liable to get hit and we were well out of it on our way back.
Burial party
So we got back there and by that time they had moved on and cleaned them up altogether. Six or seven days, I think, before we got back there and I was one of the corporals on the burial party so we had to go up to KB Mission because that's where the head of the fighting was done and the chap I went to school with SX712, Colin Gardner, who was known around the place and there was another lad from Port Victoria…and I knew him, found his body.
There were two sections of us went up and some of the lads were still posted up there keeping an eye on things and we were going around picking our blokes up and everything and finding them, ready for burial and identifying but I couldn't find Sniffer Gardiner, handed him over, and he got all fiddled up and I found out when I went back there, all the bodies that had been found at Milne Bay were lifted to Port Moresby and that's where we ended up seeing everyone up there because they showed us, there's a photo of the grave section up there and on top "Murray, this is the one you are looking for" and that was confirmed by the thing…going back in stages and the main one was set up at the back. This was long after everything had finished.
Shot by a sniper
We were all lined up on the end of this old strip, across that. My captain was on the right side, Captain Eifold, and I was in the section on the left-hand side across from him and we had two tanks come up and they were in the middle. So righto, they're all settled down and we were in our sections and everything right across, and I had my eye on, I swear I could see the skipper because he was right on the right-hand side an so on.
And quietly waiting there waiting for time to move, everybody at once and I don't think anybody, and the Yanks hadn't done a thing about the other end of it, I'll give you that directly, anyway I see him put his hand up and as he put his hand up there, I wasn't aware that he fell and I wasn't aware that the sniper was strapped in the top of the thing. Fortunately, I saw him and as I saw him, I put that hand down like that and you see that thing there, that photo there, the bullet hit there and come out under my arm, you see, there's only a little mark there but it threw me backwards and fortunately there was a half hole there and I didn't move from there.
I was thrown back in shock and, of course, I started to spew blood and of course I was told never to drink water if you're bleeding like that, and it was as hot as hell and I lost my Tommy machine gun and everything else and I had to stop there because it was pretty slow moving and eventually after the sniper got me he got a couple of the others and you always knocked the heads of the section off because they were the ones that, the English army if anybody got knocked at the top they were in a mess. The silly Australians they all knew what you had to do, you just had to move one up, that was how we were trained. So, anyway, that part of it was alright.
Strafed while being evacuated
The stretcher-bearers came out and got us that night and a couple of others close handy to me that got hit. And we got back to the clearing station just behind the…all laying there and I didn't realise at the time because I couldn't see any blood there in my arm there and I was on the stretcher all day, it'd probably dried up on this little hole right there and then there was six or seven natives come along with a made up stretcher and I was laying on that.
One was, he was holding a banana leaf in front of me and I was still on my back and still quiet and everything and they took me back to another section and then loaded me into a proper stretcher and back to another moving off point, one of the air strip parts. From there in a stretcher off the front of a jeep with walking wounded so we had to travel quite a way to get to the strip.
Anyway we got to the strip, got down to the bottom end of it, there was one plane had just flown off. I could see where it had gone off and everything, I think it went down into the sea about the same time and by the time we got to the end of the strip we could see the other plane still loading with stretchers underneath it. We got to the end and they turned, and as they turned, a plane came in strafing.
A plane, see they'd strafed the first one and they came in strafing us and they must have been just over the top of us, the walking wounded were running. It's funny now but it wasn't funny then and I was still there. I had a blanket so I just pulled that over my head. Oh well, I might be lucky and then he went on a second run and I thought well that's alright. Same thing, blanket up, missed everything but another plane got him. It was one of ours, a smaller one, a Wirraway or something, shouldn't have been doing that sort of thing. Anyway that was that and it held us up again because we had to wait for this plane to get away and everything. Anyway, finally I got loaded in one of the Douglas' the old…thing and I was strapped in by the window going back to Moresby.
Return to Australia
By that stage I was just going in and out because I don't really remember when they grabbed me off the stretcher. Apparently, they took me straight in and bang, the doctor said afterwards what they did, he cut it all out and everything and it wasn't stitched, it was just wide open and the next day I woke up and I've got all these bandages around here and I don't know whether I had my shorts on or not or whether they…my wound seemed pretty right by then and I was happy to be there.
The orderlies came in and gave me a little tin of Johnson's Baby Powder. I still had those square tins years afterwards and I said, "What will I want that for?" and he said, "You'll know soon." He said, "Just go like that." And they just walked off laughing. And I pulled it off...and the maggots…poured it over…oh the smell of it, and that was about the same time that one of our lads walked past me and he said "How are you going?"
And I said, "I'm still here." He said, "I'm going home." He had his arm in a sling. It wasn't a day after what happened to him was he passed out, he didn't go home. He just passed out and died. But he was happy go lucky. I thought "You're a lucky bugger. I want to go home too." I was there in hospital about a week or so and then boarded a hospital ship to Australia and went from there to Tamworth.
