Victory
Soon after arriving back in Brisbane the Japs threw in the towel and what happened next has got to be seen to be believed. Every night for the best part of two weeks there was dancing in the streets: no cars, nothing except people; Yanks, Ozzies, men and women; dancing, kissing, hugging, fraternising, you name it. Sydney, Melbourne, Perth, everywhere. Ask Joan, she was part of it.
Finally I arrived back in Sydney and became very disillusioned with the army; both the media and the people were saying that young Australian lives had been lost unnecessarily. Islands like New Guinea, New Britain, Bougainville and Malaya had long been bypassed by the Americans in their island hopping campaign on their way to get bases nearer to Japan for their B52-bombers.
All the Japanese that were ‘holed up’ in these islands were a threat to nobody. They couldn’t go anywhere; America had control of the sea and the air. They were virtually self-contained prisoners of war; left to wither on the vine, as it were; growing vegetables and whatever. We would have been much better off fighting alongside the Yanks at Iwo-Jima and Okinawa.
What sickens me most is that solders like Stewart and Col Goodenough did not lose their lives fighting for Australia; they died for a lost cause. They died for nothing. But ours is not to reason why, ours is to do and die.
Anyway, I soon forgot about all that because I came down with my third bout of malaria and was hospitalised.
Let me tell you how malaria is transmitted. There is only one mosquito that can give you malaria and that is the Anopheles and even then it’s only the female of the species. They first bite an infected person, and then when they bite you they inject this fluid in their system into your body to stop your blood from congealing. It is then that the malarian parasite enters your bloodstream and very soon after you have malaria.
When I came out of hospital I was transferred to a transport unit at Glenfield and one night I went on leave to Luna Park. I met this sheila there, she told me her name was Joan. End of story.
Ross Smith