Free Radical
A Memoir of a Gay Political Activist
by
Roderic Anderson
Published by Roderic Anderson at Smashwords
Copyright © 2012 by Roderic Anderson
1
On the tenth of September 1943, a month and a day after my eighteenth birthday, I joined the Royal Australian Air Force and entered camp at No I Initial Training School for air crew at Somers, on Western Port Bay in Victoria. Raw recruits in the Army were commonly known as `rookies'. In the Air Force we were `sprogs'.
Leaving home didn’t upset me at all. I didn't really have a home – due to the wartime housing shortage my parents and I had been staying in a friend's house and my two sisters were living in Sydney. I did not feel strongly attached to home and family anyway, both Mum and Dad having brought me up to think and act independently. Even as a little boy when I went crying to Mum, after drying my tears and listening to my story, she would say, `It's very sad, but you're a big boy now, no longer a baby. Instead of coming crying to Mummy you must stand on your own feet and face up to your own troubles. Nobody else can sort out your problems for you. Often they're of your own making and you mustn't blame others for what’s really your own fault. 'Of course this didn’t immediately stop me crying and whingeing, but I soon came to realise tears and whining were pointless. I had to grit my teeth and try to solve my own problems.
Now, having had three love affairs with men while still at school, I was looking forward to being with men and, although only eighteen, treated as a man, but military discipline and the prospect of being told what to do all the time did not appeal to me. My only concern was, would the other trainees accept me or brand me as a poofter? Besides being ridiculed and abused, if my inclinations were discovered I would be immediately discharged from the Air Force and put in jail.
My parents were not authoritarian, so I could not rebel against their authority. By the standards of that time, Dad was almost a revolutionary. Mum was much more conservative and I enjoyed baiting her. I always took Dad’s part in their arguments. Apart from tobacco and alcohol, drugs were unknown then. With very little pocket money I could afford only an occasional packet of cigarettes. I wondered if my homosexuality was a form of rebellion.
The war had changed a great deal in the year since I had decided, while still at school, to join the Air Force. Now the Allies were forcing the enemy to retreat on all fronts. The Red Army had defeated Hitler's forces at Stalingrad and was now pushing them back the way they had come. Massive American and RAF raids were pounding Germany, North Africa was in British and American hands, a few days earlier Italy had surrendered and the Americans and British were advancing through Italy, though against strong German opposition.
Closer to home, American and Australian forces were driving the Japanese back in New Guinea and the Solomon Islands, so Australia was no longer threatened with invasion. We were winning the war but Germany still held most of Europe, and Japan occupied much of Asia and the Pacific islands. The war would last a long time yet and I expected to go to Canada for further training before joining a bomber crew in England.
On our first day we were issued with uniform and kit and settled into our quarters. After stripping off our civilian clothes, we all tried on our flying boots, helmet and goggles and changed into regular work uniform ─ overalls, boots and beret – not exactly glamorous but workmanlike and smart. We assembled on the parade ground where the warrant officer in charge of discipline (WOD) explained camp routine and all the dos and don'ts.
I had heard of army rookie camps where thousands of annoying trivial rules and regulations, that we called bullshit, and sadistic non-commissioned-officers (NCOs) made the recruits' lives a misery ─ pure bastardry. Here, I was pleasantly surprised to find it all seemed so sensible with a few simple rules that were necessary for the smooth running of the camp and our welfare, and the NCOs were friendly and helpful. Air crew were elite high-risk fighters and in the two months of initial training we had to learn basic principles, technical knowledge and survival skills. No time to waste on bullshit. The camp took only one course at a time, so there were no old-hand seniors to boss and bully us new-chum juniors.
After the parade we were left to our own devices. Like most of the others, I went exploring and found the ablution block, latrines, airmen's mess, canteen, station sick quarters, recreation hut and picture theatre. It seemed that all our needs were well catered for. In the late afternoon I went for a stroll down to the beach. Before I reached it I met a fellow recruit headed in the same direction, so we walked along together. He was about my height and build with a round, cheery face, big brown eyes and wavy fair hair sticking out under his beret. Soon we came to a big tree and decided to climb it. We found a place where we could both lean back comfortably, facing each other, where we lit cigarettes and chatted casually about the camp and what we used to do in civvy street.
When we had exhausted these topics, conversation flagged. He was an attractive well-built 18-year old and my cock started to stir, but I was scared of giving my sexual interest away by looking at his crotch or showing any interest in him. I was trying to blow smoke rings when my companion said, `I've cracked a fat.'
Never having heard this expression before, I hadn't the faintest idea what he was talking about. Probably it was some air force slang that I hadn't learnt yet. So, not wanting to appear completely green, I simply replied, `Oh' and didn't ask him what he meant. He didn't elaborate, so that was the end of that. I don't think I ever saw him again. Not until much later did I learn he was telling me his penis was erect and he expected some reaction from me. If only I had known.
The aircraftman class 2 (AC2) who had the bed next to mine had only one topic of conversation ─ if you can call a monologue a conversation ─ his success with girls and how many he had fucked. When I didn't respond he said, `Ya! Yer next'll be yer first.’ I got into bed as quickly as I could, turned my back on him and waited for lights out.
In the morning we were awakened early. After a shower, we had physical training before a good breakfast, then we made our beds and cleaned our huts before going on parade for drill. The flight sergeant who took us, a trim figure with ice-blue eyes and a fair moustache that reached his ears, explained and demonstrated each order before he barked it out. Even if only one of us got it wrong he went through it all again until everyone did it perfectly.
I felt quite at home. From school cadets I already knew how to slope, order and present arms and perform all the parade ground movements: right about turn, mark time, left turn, right wheel and all the rest of it so I had no trouble. I had heard stories of Army and Air Force bullying drill instructors who delighted in tormenting their squads. A WAAAF sergeant in Sydney was renowned for shrieking abuse at female raw recruits, ` You wouldn't know if the Manly ferry was up you till it blew its fog-horn.'
From the parade ground we marched to the picture theatre where we lined up for immunisation: vaccination against smallpox and injections against typhus, typhoid and tetanus. I was only slightly nervous but as we were lined up in alphabetical order, I was near the front of the queue so the needle was still sharp and I did not have to wait long, dwelling on how painful it would be. Several of those behind me fainted. It stung for a second, but nothing like as bad as having a tooth filled or pulled.
After lunch we wer Our evening meal was served cafeteria style by members of the Women's Auxiliary Australian Air Force ─ WAAAFs ─ good plain food and plenty of it, which we all approved of. When the orderly officer asked, `Any complaints?' there were none. Every day an orderly officer and sergeant were rostered to inspect the whole camp to make sure everything was in order and all duties were being carried out properly. The part that affected us trainees most, besides this inspection of every meal served in the mess, was a morning inspection of our huts to see they had been swept and dusted and all beds made with the blankets correctly folded. Our canteen was dry ─ no alcohol ─ so we had a choice of milk or soft drinks. I thought sweet drinks childish and sissy so I drank plain milk. Several of the others did the same and we had a competition to see who could drink the most. I dropped out at five pints. The winner drank eight.
We were issued with a time-table and sent off to our first lesson. Our subjects were principles of flight, aircraft recognition, electricity and radio, navigation, Morse code and armaments. It was just like being back at school, except none of the trainees played up or mucked around ─ we all wanted to graduate and no one was game to give cheek to the instructors ─ and we were allowed to smoke during tests. Having so recently left school, I settled easily into the routine and none of the subjects gave me any trouble, except Morse code. Receiving it was all right but when I tried to send it my hand and wrist did not respond to orders from my brain.
In my hut was Peter, a handsome, arrogant potential officer type, a former prefect at Geelong Grammar School, who thought he was born to rule and expected to be made Flight Orderly. The rest of us thought he needed cutting down to size, and Brownie, who had been brought up in an orphanage, decided to do so. When Peter stripped off his shirt and singlet to show off his magnificent torso, Brownie said, `Let's see how strong you are, Peter.' He told him to lie face up on the floor and then detailed four of us to sit on his wrists and ankles. `Now get up.' No matter how hard he struggled, he remained pinned down. Brownie opened Peter's fly and took out his cock which I was surprised to see was quite small. He opened a tin of Nugget boot polish and blackened it. We all clapped and laughed. When we released his arms and legs, grim faced and humiliated, Peter took up his towel and soap and headed for the ablution block.
At first my immunisation shots had no ill effects but after a couple of days I felt sick and sleepy. That night I was put on guard duty: with a 303 rifle, and had to guard the main gate into the camp from midnight to 0400 hours. I had a sentry box to sit in, which I did and promptly fell asleep. I did not wake until shortly before I was relieved. Having heard stories of soldiers being shot at dawn because they slept on sentry duty, I was terrified. But I wasn't found out, so I escaped with my life.
Being air crew trainees, we didn't have to do much rifle and parade ground drill, concentrating on our lessons which included armament. This meant learning to shoot a Smith and Wesson 38 revolver with which air crew were issued. When we were taken down to the target range a sergeant showed us how to hold and fire our weapons and then, six at a time, we had to shoot at the targets. When my turn came, I fired several shots at the target, none of them scoring anywhere near a bullseye, and then when I pulled the trigger nothing happened. Pointing my revolver at the sergeant, I said, `It won't fire.'
He threw himself on the ground and crawled behind me. Then he snatched the gun and opened the chamber. `You're out of ammo, you idiot. Thank God, or you would have shot me.' Ashamed and humiliated, I had to put up with the jeers of my mates as we returned to the classroom.
Our instructors ranged in rank from sergeant to squadron leader. The squadron leader, who was the senior education officer, took us for navigation, which I found easy. All I had to do to plot a course from A to B was to rule a line between A and B, and applying a formula to allow for wind speed and direction, work out the line of flight. Knowing airspeed and wind speed and direction, it was easy to calculate the ground speed and expected time of arrival (ETA). Our navigation instructor was not at all outstanding and I couldn't understand why he had the highest rank.
The best was probably Flight Lieutenant Nightingale, who took us for radio and electricity. He was the author of a physics text book I had used at school. But the sergeants in charge of Morse code and armaments were certainly as good as any. Aircraft recognition, which any intelligent person could have learnt to teach in a week, was taken by a self-important Flight Lieutenant who brought sex into everything: one class of Japanese warships had funnels shaped exactly like well-developed male organs and the B26 Marauder bomber with its big fat fuselage and very small wings was known as `the flying prostitute’ because it had no visible means of support.
Our unit had a psychologist/guidance officer who interviewed each of us at least once during our course of training. I was too naïve to realise, until I was told by an old hand, that this was designed to sort out the potential officers from the other ranks. Air crew were either officers or sergeants/flight sergeants. The division did not depend on trade-skill, but rather on social status. The interviews were aimed at discovering whether you would know which fork to use in the officers' mess, and could you carry on a civilised conversation about current affairs, were you one of us?
He was short, plump, middle-aged, with a huge moustache and smoked a very large pipe. I had read Freudian theories of compensating for what one thought one lacked and wondered about his pipe and moustache. Had he a small cock and did he feel insignificant? When I was called for interview, I tried to suppress these thoughts but they insisted on surfacing. He went through my file, asking pointless questions whose answers he had before him in the file but I repeated verbatim.
Next he asked me about sport. I told him I had never been good at any sport that I tried and had lost interest. I could anticipate the next question before he asked it. `How do you perform as a member of a team?' I told him I had enjoyed being a member of the school tunnel ball, overhead and cross-ball teams ─ hardly a spectacular performance. He turned to hobbies and spare time activities. I told him I enjoyed reading, listening to music, gardening, and riding my bike. He took me up on this. `Why don't you say "cycling", instead of "riding me bike"
I said that I thought `cycling' had a serious, competitive air. I rode my bike simply for pleasure or to get somewhere. I don't think I passed muster as suitable officer material.
Every weekend we were issued with a leave pass and a return train ticket to Melbourne. The first time, I went straight home to show off my new uniform, with a white flash in my cap to signify aircrew trainee. The wearers of this headgear, like a glengarry, called it a `cunt cap’.I also had to take home my civilian gear. Everyone gushed over me, telling me how handsome I looked, but Mum also cried, going on all over again about losing her last baby who had suddenly grown into a man.
On subsequent leaves I spent much of the time in town, drinking beer in Young and Jackson's or the Swanston Family Hotel that had become an Air Force watering hole. Though we had all been issued with exactly the same uniforms, on some of us they looked very smart but on others they just hung. When I was at Box Hill High School I travelled to get there on the Mont Albert tram, also used by the girls from Fintona School who all wore the same shapeless orange-fawn serge tunics and felt hats. Most looked plain and not in the least sexy but others pulled in their belts to narrow their waists, hitched up their skirts to show off their legs and bloused out the tops to emphasise their breasts so they looked completely different. I suppose some boys and men found them attractive but I thought they looked cheap and tarty.
Some airmen did much the same thing, even having their uniforms retailored with the shoulders and chest padded, the waist nipped in and trousers shaped to show off their bums and thighs. Sailors from Flinders Naval Depot I met on the Frankston train told me they had their uniforms retailored so they looked as if the men were poured into them. The tops were so tight that they could not take them off by themselves; their mates had to help peel them off. I wondered if all this was to attract girls or was it to raise their status with their mates.
One Saturday night I went with some of my mates from Somers to a dance in the basement of Melbourne Town Hall which was decorated with balloons and paper streamers, the dance floor lined with Vienna bent-wood chairs, and a five-piece band on the stage. The Trocadero in St Kilda Road and the Palais de Danse at St Kilda Beach held public dances but Mum called these `common' ─ patronised only by gold-digging tarts and men anxious to `sleep' with them. The dances in the lower Town Hall were far more select ─ all the girls coming from respectable homes. One of the airmen in our group was Dick Poon, a brother of the Secretary of the Chinese Seamen's Union who I knew from working in the Immigration and Passports Office.
When Dick introduced me to his sister, I thought she was the most exquisite person I had ever seen. Small and delicate, she reminded me of the Chinese fine porcelain cups and saucers my Aunty Ethel had. She was wearing a plain pink silk dress slit up the side and with a high collar, innocent of jewellery and make-up, her jet black hair piled up and secured with a tortoise shell comb. She was much in demand, so we had only a couple of dances together. I hoped I might see her home, but Dick explained that his parents had given him strict instructions not to let her out of his sight nor to let any of his rough air force mates accompany them.
* * *
In camp the others talked of hardly anything but sex and it was always with the opposite sex. I wasn't really interested but felt that to be accepted I should try it so, when on leave, I always carried a French letter (as condoms were then called) in my breast pocket in case I struck it lucky. The MO gave us lectures on hygiene which of course included sex and venerial disease which he warned us the Air Force regarded as a self-inflicted wound – a criminal offence just like shooting yourself in the foot.
`The first symptom of gonorrhoea is difficulty in urinating. It feels like pissing fish-hooks. You are lucky. Now it is quickly cured by the new wonder drugs: sulphanilamide and penicillin.’
It may have been easy to cure but I was terrified of catching it. Even more so after the airman whose bed was next to mine was sent away with the clap and then I developed a sore on my prick. I hadn't had sex with anyone, only surreptitiously jerked it off by myself. I thought we were supposed to have outgrown that and wasn't game to own up to it but one night after lights out, some one in our hut was shining a torch around and Brownie called out, `Put the fucken light out so we can jerk off in private.'
Though surrounded by young men, I was not game to show any interest in some very sexy ones and had to be satisfied with the mild pleasures of living in a completely male world and the degree of intimacy that it offered and accepted. At least when I masturbated I could think of the others doing it at the same time.
The sore on my cock didn’t go away, nor did it get any bigger. Though I had no trouble pissing and when I milked my dick there was no sign of pus, I went on sick parade and showed my cock to the MO, telling him I thought I must have scratched it against the rough hessian of my palliasse (straw mattress) and it had got infected. He glanced at the little yellow lump on its side and said it was not serious but might become so and he would have to cut it off ─ the pustule, as he called it ─ not my cock. He made an appointment for later in the day.
When I went back I had to lie on a table while he injected it with a local anaesthetic. When the needle went into my dick I nearly passed out with the pain. Far worse than migraine or anything I had been through at the dentist's, but it was only for an instant. I felt no pain while he was cutting out the sore after which he applied antiseptic and a dressing. He told me I would have to keep it dry until it healed and gave me a supply of French letters, one to be worn each time I showered. With my dick greatly enlarged by a dressing, wrapped in a French letter, I caused quite a sensation in the showers.
Every Wednesday afternoon, we all lined up in the picture theatre for `short arm' inspection. This was long enough after our weekend leave for the first signs of the clap to show up. When your place in the queue reached the inspection table with the MO and his assistant seated on the other side you flashed your cock. Then you milked it with one hand. If no pus came out the assistant shouted `next' and you were cleared.
At my medical examination for acceptance as an aircrew trainee, the eye specialist had discovered I suffered from migraine and rejected me for training as a pilot. To help correct the optical effects of this complaint, at Somers I had to undergo orthoptic treatment. The orthoptic section was staffed by WAAAFs. I always had the same sergeant who sat me in a darkened room in front of a sort of binoculars but when I looked through them I saw a different image with each eye and then, by simply looking at them, I had to merge them into one. One set was a lion and a cage. It took me several visits before I could put the lion in its cage.
I also had to do eye exercises to strengthen the muscles: crossing my eyes, looking at an object I held at arm’s length and keeping it in focus as I moved it closer until it reached the bridge of my nose, and the reverse: focusing on a close object and keeping it in focus as I moved it away. I also learned to focus on distant objects without being distracted by other things, clearly visible, in between.
Every Sunday we were out of camp on leave, so church parade was held on Wednesday mornings in the picture theatre, with a lectern, cloth-covered table and pulpit on the stage. I no longer believed in God nor in a divine Christ but I accepted the moral teachings of Jesus, so instead of falling out from church parade with the Catholics and Jews, I attended. I felt a hypocrite but I did not join in reciting the general confession nor the apostles' creed, and I let my attention wander during the sermon. Weren't the Germans Christians? Surely Germans were praying to the same God for victory and peace on their terms? The Japanese weren't Christians but were supposed to be deeply religious. They must be praying to their gods for victory too?
* * *
One afternoon, late, when most trainees were playing football or drinking in the canteen, I was lying on my bed reading when Alec asked the hut at large, `Who's coming for a walk along the beach?'
I had spoken to Alec only a few times, but found him serious-minded, with other topics of conversation besides sex with girls. Small and dark, he was getting the nickname `Nugget'. I was sick of the book of Walter Murdoch's essays, so I snapped it shut and said `O K'. Nobody else accepted so just the two of us set off.
As we strode along on the wide, deserted beach, sticking to the firm sand near the water where the tide had receded, we chatted easily about the scenery: the huge expanse of sand between the sea and any vegetation, the crystal clear water and how calm it was ─ quite useless for surfing. `Do you like surfing?' I asked.
He picked up a stone and attempted to make it skip across the water. `I don't live by the sea, so I've only had one go at it on holiday at Lake's Entrance.' He told me he came from Ardmona where his father worked in
the fruit cannery. In exchange I told him of my backgound. `I wish I'd had your chances,' he said.
`What do you mean?' I asked. I didn't consider myself very fortunate ─ having nearly starved in the Depression and unlikely to be able to continue my education beyond school leaving certificate.
`You can talk to your parents about important things.' He succeeded in getting flat stones to skip on the ripples. `My dad's only interested in his work looking after the boilers, the local footy team and a few beers in the pub with his mates. Mum has a full time job looking after Dad and us kids and the house. Apart from that she only reads Women's Weekly and listens to the radio serials. I had to leave school at fourteen for a dead-end job in a department store.’
I thought of the socialist books and pamphlets I had read that went on about the exploitation and deprivation of the working class and here I was faced with an example of it. `Workers are robbed by their employers,' I said, `and discouraged from thinking about the cause of their miserable conditions. But things are bound to change after the war. Private firms'll be taken over by the government acting on behalf of the people. From each according to his ability and to each according to his needs. Every man, and woman too, will have a decent home, a well-paid job with free education, medical care and other social services and every little town will have its own cultural centre where the people can spend their leisure instead of in the pub or listening to the crap on the wireless.'
By this time we had walked further than we intended so we sat down for a rest before the long walk back. It was strange. I didn't find Alec physically attractive, yet I felt strongly drawn to him. `Perhaps you're right,' he said, picking up a handful of loose sand and letting it trickle through his fingers. `But time will tell. The gang of big-wigs who supported Hitler, Mussolini and the Japs before the war'll cling onto power like shit to a blanket. Scraping them off could lead to civil war.' He leaned back, propping his head up on one elbow.
I stretched out too. We were lying side by side, so close that I could easily have taken him in my arms but he gave no indication of being interested so I held back. `Like in Russia after the revolution,' I said. `I don't think so. Already we have an almost socialist state. War organisation of industry powers just need to be extended. The government can nationalise the banks and commercial institutions. All we need is a majority of the people to vote for what's clearly in their interest. . . . What'll you do after the war?'
`I'm not sure. My size is just right for an air gunner and the rate they're killing tail-end Charlies, there's probably no “after the war” for me.' He frowned and his expression hardened. `I've heard stories of bomber crews never even getting to know the names of their gunners. They hose the remains of at least one out of his gun turret after each mission.'
I wondered if that was what I was in for. `Why did you enlist if you expect almost certain death?'
Alec's expression relaxed, `The danger, adventure and challenge are exciting. To escape my boring life in a country town.'
`You could’ve gone into ground staff. Trained as an aircraft fitter or . . . '
`I want to fly.'
`And if you survive the war?
`I dunno . . . One thing I do know is I don't want a mindless job like my old man's and I don't want some boring nine to five office job, coming home at the same time every evening to a house-bound wife and two or three kids. I want to be free, my own boss. P’raps they’ll offer farms to ex-servicemen like after the last war. I've always envied farmers, with a house of your own, growing your own produce, not beholden to anyone.'
I thought of the Stretch family on a soldier settlement block at Wallinduc, barely surviving during the depression. `That's fine in good seasons on good land, but you'd need to get a good block of good land and be assured of strong support through bad seasons. Australia's a great country with millions of acres of unused land, but much of it wouldn't feed a single kangaroo to a hundred acres and we have a very trying unreliable climate.'
Alec looked at his watch. `Time to get back,' he said. We got up and jogged along the shore, playing at dodging each small incoming wave. About half way back we stopped to admire the sunset ─ nothing spectacular, just gentle pinks and mauves tinting the light cloud cover. `So quiet and peaceful,' said Alec.
I longed to hug and kiss him but all I could do was say, `Yes'.
* * *
Soon our course came to an end. I had passed the final tests in all subjects, but although my worst results were for Morse code I was sent to No 1 Wireless Air Gunners' School (1 WAGS) at Ballarat. As he expected, Alec was also classed as a WAG, but sent to Canada for further training. Peter was selected for pilot's course and sent to No 1 Elementary Flying Training School, Benalla.
Our flight would be breaking up to go separate ways but as the course was so short and only an introduction into the RAAF there was no passing out parade or graduation ceremony. We decided to have a break-up dinner at a café in Balnarring ─ the neighbouring village along Western Port Bay. The café had no liquor licence, so I chose to drink a temperance mock-beer, Tarax Bitter, which at least wasn’t sickly sweet. The more popular instructors attended and I was surprised to find what good blokes they were when they didn't have to pull rank and they seemed genuinely pleased to mix casually with us. After a very ordinary meal we came to formal speeches and toasts and then recitations of dirty poems and songs. One began,
`In the street of a thousand arseholes,
By the sign of the swinging tit
Stood a slant-eyed Chinese maiden ,
By the name of Hoo Flung Shit . . . '
and went on for dozens of verses. Another was about a farting competition in which Mrs Jones tried to fart the first lines of the National Anthem but she shat in her drawers and was disqualified.
Somebody sang,
`She was poor but she was honest ,
Victim of the squire's game,
First he fucked and then he left her
And she lost her honest name .
Chorus: It's the same the whole world over,
It's the poor what get the blame,
It's the rich what live in clover.
Ain't it all a fucken shame! '
which went on for umpteen verses with us all joining in the chorus. Somebody else sang a dirty parody on Poor Little Angeline that seemed to go on for ever, after which we each had to contribute an item. I chose the limerick:
There once was a queen of Khartoum
Who took a lesbian up to his room.
As she snapped out the light,
She said , `Let’s get this right!’
Who does what with which and to whom?’
2
To reach 1 WAGS we had to return to Flinders Street Station the way we had come to Somers and then transfer to another troop train to Ballarat. Our camp was a few miles beyond Ballarat, on a broad flat plain, right beside the railway line to Ararat, so the train took us all the way. When it stopped we had to jump down with our kit-bags, walk across a road and through the camp gate.
This camp was similar to Somers, with neat rows of corrugated iron huts but a much bigger, also corrugated iron, administration centre that was known as `Bullshit Castle’. We lined up on the parade ground (`bull ring’) and were allotted to dormitory huts. I was in flight 45C whose hut was conveniently close to the airmen’s mess, canteen, ablutions and latrines. In the bed next to mine was Ross, good-looking in a quiet, reserved way, who, like me, was almost straight out of school. He did not smoke and neither swore nor told dirty jokes and didn’t seem interested in sex at all. Opposite us were Paddy, a burly ex-fireman, and Fergie, an old hand who had remustered from ground staff where he had been an armourer. The bed the other side of Ross was occupied by Jack, a balding old man of 28 who had been a professional golfer.
The routine was similar to the last few weeks at Somers, except that we didn't have classes in principles of flight, aircraft recognition and navigation and we now had practical radio and electricity, and lessons on the Browning .5 machine gun. Having just scraped through Morse code at Somers, I concentrated on practising with the transmission key. As at Somers, to help us relax, we were allowed to smoke during tests but it made no difference to me. I became flustered and I was still far too slow. In one test, the sergeant forgot to give us permission to smoke and somebody asked, `Can we smoke, Sarge?'
He looked at the one who had called out, and said evenly, `I don't give a fuck if you burst into flames.'
As I had found at Somers, nearly all the NCOs weren't tin-pot Hitler tyrants nor sadists, but helpful and considerate. One drill sergeant was even motherly and I strongly suspected his interest in his charges was sexual. His name was Sutherland so we called him `Mother’ Sutherland. The exception was the corporal in charge of our hut who bullied us and crawled to the officers. Before orderly officer's inspection he would make us refold any blanket that was a hair's breadth out of line.
`Useless stripe-happy bastard,' said Fergie, after the inspection was over. `He'll get on. Always pissin' in some officer's pocket, he'll make the snakepit' (sergeants’ mess).
In the hut next to mine was a poncy airman who gave me the glad eye but I did not respond because he was mercilessly teased and I didn't want that happening to me.
We didn't get leave every weekend, so church parades were on Sunday mornings and in the evening the padre, assisted by Mother Sutherland, held discussion groups. I went along to one of these and found the padre very easy to talk to so I voiced my doubts about religion and my misgivings about church services. He told me that many Christians had doubts and, unless I was an absolutely convinced non-believer, I should continue attending church parades. But the following Sunday at church parade, when Catholics and Jews were ordered to fall out (leave the parade and wait behind while the Protestants marched off to a church service) conscientious objectors were also included, so I fell out too. A corporal sorted out the Catholics who went off to mass and told the rest of us to clean up every bit of rubbish around our sleeping huts. Since we had daily hut inspections the ground was pretty clean ─ just the odd match, cigarette butt and chewing gum wrapper. We whiled away most of the time standing around, chatting and smoking.
I spent several short leaves in Ballarat, drinking beer at Craig's Hotel or at the Plough and Harrow, whose bar the RAAF had almost taken over, watching pictures at the Regent Theatre ─ a smaller, cheaper version of Melbourne's Regent ─ and riding on the little old trams out to the lake and its surrounding gardens. The city looked as though it had not changed since the last century. Most of its wide streets were tree-lined but few buildings reached higher than two storeys and most of them had iron verandas stretching across the footpaths to the kerbless gutters.
On leave weekends we stood down early on Friday afternoon and usually had to hang around waiting for a truck to take us into Ballarat or for a special train to take us to Melbourne. We discovered that although the gate was guarded by service police, checking leave passes, and the fence near it was high chain wire, about a hundred yards down the road it was only four strands of wire which were easy to squeeze through or climb over. So some of us would nick out early and hitch a ride into town.
I tried it one day, and three of us thumbed the first car that came along ─ a big dark blue Humber. It stopped and we all piled into the back seat. As soon as we sat down we discovered it was the CO's car and he was sitting in the front seat. I expected to be driven back to camp and charged with absconding but he just chatted to us about how we intended spending the weekend and dropped us outside Craig's Hotel, a handsome three-storey stone building surmounted by a tower.
One weekend, Dad's cousin, who I called my Auntie Marjorie, picked me up and drove me out to her farm at Dean. It hadn't changed much from how I remembered it before the war, except much more of the land including the slope behind the blacksmith's shop where we used to race billy-carts was now used for growing potatoes. Her son Bruce, my age, now had an old Bentley and he was restoring a Bugatti racer. Farming was a reserved occupation so he was still at home.
On Saturday afternoon I helped decorate the Community Hall – an unlined wooden shed wih an iron roof, casement windows along the side and a platform at one end ─ for a dance there that night by blowing up balloons, draping it with paper streamers and polishing the floor by shredding candles and treading the wax into the wood, and sprinkling it with talcum powder.
After an early tea, I had a shower, dressed and set off with the family in their car. By lamplight, the hall didn't look too bad. On its small platform-stage a three-
piece band ─ honky-tonk piano, squeaky violin and thumping drums ─ was playing Roll Out The Barrel.
The females, heavily made up and in long frocks, sat on wooden kitchen chairs near the platform, while the men stood at the other end, near the door. No alcohol was allowed but some of the men had a stash of bottles outside and much traffic passed in and out through the doorway. I wasn’t the least bit interested in any of the females but I felt the big, strong, rough farmers might think I was a sissy, so I had every dance. Like most dances this one was 50/50 ─ half modern and half old time. I learned the Barn Dance, The Alberts, Boston Two-step, Pride of Erin, the Lancers and palais glide. In the Monte Carlo a tall blonde and I nearly won; we were the last to be sent off the floor. Despite butter and sugar rationing, the ladies provided a huge supper of home-made cakes, scones and biscuits and coffee made from coffee essence and hot milk. In spite of the dreadful band and awful coffee I quite enjoyed myself.
* * *
When she returned me to Ballarat, Auntie Marjorie took me to meet her uncle Jack and his wife who lived in a big two-storey house in a large garden by the lake. He was the Tippett of Ronaldson and Tippett, engineers, who made farm machinery. His brother was married to my grandfather's sister, so we were distant relations. I liked both him and his wife. She was tall and elegant, interested in the arts and conscious of her position as a leading member of Ballarat society. He was stocky, rough and ready, unpretentious and practical. Their house had many gadgets he had designed and made, including a wire-mesh fire screen that moved up and down like a sash window and, when raised, disappeared into a space behind the mantelpiece.
I became a regular visitor at the Tippetts’. He drove an old 1924 Coton Degout tourer, fitted with a producer gas unit, which he brought home, its huge rear compartment loaded with scrap wood from his works as fuel for the hot water service. He also had a Daimler but he left that and its petrol ration for his wife.
* * *
As summer advanced, the weather became really hot with searing, dry north winds and, as in most summers in Victoria, bush fires broke out. One of the worst was a huge grass fire sweeping across hundreds of square miles of the Western District, the edge of it quite close to Ballarat, so we were called out to fight it. The cynics said it was only because our CO’s sheep station at Skipton was threatened, but the truck I was in took us to the front of the fire at Rokewood almost in the opposite direction.
Short flames were crackling across the ground with a pall of thin smoke and above the smell of burning grass and gum-leaves was the smell of singed wool and ashes. The fire sped forward but the grass did not burn for long and behind the very front it went out in a few seconds leaving black ash and cinders. We were issued with wet sacks tied to the ends of sticks to beat and put out the flames. It was hot, hard, dirty work, continuously moving along the shifting front of the fire but we got it under control and when we left in the evening it was snuffed out. Tired, dirty, hungry and thirsty, we arrived back at camp where Mother Sutherland greeted us like heroes returning from the battlefield and fed us on great thick bully beef and lettuce sandwiches and mugs of tea.
A few days later, we were sent out cleaning up after the fires. My truck dropped us on the edge of a black expanse scattered with burnt corpses of sheep. Overcome by the stench of burnt wool and rotten meat I promptly threw up. We had to gather up the carcasses into heaps that the farmer would later pour sump oil and kerosene on and burn. The fire had come right up to the little weatherboard farmhouse but it had escaped unscathed. Sometimes when I grabbed a sheep’s leg and pulled, it came away from the body, maggots cascading onto the ashes.
When I paused for a break, I looked at my surroundings ─ the solitary house, the clumps of blackened sugar gums along the road and a tank still standing beside a corrugated iron roof lying on the ground showed where a shed had been. It looked vaguely familiar. Suddenly it dawned on me that this was the Stretch’s farm at Wallinduc where I had stayed on school holidays – now a black wasteland with only the small house and the tiny stone-built dairy still standing. Even the lemon tree had gone. No sign of life except my Air Force mates so I thought it was pointless looking for the farmer and his family. I got on with my gruesome work, wondering what had become of Henry Stretch.
* * *
Though we were fully involved with life around Ballarat and thousands of miles away from action against the Japanese, we kept up with news of the war, particularly in the Pacific region. In the Bismarck Sea, North of New Guinea, a big sea battle waged by the American Navy and Air force, assisted by the Australian, completely defeated a Japanese fleet. Besides cutting off supplies to the Japanese army in New Guinea it gave the Allies control of sea traffic in the entire South Pacific. This meant that we had won the war in New Guinea, except for mopping up operations. I wondered how it would affect my future. General MacArthur would almost certainly attack the Philippines ─ when the Japanese drove him out from there he had vowed, `I will return’ to the Philippines. He wouldn't want to share his honour and glory with Australian forces, so probably we would be part of a British advance through Singapore and mainland Asia to Japan ─ a long tedious process. I had never been very interested in New Guinea ─ it seemed to be all wild jungle with primitive `fuzzy wuzzies' ─ but Asia, with its rich cultures, older than European, had always fascinated me. I hoped I would be sent to the Netherlands East Indies.
* * *
In our hut the talk was still nearly all about sex with sheilas, but occasionally there were small variations on this theme. Once Fergie told us that, as a sixteen-year-old he and his mates held cock-measuring contests. After lights out Paddy often announced that he had a fat he `could belt a dog with’. I was willing to help him deal with it but scared to make a move.
Bazza had a huge cock that he liked to display. In the mornings when he got out of bed with a monstrous erection he would stand by his bed, flashing it. He would take off his pyjama top, drop it onto his prick and flick it over his shoulder onto his bed, then do the same with the trousers. One night Jack went out for a late shower and on his return told us there was a bloke in the showers with a cock like an elephant’s tusk.
I asked `Don’t you mean trunk?’
`No. A huge tusk.’ He held his fore-arm out in front of his belly to demonstrate. `Like this.’
A couple of nights later I went for a late shower and discovered a sex club. Everyone was soaping up his prick and flashing it at the others. I wondered if they stayed after lights out and what happened then, but I was afraid to find out. NCOs came round at lights out to make sure everyone was in bed and they always inspected the showers first. I went back to my hut. Though it was supposed to be spring, a cold south wind was blowing and when I closed the door behind me the latch did not engage properly, so the wind blew it open again. A chorus of voices shouted, `Shut the fucken door! Were yer born in a fucken tent?’
* * *
Soon after that the CO called a special parade at which he told us that since the Allies now had overwhelming air superiority in Europe and the Pacific, air crew training was being cut right back. He read out a short list of those who would be continuing with their training. The rest of us would be scrubbed and transferred to No1 Personnel Depot at the Melbourne Cricket Ground for remustering to ground staff. I was still having trouble transmitting Morse code, so I was among these.
3
I had been to the MCG once before when Dr Lawrence, a friend of my parents, had taken me into the members' stand to watch a football grand-final. Now it was transformed. Completely taken over by the Air Force, the members' facilities were now officers', the public stands were airmen's dormitories and the sacred turf had become a parade ground and general outdoor recreation area. Apart from the administration, stores and catering staff, the population was transient, not attached to any particular unit so we were a collection of individuals. The main function of the administration was to sort us out and keep us occupied while they did so, before sending each of us off to the most suitable unit. They had our records of civilian qualifications, RAAF aptitude, personality and IQ tests and what training we had undergone since enlistment, so we were spared any further interviews or tests.
1PD was also an embarkation depot so some of us were waiting to go on active service overseas and I had to attend lectures aimed at them. One was by an ex-bomber crew warrant officer observer who entertained us with stories of life in England and his experiences dropping bombs on Germany.
He told a story of meeting an American officer in an English pub where the American said he couldn’t make out the English sub-tle sense of humour. Recently he had been invited to an English club where a guy had told a joke about Lady Godiva . . . `Riding naked on her horse, she arrived at a crossroads, up one road came a man on foot, along another a horseman and the other a man driving a cart. Which one of them recognised her? The answer is: the horseman knew her. All the limies laughed, shouting `Horse manure'. But I don't get it. Lady Godiva arrives at a crossroads, right! She meets a peedestrian, an eequestrian and a cart driver. Which one recognised her? And the answer's Horseshit! English humour's much too sub-tle for me!'
Another joke he told was about nicely-brought-up English girls. `An Australian airman on leave was invited into an English stately home. After a magnificent meal, dining on pheasant, partridge and hare, accompanied by vintage French chateau-bottled wines, the beautiful daughter of his host and hostess took him to look over the house. By the time they reached the conservatory they were both ready for it, so he pushed her down and climbed up her. They were hard at it when her parents arrived on the scene. “Agatha!” exclaimed her mother. “After all we've taught you and spent on that Swiss finishing school! Arch your back, girl and keep the gentleman's balls off the cold floor.” ‘
He went on with a long series of these stories before becoming more serious and telling us about bombing raids. One thing that stuck in my mind was about shooting at civilians, women and children. He said, `The German people voted Hitler into power and they supported every action of his so long as it would, they hoped, win the war. There's no such thing as a good German. When we bomb, we concentrate on military targets but bomb-sights are inaccurate and we drop bombs over the surrounding area: on civilian houses, shops, theatres, clubs and whatever. Our machine gunners shoot at whoever runs out of them.'
Could I do that?
`Sir Arthur Harris, chief of Bomber Command, is trying to bomb Germany into surrender without an invasion by land forces, but it won’t be easy. Recently 800 Lancasters went on a mission to Nuremburg, deep inside Germany. Their crews didn’t know that German fighter planes are now fitted with upwards firing cannons as well as forward firing ones. The Messerschmitts flew in under the Lancs and cut them to pieces. In that one mission, 545 of our airmen were killed ─ more than in the entire Battle of Britain. When you lose so many of your mates to these bastards who show no mercy for civilians you’re not too fussy about where your bombs land or who your bullets strike.’
Thank God I’m not in aircrew !
He had a low opinion of Yank navigators and told of one who set out from his base in the USA for Alaska and ended up in Mexico because he read his map upside down. Nor did he think much of their ability to find targets. He told us the Europeans had a saying: when the RAF are bombing, the Germans take cover, when the Luftwaffe fly over, the allies take cover, and when the Americans fly over everybody takes cover.
* * *
By this time my parents had left their friend, Mrs Steel's, house where they had been staying and were now making do in Dad's studio where their furniture had been stored while he was working with the Australian War Memorial in Canberra. I had plenty of free time so I helped them convert the wash-hand basin and gas ring in the back corner into a kitchen with a small gas stove, and the outside urinal into a bathroom, with a shower and wash-hand basin. The walls were covered in drab shabby wallpaper so, wearing my Air Force overalls, I set about painting them over. No sun ever entered the place so I chose bright primrose yellow Kalsomine. This made rather a mess of my uniform and, even after I sent it to the laundry, it had bright yellow patches.
I spent most of my free time in Dad's studio, returning before midnight to the MCG to sleep. I caught the train from Glenferrie to Richmond and then walked through Yarra Park. Recently there had been a series of murders of girls in parks close to Melbourne. But an American soldier, Sgt Leonski, had been charged and convicted of those, so I felt quite safe and I hoped to meet an attractive man who would ravish me. All the same, I strode purposefully through the park, without dilly-dallying, so it never happened.
Our beds ─ the usual steel-pipe frame and wire chain mesh ─ were perched on the steps in the MCG stands, with no walls, so they were quite exposed. Thank goodness it was only autumn, without those strong winter south winds, but I was glad of my four blankets and had no trouble sleeping.
Soon I was told I had been selected to do a recorder's course and would be transferred to Adelaide. I hadn't the faintest idea what a recorder did but I soon found out that we worked in an operations room, like I had seen in films of winning the Battle of Britain, receiving radar plots of the position of every aircraft in our area, and if one was potentially hostile, we would alert our fighters and calculate an intercept to destroy the enemy. This sounded interesting and valuable work. The basic training was at No 4 School of Technical Training (4 STT) in Adelaide, so I went there by troop train.
In Adelaide we were sent to the Exhibition Building to sleep and next morning to Foy's building for lectures. The NCO in charge of us was a Greek ex-boxer, George Paradise, who marched us from the Exhibition to Foy's and vice versa. Deeply steeped in Air Force ritual, he tried to get us performing all the parade ground movements. First he lined us up in three ranks, dressing by the left, then he shouted, `Quick march! Left, right, left, right. When we had to turn a corner, it was `Left wheel' or Right wheel. He selected me as flight orderly, which meant that, dressed in my yellow- splashed overalls, on my own out in front, I led our flight as we marched, swinging our arms to shoulder height with elbows straight, from the Exhibition to Foy's.
I enjoyed my position, leading the daily parade and I knew that, if I wanted to, I could easily take my disreputable overalls to the QM store and U/S (declare unserviceable) them and get a new set. But defiantly I carried on as I was, and I was soon replaced. It was fun while it lasted.