Victorians at War - Oral History Project

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Bill Gray Transcript of interview by Ina Bertrand 28 December 2000 - tape 1 (1hr 1min)
Bill Gray interviewed at Highett, 28 December 2000 So the first question is where and when were you born. 15 January 1926/25 Bairnsdale. 1925? Yeah, Bairnsdale In Bairnsdale, OK. And you said your family were fishermen. Tell me a bit about them Me father and me brother... Oh, me grandfather he was a shipwright and a fisherman, a shipwright at Paynesville. Three old blokes I knew were shipwrights at Bairnsdale - Jules Lake, Bob Bull been at Paynesville, at Metung for many years. Me grandfather was all over the place, up and down the New South Wales, Victorian coast, as a shipwright and a fisherman. And then your father was a fisherman? Then me father was a fisherman. He was a First World War man, lost his right hand, [not clear] shell in France, First World War, he come home and went fishing. How did he manage with only one hand? Oh, he'd manage. He'd carry... haul the line over his forearm, and the other hand as well. OK, and he trained you, his children as fishermen too? Yeah. The oldest brother, there was a brother older than me, was a fisherman with me and me father, and after I joined the army me two youngest brothers went fishing with him. Right, but then you weren't fishing when you joined the army, were you? Well, I was up till then, then I come back from the Northern Territory. What took you up to the Northern Territory? Well, as I said, me father at the time he nearly lost his other hand and he couldn't go fishing, so nobody wanted to go fishing with the boat so I was offered the job to go up there for 8/10 months, something like that, about 8 months I was up there, and they said to go up there and they weren't busy down there so I went up there and I come home and soon as I come home I went back fishing again, before I joined the army. So, when were you up there? in Northern Territory? in 194..? 1942? When the war had started... '42. OK. So you were a young, quite young man then? Oh, yes, very. What were you doing up there in the Northern Territory? We built the aerodrome up there. At Daly Waters? Daly Waters, yes. And that was an army...? No, it was a civilian... Civilian airport? Uhu. It was during the war, naval/airforce aerodrome. So did you see, while you were there, working on the airport, did you see lots of military people all the time? A terrific lot. The trucks were going up the road all the time. So, do you think that was what made you want to join? No, no, if I wanted to I would have joined. What was the use of going up there? I wouldn't have been able to. So you were just too young? Yes. I was just too young to go up then. What do you think made you want to join? Oh, god, me father, he was away in the First World War, and he enjoyed it, he came back pretty badly broken up, smashed up, and said to his doctor... When Dad came home from the war he went to the Caulfield Hospital, in Kooyong Road, you know the old Heidelberg Hospital? Yes Repat Hospital? in Kooyong Rd? He was there when he come home. They said he had a big hole dug out of his skull, they wanted to put a plate in it. He said,"How long is that going to take?" They said, "Oh, six months." He said, "Oh, bugger you, I'm going home to go fishing," and he did. He did. No, he never got the plate put in his head. So, you wanted to be like your father? Yeah. He come home and he had one fit that I ever knew he was having, ... I ever knew he was having one. Right. How much did you know about the war? about what was happening in the war? Oh, a fair bit. Where did you learn it from? Oh, a lot of the blokes that was in the army, all the news and all that sort of thing. Newspapers? Radio? Radio. We used to get old Tokyo Rose on the radio up in the islands and that. Up there in the Northern Territory there was a fair bit of news too. A lot of the blokes that come back from the Middle East were working up and down that road there, used to go in the trucks up there. So you were more or less waiting to be old enough to join up? Yeah, soon as I was, I said to Dad "I'm going." When I turned old enough to be going, he said, "Are you going?" I said "Soon as I can get away." And I went up to Sale and they tried to stop me from going. Why? Manpower, they reckoned that I should stay with me Dad, do the air-sea rescue work, in Bass Strait. Right. And then I just said me two younger brothers were able to go with him and I spent a couple of months teaching them how to pull a diesel to pieces and put it together again and splice ropes and all that sort of thing before I went, they were quite happy with that and so was dad so I got the two blokes who were with the Manpower, the VDC man in charge of Gippsland, and the Recruiting Officer, Gippsland was there with me, at Sale. The Manpower officer, he would have stopped me, but they talked him into letting me go. Otherwise he would have got his nose broken. All right. So, you joined up in Sale? Yeah. And you trained in Queensland? Yeah. You were recruited out at Royal Park and they said "You're going up to Warwick, in Queensland." The first lot, then we went over to Canungra jungle school, I told you where that was before, didn't I? Yeah. But talk a little bit about Warwick. What was the camp like? There was about five or six different battalions there. That's where they did their preliminary training, for any infantrymen, or anything going into the army. Where did you live? In the camp at Warwick. What was it like though? Well, the camp was very good. Living in tents or in huts? Tents, yeah tents... Board floors, canvas huts. How many men to a hut/tent? Six. All we had was a straw bed, with a canvas and straw bed mattress, hay and that sort of stuff, in your bunk, on the board floors. It was quite good up there I thought, a bit cold though... Yes, what was your.... Very cold at Warwick. Was your uniform warm enough? Yeah, it was, out in the day time. Wasn't too cold in the daytime, in the night-time we had two blankets, and the old mattress was only hay, and canvas, palliasse stuffed with straw. So, what did you do to keep warm? Chucked on all the bits you could - two blankets, you chucked your overcoat over you as well. We kept warm, although it was pretty cold up there just the same. OK, food? big mess hall? Oh, it wasn't a real big mess hall. We had only one battalion there like training at the one time. There were two different camps... three different camps there at the time, 2^nd 7^th Infantry Battalion and 21^st/27th we were and then there's the 11^th battalions were training there at the time, that's at Warwick itself, and there was other camps outside our camp, too. And what form did the training take? Oh well, all your weapons, and you learned how to handle the weapons and so forth, your Owen gun, your Bren guns, your rifles, anything else that you had to use, your grenades, all that sort of thing you had to learn how to handle without being a danger to other people. So, were you training as an infantryman? Yeah, at the time, yeah. Then I trained as a commando and went to Canungra, over to Canungra to do that. How were you selected for that? Well, they came over and asked whether anyone wanted to join the commandos. We had two blokes come over from the commando school. We had just got there, had just had our lunch and they come over and whether you wanted to join the commandos, and I got one of me mates to join, and it was "Right-ho. Up Mount Tambourine!" We had our packs on and were up round Mount Tambourine just after lunch, the same day we got there! You got pretty hard work there, I tell you that! Tell me about it. Well there was this Mount Tambourine. It was pretty big, a fair way to go up round it, you had to put your pack on and run up the mountain and run back down again, as soon as... just after you got there. I just can't go through all the different treks and that, different mountains that you had to walk up. So you were a pretty fit bloke then? Oh, you had to be fit, wouldn't have got out of the place if you hadn't been fit! What other things did you do to keep fit? Mainly you'd go swimming of a morning. They had a river down near Canungra, and one morning I'd... you'd strip off and have a swim in your birthday suit. And I was swimming up the river and there was a very low bridge going across and next thing I know I found the bearer over the bridge and hit my head on it. Nearly knocked myself stupid. Then you had to climb trees, and go through an obstacle course, where they put explosions under you as you jump over, you know. If you're a bit slow getting over, you end up falling flat on your face, when they set the explosions off behind you. So that's physical training. What other kinds of training did you get in commando? Unarmed combat, things like that. Unarmed combat? Yeah Right. Not too much that we had to... the bigger blokes up there. We had that at Warwick too, a fair bit of that. Had you been - say - a boxer, or anything like that before? No, no, I was a fighter around the town and that. There was a few blokes I used to argue with, I used to fight one bloke nearly every day coming home from school. So, you were into that kind of combat anyway. Yeah. I had an older brother I was always fighting with. Right. After I turned about 14 I was always giving him a hiding so he didn't pick many fights after that. Was it mainly kind of boxing - unarmed combat? Or was it... No, it was more like getting physically fit. You had to walk, that - and run, with a full pack on your back, 80lb pack on your back. You're not going to get around... you wouldn't get past the school if you didn't become really fit. How long were you training there? Oh about 8 weeks I think.. We went up to the Atherton Tableland then, did a lot of long marches up there, 24 hours marches, 24 hour a day march without stopping. You were supposed to have ten minutes every hour or something but we never did, we kept going when we could. The lieutenant kept going... the rest of us I think. Did everybody manage to pass this course? Oh, yes, at Canungra they did, otherwise they wouldn't have got onto the next part of the training, the army career. Right, so everybody who went to Canungra with you also went on to Atherton? Most of them did. But some of them did something different, ended up in the 9^th Div. Right, and where were you? in the 2^nd 10^th? 2^nd 10^th of the 6^th Div, 6^th Division. One bloke we went with, he was going up there, he jumped out of the train in the night, going up from Brisbane to the Atherton Tableland, jumped out of the train. Why? He didn't know what he had done. He was dreaming. Out of the train in the middle of the night. He ended up in the 9^th Div. That was funny. We didn't know... We took on his gear to our place, they found out where he was and sent somebody over from the 9^th Div to pick up all his equipment. Ok, so how long did you stay at Atherton? We were there for a good while, 8 months I suppose. And from Atherton we went down to Trinity Beach to do our amphibious training down there with the New Guinea landing craft and so forth. So, this is quite a long training period? It is, yeah. Nearly a year? Oh yeah, you had to... They piled us onto a ship down at Townsville, up to Wewak, Aitape area, New Guinea, which is around the Wewak area. We had to go up round Wewak to get to where we had to go to stop the Japs from coming across, up the track further up the road from where they were. We had to block that road off so they couldn't keep going further up the side of the island. So, was what the commandos were doing, was that different from what the regular infantry were doing? Yeah. We had to find out where they were, the Japs were, and come back, they sent us back to report it to the Divvy Headquarters, and they'd send a battalion over, or something. So, you were sent out on... reconnaissance? More reconnaissance. To find out where the Japs were most of the time. Is this in small groups? Oh, yes, sometimes you'd have a couple of nights with only four or five of yous. Right, and you had to carry everything on your back? Yeah. 80lb pack on your back. What was in your 80lb pack? Oh, all the equipment... What sort of equipment? Well, you had clothing, blanket, you had to have a couple... if you were going out for a couple of days you would always take a couple of blankets with you then, and your bit of food and that. Cans are heavy food, bully beef and that sort of stuff, they're heavy tins, bully beef and your biscuits and your ammo, weapons and ammunitions. We wore pouches you had to carry... what they called basic pouches hanging down the front of you too, one on each side. You'd put your ammunition, bully beef and dog biscuits in them You never... your web belt on, down the side you could put your ammunition round there, like for Owen gun weapons, whatever, magazines there, you'd put about 8 magazines on the side there, and on the other side there. And right around, you'd have a rolled up mattress, like a bed, string bed, you'd just have the canvas couch thing, you'd have that wrapped up, rolled up and on your back, and all you'd have to do was have two little poles and you'd have a stretcher. If you had anybody wounded you'd take the stretcher and get the wounded out pretty quick. Ok, so tell me about the food that you carried. Well it was mainly bully beef we called it. You probably know what bully beef is? Well, explain it, for the sake of the tape... It's beef in tins. And mainly William Angliss canned a lot of it during the war. Yeah. And what we called "dog biscuits" - they were a sort of wholemeal biscuit in packets. And they were the main things we carried around with us. And what did you drink? Only water, hot water, and black tea. Tea. So you would light a fire? Oh yeah, for that, yeah. Even when you were on a reconnaissance? Well, it wasn't much of a fire. Just enough to heat it up. You could heat it up without making a big fire, any fire, you know. We didn't get much given to us to use. We'd use our own initiative, what we were going to do, to make a fire and that. We didn't make many fires though, never great big ones to make us warm or anything. Even a small fire would have been quite difficult to light in jungle. How did you do it? Well, there was a fair bit of dry sticks and that around. Even if it is jungle there's a certain amount of dry sticks around. How did you manage to sleep at night? Did you have one person on watch? Well, sometimes we'd have one on, or might have two. We were lucky enough that we had the natives patrolling around the jungle all night sometimes. They'd come and tell us where the natives were so we'd go and knock 'em off... the Japs were, and we'd knock 'em off, or they'd knock 'em off themselves. So, you'd have native guides? Oh yeah, quite often we did. How did you get on with them? Very, very well. I reckon the blokes, the natives of New Guinea, were very good. They would think it was great whenever... they would even go out whenever... there'd be a big mortar set up, they'd go out and put the bombs in the mortar, set em off, without we're having to go out and put em on, instead we might put em over every ten minutes or something, they'd put em on, drop em down into the mortar... weigh about 25lb, shells out of the big mortars, there were smaller ones, 2 inch mortars, 3 inch mortars, then there was the big ones - 4.5. They were very handy to have around the place. They were pretty heavy to cart anywhere though. The natives carried all of our stuff with us, you know. So you carried an 80lb pack, but the natives that were with you carried other things as well. Oh, they carried a lot of heavy equipment, like those big mortars I was talking about. They carted all your... carried a lot of ammunition. But I tell you what, if they were carting it along a track and a bullet went off they'd just disappear and the stuff'd lay on the track. Could they move! They were like strip lightning when anything went off, when they were patrolling... And would they come back and collect it? Oh, I don't know about that. Sometimes they'd just didn't worry about that and we had to get it back ourselves as best we could. Did you work always with the same group of people? Oh, mostly we did, the same unit. See we had ... there was A troop, B troop, C troop, and there was 3 sections in each troop. A, B and C troop. And did the native helpers also work with the same people all the time? Oh No, some of them there, they [bangow?] men they called them up there - the civilians. Old chap [not clear]... Did you get to know any of them in particular? Oh, we did... some of the natives you'd get to know pretty well. Tell me about some of them, the ones you knew. Some of the old... particularly a couple of the young blokes, we had nicknames for them, I can't remember half of them.. Right There was 'Peanut' and 'Penny Halfpenny' or something, he was just a little bloke, black as the ace of spades, and we had a bit of fun with him. They were very, very good. How did you communicate? In English? Oh, they could do pretty good English, or pidgin English. Most of them could talk pretty good English as a matter of fact. We used to give em... They used to love... They'd do anything to get peroxide, cos they used to like to get the top of their hair all snowy, you know, like peroxide does to the top of your hair, snowy. They'd do anything for a cigarette every now and again, though. They used to love getting a cigarette or two off you. So, what sort of rations did you get for yourself? Oh, mainly as I said, bully beef... I was thinking more in terms of things like cigarettes and beer and... Oh, you'd get mainly tobacco, I forget what... the Comforts Fund used to send you cig... tobacco - cigarette papers, little round tin, about ounce and a half tin of tobacco. That's how I [not clear]... me mates, they'd be running short, you know, "Who's got a cigarette?" I never smoked at all, up in the islands. Right . I used to give it to me mates when they wanted a cigarette. And the natives... They used to love getting the tobacco too. Did you just give them away or did you trade them? No, I never traded them. I just give them to the blokes when they run short. Were you a drinker? No. So, did you get a beer ration too? Two bottles a month or something. I know in Vietnam they had more than they should have had. Me wife's nephew was up there, and he said they got as much grog as they wanted, every night of the week, that was half of what their trouble was up there, as I've heard of it. So, that didn't happen with you in New Guinea? No. We were very scarce up there. You could have sold it to the Yanks any time you wanted to, if you had it. The Yanks'd give you anything for Australian beer up there. When you came off one of these reconnaissance trips, where were you camped? Where was your base? It might have been back on the coast anywhere. We never did get past the coast. So, not in a permanent camp? No, we never had a permanent camp. There was one there, but it was right back near Divvy headquarters at Aitape, we never got back there, too far to get back. So you went in stages? Yeah. We were right over the Torricelli mountains into the valleys and that you know. We had to go and patrol all that area, to find out where most of the Japanese were, to let the divisions, the battalions know, so they could go and clean em out. Did you ever encounter the Japanese yourself, personally? Yeah, that was a funny one, one day... (not clear)... I said to a mate, I said, "Come on, we'll have a go at these blokes." And one of the other blokes, Derek Ferguson, his old man was a brigadier, and he was the biggest no-hoper you'd met in your life, old Derek, and he followed me into a hut and said em, he said to his mate, I don't know if he could run but he was a good footballer for Collingwood, and he said "Oh, we'll go and knock one of these off, Norman." He said "No, be buggered Fergie, we'll go and knock the bloody lot off!" There was only about 12 Japs in the village - they knocked the lot off anyhow. They got some, and we got others of them. You didn't know where you were going to come to 'em though. Were they in a village with.. in amongst the natives? Or had the natives left the village? Oh, they'd come and go as they wanted to, the natives. I think they were with the natives quite often. Were the natives ever at risk when you went in against the Japanese? No, no, no. The Papua infantry battalion. I wouldn't like to be fightin' against them. The Japs didn't like to either. They were fightin' one time, inland from Wewak, I think it was two and a half days, they never lost a man, the natives, the Japs lost an awful lot though, fighting these natives, the natives were really good at jungle warfare. They taught us a lot I think. Did you learn things from them deliberately? from the natives? The natives? Oh we'd go patrolling out, they'd come back and tell us where the Japs were, and one time we'd go... one of me mates from Adelaide and he was going up the track in front of me and all of a sudden he came turning round the track and down it like a charging bloody rhino, he damned near took me with him. He'd come up near the top and he'd seen where the village was and he'd spotted 3 Japs, walking round the village, so he turned and he came down that track like a charging rhino. I said to his wife, when I was over in Adelaide once, "Don't get near him Bev, in front of him, cause if he charges like a rhino he'll take you with him." Did you lose any of your mates there? Oh, quite a few. We lost Jim Morgan, and... and Norm Le Brun was the third one. I tell you he was the one we used to play football with Collingwood before the war. He got a dumdum in the shoulder up here. There was no-one, we was away, miles away from the rest of the troop and we had to just bury him where we could, and [not clear] we knocked a few of the Japs off and cleaned their village out for em. This poor old Norm got the dumdum in the shoulder, which we just said "Well, if it's good enough for them it's good enough for us to have dumdums." So we put a cross on the end of our bullets - that was as good a dumdum as any of them. You used the ammunition that you captured? No, we used our own. Oh, right. We used our own bullets. Just put a cross on the end of it. That's as good a dumdum as any of them. The dumdum got old Norm in the shoulder, and it just blew his shoulder apart. There was all this part up here where the bones were shot and his veins/arteries were all shot to pieces. He just bled like a stuck pig. You couldn't have a hope of stopping him bleeding. We only had a RAP bloke with us, lance corporal... a corporal I think he was, and he couldn't do a damn thing. While he died... we buried him, and that was all we had to do. That was all we could do. Right. That was anywhere during the war, that was what happened. What did you mean by putting a cross on the bullet? The bullet expanded when it hit anybody. You'd scrape..? Just put a cross across the end of the bullet. And they were using dumdums. And if it was good enough for them it was good enough for bloody us. They killed our mate, we'd kill them too. And you said you never were able to use your stretcher to take people out. Was that...? No. At different times we did. We had [not clear] from the 2^nd 2^nd battalion, [not clear] with us once, when we went down the coast one time, a bullet come from nowhere, dropped him, a Jap somewhere in the village in the jungle not far from our camp, I suppose. Got him in the shoulder. We got him down the track in no time. That was the idea of the stretcher, rolled up on the back of your belt. You didn't... only had to cut down two poles... [his talking watch spoke, and Bill said: "That's me watch. Sorry."] ...bamboo poles and you'd have a stretcher, by the time you'd cut these two bamboo poles then you had a stretcher. Right. They were two ordinary sort of poles. You'd unroll your stretcher, lie them on each side and you had a stretcher to take up with... So, did this man survive, the one you took down on the stretcher? No, no, he didn't have a chance. He was one of the 2^nd 2^nd division, battalion. So where would you take an injured person? Back to a field hospital? No, no. At that time we took him straight down the coast because the 2^nd 7^th Commando Squadron was there and they had a doctor with them. Right. You would take him down the track and hope there were no Japs laying in wait down there, as we went down. We got him down but he died just after we got there. We couldn't do anything... Were you injured at all ever? I got blown up. Not until.. Yes, but before that? No. A few bullets flying around your ears. You'd duck., but if you had to duck it would have been too late to duck, you wouldn't hear them coming. How did you feel about being at war like this? Did you find this exciting or...? There was a job that had to be done so we just done it the best we could. There was a job to be done. You couldn't just let them wander around and do what they wanted, them Japs. All me mates had that idea, I think. If there was a job to be done it had to be done. You just did it to the best of your ability. Were you in the same area the whole time? No. A fair bit of area. What area did you cover? Oh, well Aitape was way up nearly to the border of Dutch New Guinea and New Guinea itself. Right. Right back to Wewak. Inland a long way too. You know the mountain ranges and that - the Torricelli range, there, pretty high. They were about five thousand foot high. Up the mountain, not easy to walk up, we were going up one night, to go to a village further over inland, and we get up the top of this mountain, five thousand foot mountain, and the lieutenant says: "Oh, where's Trooper Ferguson?" "Dunno, sir." He said, "Well, will you and Trooper Barton go down and see if you can find him." And we head down the track and here he is laying down at the bottom of the track, laying down with his head on his pack and his feet on a log, and if the Japs caught you up there they'd eat yer, at that time of the year, that time we were there. He was just laying there with his feet up, sound asleep, so he always reckoned he was [not clear], couldn't walk up hills, so we made him walk up, we didn't let him stop for once going up that five thousand foot mountain. I was sharing his pack, and he had his blooming rifle. And there was another five mile after we got to the top that he had to keep walking, we had another five mile to go after we got to the top of the mountain. That's the sort of thing that you had to go on though. So, did you feel that your training stood you in good stead? It did, definitely. That was what you had to do when you went through.. You had to be fit to come out. Otherwise they wouldn't let you go, they'd put you through more training if you hadn't been fit enough. What was the weather like in New Guinea? Well, I reckon it could be pretty wet at times. We used to be all stripped off , wanting to have a bath... shower you know. Cos you'd just, a shower'd come down, you know.. and it'd damn well stop raining and you'd be covered in soap. We always used to have our.. had dixies and that, you know, things you'd keep water in, so you'd wash yourself off after the shower had finished. Sometimes you'd be down there, might be a creek out through the edge of the jungle or something, you could get in the creek and wash the soap off yourself. You know what you could do, do yourself, to the best of your ability sort of thing. That's why I said you do the best you can and hope you got through. So, you were able to keep clean, then? Oh, yeah. We'd keep clean. What about washing your clothes? Oh, we washed them when we could. There was always creeks. There were plenty of creeks around up there. How did you get dry? Oh, you just hang em in a tree for a while. They'd get dry. We had a towel. We had our own towels and that with us. You'd dry yourself the best you can. If you didn't have a towel you'd walk around until you dried off. Not many native women around up there, only a couple. An old bloke used to bring in wood for us every morning, had these two little girls, loaded up with wood, and he'd be walking around with his little tommyhawk in his hand. That's what I didn't like up there - these natives, get their women to do everything. They'd load em up, they'd be walking on their knees sometimes, some of them gins up there. The blokes would be walking along behind them with a kid on his shoulder and his tommyhawk in his hand, the women would be just about down on their knees, walking. Did you shave? Yeah, we shaved all the time. That was one of the things you were supposed to up there. And we made sure we kept our feet dry and that if we could. How did you manage that? Oh, wash them and dry them off with your towel as best you could. How did you keep your clothing dry and...? Oh, well, a lot of the time you'd be walking in your clothes... you'd hang em up till they got dry, or you'd walk around in wet clothes and they'd dry off on you, a lot of the time. Sometimes it'd be raining for days on end and you'd have to wring em out the best you could and put them back on and go to bed and sleep with em and a couple of blankets, with em all wet, doesn't dry out in your bed. Then you made the blankets a bit heavy to walk though. We did the best you could, as I said to you. All you can do is do the best you could, hope for the best. What about things like tinea on your feet, for instance? Oh, well, we used to keep that pretty dry. Everybody in the army used to carry their tin of Johnsons Baby powder around with them I reckon, would've made a fortune - Johnsons Baby Powder, during the war, everybody had Johnsons Baby Powder. That's one thing that the canteens always stocked up with, was Johnsons Baby powder. How did you hear news of the war or what was happening at home? Oh, a lot of the blokes had radios going of a night, Tokyo Rose coming through Japan. Right They reckoned that, one time there she reckoned that the first Australian into Tokyo could have a night in bed with her. I don't know what happened to her in the finish. I think she was taken back to America. I think she lives in America. So that's how you got news of the war. Oh, yeah there was radios going, blokes'd be listening to em of a night-time. What about news from home? Oh occasionally we'd get these newspapers up there, what they called - can't remember the name of them now, there was about 3 or 4 different papers, one of the Ansett Airways used to drop papers all the way along the road, close to where our camp was. Did you get Salt? Yes, we had salt tablets a lot of the time. I meant the newspaper Salt? Salt? That wasn't an Australian one was it? That was a yankee one, wasn't it? No, it was an Australian one. New Guinea Gold... another one. Right. The blokes were talking about it at that reunion up at Lismore. 6 or 7 weeks ago now. We flew to, up to Queensland, hired a car there, drove down to Lismore, had a 5-day reunion down there. And you remembered the newspapers you'd been...? Yeah. New Guinea Gold was one of the main ones. What were the other ones? There were quite a few up there. Some from the mainland, we got, the Australian troops anyhow. Dit you ever, or any of your mates ever, write to these newspapers? I don't know whether they did or not. I didn't. You didn't? No. I used to write home and that. How often did you write home? Oh, about every week, anyhow. Who were you writing to? Mum and Dad. And one of my girlfriends. One of the girls in the hospital up at...just this side of Albury. She come from Lakes Entrance, too. She was nursing up there. So, how often do you reckon you would have written? Oh at least once a week anyhow. And did you get mail regularly back? Oh, yeah. We'd get regular mail back. No trouble at all getting the mail back to you. Were you ever in a place where you couldn't get mail? Oh, it was sometimes a bit long-winded getting it. Cos we were right over the Torricelli Range, it was, a fair way to go over into the valleys over there, where we had to go to, to try and find out where all the Japs were, and the Divvy, the battalions'd come in, the big battalions come in, they'd be swearing at us all the time for stirring up the Japs to find out where they were, and they had to go out and fight with the Japs we'd already stirred up. We stirred the Japs up, and the others'd go in, the battalions had to go in and get the ones that had been already stirred up. So it was a case of... when you were right out in the front, it would be slow, the mail would be slow.. Yeah, we had to go out and find out where the Japs were, that was our main job, was to find out where the Japs were so we could pass on information to the battalions. Did you get parcels from home? Oh, yeah, occasionally, yeah. What sort of things? Mum sent me up fruit cakes, mainly. When I went over to St Dunstans in England she sent me fruit cakes over there for me. You'd look forward to that I suppose? Oh, yeah. Fruit cakes was one of me favourites. Did you share it with everyone? Oh, yeah. Everybody shared it. At Warwick there... We had one bloke in the tent with us, the other five would all sit down and have a good old party of a night-time, you know, when the canteen supplies'd come in. When all the five were sitting down there, and getting tea and that, and sitting down there, and this other feller'd be sitting there and he'd put his away and hide his. He wouldn't give a damn thing to anybody. So one night we found out where his cakes were, his two bloody cakes, and did he go crook about that! That was an A class battalion, blokes in that were really fit to go overseas and that you know. This bloke happened to be sent over to us, for some unknown reason, they must have thought he was fit enough, but he wasn't, he was trying to put it over or something. He didn't go away with us, anyhow, that's one thing. What sort of things did you do in the evenings? Oh, well, you'd be ear-bashing and... Just talking? Oh, mainly that's all. Did you play cards? Well, some of the blokes did, yeah. Any gambling? Very little of it them days. I suppose they were getting five bob a week or something, them days. There wasn't that much to gamble with. I used to play two-up. That was the main gambling bit. ...[not clear] What was that other Red Cross business? The other one that was there.. I don't know. Oh, everywhere you went... Soon as you went to a new place you'd always see one of these blokes standing there with his cup of hot coffee and his chewing gum for you. Right. Salvation Army? That's him. They were always around. There was a big camp... big tent where we were up at Warwick, where there'd be a bloke sitting there writing letters every night, nearly every night, sitting in a tent to write their letters, on the weekend or something. Did you have leave while you were up there? No. no leave at all. Right. When I first joined up and went to Warwick, they sent us home to Melbourne, down to Gippsland once, that was the end of it. I was supposed to be away for a fortnight or something, but I took another week. Me mate went down the other side of Stratford there. He took a fortnight off ... He even sent a telegram to the camp. I come home and they charged me seven days leave and a five dollars fine. The old mate, they charged him another five dollars and he reckoned he put it over with the telegram, it was a bit of a sham you know. He got charged/fined five dollars anyhow, same as I did. So, in the end, though, you had a bad accident. I was blown up. You were 'blown up', you describe it as... A grenade got me... A grenade? Yeah. Blew both me eyes out. They reckoned I would... The old doc said "Don't worry about him. He'll be dead in ten minutes." So there was a doctor with the group at the time? Not far away. Yeah. Not far away from where I got blown up. He come running across and he said "Don't worry about him. He'll be dead in no time." You heard him say that? No, well both me mates told me that after. Some of them come into the Concord hospital not long after me. So, what did you remember of what happened? Nothing. Nothing at all? Nothing. You didn't hear it coming? Oh, I couldn't hear it coming. You're only...Four seconds you get to clear yourself, with a grenade. I was going over to take over driving a jeep, and I took off sort of up the hill and into one of the tents, and there was three or four other blokes there, and I just put me pack on the bunk and... stretcher and I was turning to do something else and another bloke started to unpack it, you see, and what he did was grab hold of a grenade, not knowing it, and got his finger in the pin and pulled the pin out and I just turned around, I could smell it, and that was the explosion. I tried to chuck it away, into a big dugout they put an artillery piece into, and I don't know what happened then.... Were you the only casualty? No, one of me mates got a bit in his backside. Up at the reunion he said, "Hey, I took a bit of shrapnel of yours, Billy Gray." I said "It wasn't mine, it was Dougie Farr's." He said, "No, it was yours." I said "No, it wasn't." See, his sister told him, she was at Sydney Concord Hospital, she got word back, they got word back from up in the islands and they didn't worry about getting him out, but I got out, they put me in the hospital at Aitape, that was where we were, not far from where we were at the time, and they left me there for a week, and I didn't get any worse and I didn't get any better so they sent me away to Australia, they sent me down to the big hospital in New Guinea there, and I stopped there overnight, then into Townsville overnight, Brisbane overnight, then the Concord. For quite a few weeks. How did you travel? By plane as far as I knew. You weren't very much aware of any of this? No, I didn't come to till the day before the war finished. That's when I regained me consciousness after being out for a month. I wondered "What's going on?" I found out later that where my bed was, looked right out to the sister... looked straight down the length of my bed. And one day she heard a bit of a thump, she looks up and nobody's in me bed, so she comes racing in, and I was laying there, all out of the bed, my dressing gown... pyjama coat was off, one arm was in one sleeve. She looks up and sees a woman... The bloke in the next bed, his wife was staring over the screen, and there was a pair of scared eyes looking at me... Ok. And that was Sister Robinson, she just seen me there, put her arms under and dropped me up on the bed, and the next thing I know I regained consciousness then. And she put the rail up each side of the bed, so I wouldn't fall out again. And things I noticed, they were all good there, like next day... it happened the day before the war finished and next morning all you could hear was bloody radios. Right. Great excitement. All the sisters came up, mantel radios up in the wards, you see. All the sisters put mantel radios up in the wards. All you could hear was bloody music going like hell, with the war finishing. Well, you would have been delighted too, wouldn't you? Well, yeah, I was. Yeah, but I wasn't too excited about it, since I wasn't too fit, I was non compos mentis then. Well, what condition were you in at the time when you came round? Obviously you couldn't see, but what else was wrong? Well, I couldn't see. Nothing .... but not only that, an arm and a leg was paralysed. I was paralysed right down the left side as well. Right. And they had the physio on to me in no time whatsoever, working on my leg and then the Sister Robinson, she'd bring a wheelchair and she'd, "Come on, get out of that wheelchair" and I'd walk up and down the ward a bit with her. Tape 1, side B And the physiotherapist and that were there, occupational therapist and that were all looking after you. It was very good up there, very good hospital, Concord. How did you feel at the time? Oh, I couldn't give a bugger. I said, "Hey..." I realised that something was wrong with one of me eyes. I said, "Why don't you take the bloody eye out? I can't see. It's too bloody..." They said, "You can't see out now. That one's out and the other one's no bloody good to yer." One of em was out and the other one was blind, with a bit of shrapnel in it. So I said, "Oh that's all right. Go and get it out, don't worry about it." So, you were philosophical about it. Well, I couldn't do anything about it, so why worry about it. That's what my attitude has been, ever since I come home. If you can't do anything with it, then you can't do anything about it. You're only worrying other people by being ... and when I come home that was in... I got home for me Christmas Day 1945. I was up at Concord hospital. I asked the doctor up there to give me 5... give me 28 days leave, and he said "What?!" "Yeah, 28 days leave." Anyway he come wandering in about 6 o'clock on the Saturday night and the Red Cross girls, they had got a pass for me. I had to pay for me own ticket to get home, but I did. They had the ticket for me. They come wandering in about half past five of a Saturday evening. The doctor came in about 6 o'clock, and I said "Come on doc. Where's me plane ticket?" He said, "I can't get you a ticket this time of the night!" I said "You promised me one!" So anyway I went down the Registrar's office and he just tore a leave pass out of the book, without writing it into the book, you see. Cos the idea is you fill it in, and if it's 28 days, and it should have been 20/30 days because I had to spend me birthday, 21^st birthday in Heidelberg, got a bed there that night, 11 o'clock that night, me 21^st birthday. So you came down from Concord to Victoria. Got a plane down, like me sister and brother-in-law met me out there, and drove me to their place that night, didn't they. The next day the Red Cross drove me to Lakes Entrance. So, how did you come to terms with the lack of sight? How did you learn to cope? Oh, well another one of the blinded sergeants, Georgie Kidd, he's dead now, him and I were in Heidelberg together and oh we had pieces of dowelling to use as a walking stick, and we walked all round the bloody hospital, you know. Made a bloody nuisance of ourselves at times, I suppose. We just took off round there. Off we'd go. And the blinded soldiers used to have a turnout every Friday night in Bourke St. We'd always end up in there on Friday night. You were still a very young man, then, if you had your 21^st birthday in Heidelberg Hospital? Yeah, I was only 21. How did you meet your wife? Well, see, her father was a blinded soldier in the First World War and she used to come in of a Friday night to the blinded soldiers' turnout, they used to have a dance and that in there of a Friday night. I met her and started going around with her for a while, and next thing I know I was getting married, and going to... put down to go to England and I said "If we're going to get married, you'll have to wait till I come back from England." She said, "Well, I'll get married before you go if you want to." I said, "Right-oh, no worries, but you can't come, you know that?" One of the things the Repat put down was that we had to go to St Dunstan's by ourselves. And only one... a bloke from Queensland, his wife come over on a big ship, she wasn't supposed to come over, he got his knuckles rapped a bit I think over that. But she was there. I used to write to her every day of the week just about, every lunch-time I used to write I think... What did you do in England? Oh, bits and pieces of everything. Braille and typing, write your own letters and things like that was the main thing. Right, so it was training, rehabilitation training? Yes, yes. Why couldn't you do that in Australia? Oh, well there was a trip to England. Most of the blokes in the First World War, they went to St Dunstan's, cos that was set up in 1915, by Sir Arthur Pearson. He had the Pearson Press over there, and he set it up for the blinded men and women from both wars, from the First World War to start with, then the Second World War blokes, they had to meet a few of the First War blokes over there too. One old bugger, a good bloke, a lot of our blokes were... I got to know, we got to know all the First War blokes still members of the Blinded Soldiers when we come home. They were still around in them days. There's none of them around... about 18 months ago we lost our last one from the First World War. Claude Frankhause... not Claude Frankhause... he used to live out at Blackburn, he was 101 when he died. So tell me about the Blinded Soldiers Association. Well, that was set up here in Australia, just after the First World War, about 1918. Right. That was set up here in Victoria. There were quite a few of them as well, a few of them around in them days. When we come home from the Second World War there was a lot of them around. P.J./ Joe Lynch was the President for a number of years, and young Foster McConnell was the secretary... No, Bob Archer was the secretary, Mac was the treasurer, MacConnell was the treasurer, he lived just up the other side of Bluff Rd here. How many members does it have? Only about twenty odd now... 28 now I think. How many did it have at its height? The most we've ever had is 88. Right. The most we ever had at once. This is Victoria only? Yeah, Victoria, yeah. A lot of all the other states, see, they've got their own associations. Right. And a federal body too. I was secretary of that for a while, secretary and treasurer of Victoria for quite a while. And what sort of activities does it engage in. Well, we always had dancing on a Friday night in the early days. And we had our own bowling club. Right. ...[not clear] blinded soldiers... half a second... I was the only one from the First World War... Second World war that got interested in it. I was there for a long time. I started as one of the foundation members of the bowling club, and I'm the only one left. Right. Oh, we had a lot of things going. We had some terrific times at the bowling club. We used to go all over Victoria. Did you compete against other blind clubs, or against sighted players? Oh, no. There were only sighted clubs. We'd give them a bit of a shake-up at times. If you want to... just inside the door up there, you'll see a photograph up there of all the blokes that was in that bowling club, if you want a look at it. Right, Ok. Hanging up on the wall, just inside the door, on the left-hand side there when you face the wall. Right, I'll get it in a minute. Did you join the RSL as well? Yeah, I'm a member over at Caulfield now From the beginning? Did you join...? I was signed up in the RSL when I was still in New Guinea. After you've been away for 3 months you'd be eligible to be an ex-serviceman, to be an RSL member. Cos Dad was President of the Lakes Entrance RSL for many years, he was on the committee down there from 1919 I think. Right He was President, and I don't know what, for years. How was the role of the Blinded Association different from the RSL's role? Oh, you've got to be a blinded soldier to be in our association. I meant, what do they do that's different? Oh, we just... most of us are members of the RSL for a start, most of them, I think most of us joined the RSL, I have, I joined up when I was still up in New Guinea. What did you expect from the RSL? I don't expect anything, you just be a member and you go over there and they'll help you as much as they can. A lot of them don't like Brucie Ruxton, odd blokes. I do, Bruce and I are always good mates. He doesn't live far away, I meet him at the bar in Beaumaris. What do you mean by "They'll help you"? What sort of help? Oh, well, you've got the different groups and that. They can go around helping people with their houses and that. So, you're thinking of welfare sort of... Oh some of... they do a bit of welfare work. There's more of that... than I'll ever remember. Do you go into the club rooms? Oh, I go in there occasionally. Where would you... Which club rooms? Caulfield. Caulfield? Caulfield, it's off Glenhuntly Rd... in St Georges Rd, off Glenhuntly Rd. And what would you do there? Oh, well, you'd have your lunch there, you'd yak with your mates. I remember one time I was with a bloke, from the council, name of Geoff Ord, and we came in one day and he said "Oh, there's your mate having a beer", and I said "Well, we'll go over and have one", and I remember by the time we had a beer with them the bloody lunch had gone off. So we had to go home and get some Kentucky Fried Chicken on the way home to have for dinner. Do you march on Anzac Day? No, I couldn't march. I usually go in the jeep. Right, well that's being part of the march, isn't it? Oh, yeah. And have you done that all the time too? Well, they don't want to go in it now. None of the blinded soldiers want to go in it. I dunno why. There's Brigadier Keith Rossi, he's in charge of our Anzac Day march, I got him to get me two or three jeeps for the members, but they don't want to go in it now, I dunno why. But you do? Oh, I don't go now. No-one to go in with now. Barry doesn't march. I go in to the Dawn Service with him. Right. Have you noticed changes in Anzac Day lately? Oh, I reckon it's improved if anything. In what way? Oh, well there's more people going to it. Especially there's more children more interested in it now. And you think that's a good thing? Oh, it is! Everybody reckons... I think most people would agree with it nowadays. A few years back they wouldn't have the kids go anywhere near it, you know. Yeah. But I think it's a good idea to have the kids there, more interest and everything. I know they're not very happy to have the kids marching with their... in the march with their fathers and that, but... or their grandfathers. I don't mind that at all. Can't see anything wrong with that whatsoever. Do you wear your medals? Oh, I don't know where they are. I think Barry's got them somewhere. Right. I know where they are. He's got me father's out there, me father's and different other medals he's got out there. That's your son. Yeah Yeah. They're either out in his bungalow out there, or out at his place in Aspendale. Royal Humane Society medal, things the old man got for air-sea rescue during the war, First World War medals they're out there somewhere. I know they'll never get lost while Barry's got them.. Just talking in general now, em, this is probably the thing that has affected the whole of your life more than anything else, isn't it - your war experience? Yes, but I don't think it has affected me. As I said, I just go along with it, and I don't worry about things too much. Was there anything good came out of it? Well, I don't know if any good came out of it. Me health's all right, I don't know about that. Oh, I think so, all me mates and that are around still. Right. Did you have bad experiences after the war that were to do with the things that happened, like sleeplessness, not being able to sleep and those sorts of things...? No, no I can't understand those people who can't get any sleep at night. Do you talk about your war experience? No, me mates and I do sometimes. What do you talk about with them? What are the things that you remember most? Oh, mates that we have lost and that, you know. Mates we have lost. Things like that. All the blokes we've ever lost, and the way they were. Don't talk about everything up there... At the re-union a bloke says "Hey, I've still got that bit of shrapnel of yours, Billy Gray." I said "It wasn't my bit of shrapnel. It was Dougie Farr's bit of shrapnel." Did you resent the fact that the injury occurred... didn't occur in action? No, no. Well, if it happened, it happened, and that's all about it. You can't do anything about that, it was an accident. The other bloke didn't know he was doing it. He didn't know he was pulling the pin out of a grenade. Right. Do you talk to your grandchildren about this? Oh, I do occasionally. Young Luke, he's the youngest one, "Who's Bonnie Gray, pa?" "That's your grandma." Cos he was too young to remember her. See, she's been gone nearly 7 years now. He was only a little bloke when me wife was dying in hospital, Sandringham Hospital. And I was in the Como Hospital at the time, not far away from Sandringham. My daughter was there with her all night, me son was there most of the night till he had to go out about four o'clock in the morning on his boat, but he was back before she passed away. The two kids were sleeping on big pillows on the floor all night, me daughter was sitting there all night with her and so was me son till he had to go out for a while, and me wife passed away and they come over to Sandringham... to Como Hospital, and the sister says "Where are you going, Bill?" and I said "Dawn, you know where I'll be going, when me daughter and me son's here." We went over there and I saw me wife's body and we come over and had a cup of tea and that together, and I promised I would go back to Como Hospital, cos I was coming back to hospital that morning, and Barry took me back over, took the kids home... Did you bring anything back with you from New Guinea? Or I guess you weren't able to pack anything. Did you bring souvenirs? I did bring something back. I'm just... don't know what happened to it. One of the Japanese carved... flags. I gave that to the RSL I think. A lot of me stuff I didn't get back. I didn't get me teeth back for, oh, three or four months after. Did your pay continue while you were in hospital? Oh, yeah. Right. So, have you been on a pension ever since? Yes, ever since I got out, 1946, I took a TPI pension. Right. Old Colonel Blair was in charge at Heidelberg, them days. He said, "Oh, you could become a physiotherapist, Bill." I said, "Look doc, you silly old bugger, you know I need a physiotherapist. I can't become one." You see, me left arm is no good to me, for being a physiotherapist. He said, "I'm sorry. I'll have to wake up to me bloody self." Did you do any other paid work after that? Oh, a bit of light work, I'm doing assembly work out at Heidelberg now I see. Working at the Repat. No, I was doing it at home here. You couldn't get into the passage there at times, for the stuff I was putting together here. Doing it for Coles. ...Assembly work here, and the passage would be full out there with it. Warehouse in a street the other side of the highway there, Graham Rd...bloke used to bring it out, straight from Coles itself, used to come from this big warehouse. So, what sort of things are you doing? Assembly work... cars, toys, for kids and that. Right. They'd be nearly up to the roof here, sometimes, and the wife and her mother went somewhere and her father and I were sitting here putting them together one day and they come home, and "Look what they have packed, Mum" the wife said to her mother, and me father-in-law and I were just sitting there putting them together and they were nearly up to the ceiling. Do you feel as though the VDA and ... the Veterans Affairs Department and Australia in general has looked after you properly? Oh, yeah. You couldn't go past Veterans Affairs, I'll tell you that now. The Veterans in Victoria and the staff here, you couldn't better that anywhere in the world. What sort of help do they give you? Oh. Well, you don't have to... did you meet Brian Finlay? the other day? No. Deputy Commissioner? No. Well I'll introduce you to him! So, what sort of help? Do you mean... transport, for instance? Well, like, transport, we go to Heidelberg and that. You put that in three days a week, some of the blokes get it five days a week, going to Heidelberg and that, the Rehab work group, and they're good. And that's important, isn't it? Oh Yeah, To be able to get away from home and out into the community a bit. Oh, yeah. Tony, you've met Tony, he's been around there a long time, too, at Repat, he's always been there. He's done a lot of work for Veterans Affairs and that. See those things up over the mantlepiece, one's hers and one's mine, that's what young Luke said, "Who's Bonnie Gray?" He's only 6 or 7, and he's "Who's Bonnie Gray?". Cos he was only a baby when me wife died, that was six and a half years last August... last April. So, that's certificates of appreciation up there, with her name on it, and your name on it. Yeah, Tony's responsible for having them given to us.
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