TO WHOM IT MAY CONCERN
For those of my children and grandchildren who are sufficiently interested to learn about some of my experiences in the Second World War 1939-1945 the following is only a short account of some of the highlights that may interest you. I will endeavour not to bore you with any insignificant details which in my opinion anyway are not worthy of mention.
Because we are all of different generations you may have some difficulty in understanding some of the places and events about which I have written but it will serve to give you a history lesson of a bygone era of which I was a part.
The volunteer
As they say ‘I heard the bugle call’ at age 18 and decided then and there to do my bit.
Being on defence work at the time I was exempt from joining any of the services so I had to ask my employer first. He called the army and asked them did they want me. Not being deaf at the time I heard one say over the phone “is he big enough to carry a machine-gun?” After a short glance at me my employer replied “he’s big enough to carry two machine-guns”. “Ok – send him over.” “Within 24 hours I was in uniform - Private Smith RK regimental number NX176860 (a good soldier never forgets his regimental number).
After two weeks at the showground washing up Dixies (pans) and peeling spuds I was sent by train with other soldiers to an infantry training Battalion at Cowra.
Almost every soldier at some time or another went ‘AWOL’ (absent without official leave). It was not really a serious crime unless of course you did it whilst in the front line then you might face a firing squad, but at home the sentence was pretty light, i.e. a weeks wages deducted from your pay-book and confined to barracks for a week, but anything over two weeks was considered to be serious and for two years you would be charged with desertion and a two year jail term or more.
Being fully aware of what I was doing I went ‘ack-willy’. Let me tell you why. I knew only too well that as soon as I had finished my infantry training at Cowra there would be no home leave; I also knew that where I was going there was a very good chance that I would not be coming back. So I decided to go home and to maybe say my last goodbyes to my family.
I knew the provo's would be checking leave passes at the station so in the dead of night I clambered up off the ground on the wrong side of one of the old steam trains of the time. After gaining access to a carriage I hid myself in the loo and as soon as the old ‘puffing billy’ moved off I came out and made my presence known to the rest of the passengers.
After spending about a week at home I decided to go back but remembering some advice I had gotten from some fool in my platoon and me being a bigger fool for listening to him, I turned myself in to the provos (military police) at Victoria Barracks in Sydney. I was immediately paraded before the commanding officer there, Colonel Ironmarsh. The first thing he said to me was “why did you surrender yourself to me, why didn’t you go back to Cowra yourself and be tried by your own Commanding Officer”? Being a little naïve at the time I simply said that somebody had told me that you were a very fair person to be sentenced by. I detected a little glimmer of a smile to his subordinates and then he said, ‘Well I’m sorry son but it’s not my place to try you. You will have to be held in detention here until such time as your unit can send down an escort and take you back to Cowra to be tried by your own battalion commander’.
After realising what a fool I had been, without any more ado I was then put in a dungeon. I don’t know what else you could call it as my memory goes it was a very damp cell or room without bars, just thick, heavy stone walls only about 7ft by 3ft3” with a small pallet or mattress about 2” thick soaked hard and lumpy by dried urine and stank like the sewer. A very thick, formidable looking steel door secured by a lock as big as your fist with a hole in it just big enough to pass your boots out through it every night. I spent three days at Victoria Barracks before my escort arrived and what a three days it was!
Before we go any further I would like to make it known that I did not like being locked up one little bit. It is a terrible thing to lose your freedom even for a few days but it had its benefits. It was a real education for me. Every day they would ‘release’ us all from our ‘cells’ into a big common ‘pen’. All I did was to sit on the floor and watch. They (the other inmates) would walk backwards and forwards all day like caged lions and sometimes one or more of them would find a small strand of tobacco in one of their boots, hats, shirts, pants and God knows where else. Then they would all ‘pool’ what they had and somebody would come up with a cigarette paper and make what they said was a ‘racehorse’, a very thin cigarette; bum a light off one of the guards and pass it around. But the best was yet to come. I was amazed at the looks of ecstasy and delight on their faces as each one of them took one puff, probably the first one they had had for a very long time. I learned at a very early age what drugs can do to a person.
At the end of about three days my escort arrived with side-arms (bayonets). I knew them both and I went back to Cowra, as predicted to be tried by my own CO, a weeks wages deducted from my pay book and one week confined to barracks.
At the completion of my training there I was sent to Canungra, a jungle training camp in Queensland.
A week after I arrived in Canungra the Japs broke out of their prison camp at Cowra, killing several guards and creating much mayhem before the uprising was put down, after many were killed. It was against their code of honour to be taken prisoner and their built up frustrations finally came to a head at Cowra.
The idea of sending us to Canungra was to train us to fight in the jungle with the objective of sending us to New Guinea.