Carefree War Read online

  Pairs of socks with little handwritten notes for example, ‘God bless you soldier boy. From Melissa aged 11’, were welcomed by soldiers. The ‘Children’s Corner’ in newspapers was filled with heroic war poems.

  On the Japanese home front, mothers of kamikaze pilots embroidered their hachimaki or headbands with inspirational motifs. In war-themed Kamishibai, or ‘paper plays’, street performers used Emakimono or ‘picture scrolls’ to convey stories.

  Entertainers kept troops and civilians happy. American servicemen taught Australian girls to jitterbug at the Trocadero. The United Services Organisation (USO) established in January 1942 by the Americans brought entertainment to frontline troops with stars like John Wayne, Joe E Brown, Jerry Colonna, Al Johnson, Gary Cooper, Jack Benny and Bob Hope. The Australian Military established the 1st Australian Entertainment Unit, giving more than 12,000 performances, with stars like George Wallace, Michael Pate, Gladys Moncrieff, and Jenny Howard.

  Anybody looking different or with an unusual surname was eyed by their neighbours. Jim Altman, who went to Killara when it was still largely bush:

  My parents were refugees from Europe and arrived in Australia in 1939. They rented a place in Neutral Bay, near the water. The Japanese came into the Harbour and it was clear that the Harbour Bridge would be a target. My parents left Neutral Bay and bought a place along a dirt road in the outlying suburbs –in Killara – we are still there. There was a dairy farm, so we had fresh milk and cream. The rest of it was bush. My parents were classed as enemy aliens because they came from Vienna and had passports stamped by Nazi Germany authorities, so they were not allowed a radio, in case they were spies. One day, I saw some children playing in the road with a radio and I was really frightened of the radio and ran home crying and crying - it seemed to me such a dangerous thing. I was terrified.

  Short wave radio ownership was viewed with suspicion. Toowoomba RSL urged the government to seize all civilian radios, so fifth columnists could not use them. Radios, now in 80% of households were a key source of news. Anthony Euwer:

  Around this time, we got a series of wireless sets delivered on appro, and there was a lot of thumb-sucking done while a decision was made to finally buy a small brown bakelite model which sat on the sideboard and was plugged into the ‘other’ power point. (There was one in the sunroom which mum used for the iron). It then became the show piece for the neighbours, as they visited our house to view this magic extravagance. I used to come home from school for lunch and listen to Blue Hills.

  James R Young writing from Japan for the Sunday Times, 5 April, 1942:

  * * *

  The radio war proved a tame affair in 1939-45. We’d expect such an international blast and counterblast of news and views that a twirl of the dial would give us all sorts of exciting slants on current history. It proved quite the contrary. The enemy’s news-in-English was so wildly improbable, or such a dull repetition of somebody else’s communiqués, that we soon tired of it. In other words we knew in advance what other nations were thinking, or being told to think, or telling us to think.

  * * *

  Much to the distress of many with relatives and friends in Britain, BBC broadcasts were reduced. Japanese propaganda through their radio broadcasts claimed they wanted to help Australia break free of Britain and America. Australians and Allies in Europe heard Lord Haw ranting, and Allies in the Pacific every day at 8pm, heard the lilting voice of Tokyo Rose, beamed from powerful radio transmitters in Japan, over the Aleutians and South Pacific, taunting servicemen over the loss of American ships, in reality the reports where often uncannily correct. Once they informed listeners that Japanese troops would shortly be landing at Brice Henry’s private aerodrome at Riversdale. Prime Minister Lyons and his wife had landed there once to inspect a cattle scheme - was that the source of their intelligence? The Japanese dropped propaganda pamphlets showing American servicemen with Australian servicemen’s wives.

  The Australian Government dealt with conscientious objectors, who would appear before a Military Exemptions Court, with no right of appeal, their names and addresses published in the Press. There is a humorous side to the court hearings which were usually held before a Brigadier. Jehovah’s Witness members objected to killing. One said ‘… they were still in a temporal world, and while they were doing that, they would rather, until Armageddon came, be under British rule than Nazi rule’. Another said he would reason with an invading Japanese soldier intending to assault his wife or daughter. ‘Ha,’ said the Brigadier triumphantly, ‘but you don’t speak Japanese!’ Some objectors joined the anti-war Christadelphians, but after admitting they had only ‘seen the light’ in January 1942, were dismissed as not being serious. From 1 November, 1941 to 31 March, 1942, only ten cases were exempt completely from military training and 75 were exempt from military service but directed elsewhere. Many Australians did not realise there were 1,000 prosecutions, some accused persons of both genders, and children, imprisoned for six months, some interned until war’s end. The Communist Party was banned and members of Australia First Movement (which never had more than 65 members) interned for opposition to the war.

  Healthy men who did not join up were social outcasts. Engineered patriotic feelings of the day could be very destructive. Valda (Dundas) McDonald remembers a haven of peace for her and her mother at Werris Creek in the tragic pressures that war brings:

  I was born in March 1939 and lived at Maroubra with my parents. In 1941 my mother took me up to Werris Creek to my grandparents. They treated me beautifully and were so kind. My father was a bus driver. My mother told him that if he joined up she wouldn’t be there for him to come home to. It was emotional blackmail really. He had white feathers put in his pockets and paint daubed on his back. It caused a lot of unhappiness in the home. What made it worse was that his younger brother was killed at Sandakan. Dad suffered a lot at not being a ‘returned man’.

  Newsreels with robust music backing showed energised soldiers gaining positions. Damien Parer a well known war photographer and cameraman complained about the censorship of his brilliant footage. The reality of the war he had filmed, diluted or altered to match the government’s message.

  The purpose of propaganda was to feed civilians with images of an inhuman enemy, to maintain patriotic enthusiasm and to calm and reassure people and keep order. The words of The Pearce Report at the outbreak of war, was music to the ears of the Australian government, declaring: ‘…the situation demands government action, the public are eagerly awaiting it and the time is ripe for general sacrifice by the community.’

  The Daily Telegraph, Monday, July 21, 1941:

  * * *

  It must not be forgotten that the Japanese have an immutable policy. The word immutable is their own. Their immutable line is known to everybody for it is simply the aspiration to control that undefined place called “Greater East Australia”. The Japanese may dart here and dart there, but they are always trying to get East Asia under their exclusive control. The Japanese Minister to Australia, Mr Kawai, says in his book Goal of Japanese Expansionism that ‘this is in accord with a mysterious force of nature called ‘Misubi’ and that it will result in the beautification and sublimification of Asiatic life. But the Chinese, Americans and Australians seem to doubt this.

  * * *

  It has been suggested that Curtin played up the threat of invasion through 1942-43 to win the August 1943 election, knowing from secret documents the Japanese did not intend to invade. But there is room for doubt. Why did the Japanese print Occupation Money, which could have been used in Australia? The Japanese produced Occupation Money in a variety of notes such as Guilders, Pesos, Dollars and Pounds. It is assumed that their Pound notes were probably for use in the British Islands of the Pacific Ocean (not including Australia) and adjacent seas, including New Guinea, rather than as part of a ‘planned occupation’ of Australia.

  When on 5 August, 1944, Japanese prisoners of war housed at Cowra, New South Wales staged a breakout, resulting i
n the death of 231 Japanese prisoners with a further 108 wounded, Australians were aghast. Four Australians, Privates Hardy, Jones and Shepherd were killed and Lieutenant Doncaster was killed when ambushed during the recapture. It was shocking to hear of dead Japanese soldiers strewn around railway tracks and hanging from trees.

  In desperation, Australian mothers found ways to evacuate their children or to get a job in the country. They continually asked themselves and their friends and relatives if there was going to be an invasion, when it would happen and where. Everywhere was alive with rumours. They already knew the record of the Japanese Imperial Army. Those who could do so fled.

  Chapter 4

  Call to Action

  … there will still be Australians fighting on Australian soil until the turning point be reached, and we will advance over blackened ruins, through blasted and fire-swept cities, across scorched plains, until we drive the enemy into the sea.

  – Prime Minister Curtin in a radio broadcast, 14 March, 1942

  We were told to ‘give till it hurts’. Civilians were reassured by ‘doing their bit’. The Children’s Aluminium Army scrounged bits of scrap metal. The Principal of Shore School, North Sydney berated pupils in the school magazine for only producing 177 camouflage nets in 1942. Children spent evenings and weekends growing vegetables, selling mountains of sausage rolls and scones made by Tuck Shop Ladies to buy material and wool to make balaclava helmets, mittens and pullovers to send overseas. There were many appeals and funds to choose from and gifts and donations went to Darwin, Alice Springs and Milne Bay. Children’s vocabulary expanded: ‘prang’ for crash, ‘blue’ for a fight. ‘Perspex’ was the new glass for plane windows. Children scrounged empty machine gun cartridges to make rings from, stole cartridges and played with war detritus. They begged apple jelly jam and chocolate from the troops.

  Although in 1941 there was political speculation about the actual timing of the outbreak of war, at the end of August 1941, Permanent Military Forces in Australia numbered only 5,025 with 12,915 in garrison battalions and 43,720 in the Volunteer Defence Corps. The Government issued its ‘call to action’ on 21 March, 1942: ‘There are no more parties: Mr Curtin is Australia’s leader. There are no rights worth a damn until we have beaten the Japanese. The time has come to stop prating about our rights, money, privileges, profits or anything else. We know well enough how conquered countries are treated. Australians need to put themselves first’.

  Society was in turmoil, with women alone and now having to make far-reaching decisions that could impact their families’ safety. The Japanese invaded New Guinea and about 1,700 adults were evacuated from Port Moresby to Cairns. NF 388965 Campbell, Elsie heard the news on a radio crackling with static whilst working on a Congregationalist mission station on an island called Kwato near Samurai.

  I came to Sydney with about 500 women on the Neptune. In Sydney, friends advised me that the Army was seeking personnel. With two brothers in the services, enlisting in the Australian Women’s Army Service seemed the logical thing to do and I was soon on the first training course at Killara.

  Elsie was just one woman pressing reluctant authorities now forced to recognize womanpower. Women did not want to sit at home and stare at the three plaster flying ducks on their lounge room wall. A sense of urgency coupled with the British example led to ‘The Formation and Control of an Australian Women’s Army Service to release men for military duties for employment with fighting units’, signed by Mr Forde, Minister for the Army, in 1942. Women would be paid less, and not taught to shoot – but of course they could. Many women in the country areas, who shot rabbits for the pot during the 1930s Depression, joined vigilante groups and were handy with a gun if an unwanted intruder appeared. Society’s appraisal of women’s role was being challenged. If an army ‘rookie’ found herself ‘in the family way’, whether married or not, there was an order hastily written for the ‘Care and Disposal of Pregnant Women’.

  The Japanese threat brought about a spectacular growth in all the women’s services. By mid-1943, there were 8,000 nurses, 16,000 WAAFs, 14,000 WRANS, 2,000 Land Army girls and 18,000 AWAS. The initial reluctance to let women ‘do their bit’ quickly changed to admiration.

  Elaine Thomas was upset at the news of the hostilities:

  My brother and I learned of the outbreak of war while coming home from church. I started to cry and he told me not to be silly – he could see it was about to happen. He was already in the militia, training at weekends at age sixteen. He lied about his age and joined the AIF. I stayed at school until I was sixteen but I couldn’t concentrate knowing that I could be working – there were six children younger than me and a terrible war on.

  The services demanded more and more women to train. They went into industry. They were tram conductors, and - shock, horror - they were wearing trousers! The Women’s Land Army kept up production on the farms.

  Women and were in the war effort, but what would happen to the children in case of invasion?

  On 29 September, 1939, the Sydney Morning Herald wrote: ‘Minister for Education, Mr Drummond said that since the crisis of September 1938, the government had appointed an expert officer of the Department, who had had experience of wartime conditions, to make a survey of the areas which might have to be evacuated in the event of attack and the places to which children might have to be transferred. Steps had also been taken to find out the extent to which evacuated children could be lodged at homes in safe areas. Mr Drummond emphasized that the military authorities considered the possibility of air attacks on Australia remote and that it was not necessary to provide shelters in Sydney like those in Great Britain.

  The Minister for National Emergency Services, Mr Heffron, addressing the Teachers’ Federation 23 December, 1941, said: ‘…on the subject of the evacuation of children, people were now wanting things done in a great hurry.’ Previously, when he had wanted things done in a great hurry he had been regarded as an alarmist. ‘We still hope that the real thing will not reach Australia,’ Mr Heffron said, ‘but if it does we shall be better prepared because of what has been done already.’

  Friday, 6 February, 1942, Sydney Morning Herald editorial:

  * * *

  … decisions regarding evacuation and kindred matters which the War Council and State Premiers reached on Wednesday show a praiseworthy grasp of realities, and it is to be hoped that they will be carefully studied by the public, which has for a considerable time been bewildered by conflicting statements from official sources. While any large-scale evacuation is rightly discouraged, limited evacuation from ‘target areas’ is recommended, and the suggestion that safer parts of specific cities rather than more distant places should be chosen is wise. There should now be no delay in announcing the target areas so that people who reside in them may take whatever steps they think advisable for their protection …

  * * *

  Chapter 5

  What is Really Happening?

  … any large scale evacuation at the present time will be ill-advised and contrary to the best interests of the country.

  – Town Clerk’s Office, Sydney, February 1942

  The Allies did not consider Australia at risk, The British Admiralty appearing under the impression Japan was too involved with China to be a threat. Churchill advised the Australian War Cabinet as late as August 1940, that in the event of a Japanese invasion of Australia, ‘… we would then cut our losses in the Mediterranean and sacrifice every interest, except only the defence and feeding of this Island, on which all depends, and would proceed in good time to your aid …’

  Geoffrey Brooke in his book, Singapore’s Dunkirk, says on page seven: When Churchill was on his way to meet Roosevelt at Placentia Bay in August 1941 and was asked whether he thought the Japanese would attack Malaya, he replied, ‘No I don’t think so. And if they do, they will find they have bitten off more than they could chew’.

  Australian civilians had their invasion fears fuelled by obvious signs of war as they went a
bout their daily lives. Refugees arrived constantly. In December 1941, five hundred women were hastily evacuated from Salamaua, leaving half prepared Christmas cakes and puddings in their kitchens. They arrived in a very distressed state in Cairns to tell their stories.

  On Friday, 13 March, 1942, Commander-in-Chief, Vice-Admiral Sir Geoffrey Layton, issued the following statement: In view of the present unsettled state and the problems of food supply, all persons not normally resident in Ceylon, who are not employed on essential war work, must arrange to leave as soon as passages are available. This includes the wives and children of naval, air force and military personnel, also non-Ceylonese women residents with young children. Gillian Branagan was one of these children, evacuated twice:

  My sister was evacuated from Canonbury hospital, Darling Point to Fairbridge Farm, Molong. My mother and I took a house there for a year and visited the farm on weekends in a horse-drawn sulky. I think it was 1941. This was a steep learning curve for my mother as we’d come from Ceylon where she’d had servants.

  In New South Wales, pressure was put on the authorities.

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