Bill McLean, George ‘Bimbo’ White, Neville Emery, Eddie Broad and Roland ‘Pup’ Raymond
It was the final days of the war and Big Bill McLean’s troops had discovered a Japanese command centre along the Milford Highway that ran between Samarinda and the oil-port of Balikpapan on Borneo’s south-east coast.
The largest and final Australian amphibious landing of the war was so successful the Japanese had fled into the hills. Two atomic bombs had been dropped on Japan. In the days that followed in August 1945, Big Bill’s commando outfit, while waiting for the enemy’s surrender, were involved in protective patrols. They were aware Japanese soldiers would probably refuse to surrender. Many would fight to the death.
Slowly Big Bill and co. approached the centre and, discovering the Japanese had left, made their way through the rooms, searching for weapons. After finding flame throwers and machine guns, McLean saw a large Chubb safe in the middle room. This was unexpected, but not exactly startling as this commando captain had grown accustomed to odd sights during the war — part of the territory when you’ve been paratrooped in behind the Japanese lines and had to fend for yourself.
A call was made among the commandos over whether any had safe-breaking skills. One put up his hand. He began fiddling with the safe combinations. The rest, as commando Bob Wood said in the book Nothing is Forever,1 ‘stood around to watch in great anticipation of untold wealth’.
The safe breaker was having no luck, and in desperation gave the door a mighty whack with his foot. Suddenly smoke began to seep out from the side of the safe.
A loud yell of ‘Booby trap’, and the commandos fled in all directions. Wood leapt through an open window, followed by Big Bill. The only problem was the window was propped up by a stick. As Wood jumped through the window, his foot dislodged the stick. The result was the window shutter came crashing down on Big Bill’s head as he dived through. He collapsed. Frantically, his soldiers dragged him to safety, as they waited for the loud explosion.
After several minutes and nothing, the group including a groggy Big Bill went back in to investigate. The kick to the door had the desired effect of opening the safe. Inside was a tin of talcum powder. With the kick, it had fallen on its side and the powder had spilt onto the floor of the safe. So, the smoke was mere talcum. No jewels, money, or anything of value. They felt like dills.
This story and countless others were told with relish by Big Bill’s many soldier mates who attended his funeral in 1996 following the most flourishing of lives.
Big Bill was a primary pillar in one of Australian rugby’s most powerful clans that included over various generations important footballers such as Doug senior, Doug junior, Jack, Bob, Jeff, Paul and Peter. The McLeans are Queensland rugby royalty, with Bill boasting the biggest of crowns as he captained his country at war and on the Test arena.
Before the war, Bill was a notable Queensland rugby forward and state water polo goalkeeper. He was in the Queensland championship-winning surfboat crew, and among the unlucky 1939–40 Wallabies who had to wait six years before being able to play post-war Test football.
McLean, a tall, no nonsense character, had a varied war. A bombardier and paratrooper, his mental toughness and physical attributes saw him transferred to the 2/3 Commando Squadron.2 Before heading to Balikpapan, he spent months on the Atherton Tablelands with elite AIF soldiers waiting to get the call to finish off the Japanese.
He did not waste his time, as the commando unit soon became the best rugby team in the district. As commando historian Ron Garland wrote, ‘They were superb.’
Playing alongside McLean was Queensland halfback Bill Lazarus, ‘a wizard on the football field’.
‘Big Bill and Little Bill could weave and pass the ball between them as they outwitted the opposition. If Big Bill couldn’t dodge, he ran straight through his unfortunate opponent. We went mad with excitement as we watched our super Rugby team play their magic performances.’
Garland recalled that ‘in spite of a very tough exterior, Bill had an infectious sense of humour’.
His father, a Queensland Railways stationmaster, was constantly complaining about soldiers stealing cutlery and china when eating at railway canteens. When Bill went home on leave on one occasion, he unloaded his kit bag in front of the family. Out rolled a Queensland Railways cup that Bill had been using as a shaving mug. Bill’s father was apoplectic.
After the war, Bill played as if he was still an elite, finely skilled soldier.
His Wallaby forward teammate Eric Tweedale described Big Bill as ‘a true commando’.
‘He was rugged, and had this big booming voice. A great leader of men, Bill was always one of the boys,’ Tweedale recalled in 2017, shortly after his 96th birthday. ‘Bill would easily rank among Australian Rugby’s greatest captains, because of the respect he commanded. He never expected anyone to do something he wasn’t prepared to do himself.’
He never had it easy, as misfortune seemed to follow McLean when he tried to resurrect his football career. In 1946, international rugby was resumed with an Australian tour of New Zealand, with McLean made captain after he excelled in a trial match where he punted a ball well over 80 metres. Although injuring himself in the trial and unable to play in the first three weeks of the tour, the selectors did not hesitate in selecting him tour captain. His first appearance wasn’t until the seventh match against Hanan Shield Districts, but that was enough to convince the selectors he was ready for the first Test three days later. He played the next four matches in succession.
His pre-match psyche-up talks were legendary. Forever confrontational. Forever passionate. And as expected from a proud serviceman, deeply patriotic.
One of his loyal subjects, Max Howell, recalled that Bill would draw the players around him in the dressing room and pronounce: ‘Listen to me. You’re playing for Australia today. Your country, do you understand? Our aim is to kick the shit out of them and no one takes a backward step. Nobody! You’re playing for your country! If you do, you’ll cop this from me.’
Bill would wave his large right fist in their faces. They got the message.
The following year, he was the natural choice to lead Australia on their tour of Great Britain, and was in charge of their opening tour games before confronting the Combined Services team at Twickenham. In the final minutes, he was struck by the most devastating of tackles, where running in open space he was hit by three different opponents. His fibula and tibia were broken.
Although in agony, he waved the ambulance attendants away. He wanted to remain exactly where he was.
‘I ain’t going,’ a defiant McLean said.
When told his leg had been snapped in several spots, McLean growled: ‘If someone runs by, I’ll get him.’
He was eventually helped from the field, handing the tour captaincy reins to the 21-year-old Trevor Allan with the words: ‘It’s over to you now, Tubby.’
McLean proved a similarly tough disciplinarian as Australian Test coach in 1951–52, and was involved in one of the Wallabies most unexpected triumphs when they defeated the All Blacks in Christchurch 14–9 even though a player short for 25 minutes. In McLean’s team that day was another notable soldier, Col Windon, adjudged as possibly Australia’s greatest open-side flanker, who argued the ‘unarmed combat and guerrilla warfare training’ while in New Guinea fighting the Japanese had prepared him for a bitter Bledisloe Cup tussle.
Another huge man to make his mark during the Second World War was William George Searle ‘Bimbo’ White. White was enormous, weighing well over 120 kilograms and standing 1.9 metres tall. Rugby writers delighted in describing him as a ‘giant of the game’. He was a natural for the scrum and the second row, especially when Australia confronted formidable South African and New Zealand packs during the 1930s. A player who was never intimidated, White developed into an excellent set-piece player, especially at the lineouts, which he often dominated during his ten-Test career. He was a monster at ruck and maul time.
Hailing from Mackay, the Queensland representative married and settled in Sydney and was soon in the NSW team. He was even a big hit in the professional code, when he moved back to Mackay and as there was no rugby played in the town, opted for the 13-man game. The Rockhampton Evening News described how ‘a player of magnificent physique, it was not unusual to find him in the position of carrying a couple of tacklers on his back, with one or two more clinging to his nether limbs; but “Bimbo” still forged ahead’.
He even played in a North Queensland versus South Queensland league match in Townsville, ‘with jersey tattered and almost stripped to the waist he still waded in and was the most popular player on the field’. He then dropped out of football, turned to golf, winning his fair share of club competitions at Brisbane’s Indooroopilly course.
Bimbo was next making headlines in 1941 for being ‘the biggest pilot in the RAF and RAAF’. Then came intrigue with reports he was piloting a RAF bomber in Russia. The source of this information was former Wallabies team manager Wally Matthews, who told a recruitment rally in Martin Place a letter had been received where Bimbo stated he ‘had been sent to Russia’.
This was refuted by his family, with Bimbo’s mother explaining her son was instead operating a Sunderland flying boat somewhere in Great Britain. However, in another letter, Bimbo told his mother he was to be posted to a squadron in a few days, but could not provide its identity due to wartime censorship. More details were revealed when White won a Distinguished Flying Cross in 1944. His citation explained that between September 1941 to February 1942, as captain of a Sunderland flying boat, he had completed 200 hours of operational flying on convoy and reconnaissance duties over the North Sea and North Atlantic.
In 1942, Bimbo had returned to Australia, where he was captain of a Catalina in operations against the Japanese, completing 920 hours of operational flying, including 14 night bombing raids, 31 day and night reconnaissance flights and numerous sorties involving mine laying, dropping supplies and air and sea rescues. During 1943, he succeeded in evacuating an advance party from behind enemy lines. When awarded the DFC, he was commended for his courage and coolness and ‘unflagging enthusiasm’.
After the war, when asked by mates how such an enormous man could fit into tiny aircraft cockpits, he would smile, and say: ‘They built the planes around me.’
Another Wallaby who excelled in the cockpit was Neville Emery, who completed 15 operational missions over Europe flying a Lancaster bomber. Emery joined the air force from Sydney’s Shore school, becoming a pilot with the 467 Bomber Squadron in England. In the book A Celebration of Shore, Emery described his days as a pilot.
‘Everybody felt a bit scared, but when you go out there you were flying a plane and provided there was not too much going on you were OK,’ Emery said.
At the end of the war, Emery was vice-captain of the RAAF rugby side which toured Britain and France. A special highlight was a match in Chambéry where the RAAF encountered a side made up of locals who had been in the French Resistance. The match began when the football was dropped from a hovering helicopter. Joining Sydney University after the war, Emery was Australia’s standout five-eighth between 1946 and 1949, and was involved in numerous important Test triumphs.
During the 1947–48 Wallaby Northern Hemisphere tour, Emery vied for his Test spot with another illustrious war pilot — Eddie Broad. Like numerous other ex-servicemen on that tour, Broad flatly refused to discuss his war days, even though he could have entertained for hours with ripping yarns as he was involved in numerous dangerous ventures. In 1944–45, he flew Lancaster bombers in more than 30 missions over Europe. On the ground, he was reserved, according to teammates ‘happy with his own company’. He often kept to himself. But in the air, Broad was fearless.
For ‘outstanding leadership, courage and devotion to duty’, Broad received the Distinguished Flying Cross in 1945, after being involved in bringing back former prisoners of war to Britain. His life went on interesting tangents following the war. Before playing his solitary Test in 1949, he had become a Brisbane Amateur Turf Club committee member. Until the 1990s, as BATC chairman he was heavily involved in the improvements at the Doomben Racecourse and boosting race meeting prize money, as well as being a successful racehorse owner. An excellent bridge player, Broad became a District Court judge, while chairing the Mental Health Review Tribunal for more than a decade. This innovative thinker was even on the organising committee for the 1956 Melbourne Olympic Games.
As for invention during war time, few can surpass one of Australia’s greatest attacking footballers, whose feats have sadly been forgotten, but his ingenuity lives on. When the Wallabies talk of their most expressive wingers, the names of David Campese, Joe Roff and Brendan Moon are immediately mentioned. One never brought up is Roland ‘Pup’ Raymond, even though his representative try-scoring record was exceptional. He scored tries in eight of his 13 appearances on the wing for NSW between 1920 and 1923. These matches have now been accorded Test status as the state team was basically a national side because rugby had disappeared in Queensland. Overall the tall, well-built Pup, the master of the intercept try, found the line ten times.
This included the celebrated moment against the 1922 All Blacks at the Sydney Showground when he scored a try though semi-nude. Pup had started his run near the half-way line, and after charging through several New Zealand tackles lost his shorts. There were gasps from the crowd, as he was now down to his jumper and little else. But that didn’t deter him, as he accelerated away to score the try. The Referee observed: ‘Never before or since has a football crowd so rocked with laughter.’
Pup was an integral member of the 1922 team that were the first to defeat New Zealand in a series. However, his memories of that series were hazy as he played in one Test with severe concussion after being hurled into one of the corner posts.
Having briefly served with the AIF in 1918, Pup, who grew up in the Sydney suburb of Drummoyne, went to Sydney University to study medicine. In 1924, he arrived at Oxford University as a Rhodes Scholar, excelling academically and on the football field. While taking a post-graduate degree as an ophthalmic surgeon, the England selectors pounced on Pup, selecting him for the 1925 Twickenham Test against the All Blacks. However, he had to withdraw due to an injured shoulder.
It was during that tour New Zealand’s mighty fullback George Nepia saw Pup play and was immediately taken by the Australian’s pace, ingenuity and imagination. In later years, Nepia described Pup as the greatest winger he encountered during his 13 years of major football.
‘I will never forget the brilliance of the Oxford backs, among whom was Raymond,’ Nepia said. ‘He was certainly the greatest winger I have seen, or ever hope to see. He was my idol.’
Raymond’s performance against the All Blacks for Oxford was a prime reason why the England selectors were hovering around him. Years later, All Blacks were still talking about a try Raymond set up that day at the Iffley Road ground. Raymond was at fullback, alongside the illustrious Australian winger Johnny Wallace, who tackled Alan Robilliard just before he was about to score. The ball came loose. Wallace pounced, passing to Pup who to the delight of the 15,000-plus crowd took off, with countless All Blacks chasing. Pup reached Nepia, and timed the pass to perfection to put Wallace away for one of the university’s greatest tries. As Read Masters wrote in With the All Blacks in Great Britain, France, Canada and Australia 1924–25, ‘The tremendous cheering that followed this very spectacular try, was surely heard all over England!’ Wallace described it as ‘one of the most extraordinary incidents’ of his football career.
For a short period Raymond returned to Sydney, playing with his old Glebe–Balmain club which in 1927 was known as the ‘Brainiacs’ as it fielded three Rhodes Scholars — Pup, Wallace and Vernon Treatt. Shortly after Glebe–Balmain transformed into the Drummoyne grade club. In the 1930s, Raymond, one of a few Australian doctors to obtain four degrees — MBChM (Sydney), BA (Oxon), FRCS (Edinburgh), DOMS (London) — joined the medical staff of the Royal Air Force. This saw him stationed at various exotic locations in India and the Himalaya region. He still found time to play the occasional game of rugger, appearing for the air force against the Cheshire Regiment. Within five minutes of this rough, tough match, five players, including the doctor, were off the field with serious injuries. Pup was the recipient of a badly busted nose.
He was taken to the local hospital. The only doctor was a physician. His surgical skills were so poor the following day Pup’s mangled nose looked even worse. Pup hitch-hiked to Lahore — 80 kilometres away — where a surgeon re-broke his nose, and set it at the right angle. His ability to withstand pain and hardship was crucial during the war, particularly when in charge of a casualty clearing station throughout the British Army’s retreat from Burma to India in 1941. He successfully trekked back to India with his patients, arriving at the border with only the shirt and shorts he was wearing, and a battered wallet.
However, his wallet was soon gone. It was stolen from under his pillow the first night he was safely across the Indian border. After several months in hospital with malaria, the now Colonel Raymond was placed in charge of a surgical unit in Libya following General Montgomery’s army into Tunisia. Then there were stints in Italy and Greece. In 1945, he was with the 4th Indian Division, responsible for the medical services of its 60,000 men and 61 medical officers.
His tireless work during the Italian campaign saw him receive a military OBE for ‘gallant and distinguished service’. As importantly, while in Italy, he invented a method of taking badly wounded men from hill-top to hill-top using a flying-fox stretcher. This saved many lives, as the injured were attended to more quickly because they did not have to make energy-sapping and dangerous trips up and down numerous valleys. This method was soon copied by other divisions.
Pup returned home in 1948, ran a medical practice, and gave back to the game by coaching Drummoyne, the club affectionately known as the ‘Dirty Reds’. He became the club’s president and patron. His feats in peace and wartime must never be allowed to fade away.