Cooks on the grog
We joined up at Warracknabeal, sent to Caulfield, then back to Wangaratta, Wangaratta showground and we were the first troops in there and we copped the sheep pens with the slats about a metre off the ground in the middle of winter. Two of us slept together, we didn't know about men sleeping together before then and anyway, we did a lot of training at Wang and the people took to us and adopted us very well.
Then we marched from Wangaratta to Bonegilla, a four-day match, and the cooks used to clean up of a morning and move to the next campsite and by the time we reached there, they've been on the grog and the meal wasn't too good.
The Benghazi Handicap
Anyway we weren't at Bonegilla very long. Then we started on the Strathmore over to, up the Nile, into Palestine and a camp called Derna. We were doing our 25 miles a day and the band used meet us on the way home and march us into camp after 25 miles. We weren't there that long and we were sent up to Benghazi and [at] Benghazi we relieved the 6th Division to go to Greece which was a disaster for the 6th Division and we weren't that long at Benghazi and we saw this great big dust bowl, dust storm, dust and at the bottom of it tanks, tanks coming to Benghazi and that became the Benghazi handicap.
Now Rommel was very cunning, he chose a couple of his men as MPs, military police, and he guided a lot of the units down a dead road, including two generals but we, when we saw the tanks coming toward us at Benghazi, the order was to get into a vehicle and get going to Tobruk. Well there were four of us finished up in front of a utility and it's a long way from Benghazi to Tobruk and their aircraft was pounding us a bit and we're getting out and taking shelter, then back in the vehicle.
Anyway we eventually reached Tobruk and we were given orders to guard the entrance into Tobruk. We were lying down with our rifles and then we were told to forget about it and we went to cock our rifles and they were jammed. There was a fine dust blowing in the desert and we had to use petrol to release the bolts on the rifle. So we would have been pretty helpless but Rommel went around us and cut us off.
Importance of the Navy
The navy really saved us. They used to bring in reinforcements, rations, mail and take out the wounded.
Death of a young officer and Teller mines
I might tell you a story about a young officer. He came in on the reinforcements. A keen young fellow and good looking and he was sent to C Company on the Red Line. The Red Line was, Tobruk was like a horseshoe and the Red Line was outside and the Blue Line inside. He was sent down to the Red Line, C Company and he said that night, he said 'Are we going out on a fighting patrol?' and they said, 'Yes but you're not.' Anyway, the next morning, I was the Bren gun carrier platoon in headquarter company and I went out to bring in two badly wounded.
The Germans had laid a minefield unbeknown to us overnight and in the front there was three pronged jumping jack and out the back was Teller mines. Anyway we delivered that young officer and another chap. He didn't last 24 hours. Now the message behind that was that you never volunteer in the army but do as ordered, but the next day I was given a sergeant out of the engineers and we had a look at this minefield and he says a prayer, frightened it might have been booby trapped and he lifted two or three Teller mines, big Teller mines.
They could blow a tank, stop a tank and we nursed them on our knee, three of them, three Teller mines and we said to the driver, Stan O?, 'Take it easy.' We had three Teller big mines. We didn't know how much it would take to set them off. We took it to Battalion headquarters and they said, 'No. Brigade.' 'No. Divisional.' And that's the first time they'd seen Teller mines and that week they decided to lift a truckload of them. I don't know what they did with them.'
Stuka attack
I was on guard on a water hole which was not used and there was an ack-ack base not far away and the Stukas used to come out of the sun at an angle, and they pounded this Ack-Ack regiment, there was sandbags and guns, bodies everywhere, my word, but there's the odd plane that didn't make it, but that pilot wouldn't know and they used to go around and back to base. They were very well trained.
Overrunning a German post
The Assistant-Colonel, Charles Weir, he came to me and he said, "I'm running out of troops, leave the Bren gun carrier drivers, round up as many bods as you can, we've overrun a German post". They drew the line and I had two sections up, and one back. I'd just come from Maciub. There was an artillery pounding away over where one of the battalions basically was fighting that night.
And there was one gun dropping a shell right on my compass bearings and I had to decide whether I did that, that or that, which I did, unrehearsed. We did our 1100 yards, then we're supposed to swing, but they could hear us, see, and they put Very lights up and lit up the night like day. And they opened up and they all went to ground. And anyway, I said Wednesday, I counted three, "1 2 3. Charge" and firing from the hip we took that post and David Cunningham, Warracknabeal, he threw a grenade in and he got the dust and blinded him. So I put his arm around.
Two Germans, they were taken prisoner of war. But we had to find the Battalion where they were fighting that night and the artillery got on to us, the German artillery, and fortunately, I got the men down and I got down myself, one landed, buried me in and took my steel helmet off and I found that, but I got that shell hole and another shell landed beside, took my helmet off again and both ears were bleeding and they both got infected, perforated and infected. So they sent a telegram home to say that I've been wounded, they didn't know whether I'd lost legs or arms, just wounded.
The Salient
The salient was occupied by the Germans and we, the 2/24th and the 2/48th tried to recapture it, but they couldn't, too strong and they lost a lot of men trying. So that salient, we went back 50 years, some of us, and the salient was still out of bounds after 50 years. There's unknown minefields.
Trips into No Man's Land
I used to go in the Bren Gun carriers, I used to take out O-Pips for the artillery. I used to go out in No Man's Land all the time. We got shelled home every time. Fortunately, they never hit us.
Admiration for Rommel
Rommel was a professional soldier. He wasn't a Hitler man. We used to admire Rommel and we were told once he was our enemy. It's a pity he didn't surrender because our general would have loved to have met him. He was a very good soldier.
I think it was during Tobruk, there was six Italians came in with their arms up yelling out 'Aqua. Aqua. Aqua' and we didn't know what 'Aqua' meant. We've learned since. 'Water. Water. Water.'
Japanese determination
In New Guinea, that was wet all the time, in the desert you're short of water. And, of course, in New Guinea, Malaria, I got Malaria, Dengue, Dengue in the joints and dysentery, three things at once.
So I was boarded out at the end after eight months in New Guinea but the Japs are very good soldiers, you can't mistake them, we were surprised at how determined they were. If they want a knoll or want a position they didn't care how many bods it cost them, they took it but we matched them pretty well.
