The Blog that might have been – 70 years on

A change of scenery, and the best bread ever

Posted on February 3, 1943 by felicityh54

TX 1004

Max Hickman

33rd Platoon

25th Brigade

24th Jan 43

Dear Mother & Dad

Although it was good to get your letters of the eleventh and eighteenth which along with one from Ivy written on the eleventh arrived yesterday, the resumption of the mail service at this stage is not regarded very favourably. However signs are not always reliable and we’re hoping that this is only a flash in the pan.

I’m not surprised to hear the news you send of Tiny. His offsiders didn’t expect him to come back to his show – anyway jolly good luck to him – he’s earned it and I’d like to see him cop something good. I suppose he’ll be made a WO1 and get a hospital job near home. Although I wouldn’t try to get out I’m very sick of the show. The last six months have knocked the enthusiasm for soldiering on right out of me. The way things go you’re not in the race to get on – “Jones’ College tactics” are a definite part of the drill here. I wish I could get a transfer but the cards seem stacked against me however if we rejoin the old mob I’ll go to a rifle coy.

Your guess about the Hon J J is pretty right. In fact he may even now be swilling suds – you’ll find him around his old haunts anytime now – the Met, the Sydney or Toby’s. Though I expect he’ll be a cheap drunk for a while I wouldn’t get too ambitious if you happen to meet him – his complaint is entered in his paybook and I’ll bet he’ll work it to death. He sprained his wrist once and didn’t do any rifle drill for nearly six months. He’s an absolute wizard at working the oracle. However if you do strike him you can tell him to have one for the absent members.

What’s Jack Propsting doing these days – he’s not working on the wharves is he? I’d have thought he’d have been called up before now. I suppose Ralph’s job is protected too and Brian Wilson would be too wouldn’t he.

The prospects of leave seem very much in the balance at present and although indications are our way there’s no knowing what’ll happen in this show. You mention that the mater would like to some to Sydney when & if I get my leave – well nothing would suit me better Mother but I wouldn’t be able to let you know in time. Perhaps if you had things ready and I rang up as soon as I knew anything it would be alright. Is there still a boat service to Sydney or would you travel via Melbourne? Anyway, have a valise packed and we’ll see how things work out.

The mail is just going so I’ll close now and get this censored. Give my love to May, Anne & the baby and best wishes to the boys.

Love

Max.

Not in the race to get on

There were at least three reasons Dad didn’t move upwards in the ranks – 1. a policy of promoting younger men (specifically NOT those over 30), 2. a preference for private (‘grammar’) school graduates and 3. he spoke his mind (Dick Lewis referred to him as a real table-thumper!). Jones’ College is a reference to Henry Jones & Co, the fruit and vegetable processor on the Hobart waterfront. My understanding is that Dad believed advancement there was on the basis of ‘not what you know but who you know’.

The Hon J J

This is a reference to Jim McDonnell, a close friend from eh Carrier platoon mentioned in many of Dad’s letters.

Travel from Tasmania to the mainland

The details of sailings of interstate vessels could not be advertised by government regulation (http://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/25989727) Passengers were advised to communicate with the various shipping agents whose names and contact details were published regularly.

According to http://users.nex.net.au/~reidgck/bass-s.htm a passenger service from Launceston to Melbourne continued throughout the war with the Nairana making up to 3 crossings per week- except that when she needed repairs in early 1944, there was no passenger service at all between the mainland and Tasmania. The previous weekly service between Sydney and Hobart had ceased some time during 1942. (ref Ferry to Tasmania: A Short History – Peter Plowman – p93)

Nairana leaving Tasmania 1940’s (website as above)

Passenger flights from Hobart to Melbourne were operated by Australian National Airways. Ansett Airways had suspended its normal flights in favour of providing services for the US Army in Australia. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ansett_Australia)

TX 1004

Max Hickman

33rd Platoon

25th Brigade

3rd February 43

Dear Mother & Dad

Just a few lines hoping to find you happy and well as I am at present. Mail is still very light on in fact the letter I had from you just prior to writing you last week is the only letter I’ve had for some time so I guess there’s a bunch for me somewhere.

The powers that be staged a show for us recently involving a change of scenery but nothing more. With dramatic suddenness we got word to move one night at two o’clock and by three o’clock were in transit. As a test of efficiency it was good although we had to dice (ditch?) a lot of stuff that though not necessary to the war effort afforded us a measure of personal comfort. However the change has its compensations – the outlook is much more pleasant – a really good panorama of country and sea. The view from the seat of meditation in the early morning would excite the interests of the estate agency rackets. The mozzies are not so tough either – a somewhat different species – bigger than those at the last domicile but of more pronounced colouring and not as agile and easy victims of the technique required in killing the almost invisible species to which we’d become accustomed. From the gastronomic aspect too we come under a different bakery – as good if not the best I’ve ever tasted compared with the sodden congealed flour that went by the name of bread at the other camp. It’s like drinking champagne after flat beer. To those who boast their own teeth army creams or iced vovos as the slabs of concrete labelled biscuits are variously known were much more palatable.

The latest rumours concerning our movements – that is the skeleton crowd left : the rest have made the grade – are exciting the most adverse comments heard for a long time. We’ve been sold some pups at times, but this time we seem to have bought a whole litter. Nothing gets under the fellows skin as much as to suggest association with choco’s – they were never popular with the mob but since we came up here they’ve been most unpopular. Some choco wrote a paean of praise entitled ‘the unwrapped chocolate soldier’. It was published in Smith’s when the propaganda machine were trying to build up some self respect and esprit de corps among the conscientious objectors – and an AIF bloke wrote a reply. Someone in the camp has a copy – I’ll try and get it and send it on.

If you happen to run into Jim Dad tell him we had to get rid of his struggle – nobody else could steer it. The bloke who took over was in no end of strife doing over Yankee trucks and trees and things. With Jim it was a case of come over or else but to an ordinary human being it was a different proposition. I’m not sorry to see the bloody things passed in though they’ve kept me back a long time – I might get ahead a bit more.

I must say cheerio now Mother & Dad – give my love to May, Anne & Carline and best regards to the boys.

Love

Max

PS In view of the arrival of the two reinforcements what do you think about making a new will Dad?

A change of scenery…. a really good panorama…

The description suggests that the new camp may have been somewhere like this – with views over Port Moresby and an airfield.

AWM 062120

Taken from Tua-Guba hill, looking towards General Headquarters and the US Navy headquarters near Hanuabada

AWM062123

Kila aerodrome from Tua Guba hill

The best bread ever…

AWM 015021 and

AWM 015019

AIF Bakers at work in New Guinea

The Unwrapped Chocolate Soldier…

I’m surprised Dad is still expressing such a negative attitude toward the Militia (choco’s) : he appears to have them all labelled conscientious objectors. I don’t have a copy of the response from the ‘AIF bloke’ but the verse published in Smiths Weekly is reproduced here:

http://www.ringwoodrsl.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/Down-the-Line-February-Special-2016-Web-and-Email.Reduce-to-150-dpi-average-quality-STANDARD-COMPRESSION.pdf

Got rid of Jim’s struggle

The carriers (i.e. the vehicles themselves) were referred to as ‘Struggle Buggies’. Dad’s comments seem to suggest that not only Jim’s but all the carriers were being disposed of.

The two reinforcements

This is a reference to the additions to the family – for Dad, a niece (Carlene Fisher) – May’s daughter – and nephew (Max/ Bill Drysdale) – Ivy’s son.

Posted in Food and Drink, organisation, Papua New Guinea | Tagged choco's, Jim McDonnell, militia, Tiny Schultz | Leave a comment

A new cook, night time snake drama and a long distance debate

Posted on January 15, 1943 by felicityh54

TX 1004

Max Hickman

33rd Platoon

25th Brigade

15th Jan 43

Dear Mother & Dad

Just a few lines hoping to find you happy and well and enjoying life. Mail has been very light on this week for everybody – just another of those unexplained spasms that upset the regular routine. My only communication from the outside world was a telegram from Bill announcing then arrival of a son and heir. It’s the best news I’ve had for a long time to know that youngster came through alright and I hope everything will be alright from now on.

Things in general have been very quiet in our corner lately although we’ve been kept reasonably busy on a pep(?) up with old dope among the old hands and initiating the new blokes into the do’s and dont’s of this show, as every outfit has a system of bludging particular to itself. The new blokes are a great crowd of fellows but a bit too regimental – everything according to the book – well you can imagine how the old hands take to doing things by numbers.

We’ve got a new cook – one of the reo’s. The last bloke mightn’t have been the world’s worst cook but he was bloody close to it. The chap we had at Caboolture old Harry Harriman was a champion but he got crook soon after we left home and for four months things were (gastronomically speaking) damn tough – however as I was saying this new bloke is extra good and for eight or nine days now we’ve lived like lords – that is relatively speaking of course – even the most unpalatable of all dishes – gold fish – taste better the way he serves them up and his apple pies made out of IXL canned apples with ground up dog biscuits made into crust are absolutely lovely.

To all but one person the brightest incident of the week was caused by a small carpet snake about three feet six inches long that crawled into a fellow’s bed and made its presence felt soon after the occupant went to sleep. Sometime between twelve and one o’clock Geoff Hood woke up and coolly announced that he thought a snake had crawled across him. Viv Abel in the next bed chuckled because Hoodie has a reputation for semi-nightmares. Then Hoodie struck a match and in the same cool manner in which he’d made the first announcement said ‘By Gawd it is a snake too” and leisurely drew his body into a corner of the blanket while Angus McLennan lit a lantern. All the occupants of the tent got their bayonets out but were unable to get to grips for fear of cutting the mosquito net – our most valuable possession in these parts – and eventually had to shoot it in the blanket. It was not till then that they found it was a carpet snake and to all intents and purposes harmless but for all that a most unwelcome bed mate. There are hundreds of snakes of various sorts come after the rats but the mob kill the snakes and of course the rats are able to multiply.

Jim McDonnell is still in hospital but is due out any time although I fancy he’ll make the best of it as he’s on a beer diet – a bottle per day – not much for a man like Mc but I’ll bet he loves it – out of a cooler too.

I must say cheerio now Mother & Dad. Hoping that whatever the cause of our mail delay may be it soon comes right. Give my love to May, Anne & the baby and regards to the boys.

Love

Max

We’ve got a new cook

AWM 079487 – not of this unit, but gives a sense of the ingenuity involved in providing the troops with nourishing meals.

Photo – mess parade – Dad and Bob (Stainless) Steele NX4831 (no caption re where this was taken)

Getting About in New Guinea – Snakes

Click to access GettingAboutInNewGuinea.pdf

This booklet for troops was published in April 1943. It reads more like a guide book for boy scouts about to embark on an ‘outward bound’ course rather than a serious and useful handbook for front line troops.

This is the illustration in the section on Snakes.

Debating the Irish, the Police force and other sensitive matters

I believe that Kathleen who sent this letter is the Mrs Toomey to whom Dad often refers. She has nephews fighting in New Guinea, so is clearly of the ‘older generation’ rather than any sort of ‘girlfriend’. I don’t know what her connection with the family is, but it’s clear she was close to Ivy (‘Youngster’) and Bill, because she was apparently advised of the birth of their son on the same time day Dad was told via telegram. Although I don’t have the letter Dad sent to her, it’s clear they were ‘debating’ by mail.

Fern side

George Street

Parramatta

15th January 1943

Dear Max

Now I should have started this oration off like this – To my honourable and esteemed friend who has wielded the power of the tongue (such a powerful weapon for good and evil) in open defiance of my ancestors, which by the way, should be spelt with a capital A, or better still with a capital ‘I’ in illuminated letters. That’s how proud I am of it. Any man to win an argument or should I say, to force anyone over to his own particular way of thinking has to drag up one’s Ancestor’s weaknesses (we all possess them, English, Irish, Scotch or Tasmanians for that matter), is not just playing the game, according to the rules of fair play. Of course it is a short cut home, but give me the long way round and I will see it through to the finish. No slackers for me – no sir! As for the clip about the misguided race, well all I can say is, if everyone else was so contented and open-hearted as the Irish race, we wouldn’t have the grasping and powerful greed we have today. The trouble is we need to get back to the simpler and more contented modes of living. The absence of this, creates the inevitable warring nations and disruption of our civilization.

Now that’s no. 1 point. Now to proceed to No.2. The remark about hordes of ‘fat lazy policemen’ is just a lazy ignorant notion, floating around quite pleasantly and undisturbed in your skull full of emptiness, and sadder still, of sheer ignorance. Of course you are more to be pitied, than blamed. An ignorant person just can’t make the grade. Seeing my father belonged to this very noble profession, for the suppression of evil doers, you have missed your mark my good friend. Of course I know that somewhere in your conceited mind, perhaps subconsciously you have won this debate, but the curtain las not fallen on the last act. There’s many a slip between the —, my good friend. I will leave you to finish the rest. Of course that is the worst curse of being brought up on an island, isolated from the mainland. It’s just like a doctor not having his fingers on the pulse of the patient. He is not in direct contact with the heart beats of his patient. He is ignorant to a certain extent of his physical condition and subsequent treatment of same. The same applies to the good old folks who frequent to Island of apples and cider. They can’t see further than sitting under the apple tree and guzzling around at the brewery. Of course, they produce good cider and delicious strawberries. But that’s not enough – we want a race of fearless men, big in mind and heart, and what is better still, big in outlook and purpose. en who will study the country’s position and realise what a lot we owe to the pioneers. They were men of action who have laid generous foundations for us to continue on and build up a worthwhile civilization. The Irish have played no small part. Whatever our opinions are, we must be fair, and give credit, where credit is due. That’s the manly thing. Now my honourable friend I will leave you to chew and digest well before you take up your defences. I leave it to your own discretion how to proceed.

So that wretched drought hasn’t broken. Still no sign of rain clouds hanging low? Well you will first have to amuse yourselves in the art off imaginary satisfaction. If Xmas couldn’t bring about your desired state of affairs, well all I can say is perhaps you are being punished for your evil doing. And that goes for the mishandling of the character of the desirable females, myself included. “The mills grind slowly, but they grind exceedingly well.” Put that in your pipe and smoke it, Corporal. Of course, that is if you can still obtain it, and smoke it with quiet dignity, befitting your greying locks.

By the way, congratulations Uncle Max. Now fancy me forgetting the salutation, ere I have proceeded so far with this epistle. What’s it like to be the proud possessor of a infant nephew? Oh it’s sheer delight Kath. Another Hickman to be brought up in the step of his venerable Uncle. That’s just the trouble, they are becoming a little too strong around the place. How many can you boast of? I can count eight, so see if you can beat that. All Irish from the top of their head to the soles of their feet. And better still, are pulling their weight on New Guinea soil. That’s more than you can say for your recently acquired one.

Perhaps this letter is a topsy turvy bulletin. Still I guess it may be readable and as long as it does your hardened soul a little good, my humble effort will be well repaid. How are the Platoon boys? Remember me most kindly to them. Tell them I count on their co-operation and assistance in this new onslaught. Tell them when I go into action on the final cleanup I will call them to stand by, like the warriors of old, with flaming swords, ready to cut off at a minute’s notice, my opponent’s head. Just a little souvenir. We need a few more for the wax works, and yours would be a real novelty. “Here’s the man who could talk anyone out of a fog, and he has landed a blackout”. This is the sign we will have printed and hung in front of your figure. Exit – my good friend. The work is done, take thy rest, or better still thy battle (of course that is if there are any ‘dead marines’ lying around). You might be lucky enough to collect the pennies on the battles for two-up.

So I must reluctantly say good-bye. My work is finished and I sign off with clean hands. The rest I leave to the adjudicator in good hands. He will be the deciding factor and may the best man win, is my concluding remarks.

Never defeated, still going strong.

God Save Ireland

Your little Irish Colleen

Kathleen

…And another Sydney correspondent with hopeful news (” All boys from New Guinea to get leave” )

With envelope – postmarked Sydney 22 Jan 1943

Home

20/1/43

Dear Max

Thank you for your nice newsy letter. Sorry that you had all the bother of doing the trash & then not any leave, but tonight on the air “All boys from New Guinea to get leave”. That sounds as if we will soon see you eh? My pal Chassie is back in Qland, in hospital tho. Perhaps the drought will break sooner than you expect Max. Let’s hope so. About ‘the debate’ – well, I never thought that a ‘Scot’ would let an Irish lass beat him. Kath tells me that you have fallen down under the argument. You have trodden on her coins re the Irish. Look out now. Kathleen is a very loyal child of the Church who for some unknown reason defend the Irish whilst their seat of Government is Rome or I should say Italy. No I was right at first – the Vatican City is of itself apart. Good news from Melbourne Uncle Max. I nearly wrote “Aunty”. Whatever made me think of that. Claude gave me a ring from somewhere in the bush in Tassie last Sat night. It was as clear as if he was in the room. He particularly asked how you were batting.

Well Max – past midnight & must be up at 5am so off to bed.

Kind regards to Jim & your good self. Yours sincerely (indecipherable name)

Posted in escapades, relaxation, fun and games, Food and Drink, Letters to/ from others, organisation, Papua New Guinea, training | Tagged Angus McLennan, Geoff Hood, Jim McDonnell, Kathleen Toomey, Viv Abel | Leave a comment

New Year … not a very auspicious event

Posted on January 6, 1943 by felicityh54

6th January 1943

TX 1004

Max Hickman

33rd Platoon

25th Brig

Dear Mother & Dad

Time is certainly marching on. We’ve stepped into another year and I don’t suppose there was ever a new year in which so many people placed their hopes. If our propaganda is any indication we’ve got reason to be optimistic and although it’s hard to imagine such minutely perfect military machines cranking (cracking?) this year, I for one hope this will be the last year of war.

To our little mob the New Year was not a very auspicious event. Around midnight we lit a fire and made a cup of tea and over this and some supper supplied from odds & ends in parcels we saw the old year out and the new year in. The Yanks in nearby camps celebrated the New Year by firing off their rifles and all their small arms automatic weapons. On parade on New Year’s morning the boss threw a spanner in the works with the announcement that any idea that this show was going back to Australia at present or in the near future could be scrubbed. As we’d been riding the furphy that we were going back it sort of knocked us cold. If there’s one incident I regret more than any other in the army it was being called back to the carriers after the Syrian stunt.

Your welcome letter of the 28th arrived yesterday and made quite good reading although I was very surprised to hear of Col. Payne’s death. If there was one man in the world on whose life you’d have taken a lease it was Les Payne – however you can’t judge on appearances.

The Austerity racket seems to have got you in Dad – sober birthday and sober Christmas too. Old Mc will never believe it when I tell him. He’s still in hospital with Malaria. I guess his liver is drying up. According to one of the blokes who went up there he’s likely to be there for a couple of weeks yet, although his temp is nearly normal again.

It’s good to know that you struck a light job for a while at least and I hope it lasts. Things must be a bit tough for old Tom to want to get down there – I guess he’d be a bit up hill doing the work wouldn’t he. He must be nearly seventy. I suppose Jones’s like all similar concerns are coining the dough.

That vegetable garden sounds alright: from what I hear from other sources vegetables are a big consideration these days.

The last letter I had from Ivy written on the 26th Dec she seemed quite happy but expected to go into hospital at any time then. I hope everything went alright with her. She’s had a pretty hard time but was optimistic about it.

There’s not much doing up here. We got a bunch of reo’s – quite a good crowd – Sydney chaps most of them – keen as mustard and a good type with it. We’ve done a short stunt too this week involving a visit to an old camp. A good variety shoot – a salt water swim and quite a lot of floundering about in the mud otherwise there’s been no change in our routine.

I’ll say cheerio now Mother & Dad. Give my love to May, Anne & the baby and best regards to the boys.

Love

Max

PS Am sending Anne a grass skirt in a cake tin. It’ll be too big for her but in any case it’s not something she’d keep for long. Tell May not to let her wear it next to the skin.

A bunch of reo’s….and a short stunt

According to The Footsoldiers (p 249), .. Lieutenant Matt Todd and his group of Mortars and Carriers rejoined the Battalion at Bisiatabu. Theirs had been the monotonous task of forming the …Port Moresby ‘carrier’ group, stationed at Ward’s Seven Mile Strip, and they had been, with others, responsible for the defence of Port Moresby. On two occasions small groups of them had marched twenty miles north-east up to Juare, there to meet with some of the Americans of the 32nd Division, and familiarise themselves with the country…. By the 24th December, platoons were carrying out exercises in the area. On 31 December, the day the leave group embarked for Australia, the battalion now under Lieutenant Cullen set out on a three days march and exercise to Imita Ridge and back. An unfortunate few had done this journey once before, but for the 300 or so reinforcements it was a rude introduction to jungle warfare. It was interesting to note that on this occasion none at all fell out and the exercise was a great success. There is no doubt that this group of reinforcements was a group, were the best to ever join the battalion. There were no ‘bad lots’ among them. Almost all of them eventually took part in our next campaign.

AWM 013495 – reinforcements arriving in Moresby Nov 42 – these may or may not have been those referred to above. It is also possible they were a contingent about to be flown to the front line at Buna.

Death of Colonel Les Payne

Lieutenant-Colonel Leslie Herbert Payne (5 November 1888 – 23 December 1942) was an Australian politician and military officer. He was born in Burnie, the son of Senator Herbert Payne. During the First World War, he served in the AIF and was awarded the Distinguished Service Order in the 1918 New Year Honours. In 1924, he was elected to the Tasmanian House of Assembly as a Nationalist member for Denison. He was defeated at the 1925 election.

ref http://www.revolvy.com/main/index.php?s=Leslie%20Payne

Jones’s ….coining the dough?

It sounds as if Dad’s father was working at Jones & Co. The firm was a major employer in Hobart, and there were certainly heavy jobs as well as production line roles to be filled. Best known for its jams and preserved fruit, cans were made on site and in 1942 to firm was asked to assist in the production of nuts and bolts for the Department of Munitions. A contract to supply one million nuts and 320,000 bolts was accepted. The contract was completed in eighteen months, with 160 employees taking part in the work. One million primers for shells for 25-pounder field guns and 70 special purpose machines were made. In its processing factory, Jones & Co produced a million gallons of apple juice, scores of millions of cans of preserved fruits, jams and also whitebait for the forces. The fruits processed included apricots, pears, plums and cherries. A large quantity of vegetables were also canned, including cabbages, beetroot, carrots and peas. the company claimed the munitions were provided to the government at cost and that the foodstuffs produced were ‘sold to the government at a lower price than those produced by other processes’. (ref Tasmania’s War Effort 1939- 45 M. O’Brien 1946)

AWM 150577 – September 1942 -troops on manoeuvres near Darwin opening a tin of Jones & Co jam

Vegetables – a big consideration these days

The bulk of farm-produced vegetables were being shipped out to the front – for Allied troops in Europe as well as the Americans and Australians in the south west Pacific theatre. The Tasmanian government established dehydration plants and canning factories to process the ever expanding volume of crops. Potato plantings increased from 30,000 to 90,000 acres during the war, carrot production increased 340 percent, parsnips 600 percent and cabbages even more. The average sowing of blue peas from 1929 – 39 was 8,500 acres. In 1942 sowings were 18,000 acres and in 1943, 27,000 acres. (ref Tasmania’s War Effort 1939- 45 M. O’Brien 1946) Householders were continually encouraged to grow their own, as a contribution to the war effort, and many women spent time working on farms as part of the ‘Women’s Land Army’..

Photos from Hobart at War 1939 to 1945 C.J.Dennison (Photos from the archives of the Hobart Mercury):

176 – Land army women were mostly from the country so it was usually only the heavier jobs that they had to learn.

This member of the Land Army is doing a job that some men would find hard, running the rotary hoe between rows of peas. The machine is so big it needs somebody strong to operate it.

Posted in Americans, Food and Drink, organisation, The course of the war | Tagged austerity, Jim McDonnell, reinforcements | Leave a comment

Christmas in New Guinea: two letters

Posted on December 30, 1942 by felicityh54

TX 1004

Max Hickman

33rd Platoon

25th Brigade

25th Dec 1942

Dear Mother & Dad

As you have probably already noticed I’m writing this letter on Christmas day and I suppose it would be appropriate to begin with an appraisement of the time honoured occasion as we see it here. I suppose for the majority of the chaps it’s the first Christmas morning in years that they haven’t woken up with a thick head – the only chance they had of getting a thick head was from over sleeping. In spite of a flood of wishful thinking – rumours about an issue of beer – nothing came of them and the time honoured expression concerning the army got even more ventilation this morning than usual.

My individual Christmas started quite well yesterday with a good bundle of mail including your letter of the fourteenth, a letter from Ivy and one from Graham Watts who is still in the Middle East and quite a packet of Christmas cards. Then later in the day the Christmas hampers were issued together with a Baloney pamphlet from the ACF. Last night on patrol we stopped by an Ack Ack post. It was raining pretty hard so we accepted their invitation to their tent. They were quite a good crowd of blokes, almost snowed in with parcels from America. We spent quite a pleasant half hour talking and yarning with them of other times and other Christmases and in imagination filled them up and drank them down and filled ’em up again. Then we had a mug of water and came home. There was a mobile picture show operating within a couple of miles of the camp so we thumbed a truck and went and although it rained like hell and we got very soaked it was quite a good show.

I’m not surprised to hear that Tiny hasn’t been mentioned in the casualty lists because they’re usually pretty long winded especially with sickness and I believe he has been pretty crook. I did hear he’d been evacuated to the mainland but I saw his offsider yesterday and he said he’s in a con camp and wants to see me – I’ll try and get down on Sunday – his mate thinks Tiny’s a sitter for a discharge.

The rumours about our future movements have again sprung to the fore though I think the attitude of the people at home is altogether too optimistic. The Yanks probably wouldn’t be disposed to send a big force here and for all the good the chocco’s are – that is most of them – some of them are alright – they’d be better to put them to work growing spuds and sugar.

I got hit to leg the other day through my pay book. When we got that shilling a day rise while we were in Syria and were told that half of it was to go to the soldier and half to the allottee I didn’t think it would affect my allotment as I had already allotted 4/3 but according to the pay sergeant the DFO at Hobart increased my allotment home to 4/9 so I was getting it both ways. So with a stroke of the pen they reefed a tenner off me the other day leaving my finances in rather a precarious condition. Still unless we get back to Aussie I won’t need money so it won’t matter. It takes nearly all the three shillings I’m now getting for food. The canteens are getting quite a lot of good stuff now and as the army tucker is at its worst we avoid it as much as possible (dehydrated they call it)

This writing is probably worse than usual. I haven’t been able to write at all for some days because of a little mishap to my right hand. I jarred the thumb and wrist when we were extending the kitchen and although its pretty right now it’s a bit awkward to write.

I must say cheerio now Mother & Dad. Give my love to May, Anne and Carline and regards to Laurie and the boys.

Love

Max

PS Old Jim sends his best wishes

A good bundle of mail

Photo – from Jungle Warfare (AWM Christmas Book for 1943) It appears that many of these troops received cakes in the mail.

…and Christmas Hampers from the ACF

AWM OG0332

The photo shows a group of airmen receiving their Christmas hampers.

A mobile picture show

Image – Moresby Picture night – from Khaki and Green (AWM Christmas Book for 1942)

The chocco’s

It’s disturbing to read Dad’s ongoing derogatory comments about the Militia. Here’s another short article about the tensions between the two armies (AIF and Militia) http://www.army.gov.au/Our-history/History-in-Focus/The-offending-M-WW2-Army-service-numbers

Army tucker is at its worst – dehydrated they call it

Dehydrated foods – particularly vegetables – were by this time being produced in Australia to supplement the ‘bully beef and biscuits’ diet of frontline troops. However, the Army’s Catering Corps which trained staff to work with dehydrated foods was not established until 1943. This article describes the development of the O2 ration pack –

Click to access Operational%20Ration%20O2.pdf

Although almost unbelievably basic, even crude, when compared with 21st century Australian military individual field rations, the O2 ration was at the time a huge advance in combat feeding. As shown by the comparison between the O2 ration and the ‘ration packs’ of both allies and enemies, it is clear that the Australian O2 ration was the world’s first ‘one man combat ration pack’.

AWM 014612 A case of dehydrated potatoes for Australian troops. The dehydration of vegetables has meant that Australian troops in battle areas as well as elsewhere, can have vegetables whereas under ordinary circumstances that would have been impossible.

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Max Hickman

33rd Platoon

25th Brigade

30th Dec 42

Dear Mother & Dad

Once again I’ve fallen victim of the three card trick and washed my entire wardrobe comprising a towel, two shirts a pair of slacks and two sets of underwear – I’m riding a furphy about moving – it’s so persistent that everyone has the whips out but for all our hopes we’re prepared for anything.

Your very interesting letter of the 20th arrived today along with a newsy letter from May. The mail has been particularly good lately. I had a letter from Jack on Boxing Day and one each from Mrs Phillips and Mick yesterday. Max has just finished an OTS so I guess that’s where he was when May saw Mrs Phillips. He hopes to be with the Twelfth soon. I don’t know whether I mentioned in my last letter that I have had Christmas cards from Mrs Jones & Mrs Schultz. I’ve been trying to get out to see Tiny but he’s a long way from here and it’s a bit awkward. From what I hear he’s got a good chance of a discharge but I don’t think he’ll go back to the Zinc Works unless he gets on the staff. I think he’ll be shooting for the Civil Service and shouldn’t have much trouble with Colonel Butler and other big heads batting for him.

The government propaganda about Christmas is quite interesting and no doubt their intentions were good and where practicable I’m prepared to believe they would make a show but it scarcely touched us. Breakfast and dinner were the usual trough mysteries but we had quite a good tea – poultry and mashed potatoes followed by a very commendable Christmas pudding. At the conclusion of the meal Joe called for three cheers for General Blamey. The usual mess time chatter stopped for a few moments – there was absolute silence and then the mob let forth a torrent of appreciation but not in cheers. I believe some of the base show did pretty well and there was quite a bit of grog in some quarters – we’ve heard a lot of talk of champagne and whiskey. These Yanks are the boys for the whiskey – they’ll pay anything from five pounds to seventeen a bottle but of course they have tons of dough and don’t spend anything here because even tobacco and cigarettes are issued. There’s never any trouble to buy a carton of cigarettes from them – they get more than they can smoke.

May tells me Col Payne is very sick – had an operation for cancer. You’d never have thought that man had anything the matter with him – he was a picture of health and didn’t drink or smoke. Still you can never go by appearances. Incidentally while on the subject of sickness Jim McDonnell is laid up again with his ears. They seem to be giving him a lot of trouble.

Mick seems to be having a pretty tough trot. His letter sounded quite down in the dumps what with his father dying and things being slack in the trade. I don’t think he’s ever had to worry much about work – it’s a wonder he doesn’t give the trade a bye for a while and get in on some of the money- making rackets.

You’ve never mentioned in your letters whether that other packet of snaps made the grade. Joe’s girl wrote about a month ago saying she’d sent them. I’ve never seen them myself but Joe said they were an extra good lot so I hope they get through alright – of course the heavy Christmas mail may have held them up.

There’s practically no news I can tell you from this end Mother & dad so I think I’ll say cheerio now – give my love to May, Anne and Carline and regards to the boys.

Love

Max

PS The boss has just come back from MDS and Jim has got Malaria.

Washed my entire wardrobe…

Photo – doing the washing – taken by Laurie Ward in another camp in Port Moresby http://indicatorloops.com/pm_ackack.htm

Government propaganda about Christmas

John J Dedman, as the Minister for War Organization of Industry, was responsible for preventing the serious waste of manpower and materials. In 1942 he banned advertisers from using the words ‘Christmas’, ‘Yuletide’ or ‘festive season’ and there was to be no mention of Santa Claus. His contention was that Christmas was too ‘commercialised’ and his measures were simply returning Australians to the true spirit of Christmas. The government even suggested that adults limit their exchange of presents to giving war savings stamps and certificates. (http://john.curtin.edu.au/legacyex/economy.html)

Convalescent camp

Tiny (Schultz, 2/31 Bn) was probably convalescing with others of the 25th Brigade who had returned from the front. This camp was at Donadabu on the Sogeri Plateau, some 35 km from Port Moresby. The ‘primitive’ tented camp ‘in the quiet jungle surroundings of the comparatively cool plateau was heaven’…(Footsoldiers p 246).

AWM P02424.158 Sogeri Valley, Papua Elevated view over the Donadabu Rest Camp near Koitaki

Christmas for the troops

Those in the convalescent camps had a different experience from the ‘Moresby Defence’ group:

According to The Footsoldiers (p247) : ‘On Christmas Day, after the traditional AIF meal, most of the men hitch-hiked the four miles to the camp at Bisiatabu where the new 2/33rd Battalion was re-forming, there to greet mates who had been wounded or evacuated earlier. In every tent that night the lamps burned late as groups of section friends talked of their doings since they last saw one another, or shared Christmas parcels that had come forward from heir families in Australia. A ration of two bottles of beer a man had been issued and this livened up the generally happy gatherings at both Donadabu and Bisiatabu camps where authorities had somehow contrived to separate friends….’

We had quite a good tea

AWM OG0329 This photo is of a group of airmen, but I imagine Dad’s group might have been similarly equipped and attired. The party hats were sent from Devonport to LAC A. D. Loane, and had arrived the previous night.

Posted in Americans, Australian, escapades, relaxation, fun and games, Food and Drink, organisation, parcels, pay and conditions | Tagged allotment of pay, DIck Schultz, General Blamey, rumours | Leave a comment

Fellows would have to stand twice in the one place to throw a shadow

Posted on December 15, 1942 by felicityh54

TX 1004

Max Hickman

33rd Platoon

25th Brigade

Carrier Group

AIF New Guinea

15 – 12 – 42

Dear Mother & Dad

It never rains but what it pours. I’ve had another two letters since I last wrote you – one yesterday and one today. Today’s was written on the eighth so that’s not a bad effort. Of course the reason’s been that my letters have been going round in circles but as today’s letter carried the address of this outfit I expect my mail will now be regular again.

I can well understand how tough dad finds being back at work. You picked too hard a proposition after such a long break. Pity you couldn’t get a lighter part time job – too much bullocking down there for a man your age.

That news about Tiny is quite a surprise to me. He must have struck another batch of Malaria. It’s been bowling the chaps up top over like nine pins. Tiny was still going alright when young Dick Lewis came back. Dick said he’d seen him a few days before he came back. The Brigade have had a hell of a tough trot judging from reports and from what I’ve seen of the chaps who got back the Owen Stanley show has been the hardest campaign of the war. Most of the fellows would have to stand twice in the one place to throw a shadow and it’s not a Marquis of Queensbury rules show. It’s very close quarters fighting and if a man gets wounded the Japs put machines on fixed lines on him and do over the stretcher bearers that go out for him. I’ll try and find out more about Tiny but he’s probably been evacuated to the mainland.

Tom’s house certainly cost him packet if it’s only a small cottage. Mick mentioned the place in his last letter and he didn’t go much on the builder but I’ll bet Tom makes it alright. There’ll certainly be a power of work in the building game after the show – a lot of fellows who have stacked up the army dough will want their own homes and I suppose there’ll be some sort of housing scheme for the returned men although they won’t expect much if the treatment to date is any criterion. The Yanks can’t understand them using the same men all the time. They say our blokes meaning the Americans get the credit for what your fellows do. There’s a lot too many of the Worbey-Bealy type in Australia and you can’t blame them when the government encourage them and take their orders from the trade unions and those whose patriotism is gauged by the monetary benefit to themselves.

That car of Ken’s is certainly getting him into some strife – I guess they’ll be taking it from him if he has any more accidents with it. I suppose that leg makes driving very hard and those Fords are very sudden on the accelerator. He needs a car with less power and steering column gears.

Alwyn’s accumulated leave sounds alright. The navy must be working to a different system than the army – there’s no such thing as accumulated leave in the AIF though I think there is in the permanent forces. Those chaps who joined the Navy for the duration must get permanent Navy privileges.

How did you put your birthday in Dad- did you make a day of it? I mentioned it to Jim McDonnell and he said ‘He’ll be full – some taxi driver’ll get a few bob for a run to the Valley today”

A chap from intelligence has been round several times lately making talks on the various theatres of the war. He’s a good speaker and his talks illustrated with maps have been very interesting. The more so when he gives the political background of the various moves. Perhaps the best of these was his survey of the Russian position – just the immediate developments from Munich on and quite a different picture to that put forward by the papers in those days.

Well I must say cheerio now Mother & Dad. News from this end is very scarce – we haven’t moved for some time now, in fact things look so settled at present that we’ve spent most of our spare time lately making ourselves comfortable. Old Tojo has been putting on a few raids lately – to all appearances the airforce is the best racket of the lot – they’d be very unlucky to be brought down. Give my love to May, Anne & Carline and best wishes to the boys.

Love

Max

PS Thanks for the pad and envelopes.

Malaria….bowling them over like ninepins

As Joan Crouch records in her book A Special Kind of Service …in the first few months of the Kokoda Trail campaign, the proportion of medical patients to battle casualties was almost ten to one….Prevention measures such as personal hygiene, correct clothing, use of repellents… use of mosquito nets and taking of suppressive drugs were all stressed….quinine was the standard suppressive drug …. but stocks were limited.

By November 1942, an epidemic of malaria had broken out, with rates of incidence increasing from 33 men per 1000 per week to 82 men per 1000 per week by December of that year. A recognition of the importance of reducing the rate of malarial infection led to the establishment in June 1943 of the Land Headquarters Medical research Unit in Cairns. (ref https://www.mja.com.au/journal/2011/194/8/war-malaria-and-nora-heysen-s-documentation-australian-medical-research-through)

The Brigade have had a hell of a tough trot

After re-taking Kokoda in early November, the 25th Brigade (2/25n, 2/31n and 2/33 Bn) moved towards the coast, in pursuit of the retreating Japanese. Casualties were enormous. The relevant chapter in the Battalion history – The Footsoldiers is entitled Gorari to Gona: Exhaustion.

By the time this letter was written, the Battalion’s acting CO Major Cotton had received advice that its remaining men were to be flown to Port Moresby for ‘rest and refit’. The men had been ‘resting’ at Soputa airstrip since being relieved by the 39th Battalion on December 4. At Soputa the men ‘carried out no duties, being physically incapable of doing any. The sheer business of looking after themselves and maintaining a patrol about the airstrip to detect wandering, hungry Japanese was all they could manage….On December 14, Soputa airstrip was closed – being too wet and dangerous for aircraft – and the men had to march ten miles to Popondetta. ‘After possibly the most trying march in the whole campaign, all ranks sick and just hanging on, the battalion arrived 125 strong at Popondetta on the evening of the 14th. From the 15th to the 17th in groups of 20 and 30 the men….were airlifted in DC3’s and Mitchell bombers back over the Owen Stanley Mountains, the flight taking less than forty minutes. (The Footsoldiers, p246) They were relieved that 97 days and nights of campaigning had come to an end.

AWM 013728 These Australians have just come 100 yards back from the front for food during a lull in the fighting. They are part of a company of the 2/33rd Battalion, which has been 2 days and nights within grenade distance of the Japanese. The Japanese retreated to the cover of the bush so that they could make use of the snipers. The Australians are in 5 ft grass within grenade distance of the fringe of bush surrounding Gona. Identified is NX44907 Sergeant Stanley Pretty (left front, obscured).

The men have clearly lost a lot of weight since early October (see post dated October 5 – photo at Ioribaiwa).

AWM 013731/06 Two members of the 2/33rd Battalion coming out for a spell from their own position which was then just one hundred yards from the Japanese positions. Identified is NX44907 Sergeant Stanley Pretty, of Engadine, NSW (right).

AWM 014181 This was taken near Sanananda: conditions at Gona were similar.

Alan Threlfall in Jungle Warriors (Allen & Unwin 2014 p149ff) has this to say about the ‘slow and bloody battles to destroy the Japanese defences at the beachheads’: Preparations for the attacks on the beachheads resemble the inadequate planning for the Kokoda and Milne Bay actions, with grossly inadequate maps, unreliable aerial photographs and little knowledge of the Japanese defences. Poor intelligence on enemy numbers, insufficient time for careful reconnaissance, a debilitated attacking force, appalling terrain and weather, and a lack of support weapons saw the battles descend into costly massacres. Individual groups of Australians struggled through swamps and mud towards expertly sited and camouflaged defences, to be met by a wave of small arms fire….The problems of transport and logistics meant that the attacking forces had entirely too little support, either air-or ground-based…Too few artillery pieces and rounds were available to support attacks on the Japanese positions….(troops) were forced to fight on terms and in conditions that greatly aided the tenacious Japanese defenders, who had nowhere to escape to and were therefore forced to fight to the death – something they had proven in earlier battles they were perfectly willing to do. In terrain similar to Milne Bay but if anything more waterlogged, the Japanese had prepared their defences on the only elevated and therefore relatively dry ground available, around which the tropical vegetation had rapidly regrown, hiding them from ground and aerial observation. From these positions they cut the attacking Allied forces down repeatedly….In country where it could take an hour to move 100 yards, one of the advantages of modern warfare, speed – …disappeared in the glutinous, knee-deep mud, malarial swamps and tangled wait-a while bushes. In short, inadequate and inaccurate intelligence, combined with a lack of patience by superior officers, forced those on the ground to commit men to battle without proper preparation. As in any battle fought under such conditions, lives were lost unnecessarily.’

AWM 013620 November 1942 Australians plod along “The Track” on the way to Buna.

AWM 013962 Buna area December 1942 Australian troops examining the construction of a Japanese machine gun post. Hundreds of similar posts, all extremely well camouflaged, had to be individually subdued.

For a detailed account of the 25th Brigade’s movements during November and December, see –

https://www.awm.gov.au/images/collection/bundled/RCDIG1024951.pdf

Who’s benefitting from the war?

Cartoons below are from the document http://www.nla.gov.au/sites/default/files/backroombriefings.pdf

Garn – It Ain’t Loaded – Samuel Wells 29 May 1942 Herald (Melbourne)

Pound wise – Penny foolish – Will Mahony 7 July 1942 Daily Telegraph (Sydney)

Feast and Famine – Ted Scorbeld – 15 July 1942 – The Bulletin

Spare the rod – Will Mahony 17 August 1942 Daily Telegraph (Sydney)

Posted in Americans, Australian, Japanese, pay and conditions, The course of the war | Tagged Alwyn Hickman, cartoons, Ken Jenkins, malaria, Owen Stanley campaign | Leave a comment

Rubber production and Jeeps ‘that can just about climb a brick wall’

Posted on December 11, 1942 by felicityh54

TX 1004

Max Hickman

33rd Platoon

25th Brigade

Carrier Group

AIF New Guinea

11th Dec 1942

Dear Mother & Dad

I received your two very interesting letters of the 16th & 23rd of November today – after so long without news from home it was like striking a prize in Tatts. As you say we’re certainly well off out of Catoe’s. It shows just how easy it is to slip – it looked an excellent proposition. There’s no doubt about the Council: they’re a hungry crowd: it must be about the worst managed show in the world – what the hell do they do with the tremendous amount of money they handle – no wonder a job in their service is so sought after.

I’m glad you gave the car a run and that it is alright. Cars will certainly be at a premium when the war’s over, especially small cars. These jeeps the yanks have got are a great little job – they can just about climb a brick wall. They’d certainly be handy for running round jobs – they’ll go anywhere and can carry a good load. Jack was saying in a letter I had from him last week that his Austin has been giving him a bit of trouble and expects to have to lay it up soon – tyres seem to have become the biggest problem now, although I was reading in a digest the other day that America has made a good substitute but it’s a bit too costly as yet to put on the open market. There’s some big rubber plantations here and quite a lot of young stuff coming on. There’s one chap up here (a friend of the Sergeant Major) who employs quite an army of coons on his properties – it seems a very intricate business.

Bad luck the wind getting loose in your garden after getting it so good. Jack says there’s quite a drought on too – that’s a bit tough after everything looking like a good season. Still it may come good yet. You’re not having much luck with your turkeys either – there’s not much chance of keeping anything like that unless they’re locked up & the rats can’t get near them. Do they still have greyhound racing down there?

The Phillips family are keeping very quiet. Old Algy must be sick if he’s left the taxation department – they’re getting their share of trouble these days. I’ve often wondered what Max is doing – I thought he might have been up here somewhere – although wishful thinking and a flood of rumours give the impression that the unit he was training for have gone back to the mainland. Rumours about our mob (with the exception of the composition to which we seem to have become permanently attached) going back are very persistent although a sister at the hospital threw a spanner in then works the other day. I went to see a chap who’d come back from up top and she said he’d been evacuated to the mainland. When I remarked that that was good, she said yes – it’ll be a good trip for them but they won’t like coming back. I said – will they have to and she [was] quite definite that they would. It looks as though another furphy has been thrown to the winds although the mob won’t wear anything except that the unit is going back and any suggestions that it isn’t are howled down as fifth column.

I can understand your not seeing Tom Cooper these days as there’s always plenty to keep a man busy around a new house, and judging from the way Tom looked after the place he rented I’ll be he’ll make his own place look well. I believe old Claude Hill has a job at Brighton- armourer’s assistant or storeman’s assistant -he used to potter about a bit in both those jobs. He had the game by the throat right from the start – with no particular job he was practically a free lance and always managed to wangle duty passes that entitled him to come & go as he pleased – easily the best position of any man in the show, even the CO.

Christmas is getting very close now – a fortnight today – but I suppose it will be little more than just another anniversary this year at home and just another day here. Still I can’t complain because I spent the last two in the two places where the occasion is most celebrated – England and Jerusalem.

There’s some talk that we might get a bottle of beer each but of course that’s just another rumour. The soaks are offering to buy up the issue of those who don’t fancy just a smell – at ten shillings a bottle – and I suppose if it happened to be Cascade or Carlton Special they’d give a pound a bottle.

There isn’t any writeable news from this end – things are very much as they were when I last wrote and after listening to all the blowhards about what was going to happen on the anniversary of Pearl Harbour it was all a bit disappointing when nothing happened at all.

I must say cheerio now Mother and Dad. All the very best for a Happy Christmas and a bright new year – give my regards to the boys.

Love

Max

PS The ink the canteen racket is putting out is like water – it’s impossible to read it – so I’ll just get a loan of the boss’s to address the envelope.

Ink is like water

This letter appears to have been written in pencil – but maybe it’s the watery ink!

The Yanks’ jeeps…can just about climb a brick wall…

http://www.detroitnews.com/picture-gallery/business/autos/chrysler/2015/06/22/jeep-from-world-war-ii-to-today/29127931/ Caption: West Point cadets and a US army soldier drive a Jeep at Fort Benning, Georgia in 1942. The rugged Jeep brand dates back to 1940 when the Army solicited bids for a 1/4 ton ‘light reconnaissance’ vehicle.

Photo from Wikipedia: Members of the 2nd Battalion, 126th Infantry Regiment, U.S. 32nd Division, in an Army Bantam Jeep crossing a river on the southern portion of the Kapa Kapa Trail in Papua New Guinea during October 1942.

Loss of a vital resource: over 90% of the world’s crude rubber in Japanese hands

http://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/68749770 The Advocate (Burnie, Tasmania) January 14 1942) All told, the countries mentioned [British Malaya, French Indo China, the Philippines, North Borneo and Sarawak] supplied 97 percent of the world’s crude rubber shipped to overseas markets in 1940……Stocks of crude rubber held by America and the British Empire probably amount to less than a year’s normal consumption. As the world must have crude rubber to carry on civilisation’s multitudinous activities, there is reason for grave concern in respect of the future control and welfare of this vital industry.

Another article in the same edition of the Advocate is headlined – US to manufacture synthetic rubber. ….President Roosevelt had authorised the immediate execution of a 400 million dollar programme to make 400,000 tons of synthetic rubber yearly. Mr Jones estimated that the plants would be ready by the middle of 1943 and, together with available rubber, would fill all military needs and part of civilian requirements……

http://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/50128722 Courier Mail (Brisbane) 8 July 1942 Rubber is one more reason why New Guinea must be held. With more than 90 percent of the world’s rubber in Japanese hands, New Guinea’s once infinitesimal contribution to the world’s rubber stocks has assumed a new and vital significance, particularly to Australia.

http://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/25911166 The Mercury (Hobart) 16 July 1942. The state’s Agriculture minister is quoted as saying Tasmania would be an ideal place to make synthetic rubber: The Minister said that plans should be put in hand immediately. All the elements necessary were in Tasmania. A synthetic rubber plant close to carbide works would mean economy in manufacture and deliveries. The manufacture of synthetic rubber was one of the most important contributions Tasmania could make….

I can find no record of synthetic rubber ever being produced in Tasmania.

For more on the development of synthetic rubber in the USA and Germany, and wartime measures in the USA, see http://www.nationalww2museum.org/learn/education/for-students/ww2-history/at-a-glance/rubber.html

Anniversary of Pearl Harbour

see http://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/2612435 rebuilding the naval base, repairing ships; Japanese broadcast …etc

Posted in Americans, Carrier platoon, organisation, pay and conditions | Tagged cars, Christmas, Claude Hill | Leave a comment

The Fuzzy Wuzzy Angels

Posted on December 2, 1942 by felicityh54

TX 1004

Max Hickman

33rd Platoon

25th Brigade

Carrier Group

AIF New Guinea

2nd Dec 1942

Dear Mother & Dad

It seems ages since I’ve heard from home. The good mail has made us expect too much. The last letter I’ve had from you was written on the 9th November. But I suppose the general buggerizing about in recent weeks has upset things – although I’m still getting my mail quite regularly from Youngster and my other correspondents who continued to use this address. McGuinness would have been able to sort things out but he went sick and the joker – a doctors batman – doing the job isn’t very conversant with the distribution, so I fancy my letters from home are going astray and will be very lucky if they catch up. There might also be some going astray from this end as I wrote Jack and Mrs Toomey about a month ago and letters from both of them this week speak of not hearing from me for six weeks and make no mention of the later letters.

Jack gave me a very interesting account of affairs on the home front with an excellent appreciation of numerous staff officers. Although the letter got through the censors I guess it [would have] bordered on libel in the eyes of the hierarchy.

Our present camp site has made it possible for us to go and see the chaps at the Hospital coming back from up top. Quite a few of our crowd who arrived before we did went with the battalion and Peter McCowan who came much later worked the oracle too – we struck him the other day at hospital. He’s as fine as the thin edge of a match. Old McGoldrick, Dick Lewis and several others are also back with wounds, malaria or sunstroke. Young Dick was wounded in the foot and is back in Aussie. This country isn’t the best of places for medical services to operate. You can almost watch the nurses ageing – they’re doing a marvellous job considering the conditions and the tremendous amount of work they have to do. I don’t know where it originated but one of the chaps came by an appreciation of the work of the niggers that i think is worth repeating: The Fuzzy Wuzzy Angels of the Owen Stanley Track

Many a mother in Australia when the busy day is done

Sends a Prayer to the Almighty for the keeping of her Son.

Asking that an Angel guide him and bring him safely back

Now we see those prayers are answered on the Owen Stanley track.

Though they haven’t any haloes only holes slashed through the ear

Their faces marked with tattoo’s and scratch pins in their hair.

Bringing back the badly wounded just as steady as a hearse

Using leaves to keep the rain off and as gentle as a nurse.

Slow and careful in bad places on that awful mountain track

And the look upon their faces made us think that Christ was black.

Not a move to hurt the carried as they treat him like a saint

It’s a picture worth recording that an artist’s yet to paint.

Many a lad will see his mother and the husbands, wee-uns and wives

Just because the Fuzzy Wuzzies carried them to save their lives.

From mortar or machine gun fire or a chance surprise attack

To safety and the care of doctors at the bottom of the track.

May the mothers of Australia when they offer up a prayer

Mention these impromptu Angels with the Fuzzy Wuzzy hair.

Rumours of movements continue to fly wide & wild, some thinking that we might go home & others with a more keen appreciation of the army and its ways considered it more likely that any reorganisation, recuperation and re-equipping will be carried out here. Although I really think the sloggers will go back I can’t see them taking us in our present composition. However as hope remains the dominant force of our lives we’re still hoping and every week the soaks check up the beer reserve in their paybooks.

Things are very quiet in our particular corner just now and parade ground dope is assuming greater and greater proportions and the tempers are becoming more and more frayed. There’s been a couple of exchanges of smacks lately – even old Ack, usually one of the best tempered blokes in the show, does his block very easily now.

I had a letter the other day from some people we met soon after we got to Queensland. I think I mentioned meeting them in one of my letters. Cramp was the name. Anyway the letter was more of an invitation to an evening than anything. It had been posted on the twelfth of July but addressed to the wrong unit and went for a trip to the Middle East and back.

I must say cheerio now Mother & Dad. Give my love to May, Anne and the baby and best wishes to Laurie and the boys.

Love

Max

PS All the best for next Saturday Dad. Old Jim says have one with [for?] him too.

Our Present camp site… near the hospital

They were clearly back in the vicinity of ‘Seventeen Mile’, and not at Brown River as suggested in the previous letter.

The Fuzzy Wuzzy Angels

The poem had only been written a few weeks earlier, by by NX6925 Sapper H “Bert” Beros while on the Kokoda Track. Evacuation of patients had to be conducted on foot, often stumbling or crawling along, as the mountainous terrain made the use of planes impossible. All stores and equipment had to be carried, and the sick and wounded either walked or were carried on stretchers by native carriers, called affectionately the ‘fuzzy fuzzy angels’ by the troops. (A Special Kind of Service, p65)

Fuzzy Wuzzy Angels : Photos from the AWM collection

AWM 026856 September 1942. Native stretcher bearers stop at a river to give a drink to their patient, Private A Baldwin (NX 7103) of the 2/33rd Battalion

AWM 013256 New Guinea 2 September 1942 An indication of the primitive line of communication and of the difficulties encountered in the movement of troops is shown here. Native porters (known as Fuzzy Wuzzy Angels) are carrying wounded Australian soldiers on stretchers from the jungle battlefield through a mountain stream to the hospital behind the lines, following a sharp clash with the Japanese forces. All Australians in New Guinea pay a high tribute to the courage, endurance and comradeship the New Guinea natives who are playing a very important part int he Allied efforts to drive the Japanese from the country.

AWM 014028 Buna, Papua 25 December 1942. QX23902 Private George ‘Dick’ Whittington being helped along a track through the kunai grass towards a field hospital at Dobodura. The Papuan native helping him is Raphael Oimbari. Whittington was with the 2/10th battalion at the time and had been wounded the previous day int he battle for Buna airstrip. He recovered from his wounds but later died of scrub typhus.

Pete McCowan at the Hospital

Pete’s service record makes no mention of an injury or illness at this time. However, the more surprising thing is that there were any records at all – let alone comprehensive ones! This extract from A Special Kind of Service (Joan Crouch) highlights some of the difficulties:

The staff worked long hours. The Unit War Diary of December 1942 records that Orderly Room and Medical Records staff remained on duty twenty four hours a day, with snatches of sleep. It was ,most important that accuracy was maintained in the recording of admissions, discharges, transfers, evacuations, notification of very dangerously and seriously ill patients and deaths, as well as staff movements, statistics and returns. The ward staff worked broken shifts, but if necessary worked all day and into the night and in the first months there were no days off. Most wards of sixty beds and over had three or four sisters on day shift and one on night duty. As the establishment increased, reinforcements of sisters and orderlies arrived.

Dick’s injury

The Footsoldiers account of this incident on 22 November during the attack on Gona is different from Dick’s own recollection. According to the former, Captain Clowes ordered forward the one battalion Vickers gun, by the telephone that had been laid…. Captain Clowes was outlining the position to the CO when he was killed….His crewmen, assisting in setting up the gun, Privates Dick Lewis and Bill Green, were both wounded.

According to Dick, he had been sent forward with Bill to ask Captain Clowes if he wanted the Vickers gun. Clowes did not want it: the Vickers being water-cooled, ‘steams a lot’ when firing, thus revealing its position in the open kunai grass. Dick says that Captain Clowes was asking him to give a message to one of the platoons when he was killed. Dick, standing next to him, was injured in the foot.

Hope remains the dominant force…soaks track the beer reserve

I haven’t been able to work out how the allocation of beer was related to the pay book, but whenever an allocation was made, it was clearly welcome!

AWM P02424.007 Informal group portrait of a some members of the 2/4th Field Ambulance who are obviously pleased at the arrival and distribution at the unit’s camp of the soldiers’ beer ration…. The men are gathered inside a tent that may be the Regimental Aid Post. One of the soldiers (extreme right) has his arm in a sling, while set up on a table behind him is an array of bottles containing various medicaments.

Managing the mail

McGuinness would have been able to sort things out….

Charlie McGinnes (NX6513) was a ‘battalion original’ and his role as postmaster was definitely an essential one. His son Peter has posted photos and some of Charlie’s memories of his time with the Battalion on the 2/33 Australian Infantry Battalion AIF Facebook page. This photo shows Charlie in one of his Post Offices – location unknown.

Posted in organisation, The course of the war | Tagged Dick Lewis, Pete McCowan, rumours | 2 Comments

Forty million mosquitoes to the acre… but it seems the tide is turning

Posted on November 23, 1942 by felicityh54

23rd Nov 1942

TX 1004

Max Hickman

33rd platoon

25th Brigade Carrier Group

AIF NG

Dear Mother & Dad

As you’ll see from the address I’m back with the mob – the uncertain state of flux – of not knowing where or what came to an end on Friday when orders came through to return to this show. The outfit has moved from the comparatively pleasant spot they formerly occupied to the uncongenial surroundings of a rain sodden swampy area with an estimated population of forty million mosquitoes to the acre. Before leaving we’d handed in our nets which had been distributed to new chaps who came to the show and so we found ourselves denied these essentials for the first night and did those bludgers go to work on me. Even with nets it’s practically impossible to keep them out but without a net it was a fair cow and though I tried to cover myself with the blanket their attacks were too solid: they seemed to lift the blanket right off. I tried putting up a smoke screen by burning some oily cotton waste but all to no avail – a heap of cow dung would have been worth its weight in gold but to all intents and purposes it’s far more scarce in this country than that most desirable mineral. However yesterday I got me a net and last night in the short spasms I was awake I was able to listen to the hordes raging and dive bombing without much effect – a very satisfying position I can tell you.

I received your welcome letter of the 9th on Thursday and am glad to know everyone seems so happy although it’s bad luck the wind is playing up with the garden – there’s always something to discourage one’s efforts in everything.

As you say the news from all quarters seems very bright at present. We’ve waited a long time for the tide to turn and up till now the end could not be visualised but it seems that the various elements are at last combining for the spin we’ve been waiting for. The allies have had a long run of outs but it looks like them getting a bat (?) now and although I suppose there’ll still be a lot of ups and downs the outlook is the brightest it’s been since the fall of France. We listened to a couple of broadcasts last week that echoed the good news but I didn’t like the note of servile humility that marked Curtin’s speech, lauding the Americans. Whilst they’ve certainly done a great job Australians have more than pulled their weight in every sphere and a little boost to them wouldn’t do any harm. I suppose when the history of this particular phase is written it will rank among the epics of history. The conditions under which the AIF fought their way over what Blamey said was an impassable barrier against an enemy who probably has no equal in cunning or barbarism is an achievement to be proud of.

The rumour about us going back to Australia for reforming seems to have extended home although it’s probably just wishful thinking sentiments expressed in their letters home taking effect on the people at home and boomeranging back here but there’ll be a hell of a lot of disappointed people if it doesn’t eventuate and it really seems too good to be true but as hope is still the dominant force of life we’re hoping like hell. There’s also a tale going round that there’s to be a referendum as to whether the AIF and Militia should be merged into one force. If it does come to a vote I don’t think there’s much doubt as to the result – I think it is almost certain to be wiped – compulsory training should have been brought in two years ago but feeling between the two services and their connections has become too divergent now and it will be the last word of insult to the AIF to lose their identity now.

Another outsider got home in the Melbourne Cup. It doesn’t pay to pick the favourites these days. We had a sweep here and I drew ‘Hearts Desire’ and got quite a good run for my money.

Well as there’s no news, I must say cheerio. Give my love to May, Anne & the baby and best wishes to Laurie & the boys.

Love

Max

A Rain Sodden Swampy Area

This photo from The Footsoldiers is captioned: Some of the Carrier Platoon and carriers (as part of Port Moresby Defence force) at the Brown River camp north-west of Port Moresby in November 1942. Dad is second from the left. I can find no information about this camp site or the reason for its location – however if it was indeed on the Brown River, it was well away from the airfields he was previously defending.

Forty million mosquitoes
One of a number of US army posters re malaria prevention : others can be found at http://flashbak.com/japs-japes-and-dr-seus-us-anti-malaria-warning-posters-from-world-war-2-36536/

And below, the poem Mike the Malaria Moskeeter appeared in the AWM Christmas Book for 1943 – Khaki and Green.

The news from all quarters seems very bright…

Kokoda had been re-taken from the Japanese on November 2 and two days later, the Australian 9th Division contributed to the Allied 8th Army’s defeat of Rommel’s forces at El Alamein. The tide had also turned in Russia with the Germans no longer holding the upper hand in Stalingrad.

The Prime Minister’s speeches (such as this one reported in the Melbourne Argus – http://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/12005419) were up-beat about the situation in the South West Pacific in particular: The enemy has had a battering in the Solomons. Nowhere can I see the enemy in the ascendant. On the contrary, I see plans long matured being carried into effect, problems of organisation being overcome, and events all combining today to give us a greater measure of hope than at any previous time since the war began….One makes no prophecies, but I feel confident that the gallant men fighting for us there will stick it out, and that, as in North Africa, the tide of battle will go increasingly the way we would like it to go.

Apart from saying that he had ‘absolute confidence’ in General MacArthur as the Supreme Commander of Allied forces in the SW Pacific, I can find no general ‘lauding of the Americans’ in the speeches I have read. MacArthur himself however is known to have made derogatory remarks about Australian troops – saying they were poor fighters who lacked aggression. Of course, he was blissfully ignorant of the conditions the troops had faced and were facing. He carried out his leadership from Brisbane and Melbourne.

It’s interesting to me to see Dad’s report of Blamey’s comments. Maybe he was making amends for his infamous ‘rabbit’ speech to the 21st Brigade earlier in the month when he is also reported to have said that the Australians had been defeated by ‘inferior troops in inferior numbers’ (ref Andrew James – Kokoda Wallaby – Allen & Unwin 2011 p 220).

Proposed Merger of Militia with AIF

The Prime Minister’s motion seeking to create a single Australian fighting force for the South West Pacific area was debated at a national ALP conference on November 18. Conference decided that the question should be referred to the state branches. According to the report in the West Australian, November 19 (http://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/47355314) delegates were divided on the Prime Minister’s proposal:

Votes taken today showed that the Tasmanian delegates were unitedly against the proposal and the West Australians were in favour. The Victorian delegation were divided, the majority being against the proposal, Queensland and South Australian delegations were also divided…

The Austerity Melbourne Cup

A lovely personal story about this particular Melbourne Cup, unusually run on a Saturday :

http://localhistory.kingston.vic.gov.au/htm/article/473.htm

The race was won by Colonus, ridden by 18 year old apprentice jockey Harry McCloud. The odds were 33/1. Dad’s horse (Heart’s Desire) came in third.

Posted in Australian, Carrier platoon, Papua New Guinea, The course of the war | Tagged Melbourne Cup, militia, mosquitoes | Leave a comment

Comings and goings (2 letters): don’t quite know whether I’m detached, attached or ex-list

Posted on November 14, 1942 by felicityh54

TX 1004

Max Hickman

2/33rd Battalion

AIF

8th Nov 1942

Dear Mother & Dad

It was with very real pleasure that I received and read your letter of the 26th this morning. A pity it hadn’t arrived before or with the plan as it throws quite a lot of new light on that proposition. The building of a school and the improvements effected at Roseway together with the information about Pearsalls place puts ‘Wayside’ in the category of highly desirable propositions. In fact I think even if you have to go to 1600 or a little more it’s cheap in comparison to Pearsalls because although it’s a much bigger property, roads etc mean big money and will of course mean even bigger as wages and costs soar to the skies immediately after the show and the position in that gully does not lend itself to building the same type of home as Wayside does – so handy to the tram, shops and a park it certainly looks the goods and I do hope you’ll be able to come to a satisfactory arrangement about it.

By the way how did Henry Christie manage to evade the call-up? Surely the estate agency business isn’t exempt. He’s not back with Tregear is he? He was in partnership with Croziers last I heard of him and I suppose you haven’t heard how John Sturt got on. And Harry Hope – is he doing anything except tied (?) to his constituents? I guess he’s getting some Defence plans – they’d be being money jobs these days.

You mention that Nell Norris has been bridesmaid at a wedding. Has anything developed between she and Maurie O’Herne? I suppose she’s in one of the womens’ services now. She was pretty keen to join the WAAFs when I saw her and now that girls are being called up I suppose she’s in it.

I guess Bluey Brooks didn’t have much trouble to get back to the works. They must need all the men they can get now and since the government woke up that the financiers’ patriotism is gauged by the monetary benefits it brings to them and changed their minds about limiting profits they’re probably flat out on production. But that desert business is very rich. There’s no doubt about it these ASC mobs can spin a good story. If Bluey’s eyes were crook through being in the desert Christ help the blokes in the ninth divvy – I suppose you haven’t seen anything of old Claude Hill? How did old Pug manage to get away from the works? I thought you couldn’t leave a job these days. I guess old Charlie must have done a power of scheming but I’m glad to hear the he’s doing well. He certainly deserves it. Few men have worked harder than Pug. It’s a pity more men didn’t get on through their industry instead of by the exercise of the subtles(?)

I expect odd circumstances connected with my last two letters have set you thinking a bit and you’ve probably thought wrong. That is if you reckoned without the weather. When we thought the army had finished buggerizing us about the weather took a hand and the rains have upset our arrangements indefinitely. However as Jim McDonnell would say ‘little things are sent to try us, to build us up for a better world’. Anyway having reduced our wardrobe and personal effects to a mere handful even to the extent of leaving fountain pens and ink behind and lots of other things as well we’re now infinitely worse off than we were a week ago. And I pretty definitely sacrificed a temporary third stripe in the arrangement – I hadn’t got the stripe but was odds on to do so – I think the weather gods have sold me a pup.

The news last night was very encouraging and I hope it means the tide has turned – we seem to make haste very slowly but one can’t well question the British genius for finishing on top in wars – they’ve never actually won one yet, they always seem to let the other side lose them, by wearing him out. What I’d like to see now would be a big push from the Burma Road – although time has most certainly been on our side up till now it seems that the psychological time for a concerted effort is at hand and there may be a chance of missing our opportunity by waiting. Anyway I hope it won’t be long now.

I’ll say cheerio now Mother & Dad. Give my love to May, Anne & Carline and regards to Laurie and the boys

Love

Max

PS If you can sell that house (?) it would be a good idea to do so. How are the tyres on the car? I hope Jimmy is up on blocks again.

Wayside

This was a property in Lenah Valley Road previously known as Malvern, which had been owned by William Cato (a distant relative). Cato died in 1936 and his wife in 1939. Dad spoke about the property in other letters ( e.g. Sept 19 – Catoes is certainly a good property but it would be out of my reach Sept 25 – How much do they want for Catoes place? Oct 11 – more comment on the property, in connection with wanting to have something ready to jump into when the show is over ) The house still exists, in Lenah Valley Road, but the land around it has been subdivided into ‘quarter acre blocks’ – this may well have happened soon after the war, when the suburb developed rapidly. Perhaps the land sale referred to here was the start of that process.

The Womens’ Services

These photos, from Hobart at War 1939 – 45 ( C J Dennison 2008), show members of the Women’s Air Training Corps learning to read an altimeter, doing maintenance on RAAF vehicles and learning to read morse code.

You’ve probably thought wrong

Dad’s previous two letters certainly gave the impression that he was about to be deployed to the front line. The Brigade Diary notes on November 4 that ‘Mortar and MMG dets from 16 and 25 Bdes will arrive by air at Kokoda’, and on 5 November – 25 Bde will assume responsibility for protection of Kokoda drone against hostile air and ground attack’. Given that airfield defence was what he was engaged in at Moresby, but that the Japanese were now retreating, it’s possible Dad and his group were to move to Kokoda. I can find no record of orders relating to his carrier group at this time, however carriers WERE deployed to the Buna area in early December. (That deployment was not a success : on December 5 the 5 carriers attempted an assault at Cape Endaiadere – all were destroyed, with the loss of 6 lives)

This photo shows the landing strip at Kokoda in November 1942. (AWM 151064)

The Burma Road

From britannica.com: The Burma Road- highway linking Lashio, in eastern Burma (now Myanmar), with Kunming, in Yunnan province, China, a distance of 1,154 km (717 miles). The Chinese began construction of the road after the outbreak of the Sino-Japanese War in 1937 and the occupation of the seacoast of China by the Japanese. Completed in 1939, it functioned for three years as a vital supply route to the interior of China from the outside world, carrying war goods transported by sea to Rangoon (Yangon) and then by train to the Lashio railhead. In April 1942, however, the Japanese overran Burma, seized Lashio, and thus closed the road at its source.

Chinese, American and British Commonwealth troops fought as allies in Burma. After the Japanese closed the road, Chinese units were re-supplied by air, from northeastern India. In late 1942 there were many reports such as this one, about allied bombing raids on Japanese targets. http://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/47355972

TX 1004

Max Hickman

2/33rd Battalion

AIF 14th Nov

Dear Mother & Dad

I really don’t know what address to put on my letters. Although it’s probably OK with the powers that be, events during the last three weeks have been a little confusing and I don’t quite know whether I’m detached, attached or ex-list. However McGuiness will sort it out so I think it will be OK to address it that way.

Your welcome letter of the 1st November arrived Thursday. Another old identity of the district has gone on. Mrs Charlie must have been pretty old though – there’s no doubt about the old clan they make a wake of a funeral. It’s always an occasion for a celebration with them. One of the funniest things I remember was the gathering at old Charlie’s funeral – while the Salvo bloke was saying his piece inside, the crowd were discussing his crop and the amount of black spot he had.

As I haven’t had a letter from Ivy for a fortnight or more I didn’t know of the likelihood of Bill’s move. It would certainly be a bad job at present although if he was to be on the same work as in Melbourne the only chance he’d have of getting hurt would be in a road accident but it would be very hard for Ivy.

I had a letter from Jack yesterday and he mentioned that Max Phillips has a son. I guess there’s great rejoicing among the clan.

Whilst waiting for a plane the other day a chap came over and made himself known. Max Mann – a chap I knew in Hobart (you may remember his brother being drowned with three others from the YMCA one Good Friday) he’s been in these parts for several years – had an administrative job at Bougainville in the Solomons and when the Japs took it he got away with some other fellows in a small boat and had fifteen days at sea. Quite an experience. His plane was going the opposite way to us and he’s probably in Brisbane now or perhaps ever farther south. It was rather neat the way he let his wife know he was coming south – he told her that (whatever her second Christian and maiden surnames were)’s husband was coming south and if she’d like a trip to Brisbane with her it would do her good. Quite a good strategy don’t you think?

The prospects of a good season seems to be in keeping with the prospects of better times for our side. Mrs Toomey has great confidence in the season. Incidentally the told me in her letter that Claude Hill has been back in Sydney for twenty one days’ leave. He’s a cunning old bugger that. The army has certainly been a good thing to him. Still good luck to him. There’s a persistent rumour that we’ll be pulled out and reformed and of course a lot of fellows think they’ll get home again before the next move. If that should happen I don’t think I’ll be too keen on going away again although of course I’ll probably think differently when the time comes.

There’s no doubt about the Yanks when they go into production they can turn out the stuff. That Kaiser bloke has revolutionised ship building – fancy building a ship in a week. I guess those big industrialists are coining the dough over there the same as they are in Australia. I saw in one paper where some firms were making two hundred and fifty percent profit. Pre-war fortunes will look like small change after this war. One of the chaps asked a Yank if there weren’t a lot of people who would like to shoot Roosevelt and the Yank put the situation in a nutshell when he said – Who wants to shoot Father Christmas?

I was pleased to hear that my account has been returned from London. You didn’t mention the amount though but I suppose it’s OK.

As usual there’s no news from this end so with love to May, Anne & Carline and best wishes to the boys I’ll say Cheerio.

Love

Max

Mrs Charlie, and Charlie’s wake

‘Mrs Charlie’ rather than ‘Aunt Margaret’ – no idea why! Charlie Hickman had died in 1938. Margaret died at the ripe old age of 82. Black spot is a disease of apple and pear trees, caused by a fungal infection.

Waiting for a plane

Dad doesn’t know if he’s attached, detached or ex-list, but he was ‘waiting for a plane’. He says Max Mann was ‘going the opposite way to us’…and as Mann was heading to Brisbane, Dad was clearly heading north – maybe he was helping on supply drops? There is no indication on his service record of what he might have been doing at this time.

Beating the censors

Max Mann’s ‘coded’ communication was a good trick – another was shared recently (6 May 2016) via the 2/33 Bn Facebook page: Fiona Patterson, granddaughter of 2/33 veteran William Erskine Bailey NX 97019 says My grandmother and him had a map each and some tracing paper and he would put pin pricks in the tracing paper for her to check and see where he was without giving anything away in his letters.

Ship building records

In fact, the Liberty ship SS Robert E Peary was assembled in less than five days as part of a special competition among shipyards and was lunched on November 12, 1942 at the Richmond shipyards (California) owned by Henry J Kaiser. Another of Kaiser’s shipyards in Oregon had built a similar ship in ten days in September 1942. The four Kaiser shipyards at Richmond produced 747 ships over the course of the war and the Oregon yards 455 ships.

Photo from http://www.defensemedianetwork.com/stories/henry-j-kaiser-and-the-liberty-ships/

Posted in organisation, The course of the war, Uncategorized | Tagged confusion, finance | Leave a comment

The last place on God’s earth to send women

Posted on November 2, 1942 by felicityh54

TX 1004

Max Hickman

2/33rd Battalion AIF

2nd Nov 42

Dear Mother & Dad

As the Tassie mail has not arrived yet I may not be able to write tomorrow so will drop a short note now. We’re expecting to go out on a job at any time now and it may keep us away for some days and I don’t expect we’ll be able to write anything during that time.

Although there’s probably enough happens here every day to fill a book there’s been very little writeable news about our particular corner. I met a chap yesterday out of Dick Schultz’s outfit. He told me Dick has been in hospital for about six weeks. He didn’t know what was wrong but thought it was either malaria or dysentery – both of these maladies played up with the troops for a few days after we came here and Dick must have copped it early in the piece. The chap said last he’d heard of Tiny he was in a con depot so he may be back with his unit now. Jim McDonnell has recovered from his bad ear but is still suffering with a powerful thirst.

Bill Collis came back from hospital yesterday with quite a volume of information – mostly just furphies but quite a good story of a conversation with one of the nurses – a girl from his home town – he asked her if the nurses were volunteers and she said yes we’re the same as the AIF. The girls who stay on nursing at home we call chocolateens – that I suppose being the feminine of choco’es – her ideas about this place weren’t very flattering and she much preferred the Middle East where their hospitals were either in or near the cities and there was a fair bit of life and amusement and quite apart from that I reckon this is the last place on God’s earth to send women. As far as we’re concerned it doesn’t make much difference except that the fighting is much different.

I had a letter from Youngster yesterday. She seems quite bright and cheerful although she says she’ll be confined to her home from now on. The office work she’s doing at home and her gardening seem to keep her mind off herself. It will be a good ting when her ordeal is over.

I sent a small parcel home this morning. Just my puggaree and a match box cover one of the chaps made out of a piece of zero. They’ve produced a lot of souvenirs out of this stuff – from a small pipe the chap made some tiny serviette rings whilst another of the mechanics has turned out some rather neat rings. The puggaree is about the last vestige of AIF equipment so as I’ll only lose it up here am sending it on.

We’re travelling light these days and even snaps can take up room. There’s a couple I found when I cleaned the pack out. One was taken at Port Said the other was when Peter McCowan was on leave in Palestine. Peter’s the chap with the hat on and his elbow on the table. The snap is upsetting the morale of the troops so I thought I’d better get rid of it.

I must say cheerio now Mother & Dad. Give my love to May, Anne and Carline and best regards to Laurie and the boys.

Love

Max

Expecting to go out on a job…sending my puggaree

The puggaree is the hatband which includes the battalion colour patch – it is clear Dad was expecting to be sent to the front line.

The last place on God’s earth to send women

Extracts from Joan Crouch’s book, A Special Kind of Service (pp 64 – 67) :

On 23 August the 2/9 AGH (which was the only General Hospital in New Guinea at the time) arrived (at ‘The Seventeen Mile’) as a 600-bed hospital and on 25 September they had 560 patients (mainly with fevers and dysentery) …Two days later the hospital was expanded to 800 beds, including a fly-proof ward for dysentery patients. ….On 6 October 800 beds were equipped and 732 occupied, and a week later the establishment was increased to 1200 beds….The sisters arrived on 29 October…taking over the wards from the orderlies who had, with very little training or experience, conscientiously carried out their work with quite a degree of skill….The ward staff work broken shifts, but if necessary worked all day and into the night, and in the first months there were no days off. Most wards of sixty beds and over had three or four sisters on day shift and one on night duty….Shortly after the arrival of the sisters, the wet season with its daily deluges of heavy rain, arrived….The daily deluges soon made the drainage throughout the hospital ineffective against the floods of water which ran off the surrounding hills, and the black volcanic soil quickly became bogs of heavy, sticky, thick mud. Many of the tents, both in the staff lines and wards, were mouldy and leaked. beds had to be moved in limited space to avoid drips, and they sank in the mud at all angles. It was difficult to keep patients dry, and there was nowhere to hang wet blankets out to dry. The situation became critical as increased numbers of sick and very fatigued men from the Kokoda Trail and later the Buna campaign, were admitted. The increased number of troops in the area, and the conditions in which they were fighting, only worsened the situation…..Owing to the lack of open ground, and the floods of water and mud, the hospital faced a critical situation….

AWM 053199

The 2/9 AGH, Port Moresby – wards were tents with earthen floors – see following photo

AWM 107160 : Interior of a tent ward, 2/9th AGH Port Moresby. Nurses take a tea break.

AWM photo – P01510.013 Patients eat breakfast outside ward 21, 2/9 AGH Port Moresby

Souvenirs from pieces of Zero

I can remember seeing the matchbox cover Dad mentions. The AWM collection doesn’t include any serviette rings, but it does include this memento (REL49028) which is inscribed on the reverse side with the words ‘Zero Metal’.

Posted in Papua New Guinea | Tagged DIck Schultz, dysentery, field hospital, malaria, souvenirs | Leave a comment

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The Blog that might have been – 70 years on

A change of scenery, and the best bread ever

A new cook, night time snake drama and a long distance debate

New Year … not a very auspicious event

Christmas in New Guinea: two letters

Fellows would have to stand twice in the one place to throw a shadow

Rubber production and Jeeps ‘that can just about climb a brick wall’

The Fuzzy Wuzzy Angels

Forty million mosquitoes to the acre… but it seems the tide is turning

Comings and goings (2 letters): don’t quite know whether I’m detached, attached or ex-list

The last place on God’s earth to send women

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