Singapore 21 Squadron
Well my dad had been in the First World War, so he wasn't going to stop me. Secondly, you know, jobs were hard to come by those days. And I'd been working as a brickie's labourer. After that, the RAAF looked as though it could be a nice easy job because Japan wasn't in the war at that stage.
I joined in, it was about April 1940. And that was … I wasn't even 18 then. I was only 17 at the time. But anyway, they accepted me. And in September, the following September, they shifted to Singapore. The RAAF, there were 21 Squadron, 8 Squadron, and 1 Squadron. And 1 and 8 were, I don't know whether they ...I forget now whether they got rid of their old fabric-covered wings at that stage, but after we got established, they had the ... What were they? The light bombers? Hudsons, Hudsons. And Wirraways of all things. You ever heard of the old Wirraway? It's quite a relic now, but that's what we took over there to what was an ex-RAF drome, they probably still owned it, but we were billeted there, and operated from there. The stuff they left behind was absolute...Obsolete, I should say. Anything you tried to use was a throwaway object almost.
But, of course, that was about roughly when we went over there, it was roughly before, about 18 months before Japan came into the war. And I don't think they improved it much in the time it was there, and we couldn't get anything else. So, you made do with it. I went over there as a, I went over with 21 Squadron, actually, I was on the old Strathallan which was a boat well known around the coastal area here. And, we got there, as I said, I wouldn't try and put a proper date on it, but it was around about September 1940.
Well, of course, you know, in '41, the end of '41 we were, or the last half of '41, we were getting started to get relieved. Quite a lot of the chaps come back 'round about September, October. They'd been relieved of duty and a new lot came in. And I was supposed to be amongst the next lot to get relieved, but the Japanese put a stop to that.
Singapore: Air raids
They hit us on the 7th of December 1941, the same time as they hit Pearl Harbor. We didn't even know what had happened. I mean, we were only kids, you know, 18-year-old kids. We didn't really, I think some of them, including myself, thought that it was just an exercise. So, of course, we still had to do as we were told, raced out, and jumped into all the slit trenches at 4 o'clock in the morning. It was no exercise, it was fair dinkum.
Actually, in the slit trench next to me, was a young bloke who I knew quite well, and he was the first one, actually, I would say, he was the first one of our unit that got killed in the war. He got a direct hit on his slit trench. It sort of sobered us all up very smartly. That young bloke, he was from here to the wall away from me that got killed in the first raid. Never even seen the war. And the terrible thing is, from my point of view, I can't remember his name now. I knew him quite well, and I can't remember his name. I remember looking it up on the wall in Canberra one time when I was there and ... no, there's not much more I can tell you about it.
Then, of course, it took over because we were getting bombed all the time. As fast as we filled holes in so the planes could take off, they'd come over and blow them up again. In the end, it was almost continuous, the bombing of the drome. And at that time, I was driving the old crash tender. Well, it was obsolete too. It was an old Albion with a gearstick on the running board. That goes back a long way, but it was something that been left behind there, and we had to use it. It was pretty ineffective. It was rather disappointing because we, had we had more up to date equipment, we might have been able to do a bit more, but we didn't. Then, of course, it got to the stage where they couldn't even if they got the planes off early in the morning. They couldn't get back and land on the dromes, the drome there.
Defending Palembang
We were told one night what we're moving in the morning, and we had to be all ready, of course, and they took us into Singapore Harbour, which was being, obviously, it'd been bombed pretty heavily because you could, just the smell of the place could light a match.
They put us on one of the boats that were available that would float and took off. We didn't even know where we were going. But we ended up in Palembang which is the Dutch oil refineries where they ... and two or three days there and then we were taken out to a strip just off the highway. It was roughly about 40 miles out of Palembang I suppose.
And, you know, things have got a bit hazy after 75 years. But we operated there for a while with the Hudsons. I don't think any of the, well they had changed over to Brewster Buffalos at that stage for the fighter for 21 Squadron. But 8 and 1 were still using the Hudson, Lockheed Hudsons. And they just suddenly, they got a few of us together and said, ""Pick up your rifles, get out on the road, you've gotta make a stand, while we sort of do all the demolition work on the drome before we leave.""
Which was, so there was 27 of us out on the road with, and all we had was World War 1 Lee-Enfield rifles and one old Lewis machine gun which was renowned because it got only fired six shots before it jammed. So, that was it. So, I mean, they wouldn't have even changed step going past through us.
Driving the Crash Tender
Well, I was, as I said, sent out with 21 Squadron then I was put into transport which was part of a headquarters unit in Singapore. So, when I got put into transport, the next thing I knew I was driving the old crash tender. I can't tell you any heroic things that happened in that I'm afraid. A crash tender was, it sprayed foam. But I never got trained on it or anything I was just told, ""Well you can drive the crash tender"".
I had to learn myself how to drive it because it was too ancient for me to even know all about. You know, like most young blokes all knew a bit about cars but I, this was too old for me. But anyway, I sorted it out. And, as I said, all the hoses were perished and used to blow and all that sort of thing used to happen. The equipment was left there at the airport when the RAF left. It was just obsolete.
Shuttle service
I was driving a little van doing reconnaissance, backwards and forwards. And so we started, it must have been about 24 K's or something like that into the railhead. And we were picking up, doing a shuttle service, bringing, picking, taking over blokes into this rail service, railhead I should say. And we, when we'd finished, they said ""Right, you can go and find yourself a place on one of the flat trucks now."" I looked at them, there wasn't a space where you could hang your legs over the side even.
And I was driving this little van that I'd been shuttling backwards and forwards, so I said, ""Blow that."" You know, smart fellow, smart lad... And so there was a bit of a convoy taking through with the trucks. I just thought I'll hang on to that. But what I didn't do was remember that it should've been filled with petrol before I left. So I only got out about 20 or 30ks and, of course, I run out of petrol and I'm on the back of the line so I got left for dead.
However, there was, I thought, well, I don't know what's going to come along next. It could be the Japanese because they used whatever vehicles were handy to do scouting sort of activities. And so I didn't know whether to hide or hail them. So I thought well, it's not going to get any better, so I'll hail them anyway. It was five Indonesian priests were in the car. And I couldn't understand them, and they couldn't understand me, but I hopped in with them anyway and I was keeping me eye on the sun to see that I was going in the right direction. And I caught up with the trucks soon.
Leaving Singapore
We took off from Palembang we had to go through the Sunda Straits. And to get back to Perth of course. And anyway, we were timed it so we'd be going through it the dead night. Anyway, we had engine trouble. So instead of going through the dead of night, we went through it, 10 o'clock the next morning.
Never, fortunately, never saw a thing. It was supposed to be alive with Jap subs but they hadn't either got up or weren't active that day. Anyway, and of course we didn't do the usual shipping lane. We headed southwest so we went right about five days I think it was. Then we turned and went towards Fremantle. That was the way I got back. That's my experience with it.
Just frightened kids
They talk about heroes, but we were just frightened kids. Nothing else. And it wasn't ... you know, when I think back, and I, God, you know they were all just 18, 19 years old. Every just about, well, all the ones that were servicing, doing services on the aircraft they were all young blokes that had just come out of a school, and were doing that and they'd all more or less gone through the same, at the same time as I did. So, as I say, I know I was scared stiff. Terrified, in fact. But you had no choice, you just had to keep going. And that's about it. It's probably enough too, you've probably heard enough.
