Chapter Three

We landed at Liverpool at 4.30 pm. The city had been bombed the previous night and, although it was reportedly a light raid, work squads were still clearing up the rubble. What impressed us was the way ordinary citizens, despite new and old damage, roped-off streets, dangerous buildings and so on, seemed to be going about their affairs. Buses and trams still ran and businesses, despite the lack of glass, were open. In fact, we appeared to be the only ones disconcerted by the signs of aerial savagery.

We were met by the mayor and a committee of public-spirited citizens who tendered a welcome at an afternoon tea in the Town Hall. Hally, Blondie, Smithy and myself slipped out in the middle of the speeches to sample the local hops. We selected a small, unpretentious hostelry near the hall so we could hear any sound indicating that the party was breaking up.

A surly, beetle-browed barman who looked on us with no favour, served four pots of beer without even a bubble on them. Smithy said, ‘It looks like bloody cold tea.’ Hally said, ‘Hey, mate, your beer’s flat.’ This bloke must have been one of the Liverpool Irishmen, or perhaps his nerves were on edge with the bombing, because he took a dim view of this remark. For several seconds he couldn’t speak and then he spluttered, ‘Me bleedin’ beer’s flat, is it? Let me tell yer it’s a new keg I just put on and if you bleedin’ Orstralians don’t like it you can get to bleedin’ hell.’

We jointly told him what he could do with his ‘bleedin’ beer’ but found when we entered a second pub we had done him an injustice, for the beer here was just as flat as the first lot. A friendly bystander overheard our remarks and explained that English beer did not have a head or froth like its Australian counterpart, and what looked like flat beer to us was, in fact, quite fresh.

Things looked like developing into a nice little party when we heard the bark of orders and tumbled out, just in time to join our comrades lining up to march to the station. On the way, we saw a marvellous cathedral perched on the brow of a hill – a picture of medieval architecture. As we came closer, however, we saw it was battered and scarred and completely burnt out. We learnt it had been a victim of a bomb raid the previous week.

We boarded a special southbound train and, even though it was only early spring, it was still light at nine o’clock so we were able to catch our first glimpse of rural England. What amazed the Australians was the vivid green of the grass and fields. The countryside, divided into innumerable pocket-handkerchief fields or paddocks, separated by stone fences or hedges, was one of luxuriant fertility. Nearly all of it was under crops of some kind. It was difficult to believe these same fields had been tilled for centuries, yet continued to give an abundance of food and fodder.

Another interesting point was how towns and villages seemed to start and stop, the tilled fields marching right up to the walls of the towns. Along the train-lines, near towns and villages, were neat little vegetable plots, apparently tilled by diligent citizens.

***

We arrived at Bournemouth at 5.30 am to be greeted by air raid sirens but as far as we could see, no-one took any notice. The citizens were not yet about but this coastal city looked a serene and peaceful spot untouched and untroubled by the Blitz and horrors of war. A bus took us from the station to the sergeants’ mess, a spacious two-storied building at which well-to-do citizens had holidayed prior to the war.

We had expected meals to be skimpy and short but our breakfast was as good as we would have received in Australia. Afterwards we were marched to our billets, which consisted of two beautiful six-storied blocks of flats situated on the eastern side of the town with an unsurpassed view of the bay and the coast. These, we understood, in peacetime cost from twelve hundred to fifteen hundred pounds a year unfurnished, which was money in anyone’s language.1 Hally, Blondie, Smithy, Gunner and myself were allotted to a front room on the sixth floor. We thought someone must have blundered, as it was too rich for gunners.

It was a lovely day, the sea was blue and serene; far away, the sun flashed on the white cliffs of the Isle of Wight. ‘Now, I could really settle down in this little burg and let the bloody war go by,’ said Blondie. ‘This place will do me.’

Lost for a moment in contemplation, my mind went back to that windy November afternoon nearly six months before. The course had lined up for the afternoon parade after the first month’s exam at Winter’s RAAF ITS.2 Black, the CO, had taken the microphone. After a short preamble on patriotism and the necessity of bashing the Hun, he called for volunteers for thirty-two air gunners who would go almost immediately to England, offering the inducement of missing the monotonous round of examinations connected with ordinary postings.

I recalled again the scene as the four-hundred-strong course stood lined up in their blue dungarees, felt hats pulled down over their eyes against the glare of the sun and the dust whipped up by a squally southerly; a hush that fell over the parade ground after his appeal. No-one volunteered, for even in those early days rumours of the unhealthiness of this particular calling had filtered in from twelve thousand miles away. To a man they stood fast. After a second impassioned plea one lone figure was netted. Later, this bod was discharged as mentally unsuitable.

The CO then called for the roll and declared, ‘The following airmen whose names I call, will take one step forward.’ After a preliminary clearing of his throat, he called the first name, ‘A.A. Aarons.’ I could still remember Aub’s anguished ejaculation, ‘Christ, A for bloody Air Gunner.’ The smile was soon wiped from my face as my own name was called. So down through the roll that authoritative, brassy voice continued till thirty-one stunned young men stood not two feet, but twelve thousand miles apart from their course comrades. As the last name came over the public address system, a sound soft and sibilant as wind passing through a field of ripe wheat arose from the packed ranks as the lucky ones let their collective breaths go.

With the exception of the first volunteer, the chosen thirty-one, plus one other, were still together, despite the string-pulling of influential parents and relatives. In this regard, as there were one Federal and four State parliamentarians numbered amongst the fond parents, the pressure must have been great. However the RAAF stood fast to the decisions made by the CO on that blustery afternoon.

From Winter’s, the unhappy group had been transferred to a tough rookies’ training school for a month, where we were passed over to the tender mercies of two tough drill instructors known as The Animal and The Louse.

After these two characters had done their best to break our spirits and instil some air force discipline into our rebellious souls, we had been passed on to a gunnery school in New South Wales.

Here the lone volunteer had shown signs of mental aberration and had been replaced by an ex-naval PTI by the name of Jimmy Sullivan who had transferred to the air force and, having failed honourably as a WAG, had ended as a straight air gunner. During the three weeks’ course, we had learnt some of the elementary phrases of gunnery, flown for an average of two hours in the open cockpit of an ancient Fairey Battle3 and fired some five hundred rounds from an old Vickers machine gun at sandpit targets. As the course progressed, it was revealed that twenty-six of these budding gunners had never fired a rifle. I’ll never forget the look on the grizzled range sergeant’s face as he watched these amateurs handle a .303 rifle which, as anyone knows who has used it, has a weighty firing kick.

It’s true saying that birds of a feather flock together. At ITS, friendships had already been formed that were to continue at the rookie’s training school and beyond, for these young men had early in the piece formed themselves into four separate groups.

Number One Group was The Mob. Arthur ‘Art’ Hally, a 16 stone block of a man, was the leader. He was the strongest man I have ever met. Next in line came his cobber, Blondie Henschell, 6 feet, 14 stone, with an aggressive jaw and a deep, rasping voice, the unlikeliest bank clerk ever. Then there were dark-haired Aub ‘Gunner’ Aarons, with a bubbling sense of humour and fund of witticisms, whose father owned half a dozen Sydney hotels (Gunner, because of his name, was a moral first on every roll); twenty-year-old, handsome Bryan ‘Smithy’ Smith, with the crinkly brown hair and irresistible smile, who hailed from the Clarence River in New South Wales, where his people owned a farm; Harry ‘Smiler’ ‘Mac’ McDonald, an insurance clerk, whose pendulous jowl reminded you of a sad-looking bloodhound (Smiler could see nothing happy in anything, but relieved his griping with an unconscious dry humour); Fred ‘Happy’ Henderson, chief bitcher, political propagandist and bush lawyer of the group, who knew his King’s Regulations backwards (any bod’s fight was Happy’s meat; the greater the injustice, the more bitter the defence, so he was constantly in strife with the powers above); Norman ‘Bourke’ Malloy, ex-Brisbanite, the best-equipped man in matters that keep the weaker sex happy that any of us had ever met; a perpetual female chaser. I, John Beede, was the eighth member.

Closely allied with The Mob was the second group of five kindred spirits. These included red-headed, irrepressible Colin Tempe, an ex-NSW police cadet; his cobber, Tom Hedge, a South Australian farmer; Sid Pascoe, a natural comedian; Peter Poast, a nineteen-year-old Sydneyite with a cherubic face, and Bill Driscoll, a tall, good-looking chap from Sydney with a flashing smile. The two groups frequently amalgamated and assisted each other. They were almost as one, but thirteen made an unwieldy crowd.

Completely dissociated were three characters; a little fellow called Ray Steer who was such an unpredictable, foul-mouthed half-wit that no-one bothered with him; Dagworth, a lurks artist;4 and a sallow-complexioned bloke by the name of Ron Clarke who, since we left Australia, had made no secret of the fact he did not intend to fly as a gunner or, in fact, in any crew position. His stated intention was to build up a list of fake illnesses and he had started his campaign from the time we left Australia by reporting every Thursday on Medical Parade to the ship’s doctor.

Our crowd treated Clarkey with a contemptuous rough humour, and when the mood took us, we would solicitously enquire as to his health. One day, out of curiosity, I enquired if he genuinely intended getting out of fighting. He assured me that he did, but would give no reason, only stating flatly that he was not going to fly. What intrigued everyone was that he made no secret of his intentions and I think it was generally felt he was putting on an act and when it came to the test he would be in it.

The third group consisted of the younger and nicer fellows. They came from a slightly higher social stratum, were college educated and did not smoke, swear, drink or associate with bad women. They were not softies and in sport could more than hold their own.

The fourth group comprised five members of well-to-do families. They were all stacked with cash, drove modern cars, and were much in demand in the young social sets wherever we were stationed.

The pilots and observers were an even younger class group and already their responsibilities and training had placed the service stamp on them. They were, in fact, an elite class who had gone into the air force in 1940, when the qualifications were exceedingly high. The pilots had their wings, the observers their flying ‘O’; thus they had been subjected to a year’s intensive training and showed it in their bearing and behaviour.

Two or three of the older types, attracted by the free and easy behaviour of our crowd, joined The Mob. In this way I palled up with a Western Australian pilot called Bill Gorman and we finally became inseparable cobbers. A big, easy-going, pleasant fellow who had been a budding solicitor in civilian life, Bill used to say; ‘There’s no doubt, you gunners have the right slant on this service life. You have no worries and you don’t give a bugger about anything or anyone.’

Despite the spontaneous bitching, I felt our group was not unhappy. For my part I had nothing to whinge about, because to get into the air force I had had to put my age back six years. I had done this by stating I was born in Cork, Eire, and signing a statutory declaration to that effect. As far as the air force was concerned, I was an Irishman. Actually, I was a dyed-in-the-wool Australian.

At thirty, I was far removed from school and the study habit. At the initial examinations I knew I had not done well, so if I wanted to stay in aircrew I realised I was a certain candidate for a gunnery berth. Hally’s contention that ‘it doesn’t matter if you fly in the front or the arse of the plane, you’re still fighting the Nazis’ was generally accepted.

Happy Henderson, with his strong left-wing political inclinations, worried much about the couldn’t-care-less attitude of the boys. ‘You know, Johnny,’ he would say, ‘they haven’t a bloody thought in their heads except food, beer and women. I don’t think they even know what they’re going to fight for.’ He used to try hard to get his message across: that the ones who survived this mix-up5 should band together and see that no individual or group of individuals could ever plunge the world into war again.

Happy must have thought I had some grey matter but then he thought I was twenty-four. If he had known I was thirty, rising thirty-one, he would have written me off as a complete no-hoper for, when I came to look at myself I found, despite the difference in age, I wasn’t so far removed from Happy’s condemnation of my cobbers.

During the Depression, I spent four years roaming Australia like thousands of other young fellows, doing all kinds of jobs – gold mining, working in shearing sheds, timber cutting, navvying, fighting; in fact doing any kind of work I could pick up.6 In 1934 I had joined a large electrical organisation as a salesman and, mainly because I had known hard times, had the gift of the gab and was not afraid of hard work, had by 1940 risen to the position of sales manager. This was not the high title the name implied as I was more or less a glorified commercial traveller, but it paid a thousand pounds per year, which was good money in those days. Also, the fact that I was single meant I had no objection to transfers, so that at some time or other I had worked in every state in Australia. I ran an expensive car which I used in my business, was a member of a leading Sydney surf club, so surfing, beer and females occupied about equal amounts of my leisure time.

***

Bournemouth was a town of contrasts. Only the waterfront showed evidence of a country at war. The beaches were barbed-wired and barricaded. Concrete tank traps stood shoulder to shoulder along the sea walls. The pier had been wrecked in sections so that invaders getting a foothold would not be able to use it. Barbed-wire entanglements stretched along the fore-shores, headlands and seashore parks. We were advised under no circumstances to attempt to go beyond these entanglements as the area was mined. There were rumours of lovers who had foolishly ignored this advice and come to a sticky end.7

All that day we spent in reviews, examinations and general service routine. There seemed to be an air of urgency in everything. Though there was a certain amount of bullsh,8 the English officers possibly felt we were dangerous cattle and used tact and firmness to accomplish their ends.

At 4 pm we had what the English term ‘tea’, which seemed a little early from our Australian viewpoint. It was our first experience of the quaint old English custom, the forerunner to a supper that commenced about 8 pm and was the main meal of the day.

After the 4 pm effort, we started a sightseeing tour. What interested us was that, despite the fact that the enemy coast was not eighty miles away, there was an absence of air-raid precautions and, in contrast to Liverpool, no damage. This place had never been raided, so the shops were unboarded and the windows untaped.9 It appeared to be a carefree holiday town. The parks and streets teemed with children and holidaymakers. It appeared as if the Nazis had declared an unofficial truce on this very tempting target. Rumour had it that there was an unofficial agreement; ‘you don’t bomb X and we won’t bomb Z’.

They knew we were there, because Lord Haw Haw in his ‘Germanaire Calling’ broadcasts, to which everyone seemed to listen,10 declared, ‘We know you’re there, Aussies, but you’ll keep.’ It was not until a year later that the Jerries raided the parade ground one morning, causing a number of casualties.

We certainly liked the English drinking arrangements. In contrast to our own ‘six o’clock swill’, here the pubs opened from 10.30 am to 2 pm then closed till 6.30 pm. Some varied their trading hours by opening at 11.30, closing at 2.30, opening again at 5.30 and remaining open until 10.30 pm, thus you got a drink at reasonable hours. Instead of rationing beer as in Australia, they cut down on the alcoholic content till you could drink a gallon of it and not get full. Blondie said in disgust, ‘All I get is bladder exercise.’ Women drank on equal terms with men in bars, which was a civilised arrangement.

There were literally thousands of girls in the city, comprising WAAFs, ATSs, WRENs and hundreds of holidaymakers from London and nearby towns. They took the Australian, New Zealand and Canadian servicemen to their individual arms and hearts and most of these young fellows were overwhelmed by the attention they received.

At that time there were over two million surplus women in England, so that Bournemouth, with its plethora of servicemen, was the answer to a young girl’s prayer, the Mecca to which they flocked. What intrigued us was the friendship and good fellowship of these English lasses. Most of them insisted on standing their shouts11 in bars and they were also exceedingly generous with their charms and favours. As Blondie rumbled, ‘Anyone who isn’t getting his share must be a moron’.

Most of these women had been through desperately anxious days. They had seen their armies shattered on the European mainland and their island undergo one of the most sustained and vicious air assaults in history. From a seemingly hopeless position they were still in the fight and hitting back. The arrival of these airmen from all parts of the Empire gave life and hope to the words of Winston Churchill, so they rewarded these young fellows in the way the soldier has been rewarded throughout history.

Air alarms were frequent, but nobody seemed to take much notice. Enemy planes often tracked in over Bournemouth on their way to London and more important targets, so that when the sirens gave their banshee wail, people merely stopped and looked skyward to see if the planes were on course.

Within a few days we were all broke but in many instances, our various girl friends offered to pay expenses and, where this was refused, extended loans. Bourke was in his element. He had three beauteous females fighting for his favours, and the boys generally agreed never had they had it so often or so easy.

During our six days at Bournemouth, we were given, among other checks, colour-blindness tests. We wondered why they had not been given before we left Australia, because if an airman could not pass he was out of aircrew. Actually, one observer and a pilot were scrubbed and another observer was a borderline case. Clarkey failed dismally, not that it did him any good, because there were traps to catch the shrewdies.

Bournemouth was a sophisticated, interesting and lovely city, yet not twenty miles away was a little fishing village with a tiny stone harbour on which the fishing boats rode at anchor as they probably did in Drake’s day. Bill Gorman and myself were accosted by child prostitutes of thirteen and fourteen years of age, escorted by harridans, who we were later advised were usually their mothers.12