Enlistment
Well, it's a different atmosphere in the world today. War time, the country is at war, everything is at war, and young fellas are joining the services. The girls encourage it. My older brother was in the army.
I could've got out of it. I was apprenticed; it could've got me out, but I wanted to be what everybody else was doing. And they trained us. He said to me. I didn't know what I wanted to do.
He said to me, "Do you want to go into air crew?"
And they were planning on the big air strike against Germany in 1944, 1945. Planning ahead in the Empire Air Training Scheme and they wanted air crew.
He said to me, "Do you want to join air crew?" I said, "Yeah, all right." So that started it.
Training as a wireless operator
Look, snippets will come out. Churchill said to England in one of his speeches one day, "You can never repay the debt you owe to the Canadians, Australians, and New Zealanders." 56 per cent of Bomber Command are English. 25 per cent Canadian, and they built their own aircraft and flew them across, deployed their own air crews and had their own group, which was about two or three squadrons, or four squadrons. The Poms couldn't tell 'em too much what to do. The Poms didn't like it. But we were with the Australians and the Poms paid our money.
And the funny thing was that if you had an RAF pilot, an Australian pilot doing the same job, the Australian got more than him. They didn't like it. The CO, Commander Fairbairn. He was a fighter pilot in the First World War, used to get the whiskey. His face, looking back now, I can see the strain on his face, the strain in his eyes, was his experience with fighting in the first war … Wing Commander Fairbairn, spit and polish, but, to train us, they had to get your Morse speed up 'cause it was all Morse code.
Every bit of operation over in England on the radio was all Morse code and that was the tough thing. They used to say the pilot's course was easiest and the wireless ops was the hardest, and it was too. Because with me, about 60 started and about 30 failed after about two or three months. They couldn't keep up with the Morse. Then they were given the choice of either being ground staff or tail gunner. That's where the tail gunners came from. There was never a category for a tail gunner. They come from fellows who couldn't keep up with the Morse at the radio schools. But I got through.
Burying a crew
We buried a crew one night. They were coming on an SBA, they call it the instrument landing system, now. About two miles, or about a mile out on the end of the runway, you hear a noise: doot doot doot doot doot. No, it's not that: dooh, dooh, dooh. You know you're a mile from the end of the runway. Get over about say 100 metres from the end of the runway, end of the run. Doo doo doo, you've got to be there about 50 feet above ...
Well this crew, two Canadians, two Poms, two Australians. They were in the old Anson. And he passed them and didn't know. He was still on the beam, and straight into the cliffs on the other side.
Well they came in the next day, the flight lieut, when we were at classes. "I want two volunteers," he said. Mick put his hands up. I thought "Oh well I'll be silly, I'll put my hand up too," so I did. It was to bury them. And they're in Newton Stewart Cemetery today which is about two miles away from Wigtown where we were.
The tail gunner
The comradeship was closer than brothers, and I've got five brothers. Closer than brothers. Here was this navigator. He used to lose us sometimes, but you'd never hear of it. You're completely utterly loyal to him. Lou down the tail.
We used to say that if any Jerry fighters came in and saw Louie there they'd run and go for their lives. But wasn't that great.
About 40 years later, I was up in Sydney, I went up to see him, he said, "Hey Bluey," he says, "You remember when Bob used to call me on the intercom." He was right down the tail. "Louie, you there, Lou, you there, Lou?" "I was asleep," he says.
And he comes up on the intercom, "Has anyone been calling me?" He said, "I kicked out the intercom cord, I must've kicked out the intercom cord." He was like that.
On leave in England
Well, if you had leave, I used to go to dances. I reckon I went to most dance halls in England. Because if we were going back, if we were out flying, we had four or five hours, and couldn't land on our own drome because it was fogged in, they'd send us 100 miles away. I used to go to a dance.
Once in the train, I was traveling by myself, and a fellow opposite me with his wife and kid, "Come and have a meal with us." And they were good meals on the train. "Oh," I said, "I don't want you to pay for me." "Well you pay for the one." "All right, I'll pay for the one."
Sitting down there, and he said something about colonials. And I said to him, "Look, if you wanna make an enemy, a bad friend of a Canadian, an Australian or a New Zealander, call him a colonial." Things got very quiet. But that was the attitude of the people in Oxford to Australians.
'Steak' and chips
You could never find meat there. All you'd get was baked beans. You get baked beans anywhere you go.
One day, when we were at Moreton-in-Marsh the pilot came back, "I found a place where you could get a steak in Nottingham". I know the place there. You go into the main big square and it was at the side, and then downstairs. So we went there, steak and chips. Went there about half a dozen times.
Then one day when we were walking out the doorway, here's this smoke and grime notice above the doorway. "Horse meat allowed to be served here." So we never went back. So there you go.
Bacon and eggs
They used to give us bacon and eggs. But somebody said one day, when we were at Moreton-in- Marsh, they said, "It's not fair. If we get the chop, we don't get our bacon and eggs." So they said, "All right, we'll give it to you before you go." So, that's what I told Hughey Edwards. So my pilot organized so that we got bacon and eggs before we flew. But they'd made a mistake, we got bacon and eggs before we do it and when we came back. And I told Hughey Edwards what he did, he organized so we got two lots of bacon and eggs.
I never used to drink. And I made this pledge when I got confirmed I wouldn't drink alcohol till I was 21 years old. Well we come back, and these gorgeous WAAF officers would be giving us little glasses of rum. It was beautiful. Almost held a spoon up, navy rum. And I said, "What's wrong with this? There's nothing wrong with this." And every time they'd go to a pub I'd go and have a glass of rum. That's what they used to do.
End of the war
It's a day that is imprinted on my memory as though it was yesterday. When the Stirling Castle pulled into Port Melbourne. And here you are, I'm home. And when you're in England, you never know what's gonna happen, from day to day, you don't know.
That was one of the questions they asked us at the panel up there in the Shrine a couple weeks ago. "What was the attitude of the English?" And I told them about all sleeping on the Tube railway. It was a feeling. You never know. Three months before the war finished, everything seemed to slowly change. People started to be friendly. Well they weren't unfriendly, but they were more open, and smiling. You could feel an atmosphere there change, without any doubt.
Yeah, yeah. See they were progressing every day. You'd read the headlines and see the maps, where they'd moved forward, forward here, there. And it was just a matter of time. So we came back on the Stirling Castle and pulled into that harbour there at Port, Melbourne. I'll never forget it. You know, over there you don't know if you're gonna be alive tomorrow.
And here I am, I'm home. Well my parents were there on the wharf waiting for me. And my brother. Been in the army for six years, private there and private then. I missed a golden opportunity, I missed a golden opportunity. I should've made him stand to attention. But I didn't. But they were there on the wharf to meet me. To me it's as though it happened yesterday.
Germany after the war
Well in the week after the surrender, they had what they called Cook's tours, and we went over about half a dozen time and saw the rubble.
God, you've got no idea. I'll just show you this. See, they lived in the cellars for six years. And then the Russians wouldn't let them bring any food into the British sector on their own, so there was the Berlin Airlift. And then after that, they built the Berlin Wall. Because all the East Germans were getting over to West Germany, because the standard of living were so high.
Privation in Russian territory. And they were shooting. They'd shoot them dead if they'd get caught getting over that wall. And then about 20 years later they pulled the wall down. And you see Germany today. You can find East Germany today where the rubble is still in there. Because Russians didn't. Not like the Marshall Plan that built everything up again.
Near miss on the Kiel Canal
So we were stooging all over Germany. And we went up to Hamburg, and then went a bit further on. And I'm watching out the astrodome, you know, the most beautiful aircraft in the world, the best crew you could ever have, trained to a pitch. And each one knew his job thoroughly.
And then he got onto the Kiel Canal. So I'm looking out the astrodome, and the banks were as high as that, twice as high as that, and we're down on the water. And the tail gunner said that all the spray from the propellers was coming up behind him, until we turned around and there's a ship.
Whoa! Just a blur, the ship is just a blur. I was watching out there. 250 miles an hour, you see. Well he got up about 500 feet and levelled off the aircraft, and then he said, "I'll never do that again," on the intercom. We were lucky. And you can bet your life that those fellows who were on that ship could hear this aircraft coming towards them and just missing.
Hughie Edwards: 460 Squadron CO
See, our squadron, our squadron, there were about 70 squadrons in England. When all the dust settles, they find out years later what different squadrons were like. They found that 460 squadron dropped the more bombs, had the highest casualties, highest decorations, and the greatest serviceability rate of any other squadron in England. Besides that, the CO was Peter Swan, ah, Hughie Edwards who had the VC.
I was up in Sydney once, Hughie Edwards, I never met him, because he left before I got there. And he was down in Melbourne once, and I was away there, 20 metres away, and I looked at him and he's talking to somebody, and I walked over. I can still see it. I walked over, and looking at him, "Are you looking at me?" I stood at the back of him and thought, "So this is Hughie Edwards, what do you know?" Nothing was said.
But 10 years later I go up to Sydney, Hughie Edwards is there for a squadron turnout. And I walked in with Bob my pilot, and Hughie Edwards said, "I know that man." Me. My God. I went up to him and I said, "You don't wanna worry about me, sir." He said, "Oh that's all right." So I introduced Bob to him and they started talking. But he made that squadron. I've said that. He made that squadron, Hughie Edwards. It was the top squadron in England.
Getting home
Some of the aircraft when we went down to Italy to Baria and pick up a load of Poms, they were based in the Pyrenees, and how? How? Well their radar was beamed over France on television, once you get up to 20,000 feet you can get that signal up to about 200 miles away and if your C packs up you're shot and if there's clouds up there and you can't get a shot on your sextant, you're done.
And that's what did happen, that's what did happen and one night that happened and the light was flashing because I wasn't on the intercom I was on the radio … radio signal noises … that's it, got it, a very weak signal, we're about 250 miles away. I remember this night very well I'm just telling you this because this is what my job was.
Well, there's about six other stations are calling and the PDMs too, and this "I can't get out the signals too weak". I says, "I'll give a peep" … "Yeah, Bluey, give a peep alrighty". And back she came, I'm telling you, back she came. Well I got the bearings to get us home and Lou used to say on his intercom, "You always get us home, Lou."
