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2/20th Battalion A.I.F. |
Landing at Singapore, we were met by Aussie troops. As we marched down steps, we were met by real live Australian girls in uniform, and were treated like royalty. We were taken to Changi where we were billeted in tents on the beach-front.
Whilst waiting those few days in Changi, I went into Singapore one memorable night to attend open-air concert given for P.O.W.s by Gracie Fields. Did she get a reception! Oh boy! Here we received more mail, from which I learnt that my sister Jean was in Darwin with the RAAF as a nursing sister.
I immediately applied for an opportunity to fly home, thinking foolishly the direct route would be through Darwin. Knowing Army's record, I should have known better. We didn't fly within 1500 miles of Darwin, but I did get a flight home on a D. C. 3 Ambulance plane which flew via Labuan, Morotai, Biak, Merauki and finally Townsville. Flight home took 3I/2 days (compared to a few hours these days!!).
We left Singapore on first day and flew to Labuan Island, off west coast of Borneo. Here the 9th Division subdued the Japs (though many were still defiant and refusing to lay down arms). After hearing of our treatment and casualties, they would have liked to finish them off.
We left Labuan around 9 am for Morotai, flying across Borneo from west to east, slightly south of where so many of our mates perished on Jap-enforced death marches to Sandakan. Most of them were shot by guards as starvation and illness caused them to drop out of a march, being unable to go another step. Harold Nixon, George Cook from Failford, and June Wright's dad were amongst the unfortunate casualties and many other 2/20 lads I knew.
Crossing Borneo, at one stage of the flight, we witnessed a volcano erupting far off. A fellow passenger, fortunate to have a camera, took a snap of the volcano out plane window. I asked him, if it came out, could I have a snap and we swapped addresses - only to find he was ex Navy (R.A.N.) off the "Perth" and a Hadlee from Forster, where I had gone to school with his brother, Harry (a 6 footer whom I ran into head-on, at school, and had a front tooth knocked out).
Harold Rideout, 2/20, from Kempsey, New South Wales was also a fellow passenger. [We have remained friends to this day. In fact, he was in Port Macquarie Hospital for a knee replacement when Dawn was there for her surgery visit. Harold lost a 40 year old son recently with cancer and we attended the, funeral.]
Incidentally, planes weren't fitted for passengers but only for stretcher cases. Our seating consisted of stretchers along each side of fuselage and in tiers, with us sitting or lying on the bottom bunks where we had pretty good view out. It was very comfortable being able to stretch out when the scenery (mostly sea and sky anyway) of no interest. On one occasion, at very high altitude, I realised it was virtually impossible to detect the horizon as the sea and sky were all the one colour. Most weird!
Calling at Morotai for lunch was uneventful. [Jean had been there before transferring to Darwin.] We continued journey to the island of Biak, north west of New Guinea where the Yanks had a very large air base built of crushed coral. It was an enormous set-up where we spent second night quietly except for excitement at the thought of spending the next night at Townsville and in Aussie once again!
FOUR YEARS SINCE LEFT AUSTRALIA Having left on 29/7/41, it was now 11/10/45.
We flew right across Papua and the main range, stopping at Merauke for lunch at the mouth of the Fly River.
The plane rapidly crossed the Torres Strait, flying down the central spine of Cape York Peninsula. The country was very dry with rather sparse tree cover.
We arrived at Townsville in the late afternoon where we transferred to Townsville Hospital for the night. Not our idea for the first night in Aussie, yet frankly, I can't recall what we did except feel the excitement and thrill of being on home soil again.
Next morning, we flew to Brisbane. It seemed like a couple of hours. Here we were taken to Greenslopes Repatriation and Army Hospital where my sister Alison, then on General MacArthur's staff as a W.A.A.F. member, met me.
Also with her, and in uniform, was Joyce Hancock, wife of Ivor Rowe of 2/20, a member of my Company "A". She, of course, was eager for news of her husband. AlI I could tell her was that he was OK almost a year ago when he left for Japan along with most of "U" Battalion.
Alison then took me to the home of the Crowe family who had shown us such warm hospitality in Perth when we called there on our way to the War in July I94I. In the intervening years, Mr. Crowe had transferred to Brisbane as Repatriation Commissioner. As in Perth, they took us on a tour of Brisbane. I had been there with Bill and Harry Miles in I939. We went to the Crowe's home for dinner, then back to Greenslopes. Mrs Crowe Snr. had written to my mother through all the intervening years and had developed a close attachment, Alison visiting often.
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Copyright © 2002, Elliott McMaster, "Glen Ora", Nabiac, New South Wales, Australia, 2428. Original content in these Web pages is copyright. Apart from any use permitted under the Copyright Act, no part may be produced by any process or any other exclusive right exercised without written permission from the copyright holder. This Web was prepared by the Great Lakes Historical Society Ltd, C/- Great Lakes Museum, Capel Street, (P.O. Box 23), Tuncurry, New South Wales, Australia, 2428. |
Eventually we were flown out by
DC3 planes to Singapore.
It was the first ever flight for most of us.
