Department of Veterans' Affairs
Transcript
Reason for enlistment
I was in the Light Horse. I was twenty years old when the war broke out and I was a shy little boy. Everybody said he was the shyest boy they had seen in their whole lives. I've changed a bit since then. And I thought, I was in the Light Horse and I thought somebody has got to go and I'm the right age. I just happened to be unlucky, to be the right age at the right time, you know, the time when war broke out.
The day Bob Menzies came out and declared war on Germany I enlisted in the army. My mother didn't want to let me go but after a few kisses and cuddles she did. I had a lovely mother. Anyhow, that was why I joined I thought somebody had to do something. Somebody had to go away and fight. We had to do something. Somebody had to go and why shouldn't it be me.
Rommel on board?
One day we were sitting down minding our own business when two of the biggest German bomber planes paid us a visit. We did not invite them but they came in flying very very low as low as they could possibly go. They had bombs, they had cannons, machine guns but they did not use any of them. They just flew around and looked at everything.
Some people told us that Rommel was in one of the planes. Whether he was or not I do not know but I would like to know. Anyhow they flew around and round and looked at everything and then they flew away.
Norton Trevaire
Another story is about a German fellow flying a plane taking photographs of the place. We nicknamed him Norton Trevaire. Norton Trevaire was a special photographer in Sydney so we nicknamed him after him. He used to drop leaflets around the place telling us to surrender, they would look after us, they would be nice to us.
We knew how nice they were going be so we didn't take him up on that offer, but he said, "You're living in the ground like rats." And that's how we came to call ourselves the Rats of Tobruk.
Bush artillery
Another story is about me, it's about me. We used to go up to what they called the Bush artillery. It was firing little cannons captured off the Italians when the 6th Division came in early in the war and took Derna, Tobruk, Gazala, and Tripoli and all those places and the Italians surrendered to them and they had them dug in the ground and we used to fire at the Germans with them.
Anyhow, we were up there one time. I was in the mortar platoon and we were up there one time firing the guns I was firing one gun. I was in charge of one gun one time and we knocked out this observation post and on the artillery map it had Snowy's O.P. I was Snow, of course, I was proud of that , but when we were going down to be relieved my platoon commander came up to me and said, "See that gun down there at the tank with the gun sticking out?" I said, "Yeah". He said, "You gotta man that gun. We're in the second line of defence". I said, "Sir, I know nothing about that gun." He said, "I know you don't, and I don't either, but you've gotta learn don't you?"
So Crosby, Bing Crosby and I got in the gun and we fiddled around and we got, pretty good, we reckon we'd kill a couple of Germans before they killed us. But I had not touched one thing and a fellow was being driven past and here was this artillery officer and I pressed what must have been the trigger.
Someone had left a shell in the gun and it went across his bonnet and he pulled up and put his foot on the ground and said, "It's safer in the frontline than it is here." And he went on and on and on and I just stood there and said nothing. I could have said to him, "Sir this gun is in the second line of defence and if you want to pass us you go around behind us, you don't go around the front of us."
My Sergeant-Major came down and put me under open arrest By this time the bullet had stopped wiggling around the desert. It had not killed anybody to my knowledge. So they forgot all about it. As far as I know I'm still under open arrest.
Patrolling
There was one particular time when I went out to find that bloke, I was supposed to take them out at night. That was my most dangerous night, I think. But the Germans, they never patrolled much at all. We were on patrol all the time. We let them know that we were there when, they could not sleep.
They could not get any sleep and we worried them all the time and we'd watch that number all the time, about six or seven, Rommel is supposed to have said, "Give me four divisions of Australians and I'll take on the world. They shoot in the dark and they never miss". He's supposed to have said that. Whether he did or not I do not know.
Pride in serving at Tobruk
Well, I'm proud of the fact that I served in Tobruk, I'm proud of the fact that I served there. It was the first time that the Germans were beaten in that war. We told the world that they could be beaten, and we told them how to beat them. I think we did a good job and I was proud of the fact that I served there.
Return to Australia, 1942
As soon as Tobruk was over we went to Syria for awhile and then they took us back to Australia and Churchill wanted to send us to Burma but our Prime Minister said, "No, no, no." What was his name? Labor fella, Curtin.
He said, "No, no, no. They're coming back home to help us fight the Japanese." They wouldn't let us to go to Burma and we were very pleased about that. We didn't want another Tobruk.
Mortar support
Well the mortars helped the company. When they went out to attack they had a mortar attached to them and the platoon sergeant of the mortars went up with the company commander making the attack and if he struck a machine gun that was holding him up he'd call on the mortar to try and knock it out. They'd get first shot at him and if they didn't, they didn't but if they did they did. Our best success was at Shaggy Ridge.
All of our mortars were firing at the same time our company went in. They went in under our line of fire. Our platoon sergeant told us our company commander told him we went right in under your fire and when they started to retreat we lifted our fire and got them as they were running away. That was our job to knock out the machine guns that were holding them up.
Berry the B & Gestapo Fred
Australians are the best soldiers in the world, you know, but their discipline is not a 100 percent. We had names for some of our officers. We called one fellow Berry the B. You know what the B stands for don't you? He didn't mind. He was a nice man, really, but he was strict on offenders and he used to say when they joined his company, "They call me Berry the B and if you do anything wrong, you'll find out why."
We had another fellow, we called him Gestapo Fred. He was a captain. He used to take us on a route march and when came to come home he couldn't find the way, he'd have to ask one of his junior officers the way to get home. When he went into action, he got killed at Shaggy Ridge. Have you seen Shaggy Ridge at all? It had a little track about that wide that you had to walk up to attack the place.
I was attached to his company when he got shot on the side of the hill and killed. He went down about 200.feet, they found his body, it was lucky that they found it. But they did find his body. Both, he and Berry, were fantastic soldiers.
Desert v Jungle
The place to best fight was in the desert where you could see what you were doing. You couldn't see much in the jungle, you know, and it rained all the time. At Milne Bay, like we were at Milne Bay, and it rained a lot there. Started at 4 o'clock in the afternoon and pour all night. You'd be out in it, wringing wet but it didn't worry you much. The next morning you'd be dry in an hour or so. The first night I went to Milne Bay I didn't sleep because I thought I'd get drowned. I woke up in the morning and I couldn't see any water anywhere. It had all disappeared into the sea but anyhow I liked the desert better.
End of the war
We were at Balikpapan when the war ended and we were sitting down, playing cards or something I think it was and the fella came along and he said, "The war is over." And I said, "Oh go away and play trains will you? For goodness sake." He said, "It's fair dinkum. He said, hey dropped an atomic bomb on Japan and they peeked."
And it was true too. We had a boat. We didn't steal the boat, but we took a loan of a boat, and we went fishing. We done a lot of fishing. One day they stole our boat. It was their boat, of course, and I only knew one word of their language. It was Kumbali. It was, come back. They didn't take any notice.
I fired a shot across their bows. They brought it back then. I said, "Listen," I said "We only want this boat for another couple of days. I'll bring it back to you and thank you very much for loaning it to us. So I did that, it was their boat, of course. We only wanted a loan of it.
