Australians at War Film Archive

I was born in Ascot Vale, Melbourne in 1917, November 1917.

Mother and father and two sisters, and a brother. And we lived in Ascot Vale

for many, many years. And then war came and I moved from Ascot Vale, of course went into the army. But we had a very happy family life, but mother and father very, very good and we were really happy.

Fourth.

The baby yes. Which I was often reminded of, of course. But yeah, I had two elder sisters and an elder brother, so they kept me under control. Then I went to school in Ascot Vale,

at the Ascot Vale State School and from there went to University High School for two years. And then it was rather strange actually, I was going on to do the leaving but unfortunately, my uncle was a pharmacist, and I was going to do pharmacy. And that year, the following year they were going to bring in leaving Latin. And I’d never done Latin at school so it meant I had to do leaving Latin in one year. So unfortunately I had to leave school at the intermediate stage, which I’ve always regretted. So then of course I went

straight into pharmacy and went up to Bendigo to do my apprenticeship.

Oh yeah I would have loved to have stayed on cause apart from the academic side, I would have liked to have been in the football and cricket teams. And the usual school life of a schoolboy. But it just had to be and I had no hope of getting leaving Latin in one year, would have been impossible. So I went straight into pharmacy and I lived with me uncle up in Bendigo.

That would have been

fifteen when I started pharmacy and finished pharmacy when I was twenty. I was qualified before the - I could be registered actually. You could only be registered when you’re 21 and I finished in November. And I was too young to be registered. I had to wait for the next issue to come out. So I had two years in Bendigo or a year and a half actually in Bendigo. Then I came down to Melbourne to finish my apprenticeship and finished up in Collins Street.

Actually what happened my uncle had a business in Bendigo and he just decided he’d buy a business in Melbourne. So when that happened he came down here to live and so I came down with him and then of course I lived with the family.

Yes, yes in Bendigo for a year and a half.

Yes it was fortunate my uncle and aunt were very, very kind people. And I got on very well with them so there’s no trouble there and had a very happy time in

Bendigo. It was a good spot to live in, plenty of sport and nice weather. And I enjoyed the pharmacy side of it. I did my, the first part of my course by correspondence. And then of course when I came down to Melbourne I went to the Pharmacy College.

After I came back to Melbourne, it was before the war.

Yes, yeah after I came back to Melbourne I had eighteen months as I say in Bendigo and did the first half there and then

spent the rest of my time in Melbourne with the Pharmacy College. And that’s where I qualified.

He was in the railways and he was there for many, many years. And he eventually retired and then he went into, just before the war he went into the munitions out in Maribyrnong. So he had retired from the railways and he was there.

Yeah, the munitions factory in Maribyrnong. That was a big wartime project of course.

And then I came back to Melbourne. And when I finished my apprenticeship, which was four years I was working in Collins Street for about twelve months and then I went out to Essendon to gain a bit of experience in another type of business. So I was out there and I joined up from there in 1940. So I worked right through ‘til I joined up.

Oh no, no, no, no it was another pharmacy.

The experience is different, in the city you don’t have much counter prescribing ‘cause we were amongst all the doctors up the top end of Collins Street and so you don’t get the experience. That’s why I went out to Essendon out in the suburbs where you’d experience counter prescribing, all that type of thing, so. But different type of business and I enjoyed that. It was very enjoyable.

Well you’d interview a client and you know if they might have a cold or something

like that and you’d prescribe or, in those days you’d have mixtures and lotions and ointments which you made up yourself. Not like the tablets or capsules or injections of today. So when you were counter prescribing, you made up mixtures and if you had a cold, well you made up a cough mixture, or you made up a chest mixture or a flu mixture or something like that. Which was far different to these days, different altogether.

Well you’d

have certain ingredients and you’d have tinctures, you’d have what they called tinctures and infusions and all this type of thing. Which were sometimes made up in the pharmacy, we all did all that in Collins Street. You’d have an infusion, which was made up on the spot whereas you could buy it from the warehouse. But you’d have different tinctures for different types of things, different medicaments. And they were all in bottles around the pharmacy so you know you’d pick one out and sort of, you’d write the prescription first in the prescription book

and then you’d make it up from the prescription. It was fascinating and the lotions and ointments were the same. We used to make a lot of ointments in Collins Street cause we were right opposite the skin doctor. And used to make you know gentian violet ointments which were dreadful things to do. So you had all this experience of making the stuff itself rather than taking it out of a, you know a tablet bottle or so on. And that was the difference between pharmacy in the old days and pharmacy today. There was very little, in fact there is no dispensing

today. The only dispensing I think you would see today would be for a skin specialist where you want ointments and that type of thing. Whereas the rest is just, you know, off the shelf.

Yeah, you’d order from the warehouse and you’d have your bulk supplies and then you’d just make them up with your measure. Put up your measure and pour it out and you know pour it into the bottle.

Yes, it was actually, pharmacy in the old days was fascinating. Whereas today it’s I think it’s harder because you’ve got to do all the, not prescribing so much, as interviewing clients and making sure that the tablets and the things that you’re doing with are not counter productive. Not incompatible with each other. And that’s a big part of pharmacy today, that you’ve gotta advise your clients on whether they should be taking certain tablets. I mean the doctor might order them and he mightn’t realise that he,

that the patient has got tablets from another doctor, and of course that’s all on the computer now. And if they are incompatible well it’s up to the pharmacist really to advise the doctor that they’re taking something else or to advise the client not to take them and to go back to the doctor. So it’s a different type of proceedings altogether.

Well there would be yes because there’s such a variety of tablets you

can get today for various complaints that, yes. Because your mixture would say, be enough to fix a cold or a chest cold that type of thing. And you were I suppose limited really in the amount. There were so many tablets and ampoules and different preparations these days, it’s a far wider scope.

Very much so, actually yes, oh it was a fascinating

part of pharmacy. And I always enjoyed, you know we’d make mixtures. We’d have to prepare them in the pharmacy sometimes. And that was always fascinating because they were infusions. And you’d have the alcohols, and the main ingredient would be infused in the alcohol and mixed up and so on and then they had to mature, and it was quite fascinating.

Oh in some cases yes. Sometimes have to stand for seven days, fourteen days. An infusion for instance, which was a different type of thing

you’d boil the medicaments up and then you’d mix with the alcohol perhaps and then that would mature over a period of fourteen days. Yeah that often happened.

Oh all glass, yes mainly medicine bottles and of course the carboys and that type of thing in the pharmacy were very picturesque. And some of the bottles and what they called the Whittle Tatum bottles were very,

very classy in a way, they were fascinating to look at.

The Whittle Tatum? That was just an ordinary oh it varied from that size to that size. And they were square with rounded shoulders and with a glass top. If you look in the old pharmacies, some of the old pharmacies today they’ve still got them. They’re more, or less, just an exhibit, to a certain extent.

It depended on the complaint you see. You’d have different medicaments for certain complaints. And yeah they were very, there were some very good ones, I can’t remember at the moment but there were some particularly good ones at that stage which would be out of date today.

Oh very, yes, very effective. Yes some of the, for instance some of the cough mixtures were very

effective. They were excellent. You know they’d stop the cough and ease the sore throat and that type of thing. Oh yeah, they were very good.

Well not that I can think of because most, see the medicos in those days were pretty proficient in what they did and they had a very good training at the

Melbourne University I think. And they knew what they wanted. And they could prescribe what they had within that period of time. They were very effective and probably you’d like today, you’d like something that would cure cancer. Well in those days I suppose the various complaints which you had and which you wish you could fix up but. But normally you know you were able to cope with it.

No.

Well nothing really. I suppose probably a lot of patients died because there weren’t these things too. It was just put down to natural causes or to you know the complaint was just not curable, whereas with penicillin and sulphanilamide it opened up quite a new branch of pharmacy altogether. And that was really an explosion of treatment, which we didn’t have before and which was necessary.

About that period yes, it was during the war. I think we used in the hospital I was in over in the Middle East, we used the sulphanilamide I think late in the war oh about the 1940s, ‘41s. And I think penicillin was round about the same time. It’s hard to remember so far back but with penicillin and the sulphanilamide, they really opened up a tremendous scope for treatment. Now we had one patient at, we were in a camp hospital at Bonegilla before we went

overseas. And we had one patient with meningitis. And sulphanilamide 693 came in and that was the reason he recovered. Otherwise it would have been a hopeless case and that was just one example of the value of sulphanilamide and also of course penicillin. Penicillin was used in various types. We had penicillin powder, which would be dusted on a wound. Or penicillin powder was sometimes used on skin conditions.

And of course they had the injections for pneumonias and all those type of things. So as far as the war concerned that really opened up the possibilities of treatment because since the war, things have just advanced leaps and bounds.

Yes it would have been in the ‘40s yes. We were in Bonegilla in 1940, yeah late 1940, and that was the first time we’d used it. And that was as I said in

Bonegilla so it would be the late 1940s before they really came in. Then of course they improved on that. I think there were about oh thirty different types of sulphanilamide as they came in. So you know they just expanded. And as one group went out of favour, another group of sulphanilamide came in and then of course penicillin came.

Oh tremendous, I mean it’s probably one advantage of the war that you know these things perhaps

were hastened by experiments and that they trying to find new treatments. So yes unfortunately the war did help, oh well I say fortunately the war helped in that way that perhaps medicine advanced in leaps and bounds.

Well that’s right, yes. Something had, in burns cases in the Middle East, they were treated we used to put them into salt baths. Now that

was unheard of and a lot of these air force crashes and pilots you know they came very badly burned. And they were immediately put into a bath and then they’re treated with chilled, what they called chilled gra, which was a dressing, which was put on the wounds. So you know that advanced too. I’ve forgotten what chilled gra was but it was an advanced treatment.

Cricket and football were the main two I think. I played squash later in the army. Tennis was another one. Enjoyed walking too. So had about three sports. Athletics always enjoyed athletics. Active sports at school when I was at Uni High I always played football and cricket, took part in the athletics. So there was always

plenty to do and very enjoyable. Always enjoyed you know being fit and it was one way of keeping going.

Oh very, in those days yes. Well that was the main winter sport of course Australian Rules. And we played against all the high schools and we sometimes played against the Grammar Schools, that type of things, for practise games. But mainly well it was our competition with the high schools.

Essendon. Followed Essendon since the age of about seven so I’ve had a very good run.

That’s right yeah, almost eighty years.

Oh yes went to quite a lot of games when I was a youngster. Like we, my father and my brother we always used to go out the Windy Hill. And we, in those days we weren’t very good. In the

1930s they had some good players but they didn’t have a very good team and they struggled in the ‘30s. It’s only since the war that Essendon have really come on. So it’s nice to see a bit of success.

How much it cost? Oh I think probably about a shilling or something to get in, it was so long ago. I think

the Record [football program] would have cost about threepence. You wouldn’t know what threepence was probably but.

Three pennies. And I think to get into the game was about a shilling. But of course you had your membership ticket which probably only cost you about ten shillings for the whole of the year anyway. And then you could visit your own home games plus away games. And in those days of course the games were played at the local. There was Windy Hill, there was North Melbourne, Richmond, Melbourne, Collingwood, all local areas,

Footscray, so all the local area teams. Whereas today you’ve got only about three grounds, so you know you did a bit of travelling by train or car, whichever, if you had a car. But in those days the game was mainly you’d get the ball, somebody would mark it, and then he’d kick it up and somebody would mark it further on and kick it on. Whereas today it’s so much play on, it’s so much faster. It was a different football altogether really.

Oh probably a saveloy I suppose, a saveloy and a bun, that was the main, not much else. Used to take a thermos flask with us at half time and have a drink of coffee or tea that type of thing, but very simple really. It was not like the chips and all the food you can get at the fast turnovers of today. It was just mainly a saveloy or something like that. Even if you,

you know, didn’t always have that.

Oh we used to go by train or tram. The family didn’t have a car in those days. And we always used to, and you thought nothing of it and it was normal you know. It was just you allowed the time to get to the football and caught the train at Ascot Vale railway station and went up to Essendon, walked up to the ground. Or you would go to Collingwood. You’d go off the train and walk to the ground. You either went by,

well you’d travel by train or tram and then you walked, which the youngsters today don’t know how to do.

I think they could be, yeah. Cause you see people travel so far in car these days. You leave your home, you get into a car, you arrive at the ground, you might have to walk you know oh well at Melbourne Cricket Ground

you walk four hundred yards and you’re in the ground. So I don’t think there’s the walking that we did in our day anyway. I may be wrong but I think people do less walking. I suppose it’s natural with the cars you know, you travel from A to B and you’re there yeah, so you don’t worry.

Oh mum was a lovely woman and as I say we had a good family

life. She was very, we always looked after each other and that was what we were taught to do. We were taught to cook and do that type of thing even as boys. And we used to make the biscuits at home and all that type of thing. So no we had our work to do, we scrubbed floors and all that type of thing. Did some of the housework and helped my mother and dad. And in the garden of course it was the same, it was just expected of you and you did it without any thinking

about it. Tried to get out of it when you could but when you couldn’t do it, you did it. You know, mowed the lawns that type of thing, looked after the garden. Dad was always very good and always good to us. And strict but we knew what would happen. And there were no whacks or anything like that. We were just told to do it and we did it, so. I had a good family life, I’m very happy about that.

A little. Dad was in the railways and course he wouldn’t have been on a big wage. There was four people, four children to bring up. It was tight but we always had good food. And mother was a good cook, we had always had ample to eat, we didn’t starve or do anything like that. We had a very happy and a good family life. So we were fortunate we had a very good parents that you know looked after us and

taught us the right things to do. And hope we continue with that.

I suppose so, not many though. It was just, my mother was able to make clothes and do things like that. No I don’t think I did wear many hand me downs. I was lucky in that way. Oh no as youngsters we had a good life and certainly I can’t complain, very happy

about it.

Not really. I lived in Ascot Vale an area, which was a middle-income group. And all the children were looked after. And at school at Ascot State I suppose they were mainly looked after. We were in a reasonable area. And people were very good to their children and made sure they went to school

properly clothed where they could. There must have been some which as a youngster you probably didn’t even notice. You know you overlook those things when you’re young and you don’t take much notice of it. But as I say generally the children at Ascot State were reasonably well dressed and well looked after.

Not very much. You knew of the

battles which went on. You were taught at school to a certain extent. You know there was, it was mentioned at school about the various battles of The Somme and Passchendaele and all these types of things. And the suffering of the war and that was about the extent of it. But you knew that the war you know had been on, you were aware of it. And what you were told you sort of absorbed. And hoped you’d never go to one yourself really. I think probably the thing that stuck in my mind more than anything was the gassing of the troops and you know the

aftermath of that. That always left an impression on me I think.

No I didn’t, no. No that was out of my scope actually.

Yes I remember the marches and that type of thing in the city. We often used to go in and seen them as they marched past. It was always a very big occasion of course

Anzac Day. It was, I don’t know that you were made particularly aware of it at school. You had your parades at school I suppose on Anzac Day and this type of thing. But you knew about it and you went to see the marches. And I suppose that was the impression I was left with, all the troops marching through town.

I think

probably the fighting in the trenches would be the main thing. But you know you read about them where they were in the trenches. And they sort of got out of the trenches and went across to the no-man’s-land and all the shells that were falling there. That was the, my main impression I suppose. I suppose that’s the, the old time that was war. You had your infantry who just got out the trenches, out of all the mud and slush and then went across no-man’s-land. And then got shot down. That’s what

it amounted to, you know the artillery shells that came over. Course there were no, or not many bombings by plane in those days as there was in the World War II. Different type of war altogether, it was a static war. Whereas you know for instance the Western Desert, you moved from hundreds of miles, from one hundred miles, two hundred miles in sort of one push and then you got pushed back again. Whereas in the old days you were in the trenches and you were in France and that was it.

That’s about the main impression I think mine, of World War I.

Oh I think there was quite a bit. You know there was, you could see where Hitler was advancing and what was going to happen. And of course with Czechoslovakia and then the different, tried peace agreements that’s

going to stop the war which it never did. And you knew it was going to, and it was inevitable that war was going to come because you could see the way Hitler was marching into all these satellite countries that he was going to take over. And I think that was one of the reasons why a lot of people joined. I think they could see it was going to be world domination by the Germans. And apart from the old story of King and Country of course, it was a fact that people realised. I really think that Hitler was trying to take over.

I think that was the general feeling amongst the population. It was probably different to a lot of these wars of today where you don’t know whether it’s right or whether it’s wrong. But I think most people who joined up had the impression that they would have to join up sooner or later anyway because it was going to affect them. They were brought into it through the domination of Hitler.

No I don’t think so. No I can’t remember cause I was away from home you see. And see I was up in Bendigo at that stage. And I suppose there was talk. People would worry about it. And then I came down in ‘39 and I suppose it was inevitable it was going to be on anyway. And I think they were probably worried then it was going to be. So there would have been talk in the home I suppose about what was going on. And how Britain would keep out of it or if Australia

would be bought into it which of course they were. And that was about the scope of the talking.

I was in Melbourne. I was at home at the time. It was a Friday night from memory. And I think I was at home listening to the news and I working at Essendon that stage. And I joined up from that shop in, like from that pharmacy in Essendon.

And I was home and of course the news came over. So I kept working for a while then a friend and I joined up in July ‘40. So that was about what seven months after the declaration of war. Oh it would have been longer that, would have been almost ten months. But my friend was a pharmacist also, and he was working in Ascot Vale and we decided we’d join up together so we went through Pharmacy College together.

He was a chap from New South Wales and he was living down here. And we had the last two or three years together at the Pharmacy College. So we talked about it and then we decided we’d join up. So we went into the Melbourne Town Hall on July 22 1940. And joined up and then we were sent out to Caulfield. And Caulfield, it was rather strange out there. Actually, when we joined up, course you

had to name your profession and we said we were pharmacists. And we left it at that, we didn’t know whether we were going into the infantry or where we were going but they had our credentials more or less. And we joined on the 22nd and we were sent out to Caulfield on the 22nd and we were out there for about oh three months. Normally you’re there and you’re sent to other units. But what happened? While we were there we wondered why we hadn’t been posted to a unit. A cousin of mine was in the 2/14th Battalion. He was a major.

And he told me that Colonel Walter Summons was forming a medical unit. So he said “Why don’t you go and see him?” So this friend of mine, we went into see Colonel Summons. And when we got there, it was 111 Collins Street. And when we walked up the stairs, we asked the nurse could we see Doctor Summons. And she said, “Which one?” And we said “Oh are there two.” And she said, “Doctor Walter Summons or Doctor Headley Summons?” So we said “Oh Doctor Walter will do.” So she said, “Oh walk down to the left hand corridor,”

which we did. So when we went through the door we went left, instead of right. And we went and saw Doctor Summons. And we interviewed him or he interviewed us and that was the last we heard of it. We were still at Caulfield playing football and doing route marches. And it wasn’t ‘til about September I think that we got a call to go up to the 2/7th Australian General Hospital in Seymour. And what had happened, we’d been lost at Caulfield Racecourse and nobody knew we were there. Because

he’d evidently appointed us as pharmacists to the hospital. There was a lieutenant pharmacist, a staff sergeant pharmacist and two sergeants. And apart from that there were three other pharmacists also in the unit who were doing hospital duties. And when we got there they said where have you been, we’ve been looking for you for two months. And we’d been lost at Caulfield for some reason or other. We enjoyed it because it was playing football and doing the route marches and doing you know drill and all that type of thing, which was keeping us fit. But that was the

story. But we were lucky because there were three other pharmacists waiting to get a position. We were lucky that the position was held over for us. And I’ll tell you later about a story about the significance of walking in to Doctor Walter Summons instead of Doctor Headley Summons. That was on the way over on the Queen Mary. I will tell you if you’d like to hear about that later.

Oh no, no, no. On the way over we were in a convoy

with the Queen Mary, we sailed from Sydney on the 4 February 1941. And in the convoy were the Queen Mary, New Holland, the New Amsterdam and ourselves, from Sydney. And then we went down south of Tasmania because the German Raider, Penguin, had sown some mines in the Bass Strait. So we had to go down south of Tasmania and as we came up the Mauritania

joined us from Melbourne. And then on the way over to the Middle East, which, we didn’t know where we were going, we thought it was Singapore anyway. The Queen Mary was the ship, the main ship or the leading ship in the left hand lane and we were, the Aquitania, which was on the right hand lane. And one morning, oh it was about half way to the Middle East I think. The Queen Mary swung around, came right down the left hand column, swung round the back and then came up past our column of

ships and headed in a north easterly direction. And we found out later they were going to Singapore. It was a most magnificent sight, the ship was going at about thirty knots, all the troops lined the ship and they were all cheering and waving and we thought oh they’re lucky, they’re going to Singapore, looks we’re going to the Middle East. Now getting back to the original story, Doctor Headley Summons who was the other Doctor Summons was forming a unit, which was the 2/9th Field Ambulance. Now had we walked into his rooms, there was

a possibility, I’m not saying we were, ‘cause they may have had their pharmacists already, but there’s a possibility that we would have been in the 2/9th Field Ambulance. So instead of heading to the Middle East and to the 2/7th Australian General Hospital, they headed to Singapore with the 2/9th Field Ambulance. And the 2/9th Field Ambulance was made prisoners of war. Just fate I think how fate, you know turn left you’re safe, turn right you’re a prisoner of war, so, just one of those things that happened.

Yeah we didn’t know Doctor Walter from Doctor Headley you know from a bar of soap. It was just one of those things, oh well we’ll see Doctor Walter. Probably because his name was mentioned first I think. ‘Cause see I think he was the older brother and it was just one of those things. But we had a very fortunate time with the 2/7th Australian General Hospital ‘cause we were in static positions. And we were in Rehovot and then we went to Sidon and then down to Buselli but that’s another story.

But just the way fate works I think, we were just lucky.

Oh possibly the fact that you know we knew it was inevitable that war was going to come. We knew that Hitler was going to try and conquer England. And we just felt that Australia was linked to England anyway. And we just thought it was well, gotta do our, I suppose do

your bit. Sounds melodramatic but it’s not really. You just felt that it had to be, that’s the way things were. So we just joined up. I don't know whether it was any, I suppose it was a certain amount of patriotism concerned. But it was just inevitable that Hitler was going to try and conquer, in my mind that he was going to try and conquer the world and that was it. And there was no help coming from America at that stage, so it was Britain on its own and the Commonwealth, New Zealand, Canada and so on, South Africa.

And they’d all joined in so it was just a case of yep, we’ll join up.

Bit of both I think. Yeah I think if you went to war for Australia, well in those days I think if you felt you were going to war for Australia, inevitably you were going to war for England really. And you could see that England was going to be in a very tight spot particularly after they were at Dunkirk.

But they had no resources to fall back on. They had no armaments to fall back on. So I think it was the general idea that the Commonwealth had to back them up and that’s what happened, and I think the average person that would be one of the reasons they joined, really.

Oh yes, yes. Well it was a case of well it was a choice because if you joined the AIF [Australian Imperial Force] it was as a volunteer anyway. And you had that choice, it was your own choice whether you joined or not. And you couldn’t blame anybody else. If you made the decision well you had to, that was your decision to make. And I think that was the position with everybody. With the AIF of course it was volunteer, there was no conscription in those days. Whereas a lot of the militia units were sort of, you know New Guinea, were formed at a later stage. And

they did a magnificent job up there by the way, the militia. Despite the fact that a lot, some of them were told to join, they were still a magnificent fighting unit, particularly on the Kokoda Trail. So in the AIF you were volunteers and that was it.

Right.

Oh they were a bit upset about it, mum particularly. There were a few tears and did I have to go and all this type of thing, being a reserved occupation. But when I you know we talked it over we suddenly realised that I suppose it was inevitable and more or less went with their blessing. But they were very, not happy about it but they weren’t

unhappy, put it that way. And resigned to the fact that, seeing as I was with a friend that perhaps it wasn’t so bad.

Oh there were probably a few parties around, I’ve forgotten about that. But yeah there were probably a few relations you know who came and. Actually as far as the send off was concerned, it happened up at Puckapunyal. We had final leave, we sailed, or least we left Pucka on

Sunday the 2nd February. And we’d had annual or our last leave about a fortnight before that. So that was the last time I got to see relations. And then on the Sunday before we left the CO [Commanding Officer] decided that we were allowed to invite our relations up as a send off on the Sunday. Which was rather unusual and it shows what a good CO he was. And they came up and we had a picnic. You know all the families had picnics with themselves before we left. And well in those days 1500 hours or

three o’clock, they were told they had to leave camp. Well I don’t think they left camp but they didn’t leave the area. And then we lined up. We were put on parade at five o’clock and lined up with full packs. We then we boarded some buses to go to the Dysart, in those days Dysart Siding where we boarded the train. And they all sang the marriage farewell and all that type of thing. It was rather emotional but

we had the families with us and my girlfriend in those days and my family came up on the Sunday and we had this final picnic together. Which was rather nice so they gave us a bit of a send off that way. So then we boarded the train and then we travelled overnight to Sydney. Arrived in Sydney on the 3rd and walked onto the Aquitania on the 4th February. Well we sailed on the 4th February, we boarded the Aquitania on the 3rd, and as we sailed out the heads, it was

nobody knew except that there were hundreds and hundreds of small craft seeing us off. No security in those days, I don’t know what happened but there were so many small craft seeing us out the heads. And the ferries saw us out the heads as the convoy sailed. And as I said there were the Aquitania, the Queen Mary and the New Holland, which were three of the biggest ships in the world those days. But we sailed out through the heads and had a great farewell from all

these craft. And the first time we went up the mess, I was a sergeant in those days, and the OR’s [Other Ranks] had their cabins and we had our cabins. And we had our different messes than the other ranks. As I say ORs, other ranks. And the ORs walked past our mess to find that, when we went into the sergeant’s mess, it was under peacetime conditions. They hadn’t converted to a troop ship. And we sat down at table and there were white tablecloths, silver cutlery

and then to cap it all off these stewards in their white coats came round to serve us. Now that was just unbelievable you know in wartime to think that we were treated this way. And of course the ORs they had about four different sittings. I think we had two sittings. And we sat down to this magnificent atmosphere, which we thought oh this must be a great war but it didn’t last for our next ship I can tell you. But it was a very nice and as we left the Aquitania

in the Middle East, no in Bombay is where we left them, the captain put on a meal for us, a farewell dinner. Which was very, very nice, a very good farewell and wishing the troops all the best for the coming years. So that was something that happened which we hadn’t expected. So that was two farewells really. We had a farewell at Pucka and a farewell at Bombay.

All the way to Bombay but it different when we got to

Bombay. We were at Colaba Barracks, actually what happened, we arrived in Bombay on about the 22nd, I think of February. And the officers and the sisters were taken off at the Taj Mahal Hotel and the Majestic Hotel. Which are two of the, well they were the two best hotels in Bombay. Whereas the troops including the sergeants and ORs we were marched three miles to the Colaba Barracks which was a permanent English Barracks. And

so we had a different reception to the officers and the sisters. But was a nice march at three miles with a full pack so it wasn’t the best I can tell you. And then we were at Colaba Barracks for about a month under English conditions. And we had our mess but we used to mess with the English sergeants. And the first time we had curry there, it was so hot, almost blew our heads off. And after the meals

we would have our curry on one side and a glass of ice cold water on the other. So as soon as you had a mouthful of curry you had a mouthful of water. But it was just one of those things. But we had some funny experiences at Colaba. I dunno if I should say this, but we were not undisciplined but we didn’t salute our officers, as we should have. We were, I’ll put it that the Australian Army, I don’t think the Australian officers really expected salutes half the time, ‘cause

often a lot of them came up from the ranks anyway. And they knew the men and were on pretty friendly terms with the men. Whereas the English officer was a professional, he was a very, very good officer. And the troops were not on the same class as the Australian troops as far as their officers were concerned. And we would walk around Bombay with a party of about six you or know we’d get on leave. And it would probably be about oh ten different parties of six would be seeing the sights. And

without thinking we’d walk past English officers without saluting. And after two days an order came from English headquarters, “Australian troops will salute all British officers at all times.” Well it went over like a lead balloon but being good soldiers we thought we’d better do the decent thing. So whenever we went to Bombay a party of six to eight, we’d see an English officer, we’d fall behind, about three or four paces behind each other. We’d give the English officer a salute. One after the other, you know six salutes

like this and then he’d come to another group of six or seven and he’d find he’d get the same treatment. So after two days an order came from British headquarters, “Australian troops need no longer salute British officers.” So that was just one of those things I suppose. It shouldn’t have happened but it did. And we had a very nice experience with an English officer. We were, a friend and I were walking around Bombay just watching the sights. And we got hailed from a car that was parked by the kerb. And it was an English woman,

one of the residents of Bombay. And she said, her husband was with her, and he turned out to be a Lieutenant from the English Army. And they said “Oh would you like to go for a drive?” And they didn’t know us from a bar of soap see. And we said “Yeah that’d be very nice.” So we went for a drive that afternoon and then they arranged the next day to pick us up to take us to a place called Jahoo, I think it was. Which was a British seaside place where they used to

go on their leave. And they took us up there for the day and then took us back for dinner that night. So there was one English officer we saluted happily. And the British residents of Bombay were very good to our unit, they really were. We, I don’t know if the units before us hadn’t behaved particularly well, but we were a very, pretty reserved unit being a hospital unit. And we went to the English canteen one night and an English lady spoke to us. And she said “Oh can I take you anywhere in the next couple of days.” And we said “Oh

that’s very nice of you.” And she took us to a place called Beach Kandi, which was the English-speaking seaside, not seaside it was a baths I suppose you could call it with nice lawns around it. It was for the English people of Bombay. And she took us there a couple of times, and you know they didn’t know us, they didn’t know how we’d behave. And being Australians they could’ve thought we were rough people. And so the English people in Bombay were very good to our unit. And we had a very, very good fortnight

there. Visited all the various places, went out to the various cemeteries which was an eye opener to us. There was one cemetery where they had the pyres, where they just burned the body, another place where they had the vultures, which picked the bones clean. And then they washed the bones type of thing and they were all sort of, oh it was a religious ceremony which was a bit hard to explain. And then we went up to the various hilly top parts of the

Bombay where we you know resorts. So we were lucky, we had a very enjoyable time in Bombay.

Oh I think the first impression we got were people laying on the streets. They bring their beds out at night and sort of live on the streets to a certain extent. They weren’t beds, they were you know just things to lie on. And I think that the difference

between the poverty of the poorer people and the richness of the other people. I think that was the thing that struck us more than anything, and the betel nut, which stained the streets. You know people used to chew the betel nut and spit it out on the street and all you see were these red stains covering the street. I think the poverty and the beggars of Bombay were the thing that left a lasting impression, apart from the nice parts of the city.

But they were, and another thing I think that struck us too was when we were at Colaba Barracks they had the laundry people and they’d bash the clothes on the stones. And you know you’d send your laundry in, your shirt and your trousers, to do the laundry, and they’d come back you know perfect. You’d always get your own back strangely enough. Then we found out later that, you know, they used to bash these clothes on the stones to get them clean. And so the clothes wore out

very quickly. But that was one of the impressions of Bombay too, which was a bit different.

It was, that was the first trip overseas for me and I think for most people. And to see a city and I think too, one thing that struck us as we came into the harbour the people on their little boats came to sell us fruit and that type of thing. And I think there was a bit of a smell as you came into the Bombay Harbour. Now whether

that’s still there I don't know, but it was just an impression you got. Instead of coming into the clean sea air, you came into this smell or odour from Bombay, which was quite different, that impressed us quite a bit.

I don't know it’s a sort of a stale odour and a decaying odour more than anything. Now where it came from I don't know. But it was, just struck you as soon as you got into the harbour.

It was rather unusual I must admit. Particularly after having the sea air cause we had a good trip over you know from Bombay. From Bombay to Egypt, we went on the Windsor Castle, which was sunk later in the Greek Campaign. It was a much smaller ship than the Aquitania. We were in bunks there, more or less, we were in cabins. I forgot to say on the Aquitania, one of the things that struck us

apart from the mess too, we were in cabins of six, which was quite good, and suddenly we got an order we had to move. And we thought where are we going now? And we were moved up to the promenade deck cabin. We had a dining room, at least a drawing room with a desk and everything and six very nice bunks. So we were promoted, I don't know why, but it was just one of those things. On the way over in the Aquitania we had an incident, which was rather unusual too. It got very hot down below going through the tropics.

And there were a couple of warrant officers and a couple of staff sergeants in the cabin. And they decided to leave their porthole open so they could get the fresh air through during the day. But unfortunately they forgot to close the porthole at night. And they were sitting down for a meal and the next thing they knew they were hauled before the captain of the ship. There’d been terrific radio messages from all the ships in the convoy saying you’ve got a porthole light showing through. If there was a submarine waiting around the corner, you’d know.

That was pretty drastic. They said they’d never been dressed down so much in all their lives by the captain. They said what they said to him just couldn’t be repeated. And fortunately they got out, I don't know why they you know didn’t lose their rank but that CO must have been very kind to them because they got away with it. It was a stupid thing to do. They got away with it but boy it could have been drastic you know in a big convoy like that. Because they, we, on the way to the Middle East from

Bombay later on, we found there were a couple of ships German ships waiting round the corner for us. I think it was HMS Cape Town at that stage from Bombay. And they rushed off and got rid of them but you know just one of those things. You know they could have been where we were going from Bombay. Cause they knew that there were three big ships in the convoy. So we were open slather really for any submarines or any war ships,

any German war ships that had been around. So they got out of it very lightly I must admit. But that’s just one of the things that really leaves an impression on you when something like that happens. So.

No, fortunately, no. My friend was but no, I was a good sailor. ... I’ll just turn the

Oh quite a lot yeah. My friend couldn’t go on the Manly ferry without being sick, so had a bit torrid time going overseas I can tell you. He was a very sick boy most of the time but he didn’t enjoy his trip. But no I was very lucky.

No, only down the bay you know Waruna and those type of things, cruises down the bay before the war, but no, never on a ship. That was the first trip

overseas so it was quite enjoyable. Oh it was a fascinating experience actually at night seeing the ship was going through the water, the moonlight and the flying fish and all that type of thing. There’s plenty to see and of course there’s plenty to do on board with the, they had concerts on board. They formed concert teams you know more or less right throughout the war. And we had, even our own unit they were pretty professional in some of the acts they

put on.

Oh they’d just put on reviews and Botham could sing quite well. We had, actually a couple of them turned professional after the war and could play guitar and all this type of thing. And piano. And so they formed concert parties with singing. And of course there was always the Two Up and that type of thing. And Crown & Anchor and all these types of games, which they were

not supposed to play but they turned a blind eye on the ship. If you turned any corner you could find a Two Up school. But they used to gamble a lot of money on those so I didn’t worry about that, I didn’t have the money to gamble anyway. And the Crown & Anchor as I say was played a lot.

Crown & Anchors, oh I’ve forgotten what it looked like now but I thought it was just a type of a game where you had various things represented on a

board. And you threw a dice and if the dice landed on that or a certain number turned up you were paid. But the only people who made money out of that were the people who operated the game. I think, they knew the ins and outs but the main game I think actually if you wanted to was the Two Up. They always used to have a big crowd around when they played on board. But as I say it was supposed not. Orders came “No gambling on board.” but they turned a blind eye to it. I think they had to

because so many took part.

Not particularly, no. No I didn’t, funnily enough I was born in an area in Ascot Vale where there were three racecourses. The Ascot Vale Pony Track, The Mooney Valley Racecourse and the Flemington. And I went to Flemington once and that was on Cup Day I think it was during the war when I was home on leave.

And that’s the only time I’ve ever been apart from playing football and cricket on one of them. The only time I’ve been to the racecourse so I wasn’t interested in gambling really, so it never worried me.

Oh yes, they made them up on board you know. I can’t think of them to name them but they had different reviews and sketches and comedy scenes, all this type of thing. Yeah they were pretty talented people I tell you amongst an army group.

No not really no. I think they dodged that because that was a pretty contentious area and I think they didn’t want to get into trouble really.

We had, course we had the nurses in our unit. So there were quite a few, might have been, apart from nurses, no there would be only been nurses on board. And

we had oh it would have been about 120, I suppose, nurses. So they supplied some of the entertainment. But they were very well looked after. They sort of, you know the officers made sure that they were looked after and nothing went on, a very subdued group.

Well once again we were lucky, we had a very, very good matron. Actually most of the AGHs [Australian General Hospital] there was no fraternisation between the nurses and the men. That was more or less (UNCLEAR) ‘cause although they weren’t officers they were treated as officers and then they got their rank later on but in the early part of the war they weren’t. And when we got to the Middle East our matron decided that she’d allow the nurses to invite the men into their mess. Mainly because

there were a lot of them had relations over there. And of course being a hospital when they got leave from their unit, they’d come to the hospital to see their relations or their sisters or whatever they happened to be. And she decreed then that okay well it’ll be okay for the men to visit the nurses in their mess. And I think we would have been one of the first hospitals to do that. And that built up a very, very strong association in our unit, which, well it’s lasted to this day. We’ve had a very, very

good Unit Association. And I think that was due mainly to Matron Johns. She was a disciplinarian but she was very fair and very good. And she, as she said they were all her girls. And she looked after them very well. So and when the VADs [Voluntary Aid Detachment] came over later she adopted the same attitude to them. She took them under her wing and looked after them. So she was a magnificent matron.

She left us in

New Guinea, about twelve months after, and she came back to Melbourne. And took over the Eye and Ear Hospital, Matron of the Eye and Ear Hospital, she was respected by every man in the unit, Matron Johns. So I think she was responsible for the fact that our Unit Association has been so strong. And put a lot down to her. And of course our CO was magnificent. He was a very fair man, very hard man but he said,

“If you work hard,” he said “You’ll be rewarded.” He said, “I expect you to work hard.” and in fact I’ll perhaps mention this later on about various things. But he said “Instead of taking a day’s leave build it up and take two or three days. So if you want to visit places like Luxor or Petra or Aleppo, you know when the time comes you can do it.” Because we had our busy periods, you know we were flat to the boards. It was a 1,200-bed hospital and when you’ve got 1,200 patients in there, practically

all the time, that’s a lot of people to look after. And I don't know if you’d be interested in hearing about how the sort of various parts of the medical team work in the army.

You start off with your troops in the field and every unit has got an RAP, which is a Regimental Aid Post. Now they have a doctor and an orderly or a man who sort of does the orderly work. And from the RAP you go to the Field Ambulance, which were mobile. And they were usually in

cars or ambulances, that type of thing, which conveyed more serious patients say to an advance dressing station or a main dressing station. Now the advance dressing station was near the action, the main dressing station a little bit out of the action. From the main dressing station the more serious cases then went to a casualty clearing station, which is a little bit more mobile or at least a little bit more static. And the last line was the general hospital, which I belonged to. And we were a 1,200-bed. So the more severe patients would be brought

through those lines of communication right through to the Australian General Hospital. Now from a general hospital when we discharged them they would go to a hospital outside the battle area. You know for instance if the battle area was in Alamein [El Alamein] well they’d come back to Jerusalem. From there they were sent back to the main hospital such as Heidelberg in Concord in Australia. Now the general idea was that if a patient was sufficiently wounded not to be able to go back

to combat area within six months, he’d be sent back to Australia. If they thought he was capable of being resuscitated and sort of rejuvenated, he’d then stay in the war. So where he’d been sent to, and from the main general hospital like ours, he’d be sent to a base re-posting area where’d he be re-posted to his own unit or to another unit or a convalescent depot where he could recover fully, so then they went back into the action. So that was the way, things worked.

You went from, say troops from the RAP right through to the general hospital. So that was the general set up of the hospitals and of course you got the severe cases. And with a 1,200-bed hospital you were to a certain extent in a static area. We were in Rehovot in Palestine then we moved up to Syria for the Syrian show, went to Sidon. And then when the Alamein show came on we were moved back to Buselli. So, you see, just a series of movements.

Yeah. Would have been four if it hadn’t been for our CO. Actually when the Greek Campaign was on, we were on twenty-four hours notice to go to Greece. And the sisters had even gone to the staging camp to be moved further on. And what happened, our goods were in the area. And our CO went to headquarters and said I do not want the 2/7th AGH to go to Greece. And they said you’re going. And he fought it tooth and nail. Because

he knew that once we got to Greece, we were finished as a unit. ‘Cause he visualised, he knew that the Germans were coming right through Greece to Crete and then to the Middle East. And he knew that once we were there, you can’t move if you’re static, you cannot move with 1,200 patients. You can’t say to 1,200 patients, right we’re off. You know the situation’s getting tough. We’re going back to the Middle East, or back to Palestine. The 2/6th was sent over and the 2/5th was sent over to

Greece. The 2/5th nurses and the 2/6th nurses were pulled out, much to their horror. ‘Cause they refused to come out, they said they should be with the men. But headquarters said, “No you’ve gotta come, it’s too dangerous.” And they were moved out. And both the 2/6th and 2/5th were taken prisoners of war. Now our new CO, at least our CO knew that this would happen to us. And it was a little bit late in the Greek Campaign for us to be sent over. Anyhow they eventually realised

that it was the right decision. And we were, much to our disgust we were pulled out. So we then went up to Rehovot. But our goods were on the crane, half way up into the ship’s hold when the cancellation order came through. So all the goods were then returned to a depot in, oh I suppose near Suez I suppose somewhere. Anyhow when our goods were packed, they were packed in a certain area of the depot. And then there was another

area right next door where some goods were supposedly going up to the ambassador in Turkey, the English Ambassador. And you remember the Cicero story, the spy story?

Well he, the Ambassador was involved with a spy up in, oh he’s I don’t know whether it was his batman or whoever it was. But one of the people in the Ambassador’s area was a spy for the Germans. But what I was going to say was

there was a parcel of liquor and goods of the Ambassador’s, waiting to go up to him. And unfortunately due to human error that parcel of liquor was packed with our goods, which went up to Rehovot. Now I can’t say it was deliberate but I would say it was, you know just an unfortunate error. So he missed his whisky and our officers it seemed must have got the whisky I think. But that’s just a by the by. But we, yeah, unfortunately you know we didn’t get to Greece. Our site at

Mount Olympus was already picked out for us to go there. And we were to sort of, the 7th Division was over there, and we missed out on that. So we went from Ikingi Mariut, in Egypt, which was a staging camp and from there we went up to Rehovot in Palestine. And that was that. It was at Ikingi Mariut that I had a funny well an unfortunate experience. My cousin, the same cousin that recommended we go to Doctor Summons was in the 2/14th. And they were camped just over the hill.

Now behind us there was a, oh we were for instance in one spot, and about three hundred yards behind us was a section of Italian houses, which some of the Italian businessmen in Alexandria had built for their mistresses. And it was tiled bathrooms and oh they were beautiful. And we used to have our showers and baths over there, ‘cause there was no water anywhere else. Now they were behind us, we were there and then just over the hill was the 2/14th. So when I heard that my

cousin was there I thought well I’ll go visit him. So I left in the daytime and I walked over the hill, it was only about five hundred yards I suppose. And I got to his tent and I saw him and had quite a long chat to him. And as I went into his tent I said now look I’ll take my bearings so I can get back to the 2/7th camp. By the time I left him it was dark so I took my bearings and said right, all I had to do was go in a straight line. Half an hour later I finished up at this section behind.

There was a violent sand storm, I’d lost my way, I’d just walked from his area I walked in a half circle right round to these houses at the back. And had I not come across those houses I don’t know where I would have finished up. But it was a postal unit had just moved in there. So I said, oh you got an idea where the 2/7th is, he said, “yeah they’re just a couple of hundred yards there.” So that was one of the unfortunate experiences I had which I don’t want to repeat I must admit. It was you know being lost in a sand storm in the middle of an

Egyptian desert it was sort of a, not a thing for a rookie I can tell you. I’ve never forgotten that. Yeah so that was just one of those things that happened.

It was yeah.

Yeah but I was walking in a straight line, I had no doubt about that. But I’d obviously walked in a complete half circle. So I was just wandering around you know, thinking I was pretty good getting back to my camp. I didn’t, actually as far as sand storms were concerned. We had quite a few at

Ikingi Mariut cause it was in a desert area. And we couldn’t get from our cookhouse to our tents without losing our way. The sand storms were so dense that it was just impossible to find your way. And instead of having meals we’d just have you know biscuits and that type of thing in the tent, because you couldn’t get out to go to a meal. And then it would blow over in a little, short time. So goodness knows what the troops up in the Western Desert put up

with while they were fighting up there.

Hard to describe, I suppose just like a huge wind blowing. You know like a noise you know how you hear the wind coming through the trees and that type of thing. Just like that, just a blast of noise really. That was one thing I noticed in New Guinea really. One thing that, you could hear the rain storms coming over the trees. The first time I heard that

I thought they were planes coming. There was just this terrific downpour of rain on the tops of the trees and it got closer and closer and closer. And it was just a terrific din. We couldn’t imagine what it was when we first heard it. But that’s departing from New Guinea from the Middle East.

Walter Summons, Colonel Walter Summons.

OBE [Order of the British Empire], BS [Bachelor of Science], MD[Medical Doctor].

Yeah.

Yeah we were lucky actually. We probably didn’t have the experience of other Field Ambulances or things like that. But we were fortunate we had a magnificent CO, he really was.

Yeah, oh well it was something else to see and of course you’ve always heard of Greece and you know it was another area. And we were anticipating being, setting up another hospital in Greece.

But we would not have even started, the rapidity with which the Germans came down and went all over Greece. We wouldn’t have had a hope, because when you’re setting up a 1,200-bed hospital. You imagine and this goes back to Q Store [Quartermaster’s Store], you’ve got to set up twelve hundred beds, I’ll explain it first perhaps. We had 25 wards of 60 patients in each ward. Now each ward there was a central Nurses Station, and on each side of that were four large

marquees erected to take 30 patients, so the 15 on each side of the ward. In other words there were 60 patients, so that catered for 1,500 patients. We were a 1,200-bed hospital but we did get up to 1,500 patients at one stage. Now those wards, they were big marquees. Each marquee would have been about half the size of this room. So there were four of those, end to end. Then your nurse’s station then another four at the other end. And they were mainly on dirt floors and of course

with the canvas thing down each side.

There were 30 men to each side of the ward.

Oh a marquee would have been about half the size of this room, which would be about oh 15 feet I suppose, 15 square feet. 15 feet square.

5 metres,

yes.

Well we had a special team of people who, chap by the name of Rocky Woods who was our sergeant and he was magnificent. And he had his team and they’d get those huge tents up, they were real big, a marquee’s a big tent. And he’d set these up.

And he had say 25 wards to do over a period of time. So he was hard working man, he was a hard, solid fellow. And course his team was good and they’d erect these marquees in very quick time. Then of course they had to be set up for the beds. Now I was saying getting back to the QM [Quartermaster], you got 30 patients or 60 patients to a ward which means you’ve gotta have 60 beds, you gotta have 60 pillows or more than 60 pillows. About 3 or 4 pillows to each bed, you’ve got sheets, you’ve got blankets.

You’ve got side lockers and all the paraphernalia, bedpans, all your whole different type of things that go with a hospital. And they had to be set up as each ward as we set them each side. And that went on, on say three different occasions. So you can imagine being in Greece setting them up, having the wounded coming in with 1,200 patients. Then the Germans come down, what do you do. You’ve got to stop there, you just can’t move. And this is what our CO saw,

that it would have been hopeless. If it had have been earlier in the Greek Campaign you know, we would have gone anyway. But when it was so late and the Germans were coming down so quickly, it was just a good piece of thinking on his part. And the men didn’t like it, as I say they were very hostile to the CO that he’d you know he’d refused to go but he was just a wise man. And that’s what happened. You know the Q Store had an enormous job, you know when you think of 1,200-bed patients, plus about 360 staff.

So you can imagine you know trying to feed them, 1,500. Now for instance on, what would happen in a hospital, and when the wounded came in, we’d get in anything from a 150 to 250 patients at a time. Now they might come in at five o’clock, six o’clock, and seven o’clock at night on an ambulance train. Now they had to be fed. So they had to be all those meals organised within a short time cooked and given to the patients when they arrived. So it was a big organisation to do. I don’t think people realise

just what a 1,200-bed hospital means, Because if you think of a Melbourne hospital in the 1940s, they were a six storey building and they catered for about 480 patients. So we were 1,200-bed patients, so that’s a lot of patients to look after and a lot of staff to look after. We had about say between 250 and 360 staff. So it was a big organisation and a lot of work had to be done and staff.

So it was quite interesting. You know if you were a CCS [Casualty Clearing Station] you’ve got to be ready to move at any time too but you would have a smaller number of people to look after. A general hospital it was a static unit, it’s gotta be, it can’t be anything else. So that’s why we were lucky with our leave.

Oh mainly ours

were camouflaged, I don’t think we had red crosses on ours. We might have at one stage. But what happened, we had a chappy, in charge of a group. And they had to plaster the tents with mud. And that was a big job and also our own tent lines cause that all had to be done. But unfortunately in the Middle East they had a habit in the hot sun of the mud drying. And then it just flaked off so it was useless. So that had to be done all again. And it was the same

with the slit trenches. When the, in the ORs’ lines or the sergeant’s lines for instance, where we used to sleep. They’d have the tents, we had about oh I think six to a tent, and they had to have slit trenches around the tents so that if an air raid came you could dive into the slit trench. So this chap who was an officer he used to have his team. And they’d dig the slit trenches and said now you’ve gotta dig your trenches out, and you’d put the soil on the side

and then what they had to do was cover the slit trench, oh where the soil was, they had to cover that with the new soil so that would dry out and you couldn’t notice it. So they had this problem of digging the slit trenches and getting rid of all the soil that was on the side. And he had them with their hands just covering this great big pile of dirt, which didn’t please the troops too much. That was just a by the by.

Oh yeah that’s right. Yeah well they’d be

mud camouflage say for about week. Then the next week they were just white tents again. That was just one of those things.

Right.

Well the structure of the hospital was, of course there was your CO. He was the main man. He was the guiding light. And it was his direction, which meant whether you were a disciplined hospital or whether you were just

a rabble. His example was that every man had to work hard. When the occasion arise, or arose, that a lot of work had to be done in a confined time, then you were expected to go flat to the boards and nobody protest. And when that time was over and the hospital was in a smaller period of patients, then you could apply for leave and that actually happened. But going from the structure, and the CO was the most important man in the hospital,

there’s no doubt about that. His direction led the hospital. There were four sections under him - there was the registrar, the matron, the QM, and what they called the company officer. Now the registrar was responsible for the OC [Officer Commanding] Medical, the OC Surgical were both responsible for the registrar. They were head of their certain divisions and there was a top notch surgeon, a top notch physician. Then we went

to the specialist departments of which there was the x-ray, pathology, eye department ophthalmic, the ear, nose and throat department, the pharmacy and any other organisation came within. The matron was responsible for the nurses and later on the VADs. So that was the hospital side. The QM was responsible for what they called the pack store.

He was responsible for handing out the linen and the pillows and the beds and things like that for the hospital to get it going. He was responsible for the cooks who cooked for the hospital patients. He was responsible for the cooks who cooked for the staff. He was responsible for the hygiene section and so on. And the company officer was responsible for, oh and also the one section would be the administration staff for the hospital that came under the registrar.

And under the company officer, he was responsible for the men of the unit and for anything that went on in the office. So they were the four sections and they were all interlocked. So that you had your OC Surgical, who was a top notch surgeon from Western Australia. And if anything happened, he was responsible, had to reply to the Registrar to get the hospital working. And that was the set up of the hospital. Every part was interlocked. There was no section - they altered, perhaps

they worked in their own departments such as surgical when all the battle wounds came in. But everybody was responsible for another one and they interlocked. Now I was in the pharmacy side, which brought me under the registrar. And with a 1,500-bed hospital we had to equip all the wards. So when we opened up, that was, we were responsible to make sure that all the medicines, all the equipment that was from the pharmacy, that every ward was supplied up to date. When the

battle casualties came in, we were responsible to make sure that the medicine, the drugs and everything were there on time. Now, in a 1,500-bed hospital, or a 1,200-bed hospital, as we were that means a lot of hard work. Now at times we would get trainloads of casualties, from Alamein. We would get a 150 one day and the next day about a 150 would go to another hospital. But the next day we might get 260.

Now that meant that they came in, that the OC in charge of medical and surgical or the duty officer would be there at the train. And as they were loaded off the train on stretchers, he would go to each patient. He’d look at their wounds, or look at their condition, whether they were medical or surgical ward. He’d then say, “Right now, you’re surgical, you’re medical.” They would then be sent to the wards, bedded down, all their comforts looked to, perhaps given a meal.

And only then would they ask for the details. So in other words the comfort of the patient came first, and he was made sure that he was looked after. When he was capable, they’d get the details of his wounds or his illness or something like that. Now that’s how it worked. Now if a 260 trainload came in, we would work in the dispensary perhaps from eight o’clock in the morning to eight or nine at night. Flat out all day. When that was finished, we would then go along to the x-ray department

and carry stretcher patients from one ward to another. For instance the x-ray department was one of the most important parts of the hospital. If you can imagine a battle casualty coming in, he’s got wounds here and he’s got wounds there. You don’t know where the bullet is you don’t know where the injury is. The x-ray department was responsible to make sure that they knew exactly what was going on. And we had a very, very good x-ray man who could read a

chart, could read an x-ray film very clearly. Now when that was decided, they’d then go to the wards. Well to get to the x-ray department they had to be carried from the wards and that was where we came in. We would go out as stretcher-bearers and carry those patients there. And we were in wards and perhaps up to midnight every day. And the next day we’d be back to the pharmacy again. There was a lot of work, as the hospital was stabilised, we would be responsible for supplying these goods to each hospital,

to each ward. So with 25 wards, that was quite a lot of work to do. So it was constant, but as our CO expected, we did it, it was nothing, it was just the normal workday. But we were rewarded because we were given the leave when we wanted it. Now that’s the set up of the hospital, everybody worked together, the CO expected it and we did it and we thought nothing about it. It was just one of those things that had to be done. But the set up of the hospital I think is interesting that you had a man responsible for his own.

Now you were asking perhaps at one stage, what were the advantages. Well I’ll give you a case on a surgical type. The OC surgical was wanting some, what they called I think a Balkan Frames. When the patient comes in with a shattered leg, his leg would have to be lifted up and he had to have a frame to keep it stabilised. We had one chap who was a villain. He was always in trouble.

He was always up before the company officer for infringements of what he shouldn’t have been doing. And it came out one day that the OC of the Medical, oh the OC of the Surgical approached him and said, “Look, you were a plumber in, before the war,” he said, “Yes.” He said, “I want you to see if you can help me to fix up a frame.” And he, what he did he went to all the areas where he could get broken, you know the canopies of car,

of trucks, the metal canopy which goes over the top. He was able to get those, he was able to work in such a way that he was able to build up this Balkan Frame from these spare parts. So whenever George got into trouble, the first thing he went to was the OC of the Surgical and said, “Sir I’m in trouble”. “What have you been up to George? So and so, oh leave it with me.” And he’d go to the registrar or the company officer and say, “Look, George has been in trouble, I want him let off.” And this, what happened was

that an integration of all the members of the unit and they helped each other. That’s just one example of what you can get good out of bad.

It helped to keep the foot stabilised. When the foot had to be lifted straight out it meant the frame was there and then it could be lifted up. Instead of the patient himself trying to keep it there he was able to keep it up by being under this frame. You know it was just one of those things that the OC Surgical saw that you know

good can come out of this chap who was not a bad egg but just a villain, that’s you know as there are so many in the Army.

I’m trying to think of some.

Can’t think of anything off hand. No can’t think of, sorry.

Well when they, the pilots or the crew came in from being in a crash they were normally very badly burned. And they used to put those into salt baths, just warm tepid baths. The first part and then they’d treat them with what they called chilled gra, which was an ointment, which was put on a cloth. And that cloth, the whole combination was called chilled gra. And that was put onto the

burns which helped them.

No I didn’t, cause being in the pharmacy you didn’t see a lot that went on in the wards. You know we were busy in the pharmacy you didn’t have a chance of seeing those things.

Oh I think there were attempts yes but I think that would have mainly been in the base hospitals. You know back home perhaps, I think Bernie Rank was one who was

very well known for that. But we didn’t I didn’t see it, it could have gone on, but we didn’t, I don’t think we had a skin graft specialist at the 2/7th.

Well they were really top notch most of them. When the 2/7th was formed it was in July 1940, first of July 1940. Excuse me.

And he had the opportunity of picking the best. See there were six hospitals before him but there were mostly New South Wales and South Australia I think. He had the opportunity of picking the best that was in the country. And we went as far a field as Western Australia, South Australia, New South Wales, Tasmania and Victoria. Now our surgeon was one of the top surgeons in Western Australia, he was the OC Surgeon.

Our OC Medical was one of the top physicians in Melbourne and so it went on right through. And he was able to pick his own team and we had an excellent team of officers, really top notch.

We were fortunate, I think we had I mean some probably officers who you wouldn’t

want to invite home but mainly they, in fact I would say probably one hundred percent. They were very nice fellows to talk to, easy to get on with and also excellent at their job. There was no doubt about that. And we found, we used to play football and cricket against them and you know all entered into it good sport. And I found the majority of our officers were really good men.

I think being able to control men, be able to get men to work for him. And to be, well in my book, to be friendly with them but perhaps not too friendly. You had to have a certain amount of discipline. But you couldn’t discipline a fellow if he didn’t deserve it. I think most of our officers were in that frame. I think you’ve gotta learn to, particularly in the Australian Army, you’ve gotta learn to work with men. I found as a sergeant you know you’d be sent on a certain job. And I found the best way to

get out of the men was to more or less not ask them. In other words if you said to an average Australian you go and do this, he immediately you know tenses up and says no, you can jump in the lake. But if you say, “oh look George do you mind you know, could you help me with this,” and they’ll go out of their way to help you. I think you can cajole an Australian to work hard and really work hard but you can’t drive ‘em without resentment. And I think that’s what our, probably what our

officers found too, you know. They can work and co-operate with their men but if they wanted to drive them they’re in trouble. And I think that the unpopular officer was always the one who really thought he was above his rank. And there were very, very few of those I think. Very few.

Matron Johns

I think her, she was

I don't know if I’ve said this before but she made sure that the nurses and the sisters were able to fraternise with the men. Did I mention that before?

And I think the fact that she, she was a disciplinarian, she wanted to do, things done properly. And if they were done properly it was okay. But if you were slovenly, you were in trouble. But she really was and she really liked her nurses and her VADs. And she was a you know as I say a disciplinarian

but she was very, very fair. And the fact that she allowed the lasses to mix with the men and to invite them into their mess. And particularly when they were relations. And she saw that and she was you know she enjoyed the company of them. And she was well respected for what she did.

I’m sure it did. Yes because you know an officer coming in from an infantry unit he had a relation or a nurse or you know somebody he knew. And he

could go and visit them. But, and we had quite a few romances in the unit, and that was, in our own unit. But we also had romances from members of infantry and artillery units that came in as patients and they got to know the sisters and there were a few romances there. One married in the Church of all Nations in Jerusalem. She, that was very special, ‘cause she had to go home ‘cause in those days you weren’t allowed to be married and also

a sister overseas so she had to go home. But I think the experience of being married in the Church of all Nations she’d remember that for the rest of her life. There were very aspects of the hospital you know, which were amusing in a way. For instance I was talking about the marquees before, they were big tents with thirty on each side. And on lots of occasions we had the Arabs who would sneak under the covering and try and pinch the pillows or the blankets.

Or even the lockers, which were beside the bedside lockers. And it got to the stage where the thieving was so bad that they got in a special regiment, not a regiment a special group to guard the hospital and that didn’t work. So eventually we had to get a guard battalion to come in and look after the, patrol the hospital grounds. And on one occasion, in fact on many occasions the, when troops come in from the field they usually bring their boots with them because it’s a very important part of their equipment. If you’ve got a couple of pair

of boots when you’re marching it’s half the battle. And it got to a stage where, whenever a patient came in we’d put his boots under the legs of the bed. So that if the Arab wanted to pinch the boots he had to lift the bed up and of course that stirred the patient so he got in trouble. That was just one of those things. But we lost a lot of equipment through the Arabs trying to pinch them. And that had to be you know policed very severely.

Might well be, it was just a case of natural instinct I think. If they got something they could sell it. And I suppose poverty would be the main reason, but there were a few amusing incidents that happened in the hospital. Like I remember once we had, the sisters had their own toilets of course. And it was, we had a special Arab unit that used to cart the pans away. And one day a nurse was very flustered

and went up to the senior nurse in the ward said, “Sister, she said I’m very embarrassed.” And she said, “Why, what’s happened?” And she said, “Well I was on the toilet and the Arab whisked the pan away from underneath me.” And she said, “Well what am I gonna do?” And the Senior Sister said, “Did he see your face?” And she said, “Well no.” She said, “Well what are you worried about, he won’t recognise you the next time.” That’s just one of those things that happened.

Well the hygiene of course used to come in everyday and clear the toilets away. And we had to a certain, I suppose they, particularly in the Middle East and oh would be more in the Middle East than anywhere. And they used to just be the hygiene system, which would take the pans away. We also had a guard unit, which guarded the hospital. And on one occasion,

we were next door, in fact we, no I’m sorry, we had Italian prisoners of war who came and did work at the hospital as well. And they were very good, very cheerful lot. But there were two sections. There were northern Italians and the southern Italians. And they always used to fight each other. And our guard battalion was, well not battalion but our guard group had to go on several occasions to break them up and said “Well if you’re going to keep fighting like this you’ll go back to the front line.”

Which sort of kept them quiet ‘cause the Italian soldier I don’t think was very keen on battle in the Middle East. So we had the guard units, we had the Italians who helped us and we also had the Arabs. And on one occasion when we were at Rehovot they were doing the roads up. And they had a battalion of women who did all the heavy work, carting the stones and laying the roads and doing all this type of thing. And course as Australians we were appalled to think that they worked women like this. But they did a very good job but they you know

it was pretty heavy work for them. And they more or less carried all these stones on their shoulders or their heads and just dumped them on the road where they would level out.

Local women. But they were the main groups I think that did that.

They were mainly working in the wards I think you know around the wards rather and clearing up around the hospital

area. Looking after any gardens that were there or doing the odd jobs really, that was. But they were beautiful singers, they used to work to, they had their own compound. And they’d walk to work every morning singing the songs of the. It was, you know it was really good to hear them. The northern Italian is a happy character and very good.

Not that I know

of, no.

The locals, POWs, that’s all.

Oh yes, all, mainly military staff of course. We were in a funny area and this is typical of the army or typical. We were in one spot and had a triangle. We had a Sarafan English camp, which was a QM store, we had

an aerodrome and a military arsenal to a certain extent and we were plumb in the centre of it. So if a bomb came over you know trying to bomb these other people, we could have been in trouble. But fortunately we didn’t but they bombed the aerodrome a couple of times. But why they would place a hospital in the middle of all these you know armament places and aerodromes I don’t know but it just happened. We had a beautiful place in Rehovot,

of course, it was in amongst the orange groves. And the hospital was in the centre and right round them was the orange groves. You know the beautiful naval oranges and the Jaffa. And Jaffa was only about twenty miles away, and we were right in the centre of it. And we were, actually our lads used to go and pick the oranges. And the owner came to the CO one day and said look the troops can pick as many oranges as they like as long as they don’t tear them off the trees. He said if they take them off carefully,

they can have as many, the same with the grapefruit. The grapefruit were about that size, they were tremendous you know. Beautiful, you could eat them straight off the tree. And these were the famous you know Jaffa oranges and Jaffa grapefruit. And so our troops were very careful, they used to walk through the orchards but they used to look after the fruit. So the owner of the vineyard or whatever it is, not the vineyard, the orange grove was very happy.

Oh it did help yes. You know you’d get a couple of oranges a day it was very good. And we always had leave to go into Rehovot so if anyone wanted to walk through. And that was always the short cut. In fact when we finished at Rehovot we handed over to a Polish Hospital. They came down and they took over our dispensary and everything in the hospital. And one night a group of our fellows were coming back from Rehovot, they’d been on, just out for the night. And they came

back through the orchard as usual. And were challenged by this Polish sentry. Course we’d never had anything like that in our lives. We never had a sentry outside the hospital. And they found they had to go back, walk right back through the orchard back to Rehovot and come back to the hospital the long way along the road. So they weren’t very happy that night. But they were challenged by this guard he was fair dinkum, he was gonna shoot if they didn’t stop. So they got back to Rehovot in a hurry.

In the Middle East quite good, we had good cooks. A lot of fresh food in the Middle East, New Guinea was different. We lived on M & V [meat and vegetables] in the Middle East, oh in New Guinea. But in the Middle East we had very good food really. Course we had to have good food for the patients anyway. So we were able to get the results of that. Course we had good cooks and good discipline amongst the cooks. So every-

thing was right. We had, actually our OC, oh this was in New Guinea, our OC of the cook’s department was an ex hotelkeeper of Melbourne. He ran quite a few and he was a very, very good ‘mein host.’ He ran a very good cookhouse, a rather strange thing about the cookhouse. In the Middle East, now when we got down to Buselli, we used to get a lot of the patients from, oh this is Alamein, the patients would come, they’d come to Alexandria,

which was about fifteen miles from our hospital. And then they’d be handed over to the English ambulance drivers, who would rush ‘em out to the hospital or they’d come by air ambulance. And when the air ambulance delivered patients, they’d ring the hospital and say we’ve got some patients on board. And the hospital would say okay what time you’re arriving, and they’d say a certain time. So the cookhouse would stoke up, now this is incredible. But the cookhouse would stoke up so that the,

the smoke would rise up through the chimneys and give the pilot his wind direction as he came in to land. And as the plane landed the ambulances from our hospital would rush out and they’d keep pace with the plane and as the plane pulled up the ambulance was there ready to take the patients out. And those patients would be in the hospital within about two minutes. And often it would be within a period of about one or two hours from the front line, if they were delivered by air ambulance, that they’d be in the hospital treated. But you know to get your wind direction from the cookhouse

is a little bit unusual.

Well the patients would come down you know through probably Field Ambulances from the front line. And then they’d be transferred to a hospital train or to the ambulances, the English ambulances, in this case. And the hospital train would arrive at the siding of the hospital,

you know, Buselli and then they would be unloaded onto stretchers. And as I say this, probably the OC or the company officer or the officer on duty that night would interview all the patients, I think I’ve said this before. And then they’d be directed to all the various wards. And that was the usual way. So it was either ambulance train, if it was a big convoy of say, over two hundred patients at a time it would be ambulance train to a certain area then ambulance to us. Or if it was just a few odd ones, it would be

ambulance, you know straight from the CCS or straight from the front line.

Well that was one of the problems of course. They had a big surgical team, they would have had about oh I suppose about ten surgeons at a time, but of course, when they all came in together you just had to treat the most severe case first. And then sort of gradually work down until, for instance a chap had his stomach blown out

by a grenade or anything like that, he’d be treated immediately, that type of thing. Any severe wounds would be treated immediately. And then we’d have to sort of gradually, as time went on, you’d have to gradually work down. But they tried to treat each patient as quickly and naturally, as quickly, as they could. At one stage, we had a surgical team from the AGH this was at Alamein. And they were absolutely in the front line. They had a tent right in the front line. And there were two surgeons there was an orderly.

Oh not an orderly I suppose he’d even be a nurse really, a male nurse, and two orderlies. And as soon as the patients were injured they would be rushed straight into the surgical tent and they would be operated on immediately. And in some cases they operated for about thirty-six hours without a break. It was incredible. And then of course as soon as they could be fixed up, they’d be sent by ambulance back to the CCS or back to us. But on many occasions you know the generator would break down in the middle of an operation. They just had to wait,

until the generator’s repaired and then go on with the operation. But you know bombs would be bursting around them and this surgical team just operated under extreme pressure. And I think the Australian Army was one of the first surgical teams to operate in the front line. And we did that both in the Middle East and in New Guinea. So it was you know advantageous for severely wounded cases. And they treated them as soon as they got them.

Oh, just normal ether I think, ether and chloroform, also the local anaesthetics, and that type of thing. They were the main use. You know a less severe wound would be a local anaesthetic, tonsils or things like that probably. Oh no tonsils they wouldn’t but normal, less severe cases would be local anaesthetic. Like

novocaine perhaps would be one of them.

Yes, mainly injection was used.

Well a general would be ether or chloroform.

Oh that would be the normal thing I suppose, aspirin and panadol, all this type of thing. Severe

cases, morphia, all that type of thing, pethidine. They were the main ones. Probably pethidine would be the, yeah I suppose pethidine at that stage would have been one of the main pain relievers. And that would be mainly by injection or of course there were tablets as well but mainly by injection depending on the case. I had, oh I’m trying to think of the injection I had, I ripped my finger, top of my finger off.

We were lifting an oxygen cylinder onto a little truck. And the chappy at the other end, I had the end with the tap in it and the chap at the other end had the, you know the other end, he just let his drop and the tap just tore my fingernail right off. And I was trying to think of the, probably pethidine I had for that to have that operated on. But that was the main one, pethidine.

Oh just took the nail off and just let it heal gradually.

It hurt I can tell you, but, yeah.

Oh I think it’s one of those inevitabilities that you just couldn’t stop really. I think they did try to, well I’m sure they did, try to monitor it pretty severely that it was only given morphine under extreme provocation. I suppose there must be but I’ve never heard of

people being, becoming addicted I suppose. But that would be inevitable too I suppose. But you don’t hear of them cause that would be long time, they probably would have left the hospital well before they become addicted. But they would certainly not be used beyond what they had to use them for. Morphine and that type of thing, diamorphine, pethidine, they’d be administered very, very carefully because they knew the consequences.

I’ve never heard of anybody in the 2/7th. It might have gone on, I don't know, but I’ve never heard of anybody misusing drugs in the 2/7th. I think our CO would have been you know, he would have been out of the unit immediately had he done that. I mean you never know what goes on but I reckon I’m almost be positive

that nobody in our unit ever used, misused drugs. They were very, for instance in the pharmacy we had to keep a register of everything that went out. The wards had to have, keep a register of everything, why it was used, when it was used, where it was used. So that it was a very, very strict control on narcotics. And to say, you can’t say it with positive but I would almost be positive that nothing was ever misused. They were a pretty disciplined bunch in our unit I must admit. You

know they were dedicated nurses and dedicated physicians and surgeons. And I can’t speak highly enough of them for the work they did.

Mistussey, lotions and ointments for the skin wards would be the most. But cough mixtures and that type of thing, general

perhaps ear preparations for middle ear trouble and you know from bathing in the sea at various parts. They would be the main ones.

Oh there’d be rashes of course, that thing. And various tinea. Tinea would be the main thing particularly in New Guinea. Tinea was a bit of a bugbear up there. But they would be the

main. And of course with the, with a lot of the Middle East with the humidity and things like that, there’d be skin rashes caused through excessive heat and that type of thing.

Well we would get ours from the medical depot. We would put in an order to the medical depot. So you know once a month or once a week and that would go to the medical depot wherever they were in the Middle East or

New Guinea and that would come back. The only trouble was our bugbear was that in the Australian Army you had to account for everything. Now if a thermometer was broken, you’d normally think oh you’d a requisition for a thermometer. But you had to return the pieces. So any breakable stuff, like thermometers or that type of thing or syringes, had to be returned to medical stores before they could be replaced. Which was you know a bit of a bugbear because you couldn’t always get them. But that was the rule. Sometimes you get away with it. But

any breakable stuff had to be replaced. Mainly the parts had to be returned. But other stuff you know you just had to order it. Mistussey, all this type of thing. And mixtures, lotions, ointments, they always came in from medical stores.

Well once again you’re supposed to account for them but you couldn’t. You know you’d lose stuff or you’d be misplaced or it’d been stolen. Well you just

had to grin and bear it to a certain extent. And if you wanted a replacement, you had to put in a requisition and say where it had gone to or how it’d been misplaced or whether it had been stolen. But that was just typical army. Get used to that after a while.

I don't think so, no we requisitioned pretty well ahead. We were, yeah we had a lieutenant in charge of us

and he was right on the ball. So if we were shortage of stuff and he realised it was short and he’d put in the order. We, no we kept up our supplies very well. And it was just a case of looking after your goods and knowing what you, and being in business of course you’re used to this type of thing in normal practise, in your private practise. So you know that if stuff’s getting low you had to replenish it. So there were no problems there.

Oh, not really because most of it came from the medical stores so you didn’t have to. Occasionally you had to do it but not very often. It was all supplied.

Yes, in other words if you wanted a cough mixture, you’d get a gallon of it from medical stores and you’d put it out in small quantities for each ward. So that was no problem. So, you never in fact I don’t think, you very rarely made it yourself. ‘Cause you didn’t have the ingredients

to start with anyway.

Oh I think once I went into Alexandria to try and get some labels but couldn’t get any so I think we made our own in the end. But yeah that was a bit of a problem trying to. But most wards had their own bottles and their own, so that when it came to dispensing them for replenishment, it had the label already on it so that wasn’t much trouble.

That was quite easy.

Oh just from gum labels more or less you know. We got the paper and then sort of, you know sometimes go into the town or into Rehovot or into Alexandria and get some labels that way.

Hand written, mainly, yeah.

And of the course the stuff that went to the wards it wasn’t as if everybody had their own bottle like you would in pharmacies today. It would be taken out of a big bottle. So if a couple of patients had a bad cough they wouldn’t get their own. They’d just, the nurse would pour it out and then take it in a little measuring glass to each patient. So there wasn’t the need for many labels really. We got over it that way.

Yeah it was very nice.

Well we operated in Rehovot. We left Ikingi on the 24 April just before Anzac Day in 1941. And instead of going to Greece, we took over from the 2/5th at Rehovot. And we arrived at Rehovot on the 25 April, which was Anzac Day. So we started the hospital there and we went there ‘til about, we operated ‘til May.

But we didn’t leave there, there was a packing team, had to pack up all the goods. And that went ‘til about oh a couple of months really. Cause we had hundreds of cases to pack really. If you can imagine all the stuff coming back from the wards, 25 wards of you know 1,500 patients for instance. That all had to be packed, all the expendable stuff had to be packed carefully. So that was really hundreds of boxes, which had to be packed. So we finally left Rehovot in

about August, we arrived up at Sidon the next day. But the funny part was that we were in of course a rear guard team that had to do all the packing. And the rest of the unit had gone up to Sidon by this time, which was at Syria. But as the packing team was going up to Sidon, the 9th Division were coming down. Now we went up to Sidon and Syria to cater for the 9th Division. To nurse the, you know to be there, to look after their patients. But while we were going up

there, they were coming down to the Western Desert for the Alamein show. So we knew our stay in Sidon wasn’t going to be very long. So we arrived up at Sidon, we unpacked all the cases, which was about I think, four hundred. Course, we had to pack the x-ray department. Now you can imagine x-ray, it was huge stuff, that all had to be packed. We had to pack pathology, dental, ophthalmic, ear, nose and throat departments all had to be packed by the dispensary staff. So as we were going up there, as I say they were returning.

Got to Sidon, unpacked it all and we were operating for about a month and the order came through, close the hospital, come down to Buselli and Egypt and cater for the 9th Division. So then the cases had to be packed. So when they were all, or most of them were packed, we left a rear party behind, a group of us came down by train from Sidon to Buselli. And we went along a railway line, which was built by the Australian and the New Zealand Engineers. And it was parallel

with the coast. And it was beautiful scenery so we were all in these cattle trucks more or less, covered metal trucks. And we were going down and along the coastline with our feet dangling out the side of the carriage, which was a bit dangerous anyway. But it was magnificent scenery you know looking out over the Mediterranean. And we had an Arab driver and his method of driving was he’d drive along as fast as he could. Then if he had to pull up, he’d pull up with his brakes. And we were in cattle trucks. Now

we’d be sitting at the door or standing up and he’d slam his brakes on. Course we were about the tenth carriage back. By the time the reverberation came back to us, we were thrown from one end of the truck to the other. Now this went on oh I suppose for about a dozen times and we got sick of it. Cause you know we were getting a little bit injured and we could have been thrown out, it was our own fault, we could have been thrown out of the truck cause the doors were open. And we had a sergeant whose father was an engine driver. And he later became an Archdeacon in New Zealand I

might add. And Bert said, “Oh I’m not going to stand this any longer.” So we went up to the driver and said, “Look you’ve gotta improve or else.” And he didn’t improve so we threw him off the train and Bert took over and drove the train from Syria all the way down to Egypt. It was a beautiful drive, his father taught him how to drive when he was a young lad evidently. And he handles this train very well. Now the part that mystified us is how we got through the borders to start with. We had to go from you know

Sidon to Palestine then we had to go all the way down to Palestine. Then we had to cross the Suez Canal and arrive at Buselli. And we got there without any trouble. He drove the train. But what I can’t understand is how we got through the borders you know, why we weren’t checked. And to this day I can’t understand why you know the Sidon or the Syrian authorities didn’t say looked we’ve missed a train and the Egypt people said we’ve gained a train. But nothing like that happened, we just got down there and we you know had fun all the way.

We, our method of washing was to get under the, you know these great big water cisterns which supply the water to the engines. We used to get under those for our shower. And we cooked our meals on the way down and we arrived at Buselli in perfect condition. So it was just one of those things that happened. So we were in Sidon for a month and closed up and then we came down to Buselli, which was in the middle of the desert about twenty miles east of Alexandria. So we operated there ‘til we closed up there just round about Christmas time,

‘42 and we came back to Australia. We left Australia on the second, no the fourth of the second ‘41 and we left Egypt on the second ‘43 so we had about two complete years in the Middle East.

Not really ‘cause Rehovot, well that was a static place, Sidon was a lovely old Syrian town and you know goes back to prosperity, we had a good site there. Buselli was, oh Buselli was a long way from anywhere, it was in the middle of the desert more or less, the delta. But the operation of the hospital really, once you’re set up, you know you’ve got your work to do, you know it’s a standard procedure. The only case of erecting

the hospitals and making sure that everything’s right and everything supplied. So really you couldn’t say there’s much difference between the set-ups of the various hospitals, it’s much the same right throughout.

Well we were lucky we’ll start with Rehovot. We went to the Dead Sea. We went, the first time in Jerusalem and Bethlehem were really

breathtaking in a way because if you’re interested in your biblical history, you know to come to places like Jerusalem and go through the Church of All Nations, the Garden of Gethsemane, all the historical parts of Jerusalem. I think the little narrow streets in Jerusalem sort of impressed us quite a bit cause they were so tiny with stall-holders on each side. Bethlehem I think, you drive into Bethlehem over a series of

hills and then as you come down you see Bethlehem in the distance. And knowing what Bethlehem meant to the Christian, it was awe inspiring really. And then you came to the Church of Nativity and the doorway was about four feet high and you had to bump, you know go down underneath to get through it. And to see Bethlehem and Jerusalem and you know go along the way of the cross and all this type of thing, it was absolutely magnificent. Then we were fortunate enough

to go up to Aleppo, which is a long sort of friend of mine went, he was in the x-ray department and we went up there. Another trip we did was to Balbeck which is you know over the Syrian hills. And that was interesting. On the way back from there we had to come down from Balbeck down to Beirut. And we had to go down over this huge range of hills or mountains really. And as we came, we came through on a Sunday. And the church bells were pealing. Now in the clear mountain air to hear all these

church bells pealing and see the people going to church in their you know in national costumes, and to hear those church bells pealing was just magnificent. That’s something I’ll never forget. We were fortunate enough to get to Petra. That’s a trip not many did and I think our unit would probably be one of the few in the Middle East at that stage who had the time or the chance of getting there. And that was to, you get there by, we went, went there by car. We had about oh five carloads I think, about thirty people there was.

And we were in the middle of nowhere. And I don’t know if you know Lawrence of Arabia country but it’s absolutely nowhere. And in the distance there was an Arab on a camel and he was just coming slowly across and we were coming this way. And at this particular point we had to toot our horns to get him out of the road. Now this was in the middle of nowhere, absolutely nowhere and yet we had to toot our horns to get an Arab out of the road. It was ridiculous. But you know it’s just one of those things that happen. And now we

travelled there and we had to report in to all the, what they called forts or stations of the trans-Jordan on the way down to Petra. And you report to one and then the next day you leave that one and you report to the next one at a certain time. And if you don’t arrive there at the certain time, there is communications start because a lot of bandits around that area, particular area. So in the days before the war you had to report to each one, which we did.

And then you come to this, what they call the Sikh. And it’s a great big long tall gorge really but between overpowering hills. And you go through this passageway and then you come across Petra and you see that’s what they call the Treasury, which is a pink stone, absolutely magnificent. So we were there for quite a while. We had about four or five days in Petra then we came back. And another trip of course we did down to Luxor, In Buselli we got a bit of leave and went down to Cairo and to

Luxor. And Luxor is all the ancient Egyptian traditions of Tutankhamen. And unfortunately we didn’t see his treasures but to get in to the middle of the pyramid, you go, we went right into the middle of it, where the burial chamber was. So you know all these types of things that we had the opportunity of seeing in the Middle East, which very few units had the opportunity of seeing. So we were fortunate there, we had this great CO. So we saw a lot of places, Alexandria, Cairo, as I say

Luxor, Dead Sea, oh the Roman Amphitheatre at Oman. And all this type of thing, you know it was magnificent. So we were lucky.

I think probably the first sight of Jerusalem and Bethlehem strangely enough. But I think probably the most I would remember would be Petra and Luxor, they were two magnificent places

to visit. Aleppo was unusual with the trip up there with all the comical houses. And the huge waterwheels at Hommes and places like that. But certainly Luxor and Petra would be the highlights.

Well we didn’t notice much difference actually. Really they were sort of integrated at that stage. I don’t think the Arabs were very

pleased. I think they would have been pleased to see the Germans take over originally. But the Jews, yeah Jews and Muslims, I think everybody seemed to get on reasonably, on the surface, I don't know what happened under the surface but on the surface. Being wartime of course I suppose were a reasonably strict curfew that they were probably kept down a bit. But didn’t seem to be well any trouble brewing anyway while we were there. But I say,

that’s only an outside experience. You don’t know what’s simmering under the surface. I think everything was halted during the war more or less. And that was, so I can’t give an opinion on that really cause I’m not sufficiently au fait with it to know.

Well we went for

a trip up through Aleppo. We went with, we got, we hitch hiked most of the way and we had various Arab drivers. And on the first part of it we were going along nicely so he said oh come home and I’ll give you a cup of coffee, Turkish coffee. He didn’t say Turkish, but he said, “I’ll give you a cup of coffee.” Which we found out to be Turkish coffee, anyway which was a very strong brew. But they were very affable when we spoke to them and we seemed to get on well with them. I think Australians get on well with most people anyway. And normal

interactions I think were much the same cause a lot of our people visited the, some of the villages, the Arab villages in Palestine during the war. They, one particular group went and they, oh no this was in Syria. They went this particular time and they went to visit this village. And they’d just had a, more or less a bit of a picnic before they went and they were fairly, they’d had enough to eat anyway. And they went into this village, and then

the first house they went to they insisted they have something to eat and something to drink. Which could hardly take and then they visited the mayor of the village and he insisted the same. And they finally left the village about ten o’clock that night after seemingly eating all day and drinking coffee all day. But they were very well received and very popular amongst the troops. I think most Australian troops got on very well with the Arabs.

Well yes they were yes. They seemed to enjoy it, inviting people in and being you know hospitable to them. So that was quite pleasant.

Oh most of them seemed to speak fairly good English. Or the people we did to anyway. In some cases you were more or less pantomime. And you tried to convey what you thought or what you couldn’t eat or what you could eat and so on. But no they seemed to get

on pretty well and communicate in a way.

Just you know a smattering of a few words that’s all. You know “marleesh”, and oh I’ve forgotten them now it’s so long ago. But just a few words you know for a bit of communication.

Not that I know, I think there was only one that, and he was warned by the CO to be careful. He was on the ORs but very little interaction. They were in concert parties and various stages the local girls and came in. But there was very little fraternisation between the troops or between certainly the hospital and outside troops, very little.

Oh they were quite interesting actually. You know their national songs and they had little,

you know did little reviews like our own, sort of much the same. And they could all you know do it in English. And at one stage we went to, we had a, strange enough we had a theatre at a place in Rehovot, mainly for the convalescent patients who you know when they were starting to improve and had nothing to do, so this big theatre was built by the Army, and they used to be picture shows there and concerts, all that type of thing. And they were entertained quite a bit that way. I was trying to think, I was going to say something, I’ve forgotten now.

But the, oh it was the Palestine Symphony Orchestra came out one day to entertain the troops. And they had a funny conductor who conducted with his hands and his feet and everything. But course a lot of people, those Middle East people and the Jews they were very, very talented. ‘Cause a lot of them came from Europe, but they had a very fine orchestra and we went to see them. And on our trip down to Luxor we went to Cairo,

we started from the camp from Alexandria. And we went to Cairo where we went to a concert and I think one of the symphony orchestras was playing there. And then from Cairo we went down to Luxor. And so some of the, you know entertainment was very good. On the way down to Luxor we had a, we were in the middle carriage and a fire started in one of the carriages up the far end of the train. So we didn’t know whether we’d get to Luxor but we finally did. But the train was going, particularly overcrowded.

And another thing of course that’s interesting, that whenever we went on leave to Alexandria we’d get on the train. But being a soldier, Australian soldiers we’d always buy third class tickets and we always travelled first class. And the way of overcoming that was there’d be about six or eight of us in a carriage, and when the conductor came along to get the fares, before he had time to ask for our tickets, one person would offer him a cigarette. And then it all went round the eight and everybody would offer him a cigarette. And he’d say oh okay and away he’d go. ‘Cause a cigarette to the Egyptians in

those days was pretty good. So we always travelled first class with third class tickets.

Well you got away with it and of course being wartime, just interesting little anecdotes that just happen every now and then.

Oh it was mainly VD [venereal disease] of course. And there was a special hospital for that, the 8th Special Hospital catered for VD patients. It was always a danger and particularly perhaps in India and amongst the Arabs. But mainly in India I think, but there was certainly a lot of it in the Middle East there’s no doubt about that. And there was certainly, and there were lots of lectures given to the troops on, and

protective material given to them. But being boys of course, they misbehaved and they paid the consequences. It wasn’t ‘til they got home sometimes that they found that you know they’d had the VD, the diarrhoea ah the gonorrhoea and syphilis that type of thing, appalling disease to get, and really a pretty poor reward for a couple of moments’ fun. But, that was the, you know there was a lot of lectures on that to warn the troops. But I suppose when you’ve been in

battle and you know you’ve suffered what these infantry troops do and the artillery, you forget about a lot of these things. And as I say the 8th Special was formed over in the Middle East and they catered for them. We didn’t see them fortunately. It was a special hospital for that type of thing. And that was disbanded when it came home to Australia and was then renamed the 8th General Hospital like other Australian General Hospitals. But it was disbanded when it got

back to Australia. But it was a necessary thing unfortunately and well the soldiers particularly I think that type of thing goes on. And doesn’t matter how many warnings you get you know you misbehave and you pay the consequences. It was unfortunate.

Oh various ointments which they applied and

I think injections like Prontisor was one of the ones I’m not sure. But I think Prontosil was one of the M & B group. That was sort of given to the Middle East people. But it was pretty hard to cure and it’s you know it’s things that seem to recur. And it was very hard to get rid of.

Oh well sulphanilamide group.

Could well, I suppose they could do yes. Well certainly, well yes, they could, you know I suppose parts of the body would rot through the reason for the syphilis. ‘Cause there’s some well known poets in England I think who have suffered from it and died so yes, it’s just

one of those things.

We weren’t very happy about it but there was nothing you could do. You know it was their culture. But it always amazed the Australians to see the women doing the work. As I say going through a minefield for instance, they say the order procedure was that the wife would go first then a couple of paces

behind her would be the daughters and then the sons and then the husband. And that was the usual procedure through a minefield I believe. That, you know that was the rate of value to a certain extent. But the number of times we saw women carrying huge bundles of oh straw and thickets of branches and all that on their head and of course carrying the water on their head, it always amazed us. And it

you sort of, when we saw these women doing the roads you know. I suppose it really appalled us to think that women had to do that type of work. That was the big cultural difference that we wouldn’t ask our ladies to do what they, the men of Egypt oh right through the Middle East expected their wives to do. So we perhaps look up to our women folk more than they do. Perhaps culture, you know that’s the way they’re brought up. And

the man is the dominant feature and that was it. You get used to it after a while but it’s very hard to take.

Oh I suppose the wearing of the, you know the headgear and all of that type of thing, the, whatever you call it. I’ve forgotten now, you know the covering of the face, all this type of thing. That amazed the Australians too you know,

to see a lady with a face sort of all covered up and not knowing what was there. And clothes from head to foot. And yeah that was, I suppose that would be the main reason.

Well we didn’t take it much really. Even when you went on leave we’d probably have a steak and eggs or things like that, and steak and chips. But when you went into these

areas like Rehovot and Alexandria and places like that. Oh one thing we did enjoy in Alexandria were the cakes you know the continental cakes. ‘Cause compared to army food that was quite a change but normally the food I suppose you’d go into a cafe for a meal and you’d just have what you knew. And the food in Palestine with some of the whats-a-name was pretty tough, cause I think they brought the cattle across the mountains.

It was pretty tough stuff but you got used to it. But of course we had mainly our own food in the hospital. And we had a pretty reasonable diet there and couldn’t protest very much.

No not particularly, anything that was sweet and you know bit of cream in it, that type of thing. But no that was just the normal cakes. But it was you know, the continental cakes I think are much sweeter

than the Australian ones and a little bit different so it was quite a change. And of course the coffee was a bit different in those days to what we, well to what we know now certainly. ‘Cause you’ve got your cappuccino, and all that type of thing, and we used to enjoy going into Alexandria for an afternoon off just to have a break from the army food.

Yeah it was intermittent. But you’d sometimes get about oh ten or fifteen letters at a time then you mightn’t get anything for a couple of weeks or six weeks. But mail time of course was always a terrific time. It was a touch with home you learned all the news of home. You know whether somebody was married or whether somebody had a child or whether you had a new nephew or something like that. I think it helped to brighten up. I think if mail was cut out from an Army, you’d have a

big morale problem. You know to get a letter from home was, particularly from your girlfriend, that was pretty vital. And from your parents of course and people you knew. But you know you really look forward to it and then you’d get say about ten letters, well you’d have to wait ‘til your shift of work was over before you could get onto it so that was a bit of a problem. But you know it was always great to receive the mail. And they, where they could they did a tremendous job because when you think of the thousands of troops that were there.

And the mail only sort of came by I think boat mainly. So it had to get through all the problems of getting the mail from home to the Middle East. So that was you know, you missed mail sometimes cause maybe a ship was torpedoed and you lost, you know you may have lost a bit of mail. Normally within, the postal corps did a great job over there and it was much appreciated.

Oh quite often yeah and particularly when the food parcels came. You know every now and then you’d get these great big parcels about this square from home with, packed with goodies, which the people from home couldn’t spare anyway. But whenever they did come everybody in the tent usually got it so you always shared it. In the dispensary we used to throw parties every now and then cause there were four of us. Or actually there was a lieutenant and three sergeants. So the sergeants used to bring their stuff and we’d have a party there and invite some of the

boys or some of the nurses too just to share in the goodies. And at Christmas time particularly you know when the fruitcakes came and all this type of thing. It was always a good time in the unit and you knew that you had somebody to share it with. So it was looked forward to and it was much appreciated.

Oh tins of fruit, probably sweets and that type of thing. I suppose mainly the fruitcake that was appreciated. And

talking about, pardon me, talking about food it reminds me of when we were in New Guinea. We were, a detachment of our hospital unit was sent up to Nadzab. And we were given machetes and axes and shovels to clear a hospital, clear a jungle site so the hospital could set up. And we lived on M & V, which is meat and vegetables and tinned peaches. Now I can’t face a tinned peach at home even to this day.

We’d have Kellogg’s, or at least corn flakes for breakfast, tinned fruit. We’d have M & V, tinned fruit for lunch, M & V, tinned fruit for dinner at night. Now you had M & V, which is meat and vegetable, which was frozen. It came in tins, which was dreadful. And the poor old cook he’d give you M & V straight one night, the next night he’d make M & V rissoles and the next night it’d be M & V

fruit loaf, the next night M & V something else. And by the time you had M & V and we’re up there for about oh six weeks. By the time you’ve had M & V for six weeks and tinned peaches for six weeks you cannot face it any longer. And it was, I think one of the most unpopular meals in the Army was M & V. Cause you couldn’t disguise it, you know it was frozen. It was just one of those things that happened but oh. My brother-in-law who has passed away, now

he was up in Morotai and they got tinned apricots. And he can’t face apricots. Now what happened I think they got a shipload of tinned peaches and sent it to New Guinea and a tin load of, a shipload of apricots, which they sent to Morotai. Instead of mixing them up, you know, giving you a chance, a variety, they sent them all but. That was my one beef up in New Guinea that M & V and tinned peaches.

Oh big contrasts actually I think you’d say that main, well leave would be the main contrast. ‘Cause when you think of the Middle East and the Biblical associations with the places, where the places to, of interest that you could visit you know. From Luxor, Cairo, Alexandria, Jerusalem, Bethlehem, Dead Sea,

Oman, Petra, then going up in Syria with Sidon, Akar and Tyre you know three Biblical towns. Then we got as far as Aleppo, Beirut, you know you had somewhere to go. But you got leave in New Guinea and all you could do was chase butterflies. There was absolutely nowhere to go in New Guinea. So all you could do was go for walks or do something if you had any days leave. Or of course we’d go to the beach occasionally but there was so much air trouble through bathing up in New Guinea that

you used to dodge that if you could. But that’s the main difference between New Guinea there’s really nowhere to go and you had no break from your ordinary work. But that’s war I suppose, you can’t pick and choose where you want to go.

Yeah, middle ear infection from the bathing. But we used to chase butterflies there’s some beautiful butterflies up there. And you know you get a day off and, I’ll never forget one

day we were after butterflies and I was out you know with a friend of mine. And we came to one spot and he went on, he was a country boy and he knew. And I was standing behind a tree, or straight in front of a tree and I heard this hissing. And I turned around and there was this snake, about, only a little one and it was going ssss-ssss like that. Well I’m a city boy, I hate snakes and I just ran for my life. And he said “What’s wrong?” And I said,

“There was a snake back there.” He said, “So what?” ‘Cause being a country boy a snake is nothing to them. But I tell you what this deadly looking snake didn’t amuse me I can tell you. So it was one time I was glad to get out of there.

No. It was a snake as far as I was concerned and being a small one supposed to be highly dangerous so I didn’t wait to ask.

Don’t think any actually don’t think. I suppose some of the birds were magnificent in colour, the butterflies were magnificent in colour. I can’t think of anything really, ‘cause we didn’t. We weren’t on the sea very much - we were inland at Biusu. We were on the riverbank there. That was a rather amazing experience too.

We were, our quarters were on the riverbank very high and the river was very deep, actually as far as the, it went down amongst a lot of rocks. And we used to do our washing there, like wash our clothes and have a bath there cause the water used to tumble down between the huge rocks. And one morning we got up to find that the water was about, it would have been about twenty or thirty feet down to the bottom on the river. And we got up this night to find the

water was within two feet of the top of the river. It just come down through, poured up the hills and come down through the mountains and it was just a cascade of water. It was about say two feet from the top. And another two feet and the tent lines would have been flooded. That amazed us you know it was one day there was nothing there and the next day it was, it had risen about oh must have been about twenty of thirty feet. It was incredible. But pouring down from the hills there of course, it was just a mass of water. So how

our troops crossed the river, some of the rivers they had to do you know with full army kit I don't know. It must have been very hard. But we were lucky that time you know, the water stopped, stopped at that level.

Yes we left, well as I say we had two years,

we arrived in the Middle East in February, we left Australia on the fourth of the second ‘41 and we left the Middle East on the second of the second ‘43 so we had almost two years in New Guinea, oh in Middle East. And we came back on the New Amsterdam, which was in convoy with the Queen Mary and Isle de France actually. So we just came back to Australia, so we were fortunate we got back safely.

Arrived back in Melbourne and had leave so became engaged. And then we went back to Puckapunyal to run the hospital up there. And we ran that for oh about six months then we finally left for New Guinea on about the 8 of the seventh, 8 July we left to go to New Guinea on the Hang Yeng. The Hang Yeng compared to the Aquitania was chalk and cheese. We had the job

of loading all our equipment onto the Hang Yeng which went into the holds. And you went from, you had to go down, there was the wharf, and then you had to go down a plank onto the top deck of the Hang Yeng. And it was a very small ship. And the wharfies were on strike as usual and we had to load the ship ourselves. And when we finished loading it and they said “Right now we’ll be going to New Guinea.” And we said, “Well where’s our ship?” And they said, “That’s it,” and we were on the Hang Yeng. And the accommodation

was we slept in the holds. Some of, I think about three officers had a cabin. There were no sisters with us at that stage. And our meals, they had what they call a Wiles Cooker on the deck. All our meals were cooked in that, it was just like you know you see some of these vans outside the state library and things like that. And just, it was about that size, and that was slung on the side of the ship, all the meals were cooked there. Our toilet was slung over the side. It was a plank over the side of the ship, which was covered.

So there was no toilet facilities more or less there was no flushing of toilets, you just, I won’t say any more. And we had all our meals on deck. So we went up through, which was rather a nice trip actually, we went up on the inside of the Barrier Reef and there are a lot of islands up there which amazed me, I didn’t know there were so many along. And right up through the coast, then we went up to Buna. Arrived in Buna, we staged there for about oh three months and we opened a hospital in February

‘43, no December sorry, December ‘43 we opened in Lae. So we were there from December the 28 until Christmas Eve the 24 December 1945. So we had another two years in New Guinea. Operating we were in New Guinea for about two and a half years. So we had the hospital was set up as usual with you know the tents and that type of thing.

Once again 60 to a ward, but after a while they had to get rid of the tents because the mildew was affecting them so much and it was so expensive to keep putting up tents that suffered from mildew. So we eventually got native huts. So we operated with a thatched roofs on a, I think it was on a dirt floor for a while. We may have got concrete after, I’m not sure. But we started off with the dirt floors. I know the cookhouse was on a cement slab. Because some of our members went

up there after the war and the only thing that was there, left there was the cement floor of the cookhouse. ‘Course the jungle had over grown our site. And so there’s nothing left of the hospital now. I, actually when I was up on a pilgrimage in 1995, I asked one of the local residents in Lae how I could get up and see the hospital. ‘Cause the Unit Association had asked me if I could you know take some photos. He said there’s nothing for you to see. He said the only thing you’ll see will be the concrete slab of the cookhouse. And he said all the rest has been overgrown

by jungle. So that’s how quickly. So I didn’t get up there.

Well the first impressions came before New Guinea, we, actually we went up going, pardon me, can you turn it off.

After we travelled up through the Barrier Reef we then headed off northeast to New Guinea. And pulled in at Lae where we were

quartered for about four or five months with another hospital. And then we moved up to Lae. But in the mean time our hospital was going all sorts of duties with other units. And our CO decided that we may be going up to Nadzab, which was a big airport up there at the time. And he sent a detachment of us up oh about two months before Christmas to dig out a hospital site from the jungle. Well they armed us with picks and shovels and axes.

And we went up to Nadzab and we were there for about six weeks. And we were clearing this jungle site, which was no mean feat of about 50 men. And we’d almost got to this certain point where we couldn’t go any further and one of our officers was over with the American mess, just quite close. And he was having a drink with the American what name and he said, “Well what are you doing up here?” He said, “Oh we’re just clearing this hospital site, just so we can build a hospital.” And he said, “What are you, how are you going?” He said, “Oh we’re getting there slowly.”

And he told them what was happening with the picks and shovels etc. And he said, “Hey buddy,” he said, “Just a minute.” So he went out and the next day two bulldozers from the American camp arrived over and did in about four hours what we’d taken about six weeks to do, with our picks and shovels. But we had in the mean-time we had some funny experiences that which was quite, quite laughable along the away. But at one stage we came to a bamboo grove, and the bamboo was about

oh four inches across. And we had to hack through this to get it down. And one of our chaps had a machete and he was cutting the bamboo and he cut right through a wasp’s nest, a huge wasp’s nest. And they reckon that I broke the 400-metre record in the army on that particular day, because I was stung by about four of these wasps. And I got from that spot to our little RAP attachment I reckon in about five seconds. So I was credited with an army record. The other thing

was that we were digging this hospital site and we had to dig down trees with axes. And we came to this particular tree and there was a lot of rotting vegetation under it. And we were clearing it away we were just prodding in our machetes and our axes etc. And we disturbed a spider. And I’m not kidding that spider was about six inches across, its legs were about eight inches long and it was the most horrible looking thing we’d ever seen in our life. About

12 axes, machetes and spades descended on that spider in no time. And we despatched it very quickly. But it was a dreadful looking thing. And somebody said in a recent talk about the nurses that in the prison camp, who came across a spider of this size and I can quite believe it, it was a horrible looking thing. Another thing is, one of our sergeants was a rather rotund chap he was about as tall as he was wide. And he grabbed the branch to cut down the, to hack it off with

a machete and it wriggled in his hands. And he found that he had a tree snake and he didn’t realise it was a tree snake all he saw was a wriggling snake. And he turned a double back somersault in about half a second. And that was about the only amusing incident. But we arrived back in camp just before Christmas, the attachment at Buna to find we were going up to Lae. Despite all our work, despite all the hardships and we had up there, we found that they were just going to abandon the site and they were going to have a new site on the Busa River up in Lae.

Never used. And anyhow we were very pleased with our acting CO at the time. He said oh you chaps have done a reasonable job, he said you’ll have to work harder in the future. And this was Christmas Eve so it went over like a lead balloon. Anyhow we moved up to Lae on the, we arrived at Lae on the twenty-fourth of the twelfth, which was Christmas Eve 1943 and we stayed there ‘til Christmas Eve, twenty-fourth of the twelfth, 1945. So we

had two years at Lae and about two and a half years in New Guinea. So that were some of the things that happened you know in the army which you never hear about.

I think the jungle coming right down to the shore. We landed at Buna and the jungle really comes down to the beach there and that was rather impressive. The other thing was that the Japs had been attacking

Buna when we arrived. And all the tops of the trees had been shot out with shells and that type of thing, which shows what the infantry had to put up with. But it was pretty you know the trees were almost bare all the leaves had been shot off, all the branches and things like that. Just intense artillery and from the Japs and planes, so it made a mess of the coastline. But then we went up to stay there for quite a while. Just building roads and doing things like that. And then we moved up

to Lae. Lae was just a little port, just a little bridge more or less that we arrived at. There was nothing to, only a, not even a pier to walk on. Just came straight off the boats into the water onto the beach where we stacked our gear. And all our goods were there, waiting to be moved up to the Busa River, which was about ten miles inland. And we had a few air raids there. One particular air raid came when some of our fellows were there and the bombs started to drop. And

they were dropping at regular intervals and then they stopped. And when they went back the next morning they found that the bombs had been coming about every oh I suppose fifty yards or so. And the next one, which would have landed would have been right on our goods and on our crews. So they were lucky they ran out of bombs at that particular stage.

Not particularly. No because, oh when we went up there of course they’d advanced from Port Moresby through to Buna had been taken, Sanananda had been taken. And Lae

was just about to be taken. And we got there just about as the troops were leaving Lae.

Oh reasonably I think yeah, as the battle went on you heard reports. And there were talks from officers you know about it, what was going on. And when they had to set up the hospital, what would happen, where the Japs were. So, yeah we were pretty well informed.

Oh no we had our tents, we were sleeping

in tents of course. And palliasses, and, the only thing that worried most of the troops was their gear, because the mildew got into their kit bags. See most of their gear was stored in their kit bags. And with the humidity and the closeness of everything together, the mildew got in very quickly. And this is what happened with the tents of the hospital itself, the mildew got into the tents very quickly and ruined it. And it was very, very expensive to keep putting up large marquees for the hospital. And so for that reason they had to have

the native huts with the thatched roof.

Oh it didn’t seem to affect it, you know they were all right you know, they were well covered. And mostly in glass containers whatever we had to use. And course there were ampoules, which it didn’t affect. No most of the stuff was all right because it was well covered.

Yes, December ‘43 to December ‘45.

Well of course, as the fighting was going, they started at Lae and they went up slightly north to the top end, or to the north coast of New Guinea. And then they swung up the coast right up to Wewak so we were getting the casualties from oh well from Lae onwards really, from Buna and Lae onwards. And as the battles were slowly fought then we got the casualties. ‘Course Kokoda Track patients went to

1st AGH in Port Moresby, so we didn’t see many of those but from the, you know along the north coast and right up to Wewak we were getting casualties. And I think we had one of our highest bed states, which was about 1,350 patients. So as they were the wounded, and of course there were a lot of medical patients in New Guinea. With malaria, scrub typhus, all the, you know tropical complaints, tinea and all that type of thing.

In fact I don’t know if you know but scrub typhus was pretty deadly up there early in the war. There was no known cure for it. And seven of our men volunteered to go out as guinea pigs to catch scrub typhus so that they could be experimented on. And they went out in the scrub and rolled in the kunai grass, which there was a little bug lives in the kunai grass. And fortunately they didn’t get it. But they never received any recognition, I mean they were courting death just the same as the

front line. And had they got scrub typhus it’s quite likely they could have died. But our main deaths in New Guinea were from scrub typhus.

In what way?

Scrub typhus.

Oh New Guinea, well it was a lot of work you see, mainly, well not mainly but a lot of battle casualties which was pretty heavy work. Also there was the other side, the medical side

of the hospital where they had these humidity complaints you know like tinea and all this type of thing, the malarias, and the scrub typhus. And I don’t know, it’s a well known, or supposedly a well known story that the thing that stopped the Japs from taking Port Moresby was that they didn’t have supplies to beat their malaria. And a lot of their troops were you know caught down with malaria and they lost of a lot of their intake. And of course the Kokoda Track boys they did the job and stopped them as well. But that

was one of the reasons as well they didn’t get as far in New Guinea as they hoped to. And of course our troops we were on Atebrin the whole time. So much so that our CO who was of course in the medical field, he said anybody who got scrub, anybody who got malaria will be treated as a self inflicted wound. So anybody who got malaria was, went to the hospital they were you know supposedly court-martialled. It never happened but they were warned they could be.

Well I took it

and I never got it. I suffered when I came home a bit I think. Because I used to come out in cold sweats and the Atebrin, you know the yellow of the Atebrin used to pour out in your perspiration. But I think if you religiously took your Atebrin you were a pretty good chance of not getting malaria. And of course chaps in the front line couldn’t always get it and they couldn’t always take it so it was always there. There was also another fever, which they got. Scrub typhus, malaria

and oh I forget the name of it. But there was another one which was

Dengue, yeah, dengue fever.

Oh much the same except perhaps there was more medical work than battle casualties. I think there was more on the medical side for instance. I think overall we treated 18,000 battle casualties and 36,000

medical casualties. So during our five years or four years overseas we treated over 54,000 patients. And with only 105 deaths I think. Our deaths were oh point two percent of our hospital intake, which considering they were battle casualties and scrub typhus we had I think 16 scrub typhus deaths in New Guinea. And that was the main I think 16 out of about 25 deaths in New Guinea. So the scrub typhus was a very prevalent

complaint.

Oh well that was overall, they were the whole casualties.

Our whole death rate over the 54,000 patients was oh point two percent, which was a, 105 deaths. So you know we did very well. But as I say the main what’s-a-name was the scrub typhus in New Guinea. But when you consider you know

you’re treating 18,000 battle casualties, you know it’s not a bad death rate really. Cause there were very severe wounds amongst the battle casualties.

They probably did because the humidity may have had something to do with it. But for instance I think some of the skin complaints, with the humidity they used to bandage them or

put a covering, plastic covering over some of the complaints and the humidity used to sort of sweat it out. And used to for some strange reason which is unusual in medical, in dermatological patients, it seemed to cure it faster. Which was a rather strange anomaly. But that was about the one thing that, there weren’t many innovations really compared to the Middle East.

No, not really, no. ‘Cause sulphanilamide and penicillin had come in by then so you know it was much the same. So no it was just the standard treatments as far as we’re concerned. Battle casualties and their wounds have got to be treated in the same way, and so the same with the medical patients. It’s practically much the same treatment.

‘Bout the same. No trouble, yeah I think they had their medical supply depot just down in Lae itself. So we were fairly well off with all that replacements and for the medical treatments yeah. No it was quite good really. ‘Cause the medical supply teams had been you know were there for quite a while and they knew their job and where they could, they supplied the stuff, it came through quite readily.

Not men, no. Cause you were so busy in pharmacy really you didn’t have a chance. Oh I don’t think, you know if they were severe nobody would be allowed near them apart from the nursing staff. ‘Cause they had to have rest and quiet and just recover slowly. So the outside, I don’t know that visitors to ordinary medical patients, yes you’d go and sort of visit but battle casualties until they were ready to receive visitors, they were looked after pretty well.

Oh well from the time you got up you really, you know you start off with a shower cause of the humidity naturally. Mess at, in the sergeant’s mess or the officer’s mess was usually at eight o’clock. Then straight to work, which was you know between about nine o’clock by the time you had your meal and cleaned up was usually about nine o’clock you started. Went through to about half past twelve. Then you had

lunch in the mess once again, back to the sergeant’s mess which was only about 400 yards away. And then afternoon again from about half past one ‘til six o’clock or half past five whether, how much work was in. So it was just a steady routine I suppose much the same as you do in retail pharmacy. The work was there you did it, any spare time well you just you know sort of started clearing up the place or getting new stuff in the dispensing.

You know we had our storeroom at the back of the dispensary cause you had to replenish stocks so any spare time was usually done. Or dusting or clearing up you know things like that.

Not very much, that mainly came from stores. So it was just a case of fixing things up, making sure there were supplies were there, that supplies were kept up to date. So.

Well in the dispensary we had a lieutenant, later became it was a captain, actually our original order was a lieutenant, a staff sergeant and two sergeants, that was in the Middle East. And when we came back they propped it up to one captain, a lieutenant and two staff sergeants. And that was one of our beefs actually. My friend and I who joined up together we went over as sergeants and we were in the Middle East for two years as sergeants and no promotion. And we came back here after being

there to find that people who’d joined up twelve, eighteen months after us were either staff sergeants, lieutenants or captains. So as a new hospital or something was created or a new position, anybody coming in automatically went into the rank, promulgated by headquarters. I wasn’t made a staff sergeant until we got into New Guinea, about two or three months after New Guinea. And we’d been up there in eighteen months and I was made a lieutenant. So we had to wait you know about three and a half to four years

for promotion. Whereas fellas that had joined up well after us immediately got the rank, which was a bit annoying in a way but I suppose just that they were there on the time.

Nobody. You just had to take it. That was just a, you know just matter of fact. It was just the army the way things panned out you know. They, if a chap came in and, see the army promulgates certain ranks for certain types. And if we were a 1,200-bed hospital, as I say

we had a lieutenant, a staff sergeant, two sergeants, whereas a 600-bed might have a lieutenant and two sergeants or staff sergeants. So as new units were formed or as time went on and the pharmacist was given a higher rank, well they, when you came in you just got it so. Just one of those things that happened in wartime, you can’t do much about it. If you complained you’d probably get kicked out the army anyway.

Oh pretty well, yeah I think so. A medico became a captain first of all I think, then he went up to major and then a lieutenant colonel and then colonel. A pharmacist as I say started with sergeant then from sergeant to captain. If he was in charge of a medical store he might go up to major. Which were very few. But oh no, can’t complain, I mean it was the way things panned

out and you just gotta accept it. I wasn’t worried you know we were there.

The four plus somebody to do, help clearing up. Just a type of rouseabout in a way but he used to do the cleaning and tidying up and perhaps replenish stores or things like that. But the official protocol was for four in the pharmacy. So, you know it was reasonably busy for four people.

It varied, in the Middle East we had a dispensary I suppose oh twenty feet by about twenty feet. With a great big storeroom behind it, you know a hut more or less behind it, Middle East. And New Guinea was a little bit smaller perhaps not quite as big an area.

Oh yeah. The facilities were quite good you know tables, sinks, all that type of thing, all the requirements you needed. Oh yes no problem

there.

Well the chap, the person in charge who was our captain in the dispensary he would be responsible for the registrar. And they came under the miscellaneous people such as the ophthalmic, ear nose and throat, pathology, x-ray and pharmacy were all responsible for the registrar. And then of course you’re directly responsible for the CO. Your main beef would be

of course, if you had a complaint you’d probably could go to the registrar first to lodge a complaint. And then if you wanted to go further you’d probably go to the CO to see whether you got any further or you didn’t. That was the main avenue.

No there was no contact other than the hospital.

We were on the Biusu River, which was about ten miles out of Lae. And that was sort of right in the middle of the jungle to a certain extent. So the only contact you had would be your own. So if you had time off you played table tennis or we played cricket and football up there, there was a squash court in the Middle East. It was mainly cricket, athletics and football.

We had an oval. We carved that out,

and played yeah.

Oh scratch matches against the staff and the other ranks we played the sergeants and the officers or we’d find another unit in the area who had a bit of time off, whoever wanted a game and we’d play against them. More so in the Middle East, than up in New Guinea. But we had a lot of sport in the Middle East getting away from New Guinea. We played football, soccer, hockey against the Indians, the soccer was

against the Tel Aviv people, the Jewish people, their organisation. When we were in the Middle East there was, when we got down to Buselli, there was a great big what they called their fire station, it was an English hospital there before us and they had this fire station. And our officers decided we weren’t going to have a fire anyway. So they went to the CO and asked him could we convert the fire station into a squash court. Which the CO said oh well yeah okay, he gave his approval. So they got to work and converted it

into a squash court. So that was one time we played squash, the only time in the army. Swimming and athletics I suppose. So we had, you know so we represented in all sports, and we had good teams in all sections.

Oh organised.

No it wasn’t any organised, you just played when you could. If an infantry unit came into the area where they were having some time off you’d arrange a match with them and so on. It was just ad hoc really. And if you couldn’t

find anybody else, you just played amongst yourselves, had teams. The ORs were always ready to play the officers and the men, the sergeants, so, no problems there.

Oh in the beach mainly. Tel Aviv was our main swimming area in the Middle East and course at Lae there was a river which you couldn’t do any swimming but there was the beach at oh I’d say about ten miles away at Lae so you could swim there. But there were no swimming competitions in New Guinea like that. Oh I don’t think they had them in the Middle East

either. But there was, we used just to go for recreation swimming.

Very much so. You know when you’ve been working flat out as we were with, for instance when you get up to 1,500-bed patients and you’re working flat to the boards. So the men had to have time off to do something. And when their busy period went by then was the time for the sport. And we had, it certainly lifted morale there was no doubt about that. Because when you’re tired and weary after working those hours,

it’s not like the infantry of course when you’re in action all the time, but where you’re working long hours and working hard hours, to be able to get away to the beach was pretty good. You know for instance in Tel Aviv we’d decide, the boy’s decide they wanted to go for a swim. So they’d approach the CO and he’d say oh yeah okay and he’d get a ten ton truck to take you along to the beach. And all you could see when you got there was people just pouring out of this car just one after the other. It would hold anything up to about 50 to 60 people, a ten-ton truck. So

we had our fun that way.

It does really, but we had some big oh the hospital area, quite some big ground, quite big. And we made the oval out of the surrounding area. So we had quite good grounds and sandy soil down in Egypt of course which was a bit tough. But in the middle, in Rehovot it was quite good.

You know it was quite a good area, that’s where we used to hold athletic meetings there too. It was quite good.

Well there was an Indian hospital next door to us, and in the Middle East, in Rehovot. So we organised a game with them, but they were a bit, a little above us, they could manipulate their stick, like a, just turn their stick like that and they could put the ball anywhere and we were very much amateurs. But we had some good games with them.

You know it was a keenly fought, not rough or tough but it was good games. And with the soccer of course the Tel Aviv boys they were much better than we were but it was a game. And we got beaten nine times out of ten, but we enjoyed it then we’d you know fraternise a little bit with them after the game. Because we didn’t go to their homes cause we had to get back to camp, but we always had a chat to them after the game and they were happy to chat with us. So it was quite good in that aspect.

Oh yes I think you get to know what people are doing in their own and their type of living to a certain extent. And if the son would have been (UNCLEAR) food, you know eat different type of kosher food and all this type of thing. So yeah it was quite interesting. Not much but it was, you did learn a little.

In New Guinea or Middle East?

Well in the Middle East if you didn’t go on leave, go

you know visit some of these areas, there was mainly table tennis, writing letters home, reading letters from home. Perhaps they might go for a walk in the surrounding areas to some of the villages. So there was in the Middle East you know there was always something to do. Mainly table tennis, we played a lot of you know that. Even thought it was hot you’d strip off at night and play about four or five sets flat to the boards then you’d go and have a shower. New Guinea was a little bit the same but there was nowhere to go, you just played table tennis in the mess. And

that was about it I think.

Oh fair to average but you know. We had some good players in our unit. Had competitions against other units, which they won a lot but they were good.

Oh well you had to get leave to do it you know if you wanted to go into Tel Aviv for instance, oh into Rehovot which was the nearest little oh we’d say little country town. We

used to get leave and just go in. As long as you came back at the appointed time and just behaved yourself it was no trouble.

Oh go to the pictures, and a couple of bars in there which cause I didn’t drink during the whole time my Army career. Didn’t worry me but a lot of the boys liked their drink. And one of our chaps was a little bit unfortunate that when the hospital, Polish hospital took over from us when we were leaving Rehovot. And he was in Rehovot one night,

and some Polish fellows were there, I think they were Polish officers or I don't know what they were but he got in drinking with them, because he wasn’t used to their, I don't know what they drink, it’s not Arrack but ...

Might have been Vodka yeah. And they finished up depositing him outside his tent that night. But what they didn’t realise is they’d dumped him in the slit trench. So when the tent woke up the next morning, there was this sergeant flat to the boards

in the slit trench. But that only happened occasionally. But they, of course a number of the boys liked their drink and they used to go and drink the beer, the local beer and things like that. But mainly just to perhaps go into the shops to buy something to send home or go to the picture theatre.

Oh there was a lot of filigree work for instance, which was particular to Palestine and Egypt and India, those places. And

oh just little trinkets you know, little bit about Garden of Gethsemane and all these type of things. So they’re just the trinkets that are a bit unusual to Australian eyes so they were interesting to people at home.

Oh I sent a couple of things home. Yeah I sent my future wife a filigree bracelet and necklace. And which is very fine work, it’s beautiful work. Oh I sent various presents home like

clothing to people at home.

Yeah, they enjoyed getting them when they arrived home. So it was quite good. It was you know if you went to Jerusalem and places like that, there was always the local trinkets and souvenir type thing, which if they were reasonable you could send home. We did that.

Oh you got used to it. It was rupees

in India and ackers and cents in Palestine. So you soon adapted and you sort of worked out mentally whether you were paying too much or whether you were getting fleeced. That was half the fun in India and Palestine that you did this bartering system, which was very unfamiliar to Australians. You know you’d see a, chap he’d offer you a price and you’d say more or less yes. But when you got to know you realised you had to barter to get it down to about half of, and then they were still making a

profit anyway. But the bartering system is very prevalent overseas and we couldn’t get used to that. We, you know were inclined to accept it as that’s the price and that’s it. But unless you bargain it’s not considered a good deal to the traders in the Middle East. Particularly in Jerusalem where you get those little narrow streets with stalls on each side. Unless you went in and bartered you’re not considered a very good customer I don't think.

Oh yeah. But you did, it was no trouble

really worrying about you know the difference in monetary system. You just adapted and didn’t worry about it.

Oh just the usual typical pictures from Hollywood really you know. Course they could all speak English in Palestine as it was in those days. Course it’s Israel now. But no they were all the usual films. And we even had a picture theatre at the hospital to cater for the patients. So

when the patients were getting better and they could walk, it meant they could go to the pictures. So we used to have concerts and pictures at the Rehovot and you know they were all Hollywood. And of course we had Hollywood entertainers who came out. Quite a few of them were, came along, got on the circuit to entertain the troops and we saw quite a few of those. And particularly in New Guinea where there were so many American troops, a lot of the Hollywood people came out there and they were very good.

So we had some good nights there.

I think Bob Hope was there once. I know a few Australians I was trying to think of, I think Stella Wilson was one. I’ve forgotten most of them now but you know they were well known personalities.

Open air yeah. It was quite a big theatre. It sort of seated about oh a couple of

hundred. It was open to the air and quite good on a summer’s night.

Yeah more than New Guinea, you see in New Guinea it was the open-air theatre. Remember what the picture theatres here used to be here in the open air. More like that where you used to sit on benches or you’d take your own can to sit on, that type of thing. And there was a lot of yelling out and a lot of the Americans used to come to them too. And course they were

always yelling out about making ribald remarks about the actors and things like that. But yeah there was a lot of noise and.

Well not so much contact, they were there. And you know we didn’t come in contact with them really. But they were there at the pictures, something like that, probably have a chat to them every now and then but not particularly.

Oh I think first of all their uniform, the amount of money they had, their canteens, what they had in the canteens, the waste of their material. I don't know if I told you or said anything about the jeep that we had as a unit. There was a Sergeant Major went out one night and he saw this jeep in the bush in perfect condition. Nobody around, not a unit within bulls roar of a vehicle itself. So he thought if I leave it here somebody’ll pinch it.

So he came back to camp with it and he started to tell the CO about it. And the CO said, “I don’t want to hear anything about it.” He said, “I don’t know, you haven’t had that conversation with me,” he said, “That unit is not there.” He said, “Get it hidden, get it out of sight and you can keep it.” Well we used to go to the pictures, and we used to pile about 24 bodies onto a small jeep and we’d arrive there. But their waste of material was incredible you know. We, now for instance, I didn’t drink in the army yet I had a liquor ration in

the mess. And I got oh a bottle of whiskey and I’ve only done it once. And I didn’t worry I never worried about drawing on my ration. And I went over, I was with the American canteen one night I think and I was saying something and he said “Oh you’ve got a bottle of whiskey.” And I said “Oh yeah,” and I got a pair of American gloves in exchange. Now they were American driver’s gloves, just their normal transport and they were the most magnificent pair of gloves I’ve ever seen. Soft, suede gloves and I had those for about twenty years after the war

and I was still wearing them. But they were beautiful gloves. And yet you know we had hard gloves in the Australian Army but these were magnificent and these were only their driver’s gloves. And that’s just the difference between the American amount of money that’s poured into their army and the Australian. Course we haven’t got the money to do it. But you know they were well paid, their uniforms were always immaculate and they were always good. And whereas you know some of our uniforms were not quite as good, didn’t look, certainly didn’t look as good as the Americans.

But I’d say that the money angle on the way they looked after their troops was not far better but they had the advantage.

Oh I don’t think so. I think they sort of, I think they knew they were Americans. They probably boasted they were Americans whereas our blokes

didn’t. We were just Australians and that was it, but no I don’t think so. Their characteristics were much the same. And they always thought of their friends and loved ones at home, same as we did. So no they were just typical.

Well you didn’t have the opportunity really. You know they had their American camps and they were sort of kept in those bounds. We had our camps, and we were kept in our areas. And no, you see if you’re in the

Middle East you’d probably meet them in the various, well you might meet in Tel Aviv, you might meet them in Jerusalem. But there was nowhere to go in New Guinea so you didn’t sort of congregate in a town. I think that’s probably the difference. I mean, had they

Yes I was walking down from breakfast one morning, we’d just had breakfast and we were walking down to, I was going down to the dispensary. And the ward staff sergeant was going to his ward and we happen to pass the morgue. And he said, “Oh would you like to see what’s in the morgue this morning?” I said, “Not particularly Jack.” And he said, “Oh well come and have a look anyway.” So we walked inside

and with that he whipped the sheet of the corpse on the slab. And the chap had had his stomach blown out by a hand grenade and it was a gruesome site. And straight after breakfast it wasn’t exactly in a sight I’d like to see. But it just shows you what can happen during the war. I dunno what happened with the grenade, whether he picked it up or whether it was thrown. But he had all his stomach blown out and it was a gruesome sight.

Oh probably wake

me up to what happens in the war I suppose, to realise you know what goes on. We hadn’t seen so much and he was probably used to it so much it didn’t worry him. But he didn’t realise how much it would affect me I think.

Oh very much so. Yeah you see a person like that you know makes you realise what can happen in wartime.

Oh I think when we were in Rehovot with all the battle casualties that came. And the number

that came in. You know when you’re taking 100, 150, 250 patients at a time after battle. You know this is after Greece and Crete and after the Syrian battles and then after Alamein. You realise that particularly when I say probably Greece and Crete was the first awareness. Because I think there had been some battles up in the Western Desert but the casualties weren’t quite as high. But Greece and Crete and places like that, makes you realise what war means when you see so many casualties all in one go. When you see them sort of

lined up beside a train just been, an ambulance train which has just been discharged with a 150 patients, you realise that war is a pretty gruesome affair.

Well what would happen, the patients would come in, if it was a big convoy they’d always come by train. You know if you had two hundred and sixty patients it’s pretty hard to get enough ambulances to get them there so. They usually came by train or that way. And what would happen, the train would arrive by, at a siding just near the

hospital, and be unloaded on stretchers and just laid out, sort of all in line. And then medical or surgical chap in charge would come along and investigate them, see how serious their wounds were or their illness was. He’d say, “Right, Ward 1, Ward 2, or Ward 24, 25,” and so on. And then they would be sent away immediately to the ward so they could be looked after and cared for. So the, it meant that the casualties would be

in the train one moment and practically in the ward, looking after, being cared for within the next five minutes. So they had a pretty good idea and a good, quick assessment of what was needed and they became used to this, they knew what was wanted, what to look for. And so they were sent to the ward, appropriately surgical or medical ward. ‘Cause the hospital was divided into surgical or medical ward, probably about eight to nine medical wards and eight to nine surgical wards. So you know the officer in charge at

that time would know which way, and so he’d say, “Okay, medical ward”. And he’d know how many beds were vacant in each ward at that stage. So he could say, “Right, Medical Ward 6, Surgical Ward 5,” and so on. So they were sent there immediately, they’re put into bed, cared for, washed and cleaned up and their wounds more or less assessed and then of course they’d be sent down to the x-ray. And that’s where we used to come in as a pharmacy you know, a big shipment like that we’d finish our work in the pharmacy,

and then go to the wards, put them on the stretchers, take them up to the x-ray and then bring them back. But some of them were so sick they couldn’t even talk you know they were just out to it. And they were really too ill to want to talk anyway, and any comfort they needed was of course given in the ward by the sisters or the nursing staff. So our job was to get them to x-ray in a hurry, get them back into x-ray and get them back in the ward as soon as we possibly could so they could be looked after.

Well it was actually because it’s, you’re not used to that in civilian life. You’re used to treating sick people but you’re not used to treating battle casualties and things like that. And that was certainly an eye opener as regarding what war means to a nation and to the person concerned.

Oh I think probably, cause I was only 22, 23 at the time so I think it makes you grow up a bit. You know makes you realise that these things happen in wartime and you’ve gotta accept them,

but you’ve gotta do the best you can for each patient. And as I say, probably a matter of growing up and realising what goes on.

Oh yes there were some very, very bad battle casualties. You know if there was a shell lands near a tent or lands on a tent or perhaps a chap’s been in a plane and the plane crashes. And some have horrific injuries and it make you realise that these things are

beyond apprehension really.

I think you learn to absorb it, I think it’s like a sister in a hospital, you see so many patients and yet you’ve to realise that by the time, it’s very hard to treat them as a personal being, because there’s so many of them. And if you become attached to one person you sort of, I think you get a bit out of line as far as treatment’s

concerned. And I think you learn to you know just accept it I think, that’s what it amounts to. Probably get hardened, I don't know. But I suppose when you see so many battle casualties you probably get hardened to the whole idea and blasé about it.

Oh battle casualties like from bullet wounds that type of thing. Probably an artillery

shell you know, exploding in the area. They would be the main problems.

Not very much, it did happen occasionally. Naturally if a chap wanted to go home so he’d shoot his toe off, something like that but we didn’t see much of that really. But it did go on there’s no doubt about it. But self-inflicted wounds were not regarded very highly in the army. Always a case of anybody who wants to go home would, we had,

we had not so much self-inflicted wounds but we had a couple of cases in hospital where a chap he wanted to go home and he started, every time the MO came in he’d start barking like a dog. And this went on for oh couple of weeks. And they knew he was putting on an act but they couldn’t track it. Anyhow one morning the chap who was in charge of the medical ward came in and before he started to bark, this MO got on the bed and started to bark back at him. And he burst

out laughing. So, the patient burst out laughing so they knew that he was, you know just putting on an act. And the other one was there were a chap was with a walking stick, and you know he considered he was lame and he couldn’t walk properly. And he was passed fit to go back to Australia. And he walked up the gang-plank of the ship and as he got to the top of the gang plank he broke his stick and threw it in the water. And the chappy who had been looking after him just happened to be there. And he saw him do

this. So he said right, back to the hospital and you’re back to your unit. And there was another case I’m just trying to think of it. Never mind we’ll

I think there were a lot of cases of being bomb happy. There were a lot of casualties as regard that area you know with the. See there were continual bombardment from artillery, and continual sniping from

infantry and all that type of thing. And bombardment from planes with air, with air bombardment. And that did, we had a special ward at Rehovot for bomb happy patients. And they were normally invalided back to Australia. It was a very sad way you know cause they’re only young kids, most of them. See most of the infantry were between twenty and twenty-eight. And to have that, they’ve been in a safe environment back home and then to be plunged into that, you know

it’s pretty horrific and of course some people couldn’t stand. And I mean that’s natural, it’s no problem but they were certainly, they used to call them bomb happy in those days.

Oh they’d scream out and they’d act in a funny way. And they’d talk a lot, all this type of thing. You know just the usual insanity case to a certain extent. I think a lot of them

may have recovered when they got back home and to a better environment. But you know when it first happened it was a bit of a shock. The brain is confused so you know anything can happen. It was a case of trying to pick out those who were genuine which would be ninety-nine point nine percent and who was you know malingering. I think, the one I was trying to remember was a chap came into the dispensary one day. And he had a prescription, a lotion or what it was to go back to his unit. ‘Cause you know they see the MO

at the hospital and you know looks and says okay you can, you’re well enough to go back to your unit and we, or you can go to hospital. And this lad came in with a prescription labelled this patient is suffering from plumbi agitans. Now the patient said, “What’s the MO said about me?” Well we didn’t have the heart to tell him that plumbi is lead and agitans is swinging. And he was referring that the patient was ‘swinging the lead.’ So, which was an army term of course, I don't know if you know that. But it was an army term,

‘swinging the lead’ is bunging on an act. And so we didn’t have the heart to tell him that the MO said he’s you know he’s putting on an act and he’s sending him back to his unit, the only other case that came in front of the dispensary.

No. No I don't know what the treatment was for that. I think it was just rest and quiet mainly. Probably sedatives you know, sort of such as, oh they wouldn’t give them morphia for that. But

just a sedation and quieten them down. Phenobarbitone and all that type of thing, they would be the main treatment. And then of course they’d be on more sophisticated tablets when they got home I suppose.

No, not that I know of, not in our hospital, anyway, might have been another hospital but no, none of ours. Well we were lucky actually I think we were probably one of the luckiest units in the army really. The way we were (UNCLEAR)

in Rehovot and Sidon and Buselli. It was good areas and you know good, reasonable working conditions, hard working conditions but reasonable. And so we were a bit fortunate.

Well when you’re going on leave yes. Not with the officer, I mean they were

usually kept to themselves which was fair enough. And they had their own friends in the officer’s mess anyway. So if they went on leave they would go with their friends and the officers and that. Whereas when we went on leave we would go say with a sergeant or a staff sergeant and the three of used to, whenever for instance for, we all worked for one another. Now if one of us, if the staff sergeant went on leave it meant that the lieutenant and the two sergeants would have to carry the burden of the work, which we did. Because we knew that our turn was coming, so that he went on leave,

he got his leave, we worked, we went on leave, somebody worked for us. It was reciprocated so we very rarely went on leave together because we couldn’t afford two out of the dispensary at the one time. So I used to always go on leave with a chap from the x-ray department. We were particular friends and we palled up. And well we’d go with somebody else, a group of us you know. Sergeants who were off duty who had the chance of getting on leave, we’d just pal up and go together. That’s the way it worked.

But as far as you know we had a great team in the dispensary and we worked very well together. So we were you know a good composite unit together. But as far as going on leave we couldn’t go on leave together because of the circumstances.

Yeah, well we had a, the sergeant who was my particular friend he went in with a bad throat and he was in hospital for oh a couple of weeks.

And the other one had something wrong, I forget what it was and I had to go into hospital at Christmas time in ‘41, I got typhus. And I was in hospital for about six weeks. So they had to work hard while I was there. So I spent, I had an omelette for Christmas dinner, which didn’t please me very much I can tell you. But they worked, see I was, it was just unfortunate that I had a long time off and they had to work for me see.

Lot of

fever, lot of you know being hot. Not, wasn’t allowed to move for about two or three weeks, had to stay in bed. And couldn’t do much, could just rest and then treatment and that was it. But yeah the fever wasn’t very good. They, we, actually how I got it was I thought they meant typhoid but it was typhus. The, we had a lot of cotton wool bales in the back of the dispensary, the friend and I we slept there, we guarded the goods you see.

And we used to sleep there each night. And they think there’s some fleas or something like that got in or bug’s got in to the cotton wool bales and that was how I got infected. So it wasn’t very good I tell you.

Yeah, we slept in the store we didn’t sleep in the tents in Rehovot. We did elsewhere but Rehovot was a very big storeroom, and it was quite palatial and so we had our two cots in the, or beds in the back of the storeroom. So if any Arabs broke in or anybody wanted to

you know walk into the dispensary, we were there more or less to protect it. Apart from being near showers and things like that in one of the wards, so it was you know wasn’t too bad.

Oh no it was much the same, because you know once you’re in the pharmacy you’ve got to keep the, what’s needed and supply the wards, keep the

all the wards up to scratch and see they didn’t get, you know see that they had enough material. And just do it that way. And when work came in you did the work and that was it. So there weren’t really many changed conditions as far as the dispensary was concerned compared to the Middle East. ‘Cause you know it was a department of a hospital, you had work to do, and so you just fitted in with everybody else. And did what was supposed to be done, you know.

Christmas in 19, we were packing, yeah well Christmas in 1943 when we come home, ‘41, ‘42. It would be Christmas ‘42 was a very busy one ‘cause we were in Buselli and we were ready to come home. Which meant that the hospital had to be picked up so, or packed up so we had about three to four hundred cases of goods to be packed within I think about a fortnight.

And it was the same when we moved from Sidon to Syria, ah from Rehovot to Syria. And then when we came home from Buselli, as I say we had all the equipment. You see all the equipment comes back, in the pharmacy we supplied the x-ray department, the eye department, ear nose and throat, dental department, oh and any other department plus the, all the wards. So we had all the, that type of thing apart from the beds which was the QM. So we had all that equipment.

And the x-ray equipment was very heavy, huge boxes, and we had to lump those around, we didn’t have any mechanical treatment like the Americans. That was another big difference between Americans and us, we lumped our cases with man-power. They had machines to lift them. But of course we had to pack all this stuff and we had say three to four weeks or two to three weeks to do it. And it meant it was working through Christmas in 1942 was a pretty rush job. But then we had, we would have had a

sergeant’s mess dinner, Christmas dinner. And probably I think we may have waited on the men. The usual army procedure was that the officers wait on the sergeants and the sergeants wait on the men or the officers wait on the men for Christmas dinner. So we did that and had our own Christmas dinner and then that was it. So it was quite a pleasant, the second one was quite good. And quite a lot of our unit went to Jerusalem and Bethlehem. Which was rather nice you know for Christmas to

spend in those places. And I think in the first year when I was in hospital they had snow in Palestine which they hadn’t had for donkeys, you know, years. And they, quite a good batch went to the Church of the Nativity down at Bethlehem and the main church in Jerusalem for Christmas time. And they had a very enjoyable time there. But I think the second year I say when I was there I don't think they went that time. Some of them might have gone. But

the main body stayed in camp cause it was so close to sailing to, back to Australia.

No we came home in February ‘43. We left Australia on the 4 February 1941 and we sailed for Australia on the 3 February 1943.

Oh no that was from New Guinea.

No oh that was in the Middle East we came home. No we went up to New Guinea in about August ‘43 we had six months to stay there then we were up in New Guinea. It would have been ‘44, yeah 1944, November 1944 I got leave to come home. So I rang the wife or future wife and told her

all right I’ve got some leave, I’m coming home and we’re getting married. So we’d arranged to get married on my first leave. So that was rather strange that at that time the only day available of course was the Saturday was Melbourne Cup Day. So, you wouldn’t know but in those days Melbourne Cup Day during the war was on the Saturday. So we got married on 11 November 1944 and under strange circumstances. Because when I rang up my brother and said, “Look you know

can you arrange the wedding,” and all this type of thing. My wife was able to arrange the minister ‘cause she went to the local church. So we had to find accommodation. And he rang everywhere in town, and course being Melbourne Cup Day there was no accommodation. And the only accommodation we could get was at the Victoria Coffee Palace, pretending that we were P & A performers. That was the Professional & Amateurs in those days, you probably haven’t heard of that either. That was a, quite a radio show on the Sundays. And all the P & A performers used to be booked into the

Coffee Palace, the Victoria Coffee Palace. And so the only way we could get a booking there was to say, pretend we were P & A performers and we would disappear on the Sunday night or the Saturday night whenever it was when the show was on, which they did. So anyhow it was finally arranged that we stay there. After the wedding we about ten o’clock arrived in town over to Victoria Palace, they didn’t have a booking. No notice of it. So there was I stranded in town with a new wife and no accommodation.

So fortunately I had the keys to the shop, ‘cause I had a business, like we’re in business in Collins Street at that stage. So I had the business keys and I went inside and used the phone and rang up every hotel in Melbourne. No I’m sorry sir we’re booked out, got no possible. So in sheer desperation I rang Menzies Hotel, which was the last place in the world you’d expect with all the western districts people. And I put on a bit of a, I hadn’t done it before so I put on a bit, I said oh look it’s Lieutenant Beaumont speaking, I’ve just arrived down from New Guinea I’ve just been married and I’ve got no accommodation for the night.

Oh that’s all right sir we’ll find a room for you, which they did. So went down there to find all the lights were out in the hotel. Which they apologised for, so oh don’t worry we’ll get used to that. So that’s what happened, we were stranded in town on Melbourne Cup night without a bed. And then the following day we went over to Cowes for our honeymoon. We were lucky to get there too because it was like in Melbourne in those days. And there was a boat,

which was going from, you had to catch the train down to the part where the boat left to go to Cowes. And there was a boat at the wharf it was about that high above the water. And there’s so many people there, they all crowded on. And course I, we, I stood back a bit and we were about oh three or four left. And they said are you coming aboard. I said, “Oh look we’ll wait for the next one.” He said, “I’m sorry sir,” he said, “There’s no next one this is the only one.” And that boat was that far above the water line. And the people at Cowes were on the jetty

wondering whether we’d make it. So we had an adventurous honeymoon I can tell you, just one of those things that happens during wartime.

That’s right yeah. But we had no idea that they would even start cause they had no life belts, they didn’t have enough life belts for the people who were on board. And we just said oh they couldn’t possibly go and it was a little bit rough you know with the water. But as I say that far above the water and we eventually got there so we were lucky.

I came down well 11th November,

I would have come down about the 8th and got a month’s leave. And I was due back I was told I had to be back in Lae well before Christmas to allow the next person to come on leave. Because you know we’d been up there, most of us had been up there for two years. And so they had a rotation system, so if I stayed down in Melbourne longer it meant that the person couldn’t come down. So I said oh well that’s bad luck, they said you gotta be back by Christmas time. So I said fair enough, so went into the staging

camp and got our papers and we moved up to Townsville. And we arrived in Townsville about a week before Christmas. And lo and behold where do you think I spent Christmas, in Townsville, in a camp, a staging camp in Townsville. Instead of spending it back with the unit and having probably a good time with the unit back at Christmas time, I was stranded in Townsville. Instead of spending it at home with the family as I could have, there was I left high and dry. So that’s

one of the things in the army which really annoys you but there it is. The idea was that I had to get back to the unit for somebody else could come so what can you do.

Well we did get lost when I first joined up. When I, we were sent from the Town Hall, Melbourne Town Hall to Caulfield and instead of being attached to the unit as I say, we’d been to see colonel, I think I told you that about going to see colonel. Instead of going up to the unit,

he’d evidently chosen us in his unit, there we were between I think, between July, between August and September and October we were at Caulfield, lost in the system playing football and doing route marches. So how we got lost I don't know but yeah you can get lost in the system very easily. Not often but it does happen.

Oh very difficult yes. It was not easy I can tell you.

You know a new wife and just being married, and back amongst all your folks and getting a little bit of leave which is you know going to places you’ve been wanting to go for a while. And suddenly you know you’re back on duty again. But I suppose once again the army teaching you know you accept the good with the bad and you learn to cope with it. You just say farewell to your wife and amid all the tears and then you go back. Just one of those aspects that you know you cannot do anything about.

So you got to, you either go down or you accept it. And I think most people accepted it anyway.

It may have I think if I had of been in an infantry unit or an artillery unit or something like that perhaps. Where the chance is you know of death just around the corner. But perhaps being in a hospital unit not so much. ‘Cause you know we were pretty sheltered people in a way, being in a hospital unit.

There wasn’t the same stress or the same strain knowing what we were going back to compared to fellas you might feel sorry for under the same circumstances. You know it must be horrific going back to that not knowing what’s going to happen in the next 24 hours. So, I was lucky in that regard. Got to say, you get treated badly, well not badly but you know the case in Townsville and you suddenly realise how lucky you are that at least you’ve got a unit to

go back to.

Oh yes an allotment goes into your pay book, I forget what it was, probably about five bob a day or something. Some horrendous sum of money but yeah I think it was paid automatically in. I think I came out the army with about 412 pounds. From deferred pay and all that sort of thing. Which was enough, just about enough for a, to buy a block of land, when I came out the army.

Oh well it just went in, yeah well there was nothing to spend it on so it just more or less went straight into your pay book, your weekly pay, I forget what an officer’s pay was. I know when I first joined up it was five shillings a day for private and then I think a sergeant got about six or seven shillings a day. But in the Middle East you could spend it because you could go on leave and you know visit a coffee shop or buy something. But in New Guinea it just went straight into your pay book. So

there was that advantage about it.

Well it was mainly jungle really you know. The only time you’d appreciate it was when you caught a nice butterfly and or with a beautiful colouring then you’d let it go. But you know it was all jungle really, the same type of scenery. We didn’t get up in the mountains very much.

But if you’re probably up in the, around the Kokoda Trail or something like that, you might have some nice scenery across the ridges. But where we were, sort of you know just on the sea level to a certain extent across on the Biusu River. So that was very nice, that was very picturesque but the scenery itself, you know pretty monotonous, it’s mostly jungle, so not much variety.

No,

no. No it was, not that I know of in the unit. We had a few artists but I don't think they did that.

Oh I think mainly men in the units. Just circumstances and probably just what was in various wards. I think one was a bit of a cartoonist actually. I think he used to draw in a situation with the men in them and the relations of one you know say a man to an officer or something like that.

And those in the wards and perhaps nursing patients and things like that.

No, practically nothing, the Q Store would have because they got some of their fresh vegetables from the natives, but as far as the average, no. Well you didn’t know the language anyway so that was not much good. They didn’t come into the hospital very much.

The only people that would come to the hospital I think would be the people providing the provisions, which we didn’t get from our own headquarters. No there wasn’t much contact with the, not in our section anyway with the natives.

Yeah the dispensary was built. See they had, instead of having tents they had to have, build these native huts. And I think ANGAU [Australian and New Guinea Administrative Unit] people probably built the huts. And they were you know just

oh thatched huts really with a thatched roof and just the thatched sides of the, an open space between the top and the bottom shell. And that was the same with the dispensary you know it was just a hut that we worked in. Whereas the wards were, they had the long petitions, long area underneath the eaves and the top of, and the wall. And they would be, let the air, fresh air in, or what air there was in.

Oh

very good yeah. Oh better that the mildewed tents so that’s one consolation. But oh no they were very good actually you know. It’s typical of the area, of the people in the area. And they knew what was reasonable and what was worthwhile putting up. Which we kept putting up the tents and getting mildewed, it was just hopeless.

Very heavy, I think I mentioned before, that one of the things I noticed lying in a bunk one day and I heard this noise

coming across. And I thought oh there’s some planes flying over. But it was the rain in the distance, and as it came over on the treetops it got louder and louder and louder until it hit the camp and then you absolutely got drenched. You know it came down in torrents. But the noises that came over the treetops was amazing, I’ve never heard anything like it before or since. And just couldn’t fathom out what it was. And then you got used to it and you realised what the noise was. But it’s amazing noise.

Yes it did come over regular hours. Bit like the Middle East always amazed us. We were over there and somebody said oh it’s going to rain, this was about oh I suppose March or April or something. Somebody said it’ll rain on the 22nd October for instance. And we just laughed outright and said oh you’re man you know, knowing Melbourne’s weather, four seasons in one day. He said no, no, 22nd October, that’ll be the day it’ll rain. He said then it’ll stop for a week,

then we might get some more. And it happened. It rained on that particular day then stopped for a week and then they got some more. You know, for Melbourne people that’s, incredible. Just one of those things that, in New Guinea it just rained and rained and rained. How those chaps on the Kokoda Trail put up with it I don't know, it must have been horrendous.

Nothing. Absolutely nothing. It was only sort of after the war that I heard of the exploits of the

39th Battalion and the 2/14th Battalion, and a few other, you know, infantry units that we realised what had been going on. But we’d moved up to oh we must have moved up to Lae by that time, we were in Buna and then moved up to Lae.

Well the first thing I heard of course was when the 6th and 7th Divisions

come home. We were supposed to be coming home at the same time but we were attached to the, oh we were in Syria at that time I think. And the first thing we knew the Japs come into the war was when they recalled the 6th and 7th Divvies to come home to protect Australia. And that sort of brought home to us what the, you know what it meant. They were bringing Divisions home. And the 9th Division, we were attached to the 7th to start with and then we became attached to the 9th

Division when we went down to Alamein. And we thought we were going to Italy with the British 8th Army, ‘cause we were attached to the 8th Army. And as it happened we sort of came home in February. That was surprised us cause we had really expected you know to go on to Italy and keep going with the 8th Army.

Not very much, just that we’d heard a few things about Manchuria

how they were a bit brutal. And their way of living, they didn’t take you know, you didn’t volunteer as a prisoner of war as a Japanese you know you committed hari-kari. And I think that explains you know a lot of their treatment of POWs [Prisoners of War]. That they just didn’t believe in it, being a POW. We knew they were brutal but didn’t realise it extended as far as it did. You know with our boys at Changi and the other areas you know in Burma. So that was a bit of a

shock I must admit when we heard about that.

Later on, yeah. Well that was almost after the war, that was yeah that was the, yeah I don't think we found out about, well maybe we knew about Changi until after the war or the end of the war.

Oh yeah we knew, you knew their movements. You mean the Middle East.

Oh yeah, oh yes you

got, there was a little magazine used to come out every now and then. And they used to print these various things, the position of the war. And you’d, often in routine orders they’d often mention it you know, if the Japanese had taken Rabaul or something like that. So yeah you reasonably kept up to date with the news, the various, and what was allowed out. Cause some of the information wasn’t allowed out so you never knew about it. But what was available was printed in you know, well printed in the Jewish papers.

The, you’d often get a copy of those if they printed in English. As I say our own little magazine or routine orders from your unit would mention these things.

Well absolutely amazed. You know I think we had the general impression it was impregnable, like everybody else, it had to be attacked from the sea to be taken. And that was a, as I say that was a fortress as far as any approach from the sea was concerned. ‘Cause when Singapore fell that was just a, well an eye

opener really. I mean it was just staggering news that Singapore had gone. I don't think any Australian soldier thought for one moment that Singapore would fall. Considering you know, well it was supposed to be so strong against invading forces that it was just a miscalculation of where the force came from. And they came through the back door and that was it. There was nothing to protect it. I think it was only the causeway you know into Singapore that was really, could have been protected. And of course with bombing

that was, just hopeless so.

I think possibly a little bit disappointed that it could happen. That there weren’t sufficient planners, not that we thought about it much I suppose. Oh it was just a case of oh Singapore is gone, that’s it, you know. We’ll have to fight somewhere else. But I think probably a bit disappointed that they weren’t far sighted to see that

you know there were other avenues into Singapore. I think that was a bad wartime mistake. But you know not being planners or being able to do anything about that, I suppose, I don’t suppose it affected you that much. It just was a case of you accepted it and that was it. It was you know just one of the things of war that happened and you don’t know ‘til after it’s happened that it’s going to happen. That’s all it was.

Well we were a bit worried naturally, ‘cause with the way things were going. If it hadn’t of been for the Coral Sea Battle we would have been in dire straits. And also I say the Kokoda and those avenues. And other places, Milne Bay of course where the Australians fought back from there. There were three deciding things I think was the Kokoda Track, the fights at Milne Bay and the Coral Sea battle, ‘cause that turned the navy back, the Japanese Navy.

If they had have conquered the Americans at you know Coral Bay, the Coral Sea Battle anything could have happened because there was no protection. And once they took Port Moresby, well their aerodromes could have been you know wide open. Take Australia, Darwin anywhere. So you know there’s some vital points during the war which you’ve gotta realise that if they hadn’t have happened we could’ve been in dire trouble.

I never knew and I don’t

think the average public knew. I’ve got a brochure at home which shows about I think oh 30 to 40 attacks on Darwin. We thought there was one or two. And yeah one of the chaps from our sub branch had a list, they were up there at the time, they had this list of the attacks on Darwin and the Darwin Harbour. Which is incredible when you read it, honestly it’s an eye opener. But I don't think anybody knew that Darwin had been attacked so much unless it was the people of Darwin, it was never released I suppose, security reasons.

And wasn’t ‘til after the war that, well it wasn’t ‘til we had a meeting up here one month that we realised that you know what had happened. He brought this brochure out and there it was. There’s lots of things you don’t know about the war.

Yeah that’s right.

I don't think so, strangely enough you never think you’re gonna win, lose a war. No I think you just have a bit of faith and a bit of hope.

And no I don't think I was ever worried that we’d lose the war. You know particularly when America came in anyway. But probably until America came in you might have your doubts, because Australia wasn’t strong enough to stand up on its own. And we had no hope of repulsing a huge Japanese Army and a huge Japanese Navy. And probably that time we were worried about what could happen to Australia. But I think underneath you never really think you’re going to lose a

war. I don't know what other people do but I never do. False hope I suppose but there you are.

When we were in the Middle East, I don't know if you know, the usual thing is that when a soldier comes in to hospital treatment, they take his pack and everything and his personal equipment away from him. And naturally he’s got his rifle cause he’s never parted from his rifle. And that all goes in the pack stores, numbered and dated and things like that. So that when he’s discharged he can immediately go there and collect it. Well what happened one night, for some reason or other, the pack store caught fire. So I mean all

the linen and the uniforms and things were well on fire. And I was about to go and fight it when it started exploding because all the bullets and all the stuff that they had in there was just igniting with the heat. And bullets were exploding everywhere so the pack store couldn’t, didn’t have any option but to you know let things go and let the fire go. So it was rather tough on the people in hospital but just one of those things that, it doesn’t occur very often but it happened this time.

Quite possible, yes, probably the photographs were the ones they missed most, more than their uniform. ‘Cause you know the Q Store could have fit them out again so that was no problem. But just one of those things that happen you know, there’s no answer for it, no reason why it should have caught fire but it just did. They were unfortunate.

Well all their records, of course their dog tags would be

taken for their relations. The unit of course would have to be notified and then they would have been sent off oh probably to the morgue I suppose. And then from the morgue they will have gone to well the army headquarters and possibly they would say right well either the body to be returned home or perhaps buried in the cemetery over in the middle east or New Guinea. Perhaps at Lae or Port Moresby, something like that, as you know quite often happened. ‘Cause it’s a very big cemetery at

Lae. And a very big cemetery at Port Moresby, so those who were killed in action would have been buried there in lots of case and more than likely those who’d been in hospital, died in hospital would have gone the same way.

Well in New Guinea we had the hospital just on the outskirts of Morse, just as you went into the hospital, the section itself. And there was a separate section there. But I don't know that we

had one in the Middle East, probably did but cause I never came in contact with it so I didn’t worry.

I don't know that there were any as far as I know. I think they were probably sent straight to the cemetery because. They probably would have been given a salute I suppose at the cemetery I don't know. But they would be you know sent, probably sent straight to the cemetery. Otherwise they were sent home to Australia. They would have been probably some of the

reasons.

Not as far as I know, no. Probably typhoid would be one. But I don't know that we ever had any typhoid in the Army, or at least in our hospital anyway, but not that I know of, no.

Would, our percentage of deaths in New Guinea, the greater percentage was in the early days through scrub typhus, yes. And I don't know whether they got a cure for it but it certainly dropped off so they must have found something that would alleviate the symptoms of scrub typhus. But never, strangely enough never heard of that but it, you just accepted it, something must have happened because the deaths rates dropped off so it must have been something happened.

Battle casualties, yes. ‘Cause there was some horrific wounds came in really. And they had no chance before they came in but of course they had to be given the best treatment possible and try and save their life. But of course if they were so bad it was just no recovering from it, had no chance of saving their lives, so yeah, in the Middle East a greater percentage of battle casualties. Whereas I think in New Guinea it was the reverse because there were so many things you know

scrub typhus and malaria and all this type of thing. So we were lucky our percentages of death were so little you know compared to the numbers we put through. So we were very fortunate in that regard.

Oh we had a great nursing staff, great medicos and we were blessed I must admit with the quality of people we had.

Well we wouldn’t have in the dispensary, whether they did in the wards or not I don’t know. But I have no doubt that if they had of, they would have ceased treatment because if the wounds were that horrific and there was absolutely no chance for a person, I’m quite sure they wouldn’t have let them suffer, they would have kept them on morph or pethidine. Or something like that you know to the last possible moment, if there was no hope well I don't know what happened.

But I’d be very surprised if they didn’t really, you know as a humane gesture. But that was up to the medico himself, I suppose. And I suppose, I don't know who would have the last word there. I suppose the OC in charge of the medical or surgical would have the last word, if it ever did happen. So they would be the people to ask you know I wouldn’t have a clue.

Yeah, possibly.

Oh I have no doubt there were yes. There would have been those wards for troppo you know. As I say constant bombing by planes or artillery, or you know sniping

from the tree tops as that did happen in New Guinea. It must have been. I don't think our hospital at that stage had a troppo ward. Yes they did cause I remember we had a psychiatrist yeah. Yes so there must have been some in the Middle East. And they would be you know yelling out at night and screaming and all that type of thing. Awake from their sleep and then suddenly there’d be nightmares that type of thing, ghastly business really, troppo patients. Yes we certainly did,

I’ve forgotten about that but they did have a troppo ward up there.

I would think more or less under constant sedation until you know they gradually improved. If they didn’t improve of course they’d be sent back, probably to Heidelberg or places like that. In a hospital outside a war zone, well Heidelberg and Concord, which were the main hospitals in Sydney and Melbourne.

They would be sent back there for treatment. But I would think sedation would, you know they’d keep them under sedation until they showed any sign of improvement.

Well they probably would but did I say anything about

the doctor that was on the bed with the patient, did I mention that before?

Yes well we, several cases, we had one in New Guinea. And he wanted to get home and he pretended to be a dog. And he, every time the MO came in he started barking. And the staff thought he was putting on an act but they weren’t sure, he was so convincing that they weren’t sure what was happening. So the MO who was in charge decided he’d

find out one way or the other. So one morning he came in and before the chap had a get, time to get down on his haunches and start barking, the MO hopped onto the bed and started barking. And looked straight at this patient and kept barking at him. And the patient burst out laughing so they knew then that he was putting on an act, so that was just one of those things. The other one was another patient who was pretended he had a very bad leg and he needed a walking stick to get along. And he was

finally discharged from the hospital, I was convinced he was a genuine case. And he got up to the boat, which was to take him home. He walked up the gangplank, put his stick across his knees and broke this walking stick in half and threw it into the water. But unfortunately for him the MO who had been treating him was at the end of the gangplank and he didn’t know. So when he saw that he knew that the patient was quite fit and well. So he brought him back and got him to hospital and he was sent to a re-posting station. And the third case was a patient who came into

the dispensary, and he’d been treated by an MO for some particular thing, I don’t know what it was. And the MO put on his, gave him a lotion for what it was so it must have been a skin problem. And put on it plumbi, this patient is suffering from plumbi agitans. Now in Latin plumbi is lead and agitans of course is swinging. So he said or notified that the local MO that his chappy from his unit was suffering from lead swinging.

So he asked us what the doctor had said about him. But we were very diplomatic and said “Look I’m sorry we can’t divulge the doctor’s information that’s between the, between medico’s so you’ll have to ask your medico when you get back.” So he departed happily and we were very happy to get out of the situation. But that’s just three cases of what’s happened. But there’s a lot of oh no I’m sorry I won’t, can’t say that, a few people who wanted to get back to Australia and put on an act, and it was up to the medical staff to. If they were genuine they were certainly sent back to Australia. But if they

were swinging the lead they were certainly sent back to their unit or to a convalescent depot to get better.

No I can’t think of any, if I think of them during the interview I’ll bring them out but I just can’t think of anything at the moment off hand. Catch phrases, no I think

probably troppo was one I can remember but that’s about all. I’ll try and think of some as we go through.

Yes.

Yes, quite a few. It was a pretty potent brew. It was sometimes the alcohol from the planes, which was pretty high octane. And they used to get raisins and ferment the raisins in the octane, which of course was called jungle juice.

And it was a pretty powerful brew, it really was. It’s a wonder it didn’t send them troppo because it was enough really, the type of, but some of them got away with it. But jungle juice was, at one stage was very popular ‘til they found out the dangers related to it. It was, in some cases it was pretty high octane fluid believe you me. It was a potent brew.

Not that I know of no, they could have but

I don't, we never heard of any. But we just heard on the grapevine which was one of the terms, words, grapevine ha, which is one of the, you know that these things did happen. But you didn’t come in contact with them that often really, just that by word of mouth that you heard of these things.

Oh I don't think you become more popular but it’s, somebody was always after your ration I can tell you. But you know if you wanted some beer or some whisky, particularly in the officer’s mess I have no doubt that you know people, I didn’t drink the whole time I was in the army funnily enough. But I don't think I was ever approached by anybody but I could have offered it if I had’ve wanted to, and the only time you know was when I related before about the American. But I think there, the one thing that I remember that about being a non-

drinker was back in Australia before we left home, the first time. And a sergeant came up and said, “Oh have a drink Max.” And I said, “No thanks I don’t drink.” Oh he said, “Come on have a drink.” I said, “No I don’t drink.” And he kept this up for about two or three minutes. And there was a dental sergeant we had who’s always remained in my memory as a very fond memory. And he just leaned over to this chap and said, “Look Ivor, Max doesn’t drink,” and looked him straight in the eye. And with that the other chap walked away and left me alone. And I’ve always had a very high regard for that fellow.

You know I mean I was a rookie, I was a kid of about 22, 23 at the time, and he was, oh he would have been about four or five years older. But he just sort of stuck up for me and said right you know he doesn’t drink, that’s it, end of sentence. And as it worked, it happened, so. That’s just one of those things that happens in the army. You know you get somebody who’s, wants to badger you to have a drink and the other chap says no look forget it. So I didn’t have it, not that I didn’t worry about it cause I never did drink I suppose. But I never worried. I certainly drink during, since the war. But

I never had it, touched it during the war which is rather strange but that’s just one of those things.

Oh, what do you mean?

Oh yeah quite a lot, it did go on quite a bit, but when they saw you didn’t want it, they didn’t worry then. It’s, they just went and had their own drinks and didn’t worry. But oh you know I’d have a soft drink with them or something like that, I’d join with them and it never worried me, I wasn’t against it. But I just didn’t

feel like drinking, I didn’t want it so. I was, they were quite happy to have a soft drink you know. Happy for me to have a soft drink and they’d have their beer. But there was some beer drinking in the army but it went on.

No, just that I hadn’t touched it before I went into the army, I couldn’t see any reasons for starting and felt you know if I started drinking in the army I didn’t know what was going to happen because you can get into some

tight situations. I thought oh blow it I just won’t drink. It wasn’t on religious grounds, it wasn’t on you know being a wowser or anything like that, I just didn’t want it and I didn’t feel like it so I didn’t do it. No high moral grounds, just that I didn’t want to do it.

Oh I think probably being a bit more social and going out with the boys every now and then. And probably

family reunions at home, you know just take it moderately so. You know when, it’s very hard in the army sometimes to take it moderately when you’ve got a big crowd and you can drink to excess at times. But at home of course you can drink when you want it and how you want it, so you can please yourself the quantity you drink. And sort of when I came out the army I thought I’ll see and I enjoyed it and so I drank in moderation. That was all there was to it. No high moral grounds about not drinking,

just one of those things.

Smoking. I smoked in the army. I smoked cigarettes and also a pipe. And had no objection to it ‘cause in those days you didn’t know. What’s more I think the Red Cross and people like that sort of from memory could have even supplied the, in the packages. And of course when the Americans came in the army up in New Guinea

it was always, the American cigarettes were always popular. The Camels and you know all those type of things. They were pretty strong but they were always popular. So yeah I always smoked in the army but I enjoyed the pipe I think more than anything. Used to puff away at that. We had one sergeant in the sergeant’s mess who loved his pipe so much. He’d get up first thing in the morning light his pipe up, soon as he got out of bed, light his pipe up. Get under the shower, turn his pipe upside down and smoke under the shower.

And he was renowned for that he did that every morning. So that’s carrying it to extremes but he really enjoyed his pipe.

The Red Cross was very, very important. They always had a tent, no matter where you

go there was always a Red Cross tent. An entertainment tent or a recreation tent, they always supplied notepaper to write home. They usually had say you know coffee and for supper for those who wanted to go. Usually when you finished working in the wards, the staff would then drift to the Red Cross tent to have, say a cup of coffee before they went to bed. Probably they had table tennis tables and that type of thing. But recreation, they played music.

And they played a very, very important part in the war. They were very much appreciated so they did a lot. And it was the same with the Salvos. Salvos were a little bit different perhaps. The, they were always very close to the front line. And the infantry troops always say that you know you’d be in a battle the next thing you’d turn around and the Salvo’s tent was there waiting to give you a cup of coffee or cup of tea. And they were two very important organisations they did a tremendous work during the wartime. And they deserve the

rewards and any accolades that they get. I think you’ll find most servicemen can’t speak highly enough of both organisations. Just one of those things that you know the Salvos you know with their cups of coffee in the firing lines was incredible. And we had them in the hospital unit they were always with us. And they always had something you know there ready for any of the troops that came in for the, had a bit of time off. Or they might be walking patients, might be walking round the hospital, drift

into the Salvos tent or Red Cross tent and get a cup of coffee or something like that. So they played an important part, which was recognised by the troops.

Oh very important, they, course they conducted their religious service for, there were Roman Catholic, Anglican and what they called oh other services, other denominations. So there was usually

in the hospital we had the three, we had the Catholic padre, the Anglican padre and others. And they played an important part as far as counselling was concerned. You know they’d go into the wards and they’d speak to all the patients and try to comfort them and then of course they can, always conduct their church services on the Sunday. Which was pretty reasonably well attended too. They were very important people too in the services. I think you’ll find most people

speak very highly of those for what they did. And you know they continued help and counselling and all that type of thing, yep, very good people.

Oh no be within the hospital itself, they were attached to the hospital and their work was in the hospital, particularly with say a 1,200-bed hospital where you had so many patients who were sick or you know missing people and

missing their friends from the unit. And they’d just go in and have a quiet chat to them and help to buck them up a bit and try to improve their outlook. And they were very successful they did a lot of work.

Well I suppose they would yes if a patient was dying. They would be the last to see the patient alive and you know as you say give the last rites or,

farewell message, something like that, to the patient, depending on the denomination. Yes they would always be there at the time. You could always call upon by I suppose by the people in charge of the ward things like that. And if a patient wasn’t feeling too good and he wanted some help they’d give the padre a buzz or something like that or send word to him that they wanted him to come and he’d always go without hesitation.

Oh yes to a certain extent you know I’d like to go to church of a Sunday if I could. Not always, I couldn’t always get there but whenever possible you know always used to. In fact up in New Guinea the whole group of us oh about ten, we helped build the other denominations chapel. And we built it up with New Guinea timber. And

made the pews. And we had staff sergeant in the x-ray he was a very good carpenter. And he was in charge of everything and he and the padre who was also a very active fellow, they, we built this chapel and it was very nice. And so we knew that we held services it was something we’d done ourselves. So it went up very well.

Very important part I think for counselling and for helping people to get over their problems. I think if you didn’t have

religion, I mean a lot of people decry it and say it’s not necessary and you don’t need it. But when the crunch comes I think it’s there to be used and to help people. And I think you know when a chap’s dying perhaps he feels that he needs some help. And they were always there, there’s no doubt about that. I think it plays a very important part. I think the armed forces would be lost really without a padre. You don’t have to go to church services but if you want it, it’s there. Nobody, it was never compulsory to go to

church. The CO of a unit never said look you’ve gotta go to church every Sunday. He, matter of fact our CO was a very religious man, I think he was a pillar of the church at his local in oh Toorak I think I’m not sure. But anyhow he was a very keen churchgoer but he never said you must go to church it’s compulsory. So it was, one of those things, you could please yourself if you went when you wanted to and if you wanted to. And which most people you know did, if they felt the

need, they’d go. And there were a lot of probably religions and in our unit particularly, we had a lot of oh quite a few padres and a lot of chaps who took up religious after the war. See we were an unusual unit in a way. They were, a pretty quiet sort of fellow. Probably, not learned but they were well educated and they thought a lot. And as I say I think we had four who took up religion after the war.

And we had one who was, finished up an Archdeacon in New Zealand. So, you know the unit did very well. But I think it’s an important part of the army, and I’d certainly hate to see them, they couldn’t go without them all you know, put it that way.

Went into the ministry, yes, they sort of went through university or whatever it was the case. And joined the

religious movements. Be they Anglican or I think some were Methodists, you know the other denominations. Anglican yeah there were about four of them, they all joined up after the war, quite interesting really. But we had you know we had the sisters with us course all the time. And they used to sing in the church quite a bit which was real nice. You know I think it might have attracted the fellows to be there as well. Seeing the ladies there, not that you know they had any

attraction as far as that side was concerned. But they just liked to see the women in the congregation and I think that helped.

Oh well I suppose you put more acquaintances rather than mates and

friends. ‘Cause they were separate to a certain extent although we were allowed into their mess. But some of the fellows formed some relationships, we had about four marriages in the unit. But no they were acquaintances and you know nice people to meet and have a chat to. And of course you’d see them come to the dispensary, you’d have a chat then. And of course our association since the war has been a very, very strong one. 2/7th AGH Association has sort of been close together. And I think that was you know due to the

Matron for her best efforts, and we’ve been well 60 years since the war and we’re still going strong. When you put it down to you know the start we had in Middle East with Matron Johns.

Yes we had, one chap who was in an infantry unit

and he was admitted to hospital for something. And the sister who was in charge of the ward almost hated him when he first came in. He was a bit obnoxious and he wanted to go on leave and they said no, you can’t go you’ve got to stop in hospital. So he just walked out. He had a girlfriend in another unit evidently, at least not a girlfriend but somebody he liked in, a sister in another unit, another AGH. So he wanted, he walked out of hospital just to visit her. Anyhow he came back to hospital again, and they, the two of them fell in love so they got married. And

she died just recently, just strangely enough. But yeah they were together for about 60 years after the war. So they did very well. One was married and she was married in the Church of All Nations in Jerusalem. A couple were from Tasmania, they, one was a sister and he was a staff sergeant from on the nursing side. Another one was a sister and her husband was in the pay department. So you know there were quite a few of them and.

One lass who’s secretary of our Association she married, she was a VAD. She married a chap who was a sergeant in the hospital side, nursing side, an orderly. And he was killed going on the way up to New Guinea unfortunately. He was, we were on our way, oh that’s something I didn’t mention at the beginning, we pulled into Bowen which is in North Queensland and we had a bit of leave and eight of our members

got a lift in a Catalina. And the Catalina crashed and in fact it was the lieutenant in charge of our dispensary, who was one of the ones that was killed. So that was on the way up to New Guinea, which was rather sad. That was our first big loss. And all they found was his cap, which was floating in the water. But something happened, I think they came in to land, it was a Catalina with the floats and a wave evidently hit the float and it turned over. And the hold,

no a couple of the crew were saved, but eight of our fellows were killed in the, which was bad for the unit because it was the first real loss we’d had. And it was probably different from an infantry unit where you know people are killed right, left and centre and you probably become hardened to it. But this was our first big, really big loss and we felt it. And so we had a memorial service on the way up to New Guinea you know then we went on. But yeah that was a bit unfortunate. And as I say this lass

married this sergeant and they came back and she didn’t go up to New Guinea. ‘Cause when our VAs came back, they were the first contingent of VAs to be formed, there were 200 of them and some, most joined of them joined the2/7th. And when they came back they were disbanded and went into what they call the AAMWS, the Australian Army Medical Women’s Service. And so she didn’t go up to New Guinea. And he was killed on the way up there. Which is unfortunate but.

No,

no she only had, I think she might have been married when we came back from the Middle East. She wasn’t married she certainly wasn’t married over there. So she was married when she came back from the Middle East. So she would have only had about eight months, ten months of marriage. Not something you expect really when you’re going on a ship up to New Guinea. But that happened. Bit unfortunate.

Well not that we saw really, it could have happened you know in the hospital wards certainly. But particularly those who probably married that came back from the Middle East and then went up like I did to New Guinea straight after it. And people like that could have you know could have felt things. But I have no doubt they did, but you didn’t hear much about it. ‘Cause the wives were back here and those who were killed up there of course, you didn’t know about it and you didn’t know about the wives cause they were in different units.

But yeah I have no doubt that it did happen it’s hard to cope with. Particularly when you’ve been married say for twelve months or eight months or something like that. And your husband’s suddenly killed in the war action. Must be hard to take.

Oh I suppose you just accepted it, you knew it was, you know, you knew you weren’t gonna get home from the Middle East in a hurry. We’d hoped to, pardon me, come home in, when the 6th and 7th Divvie came home. And we thought we’d be coming home then which would’ve been twelve months, which wouldn’t have been too bad. But of course we were kept over there and had to go to Alamein and so that was another twelve months. And well I suppose you just accepted it, same with New Guinea you know. You’re up there, you said goodbye you knew you were going to be away

for twelve months or eighteen months as the case may be. And you know fortunately I came home within about eighteen months of being up there or twelve months of being up there. And of course went back after I was married. So I think you learn to accept it, it’s just one of those things. It’s pretty hard but you get there. And you hope eventually you’re gonna get home and be re-united. That’s what happened so.

Very lucky, yes. I was very lucky I was in a unit you know that was sort of so static I suppose and I was able to come home. And it was very nice to come home you know after about four and a half years overseas. So that was, you know oh four years and three months overseas. So that’s long enough for anybody. And it was hard on them too although I never probably got their relations here. I know Eileen had her you know mother and father and people to rely on. But it’s very hard for them too. I mean we’re,

we’re probably occupied being, you know during the war so you’ve got plenty to do but it must be hard on them as well. So it works both ways.

I think if you were in probably in artillery or the air force or an infantry unit, I think people would have worried more. You know you can’t escape the fact that if you’re going into battle, there’s the possibility of being

killed. And you’ve gotta worry, or they wouldn’t be human. So we were lucky that we were in a static unit that was a hospital unit and didn’t see you know as much action as other people. Well it’s just one of those things. So but I’m sure some of those battle units must have been, find it very, very difficult you know on their wives and friends and family. They’re the ones who’ve got to suffer.

Hundreds. No I seem to spend, I wrote to a lot of people while I was up there you know. Relations and friends, people I knew back here. And it was one way of keeping in touch I suppose. But I certainly wrote a lot of letters to Eileen. About every second day or every third day. So there was plenty to do. It was all right in the Middle East cause you had something to write about you know. The various trips you did you were able to write about it and connect with the, ‘cause Eileen

used to teach in the Sunday School. So she was interested in a little bit in the Biblical history. So when I was over in the Middle East I used to sort of try and relate it to that side of things. You know going to Bethlehem and Jerusalem. So it was quite easy to write a letter. But when you’re up in New Guinea you’ve got nothing to write about except what’s going on around you, which is not always interesting to other people. Still managed to write a lot of letters. And of course I got a lot of letters back, so it was compensated.

It was all right when you’re an officer, you could get away with it you did it. You censored your own letters. But I think you learn to write, to know what you can write and what you can’t write. And actually when you’re censoring a letter you’re not reading the letter, you’re scanning it you know. And you’re looking not so much what’s said in a letter. But for instance say if a soldier wrote oh we’re leaving on the Aquitania tomorrow from Sydney on

such and such a day. Well you’d see that letter you’d just you know immediately scrub it. And you knew what to look for. And you knew the salient points anyway, and that’s all you every saw in a letter. When I censored a letter I didn’t you know I had no idea what was in the letter. All I was looking for was names or obvious things that were against security, and that’s all you did and you just scrubbed that out. But I did write one letter I think and Eileen said all she got was, Dear Eileen, so and so, and the rest was sort of

cut out. So I dunno what I wrote in that letter but it must have been in the Middle East I think. But you learned to you know, you learned to cope with it, you knew what you could write. A lot of people got up to Biblical quotations. They’d say you know look at Verse 2, Chapter so and so in Isaiah. And they’d look that up and they’d have some reference to you know to a ship or to a place. So people at home knew. And of course the censors woke up to that.

So people often found the letters were just sort of, Dear so-and-so, and yours and, you know with love, yours, so-and-so. That’s about all they got back, but. When the war first started that was very prevalent. That you know you related it to biblical text and but they soon woke up to that.

I don’t think there were ways you could get round the censors really. I don't think there were any tricks that, you know. The only way you could get over when you did something before you left such as you know if you mention the word rose or flowers or daisies you knew that was referred to in other words. Oh the roses and daisies over here are very, which meant oh we’re going to Jerusalem, we’re going to Bethlehem. Now that was one of the main ones that you know. They made it up before they left home,

that a certain type of thing, or it might be an animal, or a rose, or a flower related to a particular place. See you know and I think the censors woke up to that too anyway, cause they used to cut those out too. So, but know originally that was one of the main things, the Biblical text, animal and flowers and that type of thing. So they thought they were very smart and were getting away with it but not always. So that was, they were the main ones.

Some photographs from home, oh yes Eileen sent me quite a few photographs. And photographs of the family and you know relations and that type of thing. Or actually she might have been on a holiday, say in Sydney and she’d send photos of where they’d been with a letter and all that type of thing, yeah, or photos of her friends, who I knew. And that was it, yeah. Yeah it was always nice to get photos and see how people were progressing and what was happening.

But I sent quite a few photos home from the Middle East when it was, you know at the time. Took the risk that they’d get through in the mail and most of them arrived home actually so I was lucky there. I had about three or four albums of what happened in Luxor and Beirut and all these places, Seton Cedars. And my sister at that stage I sent them home, she made about three or four albums for me, so they were at home. So that’s

some of the photos I took from my diary so. So that was very nice. Yeah I was lucky that most of them got home. You know sometimes they were lost in the mail but they got through.

Well it has actually, that was the tie from the 50-year celebration of the ending of the war, which was the pilgrimage to New Guinea. And as a medical representative I was very fortunately chosen amongst 23 from Victoria. And we had a marvellous trip. It was to commemorate the end of the war and to those who also were in New Guinea. And

I had a letter one day from headquarters asking would I be interested in, or that I had been picked or chosen to go to New Guinea with the group. Which rather surprised me. And so we set off on the ship up the, Russian ship up to New Guinea and arrived at Port Moresby. And then we did the tour of the, of all of New Guinea, oh about eight spots in New Guinea which was marvellous and brought back a few memories.

And we, actually there was commemoration services at the Lae Cemetery and then from Port Moresby, we were entertained there by the Ambassador up in New, Port Moresby. And from there we went round to Milne Bay, from Milne Bay to Oro Bay where we visited various sites. Milne Bay was, oh there was a church there, which was consecrated by the 2/12th

Field Regiment I think, the 2/12th Infantry Battalion. And they donated a plaque, or it was a window. Then we went to Oro Bay and from there we went up to Poppendetta. Which was a marvellous day and from Poppendetta to Lae and then we came back home. But very, for instance, when we arrived at Poppendetta, one group went to the Kokoda Track, those people who’d taken part there.

And people who’d been to Buna, went to Buna, people who went, been to Rabaul went back to Rabaul. And we branched out from the various, I wanted to go to Rabaul with some friends who’d been in the Battalion, which was over there when they were all you know wiped out by the Japs to a certain extent. But I couldn’t get on that trip, but I was glad cause I went to Buna, which I was very pleased with. I was very pleased to see the old site. And we had a marvellous day at Poppendetta. We, they had the, we came up

through an avenue of people and then we came onto the parade ground, we had our seats there. And we were watching the ceremony. And one of the, they had, always had choirs, New Guinea choirs, young people. And they sang the first verse of the National Anthem, which we all joined in heartily. And much to our dismay they started to sing the second verse and I don't think there was one Veteran who could sing the second verse. So the, you know the kiddies kept going and they were magnificent really. And

that was one thing that was a bit amusing. They all knew it but we didn’t have a clue. So I decided I should learn it but I never have. The second verse was very good but the first verse was better. But that was just, that’s the relation to the tie. And we had a, you know commemoration services and at the Lae Cemetery, which was very moving. And all the spots we went to you know, they were something you couldn’t help but remember. And they were lovely,

lovely areas and lovely ceremonies which you, you know, you really appreciated. And I, on the way up we had a ceremony on the Centaur, or at least to commemorate the sinking of the Centaur, you know the hospital ship that was sunk off the Queensland coast. And I had a lovely job there of throwing the wreath into the sea, on behalf of the medical people who were on board. There was a Field Ambulance on board and they were all lost practically, I think there was only a few were saved. When they

knew that I was a medical person, they said right well you can go down a few decks and then stand on the landing and throw the wreath into the sea and I did that with another chap. And then we came back to the ceremony. And it was a rather moving part when the ode, “At the going down of the sun, and in the morning, we will remember them.” And as we came back to the top deck where the parade was held they came to that part, “At the going down of the sun,” and the sun was sinking down below the horizon. And

it was very moving and something I, you know I’ve always been pleased that it happened was on board the ship, you know it was very good. Just one of those things it was, the timing it wasn’t meant to be but the timing was absolutely perfect. And it’s something, a part of the trip I’ll always remember. Mainly because I took part in it but also mainly because of the ode, when it was said at that particular time. That was my experience of going up to New Guinea with the pilgrimage team. And we have, still have our reunions that was in 1995.

And they’re still, we’ve lost a few members but we still have our two reunions a year to, just to keep in touch with each other. ‘Cause there were only 23 people from the whole of Victoria, so you know it was really a privilege to be there. And one of the people there was Ted McKenna who was a VC [Victoria Cross] he got his VC at Wewak. And he lives up the country so he can’t down but you know a lovely group of fellows and we all got on well together and enjoyed each other’s company. So it was nice to

get together at the reunion. But I think somehow I’ll always remember that pilgrimage. Very, very lucky to be chosen, so it’s, you know just one of those things.

It was emotional. When you see those rows and rows and rows of crosses. You know and not at one cemetery, it’s two or three cemeteries, it’s heartbreaking really you know to see kids of about

18, 19. It’s really breaks your heart to see it. And makes you realise you know the extent of war and what it means. Really brings it home to you. But I was you know very privileged to be chosen. I was, and I’m sort of appreciated everything that was done at there. It was conducted beautifully. And every effort was, every commemoration ceremony was perfectly done. It was nice to be there.

I think to get together you always remember the good times. You never remember the bad times. Whenever you get to a reunion you never hear somebody say oh this so and so, and bring up a bad occasion. It’s always oh do you remember such and such you know and it’s always a laugh or a memory of somebody who they appreciated when he was alive and sort of a, well a companion. I,

it’s hard to explain but there’s something between members who’ve been to you know in the Army, that you just can’t explain but it’s there. And I think that’s one of the reasons for a reunion that you know even after 60 years you still look forward to them. I mean as far as the drink’s concerned, you might have one glass of wine and that’s it. You know it’s not a booze-up or a get together for that reason, it’s purely and simply to remember those who have gone and those who haven’t

returned and also appreciate the company of those you’re with. And that’s the main reason for a reunion. And we’ve had some great reunions in you know our Association. And we’ve been going for well we were together ‘40, 1940 so it’s 63 years. And if you can keep friendships that long, two of my best friends actually are still you know, ex-7th AGH. And so it’s

something to appreciate and it’s something there that’s hard to relate to anybody else but it’s just there and you appreciate being a member of.

Oh a lot yes, yeah. I’ve been lucky, I’ve been president for about 15 years so you know it’s a case of joining everybody together and make sure that everybody has a nice time and it’s something to remember, just one of those things.

I think tolerance more than anything. Try to get on with people, you know, to be friendly as you can and to relate to people, other people. As I say no doubt you know tolerance of other people, the way they live. And make sure you do something good in your life. I think that’s you know they’re the main things out of war.

But yeah I suppose overall just trying to get on with people and make sure you’re tolerant of their ideas too.

Well for instance I’m Appeals Officer up here at the sub branch. And I have been for about 12 years now. And that’s sort of helping members by collecting at Anzac

time and at Poppy time. And my job is to organise the team that goes out collecting which takes a lot of time and a lot of effort. But it’s worth every moment of it. Because you know and I’ve got a great team of collectors, you know they’re really very, very good. They like to do it they want to do it, which is the main thing. And it’s just the fact that you are organising a group of people who are prepared to do something for somebody else. And of course all the collections go to the RSL [Returned and Services League] veterans and widows, all that type of thing.

So it’s an organisation that’s worthwhile and I enjoy doing that, I think that’s probably one of the things.

I hope not. No I don't think so, I think you know I’d just like to be the same as I was before the war. Being helpful to people

perhaps and getting on with people, that type of thing. No I don’t think it’s changed me at all. As I say you grow up probably in your attitude and appreciate what you’ve done and places you’ve visited and the people you’ve met. I think that’s about all.

Could well do yeah. Probably

why I got oh, it wasn’t the reason I got into it in the first place my uncle was a pharmacist. And he had a business in Bendigo and I think I mentioned this before about an education. He had a business up there then came down and my brother was down here at the same time. He was helping to run the business while I was away in the army. So when I was out at Essendon he and the uncle were running the business in the city. And then course when I came back from the army, we, I joined the group and we became McGibeney & Beaumont. And

we ran the business in the city up to about oh 1980 I think. My brother was killed in ‘78 so I ran it from then for a couple of years and then sold that. But we had the business for a number of years in the city. We worked together very well so that was you know it’s probably partly the influence yeah, why I joined pharmacy. I enjoyed the idea of being a pharmacist.

Oh I think the type of work you

did, the meeting people which was a you know you meet so many people over the counter, and discuss their problems with them. I think that’s probably one of the main things that a pharmacist does and apart from making up medicines. You know meeting the general public and getting to know them. And they’re your customers you’ve gotta look after them sort of thing. And I think that’s probably one of the main things about pharmacy.

Bit hard at first. I think it was, it’s a different discipline probably. Although you got discipline in the Army and you had your working ours. I think in pharmacy, after the war well you had to settle down to a nine to five oh a nine to six job in those days. And you probably had a, oh probably discipline would probably be the word. And you also had to support a wife. So you had to knuckle down to

work. And you just get into it and keep going after the war. That was the main thing. I remember when quite often I used to wear my, when I came back from the army before I joined the business again, I had my heavy army overcoat and I’d walk up Collins Street in the autumn when it was quite cool, I’d be perspiring like mad and the perspiration would be coming from me would be yellow from the Atebrin. And I used to break out in you know perspiration and sweats which I think was probably a

subdued malaria but it never came out. And but you know but walking up that hill in your heavy overcoat in the middle of winter or something like that. You’d come out in masses and masses of perspiration, so that was just one of the things that happened after the war and after New Guinea. So I dunno whether it was suppressed malaria or not but it was you know the symptoms of it. And anyhow settling down to pharmacy it was just a case of you’re home, the war was over, there was a job to do and you just did it. That’s what it amounted to.

And as I say you had a wife to support so you had no option, you had to do the work. And if you enjoyed your job well that was the main thing and I enjoyed pharmacy. So, making up all the infusions and tinctures and dispensing, all this type of thing, that’s what I really liked. So I enjoyed that side of it.

Not really, I, probably a

bit of tinea from New Guinea which I had for a long time but that’s, fortunately that seems to be disappearing. I had infected nails, you know from the tinea. That’s gone, I had treatment for that. And no normal, I think nothing much really from the wartime period. Whatever I’ve had I seem to recover from. And only two things I’ve got are two bad knees, which they won’t put down to war service,

so, can’t put that down to being, time in the army. That’s old age I think.

Well in our group no. It might have happened in the, well it certainly happened in Vietnam. But you know as far as our unit, the hospital unit was concerned I don't think we had any worries. It might have happened in infantry units. Might have happened in artillery units or even in the air force. But we had

no, most of our fellows settled down pretty quickly. ‘Cause as I say they were a pretty balanced lot really in the army in the Australian Hospital. And I think they had enough ‘nouse to realise life goes on and they just settled in.

Yeah well cause I joined up in 1940 and he was,

I’d been working out at Essendon at that stage and he was still in the business in the city. And the uncle was still with him. And when I joined up in ‘40 of course he wanted to join up too. And found being in a reserved occupation and the business more or less depended on him because my uncle was getting older. And if the business was folded up or if he left the business would fold up, and that meant he had no option being a reserved occupation. Which meant he had to stay behind and he wasn’t very happy about that. But it was a case of either the business went down

the drain or he kept going back here. So he probably had a lot of opposition to staying but he had no option. And I think he was a little bit envious the fact that I was able to go cause I’d joined up first and so he was left behind. So he then joined the gas squad here, lecturing on gas prevention, all that type of thing, you know prevention of gas. ‘Cause that was a great worry during the war, they might use

gas there. And so he started, he started on that to keep his mind on the, I suppose, war and also keep himself busy apart from pharmacy too, felt he was doing something. But he did, he was, he would have liked to have, been a member of the forces. Unfortunately I got in first so he had to stay behind.

No, no he just I think accepted it. He was, as I say, he would’ve like to have, gone but he just couldn’t do it and that was it.

And say, in those days as a reserved occupation and under the circumstances, particularly if the business had of folded up, he would have had, you know wouldn’t have got a clearance to go anyway. So he realised that and so he made the most of it.

Yes, I think they had gas squads formed right throughout Melbourne. And they used to go round and talk to groups and show them how to do the

gas masks and all this type of thing. And but he was involved in that quite a bit. I think it was run through the Pharmacy College actually. They were sponsoring that and he helped out that way.

That’s right.

Well very unromantic unfortunately, it wasn’t an accident or anything like that it was on the football field. And, I well,

was getting near the end of the war anyway and I was sent down to Melbourne and to get better, for the wrist to heal, because if it doesn’t heal within a certain time you sort of marched out the unit. So I wasn’t marched out the unit but I was sent down here to recover. And I went to Heidelberg where they treated it. And then I was sent our to Kurna convalescent, the officer’s convalescent camp out at Kurna which was in Toorak Road, ah Domain Road, South Yarra. And so I was there for about

oh two or three months. And I was due to be sent back to the unit and they said oh the name came up evidently before the Board of Re-posting. And they said, “Oh Beaumont oh he’s got a broken wrist, well he’s useless, we’ll, he can, no good sending him back,” so I was down here and I was discharged from the army in oh what was it the 22nd October in

1945 yes. So I joined in the 22nd July 1940 and I was discharged the

22nd October 1945. I’d had enough anyway so I was quite happy to get back to civilian life. So I stayed down here. Course it pleased my wife very much that I was able to stop here. And so we went out to a place out in Glen Huntly, oh no out at Strathmore to start with then we went to Glen Huntly and then we built our home in the North Melbourne in ‘48, 1948.

Ah November the, yes I would have been in Glen Huntly I think at that stage. I think we were renting a house there and course when the news came through it was tremendous that it was all over, the jubilation. I didn’t celebrate in town. I think I might have been in business, working in the city when the news came through, in Collins Street. And course everybody was very happy and couldn’t believe it.

But probably a bit appalled at the atomic bomb but the fact the war was over, nullified that, those thoughts. And so everybody was very happy that the war had ended and you could get back to civilian life. And of course rationing came in, clothes rationing, food rationing the vouchers. So you had to learn to cope with that. Fortunately I think I had a suit from pre-war so I was

all right. But the food was, you know a bit of a problem, particularly with a baby coming on. You know it was you know had to have extra food and butter and that type of thing and all those type of things. So we had to ration and work things out. But it was certainly a jubilant time and a feeling of great relief that the war was over. And that was the last war as we thought for a long, long, long time. But as it happened of course it wasn’t. But you know the thought that the war was over was just unbelievable.

And I think you’ll find that every soldier doesn’t want to see another one. Although you know we weren’t soldiers in the true sense of the word. I think most people who have been in the war certainly don’t want another one. That’s the feeling right throughout the, I would say through the RSL. And but as I say it was a very happy time when the war was over and you knew that you could get back to civilian life and that life was going to go on without any more great traumas anyway.

Well I think most people hate war but I think there are circumstances where it’s inevitable. That you know your own personal thoughts, my personal thoughts are that he was a menace. I think something had to be done. I didn’t like the idea of Australia getting into it. But I suppose if you’re going to play your part in world politics, you’ve gotta do

something. And you know he was such a menace in all types of things. And I mean his methods were so barbaric. Something had to be done. Well whether you like war or not there comes a certain time when something’s gotta be done. Now whether everybody agrees with that or not, that’s their own personal view. But my own view is that I think if it wasn’t now it would have to be done in ten year’s time. So why wait for ten years, why not try and rid the world of a

of well what most of us consider a barbaric person. And from all reports of what’s happened in Iraq. So you know you can’t argue with people who don’t want war and you can’t argue with people who say right, now’s the time to do it. So you know personal opinion and it’s perhaps what I think doesn’t matter but you know it’s just one of those things that gotta be worked out. Whether you approve of war or whether you don’t you know it’s up to the person concerned.

I’ve got no worries about people who don’t want, didn’t want us to go to Iraq, that’s their own opinion. I hope people have got no opinion on what I want when I think that they, at that time, that should have been the time to go. Support the America and England so. You know that’s just a personal opinion, so you can’t argue against what you, you know think in your own mind. You can appreciate what people you know who are against

it. So that’s it.

I would have been home then.

Well a hierarchy as far as I’m concerned, now New Guinea the war was over, and yet the Australians were forced to go into pockets of New Guinea where they really didn’t have to go. As far as MacArthur was concerned

the war was over, they were going north to Japan and yet and I don't know whether it was our own Generals who thought this out. But we were there to clean up the pockets of war, which hadn’t been cleaned up before. Now I understand that in some cases the American troops were in the same area and they more or less had, not a no pact agreement with the Japs but they just didn’t go into action against the Japs knowing

they were bottled up and nothing’d happen. But our generals, or somebody thought that they had, the Japs hadn’t been cleaned out. Now whether that was necessary, whether they could have just starved them out or left them I don't know. But a lot of the action up in various areas didn’t seem to be necessary if they could just contain them. So I don't know the workings of the hierarchy, I’ve got no idea. But it always occurred to me that perhaps containment might have been the better

solution rather than actual warfare on the pockets that were still there. I don't know, I don't know the full circumstances. That’s just an impression that that’s sort of left with me. I may be completely wrong but I do feel you know in my own mind that we might not have had to go into certain areas that we did go. I’m be happy to be proved wrong by the hierarchy.

I don't think he

treated the Australian troops properly. That’s my own opinion. You know I thought the Australian troops could have received more recognition for what they did at Kokoda. They were the first to, and I don't know if you know this but they were the first Army to turn the Germans back. They were the first army to turn the Japanese Army back at Kokoda and also at Milne Bay. ‘Cause they were two pockets of combat that had they been successful could have cost Australia the,

you know or cost the allies the war, but they fought them. Now the 39th Militia Battalion were absolutely magnificent at Kokoda. The 2/14th of the AIF were brilliant at Kokoda and there was certain regiments at Milne Bay who turned the Japanese back there. Had they won at Milne Bay they would have been on their way to Australia. And had they won at Kokoda they would have been on their way to Australia. So I don't think the Australian troops

got recognition for what they did. And I think MacArthur whether by accident or by design or just didn’t want them. But he turned the, he went on to the Philippines and I don't think he wanted the Australian troops there. Or get any recognition, or that’s wrong perhaps but he didn’t want to take recognition away from the American troops. Put it that way. And that’s my only opinion, I felt that he may, he was a very good general but whether I’m right, whether I’m wrong you know history will prove that.

But I do feel that the Australian troops were neglected in the recognition they got. ‘Cause I think Blamey was a very good general, he was perhaps not always popular but he was a good general. Personal opinions only, that’s it.

Yes I think I was in New Guinea

at that stage and there was great jubilation amongst the troops up in New Guinea, up in Lae. And I think there were celebrations. There was a pamphlet came out by the New Guinea press or whatever it was, I forget what they called it. And they had a big announcement that the war in Europe was over. So there were celebrations up in the unit. And the CO you know gave or gave orders that it would be celebrated so we had you know different celebrations in the various messes,

and the officers and sergeants, the OR’s mess and VA’s and the sisters’ mess. So you know it was a celebration really and of the war ending in Europe. ‘Cause they realised then that the perhaps there might be more troops come out here to help us in the Pacific. You know with Britain relieved of that problem over in Europe and the Americans of course would be free to come here. So it was a big, filler I think for the Pacific War.

It was a big turn around. Because so many troops and battle ships and air force you know were available to the Pacific War rather than being tied up in Europe. So it was a big factor in the victory in the Pacific.

Very little.

I think the only time I talked was when I started writing my diaries. And I really started my diaries from diaries I kept over in the Middle East and New Guinea, more or less for my grandchildren. And probably you know when I’ve been talking about that and writing them up probably talked more about what happened. But mainly on the lighter side you know the trips we’ve had and the humour. As I say you forget the bad times which happened and you remember the good times. And I think that’s

you know what happens mainly in the war. You’re inclined to well to ride over what’s happened you didn’t like and just remember the things you did like. It’s one part of personal thoughts I suppose, but you forget the rotten stuff. But as far as talking about the war, no I don't think many soldiers do talk about the war really. It’s only in the last few years really that a lot of these things have been brought to light. That particularly amongst the younger generation,

they’ve learned more in the past couple of years than you know in the previous 20 or 30 years before the war. I don't think you find many you know servicemen talking about the war. Things crop up at reunions every now and then, which you talk about. But general public, I don't think you do. You don’t want to anyway. But that’s it.

I don't think people want to glorify war, really. You know it’s different with me. I was in a hospital unit where sort of nothing glamorous happened. But if you were in an infantry unit or artillery or the air force and knew perhaps bomb areas or you fight areas and you’d kill a lot of soldiers and all this type of thing, you don’t want to glorify that. You don’t want to glorify war. I think at the back of people’s mind is the fact that you know, it happened,

it had to happen, but why talk about it, why glorify something that you didn’t actually like. And I think that’s good. I don't know that could be the main reason. It’s a nasty episode and you don’t want to remember it. That’s about it.

Speaking about the war. Well not much

value really. Oh well I think the main thing is to remember those who were killed, who lost their lives you know. A lot of young people sacrificed their lives and that’s you know where you come back to the ode where, “They shall grow not old as we that are left grow old.” You thinking of people who have fought and who have died, you don’t want to glorify their death but you don’t want to forget them. And I think the old saying right at the end, “Lest we forget,”

probably sums up the thoughts of most ex-servicemen. They want to remember their friends but they don’t want to forget you know those who they lost. And particularly in the infantry units I think. The, a lot of those infantry units lost a lot of very, very good friends. And they want to make sure that they’re never forgotten. And I think that’s probably the lesson that we want to learn from war that you don’t forget those who’ve been killed, and those who won’t return.

Only what’s in some of those notes I suppose that I got off. For instance I think probably the trip to Petra was one of our

main talking points as far as being in the Middle East. That was a magnificent trip. Luxor was you know we had the opportunity of visiting places in the Middle East that we’ll never visit as private people again. Because apart from the expense of getting over there and going to these places, we had the opportunity of seeing right throughout the Middle East, which we, well wouldn’t, won’t have the opportunity now at our age of ever repeating. And

there’s so many magnificent trips we did but you know it’s unforgettable. And I think the experience of going through the war is unforgettable. Even though we weren’t a fighting unit, at least we did our share you know. We were there to cure people not to send them off to war. And our job was to make sure they got fit and that they recovered from their bad wounds. And I think perhaps you know that’s one of the lessons that you can learn.

That you can help even though you don’t happen to be in a fighting unit, you can be in a unit like ours but still be of use in a war effort. That’s about it I think.

Pleasure.

I hope it’s been of some use.