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  CHARACTER ANY EXISTENT CONSIDERED

  PLAN STOP

  CRICK

  LORD MAYOR SYDNEY - WIRE SENT 4/2/42

  This meeting was largely in response to a letter from The Teachers’ Federation, who were continually vocal about evacuation and the continuing education of displaced children. On 29 January, 1942, they had sent the following to Stanley Crick, the Lord Mayor of Sydney:

  Dear Sir,

  We the following citizens of this city request you to call a public meeting on Thursday February 5,1942, at 8 pm for the purpose of considering the question of evacuation of civilians from vulnerable areas, yours faithfully … The following signatures included The Federation President and 16 administrative members and 18 signatures from Phillip Street, (probably lawyers).

  The bureaucrats appeared bereft of ideas about evacuation, but nervous about the situation, as is shown by the telegram above, a speedy request (29 January was a Thursday) to the citizen’s demands.

  From the Town Clerk’s Office, Sydney, February 1942:

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

  ‘Let us, too,’ ran the editorial in the Riverina Advertiser on Friday, 30 January, 1942, ‘direct a little constructive criticism … against those who have charge of evacuation arrangements, or lack of them. By this time, the state government in close cooperation with the Federation authorities should have had everything in readiness, all arrangements complete for a smooth, quick evacuation of women and children inland and others away from the coastal areas. But is there any such plan? There is not. If anything happened tomorrow, I can visualise the disorder, chaos and panic which would result. No-one knows where to go, how to get there or what to do.’

  Meanwhile, all over Australia, small groups of people went into action. ‘Following on recent activities in connection with the proposed evacuation scheme of soldier’s wives and children to this district,’ writes the Murrumburrah Signal, we have to report that the 2/lst Pioneer Battalion Comforts Fund committee have new finalised arrangements for the taking over of the Carrington and Doncaster Hotels at Harden, and the Commercial Hotel at Murrumburrah. Mrs. O’Malley Wood (President) together with several members of her committee arrived in Harden on Wednesday morning and a small number of evacuees were accommodated the same afternoon. A further party of approximately 170 evacuees will arrive today (Friday) and during next week an additional 200 will be accommodated. The evacuees will bring all their personal belongings, bed linen, blankets, and cutlery. Families will be kept together as far as possible. The rooms at the Carrington Hotel will be turned into dormitories for boys. The cooking will be done by the mothers on a roster system under the supervision of two head cooks. The evacuees will have their own entrance to the hotel, which will carry on its bar business as usual’.

  ‘Moree will give a warm welcome to as many families as the town can accommodate,’ said a Mr Cavanagh. ‘Many of the mothers I have interviewed have to complete their affairs before they can leave Sydney, but it is expected that family groups will be sent from the city all next week. Half a dozen families left on yesterday’s train.’

  The Editorial in the Australian Women’s Weekly, 27 December, 1941 was entitled, ‘If the children must go away’. It ran in part, ‘When the mothers of England had to send their children into the country for safety, a sigh of sympathy ran round the globe. The going away of the children was the greatest heartache of all, and Australian mothers, as they sang their children to sleep, thanked God they had been spared that. Now they are facing the same heartache themselves. From many of the danger points, parents have already sent their youngsters to relatives or friends in safer districts. In several states, authorities are finalising their plans to evacuate youngsters from threatened areas. Some mothers have been able to go with their children … these are the lucky ones. The others face as sad a parting as life can hold.’ The article called on parents to steel themselves if the authorities demand evacuation.

  In New South Wales, there was a flurry of activity, most of which seems to have been a delegation process. The Federal government delegated to the state governments, who delegated to councils. Councils consulted with bodies like the National Emergency Services and further delegated tasks and held meetings. In the metropolitan area, it was decided rest, emergency, feeding centres and local depots for food, clothing and general supplies, would be set up and a central control would survey the population to determine how many may need to be evacuated and which houses could be requisitioned for bomb victims or those fleeing danger spots. Evacuation registers were set up with cards for each household. Looking through the cards for western Sydney, which requested full names, gender, age, religion, occupation and state of health, a picture of overcrowding and poor health emerges along with unwillingness to open their doors. ‘No spare floor space,’ was often scribbled on the cards.

  In Sydney, armbands and windscreen stickers, red with ‘EV’ stenciled in black were made available to authorised personnel. The President, Mayor, and Town Clerk said they all wanted one.

  Cigarette cards dwindled and died because of paper supplies. Just prior to the war, children collected many with war themes. Besides the different ships, tanks, weapons, and regiments, there were civilian themes: Choosing your Refuge Room, Rendering Your Refuge Room Gas-Proof, Making a Door Gas-Proof, Window Protection, Window Protection Against Blast, Types of Splinter-Proof Wall, Protecting Your Windows - A Sandbag Defence, Equipping your Refuge Room, Equipping Your Refuge Room, A Garden Dug-Out, Incendiary Bomb and its Effect, Incendiary Bomb Cooling Down, and so on.

  A partial blackout, called by some a brownout was ordered by the government in New South Wales from July to December 1941. Advertising and floodlights were banned, shop windows and display boards darkened. Outside lights were forbidden on homes and wardens tapped on doors and windows at telltale chinks of light. There were no night time sports fixtures. Older Australians knew pasting strips of brown paper across glass helped in a bomb blast. Cars crept along with slatted and hooded headlights, white stripes painted along their sides. No maps or forecasts were given. The Land urged its readers to use a rainfall registration chart for 1942, provided free for its readers, because of the Government’s decision to restrict the publication of weather information and rainfall details. Restrictions on weather information were taken for security reasons after the outbreak of war with Japan, because it could aid the enemy. Farmers could keep their own record for farming purposes.

  School children bought War Savings Certificates and Treasury notes from five shillings upwards. You could not ignore the signs of war, picking your way through sandbagged public buildings, riding on camouflaged buses, and seeing coastline gun batteries and observation posts. You dug your own backyard shelter.

  Bev Kingston and her family remained staunchly behind as their friends and neighbours left:

  We sat it out in Manly, me and Mum under the dining room table, Mum said there were too many spiders in the air raid shelter.

  Cliffs and beautiful beaches had a menacing air, with rolls of barbed wire and anti-tank devices, a large metal gate pulled back daily to allow people onto the beach. Some parents were frightened of mines and would not let their children on beaches.

  Kate Riseley, Archivist, Shore School, North Sydney:

  One of the boys who was evacuated, Jim Creer, was on weekend leave one time and was staying at a hotel in North Sydney. That night he had to evacuate the hotel because it was struck by bullets from a Japanese submarine!

  The newspapers were full of fifth column activity. September 1945, Adelaide News:

  * * *

  Japanese plans to land troops in Australia may have been based on information sent by a Japanese spy who before the war stayed at a Brisbane hotel. That is the opinion of some of Australia’s best secret service agents. The Jap’s spying tour through Queensland became known to the secret service because of the astuteness of
a chambermaid at the hotel in which the Jap stayed. The chambermaid had been cleaning the spy’s room when she overturned a big case. It was unlocked and from it spilled hundreds of pictures. She glanced at a few of the markings, and phoned what was then the equivalent of the war time security service. A detective made quick plans and before the Jap had returned to his room that night photographic copies had been taken of all his documents and pictures. Landing spots important among these were his surveys and notes on the Iron Range area of Cape York Peninsula. Landing spots, routes, water supplies, and other facilities were noted. When the Allied fleets beat back the Japanese naval force in the Coral Sea battle of 1942, the Japanese were only 150 miles off this stretch.

  * * *

  New York Federal agents made two raids near New York, in March 1942, breaking a spy ring, directing Axis submarines to ships along the North Atlantic coast. They arrested 52 residents of a German seaman’s home in Hoboken, New Jersey, seizing short-wave radios and wireless transmission sets. A Federal Bureau of Investigation official said, ‘We regard the Hoboken round-up as one of the most important yet made.’ Civilians became familiar with the demands of rationing, butter and household linen from 6 June, 1943, meat from 17 January, 1944, clothing ration card May 1942. Tea was in short supply.

  Mary Moss:

  We ate well in the country, but it was not good in the cities. I remember when I started nursing in 1949; we still had rationing for butter, sugar and tea. I had to give my ration book to the hospital and mother was annoyed because I spent a day and a half at home and she didn’t have my coupons.

  In between the war effort and air raid drills, people sat around kitchen tables in the blackout, planning how to protect their children. ‘Sit down, I’ll put the kettle on,’ was said reassuringly while they made plans to evacuate and so began a most remarkable and widespread voluntary evacuation phenomenon, which in all states below the Brisbane Line came from the people with little official help or guidance apart from a belated offers from the government of lists of what to take and free railway tickets.

  By June 1940, the Britain stood alone against Germany. Menzies called for an ‘all in war effort’ and with the support of Curtin, amended the National Security Act, extending government powers to tax, acquire property, control businesses and the labour force and allow for conscription of men for the ‘defence of Australia’.

  The Japanese advanced relentlessly up the Malay Peninsula, with most able bodied Australian men overseas. In March 1942, General Douglas MacArthur was appointed Supreme Commander of Allied Forces in the South-West Pacific. Australia looked to America for defence.

  The RMS Queen Mary became known as the ‘Grey Ghost’ during the war. Her departure from Sydney was supposed to be secret. (Keeping the whereabouts of a ship over 80,000 tons, laden with troops would be a bit of a challenge). These were the brave young boys going to fight for the Empire, truth and justice. However, women waving goodbye walked back to empty houses, painfully aware that their men were not at home to defend them.

  The NSW government’s position towards civilians was succinctly expressed by John Curtin, March 14, 1942: ‘Out of every ten men in Australia four are wholly engaged in war as members of the fighting forces or making the munitions and equipment to fight with. The other six, besides feeding and clothing the whole ten and their families, have to produce the food and wool and metals which Britain needs for her very existence.’ Australia’s industrial and human resources had become wholly focused on supporting the allies with money, armaments, troops, wool, skins and meat.

  The NSW Premier, Mr McKell:

  * * *

  Australia’s war efforts had been based on the assumption that battles would be fought far from her own territory. The pick of the fighting men were sent overseas and industrially Australia had concentrated on organising a vast machine which would equip not only her own troops but other Empire forces. Only the very little that could be spared was diverted to building up air and civil defence organisations at home.

  * * *

  In Germany, on Thursday, 3 June, 1943 in Das Reich, a sad dirge ran:

  * * *

  Under the plan, not only people whose homes have been destroyed will be shifted, but practically the entire civilian population except armament workers. Civilians in Westphalia will be moved gradually to Bavaria, and residents of Berlin will be sent to Pomerania, East Prussia, and the provinces of Brandenburg. Preparations are already nearly completed for evacuating all school children from Duisburg. Eighteen thousand children have left Hamburg.

  * * *

  Curtin’s government made it clear to Churchill, in a series of secret cables that the 6th, 7th and 9th Divisions, sent to the Middle East under the Menzies government must return home for the defence of Australia. First home was the 6th Division. The 7th was all back by May 1942, the 9th by May 1943. A group of Australian Women’s Army Service wrote home about the reassuring sight of the Queen Mary, the Aquitania, the Isle de France and the Empress of Bermuda bringing the 9th Division home, as they were walking to Bellevue Hill on a rest day from Victoria Barracks. As the men came on shore, the Australian Women’s Weekly ran stories of emotional reunions between wives and husbands, sweethearts, fathers, mothers and sons, sons and daughters. It didn’t matter what shape the men were in as long as the family was together again.

  Chapter 6

  Getting the Children Away

  What are we going to do about the children? … Now, when Australia is in imminent danger, hundreds and thousands of parents are thinking mainly of one problem- the safety of their youngsters …

  – The Australian Women’s Weekly, 27 December, 1941.

  Australia, a land of immigrants was largely caught up in the turmoil overseas, wondering about friends and relatives.

  Cassie Thornley:

  Every evening, in 1938, silence fell for the 7 pm news. In summer, over tea, and in winter in the lounge by the fire we had to sit quietly while Tom listened with a far-away look as he tracked the latest bombing raids and thought of his family remaining in Austria.

  The Australian Women’s Weekly 27 December, 1941, ‘In every coastal city in Australia this last fortnight, one question has run like a refrain through the news and rumours of war. It is: What are we going to do about the children? Ever since Europe felt the full horror of aerial warfare, the plight of children has aroused the indignation of men and women. Now, when Australia is in imminent danger, hundreds and thousands of parents are thinking mainly of one problem - the safety of their youngsters,’

  Councils had interminable meetings about evacuation, mostly deciding there was no future in voluntary evacuation, that it must be funded and compulsory. But how would they enforce it?

  Bruce Baskerville tells a sad story of confusion at Geraldton, West Australia:

  On the 31st January, 1942 my grandfather enlisted in the Australian Army at Geraldton, on the Indian Ocean shore 400 kilometres north of Perth, Western Australia. He was assigned to the 10th Garrison, with the rank of private and service number W47600. Just a fortnight later, on the 16th February, 1942 my grandmother gave birth to her second baby, a little girl she named Wendy Beatrice. She was born at the maternity hospital in Geraldton. On the same day, the reputed fortress of Singapore fell to the Japanese army, 3,500 kilometres to the north. Three days later, on the 19th February, her first-born little girl, my mother, turned four. It was the same day that the bombing of Darwin began 2,500 kms to the north. In just three days, the frontline had moved 1,000 kms closer to home.

  On the night of Saturday 21st February, Geraldton was subjected to its first air raid - or so many people thought. Townsfolk were beset with panic and fear as they scrambled for refuge in the sand hills behind the town, contrary to all directions from wardens. My grandmother and her new baby were still in the hospital. The local paper reported that, at the hospital, ‘many people had been greatly perturbed and very seriously inconvenienced’, and that in future such unannounced ‘tests’ of the air raid
system must be preceded by evacuating patients from the hospital. There was a lot of finger-pointing about who had ordered the test, but some called for lessons to be learnt as the town was obviously unprepared for the war rapidly descending upon it.

  The Press reporting makes it very clear that there was widespread panic in the town on the night of the 21st and 22nd of February, from which the hospital was not immune. As my grandmother and her five-day old baby lay in the hospital, the local newspaper was full of reports on building air raid trenches in school grounds, and the evacuation plan for Geraldton - all women, children, the infirm and elderly, carrying only a backpack, a blanket and a water bottle, were to be removed by trains to inland towns, while the Greenough Flats where my grandparents lived were to be totally evacuated and closed to all civilians and occupied by military forces. All radios, telephones and bicycles were to be destroyed.

  On the 2nd July, 1942 baby Wendy died, aged just 4½ months. My grandmother always told me that just after Wendy was born, there was a false air raid on Geraldton and all the babies in the hospital, local babies and refugee babies from the East Indies, healthy babies and sick babies, became mixed up in the ‘air raid’ confusion, after which Wendy was always ill. Her death certificate says she died, in St John of God Hospital in Geraldton, after two days of broncho-pneumonia. She was buried the next day in the Old Greenough Cemetery, among other members of her extended family. The local newspaper reports give us some idea of that awful time of fear, panic and confusion, and confirm my grandmother’s memories of the ‘air raid’ and its consequences.

  Stan Gratte says virtually everyone in Geraldton contacted friends or relatives:

  Dad knew someone at Morawa, an inland town about 240kms away. We lived in an empty shop. Mum plastered the shop windows with newspapers. The townspeople were simply great, taking us into their hearts and helping us in all ways possible. We became the ‘little evacuees’. We’d seen this term used in English comics, which were still available. We understood the term a bit better then. The adults all expected bombings of coastal towns. I remember meeting the large passenger trains, all fully loaded with people evacuating the north. I talked to one woman who had been bombed. Probably from Broome, where many planes were destroyed and much life lost. My mates Ron and Ian McKillop of Geraldton also turned up, as did others I knew. We went to school and the teacher was a beauty with the cane, as I know. He needed discipline with about eighty kids in the class and he knew how to apply it and retain our respect. My schoolwork improved greatly, due to a few wacks on the hands and some around the legs. I was glad to meet the old teacher many years later and shake his hand.