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By Charles W. Crary
Chapter IX - Queensland
Sometime in mid July of 1942, we were loaded on to a train with all of
our gear for a trip north to Rockhampton, Queensland. That trip took us
the rest of the way north across the state of Victoria, all of the way
south to north across New South Wales and several hundred miles into the
state of Queensland. In all it was a journey of about 1200 miles.
I no longer remember how many days it took us, but I do remember that we
traveled day and night and were "filled and drained" at railroad
stations which had been alerted to prepare for our arrival since there
were neither rest rooms nor dining cars on the train on which we rode.
Upon our arrival at the designated station, the train came to a halt, we
detrained and filed past counters to pick up our food cafeteria style.
Many times the food was in the form of sandwiches and fruit. We found a
place to sit down and eat then used the rest rooms and within and hour
were back on the train, which had been patiently waiting for us, and
were again on our way north.
In a way it was a strange trip. Each time we came to a state border, we
had to change trains, because each state's railroads operated on a
different gauge of track. This was a natural outcome of the way the
states developed out of separate colonies, each of which had different
origins and differing needs as this form of transportation was developed.
Our first change came at Albury, Victoria, where we loaded onto a train
that would take us to the northern boarder of New South Wales. Until we
got to Sydney the track followed an inland route, but from Sydney north
we skirted along the coastline. We went through many towns and cities
that had strange and many times nearly unpronounceable names: Henty,
Wagga Wagga, Yass, Goulburn, Newcastle, Ballengarra, Whiporie,
Coolangatta, Brisbane, Caboolture, Gympie, Bundaberg, Gladstone and
finally Rockhampton! It seems that just as in the States we use many
native place names, the Australians followed that practice too!!
Most of the details of the trip have long since escaped my ability to
recall, but I do remember being sidetracked in Newcastle, north of
Sydney, for a time and engaging in conversation with a coal miner that
was off work for the day. The place had been named for Newcastle in
England, which is also a great producer of coal!
When we got to Brisbane we were unloaded at the Showground for the
night. Bill Bentson, a man from Salem who was attached to MacArthur's
headquarters and who at one time had been in B Company, 162nd Infantry,
came out to see how we were doing. I don't remember any of this, but
Bill has told me about it and has a photo of as many of the Salem guys
as he could round up, including myself, that he took while we were there.
Rockhampton at last. We went right into a camp that had been set up by
an advance party along the road that runs between Rockhampton and
Yepoon. Our battalion was the farthest of all of the division's units
from "Rocky" at just about half way on the twenty-five mile road that
runs between Rockhampton and Yepoon. That made the decision to go either
way very easy for us!
The camp its self was laid out so that, from the road inland, each
company had a large wooden building for a mess hall. The kitchen was
incorporated into the rear of that building. The tents of the various
platoons ranged in a corridor away from the road, with A company on the
Rockhampton side and C company on the Yepoon side of us. Starting a
distance back of the mess hall the third platoon's tents were arranged
by squad to the second platoon and so on. Being in the first squad of
the first platoon, the tent to which I was assigned was the farthest
from the mess hall and consequently, from the road. Somewhere midway
between the tent I was in and the messhall was a latrine and a shower
room housed in a wooden building with concrete floors. We were quite
comfortable in that mild semi-tropical climate, where it never really
got cold even during heavy rainstorms.
The camp its self was in the midst of a forest of blue gum trees
(eucalyptus) situated on terrain of rolling hills. There was always the
faintly pungent and pleasant odor of eucalyptus in the air. There was
also quite a bit of wildlife with which we shared the forest. The
kangaroo-like animals, which ranged in size from that of a cat to a tall
man were rather shy. We didn't see too much of them until we got away
from the camp proper, but there were plenty of the nocturnal flying
opossums that frequently disturbed our sleep at night with their
activity. Sometimes they'd even come into the tents, which usually had
the sides rolled, and walked over us as we slept on canvas cots!
There were a variety of birds, but the ones I remember the best were the
cookaburra and the magpie. Once one has heard the laughter of the
"laughing jackass" (cookaburra), the sound will never be forgotten. In
that part of Australia there are a great number of birds that belong to
the parrot family. There are budgies and a variety of different
cockatoos. Many of these birds are very colorful.
Of the reptiles there are many varieties, though I don't remember that
their numbers were very high. There were lots of times we would go for
days without seeing either a snake or lizard. Some of the snakes were of
deadly poisonous varieties. The death adder was one of those. Even so, I
never heard of any of the soldiers having unpleasant encounters with any
of them!
There was one lizard that reminded me of a foot and a half long
/Tyranasaurus rex/ with a cape! When this animal was cornered it would
rear up, open its mouth, hiss and spread its cape -- which had a pink
lining. It was very fearsome in that defensive posture and none of us
dared to pick one up. When the animal was startled and bolted from
danger, it ran away very rapidly striding on its hind legs!
Another of the lizards was called the goanna, probably taken from the
word /iguana./ It was a rather large varanid lizard related to the
komodo dragons, from the island of the same name. These guys ranged in
size up to six or so feet long and several pounds in weight. They were
rather formidable predators, eating anything they could capture that was
smaller than themselves. They would also climb trees and steal the eggs
from birds' nests. We were told that they were not adverse to eating
carrion.
One time I had quite an encounter with a goanna. It had been a hot day
and in the evening all of the guys had gone to drink beer. I was broke,
so just decided to go to bed and get a good night's sleep. As I slid
down in my sleeping bag my feet suddenly felt something in the foot of
the bag move, then in an explosion of movement, a large goanna burst out
of the sleeping bag over the top of my body leaving a trail of claw
marks on my legs, belly and chest where his feet had found purchase
while he made good his escape! At the time I presumed that the animal
had found refuge in the sleeping bag to escape the heat of the direct
sun, but as the years have passed, I've become more and more convinced
that some of my tent mates planted the animal there as a practical joke.
I was very naive in those days, so the thought of a prank never entered
my mind. From this vantage point in time, I'm now 100% sure that it was
a "putup" job. It was skillfully done and none of the guys ever betrayed
the set-up by a wink or a nod or a knowing look at each other when I
related my experience to them.
Rockhampton was a small town with a population of about 20,000 people.
It simply didn't have the facilities to entertain a division of soldiers
on pass. On weekends the town was completely overwhelmed by the
magnitude of the wave of soldiers that would inundate it. I saw many
more soldiers in that town than I ever saw civilians. For the most part
the only civilians I saw were the clerks in the stores and the bar
tenders in the pubs.
When the pubs opened the soldiers would push their way in, lining the
bar five deep and in a half hour the beer was all gone. Almost
immediately that the buses and trucks loaded with soldiers on pass hit
the town all of the bake shops would sell out of any sweet rolls and
cakes that they had baked in anticipation the onslaught! The open air
theater -- the only theater -- was always sold out to a standing room
only crowd, mostly of soldiers.
When I went to town I most often went to the bakeries. Many of them made
a wonderful cake-like loaf that my wife has identified as probably
having been a pound cake with currents in it. Sometimes I couldn't get
any of it. One had to be pretty fast on his feet to get it, because it
was popular and sold out quickly after the busses with the soldiers on
pass arrived in town.
Rockhampton was not a good or fun place to go on leave for me, so I only
tried it a couple or three times.
Going in the opposite direction from camp twelve or so miles took us to
Yepoon. At best one could only describe it as a /small/ village. There
was one small general store, a post office and a scattering of
residences. I would be surprised to learn that the total population was
in excess of 200. But Yepoon did have one saving grace. It was located
the farthest away from the camps of most of the men in the division and
consequently more difficult for them to get to, plus the fact that one
look at it was enough for many. There was nothing there! Nothing but one
of the nicest beaches I've ever seen. The surf was tepid, the sun was
warm, the sand was white and the water was crystal clear.
It was a great place to go swimming! A few of us did. Valentine
Kahukahakalani "Skeep" Kekipi, the Hawaiian in our company taught
several of us how to skin dive there. He even contrived diving goggles
as he would have in Hawaii for us to use! These consisted of wooden
frames carved to fit the contours of the individual face, fitted with
lenses of window glass and fastened on with a cord. They worked just
like a face mask, though the view of ones surroundings through them was
more limited than what a face mask allows.
About a mile toward Yepoon from our camp there was a crossroads. In one
direction the road lead to Emu Park, a very small town on the coast, and
in the other it led to The Caves, a natural limestone cave that had
never been commercially developed. Right at the crossroads there was a
farmhouse where the Felhaber family lived. I think there were four
children. There was a son that must have been in his early twenties,
then a daughter, Phyllis, who was one day younger than I, having been
born on October 2, 1923. In addition, there was a younger daughter whose
image I can no longer call to mind, but I think she was ten or eleven.
My recollection of the fourth child, if there was one, is vaguely of a
boy of about eight or nine. They were a warm, closely knit family, but
the dominant figure was Mum Felhaber.
One Saturday shortly after our arrival in the area, I had been out on a
hike, exploring the surrounding countryside and was on my way back to
camp, hot, dry, and tired and still had a mile or so to go before
reaching camp, so I stopped in at the "Halfway House", which is what the
Felhaber's place was referred to, to ask for a drink of water. They were
very accommodating and that was the beginning of a friendship primarily
with Mum and Phyllis.
I began spending a lot of time there with them. There were times that I
was invited for tea (supper) and then helped with the washup afterwards.
My relationship with Phyllis was purely platonic. She was a wholesome
country girl whose company and conversation I enjoyed. And there were
never any romantic overtones in our dealings. Mum apparently saw me for
what I was, a very lonely youngster who was a long way from home and who
had a lot of time on his hands. I remember one Saturday, soon after I'd
met them that she told me of a country dance that was to be held some
distance away on the road toward Emu Park. She suggested that I saddle
up her mare and "give it a go!" So, I did that and had a glorious time.
The dance was held in a hall that was out in the bush isolated from any
established town or residences. All of the attendees came by horseback
or buggy. The dance turned out to be a wedding reception and I was
welcomed as if I'd been a favorite, but long lost relative. The dancing
was largely of the squaredance variety and a lot of the girls in
attendance took it upon themselves to see to it that this stranger had
plenty of instruction. The men were very hospitable also, suggesting
that it was time for a smoke, and took me outside the hall where bottles
appeared from nowhere and in a show of good fellowship were pressed upon me!
When the dance broke up in the wee hours of the morning, someone
suggested that instead of that long ride back to the Felhabers and then
the walk to camp, that I go to their house for the rest of the night. By
the light of day I could return to camp. In the meantime there was the
camaraderie of the ride, a soft bed and in the morning a leisurely meal
before returning the horse to the Felhabers and then returning to camp.
After that weekend on horseback I had two saddle sores on my butt that
were each about the size of a silver dollar. During the last stages of
the ride, I tried everything to ease the pressure on the sore spots,
riding sidesaddle, standing in the stirrups, resting my weight on one
thigh or any other position that would be more comfortable than sitting
upright!
Eventually I bought a riding horse and a greasy old saddle, both of
which were very inexpensive. The horse was boarded at the Felhabers, a
real convenience for me, because it was so close to camp and of course
the horse provided me with a means of transportation, so that I was not
restricted to the two towns, which were the destinations of the
available busses, in my movements. By this means I was able to see a lot
of country and meet a good many people that I'd have never seen
otherwise. Also because the saddle was so dirty, I began carrying a
clean, ironed pair of slacks folded neatly and stowed inside my shirt,
so that I'd no longer be embarrassed by the oil stains that rubbed off
the saddle onto the slacks being worn at the time when an unexpected
social occasion arose..
One time I was at the Felhaber's and Mum suggested that we make a picnic
excursion to The Caves. She made up a picnic basket and rode in the
family's buckboard. All of the kids and myself went on horseback. There
must have been five of us. We had a great time. As we rode along, one of
the group would say something like, "Do you see that big old tree by the
side of the road?" "Yes!" "Well, I bet that I can beat you getting
there!" There'd be a thunder of hoofs and a pell mell rush to see who
could win the race. Those races always ended in a big cloud of dust as
we all pulled up just beyond the tree. I was just learning to ride and
to this day don't know how I avoided falling off the horse in that kind
of activity. I do know that I was very unsure of myself at first, but as
time went on and I gained both confidence and experience, I was a little
less shaky on horseback. Eventually also callouses developed and I was
no longer troubled with saddle sores!
The Caves themselves were natural limestone caves that had had no
commercial development. We wandered around in them with candles for
light and were awed by some of the formations. Eventually we tired of
that and gathered in the shade where we ate the picnic that Mum Felhaber
had provided. After hthe lunch we saddled up and returned home tired,
but exhilarated, from our adventure.
From all that has been written here a reader might get the impression
that all I did in this part of the country was the pursuit of
recreational activities. One must remember that after a couple years as
a soldier, the daily training activities became common place to me. The
exciting things that were happening took place on weekends or holidays
that the army let us celebrate.
As a foot soldier I became intimately acquainted with the ground and the
little creatures that called its surface home. One of these was a
variety of ant that was about three-eights of an inch long. Its base
color was metallic silver, but it had bands of gold/copper and black
around its body. It was a really beautiful insect!
Occasionally in the woods we would see a termite nest up on the side of
a tree. They had the appearance of a football that had been flattened
and plastered on the tree trunk. Each was equipped with a mud tunnel
from the nest to the ground. If the nest was broken open, one could
usually find the queen's chamber and the queen within. The head and
thorax of the queen looked much like the head and thorax of the workers,
but the abdomen was greatly distended into an egg laying machine that
was about the diameter of one of my thumbs and an inch and a half long.
As a matter of fact this distortion was so great that it was easy to
overlook the tiny, ineffectual head and thorax with waving antennae and
legs attached to the forward end of the swollen abdomen!
Our training continued all of the time we were in that area. One day we
were taken out in back of our camp area to a place with dense woods,
scattered underbrush and many hills and gullies. At a certain point my
platoon was detached from the second and third platoons. They continued
the course of the march. After they'd left we were told to form a line
of skirmishers and dig in, because the other two pla- toons were going
to be turned around in about an hour and told to find our positions and
infiltrate them. We were on the face of a slope that faced in the
direction from which the infiltrators were expected. We each dug slit
trenches that were about eighteen inches deep by eighteen inches wide
and long enough to accommodate to our bodies. We camouflaged each
position, so that it couldn't easily be picked out by the other
platoons' men.
With about an hour and a half to wait, I stretched out in the trench
with my feet in the direction from which we expected the visitors. My
head was raised to a comfortable position so I could relax and still be
alert for intruders. We'd not been there too long before I felt
something at my left wrist which was at my side. Looking down I saw a
cute little reptilian head about the size of the first joint on my
middle finger. The thought was: "Let's wait and see what this little guy
will do!" By the time that "cute" little head was at my belt buckle it
was too late to do anything and I had recognized the animal, not as a
lizard as I had at first thought it was, but as a small, but deadly,
member of the cobra family! At my belt buckle there was a pause in the
creature's progress across my body. At that point it changed directions
and headed "north" toward my face. What to do? NOTHING! I was rigid with
fear and concerned that the snake would feel the vibrations of my
pounding heart and try to tear it out of its rightful location with its
dripping fangs, but that didn't happen. After what seemed an eternity, I
could feel the snake's tongue flicking against my adam's apple and then
it slithered down off the side of my neck and went on its way as though
my body had been no more than a fallen log in its path. My reaction was
far different. By the time the tiny serpent had completed the transit of
my body, I was so charged with adrenalin that I nearly exploded. I
sprang to my feet with rifle in hand and set out to smash that critter
into eternity with the rifle butt. But, the charge of adrenalin was so
great that I was having eye/hand coordination problems and never did
make contact with the offensive creature. Shortly, I began to realize
that my actions were going to "blow" the concealment endeavors of my
platoon and mess up the whole operation, so still shaking I returned to
my slit trench, explaining to my buddies as I went by just what had
happened to set me off. So much for watching "cute" little lizards. I
had learned to make the identification first and then make observations
of animal behavior from a safe position!
At one time during the 10 or 11 months we were in camp and training at
Rockhampton, a little "one elephant" circus set up for business just at
the crossroads to the Caves and Emu Park, very close to the Felhaber
ranch. As circuses go it wasn't much of a show, but we were a division
of troops essentially isolated in the Australian Outback from some of
the more sophisticated diversions we'd come to expect when we were
stateside or even in Melbourne. Besides most of us had a few coins and
no place to spend them. The little circus was a great solution to the
problem and I am sure that the circus people anticipated this! The main
part of the show was a female aerialist who managed to bring my heart
into my mouth every time she preformed. She would swing back and forth
on her trapeze bar way up near the top of the tent, and then at the
height of a backward swing would let go with her hands and fall
backwards, as though she were going plummet to the ground backwards and
head first, only to catch herself at the very last moment with her feet
on the side ropes of the trapeze!
The only animal in the circus menagerie was a rather small, tuskless,
female Indian elephant. I don't remember any motorized rolling stock.
The tent and the stands were hauled in wagons drawn by teams of horses.
The elephant was moved from site to site by the simple expedient of
letting her walk. I remember that she really had a ball whenever she
found a pond along the way! The several people associated with the
circus either traveled on horseback or in buggies or drove the wagons
with the tent, stakes and other gear.
As I remember the show its self was reasonably entertaining. It was
performed by just a handful of people, each of them performing in
several capacities or roles. And that was also true when the circus was
being set-up or moved from place to place; the entertainers then
provided the labor for those tasks as well. The performances seemed to
always be sellouts, but that was more a function of the circumstances
(Lots of soldiers with nothing else to do and plenty of money for
diversions) than of the extremely outstanding nature of the show, though
I must say, we did get our money's worth!
One time during some very hot weather, we were on a field firing range.
In this situation, one at a time we would set out on a trail through the
woods, rifle at the ready, looking for the "enemy". At various intervals
along the trail, the course supervisors would pull control wires that
would cause a silhouette of a man to spring into view. Sometimes they
were on the ground and occasionally they were positioned in trees to
simulate snipers. To get credit for your shot, you had to not only hit
the target, but hit it inside a certain time interval. The theory was
that if you took too long to kill the enemy, you were "dead", so even
though you might hit the target, your shot didn't count. All at once,
with no warning at all, after I'd finished my go at the course, my nose
started bleeding profusely and wouldn't respond to any of my efforts to
get it stopped. The captain, Dow Lovell, told the first sergeant to,
"Get Crary to the medics and get his nose fixed. We can't have that
happening when we're in combat!" So, away I went to the hospital that
was attached to the division and one of the doctors cauterized it. I've
never had that problem again!
Sometime in late 1942, I began to have some problems with toothaches. It
turned out that my wisdom teeth were trying to erupt and there was no
room for them, so a dentist at the division hospital pulled all four of
them.
There was a rumor going around that right after the division reached
Rockhampton, the army took over a brewery to supply the troops with
beer. The second part of the rumor was that the demand for the brew was
so great that they were having to dispense the beer the same day it was
made, thus bypassing the aging process. As to the truth of that rumor,
I've never heard the facts, but the truth is that each battalion had its
own little framed tavern where this "Green Death" was dispensed for
canteen checks (draws against the monthly pay). Many of us spent our
monthly pay drinking green beer out of aluminum canteen cups, simply
because there was little else to do. The beer had one virtue that
endeared us all. It was cheap and there seemed endless quantities of it.
Incidentally, those little battalion taverns, were simply to keep the
clientele separated from the supply of beer and the personnel that
dispensed it. The imbibers went to the building, which had the general
appearance of a hot dog stand, paid their money and got their beer,
which was consumed on the ground (earth) amidst the eucalyptus forest in
which we were encamped. But for the fallen leaves the ground was bare,
but after a couple cups of beer the dust and the pleasant smell of the
eucalyptus in no way interfered with serious beer swilling.
It was during the time that we were at Rockhampton that one of the guys
in A company blew his brains out. We never did learn what had been
troubling him, but one day he stuck the muzzle of his M-1 in his mouth
and pulled the trigger with a toe. The procedure effectively removed the
back of his head and deposited fragments of it on the inside of the tent.
One of the guys in my tent/squad was Eldon Chester Cherry, whom we all
called Cherry (He hated both of his first names). Cherry was from the
Chicago area and a regular army soldier who somehow ended up in B
company. Unlike me, he loved to gamble. For about a week after every
payday he spent most of his time in games. To my surprise, he stayed
ahead of those games more frequently than not. On occasion, though, he'd
go broke. Then I could expect him to come around to ask for a stake.
Most of the time I'd share what I had left of my pay with him. When his
gambling was over for the month, you couldn't get him into a game. And
for the rest of the month, when I was getting low, he'd share his
winnings with me. It wasn't a matter of paying back exactly what he'd
borrowed, but rather, "Come on Crummy, lets go drink some beer". "Can't
do it Cherry, I've shot my wad!" "Come on I'm buying!" Or maybe we'd go
to town to see a movie and he'd pay the freight. We weren't real close;
he never went into the country with me on my horseback excursions, but
he was overly generous with me about sharing his winnings.
I was never a spit and polish soldier and appearance wise tended to be a
little on the unkempt side. Besides, our supply sergeant was
hard-pressed to get articles of clothing that really fit me well. Most
of the time I was issued "high water" slacks and shirts that left four
or five inches of my arm above the wrist exposed! Cherry, on the other
hand, was a little guy who always looked as if his clothing had just
come back from the laundry. In addition he'd been a peacetime regular
army soldier where spit and polish was given much heavier emphasis than
it had been in the National Guard, so most of the time he was a very
sharp looking soldier. All of this added up to the way he viewed me and
hence the nickname, Crummy! That's OK. I wasn't offended and he was a
good friend!
Many times during the years I was in training in the army, we'd be sent
out on night maneuvers. We did this while we were in the Rockhampton
area. On one such memorable occasion we were given a compass course of
ten or fifteen miles to follow. Of course, the training officer had laid
the course out on a map and hadn't been on the ground. We hadn't been
out too long when the azimuth (compass direction) given took us to an
impenetrable jungle of lantana. Yes, dear reader, it was the same stuff
that is used as border plants in southern California and that has a
nice, but pungent aroma. The only difference was that this stuff grew
about ten feet tall and the only way through it was to hack a path with
a machete. The guy on the point with the machete is only good for a few
minutes at best, so there was constant trading around to get fresh meat
on the working end of that bolo. The progress was further impeded by the
fact that this was all being done in the dead of the night when there
was absolutely no means of seeing what we were doing. Forward progress
was frequently interrupted by the constant necessity for new compass
readings to keep us on course. To this day whenever I smell lantana I
think of that night. Thank heavens, when we were in New Guinea, we
didn't move at night! Movement meant enemy!
While we had been in the state of Victoria, I'd kept my eyes peeled for
a platypus. Whenever I was near any kind of water, lake, pond or stream
I searched for evidence of the animal. As luck would have it to this day
I have never laid eyes on that most famous of the Australian fauna. One
weekend I was to spend the night with the Lindley family. On the cross
country ride to their place I spotted an echidna, the other of the two
extant monotremes (egg-laying mammals) that only live in Australia. I
wanted this one, so I got off the horse and caught him as he was
waddling away from me. The animal immediately curled up into a ball, so
I remounted and we continued out journey with the animal balanced on the
palm of my hand. Now echidnas are spiny animals that are covered with
quills, but fortunately for me those quills are nowhere nearly as sharp
as the quills on a North American porcupine. For that reason we were
able to reach the Lindley's house without too much discomfort on my part.
Since it was sunset when we arrived and soon would be dark, Mr. Lindley
gave me an old galvanized washtub to put over the animal. My thought was
that I'd complete my "scientific" observations the next day. It turned
out that no one thought to tell me that the echidna is a burrowing
animal that lives largely on earthworms. So the next day this little
creature had made good his escape long before I had much of a chance to
get too well acquainted with him!
The Lindleys had a daughter who was fifteen or sixteen. She was a
beauty. It wasn't too long before I was smitten and the feelings were
reciprocated by Leslie. Father, who was a veteran of World War I took a
dim view of the whole situation. Truthfully, if I'd been in his shoes
I'd have taken the same stance. Here was an eighteen year old soldier,
thousands of miles from home, whose prospects aren't too good. (We all
knew that I was still facing having to go into combat.) And there I was
playing around with his daughters emotions and probably other things
too! (I wasn't.) So he mounted guard on Leslie as though she were the
Crown Jewels and made it extremely difficult for us to see each other.
There was never an absolute "putting down of the foot". The man was
right, I acknowledge that, but it was tough on both Leslie and me.
Before too long her school holiday ended and Leslie was packed off to a
boarding school at Barcaldine, Queensland. That was about five hundred
miles beyond my reach! Anyway, Leslie and I corresponded with each other
until I went into combat. Then the conditions were too difficult for me
to write letters (lack of writing materials, no postage available, no
mail pick-up and delivery, living in fox holes, constant rain and mud),
so we lost touch with each other. I'm not sure that I remember why I
didn't pick up the thread after I was in the hospitals, but I didn't.
Perhaps, I'd lost her address during the time I was in New Guinea.
Sometime in early December of 1942, "B" Company's turn came up to
undergo amphibious training. (That training turned out to be completely
irrelevant to anything we later experienced in the landings at Nassau
Bay in the Salamaua Campaign. But with what equipment was available and
what was known about beach landings, it _was_ an attempt to prepare us
for what was to come.) We were taken to Bribie Island, just off the
coast of Queensland and about 45 miles north of Brisbane. The island was
nearly 200 miles from Rockhampton, so our journey there required us to
undergo another adventure on the trains of Queensland.
I no longer recall the kind of accommodations that were provided for us,
but suspect that we paired off with squad mates and pitched
shelter-halves. It seems to me that the company's mess crew provided us
with comestibles, so that we didn't have to fight indigestible lumps in
our stomachs as we were engaged in the mastering of surf landings on
"hostile shores ".
The landing craft in which we did our amphibious learning were paddle
propelled, collapsible landing craft which would accommodate about 16 to
20 men. It should be noted that the men being delivered to the beach as
assault troops provided the boat's motive power through the agency of
one paddle per passenger. Cherry (a squad mate of mine) and I were told
off as the crew for one of the boats. Cherry was in charge of the
painter (this was a rope by means of which the boat could be secured
when we weren't maneuvering on the water) and I was to steer the boat
with a 12' steering oar.
It turned out that our only function was to be in charge of the boat. We
didn't go on any of the maneuvers the troops went on once we'd delivered
them to the beach that was being assaulted. It turns out that because of
this assignment, we were able to play on the beach in the beautiful sand
in the sunshine each day.
One time a beach we "assaulted" had the wrecks of two steamships on it.
We had a glorious time swimming in and out of the wreck and viewing all
of the fish which had been drawn to this artificial reef. I think that
was the day that we decided to strip off all of our clothing. By evening
time when it was time to quit work for the day I had the most glorious
sunburn on the bulge of my buttocks and on the front side of my penis,
places that had almost never been exposed to the sun before. I sure did
suffer with that sunburn!
One late afternoon three beautiful sailboats entered the waterway
between Bribie Island and the mainland. In the lee of the island they
dropped their anchors and made preparations to spend the night there. It
turned out that they were Thursday Island Luggers. They had been
originally designed to be in the Torres Straits pearl fishery. The war
had curtailed that activity and so now they were making whatever they
could hauling small cargos.
The crews were black, Thursday Islanders. They sailed their boats in all
kinds of weather with only the power of their sails. There were no crew
accomodations on board any of the three boats. Their crews slept on deck
if it was warm enough. If it wasn't they slept in the holds, either on
top of any cargo they were carrying or above the bilges. There were
absolutely no amanities on any of the three boats. My thought was: "This
is about as basic as sailing gets! I had no qualms about talking with
the crews and spent some time on board with them looking at the boats,
"talking" with the crew, etc. The crew were an amiable gang of people
who seemed delighted to answer my questions. The next morning just after
daybreak all three crews hoisted anchor and made sail on their
respective boats and sailed away to their next port of call.
We must have been at Bribie Island for at least two weeks. I remember
that I had my Galah, the pink and grey cockatoo, with me. When the
training had been completed on Christmas Day, 1942 and we were waiting
for some trucks to come take us to the train station in Caboolture for
the trip back to Rockhampton. When I first got the bird one of his wings
must have trimmed, because he never really tried to fly, but just
quietly rode on my shoulder. Well, the clipped wing must have started to
grow out, because suddenly he took off and flew up on a dead tree trunk
that was leaning at about a 45° angle from the ground. I was very
concerned that I'd not get the bird back before the trucks came to pick
us up. I did get the bird back and soon our ride into Caboolture
arrived. We were deposited at the railroad depot and "Fallen In". That
is we were drawn up in ranks. Our company commander, Capt. Dow Lovell,
told us he was of a mind to keep all of us there at the depot. It was
about 4:30 PM and we were due to leave at midnight. "If we would all
promise to be back by 11:30 PM he'd let us go for those few hours to
find whatever Christmas fun might be available." Well of course, we all
swore we'd be back in plenty of time, so he let us go.
It just happened that I was suffering from my perennial complaint, that
of being flat broke, so I wandered through a residential area of town,
observing decorations and viewing families at their Christmas revelries.
Remember this was just at the start of summer. The days were long. The
climate was mild, but windows were wide open to catch the cooling
evening breezes, so the sounds of celebration readily carried to the
street as I walked by.
At one large home there appeared to be quite a party that was just
getting underway. I lingered across the street to watch and listen to
the sounds of the party. Shortly an Australian army pick-up pulled into
the driveway where the party was going on. Two gentlemen in uniform got
out and went in to the dwelling. Shortly, I noticed two Aussie enlisted
men hanging around the house. First, they'd walk by on one side of the
street and then they came over to my side of the street. The second time
by me they stopped to talk.
"Righto Yank, would you like some beer to drink?" Well, I wasn't one to
turn down an offer like that one, so I told them that I was very
interested. "Well then, come with us, but don't say anything at what you
see!" We crossed over the street to the driveway where the army pick-up
was parked. I was told to wait on the sidewalk. The two "diggers" went
up the driveway and each extracted a gunny sack from the bed of the
pick-up. We then hustled down the street and shortly found a curb under
a street light where a group of comrades could hold a Christmas party.
The sacks were filled with imperial quart bottles of an outstanding
local brew.
I'm not just sure what the time was when I found my friends, but we had
been quaffing beer and telling lies to each other for some time when I
suddenly remembered that I had an 11:30 PM date with my company
commander. Well, the three of us gathered the remains of our party and
hotfooted it to the depot. On the way they reassured me that everything
would be Ok even though I was late getting back. They were going to put
in a "good word" to the captain for me and explain that my lateness was
caused in the interests of improved international relationships! I was
late. The only one in the company who was late, but fortunately the
train was late too, so I didn't miss my ride back to Rockhampton.
It turns out that my Aussie friends did talk to the captain and my
reward for strengthening the relationships between the Aussies and the
Yanks was a two week stint on K.P. that started the next morning while
my head was still two sizes too big.