Muriel Knox Doherty in the uniform of the United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration, London, 1945
20 Craven Hill
London W2
10th June 1945
The best way seems to be for me to commence my news from the early dawn on 25th May when Miss Michell—a welfare worker with UNRRA—and I emerged with om baggage from the ANA reception room at Mascot. The sky had opened up and the field appeared to be under water—our hopes of ever taking off were nil, or so we thought. However at 6.40 am off we went and soon found that the weather was only local. An attractive stewardess supplied barley sugar and the daily paper and repeated the former at intervals. It was no time before we arrived at Wagga—8 am—a frosty fresh morning. We only deposited some passengers and in ten minutes were on our way again. We had half an hour on the airfield at Narrandera and left at 9.15 am.
The fertile country around Mildura was in sharp contrast to the terrible country in the Riverina, as was the district approaching Adelaide, where we arrived at 1 pm Sydney time. Seven hundred and forty four miles in 4 hours, 50 minutes in a most comfortable Douglas. The clocks were put back half an hour, a performance which was necessary all along the route. Arriving at the ANA office in Adelaide I was pleasantly surprised to find Aunt Kit and Clarrie McLaughlin (Baker) awaiting me—however, there was much to do before we could eat. The WO1 had only been notified one hour before our arrival and their lunch hour was completely disorganised by finding us accommodation, which was eventually at the Hotel Richmond.
This was the beginning of what proved to be a non-stop canter from one authority to another, arranging tickets, weighing baggage, swearing to customs that we were not taking the Canberra Jewels out of Trust, etc, etc. We finally came to rest at a very nice restaurant and enjoyed a fish luncheon, after which Aunt Kit paraded me to her office staff at the Advertiser as, my niece who, etc, etc. However she was pleased and we then spent the afternoon at her flat and had dinner with the McLaughlins.
We took off from Parafield at 9.50 am, having been joined by Miss Butler, arrived at Ceduna at 10.40 am and departed 11.10 am to cross the 300 miles of the Great Sandy Desert to Forrest—what a desert, we could see the railway from time to time, but nothing else but arid wastes.
The trip to Perth from Adelaide is approximately 1400 miles and we did it in ten hours. Having written instructions to report to the Customs immediately on arrival, in spite of the fact that it was Saturday night and we knew not even a miracle would keep the officials on duty, we felt we must do so—and as I was officially in charge of the party, I felt that at least we should satisfy ourselves that they were not there, which we soon did! Accommodation had just been found for us at the Imperial Hotel and we just arrived in time to have a meal. Again three in a not too fresh room, however we were preparing for things to come. We were pretty tired by this time and were glad to have Sunday free.
We arrived at the Qantas office in Perth at 8 am. By this time Miss Butler had discovered that she had left her overcoat in the plane, which returned to Adelaide! Then the fuss began—that good lady, who has been in the AANS for five years, had come without a taxation clearance or cholera injection and we were due to leave Perth at 9.30 am—and planes wait for no man. I commenced ringing. First WO1, who was UNRRA’s representative in Perth. He clearly told me he was not interested in us and could do nothing for us, then started a tirade about how overworked he was, etc. etc. I suggested he should notify UNRRA that he did not wish to undertake the work and I asked if he could suggest anyone who would help us with the Taxation clearance. Miss Brushed down to the Department, where fortunately she found the most helpful official, but had to produce someone to stand security for her—it was now 9.10 am. In the meantime I found the Chief Medical Officer at his home and he kindly offered to come in and give the cholera injection, which he did at 9.25 am. Qantas gave us a special car which finally deposited us at Guildford Airport—where by the way we found the overcoat!
The manoeuvres with the Customs, Security Officers, etc., and more weighing of baggage and self—by this time I scarcely know what my weight is, it has varied on so many scales! I put my sad tale to them about coupons and they helped me out, as you already know. After receiving a health clearance we had a welcome cup of tea and boarded our Liberator and took off at 11.40 am on the longest non-stop hop in the world. The trip from Perth to Learmouth on Exmouth Gulf was over terrible country, red dust and salt bush and the sun was blistering when we landed with one engine nearly on fire, (I believe). We again boarded our plane and took off at 5.15 pm and left Australia.
Thinking back over the long air trek—we travelled the Indian Ocean route—quaint recollections string themselves together, a necklace of memory. The amusing non-stop canters by our party of four at each port of call from one authority to another—form-filling, being weighed (with each set of scales produced a new figure!), and changing currency; the wear and tear of keeping name tags on one’s luggage; and the morning over Ceylon when my ankles were so swollen that I was unable to put my shoes on until, frantic, I forced the bulging flesh inside just in time to join the melee round the Customs. The difference between anticipation and realisation in Colombo when we had so hoped for a warm bath and found instead a very dirty bedroom with the bedclothes of the last occupant still on the bed and his bathwater flooding the bathroom floor, the sewerage system having failed completely. At Karachi now, it was delightfully different. Even though we bumped over ruts to the city in a covered army wagon in blazing heat, when we arrived at the hotel there were snowy beds, mosquito nets, efficient room and laundry boys who responded to the touch of a bell so that our sojourn and our dinner at Karachi were blissful.
To Karachi we had already travelled by Liberator and RAF York planes in which the converted service seats felt rather like corrugated iron after a time. It reminded us that we were flying in a war-time transport and not a civil peace-time luxury airliner. However, the courteous attentions of the RAF Steward made up for any small discomfort.
Except on the York, our trek to the rear cabin for light refreshments in the form of sandwiches, fruit, coffee and lime juice (from enormous thermos containers) gave many opportunities for meeting our fellow passengers. Among these passengers there was an eminent English authority on food and nutrition, a member of an Indian Trade Delegation, a Professor from Palestine University, a British Diplomat and a number of RAAF personnel returning home on leave.
At Karachi we transferred to a Sunderland flying boat and headed for Cairo, via Bahrain where we ate roast goats’ meat and cabbage in a wharf rest house with the thermometer showing 120°F! Looking down on the endless wastes of the Arabian Desert, where the only signs of life were some camel tracks and a few scattered nomad camps, we saw the Iraq to Haifa oil pipeline and the Great Rift, 3000 miles long from the Red Sea to Lake Tanganyika and the Sinai Peninsula,1 over which the Israelites wandered for forty years, an area we cross in forty minutes! I remember flying over the main road through the desert to Alexandria and over remarkable sheets of salt water—green, magenta, maroon and purple, with thick white crusts at the periphery. Following the Mediterranean coast we skirted Tobruk where the Aussies made history and crossed to Sicily. As we circled over Augusta, with Mt Etna in the background, we were able to pick out many sunken planes and ships, remnants of the first Allied assault and landing. Our quarters in Augusta were in an Officers’ Mess, formerly the Nazi Army barracks, the outer walls of which still carried slogans exhorting the Sicilians to victory.
It was Sunday in Augusta, and a feast day, so the population was out strolling in their best clothes, many with black mourning bands on their lapels. Front doors, too, had strips of black material tacked on them—grim reminders of recent fighting. Shrines and altars were set up in the street with fruit-salts bottles and empty shell cases holding candles and flowers.
Crossing the southern tip of Sardinia we flew across the French coast and up the Rhone Valley on the last lap of our journey. A great upsurge of affection for the Motherland began to stir within me. I remembered how, alone, she had stemmed the Nazi tide which threatened to engulf civilisation; how she had endured the blitz and how the voice of her grand Statesman, Winston Churchill, had brought hope and courage to not only those in the far outposts of our Empire, but to the unhappy peoples in the occupied countries of Europe. I was soon to see the illustrious scars wrought by her blood, sweat and tears—to talk with her people once more. I remember, how I remember, that first sight of England—the Swanage coast, clear, soft and lovely, and how I wondered when we landed at Poole if my Huguenot forebears had felt the same thrill as I, when they stepped ashore in England, even at this very spot.
Only an hour and ten minutes elapsed between our touch-down on the harbour and our departure from Bournemouth by train for London, a procedure that was an outstanding experience of English war-time efficiency. From the air during our eleven days (seventy-two flying hours) journey we had seen little evidence of war damage, but now as we drew near London we saw whole rows of workingmen’s homes devastated, blocks of flats split open, hardly a roof undamaged. It was nearly seven in the evening when we steamed into Waterloo Station, some 12 000 miles from Sydney, and we were terribly tired. But there was one more effort with the luggage to be made, and another to appear not too unpleased that no accommodation had been booked for us. We made them both and were miraculously rewarded with generous hospitality at the American WAC’s Club in Berkeley Square.
Next morning, after having reported at UNRRA Headquarters at 11 Portland Place, we began a strenuous round of meetings, lectures, instructions and preparations, and our non-stop canters entered their second edition as the various departments we had to find were scattered far and wide. Processing, as it was called, began on 5th June and had not ceased by 23rd June. Processing meant dealing with equipment, uniform, luggage, financial arrangements, insurance, allotments, coupon issue, inoculation, chest X-ray, passport clearances, travel vouchers, and many other matters which had to be finalised before our departure for the Continent.
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1 The Great Rift Valley actually runs from Jordan Valley in Syria to Mozambique.