Peter’s Wars

Grandpa got angry when the Melbourne newspapers began publishing the domestic American sporting results. He called the Yanks Johnny-come-latelies because Britain and the Commonwealth had been fighting alone for years. He laughed when I told him this good joke I heard about the Yanks at the barbershop.

Yank: Well, Aussie, you can relax, we’ve come to save you. Digger: Oh, I thought you were a refugee from Pearl Harbor.

Just before the war, passengers on a departing Jap ship told an Aussie wharfie, ‘We’ll be back soon,’ and the Australian replied, ‘Yeah, mate, and we’ll be here to meet you.’

‘No, you won’t,’ said the Jap. ‘You’ll be at the races.’

Everybody was supposed to be working to win the war and Mum’s Americans were amazed at our she’ll-be-right attitude. ‘We’re at war and the Aussies want to go to the races and have holidays as usual.’ They started calling the Aussie workers ‘The Dinkums’, and it was not a term of respect. Despite the emergency, Australian workers still pushed for overtime and went on strike if they didn’t get their way. Grandpa said there were angry scenes on the wharves when the Americans demanded their ships be unloaded immediately. ‘They got so frustrated they unloaded their own ships,’ he said. ‘They even shipped in their own coal when Australian miners went on strike for more money.’

The Yanks accused the Aussie wharfies of pilfering their cargoes and installed their own military police. The wharfies refused to work under them because they were armed with machine guns and had a fearsome reputation for using their big batons. Grandpa told the story of battle-hardened Yank MPs stripping some Aussie wharfies naked and covering them in rancid butter before running them off their ship.

There was so much absenteeism in Melbourne the Manpower agents raided the pubs; they even targeted the classy hotels and restaurants looking for unemployed, absentees and service AWOLs. Mum reckoned they were ‘worse than the cops and behaved like Little Hitlers’. Grandpa supported Manpower. He said it was targeting the bludgers and spongers and lounge lizards who wouldn’t pull their weight. The Yanks watched in disbelief.

The Americans preferred to do things their way. The huge air base at Tocumwal on the Murray River was typical. Almost overnight they transformed farms into a massive air base, the biggest in the Southern Hemisphere. At another base, American engineers installed water and sewerage pipes in two days after being quoted two months by Australian contractors. ‘Don’t you know there’s a war on?’ they wanted to know.

For every Australian that was impressed with the Americans’ can-do ability, there seemed to be another who was unimpressed, even belligerent. For men, women and beer were primary reasons. The Yanks were getting the girls and perhaps more importantly, the beer. Well-paid Yanks forked out 70 shillings for a dozen bottles of beer and 110 shillings for a bottle of whisky when the real price was 20 shillings each. ‘The bloody Yanks have got it all ways,’ Dad’s mate Alan would complain. ‘They’ve got plenty of beer in their canteens, and they get paid enough not to quibble at the bloody outrageous black market prices.’ According to Alan, the Yanks detested the mutton that Australia soldiers ate and insisted on steak. Their men had tents with floors and heaters and their officers lived in the best hotels in Melbourne, whereas Australian officers lived on the ground in tents with their men.

Mum said our boys always looked second best in their old-fashioned woolly uniforms and clodhopper boots while the Yanks had smart cotton shirts and slacks and nice shoes. I decide that when I grow up, I am going to be an American. They’re lucky. They have everything. ‘They’re better than us,’ Mum says. She’s not the only one who thinks that. Ten thousand Australian girls marry Yanks during the war.

By July 20, 1942 there was a carnival-like atmosphere in Melbourne. We’d put the wonderful victories of the Coral Sea and Midway behind us and there was a general feeling of ‘she’ll be right’, emphasised further when General MacArthur moved his HQ to Brisbane from Melbourne. The brand-new base at Tocumwal was wonderful, but eight days after completion, the brass decided it was now needed 2000 miles north. The Dirty Japs were retreating and we were in pursuit and beginning to feel safe.