Chapter 03

Camp Life

Throughout our time in the islands, almost three years, mail-day would undoubtedly be the main high-light of our existence. Bringing news from families, wives, girlfriends, and old friends who recognised the morale-boosting value of knowing that although you were out of sight you were not out of mind. Often when you drew a new pair of socks from the Quartermaster, one of them would have a slip of paper tucked inside, bearing a name and address of somebody offering to correspond with a lonely soldier. I once received such a slip from a girl who turned out to be the sister of one of the boys in my Unit. Sometimes one of the boys’ wives or girlfriends would send the name and address of a sister or friend who wanted to write to a soldier. I’m sure that some of those pen-friendships blossomed into something deeper after the war, but probably just as many ended in deep disappointment. I do know that those letters did a lot to preserve the morale and mental well-being of the recipients.

Not all did, of course. Like the Lieutenant in a nearby unit whose mother wrote and told him of his wife’s infidelity. He went out into the jungle and blew his brains out. I suppose his mother thought she was doing the right thing when she wrote that letter.

Most of us had managed to procure empty packing cases which we placed beside our beds as a sort of dressing table and on top of these stood the photographs of families, wives and girlfriends. Kanga, being an artist, drew an enlarged pencil-portrait of his girl, and set it up. He was immediately besieged by others wanting portraits copied from their little photos. Kanga was a perfectionist, and used a strong magnifying glass on the photos to capture all the details. When doing a portrait for Billy M., the enlarging showed that the young lady was developing a double chin. After tearing up three copies, Kanga tried again and still came up with the double chin. Billy M. ranted and raved and refused to accept the fact, even after the rest of us had examined the photo and swore it was spot on. Kanga tore up the portrait and refused to do any more. Billy later went home on leave, and on his return admitted his fiancee had put on two stone in weight.

Kanga also had a camera, which wasn’t really legitimate. It was easy enough to get films in parcels from home, but you couldn’t post them home to be developed as they wouldn’t get past the censor. However, the x-ray bloke at the hospital used developing fluid and printing paper. A length of canvas provided a dark-room in the jungle behind our tents, and improvisation won out once more. Kanga turned out lots of good, interesting snaps. Macka was an opportunist. He borrowed Kanga’s negatives to print himself some copies, and he printed them by the dozen, making them up into sets. He was making money selling the sets around the platoon until Kanga demanded his negatives back. Even then I think Macka kept some of them, though he never admitted it.

To help pass the time, and due to perennial lack of things such as Christmas cards, we used to make our own to send home; I would write the words, and Kanga would illustrate them. Here are some examples:

Christmas Card Verses

by Ern Bywater

So, though we spend this Xmas
On a sweltering tropic isle.
You can bet we’ll grin and bear it,
And we’ll take it with a smile,
And we ask, ‘Will you be in it?’
Will you show the sunny side?
And chase all gloomy thoughts away
This coming Christmas tide?

Entertainment

While settling in at Torokina, we became quite friendly with the American Units still in occupation, and we were permitted to go into their camp and purchase things at their ‘P.X., ‘ or canteen. We could also attend their open air picture shows when they were operating, and we spent some very enjoyable evenings with them. However, this situation came to an abrupt end with the arrival of a shipload of Australians straight from home, young fellows on their first trip overseas, who judged all Americans by some of the characters they had had clashes with back in Sydney or Brisbane. They gate-crashed the picture shows, uninvited, hogging all the seats, and started a fight at the P.X. before being evicted. As a result, all non-US personnel were barred from the camp. Still, some of the Yanks used to visit our camp from time to time to do a bit of trading for odds and ends. That’s how I got my Bowie knife.

Later on we cleared an area at our camp and constructed the ‘Aye Gee Tee’ Theatre. A covered stage was built, and on its back wall, Kanga painted a back-drop consisting of a Drover and his dog with a mob of sheep. The painting was done in camouflage paints, but it was such a success that everyone wanted to photograph it. The theatre was a popular venue for the Army Entertainment Unit shows.

Another form of our self-entertainment owed itself to another facet of Kanga’s make-up. Besides his artwork and the photography, he was of an inventive frame of mind, and when he happened across the shattered remains of a banjo, he went about the task of rebuilding it, and when his ingenuity brought the job to fruition, he obtained a set of strings from back in Australia. Between his banjo and my mouth-organ, and our tent mate’s vocalising, I don’t think we would have won a popular neighbours competition.

Ned M. and big Bob G. were weight-lifting enthusiasts in civilian life, so a steel axle and a pair of wheels did duty as a bar and weights for fitness training purposes, and we did our best to strain our backs. However, we must have been fitter than we thought we were because none of us got a rest in the hospital out of it.

It’s Over

After the cessation of hostilities, and the Japs had come in, in droves and filled the compound, preparations were being made to wind everything up and evacuate the place. The Major went off somewhere, and a new Captain was in charge. He sent for a few of us and took us aside. He told us he intended going to Japan with the occupation forces, and wanted us to go with him. He even offered us Sergeant’s stripes, but he had Buckley’s. We had had enough, and wanted only to go home.

At the end of December 1945, I was seconded to the 4th Australian Base to assist with their clearing operations. Our Roman Catholic Bishop - or maybe he was Church of England - had moved in and was given a group of huts. He had been given a few vehicles, and I took him truckloads of wheels, tyres, tools and other equipment no longer required, rather than take it to be buried in a dump. There was a ship at the wharf, and on one of my trips I picked up two ships’ engineers. They told me this was their last trip and on signing off they were going to start a workshop. They wanted to know where they could buy a tool-kit cheap, and I said that I could do better than that. I took them to the dump, where they went berserk. When I left them they had filled two ammunition boxes, and were starting on two more. I wondered how they would ever carry them. There was a fortune dumped in that crater.

While I was away at 4 Base, the 133 AGT began their own packing up. Many of the boys had grown moustaches during their time overseas, and were quite proud of their efforts. Kanga told me later that a bunch of whisker-less characters decided it would be a good joke to get the moustache wearers down and shave off one side of their moustache. He didn’t see it as a joke at all, and he only retained his hirsute upper lip by threatening dire and dreadful retaliation.

However, Captain Ron L., known affectionately as Dulcie, was a dapper type, always meticulous in his appearance, and sported a neat ‘Clark Gable.’ Dulcie’s rank didn’t save him from the razor group. After parade, he called out the culprits and spent all the morning marching them around the camp area in the tropical heat. I reckon he had the last laugh.